a christmas carol by charles dickens illustrated by george alfred williams new york the platt & peck co. _copyright, , by_ the baker & taylor company [illustration: "he had been tim's blood horse all the way from church."] introduction the combined qualities of the realist and the idealist which dickens possessed to a remarkable degree, together with his naturally jovial attitude toward life in general, seem to have given him a remarkably happy feeling toward christmas, though the privations and hardships of his boyhood could have allowed him but little real experience with this day of days. dickens gave his first formal expression to his christmas thoughts in his series of small books, the first of which was the famous "christmas carol," the one perfect chrysolite. the success of the book was immediate. thackeray wrote of it: "who can listen to objections regarding such a book as this? it seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it, a personal kindness." this volume was put forth in a very attractive manner, with illustrations by john leech, who was the first artist to make these characters live, and his drawings were varied and spirited. there followed upon this four others: "the chimes," "the cricket on the hearth," "the battle of life," and "the haunted man," with illustrations on their first appearance by doyle, maclise, and others. the five are known to-day as the "christmas books." of them all the "carol" is the best known and loved, and "the cricket on the hearth," although third in the series, is perhaps next in point of popularity, and is especially familiar to americans through joseph jefferson's characterisation of caleb plummer. dickens seems to have put his whole self into these glowing little stories. whoever sees but a clever ghost story in the "christmas carol" misses its chief charm and lesson, for there is a different meaning in the movements of scrooge and his attendant spirits. a new life is brought to scrooge when he, "running to his window, opened it and put out his head. no fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; golden sun-light; heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. oh, glorious! glorious!" all this brightness has its attendant shadow, and deep from the childish heart comes that true note of pathos, the ever memorable toast of tiny tim, "god bless us, every one!" "the cricket on the hearth" strikes a different note. charmingly, poetically, the sweet chirping of the little cricket is associated with human feelings and actions, and at the crisis of the story decides the fate and fortune of the carrier and his wife. dickens's greatest gift was characterization, and no english writer, save shakespeare, has drawn so many and so varied characters. it would be as absurd to interpret all of these as caricatures as to deny dickens his great and varied powers of creation. dickens exaggerated many of his comic and satirical characters, as was his right, for caricature and satire are very closely related, while exaggeration is the very essence of comedy. but there remains a host of characters marked by humour and pathos. yet the pictorial presentation of dickens's characters has ever tended toward the grotesque. the interpretations in this volume aim to eliminate the grosser phases of the caricature in favour of the more human. if the interpretations seem novel, if scrooge be not as he has been pictured, it is because a more human scrooge was desired--a scrooge not wholly bad, a scrooge of a better heart, a scrooge to whom the resurrection described in this story was possible. it has been the illustrator's whole aim to make these people live in some form more fully consistent with their types. george alfred williams. _chatham, n.j._ contents a christmas carol stave page i _marley's ghost_ ii _the first of the three spirits_ iii _the second of the three spirits_ iv _the last of the spirits_ v _the end of it_ illustrations a christmas carol _"he had been tim's blood horse all the way from church."_ frontispiece _"a merry christmas, uncle! god save you!" cried a cheerful voice._ _to sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence, for a moment, would play, scrooge felt, the very deuce with him._ _"you recollect the way?" inquired the spirit. "remember it!" cried scrooge, with fervour; "i could walk it blindfold."_ _"why, it's ali baba!" scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. "it's dear old honest ali baba!"_ a christmas carol in prose being a ghost story of christmas stave one marley's ghost marley was dead, to begin with. there is no doubt whatever about that. the register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. scrooge signed it. and scrooge's name was good upon 'change for anything he chose to put his hand to. old marley was as dead as a door-nail. mind! i don't mean to say that i know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. i might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. but the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the country's done for. you will, therefore, permit me to repeat, emphatically, that marley was as dead as a door-nail. scrooge knew he was dead? of course he did. how could it be otherwise? scrooge and he were partners for i don't know how many years. scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. and even scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain. the mention of marley's funeral brings me back to the point i started from. there is no doubt that marley was dead. this must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story i am going to relate. if we were not perfectly convinced that hamlet's father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot--say st. paul's church-yard, for instance--literally to astonish his son's weak mind. scrooge never painted out old marley's name. there it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: scrooge and marley. the firm was known as scrooge and marley. sometimes people new to the business called scrooge scrooge, and sometimes marley, but he answered to both names. it was all the same to him. oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. the cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. a frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. he carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at christmas. external heat and cold had little influence on scrooge. no warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. no wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. foul weather didn't know where to have him. the heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. they often "came down" handsomely and scrooge never did. nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "my dear scrooge, how are you? when will you come to see me?" no beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of scrooge. even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and, when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "no eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!" but what did scrooge care? it was the very thing he liked. to edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to scrooge. once upon a time--of all the good days in the year, on christmas eve--old scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. it was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. the city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already--it had not been light all day--and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. the fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that, although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. to see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that nature lived hard by and was brewing on a large scale. the door of scrooge's counting-house was open, that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. but he couldn't replenish it, for scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed. "a merry christmas, uncle! god save you!" cried a cheerful voice. it was the voice of scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach. "bah!" said scrooge. "humbug!" he had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again. "christmas a humbug, uncle!" said scrooge's nephew. "you don't mean that, i am sure?" "i do," said scrooge. "merry christmas! what right have you to be merry? what reason have you to be merry? you're poor enough." "come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "what right have you to be dismal? what reason have you to be morose? you're rich enough." scrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, "bah!" again; and followed it up with "humbug!" "don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew. [illustration: _"a merry christmas, uncle! god save you!" cried a cheerful voice._] "what else can i be," returned the uncle, "when i live in such a world of fools as this? merry christmas! out upon merry christmas! what's christmas-time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books, and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? if i could work my will," said scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'merry christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. he should!" "uncle!" pleaded the nephew. "nephew!" returned the uncle sternly, "keep christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine." "keep it!" repeated scrooge's nephew. "but you don't keep it." "let me leave it alone, then," said scrooge. "much good may it do you! much good it has ever done you!" "there are many things from which i might have derived good, by which i have not profited, i dare say," returned the nephew; "christmas among the rest. but i am sure i have always thought of christmas-time, when it has come round--apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that--as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time i know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. and therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, i believe that it _has_ done me good, and _will_ do me good; and i say, god bless it!" the clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever. "let me hear another sound from _you_," said scrooge, "and you'll keep your christmas by losing your situation! you're quite a powerful speaker, sir," he added, turning to his nephew. "i wonder you don't go into parliament." "don't be angry, uncle. come! dine with us to-morrow." scrooge said that he would see him----yes, indeed he did. he went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first. "but why?" cried scrooge's nephew. "why?" "why did you get married?" said scrooge. "because i fell in love." "because you fell in love!" growled scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry christmas. "good afternoon!" "nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. why give it as a reason for not coming now?" "good afternoon," said scrooge. "i want nothing from you; i ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?" "good afternoon!" said scrooge. "i am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. we have never had any quarrel to which i have been a party. but i have made the trial in homage to christmas, and i'll keep my christmas humour to the last. so a merry christmas, uncle!" "good afternoon," said scrooge. "and a happy new year!" "good afternoon!" said scrooge. his nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. he stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than scrooge; for he returned them cordially. "there's another fellow," muttered scrooge, who overheard him: "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry christmas. i'll retire to bedlam." this lunatic, in letting scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people in. they were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in scrooge's office. they had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him. "scrooge and marley's, i believe," said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. "have i the pleasure of addressing mr. scrooge, or mr. marley?" "mr. marley has been dead these seven years," scrooge replied. "he died seven years ago, this very night." "we have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner," said the gentleman, presenting his credentials. it certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. at the ominous word "liberality" scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back. "at this festive season of the year, mr. scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir." "are there no prisons?" asked scrooge. "plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again. "and the union workhouses?" demanded scrooge. "are they still in operation?" "they are. still," returned the gentleman, "i wish i could say they were not." "the treadmill and the poor law are in full vigour, then?" said scrooge. "both very busy, sir." "oh! i was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said scrooge. "i am very glad to hear it." "under the impression that they scarcely furnish christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. we choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when want is keenly felt, and abundance rejoices. what shall i put you down for?" "nothing!" scrooge replied. "you wish to be anonymous?" "i wish to be left alone," said scrooge. "since you ask me what i wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. i don't make merry myself at christmas, and i can't afford to make idle people merry. i help to support the establishments i have mentioned--they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there." "many can't go there; and many would rather die." "if they would rather die," said scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. besides--excuse me--i don't know that." "but you might know it," observed the gentleman. "it's not my business," scrooge returned. "it's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. mine occupies me constantly. good afternoon, gentlemen!" seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him. meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about with flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way. the ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at scrooge out of a gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards, as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there. the cold became intense. in the main street, at the corner of the court, some labourers were repairing the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered: warming their hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. the water-plug being left in solitude, its overflowings suddenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. the brightness of the shops, where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed. poulterers' and grocers' trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant, with which it was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to do. the lord mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty mansion house, gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep christmas as a lord mayor's household should; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on the previous monday for being drunk and blood-thirsty in the streets, stirred up to-morrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef. foggier yet, and colder! piercing, searching, biting cold. if the good st. dunstan had but nipped the evil spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. the owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a christmas carol; but, at the first sound of "god bless you, merry gentleman, may nothing you dismay!" scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog, and even more congenial frost. at length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. with an ill-will scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat. "you'll want all day to-morrow, i suppose?" said scrooge. "if quite convenient, sir." "it's not convenient," said scrooge, "and it's not fair. if i was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill used, i'll be bound?" the clerk smiled faintly. "and yet," said scrooge, "you don't think _me_ ill used when i pay a day's wages for no work." the clerk observed that it was only once a year. "a poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of december!" said scrooge, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. "but i suppose you must have the whole day. be here all the earlier next morning." the clerk promised that he would; and scrooge walked out with a growl. the office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being christmas-eve, and then ran home to camden town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman's buff. scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker's book, went home to bed. he lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. they were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and have forgotten the way out again. it was old enough now, and dreary enough; for nobody lived in it but scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. the yard was so dark that even scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. the fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the genius of the weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold. now, it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. it is also a fact that scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of london, even including--which is a bold word--the corporation, aldermen, and livery. let it also be borne in mind that scrooge had not bestowed one thought on marley since his last mention of his seven-years'-dead partner that afternoon. and then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change--not a knocker, but marley's face. marley's face. it was not in impenetrable shadow, as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. it was not angry or ferocious, but looked at scrooge as marley used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. the hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath of hot air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. that, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face, and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression. as scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again. to say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. but he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle. he _did_ pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the door; and he _did_ look cautiously behind it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall. but there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said, "pooh, pooh!" and closed it with a bang. the sound resounded through the house like thunder. every room above, and every cask in the wine merchant's cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes. he fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs: slowly, too: trimming his candle as he went. you may talk vaguely about driving a coach and six up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young act of parliament; but i mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall, and the door towards the balustrades: and done it easy. there was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom. half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with scrooge's dip. up scrooge went, not caring a button for that. darkness is cheap, and scrooge liked it. but, before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. he had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that. sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. all as they should be. nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob. nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. lumber-room as usual. old fire-guard, old shoes, two fish baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker. quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double locked himself in, which was not his custom. thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take his gruel. it was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. he was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. the fire-place was an old one, built by some dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the scriptures. there were cains and abels, pharaoh's daughters, queens of sheba, angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather beds, abrahams, belshazzars, apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face of marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient prophet's rod, and swallowed up the whole. if each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old marley's head on every one. "humbug!" said scrooge; and walked across the room. after several turns he sat down again. as he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated, for some purpose now forgotten, with a chamber in the highest story of the building. it was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that, as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. it swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house. this might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. the bells ceased, as they had begun, together. they were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below, as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine merchant's cellar. scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains. the cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door. "it's humbug still!" said scrooge. "i won't believe it." his colour changed, though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes. upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, "i know him! marley's ghost!" and fell again. the same face: the very same. marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights, and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. the chain he drew was clasped about his middle. it was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. his body was transparent; so that scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind. scrooge had often heard it said that marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now. no, nor did he believe it even now. though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before; he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses. "how now!" said scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. "what do you want with me?" "much!"--marley's voice, no doubt about it. "who are you?" "ask me who i _was_." "who _were_ you, then?" said scrooge, raising his voice. "you're particular, for a shade." he was going to say "_to_ a shade," but substituted this, as more appropriate. "in life i was your partner, jacob marley." "can you--can you sit down?" asked scrooge, looking doubtfully at him. "i can." "do it, then." scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt that, in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. but the ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fire-place, as if he were quite used to it. "you don't believe in me," observed the ghost. "i don't," said scrooge. "what evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your own senses?" "i don't know," said scrooge. "why do you doubt your senses?" "because," said scrooge, "a little thing affects them. a slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. you may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. there's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!" scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel in his heart by any means waggish then. the truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his terror; for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones. to sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence, for a moment, would play, scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. there was something very awful, too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal atmosphere of his own. scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven. "you see this toothpick?" said scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself. "i do," replied the ghost. "you are not looking at it," said scrooge. "but i see it," said the ghost, "notwithstanding." "well!" returned scrooge, "i have but to swallow this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation. humbug, i tell you; humbug!" at this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. but how much greater was his horror when the phantom, taking off the bandage round his head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast! scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face. "mercy!" he said. "dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?" "man of the worldly mind!" replied the ghost, "do you believe in me or not?" "i do," said scrooge. "i must. but why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?" [illustration: _to sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence, for a moment, would play, scrooge felt, the very deuce with him._] "it is required of every man," the ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. it is doomed to wander through the world--oh, woe is me!--and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!" again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands. "you are fettered," said scrooge, trembling. "tell me why?" "i wear the chain i forged in life," replied the ghost. "i made it link by link, and yard by yard; i girded it on of my own free-will, and of my own free-will i wore it. is its pattern strange to _you_?" scrooge trembled more and more. "or would you know," pursued the ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? it was full as heavy and as long as this, seven christmas-eves ago. you have laboured on it since. it is a ponderous chain!" scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable, but he could see nothing. "jacob!" he said imploringly. "old jacob marley, tell me more! speak comfort to me, jacob!" "i have none to give," the ghost replied. "it comes from other regions, ebenezer scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men. nor can i tell you what i would. a very little more is all permitted to me. i cannot rest, i cannot stay, i cannot linger anywhere. my spirit never walked beyond our counting-house--mark me;--in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!" it was a habit with scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets. pondering on what the ghost had said, he did so now, but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his knees. "you must have been very slow about it, jacob," scrooge observed in a business-like manner, though with humility and deference. "slow!" the ghost repeated. "seven years dead," mused scrooge. "and travelling all the time?" "the whole time," said the ghost. "no rest, no peace. incessant torture of remorse." "you travel fast?" said scrooge. "on the wings of the wind," replied the ghost. "you might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years," said scrooge. the ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance. "oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phantom, "not to know that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed! not to know that any christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness! not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused! yet such was i! oh, such was i!" "but you were always a good man of business, jacob," faltered scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself. "business!" cried the ghost, wringing its hands again. "mankind was my business. the common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. the dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" it held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again. "at this time of the rolling year," the spectre said, "i suffer most. why did i walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed star which led the wise men to a poor abode? were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted _me_?" scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly. "hear me!" cried the ghost. "my time is nearly gone." "i will," said scrooge. "but don't be hard upon me! don't be flowery, jacob! pray!" "how it is that i appear before you in a shape that you can see, i may not tell. i have sat invisible beside you many and many a day." it was not an agreeable idea. scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow. "that is no light part of my penance," pursued the ghost. "i am here to-night to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. a chance and hope of my procuring, ebenezer." "you were always a good friend to me," said scrooge. "thankee!" "you will be haunted," resumed the ghost, "by three spirits." scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the ghost's had done. "is that the chance and hope you mentioned, jacob?" he demanded in a faltering voice. "it is." "i--i think i'd rather not," said scrooge. "without their visits," said the ghost, "you cannot hope to shun the path i tread. expect the first to-morrow when the bell tolls one." "couldn't i take 'em all at once, and have it over, jacob?" hinted scrooge. "expect the second on the next night at the same hour. the third, upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate. look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!" when it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head as before. scrooge knew this by the smart sound its teeth made when the jaws were brought together by the bandage. he ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm. the apparition walked backward from him; and, at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that, when the spectre reached it, it was wide open. it beckoned scrooge to approach, which he did. when they were within two paces of each other, marley's ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. scrooge stopped. not so much in obedience as in surprise and fear; for, on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. the spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night. scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. he looked out. the air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. every one of them wore chains like marley's ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. many had been personally known to scrooge in their lives. he had been quite familiar with one old ghost in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below upon a doorstep. the misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever. whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. but they and their spirit voices faded together; and the night became as it had been when he walked home. scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the ghost had entered. it was double locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. he tried to say "humbug!" but stopped at the first syllable. and being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the invisible world, or the dull conversation of the ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose, went straight to bed without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant. stave two the first of the three spirits when scrooge awoke it was so dark, that, looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. he was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. so he listened for the hour. to his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. twelve! it was past two when he went to bed. the clock was wrong. an icicle must have got into the works. twelve! he touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock. its rapid little pulse beat twelve, and stopped. "why, it isn't possible," said scrooge, "that i can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. it isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!" the idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to the window. he was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could see very little then. all he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. this was a great relief, because "three days after sight of this first of exchange pay to mr. ebenezer scrooge or his order," and so forth, would have become a mere united states security if there were no days to count by. scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over, and could make nothing of it. the more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and, the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought. marley's ghost bothered him exceedingly. every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, "was it a dream or not?" scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. he resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to heaven, this was, perhaps, the wisest resolution in his power. the quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. at length it broke upon his listening ear. "ding, dong!" "a quarter past," said scrooge, counting. "ding, dong!" "half past," said scrooge. "ding, dong!" "a quarter to it," said scrooge. "ding, dong!" "the hour itself," said scrooge triumphantly, "and nothing else!" he spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy one. light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn. the curtains of his bed were drawn aside, i tell you, by a hand. not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. the curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as i am now to you, and i am standing in the spirit at your elbow. it was a strange figure--like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white, as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. the arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength. its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare. it wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. it held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand: and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. but the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm. even this, though, when scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was _not_ its strangest quality. for, as its belt sparkled and glittered, now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. and, in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever. "are you the spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?" asked scrooge. "i am!" the voice was soft and gentle. singularly low, as if, instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance. "who and what are you?" scrooge demanded. "i am the ghost of christmas past." "long past?" inquired scrooge; observant of its dwarfish stature. "no. your past." perhaps scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered. "what!" exclaimed the ghost, "would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light i give? is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow?" scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully "bonneted" the spirit at any period of his life. he then made bold to inquire what business brought him there. "your welfare!" said the ghost. scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. the spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately: "your reclamation, then. take heed!" it put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm. "rise! and walk with me!" it would have been in vain for scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at that time. the grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, was not to be resisted. he rose: but, finding that the spirit made towards the window, clasped its robe in supplication. "i am a mortal," scrooge remonstrated, "and liable to fall." "bear but a touch of my hand _there_," said the spirit, laying it upon his heart, "and you shall be upheld in more than this!" as the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either hand. the city had entirely vanished. not a vestige of it was to be seen. the darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with the snow upon the ground. "good heaven!" said scrooge, clasping his hands together as he looked about him. "i was bred in this place. i was a boy here!" the spirit gazed upon him mildly. its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense of feeling. he was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long forgotten! "your lip is trembling," said the ghost. "and what is that upon your cheek?" scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the ghost to lead him where he would. "you recollect the way?" inquired the spirit. "remember it!" cried scrooge with fervour; "i could walk it blindfold." "strange to have forgotten it for so many years!" observed the ghost. "let us go on." [illustration: _"you recollect the way?" inquired the spirit. "remember it!" cried scrooge with fervour; "i could walk it blindfold."_] they walked along the road, scrooge recognising every gate, and post, and tree, until a little market-town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. all these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it. "these are but shadows of the things that have been," said the ghost. "they have no consciousness of us." the jocund travellers came on; and as they came, scrooge knew and named them every one. why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them? why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past? why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other merry christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and by-ways for their several homes? what was merry christmas to scrooge? out upon merry christmas! what good had it ever done to him? "the school is not quite deserted," said the ghost. "a solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still." scrooge said he knew it. and he sobbed. they left the high-road by a well-remembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weather-cock surmounted cupola on the roof and a bell hanging in it. it was a large house, but one of broken fortunes: for the spacious offices were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed. fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were overrun with grass. nor was it more retentive of its ancient state within; for, entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. there was an earthly savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat. they went, the ghost and scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. it opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. at one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he had used to be. not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty storehouse door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of scrooge with softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears. the spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading. suddenly a man in foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood. "why, it's ali baba!" scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. "it's dear old honest ali baba! yes, yes, i know. one christmas-time when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he _did_ come, for the first time, just like that. poor boy! and valentine," said scrooge, "and his wild brother, orson; there they go! and what's his name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the gate of damascus; don't you see him? and the sultan's groom turned upside down by the genii: there he is upon his head! serve him right! i'm glad of it. what business had _he_ to be married to the princess?" to hear scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed. [illustration: _"why, it's ali baba!" scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. "it's dear old honest ali baba."_] "there's the parrot!" cried scrooge. "green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is! poor robin crusoe he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the island. 'poor robin crusoe, where have you been, robin crusoe?' the man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. it was the parrot, you know. there goes friday, running for his life to the little creek! halloa! hoop! halloo!" then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, "poor boy!" and cried again. "i wish," scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff: "but it's too late now." "what is the matter?" asked the spirit. "nothing," said scrooge. "nothing. there was a boy singing a christmas carol at my door last night. i should like to have given him something: that's all." the ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying, as it did so, "let us see another christmas!" scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. the panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was brought about scrooge knew no more than you do. he only knew that it was quite correct: that everything had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays. he was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. scrooge looked at the ghost, and, with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door. it opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in, and, putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her "dear, dear brother." "i have come to bring you home, dear brother!" said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. "to bring you home, home, home!" "home, little fan?" returned the boy. "yes!" said the child, brimful of glee. "home for good and all. home for ever and ever. father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home's like heaven! he spoke so gently to me one dear night when i was going to bed, that i was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; and he said yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. and you're to be a man!" said the child, opening her eyes; "and are never to come back here; but first we're to be together all the christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world." "you are quite a woman, little fan!" exclaimed the boy. she clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head; but, being too little, laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. then she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loath to go, accompanied her. a terrible voice in the hall cried, "bring down master scrooge's box, there!" and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on master scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. he then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best parlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments of those dainties to the young people: at the same time sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of "something" to the postboy who answered that he thanked the gentleman, but, if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. master scrooge's trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye right willingly; and, getting into it, drove gaily down the garden sweep; the quick wheels dashing the hoar frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray. "always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered," said the ghost. "but she had a large heart!" "so she had," cried scrooge. "you're right. i will not gainsay it, spirit. god forbid!" "she died a woman," said the ghost, "and had, as i think, children." "one child," scrooge returned. "true," said the ghost. "your nephew!" scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, "yes." although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. it was made plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here, too, it was christmas-time again; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up. the ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked scrooge if he knew it. "know it!" said scrooge. "was i apprenticed here?" they went in. at sight of an old gentleman in a welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller, he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, scrooge cried in great excitement: "why, it's old fezziwig! bless his heart, it's fezziwig alive again!" old fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. he rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out, in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice: "yo ho, there! ebenezer! dick!" scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-'prentice. "dick wilkins, to be sure!" said scrooge to the ghost. "bless me, yes. there he is. he was very much attached to me, was dick. poor dick! dear, dear!" "yo ho, my boys!" said fezziwig. "no more work to-night. christmas-eve, dick. christmas, ebenezer! let's have the shutters up," cried old fezziwig with a sharp clap of his hands, "before a man can say jack robinson!" you wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it! they charged into the street with the shutters--one, two, three--had 'em up in their places--four, five, six--barred 'em and pinned 'em--seven, eight, nine--and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses. "hilli-ho!" cried old fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk with wonderful agility. "clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here! hilli-ho, dick! chirrup, ebenezer!" clear away! there was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old fezziwig looking on. it was done in a minute. every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room as you would desire to see upon a winter's night. in came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomachaches. in came mrs. fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. in came the three miss fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. in came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. in came all the young men and women employed in the business. in came the housemaid, with her cousin the baker. in came the cook, with her brother's particular friend the milkman. in came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. in they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, any how and every how. away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them! when this result was brought about, old fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, "well done!" and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. but, scorning rest upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish. there were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of cold roast, and there was a great piece of cold boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. but the great effect of the evening came after the roast and boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! the sort of man who knew his business better than you or i could have told it him!) struck up "sir roger de coverley." then old fezziwig stood out to dance with mrs. fezziwig. top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who _would_ dance, and had no notion of walking. but if they had been twice as many--ah! four times--old fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would mrs. fezziwig. as to _her_, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. if that's not high praise, tell me higher, and i'll use it. a positive light appeared to issue from fezziwig's calves. they shone in every part of the dance like moons. you couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would become of them next. and when old fezziwig and mrs. fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and curtsy, cork-screw, thread-the-needle, and back again to your place; fezziwig "cut"--cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger. when the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. mr. and mrs. fezziwig took their stations, one on either side the door, and, shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a merry christmas. when everybody had retired but the two 'prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter in the back-shop. during the whole of this time scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. his heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. he corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. it was not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and dick were turned from them, that he remembered the ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear. "a small matter," said the ghost, "to make these silly folks so full of gratitude." "small!" echoed scrooge. the spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of fezziwig; and, when he had done so, said: "why! is it not? he has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four, perhaps. is that so much that he deserves this praise?" "it isn't that," said scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter self. "it isn't that, spirit. he has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? the happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune." he felt the spirit's glance, and stopped. "what is the matter?" asked the ghost. "nothing particular," said scrooge. "something, i think?" the ghost insisted. "no," said scrooge, "no. i should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now. that's all." his former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish; and scrooge and the ghost again stood side by side in the open air. "my time grows short," observed the spirit. "quick!" this was not addressed to scrooge, or to any one whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. for again scrooge saw himself. he was older now; a man in the prime of life. his face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. there was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall. he was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a mourning dress: in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the ghost of christmas past. "it matters little," she said softly. "to you, very little. another idol has displaced me; and, if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come as i would have tried to do, i have no just cause to grieve." "what idol has displaced you?" he rejoined. "a golden one." "this is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said. "there is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!" "you fear the world too much," she answered gently. "all your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. i have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master passion, gain, engrosses you. have i not?" "what then?" he retorted. "even if i have grown so much wiser, what then? i am not changed towards you." she shook her head. "am i?" "our contract is an old one. it was made when we were both poor, and content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. you _are_ changed. when it was made you were another man." "i was a boy," he said impatiently. "your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are," she returned. "i am. that which promised happiness when we were one in heart is fraught with misery now that we are two. how often and how keenly i have thought of this i will not say. it is enough that i _have_ thought of it, and can release you." "have i ever sought release?" "in words. no. never." "in what, then?" "in a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life; another hope as its great end. in everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. if this had never been between us," said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him, "tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? ah, no!" he seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition in spite of himself. but he said, with a struggle, "you think not." "i would gladly think otherwise if i could," she answered. "heaven knows! when _i_ have learned a truth like this, i know how strong and irresistible it must be. but if you were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even i believe that you would choose a dowerless girl--you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do i not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow? i do; and i release you. with a full heart, for the love of him you once were." he was about to speak; but, with her head turned from him, she resumed. "you may--the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will--have pain in this. a very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. may you be happy in the life you have chosen!" she left him, and they parted. "spirit!" said scrooge, "show me no more! conduct me home. why do you delight to torture me?" "one shadow more!" exclaimed the ghost. "no more!" cried scrooge. "no more! i don't wish to see it. show me no more!" but the relentless ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next. they were in another scene and place; a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that scrooge believed it was the same, until he saw _her_, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. the noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there than scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty. the consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. what would i not have given to be one of them! though i never could have been so rude, no, no! i wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and, for the precious little shoe, i wouldn't have plucked it off, god bless my soul! to save my life. as to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, i couldn't have done it; i should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and never come straight again. and yet i should have dearly liked, i own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, i should have liked, i do confess, to have had the lightest licence of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value. but now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately ensued that she, with laughing face and plundered dress, was borne towards it in the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who came home attended by a man laden with christmas toys and presents. then the shouting and the struggling, and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter! the scaling him, with chairs for ladders, to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round the neck, pummel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! the shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every package was received! the terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter! the immense relief of finding this a false alarm! the joy, and gratitude, and ecstasy! they are all indescribable alike. it is enough that by degrees, the children and their emotions got out of the parlour, and, by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house, where they went to bed, and so subsided. and now scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed. "belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, "i saw an old friend of yours this afternoon." "who was it?" "guess!" "how can i? tut, don't i know?" she added in the same breath, laughing as he laughed. "mr. scrooge." "mr. scrooge it was. i passed his office window; and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, i could scarcely help seeing him. his partner lies upon the point of death, i hear; and there he sat alone. quite alone in the world, i do believe." "spirit!" said scrooge in a broken voice, "remove me from this place." "i told you these were shadows of the things that have been," said the ghost. "that they are what they are, do not blame me!" "remove me!" scrooge exclaimed. "i cannot bear it!" he turned upon the ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it. "leave me! take me back! haunt me no longer!" in the struggle--if that can be called a struggle in which the ghost, with no visible resistance on its own part, was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary--scrooge observed that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the extinguisher cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head. the spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form; but, though scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light, which streamed from under it in an unbroken flood upon the ground. he was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. he gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed before he sank into a heavy sleep. stave three the second of the three spirits awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of one. he felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger dispatched to him through jacob marley's intervention. but, finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside with his own hands, and, lying down again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. for he wished to challenge the spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise and made nervous. gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the time of day, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects. without venturing for scrooge quite as hardily as this, i don't mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and a rhinoceros would have astonished him very much. now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing; and consequently, when the bell struck one, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. all this time he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it. at last, however, he began to think--as you or i would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too--at last, i say, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. this idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly, and shuffled in his slippers to the door. the moment scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. he obeyed. it was his own room. there was no doubt about that. but it had undergone a surprising transformation. the walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove; from every part of which bright gleaming berries glistened. the crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney as that dull petrifaction of a hearth had never known in scrooge's time, or marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone. heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. in easy state upon this couch there sat a jolly giant, glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on scrooge as he came peeping round the door. "come in!" exclaimed the ghost. "come in! and know me better, man!" scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this spirit. he was not the dogged scrooge he had been; and, though the spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them. "i am the ghost of christmas present," said the spirit. "look upon me!" scrooge reverently did so. it was clothed in one simple deep green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. this garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust. "you have never seen the like of me before!" exclaimed the spirit. "never," scrooge made answer to it. "have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for i am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?" pursued the phantom. "i don't think i have," said scrooge. "i am afraid i have not. have you had many brothers, spirit?" "more than eighteen hundred," said the ghost. "a tremendous family to provide for," muttered scrooge. the ghost of christmas present rose. "spirit," said scrooge submissively, "conduct me where you will. i went forth last night on compulsion, and i learnt a lesson which is working now. to-night, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it." "touch my robe!" scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast. holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. so did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snow-storms. the house-fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace, in the thick yellow mud and icy water. the sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in great britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts' content. there was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain. for, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball--better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest--laughing heartily if it went right, and not less heartily if it went wrong. the poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. there were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. there were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like spanish friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. there were pears and apples clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were norfolk biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags, and eaten after dinner. the very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement. the grocers'! oh, the grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! it was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint, and subsequently bilious. nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the french plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the grocer and his people were so frank and fresh, that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for christmas daws to peck at if they chose. but soon the steeples called good people all to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. and at the same time there emerged, from scores of by-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. the sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the spirit very much, for he stood with scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and, taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. and it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice, when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good-humour was restored directly. for they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon christmas-day. and so it was! god love it, so it was! in time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners, and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven; where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too. "is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?" asked scrooge. "there is. my own." "would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?" asked scrooge. "to any kindly given. to a poor one most." "why to a poor one most?" asked scrooge. "because it needs it most." "spirit!" said scrooge after a moment's thought. "i wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment." "i!" cried the spirit. "you would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all," said scrooge; "wouldn't you?" "i!" cried the spirit. "you seek to close these places on the seventh day," said scrooge. "and it comes to the same thing." "_i_ seek!" exclaimed the spirit. "forgive me if i am wrong. it has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family," said scrooge. "there are some upon this earth of yours," returned the spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us, and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us." scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. it was a remarkable quality of the ghost (which scrooge had observed at the baker's), that, notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural creature as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall. and perhaps it was the pleasure the good spirit had in showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to scrooge's clerk's; for there he went, and took scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and, on the threshold of the door, the spirit smiled, and stopped to bless bob cratchit's dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch. think of that! bob had but fifteen "bob" a week himself; he pocketed on saturdays but fifteen copies of his christian name; and yet the ghost of christmas present blessed his four-roomed house! then up rose mrs. cratchit, cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap, and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by belinda cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while master peter cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and, getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (bob's private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable parks. and now two smaller cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and, basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young cratchits danced about the table, and exalted master peter cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes, bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan lid to be let out and peeled. "what has ever got your precious father, then?" said mrs. cratchit. "and your brother, tiny tim? and martha warn't as late last christmas-day by half an hour!" "here's martha, mother!" said a girl, appearing as she spoke. "here's martha, mother!" cried the two young cratchits. "hurrah! there's _such_ a goose, martha!" "why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!" said mrs. cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal. "we'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the girl, "and had to clear away this morning, mother!" "well! never mind so long as you are come," said mrs. cratchit. "sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, lord bless ye!" "no, no! there's father coming," cried the two young cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "hide, martha, hide!" so martha hid herself, and in came little bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed to look seasonable; and tiny tim upon his shoulder. alas for tiny tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame! "why, where's our martha?" cried bob cratchit, looking round. "not coming," said mrs. cratchit. "not coming!" said bob with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been tim's blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. "not coming upon christmas-day!" martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young cratchits hustled tiny tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper. "and how did little tim behave?" asked mrs. cratchit when she had rallied bob on his credulity, and bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content. "as good as gold," said bob, "and better. somehow, he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. he told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon christmas-day who made lame beggars walk and blind men see." bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that tiny tim was growing strong and hearty. his active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came tiny tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool beside the fire; and while bob, turning up his cuffs--as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby--compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round, and put it on the hob to simmer, master peter and the two ubiquitous young cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession. such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course--and, in truth, it was something very like it in that house. mrs. cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; master peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; miss belinda sweetened up the apple sauce; martha dusted the hot plates; bob took tiny tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and, mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. at last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. it was succeeded by a breathless pause, as mrs. cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even tiny tim, excited by the two young cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried hurrah! there never was such a goose. bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. eked out by apple sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as mrs. cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! yet every one had had enough, and the youngest cratchits, in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! but now, the plates being changed by miss belinda, mrs. cratchit left the room alone--too nervous to bear witnesses--to take the pudding up, and bring it in. suppose it should not be done enough! suppose it should break in turning out! suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose--a supposition at which the two young cratchits became livid! all sorts of horrors were supposed. hallo! a great deal of steam! the pudding was out of the copper. a smell like a washing-day! that was the cloth. a smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! that was the pudding! in half a minute mrs. cratchit entered--flushed, but smiling proudly--with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with christmas holly stuck into the top. oh, a wonderful pudding! bob cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by mrs. cratchit since their marriage. mrs. cratchit said that, now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of flour. everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. it would have been flat heresy to do so. any cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing. at last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. the compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel full of chestnuts on the fire. then all the cratchit family drew round the hearth in what bob cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at bob cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle. these held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. then bob proposed: "a merry christmas to us all, my dears. god bless us!" which all the family re-echoed. "god bless us every one!" said tiny tim, the last of all. he sat very close to his father's side, upon his little stool. bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him. "spirit," said scrooge with an interest he had never felt before, "tell me if tiny tim will live." "i see a vacant seat," replied the ghost, "in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. if these shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child will die." "no, no," said scrooge. "oh, no, kind spirit! say he will be spared." "if these shadows remain unaltered by the future, none other of my race," returned the ghost, "will find him here. what then? if he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief. "man," said the ghost, "if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered what the surplus is, and where it is. will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? it may be that, in the sight of heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. oh god! to hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!" scrooge bent before the ghost's rebuke, and, trembling, cast his eyes upon the ground. but he raised them speedily on hearing his own name. "mr. scrooge!" said bob. "i'll give you mr. scrooge, the founder of the feast!" "the founder of the feast, indeed!" cried mrs. cratchit, reddening. "i wish i had him here. i'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and i hope he'd have a good appetite for it." "my dear," said bob, "the children! christmas-day." "it should be christmas-day, i am sure," said she, "on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as mr. scrooge. you know he is, robert! nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!" "my dear!" was bob's mild answer. "christmas-day." "i'll drink his health for your sake and the day's," said mrs. cratchit, "not for his. long life to him! a merry christmas and a happy new year! he'll be very merry and very happy, i have no doubt!" the children drank the toast after her. it was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it. tiny tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. scrooge was the ogre of the family. the mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes. after it had passed away they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of scrooge the baleful being done with. bob cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for master peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly. the two young cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of peter's being a man of business; and peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income. martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord "was much about as tall as peter"; at which peter pulled up his collars so high, that you couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. all this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by-and-by they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from tiny tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed. there was nothing of high mark in this. they were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being waterproof; their clothes were scanty; and peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawn-broker's. but they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the spirit's torch at parting, scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on tiny tim, until the last. by this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as scrooge and the spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms was wonderful. here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. there, all the children of the house were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. here, again, were shadows on the window blinds of guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbour's house; where, woe upon the single man who saw them enter--artful witches, well they knew it--in a glow! but, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires half-chimney high. blessings on it, how the ghost exulted! how it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach! the very lamp-lighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the spirit passed, though little kenned the lamp-lighter that he had any company but christmas. and now, without a word of warning from the ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place or giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed; or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse, rank grass. down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and, frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night. "what place is this?" asked scrooge. "a place where miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth," returned the spirit. "but they know me. see!" a light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. an old, old man and woman, with their children and their children's children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. the old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a christmas song; it had been a very old song when he was a boy; and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. so surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and, so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again. the spirit did not tarry here, but bade scrooge hold his robe, and, passing on above the moor, sped whither? not to sea? to sea. to scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth. built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. great heaps of seaweed clung to its base, and storm-birds--born of the wind, one might suppose, as seaweed of the water--rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed. but, even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other merry christmas in their can of grog; and one of them, the elder too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might be, struck up a sturdy song that was like a gale in itself. again the ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea--on, on--until, being far away, as he told scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. they stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a christmas tune, or had a christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone christmas-day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. and every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for one another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him. it was a great surprise to scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as death: it was a great surprise to scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. it was a much greater surprise to scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew's, and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability! "ha, ha!" laughed scrooge's nephew. "ha, ha, ha!" if you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blessed in a laugh than scrooge's nephew, all i can say is, i should like to know him too. introduce him to me, and i'll cultivate his acquaintance. it is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that, while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. when scrooge's nephew laughed in this way, holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions, scrooge's niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. and their assembled friends, being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily. "ha, ha! ha, ha, ha, ha!" "he said that christmas was a humbug, as i live!" cried scrooge's nephew. "he believed it, too!" "more shame for him, fred!" said scrooge's niece indignantly. bless those women! they never do anything by halves. they are always in earnest. she was very pretty; exceedingly pretty. with a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed--as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's head. altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. oh, perfectly satisfactory! "he's a comical old fellow," said scrooge's nephew, "that's the truth; and not so pleasant as he might be. however, his offences carry their own punishment, and i have nothing to say against him." "i'm sure he is very rich, fred," hinted scrooge's niece. "at least, you always tell _me_ so." "what of that, my dear?" said scrooge's nephew. "his wealth is of no use to him. he don't do any good with it. he don't make himself comfortable with it. he hasn't the satisfaction of thinking--ha, ha, ha!--that he is ever going to benefit us with it." "i have no patience with him," observed scrooge's niece. scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion. "oh, i have!" said scrooge's nephew. "i am sorry for him; i couldn't be angry with him if i tried. who suffers by his ill whims? himself always. here he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us. what's the consequence? he don't lose much of a dinner." "indeed, i think he loses a very good dinner," interrupted scrooge's niece. everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamp-light. "well! i am very glad to hear it," said scrooge's nephew, "because i haven't any great faith in these young housekeepers. what do _you_ say, topper?" topper had clearly got his eye upon one of scrooge's niece's sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. whereat scrooge's niece's sister--the plump one with the lace tucker, not the one with the roses--blushed. "do go on, fred," said scrooge's niece, clapping her hands. "he never finishes what he begins to say! he is such a ridiculous fellow!" scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and, as it was impossible to keep the infection off, though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar, his example was unanimously followed. "i was only going to say," said scrooge's nephew, "that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as i think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. i am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office or his dusty chambers. i mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for i pity him. he may rail at christmas till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it--i defy him--if he finds me going there in good temper, year after year, and saying, 'uncle scrooge, how are you?' if it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, _that's_ something; and i think i shook him yesterday." it was their turn to laugh, now, at the notion of his shaking scrooge. but, being thoroughly good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle, joyously. after tea they had some music. for they were a musical family, and knew what they were about when they sung a glee or catch, i can assure you: especially topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it. scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and played, among other tunes, a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had been familiar to the child who fetched scrooge from the boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the ghost of christmas past. when this strain of music sounded, all the things that ghost had shown him came upon his mind; he softened more and more; and thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried jacob marley. but they didn't devote the whole evening to music. after awhile they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at christmas, when its mighty founder was a child himself. stop! there was first a game at blindman's buff. of course there was. and i no more believe topper was really blind than i believe he had eyes in his boots. my opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and scrooge's nephew; and that the ghost of christmas present knew it. the way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping up against the piano, smothering himself amongst the curtains, wherever she went, there went he! he always knew where the plump sister was. he wouldn't catch anybody else. if you had fallen up against him (as some of them did) on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. she often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not. but when, at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape, then his conduct was the most execrable. for his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck, was vile, monstrous! no doubt she told him her opinion of it when, another blind man being in office, they were so very confidential together behind the curtains. scrooge's niece was not one of the blindman's buff party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner where the ghost and scrooge were close behind her. but she joined in the forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet. likewise at the game of how, when, and where, she was very great, and, to the secret joy of scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as topper could have told you. there might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did scrooge; for, wholly forgetting, in the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed right, too, for the sharpest needle, best whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head to be. the ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. but this the spirit said could not be done. "here is a new game," said scrooge. "one half-hour, spirit, only one!" it was a game called yes and no, where scrooge's nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what; he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case was. the brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in london, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. at every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa, and stamp. at last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out: "i have found it out! i know what it is, fred! i know what it is!" "what is it?" cried fred. "it's your uncle scro-o-o-o-oge!" which it certainly was. admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to "is it a bear?" ought to have been "yes": inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from mr. scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way. "he has given us plenty of merriment, i am sure," said fred, "and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment; and i say, 'uncle scrooge!'" "well! uncle scrooge!" they cried. "a merry christmas and a happy new year to the old man, whatever he is!" said scrooge's nephew. "he wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it nevertheless. uncle scrooge!" uncle scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the ghost had given him time. but the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and he and the spirit were again upon their travels. much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. the spirit stood beside sick-beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. in almshouse, hospital, and gaol, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught scrooge his precepts. it was a long night, if it were only a night; but scrooge had his doubts of this, because the christmas holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together. it was strange, too, that, while scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the ghost grew older, clearly older. scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a children's twelfth-night party, when, looking at the spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey. "are spirits' lives so short?" asked scrooge. "my life upon this globe is very brief," replied the ghost. "it ends to-night." "to-night!" cried scrooge. "to-night at midnight. hark! the time is drawing near." the chimes were ringing the three-quarters past eleven at that moment. "forgive me if i am not justified in what i ask," said scrooge, looking intently at the spirit's robe, "but i see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. is it a foot or a claw?" "it might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was the spirit's sorrowful reply. "look here." from the foldings of its robe it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. they knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment. "oh, man! look here! look, look, down here!" exclaimed the ghost. they were a boy and girl. yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. no change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread. scrooge started back, appalled. having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude. "spirit! are they yours?" scrooge could say no more. "they are man's," said the spirit, looking down upon them. "and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. this boy is ignorance. this girl is want. beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow i see that written which is doom, unless the writing be erased. deny it!" cried the spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. "slander those who tell it ye! admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! and bide the end!" "have they no refuge or resource?" cried scrooge. "are there no prisons?" said the spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "are there no workhouses?" the bell struck twelve. scrooge looked about him for the ghost, and saw it not. as the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old jacob marley, and, lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn phantom, draped and hooded, coming like a mist along the ground towards him. stave four the last of the spirits the phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. when it came near him, scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery. it was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible, save one outstretched hand. but for this, it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded. he felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. he knew no more, for the spirit neither spoke nor moved. "i am in the presence of the ghost of christmas yet to come?" said scrooge. the spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand. "you are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us," scrooge pursued. "is that so, spirit?" the upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the spirit had inclined its head. that was the only answer he received. although well used to ghostly company by this time, scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. the spirit paused a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to recover. but scrooge was all the worse for this. it thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror to know that, behind the dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black. "ghost of the future!" he exclaimed, "i fear you more than any spectre i have seen. but, as i know your purpose is to do me good, and as i hope to live to be another man from what i was, i am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. will you not speak to me?" it gave him no reply. the hand was pointed straight before them. "lead on!" said scrooge. "lead on! the night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, i know. lead on, spirit!" the phantom moved away as it had come towards him. scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along. they scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its own act. but there they were in the heart of it; on 'change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals; and so forth, as scrooge had seen them often. the spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. observing that the hand was pointed to them, scrooge advanced to listen to their talk. "no," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, "i don't know much about it either way. i only know he's dead." "when did he die?" inquired another. "last night, i believe." "why, what was the matter with him?" asked a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. "i thought he'd never die." "god knows," said the first with a yawn. "what has he done with his money?" asked a red-faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock. "i haven't heard," said the man with the large chin, yawning again. "left it to his company, perhaps. he hasn't left it to _me_. that's all i know." this pleasantry was received with a general laugh. "it's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the same speaker; "for, upon my life, i don't know of anybody to go to it. suppose we make up a party, and volunteer?" "i don't mind going if a lunch is provided," observed the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. "but i must be fed if i make one." another laugh. "well, i am the most disinterested among you, after all," said the first speaker, "for i never wear black gloves, and i never eat lunch. but i'll offer to go if anybody else will. when i come to think of it, i'm not at all sure that i wasn't his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak whenever we met. bye, bye!" speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups. scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the spirit for an explanation. the phantom glided on into a street. its finger pointed to two persons meeting. scrooge listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie here. he knew these men, also, perfectly. they were men of business: very wealthy, and of great importance. he had made a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a business point of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view. "how are you?" said one. "how are you?" returned the other. "well!" said the first. "old scratch has got his own at last, hey?" "so i am told," returned the second. "cold, isn't it?" "seasonable for christmas-time. you are not a skater, i suppose?" "no. no. something else to think of. good morning!" not another word. that was their meeting, their conversation, and their parting. scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but, feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. they could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of jacob, his old partner, for that was past, and this ghost's province was the future. nor could he think of any one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could apply them. but nothing doubting that, to whomsoever they applied, they had some latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every word he heard, and everything he saw; and especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared. for he had an expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these riddles easy. he looked about in that very place for his own image, but another man stood in his accustomed corner, and, though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through the porch. it gave him little surprise, however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out in this. quiet and dark, beside him stood the phantom, with its outstretched hand. when he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied, from the turn of the hand, and its situation in reference to himself, that the unseen eyes were looking at him keenly. it made him shudder, and feel very cold. they left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, where scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised its situation and its bad repute. the ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched; the people half naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of smell, and dirt, and life upon the straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth and misery. far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal were bought. upon the floor within were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones. sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a charcoal stove made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age, who had screened himself from the cold air without by a frouzy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters hung upon a line, and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement. scrooge and the phantom came into the presence of this man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. but she had scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too, and she was closely followed by a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight of them than they had been upon the recognition of each other. after a short period of blank astonishment, in which the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh. "let the charwoman alone to be the first!" cried she who had entered first. "let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. look here, old joe, here's a chance! if we haven't all three met here without meaning it!" "you couldn't have met in a better place," said old joe, removing his pipe from his mouth. "come into the parlour. you were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other two an't strangers. stop till i shut the door of the shop. ah! how it skreeks! there an't such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own hinges, i believe; and i'm sure there's no such old bones here as mine. ha! ha! we're all suitable to our calling, we're well matched. come into the parlour. come into the parlour." the parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. the old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and, having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night) with the stem of his pipe, put it into his mouth again. while he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and looking with a bold defiance at the other two. "what odds, then? what odds, mrs. dilber?" said the woman. "every person has a right to take care of themselves. _he_ always did!" "that's true, indeed!" said the laundress. "no man more so." "why, then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, woman! who's the wiser? we're not going to pick holes in each other's coats, i suppose?" "no, indeed!" said mrs. dilber and the man together. "we should hope not." "very well, then!" cried the woman. "that's enough. who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these? not a dead man, i suppose?" "no, indeed," said mrs. dilber, laughing. "if he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked old screw," pursued the woman, "why wasn't he natural in his lifetime? if he had been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself." "it's the truest word that ever was spoke," said mrs. dilber, "it's a judgment on him." "i wish it was a little heavier judgment," replied the woman; "and it should have been, you may depend upon it, if i could have laid my hands on anything else. open that bundle, old joe, and let me know the value of it. speak out plain. i'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it. we knew pretty well that we were helping ourselves before we met here, i believe. it's no sin. open the bundle, joe." but the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, produced _his_ plunder. it was not extensive. a seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no great value, were all. they were severally examined and appraised by old joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each upon the wall, and added them up into a total when he found that there was nothing more to come. "that's your account," said joe, "and i wouldn't give another sixpence, if i was to be boiled for not doing it. who's next?" mrs. dilber was next. sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two old-fashioned silver tea-spoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few boots. her account was stated on the wall in the same manner. "i always give too much to ladies. it's a weakness of mine, and that's the way i ruin myself," said old joe. "that's your account. if you asked me for another penny, and made it an open question, i'd repent of being so liberal, and knock off half-a-crown." "and now undo _my_ bundle, joe," said the first woman. joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it, and, having unfastened a great many knots, dragged out a large heavy roll of some dark stuff. "what do you call this?" said joe. "bed-curtains?" "ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arms. "bed-curtains!" "you don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings and all, with him lying there?" said joe. "yes, i do," replied the woman. "why not?" "you were born to make your fortune," said joe, "and you'll certainly do it." "i certainly shan't hold my hand, when i can get anything in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as he was, i promise you, joe," returned the woman coolly. "don't drop that oil upon the blankets, now." "his blankets?" asked joe. "whose else's do you think?" replied the woman. "he isn't likely to take cold without 'em, i dare say." "i hope he didn't die of anything catching? eh?" said old joe, stopping in his work, and looking up. "don't you be afraid of that," returned the woman. "i an't so fond of his company that i'd loiter about him for such things, if he did. ah! you may look through that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. it's the best he had, and a fine one too. they'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me." "what do you call wasting of it?" asked old joe. "putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure," replied the woman with a laugh. "somebody was fool enough to do it, but i took it off again. if calico an't good enough for such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. it's quite as becoming to the body. he can't look uglier than he did in that one." scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. as they sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and disgust which could hardly have been greater, though they had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself. "ha, ha!" laughed the same woman when old joe, producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground. "this is the end of it, you see! he frightened every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead! ha, ha, ha!" "spirit!" said scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. "i see, i see. the case of this unhappy man might be my own. my life tends that way now. merciful heaven, what is this?" he recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language. the room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy, though scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it was. a pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed: and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man. scrooge glanced towards the phantom. its steady hand was pointed to the head. the cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. he thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it; but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at his side. oh, cold, cold, rigid, dreadful death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion! but of the loved, revered, and honoured head thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. it is not that the hand is heavy, and will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand was open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man's. strike, shadow, strike! and see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal! no voice pronounced these words in scrooge's ears, and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. he thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts? avarice, hard dealing, griping cares? they have brought him to a rich end, truly! he lay, in the dark, empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child to say he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word i will be kind to him. a cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. what _they_ wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, scrooge did not dare to think. "spirit!" he said, "this is a fearful place. in leaving it, i shall not leave its lesson, trust me. let us go!" still the ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head. "i understand you," scrooge returned, "and i would do it if i could. but i have not the power, spirit. i have not the power." again it seemed to look upon him. "if there is any person in the town who feels emotion caused by this man's death," said scrooge, quite agonised, "show that person to me, spirit! i beseech you." the phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and, withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her children were. she was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; for she walked up and down the room; started at every sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the clock; tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly bear the voices of her children in their play. at length the long-expected knock was heard. she hurried to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was careworn and depressed, though he was young. there was a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress. he sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for him by the fire, and, when she asked him faintly what news (which was not until after a long silence), he appeared embarrassed how to answer. "is it good," she said, "or bad?" to help him. "bad," he answered. "we are quite ruined?" "no. there is hope yet, caroline." "if _he_ relents," she said, amazed, "there is! nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened." "he is past relenting," said her husband. "he is dead." she was a mild and patient creature, if her face spoke truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so with clasped hands. she prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of her heart. "what the half-drunken woman, whom i told you of last night, said to me when i tried to see him and obtain a week's delay, and what i thought was a mere excuse to avoid me, turns out to have been quite true. he was not only very ill, but dying, then." "to whom will our debt be transferred?" "i don't know. but, before that time, we shall be ready with the money; and, even though we were not, it would be bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his successor. we may sleep to-night with light hearts, caroline!" yes. soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. the children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier house for this man's death! the only emotion that the ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure. "let me see some tenderness connected with a death," said scrooge; "or that dark chamber, spirit, which we left just now, will be for ever present to me." the ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet; and, as they went along, scrooge looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. they entered poor bob cratchit's house,--the dwelling he had visited before,--and found the mother and the children seated round the fire. quiet. very quiet. the noisy little cratchits were as still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at peter, who had a book before him. the mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing. but surely they were very quiet! "'and he took a child, and set him in the midst of them.'" where had scrooge heard those words? he had not dreamed them. the boy must have read them out, as he and the spirit crossed the threshold. why did he not go on? the mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her face. "the colour hurts my eyes," she said. the colour? ah, poor tiny tim! "they're better now again," said cratchit's wife. "it makes them weak by candle-light; and i wouldn't show weak eyes to your father, when he comes home, for the world. it must be near his time." "past it rather," peter answered, shutting up his book. "but i think he has walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother." they were very quiet again. at last she said, and in a steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once: "i have known him walk with--i have known him walk with tiny tim upon his shoulder very fast indeed." "and so have i," cried peter. "often." "and so have i," exclaimed another. so had all. "but he was very light to carry," she resumed, intent upon her work, "and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble: no trouble. and there is your father at the door!" she hurried out to meet him; and little bob in his comforter--he had need of it, poor fellow--came in. his tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should help him to it most. then the two young cratchits got upon his knees, and laid, each child, a little cheek against his face, as if they said, "don't mind it, father. don't be grieved!" bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. he looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed of mrs. cratchit and the girls. they would be done long before sunday, he said. "sunday! you went to-day, then, robert?" said his wife. "yes, my dear," returned bob. "i wish you could have gone. it would have done you good to see how green a place it is. but you'll see it often. i promised him that i would walk there on a sunday. my little, little child!" cried bob. "my little child!" he broke down all at once. he couldn't help it. if he could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther apart, perhaps, than they were. he left the room, and went up-stairs into the room above, which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with christmas. there was a chair set close beside the child, and there were signs of some one having been there lately. poor bob sat down in it, and, when he had thought a little and composed himself, he kissed the little face. he was reconciled to what had happened, and went down again quite happy. they drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother working still. bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of mr. scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing that he looked a little--"just a little down, you know," said bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. "on which," said bob, "for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard, i told him. 'i am heartily sorry for it, mr. cratchit,' he said, 'and heartily sorry for your good wife.' by-the-bye, how he ever knew _that_ i don't know." "knew what, my dear?" "why, that you were a good wife," replied bob. "everybody knows that," said peter. "very well observed, my boy!" cried bob. "i hope they do. 'heartily sorry,' he said, 'for your good wife. if i can be of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me his card, 'that's where i live. pray come to me.' now, it wasn't," cried bob, "for the sake of anything he might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful. it really seemed as if he had known our tiny tim, and felt with us." "i'm sure he's a good soul!" said mrs. cratchit. "you would be sure of it, my dear," returned bob, "if you saw and spoke to him. i shouldn't be at all surprised--mark what i say!--if he got peter a better situation." "only hear that, peter," said mrs. cratchit. "and then," cried one of the girls, "peter will be keeping company with some one, and setting up for himself." "get along with you!" retorted peter, grinning. "it's just as likely as not," said bob, "one of these days; though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. but, however and whenever we part from one another, i am sure we shall none of us forget poor tiny tim--shall we--or this first parting that there was among us?" "never, father!" cried they all. "and i know," said bob, "i know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how mild he was, although he was a little, little child, we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor tiny tim in doing it." "no, never, father!" they all cried again. "i am very happy," said little bob, "i am very happy!" mrs. cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young cratchits kissed him, and peter and himself shook hands. spirit of tiny tim, thy childish essence was from god! "spectre," said scrooge, "something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. i know it, but i know not how. tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead?" the ghost of christmas yet to come conveyed him, as before--though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were in the future--into the resorts of business men, but showed him not himself. indeed, the spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until besought by scrooge to tarry for a moment. "this court," said scrooge, "through which we hurry now, is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length of time. i see the house. let me behold what i shall be in days to come." the spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere. "the house is yonder," scrooge exclaimed. "why do you point away?" the inexorable finger underwent no change. scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. it was an office still, but not his. the furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. the phantom pointed as before. he joined it once again, and, wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. he paused to look round before entering. a churchyard. here, then, the wretched man, whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. it was a worthy place. walled in by houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. a worthy place! the spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to one. he advanced towards it trembling. the phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape. "before i draw nearer to that stone to which you point," said scrooge, "answer me one question. are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of the things that may be only?" still the ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood. "men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said scrooge. "but if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. say it is thus with what you show me!" the spirit was immovable as ever. scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and, following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, ebenezer scrooge. "am _i_ that man who lay upon the bed?" he cried upon his knees. the finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again. "no, spirit! oh no, no!" the finger still was there. "spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me! i am not the man i was. i will not be the man i must have been but for this intercourse. why show me this, if i am past all hope?" for the first time the hand appeared to shake. "good spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it: "your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. assure me that i yet may change these shadows you have shown me by an altered life?" the kind hand trembled. "i will honour christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. i will live in the past, the present, and the future. the spirits of all three shall strive within me. i will not shut out the lessons that they teach. oh, tell me i may sponge away the writing on this stone!" in his agony, he caught the spectral hand. it sought to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. the spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him. holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the phantom's hood and dress. it shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost. stave five the end of it yes! and the bedpost was his own. the bed was his own, the room was his own. best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own, to make amends in! "i will live in the past, the present, and the future!" scrooge repeated as he scrambled out of bed. "the spirits of all three shall strive within me. oh, jacob marley! heaven and the christmas time be praised for this! i say it on my knees, old jacob; on my knees!" he was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. he had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the spirit, and his face was wet with tears. "they are not torn down," cried scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms, "they are not torn down, rings and all. they are here--i am here--the shadows of the things that would have been may be dispelled. they will be. i know they will!" his hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance. "i don't know what to do!" cried scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect laocoön of himself with his stockings. "i am as light as a feather, i am as happy as an angel, i am as merry as a school-boy. i am as giddy as a drunken man. a merry christmas to everybody! a happy new year to all the world! hallo here! whoop! hallo!" he had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing there: perfectly winded. "there's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fire-place. "there's the door by which the ghost of jacob marley entered! there's the corner where the ghost of christmas present sat! there's the window where i saw the wandering spirits! it's all right, it's all true, it all happened. ha, ha, ha!" really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. the father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs! "i don't know what day of the month it is," said scrooge. "i don't know how long i have been among the spirits. i don't know anything. i'm quite a baby. never mind. i don't care. i'd rather be a baby. hallo! whoop! hallo here!" he was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. clash, clash, hammer; ding, dong, bell! bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash! oh, glorious, glorious! running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. no fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; golden sun-light; heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. oh, glorious! glorious! "what's to-day?" cried scrooge, calling downward to a boy in sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him. "eh?" returned the boy with all his might of wonder. "what's to-day, my fine fellow?" said scrooge. "to-day!" replied the boy. "why, christmas day." "it's christmas day!" said scrooge to himself. "i haven't missed it. the spirits have done it all in one night. they can do anything they like. of course they can. of course they can. hallo, my fine fellow!" "hallo!" returned the boy. "do you know the poulterer's in the next street but one, at the corner?" scrooge inquired. "i should hope i did," replied the lad. "an intelligent boy!" said scrooge. "a remarkable boy! do you know whether they've sold the prize turkey that was hanging up there?--not the little prize turkey: the big one?" "what! the one as big as me?" returned the boy. "what a delightful boy!" said scrooge. "it's a pleasure to talk to him. yes, my buck!" "it's hanging there now," replied the boy. "is it?" said scrooge. "go and buy it." "walk-er!" exclaimed the boy. "no, no," said scrooge, "i am in earnest. go and buy it, and tell 'em to bring it here, that i may give them the directions where to take it. come back with the man, and i'll give you a shilling. come back with him in less than five minutes, and i'll give you half-a-crown!" the boy was off like a shot. he must have had a steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast. "i'll send it to bob cratchit's," whispered scrooge, rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. "he shan't know who sends it. it's twice the size of tiny tim. joe miller never made such a joke as sending it to bob's will be!" the hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one; but write it he did, somehow, and went down-stairs to open the street-door, ready for the coming of the poulterer's man. as he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his eye. "i shall love it as long as i live!" cried scrooge, patting it with his hand. "i scarcely ever looked at it before. what an honest expression it has in its face! it's a wonderful knocker!--here's the turkey. hallo! whoop! how are you? merry christmas!" it _was_ a turkey! he never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. he would have snapped 'em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax. "why, it's impossible to carry that to camden town," said scrooge. "you must have a cab." the chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid for the turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he cried. shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when you don't dance while you are at it. but, if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking-plaster over it, and been quite satisfied. he dressed himself "all in his best," and at last got out into the streets. the people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with the ghost of christmas present; and, walking with his hands behind him, scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. he looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows said, "good morning, sir! a merry christmas to you!" and scrooge said often afterwards that, of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears. he had not gone far when, coming on towards him, he beheld the portly gentleman who had walked into his counting-house the day before, and said, "scrooge and marley's, i believe?" it sent a pang across his heart to think how this old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but he knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it. "my dear sir," said scrooge, quickening his pace, and taking the old gentleman by both his hands, "how do you do? i hope you succeeded yesterday. it was very kind of you. a merry christmas to you, sir!" "mr. scrooge?" "yes," said scrooge. "that is my name, and i fear it may not be pleasant to you. allow me to ask your pardon. and will you have the goodness----" here scrooge whispered in his ear. "lord bless me!" cried the gentleman, as if his breath were taken away. "my dear mr. scrooge, are you serious?" "if you please," said scrooge. "not a farthing less. a great many back-payments are included in it, i assure you. will you do me that favour?" "my dear sir," said the other, shaking hands with him, "i don't know what to say to such munifi----" "don't say anything, please," retorted scrooge. "come and see me. will you come and see me?" "i will!" cried the old gentleman. and it was clear he meant to do it. "thankee," said scrooge. "i am much obliged to you. i thank you fifty times. bless you!" he went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows; and found that everything could yield him pleasure. he had never dreamed that any walk--that anything--could give him so much happiness. in the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew's house. he passed the door a dozen times before he had the courage to go up and knock. but he made a dash, and did it. "is your master at home, my dear?" said scrooge to the girl. nice girl! very. "yes sir." "where is he, my love?" said scrooge. "he's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. i'll show you up-stairs, if you please." "thankee. he knows me," said scrooge, with his hand already on the dining-room lock. "i'll go in here, my dear." he turned it gently, and sidled his face in round the door. they were looking at the table (which was spread out in great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to see that everything is right. "fred!" said scrooge. dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started! scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't have done it on any account. "why, bless my soul!" cried fred, "who's that?" "it's i. your uncle scrooge. i have come to dinner. will you let me in, fred?" let him in! it is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. he was at home in five minutes. nothing could be heartier. his niece looked just the same. so did topper when _he_ came. so did the plump sister when _she_ came. so did every one when _they_ came. wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness! but he was early at the office next morning. oh, he was early there! if he could only be there first, and catch bob cratchit coming late! that was the thing he had set his heart upon. and he did it; yes, he did! the clock struck nine. no bob. a quarter past. no bob. he was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the tank. his hat was off before he opened the door; his comforter too. he was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock. "hallo!" growled scrooge in his accustomed voice as near as he could feign it. "what do you mean by coming here at this time of day?" "i am very sorry, sir," said bob. "i _am_ behind my time." "you are!" repeated scrooge. "yes. i think you are. step this way, sir, if you please." "it's only once a year, sir," pleaded bob, appearing from the tank. "it shall not be repeated. i was making rather merry yesterday, sir." "now, i'll tell you what, my friend," said scrooge. "i am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. and therefore," he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the tank again: "and therefore i am about to raise your salary!" bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. he had a momentary idea of knocking scrooge down with it, holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait-waistcoat. "a merry christmas, bob!" said scrooge with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. "a merrier christmas, bob, my good fellow, than i have given you for many a year! i'll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a christmas bowl of smoking bishop, bob! make up the fires and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, bob cratchit!" * * * * * scrooge was better than his word. he did it all, and infinitely more; and to tiny tim, who did not die, he was a second father. he became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world. some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and, knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins as have the malady in less attractive forms. his own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him. he had no further intercourse with spirits, but lived upon the total-abstinence principle ever afterwards; and it was always said of him that he knew how to keep christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. may that be truly said of us, and all of us! and so, as tiny tim observed, god bless us, every one! [transcriber's note: italic sections are surrounded by underscores (_).] the cricket on the hearth by charles dickens illustrated by george alfred williams new york the platt & peck co. copyright, , by the baker & taylor company introduction the combined qualities of the realist and the idealist which dickens possessed to a remarkable degree, together with his naturally jovial attitude toward life in general, seem to have given him a remarkably happy feeling toward christmas, though the privations and hardships of his boyhood could have allowed him but little real experience with this day of days. dickens gave his first formal expression to his christmas thoughts in his series of small books, the first of which was the famous "christmas carol," the one perfect chrysolite. the success of the book was immediate. thackeray wrote of it: "who can listen to objections regarding such a book as this? it seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it, a personal kindness." this volume was put forth in a very attractive manner, with illustrations by john leech, who was the first artist to make these characters live, and his drawings were varied and spirited. there followed upon this four others: "the chimes," "the cricket on the hearth," "the battle of life," and "the haunted man," with illustrations on their first appearance by doyle, maclise, and others. the five are known to-day as the "christmas books." of them all the "carol" is the best known and loved, and "the cricket on the hearth," although third in the series, is perhaps next in point of popularity, and is especially familiar to americans through joseph jefferson's characterisation of caleb plummer. dickens seems to have put his whole self into these glowing little stories. whoever sees but a clever ghost story in the "christmas carol" misses its chief charm and lesson, for there is a different meaning in the movements of scrooge and his attendant spirits. a new life is brought to scrooge when he, "running to his window, opened it and put out his head. no fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; golden sun-light; heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. oh, glorious! glorious!" all this brightness has its attendant shadow, and deep from the childish heart comes that true note of pathos, the ever memorable toast of tiny tim, "god bless us, every one!" "the cricket on the hearth" strikes a different note. charmingly, poetically, the sweet chirping of the little cricket is associated with human feelings and actions, and at the crisis of the story decides the fate and fortune of the carrier and his wife. dickens's greatest gift was characterization, and no english writer, save shakespeare, has drawn so many and so varied characters. it would be as absurd to interpret all of these as caricatures as to deny dickens his great and varied powers of creation. dickens exaggerated many of his comic and satirical characters, as was his right, for caricature and satire are very closely related, while exaggeration is the very essence of comedy. but there remains a host of characters marked by humour and pathos. yet the pictorial presentation of dickens's characters has ever tended toward the grotesque. the interpretations in this volume aim to eliminate the grosser phases of the caricature in favour of the more human. if the interpretations seem novel, if scrooge be not as he has been pictured, it is because a more human scrooge was desired--a scrooge not wholly bad, a scrooge of a better heart, a scrooge to whom the resurrection described in this story was possible. it has been the illustrator's whole aim to make these people live in some form more fully consistent with their types. george alfred williams. _chatham, n.j._ the cricket on the hearth table of contents _chirp the first_ _chirp the second_ _chirp the third_ list of illustrations _"father, i am lonely in the dark. i want my eyes, my patient, willing eyes."_ _"a dot and--" here he glanced at the baby--"a dot and carry--i won't say it, for fear i should spoil it; but i was very near a joke."_ _tilly slowboy_ _"that's the way i found him, sitting by the roadside! upright as a milestone."_ _when suddenly, the struggling fire illuminated the whole chimney with a glow of light; and the cricket on the hearth began to chirp!_ [illustration] the cricket on the hearth a fairy tale of home chirp the first the kettle began it! don't tell me what mrs. peerybingle said. i know better. mrs. peerybingle may leave it on record to the end of time that she couldn't say which of them began it; but i say the kettle did. i ought to know, i hope? the kettle began it, full five minutes by the little waxy-faced dutch clock in the corner, before the cricket uttered a chirp. as if the clock hadn't finished striking, and the convulsive little hay-maker at the top of it, jerking away right and left with a scythe in front of a moorish palace, hadn't mowed down half an acre of imaginary grass before the cricket joined in at all! why, i am not naturally positive. every one knows that i wouldn't set my own opinion against the opinion of mrs. peerybingle, unless i were quite sure, on any account whatever. nothing should induce me. but, this is a question of fact. and the fact is, that the kettle began it at least five minutes before the cricket gave any sign of being in existence. contradict me, and i'll say ten. let me narrate exactly how it happened. i should have proceeded to do so, in my very first word, but for this plain consideration--if i am to tell a story i must begin at the beginning; and how is it possible to begin at the beginning without beginning at the kettle? it appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of skill, you must understand, between the kettle and the cricket. and this is what led to it, and how it came about. mrs. peerybingle, going out into the raw twilight, and clicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked innumerable rough impressions of the first proposition in euclid all about the yard--mrs. peerybingle filled the kettle at the water-butt. presently returning, less the pattens (and a good deal less, for they were tall, and mrs. peerybingle was but short), she set the kettle on the fire. in doing which she lost her temper, or mislaid it for an instant; for, the water being uncomfortably cold, and in that slippy, slushy, sleety sort of state wherein it seems to penetrate through every kind of substance, patten rings included--had laid hold of mrs. peerybingle's toes, and even splashed her legs. and when we rather plume ourselves (with reason too) upon our legs, and keep ourselves particularly neat in point of stockings, we find this, for the moment, hard to bear. besides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate. it wouldn't allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it wouldn't hear of accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it _would_ lean forward with a drunken air, and dribble, a very idiot of a kettle, on the hearth. it was quarrelsome, and hissed and spluttered morosely at the fire. to sum up all, the lid, resisting mrs. peerybingle's fingers, first of all turned topsy-turvy, and then, with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a better cause, dived sideways in--down to the very bottom of the kettle. and the hull of the royal george has never made half the monstrous resistance to coming out of the water which the lid of that kettle employed against mrs. peerybingle before she got it up again. it looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then; carrying its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly and mockingly at mrs. peerybingle, as if it said, "i won't boil. nothing shall induce me!" but, mrs. peerybingle, with restored good-humour, dusted her chubby little hands against each other, and sat down before the kettle laughing. meantime, the jolly blaze uprose and fell, flashing and gleaming on the little hay-maker at the top of the dutch clock, until one might have thought he stood stock-still before the moorish palace, and nothing was in motion but the flame. he was on the move, however; and had his spasms, two to the second, all right and regular. but his sufferings when the clock was going to strike were frightful to behold; and when a cuckoo looked out of a trap-door in the palace, and gave note six times, it shook him, each time, like a spectral voice--or like a something wiry plucking at his legs. it was not until a violent commotion and a whirring noise among the weights and ropes below him had quite subsided that this terrified hay-maker became himself again. nor was he startled without reason; for these rattling, bony skeletons of clocks are very disconcerting in their operation, and i wonder very much how any set of men, but most of all how dutchmen, can have had a liking to invent them. there is a popular belief that dutchmen love broad cases and much clothing for their own lower selves; and they might know better than to leave their clocks so very lank and unprotected, surely. now it was, you observe, that the kettle began to spend the evening. now it was that the kettle, growing mellow and musical, began to have irrepressible gurglings in its throat, and to indulge in short vocal snorts, which it checked in the bud, as if it hadn't quite made up its mind yet to be good company. now it was that after two or three such vain attempts to stifle its convivial sentiments, it threw off all moroseness, all reserve, and burst into a stream of song so cosy and hilarious as never maudlin nightingale yet formed the least idea of. so plain, too! bless you, you might have understood it like a book--better than some books you and i could name, perhaps. with its warm breath gushing forth in a light cloud which merrily and gracefully ascended a few feet, then hung about the chimney-corner as its own domestic heaven, it trolled its song with that strong energy of cheerfulness, that its iron body hummed and stirred upon the fire; and the lid itself, the recently rebellious lid--such is the influence of a bright example--performed a sort of jig, and clattered like a deaf and dumb young cymbal that had never known the use of its twin brother. that this song of the kettle's was a song of invitation and welcome to somebody out of doors: to somebody at that moment coming on towards the snug small home and the crisp fire: there is no doubt whatever. mrs. peerybingle knew it perfectly, as she sat musing before the hearth. it's a dark night, sang the kettle, and the rotten leaves are lying by the way; and, above, all is mist and darkness, and, below, all is mire and clay; and there's only one relief in all the sad and murky air; and i don't know that it is one, for it's nothing but a glare; of deep and angry crimson, where the sun and wind together; set a brand upon the clouds for being guilty of such weather; and the widest open country is a long dull streak of black; and there's hoar frost on the finger-post, and thaw upon the track; and the ice it isn't water, and the water isn't free; and you couldn't say that anything is what it ought to be; but he's coming, coming, coming!-- and here, if you like, the cricket did chime in! with a chirrup, chirrup, chirrup of such magnitude, by way of chorus; with a voice so astoundingly disproportionate to its size, as compared with the kettle; (size! you couldn't see it!) that, if it had then and there burst itself like an overcharged gun, if it had fallen a victim on the spot, and chirruped its little body into fifty pieces, it would have seemed a natural and inevitable consequence, for which it had expressly laboured. the kettle had had the last of its solo performance. it persevered with undiminished ardour; but the cricket took first fiddle, and kept it. good heaven, how it chirped! its shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounded through the house, and seemed to twinkle in the outer darkness like a star. there was an indescribable little trill and tremble in it at its loudest, which suggested its being carried off its legs, and made to leap again, by its own intense enthusiasm. yet they went very well together, the cricket and the kettle. the burden of the song was still the same; and louder, louder, louder still, they sang it in their emulation. the fair little listener--for fair she was, and young; though something of what is called the dumpling shape; but i don't myself object to that--lighted a candle, glanced at the hay-maker on the top of the clock, who was getting in a pretty average crop of minutes; and looked out of the window, where she saw nothing, owing to the darkness, but her own face imaged in the glass. and my opinion is (and so would yours have been) that she might have looked a long way and seen nothing half so agreeable. when she came back, and sat down in her former seat, the cricket and the kettle were still keeping it up, with a perfect fury of competition. the kettle's weak side clearly being that he didn't know when he was beat. there was all the excitement of a race about it. chirp, chirp, chirp! cricket a mile ahead. hum, hum, hum--m--m! kettle making play in the distance, like a great top. chirp, chirp, chirp! cricket round the corner. hum, hum, hum--m--m! kettle sticking to him in his own way; no idea of giving in. chirp, chirp, chirp! cricket fresher than ever. hum, hum, hum--m--m! kettle slow and steady. chirp, chirp, chirp! cricket going in to finish him. hum, hum, hum--m--m! kettle not to be finished. until at last they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-skurry, helter-skelter, of the match, that whether the kettle chirped and the cricket hummed, or the cricket chirped and the kettle hummed, or they both chirped and both hummed, it would have taken a clearer head than yours or mine to have decided with anything like certainty. but of this there is no doubt: that, the kettle and the cricket, at one and the same moment, and by some power of amalgamation best known to themselves, sent, each, his fireside song of comfort streaming into a ray of the candle that shone out through the window, and a long way down the lane. and this light, bursting on a certain person who, on the instant, approached towards it through the gloom, expressed the whole thing to him, literally in a twinkling, and cried, "welcome home, old fellow! welcome home, my boy!" this end attained, the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, and was taken off the fire. mrs. peerybingle then went running to the door, where, what with the wheels of a cart, the tramp of a horse, the voice of a man, the tearing in and out of an excited dog, and the surprising and mysterious appearance of a baby, there was soon the very what's-his-name to play. where the baby came from, or how mrs. peerybingle got hold of it in that flash of time, _i_ don't know. but a live baby there was in mrs. peerybingle's arms; and a pretty tolerable amount of pride she seemed to have in it, when she was drawn gently to the fire, by a sturdy figure of a man, much taller and much older than herself, who had to stoop a long way down to kiss her. but she was worth the trouble. six foot six, with the lumbago, might have done it. "oh goodness, john!" said mrs. p. "what a state you're in with the weather!" [illustration: _"a dot and"--here he glanced at the baby--"a dot and carry--i won't say it, for fear i should spoil it; but i was very near a joke."_] he was something the worse for it undeniably. the thick mist hung in clots upon his eyelashes like candied thaw; and, between the fog and fire together, there were rainbows in his very whiskers. "why, you see, dot," john made answer slowly, as he unrolled a shawl from about his throat, and warmed his hands; "it--it an't exactly summer weather. so no wonder." "i wish you wouldn't call me dot, john. i don't like it," said mrs. peerybingle: pouting in a way that clearly showed she _did_ like it very much. "why, what else are you?" returned john, looking down upon her with a smile, and giving her waist as light a squeeze as his huge hand and arm could give. "a dot and"--here he glanced at the baby--"a dot and carry--i won't say it, for fear i should spoil it; but i was very near a joke. i don't know as ever i was nearer." he was often near to something or other very clever, by his own account: this lumbering, slow, honest john; this john so heavy, but so light of spirit; so rough upon the surface, but so gentle at the core; so dull without, so quick within; so stolid, but so good! oh, mother nature, give thy children the true poetry of heart that hid itself in this poor carrier's breast--he was but a carrier, by the way--and we can bear to have them talking prose, and leading lives of prose; and bear to bless thee for their company! it was pleasant to see dot, with her little figure and her baby in her arms: a very doll of a baby: glancing with a coquettish thoughtfulness at the fire, and inclining her delicate little head just enough on one side to let it rest in an odd, half-natural, half-affected, wholly nestling and agreeable manner, on the great rugged figure of the carrier. it was pleasant to see him, with his tender awkwardness, endeavouring to adapt his rude support to her slight need, and make his burly middle age a leaning-staff not inappropriate to her blooming youth. it was pleasant to observe how tilly slowboy, waiting in the background for the baby, took special cognizance (though in her earliest teens) of this grouping; and stood with her mouth and eyes wide open, and her head thrust forward, taking it in as if it were air. nor was it less agreeable to observe how john the carrier, reference being made by dot to the aforesaid baby, checked his hand when on the point of touching the infant, as if he thought he might crack it; and, bending down, surveyed it from a safe distance, with a kind of puzzled pride, such as an amiable mastiff might be supposed to show if he found himself, one day, the father of a young canary. "an't he beautiful, john? don't he look precious in his sleep?" "very precious," said john. "very much so. he generally _is_ asleep, an't he?" "lor, john! good gracious, no!" "oh!" said john, pondering. "i thought his eyes was generally shut. halloa!" "goodness, john, how you startle one!" "it an't right for him to turn 'em up in that way," said the astonished carrier, "is it? see how he's winking with both of 'em at once! and look at his mouth! why, he's gasping like a gold and silver fish!" "you don't deserve to be a father, you don't," said dot, with all the dignity of an experienced matron. "but how should you know what little complaints children are troubled with, john? you wouldn't so much as know their names, you stupid fellow." and when she had turned the baby over on her left arm, and had slapped its back as a restorative, she pinched her husband's ear, laughing. "no," said john, pulling off his outer coat. "it's very true, dot. i don't know much about it. i only know that i've been fighting pretty stiffly with the wind to-night. it's been blowing north-east, straight into the cart, the whole way home." "poor old man, so it has!" cried mrs. peerybingle, instantly becoming very active. "here, take the precious darling, tilly, while i make myself of some use. bless it, i could smother it with kissing it, i could! hie then, good dog! hie, boxer, boy! only let me make the tea first, john; and then i'll help you with the parcels, like a busy bee. 'how doth the little'--and all the rest of it, you know, john. did you ever learn 'how doth the little,' when you went to school, john?" "not to quite know it," john returned. "i was very near it once. but i should only have spoilt it, i dare say." "ha, ha!" laughed dot. she had the blithest little laugh you ever heard. "what a dear old darling of a dunce you are, john, to be sure!" not at all disputing this position, john went out to see that the boy with the lantern, which had been dancing to and fro before the door and window, like a will of the wisp, took due care of the horse; who was fatter than you would quite believe, if i gave you his measure, and so old that his birthday was lost in the mists of antiquity. boxer, feeling that his attentions were due to the family in general, and must be impartially distributed, dashed in and out with bewildering inconstancy; now describing a circle of short barks round the horse, where he was being rubbed down at the stable door; now feigning to make savage rushes at his mistress, and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops; now eliciting a shriek from tilly slowboy, in the low nursing-chair near the fire, by the unexpected application of his moist nose to her countenance; now exhibiting an obtrusive interest in the baby; now going round and round upon the hearth, and lying down as if he had established himself for the night; now getting up again, and taking that nothing of a fag-end of a tail of his out into the weather, as if he had just remembered an appointment, and was off at a round trot, to keep it. "there! there's the teapot, ready on the hob!" said dot; as briskly busy as a child at play at keeping house. "and there's the cold knuckle of ham; and there's the butter; and there's the crusty loaf, and all! here's a clothes basket for the small parcels, john, if you've got any there. where are you, john? don't let the dear child fall under the grate, tilly, whatever you do!" it may be noted of miss slowboy, in spite of her rejecting the caution with some vivacity, that she had a rare and surprising talent for getting this baby into difficulties: and had several times imperilled its short life in a quiet way peculiarly her own. she was of a spare and straight shape, this young lady, insomuch that her garments appeared to be in constant danger of sliding off those sharp pegs, her shoulders, on which they were loosely hung. her costume was remarkable for the partial development, on all possible occasions, of some flannel vestment of a singular structure; also for affording glimpses, in the region of the back, of a corset, or a pair of stays, in colour a dead green. being always in a state of gaping admiration at everything, and absorbed, besides, in the perpetual contemplation of her mistress's perfections and the baby's, miss slowboy, in her little errors of judgment, may be said to have done equal honour to her head and to her heart; and though these did less honour to the baby's head, which they were the occasional means of bringing into contact with deal doors, dressers, stair-rails, bed-posts, and other foreign substances, still they were the honest results of tilly slowboy's constant astonishment at finding herself so kindly treated, and installed in such a comfortable home. for the maternal and paternal slowboy were alike unknown to fame, and tilly had been bred by public charity, a foundling; which word, though only differing from fondling by one vowel's length, is very different in meaning, and expresses quite another thing. to have seen little mrs. peerybingle come back with her husband, tugging at the clothes basket, and making the most strenuous exertions to do nothing at all (for he carried it), would have amused you almost as much as it amused him. it may have entertained the cricket, too, for anything i know; but, certainly, it now began to chirp again vehemently. [illustration: _tilly slowboy._] "heyday!" said john in his slow way. "it's merrier than ever to-night, i think." "and it's sure to bring us good fortune, john! it always has done so. to have a cricket on the hearth is the luckiest thing in all the world!" john looked at her as if he had very nearly got the thought into his head that she was his cricket in chief, and he quite agreed with her. but it was probably one of his narrow escapes, for he said nothing. "the first time i heard its cheerful little note, john, was on that night when you brought me home--when you brought me to my new home here; its little mistress. nearly a year ago. you recollect, john?" oh, yes! john remembered. i should think so! "its chirp was such a welcome to me! it seemed so full of promise and encouragement. it seemed to say, you would be kind and gentle with me, and would not expect (i had a fear of that, john, then) to find an old head on the shoulders of your foolish little wife." john thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and then the head, as though he would have said no, no; he had had no such expectation; he had been quite content to take them as they were. and really he had reason. they were very comely. "it spoke the truth, john, when it seemed to say so: for you have ever been, i am sure, the best, the most considerate, the most affectionate of husbands to me. this has been a happy home, john; and i love the cricket for its sake!" "why, so do i, then," said the carrier. "so do i, dot." "i love it for the many times i have heard it, and the many thoughts its harmless music has given me. sometimes, in the twilight, when i have felt a little solitary and down-hearted, john--before baby was here, to keep me company and make the house gay--when i have thought how lonely you would be if i should die; how lonely i should be, if i could know that you had lost me, dear; its chirp, chirp, chirp upon the hearth has seemed to tell me of another little voice, so sweet, so very dear to me, before whose coming sound my trouble vanished like a dream. and when i used to fear--i did fear once, john; i was very young, you know--that ours might prove to be an ill-assorted marriage, i being such a child, and you more like my guardian than my husband; and that you might not, however hard you tried, be able to learn to love me, as you hoped and prayed you might; its chirp, chirp, chirp has cheered me up again, and filled me with new trust and confidence. i was thinking of these things to-night, dear, when i sat expecting you; and i love the cricket for their sake!" "and so do i," repeated john. "but, dot! _i_ hope and pray that i might learn to love you? how you talk! i had learnt that long before i brought you here, to be the cricket's little mistress, dot!" she laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked up at him with an agitated face, as if she would have told him something. next moment, she was down upon her knees before the basket; speaking in a sprightly voice, and busy with the parcels. "there are not many of them to-night, john, but i saw some goods behind the cart just now; and though they give more trouble, perhaps, still they pay as well; so we have no reason to grumble, have we? besides, you have been delivering, i dare say, as you came along?" "oh, yes!" john said. "a good many." "why, what's this round box? heart alive, john, it's a wedding-cake!" "leave a woman alone to find out that," said john admiringly. "now, a man would never have thought of it! whereas, it's my belief that if you was to pack a wedding-cake up in a tea-chest, or a turn-up bedstead, or a pickled-salmon keg, or any unlikely thing, a woman would be sure to find it out directly. yes; i called for it at the pastrycook's." "and it weighs i don't know what--whole hundredweights!" cried dot, making a great demonstration of trying to lift it. "whose is it, john? where is it going?" "read the writing on the other side," said john. "why, john! my goodness, john!" "ah! who'd have thought it?" john returned. "you never mean to say," pursued dot, sitting on the floor and shaking her head at him, "that it's gruff and tackleton the toymaker!" john nodded. mrs. peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least. not in assent--in dumb and pitying amazement; screwing up her lips, the while, with all their little force (they were never made for screwing up; i am clear of that), and looking the good carrier through and through, in her abstraction. miss slowboy, in the meantime, who had a mechanical power of reproducing scraps of current conversation for the delectation of the baby, with all the sense struck out of them, and all the nouns changed into the plural number, inquired aloud of that young creature, was it gruffs and tackletons the toymakers then, and would it call at pastrycooks for wedding-cakes, and did its mothers know the boxes when its fathers brought them home; and so on. "and that is really to come about!" said dot. "why, she and i were girls at school together, john." he might have been thinking of her, or nearly thinking of her, perhaps, as she was in that same school-time. he looked upon her with a thoughtful pleasure, but he made no answer. "and he's as old! as unlike her!--why, how many years older than you is gruff and tackleton, john?" "how many more cups of tea shall i drink to-night, at one sitting, than gruff and tackleton ever took in four, i wonder?" replied john good-humouredly, as he drew a chair to the round table, and began at the cold ham. "as to eating, i eat but little; but that little i enjoy, dot." even this, his usual sentiment at meal-times, one of his innocent delusions (for his appetite was always obstinate, and flatly contradicted him), awoke no smile in the face of his little wife, who stood among the parcels, pushing the cake-box slowly from her with her foot, and never once looked, though her eyes were cast down too, upon the dainty shoe she generally was so mindful of. absorbed in thought, she stood there, heedless alike of the tea and john (although he called to her and rapped the table with his knife to startle her), until he rose and touched her on the arm; when she looked at him for a moment, and hurried to her place behind the tea-board, laughing at her negligence. but not as she had laughed before. the manner and the music were quite changed. the cricket, too, had stopped. somehow, the room was not so cheerful as it had been. nothing like it. "so, these are all the parcels, are they, john?" she said, breaking a long silence, which the honest carrier had devoted to the practical illustration of one part of his favourite sentiment--certainly enjoying what he ate, if it couldn't be admitted that he ate but little. "so these are all the parcels, are they, john?" "that's all," said john. "why--no--i"--laying down his knife and fork, and taking a long breath--"i declare--i've clean forgotten the old gentleman!" "the old gentleman?" "in the cart," said john. "he was asleep among the straw, the last time i saw him. i've very nearly remembered him, twice, since i came in; but he went out of my head again. halloa! yahip there! rouse up! that's my hearty!" john said these latter words outside the door, whither he had hurried with the candle in his hand. miss slowboy, conscious of some mysterious reference to the old gentleman, and connecting, in her mystified imagination, certain associations of a religious nature with the phrase, was so disturbed, that hastily rising from the low chair by the fire to seek protection near the skirt of her mistress, and coming into contact, as she crossed the doorway, with an ancient stranger, she instinctively made a charge or butt at him with the only offensive instrument within her reach. this instrument happening to be the baby, great commotion and alarm ensued, which the sagacity of boxer rather tended to increase; for that good dog, more thoughtful than his master, had, it seemed, been watching the old gentleman in his sleep, lest he should walk off with a few young poplar-trees that were tied up behind the cart; and he still attended on him very closely, worrying his gaiters, in fact, and making dead sets at the buttons. "you're such an undeniably good sleeper, sir," said john, when tranquillity was restored (in the meantime the old gentleman had stood, bareheaded and motionless, in the centre of the room), "that i have half a mind to ask you where the other six are--only that would be a joke, and i know i should spoil it. very near, though," murmured the carrier with a chuckle; "very near!" the stranger, who had long white hair, good features, singularly bold and well defined for an old man, and dark, bright, penetrating eyes, looked round with a smile, and saluted the carrier's wife by gravely inclining his head. his garb was very quaint and odd--a long, long way behind the time. its hue was brown, all over. in his hand he held a great brown club or walking-stick; and, striking this upon the floor, it fell asunder, and became a chair. on which he sat down quite composedly. "there!" said the carrier, turning to his wife. "that's the way i found him, sitting by the roadside! upright as a milestone. and almost as deaf." "sitting in the open air, john?" "in the open air," replied the carrier, "just at dusk. 'carriage paid,' he said; and gave me eighteen-pence. then he got in. and there he is." "he's going, john, i think!" not at all. he was only going to speak. "if you please, i was to be left till called for," said the stranger mildly. "don't mind me." with that he took a pair of spectacles from one of his large pockets, and a book from another, and leisurely began to read. making no more of boxer than if he had been a house lamb! the carrier and his wife exchanged a look of perplexity. the stranger raised his head; and, glancing from the latter to the former, said: "your daughter, my good friend?" "wife," returned john. "niece?" said the stranger. "wife!" roared john. "indeed?" observed the stranger. "surely? very young!" he quietly turned over, and resumed his reading. but, before he could have read two lines, he again interrupted himself to say: "baby yours?" john gave him a gigantic nod: equivalent to an answer in the affirmative, delivered through a speaking trumpet. "girl?" "bo-o-oy!" roared john. "also very young, eh?" mrs. peerybingle instantly struck in. "two months and three da-ays. vaccinated just six weeks ago-o! took very fine-ly! considered, by the doctor, a remarkably beautiful chi-ild! equal to the general run of children at five months o-ld! takes notice in a way quite wonder-ful! may seem impossible to you, but feels his legs al-ready!" [illustration: _"that's the way i found him, sitting by the roadside! upright as a milestone."_] here, the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking these short sentences into the old man's ear, until her pretty face was crimsoned, held up the baby before him as a stubborn and triumphant fact; while tilly slowboy, with a melodious cry of "ketcher, ketcher"--which sounded like some unknown words, adapted to a popular sneeze--performed some cow-like gambols around that all unconscious innocent. "hark! he's called for, sure enough," said john. "there's somebody at the door. open it, tilly." before she could reach it, however, it was opened from without; being a primitive sort of door, with a latch that any one could lift if he chose--and a good many people did choose, for all kinds of neighbours liked to have a cheerful word or two with the carrier, though he was no great talker himself. being opened, it gave admission to a little, meagre, thoughtful, dingy-faced man, who seemed to have made himself a great-coat from the sackcloth covering of some old box; for, when he turned to shut the door and keep the weather out, he disclosed upon the back of that garment the inscription g & t in large black capitals. also the word glass in bold characters. "good evening, john!" said the little man. "good evening, mum! good evening, tilly! good evening, unbeknown! how's baby, mum? boxer's pretty well i hope?" "all thriving, caleb," replied dot. "i am sure you need only look at the dear child, for one, to know that." "and i'm sure i need only look at you for another," said caleb. he didn't look at her, though; he had a wandering and thoughtful eye, which seemed to be always projecting itself into some other time and place, no matter what he said; a description which will equally apply to his voice. "or at john for another," said caleb. "or at tilly, as far as that goes. or certainly at boxer." "busy just now, caleb?" asked the carrier. "why, pretty well, john," he returned, with the distraught air of a man who was casting about for the philosopher's stone, at least. "pretty much so. there's rather a run on noah's arks at present. i could have wished to improve on the family, but i don't see how it's to be done at the price. it would be a satisfaction to one's mind to make it clearer which was shems and hams, and which was wives. flies an't on that scale, neither, as compared with elephants, you know! ah, well! have you got anything in the parcel line for me, john?" the carrier put his hand into a pocket of the coat he had taken off; and brought out, carefully preserved in moss and paper, a tiny flower-pot. "there it is!" he said, adjusting it with great care. "not so much as a leaf damaged. full of buds!" caleb's dull eye brightened as he took it, and thanked him. "dear, caleb," said the carrier. "very dear at this season." "never mind that. it would be cheap to me, what ever it cost," returned the little man. "anything else, john?" "a small box," replied the carrier. "here you are!" "'for caleb plummer,'" said the little man, spelling out the direction. "'with cash.' with cash, john? i don't think it's for me." "with care," returned the carrier, looking over his shoulder. "where do you make out cash?" "oh! to be sure!" said caleb. "it's all right. with care! yes, yes; that's mine. it might have been with cash, indeed, if my dear boy in the golden south americas had lived, john. you loved him like a son; didn't you? you needn't say you did. _i_ know, of course. 'caleb plummer. with care.' yes, yes, it's all right. it's a box of dolls' eyes for my daughters' work. i wish it was her own sight in a box, john." "i wish it was, or could be!" cried the carrier. "thankee," said the little man. "you speak very hearty. to think that she should never see the dolls--and them a staring at her, so bold, all day long! that's where it cuts. what's the damage, john?" "i'll damage you," said john, "if you inquire. dot! very near?" "well! it's like you to say so," observed the little man. "it's your kind way. let me see. i think that's all." "i think not," said the carrier. "try again." "something for our governor, eh?" said caleb after pondering a little while. "to be sure. that's what i came for; but my head's so running on them arks and things! he hasn't been here, has he?" "not he," returned the carrier. "he's too busy, courting." "he's coming round, though," said caleb; "for he told me to keep on the near side of the road going home, and it was ten to one he'd take me up. i had better go, by-the-bye.--you couldn't have the goodness to let me pinch boxer's tail, mum, for half a moment, could you?" "why, caleb, what a question!" "oh, never mind, mum!" said the little man. "he mightn't like it, perhaps. there's a small order just come in for barking dogs; and i should wish to go as close to natur' as i could for sixpence. that's all. never mind, mum." it happened opportunely that boxer, without receiving the proposed stimulus, began to bark with great zeal. but, as this implied the approach of some new visitor, caleb, postponing his study from the life to a more convenient season, shouldered the round box, and took a hurried leave. he might have spared himself the trouble, for he met the visitor upon the threshold. "oh! you are here, are you? wait a bit. i'll take you home. john peerybingle, my service to you. more of my service to your pretty wife. handsomer every day! better too, if possible! and younger," mused the speaker in a low voice, "that's the devil of it!" "i should be astonished at your paying compliments, mr. tackleton," said dot, not with the best grace in the world, "but for your condition." "you know all about it, then?" "i have got myself to believe it somehow," said dot. "after a hard struggle, i suppose?" "very." tackleton the toy merchant, pretty generally known as gruff and tackleton--for that was the firm, though gruff had been bought out long ago; only leaving his name, and, as some said, his nature, according to its dictionary meaning, in the business--tackleton the toy merchant was a man whose vocation had been quite misunderstood by his parents and guardians. if they had made him a money lender, or a sharp attorney, or a sheriff's officer, or a broker, he might have sown his discontented oats in his youth, and, after having had the full run of himself in ill-natured transactions, might have turned out amiable, at last, for the sake of a little freshness and novelty. but, cramped and chafing in the peaceable pursuit of toymaking, he was a domestic ogre, who had been living on children all his life, and was their implacable enemy. he despised all toys; wouldn't have bought one for the world; delighted, in his malice, to insinuate grim expressions into the faces of brown-paper farmers who drove pigs to market, bellmen who advertised lost lawyers' consciences, movable old ladies who darned stockings or carved pies; and other like samples of his stock-in-trade. in appalling masks; hideous, hairy, red-eyed jacks in boxes; vampire kites; demoniacal tumblers who wouldn't lie down, and were perpetually flying forward, to stare infants out of countenance; his soul perfectly revelled. they were his only relief, and safety-valve. he was great in such inventions. anything suggestive of a pony nightmare was delicious to him. he had even lost money (and he took to that toy very kindly) by getting up goblin slides for magic lanterns, whereon the powers of darkness were depicted as a sort of supernatural shell-fish, with human faces. in intensifying the portraiture of giants, he had sunk quite a little capital; and, though no painter himself, he could indicate, for the instruction of his artists, with a piece of chalk, a certain furtive leer for the countenances of those monsters, which was safe to destroy the peace of mind of any young gentleman between the ages of six and eleven, for the whole christmas or midsummer vacation. what he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in other things. you may easily suppose, therefore, that within the great green cape, which reached down to the calves of his legs, there was buttoned up to the chin an uncommonly pleasant fellow; and that he was about as choice a spirit, and as agreeable a companion, as ever stood in a pair of bull-headed-looking boots with mahogany-coloured tops. still, tackleton, the toy merchant, was going to be married. in spite of all this, he was going to be married. and to a young wife too, a beautiful young wife. he didn't look much like a bridegroom, as he stood in the carrier's kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in his body, and his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands tucked down into the bottoms of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic, ill-conditioned self peering out of one little corner of one little eye, like the concentrated essence of any number of ravens. but a bridegroom he designed to be. "in three days' time. next thursday. the last day of the first month in the year. that's my wedding-day," said tackleton. did i mention that he had always one eye wide open, and one eye nearly shut; and that the one eye nearly shut was always the expressive eye? i don't think i did. "that's my wedding-day!" said tackleton, rattling his money. "why, it's our wedding-day too," exclaimed the carrier. "ha, ha!" laughed tackleton. "odd! you're just such another couple. just!" the indignation of dot at this presumptuous assertion is not to be described. what next? his imagination would compass the possibility of just such another baby, perhaps. the man was mad. "i say! a word with you," murmured tackleton, nudging the carrier with his elbow, and taking him a little apart. "you'll come to the wedding? we're in the same boat, you know." "how in the same boat?" inquired the carrier. "a little disparity, you know," said tackleton with another nudge. "come and spend an evening with us beforehand." "why?" demanded john, astonished at this pressing hospitality. "why?" returned the other. "that's a new way of receiving an invitation. why, for pleasure--sociability, you know, and all that." "i thought you were never sociable," said john in his plain way. "tchah! it's of no use to be anything but free with you, i see," said tackleton. "why, then, the truth is, you have a--what tea-drinking people call a sort of a comfortable appearance together, you and your wife. we know better, you know, but----" "no, we don't know better," interposed john. "what are you talking about?" "well! we _don't_ know better, then," said tackleton. "we'll agree that we don't. as you like; what does it matter? i was going to say, as you have that sort of appearance, your company will produce a favourable effect on mrs. tackleton that will be. and, though i don't think your good lady's very friendly to me in this matter, still she can't help herself from falling into my views, for there's a compactness and cosiness of appearance about her that always tells, even in an indifferent case. you'll say you'll come?" "we have arranged to keep our wedding-day (as far as that goes) at home," said john. "we have made the promise to ourselves these six months. we think, you see, that home--" "bah! what's home?" cried tackleton. "four walls and a ceiling! (why don't you kill that cricket? _i_ would! i always do. i hate their noise.) there are four walls and a ceiling at my house. come to me!" "you kill your crickets, eh?" said john. "scrunch 'em, sir," returned the other, setting his heel heavily on the floor. "you'll say you'll come? it's as much your interest as mine, you know, that the women should persuade each other that they're quiet and contented, and couldn't be better off. i know their way. whatever one woman says, another woman is determined to clinch always. there's that spirit of emulation among 'em, sir, that if your wife says to my wife, 'i'm the happiest woman in the world, and mine's the best husband in the world, and i dote on him,' my wife will say the same to yours, or more, and half believe it." "do you mean to say she don't, then?" asked the carrier. "don't!" cried tackleton with a short, sharp laugh. "don't what?" the carrier had some faint idea of adding, "dote upon you." but, happening to meet the half-closed eye, as it twinkled upon him over the turned-up collar of the cape, which was within an ace of poking it out, he felt it such an unlikely part and parcel of anything to be doted on, that he substituted, "that she don't believe it?" "ah, you dog! you're joking," said tackleton. but the carrier, though slow to understand the full drift of his meaning, eyed him in such a serious manner, that he was obliged to be a little more explanatory. "i have the humour," said tackleton: holding up the fingers of his left hand, and tapping the forefinger, to imply, "there i am, tackleton to wit": "i have the humour, sir, to marry a young wife, and a pretty wife": here he rapped his little finger, to express the bride; not sparingly, but sharply; with a sense of power. "i'm able to gratify that humour, and i do. it's my whim. but--now look there!" he pointed to where dot was sitting, thoughtfully before the fire: leaning her dimpled chin upon her hand, and watching the bright blaze. the carrier looked at her, and then at him, and then at her, and then at him again. "she honours and obeys, no doubt, you know," said tackleton; "and that, as i am not a man of sentiment, is quite enough for _me_. but do you think there's anything more in it?" "i think," observed the carrier, "that i should chuck any man out of window who said there wasn't." "exactly so," returned the other with an unusual alacrity of assent. "to be sure! doubtless you would. of course. i'm certain of it. good night. pleasant dreams!" the carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable and uncertain, in spite of himself. he couldn't help showing it in his manner. "good night, my dear friend!" said tackleton compassionately. "i'm off. we're exactly alike in reality, i see. you won't give us to-morrow evening? well! next day you go out visiting, i know. i'll meet you there, and bring my wife that is to be. it'll do her good. you're agreeable? thankee. what's that?" it was a loud cry from the carrier's wife: a loud, sharp, sudden cry, that made the room ring like a glass vessel. she had risen from her seat, and stood like one transfixed by terror and surprise. the stranger had advanced towards the fire to warm himself, and stood within a short stride of her chair. but quite still. "dot!" cried the carrier. "mary! darling! what's the matter?" they were all about her in a moment. caleb, who had been dozing on the cake-box, in the first imperfect recovery of his suspended presence of mind, seized miss slowboy by the hair of her head, but immediately apologised. "mary!" exclaimed the carrier, supporting her in his arms. "are you ill? what is it? tell me dear!" she only answered by beating her hands together, and falling into a wild fit of laughter. then, sinking from his grasp upon the ground, she covered her face with her apron, and wept bitterly. and then, she laughed again, and then she cried again, and then she said how cold she was, and suffered him to lead her to the fire, where she sat down as before. the old man standing, as before, quite still. "i'm better, john," she said. "i'm quite well now--i----" "john!" but john was on the other side of her. why turn her face towards the strange old gentleman, as if addressing him. was her brain wandering? "only a fancy, john dear--a kind of shock--a something coming suddenly before my eyes--i don't know what it was. it's quite gone, quite gone." "i'm glad it's gone," muttered tackleton, turning the expressive eye all round the room. "i wonder where it's gone, and what it was. humph! caleb, come here! who's that with the grey hair?" "i don't know, sir," returned caleb in a whisper. "never see him before in all my life. a beautiful figure for a nut-cracker; quite a new model. with a screw-jaw opening down into his waistcoat, he'd be lovely." "not ugly enough," said tackleton. "or for a fire-box either," observed caleb in deep contemplation, "what a model! unscrew his head to put the matches in; turn him heels up'ards for the light; and what a fire-box for a gentleman's mantel-shelf, just as he stands!" "not half ugly enough," said tackleton. "nothing in him at all. come! bring that box! all right now, i hope?" "oh, quite gone! quite gone!" said the little woman, waving him hurriedly away. "good night!" "good night!" said tackleton. "good night, john peerybingle! take care how you carry that box, caleb. let it fall, and i'll murder you! dark as pitch, and weather worse than ever, eh? good night!" so, with another sharp look round the room, he went out at the door; followed by caleb with the wedding-cake on his head. the carrier had been so much astounded by his little wife, and so busily engaged in soothing and tending her, that he had scarcely been conscious of the stranger's presence until now, when he again stood there, their only guest. "he don't belong to them, you see," said john. "i must give him a hint to go." "i beg your pardon, friend," said the old gentleman, advancing to him; "the more so as i fear your wife has not been well; but the attendant whom my infirmity," he touched his ears, and shook his head, "renders almost indispensable, not having arrived, i fear there must be some mistake. the bad night which made the shelter of your comfortable cart (may i never have a worse!) so acceptable, is still as bad as ever. would you, in your kindness, suffer me to rent a bed here?" "yes, yes," cried dot. "yes! certainly!" "oh!" said the carrier, surprised by the rapidity of this consent. "well! i don't object; but still i'm not quite sure that----" "hush!" she interrupted. "dear john!" "why, he's stone deaf," urged john. "i know he is, but----yes, sir, certainly. yes, certainly! i'll make him up a bed directly, john." as she hurried off to do it, the flutter of her spirits, and the agitation of her manner, were so strange, that the carrier stood looking after her, quite confounded. "did its mothers make it up a beds, then!" cried miss slowboy to the baby; "and did its hair grow brown and curly when its caps was lifted off, and frighten it, a precious pets, a sitting by the fires!" with that unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles, which is often incidental to a state of doubt and confusion, the carrier, as he walked slowly to and fro, found himself mentally repeating even these absurd words, many times. so many times, that he got them by heart, and was still conning them over and over, like a lesson, when tilly, after administering as much friction to the little bald head with her hand as she thought wholesome (according to the practice of nurses), had once more tied the baby's cap on. "and frighten it, a precious pets, a sitting by the fires. what frightened dot, i wonder?" mused the carrier, pacing to and fro. he scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the toy merchant, and yet they filled him with a vague, indefinite uneasiness. for tackleton was quick and sly; and he had that painful sense, himself, of being a man of slow perception, that a broken hint was always worrying to him. he certainly had no intention in his mind of linking anything that tackleton had said with the unusual conduct of his wife, but the two subjects of reflection came into his mind together, and he could not keep them asunder. the bed was soon made ready; and the visitor, declining all refreshment but a cup of tea, retired. then, dot--quite well again, she said, quite well again--arranged the great chair in the chimney-corner for her husband; filled his pipe and gave it him; and took her usual little stool beside him on the hearth. she always _would_ sit on that little stool. i think she must have had a kind of notion that it was a coaxing, wheedling little stool. she was, out and out, the very best filler of a pipe, i should say, in the four quarters of the globe. to see her put that chubby little finger in the bowl, and then blow down the pipe to clear the tube, and, when she had done so, affect to think that there was really something in the tube, and blow a dozen times, and hold it to her eye like a telescope, with a most provoking twist in her capital little face, as she looked down it, was quite a brilliant thing. as to the tobacco, she was perfect mistress of the subject; and her lighting of the pipe, with a wisp of paper, when the carrier had it in his mouth--going so very near his nose, and yet not scorching it--was art, high art. and the cricket and the kettle, turning up again, acknowledged it! the bright fire, blazing up again, acknowledged it! the little mower on the clock, in his unheeded work, acknowledged it! the carrier, in his smoothing forehead and expanding face, acknowledged it, the readiest of all. and as he soberly and thoughtfully puffed at his old pipe, and as the dutch clock ticked, and as the red fire gleamed, and as the cricket chirped, that genius of his hearth and home (for such the cricket was) came out, in fairy shape, into the room, and summoned many forms of home about him. dots of all ages and all sizes filled the chamber. dots who were merry children, running on before him, gathering flowers in the fields; coy dots, half shrinking from, half yielding to, the pleading of his own rough image; newly-married dots, alighting at the door, and taking wondering possession of the household keys; motherly little dots, attended by fictitious slowboys, bearing babies to be christened; matronly dots, still young and blooming, watching dots of daughters, as they danced at rustic balls; fat dots, encircled and beset by troops of rosy grandchildren; withered dots, who leaned on sticks, and tottered as they crept along. old carriers, too, appeared with blind old boxers lying at their feet; and newer carts with younger drivers ("peerybingle brothers" on the tilt); and sick old carriers, tended by the gentlest hands; and graves of dead and gone old carriers, green in the churchyard. and as the cricket showed him all these things--he saw them plainly, though his eyes were fixed upon the fire--the carrier's heart grew light and happy, and he thanked his household gods with all his might, and cared no more for gruff and tackleton than you do. * * * * * but what was that young figure of a man, which the same fairy cricket set so near her stool, and which remained there, singly and alone? why did it linger still, so near her, with its arm upon the chimney-piece, ever repeating "married! and not to me!" oh, dot! oh, failing dot! there is no place for it in all your husband's visions. why has its shadow fallen on his hearth? chirp the second caleb plummer and his blind daughter lived all alone by themselves, as the story books say--and my blessing, with yours, to back it i hope, on the story books, for saying anything in this work-a-day world!--caleb plummer and his blind daughter lived all alone by themselves, in a little cracked nutshell of a wooden house, which was, in truth, no better than a pimple on the prominent red-brick nose of gruff and tackleton. the premises of gruff and tackleton were the great feature of the street; but you might have knocked down caleb plummer's dwelling with a hammer or two, and carried off the pieces in a cart. if any one had done the dwelling-house of caleb plummer the honour to miss it after such an inroad, it would have been, no doubt, to commend its demolition as a vast improvement. it stuck to the premises of gruff and tackleton like a barnacle to a ship's keel, or a snail to a door, or a little bunch of toadstools to the stem of a tree. but it was the germ from which the full-grown trunk of gruff and tackleton had sprung; and, under its crazy roof, the gruff before last had, in a small way, made toys for a generation of old boys and girls, who had played with them, and found them out, and broken them, and gone to sleep. i have said that caleb and his poor blind daughter lived here. i should have said that caleb lived here, and his poor blind daughter somewhere else--in an enchanted home of caleb's furnishing, where scarcity and shabbiness were not, and trouble never entered. caleb was no sorcerer; but in the only magic art that still remains to us, the magic of devoted, deathless love, nature had been the mistress of his study; and, from her teaching, all the wonder came. the blind girl never knew that ceilings were discoloured, walls blotched and bare of plaster here and there, high crevices unstopped and widening every day, beams mouldering and tending downward. the blind girl never knew that iron was rusting, wood rotting, paper peeling off; the size, and shape, and true proportion of the dwelling, withering away. the blind girl never knew that ugly shapes of delf and earthenware were on the board; that sorrow and faint-heartedness were in the house; that caleb's scanty hairs were turning greyer and more grey before her sightless face. the blind girl never knew they had a master, cold, exacting, and uninterested--never knew that tackleton was tackleton, in short; but lived in the belief of an eccentric humorist, who loved to have his jest with them, and who, while he was the guardian angel of their lives, disdained to hear one word of thankfulness. and all was caleb's doing; all the doing of her simple father! but he, too, had a cricket on his hearth; and listening sadly to its music when the motherless blind child was very young that spirit had inspired him with the thought that even her great deprivation might be almost changed into a blessing, and the girl made happy by these little means. for all the cricket tribe are potent spirits, even though the people who hold converse with them do not know it (which is frequently the case), and there are not in the unseen world voices more gentle and more true, that may be so implicitly relied on, or that are so certain to give none but tenderest counsel, as the voices in which the spirits of the fireside and the hearth address themselves to humankind. caleb and his daughter were at work together in their usual working-room, which served them for their ordinary living-room as well; and a strange place it was. there were houses in it, finished and unfinished, for dolls of all stations in life. suburban tenements for dolls of moderate means; kitchens and single apartments for dolls of the lower classes; capital town residences for dolls of high estate. some of these establishments were already furnished according to estimate, with a view to the convenience of dolls of limited income; others could be fitted on the most expensive scale, at a moment's notice, from whole shelves of chairs and tables, sofas, bedsteads, and upholstery. the nobility and gentry and public in general, for whose accommodation these tenements were designed, lay here and there, in baskets, staring straight up at the ceiling; but in denoting their degrees in society, and confining them to their respective stations (which experience shows to be lamentably difficult in real life), the makers of these dolls had far improved on nature, who is often froward and perverse; for they, not resting on such arbitrary marks as satin, cotton print, and bits of rag, had superadded striking personal differences which allowed of no mistake. thus, the doll-lady of distinction had wax limbs of perfect symmetry; but only she and her compeers. the next grade in the social scale being made of leather, and the next of coarse linen stuff. as to the common people, they had just so many matches out of tinder-boxes for their arms and legs, and there they were--established in their sphere at once, beyond the possibility of getting out of it. there were various other samples of his handicraft besides dolls in caleb plummer's room. there were noah's arks, in which the birds and beasts were an uncommonly tight fit, i assure you; though they could be crammed in, anyhow, at the roof, and rattled and shaken into the smallest compass. by a bold poetical licence, most of these noah's arks had knockers on the doors; inconsistent appendages, perhaps, as suggestive of morning callers and a postman, yet a pleasant finish to the outside of the building. there were scores of melancholy little carts, which, when the wheels went round, performed most doleful music. many small fiddles, drums, and other instruments of torture; no end of cannon, shields, swords, spears, and guns. there were little tumblers in red breeches, incessantly swarming up high obstacles of red tape, and coming down, head first, on the other side; and there were innumerable old gentlemen of respectable, not to say venerable appearance, insanely flying over horizontal pegs, inserted, for the purpose, in their own street-doors. there were beasts of all sorts; horses, in particular, of every breed, from the spotted barrel on four pegs with a small tippet for a mane, to the thorough-bred rocker on his highest mettle. as it would have been hard to count the dozens upon dozens of grotesque figures that were ever ready to commit all sorts of absurdities on the turning of a handle, so it would have been no easy task to mention any human folly, vice, or weakness that had not its type, immediate or remote, in caleb plummer's room. and not in an exaggerated form, for very little handles will move men and women to as strange performances as any toy was ever made to undertake. in the midst of all these objects, caleb and his daughter sat at work. the blind girl busy as a doll's dressmaker; caleb painting and glazing the four-pair front of a desirable family mansion. the care imprinted in the lines of caleb's face, and his absorbed and dreamy manner, which would have sat well on some alchemist or abstruse student, were at first sight an odd contrast to his occupation and the trivialities about him. but trivial things, invented and pursued for bread, become very serious matters of fact: and, apart from this consideration, i am not at all prepared to say, myself, that if caleb had been a lord chamberlain, or a member of parliament, or a lawyer, or even a great speculator, he would have dealt in toys one whit less whimsical, while i have a very great doubt whether they would have been as harmless. "so you were out in the rain last night, father, in your beautiful new great-coat," said caleb's daughter. "in my beautiful new great-coat," answered caleb, glancing towards a clothes-line in the room, on which the sackcloth garment previously described was carefully hung up to dry. "how glad i am you bought it, father!" "and of such a tailor too," said caleb. "quite a fashionable tailor. it's too good for me." the blind girl rested from her work, and laughed with delight. "too good, father! what can be too good for you?" "i'm half ashamed to wear it, though," said caleb, watching the effect of what he said upon her brightening face, "upon my word! when i hear the boys and people say behind me, 'halloa! here's a swell!' i don't know which way to look. and when the beggar wouldn't go away last night; and, when i said i was a very common man, said, 'no, your honour! bless your honour, don't say that!' i was quite ashamed. i really felt as if i hadn't a right to wear it." happy blind girl! how merry she was in her exultation! "i see you, father," she said, clasping her hands, "as plainly as if i had the eyes i never want when you are with me. a blue coat----" "bright blue," said caleb. "yes, yes! bright blue!" exclaimed the girl, turning up her radiant face; "the colour i can just remember in the blessed sky! you told me it was blue before! a bright blue coat----" "made loose to the figure," suggested caleb. "yes! loose to the figure!" cried the blind girl, laughing heartily; "and in it, you, dear father, with your merry eye, your smiling face, your free step, and your dark hair--looking so young and handsome!" "halloa! halloa!" said caleb. "i shall be vain presently!" "_i_ think you are already," cried the blind girl, pointing at him in her glee. "i know you, father! ha, ha, ha! i've found you out, you see!" how different the picture in her mind, from caleb, as he sat observing her! she had spoken of his free step. she was right in that. for years and years he had never once crossed that threshold at his own slow pace, but with a footfall counterfeited for her ear; and never had he, when his heart was heaviest, forgotten the light tread that was to render hers so cheerful and courageous! heaven knows! but i think caleb's vague bewilderment of manner may have half originated in his having confused himself about himself and everything around him, for the love of his blind daughter. how could the little man be otherwise than bewildered, after labouring for so many years to destroy his own identity, and that of all the objects that had any bearing on it? "there we are," said caleb, falling back a pace or two to form the better judgment of his work; "as near the real thing as sixpenn'orth of halfpence is to sixpence. what a pity that the whole front of the house opens at once! if there was only a staircase in it now, and regular doors to the rooms to go in at! but that's the worst of my calling, i'm always deluding myself, and swindling myself." "you are speaking quite softly. you are not tired, father?" "tired!" echoed caleb with a great burst of animation. "what should tire me, bertha? _i_ was never tired. what does it mean?" to give the greater force to his words, he checked himself in an involuntary imitation of two half-length stretching and yawning figures on the mantel-shelf, who were represented as in one eternal state of weariness from the waist upwards; and hummed a fragment of a song. it was a bacchanalian song, something about a sparkling bowl. he sang it with an assumption of a devil-may-care voice, that made his face a thousand times more meagre and more thoughtful than ever. "what! you're singing, are you?" said tackleton, putting his head in at the door. "go it! _i_ can't sing." nobody would have suspected him of it. he hadn't what is generally termed a singing face, by any means. "i can't afford to sing," said tackleton. "i'm glad _you_ can. i hope you can afford to work too. hardly time for both, i should think?" "if you could only see him, bertha, how he's winking at me!" whispered caleb. "such a man to joke! you'd think, if you didn't know him, he was in earnest--wouldn't you now?" the blind girl smiled and nodded. "the bird that can sing and won't sing must be made to sing, they say," grumbled tackleton. "what about the owl that can't sing, and oughtn't to sing, and will sing; is there anything that _he_ should be made to do?" "the extent to which he's winking at this moment!" whispered caleb to his daughter. "oh, my gracious!" "always merry and light-hearted with us!" cried the smiling bertha. "oh! you're there, are you?" answered tackleton. "poor idiot!" he really did believe she was an idiot; and he founded the belief, i can't say whether consciously or not, upon her being fond of him. "well! and being there,--how are you?" said tackleton in his grudging way. "oh! well; quite well! and as happy as even you can wish me to be. as happy as you would make the whole world, if you could!" "poor idiot!" muttered tackleton. "no gleam of reason. not a gleam!" the blind girl took his hand and kissed it; held it for a moment in her own two hands; and laid her cheek against it tenderly before releasing it. there was such unspeakable affection and such fervent gratitude in the act, that tackleton himself was moved to say, in a milder growl than usual: "what's the matter now?" "i stood it close beside my pillow when i went to sleep last night, and remembered it in my dreams. and when the day broke, and the glorious red sun--the _red_ sun, father?" "red in the mornings and the evenings, bertha," said poor caleb with a woeful glance at his employer. "when it rose, and the bright light i almost fear to strike myself against in walking, came into the room, i turned the little tree towards it, and blessed heaven for making things so precious, and blessed you for sending them to cheer me!" "bedlam broke loose!" said tackleton under his breath. "we shall arrive at the strait-waistcoat and mufflers soon. we're getting on!" caleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other, stared vacantly before him while his daughter spoke, as if he really were uncertain (i believe he was) whether tackleton had done anything to deserve her thanks or not. if he could have been a perfectly free agent at that moment, required, on pain of death, to kick the toy merchant, or fall at his feet, according to his merits, i believe it would have been an even chance which course he would have taken. yet caleb knew that with his own hands he had brought the little rose-tree home for her so carefully, and that with his own lips he had forged the innocent deception which should help to keep her from suspecting how much, how very much, he every day denied himself, that she might be happier. "bertha!" said tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a little cordiality. "come here." "oh, i can come straight to you! you needn't guide me!" she rejoined. "shall i tell you a secret, bertha?" "if you will!" she answered eagerly. how bright the darkened face! how adorned with light the listening head! "this is the day on which little what's-her-name, the spoilt child, peerybingle's wife, pays her regular visit to you--makes her fantastic picnic here, an't it?" said tackleton with a strong expression of distaste for the whole concern. "yes," replied bertha. "this is the day." "i thought so," said tackleton. "i should like to join the party." "do you hear that, father?" cried the blind girl in an ecstasy. "yes, yes, i hear it," murmured caleb with the fixed look of a sleep-walker; "but i don't believe it. it's one of my lies, i've no doubt." "you see i--i want to bring the peerybingles a little more into company with may fielding," said tackleton. "i'm going to be married to may." "married!" cried the blind girl, starting from him. "she's such a con-founded idiot," muttered tackleton, "that i was afraid she'd never comprehend me. ah, bertha! married! church, parson, clerk, beadle, glass coach, bells, breakfast, bridecake, favours, marrow-bones, cleavers, and all the rest of the tomfoolery. a wedding, you know; a wedding. don't you know what a wedding is?" "i know," replied the blind girl in a gentle tone. "i understand!" "do you?" muttered tackleton. "it's more than i expected. well! on that account i want to join the party, and to bring may and her mother. i'll send in a little something or other, before the afternoon. a cold leg of mutton, or some comfortable trifle of that sort. you'll expect me?" "yes," she answered. she had drooped her head, and turned away; and so stood, with her hands crossed, musing. "i don't think you will," muttered tackleton, looking at her; "for you seem to have forgotten all about it already. caleb!" "i may venture to say i'm here, i suppose," thought caleb. "sir!" "take care she don't forget what i've been saying to her." "_she_ never forgets," returned caleb. "it's one of the few things she an't clever in." "every man thinks his own geese swans," observed the toy merchant with a shrug. "poor devil!" having delivered himself of which remark with infinite contempt, old gruff and tackleton withdrew. bertha remained where he had left her, lost in meditation. the gaiety had vanished from her downcast face, and it was very sad. three or four times she shook her head, as if bewailing some remembrance or some loss; but her sorrowful reflections found no vent in words. it was not until caleb had been occupied some time in yoking a team of horses to a waggon by the summary process of nailing the harness to the vital parts of their bodies, that she drew near to his working-stool, and, sitting down beside him, said: "father, i am lonely in the dark. i want my eyes, my patient, willing eyes." "here they are," said caleb. "always ready. they are more yours than mine, bertha, any hour in the four-and-twenty. what shall your eyes do for you, dear?" "look round the room, father." "all right," said caleb. "no sooner said than done, bertha." "tell me about it." "it's much the same as usual," said caleb. "homely, but very snug. the gay colours on the walls; the bright flowers on the plates and dishes; the shining wood, where there are beams or panels; the general cheerfulness and neatness of the building,--make it very pretty." cheerful and neat it was, wherever bertha's hands could busy themselves. but nowhere else were cheerfulness and neatness possible in the old crazy shed which caleb's fancy so transformed. "you have your working dress on, and are not so gallant as when you wear the handsome coat?" said bertha, touching him. "not quite so gallant," answered caleb. "pretty brisk, though." "father," said the blind girl, drawing close to his side, and stealing one arm round his neck, "tell me something about may. she is very fair?" "she is indeed," said caleb. and she was indeed. it was quite a rare thing to caleb not to have to draw on his invention. "her hair is dark," said bertha pensively, "darker than mine. her voice is sweet and musical, i know. i have often loved to hear it. her shape----" "there's not a doll's in all the room to equal it," said caleb. "and her eyes!----" he stopped; for bertha had drawn closer round his neck, and, from the arm that clung about him, came a warning pressure which he understood too well. he coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and then fell back upon the song about the sparkling bowl, his infallible resource in all such difficulties. "our friend, father, our benefactor. i am never tired, you know, of hearing about him.--now, was i ever?" she said hastily. "of course not," answered caleb, "and with reason." "ah! with how much reason!" cried the blind girl. with such fervency, that caleb, though his motives were so pure, could not endure to meet her face; but dropped his eyes, as if she could have read in them his innocent deceit. "then tell me again about him, dear father," said bertha. "many times again! his face is benevolent, kind, and tender. honest and true, i am sure it is. the manly heart that tries to cloak all favours with a show of roughness and unwillingness, beats in its every look and glance." "and makes it noble," added caleb in his quiet desperation. "and makes it noble," cried the blind girl. "he is older than may, father." "ye-es," said caleb reluctantly. "he's a little older than may. but that don't signify." "oh, father, yes! to be his patient companion in infirmity and age; to be his gentle nurse in sickness, and his constant friend in suffering and sorrow; to know no weariness in working for his sake; to watch him, tend him, sit beside his bed and talk to him awake, and pray for him asleep; what privileges these would be! what opportunities for proving all her truth and her devotion to him! would she do all this, dear father?" "no doubt of it," said caleb. "i love her, father; i can love her from my soul!" exclaimed the blind girl. and, saying so, she laid her poor blind face on caleb's shoulder, and so wept and wept, that he was almost sorry to have brought that tearful happiness upon her. in the meantime there had been a pretty sharp commotion at john peerybingle's, for little mrs. peerybingle naturally couldn't think of going anywhere without the baby; and to get the baby under way took time. not that there was much of the baby, speaking of it as a thing of weight and measure, but there was a vast deal to do about and about it, and it all had to be done by easy stages. for instance, when the baby was got, by hook and by crook, to a certain point of dressing, and you might have rationally supposed that another touch or two would finish him off, and turn him out a tiptop baby challenging the world, he was unexpectedly extinguished in a flannel cap, and hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so to speak) between two blankets for the best part of an hour. from this state of inaction he was then recalled, shining very much and roaring violently, to partake of--well? i would rather say, if you'll permit me to speak generally--of a slight repast. after which he went to sleep again. mrs. peerybingle took advantage of this interval, to make herself as smart in a small way as ever you saw anybody in all your life; and, during the same short truce, miss slowboy insinuated herself into a spencer of a fashion so surprising and ingenious, that it had no connection with herself, or anything else in the universe, but was a shrunken, dog's-eared, independent fact, pursuing its lonely course without the least regard to anybody. by this time, the baby, being all alive again, was invested, by the united efforts of mrs. peerybingle and miss slowboy, with a cream-coloured mantle for its body, and a sort of nankeen raised pie for its head; and so, in course of time, they all three got down to the door, where the old horse had already taken more than the full value of his day's toll out of the turnpike trust, by tearing up the road with his impatient autographs; and whence boxer might be dimly seen in the remote perspective, standing looking back, and tempting him to come on without orders. as to a chair, or anything of that kind for helping mrs. peerybingle into the cart, you know very little of john, if you think _that_ was necessary. before you could have seen him lift her from the ground, there she was in her place, fresh and rosy, saying, "john! how _can_ you? think of tilly!" if i might be allowed to mention a young lady's legs on any terms, i would observe of miss slowboy's that there was a fatality about them which rendered them singularly liable to be grazed; and that she never effected the smallest ascent or descent without recording the circumstance upon them with a notch, as robinson crusoe marked the days upon his wooden calendar. but, as this might be considered ungenteel, i'll think of it. "john! you've got the basket with the veal and ham pie and things, and the bottles of beer?" said dot. "if you haven't you must turn round again this very minute." "you're a nice little article," returned the carrier, "to be talking about turning round, after keeping me a full quarter of an hour behind my time." "i am sorry for it, john," said dot in a great bustle, "but i really could not think of going to bertha's--i would not do it, john, on any account--without the veal and ham pie and things, and the bottles of beer. way!" this monosyllable was addressed to the horse, who didn't mind it at all. "oh, _do_ way, john!" said mrs. peerybingle. "please!" "it'll be time enough to do that," returned john, "when i begin to leave things behind me. the basket's safe enough." "what a hard-hearted monster you must be, john, not to have said so at once, and save me such a turn! i declare i wouldn't go to bertha's without the veal and ham pie and things, and the bottles of beer, for any money. regularly once a fortnight ever since we have been married, john, have we made our little picnic there. if anything was to go wrong with it, i should almost think we were never to be lucky again." "it was a kind thought in the first instance," said the carrier; "and i honour you for it, little woman." "my dear john!" replied dot, turning very red. "don't talk about honouring _me_. good gracious!" "by-the-bye"--observed the carrier--"that old gentleman----" again so visibly and instantly embarrassed! "he's an odd fish," said the carrier, looking straight along the road before them. "i can't make him out. i don't believe there's any harm in him." "none at all. i'm--i'm sure there's none at all." "yes," said the carrier, with his eyes attracted to her face by the great earnestness of her manner. "i am glad you feel so certain of it, because it's a confirmation to me. it's curious that he should have taken it into his head to ask leave to go on lodging with us; an't it? things come about so strangely." "so very strangely," she rejoined in a low voice, scarcely audible. "however, he's a good-natured old gentleman," said john, "and pays as a gentleman, and i think his word is to be relied upon, like a gentleman's. i had quite a long talk with him this morning: he can hear me better already, he says, as he gets more used to my voice. he told me a great deal about himself, and i told him a good deal about myself, and a rare lot of questions he asked me. i gave him information about my having two beats, you know, in my business; one day to the right from our house and back again; another day to the left from our house and back again (for he's a stranger, and don't know the names of places about here); and he seemed quite pleased. 'why, then i shall be returning home to-night your way,' he says, 'when i thought you'd be coming in an exactly opposite direction. that's capital! i may trouble you for another lift, perhaps, but i'll engage not to fall so sound asleep again.' he _was_ sound asleep, sure-ly!--dot! what are you thinking of?" "thinking of, john? i--i was listening to you." "oh! that's all right!" said the honest carrier. "i was afraid, from the look of your face, that i had gone rambling on so long as to set you thinking about something else. i was very near it, i'll be bound." dot making no reply, they jogged on, for some little time, in silence. but, it was not easy to remain silent very long in john peerybingle's cart, for everybody on the road had something to say. though it might only be "how are you?" and, indeed, it was very often nothing else, still, to give that back again in the right spirit of cordiality, required, not merely a nod and a smile, but as wholesome an action of the lungs withal as a long-winded parliamentary speech. sometimes, passengers on foot, or horseback, plodded on a little way beside the cart, for the express purpose of having a chat; and then there was a great deal to be said on both sides. then, boxer gave occasion to more good-natured recognitions of, and by, the carrier, than half-a-dozen christians could have done! everybody knew him all along the road--especially the fowls and pigs, who, when they saw him approaching, with his body all on one side, and his ears pricked up inquisitively, and that knob of a tail making the most of itself in the air, immediately withdrew into remote back-settlements, without waiting for the honour of a nearer acquaintance. he had business elsewhere; going down all the turnings, looking into all the wells, bolting in and out of all the cottages, dashing into the midst of all the dame schools, fluttering all the pigeons, magnifying the tails of all the cats, and trotting into the public-houses like a regular customer. wherever he went, somebody or other might have been heard to cry, "halloa! here's boxer!" and out came that somebody forthwith, accompanied by at least two or three other somebodies, to give john peerybingle and his pretty wife good day. the packages and parcels for the errand cart were numerous; and there were many stoppages to take them in and give them out, which were not by any means the worst parts of the journey. some people were so full of expectation about their parcels, and other people were so full of wonder about their parcels, and other people were so full of inexhaustible directions about their parcels, and john had such a lively interest in all the parcels, that it was as good as a play. likewise, there were articles to carry, which required to be considered and discussed, and in reference to the adjustment and disposition of which councils had to be holden by the carrier and the senders: at which boxer usually assisted, in short fits of the closest attention, and long fits of tearing round and round the assembled sages, and barking himself hoarse. of all these little incidents, dot was the amused and open-eyed spectatress from her chair in the cart; and as she sat there, looking on--a charming little portrait framed to admiration by the tilt--there was no lack of nudgings and glancings and whisperings and envyings among the younger men. and this delighted john the carrier beyond measure; for he was proud to have his little wife admired, knowing that she didn't mind it--that, if anything, she rather liked it perhaps. the trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the january weather; and was raw and cold. but who cared for such trifles? not dot, decidedly. not tilly slowboy, for she deemed sitting in a cart, on any terms, to be the highest point of human joys; the crowning circumstance of earthly hope. not the baby, i'll be sworn; for it's not in baby nature to be warmer or more sound asleep, though its capacity is great in both respects, than that blessed young peerybingle was, all the way. you couldn't see very far in the fog, of course; but you could see a great deal! it's astonishing how much you may see in a thicker fog than that, if you will only take the trouble to look for it. why, even to sit watching for the fairyrings in the fields, and for the patches of hoar frost still lingering in the shade, near hedges and by trees, was a pleasant occupation, to make no mention of the unexpected shapes in which the trees themselves came starting out of the mist, and glided into it again. the hedges were tangled and bare, and waved a multitude of blighted garlands in the wind; but there was no discouragement in this. it was agreeable to contemplate; for it made the fireside warmer in possession, and the summer greener in expectancy. the river looked chilly; but it was in motion, and moving at a good pace--which was a great point. the canal was rather slow and torpid; that must be admitted. never mind. it would freeze the sooner when the frost set fairly in, and then there would be skating and sliding; and the heavy old barges, frozen up somewhere near a wharf, would smoke their rusty iron chimney-pipes all day, and have a lazy time of it. in one place there was a great mound of weeds or stubble burning; and they watched the fire, so white in the daytime, flaring through the fog, with only here and there a dash of red in it, until, in consequence, as she observed, of the smoke "getting up her nose," miss slowboy choked--she could do anything of that sort, on the smallest provocation--and woke the baby, who wouldn't go to sleep again. but boxer, who was in advance some quarter of a mile or so, had already passed the outposts of the town, and gained the corner of the street where caleb and his daughter lived; and, long before they had reached the door, he and the blind girl were on the pavement waiting to receive them. boxer, by the way, made certain delicate distinctions of his own, in his communication with bertha, which persuade me fully that he knew her to be blind. he never sought to attract her attention by looking at her, as he often did with other people, but touched her invariably. what experience he could ever have had of blind people or blind dogs i don't know. he had never lived with a blind master; nor had mr. boxer the elder, nor mrs. boxer, nor any of his respectable family on either side, ever been visited with blindness, that i am aware of. he may have found it out for himself, perhaps, but he had got hold of it somehow; and therefore he had hold of bertha too, by the skirt, and kept hold, until mrs. peerybingle and the baby, and miss slowboy and the basket, were all got safely within doors. may fielding was already come; and so was her mother--a little querulous chip of an old lady with a peevish face, who, in right of having preserved a waist like a bedpost, was supposed to be a most transcendent figure; and who, in consequence of having once been better off, or of labouring under an impression that she might have been, if something had happened which never did happen, and seemed to have never been particularly likely to come to pass--but it's all the same--was very genteel and patronising indeed. gruff and tackleton was also there, doing the agreeable, with the evident sensation of being as perfectly at home, and as unquestionably in his own element, as a fresh young salmon on the top of the great pyramid. "may! my dear old friend!" cried dot, running up to meet her. "what a happiness to see you!" her old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as glad as she; and it really was, if you'll believe me, quite a pleasant sight to see them embrace. tackleton was a man of taste, beyond all question. may was very pretty. you know sometimes, when you are used to a pretty face, how, when it comes into contact and comparison with another pretty face, it seems for the moment to be homely and faded, and hardly to deserve the high opinion you have had of it. now, this was not at all the case, either with dot or may; for may's face set off dot's, and dot's face set off may's, so naturally and agreeably, that, as john peerybingle was very near saying when he came into the room, they ought to have been born sisters--which was the only improvement you could have suggested. tackleton had brought his leg of mutton, and, wonderful to relate, a tart besides--but we don't mind a little dissipation when our brides are in the case; we don't get married every day--and, in addition to these dainties, there were the veal and ham pie, and "things," as mrs. peerybingle called them; which were chiefly nuts and oranges, and cakes, and such small deer. when the repast was set forth on the board, flanked by caleb's contribution, which was a great wooden bowl of smoking potatoes (he was prohibited, by solemn compact, from producing any other viands), tackleton led his intended mother-in-law to the post of honour. for the better gracing of this place at the high festival, the majestic old soul had adorned herself with a cap, calculated to inspire the thoughtless with sentiments of awe. she also wore her gloves. but let us be genteel, or die! caleb sat next his daughter; dot and her old schoolfellow were side by side; the good carrier took care of the bottom of the table. miss slowboy was isolated, for the time being, from every article of furniture but the chair she sat on, that she might have nothing else to knock the baby's head against. as tilly stared about her at the dolls and toys, they stared at her and at the company. the venerable old gentlemen at the street-doors (who were all in full action) showed especial interest in the party, pausing occasionally before leaping, as if they were listening to the conversation, and then plunging wildly over and over, a great many times, without halting for breath--as in a frantic state of delight with the whole proceedings. certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to have a fiendish joy in the contemplation of tackleton's discomfiture, they had good reason to be satisfied. tackleton couldn't get on at all; and the more cheerful his intended bride became in dot's society, the less he liked it, though he had brought them together for that purpose. for he was a regular dog in the manger, was tackleton; and, when they laughed and he couldn't, he took it into his head, immediately, that they must be laughing at him. "ah, may!" said dot. "dear, dear, what changes! to talk of those merry school days makes one young again." "why, you an't particularly old at any time, are you?" said tackleton. "look at my sober, plodding husband there," returned dot. "he adds twenty years to my age at least. don't you, john?" "forty," john replied. "how many _you_'ll add to mary's, i am sure i don't know," said dot, laughing. "but she can't be much less than a hundred years of age on her next birthday." "ha, ha!" laughed tackleton. hollow as a drum that laugh, though. and he looked as if he could have twisted dot's neck comfortably. "dear, dear!" said dot. "only to remember how we used to talk, at school, about the husbands we would choose. i don't know how young, and how handsome, and how gay, and how lively mine was not to be! and as to may's!--ah dear! i don't know whether to laugh or cry, when i think what silly girls we were." may seemed to know which to do; for the colour flashed into her face, and tears stood in her eyes. "even the very persons themselves--real live young men--we fixed on sometimes," said dot. "we little thought how things would come about. i never fixed on john, i'm sure; i never so much as thought of him. and, if i had told you you were ever to be married to mr. tackleton, why, you'd have slapped me. wouldn't you, may?" though may didn't say yes, she certainly didn't say no, or express no, by any means. tackleton laughed--quite shouted, he laughed so loud. john peerybingle laughed too, in his ordinary good-natured and contented manner; but his was a mere whisper of a laugh to tackleton's. "you couldn't help yourselves, for all that. you couldn't resist us, you see," said tackleton. "here we are! here we are! where are your gay young bridegrooms now?" "some of them are dead," said dot; "and some of them forgotten. some of them, if they could stand among us at this moment, would not believe we were the same creatures; would not believe that what they saw and heard was real, and we _could_ forget them so. no! they would not believe one word of it!" "why, dot!" exclaimed the carrier. "little woman!" she had spoken with such earnestness and fire, that she stood in need of some recalling to herself, without doubt. her husband's check was very gentle, for he merely interfered, as he supposed, to shield old tackleton; but it proved effectual, for she stopped, and said no more. there was an uncommon agitation, even in her silence, which the wary tackleton, who had brought his half-shut eye to bear upon her, noted closely, and remembered to some purpose too. may uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite still, with her eyes cast down, and made no sign of interest in what had passed. the good lady her mother now interposed, observing, in the first instance, that girls were girls, and bygones bygones, and that, so long as young people were young and thoughtless, they would probably conduct themselves like young and thoughtless persons: with two or three other positions of a no less sound and incontrovertible character. she then remarked, in a devout spirit, that she thanked heaven she had always found in her daughter may a dutiful and obedient child: for which she took no credit to herself, though she had every reason to believe it was entirely owing to herself. with regard to mr. tackleton, she said, that he was in a moral point of view an undeniable individual, and that he was in an eligible point of view a son-in-law to be desired, no one in their senses could doubt. (she was very emphatic here.) with regard to the family into which he was so soon about, after some solicitation, to be admitted, she believed mr. tackleton knew that, although reduced in purse, it had some pretensions to gentility; and that if certain circumstances, not wholly unconnected, she would go so far as to say, with the indigo trade, but to which she would not more particularly refer, had happened differently, it might perhaps have been in possession of wealth. she then remarked that she would not allude to the past, and would not mention that her daughter had for some time rejected the suit of mr. tackleton; and that she would not say a great many other things which she did say at great length. finally, she delivered it as the general result of her observation and experience, that those marriages in which there was least of what was romantically and sillily called love, were always the happiest; and that she anticipated the greatest possible amount of bliss--not rapturous bliss; but the solid, steady-going article--from the approaching nuptials. she concluded by informing the company that to-morrow was the day she had lived for expressly; and that, when it was over, she would desire nothing better than to be packed up and disposed of in any genteel place of burial. as these remarks were quite unanswerable--which is the happy property of all remarks that are sufficiently wide of the purpose--they changed the current of the conversation, and diverted the general attention to the veal and ham pie, the cold mutton, the potatoes, and the tart. in order that the bottled beer might not be slighted, john peerybingle proposed to-morrow: the wedding-day; and called upon them to drink a bumper to it, before he proceeded on his journey. for you ought to know that he only rested there, and gave the old horse a bait. he had to go some four or five miles farther on; and, when he returned in the evening, he called for dot, and took another rest on his way home. this was the order of the day on all the picnic occasions, and had been ever since their institution. there were two persons present, besides the bride and bridegroom elect, who did but indifferent honour to the toast. one of these was dot, too flushed and discomposed to adapt herself to any small occurrence of the moment; the other, bertha, who rose up hurriedly before the rest, and left the table. "good-bye!" said stout john peerybingle, pulling on his dreadnought coat. "i shall be back at the old time. good-bye all!" "good-bye, john," returned caleb. he seemed to say it by rote, and to wave his hand in the same unconscious manner; for he stood observing bertha with an anxious wondering face, that never altered its expression. "good-bye, young shaver!" said the jolly carrier, bending down to kiss the child; which tilly slowboy, now intent upon her knife and fork, had deposited asleep (and, strange to say, without damage) in a little cot of bertha's furnishing; "good-bye! time will come, i suppose, when _you_'ll turn out into the cold, my little friend, and leave your old father to enjoy his pipe and his rheumatics in the chimney-corner; eh? where's dot?" "i'm here, john!" she said, starting. "come, come!" returned the carrier, clapping his sounding hands. "where's the pipe?" "i quite forgot the pipe, john." forgot the pipe! was such a wonder ever heard of? she! forgot the pipe! "i'll--i'll fill it directly. it's soon done." but it was not so soon done, either. it lay in the usual place--the carrier's dreadnought pocket--with the little pouch, her own work, from which she was used to fill it; but her hand shook so, that she entangled it (and yet her hand was small enough to have come out easily, i am sure), and bungled terribly. the filling of the pipe and lighting it, those little offices in which i have commended her discretion, were vilely done from first to last. during the whole process, tackleton stood looking on maliciously with the half-closed eye; which, whenever it met hers--or caught it, for it can hardly be said to have ever met another eye: rather being a kind of trap to snatch it up--augmented her confusion in a most remarkable degree. "why, what a clumsy dot you are this afternoon!" said john. "i could have done it better myself, i verily believe!" with these good-natured words, he strode away, and presently was heard, in company with boxer, and the old horse, and the cart, making lively music down the road. what time the dreamy caleb still stood, watching his blind daughter, with the same expression on his face. "bertha!" said caleb, softly. "what has happened? how changed you are, my darling, in a few hours--since this morning! _you_ silent and dull all day! what is it? tell me!" "oh, father, father!" cried the blind girl, bursting into tears. "oh, my hard, hard fate!" caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered her. "but think how cheerful and how happy you have been, bertha! how good, and how much loved, by many people." "that strikes me to the heart, dear father! always so mindful of me! always so kind to me!" caleb was very much perplexed to understand her. "to be--to be blind, bertha, my poor dear," he faltered, "is a great affliction; but----" "i have never felt it!" cried the blind girl. "i have never felt it in its fulness. never! i have sometimes wished that i could see you, or could see him--only once, dear father, only for one little minute--that i might know what it is i treasure up," she laid her hands upon her breast, "and hold here! that i might be sure i have it right! and sometimes (but then i was a child) i have wept in my prayers at night, to think that, when your images ascended from my heart to heaven, they might not be the true resemblance of yourselves. but i have never had these feelings long. they have passed away, and left me tranquil and contented." "and they will again," said caleb. "but, father! oh, my good gentle father, bear with me, if i am wicked!" said the blind girl. "this is not the sorrow that so weighs me down!" her father could not choose but let his moist eyes overflow; she was so earnest and pathetic. but he did not understand her yet. "bring her to me," said bertha. "i cannot hold it closed and shut within myself. bring her to me, father!" she knew he hesitated, and said, "may. bring may!" may heard the mention of her name, and, coming quietly towards her, touched her on the arm. the blind girl turned immediately, and held her by both hands. "look into my face, dear heart, sweet heart!" said bertha. "read it with your beautiful eyes, and tell me if the truth is written on it." "dear bertha, yes!" the blind girl, still upturning the blank sightless face, down which the tears were coursing fast, addressed her in these words: "there is not, in my soul, a wish or thought that is not for your good, bright may! there is not, in my soul, a grateful recollection stronger than the deep remembrance which is stored there of the many many times when, in the full pride of sight and beauty, you have had consideration for blind bertha, even when we two were children, or when bertha was as much a child as ever blindness can be! every blessing on your head! light upon your happy course! not the less, my dear may,"--and she drew towards her in a closer grasp,--"not the less, my bird, because, to-day, the knowledge that you are to be his wife has wrung my heart almost to breaking! father, may, mary! oh, forgive me that it is so, for the sake of all he has done to relieve the weariness of my dark life: and for the sake of the belief you have in me, when i call heaven to witness that i could not wish him married to a wife more worthy of his goodness!" while speaking, she had released may fielding's hands, and clasped her garments in an attitude of mingled supplication and love. sinking lower and lower down, as she proceeded in her strange confession, she dropped at last at the feet of her friend, and hid her blind face in the folds of her dress. "great power!" exclaimed her father, smitten at one blow with the truth, "have i deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart at last?" it was well for all of them that dot, that beaming, useful, busy little dot--for such she was, whatever faults she had, and however you may learn to hate her, in good time--it was well for all of them, i say, that she was there, or where this would have ended, it were hard to tell. but dot, recovering her self-possession, interposed, before may could reply, or caleb say another word. "come, come, dear bertha! come away with me! give her your arm, may! so. how composed she is, you see, already; and how good it is of her to mind us," said the cheery little woman, kissing her upon the forehead. "come away, dear bertha! come! and here's her good father will come with her, won't you, caleb? to--be--sure!" well, well! she was a noble little dot in such things, and it must have been an obdurate nature that could have withstood her influence. when she had got poor caleb and his bertha away, that they might comfort and console each other, as she knew they only could, she presently came bouncing back,--the saying is, as fresh as any daisy; _i_ say fresher--to mount guard over that bridling little piece of consequence in the cap and gloves, and prevent the dear old creature from making discoveries. "so bring me the precious baby, tilly," said she, drawing a chair to the fire; "and while i have it in my lap, here's mrs. fielding, tilly, will tell me all about the management of babies, and put me right in twenty points where i'm as wrong as can be. won't you, mrs. fielding?" not even the welsh giant, who, according to the popular expression, was so "slow" as to perform a fatal surgical operation upon himself, in emulation of a juggling trick achieved by his arch enemy at breakfast-time; not even he fell half so readily into the snare prepared for him as the old lady into this artful pitfall. the fact of tackleton having walked out; and furthermore, of two or three people having been talking together at a distance, for two minutes, leaving her to her own resources; was quite enough to have put her on her dignity, and the bewailment of that mysterious convulsion in the indigo trade, for four-and-twenty hours. but this becoming deference to her experience, on the part of the young mother, was so irresistible, that after a short affectation of humility, she began to enlighten her with the best grace in the world; and, sitting bolt upright before the wicked dot, she did, in half an hour, deliver more infallible domestic recipes and precepts than would (if acted on) have utterly destroyed and done up that young peerybingle, though he had been an infant samson. to change the theme, dot did a little needlework--she carried the contents of a whole workbox in her pocket; however she contrived it, _i_ don't know--then did a little nursing; then a little more needlework; then had a little whispering chat with may, while the old lady dozed; and so in little bits of bustle, which was quite her manner always, found it a very short afternoon. then, as it grew dark, and as it was a solemn part of this institution of the picnic that she should perform all bertha's household tasks, she trimmed the fire, and swept the hearth, and set the tea-board out, and drew the curtain, and lighted a candle. then she played an air or two on a rude kind of harp, which caleb had contrived for bertha, and played them very well; for nature had made her delicate little ear as choice a one for music as it would have been for jewels, if she had had any to wear. by this time it was the established hour for having tea; and tackleton came back again to share the meal, and spend the evening. caleb and bertha had returned some time before, and caleb had sat down to his afternoon's work. but he couldn't settle to it, poor fellow, being anxious and remorseful for his daughter. it was touching to see him sitting idle on his working stool, regarding her so wistfully, and always saying in his face, "have i deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart?" when it was night, and tea was done, and dot had nothing more to do in washing up the cups and saucers; in a word--for i must come to it, and there is no use in putting it off--when the time drew nigh for expecting the carrier's return in every sound of distant wheels, her manner changed again, her colour came and went, and she was very restless. not as good wives are when listening for their husbands. no, no, no. it was another sort of restlessness from that. wheels heard. a horse's feet. the barking of a dog. the gradual approach of all the sounds. the scratching paw of boxer at the door! "whose step is that?" cried bertha, starting up. "whose step?" returned the carrier, standing in the portal, with his brown face ruddy as a winter berry from the keen night air. "why, mine." "the other step," said bertha. "the man's tread behind you!" "she is not to be deceived," observed the carrier, laughing. "come along, sir. you'll be welcome, never fear!" he spoke in a loud tone; and, as he spoke, the deaf old gentleman entered. "he's not so much a stranger that you haven't seen him once, caleb," said the carrier. "you'll give him house room till we go?" "oh, surely, john, and take it as an honour!" "he's the best company on earth to talk secrets in," said john. "i have reasonable good lungs, but he tries 'em i can tell you. sit down, sir. all friends here, and glad to see you!" when he had imparted this assurance, in a voice that amply corroborated what he had said about his lungs, he added in his natural tone, "a chair in the chimney-corner, and leave to sit quite silent and look pleasantly about him, is all he cares for. he's easily pleased." bertha had been listening intently. she called caleb to her side, when he had set the chair, and asked him, in a low voice, to describe their visitor. when he had done so (truly now, with scrupulous fidelity), she moved, for the first time since he had come in, and sighed, and seemed to have no further interest concerning him. the carrier was in high spirits, good fellow that he was, and fonder of his little wife than ever. "a clumsy dot she was, this afternoon!" he said, encircling her with his rough arm, as she stood, removed from the rest; "and yet i like her somehow. see yonder, dot!" he pointed to the old man. she looked down. i think she trembled. "he's--ha, ha, ha!--he's full of admiration for you!" said the carrier. "talked of nothing else the whole way here. why, he's a brave old boy! i like him for it!" "i wish he had a better subject, john," she said with an uneasy glance about the room. at tackleton especially. "a better subject!" cried the jovial john. "there's no such thing. come! off with the great-coat, off with the thick shawl, off with the heavy wrappers! and a cosy half-hour by the fire. my humble service, mistress. a game at cribbage, you and i? that's hearty. the cards and board, dot. and a glass of beer here, if there's any left, small wife!" his challenge was addressed to the old lady, who, accepting it with gracious readiness, they were soon engaged upon the game. at first, the carrier looked about him sometimes with a smile, or now and then called dot to peep over his shoulder at his hand, and advise him on some knotty point. but his adversary being a rigid disciplinarian, and subject to an occasional weakness in respect of pegging more than she was entitled to, required such vigilance on his part, as left him neither eyes nor ears to spare. thus, his whole attention gradually became absorbed upon the cards; and he thought of nothing else, until a hand upon his shoulder restored him to a consciousness of tackleton. "i am sorry to disturb you--but a word directly." "i'm going to deal," returned the carrier. "it's a crisis." "it is," said tackleton. "come here, man!" there was that in his pale face which made the other rise immediately, and ask him, in a hurry, what the matter was. "hush! john peerybingle," said tackleton, "i am sorry for this. i am indeed. i have been afraid of it. i have suspected it from the first." "what is it?" asked the carrier with a frightened aspect. "hush! i'll show you, if you'll come with me." the carrier accompanied him without another word. they went across a yard, where the stars were shining, and by a little side-door, into tackleton's own counting-house, where there was a glass window, commanding the ware-room, which was closed for the night. there was no light in the counting-house itself, but there were lamps in the long narrow ware-room; and consequently the window was bright. "a moment!" said tackleton. "can you bear to look through that window, do you think?" "why not?" returned the carrier. "a moment more," said tackleton. "don't commit any violence. it's of no use. it's dangerous too. you're a strong-made man; and you might do murder before you know it." the carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled a step as if he had been struck. in one stride he was at the window, and he saw---- oh, shadow on the hearth! oh, truthful cricket! oh, perfidious wife! he saw her with the old man--old no longer, but erect and gallant--bearing in his hand the false white hair that had won his way into their desolate and miserable home. he saw her listening to him, as he bent his head to whisper in her ear; and suffering him to clasp her round the waist, as they moved slowly down the dim wooden gallery towards the door by which they had entered it. he saw them stop, and saw her turn--to have the face, the face he loved so, so presented to his view!--and saw her, with her own hands, adjust the lie upon his head, laughing, as she did it, at his unsuspicious nature! he clenched his strong right hand at first, as if it would have beaten down a lion. but, opening it immediately again, he spread it out before the eyes of tackleton (for he was tender of her even then), and so, as they passed out, fell down upon a desk, and was as weak as any infant. he was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with his horse and parcels, when she came into the room, prepared for going home. "now, john dear! good night, may! good night, bertha!" could she kiss them? could she be blithe and cheerful in her parting? could she venture to reveal her face to them without a blush? yes. tackleton observed her closely, and she did all this. tilly was hushing the baby, and she crossed and recrossed tackleton a dozen times, repeating drowsily: "did the knowledge that it was to be its wives, then, wring its hearts almost to breaking; and did its fathers deceive it from its cradles but to break its hearts at last!" "now, tilly, give me the baby! good night, mr. tackleton. where's john, for goodness' sake?" "he's going to walk beside the horse's head," said tackleton; who helped her to her seat. "my dear john! walk? to-night?" the muffled figure of her husband made a hasty sign in the affirmative; and, the false stranger and the little nurse being in their places, the old horse moved off. boxer, the unconscious boxer, running on before, running back, running round and round the cart, and barking as triumphantly and merrily as ever. when tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting may and her mother home, poor caleb sat down by the fire beside his daughter; anxious and remorseful at the core; and still saying, in his wistful contemplation of her, "have i deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart at last?" the toys that had been set in motion for the baby had all stopped and run down long ago. in the faint light and silence, the imperturbably calm dolls, the agitated rocking-horses with distended eyes and nostrils, the old gentlemen at the street-doors, standing half doubled up upon their failing knees and ankles, the wry-faced nut-crackers, the very beasts upon their way into the ark, in twos, like a boarding-school out walking, might have been imagined to be stricken motionless with fantastic wonder at dot being false, or tackleton beloved, under any combination of circumstances. chirp the third the dutch clock in the corner struck ten when the carrier sat down by his fireside. so troubled and grief-worn that he seemed to scare the cuckoo, who, having cut his ten melodious announcements as short as possible, plunged back into the moorish palace again, and clapped his little door behind him, as if the unwonted spectacle were too much for his feelings. if the little hay-maker had been armed with the sharpest of scythes, and had cut at every stroke into the carrier's heart, he never could have gashed and wounded it as dot had done. it was a heart so full of love for her; so bound up and held together by innumerable threads of winning remembrance, spun from the daily working of her many qualities of endearment; it was a heart in which she had enshrined herself so gently and so closely; a heart so single and so earnest in its truth, so strong in right, so weak in wrong,--that it could cherish neither passion nor revenge at first, and had only room to hold the broken image of its idol. but, slowly, slowly, as the carrier sat brooding on his hearth, now cold and dark, other and fiercer thoughts began to rise within him, as an angry wind comes rising in the night. the stranger was beneath his outraged roof. three steps would take him to his chamber door. one blow would beat it in. "you might do murder before you know it," tackleton had said. how could it be murder, if he gave the villain time to grapple with him hand to hand? he was the younger man. it was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of his mind. it was an angry thought, goading him to some avenging act, that should change the cheerful house into a haunted place which lonely travellers would dread to pass by night; and where the timid would see shadows struggling in the ruined windows when the moon was dim, and hear wild noises in the stormy weather. he was the younger man! yes, yes; some lover who had won the heart that _he_ had never touched. some lover of her early choice, of whom she had thought and dreamed, for whom she had pined and pined, when he had fancied her so happy by his side. oh, agony to think of it! she had been above-stairs with the baby; getting it to bed. as he sat brooding on the hearth, she came close beside him, without his knowledge--in the turning of the rack of his great misery, he lost all other sounds--and put her little stool at his feet. he only knew it when he felt her hand upon his own, and saw her looking up into his face. with wonder? no. it was his first impression, and he was fain to look at her again, to set it right. no, not with wonder. with an eager and inquiring look; but not with wonder. at first it was alarmed and serious; then, it changed into a strange, wild, dreadful smile of recognition of his thoughts; then, there was nothing but her clasped hands on her brow, and her bent head, and falling hair. though the power of omnipotence had been his to wield at that moment, he had too much of its diviner property of mercy in his breast, to have turned one feather's weight of it against her. but he could not bear to see her crouching down upon the little seat where he had often looked on her, with love and pride, so innocent and gay; and, when she rose and left him, sobbing as she went, he felt it a relief to have the vacant place beside him rather than her so long-cherished presence. this in itself was anguish keener than all, reminding him how desolate he was become, and how the great bond of his life was rent asunder. [illustration: _when suddenly, the struggling fire illuminated the whole chimney with a glow of light; and the cricket on the hearth began to chirp!_] the more he felt this, and the more he knew he could have better borne to see her lying prematurely dead before him with her little child upon her breast, the higher and the stronger rose his wrath against his enemy. he looked about him for a weapon. there was a gun hanging on the wall. he took it down, and moved a pace or two towards the door of the perfidious stranger's room. he knew the gun was loaded. some shadowy idea that it was just to shoot this man like a wild beast seized him, and dilated in his mind until it grew into a monstrous demon in complete possession of him, casting out all milder thoughts, and setting up its undivided empire. that phrase is wrong. not casting out his milder thoughts, but artfully transforming them. changing them into scourges to drive him on. turning water into blood, love into hate, gentleness into blind ferocity. her image, sorrowing, humbled, but still pleading to his tenderness and mercy with resistless power, never left his mind; but, staying there, it urged him to the door; raised the weapon to his shoulder; fitted and nerved his fingers to the trigger; and cried "kill him! in his bed!" he reversed the gun to beat the stock upon the door; he already held it lifted in the air; some indistinct design was in his thoughts of calling out to him to fly, for god's sake, by the window---- when suddenly, the struggling fire illuminated the whole chimney with a glow of light; and the cricket on the hearth began to chirp! no sound he could have heard, no human voice, not even hers, could so have moved and softened him. the artless words in which she had told him of her love for this same cricket were once more freshly spoken; her trembling, earnest manner at the moment was again before him; her pleasant voice--oh, what a voice it was for making household music at the fireside of an honest man!--thrilled through and through his better nature, and awoke it into life and action. he recoiled from the door, like a man walking in his sleep, awakened from a frightful dream; and put the gun aside. clasping his hands before his face, he then sat down again beside the fire, and found relief in tears. the cricket on the hearth came out into the room, and stood in fairy shape before him. "'i love it,'" said the fairy voice, repeating what he well remembered, "'for the many times i have heard it, and the many thoughts its harmless music has given me.'" "she said so!" cried the carrier. "true!" "'this has been a happy home, john! and i love the cricket for its sake!'" "it has been, heaven knows," returned the carrier. "she made it happy, always,--until now." "so gracefully sweet-tempered; so domestic, joyful, busy, and light-hearted!" said the voice. "otherwise i never could have loved her as i did," returned the carrier. the voice, correcting him, said "do." the carrier repeated "as i did." but not firmly. his faltering tongue resisted his control, and would speak in its own way for itself and him. the figure, in an attitude of invocation, raised its hand and said: "upon your own hearth----" "the hearth she has blighted," interposed the carrier. "the hearth she has--how often!--blessed and brightened," said the cricket; "the hearth which, but for her, were only a few stones and bricks and rusty bars, but which has been, through her, the altar of your home; on which you have nightly sacrificed some petty passion, selfishness, or care, and offered up the homage of a tranquil mind, a trusting nature, and an overflowing heart; so that the smoke from this poor chimney has gone upward with a better fragrance than the richest incense that is burnt before the richest shrines in all the gaudy temples of this world!--upon your own hearth; in its quiet sanctuary; surrounded by its gentle influences and associations; hear her! hear me! hear everything that speaks the language of your hearth and home!" "and pleads for her?" inquired the carrier. "all things that speak the language of your hearth and home _must_ plead for her!" returned the cricket. "for they speak the truth." and while the carrier, with his head upon his hands, continued to sit meditating in his chair, the presence stood beside him, suggesting his reflections by its power, and presenting them before him, as in a glass or picture. it was not a solitary presence. from the hearth-stone, from the chimney, from the clock, the pipe, the kettle, and the cradle; from the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and the stairs; from the cart without, and the cupboard within, and the household implements; from everything and every place with which she had ever been familiar, and with which she had ever entwined one recollection of herself in her unhappy husband's mind,--fairies came trooping forth. not to stand beside him as the cricket did, but to busy and bestir themselves. to do all honour to her image. to pull him by the skirts, and point to it when it appeared. to cluster round it, and embrace it, and strew flowers for it to tread on. to try to crown its fair head with their tiny hands. to show that they were fond of it, and loved it; and that there was not one ugly, wicked, or accusatory creature to claim knowledge of it--none but their playful and approving selves. his thoughts were constant to her image. it was always there. she sat plying her needle, before the fire, and singing to herself. such a blithe, thriving, steady little dot! the fairy figures turned upon him all at once, by one consent, with one prodigious concentrated stare, and seemed to say, "is this the light wife you are mourning for?" there were sounds of gaiety outside, musical instruments, and noisy tongues, and laughter. a crowd of young merry-makers came pouring in, among whom were may fielding and a score of pretty girls. dot was the fairest of them all; as young as any of them too. they came to summon her to join their party. it was a dance. if ever little foot were made for dancing, hers was, surely. but she laughed, and shook her head, and pointed to her cookery on the fire, and her table ready spread; with an exulting defiance that rendered her more charming than she was before. and so she merrily dismissed them, nodding to her would-be partners, one by one, as they passed out, with a comical indifference, enough to make them go and drown themselves immediately if they were her admirers--and they must have been so, more or less; they couldn't help it. and yet indifference was not her character. oh no! for presently there came a certain carrier to the door; and, bless her, what a welcome she bestowed upon him! again the staring figures turned upon him all at once, and seemed to say, "is this the wife who has forsaken you?" a shadow fell upon the mirror or the picture: call it what you will. a great shadow of the stranger, as he first stood underneath their roof; covering its surface, and blotting out all other objects. but, the nimble fairies worked like bees to clear it off again. and dot again was there. still bright and beautiful. rocking her little baby in its cradle, singing to it softly, and resting her head upon a shoulder which had its counterpart in the musing figure by which the fairy cricket stood. the night--i mean the real night: not going by fairy clocks--was wearing now; and, in this stage of the carrier's thoughts, the moon burst out, and shone brightly in the sky. perhaps some calm and quiet light had risen also in his mind; and he could think more soberly of what had happened. although the shadow of the stranger fell at intervals upon the glass--always distinct, and big, and thoroughly defined--it never fell so darkly as at first. whenever it appeared, the fairies uttered a general cry of consternation, and plied their little arms and legs with inconceivable activity to rub it out. and whenever they got at dot again, and showed her to him once more, bright and beautiful, they cheered in the most inspiring manner. they never showed her otherwise than beautiful and bright, for they were household spirits to whom falsehood is an annihilation; and being so, what dot was there for them, but the one active, beaming, pleasant little creature who had been the light and sun of the carrier's home? the fairies were prodigiously excited when they showed her, with the baby, gossipping among a knot of sage old matrons, and affecting to be wondrous old and matronly herself, and leaning in a staid demure old way upon her husband's arm, attempting--she! such a bud of a little woman--to convey the idea of having abjured the vanities of the world in general, and of being the sort of person to whom it was no novelty at all to be a mother; yet, in the same breath, they showed her laughing at the carrier for being awkward, and pulling up his shirt collar to make him smart, and mincing merrily about that very room to teach him how to dance! they turned, and stared immensely at him when they showed her with the blind girl; for, though she carried cheerfulness and animation with her wheresoever she went, she bore those influences into caleb plummer's home, heaped up and running over. the blind girl's love for her, and trust in her, and gratitude to her; her own good busy way of setting bertha's thanks aside; her dexterous little arts for filling up each moment of the visit in doing something useful to the house, and really working hard while feigning to make holiday; her bountiful provision of those standing delicacies, the veal and ham pie and the bottles of beer; her radiant little face arriving at the door, and taking leave; the wonderful expression in her whole self, from her neat foot to the crown of her head, of being a part of the establishment--a something necessary to it, which it couldn't be without,--all this the fairies revelled in, and loved her for. and once again they looked upon him all at once, appealingly, and seemed to say, while some among them nestled in her dress and fondled her, "is this the wife who has betrayed your confidence?" more than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thoughtful night, they showed her to him sitting on her favourite seat, with her bent head, her hands clasped on her brow, her falling hair. as he had seen her last. and when they found her thus, they neither turned nor looked upon him, but gathered close round her, and comforted and kissed her, and pressed on one another, to show sympathy and kindness to her, and forgot him altogether. thus the night passed. the moon went down; the stars grew pale; the cold day broke; the sun rose. the carrier still sat, musing, in the chimney-corner. he had sat there, with his head upon his hands, all night. all night the faithful cricket had been chirp, chirp, chirping on the hearth. all night he had listened to its voice. all night the household fairies had been busy with him. all night she had been amiable and blameless in the glass, except when that one shadow fell upon it. he rose up when it was broad day, and washed and dressed himself. he couldn't go about his customary cheerful avocations--he wanted spirit for them--but it mattered the less that it was tackleton's wedding-day, and he had arranged to make his rounds by proxy. he had thought to have gone merrily to church with dot. but such plans were at an end. it was their own wedding-day too. ah! how little he had looked for such a close to such a year! the carrier expected that tackleton would pay him an early visit; and he was right. he had not walked to and fro before his own door many minutes, when he saw the toy merchant coming in his chaise along the road. as the chaise drew nearer, he perceived that tackleton was dressed out sprucely for his marriage, and that he had decorated his horse's head with flowers and favours. the horse looked much more like a bridegroom than tackleton, whose half-closed eye was more disagreeably expressive than ever. but the carrier took little heed of this. his thoughts had other occupation. "john peerybingle!" said tackleton with an air of condolence. "my good fellow, how do you find yourself this morning?" "i have had but a poor night, master tackleton," returned the carrier, shaking his head: "for i have been a good deal disturbed in my mind. but it's over now! can you spare me half an hour or so, for some private talk?" "i came on purpose," returned tackleton, alighting. "never mind the horse. he'll stand quiet enough, with the reins over this post, if you'll give him a mouthful of hay." the carrier having brought it from his stable and set it before him, they turned into the house. "you are not married before noon," he said, "i think?" "no," answered tackleton. "plenty of time. plenty of time." when they entered the kitchen, tilly slowboy was rapping at the stranger's door; which was only removed from it by a few steps. one of her very red eyes (for tilly had been crying all night long, because her mistress cried) was at the keyhole; and she was knocking very loud, and seemed frightened. "if you please i can't make nobody hear," said tilly, looking round. "i hope nobody an't gone and been and died if you please!" this philanthropic wish miss slowboy emphasized with various new raps and kicks at the door, which led to no result whatever. "shall i go?" said tackleton. "it's curious." the carrier, who had turned his face from the door, signed him to go if he would. so tackleton went to tilly slowboy's relief; and he too kicked and knocked; and he too failed to get the least reply. but he thought of trying the handle of the door; and, as it opened easily, he peeped in, looked in, went in, and soon came running out again. "john peerybingle," said tackleton in his ear, "i hope there has been nothing--nothing rash in the night?" the carrier turned upon him quickly. "because he's gone!" said tackleton; "and the window's open. i don't see any marks--to be sure, it's almost on a level with the garden: but i was afraid there might have been some--some scuffle. eh?" he nearly shut up the expressive eye altogether; he looked at him so hard. and he gave his eye, and his face, and his whole person, a sharp twist. as if he would have screwed the truth out of him. "make yourself easy," said the carrier. "he went into that room last night, without harm in word or deed from me, and no one has entered it since. he is away of his own free-will. i'd go out gladly at that door, and beg my bread from house to house, for life, if i could so change the past that he had never come. but he has come and gone. and i have done with him!" "oh!--well, i think he has got off pretty easy," said tackleton, taking a chair. the sneer was lost upon the carrier, who sat down too, and shaded his face with his hand, for some little time, before proceeding. "you showed me last night," he said at length, "my wife--my wife that i love--secretly----" "and tenderly," insinuated tackleton. "--conniving at that man's disguise, and giving him opportunities of meeting her alone. i think there's no sight i wouldn't have rather seen than that. i think there's no man in the world i wouldn't have rather had to show it me." "i confess to having had my suspicions always," said tackleton. "and that has made me objectionable here, i know." "but, as you did show it me," pursued the carrier, not minding him; "and as you saw her, my wife, my wife that i love"--his voice, and eye, and hand grew steadier and firmer as he repeated these words: evidently in pursuance of a steadfast purpose--"as you saw her at this disadvantage, it is right and just that you should also see with my eyes, and look into my breast, and know what my mind is upon the subject. for it's settled," said the carrier, regarding him attentively. "and nothing can shake it now." tackleton muttered a few general words of assent about its being necessary to vindicate something or other; but he was overawed by the manner of his companion. plain and unpolished as it was, it had a something dignified and noble in it, which nothing but the soul of generous honour dwelling in the man could have imparted. "i am a plain, rough man," pursued the carrier "with very little to recommend me. i am not a clever man, as you very well know. i am not a young man. i loved my little dot, because i had seen her grow up, from a child, in her father's house; because i knew how precious she was; because she had been my life for years and years. there's many men i can't compare with, who never could have loved my little dot like me, i think!" he paused, and softly beat the ground a short time with his foot, before resuming: "i often thought that though i wasn't good enough for her, i should make her a kind husband, and perhaps know her value better than another; and in this way i reconciled it to myself, and came to think it might be possible that we should be married. and, in the end, it came about, and we _were_ married!" "hah!" said tackleton with a significant shake of his head. "i had studied myself; i had had experience of myself; i knew how much i loved her, and how happy i should be," pursued the carrier. "but i had not--i feel it now--sufficiently considered her." "to be sure," said tackleton. "giddiness, frivolity, fickleness, love of admiration! not considered! all left out of sight! hah!" "you had best not interrupt me," said the carrier with some sternness, "till you understand me; and you're wide of doing so. if, yesterday, i'd have struck that man down at a blow, who dared to breathe a word against her, to-day i'd set my foot upon his face, if he was my brother!" the toy merchant gazed at him in astonishment. he went on in a softer tone: "did i consider," said the carrier, "that i took her--at her age, and with her beauty--from her young companions, and the many scenes of which she was the ornament; in which she was the brightest little star that ever shone, to shut her up from day to day in my dull house, and keep my tedious company? did i consider how little suited i was to her sprightly humour, and how wearisome a plodding man like me must be to one of her quick spirit? did i consider that it was no merit in me, or claim in me, that i loved her, when everybody must who knew her? never. i took advantage of her hopeful nature and her cheerful disposition; and i married her. i wish i never had! for her sake; not for mine!" the toy merchant gazed at him without winking. even the half-shut eye was open now. "heaven bless her!" said the carrier, "for the cheerful constancy with which she has tried to keep the knowledge of this from me! and heaven help me, that, in my slow mind, i have not found it out before! poor child! poor dot! _i_ not to find it out, who have seen her eyes fill with tears when such a marriage as our own was spoken of! i, who have seen the secret trembling on her lips a hundred times, and never suspected it, till last night! poor girl! that i could ever hope she would be fond of me! that i could ever believe she was!" "she made a show of it," said tackleton. "she made such a show of it, that, to tell you the truth, it was the origin of my misgivings." and here he asserted the superiority of may fielding, who certainly made no sort of show of being fond of _him_. "she has tried," said the poor carrier with greater emotion than he had exhibited yet; "i only now begin to know how hard she has tried, to be my dutiful and zealous wife. how good she has been; how much she has done; how brave and strong a heart she has; let the happiness i have known under this roof bear witness! it will be some help and comfort to me when i am here alone." "here alone?" said tackleton. "oh! then you do mean to take some notice of this?" "i mean," returned the carrier, "to do her the greatest kindness, and make her the best reparation, in my power. i can release her from the daily pain of an unequal marriage, and the struggle to conceal it. she shall be as free as i can render her." "make _her_ reparation!" exclaimed tackleton, twisting and turning his great ears with his hands. "there must be something wrong here. you didn't say that, of course." the carrier set his grip upon the collar of the toy merchant, and shook him like a reed. "listen to me!" he said. "and take care that you hear me right. listen to me. do i speak plainly?" "very plainly indeed," answered tackleton. "as if i meant it?" "very much as if you meant it." "i sat upon that hearth, last night, all night," exclaimed the carrier. "on the spot where she has often sat beside me, with her sweet face looking into mine. i called up her whole life day by day. i had her dear self, in its every passage, in review before me. and, upon my soul, she is innocent, if there is one to judge the innocent and guilty!" staunch cricket on the hearth! loyal household fairies! "passion and distrust have left me!" said the carrier; "and nothing but my grief remains. in an unhappy moment some old lover, better suited to her tastes and years than i, forsaken, perhaps, for me, against her will, returned. in an unhappy moment, taken by surprise, and wanting time to think of what she did, she made herself a party to his treachery by concealing it. last night she saw him, in the interview we witnessed. it was wrong. but, otherwise than this, she is innocent, if there is truth on earth!" "if that is your opinion----" tackleton began. "so, let her go!" pursued the carrier. "go, with my blessing for the many happy hours she has given me, and my forgiveness for any pang she has caused me. let her go, and have the peace of mind i wish her! she'll never hate me. she'll learn to like me better when i'm not a drag upon her, and she wears the chain i have riveted more lightly. this is the day on which i took her, with so little thought for her enjoyment, from her home. to-day she shall return to it, and i will trouble her no more. her father and mother will be here to-day--we had made a little plan for keeping it together--and they shall take her home. i can trust her there, or anywhere. she leaves me without blame, and she will live so i am sure. if i should die--i may perhaps while she is still young; i have lost some courage in a few hours--she'll find that i remembered her, and loved her to the last! this is the end of what you showed me. now, it's over!" "oh no, john, not over! do not say it's over yet! not quite yet. i have heard your noble words. i could not steal away, pretending to be ignorant of what has affected me with such deep gratitude. do not say it's over till the clock has struck again!" she had entered shortly after tackleton, and had remained there. she never looked at tackleton, but fixed her eyes upon her husband. but she kept away from him, setting as wide a space as possible between them; and, though she spoke with most impassioned earnestness, she went no nearer to him even then. how different in this from her old self! "no hand can make the clock which will strike again for me the hours that are gone," replied the carrier with a faint smile. "but let it be so, if you will, my dear. it will strike soon. it's of little matter what we say. i'd try to please you in a harder case than that." "well!" muttered tackleton. "i must be off, for, when the clock strikes again, it'll be necessary for me to be upon my way to church. good morning, john peerybingle. i'm sorry to be deprived of the pleasure of your company. sorry for the loss, and the occasion of it too!" "i have spoken plainly?" said the carrier, accompanying him to the door. "oh, quite!" "and you'll remember what i have said?" "why, if you compel me to make the observation," said tackleton, previously taking the precaution of getting into his chaise, "i must say that it was so very unexpected, that i'm far from being likely to forget it." "the better for us both," returned the carrier. "good-bye. i give you joy!" "i wish i could give it to _you_," said tackleton. "as i can't, thankee. between ourselves (as i told you before, eh?) i don't much think i shall have the less joy in my married life because may hasn't been too officious about me, and too demonstrative. good-bye! take care of yourself." the carrier stood looking after him until he was smaller in the distance than his horse's flowers and favours near at hand; and then, with a deep sigh, went strolling like a restless, broken man, among some neighbouring elms; unwilling to return until the clock was on the eve of striking. his little wife, being left alone, sobbed piteously; but often dried her eyes and checked herself, to say how good he was, how excellent he was! and once or twice she laughed; so heartily, triumphantly, and incoherently (still crying all the time), that tilly was quite horrified. "ow, if you please, don't!" said tilly. "it's enough to dead and bury the baby, so it is if you please." "will you bring him sometimes to see his father, tilly," inquired her mistress, drying her eyes,--"when i can't live here, and have gone to my old home?" "ow, if you please, don't!" cried tilly, throwing back her head, and bursting out into a howl--she looked at the moment uncommonly like boxer. "ow, if you please, don't! ow, what has everybody gone and been and done with everybody, making everybody else so wretched? ow-w-w-w!" the soft-hearted slowboy tailed off at this juncture into such a deplorable howl, the more tremendous from its long suppression, that she must infallibly have awakened the baby, and frightened him into something serious (probably convulsions), if her eyes had not encountered caleb plummer leading in his daughter. this spectacle restoring her to a sense of the proprieties, she stood for some few moments silent, with her mouth wide open; and then, posting off to the bed on which the baby lay asleep, danced in a weird, st. vitus manner on the floor, and at the same time rummaged with her face and head among the bedclothes, apparently deriving much relief from those extraordinary operations. "mary!" said bertha. "not at the marriage!" "i told her you would not be there, mum," whispered caleb. "i heard as much last night. but bless you," said the little man, taking her tenderly by both hands, "_i_ don't care for what they say. _i_ don't believe them. there an't much of me, but that little should be torn to pieces sooner than i'd trust a word against you!" he put his arms about her neck and hugged her, as a child might have hugged one of his own dolls. "bertha couldn't stay at home this morning," said caleb. "she was afraid, i know, to hear the bells ring, and couldn't trust herself to be so near them on their wedding-day. so we started in good time, and came here. i have been thinking of what i have done," said caleb after a moment's pause; "i have been blaming myself till i hardly knew what to do, or where to turn, for the distress of mind i have caused her; and i've come to the conclusion that i'd better, if you'll stay with me, mum, the while, tell her the truth. you'll stay with me the while?" he inquired, trembling from head to foot. "i don't know what effect it may have upon her; i don't know what she'll think of me; i don't know that she'll ever care for her poor father afterwards. but it's best for her that she should be undeceived, and i must bear the consequences as i deserve!" "mary," said bertha, "where is your hand? ah! here it is; here it is!" pressing it to her lips with a smile, and drawing it through her arm. "i heard them speaking softly among themselves last night of some blame against you. they were wrong." the carrier's wife was silent. caleb answered for her. "they were wrong," he said. "i knew it!" cried bertha, proudly. "i told them so. i scorned to hear a word! blame _her_ with justice!" she pressed the hand between her own, and the soft cheek against her face. "no, i am not so blind as that." her father went on one side of her, while dot remained upon the other, holding her hand. "i know you all," said bertha, "better than you think. but none so well as her. not even you, father. there is nothing half so real and so true about me as she is. if i could be restored to sight this instant, and not a word were spoken, i could choose her from a crowd! my sister!" "bertha, my dear!" said caleb. "i have something on my mind i want to tell you while we three are alone. hear me kindly! i have a confession to make to you, my darling!" "a confession, father?" "i have wandered from the truth, and lost myself, my child," said caleb with a pitiable expression in his bewildered face. "i have wandered from the truth, intending to be kind to you; and have been cruel." she turned her wonder-stricken face towards him, and repeated "cruel!" "he accuses himself too strongly, bertha," said dot. "you'll say so presently. you'll be the first to tell him so." "he cruel to me!" cried bertha with a smile of incredulity. "not meaning it, my child," said caleb. "but i have been: though i never suspected it till yesterday. my dear blind daughter, hear me and forgive me. the world you live in, heart of mine, doesn't exist as i have represented it. the eyes you have trusted in have been false to you." she turned her wonder-stricken face towards him still; but drew back, and clung closer to her friend. "your road in life was rough, my poor one," said caleb, "and i meant to smooth it for you. i have altered objects, changed the characters of people, invented many things that never have been, to make you happier. i have had concealments from you, put deceptions on you, god forgive me! and surrounded you with fancies." "but living people are not fancies?" she said hurriedly, and turning very pale, and still retiring from him. "you can't change them." "i have done so, bertha," pleaded caleb. "there is one person that you know, my dove----" "oh, father! why do you say, i know?" she answered in a term of keen reproach. "what and whom do _i_ know? i who have no leader! i so miserably blind!" in the anguish of her heart, she stretched out her hands, as if she were groping her way; then spread them, in a manner most forlorn and sad, upon her face. "the marriage that takes place to-day," said caleb, "is with a stern, sordid, grinding man. a hard master to you and me, my dear, for many years. ugly in his looks, and in his nature. cold and callous always. unlike what i have painted him to you in everything, my child. in everything." "oh, why," cried the blind girl, tortured, as it seemed, almost beyond endurance, "why did you ever do this? why did you ever fill my heart so full, and then come in like death, and tear away the objects of my love? o heaven, how blind i am! how helpless and alone!" her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no reply but in his penitence and sorrow. she had been but a short time in this passion of regret when the cricket on the hearth, unheard by all but her, began to chirp. not merrily, but in a low, faint, sorrowing way. it was so mournful, that her tears began to flow; and, when the presence which had been beside the carrier all night, appeared behind her, pointing to her father, they fell down like rain. she heard the cricket-voice more plainly soon, and was conscious, through her blindness, of the presence hovering about her father. "mary," said the blind girl, "tell me what my home is. what it truly is." "it is a poor place, bertha; very poor and bare indeed. the house will scarcely keep out wind and rain another winter. it is as roughly shielded from the weather, bertha," dot continued in a low, clear voice, "as your poor father in his sackcloth coat." the blind girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led the carrier's little wife aside. "those presents that i took such care of; that came almost at my wish, and were so dearly welcome to me," she said, trembling; "where did they come from? did you send them?" "no." "who, then?" dot saw she knew already, and was silent. the blind girl spread her hands before her face again. but in quite another manner now. "dear mary, a moment. one moment. more this way. speak softly to me. you are true i know. you'd not deceive me now; would you?" "no, bertha, indeed!" "no, i am sure you would not. you have too much pity for me. mary, look across the room to where we were just now--to where my father is--my father, so compassionate and loving to me--and tell me what you see." "i see," said dot, who understood her well, "an old man sitting in a chair, and leaning sorrowfully on the back, with his face resting on his hand. as if his child should comfort him, bertha." "yes, yes. she will. go on." "he is an old man, worn with care and work. he is a spare, dejected, thoughtful, grey-haired man. i see him now, despondent and bowed down, and striving against nothing. but, bertha, i have seen him many times before, and striving hard in many ways, for one great sacred object. and i honour his grey head, and bless him!" the blind girl broke away from her; and, throwing herself upon her knees before him, took the grey head to her breast. "it is my sight restored. it is my sight!" she cried. "i have been blind, and now my eyes are open. i never knew him! to think i might have died, and never truly seen the father who has been so loving to me!" there were no words for caleb's emotion. "there is not a gallant figure on this earth," exclaimed the blind girl, holding him in her embrace, "that i would love so dearly, and would cherish so devotedly, as this! the greyer, and more worn, the dearer, father! never let them say i am blind again. there's not a furrow in his face, there's not a hair upon his head, that shall be forgotten in my prayers and thanks to heaven!" caleb managed to articulate, "my bertha!" "and in my blindness i believed him," said the girl, caressing him with tears of exquisite affection, "to be so different. and having him beside me day by day, so mindful of me always, never dreamed of this!" "the fresh smart father in the blue coat, bertha," said poor caleb. "he's gone!" "nothing is gone," she answered. "dearest father, no! everything is here--in you. the father that i loved so well; the father that i never loved enough, and never knew; the benefactor whom i first began to reverence and love, because he had such sympathy for me,--all are here in you. nothing is dead to me. the soul of all that was most dear to me is here--here, with the worn face, and the grey head. and i am not blind, father, any longer!" dot's whole attention had been concentrated, during this discourse, upon the father and daughter; but looking, now, towards the little hay-maker in the moorish meadow, she saw that the clock was within a few minutes of striking, and fell, immediately, into a nervous and excited state. "father!" said bertha, hesitating. "mary!" "yes, my dear," returned caleb. "here she is." "there is no change in _her_. you never told me anything of _her_ that was not true?" "i should have done it, my dear, i'm afraid," returned caleb, "if i could have made her better than she was. but i must have changed her for the worse, if i had changed her at all. nothing could improve her, bertha." confident as the blind girl had been when she asked the question, her delight and pride in the reply, and her renewed embrace of dot, were charming to behold. "more changes than you think for may happen, though, my dear," said dot. "changes for the better, i mean; changes for great joy to some of us. you mustn't let them startle you too much, if any such should ever happen, and affect you. are those wheels upon the road? you've a quick ear, bertha. are they wheels?" "yes. coming very fast." "i--i--i know you have a quick ear," said dot, placing her hand upon her heart, and evidently talking on as fast as she could, to hide its palpitating state, "because i have noticed it often, and because you were so quick to find out that strange step last night. though why you should have said, as i very well recollect you did say, bertha, 'whose step is that?' and why you should have taken any greater observation of it than of any other step, i don't know. though, as i said just now, there are great changes in the world: great changes: and we can't do better than prepare ourselves to be surprised at hardly anything." caleb wondered what this meant; perceiving that she spoke to him, no less than to his daughter. he saw her, with astonishment, so fluttered and distressed that she could scarcely breathe; and holding to a chair, to save herself from falling. "they are wheels indeed!" she panted. "coming nearer! nearer! very close! and now you hear them stopping at the garden-gate! and now you hear a step outside the door--the same step, bertha, is it not?--and now----!" she uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight; and running up to caleb, put her hands upon his eyes, as a young man rushed into the room, and, flinging away his hat into the air, came sweeping down upon them. "is it over?" cried dot. "yes!" "happily over?" "yes!" "do you recollect the voice, dear caleb? did you ever hear the like of it before?" cried dot. "if my boy in the golden south americas was alive----!" said caleb, trembling. "he is alive!" shrieked dot, removing her hands from his eyes, and clapping them in ecstasy. "look at him! see where he stands before you, healthy and strong! your own dear son. your own dear living, loving brother, bertha!" all honour to the little creature for her transports! all honour to her tears and laughter, when the three were locked in one another's arms! all honour to the heartiness with which she met the sunburnt sailor-fellow, with his dark streaming hair, half-way, and never turned her rosy little mouth aside, but suffered him to kiss it freely, and to press her to his bounding heart! and honour to the cuckoo too--why not?--for bursting out of the trap-door in the moorish palace like a housebreaker, and hiccoughing twelve times on the assembled company, as if he had got drunk for joy! the carrier, entering, started back. and well he might, to find himself in such good company. "look, john!" said caleb, exultingly, "look here! my own boy from the golden south americas! my own son! him that you fitted out, and sent away yourself! him that you were always such a friend to!" the carrier advanced to seize him by the hand; but, recoiling, as some feature in his face awakened a remembrance of the deaf man in the cart, said: "edward! was it you?" "now tell him all!" cried dot. "tell him all, edward; and don't spare me, for nothing shall make me spare myself in his eyes, ever again." "i was the man," said edward. "and could you steal, disguised, into the house of your old friend?" rejoined the carrier. "there was a frank boy once--how many years is it, caleb, since we heard that he was dead, and had it proved, we thought?--who never would have done that." "there was a generous friend of mine once; more a father to me than a friend," said edward; "who never would have judged me, or any other man, unheard. you were he. so i am certain you will hear me now." the carrier, with a troubled glance at dot, who still kept far away from him, replied, "well! that's but fair. i will." "you must know that when i left here a boy," said edward, "i was in love, and my love was returned. she was a very young girl, who perhaps (you may tell me) didn't know her own mind. but i knew mine, and i had a passion for her." "you had!" exclaimed the carrier. "you!" "indeed i had," returned the other. "and she returned it. i have ever since believed she did, and now i am sure she did." "heaven help me!" said the carrier. "this is worse than all." "constant to her," said edward, "and returning, full of hope, after many hardships and perils, to redeem my part of our old contract, i heard, twenty miles away, that she was false to me; that she had forgotten me; and had bestowed herself upon another and a richer man. i had no mind to reproach her; but i wished to see her, and to prove beyond dispute that this was true. i hoped she might have been forced into it against her own desire and recollection. it would be small comfort, but it would be some, i thought, and on i came. that i might have the truth, the real truth, observing freely for myself, and judging for myself, without obstruction on the one hand, or presenting my own influence (if i had any) before her, on the other, i dressed myself unlike myself--you know how; and waited on the road--you know where. you had no suspicion of me; neither had--had she," pointing to dot, "until i whispered in her ear at that fireside, and she so nearly betrayed me." "but when she knew that edward was alive, and had come back," sobbed dot, now speaking for herself, as she had burned to do, all through this narrative; "and when she knew his purpose, she advised him by all means to keep his secret close; for his old friend john peerybingle was much too open in his nature, and too clumsy in all artifice--being a clumsy man in general," said dot, half laughing and half crying--"to keep it for him. and when she--that's me, john," sobbed the little woman--"told him all, and how his sweetheart had believed him to be dead; and how she had at last been over-persuaded by her mother into a marriage which the silly, dear old thing called advantageous; and when she--that's me again, john--told him they were not yet married (though close upon it), and that it would be nothing but a sacrifice if it went on, for there was no love on her side; and when he went nearly mad with joy to hear it,--then she--that's me again--said she would go between them, as she had often done before in old times, john, and would sound his sweetheart, and be sure that what she--me again, john--said and thought was right. and it was right, john! and they were brought together, john! and they were married, john, an hour ago! and here's the bride! and gruff and tackleton may die a bachelor! and i'm a happy little woman, may, god bless you!" she was an irresistible little woman, if that be anything to the purpose; and never so completely irresistible as in her present transports. there never were congratulations so endearing and delicious as those she lavished on herself and on the bride. amid the tumult of emotions in his breast, the honest carrier had stood confounded. flying, now, towards her, dot stretched out her hand to stop him, and retreated as before. "no, john, no! hear all! don't love me any more, john, till you've heard every word i have to say. it was wrong to have a secret from you, john. i'm very sorry. i didn't think it any harm, till i came and sat down by you on the little stool last night. but when i knew, by what was written in your face, that you had seen me walking in the gallery with edward, and when i knew what you thought, i felt how giddy and how wrong it was. but oh, dear john, how could you, could you think so?" little woman, how she sobbed again! john peerybingle would have caught her in his arms. but no; she wouldn't let him. "don't love me yet, please, john! not for a long time yet! when i was sad about this intended marriage, dear, it was because i remembered may and edward such young lovers; and knew that her heart was far away from tackleton. you believe that, now, don't you, john?" john was going to make another rush at this appeal; but she stopped him again. "no; keep there, please, john! when i laugh at you, as i sometimes do, john, and call you clumsy and a dear old goose, and names of that sort, it's because i love you, john, so well, and take such pleasure in your ways, and wouldn't see you altered in the least respect to have you made a king to-morrow." "hooroar!" said caleb with unusual vigour. "my opinion!" "and when i speak of people being middle-aged and steady, john, and pretend that we are a humdrum couple, going on in a jog-trot sort of way, it's only because i'm such a silly little thing, john, that i like, sometimes, to act as a kind of play with baby, and all that: and make believe." she saw that he was coming; and stopped him again. but she was very nearly too late. "no, don't love me for another minute or two, if you please, john! what i want most to tell you, i have kept to the last. my dear, good, generous john, when we were talking the other night about the cricket, i had it on my lips to say, that at first i did not love you quite so dearly as i do now; when i first came home here, i was half afraid that i mightn't learn to love you every bit as well as i hoped and prayed i might--being so very young, john! but, dear john, every day and hour i loved you more and more. and if i could have loved you better than i do, the noble words i heard you say this morning would have made me. but i can't. all the affection that i had (it was a great deal, john) i gave you, as you well deserve, long, long ago, and i have no more left to give. now, my dear husband, take me to your heart again! that's my home, john; and never, never think of sending me to any other!" you never will derive so much delight from seeing a glorious little woman in the arms of a third party as you would have felt if you had seen dot run into the carrier's embrace. it was the most complete, unmitigated, soul-fraught little piece of earnestness that ever you beheld in all your days. you may be sure the carrier was in a state of perfect rapture; and you may be sure dot was likewise; and you may be sure they all were, inclusive of miss slowboy, who wept copiously for joy, and, wishing to include her young charge in the general interchange of congratulations, handed round the baby to everybody in succession, as if it were something to drink. but, now, the sound of wheels was heard again outside the door; and somebody exclaimed that gruff and tackleton was coming back. speedily that worthy gentleman appeared, looking warm and flustered. "why, what the devil's this, john peerybingle?" said tackleton. "there's some mistake. i appointed mrs. tackleton to meet me at the church, and i'll swear i passed her on the road, on her way here. oh! here she is! i beg your pardon, sir; i haven't the pleasure of knowing you; but, if you can do me the favour to spare this young lady, she has rather a particular engagement this morning." "but i can't spare her," returned edward. "i couldn't think of it." "what do you mean, you vagabond?" said tackleton. "i mean that, as i can make allowance for your being vexed," returned the other with a smile, "i am as deaf to harsh discourse this morning as i was to all discourse last night." the look that tackleton bestowed upon him, and the start he gave! "i am sorry, sir," said edward, holding out may's left hand, and especially the third finger, "that the young lady can't accompany you to church; but, as she has been there once this morning, perhaps you'll excuse her." tackleton looked hard at the third finger, and took a little piece of silver paper, apparently containing a ring, from his waistcoat pocket. "miss slowboy," said tackleton, "will you have the kindness to throw that in the fire? thankee." "it was a previous engagement, quite an old engagement, that prevented my wife from keeping her appointment with you, i assure you," said edward. "mr. tackleton will do me the justice to acknowledge that i revealed it to him faithfully; and that i told him, many times, i never could forget it," said may, blushing. "oh, certainly!" said tackleton. "oh, to be sure! oh, it's all right, it's quite correct! mrs. edward plummer, i infer?" "that's the name," returned the bridegroom. "ah! i shouldn't have known you, sir," said tackleton, scrutinising his face narrowly, and making a low bow. "i give you joy, sir!" "thankee." "mrs. peerybingle," said tackleton, turning suddenly to where she stood with her husband; "i'm sorry. you haven't done me a very great kindness, but, upon my life, i am sorry. you are better than i thought you. john peerybingle, i am sorry. you understand me; that's enough. it's quite correct, ladies and gentlemen all, and perfectly satisfactory. good morning!" with these words he carried it off, and carried himself off too: merely stopping at the door to take the flowers and favours from his horse's head, and to kick that animal once in the ribs, as a means of informing him that there was a screw loose in his arrangements. of course, it became a serious duty now to make such a day of it as should mark these events for a high feast and festival in the peerybingle calendar for evermore. accordingly, dot went to work to produce such an entertainment as should reflect undying honour on the house and on every one concerned; and, in a very short space of time, she was up to her dimpled elbows in flour, and whitening the carrier's coat, every time he came near her, by stopping him to give him a kiss. that good fellow washed the greens, and peeled the turnips, and broke the plates, and upset iron pots full of cold water on the fire, and made himself useful in all sorts of ways: while a couple of professional assistants, hastily called in from somewhere in the neighbourhood, as on a point of life or death, ran against each other in all the doorways and round all the corners, and everybody tumbled over tilly slowboy and the baby, everywhere. tilly never came out in such force before. her ubiquity was the theme of general admiration. she was a stumbling-block in the passage at five-and-twenty minutes past two; a man-trap in the kitchen at half-past two precisely; and a pitfall in the garret at five-and-twenty minutes to three. the baby's head was, as it were, a test and touchstone for every description of matter, animal, vegetable, and mineral. nothing was in use that day that didn't come, at some time or other, into close acquaintance with it. then there was a great expedition set on foot to go and find out mrs. fielding; and to be dismally penitent to that excellent gentlewoman; and to bring her back, by force, if needful, to be happy and forgiving. and when the expedition first discovered her, she would listen to no terms at all, but said, an unspeakable number of times, that ever she should have lived to see the day! and couldn't be got to say anything else, except "now carry me to the grave": which seemed absurd, on account of her not being dead, or anything at all like it. after a time she lapsed into a state of dreadful calmness, and observed that, when that unfortunate train of circumstances had occurred in the indigo trade, she had foreseen that she would be exposed, during her whole life, to every species of insult and contumely; and that she was glad to find it was the case; and begged they wouldn't trouble themselves about her,--for what was she?--oh dear! a nobody!--but would forget that such a being lived, and would take their course in life without her. from this bitterly sarcastic mood she passed into an angry one, in which she gave vent to the remarkable expression that the worm would turn if trodden on; and, after that, she yielded to a soft regret, and said, if they had only given her their confidence, what might she not have had it in her power to suggest! taking advantage of this crisis in her feelings, the expedition embraced her; and she very soon had her gloves on, and was on her way to john peerybingle's in a state of unimpeachable gentility; with a paper parcel at her side containing a cap of state, almost as tall, and quite as stiff, as a mitre. then, there were dot's father and mother to come in another little chaise; and they were behind their time; and fears were entertained; and there was much looking out for them down the road; and mrs. fielding always would look in the wrong and morally impossible direction; and, being apprised thereof, hoped she might take the liberty of looking where she pleased. at last they came; a chubby little couple, jogging along in a snug and comfortable little way that quite belonged to the dot family; and dot and her mother, side by side, were wonderful to see. they were so like each other. then dot's mother had to renew her acquaintance with may's mother; and may's mother always stood on her gentility; and dot's mother never stood on anything but her active little feet. and old dot--so to call dot's father, i forgot it wasn't his right name, but never mind--took liberties, and shook hands at first sight, and seemed to think a cap but so much starch and muslin, and didn't defer himself at all to the indigo trade, but said there was no help for it now; and, in mrs. fielding's summing up, was a good-natured kind of man--but coarse, my dear. i wouldn't have missed dot, doing the honours in her wedding-gown, my benison on her bright face! for any money. no! nor the good carrier, so jovial and so ruddy, at the bottom of the table. nor the brown, fresh sailor-fellow, and his handsome wife. nor any one among them. to have missed the dinner would have been to miss as jolly and as stout a meal as man need eat; and to have missed the overflowing cups in which they drank the wedding day would have been the greatest miss of all. after dinner caleb sang the song about the sparkling bowl. as i'm a living man, hoping to keep so for a year or two, he sang it through. and, by-the-bye, a most unlooked-for incident occurred, just as he finished the last verse. there was a tap at the door; and a man came staggering in, without saying with your leave, or by your leave, with something heavy on his head. setting this down in the middle of the table, symmetrically in the centre of the nuts and apples, he said: "mr. tackleton's compliments, and, as he hasn't got no use for the cake himself, p'raps you'll eat it." and, with those words, he walked off. there was some surprise among the company, as you may imagine. mrs. fielding, being a lady of infinite discernment, suggested that the cake was poisoned, and related a narrative of a cake which, within her knowledge, had turned a seminary for young ladies blue. but she was overruled by acclamation; and the cake was cut by may with much ceremony and rejoicing. i don't think any one had tasted it, when there came another tap at the door, and the same man appeared again, having under his arm a vast brown-paper parcel. "mr. tackleton's compliments, and he's sent a few toys for the babby. they ain't ugly." after the delivery of which expressions, he retired again. the whole party would have experienced great difficulty in finding words for their astonishment, even if they had had ample time to seek them. but they had none at all; for the messenger had scarcely shut the door behind him, when there came another tap, and tackleton himself walked in. "mrs. peerybingle!" said the toy merchant, hat in hand, "i'm sorry. i'm more sorry than i was this morning. i have had time to think of it. john peerybingle! i am sour by disposition; but i can't help being sweetened, more or less, by coming face to face with such a man as you. caleb! this unconscious little nurse gave me a broken hint last night, of which i have found the thread. i blush to think how easily i might have bound you and your daughter to me, and what a miserable idiot i was when i took her for one! friends, one and all, my house is very lonely to-night. i have not so much as a cricket on my hearth. i have scared them all away. be gracious to me: let me join this happy party!" he was at home in five minutes. you never saw such a fellow. what _had_ he been doing with himself all his life, never to have known before his great capacity of being jovial? or what had the fairies been doing with him, to have effected such a change? "john! you won't send me home this evening, will you?" whispered dot. he had been very near it, though. there wanted but one living creature to make the party complete; and, in the twinkling of an eye, there he was, very thirsty with hard running, and engaged in hopeless endeavours to squeeze his head into a narrow pitcher. he had gone with the cart to its journey's end, very much disgusted with the absence of his master, and stupendously rebellious to the deputy. after lingering about the stable for some little time, vainly attempting to incite the old horse to the mutinous act of returning on his own account, he had walked into the taproom, and laid himself down before the fire. but, suddenly yielding to the conviction that the deputy was a humbug, and must be abandoned, he had got up again, turned tail, and come home. there was a dance in the evening. with which general mention of that recreation, i should have left it alone, if i had not some reason to suppose that it was quite an original dance, and one of a most uncommon figure. it was formed in an odd way; in this way. edward, that sailor-fellow--a good free dashing sort of fellow he was--had been telling them various marvels concerning parrots, and mines, and mexicans, and gold dust, when all at once he took it in his head to jump up from his seat and propose a dance; for bertha's harp was there, and she such a hand upon it as you seldom hear. dot (sly little piece of affectation when she chose) said her dancing days were over; i think because the carrier was smoking his pipe, and she liked sitting by him best. mrs. fielding had no choice, of course, but to say _her_ dancing days were over, after that; and everybody said the same, except may; may was ready. so, may and edward get up, amid great applause, to dance alone; and bertha plays her liveliest tune. well! if you'll believe me, they had not been dancing five minutes, when suddenly the carrier flings his pipe away, takes dot round the waist, dashes out into the room, and starts off with her, toe and heel, quite wonderfully. tackleton no sooner sees this than he skims across to mrs. fielding, takes her round the waist, and follows suit. old dot no sooner sees this than up he is, all alive, whisks off mrs. dot into the middle of the dance, and is foremost there. caleb no sooner sees this than he clutches tilly slowboy by both hands, and goes off at score; miss slowboy, firm in the belief that diving hotly in among the other couples, and effecting any number of concussions with them, is your only principle of footing it. hark! how the cricket joins the music with its chirp, chirp, chirp; and how the kettle hums! * * * * * but what is this? even as i listen to them blithely, and turn towards dot, for one last glimpse of a little figure very pleasant to me, she and the rest have vanished into air, and i am left alone. a cricket sings upon the hearth; a broken child's toy lies upon the ground: and nothing else remains. http://www.archive.org/details/magicfishbonehol dick the magic fishbone by charles dickens with illustrations by s. beatrice pearse [illustration: the queen came in most splendidly dressed p. ] the magic fishbone a holiday romance from the pen of miss alice rainbird aged . by charles dickens london: constable and co. ltd. foreword the story contained herein was written by charles dickens in . it is the second of four stories entitled "holiday romance" and was published originally in a children's magazine in america. it purports to be written by a child aged seven. it was republished in england in "all the year round" in . for this and four other christmas pieces dickens received £ , . "holiday romance" was published in book form by messrs chapman & hall in , with "edwin drood" and other stories. for this reprint the text of the story as it appeared in "all the year round" has been followed. * * * * * [illustration: several of the children were growing out of their clothes] there was once a king, and he had a queen; and he was the manliest of his sex, and she was the loveliest of hers. the king was, in his private profession, under government. the queen's father had been a medical man out of town. they had nineteen children, and were always having more. seventeen of these children took care of the baby; and alicia, the eldest, took care of them all. their ages varied from seven years to seven months. let us now resume our story. one day the king was going to the office, when he stopped at the fishmonger's to buy a pound and a half of salmon not too near the tail, which the queen (who was a careful housekeeper) had requested him to send home. mr pickles, the fishmonger, said, "certainly, sir, is there any other article, good-morning." the king went on towards the office in a melancholy mood, for quarter day was such a long way off, and several of the dear children were growing out of their clothes. he had not proceeded far, when mr pickles's errand-boy came running after him, and said, "sir, you didn't notice the old lady in our shop." "what old lady?" enquired the king. "i saw none." now, the king had not seen any old lady, because this old lady had been invisible to him, though visible to mr pickles's boy. probably because he messed and splashed the water about to that degree, and flopped the pairs of soles down in that violent manner, that, if she had not been visible to him, he would have spoilt her clothes. just then the old lady came trotting up. she was dressed in shot-silk of the richest quality, smelling of dried lavender. "king watkins the first, i believe?" said the old lady. "watkins," replied the king, "is my name." "papa, if i am not mistaken, of the beautiful princess alicia?" said the old lady. "and of eighteen other darlings," replied the king. "listen. you are going to the office," said the old lady. it instantly flashed upon the king that she must be a fairy, or how could she know that? "you are right," said the old lady, answering his thoughts, "i am the good fairy grandmarina. attend. when you return home to dinner, politely invite the princess alicia to have some of the salmon you bought just now." "it may disagree with her," said the king. the old lady became so very angry at this absurd idea, that the king was quite alarmed, and humbly begged her pardon. "we hear a great deal too much about this thing disagreeing, and that thing disagreeing," said the old lady, with the greatest contempt it was possible to express. "don't be greedy. i think you want it all yourself." the king hung his head under this reproof, and said he wouldn't talk about things disagreeing, any more. "be good, then," said the fairy grandmarina, "and don't! when the beautiful princess alicia consents to partake of the salmon--as i think she will--you will find she will leave a fish-bone on her plate. tell her to dry it, and to rub it, and to polish it till it shines like mother-of-pearl, and to take care of it as a present from me." "is that all?" asked the king. "don't be impatient, sir," returned the fairy grandmarina, scolding him severely. "don't catch people short, before they have done speaking. just the way with you grown-up persons. you are always doing it." the king again hung his head, and said he wouldn't do so any more. "be good then," said the fairy grandmarina, "and don't! tell the princess alicia, with my love, that the fish-bone is a magic present which can only be used once; but that it will bring her, that once, whatever she wishes for, provided she wishes for it at the right time. that is the message. take care of it." [illustration: hoity toity me!] the king was beginning, "might i ask the reason--?" when the fairy became absolutely furious. "_will_ you be good, sir?" she exclaimed, stamping her foot on the ground. "the reason for this, and the reason for that, indeed! you are always wanting the reason. no reason. there! hoity toity me! i am sick of your grown-up reasons." the king was extremely frightened by the old lady's flying into such a passion, and said he was very sorry to have offended her, and he wouldn't ask for reasons any more. "be good then," said the old lady, "and don't!" with those words, grandmarina vanished, and the king went on and on and on, till he came to the office. there he wrote and wrote and wrote, till it was time to go home again. then he politely invited the princess alicia, as the fairy had directed him, to partake of the salmon. and when she had enjoyed it very much, he saw the fish-bone on her plate, as the fairy had told him he would, and he delivered the fairy's message, and the princess alicia took care to dry the bone, and to rub it, and to polish it till it shone like mother-of-pearl. [illustration: he saw the fish-bone on her plate] and so when the queen was going to get up in the morning, she said, "o, dear me, dear me; my head, my head!" and then she fainted away. the princess alicia, who happened to be looking in at the chamber-door, asking about breakfast, was very much alarmed when she saw her royal mamma in this state, and she rang the bell for peggy, which was the name of the lord chamberlain. but remembering where the smelling-bottle was, she climbed on a chair and got it, and after that she climbed on another chair by the bedside and held the smelling-bottle to the queen's nose, and after that she jumped down and got some water, and after that she jumped up again and wetted the queen's forehead, and, in short, when the lord chamberlain came in, that dear old woman said to the little princess, "what a trot you are! i couldn't have done it better myself!" [illustration] but that was not the worst of the good queen's illness. o, no! she was very ill indeed, for a long time. the princess alicia kept the seventeen young princes and princesses quiet, and dressed and undressed and danced the baby, and made the kettle boil, and heated the soup, and swept the hearth, and poured out the medicine, and nursed the queen, and did all that ever she could, and was as busy busy busy, as busy could be. for there were not many servants at that palace, for three reasons; because the king was short of money, because a rise in his office never seemed to come, and because quarter day was so far off that it looked almost as far off and as little as one of the stars. but on the morning when the queen fainted away, where was the magic fish-bone? why, there it was in the princess alicia's pocket. she had almost taken it out to bring the queen to life again, when she put it back, and looked for the smelling-bottle. after the queen had come out of her swoon that morning, and was dozing, the princess alicia hurried up-stairs to tell a most particular secret to a most particularly confidential friend of hers, who was a duchess. people did suppose her to be a doll; but she was really a duchess, though nobody knew it except the princess. [illustration] this most particular secret was a secret about the magic fish-bone, the history of which was well known to the duchess, because the princess told her everything. the princess kneeled down by the bed on which the duchess was lying, full-dressed and wide awake, and whispered the secret to her. the duchess smiled and nodded. people might have supposed that she never smiled and nodded, but she often did, though nobody knew it except the princess. then the princess alicia hurried downstairs again, to keep watch in the queen's room. she often kept watch by herself in the queen's room; but every evening, while the illness lasted, she sat there watching with the king. and every evening the king sat looking at her with a cross look, wondering why she never brought out the magic fish-bone. as often as she noticed this, she ran up-stairs, whispered the secret to the duchess over again, and said to the duchess besides, "they think we children never have a reason or a meaning!" and the duchess, though the most fashionable duchess that ever was heard of, winked her eye. "alicia," said the king, one evening when she wished him good night. "yes, papa." "what is become of the magic fish-bone?" "in my pocket, papa." "i thought you had lost it?" "o, no, papa." "or forgotten it?" "no, indeed, papa." and so another time the dreadful little snapping pug-dog next door made a rush at one of the young princes as he stood on the steps coming home from school, and terrified him out of his wits and he put his hand through a pane of glass, and bled bled bled. when the seventeen other young princes and princesses saw him bleed bleed bleed, they were terrified out of their wits too, and screamed themselves black in their seventeen faces all at once. but the princess alicia put her hands over all their seventeen mouths, one after another, and persuaded them to be quiet because of the sick queen. and then she put the wounded prince's hand in a basin of fresh cold water, while they stared with their twice seventeen are thirty-four put down four and carry three eyes, and then she looked in the hand for bits of glass, and there were fortunately no bits of glass there. and then she said to two chubby-legged princes who were sturdy though small, "bring me in the royal rag-bag; i must snip and stitch and cut and contrive." so those two young princes tugged at the royal rag-bag and lugged it in, and the princess alicia sat down on the floor with a large pair of scissors and a needle and thread, and snipped and stitched and cut and contrived, and made a bandage and put it on, and it fitted beautifully, and so when it was all done she saw the king her papa looking on by the door. [illustration] "alicia." "yes, papa." "what have you been doing?" "snipping stitching cutting and contriving, papa." "where is the magic fish-bone?" "in my pocket, papa." "i thought you had lost it?" "o, no, papa." "or forgotten it?" "no, indeed, papa." after that, she ran up-stairs to the duchess and told her what had passed, and told her the secret over again, and the duchess shook her flaxen curls and laughed with her rosy lips. [illustration] well! and so another time the baby fell under the grate. the seventeen young princes and princesses were used to it, for they were almost always falling under the grate or down the stairs, but the baby was not used to it yet, and it gave him a swelled face and a black eye. the way the poor little darling came to tumble was, that he slid out of the princess alicia's lap just as she was sitting in a great coarse apron that quite smothered her, in front of the kitchen-fire, beginning to peel the turnips for the broth for dinner; and the way she came to be doing that was, that the king's cook had run away that morning with her own true love who was a very tall but very tipsy soldier. then, the seventeen young princes and princesses, who cried at everything that happened, cried and roared. but the princess alicia (who couldn't help crying a little herself) quietly called to them to be still, on account of not throwing back the queen up-stairs, who was fast getting well, and said, "hold your tongues, you wicked little monkeys, every one of you, while i examine baby!" then she examined baby, and found that he hadn't broken anything, and she held cold iron to his poor dear eye, and smoothed his poor dear face, and he presently fell asleep in her arms. then, she said to the seventeen princes and princesses, "i am afraid to lay him down yet, lest he should wake and feel pain, be good, and you shall all be cooks." they jumped for joy when they heard that, and began making themselves cooks' caps out of old newspapers. so to one she gave the salt-box, and to one she gave the barley, and to one she gave the herbs, and to one she gave the turnips, and to one she gave the carrots, and to one she gave the onions, and to one she gave the spice-box, till they were all cooks, and all running about at work, she sitting in the middle smothered in the great coarse apron, nursing baby. by and by the broth was done, and the baby woke up smiling like an angel, and was trusted to the sedatest princess to hold, while the other princes and princesses were squeezed into a far-off corner to look at the princess alicia turning out the saucepan-full of broth, for fear (as they were always getting into trouble) they should get splashed and scalded. when the broth came tumbling out, steaming beautifully, and smelling like a nosegay good to eat, they clapped their hands. that made the baby clap his hands; and that, and his looking as if he had a comic toothache, made all the princes and princesses laugh. so the princess alicia said, "laugh and be good, and after dinner we will make him a nest on the floor in a corner, and he shall sit in his nest and see a dance of eighteen cooks." that delighted the young princes and princesses, and they ate up all the broth, and washed up all the plates and dishes, and cleared away, and pushed the table into a corner, and then they in their cooks' caps, and the princess alicia in the smothering coarse apron that belonged to the cook that had run away with her own true love that was the very tall but very tipsy soldier, danced a dance of eighteen cooks before the angelic baby, who forgot his swelled face and his black eye, and crowed with joy. [illustration: the dance of the eighteen cooks] and so then, once more the princess alicia saw king watkins the first, her father, standing in the doorway looking on, and he said: "what have you been doing, alicia?" "cooking and contriving, papa." "what else have you been doing, alicia?" "keeping the children light-hearted, papa." "where is the magic fish-bone, alicia?" "in my pocket, papa." "i thought you had lost it?" "o, no, papa." "or forgotten it?" "no, indeed, papa." the king then sighed so heavily, and seemed so low-spirited, and sat down so miserably, leaning his head upon his hand, and his elbow upon the kitchen table pushed away in the corner, that the seventeen princes and princesses crept softly out of the kitchen, and left him alone with the princess alicia and the angelic baby. "what is the matter, papa?" "i am dreadfully poor, my child." "have you no money at all, papa?" [illustration: "what is the matter, papa?"] "none my child." "is there no way left of getting any, papa?" "no way," said the king. "i have tried very hard, and i have tried all ways." when she heard those last words, the princess alicia began to put her hand into the pocket where she kept the magic fish-bone. "papa," said she, "when we have tried very hard, and tried all ways, we must have done our very very best?" "no doubt, alicia." "when we have done our very very best, papa, and that is not enough, then i think the right time must have come for asking help of others." this was the very secret connected with the magic fish-bone, which she had found out for herself from the good fairy grandmarina's words, and which she had so often whispered to her beautiful and fashionable friend the duchess. so she took out of her pocket the magic fish-bone that had been dried and rubbed and polished till it shone like mother-of-pearl; and she gave it one little kiss and wished it was quarter day. and immediately it _was_ quarter day; and the king's quarter's salary came rattling down the chimney, and bounced into the middle of the floor. but this was not half of what happened, no not a quarter, for immediately afterwards the good fairy grandmarina came riding in, in a carriage and four (peacocks), with mr pickles's boy up behind, dressed in silver and gold, with a cocked hat, powdered hair, pink silk stockings, a jewelled cane, and a nosegay. down jumped mr pickles's boy with his cocked hat in his hand and wonderfully polite (being entirely changed by enchantment), and handed grandmarina out, and there she stood in her rich shot silk smelling of dried lavender, fanning herself with a sparkling fan. "alicia, my dear," said this charming old fairy, "how do you do, i hope i see you pretty well, give me a kiss." the princess alicia embraced her, and then grandmarina turned to the king, and said rather sharply:--"are you good?" [illustration: "alicia, my dear ... how do you do?"] the king said he hoped so. "i suppose you know the reason, _now_, why my god-daughter here," kissing the princess again, "did not apply to the fish-bone sooner?" said the fairy. the king made her a shy bow. "ah! but you didn't _then_!" said the fairy. the king made her a shyer bow. "any more reasons to ask for?" said the fairy. the king said no, and he was very sorry. "be good then," said the fairy, "and live happy ever afterwards." then, grandmarina waved her fan, and the queen came in most splendidly dressed, and the seventeen young princes and princesses, no longer grown out of their clothes, came in newly fitted out from top to toe, with tucks in everything to admit of its being let out. after that, the fairy tapped the princess alicia with her fan, and the smothering coarse apron flew away, and she appeared exquisitely dressed, like a little bride, with a wreath of orange-flowers and a silver veil. after that, the kitchen dresser changed of itself into a wardrobe, made of beautiful woods and gold and looking glass, which was full of dresses of all sorts, all for her and all exactly fitting her. after that, the angelic baby came in, running alone, with his face and eye not a bit the worse but much the better. then, grandmarina begged to be introduced to the duchess, and, when the duchess was brought down many compliments passed between them. a little whispering took place between the fairy and the duchess, and then the fairy said out loud, "yes. i thought she would have told you." grandmarina then turned to the king and queen, and said, "we are going in search of prince certainpersonio. the pleasure of your company is requested at church in half an hour precisely." so she and the princess alicia got into the carriage, and mr pickles's boy handed in the duchess who sat by herself on the opposite seat, and then mr pickles's boy put up the steps and got up behind, and the peacocks flew away with their tails spread. [illustration: she appeared exquisitely dressed, like a little bride] prince certainpersonio was sitting by himself, eating barley-sugar and waiting to be ninety. when he saw the peacocks followed by the carriage, coming in at the window, it immediately occurred to him that something uncommon was going to happen. "prince," said grandmarina, "i bring you your bride." the moment the fairy said those words, prince certainpersonio's face left off being stickey, and his jacket and corduroys changed to peach-bloom velvet, and his hair curled, and a cap and feather flew in like a bird and settled on his head. he got into the carriage by the fairy's invitation, and there he renewed his acquaintance with the duchess, whom he had seen before. in the church were the prince's relations and friends, and the princess alicia's relations and friends, and the seventeen princes and princesses, and the baby, and a crowd of the neighbours. the marriage was beautiful beyond expression. the duchess was bridesmaid, and beheld the ceremony from the pulpit where she was supported by the cushion of the desk. grandmarina gave a magnificent wedding feast afterwards, in which there was everything and more to eat, and everything and more to drink. the wedding cake was delicately ornamented with white satin ribbons, frosted silver and white lilies, and was forty-two yards round. when grandmarina had drunk her love to the young couple, and prince certainpersonio had made a speech, and everybody had cried hip hip hip hurrah! grandmarina announced to the king and queen that in future there would be eight quarter days in every year, except in leap year, when there would be ten. she then turned to certainpersonio and alicia, and said, "my dears, you will have thirty-five children, and they will all be good and beautiful. seventeen of your children will be boys, and eighteen will be girls. the hair of the whole of your children will curl naturally. they will never have the measles, and will have recovered from the whooping-cough before being born." on hearing such good news, everybody cried out "hip hip hip hurrah!" again. "it only remains," said grandmarina in conclusion, "to make an end of the fish-bone." so she took it from the hand of the princess alicia, and it instantly flew down the throat of the dreadful little snapping pug-dog next door and choked him, and he expired in convulsions. the end [illustration] * * * * * printed at the arden press, letchworth, england. first impression, twelve thousand copies, sept. mcmxi: second impression, twelve thousand copies, dec. mcmxi [illustration: with a look of scorn she put into my hand a bit of paper. _page _] the trial of william tinkling written by himself at the age of years by charles dickens london: constable and co. ltd. foreword the story contained herein was written by charles dickens in . it is the first of four stories entitled "holiday romance" and was published originally in a children's magazine in america. it purports to be written by a child aged eight. it was republished in england in "all the year round" in . for this and four other christmas pieces dickens received £ , . "holiday romance" was published in book form by messrs chapman & hall in , with "edwin drood" and other stories. for this reprint the text of the story as it appeared in "all the year round" has been followed. the trial of william tinkling [illustration] this beginning-part is not made out of anybody's head, you know. it's real. you must believe this beginning-part more than what comes after, else you won't understand how what comes after came to be written. you must believe it all, but you must believe this most, please. i am the editor of it. bob redforth (he's my cousin, and shaking the table on purpose) wanted to be the editor of it, but i said he shouldn't because he couldn't. _he_ has no idea of being an editor. [illustration] nettie ashford is my bride. we were married in the right-hand closet in the corner of the dancing-school where first we met, with a ring (a green one) from wilkingwater's toy-shop. _i_ owed for it out of my pocket-money. when the rapturous ceremony was over, we all four went up the lane and let off a cannon (brought loaded in bob redforth's waistcoat-pocket) to announce our nuptials. it flew right up when it went off, and turned over. next day, lieutenant-colonel robin redforth was united, with similar ceremonies, to alice rainbird. this time the cannon bust with a most terrific explosion, and made a puppy bark. my peerless bride was, at the period of which we now treat, in captivity at miss grimmer's. drowvey and grimmer is the partnership, and opinion is divided which is the greatest beast. the lovely bride of the colonel was also immured in the dungeons of the same establishment. a vow was entered into between the colonel and myself that we would cut them out on the following wednesday, when walking two and two. under the desperate circumstances of the case, the active brain of the colonel, combining with his lawless pursuit (he is a pirate), suggested an attack with fireworks. this however, from motives of humanity, was abandoned as too expensive. lightly armed with a paper-knife buttoned up under his jacket, and waving the dreaded black flag at the end of a cane, the colonel took command of me at p.m. on the eventful and appointed day. he had drawn out the plan of attack on a piece of paper which was rolled up round a hoop-stick. he showed it to me. my position and my full-length portrait (but my real ears don't stick out horizontal) was behind a corner-lamp-post, with written orders to remain there till i should see miss drowvey fall. the drowvey who was to fall was the one in spectacles, not the one with the large lavender bonnet. at that signal i was to rush forth, seize my bride, and fight my way to the lane. there, a junction would be effected between myself and the colonel; and putting our brides behind us, between ourselves and the palings, we were to conquer or die. [illustration] [illustration: waving his black flag, the colonel attacked.] the enemy appeared--approached. waving his black flag, the colonel attacked. confusion ensued. anxiously i awaited my signal, but my signal came not. so far from falling, the hated drowvey in spectacles appeared to me to have muffled the colonel's head in his outlawed banner, and to be pitching into him with a parasol. the one in the lavender bonnet also performed prodigies of valour with her fists on his back. seeing that all was for the moment lost, i fought my desperate way hand to hand to the lane. through taking the back road, i was so fortunate as to meet nobody, and arrived there uninterrupted. [illustration] it seemed an age, ere the colonel joined me. he had been to the jobbing-tailor's to be sewn up in several places, and attributed our defeat to the refusal of the detested drowvey to fall. finding her so obstinate he had said to her in a loud voice, "die, recreant!" but had found her no more open to reason on that point than the other. my blooming bride appeared, accompanied by the colonel's bride, at the dancing-school next day. what? was her face averted from me? hah! even so. with a look of scorn she put into my hand a bit of paper, and took another partner. on the paper was pencilled, "heavens! can i write the word! is my husband a cow?" [illustration: "sewn up in several places."] in the first bewilderment of my heated brain i tried to think what slanderer could have traced my family to the ignoble animal mentioned above. vain were my endeavours. at the end of that dance i whispered the colonel to come into the cloak-room, and i showed him the note. [illustration] "there is a syllable wanting," said he, with a gloomy brow. "hah! what syllable?" was my inquiry. "she asks, can she write the word? and no; you see she couldn't," said the colonel, pointing out the passage. "and the word was?" said i. "cow--cow--coward," hissed the pirate-colonel in my ear, and gave me back the note. feeling that i must for ever tread the earth a branded boy--person i mean--or that i must clear up my honour, i demanded to be tried by a court-martial. the colonel admitted my right to be tried. some difficulty was found in composing the court, on account of the emperor of france's aunt refusing to let him come out. he was to be the president. 'ere yet we had appointed a substitute, he made his escape over the back wall, and stood among us, a free monarch. [illustration: the court was held on the grass by the pond.] the court was held on the grass by the pond. i recognised in a certain admiral among my judges my deadliest foe. a cocoa-nut had given rise to language that i could not brook. but confiding in my innocence, and also in the knowledge that the president of the united states (who sat next him) owed me a knife, i braced myself for the ordeal. [illustration: "two executioners with pinafores reversed."] it was a solemn spectacle, that court. two executioners with pinafores reversed, led me in. under the shade of an umbrella, i perceived my bride, supported by the bride of the pirate-colonel. the president (having reproved a little female ensign for tittering, on a matter of life or death) called upon me to plead, "coward or no coward, guilty or not guilty?" i pleaded in a firm tone, "no coward and not guilty." (the little female ensign being again reproved by the president for misconduct, mutinied, left the court, and threw stones.) my implacable enemy, the admiral, conducted the case against me. the colonel's bride was called to prove that i had remained behind the corner-lamp-post during the engagement. i might have been spared the anguish of my own bride's being also made a witness to the same point, but the admiral knew where to wound me. be still my soul, no matter. the colonel was then brought forward with his evidence. it was for this point that i had saved myself up, as the turning-point of my case. shaking myself free of my guards--who had no business to hold me, the stupids! unless i was found guilty--i asked the colonel what he considered the first duty of a soldier? 'ere he could reply, the president of the united states rose and informed the court that my foe the admiral had suggested "bravery," and that prompting a witness wasn't fair. the president of the court immediately ordered the admiral's mouth to be filled with leaves, and tied up with string. i had the satisfaction of seeing the sentence carried into effect, before the proceedings went further. i then took a paper from my trousers-pocket, and asked: "what do you consider, colonel redforth, the first duty of a soldier? is it obedience?" "it is," said the colonel. "is that paper--please to look at it--in your hand?" "it is," said the colonel. "is it a military sketch?" "it is," said the colonel. "of an engagement?" "quite so," said the colonel. "of the late engagement?" "of the late engagement." "please to describe it, and then hand it to the president of the court." from that triumphant moment my sufferings and my dangers were at an end. the court rose up and jumped, on discovering that i had strictly obeyed orders. my foe, the admiral, who though muzzled was malignant yet, contrived to suggest that i was dishonoured by having quitted the field. but the colonel himself had done as much, and gave his opinion, upon his word and honour as a pirate, that when all was lost the field might be quitted without disgrace. i was going to be found "no coward and not guilty," and my blooming bride was going to be publicly restored to my arms in a procession, when an unlooked-for event disturbed the general rejoicing. this was no other than the emperor of france's aunt catching hold of his hair. the proceedings abruptly terminated, and the court tumultuously dissolved. [illustration: "the pirate-colonel with his bride, and yesterday's gallant prisoner with his bride."] it was when the shades of the next evening but one were beginning to fall, 'ere yet the silver beams of luna touched the earth, that four forms might have been descried slowly advancing towards the weeping willow on the borders of the pond, the now deserted scene of the day before yesterday's agonies and triumphs. on a nearer approach, and by a practised eye, these might have been identified as the forms of the pirate-colonel with his bride, and of the day before yesterday's gallant prisoner with _his_ bride. on the beauteous faces of the nymphs, dejection sat enthroned. all four reclined under the willow for some minutes without speaking, till at length the bride of the colonel poutingly observed, "it's of no use pretending any more, and we had better give it up." "hah!" exclaimed the pirate. "pretending?" "don't go on like that; you worry me," returned his bride. the lovely bride of tinkling echoed the incredible declaration. the two warriors exchanged stoney glances. "if," said the bride of the pirate-colonel, "grown-up people won't do what they ought to do, and will put us out, what comes of our pretending?" "we only get into scrapes," said the bride of tinkling. "you know very well," pursued the colonel's bride, "that miss drowvey wouldn't fall. you complained of it yourself. and you know how disgracefully the court-martial ended. as to our marriage; would my people acknowledge it at home?" "or would my people acknowledge ours?" said the bride of tinkling. again the two warriors exchanged stoney glances. "if you knocked at the door and claimed me, after you were told to go away," said the colonel's bride, "you would only have your hair pulled, or your ears, or your nose." "if you persisted in ringing at the bell and claiming me," said the bride of tinkling to that gentleman, "you would have things dropped on your head from the window over the handle, or you would be played upon by the garden-engine." "and at your own homes," resumed the bride of the colonel, "it would be just as bad. you would be sent to bed, or something equally undignified. again: how would you support us?" the pirate-colonel replied, in a courageous voice, "by rapine!" but his bride retorted, suppose the grown-up people wouldn't be rapined? then, said the colonel, they should pay the penalty in blood. but suppose they should object, retorted his bride, and wouldn't pay the penalty in blood or anything else? a mournful silence ensued. "then do you no longer love me, alice?" asked the colonel. "redforth! i am ever thine," returned his bride. "then do you no longer love me, nettie?" asked the present writer. "tinkling! i am ever thine," returned my bride. we all four embraced. let me not be misunderstood by the giddy. the colonel embraced his own bride, and i embraced mine. but two times two make four. "nettie and i," said alice, mournfully, "have been considering our position. the grown-up people are too strong for us. they make us ridiculous. besides, they have changed the times. william tinkling's baby-brother was christened yesterday. what took place? was any king present? answer, william." i said no, unless disguised as great-uncle chopper. "any queen?" there had been no queen that i knew of at our house. there might have been one in the kitchen; but i didn't think so, or the servants would have mentioned it. "any fairies?" none that were visible. "we had an idea among us, i think," said alice, with a melancholy smile, "we four, that miss grimmer would prove to be the wicked fairy, and would come in at the christening with her crutch-stick, and give the child a bad gift? was there anything of that sort? answer, william." [illustration: we had an idea among us ... that miss grimmer would prove to be the wicked fairy.] i said that ma had said afterwards (and so she had), that great-uncle chopper's gift was a shabby one; but she hadn't said a bad one. she had called it shabby, electrotyped, second-hand, and below his income. "it must be the grown-up people who have changed all this," said alice. "_we_ couldn't have changed it, if we had been so inclined, and we never should have been. or perhaps miss grimmer _is_ a wicked fairy, after all, and won't act up to it, because the grown-up people have persuaded her not to. either way, they would make us ridiculous if we told them what we expected." "tyrants!" muttered the pirate-colonel. "nay, my redforth," said alice, "say not so. call not names, my redforth, or they will apply to pa." "let 'em," said the colonel. "i don't care. who's he?" tinkling here undertook the perilous task of remonstrating with his lawless friend, who consented to withdraw the moody expressions above quoted. "what remains for us to do?" alice went on in her mild wise way. "we must educate, we must pretend in a new manner, we must wait." the colonel clenched his teeth--four out in front, and a piece off another, and he had been twice dragged to the door of a dentist-despot, but had escaped from his guards. "how educate? how pretend in a new manner? how wait?" "educate the grown-up people," replied alice. "we part to-night. yes, redforth,"--for the colonel tucked up his cuffs,--"part to-night! let us in these next holidays, now going to begin, throw our thoughts into something educational for the grown-up people, hinting to them how things ought to be. let us veil our meaning under a mask of romance;[a] you, i, and nettie. william tinkling being the plainest and quickest writer, shall copy out. is it agreed?" the colonel answered, sulkily, "i don't mind." he then asked, "how about pretending?" "we will pretend," said alice, "that we are children; not that we are those grown-up people who won't help us out as they ought, and who understand us so badly." the colonel, still much dissatisfied, growled, "how about waiting?" "we will wait," answered little alice, taking nettie's hand in hers, and looking up to the sky, "we will wait--ever constant and true--till the times have got so changed as that everything helps us out, and nothing makes us ridiculous, and the fairies have come back. we will wait--ever constant and true--till we are eighty, ninety, or one hundred. and then the fairies will send _us_ children, and we will help them out, poor pretty little creatures, if they pretend ever so much." [illustration] "so we will, dear," said nettie ashford, taking her round the waist with both arms and kissing her. "and now if my husband will go and buy some cherries for us, i have got some money." in the friendliest manner i invited the colonel to go with me; but he so far forgot himself as to acknowledge the invitation by kicking out behind, and then lying down on his stomach on the grass, pulling it up and chewing it. when i came back, however, alice had nearly brought him out of his vexation, and was soothing him by telling him how soon we should all be ninety. as we sat under the willow-tree and ate the cherries (fair, for alice shared them out), we played at being ninety. nettie complained that she had a bone in her old back and it made her hobble, and alice sang a song in an old woman's way, but it was very pretty, and we were all merry. at least i don't know about merry exactly, but all comfortable. there was a most tremendous lot of cherries and alice always had with her some neat little bag or box or case, to hold things. in it, that night, was a tiny wine-glass. so alice and nettie said they would make some cherry-wine to drink our love at parting. [illustration: there was a most tremendous lot of cherries.] each of us had a glassful, and it was delicious, and each of us drank the toast, "our love at parting." the colonel drank his wine last, and it got into my head directly that it got into his directly. anyhow his eyes rolled immediately after he had turned the glass upside down, and he took me on one side and proposed in a hoarse whisper that we should "cut 'em out still." "how did he mean?" i asked my lawless friend. "cut our brides out," said the colonel, "and then cut our way, without going down a single turning, bang to the spanish main!" we might have tried it, though i didn't think it would answer; only we looked round and saw that there was nothing but moonlight under the willow-tree, and that our pretty, pretty wives were gone. we burst out crying. the colonel gave in second, and came to first; but he gave in strong. we were ashamed of our red eyes, and hung about for half an hour to whiten them. likewise a piece of chalk round the rims, i doing the colonel's, and he mine, but afterwards found in the bedroom looking-glass not natural, besides inflammation. our conversation turned on being ninety. the colonel told me he had a pair of boots that wanted soleing and heeling but he thought it hardly worth while to mention it to his father, as he himself should so soon be ninety, when he thought shoes would be more convenient. the colonel also told me with his hand upon his hip that he felt himself already getting on in life, and turning rheumatic. and i told him the same. and when they said at our house at supper (they are always bothering about something) that i stooped, i felt so glad! this is the end of the beginning-part that you were to believe most. the end * * * * * [footnote a: the titles of the romances by which alice rainbird, nettie ashford and the pirate-colonel sought to veil their meanings will be found on page .] [transcriber's note: the page this footnote refers to doesn't exist in this book. the footnote itself could not be found in other editions. inconsistent use of initial capitals in court-martial/court-martial and dancing-school/dancing-school has been retained.] for the reader: things that were handwritten are denoted in the text as hw: the letters of [illustration: hw: charles dickens] the letters of charles dickens. edited by his sister-in-law and his eldest daughter. =in two volumes.= vol. ii. to . london: chapman and hall, , piccadilly. . [_the right of translation is reserved._] charles dickens and evans, crystal palace press. errata. vol. ii. page , line . for "south kensington museum," _read_ "the south kensington museum." " , line . for "frequent contributor," _read_ "a frequent contributor." " , lines , . for "great remonstrance," _read_ "great remonstrance." " , line . for "after," _read_ "afore." " , " . for "a head," _read_ "ahead." " , " . for "shea," _read_ "shoe." " , " . for "mabel's progress," _read_ "mabel's progress." =book ii.=--_continued._ the letters of charles dickens. . narrative. this was a very full year in many ways. in february, charles dickens obtained possession of gad's hill, and was able to turn workmen into it. in april he stayed, with his wife and sister-in-law, for a week or two at wate's hotel, gravesend, to be at hand to superintend the beginning of his alterations of the house, and from thence we give a letter to lord carlisle. he removed his family, for a summer residence in the house, in june; and he finished "little dorrit" there early in the summer. one of his first visitors at gad's hill was the famous writer, hans christian andersen. in january "the frozen deep" had been played at the tavistock house theatre with such great success, that it was necessary to repeat it several times, and the theatre was finally demolished at the end of that month. in june charles dickens heard, with great grief, of the death of his dear friend douglas jerrold; and as a testimony of admiration for his genius and affectionate regard for himself, it was decided to organise, under the management of charles dickens, a series of entertainments, "in memory of the late douglas jerrold," the fund produced by them (a considerable sum) to be presented to mr. jerrold's family. the amateur company, including many of mr. jerrold's colleagues on "punch," gave subscription performances of "the frozen deep;" the gallery of illustration, in regent street, being engaged for the purpose. charles dickens gave two readings at st. martin's hall of "the christmas carol" (to such immense audiences and with such success, that the idea of giving public readings for his _own_ benefit first occurred to him at this time). the professional actors, among them the famous veteran actor, mr. t. p. cooke, gave a performance of mr. jerrold's plays of "the rent day" and "black-eyed susan," in which mr. t. p. cooke sustained the character in which he had originally made such great success when the play was written. a lecture was given by mr. thackeray, and another by mr. w. h. russell. finally, the queen having expressed a desire to see the play, which had been much talked of during that season, there was another performance before her majesty and the prince consort at the gallery of illustration in july, and at the end of that month charles dickens read his "carol" in the free trade hall, at manchester. and to wind up the "memorial fund" entertainments, "the frozen deep" was played again at manchester, also in the great free trade hall, at the end of august. for the business of these entertainments he secured the assistance of mr. arthur smith, of whom he writes to mr. forster, at this time: "i have got hold of arthur smith, as the best man of business i know, and go to work with him to-morrow morning." and when he began his own public readings, both in town and country, he felt himself most fortunate in having the co-operation of this invaluable man of business, and also of his zealous friendship and pleasant companionship. in july, his second son, walter landor, went to india as a cadet in the "company's service," from which he was afterwards transferred to the nd royal highlanders. his father and his elder brother went to see him off, to southampton. from this place charles dickens writes to mr. edmund yates, a young man in whom he had been interested from his boyhood, both for the sake of his parents and for his own sake, and for whom he had always an affectionate regard. in september he made a short tour in the north of england, with mr. wilkie collins, out of which arose the "lazy tour of two idle apprentices," written by them jointly, and published in "household words." some letters to his sister-in-law during this expedition are given here, parts of which (as is the case with many letters to his eldest daughter and his sister-in-law) have been published in mr. forster's book. the letters which follow are almost all on the various subjects mentioned in our notes, and need little explanation. his letter to mr. procter makes allusion to a legacy lately left to that friend. the letters to mr. dilke, the original and much-respected editor of "the athenæum," and to mr. forster, on the subject of the "literary fund," refer, as the letters indicate, to a battle which they were carrying on together with that institution. a letter to mr. frank stone is an instance of his kind, patient, and judicious criticism of a young writer, and the letter which follows it shows how thoroughly it was understood and how perfectly appreciated by the authoress of the "notes" referred to. another instance of the same kind criticism is given in a second letter this year to mr. edmund yates. [sidenote: mr. b. w. procter.] tavistock house, _january nd, ._ my dear procter, i have to thank you for a delightful book, which has given me unusual pleasure. my delight in it has been a little dashed by certain farewell verses, but i have made up my mind (and you have no idea of the obstinacy of my character) not to believe them. perhaps it is not taking a liberty--perhaps it is--to congratulate you on kenyon's remembrance. either way i can't help doing it with all my heart, for i know no man in the world (myself excepted) to whom i would rather the money went. affectionately yours ever. [sidenote: sir james emerson tennent.] tavistock house, _january th, ._ my dear tennent, i must thank you for your earnest and affectionate letter. it has given me the greatest pleasure, mixing the play in my mind confusedly and delightfully with pisa, the valetta, naples, herculanæum--god knows what not. as to the play itself; when it is made as good as my care can make it, i derive a strange feeling out of it, like writing a book in company; a satisfaction of a most singular kind, which has no exact parallel in my life; a something that i suppose to belong to the life of a labourer in art alone, and which has to me a conviction of its being actual truth without its pain, that i never could adequately state if i were to try never so hard. you touch so kindly and feelingly on the pleasure such little pains give, that i feel quite sorry you have never seen this drama in progress during the last ten weeks here. every monday and friday evening during that time we have been at work upon it. i assure you it has been a remarkable lesson to my young people in patience, perseverance, punctuality, and order; and, best of all, in that kind of humility which is got from the earned knowledge that whatever the right hand finds to do must be done with the heart in it, and in a desperate earnest. when i changed my dress last night (though i did it very quickly), i was vexed to find you gone. i wanted to have secured you for our green-room supper, which was very pleasant. if by any accident you should be free next wednesday night (our last), pray come to that green-room supper. it would give me cordial pleasure to have you there. ever, my dear tennent, very heartily yours. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] tavistock house, _monday night, jan, th, ._ my dear cerjat, so wonderfully do good (epistolary) intentions become confounded with bad execution, that i assure you i laboured under a perfect and most comfortable conviction that i had answered your christmas eve letter of . more than that, in spite of your assertions to the contrary, i still strenuously believe that i did so! i have more than half a mind ("little dorrit" and my other occupations notwithstanding) to charge you with having forgotten my reply!! i have even a wild idea that townshend reproached me, when the last old year was new, with writing to you instead of to him!!! we will argue it out, as well as we can argue anything without poor dear haldimand, when i come back to elysée. in any case, however, don't discontinue your annual letter, because it has become an expected and a delightful part of the season to me. with one of the prettiest houses in london, and every conceivable (and inconceivable) luxury in it, townshend is voluntarily undergoing his own sentence of transportation in nervi, a beastly little place near genoa, where you would as soon find a herd of wild elephants in any villa as comfort. he has a notion that he _must_ be out of england in the winter, but i believe him to be altogether wrong (as i have just told him in a letter), unless he could just take his society with him. workmen are now battering and smashing down my theatre here, where we have just been acting a new play of great merit, done in what i may call (modestly speaking of the getting-up, and not of the acting) an unprecedented way. i believe that anything so complete has never been seen. we had an act at the north pole, where the slightest and greatest thing the eye beheld were equally taken from the books of the polar voyagers. out of thirty people, there were certainly not two who might not have gone straight to the north pole itself, completely furnished for the winter! it has been the talk of all london for these three weeks. and now it is a mere chaos of scaffolding, ladders, beams, canvases, paint-pots, sawdust, artificial snow, gas-pipes, and ghastliness. i have taken such pains with it for these ten weeks in all my leisure hours, that i feel now shipwrecked--as if i had never been without a play on my hands before. a third topic comes up as this ceases. down at gad's hill, near rochester, in kent--shakespeare's gad's hill, where falstaff engaged in the robbery--is a quaint little country-house of queen anne's time. i happened to be walking past, a year and a half or so ago, with my sub-editor of "household words," when i said to him: "you see that house? it has always a curious interest for me, because when i was a small boy down in these parts i thought it the most beautiful house (i suppose because of its famous old cedar-trees) ever seen. and my poor father used to bring me to look at it, and used to say that if i ever grew up to be a clever man perhaps i might own that house, or such another house. in remembrance of which, i have always in passing looked to see if it was to be sold or let, and it has never been to me like any other house, and it has never changed at all." we came back to town, and my friend went out to dinner. next morning he came to me in great excitement, and said: "it is written that you were to have that house at gad's hill. the lady i had allotted to me to take down to dinner yesterday began to speak of that neighbourhood. 'you know it?' i said; 'i have been there to-day.' 'o yes,' said she, 'i know it very well. i was a child there, in the house they call gad's hill place. my father was the rector, and lived there many years. he has just died, has left it to me, and i want to sell it.' 'so,' says the sub-editor, 'you must buy it. now or never!'" i did, and hope to pass next summer there, though i may, perhaps, let it afterwards, furnished, from time to time. all about myself i find, and the little sheet nearly full! but i know, my dear cerjat, the subject will have its interest for you, so i give it its swing. mrs. watson was to have been at the play, but most unfortunately had three children sick of gastric fever, and could not leave them. she was here some three weeks before, looking extremely well in the face, but rather thin. i have not heard of your friend mr. percival skelton, but i much misdoubt an amateur artist's success in this vast place. i hope you detected a remembrance of our happy visit to the great st. bernard in a certain number of "little dorrit"? tell mrs. cerjat, with my love, that the opinions i have expressed to her on the subject of cows have become matured in my mind by experience and venerable age; and that i denounce the race as humbugs, who have been getting into poetry and all sorts of places without the smallest reason. haldimand's housekeeper is an awful woman to consider. pray give him our kindest regards and remembrances, if you ever find him in a mood to take it. "our" means mrs. dickens's, georgie's, and mine. we often, often talk of our old days at lausanne, and send loving regard to mrs. cerjat and all your house. adieu, my dear fellow; ever cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] tavistock house, _january th, ._ my dearest macready, your friend and servant is as calm as pecksniff, saving for his knitted brows now turning into cordage over little dorrit. the theatre has disappeared, the house is restored to its usual conditions of order, the family are tranquil and domestic, dove-eyed peace is enthroned in this study, fire-eyed radicalism in its master's breast. i am glad to hear that our poetess is at work again, and shall be very much pleased to have some more contributions from her. love from all to your dear sister, and to katie, and to all the house. we dined yesterday at frederick pollock's. i begged an amazing photograph of you, and brought it away. it strikes me as one of the most ludicrous things i ever saw in my life. i think of taking a public-house, and having it copied larger, for the size. you may remember it? very square and big--the saracen's head with its hair cut, and in modern gear? staring very hard? as your particular friend, i would not part with it on any consideration. i will never get such a wooden head again. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] tavistock house, _february th, ._ my dear mary, half-a-dozen words on this, my birthday, to thank you for your kind and welcome remembrance, and to assure you that your joseph is proud of it. for about ten minutes after his death, on each occasion of that event occurring, richard wardour was in a floored condition. and one night, to the great terror of devonshire, the arctic regions, and newfoundland (all of which localities were afraid to speak to him, as his ghost sat by the kitchen fire in its rags), he very nearly did what he never did, went and fainted off, dead, again. but he always plucked up, on the turn of ten minutes, and became facetious. likewise he chipped great pieces out of all his limbs (solely, as i imagine, from moral earnestness and concussion of passion, for i never know him to hit himself in any way) and terrified aldersley[ ] to that degree, by lunging at him to carry him into the cave, that the said aldersley always shook like a mould of jelly, and muttered, "by g----, this is an awful thing!" ever affectionately. p.s.--i shall never cease to regret mrs. watson's not having been there. [sidenote: rev. james white.] tavistock house, _sunday, feb. th, ._ my dear white, i send these lines by mary and katey, to report my love to all. your note about the _golden mary_ gave me great pleasure; though i don't believe in one part of it; for i honestly believe that your story, as really belonging to the rest of the narrative, had been generally separated from the other stories, and greatly liked. i had not that particular shipwreck that you mention in my mind (indeed i doubt if i know it), and john steadiman merely came into my head as a staunch sort of name that suited the character. the number has done "household words" great service, and has decidedly told upon its circulation. you should have come to the play. i much doubt if anything so complete will ever be seen again. an incredible amount of pains and ingenuity was expended on it, and the result was most remarkable even to me. when are you going to send something more to h. w.? are you lazy?? low-spirited??? pining for paris???? ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. c. w. dilke.] office of "household words," _thursday, march th, ._ my dear mr. dilke, forster has another notion about the literary fund. will you name a day next week--that day being neither thursday nor saturday--when we shall hold solemn council there at half-past four? for myself, i beg to report that i have my war-paint on, that i have buried the pipe of peace, and am whooping for committee scalps. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: the earl of carlisle.] gravesend, kent, _wednesday, april th, ._ my dear lord carlisle, i am writing by the river-side for a few days, and at the end of last week ---- appeared here with your note of introduction. i was not in the way; but as ---- had come express from london with it, mrs. dickens opened it, and gave her (in the limited sense which was of no use to her) an audience. she did not quite seem to know what she wanted of me. but she said she had understood at stafford house that i had a theatre in which she could read; with a good deal of modesty and diffidence she at last got so far. now, my little theatre turns my house out of window, costs fifty pounds to put up, and is only two months taken down; therefore, is quite out of the question. this mrs. dickens explained, and also my profound inability to do anything for ---- readings which they could not do for themselves. she appeared fully to understand the explanation, and indeed to have anticipated for herself how powerless i must be in such a case. she described herself as being consumptive, and as being subject to an effusion of blood from the lungs; about the last condition, one would think, poor woman, for the exercise of public elocution as an art. between ourselves, i think the whole idea a mistake, and have thought so from its first announcement. it has a fatal appearance of trading upon uncle tom, and am i not a man and a brother? which you may be by all means, and still not have the smallest claim to my attention as a public reader. the town is over-read from all the white squares on the draught-board; it has been considerably harried from all the black squares--now with the aid of old banjoes, and now with the aid of exeter hall; and i have a very strong impression that it is by no means to be laid hold of from this point of address. i myself, for example, am the meekest of men, and in abhorrence of slavery yield to no human creature, and yet i don't admit the sequence that i want uncle tom (or aunt tomasina) to expound "king lear" to me. and i believe my case to be the case of thousands. i trouble you with this much about it, because i am naturally desirous you should understand that if i could possibly have been of any service, or have suggested anything to this poor lady, i would not have lost the opportunity. but i cannot help her, and i assure you that i cannot honestly encourage her to hope. i fear her enterprise has no hope in it. in your absence i have always followed you through the papers, and felt a personal interest and pleasure in the public affection in which you are held over there.[ ] at the same time i must confess that i should prefer to have you here, where good public men seem to me to be dismally wanted. i have no sympathy with demagogues, but am a grievous radical, and think the political signs of the times to be just about as bad as the spirit of the people will admit of their being. in all other respects i am as healthy, sound, and happy as your kindness can wish. so you will set down my political despondency as my only disease. on the tip-top of gad's hill, between this and rochester, on the very spot where falstaff ran away, i have a pretty little old-fashioned house, which i shall live in the hope of showing to you one day. also i have a little story respecting the manner in which it became mine, which i hope (on the same occasion in the clouds) to tell you. until then and always, i am, dear lord carlisle, yours very faithfully and obliged. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] tavistock house, _may th, ._ my dear forster, i have gone over dilke's memoranda, and i think it quite right and necessary that those points should be stated. nor do i see the least difficulty in the way of their introduction into the pamphlet. but i do not deem it possible to get the pamphlet written and published before the dinner. i have so many matters pressing on my attention, that i cannot turn to it immediately on my release from my book just finished. it shall be done and distributed early next month. as to anything being lost by its not being in the hands of the people who dine (as you seem to think), i have not the least misgiving on that score. they would say, if it were issued, just what they will say without it. lord granville is committed to taking the chair, and will make the best speech he can in it. the pious ---- will cram him with as many distortions of the truth as his stomach may be strong enough to receive. ----, with bardolphian eloquence, will cool his nose in the modest merits of the institution. ---- will make a neat and appropriate speech on both sides, round the corner and over the way. and all this would be done exactly to the same purpose and in just the same strain, if twenty thousand copies of the pamphlet had been circulated. ever affectionately. [sidenote: rev. james white.] tavistock house, _friday, may nd, ._ my dear white, my emancipation having been effected on saturday, the ninth of this month, i take some shame to myself for not having sooner answered your note. but the host of things to be done as soon as i was free, and the tremendous number of ingenuities to be wrought out at gad's hill, have kept me in a whirl of their own ever since. we purpose going to gad's hill for the summer on the st of june; as, apart from the master's eye being a necessary ornament to the spot, i clearly see that the workmen yet lingering in the yard must be squeezed out by bodily pressure, or they will never go. how will this suit you and yours? if you will come down, we can take you all in, on your way north; that is to say, we shall have that ample verge and room enough, until about the eighth; when hans christian andersen (who has been "coming" for about three years) will come for a fortnight's stay in england. i shall like you to see the little old-fashioned place. it strikes me as being comfortable. so let me know your little game. and with love to mrs. white, lotty, and clara, believe me, ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] office of "household words," _monday, june st, ._ my dear stone, i know that what i am going to say will not be agreeable; but i rely on the authoress's good sense; and say it, knowing it to be the truth. these "notes" are destroyed by too much smartness. it gives the appearance of perpetual effort, stabs to the heart the nature that is in them, and wearies by the manner and not by the matter. it is the commonest fault in the world (as i have constant occasion to observe here), but it is a very great one. just as you couldn't bear to have an épergne or a candlestick on your table, supported by a light figure always on tiptoe and evidently in an impossible attitude for the sustainment of its weight, so all readers would be more or less oppressed and worried by this presentation of everything in one smart point of view, when they know it must have other, and weightier, and more solid properties. airiness and good spirits are always delightful, and are inseparable from notes of a cheerful trip; but they should sympathise with many things as well as see them in a lively way. it is but a word or a touch that expresses this humanity, but without that little embellishment of good nature there is no such thing as humour. in this little ms. everything is too much patronised and condescended to, whereas the slightest touch of feeling for the rustic who is of the earth earthy, or of sisterhood with the homely servant who has made her face shine in her desire to please, would make a difference that the writer can scarcely imagine without trying it. the only relief in the twenty-one slips is the little bit about the chimes. it _is_ a relief, simply because it is an indication of some kind of sentiment. you don't want any sentiment laboriously made out in such a thing. you don't want any maudlin show of it. but you do want a pervading suggestion that it is there. it makes all the difference between being playful and being cruel. again i must say, above all things--especially to young people writing: for the love of god don't condescend! don't assume the attitude of saying, "see how clever i am, and what fun everybody else is!" take any shape but that. i observe an excellent quality of observation throughout, and think the boy at the shop, and all about him, particularly good. i have no doubt whatever that the rest of the journal will be much better if the writer chooses to make it so. if she considers for a moment within herself, she will know that she derived pleasure from everything she saw, because she saw it with innumerable lights and shades upon it, and bound to humanity by innumerable fine links; she cannot possibly communicate anything of that pleasure to another by showing it from one little limited point only, and that point, observe, the one from which it is impossible to detach the exponent as the patroness of a whole universe of inferior souls. this is what everybody would mean in objecting to these notes (supposing them to be published), that they are too smart and too flippant. as i understand this matter to be altogether between us three, and as i think your confidence, and hers, imposes a duty of friendship on me, i discharge it to the best of my ability. perhaps i make more of it than you may have meant or expected; if so, it is because i am interested and wish to express it. if there had been anything in my objection not perfectly easy of removal, i might, after all, have hesitated to state it; but that is not the case. a very little indeed would make all this gaiety as sound and wholesome and good-natured in the reader's mind as it is in the writer's. affectionately always. [sidenote: anonymous.] gad's hill place, higham, _thursday, june th, ._ my dear ---- coming home here last night, from a day's business in london, i found your most excellent note awaiting me, in which i have had a pleasure to be derived from none but good and natural things. i can now honestly assure you that i believe you will write _well_, and that i have a lively hope that i may be the means of showing you yourself in print one day. your powers of graceful and light-hearted observation need nothing but the little touches on which we are both agreed. and i am perfectly sure that they will be as pleasant to you as to anyone, for nobody can see so well as you do, without feeling kindly too. to confess the truth to you, i was half sorry, yesterday, that i had been so unreserved; but not half as sorry, yesterday, as i am glad to-day. you must not mind my adding that there is a noble candour and modesty in your note, which i shall never be able to separate from you henceforth. affectionately yours always. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] gad's hill, _saturday, june th, ._ my dear henry, here is a very serious business on the great estate respecting the water supply. last night, they had pumped the well dry merely in raising the family supply for the day; and this morning (very little water having been got into the cisterns) it is dry again! it is pretty clear to me that we must look the thing in the face, and at once bore deeper, dig, or do some beastly thing or other, to secure this necessary in abundance. meanwhile i am in a most plaintive and forlorn condition without your presence and counsel. i raise my voice in the wilderness and implore the same!!! wild legends are in circulation among the servants how that captain goldsmith on the knoll above--the skipper in that crow's-nest of a house--has millions of gallons of water always flowing for him. can he have damaged my well? can we imitate him, and have our millions of gallons? goldsmith or i must fall, so i conceive. if you get this, send me a telegraph message informing me when i may expect comfort. i am held by four of the family while i write this, in case i should do myself a mischief--it certainly won't be taking to drinking water. ever affectionately (most despairingly). [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] tavistock house, _monday, july th, ._ my dearest macready, many thanks for your indian information. i shall act upon it in the most exact manner. walter sails next monday. charley and i go down with him to southampton next sunday. we are all delighted with the prospect of seeing you at gad's hill. these are my jerrold engagements: on friday, the th, i have to repeat my reading at st. martin's hall; on saturday, the th, to repeat "the frozen deep" at the gallery of illustration for the last time. on thursday, the th, or friday, the st, i shall probably read at manchester. deane, the general manager of the exhibition, is going down to-night, and will arrange all the preliminaries for me. if you and i went down to manchester together, and were there on a sunday, he would give us the whole exhibition to ourselves. it is probable, i think (as he estimates the receipts of a night at about seven hundred pounds), that we may, in about a fortnight or so after the reading, play "the frozen deep" at manchester. but of this contingent engagement i at present know no more than you do. now, will you, upon this exposition of affairs, choose your own time for coming to us, and, when you have made your choice, write to me at gad's hill? i am going down this afternoon for rest (which means violent cricket with the boys) after last saturday night; which was a teaser, but triumphant. the st. martin's hall audience was, i must confess, a very extraordinary thing. the two thousand and odd people were like one, and their enthusiasm was something awful. yet i have seen that before, too. your young remembrance cannot recall the man; but he flourished in my day--a great actor, sir--a noble actor--thorough artist! i have seen him do wonders in that way. he retired from the stage early in life (having a monomaniacal delusion that he was old), and is said to be still living in your county. all join in kindest love to your dear sister and all the rest. ever, my dearest macready, most affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. edmund yates.] tavistock house, _sunday, july th, ._ my dear yates, although i date this ashore, i really write it from southampton (don't notice this fact in your reply, for i shall be in town on wednesday). i have come here on an errand which will grow familiar to you before you know that time has flapped his wings over your head. like me, you will find those babies grow to be young men before you are quite sure they are born. like me, you will have great teeth drawn with a wrench, and will only then know that you ever cut them. i am here to send walter away over what they call, in green bush melodramas, "the big drink," and i don't at all know this day how he comes to be mine, or i his. i don't write to say this--or to say how seeing charley, and he going aboard the ship before me just now, i suddenly came into possession of a photograph of my own back at sixteen and twenty, and also into a suspicion that i had doubled the last age. i merely write to mention that telbin and his wife are going down to gad's hill with us, about mid-day next sunday, and that if you and mrs. yates will come too, we shall be delighted to have you. we can give you a bed, and you can be in town (if you have such a savage necessity) by twenty minutes before ten on monday morning. i was very much pleased (as i had reason to be) with your account of the reading in _the daily news_. i thank you heartily. [sidenote: mr. t. p. cooke.] in remembrance of the late mr. douglas jerrold. committee's office, gallery of illustration, regent street, _thursday, july th, ._ my dear mr. cooke, i cannot rest satisfied this morning without writing to congratulate you on your admirable performance of last night. it was so fresh and vigorous, so manly and gallant, that i felt as if it splashed against my theatre-heated face along with the spray of the breezy sea. what i felt everybody felt; i should feel it quite an impertinence to take myself out of the crowd, therefore, if i could by any means help doing so. but i can't; so i hope you will feel that you bring me on yourself, and have only yourself to blame. always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. compton.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, _sunday night, aug nd, ._ my dear mrs. compton, we are going to play "the frozen deep" (pursuant to requisition from town magnates, etc.) at manchester, at the new free trade hall, on the nights of friday and saturday, the st and nd august. the place is out of the question for my girls. their action could not be seen, and their voices could not be heard. you and i have played, there and elsewhere, so sociably and happily, that i am emboldened to ask you whether you would play my sister-in-law georgina's part (compton and babies permitting). we shall go down in the old pleasant way, and shall have the art treasures exhibition to ourselves on the sunday; when even "he" (as rogers always called every pretty woman's husband) might come and join us. what do you say? what does he say? and what does baby say? when i use the term "baby," i use it in two tenses--present and future. answer me at this address, like the juliet i saw at drury lane--when was it?--yesterday. and whatever your answer is, if you will say that you and compton will meet us at the north kent station, london bridge, next sunday at a quarter before one, and will come down here for a breath of sweet air and stay all night, you will give your old friends great pleasure. not least among them, yours faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, _monday, aug. rd, ._ my dearest macready, i write to you in reference to your last note, as soon as i positively know our final movements in the jerrold matter. we are going to wind up by acting at manchester (on solemn requisition) on the evenings of friday and saturday, the st and nd (actresses substituted for the girls, of course). we shall have to leave here on the morning of the th. you thought of coming on the th; can't you make it a day or two earlier, so as to be with us a whole week? decide and pronounce. again, cannot you bring katey with you? decide and pronounce thereupon, also. i read at manchester last friday. as many thousand people were there as you like to name. the collection of pictures in the exhibition is wonderful. and the power with which the modern english school asserts itself is a very gratifying and delightful thing to behold. the care for the common people, in the provision made for their comfort and refreshment, is also admirable and worthy of all commendation. but they want more amusement, and particularly (as it strikes me) _something in motion_, though it were only a twisting fountain. the thing is too still after their lives of machinery, and art flies over their heads in consequence. i hope you have seen my tussle with the "edinburgh." i saw the chance last friday week, as i was going down to read the "carol" in st. martin's hall. instantly turned to, then and there, and wrote half the article. flew out of bed early next morning, and finished it by noon. went down to gallery of illustration (we acted that night), did the day's business, corrected the proofs in polar costume in dressing-room, broke up two numbers of "household words" to get it out directly, played in "frozen deep" and "uncle john," presided at supper of company, made no end of speeches, went home and gave in completely for four hours, then got sound asleep, and next day was as fresh as you used to be in the far-off days of your lusty youth. all here send kindest love to your dear good sister and all the house. ever and ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] tavistock house, _sunday afternoon, aug. th, ._ my dear stone, now here, without any preface, is a good, confounding, stunning question for you--would you like to play "uncle john" on the two nights at manchester? it is not a long part. you could have a full rehearsal on the friday, and i could sit in the wing at night and pull you through all the business. perhaps you might not object to being in the thing in your own native place, and the relief to me would be enormous. this is what has come into my head lying in bed to-day (i have been in bed all day), and this is just my plain reason for writing to you. it's a capital part, and you are a capital old man. you know the play as we play it, and the manchester people don't. say the word, and i'll send you my own book by return of post. the agitation and exertion of richard wardour are so great to me, that i cannot rally my spirits in the short space of time i get. the strain is so great to make a show of doing it, that i want to be helped out of "uncle john" if i can. think of yourself far more than me; but if you half think you are up to the joke, and half doubt your being so, then give me the benefit of the doubt and play the part. answer me at gad's hill. ever affectionately. p.s.--if you play, i shall immediately announce it to all concerned. if you don't, i shall go on as if nothing had happened, and shall say nothing to anyone. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] gad's hill place, _saturday, aug. th, ._ my dear henry, at last, i am happy to inform you, we have got at a famous spring!! it rushed in this morning, ten foot deep. and our friends talk of its supplying "a ton a minute for yourself and your family, sir, for nevermore." they ask leave to bore ten feet lower, to prevent the possibility of what they call "a choking with sullage." likewise, they are going to insert "a rose-headed pipe;" at the mention of which implement, i am (secretly) well-nigh distracted, having no idea of what it means. but i have said "yes," besides instantly standing a bottle of gin. can you come back, and can you get down on monday morning, to advise and endeavour to decide on the mechanical force we shall use for raising the water? i would return with you, as i shall have to be in town until thursday, and then to go to manchester until the following tuesday. i send this by hand to john, to bring to you. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] gad's hill place, _monday, aug. th, ._ my dear stone, i received your kind note this morning, and write this reply here to take to london with me and post in town, being bound for that village and three days' drill of the professional ladies who are to succeed the tavistock girls. my book i enclose. there is a slight alteration (which does not affect you) at the end of the first act, in order that the piece may be played through without having the drop curtain down. you will not find the situations or business difficult, with me on the spot to put you right. now, as to the dress. you will want a pair of pumps, and a pair of white silk socks; these you can get at manchester. the extravagantly and anciently-frilled shirts that i have had got up for the part, i will bring you down; large white waistcoat, i will bring you down; large white hat, i will bring you down; dressing-gown, i will bring you down; white gloves and ditto choker you can get at manchester. there then remain only a pair of common nankeen tights, to button below the calf, and blue wedding-coat. the nankeen tights you had best get made at once; my "uncle john" coat i will send you down in a parcel by to-morrow's train, to have altered in manchester to your shape and figure. you will then be quite independent of christian chance and jewish nathan, which latter potentate is now at canterbury with the cricket amateurs, and might fail. a thursday's rehearsal is (unfortunately) now impracticable, the passes for the railway being all made out, and the company's sailing orders issued. but, as i have already suggested, with a careful rehearsal on friday morning, and with me at the wing at night to put you right, you will find yourself sliding through it easily. there is nothing in the least complicated in the business. as to the dance, you have only to knock yourself up for a twelvemonth and it will go nobly. after all, too, if you _should_, through any unlucky breakdown, come to be afraid of it, i am no worse off than i was before, if i have to do it at last. keep your pecker up with that. i am heartily obliged to you, my dear old boy, for your affectionate and considerate note, and i wouldn't have you do it, really and sincerely--immense as the relief will be to me--unless you are quite comfortable in it, and able to enjoy it. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] office of "household words," _tuesday, aug. th, ._ my dear stone, i sent you a telegraph message last night, in total contradiction of the letter you received from me this morning. the reason was simply this: arthur smith and the other business men, both in manchester and here, urged upon me, in the strongest manner, that they were afraid of the change; that it was well known in manchester that i had done the part in london; that there was a danger of its being considered disrespectful in me to give it up; also that there was a danger that it might be thought that i did so at the last minute, after an immense let, whereas i might have done it at first, etc. etc. etc. having no desire but for the success of our object, and a becoming recognition on my part of the kind manchester public's cordiality, i gave way, and thought it best to go on. i do so against the grain, and against every inclination, and against the strongest feeling of gratitude to you. my people at home will be miserable too when they hear i am going to do it. if i could have heard from you sooner, and got the bill out sooner, i should have been firmer in considering my own necessity of relief. as it is, i sneak under; and i hope you will feel the reasons, and approve. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] gad's hill place, _wednesday, sept. nd, ._ my dear henry, the second conspirator has been here this morning to ask whether you wish the windlass to be left in the yard, and whether you will want him and his mate any more, and, if so, when? of course he says (rolling something in the form of a fillet in at one broken tooth all the while, and rolling it out at another) that they could wish fur to have the windlass if it warn't any ways a hill conwenience fur to fetch her away. i have told him that if he will come back on friday he shall have your reply. will you, therefore, send it me by return of post? he says he'll "look up" (as if he was an astronomer) "a friday arterdinner." on monday i am going away with collins for ten days or a fortnight, on a "tour in search of an article" for "household words." we have not the least idea where we are going; but _he_ says, "let's look at the norfolk coast," and _i_ say, "let's look at the back of the atlantic." i don't quite know what i mean by that; but have a general impression that i mean something knowing. i am horribly used up after the jerrold business. low spirits, low pulse, low voice, intense reaction. if i were not like mr. micawber, "falling back for a spring" on monday, i think i should slink into a corner and cry. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] allonby, cumberland, _wednesday night, sept. th, ._ my dear georgy, * * * * * think of collins's usual luck with me! we went up a cumberland mountain yesterday--a huge black hill, fifteen hundred feet high. we took for a guide a capital innkeeper hard by. it rained in torrents--as it only does rain in a hill country--the whole time. at the top, there were black mists and the darkness of night. it then came out that the innkeeper had not been up for twenty years, and he lost his head and himself altogether; and we couldn't get down again! what wonders the inimitable performed with his compass until it broke with the heat and wet of his pocket no matter; it did break, and then we wandered about, until it was clear to the inimitable that the night must be passed there, and the enterprising travellers probably die of cold. we took our own way about coming down, struck, and declared that the guide might wander where he would, but we would follow a watercourse we lighted upon, and which must come at last to the river. this necessitated amazing gymnastics; in the course of which performances, collins fell into the said watercourse with his ankle sprained, and the great ligament of the foot and leg swollen i don't know how big. how i enacted wardour over again in carrying him down, and what a business it was to get him down; i may say in gibbs's words: "vi lascio a giudicare!" but he was got down somehow, and we got off the mountain somehow; and now i carry him to bed, and into and out of carriages, exactly like wardour in private life. i don't believe he will stand for a month to come. he has had a doctor, and can wear neither shoe nor stocking, and has his foot wrapped up in a flannel waistcoat, and has a breakfast saucer of liniment, and a horrible dabbling of lotion incessantly in progress. we laugh at it all, but i doubt very much whether he can go on to doncaster. it will be a miserable blow to our h. w. scheme, and i say nothing about it as yet; but he is really so crippled that i doubt the getting him there. we have resolved to fall to work to-morrow morning and begin our writing; and there, for the present, that point rests. this is a little place with fifty houses, five bathing-machines, five girls in straw hats, five men in straw hats, and no other company. the little houses are all in half-mourning--yellow stone on white stone, and black; and it reminds me of what broadstairs might have been if it had not inherited a cliff, and had been an irishman. but this is a capital little homely inn, looking out upon the sea; and we are really very comfortably lodged. i can just stand upright in my bedroom. otherwise, it is a good deal like one of ballard's top-rooms. we have a very obliging and comfortable landlady; and it is a clean nice place in a rough wild country. we came here haphazard, but could not have done better. we lay last night at a place called wigton--also in half-mourning--with the wonderful peculiarity that it had no population, no business, no streets to speak of; but five linendrapers within range of our small windows, one linendraper's next door, and five more linendrapers round the corner. i ordered a night-light in my bedroom. a queer little old woman brought me one of the common child's night-lights, and seeming to think that i looked at it with interest, said: "it's joost a vara keeyourious thing, sir, and joost new coom oop. it'll burn awt hoors a' end, an no gootther, nor no waste, nor ony sike a thing, if you can creedit what i say, seein' the airticle." of course _i_ shall go to doncaster, whether or no (please god), and my postage directions to you remain unchanged. love to mamey, katey, charley, harry, and the darling plorn. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] lancaster, _saturday night, sept. th, ._ my dear georgy, i received your letter at allonby yesterday, and was delighted to get it. we came back to carlisle last night (to a capital inn, kept by breach's brother), and came on here to-day. we are on our way to doncaster; but sabbath observance throws all the trains out; and although it is not a hundred miles from here, we shall have, as well as i can make out the complicated lists of trains, to sleep at leeds--which i particularly detest as an odious place--to-morrow night. accustomed as you are to the homage which men delight to render to the inimitable, you would be scarcely prepared for the proportions it assumes in this northern country. station-masters assist him to alight from carriages, deputations await him in hotel entries, innkeepers bow down before him and put him into regal rooms, the town goes down to the platform to see him off, and collins's ankle goes into the newspapers!!! it is a great deal better than it was, and he can get into new hotels and up the stairs with two thick sticks, like an admiral in a farce. his spirits have improved in a corresponding degree, and he contemplates cheerfully the keeping house at doncaster. i thought (as i told you) he would never have gone there, but he seems quite up to the mark now. of course he can never walk out, or see anything of any place. we have done our first paper for h. w., and sent it up to the printer's. the landlady of the little inn at allonby lived at greta bridge, in yorkshire, when i went down there before "nickleby," and was smuggled into the room to see me, when i was secretly found out. she is an immensely fat woman now. "but i could tuck my arm round her waist then, mr. dickens," the landlord said when she told me the story as i was going to bed the night before last. "and can't you do it now," i said, "you insensible dog? look at me! here's a picture!" accordingly, i got round as much of her as i could; and this gallant action was the most successful i have ever performed, on the whole. i think it was the dullest little place i ever entered; and what with the monotony of an idle sea, and what with the monotony of another sea in the room (occasioned by collins's perpetually holding his ankle over a pail of salt water, and laving it with a milk jug), i struck yesterday, and came away. we are in a very remarkable old house here, with genuine old rooms and an uncommonly quaint staircase. i have a state bedroom, with two enormous red four-posters in it, each as big as charley's room at gad's hill. bellew is to preach here to-morrow. "and we know he is a friend of yours, sir," said the landlord, when he presided over the serving of the dinner (two little salmon trout; a sirloin steak; a brace of partridges; seven dishes of sweets; five dishes of dessert, led off by a bowl of peaches; and in the centre an enormous bride-cake--"we always have it here, sir," said the landlord, "custom of the house.") (collins turned pale, and estimated the dinner at half a guinea each.) this is the stupidest of letters, but all description is gone, or going, into "the lazy tour of two idle apprentices." kiss the darling plorn, who is often in my thoughts. best love to charley, mamey, and katie. i will write to you again from doncaster, where i shall be rejoiced to find another letter from you. ever affectionately, my dearest georgy. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] angel hotel, doncaster, _tuesday, sept. th, ._ my dear georgy, i found your letter here on my arrival yesterday. i had hoped that the wall would have been almost finished by this time, and the additions to the house almost finished too--but patience, patience! we have very good, clean, and quiet apartments here, on the second floor, looking down into the main street, which is full of horse jockeys, bettors, drunkards, and other blackguards, from morning to night--and all night. the races begin to-day and last till friday, which is the cup day. i am not going to the course this morning, but have engaged a carriage (open, and pair) for to-morrow and friday. "the frozen deep's" author gets on as well as could be expected. he can hobble up and down stairs when absolutely necessary, and limps to his bedroom on the same floor. he talks of going to the theatre to-night in a cab, which will be the first occasion of his going out, except to travel, since the accident. he sends his kind regards and thanks for enquiries and condolence. i am perpetually tidying the rooms after him, and carrying all sorts of untidy things which belong to him into his bedroom, which is a picture of disorder. you will please to imagine mine, airy and clean, little dressing-room attached, eight water-jugs (i never saw such a supply), capital sponge-bath, perfect arrangement, and exquisite neatness. we breakfast at half-past eight, and fall to work for h. w. afterwards. then i go out, and--hem! look for subjects. the mayor called this morning to do the honours of the town, whom it pleased the inimitable to receive with great courtesy and affability. he propounded invitation to public _déjeûner_, which it did _not_ please the inimitable to receive, and which he graciously rejected. that's all the news. everything i can describe by hook or by crook, i describe for h. w. so there is nothing of that sort left for letters. best love to dear mamey and katey, and to charley, and to harry. any number of kisses to the noble plorn. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. arthur ryland.] gad's hill place, _saturday evening, oct. rd, ._ my dear sir, i have had the honour and pleasure of receiving your letter of the th of last month, informing me of the distinction that has been conferred upon me by the council of the birmingham and midland institute. allow me to assure you with much sincerity, that i am highly gratified by having been elected one of the first honorary members of that establishment. nothing could have enhanced my interest in so important an undertaking; but the compliment is all the more welcome to me on that account. i accept it with a due sense of its worth, with many acknowledgments and with all good wishes. i am ever, my dear sir, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. edmund yates.] tavistock house, _monday night, nov. th, ._ my dear yates, i retain the story with pleasure; and i need not tell you that you are not mistaken in the last lines of your note. excuse me, on that ground, if i say a word or two as to what i think (i mention it with a view to the future) might be better in the paper. the opening is excellent. but it passes too completely into the irishman's narrative, does not light it up with the life about it, or the circumstances under which it is delivered, and does not carry through it, as i think it should with a certain indefinable subtleness, the thread with which you begin your weaving. i will tell wills to send me the proof, and will try to show you what i mean when i shall have gone over it carefully. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] tavistock house, _wednesday, dec. th, ._ my dear stone, i find on enquiry that the "general theatrical fund" has relieved non-members in one or two instances; but that it is exceedingly unwilling to do so, and would certainly not do so again, saving on some very strong and exceptional case. as its trustee, i could not represent to it that i think it ought to sail into those open waters, for i very much doubt the justice of such cruising, with a reference to the interests of the patient people who support it out of their small earnings. affectionately ever. footnotes: [ ] the part played in "the frozen deep" by its author, mr. wilkie collins. [ ] the earl of carlisle was at this time viceroy of ireland. book iii. to . . narrative. all through this year, charles dickens was constantly moving about from place to place. after much and careful consideration, he had come to the determination of, for the future, giving readings for his own benefit. and although in the spring of this year he gave one reading of his "christmas carol" for a charity, all the other readings, beginning from the th april, and ever after, were for himself. in the autumn of this year he made reading tours in england, scotland, and ireland, always accompanied by his friend and secretary, mr. arthur smith. at newcastle, charles dickens was joined by his daughters, who accompanied him in his scotch tour. the letters to his sister-in-law, and to his eldest daughter, are all given here, and will be given in all future reading tours, as they form a complete diary of his life and movements at these times. to avoid the constant repetition of the two names, the beginning of the letters will be dispensed with in all cases where they follow each other in unbroken succession. the mr. frederick lehmann mentioned in the letter written from sheffield, had married a daughter of mr. robert chambers, and niece of mrs. wills. coming to settle in london a short time after this date, mr. and mrs. lehmann became intimately known to charles dickens and his family--more especially to his eldest daughter, to whom they have been, and are, the kindest and truest of friends. the "pretty little boy" mentioned as being under mrs. wills's care, was their eldest son. we give the letter to mr. thackeray, not because it is one of very great interest, but because, being the only one we have, we are glad to have the two names associated together in this work. the "little speech" alluded to in this first letter to mr. macready was one made by charles dickens at a public dinner, which was given in aid of the hospital for sick children, in great ormond street. he afterwards (early in april) gave a reading from his "christmas carol" for this same charity. the christmas number of "household words," mentioned in a letter to mr. wilkie collins, was called "a house to let," and contained stories written by charles dickens, mr. wilkie collins, and other contributors to "household words." [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] tavistock house, _sunday, jan. th, ._ my dear wilkie, i am very sorry to receive so bad an account of the foot. but i hope it is all in the past tense now. i met with an incident the other day, which i think is a good deal in your way, for introduction either into a long or short story. dr. sutherland and dr. monro went over st. luke's with me (only last friday), to show me some distinctly and remarkably developed types of insanity. among other patients, we passed a deaf and dumb man, now afflicted with incurable madness too, of whom they said that it was only when his madness began to develop itself in strongly-marked mad actions, that it began to be suspected. "though it had been there, no doubt, some time." this led me to consider, suspiciously, what employment he had been in, and so to ask the question. "aye," says dr. sutherland, "that is the most remarkable thing of all, mr. dickens. he was employed in the transmission of electric-telegraph messages; and it is impossible to conceive what delirious despatches that man may have been sending about all over the world!" rejoiced to hear such good report of the play. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. edmund yates.] tavistock house, _tuesday, feb. nd, ._ my dear yates, your quotation is, as i supposed, all wrong. the text is _not_ "which his 'owls was organs." when mr. harris went into an empty dog-kennel, to spare his sensitive nature the anguish of overhearing mrs. harris's exclamations on the occasion of the birth of her first child (the princess royal of the harris family), "he never took his hands away from his ears, or came out once, till he was showed the baby." on encountering that spectacle, he was (being of a weakly constitution) "took with fits." for this distressing complaint he was medically treated; the doctor "collared him, and laid him on his back upon the airy stones"--please to observe what follows--"and she was told, to ease her mind, his 'owls was organs." that is to say, mrs. harris, lying exhausted on her bed, in the first sweet relief of freedom from pain, merely covered with the counterpane, and not yet "put comfortable," hears a noise apparently proceeding from the back-yard, and says, in a flushed and hysterical manner: "what 'owls are those? who is a-'owling? not my ugebond?" upon which the doctor, looking round one of the bottom posts of the bed, and taking mrs. harris's pulse in a reassuring manner, says, with much admirable presence of mind: "howls, my dear madam?--no, no, no! what are we thinking of? howls, my dear mrs. harris? ha, ha, ha! organs, ma'am, organs. organs in the streets, mrs. harris; no howls." yours faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. m. thackeray.] tavistock house, _tuesday, feb. nd, ._ my dear thackeray, the wisdom of parliament, in that expensive act of its greatness which constitutes the guild, prohibits that corporation _from doing anything_ until it shall have existed in a perfectly useless condition for seven years. this clause (introduced by some private-bill magnate of official might) seemed so ridiculous, that nobody could believe it to have this meaning; but as i felt clear about it when we were on the very verge of granting an excellent literary annuity, i referred the point to counsel, and my construction was confirmed without a doubt. it is therefore needless to enquire whether an association in the nature of a provident society could address itself to such a case as you confide to me. the prohibition has still two or three years of life in it. but, assuming the gentleman's title to be considered as an "author" as established, there is no question that it comes within the scope of the literary fund. they would habitually "lend" money if they did what i consider to be their duty; as it is they only give money, but they give it in such instances. i have forwarded the envelope to the society of arts, with a request that they will present it to prince albert, approaching h.r.h. in the siamese manner. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] tavistock house, _wednesday night, feb. rd, ._ my dear forster, i beg to report two phenomena: . an excellent little play in one act, by marston, at the lyceum; title, "a hard struggle;" as good as "la joie fait peur," though not at all like it. . capital acting in the same play, by mr. dillon. real good acting, in imitation of nobody, and honestly made out by himself!! i went (at marston's request) last night, and cried till i sobbed again. i have not seen a word about it from oxenford. but it is as wholesome and manly a thing altogether as i have seen for many a day. (i would have given a hundred pounds to have played mr. dillon's part). love to mrs. forster. ever affectionately. [sidenote: dr. westland marston.] tavistock house, _wednesday, feb. rd, ._ my dear marston, i most heartily and honestly congratulate you on your charming little piece. it moved me more than i could easily tell you, if i were to try. except "la joie fait peur," i have seen nothing nearly so good, and there is a subtlety in the comfortable presentation of the child who is to become a devoted woman for reuben's sake, which goes a long way beyond madame de girardin. i am at a loss to let you know how much i admired it last night, or how heartily i cried over it. a touching idea, most delicately conceived and wrought out by a true artist and poet, in a spirit of noble, manly generosity, that no one should be able to study without great emotion. it is extremely well acted by all concerned; but mr. dillon's performance is really admirable, and deserving of the highest commendation. it is good in these days to see an actor taking such pains, and expressing such natural and vigorous sentiment. there is only one thing i should have liked him to change. i am much mistaken if any man--least of all any such man--would crush a letter written by the hand of the woman he loved. hold it to his heart unconsciously and look about for it the while, he might; or he might do any other thing with it that expressed a habit of tenderness and affection in association with the idea of her; but he would never crush it under any circumstances. he would as soon crush her heart. you will see how closely i went with him, by my minding so slight an incident in so fine a performance. there is no one who could approach him in it; and i am bound to add that he surprised me as much as he pleased me. i think it might be worth while to try the people at the français with the piece. they are very good in one-act plays; such plays take well there, and this seems to me well suited to them. if you would like samson or regnier to read the play (in english), i know them well, and would be very glad indeed to tell them that i sent it with your sanction because i had been so much struck by it. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] tavistock house, london, w.c., _thursday, feb. th, ._ my dear regnier, i want you to read the enclosed little play. you will see that it is in one act--about the length of "la joie fait pour." it is now acting at the lyceum theatre here, with very great success. the author is mr. westland marston, a dramatic writer of reputation, who wrote a very well-known tragedy called "the patrician's daughter," in which macready and miss faucit acted (under macready's management at drury lane) some years ago. this little piece is so very powerful on the stage, its interest is so simple and natural, and the part of reuben is such a very fine one, that i cannot help thinking you might make one grand _coup_ with it, if with your skilful hand you arranged it for the français. i have communicated this idea of mine to the author, "_et là-dessus je vous écris_." i am anxious to know your opinion, and shall expect with much interest to receive a little letter from you at your convenience. mrs. dickens, miss hogarth, and all the house send a thousand kind loves and regards to madame regnier and the dear little boys. you will bring them to london when you come, with all the force of the français--will you not? ever, my dear regnier, faithfully your friend. [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] tavistock house, _saturday, feb. th, ._ my dear regnier, let me thank you with all my heart for your most patient and kind letter. i made its contents known to mr. marston, and i enclose you his reply. you will see that he cheerfully leaves the matter in your hands, and abides by your opinion and discretion. you need not return his letter, my friend. there is great excitement here this morning, in consequence of the failure of the ministry last night to carry the bill they brought in to please your emperor and his troops. _i_, for one, am extremely glad of their defeat. "le vieux p----," i have no doubt, will go staggering down the rue de la paix to-day, with his stick in his hand and his hat on one side, predicting the downfall of everything, in consequence of this event. his handwriting shakes more and more every quarter, and i think he mixes a great deal of cognac with his ink. he always gives me some astonishing piece of news (which is never true), or some suspicious public prophecy (which is never verified), and he always tells me he is dying (which he never is). adieu, my dear regnier, accept a thousand thanks from me, and believe me, now and always, your affectionate and faithful friend. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] tavistock house, _march th, ._ my dearest macready, i have safely received your cheque this morning, and will hand it over forthwith to the honorary secretary of the hospital. i hope you have read the little speech in the hospital's publication of it. they had it taken by their own shorthand-writer, and it is done verbatim. you may be sure that it is a good and kind charity. it is amazing to me that it is not at this day ten times as large and rich as it is. but i hope and trust that i have happily been able to give it a good thrust onward into a great course. we all send our most affectionate love to all the house. i am devising all sorts of things in my mind, and am in a state of energetic restlessness incomprehensible to the calm philosophers of dorsetshire. what a dream it is, this work and strife, and how little we do in the dream after all! only last night, in my sleep, i was bent upon getting over a perspective of barriers, with my hands and feet bound. pretty much what we are all about, waking, i think? but, lord! (as i said before) you smile pityingly, not bitterly, at this hubbub, and moralise upon it, in the calm evenings when there is no school at sherborne. ever affectionately and truly. [sidenote: mrs hogge.[ ]] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _wednesday, april th, ._ my dear mrs. hogge, after the profoundest cogitation, i come reluctantly to the conclusion that i do not know that orphan. if you were the lady in want of him, i should certainly offer _myself_. but as you are not, i will not hear of the situation. it is wonderful to think how many charming little people there must be, to whom this proposal would be like a revelation from heaven. why don't i know one, and come to kensington, boy in hand, as if i had walked (i wish to god i had) out of a fairy tale! but no, i do _not_ know that orphan. he is crying somewhere, by himself, at this moment. i can't dry his eyes. he is being neglected by some ogress of a nurse. i can't rescue him. i will make a point of going to the athenæum on monday night; and if i had five hundred votes to give, mr. macdonald should have them all, for your sake. i grieve to hear that you have been ill, but i hope that the spring, when it comes, will find you blooming with the rest of the flowers. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. edmund yates.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _wednesday, april th, ._ my dear yates, for a good many years i have suffered a great deal from charities, but never anything like what i suffer now. the amount of correspondence they inflict upon me is really incredible. but this is nothing. benevolent men get behind the piers of the gates, lying in wait for my going out; and when i peep shrinkingly from my study-windows, i see their pot-bellied shadows projected on the gravel. benevolent bullies drive up in hansom cabs (with engraved portraits of their benevolent institutions hanging over the aprons, like banners on their outward walls), and stay long at the door. benevolent area-sneaks get lost in the kitchens and are found to impede the circulation of the knife-cleaning machine. my man has been heard to say (at the burton arms) "that if it was a wicious place, well and good--_that_ an't door work; but that wen all the christian wirtues is always a-shoulderin' and a-helberin' on you in the 'all, a-tryin' to git past you and cut upstairs into master's room, why no wages as you couldn't name wouldn't make it up to you." persecuted ever. [sidenote: mrs yates.] (the charming actress, the mother of mr. edmund yates.) tavistock house, tavistock square, w.c., _saturday evening, may th, ._ my dear mrs. yates, pray believe that i was sorry with all my heart to miss you last thursday, and to learn the occasion of your absence; also that, whenever you can come, your presence will give me a new interest in that evening. no one alive can have more delightful associations with the lightest sound of your voice than i have; and to give you a minute's interest and pleasure, in acknowledgment of the uncountable hours of happiness you gave me when you were a mysterious angel to me, would honestly gratify my heart. very faithfully and gratefully yours. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] gad's hill, _wednesday, july th, ._ my dear cerjat, i should vainly try to tell you--so i _won't_ try--how affected i have been by your warm-hearted letter, or how thoroughly well convinced i always am of the truth and earnestness of your friendship. i thank you, my dear, dear fellow, with my whole soul. i fervently return that friendship and i highly cherish it. you want to know all about me? i am still reading in london every thursday, and the audiences are very great, and the success immense. on the nd of august i am going away on a tour of some four months in england, ireland, and scotland. i shall read, during that time, not fewer than four or five times a week. it will be sharp work; but probably a certain musical clinking will come of it, which will mitigate the hardship. at this present moment i am on my little kentish freehold (_not_ in top-boots, and not particularly prejudiced that i know of), looking on as pretty a view out of my study window as you will find in a long day's english ride. my little place is a grave red brick house (time of george the first, i suppose), which i have added to and stuck bits upon in all manner of ways, so that it is as pleasantly irregular, and as violently opposed to all architectural ideas, as the most hopeful man could possibly desire. it is on the summit of gad's hill. the robbery was committed before the door, on the man with the treasure, and falstaff ran away from the identical spot of ground now covered by the room in which i write. a little rustic alehouse, called the sir john falstaff, is over the way--has been over the way, ever since, in honour of the event. cobham woods and park are behind the house; the distant thames in front; the medway, with rochester, and its old castle and cathedral, on one side. the whole stupendous property is on the old dover road, so when you come, come by the north kent railway (not the south-eastern) to strood or higham, and i'll drive over to fetch you. the blessed woods and fields have done me a world of good, and i am quite myself again. the children are all as happy as children can be. my eldest daughter, mary, keeps house, with a state and gravity becoming that high position; wherein she is assisted by her sister katie, and by her aunt georgina, who is, and always has been, like another sister. two big dogs, a bloodhound and a st. bernard, direct from a convent of that name, where i think you once were, are their principal attendants in the green lanes. these latter instantly untie the neckerchiefs of all tramps and prowlers who approach their presence, so that they wander about without any escort, and drive big horses in basket-phaetons through murderous bye-ways, and never come to grief. they are very curious about your daughters, and send all kinds of loves to them and to mrs. cerjat, in which i heartily join. you will have read in the papers that the thames in london is most horrible. i have to cross waterloo or london bridge to get to the railroad when i come down here, and i can certify that the offensive smells, even in that short whiff, have been of a most head-and-stomach-distending nature. nobody knows what is to be done; at least everybody knows a plan, and everybody else knows it won't do; in the meantime cartloads of chloride of lime are shot into the filthy stream, and do something i hope. you will know, before you get this, that the american telegraph line has parted again, at which most men are sorry, but very few surprised. this is all the news, except that there is an italian opera at drury lane, price eighteenpence to the pit, where viardot, by far the greatest artist of them all, sings, and which is full when the dear opera can't let a box; and except that the weather has been exceptionally hot, but is now quite cool. on the top of this hill it has been cold, actually cold at night, for more than a week past. i am going over to rochester to post this letter, and must write another to townshend before i go. my dear cerjat, i have written lightly enough, because i want you to know that i am becoming cheerful and hearty. god bless you! i love you, and i know that you love me. ever your attached and affectionate. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] west hoe, plymouth, _thursday, aug. th, ._ my dearest georgy, i received your letter this morning with the greatest pleasure, and read it with the utmost interest in all its domestic details. we had a most wonderful night at exeter. it is to be regretted that we cannot take the place again on our way back. it was a prodigious cram, and we turned away no end of people. but not only that, i think they were the finest audience i have ever read to. i don't think i ever read, in some respects, so well; and i never beheld anything like the personal affection which they poured out upon me at the end. it was really a very remarkable sight, and i shall always look back upon it with pleasure. last night here was not so bright. there are quarrels of the strangest kind between the plymouth people and the stonehouse people. the room is at stonehouse (tracy says the wrong room; there being a plymouth room in this hotel, and he being a plymouthite). we had a fair house, but not at all a great one. all the notabilities come this morning to "little dombey," for which we have let one hundred and thirty stalls, which local admiration of local greatness considers very large. for "mrs. gamp and the boots," to-night, we have also a very promising let. but the races are on, and there are two public balls to-night, and the yacht squadron are all at cherbourg to boot. arthur is of opinion that "two sixties" will do very well for us. i doubt the "two sixties" myself. _mais nous verrons._ the room is a very handsome one, but it is on the top of a windy and muddy hill, leading (literally) to nowhere; and it looks (except that it is new and _mortary_) as if the subsidence of the waters after the deluge might have left it where it is. i have to go right through the company to get to the platform. big doors slam and resound when anybody comes in; and all the company seem afraid of one another. nevertheless they were a sensible audience last night, and much impressed and pleased. tracy is in the room (wandering about, and never finishing a sentence), and sends all manner of sea-loves to you and the dear girls. i send all manner of land-loves to you from myself, out of my heart of hearts, and also to my dear plorn and the boys. arthur sends his kindest love. he knows only two characters. he is either always corresponding, like a secretary of state, or he is transformed into a rout-furniture dealer of rathbone place, and drags forms about with the greatest violence, without his coat. i have no time to add another word. ever, dearest georgy, your most affectionate. [sidenote: miss dickens.] london, _saturday, aug. th, ._ my dearest mamey, the closing night at plymouth was a very great scene, and the morning there was exceedingly good too. you will be glad to hear that at clifton last night, a torrent of five hundred shillings bore arthur away, pounded him against the wall, flowed on to the seats over his body, scratched him, and damaged his best dress suit. all to his unspeakable joy. this is a very short letter, but i am going to the burlington arcade, desperately resolved to have all those wonderful instruments put into operation on my head, with a view to refreshing it. kindest love to georgy and to all. ever your affectionate. [sidenote: miss dickens.] shrewsbury, _thursday, aug. th, ._ a wonderful audience last night at wolverhampton. if such a thing can be, they were even quicker and more intelligent than the audience i had in edinburgh. they were so wonderfully good and were so much on the alert this morning by nine o'clock for another reading, that we are going back there at about our bradford time. i never saw such people. and the local agent would take no money, and charge no expenses of his own. this place looks what plorn would call "ortily" dull. local agent predicts, however, "great satisfaction to mr. dickens, and excellent attendance." i have just been to look at the hall, where everything was wrong, and where i have left arthur making a platform for me out of dining-tables. if he comes back in time, i am not quite sure but that he is himself going to write to gad's hill. we talk of coming up from chester _in the night to-morrow, after the reading_; and of showing our precious selves at an apparently impossibly early hour in the gad's hill breakfast-room on saturday morning. i have not felt the fatigue to any extent worth mentioning; though i get, every night, into the most violent heats. we are going to dine at three o'clock (it wants a quarter now) and have not been here two hours, so i have seen nothing of clement. tell georgy with my love, that i read in the same room in which we acted, but at the end opposite to that where our stage was. we are not at the inn where the amateur company put up, but at the lion, where the fair miss mitchell was lodged alone. we have the strangest little rooms (sitting-room and two bed-rooms all together), the ceilings of which i can touch with my hand. the windows bulge out over the street, as if they were little stern-windows in a ship. and a door opens out of the sitting-room on to a little open gallery with plants in it, where one leans over a queer old rail, and looks all downhill and slant-wise at the crookedest black and yellow old houses, all manner of shapes except straight shapes. to get into this room we come through a china closet; and the man in laying the cloth has actually knocked down, in that repository, two geraniums and napoleon bonaparte. i think that's all i have to say, except that at the wolverhampton theatre they played "oliver twist" last night (mr. toole the artful dodger), "in consequence of the illustrious author honouring the town with his presence." we heard that the device succeeded very well, and that they got a good many people. john's spirits have been equable and good since we rejoined him. berry has always got something the matter with his digestion--seems to me the male gender of maria jolly, and ought to take nothing but revalenta arabica. bottled ale is not to be got in these parts, and arthur is thrown upon draught. my dearest love to georgy and to katey, also to marguerite. also to all the boys and the noble plorn. ever your affectionate father. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _wednesday morning, aug. th, ._ i write this hurried line before starting, to report that my cold is decidedly better, thank god (though still bad), and that i hope to be able to stagger through to-night. after dinner yesterday i began to recover my voice, and i think i sang half the irish melodies to myself, as i walked about to test it. i got home at half-past ten, and mustard-poulticed and barley-watered myself tremendously. love to the dear girls, and to all. ever affectionately. [sidenote: the same.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _friday night, aug. th, ._ i received your welcome and interesting letter to-day, and i write you a very hurried and bad reply; but it is _after the reading_, and you will take the will for the deed under these trying circumstances, i know. we have had a tremendous night; the largest house i have ever had since i first began--two thousand three hundred people. to-morrow afternoon, at three, i read again. my cold has been oppressive, and is not yet gone. i have been very hard to sleep too, and last night i was all but sleepless. this morning i was very dull and seedy; but i got a good walk, and picked up again. it has been blowing all day, and i fear we shall have a sick passage over to dublin to-morrow night. tell mamie (with my dear love to her and katie) that i will write to her from dublin--probably on sunday. tell her too that the stories she told me in her letter were not only capital stories in themselves, but _excellently told_ too. what arthur's state has been to-night--he, john, berry, and boylett, all taking money and going mad together--you _cannot_ imagine. they turned away hundreds, sold all the books, rolled on the ground of my room knee-deep in checks, and made a perfect pantomime of the whole thing. he has kept quite well, i am happy to say, and sends a hundred loves. in great haste and fatigue. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss dickens.] morrison's hotel, dublin, _monday, aug. rd, ._ we had a nasty crossing here. we left holyhead at one in the morning, and got here at six. arthur was incessantly sick the whole way. i was not sick at all, but was in as healthy a condition otherwise as humanity need be. we are in a beautiful hotel. our sitting-room is exactly like the drawing-room at the peschiere in all its dimensions. i never saw two rooms so exactly resembling one another in their proportions. our bedrooms too are excellent, and there are baths and all sorts of comforts. the lord lieutenant is away, and the place looks to me as if its professional life were away too. nevertheless, there are numbers of people in the streets. somehow, i hardly seem to think we are going to do enormously here; but i have scarcely any reason for supposing so (except that a good many houses are shut up); and i _know_ nothing about it, for arthur is now gone to the agent and to the room. the men came by boat direct from liverpool. they had a rough passage, were all ill, and did not get here till noon yesterday. donnybrook fair, or what remains of it, is going on, within two or three miles of dublin. they went out there yesterday in a jaunting-car, and john described it to us at dinner-time (with his eyebrows lifted up, and his legs well asunder), as "johnny brooks's fair;" at which arthur, who was drinking bitter ale, nearly laughed himself to death. berry is always unfortunate, and when i asked what had happened to berry on board the steamboat, it appeared that "an irish gentleman which was drunk, and fancied himself the captain, wanted to knock berry down." i am surprised by finding this place very much larger than i had supposed it to be. its bye-parts are bad enough, but cleaner, too, than i had supposed them to be, and certainly very much cleaner than the old town of edinburgh. the man who drove our jaunting-car yesterday hadn't a piece in his coat as big as a penny roll, and had had his hat on (apparently without brushing it) ever since he was grown up. but he was remarkably intelligent and agreeable, with something to say about everything. for instance, when i asked him what a certain building was, he didn't say "courts of law" and nothing else, but: "av you plase, sir, it's the foor coorts o' looyers, where misther o'connell stood his trial wunst, ye'll remimber, sir, afore i tell ye of it." when we got into the phoenix park, he looked round him as if it were his own, and said: "that's a park, sir, av yer plase." i complimented it, and he said: "gintlemen tills me as they'r bin, sir, over europe, and never see a park aqualling ov it. 'tis eight mile roond, sir, ten mile and a half long, and in the month of may the hawthorn trees are as beautiful as brides with their white jewels on. yonder's the vice-regal lodge, sir; in them two corners lives the two sicretirries, wishing i was them, sir. there's air here, sir, av yer plase! there's scenery here, sir! there's mountains--thim, sir! yer coonsider it a park, sir? it is that, sir!" you should have heard john in my bedroom this morning endeavouring to imitate a bath-man, who had resented his interference, and had said as to the shower-bath: "yer'll not be touching _that_, young man. divil a touch yer'll touch o' that insthrument, young man!" it was more ridiculously unlike the reality than i can express to you, yet he was so delighted with his powers that he went off in the absurdest little gingerbeery giggle, backing into my portmanteau all the time. my dear love to katie and to georgy, also to the noble plorn and all the boys. i shall write to katie next, and then to aunty. my cold, i am happy to report, is very much better. i lay in the wet all night on deck, on board the boat, but am not as yet any the worse for it. arthur was quite insensible when we got to dublin, and stared at our luggage without in the least offering to claim it. he left his kindest love for all before he went out. i will keep the envelope open until he comes in. ever, my dearest mamie, your most affectionate father. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] morrison's hotel, dublin, _wednesday, aug. th, ._ i begin my letter to you to-day, though i don't know when i may send it off. we had a very good house last night, after all, that is to say, a great rush of shillings and good half-crowns, though the stalls were comparatively few. for "little dombey," this morning, we have an immense stall let--already more than two hundred--and people are now fighting in the agent's shop to take more. through some mistake of our printer's, the evening reading for this present wednesday was dropped, in a great part of the announcements, and the agent opened no plan for it. i have therefore resolved not to have it at all. arthur smith has waylaid me in all manner of ways, but i remain obdurate. i am frightfully tired, and really relieved by the prospect of an evening--overjoyed. they were a highly excitable audience last night, but they certainly did not comprehend--internally and intellectually comprehend--"the chimes" as a london audience do. i am quite sure of it. i very much doubt the irish capacity of receiving the pathetic; but of their quickness as to the humorous there can be no doubt. i shall see how they go along with little paul, in his death, presently. while i was at breakfast this morning, a general officer was announced with great state--having a staff at the door--and came in, booted and plumed, and covered with crimean decorations. it was cunninghame, whom we knew in genoa--then a captain. he was very hearty indeed, and came to ask me to dinner. of course i couldn't go. olliffe has a brother at cork, who has just now (noon) written to me, proposing dinners and excursions in that neighbourhood which would fill about a week; i being there a day and a half, and reading three times. the work will be very severe here, and i begin to feel depressed by it. (by "here," i mean ireland generally, please to observe.) we meant, as i said in a letter to katie, to go to queenstown yesterday and bask on the seashore. but there is always so much to do that we couldn't manage it after all. we expect a tremendous house to-morrow night as well as to-day; and arthur is at the present instant up to his eyes in business (and seats), and, between his regret at losing to-night, and his desire to make the room hold twice as many as it _will_ hold, is half distracted. i have become a wonderful irishman--must play an irish part some day--and his only relaxation is when i enact "john and the boots," which i consequently do enact all day long. the papers are full of remarks upon my white tie, and describe it as being of enormous size, which is a wonderful delusion, because, as you very well know, it is a small tie. generally, i am happy to report, the emerald press is in favour of my appearance, and likes my eyes. but one gentleman comes out with a letter at cork, wherein he says that although only forty-six i look like an old man. _he_ is a rum customer, i think. the rutherfords are living here, and wanted me to dine with them, which, i needn't say, could not be done; all manner of people have called, but i have seen only two. john has given it up altogether as to rivalry with the boots, and did not come into my room this morning at all. boots appeared triumphant and alone. he was waiting for me at the hotel-door last night. "whaa't sart of a hoose, sur?" he asked me. "capital." "the lard be praised fur the 'onor o' dooblin!" arthur buys bad apples in the streets and brings them home and doesn't eat them, and then i am obliged to put them in the balcony because they make the room smell faint. also he meets countrymen with honeycomb on their heads, and leads them (by the buttonhole when they have one) to this gorgeous establishment and requests the bar to buy honeycomb for his breakfast; then it stands upon the sideboard uncovered and the flies fall into it. he buys owls, too, and castles, and other horrible objects, made in bog-oak (that material which is not appreciated at gad's hill); and he is perpetually snipping pieces out of newspapers and sending them all over the world. while i am reading he conducts the correspondence, and his great delight is to show me seventeen or eighteen letters when i come, exhausted, into the retiring-place. berry has not got into any particular trouble for forty-eight hours, except that he is all over boils. i have prescribed the yeast, but ineffectually. it is indeed a sight to see him and john sitting in pay-boxes, and surveying ireland out of pigeon-holes. _same evening before bed-time._ everybody was at "little dombey" to-day, and although i had some little difficulty to work them up in consequence of the excessive crowding of the place, and the difficulty of shaking the people into their seats, the effect was unmistakable and profound. the crying was universal, and they were extraordinarily affected. there is no doubt we could stay here a week with that one reading, and fill the place every night. hundreds of people have been there to-night, under the impression that it would come off again. it was a most decided and complete success. arthur has been imploring me to stop here on the friday after limerick, and read "little dombey" again. but i have positively said "no." the work is too hard. it is not like doing it in one easy room, and always the same room. with a different place every night, and a different audience with its own peculiarity every night, it is a tremendous strain. i was sick of it to-day before i began, then got myself into wonderful train. here follows a dialogue (but it requires imitation), which i had yesterday morning with a little boy of the house--landlord's son, i suppose--about plorn's age. i am sitting on the sofa writing, and find him sitting beside me. inimitable. holloa, old chap. young ireland. hal-loo! inimitable (_in his delightful way_). what a nice old fellow you are. i am very fond of little boys. young ireland. air yer? ye'r right. inimitable. what do you learn, old fellow? young ireland (_very intent on inimitable, and always childish, except in his brogue_). i lairn wureds of three sillibils, and wureds of two sillibils, and wureds of one sillibil. inimitable (_gaily_). get out, you humbug! you learn only words of one syllable. young ireland (_laughs heartily_). you may say that it is mostly wureds of one sillibil. inimitable. can you write? young ireland. not yet. things comes by deegrays. inimitable. can you cipher? young ireland (_very quickly_). wha'at's that? inimitable. can you make figures? young ireland. i can make a nought, which is not asy, being roond. inimitable. i say, old boy, wasn't it you i saw on sunday morning in the hall, in a soldier's cap? you know--in a soldier's cap? young ireland (_cogitating deeply_). was it a very good cap? inimitable. yes. young ireland. did it fit unkommon? inimitable. yes. young ireland. dat was me! there are two stupid old louts at the room, to show people into their places, whom john calls "them two old paddies," and of whom he says, that he "never see nothing like them (snigger) hold idiots" (snigger). they bow and walk backwards before the grandees, and our men hustle them while they are doing it. we walked out last night, with the intention of going to the theatre; but the piccolomini establishment (they were doing the "lucia") looked so horribly like a very bad jail, and the queen's looked so blackguardly, that we came back again, and went to bed. i seem to be always either in a railway carriage, or reading, or going to bed. i get so knocked up, whenever i have a minute to remember it, that then i go to bed as a matter of course. i send my love to the noble plorn, and to all the boys. to dear mamie and katie, and to yourself of course, in the first degree. i am looking forward to the last irish reading on thursday, with great impatience. but when we shall have turned this week, once knocked off belfast, i shall see land, and shall (like poor timber in the days of old) "keep up a good heart." i get so wonderfully hot every night in my dress clothes, that they positively won't dry in the short interval they get, and i have been obliged to write to doudney's to make me another suit, that i may have a constant change. ever, my dearest georgy, most affectionately. [sidenote: miss dickens.] belfast, _saturday, aug. th, ._ when i went down to the rotunda at dublin on thursday night, i said to arthur, who came rushing at me: "you needn't tell me. i know all about it." the moment i had come out of the door of the hotel (a mile off), i had come against the stream of people turned away. i had struggled against it to the room. there, the crowd in all the lobbies and passages was so great, that i had a difficulty in getting in. they had broken all the glass in the pay-boxes. they had offered frantic prices for stalls. eleven bank-notes were thrust into that pay-box (arthur saw them) at one time, for eleven stalls. our men were flattened against walls, and squeezed against beams. ladies stood all night with their chins against my platform. other ladies sat all night upon my steps. you never saw such a sight. and the reading went tremendously! it is much to be regretted that we troubled ourselves to go anywhere else in ireland. we turned away people enough to make immense houses for a week. we arrived here yesterday at two. the room will not hold more than from eighty to ninety pounds. the same scene was repeated with the additional feature, that the people are much rougher here than in dublin, and that there was a very great uproar at the opening of the doors, which, the police in attendance being quite inefficient and only looking on, it was impossible to check. arthur was in the deepest misery because shillings got into stalls, and half-crowns got into shillings, and stalls got nowhere, and there was immense confusion. it ceased, however, the moment i showed myself; and all went most brilliantly, in spite of a great piece of the cornice of the ceiling falling with a great crash within four or five inches of the head of a young lady on my platform (i was obliged to have people there), and in spite of my gas suddenly going out at the time of the game of forfeits at scrooge's nephew's, through some belfastian gentleman accidentally treading on the flexible pipe, and needing to be relighted. we shall not get to cork before mid-day on monday; it being difficult to get from here on a sunday. we hope to be able to start away to-morrow morning to see the giant's causeway (some sixteen miles off), and in that case we shall sleep at dublin to-morrow night, leaving here by the train at half-past three in the afternoon. dublin, you must understand, is on the way to cork. this is a fine place, surrounded by lofty hills. the streets are very wide, and the place is very prosperous. the whole ride from dublin here is through a very picturesque and various country; and the amazing thing is, that it is all particularly neat and orderly, and that the houses (outside at all events) are all brightly whitewashed and remarkably clean. i want to climb one of the neighbouring hills before this morning's "dombey." i am now waiting for arthur, who has gone to the bank to remit his last accumulation of treasure to london. our men are rather indignant with the irish crowds, because in the struggle they don't sell books, and because, in the pressure, they can't force a way into the room afterwards to sell them. they are deeply interested in the success, however, and are as zealous and ardent as possible. i shall write to katie next. give her my best love, and kiss the darling plorn for me, and give my love to all the boys. ever, my dearest mamie, your most affectionate father. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] morrison's hotel, dublin, _sunday night, aug. th, ._ i am so delighted to find your letter here to-night (eleven o'clock), and so afraid that, in the wear and tear of this strange life, i have written to gad's hill in the wrong order, and have not written to you, as i should, that i resolve to write this before going to bed. you will find it a wretchedly stupid letter; but you may imagine, my dearest girl, that i am tired. the success at belfast has been equal to the success here. enormous! we turned away half the town. i think them a better audience, on the whole, than dublin; and the personal affection there was something overwhelming. i wish you and the dear girls could have seen the people look at me in the street; or heard them ask me, as i hurried to the hotel after reading last night, to "do me the honour to shake hands, misther dickens, and god bless you, sir; not ounly for the light you've been to me this night, but for the light you've been in mee house, sir (and god love your face), this many a year." every night, by-the-bye, since i have been in ireland, the ladies have beguiled john out of the bouquet from my coat. and yesterday morning, as i had showered the leaves from my geranium in reading "little dombey," they mounted the platform, after i was gone, and picked them all up as keepsakes! i have never seen _men_ go in to cry so undisguisedly as they did at that reading yesterday afternoon. they made no attempt whatever to hide it, and certainly cried more than the women. as to the "boots" at night, and "mrs. gamp" too, it was just one roar with me and them; for they made me laugh so that sometimes i _could not_ compose my face to go on. you must not let the new idea of poor dear landor efface the former image of the fine old man. i wouldn't blot him out, in his tender gallantry, as he sat upon that bed at forster's that night, for a million of wild mistakes at eighty years of age. i hope to be at tavistock house before five o'clock next saturday morning, and to lie in bed half the day, and come home by the . on sunday. tell the girls that arthur and i have each ordered at belfast a trim, sparkling, slap-up _irish jaunting-car_!!! i flatter myself we shall astonish the kentish people. it is the oddest carriage in the world, and you are always falling off. but it is gay and bright in the highest degree. wonderfully neapolitan. what with a sixteen mile ride before we left belfast, and a sea-beach walk, and a two o'clock dinner, and a seven hours' railway ride since, i am--as we say here--"a thrifle weary." but i really am in wonderful force, considering the work. for which i am, as i ought to be, very thankful. arthur was exceedingly unwell last night--could not cheer up at all. he was so very unwell that he left the hall(!) and became invisible after my five minutes' rest. i found him at the hotel in a jacket and slippers, and with a hot bath just ready. he was in the last stage of prostration. the local agent was with me, and proposed that he (the wretched arthur) should go to his office and balance the accounts then and there. he went, in the jacket and slippers, and came back in twenty minutes, _perfectly well_, in consequence of the admirable balance. he is now sitting opposite to me on the bag of silver, forty pounds (it must be dreadfully hard), writing to boulogne. i suppose it is clear that the next letter i write is katie's. either from cork or from limerick, it shall report further. at limerick i read in the theatre, there being no other place. best love to mamie and katie, and dear plorn, and all the boys left when this comes to gad's hill; also to my dear good anne, and her little woman. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, sept. th, ._ my dear wilkie, first, let me report myself here for something less than eight-and-forty hours. i come last (and direct--a pretty hard journey) from limerick. the success in ireland has been immense. the work is very hard, sometimes overpowering; but i am none the worse for it, and arrived here quite fresh. secondly, will you let me recommend the enclosed letter from wigan, as the groundwork of a capital article, in your way, for h. w.? there is not the least objection to a plain reference to him, or to phelps, to whom the same thing happened a year or two ago, near islington, in the case of a clever and capital little daughter of his. i think it a capital opportunity for a discourse on gentility, with a glance at those other schools which advertise that the "sons of gentlemen only" are admitted, and a just recognition of the greater liberality of our public schools. there are tradesmen's sons at eton, and charles kean was at eton, and macready (also an actor's son) was at rugby. some such title as "scholastic flunkeydom," or anything infinitely contemptuous, would help out the meaning. surely such a schoolmaster must swallow all the silver forks that the pupils are expected to take when they come, and are not expected to take away with them when they go. and of course he could not exist, unless he had flunkey customers by the dozen. secondly--no, this is thirdly now--about the christmas number. i have arranged so to stop my readings, as to be available for it on _the th of november_, which will leave me time to write a good article, if i clear my way to one. do you see your way to our making a christmas number of this idea that i am going very briefly to hint? some disappointed person, man or woman, prematurely disgusted with the world, for some reason or no reason (the person should be young, i think) retires to an old lonely house, or an old lonely mill, or anything you like, with one attendant, resolved to shut out the world, and hold no communion with it. the one attendant sees the absurdity of the idea, pretends to humour it, but really thus to slaughter it. everything that happens, everybody that comes near, every breath of human interest that floats into the old place from the village, or the heath, or the four cross-roads near which it stands, and from which belated travellers stray into it, shows beyond mistake that you can't shut out the world; that you are in it, to be of it; that you get into a false position the moment you try to sever yourself from it; and that you must mingle with it, and make the best of it, and make the best of yourself into the bargain. if we could plot out a way of doing this together, i would not be afraid to take my part. if we could not, could we plot out a way of doing it, and taking in stories by other hands? if we could not do either (but i think we could), shall we fall back upon a round of stories again? that i would rather not do, if possible. will you think about it? and can you come and dine at tavistock house _on monday, the th september, at half-past five_? i purpose being at home there with the girls that day. answer this, according to my printed list for the week. i am off to huddersfield on wednesday morning. i think i will now leave off; merely adding that i have got a splendid brogue (it really is exactly like the people), and that i think of coming out as the only legitimate successor of poor power. ever, my dear wilkie, affectionately yours. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] station hotel, york, _friday, sept. th, ._ dearest meery, first let me tell you that all the magicians and spirits in your employ have fulfilled the instructions of their wondrous mistress to admiration. flowers have fallen in my path wherever i have trod; and when they rained upon me at cork i was more amazed than you ever saw me. secondly, receive my hearty and loving thanks for that same. (excuse a little irish in the turn of that sentence, but i can't help it). thirdly, i have written direct to mr. boddington, explaining that i am bound to be in edinburgh on the day when he courteously proposes to do me honour. i really cannot tell you how truly and tenderly i feel your letter, and how gratified i am by its contents. your truth and attachment are always so precious to me that i can_not_ get my heart out on my sleeve to show it you. it is like a child, and, at the sound of some familiar voices, "goes and hides." you know what an affection i have for mrs. watson, and how happy it made me to see her again--younger, much, than when i first knew her in switzerland. god bless you always! ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] royal hotel, scarborough, _sunday, sept. th, ._ my dearest georgy, we had a very fine house indeed at york. all kinds of applications have been made for another reading there, and no doubt it would be exceedingly productive; but it cannot be done. at harrogate yesterday; the queerest place, with the strangest people in it, leading the oddest lives of dancing, newspaper reading, and tables d'hôte. the piety of york obliging us to leave that place for this at six this morning, and there being no night train from harrogate, we had to engage a special engine. we got to bed at one, and were up again before five; which, after yesterday's fatigues, leaves me a little worn out at this present. i have no accounts of this place as yet, nor have i received any letter here. but the post of this morning is not yet delivered, i believe. we have a charming room, overlooking the sea. leech is here (living within a few doors), with the partner of his bosom, and his young family. i write at ten in the morning, having been here two hours; and you will readily suppose that i have not seen him. of news, i have not the faintest breath. i seem to have been doing nothing all my life but riding in railway-carriages and reading. the railway of the morning brought us through castle howard, and under the woods of easthorpe, and then just below malton abbey, where i went to poor smithson's funeral. it was a most lovely morning, and, tired as i was, i couldn't sleep for looking out of window. yesterday, at harrogate, two circumstances occurred which gave arthur great delight. firstly, he chafed his legs sore with his black bag of silver. secondly, the landlord asked him as a favour, "if he could oblige him with a little silver." he obliged him directly with some forty pounds' worth; and i suspect the landlord to have repented of having approached the subject. after the reading last night we walked over the moor to the railway, three miles, leaving our men to follow with the luggage in a light cart. they passed us just short of the railway, and john was making the night hideous and terrifying the sleeping country, by _playing the horn_ in prodigiously horrible and unmusical blasts. my dearest love, of course, to the dear girls, and to the noble plorn. apropos of children, there was one gentleman at the "little dombey" yesterday morning, who exhibited, or rather concealed, the profoundest grief. after crying a good deal without hiding it, he covered his face with both his hands, and laid it down on the back of the seat before him, and really shook with emotion. he was not in mourning, but i supposed him to have lost some child in old time. there was a remarkably good fellow of thirty or so, too, who found something so very ludicrous in "toots," that he _could not_ compose himself at all, but laughed until he sat wiping his eyes with his handkerchief. and whenever he felt "toots" coming again he began to laugh and wipe his eyes afresh, and when he came he gave a kind of cry, as if it were too much for him. it was uncommonly droll, and made me laugh heartily. ever, dear georgy, your most affectionate. [sidenote: miss dickens.] scarborough arms, leeds, _wednesday, sept. th, ._ my dearest mamie, i have added a pound to the cheque. i would recommend your seeing the poor railway man again and giving him ten shillings, and telling him to let you see him again in about a week. if he be then still unable to lift weights and handle heavy things, i would then give him another ten shillings, and so on. since i wrote to georgy from scarborough, we have had, thank god, nothing but success. the hull people (not generally considered excitable, even on their own showing) were so enthusiastic, that we were obliged to promise to go back there for two readings. i have positively resolved not to lengthen out the time of my tour, so we are now arranging to drop some small places, and substitute hull again and york again. but you will perhaps have heard this in the main from arthur. i know he wrote to you after the reading last night. this place i have always doubted, knowing that we should come here when it was recovering from the double excitement of the festival and the queen. but there is a very large hall let indeed, and the prospect of to-night consequently looks bright. arthur told you, i suppose, that he had his shirt-front and waistcoat torn off last night? he was perfectly enraptured in consequence. our men got so knocked about that he gave them five shillings apiece on the spot. john passed several minutes upside down against a wall, with his head amongst the people's boots. he came out of the difficulty in an exceedingly touzled condition, and with his face much flushed. for all this, and their being packed as you may conceive they would be packed, they settled down the instant i went in, and never wavered in the closest attention for an instant. it was a very high room, and required a great effort. oddly enough, i slept in this house three days last year with wilkie. arthur has the bedroom i occupied then, and i have one two doors from it, and gordon has the one between. not only is he still with us, but he _has_ talked of going on to manchester, going on to london, and coming back with us to darlington next tuesday!!! these streets look like a great circus with the season just finished. all sorts of garish triumphal arches were put up for the queen, and they have got smoky, and have been looked out of countenance by the sun, and are blistered and patchy, and half up and half down, and are hideous to behold. spiritless men (evidently drunk for some time in the royal honour) are slowly removing them, and on the whole it is more like the clearing away of "the frozen deep" at tavistock house than anything within your knowledge--with the exception that we are not in the least sorry, as we were then. vague ideas are in arthur's head that when we come back to hull, we are to come here, and are to have the town hall (a beautiful building), and read to the million. i can't say yet. that depends. i remember that when i was here before (i came from rockingham to make a speech), i thought them a dull and slow audience. i hope i may have been mistaken. i never saw better audiences than the yorkshire audiences generally. i am so perpetually at work or asleep, that i have not a scrap of news. i saw the leech family at scarboro', both in my own house (that is to say, hotel) and in theirs. they were not at either reading. scarboro' is gay and pretty, and i think gordon had an idea that we were always at some such place. kiss the darling plorn for me, and give him my love; dear katie too, giving her the same. i feel sorry that i cannot get down to gad's hill this next time, but i shall look forward to our being there with georgy, after scotland. tell the servants that i remember them, and hope they will live with us many years. ever, my dearest mamie, your most affectionate father. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] king's head, sheffield, _friday, sept. th, ._ i write you a few lines to tavistock house, thinking you may not be sorry to find a note from me there on your arrival from gad's hill. halifax was too small for us. i never saw such an audience though. they were really worth reading to for nothing, though i didn't do exactly that. it is as horrible a place as i ever saw, i think. the run upon the tickets here is so immense that arthur is obliged to get great bills out, signifying that no more can be sold. it will be by no means easy to get into the place the numbers who have already paid. it is the hall we acted in. crammed to the roof and the passages. we must come back here towards the end of october, and are again altering the list and striking out small places. the trains are so strange and unintelligible in this part of the country that we were obliged to leave halifax at eight this morning, and breakfast on the road--at huddersfield again, where we had an hour's wait. wills was in attendance on the platform, and took me (here at sheffield, i mean) out to frederick lehmann's house to see mrs. wills. she looked pretty much the same as ever, i thought, and was taking care of a very pretty little boy. the house and grounds are as nice as anything _can_ be in this smoke. a heavy thunderstorm is passing over the town, and it is raining hard too. this is a stupid letter, my dearest georgy, but i write in a hurry, and in the thunder and lightning, and with the crowd of to-night before me. ever most affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] station hotel, newcastle-on-tyne, _sunday, sept. th, ._ extract. the girls (as i have no doubt they have already told you for themselves) arrived here in good time yesterday, and in very fresh condition. they persisted in going to the room last night, though i had arranged for their remaining quiet. we have done a vast deal here. i suppose you know that we are going to berwick, and that we mean to sleep there and go on to edinburgh on monday morning, arriving there before noon? if it be as fine to-morrow as it is to-day, the girls will see the coast piece of railway between berwick and edinburgh to great advantage. i was anxious that they should, because that kind of pleasure is really almost the only one they are likely to have in their present trip. stanfield and roberts are in edinburgh, and the scottish royal academy gave them a dinner on wednesday, to which i was very pressingly invited. but, of course, my going was impossible. i read twice that day. remembering what you do of sunderland, you will be surprised that our profit there was very considerable. i read in a beautiful new theatre, and (i thought to myself) quite wonderfully. such an audience i never beheld for rapidity and enthusiasm. the room in which we acted (converted into a theatre afterwards) was burnt to the ground a year or two ago. we found the hotel, so bad in our time, really good. i walked from durham to sunderland, and from sunderland to newcastle. don't you think, as we shall be at home at eleven in the forenoon this day fortnight, that it will be best for you and plornish to come to tavistock house for that sunday, and for us all to go down to gad's hill next day? my best love to the noble plornish. if he is quite reconciled to the postponement of his trousers, i should like to behold his first appearance in them. but, if not, as he is such a good fellow, i think it would be a pity to disappoint and try him. and now, my dearest georgy, i think i have said all i have to say before i go out for a little air. i had a very hard day yesterday, and am tired. ever your most affectionate. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, _sunday, oct. th, ._ my dear forster, as to the truth of the readings, i cannot tell you what the demonstrations of personal regard and respect are. how the densest and most uncomfortably-packed crowd will be hushed in an instant when i show my face. how the youth of colleges, and the old men of business in the town, seem equally unable to get near enough to me when they cheer me away at night. how common people and gentlefolks will stop me in the streets and say: "mr. dickens, will you let me touch the hand that has filled my home with so many friends?" and if you saw the mothers, and fathers, and sisters, and brothers in mourning, who invariably come to "little dombey," and if you studied the wonderful expression of comfort and reliance with which they hang about me, as if i had been with them, all kindness and delicacy, at their own little death-bed, you would think it one of the strangest things in the world. as to the mere effect, of course i don't go on doing the thing so often without carefully observing myself and the people too in every little thing, and without (in consequence) greatly improving in it. at aberdeen, we were crammed to the street twice in one day. at perth (where i thought when i arrived there literally could be nobody to come), the nobility came posting in from thirty miles round, and the whole town came and filled an immense hall. as to the effect, if you had seen them after lilian died, in "the chimes," or when scrooge woke and talked to the boy outside the window, i doubt if you would ever have forgotten it. and at the end of "dombey" yesterday afternoon, in the cold light of day, they all got up, after a short pause, gentle and simple, and thundered and waved their hats with that astonishing heartiness and fondness for me, that for the first time in all my public career they took me completely off my legs, and i saw the whole eighteen hundred of them reel on one side as if a shock from without had shaken the hall. the dear girls have enjoyed themselves immensely, and their trip has been a great success. i hope i told you (but i forget whether i did or no) how splendidly newcastle[ ] came out. i am reminded of newcastle at the moment because they joined me there. i am anxious to get to the end of my readings, and to be at home again, and able to sit down and think in my own study. but the fatigue, though sometimes very great indeed, hardly tells upon me at all. and although all our people, from smith downwards, have given in, more or less, at times, i have never been in the least unequal to the work, though sometimes sufficiently disinclined for it. my kindest and best love to mrs. forster. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss dickens.] royal hotel, derby, _friday, oct. nd, ._ my dearest mamie, i am writing in a very poor condition; i have a bad cold all over me, pains in my back and limbs, and a very sensitive and uncomfortable throat. there was a great draught up some stone steps near me last night, and i daresay that caused it. the weather on my first two nights at birmingham was so intolerably bad--it blew hard, and never left off raining for one single moment--that the houses were not what they otherwise would have been. on the last night the weather cleared, and we had a grand house. last night at nottingham was almost, if not quite, the most amazing we have had. it is not a very large place, and the room is by no means a very large one, but three hundred and twenty stalls were let, and all the other tickets were sold. here we have two hundred and twenty stalls let for to-night, and the other tickets are gone in proportion. it is a pretty room, but not large. i have just been saying to arthur that if there is not a large let for york, i would rather give it up, and get monday at gad's hill. we have telegraphed to know. if the answer comes (as i suppose it will) before post time, i will tell you in a postscript what we decide to do. coming to london in the night of to-morrow (saturday), and having to see mr. ouvry on sunday, and having to start for york early on monday, i fear i should not be able to get to gad's hill at all. you won't expect me till you see me. arthur and i have considered plornish's joke in all the immense number of aspects in which it presents itself to reflective minds. we have come to the conclusion that it is the best joke ever made. give the dear boy my love, and the same to georgy, and the same to katey, and take the same yourself. arthur (excessively low and inarticulate) mutters that he "unites." [we knocked up boylett, berry, and john so frightfully yesterday, by tearing the room to pieces and altogether reversing it, as late as four o'clock, that we gave them a supper last night. they shine all over to-day, as if it had been entirely composed of grease.] ever, my dearest mamie, your most affectionate father. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] wolverhampton, _wednesday, nov. rd, ._ little leamington came out in the most amazing manner yesterday--turned away hundreds upon hundreds of people. they are represented as the dullest and worst of audiences. i found them very good indeed, even in the morning. there awaited me at the hotel, a letter from the rev. mr. young, wentworth watson's tutor, saying that mrs. watson wished her boy to shake hands with me, and that he would bring him in the evening. i expected him at the hotel before the readings. but he did not come. he spoke to john about it in the room at night. the crowd and confusion, however, were very great, and i saw nothing of him. in his letter he said that mrs. watson was at paris on her way home, and would be at brighton at the end of this week. i suppose i shall see her there at the end of next week. we find a let of two hundred stalls here, which is very large for this place. the evening being fine too, and blue being to be seen in the sky beyond the smoke, we expect to have a very full hall. tell mamey and katey that if they had been with us on the railway to-day between leamington and this place, they would have seen (though it is only an hour and ten minutes by the express) fires and smoke indeed. we came through a part of the black country that you know, and it looked at its blackest. all the furnaces seemed in full blast, and all the coal-pits to be working. it is market-day here, and the ironmasters are standing out in the street (where they always hold high change), making such an iron hum and buzz, that they confuse me horribly. in addition, there is a bellman announcing something--not the readings, i beg to say--and there is an excavation being made in the centre of the open place, for a statue, or a pump, or a lamp-post, or something or other, round which all the wolverhampton boys are yelling and struggling. and here is arthur, begging to have dinner at half-past three instead of four, because he foresees "a wiry evening" in store for him. under which complication of distractions, to which a waitress with a tray at this moment adds herself, i sink, and leave off. my best love to the dear girls, and to the noble plorn, and to you. marguerite and ellen stone not forgotten. all yesterday and to-day i have been doing everything to the tune of: and the day is dark and dreary. ever, dearest georgy, your most affectionate and faithful. p.s.--i hope the brazier is intolerably hot, and half stifles all the family. then, and not otherwise, i shall think it in satisfactory work. [sidenote: rev. james white.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w. c., _friday, nov. th, ._ my dear white, may i entreat you to thank mr. carter very earnestly and kindly in my name, for his proffered hospitality; and, further, to explain to him that since my readings began, i have known them to be incompatible with all social enjoyments, and have neither set foot in a friend's house nor sat down to a friend's table in any one of all the many places i have been to, but have rigidly kept myself to my hotels. to this resolution i must hold until the last. there is not the least virtue in it. it is a matter of stern necessity, and i submit with the worst grace possible. will you let me know, either at southampton or portsmouth, whether any of you, and how many of you, if any, are coming over, so that arthur smith may reserve good seats? tell lotty i hope she does not contemplate coming to the morning reading; i always hate it so myself. mary and katey are down at gad's hill with georgy and plornish, and they have marguerite power and ellen stone staying there. i am sorry to say that even my benevolence descries no prospect of their being able to come to my native place. on saturday week, the th, my tour, please god, ends. my best love to mrs. white, and to lotty, and to clara. ever, my dear white, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _monday, dec. th, ._ my dear stone, many thanks for these discourses. they are very good, i think, as expressing what many men have felt and thought; otherwise not specially remarkable. they have one fatal mistake, which is a canker at the foot of their ever being widely useful. half the misery and hypocrisy of the christian world arises (as i take it) from a stubborn determination to refuse the new testament as a sufficient guide in itself, and to force the old testament into alliance with it--whereof comes all manner of camel-swallowing and of gnat-straining. but so to resent this miserable error, or to (by any implication) depreciate the divine goodness and beauty of the new testament, is to commit even a worse error. and to class jesus christ with mahomet is simply audacity and folly. i might as well hoist myself on to a high platform, to inform my disciples that the lives of king george the fourth and of king alfred the great belonged to one and the same category. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. b. w. procter.] tavistock house, _sunday, dec. th, ._ my dear procter, a thousand thanks for the little song. i am charmed with it, and shall be delighted to brighten "household words" with such a wise and genial light. i no more believe that your poetical faculty has gone by, than i believe that you have yourself passed to the better land. you and it will travel thither in company, rely upon it. so i still hope to hear more of the trade-songs, and to learn that the blacksmith has hammered out no end of iron into good fashion of verse, like a cunning workman, as i know him of old to be. very faithfully yours, my dear procter. footnotes: [ ] niece to the rev. w. harness. [ ] the birthplace of mr. forster. . narrative. during the winter, charles dickens was living at tavistock house, removing to gad's hill for the summer early in june, and returning to london in november. at this time a change was made in his weekly journal. "household words" became absolutely his own--mr. wills being his partner and editor, as before--and was "incorporated with 'all the year round,'" under which title it was known thenceforth. the office was still in wellington street, but in a different house. the first number with the new name appeared on the th april, and it contained the opening of "a tale of two cities." the first letter which follows shows that a proposal for a series of readings in america had already been made to him. it was carefully considered and abandoned for the time. but the proposal was constantly renewed, and the idea never wholly relinquished for many years before he actually decided on making so distant a "reading tour." mr. procter contributed to the early numbers of "all the year round" some very spirited "songs of the trades." we give notes from charles dickens to the veteran poet, both in the last year, and in this year, expressing his strong approval of them. the letter and two notes to mr. (afterwards sir antonio) panizzi, for which we are indebted to mr. louis fagan, one of sir a. panizzi's executors, show the warm sympathy and interest which he always felt for the cause of italian liberty, and for the sufferings of the state prisoners who at this time took refuge in england. we give a little note to the dear friend and companion of charles dickens's daughters, "lotty" white, because it is a pretty specimen of his writing, and because the young girl, who is playfully "commanded" to get well and strong, died early in july of this year. she was, at the time this note was written, first attacked with the illness which was fatal to all her sisters. mamie and kate dickens went from gad's hill to bonchurch to pay a last visit to their friend, and he writes to his eldest daughter there. also we give notes of loving sympathy and condolence to the bereaved father and mother. in the course of this summer charles dickens was not well, and went for a week to his old favourite, broadstairs--where mr. wilkie collins and his brother, mr. charles allston collins, were staying--for sea-air and change, preparatory to another reading tour, in england only. his letter from peterborough to mr. frank stone, giving him an account of a reading at manchester (mr. stone's native town), was one of the last ever addressed to that affectionate friend, who died very suddenly, to the great grief of charles dickens, in november. the letter to mr. thomas longman, which closes this year, was one of introduction to that gentleman of young marcus stone, then just beginning his career as an artist, and to whom the premature death of his father made it doubly desirable that he should have powerful helping hands. charles dickens refers, in a letter to mrs. watson, to his portrait by mr. frith, which was finished at the end of . it was painted for mr. forster, and is now in the "forster collection" at south kensington museum. the christmas number of this year, again written by several hands as well as his own, was "the haunted house." in november, his story of "a tale of two cities" was finished in "all the year round," and in december was published, complete, with dedication to lord john russell. [sidenote: mr. arthur smith.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _wednesday, jan. th, ._ my dear arthur, will you first read the enclosed letters, having previously welcomed, with all possible cordiality, the bearer, mr. thomas c. evans, from new york? you having read them, let me explain that mr. fields is a highly respectable and influential man, one of the heads of the most classical and most respected publishing house in america; that mr. richard grant white is a man of high reputation; and that felton is the greek professor in their cambridge university, perhaps the most distinguished scholar in the states. the address to myself, referred to in one of the letters, being on its way, it is quite clear that i must give some decided and definite answer to the american proposal. now, will you carefully discuss it with mr. evans before i enter on it at all? then, will you dine here with him on sunday--which i will propose to him--and arrange to meet at half-past four for an hour's discussion? the points are these: first. i have a very grave question within myself whether i could go to america at all. secondly. if i did go, i could not possibly go before the autumn. thirdly. if i did go, how long must i stay? fourthly. if the stay were a short one, could _you_ go? fifthly. what is his project? what could i make? what occurs to you upon his proposal? i have told him that the business arrangements of the readings have been from the first so entirely in your hands, that i enter upon nothing connected with them without previous reference to you. ever faithfully. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] tavistock house, _tuesday, feb. st, ._ my dear cerjat, i received your always welcome annual with even more interest than usual this year, being (in common with my two girls and their aunt) much excited and pleased by your account of your daughter's engagement. apart from the high sense i have of the affectionate confidence with which you tell me what lies so tenderly on your own heart, i have followed the little history with a lively sympathy and regard for her. i hope, with you, that it is full of promise, and that you will all be happy in it. the separation, even in the present condition of travel (and no man can say how much the discovery of a day may advance it), is nothing. and so god bless her and all of you, and may the rosy summer bring her all the fulness of joy that we all wish her. to pass from the altar to townshend (which is a long way), let me report him severely treated by bully, who rules him with a paw of iron; and complaining, moreover, of indigestion. he drives here every sunday, but at all other times is mostly shut up in his beautiful house, where i occasionally go and dine with him _tête-à-tête_, and where we always talk of you and drink to you. that is a rule with us from which we never depart. he is "seeing a volume of poems through the press;" rather an expensive amusement. he has not been out at night (except to this house) save last friday, when he went to hear me read "the poor traveller," "mrs. gamp," and "the trial" from "pickwick." he came into my room at st. martin's hall, and i fortified him with weak brandy-and-water. you will be glad to hear that the said readings are a greater _furore_ than they ever have been, and that every night on which they now take place--once a week--hundreds go away, unable to get in, though the hall holds thirteen hundred people. i dine with ---- to-day, by-the-bye, along with his agent; concerning whom i observe him to be always divided between an unbounded confidence and a little latent suspicion. he always tells me that he is a gem of the first water; oh yes, the best of business men! and then says that he did not quite like his conduct respecting that farm-tenant and those hay-ricks. there is a general impression here, among the best-informed, that war in italy, to begin with, is inevitable, and will break out before april. i know a gentleman at genoa (swiss by birth), deeply in with the authorities at turin, who is already sending children home. in england we are quiet enough. there is a world of talk, as you know, about reform bills; but i don't believe there is any general strong feeling on the subject. according to my perceptions, it is undeniable that the public has fallen into a state of indifference about public affairs, mainly referable, as i think, to the people who administer them--and there i mean the people of all parties--which is a very bad sign of the times. the general mind seems weary of debates and honourable members, and to have taken _laissez-aller_ for its motto. my affairs domestic (which i know are not without their interest for you) flow peacefully. my eldest daughter is a capital housekeeper, heads the table gracefully, delegates certain appropriate duties to her sister and her aunt, and they are all three devotedly attached. charley, my eldest boy, remains in barings' house. your present correspondent is more popular than he ever has been. i rather think that the readings in the country have opened up a new public who were outside before; but however that may be, his books have a wider range than they ever had, and his public welcomes are prodigious. said correspondent is at present overwhelmed with proposals to go and read in america. will never go, unless a small fortune be first paid down in money on this side of the atlantic. stated the figure of such payment, between ourselves, only yesterday. expects to hear no more of it, and assuredly will never go for less. you don't say, my dear cerjat, when you are coming to england! somehow i feel that this marriage ought to bring you over, though i don't know why. you shall have a bed here and a bed at gad's hill, and we will go and see strange sights together. when i was in ireland, i ordered the brightest jaunting-car that ever was seen. it has just this minute arrived per steamer from belfast. say you are coming, and you shall be the first man turned over by it; somebody must be (for my daughter mary drives anything that can be harnessed, and i know of no english horse that would understand a jaunting-car coming down a kentish hill), and you shall be that somebody if you will. they turned the basket-phaeton over, last summer, in a bye-road--mary and the other two--and had to get it up again; which they did, and came home as if nothing had happened. they send their loves to mrs. cerjat, and to you, and to all, and particularly to the dear _fiancée_. so do i, with all my heart, and am ever your attached and affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. antonio panizzi.] tavistock house, _monday night, march th, ._ my dear panizzi, if you should feel no delicacy in mentioning, or should see no objection to mentioning, to signor poerio, or any of the wronged neapolitan gentlemen to whom it is your happiness and honour to be a friend on their arrival in this country, an idea that has occurred to me, i should regard it as a great kindness in you if you would be my exponent. i think you will have no difficulty in believing that i would not, on any consideration, obtrude my name or projects upon any one of those noble souls, if there were any reason of the slightest kind against it. and if you see any such reason, i pray you instantly to banish my letter from your thoughts. it seems to me probable that some narrative of their ten years' suffering will, somehow or other, sooner or later, be by some of them laid before the english people. the just interest and indignation alive here, will (i suppose) elicit it. false narratives and garbled stories will, in any case, of a certainty get about. if the true history of the matter is to be told, i have that sympathy with them and respect for them which would, all other considerations apart, render it unspeakably gratifying to me to be the means of its diffusion. what i desire to lay before them is simply this. if for my new successor to "household words" a narrative of their ten years' trial could be written, i would take any conceivable pains to have it rendered into english, and presented in the sincerest and best way to a very large and comprehensive audience. it should be published exactly as you might think best for them, and remunerated in any way that you might think generous and right. they want no mouthpiece and no introducer, but perhaps they might have no objection to be associated with an english writer, who is possibly not unknown to them by some general reputation, and who certainly would be animated by a strong public and private respect for their honour, spirit, and unmerited misfortunes. this is the whole matter; assuming that such a thing is to be done, i long for the privilege of helping to do it. these gentlemen might consider it an independent means of making money, and i should be delighted to pay the money. in my absence from town, my friend and sub-editor, mr. wills (to whom i had expressed my feeling on the subject), has seen, i think, three of the gentlemen together. but as i hear, returning home to-night, that they are in your good hands, and as nobody can be a better judge than you of anything that concerns them, i at once decide to write to you and to take no other step whatever. forgive me for the trouble i have occasioned you in the reading of this letter, and never think of it again if you think that by pursuing it you would cause them an instant's uneasiness. believe me, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. antonio panizzi.] tavistock house, _tuesday, march th, ._ my dear panizzi, let me thank you heartily for your kind and prompt letter. i am really and truly sensible of your friendliness. i have not heard from higgins, but of course i am ready to serve on the committee. always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. b. w. procter.] tavistock house, _saturday, march th, ._ my dear procter, i think the songs are simply admirable! and i have no doubt of this being a popular feature in "all the year round." i would not omit the sexton, and i would not omit the spinners and weavers; and i would omit the hack-writers, and (i think) the alderman; but i am not so clear about the chorister. the pastoral i a little doubt finding audience for; but i am not at all sure yet that my doubt is well founded. had i not better send them all to the printer, and let you have proofs kept by you for publishing? i shall not have to make up the first number of "all the year round" until early in april. i don't like to send the manuscript back, and i never do like to do so when i get anything that i know to be thoroughly, soundly, and unquestionably good. i am hard at work upon my story, and expect a magnificent start. with hearty thanks, ever yours affectionately. [sidenote: mr. edmund yates.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _tuesday, march th, ._ my dear edmund, . i think that no one seeing the place can well doubt that my house at gad's hill is the place for the letter-box. the wall is accessible by all sorts and conditions of men, on the bold high road, and the house altogether is the great landmark of the whole neighbourhood. captain goldsmith's _house_ is up a lane considerably off the high road; but he has a garden _wall_ abutting on the road itself. . "the pic-nic papers" were originally sold to colburn, for the benefit of the widow of mr. macrone, of st. james's square, publisher, deceased. two volumes were contributed--of course gratuitously--by writers who had had transactions with macrone. mr. colburn, wanting three volumes in all for trade purposes, added a third, consisting of an american reprint. of that volume i didn't know, and don't know, anything. the other two i edited, gratuitously as aforesaid, and wrote the lamplighter's story in. it was all done many years ago. there was a preface originally, delicately setting forth how the book came to be. . i suppose ---- to be, as mr. samuel weller expresses it somewhere in "pickwick," "ravin' mad with the consciousness o' willany." under their advertisement in _the times_ to-day, you will see, without a word of comment, the shorthand writer's verbatim report of the judgment. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. antonio panizzi.] "all the year round" office, _thursday, april th, ._ my dear panizzi, if you don't know, i think you should know that a number of letters are passing through the post-office, purporting to be addressed to the charitable by "italian exiles in london," asking for aid to raise a fund for a tribute to "london's lord mayor," in grateful recognition of the reception of the neapolitan exiles. i know this to be the case, and have no doubt in my own mind that the whole thing is an imposture and a "do." the letters are signed "gratitudine italiana." ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss white.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _monday, april th, ._ my dear lotty, this is merely a notice to you that i must positively insist on your getting well, strong, and into good spirits, with the least possible delay. also, that i look forward to seeing you at gad's hill sometime in the summer, staying with the girls, and heartlessly putting down the plorn you know that there is no appeal from the plorn's inimitable father. what _he_ says must be done. therefore i send you my love (which please take care of), and my commands (which please obey). ever your affectionate. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _tuesday, may st, ._ my dear mrs. watson, you surprise me by supposing that there is ever latent a defiant and roused expression in the undersigned lamb! apart from this singular delusion of yours, and wholly unaccountable departure from your usual accuracy in all things, your satisfaction with the portrait is a great pleasure to me. it has received every conceivable pains at frith's hands, and ought on his account to be good. it is a little too much (to my thinking) as if my next-door neighbour were my deadly foe, uninsured, and i had just received tidings of his house being afire; otherwise very good. i cannot tell you how delighted we shall be if you would come to gad's hill. you should see some charming woods and a rare old castle, and you should have such a snug room looking over a kentish prospect, with every facility in it for pondering on the beauties of its master's beard! _do_ come, but you positively _must not_ come and go on the same day. we retreat there on monday, and shall be there all the summer. my small boy is perfectly happy at southsea, and likes the school very much. i had the finest letter two or three days ago, from another of my boys--frank jeffrey--at hamburg. in this wonderful epistle he says: "dear papa, i write to tell you that i have given up all thoughts of being a doctor. my conviction that i shall never get over my stammering is the cause; all professions are barred against me. the only thing i should like to be is a gentleman farmer, either at the cape, in canada, or australia. with my passage paid, fifteen pounds, a horse, and a rifle, i could go two or three hundred miles up country, sow grain, buy cattle, and in time be very comfortable." considering the consequences of executing the little commission by the next steamer, i perceived that the first consequence of the fifteen pounds would be that he would be robbed of it--of the horse, that it would throw him--and of the rifle, that it would blow his head off; which probabilities i took the liberty of mentioning, as being against the scheme. with best love from all, ever believe me, my dear mrs. watson, your faithful and affectionate. [sidenote: mrs. white.] tavistock house, _sunday, june th, ._ my dear mrs. white, i do not write to you this morning because i have anything to say--i well know where your consolation is set, and to what beneficent figure your thoughts are raised--but simply because you are so much in my mind that it is a relief to send you and dear white my love. you are always in our hearts and on our lips. may the great god comfort you! you know that mary and katie are coming on thursday. they will bring dear lotty what she little needs with you by her side--love; and i hope their company will interest and please her. there is nothing that they, or any of us, would not do for her. she is a part of us all, and has belonged to us, as well as to you, these many years. ever your affectionate and faithful. [sidenote: miss dickens.] gad's hill, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, june th, ._ my dearest mamie, on saturday night i found, very much to my surprise and pleasure, the photograph on my table at tavistock house. it is not a very pleasant or cheerful presentation of my daughters; but it is wonderfully like for all that, and in some details remarkably good. when i came home here yesterday i tried it in the large townshend stereoscope, in which it shows to great advantage. it is in the little stereoscope at present on the drawing-room table. one of the balustrades of the destroyed old rochester bridge has been (very nicely) presented to me by the contractor for the works, and has been duly stonemasoned and set up on the lawn behind the house. i have ordered a sun-dial for the top of it, and it will be a very good object indeed. the plorn is highly excited to-day by reason of an institution which he tells me (after questioning george) is called the "cobb, or bodderin," holding a festival at the falstaff. he is possessed of some vague information that they go to higham church, in pursuance of some old usage, and attend service there, and afterwards march round the village. it so far looks probable that they certainly started off at eleven very spare in numbers, and came back considerably recruited, which looks to me like the difference between going to church and coming to dinner. they bore no end of bright banners and broad sashes, and had a band with a terrific drum, and are now (at half-past two) dining at the falstaff, partly in the side room on the ground-floor, and partly in a tent improvised this morning. the drum is hung up to a tree in the falstaff garden, and looks like a tropical sort of gourd. i have presented the band with five shillings, which munificence has been highly appreciated. ices don't seem to be provided for the ladies in the gallery--i mean the garden; they are prowling about there, endeavouring to peep in at the beef and mutton through the holes in the tent, on the whole, in a debased and degraded manner. turk somehow cut his foot in cobham lanes yesterday, and linda hers. they are both lame, and looking at each other. fancy mr. townshend not intending to go for another three weeks, and designing to come down here for a few days--with henri and bully--on wednesday! i wish you could have seen him alone with me on saturday; he was so extraordinarily earnest and affectionate on my belongings and affairs in general, and not least of all on you and katie, that he cried in a most pathetic manner, and was so affected that i was obliged to leave him among the flowerpots in the long passage at the end of the dining-room. it was a very good piece of truthfulness and sincerity, especially in one of his years, able to take life so easily. mr. and mrs. wills are here now (but i daresay you know it from your aunt), and return to town with me to-morrow morning. we are now going on to the castle. mrs. wills was very droll last night, and told me some good stories. my dear, i wish particularly to impress upon you and dear katie (to whom i send my other best love) that i hope your stay will not be very long. i don't think it very good for either of you, though of course i know that lotty will be, and must be, and should be the first consideration with you both. i am very anxious to know how you found her and how you are yourself. best love to dear lotty and mrs. white. the same to mr. white and clara. we are always talking about you all. ever, dearest mamie, your affectionate father. [sidenote: rev. james white.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _thursday, july th, ._ my dear white, i send my heartiest and most affectionate love to mrs. white and you, and to clara. you know all that i could add; you have felt it all; let it be unspoken and unwritten--it is expressed within us. do you not think that you could all three come here, and stay with us? you and mrs. white should have your own large room and your own ways, and should be among us when you felt disposed, and never otherwise. i do hope you would find peace here. can it not be done? we have talked very much about it among ourselves, and the girls are strong upon it. think of it--do! ever your affectionate. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] gad's hill, _thursday night, aug. th, ._ my dear forster, heartily glad to get your letter this morning. i cannot easily tell you how much interested i am by what you tell me of our brave and excellent friend the chief baron, in connection with that ruffian. i followed the case with so much interest, and have followed the miserable knaves and asses who have perverted it since, with so much indignation, that i have often had more than half a mind to write and thank the upright judge who tried him. i declare to god that i believe such a service one of the greatest that a man of intellect and courage can render to society. of course i saw the beast of a prisoner (with my mind's eye) delivering his cut-and-dried speech, and read in every word of it that no one but the murderer could have delivered or conceived it. of course i have been driving the girls out of their wits here, by incessantly proclaiming that there needed no medical evidence either way, and that the case was plain without it. lastly, of course (though a merciful man--because a merciful man i mean), i would hang any home secretary (whig, tory, radical, or otherwise) who should step in between that black scoundrel and the gallows. i can_not_ believe--and my belief in all wrong as to public matters is enormous--that such a thing will be done. i am reminded of tennyson, by thinking that king arthur would have made short work of the amiable ----, whom the newspapers strangely delight to make a sort of gentleman of. how fine the "idylls" are! lord! what a blessed thing it is to read a man who can write! i thought nothing could be grander than the first poem till i came to the third; but when i had read the last, it seemed to be absolutely unapproached and unapproachable. to come to myself. i have written and begged the "all the year round" publisher to send you directly four weeks' proofs beyond the current number, that are in type. i hope you will like them. nothing but the interest of the subject, and the pleasure of striving with the difficulty of the forms of treatment, nothing in the mere way of money, i mean, could also repay the time and trouble of the incessant condensation. but i set myself the little task of making a _picturesque_ story, rising in every chapter with characters true to nature, but whom the story itself should express, more than they should express themselves, by dialogue. i mean, in other words, that i fancied a story of incident might be written, in place of the bestiality that _is_ written under that pretence, pounding the characters out in its own mortar, and beating their own interests out of them. if you could have read the story all at once, i hope you wouldn't have stopped halfway. as to coming to your retreat, my dear forster, think how helpless i am. i am not well yet. i have an instinctive feeling that nothing but the sea will restore me, and i am planning to go and work at ballard's, at broadstairs, from next wednesday to monday. i generally go to town on monday afternoon. all tuesday i am at the office, on wednesday i come back here, and go to work again. i don't leave off till monday comes round once more. i am fighting to get my story done by the first week in october. on the th of october i am going away to read for a fortnight at ipswich, norwich, oxford, cambridge, and a few other places. judge what my spare time is just now! i am very much surprised and very sorry to find from the enclosed that elliotson has been ill. i never heard a word of it. georgy sends best love to you and to mrs. forster, so do i, so does plorn, so does frank. the girls are, for five days, with the whites at ramsgate. it is raining, intensely hot, and stormy. eighteen creatures, like little tortoises, have dashed in at the window and fallen on the paper since i began this paragraph [illustration: ink-blot] (that was one!). i am a wretched sort of creature in my way, but it is a way that gets on somehow. and all ways have the same fingerpost at the head of them, and at every turning in them. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss dickens and miss katie dickens.] albion, broadstairs, _friday, sept. nd, ._ my dearest mamie and katie, i have been "moved" here, and am now (ballard having added to the hotel a house we lived in three years) in our old dining-room and sitting-room, and our old drawing-room as a bedroom. my cold is so bad, both in my throat and in my chest, that i can't bathe in the sea; tom collin dissuaded me--thought it "bad"--but i get a heavy shower-bath at mrs. crampton's every morning. the baths are still hers and her husband's, but they have retired and live in "nuckells"--are going to give a stained-glass window, value three hundred pounds, to st. peter's church. tom collin is of opinion that the miss dickenses has growed two fine young women--leastwise, asking pardon, ladies. an evangelical family of most disagreeable girls prowl about here and trip people up with tracts, which they put in the paths with stones upon them to keep them from blowing away. charles collins and i having seen a bill yesterday--about a mesmeric young lady who did feats, one of which was set forth in the bill, in a line by itself, as the rigid legs, --were overpowered with curiosity, and resolved to go. it came off in the assembly room, now more exquisitely desolate than words can describe. eighteen shillings was the "take." behind a screen among the company, we heard mysterious gurglings of water before the entertainment began, and then a slippery sound which occasioned me to whisper c. c. (who laughed in the most ridiculous manner), "soap." it proved to be the young lady washing herself. she must have been wonderfully dirty, for she took a world of trouble, and didn't come out clean after all--in a wretched dirty muslin frock, with blue ribbons. she was the alleged mesmeriser, and a boy who distributed bills the alleged mesmerised. it was a most preposterous imposition, but more ludicrous than any poor sight i ever saw. the boy is clearly out of pantomime, and when he pretended to be in the mesmeric state, made the company back by going in among them head over heels, backwards, half-a-dozen times, in a most insupportable way. the pianist had struck; and the manner in which the lecturer implored "some lady" to play a "polker," and the manner in which no lady would; and in which the few ladies who were there sat with their hats on, and the elastic under their chins, as if it were going to blow, is never to be forgotten. i have been writing all the morning, and am going for a walk to ramsgate. this is a beast of a letter, but i am not well, and have been addling my head. ever, dear girls, your affectionate father. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _friday night, sept. th, ._ my dear wilkie, just a word to say that i have received yours, and that i look forward to the reunion on thursday, when i hope to have the satisfaction of recounting to you the plot of a play that has been laid before me for commending advice. ditto to what you say respecting the _great eastern_. i went right up to london bridge by the boat that day, on purpose that i might pass her. i thought her the ugliest and most unshiplike thing these eyes ever beheld. i wouldn't go to sea in her, shiver my ould timbers and rouse me up with a monkey's tail (man-of-war metaphor), not to chuck a biscuit into davy jones's weather eye, and see double with my own old toplights. turk has been so good as to produce from his mouth, for the wholesome consternation of the family, eighteen feet of worm. when he had brought it up, he seemed to think it might be turned to account in the housekeeping and was proud. pony has kicked a shaft off the cart, and is to be sold. why don't you buy her? she'd never kick with you. barber's opinion is, that them fruit-trees, one and all, is touchwood, and not fit for burning at any gentleman's fire; also that the stocking of this here garden is worth less than nothing, because you wouldn't have to grub up nothing, and something takes a man to do it at three-and-sixpence a day. was "left desponding" by your reporter. i have had immense difficulty to find a man for the stable-yard here. barber having at last engaged one this morning, i enquired if he had a decent hat for driving in, to which barber returned this answer: "why, sir, not to deceive you, that man flatly say that he never have wore that article since man he was!" i am consequently fortified into my room, and am afraid to go out to look at him. love from all. ever affectionately. [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, oct. th, ._ my dear regnier, you will receive by railway parcel the proof-sheets of a story of mine, that has been for some time in progress in my weekly journal, and that will be published in a complete volume about the middle of november. nobody but forster has yet seen the latter portions of it, or will see them until they are published. i want you to read it for two reasons. firstly, because i hope it is the best story i have written. secondly, because it treats of a very remarkable time in france; and i should very much like to know what you think of its being dramatised for a french theatre. if you should think it likely to be done, i should be glad to take some steps towards having it well done. the story is an extraordinary success here, and i think the end of it is certain to make a still greater sensation. don't trouble yourself to write to me, _mon ami_, until you shall have had time to read the proofs. remember, they are _proofs_, and _private_; the latter chapters will not be before the public for five or six weeks to come. with kind regards to madame regnier, in which my daughters and their aunt unite, believe me, ever faithfully yours. p.s.--the story (i daresay you have not seen any of it yet) is called "a tale of two cities." [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] peterborough, _wednesday evening, oct. th, ._ my dear stone, we had a splendid rush last night--exactly as we supposed, with the pressure on the two shillings, of whom we turned a crowd away. they were a far finer audience than on the previous night; i think the finest i have ever read to. they took every word of the "dombey" in quite an amazing manner, and after the child's death, paused a little, and then set up a shout that it did one good to hear. mrs. gamp then set in with a roar, which lasted until i had done. i think everybody for the time forgot everything but the matter in hand. it was as fine an instance of thorough absorption in a fiction as any of us are likely to see ever again. ---- (in an exquisite red mantle), accompanied by her sister (in another exquisite red mantle) and by the deaf lady, (who leaned a black head-dress, exactly like an old-fashioned tea-urn without the top, against the wall), was charming. he couldn't get at her on account of the pressure. he tried to peep at her from the side door, but she (ha, ha, ha!) was unconscious of his presence. i read to her, and goaded him to madness. he is just sane enough to send his kindest regards. this is a place which--except the cathedral, with the loveliest front i ever saw--is like the back door to some other place. it is, i should hope, the deadest and most utterly inert little town in the british dominions. the magnates have taken places, and the bookseller is of opinion that "such is the determination to do honour to mr. dickens, that the doors _must_ be opened half an hour before the appointed time." you will picture to yourself arthur's quiet indignation at this, and the manner in which he remarked to me at dinner, "that he turned away twice peterborough last night." a very pretty room--though a corn exchange--and a room we should have been glad of at cambridge, as it is large, bright, and cheerful, and wonderfully well lighted. the difficulty of getting to bradford from here to-morrow, at any time convenient to us, turned out to be so great, that we are all going in for leeds (only three-quarters of an hour from bradford) to-night after the reading, at a quarter-past eleven. we are due at leeds a quarter before three. so no more at present from, yours affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. r. sculthorpe.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _thursday, nov. th, ._ dear sir, judgment must go by default. i have not a word to plead against dodson and fogg. i am without any defence to the action; and therefore, as law goes, ought to win it. seriously, the date of your hospitable note disturbs my soul. but i have been incessantly writing in kent and reading in all sorts of places, and have done nothing in my own personal character these many months; and now i come to town and our friend[ ] is away! let me take that defaulting miscreant into council when he comes back. faithfully yours. [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _wednesday, nov. th, ._ my dear regnier, i send you ten thousand thanks for your kind and explicit letter. what i particularly wished to ascertain from you was, whether it is likely the censor would allow such a piece to be played in paris. in the case of its being likely, then i wished to have the piece as well done as possible, and would even have proposed to come to paris to see it rehearsed. but i very much doubted whether the general subject would not be objectionable to the government, and what you write with so much sagacity and with such care convinces me at once that its representation would be prohibited. therefore i altogether abandon and relinquish the idea. but i am just as heartily and cordially obliged to you for your interest and friendship, as if the book had been turned into a play five hundred times. i again thank you ten thousand times, and am quite sure that you are right. i only hope you will forgive my causing you so much trouble, after your hard work. my girls and georgina send their kindest regards to madame regnier and to you. my gad's hill house (i think i omitted to tell you, in reply to your enquiry) is on the very scene of falstaff's robbery. there is a little _cabaret_ at the roadside, still called the sir john falstaff. and the country, in all its general features, is, at this time, what it was in shakespeare's. i hope you will see the house before long. it is really a pretty place, and a good residence for an english writer, is it not? macready, we are all happy to hear from himself, is going to leave the dreary tomb in which he lives, at sherborne, and to remove to cheltenham, a large and handsome place, about four or five hours' railway journey from london, where his poor girls will at least see and hear some life. madame céleste was with me yesterday, wishing to dramatise "a tale of two cities" for the lyceum, after bringing out the christmas pantomime. i gave her my permission and the book; but i fear that her company (troupe) is a very poor one. this is all the news i have, except (which is no news at all) that i feel as if i had not seen you for fifty years, and that i am ever your attached and faithful friend. [sidenote: mr. t. longman.] tavistock house, _monday, nov. th, ._ my dear longman, i am very anxious to present to you, with the earnest hope that you will hold him in your remembrance, young mr. marcus stone, son of poor frank stone, who died suddenly but a little week ago. you know, i daresay, what a start this young man made in the last exhibition, and what a favourable notice his picture attracted. he wishes to make an additional opening for himself in the illustration of books. he is an admirable draughtsman, has a most dexterous hand, a charming sense of grace and beauty, and a capital power of observation. these qualities in him i know well of my own knowledge. he is in all things modest, punctual, and right; and i would answer for him, if it were needful, with my head. if you will put anything in his way, you will do it a second time, i am certain. faithfully yours always. footnotes: [ ] mr. edmund yates. . narrative. this winter was the last spent at tavistock house. charles dickens had for some time been inclining to the idea of making his home altogether at gad's hill, giving up his london house, and taking a furnished house for the sake of his daughters for a few months of the london season. and, as his daughter kate was to be married this summer to mr. charles collins, this intention was confirmed and carried out. he made arrangements for the sale of tavistock house to mr. davis, a jewish gentleman, and he gave up possession of it in september. up to this time gad's hill had been furnished merely as a temporary summer residence--pictures, library, and all best furniture being left in the london house. he now set about beautifying and making gad's hill thoroughly comfortable and homelike. and there was not a year afterwards, up to the year of his death, that he did not make some addition or improvement to it. he also furnished, as a private residence, a sitting-room and some bedrooms at his office in wellington street, to be used, when there was no house in london, as occasional town quarters by himself, his daughter, and sister-in-law. he began in this summer his occasional papers for "all the year round," which he called "the uncommercial traveller," and which were continued at intervals in his journal until . in the autumn of this year he began another story, to be published weekly in "all the year round." the letter to mr. forster, which we give, tells him of this beginning and gives him the name of the book. the first number of "great expectations" appeared on the st december. the christmas number, this time, was written jointly by himself and mr. wilkie collins. the scene was laid at clovelly, and they made a journey together into devonshire and cornwall, for the purpose of this story, in november. the letter to sir edward bulwer lytton is, unfortunately, the only one we have as yet been able to procure. the present lord lytton, the viceroy of india, has kindly endeavoured to help us even during his absence from england. but it was found to be impossible without his own assistance to make the necessary search among his father's papers. and he has promised us that, on his return, he will find and lend to us, many letters from charles dickens, which are certainly in existence, to his distinguished fellow-writer and great friend. we hope, therefore, it may be possible for us at some future time to be able to publish these letters, as well as those addressed to the present lord lytton (when he was mr. robert lytton, otherwise "owen meredith," and frequent contributor to "household words" and "all the year round"). we have the same hope with regard to letters addressed to sir henry layard, at present ambassador at constantinople, which, of course, for the same reason, cannot be lent to us at the present time. we give a letter to mr. forster on one of his books on the commonwealth, the "impeachment of the five members;" which, as with other letters which we are glad to publish on the subject of mr. forster's own works, was not used by himself for obvious reasons. a letter to his daughter mamie (who, after her sister's marriage, paid a visit with her dear friends the white family to scotland, where she had a serious illness) introduces a recent addition to the family, who became an important member of it, and one to whom charles dickens was very tenderly attached--her little white pomeranian dog "mrs. bouncer" (so called after the celebrated lady of that name in "box and cox"). it is quite necessary to make this formal introduction of the little pet animal (who lived to be a very old dog and died in ), because future letters to his daughter contain constant references and messages to "mrs. bouncer," which would be quite unintelligible without this explanation. "boy," also referred to in this letter, was his daughter's horse. the little dog and the horse were gifts to mamie dickens from her friends mr. and mrs. arthur smith, and the sister of the latter, miss craufurd. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] tavistock house, _monday, jan. nd, ._ my dearest macready, a happy new year to you, and many happy years! i cannot tell you how delighted i was to receive your christmas letter, or with what pleasure i have received forster's emphatic accounts of your health and spirits. but when was i ever wrong? and when did i not tell you that you were an impostor in pretending to grow older as the rest of us do, and that you had a secret of your own for reversing the usual process! it happened that i read at cheltenham a couple of months ago, and that i have rarely seen a place that so attracted my fancy. i had never seen it before. also i believe the character of its people to have greatly changed for the better. all sorts of long-visaged prophets had told me that they were dull, stolid, slow, and i don't know what more that is disagreeable. i found them exactly the reverse in all respects; and i saw an amount of beauty there--well--that is not to be more specifically mentioned to you young fellows. katie dined with us yesterday, looking wonderfully well, and singing "excelsior" with a certain dramatic fire in her, whereof i seem to remember having seen sparks afore now. etc. etc. etc. with kindest love from all at home to all with you, ever, my dear macready, your most affectionate. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _saturday night, jan. th, ._ my dear wilkie, i have read this book with great care and attention. there cannot be a doubt that it is a very great advance on all your former writing, and most especially in respect of tenderness. in character it is excellent. mr. fairlie as good as the lawyer, and the lawyer as good as he. mr. vesey and miss halcombe, in their different ways, equally meritorious. sir percival, also, is most skilfully shown, though i doubt (you see what small points i come to) whether any man ever showed uneasiness by hand or foot without being forced by nature to show it in his face too. the story is very interesting, and the writing of it admirable. i seem to have noticed, here and there, that the great pains you take express themselves a trifle too much, and you know that i always contest your disposition to give an audience credit for nothing, which necessarily involves the forcing of points on their attention, and which i have always observed them to resent when they find it out--as they always will and do. but on turning to the book again, i find it difficult to take out an instance of this. it rather belongs to your habit of thought and manner of going about the work. perhaps i express my meaning best when i say that the three people who write the narratives in these proofs have a dissective property in common, which is essentially not theirs but yours; and that my own effort would be to strike more of what is got _that way_ out of them by collision with one another, and by the working of the story. you know what an interest i have felt in your powers from the beginning of our friendship, and how very high i rate them? _i_ know that this is an admirable book, and that it grips the difficulties of the weekly portion and throws them in masterly style. no one else could do it half so well. i have stopped in every chapter to notice some instance of ingenuity, or some happy turn of writing; and i am absolutely certain that you never did half so well yourself. so go on and prosper, and let me see some more, when you have enough (for your own satisfaction) to show me. i think of coming in to back you up if i can get an idea for my series of gossiping papers. one of those days, please god, we may do a story together; i have very odd half-formed notions, in a mist, of something that might be done that way. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] , wellington street, north strand, london, w.c., _wednesday, may nd, ._ my dear forster, it did not occur to me in reading your most excellent, interesting, and remarkable book, that it could with any reason be called one-sided. if clarendon had never written his "history of the rebellion," then i can understand that it might be. but just as it would be impossible to answer an advocate who had misstated the merits of a case for his own purpose, without, in the interests of truth, and not of the other side merely, re-stating the merits and showing them in their real form, so i cannot see the practicability of telling what you had to tell without in some sort championing the misrepresented side, and i think that you don't do that as an advocate, but as a judge. the evidence has been suppressed and coloured, and the judge goes through it and puts it straight. it is not _his_ fault if it all goes one way and tends to one plain conclusion. nor is it his fault that it goes the further when it is laid out straight, or seems to do so, because it was so knotted and twisted up before. i can understand any man's, and particularly carlyle's, having a lingering respect that does not like to be disturbed for those (in the best sense of the word) loyal gentlemen of the country who went with the king and were so true to him. but i don't think carlyle sufficiently considers that the great mass of those gentlemen _didn't know the truth_, that it was a part of their loyalty to believe what they were told on the king's behalf, and that it is reasonable to suppose that the king was too artful to make known to _them_ (especially after failure) what were very acceptable designs to the desperate soldiers of fortune about whitehall. and it was to me a curious point of adventitious interest arising out of your book, to reflect on the probability of their having been as ignorant of the real scheme in charles's head, as their descendants and followers down to this time, and to think with pity and admiration that they believed the cause to be so much better than it was. this is a notion i was anxious to have expressed in our account of the book in these pages. for i don't suppose clarendon, or any other such man to sit down and tell posterity something that he has not "tried on" in his own time. do you? in the whole narrative i saw nothing anywhere to which i demurred. i admired it all, went with it all, and was proud of my friend's having written it all. i felt it to be all square and sound and right, and to be of enormous importance in these times. firstly, to the people who (like myself) are so sick of the shortcomings of representative government as to have no interest in it. secondly, to the humbugs at westminster who have come down--a long, long way--from those men, as you know. when the great remonstrance came out, i was in the thick of my story, and was always busy with it; but i am very glad i didn't read it then, as i shall read it now to much better purpose. all the time i was at work on the "two cities," i read no books but such as had the air of the time in them. to return for a final word to the five members. i thought the marginal references overdone. here and there, they had a comical look to me for that reason, and reminded me of shows and plays where everything is in the bill. lastly, i should have written to you--as i had a strong inclination to do, and ought to have done, immediately after reading the book--but for a weak reason; of all things in the world i have lost heart in one--i hope no other--i cannot, times out of calculation, make up my mind to write a letter. ever, my dear forster, affectionately yours. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] tavistock house, _thursday, may rd, ._ my dear cerjat, the date of this letter would make me horribly ashamed of myself, if i didn't know that _you_ know how difficult letter-writing is to one whose trade it is to write. you asked me on christmas eve about my children. my second daughter is going to be married in the course of the summer to charles collins, the brother of wilkie collins, the novelist. the father was one of the most famous painters of english green lanes and coast pieces. he was bred an artist; is a writer, too, and does "the eye witness," in "all the year round." he is a gentleman, accomplished, and amiable. my eldest daughter has not yet started any conveyance on the road to matrimony (that i know of); but it is likely enough that she will, as she is very agreeable and intelligent. they are both very pretty. my eldest boy, charley, has been in barings' house for three or four years, and is now going to hong kong, strongly backed up by barings, to buy tea on his own account, as a means of forming a connection and seeing more of the practical part of a merchant's calling, before starting in london for himself. his brother frank (jeffrey's godson) i have just recalled from france and germany, to come and learn business, and qualify himself to join his brother on his return from the celestial empire. the next boy, sydney smith, is designed for the navy, and is in training at portsmouth, awaiting his nomination. he is about three foot high, with the biggest eyes ever seen, and is known in the portsmouth parts as "young dickens, who can do everything." another boy is at school in france; the youngest of all has a private tutor at home. i have forgotten the second in order, who is in india. he went out as ensign of a non-existent native regiment, got attached to the nd highlanders, one of the finest regiments in the queen's service; has remained with them ever since, and got made a lieutenant by the chances of the rebellious campaign, before he was eighteen. miss hogarth, always miss hogarth, is the guide, philosopher, and friend of all the party, and a very close affection exists between her and the girls. i doubt if she will ever marry. i don't know whether to be glad of it or sorry for it. i have laid down my pen and taken a long breath after writing this family history. i have also considered whether there are any more children, and i don't think there are. if i should remember two or three others presently, i will mention them in a postscript. we think townshend looking a little the worse for the winter, and we perceive bully to be decidedly old upon his legs, and of a most diabolical turn of mind. when they first arrived the weather was very dark and cold, and kept them indoors. it has since turned very warm and bright, but with a dusty and sharp east wind. they are still kept indoors by this change, and i begin to wonder what change will let them out. townshend dines with us every sunday. you may be sure that we always talk of you and yours, and drink to you heartily. public matters here are thought to be rather improving; the deep mistrust of the gentleman in paris being counteracted by the vigorous state of preparation into which the nation is getting. you will have observed, of course, that we establish a new defaulter in respect of some great trust, about once a quarter. the last one, the cashier of a city bank, is considered to have distinguished himself greatly, a quarter of a million of money being high game. no, my friend, i have not shouldered my rifle yet, but i should do so on more pressing occasion. every other man in the row of men i know--if they were all put in a row--is a volunteer though. there is a tendency rather to overdo the wearing of the uniform, but that is natural enough in the case of the youngest men. the turn-out is generally very creditable indeed. at the ball they had (in a perfectly unventilated building), their new leather belts and pouches smelt so fearfully that it was, as my eldest daughter said, like shoemaking in a great prison. she, consequently, distinguished herself by fainting away in the most inaccessible place in the whole structure, and being brought out (horizontally) by a file of volunteers, like some slain daughter of albion whom they were carrying into the street to rouse the indignant valour of the populace. lord, my dear cerjat, when i turn to that page of your letter where you write like an ancient sage in whom the fire has paled into a meek-eyed state of coolness and virtue, i half laugh and half cry! _you_ old! _you_ a sort of hermit? boh! get out. with this comes my love and all our loves, to you and mrs. cerjat, and your daughter. i add my special and particular to the sweet "singing cousin." when shall you and i meet, and where? must i come to see townshend? i begin to think so. ever, my dear cerjat, your affectionate and faithful. [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] gad's hill, _tuesday, june th, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i am very much interested and gratified by your letter concerning "a tale of two cities." i do not quite agree with you on two points, but that is no deduction from my pleasure. in the first place, although the surrender of the feudal privileges (on a motion seconded by a nobleman of great rank) was the occasion of a sentimental scene, i see no reason to doubt, but on the contrary, many reasons to believe, that some of these privileges had been used to the frightful oppression of the peasant, quite as near to the time of the revolution as the doctor's narrative, which, you will remember, dates long before the terror. and surely when the new philosophy was the talk of the salons and the slang of the hour, it is not unreasonable or unallowable to suppose a nobleman wedded to the old cruel ideas, and representing the time going out, as his nephew represents the time coming in; as to the condition of the peasant in france generally at that day, i take it that if anything be certain on earth it is certain that it was intolerable. no _ex post facto_ enquiries and provings by figures will hold water, surely, against the tremendous testimony of men living at the time. there is a curious book printed at amsterdam, written to make out no case whatever, and tiresome enough in its literal dictionary-like minuteness, scattered up and down the pages of which is full authority for my marquis. this is "mercier's tableau de paris." rousseau is the authority for the peasant's shutting up his house when he had a bit of meat. the tax-taker was the authority for the wretched creature's impoverishment. i am not clear, and i never have been clear, respecting that canon of fiction which forbids the interposition of accident in such a case as madame defarge's death. where the accident is inseparable from the passion and emotion of the character, where it is strictly consistent with the whole design, and arises out of some culminating proceeding on the part of the character which the whole story has led up to, it seems to me to become, as it were, an act of divine justice. and when i use miss pross (though this is quite another question) to bring about that catastrophe, i have the positive intention of making that half-comic intervention a part of the desperate woman's failure, and of opposing that mean death--instead of a desperate one in the streets, which she wouldn't have minded--to the dignity of carton's wrong or right; this _was_ the design, and seemed to be in the fitness of things. now, as to the reading. i am sorry to say that it is out of the question this season. i have had an attack of rheumatism--quite a stranger to me--which remains hovering about my left side, after having doubled me up in the back, and which would disable me from standing for two hours. i have given up all dinners and town engagements, and come to my little falstaff house here, sensible of the necessity of country training all through the summer. smith would have proposed any appointment to see you on the subject, but he has been dreadfully ill with tic. whenever i read in london, i will gladly put a night aside for your purpose, and we will plot to connect your name with it, and give it some speciality. but this could not be before christmas time, as i should not be able to read sooner, for in the hot weather it would be useless. let me hear from you about this when you have considered it. it would greatly diminish the expenses, remember. ever affectionately and faithfully. [sidenote: the lord john russell.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, june th, ._ my dear lord john russell, i cannot thank you enough for your kind note and its most welcome enclosure. my sailor-boy comes home from portsmouth to-morrow, and will be overjoyed. his masters have been as anxious for getting his nomination as though it were some distinction for themselves. ever your faithful and obliged. [sidenote: the earl of carlisle.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, aug. th, ._ my dear lord carlisle, coming back here after an absence of three days in town, i find your kind and cordial letter lying on my table. i heartily thank you for it, and highly esteem it. i understand that the article on the spirits to which you refer was written by ---- (he played an irish porter in one scene of bulwer's comedy at devonshire house). between ourselves, i think it must be taken with a few grains of salt, imperial measure. the experiences referred to "came off" at ----, where the spirit of ---- (among an extensive and miscellaneous bodiless circle) _dines_ sometimes! mr. ----, the high priest of the mysteries, i have some considerable reason--derived from two honourable men--for mistrusting. and that some of the disciples are very easy of belief i know. this is falstaff's own gad's hill, and i live on the top of it. all goes well with me, thank god! i should be thoroughly delighted to see you again, and to show you where the robbery was done. my eldest daughter keeps my house, and it is one i was extraordinarily fond of when a child. my dear lord carlisle, ever affectionately yours. p.s.--i am prowling about, meditating a new book. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] office of "all the year round," _tuesday, sept. th, ._ my dear wills, your description of your sea-castle makes your room here look uncommonly dusty. likewise the costermongers in the street outside, and the one customer (drunk, with his head on the table) in the crown coffee house over the way, in york street, have an earthy, and, as i may say, a land-lubberly aspect. cape horn, to the best of _my_ belief, is a tremendous way off, and there are more bricks and cabbage-leaves between this office and that dismal point of land than _you_ can possibly imagine. coming here from the station this morning, i met, coming from the execution of the wentworth murderer, such a tide of ruffians as never could have flowed from any point but the gallows. without any figure of speech it turned one white and sick to behold them. tavistock house is cleared to-day, and possession delivered up. i must say that in all things the purchaser has behaved thoroughly well, and that i cannot call to mind any occasion when i have had money dealings with a christian that have been so satisfactory, considerate, and trusting. i am ornamented at present with one of my most intensely preposterous and utterly indescribable colds. if you were to make a voyage from cape horn to wellington street, you would scarcely recognise in the bowed form, weeping eyes, rasped nose, and snivelling wretch whom you would encounter here, the once gay and sparkling, etc. etc. everything else here is as quiet as possible. business reports you receive from holsworth. wilkie looked in to-day, going to gloucestershire for a week. the office is full of discarded curtains and coverings from tavistock house, which georgina is coming up this evening to select from and banish. mary is in raptures with the beauties of dunkeld, but is not very well in health. the admiral (sydney) goes up for his examination to-morrow. if he fails to pass with credit, i will never believe in anybody again, so in that case look out for your own reputation with me. this is really all the news i have, except that i am lazy, and that wilkie dines here next tuesday, in order that we may have a talk about the christmas number. i beg to send my kind regard to mrs. wills, and to enquire how she likes wearing a hat, which of course she does. i also want to know from her in confidence whether _crwllm festidiniog llymthll y wodd_? yesterday i burnt, in the field at gad's hill, the accumulated letters and papers of twenty years. they sent up a smoke like the genie when he got out of the casket on the seashore; and as it was an exquisite day when i began, and rained very heavily when i finished, i suspect my correspondence of having overcast the face of the heavens. ever faithfully. p.s.--kind regard to mr. and mrs. novelli.[ ] i have just sent out for _the globe_. no news. hullah's daughter (an artist) tells me that certain female students have addressed the royal academy, entreating them to find a place for their education. i think it a capital move, for which i can do something popular and telling in _the register_. adelaide procter is active in the business, and has a copy of their letter. will you write to her for that, and anything else she may have about it, telling her that i strongly approve, and want to help them myself? [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _friday night, sept. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i lose no time in answering your letter; and first as to business, the school in the high town at boulogne was excellent. the boys all english, the two proprietors an old eton master and one of the protestant clergymen of the town. the teaching unusually sound and good. the manner and conduct developed in the boys quite admirable. but i have never seen a gentleman so perfectly acquainted with boy-nature as the eton master. there was a perfect understanding between him and his charges; nothing pedantic on his part, nothing slavish on their parts. the result was, that either with him or away from him, the boys combined an ease and frankness with a modesty and sense of responsibility that was really above all praise. alfred went from there to a great school at wimbledon, where they train for india and the artillery and engineers. sydney went from there to mr. barrow, at southsea. in both instances the new masters wrote to me of their own accord, bearing quite unsolicited testimony to the merits of the old, and expressing their high recognition of what they had done. these things speak for themselves. sydney has just passed his examination as a naval cadet and come home, all eyes and gold buttons. he has twelve days' leave before going on board the training-ship. katie and her husband are in france, and seem likely to remain there for an indefinite period. mary is on a month's visit in scotland; georgina, frank, and plorn are at home here; and we all want mary and her little dog back again. i have sold tavistock house, am making this rather complete in its way, and am on the restless eve of beginning a new big book; but mean to have a furnished house in town (in some accessible quarter) from february or so to june. may we meet there. your handwriting is always so full of pleasant memories to me, that when i took it out of the post-office at rochester this afternoon it quite stirred my heart. but we must not think of old times as sad times, or regard them as anything but the fathers and mothers of the present. we must all climb steadily up the mountain after the talking bird, the singing tree, and the yellow water, and must all bear in mind that the previous climbers who were scared into looking back got turned into black stone. mary boyle was here a little while ago, as affectionate at heart as ever, as young, and as pleasant. of course we talked often of you. so let me know when you are established in halfmoon street, and i shall be truly delighted to come and see you. for my attachments are strong attachments and never weaken. in right of bygones, i feel as if "all northamptonshire" belonged to me, as all northumberland did to lord bateman in the ballad. in memory of your warming your feet at the fire in that waste of a waiting-room when i read at brighton, i have ever since taken that watering-place to my bosom as i never did before. and you and switzerland are always one to me, and always inseparable. charley was heard of yesterday, from shanghai, going to japan, intending to meet his brother walter at calcutta, and having an idea of beguiling the time between whiles by asking to be taken as an amateur with the english chinese forces. everybody caressed him and asked him everywhere, and he seemed to go. with kind regards, my dear mrs. watson, ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. edmund yates.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, sept. rd, ._ on the death of his mother. my dear e. y., i did not write to you in your bereavement, because i knew that the girls had written to you, and because i instinctively shrunk from making a form of what was so real. _you_ knew what a loving and faithful remembrance i always had of your mother as a part of my youth--no more capable of restoration than my youth itself. all the womanly goodness, grace, and beauty of my drama went out with her. to the last i never could hear her voice without emotion. i think of her as of a beautiful part of my own youth, and this dream that we are all dreaming seems to darken. but it is not to say this that i write now. it comes to the point of my pen in spite of me. "holding up the mirror" is in next week's number. i have taken out all this funeral part of it. not because i disliked it (for, indeed, i thought it the best part of the paper), but because it rather grated on me, going over the proof at that time, as a remembrance that would be better reserved a little while. also because it made rather a mixture of yourself as an individual, with something that does not belong or attach to you as an individual. you can have the ms.; and as a part of a paper describing your own juvenile remembrances of a theatre, there it is, needing no change or adaption. ever faithfully. [sidenote: miss dickens.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, sept. rd, ._ my dearest mamie, if you had been away from us and ill with anybody in the world but our dear mrs. white, i should have been in a state of the greatest anxiety and uneasiness about you. but as i know it to be impossible that you could be in kinder or better hands, i was not in the least restless about you, otherwise than as it grieved me to hear of my poor dear girl's suffering such pain. i hope it is over now for many a long day, and that you will come back to us a thousand times better in health than you left us. don't come back too soon. take time and get well restored. there is no hurry, the house is not near to-rights yet, and though we all want you, and though boy wants you, we all (including boy) deprecate a fatiguing journey being taken too soon. as to the carpenters, they are absolutely maddening. they are always at work, yet never seem to do anything. lillie was down on friday, and said (his eye fixed on maidstone, and rubbing his hand to conciliate his moody employer) that "he didn't think there would be very much left to do after saturday, the th." i didn't throw him out of the window. your aunt tells you all the news, and leaves me no chance of distinguishing myself, i know. you have been told all about my brackets in the drawing-room, all about the glass rescued from the famous stage-wreck of tavistock house, all about everything here and at the office. the office is really a success. as comfortable, cheerful, and private as anything of the kind can possibly be. i took the admiral (but this you know too, no doubt) to dollond's, the mathematical instrument maker's, last monday, to buy that part of his outfit. his sextant (which is about the size and shape of a cocked hat), on being applied to his eye, entirely concealed him. not the faintest vestige of the distinguished officer behind it was perceptible to the human vision. all through the city, people turned round and stared at him with the sort of pleasure people take in a little model. we went on to chatham this day week, in search of some big man-of-war's-man who should be under obligation to salute him--unfortunately found none. but this no doubt you know too, and all my news falls flat. i am driven out of my room by paint, and am writing in the best spare room. the whole prospect is excessively wet; it does not rain now, but yesterday it did tremendously, and it rained very heavily in the night. we are even muddy; and that is saying a great deal in this dry country of chalk and sand. everywhere the corn is lying out and saturated with wet. the hops (nearly everywhere) look as if they had been burnt. in my mind's eye i behold mrs. bouncer, still with some traces of her late anxiety on her faithful countenance, balancing herself a little unequally on her bow fore-legs, pricking up her ears, with her head on one side, and slightly opening her intellectual nostrils. i send my loving and respectful duty to her. to dear mrs. white, and to white, and to clara, say anything from me that is loving and grateful. my dearest mamie, ever and ever your most affectionate father. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] office of "all the year round," _monday night, sept. th, ._ my dearest georgy, at the waterloo station we were saluted with "hallo! here's dickens!" from divers naval cadets, and sir richard bromley introduced himself to me, who had his cadet son with him, a friend of sydney's. we went down together, and the boys were in the closest alliance. bromley being accountant-general of the navy, and having influence on board, got their hammocks changed so that they would be serving side by side, at which they were greatly pleased. the moment we stepped on board, the "hul-lo! here's dickens!" was repeated on all sides, and the admiral (evidently highly popular) shook hands with about fifty of his messmates. taking bromley for my model (with whom i fraternised in the most pathetic manner), i gave sydney a sovereign before stepping over the side. he was as little overcome as it was possible for a boy to be, and stood waving the gold-banded cap as we came ashore in a boat. there is no denying that he looks very small aboard a great ship, and that a boy must have a strong and decided speciality for the sea to take to such a life. captain harris was not on board, but the other chief officers were, and were highly obliging. we went over the ship. i should say that there can be little or no individuality of address to any particular boy, but that they all tumble through their education in a crowded way. the admiral's servant (i mean our admiral's) had an idiotic appearance, but perhaps it did him injustice (a mahogany-faced marine by station). the admiral's washing apparatus is about the size of a muffin-plate, and he could easily live in his chest. the meeting with bromley was a piece of great good fortune, and the dear old chap could not have been left more happily. ever, my dearest georgy, your most affectionate. [sidenote: miss power.] office of "all the year round," _tuesday, sept. th, ._ my dear marguerite, i like the article exceedingly, and think the translations _admirable_--spirited, fresh, bold, and evidently faithful. i will get the paper into the next number i make up, no. . i will send a proof to you for your correction, either next monday or this day week. or would you like to come here next monday and dine with us at five, and go over to madame céleste's opening? then you could correct your paper on the premises, as they drink their beer at the beer-shops. some of the introductory remarks on french literature i propose to strike out, as a little too essayical for this purpose, and likely to throw out a large portion of the large audience at starting, as suggesting some very different kind of article. my daring pen shall have imbued its murderous heart with ink before you see the proof. with kind regards, ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _thursday, oct. th, ._ my dear forster, it would be a great pleasure to me to come to you, an immense pleasure, and to sniff the sea i love (from the shore); but i fear i must come down one morning and come back at night. i will tell you why. last week, i got to work on a new story. i called a council of war at the office on tuesday. it was perfectly clear that the one thing to be done was, for me to strike in. i have therefore decided to begin a story, the length of the "tale of two cities," on the st of december--begin publishing, that is. i must make the most i can out of the book. when i come down, i will bring you the first two or three weekly parts. the name is, "great expectations." i think a good name? now the preparations to get ahead, combined with the absolute necessity of my giving a good deal of time to the christmas number, will tie me to the grindstone pretty tightly. it will be just as much as i can hope to do. therefore, what i had hoped would be a few days at eastbourne diminish to a few hours. i took the admiral down to portsmouth. every maritime person in the town knew him. he seemed to know every boy on board the _britannia_, and was a tremendous favourite evidently. it was very characteristic of him that they good-naturedly helped him, he being so very small, into his hammock at night. but he couldn't rest in it on these terms, and got out again to learn the right way of getting in independently. official report stated that "after a few spills, he succeeded perfectly, and went to sleep." he is perfectly happy on board, takes tea with the captain, leads choruses on saturday nights, and has an immense marine for a servant. i saw edmund yates at the office, and he told me that during all his mother's wanderings of mind, which were almost incessant at last, she never once went back to the old adelphi days until she was just dying, when he heard her say, in great perplexity: "i can _not_ get the words." best love to mrs. forster. ever, my dear forster, affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, oct. th, ._ my dear wilkie, i have been down to brighton to see forster, and found your letter there on arriving by express this morning. i also found a letter from georgina, describing that mary's horse went down suddenly on a stone, and how mary was thrown, and had her riding-habit torn to pieces, and has a deep cut just above the knee--fortunately not in the knee itself, which is doing exceedingly well, but which will probably incapacitate her from walking for days and days to come. it is well it was no worse. the accident occurred at milton, near gravesend, and they found mary in a public-house there, wonderfully taken care of and looked after. i propose that we start on thursday morning, the st of november. the train for penzance leaves the great western terminus at a quarter-past nine in the morning. it is a twelve hours' journey. shall we meet at the terminus at nine? i shall be here all the previous day, and shall dine here. your account of your passage goes to my heart through my stomach. what a pity i was not there on board to present that green-visaged, but sweet-tempered and uncomplaining spectacle of imbecility, at which i am so expert under stormy circumstances, in the poet's phrase: as i sweep through the deep, when the stormy winds do blow. what a pity i am not there, at meurice's, to sleep the sleep of infancy through the long plays where the gentlemen stand with their backs to the mantelpieces. what a pity i am not with you to make a third at the trois frères, and drink no end of bottles of bordeaux, without ever getting a touch of redness in my (poet's phrase again) "innocent nose." but i must go down to gad's to-night, and get to work again. four weekly numbers have been ground off the wheel, and at least another must be turned before we meet. they shall be yours in the slumberous railway-carriage. i don't think forster is at all in good health. he was tremendously hospitable and hearty. i walked six hours and a half on the downs yesterday, and never stopped or sat. early in the morning, before breakfast, i went to the nearest baths to get a shower-bath. they kept me waiting longer than i thought reasonable, and seeing a man in a cap in the passage, i went to him and said: "i really must request that you'll be good enough to see about this shower-bath;" and it was hullah! waiting for another bath. rumours were brought into the house on saturday night, that there was a "ghost" up at larkins's monument. plorn was frightened to death, and i was apprehensive of the ghost's spreading and coming there, and causing "warning" and desertion among the servants. frank was at home, and andrew gordon was with us. time, nine o'clock. village talk and credulity, amazing. i armed the two boys with a short stick apiece, and shouldered my double-barrelled gun, well loaded with shot. "now observe," says i to the domestics, "if anybody is playing tricks and has got a head, i'll blow it off." immense impression. new groom evidently convinced that he has entered the service of a bloodthirsty demon. we ascend to the monument. stop at the gate. moon is rising. heavy shadows. "now, look out!" (from the bloodthirsty demon, in a loud, distinct voice). "if the ghost is here and i see him, so help me god i'll fire at him!" suddenly, as we enter the field, a most extraordinary noise responds--terrific noise--human noise--and yet superhuman noise. b. t. d. brings piece to shoulder. "did you hear that, pa?" says frank. "i did," says i. noise repeated--portentous, derisive, dull, dismal, damnable. we advance towards the sound. something white comes lumbering through the darkness. an asthmatic sheep! dead, as i judge, by this time. leaving frank to guard him, i took andrew with me, and went all round the monument, and down into the ditch, and examined the field well, thinking it likely that somebody might be taking advantage of the sheep to frighten the village. drama ends with discovery of no one, and triumphant return to rum-and-water. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] bideford, north devon, _thursday night, nov. st, ._ my dearest georgy, i write (with the most impracticable iron pen on earth) to report our safe arrival here, in a beastly hotel. we start to-morrow morning at nine on a two days' posting between this and liskeard in cornwall. we are due in liskeard (but nobody seems to know anything about the roads) on saturday afternoon, and we purpose making an excursion in that neighbourhood on sunday, and coming up from liskeard on monday by great western fast train, which will get us to london, please god, in good time on monday evening. there i shall hear from you, and know whether dear mamie will move to london too. we had a pleasant journey down here, and a beautiful day. no adventures whatever. nothing has happened to wilkie, and he sends love. we had stinking fish for dinner, and have been able to drink nothing, though we have ordered wine, beer, and brandy-and-water. there is nothing in the house but two tarts and a pair of snuffers. the landlady is playing cribbage with the landlord in the next room (behind a thin partition), and they seem quite comfortable. ever, my dearest georgy, your most affectionate. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] office of "all the year round," _friday, dec. th, ._ my dear mary, i cannot tell you how much i thank you for the beautiful cigar-case, and how seasonable, and friendly, and good, and warm-hearted it looked when i opened it at gad's hill. besides which, it is a cigar-case, and will hold cigars; two crowning merits that i never yet knew to be possessed by any article claiming the same name. for all of these reasons, but more than all because it comes from you, i love it, and send you eighteen hundred and sixty kisses, with one in for the new year. both excellent stories and perfectly new. your joe swears that he never heard either--never a word or syllable of either--after he laughed at 'em this blessed day. i have no news, except that i am not quite well, and am being doctored. pray read "great expectations." i think it is very droll. it is a very great success, and seems universally liked. i suppose because it opens funnily, and with an interest too. i pass my time here (i am staying here alone) in working, taking physic, and taking a stall at a theatre every night. on boxing night i was at covent garden. a dull pantomime was "worked" (as we say) better than i ever saw a heavy piece worked on a first night, until suddenly and without a moment's warning, every scene on that immense stage fell over on its face, and disclosed chaos by gaslight behind! there never was such a business; about sixty people who were on the stage being extinguished in the most remarkable manner. not a soul was hurt. in the uproar, some moon-calf rescued a porter pot, six feet high (out of which the clown had been drinking when the accident happened), and stood it on the cushion of the lowest proscenium box, p.s., beside a lady and gentleman, who were dreadfully ashamed of it. the moment the house knew that nobody was injured, they directed their whole attention to this gigantic porter pot in its genteel position (the lady and gentleman trying to hide behind it), and roared with laughter. when a modest footman came from behind the curtain to clear it, and took it up in his arms like a brobdingnagian baby, we all laughed more than ever we had laughed in our lives. i don't know why. we have had a fire here, but our people put it out before the parish-engine arrived, like a drivelling perambulator, with _the beadle in it_, like an imbecile baby. popular opinion, disappointed in the fire having been put out, snowballed the beadle. god bless it! over the way at the lyceum, there is a very fair christmas piece, with one or two uncommonly well-done nigger songs--one remarkably gay and mad, done in the finale to a scene. also a very nice transformation, though i don't know what it means. the poor actors waylay me in bow street, to represent their necessities; and i often see one cut down a court when he beholds me coming, cut round drury lane to face me, and come up towards me near this door in the freshest and most accidental way, as if i was the last person he expected to see on the surface of this globe. the other day, there thus appeared before me (simultaneously with a scent of rum in the air) one aged and greasy man, with a pair of pumps under his arm. he said he thought if he could get down to somewhere (i think it was newcastle), he would get "taken on" as pantaloon, the existing pantaloon being "a stick, sir--a mere muff." i observed that i was sorry times were so bad with him. "mr. dickens, you know our profession, sir--no one knows it better, sir--there is no right feeling in it. i was harlequin on your own circuit, sir, for five-and-thirty years, and was displaced by a boy, sir!--a boy!" so no more at present, except love to mrs. watson and bedgey prig and all, from my dear mary. your ever affectionate joe. p.s.--don't i pine neither? p.p.s.--i did my best to arouse forster's worst feelings; but he had got into a christmas habit of mind, and wouldn't respond. footnotes: [ ] with whom mr. and mrs. wills were staying at aberystwith. narrative. . this, as far as his movements were concerned, was again a very unsettled year with charles dickens. he hired a furnished house in the regent's park, which he, with his household, occupied for some months. during the season he gave several readings at st. james's hall. after a short summer holiday at gad's hill, he started, in the autumn, on a reading tour in the english provinces. mr. arthur smith, being seriously ill, could not accompany him in this tour; and mr. headland, who was formerly in office at the st. martin's hall, was engaged as business-manager of these readings. mr. arthur smith died in october, and charles dickens's distress at the loss of this loved friend and companion is touchingly expressed in many of his letters of this year. there are also sorrowful allusions to the death of his brother-in-law, mr. henry austin, which sad event likewise happened in october. and the letter we give to mrs. austin ("letitia") has reference to her sad affliction. in june of this year he paid a short visit to sir e. b. lytton at knebworth, accompanied by his daughter and sister-in-law, who also during his autumn tour joined him in edinburgh. but this course of readings was brought rather suddenly to an end on account of the death of the prince consort. besides being constantly occupied with the business of these readings, charles dickens was still at work on his story of "great expectations," which was appearing weekly in "all the year round." the story closed on the rd of august, when it was published as a whole in three volumes, and inscribed to mr. chauncey hare townshend. the christmas number of "all the year round" was called "tom tiddler's ground," to which charles dickens contributed three stories. our second letter in this year is given more as a specimen of the claims which were constantly being made upon charles dickens's time and patience, than because we consider the letter itself to contain much public interest; excepting, indeed, as showing his always considerate and courteous replies to such constant applications. "the fire" mentioned in the letter to mr. forster was the great fire in tooley street. the "morgan" was an american sea-captain, well known in those days, and greatly liked and respected. it may interest our readers to know that the character of captain jorgan, in the christmas number of the previous year, was suggested by this pleasant sailor, for whom charles dickens had a hearty liking. young mr. morgan was, during the years he passed in england, a constant visitor at gad's hill. the "elwin" mentioned in the letter written from bury st. edmunds, was the rev. whitwell elwin, a norfolk gentleman, well known in the literary world, and who was for many years editor of "the quarterly review." the explanation of the letter to mr. john agate, of dover, we give in that gentleman's own words: "there are few public men with the strain upon their time and energies which he had particularly (and which i know better now that i have read his life), who would have spared the time to have written such a long courteous letter. "i wrote to him rather in anger, and left the letter myself at the lord warden, as i and my family were very much disappointed, after having purchased our tickets so long before, to find we could not got into the room, as money was being received, but his kind letter explained all." [sidenote: miss hogarth.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, jan. th, ._ my dearest georgy, "we" are in the full swing of stopping managers from playing "a message from the sea." i privately doubt the strength of our position in the court of chancery, if we try it; but it is worth trying. i am aware that mr. lane of the britannia sent an emissary to gad's hill yesterday. it unfortunately happens that the first man "we" have to assert the principle against is a very good man, whom i really respect. i have no news, except that i really hope and believe i am gradually getting well. if i have no check, i hope to be soon discharged by the medico. ever affectionately. p.s.--best love to mamie, also to the boys and miss craufurd. office of "all the year round," , wellington street, w.c., _tuesday evening, jan. th, ._ dear sir, i feel it quite hopeless to endeavour to present my position before you, in reference to such a letter as yours, in its plain and true light. when you suppose it would have cost mr. thackeray "but a word" to use his influence to obtain you some curatorship or the like, you fill me with the sense of impossibility of leading you to a more charitable judgment of mr. dickens. nevertheless, i will put the truth before you. scarcely a day of my life passes, or has passed for many years, without bringing me some letters similar to yours. often they will come by dozens--scores--hundreds. my time and attention would be pretty well occupied without them, and the claims upon me (some very near home), for all the influence and means of help that i do and do not possess, are not commonly heavy. i have no power to aid you towards the attainment of your object. it is the simple exact truth, and nothing can alter it. so great is the disquietude i constantly undergo from having to write to some new correspondent in this strain, that, god knows, i would resort to another relief if i could. your studies from nature appear to me to express an excellent observation of nature, in a loving and healthy spirit. but what then? the dealers and dealers' prices of which you complain will not be influenced by that honest opinion. nor will it have the least effect upon the president of the royal academy, or the directors of the school of design. assuming your supposition to be correct that these authorities are adverse to you, i have no more power than you have to render them favourable. and assuming them to be quite disinterested and dispassionate towards you, i have no voice or weight in any appointment that any of them make. i will retain your packet over to-morrow, and will then cause it to be sent to your house. i write under the pressure of occupation and business, and therefore write briefly. faithfully yours. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] office of "all the year round," _friday, feb. st, ._ my dear cerjat, you have read in the papers of our heavy english frost. at gad's hill it was so intensely cold, that in our warm dining-room on christmas day we could hardly sit at the table. in my study on that morning, long after a great fire of coal and wood had been lighted, the thermometer was i don't know where below freezing. the bath froze, and all the pipes froze, and remained in a stony state for five or six weeks. the water in the bedroom-jugs froze, and blew up the crockery. the snow on the top of the house froze, and was imperfectly removed with axes. my beard froze as i walked about, and i couldn't detach my cravat and coat from it until i was thawed at the fire. my boys and half the officers stationed at chatham skated away without a check to gravesend--five miles off--and repeated the performance for three or four weeks. at last the thaw came, and then everything split, blew up, dripped, poured, perspired, and got spoilt. since then we have had a small visitation of the plague of servants; the cook (in a riding-habit) and the groom (in a dress-coat and jewels) having mounted mary's horse and mine, in our absence, and scoured the neighbouring country at a rattling pace. and when i went home last saturday, i innocently wondered how the horses came to be out of condition, and gravely consulted the said groom on the subject, who gave it as his opinion "which they wanted reg'lar work." we are now coming to town until midsummer. having sold my own house, to be more free and independent, i have taken a very pretty furnished house, no. , hanover terrace, regent's park. this, of course, on my daughter's account. for i have very good and cheerful bachelor rooms here, with an old servant in charge, who is the cleverest man of his kind in the world, and can do anything, from excellent carpentery to excellent cookery, and has been with me three-and-twenty years. the american business is the greatest english sensation at present. i venture to predict that the struggle of violence will be a very short one, and will be soon succeeded by some new compact between the northern and southern states. meantime the lancashire mill-owners are getting very uneasy. the italian state of things is not regarded as looking very cheerful. what from one's natural sympathies with a people so oppressed as the italians, and one's natural antagonism to a pope and a bourbon (both of which superstitions i do suppose the world to have had more than enough of), i agree with you concerning victor emmanuel, and greatly fear that the southern italians are much degraded. still, an united italy would be of vast importance to the peace of the world, and would be a rock in louis napoleon's way, as he very well knows. therefore the idea must be championed, however much against hope. my eldest boy, just home from china, was descried by townshend's henri the moment he landed at marseilles, and was by him borne in triumph to townshend's rooms. the weather was snowy, slushy, beastly; and marseilles was, as it usually is to my thinking, well-nigh intolerable. my boy could not stay with townshend, as he was coming on by express train; but he says: "i sat with him and saw him dine. he had a leg of lamb, and a tremendous cold." that is the whole description i have been able to extract from him. this journal is doing gloriously, and "great expectations" is a great success. i have taken my third boy, frank (jeffrey's godson), into this office. if i am not mistaken, he has a natural literary taste and capacity, and may do very well with a chance so congenial to his mind, and being also entered at the bar. dear me, when i have to show you about london, and we dine _en garçon_ at odd places, i shall scarcely know where to begin. only yesterday i walked out from here in the afternoon, and thought i would go down by the houses of parliament. when i got there, the day was so beautifully bright and warm, that i thought i would walk on by millbank, to see the river. i walked straight on _for three miles_ on a splendid broad esplanade overhanging the thames, with immense factories, railway works, and what-not erected on it, and with the strangest beginnings and ends of wealthy streets pushing themselves into the very thames. when i was a rower on that river, it was all broken ground and ditch, with here and there a public-house or two, an old mill, and a tall chimney. i had never seen it in any state of transition, though i suppose myself to know this rather large city as well as anyone in it. * * * * * [sidenote: mr. e. m. ward, r.a.] , hanover terrace, regent's park, _saturday night, march th, ._ my dear ward, i cannot tell you how gratified i have been by your letter, and what a splendid recompense it is for any pleasure i am giving you. such generous and earnest sympathy from such a brother-artist gives me true delight. i am proud of it, believe me, and moved by it to do all the better. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] "all the year round" office, _tuesday, june th, ._ my dearest macready, there is little doubt, i think, of my reading at cheltenham somewhere about november. i submit myself so entirely to arthur smith's arrangements for me, that i express my sentiments on this head with modesty. but i think there is scarcely a doubt of my seeing you then. i have just finished my book of "great expectations," and am the worse for wear. neuralgic pains in the face have troubled me a good deal, and the work has been pretty close. but i hope that the book is a good book, and i have no doubt of very soon throwing off the little damage it has done me. what with blondin at the crystal palace and léotard at leicester square, we seem to be going back to barbaric excitements. i have not seen, and don't intend to see, the hero of niagara (as the posters call him), but i have been beguiled into seeing léotard, and it is at once the most fearful and most graceful thing i have ever seen done. clara white (grown pretty) has been staying with us. i am sore afraid that _the times_, by playing fast and loose with the american question, has very seriously compromised this country. the americans northward are perfectly furious on the subject; and motley the historian (a very sensible man, strongly english in his sympathies) assured me the other day that he thought the harm done very serious indeed, and the dangerous nature of the daily widening breach scarcely calculable. kindest and best love to all. wilkie collins has just come in, and sends best regard. ever most affectionately, my dearest macready. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] gad's hill, _monday, july st, ._ my dear forster, * * * * * you will be surprised to hear that i have changed the end of "great expectations" from and after pip's return to joe's, and finding his little likeness there. bulwer (who has been, as i think i told you, extraordinarily taken by the book), so strongly urged it upon me, after reading the proofs, and supported his views with such good reasons, that i resolved to make the change. you shall have it when you come back to town. i have put in a very pretty piece of writing, and i have no doubt the story will be more acceptable through the alteration. i have not seen bulwer's changed story. i brought back the first month with me, and i know the nature of his changes throughout; but i have not yet had the revised proofs. he was in a better state at knebworth than i have ever seen him in all these years, a little weird occasionally regarding magic and spirits, but perfectly fair and frank under opposition. he was talkative, anecdotical, and droll; looked young and well, laughed heartily, and enjoyed some games we played with great zest. in his artist character and talk he was full of interest and matter, but that he always is. socially, he seemed to me almost a new man. i thoroughly enjoyed myself, and so did georgina and mary. the fire i did not see until the monday morning, but it was blazing fiercely then, and was blazing hardly less furiously when i came down here again last friday. i was here on the night of its breaking out. if i had been in london i should have been on the scene, pretty surely. you will be perhaps surprised to hear that it is morgan's conviction (his son was here yesterday), that the north will put down the south, and that speedily. in his management of his large business, he is proceeding steadily on that conviction. he says that the south has no money and no credit, and that it is impossible for it to make a successful stand. he may be all wrong, but he is certainly a very shrewd man, and he has never been, as to the united states, an enthusiast of any class. poor lord campbell's seems to me as easy and good a death as one could desire. there must be a sweep of these men very soon, and one feels as if it must fall out like the breaking of an arch--one stone goes from a prominent place, and then the rest begin to drop. so one looks towards brougham, and lyndhurst, and pollock. i will add no more to this, or i know i shall not send it; for i am in the first desperate laziness of having done my book, and think of offering myself to the village school as a live example of that vice for the edification of youth. ever, my dear forster, affectionately. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, july th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i have owed you a letter for so long a time that i fear you may sometimes have misconstrued my silence. but i hope that the sight of the handwriting of your old friend will undeceive you, if you have, and will put that right. during the progress of my last story, i have been working so hard that very, very little correspondence--except enforced correspondence on business--has passed this pen. and now that i am free again, i devote a few of my first leisure moments to this note. you seemed in your last to think that i had forgotten you in respect of the christmas number. not so at all. i discussed with them here where you were, how you were to be addressed, and the like; finally left the number in a blank envelope, and did not add the address to it until it would have been absurd to send you such stale bread. this was my fault, but this was all. and i should be so pained at heart if you supposed me capable of failing in my truth and cordiality, or in the warm remembrance of the time we have passed together, that perhaps i make more of it than you meant to do. my sailor-boy is at home--i was going to write, for the holidays, but i suppose i must substitute "on leave." under the new regulations, he must not pass out of the _britannia_ before december. the younger boys are all at school, and coming home this week for the holidays. mary keeps house, of course, and katie and her husband surprised us yesterday, and are here now. charley is holiday-making at guernsey and jersey. he has been for some time seeking a partnership in business, and has not yet found one. the matter is in the hands of mr. bates, the managing partner in barings' house, and seems as slow a matter to adjust itself as ever i looked on at. georgina is, as usual, the general friend and confidante and factotum of the whole party. your present correspondent read at st. james's hall in the beginning of the season, to perfectly astounding audiences; but finding that fatigue and excitement very difficult to manage in conjunction with a story, deemed it prudent to leave off reading in high tide and mid-career, the rather by reason of something like neuralgia in the face. at the end of october i begin again; and if you are at brighton in november, i shall try to see you there. i deliver myself up to mr. arthur smith, and i know it is one of the places for which he has put me down. this is all about me and mine, and next i want to know why you never come to gad's hill, and whether you are never coming. the stress i lay on these questions you will infer from the size of the following note of interrogation[hw: =?=] i am in the constant receipt of news from lausanne. of mary boyle, i daresay you have seen and heard more than i have lately. rumours occasionally reach me of her acting in every english shire incessantly, and getting in a harvest of laurels all the year round. cavendish i have not seen for a long time, but when i did see him last, it was at tavistock house, and we dined together jovially. mention of that locality reminds me that when you do come here, you will see the pictures looking wonderfully better, and more precious than they ever did in town. brought together in country light and air, they really are quite a baby collection and very pretty. i direct this to rockingham, supposing you to be there in this summer time. if you are as leafy in northamptonshire as we are in kent, you are greener than you have been for some years. i hope you may have seen a large-headed photograph with little legs, representing the undersigned, pen in hand, tapping his forehead to knock an idea out. it has just sprung up so abundantly in all the shops, that i am ashamed to go about town looking in at the picture-windows, which is my delight. it seems to me extraordinarily ludicrous, and much more like than the grave portrait done in earnest. it made me laugh when i first came upon it, until i shook again, in open sunlighted piccadilly. pray be a good christian to me, and don't be retributive in measuring out the time that shall pass before you write to me. and believe me ever, your affectionate and faithful. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, aug. th, ._ my dear wilkie, i have been going to write to you ever since i received your letter from whitby, and now i hear from charley that you are coming home, and must be addressed in the rue harley. let me know whether you will dine here this day week at the usual five. i am at present so addle-headed (having hard wednesday work in wills's absence) that i can't write much. i have got the "copperfield" reading ready for delivery, and am now going to blaze away at "nickleby," which i don't like half as well. every morning i "go in" at these marks for two or three hours, and then collapse and do nothing whatever (counting as nothing much cricket and rounders). in my time that curious railroad by the whitby moor was so much the more curious, that you were balanced against a counter-weight of water, and that you did it like blondin. but in these remote days the one inn of whitby was up a back-yard, and oyster-shell grottoes were the only view from the best private room. likewise, sir, i have posted to whitby. "pity the sorrows of a poor old man." the sun is glaring in at these windows with an amount of ferocity insupportable by one of the landed interest, who lies upon his back with an imbecile hold on grass, from lunch to dinner. feebleness of mind and head are the result. ever affectionately. p.s.--the boys have multiplied themselves by fifty daily, and have seemed to appear in hosts (especially in the hottest days) round all the corners at gad's hill. i call them the prowlers, and each has a distinguishing name attached, derived from his style of prowling. [sidenote: mr. arthur smith.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, sept. rd, ._ my dear arthur, i cannot tell you how sorry i am to receive your bad account of your health, or how anxious i shall be to receive a better one as soon as you can possibly give it. if you go away, don't you think in the main you would be better here than anywhere? you know how well you would be nursed, what care we should take of you, and how perfectly quiet and at home you would be, until you become strong enough to take to the medway. moreover, i think you would be less anxious about the tour, here, than away from such association. i would come to worthing to fetch you, i needn't say, and would take the most careful charge of you. i will write no more about this, because i wish to avoid giving you more to read than can be helped; but i do sincerely believe it would be at once your wisest and least anxious course. as to a long journey into wales, or any long journey, it would never do. nice is not to be thought of. its dust, and its sharp winds (i know it well), towards october are very bad indeed. i send you the enclosed letters, firstly, because i have no circular to answer them with, and, secondly, because i fear i might confuse your arrangements by interfering with the correspondence. i shall hope to have a word from you very soon. i am at work for the tour every day, except my town wednesdays. ever faithfully. p.s.--kindest regards from all. [sidenote: mr. john watkins.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday night, sept. th, ._ dear mr. watkins, in reply to your kind letter i must explain that i have not yet brought down any of your large photographs of myself, and therefore cannot report upon their effect here. i think the "cartes" are all liked. a general howl of horror greeted the appearance of no. , and a riotous attempt was made to throw it out of window. i calmed the popular fury by promising that it should never again be beheld within these walls. i think i mentioned to you when you showed it to me, that i felt persuaded it would not be liked. it has a grim and wasted aspect, and perhaps might be made useful as a portrait of the ancient mariner. i feel that i owe you an apology for being (innocently) a difficult subject. when i once excused myself to ary scheffer while sitting to him, he received the apology as strictly his due, and said with a vexed air: "at this moment, _mon cher_ dickens, you look more like an energetic dutch admiral than anything else;" for which i apologised again. in the hope that the pains you have bestowed upon me will not be thrown away, but that your success will prove of some use to you, believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. edmund yates.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, oct. th, ._ after the death of mr. arthur smith. my dear edmund, coming back here to-day, i find your letter. i was so very much distressed last night in thinking of it all, and i find it so very difficult to preserve my composure when i dwell in my mind on the many times fast approaching when i shall sorely miss the familiar face, that i am hardly steady enough yet to refer to the readings like a man. but your kind reference to them makes me desirous to tell you that i took headland (formerly of st. martin's hall, who has always been with us in london) to conduct the business, when i knew that our poor dear fellow could never do it, even if he had recovered strength to go; and that i consulted with himself about it when i saw him for the last time on earth, and that it seemed to please him, and he said: "we couldn't do better." write to me before you come; and remember that i go to town wednesday mornings. ever faithfully. [sidenote: miss dickens.] office of "all the year round," _thursday, oct. th, ._ my dearest mamie, i received your affectionate little letter here this morning, and was very glad to get it. poor dear arthur is a sad loss to me, and indeed i was very fond of him. but the readings must be fought out, like all the rest of life. ever your affectionate. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, oct. th, ._ my dearest macready, this is a short note. but the moment i know for certain what is designed for me at cheltenham, i write to you in order that you may know it from me and not by chance from anyone else. i am to read there on the evening of friday, the rd of january, and on the morning of saturday, the th; as i have nothing to do on thursday, the nd, but come from leamington, i shall come to you, please god, for a quiet dinner that day. the death of arthur smith has caused me great distress and anxiety. i had a great regard for him, and he made the reading part of my life as light and pleasant as it _could_ be made. i had hoped to bring him to see you, and had pictured to myself how amused and interested you would have been with his wonderful tact and consummate mastery of arrangement. but it's all over. i begin at norwich on the th, and am going north in the middle of november. i am going to do "copperfield," and shall be curious to test its effect on the edinburgh people. it has been quite a job so to piece portions of the long book together as to make something continuous out of it; but i hope i have got something varied and dramatic. i am also (not to slight _your_ book) going to do "nickleby at mr. squeers's." it is clear that both must be trotted out at cheltenham. with kindest love and regard to all your house, ever, my dearest macready, your most affectionate. p.s.--fourth edition of "great expectations" almost gone! [sidenote: miss hogarth.] angel hotel, bury st. edmunds, _wednesday, oct. th, ._ my dearest georgy, i have just now received your welcome letter, and i hasten to report (having very little time) that we had a splendid hall last night, and that i think "nickleby" tops all the readings. somehow it seems to have got in it, by accident, exactly the qualities best suited to the purpose, and it went last night not only with roars, but with a general hilarity and pleasure that i have never seen surpassed. we are full here for to-night. fancy this: last night at about six, who should walk in but elwin! he was exactly in his usual state, only more demonstrative than ever, and had been driven in by some neighbours who were coming to the reading. i had tea up for him, and he went down at seven with me to the dismal den where i dressed, and sat by the fire while i dressed, and was childishly happy in that great privilege! during the reading he sat on a corner of the platform and roared incessantly. he brought in a lady and gentleman to introduce while i was undressing, and went away in a perfect and absolute rapture. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] royal hotel, norwich, _tuesday, oct. th, ._ i cannot say that we began well last night. we had not a good hall, and they were a very lumpish audience indeed. this did not tend to cheer the strangeness i felt in being without arthur, and i was not at all myself. we have a large let for to-night, i think two hundred and fifty stalls, which is very large, and i hope that both they and i will go better. i could have done perfectly last night, if the audience had been bright, but they were an intent and staring audience. they laughed though very well, and the storm made them shake themselves again. but they were not magnetic, and the great big place was out of sorts somehow. to-morrow i will write you another short note, however short. it is "nickleby" and the "trial" to-night; "copperfield" again to-morrow. a wet day here, with glimpses of blue. i shall not forget katey's health at dinner. a pleasant journey down. ever, my dearest georgy, your most affectionate. [sidenote: the same.] the great white horse, ipswich, _friday, nov. st, ._ i cannot quite remember in the whirl of travelling and reading, whether or no i wrote you a line from bury st. edmunds. but i think (and hope) i did. we had a fine room there, and "copperfield" made a great impression. at mid-day we go on to colchester, where i shall expect the young morgans. i sent a telegram on yesterday, after receiving your note, to secure places for them. the answer returned by telegraph was: "no box-seats left but on the fourth row." if they prefer to sit on the stage (for i read in the theatre, there being no other large public room), they shall. meantime i have told john, who went forward this morning with the other men, to let the people at the inn know that if three travellers answering that description appear before my dinner-time, they are to dine with me. plorn's admission that he likes the school very much indeed, is the great social triumph of modern times. i am looking forward to sunday's rest at gad's, and shall be down by the ten o'clock train from town. i miss poor arthur dreadfully. it is scarcely possible to imagine how much. it is not only that his loss to me socially is quite irreparable, but that the sense i used to have of compactness and comfort about me while i was reading is quite gone. and when i come out for the ten minutes, when i used to find him always ready for me with something cheerful to say, it is forlorn. i cannot but fancy, too, that the audience must miss the old speciality of a pervading gentleman. nobody i know has turned up yet except elwin. i have had many invitations to all sorts of houses in all sorts of places, and have of course accepted them every one. love to mamie, if she has come home, and to bouncer, if _she_ has come; also marguerite, who i hope is by this time much better. ever, my dear georgy, your most affectionate. [sidenote: mrs. henry austin.] gad's hill, _sunday, nov. rd, ._ extract. i am heartily glad to hear that you have been out in the air, and i hope you will go again very soon and make a point of continuing to go. there is a soothing influence in the sight of the earth and sky, which god put into them for our relief when he made the world in which we are all to suffer, and strive, and die. i will not fail to write to you from many points of my tour, and if you ever want to write to me you may be sure of a quick response, and may be certain that i am sympathetic and true. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss dickens.] fountain hotel, canterbury, _windy night, nov. th, ._ my dearest mamie, a word of report before i go to bed. an excellent house to-night, and an audience positively perfect. the greatest part of it stalls, and an intelligent and delightful response in them, like the touch of a beautiful instrument. "copperfield" wound up in a real burst of feeling and delight. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. john agate.] lord warden hotel, dover, _wednesday, nov. th, ._ sir, i am exceedingly sorry to find, from the letter you have addressed to me, that you had just cause of complaint in being excluded from my reading here last night. it will now and then unfortunately happen when the place of reading is small (as in this case), that some confusion and inconvenience arise from the local agents over-estimating, in perfect good faith and sincerity, the capacity of the room. such a mistake, i am assured, was made last night; and thus all the available space was filled before the people in charge were at all prepared for that circumstance. you may readily suppose that i can have no personal knowledge of the proceedings of the people in my employment at such a time. but i wish to assure you very earnestly, that they are all old servants, well acquainted with my principles and wishes, and that they are under the strongest injunction to avoid any approach to mercenary dealing; and to behave to all comers equally with as much consideration and politeness as they know i should myself display. the recent death of a much-regretted friend of mine, who managed this business for me, and on whom these men were accustomed to rely in any little difficulty, caused them (i have no doubt) to feel rather at a loss in your case. do me the favour to understand that under any other circumstances you would, as a matter of course, have been provided with any places whatever that could be found, without the smallest reference to what you had originally paid. this is scanty satisfaction to you, but it is so strictly the truth, that yours is the first complaint of the kind i have ever received. i hope to read in dover again, but it is quite impossible that i can make any present arrangement for that purpose. whenever i may return here, you may be sure i shall not fail to remember that i owe you a recompense for a disappointment. in the meanwhile i very sincerely regret it. faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] bedford hotel, brighton, _thursday, nov. th, ._ my dear georgy, * * * * * the duchess of cambridge comes to-night to "copperfield." the bad weather has not in the least touched us, and beyond all doubt a great deal of money has been left untaken at each place. the storm was most magnificent at dover. all the great side of the lord warden next the sea had to be emptied, the break of the sea was so prodigious, and the noise was so utterly confounding. the sea came in like a great sky of immense clouds, for ever breaking suddenly into furious rain. all kinds of wreck were washed in. miss birmingham and i saw, among other things, a very pretty brass-bound chest being thrown about like a feather. on tuesday night, the unhappy ostend packet could not get in, neither could she go back, and she beat about the channel until noon yesterday. i saw her come in then, _with five men at the wheel_; such a picture of misery, as to the crew (of passengers there were no signs), as you can scarcely imagine. tho effect at hastings and at dover really seems to have outdone the best usual impression, and at dover they wouldn't go, but sat applauding like mad. the most delicate audience i have seen in any provincial place is canterbury. the audience with the greatest sense of humour certainly is dover. the people in the stalls set the example of laughing, in the most curiously unreserved way; and they really laughed when squeers read the boys' letters, with such cordial enjoyment, that the contagion extended to me, for one couldn't hear them without laughing too. so, thank god, all goes well, and the recompense for the trouble is in every way great. there is rather an alarming breakdown at newcastle, in respect of all the bills having been, in some inscrutable way, lost on the road. i have resolved to send berry there, with full powers to do all manner of things, early next week. the amended route-list is not printed yet, because i am trying to get off manchester and liverpool; both of which i strongly doubt, in the present state of american affairs. therefore i can't send it for marguerite; but i can, and do, send her my love and god-speed. this is addressed to the office because i suppose you will be there to-morrow. ever affectionately. [sidenote: the earl of carlisle.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _november th, ._ my dear lord carlisle, you know poor austin, and what his work was, and how he did it. if you have no private objection to signing the enclosed memorial (which will receive the right signatures before being presented), i think you will have no public objection. i shall be heartily glad if you can put your name to it, and shall esteem your doing so as a very kind service. will you return the memorial under cover to mr. tom taylor, at the local government act office, whitehall? he is generously exerting himself in furtherance of it, and so delay will be avoided. my dear lord carlisle, faithfully yours always. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, nov. th, ._ my dear mary, i am perfectly enraptured with the quilt. it is one of the most tasteful, lively, elegant things i have ever seen; and i need not tell you that while it is valuable to me for its own ornamental sake, it is precious to me as a rainbow-hint of your friendship and affectionate remembrance. please god you shall see it next summer occupying its allotted place of state in my brand-new bedroom here. you shall behold it then, with all cheerful surroundings, the envy of mankind. my readings have been doing absolute wonders. your duchess and princess came to hear first "nickleby" and the "pickwick trial," then "copperfield," at brighton. i think they were pleased with me, and i am sure i was with them; for they are the very best audience one could possibly desire. i shall always have a pleasant remembrance of them. on wednesday i am away again for the longest part of my trip. yes, mary dear, i must say that i like my carton, and i have a faint idea sometimes that if i had acted him, i could have done something with his life and death. believe me, ever your affectionate and faithful joe. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] queen's head, newcastle, _friday, nov. nd, ._ i received your letter this morning, and grieve to report that the unlucky headland has broken down most awfully! first, as perhaps you remember, this is the place where the bills were "lost" for a week or two. the consequence has been that the agent could not announce all through the "jenny lind" time (the most important for announcing), and could but stand still and stare when people came to ask what i was going to read. last night i read "copperfield" to the most enthusiastic and appreciative audience imaginable, but in numbers about half what they might have been. to-night we shall have a famous house; but we might have had it last night too. to-morrow (knowing by this time what can, of a certainty, be done with "copperfield"), i had, of course, given out "copperfield" to be read again. conceive my amazement and dismay when i find the printer to have announced "little dombey"!!! this, i declare, i had no more intention of reading than i had of reading an account of the solar system. and this, after a sensation last night, of a really extraordinary nature in its intensity and delight! says the unlucky headland to this first head of misery: "johnson's mistake" (johnson being the printer). second, i read at edinburgh for the first time--observe the day--_next wednesday_. jenny lind's concert at edinburgh is to-night. this morning comes a frantic letter from the edinburgh agent. "i have no bills, no tickets; i lose all the announcement i would have made to hundreds upon hundreds of people to-night, all of the most desirable class to be well informed beforehand. i can't announce what mr. dickens is going to read; i can answer no question; i have, upon my responsibility, put a dreary advertisement into the papers announcing that he _is_ going to read so many times, and that particulars will shortly be ready; and i stand bound hand and foot." "johnson's mistake," says the unlucky headland. of course, i know that the man who never made a mistake in poor arthur's time is not likely to be always making mistakes now. but i have written by this post to wills, to go to him and investigate. i have also detached berry from here, and have sent him on by train at a few minutes' notice to edinburgh, and then to glasgow (where i have no doubt everything is wrong too). glasgow we may save; edinburgh i hold to be irretrievably damaged. if it can be picked up at all, it can only be at the loss of the two first nights, and by the expenditure of no end of spirits and force. and this is the harder, because it is impossible not to see that the last readings polished and prepared the audiences in general, and that i have not to work them up in any place where i have been before, but that they start with a london intelligence, and with a respect and preparation for what they are going to hear. i hope by the time you and mamie come to me, we shall have got into some good method. i must take the thing more into my own hands and look after it from hour to hour. if such a thing as this edinburgh business could have happened under poor arthur, i really believe he would have fallen into a fit, or gone distracted. no one can ever know what he was but i who have been with him and without him. headland is so anxious and so good-tempered that i cannot be very stormy with him; but it is the simple fact that he has no notion of the requirements of such work as this. without him, and with a larger salary to berry (though there are objections to the latter as _first_ man), i could have done a hundred times better. as forster will have a strong interest in knowing all about the proceedings, perhaps you will send him this letter to read. there is no very tremendous harm, indeed, done as yet. at edinburgh i know what i can do with "copperfield." i think it is not too much to say that for every one who does come to hear it on the first night, i can get back fifty on the second. and whatever can be worked up there will tell on glasgow. berry i shall continue to send on ahead, and i shall take nothing on trust and more as being done. on sunday morning at six, i have to start for berwick. from berwick, in the course of that day, i will write again; to mamie next time. with best love to her and mrs. b. [sidenote: miss dickens.] queen's head, newcastle-on-tyne, _saturday, nov. rd, ._ a most tremendous hall here last night; something almost terrible in the cram. a fearful thing might have happened. suddenly, when they were all very still over smike, my gas batten came down, and it looked as if the room was falling. there were three great galleries crammed to the roof, and a high steep flight of stairs, and a panic must have destroyed numbers of people. a lady in the front row of stalls screamed, and ran out wildly towards me, and for one instant there was a terrible wave in the crowd. i addressed that lady laughing (for i knew she was in sight of everybody there), and called out as if it happened every night, "there's nothing the matter, i assure you; don't be alarmed; pray sit down;" and she sat down directly, and there was a thunder of applause. it took some few minutes to mend, and i looked on with my hands in my pockets; for i think if i had turned my back for a moment there might still have been a move. my people were dreadfully alarmed, boylett in particular, who i suppose had some notion that the whole place might have taken fire. "but there stood the master," he did me the honour to say afterwards, in addressing the rest, "as cool as ever i see him a-lounging at a railway station." a telegram from berry at edinburgh yesterday evening, to say that he had got the bills, and that they would all be up and dispersed yesterday evening under his own eyes. so no time was lost in setting things as right as they can be set. he has now gone on to glasgow. p.s.--duty to mrs. bouncer. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] berwick-on-tweed, _monday, nov. th, ._ i write (in a gale of wind, with a high sea running), to let you know that we go on to edinburgh at half-past eight to-morrow morning. a most ridiculous room was designed for me in this odd out-of-the-way place. an immense corn exchange made of glass and iron, round, dome-topped, lofty, utterly absurd for any such purpose, and full of thundering echoes, with a little lofty crow's-nest of a stone gallery breast high, deep in the wall, into which it was designed to put _me_! i instantly struck, of course, and said i would either read in a room attached to this house (a very snug one, capable of holding five hundred people) or not at all. terrified local agents glowered, but fell prostrate. berry has this moment come back from edinburgh and glasgow with hopeful accounts. he seems to have done the business extremely well, and he says that it was quite curious and cheering to see how the glasgow people assembled round the bills the instant they were posted, and evidently with a great interest in them. we left newcastle yesterday morning in the dark, when it was intensely cold and froze very hard. so it did here. but towards night the wind went round to the s.w., and all night it has been blowing very hard indeed. so it is now. tell mamie that i have the same sitting-room as we had when we came here with poor arthur, and that my bedroom is the room out of it which she and katie had. surely it is the oddest town to read in! but it is taken on poor arthur's principle that a place in the way pays the expenses of a through journey; and the people would seem to be coming up to the scratch gallantly. it was a dull sunday, though; o it _was_ a dull sunday, without a book! for i had forgotten to buy one at newcastle, until it was too late. so after dark i made a jug of whisky-punch, and drowned the unlucky headland's remembrance of his failures. i shall hope to hear very soon that the workmen have "broken through," and that you have been in the state apartments, and that upholstery measurements have come off. there has been a horrible accident in edinburgh. one of the seven-storey old houses in the high street fell when it was full of people. berry was at the bill-poster's house, a few doors off, waiting for him to come home, when he heard what seemed like thunder, and then the air was darkened with dust, "as if an immense quantity of steam had been blown off," and then all that dismal quarter set up shrieks, which he says were most dreadful. [sidenote: miss dickens.] waterloo hotel, edinburgh, _wednesday, nov. th, ._ mrs. bouncer must decidedly come with you to carlisle. she shall be received with open arms. apropos of carlisle, let me know _when_ you purpose coming there. we shall be there, please god, on the saturday in good time, as i finish at glasgow on the friday night. i have very little notion of the state of affairs here, as headland brought no more decisive information from the agents yesterday (he never _can_ get decisive information from any agents), than "the teeckets air joost moving reecht and left." i hope this may be taken as satisfactory. jenny lind carried off a world of money from here. miss glyn, or mrs. dallas, is playing lady macbeth at the theatre, and mr. shirley brooks is giving two lectures at the philosophical society on the house of commons and horace walpole. grisi's farewell benefits are (i think) on my last two nights here. gordon dined with me yesterday. he is, if anything, rather better, i think, than when we last saw him in town. he was immensely pleased to be with me. i went with him (as his office goes anywhere) right into and among the ruins of the fallen building yesterday. they were still at work trying to find two men (brothers), a young girl, and an old woman, known to be all lying there. on the walls two or three common clocks are still hanging; one of them, judging from the time at which it stopped, would seem to have gone for an hour or so after the fall. great interest had been taken in a poor linnet in a cage, hanging in the wind and rain high up against the broken wall. a fireman got it down alive, and great exultation had been raised over it. one woman, who was dug out unhurt, staggered into the street, stared all round her, instantly ran away, and has never been heard of since. it is a most extraordinary sight, and of course makes a great sensation. [sidenote: miss dickens.] waterloo hotel, edinburgh, _friday, nov. th, ._ i think it is my turn to write to you, and i therefore send a brief despatch, like a telegram, to let you know that in a gale of wind and a fierce rain, last night, we turned away a thousand people. there was no getting into the hall, no getting near the hall, no stirring among the people, no getting out, no possibility of getting rid of them. and yet, in spite of all that, and of their being steaming wet, they never flagged for an instant, never made a complaint, and took up the trial upon their very shoulders, to the last word, in a triumphant roar. the talk about "copperfield" rings through the whole place. it is done again to-morrow night. to-morrow morning i read "dombey." to-morrow morning is grisi's "farewell" morning concert, and last night was her "farewell" evening concert. neither she, nor jenny lind, nor anything, nor anybody seems to make the least effect on the draw of the readings. i lunch with blackwood to-day. he was at the reading last night; a capital audience. young blackwood has also called here. a very good young fellow, i think. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] carrick's royal hotel, glasgow, _tuesday, dec. rd, ._ i send you by this post another _scotsman_. from a paragraph in it, a letter, and an advertisement, you may be able to form some dim guess of the scene at edinburgh last night. such a pouring of hundreds into a place already full to the throat, such indescribable confusion, such a rending and tearing of dresses, and yet such a scene of good humour on the whole. i never saw the faintest approach to it. while i addressed the crowd in the room, gordon addressed the crowd in the street. fifty frantic men got up in all parts of the hall and addressed me all at once. other frantic men made speeches to the walls. the whole blackwood family were borne in on the top of a wave, and landed with their faces against the front of the platform. i read with the platform crammed with people. i got them to lie down upon it, and it was like some impossible tableau or gigantic picnic; one pretty girl in full dress lying on her side all night, holding on to one of the legs of my table. it was the most extraordinary sight. and yet from the moment i began to the moment of my leaving off, they never missed a point, and they ended with a burst of cheers. the confusion was decidedly owing to the local agents. but i think it may have been a little heightened by headland's way of sending them the tickets to sell in the first instance. now, as i must read again in edinburgh on saturday night, your travelling arrangements are affected. so observe carefully (you and mamie) all that i am going to say. it appears to me that the best course will be for you to come to _edinburgh_ on saturday; taking the fast train from the great northern station at nine in the morning. this would bring you to the waterloo at edinburgh, at about nine or so at night, and i should be home at ten. we could then have a quiet sunday in edinburgh, and go over to carlisle on the monday morning. the expenditure of lungs and spirits was (as you may suppose) rather great last night, and to sleep well was out of the question; i am therefore rather fagged to-day. and as the hall in which i read to-night is a large one, i must make my letter a short one. my people were torn to ribbons last night. they have not a hat among them, and scarcely a coat. give my love to mamie. to her question, "will there be war with america?" i answer, "yes;" i fear the north to be utterly mad, and war to be unavoidable. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] victoria hotel, preston, _friday, dec. th, ._ my dear wills, the news of the christmas number is indeed glorious, and nothing can look brighter or better than the prospects of the illustrious publication. both carlisle and lancaster have come out admirably, though i doubted both, as you did. but, unlike you, i always doubted this place. i do so still. it is a poor place at the best (you remember?), and the mills are working half time, and trade is very bad. the expenses, however, will be a mere nothing. the accounts from manchester for to-morrow, and from liverpool for the readings generally, are very cheering indeed. the young lady who sells the papers at the station is just the same as ever. has orders for to-night, and is coming "with a person." "_the_ person?" said i. "never _you_ mind," said she. i was so charmed with robert chambers's "traditions of edinburgh" (which i read _in_ edinburgh), that i was obliged to write to him and say so. glasgow finished nobly, and the last night in edinburgh was signally successful and positively splendid. will you give my small admiral, on his personal application, one sovereign? i have told him to come to you for that recognition of his meritorious services. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _sunday, dec. th, ._ my dear wills, i sent you a telegram to-day, and i write before the answer has come to hand. i have been very doubtful what to do here. we have a great let for to-morrow night. the mayor recommends closing to-morrow, and going on on tuesday and wednesday, so does the town clerk, so do the agents. but i have a misgiving that they hardly understand what the public general sympathy with the queen will be. further, i feel personally that the queen has always been very considerate and gracious to me, and i would on no account do anything that might seem unfeeling or disrespectful. i shall attach great weight, in this state of indecision, to your telegram. a capital audience at preston. not a capacious room, but full. great appreciation. the scene at manchester last night was really magnificent. i had had the platform carried forward to our "frozen deep" point, and my table and screen built in with a proscenium and room scenery. when i went in (there was a very fine hall), they applauded in the most tremendous manner; and the extent to which they were taken aback and taken by storm by "copperfield" was really a thing to see. the post closes early here on a sunday, and i shall close this also without further reference to "a message from the" w. h. w. being probably on the road. radley is ill, and supposed to be fast declining, poor fellow. the house is crammed, the assizes on, and troops perpetually embarking for canada, and their officers passing through the hotel. kindest regards, ever faithfully. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] gad's hill, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, dec. th, ._ my dear mary, on monday (as you know) i am away again, but i am not sorry to see land and a little rest before me; albeit, these are great experiences of the public heart. the little admiral has gone to visit america in the _orlando_, supposed to be one of the foremost ships in the service, and the best found, best manned, and best officered that ever sailed from england. he went away much gamer than any giant, attended by a chest in which he could easily have stowed himself and a wife and family of his own proportions. ever and always, your affectionate joe. . narrative. at the beginning of this year, charles dickens resumed the reading tour which he had commenced at the close of the previous year and continued up to christmas. the first letter which follows, to mr. wills, a new year's greeting, is written from a railway station between one town and another on this journey. mr. macready, who had married for the second time not very long before this, was now settled at cheltenham. charles dickens had arranged to give readings there, chiefly for the pleasure of visiting him, and of having him as one of his audience. this reading tour went on until the beginning of february. one of the last of the series was in his favourite "beautiful room," the st. george's hall at liverpool. in february, he made an exchange of houses with his friends mr. and mrs. hogge, they going to gad's hill, and he and his family to mr. hogge's house in hyde park gate south. in march he commenced a series of readings at st. james's hall, which went on until the middle of june, when he, very gladly, returned to his country home. a letter beginning "my dear girls," addressed to some american ladies who happened to be at colchester, in the same inn with him when he was reading there, was published by one of them under the name of "our letter," in the "st. nicholas magazine," new york, in . we think it best to explain it in the young lady's own words, which are, therefore, appended to the letter. mr. walter thornbury was one of charles dickens's most valuable contributors to "all the year round." his letters to him about the subjects of his articles for that journal, are specimens of the minute and careful attention and personal supervision, never neglected or distracted by any other work on which he might be engaged, were it ever so hard or engrossing. the letter addressed to mr. baylis we give chiefly because it has, since mr. baylis's death, been added to the collection of mss. in the british museum. he was a very intimate and confidential friend of the late lord lytton, and accompanied him on a visit to gad's hill in that year. we give an extract from another letter from charles dickens to his sister, as a beautiful specimen of a letter of condolence and encouragement to one who was striving, very bravely, but by very slow degrees, to recover from the overwhelming grief of her bereavement. mr. wilkie collins was at this time engaged on his novel of "no name," which appeared in "all the year round," and was threatened with a very serious breakdown in health. charles dickens wrote the letter which we give, to relieve mr. collins's mind as to his work. happily he recovered sufficiently to make an end to his own story without any help; but the true friendship and kindness which suggested the offer were none the less appreciated, and may, very likely, by lessening his anxiety, have helped to restore his health. at the end of october in this year, charles dickens, accompanied by his daughter and sister-in-law, went to reside for a couple of months in paris, taking an apartment in the rue du faubourg st. honoré. from thence he writes to m. charles fechter. he had been greatly interested in this fine artist from the time of his first appearance in england, and was always one of his warmest friends and supporters during his stay in this country. m. fechter was, at this time, preparing for the opening of the lyceum theatre, under his own management, at the beginning of the following year. just before christmas, charles dickens returned to gad's hill. the christmas number for this year was "somebody's luggage." [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] at the birmingham station, _thursday, jan. nd, ._ my dear wills, being stationed here for an hour, on my way from leamington to cheltenham, i write to you. firstly, to reciprocate all your cordial and affectionate wishes for the new year, and to express my earnest hope that we may go on through many years to come, as we have gone on through many years that are gone. and i think we can say that we doubt whether any two men can have gone on more happily and smoothly, or with greater trust and confidence in one another. a little packet will come to you from hunt and roskell's, almost at the same time, i think, as this note. the packet will contain a claret-jug. i hope it is a pretty thing in itself for your table, and i know that you and mrs. wills will like it none the worse because it comes from me. it is not made of a perishable material, and is so far expressive of our friendship. i have had your name and mine set upon it, in token of our many years of mutual reliance and trustfulness. it will never be so full of wine as it is to-day of affectionate regard. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] cheltenham, _friday, jan. rd, ._ my dearest georgy, mrs. macready in voice is very like poor mrs. macready dead and gone; not in the least like her otherwise. she is perfectly satisfactory, and exceedingly winning. quite perfect in her manner with him and in her ease with his children, sensible, gay, pleasant, sweet-tempered; not in the faintest degree stiff or pedantic; accessible instantly. i have very rarely seen a more agreeable woman. the house is (on a smaller scale) any house we have known them in. furnished with the old furniture, pictures, engravings, mirrors, tables, and chairs. butty is too tall for strength, i am afraid, but handsome, with a face of great power and character, and a very nice girl. katie you know all about. macready, decidedly much older and infirm. very much changed. his old force has gone out of him strangely. i don't think i left off talking a minute from the time of my entering the house to my going to bed last night, and he was as much amused and interested as ever i saw him; still he was, and is, unquestionably aged. and even now i am obliged to cut this letter short by having to go and look after headland. it would never do to be away from the rest of them. i have no idea what we are doing here; no notion whether things are right or wrong; no conception where the room is; no hold of the business at all. for which reason i cannot rest without going and looking after the worthy man. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] torquay, _wednesday, jan. th, ._ you know, i think, that i was very averse to going to plymouth, and would not have gone there again but for poor arthur. but on the last night i read "copperfield," and positively enthralled the people. it was a most overpowering effect, and poor andrew[ ] came behind the screen, after the storm, and cried in the best and manliest manner. also there were two or three lines of his shipmates and other sailors, and they were extraordinarily affected. but its culminating effect was on macready at cheltenham. when i got home after "copperfield," i found him quite unable to speak, and able to do nothing but square his dear old jaw all on one side, and roll his eyes (half closed), like jackson's picture of him. and when i said something light about it, he returned: "no--er--dickens! i swear to heaven that, as a piece of passion and playfulness--er--indescribably mixed up together, it does--er--no, really, dickens!--amaze me as profoundly as it moves me. but as a piece of art--and you know--er--that i--no, dickens! by ----! have seen the best art in a great time--it is incomprehensible to me. how is it got at--er--how is it done--er--how one man can--well? it lays me on my--er--back, and it is of no use talking about it!" with which he put his hand upon my breast and pulled out his pocket-handkerchief, and i felt as if i were doing somebody to his werner. katie, by-the-bye, is a wonderful audience, and has a great fund of wild feeling in her. johnny not at all unlike plorn. i have not yet seen the room here, but imagine it to be very small. exeter i know, and that is small also. i am very much used up, on the whole, for i cannot bear this moist warm climate. it would kill me very soon. and i have now got to the point of taking so much out of myself with "copperfield," that i might as well do richard wardour. you have now, my dearest georgy, the fullest extent of my tidings. this is a very pretty place--a compound of hastings, tunbridge wells, and little bits of the hills about naples; but i met four respirators as i came up from the station, and three pale curates without them, who seemed in a bad way. frightful intelligence has just been brought in by boylett, concerning the small size of the room. i have terrified headland by sending him to look at it, and swearing that if it's too small i will go away to exeter. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _tuesday, jan. th, ._ the beautiful room was crammed to excess last night, and numbers were turned away. its beauty and completeness when it is lighted up are most brilliant to behold, and for a reading it is simply perfect. you remember that a liverpool audience is usually dull, but they put me on my mettle last night, for i never saw such an audience--no, not even in edinburgh! i slept horribly last night, and have been over to birkenhead for a little change of air to-day. my head is dazed and worn by gas and heat, and i fear that "copperfield" and "bob" together to-night won't mend it. best love to mamie and katie, if still at gad's. i am going to bring the boys some toffee. [sidenote: the misses armstrong] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, feb. th, ._ my dear girls, for if i were to write "young friends," it would look like a schoolmaster; and if i were to write "young ladies," it would look like a schoolmistress; and worse than that, neither form of words would look familiar and natural, or in character with our snowy ride that tooth-chattering morning. i cannot tell you both how gratified i was by your remembrance, or how often i think of you as i smoke the admirable cigars. but i almost think you must have had some magnetic consciousness across the atlantic, of my whiffing my love towards you from the garden here. my daughter says that when you have settled those little public affairs at home, she hopes you will come back to england (possibly in united states) and give a minute or two to this part of kent. _her_ words are, "a day or two;" but i remember your italian flights, and correct the message. i have only just now finished my country readings, and have had nobody to make breakfast for me since the remote ages of colchester! ever faithfully yours. our letter. by m. f. armstrong. "from among all my treasures--to each one of which some pleasant history is bound--i choose this letter, written on coarse blue paper. the letter was received in answer to cigars sent from america to mr. dickens. the 'little public affairs at home' refers to the war of the rebellion. at colchester, he read 'the trial' from 'pickwick,' and selections from 'nicholas nickleby.' the lady, her two sisters, and her brother were mr. dickens's guests at the queer old english inn at colchester. through the softly falling snow we came back together to london, and on the railway platform parted, with a hearty hand-shaking, from the man who will for ever be enshrined in our hearts as the kindest and most generous, not to say most brilliant of hosts." [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] , hyde park gate, south kensington gore, _sunday, march th, ._ my dear cerjat, my daughter naturally liking to be in town at this time of year, i have changed houses with a friend for three months. my eldest boy is in business as an eastern merchant in the city, and will do well if he can find continuous energy; otherwise not. my second boy is with the nd highlanders in india. my third boy, a good steady fellow, is educating expressly for engineers or artillery. my fourth (this sounds like a charade), a born little sailor, is a midshipman in h.m.s. _orlando_, now at bermuda, and will make his way anywhere. remaining two at school, elder of said remaining two very bright and clever. georgina and mary keeping house for me; and francis jeffrey (i ought to have counted him as the third boy, so we'll take him in here as number two and a half) in my office at present. now you have the family bill of fare. you ask me about fechter and his hamlet. it was a performance of extraordinary merit; by far the most coherent, consistent, and intelligible hamlet i ever saw. some of the delicacies with which he rendered his conception clear were extremely subtle; and in particular he avoided that brutality towards ophelia which, with a greater or less amount of coarseness, i have seen in all other hamlets. as a mere _tour de force_, it would have been very remarkable in its disclosure of a perfectly wonderful knowledge of the force of the english language; but its merit was far beyond and above this. foreign accent, of course, but not at all a disagreeable one. and he was so obviously safe and at ease, that you were never in pain for him as a foreigner. add to this a perfectly picturesque and romantic "make up," and a remorseless destruction of all conventionalities, and you have the leading virtues of the impersonation. in othello he did not succeed. in iago he is very good. he is an admirable artist, and far beyond anyone on our stage. a real artist and a gentleman. last thursday i began reading again in london--a condensation of "copperfield," and "mr. bob sawyer's party," from "pickwick," to finish merrily. the success of "copperfield" is astounding. it made an impression that _i_ must not describe. i may only remark that i was half dead when i had done; and that although i had looked forward, all through the summer, when i was carefully getting it up, to its being a london sensation; and that although macready, hearing it at cheltenham, told me to be prepared for a great effect, it even went beyond my hopes. i read again next thursday, and the rush for places is quite furious. tell townshend this with my love, if you see him before i have time to write to him; and tell him that i thought the people would never let me go away, they became so excited, and showed it so very warmly. i am trying to plan out a new book, but have not got beyond trying. yours affectionately. [sidenote: mr. walter thornbury.] office of "all the year round," _friday, april th, ._ my dear thornbury, the bow street runners ceased out of the land soon after the introduction of the new police. i remember them very well as standing about the door of the office in bow street. they had no other uniform than a blue dress-coat, brass buttons (i am not even now sure that that was necessary), and a bright red cloth waistcoat. the waistcoat was indispensable, and the slang name for them was "redbreasts," in consequence. they kept company with thieves and the like, much more than the detective police do. i don't know what their pay was, but i have no doubt their principal complements were got under the rose. it was a very slack institution, and its head-quarters were the brown bear, in bow street, a public-house of more than doubtful reputation, opposite the police-office; and either the house which is now the theatrical costume maker's, or the next door to it. field, who advertises the secret enquiry office, was a bow street runner, and can tell you all about it; goddard, who also advertises an enquiry office, was another of the fraternity. they are the only two i know of as yet existing in a "questionable shape." faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. baylis.] gad's hill, etc., _wednesday, july nd, ._ my dear mr. baylis, i have been in france, and in london, and in other parts of kent than this, and everywhere but here, for weeks and weeks. pray excuse my not having (for this reason specially) answered your kind note sooner. after carefully cross-examining my daughter, i do not believe her to be worthy of the fernery. last autumn we transplanted into the shrubbery a quantity of evergreens previously clustered close to the front of the house, and trained more ivy about the wall and the like. when i ask her where she would have the fernery and what she would do with it, the witness falters, turns pale, becomes confused, and says: "perhaps it would be better not to have it at all." i am quite confident that the constancy of the young person is not to be trusted, and that she had better attach her fernery to one of her châteaux in spain, or one of her english castles in the air. none the less do i thank you for your more than kind proposal. we have been in great anxiety respecting miss hogarth, the sudden decline of whose health and spirits has greatly distressed us. although she is better than she was, and the doctors are, on the whole, cheerful, she requires great care, and fills us with apprehension. the necessity of providing change for her will probably take us across the water very early in the autumn; and this again unsettles home schemes here, and withers many kinds of fern. if they knew (by "they" i mean my daughter and miss hogarth) that i was writing to you, they would charge me with many messages of regard. but as i am shut up in my room in a ferocious and unapproachable condition, owing to the great accumulation of letters i have to answer, i will tell them at lunch that i have anticipated their wish. as i know they have bills for me to pay, and are at present shy of producing them, i wish to preserve a gloomy and repellent reputation. my dear mr. baylis, faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mrs. henry austin.] gad's hill, _tuesday, oct. th, ._ * * * * * i do not preach consolation because i am unwilling to preach at any time, and know my own weakness too well. but in this world there is no stay but the hope of a better, and no reliance but on the mercy and goodness of god. through those two harbours of a shipwrecked heart, i fully believe that you will, in time, find a peaceful resting-place even on this careworn earth. heaven speed the time, and do you try hard to help it on! it is impossible to say but that our prolonged grief for the beloved dead may grieve them in their unknown abiding-place, and give them trouble. the one influencing consideration in all you do as to your disposition of yourself (coupled, of course, with a real earnest strenuous endeavour to recover the lost tone of spirit) is, that you think and feel you _can_ do. i do not in the least regard your change of course in going to havre as any evidence of instability. but i rather hope it is likely that through such restlessness you will come to a far quieter frame of mind. the disturbed mind and affections, like the tossed sea, seldom calm without an intervening time of confusion and trouble. but nothing is to be attained without striving. in a determined effort to settle the thoughts, to parcel out the day, to find occupation regularly or to make it, to be up and doing something, are chiefly to be found the mere mechanical means which must come to the aid of the best mental efforts. it is a wilderness of a day, here, in the way of blowing and raining, and as darkly dismal, at four o'clock, as need be. my head is but just now raised from a day's writing, but i will not lose the post without sending you a word. katie was here yesterday, just come back from clara white's (that was), in scotland. in the midst of her brilliant fortune, it is too clear to me that she is already beckoned away to follow her dead sisters. macready was here from saturday evening to yesterday morning, older but looking wonderfully well, and (what is very rare in these times) with the old thick sweep of hair upon his head. georgina being left alone here the other day, was done no good to by a great consternation among the servants. on going downstairs, she found marsh (the stableman) seated with great dignity and anguish in an arm-chair, and incessantly crying out: "i am dead." to which the women servants said with great pathos (and with some appearance of reason): "no, you ain't, marsh!" and to which he persisted in replying: "yes, i am; i am dead!" some neighbouring vagabond was impressed to drive a cart over to rochester and fetch the doctor, who said (the patient and his consolers being all very anxious that the heart should be the scene of affliction): "stomach." [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday night, oct. th, ._ my dear wilkie, frank beard has been here this evening, of course since i posted my this day's letter to you, and has told me that you are not at all well, and how he has given you something which he hopes and believes will bring you round. it is not to convey this insignificant piece of intelligence, or to tell you how anxious i am that you should come up with a wet sheet and a flowing sail (as we say at sea when we are not sick), that i write. it is simply to say what follows, which i hope may save you some mental uneasiness. for i was stricken ill when i was doing "bleak house," and i shall not easily forget what i suffered under the fear of not being able to come up to time. dismiss that fear (if you have it) altogether from your mind. write to me at paris at any moment, and say you are unequal to your work, and want me, and i will come to london straight and do your work. i am quite confident that, with your notes and a few words of explanation, i could take it up at any time and do it. absurdly unnecessary to say that it would be a makeshift! but i could do it at a pinch, so like you as that no one should find out the difference. don't make much of this offer in your mind; it is nothing, except to ease it. if you should want help, i am as safe as the bank. the trouble would be nothing to me, and the triumph of overcoming a difficulty great. think it a christmas number, an "idle apprentice," a "lighthouse," a "frozen deep." i am as ready as in any of these cases to strike in and hammer the hot iron out. you won't want me. you will be well (and thankless!) in no time. but there i am; and i hope that the knowledge may be a comfort to you. call me, and i come. as beard always has a sense of medical responsibility, and says anything important about a patient in confidence, i have merely remarked here that "wilkie" is out of sorts. charley (who is here with katie) has no other cue from me. ever affectionately. [sidenote: m. charles fechter.] paris, rue du faubourg st. honorÉ, , _tuesday, nov. th, ._ my dear fechter, you know, i believe, how our letters crossed, and that i am here until christmas. also, you know with what pleasure and readiness i should have responded to your invitation if i had been in london. pray tell paul féval that i shall be charmed to know him, and that i shall feel the strongest interest in making his acquaintance. it almost puts me out of humour with paris (and it takes a great deal to do that!) to think that i was not at home to prevail upon him to come with you, and be welcomed to gad's hill; but either there or here, i hope to become his friend before this present old year is out. pray tell him so. you say nothing in your note of your lyceum preparations. i trust they are all going on well. there is a fine opening for you, i am sure, with a good beginning; but the importance of a good beginning is very great. if you ever have time and inclination to tell me in a short note what you are about, you can scarcely interest me more, as my wishes and strongest sympathies are for and with your success--_mais cela va sans dire_. i went to the châtelet (a beautiful theatre!) the other night to see "rothomago," but was so mortally _gêné_ with the poor nature of the piece and of the acting, that i came out again when there was a week or two (i mean an hour or two, but the hours seemed weeks) yet to get through. my dear fechter, very faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield, r.a.] paris, rue du faubourg st. honorÉ, , _friday, dec. th, ._ my dear stanny, we have been here for two months, and i shall probably come back here after christmas (we go home for christmas week) and stay on into february. but i shall write and propose a theatre before christmas is out, so this is to warn you to get yourself into working pantomime order! i hope wills has duly sent you our new christmas number. as you may like to know what i myself wrote of it, understand the dick contributions to be, _his leaving it till called for_, and _his wonderful end_, _his boots_, and _his brown paper parcel_. since you were at gad's hill i have been travelling a good deal, and looking up many odd things for use. i want to know how you are in health and spirits, and it would be the greatest of pleasures to me to have a line under your hand. god bless you and yours with all the blessings of the time of year, and of all times! ever your affectionate and faithful dick. [sidenote: m. charles fechter.] paris, _saturday, dec. th, ._ my dear fechter, i have read "the white rose" attentively, and think it an extremely good play. it is vigorously written with a great knowledge of the stage, and presents many striking situations. i think the close particularly fine, impressive, bold, and new. but i greatly doubt the expediency of your doing _any_ historical play early in your management. by the words "historical play," i mean a play founded on any incident in english history. our public are accustomed to associate historical plays with shakespeare. in any other hands, i believe they care very little for crowns and dukedoms. what you want is something with an interest of a more domestic and general nature--an interest as romantic as you please, but having a more general and wider response than a disputed succession to the throne can have for englishmen at this time of day. such interest culminated in the last stuart, and has worn itself out. it would be uphill work to evoke an interest in perkin warbeck. i do not doubt the play's being well received, but my fear is that these people would be looked upon as mere abstractions, and would have but a cold welcome in consequence, and would not lay hold of your audience. now, when you _have_ laid hold of your audience and have accustomed them to your theatre, you may produce "the white rose," with far greater justice to the author, and to the manager also. wait. feel your way. perkin warbeck is too far removed from analogy with the sympathies and lives of the people for a beginning. my dear fechter, ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, dec. th, ._ my dear mary, i must send you my christmas greeting and happy new year wishes in return for yours; most heartily and fervently reciprocating your interest and affection. you are among the few whom i most care for and best love. being in london two evenings in the opening week, i tried to persuade my legs (for whose judgment i have the highest respect) to go to an evening party. but i _could not_ induce them to pass leicester square. the faltering presentiment under which they laboured so impressed me, that at that point i yielded to their terrors. they immediately ran away to the east, and i accompanied them to the olympic, where i saw a very good play, "camilla's husband," very well played. real merit in mr. neville and miss saville. we came across directly after the gale, with the channel all bestrewn with floating wreck, and with a hundred and fifty sick schoolboys from calais on board. i am going back on the morning after fechter's opening night, and have promised to read "copperfield" at the embassy, for a british charity. georgy continues wonderfully well, and she and mary send you their best love. the house is pervaded by boys; and every boy has (as usual) an unaccountable and awful power of producing himself in every part of the house at every moment, apparently in fourteen pairs of creaking boots. my dear mary, ever affectionately your joe. footnotes: [ ] lieutenant andrew gordon, r.n., son of the sheriff of midlothian. . narrative. at the beginning of this year, charles dickens was in paris for the purpose of giving a reading at the english embassy. he remained in paris until the beginning of february, staying with his servant "john" at the hôtel du helder. there was a series of readings in london this season at the hanover square rooms. the christmas number of "all the year round" was entitled "mrs. lirriper's lodgings," to which charles dickens contributed the first and last chapter. the lyceum theatre, under the management of m. fechter, was opened in january with "the duke's motto," and the letter given here has reference to this first night. we regret very much having no letters to lady molesworth, who was an old and dear friend of charles dickens. but this lady explains to us that she has long ceased to preserve any letters addressed to her. the "mr. and mrs. humphery" (now sir william and lady humphery) mentioned in the first letter for this year, were dear and intimate friends of his eldest daughter, and were frequent guests in her father's house. mrs. humphery and her sister lady olliffe were daughters of the late mr. william cubitt, m.p. we have in this year the first letter of charles dickens to mr. percy fitzgerald. this gentleman had been a valuable contributor to his journal before he became personally known to charles dickens. the acquaintance once made soon ripened into friendship, and for the future mr. fitzgerald was a constant and always a welcome visitor to gad's hill. the letter to mr. charles reade alludes to his story, "hard cash," which was then appearing in "all the year round." as a writer, and as a friend, he was held by charles dickens in the highest estimation. charles dickens's correspondence with his solicitor and excellent friend, mr. frederic ouvry (now a vice-president of the society of antiquaries), was almost entirely of a business character; but we are glad to give one or two notes to that gentleman, although of little public interest, in order to have the name in our book of one of the kindest of our own friends. [sidenote: miss dickens.] paris, hÔtel du helder, rue du helder, _friday, jan. th, ._ my dearest mamie, as i send a line to your aunt to-day and know that you will not see it, i send another to you to report my safe (and neuralgic) arrival here. my little rooms are perfectly comfortable, and i like the hotel better than any i have ever put up at in paris. john's amazement at, and appreciation of, paris are indescribable. he goes about with his mouth open, staring at everything and being tumbled over by everybody. the state dinner at the embassy, yesterday, coming off in the room where i am to read, the carpenters did not get in until this morning. but their platforms were ready--or supposed to be--and the preparations are in brisk progress. i think it will be a handsome affair to look at--a very handsome one. there seems to be great artistic curiosity in paris, to know what kind of thing the reading is. i know a "rela-shon" (with one weak eye), who is in the gunmaking line, very near here. there is a strong family resemblance--but no muzzle. lady molesworth and i have not begun to "toddle" yet, but have exchanged affectionate greetings. i am going round to see her presently, and i dine with her on sunday. the only remaining news is, that i am beset by mysterious adorers, and smuggle myself in and out of the house in the meanest and basest manner. with kind regard to mr. and mrs. humphery, ever, my dearest mamey, your affectionate father. p.s.--_hommage à madame b.!_ [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] paris, _sunday, feb. st, ._ my dear regnier, i was charmed by the receipt of your cordial and sympathetic letter, and i shall always preserve it carefully as a most noble tribute from a great and real artist. i wished you had been at the embassy on friday evening. the audience was a fine one, and the "carol" is particularly well adapted to the purpose. it is an uncommon pleasure to me to learn that i am to meet you on tuesday, for there are not many men whom i meet with greater pleasure than you. heaven! how the years roll by! we are quite old friends now, in counting by years. if we add sympathies, we have been friends at least a thousand years. affectionately yours ever. [sidenote: miss dickens.] hÔtel du helder, paris, _sunday, feb. st, ._ my dearest mamie, i cannot give you any idea of the success of the readings here, because no one can imagine the scene of last friday night at the embassy. such audiences and such enthusiasm i have never seen, but the thing culminated on friday night in a two hours' storm of excitement and pleasure. they actually recommenced and applauded right away into their carriages and down the street. you know your parent's horror of being lionised, and will not be surprised to hear that i am half dead of it. i cannot leave here until thursday (though i am every hour in danger of running away) because i have to dine out, to say nothing of breakfasting--think of me breakfasting!--every intervening day. but my project is to send john home on thursday, and then to go on a little perfectly quiet tour for about ten days, touching the sea at boulogne. when i get there, i will write to your aunt (in case you should not be at home), saying when i shall arrive at the office. i must go to the office instead of gad's, because i have much to do with forster about elliotson. i enclose a short note for each of the little boys. give harry ten shillings pocket-money, and plorn six. the olliffe girls, very nice. florence at the readings, prodigiously excited. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] paris, _sunday, feb. st, ._ from my hurried note to mamie, you will get some faint general idea of a new star's having arisen in paris. but of its brightness you can have no adequate conception. [john has locked me up and gone out, and the little bell at the door is ringing demoniacally while i write.] you have never heard me read yet. i have been twice goaded and lifted out of myself into a state that astonished _me_ almost as much as the audience. i have a cold, but no neuralgia, and am "as well as can be expected." i forgot to tell mamie that i went (with lady molesworth) to hear "faust" last night. it is a splendid work, in which that noble and sad story is most nobly and sadly rendered, and perfectly delighted me. but i think it requires too much of the audience to do for a london opera house. the composer must be a very remarkable man indeed. some management of light throughout the story is also very poetical and fine. we had carvalho's box. i could hardly bear the thing, it affected me so. but, as a certain frenchman said, "no weakness, danton!" so i leave off. [sidenote: m. charles fechter.] paris, _wednesday, feb. th, ._ my dear fechter, a thousand congratulations on your great success! never mind what they say, or do, _pour vous écraser_; you have the game in your hands. the romantic drama, thoroughly well done (with a touch of shakespeare now and then), is the speciality of your theatre. give the public the picturesque, romantic drama, with yourself in it; and (as i told you in the beginning) you may throw down your gauntlet in defiance of all comers. it is a most brilliant success indeed, and it thoroughly rejoices my heart! unfortunately i cannot now hope to see "maquet," because i am packing up and going out to dinner (it is late in the afternoon), and i leave to-morrow morning when all sensible people, except myself, are in bed; and i do not come back to paris or near it. i had hoped to see him at breakfast last monday, but he was not there. paul féval was there, and i found him a capital fellow. if i can do anything to help you on with "maquet"[ ] when i come back i will most gladly do it. my readings here have had the finest possible reception, and have achieved a most noble success. i never before read to such fine audiences, so very quick of perception, and so enthusiastically responsive. i shall be heartily pleased to see you again, my dear fechter, and to share your triumphs with the real earnestness of a real friend. and so go on and prosper, and believe me, as i truly am, most cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] office of "all the year round," _thursday, feb. th, ._ my dearest macready, i have just come back from paris, where the readings--"copperfield," "dombey" and "trial," and "carol" and "trial"--have made a sensation which modesty (my natural modesty) renders it impossible for me to describe. you know what a noble audience the paris audience is! they were at their very noblest with me. i was very much concerned by hearing hurriedly from georgy that you were ill. but when i came home at night, she showed me katie's letter, and that set me up again. ah, you have the best of companions and nurses, and can afford to be ill now and then for the happiness of being so brought through it. but don't do it again yet awhile for all that. legouvé (whom you remember in paris as writing for the ristori) was anxious that i should bring you the enclosed. a manly and generous effort, i think? regnier desired to be warmly remembered to you. he looks just as of yore. paris generally is about as wicked and extravagant as in the days of the regency. madame viardot in the "orphée," most splendid. an opera of "faust," a very sad and noble rendering of that sad and noble story. stage management remarkable for some admirable, and really poetical, effects of light. in the more striking situations, mephistopheles surrounded by an infernal red atmosphere of his own. marguerite by a pale blue mournful light. the two never blending. after marguerite has taken the jewels placed in her way in the garden, a weird evening draws on, and the bloom fades from the flowers, and the leaves of the trees droop and lose their fresh green, and mournful shadows overhang her chamber window, which was innocently bright and gay at first. i couldn't bear it, and gave in completely. fechter doing wonders over the way here, with a picturesque french drama. miss kate terry, in a small part in it, perfectly charming. you may remember her making a noise, years ago, doing a boy at an inn, in "the courier of lyons"? she has a tender love-scene in this piece, which is a really beautiful and artistic thing. i saw her do it at about three in the morning of the day when the theatre opened, surrounded by shavings and carpenters, and (of course) with that inevitable hammer going; and i told fechter: "that is the very best piece of womanly tenderness i have ever seen on the stage, and you'll find that no audience can miss it." it is a comfort to add that it was instantly seized upon, and is much talked of. stanfield was very ill for some months, then suddenly picked up, and is really rosy and jovial again. going to see him when he was very despondent, i told him the story of fechter's piece (then in rehearsal) with appropriate action; fighting a duel with the washing-stand, defying the bedstead, and saving the life of the sofa-cushion. this so kindled his old theatrical ardour, that i think he turned the corner on the spot. with love to mrs. macready and katie, and (be still my heart!) benvenuta, and the exiled johnny (not too attentive at school, i hope?), and the personally-unknown young parr, ever, my dearest macready, your most affectionate. [sidenote: miss power.] office of "all the year round," _thursday, feb. th, ._ my dear marguerite, i think i have found a first-rate title for your book, with an early and a delightful association in most people's minds, and a strong suggestion of oriental pictures: "arabian days and nights." i have sent it to low's. if they have the wit to see it, do you in your first chapter touch that string, so as to bring a fanciful explanation in aid of the title, and sound it afterwards, now and again, when you come to anything where haroun al raschid, and the grand vizier, and mesrour, the chief of the guard, and any of that wonderful _dramatis personæ_ are vividly brought to mind. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, march th, ._ my dear charles knight, at a quarter to seven on monday, the th, a stately form will be descried breathing birthday cordialities and affectionate amenities, as it descends the broken and gently dipping ground by which the level country of the clifton road is attained. a practised eye will be able to discern two humble figures in attendance, which from their flowing crinolines may, without exposing the prophet to the imputation of rashness, be predicted to be women. though certes their importance, absorbed and as it were swallowed up in the illustrious bearing and determined purpose of the maturer stranger, will not enthrall the gaze that wanders over the forest of san giovanni as the night gathers in. ever affectionately, g. p. r. james. [sidenote: mrs. dallas.[ ]] extract. the time of the princess alexandra's arrival in london. it is curious to see london gone mad. down in the strand here, the monomaniacal tricks it is playing are grievous to behold, but along fleet street and cheapside it gradually becomes frenzied, dressing itself up in all sorts of odds and ends, and knocking itself about in a most amazing manner. at london bridge it raves, principally about the kings of denmark and their portraits. i have been looking among them for hamlet's uncle, and have discovered one personage with a high nose, who i think is the man. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mrs. lehmann.] office of "all the year round," no. , wellington street, strand, london, w.c., _tuesday, march th, ._ dear mrs. lehmann, two stalls for to-morrow's reading were sent to you by post before i heard from you this morning. two will always come to you while you remain a gummidge, and i hope i need not say that if you want more, none could be better bestowed in my sight. pray tell lehmann, when you next write to him, that i find i owe him a mint of money for the delightful swedish sleigh-bells. they are the wonder, awe, and admiration of the whole country side, and i never go out without them. let us make an exchange of child stories. i heard of a little fellow the other day whose mamma had been telling him that a french governess was coming over to him from paris, and had been expatiating on the blessings and advantages of having foreign tongues. after leaning his plump little cheek against the window glass in a dreary little way for some minutes, he looked round and enquired in a general way, and not as if it had any special application, whether she didn't think "that the tower of babel was a great mistake altogether?" ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. major.[ ]] office of "all the year round," a weekly journal, etc. etc., , wellington street, strand, _thursday, march th, ._ my dear mary, i am quite concerned to hear that you and your party (including your brother willie) paid for seats at my reading last night. you must promise me never to do so any more. my old affections and attachments are not so lightly cherished or so easily forgotten as that i can bear the thought of you and yours coming to hear me like so many strangers. it will at all times delight me if you will send a little note to me, or to georgina, or to mary, saying when you feel inclined to come, and how many stalls you want. you may always be certain, even on the fullest nights, of room being made for you. and i shall always be interested and pleased by knowing that you are present. mind! you are to be exceedingly penitent for last night's offence, and to make me a promise that it shall never be repeated. on which condition accept my noble forgiveness. with kind regard to mr. major, my dear mary, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _thursday, march st, ._ my dearest macready, i mean to go on reading into june. for the sake of the finer effects (in "copperfield" principally), i have changed from st. james's hall to the hanover square room. the latter is quite a wonderful room for sound, and so easy that the least inflection will tell anywhere in the place exactly as it leaves your lips; but i miss my dear old shilling galleries--six or eight hundred strong--with a certain roaring sea of response in them, that you have stood upon the beach of many and many a time. the summer, i hope and trust, will quicken the pace at which you grow stronger again. i am but in dull spirits myself just now, or i should remonstrate with you on your slowness. having two little boys sent home from school "to see the illuminations" on the marriage-night, i chartered an enormous van, at a cost of five pounds, and we started in majesty from the office in london, fourteen strong. we crossed waterloo bridge with the happy design of beginning the sight at london bridge, and working our way through the city to regent street. in a by-street in the borough, over against a dead wall and under a railway bridge, we were blocked for four hours. we were obliged to walk home at last, having seen nothing whatever. the wretched van turned up in the course of the next morning; and the best of it was that at rochester here they illuminated the fine old castle, and really made a very splendid and picturesque thing (so my neighbours tell me). with love to mrs. macready and katie, ever, my dearest macready, your most affectionate. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, april nd, ._ on the death of mr. egg. extract. ah, poor egg! i knew what you would think and feel about it. when we saw him in paris on his way out i was struck by his extreme nervousness, and derived from it an uneasy foreboding of his state. what a large piece of a good many years he seems to have taken with him! how often have i thought, since the news of his death came, of his putting his part in the saucepan (with the cover on) when we rehearsed "the lighthouse;" of his falling out of the hammock when we rehearsed "the frozen deep;" of his learning italian numbers when he ate the garlic in the carriage; of the thousands (i was going to say) of dark mornings when i apostrophised him as "kernel;" of his losing my invaluable knife in that beastly stage-coach; of his posting up that mysterious book[ ] every night! i hardly know why, but i have always associated that volume most with venice. in my memory of the dear gentle little fellow, he will be (as since those days he always has been) eternally posting up that book at the large table in the middle of our venice sitting-room, incidentally asking the name of an hotel three weeks back! and his pretty house is to be laid waste and sold. if there be a sale on the spot i shall try to buy something in loving remembrance of him, good dear little fellow. think what a great "frozen deep" lay close under those boards we acted on! my brother alfred, luard, arthur, albert, austin, egg. even among the audience, prince albert and poor stone! "i heard the"--i forget what it was i used to say--"come up from the great deep;" and it rings in my ears now, like a sort of mad prophecy. however, this won't do. we must close up the ranks and march on. [sidenote: rev. w. brookfield.] gad's hill, _may th, ._ my dear brookfield, it occurs to me that you may perhaps know, or know of, a kind of man that i want to discover. one of my boys (the youngest) now is at wimbledon school. he is a docile, amiable boy of fair abilities, but sensitive and shy. and he writes me so very earnestly that he feels the school to be confusingly large for him, and that he is sure he could do better with some gentleman who gave his own personal attention to the education of half-a-dozen or a dozen boys, as to impress me with the belief that i ought to heed his conviction. has any such phenomenon as a good and reliable man in this wise ever come in your way? forgive my troubling you, and believe me, cordially yours. [sidenote: rev. w. brookfield.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _may th, ._ my dear brookfield, i am most truly obliged to you for your kind and ready help. when i am in town next week, i will call upon the bishop of natal, more to thank him than with the hope of profiting by that gentleman of whom he writes, as the limitation to "little boys" seems to stop the way. i want to find someone with whom this particular boy could remain; if there were a mutual interest and liking, that would be a great point gained. why did the kings in the fairy tales want children? i suppose in the weakness of the royal intellect. concerning "nickleby," i am so much of your mind (comparing it with "copperfield"), that it was a long time before i could take a pleasure in reading it. but i got better, as i found the audience always taking to it. i have been trying, alone by myself, the "oliver twist" murder, but have got something so horrible out of it that i am afraid to try it in public. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _thursday, may th, ._ my dear cerjat, i don't wonder at your finding it difficult to reconcile your mind to a french hamlet; but i assure you that fechter's is a very remarkable performance perfectly consistent with itself (whether it be my particular hamlet, or your particular hamlet, or no), a coherent and intelligent whole, and done by a true artist. i have never seen, i think, an intelligent and clear view of the whole character so well sustained throughout; and there is a very captivating air of romance and picturesqueness added, which is quite new. rely upon it, the public were right. the thing could not have been sustained by oddity; it would have perished upon that, very soon. as to the mere accent, there is far less drawback in that than you would suppose. for this reason, he obviously knows english so thoroughly that you feel he is safe. you are never in pain for him. this sense of ease is gained directly, and then you think very little more about it. the colenso and jowett matter is a more difficult question, but here again i don't go with you. the position of the writers of "essays and reviews" is, that certain parts of the old testament have done their intended function in the education of the world _as it was_; but that mankind, like the individual man, is designed by the almighty to have an infancy and a maturity, and that as it advances, the machinery of its education must advance too. for example: inasmuch as ever since there was a sun and there was vapour, there _must have_ been a rainbow under certain conditions, so surely it would be better now to recognise that indisputable fact. similarly, joshua might command the sun to stand still, under the impression that it moved round the earth; but he could not possibly have inverted the relations of the earth and the sun, whatever his impressions were. again, it is contended that the science of geology is quite as much a revelation to man, as books of an immense age and of (at the best) doubtful origin, and that your consideration of the latter must reasonably be influenced by the former. as i understand the importance of timely suggestions such as these, it is, that the church should not gradually shock and lose the more thoughtful and logical of human minds; but should be so gently and considerately yielding as to retain them, and, through them, hundreds of thousands. this seems to me, as i understand the temper and tendency of the time, whether for good or evil, to be a very wise and necessary position. and as i understand the danger, it is not chargeable on those who take this ground, but on those who in reply call names and argue nothing. what these bishops and such-like say about revelation, in assuming it to be finished and done with, i can't in the least understand. nothing is discovered without god's intention and assistance, and i suppose every new knowledge of his works that is conceded to man to be distinctly a revelation by which men are to guide themselves. lastly, in the mere matter of religious doctrine and dogmas, these men (protestants--protestors--successors of the men who protested against human judgment being set aside) talk and write as if they were all settled by the direct act of heaven; not as if they had been, as we know they were, a matter of temporary accommodation and adjustment among disputing mortals as fallible as you or i. coming nearer home, i hope that georgina is almost quite well. she has no attack of pain or flurry now, and is in all respects immensely better. mary is neither married nor (that i know of) going to be. she and katie and a lot of them have been playing croquet outside my window here for these last four days, to a mad and maddening extent. my sailor-boy's ship, the _orlando_, is fortunately in chatham dockyard--so he is pretty constantly at home--while the shipwrights are repairing a leak in her. i am reading in london every friday just now. great crams and great enthusiasm. townshend i suppose to have left lausanne somewhere about this day. his house in the park is hermetically sealed, ready for him. the prince and princess of wales go about (wisely) very much, and have as fair a chance of popularity as ever prince and princess had. the city ball in their honour is to be a tremendously gorgeous business, and mary is highly excited by her father's being invited, and she with him. meantime the unworthy parent is devising all kinds of subterfuges for sending her and getting out of it himself. a very intelligent german friend of mine, just home from america, maintains that the conscription will succeed in the north, and that the war will be indefinitely prolonged. _i_ say "no," and that however mad and villainous the north is, the war will finish by reason of its not supplying soldiers. we shall see. the more they brag the more i don't believe in them. * * * * * [sidenote: mr. percy fitzgerald.] gad's hill place, _saturday night, july th_, . my dear mr. fitzgerald, i have been most heartily gratified by the perusal of your article on my dogs. it has given me an amount and a kind of pleasure very unusual, and for which i thank you earnestly. the owner of the renowned dog cæsar understands me so sympathetically, that i trust with perfect confidence to his feeling what i really mean in these few words. you interest me very much by your kind promise, the redemption of which i hereby claim, to send me your life of sterne when it comes out. if you should be in england before this, i should be delighted to see you here on the top of falstaff's own gad's hill. it is a very pretty country, not thirty miles from london; and if you could spare a day or two for its fine walks, i and my two latest dogs, a st. bernard and a bloodhound, would be charmed with your company as one of ourselves. believe me, very faithfully yours. _friday, july th, ._[ ] dear madam, i hope you will excuse this tardy reply to your letter. it is often impossible for me, by any means, to keep pace with my correspondents. i must take leave to say, that if there be any general feeling on the part of the intelligent jewish people, that i have done them what you describe as "a great wrong," they are a far less sensible, a far less just, and a far less good-tempered people than i have always supposed them to be. fagin, in "oliver twist," is a jew, because it unfortunately was true of the time to which that story refers, that that class of criminal almost invariably was a jew. but surely no sensible man or woman of your persuasion can fail to observe--firstly, that all the rest of the wicked _dramatis personæ_ are christians; and secondly, that he is called the "jew," not because of his religion, but because of his race. if i were to write a story, in which i described a frenchman or a spaniard as "the roman catholic," i should do a very indecent and unjustifiable thing; but i make mention of fagin as the jew, because he is one of the jewish people, and because it conveys that kind of idea of him which i should give my readers of a chinaman, by calling him a chinese. the enclosed is quite a nominal subscription towards the good object in which you are interested; but i hope it may serve to show you that i have no feeling towards the jewish people but a friendly one. i always speak well of them, whether in public or in private, and bear my testimony (as i ought to do) to their perfect good faith in such transactions as i have ever had with them; and in my "child's history of england," i have lost no opportunity of setting forth their cruel persecution in old times. dear madam, faithfully yours. in reply to this, the jewish lady thanks him for his kind letter and its enclosure, still remonstrating and pointing out that though, as he observes, "all the other criminal characters were christians, they are, at least, contrasted with characters of good christians; this wretched fagin stands alone as the jew." the reply to _this_ letter afterwards was the character of riah, in "our mutual friend," and some favourable sketches of jewish character in the lower class, in some articles in "all the year round." [sidenote: mr. ouvry.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday night, july th, ._ my dear ouvry, i have had some undefined idea that you were to let me know if you were coming to the archæologs at rochester. (i myself am keeping out of their way, as having had enough of crowding and speech-making in london.) will you tell me where you are, whether you are in this neighbourhood or out of it, whether you will come here on saturday and stay till monday or till tuesday morning? if you will come, i _know_ i can give you the heartiest welcome in kent, and i _think_ i can give you the best wine in this part of it. send me a word in reply. i will fetch you from anywhere, at any indicated time. we have very pretty places in the neighbourhood, and are not uncomfortable people (i believe) to stay with. faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: mr. charles reade.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, sept. th, ._ my dear reade, i _must_ write you one line to say how interested i am in your story, and to congratulate you upon its admirable art and its surprising grace and vigour. and to hint my hope, at the same time, that you will be able to find leisure for a little dash for the christmas number. it would be a really great and true pleasure to me if you could. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, oct. th, ._ my dearest georgy, you will see by to-day's _times_ that it _was_ an earthquake that shook me, and that my watch showed exactly the same time as the man's who writes from blackheath so near us--twenty minutes past three. it is a great satisfaction to me to make it out so precisely; i wish you would enquire whether the servants felt it. i thought it was the voice of the cook that answered me, but that was nearly half an hour later. i am strongly inclined to think that there is a peculiar susceptibility in iron--at all events in our part of the country--to the shock, as though there were something magnetic in it. for, whereas my long iron bedstead was so violently shaken, i certainly heard nothing rattle in the room. i will write about my return as soon as i get on with the still unbegun "uncommercial." ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] gad's hill, _sunday, dec. th, ._ my dear wills, i am clear that you took my cold. why didn't you do the thing completely, and take it away from me? for it hangs by me still. will you tell mrs. linton that in looking over her admirable account (_most_ admirable) of mrs. gordon's book, i have taken out the references to lockhart, not because i in the least doubt their justice, but because i knew him and he liked me; and because one bright day in rome, i walked about with him for some hours when he was dying fast, and all the old faults had faded out of him, and the now ghost of the handsome man i had first known when scott's daughter was at the head of his house, had little more to do with this world than she in her grave, or scott in his, or small hugh littlejohn in his. lockhart had been anxious to see me all the previous day (when i was away on the campagna), and as we walked about i knew very well that _he_ knew very well why. he talked of getting better, but i never saw him again. this makes me stay mrs. linton's hand, gentle as it is. mrs. lirriper is indeed a most brilliant old lady. god bless her. i am glad to hear of your being "haunted," and hope to increase your stock of such ghosts pretty liberally. ever faithfully. footnotes: [ ] alluding to a translation of a play by m. maquet, which m. fechter was then preparing for his theatre. [ ] now mrs. dallas glyn. [ ] formerly miss talfourd. [ ] his travelling journal. [ ] answer to letter from jewish lady, remonstrating with him on injustice to the jews, shown in the character of fagin, and asking for subscription for the benefit of the jewish poor. . narrative. charles dickens was, as usual, at gad's hill, with a family and friendly party, at the opening of this year, and had been much shocked and distressed by the news of the sudden death of mr. thackeray, brought to him by friends arriving from london on the christmas eve of , the day on which the sad event happened. he writes of it, in the first letter of the year, to mr. wilkie collins, who was passing the winter in italy. he tells him, also, of his having got well to work upon a new serial story, the first number of which ("our mutual friend") was published on the st of may. the year began very sadly for charles dickens. on the th of february (his own birthday) he received the mournful announcement of the death of his second son, walter landor (a lieutenant in the nd royal highlanders), who had died quite suddenly at calcutta, on the last night of the year of , at the age of twenty-three. his third son, francis jeffrey, had started for india at the end of january. his annual letter to m. de cerjat contains an allusion to "another generation beginning to peep above the table"--the children of his son charles, who had been married three years before, to miss bessie evans. in the middle of february he removed to a house in london ( , gloucester place, hyde park), where he made a stay of the usual duration, up to the middle of june, all the time being hard at work upon "our mutual friend" and "all the year round." mr. marcus stone was the illustrator of the new monthly work, and we give a specimen of one of many letters which he wrote to him about his "subjects." his old friend, mr. charles knight, with whom for many years charles dickens had dined on his birthday, was staying, this spring, in the isle of wight. to him he writes of the death of walter, and of another sad death which happened at this time, and which affected him almost as much. clara, the last surviving daughter of mr. and mrs. white, who had been happily married to mr. gordon, of cluny, not more than two years, had just died at bonchurch. her father, as will be seen by the touching allusion to him in this letter, had died a short time after this daughter's marriage. a letter to mr. edmund ollier has reference to certain additions which charles dickens wished him to make to an article (by mr. ollier) on working men's clubs, published in "all the year round." we are glad to have one letter to the lord chief baron, sir frederick pollock, which shows the great friendship and regard charles dickens had for him, and his admiration of his qualities in his judicial capacity. we give a pleasant letter to mrs. storrar, for whom, and for her husband, dr. storrar, charles dickens had affectionate regard, because we are glad to have their names in our book. the letter speaks for itself and needs no explanation. the latter part of the year was uneventful. hard at work, he passed the summer and autumn at gad's hill, taking holidays by receiving visitors at home (among them, this year, sir j. emerson tennent, his wife and daughter, who were kindly urgent for his paying them a return visit in ireland) and occasional "runs" into france. the last letters we give are his annual one to m. de cerjat, and a graceful little new year's note to his dear old friend "barry cornwall." the christmas number was "mrs. lirriper's legacy," the first and last part written by himself, as in the case of the previous year's "mrs. lirriper." [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] gad's hill, _monday, jan. th, ._ extract. my dear wilkie, i am horribly behindhand in answering your welcome letter; but i have been so busy, and have had the house so full for christmas and the new year, and have had so much to see to in getting frank out to india, that i have not been able to settle down to a regular long letter, which i mean this to be, but which it may not turn out to be, after all. first, i will answer your enquiries about the christmas number and the new book. the christmas number has been the greatest success of all; has shot ahead of last year; has sold about two hundred and twenty thousand; and has made the name of mrs. lirriper so swiftly and domestically famous as never was. i had a very strong belief in her when i wrote about her, finding that she made a great effect upon me; but she certainly has gone beyond my hopes. (probably you know nothing about her? which is a very unpleasant consideration.) of the new book, i have done the two first numbers, and am now beginning the third. it is a combination of drollery with romance which requires a great deal of pains and a perfect throwing away of points that might be amplified; but i hope it is _very good_. i confess, in short, that i think it is. strange to say, i felt at first quite dazed in getting back to the large canvas and the big brushes; and even now, i have a sensation as of acting at the san carlo after tavistock house, which i could hardly have supposed would have come upon so old a stager. you will have read about poor thackeray's death--sudden, and yet not sudden, for he had long been alarmingly ill. at the solicitation of mr. smith and some of his friends, i have done what i would most gladly have excused myself from doing, if i felt i could--written a couple of pages about him in what was his own magazine. concerning the italian experiment, de la rue is more hopeful than you. he and his bank are closely leagued with the powers at turin, and he has long been devoted to cavour; but he gave me the strongest assurances (with illustrations) of the fusion between place and place, and of the blending of small mutually antagonistic characters into one national character, progressing cheeringly and certainly. of course there must be discouragements and discrepancies in the first struggles of a country previously so degraded and enslaved, and the time, as yet, has been very short. i should like to have a day with you at the coliseum, and on the appian way, and among the tombs, and with the orvieto. but rome and i are wide asunder, physically as well as morally. i wonder whether the dramatic stable, where we saw the marionettes, still receives the roman public? and lord! when i think of you in that hotel, how i think of poor dear egg in the long front drawing-room, giving on to the piazza, posting up that wonderful necromantic volume which we never shall see opened! [sidenote: mr. marcus stone.] , gloucester place, hyde park,, hyde park, _tuesday, feb. rd, ._ my dear marcus, i think the design for the cover _excellent_, and do not doubt its coming out to perfection. the slight alteration i am going to suggest originates in a business consideration not to be overlooked. the word "our" in the title must be out in the open like "mutual friend," making the title three distinct large lines--"our" as big as "mutual friend." this would give you too much design at the bottom. i would therefore take out the dustman, and put the wegg and boffin composition (which is capital) in its place. i don't want mr. inspector or the murder reward bill, because these points are sufficiently indicated in the river at the top. therefore you can have an indication of the dustman in mr. inspector's place. note, that the dustman's face should be droll, and not horrible. twemlow's elbow will still go out of the frame as it does now, and the same with lizzie's skirts on the opposite side. with these changes, work away! mrs. boffin, as i judge of her from the sketch, "very good, indeed." i want boffin's oddity, without being at all blinked, to be an oddity of a very honest kind, that people will like. the doll's dressmaker is immensely better than she was. i think she should now come extremely well. a weird sharpness not without beauty is the thing i want. affectionately always. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] , gloucester place, w., _tuesday, march st, ._ my dear knight, we knew of your being in the isle of wight, and had said that we should have this year to drink your health in your absence. rely on my being always ready and happy to renew our old friendship in the flesh. in the spirit it needs no renewal, because it has no break. ah, poor mrs. white! a sad, sad story! it is better for poor white that that little churchyard by the sea received his ashes a while ago, than that he should have lived to this time. my poor boy was on his way home from an up-country station, on sick leave. he had been very ill, but was not so at the time. he was talking to some brother-officers in the calcutta hospital about his preparations for home, when he suddenly became excited, had a rush of blood from the mouth, and was dead. his brother frank would arrive out at calcutta, expecting to see him after six years, and he would have been dead a month. my "working life" is resolving itself at the present into another book, in twenty green leaves. you work like a trojan at ventnor, but you do that everywhere; and that's why you are so young. mary and georgina unite in kindest regard to you, and to mrs. knight, and to your daughters. so do i. and i am ever, my dear knight, affectionately yours. p.s.--serene view! what a placid address! [sidenote: mr. edmund ollier.] "all the year round" office, _march, ._ extract. i want the article on "working men's clubs" to refer back to "the poor man and his beer" in no. , and to maintain the principle involved in that effort. also, emphatically, to show that trustfulness is at the bottom of all social institutions, and that to trust a man, as one of a body of men, is to place him under a wholesome restraint of social opinion, and is a very much better thing than to make a baby of him. also, to point out that the rejection of beer in this club, tobacco in that club, dancing or what-not in another club, are instances that such clubs are founded on mere whims, and therefore cannot successfully address human nature in the general, and hope to last. also, again to urge that patronage is the curse and blight of all such endeavours, and to impress upon the working men that they must originate and manage for themselves. and to ask them the question, can they possibly show their detestation of drunkenness better, or better strive to get rid of it from among them, than to make it a hopeless disqualification in all their clubs, and a reason for expulsion. also, to encourage them to declare to themselves and their fellow working men that they want social rest and social recreation for themselves and their families; and that these clubs are intended for that laudable and necessary purpose, and do not need educational pretences or flourishes. do not let them be afraid or ashamed of wanting to be amused and pleased. [sidenote: the lord chief baron.] , gloucester place, _tuesday, march th, ._ my dear chief baron, many thanks for your kind letter, which i find on my return from a week's holiday. your answer concerning poor thackeray i will duly make known to the active spirit in that matter, mr. shirley brooks. your kind invitation to me to come and see you and yours, and hear the nightingales, i shall not fail to discuss with forster, and with an eye to spring. i expect to see him presently; the rather as i found a note from him when i came back yesterday, describing himself somewhat gloomily as not having been well, and as feeling a little out of heart. it is not out of order, i hope, to remark that you have been much in my thoughts and on my lips lately? for i really have not been able to repress my admiration of the vigorous dignity and sense and spirit, with which one of the best of judges set right one of the dullest of juries in a recent case. believe me ever, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] , gloucester place, _tuesday, march th, ._ my dear forster, i meant to write to you last night, but to enable wills to get away i had to read a book of fitzgerald's through before i went to bed. concerning eliot, i sat down, as i told you, and read the book through with the strangest interest and the highest admiration. i believe it to be as honest, spirited, patient, reliable, and gallant a piece of biography as ever was written, the care and pains of it astonishing, the completeness of it masterly; and what i particularly feel about it is that the dignity of the man, and the dignity of the book that tells about the man, always go together, and fit each other. this same quality has always impressed me as the great leading speciality of the goldsmith, and enjoins sympathy with the subject, knowledge of it, and pursuit of it in its own spirit; but i think it even more remarkable here. i declare that apart from the interest of having been so put into the time, and enabled to understand it, i personally feel quite as much the credit and honour done to literature by such a book. it quite clears out of the remembrance a thousand pitiful things, and sets one up in heart again. i am not surprised in the least by bulwer's enthusiasm. i was as confident about the effect of the book when i closed the first volume, as i was when i closed the second with a full heart. no man less in earnest than eliot himself could have done it, and i make bold to add that it never could have been done by a man who was so distinctly born to do the work as eliot was to do his. saturday at hastings i must give up. i have wavered and considered, and considered and wavered, but if i take that sort of holiday, i must have a day to spare after it, and at this critical time i have not. if i were to lose a page of the five numbers i have purposed to myself to be ready by the publication day, i should feel that i had fallen short. i have grown hard to satisfy, and write very slowly, and i have so much bad fiction, that _will_ be thought of when i don't want to think of it, that i am forced to take more care than i ever took. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mrs. storrar.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday morning, may th, ._ my dear mrs. storrar, our family dinner must come off at gad's hill, where i have improvements to exhibit, and where i shall be truly pleased to see you and the doctor again. i have deferred answering your note, while i have been scheming and scheming for a day between this time and our departure. but it is all in vain. my engagements have accumulated, and become such a whirl, that no day is left me. nothing is left me but to get away. i look forward to my release from this dining life with an inexpressible longing after quiet and my own pursuits. what with public speechifying, private eating and drinking, and perpetual simmering in hot rooms, i have made london too hot to hold me and my work together. mary and georgina acknowledge the condition of imbecility to which we have become reduced in reference to your kind reminder. they say, when i stare at them in a forlorn way with your note in my hand: "what can you do!" to which i can only reply, implicating them: "see what you have brought me to!" with our united kind regard to yourself and dr. storrar, i entreat your pity and compassion for an unfortunate wretch whom a too-confiding disposition has brought to this pass. if i had not allowed my "cheeild" to pledge me to all manner of fellow-creatures, i and my digestion might have been in a state of honourable independence this day. faithfully and penitently yours. [sidenote: mr. percy fitzgerald.] office of "all the year round," etc. etc. etc. _wednesday, july th, ._ my dear mr. fitzgerald, first, let me assure you that it gave us all real pleasure to see your sister and you at gad's hill, and that we all hope you will both come and stay a day or two with us when you are next in england. next, let me convey to you the intelligence that i resolve to launch "miss manuel," fully confiding in your conviction of the power of the story. on all business points, wills will communicate with you. i purpose beginning its publication in our first september number, therefore there is no time to be lost. the only suggestion i have to make as to the ms. in hand and type is, that captain fermor wants relief. it is a disagreeable character, as you mean it to be, and i should be afraid to do so much with him, if the case were mine, without taking the taste of him, here and there, out of the reader's mouth. it is remarkable that if you do not administer a disagreeable character carefully, the public have a decided tendency to think that the _story_ is disagreeable, and not merely the fictitious person. what do you think of the title, never forgotten? it is a good one in itself, would express the eldest sister's pursuit, and glanced at now and then in the text, would hold the reader in suspense. i would propose to add the line, by the author of bella donna. let me know your opinion as to the title. i need not assure you that the greatest care will be taken of you here, and that we shall make you as thoroughly well and widely known as we possibly can. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: sir james emerson tennent.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _friday, aug. th, ._ my dear tennent, believe me, i fully intended to come to you--did not doubt that i should come--and have greatly disappointed mary and her aunt, as well as myself, by not coming. but i do not feel safe in going out for a visit. the mere knowledge that i had such a thing before me would put me out. it is not the length of time consumed, or the distance traversed, but it is the departure from a settled habit and a continuous sacrifice of pleasures that comes in question. this is an old story with me. i have never divided a book of my writing with anything else, but have always wrought at it to the exclusion of everything else; and it is now too late to change. after receiving your kind note i resolved to make another trial. but the hot weather and a few other drawbacks did not mend the matter, for i have dropped astern this month instead of going ahead. so i have seen forster, and shown him my chains, and am reduced to taking exercise in them, like baron trenck. i am heartily pleased that you set so much store by the dedication. you may be sure that it does not make me the less anxious to take pains, and to work out well what i have in my mind. mary and georgina unite with me in kindest regards to lady tennent and miss tennent, and wish me to report that while they are seriously disappointed, they still feel there is no help for it. i can testify that they had great pleasure in the anticipation of the visit, and that their faces were very long and blank indeed when i began to hint my doubts. they fought against them valiantly as long as there was a chance, but they see my difficulty as well as anyone not myself can. believe me, my dear tennent, ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield, r.a.] the athenÆum, _wednesday, sept. st, ._ my dear stanny, i met george in the street a few days ago, and he gave me a wonderful account of the effect of your natural element upon you at ramsgate. i expect you to come back looking about twenty-nine, and feeling about nineteen. this morning i have looked in here to put down fechter as a candidate, on the chance of the committee's electing him some day or other. he is a most devoted worshipper of yours, and would take it as a great honour if you would second him. supposing you to have not the least objection (of course, if you should have any, i can in a moment provide a substitute), will you write your name in the candidates' book as his seconder when you are next in town and passing this way? lastly, if you should be in town on his opening night (a saturday, and in all probability the nd of october), will you come and dine at the office and see his new piece? you have not yet "pronounced" in the matter of that new french stage of his, on which calcott for the said new piece has built up all manner of villages, camps, versailles gardens, etc. etc. etc. etc., with no wings, no flies, no looking off in any direction. if you tell me that you are to be in town by that time, i will not fail to refresh your memory as to the precise day. with kind regard to mrs. stanfield, believe me, my dear old boy, ever your affectionate dick. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, _tuesday, oct. th, ._ my dear cerjat, here is a limping brute of a reply to your always-welcome christmas letter! but, as usual, when i have done my day's work, i jump up from my desk and rush into air and exercise, and find letter-writing the most difficult thing in my daily life. i hope that your asthmatic tendencies may not be strong just now; but townshend's account of the premature winter at lausanne is not encouraging, and with us here in england all such disorders have been aggravated this autumn. however, a man of your dignity _must_ have either asthma or gout, and i hope you have got the better of the two. in london there is, as you see by the papers, extraordinarily little news. at present the apprehension (rather less than it was thought) of a commercial crisis, and the trial of müller next thursday, are the two chief sensations. i hope that gentleman will be hanged, and have hardly a doubt of it, though croakers contrariwise are not wanting. it is difficult to conceive any other line of defence than that the circumstances proved, taken separately, are slight. but a sound judge will immediately charge the jury that the strength of the circumstances lies in their being put together, and will thread them together on a fatal rope. as to the church, my friend, i am sick of it. the spectacle presented by the indecent squabbles of priests of most denominations, and the exemplary unfairness and rancour with which they conduct their differences, utterly repel me. and the idea of the protestant establishment, in the face of its own history, seeking to trample out discussion and private judgment, is an enormity so cool, that i wonder the right reverends, very reverends, and all other reverends, who commit it, can look in one another's faces without laughing, as the old soothsayers did. perhaps they can't and don't. how our sublime and so-different christian religion is to be administered in the future i cannot pretend to say, but that the church's hand is at its own throat i am fully convinced. here, more popery, there, more methodism--as many forms of consignment to eternal damnation as there are articles, and all in one forever quarrelling body--the master of the new testament put out of sight, and the rage and fury almost always turning on the letter of obscure parts of the old testament, which itself has been the subject of accommodation, adaptation, varying interpretation without end--these things cannot last. the church that is to have its part in the coming time must be a more christian one, with less arbitrary pretensions and a stronger hold upon the mantle of our saviour, as he walked and talked upon this earth. of family intelligence i have very little. charles collins continuing in a very poor way, and showing no signs of amendment. he and my daughter katie went to wiesbaden and thence to nice, where they are now. i have strong apprehensions that he will never recover, and that she will be left a young widow. all the rest are as they were. mary neither married nor going to be; georgina holding them all together and perpetually corresponding with the distant ones; occasional rallyings coming off here, in which another generation begins to peep above the table. i once used to think what a horrible thing it was to be a grandfather. finding that the calamity falls upon me without my perceiving any other change in myself, i bear it like a man. mrs. watson has bought a house in town, to which she repairs in the season, for the bringing out of her daughter. she is now at rockingham. her eldest son is said to be as good an eldest son as ever was, and to make her position there a perfectly independent and happy one. i have not seen him for some years; her i often see; but he ought to be a good fellow, and is very popular in his neighbourhood. i have altered this place very much since you were here, and have made a pretty (i think an unusually pretty) drawing-room. i wish you would come back and see it. my being on the dover line, and my being very fond of france, occasion me to cross the channel perpetually. whenever i feel that i have worked too much, or am on the eve of overdoing it, and want a change, away i go by the mail-train, and turn up in paris or anywhere else that suits my humour, next morning. so i come back as fresh as a daisy, and preserve as ruddy a face as though i never leant over a sheet of paper. when i retire from a literary life i think of setting up as a channel pilot. pray give my love to mrs. cerjat, and tell her that i should like to go up the great st. bernard again, and shall be glad to know if she is open to another ascent. old days in switzerland are ever fresh to me, and sometimes i walk with you again, after dark, outside the hotel at martigny, while lady mary taylour (wasn't it?) sang within very prettily. lord, how the time goes! how many years ago! affectionately yours. _wednesday, nov. th, ._[ ] dear madam, i have received your letter with great pleasure, and hope to be (as i have always been at heart) the best of friends with the jewish people. the error you point out to me had occurred to me, as most errors do to most people, when it was too late to correct it. but it will do no harm. the peculiarities of dress and manner are fused together for the sake of picturesqueness. dear madam, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. b. w. procter.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, dec. st, ._ my dear procter, i have reserved my acknowledgment of your delightful note (the youngest note i have had in all this year) until to-day, in order that i might send, most heartily and affectionately, all seasonable good wishes to you and to mrs. procter, and to those who are nearest and dearest to you. take them from an old friend who loves you. mamie returns the tender compliments, and georgina does what the americans call "endorse them." mrs. lirriper is proud to be so remembered, and says over and over again "that it's worth twenty times the trouble she has taken with the narrative, since barry cornwall, esquire, is pleased to like it." i got rid of a touch of neuralgia in france (as i always do there), but i found no old friends in my voyages of discovery on that side, such as i have left on this. my dear procter, ever your affectionate. footnotes: [ ] in answer to another letter from the "jewish lady," in which she gives her reasons for still being dissatisfied with the character of riah. . narrative. for this spring a furnished house in somer's place, hyde park, had been taken, which charles dickens occupied, with his sister-in-law and daughter, from the beginning of march until june. during the year he paid two short visits to france. he was still at work upon "our mutual friend," two numbers of which had been issued in january and february, when the first volume was published, with dedication to sir james emerson tennent. the remaining numbers were issued between march and november, when the complete work was published in two volumes. the christmas number, to which charles dickens contributed three stories, was called "doctor marigold's prescriptions." being out of health, and much overworked, charles dickens, at the end of may, took his first short holiday trip into france. and on his way home, and on a day afterwards so fatal to him, the th of june, he was in that most terrible railway accident at staplehurst. many of our letters for this year have reference to this awful experience--an experience from the effects of which his nerves never wholly recovered. his letters to mr. thomas mitton and to mrs. hulkes (an esteemed friend and neighbour) are graphic descriptions of this disaster. but they do not tell of the wonderful presence of mind and energy shown by charles dickens when most of the terrified passengers were incapable of thought or action, or of his gentleness and goodness to the dead and dying. the mr. dickenson[ ] mentioned in the letter to mrs. hulkes soon recovered. he always considers that he owes his life to charles dickens, the latter having discovered and extricated him from beneath a carriage before it was too late. our first letter to mr. kent is one of congratulation upon his having become the proprietor of _the sun_ newspaper. professor owen has been so kind as to give us some notes, which we publish for the sake of his great name. charles dickens had not much correspondence with professor owen, but there was a firm friendship and great mutual admiration between them. the letter to mrs. procter is in answer to one from her, asking charles dickens to write a memoir of her daughter adelaide, as a preface to a collected edition of her poems. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, jan. th, ._ my dear kent, i meant to have written instantly on the appearance of your paper in its beautiful freshness, to congratulate you on its handsome appearance, and to send you my heartiest good wishes for its thriving and prosperous career. through a mistake of the postman's, that remarkable letter has been tesselated into the infernal pavement instead of being delivered in the strand. we have been looking and waiting for your being well enough to propose yourself for a mouthful of fresh air. are you well enough to come on sunday? we shall be coming down from charing cross on sunday morning, and i shall be going up again at nine on monday morning. it amuses me to find that you don't see your way with a certain "mutual friend" of ours. i have a horrible suspicion that you may begin to be fearfully knowing at somewhere about no. or . but you shan't if i can help it. your note delighted me because it dwelt upon the places in the number that _i_ dwell on. not that that is anything new in your case, but it is always new to me in the pleasure i derive from it, which is truly inexpressible. ever cordially yours. [sidenote: mrs. procter.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, feb. th, ._ my dear mrs. procter, of course i will do it, and of course i will do it for the love of you and procter. you can give me my brief, and we can speak about its details. once again, of course i will do it, and with all my heart. i have registered a vow (in which there is not the least merit, for i couldn't help it) that when i am, as i am now, very hard at work upon a book, i never will dine out more than one day in a week. why didn't you ask me for the wednesday, before i stood engaged to lady molesworth for the tuesday? it is so delightful to me to sit by your side anywhere and be brightened up, that i lay a handsome sacrifice upon the altar of "our mutual friend" in writing this note, very much against my will. but for as many years as can be made consistent with my present juvenility, i always have given my work the first place in my life, and what can i do now at !--or at least at the two figures, never mind their order. i send my love to procter, hoping you may appropriate a little of it by the way. affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, march st, ._ my dearest macready, i have been laid up here with a frost-bitten foot (from hard walking in the snow), or you would have heard from me sooner. my reply to professor agassiz is short, but conclusive. daily seeing improper uses made of confidential letters in the addressing of them to a public audience that have no business with them, i made not long ago a great fire in my field at gad's hill, and burnt every letter i possessed. and now i always destroy every letter i receive not on absolute business, and my mind is so far at ease. poor dear felton's letters went up into the air with the rest, or his highly distinguished representative should have had them most willingly. we never fail to drink old p.'s health on his birthday, or to make him the subject of a thousand loving remembrances. with best love to mrs. macready and katie, ever, my dearest macready, your most affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] , somer's place, hyde park, _saturday night, april nd, ._ my dearest macready, a thousand thanks for your kind letter, most heartily welcome. my frost-bitten foot, after causing me great inconvenience and much pain, has begun to conduct itself amiably. i can now again walk my ten miles in the morning without inconvenience, but am absurdly obliged to sit shoeless all the evening--a very slight penalty, as i detest going out to dinner (which killed the original old parr by-the-bye). i am working like a dragon at my book, and am a terror to the household, likewise to all the organs and brass bands in this quarter. gad's hill is being gorgeously painted, and we are here until the st of june. i wish i might hope you would be there any time this summer; i really _have_ made the place comfortable and pretty by this time. it is delightful to us to hear such good news of butty. she made so deep an impression on fechter that he always asks me what ceylon has done for her, and always beams when i tell him how thoroughly well it has made her. as to _you_, you are the youngest man (worth mentioning as a thorough man) that i know. oh, let me be as young when i am as----did you think i was going to write "old?" no, sir--withdrawn from the wear and tear of busy life is my expression. poole still holds out at kentish town, and says he is dying of solitude. his memory is astoundingly good. i see him about once in two or three months, and in the meantime he makes notes of questions to ask me when i come. having fallen in arrear of the time, these generally refer to unknown words he has encountered in the newspapers. his three last (he always reads them with tremendous difficulty through an enormous magnifying-glass) were as follows: . what's croquet? . what's an albert chain? . let me know the state of mind of the queen. when i had delivered a neat exposition on these heads, he turned back to his memoranda, and came to something that the utmost power of the enormous magnifying-glass couldn't render legible. after a quarter of an hour or so, he said: "o yes, i know." and then rose and clasped his hands above his head, and said: "thank god, i am not a dram-drinker." do think of coming to gad's in the summer; and do give my love to mrs. macready, and tell her i know she can make you come if she will. mary and georgy send best and dearest loves to her, to you, and to katie, and to baby. johnny we suppose to be climbing the tree of knowledge elsewhere. my dearest macready, ever yours most affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] gad's hill, _monday, june th, ._ my dearest macready, [_so far in his own writing._] many thanks for your kind words of remembrance.[ ] this is not all in my own hand, because i am too much shaken to write many notes. not by the beating and dragging of the carriage in which i was--it did not go over, but was caught on the turn, among the ruins of the bridge--but by the work afterwards to get out the dying and dead, which was terrible. [_the rest in his own writing_.] ever your affectionate friend. p.s.--my love to mrs. macready. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, june th, ._ my dear mitton, i should have written to you yesterday or the day before, if i had been quite up to writing. i was in the only carriage that did not go over into the stream. it was caught upon the turn by some of the ruin of the bridge, and hung suspended and balanced in an apparently impossible manner. two ladies were my fellow-passengers, an old one and a young one. this is exactly what passed. you may judge from it the precise length of the suspense: suddenly we were off the rail, and beating the ground as the car of a half-emptied balloon might. the old lady cried out, "my god!" and the young one screamed. i caught hold of them both (the old lady sat opposite and the young one on my left), and said: "we can't help ourselves, but we can be quiet and composed. pray don't cry out." the old lady immediately answered: "thank you. rely upon me. upon my soul i will be quiet." we were then all tilted down together in a corner of the carriage, and stopped. i said to them thereupon: "you may be sure nothing worse can happen. our danger _must_ be over. will you remain here without stirring, while i get out of the window?" they both answered quite collectedly, "yes," and i got out without the least notion what had happened. fortunately i got out with great caution and stood upon the step. looking down i saw the bridge gone, and nothing below me but the line of rail. some people in the two other compartments were madly trying to plunge out at window, and had no idea that there was an open swampy field fifteen feet down below them, and nothing else! the two guards (one with his face cut) were running up and down on the down side of the bridge (which was not torn up) quite wildly. i called out to them: "look at me. do stop an instant and look at me, and tell me whether you don't know me." one of them answered: "we know you very well, mr. dickens." "then," i said, "my good fellow, for god's sake give me your key, and send one of those labourers here, and i'll empty this carriage." we did it quite safely, by means of a plank or two, and when it was done i saw all the rest of the train, except the two baggage vans, down in the stream. i got into the carriage again for my brandy flask, took off my travelling hat for a basin, climbed down the brickwork, and filled my hat with water. suddenly i came upon a staggering man covered with blood (i think he must have been flung clean out of his carriage), with such a frightful cut across the skull that i couldn't bear to look at him. i poured some water over his face and gave him some to drink, then gave him some brandy, and laid him down on the grass, and he said, "i am gone," and died afterwards. then i stumbled over a lady lying on her back against a little pollard-tree, with the blood streaming over her face (which was lead colour) in a number of distinct little streams from the head. i asked her if she could swallow a little brandy and she just nodded, and i gave her some and left her for somebody else. the next time i passed her she was dead. then a man, examined at the inquest yesterday (who evidently had not the least remembrance of what really passed), came running up to me and implored me to help him find his wife, who was afterwards found dead. no imagination can conceive the ruin of the carriages, or the extraordinary weights under which the people were lying, or the complications into which they were twisted up among iron and wood, and mud and water. i don't want to be examined at the inquest, and i don't want to write about it. i could do no good either way, and i could only seem to speak about myself, which, of course, i would rather not do. i am keeping very quiet here. i have a--i don't know what to call it--constitutional (i suppose) presence of mind, and was not in the least fluttered at the time. i instantly remembered that i had the ms. of a number with me, and clambered back into the carriage for it. but in writing these scanty words of recollection i feel the shake and am obliged to stop. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. walter jones.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, june th, _.[ ] sir, i beg you to assure the committee of the newsvendors' benevolent and provident institution, that i have been deeply affected by their special remembrance of me in my late escape from death or mutilation, and that i thank them with my whole heart. faithfully yours and theirs. [sidenote: mrs. hulkes.] gad's hill, _sunday, june th, ._ my dear mrs. hulkes, i return the _examiner_ with many thanks. the account is true, except that i _had_ brandy. by an extraordinary chance i had a bottle and a half with me. i slung the half-bottle round my neck, and carried my hat full of water in my hands. but i can understand the describer (whoever he is) making the mistake in perfect good faith, and supposing that i called for brandy, when i really called to the others who were helping: "i have brandy here." the mr. dickenson mentioned had changed places with a frenchman, who did not like the window down, a few minutes before the accident. the frenchman was killed, and a labourer and i got mr. dickenson out of a most extraordinary heap of dark ruins, in which he was jammed upside down. he was bleeding at the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth; but he didn't seem to know that afterwards, and of course i didn't tell him. in the moment of going over the viaduct the whole of his pockets were shaken empty! he had no watch, no chain, no money, no pocket-book, no handkerchief, when we got him out. he had been choking a quarter of an hour when i heard him groaning. if i had not had the brandy to give him at the moment, i think he would have been done for. as it was, i brought him up to london in the carriage with me, and couldn't make him believe he was hurt. he was the first person whom the brandy saved. as i ran back to the carriage for the whole full bottle, i saw the first two people i had helped lying dead. a bit of shade from the hot sun, into which we got the unhurt ladies, soon had as many dead in it as living. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. arthur ryland.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, june st, ._ my dear mr. ryland, i need not assure you that i regard the unanimous desire of the town council committee as a great honour, and that i feel the strongest interest in the occasion, and the strongest wish to associate myself with it. but, after careful consideration, i most unwillingly come to the conclusion that i must decline. at the time in question i shall, please god, either have just finished, or be just finishing, my present book. country rest and reflection will then be invaluable to me, before casting about for christmas. i am a little shaken in my nervous system by the terrible and affecting incidents of the late railway accident, from which i bodily escaped. i am withdrawing myself from engagements of all kinds, in order that i may pursue my story with the comfortable sense of being perfectly free while it is a-doing, and when it is done. the consciousness of having made this engagement would, if i were to make it, render such sense incomplete, and so open the way to others. this is the real state of the case, and the whole reason for my declining. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mrs. lehmann.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, june th, ._ dear mrs. lehmann, come (with self and partner) on either of the days you name, and you will be heartily welcomed by the humble youth who now addresses you, and will then cast himself at your feet. i am quite right again, i thank god, and have even got my voice back; i most unaccountably brought somebody else's out of that terrible scene. the directors have sent me a resolution of thanks for assistance to the unhappy passengers. with kind regards to lehmann, ever yours. [sidenote: mr. percy fitzgerald.] office of "all the year round," _friday, july th, ._ my dear fitzgerald, i shall be delighted to see you at gad's hill on sunday, and i hope you will bring a bag with you and will not think of returning to london at night. we are a small party just now, for my daughter mary has been decoyed to andover for the election week, in the conservative interest; think of my feelings as a radical parent! the wrong-headed member and his wife are the friends with whom she hunts, and she helps to receive (and _de_ceive) the voters, which is very awful! but in the week after next we shall be in great croquet force. i shall hope to persuade you to come back to us then for a few days, and we will try to make you some amends for a dull sunday. turn it over in your mind and try to manage it. sincerely yours ever. [sidenote: professor owen, f.r.s.] gad's hill, _wednesday, july th, ._ my dear owen, studying the gorilla last night for the twentieth time, it suddenly came into my head that i had never thanked you for that admirable treatise. this is to bear witness to my blushes and repentance. if you knew how much interest it has awakened in me, and how often it has set me a-thinking, you would consider me a more thankless beast than any gorilla that ever lived. but happily you do _not_ know, and i am not going to tell you. believe me, ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: the earl russell.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, aug. th, ._ my dear lord russell, mr. dallas, who is a candidate for the scotch professional chair left vacant by aytoun's death, has asked me if i would object to introduce to you the first volume of a book he has in the press with my publishers, on "the gay science of art and criticism." i have replied i would _not_ object, as i have read as many of the sheets as i could get, with extreme pleasure, and as i know you will find it a very winning and brilliant piece of writing. therefore he will send the proofs of the volume to you as soon as he can get them from the printer (at about the end of this week i take it), and if you read them you will not be hard upon me for bearing the responsibility of his doing so, i feel assured. i suppose mr. dallas to have some impression that his pleasing you with his book might advance his scottish suit. but all i know is, that he is a gentleman of great attainments and erudition, much distinguished as the writer of the best critical literary pieces in _the times_, and thoroughly versed in the subjects which professor aytoun represented officially. i beg to send my regard to lady russell and all the house, and am ever, my dear lord russell, your faithful and obliged. p.s.--i am happy to report that my sailor-boy's captain, relinquishing his ship on sick leave, departs from the mere form of certificate given to all the rest, and adds that his obedience to orders is remarkable, and that he is a highly intelligent and promising young officer. [sidenote: mr. marcus stone.] hÔtel du helder, paris, _wednesday, sept. th, ._ my dear marcus, i leave here to-morrow, and propose going to the office by tidal train _next saturday evening_. through the whole of next week, on and off, i shall be at the office; when not there, at gad's; but much oftener at the office. the sooner i can know about the subjects you take for illustration the better, as i can then fill the list of illustrations to the second volume for the printer, and enable him to make up his last sheet. necessarily that list is now left blank, as i cannot give him the titles of the subjects, not knowing them myself. it has been fearfully hot on this side, but is something cooler. ever affectionately yours. p.s.--on glancing over this note, i find it very like the king's love-letter in "ruy blas." "madam, there is a high wind. i have shot six wolves." i think the frontispiece to the second volume should be the dustyard with the three mounds, and mr. boffin digging up the dutch bottle, and venus restraining wegg's ardour to get at him. or mr. boffin might be coming down with the bottle, and venus might be dragging wegg out of the way as described. [sidenote: mr. percy fitzgerald.] office of "all the year round," _saturday, sept. rd, ._ my dear fitzgerald, i cannot thank you too much for sultan. he is a noble fellow, has fallen into the ways of the family with a grace and dignity that denote the gentleman, and came down to the railway a day or two since to welcome me home (it was our first meeting), with a profound absence of interest in my individual opinion of him which captivated me completely. i am going home to-day to take him about the country, and improve his acquaintance. you will find a perfect understanding between us, i hope, when you next come to gad's hill. (he has only swallowed bouncer once, and temporarily.) your hint that you were getting on with your story and liked it was more than golden intelligence to me in foreign parts. the intensity of the heat, both in paris and the provinces, was such that i found nothing else so refreshing in the course of my rambles. with many more thanks for the dog than my sheet of paper would hold, believe me, ever very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. procter.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sept. th, ._ my dear mrs. procter, i have written the little introduction, and have sent it to my printer, in order that you may read it without trouble. but if you would like to keep the few pages of ms., of course they are yours. it is brief, and i have aimed at perfect simplicity, and an avoidance of all that your beloved adelaide would have wished avoided. do not expect too much from it. if there should be anything wrong in fact, or anything that you would like changed for any reason, _of course you will tell me so_, and of course you will not deem it possible that you can trouble me by making any such request most freely. you will probably receive the proof either on friday or saturday. don't write to me until you have read it. in the meantime i send you back the two books, with the two letters in the bound one. with love to procter, ever your affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. edmund yates.] hÔtel du helder, paris, _wednesday, sept. th, ._ my dear edmund, i leave here to-morrow and purpose being at the office on saturday night; all next week i shall be there, off and on--"off" meaning gad's hill; the office will be my last address. the heat has been excessive on this side of the channel, and i got a slight sunstroke last thursday, and was obliged to be doctored and put to bed for a day; but, thank god, i am all right again. the man who sells the _tisane_ on the boulevards can't keep the flies out of his glasses, and as he wears them on his red velvet bands, the flies work themselves into the ends of the tumblers, trying to get through and tickle the man. if fly life were long enough, i think they would at last. three paving blouses came to work at the corner of this street last monday, pulled up a bit of road, sat down to look at it, and fell asleep. on tuesday one of the blouses spat on his hands and seemed to be going to begin, but didn't. the other two have shown no sign of life whatever. this morning the industrious one ate a loaf. you may rely upon this as the latest news from the french capital. faithfully ever. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] , wellington street, _monday, nov. th, ._ my dear kent, _no_, i _won't_ write in this book, because i have sent another to the binder's for you. i have been unwell with a relaxed throat, or i should have written to you sooner to thank you for your dedication, to assure you that it heartily, most heartily, gratifies me, as the sincere tribute of a true and generous heart, and to tell you that i have been charmed with your book itself. i am proud of having given a name to anything so picturesque, so sympathetic and spirited. i hope and believe the "doctor" is nothing but a good 'un. he has perfectly astonished forster, who writes: "neither good, gooder, nor goodest, but super-excellent; all through there is such a relish of you at your best, as i could not have believed in, after a long story." i shall be charmed to see you to-night. ever affectionately. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _november th, ._ extract. my dear cerjat, having achieved my book and my christmas number, and having shaken myself after two years' work, i send you my annual greeting. how are you? asthmatic, i know you will reply; but as my poor father (who was asthmatic, too, and the jolliest of men) used philosophically to say, "one must have something wrong, i suppose, and i like to know what it is." in england we are groaning under the brigandage of the butcher, which is being carried to that height that i think i foresee resistance on the part of the middle-class, and some combination in perspective for abolishing the middleman, whensoever he turns up (which is everywhere) between producer and consumer. the cattle plague is the butcher's stalking-horse, and it is unquestionably worse than it was; but seeing that the great majority of creatures lost or destroyed have been cows, and likewise that the rise in butchers' meat bears no reasonable proportion to the market prices of the beasts, one comes to the conclusion that the public is done. the commission has ended very weakly and ineffectually, as such things in england rather frequently do; and everybody writes to _the times_, and nobody does anything else. if the americans don't embroil us in a war before long it will not be their fault. what with their swagger and bombast, what with their claims for indemnification, what with ireland and fenianism, and what with canada, i have strong apprehensions. with a settled animosity towards the french usurper, i believe him to have always been sound in his desire to divide the states against themselves, and that we were unsound and wrong in "letting i dare not wait upon i would." the jamaica insurrection is another hopeful piece of business. that platform-sympathy with the black--or the native, or the devil--afar off, and that platform indifference to our own countrymen at enormous odds in the midst of bloodshed and savagery, makes me stark wild. only the other day, here was a meeting of jawbones of asses at manchester, to censure the jamaica governor for his manner of putting down the insurrection! so we are badgered about new zealanders and hottentots, as if they were identical with men in clean shirts at camberwell, and were to be bound by pen and ink accordingly. so exeter hall holds us in mortal submission to missionaries, who (livingstone always excepted) are perfect nuisances, and leave every place worse than they found it. of all the many evidences that are visible of our being ill-governed, no one is so remarkable to me as our ignorance of what is going on under our government. what will future generations think of that enormous indian mutiny being ripened without suspicion, until whole regiments arose and killed their officers? a week ago, red tape, half-bouncing and half pooh-poohing what it bounced at, would have scouted the idea of a dublin jail not being able to hold a political prisoner. but for the blacks in jamaica being over-impatient and before their time, the whites might have been exterminated, without a previous hint or suspicion that there was anything amiss. _laissez aller_, and britons never, never, never!---- meantime, if your honour were in london, you would see a great embankment rising high and dry out of the thames on the middlesex shore, from westminster bridge to blackfriars. a really fine work, and really getting on. moreover, a great system of drainage. another really fine work, and likewise really getting on. lastly, a muddle of railways in all directions possible and impossible, with no general public scheme, no general public supervision, enormous waste of money, no fixable responsibility, no accountability but under lord campbell's act. i think of that accident in which i was preserved. before the most furious and notable train in the four-and-twenty hours, the head of a gang of workmen takes up the rails. that train changes its time every day as the tide changes, and that head workman is not provided by the railway company with any clock or watch! lord shaftesbury wrote to me to ask me what i thought of an obligation on railway companies to put strong walls to all bridges and viaducts. i told him, of course, that the force of such a shock would carry away anything that any company could set up, and i added: "ask the minister what _he_ thinks about the votes of the railway interest in the house of commons, and about his being afraid to lay a finger on it with an eye to his majority." i seem to be grumbling, but i am in the best of humours. all goes well with me and mine, thank god. last night my gardener came upon a man in the garden and fired. the man returned the compliment by kicking him in the groin and causing him great pain. i set off, with a great mastiff-bloodhound i have, in pursuit. couldn't find the evil-doer, but had the greatest difficulty in preventing the dog from tearing two policemen down. they were coming towards us with professional mystery, and he was in the air on his way to the throat of an eminently respectable constable when i caught him. my daughter mary and her aunt georgina send kindest regard and remembrance. katey and her husband are going to try london this winter, but i rather doubt (for they are both delicate) their being able to weather it out. it has been blowing here tremendously for a fortnight, but to-day is like a spring day, and plenty of roses are growing over the labourers' cottages. the _great eastern_ lies at her moorings beyond the window where i write these words; looks very dull and unpromising. a dark column of smoke from chatham dockyard, where the iron shipbuilding is in progress, has a greater significance in it, i fancy. [sidenote: miss dickens.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, nov. th, ._ my dearest mamie, as you want to know my views of the sphinx, here they are. but i have only seen it once; and it is so extraordinarily well done, that it ought to be observed closely several times. anyone who attentively notices the flower trick will see that the two little high tables hung with drapery cover each a trap. each of those tables, during that trick, hides a confederate, who changes the paper cone twice. when the cone has been changed as often as is required, the trap is closed and the table can be moved. when the curtain is removed for the performance of the sphinx trick, there is a covered, that is, draped table on the stage, which is never seen before or afterwards. in front of the middle of it, and between it and the audience, stands one of those little draped tables covering a trap; this is a third trap in the centre of the stage. the box for the head is then upon it, and the conjuror takes it off and shows it. the man whose head is afterwards shown in that box is, i conceive, in the table; that is to say, is lying on his chest in the thickness of the table, in an extremely constrained attitude. to get him into the table, and to enable him to use the trap in the table through which his head comes into the box, the two hands of a confederate are necessary. that confederate comes up a trap, and stands in the space afforded by the interval below the stage and the height of the little draped table! his back is towards the audience. the moment he has assisted the hidden man sufficiently, he closes the trap, and the conjuror then immediately removes the little draped table, and also the drapery of the larger table; when he places the box on the last-named table _with the slide on_ for the head to come into it, he stands with his back to the audience and his face to the box, and masks the box considerably to facilitate the insertion of the head. as soon as he knows the head to be in its place, he undraws the slide. when the verses have been spoken and the trick is done, he loses no time in replacing the slide. the curtain is then immediately dropped, because the man cannot otherwise be got out of the table, and has no doubt had quite enough of it. with kindest regards to all at penton, ever your most affectionate. footnotes: [ ] now captain e. newton dickenson. [ ] this was a circular note which he sent in answer to innumerable letters of enquiry, after the accident. [ ] this letter was written in reply to the committee's congratulations upon mr. dickens's escape from the accident to the tidal train from folkestone, at staplehurst, just previous to this date. . narrative. the furnished house hired by charles dickens in the spring of this year was in southwick place, hyde park. having entered into negotiations with the messrs. chappell for a series of readings to be given in london, in the english provinces, in scotland and ireland, charles dickens had no leisure for more than his usual editorial work for "all the year round." he contributed four parts to the christmas number, which was entitled, "mugby junction." for the future all his english readings were given in connection with the messrs. chappell, and never in all his career had he more satisfactory or more pleasant business relations than those connected with these gentlemen. moreover, out of this connection sprang a sincere friendship on both sides. mr. dolby is so constantly mentioned in future letters, that they themselves will tell of the cordial companionship which existed between charles dickens and this able and most obliging "manager." the letter to "lily" was in answer to a child's letter from miss lily benzon, inviting him to a birthday party. the play alluded to in the letter to m. fechter was called "a long strike," and was performed at the lyceum theatre. the "sultan" mentioned in the letter to mr. fitzgerald was a noble irish bloodhound, presented by this gentleman to charles dickens. the story of the dog's death is told in a letter to m. de cerjat, which we give in the following year. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] office of "all the year round," _saturday, jan. th, ._ my dear mary, feeling pretty certain that i shall never answer your letter unless i answer it at once (i got it this morning), here goes! i did not dramatise "the master of ravenswood," though i did a good deal towards and about the piece, having an earnest desire to put scott, for once, upon the stage in his own gallant manner. it is _an enormous success_, and increases in attraction nightly. i have never seen the people in all parts of the house so leaning forward, in lines sloping towards the stage, earnestly and intently attractive, as while the story gradually unfolds itself. but the astonishing circumstance of all is, that miss leclercq (never thought of for lucy till all other lucies had failed) is marvellously good, highly pathetic, and almost unrecognisable in person! what note it touches in her, always dumb until now, i do not pretend to say, but there is no one on the stage who could play the contract scene better, or more simply and naturally, and i find it impossible to see it without crying! almost everyone plays well, the whole is exceedingly picturesque, and there is scarcely a movement throughout, or a look, that is not indicated by scott. so you get a life romance with beautiful illustrations, and i do not expect ever again to see a book take up its bed and walk in like manner. i am charmed to learn that you have had a freeze out of my ghost story. it rather did give me a shiver up the back in the writing. "dr. marigold" has just now accomplished his two hundred thousand. my only other news about myself is that i am doubtful whether to read or not in london this season. if i decide to do it at all, i shall probably do it on a large scale. many happy years to you, my dear mary. so prays your ever affectionate jo. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] gad's hill, _thursday, jan. th, ._ my dear kent, i cannot tell you how grieved we all are here to know that you are suffering again. your patient tone, however, and the hopefulness and forbearance of ferguson's course, gives us some reassurance. apropos of which latter reference i dined with ferguson at the lord mayor's, last tuesday, and had a grimly distracted impulse upon me to defy the toast-master and rush into a speech about him and his noble art, when i sat pining under the imbecility of constitutional and corporational idiots. i did seize him for a moment by the hair of his head (in proposing the lady mayoress), and derived some faint consolation from the company's response to the reference. o! no man will ever know under what provocation to contradiction and a savage yell of repudiation i suffered at the hands of ----, feebly complacent in the uniform of madame tussaud's own military waxers, and almost the worst speaker i ever heard in my life! mary and georgina, sitting on either side of me, urged me to "look pleasant." i replied in expressions not to be repeated. shea (the judge) was just as good and graceful, as he (the member) was bad and gawky. bulwer's "lost tales of miletus" is a most noble book! he is an extraordinary fellow, and fills me with admiration and wonder. it is of no use writing to you about yourself, my dear kent, because you are likely to be tired of that constant companion, and so i have gone scratching (with an exceedingly bad pen) about and about you. but i come back to you to let you know that the reputation of this house as a convalescent hospital stands (like the house itself) very high, and that testimonials can be produced from credible persons who have recovered health and spirits here swiftly. try us, only try us, and we are content to stake the reputation of the establishment on the result. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. percy fitzgerald.] gad's hill, _friday, feb. nd, ._ my dear fitzgerald, i ought to have written to you days and days ago, to thank you for your charming book on charles lamb, to tell you with what interest and pleasure i read it as soon as it came here, and to add that i was honestly affected (far more so than your modesty will readily believe) by your intimate knowledge of those touches of mine concerning childhood. let me tell you now that i have not in the least cooled, after all, either as to the graceful sympathetic book, or as to the part in it with which i am honoured. it has become a matter of real feeling with me, and i postponed its expression because i couldn't satisfactorily get it out of myself, and at last i came to the conclusion that it must be left in. my dear fitzgerald, faithfully yours always. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] office of "all the year round," _friday, feb. th, ._ my dearest georgy, i found your letter here when i came back on wednesday evening, and was extremely glad to get it. frank beard wrote me word that with such a pulse as i described, an examination of the heart was absolutely necessary, and that i had better make an appointment with him alone for the purpose. this i did. i was not at all disconcerted, for i knew well beforehand that the effect could not possibly be without that one cause at the bottom of it. there seems to be degeneration of some functions of the heart. it does not contract as it should. so i have got a prescription of iron, quinine, and digitalis, to set it a-going, and send the blood more quickly through the system. if it should not seem to succeed on a reasonable trial, i will then propose a consultation with someone else. of course i am not so foolish as to suppose that all my work can have been achieved without _some_ penalty, and i have noticed for some time a decided change in my buoyancy and hopefulness--in other words, in my usual "tone." i shall wait to see beard again on monday, and shall most probably come down that day. if i should not, i will telegraph after seeing him. best love to mamie. [sidenote: mrs. brookfield.] office of "all the year round," _tuesday, feb. th, ._ my dear mrs. brookfield, having gone through your ms. (which i should have done sooner, but that i have not been very well), i write these few following words about it. firstly, with a limited reference to its unsuitability to these pages. secondly, with a more enlarged reference to the merits of the story itself. if you will take any part of it and cut it up (in fancy) into the small portions into which it would have to be divided here for only a month's supply, you will (i think) at once discover the impossibility of publishing it in weekly parts. the scheme of the chapters, the manner of introducing the people, the progress of the interest, the places in which the principal places fall, are all hopelessly against it. it would seem as though the story were never coming, and hardly ever moving. there must be a special design to overcome that specially trying mode of publication, and i cannot better express the difficulty and labour of it than by asking you to turn over any two weekly numbers of "a tale of two cities," or "great expectations," or bulwer's story, or wilkie collins's, or reade's, or "at the bar," and notice how patiently and expressly the thing has to be planned for presentation in these fragments, and yet for afterwards fusing together as an uninterrupted whole. of the story itself i honestly say that i think highly. the style is particularly easy and agreeable, infinitely above ordinary writing, and sometimes reminds me of mrs. inchbald at her best. the characters are remarkably well observed, and with a rare mixture of delicacy and truthfulness. i observe this particularly in the brother and sister, and in mrs. neville. but it strikes me that you constantly hurry your narrative (and yet without getting on) _by telling it, in a sort of impetuous breathless way, in your own person, when the people should tell it and act it for themselves_. my notion always is, that when i have made the people to play out the play, it is, as it were, their business to do it, and not mine. then, unless you really have led up to a great situation like basil's death, you are bound in art to make more of it. such a scene should form a chapter of itself. impressed upon the reader's memory, it would go far to make the fortune of the book. suppose yourself telling that affecting incident in a letter to a friend. wouldn't you describe how you went through the life and stir of the streets and roads to the sick-room? wouldn't you say what kind of room it was, what time of day it was, whether it was sunlight, starlight, or moonlight? wouldn't you have a strong impression on your mind of how you were received, when you first met the look of the dying man, what strange contrasts were about you and struck you? i don't want you, in a novel, to present _yourself_ to tell such things, but i want the things to be there. you make no more of the situation than the index might, or a descriptive playbill might in giving a summary of the tragedy under representation. as a mere piece of mechanical workmanship, i think all your chapters should be shorter; that is to say, that they should be subdivided. also, when you change from narrative to dialogue, or _vice versâ_, you should make the transition more carefully. also, taking the pains to sit down and recall the principal landmarks in your story, you should then make them far more elaborate and conspicuous than the rest. even with these changes i do not believe that the story would attract the attention due to it, if it were published even in such monthly portions as the space of "fraser" would admit of. even so brightened, it would not, to the best of my judgment, express itself piecemeal. it seems to me to be so constituted as to require to be read "off the reel." as a book in two volumes i think it would have good claims to success, and good chances of obtaining success. but i suppose the polishing i have hinted at (not a meretricious adornment, but positively necessary to good work and good art) to have been first thoroughly administered. now don't hate me if you can help it. i can afford to be hated by some people, but i am not rich enough to put you in possession of that luxury. ever faithfully yours. p.s.--the ms. shall be delivered at your house to-morrow. and your petitioner again prays not to be, etc. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] adelphi, liverpool, _friday, april th, ._ my dearest georgy, the reception at manchester last night was quite a magnificent sight; the whole of the immense audience standing up and cheering. i thought them a little slow with "marigold," but believe it was only the attention necessary in so vast a place. they gave a splendid burst at the end. and after "nickleby" (which went to perfection), they set up such a call, that i was obliged to go in again. the unfortunate gasman, a very steady fellow, got a fall off a ladder and sprained his leg. he was put to bed in a public opposite, and was left there, poor man. this is the first very fine day we have had. i have taken advantage of it by crossing to birkenhead and getting some air upon the water. it was fresh and beautiful. i send my best love to mamie, and hope she is better. i am, of course, tired (the pull of "marigold" upon one's energy, in the free trade hall, was great); but i stick to my tonic, and feel, all things considered, in very good tone. the room here (i mean the hall) being my special favourite and extraordinarily easy, is _almost_ a rest! [sidenote: miss dickens.] adelphi, liverpool, _saturday, april th, ._ my dearest mamie, the police reported officially that three thousand people were turned away from the hall last night. i doubt if they were so numerous as that, but they carried in the outer doors and pitched into dolby with great vigour. i need not add that every corner of the place was crammed. they were a very fine audience, and took enthusiastically every point in "copperfield" and the "trial." they made the reading a quarter of an hour longer than usual. one man advertised in the morning paper that he would give thirty shillings (double) for three stalls, but nobody would sell, and he didn't get in. except that i cannot sleep, i really think myself in much better training than i had anticipated. a dozen oysters and a little champagne between the parts every night, constitute the best restorative i have ever yet tried. john appears low, but i don't know why. a letter comes for him daily; the hand is female; whether smudger's, or a nearer one still and a dearer one, i don't know. so it may or may not be the cause of his gloom. "miss emily" of preston is married to a rich cotton lord, rides in open carriages in gorgeous array, and is altogether splendid. with this effective piece of news i close. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] glasgow, _april th, ._ we arrived here at ten yesterday evening. i don't think the journey shook me at all. dolby provided a superb cold collation and "the best of drinks," and we dined in the carriage, and i made him laugh all the way. the let here is very large. every precaution taken to prevent my platform from being captured as it was last time; but i don't feel at all sure that it will not be stormed at one of the two readings. wills is to do the genteel to-night at the stalls, and dolby is to stem the shilling tide _if_ he can. the poor gasman cannot come on, and we have got a new one here who is to go to edinburgh with us. of edinburgh we know nothing, but as its first night has always been shady, i suppose it will stick to its antecedents. i like to hear about harness and his freshness. the let for the next reading at st. james's is "going," they report, "admirably." lady russell asked me to dinner to-morrow, and i have written her a note to-day. the rest has certainly done me good. i slept thoroughly well last night, and feel fresh. what to-night's work, and every night's work this week, may do contrariwise, remains to be seen. i hope harry's knee may be in the way of mending, from what you relate of it. [sidenote: miss dickens.] waterloo hotel, edinburgh, _wednesday, april th, ._ we had a tremendous house again last night at glasgow; and turned away great numbers. not only that, but they were a most brilliant and delicate audience, and took "marigold" with a fine sense and quickness not to be surpassed. the shillings pitched into dolby again, and one man writes a sensible letter in one of the papers this morning, showing to _my_ satisfaction (?) that they really had, through the local agent, some cause of complaint. nevertheless, the shilling tickets are sold for to-morrow, and it seems to be out of the question to take any money at the doors, the call for all parts is so enormous. the thundering of applause last night was quite staggering, and my people checked off my reception by the minute hand of a watch, and stared at one another, thinking i should never begin. i keep quite well, have happily taken to sleeping these last three nights; and feel, all things considered, very little conscious of fatigue. i cannot reconcile my town medicine with the hours and journeys of reading life, and have therefore given it up for the time. but for the moment, i think i am better without it. what we are doing here i have not yet heard. i write at half-past one, and we have been little more than an hour in the house. but i am quite prepared for the inevitable this first edinburgh night. endeavours have been made (from glasgow yesterday) to telegraph the exact facts out of our local agent; but hydraulic pressure wouldn't have squeezed a straight answer out of him. "friday and saturday doing very well, wednesday not so good." this was all electricity could discover. i am going to write a line this post to katie, from whom i have a note. i hope harry's leg will now step out in the manner of the famous cork leg in the song. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] edinburgh, _thursday, april th, ._ the house was more than twice better than any first night here previously. they were, as usual here, remarkably intelligent, and the reading went _brilliantly_. i have not sent up any newspapers, as they are generally so poorly written, that you may know beforehand all the commonplaces that they will write. but _the scotsman_ has so pretty an article this morning, and (so far as i know) so true a one, that i will try to post it to you, either from here or glasgow. john and dolby went over early, and wills and i follow them at half-past eleven. it is cold and wet here. we have laid half-crown bets with dolby, that he will be assaulted to-night at glasgow. he has a surprising knowledge of what the receipts will be always, and wins half-crowns every night. chang is living in this house. john (not knowing it) was rendered perfectly drivelling last night, by meeting him on the stairs. the tartar dwarf is always twining himself upstairs sideways, and drinks a bottle of whisky per day, and is reported to be a surprising little villain. [sidenote: miss dickens.] waterloo hotel, edinburgh, _friday, april th, ._ no row at glasgow last night. great placards were posted about the town by the anxious dolby, announcing that no money would be taken at the doors. this kept the crowd off. two files of policemen and a double staff everywhere did the rest, and nothing could be better-tempered or more orderly. tremendous enthusiasm with the "carol" and "trial." i was dead beat afterwards, that reading being twenty minutes longer than usual; but plucked up again, had some supper, slept well, and am quite right to-day. it is a bright day, and the express ride over from glasgow was very pleasant. everything is gone here for to-night. but it is difficult to describe what the readings have grown to be. the let at st. james's hall is not only immense for next tuesday, but so large for the next reading afterwards, that chappell writes: "that will be the greatest house of the three." from manchester this morning they write: "send us more tickets instantly, for we are sold out and don't know what to do with the people." last night the whole of my money under the agreement had been taken. i notice that a great bank has broken at liverpool, which may hurt us there, but when last heard of it was going as before. and the audience, though so enormous, do somehow express a personal affection, which makes them very strange and moving to see. i have a story to answer you and your aunt with. before i left southwick place for liverpool, i received a letter from glasgow, saying, "your little emily has been woo'd and married and a'! since you last saw her;" and describing her house within a mile or two of the city, and asking me to stay there. i wrote the usual refusal, and supposed mrs. ---- to be some romantic girl whom i had joked with, perhaps at allison's or where not. on the first night at glasgow i received a bouquet from ----, and wore one of the flowers. this morning at the glasgow station, ---- appeared, and proved to be the identical miss emily, of whose marriage dolby had told me on our coming through preston. she was attired in magnificent raiment, and presented the happy ----. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] liverpool, _thursday, april th, ._ we noticed between london and rugby (the first stoppage) something very odd in our carriage yesterday, not so much in its motion as in its sound. we examined it as well as we could out of both windows, but could make nothing of it. on our arrival at rugby, it was found to be on fire. and as it was in the middle of the train, the train had to be broken to get it off into a siding by itself and get another carriage on. with this slight exception we came down all right. my voice is much better, i am glad to report, and i mean to try beard's remedy after dinner to-day. this is all my present news. [sidenote: the same.] down hotel, clifton, _friday, may th, ._ i received your note before i left birmingham this morning. it has been very heavy work getting up at half-past six each morning after a heavy night, and i am not at all well to-day. we had a tremendous hall at birmingham last night--two thousand one hundred people. i made a most ridiculous mistake. had "nickleby" on my list to finish with, instead of "trial." read "nickleby" with great go, and the people remained. went back again at ten and explained the accident, and said if they liked, i would give them the "trial." they _did_ like, and i had another half-hour of it in that enormous place. this stoppage of overend and gurney in the city will play the ---- with all public gaieties, and with all the arts. my cold is no better. john fell off a platform about ten feet high yesterday, and fainted. he looks all the colours of the rainbow to-day, but does not seem much hurt beyond being puffed up one hand, arm, and side. [sidenote: miss lily benzon.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, june th, ._ my dear lily, i am sorry that i cannot come to read to you "the boots at the holly tree inn," as you ask me to do; but the truth is, that i am tired of reading at this present time, and have come into the country to rest and hear the birds sing. there are a good many birds, i daresay, in kensington palace gardens, and upon my word and honour they are much better worth listening to than i am. so let them sing to you as hard as ever they can, while their sweet voices last (they will be silent when the winter comes); and very likely after you and i have eaten our next christmas pudding and mince-pies, you and i and uncle harry may all meet together at st. james's hall; uncle harry to bring you there, to hear the "boots;" i to receive you there, and read the "boots;" and you (i hope) to applaud very much, and tell me that you like the "boots." so, god bless you and me, and uncle harry, and the "boots," and long life and happiness to us all! your affectionate friend. p.s.--there's a flourish! [sidenote: mr. b. w. procter.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, aug. th, ._ my dear procter, i have read your biography of charles lamb with inexpressible pleasure and interest. i do not think it possible to tell a pathetic story with a more unaffected and manly tenderness. and as to the force and vigour of the style, if i did not know you i should have made sure that there was a printer's error in the opening of your introduction, and that the word "seventy" occupied the place of "forty." let me, my dear friend, most heartily congratulate you on your achievement. it is not an ordinary triumph to do such justice to the memory of such a man. and i venture to add, that the fresh spirit with which you have done it impresses me as being perfectly wonderful. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: sir james emerson tennent.] gad's hill, _monday, aug. th, ._ my dear tennent, i have been very much interested by your extract, and am strongly inclined to believe that the founder of the refuge for poor travellers meant the kind of man to which it refers. chaucer certainly meant the pardonere to be a humbug, living on the credulity of the people. after describing the sham reliques he carried, he says: but with these relikes whawne that he found a poure personne dwelling up on lond upon a day he gat him more monnie than that the personne got in monthes time, and thus, with fained flattering and japes he made the personne, and the people, his apes. and the worthy watts (founder of the charity) may have had these very lines in his mind when he excluded such a man. when i last heard from my boy he was coming to you, and was full of delight and dignity. my midshipman has just been appointed to the _bristol_, on the west coast of africa, and is on his voyage out to join her. i wish it was another ship and another station. she has been unlucky in losing men. kindest regard from all my house to yours. faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: m. charles fechter.] gad's hill, _tuesday, sept. th, ._ my dear fechter, this morning i received the play to the end of the telegraph scene, and i have since read it twice. i clearly see the _ground_ of mr. boucicault's two objections; but i do not see their _force_. first, as to the writing. if the characters did not speak in a terse and homely way, their idea and language would be inconsistent with their dress and station, and they would lose, as characters, before the audience. the dialogue seems to be exactly what is wanted. its simplicity (particularly in mr. boucicault's part) is often very effective; and throughout there is an honest, straight-to-the-purpose ruggedness in it, like the real life and the real people. secondly, as to the absence of the comic element. i really do not see how more of it could be got into the story, and i think mr. boucicault underrates the pleasant effect of his own part. the very notion of a sailor, whose life is not among those little courts and streets, and whose business does not lie with the monotonous machinery, but with the four wild winds, is a relief to me in reading the play. i am quite confident of its being an immense relief to the audience when they see the sailor before them, with an entirely different bearing, action, dress, complexion even, from the rest of the men. i would make him the freshest and airiest sailor that ever was seen; and through him i can distinctly see my way out of "the black country" into clearer air. (i speak as one of the audience, mind.) i should like something of this contrast to be expressed in the dialogue between the sailor and jew, in the second scene of the second act. again, i feel widdicomb's part (which is charming, and ought to make the whole house cry) most agreeable and welcome, much better than any amount in such a story, of mere comicality. it is unnecessary to say that the play is done with a master's hand. its closeness and movement are quite surprising. its construction is admirable. i have the strongest belief in its making a great success. but i must add this proviso: i never saw a play so dangerously depending in critical places on strict natural propriety in the manner and perfection in the shaping of the small parts. those small parts cannot take the play up, but they can let it down. i would not leave a hair on the head of one of them to the chance of the first night, but i would see, to the minutest particular, the make-up of every one of them at a night rehearsal. of course you are free to show this note to mr. boucicault, and i suppose you will do so; let me throw out this suggestion to him and you. might it not ease the way with the lord chamberlain's office, and still more with the audience, when there are manchester champions in it, if instead of "manchester" you used a fictitious name? when i did "hard times" i called the scene coketown. everybody knew what was meant, but every cotton-spinning town said it was the other cotton-spinning town. i shall be up on saturday, and will come over about mid-day, unless you name any other time. ever heartily. [sidenote: mr. walter thornbury] "all the year round" office, _saturday, sept. th, ._ my dear thornbury, many thanks for your letter. in reference to your shakespeare queries, i am not so much enamoured of the first and third subjects as i am of the ariosto enquiry, which should be highly interesting. but if you have so got the matter in your mind, as that its execution would be incomplete and unsatisfactory to you unless you write all the three papers, then by all means write the three, and i will most gladly take them. for some years i have had so much pleasure in reading you, that i can honestly warrant myself as what actors call "a good audience." the idea of old stories retold is decidedly a good one. i greatly like the notion of that series. of course you know de quincey's paper on the ratcliffe highway murderer? do you know also the illustration (i have it at gad's hill), representing the horrible creature as his dead body lay on a cart, with a piece of wood for a pillow, and a stake lying by, ready to be driven through him? i don't _quite_ like the title, "the social history of london." i should better like some title to the effect, "the history of london's social changes in so many years." such a title would promise more, and better express your intention. what do you think of taking for a first title, "london's changes"? you could then add the second title, "being a history," etc. i don't at all desire to fix a limit to the series of old stories retold. i would state the general intention at the beginning of the first paper, and go on like banquo's line. don't let your london title remind people, by so much as the place of the word "civilisation," of buckle. it seems a ridiculous caution, but the indolent part of the public (a large part!) on such points tumble into extraordinary mistakes. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. percy fitzgerald.] gad's hill, _tuesday, nov. th, ._ my dear fitzgerald, it is always pleasant to me to hear from you, and i hope you will believe that this is not a mere fashion of speech. concerning the green covers, i find the leaves to be budding--on unquestionable newspaper authority; but, upon my soul, i have no other knowledge of their being in embryo! really, i do not see a chance of my settling myself to such work until after i have accomplished forty-two readings, to which i stand pledged. i hope to begin this series somewhere about the middle of january, in dublin. touching the details of the realisation of this hope, will you tell me in a line as soon as you can--_is the exhibition room a good room for speaking in?_ your mention of the late sultan touches me nearly. he was the finest dog i ever saw, and between him and me there was a perfect understanding. but, to adopt the popular phrase, it was so very confidential that it "went no further." he would fly at anybody else with the greatest enthusiasm for destruction. i saw him, muzzled, pound into the heart of a regiment of the line; and i have frequently seen him, muzzled, hold a great dog down with his chest and feet. he has broken loose (muzzled) and come home covered with blood, again and again. and yet he never disobeyed me, unless he had first laid hold of a dog. you heard of his going to execution, evidently supposing the procession to be a party detached in pursuit of something to kill or eat? it was very affecting. and also of his bolting a blue-eyed kitten, and making me acquainted with the circumstance by his agonies of remorse (or indigestion)? i cannot find out that there is anyone in rochester (a sleepy old city) who has anything to tell about garrick, except what is not true. his brother, the wine merchant, would be more in rochester way, i think. how on earth do you find time to do all these books? you make my hair stand on end; an agreeable sensation, for i am charmed to find that i have any. why don't you come yourself and look after garrick? i should be truly delighted to receive you. my dear fitzgerald, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _friday, dec. th, ._ my dearest macready, i have received your letter with the utmost pleasure and we all send our most affectionate love to you, mrs. macready, katie, johnny, and the boy of boys. all good christmas and new year greetings are to be understood as included. you will be interested in knowing that, encouraged by the success of summer cricket-matches, i got up a quantity of foot-races and rustic sports in my field here on the th last past: as i have never yet had a case of drunkenness, the landlord of the falstaff had a drinking-booth on the ground. all the prizes i gave were in money, too. we had two thousand people here. among the crowd were soldiers, navvies, and labourers of all kinds. not a stake was pulled up, or a rope slackened, or one farthing's-worth of damage done. to every competitor (only) a printed bill of general rules was given, with the concluding words: "mr. dickens puts every man upon his honour to assist in preserving order." there was not a dispute all day, and they went away at sunset rending the air with cheers, and leaving every flag on a six hundred yards' course as neat as they found it when the gates were opened at ten in the morning. surely this is a bright sign in the neighbourhood of such a place as chatham! "mugby junction" turned, yesterday afternoon, the extraordinary number of two hundred and fifty thousand! in the middle of next month i begin a new course of forty-two readings. if any of them bring me within reach of cheltenham, with an hour to spare, i shall come on to you, even for that hour. more of this when i am afield and have my list, which dolby (for chappell) is now preparing. forster and mrs. forster were to have come to us next monday, to stay until saturday. i write "were," because i hear that forster (who had a touch of bronchitis when he wrote to me on christmas eve) is in bed. katie, who has been ill of low nervous fever, was brought here yesterday from london. she bore the journey much better than i expected, and so i hope will soon recover. this is my little stock of news. i begin to discover in your riper years, that you have been secretly vain of your handwriting all your life. for i swear i see no change in it! what it always was since i first knew it (a year or two!) it _is_. this i will maintain against all comers. ever affectionately, my dearest macready. . narrative. as the london and provincial readings were to be resumed early in the year and continued until the end of march, charles dickens took no house in london this spring. he came to his office quarters at intervals, for the series in town; usually starting off again, on his country tour, the day after a london reading. from some passages in his letters to his daughter and sister-in-law during this country course, it will be seen that (though he made very light of the fact) the great exertion of the readings, combined with incessant railway travelling, was beginning to tell upon his health, and he was frequently "heavily beaten" after reading at his best to an enthusiastic audience in a large hall. during the short intervals between his journeys, he was as constantly and carefully at work upon the business of "all the year round" as if he had no other work on hand. a proof of this is given in a letter dated " th february." it is written to a young man (the son of a friend), who wrote a long novel when far too juvenile for such a task, and had submitted it to charles dickens for his opinion, with a view to publication. in the midst of his own hard and engrossing occupation he read the book, and the letter which he wrote on the subject needs no remark beyond this, that the young writer received the adverse criticism with the best possible sense, and has since, in his literary profession, profited by the advice so kindly given. at this time the proposals to charles dickens for reading in america, which had been perpetually renewed from the time of his first abandoning the idea, became so urgent and so tempting, that he found at last he must, at all events, give the subject his most serious consideration. he took counsel with his two most confidential friends and advisers, mr. john forster and mr. w. h. wills. they were both, at first, strongly opposed to the undertaking, chiefly on the ground of the trial to his health and strength which it would involve. but they could not deny the counterbalancing advantages. and, after much deliberation, it was resolved that mr. george dolby should be sent out by the messrs. chappell, to take an impression, on the spot, as to the feeling of the united states about the readings. his report as to the undoubted enthusiasm and urgency on the other side of the atlantic it was impossible to resist. even his friends withdrew their opposition (though still with misgivings as to the effect upon his health, which were but too well founded!), and on the th september he telegraphed "yes" to america. the "alfred" alluded to in a letter from glasgow was charles dickens's fourth son, alfred tennyson, who had gone to australia two years previously. we give, in april, the last letter to one of the friends for whom charles dickens had always a most tender love--mr. stanfield. he was then in failing health, and in may he died. another death which affected him very deeply happened this summer. miss marguerite power died in july. she had long been very ill, but, until it became impossible for her to travel, she was a frequent and beloved guest at gad's hill. the mrs. henderson to whom he writes was miss power's youngest sister. before he started for america it was proposed to wish him god-speed by giving him a public dinner at the freemasons' hall. the proposal was most warmly and fully responded to. his zealous friend, mr. charles kent, willingly undertook the whole work of arrangement of this banquet. it took place on the nd november, and lord lytton presided. on the th he left london for liverpool, accompanied by his daughters, his sister-in-law, his eldest son, mr. arthur chappell, mr. charles collins, mr. wilkie collins, mr. kent, and mr. wills. the next morning the whole party took a final leave of charles dickens on board the _cuba_, which sailed that day. we give a letter which he wrote to mr. j. l. toole on the morning of the dinner, thanking him for a parting gift and an earnest letter. that excellent comedian was one of his most appreciative admirers, and, in return, he had for mr. toole the greatest admiration and respect. the christmas number for this year, "no thoroughfare," was written by charles dickens and mr. wilkie collins. it was dramatised by mr. collins chiefly. but, in the midst of all the work of preparation for departure, charles dickens gave minute attention to as much of the play as could be completed before he left england. it was produced, after christmas, at the adelphi theatre, where m. fechter was then acting, under the management of mr. benjamin webster. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _new year's day, ._ my dear cerjat, thoroughly determined to be beforehand with "the middle of next summer," your penitent friend and remorseful correspondent thus addresses you. the big dog, on a day last autumn, having seized a little girl (sister to one of the servants) whom he knew, and was bound to respect, was flogged by his master, and then sentenced to be shot at seven next morning. he went out very cheerfully with the half-dozen men told off for the purpose, evidently thinking that they were going to be the death of somebody unknown. but observing in the procession an empty wheelbarrow and a double-barrelled gun, he became meditative, and fixed the bearer of the gun with his eyes. a stone deftly thrown across him by the village blackguard (chief mourner) caused him to look round for an instant, and he then fell dead, shot through the heart. two posthumous children are at this moment rolling on the lawn; one will evidently inherit his ferocity, and will probably inherit the gun. the pheasant was a little ailing towards christmas day, and was found dead under some ivy in his cage, with his head under his wing, on the morning of the twenty-seventh of december, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six. i, proprietor of the remains of the two deceased, am working hard, getting up "barbox" and "the boy at mugby," with which i begin a new series of readings in london on the fifteenth. next morning i believe i start into the country. when i read, i _don't_ write. i only edit, and have the proof-sheets sent me for the purpose. here are your questions answered. as to the reform question, it should have been, and could have been, perfectly known to any honest man in england that the more intelligent part of the great masses were deeply dissatisfied with the state of representation, but were in a very moderate and patient condition, awaiting the better intellectual cultivation of numbers of their fellows. the old insolent resource of assailing them and making the most audaciously wicked statements that they are politically indifferent, has borne the inevitable fruit. the perpetual taunt, "where are they?" has called them out with the answer: "well then, if you _must_ know, here we are." the intolerable injustice of vituperating the bribed to an assembly of bribers, has goaded their sense of justice beyond endurance. and now, what they would have taken they won't take, and whatever they are steadily bent upon having they will get. rely upon it, this is the real state of the case. as to your friend "punch," you will find him begin to turn at the very selfsame instant when the new game shall manifestly become the losing one. you may notice his shoes pinching him a little already. my dear fellow, i have no more power to stop that mutilation of my books than you have. it is as certain as that every inventor of anything designed for the public good, and offered to the english government, becomes _ipso facto_ a criminal, to have his heart broken on the circumlocutional wheel. it is as certain as that the whole crimean story will be retold, whenever this country again goes to war. and to tell the truth, i have such a very small opinion of what the great genteel have done for us, that i am very philosophical indeed concerning what the great vulgar may do, having a decided opinion that they can't do worse. this is the time of year when the theatres do best, there being still numbers of people who make it a sort of religion to see christmas pantomimes. having my annual houseful, i have, as yet, seen nothing. fechter has neither pantomime nor burlesque, but is doing a new version of the old "trente ans de la vie d'un joueur." i am afraid he will not find his account in it. on the whole, the theatres, except in the articles of scenery and pictorial effect, are poor enough. but in some of the smaller houses there are actors who, if there were any dramatic head-quarters as a school, might become very good. the most hopeless feature is, that they have the smallest possible idea of an effective and harmonious whole, each "going in" for himself or herself. the music-halls attract an immense public, and don't refine the general taste. but such things as they do are well done of their kind, and always briskly and punctually. the american yacht race is the last sensation. i hope the general interest felt in it on this side will have a wholesome interest on that. it will be a woeful day when john and jonathan throw their caps into the ring. the french emperor is indubitably in a dangerous state. his parisian popularity wanes, and his army are discontented with him. i hear on high authority that his secret police are always making discoveries that render him desperately uneasy. you know how we have been swindling in these parts. but perhaps you don't know that mr. ----, the "eminent" contractor, before he fell into difficulties settled _one million of money_ on his wife. such a good and devoted husband! my daughter katie has been very ill of nervous fever. on the th of december she was in a condition to be brought down here (old high road and post-horses), and has been steadily getting better ever since. her husband is here too, and is on the whole as well as he ever is or ever will be, i fear. we played forfeit-games here, last night, and then pool. for a billiard-room has been added to the house since you were here. come and play a match with me. always affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _monday, jan. st, ._ my dearest georgy, first i send you my most affectionate wishes for many, many happy returns of your birthday. that done, from my heart of hearts, i go on to my small report of myself. the readings have produced such an immense effect here that we are coming back for two more in the middle of february. "marigold" and the "trial," on friday night, and the "carol," on saturday afternoon, were a perfect furore; and the surprise about "barbox" has been amusingly great. it is a most extraordinary thing, after the enormous sale of that christmas number, that the provincial public seems to have combined to believe that it _won't_ make a reading. from wolverhampton and leeds we have exactly the same expression of feelings _beforehand_. exactly as i made "copperfield"--always to the poorest houses i had with headland, and against that luminary's entreaty--so i should have to make this, if i hadn't "marigold" always in demand. it being next to impossible for people to come out at night with horses, we have felt the weather in the stalls, and expect to do so through this week. the half-crown and shilling publics have crushed to their places most splendidly. the enthusiasm has been unbounded. on friday night i quite astonished myself; but i was taken so faint afterwards that they laid me on a sofa at the hall for half an hour. i attribute it to my distressing inability to sleep at night, and to nothing worse. scott does very well indeed. as a dresser he is perfect. in a quarter of an hour after i go into the retiring-room, where all my clothes are airing and everything is set out neatly in its own allotted space, i am ready; and he then goes softly out, and sits outside the door. in the morning he is equally punctual, quiet, and quick. he has his needles and thread, buttons, and so forth, always at hand; and in travelling he is very systematic with the luggage. what with dolby and what with this skilful valet, everything is made as easy to me as it possibly _can_ be, and dolby would do anything to lighten the work, and does everything. there is great distress here among the poor (four thousand people relieved last saturday at one workhouse), and there is great anxiety concerning _seven mail-steamers some days overdue_. such a circumstance as this last has never been known. it is supposed that some great revolving storm has whirled them all out of their course. one of these missing ships is an american mail, another an australian mail. _same afternoon._ we have been out for four hours in the bitter east wind, and walking on the sea-shore, where there is a broad strip of great blocks of ice. my hands are so rigid that i write with great difficulty. we have been constantly talking of the terrible regent's park accident. i hope and believe that nearly the worst of it is now known. [sidenote: miss dickens.] chester, _tuesday, jan. nd, ._ my dearest mamie, we came over here from liverpool at eleven this forenoon. there was a heavy swell in the mersey breaking over the boat; the cold was nipping, and all the roads we saw as we came along were wretched. we find a very moderate let here; but i am myself rather surprised to know that a hundred and twenty stalls have made up their minds to the undertaking of getting to the hall. this seems to be a very nice hotel, but it is an extraordinarily cold one. our reading for to-night is "marigold" and "trial." with amazing perversity the local agent said to dolby: "they hoped that mr. dickens _might_ have given them 'the boy at mugby.'" barton, the gasman who succeeded the man who sprained his leg, sprained _his_ leg yesterday!! and that, not at his work, but in running downstairs at the hotel. however, he has hobbled through it so far, and i hope will hobble on, for he knows his work. i have seldom seen a place look more hopelessly frozen up than this place does. the hall is like a methodist chapel in low spirits, and with a cold in its head. a few blue people shiver at the corners of the streets. and this house, which is outside the town, looks like an ornament on an immense twelfth cake baked for . i am now going to the fire to try to warm myself, but have not the least expectation of succeeding. the sitting-room has two large windows in it, down to the ground and facing due east. the adjoining bedroom (mine) has also two large windows in it, down to the ground and facing due east. the very large doors are opposite the large windows, and i feel as if i were something to eat in a pantry. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] hen and chickens, birmingham, _thursday, jan. th, ._ at chester we read in a snowstorm and a fall of ice. i think it was the worst weather i ever saw. nevertheless, the people were enthusiastic. at wolverhampton last night the thaw had thoroughly set in, and it rained heavily. we had not intended to go back there, but have arranged to do so on the day after ash wednesday. last night i was again heavily beaten. we came on here after the reading (it is only a ride of forty minutes), and it was as much as i could do to hold out the journey. but i was not faint, as at liverpool; i was only exhausted. i am all right this morning; and to-night, as you know, i have a rest. i trust that charley collins is better, and that mamie is strong and well again. yesterday i had a note from katie, which seemed hopeful and encouraging. [sidenote: miss dickens.] hen and chickens, birmingham, _thursday, jan. th, ._ since i wrote to your aunt just now, i have received your note addressed to wolverhampton. we left the men there last night, and they brought it on with them at noon to-day. the maimed gasman's foot is much swollen, but he limps about and does his work. i have doctored him up with arnica. during the "boy" last night there was an escape of gas from the side of my top batten, which caught the copper-wire and was within a thread of bringing down the heavy reflector into the stalls. it was a very ticklish matter, though the audience knew nothing about it. i saw it, and the gasman and dolby saw it, and stood at that side of the platform in agonies. we all three calculated that there would be just time to finish and save it; when the gas was turned out the instant i had done, the whole thing was at its very last and utmost extremity. whom it would have tumbled on, or what might have been set on fire, it is impossible to say. i hope you rewarded your police escort on tuesday night. it was the most tremendous night i ever saw at chester. [sidenote: miss dickens.] leeds, _friday, feb. st, ._ we got here prosperously, and had a good (but not great) house for "barbox" and "boy" last night. for "marigold" and "trial," to-night, everything is gone. and i even have my doubts of the possibility of dolby's cramming the people in. for "marigold" and "trial" at manchester, to-morrow, we also expect a fine hall. i shall be at the office for next wednesday. if charley collins should have been got to gad's, i will come there for that day. if not, i suppose we had best open the official bower again. this is a beastly place, with a very good hotel. except preston, it is one of the nastiest places i know. the room is like a capacious coal cellar, and is incredibly filthy; but for sound it is perfect. [sidenote: anonymous.] office of "all the year round," _tuesday, feb. th, ._ dear sir, i have looked at the larger half of the first volume of your novel, and have pursued the more difficult points of the story through the other two volumes. you will, of course, receive my opinion as that of an individual writer and student of art, who by no means claims to be infallible. i think you are too ambitious, and that you have not sufficient knowledge of life or character to venture on so comprehensive an attempt. evidences of inexperience in every way, and of your power being far below the situations that you imagine, present themselves to me in almost every page i have read. it would greatly surprise me if you found a publisher for this story, on trying your fortune in that line, or derived anything from it but weariness and bitterness of spirit. on the evidence thus put before me, i cannot even entirely satisfy myself that you have the faculty of authorship latent within you. if you have not, and yet pursue a vocation towards which you have no call, you cannot choose but be a wretched man. let me counsel you to have the patience to form yourself carefully, and the courage to renounce the endeavour if you cannot establish your case on a very much smaller scale. you see around you every day, how many outlets there are for short pieces of fiction in all kinds. try if you can achieve any success within these modest limits (i have practised in my time what i preach to you), and in the meantime put your three volumes away. faithfully yours. p.s.--your ms. will be returned separately from this office. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] liverpool, _friday, feb. th, ._ my short report of myself is that we had an enormous turn-away last night, and do not doubt about having a cram to-night. the day has been very fine, and i have turned it to the wholesomest account by walking on the sands at new brighton all the morning. i am not quite right, but believe it to be an effect of the railway shaking. there is no doubt of the fact that, after the staplehurst experience, it tells more and more, instead of (as one might have expected) less and less. the charming room here greatly lessens the fatigue of this fatiguing week. i read last night with no more exertion than if i had been at gad's, and yet to eleven hundred people, and with astonishing effect. it is "copperfield" to-night, and liverpool is the "copperfield" stronghold. [sidenote: miss dickens.] glasgow, _sunday, feb. th, ._ we arrived here this morning at our time to the moment, five minutes past ten. we turned away great numbers on both nights at liverpool; and manchester last night was a splendid spectacle. they cheered to that extent after it was over, that i was obliged to huddle on my clothes (for i was undressing to prepare for the journey), and go back again. after so heavy a week, it _was_ rather stiff to start on this long journey at a quarter to two in the morning; but i got more sleep than i ever got in a railway-carriage before, and it really was not tedious. the travelling was admirable, and a wonderful contrast to my friend the midland. i am not by any means knocked up, though i have, as i had in the last series of readings, a curious feeling of soreness all round the body, which i suppose to arise from the great exertion of voice. it is a mercy that we were not both made really ill at liverpool. on friday morning i was taken so faint and sick, that i was obliged to leave the table. on the same afternoon the same thing happened to dolby. we then found that a part of the hotel close to us was dismantled for painting, and that they were at that moment painting a green passage leading to our rooms, with a most horrible mixture of white lead and arsenic. on pursuing the enquiry, i found that the four lady book-keepers in the bar were all suffering from the poison. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] bridge of allan, _tuesday, feb. th, ._ i was very glad to get your letter before leaving glasgow this morning. this is a poor return for it, but the post goes out early, and we come in late. yesterday morning i was so unwell that i wrote to frank beard, from whom i shall doubtless hear to-morrow. i mention it, only in case you should come in his way, for i know how perversely such things fall out. i felt it a little more exertion to read afterwards, and i passed a sleepless night after that again; but otherwise i am in good force and spirits to-day. i may say, in the best force. the quiet of this little place is sure to do me good. the little inn in which we are established seems a capital house of the best country sort. [sidenote: miss dickens.] glasgow, _thursday, feb. st, ._ after two days' rest at the bridge of allan i am in renewed force, and have nothing to complain of but inability to sleep. i have been in excellent air all day since tuesday at noon, and made an interesting walk to stirling yesterday, and saw its lions, and (strange to relate) was not bored by them. indeed, they left me so fresh that i knocked at the gate of the prison, presented myself to the governor, and took dolby over the jail, to his unspeakable interest. we then walked back again to our excellent country inn. enclosed is a letter from alfred, which you and your aunt will be interested in reading, and which i meant to send you sooner but forgot it. wonderful as it is to mention, the sun shines here to-day! but to counterbalance that phenomenon i am in close hiding from ----, who has christened his infant son in my name, and, consequently, haunts the building. he and dolby have already nearly come into collision, in consequence of the latter being always under the dominion of the one idea that he is bound to knock everybody down who asks for me. * * * * * the "jewish lady," wishing to mark her "appreciation of mr. dickens's nobility of character," presented him with a copy of benisch's hebrew and english bible, with this inscription: "presented to charles dickens, in grateful and admiring recognition of his having exercised the noblest quality man can possess--that of atoning for an injury as soon as conscious of having inflicted it." the acknowledgment of the gift is the following letter: [sidenote: jewish lady.] bradford, yorkshire, _friday, march st, ._ my dear mrs. ----, i am working through a series of readings, widely dispersed through england, scotland, and ireland, and am so constantly occupied that it is very difficult for me to write letters. i have received your highly esteemed note (forwarded from my home in kent), and should have replied to it sooner but that i had a hope of being able to get home and see your present first. as i have not been able to do so, however, and am hardly likely to do so for two months to come, i delay no longer. it is safely awaiting me on my own desk in my own quiet room. i cannot thank you for it too cordially, and cannot too earnestly assure you that i shall always prize it highly. the terms in which you send me that mark of your remembrance are more gratifying to me than i can possibly express to you; for they assure me that there is nothing but goodwill left between you and me and a people for whom i have a real regard, and to whom i would not wilfully have given an offence or done an injustice for any worldly consideration. believe me, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] newcastle-on-tyne, _wednesday, march th, ._ the readings have made an immense effect in this place, and it is remarkable that although the people are individually rough, collectively they are an unusually tender and sympathetic audience; while their comic perception is quite up to the high london standard. the atmosphere is so very heavy that yesterday we escaped to tynemouth for a two hours' sea walk. there was a high north wind blowing and a magnificent sea running. large vessels were being towed in and out over the stormy bar, with prodigious waves breaking on it; and spanning the restless uproar of the waters was a quiet rainbow of transcendent beauty. the scene was quite wonderful. we were in the full enjoyment of it when a heavy sea caught us, knocked us over, and in a moment drenched us, and filled even our pockets. we had nothing for it but to shake ourselves together (like doctor marigold) and dry ourselves as well as we could by hard walking in the wind and sunshine! but we were wet through for all that when we came back here to dinner after half an hour's railway ride. i am wonderfully well, and quite fresh and strong. have had to doctor dolby for a bad cold; have not caught it (yet), and have set him on his legs again. scott is striking the tents and loading the baggages, so i must deliver up my writing-desk. we meet, please god, on tuesday. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] shelbourne hotel, dublin, _friday, march th, ._ we made our journey through an incessant snowstorm on wednesday night; at last got snowed up among the welsh mountains in a tremendous storm of wind, came to a stop, and had to dig the engine out. we went to bed at holyhead at six in the morning of thursday, and got aboard the packet at two yesterday afternoon. it blew hard, but as the wind was right astern, we only rolled and did not pitch much. as i walked about on the bridge all the four hours, and had cold salt beef and biscuit there and brandy-and-water, you will infer that my channel training has not worn out. our "business" here is _very bad_, though at belfast it is enormous. there is no doubt that great alarm prevails here. this hotel is constantly filling and emptying as families leave the country, and set in a current to the steamers. there is apprehension of some disturbance between to-morrow night and monday night (both inclusive), and i learn this morning that all the drinking-shops are to be closed from to-night until tuesday. it is rumoured here that the liverpool people are very uneasy about some apprehended disturbance there at the same time. very likely you will know more about this than i do, and very likely it may be nothing. there is no doubt whatever that alarm prevails, and the manager of this hotel, an intelligent german, is very gloomy on the subject. on the other hand, there is feasting going on, and i have been asked to dinner-parties by divers civil and military authorities. don't _you_ be uneasy, i say once again. you may be absolutely certain that there is no cause for it. we are splendidly housed here, and in great comfort. love to charley and katey. [sidenote: miss dickens.] shelbourne hotel, dublin, _saturday, march th, ._ i daresay you know already that i held many councils in london about coming to ireland at all, and was much against it. everything looked as bad here as need be, but we did very well last night after all. there is considerable alarm here beyond all question, and great depression in all kinds of trade and commerce. to-morrow being st. patrick's day, there are apprehensions of some disturbance, and croakers predict that it will come off between to-night and monday night. of course there are preparations on all sides, and large musters of soldiers and police, though they are kept carefully out of sight. one would not suppose, walking about the streets, that any disturbance was impending; and yet there is no doubt that the materials of one lie smouldering up and down the city and all over the country. [i have a letter from mrs. bernal osborne this morning, describing the fortified way in which she is living in her own house in the county tipperary.] you may be quite sure that your venerable parent will take good care of himself. if any riot were to break out, i should immediately stop the readings here. should all remain quiet, i begin to think they will be satisfactorily remunerative after all. at belfast, we shall have an enormous house. i read "copperfield" and "bob" here on monday; "marigold" and "trial" at belfast, on wednesday; and "carol" and "trial" here, on friday. this is all my news, except that i am in perfect force. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] shelbourne hotel, dublin, _sunday, march th, ._ everything remains in appearance perfectly quiet here. the streets are gay all day, now that the weather is improved, and singularly quiet and deserted at night. but the whole place is secretly girt in with a military force. to-morrow night is supposed to be a critical time; but in view of the enormous preparations, i should say that the chances are at least one hundred to one against any disturbance. i cannot make sure whether i wrote to you yesterday, and told you that we had done very well at the first reading after all, even in money. the reception was prodigious, and the readings are the town talk. but i rather think i did actually write this to you. my doubt on the subject arises from my having deliberated about writing on a saturday. the most curious, and for facilities of mere destruction, such as firing houses in different quarters, the most dangerous piece of intelligence imparted to me on authority is, that the dublin domestic men-servants as a class are all fenians. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] belfast, _wednesday, march th, ._ the post goes out at twelve, and i have only time to report myself. the snow not lying between this and dublin, we got here yesterday to our time, after a cold but pleasant journey. fitzgerald came on with us. i had a really charming letter from mrs. fitzgerald, asking me to stay there. she must be a perfectly unaffected and genuine lady. there are kind messages to you and mary in it. i have sent it on to mary, who will probably in her turn show it to you. we had a wonderful crowd at dublin on monday, and the greatest appreciation possible. we have a good let, in a large hall, here to-night. but i am perfectly convinced that the worst part of the fenian business is to come yet. all about the fitzgeralds and everything else when we meet. [sidenote: miss dickens.] belfast, _thursday, march st, ._ in spite of public affairs and dismal weather, we are doing wonders in ireland. that the conspiracy is a far larger and more important one than would seem from what it has done yet, there is no doubt. i have had a good deal of talk with a certain colonel, whose duty it has been to investigate it, day and night, since last september. that it will give a world of trouble, and cost a world of money, i take to be (after what i have thus learned) beyond all question. one regiment has been found to contain five hundred fenian soldiers every man of whom was sworn in the barrack-yard. how information is swiftly and secretly conveyed all over the country, the government with all its means and money cannot discover; but every hour it is found that instructions, warnings, and other messages are circulated from end to end of ireland. it is a very serious business indeed. i have just time to send this off, and to report myself quite well except for a slight cold. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] norwich, _friday, march th, ._ the reception at cambridge last night was something to be proud of in such a place. the colleges mustered in full force from the biggest guns to the smallest, and went far beyond even manchester in the roars of welcome and the rounds of cheers. all through the readings, the whole of the assembly, old men as well as young, and women as well as men, took everything with a heartiness of enjoyment not to be described. the place was crammed, and the success the most brilliant i have ever seen. what we are doing in this sleepy old place i don't know, but i have no doubt it is mild enough. [sidenote: mr. walter thornbury] office of "all the year round," _monday, april st, ._ my dear thornbury, i am very doubtful indeed about "vaux," and have kept it out of the number in consequence. the mere details of such a rascal's proceedings, whether recorded by himself or set down by the reverend ordinary, are not wholesome for a large audience, and are scarcely justifiable (i think) as claiming to be a piece of literature. i can understand barrington to be a good subject, as involving the representation of a period, a style of manners, an order of dress, certain habits of street life, assembly-room life, and coffee-room life, etc.; but there is a very broad distinction between this and mere newgate calendar. the latter would assuredly damage your book, and be protested against to me. i have a conviction of it, founded on constant observation and experience here. your kind invitation is extremely welcome and acceptable to me, but i am sorry to add that i must not go a-visiting. for this reason: so incessantly have i been "reading," that i have not once been at home at gad's hill since last january, and am little likely to get there before the middle of may. judge how the master's eye must be kept on the place when it does at length get a look at it after so long an absence! i hope you will descry in this a reason for coming to me again, instead of my coming to you. the extinct prize-fighters, as a body, i take to be a good subject, for much the same reason as george barrington. their patrons were a class of men now extinct too, and the whole ring of those days (not to mention jackson's rooms in bond street) is a piece of social history. now vaux is not, nor is he even a phenomenon among thieves. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield, r.a.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, _thursday, april th, ._ my dear stanny, the time of year reminds me how the months have gone, since i last heard from you through mrs. stanfield. i hope you have not thought me unmindful of you in the meanwhile. i have been almost constantly travelling and reading. england, ireland, and scotland have laid hold of me by turns, and i have had no rest. as soon as i had finished this kind of work last year, i had to fall to work upon "all the year round" and the christmas number. i was no sooner quit of that task, and the christmas season was but run out to its last day, when i was tempted into another course of fifty readings that are not yet over. i am here now for two days, and have not seen the place since twelfth night. when a reading in london has been done, i have been brought up for it from some great distance, and have next morning been carried back again. but the fifty will be "paid out" (as we say at sea) by the middle of may, and then i hope to see you. reading at cheltenham the other day, i saw macready, who sent his love to you. his face was much more massive and as it used to be, than when i saw him previous to his illness. his wife takes admirable care of him, and is on the happiest terms with his daughter katie. his boy by the second marriage is a jolly little fellow, and leads a far easier life than the children you and i remember, who used to come in at dessert and have each a biscuit and a glass of water, in which last refreshment i was always convinced that they drank, with the gloomiest malignity, "destruction to the gormandising grown-up company!" i hope to look up your latest triumphs on the day of the academy dinner. of course as yet i have had no opportunity of even hearing of what anyone has done. i have been (in a general way) snowed up for four months. the locomotive with which i was going to ireland was dug out of the snow at midnight, in wales. both passages across were made in a furious snowstorm. the snow lay ankle-deep in dublin, and froze hard at belfast. in scotland it slanted before a perpetual east wind. in yorkshire, it derived novelty from thunder and lightning. whirlwinds everywhere i don't mention. god bless you and yours. if i look like some weather-beaten pilot when we meet, don't be surprised. any mahogany-faced stranger who holds out his hand to you will probably turn out, on inspection, to be the old original dick. ever, my dear stanny, your faithful and affectionate. p.s.--i wish you could have been with me (of course in a snowstorm) one day on the pier at tynemouth. there was a very heavy sea running, and a perfect fleet of screw merchantmen were plunging in and out on the turn of the tide at high-water. suddenly there came a golden horizon, and a most glorious rainbow burst out, arching one large ship, as if she were sailing direct for heaven. i was so enchanted by the scene, that i became oblivious of a few thousand tons of water coming on in an enormous roller, and was knocked down and beaten by its spray when it broke, and so completely wetted through and through, that the very pockets in my pocket-book were full of sea. [sidenote: mr. george stanfield.] office of "all the year round," _sunday, may th, ._ on the death of his father. my dear george, when i came up to the house this afternoon and saw what had happened, i had not the courage to ring, though i had thought i was fully prepared by what i heard when i called yesterday. no one of your father's friends can ever have loved him more dearly than i always did, or can have better known the worth of his noble character. it is idle to suppose that i can do anything for you; and yet i cannot help saying that i am staying here for some days, and that if i could, it would be a much greater relief to me than it could be a service to you. your poor mother has been constantly in my thoughts since i saw the quiet bravery with which she preserved her composure. the beauty of her ministration sank into my heart when i saw him for the last time on earth. may god be with her, and with you all, in your great loss. affectionately yours always. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] _thursday, june th, ._ my dear wills, i cannot tell you how warmly i feel your letter, or how deeply i appreciate the affection and regard in which it originates. i thank you for it with all my heart. you will not suppose that i make light of any of your misgivings if i present the other side of the question. every objection that you make strongly impresses me, and will be revolved in my mind again and again. when i went to america in ' , i was so much younger, but (i think) very much weaker too. i had had a painful surgical operation performed shortly before going out, and had had the labour from week to week of "master humphrey's clock." my life in the states was a life of continual speech-making (quite as laborious as reading), and i was less patient and more irritable then than i am now. my idea of a course of readings in america is, that it would involve far less travelling than you suppose, that the large first-class rooms would absorb the whole course, and that the receipts would be very much larger than your estimate, unless the demand for the readings is enormously exaggerated on all hands. there is considerable reason for this view of the case. and i can hardly think that all the speculators who beset, and all the private correspondents who urge me, are in a conspiracy or under a common delusion. * * * * * i shall never rest much while my faculties last, and (if i know myself) have a certain something in me that would still be active in rusting and corroding me, if i flattered myself that i was in repose. on the other hand, i think that my habit of easy self-abstraction and withdrawal into fancies has always refreshed and strengthened me in short intervals wonderfully. i always seem to myself to have rested far more than i have worked; and i do really believe that i have some exceptional faculty of accumulating young feelings in short pauses, which obliterates a quantity of wear and tear. my worldly circumstances (such a large family considered) are very good. i don't want money. all my possessions are free and in the best order. still, at fifty-five or fifty-six, the likelihood of making a very great addition to one's capital in half a year is an immense consideration.... i repeat the phrase, because there should be something large to set against the objections. i dine with forster to-day, to talk it over. i have no doubt he will urge most of your objections and particularly the last, though american friends and correspondents he has, have undoubtedly staggered him more than i ever knew him to be staggered on the money question. be assured that no one can present any argument to me which will weigh more heartily with me than your kind words, and that whatever comes of my present state of abeyance, i shall never forget your letter or cease to be grateful for it. ever, my dear wills, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, june th, ._ my dear wills, i have read the first three numbers of wilkie's story this morning, and have gone minutely through the plot of the rest to the last line. it gives a series of "narratives," but it is a very curious story, wild, and yet domestic, with excellent character in it, and great mystery. it is prepared with extraordinary care, and has every chance of being a hit. it is in many respects much better than anything he has done. the question is, how shall we fill up the blank between mabel's progress and wilkie? what do you think of proposing to fitzgerald to do a story three months long? i daresay he has some unfinished or projected something by him. i have an impression that it was not silvester who tried eliza fenning, but knowles. one can hardly suppose thornbury to make such a mistake, but i wish you would look into the annual register. i have added a final paragraph about the unfairness of the judge, whoever he was. i distinctly recollect to have read of his "putting down" of eliza fenning's father when the old man made some miserable suggestion in his daughter's behalf (this is not noticed by thornbury), and he also stopped some suggestion that a knife thrust into a loaf adulterated with alum would present the appearance that these knives presented. but i may have got both these points from looking up some pamphlets in upcott's collection which i once had. your account of your journey reminds me of one of the latest american stories, how a traveller by stage-coach said to the driver: "did you ever see a snail, sir?" "yes, sir." "where did you meet him, sir?" "i _didn't_ meet him, sir!" "wa'al, sir, i think you did, if you'll excuse me, for i'm damned if you ever overtook him." ever faithfully. [sidenote: mrs. henderson.] gad's hill, _thursday, july th, ._ my dear mrs. henderson, i was more shocked than surprised by the receipt of your mother's announcement of our poor dear marguerite's death. when i heard of the consultation, and recalled what had preceded it and what i have seen here, my hopes were very slight. your letter did not reach me until last night, and thus i could not avoid remaining here to-day, to keep an american appointment of unusual importance. you and your mother both know, i think, that i had a great affection for marguerite, that we had many dear remembrances together, and that her self-reliance and composed perseverance had awakened my highest admiration in later times. no one could have stood by her grave to-day with a better knowledge of all that was great and good in her than i have, or with a more loving remembrance of her through all her phases since she first came to london a pretty timid girl. i do not trouble your mother by writing to her separately. it is a sad, sad task to write at all. god help us! faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. percy fitzgerald.] gad's hill, _july st, ._ my dear fitzgerald, i am heartily glad to get your letter, and shall be thoroughly well pleased to study you again in the pages of a. y. r. i have settled nothing yet about america, but am going to send dolby out on the rd of next month to survey the land, and come back with a report on some heads whereon i require accurate information. proposals (both from american and english speculators) of a very tempting nature have been repeatedly made to me; but i cannot endure the thought of binding myself to give so many readings there whether i like it or no; and if i go at all, am bent on going with dolby single-handed. i have been doing two things for america; one, the little story to which you refer; the other, four little papers for a child's magazine. i like them both, and think the latter a queer combination of a child's mind with a grown-up joke. i have had them printed to assure correct printing in the united states. you shall have the proof to read, with the greatest pleasure. on second thoughts, why shouldn't i send you the children's proof by this same post? i will, as i have it here, send it under another cover. when you return it, you shall have the short story. believe me, always heartily yours. [sidenote: mr. percy fitzgerald.] extract. _july th, ._ i am glad you like the children, and particularly glad you like the pirate. i remember very well when i had a general idea of occupying that place in history at the same age. but i loved more desperately than boldheart. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _friday night, aug. nd, ._ my dearest georgy, i cannot get a boot on--wear a slipper on my left foot, and consequently am here under difficulties. my foot is occasionally painful, but not very. i don't think it worth while consulting anybody about it as yet. i make out so many reasons against supposing it to be gouty, that i really do not think it is. dolby begs me to send all manner of apologetic messages for his going to america. he is very cheerful and hopeful, but evidently feels the separation from his wife and child very much. his sister[ ] was at euston square this morning, looking very well. sainton too, very light and jovial. with the view of keeping myself and my foot quiet, i think i will not come to gad's hill until monday. if i don't appear before, send basket to gravesend to meet me, leaving town by the . on monday. this is important, as i couldn't walk a quarter of a mile to-night for five hundred pounds. love to all at gad's. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] gad's hill, _monday, sept. nd, ._ my dear wills, like you, i was shocked when this new discovery burst upon me on friday, though, unlike you, i never could believe in ----, solely (i think) because, often as i have tried him, i never found him standing by my desk when i was writing a letter without trying to read it. i fear there is no doubt that since ----'s discharge, he (----) has stolen money at the readings. a case of an abstracted shilling seems to have been clearly brought home to him by chappell's people, and they know very well what _that_ means. i supposed a very clear keeping off from anne's husband (whom i recommended for employment to chappell) to have been referable only to ----; but now i see how hopeless and unjust it would be to expect belief from him with two such cases within his knowledge. but don't let the thing spoil your holiday. if we try to do our duty by people we employ, by exacting their proper service from them on the one hand, and treating them with all possible consistency, gentleness, and consideration on the other, we know that we do right. their doing wrong cannot change our doing right, and that should be enough for us. so i have given _my_ feathers a shake, and am all right again. give _your_ feathers a shake, and take a cheery flutter into the air of hertfordshire. great reports from dolby and also from fields! but i keep myself quite calm, and hold my decision in abeyance until i shall have book, chapter, and verse before me. dolby hoped he could leave uncle sam on the th of this month. sydney has passed as a lieutenant, and appeared at home yesterday, all of a sudden, with the consequent golden garniture on his sleeve, which i, god forgive me, stared at without the least idea that it meant promotion. i am glad you see a certain unlikeness to anything in the american story. upon myself it has made the strangest impression of reality and originality!! and i feel as if i had read something (by somebody else), which i should never get out of my mind!!! the main idea of the narrator's position towards the other people was the idea that i _had_ for my next novel in a. y. r. but it is very curious that i did not in the least see how to begin his state of mind until i walked into hoghton towers one bright april day with dolby. faithfully ever. [sidenote: mr. f. d. finlay.] contradicting a newspaper report of his being in a critical state of health. gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, sept. rd, ._ this is to certify that the undersigned victim of a periodical paragraph-disease, which usually breaks out once in every seven years (proceeding to england by the overland route to india and per cunard line to america, where it strikes the base of the rocky mountains, and, rebounding to europe, perishes on the steppes of russia), is _not_ in a "critical state of health," and has _not_ consulted "eminent surgeons," and never was better in his life, and is _not_ recommended to proceed to the united states for "cessation from literary labour," and has not had so much as a headache for twenty years. charles dickens. [sidenote: m. charles fechter.] "all the year round" office, _monday, sept. th, ._ my dear fechter, going over the prompt-book carefully, i see one change in your part to which (on lytton's behalf) i positively object, as i am quite certain he would not consent to it. it is highly injudicious besides, as striking out the best known line in the play. turn to your part in act iii., the speech beginning pauline, _by pride angels have fallen ere thy time_: by pride---- you have made a passage farther on stand: _then did i seek to rise out of my mean estate. thy bright image, etc._ i must stipulate for your restoring it thus: then did i seek to rise out of the prison of my mean estate; and, with such jewels as the exploring mind brings from the caves of knowledge, buy my ransom from those twin jailers of the daring heart-- low birth and iron fortune. thy bright image, etc. etc. the last figure has been again and again quoted; is identified with the play; is fine in itself; and above all, i know that lytton would not let it go. in writing to him to-day, fully explaining the changes in detail, and saying that i disapprove of nothing else, i have told him that i notice this change and that i immediately let you know that it must not be made. (there will not be a man in the house from any newspaper who would not detect mutilations in that speech, moreover.) ever. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] _monday, sept. th, ._ my dearest georgy, the telegram is despatched to boston: "yes. go ahead." after a very anxious consultation with forster, and careful heed of what is to be said for and against, i have made up my mind to see it out. i do not expect as much money as the calculators estimate, but i cannot set the hope of a large sum of money aside. i am so nervous with travelling and anxiety to decide something, that i can hardly write. but i send you these few words as my dearest and best friend. [sidenote: miss dickens.] office of "all the year round," no. , wellington street, strand, london, w.c., _monday, sept. th, ._ my dearest mamie, you will have had my telegram that i go to america. after a long discussion with forster, and consideration of what is to be said on both sides, i have decided to go through with it. i doubt the profit being as great as the calculation makes it, but the prospect is sufficiently alluring to turn the scale on the american side. unless i telegraph to the contrary, i will come to gravesend (send basket there) by train on wednesday. love to all. we have telegraphed "yes" to boston. i begin to feel myself drawn towards america, as darnay, in the "tale of two cities," was attracted to the loadstone rock, paris. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] , wellington street, _saturday, oct. th, ._ my dear kent, in the midst of the great trouble you are taking in the cause of your undersigned affectionate friend, i hope the reading of the enclosed may be a sort of small godsend. of course it is very strictly private. the printers are not yet trusted with the name, but the name will be, "no thoroughfare." i have done the greater part of it; may you find it interesting! my solicitor, a man of some mark and well known, is anxious to be on the committee: frederic ouvry, esquire, , lincoln's inn fields. ever affectionately yours. p.s.--my sailor son! i forgot him!! coming up from portsmouth for the dinner!!! der--er--oo not cur--ur--urse me, i implore. penitently. [sidenote: mrs. power.] gad's hill, _wednesday, oct. rd, ._ my dear mrs. power, i have a sad pleasure in the knowledge that our dear marguerite so remembered her old friend, and i shall preserve the token of her remembrance with loving care. the sight of it has brought back many old days. with kind remembrance to mrs. henderson, believe me always, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. j. l. toole.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, nov. nd, ._ my dear mr. toole, i heartily thank you for your elegant token of remembrance, and for your earnest letter. both have afforded me real pleasure, and the first-named shall go with me on my journey. let me take this opportunity of saying that on receipt of your letter concerning to-day's dinner, i immediately forwarded your request to the honorary secretary. i hope you will understand that i could not, in delicacy, otherwise take part in the matter. again thanking you most cordially, believe me, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , wellington street, _sunday, nov. rd, ._ my dear wills, if you were to write me many such warm-hearted letters as you send this morning, my heart would fail me! there is nothing that so breaks down my determination, or shows me what an iron force i put upon myself, and how weak it is, as a touch of true affection from a tried friend. all that you so earnestly say about the goodwill and devotion of all engaged, i perceived and deeply felt last night. it moved me even more than the demonstration itself, though i do suppose it was the most brilliant ever seen. when i got up to speak, but for taking a desperate hold of myself, i should have lost my sight and voice and sat down again. god bless you, my dear fellow. i am, ever and ever, your affectionate. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] office of "all the year round," _tuesday, nov. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, a thousand thanks for your kind letter, and many congratulations on your having successfully attained a dignity which i never allow to be mentioned in my presence. charley's children are instructed from their tenderest months only to know me as "wenerables," which they sincerely believe to be my name, and a kind of title that i have received from a grateful country. alas! i cannot have the pleasure of seeing you before i presently go to liverpool. every moment of my time is preoccupied. but i send you my sincere love, and am always truthful to the dear old days, and the memory of one of the dearest friends i ever loved. affectionately yours. [sidenote: miss dickens.] aboard the "cuba," queenstown harbour, _sunday, nov. th, ._ my dearest mamie, we arrived here at seven this morning, and shall probably remain awaiting our mail, until four or five this afternoon. the weather in the passage here was delightful, and we had scarcely any motion beyond that of the screw. we are nearly but not quite full of passengers. at table i sit next the captain, on his right, on the outside of the table and close to the door. my little cabin is big enough for everything but getting up in and going to bed in. as it has a good window which i can leave open all night, and a door which i can set open too, it suits my chief requirements of it--plenty of air--admirably. on a writing-slab in it, which pulls out when wanted, i now write in a majestic manner. many of the passengers are american, and i am already on the best terms with nearly all the ship. we began our voyage yesterday a very little while after you left us, which was a great relief. the wind is s.e. this morning, and if it would keep so we should go along nobly. my dearest love to your aunt, and also to katie and all the rest. i am in very good health, thank god, and as well as possible. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] aboard the "cuba," five days out, _wednesday, nov. th, ._ my dearest georgy, as i wrote to mamie last, i now write to you, or mean to do it, if the motion of the ship will let me. we are very nearly halfway to-day. the weather was favourable for us until yesterday morning, when we got a head-wind which still stands by us. we have rolled and pitched, of course; but on the whole have been wonderfully well off. i have had headache and have felt faint once or twice, _but have not been sick at all_. my spacious cabin is very noisy at night, as the most important working of the ship goes on outside my window and over my head; but it is very airy, and if the weather be bad and i can't open the window, i can open the door all night. if the weather be fine (as it is now), i can open both door and window, and write between them. last night, i got a foot-bath under the dignified circumstances of sitting on a camp-stool in my cabin, and having the bath (and my feet) in the passage outside. the officers' quarters are close to me, and, as i know them all, i get reports of the weather and the way we are making when the watch is changed, and i am (as i usually am) lying awake. the motion of the screw is at its slightest vibration in my particular part of the ship. the silent captain, reported gruff, is a very good fellow and an honest fellow. kelly has been ill all the time, and not of the slightest use, and is ill now. scott always cheerful, and useful, and ready; a better servant for the kind of work there never can have been. young lowndes has been fearfully sick until mid-day yesterday. his cabin is pitch dark, and full of blackbeetles. he shares mine until nine o'clock at night, when scott carries him off to bed. he also dines with me in my magnificent chamber. this passage in winter time cannot be said to be an enjoyable excursion, but i certainly am making it under the best circumstances. (i find dolby to have been enormously popular on board, and to have known everybody and gone everywhere.) so much for my news, except that i have been constantly reading, and find that "pierra" that mrs. hogge sent me by katie to be a very remarkable book, not only for its grim and horrible story, but for its suggestion of wheels within wheels, and sad human mysteries. baker's second book not nearly so good as his first, but his first anticipated it. we hope to get to halifax either on sunday or monday, and to boston either on tuesday or wednesday. the glass is rising high to-day, and everybody on board is hopeful of an easterly wind. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] _saturday, th._ last thursday afternoon a heavy gale of wind sprang up and blew hard until dark, when it seemed to lull. but it then came on again with great violence, and blew tremendously all night. the noise, and the rolling and plunging of the ship, were awful. nobody on board could get any sleep, and numbers of passengers were rolled out of their berths. having a side-board to mine to keep me in, like a baby, i lay still. but it was a dismal night indeed, and it was curious to see the change it had made in the faces of all the passengers yesterday. it cannot be denied that these winter crossings are very trying and startling; while the personal discomfort of not being able to wash, and the miseries of getting up and going to bed, with what small means there are all sliding, and sloping, and slopping about, are really in their way distressing. this forenoon we made cape race, and are now running along at full speed with the land beside us. kelly still useless, and positively declining to show on deck. scott, with an eight-day-old moustache, more super like than ever. my foot (i hope from walking on the boarded deck) in a very shy condition to-day, and rather painful. i shaved this morning for the first time since liverpool; dodging at the glass, very much like fechter's imitation of ----. the white cat that came off with us in the tender a general favourite. she belongs to the daughter of a southerner, returning with his wife and family from a two-years' tour in europe. _sunday, th._ at four o'clock this morning we got into bad weather again, and the state of things at breakfast-time was unutterably miserable. nearly all the passengers in their berths--no possibility of standing on deck--sickness and groans--impracticable to pass a cup of tea from one pair of hands to another. it has slightly moderated since (between two and three in the afternoon i write), and the sun is shining, but the rolling of the ship surpasses all imagination or description. we expect to be at halifax about an hour after midnight, and this letter shall be posted there, to make certain of catching the return mail on wednesday. boston is only thirty hours from halifax. best love to mamie, and to katie and charley. i know you will report me and my love to forster and mrs. forster. i write with great difficulty, wedged up in a corner, and having my heels on the paper as often as the pen. kelly worse than ever, and scott better than ever. my desk and i have just arisen from the floor. [sidenote: miss dickens.] parker house, boston, _thursday, nov. st, ._ i arrived here on tuesday night, after a very slow passage from halifax against head-winds. all the tickets for the first four readings here (all yet announced) were sold immediately on their being issued. you know that i begin on the nd of december with "carol" and "trial"? shall be heartily glad to begin to count the readings off. this is an immense hotel, with all manner of white marble public passages and public rooms. i live in a corner high up, and have a hot and cold bath in my bedroom (communicating with the sitting-room), and comforts not in existence when i was here before. the cost of living is enormous, but happily we can afford it. i dine to-day with longfellow, emerson, holmes, and agassiz. longfellow was here yesterday. perfectly white in hair and beard, but a remarkably handsome and notable-looking man. the city has increased enormously in five-and-twenty years. it has grown more mercantile--is like leeds mixed with preston, and flavoured with new brighton; but for smoke and fog you substitute an exquisitely bright light air. i found my rooms beautifully decorated (by mrs. fields) with choice flowers, and set off by a number of good books. i am not much persecuted by people in general, as dolby has happily made up his mind that the less i am exhibited for nothing the better. so our men sit outside the room door and wrestle with mankind. we had speech-making and singing in the saloon of the _cuba_ after the last dinner of the voyage. i think i have acquired a higher reputation from drawing out the captain, and getting him to take the second in "all's well," and likewise in "there's not in the wide world" (your parent taking first), than from anything previously known of me on these shores. i hope the effect of these achievements may not dim the lustre of the readings. we also sang (with a chicago lady, and a strong-minded woman from i don't know where) "auld lang syne," with a tender melancholy, expressive of having all four been united from our cradles. the more dismal we were, the more delighted the company were. once (when we paddled i' the burn) the captain took a little cruise round the compass on his own account, touching at the "canadian boat song," and taking in supplies at "jubilate," "seas between us braid ha' roared," and roared like the seas themselves. finally, i proposed the ladies in a speech that convulsed the stewards, and we closed with a brilliant success. but when you dine with mr. forster, ask him to read to you how we got on at church in a heavy sea. hillard has just been in and sent his love "to those dear girls." he has grown much older. he is now district attorney of the state of massachusetts, which is a very good office. best love to your aunt and katie, and charley and all his house, and all friends. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] parker house, boston, _monday, nov. th, ._ i cannot remember to whom i wrote last, but it will not much matter if i make a mistake; this being generally to report myself so well, that i am constantly chafing at not having begun to-night instead of this night week. the tickets being all sold for next week, and no other announcement being yet made, there is nothing new in that way to tell of. dolby is over at new york, where we are at our wits' end how to keep tickets out of the hands of speculators. morgan is staying with me; came yesterday to breakfast, and goes home to-morrow. fields and mrs. fields also dined yesterday. she is a very nice woman, with a rare relish for humour and a most contagious laugh. the bostonians having been duly informed that i wish to be quiet, really leave me as much so as i should be in manchester or liverpool. this i cannot expect to last elsewhere; but it is a most welcome relief here, as i have all the readings to get up. the people are perfectly kind and perfectly agreeable. if i stop to look in at a shop-window, a score of passers-by stop; and after i begin to read, i cannot expect in the natural course of things to get off so easily. but i every day take from seven to ten miles in peace. communications about readings incessantly come in from all parts of the country. we take no offer whatever, lying by with our plans until after the first series in new york, and designing, if we make a furore there, to travel as little as possible. i fear i shall have to take canada at the end of the whole tour. they make such strong representations from montreal and toronto, and from nova scotia--represented by st. john's and halifax--of the slight it would be to them, if i wound up with the states, that i am shaken. it is sad to see longfellow's house (the house in which his wife was burnt) with his young daughters in it, and the shadow of that terrible story. the young undergraduates of cambridge (he is a professor there) have made a representation to him that they are five hundred strong, and cannot get one ticket. i don't know what is to be done for them; i suppose i must read there somehow. we are all in the clouds until i shall have broken ground in new york, as to where readings will be possible and where impossible. agassiz is one of the most natural and jovial of men. i go out a-visiting as little as i can, but still have to dine, and what is worse, sup pretty often. socially, i am (as i was here before) wonderfully reminded of edinburgh when i had many friends in it. your account and mamie's of the return journey to london gave me great pleasure. i was delighted with your report of wilkie, and not surprised by chappell's coming out gallantly. my anxiety to get to work is greater than i can express, because time seems to be making no movement towards home until i shall be reading hard. then i shall begin to count and count and count the upward steps to may. if ever you should be in a position to advise a traveller going on a sea voyage, remember that there is some mysterious service done to the bilious system when it is shaken, by baked apples. noticing that they were produced on board the _cuba_, every day at lunch and dinner, i thought i would make the experiment of always eating them freely. i am confident that they did wonders, not only at the time, but in stopping the imaginary pitching and rolling after the voyage is over, from which many good amateur sailors suffer. i have hardly had the sensation at all, except in washing of a morning. at that time i still hold on with one knee to the washing-stand, and could swear that it rolls from left to right. the _cuba_ does not return until wednesday, the th december. you may suppose that every officer on board is coming on monday, and that dolby has provided extra stools for them. his work is very hard indeed. cards are brought to him every minute in the day; his correspondence is immense; and he is jerked off to new york, and i don't know where else, on the shortest notice and the most unreasonable times. moreover, he has to be at "the bar" every night, and to "liquor up with all creation" in the small hours. he does it all with the greatest good humour, and flies at everybody who waylays the chief, furiously. we have divided our men into watches, so that one always sits outside the drawing-room door. dolby knows the whole cunard line, and as we could not get good english gin, went out in a steamer yesterday and got two cases (twenty-four bottles) out of cunard officers. osgood and he were detached together last evening for new york, whence they telegraph every other hour about some new point in this precious sale of tickets. so distracted a telegram arrived at three that i have telegraphed back, "explain yourselves," and am now waiting for the explanation. i think you know that osgood is a partner in ticknor and fields'. tuesday morning.--dolby has come back from new york, where the prospects seem immense. we sell tickets there next friday and saturday, and a tremendous rush is expected. [sidenote: mr. charles dickens.] parker house, boston, u.s., _saturday, nov. th, ._ my dear charley, you will have heard before now how fortunate i was on my voyage, and how i was not sick for a moment. these screws are tremendous ships for carrying on, and for rolling, and their vibration is rather distressing. but my little cabin, being for'ard of the machinery, was in the best part of the vessel, and i had as much air in it, night and day, as i chose. the saloon being kept absolutely without air, i mostly dined in my own den, in spite of my being allotted the post of honour on the right hand of the captain. the tickets for the first four readings here (the only readings announced) were all sold immediately, and many are now re-selling at a large premium. the tickets for the first four readings in new york (the only readings announced there also) were on sale yesterday, and were all sold in a few hours. the receipts are very large indeed; but engagements of any kind and every kind i steadily refuse, being resolved to take what is to be taken myself. dolby is nearly worked off his legs, is now at new york, and goes backwards and forwards between this place and that (about the distance from london to liverpool, though they take nine hours to do it) incessantly. nothing can exceed his energy and good humour, and he is extremely popular everywhere. my great desire is to avoid much travelling, and to try to get the people to come to me, instead of my going to them. if i can effect this to any moderate extent, i shall be saved a great deal of knocking about. my original purpose was not to go to canada at all; but canada is so up in arms on the subject that i think i shall be obliged to take it at last. in that case i should work round to halifax, nova scotia, and then take the packet for home. as they don't seem (americans who have heard me on their travels excepted) to have the least idea here of what the readings are like, and as they are accustomed to mere readings out of a book, i am inclined to think the excitement will increase when i shall have begun. everybody is very kind and considerate, and i have a number of old friends here, at the bar and connected with the university. i am now negotiating to bring out the dramatic version of "no thoroughfare" at new york. it is quite upon the cards that it may turn up trumps. i was interrupted in that place by a call from my old secretary in the states, mr. putnam. it was quite affecting to see his delight in meeting his old master again. and when i told him that anne was married, and that i had (unacknowledged) grandchildren, he laughed and cried together. i suppose you don't remember longfellow, though he remembers you in a black velvet frock very well. he is now white-haired and white-bearded, but remarkably handsome. he still lives in his old house, where his beautiful wife was burnt to death. i dined with him the other day, and could not get the terrific scene out of my imagination. she was in a blaze in an instant, rushed into his arms with a wild cry, and never spoke afterwards. my love to bessie, and to mekitty, and all the babbies. i will lay this by until tuesday morning, and then add a final line to it. ever, my dear charley, your affectionate father. _tuesday, dec. rd, ._ success last night beyond description or exaggeration. the whole city is quite frantic about it to-day, and it is impossible that prospects could be more brilliant. [sidenote: miss dickens.] parker house, boston, _sunday, dec. st, ._ i received yours of the th november, yesterday. as i left halifax in the _cuba_ that very day, you probably saw us telegraphed in _the times_ on the th. dolby came back from another run to new york, this morning. the receipts are very large indeed, far exceeding our careful estimate made at gad's. i think you had best in future (unless i give you intimation to the contrary) address your letters to me, at the westminster hotel, irving place, new york city. it is a more central position than this, and we are likely to be much more there than here. i am going to set up a brougham in new york, and keep my rooms at that hotel. the account of matilda is a very melancholy one, and really distresses me. what she must sink into, it is sad to consider. however, there was nothing for it but to send her away, that is quite clear. they are said to be a very quiet audience here, appreciative but not demonstrative. i shall try to change their character a little. i have been going on very well. a horrible custom obtains in these parts of asking you to dinner somewhere at half-past two, and to supper somewhere else about eight. i have run this gauntlet more than once, and its effect is, that there is no day for any useful purpose, and that the length of the evening is multiplied by a hundred. yesterday i dined with a club at half-past two, and came back here at half-past eight, with a general impression that it was at least two o'clock in the morning. two days before i dined with longfellow at half-past two, and came back at eight, supposing it to be midnight. to-day we have a state dinner-party in our rooms at six, mr. and mrs. fields, and mr. and mrs. bigelow. (he is a friend of forster's, and was american minister in paris). there are no negro waiters here, all the servants are irish--willing, but not able. the dinners and wines are very good. i keep our own rooms well ventilated by opening the windows, but no window is ever opened in the halls or passages, and they are so overheated by a great furnace, that they make me faint and sick. the air is like that of a pre-adamite ironing-day in full blast. your respected parent is immensely popular in boston society, and its cordiality and unaffected heartiness are charming. i wish i could carry it with me. the leading new york papers have sent men over for to-morrow night with instructions to telegraph columns of descriptions. great excitement and expectation everywhere. fields says he has looked forward to it so long that he knows he will die at five minutes to eight. at the new york barriers, where the tickets are on sale and the people ranged as at the paris theatres, speculators went up and down offering "twenty dollars for anybody's place." the money was in no case accepted. one man sold two tickets for the second, third, and fourth night for "one ticket for the first, fifty dollars" (about seven pounds ten shillings), "and a brandy cocktail," which is an iced bitter drink. the weather has been rather muggy and languid until yesterday, when there was the coldest wind blowing that i ever felt. in the night it froze very hard, and to-day the sky is beautiful. _tuesday, dec. rd._ most magnificent reception last night, and most signal and complete success. nothing could be more triumphant. the people will hear of nothing else and talk of nothing else. nothing that was ever done here, they all agree, evoked any approach to such enthusiasm. i was quite as cool and quick as if i were reading at greenwich, and went at it accordingly. tell your aunt, with my best love, that i have this morning received hers of the st, and that i will write to her next. that will be from new york. my love to mr. and mrs. hulkes and the boy, and to mr. and mrs. malleson.[ ] [sidenote: miss hogarth.] boston, _wednesday, dec. th, ._ i find that by going off to the _cuba_ myself this morning i can send you the enclosed for mary boyle (i don't know how to address her), whose usual flower for my button-hole was produced in the most extraordinary manner here last monday night! all well and prosperous. "copperfield" and "bob" last night; great success. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] boston, _december th, ._ my dear meery, you can have no idea of the glow of pleasure and amazement with which i saw your remembrance of me lying on my dressing-table here last monday night. whosoever undertook that commission accomplished it to a miracle. but you must go away four thousand miles, and have such a token conveyed to _you_, before you can quite appreciate the feeling of receiving it. ten thousand loving thanks. immense success here, and unbounded enthusiasm. my largest expectations far surpassed. ever your affectionate jo. [sidenote: miss dickens.] westminster hotel, irving place, new york city, _wednesday, dec th, ._ amazing success here. a very fine audience; _far better than that at boston_. great reception. great, "carol" and "trial," on the first night; still greater, "copperfield" and "bob," on the second. dolby sends you a few papers by this post. you will see from their tone what a success it is. i cannot pay this letter, because i give it at the latest moment to the mail-officer, who is going on board the cunard packet in charge of the mails, and who is staying in this house. we are now selling (at the hall) the tickets for the four readings of next week. at nine o'clock this morning there were two thousand people in waiting, and they had begun to assemble in the bitter cold as early as two o'clock. all night long dolby and our man have been stamping tickets. (immediately over my head, by-the-bye, and keeping me awake.) this hotel is quite as quiet as mivart's, in brook street. it is not very much larger. there are american hotels close by, with five hundred bedrooms, and i don't know how many boarders; but this is conducted on what is called "the european principle," and is an admirable mixture of a first-class french and english house. i keep a very smart carriage and pair; and if you were to behold me driving out, furred up to the moustache, with furs on the coach-boy and on the driver, and with an immense white, red, and yellow striped rug for a covering, you would suppose me to be of hungarian or polish nationality. will you report the success here to mr. forster with my love, and tell him he shall hear from me by next mail? dolby sends his kindest regards. he is just come in from our ticket sales, and has put such an immense untidy heap of paper money on the table that it looks like a family wash. he hardly ever dines, and is always tearing about at unreasonable hours. he works very hard. my best love to your aunt (to whom i will write next), and to katie, and to both the charleys, and all the christmas circle, not forgetting chorley, to whom give my special remembrance. you may get this by christmas day. _we_ shall have to keep it travelling from boston here; for i read at boston on the rd and th, and here again on the th. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] westminster hotel, irving place, new york city, _monday, dec. th, ._ we have been snowed up here, and the communication with boston is still very much retarded. thus we have received no letters by the cunard steamer that came in last wednesday, and are in a grim state of mind on that subject. last night i was getting into bed just at twelve o'clock, when dolby came to my door to inform me that the house was on fire (i had previously smelt fire for two hours). i got scott up directly, told him to pack the books and clothes for the readings first, dressed, and pocketed my jewels and papers, while dolby stuffed himself out with money. meanwhile the police and firemen were in the house, endeavouring to find where the fire was. for some time it baffled their endeavours, but at last, bursting out through some stairs, they cut the stairs away, and traced it to its source in a certain fire-grate. by this time the hose was laid all through the house from a great tank on the roof, and everybody turned out to help. it was the oddest sight, and people had put the strangest things on! after a little chopping and cutting with axes and handing about of water, the fire was confined to a dining-room in which it had originated, and then everybody talked to everybody else, the ladies being particularly loquacious and cheerful. and so we got to bed again at about two. the excitement of the readings continues unabated, the tickets for readings are sold as soon as they are ready, and the public pay treble prices to the speculators who buy them up. they are a wonderfully fine audience, even better than edinburgh, and almost, if not quite, as good as paris. dolby continues to be the most unpopular man in america (mainly because he can't get four thousand people into a room that holds two thousand), and is reviled in print daily. yesterday morning a newspaper proclaims of him: "surely it is time that the pudding-headed dolby retired into the native gloom from which he has emerged." he takes it very coolly, and does his best. mrs. morgan sent me, the other night, i suppose the finest and costliest basket of flowers ever seen, made of white camellias, yellow roses, pink roses, and i don't know what else. it is a yard and a half round at its smallest part. i must bring this to a close, as i have to go to the hall to try an enlarged background. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] boston, _sunday, dec. nd, ._ coming here from new york last night (after a detestable journey), i was delighted to find your letter of the th. i read it at my ten o'clock dinner with the greatest interest and pleasure, and then we talked of home till we went to bed. our tour is now being made out, and i hope to be able to send it in my next letter home, which will be to mamie, from whom i have _not_ heard (as you thought i had) by the mail that brought out yours. after very careful consideration i have reversed dolby's original plan, and have decided on taking baltimore, washington, cincinnati, _chicago_ (!), st. louis, and a few other places nearer here, instead of staying in new york. my reason is that we are doing immensely, both at new york and here, and that i am sure it is in the peculiar character of the people to prize a thing the more the less easily attainable it is made. therefore, i want, by absence, to get the greatest rush and pressure upon the five farewell readings in new york in april. all our announced readings are already crammed. when we got here last saturday night, we found that mrs. fields had not only garnished the rooms with flowers, but also with holly (with real red berries) and festoons of moss dependent from the looking-glasses and picture frames. she is one of the dearest little women in the world. the homely christmas look of the place quite affected us. yesterday we dined at her house, and there was a plum-pudding, brought on blazing, and not to be surpassed in any house in england. there is a certain captain dolliver, belonging to the boston custom house, who came off in the little steamer that brought me ashore from the _cuba_. he took it into his head that he would have a piece of english mistletoe brought out in this week's cunard, which should be laid upon my breakfast-table. and there it was this morning. in such affectionate touches as this, these new england people are especially amiable. as a general rule, you may lay it down that whatever you see about me in the papers is not true. but although my voyage out was of that highly hilarious description that you first made known to me, you may _generally_ lend a more believing ear to the philadelphia correspondent of _the times_. i don't know him, but i know the source from which he derives his information, and it is a very respectable one. did i tell you in a former letter from here, to tell anne, with her old master's love, that i had seen putnam, my old secretary? grey, and with several front teeth out, but i would have known him anywhere. he is coming to "copperfield" to-night, accompanied by his wife and daughter, and is in the seventh heaven at having his tickets given him. our hotel in new york was on fire _again_ the other night. but fires in this country are quite matters of course. there was a large one there at four this morning, and i don't think a single night has passed since i have been under the protection of the eagle, but i have heard the fire bells dolefully clanging all over the city. dolby sends his kindest regard. his hair has become quite white, the effect, i suppose, of the climate. he is so universally hauled over the coals (for no reason on earth), that i fully expect to hear him, one of these nights, assailed with a howl when he precedes me to the platform steps. you may conceive what the low newspapers are here, when one of them yesterday morning had, as an item of news, the intelligence: "dickens's readings. the chap calling himself dolby got drunk last night, and was locked up in a police-station for fighting an irishman." i don't find that anybody is shocked by this liveliness. my love to all, and to mrs. hulkes and the boy. by-the-bye, when we left new york for this place, dolby called my amazed attention to the circumstance that scott was leaning his head against the side of the carriage and weeping bitterly. i asked him what was the matter, and he replied: "the owdacious treatment of the luggage, which was more outrageous than a man could bear." i told him not to make a fool of himself; but they do knock it about cruelly. i think every trunk we have is already broken. i must leave off, as i am going out for a walk in a bright sunlight and a complete break-up of the frost and snow. i am much better than i have been during the last week, but have a cold. [sidenote: miss dickens.] westminster hotel, irving place, new york city, _thursday, dec. th, ._ i got your aunt's last letter at boston yesterday, christmas day morning, when i was starting at eleven o'clock to come back to this place. i wanted it very much, for i had a frightful cold (english colds are nothing to those of this country), and was exceedingly depressed and miserable. not that i had any reason but illness for being so, since the bostonians had been quite astounding in their demonstrations. i never saw anything like them on christmas eve. but it is a bad country to be unwell and travelling in; you are one of say a hundred people in a heated car, with a great stove in it, and all the little windows closed, and the hurrying and banging about are indescribable. the atmosphere is detestable, and the motion often all but intolerable. however, we got our dinner here at eight o'clock, and plucked up a little, and i made some hot gin punch to drink a merry christmas to all at home in. but it must be confessed that we were both very dull. i have been in bed all day until two o'clock, and here i am now (at three o'clock) a little better. but i am not fit to read, and i must read to-night. after watching the general character pretty closely, i became quite sure that dolby was wrong on the length of the stay and the number of readings we had proposed in this place. i am quite certain that it is one of the national peculiarities that what they want must be difficult of attainment. i therefore a few days ago made a _coup d'état_, and altered the whole scheme. we shall go to philadelphia, baltimore, washington, also some new england towns between boston and this place, away to the falls of niagara, and off far west to chicago and st. louis, before coming back for ten farewell readings here, preceded by farewells at boston, leaving canada altogether. this will not prolong the list beyond eighty-four readings, the exact original number, and will, please god, work it all out in april. in my next, i daresay, i shall be able to send the exact list, so that you may know every day where we are. there has been a great storm here for a few days, and the streets, though wet, are becoming passable again. dolby and osgood are out in it to-day on a variety of business, and left in grave and solemn state. scott and the gasman are stricken with dumb concern, not having received one single letter from home since they left. what their wives can have done with the letters they take it for granted they have written, is their stormy speculation at the door of my hall dressing-room every night. if i do not send a letter to katie by this mail, it will be because i shall probably be obliged to go across the water to brooklyn to-morrow to see a church, in which it is proposed that i shall read!!! horrible visions of being put in the pulpit already beset me. and whether the audience will be in pews is another consideration which greatly disturbs my mind. no paper ever comes out without a leader on dolby, who of course reads them all, and never can understand why i don't, in which he is called all the bad names in (and not in) the language. we always call him p. h. dolby now, in consequence of one of these graceful specimens of literature describing him as the "pudding-headed." i fear that when we travel he will have to be always before me, so that i may not see him six times in as many weeks. however, i shall have done a fourth of the whole this very next week! best love to your aunt, and the boys, and katie, and charley, and all true friends. _friday._ i managed to read last night, but it was as much as i could do. to-day i am so very unwell, that i have sent for a doctor; he has just been, and is in doubt whether i shall not have to stop reading for a while. [sidenote: miss dickens.] westminster hotel, irving place, new york, _monday, dec. th, ._ i am getting all right again. i have not been well, been very low, and have been obliged to have a doctor; a very agreeable fellow indeed, who soon turned out to be an old friend of olliffe's.[ ] he has set me on my legs and taken his leave "professionally," though he means to give me a call now and then. in the library at gad's is a bound book, "remarkable criminal trials," translated by lady duff gordon, from the original by fauerbach. i want that book, and a copy of praed's poems, to be sent out to boston, care of ticknor and fields. if you will give the "criminal trials" to wills, and explain my wish, and ask him to buy a copy of praed's poems and add it to the parcel, he will know how to send the packet out. i think the "criminal trials" book is in the corner book-case, by the window, opposite the door. no news here. all going on in the regular way. i read in that church i told you of, about the middle of january. it is wonderfully seated for two thousand people, and is as easy to speak in as if they were two hundred. the people are seated in pews, and we let the pews. i stood on a small platform from which the pulpit will be removed for the occasion!! i emerge from the vestry!!! philadelphia, baltimore, and another two nights in boston will follow this coming month of january. on friday next i shall have read a fourth of my whole list, besides having had twelve days' holiday when i first came out. so please god i shall soon get to the half, and so begin to work hopefully round. i suppose you were at the adelphi on thursday night last. they are pirating the bill as well as the play here, everywhere. i have registered the play as the property of an american citizen, but the law is by no means clear that i established a right in it by so doing; and of course the pirates knew very well that i could not, under existing circumstances, try the question with them in an american court of law. nothing is being played here scarcely that is not founded on my books--"cricket," "oliver twist," "our mutual friend," and i don't know what else, every night. i can't get down broadway for my own portrait; and yet i live almost as quietly in this hotel, as if i were at the office, and go in and out by a side door just as i might there. i go back to boston on saturday to read there on monday and tuesday. then i am back here, and keep within six or seven hours' journey of hereabouts till february. my further movements shall be duly reported as the details are arranged. i shall be curious to know who were at gad's hill on christmas day, and how you (as they say in this country) "got along." it is exceedingly cold here again, after two or three quite spring days. footnotes: [ ] madame sainton dolby. [ ] the nearest neighbour at higham, and intimate friends. [ ] dr. fordyce barker. . narrative. charles dickens remained in america through the winter, returning home from new york in the _russia_, on the th of april. his letters show how entirely he gave himself up to the business of the readings, how severely his health suffered from the climate, and from the perpetual travelling and hard work, and yet how he was able to battle through to the end. these letters are also full of allusions to the many kind and dear friends who contributed so largely to the pleasure of this american visit, and whose love and attention gave a touch of _home_ to his private life, and left such affection and gratitude in his heart as he could never forget. many of these friends paid visits to gad's hill; the first to come during this summer being mr. longfellow, his daughters, and mr. appleton, brother-in-law of mr. longfellow, and mr. and mrs. charles eliot norton, of cambridge. for the future, there were to be no more christmas numbers of "all the year round." observing the extent to which they were now copied in all directions, charles dickens supposed them likely to become tiresome to the public, and so determined that in his journal they should be discontinued. while still in america, he made an agreement with the messrs. chappell to give a series of farewell readings in england, to commence in the autumn of this year. so, in october, charles dickens started off again for a tour in the provinces. he had for some time been planning, by way of a novelty for this series, a reading from the murder in "oliver twist," but finding it so very horrible, he was fearful of trying its effect for the first time on a public audience. it was therefore resolved, that a trial of it should be made to a limited private audience in st. james's hall, on the evening of the th of november. this trial proved eminently successful, and "the murder from oliver twist" became one of the most popular of his selections. but the physical exertion it involved was far greater than that of any of his previous readings, and added immensely to the excitement and exhaustion which they caused him. one of the first letters of the year from america is addressed to mr. samuel cartwright, of surgical and artistic reputation, and greatly esteemed by charles dickens, both in his professional capacity and as a private friend. the letter written to mrs. cattermole, in may, tells of the illness of mr. george cattermole. this dear old friend, so associated with charles dickens and his works, died soon afterwards, and the letter to his widow shows that charles dickens was exerting himself in her behalf. the play of "no thoroughfare" having been translated into french under the title of "l'abîme," charles dickens went over to paris to be present at the first night of its production. on the th of september, his youngest son, edward bulwer lytton (the "plorn" so often mentioned), started for australia, to join his brother alfred tennyson, who was already established there. it will be seen by his own words how deeply and how sadly charles dickens felt this parting. in october of this year, his son henry fielding entered trinity hall, cambridge, as an undergraduate. the miss forster mentioned in the letter to his sister-in-law, and for whom the kind and considerate arrangements were suggested, was a sister of mr. john forster, and a lady highly esteemed by charles dickens. the illness from which she was then suffering was a fatal one. she died in this same year, a few days before christmas. mr. j. c. parkinson, to whom a letter is addressed, was a gentleman holding a government appointment, and contributing largely to journalism and periodical literature. as our last letter for this year, we give one which charles dickens wrote to his youngest son on his departure for australia. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] westminster hotel, irving place, new york, _friday, jan. rd, ._ my dearest georgy, i received yours of the th from gad's and the office this morning. i read here to-night, and go back to boston to-morrow, to read there monday and tuesday. to-night, i read out the first quarter of my list. our houses have been very fine here, but have never quite recovered the dolby uproar. it seems impossible to devise any scheme for getting the tickets into the people's hands without the intervention of speculators. the people _will not_ help themselves; and, of course, the speculators and all other such prowlers throw as great obstacles in dolby's way (an englishman's) as they possibly can. he may be a little injudicious into the bargain. last night, for instance, he met one of the "ushers" (who show people to their seats) coming in with kelly. it is against orders that anyone employed in front should go out during the readings, and he took this man to task in the british manner. instantly the free and independent usher put on his hat and walked off. seeing which, all the other free and independent ushers (some twenty in number) put on _their_ hats and walked off, leaving us absolutely devoid and destitute of a staff for to-night. one has since been improvised; but it was a small matter to raise a stir and ill will about, especially as one of our men was equally in fault. we have a regular clerk, a bostonian whose name is wild. he, osgood, dolby, kelly, scott, george the gasman, and perhaps a boy or two, constitute my body-guard. it seems a large number of people, but the business cannot be done with fewer. the speculators buying the front seats to sell at a premium (and we have found instances of this being done by merchants in good position!), and the public perpetually pitching into dolby for selling them back seats, the result is that they won't have the back seats, send back their tickets, write and print volumes on the subject, and deter others from coming. you may get an idea of the staff's work, by what is in hand now. they are preparing, numbering, and stamping six thousand tickets for philadelphia, and eight thousand tickets for brooklyn. the moment those are done, another eight thousand tickets will be wanted for baltimore, and probably another six thousand for washington. this in addition to the correspondence, advertisements, accounts, travellings, and the mighty business of the reading four times a week. the cunard steamers being now removed from halifax, i have decided _not_ to go there, or to st. john's, new brunswick. and as there would be a perfect uproar if i picked out such a place in canada as quebec or montreal, and excluded those two places (which would guarantee three hundred pounds a night), and further, as i don't want places, having more than enough for my list of eighty-four, i have finally resolved not to go to canada either. this will enable me to embark for home in april instead of may. tell plorn, with my love, that i think he will find himself much interested at that college,[ ] and that it is very likely he may make some acquaintances there that will thereafter be pleasant and useful to him. sir sydney dacres is the best of friends. i have a letter from mrs. hulkes by this post, wherein the boy encloses a violet, now lying on the table before me. let her know that it arrived safely, and retaining its colour. i took it for granted that mary would have asked chorley for christmas day, and am very glad she ultimately did so. i am sorry that harry lost his prize, but believe it was not his fault. let _him_ know _that_, with my love. i would have written to him by this mail in answer to his, but for other occupation. did i tell you that my landlord made me a drink (brandy, rum, and snow the principal ingredients) called a "rocky mountain sneezer"? or that the favourite drink before you get up is an "eye-opener"? or that roberts (second landlord), no sooner saw me on the night of the first fire, than, with his property blazing, he insisted on taking me down into a roomful of hot smoke to drink brandy and water with him? we have not been on fire again, by-the-bye, more than once. there has been another fall of snow, succeeded by a heavy thaw. i have laid down my sledge, and taken up my carriage again, in consequence. i am nearly all right, but cannot get rid of an intolerable cold in the head. no more news. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] parker house, boston, u.s., _jan. th, ._ i write to you by this opportunity, though i really have nothing to tell you. the work is hard and the climate is hard. we made a tremendous hit last night with "nickleby" and "boots," which the bostonians certainly on the whole appreciate more than "copperfield"! dolby is always going about with an immense bundle that looks like a sofa cushion, but it is in reality paper money; and always works like a trojan. his business at night is a mere nothing, for these people are so accustomed to take care of themselves, that one of these immense audiences will fall into their places with an ease amazing to a frequenter of st. james's hall. and the certainty with which they are all in, before i go on, is a very acceptable mark of respect. i must add, too, that although there is a conventional familiarity in the use of one's name in the newspapers as "dickens," "charlie," and what not, i do not in the least see that familiarity in the writers themselves. an inscrutable tone obtains in journalism, which a stranger cannot understand. if i say in common courtesy to one of them, when dolby introduces, "i am much obliged to you for your interest in me," or so forth, he seems quite shocked, and has a bearing of perfect modesty and propriety. i am rather inclined to think that they suppose their printed tone to be the public's love of smartness, but it is immensely difficult to make out. all i can as yet make out is, that my perfect freedom from bondage, and at any moment to go on or leave off, or otherwise do as i like, is the only safe position to occupy. again; there are two apparently irreconcilable contrasts here. down below in this hotel every night are the bar loungers, dram drinkers, drunkards, swaggerers, loafers, that one might find in a boucicault play. within half an hour is cambridge, where a delightful domestic life--simple, self-respectful, cordial, and affectionate--is seen in an admirable aspect. all new england is primitive and puritanical. all about and around it is a puddle of mixed human mud, with no such quality in it. perhaps i may in time sift out some tolerably intelligible whole, but i certainly have not done so yet. it is a good sign, may be, that it all seems immensely more difficult to understand than it was when i was here before. felton left two daughters. i have only seen the eldest, a very sensible, frank, pleasant girl of eight-and-twenty, perhaps, rather like him in the face. a striking-looking daughter of hawthorn's (who is also dead) came into my room last night. the day has slipped on to three o'clock, and i must get up "dombey" for to-night. hence this sudden break off. best love to mamie, and to katie and charley collins. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] westminster hotel, new york, _sunday, jan. th, ._ my dear wilkie, first, of the play.[ ] i am truly delighted to learn that it made so great a success, and i hope i may yet see it on the adelphi boards. you have had a world of trouble and work with it, but i hope will be repaid in some degree by the pleasure of a triumph. even for the alteration at the end of the fourth act (of which you tell me in your letter received yesterday), i was fully prepared, for i could not see the original effect in the reading of the play, and could not make it go. i agree with webster in thinking it best that obenreizer should die on the stage; but no doubt that point is disposed of. in reading the play before the representation, i felt that it was too long, and that there was a good deal of unnecessary explanation. those points are, no doubt, disposed of too by this time. we shall do nothing with it on this side. pirates are producing their own wretched versions in all directions, thus (as wills would say) anticipating and glutting "the market." i registered one play as the property of ticknor and fields, american citizens. but, besides that the law on the point is extremely doubtful, the manager of the museum theatre, boston, instantly announced his version. (you may suppose what it is and how it is done, when i tell you that it was playing within ten days of the arrival out of the christmas number.) thereupon, ticknor and fields gave him notice that he mustn't play it. unto which he replied, that he meant to play it and would play it. of course he knew very well that if an injunction were applied for against him, there would be an immediate howl against my persecution of an innocent, and he played it. then the noble host of pirates rushed in, and it is being done, in some mangled form or other, everywhere. it touches me to read what you write of your poor mother. but, of course, at her age, each winter counts heavily. do give her my love, and tell her that i asked you about her. i am going on here at the same great rate, but am always counting the days that lie between me and home. i got through the first fourth of my readings on friday, january rd. i leave for two readings at philadelphia this evening. being at boston last sunday, i took it into my head to go over the medical school, and survey the holes and corners in which that extraordinary murder was done by webster. there was the furnace--stinking horribly, as if the dismembered pieces were still inside it--and there are all the grim spouts, and sinks, and chemical appliances, and what not. at dinner, afterwards, longfellow told me a terrific story. he dined with webster within a year of the murder, one of a party of ten or twelve. as they sat at their wine, webster suddenly ordered the lights to be turned out, and a bowl of some burning mineral to be placed on the table, that the guests might see how ghostly it made them look. as each man stared at all the rest in the weird light, all were horrified to see webster _with a rope round his neck_, holding it up, over the bowl, with his head jerked on one side, and his tongue lolled out, representing a man being hanged! poking into his life and character, i find (what i would have staked my head upon) that he was always a cruel man. so no more at present from, my dear wilkie, yours ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] westminster hotel, new york, _sunday, jan. th, ._ as i am off to philadelphia this evening, i may as well post my letter here. i have scarcely a word of news. my cold steadily refuses to leave me; but otherwise i am as right as one can hope to be under this heavy work. my new york readings are over (except four farewell nights in april), and i look forward to the relief of being out of my hardest hall. last friday night, though it was only "nickleby" and "boots," i was again dead beat at the end, and was once more laid upon a sofa. but the faintness went off after a little while. we have now cold, bright, frosty weather, without snow--the best weather for me. having been in great trepidation about the play, i am correspondingly elated by the belief that it really _is_ a success. no doubt the unnecessary explanations will have been taken out, and the flatness of the last act fetched up. at some points i could have done wonders to it, in the way of screwing it up sharply and picturesquely, if i could have rehearsed it. your account of the first night interested me immensely, but i was afraid to open the letter until dolby rushed in with the opened _times_. on wednesday i come back here for my four church readings at brooklyn. each evening an enormous ferryboat will convey me and my state carriage (not to mention half-a-dozen waggons, and any number of people, and a few score of horses) across the river, and will bring me back again. the sale of tickets there was an amazing scene. the noble army of speculators are now furnished (this is literally true, and i am quite serious), each man with a straw mattress, a little bag of bread and meat, two blankets, and a bottle of whisky. with this outfit _they lie down in line on the pavement_ the whole night before the tickets are sold, generally taking up their position at about ten. it being severely cold at brooklyn, they made an immense bonfire in the street--a narrow street of wooden houses!--which the police turned out to extinguish. a general fight then took place, out of which the people farthest off in the line rushed bleeding when they saw a chance of displacing others near the door, and put their mattresses in those places, and then held on by the iron rails. at eight in the morning dolby appeared with the tickets in a portmanteau. he was immediately saluted with a roar of "halloa, dolby! so charley has let you have the carriage, has he, dolby! how is he, dolby! don't drop the tickets, dolby! look alive, dolby!" etc. etc. etc., in the midst of which he proceeded to business, and concluded (as usual) by giving universal dissatisfaction. he is now going off upon a little journey "to look over the ground and cut back again." this little journey (to chicago) is fifteen hundred miles on end, by railway, and back again! we have an excellent gasman, who is well up to that department. we have enlarged the large staff by another clerk, yet even now the preparation of such an immense number of new tickets constantly, and the keeping and checking of the accounts, keep them hard at it. and they get so oddly divided! kelly is at philadelphia, another man at baltimore, two others are stamping tickets at the top of this house, another is cruising over new england, and osgood will come on duty to-morrow (when dolby starts off) to pick me up after the reading, and take me to the hotel, and mount guard over me, and bring me back here. you see that even such wretched domesticity as dolby and self by a fireside is broken up under these conditions. dolby has been twice poisoned, and osgood once. morgan's sharpness has discovered the cause. when the snow is deep upon the ground, and the partridges cannot get their usual food, they eat something (i don't know what, if anybody does) which does not poison _them_, but which poisons the people who eat them. the symptoms, which last some twelve hours, are violent sickness, cold perspiration, and the formation of some detestable mucus in the stomach. you may infer that partridges have been banished from our bill of fare. the appearance of our sufferers was lamentable in the extreme. did i tell you that the severity of the weather, and the heat of the intolerable furnaces, dry the hair and break the nails of strangers? there is not a complete nail in the whole british suite, and my hair cracks again when i brush it. (i am losing my hair with great rapidity, and what i don't lose is getting very grey.) the _cuba_ will bring this. she has a jolly new captain--moody, of the _java_--and her people rushed into the reading, the other night, captain-headed, as if i were their peculiar property. please god i shall come home in her, in my old cabin; leaving here on the nd of april, and finishing my eighty-fourth reading on the previous night! it is likely enough that i shall read and go straight on board. i think this is all my poor stock of intelligence. by-the-bye, on the last sunday in the old year, i lost my old year's pocket-book, "which," as mr. pepys would add, "do trouble me mightily." give me katie's new address; i haven't got it. [sidenote: miss dickens.] philadelphia, _monday, jan. th, ._ i write you this note, a day later than your aunt's, not because i have anything to add to the little i have told her, but because you may like to have it. we arrived here last night towards twelve o'clock, more than an hour after our time. this is one of the immense american hotels (it is called the continental); but i find myself just as quiet here as elsewhere. everything is very good indeed, the waiter is german, and the greater part of the house servants seem to be coloured people. the town is very clean, and the day as blue and bright as a fine italian day. but it freezes very hard. all the tickets being sold here for six nights (three visits of two nights each), the suite complain of want of excitement already, having been here ten hours! mr. and mrs. barney williams, with a couple of servants, and a pretty little child-daughter, were in the train each night, and i talked with them a good deal. they are reported to have made an enormous fortune by acting among the californian gold-diggers. my cold is no better, for the cars are so intolerably hot, that i was often obliged to go and stand upon the break outside, and then the frosty air was biting indeed. the great man of this place is one mr. childs, a newspaper proprietor, and he is so exactly like mr. esse in all conceivable respects except being an inch or so taller, that i was quite confounded when i saw him waiting for me at the station (always called depôt here) with his carriage. during the last two or three days, dolby and i have been making up accounts, which are excellently kept by mr. osgood, and i find them amazing, quite, in their results. i was very much interested in the home accounts of christmas day. i think i have already mentioned that we were in very low spirits on that day. i began to be unwell with my cold that morning, and a long day's travel did not mend the matter. we scarcely spoke (except when we ate our lunch), and sat dolefully staring out of window. i had a few affectionate words from chorley, dated from my room, on christmas morning, and will write him, probably by this mail, a brief acknowledgment. i find it necessary (so oppressed am i with this american catarrh, as they call it) to dine at three o'clock instead of four, that i may have more time to get voice, so that the days are cut short, and letter-writing is not easy. my best love to katie, and to charley, and to our charley, and to all friends. if i could only get to the point of being able to hold my head up and dispense with my pocket-handkerchief for five minutes, i should be all right. [sidenote: mr. charles dickens.] westminster hotel, irving place, new york, _wednesday, jan. th, ._ my dear charley, finding your letter here this afternoon on my return from philadelphia (where i have been reading two nights), i take advantage of a spare half-hour in which to answer it at once, though it will not leave here until saturday. i had previously heard of the play, and had _the times_. it was a great relief and delight to me, for i had no confidence in its success; being reduced to the confines of despair by its length. if i could have rehearsed it, i should have taken the best part of an hour out of it. fechter must be very fine, and i should greatly like to see him play the part. i have not been very well generally, and am oppressed (and i begin to think that i probably shall be until i leave) by a true american cold, which i hope, for the comfort of human nature, may be peculiar to only one of the four quarters of the world. the work, too, is very severe. but i am going on at the same tremendous rate everywhere. the staff, too, has had to be enlarged. dolby was at baltimore yesterday, is at washington to-day, and will come back in the night, and start away again on friday. we find it absolutely necessary for him to go on ahead. we have not printed or posted a single bill here, and have just sold ninety pounds' worth of paper we had got ready for bills. in such a rush a short newspaper advertisement is all we want. "doctor marigold" made a great hit here, and is looked forward to at boston with especial interest. i go to boston for another fortnight, on end, the th of february. the railway journeys distress me greatly. i get out into the open air (upon the break), and it snows and blows, and the train bumps, and the steam flies at me, until i am driven in again. i have finished here (except four farewell nights in april), and begin four nights at brooklyn, on the opposite side of the river, to-night; and thus oscillate between philadelphia, baltimore, and washington, and then cut into new england, and so work my way back to boston for a fortnight, after which come chicago, cincinnati, detroit and cleveland, and buffalo, and then philadelphia, boston, and new york farewells. i will not pass my original bound of eighty-four readings in all. my mind was made up as to that long ago. it will be quite enough. chicago is some fifteen hundred miles from here. what with travelling, and getting ready for reading, and reading, the days are pretty fully occupied. not the less so because i rest very indifferently at night. the people are exceedingly kind and considerate, and desire to be most hospitable besides. but i cannot accept hospitality, and never go out, except at boston, or i should not be fit for the labour. if dolby holds out well to the last it will be a triumph, for he has to see everybody, drink with everybody, sell all the tickets, take all the blame, and go beforehand to all the places on the list. i shall not see him after to-night for ten days or a fortnight, and he will be perpetually on the road during the interval. when he leaves me, osgood, a partner in ticknor and fields' publishing firm, mounts guard over me, and has to go into the hall from the platform door every night, and see how the public are seating themselves. it is very odd to see how hard he finds it to look a couple of thousand people in the face, on which head, by-the-bye, i notice the papers to take "mr. dickens's extraordinary composure" (their great phrase) rather ill, and on the whole to imply that it would be taken as a suitable compliment if i would stagger on to the platform and instantly drop, overpowered by the spectacle before me. dinner is announced (by scott, with a stiff neck and a sore throat), and i must break off with love to bessie and the incipient wenerableses. you will be glad to hear of your distinguished parent that philadelphia has discovered that "he is not like the descriptions we have read of him at the little red desk. he is not at all foppish in appearance. he wears a heavy moustache and a vandyke beard, and looks like a well-to-do philadelphian gentleman." ever, my dear charley, your affectionate father. p.s.--your paper is remarkably good. there is not the least doubt that you can write constantly for a. y. r. i am very pleased with it. [sidenote: miss dickens.] westminster hotel, new york, _friday, jan, th, ._ this will be but a very short report, as i must get out for a little exercise before dinner. my "true american catarrh" (the people seem to have a national pride in it) sticks to me, but i am otherwise well. i began my church readings last night, and it was very odd to see the pews crammed full of people, all in a broad roar at the "carol" and "trial." best love to all. i have written charley a few lines by this mail, and also chorley. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] westminster hotel, new york, _tuesday, jan. st, ._ i finished my church to-night. it is mrs. stowe's brother's, and a most wonderful place to speak in. we had it enormously full last night ("marigold" and "trial"), but it scarcely required an effort. mr. ward beecher (mrs. stowe's brother's name) being present in his pew. i sent to invite him to come round before he left; and i found him to be an unostentatious, straightforward, and agreeable fellow. my cold sticks to me, and i can scarcely exaggerate what i sometimes undergo from sleeplessness. the day before yesterday i could get no rest until morning, and could not get up before twelve. this morning the same. i rarely take any breakfast but an egg and a cup of tea, not even toast or bread-and-butter. my dinner at three, and a little quail or some such light thing when i come home at night, is my daily fare. at the hall i have established the custom of taking an egg beaten up in sherry before going in, and another between the parts. i think that pulls me up; at all events, i have since had no return of faintness. as the men work very hard, and always with their hearts cheerfully in the business, i cram them into and outside of the carriage, to bring them back from brooklyn with me. the other night, scott (with a portmanteau across his knees and a wideawake hat low down upon his nose) told me that he had presented himself for admission in the circus (as good as franconi's, by-the-bye), and had been refused. "the only theayter," he said in a melancholy way, "as i was ever in my life turned from the door of." says kelly: "there must have been some mistake, scott, because george and me went, and we said, 'mr. dickens's staff,' and they passed us to the best seats in the house. go again, scott." "no, i thank you, kelly," says scott, more melancholy than before, "i'm not a-going to put myself in the position of being refused again. it's the only theayter as i was ever turned from the door of, and it shan't be done twice. but it's a beastly country!" "scott," interposed majesty, "don't you express your opinions about the country." "no, sir," says scott, "i never do, please, sir, but when you are turned from the door of the only theayter you was ever turned from, sir, and when the beasts in railway cars spits tobacco over your boots, you (privately) find yourself in a beastly country." i expect shortly to get myself snowed up on some railway or other, for it is snowing hard now, and i begin to move to-morrow. there is so much floating ice in the river that we are obliged to leave a pretty wide margin of time for getting over the ferry to read. the dinner is coming in, and i must leave off. [sidenote: miss dickens.] philadelphia, _thursday, jan. rd, ._ when i wrote to your aunt by the last mail, i accidentally omitted to touch upon the question of helping anne. so i will begin in this present writing with reference to her sad position. i think it will be best for you to be guided by an exact knowledge of her _wants_. try to ascertain from herself what means she has, whether her sick husband gets what he ought to have, whether she is pinched in the articles of necessary clothing, bedding, or the like of that; add to this intelligence your own observation of the state of things about her, and supply what she most wants, and help her where you find the greatest need. the question, in the case of so old and faithful a servant, is not one of so much or so little money on my side, but how _most efficiently_ to ease her mind and help _her_. to do this at once kindly and sensibly is the only consideration by which you have to be guided. take _carte blanche_ from me for all the rest. my washington week is the first week in february, beginning on monday, rd. the tickets are sold, and the president is coming, and the chief members of the cabinet, and the leaders of parties, and so forth, are coming; and, as the holly tree boots says: "that's where it is, don't you see!" in my washington doubts i recalled dolby for conference, and he joined me yesterday afternoon, and we have been in great discussion ever since on the possibility of giving up the far west, and avoiding such immense distances and fatigues as would be involved in travelling to chicago and cincinnati. we have sketched another tour for the last half of march, which would be infinitely easier for me, though on the other hand less profitable, the places and the halls being smaller. the worst of it is, that everybody one advises with has a monomania respecting chicago. "good heaven, sir," the great philadelphian authority said to me this morning, "if you don't read in chicago, the people will go into fits." in reference to fatigue, i answered: "well, i would rather they went into fits than i did." but he didn't seem to see it at all. ---- alone constantly writes me: "don't go to the west; you can get what you want so much more easily." how we shall finally decide, i don't yet know. my brooklyn church has been an immense success, and i found its minister was a bachelor, a clever, unparsonic, and straightforward man, and a man with a good knowledge of art into the bargain. we are not a bit too soon here, for the whole country is beginning to be stirred and shaken by the presidential election, and trade is exceedingly depressed, and will be more so. fanny kemble lives near this place, but had gone away a day before my first visit here. _she_ is going to read in february or march. du chaillu has been lecturing out west about the gorilla, and has been to see me; i saw the cunard steamer _persia_ out in the stream, yesterday, beautifully smart, her flags flying, all her steam up, and she only waiting for her mails to slip away. she gave me a horrible touch of home-sickness. when the st of march arrives, and i can say "next month," i shall begin to grow brighter. a fortnight's reading in boston, too (last week of february and first week of march), will help me on gaily, i hope (the work so far off tells). it is impossible for the people to be more affectionately attached to a third, i really believe, than fields and his wife are to me; and they are a landmark in the prospect. dolby sends kindest regards, and wishes it to be known that he has not been bullied lately. we do _not_ go west at all, but take the easier plan. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] baltimore, _wednesday, jan. th, ._ as i have an hour to spare, before starting to philadelphia, i begin my letter this morning. it has been snowing hard for four-and-twenty hours, though this place is as far south as valentia in spain; and dolby, being on his way to new york, has a good chance of being snowed up somewhere. they are a bright responsive people here, and very pleasant to read to. i have rarely seen so many fine faces in an audience. i read here in a charming little opera-house built by a society of germans, quite a delightful place for the purpose. i stand on the stage, with a drop curtain down, and my screen before it. the whole scene is very pretty and complete, and the audience have a "ring" in them that sounds in the ear. i go from here to philadelphia to read to-morrow night and friday, come through here again on saturday on my way to washington, come back here on saturday week for two finishing nights, then go to philadelphia for two farewells, and so turn my back on the southern part of the country. distances and travelling have obliged us to reduce the list of readings by two, leaving eighty-two in all. of course we afterwards discovered that we had finally settled the list on a friday! i shall be halfway through it at washington, of course, on a friday also, and my birthday! dolby and osgood, who do the most ridiculous things to keep me in spirits (i am often very heavy, and rarely sleep much), have decided to have a walking-match at boston, on saturday, february th. beginning this design in joke, they have become tremendously in earnest, and dolby has actually sent home (much to his opponent's terror) for a pair of seamless socks to walk in. our men are hugely excited on the subject, and continually make bets on "the men." fields and i are to walk out six miles, and "the men" are to turn and walk round us. neither of them has the least idea what twelve miles at a pace is. being requested by both to give them "a breather" yesterday, i gave them a stiff one of five miles over a bad road in the snow, half the distance uphill. i took them at a pace of four miles and a half an hour, and you never beheld such objects as they were when we got back; both smoking like factories, and both obliged to change everything before they could come to dinner. they have the absurdest ideas of what are tests of walking power, and continually get up in the maddest manner and see _how high they can kick_ the wall! the wainscot here, in one place, is scored all over with their pencil-marks. to see them doing this--dolby, a big man, and osgood, a very little one, is ridiculous beyond description. philadelphia, _same night._ we came on here through a snowstorm all the way, but up to time. fanny kemble (who begins to read shortly) is coming to "marigold" and "trial" to-morrow night. i have written her a note, telling her that if it will at all assist _her_ movements to know _mine_, my list is at her service. probably i shall see her to-morrow. tell mamie (to whom i will write next), with my love, that i found her letter of the th of this month awaiting me here. the _siberia_ that brought it is a new cunarder, and made an unusually slow passage out. probably because it would be dangerous to work new machinery too fast on the atlantic. _thursday, th._ my cold still sticks to me. the heat of the railway cars and their unventilated condition invariably brings it back when i think it going. this morning my head is as stuffed and heavy as ever! a superb sledge and four horses have been offered me for a ride, but i am afraid to take it, lest i should make the "true american catarrh" worse, and should get hoarse. so i am going to give osgood another "breather" on foot instead. the communication with new york is not interrupted, so we consider the zealous dolby all right. you may imagine what his work is, when you hear that he goes three times to every place we visit. firstly, to look at the hall, arrange the numberings, and make five hundred acquaintances, whom he immediately calls by their christian-names; secondly, to sell the tickets--a very nice business, requiring great tact and temper; thirdly, with me. he will probably turn up at washington next sunday, but only for a little while; for as soon as i am on the platform on monday night, he will start away again, probably to be seen no more until we pass through new york in the middle of february. [sidenote: mr. samuel cartwright] baltimore, _wednesday, jan. th, ._ my dear cartwright, as i promised to report myself to you from this side of the atlantic, and as i have some leisure this morning, i am going to lighten my conscience by keeping my word. i am going on at a great pace and with immense success. next week, at washington, i shall, please god, have got through half my readings. the remaining half are all arranged, and they will carry me into the third week of april. it is very hard work, but it is brilliantly paid. the changes that i find in the country generally (this place is the least changed of any i have yet seen) exceed my utmost expectations. i had been in new york a couple of days before i began to recognise it at all; and the handsomest part of boston was a black swamp when i saw it five-and-twenty years ago. considerable advances, too, have been made socially. strange to say, the railways and railway arrangements (both exceedingly defective) seem to have stood still while all other things have been moving. one of the most comical spectacles i have ever seen in my life was "church," with a heavy sea on, in the saloon of the cunard steamer coming out. the officiating minister, an extremely modest young man, was brought in between two big stewards, exactly as if he were coming up to the scratch in a prize-fight. the ship was rolling and pitching so, that the two big stewards had to stop and watch their opportunity of making a dart at the reading-desk with their reverend charge, during which pause he held on, now by one steward and now by the other, with the feeblest expression of countenance and no legs whatever. at length they made a dart at the wrong moment, and one steward was immediately beheld alone in the extreme perspective, while the other and the reverend gentleman _held on by the mast_ in the middle of the saloon--which the latter embraced with both arms, as if it were his wife. all this time the congregation was breaking up into sects and sliding away; every sect (as in nature) pounding the other sect. and when at last the reverend gentleman had been tumbled into his place, the desk (a loose one, put upon the dining-table) deserted from the church bodily, and went over to the purser. the scene was so extraordinarily ridiculous, and was made so much more so by the exemplary gravity of all concerned in it, that i was obliged to leave before the service began. this is one of the places where butler carried it with so high a hand in the war, and where the ladies used to spit when they passed a northern soldier. it still wears, i fancy, a look of sullen remembrance. (the ladies are remarkably handsome, with an eastern look upon them, dress with a strong sense of colour, and make a brilliant audience.) the ghost of slavery haunts the houses; and the old, untidy, incapable, lounging, shambling black serves you as a free man. free of course he ought to be; but the stupendous absurdity of making him a voter glares out of every roll of his eye, stretch of his mouth, and bump of his head. i have a strong impression that the race must fade out of the states very fast. it never can hold its own against a striving, restless, shifty people. in the penitentiary here, the other day, in a room full of all blacks (too dull to be taught any of the work in hand), was one young brooding fellow, very like a black rhinoceros. he sat glowering at life, as if it were just endurable at dinner time, until four of his fellows began to sing, most unmelodiously, a part song. he then set up a dismal howl, and pounded his face on a form. i took him to have been rendered quite desperate by having learnt anything. i send my kind regard to mrs. cartwright, and sincerely hope that she and you have no new family distresses or anxieties. my standing address is the westminster hotel, irving place, new york city. and i am always, my dear cartwright, cordially yours. [sidenote: miss dickens.] philadelphia, _friday, jan. st, ._ since writing to your aunt i have received yours of the th, and am truly glad to have the last news of you confirmed by yourself. from a letter wilkie has written to me, it seems there can be no doubt that the "no thoroughfare" drama is a real, genuine, and great success. it is drawing immensely, and seems to "go" with great effect and applause. "doctor marigold" here last night (for the first time) was an immense success, and all philadelphia is going to rush at once for tickets for the two philadelphian farewells the week after next. the tickets are to be sold to-morrow, and great excitement is anticipated in the streets. dolby not being here, a clerk will sell, and will probably wish himself dead before he has done with it. it appears to me that chorley[ ] writes to you on the legacy question because he wishes you to understand that there is no danger of his changing his mind, and at the bottom i descry an honest desire to pledge himself as strongly as possible. you may receive it in that better spirit, or i am much mistaken. tell your aunt, with my best love, that i wrote to chauncey weeks ago, in answer to a letter from him. i am now going out in a sleigh (and four) with unconceivable dignity and grandeur; mentioning which reminds me that i am informed by trusty scouts that ---- intends to waylay me at washington, and may even descend upon me in the train to-morrow. best love to katie, the two charleys, and all. [sidenote: miss dickens.] washington, _tuesday, feb. th, ._ i began here last night with great success. the hall being small, the prices were raised to three dollars each ticket. the audience was a superior one, composed of the foremost public men and their families. at the end of the "carol" they gave a great break out, and applauded, i really believe, for five minutes. you would suppose them to be manchester shillings instead of washington half-sovereigns. immense enthusiasm. a devoted adherent in this place (an englishman) had represented to dolby that if i were taken to an hotel here it would be impossible to secure me a minute's rest, and he undertook to get one wheleker, a german, who keeps a little vérey's, to furnish his private dining-rooms for the illustrious traveller's reception. accordingly here we are, on the first and second floor of a small house, with no one else in it but our people, a french waiter, and a very good french cuisine. perfectly private, in the city of all the world (i should say) where the hotels are intolerable, and privacy the least possible, and quite comfortable. "wheleker's restaurant" is our rather undignified address for the present week. i dined (against my rules) with charles sumner on sunday, he having been an old friend of mine. mr. secretary staunton (war minister) was there. he is a man of a very remarkable memory, and famous for his acquaintance with the minutest details of my books. give him any passage anywhere, and he will instantly cap it and go on with the context. he was commander-in-chief of all the northern forces concentrated here, and never went to sleep at night without first reading something from my books, which were always with him. i put him through a pretty severe examination, but he was better up than i was. the gas was very defective indeed last night, and i began with a small speech, to the effect that i must trust to the brightness of their faces for the illumination of mine; this was taken greatly. in the "carol," a most ridiculous incident occurred all of a sudden. i saw a dog look out from among the seats into the centre aisle, and look very intently at me. the general attention being fixed on me, i don't think anybody saw the dog; but i felt so sure of his turning up again and barking, that i kept my eye wandering about in search of him. he was a very comic dog, and it was well for me that i was reading a very comic part of the book. but when he bounced out into the centre aisle again, in an entirely new place (still looking intently at me) and tried the effect of a bark upon my proceedings, i was seized with such a paroxysm of laughter, that it communicated itself to the audience, and we roared at one another loud and long. the president has sent to me twice, and i am going to see him to-morrow. he has a whole row for his family every night. dolby rejoined his chief yesterday morning, and will probably remain in the august presence until sunday night. he and osgood, "training for the match," are ludicrous beyond belief. i saw them just now coming up a street, each trying to pass the other, and immediately fled. since i have been writing this, they have burst in at the door and sat down on the floor to blow. dolby is now writing at a neighbouring table, with his bald head smoking as if he were on fire. kelly (his great adherent) asked me, when he was last away, whether it was quite fair that i should take mr. osgood out for "breathers" when mr. dolby had no such advantage. i begin to expect that half boston will turn out on the th to see the match. in which case it will be unspeakably droll. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] washington, _my birthday_, . (_and my cold worse than ever._) this will be but a short letter, as i have been to see the president this morning, and have little time before the post goes. he had sent a gentleman to me, most courteously begging me to make my own appointment, and i did so. a man of very remarkable appearance indeed, of tremendous firmness of purpose. not to be turned or trifled with. as i mention my cold's being so bad, i will add that i have never had anything the matter with me since i came here _but_ the cold. it is now in my throat, and slightly on my chest. it occasions me great discomfort, and you would suppose, seeing me in the morning, that i could not possibly read at night. but i have always come up to the scratch, have not yet missed one night, and have gradually got used to that. i had got much the better of it; but the dressing-room at the hall here is singularly cold and draughty, and so i have slid back again. the papers here having written about this being my birthday, the most exquisite flowers came pouring in at breakfast time from all sorts of people. the room is covered with them, made up into beautiful bouquets, and arranged in all manner of green baskets. probably i shall find plenty more at the hall to-night. this is considered the dullest and most apathetic place in america. _my_ audiences have been superb. i mentioned the dog on the first night here. next night i thought i heard (in "copperfield") a suddenly suppressed bark. it happened in this wise: osgood, standing just within the door, felt his leg touched, and looking down beheld the dog staring intently at me, and evidently just about to bark. in a transport of presence of mind and fury, he instantly caught him up in both hands and threw him over his own head out into the entry, where the check-takers received him like a game at ball. last night he came again _with another dog_; but our people were so sharply on the look-out for him that he didn't get in. he had evidently promised to pass the other dog free. [sidenote: miss dickens.] baltimore, u.s., _tuesday, feb. th, ._ the weather has been desperately severe, and my cold quite as bad as ever. i couldn't help laughing at myself on my birthday at washington. it was observed as much as though i were a little boy. flowers and garlands (of the most exquisite kind) bloomed all over the room; letters radiant with good wishes poured in; a shirt pin, a handsome silver travelling bottle, a set of gold shirt studs, and a set of gold sleeve links were on the dinner-table. after "boots," at night, the whole audience rose and remained (secretaries of state, president's family, judges of supreme court, and so forth) standing and cheering until i went back to the table and made them a little speech. on the same august day of the year i was received by the president, a man with a very remarkable and determined face. each of us looked at each other very hard, and each of us managed the interview (i think) to the satisfaction of the other. in the outer room was sitting a certain sunburnt general blair, with many evidences of the war upon him. he got up to shake hands with me, and then i found he had been out in the prairie with me five-and-twenty years ago. that afternoon my "catarrh" was in such a state that charles sumner, coming in at five o'clock and finding me covered with mustard poultice, and apparently voiceless, turned to dolby and said: "surely, mr. dolby, it is impossible that he can read to-night." says dolby: "sir, i have told the dear chief so four times to-day, and i have been very anxious. but you have no idea how he will change when he gets to the little table." after five minutes of the little table, i was not (for the time) even hoarse. the frequent experience of this return of force when it is wanted saves me a vast amount of anxiety. i wish you would get from homan and report to me, as near as he can make, an approximate estimate is the right term in the trade, i believe, of the following work: . to re-cover, with red leather, all the dining-room chairs. . to ditto, with green leather, all the library chairs and the couch. . to provide and lay down new _brussels_ carpets in the front spare and the two top spares. quality of carpet, quality of yours and mine. i have some doubts about the state of the hall floor-cloth, and also the floor-cloth in the dining-room. will you and your aunt carefully examine both (calling in homan too, if necessary), _and report to me_? it would seem that "no thoroughfare" has really developed as a drama into an amazing success. i begin to think that i shall see it. dolby is away this morning, to conquer or die in a terrific struggle with the mayor of newhaven (where i am to read next week), who has assailed him on a charge of false play in selling tickets. osgood, my other keeper, stands at the table to take me out, and have a "breather" for the walking-match, so i must leave off. think of my dreaming of mrs. bouncer each night!!! [sidenote: mr. henry fielding dickens.] baltimore, u.s., _tuesday, feb. th, ._ my dear harry, i should have written to you before now, but for constant and arduous occupation. in reference to the cricket club's not being what it might be, i agree with you in the main. there are some things to be considered, however, which you have hardly taken into account. the first thing to be avoided is, the slightest appearance of patronage (one of the curses of england). the second thing to be avoided is, the deprival of the men of their just right to manage their own affairs. i would rather have no club at all, than have either of these great mistakes made. the way out of them is this: call the men together, and explain to them that the club might be larger, richer, and better. say that you think that more of the neighbouring gentlemen could be got to be playing members. that you submit to them that it would be better to have a captain who could correspond with them, and talk to them, and in some sort manage them; and that, being perfectly acquainted with the game, and having long played it at a great public school, you propose yourself as captain, for the foregoing reasons. that you propose to them to make the subscription of the gentlemen members at least double that of the working men, for no other reason than that the gentlemen can afford it better; but that both classes of members shall have exactly the same right of voting equally in all that concerns the club. say that you have consulted me upon the matter, and that i am of these opinions, and am ready to become chairman of the club, and to preside at their meetings, and to overlook its business affairs, and to give it five pounds a year, payable at the commencement of each season. then, having brought them to this point, draw up the club's rules and regulations, amending them where they want amendment. discreetly done, i see no difficulty in this. but it can only be honourably and hopefully done by having the men together. and i would not have them at the falstaff, but in the hall or dining-room--the servants' hall, an excellent place. whatever you do, let the men ratify; and let them feel their little importance, and at once perceive how much better the business begins to be done. i am very glad to hear of the success of your reading, and still more glad that you went at it in downright earnest. i should never have made my success in life if i had been shy of taking pains, or if i had not bestowed upon the least thing i have ever undertaken exactly the same attention and care that i have bestowed upon the greatest. do everything at your best. it was but this last year that i set to and learned every word of my readings; and from ten years ago to last night, i have never read to an audience but i have watched for an opportunity of striking out something better somewhere. look at such of my manuscripts as are in the library at gad's, and think of the patient hours devoted year after year to single lines. * * * * * the weather is very severe here, and the work is very hard. dolby, having been violently pitched into by the mayor of newhaven (a town at which i am to read next week), has gone bodily this morning with defiant written instructions from me to inform the said mayor that, if he fail to make out his case, he (dolby) is to return all the money taken, and to tell him that i will not set foot in his jurisdiction; whereupon the newhaven people will probably fall upon the mayor in his turn, and lead him a pleasant life. ever, my dear harry, your affectionate father. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] philadelphia, _thursday, feb. th, ._ we have got into an immense difficulty with the people of newhaven. i have a strong suspicion that one of our men (who sold there) has been speculating all this while, and that he must have put front seats in his pockets, and sold back ones. he denies what the mayor charges, but the mayor holds on grimly. dolby set off from baltimore as soon as we found out what was amiss, to examine and report; but some new feature of difficulty must have come out, for this morning he telegraphs from new york (where he had to sleep last night on his way to newhaven), that he is coming back for further consultation with the chief. it will certainly hurt us, and will of course be distorted by the papers into all manner of shapes. my suspicion _may not_ be correct, but i have an instinctive belief that it is. we shall probably have the old new york row (and loss) over again, unless i can catch this mayor tripping in an assertion. in this very place, we are half-distracted by the speculators. they have been holding out for such high prices, that the public have held out too; and now (frightened at what they have done) the speculators are trying to sell their worst seats at half the cost price, so that we are in the ridiculous situation of having sold the room out, and yet not knowing what empty seats there may be. _we_ could sell at our box-office to any extent; but _we_ can't buy back of the speculators, because we informed the public that all the tickets were gone. and if we bought _under_ our own price and _sold_ at our own price, we should at once be in treaty with the speculators, and should be making money by it! dolby, the much bullied, will come back here presently, half bereft of his senses; and i should be half bereft of mine, if the situation were not comically disagreeable. nothing will induce the people to believe in the farewells. at baltimore on tuesday night (a very brilliant night indeed), they asked as they came out: "when will mr. dickens read here again?" "never." "nonsense! not come back, after such houses as these? come. say when he'll read again." just the same here. we could as soon persuade them that i am the president, as that i am going to read here, for the last time, to-morrow night. there is a child of the barney williams's in this house--a little girl--to whom i presented a black doll when i was here last. i have seen her eye at the keyhole since i began writing this, and i think she and the doll are outside still. "when you sent it up to me by the coloured boy," she said after receiving it (coloured boy is the term for black waiter), "i gave such a cream that ma came running in and creamed too, 'cos she fort i'd hurt myself. but i creamed a cream of joy." _she_ had a friend to play with her that day, and brought the friend with her, to my infinite confusion. a friend all stockings, and much too tall, who sat on the sofa very far back, with her stockings sticking stiffly out in front of her, and glared at me and never spake word. dolby found us confronted in a sort of fascination, like serpent and bird. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] new york, _monday, feb. th, ._ i got your letter of the rd of february here this morning. as i am off at seven to-morrow morning, i answer it at once, though indeed i have nothing to say. "true american" still sticking to me. but i am always ready for my work, and therefore don't much mind. dolby and the mayor of newhaven alternately embrace and exchange mortal defiances. in writing out some advertisements towards midnight last night, he made a very good mistake. "the reading will be comprised within two _minutes_, and the audience are earnestly entreated to be seated ten _hours_ before its commencement." the weather has been finer lately, but the streets are in a horrible condition, through half-melted snow, and it is now snowing again. the walking-match (next saturday week) is already in the boston papers! i suppose half boston will turn out on the occasion. as a sure way of not being conspicuous, "the men" are going to walk in flannel! they are in a mingled state of comicality and gravity about it that is highly ridiculous. yesterday being a bright cool day, i took dolby for a "buster" of eight miles. as everybody here knows me, the spectacle of our splitting up the fashionable avenue (the only way out of town) excited the greatest amazement. no doubt _that_ will be in the papers to-morrow. i give a gorgeous banquet to eighteen (ladies and gentlemen) after the match. mr. and mrs. fields, do. ticknor, longfellow and his daughter, lowell, holmes and his wife, etc. etc. sporting speeches to be made, and the stakes (four hats) to be handed over to the winner. my ship will not be the _cuba_ after all. she is to go into dock, and the _russia_ (a larger ship, and the latest built for the cunard line) is to take her place. very glad to hear of plorn's success. best love to mamie. [sidenote: m. charles fechter.] washington, _february th, ._ my dear fechter, your letter reached me here yesterday. i have sent you a telegram (addressed to the theatre) this morning, and i write this by the earliest return mail. my dear fellow, consider yourself my representative. whatever you do, or desire to do, about the play, i fully authorise beforehand. tell webster, with my regard, that i think his proposal honest and fair; that i think it, in a word, like himself; and that i have perfect confidence in his good faith and liberality. as to making money of the play in the united states here, boucicault has filled wilkie's head with golden dreams that have _nothing_ in them. he makes no account of the fact that, wherever i go, the theatres (with my name in big letters) instantly begin playing versions of my books, and that the moment the christmas number came over here they pirated it and played "no thoroughfare." now, i have enquired into the law, and am extremely doubtful whether i _could_ have prevented this. why should they pay for the piece as you act it, when they have no actors, and when all they want is my name, and they can get that for nothing? wilkie has uniformly written of you enthusiastically. in a letter i had from him, dated the th of january, he described your conception and execution of the part in the most glowing terms. "here fechter is magnificent." "here his superb playing brings the house down." "i should call even his exit in the last act one of the subtlest and finest things he does in the piece." "you can hardly imagine what he gets out of the part, or what he makes of his passionate love for marguerite." these expressions, and many others like them, crowded his letter. i never did so want to see a character played on the stage as i want to see you play obenreizer. as the play was going when i last heard of it, i have some hopes that i may see it yet. please god, your adelphi dressing-room will be irradiated with the noble presence of "never wrong" (if you are acting), about the evening of monday, the th of may! i am doing enormous business. it is a wearying life, away from all i love, but i hope that the time will soon begin to spin away. among the many changes that i find here is the comfortable change that the people are in general extremely considerate, and very observant of my privacy. even in this place, i am really almost as much my own master as if i were in an english country town. generally, they are very good audiences indeed. they do not (i think) perceive touches of art to _be_ art; but they are responsive to the broad results of such touches. "doctor marigold" is a great favourite, and they laugh so unrestrainedly at "the trial" from "pickwick" (which you never heard), that it has grown about half as long again as it used to be. if i could send you a "brandy cocktail" by post i would. it is a highly meritorious dram, which i hope to present to you at gad's. my new york landlord made me a "rocky mountain sneezer," which appeared to me to be compounded of all the spirits ever heard of in the world, with bitters, lemon, sugar, and snow. you can only make a true "sneezer" when the snow is lying on the ground. there, my dear boy, my paper is out, and i am going to read "copperfield." count always on my fidelity and true attachment, and look out, as i have already said, for a distinguished visitor about monday, the th of may. ever, my dear fechter, your cordial and affectionate friend. [sidenote: miss dickens.] boston, _tuesday, feb. th, ._ it is so very difficult to know, by any exercise of common sense, what turn or height the political excitement may take next, and it may so easily, and so soon, swallow up all other things, that i think i shall suppress my next week's readings here (by good fortune not yet announced) and watch the course of events. dolby's sudden desponding under these circumstances is so acute, that it is actually swelling his head as i glance at him in the glass while writing. the catarrh is no better and no worse. the weather is intensely cold. the walking-match (of which i will send particulars) is to come off on sunday. mrs. fields is more delightful than ever, and fields more hospitable. my room is always radiant with brilliant flowers of their sending. i don't know whether i told you that the walking-match is to celebrate the extinction of february, and the coming of the day when i can say "next month." [sidenote: miss hogarth.] boston, _thursday, feb. th, ._ this morning at breakfast i received yours of the th from palace gate house. i have very little news to give you in return for your budget. the walking-match is to come off on saturday, and fields and i went over the ground yesterday to measure the miles. we went at a tremendous pace. the condition of the ground is something indescribable, from half-melted snow, running water, and sheets and blocks of ice. the two performers have not the faintest notion of the weight of the task they have undertaken. i give a dinner afterwards, and have just now been settling the bill of fare and selecting the wines. in the first excitement of the presidential impeachment, our houses instantly went down. after carefully considering the subject, i decided to take advantage of the fact that next week's four readings here have not yet been announced, and to abolish them altogether. nothing in this country lasts long, and i think the public may be heartily tired of the president's name by the th of march, when i read at a considerable distance from here. so behold me with a whole week's holiday in view! the boston audiences have come to regard the readings and the reader as their peculiar property; and you would be at once amused and pleased if you could see the curious way in which they seem to plume themselves on both. they have taken to applauding too whenever they laugh or cry, and the result is very inspiriting. i shall remain here until saturday, the th, but shall not read here, after to-morrow night, until the st of april, when i begin my boston farewells, six in number. _friday, th._ it has been snowing all night, and the city is in a miserable condition. we had a fine house last night for "carol" and "trial," and such an enthusiastic one that they persisted in a call after the "carol," and, while i was out, covered the little table with flowers. the "true american" has taken a fresh start, as if it were quite a novelty, and is on the whole rather worse than ever to-day. the cunard packet, the _australasian_ (a poor ship), is some days overdue, and dolby is anxiously looking out for her. there is a lull in the excitement about the president, but the articles of impeachment are to be produced this afternoon, and then it may set in again. osgood came into camp last night from selling in remote places, and reports that at rochester and buffalo (both places near the frontier), canada people bought tickets, who had struggled across the frozen river and clambered over all sorts of obstructions to get them. some of those halls turn out to be smaller than represented, but i have no doubt, to use an american expression, that we shall "get along." to-morrow fortnight we purpose being at the falls of niagara, and then we shall turn back and really begin to wind up. i have got to know the "carol" so well that i can't remember it, and occasionally go dodging about in the wildest manner to pick up lost pieces. they took it so tremendously last night that i was stopped every five minutes. one poor young girl in mourning burst into a passion of grief about tiny tim, and was taken out. this is all my news. each of the pedestrians is endeavouring to persuade the other to take something unwholesome before starting. [sidenote: miss dickens.] boston, _monday, march nd, ._ a heavy gale of wind and a snowstorm oblige me to write suddenly for the cunard steamer a day earlier than usual. the railroad between this and new york will probably be stopped somewhere. after all the hard weather we have had, this is the worst day we have seen. the walking-match came off on saturday, over tremendously difficult ground, against a biting wind, and through deep snow-wreaths. it was so cold, too, that our hair, beards, eyelashes, eyebrows, were frozen hard, and hung with icicles. the course was thirteen miles. they were close together at the turning-point, when osgood went ahead at a splitting pace and with extraordinary endurance, and won by half a mile. dolby did very well indeed, and begs that he may not be despised. in the evening i gave a very splendid dinner. eighteen covers, most magnificent flowers, such table decoration as was never seen in these parts. the whole thing was a great success, and everybody was delighted. i am holiday-making until friday, when we start on the round of travel that is to bring us back here for the st of april. my holiday-making is simply thorough resting, except on wednesday, when i dine with longfellow. there is still great political excitement, but i hope it may not hurt us very much. my fear is that it may damage the farewell. dolby is not of my mind as to this, and i hope he may be right. we are not quite determined whether mrs. fields did not desert our colours, by coming on the ground in a carriage, and having _bread soaked in brandy_ put into the winning man's mouth as he steamed along. she pleaded that she would have done as much for dolby, if _he_ had been ahead, so we are inclined to forgive her. as she had done so much for me in the way of flowers, i thought i would show her a sight in that line at the dinner. you never saw anything like it. two immense crowns; the base, of the choicest exotics; and the loops, oval masses of violets. in the centre of the table an immense basket, overflowing with enormous bell-mouthed lilies; all round the table a bright green border of wreathed creeper, with clustering roses at intervals; a rose for every button-hole, and a bouquet for every lady. they made an exhibition of the table before dinner to numbers of people. p. h. has just come in with a newspaper, containing a reference (in good taste!) to the walking-match. he posts it to you by this post. it is telegraphed that the storm prevails over an immense extent of country, and is just the same at chicago as here. i hope it may prove a wind-up. we are getting sick of the sound of sleigh-bells even. your account of anne has greatly interested me. [sidenote: m. charles fechter.] syracuse, u.s. of america, _sunday night, march th, ._ my dear fechter, i am here in a most wonderful out-of-the-world place, which looks as if it had begun to be built yesterday, and were going to be imperfectly knocked together with a nail or two the day after to-morrow. i am in the worst inn that ever was seen, and outside is a thaw that places the whole country under water. i have looked out of window for the people, and i can't find any people. i have tried all the wines in the house, and there are only two wines, for which you pay six shillings a bottle, or fifteen, according as you feel disposed to change the name of the thing you ask for. (the article never changes.) the bill of fare is "in french," and the principal article (the carte is printed) is "paettie de shay." i asked the irish waiter what this dish was, and he said: "it was the name the steward giv' to oyster patties--the frinch name." these are the drinks you are to wash it down with: "mooseux," "abasinthe," "curacco," "marschine," "annise," and "margeaux"! i am growing very home-sick, and very anxious for the nd of april; on which day, please god, i embark for home. i am beginning to be tired, and have been depressed all the time (except when reading), and have lost my appetite. i cannot tell you--but you know, and therefore why should i?--how overjoyed i shall be to see you again, my dear boy, and how sorely i miss a dear friend, and how sorely i miss all art, in these parts. no disparagement to the country, which has a great future in reserve, or to its people, who are very kind to me. i mean to take my leave of readings in the autumn and winter, in a final series in england with chappell. this will come into the way of literary work for a time, for, after i have rested--don't laugh--it is a grim reality--i shall have to turn my mind to--ha! ha! ha!--to--ha! ha! ha! (more sepulchrally than before)--the--the christmas number!!! i feel as if i had murdered a christmas number years ago (perhaps i did!) and its ghost perpetually haunted me. nevertheless in some blessed rest at gad's, we will talk over stage matters, and all matters, in an even way, and see what we can make of them, please god. be sure that i shall not be in london one evening, after disembarking, without coming round to the theatre to embrace you, my dear fellow. i have had an american cold (the worst in the world) since christmas day. i read four times a week, with the most tremendous energy i can bring to bear upon it. i travel about pretty heavily. i am very resolute about calling on people, or receiving people, or dining out, and so save myself a great deal. i read in all sorts of places--churches, theatres, concert rooms, lecture halls. every night i read i am described (mostly by people who have not the faintest notion of observing) from the sole of my boot to where the topmost hair of my head ought to be, but is not. sometimes i am described as being "evidently nervous;" sometimes it is rather taken ill that "mr. dickens is so extraordinarily composed." my eyes are blue, red, grey, white, green, brown, black, hazel, violet, and rainbow-coloured. i am like "a well-to-do american gentleman," and the emperor of the french, with an occasional touch of the emperor of china, and a deterioration from the attributes of our famous townsman, rufus w. b. d. dodge grumsher pickville. i say all sorts of things that i never said, go to all sorts of places that i never saw or heard of, and have done all manner of things (in some previous state of existence i suppose) that have quite escaped my memory. you ask your friend to describe what he is about. this is what he is about, every day and hour of his american life. i hope to be back with you before you write to me! ever, my dear fechter, your most affectionate and hearty friend. p.s.--don't let madame fechter, or marie, or paul forget me! [sidenote: miss hogarth.] syracuse, _sunday, march th, ._ as we shall probably be busy all day to-morrow, i write this to-day, though it will not leave new york until wednesday. this is a very grim place in a heavy thaw, and a most depressing one. the hotel also is surprisingly bad, quite a triumph in that way. we stood out for an hour in the melting snow, and came in again, having to change completely. then we sat down by the stove (no fireplace), and there we are now. we were so afraid to go to bed last night, the rooms were so close and sour, that we played whist, double dummy, till we couldn't bear each other any longer. we had an old buffalo for supper, and an old pig for breakfast, and we are going to have i don't know what for dinner at six. in the public rooms downstairs, a number of men (speechless) are sitting in rocking-chairs, with their feet against the window-frames, staring out at window and spitting dolefully at intervals. scott is in tears, and george the gasman is suborning people to go and clean the hall, which is a marvel of dirt. and yet we have taken considerably over three hundred pounds for to-morrow night! we were at albany the night before last and yesterday morning; a very pretty town, where i am to read on the th and th. this day week we hope to wash out this establishment with the falls of niagara. and there is my news, except that your _last letters_ to me in america must be posted by the cunard steamer, which will sail from liverpool on _saturday, the th of april_. these i shall be safe to get before embarking. i send a note to katie (addressed to mamie) by this mail. i wrote to harry some weeks ago, stating to him on what principles he must act in remodelling the cricket club, if he would secure success. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] _monday morning, th._ nothing new. weather cloudy, and town more dismal than yesterday. it froze again last night, and thaws again this morning. somebody sent me an australian newspaper this morning--some citizen of syracuse i mean--because of a paragraph in it describing the taking of two freebooters, at which taking alfred was present. though i do not make out that he had anything in the world to do with it, except having his name pressed into the service of the newspaper. buffalo, _thursday, march th, ._ i hope this may be in time for next saturday's mail; but this is a long way from new york, and rivers are swollen with melted snow, and travelling is unusually slow. just now (two o'clock in the afternoon) i received your sad news of the death of poor dear chauncey.[ ] it naturally goes to my heart. it is not a light thing to lose such a friend, and i truly loved him. in the first unreasonable train of feeling, i dwelt more than i should have thought possible on my being unable to attend his funeral. i know how little this really matters; but i know he would have wished me to be there with real honest tears for his memory, and i feel it very much. i never, never, never was better loved by man than i was by him, i am sure. poor dear fellow, good affectionate gentle creature. i have not as yet received any letter from henri, nor do i think he can have written to new york by your mail. i believe that i am--i know that i _was_--one of the executors. in that case mr. jackson, his agent, will either write to me very shortly on henri's information of my address, or enquiry will be made at gad's or at the office about it. it is difficult for me to write more just now. the news is a real shock at such a distance, and i must read to-night, and i must compose my mind. let mekitty know that i received her violets with great pleasure, and that i sent her my best love and my best thanks. on the th of february i read "copperfield" and "bob" at boston. either on that very day, or very close upon it, i was describing his (townshend's) house to fields, and telling him about the great danby picture that he should see when he came to london. [sidenote: miss dickens.] rochester, _sunday, march th, ._ i found yours of the th february, when i came back here last night. we have had two brilliant sunny days at niagara, and have seen that wonderful place under the finest circumstances. enclosed i return you homan's estimate; let all that work be done, including the curtains. as to the hall, i have my doubts whether one of the parqueted floors made by aaron smith's, of bond street, ought not to be better than tiles, for the reason that perhaps the nature of the house's construction might render the "bed" necessary for wooden flooring more easy to be made than the "bed" necessary for tiles. i don't think you can do better than call in the trusty lillie to advise. decide with your aunt on which appears to be better, under the circumstances. have estimate made for _cash_, select patterns and colours, and let the work be done out of hand. (here's a prompt order; now i draw breath.) let it be thoroughly well done--no half measures. there is a great thaw all over the country here, and i think it has done the catarrh good. i am to read at the famous newhaven on tuesday, the th. i hope without a row, but cannot say. the readings are running out fast now, and we are growing very restless. this is a short letter, but we are pressed for time. it is two o'clock, and we dine at three, before reading. to-morrow we rise at six, and have eleven hours' railway or so. we have now come back from our farthest point, and are steadily working towards home. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] springfield, mass., _saturday, march st, ._ my dearest macready, what with perpetual reading and travelling, what with a "true american catarrh" (on which i am complimented almost boastfully), and what with one of the severest winters ever known, your coals of fire received by the last mail did not burn my head so much as they might have done under less excusatory circumstances. but they scorched it too! you would find the general aspect of america and americans decidedly much improved. you would find immeasurably greater consideration and respect for your privacy than of old. you would find a steady change for the better everywhere, except (oddly enough) in the railroads generally, which seem to have stood still, while everything else has moved. but there is an exception westward. there the express trains have now a very delightful carriage called a "drawing-room car," literally a series of little private drawing-rooms, with sofas and a table in each, opening out of a little corridor. in each, too, is a large plate-glass window, with which you can do as you like. as you pay extra for this luxury, it may be regarded as the first move towards two classes of passengers. when the railroad straight away to san francisco (in six days) shall be opened through, it will not only have these drawing-rooms, but sleeping-rooms too; a bell in every little apartment communicating with a steward's pantry, a restaurant, a staff of servants, marble washing-stands, and a barber's shop! i looked into one of these cars a day or two ago, and it was very ingeniously arranged and quite complete. i left niagara last sunday, and travelled on to albany, through three hundred miles of flood, villages deserted, bridges broken, fences drifting away, nothing but tearing water, floating ice, and absolute wreck and ruin. the train gave in altogether at utica, and the passengers were let loose there for the night. as i was due at albany, a very active superintendent of works did all he could to "get mr. dickens along," and in the morning we resumed our journey through the water, with a hundred men in seven-league boots pushing the ice from before us with long poles. how we got to albany i can't say, but we got there somehow, just in time for a triumphal "carol" and "trial." all the tickets had been sold, and we found the albanians in a state of great excitement. you may imagine what the flood was when i tell you that we took the passengers out of two trains that had their fires put out by the water four-and-twenty hours before, and cattle from trucks that had been in the water i don't know how long, but so long that the sheep had begun to eat each other! it was a horrible spectacle, and the haggard human misery of their faces was quite a new study. there was a fine breath of spring in the air concurrently with the great thaw; but lo and behold! last night it began to snow again with a strong wind, and to-day a snowdrift covers this place with all the desolation of winter once more. i never was so tired of the sight of snow. as to sleighing, i have been sleighing about to that extent, that i am sick of the sound of a sleigh-bell. i have seen all our boston friends, except curtis. ticknor is dead. the rest are very little changed, except that longfellow has a perfectly white flowing beard and long white hair. but he does not otherwise look old, and is infinitely handsomer than he was. i have been constantly with them all, and they have always talked much of you. it is the established joke that boston is my "native place," and we hold all sorts of hearty foregatherings. they all come to every reading, and are always in a most delightful state of enthusiasm. they give me a parting dinner at the club, on the thursday before good friday. to pass from boston personal to new york theatrical, i will mention here that one of the proprietors of my new york hotel is one of the proprietors of niblo's, and the most active. consequently i have seen the "black crook" and the "white fawn," in majesty, from an arm-chair in the first entrance, p.s., more than once. of these astonishing dramas, i beg to report (seriously) that i have found no human creature "behind" who has the slightest idea what they are about (upon my honour, my dearest macready!), and that having some amiable small talk with a neat little spanish woman, who is the _première danseuse_, i asked her, in joke, to let me measure her skirt with my dress glove. holding the glove by the tip of the forefinger, i found the skirt to be just three gloves long, and yet its length was much in excess of the skirts of two hundred other ladies, whom the carpenters were at that moment getting into their places for a transformation scene, on revolving columns, on wires and "travellers" in iron cradles, up in the flies, down in the cellars, on every description of float that wilmot, gone distracted, could imagine! i have taken my passage for liverpool from new york in the cunarder _russia_, on the nd of april. i had the second officer's cabin on deck coming out, and i have the chief steward's cabin on deck going home, because it will be on the sunny side of the ship. i have experienced nothing here but good humour and cordiality. in the autumn and winter i have arranged with chappells to take my farewell of reading in the united kingdom for ever and ever. i am delighted to hear of benvenuta's marriage, and i think her husband a very lucky man. johnnie has my profound sympathy under his examinatorial woes. the noble boy will give me gavazzi revised and enlarged, i expect, when i next come to cheltenham. i will give you and mrs. macready all my american experiences when you come to london, or, better still, to gad's. meanwhile i send my hearty love to all, not forgetting dear katie. niagara is not at all spoiled by a very dizzy-looking suspension bridge. is to have another still nearer to the horse-shoe opened in july. my last sight of that scene (last sunday) was thus: we went up to the rapids above the horse-shoe--say two miles from it--and through the great cloud of spray. everything in the magnificent valley--buildings, forest, high banks, air, water, everything--was _made of rainbow_. turner's most imaginative drawing in his finest day has nothing in it so ethereal, so gorgeous in fancy, so celestial. we said to one another (dolby and i), "let it for evermore remain so," and shut our eyes and came away. god bless you and all dear to you, my dear old friend! i am ever your affectionate and loving. [sidenote: miss dickens.] portland, _sunday, march th, ._ i should have written to you by the last mail, but i really was too unwell to do it. the writing day was last friday, when i ought to have left boston for new bedford (fifty-five miles) before eleven in the morning. but i was so exhausted that i could not be got up, and had to take my chance of an evening's train producing me in time to read, which it just did. with the return of snow, nine days ago, the "true american" (which had lulled) came back as bad as ever. i have coughed from two or three in the morning until five or six, and have been absolutely sleepless. i have had no appetite besides, and no taste. last night here i took some laudanum, and it is the only thing that has done me good. but the life in this climate is so very hard. when i did manage to get from boston to new bedford, i read with my utmost force and vigour. next morning, well or ill, i must turn out at seven to get back to boston on my way here. i dine at boston at three, and at five must come on here (a hundred and thirty miles or so), for to-morrow night; there being no sunday train. to-morrow night i read here in a very large place, and tuesday morning at six i must start again to get back to boston once more. but after to-morrow night, i have only the boston and new york farewells, thank god! i am most grateful to think that when we came to devise the details of the tour, i foresaw that it could never be done, as dolby and osgood proposed, by one unassisted man, as if he were a machine. if i had not cut out the work, and cut out canada, i could never have gone there, i am quite sure. even as it is, i have just now written to dolby (who is in new york), to see my doctor there, and ask him to send me some composing medicine that i can take at night, inasmuch as without sleep i cannot get through. however sympathetic and devoted the people are about me, they _can not_ be got to comprehend that one's being able to do the two hours with spirit when the time comes round, may be co-existent with the consciousness of great depression and fatigue. i don't mind saying all this, now that the labour is so nearly over. you shall have a brighter account of me, please god, when i close this at boston. _monday, march th._ without any artificial aid, i got a splendid night's rest last night, and consequently am very much freshened up to-day. yesterday i had a fine walk by the sea, and to-day i have had another on the heights overlooking it. boston, _tuesday, st._ i have safely arrived here, just in time to add a line to that effect, and get this off by to-morrow's english mail from new york. catarrh rather better. everything triumphant last night, except no sleep again. i suppose dolby to be now on his way back to join me here. i am much mistaken if the political crisis do not damage the farewells by almost one half. i hope that i am certainly better altogether. my room well decorated with flowers, of course, and mr. and mrs. fields coming to dinner. they are the most devoted of friends, and never in the way and never out of it. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] boston, _wednesday, april st, ._ i received your letter of from the th to the th of march, here, last night. my new york doctor has prescribed for me promptly, and i hope i am better. i am certainly no worse. we shall do (to the best of my belief) _very well_ with the farewells here and at new york, but not greatly. everything is at a standstill, pending the impeachment and the next presidential election. i forgot whether i told you that the new york press are going to give me a public dinner, on saturday, the th. i hear (but not from himself) that wills has had a bad fall in hunting, and is, or has been, laid up. i am supposed, i take it, not to know this until i hear it from himself. _thursday._ my notion of the farewells is pretty certain now to turn out right. it is not at all probable that we shall do anything enormous. every pulpit in massachusetts will resound to violent politics to-day and to-night. you remember the hutchinson family?[ ] i have had a grateful letter from john hutchinson. he speaks of "my sister abby" as living in new york. the immediate object of his note is to invite me to the marriage of his daughter, twenty-one years of age. you will see by the evidence of this piece of paper that i am using up my stationery. scott has just been making anxious calculations as to our powers of holding out in the articles of tooth-powder, etc. the calculations encourage him to believe that we shall just hold out, and no more. i think i am still better to-day than i was yesterday; but i am far from strong, and have no appetite. to see me at my little table at night, you would think me the freshest of the fresh. and this is the marvel of fields' life. i don't forget that this is forster's birthday. _friday afternoon, rd._ catarrh worse than ever! and we don't know (at four) whether i can read to-night or must stop. otherwise all well. [sidenote: miss dickens.] boston, _tuesday, april th, ._ i not only read last friday, when i was doubtful of being able to do so, but read as i never did before, and astonished the audience quite as much as myself. you never saw or heard such a scene of excitement. longfellow and all the cambridge men urged me to give in. i have been very near doing so, but feel stronger to-day. i cannot tell whether the catarrh may have done me any lasting injury in the lungs or other breathing organs, until i shall have rested and got home. i hope and believe not. consider the weather. there have been two snowstorms since i wrote last, and to-day the town is blotted out in a ceaseless whirl of snow and wind. i cannot eat (to anything like the ordinary extent), and have established this system: at seven in the morning, in bed, a tumbler of new cream and two tablespoonsful of rum. at twelve, a sherry cobbler and a biscuit. at three (dinner time), a pint of champagne. at five minutes to eight, an egg beaten up with a glass of sherry. between the parts, the strongest beef tea that can be made, drunk hot. at a quarter-past ten, soup, and anything to drink that i can fancy. i don't eat more than half a pound of solid food in the whole four-and-twenty hours, if so much. if i hold out, as i hope to do, i shall be greatly pressed in leaving here and getting over to new york before next saturday's mail from there. do not, therefore, _if all be well_, expect to hear from me by saturday's mail, but look for my last letter from america by the mail of the following wednesday, the th. _be sure_ that you shall hear, however, by saturday's mail, if i should knock up as to reading. i am tremendously "beat," but i feel really and unaffectedly so much stronger to-day, both in my body and hopes, that i am much encouraged. i have a fancy that i turned my worst time last night. dolby is as tender as a woman and as watchful as a doctor. he never leaves me during the reading now, but sits at the side of the platform and keeps his eye upon me all the time. ditto george, the gasman, steadiest and most reliable man i ever employed. i am the more hopeful of my not having to relinquish a reading, because last night was "copperfield" and "bob"--by a quarter of an hour the longest, and, in consideration of the storm, by very much the most trying. yet i was far fresher afterwards than i have been these three weeks. i have "dombey" to do to-night, and must go through it carefully; so here ends my report. the personal affection of the people in this place is charming to the last. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] gad's hill place, _monday, may th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i am delighted to have your letter. it comes to me like a faithful voice from dear old rockingham, and awakens many memories. the work in america has been so very hard, and the winter there has been so excessively severe, that i really have been very unwell for some months. but i had not been at sea three days on the passage home when i became myself again. if you will arrange with mary boyle any time for coming here, we shall be charmed to see you, and i will adapt my arrangements accordingly. i make this suggestion because she generally comes here early in the summer season. but if you will propose yourself _anyhow_, giving me a margin of a few days in case of my being pre-engaged for this day or that, we will (as my american friends say) "fix it." what with travelling, reading night after night, and speech-making day after day, i feel the peace of the country beyond all expression. on board ship coming home, a "deputation" (two in number, of whom only one could get into my cabin, while the other looked in at my window) came to ask me to read to the passengers that evening in the saloon. i respectfully replied that sooner than do it, i would assault the captain, and be put in irons. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mrs. george cattermole.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, may th, ._ my dear mrs. cattermole, on my return from america just now, i accidentally heard that george had been ill. my sister-in-law had heard it from forster, but vaguely. until i received your letter of wednesday's date, i had no idea that he had been very ill; and should have been greatly shocked by knowing it, were it not for the hopeful and bright assurance you give me that he is greatly better. my old affection for him has never cooled. the last time he dined with me, i asked him to come again that day ten years, for i was perfectly certain (this was my small joke) that i should not set eyes upon him sooner. the time being fully up, i hope you will remind him, with my love, that he is due. his hand is upon these walls here, so i should like him to see for himself, and _you_ to see for _yourself_, and in this hope i shall pursue his complete recovery. i heartily sympathise with you in your terrible anxiety, and in your vast relief; and, with many thanks for your letter, am ever, my dear mrs. cattermole, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] gad's hill, _wednesday, june th, ._ my dearest macready, since my return from america, i have been so overwhelmed with business that i have not had time even to write to you. you may imagine what six months of arrear are to dispose of; added to this, wills has received a concussion of the brain (from an accident in the hunting-field), and is sent away by the doctors, and strictly prohibited from even writing a note. consequently all the business and money details of "all the year round" devolve upon me. and i have had to get them up, for i have never had experience of them. then i am suddenly entreated to go to paris, to look after the french version of "no thoroughfare" on the stage. and i go, and come back, leaving it a great success. i hope mrs. macready and you have not abandoned the idea of coming here? the expression of this hope is the principal, if not the only, object of this present note. may the amiable secretary vouchsafe a satisfactory reply! katie, mary, and georgina send their very best love to your katie and mrs. macready. the undersigned is in his usual brilliant condition, and indeed has greatly disappointed them at home here, by coming back "so brown and looking so well." they expected a wreck, and were, at first, much mortified. but they are getting over it now. to my particular friends, the noble boy and johnny, i beg to be warmly remembered. ever, my dearest macready, your most affectionate. [sidenote: mrs. henry austin.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, july st, ._ on the death of mr. henry austin.[ ] my dear letitia, you will have had a telegram from me to-day. i received your sad news by this morning's post. they never, without express explanation, mind "immediate" on a letter addressed to the office, because half the people who write there on business that does not press, or on no business at all, so mark their letters. on thursday i have people to see and matters to attend to, both at the office and at coutts', which, in wills's absence, i cannot forego or depute to another. but, _between ourselves_, i must add something else: i have the greatest objection to attend a funeral in which my affections are not strongly and immediately concerned. i have no notion of a funeral as a matter of form or ceremony. and just as i should expressly prohibit the summoning to my own burial of anybody who was not very near or dear to me, so i revolt from myself appearing at that solemn rite unless the deceased were very near or dear to me. i cannot endure being dressed up by an undertaker as part of his trade show. i was not in this poor good fellow's house in his lifetime, and i feel that i have no business there when he lies dead in it. my mind is penetrated with sympathy and compassion for the young widow, but that feeling is a real thing, and my attendance as a mourner would not be--to myself. it would be to you, i know, but it would not be to myself. i know full well that you cannot delegate to me your memories of and your associations with the deceased, and the more true and tender they are the more invincible is my objection to become a form in the midst of the most awful realities. with love and condolence from georgina, mary, and katie, believe me, ever your affectionate brother. [sidenote: mrs. george cattermole.] gad's hill, _wednesday, july nd, ._ my dear mrs. cattermole, of course i will sign your memorial to the academy. if you take either of the landseers, certainly take edwin ( , st. john's wood road, n.w.) but, if you would be content with frith, i have already spoken to him, and believe that i can answer for him. i shall be at "all the year round" office, , wellington street, london, to-morrow, from eleven to three. frith will be here on saturday, and i shall be here too. i spoke to him a fortnight ago, and i found him most earnest in the cause. he said he felt absolutely sure that the whole profession in its best and highest representation would do anything for george. i sounded him, having the opportunity of meeting him at dinner at cartwright's. ever yours affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] _friday, july st, ._ my dear wills, i had such a hard day at the office yesterday, that i had not time to write to you before i left. so i write to-day. i am very unwilling to abandon the christmas number, though even in the case of my little christmas books (which were immensely profitable) i let the idea go when i thought it was wearing out. ever since i came home, i have hammered at it, more or less, and have been uneasy about it. i have begun something which is very droll, but it manifestly shapes itself towards a book, and could not in the least admit of even that shadowy approach to a congruous whole on the part of other contributors which they have ever achieved at the best. i have begun something else (aboard the american mail-steamer); but i don't like it, because the stories must come limping in after the old fashion, though, of course, what i _have_ done will be good for a. y. r. in short, i have cast about with the greatest pains and patience, and i have been wholly unable to find what i want. and yet i cannot quite make up my mind to give in without another fight for it. i offered one hundred pounds reward at gad's to anybody who could suggest a notion to satisfy me. charles collins suggested one yesterday morning, in which there is _something_, though not much. i will turn it over and over, and try a few more starts on my own account. finally, i swear i will not give it up until august is out. vow registered. i am clear that a number by "various writers" would not do. if we have not the usual sort of number, we must call the current number for that date the christmas number, and make it as good as possible. i sit in the châlet,[ ] like mariana in the moated grange, and to as much purpose. i am buying the freehold of the meadow at gad's, and of an adjoining arable field, so that i shall now have about eight-and-twenty freehold acres in a ring-fence. no more now. i made up a very good number yesterday. you will see in it a very short article that i have called "now!" which is a highly remarkable piece of description. it is done by a new man, from whom i have accepted another article; but he will never do anything so good again. ever affectionately. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, aug. th, ._ my dear cerjat, i was happy to receive your esteemed letter a few days ago. the severity of the winter in america (which was quite exceptional even in that rigorous climate), combined with the hard work i had to do, tried me a good deal. neuralgia and colds beset me, either by turns or both together, and i had often much to do to get through at night. but the sea voyage home again did wonders in restoring me, and i have been very well indeed, though a little fatigued, ever since. i am now preparing for a final reading campaign in england, scotland, and ireland. it will begin on the th of october, and will probably last, with short occasional intermissions, until june. the great subject in england for the moment is the horrible accident to the irish mail-train. it is now supposed that the petroleum (known to be a powerful anæsthetic) rendered the unfortunate people who were burnt almost instantly insensible to any sensation. my escape in the staplehurst accident of three years ago is not to be obliterated from my nervous system. to this hour i have sudden vague rushes of terror, even when riding in a hansom cab, which are perfectly unreasonable but quite insurmountable. i used to make nothing of driving a pair of horses habitually through the most crowded parts of london. i cannot now drive, with comfort to myself, on the country roads here; and i doubt if i could ride at all in the saddle. my reading secretary and companion knows so well when one of these odd momentary seizures comes upon me in a railway carriage, that he instantly produces a dram of brandy, which rallies the blood to the heart and generally prevails. i forget whether i ever told you that my watch (a chronometer) has never gone exactly since the accident? so the irish catastrophe naturally revives the dreadful things i saw that day. the only other news here you know as well as i; to wit, that the country is going to be ruined, and that the church is going to be ruined, and that both have become so used to being ruined, that they will go on perfectly well. * * * * * [sidenote: miss dickens.] office of "all the year round," no. , wellington street, strand, london, w.c., _saturday, sept. th, ._ my dearest mamie, i will add a line to this at the athenæum, after seeing plorn off, to tell you how he went away. athenÆum, _quarter to six._ i can honestly report that he went away, poor dear fellow, as well as could possibly be expected. he was pale, and had been crying, and (harry said) had broken down in the railway carriage after leaving higham station; but only for a short time. just before the train started he cried a good deal, but not painfully. (tell dear georgy that i bought him his cigars.) these are hard, hard things, but they might have to be done without means or influence, and then they would be far harder. god bless him! parliament. reply to a proposal made through alexander russel, of "the scotsman," that he should allow himself to be put forward as a candidate for the representation of edinburgh. [sidenote: mr. f. d. finlay.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, oct. th, ._ my dear finlay, i am much obliged to you in all friendship and sincerity for your letter. i have a great respect for your father-in-law and his paper, and i am much attached to the edinburgh people. you may suppose, therefore, that if my mind were not fully made up on the parliamentary question, i should waver now. but my conviction that i am more useful and more happy as i am than i could ever be in parliament is not to be shaken. i considered it some weeks ago, when i had a stirring proposal from the birmingham people, and i then set it up on a rock for ever and a day. do tell mr. russel that i truly feel this mark of confidence, and that i hope to acknowledge it in person in edinburgh before christmas. there is no man in scotland from whom i should consider his suggestion a greater honour. ever yours. [sidenote: m. charles fechter.] * * * * * poor plorn is gone to australia. it was a hard parting at the last. he seemed to me to become once more my youngest and favourite little child as the day drew near, and i did not think i could have been so shaken. you were his idol to the hour of his departure, and he asked me to tell you how much he wanted to bid you good-bye. kindest love from all. ever heartily. [sidenote: the same.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, oct. th, ._ my dear fechter, i got your letter sent to gad's hill this morning. until i received it, i supposed the piece to have been put into english from your french by young ben. if i understand that the english is yours, then i say that it is extraordinarily good, written by one in another country. i do not read again in london until the th; and then "copperfield." but by that time you will be at work yourself. let us dine at six to-day, in order that we may not have to hurry for the comic dog. ever faithfully. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] queen's hotel, manchester, _sunday, oct. th, ._ my dearest georgy, we had a fine audience last night in the free trade hall, though not what we consider a large money-house. the let in liverpool is extremely good, and we are going over there at half-past one. we got down here pleasantly enough and in good time; so all has gone well you see. titiens, santley, and an opera company of that class are at the theatre here. they have been doing very poorly in manchester. there is the whole of my scanty news. i was in wonderful voice last night, but croak a little this morning, after so much speaking in so very large a place. otherwise i am all right. i find myself constantly thinking of plorn. [sidenote: miss dickens.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _monday, oct. th, ._ my dearest mamie, our lets here are excellent, and we shall have a great house to-night. we had a very fine and enthusiastic audience in the free trade hall, at manchester, on saturday; but our first nights there never count up in money, as the rest do. yesterday, "charlotte," sainton, and piatti stayed with us here; and they went on to hull this morning. it was pleasant to be alone again, though they were all very agreeable. the exertion of going on for two hours in that immense place at manchester being very great, i was hoarse all day yesterday, though i was not much distressed on saturday night. i am becoming melodious again (at three in the afternoon) rapidly, and count on being quite restored by a basin of turtle at dinner. i am glad to hear about armatage, and hope that a service begun in a personal attachment to plorn may go on well. i shall never be over-confident in such matters, i think, any more. the day is delicious here. we have had a blow on the mersey this morning, and exulted over the american steamers. with kind regard to sir william and lady humphery. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _tuesday, oct. th, ._ as i sent a line to mary yesterday, i enclose you alfred's letter. please send it on to her when you next write to penton. i have just now written to mrs. forster, asking her to explain to miss forster how she could have an easy-chair or a sofa behind my side screen on tuesday, without occasioning the smallest inconvenience to anybody. also, how she would have a door close at hand, leading at once to cool passages and a quiet room, etc. etc. etc. it is a sad story. we had a fine house here last night, and a large turn-away. "marigold" and "trial" went immensely. i doubt if "marigold" were ever more enthusiastically received. "copperfield" and "bob" to-night, and a large let. this notwithstanding election meetings and all sorts of things. my favourite room brought my voice round last night, and i am in considerable force. dolby sends kindest regard, and the message: "everton toffee shall not be forgotten." [sidenote: mr. henry fielding dickens.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _thursday, oct. th, ._ my dear harry, i have your letter here this morning. i enclose you another cheque for twenty-five pounds, and i write to london by this post, ordering three dozen sherry, two dozen port, and three dozen light claret, to be sent down to you. now, observe attentively. we must have no shadow of debt. square up everything whatsoever that it has been necessary to buy. let not a farthing be outstanding on any account, when we begin together with your allowance. be particular in the minutest detail. i wish to have no secret from you in the relations we are to establish together, and i therefore send you joe chitty's letter bodily. reading it, you will know exactly what i know, and will understand that i treat you with perfect confidence. it appears to me that an allowance of two hundred and fifty pounds a year will be handsome for all your wants, if i send you your wines. i mean this to include your tailor's bills as well as every other expense; and i strongly recommend you to buy nothing in cambridge, and to take credit for nothing but the clothes with which your tailor provides you. as soon as you have got your furniture accounts in, let us wipe all those preliminary expenses clean out, and i will then send you your first quarter. we will count in it october, november, and december; and your second quarter will begin with the new year. if you dislike, at first, taking charge of so large a sum as sixty-two pounds ten shillings, you can have your money from me half-quarterly. you know how hard i work for what i get, and i think you know that i never had money help from any human creature after i was a child. you know that you are one of many heavy charges on me, and that i trust to your so exercising your abilities and improving the advantages of your past expensive education, as soon to diminish _this_ charge. i say no more on that head. whatever you do, above all other things keep out of debt and confide in me. if you ever find yourself on the verge of any perplexity or difficulty, come to me. you will never find me hard with you while you are manly and truthful. as your brothers have gone away one by one, i have written to each of them what i am now going to write to you. you know that you have never been hampered with religious forms of restraint, and that with mere unmeaning forms i have no sympathy. but i most strongly and affectionately impress upon you the priceless value of the new testament, and the study of that book as the one unfailing guide in life. deeply respecting it, and bowing down before the character of our saviour, as separated from the vain constructions and inventions of men, you cannot go very wrong, and will always preserve at heart a true spirit of veneration and humility. similarly i impress upon you the habit of saying a christian prayer every night and morning. these things have stood by me all through my life, and remember that i tried to render the new testament intelligible to you and lovable by you when you were a mere baby. and so god bless you. ever your affectionate father. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] office of "all the year round," _monday, nov. th, ._ my dear kent, i was on the eve of writing to you. we thought of keeping the trial private; but oxenford has suggested to chappell that he would like to take the opportunity of to-morrow night's reading, of saying something about "oliver" in _wednesday's paper_. chappell has told levy of this, and also mr. tompkin, of _the post_, who was there. consequently, on wednesday evening your charming article can come out to the best advantage. you have no idea of the difficulty of getting in the end of sikes. as to the man with the invaluable composition! my dear fellow, believe me, no audience on earth could be held for ten minutes after the girl's death. give them time, and they would be revengeful for having had such a strain put upon them. trust me to be right. i stand there, and i know. concerning harry, i like to guide the boys to a distinct choice, rather than to press it on them. that will be my course as to the middle temple, of which i think as you do. with cordial thanks for every word in your letter, affectionately yours always. [sidenote: mrs. f. lehmann.] kennedy's hotel, edinburgh, _sunday, dec. th, ._ my dear mrs. lehmann, i hope you will see nancy with the light of a great audience upon her some time between this and may; always supposing that she should not prove too weird and woeful for the general public. you know the aspect of this city on a sunday, and how gay and bright it is. the merry music of the blithe bells, the waving flags, the prettily-decorated houses with their draperies of various colours, and the radiant countenances at the windows and in the streets, how charming they are! the usual preparations are making for the band in the open air, in the afternoon; and the usual pretty children (selected for that purpose) are at this moment hanging garlands round the scott monument, preparatory to the innocent sunday dance round that edifice, with which the diversions invariably close. it is pleasant to think that these customs were themselves of the early christians, those early birds who _didn't_ catch the worm--and nothing else--and choke their young with it. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] kennedy's hotel, edinburgh, _sunday, dec. th, ._ we got down here to our time to the moment; and, considering the length of the journey, very easily. i made a calculation on the road, that the railway travelling over such a distance involves something more than thirty thousand shocks to the nerves. dolby didn't like it at all. the signals for a gale were up at berwick, and along the road between there and here. it came on just as we arrived, and blew tremendously hard all night. the wind is still very high, though the sky is bright and the sun shining. we couldn't sleep for the noise. we are very comfortably quartered. i fancy that the "business" will be on the whole better here than in glasgow, where trade is said to be very bad. but i think i shall be pretty correct in both places as to the run being on the final readings. we are going up arthur's seat presently, which will be a pull for our fat friend. scott, in a new mephistopheles hat, baffles imagination and description. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] kennedy's hotel, edinburgh, _tuesday, dec. th, ._ my dear wilkie, i am hard at it here as usual, though with an audience so finely perceptive that the labour is much diminished. i have got together in a very short space the conclusion of "oliver twist" that you suggested, and am trying it daily with the object of rising from that blank state of horror into a fierce and passionate rush for the end. as yet i cannot make a certain effect of it; but when i shall have gone over it as many score of times as over the rest of that reading, perhaps i may strike one out. i shall be very glad to hear when you have done your play, and i _am_ glad to hear that you like the steamer. i agree with you about the reading perfectly. in no. you will see an exact account of some places i visited at ratcliffe. there are two little instances in it of something comic rising up in the midst of the direst misery, that struck me very humorously at the time. as i have determined not to do the "oliver murder" until after the th of january, when i shall ascertain its effect on a great audience, it is curious to notice how the shadow of its coming affects the scotch mind. there was such a disposition to hold back for it here (until i return to finish in february) that we had next to no "let" when we arrived. it all came with a rush yesterday. they gave me a most magnificent welcome back from america last night. i am perpetually counting the weeks before me to be "read" through, and am perpetually longing for the end of them; and yet i sometimes wonder whether i shall miss something when they are over. it is a very, very bad day here, very dark and very wet. dolby is over at glasgow, and i am sitting at a side window looking up the length of prince's street, watching the mist change over the castle and murdering nancy by turns. ever affectionately. p.s.--i have read the whole of fitzgerald's "zero," and the idea is exceedingly well wrought out. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] kennedy's hotel, edinburgh, _saturday, dec. th, ._ i send another _scotsman_ by this post, because it is really a good newspaper, well written, and well managed. we had an immense house here last night, and a very large turn-away. we have four guests to dinner to-day: peter fraser, ballantyne, john blackwood, and mr. russel. immense preparations are making in the establishment, "on account," mr. kennedy says, "of a' four yon chiels being chiels wha' ken a guid dinner." i enquired after poor doctor burt, not having the least idea that he was dead. my voice holds out splendidly so far, and i have had no return of the american. but i sleep very indifferently indeed. it blew appallingly here the night before last, but the wind has since shifted northward, and it is now bright and cold. the _star of hope_, that picked up those shipwrecked people in the boat, came into leith yesterday, and was received with tremendous cheers. her captain must be a good man and a noble fellow. [sidenote: the same.] kennedy's hotel, edinburgh, _monday, dec. th, ._ the dinner-party of saturday last was an immense success. russel swore on the occasion that he would go over to belfast expressly to dine with me at the finlays'. ballantyne informed me that he was going to send you some scotch remembrance (i don't know what) at christmas! the edinburgh houses are very fine. the glasgow room is a big wandering place, with five prices in it, which makes it the more aggravating, as the people get into knots which they can't break, as if they were afraid of one another. forgery of my name is becoming popular. you sent me, this morning, a letter from russell sturgis, answering a supposed letter of mine (presented by "miss jefferies"), and assuring me of his readiness to give not only the ten pounds i asked for, but any contribution i wanted, towards sending that lady and her family back to boston. i wish you would take an opportunity of forewarning lady tennent that the first night's reading she will attend is an experiment quite out of the way, and that she may find it rather horrible. the keeper of the edinburgh hall, a fine old soldier, presented me, on friday night, with the finest red camellia for my button-hole that ever was seen. nobody can imagine how he came by it, as the florists had had a considerable demand for that colour from ladies in the stalls, and could get no such thing. the day is dark, wet, and windy. the weather is likely to be vile indeed at glasgow, where it always rains, and where the sun is never seen through the smoke. we go over there to-morrow at ten. [sidenote: miss dickens.] carrick's royal hotel, glasgow, _tuesday, dec. th, ._ it occurs to me that my table at st. james's hall might be appropriately ornamented with a little holly next tuesday. if the two front legs were entwined with it, for instance, and a border of it ran round the top of the fringe in front, with a little sprig by way of bouquet at each corner, it would present a seasonable appearance. if you will think of this, and will have the materials ready in a little basket, i will call for you at the office at half-past twelve on tuesday, and take you up to the hall, where the table will be ready for you. no news, except that we had a great crush and a wonderful audience in edinburgh last night. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] carrick's royal hotel, glasgow, _wednesday, dec. th, ._ this is to report all well, except that i have wretched nights. the weather is diabolical here, and times are very bad. i cut "copperfield" with a bold dexterity that amazed myself and utterly confounded george at the wing; knocking off that and "bob" by ten minutes to ten. i don't know anything about the liverpool banquet, except from _the times_. as i don't finish there in february (as they seem to have supposed), but in april, it may, perhaps, stand over or blow over altogether. such a thing would be a serious addition to the work, and yet refusal on my part would be too ungracious. the density and darkness of this atmosphere are fearful. i shall be heartily glad to start for edinburgh again on friday morning. [sidenote: the same.] kennedy's hotel, edinburgh, _friday, dec. th, ._ i am heartily glad to get back here this afternoon. the day is bright and cheerful, and the relief from glasgow inexpressible. the affectionate regard of the people exceeds all bounds, and is shown in every way. the manager of the railway being at the reading the other night, wrote to me next morning, saying that a large saloon should be prepared for my journey up, if i would let him know when i purposed making the journey. on my accepting the offer he wrote again, saying that he had inspected "our northern saloons," and not finding them so convenient for sleeping in as the best english, had sent up to king's cross for the best of the latter; which i would please consider my own carriage as long as i wanted it. the audiences do everything but embrace me, and take as much pains with the readings as i do. i find your christmas present (just arrived) to be a haggis and shortbread! [sidenote: mr. j. c. parkinson.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _christmas day, ._ my dear parkinson, when your letter was delivered at "all the year round" office yesterday, i was attending a funeral. it comes to hand here consequently to-day. i am diffident of addressing mr. gladstone on the subject of your desire to be appointed to the vacant commissionership of inland revenue, because, although my respect for him and confidence in him are second to those of no man in england (a bold word at this time, but a truthful one), my personal acquaintance with him is very slight. but you may make, through any of your friends, any use you please of this letter, towards the end of bringing its contents under mr. gladstone's notice. in expressing my conviction that you deserve the place, and are in every way qualified for it, i found my testimony upon as accurate a knowledge of your character and abilities as anyone can possibly have acquired. in my editorship both of "household words" and "all the year round," you know very well that i have invariably offered you those subjects of political and social interest to write upon, in which integrity, exactness, a remarkable power of generalising evidence and balancing facts, and a special clearness in stating the case, were indispensable on the part of the writer. my confidence in your powers has never been misplaced, and through all our literary intercourse you have never been hasty or wrong. whatever trust you have undertaken has been so completely discharged, that it has become my habit to read your proofs rather for my own edification than (as in other cases) for the detection of some slip here or there, or the more pithy presentation of the subject. that your literary work has never interfered with the discharge of your official duties, i may assume to be at least as well known to your colleagues as it is to me. it is idle to say that if the post were in my gift you should have it, because you have had, for some years, most of the posts of high trust that have been at my disposal. an excellent public servant in your literary sphere of action, i should be heartily glad if you could have this new opportunity of distinguishing yourself in the same character. and this is at least unselfish in me, for i suppose i should then lose you? always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. edward bulwer lytton dickens.] letter to his youngest son on his departure for australia in .[ ] my dearest plorn, i write this note to-day because your going away is much upon my mind, and because i want you to have a few parting words from me to think of now and then at quiet times. i need not tell you that i love you dearly, and am very, very sorry in my heart to part with you. but this life is half made up of partings, and these pains must be borne. it is my comfort and my sincere conviction that you are going to try the life for which you are beat fitted. i think its freedom and wildness more suited to you than any experiment in a study or office would ever have been; and without that training, you could have followed no other suitable occupation. what you have already wanted until now has been a set, steady, constant purpose. i therefore exhort you to persevere in a thorough determination to do whatever you have to do as well as you can do it. i was not so old as you are now when i first had to win my food, and do this out of this determination, and i have never slackened in it since. never take a mean advantage of anyone in any transaction, and never be hard upon people who are in your power. try to do to others, as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. it is much better for you that they should fail in obeying the greatest rule laid down by our saviour, than that you should. i put a new testament among your books, for the very same reasons, and with the very same hopes that made me write an easy account of it for you, when you were a little child; because it is the best book that ever was or will be known in the world, and because it teaches you the best lessons by which any human creature who tries to be truthful and faithful to duty can possibly be guided. as your brothers have gone away, one by one, i have written to each such words as i am now writing to you, and have entreated them all to guide themselves by this book, putting aside the interpretations and inventions of men. you will remember that you have never at home been wearied about religious observances or mere formalities. i have always been anxious not to weary my children with such things before they are old enough to form opinions respecting them. you will therefore understand the better that i now most solemnly impress upon you the truth and beauty of the christian religion, as it came from christ himself, and the impossibility of your going far wrong if you humbly but heartily respect it. only one thing more on this head. the more we are in earnest as to feeling it, the less we are disposed to hold forth about it. never abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private prayers, night and morning. i have never abandoned it myself, and i know the comfort of it. i hope you will always be able to say in after life, that you had a kind father. you cannot show your affection for him so well, or make him so happy, as by doing your duty. your affectionate father. footnotes: [ ] the agricultural college, cirencester. [ ] "no thoroughfare." [ ] the mr. h. f. chorley so often mentioned was the well-known musical critic, and a dear and intimate friend of charles dickens and his family. we have no letters to him, mr. chorley having destroyed all his correspondence before his death. [ ] mr. chauncey hare townshend. he was one of the dearest friends of charles dickens and a very constant correspondent; but no letters addressed to him are in existence. [ ] an american family of brothers and a sister who came to london to give a musical entertainment shortly after charles dickens's return from his first visit to america. he had a great interest in, and liking for, these young people. [ ] cousin and adopted child of mr. and mrs. austin. [ ] a model of a swiss châlet, and a present from m. charles fechter, used by charles dickens as a summer writing-room. [ ] this letter has been already published by mr. forster in his "life." . narrative. the "farewell readings" in town and country were resumed immediately after the beginning of this year, and were to have been continued until the end of may. the work was even harder than it had ever been. charles dickens began his country tour in ireland early in january, and read continuously in all parts of england and scotland until the end of april. a public dinner (in commemoration of his last readings in the town) was given to him at liverpool on the th april. besides all this severe country work, he was giving a series of readings at st. james's hall, and reading the "murder" from "oliver twist," in london and in the country, frequently four times a week. in the second week of february, a sudden and unusually violent attack of the old trouble in his foot made it imperatively necessary to postpone a reading at st. james's hall, and to delay for a day or two his departure for scotland. the foot continued to cause him pain and inconvenience, but, as will be seen from his letters, he generally spoke of himself as otherwise well, until he arrived at preston, where he was to read on the nd of april. the day before this appointed reading, he writes home of some grave symptoms which he had observed in himself, and had reported to his doctor, mr. f. carr beard. that gentleman, taking alarm at what he considered "indisputable evidences of overwork," wisely resolved not to content himself with written consultations, but went down to preston on the day appointed for the reading there, and, after seeing his patient, peremptorily stopped it, carried him off to liverpool, and the next day to london. there he consulted sir thomas watson, who entirely corroborated mr. beard's opinion. and the two doctors agreed that the course of readings must be stopped for this year, and that reading, _combined with travelling_, must be stopped _for ever_. charles dickens had no alternative but to acquiesce in this verdict; but he felt it keenly, not only for himself, but for the sake of the messrs. chappell, who showed the most disinterested kindness and solicitude on the occasion. he at once returned home to gad's hill, and the rest and quiet of the country restored him, for the time, to almost his usual condition of health and spirits. but it was observed, by all who loved him, that from this time forth he never regained his old vigour and elasticity. the attack at preston was the "beginning of the end!" during the spring and summer of this year, he received visits from many dearly valued american friends. in may, he stayed with his daughter and sister-in-law for two or three weeks at the st. james's hotel, piccadilly, having promised to be in london at the time of the arrival of mr. and mrs. fields, of boston, who visited europe, accompanied by miss mabel lowell (the daughter of the famous american poet) this year. besides these friends, mr. and mrs. childs, of philadelphia--from whom he had received the greatest kindness and hospitality, and for whom he had a hearty regard--dr. fordyce barker and his son, mr. eytinge (an illustrator of an american edition of charles dickens's works), and mr. bayard taylor paid visits to gad's hill, which were thoroughly enjoyed by charles dickens and his family. this last summer was a very happy one. he had the annual summer visitors and parties of his friends in the neighbourhood. he was, as usual, projecting improvements in his beloved country home; one, which he called the "crowning improvement of all," was a large conservatory, which was to be added during the absence of the family in london in the following spring. the state of mr. wills's health made it necessary for him now to retire altogether from the editorship of "all the year round." charles dickens's own letters express the regret which he felt at the dissolution of this long and always pleasant association. mr. wills's place at the office was filled by charles dickens's eldest son, now sole editor and proprietor of the journal. in september charles dickens went to birmingham, accompanied by his son harry, and presided at the opening of the session of (what he calls in his letter to mr. arthur ryland, "_our_ institution") the midland institute. he made a speech on education to the young students, and promised to go back early in the following year and distribute the prizes. in one of the letters which we give to mr. ryland, he speaks of himself as "being in full force again," and "going to finish his farewell readings soon after christmas." he had obtained the sanction of sir thomas watson to giving twelve readings, _in london only_, which he had fixed for the beginning of the following year. the letter to his friend mr. finlay, which opens the year, was in reply to a proposal for a public banquet at belfast, projected by the mayor of that town, and conveyed through mr. finlay. this gentleman was at that time proprietor of _the northern whig_ newspaper at belfast, and he was son-in-law to mr. alexander russel, editor of _the scotsman_. charles dickens's letter this new year to m. de cerjat was his last. that faithful and affectionate friend died very shortly afterwards. to miss mary boyle he writes to acknowledge a new year's gift, which he had been much touched by receiving from her, at a time when he knew she was deeply afflicted by the sudden death of her brother, captain cavendish boyle, for whom charles dickens had a true regard and friendship. while he was giving his series of london readings in the spring, he received a numerously signed circular letter from actors and actresses of the various london theatres. they were very curious about his new reading of the "oliver twist" murder, and representing to him the impossibility of their attending an evening, requested him to give a morning reading, for their especial benefit. we give his answer, complying with the request. and the occasion was, to him, a most gratifying and deeply interesting one. the letter to mr. edmund ollier was in answer to an invitation to be present at the inauguration of a bust of mr. leigh hunt, which was to be placed over his grave at kensal green. the letter to mr. shirley brooks, the well-known writer, who succeeded mr. mark lemon as editor of "punch," and for whom charles dickens had a cordial regard, was on the subject of a memorial on behalf of mrs. peter cunningham, whose husband had recently died. the "remarkable story," of which he writes to his daughter in august, was called "an experience." it was written by a lady (who prefers to be anonymous) who had been a contributor to "household words" from its first starting, and was always highly valued in this capacity by charles dickens. our latest letters for this year are in october. one to mr. charles kent, sympathising with him on a disappointment which he had experienced in a business undertaking, and one to mr. macready, in which he tells him of his being in the "preliminary agonies" of a new book. the first number of "edwin drood" was to appear before the end of his course of readings in march; and he was at work so long beforehand with a view to sparing himself, and having some numbers ready before the publication of the first one. [sidenote: mr. f. d. finlay.] the athenÆum (club), _new year's day, ._ my dear finlay, first my heartfelt wishes for many prosperous and happy years. next, as to the mayor's kind intentions. i feel really grateful to him and gratified by the whole idea, but acceptance of the distinction on my part would be impracticable. my time in ireland is all anticipated, and i could not possibly prolong my stay, because i _must_ be back in london to read on tuesday fortnight, and then must immediately set forth for the west of england. it is not likely, besides, that i shall get through these farewells before the end of may. and the work is so hard, and my voice is so precious, that i fear to add an ounce to the fatigue, or i might be overweighted. the avoidance of gas and crowds when i am not in the act of being cooked before those lights of mine, is an essential part of the training to which (as i think you know) i strictly adhere, and although i have accepted the liverpool invitation, i have done so as an exception; the liverpool people having always treated me in our public relations with a kind of personal affection. i am sincerely anxious that the mayor of belfast should know how the case stands with me. if you will kindly set me straight and right, i shall be truly obliged to you. my sister-in-law has been very unwell (though she is now much better), and is recommended a brisk change. as she is a good sailor, i mean to bring her to ireland with me; at which she is highly delighted. faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, jan. th, ._ my dear cerjat, i will answer your question first. have i done with my farewell readings? lord bless you, no; and i shall think myself well out of it if i get done by the end of may. i have undertaken one hundred and six, and have as yet only vanquished twenty-eight. to-morrow night i read in london for the first time the "murder" from "oliver twist," which i have re-arranged for the purpose. next day i start for dublin and belfast. i am just back from scotland for a few christmas holidays. i go back there next month; and in the meantime and afterwards go everywhere else. take my guarantee for it, you may be quite comfortable on the subject of papal aspirations and encroachments. the english people are in unconquerable opposition to that church. they have the animosity in the blood, derived from the history of the past, though perhaps unconsciously. but they do sincerely want to win ireland over if they can. they know that since the union she has been hardly used. they know that scotland has _her_ religion, and a very uncomfortable one. they know that scotland, though intensely anti-papal, perceives it to be unjust that ireland has not _her_ religion too, and has very emphatically declared her opinion in the late elections. they know that a richly-endowed church, forced upon a people who don't belong to it, is a grievance with these people. they know that many things, but especially an artfully and schemingly managed institution like the romish church, thrive upon a grievance, and that rome has thriven exceedingly upon this, and made the most of it. lastly, the best among them know that there is a gathering cloud in the west, considerably bigger than a man's hand, under which a powerful irish-american body, rich and active, is always drawing ireland in that direction; and that these are not times in which other powers would back our holding ireland by force, unless we could make our claim good in proving fair and equal government. poor townshend charged me in his will "to publish without alteration his religious opinions, which he sincerely believed would tend to the happiness of mankind." to publish them without alteration is absolutely impossible; for they are distributed in the strangest fragments through the strangest note-books, pocket-books, slips of paper and what not, and produce a most incoherent and tautological result. i infer that he must have held some always-postponed idea of fitting them together. for these reasons i would certainly publish nothing about them, if i had any discretion in the matter. having none, i suppose a book must be made. his pictures and rings are gone to the south kensington museum, and are now exhibiting there. charley collins is no better and no worse. katie looks very young and very pretty. her sister and miss hogarth (my joint housekeepers) have been on duty this christmas, and have had enough to do. my boys are now all dispersed in south america, india, and australia, except charley, whom i have taken on at "all the year round" office, and henry, who is an undergraduate at trinity hall, and i hope will make his mark there. all well. the thames embankment is (faults of ugliness in detail apart) the finest public work yet done. from westminster bridge to near waterloo it is now lighted up at night, and has a fine effect. they have begun to plant it with trees, and the footway (not the road) is already open to the temple. besides its beauty, and its usefulness in relieving the crowded streets, it will greatly quicken and deepen what is learnedly called the "scour" of the river. but the corporation of london and some other nuisances have brought the weirs above twickenham into a very bare and unsound condition, and they already begin to give and vanish, as the stream runs faster and stronger. your undersigned friend has had a few occasional reminders of his "true american catarrh." although i have exerted my voice very much, it has not yet been once touched. in america i was obliged to patch it up constantly. i like to read your patriarchal account of yourself among your swiss vines and fig-trees. you wouldn't recognise gad's hill now; i have so changed it, and bought land about it. and yet i often think that if mary were to marry (which she won't) i should sell it and go genteelly vagabondising over the face of the earth. then indeed i might see lausanne again. but i don't seem in the way of it at present, for the older i get, the more i do and the harder i work. yours ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, jan. th, ._ my dear mary, i was more affected than you can easily believe, by the sight of your gift lying on my dressing-table on the morning of the new year. to be remembered in a friend's heart when it is sore is a touching thing; and that and the remembrance of the dead quite overpowered me, the one being inseparable from the other. you may be sure that i shall attach a special interest and value to the beautiful present, and shall wear it as a kind of charm. god bless you, and may we carry the friendship through many coming years! my preparations for a certain murder that i had to do last night have rendered me unfit for letter-writing these last few days, or you would have heard from me sooner. the crime being completely off my mind and the blood spilled, i am (like many of my fellow-criminals) in a highly edifying state to-day. ever believe me, your affectionate friend. [sidenote: miss dickens.] torquay, _wednesday, jan. th, ._ my dearest mamie, we have been doing immensely. this place is most beautiful, though colder now than one would expect. this hotel, an immense place, built among picturesque broken rocks out in the blue sea, is quite delicious. there are bright green trees in the garden, and new peas a foot high. our rooms are _en suite_, all commanding the sea, and each with two very large plate-glass windows. everything good and well served. a _pantomime_ was being done last night, in the place where i am to read to-night. it is something between a theatre, a circus, a riding-school, a methodist chapel, and a cow-house. i was so disgusted with its acoustic properties on going in to look at it, that the whole unfortunate staff have been all day, and now are, sticking up baize and carpets in it to prevent echoes. i have rarely seen a more uncomfortable edifice than i thought it last night. at clifton, on monday night, we had a contagion of fainting. and yet the place was not hot. i should think we had from a dozen to twenty ladies borne out, stiff and rigid, at various times. it became quite ridiculous. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] bath, _friday, jan. th, ._ my dearest georgy, you must not trust blank places in my list, because many have been, and will be, gradually filled up. after the tuesday's reading in london, i have two for that same week in the country--nottingham and leicester. in the following week i have none; but my arrangements are all at sea as yet, for i must somehow and somewhere do an "uncommercial" in that week, and i also want to get poor chauncey's "opinions" to the printer. this mouldy old roosting-place comes out mouldily as to let of course. i hate the sight of the bygone assembly-rooms, and the bath chairs trundling the dowagers about the streets. as to to-morrow morning in the daylight!---- i have no cold to speak of. dolby sends kindest regard. [sidenote: mrs. lehmann.] office, _wednesday, feb. rd, ._ dear mrs. lehmann, before getting your kind note, i had written to lehmann, explaining why i cannot allow myself any social pleasure while my farewell task is yet unfinished. the work is so very hard, that every little scrap of rest _and silence_ i can pick up is precious. and even those morsels are so flavoured with "all the year round," that they are not quite the genuine article. joachim[ ] came round to see me at the hall last night, and i told him how sorry i was to forego the pleasure of meeting him (he is a noble fellow!) at your pleasant table. i am glad you are coming to the "murder" on the nd of march. (the house will be prodigious.) such little changes as i have made shall be carefully presented to your critical notice, and i hope will be crowned with your approval. but you are always such a fine audience that i have no fear on that head. i saw chorley yesterday in his own room. a sad and solitary sight. the widowed drake, with a certain _gin_coherence of manner, presented a blooming countenance and buxom form in the passage; so buxom indeed that she was obliged to retire before me like a modest stopper, before i could get into the dining decanter where poor chorley reposed. faithfully yours always. p.s.--my love to rudie. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] glasgow, _thursday, feb. th, ._ i received your letter at edinburgh this morning. i did not write to you yesterday, as there had been no reading on the previous night. the foot bears the fatigue wonderfully well, and really occasions me no inconvenience beyond the necessity of wearing the big work of art. syme saw me again this morning, and utterly scouted the gout notion altogether. i think the edinburgh audience understood the "murder" better last night than any audience that has heard it yet. "business" is enormous, and dolby jubilant. it is a most deplorable afternoon here, deplorable even for glasgow. a great wind blowing, and sleet driving before it in a storm of heavy blobs. we had to drive our train dead in the teeth of the wind, and got in here late, and are pressed for time. strange that in the north we have had absolutely no snow. there was a very thin scattering on the pentlands for an hour or two, but no more. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] edinburgh, _friday, feb. th, ._ writing to-morrow morning would be all but impracticable for me; would be quite so for dolby, who has to go to the agents and "settle up" in the midst of his breakfast. so i write to-day, in reply to your note received at glasgow this morning. the foot conducts itself splendidly. we had a most enormous cram at glasgow. syme saw me again yesterday (before i left here for glasgow), and repeated "gout!" with the greatest indignation and contempt, several times. the aching is going off as the day goes on, if it be worth mentioning again. the ride from glasgow was charming this morning; the sun shining brilliantly, and the country looking beautiful. i told you what the nortons were. mabel lowell is a charming little thing, and very retiring in manner and expression. we shall have a scene here to-night, no doubt. the night before last, ballantyne, unable to get in, had a seat behind the screen, and was nearly frightened off it by the "murder." every vestige of colour had left his face when i came off, and he sat staring over a glass of champagne in the wildest way. i have utterly left off _my_ champagne, and, i think, with good results. nothing during the readings but a very little weak iced brandy-and-water. i hope you will find me greatly improved on tuesday. [sidenote: miss dickens.] birmingham, _friday, march th, ._ this is to send you my best love, and to wish you many and many happy returns of to-morrow, which i miraculously remember to be your birthday. i saw this morning a very pretty fan here. i was going to buy it as a remembrance of the occasion, when i was checked by a dim misgiving that you had a fan not long ago from chorley. tell me what you would like better, and consider me your debtor in that article, whatever it may be. i have had my usual left boot on this morning, and have had an hour's walk. it was in a gale of wind and a simoom of dust, but i greatly enjoyed it. immense enthusiasm at wolverhampton last night over "marigold." scott made a most amazing ass of himself yesterday. he reported that he had left behind somewhere three books--"boots," "murder," and "gamp." we immediately telegraphed to the office. answer, no books there. as my impression was that he must have left them at st. james's hall, we then arranged to send him up to london at seven this morning. meanwhile (though not reproached), he wept copiously and audibly. i had asked him over and over again, was he sure he had not put them in my large black trunk? too sure, too sure. hadn't opened that trunk after tuesday night's reading. he opened it to get some clothes out when i went to bed, and there the books were! he produced them with an air of injured surprise, as if we had put them there. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] queen's hotel, manchester, _sunday, march th, ._ we have had our sitting-room chimney afire this morning, and have had to turn out elsewhere to breakfast; but the chamber has since been cleaned up, and we are reinstated. manchester is (_for_ manchester) bright and fresh. tell russell that a crop of hay is to be got off the meadow this year, before the club use it. they did not make such use of it last year as reconciles me to losing another hay-crop. so they must wait until the hay is in, before they commence active operations. poor olliffe! i am truly sorry to read those sad words about his suffering, and fear that the end is not far off. we are very comfortably housed here, and certainly that immense hall is a wonderful place for its size. without much greater expenditure of voice than usual, i a little enlarged the action last night, and dolby (who went to all the distant points of view) reported that he could detect no difference between it and any other place. as always happens now--and did not at first--they were unanimously taken by noah claypole's laugh. but the go, throughout, was enormous. sims reeves was doing henry bertram at the theatre, and of course took some of our shillings. it was a night of excitement for cottonopolis. i received from mrs. keeley this morning a very good photograph of poor old bob. yesterday i had a letter from harry, reminding me that our intended cambridge day is the day next after that of the boat-race. clearly it must be changed. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] queen's hotel, manchester, _saturday, march th, ._ getting yours and its enclosure, mary's note, at two this afternoon, i write a line at once in order that you may have it on monday morning. the theatre royal, liverpool, will be a charming place to read in. ladies are to dine at the dinner, and we hear it is to be a very grand affair. dolby is doubtful whether it may not "hurt the business," by drawing a great deal of money in another direction, which i think possible enough. trade is very bad _here_, and the gloom of the preston strike seems to brood over the place. the titiens company have been doing wretchedly. i should have a greater sympathy with them if they were not practising in the next room now. my love to letitia and harriette,[ ] wherein dolby (highly gratified by being held in remembrance) joins with the same to you. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] manchester, _sunday, march st, ._ will you tell mary that i have had a letter from frith, in which he says that he will be happy to show her his pictures "any day in the first week of april"? i have replied that she will be proud to receive his invitation. his object in writing was to relieve his mind about the "murder," of which he cannot say enough. tremendous enthusiasm here last night, calling in the most thunderous manner after "marigold," and again after the "trial," shaking the great hall, and cheering furiously. love to all. [sidenote: mr. john clarke.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, march th, ._ ladies and gentlemen, i beg to assure you that i am much gratified by the desire you do me the honour to express in your letter handed to me by mr. john clarke. before that letter reached me, i had heard of your wish, and had mentioned to messrs. chappell that it would be highly agreeable to me to anticipate it, if possible. they readily responded, and we agreed upon having three morning readings in london. as they are not yet publicly announced, i add a note of the days and subjects: saturday, may st. "boots at the holly-tree inn," and "sikes and nancy" from "oliver twist." saturday, may th. "the christmas carol." saturday, may nd. "sikes and nancy" from "oliver twist," and "the trial" from "pickwick." with the warmest interest in your art, and in its claims upon the general gratitude and respect, believe me, always faithfully your friend. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _sunday, april th, ._ by this post i send to mary the truly affecting account of poor dear katie macready's death. it is as sorrowful as anything so peaceful and trustful can be! both my feet are very tender, and often feel as though they were in hot water. but i was wonderfully well and strong, thank god! and had no end of voice for the two nights running in that great birmingham hall. we had enormous houses. so far as i understand the dinner arrangements here, they are much too long. as to the acoustics of that hall, and the position of the tables (both as bad as bad can be), my only consolation is that, if anybody can be heard, _i_ probably can be. the honorary secretary tells me that six hundred people are to dine. the mayor, being no speaker and out of health besides, hands over the toast of the evening to lord dufferin. the town is full of the festival. the theatre royal, touched up for the occasion, will look remarkably bright and well for the readings, and our lets are large. it is remarkable that our largest let as yet is for thursday, not friday. i infer that the dinner damages friday, but dolby does not think so. there appears to be great curiosity to hear the "murder." (on friday night last i read to two thousand people, and odd hundreds.) i hear that anthony trollope, dixon, lord houghton, lemon, esquiros (of the _revue des deux mondes_), and sala are to be called upon to speak; the last, for the newspaper press. all the liverpool notabilities are to muster. and manchester is to be represented by its mayor with due formality. i had been this morning to look at st. george's hall, and suggest what can be done to improve its acoustics. as usually happens in such cases, their most important arrangements are already made and unchangeable. i should not have placed the tables in the committee's way at all, and could certainly have placed the daïs to much greater advantage. so all the good i could do was to show where banners could be hung with some hope of stopping echoes. such is my small news, soon exhausted. we arrived here at three yesterday afternoon; it is now mid-day; chorley has not yet appeared, but he had called at the local agent's while i was at birmingham. it is a curious little instance of the way in which things fit together that there is a ship-of-war in the mersey, whose flags and so forth are to be brought up to st. george's hall for the dinner. she is the _donegal_, of which paynter told me he had just been captain, when he told me all about sydney at bath. one of the pleasantest things i have experienced here this time, is the manner in which i am stopped in the streets by working men, who want to shake hands with me, and tell me they know my books. i never go out but this happens. down at the docks just now, a cooper with a fearful stutter presented himself in this way. his modesty, combined with a conviction that if he were in earnest i would see it and wouldn't repel him, made up as true a piece of natural politeness as i ever saw. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] imperial hotel, blackpool, _wednesday, april st, ._ i send you this hasty line to let you know that i have come to this sea-beach hotel (charming) for a day's rest. i am much better than i was on sunday, but shall want careful looking to, to get through the readings. my weakness and deadness are all _on the left side_, and if i don't look at anything i try to touch with my left hand, i don't know where it is. i am in (secret) consultation with frank beard; he recognises, in the exact description i have given him, indisputable evidences of overwork, which he would wish to treat immediately. so i have said: "go in and win." i have had a delicious walk by the sea to-day, and i sleep soundly, and have picked up amazingly in appetite. my foot is greatly better too, and i wear my own boot. [sidenote: miss dickens.] preston, _thursday evening, april nd, ._ _don't be in the least alarmed._ beard has come down, and instantly echoes my impression (perfectly unknown to him), that the readings must be _stopped_. i have had symptoms that must not be disregarded. i go to liverpool to-night with him (to get away from here), and proceed to the office to-morrow. [sidenote: the lord john russell.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, may th, ._ my dear lord russell, i have delayed answering your kind letter, in order that you might get home before i wrote. i am happy to report myself quite well again, and i shall be charmed to come to pembroke lodge on any day that may be most convenient to lady russell and yourself after the middle of june. you gratify me beyond expression by your reference to the liverpool dinner. i made the allusion to you with all my heart at least, and it was most magnificently received. i beg to send my kind regard to lady russell, with many thanks for her remembrance, and am ever, my dear lord russell, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] office of "all the year round," _thursday, june th, ._ my dear wills, at a great meeting[ ] compounded of your late "chief," charley, morley, grieve, and telbin, your letter was read to-day, and a very sincere record of regret and thanks was placed on the books of the great institution. many thanks for the suggestion about the condition of churches. i am so aweary of church questions of all sorts that i am not quite clear as to tackling this. but i am turning it in my mind. i am afraid of two things: firstly, that the thing would not be picturesquely done; secondly, that a general cucumber-coolness would pervade the mind of our circulation. nothing new here but a speaking-pipe, a post-box, and a mouldy smell from some forgotten crypt--an extra mouldy smell, mouldier than of yore. lillie sniffs, projects one eye into nineteen hundred and ninety-nine, and does no more. i have been to chadwick's, to look at a new kind of cottage he has built (very ingenious and cheap). we were all much disappointed last saturday afternoon by a neighbouring fire being only at a carpenter's, and not at drury lane theatre. ellen's[ ] child having an eye nearly poked out by a young friend, and being asked whether the young friend was not very sorry afterwards, replied: "no. _she_ wasn't. _i_ was." london execrable. ever affectionately yours. p.s.--love to mrs. wills. [sidenote: mr. shirley brooks.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, july th, ._ my dear brooks, i have appended my sign manual to the memorial, which i think is very discreetly drawn up. i have a strong feeling of sympathy with poor mrs. cunningham, for i remember the pretty house she managed charmingly. she has always done her duty well, and has had hard trials. but i greatly doubt the success of the memorial, i am sorry to add. it was hotter here yesterday on this kentish chalk than i have felt it anywhere for many a day. now it is overcast and raining hard, much to the satisfaction of great farmers like myself. i am glad to infer from your companionship with the cocked hats, that there is no such thing as gout within several miles of you. may it keep its distance. ever, my dear brooks, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] gad's hill, _tuesday, july th, ._ my dearest macready, i have received your letter here to-day, and deeply feel with you and for you the affliction of poor dear katie's loss. i was not unprepared for the sad news, but it comes in such a rush of old remembrances and withered joys that strikes to the heart. god bless you! love and youth are still beside you, and in that thought i take comfort for my dear old friend. i am happy to report myself perfectly well and flourishing. we are just now announcing the resumption and conclusion of the broken series of farewell readings in a london course of twelve, beginning early in the new year. scarcely a day has gone by this summer in which we have not talked of you and yours. georgina, mary, and i continually speak of you. in the spirit we certainly are even more together than we used to be in the body in the old times. i don't know whether you have heard that harry has taken the second scholarship (fifty pounds a year) at trinity hall, cambridge. the bigwigs expect him to do a good deal there. wills having given up in consequence of broken health (he has been my sub-editor for twenty years), i have taken charley into "all the year round." he is a very good man of business, and evinces considerable aptitude in sub-editing work. this place is immensely improved since you were here, and really is now very pretty indeed. we are sorry that there is no present prospect of your coming to see it; but i like to know of your being at the sea, and having to do--_from the beach_, as mrs. keeley used to say in "the prisoner of war"--with the winds and the waves and all their freshening influences. i dined at greenwich a few days ago with delane. he asked me about you with much interest. he looks as if he had never seen a printing-office, and had never been out of bed after midnight. great excitement caused here by your capital news of butty. i suppose willy has at least a dozen children by this time. our loves to the noble boy and to dear mrs. macready. ever, my dearest macready, your attached and affectionate. [sidenote: mr. edmund ollier.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, aug. rd, ._ my dear mr. ollier, i am very sensible of the feeling of the committee towards me; and i receive their invitation (conveyed through you) as a most acceptable mark of their consideration. but i have a very strong objection to speech-making beside graves. i do not expect or wish my feeling in this wise to guide other men; still, it is so serious with me, and the idea of ever being the subject of such a ceremony myself is so repugnant to my soul, that i must decline to officiate. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: miss dickens.] office of "all the year round," no. , wellington street, strand, london, w.c., _tuesday, aug. rd, ._ my dearest mamie, i send you the second chapter of the remarkable story. the printer is late with it, and i have not had time to read it, and as i altered it considerably here and there, i have no doubt there are some verbal mistakes in it. however, they will probably express themselves. but i offer a prize of six pairs of gloves--between you, and your aunt, and ellen stone, as competitors--to whomsoever will tell me what idea in this second part is mine. i don't mean an idea in language, in the turning of a sentence, in any little description of an action, or a gesture, or what not in a small way, but an idea, distinctly affecting the whole story _as i found it_. you are all to assume that i found it in the main as you read it, with one exception. if i had written it, i should have made the woman love the man at last. and i should have shadowed that possibility out, by the child's bringing them a little more together on that holiday sunday. but i didn't write it. so, finding that it wanted something, i put that something in. what was it? love to ellen stone. [sidenote: mr. arthur ryland.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _friday, aug. th, ._ my dear mr. ryland, many thanks for your letter. i have very strong opinions on the subject of speechification, and hold that there is, everywhere, a vast amount too much of it. a sense of absurdity would be so strong upon me, if i got up at birmingham to make a flourish on the advantages of education in the abstract for all sorts and conditions of men, that i should inevitably check myself and present a surprising incarnation of the soul of wit. but if i could interest myself in the practical usefulness of the particular institution; in the ways of life of the students; in their examples of perseverance and determination to get on; in their numbers, their favourite studies, the number of hours they must daily give to the work that must be done for a livelihood, before they can devote themselves to the acquisition of new knowledge, and so forth, then i could interest others. this is the kind of information i want. mere holding forth "i utterly detest, abominate, and abjure." i fear i shall not be in london next week. but if you will kindly send me here, at your leisure, the roughest notes of such points as i have indicated, i shall be heartily obliged to you, and will take care of their falling into shape and order in my mind. meantime i "make a note of" monday, th september, and of writing to you touching your kind offer of hospitality, three weeks before that date. i beg to send my kind regard to mrs. and miss ryland, and am always, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. frederic ouvry.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, aug. nd, ._ my dear ouvry, i will expect a call from you at the office, on thursday, at your own most convenient hour. i admit the soft impeachment concerning mrs. gamp: i likes my payments to be made reg'lar, and i likewise likes my publisher to draw it mild. ever yours. [sidenote: mr. arthur ryland.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, sept. th, ._ my dear mr. ryland, i am sorry to find--i had a foreshadowing of it some weeks ago--that i shall not be able to profit by your kind offer of hospitality when i come to birmingham for _our_ institution. i must come down in time for a quiet dinner at the hotel with my "readings" secretary, mr. dolby, and must away next morning. besides having a great deal in hand just now (the title of a new book among other things), i shall have visitors from abroad here at the time, and am severely claimed by my daughter, who indeed is disloyal to birmingham in the matter of my going away at all. pray represent me to mrs. ryland as the innocent victim of circumstances, and as sacrificing pleasure to the work i have to do, and to the training under which alone i can do it without feeling it. you will see from the enclosed that i am in full force, and going to finish my readings, please god, after christmas. i am in the hope of receiving your promised notes in due course, and continue in the irreverent condition in which i last reported myself on the subject of speech-making. now that men not only make the nights of the session hideous by what the americans call "orating" in parliament, but trouble the peace of the vacation by saying over again what they said there (with the addition of what they _didn't_ say there, and never will have the courage to say there), i feel indeed that silence, like gold across the atlantic, is a rarity at a premium. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] office of "all the year round," _thursday, oct. th, ._ my dear kent, i felt that you would be deeply disappointed. i thought it better not to make the first sign while you were depressed, but my mind has been constantly with you. and not mine alone. you cannot think with what affection and sympathy you have been made the subject of our family dinner talk at gad's hill these last three days. nothing could exceed the interest of my daughters and my sister-in-law, or the earnestness of their feeling about it. i have been really touched by its warm and genuine expression. cheer up, my dear fellow; cheer up, for god's sake. that is, for the sake of all that is good in you and around you. ever your affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] gad's hill, _monday, oct. th, ._ my dearest macready, i duly received your letter nearly a fortnight ago, with the greatest interest and pleasure. above all things i am delighted with the prospect of seeing you here next summer; a prospect which has been received with nine times nine and one more by the whole house. you will hardly know the place again, it is so changed. you are not expected to admire, but there _is_ a conservatory building at this moment--be still, my soul! this leaves me in the preliminary agonies of a new book, which i hope to begin publishing (in twelve numbers, not twenty) next march. the coming readings being all in london, and being, after the first fortnight, only once a week, will divert my attention very little, i hope. harry has just gone up to cambridge again, and i hope will get a fellowship in good time. wills is much gratified by your remembrance, and sends you his warm regard. he wishes me to represent that he is very little to be pitied. that he suffers no pain, scarcely inconvenience, even, so long as he is idle. that he likes idleness exceedingly. he has bought a country place by welwyn in hertfordshire, near lytton's, and takes possession presently. my boy sydney is now a second lieutenant, the youngest in the service, i believe. he has the highest testimonials as an officer. you may be quite sure there will be no international racing in american waters. oxford knows better, or i am mistaken. the harvard crew were a very good set of fellows, and very modest. ryland of birmingham doesn't look a day older, and was full of interest in you, and asked me to remind you of him. by-the-bye, at elkington's i saw a pair of immense tea-urns from a railway station (stafford), sent there to be repaired. they were honeycombed within in all directions, and had been supplying the passengers, under the active agency of hot water, with decomposed lead, copper, and a few other deadly poisons, for heaven knows how many years! i must leave off in a hurry to catch the post, after a hard day's work. ever, my dearest macready, your most affectionate and attached. footnotes: [ ] herr joseph joachim, the renowned violinist. [ ] his sister-in-law, mrs. augustus dickens, always a welcome visitor at gad's hill. [ ] of the guild of literature and art. [ ] the housekeeper at the office. . narrative. charles dickens passed his last christmas and new year's day at gad's hill, with a party of family and friends, in the usual way, except that he was suffering again from an attack of the foot trouble, particularly on christmas day, when he was quite disabled by it and unable to walk at all--able only to join the party in the evening by keeping his room all day. however, he was better in a day or two, and early in january he went to london, where he had taken the house of his friends, mr. and mrs. milner gibson, for the season. his series of "farewell readings" at st. james's hall began in january, and ended on the th march. he was writing "edwin drood" also, and was, of course, constantly occupied with "all the year round" work. in the beginning of january, he fulfilled his promise of paying a second visit to birmingham and making a speech, of which he writes in his last letter to mr. macready. for his last reading he gave the "christmas carol" and "the trial" from "pickwick," and at the end of the evening he addressed a few farewell words to his audience. it was a memorable and splendid occasion. he was very deeply affected by the loving enthusiasm of his greeting, and it was a real sorrow to him to give up for ever the personal associations with thousands of the readers of his books. but when the pain, mingled with pleasure, of this last reading was over, he felt greatly the relief of having undisturbed time for his own quieter pursuits, and looked forward to writing the last numbers of "edwin drood" at gad's hill, where he was to return in june. the last public appearance of any kind that he made was at the royal academy dinner in may. he was at the time far from well, but he made a great effort to be present and to speak, from his strong desire to pay a tribute to the memory of his dear old friend mr. maclise, who died in april. her majesty having expressed a wish, conveyed through mr. helps (afterwards sir arthur helps), to have a personal interview with charles dickens, he accompanied mr. helps to buckingham palace one afternoon in march. he was most graciously and kindly received by her majesty, and came away with a hope that the visit had been mutually agreeable. the queen presented him with a copy of her "journal in the highlands," with an autograph inscription. and he had afterwards the pleasure of requesting her acceptance of a set of his books. he attended a levée held by the prince of wales in april, and the last time he dined out in london was at a party given by lord houghton for the king of the belgians and the prince of wales, who had both expressed a desire to meet charles dickens. all through the season he had been suffering, at intervals, from the swollen foot, and on this occasion it was so bad, that up to the last moment it was very doubtful whether he could fulfil his engagement. we have very few letters for this year, and none of any very particular interest, but we give them all, as they are _the last_. mr. s. l. fildes was his "new illustrator," to whom he alludes in a note to mr. frith; we also give a short note to mr. fildes himself. the correspondence of charles dickens with mrs. dallas glyn, the celebrated actress, for whom he had a great friendship, is so much on the subject of her own business, that we have only been able to select two notes of any public interest. in explanation of _the last letter_, we give an extract from a letter addressed to _the daily news_ by mr. j. m. makeham, soon after the death of charles dickens, as follows: "that the public may exactly understand the circumstances under which charles dickens's letter to me was written, i am bound to explain that it is in reply to a letter which i addressed to him in reference to a passage in the tenth chapter of "edwin drood," respecting which i ventured to suggest that he had, perhaps, forgotten that the figure of speech alluded to by him, in a way which, to my certain knowledge, was distasteful to some of his admirers, was drawn from a passage of holy writ which is greatly reverenced by a large number of his countrymen as a prophetic description of the sufferings of our saviour." the ms. of the little "history of the new testament" is now in the possession of his eldest daughter. she has (together with her aunt) received many earnest entreaties, both from friends and strangers, that this history might be allowed to be published, for the benefit of other children. these many petitions have his daughter's fullest sympathy. but she knows that her father wrote this history only for his own children, that it was his particular wish that it never should be published, and she therefore holds this wish as sacred and irrevocable. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , hyde park place, london, w., _sunday, jan. rd, ._ my dear wills, in the note i had from you about nancy and sikes, you seem to refer to some other note you had written me. therefore i think it well merely to mention that i have received no other note. i do not wonder at your not being up to the undertaking (even if you had had no cough) under the wearing circumstances. it was a very curious scene. the actors and actresses (most of the latter looking very pretty) mustered in extraordinary force, and were a fine audience. i set myself to carrying out of themselves and their observation, those who were bent on watching how the effects were got; and i believe i succeeded. coming back to it again, however, i feel it was madness ever to do it so continuously. my ordinary pulse is seventy-two, and it runs up under this effort to one hundred and twelve. besides which, it takes me ten or twelve minutes to get my wind back at all; i being, in the meantime, like the man who lost the fight--in fact, his express image. frank beard was in attendance to make divers experiments to report to watson; and although, as you know, he stopped it instantly when he found me at preston, he was very much astonished by the effects of the reading on the reader. so i hope you may be able to come and hear it before it is silent for ever. it is done again on the evenings of the st february, th february, and th march. i hope, now i have got over the mornings, that i may be able to work on my book. but up to this time the great preparation required in getting the subjects up again, and the twice a week besides, have almost exclusively occupied me. i have something the matter with my right thumb, and can't (as you see) write plainly. i sent a word to poor robert chambers,[ ] and i send my love to mrs. wills. ever, my dear wills, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mrs. dallas.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, jan. th, ._ my dear mrs. dallas, it is perfectly delightful to me to get your fervent and sympathetic note this morning. a thousand thanks for it. i will take care that two places on the front row, by my daughter, are reserved for your occasion next time. i cannot see you in too good a seat, or too often. believe me, ever very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. s. l. fildes.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, jan. th, ._ dear sir, i beg to thank you for the highly meritorious and interesting specimens of your art that you have had the kindness to send me. i return them herewith, after having examined them with the greatest pleasure. i am naturally curious to see your drawing from "david copperfield," in order that i may compare it with my own idea. in the meanwhile, i can honestly assure you that i entertain the greatest admiration for your remarkable powers. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. henry fielding dickens.] , hyde park place, w., _thursday, feb. th, ._ my dear harry, i am extremely glad to hear that you have made a good start at the union. take any amount of pains about it; open your mouth well and roundly, speak to the last person visible, and give yourself time. loves from all. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] _wednesday, march nd, ._ my dearest macready, this is to wish you and yours all happiness and prosperity at the well-remembered anniversary to-morrow. you may be sure that loves and happy returns will not be forgotten at _our_ table. i have been getting on very well with my book, and we are having immense audiences at st. james's hall. mary has been celebrating the first glimpses of spring by having the measles. she got over the disorder very easily, but a weakness remains behind. katie is blooming. georgina is in perfect order, and all send you their very best loves. it gave me true pleasure to have your sympathy with me in the second little speech at birmingham. i was determined that my radicalism should not be called in question. the electric wires are not very exact in their reporting, but at all events the sense was there. ryland, as usual, made all sorts of enquiries about you. with love to dear mrs. macready and the noble boy my particular friend, and a hearty embrace to you, i am ever, my dearest macready, your most affectionate. [sidenote: mr. ----.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, march th, ._ my dear ----, you make me very uneasy on the subject of your new long story here, by sowing your name broadcast in so many fields at once, and undertaking such an impossible amount of fiction at one time. just as you are coming on with us, you have another story in progress in "the gentleman's magazine," and another announced in "once a week." and so far as i know the art we both profess, it cannot be reasonably pursued in this way. i think the short story you are now finishing in these pages obviously marked by traces of great haste and small consideration; and a long story similarly blemished would really do the publication irreparable harm. these considerations are so much upon my mind that i cannot forbear representing them to you, in the hope that they may induce you to take a little more into account the necessity of care and preparation, and some self-denial in the quantity done. i am quite sure that i write fully as much in your interest as in that of "all the year round." believe me, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] , hyde park place, w., _friday, march th, ._ my dear ----, of course the engagement between us is to continue, and i am sure you know me too well to suppose that i have ever had a thought to the contrary. your explanation is (as it naturally would be, being yours) manly and honest, and i am both satisfied and hopeful. ever yours. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] , hyde park place, w., _saturday, march th, ._ my dear kent, i received both copies of _the sun_, with the tenderest pleasure and gratification. everything that i can let you have in aid of the proposed record[ ] (which, _of course_, would be far more agreeable to me if done by you than by any other hand), shall be at your service. dolby has all the figures relating to america, and you shall have for reference the books from which i read. they are afterwards going into forster's collection.[ ] ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. henry fielding dickens.] , hyde park place, w., _tuesday, march th, ._ my dear harry, your next tuesday's subject is a very good one. i would not lose the point that narrow-minded fanatics, who decry the theatre and defame its artists, are absolutely the advocates of depraved and barbarous amusements. for wherever a good drama and a well-regulated theatre decline, some distorted form of theatrical entertainment will infallibly arise in their place. in one of the last chapters of "hard times," mr. sleary says something to the effect: "people will be entertained thomehow, thquire. make the betht of uth, and not the wortht." ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. shirley brooks.] , hyde park place, w., _friday, april st, ._ my dear shirley brooks, i have written to mr. low, expressing my regret that i cannot comply with his request, backed as it is by my friend s. b. but i have told him what is perfectly true--that i leave town for the peaceful following of my own pursuits, at the end of next month; that i have excused myself from filling all manner of claims, on the ground that the public engagements i could make for the season were very few and were all made; and that i cannot bear hot rooms when i am at work. i have smoothed this as you would have me smooth it. with your longing for fresh air i can thoroughly sympathise. may you get it soon, and may you enjoy it, and profit by it half as much as i wish! ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. p. frith, r.a.] , hyde park place, w., _saturday, april th, ._ my dear frith, i shall be happy to go on wednesday evening, if convenient. you please me with what you say of my new illustrator, of whom i have great hopes. faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] _monday morning, april th, ._ my dear kent, i received your book[ ] with the greatest pleasure, and heartily thank you for it. it is a volume of a highly prepossessing appearance, and a most friendly look. i felt as if i should have taken to it at sight; even (a very large even) though i had known nothing of its contents, or of its author! for the last week i have been most perseveringly and ding-dong-doggedly at work, making headway but slowly. the spring always has a restless influence over me; and i weary, at any season, of this london dining-out beyond expression; and i yearn for the country again. this is my excuse for not having written to you sooner. besides which, i had a baseless conviction that i should see you at the office last thursday. not having done so, i fear you must be worse, or no better? if you _can_ let me have a report of yourself, pray do. [sidenote: mrs. frederick pollock.] , hyde park place, w., _monday, may nd, ._ my dear mrs. pollock, pray tell the illustrious philip van artevelde, that i will deal with the nefarious case in question if i can. i am a little doubtful of the practicability of doing so, and frisking outside the bounds of the law of libel. i have that high opinion of the law of england generally, which one is likely to derive from the impression that it puts all the honest men under the diabolical hoofs of all the scoundrels. it makes me cautious of doing right; an admirable instance of its wisdom! i was very sorry to have gone astray from you that sunday; but as the earlier disciples entertained angels unawares, so the later often miss them haphazard. your description of la font's acting is the complete truth in one short sentence: nature's triumph over art; reversing the copy-book axiom! but the lord deliver us from plessy's mechanical ingenuousness!! and your petitioner will ever pray. and ever be, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. e. m. ward.] , hyde park place, w., _wednesday, may th, ._ my dear mrs. ward, i grieve to say that i am literally laid by the heels, and incapable of dining with you to-morrow. a neuralgic affection of the foot, which usually seizes me about twice a year, and which will yield to nothing but days of fomentation and horizontal rest, set in last night, and has caused me very great pain ever since, and will too clearly be no better until it has had its usual time in which to wear itself out. i send my kindest regard to ward, and beg to be pitied. believe me, faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] , hyde park place, w., _tuesday, may th, ._ my dear kent, many, many thanks! it is only my neuralgic foot. it has given me such a sharp twist this time that i have not been able, in its extreme sensitiveness, to put any covering upon it except scalding fomentations. having viciously bubbled and blistered it in all directions, i hope it now begins to see the folly of its ways. affectionately ever. p.s.--i hope the sun shines. [sidenote: mrs. bancroft.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _thursday, may st, ._ my dear mrs. bancroft,[ ] i am most heartily obliged to you for your kind note, which i received here only last night, having come here from town circuitously to get a little change of air on the road. my sense of your interest cannot be better proved than by my trying the remedy you recommend, and that i will do immediately. as i shall be in town on thursday, my troubling you to order it would be quite unjustifiable. i will use your name in applying for it, and will report the result after a fair trial. whether this remedy succeeds or fails as to the neuralgia, i shall always consider myself under an obligation to it for having indirectly procured me the great pleasure of receiving a communication from you; for i hope i may lay claim to being one of the most earnest and delighted of your many artistic admirers. believe me, faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] on the death of his second wife. [ ] of the readings. the intention was carried out. mr. kent's book, "charles dickens as a reader," was published in . [ ] no doubt charles dickens intended to add the reading books to the legacy of his mss. to mr. forster. but he did not do so, therefore the "readings" are not a part of the "forster collection" at the south kensington museum. [ ] a new collective edition of "kent's poems," dedicated to his cousin, colonel kent, of the th regiment. [ ] miss marie wilton. two last letters. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] [illustration: gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent.[ ] hw: wednesday eighth june hw: dear kent tomorrow is a very bad day for me to make a call, as, in addition to my usual office business, i have a mass of accounts to settle with wills. but i hope i may be ready for you at o'clock. if i can't be--why, then i shan't be. you must really get rid of those opal enjoyments. they are too overpowering: "these violent delights have violent ends." i think it was a father of your churches who made the wise remark to a young gentleman who got up early (or stayed out late) at verona? ever affectionately signature: chd] [sidenote: mr. john m. makeham.] =gad's hill place,= =higham by rochester, kent.= [illustration: hw: wednesday eighth june dear sir it would be quite inconceivable i think--but for your letter--that any reasonable reader could possibly attach a scriptural reference to a passage in a book of mine, reproducing a much abused social figure of speech, impressed into all sorts of service on all sorts of inappropriate occasions, without the faintest connexion of it with its original source. i am truly shocked to find that any reader can make the mistake i have always striven in my writings to express veneration for the life and lessons of our saviour; because i feel it; and because i re-wrote that history for my children--every one of whom knew it from having it repeated to them--long before they could read, and almost as soon as they could speak. but i have never made proclamation of this from the house tops faithfully yours, charles dickens john m. markham esq.] all through this spring in london, charles dickens had been ailing in health, and it was remarked by many friends that he had a weary look, and was "aged" and altered. but he was generally in good spirits, and his family had no uneasiness about him, relying upon the country quiet and comparative rest at gad's hill to have their usual influence in restoring his health and strength. on the nd june he attended a private play at the house of mr. and mrs. freake, where his two daughters were among the actresses. the next day he went back to gad's hill. his daughter kate (whose home was there at all times when she chose, and almost always through the summer months) went down on sunday, the th june, for a day's visit, to see the "great improvement of the conservatory." her father laughingly assured her she had now seen "the last" improvement at gad's hill. at this time he was tolerably well, but she remarked to her sister and aunt how strangely he was tired, and what a curious grey colour he had in his face after a very short walk on that sunday afternoon. however, he seemed quite himself again in the evening. the next day his daughter kate went back, accompanied by her sister, who was to pay her a short visit, to london. charles dickens was very hard at work on the sixth number of "edwin drood." on the monday and tuesday he was well, but he was unequal to much exercise. his last walk was one of his greatest favourites--through cobham park and wood--on the afternoon of tuesday. on the morning of wednesday, the th (one of the loveliest days of a lovely summer), he was very well; in excellent spirits about his book, of which he said he _must_ finish his number that day--the next (thursday) being the day of his weekly visit to "all the year round" office. therefore, he would write all day in the châlet, and take no walk or drive until the evening. in the middle of the day he came to the house for an hour's rest, and smoked a cigar in the conservatory--out of which new addition to the house he was taking the greatest personal enjoyment--and seemed perfectly well, and exceedingly cheerful and hopeful. when he came again to the house, about an hour before the time fixed for the early dinner, he seemed very tired, silent, and absorbed. but this was so usual with him after a day of engrossing work, that it caused no alarm or surprise to his sister-in-law--the only member of his household who happened to be at home. he wrote some letters--among them, these last letters which we give--in the library of the house, and also arranged many trifling business matters, with a view to his departure for london the next morning. he was to be accompanied, on his return at the end of the week, by mr. fildes, to introduce the "new illustrator" to the neighbourhood in which many of the scenes of this last book of charles dickens, as of his first, were laid. it was not until they were seated at the dinner-table that a striking change in the colour and expression of his face startled his sister-in-law, and on her asking him if he was ill, he said, "yes, very ill; i have been very ill for the last hour." but on her expressing an intention of sending instantly for a doctor, he stopped her, and said: "no, he would go on with dinner, and go afterwards to london." and then he made an effort to struggle against the fit that was fast coming on him, and talked, but incoherently, and soon very indistinctly. it being now evident that he _was_ ill, and very seriously ill, his sister-in-law begged him to come to his own room before she sent off for medical help. "come and lie down," she entreated. "yes, on the ground," he said, very distinctly--these were the last words he spoke--and he slid from her arm, and fell upon the floor. the servants brought a couch into the dining-room, where he was laid. a messenger was despatched for mr. steele, the rochester doctor, and with a telegram to his doctor in london, and to his daughters. this was a few minutes after six o'clock. his daughters arrived, with mr. frank beard, this same evening. his eldest son the next morning, and his son henry and his sister letitia in the evening of the th--too late, alas! all through the night, charles dickens never opened his eyes, or showed a sign of consciousness. in the afternoon of the th, dr. russell reynolds arrived at gad's hill, having been summoned by mr. frank beard to meet himself and mr. steele. but he could only confirm their hopeless verdict, and made his opinion known with much kind sympathy, to the family, before returning to london. charles dickens remained in the same unconscious state until the evening of this day, when, at ten minutes past six, the watchers saw a shudder pass over him, heard him give a deep sigh, saw one tear roll down his cheek, and he was gone from them. and as they saw the dark shadow steal across his calm, beautiful face, not one among them--could they have been given such a power--would have recalled his sweet spirit back to earth. as his family were aware that charles dickens had a wish to be buried near gad's hill, arrangements were made for his burial in the pretty churchyard of shorne, a neighbouring village, of which he was very fond. but this intention was abandoned in consequence of a pressing request from the dean and chapter of rochester cathedral that his remains might be placed there. a grave was prepared and everything arranged, when it was made known to the family, through dean stanley, that there was a general and very earnest desire that charles dickens should find his resting-place in westminster abbey. to such a fitting tribute to his memory they could make no possible objection, although it was with great regret that they relinquished the idea of laying him in a place so closely identified with his life and his works. his name, notwithstanding, is associated with rochester, a tablet to his memory having been placed by his executors on the wall of rochester cathedral. with regard to westminster abbey, his family only stipulated that the funeral might be made as private as possible, and that the words of his will, "i emphatically direct that i be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," should be religiously adhered to. and so they were. the solemn service in the vast cathedral being as private as the most thoughtful consideration could make it. the family of charles dickens were deeply grateful to all in authority who so carried out his wishes. and more especially to dean stanley and to the (late) lady augusta stanley, for the tender sympathy shown by them to the mourners on this day, and also on sunday, the th, when the dean preached his beautiful funeral sermon. as during his life charles dickens's fondness for air, light, and gay colours amounted almost to a passion, so when he lay dead in the home he had so dearly loved, these things were not forgotten. the pretty room opening into the conservatory (from which he had never been removed since his seizure) was kept bright with the most beautiful of all kinds of flowers, and flooded with the summer sun: "and nothing stirred in the room. the old, old fashion. the fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. the old, old fashion--death! "oh, thank god, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of immortality!" footnotes: [ ] this letter has lately been presented by mr. charles kent to the british museum. index. a'beckett, gilbert, i. actors, dickens a friend to poor, ii. affidavit, a facetious, i. agassiz, professor, ii. , agate, john, ii. ; letter to, ii. ainsworth, w. h., letters to, i. , , alison, sir archibald, i. "all the year round," commencement of, ii. ; "the uncommercial traveller" in, ii. ; christmas numbers of: "the haunted house," ii. ; "a message from the sea," ii. , ; "tom tiddler's ground," ii. ; "somebody's luggage," ii. ; "mrs. lirriper's lodgings," ii. ; "mrs. lirriper's legacy," ii. , ; "dr. marigold's prescriptions," ii. , , ; "mugby junction," ii. , ; "no thoroughfare," ii. , , , , , , , , , , ; and see ii. , and see charles dickens as an editor america, feeling for dickens in the backwoods of, i. , ; dickens's first visit to, i. ; his welcome in, i. ; his opinion of, i. - ; freedom of opinion in, i. ; dickens's levées in, i. ; change of temperature in, i. ; hotel charges in, i. ; midnight rambles in new york, i. ; descriptions of niagara, i. , ; ii. , ; a maid's views on niagara, i. ; copyright in, i. , , ; dickens's tribute to mrs. trollope's book on, i. ; press-ridden, i. ; absence of quiet in, i. ; criticisms of dickens in, i. ; the great war in, ii. , ; feeling between england and, ii. ; dickens's second visit to--the journey, ii. - ; dickens's letters on, ii. - ; fires in, ii. , ; treatment of luggage in, ii. ; drinks in, ii. , ; literary piracy in, ii. ; walking-match between dolby and osgood in, ii. , , , , , , , ; changes and improvements in since dickens's first visit, ii. , ; the negroes in, ii. ; personal descriptions of dickens in, ii. ; travelling in, ii. ; and see readings "american notes," publication of, i. andersen, hans christian, ii. "animal magnetism," tag to, written by dickens, i. anne, mrs. dickens's maid, i. , ; ii. , , , "apprentices, the tour of the two idle," ii. , , "arabian nights," a mistake in the, i. , armatage, isaac, ii. armstrong, the misses, letter to, ii. ; and see ii. astley's theatre, description of a clown at, i. austin, henry, i. ; ii. , ; and see letters austin, mrs. henry, ii. ; letters to, ii. , , author, the highest reward of an, i. autobiography, a concise, of dickens, i. autograph of dickens in , i. ; dickens leaves his in shakespeare's room, i. ; of boz, i. ; of dickens as bobadil, i. ; facsimile of dickens's handwriting in , i. ; facsimile letters of dickens written the day before his death, ii. - babbage, charles, letters to, i. , , ballantyne, ii. bancroft, mrs., letter to, ii. banks, g., i. ; letter to, i. barber, dickens's gardener, ii. barker, dr. fordyce, ii. , "barnaby rudge" written and published, i. ; dickens's descriptions of the illustrations of: the raven, i. ; the locksmith's house, i. ; rioters in the maypole, i. ; scene in the ruins of the warren, i. ; abduction of dolly varden, i. ; lord george gordon in the tower, the duel, frontispiece, i. ; hugh taken to gaol, i. "battle of life, the," dedication of, i. , ; dickens superintends rehearsals of the play of, i. , , ; sale of, i. , ; reception of the play of, i. baylis, mr., ii. ; letter to, ii. beadle, a, in office, ii. beard, frank, ii. , , , , beaucourt, m., i. , , bedstead, a german, i. beecher, ward, ii. begging letters, dickens's answers to, i. - belgians, the king of the, ii. benzon, miss lily, letter to, ii. berry, one of dickens's readings men, ii. , , bicknell, henry, i. ; letter to, i. biographers, dickens on, i. ; his opinion of john forster as a biographer, i. - birthday wishes, i. "black-eyed susan," dickens as t. p. cooke in, i. ; a new version of, i. blackwood, mr., ii. blair, general, ii. blanchard, laman, letter to, i. "bleak house," commenced, i. ; publication of, i. ; dickens's opinion of, i. ; circulation of, i. , , blessington, lady, i. bobadil, captain, dickens plays, i. ; dickens's remarks on, i. ; a letter after, i. book-backs, dickens's imitation, i. , book clubs, established, i. ; dickens on, i. boucicault, dion, ii. , boulogne, dickens at, i. , , - , , , - ; a shakespearian performance at, i. ; _en fête_, i. ; illuminations at, on the occasion of the prince consort's visit, i. ; fire at, i. ; condition of, during the crimean war, i. ; letters descriptive of, i. , , , , , , , bouncer, mrs., miss dickens's dog, ii. , , , bow street runners, ii. boxall, sir william, i. , boyle, captain cavendish, ii. boyle, miss mary, i. , , , ; ii. , , , ; and see letters breach of promise, a new sort of, i. breakfast, a yorkshire, i. broadstairs, dickens at, i. , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , ; description of lodgings at, i. ; amusements of, i. , ; size of fort house at, i. bromley, sir richard, ii. brookfield, mrs., letter to, ii. brookfield, the rev. w., letters to, ii. , brooks, shirley, ii. ; letters to, ii. , brougham, lord, i. ; ii. browne, h. k., i. , buckstone, j. b., i. burnett, mrs., i. cabin, a, on board ship, i. campbell, lord, ii, capital punishment, dickens's views on, i. carlisle, the earl of, letters to, i. , ; ii. , , carlyle, thomas, ii. cartwright, samuel, ii. ; letter to, ii. castlereagh, lord, i. cat-hunting, i. cattermole, george, i. , ; ii. , ; and see letters cattermole, mrs., letters to, ii. , céleste, madame, ii. cerjat, m. de, i. ; ii. ; and see letters chambers, robert, ii. , chancery, dickens on the court of, i. chapman and hall, messrs., i. ; letter to, i. chappell, messrs., ii. , , , , , charities, dickens's sufferings from public, ii. children, stories of, i. , , ; ii. , , childs, mr., ii. , "chimes, the," written, i. ; an attack on cant, i. , ; dickens's opinion of, i. , ; dickens gives a private reading of, i. chorley, h. f., ii. , "christmas carol, the," publication of, i. ; criticisms on, i. christmas greetings, i. church, dickens on the, ii. ; service on board ship, ii. ; dickens on the romish, ii. , circumlocution, dickens on, ii. , clarke, john, letter to, ii. cockspur street society, the, i. - cold, effects of a, i. , ; remedy for a, i. colden, david, i. collins, c. a., ii. , , , , , , collins, wilkie, i. , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , ; and see letters comedy, mr. webster's offer for a prize, dickens an imaginary competitor, i. , compton, mrs., letter to, ii. conjuring feats, i. ; and see ii. cooke, t. p., i. ; ii. ; letter to, ii. copyright, i. ; dickens's struggles to secure english, in america, i. , , costello, dudley, i. ; letters to, i. , cottage, a cheap, i. coutts, miss, i. covent garden theatre, macready retires from management of, i. ; ruins of, i. ; a scene at, ii. "cricket on the hearth, the," i. , croker, j. crofton, i. ; letter to, i. cruikshank, george, i. cunningham, mrs., ii. cunningham, peter, i. , ; letters to, i. , , , dacres, sir sydney, ii. _daily news, the_, started, i. dallas, mrs., letters to, ii. , dallas, mr., ii. "david copperfield," dedication of, i. ; purpose of little emily in, i. ; success of, i. ; reading of, i. , ; dickens's favourite work, i. ; and see i. , , , deane, f. h., letter to, i. delane, john, i. ; ii. ; letter to, i. de la rue, mr., ii. devonshire, the duke of, letters to, i. , , devrient, emil, i. dickens, charles, at furnival's inn, i. ; his marriage, i. ; employed as a parliamentary reporter, i. ; spends his honeymoon at chalk, kent, i. ; employed on _the morning chronicle_, i. ; removes to doughty street, i. ; writes for the stage, i. , , , , ; his visit to the yorkshire schools, i. ; at twickenham park, i. ; his visits to broadstairs, see broadstairs; his visit to stratford-on-avon and kenilworth, i. , ; in shakespeare's room, i. ; elected at the athenæum club, i. ; removes to devonshire terrace, i. ; portraits of, see portraits; visits to scotland, i. , ii. , and see ii. ; personal feeling of for his characters, i. , , ; declines to enter parliament, i. , ; ii. ; public dinners to, i. , , ; ii. , , , , , , ; an enemy of cant, i. , , ; visits of to america, see america; expedition of to cornwall, i. ; his travels in italy, see italy; political opinions of, i. , , , ; fancy signatures to letters of, i. , , , , , , ; ii. ; takes the chair at the opening of the liverpool mechanics' institute, i. , and see i. - ; his theatrical performances, see theatrical performances; effects of work on, i. ,; ii. , , ; _the daily news_, started by, i. ; his visits to lausanne and switzerland, i. , , and see switzerland; his visits to paris, see paris; as a stage, manager, i. , , , , ; ii. ; at chester place, regent's park, i. ; takes the chair at the opening of the leeds mechanics' institute, and of the glasgow athenæum, i. ; at brighton, i. , ; at bonchurch, i, ; purchases tavistock house, i. , and see tavistock house; as an editor, i. , , , , ; ii. , , , , ; his readings, see readings; illnesses of, i. , ; ii. , , , ; in america, ii. , , , , , , , , , , ; his visits to boulogne, see boulogne; presentation of plate to, at birmingham, i. ; purchases gad's hill, i. , , and see gad's hill; delivers a speech on administrative reform, i. ; at folkestone, i. , ; restlessness of, when at work, i. , ; tour of, in the north, ii. , - ; his kindly criticisms of young writers, ii. , , , , for other criticisms see i. , ; ii. , , , ; elected a member of the birmingham institute, ii. ; religious views of, ii. , , , , , ; visit of, to cornwall, ii. ; at hanover terrace, regent's park, ii. ; visits lord lytton at knebworth, ii. ; at hyde park gate south, ii. ; at , gloucester place, hyde park, ii. ; at somer's place, hyde park, ii. ; in the staplehurst accident, ii. ; at southwick place, hyde park, ii. ; his energy, ii. ; one of the secrets of the success of, ii. , ; the midland institute at birmingham opened by, ii. , and see ii. ; his last speech, at the royal academy dinner, ii. ; his interview with the queen, ii. ; attends a levée of the prince of wales, ii. ; his last illness, ii. ; his death, ii. ; funeral of, ii. , ; and see letters of dickens, mrs. charles, marriage of, i. ; visit of, to america, i. ; at rome, i. ; accident to, i. ; at malvern, i. ; present to, at birmingham, i. ; and see letters dickens, charles, jun., birth of, i. ; nickname of, i. ; at eton, i. , , , , ; at leipsic, i. , , ; at barings', i. ; marriage of, ii. ; on "all the year round," ii. , , ; and see i. , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , ; letters to, ii. , dickens, kate, nickname of, i. ; marriage of, ii. , ; illness of, ii. , ; and see ii. , , , , , , , ; letters to, i. ; ii. dickens, mamie, nickname of, i. ; illnesses of, i. , ; accident to, ii. ; and see ii. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and letters dickens, walter, nickname of, i. ; goes to india, ii. , ; attached to the nd highlanders, ii. , ; death of, ii. , ; and see i. , , , ; ii. dickens, frank, nickname of, i. ; letter of, to dickens, ii. ; in india, ii. , ; and see ii. , , , dickens, alfred, at wimbledon school, ii. ; settles in australia, ii. ; and see ii. , dickens, sydney, birth of, i. ; nickname of, i. ; death of, i. ; story of, i. ; a naval cadet, ii. , , , ; on board h.m.s. _orlando_, ii. ; and see i. ; ii. , , , , , , , , dickens, henry, entered at trinity hall, cambridge, ii. ; wins a scholarship, ii. , ; and see i. ; ii. , , , , , , , , , , ; letters to, ii. , , , dickens, edward, nicknames of, i. , ; goes to australia, ii. , ; dickens's love for, ii. - ; and see i. , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , ; letter to, ii. dickens, dora, birth of, i. ; death of, i. dickens, alfred, sen., i. , ; ii. dickens, mrs. augustus, ii. dickens, fanny, see mrs. burnett dickens, frederick, i. dickens, john, i. , ; ii. dickens, mrs. john, ii. dickens, letitia, see mrs. henry austin dickenson, captain, ii. , dickson, david, letter to, i. diezman, s. a., letter to, i. dilke, c. w., ii. ; letter to, ii. dillon, c., ii. dinner, a search for a, i. ; ladies at public dinners, i. dogs, dickens's, i. , , ; ii. , , ; ii. , , , , , ; a plague of, i. ; stories of, i. , , , dolby, george, ii. , - , , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , - , - , , , "dombey and son," i. ; success of, i. , ; sale of, i. d'orsay, comte, i. , driver, dickens's estimate of himself as a, i. drury lane theatre, the saloon at, i. ; suggestions for the saloon at, i. , dufferin, lord, ii. dwarf, the tartar, ii. earthquake, an, in england, ii. edinburgh on a sunday, ii. education, dickens an advocate of, for the people, i. "edwin drood," ii. , , , eeles, mr., letters to, i. , egg, augustus, i. , , , , , ; ii. eliot, sir john, dickens on forster's life of, ii. elliotson, dr., i. , , ii. elton, mr., i. , elwin, rev. w., ii. , ely, miss, letter to, i. emerson, mr., ii. emery, mr., i. england, state of, in , i. ; politically, i. epitaph, dickens's, on a little child, i. executions, dickens on public, i. , exhibition, an infant school at the, i. eytinge, mr., ii. fairy tales, dickens on, i. "faust," gounod's, ii. , fechter, charles, ii. , , , , , , , ; and see letters felton, mr., ii. ferguson, sir william, ii. , féval, paul, ii. , fielding, henry, i. fields, cyrus w., ii. , , , , , , fields, mrs., ii. , , , , , , , , fildes, s. l., ii. , ; letter to, ii. finlay, f. d., ii. ; letters to, ii. , , fitzgerald, mrs., ii. fitzgerald, percy, ii. , ; and see letters flunkeydom, scholastic, ii. forgues, m., i. , forster, miss, ii. forster, john, i. , , , , , , , ; ii. , , ; and see letters franklin, sir john, i. freake, mr. and mrs., ii. french portraits of the english, i. friday, dickens's lucky day, i. , frith, w. p., ii. , , , ; letters to, i. ; ii. frost, the great, of , ii. funerals, dickens on state, i. ; ii. gad's hill, purchase of, i. , , ; dickens takes possession of, ii. ; his childish impressions of, ii. ; improvements in, ii. , , , ; sports at, ii. ; cricket club at, ii. ; letters concerning, i. , , ; ii. , , , , , , , gaskell, mrs., i. ; and see letters germany, esteem felt for dickens in, i. ghost, stalking a, ii. gibson, m., i. ; ii. gibson, mr. and mrs. milner, ii. gladstone, right hon. w. e., ii. goldsmith, oliver, dickens on forster's life of, i. ; on the works of, i. gordon, andrew, ii. gordon, mr. sheriff, ii. "great expectations," commenced, ii. , ; letters concerning, ii. , , , , , grief, the perversity of, exemplified, i. grimaldi, life of, edited by dickens, i. guild of literature and art, i. ; theatrical performances in aid of the, i. , , , , , ; and see ii. haldimand, mr., i. , , , ; letters to, i. , halleck, fitz-greene, i. "hard times," i. ; satire of, explained, i. ; letters concerning, i. , harley, j. p., letters to, i. , harness, rev. w., ii. ; letters to, i. , , "haunted man, the," i. , , ; subjects for illustrations in, described, i. , ; dramatisation of, i. headland, mr., ii. , , , helps, sir arthur, ii. henderson, mrs., letter to, ii. hewett, captain, i. "history of england, the child's," i. hogarth, mary, i. , hogarth, georgina, i. ; ii. , , , , , , ; and see letters hogge, mrs., letter to, ii. holland, lady, i. holmes, mr., ii. home, longings for, i. , hood, tom, i. ; letter to, i. horne, mrs., letter to, i. horne, r. h., letter to, i. hospital, a dinner at a, i. ; great ormond street, ii. , houghton, lord, ii. ; letter to, i. "household words," i. ; scheme of, i. ; suggested titles for, i. ; success of, i. ; christmas numbers of, i. , ; "the golden mary," i. ; ii. , "a house to let," ii. ; incorporated with "all the year round," ii. ; letters concerning, i. , , , , , - , , , , , , , , ; ii. hughes, master hastings, letter to, i. hulkes, mrs., ii. , , ; letter to, ii. hullah, john, i. ; ii. humphery, mr. and mrs., afterwards sir w. and lady, ii. hunt, leigh, ii. hutchinson, john, ii. _illustrated london news_, offers to dickens from, i. illustrations of dickens's works, his descriptions for, i. - , , , , , - ; ii. impeachment of the five members, dickens on forster's, ii. ireland, a dialogue in, ii. ; feeling for dickens in, ii. ; fenianism in, ii. - ; proposed banquet to dickens in, ii. ; dickens on the established church in, ii. ; and see ii. , , italy, dickens's first visit to, i. ; the sky of, i. ; the colouring of, i. ; a sunset in, i. ; twilight in, i. ; frescoes in, i. ; churches in, i. ; fruit in, i. ; climate of, i. ; a coastguard in, i. ; dickens at albaro, i. - ; at genoa, i. - , , ; at venice and verona, i. - , ; at naples, i. - , ; an ascent of vesuvius, i. - ; at rome, i. , , - ; dickens on the unity of, ii. , , , , ; and see i. , jamaica, the insurrection in, ii. jeffrey, lord, i. , jerrold, douglas, i. , , , ; ii. , , ; and see letters jews, dickens's friendly feeling for, ii. , , joachim, joseph, ii. john, dickens's manservant, ii. , , , , , , , joll, miss, letter to, i. jones, walter, letter to, ii. keeley, mrs., ii. keeley, robert, i. ; letter to, i. kelly, miss, i. , kelly, one of dickens's readings men, ii. , , kemble, fanny, ii. , kent, w. charles, i. ; ii. , , ; and see letters kinkel, dr., i. knight, charles, i. ; ii. ; and see letters knowles, sheridan, i. ; letter to, i. "lady of lyons, the," ii. la font, ii. lamartine, i. landor, walter savage, i. , ; ii. ; and see letters landseer, edwin, letter to, i. landseer, tom, i. lansdowne, lord, i. law, dickens's opinion of english, ii. layard, a. h., i. ; ii. ; letters to, i. , leclercq, miss, ii. lectures, dickens on public, i. leech, john, i. , , , , le gros, mr., i. , lehmann, mrs., ii. , ; and see letters lehmann, f., ii. , lemaître, m., i. lemon, mark, i. , , , , , ; and see letters lemon, mrs., i. léotard, ii. letters of charles dickens to: agate, john, ii. ainsworth, w. h., i. , , anonymous, i. ; ii. armstrong, the misses, ii. austin, henry, i. , - , , - , , ; ii. , , austin, mrs., ii. , , babbage, charles, i. , , bancroft, mrs., ii. banks, g., i. baylis, mr., ii. benzon, miss, ii. bicknell, h., i. blanchard, laman, i. boyle, miss, i. , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , brookfield, mrs., ii. brookfield, rev. w., ii. , brooks, shirley, ii. , carlisle, the earl of, i. , ; ii. , , cartwright, samuel, ii. cattermole, mrs., ii. , cattermole, george, i. , - , , - , , , , , - , , , , cerjat, m. de, i. , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , , , , , chapman and hall, i. clarke, john, ii. collins, wilkie, i. , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , , , , compton, mrs., ii. cooke, t. p., ii. costello, dudley, i. , croker, j. crofton, i. cunningham, peter, i. , , , dallas, mrs., ii. , deane, f. h., i. delane, john, i. devonshire, the duke of, i. , , dickens, mrs. charles, i. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , dickens, charles, ii. , dickens, edward, ii. dickens, henry, ii. , , , dickens, miss kate, i. ; ii. dickens, miss, i. , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , dickson, david, i. diezman, s. a., i. dilke, c. w., ii. eeles, mr., i. , ely, miss, i. fechter, charles, ii. , , , , , , , fildes, s. l., ii. finlay, f. d., ii. , , fitzgerald, percy, ii. , , , , , , , forster, john, i. , , ; ii. , , , , , , , frith, w. p., i. ; ii. gaskell, mrs., i. , , , , , , , , haldimand, mr., i. halleck, fitz-greene, i. harley, j. p., i. , harness, rev. w., i. , , henderson, mrs., ii. hogarth, catherine, i. hogarth, miss, i. , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , - , hogge, mrs., ii. hood, tom, i. horne, mrs., i. horne, r. h., i. hughes, master, i. hulkes, mrs., ii. jerrold, douglas, i. , , , , jewish lady, a, ii. , , joll, miss, i. jones, walter, ii. keeley, robert, i. kent, w. charles, i. , ; ii. , , , , , , , , , knight, charles, i. , , , , , , , ; ii. , knowles, sheridan, i. landor, walter savage, i. , , , , landseer, edwin, i. layard, a. h., i. , lehmann, mrs. f., ii. , , , lemon, mark, i. , , , , , , , , , longman, thomas, i. ; ii. longman, william, i. lovejoy, g., i. lytton, sir e. b., ii. maclise, daniel, i. , macready, w. c., i. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , major, mrs., ii. makeham, john, ii. marston, dr. westland, ii. milnes, r. monckton, i. mitton, thomas, i. , , , , , , , ; ii. morpeth, viscount, i. , , and see carlisle, the earl of ollier, edmund, ii. , ouvry, f., ii. , owen, professor, ii. panizzi, antonio, ii. , , pardoe, miss, i. parkinson, j. c., ii. pollock, mrs. f., ii. pollock, sir f., ii. poole, john, i. power, miss, i. , , ; ii. , power, mrs., ii. procter, adelaide, i. procter, b. w., i. ; ii. , , , , procter, mrs., ii. , reade, charles, ii. regnier, monsieur, i. , , , ; ii. , , , , roberts, david, i. , , , russell, lord john, i. , ; ii. , , ryland, arthur, i. , , ; ii. , , , sandys, william, i. saunders, john, i. sculthorpe, w. r., ii. smith, arthur, ii. , smith, h. p., i. , , stanfield, clarkson, i. , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , stanfield, george, ii. stone, marcus, i. ; ii. , stone, frank, i. - , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , storrar, mrs., ii. "_sun, the_," the editor of, i. tagart, edward, i. , talfourd, miss mary, i. talfourd, serjeant, i. tennent, sir james emerson, i. ; ii. , , thackeray, w. m., ii. thornbury, walter, ii. , , tomlin, john, i. toole, j. l., ii. trollope, mrs., i. , viardot, madame, i. ward, e. m., ii. ward, mrs., ii. watkins, john, i. ; ii. watson, hon. mrs., i. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , watson, hon. r., i. white, mrs., ii. white, miss, ii. white, rev. james, i. , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , wills, w. h., i. - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , , , , , wilson, effingham, i. yates, edmund, ii. , , , , , , , yates, mrs., ii. lewes, g. h., i. "lighthouse, the," the play of, i. ; dickens's prologue to, i. ; dickens's "song of the wreck" in, i. ; and see ii. linton, mrs., ii. lion, a chained, i. literary fund, the, ii. , "little dorrit," i. , , ; proposed name of, i. ; sale of, i. ; letters concerning, i. , , , lockhart, mr., ii. london, the mayor of, from a french point of view, i. ; in september, i. ; dickens's opinion of the corporation of, i. ; ii. ; facetious advice to country visitors to, i. longfellow, w. h., ii. , , , , , , longman, thomas, letters to, i. ; ii. longman, william, letter to, i. lovejoy, g., i. lowell, miss mabel, ii. , lyceum theatre under fechter, ii. , , ; and see fechter lyndhurst, lord, i. ; ii. lynn, miss, i. lyttelton, hon. spencer, i. , lytton, the first lord, i. , ; ii. , , , , ; letter to, ii. lytton, lord, ii. maclise, daniel, i. , , , , ; ii. ; letters to, i. , macready, w. c., i. , , , ; ii. , , ; and see letters macready, benvenuta, i. ; ii. macready, kate, i. ; ii. macready, mrs., ii. , macready, jonathan, ii. macready, nina, i. macready, w., ii. major, mrs., letter to, ii. makeham, j. m., ii. ; dickens's last letter written to, ii. malleson, mr. and mrs., ii. marsh, dickens's coachman, a story of, ii. marston, dr. westland, ii. , , ; letter to, ii. martineau, i. , "martin chuzzlewit," i. ; dramatised, i. , ; a story of mrs. harris, ii. "master humphrey's clock," i. ; the plan of, described, i. ; letters concerning illustrations for, i. - , - , - , - , - "mémoires du diable, les," i. mesmerism, a séance of, ii. missionaries, dickens on, i. ; ii. mitton, thomas, see letters molesworth, lady, ii. , monuments, dickens on, i. , moore, tom, i. morgan, captain, ii. , morgan, w., ii. , morley, mr., i. morpeth, viscount, letters to, i. , ; and see carlisle, the earl of motley, mr., ii. mountain, a hazardous ascent of a, ii. mulgrave, earl of, i. narrative, i. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , nathan, messrs. h. and l., i. , , neville, mr., ii. newsvendors' benevolent institution, ii. new testament, dickens's love for the, ii. , ; dickens writes a history of the, for his children, ii. "nicholas nickleby," publication of, i. ; rewards and punishments of characters in, i. ; dickens at work on, i. ; dedication of, i, ; the kenwigs in, i, ; and see ii. nicknames, dickens's, of george cattermole, i. , ; of his children, i. , , , , , ; nautical, i. ; of himself, i. , , , ; of frank stone, i. , norton, c. e., ii. noviomagians, the, i. "old curiosity shop, the," dickens engaged on, i. ; scenes in, described by dickens for illustration, i. , - , ; dickens heartbroken over the story, i. , , "oliver twist," publication of, i. ; dickens at work on, i. ; the reading of "the murder" from, ii. , , , ollier, edmund, ii. , ; letters to, ii. , olliffe, lady, ii. , olliffe, sir j., ii. olliffe, the misses, ii. organs, street, i. osgood, mr., ii. , , , , , , , "our mutual friend," ii. , , ; and as to illustrations for, see ii. , ouvry, frederic, ii. , ; letters to, ii. , overs, i. , owen, professor, ii. panizzi, antonio, ii. ; letters to, ii. , , pardoe, miss, letter to, i. paris, dickens at, i. , , , - , , , , , , - , , - , , ; ii. , ; house-hunting in, i. ; description of dickens's house in, i. ; state of, in , i. , ; feeling of people of, for dickens, i. ; dickens's reading at, ii. - , parkinson, j. c., ii. ; letter to, ii. parrots, human, i. , "patrician's daughter, the," prologue to, written by dickens, i. , patronage, the curse of england, ii. , paxton, sir joseph, i. phelps, j., i. "pickwick," origin and publication of, i. , ; first mention of jingle, i. ; conclusion of, celebrated, i. ; the design of the shepherd in, explained, i. , picnic, a, of the elements, i, ; with eton boys, i. , "picnic papers," dickens's share of the, ii. plessy, madame, i. ; ii. pollock, sir f., ii. , , ; letter to, ii. , pollock, mrs. f., letter to, ii. poole, john, i. , ; ii. ; letter to, i. "poor travellers, the," i. ; sale of, i. portraits of dickens, by maclise, i. , ; by frith, ii. , ; by ary scheffer, i. , ; by john watkins, ii. ; a caricature, ii. postman, an albaro, i. , power, miss, i. ; ii. , , ; and see letters power, nelly, i. power, mrs., letter to, ii. presence of mind of dickens, ii. , , press, the, freedom of, i. ; in america, i. ; taxation of the, i. procter, adelaide, i. ; ii. ; letter to, i. procter, b. w., i. ; ii. , ; and see letters procter, mrs., letter to, ii. , publishing system, how to improve the, i. purse, the power of the, i. putnam, mr., ii. queen, the, dickens's theatrical performance before, i. ; his feeling for, ii. ; his interview with, ii. rae, dr., i. railways, ii. reade, charles, ii. ; letter to, ii. reader, charles dickens as a, ii. readings, dickens's public, for charities, i. , , ; ii. , , ; first reading for his own benefit, ii. ; at paris, ii. , , ; in america, ii. ; farewell series of readings in england, ii. , , ; trial reading of "the murder" from "oliver twist," ii. ; reading to the actors, ii. , ; farewell reading, ii. ; effects of "the murder" reading on dickens, ii. ; books of the, ii. ; letters concerning the readings in england, scotland, and ireland, i. , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , - , - , , , , , - , , , , , - , - ; letters concerning american, ii. , , , , , , - ; letters concerning the farewell series of, ii. , , - , - reform, dickens speaks on administrative, i. , ; association for, i. ; dickens on parliamentary, ii. , refreshment rooms, i. regnier, m., i. ; and see letters reynolds, dr. russell, ii. richardson, samuel, dickens's opinion of, i. "rivals, the," a scene from, rewritten, i. roberts, david, i. ; ii. ; letters to, i. , , , "robinson crusoe," dickens on, i. robson, f., i. roche, dickens's courier, i. , - , rochester cathedral, proposed burial of dickens in, ii. royal academy, female students at the, ii. ; dickens's last public appearance, at the dinner of the, ii. russel, alexander, ii. , , , russell, lord john, i. ; ii. ; and see letters russell, w. h., ii. ryland, arthur, ii. , ; and see letters sainton-dolby, madame, ii. , sanatorium for art-students, i. sand, georges, i. sandys, william, letter to, i. saunders, john, i. ; letter to, i. savage, i. saville, miss, ii. scheffer, ary, i. , ; ii. schoolmistress, a yorkshire, i. scott, sir walter, i. , scott, dickens's dresser, ii. , , , , , , , scribe, eugène, i. , sculthorpe, w. r., letter to, ii. seaside, the, in wet weather, i. sea voyage, a, i. shaftesbury, lord, ii. shakespeare, dickens in room of, i. ; dickens's criticisms of charles knight's biography of, i. ; and see i. shea, mr. justice, ii. shower-bath, a perpetual, i. "sketches," publication of the, i. smith, arthur, ii. , , , , - , - , , , , , , , , , - ; letters to, ii. , smith, h. p., letters to, i. , , smith, sydney, i. smollett, dickens on the works of, i. snevellicci, miss, in real life, i. snore, a mighty, i. songs by dickens: on mark lemon, i. ; of "the wreck" in "the lighthouse," i. speaking, dickens on public, ii. , ; advice to his son henry on public, ii. spencer, lord, i. spider, a fearful, i. spiritualism, dickens on, i. , stage-coach, american story of a, ii. stage suggestions, i. ; a stage mob, i. ; a piece of stage business, i. stanfield, clarkson, i. , , , , ; ii. , , ; and see letters stanfield, george, letter to, ii. stanley, dean, ii. , stanley, lady augusta, ii. staplehurst, dickens in the railway accident at, ii. ; description of the accident, ii. - ; effects of the accident on dickens, ii. staunton, mr. secretary, ii. steele, sir richard, dickens on forster's essay on, i. steele, mr., ii. , stone, arthur, i. stone, ellen, ii. stone, frank, i. , , , ; ii. ; and see letters stone, marcus, i. ; ii. , , ; letters to, i. ; ii. , storrar, mrs., ii. ; letter to, ii. "strange gentleman, the," farce written by dickens and produced, i. ; price of, i. ; sent to macready, i. strikes, dickens on, i. sumner, charles, ii. , _sun, the_, newspaper, ii. ; letter to editor of, i. switzerland, the simplon pass in, i. ; pleasant recollections of, i. , ; dickens at lausanne in, i. ; a revolution in, i. , ; friends in, i. ; dickens's love for, i. ; letters concerning lausanne in, i. , , , , sympathy, letters of, i. , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , tagart, edward, letters to, i. , "tale of two cities, a," ii. , , ; letters concerning, ii. , , , , talfourd, miss mary, letter to, i. talfourd, mr. justice, i. ; letter to, i. taüchnitz, baron, i. , tavistock house, purchase of, i. ; sale of, ii. ; letters concerning, i. , - taxation, dickens on, i. ; of newspapers, i. taylor, bayard, ii. telegraph, the dramatic side of the, i. tennent, sir james emerson, i. ; ii. , ; letters to, i. ; ii. , tenniel, john, i. tennyson, alfred, dickens's admiration for, ii. terry, miss kate, ii. thackeray, w. m., ii. , , , , , ; letter to, ii. thames, drainage of the, ii. ; embankment of the, ii. theatre, dickens at the, i. ; phiz's laughter at the, i. ; the saloon at drury lane, i. , ; scents of a, i. ; story of a, i. ; proposal for a national, i. ; dickens on the, ii. , theatrical fund, the, ii. theatrical performances of charles dickens: at montreal, i. ; at miss kelly's theatre, i. ; "fortunio" at tavistock house, i. , ; "the lighthouse," i. , - ; "the frozen deep," i. ; for the jerrold memorial fund, ii. , ; before the queen, i. ; and see i. , , , , , , , ; ii. ; letters concerning the, i. , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , thornbury, walter, ii. , ; letters to, ii. , , tomlin, john, letter to, i. toole, j. l., ii. , ; letter to, ii. topham, f. w., i. , townshend, chauncey hare, ii. , , , , , , , trollope, mrs., letters to, i. , "uncle tom's cabin," dickens on, i. "uncommercial traveller, the," ii. viardot, madame, ii. ; letter to, i. "village coquettes, the," operetta written by dickens, i. ; and see i. volunteers, dickens on the, ii. waistcoat, a wonderful, i. ; the loan by dickens of macready's, i. wales, the prince of, popularity of, ii. ; dickens attends levée of, ii. wales, the princess of, her arrival in england, ii. ; the illuminations in honour of, ii. ; popularity of, ii. war, dickens on the russian, i. ward, e. m., i. ; letter to, ii. ward, mrs., letter to, ii. watkins, john, i. ; letters to, i. ; ii. watson, hon. r., i. , ; letter to, i. watson, hon. mrs., i. ; ii. , ; and see letters watson, sir thomas, ii. , watson, wentworth, ii. watts's refuge for poor travellers, ii. webster, benjamin, i. , , ; ii. webster, a story of the murderer, ii. welcome home, a, i. westminster abbey, burial of dickens in, ii. whewell, dr., i. white, clara, ii. , , white, rev. james, i. , ; ii. ; and see letters white, mrs., ii. ; letter to, ii. white, miss, ii. , , ; letter to, ii. white, richard grant, ii. wigan, alfred, i. williams, mr. and mrs. barney, ii. , wills, w. h., i. , , ; ii. , , , , ; and see letters wills, mrs., ii. , , wilson, effingham, letter to, i. working men, clubs for, ii. , ; dickens on the management of such clubs, ii. ; feeling of, for dickens, ii. yates, edmund, i. , ; ii. , ; and see letters yates, mrs., ii. ; letter to, ii. the end. charles dickens and evans, crystal palace press. * * * * * transcriber's notes: page , "leotard" changed to "léotard" twice (palace and léotard) and (into seeing léotard) page , "shefound" changed to "she found" (she found marsh) page , "levee" changed to "levée" (a levée held) page , "celeste" changed to "céleste" (céleste, madame) page - , entries for "dickens, mamie" and "dickens, kate" were originally not in alphabetically order. this was corrected. page , "fitzgreene" changed to "fitz-greene" (halleck, fitz-greene) page , "fitzgreene" changed to "fitz-greene" (halleck, fitz-greene) page , "lyttleton" changed to "lyttelton" (lyttleton, hon. spencer) page , "shee" changed to "shea" (shea, mr. justice) transcribed from the elliot stock edition by david price, email ccx @pglaf.org [picture: mr. justice gaselee (original of mr. justice stareleigh), sketched by the editor from the family portrait in the possession of h. gaselee, esq.] bardell v. pickwick the trial for breach of promise of marriage held at the guildhall sittings, on april , , before mr. justice stareleigh and a special jury of the city of london. edited with notes and commentaries by percy fitzgerald, m.a., f.s.a. _barrister-at-law_; _and sometime crown prosecutor on the north-east circuit_ (_ireland_). with illustrations. london elliot stock paternoster row e.c. introduction. there are few things more familiar or more interesting to the public than this _cause celebre_. it is better known than many a real case: for every one knows the judge, his name and remarks--also the counsel--(notably sergeant buzfuz)--the witnessess, and what they said--and of course all about the plaintiff and the famous defendant. it was tried over seventy years ago at "the guildhall settens," and was described by boz some sixty-three years ago. yet every detail seems fresh--and as fresh as ever. it is astonishing that a purely technical sketch like this, whose humours might be relished only by such specialists as barristers and attorneys, who would understand the jokes levelled at the profession, should be so well understanded of the people. all see the point of the legal satire. it is a quite a prodigy. boz had the art, in an extraordinary degree, of thus vividly commending trade processes, professional allusions, and methods to outsiders, and making them humourous and intelligible. witness jackson, when he came to "serve" mr. pickwick and friends with the _subpoenas_. it is a dry, business-like process, but how racy boz made it. a joke sparkles in every line. this trial for breach has been debated over and over again among lawyers and barristers, some contending that "there was no evidence at all to go to the jury" as to a promise; others insisting on mis-direction, and that there was evidence that ought not to have been admitted. the law has since been changed, and by later acts both mrs. bardell and mr. pickwick would have been allowed to tell their stories and to have been cross-examined. mrs. bardell was almost justified in supposing that mr. pickwick was offering his hand when he was merely speaking of engaging a man-servant. but then the whole would have been spoiled. under the present systems, this would all have come out. mr. pickwick, when it came to his turn, would have explained what his proceedings meant. it is a most perfect and vivid satire on the hackneyed methods of the lawyers when dealing with the witnesses. nothing can be more natural or more graphic. it is maintained to something between the level of comedy and farce: nor is there the least exaggeration. it applies now as it did then, though not to the same topics. a hectoring, bullying counsel, threatening and cruel, would interfere with the pleasant tone of the play; but it is all the same conveyed. there is a likeness to bardell _v._ pickwick in another burlesque case, tried in our day, the well-known "trial by jury," the joint work of mr. gilbert and the late sir arthur sullivan. the general tone of both is the same and in the modern work there is a general pickwickian flavour. sir arthur's music, too, is highly "pickwickian," and the joint effort of the two humorists is infinitely diverting. the judge is something of a stareleigh. the truth is that boz, the engenderer of these facetiae, apart from his literary gift, was one of the most brilliant, capable young fellows of his generation. whatever he did, he did in the best way, and in the brightest way. but his power of observation and of seeing what might be termed the humorous _quiddity_ of anything, was extraordinary. to put absurdity in a proper view for satirical purposes, it has to be generalised from a number of instances, familiar to all. those legal oddities, the public had seen over and over again, but they had passed unnoticed till this clever observer set to work and noted them. as i say, it required a deep knowledge of the law to set these things in a grotesque light. boz had been a sort of general reporter on the _chronicle_: he "took" everything. he had reported at police courts as well as at the law courts. his quick and bright intelligence seized the humours here, as it did those of the street. he later reported in the gallery, and was dispatched across country in post-chaises to "take" eminent political speakers--always winning the hearty commendation of his employers for his zeal and energy. the cause of action. mr. pickwick was a well-to-do bachelor, who lived by himself near the city, where he had been in trade. his age was about fifty, as can be accurately calculated by his remark on the sliding at manor farm. "i used to do so on the gutters when i was a boy . . . but i hav'nt done such a thing these thirty years." this was said in . he resided in goswell street--now goswell road--with a widow lady, whose husband had been in the excise. he cannot have paid more than a pound a week, if so much, for two rooms on the first floor. there was no servant, and the hardworking landlady, mrs. martha bardell, performed all the duties of her household single-handed. as her counsel later described it,--and see all she did for him!--"she waited on him, attended to his comforts, cooked his meals, looked out his linen for the washer-woman when it went abroad, darned, aired, and prepared it for his wear when it came home, and, in short, enjoyed his fullest trust and confidence." thus sergeant buzfuz, duly "instructed." not only was there mr. pickwick, but there was another lodger, and her little boy tommy. the worthy woman took care of and looked after all three. this might incline us to take a favorable view of her. she regarded her lodger with feelings of veneration and attachment, of which proof is found in her later talk with sam. to him she said that "he had always behaved himself like a perfect gentlemen," and then added this significant speech: "it's a terrible thing to be dragged in this way before the public, but _i now see_ that it's the only thing that i ought to do." that is, she seems to have held out as long as possible, believing that her amiable lodger would act as a perfect gentlemen and like himself. but when she found that even an action had no terrors for him, she saw that there was nothing else to do but to let the action go on. and what was mrs. bardell like? one would imagine her a plump, buxom widow, "fat, fair, and forty," with her dear little boy, "the only pledge of her deceased exciseman," or say something between thirty and forty years old. fortunately, two portraits have come down to us of the lady--one somewhat of this pattern, and depicting her, as she flung herself on mr. pickwick on that disastrous morning: the other--a swollen, dreadful thing, which must be a caricature of the literal presentment. here we see a woman of gross, enormous proportions seated on the front bench and apparently weighing some thirteen or fourteen stone, with a vast coarse face. this is surely an unfair presentment of the worthy landlady; besides, dodson and fogg were too astute practitioners to imperil their chances by exhibiting to his lordship and the jury so ill-favoured a plaintiff. indeed, we are told that they arranged a rather theatrical exhibition in this scene, with a view of creating an impression in their favour. many find pleasure in reading the bookseller's catalogues, and a vast number are showered on me in the course of the year. but on one of these i always gaze with a special interest, and even tenderness. for it comes from one herbert, who lives in goswell road. only think, _goswell_ road--erst goswell street, where just seventy years ago mrs. bardell was letting lodgings and mr. pickwick himself was lodging: and on the cover i read, furthur attraction, "goswell road, near the 'angel,'" whence the "stage" which took the party to the "spaniard" at hampstead started! sometimes i am drawn to the shop, crowded with books; but one's thoughts stray away from the books into speculations as to _which_ house it was. but the indications are most vague, though the eye settles on a decent range of shabby-looking faded tenements--two storeys high only--and which _look_ like lodging houses. some ingenious commentators have indeed ventured to identify the house itself, arguing from the very general description in the text. we should note, however, mr. pickwick's lack of caution. he came in the very next day, having apparently made no enquiries as to the landlady. had he done so, he would have learned of the drunken exciseman who met his death by being knocked on the head with a quart pot. he might have heard of the friends, cluppins, raddle, etc., who seemed to have been charwomen or something of the sort; also that there was a sort of working man as a fellow lodger. above all, that there was no servant in the house. all which boded ill, and made it likely that mr. pickwick would be the easy victim of some crafty scheme. all went well until the unluckly morning in july, , when mr. pickwick's friends, coming to pay a morning call, and entering unexpectedly, surprised mr. pickwick with his landlady fainting in his arms in an hysterical condition. this was a very awkward business. the delinquent, however, did not at once grasp the situation, and could not "make head or tail of it, or what the lady meant." his friends, however, had their doubts: 'what _is_ the matter?' said the three tongue-tied pickwickians. 'i don't know,' replied mr. pickwick, pettishly. 'now, help me, lead this woman down stairs.' 'oh, i am better now,' said mrs. bardell, faintly. 'let me lead you downstairs,' said the ever gallant mr. tupman. 'thank you, sir--thank you?' exclaimed mrs. bardell hysterically. and downstairs she was led accordingly, accompanied by her affectionate son. [picture: the cause of action] 'i cannot conceive--' said mr. pickwick, when his friend returned--'i cannot conceive what has been the matter with that woman. i had merely announced to her my intention of keeping a man servant, when she fell into the extraordinary paroxysm in which you found her. very extraordinary thing.' 'very,' said his three friends. 'placed me in such an extremely awkward situation,' continued mr. pickwick. 'very,' was the reply of his followers, as they coughed slightly, and looked dubiously at each other. this behaviour was not lost upon mr. pickwick. he remarked their incredulity. they evidently suspected him. it may be reasonably supposed that mr. pickwick had not been very discreet, or sufficiently cautious in his general behaviour to his landlady. as we know, he was rather too effusive in his relations with the fair sex. one of his weaknesses was _kissing_. he would kiss everybody who was young or good-looking. his maxim was "kiss early and kiss often." who can forget his _systematic_ method of greeting the engaging arabella? "he ( ) took off his spectacles, ( ) in great haste, and ( ) taking both the young lady's hands in his ( ) kissed her ( ) a great many times ( ) perhaps a greater number of times than was absolutely necessary." old rogue! i have little doubt that on his return home from his tours he encircled the buxom figure of mrs. bardell--all of course in his own paternal and privileged way. it should be borne in mind also that mr. pickwick was almost invariably drawn into his more serious scrapes and embarrassments by this devotion to the sex. the night in the boarding school garden--the affair with the spinster lady--his interview with arabella from the top of the wall--his devotion to mrs. pott and mrs. dowler--and much more that we do not hear of, show that he was a gallant elderly gentleman. oh, he was a "sly dog, he was." there is a curious burst of mr. pickwick's which seems to hint at a sort of tender appreciation on his side. when the notice of trial was sent to him, in his first vehemence, he broke out that mrs. bardell had nothing to do with the business, "_she hadn't the heart to do it_." mr. pickwick could not speak with this certainty, unless he knew the lady's feelings pretty well. _why_ hadn't she the heart to do it? because she was sincerely attached to him and his interests and was "a dear creature." this, however, was a fond delusion of the worthy gentleman's. persons of her class are not quite so disinterested as they appear to be, especially if they have to interpret the various paternal and comforting advances made to them by their well to do lodgers. there is another factor which can hardly be left out, when considering mr. pickwick's responsibility--that is, his too frequent indulgence in liquor, and the insufficiency of his head to stand its influence. now this was a very important day for him, the first time he was to set up a man servant. he had to break it to his landlady, who would naturally resent the change. he may have been _priming_ himself with some of those perpetual glasses of brandy and water to which he was addicted, and who knows but that, in his ardour to propitiate, he may have gone a _little_ too far? this fact too, of the introducing a man servant into her establishment, mrs. bardell may have indistinctly associated with a general change in his life. if she were to become mrs. pickwick her duties might be naturally expected to devolve on a male assistant. next morning he and his friends quitted london on their travels to eatanswill in pursuit of adventure. he airily dismissed the matter. we may wonder whether he made any remonstrance to his landlady before his departure. probably he did not, fancying that she had been merely in a slight fit of the "tantrums." at bury, however, after the boarding-school adventure, he was to be painfully awakened. he was sitting with his friends after dinner at the "angel," in his happiest mood. winkle had related his quarrel with pott _in re_ mrs. pott, in a humorous fashion when one of the most delightful of humorous scenes followed. mr. pickwick was proceeding with his scathing rebuke, when sam enters with a letter. 'i don't know this hand,' said mr. pickwick, opening the letter. 'mercy on us! what's this? it must be a jest; it--it--can't be true.' 'what's the matter?' was the general inquiry. 'nobody dead, is there?' said wardle, alarmed at the horror in mr. pickwick's countenance. mr. pickwick made no reply, but, pushing the letter across the table, and desiring mr. tupman to read it aloud, fell back in his chair with a look of vacant astonishment quite alarming to behold. mr. tupman, with a trembling voice, read the letter, of which the following is a copy:-- '_freeman's court_, _cornhill_, _august_ _th_, . _bardell against pickwick_. _sir_, _having been instructed by mrs. martha bardell to commence an action against you for a breach of promise of marriage_, _for which the plaintiff lays her damages at fifteen hundred pounds_, _we beg to inform you that a writ has been issued against you in this suit in the court of common pleas_; _and request to know_, _by return of post_, _the name of your attorney in london_, _who will accept service thereof_. _we are_, _sir_, _your obedient servants_, _dodson & fogg_. mr. samuel pickwick.' so mr. pickwick, the general mentor, the philosopher and friend--the man of high moral tone, "born to set the world aright"--the general lecturer of his "followers," was now in for an action at law of the most awkward and unpleasant kind. to be philandering with one's landlady! rather low form this. but what would they say down at manor farm? how isabella wardle and her sister--and all the girls--would laugh! and the spinster aunt--_she_ would enjoy it! but there was no help for it. it must be faced. naturally mr. pickwick felt uncomfortable, and his first idea was to arrange the matter. this was a sensible course, and he ought at once to have put the matter into the hands of his friend perker, with full powers to treat. but no. mr. pickwick's vanity and indiscretion made him meddle in the business behind his solicitor's back, as it where, and with damaging results to himself--a warning to all such amateurs. it must be said that dodson and fogg's behaviour at the extraordinary visit which he paid them was marked by a certain propriety. mr. pickwick insisted on knowing what were the grounds of action--that is, the details of the evidence against him--in short, their case. they, very correctly, refused to tell him. "the case may be false or it may be true--it may be credible it may be incredible." but all the same it was a strong case. this was as much as they could tell. mr. pickwick could only urge that if "it were so, he was a most unfortunate man," on which dodson promptly--"i hope you are, sir, i trust you may be, sir. if you are really innocent, you are more unfortunate than i had believed any man could possibly be." mr. pickwick then rather foolishly asked did he understand they meant to go on with the action--as if they could have been affected by his declaration. "understand?" was the reply, "that you certainly may"--a very natural speech. with some want of professional delicacy and etiquette, dodson seized the opportunity to "serve" mr. pickwick; but they were not a high-class firm and their methods were not high-class. then an extraordinarily incredible display followed. his passion broke forth. "_of all the disgraceful and rascally proceedings he ever_, _etc._!" dodson summoned his clerks to listen to this gross language, and said, "perhaps you would like to call us swindlers." "_you are_," said mr. pickwick. fogg even wished him to assault them--and perhaps he would have done so, but for sam, who at last got him away. this was certainly not correct, but how aggravating was mr. pickwick! one is rather astonished at the forbearance of this sharp firm. now, had mr. pickwick gone straight to his lodgings in goswell street and seen mrs. bardell, heard her views and claims, had he been told by her that she had been professionally urged to go to law as she had such a strong case--there might have been some excuse for this violence to dodson and fogg. but he knew nothing whatever of the matter--knew nothing of the attornies--and in his blind fury gratuitously assumed that they had "conspired" to harass him in this way. true, he had overheard how they had treated poor ramsey. this very _malapropos_ visit of mr. pickwick to the firm was, as i said, a mistake and damaged his case. it showed that he was nervous and anxious, and _insecure_. he took nothing by it. there was in truth much short-sighted cunning in his ways, which came of his overweening vanity. but this was only one of several attempts he made to worm out something to his own advantage. another of mr. pickwick's foolish manoeuvres was his sending his man to his old lodgings to his landlady--ostensibly to fetch away his "things," when this dialogue passed: 'tell mrs. bardell she may put a bill up, as soon as she likes.' 'wery good, sir,' replied mr. weller; 'anythin' more, sir.' 'nothing more, sam.' mr. weller stepped slowly to the door, as if he expected something more; slowly opened it, slowly stepped out, and had slowly closed it within a couple of inches, when mr. pickwick called out. 'sam.' 'sir,' said mr. weller, stepping quickly back, and closing the door behind him. 'i have no objection, sam, to your endeavouring to ascertain how mrs. bardell herself seems disposed towards me, and whether it is really probable that this vile and groundless action is to be carried to extremity. _i say_, _i do not object to your doing this_, _if you wish it_, _sam_,' said mr. pickwick. sam gave a short nod of intelligence and left the room. now this was very artful on the part of mr. pickwick, but it was a very shallow sort of artfulness, and it was later to recoil on himself. sam of course saw through it at once. it never dawned on this simple-minded man what use the plaintiff's solicitors would make of his _demarche_. when the subpoenas were served he rushed off to perker: 'they have subpoena'd my servant too,' said mr. pickwick. 'sam?' said perker. mr. pickwick replied in the affirmative. 'of course, my dear sir; of course. i knew they would. i could have told _you_ that a month ago. you know, my dear sir, if you _will_ take the management of your affairs into your own hands after intrusting them to your solicitor, you must also take the consequences.' here mr. perker drew himself up with conscious dignity, and brushed some stray grains of snuff from his shirt frill. 'and what do they want him to prove?' asked mr. pickwick, after two or three minutes' silence. 'that you sent him up to the plaintiff's to make some offer of a compromise, i suppose,' replied perker. 'it don't matter much, though; i don't think many counsel could get a great deal out of _him_.' 'i don't think they could,' said mr. pickwick. the minutiae of legal process are prosaic and uninteresting, and it might seem impossible to invest them with any dramatic interest; but how admirably has boz lightened up and coloured the simple incident of an attorney's clerk--a common, vulgar fellow of the lowest type, arriving to serve his subpoenas on the witnesses--all assumed to be hostile. the scene is full of touches of light comedy. 'how de do, sir?' said mr. jackson, nodding to mr. pickwick. that gentlemen bowed, and looked somewhat surprised for the physiognomy of mr. jackson dwelt not in his recollection. 'i have called from dodson and fogg's,' said mr. jackson, in an explanatory tone. mr. pickwick roused at the name. 'i refer you to my attorney, sir: mr. perker, of gray's inn,' said he. 'waiter, show this gentleman out.' 'beg your pardon, mr. pickwick,' said jackson, deliberately depositing his hat on the floor, and drawing from his pocket the strip of parchment. 'but personal service, by clerk or agent, in these cases, you know, mr. pickwick--nothing like caution, sir, in all legal forms?' here mr. jackson cast his eye on the parchment; and, resting his hands on the table, and looking round with a winning and persuasive, smile, said: 'now, come; don't let's have no words about such a little matter as this. which of you gentlemen's name's snodgrass?' at this inquiry mr. snodgrass gave such a very undisguised and palpable start, that no further reply was needed. 'ah! i thought so,' said mr. jackson, more affably than before. 'i've got a little something to trouble you with, sir.' 'me!' exclaimed mr. snodgrass. 'it's only a _subpoena_ in bardell and pickwick on behalf of the plaintiff,' replied jackson, singling out one of the slips of paper, and producing a shilling from his waistcoat pocket. 'it'll come on, in the settens after term; fourteenth of febooary, we expect; we've marked it a special jury cause, and it's only ten down the paper. that's yours, mr. snodgrass.' as jackson said this he presented the parchment before the eyes of mr. snodgrass, and slipped the paper and the shilling into his hand. mr. tupman had witnessed this process in silent astonishment, when jackson, turning sharply upon him, said: 'i think i ain't mistaken when i say your name's tupman, am i?' mr. tupman looked at mr. pickwick; but, perceiving no encouragement in that gentleman's widely-opened eyes to deny his name, said: 'yes, my name _is_ tupman, sir.' 'and that other gentleman's mr. winkle, i think?' said jackson. mr. winkle faltered out a reply in the affirmative; and both gentlemen were forthwith invested with a slip of paper, and a shilling each, by the dexterous mr. jackson. 'now,' said jackson, 'i'm affraid you'll think me rather troublesome, but i want somebody else, if it ain't inconvenient. i _have_ samuel weller's name here, mr. pickwick.' 'send my servant here, waiter,' said mr. pickwick. the waiter retired, considerably astonished, and mr. pickwick motioned jackson to a seat. there was a painful pause, which was at length broken by the innocent defendant. 'i suppose, sir,' said mr. pickwick, his indignation rising while he spoke; 'i suppose, sir, that it is the intention of your employers to seek to criminate me upon the testimony of my own friends?' mr. jackson struck his forefinger several times against the left side of his nose, to intimate that he was not there to disclose the secrets of the prison-house, and playfully rejoined: 'not knowin', can't say.' 'for what other reason, sir,' pursued mr. pickwick, 'are these subpoenas served upon them, if not for this?' 'very good plant, mr. pickwick,' replied jackson, slowly shaking his head. 'but it won't do. no harm in trying, but there's little to be got out of me.' here mr. jackson smiled once more upon the company, and, applying his left thumb to the tip of his nose, worked a visionary coffee-mill with his right hand: thereby performing a very graceful piece of pantomime (then much in vogue, but now, unhappily, almost obsolete) which was familiarly denominated 'taking a grinder.' (imagine a modern solicitor's clerk "taking a grinder!") 'no, no, mr. pickwick,' said jackson, in conclusion; 'perker's people must guess what we served these subpoenas for. if they can't, they must wait till the action comes on, and then they'll find out.' mr. pickwick bestowed a look of excessive disgust on his unwelcome visitor, and would probably have hurled some tremendous anathema at the heads of messrs. dodson and fogg, had not sam's entrance at the instant interrupted him. 'samuel weller?' said mr. jackson, inquiringly. 'vun o' the truest things as you've said for many a long year,' replied sam, in a most composed manner. 'here's a subpoena for you, mr. weller,' said jackson. 'what's that in english?' inquired sam. 'here's the original,' said jackson, declining the required explanation. 'which?' said sam. 'this,' replied jackson, shaking the parchment. 'oh, that's the 'rig'nal, is it?' said sam. 'well, i'm wery glad i've seen the 'rig'nal, 'cos it's a gratifyin' sort o' thing, and eases vun's mind so much.' 'and here's the shilling,' said jackson. 'it's from dodson and fogg's.' 'and it's uncommon handsome o' dodson and fogg, as knows so little of me, to come down vith a present,' said sam. 'i feel it as a wery high compliment, sir; it's a wery hon'rable thing to them, as they knows how to reward merit werever they meets it. besides wich, it's affectin to one's feelin's.' as mr. weller said this, he inflicted a little friction on his right eye-lid, with the sleeve of his coat, after the most approved manner of actors when they are in domestic pathetics. mr. jackson seemed rather puzzled by sam's proceedings; but, as he had served the subpoenas, and had nothing more to say, he made a feint of putting on the one glove which he usually carried in his hand, for the sake of appearances; and returned to the office to report progress. another of mr. pickwick's foolish and self-willed proceedings was the interview with serjeant snubbin, which he so positively insisted upon. we may wonder now-a-days would any k.c. of position have condescended to allow such a proceeding? i fancy it would be thought "irregular:" though perhaps _ex gratia_, and from the oddity of the proposal, it might be conceded. when mr. pickwick called upon him, it turned out that the serjeant knew nothing whatever of his case; probably cared nothing about it. it was not in his line. he perhaps wondered why the old-fashioned lawyer had "retained" him. we learn parker's reason: 'well, we've done everything that's necessary. i have engaged serjeant snubbin.' 'is he a good man?' inquired mr. pickwick. 'good man!' replied perker; 'bless your heart and soul, my dear sir, serjeant snubbin is at the very top of his profession. gets treble the business of any man in court--engaged in every case. you needn't mention it abroad; but we say--we of the profession--that serjeant snubbin leads the court by the nose.' how foolish was this reasoning can be seen on an instant's reflection. to "lead the court by the nose" is well enough in an argument before a judge: but here it was more important to lead _a jury_ by the nose, which buzfuz knew how to do. moreover when a counsel has this power, it usually operates on a special judge and his colleagues; but who could guarantee that snubbin's special judge would try the case. as it turned out, the chief justice fell sick before the day, and mr. justice stareleigh unexpectedly took the case. he as it proved was anything but "led by the nose." perker indeed, summed up the whole weakness of the case in a single sentence: 'they have subpoena'd my three friends,' said mr. pickwick. 'ah! of course they would,' replied perker. 'important witnesses; saw you in a delicate situation.' 'but she fainted of her own accord,' said mr. pickwick. 'she threw herself into my arms.' 'very likely, my dear sir,' replied perker; 'very likely and very natural. nothing more so, my dear sir, nothing. _but who's to prove it_?' a suggestion, we are told, that rather "staggered" mr. pickwick. within ten minutes after he had received the assurance that the thing was impossible, he was conducted by his solicitors into the outer office of the great serjeant snubbin himself. it was an uncarpeted room of tolerable dimensions, with a large writing table drawn up near the fire, the baize top of which had long since lost all claim to its original hue of green, and had gradually grown grey with dust and age, except where all traces of its natural colour were obliterated by ink-stains. upon the table were numerous little bundles of papers tied with red tape; and behind it, sat an elderly clerk, whose sleek appearance and heavy gold watch-chain presented imposing indications of the extensive and lucrative practice of mr. serjeant snubbin. 'is the serjeant in his room, mr. mallard?' inquired perker, offering his box with all imaginable courtesy. 'yes, he is,' was the reply, 'but he's very busy. look here; not an opinion given yet, on any one of these cases; and an expedition fee paid with all of them.' the clerk smiled as he said this, and inhaled the pinch of snuff with a zest which seemed to be compounded of a fondness for snuff and a relish for fees. 'something like practice that,' said perker. 'yes,' said the barrister's clerk, producing his own box, and offering it with the greatest cordiality; 'and the best of it is, that as nobody alive except myself can read the serjeant's writing, they are obliged to wait for the opinions, when he has given them, till i have copied 'em, ha--ha--ha!' 'which makes good for we know who, besides the serjeant, and draws a little more out of his clients, eh?' said perker; 'ha, ha, ha!' at this the serjeant's clerk laughed again--not a noisy boisterous laugh, but a silent, internal chuckle, which mr. pickwick disliked to hear. when a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people. 'you haven't made me out that little list of the fees that i'm in your debt, have you?' said perker. 'no, i have not,' replied the clerk. 'i wish you would,' said perker. 'let me have them, and i'll send you a cheque. but i suppose you're too busy pocketing the ready money, to think of the debtors, eh? ha, ha, ha!' this sally seemed to tickle the clerk, amazingly, and he once more enjoyed a little quiet laugh to himself. 'but, mr. mallard, my dear friend,' said perker, suddenly recovering his gravity, and drawing the great man's great man into a corner, by the lappel of his coat, 'you must persuade the serjeant to see me, and my client here.' 'come, come,' said the clerk, 'that's not bad either. see the serjeant! come, that's too absurd.' notwithstanding the absurdity of the proposal, however, the clerk allowed himself to be gently drawn beyond the hearing of mr. pickwick; and after a short conversation conducted in whispers, walked softly down a little dark passage and disappeared into the legal luminary's sanctum, from whence he shortly returned on tiptoe, and informed mr. perker and mr. pickwick that the serjeant had been prevailed upon, in violation of all his established rules and customs, to admit them at once. the serjeant was writing when his clients entered; he bowed abstractedly when mr. pickwick was introduced by his solicitor; and then, motioning them to a seat, put his pen carefully in the inkstand, nursed his left leg, and waited to be spoken to. 'mr. pickwick is the defendant in bardell and pickwick, serjeant snubbin,' said perker. 'i am retained in that, am i?' said the serjeant. 'you are, sir,' replied perker. the serjeant nodded his head, and waited for something else. 'mr. pickwick was anxious to call upon you, serjeant snubbin,' said perker, 'to state to you, before you entered upon the case, that he denies there being any ground or pretence whatever for the action against him; and that unless he came into court with clean hands, and without the most conscientious conviction that he was right in resisting the plaintiff's demand, he would not be there at all. i believe i state your views correctly; do i not, my dear sir?' said the little man, turning to mr. pickwick. 'quite so,' replied that gentleman. mr. serjeant snubbin unfolded his glasses, raised them to his eyes; and, after looking at mr. pickwick for a few seconds with great curiosity, turned to mr. perker, and said, smiling slightly as he spoke-- 'has mr. pickwick a strong case?' the attorney shrugged his shoulders. 'do you purpose calling witnesses?' 'no.' the smile on the serjeant's countenance became more defined; he rocked his leg with increased violence, and, throwing himself back in his easy-chair, coughed dubiously. these tokens of the serjeant's presentiments on the subject, slight as they were, were not lost on mr. pickwick. he settled the spectacles, through which he had attentively regarded such demonstrations of the barrister's feeling as he had permitted himself to exhibit, more firmly on his nose; and said with great energy, and in utter disregard of all mr. perker's admonitory winkings and frownings-- 'my wishing to wait upon you for such a purpose as this, sir, appears, i have no doubt, to a gentleman who sees so much of these matters as you must necessarily do, a very extraordinary circumstance.' the serjeant tried to look gravely at the fire, but the smile came back again. [picture: mr. pickwick expounds his case to his counsel] 'gentlemen of your profession, sir,' continued mr. pickwick, 'see the worst side of human nature--all its disputes, all its ill-will and bad blood, rise up before you. you know from your experience of juries (i mean no disparagement to you or them) how much depends upon _effect_; and you are apt to attribute to others, a desire to use, for purposes of deception and self-interest, the very instruments which you, in pure honesty and honour of purpose, and with a laudable desire to do your utmost for your client, know the temper and worth of so well, from constantly employing them yourselves. i really believe that to this circumstance may be attributed the vulgar but very general notion of your being, as a body, suspicious, distrustful, and over-cautious. conscious as i am, sir, of the disadvantage of making such a declaration to you, under such circumstances, i have come here, because i wish you distinctly to understand, as my friend mr. perker has said, that i am innocent of the falsehood laid to my charge; and although i am very well aware of the inestimable value of your assistance, sir, i must beg to add, that unless you sincerely believe this, i would rather be deprived of the aid of your talents than have the advantage of them.' long before the close of this address, which we are bound to say was of a very prosy character for mr. pickwick, the serjeant had relapsed into a state of abstraction. now the serjeant might at once have replied to all this, that the innocence or guilt of a client had nothing to do with him, that his use was merely to secure a client such benefit and advantage as the law entitled him to: that a judge and jury would decide the point of innocence. boz himself evidently shared this popular delusion, and seems to be speaking by mr. pickwick's mouth. the sagacious serjeant, however, took no notice whatever of the appeal, but simply asked "who was with him" in the case. mr. phunky was sent for, and asked by his leader "to take mr. pickwick away" and "hear anything he may wish to communicate." the party was then bowed out. the truth was, mr. pickwick's attorney was too much of a social character and of the "old family solicitor" pattern for so critical a case. the counsel he "instructed" were unsuitable. serjeant snubbin was an overworked "chamber lawyer," whose whole time and experience was given to furnishing "opinions" on tangled cases; so pressed was he that he took "expedition fees" to give certain cases priority: an illegitimate practice that now the bar committee would scarcely tolerate. what could such a man know of nisi prius trials, of cross-examining or handling witnesses? it is enough to give his portrait, as supplied by the author: [picture: serjeant snubbin, k.c.] mr. serjeant snubbin was a lantern-faced, sallow-complexioned man, of about five-and-forty, or--as the novels say--he might be fifty. he had that _dull-looking boiled eye_ which is often to be seen in the heads of people who have applied themselves during many years to a weary and laborious course of study; and which would have been sufficient, without the additional eye-glass which dangled from a broad black riband round his neck, to warn a stranger that he was very near-sighted. his hair was thin and weak, which was partly attributable to his having never devoted much time to its arrangement, and partly to his having worn for five-and-twenty years the forsenic wig which hung on a block beside him. the marks of hair powder on his coat collar, and the ill-washed and worse tied white neckerchief round his throat, showed that he had not found leisure since he left the court to make any alteration in his dress: while the slovenly style of the remainder of his costume warranted the inference that his personal appearance would not have been very much improved if he had. books of practice, heaps of papers, and opened letters, were scattered over the table, without any attempt at order or arrangement; the furniture of the room was old and ricketty; the doors of the bookcase were rotting in their hinges; the dust flew out from the carpet in little clouds at every step; the blinds were yellow with age and dirt; the state of everything in the room showed, with a clearness not to be mistaken, that mr. serjeant snubbin was far too much occupied with his professional pursuits to take any great heed or regard of his personal comforts. it was a characteristic feature of the slowness of legal process in those days that though the notice of action was sent on august the th, , the case was not ripe for trial until february th of the next year--nearly six months having elapsed. it is difficult to speculate as to what this long delay was owing. there were only two witnesses whose evidence had to be briefed--mrs. cluppins and mrs. sanders--and they were at hand. it is odd, by the way, that they did not think of examining little tommy bardell, the only one who actually witnessed the proceeding. true, he was of tender years--about eight or ten--and the son of the plaintiff, but he must have "known the nature of an oath." the trial. at last the momentous morning came round. it was the fourteenth of february, valentine's day, --one not of good omen for the plaintiff. { } the defendant's party was rather gloomy at breakfast, when perker, by wave of encouraging his client, uttered some _dicta_ as to the chances of the jury having had a good breakfast "discontented or hungry jurymen, my dear sir, always find for the plaintiff." "bless my heart," said mr. pickwick, looking very blank, "what do they do that for!" the party then got into hackney coaches and was driven to the guildhall, where the case was to be tried at ten o'clock precisely. [picture: exterior of the guildhall court.--now city museum] [picture: interior of the guildhall, court, circa . (from an original drawing by t. allen.)] how dramatic boz has made the "calling of the jury," which might be thought an uninteresting and prosaic operation enough. it was a special jury, which entailed one guinea per head extra expense on mr. pickwick. he had, of course, asked for it: but dodson and fogg would have been well content with and perhaps even have preferred a common jury. now-a-days, special jurors, though summoned largely, have to be almost coerced into attending. a fine of ten pounds is imposed, but this is almost invariably remitted on affidavit. the common jurors, moreover, do not show the reluctance to "serve" of groffin, the chemist. a guinea is not to be despised. there are, as it were, professional common jurors who hang about the courts in the hope of being thus called as "understudies." on this occasion what was called a _tales_ was prayed for, and two common jurors were pressed into the service: and "a greengrocer and a chemist were caught directly." it is impossible to say too much of the completeness with which the legal scene is put forward. everything is dealt with. we have perfect sketches of the judge, the ushers, the jury, the counsel on the case, the witnesses, the barristers, the attorneys; we have the speeches, the methods of examination and cross-examination. there is nothing better or more life-like than the sketch of the court in the chill morning, and before the actors came on the scene--the inimitable description of the idle barristers hanging about "the bar of england," which is accurate to this hour. few could describe effectively the peculiar appearance of a crowd of barristers assembled in a court of law. they are a type apart, and their odd headgear accentuates all the peculiarities of their faces. no one has, however, succeeded so well as boz in touching off their peculiarities. this sort of histrionic guise and bearing is assumed with a view to impose on his friends and the public, to suggest an idea that they have much or at least something to do. 'and that,' said mr. pickwick, pointing to a couple of enclosed seats on his right, 'that's where the jurymen sit, is it not?' 'the identical place, my dear sir,' replied perker, tapping the lid of his snuff-box. mr. pickwick stood up in a state of great agitation and took a glance at the court. there were already a pretty large sprinkling of spectators in the gallery, and a numerous muster of gentlemen in wigs in the barristers' seats, who presented, as a body, all that pleasing and extensive variety of nose and whisker for which the bar of england is so justly celebrated. such of the gentlemen as had got a brief to carry, carried it in as conspicuous a manner as possible, and occasionally scratched their noses therewith, to impress the fact more strongly on the observation of the spectators. one of the happiest descriptions is surely that of the binding of law books. a law library is the most repulsive and uninteresting thing in the world. the colour of the leather is unhealthy and disagreeable, and the necessary shading is secured at the expense of grace. boz characterises it as 'that under-done pie crust.' other gentlemen, who had no briefs to show, carried under their arms goodly octavos, with a red label behind, and that under-done-pie-crust-coloured cover, which is technically known as "law calf." others, who had neither briefs nor books, thrust their hands into their pockets, and looked as wise as they conveniently could; while others, again, moved here and there with great restlessness and earnestness of manner, content to awaken thereby the admiration and astonishment of the uninitiated stranger. the whole, to the great wonderment of mr. pickwick, were divided into little groups, who were chatting and discussing the news of the day in the most unfeeling manner possible--just as if no trial at all were coming on. a bow from mr. phunky, as he entered, and took his seat behind the row appropriated to the king's counsel, attracted mr. pickwick's attention; and he had scarcely returned it, when mr. serjeant snubbin appeared, followed by mr. mallard, who half hid the serjeant behind a large crimson bag, which he placed on his table, and after shaking hands with perker, withdrew. then there entered two or three more serjeants, and among them, one with a fat body and a red face, who nodded in a friendly manner to mr. serjeant snubbin, and said it was a fine morning. 'who's that red-faced man, who said it was a fine morning and nodded to our counsel?' whispered mr. pickwick. 'mr. serjeant buzfuz,' replied perker. 'he's opposed to us; he leads on the other side. that gentleman behind him is mr. skimpin, his junior.' mr. pickwick was just on the point of inquiring, with great abhorrence of the man's cold-blooded villainy, how mr. serjeant buzfuz, who was counsel for the opposite party, dared to presume to tell mr. serjeant snubbin, who was counsel for him, that it was a fine morning,--when he was interrupted by a general rising of the barristers, and a loud cry of 'silence!' from the officers of the court. looking round, he found that this was caused by the entrance of the judge. on reaching the court, perker said, "put mr. pickwick's friends in the students' box. mr. pickwick had better sit by me." this useful provision for the instruction of legal probationers has fallen into desuetude--no place is reserved for the students now-a-days. lord campbell describes the custom and recalls an incident that occurred when he was sitting in the students' box, close to the bench. there were some matters of procedure which have since been changed--such as mr. skimpin "calling for" winkle, and the latter answering. this is now done by an officer of the court. skimpin also asks winkle his name, as a first question, though he had been sworn and had given it. and the _mal-entendu_ as to "daniel nathaniel" could not then have occurred, as the officer would have obtained the name correctly. another unusual thing was that buzfuz, after his long and rather exhausting speech, should have examined the first witness. now-a-days the junior would do this. we may note that at this time it was always "my lord," and "your lordship," with the full natural sound--we had not yet got to the clipped "m'lud,'" and "your ludship." perhaps this form _was_ actually used by the counsel but was not noticed by boz, or seemed to him the right thing. the king's counsel were behind and could stoop down to consult their solicitors. this minute observation and particularity of boz is further shown in his noting the very places where the attorneys sat, and which he describes. they had the seats next the table: "you are quite right," said buzfuz later on, answering the whisper of dodson and fogg, after sam's awkward revelation. how often have we seen these hasty communications, which are not without their dramatic effect. the judge. mr. pickwick, unfortunate in his counsel, his solicitor, his jury--one of prejudiced tradesmen--was also to be unlucky in the judge who tried his case. no doubt perker had comforted him: "no matter how it goes, however unfair buzfuz may be, we have a judge to hold the scales fair and keep the jury straight. the lord chief justice of the common pleas, the right hon. sir nicholas conyngham tindal is a man of immense reputation at the bar. we are most fortunate in having him." judge then of the disappointment when on coming to court it was found that sir stephen gaselee was to take the case "owing to the absence of the chief justice, occasioned by indisposition." (i protest that at times one does not know whether we are following out a course of real events, or tracing the incidents of a fiction, so wonderfully does boz make his fiction blend with reality.) this was a serious blow. tindal was an admirable judge. did not his chroniclers write of him: "his sagacity, impartiality and plain sense, his industry and clear sightedness made him an admiration of non-professional spectators: while among lawyers he was very highly esteemed _for his invariable kindness to all who appeared before him_. he retained to the last their respect and affection." with such a man presiding sergeant buzfuz's eccentric violence and abuse of the defendant would have been restrained ("having the outward appearance of a man and not of a monster.") mr. skimpin's gross insinuations, to wit, that winkle was "telegraphing" to his friend, would have been summarily put down, and all "bullying" checked; more, he would have calmly kept counsel's attention to the issue. this perfect impartiality would have made him show to the jury how little evidence there was to support the plaintiff's case. instead came this unlucky indisposition: and his place was taken by "my brother gaselee:" with what results mr. pickwick was to learn disastrously. it is curious, however, that the chief justice, in spite of his indisposition, should still be associated with the case; for he had tried the momentous case of norton _v._ melbourne, and had heard there letters read, which were parodied in the "chops and tomato sauce" correspondence, so boz had him well before him. the case had to be tried at the guildhall sessions; so a fair and rational judge would have spoilt all sport. further, as boz had seen the fairness and dignity of the chief justice he was naturally reluctant to exhibit him unfavorably. the only thing was to make the chief justice become suddenly "indisposed," and have his place taken by a grotesque judge. the judge who was to try the case, mr. justice stareleigh, as is well known, was drawn from sir stephen gaselee, of whose name stareleigh is a sort of synonym. serjeant gaselee was once well known in the prosecutions directed against radicals and so-called reformers, but _pickwick_ has given him a greater reputation. the baiting he received from patriotic advocates may have inflamed his temper and made him irritable. he is described by one author, in a most humorous, if personal fashion. he was "a most particularly short man, and so fat that he seemed all face and waistcoat. he rolled in upon two little turned legs, and having bobbed gravely to the bar who bobbed gravely to him, put his little legs under the table, when all you could see of him was two queer little eyes, one broad, pink face, and somewhere about half of a big and very comical-looking wig." all through he is shown as arrogant and incapable, and also as making some absurd mistakes. it will be a surprise to most people to learn that this picture is no more than an amusing caricature, and that the judge was really a person of high character. he is described as "a very painstaking, upright judge, and, in his private capacity, a worthy and benevolent man." thus, mr. croker, who, however, supplies a sound reason for his being the subject of such satire. "with many admirable qualities both of head and heart, he had made himself a legitimate object of ridicule by his explosions on the bench." under such conditions, the bar, the suitors and the public had neither the wish nor the opportunity to search for extenuating excuses in his private life. they suffered enough from the "explosions" and that was all that concerned them. he had been fourteen years on the bench, and, like stareleigh, belonged to the common pleas. he was suffering too from infirmities, particularly from deafness, and appears to have misapprehended statements in the same grotesque fashion that he mistook winkle's name. boz's fashion of burlesque, by the way, is happily shown in his treatment of this topic. another would have been content with "daniel," the simple misapprehension. "nathaniel, sir," says winkle. "daniel--any other name?" "nathaniel, sir--my lord, i mean." "_nathaniel daniel_--_or daniel nathaniel_?" "no, my lord, only nathaniel, not daniel at all." "what did you tell me it was daniel for, then, sir?" "i didn't, my lord." "you did, sir. _how could i have got nathaniel in my notes_, _unless you told me so_, _sir_?" how admirable is this. the sly satire goes deeper, as judges, under less gross conditions, have often made this illogical appeal to "my notes." though not gifted with oratorical powers which were likely to gain him employment as a leader, gaselee's reputation for legal knowledge soon recommended him to a judge's place. he was accordingly selected on july st, , to fill a vacancy in the court of common pleas. in that court he sat for nearly fourteen years "with the character of a painstaking judge, and in his private capacity as a worthy and benevolent man." thus mr. foss, f.s.a. the reader will have noted the judge's severity to poor groffin, the chemist, who had pleaded the danger of his boy mistaking oxalic acid for epsom salts. could it be that the judge's experience as the son of a provincial doctor, had shown what class of man was before him? later, unexpectedly, we learn that the judge was a steady member for fourteen years of the royal humane society, of which institution he was also a vice-president. but we now come to a most extraordinary thing--the result of the young author's telling and most sarcastic portrait of the irascible little judge. it is curious that forster, while enumerating various instances of boz's severe treatment of living persons, as a sort of chastisement for their defects of manner or character, seems not to have thought of this treatment of the judge--and passes it by. nor did he notice the prompt result that followed on the sketch. the report of the trial appeared in the march number, --and we are told, the luckless judge retired from the bench, shortly after the end of hilary term, that is in april or the beginning of may. we may assume that the poor gentleman could not endure the jests of his _confreres_ or the scarcely concealed tittering of the barristers, all of whom had of course devoured and enjoyed the number. we may say that the learned sergeant buzfuz was not likely to be affected in any way by _his_ picture; it may indeed have added to his reputation. i confess to some sympathy for the poor old judge who was thus driven from the bench. sam foote was much given to this sort of personal attack, and made the lives of some of his victims wretched. boz, however, seems to have felt himself called upon to act thus as public executioner on two occasions only. after the fall of the judge in june, , he wanted a model for a tyrannical magistrate in _oliver twist_--and mr. laing, the hatton garden magistrate--a harsh, ferocious personage, at once occurred to him. he wrote accordingly to one of his friends that he wished to be _smuggled_ into his office some morning to study him. this "smuggling" of course meant the placing him where he would not be observed--as a magistrate knowing his "sketches" might recognise him. "i know the man perfectly well" he added. so he did, for he forgot that he had introduced him already in _pickwick_ as nupkins--whose talk is exactly alike, in places almost word for word to that of "mr. fang." these palliations, boz, a young fellow of three and twenty or so, did not pause to weigh. he only saw a testy, red-faced old fellow with goggle eyes, and seventy-four years old, and past his work. his infirmities already made him incapable of carrying through the business of the court as the mistake, "is it daniel nathaniel or nathaniel daniel?" shows. it is curious, however, that this weakness of misapprehending names is described of another judge, arabin--a strange grotesque. theodore hook gives an amusing specimen in his gilbert gurney. from the general description in the text, it is evident stareleigh was the prey of gouty affections--which swelled him into grotesque shape, and he found himself unequal to the office. he died two years after his retirement at no. , montagu place, russell square; so that the judge in bardell _v._ pickwick was living close to perker the attorney in the same case. here we seem to mix up the fictional and the living characters, but this is the law of _pickwick_--the confines between the two worlds being quite confused or broken down. the late commander of our forces in china, sir a. gaselee, is of this family. it should be remembered, however, when we think of this judge's frowardness, that judges in those times were dictatorial and carried matters with a high hand. there were often angry conflicts between them, and members of the bar, and stareleigh was really not so very tyrannical. he did what so many judges do--took a side from the first, and had decided in his own mind that mr. pickwick could not possibly have a case. that curious form of address from the bench is now no longer heard--"who is with you, _brother buzfuz_?" judges and sergeants were then common members of the guild--both wore the "coif." the court. when the swearing of the jury is going on, how good, and how natural is the scene with the unfortunate chemist. 'answer to your names, gentlemen that you may be sworn,' said the gentleman in black. 'richard upwitch.' 'here,' said the greengrocer. 'thomas groffin.' 'here,' said the chemist. 'take the book, gentlemen. you shall well and truly try--' 'i beg this court's pardon,' said the chemist, who was a tall, thin, yellow-visaged man, 'but i hope this court will excuse my attendance.' 'on what grounds, sir?' replied mr. justice stareleigh. 'i have no assistant, my lord,' said the chemist. 'i can't help that, sir,' replied mr. justice stareleigh. 'you should hire one.' 'i can't afford it, my lord,' rejoined the chemist. 'then you ought to be able to afford it, sir,' said the judge, reddening; for mr. justice stareleigh's temper bordered on the irritable, and brooked not contradiction. 'i know i _ought_ to do, if i got on as well as i deserved, but i don't, my lord,' answered the chemist. 'swear the gentleman,' said the judge, peremptorily. the officer had got no farther than the 'you shall well and truly try,' when he was again interrupted by the chemist. 'i am to be sworn, my lord, am i?' said the chemist. 'certainly, sir,' replied the testy little judge. 'very well, my lord,' replied the chemist in a resigned manner. 'there'll be murder before this trial's over; that's all. swear me, if you please, sir;' and sworn the chemist was, before the judge could find words to utter. 'i merely wanted to observe, my lord,' said the chemist, taking his seat with great deliberation, 'that i've left nobody but an errand boy in my shop. he is a very nice boy, my lord, but he is not acquainted with drugs; and i know that the prevailing impression on his mind is, that epsom salts means oxalic acid; and syrup of senna, laudanum. that's all, my lord.' with this, the tall chemist composed himself into a comfortable attitude, and, assuming a pleasant expression of countenance, appeared to have prepared himself for the worst. one who was born in the same year as boz, but who was to live for thirty years after him, henry russell--composer and singer of "the ivy green"--was, when a youth, apprenticed to a chemist, and when about ten years old, that is five years before bardell _v._ pickwick, was left in charge of the shop. he discovered just in time that he had served a customer who had asked for epsom salts with poison sufficient to kill fifty people. on this he gave up the profession. i have little doubt that he told this story to his friend a dozen years later, and that it was on boz's mind when he wrote. epsom salts was the drug mentioned in both instances. it must be said that even in our day a defendant for breach, with mr. pickwick's story and surroundings, would have had small chance with a city jury. they saw before them a benevolent-looking lothario, of a quaker-like air, while all the witnesses against him were his three most intimate friends and his own man. we have, of course, testy judges now, who may be "short" in manner, but i think it can be affirmed that no judge of our day could behave to counsel or witnesses as mr. justice stareleigh did. it is, in fact, now the tone for a judge to affect a sort of polished courtesy, and to impart a sort of light gaiety to the business he is transacting. all asperity and tyrannous rudeness is held to be out of place. hectoring and bullying of witnesses will not be tolerated. the last exhibition was perhaps that of the late dr. kenealy in the tichborne case. all the swearing of jurymen before the court, with the intervention of the judge, has been got rid of. the master of the court, or chief clerk, has a number of interviews--at his public desk--with important individuals, bringing him signed papers. these are excuses of some sort--medical certificates, etc.--with a view to be "let off" serving. some--most, perhaps--are accepted, some refused. a man of wealth and importance can have little difficulty. of course this would be denied by the jurists: but, somehow, the great guns contrive not to attend. at ten o'clock this officer proceeds to swear the jury, which is happily accomplished by the time the judge enters. serjeant buzfuz. mr. pickwick, considering the critical nature of his case, was certainly unfortunate in his solicitor, as well as in the counsel selected by his solicitors. the other side were particularly favoured in this matter. they had a pushful bustling "wide-awake" firm of solicitors, who let not a point escape. sergeant buzfuz was exactly the sort of advocate for the case--masterful, unscrupulous, eloquent, and with a singularly ingenious faculty for putting everything on his client's side in the best light, and his adversary's in the worst. he could "tear a witness to pieces," and turn him inside out. his junior, skimpin, was glib, ready-armed at all points, and singularly adroit in "making a hare" of any witness who fell into his hands, _teste_ winkle. he had all the professional devices for dealing with a witness's answers, and twisting them to his purpose, at his fingers' ends. he was the wontner or ballantyne of his day. mr. pickwick's "bar" was quite outmatched. they were rather a feeble lot, too respectable altogether, and really not familiar with this line of business. even the judge was against them from the very start, so mr. pickwick had very poor chances indeed. all this was due to that old-fashioned and rather incapable "family solicitor" perker. [picture: serjeant buzfuz, k.c.] serjeant buzfuz is known the world all over, at least wherever english is known. i myself was once startled in a fashionable west end church to hear a preacher, when emphasizing the value and necessity of prayer, and the certainty with which it is responded to, use this illustration: "as serjeant buzfuz said to sam weller, '_there is little to do and plenty to get_.'" needless to say, an amused smile, if not a titter, passed round the congregation. but it is the barrister who most appreciates the learned serjeant. for the topics he argued and his fashion of arguing them, bating a not excessive exaggeration, comes home to them all. nay, they must have a secret admiration, and fondly think how excellently well such and such topics are put, and how they must have told with a jury. buzfuz, it is now well known, was drawn from a leading serjeant of his day, serjeant bompas, k.c. not so long since i was sitting by bompas's son, the present judge bompas, at dinner, and a most agreeable causeur he was. not only did boz sketch the style and fashion of the serjeant, but it is clear that phiz drew the figure and features. "i am the youngest son of serjeant bompas," judge bompas writes to me, "and have never heard it doubted that the name buzfuz was taken from my father who was at that time considered a most successful advocate. i think he may have been chosen for the successful advocate because he was so successful: but i have never been able to ascertain that there was any other special resemblance. i do not remember my father myself: he died when i was eight years old. but i am told i am like him in face. he was tall (five feet ten inches) and a large man, very popular, and very excitable in his cases, so that i am told that counsel against him used to urge him, out of friendship, not to get so agitated. a connection of mine who knew him well, went over to hear charles dickens read the trial scene, to see if he at all imitated him in voice or manner, but told me that he did not do so at all. i think, therefore, that having chosen his name, as a writer might now that of sir charles russell, he then drew a general type of barrister, as he thought it might be satirised. my father, like myself, was on the western circuit and leader of it at the time of his death." "i had a curious episode happen to me once. a client wrote to apply to the court to excuse a juror on the ground that he was a chemist and had no assistant who understood the drugs. it was not till i made the application and the court began to laugh that i remembered the pickwick trial. i believe the application was quite bona fide, and not at all an imitation of it." an interesting communication from one who might be styled "buzfuz's son;" and, as judge bompas alludes to his own likeness to his sire, i may add that the likeness to the portrait in the court scene, is very striking indeed. there is the same fullness of face, the large features. buzfuz was certainly a counsel of power and ability, and i think lawyers will admit he managed mrs. bardell's case with much adroitness. his speech, besides being a sort of satirical abstract of the unamiable thundering boisterousness addressed to juries in such cases, is one of much ability. he makes the most of every topic that he thought likely to "tell" on a city jury. we laugh heartily at his would-be solemn and pathetic passages, but these are little exaggerated. buzfuz's statement is meant to show how counsel, quite legitimately, can bring quite innocent acts to the support of their case by marshalling them in suspicious order, and suggesting that they had a connection with the charge made. many a client thus becomes as bewildered as mr. pickwick was, on seeing his own harmless proceedings assuming quite a guilty complexion. serjeant buzfuz-bompas died at the age of fifty-three, at his house in park road, regents park, on february th, . he was then, comparatively, a young man, and must have had ability to have attained his position so early. he was called to the bar in , and began as serjeant in , in trinity term, only a year or so before the famous case was tried. so dramatic is the whole "trial" in its action and characters, that it is almost fit for the stage as it stands. there have been a great number of versions, one by the author's son, charles "the younger," one by mr. hollingshead, and so on. it is a favorite piece for charitable benefits, and a number of well-known performers often volunteer to figure as "gentlemen of the jury." buzfuz has been often played by mr. toole, but his too farcical methods scarcely enhanced the part. the easiness of comedy is essential. that sound player mr. james fernander is the best buzfuz that i have seen. there is a french translation of _pickwick_, in which the general spirit of the "trial" is happily conveyed. thus mr. phunky's name is given as "m. finge," which the little judge mistakes for "m. singe." buzfuz's speech too is excellent, especially his denouncing the defendant's coming with his chops "_et son ignoble bassinoire_" i.e., warming pan. the opening speech. buzfuz's great speech is one of the happiest parodies in the language. never was the forensic jargon and treatment so humorously set forth--and this because of the perfect _sincerity_ and earnestness with which it was done. there is none of the far-fetched, impossible exaggeration--the form of burlesque which theodore hook or albert smith might have attempted. it is, in fact, a real speech, which might have been delivered to a dull-headed audience without much impairing credibility. apart from this it is a most effective harangue and most plausible statement of the plaintiff's case. a little professional touch, which is highly significant as part of the pantomine, and which boz made very effective at the reading, was the serjeant's dramatic preparation for his speech. "having whispered to dodson and conferred briefly with fogg, _he pulled his gown over his shoulders_, _settled his wig_, and addressed the jury." who has not seen this bit of business? again, juries may have noted that the junior as he rises to speak, mumbles something that is quite inaudible, and which nobody attends to. this is known as "opening the pleadings." the ushers again called silence, and mr. skimpin proceeded to 'open the case;' and the case appeared to have very little inside it when he had opened it, for he kept such particulars as he knew, completely to himself, and sat down, after a lapse of three minutes, leaving the jury in precisely the same advanced stage of wisdom as they were in before. serjeant buzfuz then rose with all the majesty and dignity which the grave nature of the proceedings demanded, and having whispered to dodson, and conferred briefly with fogg, pulled his gown over his shoulders, settled his wig, and addressed the jury. a most delightful legal platitude, as one might call it, is to be found in the opening of the learned sergeant's speech. it is a familiar, transparent thing, often used to impose on the jury. as boz says of another topic, "counsel often begins in this way because it makes the jury think what sharp fellows they must be." "you have heard from my learned friend, gentlemen," continued the serjeant, well knowing that from the learned friend alluded to they had heard just nothing at all, "you have heard from my learned friend, that this is an action for breach of promise of marriage, in which the damages are laid at , pounds. but you have _not heard from my learned friend_, _inasmuch as it did not lie within my learned friend's province to tell you_, what are the facts and circumstances of the case." this rich bit of circumlocution is simple nonsense, in rotund phrase, and meant to suggest the imposing majesty of legal process. the jury knew perfectly beforehand what they were going to try: but were to be impressed by the magnifying agency of legal processes, and would be awe stricken accordingly. the passage, "inasmuch as it did not lie within my learned friend's province to tell you," is a delightful bit of cant. in short, the jury was thus admitted to the secret legal arena, and into community with the learned friends themselves, and were persuaded that they were very sharp fellows indeed. what pleasant satire is here, on the mellifluous "openings" of counsel, the putting a romantic gloss on the most prosaic incidents. a sucking barrister might well study this speech of buzfuz as a guide to the conducting of a case, and above all of rather a "shaky" one. not less excellent is his smooth and plausible account of mrs. bardell's setting up in lodging letting. he really makes it "interesting." one thinks of some fluttering, helpless young widow, setting out in the battle of life. he describes the poor innocent lady putting a bill in her window, "and let me entreat the attention of the jury to the wording of this document--'apartments furnished for a single gentleman!' mrs. bardell's opinions of the opposite sex, gentlemen, were derived from a long contemplation of the inestimable qualities of her lost husband. she had no fear--she had no distrust--she had no suspicion--all was confidence and reliance. 'mr. bardell,' said the widow: 'mr. bardell was a man of honour--mr. bardell was a man of his word--mr. bardell was no deceiver--mr. bardell was once a single gentleman himself; to single gentlemen i look for protection, for assistance, for comfort, and for consolation--in single gentlemen i shall perpetually see something to remind me of what mr. bardell was, when he first won my young and untried affections; to a single gentleman, then, shall my lodgings be let.' actuated by this beautiful and touching impulse (among the best impulses of our imperfect nature, gentlemen), the lonely and desolate widow dried her tears, furnished her first floor, caught her innocent boy to her maternal bosom, and put the bill up in her parlour window. did it remain there long? no. the serpent was on the watch, the train was laid, the mine was preparing, the sapper and miner was at work. before the bill had been in the parlour window three days--three days, gentlemen--a being, erect upon two legs, and bearing all the outward semblance of a man, and not of a monster, knocked at the door of mrs. bardell's house. he enquired within." those who attended the reading will recall the admirable briskness, and more admirable spirit with which boz delivered the passage "by the evidence of the unimpeachable female whom i shall place in that"--here he brought down his palm with a mighty slap on the desk, and added, after a moment's pause, "_box_ before you." it was that _preceding_ of the stroke that told. so real was it, one fancied oneself listening to some obstreperous counsel. in all true acting--notably on the french boards--the gesture should a little precede the utterance. so the serjeant knew something of art. when mr. pickwick gave an indignant start on hearing himself described as a heartless villain how cleverly does the capable buzfuz turn the incident to profit. [picture: mr. pickwick as a monster] 'i say systematic villany, gentlemen,' said serjeant buzfuz, looking through mr. pickwick, and talking _at_ him; 'and when i say systematic villiany, let me tell the defendant, pickwick, if he be in court, as i am informed he is, that it would have been more decent in him, more becoming, in better judgment and in better taste, if he had stopped away. let me tell him, gentlemen, that any gestures of dissent or disapprobation in which he may indulge in this court will not go down with you; that you will know how to value, and to appreciate them; and let me tell him further, as my lord will tell you, gentlemen, that a counsel, in the discharge of his duty to his client, is neither to be intimidated nor bullied, nor put down; and that any attempt to do either the one or the other, or the first or the last, will recoil on the head of the attempter, be he plaintiff or be he defendant, be his name pickwick, or noakes, or stoakes, or stiles, or brown, or thompson.' this little divergence from the subject in hand, had of course the intended effect of turning all eyes to mr. pickwick. we relish, too, another "common form." when the serjeant found that his jest as to "greasing the wheels of mr. pickwick's slow-coach" had somewhat missed fire--a thing that often unaccountably happens, in the case of the "twelve intelligent men," the serjeant knew how to adroitly recover himself. he paused in this place to see whether the jury smiled at his joke; but as nobody took it but the greengrocer, whose sensitiveness on the subject was very probably occasioned by his having subjected a chaise-cart to the process in question on that identical morning, the learned serjeant considered it advisable to undergo a slight relapse into the dismals before he concluded. 'but enough of this, gentlemen,' said mr. serjeant buzfuz, 'it is difficult to smile with an aching heart; it is ill jesting when our deepest sympathies are awakened. my client's hopes and prospects are ruined, and it is no figure of speech to say that her occupation is gone indeed. the bill is down--but there is no tenant. eligible single gentlemen pass and repass--but there is no invitation for them to enquire within or without. all is gloom and silence in the house; even the voice of the child is hushed; his infant sports are disregarded when his mother weeps; his "alley tors" and his "commoneys" are alike neglected; he forgets the long familiar cry of "knuckle down," and at tip-cheese, or odd and even, his hand is out. but pickwick, gentlemen, pickwick, the ruthless destroyer of this domestic oasis in the desert of goswell street--pickwick, who has choked up the well, and thrown ashes on the sward--pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his heartless tomato sauce and warming-pans--pickwick still rears his head with unblushing effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has made. damages, gentlemen--heavy damages is the only punishment with which you can visit him.' the incriminating letters. "i shall prove to you, gentlemen, that _about a year ago pickwick suddenly began to absent himself from home_, during long intervals, ('on pickwick tours,') _as if with the intention of breaking off from my client_: but i shall show you also that his resolutions were not at that time sufficiently strong, or that his better feelings conquered, _if better feelings he has_: or that the charms and accomplishments of my client prevailed against his unmanly intentions." we may note the reserve which suggested a struggle going on in mr. pickwick. and how persuasive is buzfuz's _exegesis_! then, on the letters: "these letters bespeak the character of the man. they are not open, fervid, eloquent epistles breathing nothing but the language of affectionate attachment. they are _covert_, _sly_, under-hand communications, but, fortunately, far more conclusive than if couched in the most glowing language. _letters that must be viewed with a cautious and supicious eye_: _letters that were evidently intended at the time_, _by pickwick_, _to mislead and delude any third parties into whose hands they might fall_." the gravity and persuasiveness of all this is really _impayable_. "let me read the first: 'garraway's, twelve o'clock. dear mrs. b., chops and tomato sauce. yours, pickwick.' gentlemen, what does this mean? chops and tomato sauce. yours, pickwick. chops! gracious heavens!--and tomato sauce! gentlemen, is the happiness of a sensitive and confiding female _to be trifled_ away by such artifices as these? _the next has no date_ _whatever which is in itself suspicious_: 'dear mrs. b., i shall not be at home until to-morrow. slow coach.' and then follows the very remarkable expression, 'don't trouble yourself about the warming pan.'" there is a little bit of serious history connected with these letters which i was the first i think to discover. they were intended to satirise the trivial scraps brought forward in mrs. norton's matrimonial case--norton _v._ lord melbourne. my late friend, "charles dickens the younger," as he used to call himself, in his notes on _pickwick_, puts aside this theory altogether as a mere unfounded fancy; but it will be seen there cannot be a doubt in the matter. sir w. follett laid just as much stress on these scraps as serjeant buzfuz did on his: he even used the phrase, "it seems there may be latent love like latent heat, in these productions." we have also, "yours melbourne," like "yours pickwick," the latter signing as though he were a peer. "there is another of these notes," went on sir william, "how are you?" "again there is no beginning you see." "the next has no date, which is in itself suspicious," buzfuz would have added. another ran--"i will call about half past four, yours." "_these_ are the only notes that have been found," added the counsel, with due gravity, "_they seem to import much more than mere words convey_." after this can there be a doubt? this case was tried in june, , and, it must be borne in mind, caused a prodigious sensation all over the kingdom. the pickwick part, containing the description, appeared about december, six months afterwards. only old people may recall norton _v._ melbourne, the fair caroline's wrongs have long been forgotten; but it is curious that the memory of it should have been kept alive in some sort by this farcical parody. equally curious is it that the public should always have insisted that she was the heroine of yet another story, george meredith's _diana_, though the author has disclaimed it over and over again. the serjeant's dealing with the warming pan topic is a truly admirable satiric touch, and not one bit far-fetched or exaggerated. any one familiar with suspicious actions has again and again heard comments as plausible and as forced. "don't trouble yourself about the warming pan! the warming pan! why, gentlemen, who _does_ trouble himself about a warming pen?" a delicious _non sequitur_, sheer nonsense, and yet with an air of conviction that is irresistable. "when was the peace of mind of man or woman broken or disturbed by a warming pan which is in itself a harmless, a useful _and i will add_, _gentlemen_, a comforting article of domestic furniture?" he then goes on ingeniously to suggest that it may be "a cover for hidden fire, a mere substitute for some endearing word or promise, _agreeably to a preconcerted system_ of correspondence, artfully contrived by pickwick _with a view_ to his contemplated desertion and which i am not in a position to explain?" admirable indeed! one could imagine a city jury in their wisdom thinking that there must be _something_ in this warming pan! not less amusing and plausible is his dealing with the famous topic of the "chops and tomato sauce," not "tomata" as boz has it. i suppose there is no popular allusion better understood than this. the very man in the street knows all about it and what it means. absurd as it may seem, it is hardly an exaggeration. counsel every day give weight to points just as trivial and expound them elaborately to the jury. the serjeant's burst of horror is admirable, "gentlemen, _what does this mean_? 'chops and tomata sauce! yours pickwick!' chops! gracious heavens! what does this mean? is the happiness of a sensitive and confiding female to be trifled away _by such shallow artifices as these_?'" i recall that admirable judge and pleasant man, the late lord fitzgerald, who was fond of talking of this trial, saying to me that buzfuz lost a good point here, as he might have dwelt on the mystic meaning of tomato which is the "love apple," that here was the "secret correspondence," the real "cover for hidden fire." he concluded by demanding exemplary damages as "the recompense you can award my client. and for these damages she now appeals to an enlightened, a high-minded, a right feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a sympathising, a contemplative jury of her civilized countrymen!" the plaintiff's case. it was really of a very flimsy kind but "bolstered-up" and carried through by the bluster of the serjeant and the smartness of his junior. it rested first on a dialogue between mr. pickwick and his landlady which was overheard, in fact by several persons; second, on a striking situation witnessed by his three friends who entered unexpectedly and surprised him with mrs. bardell in his arms; third, on some documentary evidence, and lastly, on a damaging incident disclosed by winkle. the first witness "put in the box," was mrs. martha cluppins--an intimate friend of the plaintiffs. we know that she was sister to mrs. raddle, who lived far away in southwark, and was the landlady of mr. sawyer. she might have been cross-examined with effect as to her story that she had been "out buying kidney pertaties," etc. why buy these articles in goswell street and come all the way from southwark? what was she doing there at all? this question could have been answered only in one way--which was that the genial author fancied at the moment she was living near mrs. bardell. besides this, there was another point which snubbin, in cross-examination, ought to have driven home. mrs. cluppins was of an inferior type, of the common washerwoman or "charing" sort; her language was of mrs. gamp's kind; "which her name was" so and so. yet, this creature, in another room, or on the stairs, the door being "on the jar," can repeat with her limited appreciation, those dubious and imperfect utterances of mr. pickwick! how could she remember all? or could she understand them? impossible! she, however, may have caught up something. winkle, too, said he heard something as he came up the stairs--"compose yourself my dear creature, for consider if any one were to come," etc. but what could be the value of evidence heard in this way? would a jury believe it? "not only," as sam said, "is 'wision limited,'" but hearing also. in short, the delicate subtleties of the conversation between mr. pickwick and mrs. bardell would be wholly lost in her hands. persons of her class know nothing of suggestion or double meanings or reserved intention, everything for them must be in black and white. how unlikely, therefore, that through the panels of a door or through the half opened door, ("she said on the jar,") could she catch the phrases and their meanings, and, above all, retain them in her memory? no doubt, as the counsel put it bluntly, she listened, and with all her ears. however this may be, here is what mrs. cluppins deposed to: 'mrs. cluppins,' said serjeant buzfuz, 'pray compose yoursel, ma'am;' and, of course, directly mrs. cluppins was desired to compose herself she sobbed with increased violence, and gave divers alarming manifestations of an approaching fainting fit, or, as she afterwards said, of her feelings being too many for her. 'do you recollect, mrs. cluppins?' said serjeant buzfuz, after a few unimportant questions--'do you recollect being in mrs. bardell's back one pair of stairs, on one particular morning in july last, when she was dusting mr. pickwick's apartment?' 'yes, my lord and jury, i do,' replied mrs. cluppins. 'mr. pickwick's sitting-room was the first floor front, i believe?' 'yes it were, sir,' replied mrs. cluppins. 'what were you doing in the back room, ma'am?' inquired the little judge. 'my lord and jury,' said mrs. cluppins, with interesting agitation, 'i will not deceive you.' 'you had better not, ma'am,' said the little judge. 'i was there,' resumed mrs. cluppins, 'unbeknown to mrs. bardell; i had been out with a little basket, gentlemen, to buy three pounds of red kidney pertaties, which was three pound, tuppense ha'penny, when i see mrs. bardell's street door on the jar.' 'on the what?' exclaimed the little judge. 'partly open, my lord,' said serjeant snubbin. 'she _said_ on the jar,' said the little judge with a cunning look. 'it's all the same, my lord,' said serjeant snubbin. the little judge looked doubtful, and said he'd make a note of it. mrs. cluppins then resumed-- 'i walked in, gentlemen, just to say good mornin', and went in a permiscuous manner up-stairs, and into the back room. gentlemen, there was the sound of voices in the front room, and--' 'and you listened, i believe, mrs. cluppins,' said serjeant buzfuz. 'beggin' your pardon, sir,' replied mrs. cluppins, in a majestic manner, 'i would scorn the haction. the voices was very loud, sir, and forced themselves upon my ear.' 'well, mrs. cluppins, you were not listening, but you heard the voices. was one of those voices mr. pickwick's?' 'yes, it were, sir.' and mrs. cluppins, after distinctly stating that mr. pickwick addressed himself to mrs. bardell, repeated by slow degrees, and by dint of many questions the conversation with which our readers are already acquainted. now we have to turn back to one of the earlier passages in the story for the conversation between the pair, "with which the reader is already acquainted." thus we shall know what mrs. cluppin's might have heard. mr. pickwick paced the room to and fro with hurried steps, popped his head out of the window at intervals of about three minutes each, constantly referred to his watch, and exhibited many other manifestations of impatience, very unusual with him. it was evident that something of great importance was in contemplation, but what that something was not even mrs. bardell herself had been enabled to discover. 'mrs. bardell,' said mr. pickwick at last, as that amiable female approached the termination of a prolonged dusting of the apartment. 'sir,' said mrs. bardell. 'your little boy is a very long time gone.' 'why, it's a good long way to the borough, sir,' remonstrated mrs. bardell. 'ah,' said pickwick, 'very true; so it is.' mr. pickwick relapsed into silence, and mrs. bardell resumed her dusting. 'mrs. bardell,' said mr. pickwick, at the expiration of a few minutes. 'sir,' said mrs. bardell again. 'do you think it's a much greater expense to keep two people, than to keep one?' 'la, mr. pickwick,' said mrs. bardell, colouring up to the very border of her cap, as she fancied she observed a species of matrimonial twinkle in the eyes of her lodger, 'la, mr. pickwick, what a question!' 'well, but _do_ you?' inquired mr. pickwick. 'that depends--' said mrs. bardell, approaching the duster very near to mr. pickwick's elbow, which was planted on the table; 'that depends a good deal upon the person, you know, mr. pickwick; and whether it's a saving and careful person, sir.' 'that's very true,' said mr. pickwick, 'but the person i have in my eye (here he looked very hard at mrs. bardell) i think possesses these qualities; and has, moreover, a considerable knowledge of the world, and a great deal of sharpness, mrs. bardell; which may be of material use to me.' 'la, mr. pickwick,' said mrs. bardell; the crimson rising to her cap-border again. 'i do,' said mr. pickwick, growing energetic, as was his wont in speaking of a subject which interested him, 'i do, indeed; and to tell you the truth, mrs. bardell, i have made up my mind.' 'dear me, sir,' exclaimed mrs. bardell. 'you'll think it very strange, now,' said the amiable mr. pickwick, with a good humoured glance at his companion, 'that i never consulted you about this matter, and never even mentioned it, till i sent your little boy out this morning, eh?' mrs. bardell could only reply by a look. she had long worshipped mr. pickwick at a distance, but here she was, all at once, raised to a pinnacle to which her wildest and most extravagant hopes and never dared to aspire. mr. pickwick was going to propose--a deliberate plan, too--sent her little boy to the borough, to get him out of the way--how thoughtful--how considerate!' 'well,' said mr. pickwick, 'what do you think?' 'oh, mr. pickwick,' said mrs. bardell, trembling with agitation, 'you're very kind, sir.' 'it'll save you a good deal of trouble, won't it?' said mr. pickwick. 'oh, i never thought anything of the trouble, sir,' replied mrs. bardell; 'and, of course, i should take more trouble to please you then, than ever; but it is so kind of you, mr. pickwick, to have so much consideration for my loneliness.' 'ah, to be sure,' said mr. pickwick; 'i never thought of that. when i am in town, you'll always have somebody to sit with you. to be sure, so you will.' 'i'm sure i ought to be a very happy woman,' said mrs. bardell. 'and your little boy--' said mr. pickwick. 'bless his heart,' interposed mrs. bardell, with a maternal sob. 'he, too, will have a companion,' resumed mr. pickwick, 'a lively one, who'll teach him, i'll be bound, more tricks in a week than he would ever learn in a year.' and mr. pickwick smiled placidly. 'oh, you dear--' said mrs. bardell. mr. pickwick started. 'oh, you kind, good, playful dear,' said mrs. bardell; and without more ado, she rose from her chair, and flung her arms round mr. pickwick's neck, with a cataract of tears, and a chorus of sobs. 'bless my soul,' cried the astonished mr. pickwick;--'mrs. bardell, my good woman--dear me, what a situation--pray--consider, mrs. bardell, if anybody should come.' 'o, let them come,' exclaimed mrs. bardell, frantically. 'i'll never leave you, dear, kind, good soul.' and with these words mrs. bardell clung the tighter. every utterance of the little judge is in character, from his first directions "go on." his suspicious question, "what were you doing in the back room, ma'am?"--and on serjeant buzfuz's sudden pause for breath, when "the _silence_ awoke mr. justice stareleigh, who immediately wrote down something, with a pen without any ink in it, and looked unusually profound, to impress his jury with the belief that he always thought most deeply with his eyes shut." also when at the "on the jar" incident--he "looked doubtful, but said he'd make a note of it." so when sam made one of his free and easy speeches, the judge looked sternly at sam for fully two minutes, but sam's features were so perfectly calm that he said nothing. when sam, too, made his witty _reposte_ to buzfuz as to his "wision being limited," we are told that there was a great laugh--that even "the little judge smiled:" a good touch, for he enjoyed, like other judges, seeing his learned brother get a fall--'tis human nature. it must be said the impression of a listener, who had heard all this could have been anything but favourable to mr. pickwick. no doubt there was his paternally benevolent character to correct it: but even this might go against him as it would suggest a sort of hypocrisy. even the firmest friends, in their surprise, do not pause to debate or reason; they are astonished and wonder exceedingly. winkle's evidence. skimpin may have been intended for wilkin, a later serjeant and well-known in the 'fifties, and whose style and manner is reproduced. we could not ask a better junior in a "touch and go" case. he was as ready to take advantage of any opening as was the late lord bowen, when he was junior in the tichborne case. [picture: mr. skimpin] on entering the box, mr. winkle "bowed to the judge," with considerable deference, a politeness quite thrown away. "don't look at me sir," said the judge sharply, "look at the jury." this was ungracious, but judges generally don't relish any advances from witnesses or others. when poor winkle was accused by the judge of giving his name as daniel, he was told that "he had better be careful:" on which the ready skimpin: "now, mr. winkle attend to me if you please: and let me recommend you, for your own sake, to bear in mind his lordship's injunction to be careful." thus by the agency of judge and counsel witness was discredited at starting and of course flurried. 'i believe you are a particular friend of pickwick, the defendant, are you not? winkle, eager to retrieve himself by being "careful" began-- 'i have known mr. pickwick now as well as i recollect at this moment, nearly--' 'pray, mr. winkle, don't evade the question. are you, or are you not a particular friend of the defendant?' 'i was just about to say that--' 'will you, or will you not answer my question, sir?' 'if you don't you'll be committed, sir,' interposed the little judge. 'come, sir,' said mr. skimpin, '_yes or no_, _if you please_.' 'yes, i am,' replied mr. winkle. '_yes_, _you are_. _and why couldn't you say that at once_, _sir_?' i think there is no more happy touch of legal satire in the books than that about "what the soldier said." it is perfect, so complete, that it is always understood by unprofessional readers. the lawyer feels at once that it is as true as it is happy. 'little to do and plenty to get,' said serjeant buzfuz to sam. 'o, quite enough to get, sir, as the soldier said ven they ordered him three hundred and fifty lashes.' '_you must not tell us what the soldier or any other man said_, _sir_; _it's not evidence_,' interposed the judge. who will forget the roar that always greeted this sally when boz read it, or the low and slow solemnity which he imparted to the judge's dictum. as an illustration it is simply admirable. boz himself would have been pleased to find himself quoted in two impressive legal tomes of some pages. the great and laborious john pitt taylor could not have been wholly a legal dry-as-dust: for the man who could have gravely entered bardell _v._ pickwick in his notes and have quoted a passage must have had a share of humour. most people know that it is a strict principle that "hearsay evidence" of an utterance will not be accepted in lieu of that of the person to whom the remark was made. neither can we think it out of probability that such an objection may have been made by some over punctilious judge wishing to restrain sam's exuberance. a scotch judge once quoted in court a passage from _the antiquary_ in which he said the true view of an intricate point was given; but then scott was a lawyer. it is requisite, says mr. john pitt taylor (p. ) speaking of "hearsay evidence" that whatever facts a witness speaks, he should be confined to those lying within his own knowledge. for every witness should give his testimony on oath, and should be subject to cross examination. but testimony from the relation of third persons cannot be subject to these tests. this rule of exclusion has been recognised as a fundamental principle of the law of evidence ever since the time of charles ii. to this he adds a note, with all due gravity: "the rule excluding heresay evidence, or rather the mode in which that rule is frequently misunderstood in courts of justice, is amusingly caricatured by mr. dickens _in his report_ of the case of bardell _v._ pickwick, p. ." bardell _v._ pickwick! he thus puts it with the many thousand or tens of thousand cases quoted, and he has even found a place for it in his index of places. he then goes on to quote the passage, just as he would quote from barnwall and adolphus. how sagacious--full of legal point--is boz's comment on winkle's incoherent evidence. phunky asked him whether he had any reason to suppose that pickwick was about to be married. "'oh no; certainly not,' replied mr. winkle with so much eagerness, that mr. phunky ought to have got him out of the box with all possible dispatch. lawyers hold out that there are two kinds of particularly bad witnesses: a reluctant witness, and a too willing witness;" and most true it is. both commit themselves in each case, but in different ways. the matter of the former, and the manner of the latter do the mischief. the ideal witness affects indifference, and is as impartial as the record of a phonograph. it is wonderful where boz learned all this. no doubt from his friend talfourd, k.c., who carefully revised "the trial." skimpin's interpretation of mr. pickwick's consolatory phrase, which he evidently devised on the spur of the moment, shows him to be a very ready, smart fellow. 'now, mr. winkle, i have only one more question to ask you, and i beg you to bear in mind his lordship's caution. will you undertake to swear that pickwick, the defendant, did not say on the occasion in question--"my dear mrs. bardell, you're a good creature; compose yourself to this situation, for to this situation you must come," or words to that effect?' 'i--i didn't understand him so, certainly,' said mr. winkle, astounded at this ingenious dove-tailing of the few words he had heard. 'i was on the staircase, and couldn't hear distinctly; the impression on my mind is--' 'the gentlemen of the jury want none of the impressions on your mind, mr. winkle, which i fear would be of little service to honest, straightforward men,' interposed mr. skimpin. 'you were on the staircase, and didn't distinctly hear; but you will swear that pickwick _did not make use_ of the expressions i have quoted? do i understand that?' 'no, i will not,' replied mr. winkle; and down sat mr. skimpin, with a triumphant countenance. this "will you swear he did _not_," etc., is a device familiar to cross examiners, and is used when the witness cannot be got to accept the words or admit that they were used. it of course means little or nothing: but its effect on the jury is that they come to fancy that the words _may_ have been used, and that the witness is not very clear as to his recollection. how well described, too, and satirised, is yet another "common form" of the cross examiner, to wit the "how often, sir?" question. winkle, when asked as to his knowledge of mrs. bardell, replied that "he did not know her, but that he had seen her." (i recall making this very answer to boz when we were both driving through sackville street, dublin. he had asked "did i know so-and-so?" when i promptly replied, "i don't know him, but i have seen him." this rather arrided him, as elia would say.) skimpin went on: 'oh, you don't know her, but you have seen her.' 'now have the goodness to tell the gentlemen of the jury what you mean by _that_, mr. winkle.' 'i mean that i am not intimate with her, but that i have seen her when i went to call on mr. pickwick, in goswell street.' 'how often have you seen her, sir?' 'how often?' '_yes_, _mr. winkle_, _how often_? i'll repeat the question for you a dozen times, if you require it, sir.' and the learned gentlemen, with a firm and steady frown, placed his hands on his hips, and smiled suspiciously to the jury. _on this question there arose the edifying brow-beating_, _customary on such points_. first of all, mr. winkle said it was quite impossible for him to say how many times he had seen mrs. bardell. then he was asked if he had seen her twenty times, to which he replied, 'certainly,--more than that.' and then he was asked whether he hadn't seen her a hundred times--whether he couldn't swear that he had seen her more than fifty times--whether he didn't know that he had seen her at least seventy-five times, and so forth; the satisfactory conclusion which was arrived at, at last, being--that he had better take care of himself, and mind what he was about. the witness having been, by these means, reduced to the requisite ebb of nervous perplexity, the examination was concluded. how excellent is this. who has not heard the process repeated over and over again from the young fledgeling counsel to the old "hardbitten" and experienced k.c.? a young legal tyro might find profit as well as entertainment in carefully studying others of mr. skimpin's adroit methods in cross examination. they are in a manner typical of those in favour with the more experienced members of the profession, allowing, of course, for a little humorous exaggeration. he will note also that boz shows clearly how effective was the result of the processes. here are a few useful recipes. _how to make a witness appear as though he wished to withhold the truth_._ how to highly discredit a witness by an opening question_._ how to insinuate inaccuracy_._ how to suggest that the witness is evading_._ how to deal with a statement of a particular number of instances_._ how to take advantage of a witness' glances_._ how to suggest another imputed meaning to a witness' statement and confuse him into accepting it_. another happy and familiar form is skimpin's interrogation of winkle as to his "friends"-- 'are they here?' 'yes they are,' said mr. winkle, _looking very earnestly towards the spot where his friends were stationed_. as every one attending courts knows, this is an almost intuitive movement in a witness; he thinks it corroborates him somehow. but how good skimpin and how ready-- "'pray attend to me, mr. winkle, and _never mind your friends_,' with another expressive look at the jury; '_they must tell their stories without any previous consultation with you_, if none has yet taken place,' another expressive look. 'now sir, tell what you saw,' etc. '_come_, _out with it_, _sir_, _we must_ have it sooner or later.'" the assumption here that the witness would keep back what he knew is adroit and very convincing. a revelation. but now we come to a very critical passage in mr. pickwick's case: one that really destroyed any chance that he had. it really settled the matter with the jury; and the worst was, the point was brought out through the inefficiency of his own counsel. but let us hear the episode, and see how the foolish phunky muddled it. mr. phunky rose for the purpose of getting something important out of mr. winkle in cross-examination. whether he did get anything important out of him, will immediately appear. [picture: mr. phunky] 'i believe, mr. winkle,' said mr. phunky, 'that mr. pickwick is not a young man?' 'oh no,' replied mr. winkle, 'old enough to be my father.' 'you have told my learned friend that you have known mr. pickwick a long time. had you ever any reason to suppose or believe that he was about to be married?' 'oh no; certainly not;' replied mr. winkle with so much eagerness, that mr. phunky ought to have got him out of the box with all possible dispatch. lawyers hold out that there are two kinds of particularly bad witnesses, a reluctant witness, and a too willing witness; it was mr. winkle's fate to figure in both characters. 'i will even go further than this, mr. winkle,' continued mr. phunky, in a most smooth and complacent manner. 'did you ever see any thing in mr. pickwick's manner and conduct towards the opposite sex to induce you to believe that he ever contemplated matrimony of late years, in any case?' 'oh no; certainly not,' replied mr. winkle. 'has his behaviour, when females have been in the case, always been that of a man, who having attained a pretty advanced period of life, content with his own occupations and amusements, treats them only as a father might his daughters?' 'not the least doubt of it,' replied mr. winkle, in the fulness of his heart. 'that is--yes--oh yes--certainly.' 'you have never known anything in his behaviour towards mrs. bardell, or any other female, in the least degree suspicious?' said mr. phunky, preparing to sit down, for serjeant snubbin was winking at him. 'n--n--no,' replied mr. winkle, 'except on one trifling occasion, which, i have no doubt, might be easily explained.' now, if the unfortunate mr. phunky had sat down when serjeant snubbin winked at him, or if serjeant buzfuz had stopped this irregular cross-examination at the outset (which he knew better than to do, for observing mr. winkle's anxiety, and well knowing it would in all probability, lead to something serviceable to him), this unfortunate admission would not have been elicited. the moment the words fell from mr. winkle's lips, mr. phunky sat down, and serjeant snubbin rather hastily told him he might leave the box, which mr. winkle prepared to do with great readiness, when serjeant buzfuz stopped him. 'stay, mr. winkle--stay,' said serjeant buzfuz, 'will your lordship have the goodness to ask him, what this one instance of suspicious behaviour towards females on the part of this gentlemen, who is old enough to be his father, was?' 'you hear what the learned counsel says, sir,' observed the judge, turning to the miserable and agonized mr. winkle. 'describe the occasion to which you refer.' 'my lord,' said mr. winkle, trembling with anxiety, 'i--i'd rather not.' and winkle had to relate the whole ipswich adventure of the doublebedded room and the spinster lady. it is surprising that dodson and fogg did not ferret out all about mr. pickwick's adventure at the great white horse. peter magnus lived in town and must have heard of the coming case; these things _do_ somehow leak out, and he would have gladly volunteered the story, were it only to spite the man. but further, dodson and fogg must have made all sorts of enquiries into mr. pickwick's doings. mrs. bardell herself might have heard something. the story was certainly in the ipswich papers, for there was the riot in the street, the appearance before the mayor, the exposure of "captain fitzmarshall"--a notable business altogether. what a revelation in open court! conceive miss witherfield called to depose to mr. pickwick's midnight invasion. mr. pickwick himself might have been called and put on the rack, this incident not concerning his breach of promise. and supposing that the ubiquitous jingle had heard of this business and had gone to the solicitor's office to volunteer evidence, and most useful evidence it would have been--to wit that mr. pickwick had been caught in the garden of a young ladies' school and had alarmed the house by his attempts to gain admission in the small hours! jingle of course, could not be permitted to testify to this, but he could put the firm on the track. mr. pickwick's reputation could hardly have survived these two revelations, and sweeping damages to the full amount would have been the certain result. this extraordinary adventure of mr. pickwick's at the great white horse inn, ipswich, verifies dodson's casual remark to him, that "he was either a very designing or a most unfortunate man," circumstances being so strong against him. as the story was brought out, in open court, owing to the joint indiscretion of phunky and winkle, it will be best, in justice to mr. pickwick, to give practically his account of the affair. 'nobody sleeps in the other bed, of course,' said mr. pickwick. 'oh no, sir.' 'very good. tell my servant to bring me up some hot water at half-past eight in the morning, and that i shall not want him any more to-night.' 'yes, sir.' and bidding mr. pickwick good-night, the chambermaid retired, and left him alone. mr. pickwick sat himself down in a chair before the fire, and fell into a train of rambling meditations. first he thought of his friends, and wondered when they would join him; _then his mind reverted to mrs. martha bardell_; and from that lady it wandered, by a natural process, to the dingy counting-house of dodson and fogg. from dodson and fogg's it flew off at tangent, to the very centre of the history of the queer client; and then it came back to the great white horse at ipswich, with sufficient clearness to convince mr. pickwick that he was falling asleep: so he aroused himself, and began to undress, when he recollected he had left his watch on the table down stairs. so as it was pretty late now, and he was unwilling to ring his bell at that hour of the night, he slipped on his coat, of which he had just divested himself, and taking the japanned candlestick in his hand, walked quietly down stairs. the more stairs mr. pickwick went down, the more stairs there seemed to be to descend, and again and again, when mr. pickwick got into some narrow passage, and began to congratulate himself on having gained the ground-floor, did another flight of stairs appear before his astonished eyes. at last he reached a stone hall, which he remembered to have seen when he entered the house. passage after passage did he explore; room after room did he peep into; at length, just as he was on the point of giving up the search in despair, he opened the door of the identical room in which he had spent the evening, and beheld his missing property on the table. mr. pickwick seized the watch in triumph, and proceeded to retrace his steps to his bed-chamber. if his progress downwards had been attended with difficulties and uncertainty, his journey back, was infinitely more perplexing. rows of doors, garnished with boots of every shape, make, and size, branched off in every possible direction. a dozen times did he softly turn the handle of some bedroom door, which resembled his own, when a gruff cry from within of "who the devil's that?" or "what do want here?" caused him to steal away on tiptoe, with a perfectly marvellous celerity. he was reduced to the verge of despair, when an open door attracted his attention. he peeped in--right at last. there were the two beds, whose situation he perfectly remembered, and the fire still burning. his candle, not a long one when he first received it, had flickered away in the drafts of air through which he had passed, and sunk into the socket, just as he had closed the door after him. 'no matter,' said mr. pickwick, 'i can undress myself just as well by the light of the fire.' the bedsteads stood, one each side of the door; and on the inner side of each, was a little path, terminating in a rush-bottomed chair, just wide enough to admit of a person's getting into, or out of bed, on that side if he or she thought proper. having carefully drawn the curtains of his bed on the outside, mr. pickwick sat down on the rush-bottomed chair, and leisurely divested himself of his shoes and gaiters. he then took off and folded up, his coat, waistcoat, and neck-cloth, and slowly drawing on his tasseled night-cap, secured it firmly on his head, by tying beneath his chin, the strings which he always had attached to that article of dress. it was at this moment that the absurdity of his recent bewilderment struck upon his mind; and throwing himself back in the rush-bottomed chair, mr. pickwick laughed to himself so heartily, that it would have been quite delightful to any man of well-constituted mind to have watched the smiles which expanded his amiable features, as they shone forth, from beneath the night-cap. 'it is the best idea,' said mr. pickwick to himself, smiling till he almost cracked the night-cap strings--'it is the best idea, my losing myself in this place, and wandering about those staircases, that i ever heard of. droll, droll, very droll.' here mr. pickwick smiled again, a broader smile than before, and was about to continue the process of undressing, in the best possible humour, when he was suddenly stopped by a most unexpected interruption; to wit, the entrance into the room of some person with a candle, who, after locking the door, advanced to the dressing table, and set down the light upon it. the smile that played upon mr. pickwick's features, was instantaneously lost in a look of the most unbounded and wonder-stricken surprise. the person, whoever it was, had come so suddenly and with so little noise, that mr. pickwick had had no time to call out, or oppose their entrance. who could it be? a robber? some evil-minded person who had seen him come upstairs with a handsome watch in his hand, perhaps. what was he to do! the only way in which mr. pickwick could catch a glimpse of his mysterious visitor with the least danger of being seen himself, was by creeping on to the bed, and peeping out from between the curtains on the opposite side. keeping the curtains carefully closed with his hand, so that nothing more of him could be seen than his face and nightcap, and putting on his spectacles, he mustered up courage, and looked out. mr. pickwick almost fainted with horror and dismay. standing before the dressing glass, was a middle-aged lady in yellow curl-papers, busily engaged in brushing what ladies call their "back hair." however the unconscious middle-aged lady came into that room, it was quite clear that she contemplated remaining there for the night; for she had brought a rushlight and shade with her, which with praiseworthy precaution against fire, she had stationed in a basin on the floor, where it was glimmering away, like a gigantic lighthouse, in a particularly small piece of water. 'bless my soul,' thought mr. pickwick, 'what a dreadful thing!' 'hem!' said the lady; and in went mr. pickwick's head with automaton-like rapidity. 'i never met with anything so awful as this,'--thought poor mr. pickwick, the cold perspiration starting in drops upon his nightcap. 'never. this is fearful.' it was quite impossible to resist the urgent desire to see what was going forward. so out went mr. pickwick's head again. the prospect was worse than before. the middle-aged lady had finished arranging her hair; had carefully enveloped it, in a muslin nightcap with a small plaited border, and was gazing pensively on the fire. 'this matter is growing alarming'--reasoned mr. pickwick with himself. 'i can't allow things to go on in this way. by the self-possession of that lady, it's clear to me that i must have come into the wrong room. if i call out, she'll alarm the house, but if i remain here, the consequences will be still more frightful.' [picture: the double bedded room, great white horse, ipswich] mr. pickwick, it is quite unnecessary to say, was one of the most modest and delicate-minded of mortals. the very idea of exhibiting his nightcap to a lady, overpowered him, but he had tied those confounded strings in a knot, and do what he would, he couldn't get it off. the disclosure must be made. there was only one other way of doing it. he shrunk behind the curtains, and called out very loudly-- 'ha--hum.' that the lady started at this unexpected sound was evident, by her falling up against the rushlight shade; that she persuaded herself it must have been the effect of imagination was equally clear, for when mr. pickwick, under the impression that she had fainted away, stone-dead from fright, ventured to peep out again, she was gazing pensively on the fire as before. 'most extraordinary female this,' thought mr. pickwick, popping in again. 'ha--hum.' these last sounds, so like those in which, as legends inform us, the ferocious giant blunderbore was in the habit of expressing his opinion that it was time to lay the cloth, were too distinctly audible, to be again mistaken for the workings of fancy. 'gracious heaven!' said the middle-aged lady, 'what's that!' 'it's--it's--only a gentleman, ma'am,' said mr. pickwick from behind the curtains. 'a gentleman!' said the lady with a terrific scream. 'it's all over,' thought mr. pickwick. 'a strange man,' shrieked the lady. another instant and the house would be alarmed. her garments rustled as she rushed towards the door. 'ma'am,'--said mr. pickwick, thrusting out his head, in the extremity of desperation, 'ma'am.' now although mr. pickwick was not actuated by any definite object in putting out his head, it was instantaneously productive of a good effect. the lady, as we have alreaded stated, was near the door. she must pass it, to reach the staircase, and she would most undoubtedly have done so by this time, had not the sudden apparition of mr. pickwick's nightcap driven her back, into the remotest corner of the apartment, where she stood, staring wildly at mr. pickwick, while mr. pickwick, in his turn, stared wildly at her. 'wretch,'--said the lady, covering her eyes with her hands, 'what do you want here.' 'nothing, ma'am--nothing whatever, ma'am,' said mr. pickwick, earnestly. 'nothing!' said the lady, looking up. 'nothing, ma'am, upon my honour,' said mr. pickwick, nodding his head so energetically, that the tassel of his nightcap danced again. 'i am almost ready to sink, ma'am, beneath the confusion of addressing a lady in my nightcap (here the lady hastily snatched off her's), but i can't get it off, ma'am (here mr. pickwick gave it a tremendous tug in proof of the statment). it is evident to me, ma'am, now, that i have mistaken this bedroom for my own. i had not been here five minutes, ma'am, when you suddenly entered it.' 'if this improbable story be really true, sir,'--said the lady, sobbing violently, 'you will leave it instantly.' 'i will, ma'am, with the greatest pleasure,' replied mr. pickwick. 'instantly, sir,' said the lady. 'certainly, ma'am,' interposed mr. pickwick very quickly. 'certainly, ma'am. i--i--am very sorry, ma'am,' said mr. pickwick, making his appearance at the bottom of the bed, 'to have been the innocent occasion of this alarm and emotion; deeply sorry ma'am.' the lady pointed to the door. one excellent quality of mr. pickwick's character was beautifully displayed at this moment, under the most trying circumstances. although he had hastily put on his hat over his night cap, after the manner of the old patrol; although he carried his shoes and gaiters in his hand, and his coat and waistcoat over his arm, nothing could subdue his native politeness. 'i am exceedingly sorry, ma'am,' said mr. pickwick, bowing very low. 'if you are, sir, you will at once leave the room,' said the lady. 'immediately, ma'am; this instant, ma'am,' said mr. pickwick, opening the door, and dropping both his shoes with a loud crash in so doing. 'i trust ma'am,' resumed mr. pickwick, gathering up his shoes, and turning round to bow again, 'i trust, ma'am, that my unblemished character, and the devoted respect i entertain for your sex, will plead as some slight excuse for this'--but before mr. pickwick could conclude the sentence, the lady had thrust him into the passage, and locked and bolted the door behind him. whatever grounds of self-congratulation mr. pickwick might have, for having escaped so quietly from his late awkward situation, his present position was by no means enviable. he was alone, in an open passage, in a strange house, in the middle of the night, half dressed; it was not to be supposed that he could find his way in perfect darkness to a room which he had been wholly unable to discover with a light, and if he made the slightest noise in his fruitless attempts to do so, he stood every chance of being shot at, and perhaps killed, by some wakeful traveller. he had no resource but to remain where he was, until daylight appeared. so after groping his way a few paces down the passage, and to his infinite alarm, stumbling over several pairs of boots in so doing, mr. pickwick crouched into a little recess in the wall, to wait for morning, as philosophically as he might. he was not destined, however, to undergo this additional trial of patience: for he had not been long ensconced in his present concealment when, to his unspeakable horror, a man, bearing a light, appeared at the end of the passage. his horror was suddenly converted into joy, however, when he recognized the form of his faithful attendant. it was indeed mr. samuel weller, who after sitting up thus late, in conversation with the boots, who was sitting up for the mail, was now about to retire to rest. imagine this story told by miss witherfield in open court, with all its details, the lady's narrative being coloured by the recollection that she had lost a suitable husband owing to her adventure. mr. peter magnus would have deposed to mr. pickwick's extraordinary interest in the matter of the proposal, and have added his suspicions on recalling mr. pickwick's ambiguous declaration that he had come down to expose a certain person--even one of his own sympathetic friends, who had witnessed the scene with mrs. bardell, and recalled the boarding house incident, might murmur, "how odd that he is ever thus in pursuit of the fair under suspicious circumstances? _could_ it be that after all?--what if he had some previous knowledge of the lady, and secretly admired her, and stung to fury at the notion of mr. peter magnus marrying, had taken this strange mode of declaring his passion?" even the sagacious sam, devoted as he was to his master, was taken aback on meeting him in his midnight wanderings. 'sam,' said mr. pickwick, suddenly appearing before him, 'where's my bedroom?' mr. weller stared at his master with the most emphatic surprise; and it was not until the question had been repeated three several times, that he turned round, and led the way to the long-sought apartment. 'sam,' said mr. pickwick, as he got into bed, 'i have made one of the most extraordinary mistakes to-night, that ever were heard of.' 'werry likely, sir,' replied mr. weller, drily. 'but of this i am determined, sam,' said mr. pickwick, 'that if i were to stop in this house for six months, i would never trust myself about it alone, again.' 'that's the wery prudentest resolution as you could come to, sir,' replied mr. weller. 'you rayther want somebody to look arter you, sir, ven your judgment goes out a wisitin'.' 'what do you mean by that, sam?' said mr. pickwick. he raised himself in bed, and extended his hand, as if he were about to say something more; but suddenly checking himself, turned round, and bade his valet 'good night.' 'good night, sir,' replied mr. weller. he paused when he got outside the door--shook his head--walked on--stopped--snuffed the candle--shook his head again--and finally proceeded slowly to his chamber, apparently buried in the profoundest meditation. it will be seen that sam went near to being disrespectful in his sceptical view of his master's story. when mrs. sanders was examined, "the court" put a few questions to her, as to the customs of love-making among persons of her position. she had "received love letters, like other ladies. in the course of their correspondence mr. sanders had often called her a 'duck' but never 'chops' or 'tomato sauce.' he was particularly fond of ducks. perhaps if he had been as fond of chops and tomato sauce, he might have called her that, as a term of affection." mrs. sanders was clearly one of the same class as mrs. cluppins, and chiefly deposed to the general impression in the neighbourhood that mr. pickwick had "offered" for mrs. bardell. tupman, snodgrass and sam were also examined. being friends of the defendant, they were from the outset assumed to be "hostile" and treated accordingly. it may be doubted, however, whether it is permissible to treat "your own witnesses" in this rough fashion, until at least they have shown some overt signs of their hostility, either by reserve, or an obvious determination to let as little as possible be extracted from them. in such case, it is usual to apply to the court for its sanction to deal with them by the severity of cross examination. when sam entered the witness box, the serjeant addressed him: "i believe you are in the service of mr. pickwick, the defendant in this case. _speak up_, _if you please_, _mr. weller_." sam had not had time to say anything, so the admonition might seem superfluous. but this is a well-known device. sam had been "briefed" to the serjeant as a rather dangerous witness--somewhat too wide awake. it was necessary therefore to be short and summary with him. he thus conveyed to the jury that this sam was one whom he could address in this curt way, and who by his low, uncertain accents might try to hide the truth. sam, however, disconcerted the plan by his prompt, ready answer, "i _mean_ to speak up, sir." sam, as we know, clearly brought out the dodson and fogg's damaging assurance to mrs. bardell, that no costs should be charged to her personally. when the plaintiff's case was closed, things did not look particularly bright for mr. pickwick. it had been shown on the evidence of his own friends that he had been surprised with his landlady in his arms; ( ) that he had been corresponding with her on most familiar terms--at least serjeant buzfuz had made it appear so; ( ) language that _almost_ amounted to a proposal had been overheard; ( ) and finally, it had been revealed that the defendant had been "caught" in a lady's bedroom, at an inn, at midnight! to answer which a "strong" case was absolutely essential. this, we grieve to say, was not forthcoming. the defendant's case. when we listen to the defence set up for mr. pickwick we have to lament that that worthy gentleman was not better served by his legal advisers. on the other side the shrewd dodson and fogg had done admirably for their client. they were sharp clever attornies, having a thundering, overpowering leader, and a smart, exceedingly smart junior, one of those "wide-awake" brisk fellows who really conduct the case, and will "take silk" in a few years. this gentleman could cross-examine in capital style and address the jury in a language of his own, by glances, shrugs, and remarks addressed to a witness, but intended for the jury, as they knew perfectly well. his style, bearing, and speeches form an admirable epitome of the arts and devices of a smart counsel. there are "common" forms and skimpin had them at his fingers' ends. as we listen, we feel how admirably directed they were to work on the jury. perker's plan of campaign as announced to mr. pickwick, was a poor one enough, and showed how desperate he thought the case was. "we have only one (course) to adopt, my dear sir," he said, "cross-examine the witnesses: trust to snubbin's eloquence, throw dust in the eyes of the judge, and ourselves on the jury." brave words, but nothing of the programme was carried out. the cross-examination of the witnesses was but tamely attempted. snubbin's eloquence was not displayed beyond mildly praising his client's good character. as for "throwing dust in the eyes of judge," we have seen mr. justice stareleigh was much too wide awake for that; while the throwing themselves on the jury was disastrous. there were several other lines of defence which a more up-to-date solicitor would not have overlooked. a less scrupulous man would have made searching enquiries into mrs. bardell's history and character; but his client, perhaps, would not have sanctioned this course. perker is even absurd enough to talk of a _casa_, as though it were some italian word. a _ca sa_ was short for a writ of _capias ad satisfaciendum_, which gave a warrant to the officers to seize the goods. there were various kinds of this machinery, but what affected mr. pickwick was a _capias ad satisfaciendum_, to enforce attendance at the court. the _ca sa_ also came after judgment, giving authority to imprison the defendant till the claim was satisfied. the appearance of such great guns as the two serjeants is accounted for by a curious rule that serjeants only were permitted to lead in cases read in the court of common pleas. { } this strange monopoly recalls that other one, in the court of arches, where the advocates and judges used to exchange places and decide on cases in which perhaps they had been advocates. these illiberal and unaccountable restrictions have been swept away, with the courts themselves. very unusual indeed at this time was the appearance of a lawyer of serjeant snubbin's class in court, and there is a well-known story how, when charles butler made his appearance on a special occasion, all the bar crowded in to hear him, and he had, i think, to get a gown for the occasion. one is sorry to think that there are no serjeants now, though at the irish bar there is one solitary survivor--serjeant hemphill. gone too, are their "coifs" and other paraphernalia. with the abolition of the separate courts they were found superfluous. we like to hear of serjeant parry, serjeant ballantine, serjeants warren and talford, all four literary men. { } having made this initial blunder, perker did not even instruct a good, smart and ready junior, but chose instead the incapable phunky who really brought out that fatal piece of evidence from winkle, which "did for" his case altogether. he had no business, as boz tells us. this junior, we are told, had been just called, that is to say, he had been only eight years at the bar. snubbin had never heard of him. the little judge, in court, also said "that he never had the pleasure of hearing the gentleman's name before," a sneer he would not have ventured on to a counsel in good practice. snubbin's remark is amusing and sarcastic; but now-a-days any barrister who had been at the bar eight years would not be considered as just called, for if he has been passed over for that time, he is likely never to make a figure. the rude and unbecoming sneers, both of snubbin and the little judge, seem amazing in our present code of legal manners. everything at that time, however, was much more "in the rough" and coarser. this was his first case; and the poor creature is thus described: although an infant barrister, he was a full-grown man. he had a very nervous manner, and a painful hesitation in his speech; it did not appear to be a natural defect, but seemed rather the result of timidity, arising from the consciousness of being "kept down" by want of means, or interest, or connection, or impudence, as the case might be. he was overawed by the serjeant, and profoundly courteous to the attorney. 'i have not had the pleasure of seeing you before, mr. phunky,' said serjeant snubbin, with haughty condescension. mr. phunky bowed. he _had_ had the pleasure of seeing the serjeant, and of envying him too, with all a poor man's envy, for eight years and a quarter. 'you are with me in this case, i understand?' said the serjeant. if mr. phunky had been a rich man, he would have instantly sent for his clerk to remind him; if he had been a wise one, he would have applied his fore-finger to his forehead, and endeavoured to recollect, whether, in the multiplicity of his engagements he had undertaken this one, or not; but as he was neither rich nor wise (in this sense at all events) he turned red, and bowed. 'have you read the papers, mr. phunky?' inquired the serjeant. here again, mr. phunky should have professed to have forgotten all about the merits of the case; but as he had read such papers as had been laid before him in the course of the action, and had thought of nothing else, waking or sleeping, throughout the two months during which he had been retained as mr. serjeant snubbin's junior, he turned a deeper red, and bowed again. 'this is mr. pickwick,' said the serjeant, waving his pen in the direction in which that gentleman was standing. mr. phunky bowed to mr. pickwick with a reverence which a first client must ever awaken; and again inclined his head towards his leader. 'perhaps you will take mr. pickwick away,' said the serjeant, 'and--and--and--hear anything mr. pickwick may wish to communicate. we shall have a consultation, of course.' with this hint that he had been interrupted quite long enough, mr. serjeant snubbin, who had been gradually growing more and more abstracted, applied his glass to his eyes for an instant, bowed slightly round, and was once more deeply immersed in the case before him: which arose out of an interminable law suit, originating in the act of an individual, deceased a century or so ago, who had stopped up a pathway leading from some place which nobody ever came from, to some other place which nobody ever went to. with such a pair the case was literally given away. perker should have secured a man like the present mr. gill or mr. charles matthews--they might have "broken down" the witnesses, or laughed the case out of court. we may speculate--why did perker make this foolish selection? as to snubbin there was some excuse, as it was the custom that serjeants only should lead in the court of common pleas. but for the choice of phunky, perker's stupidity alone was responsible. under these conditions serjeant snubbin's conduct of the case and his "handling" of the witnesses was truly inefficient. he lost every opportunity for helping his client. he "led" in a quiet, gentlemanly and almost indifferent way. his first opportunity came in examining mrs. cluppins. as we have seen, she had deposed to hearing, when the door was "on the jar," mr. pickwick make those speeches which mrs. bardell had taken to be a proposal. now here was the moment to show the ambiguity and that mr. pickwick was speaking of his servant. it might have been brought out that sam was actually engaged that day, and that she had met him on the stairs, etc. but snubbin declined to ask her a single question, saying that mr. pickwick admitted the accuracy of her statement. but this was beside the matter, and the serjeant need not have impeached her accuracy. when phunky came to winkle, the inexperience of the tyro was shown at once. again, here was the moment to have extracted from the witness a full explanation of mr. pickwick's ambiguous speeches to mrs. bardell. he could have "brought out" as "clear as the light of day" that mr. pickwick was speaking of his engagement of a valet and have shown that the valet was to be engaged that very morning. it would have been impossible to resist such an explanation. but the thing was not thought of. from him also could have been drawn a vast deal favourable to mr. pickwick such as his disgust and annoyance at mrs. bardell's behaviour, his wish to be rid of her, his complaints of her conduct. but no, there was only the foolish question as to mr. pickwick's being an elderly man and of fatherly ways, a topic that would by no means negative the presumption of matrimony. but nothing could excuse the rashness of putting a general question as to "mr. pickwick's behaviour towards females." no adroit counsel would run the risk of encountering a too conscientious witness, such as winkle proved to be and who would "let the cat out of the bag." as we have seen, this awkward question settled mr. pickwick's business. snubbin had held him out as an elderly but benevolent being, treating every female he met as a daughter, never dreaming of matrimony: when lo! the whole fabric is overthrown in an instant by the luckless winkle's admission! amid the profound silence of the whole court mr. winkle faltered out that the trifling circumstance of suspicion was mr. pickwick's being found in a lady's sleeping apartment at midnight, which had terminated, _he believed_, in breaking off the projected marriage of the lady, and had led, _he knew_, to the whole party being forcibly carried before a magistrate. thus was the defendant suddenly revealed as a pecksniffian lothario, and his pretence of philanthrophy after was shewn in its true colours. it was impossible not to associate this with the scene with mrs. bardell. but there was an important legal "point" which one might have expected would have occurred to so eminent a chamber counsel as serjeant snubbin. to prove a breach of the promise, it must always be shown that the defendant had been given an opportunity of officially refusing to fulfil it. it should have been put to him "in black and white," "will you marry me?" and he must have answered "no, i will not," or something to that effect. in default of this the defendant might plead "true i gave the promise and it stands unbroken, for you never required me to act upon it." now in mr. pickwick's case this actually occurred. as we have seen he left town the morning after the imputed proposal and while he was away, within a month, the notice of action was sent to him. up to that time he had not heard a word of dodson and fogg, or of legal proceedings. but it may be urged that mrs. bardell herself may have written, formulating her demands. that this was not the case is evident from mr. pickwick's behaviour; he did not dream of such a thing, or he would have been disturbed by it, or have consulted his friends about it. had it been so, his high opinion of mrs. bardell would have been shattered. for did he not say on seeing dodson and fogg's letter, "she couldn't do it, she hasn't the heart to do it." the only thing that makes against this theory is his reply to peter magnus who asked him "had he ever proposed?" when he answered vehemently "never," possibly recalling mrs. bardell. she may however have written to him a pleading letter reminding him of what he had said to her, declaring her deep-seated affection for him and inviting him to carry out what he had offered. mr. pickwick would have replied in one of his amiable letters, couched in rather general terms, perhaps calling her "my dear creature," but putting aside the whole business: and there the matter probably dropped for a time. i have little doubt the good woman up to the last really believed that her elderly lodger intended to make her an offer of his hand, and that on his return from his travels he would resume the business. much elated by this prospect, and most naturally too, she had told all her friends and neighbours of her approaching advancement. this mrs. sanders specially deposed to: "had always said and believed that pickwick would marry mrs. bardell; knew that mrs. bardell being engaged to pickwick was the current topic of conversation in the neighbourhood, after the fainting in july; had been told it herself by mrs. mudberry which kept a mangle, and mrs. bunkin which clear-starched, but did not see either mrs. mudberry or mrs. bunkin in court." notwithstanding these speculations, it still does not appear that pickwick made such a legal and official refusal to execute his promise as would be sufficient to support the statement of what is now called "the summons and plaint," to wit, that the plaintiff being able and willing "to marry the defendant the defendant refused, etc." there is another matter on which hands of skilful counsel might have affected mrs. bardell and which my friend mr. burnand ("f. c. b.") was the first to push home. at the trial, mrs. saunders cross-examined by serjeant snubbin, had to admit that her friend had an admirer--a certain baker in the neighbourhood--who was supposed to have matrimonial designs. pressed on this matter she thus deposed: "had heard pickwick ask the little boy how he should like to have another father. did not know that mrs. bardell was at that time keeping company with the baker, but did know that the baker was then a single man, and is now married. couldn't swear that mrs. bardell was not very fond of the baker, but should think that the baker was not very fond of mrs. bardell, or he wouldn't have married somebody else. thought mrs. bardell fainted away on the morning in july, because pickwick asked her to name the day; knew that she (witness) fainted away stone dead when mr. saunders asked _her_ to name the day, and believed that everybody as called herself a lady would do the same, under similar circumstances. heard pickwick ask the boy the question about the marbles, but upon her oath did not know the difference between an alley tor and a commoney. by the court.--during the period of her keeping company with mr. sanders, had received love letters, like other ladies. in course of their correspondence mr. sanders had often called her a 'duck,' but never 'chops,' nor yet 'tomata sauce.' he was particularly fond of ducks. perhaps if he had been as fond of chops and tomata sauce, he might have called her that, as a term of affection. what a point, too, serjeant snubbin missed here! could he not have quoted the old verses. how he would have convulsed the court as he poured out the apropos "for tommy and me!" pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man, bake me a cake as quick as you can; knead it and bake it as fast as can be, and put in the oven for tommy and me. now we do not find that the serjeant made any use of this topic in his speech. he might have surely urged that this "wily and experienced widow" was eager for a husband, that having been "thrown over" by her baker and stung by the mortification, she resolved, as it were, to rehabilitate herself and prepare this "plant" for her unsuspecting lodger. as sir henry irving says in the play, "i don't like widows; _they know too much_." f. c. b., as i have said, has treated this baker theme and developed it regularly in his amusing operetta "pickwick." the little epitome given of snubbin's speech shows how weak were his topics, and that he, in fact, considered that there was no defence. serjeant snubbin then addressed the jury on behalf of the defendant; and a very long and a very emphatic address he delivered, in which he bestowed the highest possible eulogiums on the conduct and character of mr. pickwick. he attempted to show that the letters which had been exhibited, merely related to mr. pickwick's dinner, or to the preparations for receiving him in his apartments on his return from some country excursion. it is sufficient to add in general terms, that he did the best he could for mr. pickwick; and the best, as everybody knows on the infallible authority of the old adage, could do no more. this was no more than speaking "in mitigation of damages." mr. phunky made no speech, which was just as well, as he might have but damaged the case, as no witnesses had been called on his side. for the same reason, the court had not the pleasure of hearing skimpin, who would no doubt have "torn the defendant's case to tatters." charge and verdict. the regular formula is this. the judge begins to read his notes, and makes "running comments" as he goes along. "we have first, gentlemen, the statement of mrs. cluppins, she tells you, &c. of course she comes as the friend of the plaintiff, and naturally takes a favourable view of her case. if you are satisfied with her statement, it is for you, gentlemen, to consider what value you will attach to it. then we come to the question of damages. this is entirely a matter for you. you must take into account the position in life of the defendant, and what the plaintiff has lost by his default. on the other hand they must be reasonable in amount. if you believe the promise has been clearly established, you should give substantial though not excessive damages, on a scale sufficient to repay the plaintiff for the wrong. on the other hand--should it seem to you doubtful whether the promise had been made--you will give the defendant the benefit of the doubt. these are questions entirely for you--not for me. on the whole case, you will ask yourselves, whether a promise such as would satisfy reasonable men, has been supported by sufficient evidence. if so, plaintiff is entitled to damages--on the other hand, if this is not proved to your satisfaction, you will find for the defendant." mr. justice stareleigh, however, as we are told, then "summed up in his old established and most approved form. he read as much of his notes as he could decypher on so short a notice, and made running comments on the evidence as he went along. if mrs. bardell were right, it was perfectly clear that mr. pickwick was wrong, and if they thought the evidence of mrs. cluppins worthy of credence, they would believe it, and if they didn't, why they would'nt. if they were satisfied that a breach of promise had been committed, they would find for the plaintiff, with such damages as they thought proper; and if, on the other hand, it appeared to them that no promise of marriage had ever been given, they would find for the defendant, with no damages at all." such was this lucid direction--which is really, not in the least, an exaggeration. but i could fancy some acute judge of our time--such as mr. justice day or mr. justice bigham--after trying this case, turning round in his seat to "charge" the jury. "here, gentlemen," he would tell them, "we have it claimed on one side that a promise of marriage was made--and broken; on the other hand the defendant denies having ever given such a promise. the question you will have to deal with is: what was this promise, and when was it given? in other words, _when_ did the defendant propose to the lady. on the part of the plaintiff, this was said to have been done at the interview in goswell street, and two friends of the plaintiff--mrs. cluppins, i think"--turning over his notes--"yes, cluppins, and sanders both declare positively that they overheard the language of the proposal. further, mr. pickwick's friends are called, to prove that the lady was in his arms, fainting. it is extraordinary that not one of these three gentlemen should have deposed to any statements or have offered explanations of the situation. one witness indeed says that he heard the defendant remonstrate with the plaintiff, on her hysterical behaviour, and ask her to consider that if any one should come in, what would be said. now, this is not the language of an ardent suitor, who would rather wish than otherwise, that such endearing familiarities should continue: though i don't think you need seriously accept the reading the learned counsel, mr. skimpin, put on the phrase used; on the other hand, the words 'my dear creature,' were distinctly heard. "there is one little incident," the judge might go on, "which i must not pass by, and which is not without its significance. a witness deposed that the defendant was noted for his kindness to the plaintiff's little boy--that he was constantly giving him presents, and once was heard to say to him, patting him on the head, '_how would you like to have another father_?' now, this addressed to a child of tender years does seem an odd sort of speech. of course, it will be contended that the reference was to the probability of his mother marrying some one other than the defendant: if that be the case, it seems to me rather an indelicate and reckless speech. and then it must be said, it seems inconsistent with the amiable and benevolent character given to the defendant to-day. on the other hand, if he were referring to _himself_ it will appear natural and proper enough. and there is this to be added, that when the child had reported the remark to his mother, which of course he did, she would most reasonably begin to found hopes upon it. and then what follows, gentlemen?--the defendant is found holding this lady in his arms, and becomes so demonstrative in his attentions that this very child comes to her rescue. i am inexperienced in these things--they may be innocent and done with the purest intentions, or may not; but you, gentlemen of the jury, are men of the world: and it is for you to put the proper construction on them." "you will have noted, gentlemen, this curious feature of the case. none of the witnesses were in the room when the imputed proposal was made, yet all, cluppins, weller, and the defendant's three friends, _heard_ what the defendant said. this suggests that he must have been very pressing, if not agitated. one of the witnesses, winkle, i think, yes, winkle, actually deposes to hearing the words, 'my dear creature! compose yourself' and the like. he added he was afraid someone might come in; a very reasonable fear, gentlemen, and well grounded: for several persons _did_ come in and it would seem with awkward results for the defendant. but, gentlemen, i confess that what most of all weighs with me in this case is the remarkable avowal wrung from a reluctant witness, of the defendant's being surprised at midnight in a lady's bed-chamber, and being taken, after a serious riot, before the magistrates. this came on me, as i saw it did on you all, as a surprise. true, it does not bear on the question of a promise or of the breach. but still it seems a matter which you cannot wholly shut out from your consideration. it startled me as it did you, to find a sort of travelling philanthropist, as the defendant pickwick holds himself out to be, on whose mildly benevolent features nature seems to have stamped rectitude and high principle, living a life of hypocrisy, taking part in midnight invasions and daylight riots. it is one of his own friends who tells us this sad story: and it is for you to consider whether the plaintiff was here also in pursuit of yet another disreputable game, holding out marriage as the bait: i seem to speak strongly, but i feel it would be impossible to withdraw this from your consideration. "you may reasonably ask yourselves of what pickwick was afraid--or why did he dread the presence of witnesses? was he simply beguiling the lady, as he attempted to beguile that lady at ipswich, without 'meaning business,' as the phrase runs. i must say the plaintiff had rather reasonable grounds for assuming that the defendant _did_ mean business. but all this is for you, gentlemen, not for me. "then we have the man weller's statement--a sort of humorous stage servant, not unamusing--and of course entirely devoted to his master's interest. i don't think you need attach any importance to what he said of the solicitors for the plaintiff. when i was at the bar, gentlemen, attornies did much worse things than this." the jury consulted for only a few minutes. perhaps, however, they were only discussing the amount of damages. they were certainly moderate--laid at pounds--though had dodson and fogg's advice prevailed, it should have been double. this only, by the way, is further proof of the amiable mrs. bardell's moderation and secret _tendre_ for her genial lodger. considering that mr. pickwick was 'a gentleman,' and further a gentleman of means, and that mrs. bardell was but an humble lodging-house keeper, the sum seems hardly commensurate. dodson and fogg no doubt expected , pounds. an anxious quarter of an hour elapsed; the jury came back; the judge was fetched in. mr. pickwick put on his spectacles, and gazed at the foreman with an agitated countenance and a quickly beating heart. 'gentlemen,' said the individual in black, 'are you all agreed upon your verdict?' 'we are,' replied the foreman. 'do you find for the plaintiff, gentlemen, or for the defendant?' 'for the plaintiff.' 'with what damages, gentlemen?' 'seven hundred and fifty pounds.' mr. pickwick took off his spectacles, carefully wiped the glasses, folded them into their case, and put them in his pocket; then having drawn on his gloves with great nicety, and stared at the foreman all the while, he mechanically followed mr. perker and the blue bag out of court. they stopped in a side room while perker paid the court fees; and here, mr. pickwick was joined by his friends. here, too, he encountered messrs. dodson and fogg, rubbing their hands with every token of outward satisfaction. 'well, gentlemen,' said mr. pickwick. 'well, sir,' said dodson: for self and partner. 'you imagine you'll get your costs, don't you, gentlemen?' said mr. pickwick. fogg said they thought it rather probable. dodson smiled, and said they'd try. 'you may try, and try, and try again, messrs. dodson and fogg,' said mr. pickwick vehemently, 'but not one farthing of costs or damages do you ever get from me, if i spend the rest of my existence in a debtor's prison.' 'ha, ha!' laughed dodson. 'you will think better of that, before next term, mr. pickwick.' 'he, he, he! we'll soon see about that mr. pickwick,' grinned mr. fogg. speechless with indignation, mr. pickwick allowed himself to be led by his solicitor and friends to the door, and there assisted into a hackney-coach, which had been fetched for the purpose, by the ever watchful sam weller. sam had put up the steps; and was preparing to jump upon the box, when he felt himself gently touched on the shoulder; and looking round, his father stood before him. the old gentleman's countenance wore a mournful expression, as he shook his head gravely, and said, in warning accents: 'i know'd what 'ud come 'o this here mode 'o doin' bisness. oh sammy, sammy, vy worn't there a alleybi!' we may wonder that the laborious chamber counsel serjeant snubbin did not advise "moving for a new trial." the verdict was clearly a wrong one--no sufficient evidence had been furnished either of a promise, or a breach. the full court would no doubt have granted the motion, and this would have led to mr. pickwick's release, for the astute dodson and fogg must have recognised their poor chances, and perhaps have required "security for costs," which their client could not have given. however, the idea did not occur to anybody. since the law was changed both plaintiff and defendant may be examined in such cases as these. what a different complexion this would have put on the suit. the whole case would have tumbled to pieces like a pack of cards. for mr. pickwick "put into the box" would have clearly shown that all that had been thus misconstrued, was his proposal for engaging a valet, which was to have been that very morning. he would have related the words of the dialogue, and the jury would have seen at once how the mistake arose. on the other hand, he would have been exposed to a severe rating cross examination by the learned serjeant--fortified by winkle's most damaging slip about the white horse incident--who would have forced out of him all the incidents. we can almost hear the serjeant subject the defendant to the torture. "this fellow of yours, sir, was he recommended to you by a friend?" "no--not at all." "by a registry office?" "certainly not--nothing of the kind." "nothing of the kind? i suppose too low a class of place for you, eh? come sir!" "i never said such a thing." "nor thought it, i suppose? come, sir, no beating about the bush. in plain terms, did you get him from a low public house in the boro'?" mr. pickwick started up. "never!" "do you deny it?" "i never knew that the white hart was a low public-house," said the witness indignantly. "never mind what you know, sir. did you or did you not get him from there?" thundered the serjeant. "of course i did." "of course you did. then what's the use of all this juggling. it does you no good with my lord and the jury. i tell you plainly, mr. pickwick, we mean to have all out of you. now sir, was this man of yours an experienced valet?" "certainly not." "he had, of course, some training in his profession in other families?" "not that i know of." "not that you know of. do you dare to persist in that, sir?" "why not?" "don't ask _me_ questions, sir, i'm asking _you_. do you deny, sir, that the man was neither more nor less than a common boots in the yard of a public house, wearing an old tattered hat and jacket--very different from the suit in which you have rigged him up here to-day?" mr. pickwick was astonished and silent. he was suffering. he had never dreamed of this view. "why," he said, "i suppose--" "we want none of your supposes, sir, answer yes or no." "well he certainly was such as you describe." a flutter ran round the court. "and this creature of yours, you would impose on the jury as a trained man servant. you may go down sir." plea for "dodson and fogg." this famous firm of city attornies has become a bye-word in legal history--being considered the most notorious of practitioners for sharp, underhand, scheming practices. boz was always vehement against the abuses of the law, but his generous ardour sometimes led him to exaggerated and wholesale statements that were scarcely well founded. this is found in some degree even in the sweeping attacks in _bleak house_. but he was so vivid, so persuasive, in his pictures, that there was no appeal. the unreasoning fury of mr. pickwick is specially shown in the case of jingle, whom he pursued with an animosity that was almost frantic. one would think it was some public enemy he was hunting down for the public good. poor jingle had really done nothing so monstrous, after all. he had "chaffed" dr. slammer, "run off" with the spinster aunt--nothing so uncommon in those days--had been consigned to the fleet for non-payment of his debts, and there showed penitence and other signs of a good heart. his one serious offence was passing himself off as a naval officer, and under an assumed name. but he had _crossed_ mr. pickwick--had ridiculed him--had contemptuously sent a message to "tuppy." when he dared to play a practical joke on his persecutor, his infamy passed beyond bounds. here was the key to mr. pickwick's nature--any lack of homage or respect was an offence against morality. so with dodson and fogg. he had settled in his mind that a condescending visit to these gentlemen, with a little explanation and remonstrance would completely disarm them. his fury on his advances being rejected was extraordinary. here boz shows, as he ever does, his profound and most logical treatment of human character. he never goes astray, being guided by a happy and true instinct. mr. pickwick had grown to be the most inflated of men. flattered and followed--submitted to with the greatest deference--ordering people about--doing what he pleased--he could not stand the slightest opposition. no one was to contradict--no one to question even his stockings--speckled or others. even when he was clearly wrong, it was an affront to hint at it. he had much in common with that great man, mr. gladstone, who was the political pickwick of his time. he was overbearing and arrogant and unrestrained, and i am afraid vindictive. dodson and fogg were associated with the great mortification of his life. he could not forgive them--the very sight of them roused his hatred, and the having to pay them ransom stung him to fury. all which is most natural and yet unexpected. the popular and genial sir frank lockwood was almost the first to put forward a plea in abatement of prejudice for the firm. he showed that they were not much below the usual type of middle-class solicitors. what they did was in the ordinary course. with mr. pickwick they were most forbearing, and even indulgent. there was one rather doubtful passage, but even here he offers extenuation. this was their treatment of poor ramsey, which, at first sight, seems very bad indeed. 'there was such a game with fogg here, this mornin',' said the man in the brown coat, 'while jack was upstairs sorting the papers, and you two were gone to the stamp-office. fogg was down here opening the letters, when that chap we issued the writ against at camberwell, you know, came in--what's his name again?' 'ramsey,' said the clerk who had spoken to mr. pickwick. 'ah, ramsey--a precious seedy-looking customer. 'well, sir,' says old fogg, looking at him very fierce--you know his way--'well, sir, have you come to settle?' 'yes, i have, sir,' said ramsey, putting his hand in his pocket, and bringing out the money, 'the debt two-pound ten, and the costs three pound five, and here it is, sir;' and he sighed like bricks, as he lugged out the money, done up in a bit of blotting paper. old fogg looked first at the money, and then at him, and then he coughed in his rum way, so that i knew something was coming. 'you don't know there's a declaration filed, which increases the costs materially, i suppose?' said fogg. 'you don't say that sir,' said ramsey, starting back; 'the time was only out last night, sir.' 'i do say it, though,' said fogg, 'my clerk's just gone to file it. hasn't mr. jackson gone to file that declaration in bullman and ramsey, mr. wicks?' of course i said yes, and then fogg coughed again, and looked at ramsey. 'my god!' said ramsey; 'and here have i nearly driven myself mad, scraping this money together, and all to no purpose.' 'none at all,' said fogg, coolly; 'so you had better go back and scrape some more together, and bring it here in time.' 'i can't get it, by god,' said ramsey, striking the desk with his fist. 'don't bully me, sir,' said fogg, getting into a passion on purpose. 'i am not bullying you, sir,' said ramsey. 'you are,' said fogg; 'get out, sir, get out of this office, sir, and come back, sir, when you know how to behave yourself.' well, ramsey tried to speak, but fogg wouldn't let him, so he put the money in his pocket, and sneaked out. the door was scarcely shut, when old fogg turned round to me, with a sweet smile on his face, and drew the declaration out of his coat pocket. 'here, wicks,' says fogg, 'take a cab, and go down to the temple as quick as you can, and file that. the costs are quite safe, for he's a steady man with a large family, at a salary of five-and-twenty shillings a week, and if he gives us a warrant of attorney, as he must in the end, i know his employers will see it paid; so we may as well get all we can out of him, mr. wicks; it's a christian act to do it, mr. wicks, for with his large family and small income, he'll be all the better for a good lesson against getting into debt,--won't he, mr. wicks, won't he?'--and he smiled so goodnaturedly as he went away, that it was delightful to see him. 'he is a capital man of business,' said wicks, in a tone of the deepest admiration, 'capital, isn't he?' the other three cordially subscribed to this opinion, and the anecdote afforded the most unlimited satisfaction. 'nice men these here, sir,' whispered mr. weller to his master; 'wery nice notion of fun they has, sir.' sir f. lockwood, by the way, offers one of the most amusing proofs conceivable, of the convincing power of "pickwick," which is constantly taking us out of the world of fiction, into that of the daily living life. he speaks of the cruel trick played upon the unfortunate ramsey, who came to pay his bill of costs, and was told that these were out of date, had been swelled by subsequent proceedings. an affidavit had been sworn--which, after he left the house, wicks, the clerk, was sent off to swear--then, sir frank, adds: "after all, this is merely given _as the statement of wicks_--_on whose testimony not much reliance can be placed_." as though wicks were some living witness, "erect upon two legs," whom he had been examining in court! it must, however, be recollected that this was an _exparte_ story. wicks, as sir f. lockwood hints, may have coloured it up, to amuse his brethren. the truth is these poor helpless debtors, who fall into the hands of legal "sharks" and money-lenders, have _their_ tricks also. they will often "do" those they employ if they can. and further, let this be considered. before ramsey paid his visit the affidavit _had_ been prepared, and was actually in fogg's pocket. such affidavit would not be allowed for in the costs unless necessary to the case, so that fogg's statement that it had been filed was very near the truth. perker himself was playing the same game of hide and seek with another unfortunate--one watty--who was trying to see him, and learn something about his case, but was always put off with the excuse or falsehood, that perker was out, though he was within. but then, "perker was an honourable man." boz lets us know, through sam, how the case reached dodson and fogg. he speaks of "the kind generous people o' the perfession 'as sets their clerks to work to find out little disputes among their neighbours and acquaintances as wants settlin' by means of law suits." this system, however, cannot be checked, and "the speculative attorney" even in our time still flourishes. it was really not a question whether mr. pickwick would "indict them for a conspiracy," because they acted as solicitors against him, but whether they would bring an action against _him_ on their own account. all through, mr. pickwick's behaviour to them had been outrageous. he chose to assume, quite gratuitously that it was they--not mrs. bardell--who got up the case; that they had worked on her for their own nefarious ends. nothing could be more absurd. the landlady was eager enough to protect her own interests--her female friends worked on her, and the loss of so valuable a lodger, which the incident must have entailed, inflamed her more. we can see from sam's interview with her that she was at last, though at first reluctant, determined to have her rights. but mr. pickwick acting on this assumption addressed the firm, from the first to the last in the most scurrilous language. he called them "robbers, swindlers,--a brace of pettifogging scoundrels!" shocking and ungentlemanly terms, and what is worse, actionable. yet the pair received this abuse with infinite good temper and restraint, merely securing a witness who should listen, and threatening the speaker with legal penalties. and why did they not take this course? well, they had to suspend proceedings until mrs. bardell's action was settled, when on receiving their costs they were desirous to part in good humour. but mr. pickwick was so furious at being invited to shake hands with them, that he again broke out with coarse abuse, "robbers!" "robbers!" calling it after them down the stairs. why did they not take action on this? perhaps they were afraid; as mr. pickwick had shewn himself such a doughty and unyielding fighter--going to prison rather than pay. perhaps they thought he might get the better of them again. we have very little evidence as to what was the scale of fees in use in these days. they were of course far lower than they are now, after allowances even for the lower cost of living. to-day, the fees to counsel alone would have absorbed considerably more than dodson and fogg's whole bill of costs. a nice point is, could mr. pickwick's irregular interview with serjeant snubbin be considered something in the way of a consultation? here were counsel, solicitor and client: the serjeant gave up a portion of his valuable time and, further, the junior counsel was summoned specially from his chambers to supply his "advice and opinion." mr. pickwick ought surely to have to pay for his whim. and the bill of costs that these "sharks" of attornies sent in! it was astonishingly moderate. for writ, service of subpoenas, hunting up evidence, consultation, fees to counsel, fees for the day, retainers, etc.,--the sum of pounds was all that was asked. imagine messrs. lewis and lewis sending in such a demand at the end of a trial which it had taken them nearly a year to get ready. in our time it could hardly be done under , pounds. perker, by the way, told his client that on payment of the costs both of plaintiff and defendent, into the hands of "these sharks" he would get his release. with much indulgence--the attornies--allowed him to leave the prison on his bare undertaking to pay. and it is not clear why he should pay his own costs to them, and not to perker. and they were _not_ paid for sometime. mr. pickwick's own costs must have been small. he had no witnesses. perker would not have made a hand of him, and i fancy he would have got off for ninety pounds, or a hundred pounds. there was, however, the fees of the special jury, so he would have to pay, say, pounds. the cognovit. perker, it has been shown, was not a very brilliant solicitor, and his views on the trial were somewhat cloudy. when he was urging his client to leave the fleet he threw out some equally shadowy and ill-informed notions as to what might be done in the way of punishing the nefarious solicitors, dodson and fogg, "those freeman's court sharks." his great charge was that they had got a _cognovit_, or undertaking to pay their costs out of mrs. bardell--their own client! mr. pickwick refused to pay them--why should not she? the poor woman had "blabbed" to sam, a careless and natural assurance of theirs, that they would be content to get them from mr. pickwick--a thing many a firm would do. but perker here sees a regular conspiracy. "i cannot undertake to say whether the wording of the cognovit, the nature of the ostensible consideration and the proof we can get together about the whole conduct of the suit, _will be sufficient to justify an indictment for conspiracy_." it is impossible to understand this bit of legal jargon. "the wording of the cognovit"--one could speculate on _that_ without seeing it. ( ) "the nature of the ostensible consideration" was not far to seek--it being work and labour done for the plaintiff. and again, supposing they had promised her to get them solely from mr. pickwick--sam's revelation of this, in open court, and its reception with laughter, showed what was thought of it. so which of the two courses were they to adopt? ( ) and "the proof we may get together about the whole conduct of the suit." this "whole conduct" was perfectly regular. so the judge thought--so did the jury. the case was proved by pickwick's own friends. as we know, however, the firm took no steps to obtain satisfaction, but there cannot be the slightest doubt that they would have "recovered damages." we doubt if mr. pickwick would have gone to the fleet for the second time rather than pay. perker's suspicions as to the _cognovit_ obtained by dodson and fogg were shrewd, and certain enough, though he could not have seen the document. the suspicions were well warranted by the state of the law, which became an instrument in the hands of grasping attorneys. by it the client was made to sign an acknowledgment, and offering no defence to a supposed action,--say for costs--brought against him, judgment was then marked. this offered a great temptation to the unscrupulous. mrs. bardell, no doubt, signed with light heart, not knowing what she was doing, and being told that it was merely a matter of form. various enactments attempted to protect the client--one being passed some four or five years before the trial bardell v. pickwick, requiring the _cognovit_ to be regularly filed within twenty-one days; more than ten years later it was required, that the client's signing such a thing should have no force in law, unless he was represented by another solicitor. the matter, as we know, was compromised with dodson and fogg, so there was no need to scrutinize the _cognovit_. no doubt perker was enabled to put pressure on the firm by hinting at such proceedings. the damages, pounds, were certainly moderate, and would not have been reduced by the court on an application to set them aside as "excessive." the good woman was quite at her ease, being no doubt certain that mr. pickwick, at last, must give in. she could even enjoy the society of her friends and make the celebrated junketting to the "spaniards." the firm took another view and grew tired of waiting; or they were sagacious enough to see that the arrest of their client was about the best method of putting pressure on mr. pickwick. in this connection, it may be noted that jackson's over zeal in the transaction might have led to an action against his employers; for he arrested not only mrs. bardell, but her friends, mrs. sanders and mrs. cluppins. the prison gates were actually shut on them. "safe and sound," said the bailiff. "here we are at last," said jackson, "all right and tight." true, mrs. bardell put under her hand in her appealing letter to mr. pickwick, that "this business was from the very first fomented and encouraged and brought about by these men," but this is not much; for the view only occurs to her when her operations had completely failed and recoiled on her own head with such disastrous result. the firm's business was to persuade her that she had a good case, and the jury's verdict proved that she had. had mr. pickwick given in and paid, she would have had no scruples. one cannot, at the same time, but admire the ingenuity of the author, in bringing such a nemesis on her. dodson and fogg, we are told, "continue in business from which they realise a large income, and in which they are universally considered among the sharpest of the sharp." at the last interview, at perker's, when the costs were paid, one might have expected mr. pickwick to behave with a certain disdainful dignity. he was beaten and had paid over the stakes, and could afford to treat his enemy with contempt. not so. the partners held out the olive branch by alluding to the way they had passed by his unmannerly attacks on them. "i beg to assure you, sir, i bear you no ill will or vindictive feeling for sentiments you thought proper to express of us in our office," and the other partner said, "i hope you don't think quite so ill of us, etc." this was rather gentlemanly and becoming. one offered his hand. but mr. pickwick broke out in a perfect fury. they had assumed a tone of forgiveness which was "an excess of impudence." he had been "the victim of their plots and conspiracies." they had imprisoned and robbed him. it was "insolent familiarity." at last he said, "_you are a well-matched pair of mean_, _rascally_, _pettifogging robbers_." this sentence he repeated three times, and the words "robbers" he shouted after them many times over the stairs. sharping attornies! why, a real sharping firm would have forced from their client advances of fee, "cash out of pocket," have made her give a bill of sale on her lease and goods, and have fairly stripped her of everything before the case began. of the damages--had they got them--she would have seen but little. the _cognovit_ that was extracted from mrs. bardell was an acknowledgement, as we have seen, which entitled them to enter up judgment just as if a trial had taken place. in the oxford great dictionary, it reads quaintly to find mrs. bardell's cognovit quoted as an illustration of the legal meaning. the turnkey, on her arrest, had told sam that she had been brought to the fleet, "on a cognovit for costs," sam imparted this news to job trotter, and sent him off, hot foot, to perker in montague place. this outcast, was able to tell him, "it seems they got a _cognovit_ out of her for the amount of the costs, directly after the trial!" boz, on this occasion, gives us a happy glimpse of solicitor life. mr. perker had a dinner party that day, which was certified by the lights in the drawing-room windows, the sound of an improved grand piano, and an improveable cabinet voice issuing therefrom; and a rather overpowering smell of meat which prevaded the steps and entry. in fact, a couple of very good country agencies happening to come up to town at the same time, an agreeable little party had been got together to meet them, comprising mr. snicks the life office secretary, mr. prosee the eminent counsel, three solicitors, one commissioner of bankrupts, a special pleader from the temple, a small-eyed peremptory young gentleman, his pupil, who had written a lively book about the law of demises, with a vast quantity of marginal notes and references; and several other eminent and distinguished personages. from this society little mr. perker detached himself on his clerk being announced in a whisper; and repairing to the dining-room, there found mr. lowten and job trotter looking very dim and shadowy by the light of a kitchen candle, which the gentleman who condescended to appear in plush shorts and cottons for a quarterly stipend, had, with a becoming contempt for the clerk and all things appertaining to 'the office,' placed upon the table. 'now lowten,' said little mr. perker, shutting the door, 'what's the matter? no important letter come in a parcel, is there?' do we not seem to be present? we can never pass by russell square without calling up the scene. note, too, the components of that legal dinner. poor sir f. lockwood used to declare that he relished "mr. prosee, the eminent counsel," more than any one of boz's legal circle. yet these five words are all we know of him. but sir frank had imagination, and like some of us could read between the lines, or rather, between the words. here was a prominent member of the bar--was he k.c.? a triton among the minnows--therefore heading the table, listened to with reverence as he told of the judges, possibly of "old stareleigh's" last exhibition of petulance--"with it's high time for him to go, etc." but if he had not silk, why did not perker retain him instead of the incapable phunky, whom he did _not_ ask on this occasion. "i gave the chap a good chance, but he destroyed my whole case!" "catch me letting him put his legs under my mahogany." among the guests was that "small-eyed, peremptory young gentleman"--the special pleader's pupil. what a capital sketch has boz given of him. "he had written a _lively_ book about the law of demises, with a vast quantity of marginal notes and references." he had come with his teacher, who was no doubt highly deferental to mr. prosee, but enough, the peremptory young gentleman may have partly "tackled" the great man on some point of practice. the good country agencies must have gone home delighted with their evening. but mr. prosee may be brought into somewhat closer communication with the case. at perker's dinner the gentlemen had gone up to the drawing room, when perker was called down to hear the news of mrs. bardell's arrest. mr. prosee was left expatiating to the circle on some beautiful "point," and when perker returned how likely that he should tell of his extraordinary client who had preferred to go to prison rather than pay the costs of a suit, "and here," he would go on, "is the drollest sequel you ever heard, &c." "an odd unusual thing," mr. prosee would say. "plaintiff and defendant, both in jail together! i never heard the like." there would be much laughter at the novel situation. thus the _cognovit_ would come up and mr. prosee gravely say, "nothing will be done till an act of parliament is passed. the client should be protected by a fresh solicitor." on which the young author of the treatise on demises would have something to say in his best fashion; for the _cognovit_ might be taken to be a sort of demise. "i doubt mr. prosee, if your suggestion would work. as i take it, sir, etc." release from the fleet. but the circumstances connected with mr. pickwick's release from the fleet, show the adroitness and ability of dodson in a high degree. it will be recollected that when job rushed with the news to perker, that gentleman and his clerk broke out into raptuous admiration. 'now, lowten,' said little mr. perker, shutting the door, 'what's the matter? no important letter come in a parcel, is there?' 'no, sir,' replied lowten. 'this is a messenger from mr. pickwick, sir.' 'from pickwick, eh?' said the little man, turning quickly to job. 'well; what is it?' 'dodson and fogg have taken mrs. bardell in execution for her costs, sir,' said job. 'no!' exclaimed perker, putting his hands in his pockets, and reclining against the sideboard. 'yes,' said job. 'it seems they got a cognovit out of her for the amount of 'em, directly after the trial.' 'by jove!' said perker, taking both hands out of his pockets and striking the knuckles of his right against the palm of his left, emphatically, 'those are the cleverest scamps i ever had anything to do with!' 'the sharpest practitioners _i_ ever knew, sir,' observed lowten. 'sharp!' echoed perker. 'there's no knowing where to have them.' 'very true, sir, there is not,' replied lowten; and then both master and man pondered for a few seconds, with animated countenances, as if they were reflecting upon one of the most beautiful and ingenious discoveries that the intellect of man had ever made. when they had in some measure recovered from their trance of admiration, job trotter discharged himself of the rest of his commission. perker nodded his head thoughtfully, and pulled out his watch. now to the superficial this seemed to be evaded by the art of the firm in "getting the cognovit out of her." but this was an ordinary, vulgar stroke--which anyone could have done. their policy went far deeper, and this perker was acute enough to recognize. there was no object in putting mrs. bardell into the fleet. they could no more get their costs out of her, than they could get them out of mr. pickwick. she had nothing but her few "sticks" of furniture, worth say pounds. but the astute fellows saw what pressure could be put on the benevolent nature of mr. pickwick, who could not endure that a respectable woman should be exposed to the contamination of a debtor's prison. and their sagacity was to be justified, and on the very next day, too. it is curious, however, that no mention is made of mrs. bardell's release. it, of course, took place before mr. pickwick's. here again dodson and fogg behaved very fairly, for they allowed both her and mr. pickwick to be released, without receiving payment, but simply on "an understanding" by perker. as it turned out, indeed, they were not paid for some weeks. the processes by which mr. pickwick was got into the fleet were complicated enough, _habeas corpus_, appearing before functionaries, etc. but it is odd that in cases of persons of lower degree these seemed not to be necessary. we do not hear of them in sam's instance. while mrs. bardell, was taken straight from "the spaniards," to the prison door, she was not even formally arrested by the bailiff, though he was in attendance. he sat afar off at hampstead, taking his drink--and on the box during the drive. she might be said to have been arbitrarily taken to the prison by jackson--without a legal warrant. had not the business been compromised, some other astute firm of attorneys might have found subject for an action against dodson and fogg. another of the humorous incidents connected with the case is old weller's firm persuasion that mr. pickwick was to "stand his trial," as though he were indicted for some criminal offence. we find him always astray as to when he was to be "tried," etc. this is a most natural impression among the lower classes, who are not very clear as to the distinction between civil and criminal process, being most familiar with the latter. in the same spirit is his humorous suggestion of securing an _alibi_, as the best method of getting mr. pickwick off. "o sammy, sammy, vy worn't there a alleybi!" * * * * * such is "the trial in pickwick." is there any writer, now living, i may be asked, who could furnish such a picture as this, one so full of reality and true humour, of one of our modern courts of justice? the answer must be that it would be idle to look for such a person. there are thousands who could supply minute drawings in which not a single detail would be omitted. but the piercing to the essence, the happy generalization, the knowledge of the true points of character, these would be sought in vain. footnotes: { } so confused is the chronology of _pickwick_, that it is difficult to fix the exact date of the trial. boz, writing some ten years after the event, seems to have got a little confused and uncertain as to the exact year of the trial. he first fixed the opening of the story in : but on coming to the compromising incident in goswell street, which occurred only a few weeks later, he changed the year to . then jingle's anachronism of the french revolution of july suggested that the new date would not do. so was next adopted. but this did not end the matter, for in the "errata" we are directed to change this date back again to . and so it now stands. the trial therefore really took place on april , . { } seven years after the trial this monopoly was taken away from the serjeants--namely in : then capriciously given back to them, and finally abolished in . { } i have heard from the daughter of mr. chapman, the original publisher of _pickwick_, that talfourd revised and directed the "trial." on one occasion boz was dining with him when the proof was brought in, with some legal mistakes noted by talfourd. boz left the table and put it right. for the reader: things that were handwritten are denoted in the text as hw: asterisms in the text are denoted by [asterism] the letters of [hw: charles dickens] the letters of charles dickens. edited by his sister-in-law and his eldest daughter. in two volumes. vol. i. to . london: chapman and hall, , piccadilly. . [_the right of translation is reserved._] charles dickens and evans, crystal palace press. to kate perugini, this memorial of her father is lovingly inscribed by her aunt and sister. preface. we intend this collection of letters to be a supplement to the "life of charles dickens," by john forster. that work, perfect and exhaustive as a biography, is only incomplete as regards correspondence; the scheme of the book having made it impossible to include in its space any letters, or hardly any, besides those addressed to mr. forster. as no man ever expressed _himself_ more in his letters than charles dickens, we believe that in publishing this careful selection from his general correspondence we shall be supplying a want which has been universally felt. our request for the loan of letters was so promptly and fully responded to, that we have been provided with more than sufficient material for our work. by arranging the letters in chronological order, we find that they very frequently explain themselves and form a narrative of the events of each year. our collection dates from , the commencement of charles dickens's literary life, just before the starting of the "pickwick papers," and is carried on up to the day before his death, in . we find some difficulty in being quite accurate in the arrangements of letters up to the end of , for he had a careless habit in those days about dating his letters, very frequently putting only the day of the week on which he wrote, curiously in contrast with the habit of his later life, when his dates were always of the very fullest. a blank is made in charles dickens's correspondence with his family by the absence of any letter addressed to his daughter kate (mrs. perugini), to her great regret and to ours. in , her furniture and other possessions were stored in the warehouse of the pantechnicon at the time of the great fire there. all her property was destroyed, and, among other things, a box of papers which included her letters from her father. it was our intention as well as our desire to have thanked, individually, every one--both living friends and representatives of dead ones--for their readiness to give us every possible help to make our work complete. but the number of such friends, besides correspondents hitherto unknown, who have volunteered contributions of letters, make it impossible in our space to do otherwise than to express, collectively, our earnest and heartfelt thanks. a separate word of gratitude, however, must be given by us to mr. wilkie collins for the invaluable help which we have received from his great knowledge and experience, in the technical part of our work, and for the deep interest which he has shown from the beginning, in our undertaking. it is a great pleasure to us to have the name of henry fielding dickens associated with this book. to him, for the very important assistance he has given in making our index, we return our loving thanks. in writing our explanatory notes we have, we hope, left nothing out which in any way requires explanation from us. but we have purposely made them as short as possible; our great desire being to give to the public another book from charles dickens's own hands--as it were, a portrait of himself by himself. those letters which need no explanation--and of those we have many--we give without a word from us. in publishing the more private letters, we do so with the view of showing him in his homely, domestic life--of showing how in the midst of his own constant and arduous work, no household matter was considered too trivial to claim his care and attention. he would take as much pains about the hanging of a picture, the choosing of furniture, the superintending any little improvement in the house, as he would about the more serious business of his life; thus carrying out to the very letter his favourite motto of "what is worth doing at all is worth doing well." mamie dickens. georgina hogarth. london: _october_, . errata. vol. i. page , line . for "because if i hear of you," _read_ "because i hear of you." " , line . for "any old end," _read_ "or any old end." " . first paragraph, second sentence, _should read_, "all the ancient part of rome is wonderful and impressive in the extreme, far beyond the possibility of exaggeration. as to the," etc. " , line . for "mr." _read_ "mrs." book i. to . the letters of charles dickens. or , and , . narrative. we have been able to procure so few early letters of any general interest that we put these first years together. charles dickens was then living, as a bachelor, in furnival's inn, and was engaged as a parliamentary reporter on _the morning chronicle_. the "sketches by boz" were written during these years, published first in "the monthly magazine" and continued in _the evening chronicle_. he was engaged to be married to catherine hogarth in --the marriage took place on the nd april, ; and he continued to live in furnival's inn with his wife for more than a year after their marriage. they passed the summer months of that year in a lodging at chalk, near gravesend, in the neighbourhood associated with all his life, from his childhood to his death. the two letters which we publish, addressed to his wife as miss hogarth, have no date, but were written in . the first of the two refers to the offer made to him by chapman and hall to edit a monthly periodical, the emolument (which he calls "too tempting to resist!") to be fourteen pounds a month. the bargain was concluded, and this was the starting of "the pickwick papers." the first number was published in march, . the second letter to miss hogarth was written after he had completed three numbers of "pickwick," and the character who is to "make a decided hit" is "jingle." the first letter of this book is addressed to henry austin, a friend from his boyhood, who afterwards married his second sister letitia. it bears no date, but must have been written in or , during the early days of his reporting for _the morning chronicle_; the journey on which he was "ordered" being for that paper. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] furnival's inn, _wednesday night, past ._ dear henry, i have just been ordered on a journey, the length of which is at present uncertain. i may be back on sunday very probably, and start again on the following day. should this be the case, you shall hear from me before. don't laugh. i am going (alone) in a gig; and, to quote the eloquent inducement which the proprietors of hampstead _chays_ hold out to sunday riders--"the gen'l'm'n drives himself." i am going into essex and suffolk. it strikes me i shall be spilt before i pay a turnpike. i have a presentiment i shall run over an only child before i reach chelmsford, my first stage. let the evident haste of this specimen of "the polite letter writer" be its excuse, and believe me, dear henry, most sincerely yours, [hw: charles dickens] note.--to avoid the monotony of a constant repetition, we propose to dispense with the signature at the close of each letter, excepting to the first and last letters of our collection. charles dickens's handwriting altered so much during these years of his life, that we have thought it advisable to give a facsimile of his autograph to this our first letter; and we reproduce in the same way his latest autograph. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] furnival's inn, _wednesday evening, ._ my dearest kate, the house is up; but i am very sorry to say that i must stay at home. i have had a visit from the publishers this morning, and the story cannot be any longer delayed; it must be done to-morrow, as there are more important considerations than the mere payment for the story involved too. i must exercise a little self-denial, and set to work. they (chapman and hall) have made me an offer of fourteen pounds a month, to write and edit a new publication they contemplate, entirely by myself, to be published monthly, and each number to contain four woodcuts. i am to make my estimate and calculation, and to give them a decisive answer on friday morning. the work will be no joke, but the emolument is too tempting to resist. * * * * * [sidenote: the same.] _sunday evening._ * * * * * i have at this moment got pickwick and his friends on the rochester coach, and they are going on swimmingly, in company with a very different character from any i have yet described, who i flatter myself will make a decided hit. i want to get them from the ball to the inn before i go to bed; and i think that will take me until one or two o'clock at the earliest. the publishers will be here in the morning, so you will readily suppose i have no alternative but to stick at my desk. * * * * * . narrative. from the commencement of "the pickwick papers," and of charles dickens's married life, dates the commencement of his literary life and his sudden world-wide fame. and this year saw the beginning of many of those friendships which he most valued, and of which he had most reason to be proud, and which friendships were ended only by death. the first letters which we have been able to procure to mr. macready and mr. harley will be found under this date. in january, , he was living in furnival's inn, where his first child, a son, was born. it was an eventful year to him in many ways. he removed from furnival's inn to doughty street in march, and here he sustained the first great grief of his life. his young sister-in-law, mary hogarth, to whom he was devotedly attached, died very suddenly, at his house, on the th may. in the autumn of this year he took lodgings at broadstairs. this was his first visit to that pleasant little watering-place, of which he became very fond, and whither he removed for the autumn months with all his household, for many years in succession. besides the monthly numbers of "pickwick," which were going on through this year until november, when the last number appeared, he had commenced "oliver twist," which was appearing also monthly, in the magazine called "bentley's miscellany," long before "pickwick" was completed. and during this year he had edited, for mr. bentley, "the life of grimaldi," the celebrated clown. to this book he wrote himself only the preface, and altered and rearranged the autobiographical ms. which was in mr. bentley's possession. the letter to mr. harley, which bears no date, but must have been written either in or , refers to a farce called "the strange gentleman" (founded on one of the "sketches," called the "great winglebury duel"), which he wrote expressly for mr. harley, and which was produced at the st. james's theatre, under the management of mr. braham. the only other piece which he wrote for that theatre was the story of an operetta, called "the village coquettes," the music of which was composed by mr. john hullah. [sidenote: mr. j. p. harley.] , doughty street, _saturday morning._ my dear sir, i have considered the terms on which i could afford just now to sell mr. braham the acting copyright in london of an entirely new piece for the st. james's theatre; and i could not sit down to write one in a single act of about one hour long, under a hundred pounds. for a new piece in two acts, a hundred and fifty pounds would be the sum i should require. i do not know whether, with reference to arrangements that were made with any other writers, this may or may not appear a large item. i state it merely with regard to the value of my own time and writings at this moment; and in so doing i assure you i place the remuneration below the mark rather than above it. as you begged me to give you my reply upon this point, perhaps you will lay it before mr. braham. if these terms exceed his inclination or the ability of the theatre, there is an end of the matter, and no harm done. believe me ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] , doughty street, _wednesday evening._ my dear sir, there is a semi-business, semi-pleasure little dinner which i intend to give at the prince of wales, in leicester place, leicester square, on saturday, at five for half-past precisely, at which only talfourd, forster, ainsworth, jerdan, and the publishers will be present. it is to celebrate (that is too great a word, but i can think of no better) the conclusion of my "pickwick" labours; and so i intend, before you take that roll upon the grass you spoke of, to beg your acceptance of one of the first complete copies of the work. i shall be much delighted if you would join us. i know too well the many anxieties that press upon you just now to seek to persuade you to come if you would prefer a night's repose and quiet. let me assure you, notwithstanding, most honestly and heartily that there is no one i should be more happy or gratified to see, and that among your brilliant circle of well-wishers and admirers you number none more unaffectedly and faithfully yours than, my dear sir, yours most truly. . narrative. in february of this year charles dickens made an expedition with his friend, and the illustrator of most of his books, mr. hablot k. browne ("phiz"), to investigate for himself the real facts as to the condition of the yorkshire schools, and it may be observed that portions of a letter to his wife, dated greta bridge, yorkshire, which will be found among the following letters, were reproduced in "nicholas nickleby." in the early summer he had a cottage at twickenham park. in august and september he was again at broadstairs; and in the late autumn he made another bachelor excursion--mr. browne being again his companion--in england, which included his first visit to stratford-on-avon and kenilworth. in february appeared the first number of "nicholas nickleby," on which work he was engaged all through the year, writing each number ready for the following month, and never being in advance, as was his habit with all his other periodical works, until his very latest ones. the first letter which appears under this date, from twickenham park, is addressed to mr. thomas mitton, a schoolfellow at one of his earliest schools, and afterwards for some years his solicitor. the letter contains instructions for his first will; the friend of almost his whole life, mr. john forster, being appointed executor to this will as he was to the last, to which he was "called upon to act" only three years before his own death. the letter which we give in this year to mr. justice talfourd is, unfortunately, the only one we have been able to procure to that friend, who was, however, one with whom he was most intimately associated, and with whom he maintained a constant correspondence. the letter beginning "respected sir" was an answer to a little boy (master hastings hughes), who had written to him as "nicholas nickleby" approached completion, stating his views and wishes as to the rewards and punishments to be bestowed on the various characters in the book. the letter was sent to him through the rev. thomas barham, author of "the ingoldsby legends." the two letters to mr. macready, at the end of this year, refer to a farce which charles dickens wrote, with an idea that it might be suitable for covent garden theatre, then under mr. macready's management. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] greta bridge, _thursday, feb. st, ._ my dearest kate, i am afraid you will receive this later than i could wish, as the mail does not come through this place until two o'clock to-morrow morning. however, i have availed myself of the very first opportunity of writing, so the fault is that mail's, and not this. we reached grantham between nine and ten on thursday night, and found everything prepared for our reception in the very best inn i have ever put up at. it is odd enough that an old lady, who had been outside all day and came in towards dinner time, turned out to be the mistress of a yorkshire school returning from the holiday stay in london. she was a very queer old lady, and showed us a long letter she was carrying to one of the boys from his father, containing a severe lecture (enforced and aided by many texts of scripture) on his refusing to eat boiled meat. she was very communicative, drank a great deal of brandy and water, and towards evening became insensible, in which state we left her. yesterday we were up again shortly after seven a.m., came on upon our journey by the glasgow mail, which charged us the remarkably low sum of six pounds fare for two places inside. we had a very droll male companion until seven o'clock in the evening, and a most delicious lady's-maid for twenty miles, who implored us to keep a sharp look-out at the coach-windows, as she expected the carriage was coming to meet her and she was afraid of missing it. we had many delightful vauntings of the same kind; but in the end it is scarcely necessary to say that the coach did not come, but a very dirty girl did. as we came further north the mire grew deeper. about eight o'clock it began to fall heavily, and, as we crossed the wild heaths hereabout, there was no vestige of a track. the mail kept on well, however, and at eleven we reached a bare place with a house standing alone in the midst of a dreary moor, which the guard informed us was greta bridge. i was in a perfect agony of apprehension, for it was fearfully cold, and there were no outward signs of anybody being up in the house. but to our great joy we discovered a comfortable room, with drawn curtains and a most blazing fire. in half an hour they gave us a smoking supper and a bottle of mulled port (in which we drank your health), and then we retired to a couple of capital bedrooms, in each of which there was a rousing fire halfway up the chimney. we have had for breakfast, toast, cakes, a yorkshire pie, a piece of beef about the size and much the shape of my portmanteau, tea, coffee, ham, and eggs; and are now going to look about us. having finished our discoveries, we start in a postchaise for barnard castle, which is only four miles off, and there i deliver the letter given me by mitton's friend. all the schools are round about that place, and a dozen old abbeys besides, which we shall visit by some means or other to-morrow. we shall reach york on saturday i hope, and (god willing) i trust i shall be at home on wednesday morning. i wish you would call on mrs. bentley and thank her for the letter; you can tell her when i expect to be in york. a thousand loves and kisses to the darling boy, whom i see in my mind's eye crawling about the floor of this yorkshire inn. bless his heart, i would give two sovereigns for a kiss. remember me too to frederick, who i hope is attentive to you. is it not extraordinary that the same dreams which have constantly visited me since poor mary died follow me everywhere? after all the change of scene and fatigue, i have dreamt of her ever since i left home, and no doubt shall till i return. i should be sorry to lose such visions, for they are very happy ones, if it be only the seeing her in one's sleep. i would fain believe, too, sometimes, that her spirit may have some influence over them, but their perpetual repetition is extraordinary. love to all friends. ever, my dear kate, your affectionate husband. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] twickenham park, _tuesday night._ dear tom, i sat down this morning and put on paper my testamentary meaning. whether it is sufficiently legal or not is another question, but i hope it is. the rough draft of the clauses which i enclose will be preceded by as much of the fair copy as i send you, and followed by the usual clause about the receipts of the trustees being a sufficient discharge. i also wish to provide that if all our children should die before twenty-one, and kate married again, half the surplus should go to her and half to my surviving brothers and sisters, share and share alike. this will be all, except a few lines i wish to add which there will be no occasion to consult you about, as they will merely bear reference to a few tokens of remembrance and one or two slight funeral directions. and so pray god that you may be gray, and forster bald, long before you are called upon to act as my executors. i suppose i shall see you at the water-party on thursday? we will then make an appointment for saturday morning, and if you think my clauses will do, i will complete my copy, seal it up, and leave it in your hands. there are some other papers which you ought to have. we must get a box. ever yours. [sidenote: mr. serjeant talfourd, m.p.] twickenham park, _sunday, july th, ._ my dear talfourd, i cannot tell you how much pleasure i have derived from the receipt of your letter. i have heard little of you, and seen less, for so long a time, that your handwriting came like the renewal of some old friendship, and gladdened my eyes like the face of some old friend. if i hear from lady holland before you return, i shall, as in duty bound, present myself at her bidding; but between you and me and the general post, i hope she may not renew her invitation until i can visit her with you, as i would much rather avail myself of your personal introduction. however, whatever her ladyship may do i shall respond to, and anyway shall be only too happy to avail myself of what i am sure cannot fail to form a very pleasant and delightful introduction. your kind invitation and reminder of the subject of a pleasant conversation in one of our pleasant rides, has thrown a gloom over the brightness of twickenham, for here i am chained. it is indispensably necessary that "oliver twist" should be published in three volumes, in september next. i have only just begun the last one, and, having the constant drawback of my monthly work, shall be sadly harassed to get it finished in time, especially as i have several very important scenes (important to the story i mean) yet to write. nothing would give me so much pleasure as to be with you for a week or so. i can only imperfectly console myself with the hope that when you see "oliver" you will like the close of the book, and approve my self-denial in staying here to write it. i should like to know your address in scotland when you leave town, so that i may send you the earliest copy if it be produced in the vacation, which i pray heaven it may. meanwhile, believe that though my body is on the banks of the thames, half my heart is going the oxford circuit. mrs. dickens and charley desire their best remembrances (the latter expresses some anxiety, not unmixed with apprehension, relative to the copyright bill, in which he conceives himself interested), with hearty wishes that you may have a fine autumn, which is all you want, being sure of all other means of enjoyment that a man can have. i am, my dear talfourd, ever faithfully yours. p.s.--i hope you are able to spare a moment now and then to glance at "nicholas nickleby," and that you have as yet found no reason to alter the opinion you formed on the appearance of the first number. you know, i suppose, that they elected me at the athenæum? pray thank mr. serjeant storks for me. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] lion hotel, shrewsbury, _thursday, nov. st, ._ my dearest love, i received your welcome letter on arriving here last night, and am rejoiced to hear that the dear children are so much better. i hope that in your next, or your next but one, i shall learn that they are quite well. a thousand kisses to them. i wish i could convey them myself. we found a roaring fire, an elegant dinner, a snug room, and capital beds all ready for us at leamington, after a very agreeable (but very cold) ride. we started in a postchaise next morning for kenilworth, with which we were both enraptured, and where i really think we must have lodgings next summer, please god that we are in good health and all goes well. you cannot conceive how delightful it is. to read among the ruins in fine weather would be perfect luxury. from here we went on to warwick castle, which is an ancient building, newly restored, and possessing no very great attraction beyond a fine view and some beautiful pictures; and thence to stratford-upon-avon, where we sat down in the room where shakespeare was born, and left our autographs and read those of other people and so forth. we remained at stratford all night, and found to our unspeakable dismay that father's plan of proceeding by bridgenorth was impracticable, as there were no coaches. so we were compelled to come here by way of birmingham and wolverhampton, starting at eight o'clock through a cold wet fog, and travelling, when the day had cleared up, through miles of cinder-paths and blazing furnaces, and roaring steam-engines, and such a mass of dirt, gloom, and misery as i never before witnessed. we got pretty well accommodated here when we arrived at half-past four, and are now going off in a postchaise to llangollen--thirty miles--where we shall remain to-night, and where the bangor mail will take us up to-morrow. such are our movements up to this point, and when i have received your letter at chester i shall write to you again and tell you when i shall be back. i can say positively that i shall not exceed the fortnight, and i think it very possible that i may return a day or two before it expires. we were at the play last night. it was a bespeak--"the love chase," a ballet (with a phenomenon!), divers songs, and "a roland for an oliver." it is a good theatre, but the actors are very funny. browne laughed with such indecent heartiness at one point of the entertainment, that an old gentleman in the next box suffered the most violent indignation. the bespeak party occupied two boxes, the ladies were full-dressed, and the gentlemen, to a man, in white gloves with flowers in their button-holes. it amused us mightily, and was really as like the miss snevellicci business as it could well be. my side has been very bad since i left home, although i have been very careful not to drink much, remaining to the full as abstemious as usual, and have not eaten any great quantity, having no appetite. i suffered such an ecstasy of pain all night at stratford that i was half dead yesterday, and was obliged last night to take a dose of henbane. the effect was most delicious. i slept soundly, and without feeling the least uneasiness, and am a great deal better this morning; neither do i find that the henbane has affected my head, which, from the great effect it had upon me--exhilarating me to the most extraordinary degree, and yet keeping me sleepy--i feared it would. if i had not got better i should have turned back to birmingham, and come straight home by the railroad. as it is, i hope i shall make out the trip. god bless you, my darling. i long to be back with you again and to see the sweet babs. your faithful and most affectionate husband. [sidenote: master hastings hughes.] doughty street, london, _dec. th, ._ respected sir, i have given squeers one cut on the neck and two on the head, at which he appeared much surprised and began to cry, which, being a cowardly thing, is just what i should have expected from him--wouldn't you? i have carefully done what you told me in your letter about the lamb and the two "sheeps" for the little boys. they have also had some good ale and porter, and some wine. i am sorry you didn't say _what_ wine you would like them to have. i gave them some sherry, which they liked very much, except one boy, who was a little sick and choked a good deal. he was rather greedy, and that's the truth, and i believe it went the wrong way, which i say served him right, and i hope you will say so too. nicholas had his roast lamb, as you said he was to, but he could not eat it all, and says if you do not mind his doing so he should like to have the rest hashed to-morrow with some greens, which he is very fond of, and so am i. he said he did not like to have his porter hot, for he thought it spoilt the flavour, so i let him have it cold. you should have seen him drink it. i thought he never would have left off. i also gave him three pounds of money, all in sixpences, to make it seem more, and he said directly that he should give more than half to his mamma and sister, and divide the rest with poor smike. and i say he is a good fellow for saying so; and if anybody says he isn't i am ready to fight him whenever they like--there! fanny squeers shall be attended to, depend upon it. your drawing of her is very like, except that i don't think the hair is quite curly enough. the nose is particularly like hers, and so are the legs. she is a nasty disagreeable thing, and i know it will make her very cross when she sees it; and what i say is that i hope it may. you will say the same i know--at least i think you will. i meant to have written you a long letter, but i cannot write very fast when i like the person i am writing to, because that makes me think about them, and i like you, and so i tell you. besides, it is just eight o'clock at night, and i always go to bed at eight o'clock, except when it is my birthday, and then i sit up to supper. so i will not say anything more besides this--and that is my love to you and neptune; and if you will drink my health every christmas day i will drink yours--come. i am, respected sir, your affectionate friend. p.s.--i don't write my name very plain, but you know what it is you know, so never mind. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] doughty street, _monday morning._ my dear macready, i have not seen you for the past week, because i hoped when we next met to bring "the lamplighter" in my hand. it would have been finished by this time, but i found myself compelled to set to work first at the "nickleby" on which i am at present engaged, and which i regret to say--after my close and arduous application last month--i find i cannot write as quickly as usual. i must finish it, at latest, by the th (a doubtful comfort!), and the instant i have done so i will apply myself to the farce. i am afraid to name any particular day, but i pledge myself that you shall have it this month, and you may calculate on that promise. i send you with this a copy of a farce i wrote for harley when he left drury lane, and in which he acted for some seventy nights. it is the best thing he does. it is barely possible you might like to try it. any local or temporary allusions could be easily altered. believe me that i only feel gratified and flattered by your inquiry after the farce, and that if i had as much time as i have inclination, i would write on and on and on, farce after farce and comedy after comedy, until i wrote you something that would run. you do me justice when you give me credit for good intentions; but the extent of my good-will and strong and warm interest in you personally and your great undertaking, you cannot fathom nor express. believe me, my dear macready, ever faithfully yours. p.s.--for heaven's sake don't fancy that i hold "the strange gentleman" in any estimation, or have a wish upon the subject. [sidenote: mr. w. c macready.] , doughty street, _december th, ._ my dear macready, i can have but one opinion on the subject--withdraw the farce at once, by all means. i perfectly concur in all you say, and thank you most heartily and cordially for your kind and manly conduct, which is only what i should have expected from you; though, under such circumstances, i sincerely believe there are few but you--if any--who would have adopted it. believe me that i have no other feeling of disappointment connected with this matter but that arising from the not having been able to be of some use to you. and trust me that, if the opportunity should ever arrive, my ardour will only be increased--not damped--by the result of this experiment. believe me always, my dear macready, faithfully yours. . narrative. charles dickens was still living in doughty street, but he removed at the end of this year to , devonshire terrace, regent's park. he hired a cottage at petersham for the summer months, and in the autumn took lodgings at broadstairs. the cottage at alphington, near exeter, mentioned in the letter to mr. mitton, was hired by charles dickens for his parents. he was at work all through this year on "nicholas nickleby." we have now the commencement of his correspondence with mr. george cattermole. his first letter was written immediately after mr. cattermole's marriage with miss elderton, a distant connection of charles dickens; hence the allusions to "cousin," which will be found in many of his letters to mr. cattermole. the bride and bridegroom were passing their honeymoon in the neighbourhood of petersham, and the letter refers to a request from them for the loan of some books, and also to his having lent them his pony carriage and groom, during their stay in this neighbourhood. the first letter in this year to mr. macready is in answer to one from him, announcing his retirement from the management of covent garden theatre. the portrait by mr. maclise, mentioned to mr. harley, was the, now, well-known one, which appeared as a frontispiece to "nicholas nickleby." [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] doughty street, _sunday._ my dear macready, i will have, if you please, three dozen of the extraordinary champagne; and i am much obliged to you for recollecting me. i ought not to be sorry to hear of your abdication, but i am, notwithstanding, most heartily and sincerely sorry, for my own sake and the sake of thousands, who may now go and whistle for a theatre--at least, such a theatre as you gave them; and i do now in my heart believe that for a long and dreary time that exquisite delight has passed away. if i may jest with my misfortunes, and quote the portsmouth critic of mr. crummles's company, i say that: "as an exquisite embodiment of the poet's visions and a realisation of human intellectuality, gilding with refulgent light our dreamy moments, and laying open a new and magic world before the mental eye, the drama is gone--perfectly gone." with the same perverse and unaccountable feeling which causes a heart-broken man at a dear friend's funeral to see something irresistibly comical in a red-nosed or one-eyed undertaker, i receive your communication with ghostly facetiousness; though on a moment's reflection i find better cause for consolation in the hope that, relieved from your most trying and painful duties, you will now have leisure to return to pursuits more congenial to your mind, and to move more easily and pleasantly among your friends. in the long catalogue of the latter, i believe that there is not one prouder of the name, or more grateful for the store of delightful recollections you have enabled him to heap up from boyhood, than, my dear macready, yours always faithfully. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] new london inn, exeter, _wednesday morning, march th, ._ dear tom, perhaps you have heard from kate that i succeeded yesterday in the very first walk, and took a cottage at a place called alphington, one mile from exeter, which contains, on the ground-floor, a good parlour and kitchen, and above, a full-sized country drawing-room and three bedrooms; in the yard behind, coal-holes, fowl-houses, and meat-safes out of number; in the kitchen, a neat little range; in the other rooms, good stoves and cupboards; and all for twenty pounds a year, taxes included. there is a good garden at the side well stocked with cabbages, beans, onions, celery, and some flowers. the stock belonging to the landlady (who lives in the adjoining cottage), there was some question whether she was not entitled to half the produce, but i settled the point by paying five shillings, and becoming absolute master of the whole! i do assure you that i am charmed with the place and the beauty of the country round about, though i have not seen it under very favourable circumstances, for it snowed when i was there this morning, and blew bitterly from the east yesterday. it is really delightful, and when the house is to rights and the furniture all in, i shall be quite sorry to leave it. i have had some few things second-hand, but i take it seventy pounds will be the mark, even taking this into consideration. i include in that estimate glass and crockery, garden tools, and such like little things. there is a spare bedroom of course. that i have furnished too. i am on terms of the closest intimacy with mrs. samuell, the landlady, and her brother and sister-in-law, who have a little farm hard by. they are capital specimens of country folks, and i really think the old woman herself will be a great comfort to my mother. coals are dear just now--twenty-six shillings a ton. they found me a boy to go two miles out and back again to order some this morning. i was debating in my mind whether i should give him eighteenpence or two shillings, when his fee was announced--twopence! the house is on the high road to plymouth, and, though in the very heart of devonshire, there is as much long-stage and posting life as you would find in piccadilly. the situation is charming. meadows in front, an orchard running parallel to the garden hedge, richly-wooded hills closing in the prospect behind, and, away to the left, before a splendid view of the hill on which exeter is situated, the cathedral towers rising up into the sky in the most picturesque manner possible. i don't think i ever saw so cheerful or pleasant a spot. the drawing-room is nearly, if not quite, as large as the outer room of my old chambers in furnival's inn. the paint and paper are new, and the place clean as the utmost excess of snowy cleanliness can be. you would laugh if you could see me powdering away with the upholsterer, and endeavouring to bring about all sorts of impracticable reductions and wonderful arrangements. he has by him two second-hand carpets; the important ceremony of trying the same comes off at three this afternoon. i am perpetually going backwards and forwards. it is two miles from here, so i have plenty of exercise, which so occupies me and prevents my being lonely that i stopped at home to read last night, and shall to-night, although the theatre is open. charles kean has been the star for the last two evenings. he was stopping in this house, and went away this morning. i have got his sitting-room now, which is smaller and more comfortable than the one i had before. you will have heard perhaps that i wrote to my mother to come down to-morrow. there are so many things she can make comfortable at a much less expense than i could, that i thought it best. if i had not, i could not have returned on monday, which i now hope to do, and to be in town at half-past eight. will you tell my father that if he could devise any means of bringing him down, i think it would be a great thing for him to have dash, if it be only to keep down the trampers and beggars. the cheque i send you below. * * * * * [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] elm cottage, petersham, _wednesday morning._ my dear cattermole, why is "peveril" lingering on my dusty shelves in town, while my fair cousin and your fair bride remains in blissful ignorance of his merits? there he is, i grieve to say, but there he shall not be long, for i shall be visiting my other home on saturday morning, and will bring him bodily down and forward him the moment he arrives. not having many of my books here, i don't find any among them which i think more suitable to your purpose than a carpet-bagful sent herewith, containing the italian and german novelists (convenient as being easily taken up and laid down again; and i suppose you won't read long at a sitting), leigh hunt's "indicator" and "companion" (which have the same merit), "hood's own" (complete), "a legend of montrose," and "kenilworth," which i have just been reading with greater delight than ever, and so i suppose everybody else must be equally interested in. i have goldsmith, swift, fielding, smollett, and the british essayists "handy;" and i need not say that you have them on hand too, if you like. you know all i would say from my heart and soul on the auspicious event of yesterday; but you don't know what i could say about the delightful recollections i have of your "good lady's" charming looks and bearing, upon which i discoursed most eloquently here last evening, and at considerable length. as i am crippled in this respect, however, by the suspicion that possibly she may be looking over your shoulder while you read this note (i would lay a moderate wager that you have looked round twice or thrice already), i shall content myself with saying that i am ever heartily, my dear cattermole, hers and yours. p.s.--my man (who with his charge is your man while you stay here) waits to know if you have any orders for him. [sidenote: mr. j. p. harley.] elm cottage, petersham, near richmond, _june th, ._ my dear harley, i have "left my home," and been here ever since the end of april, and shall remain here most probably until the end of september, which is the reason that we have been such strangers of late. i am very sorry that i cannot dine with you on sunday, but some people are coming here, and i cannot get away. better luck next time, i hope. i was on the point of writing to you when your note came, to ask you if you would come down here next saturday--to-morrow week, i mean--and stop till monday. i will either call for you at the theatre, at any time you name, or send for you, "punctual," and have you brought down. can you come if it's fine? say yes, like a good fellow as you are, and say it per post. i have countermanded that face. maclise has made another face of me, which all people say is astonishing. the engraving will be ready soon, and i would rather you had that, as i am sure you would if you had seen it. in great haste to save the post, i am, my dear harley, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. william longman.] doughty street, _monday morning._ my dear sir, on friday i have a family dinner at home--uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, cousins--an annual gathering. by what fatality is it that you always ask me to dine on the wrong day? while you are tracing this non-consequence to its cause, i wish you would tell mr. sydney smith that of all the men i ever heard of and never saw, i have the greatest curiosity to see and the greatest interest to know him. begging my best compliments at home, i am, my dear sir, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] petersham, _july th, ._ my dear macready, fix your visit for whenever you please. it can never give us anything but delight to see you, and it is better to look forward to such a pleasure than to look back upon it, as the last gratification is enjoyable all our lives, and the first for a few short stages in the journey. i feel more true and cordial pleasure than i can express to you in the request you have made. anything which can serve to commemorate our friendship and to keep the recollection of it alive among our children is, believe me, and ever will be, most deeply prized by me. i accept the office with hearty and fervent satisfaction; and, to render this pleasant bond between us the more complete, i must solicit you to become godfather to the last and final branch of a genteel small family of three which i am told may be looked for in that auspicious month when lord mayors are born and guys prevail. this i look upon as a bargain between us, and i have shaken hands with you in spirit upon it. family topics remind me of mr. kenwigs. as the weather is wet, and he is about to make his last appearance on my little stage, i send mrs. macready an early proof of the next number, containing an account of his baby's progress. i am going to send you something else on monday--a tragedy. don't be alarmed. i didn't write it, nor do i want it acted. a young scotch lady whom i don't know (but she is evidently very intelligent and accomplished) has sent me a translation of a german play, soliciting my aid and advice in the matter of its publication. among a crowd of germanisms, there are many things in it which are so very striking, that i am sure it will amuse you very much. at least i think it will; it has me. i am going to send it back to her--when i come to elstree will be time enough; and meantime, if you bestow a couple of hours upon it, you will not think them thrown away. it's a large parcel, and i must keep it here till somebody goes up to town and can book it by the coach. i warrant it, large as it looks, readable in two hours; and i very much want to know what you think of the first act, and especially the opening, which seems to me quite famous. the metre is very odd and rough, but now and then there's a wildness in it which helps the thing very much; and altogether it has left a something on my mind which i can't get rid of. mrs. dickens joins with me in kindest regards to yourself, mrs., and miss macready. and i am always, my dear macready, faithfully and truly yours. p.s.--a dreadful thought has just occurred to me--that this is a quadruple letter, and that elstree may not be within the twopenny post. pray heaven my fears are unfounded. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] , albion street, broadstairs, _september st, ._ my dear macready, i am so anxious to prefer a request to you which does not admit of delay that i send you a double letter, with the one redeeming point though of having very little in it. let me prefix to the last number of "nickleby," and to the book, a duplicate of the leaf which i now send you. believe me that there will be no leaf in the volume which will afford me in times to come more true pleasure and gratification, than that in which i have written your name as foremost among those of the friends whom i love and honour. believe me, there will be no one line in it conveying a more honest truth or a more sincere feeling than that which describes its dedication to you as a slight token of my admiration and regard. so let me tell the world by this frail record that i was a friend of yours, and interested to no ordinary extent in your proceedings at that interesting time when you showed them such noble truths in such noble forms, and gave me a new interest in, and associations with, the labours of so many months. i write to you very hastily and crudely, for i have been very hard at work, having only finished to-day, and my head spins yet. but you know what i mean. i am then always, believe me, my dear macready, faithfully yours. p.s.--(proof of dedication enclosed): "to w. c. macready, esq., the following pages are inscribed, as a slight token of admiration and regard, by his friend, the author." [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] doughty street, _friday night, oct. th, ._ my dear macready, the book, the whole book, and nothing but the book (except the binding, which is an important item), has arrived at last, and is forwarded herewith. the red represents my blushes at its gorgeous dress; the gilding, all those bright professions which i do not make to you; and the book itself, my whole heart for twenty months, which should be yours for so short a term, as you have it always. with best regards to mrs. and miss macready, always believe me, my dear macready, your faithful friend. [sidenote: the same.] doughty street, _thursday, nov. th, ._ my dear macready, tom landseer--that is, the deaf one, whom everybody quite loves for his sweet nature under a most deplorable infirmity--tom landseer asked me if i would present to you from him the accompanying engraving, which he has executed from a picture by his brother edwin; submitting it to you as a little tribute from an unknown but ardent admirer of your genius, which speaks to his heart, although it does not find its way there through his ears. i readily undertook the task, and send it herewith. i urged him to call upon you with me and proffer it boldly; but he is a very modest and delicately-minded creature, and was shy of intruding. if you thank him through me, perhaps you will say something about my bringing him to call, and so gladden the gentle artist and make him happy. you must come and see my new house when we have it to rights. by christmas day we shall be, i hope, your neighbours. kate progresses splendidly, and, with me, sends her best remembrances to mrs. macready and all your house. ever believe me, dear macready, faithfully yours. . narrative. charles dickens was at broadstairs with his family for the autumn months. during all this year he was busily engaged with the periodical entitled "master humphrey's clock," in which the story of "the old curiosity shop" subsequently appeared. nearly all these letters to mr. george cattermole refer to the illustrations for this story. the one dated march th alludes to short papers written for "master humphrey's clock" prior to the commencement of "the old curiosity shop." we have in this year charles dickens's first letter to mr. daniel maclise, this and one other being, unfortunately, the only letters we have been able to obtain addressed to this much-loved friend and most intimate companion. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] , devonshire terrace, _monday, january th, ._ my dear cattermole, i am going to propound a mightily grave matter to you. my now periodical work appears--or i should rather say the first number does--on saturday, the th of march; and as it has to be sent to america and germany, and must therefore be considerably in advance, it is now in hand; i having in fact begun it on saturday last. instead of being published in monthly parts at a shilling each only, it will be published in weekly parts at threepence and monthly parts at a shilling; my object being to baffle the imitators and make it as novel as possible. the plan is a new one--i mean the plan of the fiction--and it will comprehend a great variety of tales. the title is: "master humphrey's clock." now, among other improvements, i have turned my attention to the illustrations, meaning to have woodcuts dropped into the text and no separate plates. i want to know whether you would object to make me a little sketch for a woodcut--in indian-ink would be quite sufficient--about the size of the enclosed scrap; the subject, an old quaint room with antique elizabethan furniture, and in the chimney-corner an extraordinary old clock--the clock belonging to master humphrey, in fact, and no figures. this i should drop into the text at the head of my opening page. i want to know besides--as chapman and hall are my partners in the matter, there need be no delicacy about my asking or your answering the question--what would be your charge for such a thing, and whether (if the work answers our expectations) you would like to repeat the joke at regular intervals, and, if so, on what terms? i should tell you that i intend to ask maclise to join me likewise, and that the copying the drawing on wood and the cutting will be done in first-rate style. we are justified by past experience in supposing that the sale would be enormous, and the popularity very great; and when i explain to you the notes i have in my head, i think you will see that it opens a vast number of very good subjects. i want to talk the matter over with you, and wish you would fix your own time and place--either here or at your house or at the athenæum, though this would be the best place, because i have my papers about me. if you would take a chop with me, for instance, on tuesday or wednesday, i could tell you more in two minutes than in twenty letters, albeit i have endeavoured to make this as businesslike and stupid as need be. of course all these tremendous arrangements are as yet a profound secret, or there would be fifty humphreys in the field. so write me a line like a worthy gentleman, and convey my best remembrances to your worthy lady. believe me always, my dear cattermole, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday afternoon._ my dear cattermole, i think the drawing most famous, and so do the publishers, to whom i sent it to-day. if browne should suggest anything for the future which may enable him to do you justice in copying (on which point he is very anxious), i will communicate it to you. it has occurred to me that perhaps you will like to see his copy on the block before it is cut, and i have therefore told chapman and hall to forward it to you. in future, i will take care that you have the number to choose your subject from. i ought to have done so, perhaps, in this case; but i was very anxious that you should do the room. perhaps the shortest plan will be for me to send you, as enclosed, regularly; but if you prefer keeping account with the publishers, they will be happy to enter upon it when, where, and how you please. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] , devonshire terrace, _monday, march th, ._ my dear cattermole, i have been induced, on looking over the works of the "clock," to make a slight alteration in their disposal, by virtue of which the story about "john podgers" will stand over for some little time, and that short tale will occupy its place which you have already by you, and which treats of the assassination of a young gentleman under circumstances of peculiar aggravation. i shall be greatly obliged to you if you will turn your attention to this last morsel as the feature of no. , and still more if you can stretch a point with regard to time (which is of the last importance just now), and make a subject out of it, rather than find one in it. i would neither have made this alteration nor have troubled you about it, but for weighty and cogent reasons which i feel very strongly, and into the composition of which caprice or fastidiousness has no part. i should tell you perhaps, with reference to chapman and hall, that they will never trouble you (as they never trouble me) but when there is real and pressing occasion, and that their representations in this respect, unlike those of most men of business, are to be relied upon. i cannot tell you how admirably i think master humphrey's room comes out, or what glowing accounts i hear of the second design you have done. i had not the faintest anticipation of anything so good--taking into account the material and the despatch. with best regards at home, believe me, dear cattermole, heartily yours. p.s.--the new (no. ) tale begins: "i hold a lieutenant's commission in his majesty's army, and served abroad in the campaigns of and ." it has at present no title. [sidenote: mr. s. a. diezman.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, london, _ th march, ._ my dear sir, i will not attempt to tell you how much gratified i have been by the receipt of your first english letter; nor can i describe to you with what delight and gratification i learn that i am held in such high esteem by your great countrymen, whose favourable appreciation is flattering indeed. to you, who have undertaken the laborious (and often, i fear, very irksome) task of clothing me in the german garb, i owe a long arrear of thanks. i wish you would come to england, and afford me an opportunity of slightly reducing the account. it is with great regret that i have to inform you, in reply to the request contained in your pleasant communication, that my publishers have already made such arrangements and are in possession of such stipulations relative to the proof-sheets of my new works, that i have no power to send them out of england. if i had, i need not tell you what pleasure it would afford me to promote your views. i am too sensible of the trouble you must have already had with my writings to impose upon you now a long letter. i will only add, therefore, that i am, my dear sir, with great sincerity, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. daniel maclise.] broadstairs, _june nd, ._ my dear maclise, my foot is in the house, my bath is on the sea, and, before i take a souse, here's a single note to thee. it merely says that the sea is in a state of extraordinary sublimity; that this place is, as the guide book most justly observes, "unsurpassed for the salubrity of the refreshing breezes, which are wafted on the ocean's pinions from far-distant shores." that we are all right after the perils and voyages of yesterday. that the sea is rolling away in front of the window at which i indite this epistle, and that everything is as fresh and glorious as fine weather and a splendid coast can make it. bear these recommendations in mind, and shunning talfourdian pledges, come to the bower which is shaded for you in the one-pair front, where no chair or table has four legs of the same length, and where no drawers will open till you have pulled the pegs off, and then they keep open and won't shut again. come! i can no more. always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _december st._ my dear george, kit, the single gentleman, and mr. garland go down to the place where the child is, and arrive there at night. there has been a fall of snow. kit, leaving them behind, runs to the old house, and, with a lanthorn in one hand and the bird in its cage in the other, stops for a moment at a little distance with a natural hesitation before he goes up to make his presence known. in a window--supposed to be that of the child's little room--a light is burning, and in that room the child (unknown, of course, to her visitors, who are full of hope) lies dead. if you have any difficulty about kit, never mind about putting him in. the two others to-morrow. faithfully always. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _friday morning._ my dear cattermole, i sent the ms. of the enclosed proof, marked , up to chapman and hall, from devonshire, mentioning a subject of an old gateway, which i had put in expressly with a view to your illustrious pencil. by a mistake, however, it went to browne instead. chapman is out of town, and such things have gone wrong in consequence. the subject to which i wish to call your attention is in an unwritten number to follow this one, but it is a mere echo of what you will find at the conclusion of this proof marked . i want the cart, gaily decorated, going through the street of the old town with the wax brigand displayed to fierce advantage, and the child seated in it also dispersing bills. as many flags and inscriptions about jarley's wax work fluttering from the cart as you please. you know the wax brigands, and how they contemplate small oval miniatures? that's the figure i want. i send you the scrap of ms. which contains the subject. will you, when you have done this, send it with all speed to chapman and hall, as we are mortally pressed for time, and i must go hard to work to make up for what i have lost by being dutiful and going to see my father. i want to see you about a frontispiece to our first "clock" volume, which will come out (i think) at the end of september, and about other matters. when shall we meet and where? i say nothing about our cousin or the baby, for kate bears this, and will make me a full report and convey all loves and congratulations. could you dine with us on sunday, at six o'clock sharp? i'd come and fetch you in the morning, and we could take a ride and walk. we shall be quite alone, unless macready comes. what say you? don't forget despatch, there's a dear fellow, and ever believe me, heartily yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] _december nd, ._ dear george, the child lying dead in the little sleeping-room, which is behind the open screen. it is winter time, so there are no flowers; but upon her breast and pillow, and about her bed, there may be strips of holly and berries, and such free green things. window overgrown with ivy. the little boy who had that talk with her about angels may be by the bedside, if you like it so; but i think it will be quieter and more peaceful if she is quite alone. i want it to express the most beautiful repose and tranquillity, and to have something of a happy look, if death can. . the child has been buried inside the church, and the old man, who cannot be made to understand that she is dead, repairs to the grave and sits there all day long, waiting for her arrival, to begin another journey. his staff and knapsack, her little bonnet and basket, etc., lie beside him. "she'll come to-morrow," he says when it gets dark, and goes sorrowfully home. i think an hourglass running out would help the notion; perhaps her little things upon his knee, or in his hand. i am breaking my heart over this story, and cannot bear to finish it. love to missis. ever and always heartily. . narrative. in the summer of this year charles dickens made, accompanied by mrs. dickens, his first visit to scotland, and was received in edinburgh with the greatest enthusiasm. he was at broadstairs with his family for the autumn, and at the close of the year he went to windsor for change of air after a serious illness. on the th january "the old curiosity shop" was finished. in the following week the first number of his story of "barnaby rudge" appeared, in "master humphrey's clock," and the last number of this story was written at windsor, in november of this year. we have the first letters to his dear and valued friends the rev. william harness and mr. harrison ainsworth. also his first letter to mr. monckton milnes (now lord houghton). of the letter to mr. john tomlin we would only remark, that it was published in an american magazine, edited by mr. e. a. poe, in the year . "the new first rate" (first letter to mr. harrison ainsworth) must, we think, be an allusion to the outside cover of "bentley's miscellany," which first appeared in this year, and of which mr. ainsworth was editor. the two letters to mr. lovejoy are in answer to a requisition from the people of reading that he would represent them in parliament. the letter to mr. george cattermole ( th june) refers to a dinner given to charles dickens by the people of edinburgh, on his first visit to that city. the "poor overs," mentioned in the letter to mr. macready of th august, was a carpenter dying of consumption, to whom dr. elliotson had shown extraordinary kindness. "when poor overs was dying" (wrote charles dickens to mr. forster), "he suddenly asked for a pen and ink and some paper, and made up a little parcel for me, which it was his last conscious act to direct. she (his wife) told me this, and gave it me. i opened it last night. it was a copy of his little book, in which he had written my name, 'with his devotion.' i thought it simple and affecting of the poor fellow." "the saloon," alluded to in our last letter of this year, was an institution at drury lane theatre during mr. macready's management. the original purpose for which this saloon was established having become perverted and degraded, charles dickens had it much at heart to remodel and improve it. hence this letter to mr. macready. [sidenote: rev. william harness.] devonshire terrace, _saturday morning, jan. nd, ._ my dear harness, i should have been very glad to join your pleasant party, but all next week i shall be laid up with a broken heart, for i must occupy myself in finishing the "curiosity shop," and it is such a painful task to me that i must concentrate myself upon it tooth and nail, and go out nowhere until it is done. i have delayed answering your kind note in a vague hope of being heart-whole again by the seventh. the present state of my work, however (christmas not being a very favourable season for making progress in such doings), assures me that this cannot be, and that i must heroically deny myself the pleasure you offer. always believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _thursday, jan. th, ._ my dear cattermole, i cannot tell you how much obliged i am to you for altering the child, or how much i hope that my wish in that respect didn't go greatly against the grain. i saw the old inn this morning. words cannot say how good it is. i can't bear the thought of its being cut, and should like to frame and glaze it in _statu quo_ for ever and ever. will you do a little tail-piece for the "curiosity" story?--only one figure if you like--giving some notion of the etherealised spirit of the child; something like those little figures in the frontispiece. if you will, and can despatch it at once, you will make me happy. i am, for the time being, nearly dead with work and grief for the loss of my child. always, my dear george, heartily yours. [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _thursday night, jan. th, ._ my dear george, i sent to chapman and hall yesterday morning about the second subject for no. of "barnaby," but found they had sent it to browne. the first subject of no. i will either send to you on saturday, or, at latest, on sunday morning. i have also directed chapman and hall to send you proofs of what has gone before, for reference, if you need it. i want to know whether you feel ravens in general and would fancy barnaby's raven in particular. barnaby being an idiot, my notion is to have him always in company with a pet raven, who is immeasurably more knowing than himself. to this end i have been studying my bird, and think i could make a very queer character of him. should you like the subject when this raven makes his first appearance? faithfully always. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _saturday evening, jan. th, ._ my dear george, i send you the first four slips of no. , containing the description of the locksmith's house, which i think will make a good subject, and one you will like. if you put the "'prentice" in it, show nothing more than his paper cap, because he will be an important character in the story, and you will need to know more about him as he is minutely described. i may as well say that he is very short. should you wish to put the locksmith in, you will find him described in no. of "barnaby" (which i told chapman and hall to send you). browne has done him in one little thing, but so very slightly that you will not require to see his sketch, i think. now, i must know what you think about the raven, my buck; i otherwise am in this fix. i have given browne no subject for this number, and time is flying. if you would like to have the raven's first appearance, and don't object to having both subjects, so be it. i shall be delighted. if otherwise, i must feed that hero forthwith. i cannot close this hasty note, my dear fellow, without saying that i have deeply felt your hearty and most invaluable co-operation in the beautiful illustrations you have made for the last story, that i look at them with a pleasure i cannot describe to you in words, and that it is impossible for me to say how sensible i am of your earnest and friendly aid. believe me that this is the very first time any designs for what i have written have touched and moved me, and caused me to feel that they expressed the idea i had in my mind. i am most sincerely and affectionately grateful to you, and am full of pleasure and delight. believe me, my dear cattermole, always heartily yours. [sidenote: mr. john tomlin.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, london, _tuesday, feb. rd, ._ dear sir, you are quite right in feeling assured that i should answer the letter you have addressed to me. if you had entertained a presentiment that it would afford me sincere pleasure and delight to hear from a warm-hearted and admiring reader of my books in the backwoods of america, you would not have been far wrong. i thank you cordially and heartily both for your letter and its kind and courteous terms. to think that i have awakened a fellow-feeling and sympathy with the creatures of many thoughtful hours among the vast solitudes in which you dwell, is a source of the purest delight and pride to me; and believe me that your expressions of affectionate remembrance and approval, sounding from the green forests on the banks of the mississippi, sink deeper into my heart and gratify it more than all the honorary distinctions that all the courts in europe could confer. it is such things as these that make one hope one does not live in vain, and that are the highest reward of an author's life. to be numbered among the household gods of one's distant countrymen, and associated with their homes and quiet pleasures; to be told that in each nook and corner of the world's great mass there lives one well-wisher who holds communion with one in the spirit, is a worthy fame indeed, and one which i would not barter for a mine of wealth. that i may be happy enough to cheer some of your leisure hours for a very long time to come, and to hold a place in your pleasant thoughts, is the earnest wish of "boz." and, with all good wishes for yourself, and with a sincere reciprocation of all your kindly feeling, i am, dear sir, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. r. monckton milnes] devonshire terrace, _wednesday, march th, ._ my dear milnes, i thank you very much for the "nickleby" correspondence, which i will keep for a day or two, and return when i see you. poor fellow! the long letter is quite admirable, and most affecting. i am not quite sure either of friday or saturday, for, independently of the "clock" (which for ever wants winding), i am getting a young brother off to new zealand just now, and have my mornings sadly cut up in consequence. but, knowing your ways, i know i may say that i will come if i can; and that if i can't i won't. that nellicide was the act of heaven, as you may see any of these fine mornings when you look about you. if you knew the pain it gave me--but what am i talking of? if you don't know, nobody does. i am glad to shake you by the hand again autographically, and am always, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday, february th._ my dear george, my notes tread upon each other's heels. in my last i quite forgot business. will you, for no. , do the locksmith's house, which was described in no. ? i mean the outside. if you can, without hurting the effect, shut up the shop as though it were night, so much the better. should you want a figure, an ancient watchman in or out of his box, very sleepy, will be just the thing for me. i have written to chapman and requested him to send you a block of a long shape, so that the house may come upright as it were. faithfully ever. [sidenote: the same.] old ship hotel, brighton, _feb. th, ._ my dear kittenmoles, i passed your house on wednesday, being then atop of the brighton era; but there was nobody at the door, saving a solitary poulterer, and all my warm-hearted aspirations lodged in the goods he was delivering. no doubt you observed a peculiar relish in your dinner. that was the cause. i send you the ms. i fear you will have to read all the five slips; but the subject i think of is at the top of the last, when the guest, with his back towards the spectator, is looking out of window. i think, in your hands, it will be a very pretty one. then, my boy, when you have done it, turn your thoughts (as soon as other engagements will allow) first to the outside of the warren--see no. ; secondly, to the outside of the locksmith's house, by night--see no. . put a penny pistol to chapman's head and demand the blocks of him. i have addled my head with writing all day, and have barely wit enough left to send my love to my cousin, and--there's a genealogical poser--what relation of mine may the dear little child be? at present, i desire to be commended to her clear blue eyes. always, my dear george, faithfully yours, [hw: boz.] [sidenote: mr. william harrison ainsworth.] devonshire terrace, _april th, ._ my dear ainsworth, with all imaginable pleasure. i quite look forward to the day. it is an age since we met, and it ought not to be. the artist has just sent home your "nickleby." he suggested variety, pleading his fancy and genius. as an artful binder must have his way, i put the best face on the matter, and gave him his. i will bring it together with the "pickwick" to your house-warming with me. the old _royal george_ went down in consequence of having too much weight on one side. i trust the new "first rate" won't be heavy anywhere. there seems to me to be too much whisker for a shilling, but that's a matter of taste. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. g. lovejoy.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _monday evening, may st, ._ sir, i am much obliged and flattered by the receipt of your letter, which i should have answered immediately on its arrival but for my absence from home at the moment. my principles and inclinations would lead me to aspire to the distinction you invite me to seek, if there were any reasonable chance of success, and i hope i should do no discredit to such an honour if i won and wore it. but i am bound to add, and i have no hesitation in saying plainly, that i cannot afford the expense of a contested election. if i could, i would act on your suggestion instantly. i am not the less indebted to you and the friends to whom the thought occurred, for your good opinion and approval. i beg you to understand that i am restrained solely (and much against my will) by the consideration i have mentioned, and thank both you and them most warmly. yours faithfully. [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _june th, ._ dear sir, i am favoured with your note of yesterday's date, and lose no time in replying to it. the sum you mention, though small i am aware in the abstract, is greater than i could afford for such a purpose; as the mere sitting in the house and attending to my duties, if i were a member, would oblige me to make many pecuniary sacrifices, consequent upon the very nature of my pursuits. the course you suggest did occur to me when i received your first letter, and i have very little doubt indeed that the government would support me--perhaps to the whole extent. but i cannot satisfy myself that to enter parliament under such circumstances would enable me to pursue that honourable independence without which i could neither preserve my own respect nor that of my constituents. i confess therefore (it may be from not having considered the points sufficiently, or in the right light) that i cannot bring myself to propound the subject to any member of the administration whom i know. i am truly obliged to you nevertheless, and am, dear sir, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _wednesday evening, july th, ._ my dear george, can you do for me by saturday evening--i know the time is short, but i think the subject will suit you, and i am greatly pressed--a party of rioters (with hugh and simon tappertit conspicuous among them) in old john willet's bar, turning the liquor taps to their own advantage, smashing bottles, cutting down the grove of lemons, sitting astride on casks, drinking out of the best punch-bowls, eating the great cheese, smoking sacred pipes, etc. etc.; john willet, fallen backward in his chair, regarding them with a stupid horror, and quite alone among them, with none of the maypole customers at his back. it's in your way, and you'll do it a hundred times better than i can suggest it to you, i know. faithfully always. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] broadstairs, _friday, august th, ._ my dear george, here is a subject for the next number; the next to that i hope to send you the ms. of very early in the week, as the best opportunities of illustration are all coming off now, and we are in the thick of the story. the rioters went, sir, from john willet's bar (where you saw them to such good purpose) straight to the warren, which house they plundered, sacked, burned, pulled down as much of as they could, and greatly damaged and destroyed. they are supposed to have left it about half an hour. it is night, and the ruins are here and there flaming and smoking. i want--if you understand--to show one of the turrets laid open--the turret where the alarm-bell is, mentioned in no. ; and among the ruins (at some height if possible) mr. haredale just clutching our friend, the mysterious file, who is passing over them like a spirit; solomon daisy, if you can introduce him, looking on from the ground below. please to observe that the m. f. wears a large cloak and a slouched hat. this is important, because browne will have him in the same number, and he has not changed his dress meanwhile. mr. haredale is supposed to have come down here on horseback, pell-mell; to be excited to the last degree. i think it will make a queer picturesque thing in your hands. i have told chapman and hall that you may like to have a block of a peculiar shape for it. one of them will be with you almost as soon as you receive this. we are very anxious to know that our cousin is out of her trouble, and you free from your anxiety. mind you write when it comes off. and when she is quite comfortable come down here for a day or two, like a bachelor, as you will be. it will do you a world of good. think of that. always, dear cattermole, heartily yours. p.s.--when you have done the subject, i wish you'd write me one line and tell me how, that i may be sure we agree. loves from kate. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _thursday, august th._ my dear cattermole, will you turn your attention to a frontispiece for our first volume, to come upon the left-hand side of the book as you open it, and to face a plain printed title? my idea is, some scene from the "curiosity shop," in a pretty border, or scroll-work, or architectural device; it matters not what, so that it be pretty. the scene even might be a fanciful thing, partaking of the character of the story, but not reproducing any particular passage in it, if you thought that better for the effect. i ask you to think of this, because, although the volume is not published until the end of september, there is no time to lose. we wish to have it engraved with great care, and worked very skilfully; and this cannot be done unless we get it on the stocks soon. they will give you every opportunity of correction, alteration, revision, and all other ations and isions connected with the fine arts. always believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] broadstairs, _august th, ._ my dear george, when hugh and a small body of the rioters cut off from the warren beckoned to their pals, they forced into a very remarkable postchaise dolly varden and emma haredale, and bore them away with all possible rapidity; one of their company driving, and the rest running beside the chaise, climbing up behind, sitting on the top, lighting the way with their torches, etc. etc. if you can express the women inside without showing them--as by a fluttering veil, a delicate arm, or so forth appearing at the half-closed window--so much the better. mr. tappertit stands on the steps, which are partly down, and, hanging on to the window with one hand and extending the other with great majesty, addresses a few words of encouragement to the driver and attendants. hugh sits upon the bar in front; the driver sitting postilion-wise, and turns round to look through the window behind him at the little doves within. the gentlemen behind are also anxious to catch a glimpse of the ladies. one of those who are running at the side may be gently rebuked for his curiosity by the cudgel of hugh. so they cut away, sir, as fast as they can. always faithfully. p.s.--john willet's bar is noble. we take it for granted that cousin and baby are hearty. our loves to them. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] broadstairs, _tuesday, august th, ._ my dear macready, i must thank you, most heartily and cordially, for your kind note relative to poor overs. i can't tell you how glad i am to know that he thoroughly deserves such kindness. what a good fellow elliotson is. he kept him in his room a whole hour, and has gone into his case as if he were prince albert; laying down all manner of elaborate projects and determining to leave his friend wood in town when he himself goes away, on purpose to attend to him. then he writes me four sides of paper about the man, and says he can't go back to his old work, for that requires muscular exertion (and muscular exertion he mustn't make), what are we to do with him? he says: "here's five pounds for the present." i declare before god that i could almost bear the jones's for five years out of the pleasure i feel in knowing such things, and when i think that every dirty speck upon the fair face of the almighty's creation, who writes in a filthy, beastly newspaper; every rotten-hearted pander who has been beaten, kicked, and rolled in the kennel, yet struts it in the editorial "we," once a week; every vagabond that an honest man's gorge must rise at; every live emetic in that noxious drug-shop the press, can have his fling at such men and call them knaves and fools and thieves, i grow so vicious that, with bearing hard upon my pen, i break the nib down, and, with keeping my teeth set, make my jaws ache. i have put myself out of sorts for the day, and shall go and walk, unless the direction of this sets me up again. on second thoughts i think it will. always, my dear macready, your faithful friend. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] broadstairs, _sunday, september th, ._ my dear george, here is a business letter, written in a scramble just before post time, whereby i dispose of loves to cousin in a line. firstly. will you design, upon a block of wood, lord george gordon, alone and very solitary, in his prison in the tower? the chamber as ancient as you please, and after your own fancy; the time, evening; the season, summer. secondly. will you ditto upon a ditto, a sword duel between mr. haredale and mr. chester, in a grove of trees? no one close by. mr. haredale has just pierced his adversary, who has fallen, dying, on the grass. he (that is, chester) tries to staunch the wound in his breast with his handkerchief; has his snuffbox on the earth beside him, and looks at mr. haredale (who stands with his sword in his hand, looking down on him) with most supercilious hatred, but polite to the last. mr. haredale is more sorry than triumphant. thirdly. will you conceive and execute, after your own fashion, a frontispiece for "barnaby"? fourthly. will you also devise a subject representing "master humphrey's clock" as stopped; his chair by the fireside, empty; his crutch against the wall; his slippers on the cold hearth; his hat upon the chair-back; the mss. of "barnaby" and "the curiosity shop" heaped upon the table; and the flowers you introduced in the first subject of all withered and dead? master humphrey being supposed to be no more. i have a fifthly, sixthly, seventhly, and eighthly; for i sorely want you, as i approach the close of the tale, but i won't frighten you, so we'll take breath. always, my dear cattermole, heartily yours. p.s.--i have been waiting until i got to subjects of this nature, thinking you would like them best. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] broadstairs, _september st, ._ my dear george, will you, before you go on with the other subjects i gave you, do one of hugh, bareheaded, bound, tied on a horse, and escorted by horse-soldiers to jail? if you can add an indication of old fleet market, and bodies of foot soldiers firing at people who have taken refuge on the tops of stalls, bulk-heads, etc., it will be all the better. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: miss mary talfourd.] devonshire terrace, _december th, ._ my dear mary, i should be delighted to come and dine with you on your birthday, and to be as merry as i wish you to be always; but as i am going, within a very few days afterwards, a very long distance from home, and shall not see any of my children for six long months, i have made up my mind to pass all that week at home for their sakes; just as you would like your papa and mamma to spend all the time they possibly could spare with you if they were about to make a dreary voyage to america; which is what i am going to do myself. but although i cannot come to see you on that day, you may be sure i shall not forget that it is your birthday, and that i shall drink your health and many happy returns, in a glass of wine, filled as full as it will hold. and i shall dine at half-past five myself, so that we may both be drinking our wine at the same time; and i shall tell my mary (for i have got a daughter of that name but she is a very small one as yet) to drink your health too; and we shall try and make believe that you are here, or that we are in russell square, which is the best thing we can do, i think, under the circumstances. you are growing up so fast that by the time i come home again i expect you will be almost a woman; and in a very few years we shall be saying to each other: "don't you remember what the birthdays used to be in russell square?" and "how strange it seems!" and "how quickly time passes!" and all that sort of thing, you know. but i shall always be very glad to be asked on your birthday, and to come if you will let me, and to send my love to you, and to wish that you may live to be very old and very happy, which i do now with all my heart. believe me always, my dear mary, yours affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday, dec. th, ._ my dear macready, this note is about the saloon. i make it as brief as possible. read it when you have time. as we were the first experimentalists last night you will be glad to know what it wants. first, the refreshments are preposterously dear. a glass of wine is a shilling, and it ought to be sixpence. secondly, they were served out by the wrong sort of people--two most uncomfortable drabs of women, and a dirty man with his hat on. thirdly, there ought to be a box-keeper to ring a bell or give some other notice of the commencement of the overture to the after-piece. the promenaders were in a perpetual fret and worry to get back again. and fourthly, and most important of all--if the plan is ever to succeed--you must have some notice up to the effect that as it is now a place of resort for ladies, gentlemen are requested not to lounge there in their hats and greatcoats. no ladies will go there, though the conveniences should be ten thousand times greater, while the sort of swells who have been used to kick their heels there do so in the old sort of way. i saw this expressed last night more strongly than i can tell you. hearty congratulations on the brilliant triumph. i have always expected one, as you know, but nobody could have imagined the reality. always, my dear macready, affectionately yours. . narrative. in january of this year charles dickens went, with his wife, to america, the house in devonshire terrace being let for the term of their absence (six months), and the four children left in a furnished house in osnaburgh street, regent's park, under the care of mr. and mrs. macready. they returned from america in july, and in august went to broadstairs for the autumn months as usual, and in october charles dickens made an expedition to cornwall, with mr. forster, mr. maclise, and mr. stanfield for his companions. during his stay at broadstairs he was engaged in writing his "american notes," which book was published in october. at the end of the year he had written the first number of "martin chuzzlewit," which appeared in january, . an extract from a letter, addressed to messrs. chapman and hall before his departure for america, is given as a testimony of the estimation in which charles dickens held the firm with whom he was connected for so many years. his letters to mr. h. p. smith, for many years actuary of the eagle insurance office, are a combination of business and friendship. mr. smith gives us, as an explanation of a note to him, dated th july, that he alluded to the stamp of the office upon the cheque, which was, as he described it, "almost a work of art"--a truculent-looking eagle seated on a rock and scattering rays over the whole sheet. of letters written by charles dickens in america we have been able to obtain very few. one, to dr. f. h. deane, cincinnati, complying with his request to write him an epitaph for the tombstone of his little child, has been kindly copied for us from an album, by mrs. fields, of boston. therefore, it is not directly received, but as we have no doubt of its authenticity, we give it here; and there is one to mr. halleck, the american poet. at the close of the voyage to america (a very bad and dangerous one), a meeting of the passengers, with lord mulgrave in the chair, took place, and a piece of plate and thanks were voted to the captain of the _britannia_, captain hewett. the vote of thanks, being drawn up by charles dickens, is given here. we have letters in this year to mr. thomas hood, miss pardoe, mrs. trollope, and mr. w. p. frith. the last-named artist--then a very young man--had made great success with several charming pictures of dolly varden. one of these was bought by charles dickens, who ordered a companion picture of kate nickleby, from the young painter, whose acquaintance he made at the same time; and the two letters to mr. frith have reference to the purchase of the one picture and the commission for the other. the letter to mr. cattermole is an acknowledgment also of a completed commission of two water-colour drawings, from the subjects of two of mr. cattermole's illustrations to "the old curiosity shop." a note to mr. macready, at the close of this year, refers to the first representation of mr. westland marston's play, "the patrician's daughter." charles dickens took great interest in the production of this work at drury lane. it was, to a certain extent, an experiment of the effect of a tragedy of modern times and in modern dress; and the prologue, which charles dickens wrote and which we give, was intended to show that there need be no incongruity between plain clothes of this century and high tragedy. the play was quite successful. [sidenote: messrs. chapman and hall.] * * * * * having disposed of the business part of this letter, i should not feel at ease on leaving england if i did not tell you once more with my whole heart that your conduct to me on this and all other occasions has been honourable, manly, and generous, and that i have felt it a solemn duty, in the event of any accident happening to me while i am away, to place this testimony upon record. it forms part of a will i have made for the security of my children; for i wish them to know it when they are capable of understanding your worth and my appreciation of it. always believe me, faithfully and truly yours. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _monday, jan. rd, ._ my dear mitton, this is a short note, but i will fulfil the adage and make it a merry one. we came down in great comfort. our luggage is now aboard. anything so utterly and monstrously absurd as the size of our cabin, no "gentleman of england who lives at home at ease" can for a moment imagine. neither of the portmanteaus would go into it. there! these cunard packets are not very big you know actually, but the quantity of sleeping-berths makes them much smaller, so that the saloon is not nearly as large as in one of the ramsgate boats. the ladies' cabin is so close to ours that i could knock the door open without getting off something they call my bed, but which i believe to be a muffin beaten flat. this is a great comfort, for it is an excellent room (the only good one in the ship); and if there be only one other lady besides kate, as the stewardess thinks, i hope i shall be able to sit there very often. they talk of seventy passengers, but i can't think there will be so many; they talk besides (which is even more to the purpose) of a very fine passage, having had a noble one this time last year. god send it so! we are in the best spirits, and full of hope. i was dashed for a moment when i saw our "cabin," but i got over that directly, and laughed so much at its ludicrous proportions, that you might have heard me all over the ship. god bless you! write to me by the first opportunity. i will do the like to you. and always believe me, your old and faithful friend. narrative. at a meeting of the passengers on board the _britannia_ steam-ship, travelling from liverpool to boston, held in the saloon of that vessel, on friday, the st january, , it was moved and seconded: "that the earl of mulgrave do take the chair." the motion having been carried unanimously, the earl of mulgrave took the chair accordingly. it was also moved and seconded, and carried unanimously: "that charles dickens, esq., be appointed secretary and treasurer to the meeting." the three following resolutions were then proposed and carried _nem. con._: "first. that, gratefully recognising the blessing of divine providence by which we are brought nearly to the termination of our voyage, we have great pleasure in expressing our high appreciation of captain hewett's nautical skill and of his indefatigable attention to the management and safe conduct of the ship, during a more than ordinarily tempestuous passage. "secondly. that a subscription be opened for the purchase of a piece of silver plate, and that captain hewett be respectfully requested to accept it, as a sincere expression of the sentiments embodied in the foregoing resolution. "thirdly. that a committee be appointed to carry these resolutions into effect; and that the committee be composed of the following gentlemen: charles dickens, esq., e. dunbar, esq., and solomon hopkins, esq." the committee having withdrawn and conferred with captain hewett, returned, and informed the meeting that captain hewett desired to attend and express his thanks, which he did. the amount of the subscription was reported at fifty pounds, and the list was closed. it was then agreed that the following inscription should be placed upon the testimonial to captain hewett: this piece of plate was presented to captain john hewett, of the britannia steam-ship, by the passengers on board that vessel in a voyage from liverpool to boston, in the month of january, , as a slight acknowledgment of his great ability and skill under circumstances of much difficulty and danger, and as a feeble token of their lasting gratitude. thanks were then voted to the chairman and to the secretary, and the meeting separated. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] tremont house, boston, _january st, ._ my dear mitton, i am so exhausted with the life i am obliged to lead here, that i have had time to write but one letter which is at all deserving of the name, as giving any account of our movements. forster has it, in trust, to tell you all its news; and he has also some newspapers which i had an opportunity of sending him, in which you will find further particulars of our progress. we had a dreadful passage, the worst, the officers all concur in saying, that they have ever known. we were eighteen days coming; experienced a dreadful storm which swept away our paddle-boxes and stove our lifeboats; and ran aground besides, near halifax, among rocks and breakers, where we lay at anchor all night. after we left the english channel we had only one fine day. and we had the additional discomfort of being eighty-six passengers. i was ill five days, kate six; though, indeed, she had a swelled face and suffered the utmost terror all the way. i can give you no conception of my welcome here. there never was a king or emperor upon the earth so cheered and followed by crowds, and entertained in public at splendid balls and dinners, and waited on by public bodies and deputations of all kinds. i have had one from the far west--a journey of two thousand miles! if i go out in a carriage, the crowd surround it and escort me home; if i go to the theatre, the whole house (crowded to the roof) rises as one man, and the timbers ring again. you cannot imagine what it is. i have five great public dinners on hand at this moment, and invitations from every town and village and city in the states. there is a great deal afloat here in the way of subjects for description. i keep my eyes open pretty wide, and hope to have done so to some purpose by the time i come home. when you write to me again--i say again, hoping that your first letter will be soon upon its way here--direct to me to the care of david colden, esq., new york. he will forward all communications by the quickest conveyance and will be perfectly acquainted with all my movements. always your faithful friend. [sidenote: mr. fitz-greene halleck.] carlton house, _february th, ._ my dear sir, will you come and breakfast with me on tuesday, the nd, at half-past ten? say yes. i should have been truly delighted to have a talk with you to-night (being quite alone), but the doctor says that if i talk to man, woman, or child this evening i shall be dumb to-morrow. believe me, with true regard, faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] baltimore, _march nd, ._ my dear friend, i beg your pardon, but you were speaking of rash leaps at hasty conclusions. are you quite sure you designed that remark for me? have you not, in the hurry of correspondence, slipped a paragraph into my letter which belongs of right to somebody else? when did you ever find me leap at wrong conclusions? i pause for a reply. pray, sir, did you ever find me admiring mr. ----? on the contrary, did you never hear of my protesting through good, better, and best report that he was not an open or a candid man, and would one day, beyond all doubt, displease you by not being so? i pause again for a reply. are you quite sure, mr. macready--and i address myself to you with the sternness of a man in the pit--are you quite sure, sir, that you do not view america through the pleasant mirage which often surrounds a thing that has been, but not a thing that is? are you quite sure that when you were here you relished it as well as you do now when you look back upon it. the early spring birds, mr. macready, _do_ sing in the groves that you were, very often, not over well pleased with many of the new country's social aspects. are the birds to be trusted? again i pause for a reply. my dear macready, i desire to be so honest and just to those who have so enthusiastically and earnestly welcomed me, that i burned the last letter i wrote to you--even to you to whom i would speak as to myself--rather than let it come with anything that might seem like an ill-considered word of disappointment. i preferred that you should think me neglectful (if you could imagine anything so wild) rather than i should do wrong in this respect. still it is of no use. i _am_ disappointed. this is not the republic i came to see; this is not the republic of my imagination. i infinitely prefer a liberal monarchy--even with its sickening accompaniments of court circulars--to such a government as this. the more i think of its youth and strength, the poorer and more trifling in a thousand aspects it appears in my eyes. in everything of which it has made a boast--excepting its education of the people and its care for poor children--it sinks immeasurably below the level i had placed it upon; and england, even england, bad and faulty as the old land is, and miserable as millions of her people are, rises in the comparison. _you_ live here, macready, as i have sometimes heard you imagining! _you!_ loving you with all my heart and soul, and knowing what your disposition really is, i would not condemn you to a year's residence on this side of the atlantic for any money. freedom of opinion! where is it? i see a press more mean, and paltry, and silly, and disgraceful than any country i ever knew. if that is its standard, here it is. but i speak of bancroft, and am advised to be silent on that subject, for he is "a black sheep--a democrat." i speak of bryant, and am entreated to be more careful, for the same reason. i speak of international copyright, and am implored not to ruin myself outright. i speak of miss martineau, and all parties--slave upholders and abolitionists, whigs, tyler whigs, and democrats, shower down upon me a perfect cataract of abuse. "but what has she done? surely she praised america enough!" "yes, but she told us of some of our faults, and americans can't bear to be told of their faults. don't split on that rock, mr. dickens, don't write about america; we are so very suspicious." freedom of opinion! macready, if i had been born here and had written my books in this country, producing them with no stamp of approval from any other land, it is my solemn belief that i should have lived and died poor, unnoticed, and a "black sheep" to boot. i never was more convinced of anything than i am of that. the people are affectionate, generous, open-hearted, hospitable, enthusiastic, good-humoured, polite to women, frank and candid to all strangers, anxious to oblige, far less prejudiced than they have been described to be, frequently polished and refined, very seldom rude or disagreeable. i have made a great many friends here, even in public conveyances, whom i have been truly sorry to part from. in the towns i have formed perfect attachments. i have seen none of that greediness and indecorousness on which travellers have laid so much emphasis. i have returned frankness with frankness; met questions not intended to be rude, with answers meant to be satisfactory; and have not spoken to one man, woman, or child of any degree who has not grown positively affectionate before we parted. in the respects of not being left alone, and of being horribly disgusted by tobacco chewing and tobacco spittle, i have suffered considerably. the sight of slavery in virginia, the hatred of british feeling upon the subject, and the miserable hints of the impotent indignation of the south, have pained me very much; on the last head, of course, i have felt nothing but a mingled pity and amusement; on the other, sheer distress. but however much i like the ingredients of this great dish, i cannot but come back to the point upon which i started, and say that the dish itself goes against the grain with me, and that i don't like it. you know that i am truly a liberal. i believe i have as little pride as most men, and i am conscious of not the smallest annoyance from being "hail fellow well met" with everybody. i have not had greater pleasure in the company of any set of men among the thousands i have received (i hold a regular levée every day, you know, which is duly heralded and proclaimed in the newspapers) than in that of the carmen of hertford, who presented themselves in a body in their blue frocks, among a crowd of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, and bade me welcome through their spokesman. they had all read my books, and all perfectly understood them. it is not these things i have in my mind when i say that the man who comes to this country a radical and goes home again with his opinions unchanged, must be a radical on reason, sympathy, and reflection, and one who has so well considered the subject that he has no chance of wavering. we have been to boston, worcester, hertford, new haven, new york, philadelphia, baltimore, washington, fredericksburgh, richmond, and back to washington again. the premature heat of the weather (it was eighty yesterday in the shade) and clay's advice--how you would like clay!--have made us determine not to go to charleston; but having got to richmond, i think i should have turned back under any circumstances. we remain at baltimore for two days, of which this is one; then we go to harrisburgh. then by the canal boat and the railroad over the alleghany mountains to pittsburgh, then down the ohio to cincinnati, then to louisville, and then to st. louis. i have been invited to a public entertainment in every town i have entered, and have refused them; but i have excepted st. louis as the farthest point of my travels. my friends there have passed some resolutions which forster has, and will show you. from st. louis we cross to chicago, traversing immense prairies. thence by the lakes and detroit to buffalo, and so to niagara. a run into canada follows of course, and then--let me write the blessed word in capitals--we turn towards home. kate has written to mrs. macready, and it is useless for me to thank you, my dearest friend, or her, for your care of our dear children, which is our constant theme of discourse. forster has gladdened our hearts with his account of the triumph of "acis and galatea," and i am anxiously looking for news of the tragedy. forrest breakfasted with us at richmond last saturday--he was acting there, and i invited him--and he spoke very gratefully, and very like a man, of your kindness to him when he was in london. david colden is as good a fellow as ever lived; and i am deeply in love with his wife. indeed we have received the greatest and most earnest and zealous kindness from the whole family, and quite love them all. do you remember one greenhow, whom you invited to pass some days with you at the hotel on the kaatskill mountains? he is translator to the state office at washington, has a very pretty wife, and a little girl of five years old. we dined with them, and had a very pleasant day. the president invited me to dinner, but i couldn't stay for it. i had a private audience, however, and we attended the public drawing-room besides. now, don't you rush at the quick conclusion that i have rushed at a quick conclusion. pray, be upon your guard. if you can by any process estimate the extent of my affectionate regard for you, and the rush i shall make when i reach london to take you by your true right hand, i don't object. but let me entreat you to be very careful how you come down upon the sharpsighted individual who pens these words, which you seem to me to have done in what willmott would call "one of mr. macready's rushes." as my pen is getting past its work, i have taken a new one to say that i am ever, my dear macready, your faithful friend. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] baltimore, united states, _march nd, ._ my dear friend, we have been as far south as richmond in virginia (where they grow and manufacture tobacco, and where the labour is all performed by slaves), but the season in those latitudes is so intensely and prematurely hot, that it was considered a matter of doubtful expediency to go on to charleston. for this unexpected reason, and because the country between richmond and charleston is but a desolate swamp the whole way, and because slavery is anything but a cheerful thing to live amidst, i have altered my route by the advice of mr. clay (the great political leader in this country), and have returned here previous to diving into the far west. we start for that part of the country--which includes mountain travelling, and lake travelling, and prairie travelling--the day after to-morrow, at eight o'clock in the morning; and shall be in the west, and from there going northward again, until the th of april or st of may, when we shall halt for a week at niagara, before going further into canada. we have taken our passage home (god bless the word) in the _george washington_ packet-ship from new york. she sails on the th of june. i have departed from my resolution not to accept any more public entertainments; they have been proposed in every town i have visited--in favour of the people of st. louis, my utmost western point. that town is on the borders of the indian territory, a trifling distance from this place--only two thousand miles! at my second halting-place i shall be able to write to fix the day; i suppose it will be somewhere about the th of april. think of my going so far towards the setting sun to dinner! in every town where we stay, though it be only for a day, we hold a regular levée or drawing-room, where i shake hands on an average with five or six hundred people, who pass on from me to kate, and are shaken again by her. maclise's picture of our darlings stands upon a table or sideboard the while; and my travelling secretary, assisted very often by a committee belonging to the place, presents the people in due form. think of two hours of this every day, and the people coming in by hundreds, all fresh, and piping hot, and full of questions, when we are literally exhausted and can hardly stand. i really do believe that if i had not a lady with me, i should have been obliged to leave the country and go back to england. but for her they never would leave me alone by day or night, and as it is, a slave comes to me now and then in the middle of the night with a letter, and waits at the bedroom door for an answer. it was so hot at richmond that we could scarcely breathe, and the peach and other fruit trees were in full blossom; it was so cold at washington next day that we were shivering; but even in the same town you might often wear nothing but a shirt and trousers in the morning, and two greatcoats at night, the thermometer very frequently taking a little trip of thirty degrees between sunrise and sunset. they do lay it on at the hotels in such style! they charge by the day, so that whether one dines out or dines at home makes no manner of difference. t'other day i wrote to order our rooms at philadelphia to be ready on a certain day, and was detained a week longer than i expected in new york. the philadelphia landlord not only charged me half rent for the rooms during the whole of that time, but board for myself and kate and anne during the whole time too, though we were actually boarding at the same expense during the same time in new york! what do you say to that? if i remonstrated, the whole virtue of the newspapers would be aroused directly. we were at the president's drawing-room while we were in washington. i had a private audience besides, and was asked to dinner, but couldn't stay. parties--parties--parties--of course, every day and night. but it's not all parties. i go into the prisons, the police-offices, the watch-houses, the hospitals, the workhouses. i was out half the night in new york with two of their most famous constables; started at midnight, and went into every brothel, thieves' house, murdering hovel, sailors' dancing-place, and abode of villany, both black and white, in the town. i went _incog._ behind the scenes to the little theatre where mitchell is making a fortune. he has been rearing a little dog for me, and has called him "boz."[ ] i am going to bring him home. in a word i go everywhere, and a hard life it is. but i am careful to drink hardly anything, and not to smoke at all. i have recourse to my medicine-chest whenever i feel at all bilious, and am, thank god, thoroughly well. when i next write to you, i shall have begun, i hope, to turn my face homeward. i have a great store of oddity and whimsicality, and am going now into the oddest and most characteristic part of this most queer country. always direct to the care of david colden, esq., , laight street, hudson square, new york. i received your caledonia letter with the greatest joy. kate sends her best remembrances. and i am always. p.s.--richmond was my extreme southern point, and i turn from the south altogether the day after to-morrow. will you let the britannia[ ] know of this change--if needful? [sidenote: dr. f. h. deane.] cincinnati, ohio, _april th, ._ my dear sir, i have not been unmindful of your request for a moment, but have not been able to think of it until now. i hope my good friends (for whose christian-names i have left blanks in the epitaph) may like what i have written, and that they will take comfort and be happy again. i sail on the th of june, and purpose being at the carlton house, new york, about the st. it will make me easy to know that this letter has reached you. faithfully yours. this is the grave of a little child, whom god in his goodness called to a bright eternity when he was very young. hard as it is for human affection to reconcile itself to death in any shape (and most of all, perhaps, at first in this), his parents can even now believe that it will be a consolation to them throughout their lives, and when they shall have grown old and gray, always to think of him as a child in heaven. "_and jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them._" he was the son of q---- and m---- thornton, christened charles jerking. he was born on the th day of january, , and he died on the th day of march, , having lived only thirteen months and twenty days. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] niagara falls (english side), _sunday, may st, ._ my dear henry, although i date this letter as above, it will not be so old a one as at first sight it would appear to be when it reaches you. i shall carry it on with me to montreal, and despatch it from there by the steamer which goes to halifax, to meet the cunard boat at that place, with canadian letters and passengers. before i finally close it, i will add a short postscript, so that it will contain the latest intelligence. we have had a blessed interval of quiet in this beautiful place, of which, as you may suppose, we stood greatly in need, not only by reason of our hard travelling for a long time, but on account of the incessant persecutions of the people, by land and water, on stage coach, railway car, and steamer, which exceeds anything you can picture to yourself by the utmost stretch of your imagination. so far we have had this hotel nearly to ourselves. it is a large square house, standing on a bold height, with overhanging eaves like a swiss cottage, and a wide handsome gallery outside every story. these colonnades make it look so very light, that it has exactly the appearance of a house built with a pack of cards; and i live in bodily terror lest any man should venture to step out of a little observatory on the roof, and crush the whole structure with one stamp of his foot. our sitting-room (which is large and low like a nursery) is on the second floor, and is so close to the falls that the windows are always wet and dim with spray. two bedrooms open out of it--one our own; one anne's. the secretary slumbers near at hand, but without these sacred precincts. from the three chambers, or any part of them, you can see the falls rolling and tumbling, and roaring and leaping, all day long, with bright rainbows making fiery arches down a hundred feet below us. when the sun is on them, they shine and glow like molten gold. when the day is gloomy, the water falls like snow, or sometimes it seems to crumble away like the face of a great chalk cliff, or sometimes again to roll along the front of the rock like white smoke. but it all seems gay or gloomy, dark or light, by sun or moon. from the bottom of both falls, there is always rising up a solemn ghostly cloud, which hides the boiling cauldron from human sight, and makes it in its mystery a hundred times more grand than if you could see all the secrets that lie hidden in its tremendous depth. one fall is as close to us as york gate is to no. , devonshire terrace. the other (the great horse-shoe fall) may be, perhaps, about half as far off as "creedy's."[ ] one circumstance in connection with them is, in all the accounts, greatly exaggerated--i mean the noise. last night was perfectly still. kate and i could just hear them, at the quiet time of sunset, a mile off. whereas, believing the statements i had heard i began putting my ear to the ground, like a savage or a bandit in a ballet, thirty miles off, when we were coming here from buffalo. i was delighted to receive your famous letter, and to read your account of our darlings, whom we long to see with an intensity it is impossible to shadow forth, ever so faintly. i do believe, though i say it as shouldn't, that they are good 'uns--both to look at and to go. i roared out this morning, as soon as i was awake, "next month," which we have been longing to be able to say ever since we have been here. i really do not know how we shall ever knock at the door, when that slowest of all impossibly slow hackney-coaches shall pull up--at home. i am glad you exult in the fight i have had about the copyright. if you knew how they tried to stop me, you would have a still greater interest in it. the greatest men in england have sent me out, through forster, a very manly, and becoming, and spirited memorial and address, backing me in all i have done. i have despatched it to boston for publication, and am coolly prepared for the storm it will raise. but my best rod is in pickle. is it not a horrible thing that scoundrel booksellers should grow rich here from publishing books, the authors of which do not reap one farthing from their issue by scores of thousands; and that every vile, blackguard, and detestable newspaper, so filthy and bestial that no honest man would admit one into his house for a scullery door-mat, should be able to publish those same writings side by side, cheek by jowl, with the coarsest and most obscene companions with which they must become connected, in course of time, in people's minds? is it tolerable that besides being robbed and rifled an author should be forced to appear in any form, in any vulgar dress, in any atrocious company; that he should have no choice of his audience, no control over his own distorted text, and that he should be compelled to jostle out of the course the best men in this country who only ask to live by writing? i vow before high heaven that my blood so boils at these enormities, that when i speak about them i seem to grow twenty feet high, and to swell out in proportion. "robbers that ye are," i think to myself when i get upon my legs, "here goes!" the places we have lodged in, the roads we have gone over, the company we have been among, the tobacco-spittle we have wallowed in, the strange customs we have complied with, the packing-cases in which we have travelled, the woods, swamps, rivers, prairies, lakes, and mountains we have crossed, are all subjects for legends and tales at home; quires, reams, wouldn't hold them. i don't think anne has so much as seen an american tree. she never looks at a prospect by any chance, or displays the smallest emotion at any sight whatever. she objects to niagara that "it's nothing but water," and considers that "there is too much of that." i suppose you have heard that i am going to act at the montreal theatre with the officers? farce-books being scarce, and the choice consequently limited, i have selected keeley's part in "two o'clock in the morning." i wrote yesterday to mitchell, the actor and manager at new york, to get and send me a comic wig, light flaxen, with a small whisker halfway down the cheek; over this i mean to wear two night-caps, one with a tassel and one of flannel; a flannel wrapper, drab tights and slippers, will complete the costume. i am very sorry to hear that business is so flat, but the proverb says it never rains but it pours, and it may be remarked with equal truth upon the other side, that it never _don't_ rain but it holds up very much indeed. you will be busy again long before i come home, i have no doubt. we purpose leaving this on wednesday morning. give my love to letitia and to mother, and always believe me, my dear henry, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] montreal, canada, _may th, ._ all well, though (with the exception of one from fred) we have received no letters whatever by the _caledonia_. we have experienced impossible-to-be-described attentions in canada. everybody's carriage and horses are at our disposal, and everybody's servants; and all the government boats and boats' crews. we shall play, between the th and the th, "a roland for an oliver," "two o'clock in the morning," and "deaf as a post." [sidenote: mr. thomas longman.] athenÃ�um, _friday afternoon._ my dear sir, if i could possibly have attended the meeting yesterday i would most gladly have done so. but i have been up the whole night, and was too much exhausted even to write and say so before the proceedings came on. i have fought the fight across the atlantic with the utmost energy i could command; have never been turned aside by any consideration for an instant; am fresher for the fray than ever; will battle it to the death, and die game to the last. i am happy to say that my boy is quite well again. from being in perfect health he fell into alarming convulsions with the surprise and joy of our return. i beg my regards to mrs. longman, and am always, faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss pardoe.] devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _july th, ._ dear madam, i beg to set you right on one point in reference to the american robbers, which perhaps you do not quite understand. the existing law allows them to reprint any english book, without any communication whatever with the author or anybody else. my books have all been reprinted on these agreeable terms. but sometimes, when expectation is awakened there about a book before its publication, one firm of pirates will pay a trifle to procure early proofs of it, and get so much the start of the rest as they can obtain by the time necessarily consumed in printing it. directly it is printed it is common property, and may be reprinted a thousand times. my circular only referred to such bargains as these. i should add that i have no hope of the states doing justice in this dishonest respect, and therefore do not expect to overtake these fellows, but we may cry "stop thief!" nevertheless, especially as they wince and smart under it. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. h. p. smith.] devonshire terrace, _thursday, july th, ._ my dear smith, the cheque safely received. as you say, it would be cheap at any money. my devotion to the fine arts renders it impossible for me to cash it. i have therefore ordered it to be framed and glazed. i am really grateful to you for the interest you take in my proceedings. next time i come into the city i will show you my introductory chapter to the american book. it may seem to prepare the reader for a much greater amount of slaughter than he will meet with; but it is honest and true. therefore my hand does not shake. best love and regards. "certainly" to the richmondian intentions. always faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mr. harrison ainsworth.] broadstairs, kent, _september th, ._ my dear ainsworth, the enclosed has been sent to me by a young gentleman in devonshire (of whom i know no more than that i have occasionally, at his request, read and suggested amendments in some of his writings), with a special petition that i would recommend it to you for insertion in your magazine. i think it very pretty, and i have no doubt you will also. but it is poetry, and may be too long. he is a very modest young fellow, and has decided ability. i hope when i come home at the end of the month, we shall foregather more frequently. of course you are working, tooth and nail; and of course i am. kate joins me in best regards to yourself and all your house (not forgetting, but especially remembering, my old friend, mrs. touchet), and i am always, my dear ainsworth, heartily yours. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] broadstairs, _sunday, september th, ._ my dear henry, i enclose you the niagara letter, with many thanks for the loan of it. pray tell mr. chadwick that i am greatly obliged to him for his remembrance of me, and i heartily concur with him in the great importance and interest of the subject, though i do differ from him, to the death, on his crack topic--the new poor-law. i have been turning my thoughts to this very item in the condition of american towns, and had put their present aspects strongly before the american people; therefore i shall read his report with the greater interest and attention. we return next saturday night. if you will dine with us next day or any day in the week, we shall be truly glad and delighted to see you. let me know, then, what day you will come. i need scarcely say that i shall joyfully talk with you about the metropolitan improvement society, then or at any time; and with love to letitia, in which kate and the babies join, i am always, my dear henry, affectionately yours. p.s.--the children's present names are as follows: katey (from a lurking propensity to fieryness), lucifer box. mamey (as generally descriptive of her bearing), mild glo'ster. charley (as a corruption of master toby), flaster floby. walter (suggested by his high cheek-bones), young skull. each is pronounced with a peculiar howl, which i shall have great pleasure in illustrating. [sidenote: rev. william harness.] devonshire terrace, _november th, ._ my dear harness, some time ago, you sent me a note from a friend of yours, a barrister, i think, begging me to forward to him any letters i might receive from a deranged nephew of his, at newcastle. in the midst of a most bewildering correspondence with unknown people, on every possible and impossible subject, i have forgotten this gentleman's name, though i have a kind of hazy remembrance that he lived near russell square. as the post office would be rather puzzled, perhaps, to identify him by such an address, may i ask the favour of you to hand him the enclosed, and to say that it is the second i have received since i returned from america? the last, i think, was a defiance to mortal combat. with best remembrances to your sister, in which mrs. dickens joins, believe me, my dear harness, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] devonshire terrace, _saturday, nov. th, ._ my dear macready, you pass this house every day on your way to or from the theatre. i wish you would call once as you go by, and soon, that you may have plenty of time to deliberate on what i wish to suggest to you. the more i think of marston's play, the more sure i feel that a prologue to the purpose would help it materially, and almost decide the fate of any ticklish point on the first night. now i have an idea (not easily explainable in writing but told in five words), that would take the prologue out of the conventional dress of prologues, quite. get the curtain up with a dash, and begin the play with a sledge-hammer blow. if on consideration, you should think with me, i will write the prologue heartily. faithfully yours ever. prologue to mr. marston's play of "the patrician's daughter." no tale of streaming plumes and harness bright dwells on the poet's maiden harp to-night; no trumpet's clamour and no battle's fire breathes in the trembling accents of his lyre; enough for him, if in his lowly strain he wakes one household echo not in vain; enough for him, if in his boldest word the beating heart of man be dimly heard. its solemn music which, like strains that sigh through charmèd gardens, all who hearing die; its solemn music he does not pursue to distant ages out of human view; nor listen to its wild and mournful chime in the dead caverns on the shore of time; but musing with a calm and steady gaze before the crackling flames of living days, he hears it whisper through the busy roar of what shall be and what has been before. awake the present! shall no scene display the tragic passion of the passing day? is it with man, as with some meaner things, that out of death his single purpose springs? can his eventful life no moral teach until he be, for aye, beyond its reach? obscurely shall he suffer, act, and fade, dubb'd noble only by the sexton's spade? awake the present! though the steel-clad age find life alone within the storied page, iron is worn, at heart, by many still-- the tyrant custom binds the serf-like will; if the sharp rack, and screw, and chain be gone, these later days have tortures of their own; the guiltless writhe, while guilt is stretched in sleep, and virtue lies, too often, dungeon deep. awake the present! what the past has sown be in its harvest garner'd, reap'd, and grown! how pride breeds pride, and wrong engenders wrong, read in the volume truth has held so long, assured that where life's flowers freshest blow, the sharpest thorns and keenest briars grow, how social usage has the pow'r to change good thoughts to evil; in its highest range to cramp the noble soul, and turn to ruth the kindling impulse of our glorious youth, crushing the spirit in its house of clay, learn from the lessons of the present day. not light its import and not poor its mien; yourselves the actors, and your homes the scene. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] _saturday morning._ my dear macready, one suggestion, though it be a late one. do have upon the table, in the opening scene of the second act, something in a velvet case, or frame, that may look like a large miniature of mabel, such as one of ross's, and eschew that picture. it haunts me with a sense of danger. even a titter at that critical time, with the whole of that act before you, would be a fatal thing. the picture is bad in itself, bad in its effect upon the beautiful room, bad in all its associations with the house. in case of your having nothing at hand, i send you by bearer what would be a million times better. always, my dear macready, faithfully yours. p.s.--i need not remind you how common it is to have such pictures in cases lying about elegant rooms. [sidenote: mr. w. p. frith.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _november th, ._ my dear sir, i shall be very glad if you will do me the favour to paint me two little companion pictures; one, a dolly varden (whom you have so exquisitely done already), the other, a kate nickleby. faithfully yours always. p.s.--i take it for granted that the original picture of dolly with the bracelet is sold? [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _november th, ._ my dear sir, pray consult your own convenience in the matter of my little commission; whatever suits your engagements and prospects will best suit me. i saw an unfinished proof of dolly at mitchell's some two or three months ago; i thought it was proceeding excellently well then. it will give me great pleasure to see her when completed. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. thomas hood.] devonshire terrace, _november th, ._ my dear hood, in asking your and mrs. hood's leave to bring mrs. d.'s sister (who stays with us) on tuesday, let me add that i should very much like to bring at the same time a very unaffected and ardent admirer of your genius, who has no small portion of that commodity in his own right, and is a very dear friend of mine and a very famous fellow; to wit, maclise, the painter, who would be glad (as he has often told me) to know you better, and would be much pleased, i know, if i could say to him, "hood wants me to bring you." i use so little ceremony with you, in the conviction that you will use as little with me, and say, "my dear d.--convenient;" or, "my dear d.--ill-convenient," (as the popular phrase is), just as the case may be. of course, i have said nothing to him. always heartily yours, boz. [sidenote: mrs. trollope.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _december th, ._ my dear mrs. trollope, let me thank you most cordially for your kind note, in reference to my notes, which has given me true pleasure and gratification. as i never scrupled to say in america, so i can have no delicacy in saying to you, that, allowing for the change you worked in many social features of american society, and for the time that has passed since you wrote of the country, i am convinced that there is no writer who has so well and accurately (i need not add so entertainingly) described it, in many of its aspects, as you have done; and this renders your praise the more valuable to me. i do not recollect ever to have heard or seen the charge of exaggeration made against a feeble performance, though, in its feebleness, it may have been most untrue. it seems to me essentially natural, and quite inevitable, that common observers should accuse an uncommon one of this fault, and i have no doubt that you were long ago of this opinion; very much to your own comfort. mrs. dickens begs me to thank you for your kind remembrance of her, and to convey to you her best regards. always believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _december th, ._ my dear george, it is impossible for me to tell you how greatly i am charmed with those beautiful pictures, in which the whole feeling, and thought, and expression of the little story is rendered to the gratification of my inmost heart; and on which you have lavished those amazing resources of yours with a power at which i fairly wondered when i sat down yesterday before them. i took them to mac, straightway, in a cab, and it would have done you good if you could have seen and heard him. you can't think how moved he was by the old man in the church, or how pleased i was to have chosen it before he saw the drawings. you are such a queer fellow and hold yourself so much aloof, that i am afraid to say half i would say touching my grateful admiration; so you shall imagine the rest. i enclose a note from kate, to which i hope you will bring the only one acceptable reply. always, my dear cattermole, faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] the little dog--a white havana spaniel--_was_ brought home and renamed, after an incidental character in "nicholas nickleby," "mr. snittle timbery." this was shortened to "timber," and under that name the little dog lived to be very old, and accompanied the family in all its migrations, including the visits to italy and switzerland. [ ] life insurance office. [ ] mr. macready's--so pronounced by one of charles dickens's little children. book ii. to . . narrative. we have, unfortunately, very few letters of interest in this year. but we are able to give the commencement of charles dickens's correspondence with his beloved friends, mr. douglas jerrold and mr. clarkson stanfield; with lord morpeth (afterwards lord carlisle), for whom he always entertained the highest regard; and with mr. charles babbage. he was at work upon "martin chuzzlewit" until the end of the year, when he also wrote and published the first of his christmas stories--"the christmas carol." he was much distressed by the sad fate of mr. elton (a respected actor), who was lost in the wreck of the _pegasus_, and was very eager and earnest in his endeavours to raise a fund on behalf of mr. elton's children. we are sorry to be unable to give any explanation as to the nature of the cockspur street society, mentioned in this first letter to mr. charles babbage. but we publish it notwithstanding, considering it to be one of general interest. the "little history of england" was never finished--not, that is to say, the one alluded to in the letter to mr. jerrold. mr. david dickson kindly furnishes us with an explanation of the letter dated th may. "it was," he says, "in answer to a letter from me, pointing out that the 'shepherd' in 'pickwick' was apparently reflecting on the scriptural doctrine of the new birth." the beginning of the letter to mr. jerrold ( th june) is, as will be readily understood, an imaginary cast of a purely imaginary play. a portion of this letter has already been published, in mr. blanchard jerrold's life of his father. it originated in a proposal of mr. webster's--the manager of the haymarket theatre--to give five hundred pounds for a prize comedy by an english author. the opera referred to in the letter to mr. r. h. horne was called "the village coquettes," and the farce was "the strange gentleman," already alluded to by us, in connection with a letter to mr. harley. [sidenote: mr. charles babbage.] devonshire terrace, _april th, ._ my dear sir, i write to you, _confidentially_, in answer to your note of last night, and the tenor of mine will tell you why. you may suppose, from seeing my name in the printed letter you have received, that i am favourable to the proposed society. i am decidedly opposed to it. i went there on the day i was in the chair, after much solicitation; and being put into it, opened the proceedings by telling the meeting that i approved of the design in theory, but in practice considered it hopeless. i may tell you--i did not tell them--that the nature of the meeting, and the character and position of many of the men attending it, cried "failure" trumpet-tongued in my ears. to quote an expression from tennyson, i may say that if it were the best society in the world, the grossness of some natures in it would have weight to drag it down. in the wisdom of all you urge in the notes you have sent me, taking them as statements of theory, i entirely concur. but in practice, i feel sure that the present publishing system cannot be overset until authors are different men. the first step to be taken is to move as a body in the question of copyright, enforce the existing laws, and try to obtain better. for that purpose i hold that the authors and publishers must unite, as the wealth, business habits, and interest of that latter class are of great importance to such an end. the longmans and murray have been with me proposing such an association. that i shall support. but having seen the cockspur street society, i am as well convinced of its invincible hopelessness as if i saw it written by a celestial penman in the book of fate. my dear sir, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. douglas jerrold.] devonshire terrace, _may rd, ._ my dear jerrold, let me thank you most cordially for your books, not only for their own sakes (and i have read them with perfect delight), but also for this hearty and most welcome mark of your recollection of the friendship we have established; in which light i know i may regard and prize them. i am greatly pleased with your opening paper in the illuminated. it is very wise, and capital; written with the finest end of that iron pen of yours; witty, much needed, and full of truth. i vow to god that i think the parrots of society are more intolerable and mischievous than its birds of prey. if ever i destroy myself, it will be in the bitterness of hearing those infernal and damnably good old times extolled. once, in a fit of madness, after having been to a public dinner which took place just as this ministry came in, i wrote the parody i send you enclosed, for fonblanque. there is nothing in it but wrath; but that's wholesome, so i send it you. i am writing a little history of england for my boy, which i will send you when it is printed for him, though your boys are too old to profit by it. it is curious that i have tried to impress upon him (writing, i daresay, at the same moment with you) the exact spirit of your paper, for i don't know what i should do if he were to get hold of any conservative or high church notions; and the best way of guarding against any such horrible result is, i take it, to wring the parrots' necks in his very cradle. oh heaven, if you could have been with me at a hospital dinner last monday! there were men there who made such speeches and expressed such sentiments as any moderately intelligent dustman would have blushed through his cindery bloom to have thought of. sleek, slobbering, bow-paunched, over-fed, apoplectic, snorting cattle, and the auditory leaping up in their delight! i never saw such an illustration of the power of purse, or felt so degraded and debased by its contemplation, since i have had eyes and ears. the absurdity of the thing was too horrible to laugh at. it was perfectly overwhelming. but if i could have partaken it with anybody who would have felt it as you would have done, it would have had quite another aspect; or would at least, like a "classic mask" (oh d---- that word!) have had one funny side to relieve its dismal features. supposing fifty families were to emigrate into the wilds of north america--yours, mine, and forty-eight others--picked for their concurrence of opinion on all important subjects and for their resolution to found a colony of common-sense, how soon would that devil, cant, present itself among them in one shape or other? the day they landed, do you say, or the day after? that is a great mistake (almost the only one i know) in the "arabian nights," when the princess restores people to their original beauty by sprinkling them with the golden water. it is quite clear that she must have made monsters of them by such a christening as that. my dear jerrold, faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mr. david dickson.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _may th, ._ sir, permit me to say, in reply to your letter, that you do not understand the intention (i daresay the fault is mine) of that passage in the "pickwick papers" which has given you offence. the design of "the shepherd" and of this and every other allusion to him is, to show how sacred things are degraded, vulgarised, and rendered absurd when persons who are utterly incompetent to teach the commonest things take upon themselves to expound such mysteries, and how, in making mere cant phrases of divine words, these persons miss the spirit in which they had their origin. i have seen a great deal of this sort of thing in many parts of england, and i never knew it lead to charity or good deeds. whether the great creator of the world and the creature of his hands, moulded in his own image, be quite so opposite in character as you believe, is a question which it would profit us little to discuss. i like the frankness and candour of your letter, and thank you for it. that every man who seeks heaven must be born again, in good thoughts of his maker, i sincerely believe. that it is expedient for every hound to say so in a certain snuffling form of words, to which he attaches no good meaning, i do not believe. i take it there is no difference between us. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. douglas jerrold.] devonshire terrace, _june th, ._ my dear jerrold, yes, you have anticipated my occupation. chuzzlewit be d----d. high comedy and five hundred pounds are the only matters i can think of. i call it "the one thing needful; or, a part is better than the whole." here are the characters: old febrile mr. farren. young febrile (his son) mr. howe. jack hessians (his friend) mr. w. lacy. chalks (a landlord) mr. gough. hon. harry staggers mr. mellon. sir thomas tip mr. buckstone. swig mr. webster. the duke of leeds mr. coutts. sir smivin growler mr. macready. servants, gamblers, visitors, etc. mrs. febrile mrs. gallot. lady tip mrs. humby. mrs. sour mrs. w. clifford. fanny miss a. smith. one scene, where old febrile tickles lady tip in the ribs, and afterwards dances out with his hat behind him, his stick before, and his eye on the pit, i expect will bring the house down. there is also another point, where old febrile, at the conclusion of his disclosure to swig, rises and says: "and now, swig, tell me, have i acted well?" and swig says: "well, mr. febrile, have you ever acted ill?" which will carry off the piece. herne bay. hum. i suppose it's no worse than any other place in this weather, but it is watery rather--isn't it? in my mind's eye, i have the sea in a perpetual state of smallpox; and the chalk running downhill like town milk. but i know the comfort of getting to work in a fresh place, and proposing pious projects to one's self, and having the more substantial advantage of going to bed early and getting up ditto, and walking about alone. i should like to deprive you of the last-named happiness, and to take a good long stroll, terminating in a public-house, and whatever they chanced to have in it. but fine days are over, i think. the horrible misery of london in this weather, with not even a fire to make it cheerful, is hideous. but i have my comedy to fly to. my only comfort! i walk up and down the street at the back of the theatre every night, and peep in at the green-room window, thinking of the time when "dick--ins" will be called for by excited hundreds, and won't come till mr. webster (half swig and half himself) shall enter from his dressing-room, and quelling the tempest with a smile, beseech that wizard, if he be in the house (here he looks up at my box), to accept the congratulations of the audience, and indulge them with a sight of the man who has got five hundred pounds in money, and it's impossible to say how much in laurel. then i shall come forward, and bow once--twice--thrice--roars of approbation--brayvo--brarvo--hooray--hoorar--hooroar--one cheer more; and asking webster home to supper, shall declare eternal friendship for that public-spirited individual. they have not sent me the "illustrated magazine." what do they mean by that? you don't say your daughter is better, so i hope you mean that she is quite well. my wife desires her best regards. i am always, my dear jerrold, faithfully your friend, the congreve of the nineteenth century (which i mean to be called in the sunday papers). p.s.--i shall dedicate it to webster, beginning: "my dear sir,--when you first proposed to stimulate the slumbering dramatic talent of england, i assure you i had not the least idea"--etc. etc. etc. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield.] , devonshire terrace, _july th, ._ my dear stanfield, i am chairman of a committee, whose object is to open a subscription, and arrange a benefit for the relief of the seven destitute children of poor elton the actor, who was drowned in the _pegasus_. they are exceedingly anxious to have the great assistance of your name; and if you will allow yourself to be announced as one of the body, i do assure you you will help a very melancholy and distressful cause. faithfully always. p.s.--the committee meet to-night at the freemasons', at eight o'clock. [sidenote: lord morpeth.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _august rd, ._ dear lord morpeth, in acknowledging the safe receipt of your kind donation in behalf of poor mr. elton's orphan children, i hope you will suffer me to address you with little ceremony, as the best proof i can give you of my cordial reciprocation of all you say in your most welcome note. i have long esteemed you and been your distant but very truthful admirer; and trust me that it is a real pleasure and happiness to me to anticipate the time when we shall have a nearer intercourse. believe me, with sincere regard, faithfully your servant. [sidenote: mr. william harrison ainsworth.] devonshire terrace, _october th, ._ my dear ainsworth, i want very much to see you, not having had that old pleasure for a long time. i am at this moment deaf in the ears, hoarse in the throat, red in the nose, green in the gills, damp in the eyes, twitchy in the joints, and fractious in the temper from a most intolerable and oppressive cold, caught the other day, i suspect, at liverpool, where i got exceedingly wet; but i will make prodigious efforts to get the better of it to-night by resorting to all conceivable remedies, and if i succeed so as to be only negatively disgusting to-morrow, i will joyfully present myself at six, and bring my womankind along with me. cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. r. h. horne.] devonshire terrace, _november th, ._ * * * * * pray tell that besotted ---- to let the opera sink into its native obscurity. i did it in a fit of d----ble good nature long ago, for hullah, who wrote some very pretty music to it. i just put down for everybody what everybody at the st. james's theatre wanted to say and do, and that they could say and do best, and i have been most sincerely repentant ever since. the farce i also did as a sort of practical joke, for harley, whom i have known a long time. it was funny--adapted from one of the published sketches called the "great winglebury duel," and was published by chapman and hall. but i have no copy of it now, nor should i think they have. but both these things were done without the least consideration or regard to reputation. i wouldn't repeat them for a thousand pounds apiece, and devoutly wish them to be forgotten. if you will impress this on the waxy mind of ---- i shall be truly and unaffectedly obliged to you. always faithfully yours. . narrative. in the summer of this year the house in devonshire terrace was let, and charles dickens started with his family for italy, going first to a villa at albaro, near genoa, for a few months, and afterwards to the palazzo pescheire, genoa. towards the end of this year he made excursions to the many places of interest in this country, and was joined at milan by his wife and sister-in-law, previous to his own departure alone on a business visit to england. he had written his christmas story, "the chimes," and was anxious to take it himself to england, and to read it to some of his most intimate friends there. mr. macready went to america and returned in the autumn, and towards the end of the year he paid a professional visit to paris. charles dickens's letter to his wife ( th february) treats of a visit to liverpool, where he went to take the chair on the opening of the mechanics' institution and to make a speech on education. the "fanny" alluded to was his sister, mrs. burnett; the _britannia_, the ship in which he and mrs. dickens made their outward trip to america; the "mrs. bean," the stewardess, and "hewett," the captain, of that same vessel. the letter to mr. charles knight was in acknowledgment of the receipt of a prospectus entitled "book clubs for all readers." the attempt, which fortunately proved completely successful, was to establish a cheap book club. the scheme was, that a number of families should combine together, each contributing about three halfpennies a week; which contribution would enable them, by exchanging the volumes among them, to have sufficient reading to last the year. the publications, which were to be made as cheap as possible, could be purchased by families at the end of the year, on consideration of their putting by an extra penny a week for that purpose. charles dickens, who always had the comfort and happiness of the working-classes greatly at heart, was much interested in this scheme of mr. charles knight's, and highly approved of it. charles dickens and this new correspondent became subsequently true and fast friends. "martin chuzzlewit" was dramatised in the early autumn of this year, at the lyceum theatre, which was then under the management of mr. and mrs. robert keeley. charles dickens superintended some rehearsals, but had left england before the play was acted in public. the man "roche," alluded to in his letter to mr. maclise, was the french courier engaged to go with the family to italy. he remained as servant there, and was with charles dickens through all his foreign travels. his many excellent qualities endeared him to the whole family, and his master never lost sight of this faithful servant until poor roche's untimely death in . the rev. edward tagart was a celebrated unitarian minister, and a very highly esteemed and valued friend. the "chickenstalker" (letter to mrs. dickens, november th), is an instance of the eccentric names he was constantly giving to his children, and these names he frequently made use of in his books. in this year we have our first letter to mr. (afterwards sir edwin) landseer, for whom charles dickens had the highest admiration and personal regard. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] devonshire terrace, _january rd, ._ my very dear macready, you know all the news, and you know i love you; so i no more know why i write than i do why i "come round" after the play to shake hands with you in your dressing-room. i say come, as if you were at this present moment the lessee of drury lane, and had ---- with a long face on one hand, ---- elaborately explaining that everything in creation is a joint-stock company on the other, the inimitable b. by the fire, in conversation with ----. well-a-day! i see it all, and smell that extraordinary compound of odd scents peculiar to a theatre, which bursts upon me when i swing open the little door in the hall, accompanies me as i meet perspiring supers in the narrow passage, goes with me up the two steps, crosses the stage, winds round the third entrance p.s. as i wind, and escorts me safely into your presence, where i find you unwinding something slowly round and round your chest, which is so long that no man can see the end of it. oh that you had been at clarence terrace on nina's birthday! good god, how we missed you, talked of you, drank your health, and wondered what you were doing! perhaps you are falkland enough (i swear i suspect you of it) to feel rather sore--just a little bit, you know, the merest trifle in the world--on hearing that mrs. macready looked brilliant, blooming, young, and handsome, and that she danced a country dance with the writer hereof (acres to your falkland) in a thorough spirit of becoming good humour and enjoyment. now you don't like to be told that? nor do you quite like to hear that forster and i conjured bravely; that a plum-pudding was produced from an empty saucepan, held over a blazing fire kindled in stanfield's hat without damage to the lining; that a box of bran was changed into a live guinea-pig, which ran between my godchild's feet, and was the cause of such a shrill uproar and clapping of hands that you might have heard it (and i daresay did) in america; that three half-crowns being taken from major burns and put into a tumbler-glass before his eyes, did then and there give jingling answers to the questions asked of them by me, and knew where you were and what you were doing, to the unspeakable admiration of the whole assembly. neither do you quite like to be told that we are going to do it again next saturday, with the addition of demoniacal dresses from the masquerade shop; nor that mrs. macready, for her gallant bearing always, and her best sort of best affection, is the best creature i know. never mind; no man shall gag me, and those are my opinions. my dear macready, the lecturing proposition is not to be thought of. i have not the slightest doubt or hesitation in giving you my most strenuous and decided advice against it. looking only to its effect at home, i am immovable in my conviction that the impression it would produce would be one of failure, and a reduction of yourself to the level of those who do the like here. to us who know the boston names and honour them, and who know boston and like it (boston is what i would have the whole united states to be), the boston requisition would be a valuable document, of which you and your friends might be proud. but those names are perfectly unknown to the public here, and would produce not the least effect. the only thing known to the public here is, that they ask (when i say "they" i mean the people) everybody to lecture. it is one of the things i have ridiculed in "chuzzlewit." lecture you, and you fall into the roll of lardners, vandenhoffs, eltons, knowleses, buckinghams. you are off your pedestal, have flung away your glass slipper, and changed your triumphal coach into a seedy old pumpkin. i am quite sure of it, and cannot express my strong conviction in language of sufficient force. "puff-ridden!" why to be sure they are. the nation is a miserable sindbad, and its boasted press the loathsome, foul old man upon his back, and yet they will tell you, and proclaim to the four winds for repetition here, that they don't need their ignorant and brutal papers, as if the papers could exist if they didn't need them! let any two of these vagabonds, in any town you go to, take it into their heads to make you an object of attack, or to direct the general attention elsewhere, and what avail those wonderful images of passion which you have been all your life perfecting! i have sent you, to the charge of our trusty and well-beloved colden, a little book i published on the th of december, and which has been a most prodigious success--the greatest, i think, i have ever achieved. it pleases me to think that it will bring you home for an hour or two, and i long to hear you have read it on some quiet morning. do they allow you to be quiet, by-the-way? "some of our most fashionable people, sir," denounced me awfully for liking to be alone sometimes. now that we have turned christmas, i feel as if your face were directed homewards, macready. the downhill part of the road is before us now, and we shall travel on to midsummer at a dashing pace; and, please heaven, i will be at liverpool when you come steaming up the mersey, with that red funnel smoking out unutterable things, and your heart much fuller than your trunks, though something lighter! if i be not the first englishman to shake hands with you on english ground, the man who gets before me will be a brisk and active fellow, and even then need put his best leg foremost. so i warn forster to keep in the rear, or he'll be blown. if you shall have any leisure to project and put on paper the outline of a scheme for opening any theatre on your return, upon a certain list subscribed, and on certain understandings with the actors, it strikes me that it would be wise to break ground while you are still away. of course i need not say that i will see anybody or do anything--even to the calling together of the actors--if you should ever deem it desirable. my opinion is that our respected and valued friend mr. ---- will stagger through another season, if he don't rot first. i understand he is in a partial state of decomposition at this minute. he was very ill, but got better. how is it that ---- always do get better, and strong hearts are so easy to die? kate sends her tender love; so does georgy, so does charlie, so does mamey, so does katey, so does walter, so does the other one who is to be born next week. look homeward always, as we look abroad to you. god bless you, my dear macready. ever your affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. laman blanchard.] devonshire terrace, _january th, ._ my dear blanchard, i cannot thank you enough for the beautiful manner and the true spirit of friendship in which you have noticed my "carol." but i _must_ thank you because you have filled my heart up to the brim, and it is running over. you meant to give me great pleasure, my dear fellow, and you have done it. the tone of your elegant and fervent praise has touched me in the tenderest place. i cannot write about it, and as to talking of it, i could no more do that than a dumb man. i have derived inexpressible gratification from what i know was a labour of love on your part. and i can never forget it. when i think it likely that i may meet you (perhaps at ainsworth's on friday?) i shall slip a "carol" into my pocket and ask you to put it among your books for my sake. you will never like it the less for having made it the means of so much happiness to me. always, my dear blanchard, faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] liverpool, radley's hotel, _monday, feb. th, ._ my dear kate, i got down here last night (after a most intolerably wet journey) before seven, and found thompson sitting by my fire. he had ordered dinner, and we ate it pleasantly enough, and went to bed in good time. this morning, mr. yates, the great man connected with the institution (and a brother of ashton yates's), called. i went to look at it with him. it is an enormous place, and the tickets have been selling at two and even three guineas apiece. the lecture-room, in which the celebration is held, will accommodate over thirteen hundred people. it was being fitted with gas after the manner of the ring at astley's. i should think it an easy place to speak in, being a semicircle with seats rising one above another to the ceiling, and will have eight hundred ladies to-night, in full dress. i am rayther shaky just now, but shall pull up, i have no doubt. at dinner-time to-morrow you will receive, i hope, a facetious document hastily penned after i return to-night, telling you how it all went off. when i came back here, i found fanny and hewett had picked me up just before. we all went off straight to the _britannia_, which lay where she did when we went on board. we went into the old little cabin and the ladies' cabin, but mrs. bean had gone to scotland, as the ship does not sail again before may. in the saloon we had some champagne and biscuits, and hewett had set out upon the table a block of boston ice, weighing fifty pounds. scott, of the _caledonia_, lunched with us--a very nice fellow. he saw macready play macbeth in boston, and gave me a tremendous account of the effect. poor burroughs, of the _george washington_, died on board, on his last passage home. his little wife was with him. hewett dines with us to-day, and i have procured him admission to-night. i am very sorry indeed (and so was he), that you didn't see the old ship. it was the strangest thing in the world to go on board again. i had bacon with me as far as watford yesterday, and very pleasant. sheil was also in the train, on his way to ireland. give my best love to georgy, and kisses to the darlings. also affectionate regards to mac and forster. ever affectionately. out of the common--please. dickens _against_ the world. charles dickens, of no. , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, in the county of middlesex, gentleman, the successful plaintiff in the above cause, maketh oath and saith: that on the day and date hereof, to wit at seven o'clock in the evening, he, this deponent, took the chair at a large assembly of the mechanics' institution at liverpool, and that having been received with tremendous and enthusiastic plaudits, he, this deponent, did immediately dash into a vigorous, brilliant, humorous, pathetic, eloquent, fervid, and impassioned speech. that the said speech was enlivened by thirteen hundred persons, with frequent, vehement, uproarious, and deafening cheers, and to the best of this deponent's knowledge and belief, he, this deponent, did speak up like a man, and did, to the best of his knowledge and belief, considerably distinguish himself. that after the proceedings of the opening were over, and a vote of thanks was proposed to this deponent, he, this deponent, did again distinguish himself, and that the cheering at that time, accompanied with clapping of hands and stamping of feet, was in this deponent's case thundering and awful. and this deponent further saith, that his white-and-black or magpie waistcoat, did create a strong sensation, and that during the hours of promenading, this deponent heard from persons surrounding him such exclamations as, "what is it! _is_ it a waistcoat? no, it's a shirt"--and the like--all of which this deponent believes to have been complimentary and gratifying; but this deponent further saith that he is now going to supper, and wishes he may have an appetite to eat it. charles dickens. sworn before me, at the adelphi } hotel, liverpool, on the th } of february, . } s. radley. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield.] devonshire terrace, _april th, ._ my dear stanfield, the sanatorium, or sick house for students, governesses, clerks, young artists, and so forth, who are above hospitals, and not rich enough to be well attended in illness in their own lodgings (you know its objects), is going to have a dinner at the london tavern, on tuesday, the th of june. the committee are very anxious to have you for a steward, as one of the heads of a large class; and i have told them that i have no doubt you will act. there is no steward's fee or collection whatever. they are particularly anxious also to have mr. etty and edwin landseer. as you see them daily at the academy, will you ask them or show them this note? sir martin became one of the committee some few years ago, at my solicitation, as recommending young artists, struggling alone in london, to the better knowledge of this establishment. the dinner is to comprise the new feature of ladies dining at the tables with the gentlemen--not looking down upon them from the gallery. i hope in your reply you will not only book yourself, but mrs. stanfield and mary. it will be very brilliant and cheerful i hope. dick in the chair. gentlemen's dinner-tickets a guinea, as usual; ladies', twelve shillings. i think this is all i have to say, except (which is nonsensical and needless) that i am always, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. edwin landseer.] athenÃ�um, _monday morning, may th, ._ my dear landseer, i have let my house with such delicious promptitude, or, as the americans would say, "with sich everlass'in slickness and al-mity sprydom," that we turn out to-night! in favour of a widow lady, who keeps it all the time we are away! wherefore if you, looking up into the sky this evening between five and six (as possibly you may be, in search of the spring), should see a speck in the air--a mere dot--which, growing larger and larger by degrees, appears in course of time to be an eagle (chain and all) in a light cart, accompanied by a raven of uncommon sagacity, curse that good-nature which prompted you to say it--that you would give them house-room. and do it for the love of boz. p.s.--the writer hereof may be heerd on by personal enquiry at no. , osnaburgh terrace, new road. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] devonshire terrace, _june th, ._ my dear sir, many thanks for your proof, and for your truly gratifying mention of my name. i think the subject excellently chosen, the introduction exactly what it should be, the allusion to the international copyright question most honourable and manly, and the whole scheme full of the highest interest. i had already seen your prospectus, and if i can be of the feeblest use in advancing a project so intimately connected with an end on which my heart is set--the liberal education of the people--i shall be sincerely glad. all good wishes and success attend you! believe me always, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. dudley costello.] _june th, ._ dear sir, mrs. harris, being in that delicate state (just confined, and "made comfortable," in fact), hears some sounds below, which she fancies may be the owls (or howls) of the husband to whom she is devoted. they ease her mind by informing her that these sounds are only organs. by "they" i mean the gossips and attendants. by "organs" i mean instrumental boxes with barrels in them, which are commonly played by foreigners under the windows of people of sedentary pursuits, on a speculation of being bribed to leave the street. mrs. harris, being of a confiding nature, believed in this pious fraud, and was fully satisfied "that his owls was organs." faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. robert keeley.] , osnaburgh terrace, _monday evening, june th, ._ my dear sir, i have been out yachting for two or three days; and consequently could not answer your letter in due course. i cannot, consistently with the opinion i hold and have always held, in reference to the principle of adapting novels for the stage, give you a prologue to "chuzzlewit." but believe me to be quite sincere in saying that if i felt i could reasonably do such a thing for anyone, i would do it for you. i start for italy on monday next, but if you have the piece on the stage, and rehearse on friday, i will gladly come down at any time you may appoint on that morning, and go through it with you all. if you be not in a sufficiently forward state to render this proposal convenient to you, or likely to assist your preparations, do not take the trouble to answer this note. i presume mrs. keeley will do ruth pinch. if so, i feel secure about her, and of mrs. gamp i am certain. but a queer sensation begins in my legs, and comes upward to my forehead, when i think of tom. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. daniel maclise.] villa di bagnarello, albaro, _monday, july nd, ._ my very dear mac, i address you with something of the lofty spirit of an exile--a banished commoner--a sort of anglo-pole. i don't exactly know what i have done for my country in coming away from it; but i feel it is something--something great--something virtuous and heroic. lofty emotions rise within me, when i see the sun set on the blue mediterranean. i am the limpet on the rock. my father's name is turner and my boots are green. apropos of blue. in a certain picture, called "the serenade," you painted a sky. if you ever have occasion to paint the mediterranean, let it be exactly of that colour. it lies before me now, as deeply and intensely blue. but no such colour is above me. nothing like it. in the south of france--at avignon, at aix, at marseilles--i saw deep blue skies (not _so_ deep though--oh lord, no!), and also in america; but the sky above me is familiar to my sight. is it heresy to say that i have seen its twin-brother shining through the window of jack straw's--that down in devonshire i have seen a better sky? i daresay it is; but like a great many other heresies, it is true. but such green--green--green--as flutters in the vineyard down below the windows, _that_ i never saw; nor yet such lilac, and such purple as float between me and the distant hills; nor yet--in anything--picture, book, or verbal boredom--such awful, solemn, impenetrable blue, as is that same sea. it has such an absorbing, silent, deep, profound effect, that i can't help thinking it suggested the idea of styx. it looks as if a draught of it--only so much as you could scoop up on the beach, in the hollow of your hand--would wash out everything else, and make a great blue blank of your intellect. when the sun sets clearly, then, by heaven, it is majestic! from any one of eleven windows here, or from a terrace overgrown with grapes, you may behold the broad sea; villas, houses, mountains, forts, strewn with rose leaves--strewn with thorns--stifled in thorns! dyed through and through and through. for a moment. no more. the sun is impatient and fierce, like everything else in these parts, and goes down headlong. run to fetch your hat--and it's night. wink at the right time of black night--and it's morning. everything is in extremes. there is an insect here (i forget its name, and fletcher and roche are both out) that chirps all day. there is one outside the window now. the chirp is very loud, something like a brobdingnagian grasshopper. the creature is born to chirp--to progress in chirping--to chirp louder, louder, louder--till it gives one tremendous chirp, and bursts itself. that is its life and death. everything "is in a concatenation accordingly." the day gets brighter, brighter, brighter, till it's night. the summer gets hotter, hotter, hotter, till it bursts. the fruit gets riper, riper, riper, till it tumbles down and rots. ask me a question or two about fresco--will you be so good? all the houses are painted in fresco hereabout--the outside walls i mean; the fronts, and backs, and sides--and all the colour has run into damp and green seediness, and the very design has struggled away into the component atoms of the plaster. sometimes (but not often) i can make out a virgin with a mildewed glory round her head; holding nothing, in an indiscernible lap, with invisible arms; and occasionally the leg or arms of a cherub, but it is very melancholy and dim. there are two old fresco-painted vases outside my own gate--one on either hand--which are so faint, that i never saw them till last night; and only then because i was looking over the wall after a lizard, who had come upon me while i was smoking a cigar above, and crawled over one of these embellishments to his retreat. there is a church here--the church of the annunciation--which they are now (by "they" i mean certain noble families) restoring at a vast expense, as a work of piety. it is a large church, with a great many little chapels in it, and a very high dome. every inch of this edifice is painted, and every design is set in a great gold frame or border elaborately wrought. you can imagine nothing so splendid. it is worth coming the whole distance to see. but every sort of splendour is in perpetual enactment through the means of these churches. gorgeous processions in the streets, illuminations of windows on festa nights; lighting up of lamps and clustering of flowers before the shrines of saints; all manner of show and display. the doors of the churches stand wide open; and in this hot weather great red curtains flutter and wave in their palaces; and if you go and sit in one of these to get out of the sun, you see the queerest figures kneeling against pillars, and the strangest people passing in and out, and vast streams of women in veils (they don't wear bonnets), with great fans in their hands, coming and going, that you are never tired of looking on. except in the churches, you would suppose the city (at this time of year) to be deserted, the people keep so close within doors. indeed it is next to impossible to go out into the heat. i have only been into genoa twice myself. we are deliciously cool here, by comparison; being high, and having the sea breeze. there is always some shade in the vineyard, too; and underneath the rocks on the sea-shore, so if i choose to saunter i can do it easily, even in the hot time of the day. i am as lazy, however, as--as you are, and do little but eat and drink and read. as i am going to transmit regular accounts of all sight-seeings and journeyings to forster, who will show them to you, i will not bore you with descriptions, however. i hardly think you allow enough for the great brightness and brilliancy of colour which is commonly achieved on the continent, in that same fresco painting. i saw some--by a french artist and his pupil--in progress at the cathedral at avignon, which was as bright and airy as anything can be,--nothing dull or dead about it; and i have observed quite fierce and glaring colours elsewhere. we have a piano now (there was none in the house), and have fallen into a pretty settled easy track. we breakfast about half-past nine or ten, dine about four, and go to bed about eleven. we are much courted by the visiting people, of course, and i very much resort to my old habit of bolting from callers, and leaving their reception to kate. green figs i have already learnt to like. green almonds (we have them at dessert every day) are the most delicious fruit in the world. and green lemons, combined with some rare hollands that is to be got here, make prodigious punch, i assure you. you ought to come over, mac; but i don't expect you, though i am sure it would be a very good move for you. i have not the smallest doubt of that. fletcher has made a sketch of the house, and will copy it in pen-and-ink for transmission to you in my next letter. i shall look out for a place in genoa, between this and the winter time. in the meantime, the people who come out here breathe delightedly, as if they had got into another climate. landing in the city, you would hardly suppose it possible that there could be such an air within two miles. write to me as often as you can, like a dear good fellow, and rely upon the punctuality of my correspondence. losing you and forster is like losing my arms and legs, and dull and lame i am without you. but at broadstairs next year, please god, when it is all over, i shall be very glad to have laid up such a store of recollections and improvement. i don't know what to do with timber. he is as ill-adapted to the climate at this time of year as a suit of fur. i have had him made a lion dog; but the fleas flock in such crowds into the hair he has left, that they drive him nearly frantic, and renders it absolutely necessary that he should be kept by himself. of all the miserable hideous little frights you ever saw, you never beheld such a devil. apropos, as we were crossing the seine within two stages of paris, roche suddenly said to me, sitting by me on the box: "the littel dog 'ave got a great lip!" i was thinking of things remote and very different, and couldn't comprehend why any peculiarity in this feature on the part of the dog should excite a man so much. as i was musing upon it, my ears were attracted by shouts of "helo! hola! hi, hi, hi! le voilà! regardez!" and the like. and looking down among the oxen--we were in the centre of a numerous drove--i saw him, timber, lying in the road, curled up--you know his way--like a lobster, only not so stiff, yelping dismally in the pain of his "lip" from the roof of the carriage; and between the aching of his bones, his horror of the oxen, and his dread of me (who he evidently took to be the immediate agent in and cause of the damage), singing out to an extent which i believe to be perfectly unprecedented; while every frenchman and french boy within sight roared for company. he wasn't hurt. kate and georgina send their best loves; and the children add "theirs." katey, in particular, desires to be commended to "mr. teese." she has a sore throat; from sitting in constant draughts, i suppose; but with that exception, we are all quite well. ever believe me, my dear mac, your affectionate friend. [sidenote: rev. edward tagart.] albaro, near genoa, _friday, august th, ._ my dear sir, i find that if i wait to write you a long letter (which has been the cause of my procrastination in fulfilling my part of our agreement), i am likely to wait some time longer. and as i am very anxious to hear from you; not the less so, because if i hear of you through my brother, who usually sees you once a week in my absence; i take pen in hand and stop a messenger who is going to genoa. for my main object being to qualify myself for the receipt of a letter from you, i don't see why a ten-line qualification is not as good as one of a hundred lines. you told me it was possible that you and mrs. tagart might wander into these latitudes in the autumn. i wish you would carry out that infant intention to the utmost. it would afford us the truest delight and pleasure to receive you. if you come in october, you will find us in the palazzo peschiere, in genoa, which is surrounded by a delicious garden, and is a most charming habitation in all respects. if you come in september, you will find us less splendidly lodged, but on the margin of the sea, and in the midst of vineyards. the climate is delightful even now; the heat being not at all oppressive, except in the actual city, which is what the americans would call considerable fiery, in the middle of the day. but the sea-breezes out here are refreshing and cool every day, and the bathing in the early morning is something more agreeable than you can easily imagine. the orange trees of the peschiere shall give you their most fragrant salutations if you come to us at that time, and we have a dozen spare beds in that house that i know of; to say nothing of some vast chambers here and there with ancient iron chests in them, where mrs. tagart might enact ginevra to perfection, and never be found out. to prevent which, i will engage to watch her closely, if she will only come and see us. the flies are incredibly numerous just now. the unsightly blot a little higher up was occasioned by a very fine one who fell into the inkstand, and came out, unexpectedly, on the nib of my pen. we are all quite well, thank heaven, and had a very interesting journey here, of which, as well as of this place, i will not write a word, lest i should take the edge off those agreeable conversations with which we will beguile our walks. pray tell me about the presentation of the plate, and whether ---- was very slow, or trotted at all, and if so, when. he is an excellent creature, and i respect him very much, so i don't mind smiling when i think of him as he appeared when addressing you and pointing to the plate, with his head a little on one side, and one of his eyes turned up languidly. also let me know exactly how you are travelling, and when, and all about it; that i may meet you with open arms on the threshold of the city, if happily you bend your steps this way. you had better address me, "poste restante, genoa," as the albaro postman gets drunk, and when he has lost letters, and is sober, sheds tears--which is affecting, but hardly satisfactory. kate and her sister send their best regards to yourself, and mrs. and miss tagart, and all your family. i heartily join them in all kind remembrances and good wishes. as the messenger has just looked in at the door, and shedding on me a balmy gale of onions, has protested against being detained any longer, i will only say (which is not at all necessary) that i am ever, faithfully yours. p.s.--there is a little to see here, in the church way, i assure you. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield.] albaro, _saturday night, august th, ._ my dear stanfield, i love you so truly, and have such pride and joy of heart in your friendship, that i don't know how to begin writing to you. when i think how you are walking up and down london in that portly surtout, and can't receive proposals from dick to go to the theatre, i fall into a state between laughing and crying, and want some friendly back to smite. "je-im!" "aye, aye, your honour," is in my ears every time i walk upon the sea-shore here; and the number of expeditions i make into cornwall in my sleep, the springs of flys i break, the songs i sing, and the bowls of punch i drink, would soften a heart of stone. we have had weather here, since five o'clock this morning, after your own heart. suppose yourself the admiral in "black-eyed susan" after the acquittal of william, and when it was possible to be on friendly terms with him. i am t. p.[ ] my trousers are very full at the ankles, my black neckerchief is tied in the regular style, the name of my ship is painted round my glazed hat, i have a red waistcoat on, and the seams of my blue jacket are "paid"--permit me to dig you in the ribs when i make use of this nautical expression--with white. in my hand i hold the very box connected with the story of sandomingerbilly. i lift up my eyebrows as far as i can (on the t. p. model), take a quid from the box, screw the lid on again (chewing at the same time, and looking pleasantly at the pit), brush it with my right elbow, take up my right leg, scrape my right foot on the ground, hitch up my trousers, and in reply to a question of yours, namely, "indeed, what weather, william?" i deliver myself as follows: lord love your honour! weather! such weather as would set all hands to the pumps aboard one of your fresh-water cockboats, and set the purser to his wits' ends to stow away, for the use of the ship's company, the casks and casks full of blue water as would come powering in over the gunnel! the dirtiest night, your honour, as ever you see 'atween spithead at gun-fire and the bay of biscay! the wind sou'-west, and your house dead in the wind's eye; the breakers running up high upon the rocky beads, the light'us no more looking through the fog than davy jones's sarser eye through the blue sky of heaven in a calm, or the blue toplights of your honour's lady cast down in a modest overhauling of her catheads: avast! (_whistling_) my dear eyes; here am i a-goin' head on to the breakers (_bowing_). _admiral_ (_smiling_). no, william! i admire plain speaking, as you know, and so does old england, william, and old england's queen. but you were saying---- _william._ aye, aye, your honour (_scratching his head_). i've lost my reckoning. damme!--i ast pardon--but won't your honour throw a hencoop or any old end of towline to a man as is overboard? _admiral_ (_smiling still_). you were saying, william, that the wind---- _william_ (_again cocking his leg, and slapping the thighs very hard_). avast heaving, your honour! i see your honour's signal fluttering in the breeze, without a glass. as i was a-saying, your honour, the wind was blowin' from the sou'-west, due sou'-west, your honour, not a pint to larboard nor a pint to starboard; the clouds a-gatherin' in the distance for all the world like beachy head in a fog, the sea a-rowling in, in heaps of foam, and making higher than the mainyard arm, the craft a-scuddin' by all taught and under storms'ils for the harbour; not a blessed star a-twinklin' out aloft--aloft, your honour, in the little cherubs' native country--and the spray is flying like the white foam from the jolly's lips when poll of portsea took him for a tailor! (_laughs._) _admiral_ (_laughing also_). you have described it well, william, and i thank you. but who are these? _enter supers in calico jackets to look like cloth, some in brown holland petticoat-trousers and big boots, all with very large buckles. last super rolls on a cask, and pretends to keep it. other supers apply their mugs to the bunghole and drink, previously holding them upside down._ _william_ (_after shaking hands with everybody_). who are these, your honour! messmates as staunch and true as ever broke biscuit. ain't you, my lads? _all._ aye, aye, william. that we are! that we are! _admiral_ (_much affected_). oh, england, what wonder that----! but i will no longer detain you from your sports, my humble friends (admiral _speaks very low, and looks hard at the orchestra, this being the cue for the dance_)--from your sports, my humble friends. farewell! _all._ hurrah! hurrah! [_exit_ admiral. _voice behind._ suppose the dance, mr. stanfield. are you all ready? go then! my dear stanfield, i wish you would come this way and see me in that palazzo peschiere! was ever man so welcome as i would make you! what a truly gentlemanly action it would be to bring mrs. stanfield and the baby. and how kate and her sister would wave pocket-handkerchiefs from the wharf in joyful welcome! ah, what a glorious proceeding! do you know this place? of course you do. i won't bore you with anything about it, for i know forster reads my letters to you; but what a place it is. the views from the hills here, and the immense variety of prospects of the sea, are as striking, i think, as such scenery can be. above all, the approach to genoa, by sea from marseilles, constitutes a picture which you ought to paint, for nobody else can ever do it! william, you made that bridge at avignon better than it is. beautiful as it undoubtedly is, you made it fifty times better. and if i were morrison, or one of that school (bless the dear fellows one and all!), i wouldn't stand it, but would insist on having another picture gratis, to atone for the imposition. the night is like a seaside night in england towards the end of september. they say it is the prelude to clear weather. but the wind is roaring now, and the sea is raving, and the rain is driving down, as if they had all set in for a real hearty picnic, and each had brought its own relations to the general festivity. i don't know whether you are acquainted with the coastguard and men in these parts? they are extremely civil fellows, of a very amiable manner and appearance, but the most innocent men in matters you would suppose them to be well acquainted with, in virtue of their office, that i ever encountered. one of them asked me only yesterday, if it would take a year to get to england in a ship? which i thought for a coastguardman was rather a tidy question. it would take a long time to catch a ship going there if he were on board a pursuing cutter though. i think he would scarcely do it in twelve months, indeed. so you were at astley's t'other night. "now, mr. stickney, sir, what can i come for to go for to do for to bring for to fetch for to carry for you, sir?" "he, he, he! oh, i say, sir!" "well, sir?" "miss woolford knows me, sir. she laughed at me!" i see him run away after this; not on his feet, but on his knees and the calves of his legs alternately; and that smell of sawdusty horses, which was never in any other place in the world, salutes my nose with painful distinctness. what do you think of my suddenly finding myself a swimmer? but i have really made the discovery, and skim about a little blue bay just below the town here, like a fish in high spirits. i hope to preserve my bathing-dress for your inspection and approval, or possibly to enrich your collection of italian costumes on my return. do you recollect yarnold in "masaniello"? i fear that i, unintentionally, "dress at him," before plunging into the sea. i enhanced the likeness very much, last friday morning, by singing a barcarole on the rocks. i was a trifle too flesh-coloured (the stage knowing no medium between bright salmon and dirty yellow), but apart from that defect, not badly made up by any means. when you write to me, my dear stanny, as i hope you will soon, address poste restante, genoa. i remain out here until the end of september, and send in for my letters daily. there is a postman for this place, but he gets drunk and loses the letters; after which he calls to say so, and to fall upon his knees. about three weeks ago i caught him at a wine-shop near here, playing bowls in the garden. it was then about five o'clock in the afternoon, and he had been airing a newspaper addressed to me, since nine o'clock in the morning. kate and georgina unite with me in most cordial remembrances to mrs. and miss stanfield, and to all the children. they particularise all sorts of messages, but i tell them that they had better write themselves if they want to send any. though i don't know that this writing would end in the safe deliverance of the commodities after all; for when i began this letter, i meant to give utterance to all kinds of heartiness, my dear stanfield; and i come to the end of it without having said anything more than that i am--which is new to you--under every circumstance and everywhere, your most affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] palazzo peschiere, genoa, _october th, ._ my very dear macready, my whole heart is with you _at home_. i have not yet felt so far off as i do now, when i think of you there, and cannot fold you in my arms. this is only a shake of the hand. i couldn't _say_ much to you, if i were home to greet you. nor can i write much, when i think of you, safe and sound and happy, after all your wanderings. my dear fellow, god bless you twenty thousand times. happiness and joy be with you! i hope to see you soon. if i should be so unfortunate as to miss you in london, i will fall upon you, with a swoop of love, in paris. kate says all kind things in the language; and means more than are in the dictionary capacity of all the descendants of all the stonemasons that worked at babel. again and again and again, my own true friend, god bless you! ever yours affectionately. [sidenote: mr. douglas jerrold.] cremona, _saturday night, october th, ._ my dear jerrold, as half a loaf is better than no bread, so i hope that half a sheet of paper may be better than none at all, coming from one who is anxious to live in your memory and friendship. i should have redeemed the pledge i gave you in this regard long since, but occupation at one time, and absence from pen and ink at another, have prevented me. forster has told you, or will tell you, that i very much wish you to hear my little christmas book; and i hope you will meet me, at his bidding, in lincoln's inn fields. i have tried to strike a blow upon that part of the brass countenance of wicked cant, when such a compliment is sorely needed at this time, and i trust that the result of my training is at least the exhibition of a strong desire to make it a staggerer. if _you_ should think at the end of the four rounds (there are no more) that the said cant, in the language of _bell's life_, "comes up piping," i shall be very much the better for it. i am now on my way to milan; and from thence (after a day or two's rest) i mean to come to england by the grandest alpine pass that the snow may leave open. you know this place as famous of yore for fiddles. i don't see any here now. but there is a whole street of coppersmiths not far from this inn; and they throb so d----ably and fitfully, that i thought i had a palpitation of the heart after dinner just now, and seldom was more relieved than when i found the noise to be none of mine. i was rather shocked yesterday (i am not strong in geographical details) to find that romeo was only banished twenty-five miles. that is the distance between mantua and verona. the latter is a quaint old place, with great houses in it that are now solitary and shut up--exactly the place it ought to be. the former has a great many apothecaries in it at this moment, who could play that part to the life. for of all the stagnant ponds i ever beheld, it is the greenest and weediest. i went to see the old palace of the capulets, which is still distinguished by their cognizance (a hat carved in stone on the courtyard wall). it is a miserable inn. the court was full of crazy coaches, carts, geese, and pigs, and was ankle-deep in mud and dung. the garden is walled off and built out. there was nothing to connect it with its old inhabitants, and a very unsentimental lady at the kitchen door. the montagues used to live some two or three miles off in the country. it does not appear quite clear whether they ever inhabited verona itself. but there is a village bearing their name to this day, and traditions of the quarrels between the two families are still as nearly alive as anything can be, in such a drowsy neighbourhood. it was very hearty and good of you, jerrold, to make that affectionate mention of the "carol" in _punch_, and i assure you it was not lost on the distant object of your manly regard, but touched him as you wished and meant it should. i wish we had not lost so much time in improving our personal knowledge of each other. but i have so steadily read you, and so selfishly gratified myself in always expressing the admiration with which your gallant truths inspired me, that i must not call it time lost, either. you rather entertained a notion, once, of coming to see me at genoa. i shall return straight, on the th of december, limiting my stay in town to one week. now couldn't you come back with me? the journey, that way, is very cheap, costing little more than twelve pounds; and i am sure the gratification to you would be high. i am lodged in quite a wonderful place, and would put you in a painted room, as big as a church and much more comfortable. there are pens and ink upon the premises; orange trees, gardens, battledores and shuttlecocks, rousing wood-fires for evenings, and a welcome worth having. come! letter from a gentleman in italy to bradbury and evans in london. letter from a gentleman in a country gone to sleep to a gentleman in a country that would go to sleep too, and never wake again, if some people had their way. you can work in genoa. the house is used to it. it is exactly a week's post. have that portmanteau looked to, and when we meet, say, "i am coming." i have never in my life been so struck by any place as by venice. it is _the_ wonder of the world. dreamy, beautiful, inconsistent, impossible, wicked, shadowy, d----able old place. i entered it by night, and the sensation of that night and the bright morning that followed is a part of me for the rest of my existence. and, oh god! the cells below the water, underneath the bridge of sighs; the nook where the monk came at midnight to confess the political offender; the bench where he was strangled; the deadly little vault in which they tied him in a sack, and the stealthy crouching little door through which they hurried him into a boat, and bore him away to sink him where no fisherman dare cast his net--all shown by torches that blink and wink, as if they were ashamed to look upon the gloomy theatre of sad horrors; past and gone as they are, these things stir a man's blood, like a great wrong or passion of the instant. and with these in their minds, and with a museum there, having a chamber full of such frightful instruments of torture as the devil in a brain fever could scarcely invent, there are hundreds of parrots, who will declaim to you in speech and print, by the hour together, on the degeneracy of the times in which a railroad is building across the water at venice; instead of going down on their knees, the drivellers, and thanking heaven that they live in a time when iron makes roads, instead of prison bars and engines for driving screws into the skulls of innocent men. before god, i could almost turn bloody-minded, and shoot the parrots of our island with as little compunction as robinson crusoe shot the parrots in his. i have not been in bed, these ten days, after five in the morning, and have been, travelling many hours every day. if this be the cause of my inflicting a very stupid and sleepy letter on you, my dear jerrold, i hope it will be a kind of signal at the same time, of my wish to hail you lovingly even from this sleepy and unpromising state. and believe me as i am, always your friend and admirer. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] peschiere, genoa, _tuesday, nov. th, ._ my dear mitton, the cause of my not having written to you is too obvious to need any explanation. i have worn myself to death in the month i have been at work. none of my usual reliefs have been at hand; i have not been able to divest myself of the story--have suffered very much in my sleep in consequence--and am so shaken by such work in this trying climate, that i am as nervous as a man who is dying of drink, and as haggard as a murderer. i believe i have written a tremendous book, and knocked the "carol" out of the field. it will make a great uproar, i have no doubt. i leave here to-morrow for venice and many other places; and i shall certainly come to london to see my proofs, coming by new ground all the way, cutting through the snow in the valleys of switzerland, and plunging through the mountains in the dead of winter. i would accept your hearty offer with right goodwill, but my visit being one of business and consultation, i see impediments in the way, and insurmountable reasons for not doing so. therefore, i shall go to an hotel in covent garden, where they know me very well, and with the landlord of which i have already communicated. my orders are not upon a mighty scale, extending no further than a good bedroom and a cold shower-bath. bradbury and evans are going at it, ding-dong, and are wild with excitement. all news on that subject (and on every other) i must defer till i see you. that will be immediately after i arrive, of course. most likely on monday, nd december. kate and her sister (who send their best regards) and all the children are as well as possible. the house is _perfect_; the servants are as quiet and well-behaved as at home, which very rarely happens here, and roche is my right hand. there never was such a fellow. we have now got carpets down--burn fires at night--draw the curtains, and are quite wintry. we have a box at the opera, which, is close by (for nothing), and sit there when we please, as in our own drawing-room. there have been three fine days in four weeks. on every other the water has been falling down in one continual sheet, and it has been thundering and lightening every day and night. my hand shakes in that feverish and horrible manner that i can hardly hold a pen. and i have so bad a cold that i can't see. in haste to save the post, ever faithfully. p.s.--charley has a writing-master every day, and a french master. he and his sisters are to be waited on by a professor of the noble art of dancing, next week. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] parma, albergo della posta, _friday, nov. th, ._ my dearest kate, "if missis could see us to-night, what would she say?" that was the brave c.'s remark last night at midnight, and he had reason. we left genoa, as you know, soon after five on the evening of my departure; and in company with the lady whom you saw, and the dog whom i don't think you did see, travelled all night at the rate of four miles an hour over bad roads, without the least refreshment until daybreak, when the brave and myself escaped into a miserable caffé while they were changing horses, and got a cup of that drink hot. that same day, a few hours afterwards, between ten and eleven, we came to (i hope) the d----dest inn in the world, where, in a vast chamber, rendered still more desolate by the presence of a most offensive specimen of what d'israeli calls the mosaic arab (who had a beautiful girl with him), i regaled upon a breakfast, almost as cold, and damp, and cheerless, as myself. then, in another coach, much smaller than a small fly, i was packed up with an old padre, a young jesuit, a provincial avvocato, a private gentleman with a very red nose and a very wet brown umbrella, and the brave c. and i went on again at the same pace through the mud and rain until four in the afternoon, when there was a place in the coupé (two indeed), which i took, holding that select compartment in company with a very ugly but very agreeable tuscan "gent," who said "_gia_" instead of "_si_," and rung some other changes in this changing language, but with whom i got on very well, being extremely conversational. we were bound, as you know perhaps, for piacenza, but it was discovered that we couldn't get to piacenza, and about ten o'clock at night we halted at a place called stradella, where the inn was a series of queer galleries open to the night, with a great courtyard full of waggons and horses, and "_velociferi_," and what not in the centre. it was bitter cold and very wet, and we all walked into a bare room (mine!) with two immensely broad beds on two deal dining-tables, a third great empty table, the usual washing-stand tripod, with a slop-basin on it, and two chairs. and then we walked up and down for three-quarters of an hour or so, while dinner, or supper, or whatever it was, was getting ready. this was set forth (by way of variety) in the old priest's bedroom, which had two more immensely broad beds on two more deal dining-tables in it. the first dish was a cabbage boiled in a great quantity of rice and hot water, the whole flavoured with cheese. i was so cold that i thought it comfortable, and so hungry that a bit of cabbage, when i found such a thing floating my way, charmed me. after that we had a dish of very little pieces of pork, fried with pigs' kidneys; after that a fowl; after that something very red and stringy, which i think was veal; and after that two tiny little new-born-baby-looking turkeys, very red and very swollen. fruit, of course, to wind up, and garlic in one shape or another in every course. i made three jokes at supper (to the immense delight of the company), and retired early. the brave brought in a bush or two and made a fire, and after that a glass of screeching hot brandy and water; that bottle of his being full of brandy. i drank it at my leisure, undressed before the fire, and went into one of the beds. the brave reappeared about an hour afterwards and went into the other; previously tying a pocket-handkerchief round and round his head in a strange fashion, and giving utterance to the sentiment with which this letter begins. at five this morning we resumed our journey, still through mud and rain, and at about eleven arrived at piacenza; where we fellow-passengers took leave of one another in the most affectionate manner. as there was no coach on till six at night, and as it was a very grim, despondent sort of place, and as i had had enough of diligences for one while, i posted forward here in the strangest carriages ever beheld, which we changed when we changed horses. we arrived here before six. the hotel is quite french. i have dined very well in my own room on the second floor; and it has two beds in it, screened off from the room by drapery. i only use one to-night, and that is already made. i purpose posting on to bologna, if i can arrange it, at twelve to-morrow; seeing the sights here first. it is dull work this travelling alone. my only comfort is in motion. i look forward with a sort of shudder to sunday, when i shall have a day to myself in bologna; and i think i must deliver my letters in venice in sheer desperation. never did anybody want a companion after dinner so much as i do. there has been music on the landing outside my door to-night. two violins and a violoncello. one of the violins played a solo, and the others struck in as an orchestra does now and then, very well. then he came in with a small tin platter. "bella musica," said i. "bellissima musica, signore. mi piace moltissimo. sono felice, signoro," said he. i gave him a franc. "o moltissimo generoso. tanto generoso signore!" it was a joke to laugh at when i was learning, but i swear unless i could stagger on, zoppa-wise, with the people, i verily believe i should have turned back this morning. in all other respects i think the entire change has done me undoubted service already. i am free of the book, and am red-faced; and feel marvellously disposed to sleep. so for all the straggling qualities of this straggling letter, want of sleep must be responsible. give my best love to georgy, and my paternal blessing to mamey, katey, charley, wally, and chickenstalker. p.s.--get things in their places. i can't bear to picture them otherwise. p.p.s.--i think i saw roche sleeping with his head on the lady's shoulder, in the coach. i couldn't swear it, and the light was deceptive. but i think i did. alia sign^{a} sign^{a} dickens. palazzo peschiere, genova. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] fribourg, _saturday night, november rd, ._ my dearest kate, for the first time since i left you i am sitting in a room of my own hiring, with a fire and a bed in it. and i am happy to say that i have the best and fullest intentions of sleeping in the bed, having arrived here at half-past four this afternoon, without any cessation of travelling, night or day, since i parted from mr. bairr's cheap firewood. the alps appeared in sight very soon after we left milan--by eight or nine o'clock in the morning; and the brave c. was so far wrong in his calculations that we began the ascent of the simplon that same night, while you were travelling (as i would i were) towards the peschiere. most favourable state of circumstances for journeying up that tremendous pass! the brightest moon i ever saw, all night, and daybreak on the summit. the glory of which, making great wastes of snow a rosy red, exceeds all telling. we _sledged_ through the snow on the summit for two hours or so. the weather was perfectly fair and bright, and there was neither difficulty nor danger--except the danger that there always must be, in such a place, of a horse stumbling on the brink of an immeasurable precipice. in which case no piece of the unfortunate traveller would be left large enough to tell his story in dumb show. you may imagine something of the rugged grandeur of such a scene as this great passage of these great mountains, and indeed glencoe, well sprinkled with snow, would be very like the ascent. but the top itself, so wild, and bleak, and lonely, is a thing by itself, and not to be likened to any other sight. the cold was piercing; the north wind high and boisterous; and when it came driving in our faces, bringing a sharp shower of little points of snow and piercing it into our very blood, it really was, what it is often said to be, "cutting"--with a very sharp edge too. there are houses of refuge here--bleak, solitary places--for travellers overtaken by the snow to hurry to, as an escape from death; and one great house, called the hospital, kept by monks, where wayfarers get supper and bed for nothing. we saw some coming out and pursuing their journey. if all monks devoted themselves to such uses, i should have little fault to find with them. the cold in switzerland, since, has been something quite indescribable. my eyes are tingling to-night as one may suppose cymbals to tingle when they have been lustily played. it is positive pain to me to write. the great organ which i was to have had "pleasure in hearing" don't play on a sunday, at which the brave is inconsolable. but the town is picturesque and quaint, and worth seeing. and this inn (with a german bedstead in it about the size and shape of a baby's linen-basket) is perfectly clean and comfortable. butter is so cheap hereabouts that they bring you a great mass like the squab of a sofa for tea. and of honey, which is most delicious, they set before you a proportionate allowance. we start to-morrow morning at six for strasburg, and from that town, or the next halting-place on the rhine, i will report progress, if it be only in half-a-dozen words. i am anxious to hear that you reached genoa quite comfortably, and shall look forward with impatience to that letter which you are to indite with so much care and pains next monday. my best love to georgy, and to charley, and mamey, and katey, and wally, and chickenstalker. i have treated myself to a new travelling-cap to-night (my old one being too thin), and it is rather a prodigious affair i flatter myself. swiss towns, and mountains, and the lake of geneva, and the famous suspension bridge at this place, and a great many other objects (with a very low thermometer conspicuous among them), are dancing up and down me, strangely. but i am quite collected enough, notwithstanding, to have still a very distinct idea that this hornpipe travelling is uncomfortable, and that i would gladly start for my palazzo out of hand without any previous rest, stupid as i am and much as i want it. ever, my dear love, affectionately yours. p.s.--i hope the dancing lessons will be a success. don't fail to let me know. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] hÃ�tel bristol, paris, _thursday night, nov. th, , half-past ten._ my dearest macready, since i wrote to you what would be called in law proceedings the exhibit marked a, i have been round to the hôtel brighton, and personally examined and cross-examined the attendants. it is painfully clear to me that i shall not see you to-night, nor until tuesday, the th of december, when, please god, i shall re-arrive here, on my way to my italian bowers. i mean to stay all the wednesday and all the thursday in paris. one night to see you act (my old delight when you little thought of such a being in existence), and one night to read to you and mrs. macready (if that scamp of lincoln's inn fields has not anticipated me) my little christmas book, in which i have endeavoured to plant an indignant right-hander on the eye of certain wicked cant that makes my blood boil, which i hope will not only cloud that eye with black and blue, but many a gentle one with crystal of the finest sort. god forgive me, but i think there are good things in the little story! i took it for granted you were, as your american friends say, "in full blast" here, and meant to have sent a card into your dressing-room, with "mr. g. s. hancock muggridge, united states," upon it. but paris looks coldly on me without your eye in its head, and not being able to shake your hand i shake my own head dolefully, which is but poor satisfaction. my love to mrs. macready. i will swear to the death that it is truly hers, for her gallantry in your absence if for nothing else, and to you, my dear macready, i am ever a devoted friend. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] hÃ�tel bristol, paris, _thursday night, nov. th, ._ my dearest kate, with an intolerable pen and no ink, i am going to write a few lines to you to report progress. i got to strasburg on monday night, intending to go down the rhine. but the weather being foggy, and the season quite over, they could not insure me getting on for certain beyond mayence, or our not being detained by unpropitious weather. therefore i resolved (the malle poste being full) to take the diligence hither next day in the afternoon. i arrived here at half-past five to-night, after fifty hours of it in a french coach. i was so beastly dirty when i got to this house, that i had quite lost all sense of my identity, and if anybody had said, "are you charles dickens?" i should have unblushingly answered, "no; i never heard of him." a good wash, and a good dress, and a good dinner have revived me, however; and i can report of this house, concerning which the brave was so anxious when we were here before, that it is the best i ever was in. my little apartment, consisting of three rooms and other conveniences, is a perfect curiosity of completeness. you never saw such a charming little baby-house. it is infinitely smaller than those first rooms we had at meurice's, but for elegance, compactness, comfort, and quietude, exceeds anything i ever met with at an inn. the moment i arrived here, i enquired, of course, after macready. they said the english theatre had not begun yet, that they thought he was at meurice's, where they knew some members of the company to be. i instantly despatched the porter with a note to say that if he were there, i would come round and hug him, as soon as i was clean. they referred the porter to the hôtel brighton. he came back and told me that the answer there was: "m. macready's rooms were engaged, but he had not arrived. he was expected to-night!" if we meet to-night, i will add a postscript. wouldn't it be odd if we met upon the road between this and boulogne to-morrow? i mean, as a recompense for my late sufferings, to get a hackney-carriage if i can and post that journey, starting from here at eight to-morrow morning, getting to boulogne sufficiently early next morning to cross at once, and dining with forster that same day--to wit, saturday. i have notions of taking you with me on my next journey (if you would like to go), and arranging for georgy to come to us by steamer--under the protection of the english captain, for instance--to naples; there i would top and cap all our walks by taking her up to the crater of vesuvius with me. but this is dependent on her ability to be perfectly happy for a fortnight or so in our stately palace with the children, and such foreign aid as the simpsons. for i love her too dearly to think of any project which would involve her being uncomfortable for that space of time. you can think this over, and talk it over; and i will join you in doing so, please god, when i return to our italian bowers, which i shall be heartily glad to do. they tell us that the landlord of this house, going to london some week or so ago, was detained at boulogne two days by a high sea, in which the packet could not put out. so i hope there is the greater chance of no such bedevilment happening to me. paris is better than ever. oh dear, how grand it was when i came through it in that caravan to-night! i hope we shall be very hearty here, and able to say with wally, "han't it plassant!" love to charley, mamey, katey, wally, and chickenstalker. the last-named, i take it for granted, is indeed prodigious. best love to georgy. ever, my dearest kate, affectionately yours. p.s.--i have been round to macready's hotel; it is now past ten, and he has not arrived, nor does it seem at all certain that he seriously intended to arrive to-night. so i shall not see him, i take it for granted, until my return. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] piazza coffee house, covent garden, _monday, dec. nd, ._ my dearest kate, i received, with great delight, your _excellent_ letter of this morning. do not regard this as my answer to it. it is merely to say that i have been at bradbury and evans's all day, and have barely time to write more than that i _will_ write to-morrow. i arrived about seven on saturday evening, and rushed into the arms of mac and forster. both of them send their best love to you and georgy, with a heartiness not to be described. the little book is now, as far as i am concerned, all ready. one cut of doyle's and one of leech's i found so unlike my ideas, that i had them both to breakfast with me this morning, and with that winning manner which you know of, got them with the highest good humour to do both afresh. they are now hard at it. stanfield's readiness, delight, wonder at my being pleased with what he has done is delicious. mac's frontispiece is charming. the book is quite splendid; the expenses will be very great, i have no doubt. anybody who has heard it has been moved in the most extraordinary manner. forster read it (for dramatic purposes) to a'beckett. he cried so much and so painfully, that forster didn't know whether to go on or stop; and he called next day to say that any expression of his feeling was beyond his power. but that he believed it, and felt it to be--i won't say what. as the reading comes off to-morrow night, i had better not despatch my letters to you until _wednesday's_ post. i must close to save this (heartily tired i am, and i dine at gore house to-day), so with love to georgy, mamey, katey, charley, wally, and chickenstalker, ever, believe me, yours, with true affection. p.s.--if you had seen macready last night, undisguisedly sobbing and crying on the sofa as i read, you would have felt, as i did, what a thing it is to have power. footnotes: [ ] t. p. cooke, the celebrated actor of "william" in douglas jerrold's play of "black-eyed susan." . narrative. at the beginning of this year, charles dickens was still living at the palazzo peschiere, genoa, with his family. in february, he went with his wife to rome for the carnival, leaving his sister-in-law and children at genoa; miss hogarth joining them later on at naples. they all returned to rome for the holy week, and then went to florence, and so back to genoa. he continued his residence at genoa until june of this year, when he returned to england by switzerland and belgium, the party being met at brussels by mr. forster, mr. maclise, and mr. douglas jerrold, and arriving at home at the end of june. the autumn months, until the st october, were again spent at broadstairs. and in this september was the first amateur play at miss kelly's theatre in dean street, under the management of charles dickens, with messrs. jerrold, mark lemon, john leech, gilbert a'beckett, leigh, frank stone, forster, and others as his fellow-actors. the play selected was ben jonson's "every man in his humour," in which charles dickens acted captain bobadil. the first performance was a private one, merely as an entertainment for the actors and their friends, but its success speedily led to a repetition of the same performance, and afterwards to many other performances for public and charitable objects. "every man in his humour" was shortly after repeated, at the same little theatre, for a useful charity which needed help; and later in the year beaumont and fletcher's play of "the elder brother" was given by the same company, at the same place, for the benefit of miss kelly. there was a farce played after the comedy on each occasion--not always the same one--in which charles dickens and mark lemon were the principal actors. the letters which we have for this year, refer, with very few exceptions, to these theatricals, and therefore need no explanation. he was at work at the end of this year on another christmas book, "the cricket on the hearth," and was also much occupied with the project of _the daily news_ paper, of which he undertook the editorship at its starting, which took place in the beginning of the following year, . [sidenote: miss hogarth.] rome, _tuesday, february th, ._ my dearest georgy, this is a very short note, but time is still shorter. come by the first boat by all means. if there be a good one a day or two before it, come by that. don't delay on any account. i am very sorry you are not here. the carnival is a very remarkable and beautiful sight. i have been regretting the having left you at home all the way here. kate says, will you take counsel with charlotte about colour (i put in my word, as usual, for brightness), and have the darlings' bonnets made at once, by the same artist as before? kate would have written, but is gone with black to a day performance at the opera, to see cerito dance. at two o'clock each day we sally forth in an open carriage, with a large sack of sugar-plums and at least five hundred little nosegays to pelt people with. i should think we threw away, yesterday, a thousand of the latter. we had the carriage filled with flowers three or four times. i wish you could have seen me catch a swell brigand on the nose with a handful of very large confetti every time we met him. it was the best thing i have ever done. "the chimes" are nothing to it. anxiously expecting you, i am ever, dear georgy, yours most affectionately. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] naples, _monday, february th, ._ my dear mitton, this will be a hasty letter, for i am as badly off in this place as in america--beset by visitors at all times and seasons, and forced to dine out every day. i have found, however, an excellent man for me--an englishman, who has lived here many years, and is well acquainted with _the people_, whom he doctored in the bad time of the cholera, when the priests and everybody else fled in terror. under his auspices, i have got to understand the low life of naples (among the fishermen and idlers) almost as well as i understand the do. do. of my own country; always excepting the language, which is very peculiar and extremely difficult, and would require a year's constant practice at least. it is no more like italian than english is to welsh. and as they don't say half of what they mean, but make a wink or a kick stand for a whole sentence, it's a marvel to me how they comprehend each other. at rome they speak beautiful italian (i am pretty strong at that, i believe); but they are worse here than in genoa, which i had previously thought impossible. it is a fine place, but nothing like so beautiful as people make it out to be. the famous bay is, to my thinking, as a piece of scenery, immeasurably inferior to the bay of genoa, which is the most lovely thing i have ever seen. the city, in like manner, will bear no comparison with genoa. but there is none in italy that will, except venice. as to houses, there is no palace like the peschiere for architecture, situation, gardens, or rooms. it is a great triumph to me, too, to find how cheap it is. at rome, the english people live in dirty little fourth, fifth, and sixth floors, with not one room as large as your own drawing-room, and pay, commonly, seven or eight pounds a week. i was a week in rome on my way here, and saw the carnival, which is perfectly delirious, and a great scene for a description. all the ancient part of rome is wonderful and impressive in the extreme. far beyond the possibility of exaggeration as to the modern part, it might be anywhere or anything--paris, nice, boulogne, calais, or one of a thousand other places. the weather is so atrocious (rain, snow, wind, darkness, hail, and cold) that i can't get over into sicily. but i don't care very much about it, as i have planned out ten days of excursion into the neighbouring country. one thing of course--the ascent of vesuvius, herculaneum and pompeii, the two cities which were covered by its melted ashes, and dug out in the first instance accidentally, are more full of interest and wonder than it is possible to imagine. i have heard of some ancient tombs (quite unknown to travellers) dug in the bowels of the earth, and extending for some miles underground. they are near a place called viterbo, on the way from rome to florence. i shall lay in a small stock of torches, etc., and explore them when i leave rome. i return there on the st of march, and shall stay there nearly a month. saturday, february nd.--since i left off as above, i have been away on an excursion of three days. yesterday evening, at four o'clock, we began (a small party of six) the ascent of mount vesuvius, with six saddle-horses, an armed soldier for a guard, and twenty-two guides. the latter rendered necessary by the severity of the weather, which is greater than has been known for twenty years, and has covered the precipitous part of the mountain with deep snow, the surface of which is glazed with one smooth sheet of ice from the top of the cone to the bottom. by starting at that hour i intended to get the sunset about halfway up, and night at the top, where the fire is raging. it was an inexpressibly lovely night without a cloud; and when the day was quite gone, the moon (within a few hours of the full) came proudly up, showing the sea, and the bay of naples, and the whole country, in such majesty as no words can express. we rode to the beginning of the snow and then dismounted. catherine and georgina were put into two litters, just chairs with poles, like those in use in england on the th of november; and a fat englishman, who was of the party, was hoisted into a third, borne by eight men. i was accommodated with a tough stick, and we began to plough our way up. the ascent was as steep as this line /--very nearly perpendicular. we were all tumbling at every stop; and looking up and seeing the people in advance tumbling over one's very head, and looking down and seeing hundreds of feet of smooth ice below, was, i must confess, anything but agreeable. however, i knew there was little chance of another clear night before i leave this, and gave the word to get up, somehow or other. so on we went, winding a little now and then, or we should not have got on at all. by prodigious exertions we passed the region of snow, and came into that of fire--desolate and awful, you may well suppose. it was like working one's way through a dry waterfall, with every mass of stone burnt and charred into enormous cinders, and smoke and sulphur bursting out of every chink and crevice, so that it was difficult to breathe. high before us, bursting out of a hill at the top of the mountain, shaped like this [hw: a], the fire was pouring out, reddening the night with flames, blackening it with smoke, and spotting it with red-hot stones and cinders that fell down again in showers. at every step everybody fell, now into a hot chink, now into a bed of ashes, now over a mass of cindered iron; and the confusion in the darkness (for the smoke obscured the moon in this part), and the quarrelling and shouting and roaring of the guides, and the waiting every now and then for somebody who was not to be found, and was supposed to have stumbled into some pit or other, made such a scene of it as i can give you no idea of. my ladies were now on foot, of course; but we dragged them on as well as we could (they were thorough game, and didn't make the least complaint), until we got to the foot of that topmost hill i have drawn so beautifully. here we all stopped; but the head guide, an english gentleman of the name of le gros--who has been here many years, and has been up the mountain a hundred times--and your humble servant, resolved (like jackasses) to climb that hill to the brink, and look down into the crater itself. you may form some notion of what is going on inside it, when i tell you that it is a hundred feet higher than it was six weeks ago. the sensation of struggling up it, choked with the fire and smoke, and feeling at every step as if the crust of ground between one's feet and the gulf of fire would crumble in and swallow one up (which is the real danger), i shall remember for some little time, i think. but we did it. we looked down into the flaming bowels of the mountain and came back again, alight in half-a-dozen places, and burnt from head to foot. you never saw such devils. and _i_ never saw anything so awful and terrible. roche had been tearing his hair like a madman, and crying that we should all three be killed, which made the rest of the company very comfortable, as you may suppose. but we had some wine in a basket, and all swallowed a little of that and a great deal of sulphur before we began to descend. the usual way, after the fiery part is past--you will understand that to be all the flat top of the mountain, in the centre of which, again, rises the little hill i have drawn--is to slide down the ashes, which, slipping from under you, make a gradually increasing ledge under your feet, and prevent your going too fast. but when we came to this steep place last night, we found nothing there but one smooth solid sheet of ice. the only way to get down was for the guides to make a chain, holding by each other's hands, and beat a narrow track in it into the snow below with their sticks. my two unfortunate ladies were taken out of their litters again, with half-a-dozen men hanging on to each, to prevent their falling forward; and we began to descend this way. it was like a tremendous dream. it was impossible to stand, and the only way to prevent oneself from going sheer down the precipice, every time one fell, was to drive one's stick into one of the holes the guides had made, and hold on by that. nobody could pick one up, or stop one, or render one the least assistance. now, conceive my horror, when this mr. le gros i have mentioned, being on one side of georgina and i on the other, suddenly staggers away from the narrow path on to the smooth ice, gives us a jerk, lets go, and plunges headforemost down the smooth ice into the black night, five hundred feet below! almost at the same instant, a man far behind, carrying a light basket on his head with some of our spare cloaks in it, misses his footing and rolls down in another place; and after him, rolling over and over like a black bundle, goes a boy, shrieking as nobody but an italian can shriek, until the breath is tumbled out of him. the englishman is in bed to-day, terribly bruised but without any broken bones. he was insensible at first and a mere heap of rags; but we got him before the fire, in a little hermitage there is halfway down, and he so far recovered as to be able to take some supper, which was waiting for us there. the boy was brought in with his head tied up in a bloody cloth, about half an hour after the rest of us were assembled. and the man who had had the basket was not found when we left the mountain at midnight. what became of the cloaks (mine was among them) i know as little. my ladies' clothes were so torn off their backs that they would not have been decent, if there could have been any thought of such things at such a time. and when we got down to the guides' house, we found a french surgeon (one of another party who had been up before us) lying on a bed in a stable, with god knows what horrible breakage about him, but suffering acutely and looking like death. a pretty unusual trip for a pleasure expedition, i think! i am rather stiff to-day but am quite unhurt, except a slight scrape on my right hand. my clothes are burnt to pieces. my ladies are the wonder of naples, and everybody is open-mouthed. address me as usual. all letters are forwarded. the children well and happy. best regards. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] albion hotel, broadstairs, _sunday, aug. th, ._ my dear macready, i have been obliged to communicate with the _punch_ men in reference to saturday, the th, as that day of the week is usually their business dinner day, and i was not quite sure that it could be conveniently altered. jerrold now assures me that it can for such a purpose, and that it shall, and therefore consider the play as being arranged to come off on saturday, the th of next month. i don't know whether i told you that we have changed the farce; and now we are to act "two o'clock in the morning," as performed by the inimitable b. at montreal. in reference to bruce castle school, i think the question set at rest most probably by the fact of there being no vacancy (it is always full) until christmas, when howitt's two boys and jerrold's one go in and fill it up again. but after going carefully through the school, a question would arise in my mind whether the system--a perfectly admirable one; the only recognition of education as a broad system of moral and intellectual philosophy, that i have ever seen in practice--do not require so much preparation and progress in the mind of the boy, as that he shall have come there younger and less advanced than willy; or at all events without that very different sort of school experience which he must have acquired at brighton. i have no warrant for this doubt, beyond a vague uneasiness suggesting a suspicion of its great probability. on such slight ground i would not hint it to anyone but you, who i know will give it its due weight, and no more and no less. i have the paper setting forth the nature of the higher classical studies, and the books they read. it is the usual course, and includes the great books in greek and latin. they have a miscellaneous library, under the management of the boys themselves, of some five or six thousand volumes, and every means of study and recreation, and every inducement to self-reliance and self-exertion that can easily be imagined. as there is no room just now, you can turn it over in your mind again. and if you would like to see the place yourself, when you return to town, i shall be delighted to go there with you. i come home on wednesday. it is our rehearsal night; and of course the active and enterprising stage-manager must be at his post. ever, my dear macready, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] _august th, ._ my dear george, i write a line to tell you a project we have in view. a little party of us have taken miss kelly's theatre for the night of the th of next month, and we are going to act a play there, with correct and pretty costume, good orchestra, etc. etc. the affair is strictly private. the admission will be by cards of invitation; every man will have from thirty to thirty-five. nobody can ask any person without the knowledge and sanction of the rest, my objection being final; and the expense to each (exclusive of the dress, which every man finds for himself) will not exceed two guineas. forster plays, and stone plays, and i play, and some of the _punch_ people play. stanfield, having the scenery and carpenters to attend to, cannot manage his part also. it is downright, in "every man in his humour," not at all long, but very good; he wants you to take it. and so help me. we shall have a brilliant audience. the uphill part of the thing is already done, our next rehearsal is next tuesday, and if you will come in you will find everything to your hand, and all very merry and pleasant. let me know what you decide, like a kittenmolian trojan. and with love from all here to all there, believe me, ever, heartily yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] devonshire terrace, _thursday, sept. th, ._ my dear macready, we have a little supper, sir, after the farce, at no. , powis place, great ormond street, in an empty house belonging to one of the company. there i am requested by my fellows to beg the favour of thy company and that of mrs. macready. the guests are limited to the actors and their ladies--with the exception of yourselves, and d'orsay, and george cattermole, "or so"--that sounds like bobadil a little. i am going to adopt your reading of the fifth act with the worst grace in the world. it seems to me that you don't allow enough for bobadil having been frequently beaten before, as i have no doubt he had been. the part goes down hideously on this construction, and the end is mere lees. but never mind, sir, i intend bringing you up with the farce in the most brilliant manner. ever yours affectionately. n.b.--observe. i think of changing my present mode of life, and am open to an engagement. n.b. no. .--i will undertake not to play tragedy, though passion is my strength. n.b. no. .--i consider myself a chained lion.[ ] [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield.] devonshire terrace, _october nd, ._ my dear stanny, i send you the claret jug. but for a mistake, you would have received the little remembrance almost immediately after my return from abroad. i need not say how much i should value another little sketch from your extraordinary hand in this year's small volume, to which mac again does the frontispiece. but i cannot hear of it, and will not have it (though the gratification of such aid, to me, is really beyond all expression), unless you will so far consent to make it a matter of business as to receive, without asking any questions, a cheque in return from the publishers. do not misunderstand me--though i am not afraid there is much danger of your doing so, for between us misunderstanding is, i hope, not easy. i know perfectly well that nothing can pay you for the devotion of any portion of your time to such a use of your art. i know perfectly well that no terms would induce you to go out of your way, in such a regard, for perhaps anybody else. i cannot, nor do i desire to, vanquish the friendly obligation which help from you imposes on me. but i am not the sole proprietor of those little books; and it would be monstrous in you if you were to dream of putting a scratch into a second one without some shadowy reference to the other partners, ten thousand times more monstrous in me if any consideration on earth could induce me to permit it, which nothing will or shall. so, see what it comes to. if you will do me a favour on my terms it will be more acceptable to me, my dear stanfield, than i can possibly tell you. if you will not be so generous, you deprive me of the satisfaction of receiving it at your hands, and shut me out from that possibility altogether. what a stony-hearted ruffian you must be in such a case! ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] devonshire terrace, _friday evening, oct. th, ._ my dear macready, you once--only once--gave the world assurance of a waistcoat. you wore it, sir, i think, in "money." it was a remarkable and precious waistcoat, wherein certain broad stripes of blue or purple disported themselves as by a combination of extraordinary circumstances, too happy to occur again. i have seen it on your manly chest in private life. i saw it, sir, i think, the other day in the cold light of morning--with feelings easier to be imagined than described. mr. macready, sir, are you a father? if so, lend me that waistcoat for five minutes. i am bidden to a wedding (where fathers are made), and my artist cannot, i find (how should he?), imagine such a waistcoat. let me show it to him as a sample of my tastes and wishes; and--ha, ha, ha, ha!--eclipse the bridegroom! i will send a trusty messenger at half-past nine precisely, in the morning. he is sworn to secrecy. he durst not for his life betray us, or swells in ambuscade would have the waistcoat at the cost of his heart's blood. thine, the unwaistcoated one. [sidenote: viscount morpeth.] devonshire terrace, _nov. th, ._ my dear lord morpeth, i have delayed writing to you until now, hoping i might have been able to tell you of our dramatic plans, and of the day on which we purpose playing. but as these matters are still in abeyance, i will give you that precious information when i come into the receipt of it myself. and let me heartily assure you, that i had at least as much pleasure in seeing you the other day as you can possibly have had in seeing me; and that i shall consider all opportunities of becoming better known to you among the most fortunate and desirable occasions of my life. and that i am with your conviction about the probability of our liking each other, and, as lord lyndhurst might say, with "something more." ever faithfully yours. footnote: [ ] this alludes to a theatrical story of a second-rate actor, who described himself as a "chained lion," in a theatre where he had to play inferior parts to mr. macready. . narrative. in the spring of this year charles dickens gave up the editorship of, and finally, all connection with _the daily news_, and went again abroad with his family; the house in devonshire terrace being let for twelve months. he made his summer residence at lausanne, taking a villa (rosemont) there, from may till november. here he wrote "the battle of life," and the first number of "dombey and son." in november he removed to paris, where he took a house in the rue de courcelles for the winter, and where he lived and was at work upon "dombey" until march, . among the english residents that summer at lausanne he made many friendships, in proof of which he dedicated the christmas book written there to his "english friends in lausanne." the especially intimate friendships which he formed were with m. de cerjat, who was always a resident of lausanne with his family; mr. haldimand, whose name is identified with the place, and with the hon. richard and mrs. watson, of rockingham castle. he maintained a constant correspondence with them, and to mr. and mrs. watson he afterwards dedicated his own favourite of all his books, "david copperfield." m. de cerjat, from the time of charles dickens leaving lausanne, began a custom, which he kept up almost without an interval to the time of his own death, of writing him a long letter every christmas, to which he returned answers, which will be given in this and the following years. in this year we have the commencement of his association and correspondence with mr. w. h. wills. their connection began in the short term of his editorship of _the daily news_, when he at once fully appreciated mr. wills's invaluable business qualities. and when, some time later, he started his own periodical, "household words," he thought himself very fortunate in being able to secure mr. wills's co-operation as editor of that journal, and afterwards of "all the year round," with which "household words" was incorporated. they worked together on terms of the most perfect mutual understanding, confidence, and affectionate regard, until mr. wills's health made it necessary for him to retire from the work in . besides his first notes to mr. wills in this year, we have our first letters to his dear friends, the rev. james white, walter savage landor, and miss marion ely, the niece of lady talfourd. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] devonshire terrace, _february th, ._ my dear mr. wills, do look at the enclosed from mrs. what's-her-name. for a surprising audacity it is remarkable even to me, who am positively bullied, and all but beaten, by these people. i wish you would do me the favour to write to her (in your own name and from your own address), stating that you answered her letter as you did, because if i were the wealthiest nobleman in england i could not keep pace with one-twentieth part of the demands upon me, and because you saw no internal evidence in her application to induce you to single it out for any especial notice. that the tone of this letter renders you exceedingly glad you did so; and that you decline, from me, holding any correspondence with her. something to that effect, after what flourish your nature will. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: rev. james white.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _february th, ._ i cannot help telling you, my dear white, for i can think of no formal use of mister to such a writer as you, that i have just now read your tragedy, "the earl of gowrie," with a delight which i should in vain endeavour to express to you. considered with reference to its story, or its characters, or its noble poetry, i honestly regard it as a work of most remarkable genius. it has impressed me powerfully and enduringly. i am proud to have received it from your hand. and if i have to tell you what complete possession it has taken of me--that is, if i _could_ tell you--i do believe you would be glad to know it. always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] devonshire terrace, _monday morning, march nd, ._ my dear mr. wills, i really don't know what to say about the new brunswicker. the idea will obtrude itself on my mind, that he had no business to come here on such an expedition; and that it is a piece of the wild conceit for which his countrymen are so remarkable, and that i can hardly afford to be steward to such adventurers. on the other hand, your description of him pleases me. then that purse which i could never keep shut in my life makes mouths at me, saying, "see how empty i am." then i fill it, and it looks very rich indeed. i think the best way is to say, that if you think you can do him any _permanent_ good with five pounds (that is, get him home again) i will give you the money. but i should be very much indisposed to give it him, merely to linger on here about town for a little time and then be hard up again. as to employment, i do in my soul believe that if i were lord chancellor of england, i should have been aground long ago, for the patronage of a messenger's place. say all that is civil for me to the proprietor of _the illustrated london news_, who really seems to be very liberal. "other engagements," etc. etc., "prevent me from entertaining," etc. etc. faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] devonshire terrace, _march th, ._ my dear mr. wills, i assure you i am very truly and unaffectedly sensible of your earnest friendliness, and in proof of my feeling its worth i shall unhesitatingly trouble you sometimes, in the fullest reliance on your meaning what you say. the letter from nelson square is a very manly and touching one. but i am more helpless in such a case as that than in any other, having really fewer means of helping such a gentleman to employment than i have of firing off the guns in the tower. such, appeals come to me here in scores upon scores. the letter from little white lion street does not impress me favourably. it is not written in a simple or truthful manner, i am afraid, and is _not_ a good reference. moreover, i think it probable that the writer may have deserted some pursuit for which he is qualified, for vague and laborious strivings which he has no pretensions to make. however, i will certainly act on your impression of him, whatever it may be. and if you could explain to the gentleman in nelson square, that i am not evading his request, but that i do not know of anything to which i can recommend him, it would be a great relief to me. i trust this new printer _is_ a tartar; and i hope to god he will so proclaim and assert his tartar breeding, as to excommunicate ---- from the "chapel" over which he presides. tell powell (with my regards) that he needn't "deal with" the american notices of the "cricket." i never read one word of their abuse, and i should think it base to read their praises. it is something to know that one is righted so soon; and knowing that, i can afford to know no more. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield.] devonshire terrace, _march th, ._ my dear stanny, in reference to the damage of the candlesticks, i beg to quote (from "the cricket on the hearth," by the highly popular and deservedly so dick) this reply: "i'll damage you if you enquire." ever yours, my block-reeving, main-brace splicing, lead-heaving, ship-conning, stun'sail-bending, deck-swabbing son of a sea-cook, henry bluff, h.m.s. _timber._ [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] devonshire terrace, _saturday, april th, ._ my dear sir, do you recollect sending me your biography of shakespeare last autumn, and my not acknowledging its receipt? i do, with remorse. the truth is, that i took it out of town with me, read it with great pleasure as a charming piece of honest enthusiasm and perseverance, kept it by me, came home, meant to say all manner of things to you, suffered the time to go by, got ashamed, thought of speaking to you, never saw you, felt it heavy on my mind, and now fling off the load by thanking you heartily, and hoping you will not think it too late. always believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss ely.] devonshire terrace, _sunday, april th, ._ my dear miss ely, a mysterious emissary brought me a note in your always welcome handwriting at the athenæum last night. i enquired of the servant in attendance whether the bearer of this letter was of my vast establishment. to which he replied "yezzir." "then," said i, "tell him not to wait." maclise was with me. it was then half-past seven. we had been walking, and were splashed to the eyes. we debated upon the possibility of getting to russell square in reasonable time--decided that it would be in the worst taste to appear when the performance would be half over--and very reluctantly decided not to come. you may suppose how dirty and dismal we were when we went to the thames tunnel, of all places in the world, instead! when i came home here at midnight i found another letter from you (i left off in this place to press it dutifully to my lips). then my mind misgave me that _you_ must have sent to the athenæum. at the apparent rudeness of my reply, my face, as hadji baba says, was turned upside down, and fifty donkeys sat upon my father's grave--or would have done so, but for his not being dead yet. therefore i send this humble explanation--protesting, however, which i do most solemnly, against being invited under such untoward circumstances; and claiming as your old friend and no less old admirer to be instantly invited to the next performance, if such a thing is ever contemplated. ever, my dear miss ely, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. douglas jerrold.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday, may th, ._ my dear jerrold, i send you herewith some books belonging to you. a thousand thanks for the "hermit." he took my fancy mightily when i first saw him in the "illuminated;" and i have stowed him away in the left-hand breast pocket of my travelling coat, that we may hold pleasant converse together on the rhine. you see what confidence i have in him! i wish you would seriously consider the expediency and feasibility of coming to lausanne in the summer or early autumn. i must be at work myself during a certain part of every day almost, and you could do twice as much there as here. it is a wonderful place to see--and what sort of welcome you would find i will say nothing about, for i have vanity enough to believe that you would be willing to feel yourself as much at home in my household as in any man's. do think it over. i could send you the minutest particular of the journey. it is really all railroad and steamboat, and the easiest in the world. at macready's on thursday, we shall meet, please god! always, my dear jerrold, cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] geneva, _saturday, october th, ._ my dear macready, the welcome sight of your handwriting moves me (though i have nothing to say) to show you mine, and if i could recollect the passage in virginius i would paraphrase it, and say, "does it seem to tremble, boy? is it a loving autograph? does it beam with friendship and affection?" all of which i say, as i write, with--oh heaven!--such a splendid imitation of you, and finally give you one of those grasps and shakes with which i have seen you make the young icilius stagger again. here i am, running away from a bad headache as tristram shandy ran away from death, and lodging for a week in the hôtel de l'Ã�cu de genève, wherein there is a large mirror shattered by a cannon-ball in the late revolution. a revolution, whatever its merits, achieved by free spirits, nobly generous and moderate, even in the first transports of victory, elevated by a splendid popular education, and bent on freedom from all tyrants, whether their crowns be shaven or golden. the newspapers may tell you what they please. i believe there is no country on earth but switzerland in which a violent change could have been effected in the christian spirit shown in this place, or in the same proud, independent, gallant style. not one halfpennyworth of property was lost, stolen, or strayed. not one atom of party malice survived the smoke of the last gun. nothing is expressed in the government addresses to the citizens but a regard for the general happiness, and injunctions to forget all animosities; which they are practically obeying at every turn, though the late government (of whose spirit i had some previous knowledge) did load the guns with such material as should occasion gangrene in the wounds, and though the wounded _do_ die, consequently, every day, in the hospital, of sores that in themselves were nothing. _you_ a mountaineer! _you_ examine (i have seen you do it) the point of your young son's bâton de montagne before he went up into the snow! and _you_ talk of coming to lausanne in march! why, lord love your heart, william tell, times are changed since you lived at altorf. there is not a mountain pass open until june. the snow is closing in on all the panorama already. i was at the great st. bernard two months ago, and it was bitter cold and frosty then. do you think i could let you hazard your life by going up any pass worth seeing in bleak march? never shall it be said that dickens sacrificed his friend upon the altar of his hospitality! onward! to paris! (cue for band. dickens points off with truncheon, first entrance p.s. page delivers gauntlets on one knee. dickens puts 'em on and gradually falls into a fit of musing. mrs. dickens lays her hand upon his shoulder. business. procession. curtain.) it is a great pleasure to me, my dear macready, to hear from yourself, as i had previously heard from forster, that you are so well pleased with "dombey," which is evidently a great success and a great hit, thank god! i felt that mrs. brown was strong, but i was not at all afraid of giving as heavy a blow as i could to a piece of hot iron that lay ready at my hand. for that is my principle always, and i hope to come down with some heavier sledge-hammers than that. i know the lady of whom you write. ---- left there only yesterday. the story may arise only in her manner, which is extraordinarily free and careless. he was visiting her here, when i was here last, three weeks ago. i knew her in italy. it is not her fault if scandal ever leaves her alone, for such a braver of all conventionalities never wore petticoats. but i should be sorry to hear there was anything guilty in her conduct. she is very clever, really learned, very pretty, much neglected by her husband, and only four-and-twenty years of age. kate and georgy send their best loves to mrs. and miss macready and all your house. your most affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. haldimand.] paris, _november, ._ * * * * * talking of which[ ] reminds me to say, that i have written to my printers, and told them to prefix to "the battle of life" a dedication that is printed in illuminated capitals on my heart. it is only this: "this christmas book is cordially inscribed to my english friends in switzerland." i shall trouble you with a little parcel of three or four copies to distribute to those whose names will be found written in them, as soon as they can be made ready, and believe me, that there is no success or approval in the great world beyond the jura that will be more precious and delightful to me, than the hope that i shall be remembered of an evening in the coming winter time, at one or two friends' i could mention near the lake of geneva. it runs with a spring tide, that will always flow and never ebb, through my memory; and nothing less than the waters of lethe shall confuse the music of its running, until it loses itself in that great sea, for which all the currents of our life are desperately bent. * * * * * [sidenote: mr. walter savage landor.] paris, _sunday, november nd, ._ young man, i will not go there if i can help it. i have not the least confidence in the value of your introduction to the devil. i can't help thinking that it would be of better use "the other way, the other way," but i won't try it there, either, at present, if i can help it. your godson says is that your duty? and he begs me to enclose a blush newly blushed for you. as to writing, i have written to you twenty times and twenty more to that, if you only knew it. i have been writing a little christmas book, besides, expressly for you. and if you don't like it, i shall go to the font of marylebone church as soon as i conveniently can and renounce you: i am not to be trifled with. i write from paris. i am getting up some french steam. i intend to proceed upon the longing-for-a-lap-of-blood-at-last principle, and if you _do_ offend me, look to it. we are all well and happy, and they send loves to you by the bushel. we are in the agonies of house-hunting. the people are frightfully civil, and grotesquely extortionate. one man (with a house to let) told me yesterday that he loved the duke of wellington like a brother. the same gentleman wanted to hug me round the neck with one hand, and pick my pocket with the other. don't be hard upon the swiss. they are a thorn in the sides of european despots, and a good wholesome people to live near jesuit-ridden kings on the brighter side of the mountains. my hat shall ever be ready to be thrown up, and my glove ever ready to be thrown down for switzerland. if you were the man i took you for, when i took you (as a godfather) for better and for worse, you would come to paris and amaze the weak walls of the house i haven't found yet with that steady snore of yours, which i once heard piercing the door of your bedroom in devonshire terrace, reverberating along the bell-wire in the hall, so getting outside into the street, playing eolian harps among the area railings, and going down the new road like the blast of a trumpet. i forgive you your reviling of me: there's a shovelful of live coals for your head--does it burn? and am, with true affection--does it burn now?-- ever yours. [sidenote: the hon. richard watson.] paris, , rue de courcelles, st. honorÃ�, _friday, nov. th, ._ my dear watson, we were housed only yesterday. i lose no time in despatching this memorandum of our whereabouts, in order that you may not fail to write me a line before you come to paris on your way towards england, letting me know on what day we are to expect you to dinner. we arrived here quite happily and well. i don't mean here, but at the hôtel brighton, in paris, on friday evening, between six and seven o'clock. the agonies of house-hunting were frightfully severe. it was one paroxysm for four mortal days. i am proud to express my belief, that we are lodged at last in the most preposterous house in the world. the like of it cannot, and so far as my knowledge goes does not, exist in any other part of the globe. the bedrooms are like opera-boxes. the dining-rooms, staircases, and passages, quite inexplicable. the dining-room is a sort of cavern, painted (ceiling and all) to represent a grove, with unaccountable bits of looking-glass sticking in among the branches of the trees. there is a gleam of reason in the drawing-room. but it is approached through a series of small chambers, like the joints in a telescope, which are hung with inscrutable drapery. the maddest man in bedlam, having the materials given him, would be likely to devise such a suite, supposing his case to be hopeless and quite incurable. pray tell mrs. watson, with my best regards, that the dance of the two sisters in the little christmas book is being done as an illustration by maclise; and that stanfield is doing the battle-ground and the outside of the nutmeg grater inn. maclise is also drawing some smaller subjects for the little story, and they write me that they hope it will be very pretty, and they think that i shall like it. i shall have been in london before i see you, probably, and i hope the book itself will then be on its road to lausanne to speak for itself, and to speak a word for me too. i have never left so many friendly and cheerful recollections in any place; and to represent me in my absence, its tone should be very eloquent and affectionate indeed. well, if i don't turn up again next summer it shall not be my fault. in the meanwhile, i shall often and often look that way with my mind's eye, and hear the sweet, clear, bell-like voice of ---- with the ear of my imagination. in the event of there being any change--but it is not likely--in the appearance of his cravat behind, where it goes up into his head, i mean, and frets against his wig--i hope some one of my english friends will apprise me of it, for the love of the great saint bernard. i have not seen lord normanby yet. i have not seen anything up to this time but houses and lodgings. there seems to be immense excitement here on the subject of ---- however, and a perfectly stupendous sensation getting up. i saw the king the other day coming into paris. his carriage was surrounded by guards on horseback, and he sat very far back in it, i thought, and drove at a great pace. it was strange to see the préfet of police on horseback some hundreds of yards in advance, looking to the right and left as he rode, like a man who suspected every twig in every tree in the long avenue. the english relations look anything but promising, though i understand that the count st. aulaire is to remain in london, notwithstanding the newspaper alarms to the contrary. if there be anything like the sensation in england about ---- that there is here, there will be a bitter resentment indeed. the democratic society of paris have announced, this morning, their intention of printing and circulating fifty thousand copies of an appeal in every european language. it is a base business beyond question, and comes at an ill time. mrs. dickens and her sister desire their best regards to be sent to you and their best loves to mrs. watson, in which i join, as nearly as i may. believe me, with great truth, very sincerely yours. p.s.--mrs. dickens is going to write to mrs. watson next week, she says. [sidenote: m. cerjat.] paris, , rue de courcelles, st. honorÃ�, _friday, nov. th, ._ my dear cerjat, when we turned out of your view on that disconsolate monday, when you so kindly took horse and rode forth to say good-bye, we went on in a very dull and drowsy manner, i can assure you. i could have borne a world of punch in the rumble and been none the worse for it. there was an uncommonly cool inn that night, and quite a monstrous establishment at auxonne the next night, full of flatulent passages and banging doors. the next night we passed at montbard, where there is one of the very best little inns in all france. the next at sens, and so we got here. the roads were bad, but not very for french roads. there was no deficiency of horses anywhere; and after pontarlier the weather was really not too cold for comfort. they weighed our plate at the frontier custom-house, spoon by spoon, and fork by fork, and we lingered about there, in a thick fog and a hard frost, for three long hours and a half, during which the officials committed all manner of absurdities, and got into all sorts of disputes with my brave courier. this was the only misery we encountered--except leaving lausanne, and that was enough to last us and _did_ last us all the way here. we are living on it now. i felt, myself, much as i should think the murderer felt on that fair morning when, with his gray-haired victim (those unconscious gray hairs, soon to be bedabbled with blood), he went so far towards heaven as the top of that mountain of st. bernard without one touch of remorse. a weight is on my breast. the only difference between me and the murderer is, that his weight was guilt and mine is regret. i haven't a word of news to tell you. i shouldn't write at all if i were not the vainest man in the world, impelled by a belief that you will be glad to hear from me, even though you hear no more than that i have nothing to say. "dombey" is doing wonders. it went up, after the publication of the second number, over the thirty thousand. this is such a very large sale, so early in the story, that i begin to think it will beat all the rest. keeley and his wife are making great preparations for producing the christmas story, and i have made them (as an old stage manager) carry out one or two expensive notions of mine about scenery and so forth--in particular a sudden change from the inside of the doctor's house in the midst of the ball to the orchard in the snow--which ought to tell very well. but actors are so bad, in general, and the best are spread over so many theatres, that the "cast" is black despair and moody madness. there is no one to be got for marion but a certain miss ----, i am afraid--a pupil of miss kelly's, who acted in the private theatricals i got up a year ago. macready took her afterwards to play virginia to his virginius, but she made nothing of it, great as the chance was. i have promised to show her what i mean, as near as i can, and if you will look into the english opera house on the morning of the th, th, or th of next month, between the hours of eleven and four, you will find me in a very hot and dusty condition, playing all the parts of the piece, to the immense diversion of all the actors, actresses, scene-shifters, carpenters, musicians, chorus people, tailors, dressmakers, scene-painters, and general ragamuffins of the theatre. moore, the poet, is very ill--i fear dying. the last time i saw him was immediately before i left london, and i thought him sadly changed and tamed, but not much more so than such a man might be under the heavy hand of time. i believe he suffered severe grief in the death of a son some time ago. the first man i met in paris was ----, who took hold of me as i was getting into a coach at the door of the hotel. he hadn't a button on his shirt (but i don't think he ever has), and you might have sown what boys call "mustard and cress" in the dust on his coat. i have not seen lord normanby yet, as we have only just got a house (the queerest house in europe!) to lay our heads in; but there seems reason to fear that the growing dissensions between england and france, and the irritation of the french king, may lead to the withdrawal of the minister on each side of the channel. have you cut down any more trees, played any more rubbers, propounded any more teasers to the players at the game of yes and no? how is the old horse? how is the gray mare? how is crab (to whom my respectful compliments)? have you tried the punch yet; if yes, did it succeed; if no, why not? is mrs. cerjat as happy and as well as i would have her, and all your house ditto ditto? does haldimand play whist with any science yet? ha, ha, ha! the idea of his saying _i_ hadn't any! and are those damask-cheeked virgins, the miss ----, still sleeping on dewy rose leaves near the english church? remember me to all your house, and most of all to its other head, with all the regard and earnestness that a "numble individual" (as they always call it in the house of commons) who once travelled with her in a car over a smooth country may charge you with. i have added two lines to the little christmas book, that i hope both you and she may not dislike. haldimand will tell you what they are. kate and georgy send their kindest loves, and kate is "going" to write "next week." believe me always, my dear cerjat, full of cordial and hearty recollections of this past summer and autumn, and your part in my part of them, very faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] , lincoln's inn fields, _saturday, dec. th, ._ my dearest kate, i really am bothered to death by this confounded _dramatization_ of the christmas book. they were in a state so horrible at keeley's yesterday (as perhaps forster told you when he wrote), that i was obliged to engage to read the book to them this morning. it struck me that mrs. leigh murray, miss daly, and vining seemed to understand it best. certainly miss daly knew best what she was about yesterday. at eight to-night we have a rehearsal with scenery and band, and everything but dresses. i see no possibility of escaping from it before one or two o'clock in the morning. and i was at the theatre all day yesterday. unless i had come to london, i do not think there would have been much hope of the version being more than just tolerated, even that doubtful. all the actors bad, all the business frightfully behindhand. the very words of the book confused in the copying into the densest and most insufferable nonsense. i must exempt, however, from the general slackness both the keeleys. i hope they will be very good. i have never seen anything of its kind better than the manner in which they played the little supper scene between clemency and britain, yesterday. it was quite perfect, even to me. the small manager, forster, talfourd, stanny, and mac dine with me at the piazza to-day, before the rehearsal. i have already one or two uncommonly good stories of mac. i reserve them for narration. i have also a dreadful cold, which i would not reserve if i could help it. i can hardly hold up my head, and fight through from hour to hour, but had serious thoughts just now of walking off to bed. christmas book published to-day--twenty-three thousand copies already gone!!! browne's plates for next "dombey" much better than usual. i have seen nobody yet, of course. but i sent roche up to your mother this morning, to say i am in town and will come shortly. there is a great thaw here to-day, and it is raining hard. i hope you have the advantage (if it be one, which i am not sure of) of a similar change in paris. of course i start again on thursday. we are expecting (roche and i) a letter from the malle poste people, to whom we have applied for places. the journey here was long and cold--twenty-four hours from paris to boulogne. passage not very bad, and made in two hours. i find i can't write at all, so i had best leave off. i am looking impatiently for your letter on monday morning. give my best love to georgy, and kisses to all the dear children. and believe me, my love, most affectionately. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] piazza coffee-house, covent garden, _monday, dec. st, ._ my dearest kate, in a quiet interval of half an hour before going to dine at macready's, i sit down to write you a few words. but i shall reserve my letter for to-morrow's post, in order that you may hear what _i_ hear of the "going" of the play to-night. think of my being there on saturday, with a really frightful cold, and working harder than ever i did at the amateur plays, until two in the morning. there was no supper to be got, either here or anywhere else, after coming out; and i was as hungry and thirsty as need be. the scenery and dresses are very good indeed, and they have spent money on it _liberally_. the great change from the ball-room to the snowy night is most effective, and both the departure and the return will tell, i think, strongly on an audience. i have made them very quick and excited in the passionate scenes, and so have infused some appearance of life into those parts of the play. but i can't make a marion, and miss ---- is awfully bad. she is a mere nothing all through. i put mr. leigh murray into such a state, by making him tear about, that the perspiration ran streaming down his face. they have a great let. i believe every place in the house is taken. roche is going. _tuesday morning._--the play went, as well as i can make out--i hoped to have had stanny's report of it, but he is ill--with great effect. there was immense enthusiasm at its close, and great uproar and shouting for me. forster will go on wednesday, and write you his account of it. i saw the keeleys on the stage at eleven o'clock or so, and they were in prodigious spirits and delight. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] , rue de courcelles, paris, _sunday night, dec. th, ._ my very dear forster, amen, amen. many merry christmases, many happy new years, unbroken friendship, great accumulation of cheerful recollections, affection on earth, and heaven at last, for all of us. i enclose you a letter from jeffrey, which you may like to read. _bring it to me back when you come over._ i have told him all he wants to know. is it not a strange example of the hazards of writing in numbers that a man like him should form his notion of dombey and miss tox on three months' knowledge? i have asked him the same question, and advised him to keep his eye on both of them as time rolls on. we had a cold journey here from boulogne, but the roads were not very bad. the malle poste, however, now takes the trains at amiens. we missed it by ten minutes, and had to wait three hours--from twelve o'clock until three, in which interval i drank brandy and water, and slept like a top. it is delightful travelling for its speed, that malle poste, and really for its comfort too. but on this occasion it was not remarkable for the last-named quality. the director of the post at boulogne told me a lamentable story of his son at paris being ill, and implored me to bring him on. the brave doubted the representations altogether, but i couldn't find it in my heart to say no; so we brought the director, bodkinwise, and being a large man, in a great number of greatcoats, he crushed us dismally until we got to the railroad. for two passengers (and it never carries more) it is capital. for three, excruciating. write to ---- what you have said to me. you need write no more. he is full of vicious fancies and wrong suspicions, even of hardwick, and i would rather he heard it from you than from me, whom he is not likely to love much in his heart. i doubt it may be but a rusty instrument for want of use, the ----ish heart. my most important present news is that i am going to take a jorum of hot rum and egg in bed immediately, and to cover myself up with all the blankets in the house. love from all. i have a sensation in my head, as if it were "on edge." it is still very cold here, but the snow had disappeared on my return, both here and on the road, except within ten miles or so of boulogne. ever affectionately. footnote: [ ] "the battle of life." . narrative. at the beginning of the year charles dickens was still living in paris--rue de courcelles. his stay was cut shorter than he intended it to have been, by the illness from scarlet fever of his eldest son, who was at school in london. consequent upon this, he and his wife went to london at the end of february, taking up their abode at the victoria hotel, euston square, the devonshire terrace house being still occupied by its tenant, sir james duke, and the sick boy under the care of his grandmother, mrs. hogarth, in albany street. the children, with their aunt, remained in paris, until a temporary house had been taken for the family in chester place, regent's park; and roche was then sent back to take _all_ home. in chester place another son was born--sydney smith haldimand--his godfathers being mr. haldimand, of lausanne, and mr. h. p. smith, of the eagle life assurance office. he was christened at the same time as a daughter of mr. macready's, and the letters to mr. smith have reference to the postponement of the christening on mr. smith's account. in may, charles dickens had lodgings in brighton for some weeks, for the recovery of mrs. dickens's health; going there first with his wife and sister-in-law and the eldest boy--now recovered from his fever--and being joined at the latter part of the time by his two little daughters, to whom there are some letters among those which follow here. he removed earlier than usual this summer to broadstairs, which remained his head-quarters until october, with intervals of absence for amateur theatrical tours (which mr. forster calls "splendid strolling"), in which he was usually accompanied by his wife and sister-in-law. several new recruits had been added to the theatrical company, from among distinguished literary men and artists, and it now included, besides those previously named, mr. george cruikshank, mr. george henry lewes, and mr. augustus egg; the supreme management and arrangement of everything being always left to charles dickens. "every man in his humour" and farces were again played at manchester and liverpool, for the benefit of mr. leigh hunt, and the dramatic author, mr. john poole. by the end of the broadstairs holiday, the house in devonshire terrace was vacant, and the family returned to it in october. all this year charles dickens had been at work upon the monthly numbers of "dombey and son," in spite of these many interruptions. he began at broadstairs a christmas book. but he found that the engrossing interest of his novel approaching completion made it impossible for him to finish the other work in time. so he decided to let this christmas pass without a story, and postponed the publication of "the haunted man" until the following year. at the close of the year he went to leeds, to take the chair at a meeting of the mechanics' institute, and on the th december he presided at the opening of the glasgow athenæum; he and his wife being the guests of the historian--_then_ mr. sheriff, afterwards sir archibald alison. from a letter to his sister-in-law, written from edinburgh, it will be seen that mrs. dickens was prevented by sudden illness from being present at the "demonstration." at the end of that letter there is another illustration of the odd names he was in the habit of giving to his children, the last of the three, the "hoshen peck," being a corruption of "ocean spectre"--a name which had, afterwards, a sad significance, as the boy (sydney smith) became a sailor, and died and was buried at sea two years after his father's death. the letters in this year need very little explanation. in the first letter to mrs. watson, he alludes to a sketch which she had made from "the battle of life," and had sent to charles dickens, as a remembrance, when her husband paid a short visit to paris in this winter. and there are two letters to miss marguerite power, the niece of the countess of blessington--a lady for whom he had then, and until her death, a most affectionate friendship and respect, for the sake of her own admirable qualities, and in remembrance of her delightful association with gore house, where he was a frequent visitor. for lady blessington he had a high admiration and great regard, and she was one of his earliest appreciators; and alfred, comte d'orsay, was also a much-loved friend. his "own marchioness," alluded to in the second letter to miss power, was the younger and very charming sister of his correspondent. we much regret having been unable to procure any letters addressed to mr. egg. his intimacy with him began first in the plays of this year; but he became, almost immediately, one of the friends for whom he had an especial affection; and mr. egg was a regular visitor at his house and at his seaside places of resort for many years after this date. the letter to mr. william sandys has reference to an intention which charles dickens _had_ entertained, of laying the scene of a story in cornwall; mr. sandys, himself a cornishman, having proposed to send him some books to help him as to the dialect. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] paris, , rue de courcelles, _jan. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i cannot allow your wandering lord to return to your--i suppose "arms" is not improper--arms, then, without thanking you in half-a-dozen words for your letter, and assuring you that i had great interest and pleasure in its receipt, and that i say amen to all _you_ say of our happy past and hopeful future. there is a picture of lausanne--st. bernard--the tavern by the little lake between lausanne and vevay, which is kept by that drunken dog whom haldimand believes to be so sober--and of many other such scenes, within doors and without--that rises up to my mind very often, and in the quiet pleasure of its aspect rather daunts me, as compared with the reality of a stirring life; but, please god, we will have some more pleasant days, and go up some more mountains, somewhere, and laugh together, at somebody, and form the same delightful little circle again, somehow. i quite agree with you about the illustrations to the little christmas book. i was delighted with yours. your good lord before-mentioned will inform you that it hangs up over my chair in the drawing-room here; and when you come to england (after i have seen you again in lausanne) i will show it you in my little study at home, quietly thanking you on the bookcase. then we will go and see some of turner's recent pictures, and decide that question to haldimand's utmost confusion. you will find watson looking wonderfully well, i think. when he was first here, on his way to england, he took an extraordinary bath, in which he was rubbed all over with chemical compounds, and had everything done to him that could be invented for seven francs. it _may_ be the influence of this treatment that i see in his face, but i think it's the prospect of coming back to elysée. all i can say is, that when _i_ come that way, and find myself among those friends again, i expect to be perfectly lovely--a kind of glorious apollo, radiant and shining with joy. kate and her sister send all kinds of love in this hasty packet, and i am always, my dear mrs. watson, faithfully yours. [sidenote: rev. edward tagart.] paris, , rue de courcelles, st. honorÃ�, _thursday, jan. th, ._ my dear sir, before you read any more, i wish you would take those tablets out of your drawer, in which you have put a black mark against my name, and erase it neatly. i don't deserve it, on my word i don't, though appearances are against me, i unwillingly confess. i had gone to geneva, to recover from an uncommon depression of spirits consequent on too much sitting over "dombey" and the little christmas book, when i received your letter as i was going out walking, one sunshiny, windy day. i read it on the banks of the rhone, where it runs, very blue and swift, between two high green hills, with ranges of snowy mountains filling up the distance. its cordial and unaffected tone gave me the greatest pleasure--did me a world of good--set me up for the afternoon, and gave me an evening's subject of discourse. for i talked to "them" (that is, kate and georgy) about those bright mornings at the peschiere, until bedtime, and threatened to write you such a letter next day as would--i don't exactly know what it was to do, but it was to be a great letter, expressive of all kinds of pleasant things, and, perhaps the most genial letter that ever was written. from that hour to this, i have again and again and again said, "i'll write to-morrow," and here i am to-day full of penitence--really sorry and ashamed, and with no excuse but my writing-life, which makes me get up and go out, when my morning work is done, and look at pen and ink no more until i begin again. besides which, i have been seeing paris--wandering into hospitals, prisons, dead-houses, operas, theatres, concert-rooms, burial-grounds, palaces, and wine-shops. in my unoccupied fortnight of each month, every description of gaudy and ghastly sight has been passing before me in a rapid panorama. before that, i had to come here from switzerland, over frosty mountains in dense fogs, and through towns with walls and drawbridges, and without population, or anything else in particular but soldiers and mud. i took a flight to london for four days, and went and came back over one sheet of snow, sea excepted; and i wish that had been snow too. then forster (who is here now, and begs me to send his kindest regards) came to see paris for himself, and in showing it to him, away i was borne again, like an enchanted rider. in short, i have had no rest in my play; and on monday i am going to work again. a fortnight hence the play will begin once more; a fortnight after that the work will follow round, and so the letters that i care for go unwritten. do you care for french news? i hope not, because i don't know any. there is a melodrama, called "the french revolution," now playing at the cirque, in the first act of which there is the most tremendous representation of _a people_ that can well be imagined. there are wonderful battles and so forth in the piece, but there is a power and massiveness in the mob which is positively awful. at another theatre, "clarissa harlowe" is still the rage. there are some things in it rather calculated to astonish the ghost of richardson, but clarissa is very admirably played, and dies better than the original to my thinking; but richardson is no great favourite of mine, and never seems to me to take his top-boots off, whatever he does. several pieces are in course of representation, involving rare portraits of the english. in one, a servant, called "tom bob," who wears a particularly english waistcoat, trimmed with gold lace and concealing his ankles, does very good things indeed. in another, a prime minister of england, who has ruined himself by railway speculations, hits off some of our national characteristics very happily, frequently making incidental mention of "vishmingster," "regeenstreet," and other places with which you are well acquainted. "sir fakson" is one of the characters in another play--"english to the core;" and i saw a lord mayor of london at one of the small theatres the other night, looking uncommonly well in a stage-coachman's waistcoat, the order of the garter, and a very low-crowned broad-brimmed hat, not unlike a dustman. i was at geneva at the time of the revolution. the moderation and mildness of the successful party were beyond all praise. their appeals to the people of all parties--printed and pasted on the walls--have no parallel that i know of, in history, for their real good sterling christianity and tendency to promote the happiness of mankind. my sympathy is strongly with the swiss radicals. they know what catholicity is; they see, in some of their own valleys, the poverty, ignorance, misery, and bigotry it always brings in its train wherever it is triumphant; and they would root it out of their children's way at any price. i fear the end of the struggle will be, that some catholic power will step in to crush the dangerously well-educated republics (very dangerous to such neighbours); but there is a spirit in the people, or i very much mistake them, that will trouble the jesuits there many years, and shake their altar steps for them. this is a poor return (i look down and see the end of the paper) for your letter, but in its cordial spirit of reciprocal friendship, it is not so bad a one if you could read it as i do, and it eases my mind and discharges my conscience. we are coming home, please god, at the end of march. kate and georgy send their best regards to you, and their loves to mrs. and miss tagart and the children. _our_ children wish to live too in _your_ children's remembrance. you will be glad, i know, to hear that "dombey" is doing wonders, and that the christmas book shot far ahead of its predecessors. i hope you will like _the last chapter of no. _. if you can spare me a scrap of your handwriting in token of forgiveness, do; if not, i'll come and beg your pardon on the st of march. ever believe me, cordially and truly yours. [sidenote: miss dickens.] victoria hotel, euston square, _thursday, march th, ._ my dearest mamey, i have not got much to say, and that's the truth; but i cannot let this letter go into the post without wishing you many many happy returns of your birthday, and sending my love to auntey and to katey, and to all of them. we were at mrs. macready's last night, where there was a little party in honour of mr. macready's birthday. we had some dancing, and they wished very much that you and katey had been there; so did i and your mamma. we have not got back to devonshire terrace yet, but are living at an hotel until sir james duke returns from scotland, which will be on saturday or monday. i hope when he comes home and finds us here he will go out of devonshire terrace, and let us get it ready for you. roche is coming back to you very soon. he will leave here on saturday morning. he says he hopes you will have a very happy birthday, and he means to drink your health on the road to paris. always your affectionate. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] chester place, _tuesday night._ my dearest georgy, * * * * * so far from having "got through my agonies," as you benevolently hope, i have not yet begun them. no, on this _ninth of the month_ i have not yet written a single slip. what could i do; house-hunting at first, and beleaguered all day to-day and yesterday by furniture that must be altered, and things that must be put away? my wretchedness, just now, is inconceivable. tell anne, by-the-bye (not with reference to my wretchedness, but in connection with the arrangements generally), that i can't get on at all without her. if kate has not mentioned it, get katey and mamey to write and send a letter to charley; of course not hinting at our being here. he wants to hear from them. poor little hall is dead, as you will have seen, i dare say, in the paper. this house is very cheerful on the drawing-room floor and above, looking into the park on one side and albany street on the other. forster is mild. maclise, exceedingly bald on the crown of his head. roche has just come in to know if he may "blow datter light." love to all the darlings. regards to everybody else. love to yourself. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss dickens and miss katey dickens.] , king's road, brighton, _monday, may , ._ my dear mamey and katey, i was very glad to receive your nice letter. i am going to tell you something that i hope will please you. it is this: i am coming to london thursday, and i mean to bring you both back here with me, to stay until we all come home together on the saturday. i hope you like this. tell john to come with the carriage to the london bridge station, on thursday morning at ten o'clock, and to wait there for me. i will then come home and fetch you. mamma and auntey and charley send their loves. i send mine too, to walley, spim, and alfred, and sydney. always, my dears, your affectionate papa. [sidenote: mr. william sandys.] , devonshire terrace, _june th, ._ dear sir, many thanks for your kind note. i shall hope to see you when we return to town, from which we shall now be absent (with a short interval in next month) until october. your account of the cornishmen gave me great pleasure; and if i were not sunk in engagements so far, that the crown of my head is invisible to my nearest friends, i should have asked you to make me known to them. the new dialogue i will ask you by-and-by to let me see. i have, for the present, abandoned the idea of sinking a shaft in cornwall. i have sent your shakesperian extracts to collier. it is a great comfort, to my thinking, that so little is known concerning the poet. it is a fine mystery; and i tremble every day lest something should come out. if he had had a boswell, society wouldn't have respected his grave, but would calmly have had his skull in the phrenological shop-windows. believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. h. p. smith.] chester place, _june th, ._ my dear smith, haldimand stayed at no. , connaught place, hyde park, when i saw him yesterday. but he was going to cross to boulogne to-day. the young pariah seems pretty comfortable. he is of a cosmopolitan spirit i hope, and stares with a kind of leaden satisfaction at his spoons, without afflicting himself much about the established church. affectionately yours. p.s.--i think of bringing an action against you for a new sort of breach of promise, and calling all the bishops to estimate the damage of having our christening postponed for a fortnight. it appears to me that i shall get a good deal of money in this way. if you have any compromise to offer, my solicitors are dodson and fogg. [sidenote: miss power.] broadstairs, kent, _july nd, ._ my dear miss power, let me thank you, very sincerely, for your kind note and for the little book. i read the latter on my way down here with the greatest pleasure. it is a charming story gracefully told, and very gracefully and worthily translated. i have not been better pleased with a book for a long time. i cannot say i take very kindly to the illustrations. they are a long way behind the tale to my thinking. the artist understands it very well, i dare say, but does not express his understanding of it, in the least degree, to any sense of mine. ah rosherville! that fated rosherville, when shall we see it! perhaps in one of those intervals when i am up to town from here, and suddenly appear at gore house, somebody will propose an excursion there, next day. if anybody does, somebody else will be ready to go. so this deponent maketh oath and saith. i am looking out upon a dark gray sea, with a keen north-east wind blowing it in shore. it is more like late autumn than midsummer, and there is a howling in the air as if the latter were in a very hopeless state indeed. the very banshee of midsummer is rattling the windows drearily while i write. there are no visitors in the place but children, and they (my own included) have all got the hooping-cough, and go about the beach choking incessantly. a miserable wanderer lectured in a library last night about astronomy; but being in utter solitude he snuffed out the transparent planets he had brought with him in a box and fled in disgust. a white mouse and a little tinkling box of music that stops at "come," in the melody of the buffalo gals, and can't play "out to-night," are the only amusements left. i beg from my solitude to send my love to lady blessington, and your sister, and count d'orsay. i think of taming spiders, as baron trenck did. there is one in my cell (with a speckled body and twenty-two very decided knees) who seems to know me. dear miss power, faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: mr. h. p. smith.] broadstairs, _july th, ._ my dear smith, i am really more obliged to you for your kindness about "the eagle" (as i always call your house) than i can say. but when i come to town to-morrow week, for the liverpool and manchester plays, i shall have kate and georgy with me. moreover i shall be continually going out and coming in at unholy hours. item, the timid will come at impossible seasons to "go over" their parts with the manager. item, two jews with musty sacks of dresses will be constantly coming backwards and forwards. item, sounds as of "groans" will be heard while the inimitable boz is "getting" his words--which happens all day. item, forster will incessantly deliver an address by bulwer. item, one hundred letters per diem will arrive from manchester and liverpool; and five actresses, in very limp bonnets, with extraordinary veils attached to them, will be always calling, protected by five mothers. no, no, my actuary. some congenial tavern is the fitting scene for these things, if i don't get into devonshire terrace, whereof i have some spark of hope. eagles couldn't look the sun in the face and have such enormities going on in their nests. i am, for the time, that obscene thing, in short, now chronicled in the marylebone register of births-- a player, though still yours. [sidenote: miss power.] broadstairs, kent, _tuesday, july th, ._ my dear miss power, though i am hopeless of rosherville until after the th--for am i not beckoned, by angels of charity and by local committees, to manchester and liverpool, and to all sorts of bedevilments (if i may be allowed the expression) in the way of managerial miseries in the meantime--here i find myself falling into parenthesis within parenthesis, like lord brougham--yet will i joyfully come up to london on friday, to dine at your house and meet the dane, whose books i honour, and whose--to make the sentiment complete, i want something that would sound like "bones, i love!" but i can't get anything that unites reason with beauty. you, who have genius and beauty in your own person, will supply the gap in your kindness. an advertisement in the newspapers mentioning the dinner-time, will be esteemed a favour. some wild beasts (in cages) have come down here, and involved us in a whirl of dissipation. a young lady in complete armour--at least, in something that shines very much, and is exceedingly scaley--goes into the den of ferocious lions, tigers, leopards, etc., and pretends to go to sleep upon the principal lion, upon which a rustic keeper, who speaks through his nose, exclaims, "behold the abazid power of woobad!" and we all applaud tumultuously. seriously, she beats van amburgh. and i think the duke of wellington must have her painted by landseer. my penitent regards to lady blessington, count d'orsay, and my own marchioness. ever, dear miss power, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss dickens.] broadstairs, _wednesday, august th, ._ my dearest mamey, i am delighted to hear that you are going to improve in your spelling, because nobody can write properly without spelling well. but i know you will learn whatever you are taught, because you are always good, industrious, and attentive. that is what i always say of my mamey. the note you sent me this morning is a very nice one, and the spelling is beautiful. always, my dear mamey, your affectionate papa. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday morning, nov. rd, ._ my dear macready, i am in the whirlwind of finishing a number with a crisis in it; but i can't fall to work without saying, in so many words, that i feel all words insufficient to tell you what i think of you after a night like last night. the multitudes of new tokens by which i know you for a great man, the swelling within me of my love for you, the pride i have in you, the majestic reflection i see in you of all the passions and affections that make up our mystery, throw me into a strange kind of transport that has no expression but in a mute sense of an attachment, which, in truth and fervency, is worthy of its subject. what is this to say! nothing, god knows, and yet i cannot leave it unsaid. ever affectionately yours. p.s.--i never saw you more gallant and free than in the gallant and free scenes last night. it was perfectly captivating to behold you. however, it shall not interfere with my determination to address you as old parr in all future time. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] edinburgh, _thursday, december th, ._ my dear georgy, i "take up my pen," as the young ladies write, to let you know how we are getting on; and as i shall be obliged to put it down again very soon, here goes. we lived with very hospitable people in a very splendid house near glasgow, and were perfectly comfortable. the meeting was the most stupendous thing as to numbers, and the most beautiful as to colours and decorations i ever saw. the inimitable did wonders. his grace, elegance, and eloquence, enchanted all beholders. _kate didn't go!_ having been taken ill on the railroad between here and glasgow. it has been snowing, sleeting, thawing, and freezing, sometimes by turns and sometimes all together, since the night before last. lord jeffrey's household are in town here, not at craigcrook, and jogging on in a cosy, old-fashioned, comfortable sort of way. we have some idea of going to york on sunday, passing that night at alfred's, and coming home on monday; but of this, kate will advise you when she writes, which she will do to-morrow, after i shall have seen the list of railway trains. she sends her best love. she is a little poorly still, but nothing to speak of. she is frightfully anxious that her not having been to the great demonstration should be kept a secret. but i say that, like murder, it will out, and that to hope to veil such a tremendous disgrace from the general intelligence is out of the question. in one of the glasgow papers she is elaborately described. i rather think miss alison, who is seventeen, was taken for her, and sat for the portrait. best love from both of us, to charley, mamey, katey, wally, chickenstalker, skittles, and the hoshen peck; last, and not least, to you. we talked of you at the macreadys' party on monday night. i hope ---- came out lively, also that ---- was truly amiable. finally, that ---- took everybody to their carriages, and that ---- wept a good deal during the festivities? god bless you. take care of yourself, for the sake of mankind in general. ever affectionately, dear georgy. . narrative. in march of this year charles dickens went with his wife for two or three weeks to brighton, accompanied by mrs. macready, who was in delicate health, and we give a letter to mr. macready from brighton. early in the year, "dombey and son" was finished, and he was again busy with an amateur play, with the same associates and some new adherents; the proceeds being, at first, intended to go towards the curatorship of shakespeare's house, which post was to be given to mr. sheridan knowles. the endowment was abandoned, upon the town and council of stratford-on-avon taking charge of the house; the large sum realised by the performances being handed over to mr. sheridan knowles. the play selected was "the merry wives of windsor;" the farce, "love, law, and physic." there were two performances at the haymarket in april, at one of which her majesty and the prince consort were present; and in july there were performances at manchester, liverpool, birmingham, edinburgh, and glasgow. some ladies accompanied the "strollers" on this theatrical provincial tour, and mrs. dickens and her sister were of the party. many of the following letters bear reference to these plays. in this summer, his eldest sister fanny (mrs. burnett) died, and there are sorrowful allusions to her illness in several of the letters. the autumn months were again spent at broadstairs, where he wrote "the haunted man," which was illustrated by mr. frank stone, mr. leech, and others. at the end of the year and at the end of his work, he took another short holiday at brighton with his wife and sister-in-law; and the letters to mr. stone on the subject of his illustrations to "the haunted man" are written from brighton. the first letters which we have to mr. mark lemon come here. we regret to have been unable to procure any letters addressed to mr. leech, with whom, as with mr. lemon, charles dickens was very intimately associated for many years. also, we have the beginning of his correspondence with mr. charles kent. he wrote (an unusual thing for him to do) to the editor of _the sun_ newspaper, begging him to thank the writer of a particularly sympathetic and earnest review of "dombey and son," which appeared in _the sun_ at the close of the book. mr. charles kent replied in his proper person, and from that time dates a close friendship and constant correspondence. with the letter to mr. forster we give, as a note, a letter which baron taüchnitz published in his edition of mr. forster's "life of oliver goldsmith." mr. peter cunningham, as an important member of the "shakespeare's house" committee, managed the _un_-theatrical part of this amateur provincial tour, and was always pleasantly connected with the plays. the book alluded to in the last letter for this year, to be dedicated to charles dickens's daughters by mr. mark lemon, was called "the enchanted doll." [sidenote: mr. charles babbage.] devonshire terrace, _february th, ._ my dear sir, pray let me thank you for your pamphlet. i confess that i am one of the unconvinced grumblers, and that i doubt the present or future existence of any government in england, strong enough to convert the people to your income-tax principles. but i do not the less appreciate the ability with which you advocate them, nor am i the less gratified by any mark of your remembrance. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] junction house, brighton, _march nd, ._ my dear macready, we have migrated from the bedford and come here, where we are very comfortably (not to say gorgeously) accommodated. mrs. macready is certainly better already, and i really have very great hopes that she will come back in a condition so blooming, as to necessitate the presentation of a piece of plate to the undersigned trainer. you mean to come down on sunday and on sunday week. if you don't, i shall immediately take the victoria, and start mr. ----, of the theatre royal, haymarket, as a smashing tragedian. pray don't impose upon me this cruel necessity. i think lamartine, so far, one of the best fellows in the world; and i have lively hopes of that great people establishing a noble republic. our court had best be careful not to overdo it in respect of sympathy with ex-royalty and ex-nobility. those are not times for such displays, as, it strikes me, the people in some of our great towns would be apt to express pretty plainly. however, we'll talk of all this on these sundays, and mr. ---- shall _not_ be raised to the pinnacle of fame. ever affectionately yours, my dear macready. [sidenote: editor of _the sun_.] devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _friday, april th, ._ _private._ mr. charles dickens presents his compliments to the editor of _the sun_, and begs that gentleman will have the goodness to convey to the writer of the notice of "dombey and son," in last evening's paper, mr. dickens's warmest acknowledgments and thanks. the sympathy expressed in it is so very earnestly and unaffectedly stated, that it is particularly welcome and gratifying to mr. dickens, and he feels very desirous indeed to convey that assurance to the writer of that frank and genial farewell. [sidenote: mr. w. charles m. kent.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _april th, ._ dear sir, pray let me repeat to you personally what i expressed in my former note, and allow me to assure you, as an illustration of my sincerity, that i have never addressed a similar communication to anybody except on one occasion. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] devonshire terrace, _saturday, april nd, ._ my dear forster,[ ] i finished goldsmith yesterday, after dinner, having read it from the first page to the last with the greatest care and attention. as a picture of the time, i really think it impossible to give it too much praise. it seems to me to be the very essence of all about the time that i have ever seen in biography or fiction, presented in most wise and humane lights, and in a thousand new and just aspects. i have never liked johnson half so well. nobody's contempt for boswell ought to be capable of increase, but i have never seen him in my mind's eye half so plainly. the introduction of him is quite a masterpiece. i should point to that, if i didn't know the author, as being done by somebody with a remarkably vivid conception of what he narrated, and a most admirable and fanciful power of communicating it to another. all about reynolds is charming; and the first account of the literary club and of beauclerc as excellent a piece of description as ever i read in my life. but to read the book is to be in the time. it lives again in as fresh and lively a manner as if it were presented on an impossibly good stage by the very best actors that ever lived, or by the real actors come out of their graves on purpose. and as to goldsmith himself, and _his_ life, and the tracing of it out in his own writings, and the manful and dignified assertion of him without any sobs, whines, or convulsions of any sort, it is throughout a noble achievement, of which, apart from any private and personal affection for you, i think (and really believe) i should feel proud, as one who had no indifferent perception of these books of his--to the best of my remembrance--when little more than a child. i was a little afraid in the beginning, when he committed those very discouraging imprudences, that you were going to champion him somewhat indiscriminately; but i very soon got over that fear, and found reason in every page to admire the sense, calmness, and moderation with which you make the love and admiration of the reader cluster about him from his youth, and strengthen with his strength--and weakness too, which is better still. i don't quite agree with you in two small respects. first, i question very much whether it would have been a good thing for every great man to have had his boswell, inasmuch as i think that two boswells, or three at most, would have made great men extraordinarily false, and would have set them on always playing a part, and would have made distinguished people about them for ever restless and distrustful. i can imagine a succession of boswells bringing about a tremendous state of falsehood in society, and playing the very devil with confidence and friendship. secondly, i cannot help objecting to that practice (begun, i think, or greatly enlarged by hunt) of italicising lines and words and whole passages in extracts, without some very special reason indeed. it does appear to be a kind of assertion of the editor over the reader--almost over the author himself--which grates upon me. the author might almost as well do it himself to my thinking, as a disagreeable thing; and it is such a strong contrast to the modest, quiet, tranquil beauty of "the deserted village," for instance, that i would almost as soon hear "the town crier" speak the lines. the practice always reminds me of a man seeing a beautiful view, and not thinking how beautiful it is half so much as what he shall say about it. in that picture at the close of the third book (a most beautiful one) of goldsmith sitting looking out of window at the temple trees, you speak of the "gray-eyed" rooks. are you sure they are "gray-eyed"? the raven's eye is a deep lustrous black, and so, i suspect, is the rook's, except when the light shines full into it. i have reserved for a closing word--though i _don't_ mean to be eloquent about it, being far too much in earnest--the admirable manner in which the case of the literary man is stated throughout this book. it is splendid. i don't believe that any book was ever written, or anything ever done or said, half so conducive to the dignity and honour of literature as "the life and adventures of oliver goldsmith," by j. f., of the inner temple. the gratitude of every man who is content to rest his station and claims quietly on literature, and to make no feint of living by anything else, is your due for evermore. i have often said, here and there, when you have been at work upon the book, that i was sure it would be; and i shall insist on that debt being due to you (though there will be no need for insisting about it) as long as i have any tediousness and obstinacy to bestow on anybody. lastly, i never will hear the biography compared with boswell's except under vigorous protest. for i do say that it is mere folly to put into opposite scales a book, however amusing and curious, written by an unconscious coxcomb like that, and one which surveys and grandly understands the characters of all the illustrious company that move in it. my dear forster, i cannot sufficiently say how proud i am of what you have done, or how sensible i am of being so tenderly connected with it. when i look over this note, i feel as if i had said no part of what i think; and yet if i were to write another i should say no more, for i can't get it out. i desire no better for my fame, when my personal dustiness shall be past the control of my love of order, than such a biographer and such a critic. and again i say, most solemnly, that literature in england has never had, and probably never will have, such a champion as you are, in right of this book. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] _wednesday, may rd, ._ my dear lemon, do you think you could manage, before we meet to-morrow, to get from the musical director of the haymarket (whom i don't know) a note of the overtures he purposes playing on our two nights? i am obliged to correct and send back the bill proofs to-morrow (they are to be brought to miss kelly's)--and should like, for completeness' sake, to put the music in. before "the merry wives," it must be something shakespearian. before "animal magnetism," something very telling and light--like "fra diavolo." wednesday night's music in a concatenation accordingly, and jolly little polkas and quadrilles between the pieces, always beginning the moment the act-drop is down. if any little additional strength should be really required in the orchestra, so be it. can you come to miss kelly's by _three_? i should like to show you bills, tickets, and so forth, before they are worked. in order that they may not interfere with or confuse the rehearsal, i have appointed peter cunningham to meet me there at three, instead of half-past. faithfully ever. p.s.--if you should be disposed to chop together early, send me a line to the athenæum. i have engaged to be with barry at ten, to go over the houses of parliament. when i have done so, i will go to the club on the chance of a note from you, and would meet you where you chose. [sidenote: rev. james white.] athenÃ�um, _thursday, may th, ._ my dear white, i have not been able to write to you until now. i have lived in hope that kate and i might be able to run down to see you and yours for a day, before our design for enforcing the government to make knowles the first custodian of the shakespeare house should come off. but i am so perpetually engaged in drilling the forces, that i see no hope of making a pleasant expedition to the isle of wight until about the twentieth. then i shall hope to do so for one day. but of this i will advise you further, in due course. my doubts about the house you speak of are twofold, first, i could not leave town so soon as may, having affairs to arrange for a sick sister. and secondly, i fear bonchurch is not sufficiently bracing for my chickens, who thrive best in breezy and cool places. this has set me thinking, sometimes of the yorkshire coast, sometimes of dover. i would not have the house at bonchurch reserved for me, therefore. but if it should be empty, we will go and look at it in a body. i reserve the more serious part of my letter until the last, my dear white, because it comes from the bottom of my heart. none of your friends have thought and spoken oftener of you and mrs. white than we have these many weeks past. i should have written to you, but was timid of intruding on your sorrow. what you say, and the manner in which you tell me i am connected with it in your recollection of your dear child, now among the angels of god, gives me courage to approach your grief--to say what sympathy we have felt with it, and how we have not been unimaginative of these deep sources of consolation to which you have had recourse. the traveller who journeyed in fancy from this world to the next was struck to the heart to find the child he had lost, many years before, building him a tower in heaven. our blessed christian hopes do not shut out the belief of love and remembrance still enduring there, but irradiate it and make it sacred. who should know that better than you, or who more deeply feel the touching truths and comfort of that story in the older book, where, when the bereaved mother is asked, "is it well with the child?" she answers, "it _is_ well." god be with you. kate and her sister desire their kindest love to yourself and mrs. white, in which i heartily join. being ever, my dear white, your affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] devonshire terrace, _wednesday, may th, ._ my dear macready, we are rehearsing at the haymarket now, and lemon mentioned to me yesterday that webster had asked him if he would sound forster or me as to your intention of having a farewell benefit before going to america, and whether you would like to have it at the haymarket, and also as to its being preceded by a short engagement there. i don't know what your feelings may be on this latter head, but thinking it well that you may know how the land lies in these seas, send you this; the rather (excuse elizabethan phrase, but you know how indispensable it is to me under existing circumstances)--the rather that i am thereto encouraged by thy consort, who has just come a-visiting here, with thy fair daughters, mistress nina and the little kate. wherefore, most selected friend, perpend at thy leisure, and so god speed thee! and no more at present from, thine ever. from my tent in my garden. another "bobadil" note. i must tell you this, sir, i am no general man; but for william shakespeare's sake (you may embrace it at what height of favour you please) i will communicate with you on the twenty-first, and do esteem you to be a gentleman of some parts--of a good many parts in truth. i love few words. [illustration: hw: signature: bobadil] at cobb's, a water-bearer, _october th._ [sidenote: mr. peter cunningham.] devonshire terrace, _thursday morning, june nd, ._ my dear cunningham, i will be at miss kelly's to-morrow evening, from seven to eight, and shall hope to see you there, for a little conversation, touching the railroad arrangements. all preparations completed in edinburgh and glasgow. there will be a great deal of money taken, especially at the latter place. i wish i could persuade you, seriously, to come into training for nym, in "the merry wives." he is never on by himself, and all he has to do is good, without being difficult. if you could screw yourself up to the doing of that part in scotland, it would prevent our taking some new man, and would cover you (all over) with glory. faithfully yours always. p.s.--i am fully persuaded that an amateur manager has more correspondence than the home secretary. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] , devonshire terrace, regent's park, _july th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i thought to have been at rockingham long ago! it seems a century since i, standing in big boots on the haymarket stage, saw you come into a box upstairs and look down on the humbled bobadil, since then i have had the kindest of notes from you, since then the finest of venison, and yet i have not seen the rockingham flowers, and they are withering i daresay. but we have acted at manchester, liverpool, birmingham, edinburgh, and glasgow; and the business of all this--and graver and heavier daily occupation in going to see a dying sister at hornsey--has so worried me that i have hardly had an hour, far less a week. i shall never be quite happy, in a theatrical point of view, until you have seen me play in an english version of the french piece, "l'homme blasé," which fairly turned the head of glasgow last thursday night as ever was; neither shall i be quite happy, in a social point of view, until i have been to rockingham again. when the first event will come about heaven knows. the latter will happen about the end of the november fogs and wet weather. for am i not going to broadstairs now, to walk about on the sea-shore (why don't you bring your rosy children there?) and think what is to be done for christmas! an idea occurs to me all at once. i must come down and read you that book before it's published. shall it be a bargain? were you all in switzerland? i don't believe _i_ ever was. it is such a dream now. i wonder sometimes whether i ever disputed with a haldimand; whether i ever drank mulled wine on the top of the great st. bernard, or was jovial at the bottom with company that have stolen into my affection; whether i ever was merry and happy in that valley on the lake of geneva, or saw you one evening (when i didn't know you) walking down among the green trees outside elysée, arm-in-arm with a gentleman in a white hat. i am quite clear that there is no foundation for these visions. but i should like to go somewhere, too, and try it all over again. i don't know how it is, but the ideal world in which my lot is cast has an odd effect on the real one, and makes it chiefly precious for such remembrances. i get quite melancholy over them sometimes, especially when, as now, those great piled-up semicircles of bright faces, at which i have lately been looking--all laughing, earnest and intent--have faded away like dead people. they seem a ghostly moral of everything in life to me. kate sends her best love, in which georgy would as heartily unite, i know, but that she is already gone to broadstairs with the children. we think of following on saturday morning, but that depends on my poor sister. pray give my most cordial remembrances to watson, and tell him they include a great deal. i meant to have written you a letter. i don't know what this is. there is no word for it. so, if you will still let me owe you one, i will pay my debt, on the smallest encouragement, from the seaside. here, there, and elsewhere, i am, with perfect truth, believe me, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] broadstairs, kent, _saturday, august th, ._ my dear macready, i was about to write to you when i received your welcome letter. you knew i should come from a somewhat longer distance than this to give you a hearty god-speed and farewell on the eve of your journey. what do you say to monday, the fourth, or saturday, the second? fix either day, let me know which suits you best--at what hour you expect the inimitable, and the inimitable will come up to the scratch like a man and a brother. permit me, in conclusion, to nail my colours to the mast. stars and stripes are so-so--showy, perhaps; but my colours is the union jack, which i am told has the remarkable property of having braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze. likewise, it is the flag of albion--the standard of britain; and britons, as i am informed, never, never, never--will--be--slaves! my sentiment is: success to the united states as a golden campaigning ground, but blow the united states to 'tarnal smash as an englishman's place of residence. gentlemen, are you all charged? affectionately ever. [sidenote: miss dickens.] devonshire terrace, _friday, sept. th, ._ my dearest mamey, we shall be very glad to see you all again, and we hope you will be very glad to see us. give my best love to dear katey, also to frankey, alley, and the peck. i have had a nice note from charley just now. he says it is expected at school that when walter puts on his jacket, all the miss kings will fall in love with him to desperation and faint away. ever, my dear mamey, most affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. effingham william wilson.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _nov. th, ._ "a national theatre." sir, i beg you to accept my best thanks for your pamphlet and your obliging note. that such a theatre as you describe would be but worthy of this nation, and would not stand low upon the list of its instructors, i have no kind of doubt. i wish i could cherish a stronger faith than i have in the probability of its establishment on a rational footing within fifty years. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday, nov. st, ._ my dear stone, i send you herewith the second part of the book, which i hope may interest you. if you should prefer to have it read to you by the inimitable rather than to read it, i shall be at home this evening (loin of mutton at half-past five), and happy to do it. the proofs are full of printers' errors, but with the few corrections i have scrawled upon it, you will be able to make out what they mean. i send you, on the opposite side, a list of the subjects already in hand from this second part. if you should see no other in it that you like (i think it important that you should keep milly, as you have begun with her), i will, in a day or two, describe you an unwritten subject for the third part of the book. ever faithfully. subjects in hand for the second part. . illuminated page. tenniel. representing redlaw going upstairs, and the tetterby family below. . the tetterby supper. leech. . the boy in redlaw's room, munching his food and staring at the fire. [sidenote: mr. frank stone.] brighton, _thursday night, nov. rd, ._ my dear stone, we are unanimous. the drawing of milly on the chair is charming. i cannot tell you how much the little composition and expression please me. do that, by all means. i fear she must have a little cap on. there is something coming in the last part, about her having had a dead child, which makes it yet more desirable than the existing text does that she should have that little matronly sign about her. unless the artist is obdurate indeed, and then he'll do as he likes. i am delighted to hear that you have your eye on her in the students' room. you will really, pictorially, make the little woman whom i love. kate and georgy send their kindest remembrances. i write hastily to save the post. ever, my dear stone, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone.] bedford hotel, brighton, _monday night, nov. th, ._ my dear stone, you are a trump, emphatically a trump, and such are my feelings towards you at this moment that i think (but i am not sure) that if i saw you about to place a card on a wrong pack at bibeck (?), i wouldn't breathe a word of objection. sir, there is a subject i have written to-day for the third part, that i think and hope will just suit you. scene, tetterby's. time, morning. the power of bringing back people's memories of sorrow, wrong and trouble, has been given by the ghost to milly, though she don't know it herself. as she comes along the street, mr. and mrs. tetterby recover themselves, and are mutually affectionate again, and embrace, closing _rather_ a good scene of quarrel and discontent. the moment they do so, johnny (who has seen her in the distance and announced her before, from which moment they begin to recover) cries "here she is!" and she comes in, surrounded by the little tetterbys, the very spirit of morning, gladness, innocence, hope, love, domesticity, etc. etc. etc. etc. i would limit the illustration to her and the children, which will make a fitness between it and your other illustrations, and give them all a character of their own. the exact words of the passage i endorsed on another slip of paper. note. there are six boy tetterbys present (young 'dolphus is not there), including johnny; and in johnny's arms is moloch, the baby, who is a girl. i hope to be back in town next monday, and will lose no time in reporting myself to you. don't wait to send me the drawing of this. i know how pretty she will be with the children in your hands, and should be a stupendous jackass if i had any distrust of it. the duke of cambridge is staying in this house, and they are driving me mad by having life guards bands under our windows, playing _our_ overtures! i have been at work all day, and am going to wander into the theatre, where (for the comic man's benefit) "two gentlemen of brighton" are performing two counts in a melodrama. i was quite addle-headed for the time being, and think an amateur or so would revive me. no 'tone! i don't in the abstract approve of brighton. i couldn't pass an autumn here; but it is a gay place for a week or so; and when one laughs and cries, and suffers the agitation that some men experience over their books, it's a bright change to look out of window, and see the gilt little toys on horseback going up and down before the mighty sea, and thinking nothing of it. kate's love and georgy's. they say you'll contradict every word of this letter. faithfully ever. [slip of paper enclosed.] "hurrah! here's mrs. williams!" cried johnny. so she was, and all the tetterby children with her; and as she came in, they kissed her and kissed one another, and kissed the baby and kissed their father and mother, and then ran back and flocked and danced about her, trooping on with her in triumph. (after which, she is going to say: "what, are _you_ all glad to see me too! oh, how happy it makes me to find everyone so glad to see me this bright morning!") [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] bedford hotel, brighton, _nov. th, ._ my dear mark, i assure you, most unaffectedly and cordially, that the dedication of that book to mary and _kate_ (not catherine) will be a real delight to me, and to all of us. i know well that you propose it in "affectionate regard," and value and esteem it, therefore, in a way not easy of expression. you were talking of "coming" down, and now, in a mean and dodging way, you write about "sending" the second act! i have a propogician to make. come down on friday. there is a train leaves london bridge at two--gets here at four. by that time i shall be ready to strike work. we can take a little walk, dine, discuss, and you can go back in good time next morning. i really think this ought to be done, and indeed must be done. write and say it shall be done. a little management will be required in dramatising the third part, where there are some things i _describe_ (for effect's sake, and as a matter of art) which must be _said_ on the stage. redlaw is in a new condition of mind, which fact must be shot point-blank at the audience, i suppose, "as from the deadly level of a gun." by anybody who knew how to play milly, i think it might be made very good. its effect is very pleasant upon me. i have also given mr. and mrs. tetterby another innings. i went to the play last night--fifth act of richard the third. richmond by a stout _lady_, with a particularly well-developed bust, who finished all the speeches with the soubrette simper. also, at the end of the tragedy she came forward (still being richmond) and said, "ladies and gentlemen, on wednesday next the entertainments will be for _my_ benefit, when i hope to meet your approbation and support." then, having bowed herself into the stage-door, she looked out of it, and said, winningly, "won't you come?" which was enormously applauded. ever affectionately. footnote: [ ] letter of baron taÃ�chnitz. having had the privilege to see a letter which the late mr. charles dickens wrote to the author of this work upon its first appearance, and which there was no intention to publish in england, it became my lively wish to make it known to the readers of my edition. i therefore addressed an earnest request to mr. forster, that he would permit the letter to be prefixed to a reprint not designed for circulation in england, where i could understand his reluctance to sanction its publication. its varied illustration of the subject of the book, and its striking passages of personal feeling and character, led me also to request that i might be allowed to present it in facsimile. mr. forster complied; and i am most happy to be thus enabled to give to my public, on the following pages, so attractive and so interesting a letter, reproduced in the exact form in which it was written, by the most popular and admired-of writers--too early gone. taÃ�chnitz. leipsic, _may , ._ . narrative. this, as far as correspondence is concerned, was an uneventful year. in the spring charles dickens took one of his holidays at brighton, accompanied by his wife and sister-in-law and two daughters, and they were joined in their lodgings by mr. and mrs. leech. from brighton he writes the letter--as a song--which we give, to mr. mark lemon, who had been ill, asking him to pay them a visit. in the summer, charles dickens went with his family, for the first time, to bonchurch, isle of wight, having hired for six months the charming villa, winterbourne, belonging to the rev. james white. and now began that close and loving intimacy which for the future was to exist between these two families. mr. leech also took a house at bonchurch. all through this year charles dickens was at work upon "david copperfield." as well as giving eccentric names to his children and friends, he was also in the habit of giving such names to himself--that of "sparkler" being one frequently used by him. miss joll herself gives us the explanation of the letter to her on capital punishment: "soon after the appearance of his 'household words,' some friends were discussing an article in it on 'private executions.' they contended that it went to prove mr. dickens was an advocate of capital punishment. i, however, took a different view of the matter, and ventured to write and inquire his views on the subject, and to my letter he sent me a courteous reply." [sidenote: mr. dudley costello.] devonshire terrace, _friday night, jan. th, ._ my dear costello, i am desperate! engaged in links of adamant to a "monster in human form"--a remarkable expression i think i remember to have once met with in a newspaper--whom i encountered at franconi's, whence i have just returned, otherwise i would have done all three things right heartily and with my accustomed sweetness. think of me another time when chops are on the carpet (figuratively speaking), and see if i won't come and eat 'em! ever faithfully yours. p.s.--i find myself too despondent for the flourish. [sidenote: miss dickens.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday night, feb. th, ._ my dearest mamey, i am not engaged on the evening of your birthday. but even if i had an engagement of the most particular kind, i should excuse myself from keeping it, so that i might have the pleasure of celebrating at home, and among my children, the day that gave me such a dear and good daughter as you. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield.] devonshire terrace, _may th, ._ my dear stanfield. no--no--no! murder, murder! madness and misconception! any _one_ of the subjects--not the whole. oh, blessed star of early morning, what do you think i am made of, that i should, on the part of any man, prefer such a pig-headed, calf-eyed, donkey-eared, imp-hoofed request! says my friend to me, "will you ask _your_ friend, mr. stanfield, what the damage of a little picture of that size would be, that i may treat myself with the same, if i can afford it?" says i, "i will." says he, "will you suggest that i should like it to be _one_ of those subjects?" says i, "i will." i am beating my head against the door with grief and frenzy, and i shall continue to do so, until i receive your answer. ever heartily yours, the misconceived one. [sidenote: mr. frank stone.] devonshire terrace, _monday, june th, ._ my dear stone, leech and sparkler having promised their ladies to take them to ascot, and having failed in their truths, propoge to take them to greenwich instead, next wednesday. will that alteration in the usual arrangements be agreeable to gaffin, s.? if so, the place of meeting is the sparkler's bower, and the hour, one exactly. ever yours. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] shanklin, isle of wight, _monday night, june th, ._ my dear kate, i have but a moment. just got back and post going out. i have taken a most delightful and beautiful house, belonging to white, at bonchurch; cool, airy, private bathing, everything delicious. i think it is the prettiest place i ever saw in my life, at home or abroad. anne may begin to dismantle devonshire terrace. i have arranged for carriages, luggage, and everything. the man with the post-bag is swearing in the passage. ever affectionately. p.s.--a waterfall on the grounds, which i have arranged with a carpenter to convert into a perpetual shower-bath. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] devonshire terrace, _monday, june th, ._ my dear lemon, i am very unwilling to deny charley the pleasure you so kindly offer him. but as it is just the close of the half-year when they are getting together all the half-year's work--and as that day's pleasure would weaken the next day's duty, i think i must be "more like an ancient roman than a ----" sparkler, and that it will be wisest in me to say nothing about it. get a clean pocket-handkerchief ready for the close of "copperfield" no. ; "simple and quiet, but very natural and touching."--_evening bore._ ever affectionately. new song. tune--"lesbia hath a beaming eye." . lemon is a little hipped, and this is lemon's true position; he is not pale, he's not white-lipped, yet wants a little fresh condition. sweeter 'tis to gaze upon old ocean's rising, falling billows, than on the houses every one, that form the street called saint anne's willers. oh, my lemon, round and fat, oh, my bright, my right, my tight 'un, think a little what you're at-- don't stay at home, but come to brighton! . lemon has a coat of frieze, but all so seldom lemon wears it, that it is a prey to fleas, and ev'ry moth that's hungry tears it. oh, that coat's the coat for me, that braves the railway sparks and breezes, leaving every engine free to smoke it, till its owner sneezes! then my lemon, round and fat, l., my bright, my right, my tight 'un, think a little what you're at-- on tuesday first, come down to brighton! t. sparkler. also signed, catherine dickens, annie leech, georgina hogarth, mary dickens, katie dickens, john leech. [sidenote: rev. james white.] winterbourne, _sunday evening, sept. rd, ._ my dear white, i have a hundred times at least wanted to say to you how good i thought those papers in "blackwood"--how excellent their purpose, and how delicately and charmingly worked out. their subtle and delightful humour, and their grasp of the whole question, were something more pleasant to me than i can possibly express. "how comes this lumbering inimitable to say this, on this sunday night of all nights in the year?" you naturally ask. now hear the inimitable's honest avowal! i make so bold because i heard that morning service better read this morning than ever i have heard it read in my life. and because--for the soul of me--i cannot separate the two things, or help identifying the wise and genial man out of church with the earnest and unaffected man in it. midsummer madness, perhaps, but a madness i hope that will hold us true friends for many and many a year to come. the madness is over as soon as you have burned this letter (see the history of the gunpowder plot), but let us be friends much longer for these reasons and many included in them not herein expressed. affectionately always. [sidenote: miss joll.] rockingham castle, northamptonshire, _nov. th, ._ mr. charles dickens presents his compliments to miss joll. he is, on principle, opposed to capital punishment, but believing that many earnest and sincere people who are favourable to its retention in extreme cases would unite in any temperate effort to abolish the evils of public executions, and that the consequences of public executions are disgraceful and horrible, he has taken the course with which miss joll is acquainted as the most hopeful, and as one undoubtedly calculated to benefit society at large. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] devonshire terrace, _friday night, nov. th, ._ _a quarter-past ten._ my dear mrs. watson, plunged in the deepest gloom, i write these few words to let you know that, just now, when the bell was striking ten, i drank to [illustration: h. e. r.!] and to all the rest of rockingham; as the wine went down my throat, i felt distinctly that it was "changing those thoughts to madness." on the way here i was a terror to my companions, and i am at present a blight and mildew on my home. think of me sometimes, as i shall long think of our glorious dance last night. give my most affectionate regards to watson, and my kind remembrances to all who remember me, and believe me, ever faithfully yours. p.s.--i am in such an incapable state, that after executing the foregoing usual flourish i swooned, and remained for some time insensible. ha, ha, ha! why was i ever restored to consciousness!!! p.p.s.--"changing" those thoughts ought to be "driving." but my recollection is incoherent and my mind wanders. [sidenote: m. cerjat.] devonshire terrace, _saturday, dec. th, ._ my dear cerjat, i received your letter at breakfast-time this morning with a pleasure my eloquence is unable to express and your modesty unable to conceive. it is so delightful to be remembered at this time of the year in your house where we have been so happy, and in dear old lausanne, that we always hope to see again, that i can't help pushing away the first page of "copperfield" no. , now staring at me with what i may literally call a blank aspect, and plunging energetically into this reply. what a strange coincidence that is about blunderstone house! of all the odd things i have ever heard (and their name is legion), i think it is the oddest. i went down into that part of the country on the th of january last year, when i was meditating the story, and chose blunderstone for the sound of its name. i had previously observed much of what you say about the poor girls. in all you suggest with so much feeling about their return to virtue being cruelly cut off, i concur with a sore heart. i have been turning it over in my mind for some time, and hope, in the history of little em'ly (who _must_ fall--there is no hope for her), to put it before the thoughts of people in a new and pathetic way, and perhaps to do some good. you will be glad to hear, i know, that "copperfield" is a great success. i think it is better liked than any of my other books. we had a most delightful time at watsons' (for both of them we have preserved and strengthened a real affection), and were the gayest of the gay. there was a miss boyle staying in the house, who is an excellent amateur actress, and she and i got up some scenes from "the school for scandal" and from "nickleby," with immense success. we played in the old hall, with the audience filled up and running over with servants. the entertainments concluded with feats of legerdemain (for the performance of which i have a pretty good apparatus, collected at divers times and in divers places), and we then fell to country dances of a most frantic description, and danced all night. we often spoke of you and mrs. cerjat and of haldimand, and wished you were all there. watson and i have some fifty times "registered a vow" (like o'connell) to come to lausanne together, and have even settled in what month and week. something or other has always interposed to prevent us; but i hope, please god, most certainly to see it again, when my labours-copperfieldian shall have terminated. you have no idea what that hanging of the mannings really was. the conduct of the people was so indescribably frightful, that i felt for some time afterwards almost as if i were living in a city of devils. i feel, at this hour, as if i never could go near the place again. my letters have made a great to-do, and led to a great agitation of the subject; but i have not a confident belief in any change being made, mainly because the total abolitionists are utterly reckless and dishonest (generally speaking), and would play the deuce with any such proposition in parliament, unless it were strongly supported by the government, which it would certainly not be, the whig motto (in office) being "_laissez aller_." i think peel might do it if he came in. two points have occurred to me as being a good commentary to the objections to my idea. the first is that a most terrific uproar was made when the hanging processions were abolished, and the ceremony shrunk from tyburn to the prison door. the second is that, at this very time, under the british government in new south wales, executions take place _within the prison walls_, with decidedly improved results. (i am waiting to explode this fact on the first man of mark who gives me the opportunity.) unlike you, we have had no marriages or giving in marriage here. we might have had, but a certain young lady, whom you know, is hard to please. the children are all well, thank god! charley is going to eton the week after next, and has passed a first-rate examination. kate is quite well, and unites with me and georgina in love to you and mrs. cerjat and haldimand, whom i would give a good deal (tell him) to have several hours' contradiction of at his own table. good heavens, how obstinate we would both be! i see him leaning back in his chair, with his right forefinger out, and saying, "good god!" in reply to some proposition of mine, and then laughing. all in a moment a feeling comes over me, as if you and i have been still talking, smoking cigars outside the inn at martigny, the piano sounding inside, and lady mary taylour singing. i look into my garden (which is covered with snow) rather dolefully, but take heart again, and look brightly forward to another expedition to the great st. bernard, when mrs. cerjat and i shall laugh as i fancy i have never laughed since, in one of those one-sided cars; and when we shall again learn from haldimand, in a little dingy cabaret, at lunch-time, how to secure a door in travelling (do you remember?) by balancing a chair against it on its two hind-legs. i do hope that we may all come together again once more, while there is a head of hair left among us; and in this hope remain, my dear cerjat, your faithful friend. . narrative. in the spring charles dickens took a short holiday again, with his wife and sister-in-law, at brighton, from whence he wrote to mr. wills, on "household words" business. the first number of this journal appeared on the th march. this autumn he succeeded, for the first time, in getting possession of the "fort house," broadstairs, on which he had always set his affections. he was hard at work on the closing numbers of "david copperfield" during all the summer and autumn. the family moved to broadstairs in july, but as a third daughter was born in august, they were not joined by mrs. dickens until the end of september. "david copperfield" was finished in october. the beginning of his correspondence with mrs. gaskell is in his asking her to contribute to "household words," which she did from the first number, and very frequently afterwards both to "household words" and "all the year round." the letter to mr. david roberts, r.a., is one thanking him for a remembrance of his (mr. roberts's) travels in the east--a picture of a "simoom in the desert," which was one of charles dickens's most highly prized possessions. a letter to mr. sheridan knowles contains allusions which we have no means of explaining, but we publish it, as it is characteristic, and addressed to a literary celebrity. its being inscribed to "daddy" knowles illustrates a habit of charles dickens--as does a letter later in this year to mr. stone, beginning, "my dear p."--of giving nicknames to the friends with whom he was on the most affectionate and intimate terms. mr. stone--especially included in this category--was the subject of many such names; "pump," or "pumpion," being one by which he was frequently addressed--a joke as good-humouredly and gladly received as it was kindly and pleasantly intended. there were no public amateur theatricals this year; but in november, the greater part of the amateur company played for three nights at knebworth park, as the guests of sir edward bulwer lytton (afterwards lord lytton), who entertained all his county neighbours to witness the performances. the play was "every man in his humour," and farces, varied each night. this year we have our first letter to miss mary boyle, a cousin of mrs. watson, well known as an amateur actress and an accomplished lady. miss boyle was to have acted with the amateur company at knebworth, but was prevented by domestic affliction. early in the following year there was a private play at rockingham castle, when miss boyle acted with charles dickens, the play being "used up," in which mrs. dickens also acted; and the farce, "animal magnetism," in which miss boyle and miss hogarth played. the letters to mrs. watson in this year refer chiefly to the preparations for the play in her house. the accident mentioned in the letter addressed to mr. henry bicknell (son-in-law of mr. david roberts, r.a., and a much-esteemed friend of charles dickens) was an accident which happened to mrs. dickens, while rehearsing at a theatre. she fell through a trap-door, spraining her ankle so badly as to be incapacitated from taking her part in the theatricals at knebworth. [sidenote: mr. david roberts, r.a.] devonshire terrace, _january rd, ._ my dear roberts, i am more obliged to you than i can tell you for the beautiful mark of your friendly remembrance which you have sent me this morning. i shall set it up among my household gods with pride. it gives me the highest gratification, and i beg you to accept my most cordial and sincere thanks. a little bit of the tissue paper was sticking to the surface of the picture, and has slightly marked it. it requires but a touch, as one would dot an "i" or cross a "t," to remove the blemish; but as i cannot think of a recollection so full of poetry being touched by any hand but yours, i have told green the framer, whenever he shall be on his way with it, to call on you by the road. i enclose a note from mrs. dickens, which i hope will impress you into a country dance, with which we hope to dismiss christmas merrily. ever, my dear roberts, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. james sheridan knowles.] devonshire terrace, _january rd, ._ my dear good knowles, many happy new years to you, and to all who are near and dear to you. your generous heart unconsciously exaggerates, i am sure, my merit in respect of that most honourable gentleman who has been the occasion of our recent correspondence. i cannot sufficiently admire the dignity of his conduct, and i really feel indebted to you for giving me the gratification of observing it. as to that "cross note," which, rightly considered, was nothing of the sort, if ever you refer to it again, i'll do--i don't exactly know what, but something perfectly desperate and ferocious. if i have ever thought of it, it has only been to remember with delight how soon we came to a better understanding, and how heartily we confirmed it with a most expressive shake of the hand, one evening down in that mouldy little den of miss kelly's. heartily and faithfully yours. "daddy" knowles. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] devonshire terrace, _january st, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, you may perhaps have seen an announcement in the papers of my intention to start a new cheap weekly journal of general literature. i do not know what your literary vows of temperance or abstinence may be, but as i do honestly know that there is no living english writer whose aid i would desire to enlist in preference to the authoress of "mary barton" (a book that most profoundly affected and impressed me), i venture to ask you whether you can give me any hope that you will write a short tale, or any number of tales, for the projected pages. no writer's name will be used, neither my own nor any other; every paper will be published without any signature, and all will seem to express the general mind and purpose of the journal, which is the raising up of those that are down, and the general improvement of our social condition. i should set a value on your help which your modesty can hardly imagine; and i am perfectly sure that the least result of your reflection or observation in respect of the life around you, would attract attention and do good. of course i regard your time as valuable, and consider it so when i ask you if you could devote any of it to this purpose. if you could and would prefer to speak to me on the subject, i should be very glad indeed to come to manchester for a few hours and explain anything you might wish to know. my unaffected and great admiration of your book makes me very earnest in all relating to you. forgive my troubling you for this reason, and believe me ever, faithfully yours. p.s.--mrs. dickens and her sister send their love. [sidenote: rev. james white.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday, feb. th, ._ my dear white, i have been going to write to you for a long time, but have always had in my mind that you might come here with lotty any day. as lotty has come without you, however (witness a tremendous rampaging and ravaging now going on upstairs!), i despatch this note to say that i suppose you have seen the announcement of "the" new weekly thing, and that if you would ever write anything for it, you would please me better than i can tell you. we hope to do some solid good, and we mean to be as cheery and pleasant as we can. (and, putting our hands in our breeches pockets, we say complacently, that our money is as good as blackwood's any day in the week.) now the murder's out! are you never coming to town any more? must i come to bonchurch? am i born (for the eight-and-thirtieth time) next thursday, at half-past five, and do you mean to say you are _not_ coming to dinner? well, well, i can always go over to puseyism to spite my friends, and that's some comfort. poor dear jeffrey! i had heard from him but a few days, and the unopened proof of no. was lying on his table when he died. i believe i have lost as affectionate a friend as i ever had, or ever shall have, in this world. ever heartily yours, my dear white. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] devonshire terrace, _february th, ._ my dear knight, let me thank you in the heartiest manner for your most kind and gratifying mention of me in your able pamphlet. it gives me great pleasure, and i sincerely feel it. i quite agree with you in all you say so well of the injustice and impolicy of this excessive taxation. but when i think of the condition of the great mass of the people, i fear that i could hardly find the heart to press for justice in this respect, before the window-duty is removed. they cannot read without light. they cannot have an average chance of life and health without it. much as we feel our wrong, i fear that they feel their wrong more, and that the things just done in this wise must bear a new physical existence. i never see you, and begin to think we must have another play--say in cornwall--expressly to bring us together. very faithfully yours. suggestions for titles of "household words." the forge: a weekly journal, conducted by charles dickens. "thus at the glowing forge of life our actions must be wrought, thus on its sounding anvil shaped each burning deed and thought."--_longfellow._ the hearth. the forge. the crucible. the anvil of the time. charles dickens's own. seasonable leaves. evergreen leaves. home. home-music. change. time and tide. twopence. english bells. weekly bells. the rocket. good humour. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , king's road, brighton, _tuesday night, march th, ._ my dear wills, i have made a correction or two in my part of the post-office article. i still observe the top-heavy "household words" in the title. the title of "the amusements of the people" has to be altered as i have marked it. i would as soon have my hair cut off as an intolerable scotch shortness put into my titles by the elision of little words. "the seasons" wants a little punctuation. will the "incident in the life of mademoiselle clairon" go into those two pages? i fear not, but one article would be infinitely better, i am quite certain, than two or three short ones. if it will go in, in with it. i shall be back, please god, by dinner-time to-morrow week. i will be ready for smithfield either on the following monday morning at four, or any other morning you may arrange for. would it do to make up no. on wednesday, the th, instead of saturday? if so, it would be an immense convenience to me. but if it be distinctly necessary to make it up on saturday, say by return, and i am to be relied upon. don't fail in this. i really _can't_ promise to be comic. indeed, your note put me out a little, for i had just sat down to begin, "it will last my time." i will shake my head a little, and see if i can shake a more comic substitute out of it. as to _two_ comic articles, or two any sort of articles, out of me, that's the intensest extreme of no-goism. ever faithfully. [sidenote: rev. james white.] devonshire terrace, _july th, ._ my dear white, being obliged (sorely against my will) to leave my work this morning and go out, and having a few spare minutes before i go, i write a hasty note, to hint how glad i am to have received yours, and how happy and tranquil we feel it to be for you all, that the end of that long illness has come.[ ] kate and georgy send best loves to mrs. white, and we hope she will take all needful rest and relief after those arduous, sad, and weary weeks. i have taken a house at broadstairs, from early in august until the end of october, as i don't want to come back to london until i shall have finished "copperfield." i am rejoiced at the idea of your going there. you will find it the healthiest and freshest of places; and there are canterbury, and all varieties of what leigh hunt calls "greenery," within a few minutes' railroad ride. it is not very picturesque ashore, but extremely so seaward; all manner of ships continually passing close inshore. so come, and we'll have no end of sports, please god. i am glad to say, as i know you will be to hear, that there seems a bright unanimity about "copperfield." i am very much interested in it and pleased with it myself. i have carefully planned out the story, for some time past, to the end, and am making out my purposes with great care. i should like to know what you see from that tower of yours. i have little doubt you see the real objects in the prospect. "household words" goes on _thoroughly well_. it is expensive, of course, and demands a large circulation; but it is taking a great and steady stand, and i have no doubt already yields a good round profit. to-morrow week i shall expect you. you shall have a bottle of the "twenty." i have kept a few last lingering caskets with the gem enshrined therein, expressly for you. ever, my dear white, cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] hÃ�tel windsor, paris, _thursday, july th, ._ _after post-time._ my dear wills, i have had much ado to get to work; the heat here being so intense that i can do nothing but lie on the bare floor all day. i never felt it anything like so hot in italy. there is nothing doing in the theatres, and the atmosphere is so horribly oppressive there that one can hardly endure it. i came out of the français last night half dead. i am writing at this moment with nothing on but a shirt and pair of white trousers, and have been sitting four hours at this paper, but am as faint with the heat as if i had been at some tremendous gymnastics; and yet we had a thunderstorm last night. i hope we are doing pretty well in wellington street. my anxiety makes me feel as if i had been away a year. i hope to be home on tuesday evening, or night at latest. i have picked up a very curious book of french statistics that will suit us, and an odd proposal for a company connected with the gambling in california, of which you will also be able to make something. i saw a certain "lord spleen" mentioned in a playbill yesterday, and will look after that distinguished english nobleman to-night, if possible. rachel played last night for the last time before going to london, and has not so much in her as some of our friends suppose. the english people are perpetually squeezing themselves into courtyards, blind alleys, closed edifices, and other places where they have no sort of business. the french people, as usual, are making as much noise as possible about everything that is of no importance, but seem (as far as one can judge) pretty quiet and good-humoured. they made a mighty hullabaloo at the theatre last night, when brutus (the play was "lucretia") declaimed about liberty. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] devonshire terrace, _august th, ._ my dear wills, i shall be obliged to you if you will write to this man, and tell him that what he asks i never do--firstly, because i have no kind of connection with any manager or theatre; secondly, because i am asked to read so many manuscripts, that compliance is impossible, or i should have no other occupation or relaxation in the world. [symbol: right hand] a foreign gentleman, with a beard, name unknown, but signing himself "a fellow man," and dating from nowhere, declined, twice yesterday, to leave this house for any less consideration than the insignificant one of "twenty pounds." i have had a policeman waiting for him all day. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] broadstairs, _tuesday, sept. rd, ._ my dearest kate, i enclose a few lines from georgy, and write these to say that i purpose going home at some time on thursday, but i cannot say precisely when, as it depends on what work i do to-morrow. yesterday charles knight, white, forster, charley, and i walked to richborough castle and back. knight dined with us afterwards; and the whites, the bicknells, and mrs. gibson came in in the evening and played vingt-et-un. having no news i must tell you a story of sydney. the children, georgy, and i were out in the garden on sunday evening (by-the-bye, i made a beautiful passage down, and got to margate a few minutes after one), when i asked sydney if he would go to the railroad and see if forster was coming. as he answered very boldly "yes," i opened the garden-gate, upon which he set off alone as fast as his legs would carry him; and being pursued, was not overtaken until he was through the lawn house archway, when he was still going on at full speed--i can't conceive where. being brought back in triumph, he made a number of fictitious starts, for the sake of being overtaken again, and we made a regular game of it. at last, when he and ally had run away, instead of running after them, we came into the garden, shut the gate, and crouched down on the ground. presently we heard them come back and say to each other with some alarm, "why, the gate's shut, and they're all gone!" ally began in a dismayed way to cry out, but the phenomenon shouting, "open the gate!" sent an enormous stone flying into the garden (among our heads) by way of alarming the establishment. i thought it a wonderful piece of character, showing great readiness of resource. he would have fired a perfect battery of stones, or very likely have broken the pantry window, i think, if we hadn't let him in. they are all in great force, and send their loves. they are all much excited with the expectation of receiving you on friday, and would start me off to fetch you now if i would go. our train on friday will be half-past twelve. i have spoken to georgy about the partridges, and hope we may find some. ever, my dearest kate, most affectionately. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] broadstairs, kent, _monday night, sept. th, ._ my dear miss boyle, your letter having arrived in time for me to write a line by the evening post, i came out of a paroxysm of "copperfield," to say that i am _perfectly delighted_ to read it, and to know that we are going to act together in that merry party. we dress "every man" in queen elizabeth's time. the acting copy is much altered from the old play, but we still smooth down phrases when needful. i don't remember anyone that is changed. georgina says she can't describe the dress mrs. kitely used to wear. i shall be in town on saturday, and will then get maclise to make me a little sketch, of it, carefully explained, which i will post to you. at the same time i will send you the book. after consideration of forces, it has occurred to me (old ben being, i daresay, rare; but i _do_ know rather heavy here and there) that mrs. inchbald's "animal magnetism," which we have often played, will "go" with a greater laugh than anything else. that book i will send you on saturday too. you will find your part (lisette, i think it is called, but it is a waiting-maid) a most admirable one; and i have seen people laugh at the piece until they have hung over the front of the boxes like ripe fruit. you may dress the part to please yourself after reading it. we wear powder. i will take care (bringing a theatrical hairdresser for the company) of your wig! we will rehearse the two pieces when we go down, or at least anything with which you have to do, over and over again. you will find my company so well used to it, and so accustomed to consider it a grave matter of business, as to make it easy. i am now awaiting the french books with a view to "rockingham," and i hope to report of that too, when i write to you on saturday. my dear miss boyle, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] devonshire terrace, _friday, sept. th, ._ my dear miss boyle, i enclose you the book of "animal magnetism," and the book of "every man in his humour;" also a sketch by mr. maclise of a correct and picturesque mrs. kitely. mr. forster is kitely; mr. lemon, brainworm; mr. leech, master matthew; mr. jerrold, master stephen; mr. stone, downright. kitely's dress is a very plain purple gown, like a bluecoat-boy's. downright's dress is also very sober, chiefly brown and gray. all the rest of us are very bright. i am flaming red. georgina will write you about your colour and hers in "animal magnetism;" the gayer the better. i am the doctor, in black, with red stockings. mr. lemon (an excellent actor), the valet, as far as i can remember, in blue and yellow, and a chintz waistcoat. mr. leech is the marquis, and mr. egg the one-eyed servant. what do you think of doing "animal magnetism" as the last piece (we may play three in all, i think) at rockingham? if so, we might make quin the one-eyed servant, and beat up with mrs. watson for a marquis. will you tell me what you think of this, addressed to broadstairs? i have not heard from bulwer again. i daresay i have crossed a letter from him by coming up to-day; but i have every reason to believe that the last week in october is the time. ever very faithfully yours. p.s.--this is quite a managerial letter, which i write with all manner of appointments and business discussions going on about me, having my pen on the paper and my eye on "household words," my head on "copperfield" and my ear nowhere particularly. i will let you know about "a day after the wedding." i have sent for the book on monday. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] broadstairs, kent, _september th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, coming out of "copperfield" into a condition of temporary and partial consciousness, i plunge into histrionic duties, and hold enormous correspondence with miss boyle, between whom and myself the most portentous packets are continually passing. i send you a piece we purpose playing last at rockingham, which "my company" played in london, scotland, manchester, liverpool, and i don't know where else. it is one of the most ridiculous things ever done. we purpose, as i have said, playing it last. why do i send it to you? because there is an excellent part (played in my troupe by george cruikshank) for your brother in it--jeffrey; with a black patch on his eye, and a lame leg, he would be charming--noble! if he is come home, give him my love and tell him so. if he is not come home, do me that favour when he does come. and add that i have a wig for him belonging to the part, which i have an idea of sending to the exposition of ' , as a triumph of human ingenuity. i am the doctor; miss boyle, lisette; georgy, the other little woman. we have nearly arranged our "bill" for rockingham. we shall want one more reasonably good actor, besides your brother and miss boyle's, to play the marquis in this piece. do you know a being endowed by nature with the requisite qualities? there are some things in the next "copperfield" that i think better than any that have gone before. after i have been believing such things with all my heart and soul, two results always ensue: first, i can't write plainly to the eye; secondly, i can't write sensibly to the mind. so "copperfield" is to blame, and i am not, for this wandering note; and if you like it, you'll forgive me. with my affectionate remembrances to watson, ever, my dear mrs. watson, very faithfully yours. p.s.--i find i am not equal to the flourish. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] devonshire terrace, _wednesday, oct th, ._ my dear miss boyle, we are all extremely concerned and distressed to lose you. but we feel that it cannot be otherwise, and we do not, in our own expectation of amusement, forget the sad cause of your absence. bulwer was here yesterday; and if i were to tell you how earnestly he and all the other friends whom you don't know have looked forward to the projected association with you, and in what a friendly spirit they all express their disappointment, you would be quite moved by it, i think. pray don't give yourself the least uneasiness on account of the blank in our arrangements. i did not write to you yesterday, in the hope that i might be able to tell you to-day that i had replaced you, in however poor a way. i cannot do that yet, but i am busily making out some means of filling the parts before we rehearse to-morrow night, and i trust to be able to do so in some out-of-the-way manner. mrs. dickens and bridget send you their kindest remembrances. they are bitterly disappointed at not seeing you to-day, but we all hope for a better time. dear miss boyle, faithfully yours always. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] devonshire terrace, _saturday evening, nov. rd, ._ my dear mrs. watson, being well home from knebworth, where everything has gone off in a whirl of triumph and fired the whole length and breadth of the county of hertfordshire, i write a short note to say that we are yours any time after twelfth-night, and that we look forward to seeing you with the greatest pleasure. i should have made this reply to your last note sooner, but that i have been waiting to send you "copperfield" in a new waistcoat. his tailor is so slow that it has not yet appeared; but when the resplendent garment comes home it shall be forwarded. i have not your note at hand, but i think you said "any time after christmas." at all events, and whatever you said, we will conclude a treaty on any terms you may propose. and if it should include any of charley's holidays, perhaps you would allow us to put a brass collar round his neck, and chain him up in the stable. kate and georgina (who has covered herself with glory) join me in best remembrances and regards to watson and you and all the house. i have stupendous proposals to make concerning switzerland in the spring. i promised bulwer to make enquiry of you about "miss watson," whom he once knew and greatly wished to hear of. he associated her (but was not clear how) with lady palmer. my dear mrs. watson, ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. henry bicknell.] devonshire terrace, _november th, ._ my dear mr. bicknell, if i ever did such a thing, believe me i would do it at your request. but i don't, and if you could see the ramparts of letters from similar institutions with which my desk bristles every now and then, you would feel that nothing lies between total abstinence (in this regard) and utter bewilderment and lecturation. mrs. dickens and her sister unite with me in kind regards to you and mrs. bicknell. the consequences of the accident are fast fading, i am happy to say. we all hope to hear shortly that mrs. bicknell has recovered that other little accident, which (as you and i know) will occasionally happen in well-regulated families. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. walter savage landor.] office of "household words," _wednesday, dec. th, ._ my dear landor, i have been (a strange thing for me) so very unwell since sunday, that i have hardly been able to hold up my head--a bilious attack, i believe, and a very miserable sort of business. this, my dear friend, is the reason why i have not sooner written to you in reference to your noble letter, which i read in _the examiner_, and for which--as it exalts me--i cannot, cannot thank you in words. we had been following up the blow in kinkel's[ ] favour, and i was growing sanguine, in the hope of getting him out (having enlisted strong and active sympathy in his behalf), when the news came of his escape. since then we have heard nothing of him. i rather incline to the opinion that the damnable powers that be connived at his escape, but know nothing. whether he be retaken or whether he appear (as i am not without hope he may) in the streets of london, i shall be a party to no step whatever without consulting you; and if any scrap of intelligence concerning him shall reach me, it shall be yours immediately. horne wrote the article. i shall see him here to-night, and know how he will feel your sympathy and support. but i do not wait to see him before writing, lest you should think me slow to feel your generosity. we said at home when we read your letter, that it was like the opening of your whole munificent and bare heart. ever most affectionately yours, my dear landor. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] [symbol: right hand] this is no. . devonshire terrace, _monday morning, dec. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, your note to me of saturday has crossed mine to you, i find. if you open both of mine together, please to observe _this is no. _. you may rely on mr. tucker's doing his work thoroughly well and charging a fair price. it is not possible for him to say aforehand, in such a case, what it will cost, i imagine, as he will have to adapt his work to the place. nathan's stage knowledge may be stated in the following figures: . therefore, i think you had best refer mr. tucker to _me_, and i will apply all needful screws and tortures to him. i have thought of one or two very ingenious (hem!) little contrivances for adapting the difficulties of "used up" to the small stage. they will require to be so exactly explained to your carpenter (though very easy little things in themselves), that i think i had better, before christmas, send my servant down for an hour--he is quite an old stager now--to show him precisely what i mean. it is not a day's work, but it would be extremely difficult to explain in writing. i developed these wonderful ideas to the master carpenter at one of the theatres, and he shook his head with an intensely mournful air, and said, "ah, sir, it's a universal observation in the profession, sir, that it was a great loss to the public when you took to writing books!" which i thought complimentary to "copperfield." ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _saturday, dec. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i shall be delighted to come on the seventh instead of the eighth. we consider it an engagement. over and above the pleasure of a quiet day with you, i think i can greatly facilitate the preparations (that's the way, you see, in which we cheat ourselves into making duties of pleasures) by being at rockingham a day earlier. so that's settled. i was quite certain when that child of israel mentioned those dimensions, that he must be wrong. for which wooden-headedness the child shall be taken to task on monday morning, when i am going to look at his preparations, by appointment, about the door. don't you observe, that the scenery not being made expressly for the room, it may be impossible to use it as you propose? there is a scene before that wall, and unless the door in the scene (supposing there to be one, which i am not sure of) should come exactly into the place of the door of the room, the door of the room might as well be in africa. if it could be used it would still require to be backed (excuse professional technicality) by another scene in the passage. and if it be rather in the side of the bottom of the room (as i seem to remember it), it would be shut out of sight, or partially, by the side scenes. do you comprehend these stage managerial sagacities? that piece of additional room in so small a stage would be of immense service, if we could avail ourselves of it. if we can't, i have another means (i think) of discovering leech, saville, and coldstream at table. i am constantly turning over in my mind the capacities of the place, and hope by one means or other to make something more than the best of it. as to the fireplace, you will never be able to use that. the heat of the lamp will be very great, and ventilation will be the thing wanted. thirteen feet and a half of depth, diminished by stage fittings and furniture, is a small space. i think the doorway could be used in the last scene, with the castle steps and platform for the staircase running straight through it toward the hall. _nous verrons._ i will write again about my visit of inspection, probably on monday. will you let them know that messrs. nathan, of titchborne street, haymarket, will dress them, please, and that i will engage for their doing it thoroughly well; also that mr. wilson, theatrical hairdresser, strand, near st. clement's churchyard, will come down with wigs, etc., to "make up" everybody; that he has a list of the pieces from me, and that he will be glad to measure the heads and consult the tastes of all concerned, if they will give him the opportunity beforehand? i should like to see sir adonis leech and the hon. t. saville if i can. for they ought to be wonderfully made up, and to be as unlike themselves as possible, and to contrast well with each other and with me. i rather grudge _caro sposo_ coming into the company. i should like him so much to see the play. if we do it all well together it ought to be so very pleasant. i never saw a great mass of people so charmed with a little story as when we acted it at the glasgow theatre. but i have no other reason for faltering when i take him to my arms. i feel that he is the man for the part.[ ] i see him with a blue bag, a flaxen wig, and green spectacles. i know what it will be. i foresee how all that sessional experience will come out. i reconcile myself to it, in spite of the selfish consideration of wanting him elsewhere; and while i have a heavy sense of a light being snuffed out in the audience, perceive a new luminary shining on the stage! your brother[ ] would make a capital tiger, too! very short tight surtout, doeskins, bright top-boots, white cravat, bouquet in button-hole, close wig--very good, ve--ry good. it clearly must be so. the thing is done. i told you we were opening a tremendous correspondence when we first began to write on such a long subject. but do let me tell you, once and for all, that i am in the business heart and soul, and that you cannot trouble me respecting it, and that i wouldn't willingly or knowingly leave the minutest detail unprovided for. it cannot possibly be a success if the smallest peppercorn of arrangement be omitted. and a success it must be! i couldn't go into such a thing, or help to bring you poorly out of it, for any earthly consideration. talking of forgetting, isn't it odd? i doubt if i could forget words i had learned, so long as i wanted them. but the moment the necessity goes, they go. i know my place and everybody's place in this identical piece of "used up" perfectly, and could put every little object on its own square inches of room exactly where it ought to be. but i have no more recollection of my words now (i took the book up yesterday) than if i had only seen the play as one of the audience at a theatre. perhaps not so much. with cordial remembrances, ever, dear mrs. watson, faithfully yours. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] devonshire terrace, _december th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i am sorry to say that business ("household words" business) will keep me in town to-morrow. but on monday i propose coming down and returning the same day. the train for my money appears to be the half-past six a.m. (horrible initials!), and to that invention for promoting early rising i design to commit myself. i am shocked if i also made the mistake of confounding those two (and too) similar names.[ ] but i think mr. s-t-a-f-f-o-r-d had better do the marquis. i am glad to find that we agree, but we always do. i have closely overhauled the little theatre, and the carpenter and painter. the whole has been entirely repainted (i mean the proscenium and scenery) for this especial purpose, and is extremely pretty. i don't think, the scale considered, that anything better _could_ be done. it is very elegant. i have brought "the child" to this. for the hire of the theatre, fifteen pounds. the carriage to be extra. the child's fares and expenses (which will be very moderate) to be extra. the stage carpenter's wages to be extra--seven shillings a day. i don't think, when you see the things, that you will consider this too much. it is as good as the queen's little theatre at windsor, raised stage excepted. i have had an extraction made, which will enable us to use the door. i am at present breaking my man's heart, by teaching him how to imitate the sounds of the smashing of the windows and the breaking of the balcony in "used up." in the event of his death from grief, i have promised to do something for his mother. thinking it possible that you might not see the enclosed until next month, and hoping that it is seasonable for christmas, i send it. being, with cordial regards and all seasonable good wishes, ever, dear mrs. watson, faithfully yours. p.s.--this [blot] is a tear over the devotion of captain boyle, who (as i learned from the child of israel this morning) would not decide upon farmer wurzel's coat, without referring the question of buttons to managerial approval. [sidenote: mr. john poole.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday night, christmas eve, ._ my dear poole, on the sunday when i last saw you, i went straight to lord john's with the letter you read. he was out of town, and i left it with my card. on the following wednesday i received a note from him, saying that he did not bear in mind exactly what i had told him of you before, and asking me to tell it again. i immediately replied, of course, and gave him an exact description of you and your condition, and your way of life in paris and everything else; a perfect diorama in little, with you pervading it. to-day i got a letter from him, announcing that you have a pension of _a hundred a year_! of which i heartily wish you joy. he says: "i am happy to say that the queen has approved of a pension of one hundred pounds a year to mr. poole. "the queen, in her gracious answer, informs me that she meant to have mentioned mr. poole to me, and that she had wished to place him in the charter house, but found the society there was not such as he could associate with. "be so good as to inform mr. poole that directions are given for his pension, which will date from the end of june last." i have lost no time in answering this, but you must brace up your energies to write him a short note too, and another for the queen. if you are in paris, shall i ascertain what authority i shall need from you to receive the half-year, which i suppose will be shortly due? i can receive it as usual. with all good wishes and congratulations, seasonable and unseasonable, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] devonshire terrace, _monday morning, dec. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, as your letter is _decided_, the scaffolding shall be re-erected round charley's boots (it has been taken down, and the workmen had retired to their respective homes in various parts of england and wales) and his dressing proceeded with. i have been very much pleased with him in the matter, as he has never made the least demonstration of disappointment or mortification, and was perfectly contented to give in. (_here i break off to go to boxall._) (_here i return much exhausted._) your time shall be stated in the bills for both nights. i propose to rehearse on the day, on thursday and friday, and in the evening on saturday, that we may try our lights. therefore: {will come on tuesday, th january, as there must be a {responsible person to anathematise, and as the company nathan {seem so slow about their dresses, that i foresee the and {strong probability of nathan having a good deal to do stage carpenter {at rockingham without respect. wilson will come on saturday, th january. tucker will come on saturday, th january. i shall be delighted to see your brother, and so no more at present from yours ever, coldstream freelove doctor dickens. p.s.--as boxall (with his head very much on one side and his spectacles on) danced backward from the canvas incessantly with great nimbleness, and returned, and made little digs at it with his pencil, with a horrible grin on his countenance, i augur that he pleased himself this morning. "tag" added by mr. dickens to "animal magnetism," played at rockingham castle. animal magnetism.--tag. [after la fleur says to the marquis: "sir, return him the wand; and the ladies, i daresay, will fall in love with him again."] doctor. i'm cheated, robbed! i don't believe! i hate wand, marquis, doctor, ward, lisette, and fate! la fleur. not me? doctor. _you_ worse, you rascal, than the rest. la fleur. (_bowing_). to merit it, good sir, i've done my best. lisette. (_sharply_). and i. constance. i fear that i too have a claim upon your anger. lisette. anger, madam? shame! he's justly treated, as he might have known. and if the wand were a divining one it would have turn'd, within his very hands, point-blank to where your handsome husband stands. constance (_glancing at_ doctor). i would it were the wand of harlequin, to change his temper and his favour win. jeffrey (_peeping in_). in that case, mistress, you might be so kind as wave me back the eye of which i'm blind. marquis (_laughing and examining it_). 'tis nothing but a piece of senseless wood, and has no influence for harm or good. yet stay! it surely draws me towards those indulgent, pleasant, smiling, beaming rows! it surely charms me. all. and us too. marquis. to bend before their gen'rous efforts to commend; to cheer us on, through these few happy hours, and strew our mimic way with real flowers. [_all make obeisance._ stay yet again. among us all, i feel one subtle, all-pervading influence steal, stirring one wish within one heart and head, bright be the path our host and hostess tread! blest be their children, happy be their race, long may they live, this ancient hall to grace long bear of english virtues noble fruit-- green-hearted rockingham! strike deep thy root footnotes: [ ] the last illness of mrs. white's mother. [ ] dr. gottfried kinkel, a distinguished scholar and professor in the university of bonn, who was at that time undergoing very rigorous state imprisonment in prussia, for political reasons. dr. kinkel was afterwards well known as a teacher and lecturer on art in london, where he resided for many years. [ ] the part of the lawyer in "used up." it was _not_ played after all by mr. watson, but by mr. (now sir william) boxall, r.a., a very old and intimate friend of mr. and mrs. watson, and of charles dickens. [ ] this part, finally, was played by charles dickens, junior. [ ] mr. stafford and mr. stopford, who both acted in the plays at rockingham. . narrative. in february this year, charles dickens made a short bachelor excursion with mr. leech and the hon. spencer lyttelton to paris, from whence we give a letter to his wife. she was at this time in very bad health, and the little infant dora had a serious illness during the winter. the child rallied for the time, but mrs. dickens continued so ill that she was advised to try the air--and water--of malvern. and early in march, she and her sister were established in lodgings there, the children being left in london, and charles dickens dividing his time between devonshire terrace and malvern. he was busily occupied before this time in superintending the arrangements for mr. macready's last appearance on the stage at drury lane, and for a great dinner which was given to mr. macready after it on the st march, at which the chair was taken by sir edward bulwer lytton. with him charles dickens was then engaged in maturing a scheme, which had been projected at the time of the amateur play at knebworth, of a guild of literature and art, which was to found a provident fund for literary men and artists; and to start which, a series of dramatic performances by the amateur company was proposed. sir e. b. lytton wrote a comedy, "not so bad as we seem," for the purpose, to be played in london and the provinces; and the duke of devonshire turned one of the splendid rooms in devonshire house into a theatre, for the first occasion of its performance. it was played early in may before her majesty and the prince consort, and a large audience. later in the season, there were several representations of the comedy (with a farce, "mr. nightingale's diary," written by charles dickens for himself and mr. mark lemon) in the hanover square rooms. but in the interval between the macready banquet and the play at devonshire house, charles dickens underwent great family trouble and sorrow. his father, whose health had been declining for some time, became seriously ill, and charles dickens was summoned from malvern to attend upon him. mr. john dickens died on the st march. on the th april, charles dickens had gone from malvern to preside at the annual dinner of the general theatrical fund, and found his children all well at devonshire terrace. he was playing with his baby, dora, before he went to the dinner; soon after he left the house the child died suddenly in her nurse's arms. the sad news was communicated to the father after his duties at the dinner were over. the next day, mr. forster went to malvern to break the news to mrs. dickens, and she and her sister returned with him to london, and the malvern lodgings were given up. but mrs. dickens being still out of health, and london being more than usually full (this being the year of the great exhibition), charles dickens decided to let the town house again for a few months, and engaged the fort house, broadstairs, from the beginning of may until november. this, which was his longest sojourn at broadstairs, was also the last, as the following summer he changed his seaside resort, and never returned to that pretty little watering-place, although he always retained an affectionate interest in it. the lease of the devonshire terrace house was to expire this year. it was now too small for his family, so he could not renew it, although he left it with regret. from the beginning of the year, he had been in negotiation for a house in tavistock square, in which his friend mr. frank stone had lived for some years. many letters which follow are on the subject of this house and the improvements charles dickens made in it. his brother-in-law, henry austin--himself an architect--superintended the "works" at tavistock house, as he did afterwards those at gad's hill--and there are many characteristic letters to mr. austin while these works were in progress. in the autumn, as a letter written in august to mr. stone will show, an exchange of houses was made--mr. stone removing with his family to devonshire terrace until his own new house was ready--while the alterations in tavistock house went on, and charles dickens removed into it from broadstairs, in november. his eldest son was now an eton boy. he had been one of the party and had played a small part in the play at rockingham castle, in the christmas holidays, and his father's letters to mrs. watson at the beginning of this year have reference to this play. this year he wrote and published the "haunted man," which he had found himself unable to finish for the previous christmas. it was the last of the christmas _books_. he abandoned them in favour of a christmas number of "household words," which he continued annually for many years in "household words" and "all the year round," and in which he had the collaboration of other writers. the "haunted man" was dramatised and produced at the adelphi theatre, under the management of mr. benjamin webster. charles dickens read the book himself, at tavistock house, to a party of actors and actresses. at the end of the year he wrote the first number of "bleak house," although it was not published until march of the following year. with the close attention and the hard work he gave, from the time of its starting, to his weekly periodical, he found it to be most desirable, now, in beginning a new monthly serial, that he should be ready with some numbers in advance before the appearance of the first number. a provincial tour for the "guild" took place at the end of the year. a letter to his wife, from clifton, in november, gives a notion of the general success and enthusiasm with which the plays were attended. the "new hardman," to whom he alludes as taking that part in sir e. b. lytton's comedy in the place of mr. forster, was mr. john tenniel, who was a new addition, and a very valuable and pleasant one, to the company. mr. topham, the delightful water-colour painter, mr. dudley costello, and mr. wilkie collins were also new recruits to the company of "splendid strollers" about this time. a letter to mr. wills, asking him to take a part in the comedy, is given here. he never did _act_ with the company, but he complied with charles dickens's desire that he should be "in the scheme" by giving it all sorts of assistance, and almost invariably being one of the party in the provincial tours. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] devonshire terrace, _january th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, kate will have told you, i daresay, that my despondency on coming to town was relieved by a talk with lady john russell, of which you were the subject, and in which she spoke of you with an earnestness of old affection and regard that did me good. i date my recovery (which has been slow) from that hour. i am still feeble, and liable to sudden outbursts of causeless rage and demoniacal gloom, but i shall be better presently. what a thing it is, that we can't be always innocently merry and happy with those we like best without looking out at the back windows of life! well, one day perhaps--after a long night--the blinds on that side of the house will be down for ever, and nothing left but the bright prospect in front. concerning supper-toast (of which i feel bound to make some mention), you did, as you always do, right, and exactly what was most agreeable to me. my love to your excellent husband (i wonder whether he and the dining-room have got to rights yet!), and to the jolly little boys and the calm little girl. somehow, i shall always think of lord spencer as eternally walking up and down the platform at rugby, in a high chill wind, with no apparent hope of a train--as i left him; and somehow i always think of rockingham, after coming away, as if i belonged to it and had left a bit of my heart behind, which it is so very odd to find wanting twenty times a day. ever, dear mrs. watson, faithfully yours, and his. [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday night, jan. th, ._ my dear, dear mrs. watson, i presume you mean mr. stafford and mr. stopford to pay wilson (as i have instructed him) a guinea each? am i right? in that just case i still owe you a guinea for _my_ part. i was going to send you a post-office order for that amount, when a faint sense of absurdity mantled my ingenuous visage with a blush, and i thought it better to owe you the money until we met. i hope it may be soon! i believe i may lay claim to the mysterious inkstand, also to a volume lettered on the back, "shipwrecks and disasters at sea, ii.," which i left when i came down at christmas. will you take care of them as hostages until we effect an exchange? charley went back in great spirits, threatening to write to george. it was a very wet night, and john took him to the railway. he said, on his return: "mas'r charles went off very gay, sir. he found some young gen'lemen as was his friends in the train, sir." "come," said i, "i am glad of that. how many were there? two or three?" "oh dear, sir, there was a matter of forty, sir! all with their heads out o' the coach-windows, sir, a-hallooing 'dickens!' all over the station!" her ladyship and the ward of the fiz-zish-un send their best loves, in which i heartily join. if you and your dear husband come to town before we bring out bulwer's comedy, i think we must have a snug reading of it. ever, dear mrs. watson, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] devonshire terrace, _friday, jan. st, ._ my dear lemon, we are deeply sorry to receive the mournful intelligence of your calamity. but we know you will both have found comfort in that blessed belief, from which the sacred figure with the child upon his knee is, in all stages of our lives, inseparable, for of such is the kingdom of god! we join in affectionate loves to you and your dear wife. she well deserves your praise, i am sure. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] devonshire terrace, _monday, feb. th, ._ my dear wills, there is a small part in bulwer's comedy, but very good what there is--not much--my servant, who opens the play, which i should be very glad if you would like to do. pray understand that there is no end of men who would do it, and that if you have the least objection to the trouble, i don't make this the expression of a wish even. otherwise, i would like you to be in the scheme, which is a very great and important one, and which cannot have too many men who are steadily--not flightily, like some of our friends--in earnest, and who are not to be lightly discouraged. if you do the part, i would like to have a talk with you about the secretarial duties. they must be performed by someone i clearly see, and will require good business direction. i should like to put some young fellow, to whom such work and its remuneration would be an object, under your eye, if we could find one entire and perfect chrysolite anywhere. let me know whether i am to rate you on the ship's books or not. if yes, consider yourself "called" to the reading (by macready) at forster's rooms, on wednesday, the th, at three. and in the meantime you shall have a proof of the plan. ever yours. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] hÃ�tel wagram, paris, _thursday, feb. th, ._ my dearest kate, i received your letter this morning (on returning from an expedition to a market thirteen miles away, which involved the necessity of getting up at five), and am delighted to have such good accounts of all at home. we had d'orsay to dinner yesterday, and i am hurried to dress now, in order to pay a promised visit to his _atelier_. he was very happy with us, and is much improved both in spirits and looks. lord and lady castlereagh live downstairs here, and we went to them in the evening, and afterwards brought him upstairs to smoke. to-night we are going to see lemaître in the renowned "belphégor" piece. to-morrow at noon we leave paris for calais (the boulogne boat does not serve our turn), and unless the weather for crossing should be absurd, i shall be at home, please god, early on the evening of saturday. it continues to be delightful weather here--gusty, but very clear and fine. leech and i had a charming country walk before breakfast this morning at poissy and enjoyed it very much. the rime was on the grass and trees, and the country most delicious. spencer lyttelton is a capital companion on a trip, and a great addition to the party. we have got on famously and been very facetious. with best love to georgina and the darlings, ever most affectionately. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] devonshire terrace, _friday night, late, feb. st, ._ my dear miss boyle, i have devoted a couple of hours this evening to going very carefully over your paper (which i had read before) and to endeavouring to bring it closer, and to lighten it, and to give it that sort of compactness which a habit of composition, and of disciplining one's thoughts like a regiment, and of studying the art of putting each soldier into his right place, may have gradually taught me to think necessary. i hope, when you see it in print, you will not be alarmed by my use of the pruning-knife. i have tried to exercise it with the utmost delicacy and discretion, and to suggest to you, especially towards the end, how this sort of writing (regard being had to the size of the journal in which it appears) requires to be compressed, and is made pleasanter by compression. this all reads very solemnly, but only because i want you to read it (i mean the article) with as loving an eye as i have truly tried to touch it with a loving and gentle hand. i propose to call it "my mahogany friend." the other name is too long, and i think not attractive. until i go to the office to-morrow and see what is actually in hand, i am not certain of the number in which it will appear, but georgy shall write on monday and tell you. we are always a fortnight in advance of the public or the mechanical work could not be done. i think there are many things in it that are _very pretty_. the katie part is particularly well done. if i don't say more, it is because i have a heavy sense, in all cases, of the responsibility of encouraging anyone to enter on that thorny track, where the prizes are so few and the blanks so many; where---- but i won't write you a sermon. with the fire going out, and the first shadows of a new story hovering in a ghostly way about me (as they usually begin to do, when i have finished an old one), i am in danger of doing the heavy business, and becoming a heavy guardian, or something of that sort, instead of the light and airy joe. so good-night, and believe that you may always trust me, and never find a grim expression (towards you) in any that i wear. ever yours. [sidenote: mr. david roberts, r.a.] _february st, ._ oh my dear roberts, if you knew the trouble we have had and the money we pay for drury lane for one night for the benefit, you would never dream of it for the dinner. _there isn't possibility of getting a theatre._ i will do all i can for your charming little daughter, and hope to squeeze in half-a-dozen ladies at the last; but we must not breathe the idea or we shall not dare to execute it, there will be such an outcry. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] devonshire terrace, _february th, ._ my dear macready, forster told me to-day that you wish tennyson's sonnet to be read after your health is given on saturday. i am perfectly certain that it would not do at that time. i am quite convinced that the audience would not receive it, under these exciting circumstances, as it ought to be received. if i had to read it, i would on no account undertake to do so at that period, in a great room crowded with a dense company. i have an instinctive assurance that it would fail. being with bulwer this morning, i communicated your wish to him, and he immediately felt as i do. i could enter into many reasons which induce me to form this opinion. but i believe that you have that confidence in me that i may spare you the statement of them. i want to know one thing from you. as i shall be obliged to be at the london tavern in the afternoon of to-morrow, friday (i write, observe, on thursday night), i shall be much helped in the arrangements if you will send me your answer by a messenger (addressed here) on the receipt of this. which would you prefer--that "auld lang syne" should be sung after your health is given and before you return thanks, or after you have spoken? i cannot forbear a word about last night. i think i have told you sometimes, my much-loved friend, how, when i was a mere boy, i was one of your faithful and devoted adherents in the pit; i believe as true a member of that true host of followers as it has ever boasted. as i improved myself and was improved by favouring circumstances in mind and fortune, i only became the more earnest (if it were possible) in my study of you. no light portion of my life arose before me when the quiet vision to which i am beholden, in i don't know how great a decree, or for how much--who does?--faded so nobly from my bodily eyes last night. and if i were to try to tell you what i felt--of regret for its being past for ever, and of joy in the thought that you could have taken your leave of _me_ but in god's own time--i should only blot this paper with some drops that would certainly not be of ink, and give very faint expression to very strong emotions. what is all this in writing! it is only some sort of relief to my full heart, and shows very little of it to you; but that's something, so i let it go. ever, my dearest macready, your most affectionate friend. p.s.--my very flourish departs from me for the moment. [sidenote: mr. david roberts, r.a.] knutsford lodge, great malvern, _march th, ._ my dear roberts, mrs. dickens has been unwell, and i am here with her. i want you to give a quarter of an hour to the perusal of the enclosed prospectus; to consider the immense value of the design, if it be successful, to artists young and old; and then to bestow your favourable consideration on the assistance i am going to ask of you for the sake and in the name of the cause. for the representation of the new comedy bulwer has written for us, to start this scheme, i am having an ingenious theatre made by webster's people, for erection on certain nights in the hanover square rooms. but it will first be put up in the duke of devonshire's house, where the first representation will take place before a brilliant company, including (i believe) the queen. now, will you paint us a scene--the scene of which i enclose bulwer's description from the prompter's book? it will be a cloth with a set-piece. it should be sent to your studio or put up in a theatre painting-room, as you would prefer. i have asked stanny to do another scene, edwin landseer, and louis haghe. the devonshire house performance will probably be on monday, the th of april. i should want to have the scenery complete by the th, as it would require to be elaborately worked and rehearsed. _you_ could do it in no time after sending in your pictures, and will you? what the value of such aid would be i need not say. i say no more of the reasons that induce me to ask it, because if they are not in the prospectus they are nowhere. on monday and tuesday nights i shall be in town for rehearsal, but until then i shall be here. will you let me have a line from you in reply? my dear roberts, ever faithfully yours. _description of the scene proposed:_ streets of london in the time of george i. in perspective, an alley inscribed deadman's lane; a large, old-fashioned, gloomy, mysterious house in the corner, marked no. . (_this no. , deadman's lane, has been constantly referred to in the play as the abode of a mysterious female figure, who enters masked, and passes into this house on the scene being disclosed._) it is night, and there are moonlight mediums. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] h. w. office, _monday, march th, ._ my dearest kate, i reserve all news of the play until i come down. the queen appoints the th of april. there is no end of trouble. my father slept well last night, and is as well this morning (they send word) as anyone in such a state, so cut and slashed, can be. i have been waiting at home for bulwer all the morning (it is now two), and am now waiting for lemon before i go up there. i will not close this note until i have been. it is raining here incessantly. the streets are in a most miserable state. a van, containing the goods of some unfortunate family moving, has broken down close outside, and the whole scene is a picture of dreariness. the children are quite well and very happy. i had dora down this morning, who was quite charmed to see me. that miss ketteridge appointed two to-day for seeing the house, and probably she is at this moment disparaging it. my father is very weak and low, but not worse, i hope, than might be expected. i am going home to dine with the children. by working here late to-night (coming back after dinner) i can finish what i have to do for the play. therefore i hope to be with you to-morrow, in good time for dinner. ever affectionately. p.s.--love to georgy. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] devonshire terrace, _thursday morning, april rd, ._ my dear wills, i took my threatened walk last night, but it yielded little but generalities. however, i thought of something for _to-night_, that i think will make a splendid paper. i have an idea that it might be connected with the gas paper (making gas a great agent in an effective police), and made one of the articles. this is it: "a night in a station-house." if you would go down to our friend mr. yardley, at scotland yard, and get a letter or order to the acting chief authority at that station-house in bow street, to enable us to hear the charges, observe the internal economy of the station-house all night, go round to the cells with the visiting policeman, etc., i would stay there, say from twelve to-night to four or five in the morning. we might have a "night-cap," a fire, and some tea at the office hard by. if you could conveniently borrow an hour or two from the night we could both go. if not, i would go alone. it would make a wonderful good paper at a most appropriate time, when the back slums of london are going to be invaded by all sorts of strangers. you needn't exactly say that _i_ was going _in propriâ_ (unless it were necessary), and, of course, you wouldn't say that i propose to-night, because i am so worn by the sad arrangements in which i am engaged, and by what led to them, that i cannot take my natural rest. but to-morrow night we go to the gas-works. i might not be so disposed for this station-house observation as i shall be to-night for a long time, and i see a most singular and admirable chance for us in the descriptive way, not to be lost. therefore, if you will arrange the thing before i come down at four this afternoon, any of the scotland yard people will do it, i should think; if our friend by any accident should not be there, i will go into it. if they should recommend any other station-house as better for the purpose, or would think it better for us to go to more than one under the guidance of some trustworthy man, of course we will pay any man and do as they recommend. but i think one topping station-house would be best. faithfully ever. p.s.--i write from my bed. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] _saturday, may th, ._ my dear macready, we are getting in a good heap of money for the guild. the comedy has been very much improved, in many respects, since you read it. the scene to which you refer is certainly one of the most telling in the play. and there _is_ a farce to be produced on tuesday next, wherein a distinguished amateur will sustain a variety of assumption-parts, and in particular, samuel weller and mrs. gamp, of which i say no more. i am pining for broadstairs, where the children are at present. i lurk from the sun, during the best part of the day, in a villainous compound of darkness, canvas, sawdust, general dust, stale gas (involving a vague smell of pepper), and disenchanted properties. but i hope to get down on wednesday or thursday. ah! you country gentlemen, who live at home at ease, how little do you think of us among the london fleas! but they tell me you are coming in for dorsetshire. you must be very careful, when you come to town to attend to your parliamentary duties, never to ask your way of people in the streets. they will misdirect you for what the vulgar call "a lark," meaning, in this connection, a jest at your expense. always go into some respectable shop or apply to a policeman. you will know him by his being dressed in blue, with very dull silver buttons, and by the top of his hat being made of sticking-plaster. you may perhaps see in some odd place an intelligent-looking man, with a curious little wooden table before him and three thimbles on it. he will want you to bet, but don't do it. he really desires to cheat you. and don't buy at auctions where the best plated goods are being knocked down for next to nothing. these, too, are delusions. if you wish to go to the play to see real good acting (though a little more subdued than perfect tragedy should be), i would recommend you to see ---- at the theatre royal, drury lane. anybody will show it to you. it is near the strand, and you may know it by seeing no company whatever at any of the doors. cab fares are eightpence a mile. a mile london measure is half a dorsetshire mile, recollect. porter is twopence per pint; what is called stout is fourpence. the zoological gardens are in the regent's park, and the price of admission is one shilling. of the streets, i would recommend you to see regent street and the quadrant, bond street, piccadilly, oxford street, and cheapside. i think these will please you after a time, though the tumult and bustle will at first bewilder you. if i can serve you in any way, pray command me. and with my best regards to your happy family, so remote from this babel, believe me, my dear friend, ever affectionately yours. p.s.--i forgot to mention just now that the black equestrian figure you will see at charing cross, as you go down to the house, is a statue of _king charles the first_. [sidenote: the earl of carlisle.] broadstairs, _july th, ._ my dear lord carlisle, we shall be delighted to see you, if you will come down on saturday. mr. lemon may perhaps be here, with his wife, but no one else. and we can give you a bed that may be surpassed, with a welcome that certainly cannot be. the general character of broadstairs as to size and accommodation was happily expressed by miss eden, when she wrote to the duke of devonshire (as he told me), saying how grateful she felt to a certain sailor, who asked leave to see her garden, for not plucking it bodily up, and sticking it in his button-hole. as we think of putting mignonette-boxes outside the windows, for the younger children to sleep in by-and-by, i am afraid we should give your servant the cramp if we hardily undertook to lodge him. but in case you should decide to bring one, he is easily disposable hard by. don't come by the boat. it is rather tedious, and both departs and arrives at inconvenient hours. there is a railway train from the dover terminus to ramsgate, at half-past twelve in the day, which will bring you in three hours. another at half-past four in the afternoon. if you will tell me by which you come (i hope the former), i will await you at the terminus with my little brougham. you will have for a night-light in the room we shall give you, the north foreland lighthouse. that and the sea and air are our only lions. it is a very rough little place, but a very pleasant one, and you will make it pleasanter than ever to me. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] broadstairs, kent, _july th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i am so desperately indignant with you for writing me that short apology for a note, and pretending to suppose that under any circumstances i could fail to read with interest anything _you_ wrote to me, that i have more than half a mind to inflict a regular letter upon you. if i were not the gentlest of men i should do it! poor dear haldimand, i have thought of him so often. that kind of decay is so inexpressibly affecting and piteous to me, that i have no words to express my compassion and sorrow. when i was at abbotsford, i saw in a vile glass case the last clothes scott wore. among them an old white hat, which seemed to be tumbled and bent and broken by the uneasy, purposeless wandering, hither and thither, of his heavy head. it so embodied lockhart's pathetic description of him when he tried to write, and laid down his pen and cried, that it associated itself in my mind with broken powers and mental weakness from that hour. i fancy haldimand in such another, going listlessly about that beautiful place, and remembering the happy hours we have passed with him, and his goodness and truth. i think what a dream we live in, until it seems for the moment the saddest dream that ever was dreamed. pray tell us if you hear more of him. we really loved him. to go to the opposite side of life, let me tell you that a week or so ago i took charley and three of his schoolfellows down the river gipsying. i secured the services of charley's godfather (an old friend of mine, and a noble fellow with boys), and went down to slough, accompanied by two immense hampers from fortnum and mason, on (i believe) the wettest morning ever seen out of the tropics. it cleared before we got to slough; but the boys, who had got up at four (we being due at eleven), had horrible misgivings that we might not come, in consequence of which we saw them looking into the carriages before us, all face. they seemed to have no bodies whatever, but to be all face; their countenances lengthened to that surprising extent. when they saw us, the faces shut up as if they were upon strong springs, and their waistcoats developed themselves in the usual places. when the first hamper came out of the luggage-van, i was conscious of their dancing behind the guard; when the second came out with bottles in it, they all stood wildly on one leg. we then got a couple of flys to drive to the boat-house. i put them in the first, but they couldn't sit still a moment, and were perpetually flying up and down like the toy figures in the sham snuff-boxes. in this order we went on to "tom brown's, the tailor's," where they all dressed in aquatic costume, and then to the boat-house, where they all cried in shrill chorus for "mahogany"--a gentleman, so called by reason of his sunburnt complexion, a waterman by profession. (he was likewise called during the day "hog" and "hogany," and seemed to be unconscious of any proper name whatsoever.) we embarked, the sun shining now, in a galley with a striped awning, which i had ordered for the purpose, and all rowing hard, went down the river. we dined in a field; what i suffered for fear those boys should get drunk, the struggles i underwent in a contest of feeling between hospitality and prudence, must ever remain untold. i feel, even now, old with the anxiety of that tremendous hour. they were very good, however. the speech of one became thick, and his eyes too like lobsters' to be comfortable, but only temporarily. he recovered, and i suppose outlived the salad he took. i have heard nothing to the contrary, and i imagine i should have been implicated on the inquest if there had been one. we had tea and rashers of bacon at a public-house, and came home, the last five or six miles in a prodigious thunderstorm. this was the great success of the day, which they certainly enjoyed more than anything else. the dinner had been great, and mahogany had informed them, after a bottle of light champagne, that he never would come up the river "with ginger company" any more. but the getting so completely wet through was the culminating part of the entertainment. you never in your life saw such objects as they were; and their perfect unconsciousness that it was at all advisable to go home and change, or that there was anything to prevent their standing at the station two mortal hours to see me off, was wonderful. as to getting them to their dames with any sort of sense that they were damp, i abandoned the idea. i thought it a success when they went down the street as civilly as if they were just up and newly dressed, though they really looked as if you could have rubbed them to rags with a touch, like saturated curl-paper. i am sorry you have not been able to see our play, which i suppose you won't now, for i take it you are not going on monday, the st, our last night in town? it is worth seeing, not for the getting up (which modesty forbids me to approve), but for the little bijou it is, in the scenery, dresses, and appointments. they are such as never can be got together again, because such men as stanfield, roberts, grieve, haghe, egg, and others, never can be again combined in such a work. everything has been done at its best from all sorts of authorities, and it is really very beautiful to look at. i find i am "used up" by the exhibition. i don't say "there is nothing in it"--there's too much. i have only been twice; so many things bewildered me. i have a natural horror of sights, and the fusion of so many sights in one has not decreased it. i am not sure that i have seen anything but the fountain and perhaps the amazon. it is a dreadful thing to be obliged to be false, but when anyone says, "have you seen ----?" i say, "yes," because if i don't, i know he'll explain it, and i can't bear that. ---- took all the school one day. the school was composed of a hundred "infants," who got among the horses' legs in crossing to the main entrance from the kensington gate, and came reeling out from between the wheels of coaches undisturbed in mind. they were clinging to horses, i am told, all over the park. when they were collected and added up by the frantic monitors, they were all right. they were then regaled with cake, etc., and went tottering and staring all over the place; the greater part wetting their forefingers and drawing a wavy pattern on every accessible object. one infant strayed. he was not missed. ninety and nine were taken home, supposed to be the whole collection, but this particular infant went to hammersmith. he was found by the police at night, going round and round the turnpike, which he still supposed to be a part of the exhibition. he had the same opinion of the police, also of hammersmith workhouse, where he passed the night. when his mother came for him in the morning, he asked when it would be over? it was a great exhibition, he said, but he thought it long. as i begin to have a foreboding that you will think the same of this act of vengeance of mine, this present letter, i shall make an end of it, with my heartiest and most loving remembrances to watson. i should have liked him of all things to have been in the eton expedition, tell him, and to have heard a song (by-the-bye, i have forgotten that) sung in the thunderstorm, solos by charley, chorus by the friends, describing the career of a booby who was plucked at college, every verse ending: i don't care a fig what the people may think, but what will the governor say! which was shouted with a deferential jollity towards myself, as a governor who had that day done a creditable action, and proved himself worthy of all confidence. with love to the boys and girls, ever, dear mrs. watson, most sincerely yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone.] "household words," _sunday, july th, ._ my dear stone, i have been considering the great house question since you kindly called yesterday evening, and come to the conclusion that i had better not let it go. i am convinced it is the prudent thing for me to do, and that i am very unlikely to find the same comforts for the rising generation elsewhere, for the same money. therefore, as robins no doubt understands that you would come to me yesterday--passing his life as he does amidst every possible phase of such negotiations--i think it hardly worth while to wait for the receipt of his coming letter. if you will take the trouble to call on him in the morning, and offer the £ , , i shall be very much obliged to you. if you will receive from me full power to conclude the purchase (subject of course to my solicitor's approval of the lease), pray do. i give you _carte blanche_ to £ , , but i think the £ , ought to win the day. i don't make any apologies for thrusting this honour upon you, knowing what a thorough-going old pump you are. lemon and his wife are coming here, after the rehearsal, to a gipsy sort of cold dinner. time, half-past three. viands, pickled salmon and cold pigeon-pie. occupation afterwards, lying on the carpet as a preparation for histrionic strength. will you come with us from the hanover square rooms? ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] broadstairs, kent, _sunday, july th, ._ my dear knight, a most excellent shadow![ ] i have sent it up to the printer, and wills is to send you a proof. will you look carefully at all the earlier part, where the use of the past tense instead of the present a little hurts the picturesque effect? i understand each phase of the thing to be _always a thing present before the mind's eye_--a shadow passing before it. whatever is done, must be _doing_. is it not so? for example, if i did the shadow of robinson crusoe, i should not say he _was_ a boy at hull, when his father lectured him about going to sea, and so forth; but he _is_ a boy at hull. there he is, in that particular shadow, eternally a boy at hull; his life to me is a series of shadows, but there is no "was" in the case. if i choose to go to his manhood, i can. these shadows don't change as realities do. no phase of his existence passes away, if i choose to bring it to this unsubstantial and delightful life, the only death of which, to me, is _my_ death, and thus he is immortal to unnumbered thousands. if i am right, will you look at the proof through the first third or half of the papers, and see whether the factor comes before us in that way? if not, it is merely the alteration of the verb here and there that is requisite. you say you are coming down to look for a place next week. now, jerrold says he is coming on thursday, by the cheap express at half-past twelve, to return with me for the play early on monday morning. can't you make that holiday too? i have promised him our only spare bed, but we'll find you a bed hard by, and shall be delighted "to eat and drink you," as an american once wrote to me. we will make expeditions to herne bay, canterbury, where not? and drink deep draughts of fresh air. come! they are beginning to cut the corn. you will never see the country so pretty. if you stay in town these days, you'll do nothing. i feel convinced you'll not buy the "memoirs of a man of quality." say you'll come! ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. frank stone.] broadstairs, kent, _saturday, august rd, ._ my dear stone, a "dim vision" occurs to me, arising out of your note; also presents itself to the brains of my other half. supposing you should find, on looking onward, a possibility of your being houseless at michaelmas, what do you say to using devonshire terrace as a temporary encampment? it will not be in its usual order, but we would take care that there should be as much useful furniture of all sorts there, as to render it unnecessary for you to move a stick. if you should think this a convenience, then i should propose to you to pile your furniture in the middle of the rooms at tavistock house, and go out to devonshire terrace two or three weeks _before_ michaelmas, to enable my workmen to commence their operations. this might be to our mutual convenience, and therefore i suggest it. certainly the sooner i can begin on tavistock house the better. and possibly your going into devonshire terrace might relieve you from a difficulty that would otherwise be perplexing. i make this suggestion (i need not say to _you_) solely on the chance of its being useful to both of us. if it were merely convenient to me, you know i shouldn't dream of it. such an arrangement, while it would cost you nothing, would perhaps enable you to get your new house into order comfortably, and do exactly the same thing for me. ever affectionately. p.s.--i anticipated your suggestion some weeks ago, when i found i couldn't build a stable. i said i ought to have permission to take the piece of ground into my garden, which was conceded. loaden writes me this morning that he thinks he can get permission to build a stable one storey high, without a chimney. i reply that on the whole i would rather enlarge the garden than build a stable with those restrictions. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] broadstairs, _sunday, september th, ._ my dear henry, i am in that state of mind which you may (once) have seen described in the newspapers as "bordering on distraction;" the house given up to me, the fine weather going on (soon to break, i daresay), the painting season oozing away, my new book waiting to be born, and no workmen on the premises, along of my not hearing from you!! i have torn all my hair off, and constantly beat my unoffending family. wild notions have occurred to me of sending in my own plumber to do the drains. then i remember that you have probably written to prepare _your_ man, and restrain my audacious hand. then stone presents himself, with a most exasperatingly mysterious visage, and says that a rat has appeared in the kitchen, and it's his opinion (stone's, not the rat's) that the drains want "compo-ing;" for the use of which explicit language i could fell him without remorse. in my horrible desire to "compo" everything, the very postman becomes my enemy because he brings no letter from you; and, in short, i don't see what's to become of me unless i hear from you to-morrow, which i have not the least expectation of doing. going over the house again, i have materially altered the plans--abandoned conservatory and front balcony--decided to make stone's painting-room the drawing-room (it is nearly six inches higher than the room below), to carry the entrance passage right through the house to a back door leading to the garden, and to reduce the once intended drawing-room--now school-room--to a manageable size, making a door of communication between the new drawing-room and the study. curtains and carpets, on a scale of awful splendour and magnitude, are already in preparation, and still--still-- no workmen on the premises. to pursue this theme is madness. where are you? when are you coming home? where is the man who is to do the work? does he know that an army of artificers must be turned in at once, and the whole thing finished out of hand? o rescue me from my present condition. come up to the scratch, i entreat and implore you! i send this to lætitia to forward, being, as you well know why, completely floored by n. w., i _sleep_. i hope you may be able to read this. my state of mind does not admit of coherence. ever affectionately. p.s.--no workmen on the premises! ha! ha! ha! (i am laughing demoniacally.) [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] broadstairs, _sunday, september st, ._ my dear henry, it is quite clear we could do nothing else with the drains than what you have done. will it be at all a heavy item in the estimate? if there be the _least_ chance of a necessity for the pillar, let us have it. let us dance in peace, whatever we do, and only go into the kitchen by the staircase. have they cut the door between the drawing-room and the study yet? the foreman will let shoolbred know when the feat is accomplished. o! and did you tell him of another brass ventilator in the dining-room, opening into the dining-room flue? i don't think i shall come to town until you want to show the progress, whenever that may be. i shall look forward to another dinner, and i think we must encourage the oriental, for the goodness of its wine. i am getting a complete set of a certain distinguished author's works prepared for a certain distinguished architect, which i hope he will accept, as a slight, though very inadequate, etc. etc.; affectionate, etc.; so heartily and kindly taking so much interest, etc. etc. love to lætitia. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] broadstairs, kent, _october th, ._ my dear henry, o! o! o! d---- the pantechnicon. o! i will be at tavistock house at twelve on saturday, and then will wait for you until i see you. if we return together--as i hope we shall--our express will start at half-past four, and we ought to dine (somewhere about temple bar) at three. the infamous ---- says the stoves shall be fixed to-morrow. o! if this were to last long; the distraction of the new book, the whirling of the story through one's mind, escorted by workmen, the imbecility, the wild necessity of beginning to write, the not being able to do so, the, o! i should go---- o! ever affectionately. p.s.--none. i have torn it off. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] broadstairs, kent, _october th, ._ on the death of her mother. my dear miss boyle, your remembrance at such a time--not thrown away upon me, trust me--is a sufficient assurance that you know how truly i feel towards you, and with what an earnest sympathy i must think of you now. god be with you! there is indeed nothing terrible in such a death, nothing that we would undo, nothing that we may remember otherwise than with deeply thankful, though with softened hearts. kate sends you her affectionate love. i enclose a note from georgina. pray give my kindest remembrances to your brother cavendish, and believe me now and ever, faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mr. eeles.] "household words" office, _wednesday evening, oct. nd, ._ dear mr. eeles, i send you the list i have made for the book-backs. i should like the "history of a short chancery suit" to come at the bottom of one recess, and the "catalogue of statues of the duke of wellington" at the bottom of the other. if you should want more titles, and will let me know how many, i will send them to you. faithfully yours. list of imitation book-backs. _tavistock house_, . five minutes in china. vols. forty winks at the pyramids. vols. abernethy on the constitution. vols. mr. green's overland mail. vols. captain cook's life of savage. vols. a carpenter's bench of bishops. vols. toot's universal letter-writer. vols. orson's art of etiquette. downeaster's complete calculator. history of the middling ages. vols. jonah's account of the whale. captain parry's virtues of cold tar. kant's ancient humbugs. vols. bowwowdom. a poem. the quarrelly review. vols. the gunpowder magazine. vols. steele. by the author of "ion." the art of cutting the teeth. matthew's nursery songs. vols. paxton's bloomers. vols. on the use of mercury by the ancient poets. drowsy's recollections of nothing. vols. heavyside's conversations with nobody. vols. commonplace book of the oldest inhabitant. vols. growler's gruffiology, with appendix. vols. the books of moses and sons. vols. burke (of edinburgh) on the sublime and beautiful. vols. teazer's commentaries. king henry the eighth's evidences of christianity. vols. miss biffin on deportment. morrison's pills progress. vols. lady godiva on the horse. munchausen's modern miracles. vols. richardson's show of dramatic literature. vols. hansard's guide to refreshing sleep. as many volumes as possible. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] office of "household words," _saturday, oct. th, ._ my dear henry, on the day of our departure, i thought we were going--backward--at a most triumphant pace; but yesterday we rather recovered. the painters still mislaid their brushes every five minutes, and chiefly whistled in the intervals; and the carpenters (especially the pantechnicon) continued to look sideways with one eye down pieces of wood, as if they were absorbed in the contemplation of the perspective of the thames tunnel, and had entirely relinquished the vanities of this transitory world; but still there was an improvement, and it is confirmed to-day. white lime is to be seen in kitchens, the bath-room is gradually resolving itself from an abstract idea into a fact--youthful, extremely youthful, but a fact. the drawing-room encourages no hope whatever, nor the study. staircase painted. irish labourers howling in the school-room, but i don't know why. i see nothing. gardener vigorously lopping the trees, and really letting in the light and air. foreman sweet-tempered but uneasy. inimitable hovering gloomily through the premises all day, with an idea that a little more work is done when he flits, bat-like, through the rooms, than when there is no one looking on. catherine all over paint. mister mccann, encountering inimitable in doorways, fades obsequiously into areas, and there encounters him again, and swoons with confusion. several reams of blank paper constantly spread on the drawing-room walls, and sliced off again, which looks like insanity. two men still clinking at the new stair-rails. i think they must be learning a tune; i cannot make out any other object in their proceedings. since writing the above, i have been up there again, and found the young paper-hanger putting on his slippers, and looking hard at the walls of the servants' room at the top of the house, as if he meant to paper it one of these days. may heaven prosper his intentions! when do you come back? i hope soon. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] clifton, _november th, ._ my dearest kate, i have just received your second letter, and am quite delighted to find that all is going on so vigorously, and that you are in such a methodical, business-like, and energetic state. i shall come home by the express on saturday morning, and shall hope to be at home between eleven and twelve. we had a noble night last night. the room (which is the largest but one in england) was crammed in every part. the effect of from thirteen to fourteen hundred people, all well dressed, and all seated in one unbroken chamber, except that the floor rose high towards the end of the hall, was most splendid, and we never played to a better audience. the enthusiasm was prodigious; the place delightful for speaking in; no end of gas; another hall for a dressing-room; an immense stage; and every possible convenience. we were all thoroughly pleased, i think, with the whole thing, and it was a very great and striking success. to-morrow-night, having the new hardman, i am going to try the play with all kinds of cuts, taking out, among other things, some half-dozen printed pages of "wills's coffee house." we are very pleasant and cheerful. they are all going to matthew davenport hill's to lunch this morning, and to see some woods about six or seven miles off. i prefer being quiet, and shall go out at my leisure and call on elliot. we are very well lodged and boarded, and, living high up on the downs, are quite out of the filth of bristol. i saw old landor at bath, who has bronchitis. when he was last in town, "kenyon drove him about, by god, half the morning, under a most damnable pretence of taking him to where walter was at school, and they never found the confounded house!" he had in his pocket on that occasion a souvenir for walter in the form of a union shirt-pin, which is now in my possession, and shall be duly brought home. i am tired enough, and shall be glad when to-morrow night is over. we expect a very good house. forster came up to town after the performance last night, and promised to report to you that all was well. jerrold is in extraordinary force. i don't think i ever knew him so humorous. and this is all my news, which is quite enough. i am continually thinking of the house in the midst of all the bustle, but i trust it with such confidence to you that i am quite at my ease about it. with best love to georgy and the girls, ever, my dearest kate, most affectionately yours. p.s.--i forgot to say that topham has suddenly come out as a juggler, and swallows candles, and does wonderful things with the poker very well indeed, but with a bashfulness and embarrassment extraordinarily ludicrous. [sidenote: mr. eeles.] tavistock house, tavistock square, _nov. th, ._ dear mr. eeles, i must thank you for the admirable manner in which you have done the book-backs in my room. i feel personally obliged to you, i assure you, for the interest you have taken in my whim, and the promptitude with which you have completely carried it out. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] tavistock house, _thursday afternoon, dec. th, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, i write in great haste to tell you that mr. wills, in the utmost consternation, has brought me your letter, just received (four o'clock), and that it is _too late_ to recall your tale. i was so delighted with it that i put it first in the number (not hearing of any objection to my proposed alteration by return of post), and the number is now made up and in the printer's hands. i cannot possibly take the tale out--it has departed from me. i am truly concerned for this, but i hope you will not blame me for what i have done in perfect good faith. any recollection of me from your pen cannot (as i think you know) be otherwise than truly gratifying to me; but with my name on every page of "household words," there would be--or at least i should feel--an impropriety in so mentioning myself. i was particular, in changing the author, to make it "hood's _poems_" in the most important place--i mean where the captain is killed--and i hope and trust that the substitution will not be any serious drawback to the paper in any eyes but yours. i would do anything rather than cause you a minute's vexation arising out of what has given me so much pleasure, and i sincerely beseech you to think better of it, and not to fancy that any shade has been thrown on your charming writing, by the unfortunate but innocent. p.s.--i write at a gallop, not to lose another post. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] tavistock house, _sunday, december st, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, if you were not the most suspicious of women, always looking for soft sawder in the purest metal of praise, i should call your paper delightful, and touched in the tenderest and most delicate manner. being what you are, i confine myself to the observation that i have called it "a love affair at cranford," and sent it off to the printer. faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: mr. peter cunningham.] tavistock house, _december th, ._ my dear cunningham, about the three papers. st. with mr. plowman of oxford, wills will communicate. nd. (now returned.) i have seen, in nearly the same form, before. the list of names is overwhelming. rd. i am not at all earnest in the savage matter; firstly, because i think so tremendous a vagabond never could have obtained an honest living in any station of existence or at any period of time; and secondly, because i think it of the highest importance that such an association as our guild should not appear to resent upon society the faults of individuals who were flagrantly impracticable. at its best, it is liable to that suspicion, as all such efforts have been on the part of many jealous persons, to whom it _must_ look for aid. and any stop that in the least encourages it is one of a fatal kind. i do _not_ think myself, but this is merely an individual opinion, that savage _was_ a man of genius, or that anything of his writing would have attracted much notice but for the bastard's reference to his mother. for these reasons combined, i should not be inclined to add my subscription of two guineas to yours, unless the inscription were altered as i have altered it in pencil. but in that case i should be very glad to respond to your suggestion, and to snuff out all my smaller disinclination. faithfully yours ever. footnote: [ ] mr. charles knight was writing a series of papers in "household words," called "shadows." . narrative. in the summer of this year, charles dickens hired a house at dover for three months, whither he went with his family. at the end of this time he sent his children and servants back to tavistock house, and crossed over to boulogne, with his wife and sister-in-law, to inspect that town and its neighbourhood, with a view of making it his summer quarters in the following year. many amateur performances were given in the provinces in aid of the fund for the guild of literature and art; charles dickens, as usual, taking the whole management on his own shoulders. in march, the first number of "bleak house" appeared, and he was at work on this book all through the year, as well as being constantly occupied with his editorship of "household words." we have, in the letters for this year, charles dickens's first to lord john russell (afterwards the earl russell); a friend whom he held in the highest estimation, and to whom he was always grateful for many personal kindnesses. we have also his first letter to mr. wilkie collins, with whom he became most intimately associated in literary work. the affectionate friendship he had for him, the high value in which he held him as a brother-artist, are constantly expressed in charles dickens's own letters to mr. collins, and in his letters to other friends. "those gallant men" (in the letter to mr. j. crofton croker) had reference to an antiquarian club, called the noviomagians, who were about to give a dinner in honour of sir edward belcher and captain kellett, the officers in command of the arctic exploring expedition, to which charles dickens was also invited. mr. crofton croker was the president of this club, and to denote his office it was customary to put on a cocked hat after dinner. the "lost character" he writes of in a letter to mrs. watson, refers to two different decipherings of his handwriting; this sort of study being in fashion then, and he and his friends at rockingham castle deriving much amusement from it. the letter dated july th was in answer to an anonymous correspondent, who wrote to him as follows: "i venture to trespass on your attention with one serious query, touching a sentence in the last number of 'bleak house.' do the supporters of christian missions to the heathen really deserve the attack that is conveyed in the sentence about jo' seated in his anguish on the door-step of the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts? the allusion is severe, but is it just? are such boys as jo' neglected? what are ragged schools, town missions, and many of those societies i regret to see sneered at in the last number of 'household words'?" the "duke of middlesex," in the letter we have here to mr. charles knight, was the name of the character played by mr. f. stone, in sir e. b. lytton's comedy of "not so bad as we seem." our last letter in this year, to mr. g. linnæus banks, was in acknowledgment of one from him on the subject of a proposed public dinner to charles dickens, to be given by the people of birmingham, when they were also to present him with a salver and a diamond ring. the dinner was given in the following year, and the ring and salver (the latter an artistic specimen of birmingham ware) were duly presented by mr. banks, who acted as honorary secretary, in the names of the subscribers, at the rooms of the birmingham fine arts association. mr. banks, and the artist, mr. j. c. walker, were the originators of this demonstration. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] tavistock house, _january st, ._ my dear macready, if the "taxes on knowledge" mean the stamp duty, the paper duty, and the advertisement duty, they seem to me to be unnecessarily confounded, and unfairly too. i have already declined to sign a petition for the removal of the stamp duty on newspapers. i think the reduced duty is some protection to the public against the rash and hasty launching of blackguard newspapers. i think the newspapers are made extremely accessible to the poor man at present, and that he would not derive the least benefit from the abolition of the stamp. it is not at all clear to me, supposing he wants _the times_ a penny cheaper, that he would get it a penny cheaper if the tax were taken off. if he supposes he would get in competition two or three new journals as good to choose from, he is mistaken; not knowing the immense resources and the gradually perfective machinery necessary to the production of such a journal. it appears to me to be a fair tax enough, very little in the way of individuals, not embarrassing to the public in its mode of being levied, and requiring some small consideration and pauses from the american kind of newspaper projectors. further, a committee has reported in favour of the repeal, and the subject may be held to need no present launching. the repeal of the paper duty would benefit the producers of periodicals immensely. it would make a very large difference to me, in the case of such a journal as "household words." but the gain to the public would be very small. it would not make the difference of enabling me, for example, to reduce the price of "household words," by its fractional effect upon a copy, or to increase the quantity of matter. i might, in putting the difference into my pocket, improve the quality of the paper a little, but not one man in a thousand would notice it. it _might_ (though i am not sure even of this) remove the difficulties in the way of a deserving periodical with a small sale. charles knight holds that it would. but the case, on the whole, appeared to me so slight, when i went to downing street with a deputation on the subject, that i said (in addressing the chancellor of the exchequer) i could not honestly maintain it for a moment as against the soap duty, or any other pressing on the mass of the poor. the advertisement duty has this preposterous anomaly, that a footman in want of a place pays as much in the way of tax for the expression of his want, as professor holloway pays for the whole list of his miraculous cures. but i think, at this time especially, there is so much to be considered in the necessity the country will be under of having money, and the necessity of justice it is always under, to consider the physical and moral wants of the poor man's home, as to justify a man in saying: "i must wait a little, all taxes are more or less objectionable, and so no doubt are these, but we must have some; and i have not made up my mind that all these things that are mixed up together _are_ taxes on knowledge in reality." kate and georgy unite with me in kindest and heartiest love to dear mrs. macready. we are always with you in spirit, and always talking about you. i am obliged to conclude very hastily, being beset to-day with business engagements. saw the lecture and was delighted; thought the idea admirable. again, loves upon loves to dear mrs. macready and to miss macready also, and kate and all the house. i saw ---- play (o heaven!) "macbeth," the other night, in three hours and fifty minutes, which is quick, i think. ever and always affectionately. [sidenote: mr. j. crofton croker.] tavistock house, _march th, ._ my dear sir, i have the greatest interest in those gallant men, and should have been delighted to dine in their company. i feel truly obliged to you for your kind remembrance on such an occasion. but i am engaged to lord lansdowne on wednesday, and can only drink to them in the spirit, which i have often done when they have been farther off. i hope you will find occasion to put on your cocked hat, that they may see how terrific and imposing "a fore-and-after" can be made on shore. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] tavistock house, _april th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, my "lost character" was one of those awful documents occasionally to be met with, which will be everywhere. it glared upon me from every drawer i had, fell out of books, lurked under keys, hid in empty inkstands, got into portfolios, frightened me by inscrutably passing into locked despatch-boxes, and was not one character, but a thousand. this was when i didn't want it. i look for it this morning, and it is nowhere! probably will never be beheld again. but it was very unlike this one; and there is no doubt that when these ventures come out good, it is only by lucky chance and coincidence. she never mentioned my love of order before, and it is so remarkable (being almost a _dis_order), that she ought to have fainted with surprise when my handwriting was first revealed to her. i was very sorry to leave rockingham the other day, and came away in quite a melancholy state. the birmingham people were very active; and the shrewsbury gentry quite transcendent. i hope we shall have a very successful and dazzling trip. it is delightful to me to think of your coming to birmingham; and, by-the-bye, if you will tell me in the previous week what hotel accommodation you want, mr. wills will look to it with the greatest pleasure. your bookseller ought to be cashiered. i suppose "he" (as rogers calls everybody's husband) went out hunting with the idea of diverting his mind from dwelling on its loss. abortive effort! charley brings this with himself. with kindest regards and remembrances, ever, dear mrs. watson, most faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] tavistock house, _june th, ._ my dear knight, a thousand thanks for the shadow, which, is charming. may you often go (out of town) and do likewise! i dined with charles kemble, yesterday, to meet emil devrient, the german actor. he said (devrient is my antecedent) that ophelia _spoke_ the snatches of ballads in their german version of "hamlet," because they didn't know the airs. tom taylor said that you had published the airs in your "shakespeare." i said that if it were so, i knew you would be happy to place them at the german's service. if you have got them and will send them to me, i will write to devrient (who knows no english) a french explanation and reminder of the circumstance, and will tell him that you responded like a man and a--i was going to say publisher, but you are nothing of the sort, except as tonson. then indeed you are every inch a pub.! ever affectionately. [sidenote: the lord john russell.] tavistock house, _wednesday, june th, ._ my dear lord, i am most truly obliged to you for your kind note, and for your so generously thinking of me in the midst of your many occupations. i do assure you that your ever ready consideration had already attached me to you in the warmest manner, and made me very much your debtor. i thank you unaffectedly and very earnestly, and am proud to be held in your remembrance. believe me always, yours faithfully and obliged. [sidenote: anonymous correspondent.] tavistock house, tavistock square, _july th, ._ sir, i have received your letter of yesterday's date, and shall content myself with a brief reply. there was a long time during which benevolent societies were spending immense sums on missions abroad, when there was no such thing as a ragged school in england, or any kind of associated endeavour to penetrate to those horrible domestic depths in which such schools are now to be found, and where they were, to my most certain knowledge, neither placed nor discovered by the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts. if you think the balance between the home mission and the foreign mission justly held in the present time, i do not. i abstain from drawing the strange comparison that might be drawn between the sums even now expended in endeavours to remove the darkest ignorance and degradation from our very doors, because i have some respect for mistakes that may be founded in a sincere wish to do good. but i present a general suggestion of the still-existing anomaly (in such a paragraph as that which offends you), in the hope of inducing some people to reflect on this matter, and to adjust the balance more correctly. i am decidedly of opinion that the two works, the home and the foreign, are _not_ conducted with an equal hand, and that the home claim is by far the stronger and the more pressing of the two. indeed, i have very grave doubts whether a great commercial country, holding communication with all parts of the world, can better christianise the benighted portions of it than by the bestowal of its wealth and energy on the making of good christians at home, and on the utter removal of neglected and untaught childhood from its streets, before it wanders elsewhere. for, if it steadily persist in this work, working downward to the lowest, the travellers of all grades whom it sends abroad will be good, exemplary, practical missionaries, instead of undoers of what the best professed missionaries can do. these are my opinions, founded, i believe, on some knowledge of facts and some observation. if i could be scared out of them, let me add in all good humour, by such easily-impressed words as "antichristian" or "irreligious," i should think that i deserved them in their real signification. i have referred in vain to page of "household words" for the sneer to which you call my attention. nor have i, i assure you, the least idea where else it is to be found. i am, sir, your faithful servant. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] , camden crescent, dover, _july nd, ._ my dear mary, this is indeed a noble letter. the description of the family is quite amazing. i _must_ return it myself to say that i have appreciated it. i am going to do "used up" at manchester on the nd of september. o, think of that! with another mary!!! how can i ever say, "_dear_ joe, if you like!" the voice may fully frame the falsehood, but the heart--the heart, mr. wurzel--will have no part in it. my dear mary, you do scant justice to dover. it is not quite a place to my taste, being too bandy (i mean musical, no reference to its legs), and infinitely too genteel. but the sea is very fine, and the walks are quite remarkable. there are two ways of going to folkestone, both lovely and striking in the highest degree; and there are heights, and downs, and country roads, and i don't know what, everywhere. to let you into a secret, i am not quite sure that i ever did like, or ever shall like, anything quite so well as "copperfield." but i foresee, i think, some very good things in "bleak house." i shouldn't wonder if they were the identical things that d'israeli sees looming in the distance. i behold them in the months ahead and weep. watson seemed, when i saw him last, to be holding on as by a sheet-anchor to theatricals at christmas. then, o rapture! but be still, my fluttering heart. this is one of what i call my wandering days before i fall to work. i seem to be always looking at such times for something i have not found in life, but may possibly come to a few thousands of years hence, in some other part of some other system. god knows. at all events i won't put your pastoral little pipe out of tune by talking about it. i'll go and look for it on the canterbury road among the hop-gardens and orchards. ever faithfully your friend, joe. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] , camden crescent, dover, _sunday, aug. st, ._ my dear knight, i don't see why you should go to the ship, and i won't stand it. the state apartment will be occupied by the duke of middlesex (whom i think you know), but we can easily get a bed for you hard by. therefore you will please to drive here next saturday evening. our regular dinner hour is half-past five. if you are later, you will find something ready for you. if you go on in that way about your part, i shall think you want to play mr. gabblewig. your rôle, though a small one on the stage, is a large one off it; and no man is more important to the guild, both on and off. my dear friend watson! dead after an illness of four days. he dined with us this day three weeks. i loved him as my heart, and cannot think of him without tears. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] dover, _august th, ._ my dear mark, poor dear watson was dead when the paragraph in the paper appeared. he was buried in his own church yesterday. last sunday three weeks (the day before he went abroad) he dined with us, and was quite well and happy. she has come home, is at rockingham with the children, and does not weakly desert his grave, but sets up her rest by it from the first. he had been wandering in his mind a little before his death, but recovered consciousness, and fell asleep (she says) quite gently and peacefully in her arms. i loved him very much, and god knows he deserved it. ever affectionately. [sidenote: the earl of carlisle.] , camden crescent, dover, _thursday, aug. th, ._ my dear lord carlisle, 'peared to me (as uncle tom would say) until within these last few days, that i should be able to write to you, joyfully accepting your saturday's invitation after newcastle, in behalf of all whom it concerned. but the sunderland people rushed into the field to propose our acting there on that saturday, the only possible night. and as it is the concluding guild expedition, and the guild has a paramount claim on us, i have been obliged to knock my own inclinations on the head, cut the throat of my own wishes, and bind the company hand and foot to the sunderland lieges. i don't mean to tell them now of your invitation until we shall have got out of that country. there might be rebellion. we are staying here for the autumn. is there any hope of your repeating your visit to these coasts? ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] , camden crescent, dover, _august th, ._ on the death of mr. watson. my dear, dear mrs. watson, i cannot bear to be silent longer, though i know full well--no one better i think--how your love for him, and your trust in god, and your love for your children will have come to the help of such a nature as yours, and whispered better things than any friendship can, however faithful and affectionate. we held him so close in our hearts--all of us here--and have been so happy with him, and so used to say how good he was, and what a gentle, generous, noble spirit he had, and how he shone out among commoner men as something so real and genuine, and full of every kind of worthiness, that it has often brought the tears into my eyes to talk of him; we have been so accustomed to do this when we looked forward to years of unchanged intercourse, that now, when everything but truth goes down into the dust, those recollections which make the sword so sharp pour balm into the wound. and if it be a consolation to us to know the virtues of his character, and the reasons that we had for loving him, o how much greater is your comfort who were so devoted to him, and were the happiness of his life! we have thought of you every day and every hour; we think of you now in the dear old house, and know how right it is, for his dear children's sake, that you should have bravely set up your rest in the place consecrated by their father's memory, and within the same summer shadows that fall upon his grave. we try to look on, through a few years, and to see the children brightening it, and george a comfort and a pride and an honour to you; and although it _is_ hard to think of what we have lost, we know how something of it will be restored by your example and endeavours, and the blessing that will descend upon them. we know how the time will come when some reflection of that cordial, unaffected, most affectionate presence, which we can never forget, and never would forget if we could--such is god's great mercy--will shine out of your boy's eyes upon you, his best friend and his last consoler, and fill the void there is now. may god, who has received into his rest through this affliction as good a man as ever i can know and love and mourn for on this earth, be good to you, dear friends, through these coming years! may all those compassionate and hopeful lessons of the great teacher who shed divine tears for the dead bring their full comfort to you! i have no fear of that, my confidence is certainty. i cannot write what i wish; i had so many things to say, i seem to have said none. it is so with the remembrances we send. i cannot put them into words. if you should ever set up a record in the little church, i would try to word it myself, and god knows out of the fulness of my heart, if you should think it well. my dear friend, yours, with the truest affection and sympathy. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] hÃ�tel des bains, boulogne, _tuesday night, oct. th, ._ on the death of mrs. macready. my dearest macready, i received your melancholy letter while we were staying at dover, a few days after it was written; but i thought it best not to write to you until you were at home again, among your dear children. its tidings were not unexpected to us, had been anticipated in many conversations, often thought of under many circumstances; but the shock was scarcely lessened by this preparation. the many happy days we have passed together came crowding back; all the old cheerful times arose before us; and the remembrance of what we had loved so dearly and seen under so many aspects--all natural and delightful and affectionate and ever to be cherished--was, how pathetic and touching you know best! but my dear, dear macready, this is not the first time you have felt that the recollection of great love and happiness associated with the dead soothes while it wounds. and while i can imagine that the blank beside you may grow wider every day for many days to come, i _know_--i think--that from its depths such comfort will arise as only comes to great hearts like yours, when they can think upon their trials with a steady trust in god. my dear friend, i have known her so well, have been so happy in her regard, have been so light-hearted with her, have interchanged so many tender remembrances of you with her when you were far away, and have seen her ever so simply and truly anxious to be worthy of you, that i cannot write as i would and as i know i ought. as i would press your hand in your distress, i let this note go from me. i understand your grief, i deeply feel the reason that there is for it, yet in that very feeling find a softening consolation that must spring up a hundred-thousandfold for you. may heaven prosper it in your breast, and the spirits that have gone before, from the regions of mercy to which they have been called, smooth the path you have to tread alone! children are left you. your good sister (god bless her!) is by your side. you have devoted friends, and more reasons than most men to be self-reliant and stedfast. something is gone that never in this world can be replaced, but much is left, and it is a part of her life, her death, her immortality. catherine and georgina, who are with me here, send you their overflowing love and sympathy. we hope that in a little while, and for a little while at least, you will come among us, who have known the happiness of being in this bond with you, and will not exclude us from participation in your past and future. ever, my dearest macready, with unchangeable affection, yours in all love and truth. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] hÃ�tel des bains, boulogne, _tuesday, oct. th, ._ my dear wills, h. w. i have thought of the christmas number, but not very successfully, because i have been (and still am) constantly occupied with "bleak house." i purpose returning home either on sunday or monday, as my work permits, and we will, immediately thereafter, dine at the office and talk it over, so that you may get all the men to their work. the fault of ----'s poem, besides its intrinsic meanness as a composition, is that it goes too glibly with the comfortable ideas (of which we have had a great deal too much in england since the continental commotions) that a man is to sit down and make himself domestic and meek, no matter what is done to him. it wants a stronger appeal to rulers in general to let men do this, fairly, by governing them well. as it stands, it is at about the tract-mark ("dairyman's daughter," etc.) of political morality, and don't think that it is necessary to write _down_ to any part of our audience. i always hold that to be as great a mistake as can be made. i wish you would mention to thomas, that i think the paper on hops _extremely well done_. he has quite caught the idea we want, and caught it in the best way. in pursuing the bridge subject, i think it would be advisable to look up the _thames police_. i have a misty notion of some capital papers coming out of it. will you see to this branch of the tree among the other branches? myself. to chapman i will write. my impression is that i shall not subscribe to the hood monument, as i am not at all favourable to such posthumous honours. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] hÃ�tel des bains, boulogne, _wednesday night, oct. th, ._ my dear wills, the number coming in after dinner, since my letter was written and posted, i have gone over it. i am grievously depressed by it; it is so exceedingly bad. if you have anything else to put first, don't put ----'s paper first. (there is nothing better for a beginning in the number as it stands, but this is very bad.) it is a mistake to think of it as a first article. the article itself is in the main a mistake. firstly, the subject requires the greatest discretion and nicety of touch. and secondly, it is all wrong and self-contradictory. nobody can for a moment suppose that "sporting" amusements are the sports of the people; the whole gist of the best part of the description is to show that they are the amusements of a peculiar and limited class. the greater part of them are at a miserable discount (horse-racing excepted, which has been already sufficiently done in h. w.), and there is no reason for running amuck at them at all. i have endeavoured to remove much of my objection (and i think have done so), but, both in purpose and in any general address, it is as wide of a first article as anything can well be. it would do best in the opening of the number. about sunday in paris there is no kind of doubt. take it out. such a thing as that crucifixion, unless it were done in a masterly manner, we have no business to stagger families with. besides, the name is a comprehensive one, and should include a quantity of fine matter. lord bless me, what i could write under that head! strengthen the number, pray, by anything good you may have. it is a very dreary business as it stands. the proofs want a thorough revision. in haste, going to bed. ever faithfully. p.s.--i want a name for miss martineau's paper. triumphant carriages (or triumphal). dublin stoutheartedness. patience and prejudice. take which you like best. [sidenote: mr. john watkins.] monday, _october th, ._ sir, on my return to town i find the letter awaiting me which you did me the favour to address to me, i believe--for it has no date--some days ago. i have the greatest tenderness for the memory of hood, as i had for himself. but i am not very favourable to posthumous memorials in the monument way, and i should exceedingly regret to see any such appeal as you contemplate made public, remembering another public appeal that was made and responded to after hood's death. i think that i best discharge my duty to my deceased friend, and best consult the respect and love with which i remember him, by declining to join in any such public endeavours as that which you (in all generosity and singleness of purpose, i am sure) advance. i shall have a melancholy gratification in privately assisting to place a simple and plain record over the remains of a great writer that should be as modest as he was himself, but i regard any other monument in connection with his mortal resting-place as a mistake. i am, sir, your faithful servant. [sidenote: rev. james white.] office of "household words," _tuesday, oct. th, ._ my dear white, we are now getting our christmas extra number together, and i think you are the boy to do, if you will, one of the stories. i propose to give the number some fireside name, and to make it consist entirely of short stories supposed to be told by a family sitting round the fire. _i don't care about their referring to christmas at all_; nor do i design to connect them together, otherwise than by their names, as: the grandfather's story. the father's story. the daughter's story. the schoolboy's story. the child's story. the guest's story. the old nurse's story. the grandfather might very well be old enough to have lived in the days of the highwaymen. do you feel disposed, from fact, fancy, or both, to do a good winter-hearth story of a highwayman? if you do, i embrace you (per post), and throw up a cap i have purchased for the purpose into mid-air. think of it and write me a line in reply. we are all well and blooming. are you never coming to town any more? never going to drink port again, metropolitaneously, but _always_ with fielden? love to mrs. white and the children, if lotty be not out of the list long ago. ever faithfully, my dear white. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] athenÃ�um, _monday, november nd, ._ my dear mrs. watson, having just now finished my work for the time being, i turn in here in the course of a rainy walk, to have the gratification of writing a few lines to you. if my occupations with this same right hand were less numerous, you would soon be tired of me, i should write to you so often. you asked catherine a question about "bleak house." its circulation is half as large again as "copperfield"! i have just now come to the point i have been patiently working up to in the writing, and i hope it will suggest to you a pretty and affecting thing. in the matter of "uncle tom's cabin," i partly though not entirely agree with mr. james. no doubt a much lower art will serve for the handling of such a subject in fiction, than for a launch on the sea of imagination without such a powerful bark; but there are many points in the book very admirably done. there is a certain st. clair, a new orleans gentleman, who seems to me to be conceived with great power and originality. if he had not "a grecian outline of face," which i began to be a little tired of in my earliest infancy, i should think him unexceptionable. he has a sister too, a maiden lady from new england, in whose person the besetting weaknesses and prejudices of the abolitionists themselves, on the subject of the blacks, are set forth in the liveliest and truest colours and with the greatest boldness. i have written for "household words" of this next publication-day an article on the state funeral,[ ] showing why i consider it altogether a mistake, to be temperately but firmly objected to; which i daresay will make a good many of the admirers of such things highly indignant. it may have right and reason on its side, however, none the less. charley and i had a great talk at dover about his going into the army, when i thought it right to set before him fairly and faithfully the objections to that career, no less than its advantages. the result was that he asked in a very manly way for time to consider. so i appointed to go down to eton on a certain day at the beginning of this month, and resume the subject. we resumed it accordingly at the white hart, at windsor, and he came to the conclusion that he would rather be a merchant, and try to establish some good house of business, where he might find a path perhaps for his younger brothers, and stay at home, and make himself the head of that long, small procession. i was very much pleased with him indeed; he showed a fine sense and a fine feeling in the whole matter. we have arranged, therefore, that he shall leave eton at christmas, and go to germany after the holidays, to become well acquainted with that language, now most essential in such a walk of life as he will probably tread. and i think this is the whole of my news. we are always talking of you at home. mary boyle dined with us a little while ago. you look out, i imagine, on a waste of water. when i came from windsor, i thought i must have made a mistake and got into a boat (in the dark) instead of a railway-carriage. catherine and georgina send their kindest loves. i am ever, with the best and truest wishes of my heart, my dear mrs. watson, your most affectionate friend. [sidenote: rev. james white.] office of "household words," _monday, nov. nd, ._ my dear white, first and foremost, there is no doubt whatever of your story suiting "household words." it is a very good story indeed, and would be serviceable at any time. i am not quite so clear of its suiting the christmas number, for this reason. you know what the spirit of the christmas number is. when i suggested the stories being about a highwayman, i got hold of that idea as being an adventurous one, including various kinds of wrong, expressing a state of society no longer existing among us, and pleasant to hear (therefore) from an old man. now, your highwayman not being a real highwayman after all, the kind of suitable christmas interest i meant to awaken in the story is not in it. do you understand? for an ordinary number it is quite unobjectionable. if you should think of any other idea, narratable by an old man, which you think would strike the chord of the season; and if you should find time to work it out during the short remainder of this month, i should be greatly pleased to have it. in any case, this story goes straightway into type. what tremendous weather it is! our best loves to all at home. (i have just bought thirty bottles of the most stunning port on earth, which ellis of the star and garter, richmond, wrote to me of.) i think you will find some good going in the next "bleak house." i write shortly, having been working my head off. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] office of "household words," _wednesday, dec. st, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, i send you the proof of "the old nurse's story," with my proposed alteration. i shall be glad to know whether you approve of it. to assist you in your decision, i send you, also enclosed, the original ending. and i have made a line with ink across the last slip but one, where the alteration begins. of course if you wish to enlarge, explain, or re-alter, you will do it. do not keep the proof longer than you can help, as i want to get to press with all despatch. i hope i address this letter correctly. i am far from sure. in haste. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] tavistock house, _thursday, december th, ._ my dear wills, i am driven mad by dogs, who have taken it into their accursed heads to assemble every morning in the piece of ground opposite, and who have barked this morning _for five hours without intermission_; positively rendering it impossible for me to work, and so making what is really ridiculous quite serious to me. i wish, between this and dinner, you would send john to see if he can hire a gun, with a few caps, some powder, and a few charges of small shot. if you duly commission him with a card, he can easily do it. and if i get those implements up here to-night, i'll be the death of some of them to-morrow morning. ever faithfully. [sidenote: rev. james white.] tavistock house, _thursday evening, dec. th, ._ my dear white, i hear you are not going to poor macready's. now, don't you think it would do you good to come here instead? _i_ say it would, and i ought to know! we can give you everything but a bed (all ours are occupied in consequence of the boys being at home), and shall all be delighted to see you. leave the bed to us, and we'll find one hard by. i say nothing of the last day of the old year, and the dancing out of that good old worthy that will take place here (for you might like to hear the bells at home); but after the twentieth, i shall be comparatively at leisure, and good for anything or nothing. don't you consider it your duty to your family to come? _i_ do, and i again say that i ought to know. our best love to mrs. white and lotty--happily so much better, we rejoice to hear--and all. so no more at present from the inimitable b. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] tavistock house, _friday, dec. th, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, i received your kind note yesterday morning with the truest gratification, for i _am_ the writer of "the child's story" as well as of "the poor relation's." i assure you, you have given me the liveliest and heartiest pleasure by what you say of it. i don't claim for my ending of "the nurse's story" that it would have made it a bit better. all i can urge in its behalf is, that it is what i should have done myself. but there is no doubt of the story being admirable as it stands, and there _is_ some doubt (i think) whether forster would have found anything wrong in it, if he had not known of my hammering over the proofs in making up the number, with all the three endings before me. with kindest regards to mr. gaskell, ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] tavistock house, _monday, dec. th, ._ my dear collins, if i did not know that you are likely to have a forbearing remembrance of my occupation, i should be full of remorse for not having sooner thanked you for "basil." not to play the sage or the critic (neither of which parts, i hope, is at all in my line), but to say what is the friendly truth, i may assure you that i have read the book with very great interest, and with a very thorough conviction that you have a call to this same art of fiction. i think the probabilities here and there require a little more respect than you are disposed to show them, and i have no doubt that the prefatory letter would have been better away, on the ground that a book (of all things) should speak for and explain itself. but the story contains admirable writing, and many clear evidences of a very delicate discrimination of character. it is delightful to find throughout that you have taken great pains with it besides, and have "gone at it" with a perfect knowledge of the jolter-headedness of the conceited idiots who suppose that volumes are to be tossed off like pancakes, and that any writing can be done without the utmost application, the greatest patience, and the steadiest energy of which the writer is capable. for all these reasons, i have made "basil's" acquaintance with great gratification, and entertain a high respect for him. and i hope that i shall become intimate with many worthy descendants of his, who are yet in the limbo of creatures waiting to be born. always faithfully yours. p.s.--i am open to any proposal to go anywhere any day or days this week. fresh air and change in any amount i am ready for. if i could only find an idle man (this is a general observation), he would find the warmest recognition in this direction. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] tavistock house, _monday evening, dec. th, ._ my dear stone, every appearance of brightness! shall i expect you to-morrow morning? if so, at what hour? i think of taking train afterwards, and going down for a walk on chatham lines. if you can spare the day for fresh air and an impromptu bit of fish and chop, i can recommend you one of the most delightful of men for a companion. o, he is indeed refreshing!!! ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] office of "household words," _christmas eve, ._ my dear wills, i have gone carefully through the number--an awful one for the amount of correction required--and have made everything right. if my mind could have been materialised, and drawn along the tops of all the spikes on the outside of the queen's bench prison, it could not have been more agonised than by the ----, which, for imbecility, carelessness, slovenly composition, relatives without antecedents, universal chaos, and one absorbing whirlpool of jolter-headedness, beats anything in print and paper i have ever "gone at" in my life. i shall come and see how you are to-morrow. meantime everything is in perfect trim in these parts, and i have sent down to stacey to come here and top up with a final interview before i go. just after i had sent the messenger off to you, yesterday, concerning the toll-taker memoranda, the other idea came into my head, and in the most obliging manner came out of it. ever faithfully yours. p.s.--here is ---- perpetually flitting about brydges street, and hovering in the neighbourhood, with a veil of secrecy drawn down over his chin, so ludicrously transparent, that i can't help laughing while he looks at me. [sidenote: mr. g. linnæus banks.] tavistock house, _sunday, dec. th, ._ my dear sir, i will not attempt to tell you how affected and gratified i am by the intelligence your kind letter conveys to me. nothing would be more welcome to me than such a mark of confidence and approval from such a source, nothing more precious, or that i could set a higher worth upon. i hasten to return the gauges, of which i have marked one as the size of the finger, from which this token will never more be absent as long as i live. with feelings of the liveliest gratitude and cordiality towards the many friends who so honour me, and with many thanks to you for the genial earnestness with which you represent them, i am, my dear sir, very faithfully yours. p.s.--will you do me the favour to inform the dinner committee that a friend of mine, mr. clement, of shrewsbury, is very anxious to purchase a ticket for the dinner, and that if they will be so good as to forward one for him to me i shall feel much obliged. footnote: [ ] the great duke of wellington's funeral. . narrative. in this year, charles dickens was still writing "bleak house," and went to brighton for a short time in the spring. in may he had an attack of illness, a return of an old trouble of an inflammatory pain in the side, which was short but very severe while it lasted. immediately on his recovery, early in june, a departure from london for the summer was resolved upon. he had decided upon trying boulogne this year for his holiday sojourn, and as soon as he was strong enough to travel, he, his wife, and sister-in-law went there in advance of the family, taking up their quarters at the hôtel des bains, to find a house, which was speedily done. the pretty little villa des moulineaux, and its excellent landlord, at once took his fancy, and in that house, and in another on the same ground, also belonging to m. beaucourt, he passed three very happy summers. and he became as much attached to "our french watering place" as to "our english" one. having written a sketch of broadstairs under that name in "household words," he did the same of boulogne under the former title. during the summer, besides his other work, he was employed in dictating "the child's history of england," which he published in "household words," and which was the only book he ever wrote by dictation. but, as at broadstairs and other seaside homes, he had always plenty of relaxation and enjoyment in the visits of his friends. in september he finished "bleak house," and in october he started with mr. wilkie collins and mr. egg from boulogne, on an excursion through parts of switzerland and italy; his wife and family going home at the same time, and he himself returning to tavistock house early in december. his eldest son, charles, had left eton some time before this, and had gone for the completion of his education to leipsic. he was to leave germany at the end of the year, therefore it was arranged that he should meet the travellers in paris on their homeward journey, and they all returned together. just before christmas he went to birmingham in fulfilment of an offer which he had made at the dinner given to him at birmingham on the th of january (of which he writes to mr. macready in the first letter that follows here), to give two readings from his own books for the benefit of the new midland institute. they were his first public readings. he read "the christmas carol" on one evening, and "the cricket on the hearth" on the next, before enormous audiences. the success was so great, and the sum of money realised for the institute so large, that he consented to give a second reading of "the christmas carol," remaining another night in birmingham for the purpose, on the condition that seats were reserved, at prices within their means, for the working men. and to his great satisfaction they formed a large proportion, and were among the most enthusiastic and appreciative of his audience. he was accompanied by his wife and sister-in-law, and on this occasion a breakfast was given to him after his last reading, at which a silver flower-basket, duly inscribed, was very gracefully presented to _mrs._ charles dickens. the letters in this year require little explanation. those to his wife and sister-in-law and mr. wills give a little history of his italian journey. at naples he found his excellent friend sir james emerson tennent, with his wife and daughter, with whom he joined company in the ascent of vesuvius. the two letters to m. regnier, the distinguished actor of the théâtre français--with whom charles dickens had formed a sincere friendship during his first residence in paris--on the subject of a projected benefit to miss kelly, need no further explanation. mr. john delane, editor of _the times_, and always a highly-esteemed friend of charles dickens, had given him an introduction to a school at boulogne, kept by two english gentlemen, one a clergyman and the other a former eton master, the rev. w. bewsher and mr. gibson. he had at various times four boys at this school, and very frequently afterwards he expressed his gratitude to mr. delane for having given him the introduction, which turned out so satisfactory in every respect. the letter of grateful acknowledgment from mr. poole and charles dickens to lord russell was for the pension for which the old dramatic author was indebted to that nobleman, and which enabled him to live comfortably until the end of his life. a note to mr. marcus stone was sent with a copy of "the child's history of england." the sketch referred to was one of "jo'," in "bleak house," which showed great feeling and artistic promise, since fully fulfilled by the young painter, but very remarkable in a boy so young as he was at that time. the letter to mr. stanfield, in seafaring language, is a specimen of a playful way in which he frequently addressed that dear friend. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] "a curiosity from _him_. no date. no signature."--w. h. h. my dear wills, i have not a shadow of a doubt about miss martineau's story. it is certain to tell. i think it very effectively, admirably done; a fine plain purpose in it; quite a singular novelty. for the last story in the christmas number it will be great. i couldn't wish for a better. mrs. gaskell's ghost story i have got this morning; have not yet read. it is long. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield.] h.m.s. _tavistock, january nd, ._ yoho, old salt! neptun' ahoy! you don't forget, messmet, as you was to meet dick sparkler and mark porpuss on the fok'sle of the good ship _owssel words_, wednesday next, half-past four? not you; for when did stanfell ever pass his word to go anywheers and not come! well. belay, my heart of oak, belay! come alongside the _tavistock_ same day and hour, 'stead of _owssel words_. hail your shipmets, and they'll drop over the side and join you, like two new shillings a-droppin' into the purser's pocket. damn all lubberly boys and swabs, and give me the lad with the tarry trousers, which shines to me like di'mings bright! [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] tavistock house, _friday night, jan. th, ._ my dearest macready, i have been much affected by the receipt of your kindest and best of letters; for i know out of the midst of what anxieties it comes to me, and i appreciate such remembrance from my heart. you and yours are always with us, however. it is no new thing for you to have a part in any scene of my life. it very rarely happens that a day passes without our thoughts and conversation travelling to sherborne. we are so much there that i cannot tell you how plainly i see you as i write. i know you would have been full of sympathy and approval if you had been present at birmingham, and that you would have concurred in the tone i tried to take about the eternal duties of the arts to the people. i took the liberty of putting the court and that kind of thing out of the question, and recognising nothing _but_ the arts and the people. the more we see of life and its brevity, and the world and its varieties, the more we know that no exercise of our abilities in any art, but the addressing of it to the great ocean of humanity in which we are drops, and not to bye-ponds (very stagnant) here and there, ever can or ever will lay the foundations of an endurable retrospect. is it not so? _you_ should have as much practical information on this subject, now, my dear friend, as any man. my dearest macready, i cannot forbear this closing word. i still look forward to our meeting as we used to do in the happy times we have known together, so far as your old hopefulness and energy are concerned. and i think i never in my life have been more glad to receive a sign, than i have been to hail that which i find in your handwriting. some of your old friends at birmingham are full of interest and enquiry. kate and georgina send their dearest loves to you, and to miss macready, and to all the children. i am ever, and no matter where i am--and quite as much in a crowd as alone--my dearest macready, your affectionate and most attached friend. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] tavistock house, _may rd, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, the subject is certainly not too serious, so sensibly treated. i have no doubt that you may do a great deal of good by pursuing it in "household words." i thoroughly agree in all you say in your note, have similar reasons for giving it some anxious consideration, and shall be greatly interested in it. pray decide to do it. send the papers, as you write them, to me. meanwhile i will think of a name for them, and bring it to bear upon yours, if i think yours improvable. i am sure you may rely on being widely understood and sympathised with. forget that i called those two women my dear friends! why, if i told you a fiftieth part of what i have thought about them, you would write me the most suspicious of notes, refusing to receive the fiftieth part of that. so i don't write, particularly as you laid your injunctions on me concerning ruth. in revenge, i will now mention one word that i wish you would take out whenever you reprint that book. she would never--i am ready to make affidavit before any authority in the land--have called her seducer "sir," when they were living at that hotel in wales. a girl pretending to be what she really was would have done it, but she--never! ever most faithfully yours. [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] tavistock house, _monday, may th, ._ my dear regnier, i meant to have spoken to you last night about a matter in which i hope you can assist me, but i forgot it. i think i must have been quite _bouleversé_ by your supposing (as you pretended to do, when you went away) that it was not a great pleasure and delight to me to see you act! there is a certain miss kelly, now sixty-two years old, who was once one of the very best of english actresses, in the greater and better days of the english theatre. she has much need of a benefit, and i am exerting myself to arrange one for her, on about the th of june, if possible, at the st. james's theatre. the first piece will be an entertainment of her own, and she will act in the last. between these two (and at the best time of the night), it would be a great attraction to the public, and a great proof of friendship to me, if you would act. if we could manage, through your influence and with your assistance, to present a little french vaudeville, such as "_le bon homme jadis_," it would make the night a grand success. mitchell's permission, i suppose, would be required. that i will undertake to apply for, if you will tell me that you are willing to help us, and that you could answer for the other necessary actors in the little french piece, whatever the piece might be, that you would choose for the purpose. pray write me a short note in answer, on this point. i ought to tell you that the benefit will be "under distinguished patronage." the duke of devonshire, the duke of leinster, the duke of beaufort, etc. etc., are members of the committee with me, and i have no doubt that the audience will be of the _élite_. i have asked mr. chapman to come to me to-morrow, to arrange for the hiring of the theatre. mr. harley (a favourite english comedian whom you may know) is our secretary. and if i could assure the committee to-morrow afternoon of your co-operation, i am sure they would be overjoyed. _votre tout dévoué._ [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] tavistock house, _may th, ._ my dear regnier, i am heartily obliged to you for your kind letter respecting miss kelly's benefit. it is to take place _on thursday, the th june_; thursday the th (the day originally proposed) being the day of ascot races, and therefore a bad one for the purpose. mitchell, like a brave _garçon_ as he is, most willingly consents to your acting for us. will you think what little french piece it will be best to do, in order that i may have it ready for the bills? ever faithfully yours, my dear regnier. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] boulogne, _monday, june th, ._ my dear wills, you will be glad, i know, to hear that we had a delightful passage yesterday, and that i made a perfect phenomenon of a dinner. it is raining hard to-day, and my back feels the draught; but i am otherwise still mending. i have signed, sealed, and delivered a contract for a house (once occupied for two years by a man i knew in switzerland), which is not a large one, but stands in the middle of a great garden, with what the landlord calls a "forest" at the back, and is now surrounded by flowers, vegetables, and all manner of growth. a queer, odd, french place, but extremely well supplied with all table and other conveniences, and strongly recommended. the address is: château des moulineaux, rue beaurepaire, boulogne. there is a coach-house, stabling for half-a-dozen horses, and i don't know what. we take possession this afternoon, and i am now laying in a good stock of creature comforts. so no more at present from yours ever faithfully. p.s.--mrs. dickens and her sister unite in kindest regards. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] chÃ�teau des moulineaux, boulogne, _saturday night, june th, ._ my dear wills, "bleak house." thank god, i have done half the number with great care, and hope to finish on thursday or friday next. o how thankful i feel to be able to have done it, and what a relief to get the number out! general movements of inimitable. _i don't think_ (i am not sure) i shall come to london until after the completion of "bleak house," no. --the number after this now in hand--for it strikes me that i am better here at present. i have picked up in the most extraordinary manner, and i believe you would never suppose to look at me that i had had that week or barely an hour of it. if there should be any occasion for our meeting in the meantime, a run over here would do you no harm, and we should be delighted to see you at any time. if you suppose this place to be in a street, you are much mistaken. it is in the country, though not more than ten minutes' walk from the post-office, and is the best doll's-house of many rooms, in the prettiest french grounds, in the most charming situation i have ever seen; the best place i have ever lived in abroad, except at genoa. you can scarcely imagine the beauty of the air in this richly-wooded hill-side. as to comforts in the house, there are all sorts of things, beginning with no end of the coldest water and running through the most beautiful flowers down to english foot-baths and a parisian liqueur-stand. your parcel (frantic enclosures and all) arrived quite safely last night. this will leave by steamer to-morrow, sunday evening. there is a boat in the morning, but having no one to send to-night i can't reach it, and to-morrow being sunday it will come to much the same thing. i think that's all at present. ever, my dear wills, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] chÃ�teau des moulineaux, rue beaurepaire, boulogne, _thursday, june rd, ._ my dear pumpion, i take the earliest opportunity, after finishing my number--ahem!--to write you a line, and to report myself (thank god) brown, well, robust, vigorous, open to fight any man in england of my weight, and growing a moustache. any person of undoubted pluck, in want of a customer, may hear of me at the bar of bleak house, where my money is down. i think there is an abundance of places here that would suit you well enough; and georgina is ready to launch on voyages of discovery and observation with you. but it is necessary that you should consider for how long a time you want it, as the folks here let much more advantageously for the tenant when they know the term--don't like to let without. it seems to me that the best thing you can do is to get a paper of the south eastern tidal trains, fix your day for coming over here in five hours (when you will pay through to boulogne at london bridge), let me know the day, and come and see how you like the place. _i_ like it better than ever. we can give you a bed (two to spare, at a pinch three), and show you a garden and a view or so. the town is not so cheap as places farther off, but you get a great deal for your money, and by far the best wine at tenpence a bottle that i have ever drank anywhere. i really desire no better. i may mention for your guidance (for i count upon your coming to overhaul the general aspect of things), that you have nothing on earth to do with your luggage when it is once in the boat, _until after you have walked ashore_. that you will be filtered with the rest of the passengers through a hideous, whitewashed, quarantine-looking custom-house, where a stern man of a military aspect will demand your passport. that you will have nothing of the sort, but will produce your card with this addition: "restant à boulogne, chez m. charles dickens, château des moulineaux." that you will then be passed out at a little door, like one of the ill-starred prisoners on the bloody september night, into a yelling and shrieking crowd, cleaving the air with the names of the different hotels, exactly seven thousand six hundred and fifty-four in number. and that your heart will be on the point of sinking with dread, then you will find yourself in the arms of the sparkler of albion. all unite in kindest regards. ever affectionately. p.s.--i thought you might like to see the flourish again. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] boulogne, _wednesday, july th, ._ my dear wills, i have thought of another article to be called "frauds upon the fairies," _à propos_ of george cruikshank's editing. half playfully and half seriously, i mean to protest most strongly against alteration, for any purpose, of the beautiful little stories which are so tenderly and humanly useful to us in these times, when the world is too much with us, early and late; and then to re-write "cinderella" according to total abstinence, peace society, and bloomer principles, and expressly for their propagation. i shall want his book of "hop o' my thumb" (forster noticed it in the last _examiner_), and the most simple and popular version of "cinderella" you can get me. i shall not be able to do it until after finishing "bleak house," but i shall do it the more easily for having the books by me. so send them, if convenient, in your next parcel. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] chÃ�teau des moulineaux, boulogne, _sunday, aug. th, ._ my dearest macready, some unaccountable delay in the transmission here of the parcel which contained your letter, caused me to come into the receipt of it a whole week after its date. i immediately wrote to miss coutts, who has written to you, and i hope some good may come of it. i know it will not be her fault if none does. i was very much concerned to read your account of poor mrs. warner, and to read her own plain and unaffected account of herself. pray assure her of my cordial sympathy and remembrance, and of my earnest desire to do anything in my power to help to put her mind at ease. we are living in a beautiful little country place here, where i have been hard at work ever since i came, and am now (after an interval of a week's rest) going to work again to finish "bleak house." kate and georgina send their kindest loves to you, and miss macready, and all the rest. they look forward, i assure you, to their sherborne visit, when i--a mere forlorn wanderer--shall be roaming over the alps into italy. i saw "the midsummer night's dream" of the opéra comique, done here (very well) last night. the way in which a poet named willyim shay kes peer gets drunk in company with sir john foll stayffe, fights with a noble 'night, lor latimeer (who is in love with a maid-of-honour you may have read of in history, called mees oleevia), and promises not to do so any more on observing symptoms of love for him in the queen of england, is very remarkable. queen elizabeth, too, in the profound and impenetrable disguise of a black velvet mask, two inches deep by three broad, following him into taverns and worse places, and enquiring of persons of doubtful reputation for "the sublime williams," was inexpressibly ridiculous. and yet the nonsense was done with a sense quite admirable. i have been very much struck by the book you sent me. it is one of the wisest, the manliest, and most serviceable i ever read. i am reading it again with the greatest pleasure and admiration. ever most affectionately yours, my dear macready. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] villa des moulineaux, boulogne, _saturday, aug. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i received your letter--most welcome and full of interest to me--when i was hard at work finishing "bleak house." we are always talking of you; and i had said but the day before, that one of the first things i would do on my release would be to write to you. to finish the topic of "bleak house" at once, i will only add that i like the conclusion very much and think it _very pretty indeed_. the story has taken extraordinarily, especially during the last five or six months, when its purpose has been gradually working itself out. it has retained its immense circulation from the first, beating dear old "copperfield" by a round ten thousand or more. i have never had so many readers. we had a little reading of the final double number here the night before last, and it made a great impression i assure you. we are all extremely well, and like boulogne very much indeed. i laid down the rule before we came, that we would know nobody here, and we _do_ know nobody here. we evaded callers as politely as we could, and gradually came to be understood and left to ourselves. it is a fine bracing air, a beautiful open country, and an admirable mixture of town and country. we live on a green hill-side out of the town, but are in the town (on foot) in ten minutes. things are tolerably cheap, and exceedingly good; the people very cheerful, good-looking, and obliging; the houses very clean; the distance to london short, and easily traversed. i think if you came to know the place (which i never did myself until last october, often as i have been through it), you could be but in one mind about it. charley is still at leipzig. i shall take him up somewhere on the rhine, to bring him home for christmas, as i come back on my own little tour. he has been in the hartz mountains on a walking tour, and has written a journal thereof, which he has sent home in portions. it has cost about as much in postage as would have bought a pair of ponies. i contemplate starting from here on monday, the th of october; catherine, georgina, and the rest of them will then go home. i shall go first by paris and geneva to lausanne, for it has a separate place in my memory. if the autumn should be very fine (just possible after such a summer), i shall then go by chamonix and martigny, over the simplon to milan, thence to genoa, leghorn, pisa, and naples, thence, i hope, to sicily. back by bologna, florence, rome, verona, mantua, etc., to venice, and home by germany, arriving in good time for christmas day. three nights in christmas week, i have promised to read in the town hall at birmingham, for the benefit of a new and admirable institution for working men projected there. the friday will be the last night, and i shall read the "carol" to two thousand working people, stipulating that they shall have that night entirely to themselves. it just occurs to me that i mean to engage, for the two months odd, a travelling servant. i have not yet got one. if you should happen to be interested in any good foreigner, well acquainted with the countries and the languages, who would like such a master, how delighted i should be to like _him_! ever since i have been here, i have been very hard at work, often getting up at daybreak to write through many hours. i have never had the least return of illness, thank god, though i was so altered (in a week) when i came here, that i doubt if you would have known me. i am redder and browner than ever at the present writing, with the addition of a rather formidable and fierce moustache. lowestoft i know, by walking over there from yarmouth, when i went down on an exploring expedition, previous to "copperfield." it is a fine place. i saw the name "blunderstone" on a direction-post between it and yarmouth, and took it from the said direction-post for the book. we imagined the captain's ecstasies when we saw the birth of his child in the papers. in some of the descriptions of chesney wold, i have taken many bits, chiefly about trees and shadows, from observations made at rockingham. i wonder whether you have ever thought so! i shall hope to hear from you again soon, and shall not fail to write again before i go away. there seems to be nothing but "i" in this letter; but "i" know, my dear friend, that you will be more interested in that letter in the present connection, than in any other i could take from the alphabet. catherine and georgina send their kindest loves, and more messages than this little sheet would hold. if i were to give you a hint of what we feel at the sight of your handwriting, and at the receipt of a word from yourself about yourself, and the dear boys, and the precious little girls, i should begin to be sorrowful, which is rather the tendency of my mind at the close of another long book. i heard from cerjat two or three days since. goff, by-the-bye, lived in this house two years. ever, my dear mrs. watson, yours, with true affection and regard. [sidenote: mr. peter cunningham.] chÃ�teau des moulineaux, rue beaurepaire, boulogne. my dear cunningham, a note--cerberus-like--of three heads. first. i know you will be glad to hear that the manager is himself again. vigorous, brown, energetic, muscular; the pride of albion and the admiration of gaul. secondly. i told wills when i left home, that i was quite pained to see the end of your excellent "bowl of punch" altered. i was unaffectedly touched and gratified by the heartiness of the original; and saw no earthly, celestial, or subterranean objection to its remaining, as it did not so unmistakably apply to me as to necessitate the observance of my usual precaution in the case of such references, by any means. thirdly. if you ever have a holiday that you don't know what to do with, _do_ come and pass a little time here. we live in a charming garden in a very pleasant country, and should be delighted to receive you. excellent light wines on the premises, french cookery, millions of roses, two cows (for milk punch), vegetables cut for the pot, and handed in at the kitchen window; five summer-houses, fifteen fountains (with no water in 'em), and thirty-seven clocks (keeping, as i conceive, australian time; having no reference whatever to the hours on this side of the globe). i know, my dear cunningham, that the british nation can ill afford to lose you; and that when the audit office mice are away, the cats of that great public establishment will play. but pray consider that the bow may be sometimes bent too long, and that ever-arduous application, even in patriotic service, is to be avoided. no one can more highly estimate your devotion to the best interests of britain than i. but i wish to see it tempered with a wise consideration for your own amusement, recreation, and pastime. all work and no play may make peter a dull boy as well as jack. and (if i may claim the privilege of friendship to remonstrate) i would say that you do not take enough time for your meals. dinner, for instance, you habitually neglect. believe me, this rustic repose will do you good. winkles also are to be obtained in these parts, and it is well remarked by poor richard, that a bird in the handbook is worth two in the bush. ever cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. walter savage landor.] tavistock house, london, _sept. th, ._ my dear landor, i am in town for a day or two, and forster tells me i may now write to thank you for the happiness you have given me by honouring my name with such generous mention, on such a noble place, in your great book. i believe he has told you already that i wrote to him from boulogne, not knowing what to do, as i had not received the precious volume, and feared you might have some plan of sending it to me, with which my premature writing would interfere. you know how heartily and inexpressibly i prize what you have written to me, or you never would have selected me for such a distinction. i could never thank you enough, my dear landor, and i will not thank you in words any more. believe me, i receive the dedication like a great dignity, the worth of which i hope i thoroughly know. the queen could give me none in exchange that i wouldn't laughingly snap my fingers at. we are staying at boulogne until the th of october, when i go into italy until christmas, and the rest come home. kate and georgina would send you their best loves if they were here, and would never leave off talking about it if i went back and told them i had written to you without such mention of them. walter is a very good boy, and comes home from school with honourable commendation. he passed last sunday in solitary confinement (in a bath-room) on bread and water, for terminating a dispute with the nurse by throwing a chair in her direction. it is the very first occasion of his ever having got into trouble, for he is a great favourite with the whole house, and one of the most amiable boys in the boy world. (he comes out on birthdays in a blaze of shirt-pin). if i go and look at your old house, as i shall if i go to florence, i shall bring you back another leaf from the same tree as i plucked the last from. ever, my dear landor, heartily and affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. john delane.] villa des moulineaux, boulogne, _monday, sept. th, ._ my dear delane, i am very much obliged to you, i assure you, for your frank and full reply to my note. nothing could be more satisfactory, and i have to-day seen mr. gibson and placed my two small representatives under his charge. his manner is exactly what you describe him. i was greatly pleased with his genuineness altogether. we remain here until the tenth of next month, when i am going to desert my wife and family and run about italy until christmas. if i can execute any little commission for you or mrs. delane--in the genoa street of silversmiths, or anywhere else--i shall be delighted to do so. i have been in the receipt of several letters from macready lately, and rejoice to find him quite himself again, though i have great misgivings that he will lose his eldest boy before he can be got to india. mrs. dickens and her sister are proud of your message, and beg their kind regards to be forwarded in return; my other half being particularly comforted and encouraged by your account of mr. gibson. in this charge i am to include mrs. delane, who, i hope, will make an exchange of remembrances, and give me hers for mine. i never saw anything so ridiculous as this place at present. they expected the emperor ten or twelve days ago, and put up all manner of triumphal arches made of evergreens, which look like tea-leaves now, and will take a withered and weird appearance hardly to be foreseen, long before the twenty-fifth, when the visit is vaguely expected to come off. in addition to these faded garlands all over the leading streets, there are painted eagles hoisted over gateways and sprawling across a hundred ways, which have been washed out by the rain and are now being blistered by the sun, until they look horribly ludicrous. and a number of our benighted compatriots who came over to see a perfect blaze of _fêtes_, go wandering among these shrivelled preparations and staring at ten thousand flag-poles without any flags upon them, with a kind of indignant curiosity and personal injury quite irresistible. with many thanks, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] boulogne, _sunday, sept. th, ._ my dear wills, courier. edward kaub will bring this. he turned up yesterday, accounting for his delay by waiting for a written recommendation, and having at the last moment (as a foreigner, not being an englishman) a passport to get. i quite agree with you as to his appearance and manner, and have engaged him. it strikes me that it would be an excellent beginning if you would deliver him a neat and appropriate address, telling him what in your conscience you can find to tell of me favourably as a master, and particularly impressing upon him _readiness and punctuality_ on his part as the great things to be observed. i think it would have a much better effect than anything i could say in this stage, if said from yourself. but i shall be much obliged to you if you will act upon this hint forthwith. w. h. wills. no letter having arrived from the popular author of "the larboard fin,"[ ] by this morning's post, i rather think one must be on the way in the pocket of gordon's son. if kaub calls for this before young scotland arrives, you will understand if i do not herein refer to an unreceived letter. but i shall leave this open, until kaub comes for it. ever faithfully. [sidenote: the lord john russell.] villa des moulineaux, boulogne, _wednesday, sept. st, ._ my dear lord, your note having been forwarded to me here, i cannot forbear thanking you with all my heart for your great kindness. mr. forster had previously sent me a copy of your letter to him, together with the expression of the high and lasting gratification he had in your handsome response. i know he feels it most sincerely. i became the prey of a perfect spasm of sensitive twinges, when i found that the close of "bleak house" had not penetrated to "the wilds of the north" when your letter left those parts. i was so very much interested in it myself when i wrote it here last month, that i have a fond sort of faith in its interesting its readers. but for the hope that you may have got it by this time, i should refuse comfort. that supports me. the book has been a wonderful success. its audience enormous. i fear there is not much chance of my being able to execute any little commission for lady john anywhere in italy. but i am going across the alps, leaving here on the tenth of next month, and returning home to london for christmas day, and should indeed be happy if i could do her any dwarf service. you will be interested, i think, to hear that poole lives happily on his pension, and lives within it. he is quite incapable of any mental exertion, and what he would have done without it i cannot imagine. i send it to him at paris every quarter. it is something, even amid the estimation in which you are held, which is but a foreshadowing of what shall be by-and-by as the people advance, to be so gratefully remembered as he, with the best reason, remembers you. forgive my saying this. but the manner of that transaction, no less than the matter, is always fresh in my memory in association with your name, and i cannot help it. my dear lord, yours very faithfully and obliged. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] boulogne, _wednesday, sept. st, ._ my dear mrs. watson, the courier was unfortunately engaged. he offered to recommend another, but i had several applicants, and begged mr. wills to hold a grand review at the "household words" office, and select the man who is to bring me down as his victim. i am extremely sorry the man you recommend was not to be had. i should have been so delighted to take him. i am finishing "the child's history," and clearing the way through "household words," in general, before i go on my trip. i forget whether i told you that mr. egg the painter and mr. collins are going with me. the other day i was in town. in case you should not have heard of the condition of that deserted village, i think it worth mentioning. all the streets of any note were unpaved, mountains high, and all the omnibuses were sliding down alleys, and looking into the upper windows of small houses. at eleven o'clock one morning i was positively _alone_ in bond street. i went to one of my tailors, and he was at brighton. a smutty-faced woman among some gorgeous regimentals, half finished, had not the least idea when he would be back. i went to another of my tailors, and he was in an upper room, with open windows and surrounded by mignonette boxes, playing the piano in the bosom of his family. i went to my hosier's, and two of the least presentable of "the young men" of that elegant establishment were playing at draughts in the back shop. (likewise i beheld a porter-pot hastily concealed under a turkish dressing-gown of a golden pattern.) i then went wandering about to look for some ingenious portmanteau, and near the corner of st. james's street saw a solitary being sitting in a trunk-shop, absorbed in a book which, on a close inspection, i found to be "bleak house." i thought this looked well, and went in. and he really was more interested in seeing me, when he knew who i was, than any face i had seen in any house, every house i knew being occupied by painters, including my own. i went to the athenæum that same night, to get my dinner, and it was shut up for repairs. i went home late, and had forgotten the key and was locked out. preparations were made here, about six weeks ago, to receive the emperor, who is not come yet. meanwhile our countrymen (deluded in the first excitement) go about staring at these arrangements, with a personal injury upon them which is most ridiculous. and they _will_ persist in speaking an unknown tongue to the french people, who _will_ speak english to them. kate and georgina send their kindest loves. we are all quite well. going to drop two small boys here, at school with a former eton tutor highly recommended to me. charley was heard of a day or two ago. he says his professor "is very short-sighted, always in green spectacles, always drinking weak beer, always smoking a pipe, and always at work." the last qualification seems to appear to charley the most astonishing one. ever, my dear mrs. watson, most affectionately yours. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] hotel de la villa, milan, _tuesday, oct. th, ._ my dear georgy, i have walked to that extent in switzerland (walked over the simplon on sunday, as an addition to the other feats) that one pair of the new strong shoes has gone to be mended this morning, and the other is in but a poor way; the snow having played the mischief with them. on the swiss side of the simplon, we slept at the beastliest little town, in the wildest kind of house, where some fifty cats tumbled into the corridor outside our bedrooms all at once in the middle of the night--whether through the roof or not, i don't know; for it was dark when we got up--and made such a horrible and terrific noise that we started out of our beds in a panic. i strongly objected to opening the door lest they should get into the room and tear at us; but edward opened his, and laid about him until he dispersed them. at domo d'ossola we had three immense bedrooms (egg's bed twelve feet wide!), and a sala of imperceptible extent in the dim light of two candles and a wood fire; but were very well and very cheaply entertained. here, we are, as you know, housed in the greatest comfort. we continue to get on very well together. we really do admirably. i lose no opportunity of inculcating the lesson that it is of no use to be out of temper in travelling, and it is very seldom wanted for any of us. egg is an excellent fellow, and full of good qualities; i am sure a generous and staunch man at heart, and a good and honourable nature. i shall send catherine from genoa a list of the places where letters will find me. i shall hope to hear from you too, and shall be very glad indeed to do so. no more at present. ever most affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] croce di malta, genoa, _saturday, oct. th, ._ my dearest georgy, we had thirty-one hours consecutively on the road between this and milan, and arrived here in a rather damaged condition. we live at the top of this immense house, overlooking the port and sea, pleasantly and airily enough, though it is no joke to get so high, and though the apartment is rather vast and faded. the old walks are pretty much the same as ever, except that they have built behind the peschiere on the san bartolomeo hill, and changed the whole town towards san pietro d'arena, where we seldom went. the bisagno looks just the same, strong just now, and with very little water in it. vicoli stink exactly as they used to, and are fragrant with the same old flavour of very rotten cheese kept in very hot blankets. the mezzaro pervades them as before. the old jesuit college in the strada nuova is under the present government the hôtel de ville, and a very splendid caffé with a terrace garden has arisen between it and palavicini's old palace. another new and handsome caffé has been built in the piazza carlo felice, between the old caffé of the bei arti (where fletcher stopped for the bouquets in the green times, when we went to the ----'s party), and the strada carlo felice. the old beastly gate and guardhouse on the albaro road are still in their dear old beastly state, and the whole of that road is just as it was. the man without legs is still in the strada nuova; but the beggars in general are all cleared off, and our old one-armed belisario made a sudden evaporation a year or two ago. i am going to the peschiere to-day. the puppets are here, and the opera is open, but only with a buffo company, and without a buffet. we went to the scala, where they did an opera of verdi's, called "il trovatore," and a poor enough ballet. the whole performance miserable indeed. i wish you were here to take some of the old walks. it is quite strange to walk about alone. good-bye, my dear georgy. pray tell me how kate is. i rather fancy from her letter, though i scarcely know why, that she is not quite as well as she was at boulogne. i was charmed with your account of the plornishghenter and everything and everybody else. kiss them all for me. ever most affectionately yours. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] hÃ�tel des Ã�trangers, naples, _friday night, nov. th, ._ my dearest georgy, instead of embarking on monday at genoa, we were delayed (in consequence of the boat's being a day later when there are thirty-one days in the month) until tuesday. going aboard that morning at half-past nine, we found the steamer more than full of passengers from marseilles, and in a state of confusion not to be described. we could get no places at the table, got our dinners how we could on deck, had no berths or sleeping accommodation of any kind, and had paid heavy first-class fares! to add to this, we got to leghorn too late to steam away again that night, getting the ship's papers examined first--as the authorities said so, not being favourable to the new express english ship, english officered--and we lay off the lighthouse all night long. the scene on board beggars description. ladies on the tables, gentlemen under the tables, and ladies and gentlemen lying indiscriminately on the open deck, arrayed like spoons on a sideboard. no mattresses, no blankets, nothing. towards midnight, attempts were made by means of an awning and flags to make this latter scene remotely approach an australian encampment; and we three lay together on the bare planks covered with overcoats. we were all gradually dozing off when a perfectly tropical rain fell, and in a moment drowned the whole ship. the rest of the night was passed upon the stairs, with an immense jumble of men and women. when anybody came up for any purpose we all fell down; and when anybody came down we all fell up again. still, the good-humour in the english part of the passengers was quite extraordinary. there were excellent officers aboard, and the first mate lent me his cabin to wash in in the morning, which i afterwards lent to egg and collins. then we and the emerson tennents (who were aboard) and the captain, the doctor, and the second officer went off on a jaunt together to pisa, as the ship was to lie at leghorn all day. the captain was a capital fellow, but i led him, facetiously, such a life all day, that i got almost everything altered at night. emerson tennent, with the greatest kindness, turned his son out of his state room (who, indeed, volunteered to go in the most amiable manner), and i got a good bed there. the store-room down by the hold was opened for egg and collins, and they slept with the moist sugar, the cheese in cut, the spices, the cruets, the apples and pears--in a perfect chandler's shop; in company with what the ----'s would call a "hold gent"--who had been so horribly wet through overnight that his condition frightened the authorities--a cat, and the steward--who dozed in an arm-chair, and all night long fell headforemost, once in every five minutes, on egg, who slept on the counter or dresser. last night i had the steward's own cabin, opening on deck, all to myself. it had been previously occupied by some desolate lady, who went ashore at civita vecchia. there was little or no sea, thank heaven, all the trip; but the rain was heavier than any i have ever seen, and the lightning very constant and vivid. we were, with the crew, some two hundred people; with boats, at the utmost stretch, for one hundred, perhaps. i could not help thinking what would happen if we met with any accident; the crew being chiefly maltese, and evidently fellows who would cut off alone in the largest boat on the least alarm. the speed (it being the crack express ship for the india mail) very high; also the running through all the narrow rocky channels. thank god, however, here we are. though the more sensible and experienced part of the passengers agreed with me this morning that it was not a thing to try often. we had an excellent table after the first day, the best wines and so forth, and the captain and i swore eternal friendship. ditto the first officer and the majority of the passengers. we got into the bay about seven this morning, but could not land until noon. we towed from civita vecchia the entire greek navy, i believe, consisting of a little brig-of-war, with great guns, fitted as a steamer, but disabled by having burst the bottom of her boiler in her first run. she was just big enough to carry the captain and a crew of six or so, but the captain was so covered with buttons and gold that there never would have been room for him on board to put these valuables away if he hadn't worn them, which he consequently did, all night. whenever anything was wanted to be done, as slackening the tow-rope or anything of that sort, our officers roared at this miserable potentate, in violent english, through a speaking-trumpet, of which he couldn't have understood a word under the most favourable circumstances, so he did all the wrong things first, and the right things always last. the absence of any knowledge of anything not english on the part of the officers and stewards was most ridiculous. i met an italian gentleman on the cabin steps, yesterday morning, vainly endeavouring to explain that he wanted a cup of tea for his sick wife. and when we were coming out of the harbour at genoa, and it was necessary to order away that boat of music you remember, the chief officer (called aft for the purpose, as "knowing something of italian,") delivered himself in this explicit and clear manner to the principal performer: "now, signora, if you don't sheer off, you'll be run down; so you had better trice up that guitar of yours, and put about." we get on as well as possible, and it is extremely pleasant and interesting, and i feel that the change is doing me great and real service, after a long continuous strain upon the mind; but i am pleased to think that we are at our farthest point, and i look forward with joy to coming home again, to my old room, and the old walks, and all the old pleasant things. i wish i had arranged, or could have done so--for it would not have been easy--to find some letters here. it is a blank to stay for five days in a place without any. i don't think edward knows fifty italian words; but much more french is spoken in italy now than when we were here, and he stumbles along somehow. i am afraid this is a dull letter, for i am very tired. you must take the will for the deed, my dear, and good night. ever most affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] rome, _sunday night, nov. th, ._ my dearest georgy, we arrived here yesterday afternoon, at between three and four. on sending to the post-office this morning, i received your pleasant little letter, and one from miss coutts, who is still at paris. but to my amazement there was none from catherine! you mention her writing, and i cannot but suppose that your two letters must have been posted together. however, i received none from her, and i have all manner of doubts respecting the plainness of its direction. they will not produce the letters here as at genoa, but persist in looking them out at the post-office for you. i shall send again to-morrow, and every day until friday, when we leave here. if i find no letter from her _to-morrow_, i shall write to her nevertheless by that post which brings this, so that you may both hear from me together. one night, at naples, edward came in, open-mouthed, to the table d'hôte where we were dining with the tennents, to announce "the marchese garofalo." i at first thought it must be the little parrot-marquess who was once your escort from genoa; but i found him to be a man (married to an englishwoman) whom we used to meet at ridgway's. he was very glad to see me, and i afterwards met him at dinner at mr. lowther's, our chargé d'affaires. mr. lowther was at the rockingham play, and is a very agreeable fellow. we had an exceedingly pleasant dinner of eight, preparatory to which i was near having the ridiculous adventure of not being able to find the house and coming back dinnerless. i went in an open carriage from the hotel in all state, and the coachman, to my surprise, pulled up at the end of the chiaja. "behold the house," says he, "of il signor larthoor!"--at the same time pointing with his whip into the seventh heaven, where the early stars were shining. "but the signor larthoor," returns the inimitable darling, "lives at pausilippo." "it is true," says the coachman (still pointing to the evening star), "but he lives high up the salita sant' antonio, where no carriage ever yet ascended, and that is the house" (evening star as aforesaid), "and one must go on foot. behold the salita sant' antonio!" i went up it, a mile and a half i should think. i got into the strangest places, among the wildest neapolitans--kitchens, washing-places, archways, stables, vineyards--was baited by dogs, answered in profoundly unintelligible neapolitan, from behind lonely locked doors, in cracked female voices, quaking with fear; could hear of no such englishman or any englishman. by-and-by i came upon a polenta-shop in the clouds, where an old frenchman, with an umbrella like a faded tropical leaf (it had not rained for six weeks) was staring at nothing at all, with a snuff-box in his hand. to him i appealed concerning the signor larthoor. "sir," said he, with the sweetest politeness, "can you speak french?" "sir," said i, "a little." "sir," said he, "i presume the signor loothere"--you will observe that he changed the name according to the custom of his country--"is an englishman." i admitted that he was the victim of circumstances and had that misfortune. "sir," said he, "one word more. _has_ he a servant with a wooden leg?" "great heaven, sir," said i, "how do i know! i should think not, but it is possible." "it is always," said the frenchman, "possible. almost all the things of the world are always possible." "sir," said i--you may imagine my condition and dismal sense of my own absurdity, by this time--"that is true." he then took an immense pinch of snuff, wiped the dust off his umbrella, led me to an arch commanding a wonderful view of the bay of naples, and pointed deep into the earth from which i had mounted. "below there, near the lamp, one finds an englishman, with a servant with a wooden leg. it is always possible that he is the signor loothere." i had been asked at six, and it was now getting on for seven. i went down again in a state of perspiration and misery not to be described, and without the faintest hope of finding the place. but as i was going down to the lamp, i saw the strangest staircase up a dark corner, with a man in a white-waistcoat (evidently hired) standing on the top of it, fuming. i dashed in at a venture, found it was the place, made the most of the whole story, and was indescribably popular. the best of it was, that as nobody ever did find the place, he had put a servant at the bottom of the salita, to "wait for an english gentleman." the servant (as he presently pleaded), deceived by the moustache, had allowed the english gentleman to pass unchallenged. the night before we left naples we were at the san carlo, where, with the verdi rage of our old genoa time, they were again doing the "trovatore." it seemed rubbish on the whole to me, but was very fairly done. i think "la tenco," the prima donna, will soon be a great hit in london. she is a very remarkable singer and a fine actress, to the best of my judgment on such premises. there seems to be no opera here, at present. there was a festa in st. peter's to-day, and the pope passed to the cathedral in state. we were all there. we leave here, please god, on friday morning, and post to florence in three days and a half. we came here by vetturino. upon the whole, the roadside inns are greatly improved since our time. half-past three and half-past four have been, however, our usual times of rising on the road. i was in my old place at the coliseum this morning, and it was as grand as ever. with that exception the ruined part of rome--the real original rome--looks smaller than my remembrance made it. it is the only place on which i have yet found that effect. we are in the old hotel. you are going to bonchurch i suppose? will be there, perhaps, when this letter reaches you? i shall be pleased to think of you as at home again, and making the commodious family mansion look natural and home-like. i don't like to think of my room without anybody to peep into it now and then. here is a world of travelling arrangements for me to settle, and here are collins and egg looking sideways at me with an occasional imploring glance as beseeching me to settle it. so i leave off. good-night. ever, my dearest georgy, most affectionately yours. [sidenote: sir james emerson tennent.] hÃ�tel des Ã�les britanniques, piazza del popolo, rome, _monday, nov. th, ._ my dear tennent, as i never made a good bargain in my life--except once, when, on going abroad, i let my house on excellent terms to an admirable tenant, who never paid anything--i sent edward into the casa dies yesterday morning, while i invested the premises from the outside, and carefully surveyed them. it is a very clean, large, bright-looking house at the corner of the via gregoriana; not exactly in a part of rome i should pick out for living in, and on what i should be disposed to call the wrong side of the street. however, this is not to the purpose. signor dies has no idea of letting an apartment for a short time--scouted the idea of a month--signified that he could not be brought to the contemplation of two months--was by no means clear that he could come down to the consideration of three. this of course settled the business speedily. this hotel is no longer kept by the melloni i spoke of, but is even better kept than in his time, and is a very admirable house. i have engaged a small apartment for you to be ready on thursday afternoon (at two piastres and a half--two-and-a-half per day--sitting-room and three bedrooms, one double-bedded and two not). if you would like to change to ours, which is a very good one, on friday morning, you can of course do so. as our dining-room is large, and there is no table d'hôte here, i will order dinner in it for our united parties at six on thursday. you will be able to decide how to arrange for the remainder of your stay, after being here and looking about you--two really necessary considerations in rome. pray make my kind regards to lady tennent, and miss tennent, and your good son, who became homeless for my sake. mr. egg and mr. collins desire to be also remembered. it has been beautiful weather since we left naples, until to-day, when it rains in a very dogged, sullen, downcast, and determined manner. we have been speculating at breakfast on the possibility of its raining in a similar manner at naples, and of your wandering about the hotel, refusing consolation. i grieve to report the orvieto considerably damaged by the general vine failure, but still far from despicable. montefiascone (the est wine you know) is to be had here; and we have had one bottle in the very finest condition, and one in a second-rate state. the coliseum, in its magnificent old decay, is as grand as ever; and with the electric telegraph darting through one of its ruined arches like a sunbeam and piercing direct through its cruel old heart, is even grander. believe me always, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] rome, _monday, nov. th, ._ my dearest catherine, as i have mentioned in my letter to georgy (written last night but posted with this), i received her letter without yours, to my unbounded astonishment. this morning, on sending again to the post-office, i at last got yours, and most welcome it is with all its contents. i found layard at naples, who went up vesuvius with us, and was very merry and agreeable. he is travelling with lord and lady somers, and lord somers being laid up with an attack of malaria fever, layard had a day to spare. craven, who was lord normanby's secretary of legation in paris, now lives at naples, and is married to a french lady. he is very hospitable and hearty, and seemed to have vague ideas that something might be done in a pretty little private theatre he has in his house. he told me of fanny kemble and the sartoris's being here. i have also heard of thackeray's being here--i don't know how truly. lockhart is here, and, i fear, very ill. i mean to go and see him. we are living in the old hotel, which is not now kept by meloni, who has retired. i don't know whether you recollect an apartment at the top of the house, to which we once ran up with poor roche to see the horses start in the race at the carnival time? that is ours, in which i at present write. we have a large back dining-room, a handsome front drawing-room, looking into the piazza del popolo, and three front bedrooms, all on a floor. the whole costs us about four shillings a day each. the hotel is better kept than ever. there is a little kitchen to each apartment where the dinner is kept hot. there is no house comparable to it in paris, and it is better than mivart's. we start for florence, post, on friday morning, and i am bargaining for a carriage to take us on to venice. edward is an excellent servant, and always cheerful and ready for his work. he knows no italian, except the names of a few things, but french is far more widely known here now than in our time. neither is he an experienced courier as to roads and so forth; but he picks up all that i want to know, here and there, somehow or other. i am perfectly pleased with him, and would rather have him than an older hand. poor dear roche comes back to my mind though, often. i have written to engage the courier from turin into france, from _tuesday, the th december_. this will bring us home some two days after the tenth, probably. i wrote to charley from naples, giving him his choice of meeting me at lyons, in paris, or at boulogne. i gave him full instructions what to do if he arrived before me, and he will write to me at turin saying where i shall find him. i shall be a day or so later than i supposed as the nearest calculation i could make when i wrote to him; but his waiting for me at an hotel will not matter. we have had delightful weather, with one day's exception, until to-day, when it rained very heavily and suddenly. egg and collins have gone to the vatican, and i am "going" to try whether i can hit out anything for the christmas number. give my love to forster, and tell him i won't write to him until i hear from him. i have not come across any english whom i know except layard and the emerson tennents, who will be here on thursday from civita vecchia, and are to dine with us. the losses up to this point have been two pairs of shoes (one mine and one egg's), collins's snuff-box, and egg's dressing-gown. we observe the managerial punctuality in all our arrangements, and have not had any difference whatever. i have been reserving this side all through my letter, in the conviction that i had something else to tell you. if i had, i cannot remember what it is. i introduced myself to salvatore at vesuvius, and reminded him of the night when poor le gros fell down the mountains. he was full of interest directly, remembered the very hole, put on his gold-banded cap, and went up with us himself. he did not know that le gros was dead, and was very sorry to hear it. he asked after the ladies, and hoped they were very happy, to which i answered, "very." the cone is completely changed since our visit, is not at all recognisable as the same place; and there is no fire from the mountain, though there is a great deal of smoke. its last demonstration was in . i shall be glad to think of your all being at home again, as i suppose you will be soon after the receipt of this. will you see to the invitations for christmas day, and write to lætitia? i shall be very happy to be at home again myself, and to embrace you; for of course i miss you _very much_, though i feel that i could not have done a better thing to clear my mind and freshen it up again, than make this expedition. if i find charley much ahead of me, i shall start on through a night or so to meet him, and leave the others to catch us up. i look upon the journey as almost closed at turin. my best love to mamey, and katey, and sydney, and harry, and the darling plornishghenter. we often talk about them, and both my companions do so with interest. they always send all sorts of messages to you, which i never deliver. god bless you! take care of yourself. ever most affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] rome, _thursday afternoon, nov. th, ._ my dear wills, just as i wrote the last words of the enclosed little story for the christmas number just now, edward brought in your letter. also one from forster (tell him) which i have not yet opened. i will write again--and write to him--from florence. i am delighted to have news of you. the enclosed little paper for the christmas number is in a character that nobody else is likely to hit, and which is pretty sure to be considered pleasant. let forster have the ms. with the proof, and i know he will correct it to the minutest point. i have a notion of another little story, also for the christmas number. if i can do it at venice, i will, and send it straight on. but it is not easy to work under these circumstances. in travelling we generally get up about three; and in resting we are perpetually roaming about in all manner of places. not to mention my being laid hold of by all manner of people. keep "household words" imaginative! is the solemn and continual conductorial injunction. delighted to hear of mrs. gaskell's contributions. yes by all manner of means to lady holland. will you ask her whether she has sydney smith's letters to me, which i placed (at mrs. smith's request) either in mrs. smith's own hands or in mrs. austin's? i cannot remember which, but i think the latter. in making up the christmas number, don't consider my paper or papers, with any reference saving to where they will fall best. i have no liking, in the case, for any particular place. all perfectly well. companion moustaches (particularly egg's) dismal in the extreme. kindest regards to mrs. wills. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] florence, _monday, nov. st, ._ h. w. my dear wills, i sent you by post from rome, on wednesday last, a little story for the christmas number, called "the schoolboy's story." i have an idea of another short one, to be called "nobody's story," which i hope to be able to do at venice, and to send you straight home before this month is out. i trust you have received the first safely. edward continues to do extremely well. he is always, early and late, what you have seen him. he is a very steady fellow, a little too bashful for a courier even; settles prices of everything now, as soon as we come into an hotel; and improves fast. his knowledge of italian is painfully defective, and, in the midst of a howling crowd at a post-house or railway station, this deficiency perfectly stuns him. i was obliged last night to get out of the carriage, and pluck him from a crowd of porters who were putting our baggage into wrong conveyances--by cursing and ordering about in all directions. i should think about ten substantives, the names of ten common objects, form his whole italian stock. it matters very little at the hotels, where a great deal of french is spoken now; but, on the road, if none of his party knew italian, it would be a very serious inconvenience indeed. will you write to ryland if you have not heard from him, and ask him what the birmingham reading-nights are really to be? for it is ridiculous enough that i positively don't know. can't a saturday night in a truck district, or a sunday morning among the ironworkers (a fine subject) be knocked out in the course of the same visit? if you should see any managing man you know in the oriental and peninsular company, i wish you would very gravely mention to him from me that if they are not careful what they are about with their steamship _valetta_, between marseilles and naples, they will suddenly find that they will receive a blow one fine day in _the times_, which it will be a very hard matter for them ever to recover. when i sailed in her from genoa, there had been taken on board, _with no caution in most cases from the agent, or hint of discomfort_, at least forty people of both sexes for whom there was no room whatever. i am a pretty old traveller as you know, but i never saw anything like the manner in which pretty women were compelled to lie among the men in the great cabin and on the bare decks. the good humour was beyond all praise, but the natural indignation very great; and i was repeatedly urged to stand up for the public in "household words," and to write a plain description of the facts to _the times_. if i had done either, and merely mentioned that all these people paid heavy first-class fares, i will answer for it that they would have been beaten off the station in a couple of months. i did neither, because i was the best of friends with the captain and all the officers, and never saw such a fine set of men; so admirable in the discharge of their duty, and so zealous to do their best by everybody. it is impossible to praise them too highly. but there is a strong desire at all the ports along the coast to throw impediments in the way of the english service, and to favour the french and italian boats. in those boats (which i know very well) great care is taken of the passengers, and the accommodation is very good. if the peninsula and oriental add to all this the risk of such an exposure as they are _certain_ to get (if they go on so) in _the times_, they are dead sure to get a blow from the public which will make them stagger again. i say nothing of the number of the passengers and the room in the ship's boats, though the frightful consideration the contrast presented must have been in more minds than mine. i speak only of the taking people for whom there is no sort of accommodation as the most decided swindle, and the coolest, i ever did with my eyes behold. kindest regards from fellow-travellers. ever, my dear wills, faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] venice, _friday, november th, ._ my dearest georgy, we found an english carriage from padua at florence, and hired it to bring it back again. we travelled post with four horses all the way (from padua to this place there is a railroad) and travelled all night. we left florence at half-past six in the morning, and got to padua at eleven next day--yesterday. the cold at night was most intense. i don't think i have ever felt it colder. but our carriage was very comfortable, and we had some wine and some rum to keep us warm. we came by bologna (where we had tea) and ferrara. you may imagine the delays in the night when i tell you that each of our passports, after receiving _six visés_ at florence, received in the course of the one night, _nine more_, every one of which was written and sealed; somebody being slowly knocked out of bed to do it every time! it really was excruciating. landor had sent me a letter to his son, and on the day before we left florence i thought i would go out to fiesoli and leave it. so i got a little one-horse open carriage and drove off alone. we were within half a mile of the villa landoro, and were driving down a very narrow lane like one of those at albaro, when i saw an elderly lady coming towards us, very well dressed in silk of the queen's blue, and walking freshly and briskly against the wind at a good round pace. it was a bright, cloudless, very cold day, and i thought she walked with great spirit, as if she enjoyed it. i also thought (perhaps that was having him in my mind) that her ruddy face was shaped like landor's. all of a sudden the coachman pulls up, and looks enquiringly at me. "what's the matter?" says i. "ecco la signora landoro?" says he. "for the love of heaven, don't stop," says i. "_i_ don't know her, i am only going to the house to leave a letter--go on!" meanwhile she (still coming on) looked at me, and i looked at her, and we were both a good deal confused, and so went our several ways. altogether, i think it was as disconcerting a meeting as i ever took part in, and as odd a one. under any other circumstances i should have introduced myself, but the separation made the circumstances so peculiar that "i didn't like." the plornishghenter is evidently the greatest, noblest, finest, cleverest, brightest, and most brilliant of boys. your account of him is most delightful, and i hope to find another letter from you somewhere on the road, making me informed of his demeanour on your return. on which occasion, as on every other, i have no doubt he will have distinguished himself as an irresistibly attracting, captivating may-roon-ti-groon-ter. give him a good many kisses for me. i quite agree with syd as to his ideas of paying attention to the old gentleman. it's not bad, but deficient in originality. the usual deficiency of an inferior intellect with so great a model before him. i am very curious to see whether the plorn remembers me on my reappearance. i meant to have gone to work this morning, and to have tried a second little story for the christmas number of "household words," but my letters have (most pleasantly) put me out, and i defer all such wise efforts until to-morrow. egg and collins are out in a gondola with a servitore di piazza. you will find this but a stupid letter, but i really have no news. we go to the opera, whenever there is one, see sights, eat and drink, sleep in a natural manner two or three nights, and move on again. edward was a little crushed at padua yesterday. he had been extraordinarily cold all night in the rumble, and had got out our clothes to dress, and i think must have been projecting a five or six hours' sleep, when i announced that he was to come on here in an hour and a half to get the rooms and order dinner. he fell into a sudden despondency of the profoundest kind, but was quite restored when we arrived here between eight and nine. we found him waiting at the custom house with a gondola in his usual brisk condition. it is extraordinary how few english we see. with the exception of a gentlemanly young fellow (in a consumption i am afraid), married to the tiniest little girl, in a brown straw hat, and travelling with his sister and her sister, and a consumptive single lady, travelling with a maid and a scotch terrier christened trotty veck, we have scarcely seen any, and have certainly spoken to none, since we left switzerland. these were aboard the _valetta_, where the captain and i indulged in all manner of insane suppositions concerning the straw hat--the "little matron" we called her; by which name she soon became known all over the ship. the day we entered rome, and the moment we entered it, there was the little matron, alone with antiquity--and murray--on the wall. the very first church i entered, there was the little matron. on the last afternoon, when i went alone to st. peter's, there was the little matron and her party. the best of it is, that i was extremely intimate with them, invited them to tavistock house, when they come home in the spring, and have not the faintest idea of their name. there was no table d'hôte at rome, or at florence, but there is one here, and we dine at it to-day, so perhaps we may stumble upon somebody. i have heard from charley this morning, who appoints (wisely) paris as our place of meeting. i had a letter from coote, at florence, informing me that his volume of "household songs" was ready, and requesting permission to dedicate it to me. which of course i gave. i am beginning to think of the birmingham readings. i suppose you won't object to be taken to hear them? this is the last place at which we shall make a stay of more than one day. we shall stay at parma one, and at turin one, supposing de la rue to have been successful in taking places with the courier into france for the day on which we want them (he was to write to bankers at turin to do it), and then we shall come hard and fast home. i feel almost there already, and shall be delighted to close the pleasant trip, and get back to my own piccola camera--if, being english, you understand what _that_ is. my best love and kisses to mamey, katey, sydney, harry, and the noble plorn. last, not least, to yourself, and many of them. i will not wait over to-morrow, tell kate, for her letter; but will write then, whether or no. ever, my dearest georgy, most affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. marcus stone.] tavistock house, _december th, ._ my dear marcus, you made an excellent sketch from a book of mine which i have received (and have preserved) with great pleasure. will you accept from me, in remembrance of it, _this_ little book? i believe it to be true, though it may be sometimes not as genteel as history has a habit of being. faithfully yours. footnote: [ ] meaning mr. w. h. wills himself. . narrative. the summer of this year was also spent at boulogne, m. beaucourt being again the landlord; but the house, though still on the same "property," stood on the top of the hill, above the moulineaux, and was called the villa du camp de droite. in the early part of the year charles dickens paid several visits to the english provinces, giving readings from his books at many of the large manufacturing towns, and always for some good and charitable purpose. he was still at work upon "hard times," which was finished during the summer, and was constantly occupied with "household words." many of our letters for this year are to the contributors to this journal. the last is an unusually interesting one. he had for some time past been much charmed with the writings of a certain miss berwick, who, he knew, to be a contributor under a feigned name. when at last the lady confided her real name, and he discovered in the young poetess the daughter of his dear friends, mr.[ ] and mrs. procter, the "new sensation" caused him intense surprise, and the greatest pleasure and delight. miss adelaide procter was, from this time, a frequent contributor to "household words," more especially to the christmas numbers. there are really very few letters in this year requiring any explanation from us--many explaining themselves, and many having allusion to incidents in the past year, which have been duly noted by us for . the portrait mentioned in the letter to mr. collins, for which he was sitting to mr. e. m. ward, r.a., was to be one of a series of oil sketches of the then celebrated literary men of the day, in their studies. we believe this portrait to be now in the possession of mrs. ward. in explanation of the letter to mr. john saunders on the subject of the production of the latter's play, called "love's martyrdom," we will give the dramatist's own words: "having printed for private circulation a play entitled 'love's martyrdom,' and for which i desired to obtain the independent judgment of some of our most eminent literary men, before seeking the ordeal of the stage, i sent a copy to mr. dickens, and the letter in question is his acknowledgment. * * * * * "he immediately took steps for the introduction of the play to the theatre. at first he arranged with mr. phelps, of sadler's wells, but subsequently, with that gentleman's consent, removed it to the haymarket. there it was played with miss helen faucit in the character of margaret, miss swanborough (who shortly after married and left the stage) as julia, mr. barry sullivan as franklyn, and mr. howe as laneham. "as far as the play itself was concerned, it was received on all sides as a genuine dramatic and poetic success, achieved, however, as an eminent critic came to my box to say, through greater difficulties than he had ever before seen a dramatic work pass through. the time has not come for me to speak freely of these, but i may point to two of them: the first being the inadequate rehearsals, which caused mr. dickens to tell me on the stage, four or five days only before the first performance, that the play was not then in as good a state as it would have been in at paris three weeks earlier. the other was the breakdown of the performer of a most important secondary part; a collapse so absolute that he was changed by the management before the second representation of the piece." this ill-luck of the beginning, pursued the play to its close. "the haymarket theatre was at the time in the very lowest state of prostration, through the crimean war; the habitual frequenters were lovers of comedy, and enjoyers of farce and burlesque; and there was neither the money nor the faith to call to the theatre by the usual methods, vigorously and discriminatingly pursued, the multitudes that i believed could have been so called to a better and more romantic class of comedy. "even under these and other, similarly depressing circumstances, the nightly receipts were about £ , the expenses being £ ; and on the last--an author's--night, there was an excellent and enthusiastic house, yielding, to the best of my recollection, about £ , but certainly between £ and £ . and with that night--the sixth or seventh--the experiment ended." [sidenote: mr. walter savage landor.] tavistock house, _january th, ._ my dear landor, i heartily assure you that to have your name coupled with anything i have done is an honour and a pleasure to me. i cannot say that i am sorry that you should have thought it necessary to write to me, for it is always delightful to me to see your hand, and to know (though i want no outward and visible sign as an assurance of the fact) that you are ever the same generous, earnest, gallant man. catherine and georgina send their kind loves. so does walter landor, who came home from school with high judicial commendation and a prize into the bargain. ever, my dear landor, affectionately yours. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] tavistock house, _friday, january th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, on the very day after i sent the christmas number to rockingham, i heard of your being at brighton. i should have sent another there, but that i had a misgiving i might seem to be making too much of it. for, when i thought of the probability of the rockingham copy going on to brighton, and pictured to myself the advent of two of those very large envelopes at once at junction house at breakfast time, a sort of comic modesty overcame me. i was heartily pleased with the birmingham audience, which was a very fine one. i never saw, nor do i suppose anybody ever did, such an interesting sight as the working people's night. there were two thousand five hundred of them there, and a more delicately observant audience it is impossible to imagine. they lost nothing, misinterpreted nothing, followed everything closely, laughed and cried with most delightful earnestness, and animated me to that extent that i felt as if we were all bodily going up into the clouds together. it is an enormous place for the purpose; but i had considered all that carefully, and i believe made the most distant person hear as well as if i had been reading in my own room. i was a little doubtful before i began on the first night whether it was quite practicable to conceal the requisite effort; but i soon had the satisfaction of finding that it was, and that we were all going on together, in the first page, as easily, to all appearance, as if we had been sitting round the fire. i am obliged to go out on monday at five and to dine out; but i will be at home at any time before that hour that you may appoint. you say you are only going to stay one night in town; but if you could stay two, and would dine with us alone on tuesday, _that_ is the plan that we should all like best. let me have one word from you by post on monday morning. few things that i saw, when i was away, took my fancy so much as the electric telegraph, piercing, like a sunbeam, right through the cruel old heart of the coliseum at rome. and on the summit of the alps, among the eternal ice and snow, there it was still, with its posts sustained against the sweeping mountain winds by clusters of great beams--to say nothing of its being at the bottom of the sea as we crossed the channel. with kindest loves, ever, my dear mrs. watson, most faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] tavistock house, _monday, january th, ._ my dear mary, it is all very well to pretend to love me as you do. ah! if you loved as _i_ love, mary! but, when my breast is tortured by the perusal of such a letter as yours, falkland, falkland, madam, becomes my part in "the rivals," and i play it with desperate earnestness. as thus: falkland (_to acres_). then you see her, sir, sometimes? acres. see her! odds beams and sparkles, yes. see her acting! night after night. falkland (_aside and furious_). death and the devil! acting, and i not there! pray, sir (_with constrained calmness_), what does she act? acres. odds, monthly nurses and babbies! sairey gamp and betsey prig, "which, wotever it is, my dear (_mimicking_), i likes it brought reg'lar and draw'd mild!" _that's_ very like her. falkland. confusion! laceration! perhaps, sir, perhaps she sometimes acts--ha! ha! perhaps she sometimes acts, i say--eh! sir?--a--ha, ha, ha! a fairy? (_with great bitterness._) acres. odds, gauzy pinions and spangles, yes! you should hear her sing as a fairy. you should see her dance as a fairy. tol de rol lol--la--lol--liddle diddle. (_sings and dances_). _that's_ very like her. falkland. misery! while i, devoted to her image, can scarcely write a line now and then, or pensively read aloud to the people of birmingham. (_to him._) and they applaud her, no doubt they applaud her, sir. and she--i see her! curtsies and smiles! and they--curses on them! they laugh and--ha, ha, ha!--and clap their hands--and say it's very good. do they not say it's very good, sir? tell me. do they not? acres. odds, thunderings and pealings, of course they do! and the third fiddler, little tweaks, of the county town, goes into fits. ho, ho, ho, i can't bear it (_mimicking_); take me out! ha, ha, ha! o what a one she is! she'll be the death of me. ha, ha, ha, ha! _that's_ very like her! falkland. damnation! heartless mary! (_rushes out._) scene opens, and discloses coals of fire, heaped up into form of letters, representing the following inscription: when the praise thou meetest to thine ear is sweetest, o then remember joe! (_curtain falls._) [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] tavistock house, _monday, jan. th, ._ my dear cerjat, guilty. the accused pleads guilty, but throws himself upon the mercy of the court. he humbly represents that his usual hour for getting up, in the course of his travels, was three o'clock in the morning, and his usual hour for going to bed, nine or ten the next night. that the places in which he chiefly deviated from these rules of hardship, were rome and venice; and that at those cities of fame he shut himself up in solitude, and wrote christmas papers for the incomparable publication known as "household words." that his correspondence at all times, arising out of the business of the said "household words" alone, was very heavy. that his offence, though undoubtedly committed, was unavoidable, and that a nominal punishment will meet the justice of the case. we had only three bad days out of the whole time. after naples, which was very hot, we had very cold, clear, bright weather. when we got to chamounix, we found the greater part of the inns shut up and the people gone. no visitors whatsoever, and plenty of snow. these were the very best circumstances under which to see the place, and we stayed a couple of days at the hôtel de londres (hastily re-furbished for our entertainment), and climbed through the snow to the mer de glace, and thoroughly enjoyed it. then we went, in mule procession (i walking) to the old hotel at martigny, where collins was ill, and i suppose i bored egg to death by talking all the evening about the time when you and i were there together. naples (a place always painful to me, in the intense degradation of the people) seems to have only three classes of inhabitants left in it--priests, soldiers (standing army one hundred thousand strong), and spies. of macaroni we ate very considerable quantities everywhere; also, for the benefit of italy, we took our share of every description of wine. at naples i found layard, the nineveh traveller, who is a friend of mine and an admirable fellow; so we fraternised and went up vesuvius together, and ate more macaroni and drank more wine. at rome, the day after our arrival, they were making a saint at st. peter's; on which occasion i was surprised to find what an immense number of pounds of wax candles it takes to make the regular, genuine article. from turin to paris, over the mont cenis, we made only one journey. the rhone, being frozen and foggy, was not to be navigated, so we posted from lyons to chalons, and everybody else was doing the like, and there were no horses to be got, and we were stranded at midnight in amazing little cabarets, with nothing worth mentioning to eat in them, except the iron stove, which was rusty, and the billiard-table, which was musty. we left turin on a tuesday evening, and arrived in paris on a friday evening; where i found my son charley, hot--or i should rather say cold--from germany, with his arms and legs so grown out of his coat and trousers, that i was ashamed of him, and was reduced to the necessity of taking him, under cover of night, to a ready-made establishment in the palais royal, where they put him into balloon-waisted pantaloons, and increased my confusion. leaving calais on the evening of sunday, the th of december; fact of distinguished author's being aboard, was telegraphed to dover; thereupon authorities of dover railway detained train to london for distinguished author's arrival, rather to the exasperation of british public. d. a. arrived at home between ten and eleven that night, thank god, and found all well and happy. i think you see _the times_, and if so, you will have seen a very graceful and good account of the birmingham readings. it was the most remarkable thing that england could produce, i think, in the way of a vast intelligent assemblage; and the success was most wonderful and prodigious--perfectly overwhelming and astounding altogether. they wound up by giving my wife a piece of plate, having given me one before; and when you come to dine here (may it be soon!) it shall be duly displayed in the centre of the table. tell mrs. cerjat, to whom my love, and all our loves, that i have highly excited them at home here by giving them an account in detail of all your daughters; further, that the way in which catherine and georgina have questioned me and cross-questioned me about you all, notwithstanding, is maddening. mrs. watson has been obliged to pass her christmas at brighton alone with her younger children, in consequence of her two eldest boys coming home to rockingham from school with the whooping-cough. the quarantine expires to-day, however; and she drives here, on her way back into northamptonshire, to-morrow. the sad affair of the preston strike remains unsettled; and i hear, on strong authority, that if that were settled, the manchester people are prepared to strike next. provisions very dear, but the people very temperate and quiet in general. so ends this jumble, which looks like the index to a chapter in a book, i find, when i read it over. ever, my dear cerjat, heartily your friend. [sidenote: mr. arthur ryland.] tavistock house, _january th, ._ my dear sir, i am quite delighted to find that you are so well satisfied, and that the enterprise has such a light upon it. i think i never was better pleased in my life than i was with my birmingham friends. that principle of fair representation of all orders carefully carried out, i believe, will do more good than any of us can yet foresee. does it not seem a strange thing to consider that i have never yet seen with these eyes of mine, a mechanic in any recognised position on the platform of a mechanics' institution? mr. wills may be expected to sink, shortly, under the ravages of letters from all parts of england, ireland, and scotland, proposing readings. he keeps up his spirits, but i don't see how they are to carry him through. mrs. dickens and miss hogarth beg their kindest regards; and i am, my dear sir, with much regard, too, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] tavistock house, _january th, ._ my dear knight, indeed there is no fear of my thinking you the owner of a cold heart. i am more than three parts disposed, however, to be ferocious with you for ever writing down such a preposterous truism. my satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing else--the representatives of the wickedest and most enormous vice of this time--the men who, through long years to come, will do more to damage the real useful truths of political economy than i could do (if i tried) in my whole life; the addled heads who would take the average of cold in the crimea during twelve months as a reason for clothing a soldier in nankeens on a night when he would be frozen to death in fur, and who would comfort the labourer in travelling twelve miles a day to and from his work, by telling him that the average distance of one inhabited place from another in the whole area of england, is not more than four miles. bah! what have you to do with these? i shall put the book upon a private shelf (after reading it) by "once upon a time." i should have buried my pipe of peace and sent you this blast of my war-horn three or four days ago, but that i have been reading to a little audience of three thousand five hundred at bradford. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: rev. james white.] tavistock house, _tuesday, march th, ._ my dear white, i am tardy in answering your letter; but "hard times," and an immense amount of enforced correspondence, are my excuse. to you a sufficient one, i know. as i should judge from outward and visible appearances, i have exactly as much chance of seeing the russian fleet reviewed by the czar as i have of seeing the english fleet reviewed by the queen. "club law" made me laugh very much when i went over it in the proof yesterday. it is most capitally done, and not (as i feared it might be) too directly. it is in the next number but one. mrs. ---- has gone stark mad--and stark naked--on the spirit-rapping imposition. she was found t'other day in the street, clothed only in her chastity, a pocket-handkerchief and a visiting card. she had been informed, it appeared, by the spirits, that if she went out in that trim she would be invisible. she is now in a madhouse, and, i fear, hopelessly insane. one of the curious manifestations of her disorder is that she can bear nothing black. there is a terrific business to be done, even when they are obliged to put coals on her fire. ---- has a thing called a psycho-grapher, which writes at the dictation of spirits. it delivered itself, a few nights ago, of this extraordinarily lucid message: x. y. z! upon which it was gravely explained by the true believers that "the spirits were out of temper about something." said ---- had a great party on sunday, when it was rumoured "a count was going to raise the dead." i stayed till the ghostly hour, but the rumour was unfounded, for neither count nor plebeian came up to the spiritual scratch. it is really inexplicable to me that a man of his calibre can be run away with by such small deer. _Ã� propos_ of spiritual messages comes in georgina, and, hearing that i am writing to you, delivers the following enigma to be conveyed to mrs. white: "wyon of the mint lives _at_ the mint." feeling my brain going after this, i only trust it with loves from all to all. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] tavistock house, _march th, ._ my dear knight, i have read the article with much interest. it is most conscientiously done, and presents a great mass of curious information condensed into a surprisingly small space. i have made a slight note or two here and there, with a soft pencil, so that a touch of indiarubber will make all blank again. and i earnestly entreat your attention to the point (i have been working upon it, weeks past, in "hard times") which i have jocosely suggested on the last page but one. the english are, so far as i know, the hardest-worked people on whom the sun shines. be content if, in their wretched intervals of pleasure, they read for amusement and do no worse. they are born at the oar, and they live and die at it. good god, what would we have of them! affectionately yours always. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] office of "household words," no. , wellington street, north strand, _wednesday, april th, ._ * * * * * i know all the walks for many and many miles round about malvern, and delightful walks they are. i suppose you are already getting very stout, very red, very jovial (in a physical point of view) altogether. mark and i walked to dartford from greenwich, last monday, and found mrs. ---- acting "the stranger" (with a strolling company from the standard theatre) in mr. munn's schoolroom. the stage was a little wider than your table here, and its surface was composed of loose boards laid on the school forms. dogs sniffed about it during the performances, and _the_ carpenter's highlows were ostentatiously taken off and displayed in the proscenium. we stayed until a quarter to ten, when we were obliged to fly to the railroad, but we sent the landlord of the hotel down with the following articles: bottle superior old port, do. do. golden sherry, do. do. best french brandy, do. do. st quality old tom gin, bottle superior prime jamaica rum, do. do. small still _isla_ whiskey, kettle boiling water, two pounds finest white lump sugar, our cards, lemon, and our compliments. the effect we had previously made upon the theatrical company by being beheld in the first two chairs--there was nearly a pound in the house--was altogether electrical. my ladies send their kindest regards, and are disappointed at your not saying that you drink two-and-twenty tumblers of the limpid element, every day. the children also unite in "loves," and the plornishghenter, on being asked if he would send his, replies "yes--man," which we understand to signify cordial acquiescence. forster just come back from lecturing at sherborne. describes said lecture as "blaze of triumph." h. w. again. miss--i mean mrs.--bell's story very nice. i have sent it to the printer, and entitled it "the green ring and the gold ring." this apartment looks desolate in your absence; but, o heavens, how tidy! f. w. mrs. wills supposed to have gone into a convent at somers town. my dear wills, ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. b. w. procter.] tavistock house, _saturday night, april th, ._ my dear procter, i have read the "fatal revenge." don't do what the minor theatrical people call "despi-ser" me, but i think it's very bad. the concluding narrative is by far the most meritorious part of the business. still, the people are so very convulsive and tumble down so many places, and are always knocking other people's bones about in such a very irrational way, that i object. the way in which earthquakes won't swallow the monsters, and volcanoes in eruption won't boil them, is extremely aggravating. also their habit of bolting when they are going to explain anything. you have sent me a very different and a much better book; and for that i am truly grateful. with the dust of "maturin" in my eyes, i sat down and read "the death of friends," and the dust melted away in some of those tears it is good to shed. i remember to have read "the backroom window" some years ago, and i have associated it with you ever since. it is a most delightful paper. but the two volumes are all delightful, and i have put them on a shelf where you sit down with charles lamb again, with talfourd's vindication of him hard by. we never meet. i hope it is not irreligious, but in this strange london i have an inclination to adapt a portion of the church service to our common experience. thus: "we have left unmet the people whom we ought to have met, and we have met the people whom we ought not to have met, and there seems to be no help in us." but i am always, my dear procter, (at a distance), very cordially yours. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] tavistock house, _april st, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, i safely received the paper from mr. shaen, welcomed it with three cheers, and instantly despatched it to the printer, who has it in hand now. i have no intention of striking. the monstrous claims at domination made by a certain class of manufacturers, and the extent to which the way is made easy for working men to slide down into discontent under such hands, are within my scheme; but i am not going to strike, so don't be afraid of me. but i wish you would look at the story yourself, and judge where and how near i seem to be approaching what you have in your mind. the first two months of it will show that. i will "make my will" on the first favourable occasion. we were playing games last night, and were fearfully clever. with kind regards to mr. gaskell, always, my dear mrs. gaskell, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] tavistock house, _may th, ._ my dear stone, i can_not_ stand a total absence of ventilation, and i should have liked (in an amiable and persuasive manner) to have punched ----'s head, and opened the register stoves. i saw the supper tables, sir, in an empty state, and was charmed with them. likewise i recovered myself from a swoon, occasioned by long contact with an unventilated man of a strong flavour from copenhagen, by drinking an unknown species of celestial lemonade in that enchanted apartment. i am grieved to say that on saturday i stand engaged to dine, at three weeks' notice, with one ----, a man who has read every book that ever was written, and is a perfect gulf of information. before exploding a mine of knowledge he has a habit of closing one eye and wrinkling up his nose, so that he seems perpetually to be taking aim at you and knocking you over with a terrific charge. then he looks again, and takes another aim. so you are always on your back, with your legs in the air. how can a man be conversed with, or walked with, in the county of middlesex, when he is reviewing the kentish militia on the shores of dover, or sailing, every day for three weeks, between dover and calais? ever affectionately. p.s.--"humphry clinker" is certainly smollett's best. i am rather divided between "peregrine pickle" and "roderick random," both extraordinarily good in their way, which is a way without tenderness; but you will have to read them both, and i send the first volume of "peregrine" as the richer of the two. [sidenote: mr. peter cunningham.] tavistock house, _june th, ._ my dear cunningham, i cannot become one of the committee for wilson's statue, after entertaining so strong an opinion against the expediency of such a memorial in poor dear talfourd's case. but i will subscribe my three guineas, and will pay that sum to the account at coutts's when i go there next week, before leaving town. "the goldsmiths" admirably done throughout. it is a book i have long desired to see done, and never expected to see half so well done. many thanks to you for it. ever faithfully yours. p.s.--please to observe the address at boulogne: "villa du camp de droite." [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] villa du camp de droite, _thursday, june nd, ._ my dear wills, i have nothing to say, but having heard from you this morning, think i may as well report all well. we have a most charming place here. it beats the former residence all to nothing. we have a beautiful garden, with all its fruits and flowers, and a field of our own, and a road of our own away to the column, and everything that is airy and fresh. the great beaucourt hovers about us like a guardian genius, and i imagine that no english person in a carriage could by any possibility find the place. of the wonderful inventions and contrivances with which a certain inimitable creature has made the most of it, i will say nothing, until you have an opportunity of inspecting the same. at present i will only observe that i have written exactly seventy-two words of "hard times," since i have been here. the children arrived on tuesday night, by london boat, in every stage and aspect of sea-sickness. the camp is about a mile off, and huts are now building for (they say) sixty thousand soldiers. i don't imagine it to be near enough to bother us. if the weather ever should be fine, it might do you good sometimes to come over with the proofs on a saturday, when the tide serves well, before you and mrs. w. make your annual visit. recollect there is always a bed, and no sudden appearance will put us out. kind regards. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] villa du camp de droite, boulogne, _wednesday night, july th, ._ my dear collins, bobbing up, corkwise, from a sea of "hard times" i beg to report this tenement--amazing!!! range of view and air, most free and delightful; hill-side garden, delicious; field, stupendous; speculations in haycocks already effected by the undersigned, with the view to the keeping up of a "home" at rounders. i hope to finish and get to town by next wednesday night, the th; what do you say to coming back with me on the following tuesday? the interval i propose to pass in a career of amiable dissipation and unbounded license in the metropolis. if you will come and breakfast with me about midnight--anywhere--any day, and go to bed no more until we fly to these pastoral retreats, i shall be delighted to have so vicious an associate. will you undertake to let ward know that if he still wishes me to sit to him, he shall have me as long as he likes, at tavistock house, on monday, the th, from ten a.m.? i have made it understood here that we shall want to be taken the greatest care of this summer, and to be fed on nourishing meats. several new dishes have been rehearsed and have come out very well. i have met with what they call in the city "a parcel" of the celebrated champagne. it is a very fine wine, and calculated to do us good when weak. the camp is about a mile off. voluptuous english authors reposing from their literary fatigues (on their laurels) are expected, when all other things fail, to lie on straw in the midst of it when the days are sunny, and stare at the blue sea until they fall asleep. (about one hundred and fifty soldiers have been at various times billeted on beaucourt since we have been here, and he has clinked glasses with them every one, and read a ms. book of his father's, on soldiers in general, to them all.) i shall be glad to hear what you say to these various proposals. i write with the emperor in the town, and a great expenditure of tricolour floating thereabouts, but no stir makes its way to this inaccessible retreat. it is like being up in a balloon. lionising englishmen and germans start to call, and are found lying imbecile in the road halfway up. ha! ha! ha! kindest regards from all. the plornishghenter adds mr. and mrs. goose's duty. ever faithfully. p.s.--the cobbler has been ill these many months, and unable to work; has had a carbuncle in his back, and has it cut three times a week. the little dog sits at the door so unhappy and anxious to help, that i every day expect to see him beginning a pair of top boots. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] office of "household words," _saturday, july nd, ._ my dear georgina, neither you nor catherine did justice to collins's book.[ ] i think it far away the cleverest novel i have ever seen written by a new hand. it is in some respects masterly. "valentine blyth" is as original, and as well done as anything can be. the scene where he shows his pictures is full of an admirable humour. old mat is admirably done. in short, i call it a very remarkable book, and have been very much surprised by its great merit. tell kate, with my love, that she will receive to-morrow in a little parcel, the complete proofs of "hard times." they will not be corrected, but she will find them pretty plain. i am just now going to put them up for her. i saw grisi the night before last in "lucrezia borgia"--finer than ever. last night i was drinking gin-slings till daylight, with buckstone of all people, who saw me looking at the spanish dancers, and insisted on being convivial. i have been in a blaze of dissipation altogether, and have succeeded (i think), in knocking the remembrance of my work out. loves to all the darlings, from the plornish-maroon upward. london is far hotter than naples. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] villa du camp de droite, boulogne, _thursday, aug. th, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, i sent your ms. off to wills yesterday, with instructions to forward it to you without delay. i hope you will have received it before this notification comes to hand. the usual festivity of this place at present--which is the blessing of soldiers by the ten thousand--has just now been varied by the baptising of some new bells, lately hung up (to my sorrow and lunacy) in a neighbouring church. an english lady was godmother; and there was a procession afterwards, wherein an english gentleman carried "the relics" in a highly suspicious box, like a barrel organ; and innumerable english ladies in white gowns and bridal wreaths walked two and two, as if they had all gone to school again. at a review, on the same day, i was particularly struck by the commencement of the proceedings, and its singular contrast to the usual military operations in hyde park. nothing would induce the general commanding in chief to begin, until chairs were brought for all the lady-spectators. and a detachment of about a hundred men deployed into all manner of farmhouses to find the chairs. nobody seemed to lose any dignity by the transaction, either. with kindest regards, my dear mrs. gaskell, faithfully yours always. [sidenote: rev. william harness.] villa du camp de droite, boulogne, _saturday, aug. th, ._ my dear harness, yes. the book came from me. i could not put a memorandum to that effect on the title-page, in consequence of my being here. i am heartily glad you like it. i know the piece you mention, but am far from being convinced by it. a great misgiving is upon me, that in many things (this thing among the rest) too many are martyrs to _our_ complacency and satisfaction, and that we must give up something thereof for their poor sakes. my kindest regards to your sister, and my love (if i may send it) to another of your relations. always, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] villa du camp de droite, boulogne, _wednesday, sept. th, ._ * * * * * any saturday on which the tide serves your purpose (next saturday excepted) will suit me for the flying visit you hint at; and we shall be delighted to see you. although the camp is not above a mile from this gate, we never see or hear of it, unless we choose. if you could come here in dry weather you would find it as pretty, airy, and pleasant a situation as you ever saw. we illuminated the whole front of the house last night--eighteen windows--and an immense palace of light was seen sparkling on this hill-top for miles and miles away. i rushed to a distance to look at it, and never saw anything of the same kind half so pretty. the town[ ] looks like one immense flag, it is so decked out with streamers; and as the royal yacht approached yesterday--the whole range of the cliff tops lined with troops, and the artillery matches in hand, all ready to fire the great guns the moment she made the harbour; the sailors standing up in the prow of the yacht, the prince in a blazing uniform, left alone on the deck for everybody to see--a stupendous silence, and then such an infernal blazing and banging as never was heard. it was almost as fine a sight as one could see under a deep blue sky. in our own proper illumination i laid on all the servants, all the children now at home, all the visitors (it is the annual "household words" time), one to every window, with everything ready to light up on the ringing of a big dinner-bell by your humble correspondent. st. peter's on easter monday was the result. best love from all. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] boulogne, _tuesday, sept. th, ._ my dear collins, first, i have to report that i received your letter with much pleasure. secondly, that the weather has entirely changed. it is so cool that we have not only a fire in the drawing-room regularly, but another to dine by. the delicious freshness of the air is charming, and it is generally bright and windy besides. thirdly, that ----'s intellectual faculties appear to have developed suddenly. he has taken to borrowing money; from which i infer (as he has no intention whatever of repaying) that his mental powers are of a high order. having got a franc from me, he fell upon mrs. dickens for five sous. she declining to enter into the transaction, he beleaguered that feeble little couple, harry and sydney, into paying two sous each for "tickets" to behold the ravishing spectacle of an utterly-non-existent-and-there-fore-impossible-to-be-produced toy theatre. he eats stony apples, and harbours designs upon his fellow-creatures until he has become light-headed. from the couch rendered uneasy by this disorder he has arisen with an excessively protuberant forehead, a dull slow eye, a complexion of a leaden hue, and a croaky voice. he has become a horror to me, and i resort to the most cowardly expedients to avoid meeting him. he, on the other hand, wanting another franc, dodges me round those trees at the corner, and at the back door; and i have a presentiment upon me that i shall fall a sacrifice to his cupidity at last. on the sunday night after you left, or rather on the monday morning at half-past one, mary was taken _very ill_. english cholera. she was sinking so fast, and the sickness was so exceedingly alarming, that it evidently would not do to wait for elliotson. i caused everything to be done that we had naturally often thought of, in a lonely house so full of children, and fell back upon the old remedy; though the difficulty of giving even it was rendered very great by the frightful sickness. thank god, she recovered so favourably that by breakfast time she was fast asleep. she slept twenty-four hours, and has never had the least uneasiness since. i heard--of course afterwards--that she had had an attack of sickness two nights before. i think that long ride and those late dinners had been too much for her. without them i am inclined to doubt whether she would have been ill. last sunday as ever was, the theatre took fire at half-past eleven in the forenoon. being close by the english church, it showered hot sparks into that temple through the open windows. whereupon the congregation shrieked and rose and tumbled out into the street; ---- benignly observing to the only ancient female who would listen to him, "i fear we must part;" and afterwards being beheld in the street--in his robes and with a kind of sacred wildness on him--handing ladies over the kennel into shops and other structures, where they had no business whatever, or the least desire to go. i got to the back of the theatre, where i could see in through some great doors that had been forced open, and whence the spectacle of the whole interior, burning like a red-hot cavern, was really very fine, even in the daylight. meantime the soldiers were at work, "saving" the scenery by pitching it into the next street; and the poor little properties (one spinning-wheel, a feeble imitation of a water-mill, and a basketful of the dismalest artificial flowers very conspicuous) were being passed from hand to hand with the greatest excitement, as if they were rescued children or lovely women. in four or five hours the whole place was burnt down, except the outer walls. never in my days did i behold such feeble endeavours in the way of extinguishment. on an average i should say it took ten minutes to throw half a gallon of water on the great roaring heap; and every time it was insulted in this way it gave a ferocious burst, and everybody ran off. beaucourt has been going about for two days in a clean collar; which phenomenon evidently means something, but i don't know what. elliotson reports that the great conjuror lives at his hotel, has extra wine every day, and fares expensively. is he the devil? i have heard from the kernel.[ ] wa'al, sir, sayin' as he minded to locate himself with us for a week, i expected to have heard from him again this morning, but have not. beard comes to-morrow. kindest regards and remembrances from all. ward lives in a little street between the two tintilleries. the plornish-maroon desires his duty. he had a fall yesterday, through overbalancing himself in kicking his nurse. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] boulogne, _friday, oct. th, ._ my dear stone, having some little matters that rather press on my attention to see to in town, i have made up my mind to relinquish the walking project, and come straight home (by way of folkestone) on tuesday. i shall be due in town at midnight, and shall hope to see you next day, with the top of your coat-collar mended. everything that happens here we suppose to be an announcement of the taking of sebastopol. when a church-clock strikes, we think it is the joy-bell, and fly out of the house in a burst of nationality--to sneak in again. if they practise firing at the camp, we are sure it is the artillery celebrating the fall of the russian, and we become enthusiastic in a moment. i live in constant readiness to illuminate the whole house. whatever anybody says i believe; everybody says, every day, that sebastopol is in flames. sometimes the commander-in-chief has blown himself up, with seventy-five thousand men. sometimes he has "cut" his way through lord raglan, and has fallen back on the advancing body of the russians, one hundred and forty-two thousand strong, whom he is going to "bring up" (i don't know where from, or how, or when, or why) for the destruction of the allies. all these things, in the words of the catechism, "i steadfastly believe," until i become a mere driveller, a moonstruck, babbling, staring, credulous, imbecile, greedy, gaping, wooden-headed, addle-brained, wool-gathering, dreary, vacant, obstinate civilian. ever, my fellow-countryman, affectionately. [sidenote: mr. john saunders.] tavistock house, _october th, ._ dear sir, i have had much gratification and pleasure in the receipt of your obliging communication. allow me to thank you for it, in the first place, with great cordiality. although i cannot say that i came without any prepossessions to the perusal of your play (for i had favourable inclinings towards it before i began), i _can_ say that i read it with the closest attention, and that it inspired me with a strong interest, and a genuine and high admiration. the parts that involve some of the greatest difficulties of your task appear to me those in which you shine most. i would particularly instance the end of julia as a very striking example of this. the delicacy and beauty of her redemption from her weak rash lover, are very far, indeed beyond the range of any ordinary dramatist, and display the true poetical strength. as your hopes now centre in mr. phelps, and in seeing the child of your fancy on his stage, i will venture to point out to you not only what i take to be very dangerous portions of "love's martyrdom" as it stands, _for presentation on the stage_, but portions which i believe mr. phelps will speedily regard in that light when he sees it before him in the persons of live men and women on the wooden boards. knowing him, i think he will be then as violently discouraged as he is now generously exalted; and it may be useful to you to be prepared for the consideration of those passages. i do not regard it as a great stumbling-block that the play of modern times best known to an audience proceeds upon the main idea of this, namely, that there was a hunchback who, because of his deformity, mistrusted himself. but it is certainly a grain in the balance when the balance is going the wrong way, and therefore it should be most carefully trimmed. the incident of the ring is an insignificant one to look at over a row of gaslights, is difficult to convey to an audience, and the least thing will make it ludicrous. if it be so well done by mr. phelps himself as to be otherwise than ludicrous, it will be disagreeable. if it be either, it will be perilous, and doubly so, because you revert to it. the quarrel scene between the two brothers in the third act is now so long that the justification of blind passion and impetuosity--which can alone bear out franklyn, before the bodily eyes of a great concourse of spectators, in plunging at the life of his own brother--is lost. that the two should be parted, and that franklyn should again drive at him, and strike him, and then wound him, is a state of things to set the sympathy of an audience in the wrong direction, and turn it from the man you make happy to the man you leave unhappy. i would on no account allow the artist to appear, attended by that picture, more than once. all the most sudden inconstancy of clarence i would soften down. margaret must act much better than any actress i have ever seen, if all her lines fall in pleasant places; therefore, i think she needs compression too. all this applies solely to the theatre. if you ever revise the sheets for readers, will you note in the margin the broken laughter and the appeals to the deity? if, on summing them up, you find you want them all, i would leave them as they stand by all means. if not, i would blot accordingly. it is only in the hope of being slightly useful to you by anticipating what i believe mr. phelps will discover--or what, if ever he should pass it, i have a strong conviction the audience will find out--that i have ventured on these few hints. your concurrence with them generally, on reconsideration, or your preference for the poem as it stands, can not in the least affect my interest in your success. on the other hand, i have a perfect confidence in your not taking my misgivings ill; they arise out of my sincere desire for the triumph of your work. with renewed thanks for the pleasure you have afforded me, i am, dear sir, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] tavistock house, _november st, ._ (and a constitutionally foggy day.) my dearest macready, i thought it better not to encumber the address to working men with details. firstly, because they would detract from whatever fiery effect the words may have in them; secondly, because writing and petitioning and pressing a subject upon members and candidates are now so clearly understood; and thirdly, because the paper was meant as an opening to a persistent pressure of the whole question on the public, which would yield other opportunities of touching on such points. in the number _for next week_--not this--is one of those following-up articles called "a home question." it is not written by me, but is generally of my suggesting, and is exceedingly well done by a thorough and experienced hand. i think you will find in it, generally, what you want. i have told the printers to send you a proof by post as soon as it is corrected--that is to say, as soon as some insertions i made in it last night are in type and in their places. my dear old parr, i don't believe a word you write about king john! that is to say, i don't believe you take into account the enormous difference between the energy summonable-up in your study at sherborne and the energy that will fire up in you (without so much as saying "with your leave" or "by your leave") in the town hall at birmingham. i know you, you ancient codger, i know you! therefore i will trouble you to be so good as to do an act of honesty after you have been to birmingham, and to write to me, "ingenuous boy, you were correct. i find i could have read 'em 'king john' with the greatest ease." in that vast hall in the busy town of sherborne, in which our illustrious english novelist is expected to read next month--though he is strongly of opinion that he is deficient in power, and too old--i wonder what accommodation there is for reading! because our illustrious countryman likes to stand at a desk breast-high, with plenty of room about him, a sloping top, and a ledge to keep his book from tumbling off. if such a thing should not be there, however, on his arrival, i suppose even a sherborne carpenter could knock it up out of a deal board. _is_ there a deal board in sherborne though? i should like to hear katey's opinion on that point. in this week's "household words" there is an exact portrait of our boulogne landlord, which i hope you will like. i think of opening the next long book i write with a man of juvenile figure and strong face, who is always persuading himself that he is infirm. what do you think of the idea? i should like to have your opinion about it. i would make him an impetuous passionate sort of fellow, devilish grim upon occasion, and of an iron purpose. droll, i fancy? ---- is getting a little too fat, but appears to be troubled by the great responsibility of directing the whole war. he doesn't seem to be quite clear that he has got the ships into the exact order he intended, on the sea point of attack at sebastopol. we went to the play last saturday night with stanfield, whose "high lights" (as maclise calls those knobs of brightness on the top of his cheeks) were more radiant than ever. we talked of you, and i told stanny how they are imitating his "acis and galatea" sea in "pericles," at phelps's. he didn't half like it; but i added, in nautical language, that it was merely a piratical effort achieved by a handful of porpoise-faced swabs, and that brought him up with a round turn, as we say at sea. we are looking forward to the twentieth of next month with great pleasure. all tavistock house send love and kisses to all sherborne house. if there is anything i can bring down for you, let me know in good course of time. ever, my dearest macready, most affectionately yours. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] tavistock house, _wednesday, nov. st, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i take upon myself to answer your letter to catherine, as i am referred to in it. the "walk" is not my writing. it is very well done by a close imitator. why i found myself so "used up" after "hard times" i scarcely know, perhaps because i intended to do nothing in that way for a year, when the idea laid hold of me by the throat in a very violent manner, and because the compression and close condensation necessary for that disjointed form of publication gave me perpetual trouble. but i really was tired, which is a result so very incomprehensible that i can't forget it. i have passed an idle autumn in a beautiful situation, and am dreadfully brown and big. for further particulars of boulogne, see "our french watering place," in this present week of "household words," which contains a faithful portrait of our landlord there. if you carry out that bright croydon idea, rely on our glad co-operation, only let me know all about it a few days beforehand; and if you feel equal to the contemplation of the moustache (which has been cut lately) it will give us the heartiest pleasure to come and meet you. this in spite of the terrific duffery of the crystal palace. it is a very remarkable thing in itself; but to have so very large a building continually crammed down one's throat, and to find it a new page in "the whole duty of man" to go there, is a little more than even i (and you know how amiable i am) can endure. you always like to know what i am going to do, so i beg to announce that on the th of december i am going to read the "carol" at reading, where i undertook the presidency of the literary institution on the death of poor dear talfourd. then i am going on to sherborne, in dorsetshire, to do the like for another institution, which is one of the few remaining pleasures of macready's life. then i am coming home for christmas day. then i believe i must go to bradford, in yorkshire, to read once more to a little fireside party of four thousand. then i am coming home again to get up a new little version of "the children in the wood" (yet to be written, by-the-bye), for the children to act on charley's birthday. i am full of mixed feeling about the war--admiration of our valiant men, burning desires to cut the emperor of russia's throat, and something like despair to see how the old cannon-smoke and blood-mists obscure the wrongs and sufferings of the people at home. when i consider the patriotic fund on the one hand, and on the other the poverty and wretchedness engendered by cholera, of which in london alone, an infinitely larger number of english people than are likely to be slain in the whole russian war have miserably and needlessly died--i feel as if the world had been pushed back five hundred years. if you are reading new books just now, i think you will be interested with a controversy between whewell and brewster, on the question of the shining orbs about us being inhabited or no. whewell's book is called, "on the plurality of worlds;" brewster's, "more worlds than one." i shouldn't wonder if you know all about them. they bring together a vast number of points of great interest in natural philosophy, and some very curious reasoning on both sides, and leave the matter pretty much where it was. we had a fine absurdity in connection with our luggage, when we left boulogne. the barometer had within a few hours fallen about a foot, in honour of the occasion, and it was a tremendous night, blowing a gale of wind and raining a little deluge. the luggage (pretty heavy, as you may suppose), in a cart drawn by two horses, stuck fast in a rut in our field, and couldn't be moved. our man, made a lunatic by the extremity of the occasion, ran down to the town to get two more horses to help it out, when he returned with those horses and carter b, the most beaming of men; carter a, who had been soaking all the time by the disabled vehicle, descried in carter b the acknowledged enemy of his existence, took his own two horses out, and walked off with them! after which, the whole set-out remained in the field all night, and we came to town, thirteen individuals, with one comb and a pocket-handkerchief. i was upside-down during the greater part of the passage. dr. rae's account of franklin's unfortunate party is deeply interesting; but i think hasty in its acceptance of the details, particularly in the statement that they had eaten the dead bodies of their companions, which i don't believe. franklin, on a former occasion, was almost starved to death, had gone through all the pains of that sad end, and lain down to die, and no such thought had presented itself to any of them. in famous cases of shipwreck, it is very rare indeed that any person of any humanising education or refinement resorts to this dreadful means of prolonging life. in open boats, the coarsest and commonest men of the shipwrecked party have done such things; but i don't remember more than one instance in which an officer had overcome the loathing that the idea had inspired. dr. rae talks about their _cooking_ these remains too. i should like to know where the fuel came from. kindest love and best regards. ever, my dear mrs. watson, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield, r.a.] tavistock house, _friday night, nov. rd, ._ my dear stanny, first of all, here is enclosed a letter for mrs. stanfield, which, if you don't immediately and faithfully deliver, you will hear of in an unpleasant way from the station-house at the curve of the hill above you. secondly, this is not to remind you that we meet at the athenæum next monday at five, because none but a mouldy swab as never broke biscuit or lay out on the for'sel-yard-arm in a gale of wind ever forgot an appointment with a messmate. but what i want you to think of at your leisure is this: when our dear old macready was in town last, i saw it would give him so much interest and pleasure if i promised to go down and read my "christmas carol" to the little sherborne institution, which is now one of the few active objects he has in the life about him, that i came out with that promise in a bold--i may say a swaggering way. consequently, on wednesday, the th of december, i am going down to see him, with kate and georgina, returning to town in good time for christmas, on saturday, the rd. do you think you could manage to go and return with us? i really believe there is scarcely anything in the world that would give him such extraordinary pleasure as such a visit; and if you would empower me to send him an intimation that he may expect it, he will have a daily joy in looking forward to the time (i am seriously sure) which we--whose light has not gone out, and who are among our old dear pursuits and associations--can scarcely estimate. i don't like to broach the idea in a careless way, and so i propose it thus, and ask you to think of it. ever most affectionately yours. [sidenote: miss procter.] tavistock house, _sunday, dec. th, ._ my dear miss procter, you have given me a new sensation. i did suppose that nothing in this singular world could surprise me, but you have done it. you will believe my congratulations on the delicacy and talent of your writing to be sincere. from the first, i have always had an especial interest in that miss berwick, and have over and over again questioned wills about her. i suppose he has gone on gradually building up an imaginary structure of life and adventure for her, but he has given me the strangest information! only yesterday week, when we were "making up" "the poor travellers," as i sat meditatively poking the office fire, i said to him, "wills, have you got that miss berwick's proof back, of the little sailor's song?" "no," he said. "well, but why not?" i asked him. "why, you know," he answered, "as i have often told you before, she don't live at the place to which her letters are addressed, and so there's always difficulty and delay in communicating with her." "do you know what age she is?" i said. here he looked unfathomably profound, and returned, "rather advanced in life." "you said she was a governess, didn't you?" said i; to which he replied in the most emphatic and positive manner, "a governess." he then came and stood in the corner of the hearth, with his back to the fire, and delivered himself like an oracle concerning you. he told me that early in life (conveying to me the impression of about a quarter of a century ago) you had had your feelings desperately wounded by some cause, real or imaginary--"it does not matter which," said i, with the greatest sagacity--and that you had then taken to writing verses. that you were of an unhappy temperament, but keenly sensitive to encouragement. that you wrote after the educational duties of the day were discharged. that you sometimes thought of never writing any more. that you had been away for some time "with your pupils." that your letters were of a mild and melancholy character, and that you did not seem to care as much as might be expected about money. all this time i sat poking the fire, with a wisdom upon me absolutely crushing; and finally i begged him to assure the lady that she might trust me with her real address, and that it would be better to have it now, as i hoped our further communications, etc. etc. etc. you must have felt enormously wicked last tuesday, when i, such a babe in the wood, was unconsciously prattling to you. but you have given me so much pleasure, and have made me shed so many tears, that i can only think of you now in association with the sentiment and grace of your verses. so pray accept the blessing and forgiveness of richard watts, though i am afraid you come under both his conditions of exclusion.[ ] very faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] the poet "barry cornwall." [ ] "hide and seek." [ ] on the occasion of the prince consort's visit to the camp at boulogne. [ ] mr. egg. [ ] the inscription on the house in rochester known as "watts's charity" is to the effect that it furnishes a night's lodging for six poor travellers--"not being rogues or proctors." . narrative. in the beginning of this year, charles dickens gave public readings at reading, sherborne, and bradford in yorkshire, to which reference is made in the first following letters. besides this, he was fully occupied in getting up a play for his children, which was acted on the th january. mr. planché's fairy extravaganza of "fortunio and his seven gifted servants" was the play selected, the parts being filled by all his own children and some of their young friends, and charles dickens, mr. mark lemon, and mr. wilkie collins playing with them, the only grown-up members of the company. in february he made a short trip to paris with mr. wilkie collins, with an intention of going on to bordeaux, which was abandoned on account of bad weather. out of the success of the children's play at tavistock house rose a scheme for a serious play at the same place. mr. collins undertaking to write a melodrama for the purpose, and mr. stanfield to paint scenery and drop-scene, charles dickens turned one of the rooms of the house into a very perfect little theatre, and in june "the lighthouse" was acted for three nights, with "mr. nightingale's diary" and "animal magnetism" as farces; the actors being himself and several members of the original amateur company, the actresses, his two daughters and his sister-in-law. mr. stanfield, after entering most heartily into the enterprise, and giving constant time and attention to the painting of his beautiful scenes, was unfortunately ill and unable to attend the first performance. we give a letter to him, reporting its great success. in this summer charles dickens made a speech at a great meeting at drury lane theatre on the subject of "administrative reform," of which he writes to mr. macready. on this subject of "administrative reform," too, we give two letters to the great nineveh traveller mr. layard (now sir austen h. layard), for whom, as his letters show, he conceived at once the affectionate friendship which went on increasing from this time for the rest of his life. mr. layard also spoke at the drury lane meeting. charles dickens had made a promise to give another reading at birmingham for the funds of the institute which still needed help; and in a letter to mr. arthur ryland, asking him to fix a time for it, he gives the first idea of a selection from "david copperfield," which was afterwards one of the most popular of his readings. he was at all times fond of making excursions for a day--or two or three days--to rochester and its neighbourhood; and after one of these, this year, he writes to mr. wills that he has seen a "small freehold" to be sold, _opposite_ the house on which he had fixed his childish affections (and which he calls in _this_ letter the "hermitage," its real name being "gad's hill place"). the latter house was not, at that time, to be had, and he made some approach to negotiations as to the other "little freehold," which, however, did not come to anything. later in the year, however, mr. wills, by an accident, discovered that gad's hill place, the property of miss lynn, the well-known authoress, and a constant contributor to "household words," was itself for sale; and a negotiation for its purchase commenced, which was not, however, completed until the following spring. later in the year, the performance of "the lighthouse" was repeated, for a charitable purpose, at the campden house theatre. this autumn was passed at folkestone. charles dickens had decided upon spending the following winter in paris, and the family proceeded there from folkestone in october, making a halt at boulogne; from whence his sister-in-law preceded the party to paris, to secure lodgings, with the help of lady olliffe. he followed, to make his choice of apartments that had been found, and he writes to his wife and to mr. wills, giving a description of the paris house. here he began "little dorrit." in a letter to mrs. watson, from folkestone, he gives her the name which he had first proposed for this story--"nobody's fault." during his absence from england, mr. and mrs. hogarth occupied tavistock house, and his eldest son, being now engaged in business, remained with them, coming to paris only for christmas. three of his boys were at school at boulogne at this time, and one, walter landor, at wimbledon, studying for an indian army appointment. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] tavistock house, _january rd, ._ my dear cerjat, when your christmas letter did not arrive according to custom, i felt as if a bit of christmas had fallen out and there was no supplying the piece. however, it was soon supplied by yourself, and the bowl became round and sound again. the christmas number of "household words," i suppose, will reach lausanne about midsummer. the first ten pages or so--all under the head of "the first poor traveller"--are written by me, and i hope you will find, in the story of the soldier which they contain, something that may move you a little. it moved me _not_ a little in the writing, and i believe has touched a vast number of people. we have sold eighty thousand of it. i am but newly come home from reading at reading (where i succeeded poor talfourd as the president of an institution), and at sherborne, in dorsetshire, and at bradford, in yorkshire. wonderful audiences! and the number at the last place three thousand seven hundred. and yet but for the noise of their laughing and cheering, they "went" like one man. the absorption of the english mind in the war is, to me, a melancholy thing. every other subject of popular solicitude and sympathy goes down before it. i fear i clearly see that for years to come domestic reforms are shaken to the root; every miserable red-tapist flourishes war over the head of every protester against his humbug; and everything connected with it is pushed to such an unreasonable extent, that, however kind and necessary it may be in itself, it becomes ridiculous. for all this it is an indubitable fact, i conceive, that russia must be stopped, and that the future peace of the world renders the war imperative upon us. the duke of newcastle lately addressed a private letter to the newspapers, entreating them to exercise a larger discretion in respect of the letters of "our own correspondents," against which lord raglan protests as giving the emperor of russia information for nothing which would cost him (if indeed he could get it at all) fifty or a hundred thousand pounds a year. the communication has not been attended with much effect, so far as i can see. in the meantime i do suppose we have the wretchedest ministry that ever was--in whom nobody not in office of some sort believes--yet whom there is nobody to displace. the strangest result, perhaps, of years of reformed parliaments that ever the general sagacity did _not_ foresee. let me recommend you, as a brother-reader of high distinction, two comedies, both goldsmith's--"she stoops to conquer" and "the good-natured man." both are so admirable and so delightfully written that they read wonderfully. a friend of mine, forster, who wrote "the life of goldsmith," was very ill a year or so ago, and begged me to read to him one night as he lay in bed, "something of goldsmith's." i fell upon "she stoops to conquer," and we enjoyed it with that wonderful intensity, that i believe he began to get better in the first scene, and was all right again in the fifth act. i am charmed by your account of haldimand, to whom my love. tell him sydney smith's daughter has privately printed a life of her father with selections from his letters, which has great merit, and often presents him exactly as he used to be. i have strongly urged her to publish it, and i think she will do so, about march. my eldest boy has come home from germany to learn a business life at birmingham (i think), first of all. the whole nine are well and happy. ditto, mrs. dickens. ditto, georgina. my two girls are full of interest in yours; and one of mine (as i think i told you when i was at elysée) is curiously like one of yours in the face. they are all agog now about a great fairy play, which is to come off here next monday. the house is full of spangles, gas, jew theatrical tailors, and pantomime carpenters. we all unite in kindest and best loves to dear mrs. cerjat and all the blooming daughters. and i am, with frequent thoughts of you and cordial affection, ever, my dear cerjat, your faithful friend. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] tavistock house, _january rd, ._ my dear mary, this is a word of heartfelt greeting; in exchange for yours, which came to me most pleasantly, and was received with a cordial welcome. if i had leisure to write a letter, i should write you, at this point, perhaps the very best letter that ever was read; but, being in the agonies of getting up a gorgeous fairy play for the postboys, on charley's birthday (besides having the work of half-a-dozen to do as a regular thing), i leave the merits of the wonderful epistle to your lively fancy. enclosing a kiss, if you will have the kindness to return it when done with. i have just been reading my "christmas carol" in yorkshire. i should have lost my heart to the beautiful young landlady of my hotel (age twenty-nine, dress, black frock and jacket, exquisitely braided) if it had not been safe in your possession. many, many happy years to you! my regards to that obstinate old wurzell[ ] and his dame, when you have them under lock and key again. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] tavistock house, _january th, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, let me congratulate you on the conclusion of your story; not because it is the end of a task to which you had conceived a dislike (for i imagine you to have got the better of that delusion by this time), but because it is the vigorous and powerful accomplishment of an anxious labour. it seems to me that you have felt the ground thoroughly firm under your feet, and have strided on with a force and purpose that must now give you pleasure. you will not, i hope, allow that not-lucid interval of dissatisfaction with yourself (and me?), which beset you for a minute or two once upon a time, to linger in the shape of any disagreeable association with "household words." i shall still look forward to the large sides of paper, and shall soon feel disappointed if they don't begin to reappear. i thought it best that wills should write the business letter on the conclusion of the story, as that part of our communications had always previously rested with him. i trust you found it satisfactory? i refer to it, not as a matter of mere form, but because i sincerely wish everything between us to be beyond the possibility of misunderstanding or reservation. dear mrs. gaskell, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. arthur ryland.] tavistock house, _monday, jan. th, ._ my dear mr. ryland, i have been in the greatest difficulty--which i am not yet out of--to know what to read at birmingham. i fear the idea of next month is now impracticable. which of two other months do you think would be preferable for your birmingham objects? next may, or next december? having already read two christmas books at birmingham, i should like to get out of that restriction, and have a swim in the broader waters of one of my long books. i have been poring over "copperfield" (which is my favourite), with the idea of getting a reading out of it, to be called by some such name as "young housekeeping and little emily." but there is still the huge difficulty that i constructed the whole with immense pains, and have so woven it up and blended it together, that i cannot yet so separate the parts as to tell the story of david's married life with dora, and the story of mr. peggotty's search for his niece, within the time. this is my object. if i could possibly bring it to bear, it would make a very attractive reading, with, a strong interest in it, and a certain completeness. this is exactly the state of the case. i don't mind confiding to you, that i never can approach the book with perfect composure (it had such perfect possession of me when i wrote it), and that i no sooner begin to try to get it into this form, than i begin to read it all, and to feel that i cannot disturb it. i have not been unmindful of the agreement we made at parting, and i have sat staring at the backs of my books for an inspiration. this project is the only one that i have constantly reverted to, and yet i have made no progress in it! faithfully yours always. [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] tavistock house, london, _saturday evening, feb. rd, ._ my dear regnier, i am coming to paris for a week, with my friend collins--son of the english painter who painted our green lanes and our cottage children so beautifully. do not tell this to le vieux. unless i have the ill fortune to stumble against him in the street i shall not make my arrival known to him. i purpose leaving here on sunday, the th, but i shall stay that night at boulogne to see two of my little boys who are at school there. we shall come to paris on monday, the th, arriving there in the evening. now, _mon cher_, do you think you can, without inconvenience, engage me for a week an apartment--cheerful, light, and wholesome--containing a comfortable _salon et deux chambres à coucher_. i do not care whether it is an hotel or not, but the reason why i do not write for an apartment to the hôtel brighton is, that there they expect one to dine at home (i mean in the apartment) generally; whereas, as we are coming to paris expressly to be always looking about us, we want to dine wherever we like every day. consequently, what we want to find is a good apartment, where we can have our breakfast but where we shall never dine. can you engage such accommodation for me? if you can, i shall feel very much obliged to you. if the apartment should happen to contain a little bed for a servant i might perhaps bring one, but i do not care about that at all. i want it to be pleasant and gay, and to throw myself _en garçon_ on the festive _diableries de paris_. mrs. dickens and her sister send their kindest regards to madame regnier and you, in which i heartily join. all the children send their loves to the two brave boys and the normandy _bonnes_. i shall hope for a short answer from you one day next week. my dear regnier, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] office of "household words," _friday, feb. th, ._ my dear wills, i want to alter the arrangements for to-morrow, and put you to some inconvenience. when i was at gravesend t'other day, i saw, at gad's hill--just opposite to the hermitage, where miss lynn used to live--a little freehold to be sold. the spot and the very house are literally "a dream of my childhood," and i should like to look at it before i go to paris. with that purpose i must go to strood by the north kent, at a quarter-past ten to-morrow morning, and i want you, strongly booted, to go with me! (i know the particulars from the agent.) can you? let me know. if you can, can you manage so that we can take the proofs with us? if you can't, will you bring them to tavistock house at dinner time to-morrow, half-past five? forster will dine with us, but no one else. i am uncertain of your being in town to-night, but i send john up with this. ever faithfully. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] hÃ�tel meurice, paris, _friday, feb. th, ._ my dear georgy, i heard from home last night; but the posts are so delayed and put out by the snow, that they come in at all sorts of times except the right times, and utterly defy all calculation. will you tell catherine with my love, that i will write to her again to-morrow afternoon; i hope she may then receive my letter by monday morning, and in it i purpose telling her when i may be expected home. the weather is so severe and the roads are so bad, that the journey to and from bordeaux seems out of the question. we have made up our minds to abandon it for the present, and to return about tuesday night or wednesday. collins continues in a queer state, but is perfectly cheerful under the stoppage of his wine and other afflictions. we have a beautiful apartment, very elegantly furnished, very thickly carpeted, and as warm as any apartment in paris _can_ be in such weather. we are very well waited on and looked after. we breakfast at ten, read and write till two, and then i go out walking all over paris, while the invalid sits by the fire or is deposited in a café. we dine at five, in a different restaurant every day, and at seven or so go to the theatre--sometimes to two theatres, sometimes to three. we get home about twelve, light the fire, and drink lemonade, to which _i_ add rum. we go to bed between one and two. i live in peace, like an elderly gentleman, and regard myself as in a negative state of virtue and respectability. the theatres are not particularly good, but i have seen lemaître act in the most wonderful and astounding manner. i am afraid we must go to the opéra comique on sunday. to-morrow we dine with regnier and to-day with the olliffes. "la joie fait peur," at the français, delighted me. exquisitely played and beautifully imagined altogether. last night we went to the porte st. martin to see a piece (english subject) called "jane osborne," which the characters pronounce "ja nosbornnne." the seducer was lord nottingham. the comic englishwoman's name (she kept lodgings and was a very bad character) was missees christmas. she had begun to get into great difficulties with a gentleman of the name of meestair cornhill, when we were obliged to leave, at the end of the first act, by the intolerable stench of the place. the whole theatre must be standing over some vast cesspool. it was so alarming that i instantly rushed into a café and had brandy. my ear has gradually become so accustomed to french, that i understand the people at the theatres (for the first time) with perfect ease and satisfaction. i walked about with regnier for an hour and a half yesterday, and received many compliments on my angelic manner of speaking the celestial language. there is a winter franconi's now, high up on the boulevards, just like the round theatre on the champs elysées, and as bright and beautiful. a clown from astley's is all in high favour there at present. he talks slang english (being evidently an idiot), as if he felt a perfect confidence that everybody understands him. his name is boswell, and the whole cirque rang last night with cries for boz zwilllll! boz zweellll! boz zwuallll! etc. etc. etc. etc. i must begin to look out for the box of bon-bons for the noble and fascinating plornish-maroon. give him my love and a thousand kisses. loves to mamey, katey, sydney, harry, and the following stab to anne--she forgot to pack me any shaving soap. ever, my dear georgy, most affectionately yours. p.s.--collins sends kind regards. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] hÃ�tel meurice, paris, _friday, feb. th, ._ my dear wills, i received your letter yesterday evening. i have not yet seen the lists of trains and boats, but propose arranging to return about tuesday or wednesday. in the meantime i am living like gil blas and doing nothing. i am very much obliged to you, indeed, for the trouble you have kindly taken about the little freehold. it is clear to me that its merits resolve themselves into the view and the spot. if i had more money these considerations might, with me, overtop all others. but, as it is, i consider the matter quite disposed of, finally settled in the negative, and to be thought no more about. i shall not go down and look at it, as i could add nothing to your report. paris is finer than ever, and i go wandering about it all day. we dine at all manner of places, and go to two or three theatres in the evening. i suppose, as an old farmer said of scott, i am "makin' mysel'" all the time; but i seem to be rather a free-and-easy sort of superior vagabond. i live in continual terror of ----, and am strongly fortified within doors, with a means of retreat into my bedroom always ready. up to the present blessed moment, his staggering form has not appeared. as to yesterday's post from england, i have not, at the present moment, the slightest idea where it may be. it is under the snow somewhere, i suppose; but nobody expects it, and _galignani_ reprints every morning leaders from _the times_ of about a fortnight or three weeks old. collins, who is not very well, sends his "penitent regards," and says he is enjoying himself as much as a man with the weight of a broken promise on his conscience can. ever, my dear wills, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. arthur ryland.] tavistock house, _february th, ._ my dear mr. ryland, charley came home, i assure you, perfectly delighted with his visit to you, and rapturous in his accounts of your great kindness to him. it appears to me that the first question in reference to my reading (i have not advanced an inch in my "copperfield" trials by-the-bye) is, whether you think you could devise any plan in connection with the room at dee's, which would certainly bring my help in money up to five hundred pounds. that is what i want. if it could be done by a subscription for two nights, for instance, i would not be chary of my time and trouble. but if you cannot see your way clearly to that result in that connection, then i think it would be better to wait until we can have the town hall at christmas. i have promised to read, about christmas time, at sheffield and at peterboro'. i _could_ add birmingham to the list, then, if need were. but what i want is, to give the institution in all five hundred pounds. that is my object, and nothing less will satisfy me. will you think it over, taking counsel with whomsoever you please, and let me know what conclusion you arrive at. only think of me as subservient to the institution. my dear mr. ryland, always very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. david roberts, r.a.] tavistock house, _february th, ._ my dear david roberts, i hope to make it quite plain to you, in a few words, why i think it right to stay away from the lord mayor's dinner to the club. if i did not feel a kind of rectitude involved in my non-acceptance of his invitation, your note would immediately induce me to change my mind. entertaining a strong opinion on the subject of the city corporation as it stands, and the absurdity of its pretensions in an age perfectly different, in all conceivable respects, from that to which it properly belonged as a reality, i have expressed that opinion on more than one occasion, within a year or so, in "household words." i do not think it consistent with my respect for myself, or for the art i profess, to blow hot and cold in the same breath; and to laugh at the institution in print, and accept the hospitality of its representative while the ink is staring us all in the face. there is a great deal too much of this among us, and it does not elevate the earnestness or delicacy of literature. this is my sole consideration. personally i have always met the present lord mayor on the most agreeable terms, and i think him an excellent one. as between you, and me, and him, i cannot have the slightest objection to your telling him the truth. on a more private occasion, when he was not keeping his state, i should be delighted to interchange any courtesy with that honourable and amiable gentleman, mr. moon. believe me always cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. austen h. layard.] tavistock house, _tuesday evening, april rd, ._ dear layard, since i had the pleasure of seeing you again at miss coutts's (really a greater pleasure to me than i could easily tell you), i have thought a good deal of the duty we all owe you of helping you as much as we can. being on very intimate terms with lemon, the editor of "punch" (a most affectionate and true-hearted fellow), i mentioned to him in confidence what i had at heart. you will find yourself the subject of their next large cut, and of some lines in an earnest spirit. he again suggested the point to mr. shirley brookes, one of their regular corps, who will do what is right in _the illustrated london news_ and _the weekly chronicle_, papers that go into the hands of large numbers of people. i have also communicated with jerrold, whom i trust, and have begged him not to be diverted from the straight path of help to the most useful man in england on all possible occasions. forster i will speak to carefully, and i have no doubt it will quicken him a little; not that we have anything to complain of in his direction. if you ever see any new loophole, cranny, needle's-eye, through which i can present your case to "household words," i most earnestly entreat you, as your staunch friend and admirer--you _can_ have no truer--to indicate it to me at any time or season, and to count upon my being damascus steel to the core. all this is nothing; because all these men, and thousands of others, dote upon you. but i know it would be a comfort to me, in your hard-fighting place, to be assured of such sympathy, and therefore only i write. you have other recreations for your sundays in the session, i daresay, than to come here. but it is generally a day on which i do not go out, and when we dine at half-past five in the easiest way in the world, and smoke in the peacefulest manner. perhaps one of these sundays after easter you might not be indisposed to begin to dig us out? and i should like, on a saturday of your appointing, to get a few of the serviceable men i know--such as i have mentioned--about you here. will you think of this, too, and suggest a saturday for our dining together? i am really ashamed and moved that you should do your part so manfully and be left alone in the conflict. i felt you to be all you are the first moment i saw you. i know you will accept my regard and fidelity for what they are worth. dear layard, very heartily yours. [sidenote: mr. austen h. layard.] tavistock house, _tuesday, april th, ._ dear layard, i shall of course observe the strictest silence, at present, in reference to your resolutions. it will be a most acceptable occupation to me to go over them with you, and i have not a doubt of their producing a strong effect out of doors. there is nothing in the present time at once so galling and so alarming to me as the alienation of the people from their own public affairs. i have no difficulty in understanding it. they have had so little to do with the game through all these years of parliamentary reform, that they have sullenly laid down their cards, and taken to looking on. the players who are left at the table do not see beyond it, conceive that gain and loss and all the interest of the play are in their hands, and will never be wiser until they and the table and the lights and the money are all overturned together. and i believe the discontent to be so much the worse for smouldering, instead of blazing openly, that it is extremely like the general mind of france before the breaking out of the first revolution, and is in danger of being turned by any one of a thousand accidents--a bad harvest--the last strain too much of aristocratic insolence or incapacity--a defeat abroad--a mere chance at home--with such a devil of a conflagration as never has been beheld since. meanwhile, all our english tuft-hunting, toad-eating, and other manifestations of accursed gentility--to say nothing of the lord knows who's defiances of the proven truth before six hundred and fifty men--are expressing themselves every day. so, every day, the disgusted millions with this unnatural gloom are confirmed and hardened in the very worst of moods. finally, round all this is an atmosphere of poverty, hunger, and ignorant desperation, of the mere existence of which perhaps not one man in a thousand of those not actually enveloped in it, through the whole extent of this country, has the least idea. it seems to me an absolute impossibility to direct the spirit of the people at this pass until it shows itself. if they begin to bestir themselves in the vigorous national manner; if they would appear in political reunion, array themselves peacefully but in vast numbers against a system that they know to be rotten altogether, make themselves heard like the sea all round this island, i for one should be in such a movement heart and soul, and should think it a duty of the plainest kind to go along with it, and try to guide it by all possible means. but you can no more help a people who do not help themselves than you can help a man who does not help himself. and until the people can be got up from the lethargy, which is an awful symptom of the advanced state of their disease, i know of nothing that can be done beyond keeping their wrongs continually before them. i shall hope to see you soon after you come back. your speeches at aberdeen are most admirable, manful, and earnest. i would have such speeches at every market-cross, and in every town-hall, and among all sorts and conditions of men; up in the very balloons, and down in the very diving-bells. ever, cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] tavistock house, _saturday, april th, ._ my dear forster, i cannot express to you how very much delighted i am with the "steele." i think it incomparably the best of the series. the pleasanter humanity of the subject may commend it more to one's liking, but that again requires a delicate handling, which you have given to it in a most charming manner. it is surely not possible to approach a man with a finer sympathy, and the assertion of the claims of literature throughout is of the noblest and most gallant kind. i don't agree with you about the serious papers in _the spectator_, which i think (whether they be steele's or addison's) are generally as indifferent as the humour of _the spectator_ is delightful. and i have always had a notion that prue understood her husband very well, and held him in consequence, when a fonder woman with less show of caprice must have let him go. but these are points of opinion. the paper is masterly, and all i have got to say is, that if ---- had a grain of the honest sentiment with which it overflows, he never would or could have made so great a mistake. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] tavistock house, _thursday, april th, ._ on the death of an infant. my dear mark, i will call for you at two, and go with you to highgate, by all means. leech and i called on tuesday evening and left our loves. i have not written to you since, because i thought it best to leave you quiet for a day. i have no need to tell you, my dear fellow, that my thoughts have been constantly with you, and that i have not forgotten (and never shall forget) who sat up with me one night when a little place in my house was left empty. it is hard to lose any child, but there are many blessed sources of consolation in the loss of a baby. there is a beautiful thought in fielding's "journey from this world to the next," where the baby he had lost many years before was found by him all radiant and happy, building him a bower in the elysian fields where they were to live together when he came. ever affectionately yours. p.s.--our kindest loves to mrs. lemon. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield, r.a.] tavistock house, _sunday, may th, ._ my dear stanny, i have a little lark in contemplation, if you will help it to fly. collins has done a melodrama (a regular old-style melodrama), in which there is a very good notion. i am going to act it, as an experiment, in the children's theatre here--i, mark, collins, egg, and my daughter mary, the whole _dram. pers._; our families and yours the whole audience; for i want to make the stage large and shouldn't have room for above five-and-twenty spectators. now there is only one scene in the piece, and that, my tarry lad, is the inside of a lighthouse. will you come and paint it for us one night, and we'll all turn to and help? it is a mere wall, of course, but mark and i have sworn that you must do it. if you will say yes, i should like to have the tiny flats made, after you have looked at the place, and not before. on wednesday in this week i am good for a steak and the play, if you will make your own appointment here; or any day next week except thursday. write me a line in reply. we mean to burst on an astonished world with the melodrama, without any note of preparation. so don't say a syllable to forster if you should happen to see him. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield, r.a.] tavistock house, _tuesday afternoon, six o'clock, may nd, ._ my dear stanny, your note came while i was out walking. even if i had been at home i could not have managed to dine together to-day, being under a beastly engagement to dine out. unless i hear from you to the contrary, i shall expect you here some time to-morrow, and will remain at home. i only wait your instructions to get the little canvases made. o, what a pity it is not the outside of the light'us, with the sea a-rowling agin it! never mind, we'll get an effect out of the inside, and there's a storm and a shipwreck "off;" and the great ambition of my life will be achieved at last, in the wearing of a pair of very coarse petticoat trousers. so hoorar for the salt sea, mate, and bouse up! ever affectionately, dicky. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] tavistock house, _may rd, ._ my dear mark, stanny says he is only sorry it is not the outside of the lighthouse with a raging sea and a transparent light. he enters into the project with the greatest delight, and i think we shall make a capital thing of it. it now occurs to me that we may as well do a farce too. i should like to get in a little part for katey, and also for charley, if it were practicable. what do you think of "animal mag."? you and i in our old parts; collins, jeffrey; charley, the markis; katey and mary (or georgina), the two ladies? can you think of anything merry that is better? it ought to be broad, as a relief to the melodrama, unless we could find something funny with a story in it too. i rather incline myself to "animal mag." will you come round and deliver your sentiments? ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] tavistock house, _thursday, may th, ._ my dear stone, great projects are afoot here for a grown-up play in about three weeks' time. former schoolroom arrangements to be reversed--large stage and small audience. stanfield bent on desperate effects, and all day long with his coat off, up to his eyes in distemper colours. will you appear in your celebrated character of mr. nightingale? i want to wind up with that popular farce, we all playing our old parts. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] tavistock house, _may th, ._ my dear stone, that's right! you will find the words come back very quickly. why, _of course_ your people are to come, and if stanfield don't astonish 'em, i'm a dutchman. o heaven, if you could hear the ideas he proposes to me, making even _my_ hair stand on end! will you get marcus or some similar bright creature to copy out old nightingale's part for you, and then return the book? this is the prompt-book, the only one i have; and katey and georgina (being also in wild excitement) want to write their parts out with all despatch. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] tavistock house, _thursday, may th, ._ my dear collins, i shall expect you to-morrow evening at "household words." i have written a little ballad for mary--"the story of the ship's carpenter and the little boy, in the shipwreck." let us close up with "mr. nightingale's diary." will you look whether you have a book of it, or your part. all other matters and things hereunto belonging when we meet. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mrs. trollope.] tavistock house, _tuesday morning, june th, ._ my dear mrs. trollope, i was out of town on sunday, or i should have answered your note immediately on its arrival. i cannot have the pleasure of seeing the famous "medium" to-night, for i have some theatricals at home. but i fear i shall not in any case be a good subject for the purpose, as i altogether want faith in the thing. i have not the least belief in the awful unseen world being available for evening parties at so much per night; and, although i should be ready to receive enlightenment from any source, i must say i have very little hope of it from the spirits who express themselves through mediums, as i have never yet observed them to talk anything but nonsense, of which (as carlyle would say) there is probably enough in these days of ours, and in all days, among mere mortality. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield, r.a.] tavistock house, _wednesday, june th, ._ my dear stanny, i write a hasty note to let you know that last night was perfectly wonderful!!! such an audience! such a brilliant success from first to last! the queen had taken it into her head in the morning to go to chatham, and had carried phipps with her. he wrote to me asking if it were possible to give him a quarter of an hour. i got through that time before the overture, and he came without any dinner, so influenced by eager curiosity. lemon and i did every conceivable absurdity, i think, in the farce; and they never left off laughing. at supper i proposed your health, which was drunk with nine times nine, and three cheers over. we then turned to at scotch reels (having had no exercise), and danced in the maddest way until five this morning. it is as much as i can do to guide the pen. with loves to mrs. stanfield and all, ever most affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] tavistock house, _saturday, june th, ._ my very dear macready, i write shortly, after a day's work at my desk, rather than lose a post in answering your enthusiastic, earnest, and young--how young, in all the best side of youth--letter. to tell you the truth, i confidently expected to hear from you. i knew that if there were a man in the world who would be interested in, and who would approve of, my giving utterance to whatever was in me at this time, it would be you. i was as sure of you as of the sun this morning. the subject is surrounded by difficulties; the association is sorely in want of able men; and the resistance of all the phalanx, who have an interest in corruption and mismanagement, is the resistance of a struggle against death. but the great, first, strong necessity is to rouse the people up, to keep them stirring and vigilant, to carry the war dead into the tent of such creatures as ----, and ring into their souls (or what stands for them) that the time for dandy insolence is gone for ever. it may be necessary to come to that law of primogeniture (i have no love for it), or to come to even greater things; but this is the first service to be done, and unless it is done, there is not a chance. for this, and to encourage timid people to come in, i went to drury lane the other night; and i wish you had been there and had seen and heard the people. the association will be proud to have your name and gift. when we sat down on the stage the other night, and were waiting a minute or two to begin, i said to morley, the chairman (a thoroughly fine earnest fellow), "this reminds me so of one of my dearest friends, with a melancholy so curious, that i don't know whether the place feels familiar to me or strange." he was full of interest directly, and we went on talking of you until the moment of his getting up to open the business. they are going to print my speech in a tract-form, and send it all over the country. i corrected it for the purpose last night. we are all well. charley in the city; all the boys at home for the holidays; three prizes brought home triumphantly (one from the boulogne waters and one from wimbledon); i taking dives into a new book, and runs at leap-frog over "household words;" and anne going to be married--which is the only bad news. catherine, georgie, mary, katey, charley, and all the rest, send multitudes of loves. ever, my dearest macready, with unalterable affection and attachment, your faithful friend. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] , albion villas, folkestone, _tuesday, july th, ._ my dear collins, walter goes back to school on the st of august. will you come out of school to this breezy vacation on the same day, or rather _this day fortnight, july st_? for that is the day on which he leaves us, and we begin (here's a parent!) to be able to be comfortable. why a boy of that age should seem to have on at all times a hundred and fifty pair of double-soled boots, and to be always jumping a bottom stair with the whole hundred and fifty, i don't know. but the woeful fact is within my daily experience. we have a very pleasant little house, overlooking the sea, and i think you will like the place. it rained, in honour of our arrival, with the greatest vigour, yesterday. i went out after dinner to buy some nails (you know the arrangements that would be then in progress), and i stopped in the rain, about halfway down a steep, crooked street, like a crippled ladder, to look at a little coachmaker's, where there had just been a sale. speculating on the insolvent coachmaker's business, and what kind of coaches he could possibly have expected to get orders for in folkestone, i thought, "what would bring together fifty people now, in this little street, at this little rainy minute?" on the instant, a brewer's van, with two mad horses in it, and the harness dangling about them--like the trappings of those horses you are acquainted with, who bolted through the starry courts of heaven--dashed by me, and in that instant, such a crowd as would have accumulated in fleet street sprang up magically. men fell out of windows, dived out of doors, plunged down courts, precipitated themselves down steps, came down waterspouts, instead of rain, i think, and i never saw so wonderful an instance of the gregarious effect of an excitement. a man, a woman, and a child had been thrown out on the horses taking fright and the reins breaking. the child is dead, and the woman very ill but will probably recover, and the man has a hand broken and other mischief done to him. let me know what wigan says. if he does not take the play, and readily too, i would recommend you not to offer it elsewhere. you have gained great reputation by it, have done your position a deal of good, and (as i think) stand so well with it, that it is a pity to engender the notion that you care to stand better. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] folkestone, _september th, ._ my dear wills, scrooge is delighted to find that bob cratchit is enjoying his holiday in such a delightful situation; and he says (with that warmth of nature which has distinguished him since his conversion), "make the most of it, bob; make the most of it." [i am just getting to work on no. of the new book, and am in the hideous state of mind belonging to that condition.] i have not a word of news. i am steeped in my story, and rise and fall by turns into enthusiasm and depression. ever faithfully. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] folkestone, _sunday, sept. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, this will be a short letter, but i hope not unwelcome. if you knew how often i write to you--in intention--i don't know where you would find room for the correspondence. catherine tells me that you want to know the name of my new book. i cannot bear that you should know it from anyone but me. it will not be made public until the end of october; the title is: "nobody's fault." keep it as the apple of your eye--an expressive form of speech, though i have not the least idea of what it means. next, i wish to tell you that i have appointed to read at peterboro', on tuesday, the th of december. i have told the dean that i cannot accept his hospitality, and that i am going with mr. wills to the inn, therefore i shall be absolutely at your disposal, and shall be more than disappointed if you don't stay with us. as the time approaches will you let me know your arrangements, and whether mr. wills can bespeak any rooms for you in arranging for me? georgy will give you our address in paris as soon as we shall have settled there. we shall leave here, i think, in rather less than a month from this time. you know my state of mind as well as i do, indeed, if you don't know it much better, it is not the state of mind i take it to be. how i work, how i walk, how i shut myself up, how i roll down hills and climb up cliffs; how the new story is everywhere--heaving in the sea, flying with the clouds, blowing in the wind; how i settle to nothing, and wonder (in the old way) at my own incomprehensibility. i am getting on pretty well, have done the first two numbers, and am just now beginning the third; which egotistical announcements i make to you because i know you will be interested in them. all the house send their kindest loves. i think of inserting an advertisement in _the times_, offering to submit the plornishghenter to public competition, and to receive fifty thousand pounds if such another boy cannot be found, and to pay five pounds (my fortune) if he can. ever, my dear mrs. watson, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] folkestone, _sunday, sept. th, ._ my dear collins, welcome from the bosom of the deep! if a hornpipe will be acceptable to you at any time (as a reminder of what the three brothers were always doing), i shall be, as the chairman says at mr. evans's, "happy to oblige." i have almost finished no. , in which i have relieved my indignant soul with a scarifier. sticking at it day after day, i am the incompletest letter-writer imaginable--seem to have no idea of holding a pen for any other purpose but that book. my fair laura has not yet reported concerning paris, but i should think will have done so before i see you. and now to that point. i purpose being in town on _monday, the th_, when i have promised to dine with forster. at the office, between half-past eleven and one that day, i will expect you, unless i hear from you to the contrary. of course the h. w. stories are at your disposition. if you should have completed your idea, we might breakfast together at the g. on the tuesday morning and discuss it. or i shall be in town after ten on the monday night. at the office i will tell you the idea of the christmas number, which will put you in train, i hope, for a story. i have postponed the shipwreck idea for a year, as it seemed to require more force from me than i could well give it with the weight of a new start upon me. all here send their kindest remembrances. we missed you very much, and the plorn was quite inconsolable. we slide down cæsar occasionally. they launched the boat, the rapid building of which you remember, the other day. all the fishermen in the place, all the nondescripts, and all the boys pulled at it with ropes from six a.m. to four p.m. every now and then the ropes broke, and they all fell down in the shingle. the obstinate way in which the beastly thing wouldn't move was so exasperating that i wondered they didn't shoot it, or burn it. whenever it moved an inch they all cheered; whenever it wouldn't move they all swore. finally, when it was quite given over, some one tumbled against it accidentally (as it appeared to me, looking out at my window here), and it instantly shot about a mile into the sea, and they all stood looking at it helplessly. kind regards to pigott, in which all unite. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] folkestone, _thursday, oct. th, ._ my dearest macready, i have been hammering away in that strenuous manner at my book, that i have had leisure for scarcely any letters but such, as i have been obliged to write; having a horrible temptation when i lay down my book-pen to run out on the breezy downs here, tear up the hills, slide down the same, and conduct myself in a frenzied manner, for the relief that only exercise gives me. your letter to miss coutts in behalf of little miss warner i despatched straightway. she is at present among the pyrenees, and a letter from her crossed that one of mine in which i enclosed yours, last week. pray stick to that dim notion you have of coming to paris! how delightful it would be to see your aged countenance and perfectly bald head in that capital! it will renew your youth, to visit a theatre (previously dining at the trois frères) in company with the jocund boy who now addresses you. do, do stick to it. you will be pleased to hear, i know, that charley has gone into baring's house under very auspicious circumstances. mr. bates, of that firm, had done me the kindness to place him at the brokers' where he was. and when said bates wrote to me a fortnight ago to say that an excellent opening had presented itself at baring's, he added that the brokers gave charley "so high a character for ability and zeal" that it would be unfair to receive him as a volunteer, and he must begin at a fifty-pound salary, to which i graciously consented. as to the suffrage, i have lost hope even in the ballot. we appear to me to have proved the failure of representative institutions without an educated and advanced people to support them. what with teaching people to "keep in their stations," what with bringing up the soul and body of the land to be a good child, or to go to the beershop, to go a-poaching and go to the devil; what with having no such thing as a middle class (for though we are perpetually bragging of it as our safety, it is nothing but a poor fringe on the mantle of the upper); what with flunkyism, toadyism, letting the most contemptible lords come in for all manner of places, reading _the court circular_ for the new testament, i do reluctantly believe that the english people are habitually consenting parties to the miserable imbecility into which we have fallen, _and never will help themselves out of it_. who is to do it, if anybody is, god knows. but at present we are on the down-hill road to being conquered, and the people will be content to bear it, sing "rule britannia," and will not be saved. in no. of my new book i have been blowing off a little of indignant steam which would otherwise blow me up, and with god's leave i shall walk in the same all the days of my life; but i have no present political faith or hope--not a grain. i am going to read the "carol" here to-morrow in a long carpenter's shop, which looks far more alarming as a place to hear in than the town hall at birmingham. kindest loves from all to your dear sister, kate and the darlings. it is blowing a gale here from the south-west and raining like mad. ever most affectionately. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] , rue st. florentin, _tuesday, oct. th, ._ my dearest catherine, we have had the most awful job to find a place that would in the least suit us, for paris is perfectly full, and there is nothing to be got at any sane price. however, we have found two apartments--an _entresol_ and a first floor, with a kitchen and servants' room at the top of the house, at no. , avenue des champs elysées. you must be prepared for a regular continental abode. there is only one window in each room, but the front apartments all look upon the main street of the champs elysées, and the view is delightfully cheerful. there are also plenty of rooms. they are not over and above well furnished, but by changing furniture from rooms we don't care for to rooms we _do_ care for, we shall be able to make them home-like and presentable. i think the situation itself almost the finest in paris; and the children will have a window from which to look on the busy life outside. we could have got a beautiful apartment in the rue faubourg st. honoré for a very little more, most elegantly furnished; but the greater part of it was on a courtyard, and it would never have done for the children. this, that i have taken for six months, is seven hundred francs per month, and twenty more for the _concierge_. what you have to expect is a regular french residence, which a little habitation will make pretty and comfortable, with nothing showy in it, but with plenty of rooms, and with that wonderful street in which the barrière de l'Ã�toile stands outside. the amount of rooms is the great thing, and i believe it to be the place best suited for us, at a not unreasonable price in paris. georgina and lady olliffe[ ] send their loves. georgina and i add ours to mamey, katey, the plorn, and harry. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , avenue des champs elysÃ�es, paris, _friday, oct. th, ._ my dear wills, after going through unheard-of bedevilments (of which you shall have further particulars as soon as i come right side upwards, which may happen in a day or two), we are at last established here in a series of closets, but a great many of them, with all paris perpetually passing under the windows. letters may have been wandering after me to that home in the rue de balzac, which is to be the subject of more lawsuits between the man who let it to me and the man who wouldn't let me have possession, than any other house that ever was built. but i have had no letters at all, and have been--ha, ha!--a maniac since last monday. i will try my hand at that paper for h. w. to-morrow, if i can get a yard of flooring to sit upon; but we have really been in that state of topsy-turvyhood that even that has been an unattainable luxury, and may yet be for eight-and-forty hours or so, for anything i see to the contrary. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , avenue des champs elysÃ�es, paris, _sunday night, oct. st, ._ my dear wills, coming here from a walk this afternoon, i found your letter of yesterday awaiting me. i send this reply by my brother alfred, who is here, and who returns home to-morrow. you should get it at the office early on tuesday. i will go to work to-morrow, and will send you, please god, an article by tuesday's post, which you will get on wednesday forenoon. look carefully to the proof, as i shall not have time to receive it for correction. when you arrange about sending your parcels, will you ascertain, and communicate to me, the prices of telegraph messages? it will save me trouble, having no foreign servant (though french is in that respect a trump), and may be useful on an emergency. i have two floors here--_entresol_ and first--in a doll's house, but really pretty within, and the view without astounding, as you will say when you come. the house is on the exposition side, about half a quarter of a mile above franconi's, of course on the other side of the way, and close to the jardin d'hîver. each room has but one window in it, but we have no fewer than six rooms (besides the back ones) looking on the champs elysées, with the wonderful life perpetually flowing up and down. we have no spare-room, but excellent stowage for the whole family, including a capital dressing-room for me, and a really slap-up kitchen near the stairs. damage for the whole, seven hundred francs a month. but, sir--but--when georgina, the servants, and i were here for the first night (catherine and the rest being at boulogne), i heard georgy restless--turned out--asked: "what's the matter?" "oh, it's dreadfully dirty. i can't sleep for the smell of my room." imagine all my stage-managerial energies multiplied at daybreak by a thousand. imagine the porter, the porter's wife, the porter's wife's sister, a feeble upholsterer of enormous age from round the corner, and all his workmen (four boys), summoned. imagine the partners in the proprietorship of the apartment, and martial little man with françois-prussian beard, also summoned. imagine your inimitable chief briefly explaining that dirt is not in his way, and that he is driven to madness, and that he devotes himself to no coat and a dirty face, until the apartment is thoroughly purified. imagine co-proprietors at first astounded, then urging that "it's not the custom," then wavering, then affected, then confiding their utmost private sorrows to the inimitable, offering new carpets (accepted), embraces (not accepted), and really responding like french bricks. sallow, unbrushed, unshorn, awful, stalks the inimitable through the apartment until last night. then all the improvements were concluded, and i do really believe the place to be now worth eight or nine hundred francs per month. you must picture it as the smallest place you ever saw, but as exquisitely cheerful and vivacious, clean as anything human can be, and with a moving panorama always outside, which is paris in itself. you mention a letter from miss coutts as to mrs. brown's illness, which you say is "enclosed to mrs. charles dickens." it is not enclosed, and i am mad to know where she writes from that i may write to her. pray set this right, for her uneasiness will be greatly intensified if she have no word from me. i thought we were to give £ , for the house at gad's hill. are we bound to £ , ? considering the improvements to be made, it is a little too much, isn't it? i have a strong impression that at the utmost we were only to divide the difference, and not to pass £ , . you will set me right if i am wrong. but i don't think i am. i write very hastily, with the piano playing and alfred looking for this. ever, my dear wills, faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , avenue des champs elysÃ�es, _wednesday, oct. th, ._ my dear wills, in the gad's hill matter, i too would like to try the effect of "not budging." _so do not go beyond the_ £ , . considering what i should have to expend on the one hand, and the low price of stock on the other, i do not feel disposed to go beyond that mark. they won't let a purchaser escape for the sake of the £ , i think. and austin was strongly of opinion, when i saw him last, that £ , was enough. you cannot think how pleasant it is to me to find myself generally known and liked here. if i go into a shop to buy anything, and give my card, the officiating priest or priestess brightens up, and says: "_ah! c'est l'écrivain célèbre! monsieur porte un nom très-distingué. mais! je suis honoré et intéressé de voir monsieur dick-in. je lis un des livres de monsieur tous les jours_" (in the _moniteur_). and a man who brought some little vases home last night, said: "_on connaît bien en france que monsieur dick-in prend sa position sur la dignité de la littérature. ah! c'est grande chose! et ses caractères_" (this was to georgina, while he unpacked) "_sont si spirituellement tournées! cette madame tojare_" (todgers), "_ah! qu'elle est drôle et précisément comme une dame que je connais à calais._" you cannot have any doubt about this place, if you will only recollect it is the great main road from the place de la concorde to the barrière de l'Ã�toile. ever faithfully. [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] _wednesday, november st, ._ my dear regnier, in thanking you for the box you kindly sent me the day before yesterday, let me thank you a thousand times for the delight we derived from the representation of your beautiful and admirable piece. i have hardly ever been so affected and interested in any theatre. its construction is in the highest degree excellent, the interest absorbing, and the whole conducted by a masterly hand to a touching and natural conclusion. through the whole story from beginning to end, i recognise the true spirit and feeling of an artist, and i most heartily offer you and your fellow-labourer my felicitations on the success you have achieved. that it will prove a very great and a lasting one, i cannot for a moment doubt. o my friend! if i could see an english actress with but one hundredth part of the nature and art of madame plessy, i should believe our english theatre to be in a fair way towards its regeneration. but i have no hope of ever beholding such a phenomenon. i may as well expect ever to see upon an english stage an accomplished artist, able to write and to embody what he writes, like you. faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: madame viardot.] , avenue des champs elysÃ�es, _monday, dec. rd, ._ dear madame viardot, mrs. dickens tells me that you have only borrowed the first number of "little dorrit," and are going to send it back. pray do nothing of the sort, and allow me to have the great pleasure of sending you the succeeding numbers as they reach me. i have had such delight in your great genius, and have so high an interest in it and admiration of it, that i am proud of the honour of giving you a moment's intellectual pleasure. believe me, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] tavistock house, _sunday, dec. rd, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i have a moment in which to redeem my promise, of putting you in possession of my little friend no. , before the general public. it is, of course, at the disposal of your circle, but until the month is out, is understood to be a prisoner in the castle. if i had time to write anything, i should still quite vainly try to tell you what interest and happiness i had in once more seeing you among your dear children. let me congratulate you on your eton boys. they are so handsome, frank, and genuinely modest, that they charmed me. a kiss to the little fair-haired darling and the rest; the love of my heart to every stone in the old house. enormous effect at sheffield. but really not a better audience perceptively than at peterboro', for that could hardly be, but they were more enthusiastically demonstrative, and they took the line, "and to tiny tim who did not die," with a most prodigious shout and roll of thunder. ever, my dear friend, most faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] captain cavendish boyle was governor of the military prison at weedon. [ ] wife of the late sir joseph olliffe, physician to the british embassy. . narrative. charles dickens having taken an _appartement_ in paris for the winter months, , avenue des champs elysées, was there with his family until the middle of may. he much enjoyed this winter sojourn, meeting many old friends, making new friends, and interchanging hospitalities with the french artistic world. he had also many friends from england to visit him. mr. wilkie collins had an _appartement de garçon_ hard by, and the two companions were constantly together. the rev. james white and his family also spent their winter at paris, having taken an _appartement_ at , avenue des champs elysées, and the girls of the two families had the same masters, and took their lessons together. after the whites' departure, mr. macready paid charles dickens a visit, occupying the vacant _appartement_. during this winter charles dickens was, however, constantly backwards and forwards between paris and london on "household words" business, and was also at work on his "little dorrit." while in paris he sat for his portrait to the great ary scheffer. it was exhibited at the royal academy exhibition of this year, and is now in the national portrait gallery. the summer was again spent at boulogne, and once more at the villa des moulineaux, where he received constant visits from english friends, mr. wilkie collins taking up his quarters for many weeks at a little cottage in the garden; and there the idea of another play, to be acted at tavistock house, was first started. many of our letters for this year have reference to this play, and will show the interest which charles dickens took in it, and the immense amount of care and pains given by him to the careful carrying out of this favourite amusement. the christmas number of "household words," written by charles dickens and mr. collins, called "the wreck of the _golden mary_," was planned by the two friends during this summer holiday. it was in this year that one of the great wishes of his life was to be realised, the much-coveted house--gad's hill place--having been purchased by him, and the cheque written on the th of march--on a "friday," as he writes to his sister-in-law, in the letter of this date. he frequently remarked that all the important, and so far fortunate, events of his life had happened to him on a friday. so that, contrary to the usual superstition, that day had come to be looked upon by his family as his "lucky" day. the allusion to the "plainness" of miss boyle's handwriting is good-humouredly ironical; that lady's writing being by no means famous for its legibility. the "anne" mentioned in the letter to his sister-in-law, which follows the one to miss boyle, was the faithful servant who had lived with the family so long; and who, having left to be married the previous year, had found it a very difficult matter to recover from her sorrow at this parting. and the "godfather's present" was for a son of mr. edmund yates. "the humble petition" was written to mr. wilkie collins during that gentleman's visit to paris. the explanation of the remark to mr. wills ( th april), that he had paid the money to mr. poole, is that charles dickens was the trustee through whom the dramatist received his pension. the letter to the duke of devonshire has reference to the peace illuminations after the crimean war. the m. forgues for whom, at mr. collins's request, he writes a short biography of himself, was the editor of the _revue des deux mondes_. the speech at the london tavern was on behalf of the artists' benevolent fund. miss kate macready had sent some clever poems to "household words," with which charles dickens had been much pleased. he makes allusion to these, in our two remaining letters to mr. macready. "i did write it for you" (letter to mrs. watson, th october), refers to that part of "little dorrit" which treats of the visit of the dorrit family to the great st. bernard. an expedition which it will be remembered he made himself, in company with mr. and mrs. watson and other friends. the letter to mrs. horne refers to a joke about the name of a friend of this lady's, who had once been brought by her to tavistock house. the letter to mr. mitton concerns the lighting of the little theatre at tavistock house. our last letter is in answer to one from mr. kent, asking him to sit to mr. john watkins for his photograph. we should add, however, that he did subsequently give this gentleman some sittings. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , champs elysÃ�es, _sunday, jan. th, ._ my dear wills, i should like morley to do a strike article, and to work into it the greater part of what is here. but i cannot represent myself as holding the opinion that all strikes among this unhappy class of society, who find it so difficult to get a peaceful hearing, are always necessarily wrong, because i don't think so. to open a discussion of the question by saying that the men are "_of course_ entirely and painfully in the wrong," surely would be monstrous in any one. show them to be in the wrong here, but in the name of the eternal heavens show why, upon the merits of this question. nor can i possibly adopt the representation that these men are wrong because by throwing themselves out of work they throw other people, possibly without their consent. if such a principle had anything in it, there could have been no civil war, no raising by hampden of a troop of horse, to the detriment of buckinghamshire agriculture, no self-sacrifice in the political world. and o, good god, when ---- treats of the suffering of wife and children, can he suppose that these mistaken men don't feel it in the depths of their hearts, and don't honestly and honourably, most devoutly and faithfully believe that for those very children, when they shall have children, they are bearing all these miseries now! i hear from mrs. fillonneau that her husband was obliged to leave town suddenly before he could get your parcel, consequently he has not brought it; and white's sovereigns--unless you have got them back again--are either lying out of circulation somewhere, or are being spent by somebody else. i will write again on tuesday. my article is to begin the enclosed. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] , champs elysÃ�es, paris, _monday, jan. th, ._ my dear mark, i want to know how "jack and the beanstalk" goes. i have a notion from a notice--a favourable notice, however--which i saw in _galignani_, that webster has let down the comic business. in a piece at the ambigu, called the "rentrée à paris," a mere scene in honour of the return of the troops from the crimea the other day, there is a novelty which i think it worth letting you know of, as it is easily available, either for a serious or a comic interest--the introduction of a supposed electric telegraph. the scene is the railway terminus at paris, with the electric telegraph office on the prompt side, and the clerks _with their backs to the audience_--much more real than if they were, as they infallibly would be, staring about the house--working the needles; and the little bell perpetually ringing. there are assembled to greet the soldiers, all the easily and naturally imagined elements of interest--old veteran fathers, young children, agonised mothers, sisters and brothers, girl lovers--each impatient to know of his or her own object of solicitude. enter to these a certain marquis, full of sympathy for all, who says: "my friends, i am one of you. my brother has no commission yet. he is a common soldier. i wait for him as well as all brothers and sisters here wait for _their_ brothers. tell me whom you are expecting." then they all tell him. then he goes into the telegraph-office, and sends a message down the line to know how long the troops will be. bell rings. answer handed out on slip of paper. "delay on the line. troops will not arrive for a quarter of an hour." general disappointment. "but we have this brave electric telegraph, my friends," says the marquis. "give me your little messages, and i'll send them off." general rush round the marquis. exclamations: "how's henri?" "my love to georges;" "has guillaume forgotten elise?" "is my son wounded?" "is my brother promoted?" etc. etc. marquis composes tumult. sends message--such a regiment, such a company--"elise's love to georges." little bell rings, slip of paper handed out--"georges in ten minutes will embrace his elise. sends her a thousand kisses." marquis sends message--such a regiment, such a company--"is my son wounded?" little bell rings. slip of paper handed out--"no. he has not yet upon him those marks of bravery in the glorious service of his country which his dear old father bears" (father being lamed and invalided). last of all, the widowed mother. marquis sends message--such a regiment, such a company--"is my only son safe?" little bell rings. slip of paper handed out--"he was first upon the heights of alma." general cheer. bell rings again, another slip of paper handed out. "he was made a sergeant at inkermann." another cheer. bell rings again, another slip of paper handed out. "he was made colour-sergeant at sebastopol." another cheer. bell rings again, another slip of paper handed out. "he was the first man who leaped with the french banner on the malakhoff tower." tremendous cheer. bell rings again, another slip of paper handed out. "but he was struck down there by a musket-ball, and----troops have proceeded. will arrive in half a minute after this." mother abandons all hope; general commiseration; troops rush in, down a platform; son only wounded, and embraces her. as i have said, and as you will see, this is available for any purpose. but done with equal distinction and rapidity, it is a tremendous effect, and got by the simplest means in the world. there is nothing in the piece, but it was impossible not to be moved and excited by the telegraph part of it. i hope you have seen something of stanny, and have been to pantomimes with him, and have drunk to the absent dick. i miss you, my dear old boy, at the play, woefully, and miss the walk home, and the partings at the corner of tavistock square. and when i go by myself, i come home stewing "little dorrit" in my head; and the best part of _my_ play is (or ought to be) in gordon street. i have written to beaucourt about taking that breezy house--a little improved--for the summer, and i hope you and yours will come there often and stay there long. my present idea, if nothing should arise to unroot me sooner, is to stay here until the middle of may, then plant the family at boulogne, and come with catherine and georgy home for two or three weeks. when i shall next run across i don't know, but i suppose next month. we are up to our knees in mud here. literally in vehement despair, i walked down the avenue outside the barrière de l'Ã�toile here yesterday, and went straight on among the trees. i came back with top-boots of mud on. nothing will cleanse the streets. numbers of men and women are for ever scooping and sweeping in them, and they are always one lake of yellow mud. all my trousers go to the tailor's every day, and are ravelled out at the heels every night. washing is awful. tell mrs. lemon, with my love, that i have bought her some eau d'or, in grateful remembrance of her knowing what it is, and crushing the tyrant of her existence by resolutely refusing to be put down when that monster would have silenced her. you may imagine the loves and messages that are now being poured in upon me by all of them, so i will give none of them; though i am pretending to be very scrupulous about it, and am looking (i have no doubt) as if i were writing them down with the greatest care. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] , champs elysÃ�es, _saturday, jan. th, ._ my dear collins, i had no idea you were so far on with your book, and heartily congratulate you on being within sight of land. it is excessively pleasant to me to get your letter, as it opens a perspective of theatrical and other lounging evenings, and also of articles in "household words." it will not be the first time that we shall have got on well in paris, and i hope it will not be by many a time the last. i purpose coming over, early in february (as soon, in fact, as i shall have knocked out no. of "little d."), and therefore we can return in a jovial manner together. as soon as i know my day of coming over, i will write to you again, and (as the merchants--say charley--would add) "communicate same" to you. the lodging, _en garçon_, shall be duly looked up, and i shall of course make a point of finding it close here. there will be no difficulty in that. i will have concluded the treaty before starting for london, and will take it by the month, both because that is the cheapest way, and because desirable places don't let for shorter terms. i have been sitting to scheffer to-day--conceive this, if you please, with no. upon my soul--four hours!! i am so addleheaded and bored, that if you were here, i should propose an instantaneous rush to the trois frères. under existing circumstances i have no consolation. i think the portrait[ ] is the most astounding thing ever beheld upon this globe. it has been shrieked over by the united family as "oh! the very image!" i went down to the _entresol_ the moment i opened it, and submitted it to the plorn--then engaged, with a half-franc musket, in capturing a malakhoff of chairs. he looked at it very hard, and gave it as his opinion that it was misser hegg. we suppose him to have confounded the colonel with jollins. i met madame georges sand the other day at a dinner got up by madame viardot for that great purpose. the human mind cannot conceive any one more astonishingly opposed to all my preconceptions. if i had been shown her in a state of repose, and asked what i thought her to be, i should have said: "the queen's monthly nurse." _au reste_, she has nothing of the _bas bleu_ about her, and is very quiet and agreeable. the way in which mysterious frenchmen call and want to embrace me, suggests to any one who knows me intimately, such infamous lurking, slinking, getting behind doors, evading, lying--so much mean resort to craven flights, dastard subterfuges, and miserable poltroonery--on my part, that i merely suggest the arrival of cards like this: [illustration: hw: horgues homme de lettres or drouse membre de l'institut or cregibus patalanternois ecole des beaux arts --every five minutes. books also arrive with, on the flyleaf, jaubaud hommage à l'illustre romancier d'angleterre charles de kean.] --and i then write letters of terrific _empressement_, with assurances of all sorts of profound considerations, and never by any chance become visible to the naked eye. at the porte st. martin they are doing the "orestes," put into french verse by alexandre dumas. really one of the absurdest things i ever saw. the scene of the tomb, with all manner of classical females, in black, grouping themselves on the lid, and on the steps, and on each other, and in every conceivable aspect of obtrusive impossibility, is just like the window of one of those artists in hair, who address the friends of deceased persons. to-morrow week a fête is coming off at the jardin d'hîver, next door but one here, which i must certainly go to. the fête of the company of the folies nouvelles! the ladies of the company are to keep stalls, and are to sell to messieurs the amateurs orange-water and lemonade. paul le grand is to promenade among the company, dressed as pierrot. kalm, the big-faced comic singer, is to do the like, dressed as a russian cossack. the entertainments are to conclude with "la polka des bêtes féroces, par la troupe entière des folies nouvelles." i wish, without invasion of the rights of british subjects, or risk of war, ---- could be seized by french troops, brought over, and made to assist. the _appartement_ has not grown any bigger since you last had the joy of beholding me, and upon my honour and word i live in terror of asking ---- to dinner, lest she should not be able to get in at the dining-room door. i _think_ (am not sure) the dining-room would hold her, if she could be once passed in, but i don't see my way to that. nevertheless, we manage our own family dinners very snugly there, and have good ones, as i think you will say, every day at half-past five. i have a notion that we may knock out a _series_ of descriptions for h. w. without much trouble. it is very difficult to get into the catacombs, but my name is so well known here that i think i may succeed. i find that the guillotine can be got set up in private, like punch's show. what do you think of _that_ for an article? i find myself underlining words constantly. it is not my nature. it is mere imbecility after the four hours' sitting. all unite in kindest remembrances to you, your mother and brother. ever cordially. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] , champs elysÃ�es, paris, _jan. th, ._ my dear mary, i am afraid you will think me an abandoned ruffian for not having acknowledged your more than handsome warm-hearted letter before now. but, as usual, i have been so occupied, and so glad to get up from my desk and wallow in the mud (at present about six feet deep here), that pleasure correspondence is just the last thing in the world i have had leisure to take to. business correspondence with all sorts and conditions of men and women, o my mary! is one of the dragons i am perpetually fighting; and the more i throw it, the more it stands upon its hind legs, rampant, and throws me. yes, on that bright cold morning when i left peterboro', i felt that the best thing i could do was to say that word that i would do anything in an honest way to avoid saying, at one blow, and make off. i was so sorry to leave you all! you can scarcely imagine what a chill and blank i felt on that monday evening at rockingham. it was so sad to me, and engendered a constraint so melancholy and peculiar, that i doubt if i were ever much more out of sorts in my life. next morning, when it was light and sparkling out of doors, i felt more at home again. but when i came in from seeing poor dear watson's grave, mrs. watson asked me to go up in the gallery, which i had last seen in the days of our merry play. we went up, and walked into the very part he had made and was so fond of, and she looked out of one window and i looked out of another, and for the life of me i could not decide in my own heart whether i should console or distress her by going and taking her hand, and saying something of what was naturally in my mind. so i said nothing, and we came out again, and on the whole perhaps it was best; for i have no doubt we understood each other very well without speaking a word. sheffield was a tremendous success and an admirable audience. they made me a present of table-cutlery after the reading was over; and i came away by the mail-train within three-quarters of an hour, changing my dress and getting on my wrappers partly in the fly, partly at the inn, partly on the platform. when we got among the lincolnshire fens it began to snow. that changed to sleet, that changed to rain; the frost was all gone as we neared london, and the mud has all come. at two or three o'clock in the morning i stopped at peterboro' again, and thought of you all disconsolately. the lady in the refreshment-room was very hard upon me, harder even than those fair enslavers usually are. she gave me a cup of tea, as if i were a hyena and she my cruel keeper with a strong dislike to me. i mingled my tears with it, and had a petrified bun of enormous antiquity in miserable meekness. it is clear to me that climates are gradually assimilating over a great part of the world, and that in the most miserable part of our year there is very little to choose between london and paris, except that london is not so muddy. i have never seen dirtier or worse weather than we have had here since i returned. in desperation i went out to the barrières last sunday on a headlong walk, and came back with my very eyebrows smeared with mud. georgina is usually invisible during the walking time of the day. a turned-up nose may be seen in the midst of splashes, but nothing more. i am settling to work again, and my horrible restlessness immediately assails me. it belongs to such times. as i was writing the preceding page, it suddenly came into my head that i would get up and go to calais. i don't know why; the moment i got there i should want to go somewhere else. but, as my friend the boots says (see christmas number "household words"): "when you come to think what a game you've been up to ever since you was in your own cradle, and what a poor sort of a chap you were, and how it's always yesterday with you, or else to-morrow, and never to-day, that's where it is." my dear mary, would you favour me with the name and address of the professor that taught you writing, for i want to improve myself? many a hand have i seen with many characteristics of beauty in it--some loopy, some dashy, some large, some small, some sloping to the right, some sloping to the left, some not sloping at all; but what i like in _your_ hand, mary, is its plainness, it is like print. them as runs may read just as well as if they stood still. i should have thought it was copper-plate if i hadn't known you. they send all sorts of messages from here, and so do i, with my best regards to bedgy and pardner and the blessed babbies. when shall we meet again, i wonder, and go somewhere! ah! believe me ever, my dear mary, yours truly and affectionately, joe. (that doesn't look plain.) joe. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] "household words," _friday, feb. th, ._ my dear georgy, i must write this at railroad speed, for i have been at it all day, and have numbers of letters to cram into the next half-hour. i began the morning in the city, for the theatrical fund; went on to shepherd's bush; came back to leave cards for mr. baring and mr. bates; ran across piccadilly to stratton street, stayed there an hour, and shot off here. i have been in four cabs to-day, at a cost of thirteen shillings. am going to dine with mark and webster at half-past four, and finish the evening at the adelphi. the dinner was very successful. charley was in great force, and floored peter cunningham and the audit office on a question about some bill transactions with baring's. the other guests were b. and e., shirley brooks, forster, and that's all. the dinner admirable. i never had a better. all the wine i sent down from tavistock house. anne waited, and looked well and happy, very much brighter altogether. it gave me great pleasure to see her so improved. just before dinner i got all the letters from home. they could not have arrived more opportunely. the godfather's present looks charming now it is engraved, and john is just now going off to take it to mrs. yates. to-morrow wills and i are going to gad's hill. it will occupy the whole day, and will just leave me time to get home to dress for dinner. and that's all that i have to say, except that the first number of "little dorrit" has gone to forty thousand, and the other one fast following. my best love to catherine, and to mamey and katey, and walter and harry, and the noble plorn. i am grieved to hear about his black eye, and fear that i shall find it in the green and purple state on my return. ever affectionately. the humble petition of charles dickens, a distressed foreigner, sheweth, that your petitioner has not been able to write one word to-day, or to fashion forth the dimmest shade of the faintest ghost of an idea. that your petitioner is therefore desirous of being taken out, and is not at all particular where. that your petitioner, being imbecile, says no more. but will ever, etc. (whatever that may be). paris, _march rd, ._ [sidenote: mr. douglas jerrold.] "household words" office, _march th, ._ my dear jerrold, buckstone has been with me to-day in a state of demi-semi-distraction, by reason of macready's dreading his asthma so much as to excuse himself (of necessity, i know) from taking the chair for the fund on the occasion of their next dinner. i have promised to back buckstone's entreaty to you to take it; and although i know that you have an objection which you once communicated to me, i still hold (as i did then) that it is a reason _for_ and not against. pray reconsider the point. your position in connection with dramatic literature has always suggested to me that there would be a great fitness and grace in your appearing in this post. i am convinced that the public would regard it in that light, and i particularly ask you to reflect that we never can do battle with the lords, if we will not bestow ourselves to go into places which they have long monopolised. now pray discuss this matter with yourself once more. if you can come to a favourable conclusion i shall be really delighted, and will of course come from paris to be by you; if you cannot come to a favourable conclusion i shall be really sorry, though i of course most readily defer to your right to regard such a matter from your own point of view. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] "household words" office, _tuesday, march th, _.[ ] my dear georgy, i have been in bed half the day with my cold, which is excessively violent, consequently have to write in a great hurry to save the post. tell catherine that i have the most prodigious, overwhelming, crushing, astounding, blinding, deafening, pulverising, scarifying secret, of which forster is the hero, imaginable by the whole efforts of the whole british population. it is a thing of that kind that, after i knew it, (from himself) this morning, i lay down flat as if an engine and tender had fallen upon me. love to catherine (not a word of forster before anyone else), and to mamey, katey, harry, and the noble plorn. tell collins with my kind regards that forster has just pronounced to me that "collins is a decidedly clever fellow." i hope he is a better fellow in health, too. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] "household words," _friday, march th, ._ my dear georgy, i am amazed to hear of the snow (i don't know why, but it excited john this morning beyond measure); though we have had the same east wind here, and _the_ cold and _my_ cold have both been intense. yesterday evening webster, mark, stanny, and i went to the olympic, where the wigans ranged us in a row in a gorgeous and immense private box, and where we saw "still waters run deep." i laughed (in a conspicuous manner) to that extent at emery, when he received the dinner-company, that the people were more amused by me than by the piece. i don't think i ever saw anything meant to be funny that struck me as so extraordinarily droll. i couldn't get over it at all. after the piece we went round, by wigan's invitation, to drink with him. it being positively impossible to get stanny off the stage, we stood in the wings during the burlesque. mrs. wigan seemed really glad to see her old manager, and the company overwhelmed him with embraces. they had nearly all been at the meeting in the morning. i have seen charley only twice since i came to london, having regularly been in bed until mid-day. to my amazement, my eye fell upon him at the adelphi yesterday. this day i have paid the purchase-money for gad's hill place. after drawing the cheque, i turned round to give it to wills (£ , ), and said: "now isn't it an extraordinary thing--look at the day--friday! i have been nearly drawing it half-a-dozen times, when the lawyers have not been ready, and here it comes round upon a friday, as a matter of course." kiss the noble plorn a dozen times for me, and tell him i drank his health yesterday, and wished him many happy returns of the day; also that i hope he will not have broken all his toys before i come back. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] , champs elysÃ�es, paris, _saturday, march nd, ._ my dear macready, i want you--you being quite well again, as i trust you are, and resolute to come to paris--so to arrange your order of march as to let me know beforehand when you will come, and how long you will stay. we owe scribe and his wife a dinner, and i should like to pay the debt when you are with us. ary scheffer too would be delighted to see you again. if i could arrange for a certain day i would secure them. we cannot afford (you and i, i mean) to keep much company, because we shall have to look in at a theatre or so, i daresay! it would suit my work best, if i could keep myself clear until monday, the th of april. but in case that day should be too late for the beginning of your brief visit with a deference to any other engagements you have in contemplation, then fix an earlier one, and i will make "little dorrit" curtsy to it. my recent visit to london and my having only just now come back have thrown me a little behindhand; but i hope to come up with a wet sail in a few days. you should have seen the ruins of covent garden theatre. i went in the moment i got to london--four days after the fire. although the audience part and the stage were so tremendously burnt out that there was not a piece of wood half the size of a lucifer-match for the eye to rest on, though nothing whatever remained but bricks and smelted iron lying on a great black desert, the theatre still looked so wonderfully like its old self grown gigantic that i never saw so strange a sight. the wall dividing the front from the stage still remained, and the iron pass-doors stood ajar in an impossible and inaccessible frame. the arches that supported the stage were there, and the arches that supported the pit; and in the centre of the latter lay something like a titanic grape-vine that a hurricane had pulled up by the roots, twisted, and flung down there; this was the great chandelier. gye had kept the men's wardrobe at the top of the house over the great entrance staircase; when the roof fell in it came down bodily, and all that part of the ruins was like an old babylonic pavement, bright rays tesselating the black ground, sometimes in pieces so large that i could make out the clothes in the "trovatore." i should run on for a couple of hours if i had to describe the spectacle as i saw it, wherefore i will immediately muzzle myself. all here unite in kindest loves to dear miss macready, to katie, lillie, benvenuta, my godson, and the noble johnny. we are charmed to hear such happy accounts of willy and ned, and send our loving remembrance to them in the next letters. all parisian novelties you shall see and hear for yourself. ever, my dearest macready, your affectionate friend. p.s.--mr. f.'s aunt sends her defiant respects. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] , avenue des champs elysÃ�es, paris, _thursday night, march th, (after post time)._ my dearest macready, if i had had any idea of your coming (see how naturally i use the word when i am three hundred miles off!) to london so soon, i would never have written one word about the jump over next week. i am vexed that i did so, but as i did i will not now propose a change in the arrangements, as i know how methodical you tremendously old fellows are. that's your secret i suspect. that's the way in which the blood of the mirabels mounts in your aged veins, even at your time of life. how charmed i shall be to see you, and we all shall be, i will not attempt to say. on that expected sunday you will lunch at amiens but not dine, because we shall wait dinner for you, and you will merely have to tell that driver in the glazed hat to come straight here. when the whites left i added their little apartment to this little apartment, consequently you shall have a snug bedroom (is it not waiting expressly for you?) overlooking the champs elysées. as to the arm-chair in my heart, no man on earth----but, good god! you know all about it. you will find us in the queerest of little rooms all alone, except that the son of collins the painter (who writes a good deal in "household words") dines with us every day. scheffer and scribe shall be admitted for one evening, because they know how to appreciate you. the emperor we will not ask unless you expressly wish it; it makes a fuss. if you have no appointed hotel at boulogne, go to the hôtel des bains, there demand "marguerite," and tell her that i commended you to her special care. it is the best house within my experience in france; marguerite the best housekeeper in the world. i shall charge at "little dorrit" to-morrow with new spirits. the sight of you is good for my boyish eyes, and the thought of you for my dawning mind. give the enclosed lines a welcome, then send them on to sherborne. ever yours most affectionately and truly. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , champs elysÃ�es, paris, _sunday, april th, ._ my dear wills, christmas. collins and i have a mighty original notion (mine in the beginning) for another play at tavistock house. i propose opening on twelfth night the theatrical season of that great establishment. but now a tremendous question. is mrs. wills! game to do a scotch housekeeper, in a supposed country-house, with mary, katey, georgina, etc.? if she can screw her courage up to saying "yes," that country-house opens the piece in a singular way, and that scotch housekeeper's part shall flow from the present pen. if she says "no" (but she won't), no scotch housekeeper can be. the tavistock house season of four nights pauses for a reply. scotch song (new and original) of scotch housekeeper would pervade the piece. you had better pause for breath. ever faithfully. poole. i have paid him his money. here is the proof of life. if you will get me the receipt to sign, the money can go to my account at coutts's. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] tavistock house, _monday, may th, ._ my dear catherine, i did nothing at dover (except for "household words"), and have not begun "little dorrit," no. , yet. but i took twenty-mile walks in the fresh air, and perhaps in the long run did better than if i had been at work. the report concerning scheffer's portrait i had from ward. it is in the best place in the largest room, but i find the _general_ impression of the artists exactly mine. they almost all say that it wants something; that nobody could mistake whom it was meant for, but that it has something disappointing in it, etc. etc. stanfield likes it better than any of the other painters, i think. his own picture is magnificent. and frith, in a "little child's birthday party," is quite delightful. there are many interesting pictures. when you see scheffer, tell him from me that eastlake, in his speech at the dinner, referred to the portrait as "a contribution from a distinguished man of genius in france, worthy of himself and of his subject." i did the maddest thing last night, and am deeply penitent this morning. we stayed at webster's till any hour, and they wanted me, at last, to make punch, which couldn't be done when the jug was brought, because (to webster's burning indignation) there was only one lemon in the house. hereupon i then and there besought the establishment in general to come and drink punch on thursday night, after the play; on which occasion it will become necessary to furnish fully the table with some cold viands from fortnum and mason's. mark has looked in since i began this note, to suggest that the great festival may come off at "household words" instead. i am inclined to think it a good idea, and that i shall transfer the locality to that business establishment. but i am at present distracted with doubts and torn by remorse. the school-room and dining-room i have brought into habitable condition and comfortable appearance. charley and i breakfast at half-past eight, and meet again at dinner when he does not dine in the city, or has no engagement. he looks very well. the audiences at gye's are described to me as absolute marvels of coldness. no signs of emotion can be hammered, out of them. panizzi sat next me at the academy dinner, and took it very ill that i disparaged ----. the amateurs here are getting up another pantomime, but quarrel so violently among themselves that i doubt its ever getting on the stage. webster expounded his scheme for rebuilding the adelphi to stanfield and myself last night, and i felt bound to tell him that i thought it wrong from beginning to end. this is all the theatrical news i know. i write by this post to georgy. love to mamey, katey, harry, and the noble plorn. i should be glad to see him here. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] tavistock house, _monday, may th, ._ my dear georgy, you will not be much surprised to hear that i have done nothing yet (except for h. w.), and have only just settled down into a corner of the school-room. the extent to which john and i wallowed in dust for four hours yesterday morning, getting things neat and comfortable about us, you may faintly imagine. at four in the afternoon came stanfield, to whom i no sooner described the notion of the new play, than he immediately upset all my new arrangements by making a proscenium of the chairs, and planning the scenery with walking-sticks. one of the least things he did was getting on the top of the long table, and hanging over the bar in the middle window where that top sash opens, as if he had got a hinge in the middle of his body. he is immensely excited on the subject. mark had a farce ready for the managerial perusal, but it won't do. i went to the dover theatre on friday night, which was a miserable spectacle. the pit is boarded over, and it is a drinking and smoking place. it was "for the benefit of mrs. ----," and the town had been very extensively placarded with "don't forget friday." i made out four and ninepence (i am serious) in the house, when i went in. we may have warmed up in the course of the evening to twelve shillings. a jew played the grand piano; mrs. ---- sang no end of songs (with not a bad voice, poor creature); mr. ---- sang comic songs fearfully, and danced clog hornpipes capitally; and a miserable woman, shivering in a shawl and bonnet, sat in the side-boxes all the evening, nursing master ----, aged seven months. it was a most forlorn business, and i should have contributed a sovereign to the treasury, if i had known how. i walked to deal and back that day, and on the previous day walked over the downs towards canterbury in a gale of wind. it was better than still weather after all, being wonderfully fresh and free. if the plorn were sitting at this school-room window in the corner, he would see more cats in an hour than he ever saw in his life. _i_ never saw so many, i think, as i have seen since yesterday morning. there is a painful picture of a great deal of merit (egg has bought it) in the exhibition, painted by the man who did those little interiors of forster's. it is called "the death of chatterton." the dead figure is a good deal like arthur stone; and i was touched on saturday to see that tender old file standing before it, crying under his spectacles at the idea of seeing his son dead. it was a very tender manifestation of his gentle old heart. this sums up my news, which is no news at all. kiss the plorn for me, and expound to him that i am always looking forward to meeting him again, among the birds and flowers in the garden on the side of the hill at boulogne. ever affectionately. [sidenote: the duke of devonshire.] tavistock house, _sunday, june st, ._ my dear duke of devonshire, allow me to thank you with all my heart for your kind remembrance of me on thursday night. my house was already engaged to miss coutts's, and i to--the top of st. paul's, where the sight was most wonderful! but seeing that your cards gave me leave to present some person not named, i conferred them on my excellent friend dr. elliotson, whom i found with some fireworkless little boys in a desolate condition, and raised to the seventh heaven of happiness. you are so fond of making people happy, that i am sure you approve. always your faithful and much obliged. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] tavistock house, _june th, ._ my dear collins, i have never seen anything about myself in print which has much correctness in it--any biographical account of myself i mean. i do not supply such particulars when i am asked for them by editors and compilers, simply because i am asked for them every day. if you want to prime forgues, you may tell him without fear of anything wrong, that i was born at portsmouth on the th of february, ; that my father was in the navy pay office; that i was taken by him to chatham when i was very young, and lived and was educated there till i was twelve or thirteen, i suppose; that i was then put to a school near london, where (as at other places) i distinguished myself like a brick; that i was put in the office of a solicitor, a friend of my father's, and didn't much like it; and after a couple of years (as well as i can remember) applied myself with a celestial or diabolical energy to the study of such things as would qualify me to be a first-rate parliamentary reporter--at that time a calling pursued by many clever men who were young at the bar; that i made my début in the gallery (at about eighteen, i suppose), engaged on a voluminous publication no longer in existence, called _the mirror of parliament_; that when _the morning chronicle_ was purchased by sir john easthope and acquired a large circulation, i was engaged there, and that i remained there until i had begun to publish "pickwick," when i found myself in a condition to relinquish that part of my labours; that i left the reputation behind me of being the best and most rapid reporter ever known, and that i could do anything in that way under any sort of circumstances, and often did. (i daresay i am at this present writing the best shorthand writer in the world.) that i began, without any interest or introduction of any kind, to write fugitive pieces for the old "monthly magazine," when i was in the gallery for _the mirror of parliament_; that my faculty for descriptive writing was seized upon the moment i joined _the morning chronicle_, and that i was liberally paid there and handsomely acknowledged, and wrote the greater part of the short descriptive "sketches by boz" in that paper; that i had been a writer when i was a mere baby, and always an actor from the same age; that i married the daughter of a writer to the signet in edinburgh, who was the great friend and assistant of scott, and who first made lockhart known to him. and that here i am. finally, if you want any dates of publication of books, tell wills and he'll get them for you. this is the first time i ever set down even these particulars, and, glancing them over, i feel like a wild beast in a caravan describing himself in the keeper's absence. ever faithfully. p.s.--i made a speech last night at the london tavern, at the end of which all the company sat holding their napkins to their eyes with one hand, and putting the other into their pockets. a hundred people or so contributed nine hundred pounds then and there. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] villa des moulineaux, boulogne, _sunday, june th ._ my dear old boy, this place is beautiful--a burst of roses. your friend beaucourt (who _will not_ put on his hat), has thinned the trees and greatly improved the garden. upon my life, i believe there are at least twenty distinct smoking-spots expressly made in it. and as soon as you can see your day in next month for coming over with stanny and webster, will you let them both know? i should not be very much surprised if i were to come over and fetch you, when i know what your day is. indeed, i don't see how you could get across properly without me. there is a fête here to-night in honour of the imperial baptism, and there will be another to-morrow. the plorn has put on two bits of ribbon (one pink and one blue), which he calls "companys," to celebrate the occasion. the fact that the receipts of the fêtes are to be given to the sufferers by the late floods reminds me that you will find at the passport office a tin-box, condescendingly and considerately labelled in english: for the overflowings, which the chief officer clearly believes to mean, for the sufferers from the inundations. i observe more mingles in the laundresses' shops, and one inscription, which looks like the name of a duet or chorus in a playbill, "here they mingle." will you congratulate mrs. lemon, with our loves, on her gallant victory over the recreant cabman? walter has turned up, rather brilliant on the whole; and that (with shoals of remembrances and messages which i don't deliver) is all my present intelligence. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] h. w. office, _july nd, ._ my dear mark, i am concerned to hear that you are ill, that you sit down before fires and shiver, and that you have stated times for doing so, like the demons in the melodramas, and that you mean to take a week to get well in. make haste about it, like a dear fellow, and keep up your spirits, because i have made a bargain with stanny and webster that they shall come to boulogne to-morrow week, thursday the th, and stay a week. and you know how much pleasure we shall all miss if you are not among us--at least for some part of the time. if you find any unusually light appearance in the air at brighton, it is a distant refraction (i have no doubt) of the gorgeous and shining surface of tavistock house, now transcendently painted. the theatre partition is put up, and is a work of such terrific solidity, that i suppose it will be dug up, ages hence, from the ruins of london, by that australian of macaulay's who is to be impressed by its ashes. i have wandered through the spectral halls of the tavistock mansion two nights, with feelings of the profoundest depression. i have breakfasted there, like a criminal in pentonville (only not so well). it is more like westminster abbey by midnight than the lowest-spirited man--say you at present for example--can well imagine. there has been a wonderful robbery at folkestone, by the new manager of the pavilion, who succeeded giovannini. he had in keeping £ , of a foreigner's, and bolted with it, as he supposed, but in reality with only £ , of it. the frenchman had previously bolted with the whole, which was the property of his mother. with him to england the frenchman brought a "lady," who was, all the time and at the same time, endeavouring to steal all the money from him and bolt with it herself. the details are amazing, and all the money (a few pounds excepted) has been got back. they will be full of sympathy and talk about you when i get home, and i shall tell them that i send their loves beforehand. they are all enclosed. the moment you feel hearty, just write me that word by post. i shall be so delighted to receive it. ever, my dear boy, your affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. walter savage landor.] villa des moulineaux, boulogne, _saturday evening, july th, ._ my dear landor, i write to you so often in my books, and my writing of letters is usually so confined to the numbers that i _must_ write, and in which i have no kind of satisfaction, that i am afraid to think how long it is since we exchanged a direct letter. but talking to your namesake this very day at dinner, it suddenly entered my head that i would come into my room here as soon as dinner should be over, and write, "my dear landor, how are you?" for the pleasure of having the answer under your own hand. that you _do_ write, and that pretty often, i know beforehand. else why do i read _the examiner_? we were in paris from october to may (i perpetually flying between that city and london), and there we found out, by a blessed accident, that your godson was horribly deaf. i immediately consulted the principal physician of the deaf and dumb institution there (one of the best aurists in europe), and he kept the boy for three months, and took unheard-of pains with him. he is now quite recovered, has done extremely well at school, has brought home a prize in triumph, and will be eligible to "go up" for his india examination soon after next easter. having a direct appointment, he will probably be sent out soon after he has passed, and so will fall into that strange life "up the country," before he well knows he is alive, which indeed seems to be rather an advanced stage of knowledge. and there in paris, at the same time, i found marguerite power and little nelly, living with their mother and a pretty sister, in a very small, neat apartment, and working (as marguerite told me) hard for a living. all that i saw of them filled me with respect, and revived the tenderest remembrances of gore house. they are coming to pass two or three weeks here for a country rest, next month. we had many long talks concerning gore house, and all its bright associations; and i can honestly report that they hold no one in more gentle and affectionate remembrance than you. marguerite is still handsome, though she had the smallpox two or three years ago, and bears the traces of it here and there, by daylight. poor little nelly (the quicker and more observant of the two) shows some little tokens of a broken-off marriage in a face too careworn for her years, but is a very winning and sensible creature. we are expecting mary boyle too, shortly. i have just been propounding to forster if it is not a wonderful testimony to the homely force of truth, that one of the most popular books on earth has nothing in it to make anyone laugh or cry? yet i think, with some confidence, that you never did either over any passage in "robinson crusoe." in particular, i took friday's death as one of the least tender and (in the true sense) least sentimental things ever written. it is a book i read very much; and the wonder of its prodigious effect on me and everyone, and the admiration thereof, grows on me the more i observe this curious fact. kate and georgina send you their kindest loves, and smile approvingly on me from the next room, as i bend over my desk. my dear landor, you see many i daresay, and hear from many i have no doubt, who love you heartily; but we silent people in the distance never forget you. do not forget us, and let us exchange affection at least. ever your admirer and friend. [sidenote: the duke of devonshire.] villa des moulineaux, near boulogne, _saturday night, july th, ._ my dear duke of devonshire, from this place where i am writing my way through the summer, in the midst of rosy gardens and sea airs, i cannot forbear writing to tell you with what uncommon pleasure i received your interesting letter, and how sensible i always am of your kindness and generosity. you were always in the mind of my household during your illness; and to have so beautiful, and fresh, and manly an assurance of your recovery from it, under your own hand, is a privilege and delight that i will say no more of. i am so glad you like flora. it came into my head one day that we have all had our floras, and that it was a half-serious, half-ridiculous truth which had never been told. it is a wonderful gratification to me to find that everybody knows her. indeed, some people seem to think i have done them a personal injury, and that their individual floras (god knows where they are, or who!) are each and all little dorrit's. we were all grievously disappointed that you were ill when we played mr. collins's "lighthouse" at my house. if you had been well, i should have waited upon you with my humble petition that you would come and see it; and if you had come i think you would have cried, which would have charmed me. i hope to produce another play at home next christmas, and if i can only persuade you to see it from a special arm-chair, and can only make you wretched, my satisfaction will be intense. may i tell you, to beguile a moment, of a little "tag," or end of a piece, i saw in paris this last winter, which struck me as the prettiest i had ever met with? the piece was not a new one, but a revival at the vaudeville--"les mémoires du diable." admirably constructed, very interesting, and extremely well played. the plot is, that a certain m. robin has come into possession of the papers of a deceased lawyer, and finds some relating to the wrongful withholding of an estate from a certain baroness, and to certain other frauds (involving even the denial of the marriage to the deceased baron, and the tarnishing of his good name) which are so very wicked that he binds them up in a book and labels them "mémoires du diable." armed with this knowledge he goes down to the desolate old château in the country--part of the wrested-away estate--from which the baroness and her daughter are going to be ejected. he informs the mother that he can right her and restore the property, but must have, as his reward, her daughter's hand in marriage. she replies: "i cannot promise my daughter to a man of whom i know nothing. the gain would be an unspeakable happiness, but i resolutely decline the bargain." the daughter, however, has observed all, and she comes forward and says: "do what you have promised my mother you can do, and i am yours." then the piece goes on to its development, in an admirable way, through the unmasking of all the hypocrites. now, m. robin, partly through his knowledge of the secret ways of the old château (derived from the lawyer's papers), and partly through his going to a masquerade as the devil--the better to explode what he knows on the hypocrites--is supposed by the servants at the château really to be the devil. at the opening of the last act he suddenly appears there before the young lady, and she screams, but, recovering and laughing, says: "you are not really the ----?" "oh dear no!" he replies, "have no connection with him. but these people down here are so frightened and absurd! see this little toy on the table; i open it; here's a little bell. they have a notion that whenever this bell rings i shall appear. very ignorant, is it not?" "very, indeed," says she. "well," says m. robin, "if you should want me very much to appear, try the bell, if only for a jest. will you promise?" yes, she promises, and the play goes on. at last he has righted the baroness completely, and has only to hand her the last document, which proves her marriage and restores her good name. then he says: "madame, in the progress of these endeavours i have learnt the happiness of doing good for its own sake. i made a necessary bargain with you; i release you from it. i have done what i undertook to do. i wish you and your amiable daughter all happiness. adieu! i take my leave." bows himself out. people on the stage astonished. audience astonished--incensed. the daughter is going to cry, when she looks at the box on the table, remembers the bell, runs to it and rings it, and he rushes back and takes her to his heart; upon which we all cry with pleasure, and then laugh heartily. this looks dreadfully long, and perhaps you know it already. if so, i will endeavour to make amends with flora in future numbers. mrs. dickens and her sister beg to present their remembrances to your grace, and their congratulations on your recovery. i saw paxton now and then when you were ill, and always received from him most encouraging accounts. i don't know how heavy he is going to be (i mean in the scale), but i begin to think daniel lambert must have been in his family. ever your grace's faithful and obliged. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] villa des moulineaux, boulogne, _tuesday, july th, ._ my dearest macready, i perfectly agree with you in your appreciation of katie's poem, and shall be truly delighted to publish it in "household words." it shall go into the very next number we make up. we are a little in advance (to enable wills to get a holiday), but as i remember, the next number made up will be published in three weeks. we are pained indeed to read your reference to my poor boy. god keep him and his father. i trust he is not conscious of much suffering himself. if that be so, it is, in the midst of the distress, a great comfort. "little dorrit" keeps me pretty busy, as you may suppose. the beginning of no. --the first line--now lies upon my desk. it would not be easy to increase upon the pains i take with her anyhow. we are expecting stanfield on thursday, and peter cunningham and his wife on monday. i would we were expecting you! this is as pretty and odd a little french country house as could be found anywhere; and the gardens are most beautiful. in "household words," next week, pray read "the diary of anne rodway" (in two not long parts). it is by collins, and i think possesses great merit and real pathos. being in town the other day, i saw gye by accident, and told him, when he praised ---- to me, that she was a very bad actress. "well!" said he, "_you_ may say anything, but if anybody else had told me that i should have stared." nevertheless, i derived an impression from his manner that she had not been a profitable speculation in respect of money. that very same day stanfield and i dined alone together at the garrick, and drank your health. we had had a ride by the river before dinner (of course he _would_ go and look at boats), and had been talking of you. it was this day week, by-the-bye. i know of nothing of public interest that is new in france, except that i am changing my moustache into a beard. we all send our most tender loves to dearest miss macready and all the house. the hammy boy is particularly anxious to have his love sent to "misr creedy." ever, my dearest macready, most affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] villa des moulineaux, boulogne, _sunday, july th, ._ my dear collins, we are all sorry that you are not coming until the middle of next month, but we hope that you will then be able to remain, so that we may all come back together about the th of october. i think (recreation allowed, etc.), that the play will take that time to write. the ladies of the _dram. pers._ are frightfully anxious to get it under way, and to see you locked up in the pavilion; apropos of which noble edifice i have omitted to mention that it is made a more secluded retreat than it used to be, and is greatly improved by the position of the door being changed. it is as snug and as pleasant as possible; and the genius of order has made a few little improvements about the house (at the rate of about tenpence apiece), which the genius of disorder will, it is hoped, appreciate. i think i must come over for a small spree, and to fetch you. suppose i were to come on the th or th of august to stay three or four days in town, would that do for you? let me know at the end of this month. i cannot tell you what a high opinion i have of anne rodway. i took "extracts" out of the title because it conveyed to the many-headed an idea of incompleteness--of something unfinished--and is likely to stall some readers off. i read the first part at the office with strong admiration, and read the second on the railway coming back here, being in town just after you had started on your cruise. my behaviour before my fellow-passengers was weak in the extreme, for i cried as much as you could possibly desire. apart from the genuine force and beauty of the little narrative, and the admirable personation of the girl's identity and point of view, it is done with an amount of honest pains and devotion to the work which few men have better reason to appreciate than i, and which no man can have a more profound respect for. i think it excellent, feel a personal pride and pleasure in it which is a delightful sensation, and know no one else who could have done it. of myself i have only to report that i have been hard at it with "little dorrit," and am now doing no. . this last week i sketched out the notion, characters, and progress of the farce, and sent it off to mark, who has been ill of an ague. it ought to be very funny. the cat business is too ludicrous to be treated of in so small a sheet of paper, so i must describe it _vivâ voce_ when i come to town. french has been so insufferably conceited since he shot tigerish cat no. (intent on the noble dick, with green eyes three inches in advance of her head), that i am afraid i shall have to part with him. all the boys likewise (in new clothes and ready for church) are at this instant prone on their stomachs behind bushes, whooshing and crying (after tigerish cat no. ): "french!" "here she comes!" "there she goes!" etc. i dare not put my head out of window for fear of being shot (it is as like a _coup d'état_ as possible), and tradesmen coming up the avenue cry plaintively: "_ne tirez pas, monsieur fleench; c'est moi--boulanger. ne tirez pas, mon ami._" likewise i shall have to recount to you the secret history of a robbery at the pavilion at folkestone, which you will have to write. tell piggot, when you see him, that we shall all be much pleased if he will come at his own convenience while you are here, and stay a few days with us. i shall have more than one notion of future work to suggest to you while we are beguiling the dreariness of an arctic winter in these parts. may they prosper! kind regards from all to the dramatic poet of the establishment, and to the d. p.'s mother and brother. ever yours. p.s.--if the "flying dutchman" should be done again, pray do go and see it. webster expressed his opinion to me that it was "a neat piece." i implore you to go and see a neat piece. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] boulogne, _thursday, august th, ._ my dear wills, i do not feel disposed to record those two chancery cases; firstly, because i would rather have no part in engendering in the mind of any human creature, a hopeful confidence in that den of iniquity. and secondly, because it seems to me that the real philosophy of the facts is altogether missed in the narrative. the wrong which chanced to be set right in these two cases was done, as all such wrong is, mainly because these wicked courts of equity, with all their means of evasion and postponement, give scoundrels confidence in cheating. if justice were cheap, sure, and speedy, few such things could be. it is because it has become (through the vile dealing of those courts and the vermin they have called into existence) a positive precept of experience that a man had better endure a great wrong than go, or suffer himself to be taken, into chancery, with the dream of setting it right. it is because of this that such nefarious speculations are made. therefore i see nothing at all to the credit of chancery in these cases, but everything to its discredit. and as to owing it to chancery to bear testimony to its having rendered justice in two such plain matters, i have no debt of the kind upon my conscience. in haste, ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] boulogne, _friday, august th, ._ my dearest macready, i like the second little poem very much indeed, and think (as you do) that it is a great advance upon the first. please to note that i make it a rule to pay for everything that is inserted in "household words," holding it to be a part of my trust to make my fellow-proprietors understand that they have no right to unrequited labour. therefore, when wills (who has been ill and is gone for a holiday) does his invariable spiriting gently, don't make katey's case different from adelaide procter's. i am afraid there is no possibility of my reading dorsetshirewards. i have made many conditional promises thus: "i am very much occupied; but if i read at all, i will read for your institution in such an order on my list." edinburgh, which is no. , i have been obliged to put as far off as next christmas twelvemonth. bristol stands next. the working men at preston come next. and so, if i were to go out of the record and read for your people, i should bring such a house about my ears as would shake "little dorrit" out of my head. being in town last saturday, i went to see robson in a burlesque of "medea." it is an odd but perfectly true testimony to the extraordinary power of his performance (which is of a very remarkable kind indeed), that it points the badness of ----'s acting in a most singular manner, by bringing out what she might do and does not. the scene with jason is perfectly terrific; and the manner in which the comic rage and jealousy does not pitch itself over the floor at the stalls is in striking contrast to the manner in which the tragic rage and jealousy does. he has a frantic song and dagger dance, about ten minutes long altogether, which has more passion in it than ---- could express in fifty years. we all unite in kindest love to miss macready and all your dear ones; not forgetting my godson, to whom i send his godfather's particular love twice over. the hammy boy is so brown that you would scarcely know him. ever, my dear macready, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] tavistock house, _sunday morning, sept. th, ._ my dear wills, i suddenly remember this morning that in mr. curtis's article, "health and education," i left a line which must come out. it is in effect that the want of healthy training leaves girls in a fit state to be the subjects of mesmerism. i would not on any condition hurt elliotson's feelings (as i should deeply) by leaving that depreciatory kind of reference in any page of h. w. he has suffered quite enough without a stab from a friend. so pray, whatever the inconvenience may be in what bradbury calls "the friars," take that passage out. by some extraordinary accident, after observing it, i forgot to do it. ever faithfully. [sidenote: miss dickens.] tavistock house, _saturday, oct. th, ._ my dear mamey, the preparations for the play are already beginning, and it is christened (this is a great dramatic secret, which i suppose you know already) "the frozen deep." tell katey, with my best love, that if she fail to come back six times as red, hungry, and strong as she was when she went away, i shall give her part to somebody else. we shall all be very glad to see you both back again; when i say "we" i include the birds (who send their respectful duty) and the plorn. kind regards to all at brighton. ever, my dear mamey, your affectionate father. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] tavistock house, _tuesday, oct. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i _did_ write it for you; and i hoped in writing it, that you would think so. all those remembrances are fresh in my mind, as they often are, and gave me an extraordinary interest in recalling the past. i should have been grievously disappointed if you had not been pleased, for i took aim at you with a most determined intention. let me congratulate you most heartily on your handsome eddy having passed his examination with such credit. i am sure there is a spirit shining out of his eyes, which will do well in that manly and generous pursuit. you will naturally feel his departure very much, and so will he; but i have always observed within my experience, that the men who have left home young have, many long years afterwards, had the tenderest love for it, and for all associated with it. that's a pleasant thing to think of, as one of the wise and benevolent adjustments in these lives of ours. i have been so hard at work (and shall be for the next eight or nine months), that sometimes i fancy i have a digestion, or a head, or nerves, or some odd encumbrance of that kind, to which i am altogether unaccustomed, and am obliged to rush at some other object for relief; at present the house is in a state of tremendous excitement, on account of mr. collins having nearly finished the new play we are to act at christmas, which is very interesting and extremely clever. i hope this time you will come and see it. we purpose producing it on charley's birthday, twelfth night; but we shall probably play four nights altogether--"the lighthouse" on the last occasion--so that if you could come for the two last nights, you would see both the pieces. i am going to try and do better than ever, and already the school-room is in the hands of carpenters; men from underground habitations in theatres, who look as if they lived entirely upon smoke and gas, meet me at unheard-of hours. mr. stanfield is perpetually measuring the boards with a chalked piece of string and an umbrella, and all the elder children are wildly punctual and business-like to attract managerial commendation. if you don't come, i shall do something antagonistic--try to unwrite no. , i think. i should particularly like you to see a new and serious piece so done. because i don't think you know, without seeing, how good it is!!! none of the children suffered, thank god, from the boulogne risk. the three little boys have gone back to school there, and are all well. katey came away ill, but it turned out that she had the whooping-cough for the second time. she has been to brighton, and comes home to-day. i hear great accounts of her, and hope to find her quite well when she arrives presently. i am afraid mary boyle has been praising the boulogne life too highly. not that i deny, however, our having passed some very pleasant days together, and our having had great pleasure in her visit. you will object to me dreadfully, i know, with a beard (though not a great one); but if you come and see the play, you will find it necessary there, and will perhaps be more tolerant of the fearful object afterwards. i need not tell you how delighted we should be to see george, if you would come together. pray tell him so, with my kind regards. i like the notion of wentworth and his philosophy of all things. i remember a philosophical gravity upon him, a state of suspended opinion as to myself, it struck me, when we last met, in which i thought there was a great deal of oddity and character. charley is doing very well at baring's, and attracting praise and reward to himself. within this fortnight there turned up from the west indies, where he is now a chief justice, an old friend of mine, of my own age, who lived with me in lodgings in the adelphi, when i was just charley's age. he had a great affection for me at that time, and always supposed i was to do some sort of wonders. it was a very pleasant meeting indeed, and he seemed to think it so odd that i shouldn't be charley! this is every atom of no-news that will come out of my head, and i firmly believe it is all i have in it--except that a cobbler at boulogne, who had the nicest of little dogs, that always sat in his sunny window watching him at work, asked me if i would bring the dog home, as he couldn't afford to pay the tax for him. the cobbler and the dog being both my particular friends, i complied. the cobbler parted with the dog heart-broken. when the dog got home here, my man, like an idiot as he is, tied him up and then untied him. the moment the gate was open, the dog (on the very day after his arrival) ran out. next day, georgy and i saw him lying, all covered with mud, dead, outside the neighbouring church. how am i ever to tell the cobbler? he is too poor to come to england, so i feel that i must lie to him for life, and say that the dog is fat and happy. mr. plornish, much affected by this tragedy, said: "i s'pose, pa, i shall meet the cobbler's dog" (in heaven). georgy and catherine send their best love, and i send mine. pray write to me again some day, and i can't be too busy to be happy in the sight of your familiar hand, associated in my mind with so much that i love and honour. ever, my dear mr. watson, most faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. horne.] tavistock house, tavistock square, _oct. th, ._ my dear mrs. horne, i answer your note by return of post, in order that you may know that the stereoscopic nottage has not written to me yet. of course i will not lose a moment in replying to him when he does address me. we shall be greatly pleased to see you again. you have been very, very often in our thoughts and on our lips, during this long interval. and "she" is near you, is she? o i remember her well! and i am still of my old opinion! passionately devoted to her sex as i am (they are the weakness of my existence), i still consider her a failure. she had some extraordinary christian-name, which i forget. lashed into verse by my feelings, i am inclined to write: my heart disowns ophelia jones; only i think it was a more sounding name. are these the tones-- volumnia jones? no. again it seems doubtful. god bless her bones, petronia jones! i think not. carve i on stones olympia jones? can _that_ be the name? fond memory favours it more than any other. my love to her. ever, my dear mrs. horne, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: the duke of devonshire.] tavistock house, _december st, ._ my dear duke of devonshire, the moment the first bill is printed for the first night of the new play i told you of, i send it to you, in the hope that you will grace it with your presence. there is not one of the old actors whom you will fail to inspire as no one else can; and i hope you will see a little result of a friendly union of the arts, that you may think worth seeing, and that you can see nowhere else. we propose repeating it on thursday, the th; monday, the th; and wednesday, the th of january. i do not encumber this note with so many bills, and merely mention those nights in case any one of them should be more convenient to you than the first. but i shall hope for the first, unless you dash me (n. b.--i put flora into the current number on purpose that this might catch you softened towards me, and at a disadvantage). if there is hope of your coming, i will have the play clearly copied, and will send it to you to read beforehand. with the most grateful remembrances, and the sincerest good wishes for your health and happiness, i am ever, my dear duke of devonshire, your faithful and obliged. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] tavistock house, _wednesday, dec. rd, ._ my dear mitton, the inspector from the fire office--surveyor, by-the-bye, they called him--duly came. wills described him as not very pleasant in his manners. i derived the impression that he was so exceedingly dry, that if _he_ ever takes fire, he must burn out, and can never otherwise be extinguished. next day, i received a letter from the secretary, to say that the said surveyor had reported great additional risk from fire, and that the directors, at their meeting next tuesday, would settle the extra amount of premium to be paid. thereupon i thought the matter was becoming complicated, and wrote a common-sense note to the secretary (which i begged might be read to the directors), saying that i was quite prepared to pay any extra premium, but setting forth the plain state of the case. (i did not say that the lord chief justice, the chief baron, and half the bench were coming; though i felt a temptation to make a joke about burning them all.) finally, this morning comes up the secretary to me (yesterday having been the great tuesday), and says that he is requested by the directors to present their compliments, and to say that they could not think of charging for any additional risk at all; feeling convinced that i would place the gas (which they considered to be the only danger) under the charge of one competent man. i then explained to him how carefully and systematically that was all arranged, and we parted with drums beating and colours flying on both sides. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready] tavistock house, _saturday evening, dec. th_, . my dearest macready, we shall be charmed to squeeze willie's friend in, and it shall be done by some undiscovered power of compression on the second night, thursday, the th. will you make our compliments to his honour, the deputy fiscal, present him with the enclosed bill, and tell him we shall be cordially glad to see him? i hope to entrust him with a special shake of the hand, to be forwarded to our dear boy (if a hoary sage like myself may venture on that expression) by the next mail. i would have proposed the first night, but that is too full. you may faintly imagine, my venerable friend, the occupation of these also gray hairs, between "golden marys," "little dorrits," "household wordses," four stage-carpenters entirely boarding on the premises, a carpenter's shop erected in the back garden, size always boiling over on all the lower fires, stanfield perpetually elevated on planks and splashing himself from head to foot, telbin requiring impossibilities of smart gasmen, and a legion of prowling nondescripts for ever shrinking in and out. calm amidst the wreck, your aged friend glides away on the "dorrit" stream, forgetting the uproar for a stretch of hours, refreshes himself with a ten or twelve miles walk, pitches headforemost into foaming rehearsals, placidly emerges for editorial purposes, smokes over buckets of distemper with mr. stanfield aforesaid, again calmly floats upon the "dorrit" waters. with very best love to miss macready and all the rest, ever, my dear macready, most affectionately yours. [sidenote: miss power.] tavistock house, _december th, ._ my dear marguerite, i am not _quite_ clear about the story; not because it is otherwise than exceedingly pretty, but because i am rather in a difficult position as to stories just now. besides beginning a long one by collins with the new year (which will last five or six months), i have, as i always have at this time, a considerable residue of stories written for the christmas number, not suitable to it, and yet available for the general purposes of "household words." this limits my choice for the moment to stories that have some decided specialties (or a great deal of story) in them. but i will look over the accumulation before you come, and i hope you will never see your little friend again but in print. you will find us expecting you on the night of the twenty-fourth, and heartily glad to welcome you. the most terrific preparations are in hand for the play on twelfth night. there has been a carpenter's shop in the garden for six weeks; a painter's shop in the school-room; a gasfitter's shop all over the basement; a dressmaker's shop at the top of the house; a tailor's shop in my dressing-room. stanfield has been incessantly on scaffoldings for two months; and your friend has been writing "little dorrit," etc. etc., in corners, like the sultan's groom, who was turned upside-down by the genie. kindest love from all, and from me. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] tavistock house, _christmas eve, ._ my dear sir, i cannot leave your letter unanswered, because i am really anxious that you should understand why i cannot comply with your request. scarcely a week passes without my receiving requests from various quarters to sit for likenesses, to be taken by all the processes ever invented. apart from my having an invincible objection to the multiplication of my countenance in the shop-windows, i have not, between my avocations and my needful recreation, the time to comply with these proposals. at this moment there are three cases out of a vast number, in which i have said: "if i sit at all, it shall be to you first, to you second, and to you third." but i assure you, i consider myself almost as unlikely to go through these three conditional achievements as i am to go to china. judge when i am likely to get to mr. watkins! i highly esteem and thank you for your sympathy with my writings. i doubt if i have a more genial reader in the world. very faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] of mr. wilkie collins. [ ] this note was written after hearing from mr. forster of his intended marriage. prologue to "the lighthouse." (spoken by charles dickens.) _slow music all the time, unseen speaker, curtain down._ a story of those rocks where doomed ships come to cast them wreck'd upon the steps of home, where solitary men, the long year through-- the wind their music and the brine their view-- warn mariners to shun the beacon-light; a story of those rocks is here to-night. eddystone lighthouse [_exterior view discovered._ in its ancient form; ere he who built it wish'd for the great storm that shiver'd it to nothing; once again behold outgleaming on the angry main! within it are three men; to these repair in our frail bark of fancy, swift as air! they are but shadows, as the rower grim took none but shadows in his boat with him. so be _ye_ shades, and, for a little space, the real world a dream without a trace. return is easy. it will have ye back too soon to the old beaten dusty track; for but one hour forget it. billows rise, blow winds, fall rain, be black ye midnight skies; and you who watch the light, arise! arise! [_exterior view rises and discovers the scene._ the song of the wreck. i. the wind blew high, the waters raved, a ship drove on the land, a hundred human creatures saved, kneeled down upon the sand. threescore were drowned, threescore were thrown upon the black rocks wild, and thus among them, left alone, they found one helpless child. ii. a seaman rough, to shipwreck bred, stood out from all the rest, and gently laid the lonely head upon his honest breast. and travelling o'er the desert wide, it was a solemn joy, to see them, ever side by side, the sailor and the boy. iii. in famine, sickness, hunger, thirst, the two were still but one, until the strong man drooped the first, and felt his labours done. then to a trusty friend he spake, "across the desert wide, o take this poor boy for my sake!" and kissed the child and died. iv. toiling along in weary plight, through heavy jungle, mire, these two came later every night to warm them at the fire. until the captain said one day, "o seaman good and kind, to save thyself now come away, and leave the boy behind!" v. the child was slumb'ring near the blaze, "o captain, let him rest until it sinks, when god's own ways shall teach us what is best!" they watched the whitened ashy heap, they touched the child in vain; they did not leave him there asleep, he never woke again. this song was sung to the music of "little nell," a ballad composed by the late mr. george linley, to the words of miss charlotte young, and dedicated to charles dickens. he was very fond of it, and his eldest daughter had been in the habit of singing it to him constantly since she was quite a child. end of vol. i. charles dickens and evans, crystal palace press. * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation errors repaired. page , "levee" changed to "levée" (regular levée every) page , "levee" changed to "levée" (a regular levée) page , word "or" inserted into text. (hencoop or any old) page , , , , "chateau" changed to "château" page , "chistened" changed to "christened" (christened trotty veck) the letters of charles dickens [illustration] the letters of charles dickens. edited by his sister-in-law and his eldest daughter vol. iii. to . london: chapman and hall, limited, , henrietta street, covent garden. . [_the right of translation is reserved._] charles dickens and evans, crystal palace press. preface. since our publication of "the letters of charles dickens" we have received the letters addressed to the late lord lytton, which we were unable to procure in time for our first two volumes in consequence of his son's absence in india. we thank the earl of lytton cordially for his kindness in sending them to us very soon after his return. we also offer our sincere thanks to sir austen h. layard, and to the senders of many other letters, which we now publish for the first time. with a view to making our selection as complete as possible, we have collected together the letters from charles dickens which have already been published in various biographies, and have chosen and placed in chronological order among our new letters those which we consider to be of the greatest interest. as our narrative was finished in our second volume, this volume consists of letters _only_, with occasional foot-notes wherever there are allusions requiring explanation. mamie dickens. georgina hogarth. london: _september, ._ errata. vol. iii. page , line . for "j. w. leigh murray," _read_ "mr. leigh murray." " , line . for "annoying," _read_ "amazing." " , line . for "tarass boulla," _read_ "tarass boulba." " , line , and in footnote. for "hazlett," _read_ "hazlitt." " , line . for "procters," _read_ "proctors." the letters of charles dickens. to . [sidenote: mr. john hullah.] furnival's inn, _sunday evening ( )_ (?). my dear hullah, have you seen _the examiner_? it is rather depreciatory of the opera; but, like all inveterate critiques against braham, so well done that i cannot help laughing at it, for the life and soul of me. i have seen _the sunday times_, _the dispatch_, and _the satirist_, all of which blow their critic trumpets against unhappy me most lustily. either i must have grievously awakened the ire of all the "adapters" and their friends, or the drama must be decidedly bad. i haven't made up my mind yet which of the two is the fact. i have not seen the _john bull_ or any of the sunday papers except _the spectator_. if you have any of them, bring 'em with you on tuesday. i am afraid that for "dirty cummins'" allusion to hogarth i shall be reduced to the necessity of being valorous the next time i meet him. believe me, most faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] furnival's inn, _monday afternoon, o'clock ( )._ my dear hullah, mr. hogarth has just been here, with news which i think you will be glad to hear. he was with braham yesterday, who was _far more full_ of the opera[ ] than he was; speaking highly of my works and "fame" (!), and expressing an earnest desire to be the first to introduce me to the public as a dramatic writer. he said that he intended opening at michaelmas; and added (unasked) that it was his intention to produce the opera within _one month_ of his first night. he wants a low comedy part introduced--without singing--thinking it will take with the audience; but he is desirous of explaining to me what he means and who he intends to play it. i am to see him on sunday morning. full particulars of the interview shall be duly announced. perhaps i shall see you meanwhile. i have only time to add that i am most faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] petersham, _monday evening ( )._ dear hullah, since i called on you this morning i have not had time to look over the words of "the child and the old man." it occurs to me, as i shall see you on wednesday morning, that the best plan will be for you to bring the music (if you possibly can) without the words, and we can put them in then. of course this observation applies only to that particular song. braham having sent to me about the farce, i called on him this morning. harley wrote, when he had read the whole of the opera, saying: "it's a sure card--nothing wrong there. bet you ten pound it runs fifty nights. come; don't be afraid. you'll be the gainer by it, and you mustn't mind betting; it's a capital custom." they tell the story with infinite relish. i saw the fair manageress,[ ] who is fully of harley's opinion, so is braham. the only difference is, that they are far more enthusiastic than harley--far more enthusiastic than ourselves even. that is a bold word, isn't it? it is a true one, nevertheless. "depend upon it, sir," said braham to hogarth yesterday, when he went there to say i should be in town to-day, "depend upon it, sir, that there has been no such music since the days of sheil, and no such piece since "the duenna."" "everybody is delighted with it," he added, to me to-day. "i played it to stansbury, who is by no means an excitable person, and he was charmed." this was said with great emphasis, but i have forgotten the grand point. it was not, "i played it to stansbury," but, "i sang it--_all through_!!!" i begged him, as the choruses are to be put into rehearsal directly the company get together, to let us have, through mrs. braham, the necessary passports to the stage, which will be forwarded. he leaves town on the _ th of september_. he will be absent a month, and the first rehearsal will take place immediately on his return; previous to it (i mean the first rehearsal--not the return) i am to read the piece. his only remaining suggestion is, that miss rainforth will want another song when the piece is in rehearsal--"a bravura--something in the 'soldier tired' way." we must have a confab about this on wednesday morning. harley called in furnival's inn, to express his high delight and gratification, but unfortunately we had left town. i shall be at head-quarters by wednesday noon. believe me, dear hullah, most faithfully yours. p.s.--tell me on wednesday when you can come down here, for a day or two. beautiful place--meadow for exercise, horse for your riding, boat for your rowing, room for your studying--anything you like. [sidenote: mr. george hogarth.] [ ] , furnival's inn, _tuesday evening, january th, ._ my dear sir, as you have begged me to write an original sketch for the first number of the new evening paper, and as i trust to your kindness to refer my application to the proper quarter, should i be unreasonably or improperly trespassing upon you, i beg to ask whether it is probable that if i commenced a series of articles, written under some attractive title, for _the evening chronicle_, its conductors would think i had any claim to some additional remuneration (of course, of no great amount) for doing so? let me beg of you not to misunderstand my meaning. whatever the reply may be, i promised you an article, and shall supply it with the utmost readiness, and with an anxious desire to do my best, which i honestly assure you would be the feeling with which i should always receive any request coming personally from yourself. i merely wish to put it to the proprietors, first, whether a continuation of light papers in the style of my "street sketches" would be considered of use to the new paper; and, secondly, if so, whether they do not think it fair and reasonable that, taking my share of the ordinary reporting business of _the chronicle_ besides, i should receive something for the papers beyond my ordinary salary as a reporter. begging you to excuse my troubling you, and taking this opportunity of acknowledging the numerous kindnesses i have already received at your hands since i have had the pleasure of acting under you, i am, my dear sir, very sincerely yours. [sidenote: mrs. hogarth.] doughty street, _thursday night, october th, ._ my dear mrs. hogarth, i need not thank you for your present[ ] of yesterday, for you know the sorrowful pleasure i shall take in wearing it, and the care with which i shall prize it, until--so far as relates to this life--i am like her. i have never had her ring off my finger by day or night, except for an instant at a time, to wash my hands, since she died. i have never had her sweetness and excellence absent from my mind so long. i can solemnly say that, waking or sleeping, i have never lost the recollection of our hard trial and sorrow, and i feel that i never shall. it will be a great relief to my heart when i find you sufficiently calm upon this sad subject to claim the promise i made you when she lay dead in this house, never to shrink from speaking of her, as if her memory must be avoided, but rather to take a melancholy pleasure in recalling the times when we were all so happy--so happy that increase of fame and prosperity has only widened the gap in my affections, by causing me to think how she would have shared and enhanced all our joys, and how proud i should have been (as god knows i always was) to possess the affections of the gentlest and purest creature that ever shed a light on earth. i wish you could know how i weary now for the three rooms in furnival's inn, and how i miss that pleasant smile and those sweet words which, bestowed upon our evening's work, in our merry banterings round the fire, were more precious to me than the applause of a whole world would be. i can recall everything she said and did in those happy days, and could show you every passage and line we read together. i see _now_ how you are capable of making great efforts, even against the afflictions you have to deplore, and i hope that, soon, our words may be where our thoughts are, and that we may call up those old memories, not as shadows of the bitter past, but as lights upon a happier future. believe me, my dear mrs. hogarth, ever truly and affectionately yours. footnotes: [ ] "the village coquettes." [ ] mrs. braham. [ ] printed in "forty years' recollections of life, literature, and public affairs," by charles mackay. [ ] a chain made of mary hogarth's hair, sent to charles dickens on the first anniversary of her birthday, after her death. [ ]diary-- . _monday, january st, ._ a sad new year's day in one respect, for at the opening of last year poor mary was with us. very many things to be grateful for since then, however. increased reputation and means--good health and prospects. we never know the full value of blessings till we lose them (we were not ignorant of this one when we had it, i hope). but if she were with us now, the same winning, happy, amiable companion, sympathising with all my thoughts and feelings more than anyone i knew ever did or will, i think i should have nothing to wish for, but a continuance of such happiness. but she is gone, and pray god i may one day, through his mercy, rejoin her. i wrote to mrs. hogarth yesterday, taking advantage of the opportunity afforded me by her sending, as a new year's token, a pen-wiper of poor mary's, imploring her, as strongly as i could, to think of the many remaining claims upon her affection and exertions, and not to give way to unavailing grief. her answer came to-night, and she seems hurt at my doing so--protesting that in all useful respects she is the same as ever. meant it for the best, and still hope i did right. _saturday, january th, ._ our boy's birthday--one year old. a few people at night--only forster, the de gex's, john ross, mitton, and the beards, besides our families--to twelfth-cake and forfeits. this day last year, mary and i wandered up and down holborn and the streets about for hours, looking after a little table for kate's bedroom, which we bought at last at the very first broker's which we had looked into, and which we had passed half-a-dozen times because i _didn't like_ to ask the price. i took her out to brompton at night, as we had no place for her to sleep in (the two mothers being with us); she came back again next day to keep house for me, and stopped nearly the rest of the month. i shall never be so happy again as in those chambers three storeys high--never if i roll in wealth and fame. i would hire them to keep empty, if i could afford it. _monday, january th, ._ i began the "sketches of young gentlemen" to-day. one hundred and twenty-five pounds for such a little book, without my name to it, is pretty well. this and the "sunday"[ ] by-the-bye, are the only two things i have not done as boz. _tuesday, january th, ._ went to the sun office to insure my life, where the board seemed disposed to think i work too much. made forster and pickthorn, my doctor, the references--and after an interesting interview with the board and the board's doctor, came away to work again. _wednesday, january th, ._ at work all day, and to a quadrille party at night. city people and rather dull. intensely cold coming home, and vague reports of a fire somewhere. frederick says the royal exchange, at which i sneer most sagely; for---- _thursday, january th, ._ to-day the papers are full of it, and it _was_ the royal exchange, lloyd's, and all the shops round the building. called on browne and went with him to see the ruins, of which we saw as much as we should have done if we had stopped at home. _sunday, january th, ._ to church in the morning, and when i came home i wrote the preceding portion of this diary, which henceforth i make a steadfast resolution not to neglect, or _paint_. i have not done it yet, nor will i; but say what rises to my lips--my mental lips at least--without reserve. no other eyes will see it, while mine are open in life, and although i daresay i shall be ashamed of a good deal in it, i should like to look over it at the year's end. in scott's diary, which i have been looking at this morning, there are thoughts which have been mine by day and by night, in good spirits and bad, since mary died. "another day, and a bright one to the external world again opens on us; the air soft, and the flowers smiling, and the leaves glittering. they cannot refresh her to whom mild weather was a natural enjoyment. cerements of lead and of wood already hold her; cold earth must have her soon. but it is not . . . (she) who will be laid among the ruins. . . . she is sentient and conscious of my emotions _somewhere_--where, we cannot tell, how, we cannot tell; yet would i not at this moment renounce the mysterious yet certain hope that i shall see her in a better world, for all that this world can give me. * * * * * "i have seen her. there is the same symmetry of form, though those limbs are rigid which were once so gracefully elastic; but that yellow masque with pinched features, which seems to mock life rather than emulate it, can it be the face that was once so full of lively expression? i will not look upon it again." i know but too well how true all this is. _monday, january th, ._ here ends this brief attempt at a diary. i grow sad over this checking off of days, and can't do it. * * * * * [sidenote: mr. w. l. sammins.] , doughty street, london, _january st, ._ sir, circumstances have enabled me to relinquish my old connection with the "miscellany"[ ] at an earlier period than i had expected. i am no longer its editor, but i have referred your paper to my successor, and marked it as one "requiring attention." i have no doubt it will receive it. with reference to your letter bearing date on the th of last october, let me assure you that i have delayed answering it--not because a constant stream of similar epistles has rendered me callous to the anxieties of a beginner, in those doubtful paths in which i walk myself--but because you ask me to do that which i would scarce do, of my own unsupported opinion, for my own child, supposing i had one old enough to require such a service. to suppose that i could gravely take upon myself the responsibility of withdrawing you from pursuits you have already undertaken, or urging you on in a most uncertain and hazardous course of life, is really a compliment to my judgment and inflexibility which i cannot recognize and do not deserve (or desire). i hoped that a little reflection would show you how impossible it is that i could be expected to enter upon a task of so much delicacy, but as you have written to me since, and called (unfortunately at a period when i am obliged to seclude myself from all comers), i am compelled at last to tell you that i can do nothing of the kind. if it be any satisfaction to you to know that i have read what you sent me, and read it with great pleasure, though, as you treat of local matters, i am necessarily in the dark here and there, i can give you the assurance very sincerely. with this, and many thanks to you for your obliging expressions towards myself, i am, sir, your very obedient servant. [sidenote: mr. j. p. harley.] doughty street, _thursday morning._[ ] my dear harley, this is my birthday. many happy returns of the day to you and me. i took it into my head yesterday to get up an impromptu dinner on this auspicious occasion--only my own folks, leigh hunt, ainsworth, and forster. i know you can't dine here in consequence of the tempestuous weather on the covent garden shores, but if you will come in when you have done trinculizing, you will delight me greatly, and add in no inconsiderable degree to the "conviviality" of the meeting. lord bless my soul! twenty-seven years old. who'd have thought it? i _never_ did! but i grow sentimental. always yours truly. [sidenote: mr. edward chapman.] , devonshire terrace, _ th december, ._ my dear sir, the place where you pledge yourself to pay for my beef and mutton when i eat it, and my ale and wine when i drink it, is the treasurer's office of the middle temple, the new building at the bottom of middle temple lane on the right-hand side. you walk up into the first-floor and say (boldly) that you come to sign mr. charles dickens's bond--which is already signed by mr. sergeant talfourd. i suppose i should formally acquaint you that i have paid the fees, and that the responsibility you incur is a very slight one--extending very little beyond my good behaviour, and honourable intentions to pay for all wine-glasses, tumblers, or other dinner-furniture that i may break or damage. i wish you would do me another service, and that is to choose, at the place you told me of, a reasonable copy of "the beauties of england and wales." you can choose it quite as well as i can, or better, and i shall be much obliged to you. i should like you to send it at once, as i am diving into all kinds of matters at odd minutes with a view to our forthcoming operations. faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] this fragment of a diary was found amongst some papers which have recently come to light. the editors give only those paragraphs which are likely to be of any public interest. the original manuscript has been added to "the forster collection," at the south kensington museum. [ ] "sunday, under three heads," a small pamphlet published about this time. [ ] "bentley's miscellany." [ ] no other date, but it must have been th february, . . [sidenote: mr. h. g. adams.[ ]] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _saturday, jan. th, ._ dear sir, the pressure of other engagements will, i am compelled to say, prevent me from contributing a paper to your new local magazine.[ ] but i beg you to set me down as a subscriber to it, and foremost among those whose best wishes are enlisted in your cause. it will afford me real pleasure to hear of your success, for i have many happy recollections connected with kent, and am scarcely less interested in it than if i had been a kentish man bred and born, and had resided in the county all my life. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. thompson.[ ]] devonshire terrace, _tuesday, th december, ._ my dear thompson, i have received a most flattering message from the head turnkey of the jail this morning, intimating that "there warn't a genelman in all london he'd be gladder to show his babies to, than muster dickins, and let him come wenever he would to that shop he wos welcome." but as the governor (who is a very nice fellow and a gentleman) is not at home this morning, and furthermore as the morning itself has rather gone out of town in respect of its poetical allurements, i think we had best postpone our visit for a day or two. faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] mr. adams, the hon. secretary of the chatham mechanics' institute, which office he held for many years. [ ] "the kentish coronal." [ ] an intimate friend. . [sidenote: rev. thomas robinson.[ ]] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _thursday, april th, ._ dear sir, i am much obliged to you for your interesting letter. nor am i the less pleased to receive it, by reason that i cannot find it in my conscience to agree in many important respects with the body to which you belong. in the love of virtue and hatred of vice, in the detestation of cruelty and encouragement of gentleness and mercy, all men who endeavour to be acceptable to their creator in any way, may freely agree. there are more roads to heaven, i am inclined to think, than any sect believes; but there can be none which have not these flowers garnishing the way. i feel it a great tribute, therefore, to receive your letter. it is most welcome and acceptable to me. i thank you for it heartily, and am proud of the approval of one who suffered in his youth, even more than my poor child. while you teach in your walk of life the lessons of tenderness you have learnt in sorrow, trust me that in mine, i will pursue cruelty and oppression, the enemies of all god's creatures of all codes and creeds, so long as i have the energy of thought and the power of giving it utterance. faithfully yours. [sidenote: the countess of blessington.] [ ]devonshire terrace, _june nd, ._ dear lady blessington, the year goes round so fast, that when anything occurs to remind me of its whirling, i lose my breath, and am bewildered. so your handwriting last night had as startling an effect upon me, as though you had sealed your note with one of your own eyes. i remember my promise, as in cheerful duty bound, and with heaven's grace will redeem it. at this moment, i have not the faintest idea how, but i am going into scotland on the th to see jeffrey, and while i am away (i shall return, please god, in about three weeks) will look out for some accident, incident, or subject for small description, to send you when i come home. you will take the will for the deed, i know; and, remembering that i have a "clock" which always wants winding up, will not quarrel with me for being brief. have you seen townshend's magnetic boy? you heard of him, no doubt, from count d'orsay. if you get him to gore house, don't, i entreat you, have more than eight people--four is a better number--to see him. he fails in a crowd, and is _marvellous_ before a few. i am told that down in devonshire there are young ladies innumerable, who read crabbed manuscripts with the palms of their hands, and newspapers with their ankles, and so forth; and who are, so to speak, literary all over. i begin to understand what a blue-stocking means, and have not the smallest doubt that lady ---- (for instance) could write quite as entertaining a book with the sole of her foot as ever she did with her head. i am a believer in earnest, and i am sure you would be if you saw this boy, under moderately favourable circumstances, as i hope you will, before he leaves england. believe me, dear lady blessington, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. l. gaylord clark.] _september th, ._ my dear sir, i condole with you from my heart on the loss[ ] you have sustained, and i feel proud of your permitting me to sympathise with your affliction. it is a great satisfaction to me to have been addressed, under similar circumstances, by many of your countrymen since the "curiosity shop" came to a close. some simple and honest hearts in the remote wilds of america have written me letters on the loss of children--so numbering my little book, or rather heroine, with their household gods; and so pouring out their trials and sources of comfort in them, before me as a friend, that i have been inexpressibly moved, and am whenever i think of them, i do assure you. you have already all the comfort, that i could lay before you; all, i hope, that the affectionate spirit of your brother, now in happiness, can shed into your soul. on the th of next january, if it please god, i am coming with my wife on a three or four months' visit to america. the british and north american packet will bring me, i hope, to boston, and enable me, in the third week of the new year, to set my foot upon the soil i have trodden in my day-dreams many times, and whose sons (and daughters) i yearn to know and to be among. i hope you are surprised, and i hope not unpleasantly. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. hogarth.] [ ]devonshire terrace, _sunday, october th, ._ my dear mrs. hogarth, for god's sake be comforted, and bear this well, for the love of your remaining children. i had always intended to keep poor mary's grave for us and our dear children, and for you. but if it will be any comfort to you to have poor george buried there, i will cheerfully arrange to place the ground at your entire disposal. do not consider me in any way. consult only your own heart. mine seems to tell me that as they both died so young and so suddenly, they ought both to be buried together. try--do try--to think that they have but preceded you to happiness, and will meet you with joy in heaven. there _is_ consolation in the knowledge that you have treasure there, and that while you live on earth, there are creatures among the angels, who owed their being to you. always yours with true affection. [sidenote: mr. washington irving.] my dear sir,[ ] there is no man in the world who could have given me the heartfelt pleasure you have, by your kind note of the th of last month. there is no living writer, and there are very few among the dead, whose approbation i should feel so proud to earn. and with everything you have written upon my shelves, and in my thoughts, and in my heart of hearts, i may honestly and truly say so. if you could know how earnestly i write this, you would be glad to read it--as i hope you will be, faintly guessing at the warmth of the hand i autobiographically hold out to you over the broad atlantic. i wish i could find in your welcome letter some hint of an intention to visit england. i can't. i have held it at arm's length, and taken a bird's-eye view of it, after reading it a great many times, but there is no greater encouragement in it this way than on a microscopic inspection. i should love to go with you--as i have gone, god knows how often--into little britain, and eastcheap, and green arbour court, and westminster abbey. i should like to travel with you, outside the last of the coaches down to bracebridge hall. it would make my heart glad to compare notes with you about that shabby gentleman in the oilcloth hat and red nose, who sat in the nine-cornered back-parlour of the masons' arms; and about robert preston and the tallow-chandler's widow, whose sitting-room is second nature to me; and about all those delightful places and people that i used to walk about and dream of in the daytime, when a very small and not over-particularly-taken-care-of boy. i have a good deal to say, too, about that dashing alonzo de ojeda, that you can't help being fonder of than you ought to be; and much to hear concerning moorish legend, and poor unhappy boabdil. diedrich knickerbocker i have worn to death in my pocket, and yet i should show you his mutilated carcass with a joy past all expression. i have been so accustomed to associate you with my pleasantest and happiest thoughts, and with my leisure hours, that i rush at once into full confidence with you, and fall, as it were naturally, and by the very laws of gravity, into your open arms. questions come thronging to my pen as to the lips of people who meet after long hoping to do so. i don't know what to say first or what to leave unsaid, and am constantly disposed to break off and tell you again how glad i am this moment has arrived. my dear washington irving, i cannot thank you enough for your cordial and generous praise, or tell you what deep and lasting gratification it has given me. i hope to have many letters from you, and to exchange a frequent correspondence. i send this to say so. after the first two or three i shall settle down into a connected style, and become gradually rational. you know what the feeling is, after having written a letter, sealed it, and sent it off. i shall picture your reading this, and answering it before it has lain one night in the post-office. ten to one that before the fastest packet could reach new york i shall be writing again. do you suppose the post-office clerks care to receive letters? i have my doubts. they get into a dreadful habit of indifference. a postman, i imagine, is quite callous. conceive his delivering one to himself, without being startled by a preliminary double knock! always your faithful friend. footnotes: [ ] a dissenting minister, once himself a workhouse boy, and writing on the character of oliver twist. this letter was published in "harper's new monthly magazine," in . [ ] this, and all other letters addressed to the countess of blessington, were printed in "literary life and correspondence of the countess of blessington." [ ] the death of his correspondent's twin-brother, willis gaylord clark. [ ] on the occasion of the sudden death of mrs. hogarth's son, george. [ ] this, and all other letters addressed to mr. washington irving, were printed in "the life and letters of washington irving," edited by his nephew, pierre m. irving. . [sidenote: professor felton.] fuller's hotel, washington, _monday, march th, ._ my dear felton,[ ] i was more delighted than i can possibly tell you, to receive (last saturday night) your welcome letter. we and the oysters missed you terribly in new york. you carried away with you more than half the delight and pleasure of my new world; and i heartily wish you could bring it back again. there are very interesting men in this place--highly interesting, of course--but it's not a comfortable place; is it? if spittle could wait at table we should be nobly attended, but as that property has not been imparted to it in the present state of mechanical science, we are rather lonely and orphan-like, in respect of "being looked arter." a blithe black was introduced on our arrival, as our peculiar and especial attendant. he is the only gentleman in the town who has a peculiar delicacy in intruding upon my valuable time. it usually takes seven rings and a threatening message from ---- to produce him; and when he comes he goes to fetch something, and, forgetting it by the way, comes back no more. we have been in great distress, really in distress, at the non-arrival of the _caledonia_. you may conceive what our joy was, when, while we were dining out yesterday, h. arrived with the joyful intelligence of her safety. the very news of her having really arrived seemed to diminish the distance between ourselves and home, by one half at least. and this morning (though we have not yet received our heap of despatches, for which we are looking eagerly forward to this night's mail)--this morning there reached us unexpectedly, through the government bag (heaven knows how they came there!), two of our many and long-looked-for letters, wherein was a circumstantial account of the whole conduct and behaviour of our pets; with marvellous narrations of charley's precocity at a twelfth night juvenile party at macready's; and tremendous predictions of the governess, dimly suggesting his having got out of pot-hooks and hangers, and darkly insinuating the possibility of his writing us a letter before long; and many other workings of the same prophetic spirit, in reference to him and his sisters, very gladdening to their mother's heart, and not at all depressing to their father's. there was, also, the doctor's report, which was a clean bill; and the nurse's report, which was perfectly electrifying; showing as it did how master walter had been weaned, and had cut a double tooth, and done many other extraordinary things, quite worthy of his high descent. in short, we were made very happy and grateful; and felt as if the prodigal father and mother had got home again. what do you think of this incendiary card being left at my door last night? "general g. sends compliments to mr. dickens, and called with two literary ladies. as the two l. l.'s are ambitious of the honour of a personal introduction to mr. d., general g. requests the honour of an appointment for to-morrow." i draw a veil over my sufferings. they are sacred. we shall be in buffalo, please heaven, on the th of april. if i don't find a letter from you in the care of the postmaster at that place, i'll never write to you from england. but if i _do_ find one, my right hand shall forget its cunning, before i forget to be your truthful and constant correspondent; not, dear felton, because i promised it, nor because i have a natural tendency to correspond (which is far from being the case), nor because i am truly grateful to you for, and have been made truly proud by, that affectionate and elegant tribute which ---- sent me, but because you are a man after my own heart, and i love you _well_. and for the love i bear you, and the pleasure with which i shall always think of you, and the glow i shall feel when i see your handwriting in my own home, i hereby enter into a solemn league and covenant to write as many letters to you as you write to me, at least. amen. come to england! come to england! our oysters are small, i know; they are said by americans to be coppery; but our hearts are of the largest size. we are thought to excel in shrimps, to be far from despicable in point of lobsters, and in periwinkles are considered to challenge the universe. our oysters, small though they be, are not devoid of the refreshing influence which that species of fish is supposed to exercise in these latitudes. try them and compare. affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. washington irving.] washington, _monday afternoon, march st, ._ my dear irving, we passed through--literally passed through--this place again to-day. i did not come to see you, for i really have not the heart to say "good-bye" again, and felt more than i can tell you when we shook hands last wednesday. you will not be at baltimore, i fear? i thought, at the time, that you only said you might be there, to make our parting the gayer. wherever you go, god bless you! what pleasure i have had in seeing and talking with you, i will not attempt to say. i shall never forget it as long as i live. what would i give, if we could have but a quiet week together! spain is a lazy place, and its climate an indolent one. but if you have ever leisure under its sunny skies to think of a man who loves you, and holds communion with your spirit oftener, perhaps, than any other person alive--leisure from listlessness, i mean--and will write to me in london, you will give me an inexpressible amount of pleasure. your affectionate friend. [sidenote: professor felton.] montreal, _saturday, st may, ._ my dear felton, i was delighted to receive your letter yesterday, and was well pleased with its contents. i anticipated objection to carlyle's[ ] letter. i called particular attention to it for three reasons. firstly, because he boldly _said_ what all the others _think_, and therefore deserved to be manfully supported. secondly, because it is my deliberate opinion that i have been assailed on this subject in a manner in which no man with any pretensions to public respect or with the remotest right to express an opinion on a subject of universal literary interest would be assailed in any other country. . . . i really cannot sufficiently thank you, dear felton, for your warm and hearty interest in these proceedings. but it would be idle to pursue that theme, so let it pass. the wig and whiskers are in a state of the highest preservation. the play comes off next wednesday night, the th. what would i give to see you in the front row of the centre box, your spectacles gleaming not unlike those of my dear friend pickwick, your face radiant with as broad a grin as a staid professor may indulge in, and your very coat, waistcoat, and shoulders expressive of what we should take together when the performance was over! i would give something (not so much, but still a good round sum) if you could only stumble into that very dark and dusty theatre in the daytime (at any minute between twelve and three), and see me with my coat off, the stage manager and universal director, urging impracticable ladies and impossible gentlemen on to the very confines of insanity, shouting and driving about, in my own person, to an extent which would justify any philanthropic stranger in clapping me into a strait-waistcoat without further inquiry, endeavouring to goad h. into some dim and faint understanding of a prompter's duties, and struggling in such a vortex of noise, dirt, bustle, confusion, and inextricable entanglement of speech and action as you would grow giddy in contemplating. we perform "a roland for an oliver," "a good night's rest," and "deaf as a post." this kind of voluntary hard labour used to be my great delight. the _furor_ has come strong upon me again, and i begin to be once more of opinion that nature intended me for the lessee of a national theatre, and that pen, ink, and paper have spoiled a manager. oh, how i look forward across that rolling water to home and its small tenantry! how i busy myself in thinking how my books look, and where the tables are, and in what positions the chairs stand relatively to the other furniture; and whether we shall get there in the night, or in the morning, or in the afternoon; and whether we shall be able to surprise them, or whether they will be too sharply looking out for us; and what our pets will say; and how they'll look, and who will be the first to come and shake hands, and so forth! if i could but tell you how i have set my heart on rushing into forster's study (he is my great friend, and writes at the bottom of all his letters: "my love to felton"), and into maclise's painting-room, and into macready's managerial ditto, without a moment's warning, and how i picture every little trait and circumstance of our arrival to myself, down to the very colour of the bow on the cook's cap, you would almost think i had changed places with my eldest son, and was still in pantaloons of the thinnest texture. i left all these things--god only knows what a love i have for them--as coolly and calmly as any animated cucumber; but when i come upon them again i shall have lost all power of self-restraint, and shall as certainly make a fool of myself (in the popular meaning of that expression) as ever grimaldi did in his way, or george the third in his. and not the less so, dear felton, for having found some warm hearts, and left some instalments of earnest and sincere affection, behind me on this continent. and whenever i turn my mental telescope hitherward, trust me that one of the first figures it will descry will wear spectacles so like yours that the maker couldn't tell the difference, and shall address a greek class in such an exact imitation of your voice, that the very students hearing it should cry, "that's he! three cheers. hoo-ray-ay-ay-ay-ay!" about those joints of yours, i think you are mistaken. they _can't_ be stiff. at the worst they merely want the air of new york, which, being impregnated with the flavour of last year's oysters, has a surprising effect in rendering the human frame supple and flexible in all cases of rust. a terrible idea occurred to me as i wrote those words. the oyster-cellars--what do they do when oysters are not in season? is pickled salmon vended there? do they sell crabs, shrimps, winkles, herrings? the oyster-openers--what do _they_ do? do they commit suicide in despair, or wrench open tight drawers and cupboards and hermetically-sealed bottles for practice? perhaps they are dentists out of the oyster season. who knows? affectionately yours. [sidenote: the same.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, london, _sunday, july st, ._ my dear felton, of all the monstrous and incalculable amount of occupation that ever beset one unfortunate man, mine has been the most stupendous since i came home. the dinners i have had to eat, the places i have had to go to, the letters i have had to answer, the sea of business and of pleasure in which i have been plunged, not even the genius of an ---- or the pen of a ---- could describe. wherefore i indite a monstrously short and wildly uninteresting epistle to the american dando; but perhaps you don't know who dando was. he was an oyster-eater, my dear felton. he used to go into oyster-shops, without a farthing of money, and stand at the counter eating natives, until the man who opened them grew pale, cast down his knife, staggered backward, struck his white forehead with his open hand, and cried, "you are dando!!!" he has been known to eat twenty dozen at one sitting, and would have eaten forty, if the truth had not flashed upon the shopkeeper. for these offences he was constantly committed to the house of correction. during his last imprisonment he was taken ill, got worse and worse, and at last began knocking violent double knocks at death's door. the doctor stood beside his bed, with his fingers on his pulse. "he is going," says the doctor. "i see it in his eye. there is only one thing that would keep life in him for another hour, and that is--oysters." they were immediately brought. dando swallowed eight, and feebly took a ninth. he held it in his mouth and looked round the bed strangely. "not a bad one, is it?" says the doctor. the patient shook his head, rubbed his trembling hand upon his stomach, bolted the oyster, and fell back--dead. they buried him in the prison-yard, and paved his grave with oyster-shells. we are all well and hearty, and have already begun to wonder what time next year you and mrs. felton and dr. howe will come across the briny sea together. to-morrow we go to the seaside for two months. i am looking out for news of longfellow, and shall be delighted when i know that he is on his way to london and this house. i am bent upon striking at the piratical newspapers with the sharpest edge i can put upon my small axe, and hope in the next session of parliament to stop their entrance into canada. for the first time within the memory of man, the professors of english literature seem disposed to act together on this question. it is a good thing to aggravate a scoundrel, if one can do nothing else, and i think we _can_ make them smart a little in this way. . . . i wish you had been at greenwich the other day, where a party of friends gave me a private dinner; public ones i have refused. c---- was perfectly wild at the reunion, and, after singing all manner of marine songs, wound up the entertainment by coming home (six miles) in a little open phaeton of mine, _on his head_, to the mingled delight and indignation of the metropolitan police. we were very jovial indeed; and i assure you that i drank your health with fearful vigour and energy. on board that ship coming home i established a club, called the united vagabonds, to the large amusement of the rest of the passengers. this holy brotherhood committed all kinds of absurdities, and dined always, with a variety of solemn forms, at one end of the table, below the mast, away from all the rest. the captain being ill when we were three or four days out, i produced my medicine-chest and recovered him. we had a few more sick men after that, and i went round "the wards" every day in great state, accompanied by two vagabonds, habited as ben allen and bob sawyer, bearing enormous rolls of plaster and huge pairs of scissors. we were really very merry all the way, breakfasted in one party at liverpool, shook hands, and parted most cordially. . . . affectionately your faithful friend. p.s.--i have looked over my journal, and have decided to produce my american trip in two volumes. i have written about half the first since i came home, and hope to be out in october. this is "exclusive news," to be communicated to any friends to whom you may like to intrust it, my dear f----. [sidenote: the same.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, london, _september st, ._ my dear felton, of course that letter in the papers was as foul a forgery as ever felon swung for. . . . i have not contradicted it publicly, nor shall i. when i tilt at such wringings out of the dirtiest mortality, i shall be another man--indeed, almost the creature they would make me. i gave your message to forster, who sends a despatch-box full of kind remembrances in return. he is in a great state of delight with the first volume of my american book (which i have just finished), and swears loudly by it. it is _true_ and honourable i know, and i shall hope to send it you, complete, by the first steamer in november. your description of the porter and the carpet-bags prepares me for a first-rate facetious novel, brimful of the richest humour, on which i have no doubt you are engaged. what is it called? sometimes i imagine the title-page thus: oysters in every style or openings of life by young dando. as to the man putting the luggage on his head, as a sort of sign, i adopt it from this hour. i date this from london, where i have come, as a good profligate, graceless bachelor, for a day or two; leaving my wife and babbies at the seaside. . . . heavens! if you were but here at this minute! a piece of salmon and a steak are cooking in the kitchen; it's a very wet day, and i have had a fire lighted; the wine sparkles on a side table; the room looks the more snug from being the only _un_dismantled one in the house; plates are warming for forster and maclise, whose knock i am momentarily expecting; that groom i told you of, who never comes into the house, except when we are all out of town, is walking about in his shirt-sleeves without the smallest consciousness of impropriety; a great mound of proofs are waiting to be read aloud, after dinner. with what a shout i would clap you down into the easiest chair, my genial felton, if you could but appear, and order you a pair of slippers instantly! since i have written this, the aforesaid groom--a very small man (as the fashion is), with fiery red hair (as the fashion is _not_)--has looked very hard at me and fluttered about me at the same time, like a giant butterfly. after a pause, he says, in a sam wellerish kind of way: "i vent to the club this mornin', sir. there vorn't no letters, sir." "very good, topping." "how's missis, sir?" "pretty well, topping." "glad to hear it, sir. _my_ missis ain't wery well, sir." "no!" "no, sir, she's a goin', sir, to have a hincrease wery soon, and it makes her rather nervous, sir; and ven a young voman gets at all down at sich a time, sir, she goes down wery deep, sir." to this sentiment i replied affirmatively, and then he adds, as he stirs the fire (as if he were thinking out loud): "wot a mystery it is! wot a go is natur'!" with which scrap of philosophy, he gradually gets nearer to the door, and so fades out of the room. this same man asked me one day, soon after i came home, what sir john wilson was. this is a friend of mine, who took our house and servants, and everything as it stood, during our absence in america. i told him an officer. "a wot, sir?" "an officer." and then, for fear he should think i meant a police-officer, i added, "an officer in the army." "i beg your pardon, sir," he said, touching his hat, "but the club as i always drove him to wos the united servants." the real name of this club is the united service, but i have no doubt he thought it was a high-life-below-stairs kind of resort, and that this gentleman was a retired butler or superannuated footman. there's the knock, and the great western sails, or steams rather, to-morrow. write soon again, dear felton, and ever believe me. . . . your affectionate friend. p.s.--all good angels prosper dr. howe! he, at least, will not like me the less, i hope, for what i shall say of laura. [sidenote: the same.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, london, _ st december, ._ my dear felton, many and many happy new years to you and yours! as many happy children as may be quite convenient (no more!), and as many happy meetings between them and our children, and between you and us, as the kind fates in their utmost kindness shall favourably decree! the american book (to begin with that) has been a most complete and thorough-going success. four large editions have now been sold _and paid for_, and it has won golden opinions from all sorts of men, except our friend in f----, who is a miserable creature; a disappointed man in great poverty, to whom i have ever been most kind and considerate (i need scarcely say that); and another friend in b----, no less a person than an illustrious gentleman named ----, who wrote a story called ----. they have done no harm, and have fallen short of their mark, which, of course, was to annoy me. now i am perfectly free from any diseased curiosity in such respects, and whenever i hear of a notice of this kind, i never read it; whereby i always conceive (don't you?) that i get the victory. with regard to your slave-owners, they may cry, till they are as black in the face as their own slaves, that dickens lies. dickens does not write for their satisfaction, and dickens will not explain for their comfort. dickens has the name and date of every newspaper in which every one of those advertisements appeared, as they know perfectly well; but dickens does not choose to give them, and will not at any time between this and the day of judgment. . . . i have been hard at work on my new book, of which the first number has just appeared. the paul joneses who pursue happiness and profit at other men's cost will no doubt enable you to read it, almost as soon as you receive this. i hope you will like it. and i particularly commend, my dear felton, one mr. pecksniff and his daughters to your tender regards. i have a kind of liking for them myself. blessed star of morning, such a trip as we had into cornwall, just after longfellow went away! the "we" means forster, maclise, stanfield (the renowned marine painter), and the inimitable boz. we went down into devonshire by the railroad, and there we hired an open carriage from an innkeeper, patriotic in all pickwick matters, and went on with post-horses. sometimes we travelled all night, sometimes all day, sometimes both. i kept the joint-stock purse, ordered all the dinners, paid all the turnpikes, conducted facetious conversations with the post-boys, and regulated the pace at which we travelled. stanfield (an old sailor) consulted an enormous map on all disputed points of wayfaring; and referred, moreover, to a pocket-compass and other scientific instruments. the luggage was in forster's department; and maclise, having nothing particular to do, sang songs. heavens! if you could have seen the necks of bottles--distracting in their immense varieties of shape--peering out of the carriage pockets! if you could have witnessed the deep devotion of the post-boys, the wild attachment of the hostlers, the maniac glee of the waiters! if you could have followed us into the earthy old churches we visited, and into the strange caverns on the gloomy sea-shore, and down into the depths of mines, and up to the tops of giddy heights where the unspeakably green water was roaring, i don't know how many hundred feet below! if you could have seen but one gleam of the bright fires by which we sat in the big rooms of ancient inns at night, until long after the small hours had come and gone, or smelt but one steam of the hot punch (not white, dear felton, like that amazing compound i sent you a taste of, but a rich, genial, glowing brown) which came in every evening in a huge broad china bowl! i never laughed in my life as i did on this journey. it would have done you good to hear me. i was choking and gasping and bursting the buckle off the back of my stock, all the way. and stanfield (who is very much of your figure and temperament, but fifteen years older) got into such apoplectic entanglements that we were often obliged to beat him on the back with portmanteaus before we could recover him. seriously, i do believe there never was such a trip. and they made such sketches, those two men, in the most romantic of our halting-places, that you would have sworn we had the spirit of beauty with us, as well as the spirit of fun. but stop till you come to england--i say no more. the actuary of the national debt couldn't calculate the number of children who are coming here on twelfth night, in honour of charley's birthday, for which occasion i have provided a magic lantern and divers other tremendous engines of that nature. but the best of it is that forster and i have purchased between us the entire stock-in-trade of a conjurer, the practice and display whereof is intrusted to me. and o my dear eyes, felton, if you could see me conjuring the company's watches into impossible tea-caddies, and causing pieces of money to fly, and burning pocket-handkerchiefs without hurting 'em, and practising in my own room, without anybody to admire, you would never forget it as long as you live. in those tricks which require a confederate, i am assisted (by reason of his imperturbable good humour) by stanfield, who always does his part exactly the wrong way, to the unspeakable delight of all beholders. we come out on a small scale, to-night, at forster's, where we see the old year out and the new one in. particulars shall be forwarded in my next. i have quite made up my mind that f---- really believes he _does_ know you personally, and has all his life. he talks to me about you with such gravity that i am afraid to grin, and feel it necessary to look quite serious. sometimes he _tells_ me things about you, doesn't ask me, you know, so that i am occasionally perplexed beyond all telling, and begin to think it was he, and not i, who went to america. it's the queerest thing in the world. the book i was to have given longfellow for you is not worth sending by itself, being only a barnaby. but i will look up some manuscript for you (i think i have that of the american notes complete), and will try to make the parcel better worth its long conveyance. with regard to maclise's pictures, you certainly are quite right in your impression of them; but he is "such a discursive devil" (as he says about himself) and flies off at such odd tangents, that i feel it difficult to convey to you any general notion of his purpose. i will try to do so when i write again. i want very much to know about ---- and that charming girl. . . . give me full particulars. will you remember me cordially to sumner, and say i thank him for his welcome letter? the like to hillard, with many regards to himself and his wife, with whom i had one night a little conversation which i shall not readily forget. the like to washington allston, and all friends who care for me and have outlived my book. . . . always, my dear felton, with true regard and affection, yours. [sidenote: mr. tom hood.] my dear hood, i can't state in figures (not very well remembering how to get beyond a million) the number of candidates for the sanatorium matronship, but if you will ask your little boy to trace figures in the beds of your garden, beginning at the front wall, going down to the cricket-ground, coming back to the wall again, and "carrying over" to the next door, and will then set a skilful accountant to add up the whole, the product, as the tutor's assistants say, will give you the amount required. i have pledged myself (being assured of her capability) to support a near relation of miss e----'s; otherwise, i need not say how glad i should have been to forward any wish of yours. very faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] this, and all other letters addressed to professor felton, were printed in mr. field's "yesterdays with authors," originally published in _the atlantic monthly magazine_. [ ] on the subject of international copyright. . [sidenote: mr. macvey napier.] [ ]devonshire terrace, london, _january st, ._ my dear sir, let me hasten to say, in the fullest and most explicit manner, that you have acted a most honourable, open, fair and manly part in the matter of my complaint,[ ] for which i beg you to accept my best thanks, and the assurance of my friendship and regard. i would on no account publish the letter you have sent me for that purpose, as i conceive that by doing so, i should not reciprocate the spirit in which you have written to me privately. but if you should, upon consideration, think it not inexpedient to set the _review_ right in regard to this point of fact, by a note in the next number, i should be glad to see it there. in reference to the article itself, it did, by repeating this statement, hurt my feelings excessively; and is, in this respect, i still conceive, most unworthy of its author. i am at a loss to divine who its author is. i _know_ he read in some cut-throat american paper, this and other monstrous statements, which i could at any time have converted into sickening praise by the payment of some fifty dollars. i know that he is perfectly aware that his statement in the _review_ in corroboration of these lies, would be disseminated through the whole of the united states; and that my contradiction will never be heard of. and though i care very little for the opinion of any person who will set the statement of an american editor (almost invariably an atrocious scoundrel) against my character and conduct, such as they may be; still, my sense of justice does revolt from this most cavalier and careless exhibition of me to a whole people, as a traveller under false pretences, and a disappointed intriguer. the better the acquaintance with america, the more defenceless and more inexcusable such conduct is. for, i solemnly declare (and appeal to any man but the writer of this paper, who has travelled in that country, for confirmation of my statement) that the source from which he drew the "information" so recklessly put forth again in england, is infinitely more obscene, disgusting, and brutal than the very worst sunday newspaper that has ever been printed in great britain. conceive _the edinburgh review_ quoting _the satirist_, or _the man about town_, as an authority against a man with one grain of honour, or feather-weight of reputation. with regard to yourself, let me say again that i thank you with all sincerity and heartiness, and fully acquit you of anything but kind and generous intentions towards me. in proof of which, i do assure you that i am even more desirous than before to write for the _review_, and to find some topic which would at once please me and you. always faithfully yours. [sidenote: professor felton.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, london, _march nd, ._ my dear felton, i don't know where to begin, but plunge headlong with a terrible splash into this letter, on the chance of turning up somewhere. hurrah! up like a cork again, with _the north american review_ in my hand. like you, my dear ----, and i can say no more in praise of it, though i go on to the end of the sheet. you cannot think how much notice it has attracted here. brougham called the other day, with the number (thinking i might not have seen it), and i being out at the time, he left a note, speaking of it, and of the writer, in terms that warmed my heart. lord ashburton (one of whose people wrote a notice in the _edinburgh_ which they have since publicly contradicted) also wrote to me about it in just the same strain. and many others have done the like. i am in great health and spirits and powdering away at chuzzlewit, with all manner of facetiousness rising up before me as i go on. as to news, i have really none, saving that ---- (who never took any exercise in his life) has been laid up with rheumatism for weeks past, but is now, i hope, getting better. my little captain, as i call him--he who took me out, i mean, and with whom i had that adventure of the cork soles--has been in london too, and seeing all the lions under my escort. good heavens! i wish you could have seen certain other mahogany-faced men (also captains) who used to call here for him in the morning, and bear him off to docks and rivers and all sorts of queer places, whence he always returned late at night, with rum-and-water tear-drops in his eyes, and a complication of punchy smells in his mouth! he was better than a comedy to us, having marvellous ways of tying his pocket-handkerchief round his neck at dinner-time in a kind of jolly embarrassment, and then forgetting what he had done with it; also of singing songs to wrong tunes, and calling land objects by sea names, and never knowing what o'clock it was, but taking midnight for seven in the evening; with many other sailor oddities, all full of honesty, manliness, and good temper. we took him to drury lane theatre to see "much ado about nothing." but i never could find out what he meant by turning round, after he had watched the first two scenes with great attention, and inquiring "whether it was a polish piece." . . . on the th of april i am going to preside at a public dinner for the benefit of the printers; and if you were a guest at that table, wouldn't i smite you on the shoulder, harder than ever i rapped the well-beloved back of washington irving at the city hotel in new york! you were asking me--i love to say asking, as if we could talk together--about maclise. he is such a discursive fellow, and so eccentric in his might, that on a mental review of his pictures i can hardly tell you of them as leading to any one strong purpose. but the annual exhibition of the royal academy comes off in may, and then i will endeavour to give you some notion of him. he is a tremendous creature, and might do anything. but, like all tremendous creatures, he takes his own way, and flies off at unexpected breaches in the conventional wall. you know h----'s book, i daresay. ah! i saw a scene of mingled comicality and seriousness at his funeral some weeks ago, which has choked me at dinner-time ever since. c---- and i went as mourners; and as he lived, poor fellow, five miles out of town, i drove c---- down. it was such a day as i hope, for the credit of nature, is seldom seen in any parts but these--muddy, foggy, wet, dark, cold, and unutterably wretched in every possible respect. now, c---- has enormous whiskers, which straggle all down his throat in such weather, and stick out in front of him, like a partially unravelled bird's-nest; so that he looks queer enough at the best, but when he is very wet, and in a state between jollity (he is always very jolly with me) and the deepest gravity (going to a funeral, you know), it is utterly impossible to resist him; especially as he makes the strangest remarks the mind of man can conceive, without any intention of being funny, but rather meaning to be philosophical. i really cried with an irresistible sense of his comicality all the way; but when he was dressed out in a black cloak and a very long black hat-band by an undertaker (who, as he whispered me with tears in his eyes--for he had known h---- many years--was a "character, and he would like to sketch him"), i thought i should have been obliged to go away. however, we went into a little parlour where the funeral party was, and god knows it was miserable enough, for the widow and children were crying bitterly in one corner, and the other mourners--mere people of ceremony, who cared no more for the dead man than the hearse did--were talking quite coolly and carelessly together in another; and the contrast was as painful and distressing as anything i ever saw. there was an independent clergyman present, with his bands on and a bible under his arm, who, as soon as we were seated, addressed ---- thus, in a loud emphatic voice: "mr. c----, have you seen a paragraph respecting our departed friend, which has gone the round of the morning papers?" "yes, sir," says c----, "i have," looking very hard at me the while, for he had told me with some pride coming down that it was his composition. "oh!" said the clergyman. "then you will agree with me, mr. c----, that it is not only an insult to me, who am the servant of the almighty, but an insult to the almighty, whose servant i am." "how is that, sir?" said c----. "it is stated, mr. c----, in that paragraph," says the minister, "that when mr. h---- failed in business as a bookseller, he was persuaded by _me_ to try the pulpit; which is false, incorrect, unchristian, in a manner blasphemous, and in all respects contemptible. let us pray." with which, my dear felton, and in the same breath, i give you my word, he knelt down, as we all did, and began a very miserable jumble of an extemporary prayer. i was really penetrated with sorrow for the family, but when c---- (upon his knees, and sobbing for the loss of an old friend) whispered me, "that if that wasn't a clergyman, and it wasn't a funeral, he'd have punched his head," i felt as if nothing but convulsions could possibly relieve me. . . . faithfully always, my dear felton. [sidenote: mrs. hogarth.] devonshire terrace, _ th may, ._ my dear mrs. hogarth, i was dressing to go to church yesterday morning--thinking, very sadly, of that time six years--when your kind note and its accompanying packet were brought to me. the best portrait that was ever painted would be of little value to you and me, in comparison with that unfading picture we have within us; and of the worst (which ----'s really is) i can only say, that it has no interest in my eyes, beyond being something which she sat near in its progress, full of life and beauty. in that light, i set some store by the copy you have sent me; and as a mark of your affection, i need not say i value it very much. as any record of that dear face, it is utterly worthless. i trace in many respects a strong resemblance between her mental features and georgina's--so strange a one, at times, that when she and kate and i are sitting together, i seem to think that what has happened is a melancholy dream from which i am just awakening. the perfect like of what she was, will never be again, but so much of her spirit shines out in this sister, that the old time comes back again at some seasons, and i can hardly separate it from the present. after she died, i dreamed of her every night for many months--i think for the better part of a year--sometimes as a spirit, sometimes as a living creature, never with any of the bitterness of my real sorrow, but always with a kind of quiet happiness, which became so pleasant to me that i never lay down at night without a hope of the vision coming back in one shape or other. and so it did. i went down into yorkshire, and finding it still present to me, in a strange scene and a strange bed, i could not help mentioning the circumstance in a note i wrote home to kate. from that moment i have never dreamed of her once, though she is so much in my thoughts at all times (especially when i am successful, and have prospered in anything) that the recollection of her is an essential part of my being, and is as inseparable from my existence as the beating of my heart is. always affectionately. [sidenote: professor felton.] broadstairs, kent, _september st, ._ my dear felton, if i thought it in the nature of things that you and i could ever agree on paper, touching a certain chuzzlewitian question whereupon f---- tells me you have remarks to make, i should immediately walk into the same, tooth and nail. but as i don't, i won't. contenting myself with this prediction, that one of these years and days, you will write or say to me: "my dear dickens, you were right, though rough, and did a world of good, though you got most thoroughly hated for it." to which i shall reply: "my dear felton, i looked a long way off and not immediately under my nose." . . . at which sentiment you will laugh, and i shall laugh; and then (for i foresee this will all happen in my land) we shall call for another pot of porter and two or three dozen of oysters. now, don't you in your own heart and soul quarrel with me for this long silence? not half so much as i quarrel with myself, i know; but if you could read half the letters i write to you in imagination, you would swear by me for the best of correspondents. the truth is, that when i have done my morning's work, down goes my pen, and from that minute i feel it a positive impossibility to take it up again, until imaginary butchers and bakers wave me to my desk. i walk about brimful of letters, facetious descriptions, touching morsels, and pathetic friendships, but can't for the soul of me uncork myself. the post-office is my rock ahead. my average number of letters that _must_ be written every day is, at the least, a dozen. and you could no more know what i was writing to you spiritually, from the perusal of the bodily thirteenth, than you could tell from my hat what was going on in my head, or could read my heart on the surface of my flannel waistcoat. this is a little fishing-place; intensely quiet; built on a cliff, whereon--in the centre of a tiny semicircular bay--our house stands; the sea rolling and dashing under the windows. seven miles out are the goodwin sands (you've heard of the goodwin sands?) whence floating lights perpetually wink after dark, as if they were carrying on intrigues with the servants. also there is a big lighthouse called the north foreland on a hill behind the village, a severe parsonic light, which reproves the young and giddy floaters, and stares grimly out upon the sea. under the cliff are rare good sands, where all the children assemble every morning and throw up impossible fortifications, which the sea throws down again at high water. old gentlemen and ancient ladies flirt after their own manner in two reading-rooms and on a great many scattered seats in the open air. other old gentlemen look all day through telescopes and never see anything. in a bay-window in a one-pair sits, from nine o'clock to one, a gentleman with rather long hair and no neckcloth, who writes and grins as if he thought he were very funny indeed. his name is boz. at one he disappears, and presently emerges from a bathing-machine, and may be seen--a kind of salmon-coloured porpoise--splashing about in the ocean. after that he may be seen in another bay-window on the ground-floor, eating a strong lunch; after that, walking a dozen miles or so, or lying on his back in the sand reading a book. nobody bothers him unless they know he is disposed to be talked to; and i am told he is very comfortable indeed. he's as brown as a berry, and they _do_ say is a small fortune to the innkeeper who sells beer and cold punch. but this is mere rumour. sometimes he goes up to london (eighty miles, or so, away), and then i'm told there is a sound in lincoln's inn fields at night, as of men laughing, together with a clinking of knives and forks and wine-glasses. i never shall have been so near you since we parted aboard the _george washington_ as next tuesday. forster, maclise, and i, and perhaps stanfield, are then going aboard the cunard steamer at liverpool, to bid macready good-bye, and bring his wife away. it will be a very hard parting. you will see and know him of course. we gave him a splendid dinner last saturday at richmond, whereat i presided with my accustomed grace. he is one of the noblest fellows in the world, and i would give a great deal that you and i should sit beside each other to see him play virginius, lear, or werner, which i take to be, every way, the greatest piece of exquisite perfection that his lofty art is capable of attaining. his macbeth, especially the last act, is a tremendous reality; but so indeed is almost everything he does. you recollect, perhaps, that he was the guardian of our children while we were away. i love him dearly. . . . you asked me, long ago, about maclise. he is such a wayward fellow in his subjects, that it would be next to impossible to write such an article as you were thinking of about him. i wish you could form an idea of his genius. one of these days a book will come out, "moore's irish melodies," entirely illustrated by him, on every page. _when_ it comes, i'll send it to you. you will have some notion of him then. he is in great favour with the queen, and paints secret pictures for her to put upon her husband's table on the morning of his birthday, and the like. but if he has a care, he will leave his mark on more enduring things than palace walls. and so l---- is married. i remember _her_ well, and could draw her portrait, in words, to the life. a very beautiful and gentle creature, and a proper love for a poet. my cordial remembrances and congratulations. do they live in the house where we breakfasted? . . . i very often dream i am in america again; but, strange to say, i never dream of you. i am always endeavouring to get home in disguise, and have a dreary sense of the distance. _Ã� propos_ of dreams, is it not a strange thing if writers of fiction never dream of their own creations; recollecting, i suppose, even in their dreams, that they have no real existence? _i_ never dreamed of any of my own characters, and i feel it so impossible that i would wager scott never did of his, real as they are. i had a good piece of absurdity in my head a night or two ago. i dreamed that somebody was dead. i don't know who, but it's not to the purpose. it was a private gentleman, and a particular friend; and i was greatly overcome when the news was broken to me (very delicately) by a gentleman in a cocked hat, top boots, and a sheet. nothing else. "good god!" i said, "is he dead?" "he is as dead, sir," rejoined the gentleman, "as a door-nail. but we must all die, mr. dickens, sooner or later, my dear sir." "ah!" i said. "yes, to be sure. very true. but what did he die of?" the gentleman burst into a flood of tears, and said, in a voice broken by emotion: "he christened his youngest child, sir, with a toasting-fork." i never in my life was so affected as at his having fallen a victim to this complaint. it carried a conviction to my mind that he never could have recovered. i knew that it was the most interesting and fatal malady in the world; and i wrung the gentleman's hand in a convulsion of respectful admiration, for i felt that this explanation did equal honour to his head and heart! what do you think of mrs. gamp? and how do you like the undertaker? i have a fancy that they are in your way. oh heaven! such green woods as i was rambling among down in yorkshire, when i was getting that done last july! for days and weeks we never saw the sky but through green boughs; and all day long i cantered over such soft moss and turf, that the horse's feet scarcely made a sound upon it. we have some friends in that part of the country (close to castle howard, where lord morpeth's father dwells in state, _in_ his park indeed), who are the jolliest of the jolly, keeping a big old country house, with an ale cellar something larger than a reasonable church, and everything, like goldsmith's bear dances, "in a concatenation accordingly." just the place for you, felton! we performed some madnesses there in the way of forfeits, picnics, rustic games, inspections of ancient monasteries at midnight, when the moon was shining, that would have gone to your heart, and, as mr. weller says, "come out on the other side." . . . write soon, my dear felton; and if i write to you less often than i would, believe that my affectionate heart is with you always. loves and regards to all friends, from yours ever and ever. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. macvey napier.] broadstairs, _september th, ._ my dear sir, i hinted, in a letter of introduction i gave mr. hood to you, that i had been thinking of a subject for the _edinburgh_. would it meet the purposes of the _review_ to come out strongly against any system of education based exclusively on the principles of the established church? if it would, i should like to show why such a thing as the church catechism is wholly inapplicable to the state of ignorance that now prevails; and why no system but one, so general in great religious principles as to include all creeds, can meet the wants and understandings of the dangerous classes of society. this is the only broad ground i could hold, consistently with what i feel and think on such a subject. but i could give, in taking it, a description of certain voluntary places of instruction, called "the ragged schools," now existing in london, and of the schools in jails, and of the ignorance presented in such places, which would make a very striking paper, especially if they were put in strong comparison with the effort making, by subscription, to maintain exclusive church instruction. i could show these people in a state so miserable and so neglected, that their very nature rebels against the simplest religion, and that to convey to them the faintest outlines of any system of distinction between right and wrong is in itself a giant's task, before which mysteries and squabbles for forms _must_ give way. would this be too much for the _review_? faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] this, and all other letters addressed to mr. macvey napier, were printed in "selection from the correspondence of the late macvey napier, esq.," editor of _the edinburgh review_, edited by his son macvey napier. [ ] his complaint was that the reviewer of his "american notes," in the number for january, , had represented him as having gone to america as a missionary in the cause of international copyright--an allegation which charles dickens repudiated, and which was rectified in the way he himself suggested. . [sidenote: professor felton.] devonshire terrace, london, _january nd, ._ my very dear felton, you are a prophet, and had best retire from business straightway. yesterday morning, new year's day, when i walked into my little workroom after breakfast, and was looking out of window at the snow in the garden--not seeing it particularly well in consequence of some staggering suggestions of last night, whereby i was beset--the postman came to the door with a knock, for which i denounced him from my heart. seeing your hand upon the cover of a letter which he brought, i immediately blessed him, presented him with a glass of whisky, inquired after his family (they are all well), and opened the despatch with a moist and oystery twinkle in my eye. and on the very day from which the new year dates, i read your new year congratulations as punctually as if you lived in the next house. why don't you? now, if instantly on the receipt of this you will send a free and independent citizen down to the cunard wharf at boston, you will find that captain hewett, of the _britannia_ steamship (my ship), has a small parcel for professor felton of cambridge; and in that parcel you will find a christmas carol in prose; being a short story of christmas by charles dickens. over which christmas carol charles dickens wept and laughed and wept again, and excited himself in a most extraordinary manner in the composition; and thinking whereof he walked about the black streets of london, fifteen and twenty miles many a night when all the sober folks had gone to bed. . . . its success is most prodigious. and by every post all manner of strangers write all manner of letters to him about their homes and hearths, and how this same carol is read aloud there, and kept on a little shelf by itself. indeed, it is the greatest success, as i am told, that this ruffian and rascal has ever achieved. forster is out again; and if he don't go in again, after the manner in which we have been keeping christmas, he must be very strong indeed. such dinings, such dancings, such conjurings, such blindman's-buffings, such theatre-goings, such kissings-out of old years and kissings-in of new ones, never took place in these parts before. to keep the chuzzlewit going, and do this little book, the carol, in the odd times between two parts of it, was, as you may suppose, pretty tight work. but when it was done i broke out like a madman. and if you could have seen me at a children's party at macready's the other night, going down a country dance with mrs. m., you would have thought i was a country gentleman of independent property, residing on a tiptop farm, with the wind blowing straight in my face every day. . . . your friend, mr. p----, dined with us one day (i don't know whether i told you this before), and pleased us very much. mr. c---- has dined here once, and spent an evening here. i have not seen him lately, though he has called twice or thrice; for k---- being unwell and i busy, we have not been visible at our accustomed seasons. i wonder whether h---- has fallen in your way. poor h----! he was a good fellow, and has the most grateful heart i ever met with. our journeyings seem to be a dream now. talking of dreams, strange thoughts of italy and france, and maybe germany, are springing up within me as the chuzzlewit clears off. it's a secret i have hardly breathed to anyone, but i "think" of leaving england for a year, next midsummer, bag and baggage, little ones and all--then coming out with _such_ a story, felton, all at once, no parts, sledgehammer blow. i send you a manchester paper, as you desire. the report is not exactly done, but very well done, notwithstanding. it was a very splendid sight, i assure you, and an awful-looking audience. i am going to preside at a similar meeting at liverpool on the th of next month, and on my way home i may be obliged to preside at another at birmingham. i will send you papers, if the reports be at all like the real thing. i wrote to prescott about his book, with which i was perfectly charmed. i think his descriptions masterly, his style brilliant, his purpose manly and gallant always. the introductory account of aztec civilisation impressed me exactly as it impressed you. from beginning to end the whole history is enchanting and full of genius. i only wonder that, having such an opportunity of illustrating the doctrine of visible judgments, he never remarks, when cortes and his men tumble the idols down the temple steps and call upon the people to take notice that their gods are powerless to help themselves, that possibly if some intelligent native had tumbled down the image of the virgin or patron saint after them nothing very remarkable might have ensued in consequence. of course you like macready. your name's felton. i wish you could see him play lear. it is stupendously terrible. but i suppose he would be slow to act it with the boston company. hearty remembrances to sumner, longfellow, prescott, and all whom you know i love to remember. countless happy years to you and yours, my dear felton, and some instalment of them, however slight, in england, in the loving company of the proscribed one. oh, breathe not his name! [sidenote: sir edward lytton bulwer.] athenÃ�um, _thursday afternoon, th january, ._ my dear sir edward, i received your kind cheque yesterday, in behalf of the elton family; and am much indebted to you on their behalf. pray do not believe that the least intentional neglect has prevented me from calling on you, or that i am not sincerely desirous to avail myself of any opportunity of cultivating your friendship. i venture to say this to you in an unaffected and earnest spirit, and i hope it will not be displeasing to you. at the time when you called, and for many weeks afterwards, i was so closely occupied with my little carol (the idea of which had just occurred to me), that i never left home before the owls went out, and led quite a solitary life. when i began to have a little time and to go abroad again, i knew that you were in affliction, and i then thought it better to wait, even before i left a card at your door, until the pressure of your distress had past. i fancy a reproachful spirit in your note, possibly because i knew that i may appear to deserve it. but _do_ let me say to you that it would give me real pain to retain the idea that there was any coldness between us, and that it would give me heartfelt satisfaction to know the reverse. i shall make a personal descent upon you before sunday, in the hope of telling you this myself. but i cannot rest easy without writing it also. and if this should lead to a better knowledge in each of us, of the other, believe me that i shall always look upon it as something i have long wished for. always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. thompson.] [ ]liverpool, _wednesday night, th february, half-past ten at night._ my dear thompson, there never were such considerate people as they are here. after offering me unbounded hospitality and my declining it, they leave me to myself like gentlemen. they saved me from all sorts of intrusion at the town hall--brought me back--and left me to my quiet supper (now on the table) as they had left me to my quiet dinner. i wish you had come. it was really a splendid sight. the town hall was crammed to the roof by, i suppose, two thousand persons. the ladies were in full dress and immense numbers; and when dick showed himself, the whole assembly stood up, rustling like the leaves of a wood. dick, with the heart of a lion, dashed in bravely. he introduced that about the genie in the casket with marvellous effect; and was applauded to the echo, which did applaud again. he was horribly nervous when he arrived at birmingham,[ ] but when he stood upon the platform, i don't believe his pulse increased ten degrees. a better and quicker audience never listened to man. the ladies had hung the hall (do you know what an immense place it is?) with artificial flowers all round. and on the front of the great gallery, immediately fronting this young gentleman, were the words in artificial flowers (you'll observe) "welcome boz" in letters about six feet high. behind his head, and about the great organ, were immense transparencies representing several fames crowning a corresponding number of dicks, at which victoria (taking out a poetic licence) was highly delighted. * * * * * i am going to bed. the landlady is not literary, and calls me mr. digzon. in other respects it is a good house. my dear thompson, always yours. [sidenote: countess of blessington.] devonshire terrace, _march th, ._ my dear lady blessington, i have made up my mind to "see the world," and mean to decamp, bag and baggage, next midsummer for a twelvemonth. i purpose establishing my family in some convenient place, from whence i can make personal ravages on the neighbouring country, and, somehow or other, have got it into my head that nice would be a favourable spot for head-quarters. you are so well acquainted with these matters, that i am anxious to have the benefit of your kind advice. i do not doubt that you can tell me whether this same nice be a healthy place the year through, whether it be reasonably cheap, pleasant to look at and to live in, and the like. if you will tell me, when you have ten minutes to spare for such a client, i shall be delighted to come to you, and guide myself by your opinion. i will not ask you to forgive me for troubling you, because i am sure beforehand that you will do so. i beg to be kindly remembered to count d'orsay and to your nieces--i was going to say "the misses power," but it looks so like the blue board at a ladies' school, that i stopped short. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. thompson.] devonshire terrace, _march th, ._ my dear thompson, think of italy! don't give that up! why, my house is entered at phillips's and at gillow's to be let for twelve months; my letter of credit lies ready at coutts's; my last number of chuzzlewit comes out in june; and the first week, if not the first day in july, sees me, god willing, steaming off towards the sun. yes. we must have a few books, and everything that is idle, sauntering, and enjoyable. we must lie down at the bottom of those boats, and devise all kinds of engines for improving on that gallant holiday. i see myself in a striped shirt, moustache, blouse, red sash, straw hat, and white trousers, sitting astride a mule, and not caring for the clock, the day of the month, or the week. tinkling bells upon the mule, i hope. i look forward to it day and night, and wish the time were come. don't _you_ give it up. that's all. * * * * * always, my dear thompson, faithfully your friend. [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _sunday, march th, ._ my dear thompson, my study fireplace having been suddenly seized with symptoms of insanity, i have been in great affliction. the bricklayer was called in, and considered it necessary to perform an extensive operation without delay. i don't know whether you are aware of a peculiar bricky raggedness (not unaccompanied by pendent stalactites of mortar) which is exposed to view on the removal of a stove, or are acquainted with the suffocating properties of a kind of accidental snuff which flies out of the same cavernous region in great abundance. it is very distressing. i have been walking about the house after the manner of the dove before the waters subsided for some days, and have no pens or ink or paper. hence this gap in our correspondence which i now repair. what are you doing??? when are you coming away???? why are you stopping there????? do enlighten me, for i think of you constantly, and have a true and real interest in your proceedings. d'orsay, who knows italy very well indeed, strenuously insists there is no such place for headquarters as pisa. lady blessington says so also. what do you say? on the first of july! the first of july! dick turns his head towards the orange groves. * * * * * daniel not having yet come to judgment, there is no news stirring. every morning i proclaim: "at home to mr. thompson." every evening i ejaculate with monsieur jacques[ ]: "but he weel come. i know he weel." after which i look vacantly at the boxes; put my hands to my gray wig, as if to make quite sure that it is still on my head, all safe: and go off, first entrance o.p. to soft music. * * * * * always faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mr. ebenezer jones.] devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _monday, th april, ._ dear sir, i don't know how it has happened that i have been so long in acknowledging the receipt of your kind present of your poems[ ]; but i _do_ know that i have often thought of writing to you, and have very often reproached myself for not carrying that thought into execution. i have not been neglectful of the poems themselves, i assure you, but have read them with very great pleasure. they struck me at the first glance as being remarkably nervous, picturesque, imaginative, and original. i have frequently recurred to them since, and never with the slightest abatement of that impression. i am much flattered and gratified by your recollection of me. i beg you to believe in my unaffected sympathy with, and appreciation of, your powers; and i entreat you to accept my best wishes, and genuine though tardy thanks. dear sir, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. charles babbage.] , osnaburgh terrace, new road, _ th may, ._ my dear sir, i regret to say that we are placed in the preposterous situation of being obliged to postpone our little dinner-party on saturday, by reason of having no house to dine in. we have not been burnt out; but a desirable widow (as a tenant, i mean) proposed, only last saturday, to take our own house for the whole term of our intended absence abroad, on condition that she had possession of it to-day. we fled, and were driven into this place, which has no convenience for the production of any other banquet than a cold collation of plate and linen, the only comforts we have not left behind us. my consolation lies in knowing what sort of dinner you would have had if you had come _here_, and in looking forward to claiming the fulfilment of your kind promise when we are again at home. always believe me, my dear sir, faithfully yours. [sidenote: countess of blessington.] milan, _wednesday, november th, ._ my dear lady blessington, appearances are against me. don't believe them. i have written you, in intention, fifty letters, and i can claim no credit for anyone of them (though they were the best letters you ever read), for they all originated in my desire to live in your memory and regard. since i heard from count d'orsay, i have been beset in i don't know how many ways. first of all, i went to marseilles and came back to genoa. then i moved to the peschiere. then some people, who had been present at the scientific congress here, made a sudden inroad on that establishment, and overran it. then they went away, and i shut myself up for a month, close and tight, over my little christmas book, "the chimes." all my affections and passions got twined and knotted up in it, and i became as haggard as a murderer, long before i wrote "the end." when i had done that, like "_the_ man of thessaly," who having scratched his eyes out in a quickset hedge, plunged into a bramble-bush to scratch them in again, i fled to venice, to recover the composure i had disturbed. from thence i went to verona and to mantua. and now i am here--just come up from underground, and earthy all over, from seeing that extraordinary tomb in which the dead saint lies in an alabaster case, with sparkling jewels all about him to mock his dusty eyes, not to mention the twenty-franc pieces which devout votaries were ringing down upon a sort of sky-light in the cathedral pavement above, as if it were the counter of his heavenly shop. you know verona? you know everything in italy, _i_ know. the roman amphitheatre there delighted me beyond expression. i never saw anything so full of solemn ancient interest. there are the four-and-forty rows of seats, as fresh and perfect as if their occupants had vacated them but yesterday--the entrances, passages, dens, rooms, corridors, the numbers over some of the arches. an equestrian troop had been there some days before, and had scooped out a little ring at one end of the arena, and had their performances in that spot. i should like to have seen it, of all things, for its very dreariness. fancy a handful of people sprinkled over one corner of the great place (the whole population of verona wouldn't fill it now); and a spangled cavalier bowing to the echoes, and the grass-grown walls! i climbed to the topmost seat, and looked away at the beautiful view for some minutes; when i turned round, and looked down into the theatre again, it had exactly the appearance of an immense straw hat, to which the helmet in the castle of otranto was a baby; the rows of seats representing the different plaits of straw, and the arena the inside of the crown. i had great expectations of venice, but they fell immeasurably short of the wonderful reality. the short time i passed there went by me in a dream. i hardly think it possible to exaggerate its beauties, its sources of interest, its uncommon novelty and freshness. a thousand and one realisations of the thousand and one nights, could scarcely captivate and enchant me more than venice. your old house at albaro--il paradiso--is spoken of as yours to this day. what a gallant place it is! i don't know the present inmate, but i hear that he bought and furnished it not long since, with great splendour, in the french style, and that he wishes to sell it. i wish i were rich and could buy it. there is a third-rate wine shop below byron's house, and the place looks dull and miserable, and ruinous enough. old ---- is a trifle uglier than when i first arrived. he has periodical parties, at which there are a great many flowerpots and a few ices--no other refreshments. he goes about, constantly charged with extemporaneous poetry, and is always ready, like tavern dinners, on the shortest notice and the most reasonable terms. he keeps a gigantic harp in his bedroom, together with pen, ink, and paper, for fixing his ideas as they flow, a kind of profane king david, but truly good-natured and very harmless. pray say to count d'orsay everything that is cordial and loving from me. the travelling purse he gave me has been of immense service. it has been constantly opened. all italy seems to yearn to put its hand in it. i think of hanging it, when i come back to england, on a nail as a trophy, and of gashing the brim like the blade of an old sword, and saying to my son and heir, as they do upon the stage: "you see this notch, boy? five hundred francs were laid low on that day, for post-horses. where this gap is, a waiter charged your father treble the correct amount--and got it. this end, worn into teeth like the rasped edge of an old file, is sacred to the custom houses, boy, the passports, and the shabby soldiers at town-gates, who put an open hand and a dirty coat-cuff into the coach windows of all 'forestieri.' take it, boy. thy father has nothing else to give!" my desk is cooling itself in a mail-coach, somewhere down at the back of the cathedral, and the pens and ink in this house are so detestable, that i have no hope of your ever getting to this portion of my letter. but i have the less misery in this state of mind, from knowing that it has nothing in it to repay you for the trouble of perusal. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] covent garden, _sunday, noon (december, )._ my dear lady blessington, business for other people (and by no means of a pleasant kind) has held me prisoner during two whole days, and will so detain me to-day, in the very agony of my departure for italy again, that i shall not even be able to reach gore house once more, on which i had set my heart. i cannot bear the thought of going away without some sort of reference to the happy day you gave me on monday, and the pleasure and delight i had in your earnest greeting. i shall never forget it, believe me. it would be worth going to china--it would be worth going to america, to come home again for the pleasure of such a meeting with you and count d'orsay--to whom my love, and something as near it to miss power and her sister as it is lawful to send. it will be an unspeakable satisfaction to me (though i am not maliciously disposed) to know under your own hand at genoa that my little book made you cry. i hope to prove a better correspondent on my return to those shores. but better or worse, or any how, i am ever, my dear lady blessington, in no common degree, and not with an every-day regard, yours. very faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] on the occasion of a great meeting of the mechanics' institution at liverpool, with charles dickens in the chair. [ ] he had also presided two evenings previously at a meeting of the polytechnic institution at birmingham. [ ] a character in a play, well known at this time. [ ] "studies of sensation and event." . [sidenote: the same.] genoa, _may th, ._ my dear lady blessington, once more in my old quarters, and with rather a tired sole to my foot, from having found such an immense number of different resting-places for it since i went away. i write you my last italian letter for this bout, designing to leave here, please god, on the ninth of next month, and to be in london again by the end of june. i am looking forward with great delight to the pleasure of seeing you once more, and mean to come to gore house with such a swoop as shall astonish the poodle, if, after being accustomed to his own size and sense, he retain the power of being astonished at anything in the wide world. you know where i have been, and every mile of ground i have travelled over, and every object i have seen. it is next to impossible, surely, to exaggerate the interest of rome; though, i think, it _is_ very possible to find the main source of interest in the wrong things. naples disappointed me greatly. the weather was bad during a great part of my stay there. but if i had not had mud, i should have had dust, and though i had had sun, i must still have had the lazzaroni. and they are so ragged, so dirty, so abject, so full of degradation, so sunken and steeped in the hopelessness of better things, that they would make heaven uncomfortable, if they could ever get there. i didn't expect to see a handsome city, but i expected something better than that long dull line of squalid houses, which stretches from the chiaja to the quarter of the porta capuana; and while i was quite prepared for a miserable populace, i had some dim belief that there were bright rays among them, and dancing legs, and shining sun-browned faces. whereas the honest truth is, that connected with naples itself, i have not one solitary recollection. the country round it charmed me, i need not say. who can forget herculaneum and pompeii? as to vesuvius, it burns away in my thoughts, beside the roaring waters of niagara, and not a splash of the water extinguishes a spark of the fire; but there they go on, tumbling and flaming night and day, each in its fullest glory. i have seen so many wonders, and each of them has such a voice of its own, that i sit all day long listening to the roar they make as if it were in a sea-shell, and have fallen into an idleness so complete, that i can't rouse myself sufficiently to go to pisa on the twenty-fifth, when the triennial illumination of the cathedral and leaning tower, and bridges, and what not, takes place. but i have already been there; and it cannot beat st. peter's, i suppose. so i don't think i shall pluck myself up by the roots, and go aboard a steamer for leghorn. let me thank you heartily for the "keepsake" and the "book of beauty." they reached me a week or two ago. i have been very much struck by two papers in them--one, landor's "conversations," among the most charming, profound, and delicate productions i have ever read; the other, your lines on byron's room at venice. i am as sure that you wrote them from your heart, as i am that they found their way immediately to mine. it delights me to receive such accounts of maclise's fresco. if he will only give his magnificent genius fair play, there is not enough cant and dulness even in the criticism of art from which sterne prayed kind heaven to defend him, as the worst of all the cants continually canted in this canting world--to keep the giant down an hour. our poor friend, the naval governor,[ ] has lost his wife, i am sorry to hear, since you and i spoke of his pleasant face. do not let your nieces forget me, if you can help it, and give my love to count d'orsay, with many thanks to him for his charming letter. i was greatly amused by his account of ----. there was a cold shade of aristocracy about it, and a dampness of cold water, which entertained me beyond measure. always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. macvey napier.] , devonshire terrace, _july th, ._ my dear sir, as my note is to bear reference to business, i will make it as short and plain as i can. i think i could write a pretty good and a well-timed article on the _punishment of death_, and sympathy with great criminals, instancing the gross and depraved curiosity that exists in reference to them, by some of the outrageous things that were written, done, and said in recent cases. but as i am not sure that my views would be yours, and as their statement would be quite inseparable from such a paper, i will briefly set down their purport that you may decide for yourself. society, having arrived at that state in which it spares bodily torture to the worst criminals, and having agreed, if criminals be put to death at all, to kill them in the speediest way, i consider the question with reference to society, and not at all with reference to the criminal, holding that, in a case of cruel and deliberate murder, he is already mercifully and sparingly treated. but, as a question for the deliberate consideration of all reflective persons, i put this view of the case. with such very repulsive and odious details before us, may it not be well to inquire whether the punishment of death be beneficial to society? i believe it to have a horrible fascination for many of those persons who render themselves liable to it, impelling them onward to the acquisition of a frightful notoriety; and (setting aside the strong confirmation of this idea afforded in individual instances) i presume this to be the case in very badly regulated minds, when i observe the strange fascination which everything connected with this punishment, or the object of it, possesses for tens of thousands of decent, virtuous, well-conducted people, who are quite unable to resist the published portraits, letters, anecdotes, smilings, snuff-takings, of the bloodiest and most unnatural scoundrel with the gallows before him. i observe that this strange interest does not prevail to anything like the same degree where death is not the penalty. therefore i connect it with the dread and mystery surrounding death in any shape, but especially in this avenging form, and am disposed to come to the conclusion that it produces crime in the criminally disposed, and engenders a diseased sympathy--morbid and bad, but natural and often irresistible--among the well-conducted and gentle. regarding it as doing harm to both these classes, it may even then be right to inquire, whether it has any salutary influence on those small knots and specks of people, mere bubbles in the living ocean, who actually behold its infliction with their proper eyes. on this head it is scarcely possible to entertain a doubt, for we know that robbery, and obscenity, and callous indifference are of no commoner occurrence anywhere than at the foot of the scaffold. furthermore, we know that all exhibitions of agony and death have a tendency to brutalise and harden the feelings of men, and have always been the most rife among the fiercest people. again, it is a great question whether ignorant and dissolute persons (ever the great body of spectators, as few others will attend), seeing _that_ murder done, and not having seen the other, will not, almost of necessity, sympathise with the man who dies before them, especially as he is shown, a martyr to their fancy, tied and bound, alone among scores, with every kind of odds against him. i should take all these threads up at the end by a vivid little sketch of the origin and progress of such a crime as hooker's, stating a somewhat parallel case, but an imaginary one, pursuing its hero to his death, and showing what enormous harm he does _after_ the crime for which he suffers. i should state none of these positions in a positive sledge-hammer way, but tempt and lure the reader into the discussion of them in his own mind; and so we come to this at last--whether it be for the benefit of society to elevate even this crime to the awful dignity and notoriety of death; and whether it would not be much more to its advantage to substitute a mean and shameful punishment, degrading the deed and the committer of the deed, and leaving the general compassion to expend itself upon the only theme at present quite forgotten in the history, that is to say, the murdered person. i do not give you this as an outline of the paper, which i think i could make attractive. it is merely an exposition of the inferences to which its whole philosophy must tend. always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. thompson.] devonshire terrace, _ th october, ._ my dear thompson, roche has not returned; and from what i hear of your movements, i fear i cannot answer for his being here in time for you. i enclose you, lest i should forget it, the letter to the peschiere agent. he is the marquis pallavicini's man of business, and speaks the most abominable genoese ever heard. he is a rascal of course; but a more reliable villain, in his way, than the rest of his kind. you recollect what i told you of the swiss banker's wife, the english lady? if you would like christiana[ ] to have a friend at genoa in the person of a most affectionate and excellent little woman, and if you would like to have a resource in the most elegant and comfortable family there, i need not say that i shall be delighted to give you a letter to those who would die to serve me. always yours. [sidenote: mr. h. p. smith.] devonshire terrace, _ th november, ._ my dear smith, my chickens and their little aunt will be delighted to do honour to the lord mayor on the ninth. so should i be, but i am hard at it, grinding my teeth. i came down with thompson the other day, hoping to see you. you are keeping it up, however, in some holiday region, and your glass-case looked like a large pantry, out of which some giant had stolen the meat. best regards to mrs. smith from all of us. kate quite hearty, and the baby, like goldsmith's bear, "in a concatenation" accordingly. always, my dear smith, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. macvey napier.] _november th, ._ my dear sir, i write to you in great haste. i most bitterly regret the being obliged to disappoint and inconvenience you (as i fear i shall do), but i find it will be _impossible_ for me to write the paper on capital punishment for your next number. the fault is really not mine. i have been involved for the last fortnight in one maze of distractions, which nothing could have enabled me to anticipate or prevent. everything i have had to do has been interfered with and cast aside. i have never in my life had so many insuperable obstacles crowded into the way of my pursuits. it is as little my fault, believe me, as though i were ill and wrote to you from my bed. and pray bear as gently as you can with the vexation i occasion you, when i tell you how very heavily it falls upon myself. faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] lieut. tracey, r.n., who was at this time governor of tothill fields prison. [ ] mrs. thompson. . [sidenote: mr. w. j. fox.] office of the "daily news," whitefriars, _ st january, ._ my dear fox,[ ] the boy is in waiting. i need not tell you how our printer failed us last night.[ ] i hope for better things to-night, and am bent on a fight for it. if we can get a good paper to-morrow, i believe we are as safe as such a thing can be. your leader most excellent. i made bold to take out ---- for reasons that i hinted at the other day, and which i think have validity in them. he is unscrupulous and indiscreet. cobden never so. it didn't offend you? ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. thompson.] rosemont, _tuesday morning._ my dear thompson, all kinds of hearty and cordial congratulations on the event.[ ] we are all delighted that it is at last well over. there is an uncertainty attendant on angelic strangers (as miss tox says) which it is a great relief to have so happily disposed of. ever yours. [sidenote: the same.] , rue de courcelles, st. honorÃ�, paris, _ nd december, ._ my dear thompson, we got to paris, in due course, on the friday evening. we had a pleasant and prosperous journey, having rather cold weather in switzerland and on the borders thereof, and a slight detention of three hours and a half at the frontier custom house, atop of a mountain, in a hard frost and a dense fog. we came into this house last thursday. it has a pretty drawing-room, approached through four most extraordinary chambers. it is the most ridiculous and preposterous house in the world, i should think. it belongs to a marquis castellane, but was fitted (so paul pry poole said, who dined here yesterday) by ---- in a fit of temporary insanity, i have no doubt. the dining-room is mere midsummer madness, and is designed to represent a bosky grove. at this present writing, snow is falling in the street, and the weather is very cold, but not so cold as it was yesterday. i dined with lord normanby on sunday last. everything seems to be queer and uncomfortable in the diplomatic way, and he is rather bothered and worried, to my thinking. i found young sheridan (mrs. norton's brother) the attaché. i know him very well, and he is a good man for my sight-seeing purposes. there are to be no theatricals unless the times should so adjust themselves as to admit of their being french, to which the markis seems to incline, as a bit of conciliation and a popular move. lumley, of italian opera notoriety, also dined here yesterday, and seems hugely afeard of the opposition opera at covent garden, who have already spirited away grisi and mario, which he affects to consider a great comfort and relief. i gave him some uncompromising information on the subject of his pit, and told him that if he didn't conciliate the middle classes, he might depend on being damaged, very decidedly. the danger of the covent garden enterprise seems to me to be that they are going in for ballet too, and i really don't think the house is large enough to repay the double expense. forster writes me that mac has come out with tremendous vigour in the christmas book, and took off his coat at it with a burst of such alarming energy that he has done four subjects! stanfield has done three. keeleys are making that "change"[ ] i was so hot upon at lausanne, and seem ready to spend money with bold hearts, but the cast (as far as i know it, at present) would appear to be black despair and moody madness. j. w. leigh murray, from the princess's, is to be the alfred, and forster says there is a mrs. gordon at bolton's who must be got for grace. i am horribly afraid ---- will do one of the lawyers, and there seems to be nobody but ---- for marion. i shall run over and carry consternation into the establishment, as soon as i have done the number. but i have not begun it yet, though i hope to do so to-night, having been quite put out by chopping and changing about, and by a vile touch of biliousness, that makes my eyes feel as if they were yellow bullets. "dombey" has passed its thirty thousand already. do you remember a mysterious man in a straw hat low-crowned, and a petersham coat, who was a sort of manager or amateur man-servant at miss kelly's? mr. baynton bolt, sir, came out, the other night, as macbeth, at the royal surrey theatre. there's all my news for you! let me know, in return, whether you have fought a duel yet with your milingtary landlord, and whether lausanne is still that giddy whirl of dissipation it was wont to be, also full particulars of your fairer and better half, and of the baby. i will send a christmas book to clermont as soon as i get any copies. and so no more at present from yours ever. footnotes: [ ] mr. w. j. fox, afterwards m.p. for oldham, well known for his eloquent advocacy of the repeal of the corn laws, was engaged to write the political articles in the first numbers of the _daily news_. [ ] the first issue of the _daily news_ was a sad failure, as to printing. [ ] the birth, at lausanne, of mr. thompson's eldest daughter, elizabeth thompson, now mrs. butler, the celebrated artist. [ ] in the dramatised "battle of life." . [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] devonshire terrace, _january th, ._ my dear sir edward, the committee of the general theatrical fund (who are all actors) are anxious to prefer a petition to you to preside at their next annual dinner at the london tavern, and having no personal knowledge of you, have requested me, as one of their trustees, through their secretary, mr. cullenford, to give them some kind of presentation to you. i will only say that i have felt great interest in their design, which embraces all sorts and conditions of actors from the first, and it has been maintained by themselves with extraordinary perseverance and determination. it has been in existence some years, but it is only two years since they began to dine. at their first festival i presided, at their second, macready. they very naturally hold that if they could prevail on you to reign over them now they would secure a most powerful and excellent advocate, whose aid would serve and grace their cause immensely. i sympathise with their feeling so cordially, and know so well that it would certainly be mine if i were in their case (as, indeed, it is, being their friend), that i comply with their request for an introduction. and i will not ask you to excuse my troubling you, feeling sure that i may use this liberty with you. believe me always, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: countess of blessington.] , rue de courcelles, paris, _january th, ._ my dear lady blessington, i feel very wicked in beginning this note, and deeply remorseful for not having begun and ended it long ago. but _you_ know how difficult it is to write letters in the midst of a writing life; and as you know too (i hope) how earnestly and affectionately i always think of you, wherever i am, i take heart, on a little consideration, and feel comparatively good again. forster has been cramming into the space of a fortnight every description of impossible and inconsistent occupation in the way of sight-seeing. he has been now at versailles, now in the prisons, now at the opera, now at the hospitals, now at the conservatoire, and now at the morgue, with a dreadful insatiability. i begin to doubt whether i had anything to do with a book called "dombey," or ever sat over number five (not finished a fortnight yet) day after day, until i half began, like the monk in poor wilkie's story, to think it the only reality in life, and to mistake all the realities for short-lived shadows. among the multitude of sights, we saw our pleasant little bud of a friend, rose chéri, play clarissa harlowe the other night. i believe she does it in london just now, and perhaps you may have seen it. a most charming, intelligent, modest, affecting piece of acting it is, with a death superior to anything i ever saw on the stage, except macready's lear. the theatres are admirable just now. we saw "gentil bernard" at the variétés last night, acted in a manner that was absolutely perfect. it was a little picture of watteau, animated and talking from beginning to end. at the cirque there is a new show-piece called the "french revolution," in which there is a representation of the national convention, and a series of battles (fought by some five hundred people, who look like five thousand) that are wonderful in their extraordinary vigour and truth. gun-cotton gives its name to the general annual jocose review at the palais royal, which is dull enough, saving for the introduction of alexandre dumas, sitting in his study beside a pile of quarto volumes about five feet high, which he says is the first tableau of the first act of the first piece to be played on the first night of his new theatre. the revival of molière's "don juan," at the français, has drawn money. it is excellently played, and it is curious to observe how different _their_ don juan and valet are from our english ideas of the master and man. they are playing "lucretia borgia" again at the porte st. martin, but it is poorly performed and hangs fire drearily, though a very remarkable and striking play. we were at victor hugo's house last sunday week, a most extraordinary place, looking like an old curiosity shop, or the property-room of some gloomy, vast, old theatre. i was much struck by hugo himself, who looks like a genius as he is, every inch of him, and is very interesting and satisfactory from head to foot. his wife is a handsome woman, with flashing black eyes. there is also a charming ditto daughter of fifteen or sixteen, with ditto eyes. sitting among old armour and old tapestry, and old coffers, and grim old chairs and tables, and old canopies of state from old palaces, and old golden lions going to play at skittles with ponderous old golden balls, they made a most romantic show and looked like a chapter out of one of his own books. * * * * * [sidenote: mr. edward chapman.] chester place, _monday, rd may, ._ my dear sir, here is a young lady--miss power, lady blessington's niece--has "gone and been" and translated a story by georges sand, the french writer, which she has printed, and got four woodcuts engraved ready for. she wants to get it published--something in the form of the christmas books. i know the story, and it is a very fine one. will you do it for her? there is no other risk than putting a few covers on a few copies. half-profits is what she expects and no loss. she has made appeal to me, and if there is to be a hard-hearted ogre in the business at all, i would rather it should be you than i; so i have told her i would make proposals to your mightiness. answer this straightway, for i have no doubt the fair translator thinks i am tearing backwards and forwards in a cab all day to bring the momentous affair to a conclusion. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. james sheridan knowles.] [ ] , king's road, brighton, _ th may, ._ my dear knowles, i have learned, i hope, from the art we both profess (if you will forgive this classification of myself with you) to respect a man of genius in his mistakes, no less than in his triumphs. you have so often read the human heart well that i can readily forgive your reading mine ill, and greatly wronging me by the supposition that any sentiment towards you but honour and respect has ever found a place in it. you write as few lines which, dying, you would wish to blot, as most men. but if you ever know me better, as i hope you may (the fault shall not be mine if you do not), i know you will be glad to have received the assurance that some part of your letter has been written on the sand and that the wind has already blown over it. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: dr. hodgson.[ ]] regent's park, london, _friday, th june, ._ my dear sir, i have rarely, if ever, seen a more remarkable effort of what i may call intellectual memory than the enclosed. it is evidence, i think, of very uncommon power. i have read it with the greatest interest and surprise, and i am truly obliged to you for giving me the opportunity. if you should see no objection to telling the young lady herself this much, pray do so, as it is sincere praise. your criticism of coombe's pamphlet is as justly felt as it is earnestly and strongly written. i undergo more astonishment and disgust in connection with that question of education almost every day of my life than is awakened in me by any other member of the whole magazine of social monsters that are walking about in these times. you were in my thoughts when your letter arrived this morning, for we have a half-formed idea of reviving our old amateur theatrical company for a special purpose, and even of bringing it bodily to manchester and liverpool, on which your opinion would be very valuable. if we should decide on monday, when we meet, to pursue our idea in this warm weather, i will explain it to you in detail, and ask counsel of you in regard of a performance at liverpool. meantime it is mentioned to no one. your interest in "dombey" gives me unaffected pleasure. i hope you will find no reason to think worse of it as it proceeds. there is a great deal to do--one or two things among the rest that society will not be the worse, i hope, for thinking about a little. may i beg to be remembered to mrs. hodgson? you always remember me yourself, i hope, as one who has a hearty interest in all you do and in all you have so admirably done for the advancement of the best objects. always believe me very faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] regent's park, london, _june th, ._ my dear sir, i write to you in reference to a scheme to which you may, perhaps, already have seen some allusion in the london _athenæum_ of to-day. the party of amateurs connected with literature and art, who acted in london two years ago, have resolved to play again at one of the large theatres here for the benefit of leigh hunt, and to make a great appeal to all classes of society in behalf of a writer who should have received long ago, but has not yet, some enduring return from his country for all he has undergone and all the good he has done. it is believed that such a demonstration by literature on behalf of literature, and such a mark of sympathy by authors and artists, for one who has written so well, would be of more service, present and prospective, to hunt than almost any other means of help that could be devised. and we know, from himself, that it would be most gratifying to his own feelings. the arrangements are, as yet, in an imperfect state; for the date of their being carried out depends on our being able to get one of the large theatres before the close of the present london season. in the event of our succeeding, we purpose acting in london, on wednesday the th of july, and on monday the th. on the first occasion we shall play "every man in his humour," and a farce; on the second, "the merry wives of windsor," and a farce. but we do not intend to stop here. believing that leigh hunt has done more to instruct the young men of england, and to lend a helping hand to those who educate themselves, than any writer in england, we are resolved to come down, in a body, to liverpool and manchester, and to act one night at each place. and the object of my letter is, to ask you, as the representative of the great educational establishment of liverpool, whether we can count on your active assistance; whether you will form a committee to advance our object; and whether, if we send you our circulars and addresses, you will endeavour to secure us a full theatre, and to enlist the general sympathy and interest in behalf of the cause we have at heart? i address, by this post, a letter, which is almost the counterpart of the present, to the honorary secretaries of the manchester athenæum. if we find in both towns such a response as we confidently expect, i would propose, on behalf of my friends, that the liverpool and manchester institutions should decide for us, at which town we shall first appear, and which play we shall act in each place. i forbear entering into any more details, however, until i am favoured with your reply. always believe me, my dear sir, faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mr. alexander ireland.] regent's park, london, _june th, ._ dear sir,[ ] in the hope that i may consider myself personally introduced to you by dr. hodgson, of liverpool, i take the liberty of addressing you in this form. i hear from that friend of ours, that you are greatly interested in all that relates to mr. leigh hunt, and that you will be happy to promote our design in reference to him. allow me to assure you of the gratification with which i have received this intelligence, and of the importance we shall all attach to your valuable co-operation. i have received a letter from mr. langley, of the athenæum, informing me that a committee is in course of formation, composed of directors of that institution (acting as private gentlemen) and others. may i hope to find that you are one of this body, and that i may soon hear of its proceedings, and be in communication with it? allow me to thank you beforehand for your interest in the cause, and to look forward to the pleasure of doing so in person, when i come to manchester. dear sir, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] athenÃ�um club, london, _saturday, june th, ._ my dear sir, the news of mr. hunt's pension is quite true. we do not propose to act in london after this change in his affairs, but we do still distinctly propose to act in manchester and liverpool. i have set forth the plain state of the case in a letter to mr. robinson by this post (a counterpart of which i have addressed to liverpool), and to which, in the midst of a most laborious correspondence on the subject, i beg to refer you. it will be a great satisfaction to us to believe that we shall still be successful in manchester. there is great and urgent need why we should be so, i assure you. if you can help to bring the matter speedily into a practical and plain shape, you will render hunt the greatest service. i fear, in respect to your kind invitation, that neither jerrold nor i will feel at liberty to accept it. there was a pathetic proposal among us that we should "keep together;" and, as president of the society, i am bound, i fear, to stand by the brotherhood with particular constancy. nor do i think that we shall have more than one very short evening in manchester. i write in great haste. the sooner i can know (at broadstairs, in kent) the manchester and liverpool nights, and what the managers say, the better (i hope) will be the entertainments. my dear sir, very faithfully yours. p.s.--i enclose a copy of our london circular, issued before the granting of the pension. [sidenote: the same.] broadstairs, kent, _july th, ._ my dear sir, i am much indebted to you for the present of your notice of hunt's books. i cannot praise it better or more appropriately than by saying it is in hunt's own spirit, and most charmingly expressed. i had the most sincere and hearty pleasure in reading it.[ ] your announcement of "the working man's life" had attracted my attention by reason of the title, which had a great interest for me.[ ] i hardly know if there is something wanting to my fancy in a certain genuine simple air i had looked for in the first part. but there is great promise in it, and i shall be earnest to know how it proceeds. now, to leave these pleasant matters, and resume my managerial character, which i shall be heartily glad (between ourselves) to lay down again, though i have none but pleasant correspondents, and the most easily governable company of actors on earth. i have written to mr. robinson by this post that i wish these words, from our original london circular, to stand at top of the bills, after "for the benefit of mr. leigh hunt": "it is proposed to devote a portion of the proceeds of this benefit to the assistance of another celebrated writer, whose literary career is at an end, and who has no provision for the decline of his life." i have also told him that there is no objection to its being known that this is mr. poole, the author of "paul pry," and "little pedlington," and many comic pieces of great merit, and whose farce of "turning the tables" we mean to finish with in manchester. beyond what he will get from these benefits, he has no resource in this wide world, _i know_. there are reasons which make it desirable to get this fact abroad, and if you see no objection to paragraphing it at your office (sending the paragraph round, if you should please, to the other manchester papers), i should be much obliged to you. you may like to know, as a means of engendering a more complete individual interest in our actors, who they are. jerrold and myself you have heard of; mr. george cruikshank and mr. leech (the best caricaturists of any time perhaps) need no introduction. mr. frank stone (a manchester man) and mr. egg are artists of high reputation. mr. forster is the critic of _the examiner_, the author of "the lives of the statesmen of the commonwealth," and very distinguished as a writer in _the edinburgh review_. mr. lewes is also a man of great attainments in polite literature, and the author of a novel published not long since, called "ranthorpe." mr. costello is a periodical writer, and a gentleman renowned as a tourist. mr. mark lemon is a dramatic author, and the editor of _punch_--a most excellent actor, as you will find. my brothers play small parts, for love, and have no greater note than the treasury and the city confer on their disciples. mr. thompson is a private gentleman. you may know all this, but i thought it possible you might like to hold the key to our full company. pray use it as you will. my dear sir, faithfully yours always. footnotes: [ ] written to mr. sheridan knowles after some slight misunderstanding, the cause of which is unknown to the editors. [ ] dr. hodgson, then principal of the liverpool institute, and principal of the chorlton high school, manchester. [ ] mr. alexander ireland, the manager and one of the proprietors of _the manchester examiner_. [ ] this refers to an essay on "the genius and writings of leigh hunt," contributed to _the manchester examiner_. [ ] the "autobiography of a working man," by "one who has whistled at the plough" (alex. somerville), originally appeared in _the manchester examiner_, and afterwards was published as a volume, . . [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] devonshire terrace, _ th april, , monday evening._ my dear bulwer lytton, i confess to small faith in any american profits having international copyright for their aim. but i will carefully consider blackwood's letter (when i get it) and will call upon you and tell you what occurs to me in reference to it, before i communicate with that northern light. i have been "going" to write to you for many a day past, to thank you for your kindness to the general theatrical fund people, and for your note to me; but i have waited until i should hear of your being stationary somewhere. what you said of the "battle of life" gave me great pleasure. i was thoroughly wretched at having to use the idea for so short a story. i did not see its full capacity until it was too late to think of another subject, and i have always felt that i might have done a great deal better if i had taken it for the groundwork of a more extended book. but for an insuperable aversion i have to trying back in such a case, i should certainly forge that bit of metal again, as you suggest--one of these days perhaps. i have not been special constable myself to-day--thinking there was rather an epidemic in that wise abroad. i walked over and looked at the preparations, without any baggage of staff, warrant, or affidavit. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. cowden clarke.] [ ]devonshire terrace, _ th april, ._ dear mrs. cowden clarke, i did not understand, when i had the pleasure of conversing with you the other evening, that you had really considered the subject, and desired to play. but i am very glad to understand it now; and i am sure there will be a universal sense among us of the grace and appropriateness of such a proceeding. falstaff (who depends very much on mrs. quickly) may have in his modesty, some timidity about acting with an amateur actress. but i have no question, as you have studied the part, and long wished to play it, that you will put him completely at his ease on the first night of your rehearsal. will you, towards that end, receive this as a solemn "call" to rehearsal of "the merry wives" at miss kelly's theatre, to-morrow (saturday) _week_ at seven in the evening? and will you let me suggest another point for your consideration? on the night when "the merry wives" will _not_ be played, and when "every man in his humour" _will_ be, kenny's farce of "love, law, and physic" will be acted. in that farce there is a very good character (one mrs. hilary, which i have seen mrs. orger, i think, act to admiration), that would have been played by mrs. c. jones, if she had acted dame quickly, as we at first intended. if you find yourself quite comfortable and at ease among us, in mrs. quickly, would you like to take this other part too? it is an excellent farce, and is safe, i hope, to be very well done. we do not play to purchase the house[ ] (which may be positively considered as paid for), but towards endowing a perpetual curatorship of it, for some eminent literary veteran. and i think you will recognise in this even a higher and more gracious object than the securing, even, of the debt incurred for the house itself. believe me, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. alexander ireland.] devonshire terrace, _may nd, ._ my dear sir, you very likely know that my company of amateurs have lately been playing, with a great reputation, in london here. the object is, "the endowment of a perpetual curatorship of shakespeare's house, to be always held by some one distinguished in literature, and more especially in dramatic literature," and we have already a pledge from the shakespeare house committee that sheridan knowles shall be recommended to the government as the first curator. this pledge, which is in the form of a minute, we intend to advertise in our country bills. now, on monday, the th of june, we are going to play at liverpool, where we are assured of a warm reception, and where an active committee for the issuing of tickets is already formed. do you think the manchester people would be equally glad to see us again, and that the house could be filled, as before, at our old prices? _if yes, would you and our other friends go, at once, to work in the cause?_ the only night on which we could play in manchester would be saturday, the rd of june. it is possible that the depression of the times may render a performance in manchester unwise. in that case i would immediately abandon the idea. but what i want to know, _by return of post_ is, is it safe or unsafe? if the former, here is the bill as it stood in london, with the addition, on the back, of a paragraph i would insert in manchester, of which immediate use can be made. if the latter, my reason for wishing to settle the point immediately is that we may make another use of that saturday night. assured of your generous feeling i make no apology for troubling you. a sum of money, got together by these means, will insure to literature (i will take good care of that) a proper expression of itself in the bestowal of an essentially literary appointment, not only now but henceforth. much is to be done, time presses, and the least added the better. i have addressed a counterpart of this letter to mr. francis robinson, to whom perhaps you will communicate the bill. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mrs. cowden clarke.] devonshire terrace, _monday evening, july nd, ._ my dear mrs. clarke, i have no energy whatever, i am very miserable. i loathe domestic hearths. i yearn to be a vagabond. why can't i marry mary?[ ] why have i seven children--not engaged at sixpence a-night apiece, and dismissable for ever, if they tumble down, not taken on for an indefinite time at a vast expense, and never,--no never, never,--wearing lighted candles round their heads.[ ] i am deeply miserable. a real house like this is insupportable, after that canvas farm wherein i was so happy. what is a humdrum dinner at half-past five, with nobody (but john) to see me eat it, compared with _that_ soup, and the hundreds of pairs of eyes that watched its disappearance? forgive this tear.[ ] it is weak and foolish, i know. pray let me divide the little excursional excesses of the journey among the gentlemen, as i have always done before, and pray believe that i have had the sincerest pleasure and gratification in your co-operation and society, valuable and interesting on all public accounts, and personally of no mean worth, nor held in slight regard. you had a sister once, when we were young and happy--i think they called her emma. if she remember a bright being who once flitted like a vision before her, entreat her to bestow a thought upon the "gas" of departed joys. i can write no more. y. g.[ ] the (darkened) g. l. b.[ ] p.s.--"i am completely _blasé_--literally used up. i am dying for excitement. is it possible that nobody can suggest anything to make my heart beat violently, my hair stand on end--but no!" where did i hear those words (so truly applicable to my forlorn condition) pronounced by some delightful creature? in a previous state of existence, i believe. oh, memory, memory! ever yours faithfully. y--no c. g.--no d. c. d. i think it is--but i don't know--"there's nothing in it." footnotes: [ ] this and following letters to mr. and mrs. cowden clarke appeared in a volume entitled "recollections of writers." [ ] the house in which shakespeare was born, at stratford-on-avon. [ ] a character in "used up." [ ] as fairies in "merry wives." [ ] a huge blot of smeared ink. [ ] "young gas."} [ ] "gas-light boy."} names he had playfully given himself. . [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] devonshire terrace, _ rd february, ._ my dear sir edward, i have not written sooner to thank you for "king arthur" because i felt sure you would prefer my reading it before i should do so, and because i wished to have an opportunity of reading it with the sincerity and attention which such a composition demands. this i have done. i do not write to express to you the measure of my gratification and pleasure (for i should find that very difficult to be accomplished to my own satisfaction), but simply to say that i have read the poem, and dwelt upon it with the deepest interest, admiration, and delight; and that i feel proud of it as a very good instance of the genius of a great writer of my own time. i should feel it as a kind of treason to what has been awakened in me by the book, if i were to try to set off my thanks to you, or if i were tempted into being diffuse in its praise. i am too earnest on the subject to have any misgiving but that i shall convey something of my earnestness to you in the briefest and most unaffected flow of expression. accept it for what a genuine word of homage is worth, and believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. c. cowden clarke.] devonshire terrace, _may th, ._ my dear sir, i am very sorry to say that my orphan working school vote is promised in behalf of an unfortunate young orphan, who, after being canvassed for, polled for, written for, quarrelled for, fought for, called for, and done all kind of things for, by ladies who wouldn't go away and wouldn't be satisfied with anything anybody said or did for them, was floored at the last election and comes up to the scratch next morning, for the next election, fresher than ever. i devoutly hope he may get in, and be lost sight of for evermore. pray give my kindest regards to my quondam quickly, and believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. joseph c. king.[ ]] devonshire terrace, _saturday, december st, ._ my dear sir, i hasten to let you know what took place at eton to-day. i found that i _did_ stand in some sort committed to mr. evans, though not so much so but that i could with perfect ease have declined to place charley in his house if i had desired to do so. i must say, however, that after seeing mr. cookesley (a most excellent man in his way) and seeing mr. evans, and mr. evans's house, i think i should, under any circumstances, have given the latter the preference as to the domestic part of charley's life. i would certainly prefer to try it. i therefore thought it best to propose to have mr. cookesley for his tutor, and to place him as a boarder with mr. evans. both gentlemen seemed satisfied with this arrangement, and dr. hawtrey expressed his approval of it also. mr. cookesley, wishing to know what charley could do, asked me if i would object to leaving him there for half-an-hour or so. as charley appeared not at all afraid of this proposal, i left him then and there. on my return, mr. cookesley said, in high and unqualified terms, that he had been thoroughly well grounded and well taught--that he had examined him in virgil and herodotus, and that he not only knew what he was about perfectly well, but showed an intelligence in reference to those authors which did his tutor great credit. he really appeared most interested and pleased, and filled me with a grateful feeling towards you, to whom charley owes so much. he said there were certain verses in imitation of horace (i really forget what sort of verses) to which charley was unaccustomed, and which were a little matter enough in themselves, but were made a great point of at eton, and could be got up well in a month "_from an old etonian_." for this purpose he would desire charley to be sent every day to a certain mr. hardisty, in store street, bedford square, to whom he had already (in my absence) prepared a note. between ourselves, i must not hesitate to tell you plainly that this appeared to me to be a conventional way of bestowing a little patronage. but, of course, i had nothing for it but to say it should be done; upon which, mr. cookesley added that he was then certain that charley, on coming after the christmas holidays, would be placed at once in "the remove," which seemed to surprise mr. evans when i afterwards told him of it as a high station. i will take him to this gentleman on monday, and arrange for his going there every day; but, if you will not object, i should still like him to remain with you, and to have the advantage of preparing these annoying verses under your eye until the holidays. that mr. cookesley may have his own way thoroughly, i will send charley to mr. hardisty daily until the school at eton recommences. let me impress upon you in the strongest manner, not only that i was inexpressibly delighted myself by the readiness with which charley went through this ordeal with a stranger, but that i also saw you would have been well pleased and much gratified if you could have seen mr. cookesley afterwards. he had evidently not expected such a result, and took it as not at all an ordinary one. my dear sir, yours faithfully and obliged. [sidenote: mr. alexander ireland.] [private.] devonshire terrace, london, _ th december, ._ my dear sir, you will not be offended by my saying that (in common with many other men) i think "our london correspondent" one of the greatest nuisances of this kind, inasmuch as our london correspondent, seldom knowing anything, feels bound to know everything, and becomes in consequence a very reckless gentleman in respect of the truthfulness of his intelligence. in your paper, sent to me this morning, i see the correspondent mentions one ----, and records how i was wont to feast in the house of the said ----. as i never was in the man's house in my life, or within five miles of it that i know of, i beg you will do me the favour to contradict this. you will be the less surprised by my begging you to set this right, when i tell you that, hearing of his book, and knowing his history, i wrote to new york denouncing him as "a forger and a thief;" that he thereupon put the gentleman who published my letter into prison, and that having but one day before the sailing of the last steamer to collect the proofs printed in the accompanying sheet (which are but a small part of the villain's life), i got them together in short time, and sent them out to justify the character i gave him. it is not agreeable to me to be supposed to have sat at this amiable person's feasts. faithfully yours. footnote: [ ] mr. joseph charles king, the friend of many artists and literary men, conducted a private school, at which the sons of mr. macready and of charles dickens were being educated at this time. . [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] broadstairs, kent, _tuesday, rd september, ._ my dear sir edward, i have had the long-contemplated talk with forster about the play, and write to assure you that i shall be delighted to come down to knebworth and do bobadil, or anything else, provided it would suit your convenience to hold the great dramatic festival in the last week of october. the concluding number of "copperfield" will prevent me from leaving here until saturday, the th of that month. if i were at my own disposal, i hope i need not say i should be at yours. forster will tell you with what men we must do the play, and what laurels we would propose to leave for the gathering of new aspirants; of whom i hope you have a reasonable stock in your part of the country. do you know mary boyle--daughter of the old admiral? because she is the very best actress i ever saw off the stage, and immeasurably better than a great many i have seen on it. i have acted with her in a country house in northamptonshire, and am going to do so again next november. if you know her, i think she would be more than pleased to play, and by giving her something good in a farce we could get her to do mrs. kitely. in that case my little sister-in-law would "go on" for the second lady, and you could do without actresses, besides giving the thing a particular grace and interest. if we could get mary boyle, we would do "used up," which is a delightful piece, as the farce. but maybe you know nothing about the said mary, and in that case i should like to know what you would think of doing. you gratify me more than i can tell you by what you say about "copperfield," the more so as i hope myself that some heretofore-deficient qualities are there. you are not likely to misunderstand me when i say that i like it very much, and am deeply interested in it, and that i have kept and am keeping my mind very steadily upon it. believe me always, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _sunday night, november rd, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i should have waited at home to-day on the chance of your calling, but that i went over to look after lemon; and i went for this reason: the surgeon opines that there is no possibility of mrs. dickens being able to play, although she is going on "as well as possible," which i sincerely believe. now, _when_ the accident happened, mrs. lemon told my little sister-in-law that she would gladly undertake the part if it should become necessary. going after her to-day, i found that she and lemon had gone out of town, but will be back to-night. i have written to her, earnestly urging her to the redemption of her offer. i have no doubt of being able to see her well up in the characters; and i hope you approve of this remedy. if she once screws her courage to the sticking place, i have no fear of her whatever. this is what i would say to you. if i don't see you here, i will write to you at forster's, reporting progress. don't be discouraged, for i am full of confidence, and resolve to do the utmost that is in me--and i well know they all will--to make the nights at knebworth _triumphant_. once in a thing like this--once in everything, to my thinking--it must be carried out like a mighty enterprise, heart and soul. pray regard me as wholly at the disposal of the theatricals, until they shall be gloriously achieved. my unfortunate other half (lying in bed) is very anxious that i should let you know that she means to break her heart if she should be prevented from coming as one of the audience, and that she has been devising means all day of being brought down in the brougham with her foot upon a t. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] office of "household words," _wednesday evening, november th, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, on the principle of postponing nothing connected with the great scheme, i have been to ollivier's, where i found our friend the choremusicon in a very shattered state--his mouth wide open--the greater part of his teeth out--his bowels disclosed to the public eye--and his whole system frightfully disordered. in this condition he is speechless. i cannot, therefore, report touching his eloquence, but i find he is a piano as well as a choremusicon--that he requires to pass through no intermediate stage between choremusicon and piano, and therefore that he can easily and certainly accompany songs. now, will you have it? i am inclined to believe that on the whole, it is the best thing. i have not heard of anything else having happened to anybody. if i should not find you gone to australia or elsewhere, and should not have occasion to advertise in the third column of _the times_, i shall hope not to add to your misfortunes--i dare not say to afford you consolation--by shaking hands with you to-morrow night, and afterwards keeping every man connected with the theatrical department to his duty. ever faithfully yours. . [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _sunday night, january th, ._ my dear bulwer, i am so sorry to have missed you! i had gone down to forster, comedy in hand. i think it _most admirable_.[ ] full of character, strong in interest, rich in capital situations, and _certain to go nobly_. you know how highly i thought of "money," but i sincerely think these three acts finer. i did not think of the slight suggestions you make, but i said, _en passant_, that perhaps the drunken scene might do better on the stage a little concentrated. i don't believe it would require even that, with the leading-up which you propose. i cannot say too much of the comedy to express what i think and feel concerning it; and i look at it, too, remember, with the yellow eye of an actor! i should have taken to it (need i say so!) _con amore_ in any case, but i should have been jealous of your reputation, exactly as i appreciate your generosity. if i had a misgiving of ten lines i should have scrupulously mentioned it. stone will take the duke capitally; and i will answer for his being got into doing it _very well_. looking down the perspective of a few winter evenings here, i am confident about him. forster will be thoroughly sound and real. lemon is so surprisingly sensible and trustworthy on the stage, that i don't think any actor could touch his part as he will; and i hope you will have opportunities of testing the accuracy of this prediction. egg ought to do the author to absolute perfection. as to jerrold--there he stands in the play! i would propose leech (well made up) for easy. he is a good name, and i see nothing else for him. this brings me to my own part. if we had anyone, or could get anyone, for wilmot, i could do (i think) something so near your meaning in sir gilbert, that i let him go with a pang. assumption has charms for me--i hardly know for how many wild reasons--so delightful, that i feel a loss of, oh! i can't say what exquisite foolery, when i lose a chance of being someone in voice, etc., not at all like myself. but--i speak quite freely, knowing you will not mistake me--i know from experience that we could find nobody to hold the play together in wilmot if i didn't do it. i think i could touch the gallant, generous, careless pretence, with the real man at the bottom of it, so as to take the audience with him from the first scene. i am quite sure i understand your meaning; and i am absolutely certain that as jerrold, forster, and stone came in, i could, as a mere little bit of mechanics, present them better by doing that part, and paying as much attention to their points as my own, than another amateur actor could. therefore i throw up my cap for wilmot, and hereby devote myself to him, heart and head! i ought to tell you that in a play we once rehearsed and never played (but rehearsed several times, and very carefully), i saw lemon do a piece of reality with a rugged pathos in it, which i felt, as i stood on the stage with him to be extraordinarily good. in the serious part of sir gilbert he will surprise you. and he has an intuitive discrimination in such things which will just keep the suspicious part from being too droll at the outset--which will just show a glimpse of something in the depths of it. the moment i come back to town (within a fortnight, please god!) i will ascertain from forster where you are. then i will propose to you that we call our company together, agree upon one general plan of action, and that you and i immediately begin to see and book our vice-presidents, etc. further, i think we ought to see about the queen. i would suggest our playing first about three weeks before the opening of the exhibition, in order that it may be the town talk before the country people and foreigners come. macready thinks with me that a very large sum of money may be got in london. i propose (for cheapness and many other considerations) to make a theatre expressly for the purpose, which we can put up and take down--say in the hanover square rooms--and move into the country. as watson wanted something of a theatre made for his forthcoming little go, i have made it a sort of model of what i mean, and shall be able to test its working powers before i see you. many things that, for portability, were to be avoided in mr. hewitt's theatre, i have replaced with less expensive and weighty contrivances. now, my dear bulwer, i have come to the small hours, and am writing alone here, as if _i_ were writing something to do what your comedy will. at such a time the temptation is strong upon me to say a great deal more, but i will only say this--in mercy to you--that i do devoutly believe that this plan carried, will entirely change the status of the literary man in england, and make a revolution in his position, which no government, no power on earth but his own, could ever effect. i have implicit confidence in the scheme--so splendidly begun--if we carry it out with a steadfast energy. i have a strong conviction that we hold in our hands the peace and honour of men of letters for centuries to come, and that you are destined to be their best and most enduring benefactor. oh! what a procession of new years might walk out of all this, after we are very dusty! ever yours faithfully. p.s.--i have forgotten something. i suggest this title: "knowing the world; or, not so bad as we seem." [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday night, march th, ._ my dear bulwer, i know you will be glad to hear what i have to tell you. i wrote to the duke of devonshire this morning, enclosing him the rough proof of the scheme, and plainly telling him what we wanted, _i.e._, to play for the first time at his house, to the queen and court. within a couple of hours he wrote me as follows: "dear sir, "i have read with very great interest the prospectus of the new endowment which you have confided to my perusal. "your manner of doing so is a proof that i am honoured by your goodwill and approbation. "i'm truly happy to offer you my earnest and sincere co-operation. my services, my house, and my subscription will be at your orders. and i beg you to let me see you before long, not merely to converse upon this subject, but because i have long had the greatest wish to improve our acquaintance, which has, as yet, been only one of crowded rooms." this is quite princely, i think, and will push us along as brilliantly as heart could desire. don't you think so too? yesterday lemon and i saw the secretary of the national provident institution (the best office for the purpose, i am inclined to think) and stated all our requirements. we appointed to meet the chairman and directors next tuesday; so on the day of our reading and dining i hope we shall have that matter in good time. the theatre is also under consultation; and directly after the reading we shall go briskly to work in all departments. i hear nothing but praises of your macready speech--of its eloquence, delicacy, and perfect taste, all of which it is good to hear, though i know it all beforehand as well as most men can tell it me. ever cordially. [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday morning, th march, ._ my dear bulwer, coming home at midnight last night after our first rehearsal, i find your letter. i write to entreat you, if you make any change in the first three acts, to let it be only of the slightest kind. because we are now fairly under way, everybody is already drilled into his place, and in two or three rehearsals those acts will be in a tolerably presentable state. it is of vital importance that we should get the last two acts _soon_. the queen and prince are coming--phipps wrote me yesterday the most earnest letter possible--the time is fearfully short, and we _must_ have the comedy in such a state as that it will go like a machine. whatever you do, for heaven's sake don't be persuaded to endanger that! even at the risk of your falling into the pit with despair at beholding anything of the comedy in its present state, if you can by any possibility come down to covent garden theatre to-night, do. i hope you will see in lemon the germ of a very fine presentation of sir geoffrey. i think topham, too, will do easy admirably. we really did wonders last night in the way of arrangement. i see the ground-plan of the first three acts distinctly. the dressing and furnishing and so forth, will be a perfect picture, and i will answer for the men in three weeks' time. in great haste, my dear bulwer, ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. cowden clarke.] great malvern, _ th march, ._ my dear mrs. cowden clarke, ah, those were days indeed, when we were so fatigued at dinner that we couldn't speak, and so revived at supper that we couldn't go to bed; when wild in inns the noble savage ran; and all the world was a stage, gas-lighted in a double sense--by the young gas and the old one! when emmeline montague (now compton, and the mother of two children) came to rehearse in our new comedy[ ] the other night, i nearly fainted. the gush of recollection was so overpowering that i couldn't bear it. i use the portfolio[ ] for managerial papers still. that's something. but all this does not thank you for your book.[ ] i have not got it yet (being here with mrs. dickens, who has been very unwell), but i shall be in town early in the week, and shall bring it down to read quietly on these hills, where the wind blows as freshly as if there were no popes and no cardinals whatsoever--nothing the matter anywhere. i thank you a thousand times, beforehand, for the pleasure you are going to give me. i am full of faith. your sister emma, she is doing work of some sort on the p.s. side of the boxes, in some dark theatre, _i know_, but where, i wonder? w.[ ] has not proposed to her yet, has he? i understood he was going to offer his hand and heart, and lay his leg[ ] at her feet. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. mitton.] devonshire terrace, _ th april, ._ my dear mitton, i have been in trouble, or i should have written to you sooner. my wife has been, and is, far from well. my poor father's death caused me much distress. i came to london last monday to preside at a public dinner--played with little dora, my youngest child, before i went--and was told when i left the chair that she had died in a moment. i am quite happy again, but i have undergone a good deal. i am not going back to malvern, but have let this house until september, and taken the "fort," at broadstairs. faithfully yours. [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] devonshire terrace, _monday, th april, ._ my dear bulwer, i see you are so anxious, that i shall endeavour to send you this letter by a special messenger. i think i can relieve your mind completely. the duke has read the play. he asked for it a week ago, and had it. he has been at brighton since. he called here before eleven on saturday morning, but i was out on the play business, so i went to him at devonshire house yesterday. he almost knows the play by heart. he is supremely delighted with it, and critically understands it. in proof of the latter part of this sentence i may mention that he had made two or three memoranda of trivial doubtful points, _every one of which had attracted our attention in rehearsal_, as i found when he showed them to me. he thoroughly understands and appreciates the comedy of the duke--threw himself back in his chair and laughed, as i say of walpole, "till i thought he'd have choked," about his first duchess, who was a percy. he suggested that he shouldn't say: "you know how to speak to the heart of a noble," because it was not likely that he would call himself a noble. he thought we might close up the porter and softhead a little more (already done) and was so charmed and delighted to recall the comedy that he was more pleased than any boy you ever saw when i repeated two or three of the speeches in my part for him. he is coming to the rehearsal to-day (we rehearse now at devonshire house, three days a-week, all day long), and, since he read the play, has conceived a most magnificent and noble improvement in the devonshire house plan, by which, i daresay, we shall get another thousand or fifteen hundred pounds. there is not a grain of distrust or doubt in him. i am perfectly certain that he would confide to me, and does confide to me, his whole mind on the subject. more than this, the duke comes out the best man in the play. i am happy to report to you that stone does the honourable manly side of that pride inexpressibly better than i should have supposed possible in him. the scene where he makes that reparation to the slandered woman is _certain_ to be an effect. he is _not_ a jest upon the order of dukes, but a great tribute to them. i have sat looking at the play (as you may suppose) pretty often, and carefully weighing every syllable of it. i see, in the duke, the most estimable character in the piece. i am as sure that i represent the audience in this as i am that i hear the words when they are spoken before me. the first time that scene with hardman was seriously done, it made an effect on the company that quite surprised and delighted me; and whenever and wherever it is done (but most of all at devonshire house) the result will be the same. everyone is greatly improved. i wrote an earnest note to forster a few days ago on the subject of his being too loud and violent. he has since subdued himself with the most admirable pains, and improved the part a thousand per cent. all the points are gradually being worked and smoothed out with the utmost neatness all through the play. they are all most heartily anxious and earnest, and, upon the least hitch, will do the same thing twenty times over. the scenery, furniture, etc., are rapidly advancing towards completion, and will be beautiful. the dresses are a perfect blaze of colour, and there is not a pocket-flap or a scrap of lace that has not been made according to egg's drawings to the quarter of an inch. every wig has been made from an old print or picture. from the duke's snuff-box to will's coffee-house, you will find everything in perfect truth and keeping. i have resolved that whenever we come to a weak place in the acting, it must, somehow or other, be made a strong one. the places that i used to be most afraid of are among the best points now. will you come to the dress rehearsal on the tuesday evening before the queen's night? there will be no one present but the duke. i write in the greatest haste, for the rehearsal time is close at hand, and i have the master carpenter and gasman to see before we begin. miss coutts is one of the most sensible of women, and if i had not seen the duke yesterday, i would have shown her the play directly. but there can't be any room for anxiety on the head that has troubled you so much. you may clear it from your mind as completely as gunpowder plot. in great haste, ever cordially. [sidenote: the hon. miss eden.[ ]] broadstairs, _sunday, th september, ._ my dear miss eden, many thanks for the grapes; which must have come from the identical vine a man ought to sit under. they were a prodigy of excellence. i have been concerned to hear of your indisposition, but thought the best thing i could do, was to make no formal calls when you were really ill. i have been suffering myself from another kind of malady--a severe, spasmodic, house-buying-and-repairing attack--which has left me extremely weak and all but exhausted. the seat of the disorder has been the pocket. i had the kindest of notes from the kindest of men this morning, and am going to see him on wednesday. of course i mean the duke of devonshire. can i take anything to chatsworth for you? very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone.] extract from letter to mr. stone. _ th september, ._ you never saw such a sight as the sands between this and margate presented yesterday. this day fortnight a steamer laden with cattle going from rotterdam to the london market, was wrecked on the goodwin--on which occasion, by-the-bye, the coming in at night of our salvage luggers laden with dead cattle, which where hoisted up upon the pier where they lay in heaps, was a most picturesque and striking sight. the sea since wednesday has been very rough, blowing in straight upon the land. yesterday, the shore was strewn with hundreds of oxen, sheep, and pigs (and with bushels upon bushels of apples), in every state and stage of decay--burst open, rent asunder, lying with their stiff hoofs in the air, or with their great ribs yawning like the wrecks of ships--tumbled and beaten out of shape, and yet with a horrible sort of humanity about them. hovering among these carcases was every kind of water-side plunderer, pulling the horns out, getting the hides off, chopping the hoofs with poleaxes, etc. etc., attended by no end of donkey carts, and spectral horses with scraggy necks, galloping wildly up and down as if there were something maddening in the stench. i never beheld such a demoniacal business! very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] broadstairs, _monday, th september, ._ my dear henry, your letter, received this morning, has considerably allayed the anguish of my soul. our letters crossed, of course, as letters under such circumstances always do. i am perpetually wandering (in fancy) up and down the house[ ] and tumbling over the workmen; when i feel that they are gone to dinner i become low, when i look forward to their total abstinence on sunday, i am wretched. the gravy at dinner has a taste of glue in it. i smell paint in the sea. phantom lime attends me all the day long. i dream that i am a carpenter and can't partition off the hall. i frequently dance (with a distinguished company) in the drawing-room, and fall into the kitchen for want of a pillar. a great to-do here. a steamer lost on the goodwins yesterday, and our men bringing in no end of dead cattle and sheep. i stood a supper for them last night, to the unbounded gratification of broadstairs. they came in from the wreck very wet and tired, and very much disconcerted by the nature of their prize--which, i suppose, after all, will have to be recommitted to the sea, when the hides and tallow are secured. one lean-faced boatman murmured, when they were all ruminative over the bodies as they lay on the pier: "couldn't sassages be made on it?" but retired in confusion shortly afterwards, overwhelmed by the execrations of the bystanders. ever affectionately. p.s.--sometimes i think ----'s bill will be too long to be added up until babbage's calculating machine shall be improved and finished. sometimes that there is not paper enough ready made, to carry it over and bring it forward upon. i dream, also, of the workmen every night. they make faces at me, and won't do anything. [sidenote: mr. austen henry layard.] tavistock house, tavistock square, _ th december, ._ my dear layard,[ ] i want to renew your recollection of "the last time we parted"--not at wapping old stairs, but at miss coutts's--when we vowed to be more intimate after all nations should have departed from hyde park, and i should be able to emerge from my cave on the sea-shore. can you, and will you, be in town on wednesday, the last day of the present old year? if yes, will you dine with us at a quarter after six, and see the new year in with such extemporaneous follies of an exploded sort (in genteel society) as may occur to us? both mrs. dickens and i would be really delighted if this should find you free to give us the pleasure of your society. believe me always, very faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] "not so bad as we seem; or, many sides to a character." [ ] "not so bad as we seem." [ ] an embroidered blotting-book given by mrs. cowden clarke. [ ] one of the series in "the girlhood of shakespeare's heroines," dedicated to charles dickens. [ ] wilmot, the clever veteran prompter, who was engaged to accompany the acting-tours. [ ] a wooden one. [ ] miss eden had a cottage at broadstairs, and was residing there at this time. [ ] tavistock house. [ ] now sir austen henry layard. . [sidenote: mr. james bower harrison.] tavistock house, tavistock square, _ th january, ._ dear sir, i have just received the work[ ] you have had the kindness to send me, and beg to thank you for it, and for your obliging note, cordially. it is a very curious little volume, deeply interesting, and written (if i may be allowed to say so) with as much power of knowledge and plainness of purpose as modesty. faithfully yours. [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] tavistock house, _sunday night, th february, ._ my dear bulwer, i left liverpool at four o'clock this morning, and am so blinded by excitement, gas, and waving hats and handkerchiefs, that i can hardly see to write, but i cannot go to bed without telling you what a triumph we have had. allowing for the necessarily heavy expenses of all kinds, i believe we can hardly fund less than a thousand pounds out of this trip alone. and, more than that, the extraordinary interest taken in the idea of the guild by "this grand people of england" down in these vast hives, and the enthusiastic welcome they give it, assure me that we may do what we will if we will only be true and faithful to our design. there is a social recognition of it which i cannot give you the least idea of. i sincerely believe that we have the ball at our feet, and may throw it up to the very heaven of heavens. and i don't speak for myself alone, but for all our people, and not least of all for forster, who has been absolutely stunned by the tremendous earnestness of these great places. to tell you (especially after your affectionate letter) what i would have given to have had you there would be idle. but i can most seriously say that all the sights of the earth turned pale in my eyes, before the sight of three thousand people with one heart among them, and no capacity in them, in spite of all their efforts, of sufficiently testifying to you how they believe you to be right, and feel that they cannot do enough to cheer you on. they understood the play (_far better acted by this time than ever you have seen it_) as well as you do. they allowed nothing to escape them. they rose up, when it was over, with a perfect fury of delight, and the manchester people sent a requisition after us to liverpool to say that if we will go back there in may, when we act at birmingham (as of course we shall) they will joyfully undertake to fill the free trade hall again. among the tories of liverpool the reception was equally enthusiastic. we played, two nights running, to a hall crowded to the roof--more like the opera at genoa or milan than anything else i can compare it to. we dined at the town hall magnificently, and it made no difference in the response. i said what we were quietly determined to do (when the guild was given as the toast of the night), and really they were so noble and generous in their encouragement that i should have been more ashamed of myself than i hope i ever shall be, if i could have felt conscious of having ever for a moment faltered in the work. i will answer for birmingham--for any great working town to which we chose to go. we have won a position for the idea which years upon years of labour could not have given it. i believe its worldly fortunes have been advanced in this last week fifty years at least. i feebly express to you what forster (who couldn't be at liverpool, and has not those shouts ringing in his ears) has felt from the moment he set foot in manchester. believe me we may carry a perfect fiery cross through the north of england, and over the border, in this cause, if need be--not only to the enrichment of the cause, but to the lasting enlistment of the people's sympathy. i have been so happy in all this that i could have cried on the shortest notice any time since tuesday. and i do believe that our whole body would have gone to the north pole with me if i had shown them good reason for it. i hope i am not so tired but that you may be able to read this. i have been at it almost incessantly, day and night for a week, and i am afraid my handwriting suffers. but in all other respects i am only a giant refreshed. we meet next saturday you recollect? until then, and ever afterwards, believe me, heartily yours. [sidenote: mrs. cowden clarke.] tavistock house, _ rd march, ._ my dear mrs. clarke, it is almost an impertinence to tell you how delightful your flowers were to me; for you who thought of that beautiful and delicately-timed token of sympathy and remembrance, must know it very well already. i do assure you that i have hardly ever received anything with so much pleasure in all my life. they are not faded yet--are on my table here--but never can fade out of my remembrance. i should be less than a young gas, and more than an old manager--that commemorative portfolio is here too--if i could relieve my heart of half that it could say to you. all my house are my witnesses that you have quite filled it, and this note is my witness that i can _not_ empty it. ever faithfully and gratefully your friend. [sidenote: mr. james bower harrison.] london, tavistock house, _ th march, ._ dear sir, i beg to thank you for your interesting pamphlet, and to add that i shall be very happy to accept an article from you on the subject[ ] for "household words." i should already have suggested to you that i should have great pleasure in receiving contributions from one so well and peculiarly qualified to treat of many interesting subjects, but that i felt a delicacy in encroaching on your other occupations. will you excuse my remarking that to make an article on this particular subject useful, it is essential to address the employed as well as the employers? in the case of the sheffield grinders the difficulty was, for many years, not with the masters, but the men. painters who use white lead are with the greatest difficulty persuaded to be particular in washing their hands, and i daresay that i need not remind you that one could not generally induce domestic servants to attend to the commonest sanitary principles in their work without absolutely forcing them to experience their comfort and convenience. dear sir, very faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] the "medical aspects of death, and the medical aspects of the human mind." [ ] the injurious effects of the manufacture of lucifer matches on the employed. . [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , junction parade, brighton, _thursday night, th march, ._ my dear wills, i am sorry, but brutus sacrifices unborn children of his own as well as those of other people. "the sorrows of childhood," long in type, and long a mere mysterious name, must come out. the paper really is, like the celebrated ambassadorial appointment, "too bad." "a doctor of morals," _impossible of insertion as it stands_. a mere puff, with all the difficult facts of the question blinked, and many statements utterly at variance with what i am known to have written. it is exactly because the great bulk of offences in a great number of places are committed by professed thieves, that it will not do to have pet prisoning advocated without grave remonstrance and great care. that class of prisoner is not to be reformed. we must begin at the beginning and prevent, by stringent correction and supervision of wicked parents, that class of prisoner from being regularly supplied as if he were a human necessity. do they teach trades in workhouses and try to fit _their_ people (the worst part of them) for society? come with me to tothill fields bridewell, and i will show you what a workhouse girl is. or look to my "walk in a workhouse" (in "h. w.") and to the glance at the youths i saw in one place positively kept like wolves. mr. ---- thinks prisons could be made nearly self-supporting. have you any idea of the difficulty that is found in disposing of prison-work, or does he think that the treadmills didn't grind the air because the state or the magistracy objected to the competition of prison-labour with free-labour, but because the work _could not be got_? i never can have any kind of prison-discipline disquisition in "h. w." that does not start with the first great principle i have laid down, and that does not protest against prisons being considered _per se_. whatever chance is given to a man in a prison must be given to a man in a refuge for distress. the article in itself is very good, but it must have these points in it, otherwise i am not only compromising opinions i am known to hold, but the journal itself is blowing hot and cold, and playing fast and loose in a ridiculous way. "starting a paper in india" is very droll to us. but it is full of references that the public don't understand, and don't in the least care for. bourgeois, brevier, minion, and nonpareil, long primer, turn-ups, dunning advertisements, and reprints, back forme, imposing-stone, and locking-up, are all quite out of their way, and a sort of slang that they have no interest in. let me see a revise when you have got it together, and if you can strengthen it--do. i mention all the objections that occur to me as i go on, not because you can obviate them (except in the case of the prison-paper), but because if i make a point of doing so always you will feel and judge the more readily both for yourself and me too when i take an italian flight. you: how are the eyes getting on? me: i have been at work all day. ever faithfully. [sidenote: the same.] boulogne, _sunday, th august, ._ my dear wills, can't possibly write autographs until i have written "bleak house." my work has been very hard since i have been here; and when i throw down my pen of a day, i throw down myself, and can take up neither article. the "c. p." is very well done, but i cannot make up my mind to lend my blow to the great forge-bellows of puffery at work. i so heartily desire to have nothing to do with it, that i wish you would cancel this article altogether, and substitute something else. as to the guide-books, i think they are a sufficiently flatulent botheration in themselves, without being discussed. a lurking desire is always upon me to put mr. ----'s speech on accidents to the public, as chairman of the brighton railway, against his pretensions as a chairman of public instructors and guardians. and i don't know but that i may come to it at some odd time. this strengthens me in my wish to avoid the bellows. how two men can have gone, one after the other, to the camp, and have written nothing about it, passes my comprehension. i have been in great doubt about the end of ----. i wish you would suggest to him from me, when you see him, how wrong it is. surely he cannot be insensible to the fact that military preparations in england at this time mean defence. woman, says ----, means home, love, children, mother. does he not find any protection for these things in a wise and moderate means of defence; and is not the union between these things and those means one of the most natural, significant, and plain in the world? i wish you would send friend barnard here a set of "household words," in a paid parcel (on the other side is an inscription to be neatly pasted into vol. i. before sending), with a post-letter beforehand from yourself, saying that i had begged you to forward the books, feeling so much obliged to him for his uniform attention and politeness. also that you will not fail to continue his set, as successive volumes appear. aspects of nature. we have had a tremendous sea here. steam-packet in the harbour frantic, and dashing her brains out against the stone walls. ever faithfully. [sidenote: rev. james white.] boulogne, _september th, ._ my dear white, as you wickedly failed in your truth to the writer of books you adore, i write something that i hoped to have said, and meant to have said, in the confidence of the pavilion among the trees. will you write another story for the christmas no.? it will be exactly (i mean the xmas no.) on the same plan as the last. i shall be at the office from monday to thursday, and shall hope to receive a cheery "yes," in reply. loves from all to all, and my particular love to mrs. white. ever cordially yours. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] hotel de londres, chamounix, _thursday night, th october, ._ my dearest kate, we[ ] came here last night after a very long journey over very bad roads, from geneva, and leave here (for montigny, by the tête noire) at to-morrow morning. next morning early we mean to try the simplon. after breakfast to-day we ascended to the mer de glace--wonderfully different at this time of the year from when we saw it--a great portion of the ascent being covered with snow, and the climbing very difficult. regardless of my mule, i walked up and walked down again, to the great admiration of the guides, who pronounced me "an intrepid." the little house at the top being closed for the winter, and edward having forgotten to carry any brandy, we had nothing to drink at the top--which was a considerable disappointment to the inimitable, who was streaming with perspiration from head to foot. but we made a fire in the snow with some sticks, and after a not too comfortable rest came down again. it took a long time--from to . the appearance of chamounix at this time of year is very remarkable. the travellers are over for the season, the inns are generally shut up, all the people who can afford it are moving off to geneva, the snow is low on the mountains, and the general desolation and grandeur extraordinarily fine. i wanted to pass by the col de balme, but the snow lies too deep upon it. you would have been quite delighted if you could have seen the warmth of our old lausanne friends, and the heartiness with which they crowded down on a fearfully bad morning to see us off. we passed the night at the ecu de genève, in the rooms once our old rooms--at that time (the day before yesterday) occupied by the queen of the french (ex- i mean) and prince joinville and his family. tell sydney that all the way here from geneva, and up to the sea of ice this morning, i wore his knitting, which was very comfortable indeed. i mean to wear it on the long mule journey to martigny to-morrow. we get on extremely well. edward continues as before. he had never been here, and i took him up to the mer de glace this morning, and had a mule for him. i shall leave this open, as usual, to add a word or two on our arrival at martigny. we have had an amusingly absurd incident this afternoon. when we came here, i saw added to the hotel--our old hotel, and i am now writing in the room where we once dined at the table d'hôte--some baths, cold and hot, down on the margin of the torrent below. this induced us to order three hot baths. thereupon the keys of the bath-rooms were found with immense difficulty, women ran backwards and forwards across the bridge, men bore in great quantities of wood, a horrible furnace was lighted, and a smoke was raised which filled the whole valley. this began at half-past three, and we congratulated each other on the distinction we should probably acquire by being the cause of the conflagration of the whole village. we sat by the fire until half-past five (dinner-time), and still no baths. then edward came up to say that the water was as yet only "tippit," which we suppose to be tepid, but that by half-past eight it would be in a noble state. ever since the smoke has poured forth in enormous volume, and the furnace has blazed, and the women have gone and come over the bridge, and piles of wood have been carried in; but we observe a general avoidance of us by the establishment which still looks like failure. we have had a capital dinner, the dessert whereof is now on the table. when we arrived, at nearly seven last night, all the linen in the house, newly washed, was piled in the sitting-room, all the curtains were taken down, and all the chairs piled bottom upwards. they cleared away as much as they could directly, and had even got the curtains up at breakfast this morning. i am looking forward to letters at genoa, though i doubt if we shall get there (supposing all things right at the simplon) before monday night or tuesday morning. i found there last night what f---- would call "mr. smith's" story of mont blanc, and took it to bed to read. it is extremely well and unaffectedly done. you would be interested in it. martigny, _friday afternoon, october st._ safely arrived here after a most delightful day, without a cloud. i walked the whole way. the scenery most beautifully presented. we are in the hotel where our old st. bernard party assembled. i should like to see you all very much indeed. ever affectionately. [sidenote: the same.] hÃ�tel de la ville, milan, _ th october, ._ my dearest catherine, the road from chamounix here takes so much more time than i supposed (for i travelled it day and night, and my companions don't at all understand the idea of never going to bed) that we only reached milan last night, though we had been travelling twelve and fifteen hours a day. we crossed the simplon on sunday, when there was not (as there is not now) a particle of cloud in the whole sky, and when the pass was as nobly grand and beautiful as it possibly can be. there was a good deal of snow upon the top, but not across the road, which had been cleared. we crossed the austrian frontier yesterday, and, both there and at the gate of milan, received all possible consideration and politeness. i have not seen bairr yet. he has removed from the old hotel to a larger one at a few hours' distance. the head-waiter remembered me very well last night after i had talked to him a little while, and was greatly interested in hearing about all the family, and about poor roche. the boy we used to have at lausanne is now seventeen-and-a-half--very tall, he says. the elder girl, fifteen, very like her mother, but taller and more beautiful. he described poor mrs. bairr's death (i am speaking of the head-waiter before mentioned) in most vivacious italian. it was all over in ten minutes, he said. she put her hands to her head one day, down in the courtyard, and cried out that she heard little bells ringing violently in her ears. they sent off for bairr, who was close by. when she saw him, she stretched out her arms, said in english, "adieu, my dear!" and fell dead. he has not married again, and he never will. she was a good woman (my friend went on), excellent woman, full of charity, loved the poor, but _un poco furiosa_--that was nothing! the new hotel is just like the old one, admirably kept, excellently furnished, and a model of comfort. i hope to be at genoa on thursday morning, and to find your letter there. we have agreed to drop sicily, and to return home by way of marseilles. our projected time for reaching london is the th of december. as this house is full, i daresay we shall meet some one we know at the table d'hôte to-day. it is extraordinary that the only travellers we have encountered, since we left paris, have been one horribly vapid englishman and wife whom we dropped at basle, one boring englishman whom we found (and, thank god, left) at geneva, and two english maiden ladies, whom we found sitting on a rock (with parasols) the day before yesterday, in the most magnificent part of the gorge of gondo, the most awful portion of the simplon--there awaiting their travelling chariot, in which, with their money, their parasols, and a perfect shop of baskets, they were carefully _locked up_ by an english servant in sky blue and silver buttons. we have been in the most extraordinary vehicles--like swings, like boats, like noah's arks, like barges and enormous bedsteads. after dark last night, a landlord, where we changed horses, discovered that the luggage would certainly be stolen from _questo porco d'uno carro_--this pig of a cart--his complimentary description of our carriage, unless cords were attached to each of the trunks, which cords were to hang down so that we might hold them in our hands all the way, and feel any tug that might be made at our treasures. you will imagine the absurdity of our jolting along some twenty miles in this way, exactly as if we were in three shower-baths and were afraid to pull the string. we are going to the scala to-night, having got the old box belonging to the hotel, the old key of which is lying beside me on the table. there seem to be no singers of note here now, and it appears for the time to have fallen off considerably. i shall now bring this to a close, hoping that i may have more interesting jottings to send you about the old scenes and people, from genoa, where we shall stay two days. you are now, i take it, at macready's. i shall be greatly interested by your account of your visit there. we often talk of you all. edward's italian is (i fear) very weak. when we began to get really into the language, he reminded me of poor roche in germany. but he seems to have picked up a little this morning. he has been unfortunate with the unlucky egg, leaving a pair of his shoes (his favourite shoes) behind in paris, and his flannel dressing-gown yesterday morning at domo d'ossola. in all other respects he is just as he was. egg and collins have gone out to kill the lions here, and i take advantage of their absence to write to you, georgie, and miss coutts. wills will have told you, i daresay, that cerjat accompanied us on a miserably wet morning, in a heavy rain, down the lake. by-the-bye, the wife of one of his cousins, born in france of german parents, living in the next house to haldimand's, is one of the most charming, natural, open-faced, and delightful women i ever saw. madame de ---- is set up as the great attraction of lausanne; but this capital creature shuts her up altogether. we have called her (her--the real belle), ever since, the early closing movement. i am impatient for letters from home; confused ideas are upon me that you are going to white's, but i have no notion when. take care of yourself, and god bless you. ever most affectionately. [sidenote: the same.] croce di malta, genoa, _friday night, october th, ._ my dearest catherine, as we arrived here later than i had expected (in consequence of the journey from milan being most horribly slow) i received your welcome letter only this morning. i write this before going to bed, that i may be sure of not being taken by any engagement off the post time to-morrow. we came in last night between seven and eight. the railroad to turin is finished and opened to within twenty miles of genoa. its effect upon the whole town, and especially upon that part of it lying down beyond the lighthouse and away by san pietro d'arena, is quite wonderful. i only knew the place by the lighthouse, so numerous were the new buildings, so wide the streets, so busy the people, and so thriving and busy the many signs of commerce. to-day i have seen ----, the ----, the ----, and the ----, the latter of whom live at nervi, fourteen or fifteen miles off, towards porto fino. first, of the ----. they are just the same, except that mrs. ----'s face is larger and fuller, and her hair rather gray. as i rang at their bell she came out walking, and stared at me. "what! you don't know me?" said i; upon which she recognised me very warmly, and then said in her old quiet way: "i expected to find a ruin. we heard you had been so ill; and i find you younger and better-looking than ever. but it's so strange to see you without a bright waistcoat. why haven't you got a bright waistcoat on?" i apologised for my black one, and was sent upstairs, when ---- presently appeared in a hideous and demoniacal nightdress, having turned out of bed to greet his distinguished countryman. after a long talk, in the course of which i arranged to dine there on sunday early, before starting by the steamer for naples, and in which they told me every possible and impossible particular about their minutest affairs, and especially about ----'s marriage, i set off for ----, at ----. i had found letters from him here, and he had been here over and over again, and had driven out no end of times to the gate to leave messages for me, and really is (in his strange uncouth way) crying glad to see me. i found him and his wife in a little comfortable country house, overlooking the sea, sitting in a small summer-house on wheels, exactly like a bathing machine. i found her rather pretty, extraordinarily cold and composed, a mere piece of furniture, _talking broken english_. through eight months in the year they live in this country place. she never reads, never works, never talks, never gives an order or directs anything, has only a taste for going to the theatre (where she never speaks either) and buying clothes. they sit in the garden all day, dine at four, _smoke their cigars_, go in at eight, sit about till ten, and then go to bed. the greater part of this i had from ---- himself in a particularly unintelligible confidence in the garden, the only portion of which that i could clearly understand were the words "and one thing and another," repeated one hundred thousand times. he described himself as being perfectly happy, and seemed very fond of his wife. "but that," said ---- to me this morning, looking like the figure-head of a ship, with a nutmeg-grater for a face, "that he ought to be, and must be, and is bound to be--he couldn't help it." then i went on to the ----'s, and found them living in a beautiful situation in a ruinous albaro-like palace. coming upon them unawares, i found ----, with a pointed beard, smoking a great german pipe, in a pair of slippers; the two little girls very pale and faint from the climate, in a singularly untidy state--one (heaven knows why!) without stockings, and both with their little short hair cropped in a manner never before beheld, and a little bright bow stuck on the top of it. ---- said she had invented this headgear as a picturesque thing, adding that perhaps it was--and perhaps it was not. she was greatly flushed and agitated, but looked very well, and seems to be greatly liked here. we had disturbed her at her painting in oils, and i rather received an impression that, what with that, and what with music, the household affairs went a little to the wall. ---- was teaching the two little girls the multiplication table in a disorderly old billiard-room with all manner of maps in it. having obtained a gracious permission from the lady of the school, i am going to show my companions the sala of the peschiere this morning. it is raining intensely hard in the regular genoa manner, so that i can hardly hope for genoa's making as fine an impression as i could desire. our boat for naples is a large french mail boat, and we hope to get there on tuesday or wednesday. if the day after you receive this you write to the poste restante, rome, it will be the safest course. friday's letter write poste restante, florence. you refer to a letter you suppose me to have received from forster--to whom my love. no letter from him has come to hand. i will resume my report of this place in my next. in the meantime, i will not fail to drink dear katey's health to-day. edward has just come in with mention of an english boat on tuesday morning, superior to french boat to-morrow, and faster. i shall inquire at ---- and take the best. when i next write i will give you our route in detail. i am pleased to hear of mr. robson's success in a serious part, as i hope he will now be a fine actor. i hope you will enjoy yourself at macready's, though i fear it must be sometimes but a melancholy visit. good-bye, my dear, and believe me ever most affectionately. _sunday, th october._ we leave for naples to-morrow morning by the peninsular and oriental company's steamer the _valletta_. i send a sketch of our movements that i have at last been able to make. mrs. ---- quite came out yesterday. so did mrs. ---- (in a different manner), by violently attacking mrs. ---- for painting ill in oils when she might be playing well on the piano. it rained hard all yesterday, but is finer this morning. we went over the peschiere in the wet afternoon. the garden is sorely neglected now, and the rooms are all full of boarding-school beds, and most of the fireplaces are closed up, but the old beauty and grandeur of the place were in it still. this will find you, i suppose, at sherborne. my heartiest love to dear macready, and to miss macready, and to all the house. i hope my godson has not forgotten me. i will think of charley (from whom i have heard here) and soon write to him definitely. at present i think he had better join me at boulogne. i shall not bring the little boys over, as, if we keep our time, it would be too long before christmas day. with love to georgy, ever most affectionately yours. [sidenote: the same.] hotel des Ã�trangers, naples, _friday night, november th, ._ my dearest catherine, we arrived here at midday--two days after our intended time, under circumstances which i reserve for georgina's letter, by way of variety--in what forster used to call good health and sp--p--pirits. we have a charming apartment opposite the sea, a little lower down than the victoria--in the direction of the san carlo theatre--and the windows are now wide open as on an english summer night. the first persons we found on board at genoa, were emerson tennent, lady tennent, their son and daughter. they are all here too, in an apartment over ours, and we have all been constantly together in a very friendly way, ever since our meeting. we dine at the table d'hôte--made a league together on board--and have been mutually agreeable. they have no servant with them, and have profited by edward. he goes on perfectly well, is always cheerful and ready, has been sleeping on board (upside down, i believe), in a corner, with his head in the wet and his heels against the side of the paddle-box--but has been perpetually gay and fresh. as soon as we got our luggage from the custom house, we packed complete changes in a bag, set off in a carriage for some warm baths, and had a most refreshing cleansing after our long journey. there was an odd neapolitan attendant--a steady old man--who, bringing the linen into my bath, proposed to "soap me." upon which i called out to the other two that i intended to have everything done to me that could be done, and gave him directions accordingly. i was frothed all over with naples soap, rubbed all down, scrubbed with a brush, had my nails cut, and all manner of extraordinary operations performed. he was as much disappointed (apparently) as surprised not to find me dirty, and kept on ejaculating under his breath, "oh, heaven! how clean this englishman is!" he also remarked that the englishman is as fair as a beautiful woman. some relations of lord john russell's, going to malta, were aboardship, and we were very pleasant. likewise there was a mr. young aboard--an agreeable fellow, not very unlike forster in person--who introduced himself as the brother of the miss youngs whom we knew at boulogne. he was musical and had much good-fellowship in him, and we were very agreeable together also. on the whole i became decidedly popular, and was embraced on all hands when i came over the side this morning. we are going up vesuvius, of course, and to herculaneum and pompeii, and the usual places. the tennents will be our companions in most of our excursions, but we shall leave them here behind us. naples looks just the same as when we left it, except that the weather is much better and brighter. on the day before we left genoa, we had another dinner with ---- at his country place. he was the soul of hospitality, and really seems to love me. you would have been quite touched if you could have seen the honest warmth of his affection. on the occasion of this second banquet, egg made a brilliant mistake that perfectly convulsed us all. i had introduced all the games with great success, and we were playing at the "what advice would you have given that person?" game. the advice was "not to bully his fellow-creatures." upon which, egg triumphantly and with the greatest glee, screamed, "mr. ----!" utterly forgetting ----'s relationship, which i had elaborately impressed upon him. the effect was perfectly irresistible and uncontrollable; and the little woman's way of humouring the joke was in the best taste and the best sense. while i am upon genoa i may add, that when we left the croce the landlord, in hoping that i was satisfied, told me that as i was an old inhabitant, he had charged the prices "as to a genoese." they certainly were very reasonable. mr. and mrs. sartoris have lately been staying in this house, but are just gone. it is kept by an english waiting-maid who married an italian courier, and is extremely comfortable and clean. i am getting impatient to hear from you with all home news, and shall be heartily glad to get to rome, and find my best welcome and interest at the post-office there. that ridiculous ---- and her mother were at the hotel at leghorn the day before yesterday, where the mother (poor old lady!) was so ill from the fright and anxiety consequent on her daughter's efforts at martyrdom, that it is even doubtful whether she will recover. i learnt from a lady friend of ----, that all this nonsense originated at nice, where she was stirred up by free kirk parsons--itinerant--any one of whom i take her to be ready to make a semi-celestial marriage with. the dear being who told me all about her was a noble specimen--single, forty, in a clinging flounced black silk dress, which wouldn't drape, or bustle, or fall, or do anything of that sort--and with a leghorn hat on her head, at least (i am serious) _six feet round_. the consequence of its immense size, was, that whereas it had an insinuating blue decoration in the form of a bow in front, it was so out of her knowledge behind, that it was all battered and bent in that direction--and, viewed from that quarter, she looked drunk. my best love to mamey and katey, and sydney the king of the nursery, and harry and the dear little plornishghenter. i kiss almost all the children i encounter in remembrance of their sweet faces, and talk to all the mothers who carry them. i hope to hear nothing but good news from you, and to find nothing but good spirits in your expected letter when i come to rome. i already begin to look homeward, being now at the remotest part of the journey, and to anticipate the pleasure of return. ever most affectionately. footnote: [ ] charles dickens, mr. wilkie collins, mr. augustus egg, and edward the courier. . [sidenote: mr. frederick grew.[ ]] tavistock house, london, _ th january, ._ my dear sir, i beg, through you, to assure the artizans' committee in aid of the birmingham and midland institute, that i have received the resolution they have done me the honour to agree upon for themselves and their fellow-workmen, with the highest gratification. i awakened no pleasure or interest among them at birmingham which they did not repay to me with abundant interest. i have their welfare and happiness sincerely at heart, and shall ever be their faithful friend. your obedient servant. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] tavistock house, _february th, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, i am sorry to say that i am not one of the zoologicals, or i should have been delighted to have had a hand in the introduction of a child to the lions and tigers. but wills shall send up to the gardens this morning, and see if mr. mitchell, the secretary, can be found. if he be producible i have no doubt that i can send you what you want in the course of the day. such has been the distraction of _my_ mind in _my_ story, that i have twice forgotten to tell you how much i liked the modern greek songs. the article is printed and at press for the very next number as ever is. don't put yourself out at all as to the division of the story into parts; i think you had far better write it in your own way. when we come to get a little of it into type, i have no doubt of being able to make such little suggestions as to breaks of chapters as will carry us over all that easily. my dear mrs. gaskell, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: rev. w. harness.] tavistock house, _friday evening, may th, ._ my dear harness, on thursday, the first of june, we shall be delighted to come. (might i ask for the mildest whisper of the dinner-hour?) i am more than ever devoted to your niece, if possible, for giving me the choice of two days, as on the second of june i am a fettered mortal. i heard a manly, christian sermon last sunday at the foundling--with _great satisfaction_. if you should happen to know the preacher of it, pray thank him from me. ever cordially yours. [sidenote: rev. james white.] tavistock house, _may th, ._ my dear white, here is conolly in a dreadful state of mind because you won't dine with him on the th of june next to meet stratford-on-avon people, writing to me, to ask me to write to you and ask you what you mean by it. what _do_ you mean by it? it appears to conolly that your supposing you _can_ have anything to do is a clear case of monomania, one of the slight instances of perverted intellect, wherein a visit to him cannot fail to be beneficial. after conference with my learned friend i am of the same opinion. loves from all in tavistock to all in bonchurch. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] boulogne, _wednesday, august nd, ._ my dear wills, i will endeavour to come off my back (and the grass) to do an opening paper for the starting number of "north and south." i can't positively answer for such a victory over the idleness into which i have delightfully sunk, as the achievement of this feat; but let us hope. during a fête on monday night the meteor flag of england (forgotten to be struck at sunset) was _stolen!!!_ manage the proofs of "h. w." so that i may not have to correct them on a sunday. i am not going over to the sabbatarians, but like the haystack (particularly) on a sunday morning. i should like john to call on m. henri, townshend's servant, , norfolk street, park lane, and ask him if, when he comes here with his master, he can take charge of a trap bat and ball. if yea, then i should like john to proceed to mr. darke, lord's cricket ground, and purchase said trap bat and ball of the best quality. townshend is coming here on the th, probably will leave town a day or two before. pray be in a condition to drink a glass of the champagne when _you_ come. i think i have no more to say at present. i cannot sufficiently admire my prodigious energy in coming out of a stupor to write this letter. ever faithfully. footnote: [ ] secretary to the artizans' committee in aid of the birmingham and midland institute. . [sidenote: miss king.] tavistock house, _friday evening, february th, ._ my dear miss king, i wish to get over the disagreeable part of my letter in the beginning. i have great doubts of the possibility of publishing your story in portions. but i think it possesses _very great merit_. my doubts arise partly from the nature of the interest which i fear requires presentation as a whole, and partly on your manner of relating the tale. the people do not sufficiently work out their own purposes in dialogue and dramatic action. you are too much their exponent; what you do for them, they ought to do for themselves. with reference to publication in detached portions (or, indeed, with a reference to the force of the story in any form), that long stoppage and going back to possess the reader with the antecedents of the clergyman's biography, are rather crippling. i may mention that i think the boy (the child of the second marriage) a little too "slangy." i know the kind of boyish slang which belongs to such a character in these times; but, considering his part in the story, i regard it as the author's function to elevate such a characteristic, and soften it into something more expressive of the ardour and flush of youth, and its romance. it seems to me, too, that the dialogues between the lady and the italian maid are conventional but not natural. this observation i regard as particularly applying to the maid, and to the scene preceding the murder. supposing the main objection surmountable, i would venture then to suggest to you the means of improvement in this respect. the paper is so full of good touches of character, passion, and natural emotion, that i very much wish for a little time to reconsider it, and to try whether condensation here and there would enable us to get it say into four parts. i am not sanguine of this, for i observed the difficulties as i read it the night before last; but i am very unwilling, i assure you, to decline what has so much merit. i am going to paris on sunday morning for ten days or so. i purpose being back again within a fortnight. if you will let me think of this matter in the meanwhile, i shall at least have done all i can to satisfy my own appreciation of your work. but if, in the meantime, you should desire to have it back with any prospect of publishing it through other means, a letter--the shortest in the world--from you to mr. wills at the "household words" office will immediately produce it. i repeat with perfect sincerity that i am much impressed by its merits, and that if i had read it as the production of an entire stranger, i think it would have made exactly this effect upon me. my dear miss king, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] tavistock house, _ th february, ._ my dear miss king, i have gone carefully over your story again, and quite agree with you that the episode of the clergyman could be told in a very few lines. startling as i know it will appear to you, i am bound to say that i think the purpose of the whole tale would be immensely strengthened by great compression. i doubt if it could not be told more forcibly in half the space. it is certainly too long for "household words," and i fear my idea of it is too short for you. i am, if possible, more unwilling than i was at first to decline it; but the more i have considered it, the longer it has seemed to grow. nor can i ask you to try to present it free from that objection, because i already perceive the difficulty, and pain, of such an effort. to the best of my knowledge, you are wrong about the lady at last, and to the best of my observation, you do not express what you explain yourself to mean in the case of the italian attendant. i have met with such talk in the romances of maturin's time--certainly never in italian life. these, however, are slight points easily to be compromised in an hour. the great obstacle i must leave wholly to your own judgment, in looking over the tale again. believe me always, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. m. thackeray.] tavistock house, _friday evening, rd march, ._ my dear thackeray,[ ] i have read in _the times_ to-day an account of your last night's lecture, and cannot refrain from assuring you in all truth and earnestness that i am profoundly touched by your generous reference to me. i do not know how to tell you what a glow it spread over my heart. out of its fulness i do entreat you to believe that i shall never forget your words of commendation. if you could wholly know at once how you have moved me, and how you have animated me, you would be the happier i am very certain. faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: mr. forster.] tavistock house, _friday, th march, ._ my dear forster, i have hope of mr. morley,[ ] whom one cannot see without knowing to be a straightforward, earnest man. _i_ also think higgins[ ] will materially help them.[ ] generally, i quite agree with you that they hardly know what to be at; but it is an immensely difficult subject to start, and they must have every allowance. at any rate, it is not by leaving them alone and giving them no help, that they can be urged on to success. (travers, too, i think, a man of the anti-corn-law-league order.) higgins told me, after the meeting on monday night, that on the previous evening he had been closeted with ----, whose letter in that day's paper he had put right for _the times_. he had never spoken to ---- before, he said, and found him a rather muddle-headed scotchman as to his powers of conveying his ideas. he (higgins) had gone over his documents judicially, and with the greatest attention; and not only was ---- wrong in every particular (except one very unimportant circumstance), but, in reading documents to the house, had stopped short in sentences where no stop was, and by so doing had utterly perverted their meaning. this is to come out, of course, when said ---- gets the matter on. i thought the case so changed, before i knew this, by his letter and that of the other shipowners, that i told morley, when i went down to the theatre, that i felt myself called upon to relieve him from the condition i had imposed. for the rest, i am quite calmly confident that i only do justice to the strength of my opinions, and use the power which circumstances have given me, conscientiously and moderately, with a right object, and towards the prevention of nameless miseries. i should be now reproaching myself if i had not gone to the meeting, and, having been, i am very glad. a good illustration of a government office. ---- very kindly wrote to me to suggest that "houses of parliament" illustration. after i had dined on wednesday, and was going to jog slowly down to drury lane, it suddenly came into my head that perhaps his details were wrong. i had just time to turn to the "annual register," and _not one of them was correct_! this is, of course, in close confidence. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mrs. winter.] _tuesday, rd april, ._ my dear maria,[ ] a necessity is upon me now--as at most times--of wandering about in my old wild way, to think. i could no more resist this on sunday or yesterday than a man can dispense with food, or a horse can help himself from being driven. i hold my inventive capacity on the stern condition that it must master my whole life, often have complete possession of me, make its own demands upon me, and sometimes, for months together, put everything else away from me. if i had not known long ago that my place could never be held, unless i were at any moment ready to devote myself to it entirely, i should have dropped out of it very soon. all this i can hardly expect you to understand--or the restlessness and waywardness of an author's mind. you have never seen it before you, or lived with it, or had occasion to think or care about it, and you cannot have the necessary consideration for it. "it is only half-an-hour,"--"it is only an afternoon,"--"it is only an evening," people say to me over and over again; but they don't know that it is impossible to command one's self sometimes to any stipulated and set disposal of five minutes,--or that the mere consciousness of an engagement will sometimes worry a whole day. these are the penalties paid for writing books. whoever is devoted to an art must be content to deliver himself wholly up to it, and to find his recompense in it. i am grieved if you suspect me of not wanting to see you, but i can't help it; i must go my way whether or no. i thought you would understand that in sending the card for the box i sent an assurance that there was nothing amiss. i am pleased to find that you were all so interested with the play. my ladies say that the first part is too painful and wants relief. i have been going to see it a dozen times, but have never seen it yet, and never may. madame céleste is injured thereby (you see how unreasonable people are!) and says in the green-room, "m. dickens est artiste! mais il n'a jamais vu 'janet pride!'" it is like a breath of fresh spring air to know that that unfortunate baby of yours is out of her one close room, and has about half-a-pint of very doubtful air per day. i could only have become her godfather on the condition that she had five hundred gallons of open air at any rate every day of her life; and you would soon see a rose or two in the face of my other little friend, ella, if you opened all your doors and windows throughout the whole of all fine weather, from morning to night. i am going off; i don't know where or how far, to ponder about i don't know what. sometimes i am half in the mood to set off for france, sometimes i think i will go and walk about on the seashore for three or four months, sometimes i look towards the pyrenees, sometimes switzerland. i made a compact with a great spanish authority last week, and vowed i would go to spain. two days afterwards layard and i agreed to go to constantinople when parliament rises. to-morrow i shall probably discuss with somebody else the idea of going to greenland or the north pole. the end of all this, most likely, will be, that i shall shut myself up in some out-of-the-way place i have not yet thought of, and go desperately to work there. once upon a time i didn't do such things you say. no. but i have done them through a good many years now, and they have become myself and my life. ever affectionately. [sidenote: the same.] tavistock house, _wednesday, june th, ._ my dear mrs. winter, i am truly grieved to hear of your affliction in the loss of your darling baby. but if you be not, even already, so reconciled to the parting from that innocent child for a little while, as to bear it gently and with a softened sorrow, i know that that not unhappy state of mind must soon arise. the death of infants is a release from so much chance and change--from so many casualties and distresses--and is a thing so beautiful in its serenity and peace--that it should not be a bitterness, even in a mother's heart. the simplest and most affecting passage in all the noble history of our great master, is his consideration for little children, and in reference to yours, as many millions of bereaved mothers poor and rich will do in reference to theirs until the end of time, you may take the comfort of the generous words, "and he took a child, and set it in the midst of them." in a book, by one of the greatest english writers, called "a journey from this world to the next," a parent comes to the distant country beyond the grave, and finds the little girl he had lost so long ago, engaged in building a bower to receive him in, when his aged steps should bring him there at last. he is filled with joy to see her, so young--so bright--so full of promise--and is enraptured to think that she never was old, wan, tearful, withered. this is always one of the sources of consolation in the deaths of children. with no effort of the fancy, with nothing to undo, you will always be able to think of the pretty creature you have lost, _as a child_ in heaven. a poor little baby of mine lies in highgate cemetery--and i laid her just as you think of laying yours, in the catacombs there, until i made a resting-place for all of us in the free air. it is better that i should not come to see you. i feel quite sure of that, and will think of you instead. god bless and comfort you! mrs. dickens and her sister send their kindest condolences to yourself and mr. winter. i add mine with all my heart. affectionately your friend. [sidenote: mr. wilkie collins.] tavistock house, _sunday, th july, ._ my dear collins, i don't know whether you may have heard from webster, or whether the impression i derived from mark's manner on friday may be altogether correct. but it strongly occurred to me that webster was going to decline the play, and that he really has worried himself into a fear of playing aaron. now, when i got this into my head--which was during the rehearsal--i considered two things:--firstly, how we could best put about the success of the piece more widely and extensively even than it has yet reached; and secondly, how you could be best assisted against a bad production of it hereafter, or no production of it. i thought i saw immediately, that the point would be to have this representation noticed in the newspapers. so i waited until the rehearsal was over and we had profoundly astonished the family, and then asked colonel waugh what he thought of sending some cards for tuesday to the papers. he highly approved, and i yesterday morning directed mitchell to send to all the morning papers, and to some of the weekly ones--a dozen in the whole. i dined at lord john's yesterday (where meyerbeer was, and said to me after dinner: "ah, mon ami illustre! que c'est noble de vous entendre parler d'haute voix morale, à la table d'un ministre!" for i gave them a little bit of truth about sunday that was like bringing a sebastopol battery among the polite company), i say, after this long parenthesis, i dined at lord john's, and found great interest and talk about the play, and about what everybody who had been here had said of it. and i was confirmed in my decision that the thing for you was the invitation to the papers. hence i write to tell you what i have done. i dine at home at half-past five if you are disengaged, and i shall be at home all the evening. ever faithfully. note (by mr. wilkie collins).--this characteristically kind endeavour to induce managers of theatres to produce "the lighthouse," after the amateur performances of the play, was not attended with any immediate success. the work remained in the author's desk until messrs. robson and emden undertook the management of the olympic theatre. they opened their first season with "the lighthouse;" the part of aaron gurnock being performed by mr. f. robson.--w. c. [sidenote: miss emily jolly.] , albion villas, folkestone, kent, _tuesday, th july, ._ dear madam,[ ] your manuscript, entitled a "wife's story," has come under my own perusal within these last three or four days. i recognise in it such great merit and unusual promise, and i think it displays so much power and knowledge of the human heart, that i feel a strong interest in you as its writer. i have begged the gentleman, who is in my confidence as to the transaction of the business of "household words," to return the ms. to you by the post, which (as i hope) will convey this note to you. my object is this: i particularly entreat you to consider the catastrophe. you write to be read, of course. the close of the story is unnecessarily painful--will throw off numbers of persons who would otherwise read it, and who (as it stands) will be deterred by hearsay from so doing, and is so tremendous a piece of severity, that it will defeat your purpose. all my knowledge and experience, such as they are, lead me straight to the recommendation that you will do well to spare the life of the husband, and of one of the children. let her suppose the former dead, from seeing him brought in wounded and insensible--lose nothing of the progress of her mental suffering afterwards when that doctor is in attendance upon her--but bring her round at last to the blessed surprise that her husband is still living, and that a repentance which can be worked out, _in the way of atonement for the misery she has occasioned to the man whom she so ill repaid for his love, and made so miserable_, lies before her. so will you soften the reader whom you now as it were harden, and so you will bring tears from many eyes, which can only have their spring in affectionately and gently touched hearts. i am perfectly certain that with this change, all the previous part of your tale will tell for twenty times as much as it can in its present condition. and it is because i believe you have a great fame before you if you do justice to the remarkable ability you possess, that i venture to offer you this advice in what i suppose to be the beginning of your career. i observe some parts of the story which would be strengthened, even in their psychological interest, by condensation here and there. if you will leave that to me, i will perform the task as conscientiously and carefully as if it were my own. but the suggestion i offer for your acceptance, no one but yourself can act upon. let me conclude this hasty note with the plain assurance that i have never been so much surprised and struck by any manuscript i have read, as i have been by yours. your faithful servant. [sidenote: the same.] , albion villas, folkestone, _july st, ._ dear madam, i did not enter, in detail, on the spirit of the alteration i propose in your story; because i thought it right that you should think out that for yourself if you applied yourself to the change. i can now assure you that you describe it exactly as i had conceived it; and if i had wanted anything to confirm me in my conviction of its being right, our both seeing it so precisely from the same point of view, would be ample assurance to me. i would leave her new and altered life to be inferred. it does not appear to me either necessary or practicable (within such limits) to do more than that. do not be uneasy if you find the alteration demanding time. i shall quite understand that, and my interest will keep. _when_ you finish the story, send it to mr. wills. besides being in daily communication with him, i am at the office once a week; and i will go over it in print, before the proof is sent to you. very faithfully yours. .[ ] [sidenote: captain morgan.] dear friend,[ ] i am always delighted to hear from you. your genial earnestness does me good to think of. and every day of my life i feel more and more that to be thoroughly in earnest is everything, and to be anything short of it is nothing. you see what we have been doing to our valiant soldiers.[ ] you see what miserable humbugs we are. and because we have got involved in meshes of aristocratic red tape to our unspeakable confusion, loss, and sorrow, the gentlemen who have been so kind as to ruin us are going to give us a day of humiliation and fasting the day after to-morrow. i am sick and sour to think of such things at this age of the world. . . . i am in the first stage of a new book, which consists in going round and round the idea, as you see a bird in his cage go about and about his sugar before he touches it. always most cordially yours. footnotes: [ ] the editors have great pleasure in publishing another note to mr. thackeray, which has been found and sent to them by his daughter, mrs. ritchie, since the publication of the first two volumes. [ ] chairman of the "administrative reform league" meeting at drury lane theatre. [ ] mr. higgins, best known as a writer in _the times_, under the name of "jacob omnium." [ ] the members of the administrative reform league. [ ] mrs. winter, a very dear friend and companion of charles dickens in his youth. [ ] miss emily jolly, authoress of "mr. arle," and many other clever novels. [ ] this, and another letter to captain morgan which appears under date of , were published in _scribner's monthly_, october, . [ ] captain morgan was a captain in the american merchant service. he was an intimate friend of mr. leslie, r.a. (the great painter), by whom he was made known to charles dickens. [ ] this letter was written during the crimean war. . [sidenote: mr. t. ross. mr. j. kenny.] tavistock house, _monday, th may, ._ gentlemen, i have received a letter signed by you (which i assume to be written mainly on behalf of what are called working-men and their families) inviting me to attend a meeting in our parish vestry hall this evening on the subject of the stoppage of the sunday bands in the parks. i thoroughly agree with you that those bands have afforded an innocent and healthful enjoyment on the sunday afternoon, to which the people have a right. but i think it essential that the working people should, of themselves and by themselves, assert that right. they have been informed, on the high authority of their first minister (lately rather in want of house of commons votes i am told) that they are almost indifferent to it. the correction of that mistake, if official omniscience can be mistaken, lies with themselves. in case it should be considered by the meeting, which i prefer for this reason not to attend, expedient to unite with other metropolitan parishes in forming a fund for the payment of such expenses as may be incurred in peaceably and numerously representing to the governing powers that the harmless recreation they have taken away is very much wanted, i beg you to put down my name as a subscriber of ten pounds. and i am, your faithful servant. [sidenote: mr. washington irving.] tavistock house, _london, july th, ._ my dear irving, if you knew how often i write to you individually and personally in my books, you would be no more surprised in seeing this note than you were in seeing me do my duty by that flowery julep (in what i dreamily apprehend to have been a former state of existence) at baltimore. will you let me present to you a cousin of mine, mr. b----, who is associated with a merchant's house in new york? of course he wants to see you, and know you. how can _i_ wonder at that? how can anybody? i had a long talk with leslie at the last academy dinner (having previously been with him in paris), and he told me that you were flourishing. i suppose you know that he wears a moustache--so do i for the matter of that, and a beard too--and that he looks like a portrait of don quixote. holland house has four-and-twenty youthful pages in it now--twelve for my lord, and twelve for my lady; and no clergyman coils his leg up under his chair all dinner-time, and begins to uncurve it when the hostess goes. no wheeled chair runs smoothly in with that beaming face in it; and ----'s little cotton pocket-handkerchief helped to make (i believe) this very sheet of paper. a half-sad, half-ludicrous story of rogers is all i will sully it with. you know, i daresay, that for a year or so before his death he wandered, and lost himself like one of the children in the wood, grown up there and grown down again. he had mrs. procter and mrs. carlyle to breakfast with him one morning--only those two. both excessively talkative, very quick and clever, and bent on entertaining him. when mrs. carlyle had flashed and shone before him for about three-quarters of an hour on one subject, he turned his poor old eyes on mrs. procter, and pointing to the brilliant discourser with his poor old finger, said (indignantly), "who is _she_?" upon this, mrs. procter, cutting in, delivered (it is her own story) a neat oration on the life and writings of carlyle, and enlightened him in her happiest and airiest manner; all of which he heard, staring in the dreariest silence, and then said (indignantly, as before), "and who are _you_?" ever, my dear irving, most affectionately and truly yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a] ville des moulineaux, boulogne, _wednesday, th july, ._ my dear stone, i have got a capital part for you in the farce,[ ] not a difficult one to learn, as you never say anything but "yes" and "no." you are called in the _dramatis personæ_ an able-bodied british seaman, and you are never seen by mortal eye to do anything (except inopportunely producing a mop) but stand about the deck of the boat in everybody's way, with your hair immensely touzled, one brace on, your hands in your pockets, and the bottoms of your trousers tucked up. yet you are inextricably connected with the plot, and are the man whom everybody is inquiring after. i think it is a very whimsical idea and extremely droll. it made me laugh heartily when i jotted it all down yesterday. loves from all my house to all yours. ever affectionately. footnote: [ ] the farce alluded to, however, was never written. it had been projected to be played at the amateur theatricals at tavistock house. . [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] tavistock house, _wednesday, th january, ._ my dear bulwer, i thought wills had told you as to the guild (for i begged him to) that he can do absolutely nothing until our charter is seven years old. it is the stringent and express prohibition of the act of parliament--for which things you members, thank god, are responsible and not i. when i observed this clause (which was just as we were going to grant a pension, if we could agree on a good subject), i caused our counsel's opinion to be taken on it, and there is not a doubt about it. i immediately recommended that there should be no expenses--that the interest on the capital should be all invested as it accrued--that the chambers should be given up and the clerk discharged--and that the guild should have the use of the "household words" office rent free, and the services of wills on the same terms. all of which was done. a letter is now copying, to be sent round to all the members, explaining, with the new year, the whole state of the thing. you will receive this. it appears to me that it looks wholesome enough. but if a strong idiot comes and binds your hands, or mine, or both, for seven years, what is to be done against him? as to greater matters than this, however--as to all matters on this teeming earth--it appears to me that the house of commons and parliament altogether, is just the dreariest failure and nuisance that has bothered this much-bothered world. ever yours. [sidenote: miss emily jolly.] gravesend, kent, _ th april, ._ dear madam, as i am away from london for a few days, your letter has been forwarded to me. i can honestly encourage and assure you that i believe the depression and want of confidence under which you describe yourself as labouring to have no sufficient foundation. first as to "mr. arle." i have constantly heard it spoken of with great approval, and i think it a book of considerable merit. if i were to tell you that i see no evidence of inexperience in it, that would not be true. i think a little more stir and action to be desired also; but i am surprised by your being despondent about it, for i assure you that i had supposed it (always remembering that it is your first novel) to have met with a very good reception. i can bring to my memory--here, with no means of reference at hand--only two papers of yours that have been unsuccessful at "household words." i think the first was called "the brook." it appeared to me to break down upon a confusion that pervaded it, between a coroner's inquest and a trial. i have a general recollection of the mingling of the two, as to facts and forms that should have been kept apart, in some inextricable manner that was beyond my powers of disentanglement. the second was about a wife's writing a novel and keeping the secret from her husband until it was done. i did not think the incident of sufficient force to justify the length of the narrative. but there is nothing fatal in either of these mischances. mr. wills told me when i spoke to him of the latter paper that you had it in contemplation to offer a longer story to "household words." if you should do so, i assure you i shall be happy to read it myself, and that i shall have a sincere desire to accept it, if possible. i can give you no better counsel than to look into the life about you, and to strive for what is noblest and true. as to further encouragement, i do not, i can most strongly add, believe that you have any reason to be downhearted. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] tavistock house, _saturday morning, th may, ._ dear madam, i read your story, with all possible attention, last night. i cannot tell you with what reluctance i write to you respecting it, for my opinion of it is _not_ favourable, although i perceive your heart in it, and great strength. pray understand that i claim no infallibility. i merely express my own honest opinion, formed against my earnest desire. i do not lay it down as law for others, though, of course, i believe that many others would come to the same conclusion. it appears to me that the story is one that cannot possibly be told within the compass to which you have limited yourself. the three principal people are, every one of them, in the wrong with the reader, and you cannot put any of them right, without making the story extend over a longer space of time, and without anatomising the souls of the actors more slowly and carefully. nothing would justify the departure of alice, but her having some strong reason to believe that in taking that step, _she saved her lover_. in your intentions as to that lover's transfer of his affections to eleanor, i descry a striking truth; but i think it confusedly wrought out, and all but certain to fail in expressing itself. eleanor, i regard as forced and overstrained. the natural result is, that she carries a train of anti-climax after her. i particularly notice this at the point when she thinks she is going to be drowned. the whole idea of the story is sufficiently difficult to require the most exact truth and the greatest knowledge and skill in the colouring throughout. in this respect i have no doubt of its being extremely defective. the people do not talk as such people would; and the little subtle touches of description which, by making the country house and the general scene real, would give an air of reality to the people (much to be desired) are altogether wanting. the more you set yourself to the illustration of your heroine's passionate nature, the more indispensable this attendant atmosphere of truth becomes. it would, in a manner, oblige the reader to believe in her. whereas, for ever exploding like a great firework without any background, she glares and wheels and hisses, and goes out, and has lighted nothing. lastly, i fear she is too convulsive from beginning to end. pray reconsider, from this point of view, her brow, and her eyes, and her drawing herself up to her full height, and her being a perfumed presence, and her floating into rooms, also her asking people how they dare, and the like, on small provocation. when she hears her music being played, i think she is particularly objectionable. i have a strong belief that if you keep this story by you three or four years, you will form an opinion of it not greatly differing from mine. there is so much good in it, so much reflection, so much passion and earnestness, that, if my judgment be right, i feel sure you will come over to it. on the other hand, i do not think that its publication, as it stands, would do you service, or be agreeable to you hereafter. i have no means of knowing whether you are patient in the pursuit of this art; but i am inclined to think that you are not, and that you do not discipline yourself enough. when one is impelled to write this or that, one has still to consider: "how much of this will tell for what i mean? how much of it is my own wild emotion and superfluous energy--how much remains that is truly belonging to this ideal character and these ideal circumstances?" it is in the laborious struggle to make this distinction, and in the determination to try for it, that the road to the correction of faults lies. [perhaps i may remark, in support of the sincerity with which i write this, that i am an impatient and impulsive person myself, but that it has been for many years the constant effort of my life to practise at my desk what i preach to you.] i should not have written so much, or so plainly, but for your last letter to me. it seems to demand that i should be strictly true with you, and i am so in this letter, without any reservation either way. very faithfully yours. . [sidenote: mr. albert smith.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _wednesday night, st december, ._ my dear albert, i cannot tell you how grieved i am for poor dear arthur (even you can hardly love him better than i do), or with what anxiety i shall wait for further news of him. pray let me know how he is to-morrow. tell them at home that olliffe is the kindest and gentlest of men--a man of rare experience and opportunity--perfect master of his profession, and to be confidently and implicitly relied upon. there is no man alive, in whose hands i would more thankfully trust myself. i will write a cheery word to the dear fellow in the morning. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. arthur smith.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _thursday, nd december, ._ my dear arthur, i cannot tell you how surprised and grieved i was last night to hear from albert of your severe illness. it is not my present intention to give you the trouble of reading anything like a letter, but i must send you my loving word; and tell you how we all think of you. and here am i going off to-morrow to that meeting at manchester without _you!_ the wildest and most impossible of moves as it seems to me. and to think of my coming back by coventry, on saturday, to receive the chronometer--also without you! if you don't get perfectly well soon, my dear old fellow, i shall come over to paris to look after you, and to tell olliffe (give him my love, and the same for lady olliffe) what a blessing he is. with kindest regards to mrs. arthur and her sister, ever heartily and affectionately yours. . [sidenote: mr. w. p. frith, r.a.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, _wednesday, th january, ._ my dear frith, at eleven on monday morning next, the gifted individual whom you will transmit to posterity,[ ] will be at watkins'. table also shall be there, and chair. velvet coat likewise if the tailor should have sent it home. but the garment is more to be doubted than the man whose signature here follows. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mrs. cowden clark.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _ st august, ._ my dear mrs. cowden clarke, i cannot tell you how much pleasure i have derived from the receipt of your earnest letter. do not suppose it possible that such praise can be "less than nothing" to your old manager. it is more than all else. here in my little country house on the summit of the hill where falstaff did the robbery, your words have come to me in the most appropriate and delightful manner. when the story can be read all at once, and my meaning can be better seen, i will send it to you (sending it to dean street, if you tell me of no better way), and it will be a hearty gratification to think that you and your good husband are reading it together. for you must both take notice, please, that i have a reminder of you always before me. on my desk, here, stand two green leaves[ ] which i every morning station in their ever-green place at my elbow. the leaves on the oak-trees outside the window are less constant than these, for they are with me through the four seasons. lord! to think of the bygone day when you were stricken mute (was it not at glasgow?) and, being mounted on a tall ladder at a practicable window, stared at forster, and with a noble constancy refused to utter word! like the monk among the pictures with wilkie, i begin to think _that_ the real world, and this the sham that goes out with the lights. god bless you both. ever faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] the portrait by mr. frith is now in the forster collection, at the south kensington museum. [ ] a porcelain paper-weight with two green leaves enamelled on it, between which were placed the initials c. d. a present from mrs. c. clarke. . [sidenote: mr. henry f. chorley.] [ ]tavistock house, tavistock square, w.c., _friday night, feb. , ._ my dear chorley, i can most honestly assure you that i think "roccabella" a very remarkable book indeed. apart--quite apart--from my interest in you, i am certain that if i had taken it up under any ordinarily favourable circumstances as a book of which i knew nothing whatever, i should not--could not--have relinquished it until i had read it through. i had turned but a few pages, and come to the shadow on the bright sofa at the foot of the bed, when i knew myself to be in the hands of an artist. that rare and delightful recognition i never lost for a moment until i closed the second volume at the end. i am "a good audience" when i have reason to be, and my girls would testify to you, if there were need, that i cried over it heartily. your story seems to me remarkably ingenious. i had not the least idea of the purport of the sealed paper until you chose to enlighten me; and then i felt it to be quite natural, quite easy, thoroughly in keeping with the character and presentation of the liverpool man. the position of the bell family in the story has a special air of nature and truth; is quite new to me, and is so dexterously and delicately done that i find the deaf daughter no less real and distinct than the clergyman's wife. the turn of the story round that damnable princess i pursued with a pleasure with which i could pursue nothing but a true interest; and i declare to you that if i were put upon finding anything better than the scene of roccabella's death, i should stare round my bookshelves very much at a loss for a long time. similarly, your characters have really surprised me. from the lawyer to the princess, i swear to them as true; and in your fathoming of rosamond altogether, there is a profound wise knowledge that i admire and respect with a heartiness not easily overstated in words. i am not quite with you as to the italians. your knowledge of the italian character seems to me surprisingly subtle and penetrating; but i think we owe it to those most unhappy men and their political wretchedness to ask ourselves mercifully, whether their faults are not essentially the faults of a people long oppressed and priest-ridden;--whether their tendency to slink and conspire is not a tendency that spies in every dress, from the triple crown to a lousy head, have engendered in their ancestors through generations? again, like you, i shudder at the distresses that come of these unavailing risings; my blood runs hotter, as yours does, at the thought of the leaders safe, and the instruments perishing by hundreds; yet what is to be done? their wrongs are so great that they _will_ rise from time to time somehow. it would be to doubt the eternal providence of god to doubt that they will rise successfully at last. unavailing struggles against a dominant tyranny precede all successful turning against it. and is it not a little hard in us englishman, whose forefathers have risen so often and striven against so much, to look on, in our own security, through microscopes, and detect the motes in the brains of men driven mad? think, if you and i were italians, and had grown from boyhood to our present time, menaced in every day through all these years by that infernal confessional, dungeons, and soldiers, could we be better than these men? should we be so good? i should not, i am afraid, if i know myself. such things would make of me a moody, bloodthirsty, implacable man, who would do anything for revenge; and if i compromised the truth--put it at the worst, habitually--where should i ever have had it before me? in the old jesuits' college at genoa, on the chiaja at naples, in the churches of rome, at the university of padua, on the piazzo san marco at venice, where? and the government is in all these places, and in all italian places. i have seen something of these men. i have known mazzini and gallenga; manin was tutor to my daughters in paris; i have had long talks about scores of them with poor ary scheffer, who was their best friend. i have gone back to italy after ten years, and found the best men i had known there exiled or in jail. i believe they have the faults you ascribe to them (nationally, not individually), but i could not find it in my heart, remembering their miseries, to exhibit those faults without referring them back to their causes. you will forgive my writing this, because i write it exactly as i write my cordial little tribute to the high merits of your book. if it were not a living reality to me, i should care nothing about this point of disagreement; but you are far too earnest a man, and far too able a man, to be left unremonstrated with by an admiring reader. you cannot write so well without influencing many people. if you could tell me that your book had but twenty readers, i would reply, that so good a book will influence more people's opinions, through those twenty, than a worthless book would through twenty thousand; and i express this with the perfect confidence of one in whose mind the book has taken, for good and all, a separate and distinct place. accept my thanks for the pleasure you have given me. the poor acknowledgment of testifying to that pleasure wherever i go will be my pleasure in return. and so, my dear chorley, good night, and god bless you. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: sir john bowring.] gad's hill, _wednesday, st october, ._ my dear sir john,[ ] first let me congratulate you on your marriage and wish you all happiness and prosperity. secondly, i must tell you that i was greatly vexed with the chatham people for not giving me early notice of your lecture. in that case i should (of course) have presided, as president of the institution, and i should have asked you to honour my falstaff house here. but when they made your kind intention known to me, i had made some important business engagements at the "all the year round" office for that evening, which i could not possibly forego. i charged them to tell you so, and was going to write to you when i found your kind letter. thanks for your paper, which i have sent to the printer's with much pleasure. we heard of your accident here, and of your "making nothing of it." i said that you didn't make much of disasters, and that you took poison (from natives) as quite a matter of course in the way of business. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. a. h. layard.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, th december, ._ my dear layard, i know you will readily believe that i would come if i could, and that i am heartily sorry i cannot. a new story of my writing, nine months long, is just begun in "all the year round." a certain allotment of my time when i have that story-demand upon me, has, all through my author life, been an essential condition of my health and success. i have just returned here to work so many hours every day for so many days. it is really impossible for me to break my bond. there is not a man in england who is more earnestly your friend and admirer than i am. the conviction that you know it, helps me out through this note. you are a man of so much mark to me, that i even regret your going into the house of commons--for which assembly i have but a scant respect. but i would not mention it to the southwark electors if i could come to-morrow; though i should venture to tell them (and even that your friends would consider very impolitic) that i think them very much honoured by having such a candidate for their suffrages. my daughter and sister-in-law want to know what you have done with your "pledge" to come down here again. if they had votes for southwark they would threaten to oppose you--but would never do it. i was solemnly sworn at breakfast to let you know that we should be delighted to see you. bear witness that i kept my oath. ever, my dear layard, faithfully yours. [sidenote: captain morgan.] dear friend, i am heartily obliged to you for your seasonable and welcome remembrance. it came to the office (while i was there) in the pleasantest manner, brought by two seafaring men as if they had swum across with it. i have already told ---- what i am very well assured of concerning you, but you are such a noble fellow that i must not pursue that subject. but you will at least take my cordial and affectionate thanks. . . . we have a touch of most beautiful weather here now, and this country is most beautiful too. i wish i could carry you off to a favourite spot of mine between this and maidstone, where i often smoke your cigars and think of you. we often take our lunch on a hillside there in the summer, and then i lie down on the grass--a splendid example of laziness--and say, "now for my morgan!" my daughter and her aunt declare that they know the true scent of the true article (which i don't in the least believe), and sometimes they exclaim, "that's not a morgan," and the worst of it is they were once right by accident. . . . i hope you will have seen the christmas number of "all the year round."[ ] here and there, in the description of the sea-going hero, i have given a touch or two of remembrance of somebody you know; very heartily desiring that thousands of people may have some faint reflection of the pleasure i have for many years derived from the contemplation of a most amiable nature and most remarkable man. with kindest regards, believe me, dear morgan, ever affectionately yours. footnotes: [ ] this and all other letters addressed to mr. h. f. chorley, were printed in "autobiography, memoir, and letters of henry fothergill chorley," compiled by mr. h. g. hewlett. [ ] sir john bowring, formerly her majesty's plenipotentiary in china, and governor of hong kong. [ ] "a message from the sea." . [sidenote: mrs. malleson.] office of "all the year round," _monday, th january, ._ my dear mrs. malleson, i am truly sorry that i cannot have the pleasure of dining with you on thursday. although i consider myself quite well, and although my doctor almost admits the fact when i indignantly tax him with it, i am not discharged. his treatment renders him very fearful that i should take cold in going to and fro; and he makes excuses, therefore (as i darkly suspect), for keeping me here until said treatment is done with. this morning he tells me he must see me "once more, on wednesday." as he has said the like for a whole week, my confidence is not blooming enough at this present writing to justify me in leaving a possibility of banquo's place at your table. hence this note. it is screwed out of me. with kind regards to mr. malleson, believe me, ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, rd january, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i am delighted to receive your letter, and to look forward with confidence to having such a successor in august. i can honestly assure you that i never have been so pleased at heart in all my literary life, as i am in the proud thought of standing side by side with you before this great audience. in regard of the story,[ ] i have perfect faith in such a master-hand as yours; and i know that what such an artist feels to be terrible and original, is unquestionably so. you whet my interest by what you write of it to the utmost extent. believe me ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: the same.] , hanover terrace, regent's park, _sunday, th april, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, my story will finish in the first week in august. yours ought to begin in the last week of july, or the last week but one. wilkie collins will be at work to follow you. the publication has made a very great success with "great expectations," and could not present a finer time for you. the question of length may be easily adjusted. of the misgiving you entertain i cannot of course judge until you give me leave to rush to the perusal. i swear that i never thought i had half so much self-denial as i have shown in this case! i think i shall come out at exeter hall as a choice vessel on the strength of it. in the meanwhile i have quickened the printer and told him to get on fast. you cannot think how happy you make me by what you write of "great expectations." there is nothing like the pride of making such an effect on such a writer as you. ever faithfully. [sidenote: the same.] , hanover terrace, regent's park, _wednesday, th may, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i am anxious to let you know that mr. frederic lehmann, who is coming down to knebworth to see you (with his sister mrs. benzon) is a particular friend of mine, for whom i have a very high and warm regard. although he will sufficiently enlist your sympathy on his own behalf, i am sure that you will not be the less interested in him because i am. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] , hanover terrace, _sunday, th may, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i received your revised proofs only yesterday, and i sat down to read them last night. and before i say anything further i may tell you that i could not lay them aside, but was obliged to go on with them in my bedroom until i got into a very ghostly state indeed. this morning i have taken them again and have gone through them with the utmost attention. of the beauty and power of the writing i say not a word, or of its originality and boldness, or of its quite extraordinary constructive skill. i confine myself solely to your misgiving, and to the question whether there is any sufficient foundation for it. on the last head i say, without the faintest hesitation, most decidedly there is not sufficient foundation for it. i do not share it in the least. i believe that the readers who have here given their minds (or perhaps had any to give) to those strange psychological mysteries in ourselves, of which we are all more or less conscious, will accept your wonders as curious weapons in the armoury of fiction, and will submit themselves to the art with which said weapons are used. even to that class of intelligence the marvellous addresses itself from a very strong position; and that class of intelligence is not accustomed to find the marvellous in such very powerful hands as yours. on more imaginative readers the tale will fall (or i am greatly mistaken) like a spell. by readers who combine some imagination, some scepticism, and some knowledge and learning, i hope it will be regarded as full of strange fancy and curious study, startling reflections of their own thoughts and speculations at odd times, and wonder which a master has a right to evoke. in the last point lies, to my thinking, the whole case. if you were the magician's servant instead of the magician, these potent spirits would get the better of you; but you _are_ the magician, and they don't, and you make them serve your purpose. occasionally in the dialogue i see an expression here and there which might--always solely with a reference to your misgiving--be better away; and i think that the vision, to use the word for want of a better--in the museum, should be made a little less abstruse. i should not say that, if the sale of the journal was below the sale of _the times_ newspaper; but as it is probably several thousands higher, i do. i would also suggest that after the title we put the two words--a romance. it is an absurdly easy device for getting over your misgiving with the blockheads, but i think it would be an effective one. i don't, on looking at it, like the title. here are a few that have occurred to me. "the steel casket." "the lost manuscript." "derval court." "perpetual youth." "maggie." "dr. fenwick." "life and death." the four last i think the best. there is an objection to "dr. fenwick" because there has been "dr. antonio," and there is a book of dumas' which repeats the objection. i don't think "fenwick" startling enough. it appears to me that a more startling title would take the (john) bull by the horns, and would be a serviceable concession to your misgiving, as suggesting a story off the stones of the gas-lighted brentford road. the title is the first thing to be settled, and cannot be settled too soon. for the purposes of the weekly publication the divisions of the story will often have to be greatly changed, though afterwards, in the complete book, you can, of course, divide it into chapters, free from that reference. for example: i would end the first chapter on the third slip at "and through the ghostly streets, under the ghostly moon, went back to my solitary room." the rest of what is now your first chapter might be made chapter ii., and would end the first weekly part. i think i have become, by dint of necessity and practice, rather cunning in this regard; and perhaps you would not mind my looking closely to such points from week to week. it so happens that if you had written the opening of this story expressly for the occasion its striking incidents could not possibly have followed one another better. one other merely mechanical change i suggest now. i would not have an initial letter for the town, but would state in the beginning that i gave the town a fictitious name. i suppose a blank or a dash rather fends a good many people off--because it always has that effect upon me. be sure that i am perfectly frank and open in all i have said in this note, and that i have not a grain of reservation in my mind. i think the story a very fine one, one that no other man could write, and that there is no strength in your misgiving for the two reasons: firstly, that the work is professedly a work of fancy and fiction, in which the reader is not required against his will to take everything for fact; secondly, that it is written by the man who can write it. the magician's servant does not know what to do with the ghost, and has, consequently, no business with him. the magician does know what to do with him, and has all the business with him that he can transact. i am quite at ease on the points that you have expressed yourself as not at ease upon. quite. i cannot too often say that if they were carried on weak shoulders they would break the bearer down. but in your mastering of them lies the mastery over the reader. this will reach you at knebworth, i hope, to-morrow afternoon. pray give your doubts to the winds of that high spot, and believe that if i had them i would swarm up the flag-staff quite as nimbly as margrave and nail the fenwick colours to the top. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: the same.] , hanover terrace, regent's park, _monday, twentieth may, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i did not read from australia till the end, because i was obliged to be hard at work that day, and thought it best that the ms. should come back to you rather than that i should detain it. of course, i _can_ read it, whenever it suits you. as to isabel's dying and fenwick's growing old, i would say that, beyond question, whatever the meaning of the story tends to, is the proper end. all the alterations you mention in your last, are excellent. as to title, "margrave, a tale of mystery," would be sufficiently striking. i prefer "wonder" to "mystery," because i think it suggests something higher and more apart from ordinary complications of plot, or the like, which "mystery" might seem to mean. will you kindly remark that the title presses, and that it will be a great relief to have it as soon as possible. the last two months of my story are our best time for announcement and preparation. of course, it is most desirable that your story should have the full benefit of them. ever faithfully. [sidenote: lady olliffe.] lord warden hotel, dover, _sunday, twenty-sixth may, ._ my dear lady olliffe, i have run away to this sea-beach to get rid of my neuralgic face. touching the kind invitations received from you this morning, i feel that the only course i can take--without being a humbug--is to decline them. after the middle of june i shall be mostly at gad's hill--i know that i cannot do better than keep out of the way of hot rooms and late dinners, and what would you think of me, or call me, if i were to accept and not come! no, no, no. be still my soul. be virtuous, eminent author. do _not_ accept, my dickens. she is to come to gad's hill with her spouse. await her _there_, my child. (thus the voice of wisdom.) my dear lady olliffe, ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mrs. milner gibson.] gad's hill, _monday, eighth july, ._ my dear mrs. gibson, i want very affectionately and earnestly to congratulate you on your eldest daughter's approaching marriage. up to the moment when mary told me of it, i had foolishly thought of her always as the pretty little girl with the frank loving face whom i saw last on the sands at broadstairs. i rubbed my eyes and woke at the words "going to be married," and found i had been walking in my sleep some years. i want to thank you also for thinking of me on the occasion, but i feel that i am better away from it. i should really have a misgiving that i was a sort of shadow on a young marriage, and you will understand me when i say so, and no more. but i shall be with you in the best part of myself, in the warmth of sympathy and friendship--and i send my love to the dear girl, and devoutly hope and believe that she will be happy. the face that i remember with perfect accuracy, and could draw here, if i could draw at all, was made to be happy and to make a husband so. i wonder whether you ever travel by railroad in these times! i wish mary could tempt you to come by any road to this little place. with kind regard to milner gibson, believe me ever, affectionately and faithfully yours. [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, seventeenth september, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i am delighted with your letter of yesterday--delighted with the addition to the length of the story--delighted with your account of it, and your interest in it--and even more than delighted by what you say of our working in company. not one dissentient voice has reached me respecting it. through the dullest time of the year we held our circulation most gallantly. and it could not have taken a better hold. i saw forster on friday (newly returned from thousands of provincial lunatics), and he really was more impressed than i can tell you by what he had seen of it. just what you say you think it will turn out to be, _he_ was saying, almost in the same words. i am burning to get at the whole story;--and you inflame me in the maddest manner by your references to what i don't know. the exquisite art with which you have changed it, and have overcome the difficulties of the mode of publication, has fairly staggered me. i know pretty well what the difficulties are; and there is no other man who could have done it, i ween. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. h. g. adams.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, sixth october, ._ my dear mr. adams, my readings are a sad subject to me just now, for i am going away on the th to read fifty times, and i have lost mr. arthur smith--a friend whom i can never replace--who always went with me, and transacted, as no other man ever can, all the business connected with them, and without whom, i fear, they will be dreary and weary to me. but this is not to the purpose of your letter. i desire to be useful to the institution of the place with which my childhood is inseparably associated, and i will serve it this next christmas if i can. will you tell me when i could do you most good by reading for you? faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. b. w. procter.] office of "all the year round," _tuesday, twelfth november, ._ my dear procter, i grieve to reply to your note, that i am obliged to read at newcastle on the st. poor arthur smith had pledged me to do so before i knew that my annual engagement with you was being encroached on. i am heartily sorry for this, and shall miss my usual place at your table, quite as much (to say the least) as my place can possibly miss me. you may be sure that i shall drink to my dear old friend in a bumper that day, with love and best wishes. don't leave me out next year for having been carried away north this time. ever yours affectionately. [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] queen's head hotel, newcastle-on-tyne, _wednesday night, twentieth november, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i have read here, this evening, very attentively, nos. and . i have not the least doubt of the introduced matter; whether considered for its policy, its beauty, or its wise bearing on the story, it is decidedly a great improvement. it is at once very suggestive and very new to have these various points of view presented to the reader's mind. that the audience is good enough for anything that is well presented to it, i am quite sure. when you can avoid _notes_, however, and get their substance into the text, it is highly desirable in the case of so large an audience, simply because, as so large an audience necessarily reads the story in small portions, it is of the greater importance that they should retain as much of its argument as possible. whereas the difficulty of getting numbers of people to read notes (which they invariably regard as interruptions of the text, not as strengtheners or elucidators of it) is wonderful. ever affectionately. [sidenote: the same.] "all the year round" office, _eighteenth december_, . my dear bulwer lytton, i have not had a moment in which to write to you. even now i write with the greatest press upon me, meaning to write in detail in a day or two. but i have _read_, at all events, though not written. and i say, most masterly and most admirable! it is impossible to lay the sheets down without finishing them. i showed them to georgina and mary, and they read and read and never stirred until they had read all. there cannot be a doubt of the beauty, power, and artistic excellence of the whole. i counsel you most strongly not to append the proposed dialogue between fenwick and faber, and not to enter upon any explanation beyond the title-page and the motto, unless it be in some very brief preface. decidedly i would not help the reader, if it were only for the reason that that anticipates his being in need of help, and his feeling objections and difficulties that require solution. let the book explain itself. it speaks _for_ itself with a noble eloquence. ever affectionately. footnote: [ ] "a strange story." . [sidenote: the same.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _friday, twenty-fourth january, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i have considered your questions, and here follow my replies. . i think you undoubtedly _have_ the right to forbid the turning of your play into an opera. . i do _not_ think the production of such an opera in the slightest degree likely to injure the play or to render it a less valuable property than it is now. if it could have any effect on so standard and popular a work as "the lady of lyons," the effect would, in my judgment, be beneficial. but i believe the play to be high above any such influence. . assuming you do consent to the adaptation, in a desire to oblige oxenford, i would not recommend your asking any pecuniary compensation. this for two reasons: firstly, because the compensation could only be small at the best; secondly, because your taking it would associate you (unreasonably, but not the less assuredly) with the opera. the only objection i descry is purely one of feeling. pauline trotting about in front of the float, invoking the orchestra with a limp pocket-handkerchief, is a notion that makes goose-flesh of my back. also a yelping tenor going away to the wars in a scene a half-an-hour long is painful to contemplate. damas, too, as a bass, with a grizzled bald head, blatently bellowing about years long ago, when the sound of the drum first made his blood glow with a rum ti tum tum-- rather sticks in my throat; but there really seems to me to be no other objection, if you can get over this. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. baylis.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, first february, ._ my dear mr. baylis, i have just come home. finding your note, i write to you at once, or you might do me the wrong of supposing me unmindful of it and you. i agree with you about smith himself, and i don't think it necessary to pursue the painful subject. such things are at an end, i think, for the time being;--fell to the ground with the poor man at cremorne. if they should be resumed, then they must be attacked; but i hope the fashion (far too much encouraged in its blondin-beginning by those who should know much better) is over. it always appears to me that the common people have an excuse in their patronage of such exhibitions which people above them in condition have not. their lives are full of physical difficulties, and they like to see such difficulties overcome. they go to see them overcome. if i am in danger of falling off a scaffold or a ladder any day, the man who claims that he can't fall from anything is a very wonderful and agreeable person to me. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. henry f. chorley.] , hyde park gate, south kensington gore, w., _saturday, st march, ._ my dear chorley, i was at your lecture[ ] this afternoon, and i hope i may venture to tell you that i was extremely pleased and interested. both the matter of the materials and the manner of their arrangement were quite admirable, and a modesty and complete absence of any kind of affectation pervaded the whole discourse, which was quite an example to the many whom it concerns. if you could be a very little louder, and would never let a sentence go for the thousandth part of an instant until the last word is out, you would find the audience more responsive. a spoken sentence will never run alone in all its life, and is never to be trusted to itself in its most insignificant member. see it _well out_--with the voice--and the part of the audience is made surprisingly easier. in that excellent description of the spanish mendicant and his guitar, as well as the very happy touches about the dance and the castanets, the people were really desirous to express very hearty appreciation; but by giving them rather too much to do in watching and listening for latter words, you stopped them. i take the liberty of making the remark, as one who has fought with beasts (oratorically) in divers arenas. for the rest nothing could be better. knowledge, ingenuity, neatness, condensation, good sense, and good taste in delightful combination. affectionately always. [sidenote: mrs. austin.] paris, rue du faubourg st. honorÃ�, , _friday, seventh november, ._ my dear letitia, i should have written to you from here sooner, but for having been constantly occupied. your improved account of yourself is very cheering and hopeful. through determined occupation and action, lies the way. be sure of it. i came over to france before georgina and mary, and went to boulogne to meet them coming in by the steamer on the great sunday--the day of the storm. i stood (holding on with both hands) on the pier at boulogne, five hours. the sub-marine telegraph had telegraphed their boat as having come out of folkestone--though the companion boat from boulogne didn't try it--and at nine o'clock at night, she being due at six, there were no signs of her. my principal dread was, that she would try to get into boulogne; which she could not possibly have done without carrying away everything on deck. the tide at nine o'clock being too low for any such desperate attempt, i thought it likely that they had run for the downs and would knock about there all night. so i went to the inn to dry my pea-jacket and get some dinner anxiously enough, when, at about ten, came a telegram from them at calais to say they had run in there. to calais i went, post, next morning, expecting to find them half-dead (of course, they had arrived half-drowned), but i found them elaborately got up to come on to paris by the next train, and the most wonderful thing of all was, that they hardly seem to have been frightened! of course, they had discovered at the end of the voyage, that a young bride and her husband, the only other passengers on deck, and with whom they had been talking all the time, were an officer from chatham whom they knew very well (when dry), just married and going to india! so they all set up house-keeping together at dessin's at calais (where i am well known), and looked as if they had been passing a mild summer there. we have a pretty apartment here, but house-rent is awful to mention. mrs. bouncer (muzzled by the parisian police) is also here, and is a wonderful spectacle to behold in the streets, restrained like a raging lion. i learn from an embassy here, that the emperor has just made an earnest proposal to our government to unite with france (and russia, if russia will) in an appeal to america to stop the brutal war. our government's answer is not yet received, but i think i clearly perceive that the proposal will be declined, on the ground "that the time has not yet come." ever affectionately. footnote: [ ] the first of the series on "national music." . [sidenote: mr. henry f. chorley.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _friday, december th, ._ my dear chorley, this is a "social science" note, touching prospective engagements. if you are obliged, as you were last year, to go away between christmas day and new year's day, then we rely upon your coming back to see the old year out. furthermore, i rely upon you for this: lady molesworth says she will come down for a day or two, and i have told her that i shall ask you to be her escort, and to arrange a time. will you take counsel with her, and arrange accordingly? after our family visitors are gone, mary is going a-hunting in hampshire; but if you and lady molesworth could make out from saturday, the th of january, as your day of coming together, or for any day between that and saturday, the th, it would be beforehand with her going and would suit me excellently. there is a new officer at the dockyard, _vice_ captain ---- (now an admiral), and i will take that opportunity of paying him and his wife the attention of asking them to dine in these gorgeous halls. for all of which reasons, if the social science congress of two could meet and arrive at a conclusion, the conclusion would be thankfully booked by the illustrious writer of these lines. on christmas eve there is a train from your own victoria station at . p.m., which will bring you to strood (rochester bridge station) in an hour, and there a majestic form will be descried in a basket. yours affectionately. . [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] lord warden hotel, dover, _sunday, th october, ._ my dear wills, i was unspeakably relieved, and most agreeably surprised to get your letter this morning. i had pictured you as lying there waiting full another week. whereas, please god, you will now come up with a wet sheet and a flowing sail--as we say in these parts. my expectations of "mrs. lirriper's" sale are not so mighty as yours, but i am heartily glad and grateful to be honestly able to believe that she is nothing but a good 'un. it is the condensation of a quantity of subjects and the very greatest pains. george russell knew nothing whatever of the slightest doubt of your being elected at the garrick. rely on my probing the matter to the bottom and ascertaining everything about it, and giving you the fullest information in ample time to decide what shall be done. don't bother yourself about it. i have spoken. on my eyes be it. as next week will not be my working-time at "our mutual friend," i shall devote the day of friday (_not_ the evening) to making up news. therefore i write to say that if you would rather stay where you are than come to london, _don't come_. i shall throw my hat into the ring at eleven, and shall receive all the punishment that can be administered by two nos. on end like a british glutton. ever. [sidenote: the same.] gad's hill, _wednesday, th november, ._ my dear wills, i found the beautiful and perfect brougham[ ] awaiting me in triumph at the station when i came down yesterday afternoon. georgina and marsh were both highly mortified that it had fallen dark, and the beauties of the carriage were obscured. but of course i had it out in the yard the first thing this morning, and got in and out at both the doors, and let down and pulled up the windows, and checked an imaginary coachman, and leaned back in a state of placid contemplation. it is the lightest and prettiest and best carriage of the class ever made. but you know that i value it for higher reasons than these. it will always be dear to me--far dearer than anything on wheels could ever be for its own sake--as a proof of your ever generous friendship and appreciation, and a memorial of a happy intercourse and a perfect confidence that have never had a break, and that surely never can have any break now (after all these years) but one. ever your faithful. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, st december, ._ my dear mary, many happy years to you and those who are near and dear to you. these and a thousand unexpressed good wishes of his heart from the humble jo. and also an earnest word of commendation of the little christmas book.[ ] very gracefully and charmingly done. the right feeling, the right touch; a very neat hand, and a very true heart. ever your affectionate. footnotes: [ ] a present from mr. wills. [ ] the book was called "woodland gossip." . [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _thursday, th july, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i am truly sorry to reply to your kind and welcome note that we cannot come to knebworth on a visit at this time: firstly, because i am tied by the leg to my book. secondly, because my married daughter and her husband are with us. thirdly, because my two boys are at home for their holidays. but if you would come out of that murky electioneering atmosphere and come to us, you don't know how delighted we should be. you should have your own way as completely as though you were at home. you should have a cheery room, and you should have a swiss châlet all to yourself to write in. _smoking regarded as a personal favour to the family._ georgina is so insupportably vain on account of being a favourite of yours, that you might find _her_ a drawback; but nothing else would turn out in that way, i hope. _won't_ you manage it? _do_ think of it. if, for instance, you would come back with us on that guild saturday. i have turned the house upside down and inside out since you were here, and have carved new rooms out of places then non-existent. pray do think of it, and do manage it. i should be heartily pleased. i hope you will find the purpose and the plot of my book very plain when you see it as a whole piece. i am looking forward to sending you the proofs complete about the end of next month. it is all sketched out and i am working hard on it, giving it all the pains possible to be bestowed on a labour of love. your critical opinion two months in advance of the public will be invaluable to me. for you know what store i set by it, and how i think over a hint from you. i notice the latest piece of poisoning ingenuity in pritchard's case. when he had made his medical student boarders sick, by poisoning the family food, he then quietly walked out, took an emetic, and made himself sick. this with a view to ask them, in examination on a possible trial, whether he did not present symptoms at the time like the rest?--a question naturally asked for him and answered in the affirmative. from which i get at the fact. if your constituency don't bring you in they deserve to lose you, and may the gods continue to confound them! i shudder at the thought of such public life as political life. would there not seem to be something horribly rotten in the system of it, when one stands amazed how any man--not forced into it by position, as you are--can bear to live it? but the private life here is my point, and again i urge upon you. do think of it, and do come. i want to tell you how i have been impressed by the "boatman." it haunts me as only a beautiful and profound thing can. the lines are always running in my head, as the river runs with me. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. henry f. chorley.] office of "all the year round," no. , wellington street, strand, w.c., _saturday, th of october, ._ my dear chorley, i find your letter here only to-day. i shall be delighted to dine with you on tuesday, the th, but i cannot answer for mary, as she is staying with the lehmanns. to the best of my belief, she is coming to gad's this evening to dine with a neighbour. in that case, she will immediately answer for herself. i have seen the _athenæum_, and most heartily and earnestly thank you. trust me, there is nothing i could have wished away, and all that i read there affects and delights me. i feel so generous an appreciation and sympathy so very strongly, that if i were to try to write more, i should blur the words by seeing them dimly. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mrs. procter.] gad's hill, _sunday, th october, ._ my dear mrs. procter, the beautiful table-cover was a most cheering surprise to me when i came home last night, and i lost not a moment in finding a table for it, where it stands in a beautiful light and a perfect situation. accept my heartiest thanks for a present on which i shall set a peculiar and particular value. enclosed is the ms. of the introduction.[ ] the printers have cut it across and mended it again, because i always expect them to be quick, and so they distribute my "copy" among several hands, and apparently not very clean ones in this instance. odd as the poor butcher's feeling appears, i think i can understand it. much as he would not have liked his boy's grave to be without a tombstone, had he died ashore and had a grave, so he can't bear him to drift to the depths of the ocean unrecorded. my love to procter. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. b. rye.[ ]] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _friday, rd november, ._ dear sir, i beg you to accept my cordial thanks for your curious "visits to rochester." as i peeped about its old corners with interest and wonder when i was a very little child, few people can find a greater charm in that ancient city than i do. believe me, yours faithfully and obliged. footnotes: [ ] written by charles dickens for a new edition of miss adelaide procter's poems, which was published after her death. [ ] late keeper of printed books at the british museum, now of exeter. . [sidenote: mr. forster.] office of "all the year round," _friday, th january, ._ my dear forster, i most heartily hope that your doleful apprehensions will prove unfounded. these changes from muggy weather to slight sharp frost, and back again, touch weak places, as i find by my own foot; but the touch goes by. may it prove so with you! yesterday captain ----, captain ----, and captain ----, dined at gad's. they are, all three, naval officers of the highest reputation. ---- is supposed to be the best sailor in our service. i said i had been remarking at home, _à propos_ of the _london_, that i knew of no shipwreck of a large strong ship (not carrying weight of guns) in the open sea, and that i could find none such in the shipwreck books. they all agreed that the unfortunate captain martin _must_ have been unacquainted with the truth as to what can and what can not be done with a steamship having rigging and canvas; and that no sailor would dream of turning a ship's stern to such a gale--_unless his vessel could run faster than the sea_. ---- said (and the other two confirmed) that the _london_ was the better for everything that she lost aloft in such a gale, and that with her head kept to the wind by means of a storm topsail--which is hoisted from the deck and requires no man to be sent aloft, and can be set under the worst circumstances--the disaster could not have occurred. if he had no such sail, he could have improvised it, even of hammocks and the like. they said that under a board of enquiry into the wreck, any efficient witness must of necessity state this as the fact, and could not possibly avoid the conclusion that the seamanship was utterly bad; and as to the force of the wind, for which i suggested allowance, they all had been in west indian hurricanes and in typhoons, and had put the heads of their ships to the wind under the most adverse circumstances. i thought you might be interested in this, as you have no doubt been interested in the case. they had a great respect for the unfortunate captain's character, and for his behaviour when the case was hopeless, but they had not the faintest doubt that he lost the ship and those two hundred and odd lives. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. r. m. ross.[ ]] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, th february, ._ dear sir, i have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your obliging letter enclosing a copy of the resolution passed by the members of the st. george club on my last past birthday. do me the kindness to assure those friends of mine that i am touched to the heart by their affectionate remembrance, and that i highly esteem it. to have established such relations with readers of my books is a great happiness to me, and one that i hope never to forfeit by being otherwise than manfully and truly in earnest in my vocation. i am, dear sir, your faithful servant. [sidenote: mr. r. browning.] , southwick place, hyde park, _monday, th march, ._ my dear browning,[ ] will you dine here next sunday at half-past six punctually, instead of with forster? i am going to read thirty times, in london and elsewhere, and as i am coming out with "doctor marigold," i had written to ask forster to come on sunday and hear me sketch him. forster says (with his own boldness) that he is sure it would not bore you to have that taste of his quality after dinner. i should be delighted if this should prove true. but i give warning that in that case i shall exact a promise from you to come to st. james's hall one evening in april or may, and hear "david copperfield," my own particular favourite. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: lord lytton.] gad's hill, _monday, th july, ._ my dear lytton, first, let me congratulate you on the honour which lord derby has conferred upon the peerage. and next, let me thank you heartily for your kind letter. i am very sorry to report that we are so encumbered with engagements in the way of visitors coming here that we cannot see our way to getting to knebworth yet. mary and georgina send you their kind regard, and hope that the delight of coming to see you is only deferred. fitzgerald will be so proud of your opinion of his "mrs. tillotson," and will (i know) derive such great encouragement from it that i have faithfully quoted it, word for word, and sent it on to him in ireland. he is a very clever fellow (you may remember, perhaps, that i brought him to knebworth on the guild day) and has charming sisters and an excellent position. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. rusden.[ ]] _september, ._ my dear sir, again i have to thank you very heartily for your kindness in writing to me about my son. the intelligence you send me concerning him is a great relief and satisfaction to my mind, and i cannot separate those feelings from a truly grateful recognition of the advice and assistance for which he is much beholden to you, or from his strong desire to deserve your good opinion. believe me always, my dear sir, your faithful and truly obliged. [sidenote: anonymous.] gad's hill, _thursday, th december, ._ dear madam,[ ] you make an absurd, though common mistake, in supposing that any human creature can help you to be an authoress, if you cannot become one in virtue of your own powers. i know nothing about "impenetrable barrier," "outsiders," and "charmed circles." i know that anyone who can write what is suitable to the requirements of my own journal--for instance--is a person i am heartily glad to discover, and do not very often find. and i believe this to be no rare case in periodical literature. i cannot undertake to advise you in the abstract, as i number my unknown correspondents by the hundred. but if you offer anything to me for insertion in "all the year round," you may be sure that it will be honestly read, and that it will be judged by no test but its own merits and adaptability to those pages. but i am bound to add that i do not regard successful fiction as a thing to be achieved in "leisure moments." faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] the honorary secretary of the st. george club, manchester. [ ] robert browning, the poet, a dear and valued friend. [ ] mr. rusden was, at this time, clerk to the house of parliament, in melbourne. he was the kindest of friends to the two sons of charles dickens, in australia, from the time that the elder of the two first went out there. and charles dickens had the most grateful regard for him, and maintained a frequent correspondence with him--as a friend--although they never saw each other. [ ] anonymous. . [sidenote: hon. robert lytton.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, th april, ._ my dear robert lytton,[ ] it would have been really painful to me, if i had seen you and yours at a reading of mine in right of any other credentials than my own. your appreciation has given me higher and purer gratification than your modesty can readily believe. when i first entered on this interpretation of myself (then quite strange in the public ear) i was sustained by the hope that i could drop into some hearts, some new expression of the meaning of my books, that would touch them in a new way. to this hour that purpose is so strong in me, and so real are my fictions to myself, that, after hundreds of nights, i come with a feeling of perfect freshness to that little red table, and laugh and cry with my hearers, as if i had never stood there before. you will know from this what a delight it is to be delicately understood, and why your earnest words cannot fail to move me. we are delighted to be remembered by your charming wife, and i am entrusted with more messages from this house to her, than you would care to give or withhold, so i suppress them myself and absolve you from the difficulty. affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. henry w. phillips.] gad's hill, _thursday, th april, ._ my dear mr. phillips,[ ] although i think the scheme has many good points, i have this doubt: would boys so maintained at any one of our great public schools stand at a decided disadvantage towards boys not so maintained? foundation scholars, in many cases, win their way into public schools and so enforce respect and even assert superiority. in many other cases their patron is a remote and misty person, or institution, sanctioned by time and custom. but the proposed position would be a very different one for a student to hold, and boys are too often inconsiderate, proud, and cruel. i should like to know whether this point has received consideration from the projectors of the design? faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. henry f. chorley.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, june nd, ._ my dear chorley, thank god i have come triumphantly through the heavy work of the fifty-one readings, and am wonderfully fresh. i grieve to hear of your sad occupation. you know where to find rest, and quiet, and sympathy, when you can change the dreary scene. i saw poor dear stanfield (on a hint from his eldest son) in a day's interval between two expeditions. it was clear that the shadow of the end had fallen on him. it happened well that i had seen, on a wild day at tynemouth, a remarkable sea-effect, of which i wrote a description to him, and he had kept it under his pillow. this place is looking very pretty. the freshness and repose of it, after all those thousands of gas-lighted faces, sink into the soul.[ ] [sidenote: mr. james t. fields.] _september rd, ._ my dear fields,[ ] your cheering letter of the st of august arrived here this morning. a thousand thanks for it. i begin to think (nautically) that i "head west'ard." you shall hear from me fully and finally as soon as dolby shall have reported personally. the other day i received a letter from mr. ----, of new york (who came over in the winning yacht, and described the voyage in _the times_), saying he would much like to see me. i made an appointment in london, and observed that when he _did_ see me he was obviously astonished. while i was sensible that the magnificence of my appearance would fully account for his being overcome, i nevertheless angled for the cause of his surprise. he then told me that there was a paragraph going round the papers to the effect that i was "in a critical state of health." i asked him if he was sure it wasn't "cricketing" state of health. to which he replied, quite. i then asked him down here to dinner, and he was again staggered by finding me in sporting training; also much amused. yesterday's and to-day's post bring me this unaccountable paragraph from hosts of uneasy friends, with the enormous and wonderful addition that "eminent surgeons" are sending me to america for "cessation from literary labour"!!! so i have written a quiet line to _the times_, certifying to my own state of health, and have also begged dixon to do the like in _the athenæum_. i mention the matter to you, in order that you may contradict, from me, if the nonsense should reach america unaccompanied by the truth. but i suppose that _the new york herald_ will probably have got the letter from mr. ---- aforesaid. . . . charles reade and wilkie collins are here; and the joke of the time is to feel my pulse when i appear at table, and also to inveigle innocent messengers to come over to the summer-house, where i write (the place is quite changed since you were here, and a tunnel under the highroad connects this shrubbery with the front garden), to ask, with their compliments, how i find myself _now_. if i come to america this next november, even you can hardly imagine with what interest i shall try copperfield on an american audience, or, if they give me their heart, how freely and fully i shall give them mine. we will ask dolby then whether he ever heard it before. i cannot thank you enough for your invaluable help to dolby. he writes that at every turn and moment the sense and knowledge and tact of mr. osgood are inestimable to him. ever, my dear fields, faithfully yours. [sidenote: lord lytton.] "all the year round" office, _tuesday, th september, ._ my dear lytton, i am happy to tell you that the play was admirably done last night, and made a marked impression. pauline is weak, but so carefully trained and fitted into the picture as to be never disagreeable, and sometimes (as in the last scene) very pathetic. fechter has played nothing nearly so well as claude since he played in paris in the "dame aux camélias," or in london as ruy blas. he played the fourth act as finely as macready, and the first much better. the dress and bearing in the fifth act are quite new, and quite excellent. of the scenic arrangements, the most noticeable are:--the picturesque struggle of the cottage between the taste of an artist, and the domestic means of poverty (expressed to the eye with infinite tact);--the view of lyons (act v. scene ), with a foreground of quay wall which the officers are leaning on, waiting for the general;--and the last scene--a suite of rooms giving on a conservatory at the back, through which the moon is shining. you are to understand that all these scenic appliances are subdued to the piece, instead of the piece being sacrificed to them; and that every group and situation has to be considered, not only with a reference to each by itself, but to the whole story. beauséant's speaking the original contents of the letter was a decided point, and the immense house was quite breathless when the tempter and the tempted stood confronted as he made the proposal. there was obviously a great interest in seeing a frenchman play the part. the scene between claude and gaspar (the small part very well done) was very closely watched for the same reason, and was loudly applauded. i cannot say too much of the brightness, intelligence, picturesqueness, and care of fechter's impersonation throughout. there was a remarkable delicacy in his gradually drooping down on his way home with his bride, until he fell upon the table, a crushed heap of shame and remorse, while his mother told pauline the story. his gradual recovery of himself as he formed better resolutions was equally well expressed; and his being at last upright again and rushing enthusiastically to join the army, brought the house down. i wish you could have been there. he never spoke english half so well as he spoke your english; and the audience heard it with the finest sympathy and respect. i felt that i should have been very proud indeed to have been the writer of the play. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. james t. fields.] [ ]_october, ._ my dear fields, i hope the telegraph clerks did not mutilate out of recognition or reasonable guess the words i added to dolby's last telegram to boston. "_tribune_ london correspondent totally false." not only is there not a word of truth in the pretended conversation, but it is so absurdly unlike me that i cannot suppose it to be even invented by anyone who ever heard me exchange a word with mortal creature. for twenty years i am perfectly certain that i have never made any other allusion to the republication of my books in america than the good-humoured remark, "that if there had been international copyright between england and the states, i should have been a man of very large fortune, instead of a man of moderate savings, always supporting a very expensive public position." nor have i ever been such a fool as to charge the absence of international copyright upon individuals. nor have i ever been so ungenerous as to disguise or suppress the fact that i have received handsome sums for advance sheets. when i was in the states, i said what i had to say on the question, and there an end. i am absolutely certain that i have never since expressed myself, even with soreness, on the subject. reverting to the preposterous fabrication of the london correspondent, the statement that i ever talked about "these fellows" who republished my books or pretended to know (what i don't know at this instant) who made how much out of them, or ever talked of their sending me "conscience money," is as grossly and completely false as the statement that i ever said anything to the effect that i could not be expected to have an interest in the american people. and nothing can by any possibility be falser than that. again and again in these pages ("all the year round") i have expressed my interest in them. you will see it in the "child's history of england." you will see it in the last preface to "american notes." every american who has ever spoken with me in london, paris, or where not, knows whether i have frankly said, "you could have no better introduction to me than your country." and for years and years when i have been asked about reading in america, my invariable reply has been, "i have so many friends there, and constantly receive so many earnest letters from personally unknown readers there, that, but for domestic reasons, i would go to-morrow." i think i must, in the confidential intercourse between you and me, have written you to this effect more than once. the statement of the london correspondent from beginning to end is false. it is false in the letter and false in the spirit. he may have been misinformed, and the statement may not have originated with him. with whomsoever it originated, it never originated with me, and consequently is false. more than enough about it. as i hope to see you so soon, my dear fields, and as i am busily at work on the christmas number, i will not make this a longer letter than i can help. i thank you most heartily for your proffered hospitality, and need not tell you that if i went to any friend's house in america, i would go to yours. but the readings are very hard work, and i think i cannot do better than observe the rule on that side of the atlantic which i observe on this, of never, under such circumstances, going to a friend's house, but always staying at a hotel. i am able to observe it here, by being consistent and never breaking it. if i am equally consistent there, i can (i hope) offend no one. dolby sends his love to you and all his friends (as i do), and is girding up his loins vigorously. ever, my dear fields, heartily and affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. thornbury.] gad's hill, _saturday, th october, ._ my dear thornbury, behold the best of my judgment on your questions.[ ] susan hopley and jonathan bradford? no. too well known. london strikes and spitalfields cutters? yes. fighting fitzgerald? never mind him. duel of lord mohun and duke of hamilton? ye-e-es. irish abductions? i think not. brunswick theatre? more yes than no. theatrical farewells? yes. bow street runners (as compared with modern detectives)? yes. vauxhall and ranelagh in the last century? most decidedly. don't forget miss burney. smugglers? no. overdone. lacenaire? no. ditto. madame laffarge? no. ditto. fashionable life last century? most decidedly yes. debates on the slave trade? yes, generally. but beware of the pirates, as we did them in the beginning of "household words." certainly i acquit you of all blame in the bedford case. but one cannot do otherwise than sympathise with a son who is reasonably tender of his father's memory. and no amount of private correspondence, we must remember, reaches the readers of a printed and published statement. i told you some time ago that i believed the arsenic in eliza fenning's case to have been administered by the apprentice. i never was more convinced of anything in my life than of the girl's innocence, and i want words in which to express my indignation at the muddle-headed story of that parsonic blunderer whose audacity and conceit distorted some words that fell from her in the last days of her baiting. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: lord lytton.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, th october, ._ my dear lytton, i am truly delighted to find that you are so well pleased with fechter in "the lady of lyons." it was a labour of love with him, and i hold him in very high regard. _don't_ give way to laziness, and _do_ proceed with that play. there never was a time when a good new play was more wanted, or had a better opening for itself. fechter is a thorough artist, and what he may sometimes want in personal force is compensated by the admirable whole he can make of a play, and his perfect understanding of its presentation as a picture to the eye and mind. i leave london on the th of november early, and sail from liverpool on the th. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: the same.] "all the year round" office, _friday, th october, ._ my dear lytton, i have read the play[ ] with great attention, interest, and admiration; and i need not say to _you_ that the art of it--the fine construction--the exquisite nicety of the touches--with which it is wrought out--have been a study to me in the pursuit of which i have had extraordinary relish. taking the play as it stands, i have nothing whatever to add to your notes and memoranda of the points to be touched again, except that i have a little uneasiness in that burst of anger and inflexibility consequent on having been deceived, coming out of hegio. i see the kind of actor who _must_ play hegio, and i see that the audience will not believe in his doing anything so serious. (i suppose it would be impossible to get this effect out of the mother--or through the mother's influence, instead of out of the godfather of hegiopolis?) now, as to the classical ground and manners of the play. i suppose the objection to the greek dress to be already--as defoe would write it, "gotten over" by your suggestion. i suppose the dress not to be conventionally associated with stilts and boredom, but to be new to the public eye and very picturesque. grant all that;--the names remain. now, not only used such names to be inseparable in the public mind from stately weariness, but of late days they have become inseparable in the same public mind from silly puns upon the names, and from burlesque. you do not know (i hope, at least, for my friend's sake) what the strand theatre is. a greek name and a break-down nigger dance, have become inseparable there. i do not mean to say that your genius may not be too powerful for such associations; but i do most positively mean to say that you would lose half the play in overcoming them. at the best you would have to contend against them through the first three acts. the old tendency to become frozen on classical ground would be in the best part of the audience; the new tendency to titter on such ground would be in the worst part. and instead of starting fair with the audience, it is my conviction that you would start with them against you and would have to win them over. furthermore, with reference to your note to me on this head, you take up a position with reference to poor dear talfourd's "ion" which i altogether dispute. it never was a popular play, i say. it derived a certain amount of out-of-door's popularity from the circumstances under which, and the man by whom, it was written. but i say that it never was a popular play on the stage, and never made out a case of attraction there. as to changing the ground to russia, let me ask you, did you ever see the "nouvelles russes" of nicolas gogol, translated into french by louis viardot? there is a story among them called "tarass boulla," in which, as it seems to me, all the conditions you want for such transplantation are to be found. so changed, you would have the popular sympathy with the slave or serf, or prisoner of war, from the first. but i do not think it is to be got, save at great hazard, and with lamentable waste of force on the ground the play now occupies. i shall keep this note until to-morrow to correct my conviction if i can see the least reason for correcting it; but i feel very confident indeed that i cannot be shaken in it. * * * * * _saturday._ i have thought it over again, and have gone over the play again with an imaginary stage and actors before me, and i am still of the same mind. shall i keep the ms. till you come to town? believe me, ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. fechter.] parker house, boston, _ rd december, ._ my dear fechter, i have been very uneasy about you, seeing in the paper that you were taken ill on the stage. but a letter from georgy this morning reassures me by giving me a splendid account of your triumphant last night at the lyceum. i hope to bring out our play[ ] with wallack in new york, and to have it played in many other parts of the states. i have sent to wilkie for models, etc. if i waited for time to do more than write you my love, i should miss the mail to-morrow. take my love, then, my dear fellow, and believe me ever your affectionate. footnotes: [ ] the hon. robert lytton--now the earl of lytton--in literature well known as "owen meredith." [ ] mr. henry w. phillips, at this time secretary of the artists' general benevolent society. he was eager to establish some educational system in connection with that institution. [ ] the remainder has been cut off for the signature. [ ] this and all other letters to mr. j. t. fields were printed in mr. fields' "in and out of doors with charles dickens." [ ] a ridiculous paragraph in the papers following close on the public announcement that charles dickens was coming to america in november, drew from him this letter to mr. fields, dated early in october. [ ] as to subjects for articles in "all the year round." [ ] the play referred to is founded on the "captives" of plautus, and is entitled "the captives." it has never been acted or published. [ ] "no thoroughfare." . _ rd february, ._ [ ]articles of agreement entered into at baltimore, in the united states of america, this third day of february in the year of our lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, between ---- ----, british subject, _alias_ the man of ross, and ---- ---- ----, american citizen, _alias_ the boston bantam. whereas, some bounce having arisen between the above men in reference to feats of pedestrianism and agility, they have agreed to settle their differences and prove who is the better man, by means of a walking-match for two hats a side and the glory of their respective countries; and whereas they agree that the said match shall come off, whatsoever the weather, on the mill dam road outside boston, on saturday, the twenty-ninth day of this present month; and whereas they agree that the personal attendants on themselves during the whole walk, and also the umpires and starters and declarers of victory in the match shall be ---- ---- of boston, known in sporting circles as massachusetts jemmy, and charles dickens of falstaff's gad's hill, whose surprising performances (without the least variation) on that truly national instrument, the american catarrh, have won for him the well-merited title of the gad's hill gasper: . the men are to be started, on the day appointed, by massachusetts jemmy and the gasper. . jemmy and the gasper are, on some previous day, to walk out at the rate of not less than four miles an hour by the gasper's watch, for one hour and a half. at the expiration of that one hour and a half they are to carefully note the place at which they halt. on the match's coming off they are to station themselves in the middle of the road, at that precise point, and the men (keeping clear of them and of each other) are to turn round them, right shoulder inward, and walk back to the starting-point. the man declared by them to pass the starting-point first is to be the victor and the winner of the match. . no jostling or fouling allowed. . all cautions or orders issued to the men by the umpires, starters, and declarers of victory to be considered final and admitting of no appeal. a sporting narrative of the match to be written by the gasper within one week after its coming off, and the same to be duly printed (at the expense of the subscribers to these articles) on a broadside. the said broadside to be framed and glazed, and one copy of the same to be carefully preserved by each of the subscribers to these articles. . the men to show on the evening of the day of walking at six o'clock precisely, at the parker house, boston, when and where a dinner will be given them by the gasper. the gasper to occupy the chair, faced by massachusetts jemmy. the latter promptly and formally to invite, as soon as may be after the date of these presents, the following guests to honour the said dinner with their presence; that is to say [here follow the names of a few of his friends, whom he wished to be invited]. now, lastly. in token of their accepting the trusts and offices by these articles conferred upon them, these articles are solemnly and formally signed by massachusetts jemmy and by the gad's hill gasper, as well as by the men themselves. signed by the man of ross, otherwise ----. signed by the boston bantam, otherwise ----. signed by massachusetts jemmy, otherwise ----. signed by the gad's hill gasper, otherwise charles dickens. witness to the signatures, ----. [sidenote: mr. charles lanman.] washington, _february th, ._ my dear sir, allow me to thank you most cordially for your kind letter, and for its accompanying books. i have a particular love for books of travel, and shall wander into the "wilds of america" with great interest. i have also received your charming sketch with great pleasure and admiration. let me thank you for it heartily. as a beautiful suggestion of nature associated with this country, it shall have a quiet place on the walls of my house as long as i live. your reference to my dear friend washington irving renews the vivid impressions reawakened in my mind at baltimore the other day. i saw his fine face for the last time in that city. he came there from new york to pass a day or two with me before i went westward, and they were made among the most memorable of my life by his delightful fancy and genial humour. some unknown admirer of his books and mine sent to the hotel a most enormous mint julep, wreathed with flowers. we sat, one on either side of it, with great solemnity (it filled a respectable-sized paper), but the solemnity was of very short duration. it was quite an enchanted julep, and carried us among innumerable people and places that we both knew. the julep held out far into the night, and my memory never saw him afterward otherwise than as bending over it, with his straw, with an attempted gravity (after some anecdote, involving some wonderfully droll and delicate observation of character), and then, as his eyes caught mine, melting into that captivating laugh of his which was the brightest and best i have ever heard. dear sir, with many thanks, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. pease.] baltimore, _ th february, ._ dear madam, mr. dolby has _not_ come between us, and i have received your letter. my answer to it is, unfortunately, brief. i am not coming to cleveland or near it. every evening on which i can possibly read during the remainder of my stay in the states is arranged for, and the fates divide me from "the big woman with two smaller ones in tow." so i send her my love (to be shared in by the two smaller ones, if she approve--but not otherwise), and seriously assure her that her pleasant letter has been most welcome. dear madam, faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mr. james t. fields.] aboard the "russia," bound for liverpool, _sunday, th april, ._ my dear fields, in order that you may have the earliest intelligence of me, i begin this note to-day in my small cabin, purposing (if it should prove practicable) to post it at queenstown for the return steamer. we are already past the banks of newfoundland, although our course was seventy miles to the south, with the view of avoiding ice seen by judkins in the _scotia_ on his passage out to new york. the _russia_ is a magnificent ship, and has dashed along bravely. we had made more than thirteen hundred and odd miles at noon to-day. the wind, after being a little capricious, rather threatens at the present time to turn against us, but our run is already eighty miles ahead of the _russia's_ last run in this direction--a very fast one. . . . to all whom it may concern, report the _russia_ in the highest terms. she rolls more easily than the other cunard screws, is kept in perfect order, and is most carefully looked after in all departments. we have had nothing approaching to heavy weather, still one can speak to the trim of the ship. her captain, a gentleman; bright, polite, good-natured, and vigilant. . . . as to me, i am greatly better, i hope. i have got on my right boot to-day for the first time; the "true american" seems to be turning faithless at last; and i made a gad's hill breakfast this morning, as a further advance on having otherwise eaten and drunk all day ever since wednesday. you will see anthony trollope, i daresay. what was my amazement to see him with these eyes come aboard in the mail tender just before we started! he had come out in the _scotia_ just in time to dash off again in said tender to shake hands with me, knowing me to be aboard here. it was most heartily done. he is on a special mission of convention with the united states post-office. we have been picturing your movements, and have duly checked off your journey home, and have talked about you continually. but i have thought about you both, even much, much more. you will never know how i love you both; or what you have been to me in america, and will always be to me everywhere; or how fervently i thank you. all the working of the ship seems to be done on my forehead. it is scrubbed and holystoned (my head--not the deck) at three every morning. it is scraped and swabbed all day. eight pairs of heavy boots are now clattering on it, getting the ship under sail again. legions of ropes'-ends are flopped upon it as i write, and i must leave off with dolby's love. * * * * * _thursday, th._ soon after i left off as above we had a gale of wind which blew all night. for a few hours on the evening side of midnight there was no getting from this cabin of mine to the saloon, or _vice versâ_, so heavily did the sea break over the decks. the ship, however, made nothing of it, and we were all right again by monday afternoon. except for a few hours yesterday (when we had a very light head-wind), the weather has been constantly favourable, and we are now bowling away at a great rate, with a fresh breeze filling all our sails. we expect to be at queenstown between midnight and three in the morning. i hope, my dear fields, you may find this legible, but i rather doubt it, for there is motion enough on the ship to render writing to a landsman, however accustomed to pen and ink, rather a difficult achievement. besides which, i slide away gracefully from the paper, whenever i want to be particularly expressive. . . . ----, sitting opposite to me at breakfast, always has the following items: a large dish of porridge into which he casts slices of butter and a quantity of sugar. two cups of tea. a steak. irish stew. chutnee and marmalade. another deputation of two has solicited a reading to-night. illustrious novelist has unconditionally and absolutely declined. more love, and more to that, from your ever affectionate friend. [sidenote: the same.] "all the year round" office, _may th, ._ my dear fields, i have found it so extremely difficult to write about america (though never so briefly) without appearing to blow trumpets on the one hand, or to be inconsistent with my avowed determination _not_ to write about it on the other, that i have taken the simple course enclosed. the number will be published on the th of june. it appears to me to be the most modest and manly course, and to derive some graceful significance from its title. thank my dear mrs. fields for me for her delightful letter received on the th. i will write to her very soon, and tell her about the dogs. i would write by this post, but that wills' absence (in sussex, and getting no better there as yet) so overwhelms me with business that i can scarcely get through it. miss me? ah, my dear fellow, but how do i miss _you_! we talk about you both at gad's hill every day of our lives. and i never see the place looking very pretty indeed, or hear the birds sing all day long and the nightingales all night, without restlessly wishing that you were both there. with best love, and truest and most enduring regard, ever, my dear fields, your most affectionate. . . . i hope you will receive by saturday's cunard a case containing: . a trifling supply of the pen-knibs that suited your hand. . a do. of unfailing medicine for cockroaches. . mrs. gamp, for ----. the case is addressed to you at bleecker street, new york. if it should be delayed for the knibs (or nibs) promised to-morrow, and should be too late for the cunard packet, it will in that case come by the next following inman steamer. everything here looks lovely, and i find it (you will be surprised to hear) really a pretty place! i have seen "no thoroughfare" twice. excellent things in it, but it drags to my thinking. it is, however, a great success in the country, and is now getting up with great force in paris. fechter is ill, and was ordered off to brighton yesterday. wills is ill too, and banished into sussex for perfect rest. otherwise, thank god, i find everything well and thriving. you and my dear mrs. fields are constantly in my mind. procter greatly better. [sidenote: mr. fechter.] office of "all the year round," _friday, nd may, ._ my dear fechter, i have an idea about the bedroom act, which i should certainly have suggested if i had been at our "repetitions" here.[ ] i want it done _to the sound of the waterfall_. i want the sound of the waterfall louder and softer as the wind rises and falls, to be spoken through--like the music. i want the waterfall _listened to when spoken of, and not looked out at_. the mystery and gloom of the scene would be greatly helped by this, and it would be new and picturesquely fanciful. i am very anxious to hear from you how the piece seems to go,[ ] and how the artists, who are to act it, seem to understand their parts. pray tell me, too, when you write, how you found madame fechter, and give all our loves to all. ever heartily yours. [sidenote: mrs. james t. fields.] gad's hill, higham by rochester, kent, _ th may, ._ my dear mrs. fields, as you ask me about the dogs, i begin with them. when i came down first, i came to gravesend, five miles off. the two newfoundland dogs, coming to meet me with the usual carriage and the usual driver, and beholding me coming in my usual dress out at the usual door, it struck me that their recollection of my having been absent for any unusual time was at once cancelled. they behaved (they are both young dogs) exactly in their usual manner; coming behind the basket phaeton as we trotted along, and lifting their heads to have their ears pulled--a special attention which they receive from no one else. but when i drove into the stable-yard, linda (the st. bernard) was greatly excited; weeping profusely, and throwing herself on her back that she might caress my foot with her great fore-paws. mamie's little dog, too, mrs. bouncer, barked in the greatest agitation on being called down and asked by mamie, "who is this?" and tore round and round me, like the dog in the faust outlines. you must know that all the farmers turned out on the road in their market-chaises to say, "welcome home, sir!" and that all the houses along the road were dressed with flags; and that our servants, to cut out the rest, had dressed this house so that every brick of it was hidden. they had asked mamie's permission to "ring the alarm-bell" (!) when master drove up, but mamie, having some slight idea that that compliment might awaken master's sense of the ludicrous, had recommended bell abstinence. but on sunday the village choir (which includes the bell-ringers) made amends. after some unusually brief pious reflections in the crowns of their hats at the end of the sermon, the ringers bolted out, and rang like mad until i got home. there had been a conspiracy among the villagers to take the horse out, if i had come to our own station, and draw me here. mamie and georgy had got wind of it and warned me. divers birds sing here all day, and the nightingales all night. the place is lovely, and in perfect order. i have put five mirrors in the swiss châlet (where i write) and they reflect and refract in all kinds of ways the leaves that are quivering at the windows, and the great fields of waving corn, and the sail-dotted river. my room is up among the branches of the trees; and the birds and the butterflies fly in and out, and the green branches shoot in, at the open windows, and the lights and shadows of the clouds come and go with the rest of the company. the scent of the flowers, and indeed of everything that is growing for miles and miles, is most delicious. dolby (who sends a world of messages) found his wife much better than he expected, and the children (wonderful to relate!) perfect. the little girl winds up her prayers every night with a special commendation to heaven of me and the pony--as if i must mount him to get there! i dine with dolby (i was going to write "him," but found it would look as if i were going to dine with the pony) at greenwich this very day, and if your ears do not burn from six to nine this evening, then the atlantic is a non-conductor. we are already settling--think of this!--the details of my farewell course of readings. i am brown beyond belief, and cause the greatest disappointment in all quarters by looking so well. it is really wonderful what those fine days at sea did for me! my doctor was quite broken down in spirits when he saw me, for the first time since my return, last saturday. "good lord!" he said, recoiling, "seven years younger!" it is time i should explain the otherwise inexplicable enclosure. will you tell fields, with my love (i suppose he hasn't used _all_ the pens yet?), that i think there is in tremont street a set of my books, sent out by chapman, not arrived when i departed. such set of the immortal works of our illustrious, etc., is designed for the gentleman to whom the enclosure is addressed. if t., f. and co., will kindly forward the set (carriage paid) with the enclosure to ----'s address, i will invoke new blessings on their heads, and will get dolby's little daughter to mention them nightly. "no thoroughfare" is very shortly coming out in paris, where it is now in active rehearsal. it is still playing here, but without fechter, who has been very ill. the doctor's dismissal of him to paris, however, and his getting better there, enables him to get up the play there. he and wilkie missed so many pieces of stage-effect here, that, unless i am quite satisfied with his report, i shall go over and try my stage-managerial hand at the vaudeville theatre. i particularly want the drugging and attempted robbing in the bedroom scene at the swiss inn to be done to the sound of a waterfall rising and falling with the wind. although in the very opening of that scene they speak of the waterfall and listen to it, nobody thought of its mysterious music. i could make it, with a good stage-carpenter, in an hour. my dear love to fields once again. same to you and him from mamie and georgy. i cannot tell you both how i miss you, or how overjoyed i should be to see you here. ever, my dear mrs. fields, your most affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. alexander ireland.] the athenÃ�um, _saturday, th may, ._ dear mr. ireland, many thanks for the book[ ] you have kindly lent me. my interest in its subject is scarcely less than your own, and the book has afforded me great pleasure. i hope it will prove a very useful tribute to hazlett and hunt (in extending the general knowledge of their writings), as well as a deservedly hearty and loving one. you gratify me much by your appreciation of my desire to promote the kindest feelings between england and america. but the writer of the generous article in _the manchester examiner_ is quite mistaken in supposing that i intend to write a book on the united states. the fact is exactly the reverse, or i could not have spoken without some appearance of having a purpose to serve. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. james t. fields.] gad's hill place, _tuesday, th july, ._ my dear fields, i have delayed writing to you (and mrs. fields, to whom my love) until i should have seen longfellow. when he was in london the first time he came and went without reporting himself, and left me in a state of unspeakable discomfiture. indeed, i should not have believed in his having been here at all, if mrs. procter had not told me of his calling to see procter. however, on his return he wrote to me from the langham hotel, and i went up to town to see him, and to make an appointment for his coming here. he, the girls, and appleton, came down last saturday night and stayed until monday forenoon. i showed them all the neighbouring country that could be shown in so short a time, and they finished off with a tour of inspection of the kitchens, pantry, wine-cellar, pickles, sauces, servants' sitting-room, general household stores, and even the cellar book, of this illustrious establishment. forster and kent (the latter wrote certain verses to longfellow, which have been published in _the times_, and which i sent to d----) came down for a day, and i hope we all had a really "good time." i turned out a couple of postillions in the old red jacket of the old red royal dover road, for our ride; and it was like a holiday ride in england fifty years ago. of course we went to look at the old houses in rochester, and the old cathedral, and the old castle, and the house for the six poor travellers who, "not being rogues or procters, shall have lodging, entertainment, and four pence each." nothing can surpass the respect paid to longfellow here, from the queen downward. he is everywhere received and courted, and finds (as i told him he would, when we talked of it in boston) the working-men at least as well acquainted with his books as the classes socially above them. . . . last thursday i attended, as sponsor, the christening of dolby's son and heir--a most jolly baby, who held on tight by the rector's left whisker while the service was performed. what time, too, his little sister, connecting me with the pony, trotted up and down the centre aisle, noisily driving herself as that celebrated animal, so that it went very hard with the sponsorial dignity. wills is not yet recovered from that concussion of the brain, and i have all his work to do. this may account for my not being able to devise a christmas number, but i seem to have left my invention in america. in case you should find it, please send it over. i am going up to town to-day to dine with longfellow. and now, my dear fields, you know all about me and mine. you are enjoying your holiday? and are still thinking sometimes of our boston days, as i do? and are maturing schemes for coming here next summer? a satisfactory reply to the last question is particularly entreated. i am delighted to find you both so well pleased with the blind book scheme.[ ] i said nothing of it to you when we were together, though i had made up my mind, because i wanted to come upon you with that little burst from a distance. it seemed something like meeting again when i remitted the money and thought of your talking of it. the dryness of the weather is amazing. all the ponds and surface-wells about here are waterless, and the poor people suffer greatly. the people of this village have only one spring to resort to, and it is a couple of miles from many cottages. i do not let the great dogs swim in the canal, because the people have to drink of it. but when they get into the medway it is hard to get them out again. the other day bumble (the son, newfoundland dog) got into difficulties among some floating timber, and became frightened. don (the father) was standing by me, shaking off the wet and looking on carelessly, when all of a sudden he perceived something amiss, and went in with a bound and brought bumble out by the ear. the scientific way in which he towed him along was charming. ever your loving. [sidenote: mr. j. e. millais, r.a.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, th july, ._ my dear millais,[ ] i received the enclosed letter yesterday, and i have, perhaps unjustly--some vague suspicions of it. as i know how faithful and zealous you have been in all relating to poor leech, i make no apology for asking you whether you can throw any light upon its contents. you will be glad to hear that charles collins is decidedly better to-day, and is out of doors. believe me always, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. serle.] gad's hill, _wednesday, th july, ._ my dear serle,[ ] i do not believe there is the slightest chance of an international copyright law being passed in america for a long time to come. some massachusetts men do believe in such a thing, but they fail (as i think) to take into account the prompt western opposition. such an alteration as you suggest in the english law would give no copyright in america, you see. the american publisher could buy no absolute _right_ of priority. any american newspaper could (and many would, in a popular case) pirate from him, as soon as they could get the matter set up. he could buy no more than he buys now when he arranges for advance sheets from england, so that there may be simultaneous publication in the two countries. and success in england is of so much importance towards the achievement of success in america, that i greatly doubt whether previous publications in america would often be worth more to an american publisher or manager than simultaneous publication. concerning the literary man in parliament who would undertake to bring in a bill for such an amendment of our copyright law, with weight enough to keep his heart unbroken while he should be getting it through its various lingering miseries, all i can say is--i decidedly don't know him. on that horrible staplehurst day, i had not the slightest idea that i knew anyone in the train out of my own compartment. mrs. cowden clarke[ ] wrote me afterwards, telling me in the main what you tell me, and i was astonished. it is remarkable that my watch (a special chronometer) has never gone quite correctly since, and to this day there sometimes comes over me, on a railway--in a hansom cab--or any sort of conveyance--for a few seconds, a vague sense of dread that i have no power to check. it comes and passes, but i cannot prevent its coming. believe me, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. rusden.] _ th august, ._ my dear sir, i should have written to you much sooner, but that i have been home from the united states barely three months, and have since been a little uncertain as to the precise time and way of sending my youngest son out to join his brother alfred. it is now settled that he shall come out in the ship _sussex_, tons, belonging to messrs. money, wigram, and co. she sails from gravesend, but he will join her at plymouth on the th september, and will proceed straight to melbourne. of this i apprise alfred by this mail. . . . i cannot sufficiently thank you for your kindness to alfred. i am certain that a becoming sense of it and desire to deserve it, has done him great good. your report of him is an unspeakable comfort to me, and i most heartily assure you of my gratitude and friendship. in the midst of your colonial seethings and heavings, i suppose you have some leisure to consult equally the hopeful prophets and the dismal prophets who are all wiser than any of the rest of us as to things at home here. my own strong impression is that whatsoever change the new reform bill may effect will be very gradual indeed and quite wholesome. numbers of the middle class who seldom or never voted before will vote now, and the greater part of the new voters will in the main be wiser as to their electoral responsibilities and more seriously desirous to discharge them for the common good than the bumptious singers of "rule britannia," "our dear old church of england," and all the rest of it. if i can ever do anything for any accredited friend of yours coming to the old country, command me. i shall be truly glad of any opportunity of testifying that i do not use a mere form of words in signing myself, cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. russell sturgis.] kennedy's hotel, edinburgh, _monday, th december, ._[ ] my dear mr. russell sturgis, i am "reading" here, and shall be through this week. consequently i am only this morning in receipt of your kind note of the th, forwarded from my own house. believe me i am as much obliged to you for your generous and ready response to my supposed letter as i should have been if i had really written it. but i know nothing whatever of it or of "miss jeffries," except that i have a faint impression of having recently noticed that name among my begging-letter correspondents, and of having associated it in my mind with a regular professional hand. your caution has, i hope, disappointed this swindler. but my testimony is at your service if you should need it, and i would take any opportunity of bringing one of those vagabonds to punishment; for they are, one and all, the most heartless and worthless vagabonds on the face of the earth. believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. james t. fields.] glasgow, _wednesday, december , ._ my dear mrs. fields, . . . first, as you are curious about the oliver murder, i will tell you about that trial of the same at which you _ought_ to have assisted. there were about a hundred people present in all. i have changed my stage. besides that back screen which you know so well, there are two large screens of the same colour, set off, one on either side, like the "wings" at a theatre. and besides these again, we have a quantity of curtains of the same colour, with which to close in any width of room from wall to wall. consequently, the figure is now completely isolated, and the slightest action becomes much more important. this was used for the first time on the occasion. but behind the stage--the orchestra being very large and built for the accommodation of a numerous chorus--there was ready, on the level of the platform, a very long table, beautifully lighted, with a large staff of men ready to open oysters and set champagne-corks flying. directly i had done, the screens being whisked off by my people, there was disclosed one of the prettiest banquets you can imagine; and when all the people came up, and the gay dresses of the ladies were lighted by those powerful lights of mine, the scene was exquisitely pretty; the hall being newly decorated, and very elegantly; and the whole looking like a great bed of flowers and diamonds. now, you must know that all this company were, before the wine went round, unmistakably pale, and had horror-stricken faces. next morning harness (fields knows--rev. william--did an edition of shakespeare--old friend of the kembles and mrs. siddons), writing to me about it, and saying it was "a most amazing and terrific thing," added, "but i am bound to tell you that i had an almost irresistible impulse upon me to _scream_, and that, if anyone had cried out, i am certain i should have followed." he had no idea that, on the night, p----, the great ladies' doctor, had taken me aside and said: "my dear dickens, you may rely upon it that if only one woman cries out when you murder the girl, there will be a contagion of hysteria all over this place." it is impossible to soften it without spoiling it, and you may suppose that i am rather anxious to discover how it goes on the th of january!!! we are afraid to announce it elsewhere, without knowing, except that i have thought it pretty safe to put it up once in dublin. i asked mrs. k----, the famous actress, who was at the experiment: "what do _you_ say? do it or not?" "why, of course, do it," she replied. "having got at such an effect as that, it must be done. but," rolling her large black eyes very slowly, and speaking very distinctly, "the public have been looking out for a sensation these last fifty years or so, and by heaven they have got it!" with which words, and a long breath and a long stare, she became speechless. again, you may suppose that i am a little anxious! not a day passes but dolby and i talk about you both, and recall where we were at the corresponding time of last year. my old likening of boston to edinburgh has been constantly revived within these last ten days. there is a certain remarkable similarity of _tone_ between the two places. the audiences are curiously alike, except that the edinburgh audience has a quicker sense of humour and is a little more genial. no disparagement to boston in this, because i consider an edinburgh audience perfect. i trust, my dear eugenius, that you have recognised yourself in a certain uncommercial, and also some small reference to a name rather dear to you? as an instance of how strangely something comic springs up in the midst of the direst misery, look to a succeeding uncommercial, called "a small star in the east," published to-day, by-the-bye. i have described, _with exactness_, the poor places into which i went, and how the people behaved, and what they said. i was wretched, looking on; and yet the boiler-maker and the poor man with the legs filled me with a sense of drollery not to be kept down by any pressure. the atmosphere of this place, compounded of mists from the highlands and smoke from the town factories, is crushing my eyebrows as i write, and it rains as it never does rain anywhere else, and always does rain here. it is a dreadful place, though much improved and possessing a deal of public spirit. improvement is beginning to knock the old town of edinburgh about, here and there; but the canongate and the most picturesque of the horrible courts and wynds are not to be easily spoiled, or made fit for the poor wretches who people them to live in. edinburgh is so changed as to its notabilities, that i had the only three men left of the wilson and jeffrey time to dine with me there, last saturday. i think you will find "fatal zero" (by percy fitzgerald) a very curious analysis of a mind, as the story advances. a new beginner in "a. y. r." (hon. mrs. clifford, kinglake's sister), who wrote a story in the series just finished, called "the abbot's pool," has just sent me another story. i have a strong impression that, with care, she will step into mrs. gaskell's vacant place. wills is no better, and i have work enough even in that direction. god bless the woman with the black mittens for making me laugh so this morning! i take her to be a kind of public-spirited mrs. sparsit, and as such take her to my bosom. god bless you both, my dear friends, in this christmas and new year time, and in all times, seasons, and places, and send you to gad's hill with the next flowers! ever your most affectionate. [sidenote: mr. russell sturgis.] kennedy's hotel, edinburgh, _friday, th december, ._ my dear mr. russell sturgis, i return you the forged letter, and devoutly wish that i had to flog the writer in virtue of a legal sentence. i most cordially reciprocate your kind expressions in reference to our future intercourse, and shall hope to remind you of them five or six months hence, when my present labours shall have gone the way of all other earthly things. it was particularly interesting to me when i was last at boston to recognise poor dear felton's unaffected and genial ways in his eldest daughter, and to notice how, in tender remembrance of him, she is, as it were, cambridge's daughter. believe me always, faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] it was at baltimore that charles dickens first conceived the idea of a walking-match, which should take place on his return to boston, and he drew up a set of humorous "articles." [ ] the play of "no thoroughfare," was produced at the adelphi theatre, under the management of mr. webster. [ ] mr. fechter was, at this time, superintending the production of a french version of "no thoroughfare," in paris. it was called "l'abîme." [ ] the volume referred to is a "list of the writings of william hazlett and leigh hunt, chronologically arranged, with notes, descriptive, critical, and explanatory, etc." [ ] a copy of "the old curiosity shop," in raised letters for the use of the blind, had been printed by charles dickens's order at the "perkins institution for the blind" in boston, and presented by him to that institution in this year. [ ] john everett millais, r.a. (the editors make use of this note, as it is the only one which mr. millais has been able to find for them, and they are glad to have the two names associated together). [ ] a dramatic author, who was acting manager of covent garden theatre in , when his acquaintance with charles dickens first began. this letter is in answer to some questions put to charles dickens by mr. serle on the subject of the extension of copyright to the united states of america. [ ] mrs. cowden clarke wrote to tell charles dickens that her sister, miss sabilla novello, and her brother, mr. alfred novello, were also in the train, and escaped without injury. [ ] a forged letter from charles dickens, introducing an impostor, had been addressed to mr. russell sturgis. . [sidenote: mrs. forster.] queen's hotel, manchester, _monday, th march, ._ my dear mrs. forster, a thousand thanks for your note, which has reached me here this afternoon. at breakfast this morning dolby showed me the local paper with a paragraph in it recording poor dear tennent's[ ] death. you may imagine how shocked i was. immediately before i left town this last time, i had an unusually affectionate letter from him, enclosing one from forster, and proposing the friendly dinner since appointed for the th. i replied to him in the same spirit, and felt touched at the time by the gentle earnestness of his tone. it is remarkable that i talked of him a great deal yesterday to dolby (who knew nothing of him), and that i reverted to him again at night before going to bed--with no reason that i know of. dolby was strangely impressed by this, when he showed me the newspaper. god be with us all! ever your affectionate. [sidenote: mr. h. a. layard.] office of "all the year round," _saturday, th march, ._ my dear layard, coming to town for a couple of days, from york, i find your beautiful present.[ ] with my heartiest congratulations on your marriage, accept my most cordial thanks for a possession that i shall always prize foremost among my worldly goods; firstly, for your sake; secondly, for its own. not one of these glasses shall be set on table until mrs. layard is there, to touch with her lips the first champagne that any of them shall ever hold! this vow has been registered in solemn triumvirate at gad's hill. the first week in june will about see me through my present work, i hope. i came to town hurriedly to attend poor dear emerson tennent's funeral. you will know how my mind went back, in the york up-train at midnight, to mount vesuvius and our neapolitan supper. i have given mr. hills, of oxford street, the letter of introduction to you that you kindly permitted. he has immense local influence, and could carry his neighbours in favour of any good design. my dear layard, ever cordially yours. [sidenote: miss florence olliffe.] , wellington street, _tuesday, th march, ._ my dear florence,[ ] i have received your kind note this morning, and i hasten to thank you for it, and to assure your dear mother of our most cordial sympathy with her in her great affliction, and in loving remembrance of the good man and excellent friend we have lost. the tidings of his being very ill indeed had, of course, been reported to me. for some days past i had taken up the newspaper with sad misgivings; and this morning, before i got your letter, they were realised. i loved him truly. his wonderful gentleness and kindness, years ago, when we had sickness in our household in paris, has never been out of my grateful remembrance. and, socially, his image is inseparable from some of the most genial and delightful friendly hours of my life. i am almost ashamed to set such recollections by the side of your mother's great bereavement and grief, but they spring out of the fulness of my heart. may god be with her and with you all! ever yours affectionately. [sidenote: mr. james t. fields.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _friday, april th, ._ my dear fields, the faithful _russia_ will bring this out to you, as a sort of warrant to take you into loving custody and bring you back on her return trip. i rather think that when the th of june shall have shaken off these shackles,[ ] there _will_ be borage on the lawn at gad's. your heart's desire in that matter, and in the minor particulars of cobham park, rochester castle, and canterbury, shall be fulfilled, please god! the red jackets shall turn out again upon the turnpike-road, and picnics among the cherry-orchards and hop-gardens shall be heard of in kent. then, too, shall the uncommercial resuscitate (being at present nightly murdered by mr. w. sikes) and uplift his voice again. the chief officer of the _russia_ (a capital fellow) was at the reading last night, and dolby specially charged him with the care of you and yours. we shall be on the borders of wales, and probably about hereford, when you arrive. dolby has insane projects of getting over here to meet you; so amiably hopeful and obviously impracticable, that i encourage him to the utmost. the regular little captain of the _russia_, cook, is just now changed into the _cuba_, whence arise disputes of seniority, etc. i wish he had been with you, for i liked him very much when i was his passenger. i like to think of your being in _my_ ship! ---- and ---- have been taking it by turns to be "on the point of death," and have been complimenting one another greatly on the fineness of the point attained. my people got a very good impression of ----, and thought her a sincere and earnest little woman. the _russia_ hauls out into the stream to-day, and i fear her people may be too busy to come to us to-night. but if any of them do, they shall have the warmest of welcomes for your sake. (by-the-bye, a very good party of seamen from the queen's ship _donegal_, lying in the mersey, have been told off to decorate st. george's hall with the ship's bunting. they were all hanging on aloft upside down, holding to the gigantically high roof by nothing, this morning, in the most wonderfully cheerful manner.) my son charley has come for the dinner, and chappell (my proprietor, as--isn't it wemmick?--says) is coming to-day, and lord dufferin (mrs. norton's nephew) is to come and make _the_ speech. i don't envy the feelings of my noble friend when he sees the hall. seriously, it is less adapted to speaking than westminster abbey, and is as large. . . . i hope you will see fechter in a really clever piece by wilkie.[ ] also you will see the academy exhibition, which will be a very good one; and also we will, please god, see everything and more, and everything else after that. i begin to doubt and fear on the subject of your having a horror of me after seeing the murder. i don't think a hand moved while i was doing it last night, or an eye looked away. and there was a fixed expression of horror of me, all over the theatre, which could not have been surpassed if i had been going to be hanged to that red velvet table. it is quite a new sensation to be execrated with that unanimity; and i hope it will remain so! [is it lawful--would that woman in the black gaiters, green veil, and spectacles, hold it so--to send my love to the pretty m----?] pack up, my dear fields, and be quick. ever your most affectionate. [sidenote: mr. rusden.] preston, _thursday, nd april, ._ my dear sir, i am finishing my farewell readings--to-night is the seventy-fourth out of one hundred--and have barely time to send you a line to thank you most heartily for yours of the th january, and for your great kindness to alfred and edward. the latter wrote by the same mail, on behalf of both, expressing the warmest gratitude to you, and reporting himself in the stoutest heart and hope. i never can thank you sufficiently. you will see that the new ministry has made a decided hit with its budget, and that in the matter of the irish church it has the country at its back. you will also see that the "reform league" has dissolved itself, indisputably because it became aware that the people did not want it. i think the general feeling in england is a desire to get the irish church out of the way of many social reforms, and to have it done _with_ as already done _for_. i do not in the least believe myself that agrarian ireland is to be pacified by any such means, or can have it got out of its mistaken head that the land is of right the peasantry's, and that every man who owns land has stolen it and is therefore to be shot. but that is not the question. the clock strikes post-time as i write, and i fear to write more, lest, at this distance from london, i should imperil the next mail. cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. thomas chappell.] office of "all the year round," _monday, rd may, ._ my dear mr. chappell, i am really touched by your letter. i can most truthfully assure you that your part in the inconvenience of this mishap has given me much more concern than my own; and that if i did not hope to have our london farewells yet, i should be in a very gloomy condition on your account. pray do not suppose that _you_ are to blame for my having done a little too much--a wild fancy indeed! the simple fact is, that the rapid railway travelling was stretched a hair's breadth too far, and that _i_ ought to have foreseen it. for, on the night before the last night of our reading in america, when dolby was cheering me with a review of the success, and the immediate prospect of the voyage home, i told him, to his astonishment: "i am too far gone, and too worn out to realise anything but my own exhaustion. believe me, if i had to read but twice more, instead of once, i couldn't do it." we were then just beyond our recent number. and it was the travelling that i had felt throughout. the sharp precautionary remedy of stopping instantly, was almost as instantly successful the other day. i told dr. watson that he had never seen me knocked out of time, and that he had no idea of the rapidity with which i should come up again. just as three days' repose on the atlantic steamer made me, in my altered appearance, the amazement of the captain, so this last week has set me up, thank god, in the most wonderful manner. the sense of exhaustion seems a dream already. of course i shall train myself carefully, nevertheless, all through the summer and autumn. i beg to send my kind regards to mrs. chappell, and i shall hope to see her and you at teddington in the long bright days. it would disappoint me indeed if a lasting friendship did not come of our business relations. in the spring i trust i shall be able to report to you that i am ready to take my farewells in london. of this i am pretty certain: that i never will take them at all, unless with you on your own conditions. with an affectionate regard for you and your brother, believe me always, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. rusden.] "all the year round" office, _tuesday, th may, ._ my dear mr. rusden, as i daresay some exaggerated accounts of my having been very ill have reached you, i begin with the true version of the case. i daresay i _should_ have been very ill if i had not suddenly stopped my farewell readings when there were yet five-and-twenty remaining to be given. i was quite exhausted, and was warned by the doctors to stop (for the time) instantly. acting on the advice, and going home into kent for rest, i immediately began to recover, and within a fortnight was in the brilliant condition in which i can now--thank god--report myself. i cannot thank you enough for your care of plorn. i was quite prepared for his not settling down without a lurch or two. i still hope that he may take to colonial life. . . . in his letter to me about his leaving the station to which he got through your kindness, he expresses his gratitude to you quite as strongly as if he had made a wonderful success, and seems to have acquired no distaste for anything but the one individual of whom he wrote that betrayed letter. but knowing the boy, i want to try him fully. you know all our public news, such as it is, at least as well as i do. many people here (of whom i am one) do not like the look of american matters. what i most fear is that the perpetual bluster of a party in the states will at last set the patient british back up. and if our people begin to bluster too, and there should come into existence an exasperating war-party on both sides, there will be great danger of a daily-widening breach. the first shriek of the first engine that traverses the san francisco railroad from end to end will be a death-warning to the disciples of jo smith. the moment the mormon bubble gets touched by neighbours it will break. similarly, the red man's course is very nearly run. a scalped stoker is the outward and visible sign of his utter extermination. not quakers enough to reach from here to jerusalem will save him by the term of a single year. i don't know how it may be with you, but it is the fashion here to be absolutely certain that the emperor of the french is fastened by providence and the fates on a throne of adamant expressly constructed for him since the foundations of the universe were laid. he knows better, and so do the police of paris, and both powers must be grimly entertained by the resolute british belief, knowing what they have known, and doing what they have done through the last ten years. what victor hugo calls "the drop-curtain, behind which is constructing the great last act of the french revolution," has been a little shaken at the bottom lately, however. one seems to see the feet of a rather large chorus getting ready. i enclose a letter for plorn to your care, not knowing how to address him. forgive me for so doing (i write to alfred direct), and believe me, my dear mr. rusden, yours faithfully and much obliged. [sidenote: miss emily jolly.] office of "all the year round," _thursday, nd july, ._ dear miss jolly, mr. wills has retired from here (for rest and to recover his health), and my son, who occupies his place, brought me this morning a story[ ] in ms., with a request that i would read it. i read it with extraordinary interest, and was greatly surprised by its uncommon merit. on asking whence it came, i found that it came from you! you need not to be told, after this, that i accept it with more than readiness. if you will allow me i will go over it with great care, and very slightly touch it here and there. i think it will require to be divided into three portions. you shall have the proofs and i will publish it immediately. i think so very highly of it that i will have special attention called to it in a separate advertisement. i congratulate you most sincerely and heartily on having done a very special thing. it will always stand apart in my mind from any other story i ever read. i write with its impression newly and strongly upon me, and feel absolutely sure that i am not mistaken. believe me, faithfully yours always. [sidenote: hon. robert lytton.] , wellington street, london, _thursday, nd september, ._ my dear robert lytton, "john acland" is most willingly accepted, and shall come in to the next monthly part. i shall make bold to condense him here and there (according to my best idea of story-telling), and particularly where he makes the speech:--and with the usual fault of being too long, here and there, i think you let the story out too much--prematurely--and this i hope to prevent artfully. i think your title open to the same objection, and therefore propose to substitute: the disappearance of john acland. this will leave the reader in doubt whether he really _was_ murdered, until the end. i am sorry you do not pursue the other prose series. you can do a great deal more than you think for, with whatever you touch; and you know where to find a firmly attached and admiring friend always ready to take the field with you, and always proud to see your plume among the feathers in the staff. your account of my dear boffin[ ] is highly charming:--i had been troubled with a misgiving that he was good. may his shadow never be more correct! i wish i could have you at the murder from "oliver twist." i am always, my dear robert lytton, affectionately your friend. * * * * * pray give my kindest regards to fascination fledgeby, who (i have no doubt) has by this time half-a-dozen new names, feebly expressive of his great merits. [sidenote: the same.] office of "all the year round," , wellington street, strand, london, _friday, st october, ._ my dear robert lytton, i am assured by a correspondent that "john acland" has been done before. said correspondent has evidently read the story--and is almost confident in "chambers's journal." this is very unfortunate, but of course cannot be helped. there is always a possibility of such a malignant conjunction of stars when the story is a true one. in the case of a good story--as this is--liable for years to be told at table--as this was--there is nothing wonderful in such a mischance. let us shuffle the cards, as sancho says, and begin again. you will of course understand that i do not tell you this by way of complaint. indeed, i should not have mentioned it at all, but as an explanation to you of my reason for winding the story up (which i have done to-day) as expeditiously as possible. you might otherwise have thought me, on reading it as published, a little hard on mr. doilly. i have not had time to direct search to be made in "chambers's;" but as to the main part of the story having been printed somewhere, i have not the faintest doubt. and i believe my correspondent to be also right as to the where. you could not help it any more than i could, and therefore will not be troubled by it any more than i am. the more i get of your writing, the better i shall be pleased. do believe me to be, as i am, your genuine admirer and affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. rusden.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, th october, ._ my dear mr. rusden, this very day a great meeting is announced to come off in london, as a demonstration in favour of a fenian "amnesty." no doubt its numbers and importance are ridiculously over-estimated, but i believe the gathering will turn out to be big enough to be a very serious obstruction in the london streets. i have a great doubt whether such demonstrations ought to be allowed. they are bad as a precedent, and they unquestionably interfere with the general liberty and freedom of the subject. moreover, the time must come when this kind of threat and defiance will have to be forcibly stopped, and when the unreasonable toleration of it will lead to a sacrifice of life among the comparatively innocent lookers-on that might have been avoided but for a false confidence on their part, engendered in the damnable system of _laisser-aller_. you see how right we were, you and i, in our last correspondence on this head, and how desperately unsatisfactory the condition of ireland is, especially when considered with a reference to america. the government has, through mr. gladstone, just now spoken out boldly in reference to the desired amnesty. (so much the better for them or they would unquestionably have gone by the board.) still there is an uneasy feeling abroad that mr. gladstone himself would grant this amnesty if he dared, and that there is a great weakness in the rest of their irish policy. and this feeling is very strong amongst the noisiest irish howlers. meanwhile, the newspapers go on arguing irish matters as if the irish were a reasonable people, in which immense assumption i, for one, have not the smallest faith. again, i have to thank you most heartily for your kindness to my two boys. it is impossible to predict how plorn will settle down, or come out of the effort to do so. but he has unquestionably an affectionate nature, and a certain romantic touch in him. both of these qualities are, i hope, more impressible for good than for evil, and i trust in god for the rest. the news of lord derby's death will reach you, i suppose, at about the same time as this letter. a rash, impetuous, passionate man; but a great loss for his party, as a man of mind and mark. i was staying last june with lord russell--six or seven years older, but (except for being rather deaf) in wonderful preservation, and brighter and more completely armed at all points than i have seen him these twenty years. as this need not be posted till friday, i shall leave it open for a final word or two; and am until then, and then, and always afterwards, my dear mr. rusden, your faithful and much obliged. _thursday, th._ we have no news in england except two slight changes in the government consequent on layard's becoming our minister at madrid. he is not long married to a charming lady, and will be far better in spain than in the house of commons. the ministry are now holding councils on the irish land tenure question, which is the next difficulty they have to deal with, as you know. last sunday's meeting was a preposterous failure; still, it brought together in the streets of london all the ruffian part of the population of london, and that is a serious evil which any one of a thousand accidents might render mischievous. there is no existing law, however, to stop these assemblages, so that they keep moving while in the streets. the government was undoubtedly wrong when it considered it had the right to close hyde park; that is now universally conceded. i write to alfred and plorn both by this mail. they can never say enough of your kindness when they write to me. [sidenote: mr. a. h. layard.] gad's hill place, _monday, th november, ._ my dear layard, on friday or saturday next i can come to you at any time after twelve that will suit your convenience. i had no idea of letting you go away without my god-speed; but i knew how busy you must be; and kept in the background, biding my time. i am sure you know that there is no man living more attached to you than i am. after considering the subject with the jealousy of a friend, i have a strong conviction that your change[ ] is a good one; ill as you can be spared from the ranks of men who are in earnest here. with kindest regards to mrs. layard. ever faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] sir james emerson tennent. [ ] some venetian glass champagne tumblers. [ ] miss florence olliffe, who wrote to announce the death of her father, sir joseph olliffe. [ ] the readings. [ ] the "piece" here alluded to was called "black and white." it was presented at the adelphi theatre. the outline of the plot was suggested by mr. fechter. [ ] the story was called "an experience." [ ] "boffin" and "fascination fledgeby," were nicknames given to his children by mr. robert lytton at this time. [ ] mr. layard's appointment as british minister at madrid. . [sidenote: mr. james t. fields.] , hyde park place, london, w., _friday, january th, ._ my dear fields, we live here (opposite the marble arch) in a charming house until the st of june, and then return to gad's. the conservatory is completed, and is a brilliant success; but an expensive one! i should be quite ashamed of not having written to you and my dear mrs. fields before now, if i didn't know that you will both understand how occupied i am, and how naturally, when i put my papers away for the day, i get up and fly. i have a large room here, with three fine windows, overlooking the park--unsurpassable for airiness and cheerfulness. you saw the announcement of the death of poor dear harness. the circumstances are curious. he wrote to his old friend the dean of battle saying he would come to visit him on that day (the day of his death). the dean wrote back: "come next day, instead, as we are obliged to go out to dinner, and you will be alone." harness told his sister a little impatiently that he _must_ go on the first-named day; that he had made up his mind to go, and must. he had been getting himself ready for dinner, and came to a part of the staircase whence two doors opened--one, upon another level passage; one, upon a flight of stone steps. he opened the wrong door, fell down the steps, injured himself very severely, and died in a few hours. you will know--_i_ don't--what fechter's success is in america at the time of this present writing. in his farewell performances at the princess's he acted very finely. i thought the three first acts of his hamlet very much better than i had ever thought them before--and i always thought very highly of them. we gave him a foaming stirrup cup at gad's hill. forster (who has been ill with his bronchitis again) thinks no. of the new book ("edwin drood") a clincher,--i mean that word (as his own expression) for _clincher_. there is a curious interest steadily working up to no. , which requires a great deal of art and self-denial. i think also, apart from character and picturesqueness, that the young people are placed in a very novel situation. so i hope--at nos. and , the story will turn upon an interest suspended until the end. i can't believe it, and don't, and won't, but they say harry's twenty-first birthday is next sunday. i have entered him at the temple just now; and if he don't get a fellowship at trinity hall when his time comes, i shall be disappointed, if in the present disappointed state of existence. i hope you may have met with the little touch of radicalism i gave them at birmingham in the words of buckle? with pride i observe that it makes the regular political traders, of all sorts, perfectly mad. such was my intentions, as a grateful acknowledgment of having been misrepresented. i think mrs. ----'s prose very admirable; but i don't believe it! no, i do _not_. my conviction is that those islanders get frightfully bored by the islands, and wish they had never set eyes upon them! charley collins has done a charming cover for the monthly part of the new book. at the very earnest representations of millais (and after having seen a great number of his drawings) i am going to engage with a new man; retaining of course, c. c.'s cover aforesaid.[ ] katie has made some more capital portraits, and is always improving. my dear mrs. fields, if "he" (made proud by chairs and bloated by pictures) does not give you my dear love, let us conspire against him when you find him out, and exclude him from all future confidences. until then, ever affectionately yours and his. [sidenote: lord lytton.] , hyde park place, _monday, th february, ._ my dear lytton, i ought to have mentioned in my hurried note to you, that my knowledge of the consultation[ ] in question only preceded yours by certain hours; and that longman asked me if i would make the design known to you, as he thought it might be a liberty to address you otherwise. this i did therefore. the class of writers to whom you refer at the close of your note, have no copyright, and do not come within my case at all. i quite agree with you as to their propensities and deserts. indeed, i suppose in the main that there is very little difference between our opinions. i do not think the present government worse than another, and i think it better than another by the presence of mr. gladstone; but it appears to me that our system fails. ever yours. [sidenote: mr. frederic chapman.] , hyde park place, _monday, th march, ._ dear frederic chapman, mr. fildes has been with me this morning, and without complaining of ---- or expressing himself otherwise than as being obliged to him for his care in no. , represents that there is a brother-student of his, a wood-engraver, perfectly acquainted with his style and well understanding his meaning, who would render him better. i have replied to him that there can be no doubt that he has a claim beyond dispute to our employing whomsoever he knows will present him in his best aspect. therefore, we must make the change; the rather because the fellow-student in question has engraved mr. fildes' most successful drawings hitherto. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. charles mackay.] office of "all the year round," _thursday, st april, ._ my dear mackay, i have placed "god's acre." the prose paper, "the false friend," has lingered, because it seems to me that the idea is to be found in an introduced story of mine called "the baron of grogzwig" in "pickwick." be pleasant with the scottish people in handling johnson, because i love them. ever faithfully. [sidenote: sir john bowring.] gad's hill, _thursday, th may, ._ my dear sir john, i send you many cordial thanks for your note, and the very curious drawing accompanying it. i ought to tell you, perhaps, that the opium smoking i have described, i saw (exactly as i have described it, penny ink-bottle and all) down in shadwell this last autumn. a couple of the inspectors of lodging-houses knew the woman and took me to her as i was making a round with them to see for myself the working of lord shaftesbury's bill. believe me, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. j. b. buckstone.] [ ]_sunday, th may, ._ my dear buckstone, i send a duplicate of this note to the haymarket, in case it should miss you out of town. for a few years i have been liable, at wholly uncertain and incalculable times, to a severe attack of neuralgia in the foot, about once in the course of a year. it began in an injury to the finer muscles or nerves, occasioned by over-walking in the deep snow. when it comes on i cannot stand, and can bear no covering whatever on the sensitive place. one of these seizures is upon me now. until it leaves me i could no more walk into st. james's hall than i could fly in the air. i hope you will present my duty to the prince of wales, and assure his royal highness that nothing short of my being (most unfortunately) disabled for the moment would have prevented my attending, as trustee of the fund,[ ] at the dinner, and warmly expressing my poor sense of the great and inestimable service his royal highness renders to a most deserving institution by so kindly commending it to the public. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. rusden.] athenÃ�um, _friday evening, th may, ._ my dear mr. rusden, i received your most interesting and clear-sighted letter about plorn just before the departure of the last mail from here to you. i did not answer then because another incoming mail was nearly due, and i expected (knowing plorn so well) that some communication from him such as he made to you would come to me. i was not mistaken. the same arguing of the squatter question--vegetables and all--appeared. this gave me an opportunity of touching on those points by this mail, without in the least compromising you. i cannot too completely express my concurrence with your excellent idea that his correspondence with you should be regarded as confidential. just as i could not possibly suggest a word more neatly to the point, or more thoughtfully addressed, to such a young man than your reply to his letter, i hope you will excuse my saying that it is a perfect model of tact, good sense, and good feeling. i had been struck by his persistently ignoring the possibility of his holding any other position in australasia than his present position, and had inferred from it a homeward tendency. what is most curious to me is that he is very sensible, and yet does not seem to understand that he has qualified himself for no public examinations in the old country, and could not possibly hold his own against any competition for anything to which i could get him nominated. but i must not trouble you about my boys as if they were yours. it is enough that i can never thank you for your goodness to them in a generous consideration of me. i believe the truth as to france to be that a citizen frenchman never forgives, and that napoleon will never live down the _coup d'état_. this makes it enormously difficult for any well-advised english newspaper to support him, and pretend not to know on what a volcano his throne is set. informed as to his designs on the one hand, and the perpetual uneasiness of his police on the other (to say nothing of a doubtful army), _the times_ has a difficult game to play. my own impression is that if it were played too boldly for him, the old deplorable national antagonism would revive in his going down. that the wind will pass over his imperiality on the sands of france i have not the slightest doubt. in no country on the earth, but least of all there, can you seize people in their houses on political warrants, and kill in the streets, on no warrant at all, without raising a gigantic nemesis--not very reasonable in detail, perhaps, but none the less terrible for that. the commonest dog or man driven mad is a much more alarming creature than the same individuality in a sober and commonplace condition. your friend ---- ---- is setting the world right generally all round (including the flattened ends, the two poles), and, as a minister said to me the other day, "has the one little fault of omniscience." you will probably have read before now that i am going to be everything the queen can make me.[ ] if my authority be worth anything believe on it that i am going to be nothing but what i am, and that that includes my being as long as i live, your faithful and heartily obliged. [sidenote: mr. alfred tennyson dickens.] athenÃ�um club, _friday night, th may, ._ my dear alfred,[ ] i have just time to tell you under my own hand that i invited mr. bear to a dinner of such guests as he would naturally like to see, and that we took to him very much, and got on with him capitally. i am doubtful whether plorn is taking to australia. can you find out his real mind? i notice that he always writes as if his present life were the be-all and the end-all of his emigration, and as if i had no idea of you two becoming proprietors, and aspiring to the first positions in the colony, without casting off the old connection. from mr. bear i had the best accounts of you. i told him that they did not surprise me, for i had unbounded faith in you. for which take my love and blessing. they will have told you all the news here, and that i am hard at work. this is not a letter so much as an assurance that i never think of you without hope and comfort. ever, my dear alfred, your affectionate father. * * * * * this letter did not reach australia until after these two absent sons of charles dickens had heard, by telegraph, the news of their father's death. the end. footnotes: [ ] mr. charles collins was obliged to give up the illustrating of "edwin drood," on account of his failing health. [ ] a meeting of publishers and authors to discuss the subject of international copyright. [ ] printed in mackenzie's "life of dickens." [ ] the general theatrical fund. [ ] an allusion to an unfounded rumour. [ ] charles dickens's son, alfred tennyson. index. acrobats, adams, mr. h. g., letters to, , agreement, a sporting, ainsworth, mr. w. h., air, dickens's love of fresh, allston, mr. washington, america, feeling for the "curiosity shop" in, ; projected visit to, ; description of life in, ; how dickens was interviewed in, ; amateur theatricals in, ; friends in, , ; voyage home from, ; second visit of dickens to, , , - ; dickens's feeling for the people of, ; the great walking-match in, ; second journey home from, - ; desire on the part of dickens to promote friendly relations between england and, ; letters from, , , , - "american notes, the," success of, ; criticisms on, , ; and see , , appleton, mr., ashburton, lord, austin, mr. henry, letter to, austin, mrs., letter to, author, dreams of an, ; penalties of an, babbage, mr. charles, letter to, bairr, mrs., bath, a, abroad, ; at naples, "battle of life, the," the drama of, ; dickens on, baylis, mr., letter to, bear, mr., beard, mr., begging-letter writers, dickens on, "bentley's miscellany," dickens's connection with, benzon, mrs., biliousness, an effect of, birmingham, meeting of polytechnic institution at, ; the institute at, birthday greeting, a, "black and white," fechter in wilkie collins's play of, "bleak house," blessington, the countess of, ; letters to, , , , , , blue-stockings, dickens on, boulogne, dickens at, , , bouncer, mrs., miss dickens's dog, , bowring, sir john, letters to, , boy, the magnetic, boyle, miss mary, ; letter to, braham, mr., - braham, mrs., breakfast, a, aboard ship, broadstairs, description of, ; life at, , ; a wreck at, , brougham, lord, browning, mr. robert, letter to, buckstone, mr., letter to, bulwer, sir edward lytton, letter to, ; and see lytton, sir edward bulwer, and lytton, lord butler, mrs., calculation, a long, captain, a sea, "captives, the," dickens's criticism on lord lytton's play of, carlyle, mr. thomas, carlyle, mrs., céleste, madame, cerjat, m. de, chapman, mr. edward, letters to, , chapman, mr. frederic, letter to, chappell, mr. t., ; letter to, charity, a vote for a, chéri, rose, children, dickens on the death of, "child's history of england, a," "chimes, the," dickens at work on, ; his interest in, chorley, mr. henry f., letters to, , , , , christening, a boisterous, "christmas carol, the," dickens at work on, , ; success of, christmas keeping, _chronicle, the evening_, dickens's connection with, clark, mr. l. gaylord, letter to, clark, mr. w. gaylord, clarke, mrs. cowden, ; and see letters clifford, hon. mrs., cobden, mr. richard, collins, mr. charles, collins, mr. wilkie, , , , , , ; letter to, conjurer, dickens as a, conolly, mr., cookesley, mr., copyright, dickens on international, , , , , , , corn laws, the repeal of the, cornwall, a trip to, costello, mr., coutts, miss, , , covent garden opera, commencement of the, criticism, on dickens's opera, ; dickens on american, ; on art, ; dickens's appreciation of thackeray's, ; by chorley on dickens, cruikshank, mr. george, cullenford, mr., _daily news, the_, first issue of, "dando," the oyster-eater, , "david copperfield," dickens at work on, ; dickens's feeling for, ; his liking for the reading of, , death, dickens on the punishment of, de gex, mr., derby, lord, dickens's opinion of, devonshire, the duke of, , , diary, fragments of dickens's, - dickens, alfred, , , ; letter to, dickens, charles, his affection for mary hogarth, - , , ; his diary, - ; his relations with _the chronicle_, ; his "sketches of young gentlemen," ; his "sunday in three parts," ; insures his life, ; his connection with "bentley's miscellany," ; is entered at the middle temple, ; his feeling for kent, ; his religious views, , ; the purpose of his writing, ; his childhood, ; his first visit to america, - ; as a stage-manager, , , ; dinner to, at greenwich, ; takes a trip to cornwall, ; as a conjuror, ; on american criticism, ; facetious description of himself, ; at broadstairs, , ; his views on education, ; at work on "the christmas carol," ; in italy, - ; at work on "the chimes," ; in paris, , ; organises theatricals for the benefit of leigh hunt, , , , , ; organises theatricals to found a curatorship of shakespeare's house, ; acts in theatricals at knebworth, , , ; theatricals in aid of the guild of literature and art, - , - ; as an editor, - , , - , - , , , , , , , , ; at boulogne, , , ; his expedition to switzerland and italy, - ; his excitability when at work, ; his love of fresh air, ; on the death of children, ; on red tape, ; on sunday bands, ; sits to frith for his portrait, ; his readings, , , , , ; at work on "our mutual friend," , ; readings in america, ; his love for the american people, ; his second visit to america, , , ; at gad's hill, ; farewell course of readings, , ; his reminiscences of the staplehurst accident, ; his reading of the murder from "oliver twist," ; serious illness of, , ; great physical power of, dickens, charles, jun., , , , , , ; at "all the year round" office, dickens, mrs. charles, , , , , , , ; and see letters dickens, dora, death of, dickens, edward, nicknamed plorn, , , , , , , dickens, henry f., ; entered at the temple, dickens, kate, , , dickens, miss, , , , , , , , , , , dickens, sydney, , dickens, walter, disease, a new form of, dissent, dickens's views on, "doctor marigold," reading of, dogs, dickens's, , ; don, the newfoundland, rescues his son, dolby, mr. george, , , , , , , , "dombey and son," sale of, ; see also , d'orsay, count, , , , , , , dream, an absurd, dufferin, lord, dumas, alexandre, earnestness, dickens on, eden, the hon. miss, letter to, edinburgh, editor, dickens as an, - , , - , - , , , , , , - , education, dickens on, edward, the courier, - , , "edwin drood," dickens on, ; the opium scene in, egg, mr. a., , , , , , evans, mr., "experience, an," "fatal zero," by percy fitzgerald, fechter, mr. charles, in "the lady of lyons," , ; dickens's admiration of, ; and see , , , ; letters to, , fechter, madame, felton, professor, ; and see letters felton, mrs., fenian amnesty, meeting in favour of a, , fields, mr. james t.; see letters fields, mrs., , , ; letter to, fildes, mr., fitzgerald, mr. percy, , forster, mr. john, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; letters to, , forster, mrs., letter to, fox, mr. w. j., letter to, frith, r.a., mr. w. p., letter to, funeral, the comic side of a, gad's hill, descriptions of, , ; dickens's writing-room at, ; longfellow's visit to, ; and see gallenga, monsieur, "gamp, mrs.," gaskell, mrs., ; letter to, general theatrical fund, the, , , gibson, mrs. milner, letter to, "girlhood of shakespeare's heroines, the," gladstone, mr., , glasgow, gordon, mrs., "great expectations," greenwich, dinner to dickens at, grew, mr. frederick, letter to, grisi, madame, guide books, guild of literature and art, the, , ; theatricals in aid of, - , - hardisty, mr., harley, mr. j. p., , ; letter to, harness, rev. w., , ; letter to, harrison, mr. james bower, letters to, , hat, a leghorn, hazlett, mr. william, higgins, mr., , hillard, mr., hills, mr., hodgson, dr., ; letters to, , hogarth, mr., hogarth, george, ; letter to, hogarth, georgina, , , , , , , , , , , hogarth, mary, - , , , hogarth, mrs., letters to, , , holland house, home, thoughts of, ; a welcome to, hood, mr. tom, letter to, house of commons, the, dickens's opinion of, , howe, dr., , hugo, victor, dickens's opinion of, ; and see hullah, mr. john, letters to, - hunt, mr. leigh, , , - , hyde park, closing of, by the government in , ireland, mr. alexander; see letters ireland, dickens on, ; in , ; land tenure in, irish church, the, the disestablishment of, irving, mr. washington, , ; letters to, , , italian patriots, dickens on, italy, visions of holiday life in, ; proposed visit to, , ; dickens in, - , - ; the peschiere palace at genoa in, ; a bath at naples in, jerrold, mr. douglas, , , "john acland," by the hon. robert lytton, , jolly, miss emily, letters to, , , , , jones, mr. ebenezer, letter to, keeley, mr. and mrs., kenny, mr. j., letter to, kent, mr. c., kent, dickens's affection for, "kentish coronal, the," king, mr. joseph c., letter to, king, miss, letters to, , "king arthur," dickens's opinion of lord lytton's poem of, king david, a profane, knowles, mr. james sheridan, ; letter to, "lady of lyons, the," dickens on the proposed opera of, ; fechter in, , landor, mr. walter, langley, mr., lanman, mr. charles, letter to, lausanne, friends in, layard, mr. austen henry, , ; and see letters layard, mrs., leech, mr. john, , lehmann, mr. frederic, , lemon, mr. mark, , , , , , lemon, mrs., leslie, r.a., mr., , letters of charles dickens to: adams, mr. h. g., , anonymous, austin, mr. henry, austin, mrs., babbage, mr. charles, baylis, mr., blessington, the countess of, , , , , , bowring, sir john, , boyle, miss mary, browning, mr. robert, buckstone, mr., bulwer, sir edward lytton, ; and see lytton, sir edward bulwer, and lytton, lord chapman, mr. edward, , chapman, mr. frederic, chappell, mr. tom, chorley, mr. henry f., , , , , clark, mr. l. gaylord, clarke, mrs. cowden, , , , , , collins, mr. wilkie, dickens, alfred, dickens, mrs. charles, , , , , eden, the hon. miss, fechter, mr. charles, , felton, professor, , , , , , , , fields, mr. james t., , , , , , , , fields, mrs. james t., forster, mr. john, , forster, mrs. john, fox, mr. w. j., frith, r.a., mr. w. p., gaskell, mrs., gibson, mrs. milner, grew, mr. frederick, harley, mr. j. p., harness, rev. w., harrison, mr. james bower, , hodgson, dr., , hogarth, mr. george, hogarth, mrs., , , hood, mr. tom, hullah, mr. john, - ireland, mr. alexander, - , , , irving, mr. washington, , , jolly, miss emily, , , , , jones, mr. ebenezer, kenny, mr. j., and ross, mr. t., king, mr. joseph c., king, miss, , knowles, mr. james sheridan, lanman, mr. charles, layard, mr. austen henry, , , , lytton, hon. robert, , , lytton, lord, , , , , ; see also bulwer, sir edward lytton, and lytton, sir edward bulwer lytton, sir edward bulwer, , , , , , , , , , , , , - , , , - , ; see also bulwer, sir edward lytton, and lytton, lord mackay, mr. charles, malleson, mrs., millais, r.a., mr. j. e., mitton, mr., morgan, captain, , napier, mr. macvey, , , , olliffe, lady, olliffe, miss, pease, mrs., phillips, mr. henry w., procter, mr. b. w., procter, mrs., robinson, rev. thomas, ross, mr. r. m., rusden, mr., , , , , , , rye, mr. w. b., sammins, mr. w. l., serle, mr., smith, mr. albert, smith, mr. arthur, smith, mr. h. p., stone, mr. frank, , sturgis, mr. russell, , thackeray, mr. w. m., thompson, mr., , , , , , thornbury, mr. walter, white, rev. james, , wills, mr. w. h., , , , , winter, mrs., , lewes, mr., "lighthouse, the," production of, at the olympic, "lirriper, mrs.," liverpool, meeting of the mechanics' institute at, ; theatricals at, , _london_, the, wreck of, longfellow, mr., , , , , , longman, mr., lumley, mr., lytton, sir edward bulwer; see letters; see also bulwer, sir edward lytton, and lytton, lord lytton, lord; see letters lytton, hon. robert, letters to, , , mackay, mr. charles, letter to, maclise, r.a., mr. daniel, , , , , , , , , macready, mr. w., , , , , , , , , , macready, miss, malleson, mrs., letter to, "man about town, the," manchester, dickens at, ; theatricals at, , , manin, m., mario, signor, martin, captain, "martin chuzzlewit," , , , mazzini, m., "medical aspects of death, the," "message from the sea, a," meyerbeer, m., millais, r.a., mr. j. e., ; letter to, mistake, a common, among would-be authors, mitton, mr., ; letter to, "modern greek songs," molesworth, lady, "money," dickens on lord lytton's play of, montague, miss emmeline, morgan, captain, letters to, , morley, mr., , morpeth, lord, "mrs. tillotson," by percy fitzgerald, "much ado about nothing," a captain's views on, murray, mr. leigh, napier, mr. macvey, letters to, , , , naples, dickens at, napoleon the third, dickens prophesies the overthrow of, "national music," mr. chorley's lecture on, nature, topping, the groom, on, niagara, the falls of, nicknames, of professor felton, ; dickens's, of himself, , , , , ; of his son edward, , normanby, lord, "no thoroughfare," the play of, , , , "not sso bad as we seem," dickens's opinion of lord lytton's comedy of, ; dickens plays in, , novello, mr. alfred, novello, miss sabilla, novel-writing, dickens on, "old curiosity shop, the," feeling for, in america, "oliver twist," ; the reading of the murder from, ; effect of the murder reading, olliffe, sir j., , olliffe, lady, ; letter to, olliffe, miss, letter to, osgood, mr., "our london correspondent," dickens on, "our mutual friend," , oyster cellars out of season, oysters, , paris, dickens in, , ; the drama in, pease, mrs., letter to, phillips, mr. henry w., letter to, pickthorn, dr., picnic, a, in kent, political life, dickens's opinion of, political meetings, dickens on, poole, mr., , portrait of dickens, by frith, power, miss, , , prescott, dickens's admiration for, prince consort, the, prince of wales, the, prisons, dickens on discipline in, pritchard the poisoner, procter, mr. b. w., , ; letter to, procter, mrs., , , procter, miss adelaide, puffery, dickens's hatred of, punishment of death, dickens on the, purse, a theatrical, queen, the, maclise and, ; her reception of longfellow, ; and see , , , rainforth, miss, reade, mr. charles, readings, dickens's public, , , , ; the object of the, ; the proposed series of, in america, ; the labour of the, ; farewell series of, , , ; the trial reading of the murder, , ; effect of the reading of the murder on the audience, red tape, dickens on, reform bill, dickens on the, reform meeting at drury-lane theatre, religion, dickens on, _review_, _the north american_, ; _the edinburgh_, , , , , , robinson, mr., , , robinson, rev. thomas, letter to, robson, mr. f., , "roccabella," dickens's opinion of mr. chorley's story of, roche, the courier, rogers, mr. samuel, rome, dickens at, ross, mr. john, ross, mr. r. m., letter to, ross, mr. t., letter to, royal exchange, the, fire at, rusden, mr.; see letters russell, mr. george, russell, lord john, , _russia_, s.s., the, , rye, mr. w. b., letter to, sammins, mr. w. l., letter to, sartoris, mr. and mrs., _satirist, the_, sausage, a questionable, scheffer, ary, schools, dickens on ragged, scotland, dickens's love for the people of, scott, sir walter, extracts from the diary of, , serle, mr., letter to, shakespeare, curatorship of house of, sheridan, "sketches of young gentlemen," by dickens, slave-owners, dickens on, smith, mr. albert, letter to, smith, mr. arthur, , ; letter to, smith, mr. h. p., letter to, speaking, dickens on public, stage-manager, dickens as a, , , stanfield, mr. clarkson, , , , , stansbury, mr., staplehurst, the railway accident at, stone, mr. frank, , , ; letters to, , "strange story, a," dickens's criticism on, , , , "studies of sensation and event," sturgis, mr. russell, letters to, , sumner, mr., , sunday bands, "sunday under three heads," by charles dickens, switzerland, expedition to, - ; ascent of the mer de glace, ; a hot bath in, ; passage of the simplon, ; travellers in, ; carriages in, sympathy, letters of, , , , tavistock house, temple, the, dickens becomes a student at, tennent, sir emerson, , , tennent, lady, thackeray, mr. w. m., letter to, theatricals, in america, ; dickens as a stage-manager, ; for the benefit of leigh hunt, , , , , , ; for the endowment of a curatorship of shakespeare's house, ; reminiscences of, ; at knebworth, , , ; for the guild of literature, - , - ; at tavistock house, thompson, mr.; see letters thompson, mrs., thompson, miss elizabeth, thornbury, mr. walter, letter to, topham, mr., topping, the groom, on nature, townshend, mr., tracey, lieutenant, travers, mr., "uncommercial traveller, the," , "united vagabonds, the," venice, dickens at, verona, dickens at, vesuvius, dickens's ascent of, "village coquettes," braham's opinion of dickens's opera of, ; harley's opinion of, "visits to rochester," waistcoats, dickens's fondness for bright, waterfall, a, as a stage effect, , watson, dr., white, rev. james, letters to, , white, mrs., "wilds of america," wills, mr. w. h., , , , , , , ; and see letters wilmot, mr., wilson, sir john, winter, mrs., letters to, , "woodland gossip," dickens's criticism on, work, dickens at, , "working man's life, the," young, mr., charles dickens and evans, crystal palace press. _ , henrietta street, covent garden, w.c._ (_late , piccadilly, w._) _november, ._ catalogue of books published by chapman & hall, limited, including drawing examples, diagrams, models, instruments, etc. issued under the authority of the science and art department, south kensington, for the use of schools and art and science classes. new novels. just ready, in vols., _the vicar's people: a story of a stain._ by george manville fenn, author of "the parson o' dumford." * * * * * just ready, in vol., _the missing note._ by mrs. corbett. * * * * * in november, in vols., _the great tontine._ by captain hawley smart. * * * * * in november, in vols., _a new novel by_ herman merivale. * * * * * in the press, a new edition, in vol., _aunt hepsy's foundling._ by mrs. leith adams. in the press, in vols., _a new novel by the same author._ * * * * * in the press, in vols., _a new novel by_ maria m. grant. * * * * * in the press, in vols., _a new novel by_ hon. mrs. henry chetwynd. * * * * * _the belstone._ by j. a. lake gloag. vols. * * * * * _young lochinvar; 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[***] _the remainder of dickens's works were not originally printed in demy vo._ library edition. _in post vo. with the original illustrations, vols., cloth, £ ._ _s._ _d._ pickwick papers illustrns., vols. nicholas nickleby " vols. martin chuzzlewit " vols. old curiosity shop & reprinted pieces " vols. barnaby rudge and hard times " vols. bleak house " vols. little dorrit " vols. dombey and son " vols. david copperfield " vols. our mutual friend " vols. sketches by "boz" " vol. oliver twist " vol. christmas books " vol. a tale of two cities " vol. great expectations " vol. pictures from italy & american notes " vol. uncommercial traveller " vol. child's history of england " vol. edwin drood and miscellanies " vol. christmas stories from "household words," &c. 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on canvas and rollers, varnished, £ s. explanatory key, s. . the skeleton, front view. . the muscles, front view. . the skeleton, back view. . the muscles, back view. . the skeleton, side view. . the muscles, side view. . the female skeleton, front view. zoological: ten sheets. illustrating the classification of animals. by robert patterson. £ ; on canvas and rollers, varnished, £ s. the same, reduced in size on royal paper, in sheets, uncoloured, s. the fortnightly review edited by john morley. the fortnightly review is published on the st of every month (the issue on the th being suspended), and a volume is completed every six months. _the following are among the contributors:_-- sir rutherford alcock. mathew arnold. professor bain. professor beesly. dr. bridges. hon. george c. brodrick. sir george campbell, m.p. j. chamberlain, m.p. professor sidney colvin. montague cookson, q.c. l. h. courtney, m.p. g. h. darwin. f. w. farrar. professor fawcett, m.p. edward a. freeman. mrs. garret-anderson. m. e. grant duff, m.p. thomas hare. f. harrison. lord houghton. professor huxley. professor jevons. Ã�mile de laveleye. t. e. cliffe leslie. right hon. r. lowe, m.p. sir john lubbock, m.p. lord lytton. sir h. s. maine. dr. maudsley. professor max mÃ�ller. professor henry morley. g. osborne morgan, q.c., m.p. william morris. f. w. newman. w. g. palgrave. walter h. pater. rt. hon. lyon playfair, m.p. dante gabriel rossetti. herbert spencer. hon. e. l. stanley. sir j. fitzjames stephen, q.c. leslie stephen. j. hutchison stirling. a. c. swinburne. dr. von sybel. j. a. symonds. w. t. thornton. hon. lionel a. tollemache. anthony trollope. professor tyndall. the editor. &c. &c. &c. the fortnightly review _is published at s. d._ * * * * * chapman & hall, limited, , henrietta street, covent garden, w.c. charles dickens and evans,] [crystal palace press. * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation errors repaired. asterisms, three asterisks in a triangle formation, are indicated by [***]. page , "recal" changed to "recall" (i can recall everything) page , "alway" changed to "always" (always look upon) page , "an" changed to "and" (straw hat, and) page , removed repeated word "it". (original reads: wherever it it is done) page , "d'hote" changed to "d'hôte" (the table d'hôte) page , "scena" changed to "scene a" (scene a half-an-hour) page , "tha" changed to "that" (have told her that) page , "withdraw" changed to "withdrawn" (withdrawn from the wear) page , word "be" inserted into text (to be found) page , "sich" changed to "such" (such was my) page , "conjuror" changed to "conjurer" to match text. (conjuror, dickens as a) page , "not so bad as we seem" changed to "not so bad as we seem" page , "rocabella" changed to "roccabella" ("roccabella," dickens's opini on) captain boldheart by charles dickens illustrated by beatrice pearse [illustration: "invited them to breakfast"] captain boldheart & the latin-grammar master a holiday romance from the pen of lieut-col. robin redforth aged . by charles dickens london: constable and co. ltd. foreword the story contained herein was written by charles dickens in . it is the third of four stories entitled "holiday romance" and was published originally in a children's magazine in america. it purports to be written by a child aged nine. it was republished in england in "all the year round" in . for this and four other christmas pieces dickens received £ , . "holiday romance" was published in book form by messrs chapman & hall in , with "edwin drood" and other stories. for this reprint the text of the story as it appeared in "all the year round" has been followed. captain boldheart and the latin-grammar master the subject of our present narrative would appear to have devoted himself to the pirate profession at a comparatively early age. we find him in command of a splendid schooner of one hundred guns, loaded to the muzzle, 'ere yet he had had a party in honour of his tenth birthday. it seems that our hero, considering himself spited by a latin-grammar-master, demanded the satisfaction due from one man of honour to another. not getting it, he privately withdrew his haughty spirit from such low company, bought a second-hand pocket-pistol, folded up some sandwiches in a paper bag, made a bottle of spanish liquorice-water, and entered on a career of valour. it were tedious to follow boldheart (for such was his name) through the commencing stages of his history. suffice it that we find him bearing the rank of captain boldheart, reclining in full uniform on a crimson hearth-rug spread out upon the quarter-deck of his schooner the beauty, in the china seas. it was a lovely evening, and as his crew lay grouped about him, he favoured them with the following melody: o landsmen are folly! o pirates are jolly! o diddleum dolly, di! (_chorus_) heave yo. the soothing effect of these animated sounds floating over the waters, as the common sailors united their rough voices to take up the rich tones of boldheart, may be more easily conceived than described. it was under these circumstances that the lookout at the masthead gave the word, "whales!" all was now activity. "where away?" cried captain boldheart, starting up. "on the larboard bow, sir," replied the fellow at the masthead, touching his hat. for such was the height of discipline on board of the beauty, that even at that height he was obliged to mind it or be shot through the head. [illustration: "his crew lay grouped around him"] "this adventure belongs to me," said boldheart. "boy, my harpoon. let no man follow;" and leaping alone into his boat, the captain rowed with admirable dexterity in the direction of the monster. all was now excitement. "he nears him!" said an elderly seaman, following the captain through his spy-glass. "he strikes him!" said another seaman, a mere stripling, but also with a spy-glass. "he tows him towards us!" said another seaman, a man in the full vigour of life, but also with a spy-glass. in fact the captain was seen approaching, with the huge bulk following. we will not dwell on the deafening cries of "boldheart! boldheart!" with which he was received, when, carelessly leaping on the quarter-deck, he presented his prize to his men. they afterwards made two thousand four hundred and seventeen pound ten and sixpence by it. ordering the sails to be braced up, the captain now stood w.n.w. the beauty flew rather than floated over the dark blue waters. nothing particular occurred for a fortnight, except taking, with considerable slaughter, four spanish galleons, and a snow from south america, all richly laden. inaction began to tell upon the spirits of the men. captain boldheart called all hands aft, and said: "my lads, i hear there are discontented ones among ye. let any such stand forth." after some murmuring, in which the expressions, "aye, aye, sir!" "union jack!" "avast," "starboard," "port," "bowsprit," and similar indications of a mutinous undercurrent, though subdued, were audible, bill boozey, captain of the foretop, came out from the rest. his form was that of a giant, but he quailed under the captain's eye. "what are your wrongs?" said the captain. "why, d'ye see, captain boldheart," replied the towering mariner, "i've sailed man and boy for many a year, but i never yet know'd the milk served out for the ship's company's teas to be so sour as 'tis aboard this craft." [illustration: the rescue of william boozey.] at this moment the thrilling cry, "man overboard!" announced to the astonished crew that boozey, in stepping back, as the captain (in mere thoughtfulness) laid his hand upon the faithful pocket-pistol which he wore in his belt, had lost his balance, and was struggling with the foaming tide. all was now stupefaction. but, with captain boldheart, to throw off his uniform coat regardless of the various rich orders with which it was decorated, and to plunge into the sea after the drowning giant, was the work of a moment. maddening was the excitement when boats were lowered; intense the joy when the captain was seen holding up the drowning man with his teeth; deafening the cheering when both were restored to the main deck of the beauty. and from the instant of his changing his wet clothes for dry ones, captain boldheart had no such devoted though humble friend as william boozey. boldheart now pointed to the horizon, and called the attention of his crew to the taper spars of a ship lying snug in harbour under the guns of a fort. "she shall be ours at sunrise," said he. "serve out a double allowance of grog, and prepare for action." all was now preparation. when morning dawned after a sleepless night, it was seen that the stranger was crowding on all sail to come out of the harbour and offer battle. as the two ships came nearer to each other, the stranger fired a gun and hoisted roman colours. boldheart then perceived her to be the latin-grammar-master's bark. such indeed she was, and had been tacking about the world in unavailing pursuit, from the time of his first taking to a roving life. boldheart now addressed his men, promising to blow them up if he should feel convinced that their reputation required it, and giving orders that the latin-grammar-master should be taken alive. he then dismissed them to their quarters, and the fight began with a broadside from the beauty. she then veered round, and poured in another. the scorpion (so was the bark of the latin-grammar-master appropriately called) was not slow to return her fire, and a terrific cannonading ensued, in which the guns of the beauty did tremendous execution. the latin-grammar-master was seen upon the poop, in the midst of the smoke and fire, encouraging his men. to do him justice, he was no craven, though his white hat, his short grey trousers, and his long snuff-coloured surtout reaching to his heels--the self-same coat in which he had spited boldheart--contrasted most unfavourably with the brilliant uniform of the latter. at this moment boldheart, seizing a pike and putting himself at the head of his men, gave the word to board. a desperate conflict ensued in the hammock nettings--or somewhere in about that direction--until the latin-grammar-master, having all his masts gone, his hull and rigging shot through and through, and seeing boldheart slashing a path towards him, hauled down his flag himself, gave up his sword to boldheart, and asked for quarter. scarce had he been put into the captain's boat, 'ere the scorpion went down with all on board. on captain boldheart's now assembling his men, a circumstance occurred. he found it necessary with one blow of his cutlass to kill the cook, who, having lost his brother in the late action, was making at the latin-grammar-master in an infuriated state, intent on his destruction with a carving-knife. captain boldheart then turned to the latin-grammar-master, severely reproaching him with his perfidy, and put it to his crew what they considered that a master who spited a boy deserved? they answered with one voice, "death." "it may be so," said the captain; "but it shall never be said that boldheart stained his hour of triumph with the blood of his enemy. prepare the cutter." the cutter was immediately prepared. "without taking your life," said the captain, "i must yet for ever deprive you of the power of spiting other boys. i shall turn you adrift in this boat. you will find in her two oars, a compass, a bottle of rum, a small cask of water, a piece of pork, a bag of biscuit, and my latin grammar. go! and spite the natives, if you can find any." deeply conscious of this bitter sarcasm, the unhappy wretch was put into the cutter, and was soon left far behind. he made no effort to row, but was seen lying on his back with his legs up, when last made out by the ship's telescopes. a stiff breeze now beginning to blow, captain boldheart gave orders to keep her s.s.w., easing her a little during the night by falling off a point or two w. by w., or even by w.s., if she complained much. he then retired for the night, having in truth much need of repose. in addition to the fatigues he had undergone, this brave officer had received sixteen wounds in the engagement, but had not mentioned it. in the morning a white squall came on, and was succeeded by other squalls of various colours. it thundered and lightened heavily for six weeks. hurricanes then set in for two months. waterspouts and tornadoes followed. the oldest sailor on board--and he was a very old one--had never seen such weather. the beauty lost all idea where she was, and the carpenter reported six feet two of water in the hold. everybody fell senseless at the pumps every day. provisions now ran very low. our hero put the crew on short allowance, and put himself on shorter allowance than any man in the ship. but his spirit kept him fat. in this extremity, the gratitude of boozey, the captain of the foretop whom our readers may remember, was truly affecting. the loving though lowly william repeatedly requested to be killed, and preserved for the captain's table. we now approach a change in affairs. one day during a gleam of sunshine and when the weather had moderated, the man at the masthead--too weak now to touch his hat, besides its having been blown away--called out, "savages!" all was now expectation. presently fifteen hundred canoes, each paddled by twenty savages, were seen advancing in excellent order. they were a light green colour (the savages were), and sang, with great energy, the following strain: choo a choo a choo tooth. muntch, muntch. nycey! choo a choo a choo tooth. muntch, muntch. nyce! as the shades of night were by this time closing in, these expressions were supposed to embody this simple people's views of the evening hymn. but it too soon appeared that the song was a translation of "for what we are going to receive," &c. the chief, imposingly decorated with feathers of lively colours, and having the majestic appearance of a fighting parrot, no sooner understood (he understood english perfectly) that the ship was the beauty, captain boldheart, than he fell upon his face on the deck, and could not be persuaded to rise until the captain had lifted him up, & told him he wouldn't hurt him. all the rest of the savages also fell on their faces with marks of terror, and had also to be lifted up one by one. thus the fame of the great boldheart had gone before him, even among these children of nature. turtles and oysters were now produced in astonishing numbers, and on these and yams the people made a hearty meal. after dinner the chief told captain boldheart that there was better feeding up at the village, and that he would be glad to take him and his officers there. apprehensive of treachery, boldheart ordered his boat's crew to attend him completely armed. and well were it for other commanders if their precautions--but let us not anticipate. [illustration: "arm-in-arm with the chief"] [illustration: "two savages floured him before putting him to the fire."] when the canoes arrived at the beach, the darkness of the night was illumined by the light of an immense fire. ordering his boat's crew (with the intrepid though illiterate william at their head) to keep close and be upon their guard, boldheart bravely went on, arm-in-arm with the chief. but how to depict the captain's surprise when he found a ring of savages singing in chorus that barbarous translation of "for what we are going to receive, &c.," which has been given above, and dancing hand-in-hand round the latin-grammar-master, in a hamper with his head shaved, while two savages floured him, before putting him to the fire to be cooked! boldheart now took counsel with his officers on the course to be adopted. in the mean time, the miserable captive never ceased begging pardon and imploring to be delivered. on the generous boldheart's proposal, it was at length resolved that he should not be cooked, but should be allowed to remain raw, on two conditions. namely, . that he should never under any circumstances presume to teach any boy any thing any more. . that, if taken back to england, he should pass his life in travelling to find out boys who wanted their exercises done, and should do their exercises for those boys for nothing, and never say a word about it. drawing his sword from its sheath, boldheart swore him to these conditions on its shining blade. the prisoner wept bitterly, and appeared acutely to feel the errors of his past career. the captain then ordered his boat's crew to make ready for a volley, and after firing to re-load quickly. "and expect a score or two on ye to go head over heels," murmured william boozey; "for i'm a looking at ye." with those words the derisive though deadly william took a good aim. "fire!" the ringing voice of boldheart was lost in the report of the guns and the screeching of the savages. volley after volley awakened the numerous echoes. hundreds of savages were killed, hundreds wounded, and thousands ran howling into the woods. the latin-grammar-master had a spare night-cap lent him, and a longtail coat which he wore hind side before. he presented a ludicrous though pitiable appearance, and serve him right. [illustration: "the latin-grammar-master had a spare nightcap lent him and a longtail coat which he wore hind side before."] [illustration: "ere the sun went down full many a hornpipe had been danced ... by the uncouth though agile william."] we now find captain boldheart, with this rescued wretch on board, standing off for other islands. at one of these, not a cannibal island, but a pork and vegetable one, he married (only in fun on his part) the king's daughter. here he rested some time, receiving from the natives great quantities of precious stones, gold dust, elephants' teeth, and sandal wood, and getting very rich. this, too, though he almost every day made presents of enormous value to his men. the ship being at length as full as she could hold of all sorts of valuable things, boldheart gave orders to weigh the anchor, and turn the beauty's head towards england. these orders were obeyed with three cheers, and ere the sun went down full many a hornpipe had been danced on deck by the uncouth though agile william. we next find captain boldheart about three leagues off madeira, surveying through his spy-glass a stranger of suspicious appearance making sail towards him. on his firing a gun ahead of her to bring her to, she ran up a flag, which he instantly recognized as the flag from the mast in the back-garden at home. [illustration: "married the chief's daughter"] inferring from this, that his father had put to sea to seek his long-lost son, the captain sent his own boat on board the stranger, to inquire if this was so, and if so, whether his father's intentions were strictly honourable. the boat came back with a present of greens and fresh meat, and reported that the stranger was the family of twelve hundred tons, and had not only the captain's father on board, but also his mother, with the majority of his aunts and uncles, and all his cousins. it was further reported to boldheart that the whole of these relations had expressed themselves in a becoming manner, and were anxious to embrace him and thank him for the glorious credit he had done them. boldheart at once invited them to breakfast next morning on board the beauty, and gave orders for a brilliant ball that should last all day. it was in the course of the night that the captain discovered the hopelessness of reclaiming the latin-grammar-master. that thankless traitor was found out, as the two ships lay near each other, communicating with the family by signals, and offering to give up boldheart. he was hanged at the yard-arm the first thing in the morning, after having it impressively pointed out to him by boldheart that this was what spiters came to. the meeting between the captain and his parents was attended with tears. his uncles and aunts would have attended their meeting with tears too, but he wasn't going to stand that. his cousins were very much astonished by the size of his ship and the discipline of his men, and were greatly overcome by the splendour of his uniform. he kindly conducted them round the vessel, and pointed out every thing worthy of notice. he also fired his hundred guns, and found it amusing to witness their alarm. the entertainment surpassed everything ever seen on board ship, and lasted from ten in the morning until seven the next morning. only one disagreeable incident occurred. captain boldheart found himself obliged to put his cousin tom in irons, for being disrespectful. on the boy's promising amendment, however, he was humanely released after a few hours' close confinement. boldheart now took his mother down into the great cabin, and asked after the young lady with whom, it was well known to the world, he was in love. his mother replied that the object of his affections was then at school at margate, for the benefit of sea-bathing (it was the month of september), but that she feared the young lady's friends were still opposed to the union. boldheart at once resolved, if necessary, to bombard the town. taking the command of his ship with this intention, and putting all but fighting men on board the family, with orders to that vessel to keep in company, boldheart soon anchored in margate roads. here he went ashore well-armed, and attended by his boat's crew (at their head the faithful though ferocious william), and demanded to see the mayor, who came out of his office. "dost know the name of yon ship, mayor?" asked boldheart fiercely. [illustration: "dost know the name of yon ship, mayor?"] [illustration: standing sentry over him] "no," said the mayor, rubbing his eyes, which he could scarce believe when he saw the goodly vessel riding at anchor. "she is named the beauty," said the captain. "hah!" exclaimed the mayor, with a start. "and you, then, are captain boldheart?" "the same." a pause ensued. the mayor trembled. "now, mayor," said the captain, "choose. help me to my bride, or be bombarded." the mayor begged for two hours' grace, in which to make inquiries respecting the young lady. boldheart accorded him but one; and during that one placed william boozey sentry over him, with a drawn sword and instructions to accompany him wherever he went, and to run him through the body if he showed a sign of playing false. at the end of the hour, the mayor re-appeared more dead than alive, closely waited on by boozey more alive than dead. [illustration: "his lovely bride came forth"] "captain," said the mayor, "i have ascertained that the young lady is going to bathe. even now she waits her turn for a machine. the tide is low, though rising. i, in one of our town-boats, shall not be suspected. when she comes forth in her bathing-dress into the shallow water from behind the hood of the machine, my boat shall intercept her and prevent her return. do you the rest." "mayor," returned capt. boldheart, "thou hast saved thy town." the captain then signalled his boat to take him off, and steering her himself ordered her crew to row towards the bathing-ground, and there to rest upon their oars. all happened as had been arranged. his lovely bride came forth, the mayor glided in behind her, she became confused and had floated out of her depth, when, with one skilful touch of the rudder and one quivering stroke from the boat's crew, her adoring boldheart held her in his strong arms. there her shrieks of terror were changed to cries of joy. before the beauty could get under weigh, the hoisting of all the flags in the town and harbour, and the ringing of all the bells, announced to the brave boldheart that he had nothing to fear. he therefore determined to be married on the spot, and signalled for a clergyman and clerk, who came off promptly in a sailing-boat named the skylark. another great entertainment was then given on board the beauty, in the midst of which the mayor was called out by a messenger. he returned with the news that government had sent down to know whether captain boldheart, in acknowledgment of the great services he had done his country by being a pirate, would consent to be made a lieutenant-colonel. for himself he would have spurned the worthless boon, but his bride wished it and he consented. only one thing further happened before the good ship family was dismissed, with rich presents to all on board. it is painful to record (but such is human nature in some cousins) that captain boldheart's unmannerly cousin tom was actually tied up to receive three dozen with a rope's end "for cheekyness and making games," when captain boldheart's lady begged for him and he was spared. the beauty then refitted, and the captain and his bride departed for the indian ocean to enjoy themselves for evermore. [illustration: "captain boldheart's lady begged for him and he was spared."] the end. * * * * * the orange tree series of children's books fully illustrated in colour, s. net. foolscap to, boards * * * * * . the story of richard doubledick. by charles dickens. with illustrations by w. b. wollen, r.i., r.o.i. . the magic fishbone. by charles dickens. with illustrations by s. beatrice pearse. . the trial of william tinkling. by charles dickens. with illustrations by s. beatrice pearse. . captain boldheart and the latin-grammar master. by charles dickens. with illustrations by s. beatrice pearse. the wonder book by nathaniel hawthorne. with coloured illustrations by patten wilson. . the gorgon's head . the golden touch _the above are ready. the following are in active preparation._ . the paradise of children . the three golden apples . the miraculous pitcher . the chimaera tanglewood tales by nathaniel hawthorne. with coloured illustrations by patten wilson. . the minotaur . the pygmies . the dragon's teeth . circe's palace . the pomegranate seeds . the golden fleece london: constable & company, limited * * * * * transcribed from the chapman and hall edition of "christmas stories" by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk the holly-tree--three branches first branch--myself i have kept one secret in the course of my life. i am a bashful man. nobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose it, nobody ever did suppose it, but i am naturally a bashful man. this is the secret which i have never breathed until now. i might greatly move the reader by some account of the innumerable places i have not been to, the innumerable people i have not called upon or received, the innumerable social evasions i have been guilty of, solely because i am by original constitution and character a bashful man. but i will leave the reader unmoved, and proceed with the object before me. that object is to give a plain account of my travels and discoveries in the holly-tree inn; in which place of good entertainment for man and beast i was once snowed up. it happened in the memorable year when i parted for ever from angela leath, whom i was shortly to have married, on making the discovery that she preferred my bosom friend. from our school-days i had freely admitted edwin, in my own mind, to be far superior to myself; and, though i was grievously wounded at heart, i felt the preference to be natural, and tried to forgive them both. it was under these circumstances that i resolved to go to america--on my way to the devil. communicating my discovery neither to angela nor to edwin, but resolving to write each of them an affecting letter conveying my blessing and forgiveness, which the steam-tender for shore should carry to the post when i myself should be bound for the new world, far beyond recall,--i say, locking up my grief in my own breast, and consoling myself as i could with the prospect of being generous, i quietly left all i held dear, and started on the desolate journey i have mentioned. the dead winter-time was in full dreariness when i left my chambers for ever, at five o'clock in the morning. i had shaved by candle-light, of course, and was miserably cold, and experienced that general all-pervading sensation of getting up to be hanged which i have usually found inseparable from untimely rising under such circumstances. how well i remember the forlorn aspect of fleet street when i came out of the temple! the street-lamps flickering in the gusty north-east wind, as if the very gas were contorted with cold; the white-topped houses; the bleak, star-lighted sky; the market people and other early stragglers, trotting to circulate their almost frozen blood; the hospitable light and warmth of the few coffee-shops and public-houses that were open for such customers; the hard, dry, frosty rime with which the air was charged (the wind had already beaten it into every crevice), and which lashed my face like a steel whip. it wanted nine days to the end of the month, and end of the year. the post-office packet for the united states was to depart from liverpool, weather permitting, on the first of the ensuing month, and i had the intervening time on my hands. i had taken this into consideration, and had resolved to make a visit to a certain spot (which i need not name) on the farther borders of yorkshire. it was endeared to me by my having first seen angela at a farmhouse in that place, and my melancholy was gratified by the idea of taking a wintry leave of it before my expatriation. i ought to explain, that, to avoid being sought out before my resolution should have been rendered irrevocable by being carried into full effect, i had written to angela overnight, in my usual manner, lamenting that urgent business, of which she should know all particulars by-and-by--took me unexpectedly away from her for a week or ten days. there was no northern railway at that time, and in its place there were stage-coaches; which i occasionally find myself, in common with some other people, affecting to lament now, but which everybody dreaded as a very serious penance then. i had secured the box-seat on the fastest of these, and my business in fleet street was to get into a cab with my portmanteau, so to make the best of my way to the peacock at islington, where i was to join this coach. but when one of our temple watchmen, who carried my portmanteau into fleet street for me, told me about the huge blocks of ice that had for some days past been floating in the river, having closed up in the night, and made a walk from the temple gardens over to the surrey shore, i began to ask myself the question, whether the box-seat would not be likely to put a sudden and a frosty end to my unhappiness. i was heart-broken, it is true, and yet i was not quite so far gone as to wish to be frozen to death. when i got up to the peacock,--where i found everybody drinking hot purl, in self-preservation,--i asked if there were an inside seat to spare. i then discovered that, inside or out, i was the only passenger. this gave me a still livelier idea of the great inclemency of the weather, since that coach always loaded particularly well. however, i took a little purl (which i found uncommonly good), and got into the coach. when i was seated, they built me up with straw to the waist, and, conscious of making a rather ridiculous appearance, i began my journey. it was still dark when we left the peacock. for a little while, pale, uncertain ghosts of houses and trees appeared and vanished, and then it was hard, black, frozen day. people were lighting their fires; smoke was mounting straight up high into the rarified air; and we were rattling for highgate archway over the hardest ground i have ever heard the ring of iron shoes on. as we got into the country, everything seemed to have grown old and gray. the roads, the trees, thatched roofs of cottages and homesteads, the ricks in farmers' yards. out-door work was abandoned, horse-troughs at roadside inns were frozen hard, no stragglers lounged about, doors were close shut, little turnpike houses had blazing fires inside, and children (even turnpike people have children, and seem to like them) rubbed the frost from the little panes of glass with their chubby arms, that their bright eyes might catch a glimpse of the solitary coach going by. i don't know when the snow begin to set in; but i know that we were changing horses somewhere when i heard the guard remark, "that the old lady up in the sky was picking her geese pretty hard to- day." then, indeed, i found the white down falling fast and thick. the lonely day wore on, and i dozed it out, as a lonely traveller does. i was warm and valiant after eating and drinking,--particularly after dinner; cold and depressed at all other times. i was always bewildered as to time and place, and always more or less out of my senses. the coach and horses seemed to execute in chorus auld lang syne, without a moment's intermission. they kept the time and tune with the greatest regularity, and rose into the swell at the beginning of the refrain, with a precision that worried me to death. while we changed horses, the guard and coachman went stumping up and down the road, printing off their shoes in the snow, and poured so much liquid consolation into themselves without being any the worse for it, that i began to confound them, as it darkened again, with two great white casks standing on end. our horses tumbled down in solitary places, and we got them up,--which was the pleasantest variety _i_ had, for it warmed me. and it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. all night long we went on in this manner. thus we came round the clock, upon the great north road, to the performance of auld lang syne by day again. and it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. i forget now where we were at noon on the second day, and where we ought to have been; but i know that we were scores of miles behindhand, and that our case was growing worse every hour. the drift was becoming prodigiously deep; landmarks were getting snowed out; the road and the fields were all one; instead of having fences and hedge-rows to guide us, we went crunching on over an unbroken surface of ghastly white that might sink beneath us at any moment and drop us down a whole hillside. still the coachman and guard--who kept together on the box, always in council, and looking well about them--made out the track with astonishing sagacity. when we came in sight of a town, it looked, to my fancy, like a large drawing on a slate, with abundance of slate-pencil expended on the churches and houses where the snow lay thickest. when we came within a town, and found the church clocks all stopped, the dial-faces choked with snow, and the inn-signs blotted out, it seemed as if the whole place were overgrown with white moss. as to the coach, it was a mere snowball; similarly, the men and boys who ran along beside us to the town's end, turning our clogged wheels and encouraging our horses, were men and boys of snow; and the bleak wild solitude to which they at last dismissed us was a snowy sahara. one would have thought this enough: notwithstanding which, i pledge my word that it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. we performed auld lang syne the whole day; seeing nothing, out of towns and villages, but the track of stoats, hares, and foxes, and sometimes of birds. at nine o'clock at night, on a yorkshire moor, a cheerful burst from our horn, and a welcome sound of talking, with a glimmering and moving about of lanterns, roused me from my drowsy state. i found that we were going to change. they helped me out, and i said to a waiter, whose bare head became as white as king lear's in a single minute, "what inn is this?" "the holly-tree, sir," said he. "upon my word, i believe," said i, apologetically, to the guard and coachman, "that i must stop here." now the landlord, and the landlady, and the ostler, and the post-boy, and all the stable authorities, had already asked the coachman, to the wide- eyed interest of all the rest of the establishment, if he meant to go on. the coachman had already replied, "yes, he'd take her through it,"--meaning by her the coach,--"if so be as george would stand by him." george was the guard, and he had already sworn that he would stand by him. so the helpers were already getting the horses out. my declaring myself beaten, after this parley, was not an announcement without preparation. indeed, but for the way to the announcement being smoothed by the parley, i more than doubt whether, as an innately bashful man, i should have had the confidence to make it. as it was, it received the approval even of the guard and coachman. therefore, with many confirmations of my inclining, and many remarks from one bystander to another, that the gentleman could go for'ard by the mail to-morrow, whereas to-night he would only be froze, and where was the good of a gentleman being froze--ah, let alone buried alive (which latter clause was added by a humorous helper as a joke at my expense, and was extremely well received), i saw my portmanteau got out stiff, like a frozen body; did the handsome thing by the guard and coachman; wished them good-night and a prosperous journey; and, a little ashamed of myself, after all, for leaving them to fight it out alone, followed the landlord, landlady, and waiter of the holly-tree up-stairs. i thought i had never seen such a large room as that into which they showed me. it had five windows, with dark red curtains that would have absorbed the light of a general illumination; and there were complications of drapery at the top of the curtains, that went wandering about the wall in a most extraordinary manner. i asked for a smaller room, and they told me there was no smaller room. they could screen me in, however, the landlord said. they brought a great old japanned screen, with natives (japanese, i suppose) engaged in a variety of idiotic pursuits all over it; and left me roasting whole before an immense fire. my bedroom was some quarter of a mile off, up a great staircase at the end of a long gallery; and nobody knows what a misery this is to a bashful man who would rather not meet people on the stairs. it was the grimmest room i have ever had the nightmare in; and all the furniture, from the four posts of the bed to the two old silver candle-sticks, was tall, high-shouldered, and spindle-waisted. below, in my sitting-room, if i looked round my screen, the wind rushed at me like a mad bull; if i stuck to my arm-chair, the fire scorched me to the colour of a new brick. the chimney-piece was very high, and there was a bad glass--what i may call a wavy glass--above it, which, when i stood up, just showed me my anterior phrenological developments,--and these never look well, in any subject, cut short off at the eyebrow. if i stood with my back to the fire, a gloomy vault of darkness above and beyond the screen insisted on being looked at; and, in its dim remoteness, the drapery of the ten curtains of the five windows went twisting and creeping about, like a nest of gigantic worms. i suppose that what i observe in myself must be observed by some other men of similar character in _themselves_; therefore i am emboldened to mention, that, when i travel, i never arrive at a place but i immediately want to go away from it. before i had finished my supper of broiled fowl and mulled port, i had impressed upon the waiter in detail my arrangements for departure in the morning. breakfast and bill at eight. fly at nine. two horses, or, if needful, even four. tired though i was, the night appeared about a week long. in cases of nightmare, i thought of angela, and felt more depressed than ever by the reflection that i was on the shortest road to gretna green. what had _i_ to do with gretna green? i was not going _that_ way to the devil, but by the american route, i remarked in my bitterness. in the morning i found that it was snowing still, that it had snowed all night, and that i was snowed up. nothing could get out of that spot on the moor, or could come at it, until the road had been cut out by labourers from the market-town. when they might cut their way to the holly-tree nobody could tell me. it was now christmas-eve. i should have had a dismal christmas-time of it anywhere, and consequently that did not so much matter; still, being snowed up was like dying of frost, a thing i had not bargained for. i felt very lonely. yet i could no more have proposed to the landlord and landlady to admit me to their society (though i should have liked it--very much) than i could have asked them to present me with a piece of plate. here my great secret, the real bashfulness of my character, is to be observed. like most bashful men, i judge of other people as if they were bashful too. besides being far too shamefaced to make the proposal myself, i really had a delicate misgiving that it would be in the last degree disconcerting to them. trying to settle down, therefore, in my solitude, i first of all asked what books there were in the house. the waiter brought me a _book of roads_, two or three old newspapers, a little song-book, terminating in a collection of toasts and sentiments, a little jest-book, an odd volume of _peregrine pickle_, and the _sentimental journey_. i knew every word of the two last already, but i read them through again, then tried to hum all the songs (auld lang syne was among them); went entirely through the jokes,--in which i found a fund of melancholy adapted to my state of mind; proposed all the toasts, enunciated all the sentiments, and mastered the papers. the latter had nothing in them but stock advertisements, a meeting about a county rate, and a highway robbery. as i am a greedy reader, i could not make this supply hold out until night; it was exhausted by tea-time. being then entirely cast upon my own resources, i got through an hour in considering what to do next. ultimately, it came into my head (from which i was anxious by any means to exclude angela and edwin), that i would endeavour to recall my experience of inns, and would try how long it lasted me. i stirred the fire, moved my chair a little to one side of the screen,--not daring to go far, for i knew the wind was waiting to make a rush at me, i could hear it growling,--and began. my first impressions of an inn dated from the nursery; consequently i went back to the nursery for a starting-point, and found myself at the knee of a sallow woman with a fishy eye, an aquiline nose, and a green gown, whose specially was a dismal narrative of a landlord by the roadside, whose visitors unaccountably disappeared for many years, until it was discovered that the pursuit of his life had been to convert them into pies. for the better devotion of himself to this branch of industry, he had constructed a secret door behind the head of the bed; and when the visitor (oppressed with pie) had fallen asleep, this wicked landlord would look softly in with a lamp in one hand and a knife in the other, would cut his throat, and would make him into pies; for which purpose he had coppers, underneath a trap-door, always boiling; and rolled out his pastry in the dead of the night. yet even he was not insensible to the stings of conscience, for he never went to sleep without being heard to mutter, "too much pepper!" which was eventually the cause of his being brought to justice. i had no sooner disposed of this criminal than there started up another of the same period, whose profession was originally house-breaking; in the pursuit of which art he had had his right ear chopped off one night, as he was burglariously getting in at a window, by a brave and lovely servant-maid (whom the aquiline-nosed woman, though not at all answering the description, always mysteriously implied to be herself). after several years, this brave and lovely servant-maid was married to the landlord of a country inn; which landlord had this remarkable characteristic, that he always wore a silk nightcap, and never would on any consideration take it off. at last, one night, when he was fast asleep, the brave and lovely woman lifted up his silk nightcap on the right side, and found that he had no ear there; upon which she sagaciously perceived that he was the clipped housebreaker, who had married her with the intention of putting her to death. she immediately heated the poker and terminated his career, for which she was taken to king george upon his throne, and received the compliments of royalty on her great discretion and valour. this same narrator, who had a ghoulish pleasure, i have long been persuaded, in terrifying me to the utmost confines of my reason, had another authentic anecdote within her own experience, founded, i now believe, upon _raymond and agnes, or the bleeding nun_. she said it happened to her brother-in-law, who was immensely rich,--which my father was not; and immensely tall,--which my father was not. it was always a point with this ghoul to present my clearest relations and friends to my youthful mind under circumstances of disparaging contrast. the brother-in-law was riding once through a forest on a magnificent horse (we had no magnificent horse at our house), attended by a favourite and valuable newfoundland dog (we had no dog), when he found himself benighted, and came to an inn. a dark woman opened the door, and he asked her if he could have a bed there. she answered yes, and put his horse in the stable, and took him into a room where there were two dark men. while he was at supper, a parrot in the room began to talk, saying, "blood, blood! wipe up the blood!" upon which one of the dark men wrung the parrot's neck, and said he was fond of roasted parrots, and he meant to have this one for breakfast in the morning. after eating and drinking heartily, the immensely rich, tall brother-in-law went up to bed; but he was rather vexed, because they had shut his dog in the stable, saying that they never allowed dogs in the house. he sat very quiet for more than an hour, thinking and thinking, when, just as his candle was burning out, he heard a scratch at the door. he opened the door, and there was the newfoundland dog! the dog came softly in, smelt about him, went straight to some straw in the corner which the dark men had said covered apples, tore the straw away, and disclosed two sheets steeped in blood. just at that moment the candle went out, and the brother-in-law, looking through a chink in the door, saw the two dark men stealing up-stairs; one armed with a dagger that long (about five feet); the other carrying a chopper, a sack, and a spade. having no remembrance of the close of this adventure, i suppose my faculties to have been always so frozen with terror at this stage of it, that the power of listening stagnated within me for some quarter of an hour. these barbarous stories carried me, sitting there on the holly-tree hearth, to the roadside inn, renowned in my time in a sixpenny book with a folding plate, representing in a central compartment of oval form the portrait of jonathan bradford, and in four corner compartments four incidents of the tragedy with which the name is associated,--coloured with a hand at once so free and economical, that the bloom of jonathan's complexion passed without any pause into the breeches of the ostler, and, smearing itself off into the next division, became rum in a bottle. then i remembered how the landlord was found at the murdered traveller's bedside, with his own knife at his feet, and blood upon his hand; how he was hanged for the murder, notwithstanding his protestation that he had indeed come there to kill the traveller for his saddle-bags, but had been stricken motionless on finding him already slain; and how the ostler, years afterwards, owned the deed. by this time i had made myself quite uncomfortable. i stirred the fire, and stood with my back to it as long as i could bear the heat, looking up at the darkness beyond the screen, and at the wormy curtains creeping in and creeping out, like the worms in the ballad of alonzo the brave and the fair imogene. there was an inn in the cathedral town where i went to school, which had pleasanter recollections about it than any of these. i took it next. it was the inn where friends used to put up, and where we used to go to see parents, and to have salmon and fowls, and be tipped. it had an ecclesiastical sign,--the mitre,--and a bar that seemed to be the next best thing to a bishopric, it was so snug. i loved the landlord's youngest daughter to distraction,--but let that pass. it was in this inn that i was cried over by my rosy little sister, because i had acquired a black eye in a fight. and though she had been, that holly-tree night, for many a long year where all tears are dried, the mitre softened me yet. "to be continued to-morrow," said i, when i took my candle to go to bed. but my bed took it upon itself to continue the train of thought that night. it carried me away, like the enchanted carpet, to a distant place (though still in england), and there, alighting from a stage-coach at another inn in the snow, as i had actually done some years before, i repeated in my sleep a curious experience i had really had there. more than a year before i made the journey in the course of which i put up at that inn, i had lost a very near and dear friend by death. every night since, at home or away from home, i had dreamed of that friend; sometimes as still living; sometimes as returning from the world of shadows to comfort me; always as being beautiful, placid, and happy, never in association with any approach to fear or distress. it was at a lonely inn in a wide moorland place, that i halted to pass the night. when i had looked from my bedroom window over the waste of snow on which the moon was shining, i sat down by my fire to write a letter. i had always, until that hour, kept it within my own breast that i dreamed every night of the dear lost one. but in the letter that i wrote i recorded the circumstance, and added that i felt much interested in proving whether the subject of my dream would still be faithful to me, travel-tired, and in that remote place. no. i lost the beloved figure of my vision in parting with the secret. my sleep has never looked upon it since, in sixteen years, but once. i was in italy, and awoke (or seemed to awake), the well-remembered voice distinctly in my ears, conversing with it. i entreated it, as it rose above my bed and soared up to the vaulted roof of the old room, to answer me a question i had asked touching the future life. my hands were still outstretched towards it as it vanished, when i heard a bell ringing by the garden wall, and a voice in the deep stillness of the night calling on all good christians to pray for the souls of the dead; it being all souls' eve. to return to the holly-tree. when i awoke next day, it was freezing hard, and the lowering sky threatened more snow. my breakfast cleared away, i drew my chair into its former place, and, with the fire getting so much the better of the landscape that i sat in twilight, resumed my inn remembrances. that was a good inn down in wiltshire where i put up once, in the days of the hard wiltshire ale, and before all beer was bitterness. it was on the skirts of salisbury plain, and the midnight wind that rattled my lattice window came moaning at me from stonehenge. there was a hanger-on at that establishment (a supernaturally preserved druid i believe him to have been, and to be still), with long white hair, and a flinty blue eye always looking afar off; who claimed to have been a shepherd, and who seemed to be ever watching for the reappearance, on the verge of the horizon, of some ghostly flock of sheep that had been mutton for many ages. he was a man with a weird belief in him that no one could count the stones of stonehenge twice, and make the same number of them; likewise, that any one who counted them three times nine times, and then stood in the centre and said, "i dare!" would behold a tremendous apparition, and be stricken dead. he pretended to have seen a bustard (i suspect him to have been familiar with the dodo), in manner following: he was out upon the plain at the close of a late autumn day, when he dimly discerned, going on before him at a curious fitfully bounding pace, what he at first supposed to be a gig-umbrella that had been blown from some conveyance, but what he presently believed to be a lean dwarf man upon a little pony. having followed this object for some distance without gaining on it, and having called to it many times without receiving any answer, he pursued it for miles and miles, when, at length coming up with it, he discovered it to be the last bustard in great britain, degenerated into a wingless state, and running along the ground. resolved to capture him or perish in the attempt, he closed with the bustard; but the bustard, who had formed a counter-resolution that he should do neither, threw him, stunned him, and was last seen making off due west. this weird main, at that stage of metempsychosis, may have been a sleep-walker or an enthusiast or a robber; but i awoke one night to find him in the dark at my bedside, repeating the athanasian creed in a terrific voice. i paid my bill next day, and retired from the county with all possible precipitation. that was not a commonplace story which worked itself out at a little inn in switzerland, while i was staying there. it was a very homely place, in a village of one narrow zigzag street, among mountains, and you went in at the main door through the cow-house, and among the mules and the dogs and the fowls, before ascending a great bare staircase to the rooms; which were all of unpainted wood, without plastering or papering,--like rough packing-cases. outside there was nothing but the straggling street, a little toy church with a copper-coloured steeple, a pine forest, a torrent, mists, and mountain-sides. a young man belonging to this inn had disappeared eight weeks before (it was winter-time), and was supposed to have had some undiscovered love affair, and to have gone for a soldier. he had got up in the night, and dropped into the village street from the loft in which he slept with another man; and he had done it so quietly, that his companion and fellow-labourer had heard no movement when he was awakened in the morning, and they said, "louis, where is henri?" they looked for him high and low, in vain, and gave him up. now, outside this inn, there stood, as there stood outside every dwelling in the village, a stack of firewood; but the stack belonging to the inn was higher than any of the rest, because the inn was the richest house, and burnt the most fuel. it began to be noticed, while they were looking high and low, that a bantam cock, part of the live stock of the inn, put himself wonderfully out of his way to get to the top of this wood-stack; and that he would stay there for hours and hours, crowing, until he appeared in danger of splitting himself. five weeks went on,--six weeks,--and still this terrible bantam, neglecting his domestic affairs, was always on the top of the wood-stack, crowing the very eyes out of his head. by this time it was perceived that louis had become inspired with a violent animosity towards the terrible bantam, and one morning he was seen by a woman, who sat nursing her goitre at a little window in a gleam of sun, to catch up a rough billet of wood, with a great oath, hurl it at the terrible bantam crowing on the wood-stack, and bring him down dead. hereupon the woman, with a sudden light in her mind, stole round to the back of the wood-stack, and, being a good climber, as all those women are, climbed up, and soon was seen upon the summit, screaming, looking down the hollow within, and crying, "seize louis, the murderer! ring the church bell! here is the body!" i saw the murderer that day, and i saw him as i sat by my fire at the holly- tree inn, and i see him now, lying shackled with cords on the stable litter, among the mild eyes and the smoking breath of the cows, waiting to be taken away by the police, and stared at by the fearful village. a heavy animal,--the dullest animal in the stables,--with a stupid head, and a lumpish face devoid of any trace of insensibility, who had been, within the knowledge of the murdered youth, an embezzler of certain small moneys belonging to his master, and who had taken this hopeful mode of putting a possible accuser out of his way. all of which he confessed next day, like a sulky wretch who couldn't be troubled any more, now that they had got hold of him, and meant to make an end of him. i saw him once again, on the day of my departure from the inn. in that canton the headsman still does his office with a sword; and i came upon this murderer sitting bound, to a chair, with his eyes bandaged, on a scaffold in a little market-place. in that instant, a great sword (loaded with quicksilver in the thick part of the blade) swept round him like a gust of wind or fire, and there was no such creature in the world. my wonder was, not that he was so suddenly dispatched, but that any head was left unreaped, within a radius of fifty yards of that tremendous sickle. that was a good inn, too, with the kind, cheerful landlady and the honest landlord, where i lived in the shadow of mont blanc, and where one of the apartments has a zoological papering on the walls, not so accurately joined but that the elephant occasionally rejoices in a tiger's hind legs and tail, while the lion puts on a trunk and tusks, and the bear, moulting as it were, appears as to portions of himself like a leopard. i made several american friends at that inn, who all called mont blanc mount blank,--except one good-humoured gentleman, of a very sociable nature, who became on such intimate terms with it that he spoke of it familiarly as "blank;" observing, at breakfast, "blank looks pretty tall this morning;" or considerably doubting in the courtyard in the evening, whether there warn't some go-ahead naters in our country, sir, that would make out the top of blank in a couple of hours from first start--now! once i passed a fortnight at an inn in the north of england, where i was haunted by the ghost of a tremendous pie. it was a yorkshire pie, like a fort,--an abandoned fort with nothing in it; but the waiter had a fixed idea that it was a point of ceremony at every meal to put the pie on the table. after some days i tried to hint, in several delicate ways, that i considered the pie done with; as, for example, by emptying fag-ends of glasses of wine into it; putting cheese-plates and spoons into it, as into a basket; putting wine-bottles into it, as into a cooler; but always in vain, the pie being invariably cleaned out again and brought up as before. at last, beginning to be doubtful whether i was not the victim of a spectral illusion, and whether my health and spirits might not sink under the horrors of an imaginary pie, i cut a triangle out of it, fully as large as the musical instrument of that name in a powerful orchestra. human provision could not have foreseen the result--but the waiter mended the pie. with some effectual species of cement, he adroitly fitted the triangle in again, and i paid my reckoning and fled. the holly-tree was getting rather dismal. i made an overland expedition beyond the screen, and penetrated as far as the fourth window. here i was driven back by stress of weather. arrived at my winter-quarters once more, i made up the fire, and took another inn. it was in the remotest part of cornwall. a great annual miners' feast was being holden at the inn, when i and my travelling companions presented ourselves at night among the wild crowd that were dancing before it by torchlight. we had had a break-down in the dark, on a stony morass some miles away; and i had the honour of leading one of the unharnessed post-horses. if any lady or gentleman, on perusal of the present lines, will take any very tall post-horse with his traces hanging about his legs, and will conduct him by the bearing-rein into the heart of a country dance of a hundred and fifty couples, that lady or gentleman will then, and only then, form an adequate idea of the extent to which that post-horse will tread on his conductor's toes. over and above which, the post-horse, finding three hundred people whirling about him, will probably rear, and also lash out with his hind legs, in a manner incompatible with dignity or self-respect on his conductor's part. with such little drawbacks on my usually impressive aspect, i appeared at this cornish inn, to the unutterable wonder of the cornish miners. it was full, and twenty times full, and nobody could be received but the post- horse,--though to get rid of that noble animal was something. while my fellow-travellers and i were discussing how to pass the night and so much of the next day as must intervene before the jovial blacksmith and the jovial wheelwright would be in a condition to go out on the morass and mend the coach, an honest man stepped forth from the crowd and proposed his unlet floor of two rooms, with supper of eggs and bacon, ale and punch. we joyfully accompanied him home to the strangest of clean houses, where we were well entertained to the satisfaction of all parties. but the novel feature of the entertainment was, that our host was a chair-maker, and that the chairs assigned to us were mere frames, altogether without bottoms of any sort; so that we passed the evening on perches. nor was this the absurdest consequence; for when we unbent at supper, and any one of us gave way to laughter, he forgot the peculiarity of his position, and instantly disappeared. i myself, doubled up into an attitude from which self-extrication was impossible, was taken out of my frame, like a clown in a comic pantomime who has tumbled into a tub, five times by the taper's light during the eggs and bacon. the holly-tree was fast reviving within me a sense of loneliness. i began to feel conscious that my subject would never carry on until i was dug out. i might be a week here,--weeks! there was a story with a singular idea in it, connected with an inn i once passed a night at in a picturesque old town on the welsh border. in a large double-bedded room of this inn there had been a suicide committed by poison, in one bed, while a tired traveller slept unconscious in the other. after that time, the suicide bed was never used, but the other constantly was; the disused bedstead remaining in the room empty, though as to all other respects in its old state. the story ran, that whosoever slept in this room, though never so entire a stranger, from never so far off, was invariably observed to come down in the morning with an impression that he smelt laudanum, and that his mind always turned upon the subject of suicide; to which, whatever kind of man he might be, he was certain to make some reference if he conversed with any one. this went on for years, until it at length induced the landlord to take the disused bedstead down, and bodily burn it,--bed, hangings, and all. the strange influence (this was the story) now changed to a fainter one, but never changed afterwards. the occupant of that room, with occasional but very rare exceptions, would come down in the morning, trying to recall a forgotten dream he had had in the night. the landlord, on his mentioning his perplexity, would suggest various commonplace subjects, not one of which, as he very well knew, was the true subject. but the moment the landlord suggested "poison," the traveller started, and cried, "yes!" he never failed to accept that suggestion, and he never recalled any more of the dream. this reminiscence brought the welsh inns in general before me; with the women in their round hats, and the harpers with their white beards (venerable, but humbugs, i am afraid), playing outside the door while i took my dinner. the transition was natural to the highland inns, with the oatmeal bannocks, the honey, the venison steaks, the trout from the loch, the whisky, and perhaps (having the materials so temptingly at hand) the athol brose. once was i coming south from the scottish highlands in hot haste, hoping to change quickly at the station at the bottom of a certain wild historical glen, when these eyes did with mortification see the landlord come out with a telescope and sweep the whole prospect for the horses; which horses were away picking up their own living, and did not heave in sight under four hours. having thought of the loch-trout, i was taken by quick association to the anglers' inns of england (i have assisted at innumerable feats of angling by lying in the bottom of the boat, whole summer days, doing nothing with the greatest perseverance; which i have generally found to be as effectual towards the taking of fish as the finest tackle and the utmost science), and to the pleasant white, clean, flower-pot-decorated bedrooms of those inns, overlooking the river, and the ferry, and the green ait, and the church-spire, and the country bridge; and to the pearless emma with the bright eyes and the pretty smile, who waited, bless her! with a natural grace that would have converted blue-beard. casting my eyes upon my holly-tree fire, i next discerned among the glowing coals the pictures of a score or more of those wonderful english posting-inns which we are all so sorry to have lost, which were so large and so comfortable, and which were such monuments of british submission to rapacity and extortion. he who would see these houses pining away, let him walk from basingstoke, or even windsor, to london, by way of hounslow, and moralise on their perishing remains; the stables crumbling to dust; unsettled labourers and wanderers bivouacking in the outhouses; grass growing in the yards; the rooms, where erst so many hundred beds of down were made up, let off to irish lodgers at eighteenpence a week; a little ill-looking beer-shop shrinking in the tap of former days, burning coach-house gates for firewood, having one of its two windows bunged up, as if it had received punishment in a fight with the railroad; a low, bandy-legged, brick-making bulldog standing in the doorway. what could i next see in my fire so naturally as the new railway-house of these times near the dismal country station; with nothing particular on draught but cold air and damp, nothing worth mentioning in the larder but new mortar, and no business doing beyond a conceited affectation of luggage in the hall? then i came to the inns of paris, with the pretty apartment of four pieces up one hundred and seventy-five waxed stairs, the privilege of ringing the bell all day long without influencing anybody's mind or body but your own, and the not-too-much-for-dinner, considering the price. next to the provincial inns of france, with the great church-tower rising above the courtyard, the horse-bells jingling merrily up and down the street beyond, and the clocks of all descriptions in all the rooms, which are never right, unless taken at the precise minute when, by getting exactly twelve hours too fast or too slow, they unintentionally become so. away i went, next, to the lesser roadside inns of italy; where all the dirty clothes in the house (not in wear) are always lying in your anteroom; where the mosquitoes make a raisin pudding of your face in summer, and the cold bites it blue in winter; where you get what you can, and forget what you can't: where i should again like to be boiling my tea in a pocket-handkerchief dumpling, for want of a teapot. so to the old palace inns and old monastery inns, in towns and cities of the same bright country; with their massive quadrangular staircases, whence you may look from among clustering pillars high into the blue vault of heaven; with their stately banqueting-rooms, and vast refectories; with their labyrinths of ghostly bedchambers, and their glimpses into gorgeous streets that have no appearance of reality or possibility. so to the close little inns of the malaria districts, with their pale attendants, and their peculiar smell of never letting in the air. so to the immense fantastic inns of venice, with the cry of the gondolier below, as he skims the corner; the grip of the watery odours on one particular little bit of the bridge of your nose (which is never released while you stay there); and the great bell of st. mark's cathedral tolling midnight. next i put up for a minute at the restless inns upon the rhine, where your going to bed, no matter at what hour, appears to be the tocsin for everybody else's getting up; and where, in the table-d'hote room at the end of the long table (with several towers of babel on it at the other end, all made of white plates), one knot of stoutish men, entirely dressed in jewels and dirt, and having nothing else upon them, _will_ remain all night, clinking glasses, and singing about the river that flows, and the grape that grows, and rhine wine that beguiles, and rhine woman that smiles and hi drink drink my friend and ho drink drink my brother, and all the rest of it. i departed thence, as a matter of course, to other german inns, where all the eatables are soddened down to the same flavour, and where the mind is disturbed by the apparition of hot puddings, and boiled cherries, sweet and slab, at awfully unexpected periods of the repast. after a draught of sparkling beer from a foaming glass jug, and a glance of recognition through the windows of the student beer-houses at heidelberg and elsewhere, i put out to sea for the inns of america, with their four hundred beds apiece, and their eight or nine hundred ladies and gentlemen at dinner every day. again i stood in the bar-rooms thereof, taking my evening cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail. again i listened to my friend the general,--whom i had known for five minutes, in the course of which period he had made me intimate for life with two majors, who again had made me intimate for life with three colonels, who again had made me brother to twenty-two civilians,--again, i say, i listened to my friend the general, leisurely expounding the resources of the establishment, as to gentlemen's morning-room, sir; ladies' morning-room, sir; gentlemen's evening-room, sir; ladies' evening- room, sir; ladies' and gentlemen's evening reuniting-room, sir; music- room, sir; reading-room, sir; over four hundred sleeping-rooms, sir; and the entire planned and finited within twelve calendar months from the first clearing off of the old encumbrances on the plot, at a cost of five hundred thousand dollars, sir. again i found, as to my individual way of thinking, that the greater, the more gorgeous, and the more dollarous the establishment was, the less desirable it was. nevertheless, again i drank my cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail, in all good-will, to my friend the general, and my friends the majors, colonels, and civilians all; full well knowing that, whatever little motes my beamy eyes may have descried in theirs, they belong to a kind, generous, large-hearted, and great people. i had been going on lately at a quick pace to keep my solitude out of my mind; but here i broke down for good, and gave up the subject. what was i to do? what was to become of me? into what extremity was i submissively to sink? supposing that, like baron trenck, i looked out for a mouse or spider, and found one, and beguiled my imprisonment by training it? even that might be dangerous with a view to the future. i might be so far gone when the road did come to be cut through the snow, that, on my way forth, i might burst into tears, and beseech, like the prisoner who was released in his old age from the bastille, to be taken back again to the five windows, the ten curtains, and the sinuous drapery. a desperate idea came into my head. under any other circumstances i should have rejected it; but, in the strait at which i was, i held it fast. could i so far overcome the inherent bashfulness which withheld me from the landlord's table and the company i might find there, as to call up the boots, and ask him to take a chair,--and something in a liquid form,--and talk to me? i could, i would, i did. second branch--the boots where had he been in his time? he repeated, when i asked him the question. lord, he had been everywhere! and what had he been? bless you, he had been everything you could mention a'most! seen a good deal? why, of course he had. i should say so, he could assure me, if i only knew about a twentieth part of what had come in his way. why, it would be easier for him, he expected, to tell what he hadn't seen than what he had. ah! a deal, it would. what was the curiousest thing he had seen? well! he didn't know. he couldn't momently name what was the curiousest thing he had seen--unless it was a unicorn, and he see _him_ once at a fair. but supposing a young gentleman not eight year old was to run away with a fine young woman of seven, might i think _that_ a queer start? certainly. then that was a start as he himself had had his blessed eyes on, and he had cleaned the shoes they run away in--and they was so little that he couldn't get his hand into 'em. master harry walmers' father, you see, he lived at the elmses, down away by shooter's hill there, six or seven miles from lunnon. he was a gentleman of spirit, and good-looking, and held his head up when he walked, and had what you may call fire about him. he wrote poetry, and he rode, and he ran, and he cricketed, and he danced, and he acted, and he done it all equally beautiful. he was uncommon proud of master harry as was his only child; but he didn't spoil him neither. he was a gentleman that had a will of his own and a eye of his own, and that would be minded. consequently, though he made quite a companion of the fine bright boy, and was delighted to see him so fond of reading his fairy books, and was never tired of hearing him say my name is norval, or hearing him sing his songs about young may moons is beaming love, and when he as adores thee has left but the name, and that; still he kept the command over the child, and the child _was_ a child, and it's to be wished more of 'em was! how did boots happen to know all this? why, through being under-gardener. of course he couldn't be under-gardener, and be always about, in the summer-time, near the windows on the lawn, a mowing, and sweeping, and weeding, and pruning, and this and that, without getting acquainted with the ways of the family. even supposing master harry hadn't come to him one morning early, and said, "cobbs, how should you spell norah, if you was asked?" and then began cutting it in print all over the fence. he couldn't say he had taken particular notice of children before that; but really it was pretty to see them two mites a going about the place together, deep in love. and the courage of the boy! bless your soul, he'd have throwed off his little hat, and tucked up his little sleeves, and gone in at a lion, he would, if they had happened to meet one, and she had been frightened of him. one day he stops, along with her, where boots was hoeing weeds in the gravel, and says, speaking up, "cobbs," he says, "i like _you_." "do you, sir? i'm proud to hear it." "yes, i do, cobbs. why do i like you, do you think, cobbs?" "don't know, master harry, i am sure." "because norah likes you, cobbs." "indeed, sir? that's very gratifying." "gratifying, cobbs? it's better than millions of the brightest diamonds to be liked by norah." "certainly, sir." "you're going away, ain't you, cobbs?" "yes, sir." "would you like another situation, cobbs?" "well, sir, i shouldn't object, if it was a good inn." "then, cobbs," says he, "you shall be our head gardener when we are married." and he tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks away. boots could assure me that it was better than a picter, and equal to a play, to see them babies, with their long, bright, curling hair, their sparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread, a rambling about the garden, deep in love. boots was of opinion that the birds believed they was birds, and kept up with 'em, singing to please 'em. sometimes they would creep under the tulip-tree, and would sit there with their arms round one another's necks, and their soft cheeks touching, a reading about the prince and the dragon, and the good and bad enchanters, and the king's fair daughter. sometimes he would hear them planning about having a house in a forest, keeping bees and a cow, and living entirely on milk and honey. once he came upon them by the pond, and heard master harry say, "adorable norah, kiss me, and say you love me to distraction, or i'll jump in head-foremost." and boots made no question he would have done it if she hadn't complied. on the whole, boots said it had a tendency to make him feel as if he was in love himself--only he didn't exactly know who with. "cobbs," said master harry, one evening, when cobbs was watering the flowers, "i am going on a visit, this present midsummer, to my grandmamma's at york." "are you indeed, sir? i hope you'll have a pleasant time. i am going into yorkshire, myself, when i leave here." "are you going to your grandmamma's, cobbs?" "no, sir. i haven't got such a thing." "not as a grandmamma, cobbs?" "no, sir." the boy looked on at the watering of the flowers for a little while, and then said, "i shall be very glad indeed to go, cobbs,--norah's going." "you'll be all right then, sir," says cobbs, "with your beautiful sweetheart by your side." "cobbs," returned the boy, flushing, "i never let anybody joke about it, when i can prevent them." "it wasn't a joke, sir," says cobbs, with humility,--"wasn't so meant." "i am glad of that, cobbs, because i like you, you know, and you're going to live with us.--cobbs!" "sir." "what do you think my grandmamma gives me when i go down there?" "i couldn't so much as make a guess, sir." "a bank of england five-pound note, cobbs." "whew!" says cobbs, "that's a spanking sum of money, master harry." "a person could do a good deal with such a sum of money as that,--couldn't a person, cobbs?" "i believe you, sir!" "cobbs," said the boy, "i'll tell you a secret. at norah's house, they have been joking her about me, and pretending to laugh at our being engaged,--pretending to make game of it, cobbs!" "such, sir," says cobbs, "is the depravity of human natur." the boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few minutes with his glowing face towards the sunset, and then departed with, "good-night, cobbs. i'm going in." if i was to ask boots how it happened that he was a-going to leave that place just at that present time, well, he couldn't rightly answer me. he did suppose he might have stayed there till now if he had been anyways inclined. but, you see, he was younger then, and he wanted change. that's what he wanted,--change. mr. walmers, he said to him when he gave him notice of his intentions to leave, "cobbs," he says, "have you anythink to complain of? i make the inquiry because if i find that any of my people really has anythink to complain of, i wish to make it right if i can." "no, sir," says cobbs; "thanking you, sir, i find myself as well sitiwated here as i could hope to be anywheres. the truth is, sir, that i'm a-going to seek my fortun'." "o, indeed, cobbs!" he says; "i hope you may find it." and boots could assure me--which he did, touching his hair with his bootjack, as a salute in the way of his present calling--that he hadn't found it yet. well, sir! boots left the elmses when his time was up, and master harry, he went down to the old lady's at york, which old lady would have given that child the teeth out of her head (if she had had any), she was so wrapped up in him. what does that infant do,--for infant you may call him and be within the mark,--but cut away from that old lady's with his norah, on a expedition to go to gretna green and be married! sir, boots was at this identical holly-tree inn (having left it several times since to better himself, but always come back through one thing or another), when, one summer afternoon, the coach drives up, and out of the coach gets them two children. the guard says to our governor, "i don't quite make out these little passengers, but the young gentleman's words was, that they was to be brought here." the young gentleman gets out; hands his lady out; gives the guard something for himself; says to our governor, "we're to stop here to-night, please. sitting-room and two bedrooms will be required. chops and cherry-pudding for two!" and tucks her, in her sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks into the house much bolder than brass. boots leaves me to judge what the amazement of that establishment was, when these two tiny creatures all alone by themselves was marched into the angel,--much more so, when he, who had seen them without their seeing him, give the governor his views of the expedition they was upon. "cobbs," says the governor, "if this is so, i must set off myself to york, and quiet their friends' minds. in which case you must keep your eye upon 'em, and humour 'em, till i come back. but before i take these measures, cobbs, i should wish you to find from themselves whether your opinion is correct." "sir, to you," says cobbs, "that shall be done directly." so boots goes up-stairs to the angel, and there he finds master harry on a e-normous sofa,--immense at any time, but looking like the great bed of ware, compared with him,--a drying the eyes of miss norah with his pocket- hankecher. their little legs was entirely off the ground, of course, and it really is not possible for boots to express to me how small them children looked. "it's cobbs! it's cobbs!" cries master harry, and comes running to him, and catching hold of his hand. miss norah comes running to him on t'other side and catching hold of his t'other hand, and they both jump for joy. "i see you a getting out, sir," says cobbs. "i thought it was you. i thought i couldn't be mistaken in your height and figure. what's the object of your journey, sir?--matrimonial?" "we are going to be married, cobbs, at gretna green," returned the boy. "we have run away on purpose. norah has been in rather low spirits, cobbs; but she'll be happy, now we have found you to be our friend." "thank you, sir, and thank you, miss," says cobbs, "for your good opinion. _did_ you bring any luggage with you, sir?" if i will believe boots when he gives me his word and honour upon it, the lady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and a half of cold buttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a hair-brush,--seemingly a doll's. the gentleman had got about half a dozen yards of string, a knife, three or four sheets of writing-paper folded up surprising small, a orange, and a chaney mug with his name upon it. "what may be the exact natur of your plans, sir?" says cobbs. "to go on," replied the boy,--which the courage of that boy was something wonderful!--"in the morning, and be married to-morrow." "just so, sir," says cobbs. "would it meet your views, sir, if i was to accompany you?" when cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried out, "oh, yes, yes, cobbs! yes!" "well, sir," says cobbs. "if you will excuse my having the freedom to give an opinion, what i should recommend would be this. i'm acquainted with a pony, sir, which, put in a pheayton that i could borrow, would take you and mrs. harry walmers, junior, (myself driving, if you approved,) to the end of your journey in a very short space of time. i am not altogether sure, sir, that this pony will be at liberty to-morrow, but even if you had to wait over to-morrow for him, it might be worth your while. as to the small account here, sir, in case you was to find yourself running at all short, that don't signify; because i'm a part proprietor of this inn, and it could stand over." boots assures me that when they clapped their hands, and jumped for joy again, and called him "good cobbs!" and "dear cobbs!" and bent across him to kiss one another in the delight of their confiding hearts, he felt himself the meanest rascal for deceiving 'em that ever was born. "is there anything you want just at present, sir?" says cobbs, mortally ashamed of himself. "we should like some cakes after dinner," answered master harry, folding his arms, putting out one leg, and looking straight at him, "and two apples,--and jam. with dinner we should like to have toast-and-water. but norah has always been accustomed to half a glass of currant wine at dessert. and so have i." "it shall be ordered at the bar, sir," says cobbs; and away he went. boots has the feeling as fresh upon him at this minute of speaking as he had then, that he would far rather have had it out in half-a-dozen rounds with the governor than have combined with him; and that he wished with all his heart there was any impossible place where those two babies could make an impossible marriage, and live impossibly happy ever afterwards. however, as it couldn't be, he went into the governor's plans, and the governor set off for york in half an hour. the way in which the women of that house--without exception--every one of 'em--married _and_ single--took to that boy when they heard the story, boots considers surprising. it was as much as he could do to keep 'em from dashing into the room and kissing him. they climbed up all sorts of places, at the risk of their lives, to look at him through a pane of glass. they was seven deep at the keyhole. they was out of their minds about him and his bold spirit. in the evening, boots went into the room to see how the runaway couple was getting on. the gentleman was on the window-seat, supporting the lady in his arms. she had tears upon her face, and was lying, very tired and half asleep, with her head upon his shoulder. "mrs. harry walmers, junior, fatigued, sir?" says cobbs. "yes, she is tired, cobbs; but she is not used to be away from home, and she has been in low spirits again. cobbs, do you think you could bring a biffin, please?" "i ask your pardon, sir," says cobbs. "what was it you--?" "i think a norfolk biffin would rouse her, cobbs. she is very fond of them." boots withdrew in search of the required restorative, and when he brought it in, the gentleman handed it to the lady, and fed her with a spoon, and took a little himself; the lady being heavy with sleep, and rather cross. "what should you think, sir," says cobbs, "of a chamber candlestick?" the gentleman approved; the chambermaid went first, up the great staircase; the lady, in her sky-blue mantle, followed, gallantly escorted by the gentleman; the gentleman embraced her at her door, and retired to his own apartment, where boots softly locked him up. boots couldn't but feel with increased acuteness what a base deceiver he was, when they consulted him at breakfast (they had ordered sweet milk- and-water, and toast and currant jelly, overnight) about the pony. it really was as much as he could do, he don't mind confessing to me, to look them two young things in the face, and think what a wicked old father of lies he had grown up to be. howsomever, he went on a lying like a trojan about the pony. he told 'em that it did so unfortunately happen that the pony was half clipped, you see, and that he couldn't be taken out in that state, for fear it should strike to his inside. but that he'd be finished clipping in the course of the day, and that to-morrow morning at eight o'clock the pheayton would be ready. boots's view of the whole case, looking back on it in my room, is, that mrs. harry walmers, junior, was beginning to give in. she hadn't had her hair curled when she went to bed, and she didn't seem quite up to brushing it herself, and its getting in her eyes put her out. but nothing put out master harry. he sat behind his breakfast-cup, a tearing away at the jelly, as if he had been his own father. after breakfast, boots is inclined to consider that they drawed soldiers,--at least, he knows that many such was found in the fire-place, all on horseback. in the course of the morning, master harry rang the bell,--it was surprising how that there boy did carry on,--and said, in a sprightly way, "cobbs, is there any good walks in this neighbourhood?" "yes, sir," says cobbs. "there's love lane." "get out with you, cobbs!"--that was that there boy's expression,--"you're joking." "begging your pardon, sir," says cobbs, "there really is love lane. and a pleasant walk it is, and proud shall i be to show it to yourself and mrs. harry walmers, junior." "norah, dear," said master harry, "this is curious. we really ought to see love lane. put on your bonnet, my sweetest darling, and we will go there with cobbs." boots leaves me to judge what a beast he felt himself to be, when that young pair told him, as they all three jogged along together, that they had made up their minds to give him two thousand guineas a year as head- gardener, on accounts of his being so true a friend to 'em. boots could have wished at the moment that the earth would have opened and swallowed him up, he felt so mean, with their beaming eyes a looking at him, and believing him. well, sir, he turned the conversation as well as he could, and he took 'em down love lane to the water-meadows, and there master harry would have drowned himself in half a moment more, a getting out a water-lily for her,--but nothing daunted that boy. well, sir, they was tired out. all being so new and strange to 'em, they was tired as tired could be. and they laid down on a bank of daisies, like the children in the wood, leastways meadows, and fell asleep. boots don't know--perhaps i do,--but never mind, it don't signify either way--why it made a man fit to make a fool of himself to see them two pretty babies a lying there in the clear still sunny day, not dreaming half so hard when they was asleep as they done when they was awake. but, lord! when you come to think of yourself, you know, and what a game you have been up to ever since you was in your own cradle, and what a poor sort of a chap you are, and how it's always either yesterday with you, or else to-morrow, and never to-day, that's where it is! well, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting pretty clear to boots, namely, that mrs. harry walmerses, junior's, temper was on the move. when master harry took her round the waist, she said he "teased her so;" and when he says, "norah, my young may moon, your harry tease you?" she tells him, "yes; and i want to go home!" a biled fowl, and baked bread-and-butter pudding, brought mrs. walmers up a little; but boots could have wished, he must privately own to me, to have seen her more sensible of the woice of love, and less abandoning of herself to currants. however, master harry, he kept up, and his noble heart was as fond as ever. mrs. walmers turned very sleepy about dusk, and began to cry. therefore, mrs. walmers went off to bed as per yesterday; and master harry ditto repeated. about eleven or twelve at night comes back the governor in a chaise, along with mr. walmers and a elderly lady. mr. walmers looks amused and very serious, both at once, and says to our missis, "we are much indebted to you, ma'am, for your kind care of our little children, which we can never sufficiently acknowledge. pray, ma'am, where is my boy?" our missis says, "cobbs has the dear child in charge, sir. cobbs, show forty!" then he says to cobbs, "ah, cobbs, i am glad to see _you_! i understood you was here!" and cobbs says, "yes, sir. your most obedient, sir." i may be surprised to hear boots say it, perhaps; but boots assures me that his heart beat like a hammer, going up-stairs. "i beg your pardon, sir," says he, while unlocking the door; "i hope you are not angry with master harry. for master harry is a fine boy, sir, and will do you credit and honour." and boots signifies to me, that, if the fine boy's father had contradicted him in the daring state of mind in which he then was, he thinks he should have "fetched him a crack," and taken the consequences. but mr. walmers only says, "no, cobbs. no, my good fellow. thank you!" and, the door being opened, goes in. boots goes in too, holding the light, and he sees mr. walmers go up to the bedside, bend gently down, and kiss the little sleeping face. then he stands looking at it for a minute, looking wonderfully like it (they do say he ran away with mrs. walmers); and then he gently shakes the little shoulder. "harry, my dear boy! harry!" master harry starts up and looks at him. looks at cobbs too. such is the honour of that mite, that he looks at cobbs, to see whether he has brought him into trouble. "i am not angry, my child. i only want you to dress yourself and come home." "yes, pa." master harry dresses himself quickly. his breast begins to swell when he has nearly finished, and it swells more and more as he stands, at last, a looking at his father: his father standing a looking at him, the quiet image of him. "please may i"--the spirit of that little creatur, and the way he kept his rising tears down!--"please, dear pa--may i--kiss norah before i go?" "you may, my child." so he takes master harry in his hand, and boots leads the way with the candle, and they come to that other bedroom, where the elderly lady is seated by the bed, and poor little mrs. harry walmers, junior, is fast asleep. there the father lifts the child up to the pillow, and he lays his little face down for an instant by the little warm face of poor unconscious little mrs. harry walmers, junior, and gently draws it to him,--a sight so touching to the chambermaids who are peeping through the door, that one of them calls out, "it's a shame to part 'em!" but this chambermaid was always, as boots informs me, a soft-hearted one. not that there was any harm in that girl. far from it. finally, boots says, that's all about it. mr. walmers drove away in the chaise, having hold of master harry's hand. the elderly lady and mrs. harry walmers, junior, that was never to be (she married a captain long afterwards, and died in india), went off next day. in conclusion, boots put it to me whether i hold with him in two opinions: firstly, that there are not many couples on their way to be married who are half as innocent of guile as those two children; secondly, that it would be a jolly good thing for a great many couples on their way to be married, if they could only be stopped in time, and brought back separately. third branch--the bill i had been snowed up a whole week. the time had hung so lightly on my hands, that i should have been in great doubt of the fact but for a piece of documentary evidence that lay upon my table. the road had been dug out of the snow on the previous day, and the document in question was my bill. it testified emphatically to my having eaten and drunk, and warmed myself, and slept among the sheltering branches of the holly-tree, seven days and nights. i had yesterday allowed the road twenty-four hours to improve itself, finding that i required that additional margin of time for the completion of my task. i had ordered my bill to be upon the table, and a chaise to be at the door, "at eight o'clock to-morrow evening." it was eight o'clock to-morrow evening when i buckled up my travelling writing-desk in its leather case, paid my bill, and got on my warm coats and wrappers. of course, no time now remained for my travelling on to add a frozen tear to the icicles which were doubtless hanging plentifully about the farmhouse where i had first seen angela. what i had to do was to get across to liverpool by the shortest open road, there to meet my heavy baggage and embark. it was quite enough to do, and i had not an hour too much time to do it in. i had taken leave of all my holly-tree friends--almost, for the time being, of my bashfulness too--and was standing for half a minute at the inn door watching the ostler as he took another turn at the cord which tied my portmanteau on the chaise, when i saw lamps coming down towards the holly-tree. the road was so padded with snow that no wheels were audible; but all of us who were standing at the inn door saw lamps coming on, and at a lively rate too, between the walls of snow that had been heaped up on either side of the track. the chambermaid instantly divined how the case stood, and called to the ostler, "tom, this is a gretna job!" the ostler, knowing that her sex instinctively scented a marriage, or anything in that direction, rushed up the yard bawling, "next four out!" and in a moment the whole establishment was thrown into commotion. i had a melancholy interest in seeing the happy man who loved and was beloved; and therefore, instead of driving off at once, i remained at the inn door when the fugitives drove up. a bright-eyed fellow, muffled in a mantle, jumped out so briskly that he almost overthrew me. he turned to apologise, and, by heaven, it was edwin! "charley!" said he, recoiling. "gracious powers, what do you do here?" "edwin," said i, recoiling, "gracious powers, what do _you_ do here?" i struck my forehead as i said it, and an insupportable blaze of light seemed to shoot before my eyes. he hurried me into the little parlour (always kept with a slow fire in it and no poker), where posting company waited while their horses were putting to, and, shutting the door, said: "charley, forgive me!" "edwin!" i returned. "was this well? when i loved her so dearly! when i had garnered up my heart so long!" i could say no more. he was shocked when he saw how moved i was, and made the cruel observation, that he had not thought i should have taken it so much to heart. i looked at him. i reproached him no more. but i looked at him. "my dear, dear charley," said he, "don't think ill of me, i beseech you! i know you have a right to my utmost confidence, and, believe me, you have ever had it until now. i abhor secrecy. its meanness is intolerable to me. but i and my dear girl have observed it for your sake." he and his dear girl! it steeled me. "you have observed it for my sake, sir?" said i, wondering how his frank face could face it out so. "yes!--and angela's," said he. i found the room reeling round in an uncertain way, like a labouring, humming-top. "explain yourself," said i, holding on by one hand to an arm-chair. "dear old darling charley!" returned edwin, in his cordial manner, "consider! when you were going on so happily with angela, why should i compromise you with the old gentleman by making you a party to our engagement, and (after he had declined my proposals) to our secret intention? surely it was better that you should be able honourably to say, 'he never took counsel with me, never told me, never breathed a word of it.' if angela suspected it, and showed me all the favour and support she could--god bless her for a precious creature and a priceless wife!--i couldn't help that. neither i nor emmeline ever told her, any more than we told you. and for the same good reason, charley; trust me, for the same good reason, and no other upon earth!" emmeline was angela's cousin. lived with her. had been brought up with her. was her father's ward. had property. "emmeline is in the chaise, my dear edwin!" said i, embracing him with the greatest affection. "my good fellow!" said he, "do you suppose i should be going to gretna green without her?" i ran out with edwin, i opened the chaise door, i took emmeline in my arms, i folded her to my heart. she was wrapped in soft white fur, like the snowy landscape: but was warm, and young, and lovely. i put their leaders to with my own hands, i gave the boys a five-pound note apiece, i cheered them as they drove away, i drove the other way myself as hard as i could pelt. i never went to liverpool, i never went to america, i went straight back to london, and i married angela. i have never until this time, even to her, disclosed the secret of my character, and the mistrust and the mistaken journey into which it led me. when she, and they, and our eight children and their seven--i mean edwin and emmeline's, whose oldest girl is old enough now to wear white for herself, and to look very like her mother in it--come to read these pages, as of course they will, i shall hardly fail to be found out at last. never mind! i can bear it. i began at the holly-tree, by idle accident, to associate the christmas time of year with human interest, and with some inquiry into, and some care for, the lives of those by whom i find myself surrounded. i hope that i am none the worse for it, and that no one near me or afar off is the worse for it. and i say, may the green holly-tree flourish, striking its roots deep into our english ground, and having its germinating qualities carried by the birds of heaven all over the world! transcribed from the chapman and hall edition of "christmas stories" by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk the seven poor travellers--in three chapters chapter i--in the old city of rochester strictly speaking, there were only six poor travellers; but, being a traveller myself, though an idle one, and being withal as poor as i hope to be, i brought the number up to seven. this word of explanation is due at once, for what says the inscription over the quaint old door? richard watts, esq. by his will, dated aug. , founded this charity for six poor travellers, who not being rogues, or proctors, may receive gratis for one night, lodging, entertainment, and fourpence each. it was in the ancient little city of rochester in kent, of all the good days in the year upon a christmas-eve, that i stood reading this inscription over the quaint old door in question. i had been wandering about the neighbouring cathedral, and had seen the tomb of richard watts, with the effigy of worthy master richard starting out of it like a ship's figure-head; and i had felt that i could do no less, as i gave the verger his fee, than inquire the way to watts's charity. the way being very short and very plain, i had come prosperously to the inscription and the quaint old door. "now," said i to myself, as i looked at the knocker, "i know i am not a proctor; i wonder whether i am a rogue!" upon the whole, though conscience reproduced two or three pretty faces which might have had smaller attraction for a moral goliath than they had had for me, who am but a tom thumb in that way, i came to the conclusion that i was not a rogue. so, beginning to regard the establishment as in some sort my property, bequeathed to me and divers co-legatees, share and share alike, by the worshipful master richard watts, i stepped backward into the road to survey my inheritance. i found it to be a clean white house, of a staid and venerable air, with the quaint old door already three times mentioned (an arched door), choice little long low lattice-windows, and a roof of three gables. the silent high street of rochester is full of gables, with old beams and timbers carved into strange faces. it is oddly garnished with a queer old clock that projects over the pavement out of a grave red-brick building, as if time carried on business there, and hung out his sign. sooth to say, he did an active stroke of work in rochester, in the old days of the romans, and the saxons, and the normans; and down to the times of king john, when the rugged castle--i will not undertake to say how many hundreds of years old then--was abandoned to the centuries of weather which have so defaced the dark apertures in its walls, that the ruin looks as if the rooks and daws had pecked its eyes out. i was very well pleased, both with my property and its situation. while i was yet surveying it with growing content, i espied, at one of the upper lattices which stood open, a decent body, of a wholesome matronly appearance, whose eyes i caught inquiringly addressed to mine. they said so plainly, "do you wish to see the house?" that i answered aloud, "yes, if you please." and within a minute the old door opened, and i bent my head, and went down two steps into the entry. "this," said the matronly presence, ushering me into a low room on the right, "is where the travellers sit by the fire, and cook what bits of suppers they buy with their fourpences." "o! then they have no entertainment?" said i. for the inscription over the outer door was still running in my head, and i was mentally repeating, in a kind of tune, "lodging, entertainment, and fourpence each." "they have a fire provided for 'em," returned the matron--a mighty civil person, not, as i could make out, overpaid; "and these cooking utensils. and this what's painted on a board is the rules for their behaviour. they have their fourpences when they get their tickets from the steward over the way,--for i don't admit 'em myself, they must get their tickets first,--and sometimes one buys a rasher of bacon, and another a herring, and another a pound of potatoes, or what not. sometimes two or three of 'em will club their fourpences together, and make a supper that way. but not much of anything is to be got for fourpence, at present, when provisions is so dear." "true indeed," i remarked. i had been looking about the room, admiring its snug fireside at the upper end, its glimpse of the street through the low mullioned window, and its beams overhead. "it is very comfortable," said i. "ill-conwenient," observed the matronly presence. i liked to hear her say so; for it showed a commendable anxiety to execute in no niggardly spirit the intentions of master richard watts. but the room was really so well adapted to its purpose that i protested, quite enthusiastically, against her disparagement. "nay, ma'am," said i, "i am sure it is warm in winter and cool in summer. it has a look of homely welcome and soothing rest. it has a remarkably cosey fireside, the very blink of which, gleaming out into the street upon a winter night, is enough to warm all rochester's heart. and as to the convenience of the six poor travellers--" "i don't mean them," returned the presence. "i speak of its being an ill- conwenience to myself and my daughter, having no other room to sit in of a night." this was true enough, but there was another quaint room of corresponding dimensions on the opposite side of the entry: so i stepped across to it, through the open doors of both rooms, and asked what this chamber was for. "this," returned the presence, "is the board room. where the gentlemen meet when they come here." let me see. i had counted from the street six upper windows besides these on the ground-story. making a perplexed calculation in my mind, i rejoined, "then the six poor travellers sleep upstairs?" my new friend shook her head. "they sleep," she answered, "in two little outer galleries at the back, where their beds has always been, ever since the charity was founded. it being so very ill-conwenient to me as things is at present, the gentlemen are going to take off a bit of the back-yard, and make a slip of a room for 'em there, to sit in before they go to bed." "and then the six poor travellers," said i, "will be entirely out of the house?" "entirely out of the house," assented the presence, comfortably smoothing her hands. "which is considered much better for all parties, and much more conwenient." i had been a little startled, in the cathedral, by the emphasis with which the effigy of master richard watts was bursting out of his tomb; but i began to think, now, that it might be expected to come across the high street some stormy night, and make a disturbance here. howbeit, i kept my thoughts to myself, and accompanied the presence to the little galleries at the back. i found them on a tiny scale, like the galleries in old inn-yards; and they were very clean. while i was looking at them, the matron gave me to understand that the prescribed number of poor travellers were forthcoming every night from year's end to year's end; and that the beds were always occupied. my questions upon this, and her replies, brought us back to the board room so essential to the dignity of "the gentlemen," where she showed me the printed accounts of the charity hanging up by the window. from them i gathered that the greater part of the property bequeathed by the worshipful master richard watts for the maintenance of this foundation was, at the period of his death, mere marsh-land; but that, in course of time, it had been reclaimed and built upon, and was very considerably increased in value. i found, too, that about a thirtieth part of the annual revenue was now expended on the purposes commemorated in the inscription over the door; the rest being handsomely laid out in chancery, law expenses, collectorship, receivership, poundage, and other appendages of management, highly complimentary to the importance of the six poor travellers. in short, i made the not entirely new discovery that it may be said of an establishment like this, in dear old england, as of the fat oyster in the american story, that it takes a good many men to swallow it whole. "and pray, ma'am," said i, sensible that the blankness of my face began to brighten as the thought occurred to me, "could one see these travellers?" "well!" she returned dubiously, "no!" "not to-night, for instance!" said i. "well!" she returned more positively, "no. nobody ever asked to see them, and nobody ever did see them." as i am not easily balked in a design when i am set upon it, i urged to the good lady that this was christmas-eve; that christmas comes but once a year,--which is unhappily too true, for when it begins to stay with us the whole year round we shall make this earth a very different place; that i was possessed by the desire to treat the travellers to a supper and a temperate glass of hot wassail; that the voice of fame had been heard in that land, declaring my ability to make hot wassail; that if i were permitted to hold the feast, i should be found conformable to reason, sobriety, and good hours; in a word, that i could be merry and wise myself, and had been even known at a pinch to keep others so, although i was decorated with no badge or medal, and was not a brother, orator, apostle, saint, or prophet of any denomination whatever. in the end i prevailed, to my great joy. it was settled that at nine o'clock that night a turkey and a piece of roast beef should smoke upon the board; and that i, faint and unworthy minister for once of master richard watts, should preside as the christmas-supper host of the six poor travellers. i went back to my inn to give the necessary directions for the turkey and roast beef, and, during the remainder of the day, could settle to nothing for thinking of the poor travellers. when the wind blew hard against the windows,--it was a cold day, with dark gusts of sleet alternating with periods of wild brightness, as if the year were dying fitfully,--i pictured them advancing towards their resting-place along various cold roads, and felt delighted to think how little they foresaw the supper that awaited them. i painted their portraits in my mind, and indulged in little heightening touches. i made them footsore; i made them weary; i made them carry packs and bundles; i made them stop by finger-posts and milestones, leaning on their bent sticks, and looking wistfully at what was written there; i made them lose their way; and filled their five wits with apprehensions of lying out all night, and being frozen to death. i took up my hat, and went out, climbed to the top of the old castle, and looked over the windy hills that slope down to the medway, almost believing that i could descry some of my travellers in the distance. after it fell dark, and the cathedral bell was heard in the invisible steeple--quite a bower of frosty rime when i had last seen it--striking five, six, seven, i became so full of my travellers that i could eat no dinner, and felt constrained to watch them still in the red coals of my fire. they were all arrived by this time, i thought, had got their tickets, and were gone in.--there my pleasure was dashed by the reflection that probably some travellers had come too late and were shut out. after the cathedral bell had struck eight, i could smell a delicious savour of turkey and roast beef rising to the window of my adjoining bedroom, which looked down into the inn-yard just where the lights of the kitchen reddened a massive fragment of the castle wall. it was high time to make the wassail now; therefore i had up the materials (which, together with their proportions and combinations, i must decline to impart, as the only secret of my own i was ever known to keep), and made a glorious jorum. not in a bowl; for a bowl anywhere but on a shelf is a low superstition, fraught with cooling and slopping; but in a brown earthenware pitcher, tenderly suffocated, when full, with a coarse cloth. it being now upon the stroke of nine, i set out for watts's charity, carrying my brown beauty in my arms. i would trust ben, the waiter, with untold gold; but there are strings in the human heart which must never be sounded by another, and drinks that i make myself are those strings in mine. the travellers were all assembled, the cloth was laid, and ben had brought a great billet of wood, and had laid it artfully on the top of the fire, so that a touch or two of the poker after supper should make a roaring blaze. having deposited my brown beauty in a red nook of the hearth, inside the fender, where she soon began to sing like an ethereal cricket, diffusing at the same time odours as of ripe vineyards, spice forests, and orange groves,--i say, having stationed my beauty in a place of security and improvement, i introduced myself to my guests by shaking hands all round, and giving them a hearty welcome. i found the party to be thus composed. firstly, myself. secondly, a very decent man indeed, with his right arm in a sling, who had a certain clean agreeable smell of wood about him, from which i judged him to have something to do with shipbuilding. thirdly, a little sailor-boy, a mere child, with a profusion of rich dark brown hair, and deep womanly-looking eyes. fourthly, a shabby-genteel personage in a threadbare black suit, and apparently in very bad circumstances, with a dry suspicious look; the absent buttons on his waistcoat eked out with red tape; and a bundle of extraordinarily tattered papers sticking out of an inner breast-pocket. fifthly, a foreigner by birth, but an englishman in speech, who carried his pipe in the band of his hat, and lost no time in telling me, in an easy, simple, engaging way, that he was a watchmaker from geneva, and travelled all about the continent, mostly on foot, working as a journeyman, and seeing new countries,--possibly (i thought) also smuggling a watch or so, now and then. sixthly, a little widow, who had been very pretty and was still very young, but whose beauty had been wrecked in some great misfortune, and whose manner was remarkably timid, scared, and solitary. seventhly and lastly, a traveller of a kind familiar to my boyhood, but now almost obsolete,--a book-pedler, who had a quantity of pamphlets and numbers with him, and who presently boasted that he could repeat more verses in an evening than he could sell in a twelvemonth. all these i have mentioned in the order in which they sat at table. i presided, and the matronly presence faced me. we were not long in taking our places, for the supper had arrived with me, in the following procession: myself with the pitcher. ben with beer. inattentive boy with hot plates. inattentive boy with hot plates. the turkey. female carrying sauces to be heated on the spot. the beef. man with tray on his head, containing vegetables and sundries. volunteer hostler from hotel, grinning, and rendering no assistance. as we passed along the high street, comet-like, we left a long tail of fragrance behind us which caused the public to stop, sniffing in wonder. we had previously left at the corner of the inn-yard a wall-eyed young man connected with the fly department, and well accustomed to the sound of a railway whistle which ben always carries in his pocket, whose instructions were, so soon as he should hear the whistle blown, to dash into the kitchen, seize the hot plum-pudding and mince-pies, and speed with them to watts's charity, where they would be received (he was further instructed) by the sauce-female, who would be provided with brandy in a blue state of combustion. all these arrangements were executed in the most exact and punctual manner. i never saw a finer turkey, finer beef, or greater prodigality of sauce and gravy;--and my travellers did wonderful justice to everything set before them. it made my heart rejoice to observe how their wind and frost hardened faces softened in the clatter of plates and knives and forks, and mellowed in the fire and supper heat. while their hats and caps and wrappers, hanging up, a few small bundles on the ground in a corner, and in another corner three or four old walking-sticks, worn down at the end to mere fringe, linked this smug interior with the bleak outside in a golden chain. when supper was done, and my brown beauty had been elevated on the table, there was a general requisition to me to "take the corner;" which suggested to me comfortably enough how much my friends here made of a fire,--for when had _i_ ever thought so highly of the corner, since the days when i connected it with jack horner? however, as i declined, ben, whose touch on all convivial instruments is perfect, drew the table apart, and instructing my travellers to open right and left on either side of me, and form round the fire, closed up the centre with myself and my chair, and preserved the order we had kept at table. he had already, in a tranquil manner, boxed the ears of the inattentive boys until they had been by imperceptible degrees boxed out of the room; and he now rapidly skirmished the sauce-female into the high street, disappeared, and softly closed the door. this was the time for bringing the poker to bear on the billet of wood. i tapped it three times, like an enchanted talisman, and a brilliant host of merry-makers burst out of it, and sported off by the chimney,--rushing up the middle in a fiery country dance, and never coming down again. meanwhile, by their sparkling light, which threw our lamp into the shade, i filled the glasses, and gave my travellers, christmas!--christmas-eve, my friends, when the shepherds, who were poor travellers, too, in their way, heard the angels sing, "on earth, peace. good-will towards men!" i don't know who was the first among us to think that we ought to take hands as we sat, in deference to the toast, or whether any one of us anticipated the others, but at any rate we all did it. we then drank to the memory of the good master richard watts. and i wish his ghost may never have had worse usage under that roof than it had from us. it was the witching time for story-telling. "our whole life, travellers," said i, "is a story more or less intelligible,--generally less; but we shall read it by a clearer light when it is ended. i, for one, am so divided this night between fact and fiction, that i scarce know which is which. shall i beguile the time by telling you a story as we sit here?" they all answered, yes. i had little to tell them, but i was bound by my own proposal. therefore, after looking for awhile at the spiral column of smoke wreathing up from my brown beauty, through which i could have almost sworn i saw the effigy of master richard watts less startled than usual, i fired away. chapter ii--the story of richard doubledick in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, a relative of mine came limping down, on foot, to this town of chatham. i call it this town, because if anybody present knows to a nicety where rochester ends and chatham begins, it is more than i do. he was a poor traveller, with not a farthing in his pocket. he sat by the fire in this very room, and he slept one night in a bed that will be occupied to-night by some one here. my relative came down to chatham to enlist in a cavalry regiment, if a cavalry regiment would have him; if not, to take king george's shilling from any corporal or sergeant who would put a bunch of ribbons in his hat. his object was to get shot; but he thought he might as well ride to death as be at the trouble of walking. my relative's christian name was richard, but he was better known as dick. he dropped his own surname on the road down, and took up that of doubledick. he was passed as richard doubledick; age, twenty-two; height, five foot ten; native place, exmouth, which he had never been near in his life. there was no cavalry in chatham when he limped over the bridge here with half a shoe to his dusty feet, so he enlisted into a regiment of the line, and was glad to get drunk and forget all about it. you are to know that this relative of mine had gone wrong, and run wild. his heart was in the right place, but it was sealed up. he had been betrothed to a good and beautiful girl, whom he had loved better than she--or perhaps even he--believed; but in an evil hour he had given her cause to say to him solemnly, "richard, i will never marry another man. i will live single for your sake, but mary marshall's lips"--her name was mary marshall--"never address another word to you on earth. go, richard! heaven forgive you!" this finished him. this brought him down to chatham. this made him private richard doubledick, with a determination to be shot. there was not a more dissipated and reckless soldier in chatham barracks, in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, than private richard doubledick. he associated with the dregs of every regiment; he was as seldom sober as he could be, and was constantly under punishment. it became clear to the whole barracks that private richard doubledick would very soon be flogged. now the captain of richard doubledick's company was a young gentleman not above five years his senior, whose eyes had an expression in them which affected private richard doubledick in a very remarkable way. they were bright, handsome, dark eyes,--what are called laughing eyes generally, and, when serious, rather steady than severe,--but they were the only eyes now left in his narrowed world that private richard doubledick could not stand. unabashed by evil report and punishment, defiant of everything else and everybody else, he had but to know that those eyes looked at him for a moment, and he felt ashamed. he could not so much as salute captain taunton in the street like any other officer. he was reproached and confused,--troubled by the mere possibility of the captain's looking at him. in his worst moments, he would rather turn back, and go any distance out of his way, than encounter those two handsome, dark, bright eyes. one day, when private richard doubledick came out of the black hole, where he had been passing the last eight-and-forty hours, and in which retreat he spent a good deal of his time, he was ordered to betake himself to captain taunton's quarters. in the stale and squalid state of a man just out of the black hole, he had less fancy than ever for being seen by the captain; but he was not so mad yet as to disobey orders, and consequently went up to the terrace overlooking the parade-ground, where the officers' quarters were; twisting and breaking in his hands, as he went along, a bit of the straw that had formed the decorative furniture of the black hole. "come in!" cried the captain, when he had knocked with his knuckles at the door. private richard doubledick pulled off his cap, took a stride forward, and felt very conscious that he stood in the light of the dark, bright eyes. there was a silent pause. private richard doubledick had put the straw in his mouth, and was gradually doubling it up into his windpipe and choking himself. "doubledick," said the captain, "do you know where you are going to?" "to the devil, sir?" faltered doubledick. "yes," returned the captain. "and very fast." private richard doubledick turned the straw of the black hole in his month, and made a miserable salute of acquiescence. "doubledick," said the captain, "since i entered his majesty's service, a boy of seventeen, i have been pained to see many men of promise going that road; but i have never been so pained to see a man make the shameful journey as i have been, ever since you joined the regiment, to see you." private richard doubledick began to find a film stealing over the floor at which he looked; also to find the legs of the captain's breakfast-table turning crooked, as if he saw them through water. "i am only a common soldier, sir," said he. "it signifies very little what such a poor brute comes to." "you are a man," returned the captain, with grave indignation, "of education and superior advantages; and if you say that, meaning what you say, you have sunk lower than i had believed. how low that must be, i leave you to consider, knowing what i know of your disgrace, and seeing what i see." "i hope to get shot soon, sir," said private richard doubledick; "and then the regiment and the world together will be rid of me." the legs of the table were becoming very crooked. doubledick, looking up to steady his vision, met the eyes that had so strong an influence over him. he put his hand before his own eyes, and the breast of his disgrace- jacket swelled as if it would fly asunder. "i would rather," said the young captain, "see this in you, doubledick, than i would see five thousand guineas counted out upon this table for a gift to my good mother. have you a mother?" "i am thankful to say she is dead, sir." "if your praises," returned the captain, "were sounded from mouth to mouth through the whole regiment, through the whole army, through the whole country, you would wish she had lived to say, with pride and joy, 'he is my son!'" "spare me, sir," said doubledick. "she would never have heard any good of me. she would never have had any pride and joy in owning herself my mother. love and compassion she might have had, and would have always had, i know but not--spare me, sir! i am a broken wretch, quite at your mercy!" and he turned his face to the wall, and stretched out his imploring hand. "my friend--" began the captain. "god bless you, sir!" sobbed private richard doubledick. "you are at the crisis of your fate. hold your course unchanged a little longer, and you know what must happen. _i_ know even better than you can imagine, that, after that has happened, you are lost. no man who could shed those tears could bear those marks." "i fully believe it, sir," in a low, shivering voice said private richard doubledick. "but a man in any station can do his duty," said the young captain, "and, in doing it, can earn his own respect, even if his case should be so very unfortunate and so very rare that he can earn no other man's. a common soldier, poor brute though you called him just now, has this advantage in the stormy times we live in, that he always does his duty before a host of sympathising witnesses. do you doubt that he may so do it as to be extolled through a whole regiment, through a whole army, through a whole country? turn while you may yet retrieve the past, and try." "i will! i ask for only one witness, sir," cried richard, with a bursting heart. "i understand you. i will be a watchful and a faithful one." i have heard from private richard doubledick's own lips, that he dropped down upon his knee, kissed that officer's hand, arose, and went out of the light of the dark, bright eyes, an altered man. in that year, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, the french were in egypt, in italy, in germany, where not? napoleon bonaparte had likewise begun to stir against us in india, and most men could read the signs of the great troubles that were coming on. in the very next year, when we formed an alliance with austria against him, captain taunton's regiment was on service in india. and there was not a finer non-commissioned officer in it,--no, nor in the whole line--than corporal richard doubledick. in eighteen hundred and one, the indian army were on the coast of egypt. next year was the year of the proclamation of the short peace, and they were recalled. it had then become well known to thousands of men, that wherever captain taunton, with the dark, bright eyes, led, there, close to him, ever at his side, firm as a rock, true as the sun, and brave as mars, would be certain to be found, while life beat in their hearts, that famous soldier, sergeant richard doubledick. eighteen hundred and five, besides being the great year of trafalgar, was a year of hard fighting in india. that year saw such wonders done by a sergeant-major, who cut his way single-handed through a solid mass of men, recovered the colours of his regiment, which had been seized from the hand of a poor boy shot through the heart, and rescued his wounded captain, who was down, and in a very jungle of horses' hoofs and sabres,--saw such wonders done, i say, by this brave sergeant-major, that he was specially made the bearer of the colours he had won; and ensign richard doubledick had risen from the ranks. sorely cut up in every battle, but always reinforced by the bravest of men,--for the fame of following the old colours, shot through and through, which ensign richard doubledick had saved, inspired all breasts,--this regiment fought its way through the peninsular war, up to the investment of badajos in eighteen hundred and twelve. again and again it had been cheered through the british ranks until the tears had sprung into men's eyes at the mere hearing of the mighty british voice, so exultant in their valour; and there was not a drummer-boy but knew the legend, that wherever the two friends, major taunton, with the dark, bright eyes, and ensign richard doubledick, who was devoted to him, were seen to go, there the boldest spirits in the english army became wild to follow. one day, at badajos,--not in the great storming, but in repelling a hot sally of the besieged upon our men at work in the trenches, who had given way,--the two officers found themselves hurrying forward, face to face, against a party of french infantry, who made a stand. there was an officer at their head, encouraging his men,--a courageous, handsome, gallant officer of five-and-thirty, whom doubledick saw hurriedly, almost momentarily, but saw well. he particularly noticed this officer waving his sword, and rallying his men with an eager and excited cry, when they fired in obedience to his gesture, and major taunton dropped. it was over in ten minutes more, and doubledick returned to the spot where he had laid the best friend man ever had on a coat spread upon the wet clay. major taunton's uniform was opened at the breast, and on his shirt were three little spots of blood. "dear doubledick," said he, "i am dying." "for the love of heaven, no!" exclaimed the other, kneeling down beside him, and passing his arm round his neck to raise his head. "taunton! my preserver, my guardian angel, my witness! dearest, truest, kindest of human beings! taunton! for god's sake!" the bright, dark eyes--so very, very dark now, in the pale face--smiled upon him; and the hand he had kissed thirteen years ago laid itself fondly on his breast. "write to my mother. you will see home again. tell her how we became friends. it will comfort her, as it comforts me." he spoke no more, but faintly signed for a moment towards his hair as it fluttered in the wind. the ensign understood him. he smiled again when he saw that, and, gently turning his face over on the supporting arm as if for rest, died, with his hand upon the breast in which he had revived a soul. no dry eye looked on ensign richard doubledick that melancholy day. he buried his friend on the field, and became a lone, bereaved man. beyond his duty he appeared to have but two remaining cares in life,--one, to preserve the little packet of hair he was to give to taunton's mother; the other, to encounter that french officer who had rallied the men under whose fire taunton fell. a new legend now began to circulate among our troops; and it was, that when he and the french officer came face to face once more, there would be weeping in france. the war went on--and through it went the exact picture of the french officer on the one side, and the bodily reality upon the other--until the battle of toulouse was fought. in the returns sent home appeared these words: "severely wounded, but not dangerously, lieutenant richard doubledick." at midsummer-time, in the year eighteen hundred and fourteen, lieutenant richard doubledick, now a browned soldier, seven-and-thirty years of age, came home to england invalided. he brought the hair with him, near his heart. many a french officer had he seen since that day; many a dreadful night, in searching with men and lanterns for his wounded, had he relieved french officers lying disabled; but the mental picture and the reality had never come together. though he was weak and suffered pain, he lost not an hour in getting down to frome in somersetshire, where taunton's mother lived. in the sweet, compassionate words that naturally present themselves to the mind to-night, "he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." it was a sunday evening, and the lady sat at her quiet garden-window, reading the bible; reading to herself, in a trembling voice, that very passage in it, as i have heard him tell. he heard the words: "young man, i say unto thee, arise!" he had to pass the window; and the bright, dark eyes of his debased time seemed to look at him. her heart told her who he was; she came to the door quickly, and fell upon his neck. "he saved me from ruin, made me a human creature, won me from infamy and shame. o, god for ever bless him! as he will, he will!" "he will!" the lady answered. "i know he is in heaven!" then she piteously cried, "but o, my darling boy, my darling boy!" never from the hour when private richard doubledick enlisted at chatham had the private, corporal, sergeant, sergeant-major, ensign, or lieutenant breathed his right name, or the name of mary marshall, or a word of the story of his life, into any ear except his reclaimer's. that previous scene in his existence was closed. he had firmly resolved that his expiation should be to live unknown; to disturb no more the peace that had long grown over his old offences; to let it be revealed, when he was dead, that he had striven and suffered, and had never forgotten; and then, if they could forgive him and believe him--well, it would be time enough--time enough! but that night, remembering the words he had cherished for two years, "tell her how we became friends. it will comfort her, as it comforts me," he related everything. it gradually seemed to him as if in his maturity he had recovered a mother; it gradually seemed to her as if in her bereavement she had found a son. during his stay in england, the quiet garden into which he had slowly and painfully crept, a stranger, became the boundary of his home; when he was able to rejoin his regiment in the spring, he left the garden, thinking was this indeed the first time he had ever turned his face towards the old colours with a woman's blessing! he followed them--so ragged, so scarred and pierced now, that they would scarcely hold together--to quatre bras and ligny. he stood beside them, in an awful stillness of many men, shadowy through the mist and drizzle of a wet june forenoon, on the field of waterloo. and down to that hour the picture in his mind of the french officer had never been compared with the reality. the famous regiment was in action early in the battle, and received its first check in many an eventful year, when he was seen to fall. but it swept on to avenge him, and left behind it no such creature in the world of consciousness as lieutenant richard doubledick. through pits of mire, and pools of rain; along deep ditches, once roads, that were pounded and ploughed to pieces by artillery, heavy waggons, tramp of men and horses, and the struggle of every wheeled thing that could carry wounded soldiers; jolted among the dying and the dead, so disfigured by blood and mud as to be hardly recognisable for humanity; undisturbed by the moaning of men and the shrieking of horses, which, newly taken from the peaceful pursuits of life, could not endure the sight of the stragglers lying by the wayside, never to resume their toilsome journey; dead, as to any sentient life that was in it, and yet alive,--the form that had been lieutenant richard doubledick, with whose praises england rang, was conveyed to brussels. there it was tenderly laid down in hospital; and there it lay, week after week, through the long bright summer days, until the harvest, spared by war, had ripened and was gathered in. over and over again the sun rose and set upon the crowded city; over and over again the moonlight nights were quiet on the plains of waterloo: and all that time was a blank to what had been lieutenant richard doubledick. rejoicing troops marched into brussels, and marched out; brothers and fathers, sisters, mothers, and wives, came thronging thither, drew their lots of joy or agony, and departed; so many times a day the bells rang; so many times the shadows of the great buildings changed; so many lights sprang up at dusk; so many feet passed here and there upon the pavements; so many hours of sleep and cooler air of night succeeded: indifferent to all, a marble face lay on a bed, like the face of a recumbent statue on the tomb of lieutenant richard doubledick. slowly labouring, at last, through a long heavy dream of confused time and place, presenting faint glimpses of army surgeons whom he knew, and of faces that had been familiar to his youth,--dearest and kindest among them, mary marshall's, with a solicitude upon it more like reality than anything he could discern,--lieutenant richard doubledick came back to life. to the beautiful life of a calm autumn evening sunset, to the peaceful life of a fresh quiet room with a large window standing open; a balcony beyond, in which were moving leaves and sweet-smelling flowers; beyond, again, the clear sky, with the sun full in his sight, pouring its golden radiance on his bed. it was so tranquil and so lovely that he thought he had passed into another world. and he said in a faint voice, "taunton, are you near me?" a face bent over him. not his, his mother's. "i came to nurse you. we have nursed you many weeks. you were moved here long ago. do you remember nothing?" "nothing." the lady kissed his cheek, and held his hand, soothing him. "where is the regiment? what has happened? let me call you mother. what has happened, mother?" "a great victory, dear. the war is over, and the regiment was the bravest in the field." his eyes kindled, his lips trembled, he sobbed, and the tears ran down his face. he was very weak, too weak to move his hand. "was it dark just now?" he asked presently. "no." "it was only dark to me? something passed away, like a black shadow. but as it went, and the sun--o the blessed sun, how beautiful it is!--touched my face, i thought i saw a light white cloud pass out at the door. was there nothing that went out?" she shook her head, and in a little while he fell asleep, she still holding his hand, and soothing him. from that time, he recovered. slowly, for he had been desperately wounded in the head, and had been shot in the body, but making some little advance every day. when he had gained sufficient strength to converse as he lay in bed, he soon began to remark that mrs. taunton always brought him back to his own history. then he recalled his preserver's dying words, and thought, "it comforts her." one day he awoke out of a sleep, refreshed, and asked her to read to him. but the curtain of the bed, softening the light, which she always drew back when he awoke, that she might see him from her table at the bedside where she sat at work, was held undrawn; and a woman's voice spoke, which was not hers. "can you bear to see a stranger?" it said softly. "will you like to see a stranger?" "stranger!" he repeated. the voice awoke old memories, before the days of private richard doubledick. "a stranger now, but not a stranger once," it said in tones that thrilled him. "richard, dear richard, lost through so many years, my name--" he cried out her name, "mary," and she held him in her arms, and his head lay on her bosom. "i am not breaking a rash vow, richard. these are not mary marshall's lips that speak. i have another name." she was married. "i have another name, richard. did you ever hear it?" "never!" he looked into her face, so pensively beautiful, and wondered at the smile upon it through her tears. "think again, richard. are you sure you never heard my altered name?" "never!" "don't move your head to look at me, dear richard. let it lie here, while i tell my story. i loved a generous, noble man; loved him with my whole heart; loved him for years and years; loved him faithfully, devotedly; loved him without hope of return; loved him, knowing nothing of his highest qualities--not even knowing that he was alive. he was a brave soldier. he was honoured and beloved by thousands of thousands, when the mother of his dear friend found me, and showed me that in all his triumphs he had never forgotten me. he was wounded in a great battle. he was brought, dying, here, into brussels. i came to watch and tend him, as i would have joyfully gone, with such a purpose, to the dreariest ends of the earth. when he knew no one else, he knew me. when he suffered most, he bore his sufferings barely murmuring, content to rest his head where your rests now. when he lay at the point of death, he married me, that he might call me wife before he died. and the name, my dear love, that i took on that forgotten night--" "i know it now!" he sobbed. "the shadowy remembrance strengthens. it is come back. i thank heaven that my mind is quite restored! my mary, kiss me; lull this weary head to rest, or i shall die of gratitude. his parting words were fulfilled. i see home again!" well! they were happy. it was a long recovery, but they were happy through it all. the snow had melted on the ground, and the birds were singing in the leafless thickets of the early spring, when those three were first able to ride out together, and when people flocked about the open carriage to cheer and congratulate captain richard doubledick. but even then it became necessary for the captain, instead of returning to england, to complete his recovery in the climate of southern france. they found a spot upon the rhone, within a ride of the old town of avignon, and within view of its broken bridge, which was all they could desire; they lived there, together, six months; then returned to england. mrs. taunton, growing old after three years--though not so old as that her bright, dark eyes were dimmed--and remembering that her strength had been benefited by the change resolved to go back for a year to those parts. so she went with a faithful servant, who had often carried her son in his arms; and she was to be rejoined and escorted home, at the year's end, by captain richard doubledick. she wrote regularly to her children (as she called them now), and they to her. she went to the neighbourhood of aix; and there, in their own chateau near the farmer's house she rented, she grew into intimacy with a family belonging to that part of france. the intimacy began in her often meeting among the vineyards a pretty child, a girl with a most compassionate heart, who was never tired of listening to the solitary english lady's stories of her poor son and the cruel wars. the family were as gentle as the child, and at length she came to know them so well that she accepted their invitation to pass the last month of her residence abroad under their roof. all this intelligence she wrote home, piecemeal as it came about, from time to time; and at last enclosed a polite note, from the head of the chateau, soliciting, on the occasion of his approaching mission to that neighbourhood, the honour of the company of cet homme si justement celebre, monsieur le capitaine richard doubledick. captain doubledick, now a hardy, handsome man in the full vigour of life, broader across the chest and shoulders than he had ever been before, dispatched a courteous reply, and followed it in person. travelling through all that extent of country after three years of peace, he blessed the better days on which the world had fallen. the corn was golden, not drenched in unnatural red; was bound in sheaves for food, not trodden underfoot by men in mortal fight. the smoke rose up from peaceful hearths, not blazing ruins. the carts were laden with the fair fruits of the earth, not with wounds and death. to him who had so often seen the terrible reverse, these things were beautiful indeed; and they brought him in a softened spirit to the old chateau near aix upon a deep blue evening. it was a large chateau of the genuine old ghostly kind, with round towers, and extinguishers, and a high leaden roof, and more windows than aladdin's palace. the lattice blinds were all thrown open after the heat of the day, and there were glimpses of rambling walls and corridors within. then there were immense out-buildings fallen into partial decay, masses of dark trees, terrace-gardens, balustrades; tanks of water, too weak to play and too dirty to work; statues, weeds, and thickets of iron railing that seemed to have overgrown themselves like the shrubberies, and to have branched out in all manner of wild shapes. the entrance doors stood open, as doors often do in that country when the heat of the day is past; and the captain saw no bell or knocker, and walked in. he walked into a lofty stone hall, refreshingly cool and gloomy after the glare of a southern day's travel. extending along the four sides of this hall was a gallery, leading to suites of rooms; and it was lighted from the top. still no bell was to be seen. "faith," said the captain halting, ashamed of the clanking of his boots, "this is a ghostly beginning!" he started back, and felt his face turn white. in the gallery, looking down at him, stood the french officer--the officer whose picture he had carried in his mind so long and so far. compared with the original, at last--in every lineament how like it was! he moved, and disappeared, and captain richard doubledick heard his steps coming quickly down own into the hall. he entered through an archway. there was a bright, sudden look upon his face, much such a look as it had worn in that fatal moment. monsieur le capitaine richard doubledick? enchanted to receive him! a thousand apologies! the servants were all out in the air. there was a little fete among them in the garden. in effect, it was the fete day of my daughter, the little cherished and protected of madame taunton. he was so gracious and so frank that monsieur le capitaine richard doubledick could not withhold his hand. "it is the hand of a brave englishman," said the french officer, retaining it while he spoke. "i could respect a brave englishman, even as my foe, how much more as my friend! i also am a soldier." "he has not remembered me, as i have remembered him; he did not take such note of my face, that day, as i took of his," thought captain richard doubledick. "how shall i tell him?" the french officer conducted his guest into a garden and presented him to his wife, an engaging and beautiful woman, sitting with mrs. taunton in a whimsical old-fashioned pavilion. his daughter, her fair young face beaming with joy, came running to embrace him; and there was a boy-baby to tumble down among the orange trees on the broad steps, in making for his father's legs. a multitude of children visitors were dancing to sprightly music; and all the servants and peasants about the chateau were dancing too. it was a scene of innocent happiness that might have been invented for the climax of the scenes of peace which had soothed the captain's journey. he looked on, greatly troubled in his mind, until a resounding bell rang, and the french officer begged to show him his rooms. they went upstairs into the gallery from which the officer had looked down; and monsieur le capitaine richard doubledick was cordially welcomed to a grand outer chamber, and a smaller one within, all clocks and draperies, and hearths, and brazen dogs, and tiles, and cool devices, and elegance, and vastness. "you were at waterloo," said the french officer. "i was," said captain richard doubledick. "and at badajos." left alone with the sound of his own stern voice in his ears, he sat down to consider, what shall i do, and how shall i tell him? at that time, unhappily, many deplorable duels had been fought between english and french officers, arising out of the recent war; and these duels, and how to avoid this officer's hospitality, were the uppermost thought in captain richard doubledick's mind. he was thinking, and letting the time run out in which he should have dressed for dinner, when mrs. taunton spoke to him outside the door, asking if he could give her the letter he had brought from mary. "his mother, above all," the captain thought. "how shall i tell _her_?" "you will form a friendship with your host, i hope," said mrs. taunton, whom he hurriedly admitted, "that will last for life. he is so true-hearted and so generous, richard, that you can hardly fail to esteem one another. if he had been spared," she kissed (not without tears) the locket in which she wore his hair, "he would have appreciated him with his own magnanimity, and would have been truly happy that the evil days were past which made such a man his enemy." she left the room; and the captain walked, first to one window, whence he could see the dancing in the garden, then to another window, whence he could see the smiling prospect and the peaceful vineyards. "spirit of my departed friend," said he, "is it through thee these better thoughts are rising in my mind? is it thou who hast shown me, all the way i have been drawn to meet this man, the blessings of the altered time? is it thou who hast sent thy stricken mother to me, to stay my angry hand? is it from thee the whisper comes, that this man did his duty as thou didst,--and as i did, through thy guidance, which has wholly saved me here on earth,--and that he did no more?" he sat down, with his head buried in his hands, and, when he rose up, made the second strong resolution of his life,--that neither to the french officer, nor to the mother of his departed friend, nor to any soul, while either of the two was living, would he breathe what only he knew. and when he touched that french officer's glass with his own, that day at dinner, he secretly forgave him in the name of the divine forgiver of injuries. * * * * * here i ended my story as the first poor traveller. but, if i had told it now, i could have added that the time has since come when the son of major richard doubledick, and the son of that french officer, friends as their fathers were before them, fought side by side in one cause, with their respective nations, like long-divided brothers whom the better times have brought together, fast united. chapter iii--the road my story being finished, and the wassail too, we broke up as the cathedral bell struck twelve. i did not take leave of my travellers that night; for it had come into my head to reappear, in conjunction with some hot coffee, at seven in the morning. as i passed along the high street, i heard the waits at a distance, and struck off to find them. they were playing near one of the old gates of the city, at the corner of a wonderfully quaint row of red-brick tenements, which the clarionet obligingly informed me were inhabited by the minor-canons. they had odd little porches over the doors, like sounding-boards over old pulpits; and i thought i should like to see one of the minor-canons come out upon his top stop, and favour us with a little christmas discourse about the poor scholars of rochester; taking for his text the words of his master relative to the devouring of widows' houses. the clarionet was so communicative, and my inclinations were (as they generally are) of so vagabond a tendency, that i accompanied the waits across an open green called the vines, and assisted--in the french sense--at the performance of two waltzes, two polkas, and three irish melodies, before i thought of my inn any more. however, i returned to it then, and found a fiddle in the kitchen, and ben, the wall-eyed young man, and two chambermaids, circling round the great deal table with the utmost animation. i had a very bad night. it cannot have been owing to the turkey or the beef,--and the wassail is out of the question--but in every endeavour that i made to get to sleep i failed most dismally. i was never asleep; and in whatsoever unreasonable direction my mind rambled, the effigy of master richard watts perpetually embarrassed it. in a word, i only got out of the worshipful master richard watts's way by getting out of bed in the dark at six o'clock, and tumbling, as my custom is, into all the cold water that could be accumulated for the purpose. the outer air was dull and cold enough in the street, when i came down there; and the one candle in our supper-room at watts's charity looked as pale in the burning as if it had had a bad night too. but my travellers had all slept soundly, and they took to the hot coffee, and the piles of bread-and-butter, which ben had arranged like deals in a timber-yard, as kindly as i could desire. while it was yet scarcely daylight, we all came out into the street together, and there shook hands. the widow took the little sailor towards chatham, where he was to find a steamboat for sheerness; the lawyer, with an extremely knowing look, went his own way, without committing himself by announcing his intentions; two more struck off by the cathedral and old castle for maidstone; and the book-pedler accompanied me over the bridge. as for me, i was going to walk by cobham woods, as far upon my way to london as i fancied. when i came to the stile and footpath by which i was to diverge from the main road, i bade farewell to my last remaining poor traveller, and pursued my way alone. and now the mists began to rise in the most beautiful manner, and the sun to shine; and as i went on through the bracing air, seeing the hoarfrost sparkle everywhere, i felt as if all nature shared in the joy of the great birthday. going through the woods, the softness of my tread upon the mossy ground and among the brown leaves enhanced the christmas sacredness by which i felt surrounded. as the whitened stems environed me, i thought how the founder of the time had never raised his benignant hand, save to bless and heal, except in the case of one unconscious tree. by cobham hall, i came to the village, and the churchyard where the dead had been quietly buried, "in the sure and certain hope" which christmas time inspired. what children could i see at play, and not be loving of, recalling who had loved them! no garden that i passed was out of unison with the day, for i remembered that the tomb was in a garden, and that "she, supposing him to be the gardener," had said, "sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and i will take him away." in time, the distant river with the ships came full in view, and with it pictures of the poor fishermen, mending their nets, who arose and followed him,--of the teaching of the people from a ship pushed off a little way from shore, by reason of the multitude,--of a majestic figure walking on the water, in the loneliness of night. my very shadow on the ground was eloquent of christmas; for did not the people lay their sick where the more shadows of the men who had heard and seen him might fall as they passed along? thus christmas begirt me, far and near, until i had come to blackheath, and had walked down the long vista of gnarled old trees in greenwich park, and was being steam-rattled through the mists now closing in once more, towards the lights of london. brightly they shone, but not so brightly as my own fire, and the brighter faces around it, when we came together to celebrate the day. and there i told of worthy master richard watts, and of my supper with the six poor travellers who were neither rogues nor proctors, and from that hour to this i have never seen one of them again. transcribed from the chapman and hall "christmas stories" edition by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk no thoroughfare the overture. day of the month and year, november the thirtieth, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five. london time by the great clock of saint paul's, ten at night. all the lesser london churches strain their metallic throats. some, flippantly begin before the heavy bell of the great cathedral; some, tardily begin three, four, half a dozen, strokes behind it; all are in sufficiently near accord, to leave a resonance in the air, as if the winged father who devours his children, had made a sounding sweep with his gigantic scythe in flying over the city. what is this clock lower than most of the rest, and nearer to the ear, that lags so far behind to-night as to strike into the vibration alone? this is the clock of the hospital for foundling children. time was, when the foundlings were received without question in a cradle at the gate. time is, when inquiries are made respecting them, and they are taken as by favour from the mothers who relinquish all natural knowledge of them and claim to them for evermore. the moon is at the full, and the night is fair with light clouds. the day has been otherwise than fair, for slush and mud, thickened with the droppings of heavy fog, lie black in the streets. the veiled lady who flutters up and down near the postern-gate of the hospital for foundling children has need to be well shod to-night. she flutters to and fro, avoiding the stand of hackney-coaches, and often pausing in the shadow of the western end of the great quadrangle wall, with her face turned towards the gate. as above her there is the purity of the moonlit sky, and below her there are the defilements of the pavement, so may she, haply, be divided in her mind between two vistas of reflection or experience. as her footprints crossing and recrossing one another have made a labyrinth in the mire, so may her track in life have involved itself in an intricate and unravellable tangle. the postern-gate of the hospital for foundling children opens, and a young woman comes out. the lady stands aside, observes closely, sees that the gate is quietly closed again from within, and follows the young woman. two or three streets have been traversed in silence before she, following close behind the object of her attention, stretches out her hand and touches her. then the young woman stops and looks round, startled. "you touched me last night, and, when i turned my head, you would not speak. why do you follow me like a silent ghost?" "it was not," returned the lady, in a low voice, "that i would not speak, but that i could not when i tried." "what do you want of me? i have never done you any harm?" "never." "do i know you?" "no." "then what can you want of me?" "here are two guineas in this paper. take my poor little present, and i will tell you." into the young woman's face, which is honest and comely, comes a flush as she replies: "there is neither grown person nor child in all the large establishment that i belong to, who hasn't a good word for sally. i am sally. could i be so well thought of, if i was to be bought?" "i do not mean to buy you; i mean only to reward you very slightly." sally firmly, but not ungently, closes and puts back the offering hand. "if there is anything i can do for you, ma'am, that i will not do for its own sake, you are much mistaken in me if you think that i will do it for money. what is it you want?" "you are one of the nurses or attendants at the hospital; i saw you leave to-night and last night." "yes, i am. i am sally." "there is a pleasant patience in your face which makes me believe that very young children would take readily to you." "god bless 'em! so they do." the lady lifts her veil, and shows a face no older than the nurse's. a face far more refined and capable than hers, but wild and worn with sorrow. "i am the miserable mother of a baby lately received under your care. i have a prayer to make to you." instinctively respecting the confidence which has drawn aside the veil, sally--whose ways are all ways of simplicity and spontaneity--replaces it, and begins to cry. "you will listen to my prayer?" the lady urges. "you will not be deaf to the agonised entreaty of such a broken suppliant as i am?" "o dear, dear, dear!" cries sally. "what shall i say, or can say! don't talk of prayers. prayers are to be put up to the good father of all, and not to nurses and such. and there! i am only to hold my place for half a year longer, till another young woman can be trained up to it. i am going to be married. i shouldn't have been out last night, and i shouldn't have been out to-night, but that my dick (he is the young man i am going to be married to) lies ill, and i help his mother and sister to watch him. don't take on so, don't take on so!" "o good sally, dear sally," moans the lady, catching at her dress entreatingly. "as you are hopeful, and i am hopeless; as a fair way in life is before you, which can never, never, be before me; as you can aspire to become a respected wife, and as you can aspire to become a proud mother, as you are a living loving woman, and must die; for god's sake hear my distracted petition!" "deary, deary, deary me!" cries sally, her desperation culminating in the pronoun, "what am i ever to do? and there! see how you turn my own words back upon me. i tell you i am going to be married, on purpose to make it clearer to you that i am going to leave, and therefore couldn't help you if i would, poor thing, and you make it seem to my own self as if i was cruel in going to be married and not helping you. it ain't kind. now, is it kind, poor thing?" "sally! hear me, my dear. my entreaty is for no help in the future. it applies to what is past. it is only to be told in two words." "there! this is worse and worse," cries sally, "supposing that i understand what two words you mean." "you do understand. what are the names they have given my poor baby? i ask no more than that. i have read of the customs of the place. he has been christened in the chapel, and registered by some surname in the book. he was received last monday evening. what have they called him?" down upon her knees in the foul mud of the by-way into which they have strayed--an empty street without a thoroughfare giving on the dark gardens of the hospital--the lady would drop in her passionate entreaty, but that sally prevents her. "don't! don't! you make me feel as if i was setting myself up to be good. let me look in your pretty face again. put your two hands in mine. now, promise. you will never ask me anything more than the two words?" "never! never!" "you will never put them to a bad use, if i say them?" "never! never!" "walter wilding." the lady lays her face upon the nurse's breast, draws her close in her embrace with both arms, murmurs a blessing and the words, "kiss him for me!" and is gone. * * * * * day of the month and year, the first sunday in october, one thousand eight hundred and forty-seven. london time by the great clock of saint paul's, half-past one in the afternoon. the clock of the hospital for foundling children is well up with the cathedral to-day. service in the chapel is over, and the foundling children are at dinner. there are numerous lookers-on at the dinner, as the custom is. there are two or three governors, whole families from the congregation, smaller groups of both sexes, individual stragglers of various degrees. the bright autumnal sun strikes freshly into the wards; and the heavy-framed windows through which it shines, and the panelled walls on which it strikes, are such windows and such walls as pervade hogarth's pictures. the girls' refectory (including that of the younger children) is the principal attraction. neat attendants silently glide about the orderly and silent tables; the lookers-on move or stop as the fancy takes them; comments in whispers on face such a number from such a window are not unfrequent; many of the faces are of a character to fix attention. some of the visitors from the outside public are accustomed visitors. they have established a speaking acquaintance with the occupants of particular seats at the tables, and halt at those points to bend down and say a word or two. it is no disparagement to their kindness that those points are generally points where personal attractions are. the monotony of the long spacious rooms and the double lines of faces is agreeably relieved by these incidents, although so slight. a veiled lady, who has no companion, goes among the company. it would seem that curiosity and opportunity have never brought her there before. she has the air of being a little troubled by the sight, and, as she goes the length of the tables, it is with a hesitating step and an uneasy manner. at length she comes to the refectory of the boys. they are so much less popular than the girls that it is bare of visitors when she looks in at the doorway. but just within the doorway, chances to stand, inspecting, an elderly female attendant: some order of matron or housekeeper. to whom the lady addresses natural questions: as, how many boys? at what age are they usually put out in life? do they often take a fancy to the sea? so, lower and lower in tone until the lady puts the question: "which is walter wilding?" attendant's head shaken. against the rules. "you know which is walter wilding?" so keenly does the attendant feel the closeness with which the lady's eyes examine her face, that she keeps her own eyes fast upon the floor, lest by wandering in the right direction they should betray her. "i know which is walter wilding, but it is not my place, ma'am, to tell names to visitors." "but you can show me without telling me." the lady's hand moves quietly to the attendant's hand. pause and silence. "i am going to pass round the tables," says the lady's interlocutor, without seeming to address her. "follow me with your eyes. the boy that i stop at and speak to, will not matter to you. but the boy that i touch, will be walter wilding. say nothing more to me, and move a little away." quickly acting on the hint, the lady passes on into the room, and looks about her. after a few moments, the attendant, in a staid official way, walks down outside the line of tables commencing on her left hand. she goes the whole length of the line, turns, and comes back on the inside. very slightly glancing in the lady's direction, she stops, bends forward, and speaks. the boy whom she addresses, lifts his head and replies. good humouredly and easily, as she listens to what he says, she lays her hand upon the shoulder of the next boy on his right. that the action may be well noted, she keeps her hand on the shoulder while speaking in return, and pats it twice or thrice before moving away. she completes her tour of the tables, touching no one else, and passes out by a door at the opposite end of the long room. dinner is done, and the lady, too, walks down outside the line of tables commencing on her left hand, goes the whole length of the line, turns, and comes back on the inside. other people have strolled in, fortunately for her, and stand sprinkled about. she lifts her veil, and, stopping at the touched boy, asks how old he is? "i am twelve, ma'am," he answers, with his bright eyes fixed on hers. "are you well and happy?" "yes, ma'am." "may you take these sweetmeats from my hand?" "if you please to give them to me." in stooping low for the purpose, the lady touches the boy's face with her forehead and with her hair. then, lowering her veil again, she passes on, and passes out without looking back. act i. the curtain rises in a court-yard in the city of london, which was no thoroughfare either for vehicles or foot-passengers; a court-yard diverging from a steep, a slippery, and a winding street connecting tower street with the middlesex shore of the thames; stood the place of business of wilding & co., wine merchants. probably as a jocose acknowledgment of the obstructive character of this main approach, the point nearest to its base at which one could take the river (if so inodorously minded) bore the appellation break-neck-stairs. the court-yard itself had likewise been descriptively entitled in old time, cripple corner. years before the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, people had left off taking boat at break-neck-stairs, and watermen had ceased to ply there. the slimy little causeway had dropped into the river by a slow process of suicide, and two or three stumps of piles and a rusty iron mooring-ring were all that remained of the departed break-neck glories. sometimes, indeed, a laden coal barge would bump itself into the place, and certain laborious heavers, seemingly mud-engendered, would arise, deliver the cargo in the neighbourhood, shove off, and vanish; but at most times the only commerce of break-neck-stairs arose out of the conveyance of casks and bottles, both full and empty, both to and from the cellars of wilding & co., wine merchants. even that commerce was but occasional, and through three-fourths of its rising tides the dirty indecorous drab of a river would come solitarily oozing and lapping at the rusty ring, as if it had heard of the doge and the adriatic, and wanted to be married to the great conserver of its filthiness, the right honourable the lord mayor. some two hundred and fifty yards on the right, up the opposite hill (approaching it from the low ground of break-neck-stairs) was cripple corner. there was a pump in cripple corner, there was a tree in cripple corner. all cripple corner belonged to wilding and co., wine merchants. their cellars burrowed under it, their mansion towered over it. it really had been a mansion in the days when merchants inhabited the city, and had a ceremonious shelter to the doorway without visible support, like the sounding-board over an old pulpit. it had also a number of long narrow strips of window, so disposed in its grave brick front as to render it symmetrically ugly. it had also, on its roof, a cupola with a bell in it. "when a man at five-and-twenty can put his hat on, and can say 'this hat covers the owner of this property and of the business which is transacted on this property,' i consider, mr. bintrey, that, without being boastful, he may be allowed to be deeply thankful. i don't know how it may appear to you, but so it appears to me." thus mr. walter wilding to his man of law, in his own counting-house; taking his hat down from its peg to suit the action to the word, and hanging it up again when he had done so, not to overstep the modesty of nature. an innocent, open-speaking, unused-looking man, mr. walter wilding, with a remarkably pink and white complexion, and a figure much too bulky for so young a man, though of a good stature. with crispy curling brown hair, and amiable bright blue eyes. an extremely communicative man: a man with whom loquacity was the irrestrainable outpouring of contentment and gratitude. mr. bintrey, on the other hand, a cautious man, with twinkling beads of eyes in a large overhanging bald head, who inwardly but intensely enjoyed the comicality of openness of speech, or hand, or heart. "yes," said mr. bintrey. "yes. ha, ha!" a decanter, two wine-glasses, and a plate of biscuits, stood on the desk. "you like this forty-five year old port-wine?" said mr. wilding. "like it?" repeated mr. bintrey. "rather, sir!" "it's from the best corner of our best forty-five year old bin," said mr. wilding. "thank you, sir," said mr. bintrey. "it's most excellent." he laughed again, as he held up his glass and ogled it, at the highly ludicrous idea of giving away such wine. "and now," said wilding, with a childish enjoyment in the discussion of affairs, "i think we have got everything straight, mr. bintrey." "everything straight," said bintrey. "a partner secured--" "partner secured," said bintrey. "a housekeeper advertised for--" "housekeeper advertised for," said bintrey, "'apply personally at cripple corner, great tower street, from ten to twelve'--to-morrow, by the bye." "my late dear mother's affairs wound up--" "wound up," said bintrey. "and all charges paid." "and all charges paid," said bintrey, with a chuckle: probably occasioned by the droll circumstance that they had been paid without a haggle. "the mention of my late dear mother," mr. wilding continued, his eyes filling with tears and his pocket-handkerchief drying them, "unmans me still, mr. bintrey. you know how i loved her; you (her lawyer) know how she loved me. the utmost love of mother and child was cherished between us, and we never experienced one moment's division or unhappiness from the time when she took me under her care. thirteen years in all! thirteen years under my late dear mother's care, mr. bintrey, and eight of them her confidentially acknowledged son! you know the story, mr. bintrey, who but you, sir!" mr. wilding sobbed and dried his eyes, without attempt at concealment, during these remarks. mr. bintrey enjoyed his comical port, and said, after rolling it in his mouth: "i know the story." "my late dear mother, mr. bintrey," pursued the wine-merchant, "had been deeply deceived, and had cruelly suffered. but on that subject my late dear mother's lips were for ever sealed. by whom deceived, or under what circumstances, heaven only knows. my late dear mother never betrayed her betrayer." "she had made up her mind," said mr. bintrey, again turning his wine on his palate, "and she could hold her peace." an amused twinkle in his eyes pretty plainly added--"a devilish deal better than _you_ ever will!" "'honour,'" said mr. wilding, sobbing as he quoted from the commandments, "'thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land.' when i was in the foundling, mr. bintrey, i was at such a loss how to do it, that i apprehended my days would be short in the land. but i afterwards came to honour my mother deeply, profoundly. and i honour and revere her memory. for seven happy years, mr. bintrey," pursued wilding, still with the same innocent catching in his breath, and the same unabashed tears, "did my excellent mother article me to my predecessors in this business, pebbleson nephew. her affectionate forethought likewise apprenticed me to the vintners' company, and made me in time a free vintner, and--and--everything else that the best of mothers could desire. when i came of age, she bestowed her inherited share in this business upon me; it was her money that afterwards bought out pebbleson nephew, and painted in wilding and co.; it was she who left me everything she possessed, but the mourning ring you wear. and yet, mr. bintrey," with a fresh burst of honest affection, "she is no more. it is little over half a year since she came into the corner to read on that door-post with her own eyes, wilding and co., wine merchants. and yet she is no more!" "sad. but the common lot, mr. wilding," observed bintrey. "at some time or other we must all be no more." he placed the forty-five year old port- wine in the universal condition, with a relishing sigh. "so now, mr. bintrey," pursued wilding, putting away his pocket-handkerchief, and smoothing his eyelids with his fingers, "now that i can no longer show my love and honour for the dear parent to whom my heart was mysteriously turned by nature when she first spoke to me, a strange lady, i sitting at our sunday dinner-table in the foundling, i can at least show that i am not ashamed of having been a foundling, and that i, who never knew a father of my own, wish to be a father to all in my employment. therefore," continued wilding, becoming enthusiastic in his loquacity, "therefore, i want a thoroughly good housekeeper to undertake this dwelling-house of wilding and co., wine merchants, cripple corner, so that i may restore in it some of the old relations betwixt employer and employed! so that i may live in it on the spot where my money is made! so that i may daily sit at the head of the table at which the people in my employment eat together, and may eat of the same roast and boiled, and drink of the same beer! so that the people in my employment may lodge under the same roof with me! so that we may one and all--i beg your pardon, mr. bintrey, but that old singing in my head has suddenly come on, and i shall feel obliged if you will lead me to the pump." alarmed by the excessive pinkness of his client, mr. bintrey lost not a moment in leading him forth into the court-yard. it was easily done; for the counting-house in which they talked together opened on to it, at one side of the dwelling-house. there the attorney pumped with a will, obedient to a sign from the client, and the client laved his head and face with both hands, and took a hearty drink. after these remedies, he declared himself much better. "don't let your good feelings excite you," said bintrey, as they returned to the counting-house, and mr. wilding dried himself on a jack-towel behind an inner door. "no, no. i won't," he returned, looking out of the towel. "i won't. i have not been confused, have i?" "not at all. perfectly clear." "where did i leave off, mr. bintrey?" "well, you left off--but i wouldn't excite myself, if i was you, by taking it up again just yet." "i'll take care. i'll take care. the singing in my head came on at where, mr. bintrey?" "at roast, and boiled, and beer," answered the lawyer,--"prompting lodging under the same roof--and one and all--" "ah! and one and all singing in the head together--" "do you know, i really _would not_ let my good feelings excite me, if i was you," hinted the lawyer again, anxiously. "try some more pump." "no occasion, no occasion. all right, mr. bintrey. and one and all forming a kind of family! you see, mr. bintrey, i was not used in my childhood to that sort of individual existence which most individuals have led, more or less, in their childhood. after that time i became absorbed in my late dear mother. having lost her, i find that i am more fit for being one of a body than one by myself one. to be that, and at the same time to do my duty to those dependent on me, and attach them to me, has a patriarchal and pleasant air about it. i don't know how it may appear to you, mr bintrey, but so it appears to me." "it is not i who am all-important in the case, but you," returned bintrey. "consequently, how it may appear to me is of very small importance." "it appears to me," said mr. wilding, in a glow, "hopeful, useful, delightful!" "do you know," hinted the lawyer again, "i really would not ex--" "i am not going to. then there's handel." "there's who?" asked bintrey. "handel, mozart, haydn, kent, purcell, doctor arne, greene, mendelssohn. i know the choruses to those anthems by heart. foundling chapel collection. why shouldn't we learn them together?" "who learn them together?" asked the lawyer, rather shortly. "employer and employed." "ay, ay," returned bintrey, mollified; as if he had half expected the answer to be, lawyer and client. "that's another thing." "not another thing, mr. bintrey! the same thing. a part of the bond among us. we will form a choir in some quiet church near the corner here, and, having sung together of a sunday with a relish, we will come home and take an early dinner together with a relish. the object that i have at heart now is, to get this system well in action without delay, so that my new partner may find it founded when he enters on his partnership." "all good be with it!" exclaimed bintrey, rising. "may it prosper! is joey ladle to take a share in handel, mozart, haydn, kent, purcell, doctor arne, greene, and mendelssohn? "i hope so." "i wish them all well out of it," returned bintrey, with much heartiness. "good-bye, sir." they shook hands and parted. then (first knocking with his knuckles for leave) entered to mr. wilding from a door of communication between his private counting-house and that in which his clerks sat, the head cellarman of the cellars of wilding and co., wine merchants, and erst head cellarman of the cellars of pebbleson nephew. the joey ladle in question. a slow and ponderous man, of the drayman order of human architecture, dressed in a corrugated suit and bibbed apron, apparently a composite of door-mat and rhinoceros-hide. "respecting this same boarding and lodging, young master wilding," said he. "yes, joey?" "speaking for myself, young master wilding--and i never did speak and i never do speak for no one else--_i_ don't want no boarding nor yet no lodging. but if you wish to board me and to lodge me, take me. i can peck as well as most men. where i peck ain't so high a object with me as what i peck. nor even so high a object with me as how much i peck. is all to live in the house, young master wilding? the two other cellarmen, the three porters, the two 'prentices, and the odd men?" "yes. i hope we shall all be an united family, joey." "ah!" said joey. "i hope they may be." "they? rather say we, joey." joey ladle shook his held. "don't look to me to make we on it, young master wilding, not at my time of life and under the circumstances which has formed my disposition. i have said to pebbleson nephew many a time, when they have said to me, 'put a livelier face upon it, joey'--i have said to them, 'gentlemen, it is all wery well for you that has been accustomed to take your wine into your systems by the conwivial channel of your throttles, to put a lively face upon it; but,' i says, 'i have been accustomed to take _my_ wine in at the pores of the skin, and, took that way, it acts different. it acts depressing. it's one thing, gentlemen,' i says to pebbleson nephew, 'to charge your glasses in a dining-room with a hip hurrah and a jolly companions every one, and it's another thing to be charged yourself, through the pores, in a low dark cellar and a mouldy atmosphere. it makes all the difference betwixt bubbles and wapours,' i tells pebbleson nephew. and so it do. i've been a cellarman my life through, with my mind fully given to the business. what's the consequence? i'm as muddled a man as lives--you won't find a muddleder man than me--nor yet you won't find my equal in molloncolly. sing of filling the bumper fair, every drop you sprinkle, o'er the brow of care, smooths away a wrinkle? yes. p'raps so. but try filling yourself through the pores, underground, when you don't want to it!" "i am sorry to hear this, joey. i had even thought that you might join a singing-class in the house." "me, sir? no, no, young master wilding, you won't catch joey ladle muddling the armony. a pecking-machine, sir, is all that i am capable of proving myself, out of my cellars; but that you're welcome to, if you think it is worth your while to keep such a thing on your premises." "i do, joey." "say no more, sir. the business's word is my law. and you're a going to take young master george vendale partner into the old business?" "i am, joey." "more changes, you see! but don't change the name of the firm again. don't do it, young master wilding. it was bad luck enough to make it yourself and co. better by far have left it pebbleson nephew that good luck always stuck to. you should never change luck when it's good, sir." "at all events, i have no intention of changing the name of the house again, joey." "glad to hear it, and wish you good-day, young master wilding. but you had better by half," muttered joey ladle inaudibly, as he closed the door and shook his head, "have let the name alone from the first. you had better by half have followed the luck instead of crossing it." enter the housekeeper the wine merchant sat in his dining-room next morning, to receive the personal applicants for the vacant post in his establishment. it was an old-fashioned wainscoted room; the panels ornamented with festoons of flowers carved in wood; with an oaken floor, a well-worn turkey carpet, and dark mahogany furniture, all of which had seen service and polish under pebbleson nephew. the great sideboard had assisted at many business-dinners given by pebbleson nephew to their connection, on the principle of throwing sprats overboard to catch whales; and pebbleson nephew's comprehensive three-sided plate-warmer, made to fit the whole front of the large fireplace, kept watch beneath it over a sarcophagus- shaped cellaret that had in its time held many a dozen of pebbleson nephew's wine. but the little rubicund old bachelor with a pigtail, whose portrait was over the sideboard (and who could easily be identified as decidedly pebbleson and decidedly not nephew), had retired into another sarcophagus, and the plate-warmer had grown as cold as he. so, the golden and black griffins that supported the candelabra, with black balls in their mouths at the end of gilded chains, looked as if in their old age they had lost all heart for playing at ball, and were dolefully exhibiting their chains in the missionary line of inquiry, whether they had not earned emancipation by this time, and were not griffins and brothers. such a columbus of a morning was the summer morning, that it discovered cripple corner. the light and warmth pierced in at the open windows, and irradiated the picture of a lady hanging over the chimney-piece, the only other decoration of the walls. "my mother at five-and-twenty," said mr. wilding to himself, as his eyes enthusiastically followed the light to the portrait's face, "i hang up here, in order that visitors may admire my mother in the bloom of her youth and beauty. my mother at fifty i hang in the seclusion of my own chamber, as a remembrance sacred to me. o! it's you, jarvis!" these latter words he addressed to a clerk who had tapped at the door, and now looked in. "yes, sir. i merely wished to mention that it's gone ten, sir, and that there are several females in the counting-house." "dear me!" said the wine-merchant, deepening in the pink of his complexion and whitening in the white, "are there several? so many as several? i had better begin before there are more. i'll see them one by one, jarvis, in the order of their arrival." hastily entrenching himself in his easy-chair at the table behind a great inkstand, having first placed a chair on the other side of the table opposite his own seat, mr. wilding entered on his task with considerable trepidation. he ran the gauntlet that must be run on any such occasion. there were the usual species of profoundly unsympathetic women, and the usual species of much too sympathetic women. there were buccaneering widows who came to seize him, and who griped umbrellas under their arms, as if each umbrella were he, and each griper had got him. there were towering maiden ladies who had seen better days, and who came armed with clerical testimonials to their theology, as if he were saint peter with his keys. there were gentle maiden ladies who came to marry him. there were professional housekeepers, like non-commissioned officers, who put him through his domestic exercise, instead of submitting themselves to catechism. there were languid invalids, to whom salary was not so much an object as the comforts of a private hospital. there were sensitive creatures who burst into tears on being addressed, and had to be restored with glasses of cold water. there were some respondents who came two together, a highly promising one and a wholly unpromising one: of whom the promising one answered all questions charmingly, until it would at last appear that she was not a candidate at all, but only the friend of the unpromising one, who had glowered in absolute silence and apparent injury. at last, when the good wine-merchant's simple heart was failing him, there entered an applicant quite different from all the rest. a woman, perhaps fifty, but looking younger, with a face remarkable for placid cheerfulness, and a manner no less remarkable for its quiet expression of equability of temper. nothing in her dress could have been changed to her advantage. nothing in the noiseless self-possession of her manner could have been changed to her advantage. nothing could have been in better unison with both, than her voice when she answered the question: "what name shall i have the pleasure of noting down?" with the words, "my name is sarah goldstraw. mrs. goldstraw. my husband has been dead many years, and we had no family." half-a-dozen questions had scarcely extracted as much to the purpose from any one else. the voice dwelt so agreeably on mr. wilding's ear as he made his note, that he was rather long about it. when he looked up again, mrs. goldstraw's glance had naturally gone round the room, and now returned to him from the chimney-piece. its expression was one of frank readiness to be questioned, and to answer straight. "you will excuse my asking you a few questions?" said the modest wine- merchant. "o, surely, sir. or i should have no business here." "have you filled the station of housekeeper before?" "only once. i have lived with the same widow lady for twelve years. ever since i lost my husband. she was an invalid, and is lately dead: which is the occasion of my now wearing black." "i do not doubt that she has left you the best credentials?" said mr. wilding. "i hope i may say, the very best. i thought it would save trouble, sir, if i wrote down the name and address of her representatives, and brought it with me." laying a card on the table. "you singularly remind me, mrs. goldstraw," said wilding, taking the card beside him, "of a manner and tone of voice that i was once acquainted with. not of an individual--i feel sure of that, though i cannot recall what it is i have in my mind--but of a general bearing. i ought to add, it was a kind and pleasant one." she smiled, as she rejoined: "at least, i am very glad of that, sir." "yes," said the wine-merchant, thoughtfully repeating his last phrase, with a momentary glance at his future housekeeper, "it was a kind and pleasant one. but that is the most i can make of it. memory is sometimes like a half-forgotten dream. i don't know how it may appear to you, mrs. goldstraw, but so it appears to me." probably it appeared to mrs. goldstraw in a similar light, for she quietly assented to the proposition. mr. wilding then offered to put himself at once in communication with the gentlemen named upon the card: a firm of proctors in doctors' commons. to this, mrs. goldstraw thankfully assented. doctors' commons not being far off, mr. wilding suggested the feasibility of mrs. goldstraw's looking in again, say in three hours' time. mrs. goldstraw readily undertook to do so. in fine, the result of mr. wilding's inquiries being eminently satisfactory, mrs. goldstraw was that afternoon engaged (on her own perfectly fair terms) to come to-morrow and set up her rest as housekeeper in cripple corner. the housekeeper speaks on the next day mrs. goldstraw arrived, to enter on her domestic duties. having settled herself in her own room, without troubling the servants, and without wasting time, the new housekeeper announced herself as waiting to be favoured with any instructions which her master might wish to give her. the wine-merchant received mrs. goldstraw in the dining- room, in which he had seen her on the previous day; and, the usual preliminary civilities having passed on either side, the two sat down to take counsel together on the affairs of the house. "about the meals, sir?" said mrs. goldstraw. "have i a large, or a small, number to provide for?" "if i can carry out a certain old-fashioned plan of mine," replied mr. wilding, "you will have a large number to provide for. i am a lonely single man, mrs. goldstraw; and i hope to live with all the persons in my employment as if they were members of my family. until that time comes, you will only have me, and the new partner whom i expect immediately, to provide for. what my partner's habits may be, i cannot yet say. but i may describe myself as a man of regular hours, with an invariable appetite that you may depend upon to an ounce." "about breakfast, sir?" asked mrs. goldstraw. "is there anything particular--?" she hesitated, and left the sentence unfinished. her eyes turned slowly away from her master, and looked towards the chimney-piece. if she had been a less excellent and experienced housekeeper, mr. wilding might have fancied that her attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of the interview. "eight o'clock is my breakfast-hour," he resumed. "it is one of my virtues to be never tired of broiled bacon, and it is one of my vices to be habitually suspicious of the freshness of eggs." mrs. goldstraw looked back at him, still a little divided between her master's chimney- piece and her master. "i take tea," mr. wilding went on; "and i am perhaps rather nervous and fidgety about drinking it, within a certain time after it is made. if my tea stands too long--" he hesitated, on his side, and left the sentence unfinished. if he had not been engaged in discussing a subject of such paramount interest to himself as his breakfast, mrs. goldstraw might have fancied that his attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of the interview. "if your tea stands too long, sir--?" said the housekeeper, politely taking up her master's lost thread. "if my tea stands too long," repeated the wine-merchant mechanically, his mind getting farther and farther away from his breakfast, and his eyes fixing themselves more and more inquiringly on his housekeeper's face. "if my tea--dear, dear me, mrs. goldstraw! what _is_ the manner and tone of voice that you remind me of? it strikes me even more strongly to-day, than it did when i saw you yesterday. what can it be?" "what can it be?" repeated mrs. goldstraw. she said the words, evidently thinking while she spoke them of something else. the wine-merchant, still looking at her inquiringly, observed that her eyes wandered towards the chimney-piece once more. they fixed on the portrait of his mother, which hung there, and looked at it with that slight contraction of the brow which accompanies a scarcely conscious effort of memory. mr. wilding remarked. "my late dear mother, when she was five-and-twenty." mrs. goldstraw thanked him with a movement of the head for being at the pains to explain the picture, and said, with a cleared brow, that it was the portrait of a very beautiful lady. mr. wilding, falling back into his former perplexity, tried once more to recover that lost recollection, associated so closely, and yet so undiscoverably, with his new housekeeper's voice and manner. "excuse my asking you a question which has nothing to do with me or my breakfast," he said. "may i inquire if you have ever occupied any other situation than the situation of housekeeper?" "o yes, sir. i began life as one of the nurses at the foundling." "why, that's it!" cried the wine-merchant, pushing back his chair. "by heaven! their manner is the manner you remind me of!" in an astonished look at him, mrs. goldstraw changed colour, checked herself, turned her eyes upon the ground, and sat still and silent. "what is the matter?" asked mr. wilding. "do i understand that you were in the foundling, sir?" "certainly. i am not ashamed to own it." "under the name you now bear?" "under the name of walter wilding." "and the lady--?" mrs. goldstraw stopped short with a look at the portrait which was now unmistakably a look of alarm. "you mean my mother," interrupted mr. wilding. "your--mother," repeated the housekeeper, a little constrainedly, "removed you from the foundling? at what age, sir?" "at between eleven and twelve years old. it's quite a romantic adventure, mrs. goldstraw." he told the story of the lady having spoken to him, while he sat at dinner with the other boys in the foundling, and of all that had followed in his innocently communicative way. "my poor mother could never have discovered me," he added, "if she had not met with one of the matrons who pitied her. the matron consented to touch the boy whose name was 'walter wilding' as she went round the dinner-tables--and so my mother discovered me again, after having parted from me as an infant at the foundling doors." at those words mrs. goldstraw's hand, resting on the table, dropped helplessly into her lap. she sat, looking at her new master, with a face that had turned deadly pale, and with eyes that expressed an unutterable dismay. "what does this mean?" asked the wine-merchant. "stop!" he cried. "is there something else in the past time which i ought to associate with you? i remember my mother telling me of another person at the foundling, to whose kindness she owed a debt of gratitude. when she first parted with me, as an infant, one of the nurses informed her of the name that had been given to me in the institution. you were that nurse?" "god forgive me, sir--i was that nurse!" "god forgive you?" "we had better get back, sir (if i may make so bold as to say so), to my duties in the house," said mrs. goldstraw. "your breakfast-hour is eight. do you lunch, or dine, in the middle of the day?" the excessive pinkness which mr. bintrey had noticed in his client's face began to appear there once more. mr. wilding put his hand to his head, and mastered some momentary confusion in that quarter, before he spoke again. "mrs. goldstraw," he said, "you are concealing something from me!" the housekeeper obstinately repeated, "please to favour me, sir, by saying whether you lunch, or dine, in the middle of the day?" "i don't know what i do in the middle of the day. i can't enter into my household affairs, mrs. goldstraw, till i know why you regret an act of kindness to my mother, which she always spoke of gratefully to the end of her life. you are not doing me a service by your silence. you are agitating me, you are alarming me, you are bringing on the singing in my head." his hand went up to his head again, and the pink in his face deepened by a shade or two. "it's hard, sir, on just entering your service," said the housekeeper, "to say what may cost me the loss of your good will. please to remember, end how it may, that i only speak because you have insisted on my speaking, and because i see that i am alarming you by my silence. when i told the poor lady, whose portrait you have got there, the name by which her infant was christened in the foundling, i allowed myself to forget my duty, and dreadful consequences, i am afraid, have followed from it. i'll tell you the truth, as plainly as i can. a few months from the time when i had informed the lady of her baby's name, there came to our institution in the country another lady (a stranger), whose object was to adopt one of our children. she brought the needful permission with her, and after looking at a great many of the children, without being able to make up her mind, she took a sudden fancy to one of the babies--a boy--under my care. try, pray try, to compose yourself, sir! it's no use disguising it any longer. the child the stranger took away was the child of that lady whose portrait hangs there!" mr. wilding started to his feet. "impossible!" he cried out, vehemently. "what are you talking about? what absurd story are you telling me now? there's her portrait! haven't i told you so already? the portrait of my mother!" "when that unhappy lady removed you from the foundling, in after years," said mrs. goldstraw, gently, "she was the victim, and you were the victim, sir, of a dreadful mistake." he dropped back into his chair. "the room goes round with me," he said. "my head! my head!" the housekeeper rose in alarm, and opened the windows. before she could get to the door to call for help, a sudden burst of tears relieved the oppression which had at first almost appeared to threaten his life. he signed entreatingly to mrs. goldstraw not to leave him. she waited until the paroxysm of weeping had worn itself out. he raised his head as he recovered himself, and looked at her with the angry unreasoning suspicion of a weak man. "mistake?" he said, wildly repeating her last word. "how do i know you are not mistaken yourself?" "there is no hope that i am mistaken, sir. i will tell you why, when you are better fit to hear it." "now! now!" the tone in which he spoke warned mrs. goldstraw that it would be cruel kindness to let him comfort himself a moment longer with the vain hope that she might be wrong. a few words more would end it, and those few words she determined to speak. "i have told you," she said, "that the child of the lady whose portrait hangs there, was adopted in its infancy, and taken away by a stranger. i am as certain of what i say as that i am now sitting here, obliged to distress you, sir, sorely against my will. please to carry your mind on, now, to about three months after that time. i was then at the foundling, in london, waiting to take some children to our institution in the country. there was a question that day about naming an infant--a boy--who had just been received. we generally named them out of the directory. on this occasion, one of the gentlemen who managed the hospital happened to be looking over the register. he noticed that the name of the baby who had been adopted ('walter wilding') was scratched out--for the reason, of course, that the child had been removed for good from our care. 'here's a name to let,' he said. 'give it to the new foundling who has been received to-day.' the name was given, and the child was christened. you, sir, were that child." the wine-merchant's head dropped on his breast. "i was that child!" he said to himself, trying helplessly to fix the idea in his mind. "i was that child!" "not very long after you had been received into the institution, sir," pursued mrs. goldstraw, "i left my situation there, to be married. if you will remember that, and if you can give your mind to it, you will see for yourself how the mistake happened. between eleven and twelve years passed before the lady, whom you have believed to be your mother, returned to the foundling, to find her son, and to remove him to her own home. the lady only knew that her infant had been called 'walter wilding.' the matron who took pity on her, could but point out the only 'walter wilding' known in the institution. i, who might have set the matter right, was far away from the foundling and all that belonged to it. there was nothing--there was really nothing that could prevent this terrible mistake from taking place. i feel for you--i do indeed, sir! you must think--and with reason--that it was in an evil hour that i came here (innocently enough, i'm sure), to apply for your housekeeper's place. i feel as if i was to blame--i feel as if i ought to have had more self-command. if i had only been able to keep my face from showing you what that portrait and what your own words put into my mind, you need never, to your dying day, have known what you know now." mr. wilding looked up suddenly. the inbred honesty of the man rose in protest against the housekeeper's last words. his mind seemed to steady itself, for the moment, under the shock that had fallen on it. "do you mean to say that you would have concealed this from me if you could?" he exclaimed. "i hope i should always tell the truth, sir, if i was asked," said mrs. goldstraw. "and i know it is better for _me_ that i should not have a secret of this sort weighing on my mind. but is it better for _you_? what use can it serve now--?" "what use? why, good lord! if your story is true--" "should i have told it, sir, as i am now situated, if it had not been true?" "i beg your pardon," said the wine-merchant. "you must make allowance for me. this dreadful discovery is something i can't realise even yet. we loved each other so dearly--i felt so fondly that i was her son. she died, mrs. goldstraw, in my arms--she died blessing me as only a mother _could_ have blessed me. and now, after all these years, to be told she was _not_ my mother! o me, o me! i don't know what i am saying!" he cried, as the impulse of self-control under which he had spoken a moment since, flickered, and died out. "it was not this dreadful grief--it was something else that i had it in my mind to speak of. yes, yes. you surprised me--you wounded me just now. you talked as if you would have hidden this from me, if you could. don't talk in that way again. it would have been a crime to have hidden it. you mean well, i know. i don't want to distress you--you are a kind-hearted woman. but you don't remember what my position is. she left me all that i possess, in the firm persuasion that i was her son. i am not her son. i have taken the place, i have innocently got the inheritance of another man. he must be found! how do i know he is not at this moment in misery, without bread to eat? he must be found! my only hope of bearing up against the shock that has fallen on me, is the hope of doing something which _she_ would have approved. you must know more, mrs. goldstraw, than you have told me yet. who was the stranger who adopted the child? you must have heard the lady's name?" "i never heard it, sir. i have never seen her, or heard of her, since." "did she say nothing when she took the child away? search your memory. she must have said something." "only one thing, sir, that i can remember. it was a miserably bad season, that year; and many of the children were suffering from it. when she took the baby away, the lady said to me, laughing, 'don't be alarmed about his health. he will be brought up in a better climate than this--i am going to take him to switzerland.'" "to switzerland? what part of switzerland?" "she didn't say, sir." "only that faint clue!" said mr. wilding. "and a quarter of a century has passed since the child was taken away! what am i to do?" "i hope you won't take offence at my freedom, sir," said mrs. goldstraw; "but why should you distress yourself about what is to be done? he may not be alive now, for anything you know. and, if he is alive, it's not likely he can be in any distress. the, lady who adopted him was a bred and born lady--it was easy to see that. and she must have satisfied them at the foundling that she could provide for the child, or they would never have let her take him away. if i was in your place, sir--please to excuse my saying so--i should comfort myself with remembering that i had loved that poor lady whose portrait you have got there--truly loved her as my mother, and that she had truly loved me as her son. all she gave to you, she gave for the sake of that love. it never altered while she lived; and it won't alter, i'm sure, as long as _you_ live. how can you have a better right, sir, to keep what you have got than that?" mr. wilding's immovable honesty saw the fallacy in his housekeeper's point of view at a glance. "you don't understand me," he said. "it's _because_ i loved her that i feel it a duty--a sacred duty--to do justice to her son. if he is a living man, i must find him: for my own sake, as well as for his. i shall break down under this dreadful trial, unless i employ myself--actively, instantly employ myself--in doing what my conscience tells me ought to be done. i must speak to my lawyer; i must set my lawyer at work before i sleep to-night." he approached a tube in the wall of the room, and called down through it to the office below. "leave me for a little, mrs. goldstraw," he resumed; "i shall be more composed, i shall be better able to speak to you later in the day. we shall get on well--i hope we shall get on well together--in spite of what has happened. it isn't your fault; i know it isn't your fault. there! there! shake hands; and--and do the best you can in the house--i can't talk about it now." the door opened as mrs. goldstraw advanced towards it; and mr. jarvis appeared. "send for mr. bintrey," said the wine-merchant. "say i want to see him directly." the clerk unconsciously suspended the execution of the order, by announcing "mr. vendale," and showing in the new partner in the firm of wilding and co. "pray excuse me for one moment, george vendale," said wilding. "i have a word to say to jarvis. send for mr. bintrey," he repeated--"send at once." mr. jarvis laid a letter on the table before he left the room. "from our correspondents at neuchatel, i think, sir. the letter has got the swiss postmark." new characters on the scene the words, "the swiss postmark," following so soon upon the housekeeper's reference to switzerland, wrought mr. wilding's agitation to such a remarkable height, that his new partner could not decently make a pretence of letting it pass unnoticed. "wilding," he asked hurriedly, and yet stopping short and glancing around as if for some visible cause of his state of mind: "what is the matter?" "my good george vendale," returned the wine-merchant, giving his hand with an appealing look, rather as if he wanted help to get over some obstacle, than as if he gave it in welcome or salutation: "my good george vendale, so much is the matter, that i shall never be myself again. it is impossible that i can ever be myself again. for, in fact, i am not myself." the new partner, a brown-cheeked handsome fellow, of about his own age, with a quick determined eye and an impulsive manner, retorted with natural astonishment: "not yourself?" "not what i supposed myself to be," said wilding. "what, in the name of wonder, _did_ you suppose yourself to be that you are not?" was the rejoinder, delivered with a cheerful frankness, inviting confidence from a more reticent man. "i may ask without impertinence, now that we are partners." "there again!" cried wilding, leaning back in his chair, with a lost look at the other. "partners! i had no right to come into this business. it was never meant for me. my mother never meant it should be mine. i mean, his mother meant it should be his--if i mean anything--or if i am anybody." "come, come," urged his partner, after a moment's pause, and taking possession of him with that calm confidence which inspires a strong nature when it honestly desires to aid a weak one. "whatever has gone wrong, has gone wrong through no fault of yours, i am very sure. i was not in this counting-house with you, under the old _regime_, for three years, to doubt you, wilding. we were not younger men than we are, together, for that. let me begin our partnership by being a serviceable partner, and setting right whatever is wrong. has that letter anything to do with it?" "hah!" said wilding, with his hand to his temple. "there again! my head! i was forgetting the coincidence. the swiss postmark." "at a second glance i see that the letter is unopened, so it is not very likely to have much to do with the matter," said vendale, with comforting composure. "is it for you, or for us?" "for us," said wilding. "suppose i open it and read it aloud, to get it out of our way?" "thank you, thank you." "the letter is only from our champagne-making friends, the house at neuchatel. 'dear sir. we are in receipt of yours of the th ult., informing us that you have taken your mr. vendale into partnership, whereon we beg you to receive the assurance of our felicitations. permit us to embrace the occasion of specially commanding to you m. jules obenreizer.' impossible!" wilding looked up in quick apprehension, and cried, "eh?" "impossible sort of name," returned his partner, slightly--"obenreizer. '--of specially commanding to you m. jules obenreizer, of soho square, london (north side), henceforth fully accredited as our agent, and who has already had the honour of making the acquaintance of your mr. vendale, in his (said m. obenreizer's) native country, switzerland.' to be sure! pooh pooh, what have i been thinking of! i remember now; 'when travelling with his niece.'" "with his--?" vendale had so slurred the last word, that wilding had not heard it. "when travelling with his niece. obenreizer's niece," said vendale, in a somewhat superfluously lucid manner. "niece of obenreizer. (i met them in my first swiss tour, travelled a little with them, and lost them for two years; met them again, my swiss tour before last, and have lost them ever since.) obenreizer. niece of obenreizer. to be sure! possible sort of name, after all! 'm. obenreizer is in possession of our absolute confidence, and we do not doubt you will esteem his merits.' duly signed by the house, 'defresnier et cie.' very well. i undertake to see m. obenreizer presently, and clear him out of the way. that clears the swiss postmark out of the way. so now, my dear wilding, tell me what i can clear out of _your_ way, and i'll find a way to clear it." more than ready and grateful to be thus taken charge of, the honest wine- merchant wrung his partner's hand, and, beginning his tale by pathetically declaring himself an impostor, told it. "it was on this matter, no doubt, that you were sending for bintrey when i came in?" said his partner, after reflecting. "it was." "he has experience and a shrewd head; i shall be anxious to know his opinion. it is bold and hazardous in me to give you mine before i know his, but i am not good at holding back. plainly, then, i do not see these circumstances as you see them. i do not see your position as you see it. as to your being an impostor, my dear wilding, that is simply absurd, because no man can be that without being a consenting party to an imposition. clearly you never were so. as to your enrichment by the lady who believed you to be her son, and whom you were forced to believe, on her showing, to be your mother, consider whether that did not arise out of the personal relations between you. you gradually became much attached to her; she gradually became much attached to you. it was on you, personally you, as i see the case, that she conferred these worldly advantages; it was from her, personally her, that you took them." "she supposed me," objected wilding, shaking his head, "to have a natural claim upon her, which i had not." "i must admit that," replied his partner, "to be true. but if she had made the discovery that you have made, six months before she died, do you think it would have cancelled the years you were together, and the tenderness that each of you had conceived for the other, each on increasing knowledge of the other?" "what i think," said wilding, simply but stoutly holding to the bare fact, "can no more change the truth than it can bring down the sky. the truth is that i stand possessed of what was meant for another man." "he may be dead," said vendale. "he may be alive," said wilding. "and if he is alive, have i not--innocently, i grant you innocently--robbed him of enough? have i not robbed him of all the happy time that i enjoyed in his stead? have i not robbed him of the exquisite delight that filled my soul when that dear lady," stretching his hand towards the picture, "told me she was my mother? have i not robbed him of all the care she lavished on me? have i not even robbed him of all the devotion and duty that i so proudly gave to her? therefore it is that i ask myself, george vendale, and i ask you, where is he? what has become of him?" "who can tell!" "i must try to find out who can tell. i must institute inquiries. i must never desist from prosecuting inquiries. i will live upon the interest of my share--i ought to say his share--in this business, and will lay up the rest for him. when i find him, i may perhaps throw myself upon his generosity; but i will yield up all to him. i will, i swear. as i loved and honoured her," said wilding, reverently kissing his hand towards the picture, and then covering his eyes with it. "as i loved and honoured her, and have a world of reasons to be grateful to her!" and so broke down again. his partner rose from the chair he had occupied, and stood beside him with a hand softly laid upon his shoulder. "walter, i knew you before to- day to be an upright man, with a pure conscience and a fine heart. it is very fortunate for me that i have the privilege to travel on in life so near to so trustworthy a man. i am thankful for it. use me as your right hand, and rely upon me to the death. don't think the worse of me if i protest to you that my uppermost feeling at present is a confused, you may call it an unreasonable, one. i feel far more pity for the lady and for you, because you did not stand in your supposed relations, than i can feel for the unknown man (if he ever became a man), because he was unconsciously displaced. you have done well in sending for mr. bintrey. what i think will be a part of his advice, i know is the whole of mine. do not move a step in this serious matter precipitately. the secret must be kept among us with great strictness, for to part with it lightly would be to invite fraudulent claims, to encourage a host of knaves, to let loose a flood of perjury and plotting. i have no more to say now, walter, than to remind you that you sold me a share in your business, expressly to save yourself from more work than your present health is fit for, and that i bought it expressly to do work, and mean to do it." with these words, and a parting grip of his partner's shoulder that gave them the best emphasis they could have had, george vendale betook himself presently to the counting-house, and presently afterwards to the address of m. jules obenreizer. as he turned into soho square, and directed his steps towards its north side, a deepened colour shot across his sun-browned face, which wilding, if he had been a better observer, or had been less occupied with his own trouble, might have noticed when his partner read aloud a certain passage in their swiss correspondent's letter, which he had not read so distinctly as the rest. a curious colony of mountaineers has long been enclosed within that small flat london district of soho. swiss watchmakers, swiss silver-chasers, swiss jewellers, swiss importers of swiss musical boxes and swiss toys of various kinds, draw close together there. swiss professors of music, painting, and languages; swiss artificers in steady work; swiss couriers, and other swiss servants chronically out of place; industrious swiss laundresses and clear-starchers; mysteriously existing swiss of both sexes; swiss creditable and swiss discreditable; swiss to be trusted by all means, and swiss to be trusted by no means; these diverse swiss particles are attracted to a centre in the district of soho. shabby swiss eating-houses, coffee-houses, and lodging-houses, swiss drinks and dishes, swiss service for sundays, and swiss schools for week-days, are all to be found there. even the native-born english taverns drive a sort of broken-english trade; announcing in their windows swiss whets and drams, and sheltering in their bars swiss skirmishes of love and animosity on most nights in the year. when the new partner in wilding and co. rang the bell of a door bearing the blunt inscription obenreizer on a brass plate--the inner door of a substantial house, whose ground story was devoted to the sale of swiss clocks--he passed at once into domestic switzerland. a white-tiled stove for winter-time filled the fireplace of the room into which he was shown, the room's bare floor was laid together in a neat pattern of several ordinary woods, the room had a prevalent air of surface bareness and much scrubbing; and the little square of flowery carpet by the sofa, and the velvet chimney-board with its capacious clock and vases of artificial flowers, contended with that tone, as if, in bringing out the whole effect, a parisian had adapted a dairy to domestic purposes. mimic water was dropping off a mill-wheel under the clock. the visitor had not stood before it, following it with his eyes, a minute, when m. obenreizer, at his elbow, startled him by saying, in very good english, very slightly clipped: "how do you do? so glad!" "i beg your pardon. i didn't hear you come in." "not at all! sit, please." releasing his visitor's two arms, which he had lightly pinioned at the elbows by way of embrace, m. obenreizer also sat, remarking, with a smile: "you are well? so glad!" and touching his elbows again. "i don't know," said vendale, after exchange of salutations, "whether you may yet have heard of me from your house at neuchatel?" "ah, yes!" "in connection with wilding and co.?" "ah, surely!" "is it not odd that i should come to you, in london here, as one of the firm of wilding and co., to pay the firm's respects?" "not at all! what did i always observe when we were on the mountains? we call them vast; but the world is so little. so little is the world, that one cannot keep away from persons. there are so few persons in the world, that they continually cross and re-cross. so very little is the world, that one cannot get rid of a person. not," touching his elbows again, with an ingratiatory smile, "that one would desire to get rid of you." "i hope not, m. obenreizer." "please call me, in your country, mr. i call myself so, for i love your country. if i _could_ be english! but i am born. and you? though descended from so fine a family, you have had the condescension to come into trade? stop though. wines? is it trade in england or profession? not fine art?" "mr. obenreizer," returned vendale, somewhat out of countenance, "i was but a silly young fellow, just of age, when i first had the pleasure of travelling with you, and when you and i and mademoiselle your niece--who is well?" "thank you. who is well." "--shared some slight glacier dangers together. if, with a boy's vanity, i rather vaunted my family, i hope i did so as a kind of introduction of myself. it was very weak, and in very bad taste; but perhaps you know our english proverb, 'live and learn.'" "you make too much of it," returned the swiss. "and what the devil! after all, yours _was_ a fine family." george vendale's laugh betrayed a little vexation as he rejoined: "well! i was strongly attached to my parents, and when we first travelled together, mr. obenreizer, i was in the first flush of coming into what my father and mother left me. so i hope it may have been, after all, more youthful openness of speech and heart than boastfulness." "all openness of speech and heart! no boastfulness!" cried obenreizer. "you tax yourself too heavily. you tax yourself, my faith! as if you was your government taxing you! besides, it commenced with me. i remember, that evening in the boat upon the lake, floating among the reflections of the mountains and valleys, the crags and pine woods, which were my earliest remembrance, i drew a word-picture of my sordid childhood. of our poor hut, by the waterfall which my mother showed to travellers; of the cow-shed where i slept with the cow; of my idiot half-brother always sitting at the door, or limping down the pass to beg; of my half-sister always spinning, and resting her enormous goitre on a great stone; of my being a famished naked little wretch of two or three years, when they were men and women with hard hands to beat me, i, the only child of my father's second marriage--if it even was a marriage. what more natural than for you to compare notes with me, and say, 'we are as one by age; at that same time i sat upon my mother's lap in my father's carriage, rolling through the rich english streets, all luxury surrounding me, all squalid poverty kept far from me. such is _my_ earliest remembrance as opposed to yours!'" mr. obenreizer was a black-haired young man of a dark complexion, through whose swarthy skin no red glow ever shone. when colour would have come into another cheek, a hardly discernible beat would come into his, as if the machinery for bringing up the ardent blood were there, but the machinery were dry. he was robustly made, well proportioned, and had handsome features. many would have perceived that some surface change in him would have set them more at their ease with him, without being able to define what change. if his lips could have been made much thicker, and his neck much thinner, they would have found their want supplied. but the great obenreizer peculiarity was, that a certain nameless film would come over his eyes--apparently by the action of his own will--which would impenetrably veil, not only from those tellers of tales, but from his face at large, every expression save one of attention. it by no means followed that his attention should be wholly given to the person with whom he spoke, or even wholly bestowed on present sounds and objects. rather, it was a comprehensive watchfulness of everything he had in his own mind, and everything that he knew to be, or suspected to be, in the minds of other men. at this stage of the conversation, mr. obenreizer's film came over him. "the object of my present visit," said vendale, "is, i need hardly say, to assure you of the friendliness of wilding and co., and of the goodness of your credit with us, and of our desire to be of service to you. we hope shortly to offer you our hospitality. things are not quite in train with us yet, for my partner, mr. wilding, is reorganising the domestic part of our establishment, and is interrupted by some private affairs. you don't know mr. wilding, i believe?" mr. obenreizer did not. "you must come together soon. he will be glad to have made your acquaintance, and i think i may predict that you will be glad to have made his. you have not been long established in london, i suppose, mr. obenreizer?" "it is only now that i have undertaken this agency." "mademoiselle your niece--is--not married?" "not married." george vendale glanced about him, as if for any tokens of her. "she has been in london?" "she _is_ in london." "when, and where, might i have the honour of recalling myself to her remembrance?" mr. obenreizer, discarding his film and touching his visitor's elbows as before, said lightly: "come up-stairs." fluttered enough by the suddenness with which the interview he had sought was coming upon him after all, george vendale followed up-stairs. in a room over the chamber he had just quitted--a room also swiss-appointed--a young lady sat near one of three windows, working at an embroidery-frame; and an older lady sat with her face turned close to another white-tiled stove (though it was summer, and the stove was not lighted), cleaning gloves. the young lady wore an unusual quantity of fair bright hair, very prettily braided about a rather rounder white forehead than the average english type, and so her face might have been a shade--or say a light--rounder than the average english face, and her figure slightly rounder than the figure of the average english girl at nineteen. a remarkable indication of freedom and grace of limb, in her quiet attitude, and a wonderful purity and freshness of colour in her dimpled face and bright gray eyes, seemed fraught with mountain air. switzerland too, though the general fashion of her dress was english, peeped out of the fanciful bodice she wore, and lurked in the curious clocked red stocking, and in its little silver-buckled shoe. as to the elder lady, sitting with her feet apart upon the lower brass ledge of the stove, supporting a lap-full of gloves while she cleaned one stretched on her left hand, she was a true swiss impersonation of another kind; from the breadth of her cushion-like back, and the ponderosity of her respectable legs (if the word be admissible), to the black velvet band tied tightly round her throat for the repression of a rising tendency to goitre; or, higher still, to her great copper-coloured gold ear-rings; or, higher still, to her head-dress of black gauze stretched on wire. "miss marguerite," said obenreizer to the young lady, "do you recollect this gentleman?" "i think," she answered, rising from her seat, surprised and a little confused: "it is mr. vendale?" "i think it is," said obenreizer, dryly. "permit me, mr. vendale. madame dor." the elder lady by the stove, with the glove stretched on her left hand, like a glover's sign, half got up, half looked over her broad shoulder, and wholly plumped down again and rubbed away. "madame dor," said obenreizer, smiling, "is so kind as to keep me free from stain or tear. madame dor humours my weakness for being always neat, and devotes her time to removing every one of my specks and spots." madame dor, with the stretched glove in the air, and her eyes closely scrutinizing its palm, discovered a tough spot in mr. obenreizer at that instant, and rubbed hard at him. george vendale took his seat by the embroidery-frame (having first taken the fair right hand that his entrance had checked), and glanced at the gold cross that dipped into the bodice, with something of the devotion of a pilgrim who had reached his shrine at last. obenreizer stood in the middle of the room with his thumbs in his waistcoat-pockets, and became filmy. "he was saying down-stairs, miss obenreizer," observed vendale, "that the world is so small a place, that people cannot escape one another. i have found it much too large for me since i saw you last." "have you travelled so far, then?" she inquired. "not so far, for i have only gone back to switzerland each year; but i could have wished--and indeed i have wished very often--that the little world did not afford such opportunities for long escapes as it does. if it had been less, i might have found my follow-travellers sooner, you know." the pretty marguerite coloured, and very slightly glanced in the direction of madame dor. "you find us at length, mr. vendale. perhaps you may lose us again." "i trust not. the curious coincidence that has enabled me to find you, encourages me to hope not." "what is that coincidence, sir, if you please?" a dainty little native touch in this turn of speech, and in its tone, made it perfectly captivating, thought george vendale, when again he noticed an instantaneous glance towards madame dor. a caution seemed to be conveyed in it, rapid flash though it was; so he quietly took heed of madame dor from that time forth. "it is that i happen to have become a partner in a house of business in london, to which mr. obenreizer happens this very day to be expressly recommended: and that, too, by another house of business in switzerland, in which (as it turns out) we both have a commercial interest. he has not told you?" "ah!" cried obenreizer, striking in, filmless. "no. i had not told miss marguerite. the world is so small and so monotonous that a surprise is worth having in such a little jog-trot place. it is as he tells you, miss marguerite. he, of so fine a family, and so proudly bred, has condescended to trade. to trade! like us poor peasants who have risen from ditches!" a cloud crept over the fair brow, and she cast down her eyes. "why, it is good for trade!" pursued obenreizer, enthusiastically. "it ennobles trade! it is the misfortune of trade, it is its vulgarity, that any low people--for example, we poor peasants--may take to it and climb by it. see you, my dear vendale!" he spoke with great energy. "the father of miss marguerite, my eldest half-brother, more than two times your age or mine, if living now, wandered without shoes, almost without rags, from that wretched pass--wandered--wandered--got to be fed with the mules and dogs at an inn in the main valley far away--got to be boy there--got to be ostler--got to be waiter--got to be cook--got to be landlord. as landlord, he took me (could he take the idiot beggar his brother, or the spinning monstrosity his sister?) to put as pupil to the famous watchmaker, his neighbour and friend. his wife dies when miss marguerite is born. what is his will, and what are his words to me, when he dies, she being between girl and woman? 'all for marguerite, except so much by the year for you. you are young, but i make her your ward, for you were of the obscurest and the poorest peasantry, and so was i, and so was her mother; we were abject peasants all, and you will remember it.' the thing is equally true of most of my countrymen, now in trade in this your london quarter of soho. peasants once; low-born drudging swiss peasants. then how good and great for trade:" here, from having been warm, he became playfully jubilant, and touched the young wine-merchant's elbows again with his light embrace: "to be exalted by gentlemen." "i do not think so," said marguerite, with a flushed cheek, and a look away from the visitor, that was almost defiant. "i think it is as much exalted by us peasants." "fie, fie, miss marguerite," said obenreizer. "you speak in proud england." "i speak in proud earnest," she answered, quietly resuming her work, "and i am not english, but a swiss peasant's daughter." there was a dismissal of the subject in her words, which vendale could not contend against. he only said in an earnest manner, "i most heartily agree with you, miss obenreizer, and i have already said so, as mr. obenreizer will bear witness," which he by no means did, "in this house." now, vendale's eyes were quick eyes, and sharply watching madame dor by times, noted something in the broad back view of that lady. there was considerable pantomimic expression in her glove-cleaning. it had been very softly done when he spoke with marguerite, or it had altogether stopped, like the action of a listener. when obenreizer's peasant-speech came to an end, she rubbed most vigorously, as if applauding it. and once or twice, as the glove (which she always held before her a little above her face) turned in the air, or as this finger went down, or that went up, he even fancied that it made some telegraphic communication to obenreizer: whose back was certainly never turned upon it, though he did not seem at all to heed it. vendale observed too, that in marguerite's dismissal of the subject twice forced upon him to his misrepresentation, there was an indignant treatment of her guardian which she tried to cheek: as though she would have flamed out against him, but for the influence of fear. he also observed--though this was not much--that he never advanced within the distance of her at which he first placed himself: as though there were limits fixed between them. neither had he ever spoken of her without the prefix "miss," though whenever he uttered it, it was with the faintest trace of an air of mockery. and now it occurred to vendale for the first time that something curious in the man, which he had never before been able to define, was definable as a certain subtle essence of mockery that eluded touch or analysis. he felt convinced that marguerite was in some sort a prisoner as to her freewill--though she held her own against those two combined, by the force of her character, which was nevertheless inadequate to her release. to feel convinced of this, was not to feel less disposed to love her than he had always been. in a word, he was desperately in love with her, and thoroughly determined to pursue the opportunity which had opened at last. for the present, he merely touched upon the pleasure that wilding and co. would soon have in entreating miss obenreizer to honour their establishment with her presence--a curious old place, though a bachelor house withal--and so did not protract his visit beyond such a visit's ordinary length. going down-stairs, conducted by his host, he found the obenreizer counting-house at the back of the entrance-hall, and several shabby men in outlandish garments hanging about, whom obenreizer put aside that he might pass, with a few words in _patois_. "countrymen," he explained, as he attended vendale to the door. "poor compatriots. grateful and attached, like dogs! good-bye. to meet again. so glad!" two more light touches on his elbows dismissed him into the street. sweet marguerite at her frame, and madame dor's broad back at her telegraph, floated before him to cripple corner. on his arrival there, wilding was closeted with bintrey. the cellar doors happening to be open, vendale lighted a candle in a cleft stick, and went down for a cellarous stroll. graceful marguerite floated before him faithfully, but madame dor's broad back remained outside. the vaults were very spacious, and very old. there had been a stone crypt down there, when bygones were not bygones; some said, part of a monkish refectory; some said, of a chapel; some said, of a pagan temple. it was all one now. let who would make what he liked of a crumbled pillar and a broken arch or so. old time had made what _he_ liked of it, and was quite indifferent to contradiction. the close air, the musty smell, and the thunderous rumbling in the streets above, as being, out of the routine of ordinary life, went well enough with the picture of pretty marguerite holding her own against those two. so vendale went on until, at a turning in the vaults, he saw a light like the light he carried. "o! you are here, are you, joey?" "oughtn't it rather to go, 'o! _you're_ here, are you, master george?' for it's my business to be here. but it ain't yourn." "don't grumble, joey." "o! _i_ don't grumble," returned the cellarman. "if anything grumbles, it's what i've took in through the pores; it ain't me. have a care as something in you don't begin a grumbling, master george. stop here long enough for the wapours to work, and they'll be at it." his present occupation consisted of poking his head into the bins, making measurements and mental calculations, and entering them in a rhinoceros- hide-looking note-book, like a piece of himself. "they'll be at it," he resumed, laying the wooden rod that he measured with across two casks, entering his last calculation, and straightening his back, "trust 'em! and so you've regularly come into the business, master george?" "regularly. i hope you don't object, joey?" "_i_ don't, bless you. but wapours objects that you're too young. you're both on you too young." "we shall got over that objection day by day, joey." "ay, master george; but i shall day by day get over the objection that i'm too old, and so i shan't be capable of seeing much improvement in you." the retort so tickled joey ladle that he grunted forth a laugh and delivered it again, grunting forth another laugh after the second edition of "improvement in you." "but what's no laughing matter, master george," he resumed, straightening his back once more, "is, that young master wilding has gone and changed the luck. mark my words. he has changed the luck, and he'll find it out. _i_ ain't been down here all my life for nothing! _i_ know by what i notices down here, when it's a-going to rain, when it's a-going to hold up, when it's a-going to blow, when it's a-going to be calm. _i_ know, by what i notices down here, when the luck's changed, quite as well." "has this growth on the roof anything to do with your divination?" asked vendale, holding his light towards a gloomy ragged growth of dark fungus, pendent from the arches with a very disagreeable and repellent effect. "we are famous for this growth in this vault, aren't we?" "we are master george," replied joey ladle, moving a step or two away, "and if you'll be advised by me, you'll let it alone." taking up the rod just now laid across the two casks, and faintly moving the languid fungus with it, vendale asked, "ay, indeed? why so?" "why, not so much because it rises from the casks of wine, and may leave you to judge what sort of stuff a cellarman takes into himself when he walks in the same all the days of his life, nor yet so much because at a stage of its growth it's maggots, and you'll fetch 'em down upon you," returned joey ladle, still keeping away, "as for another reason, master george." "what other reason?" "(i wouldn't keep on touchin' it, if i was you, sir.) i'll tell you if you'll come out of the place. first, take a look at its colour, master george." "i am doing so." "done, sir. now, come out of the place." he moved away with his light, and vendale followed with his. when vendale came up with him, and they were going back together, vendale, eyeing him as they walked through the arches, said: "well, joey? the colour." "is it like clotted blood, master george?" "like enough, perhaps." "more than enough, i think," muttered joey ladle, shaking his head solemnly. "well, say it is like; say it is exactly like. what then?" "master george, they do say--" "who?" "how should i know who?" rejoined the cellarman, apparently much exasperated by the unreasonable nature of the question. "them! them as says pretty well everything, you know. how should i know who they are, if you don't?" "true. go on." "they do say that the man that gets by any accident a piece of that dark growth right upon his breast, will, for sure and certain, die by murder." as vendale laughingly stopped to meet the cellarman's eyes, which he had fastened on his light while dreamily saying those words, he suddenly became conscious of being struck upon his own breast by a heavy hand. instantly following with his eyes the action of the hand that struck him--which was his companion's--he saw that it had beaten off his breast a web or clot of the fungus even then floating to the ground. for a moment he turned upon the cellarman almost as scared a look as the cellarman turned upon him. but in another moment they had reached the daylight at the foot of the cellar-steps, and before he cheerfully sprang up them, he blew out his candle and the superstition together. exit wilding on the morning of the next day, wilding went out alone, after leaving a message with his clerk. "if mr. vendale should ask for me," he said, "or if mr. bintrey should call, tell them i am gone to the foundling." all that his partner had said to him, all that his lawyer, following on the same side, could urge, had left him persisting unshaken in his own point of view. to find the lost man, whose place he had usurped, was now the paramount interest of his life, and to inquire at the foundling was plainly to take the first step in the direction of discovery. to the foundling, accordingly, the wine-merchant now went. the once familiar aspect of the building was altered to him, as the look of the portrait over the chimney-piece was altered to him. his one dearest association with the place which had sheltered his childhood had been broken away from it for ever. a strange reluctance possessed him, when he stated his business at the door. his heart ached as he sat alone in the waiting-room while the treasurer of the institution was being sent for to see him. when the interview began, it was only by a painful effort that he could compose himself sufficiently to mention the nature of his errand. the treasurer listened with a face which promised all needful attention, and promised nothing more. "we are obliged to be cautious," he said, when it came to his turn to speak, "about all inquiries which are made by strangers." "you can hardly consider me a stranger," answered wilding, simply. "i was one of your poor lost children here, in the bygone time." the treasurer politely rejoined that this circumstance inspired him with a special interest in his visitor. but he pressed, nevertheless for that visitor's motive in making his inquiry. without further preface, wilding told him his motive, suppressing nothing. the treasurer rose, and led the way into the room in which the registers of the institution were kept. "all the information which our books can give is heartily at your service," he said. "after the time that has elapsed, i am afraid it is the only information we have to offer you." the books were consulted, and the entry was found expressed as follows: " d march, . adopted, and removed from the foundling hospital, a male infant, named walter wilding. name and condition of the person adopting the child--mrs. jane ann miller, widow. address--lime-tree lodge, groombridge wells. references--the reverend john harker, groombridge wells; and messrs. giles, jeremie, and giles, bankers, lombard street." "is that all?" asked the wine-merchant. "had you no after-communication with mrs. miller?" "none--or some reference to it must have appeared in this book." "may i take a copy of the entry?" "certainly! you are a little agitated. let me make a copy for you." "my only chance, i suppose," said wilding, looking sadly at the copy, "is to inquire at mrs. miller's residence, and to try if her references can help me?" "that is the only chance i see at present," answered the treasurer. "i heartily wish i could have been of some further assistance to you." with those farewell words to comfort him wilding set forth on the journey of investigation which began from the foundling doors. the first stage to make for, was plainly the house of business of the bankers in lombard street. two of the partners in the firm were inaccessible to chance-visitors when he asked for them. the third, after raising certain inevitable difficulties, consented to let a clerk examine the ledger marked with the initial letter "m." the account of mrs. miller, widow, of groombridge wells, was found. two long lines, in faded ink, were drawn across it; and at the bottom of the page there appeared this note: "account closed, september th, ." so the first stage of the journey was reached--and so it ended in no thoroughfare! after sending a note to cripple corner to inform his partner that his absence might be prolonged for some hours, wilding took his place in the train, and started for the second stage on the journey--mrs. miller's residence at groombridge wells. mothers and children travelled with him; mothers and children met each other at the station; mothers and children were in the shops when he entered them to inquire for lime-tree lodge. everywhere, the nearest and dearest of human relations showed itself happily in the happy light of day. everywhere, he was reminded of the treasured delusion from which he had been awakened so cruelly--of the lost memory which had passed from him like a reflection from a glass. inquiring here, inquiring there, he could hear of no such place as lime- tree lodge. passing a house-agent's office, he went in wearily, and put the question for the last time. the house-agent pointed across the street to a dreary mansion of many windows, which might have been a manufactory, but which was an hotel. "that's where lime-tree lodge stood, sir," said the man, "ten years ago." the second stage reached, and no thoroughfare again! but one chance was left. the clerical reference, mr. harker, still remained to be found. customers coming in at the moment to occupy the house-agent's attention, wilding went down the street, and entering a bookseller's shop, asked if he could be informed of the reverend john harker's present address. the bookseller looked unaffectedly shocked and astonished, and made no answer. wilding repeated his question. the bookseller took up from his counter a prim little volume in a binding of sober gray. he handed it to his visitor, open at the title-page. wilding read: "the martyrdom of the reverend john harker in new zealand. related by a former member of his flock." wilding put the book down on the counter. "i beg your pardon," he said thinking a little, perhaps, of his own present martyrdom while he spoke. the silent bookseller acknowledged the apology by a bow. wilding went out. third and last stage, and no thoroughfare for the third and last time. there was nothing more to be done; there was absolutely no choice but to go back to london, defeated at all points. from time to time on the return journey, the wine-merchant looked at his copy of the entry in the foundling register. there is one among the many forms of despair--perhaps the most pitiable of all--which persists in disguising itself as hope. wilding checked himself in the act of throwing the useless morsel of paper out of the carriage window. "it may lead to something yet," he thought. "while i live, i won't part with it. when i die, my executors shall find it sealed up with my will." now, the mention of his will set the good wine-merchant on a new track of thought, without diverting his mind from its engrossing subject. he must make his will immediately. the application of the phrase no thoroughfare to the case had originated with mr. bintrey. in their first long conference following the discovery, that sagacious personage had a hundred times repeated, with an obstructive shake of the head, "no thoroughfare, sir, no thoroughfare. my belief is that there is no way out of this at this time of day, and my advice is, make yourself comfortable where you are." in the course of the protracted consultation, a magnum of the forty-five year old port-wine had been produced for the wetting of mr. bintrey's legal whistle; but the more clearly he saw his way through the wine, the more emphatically he did not see his way through the case; repeating as often as he set his glass down empty. "mr. wilding, no thoroughfare. rest and be thankful." it is certain that the honest wine-merchant's anxiety to make a will originated in profound conscientiousness; though it is possible (and quite consistent with his rectitude) that he may unconsciously have derived some feeling of relief from the prospect of delegating his own difficulty to two other men who were to come after him. be that as it may, he pursued his new track of thought with great ardour, and lost no time in begging george vendale and mr. bintrey to meet him in cripple corner and share his confidence. "being all three assembled with closed doors," said mr. bintrey, addressing the new partner on the occasion, "i wish to observe, before our friend (and my client) entrusts us with his further views, that i have endorsed what i understand from him to have been your advice, mr. vendale, and what would be the advice of every sensible man. i have told him that he positively must keep his secret. i have spoken with mrs. goldstraw, both in his presence and in his absence; and if anybody is to be trusted (which is a very large if), i think she is to be trusted to that extent. i have pointed out to our friend (and my client), that to set on foot random inquiries would not only be to raise the devil, in the likeness of all the swindlers in the kingdom, but would also be to waste the estate. now, you see, mr. vendale, our friend (and my client) does not desire to waste the estate, but, on the contrary, desires to husband it for what he considers--but i can't say i do--the rightful owner, if such rightful owner should ever be found. i am very much mistaken if he ever will be, but never mind that. mr. wilding and i are, at least, agreed that the estate is not to be wasted. now, i have yielded to mr. wilding's desire to keep an advertisement at intervals flowing through the newspapers, cautiously inviting any person who may know anything about that adopted infant, taken from the foundling hospital, to come to my office; and i have pledged myself that such advertisement shall regularly appear. i have gathered from our friend (and my client) that i meet you here to-day to take his instructions, not to give him advice. i am prepared to receive his instructions, and to respect his wishes; but you will please observe that this does not imply my approval of either as a matter of professional opinion." thus mr. bintrey; talking quite is much _at_ wilding as _to_ vendale. and yet, in spite of his care for his client, he was so amused by his client's quixotic conduct, as to eye him from time to time with twinkling eyes, in the light of a highly comical curiosity. "nothing," observed wilding, "can be clearer. i only wish my head were as clear as yours, mr. bintrey." "if you feel that singing in it coming on," hinted the lawyer, with an alarmed glance, "put it off.--i mean the interview." "not at all, i thank you," said wilding. "what was i going to--" "don't excite yourself, mr. wilding," urged the lawyer. "no; i _wasn't_ going to," said the wine-merchant. "mr. bintrey and george vendale, would you have any hesitation or objection to become my joint trustees and executors, or can you at once consent?" "_i_ consent," replied george vendale, readily. "_i_ consent," said bintrey, not so readily. "thank you both. mr. bintrey, my instructions for my last will and testament are short and plain. perhaps you will now have the goodness to take them down. i leave the whole of my real and personal estate, without any exception or reservation whatsoever, to you two, my joint trustees and executors, in trust to pay over the whole to the true walter wilding, if he shall be found and identified within two years after the day of my death. failing that, in trust to you two to pay over the whole as a benefaction and legacy to the foundling hospital." "those are all your instructions, are they, mr. wilding?" demanded bintrey, after a blank silence, during which nobody had looked at anybody. "the whole." "and as to those instructions, you have absolutely made up your mind, mr. wilding?" "absolutely, decidedly, finally." "it only remains," said the lawyer, with one shrug of his shoulders, "to get them into technical and binding form, and to execute and attest. now, does that press? is there any hurry about it? you are not going to die yet, sir." "mr. bintrey," answered wilding, gravely, "when i am going to die is within other knowledge than yours or mine. i shall be glad to have this matter off my mind, if you please." "we are lawyer and client again," rejoined bintrey, who, for the nonce, had become almost sympathetic. "if this day week--here, at the same hour--will suit mr. vendale and yourself, i will enter in my diary that i attend you accordingly." the appointment was made, and in due sequence, kept. the will was formally signed, sealed, delivered, and witnessed, and was carried off by mr. bintrey for safe storage among the papers of his clients, ranged in their respective iron boxes, with their respective owners' names outside, on iron tiers in his consulting-room, as if that legal sanctuary were a condensed family vault of clients. with more heart than he had lately had for former subjects of interest, wilding then set about completing his patriarchal establishment, being much assisted not only by mrs. goldstraw but by vendale too: who, perhaps, had in his mind the giving of an obenreizer dinner as soon as possible. anyhow, the establishment being reported in sound working order, the obenreizers, guardian and ward, were asked to dinner, and madame dor was included in the invitation. if vendale had been over head and ears in love before--a phrase not to be taken as implying the faintest doubt about it--this dinner plunged him down in love ten thousand fathoms deep. yet, for the life of him, he could not get one word alone with charming marguerite. so surely as a blessed moment seemed to come, obenreizer, in his filmy state, would stand at vendale's elbow, or the broad back of madame dor would appear before his eyes. that speechless matron was never seen in a front view, from the moment of her arrival to that of her departure--except at dinner. and from the instant of her retirement to the drawing-room, after a hearty participation in that meal, she turned her face to the wall again. yet, through four or five delightful though distracting hours, marguerite was to be seen, marguerite was to be heard, marguerite was to be occasionally touched. when they made the round of the old dark cellars, vendale led her by the hand; when she sang to him in the lighted room at night, vendale, standing by her, held her relinquished gloves, and would have bartered against them every drop of the forty-five year old, though it had been forty-five times forty-five years old, and its nett price forty-five times forty-five pounds per dozen. and still, when she was gone, and a great gap of an extinguisher was clapped on cripple corner, he tormented himself by wondering, did she think that he admired her! did she think that he adored her! did she suspect that she had won him, heart and soul! did she care to think at all about it! and so, did she and didn't she, up and down the gamut, and above the line and below the line, dear, dear! poor restless heart of humanity! to think that the men who were mummies thousands of years ago, did the same, and ever found the secret how to be quiet after it! "what do you think, george," wilding asked him next day, "of mr. obenreizer? (i won't ask you what you think of miss obenreizer.)" "i don't know," said vendale, "and i never did know, what to think of him." "he is well informed and clever," said wilding. "certainly clever." "a good musician." (he had played very well, and sung very well, overnight.) "unquestionably a good musician." "and talks well." "yes," said george vendale, ruminating, "and talks well. do you know, wilding, it oddly occurs to me, as i think about him, that he doesn't keep silence well!" "how do you mean? he is not obtrusively talkative." "no, and i don't mean that. but when he is silent, you can hardly help vaguely, though perhaps most unjustly, mistrusting him. take people whom you know and like. take any one you know and like." "soon done, my good fellow," said wilding. "i take you." "i didn't bargain for that, or foresee it," returned vendale, laughing. "however, take me. reflect for a moment. is your approving knowledge of my interesting face mainly founded (however various the momentary expressions it may include) on my face when i am silent?" "i think it is," said wilding. "i think so too. now, you see, when obenreizer speaks--in other words, when he is allowed to explain himself away--he comes out right enough; but when he has not the opportunity of explaining himself away, he comes out rather wrong. therefore it is, that i say he does not keep silence well. and passing hastily in review such faces as i know, and don't trust, i am inclined to think, now i give my mind to it, that none of them keep silence well." this proposition in physiognomy being new to wilding, he was at first slow to admit it, until asking himself the question whether mrs. goldstraw kept silence well, and remembering that her face in repose decidedly invited trustfulness, he was as glad as men usually are to believe what they desire to believe. but, as he was very slow to regain his spirits or his health, his partner, as another means of setting him up--and perhaps also with contingent obenreizer views--reminded him of those musical schemes of his in connection with his family, and how a singing-class was to be formed in the house, and a choir in a neighbouring church. the class was established speedily, and, two or three of the people having already some musical knowledge, and singing tolerably, the choir soon followed. the latter was led, and chiefly taught, by wilding himself: who had hopes of converting his dependents into so many foundlings, in respect of their capacity to sing sacred choruses. now, the obenreizers being skilled musicians, it was easily brought to pass that they should be asked to join these musical unions. guardian and ward consenting, or guardian consenting for both, it was necessarily brought to pass that vendale's life became a life of absolute thraldom and enchantment. for, in the mouldy christopher-wren church on sundays, with its dearly beloved brethren assembled and met together, five-and- twenty strong, was not that her voice that shot like light into the darkest places, thrilling the walls and pillars as though they were pieces of his heart! what time, too, madame dor in a corner of the high pew, turning her back upon everybody and everything, could not fail to be ritualistically right at some moment of the service; like the man whom the doctors recommended to get drunk once a month, and who, that he might not overlook it, got drunk every day. but, even those seraphic sundays were surpassed by the wednesday concerts established for the patriarchal family. at those concerts she would sit down to the piano and sing them, in her own tongue, songs of her own land, songs calling from the mountain-tops to vendale, "rise above the grovelling level country; come far away from the crowd; pursue me as i mount higher; higher, higher, melting into the azure distance; rise to my supremest height of all, and love me here!" then would the pretty bodice, the clocked stocking, and the silver-buckled shoe be, like the broad forehead and the bright eyes, fraught with the spring of a very chamois, until the strain was over. not even over vendale himself did these songs of hers cast a more potent spell than over joey ladle in his different way. steadily refusing to muddle the harmony by taking any share in it, and evincing the supremest contempt for scales and such-like rudiments of music--which, indeed, seldom captivate mere listeners--joey did at first give up the whole business for a bad job, and the whole of the performers for a set of howling dervishes. but, descrying traces of unmuddled harmony in a part- song one day, he gave his two under cellarmen faint hopes of getting on towards something in course of time. an anthem of handel's led to further encouragement from him: though he objected that that great musician must have been down in some of them foreign cellars pretty much, for to go and say the same thing so many times over; which, took it in how you might, he considered a certain sign of your having took it in somehow. on a third occasion, the public appearance of mr. jarvis with a flute, and of an odd man with a violin, and the performance of a duet by the two, did so astonish him that, solely of his own impulse and motion, he became inspired with the words, "ann koar!" repeatedly pronouncing them as if calling in a familiar manner for some lady who had distinguished herself in the orchestra. but this was his final testimony to the merits of his mates, for, the instrumental duet being performed at the first wednesday concert, and being presently followed by the voice of marguerite obenreizer, he sat with his mouth wide open, entranced, until she had finished; when, rising in his place with much solemnity, and prefacing what he was about to say with a bow that specially included mr. wilding in it, he delivered himself of the gratifying sentiment: "arter that, ye may all on ye get to bed!" and ever afterwards declined to render homage in any other words to the musical powers of the family. thus began a separate personal acquaintance between marguerite obenreizer and joey ladle. she laughed so heartily at his compliment, and yet was so abashed by it, that joey made bold to say to her, after the concert was over, he hoped he wasn't so muddled in his head as to have took a liberty? she made him a gracious reply, and joey ducked in return. "you'll change the luck time about, miss," said joey, ducking again. "it's such as you in the place that can bring round the luck of the place." "can i? round the luck?" she answered, in her pretty english, and with a pretty wonder. "i fear i do not understand. i am so stupid." "young master wilding, miss," joey explained confidentially, though not much to her enlightenment, "changed the luck, afore he took in young master george. so i say, and so they'll find. lord! only come into the place and sing over the luck a few times, miss, and it won't be able to help itself!" with this, and with a whole brood of ducks, joey backed out of the presence. but joey being a privileged person, and even an involuntary conquest being pleasant to youth and beauty, marguerite merrily looked out for him next time. "where is my mr. joey, please?" she asked vendale. so joey was produced, and shaken hands with, and that became an institution. another institution arose in this wise. joey was a little hard of hearing. he himself said it was "wapours," and perhaps it might have been; but whatever the cause of the effect, there the effect was, upon him. on this first occasion he had been seen to sidle along the wall, with his left hand to his left ear, until he had sidled himself into a seat pretty near the singer, in which place and position he had remained, until addressing to his friends the amateurs the compliment before mentioned. it was observed on the following wednesday that joey's action as a pecking machine was impaired at dinner, and it was rumoured about the table that this was explainable by his high-strung expectations of miss obenreizer's singing, and his fears of not getting a place where he could hear every note and syllable. the rumour reaching wilding's ears, he in his good nature called joey to the front at night before marguerite began. thus the institution came into being that on succeeding nights, marguerite, running her hands over the keys before singing, always said to vendale, "where is my mr. joey, please?" and that vendale always brought him forth, and stationed him near by. that he should then, when all eyes were upon him, express in his face the utmost contempt for the exertions of his friends and confidence in marguerite alone, whom he would stand contemplating, not unlike the rhinocerous out of the spelling- book, tamed and on his hind legs, was a part of the institution. also that when he remained after the singing in his most ecstatic state, some bold spirit from the back should say, "what do you think of it, joey?" and he should be goaded to reply, as having that instant conceived the retort, "arter that ye may all on ye get to bed!" these were other parts of the institution. but, the simple pleasures and small jests of cripple corner were not destined to have a long life. underlying them from the first was a serious matter, which every member of the patriarchal family knew of, but which, by tacit agreement, all forbore to speak of. mr. wilding's health was in a bad way. he might have overcome the shock he had sustained in the one great affection of his life, or he might have overcome his consciousness of being in the enjoyment of another man's property; but the two together were too much for him. a man haunted by twin ghosts, he became deeply depressed. the inseparable spectres sat at the board with him, ate from his platter, drank from his cup, and stood by his bedside at night. when he recalled his supposed mother's love, he felt as though he had stolen it. when he rallied a little under the respect and attachment of his dependants, he felt as though he were even fraudulent in making them happy, for that should have been the unknown man's duty and gratification. gradually, under the pressure of his brooding mind, his body stooped, his step lost its elasticity, his eyes were seldom lifted from the ground. he knew he could not help the deplorable mistake that had been made, but he knew he could not mend it; for the days and weeks went by, and no one claimed his name or his possessions. and now there began to creep over him a cloudy consciousness of often-recurring confusion in his head. he would unaccountably lose, sometimes whole hours, sometimes a whole day and night. once, his remembrance stopped as he sat at the head of the dinner-table, and was blank until daybreak. another time, it stopped as he was beating time to their singing, and went on again when he and his partner were walking in the court-yard by the light of the moon, half the night later. he asked vendale (always full of consideration, work, and help) how this was? vendale only replied, "you have not been quite well; that's all." he looked for explanation into the faces of his people. but they would put it off with "glad to see you looking so much better, sir;" or "hope you're doing nicely now, sir;" in which was no information at all. at length, when the partnership was but five months old, walter wilding took to his bed, and his housekeeper became his nurse. "lying here, perhaps you will not mind my calling you sally, mrs. goldstraw?" said the poor wine-merchant. "it sounds more natural to me, sir, than any other name, and i like it better." "thank you, sally. i think, sally, i must of late have been subject to fits. is that so, sally? don't mind telling me now." "it has happened, sir." "ah! that is the explanation!" he quietly remarked. "mr. obenreizer, sally, talks of the world being so small that it is not strange how often the same people come together, and come together at various places, and in various stages of life. but it does seem strange, sally, that i should, as i may say, come round to the foundling to die." he extended his hand to her, and she gently took it. "you are not going to die, dear mr. wilding." "so mr. bintrey said, but i think he was wrong. the old child-feeling is coming back upon me, sally. the old hush and rest, as i used to fall asleep." after an interval he said, in a placid voice, "please kiss me, nurse," and, it was evident, believed himself to be lying in the old dormitory. as she had been used to bend over the fatherless and motherless children, sally bent over the fatherless and motherless man, and put her lips to his forehead, murmuring: "god bless you!" "god bless you!" he replied, in the same tone. after another interval, he opened his eyes in his own character, and said: "don't move me, sally, because of what i am going to say; i lie quite easily. i think my time is come, i don't know how it may appear to you, sally, but--" insensibility fell upon him for a few minutes; he emerged from it once more. "--i don't know how it may appear to you, sally, but so it appears to me." when he had thus conscientiously finished his favourite sentence, his time came, and he died. act ii. vendale makes love the summer and the autumn passed. christmas and the new year were at hand. as executors honestly bent on performing their duty towards the dead, vendale and bintrey had held more than one anxious consultation on the subject of wilding's will. the lawyer had declared, from the first, that it was simply impossible to take any useful action in the matter at all. the only obvious inquiries to make, in relation to the lost man, had been made already by wilding himself; with this result, that time and death together had not left a trace of him discoverable. to advertise for the claimant to the property, it would be necessary to mention particulars--a course of proceeding which would invite half the impostors in england to present themselves in the character of the true walter wilding. "if we find a chance of tracing the lost man, we will take it. if we don't, let us meet for another consultation on the first anniversary of wilding's death." so bintrey advised. and so, with the most earnest desire to fulfil his dead friend's wishes, vendale was fain to let the matter rest for the present. turning from his interest in the past to his interest in the future, vendale still found himself confronting a doubtful prospect. months on months had passed since his first visit to soho square--and through all that time, the one language in which he had told marguerite that he loved her was the language of the eyes, assisted, at convenient opportunities, by the language of the hand. what was the obstacle in his way? the one immovable obstacle which had been in his way from the first. no matter how fairly the opportunities looked, vendale's efforts to speak with marguerite alone ended invariably in one and the same result. under the most accidental circumstances, in the most innocent manner possible, obenreizer was always in the way. with the last days of the old year came an unexpected chance of spending an evening with marguerite, which vendale resolved should be a chance of speaking privately to her as well. a cordial note from obenreizer invited him, on new year's day, to a little family dinner in soho square. "we shall be only four," the note said. "we shall be only two," vendale determined, "before the evening is out!" new year's day, among the english, is associated with the giving and receiving of dinners, and with nothing more. new year's day, among the foreigners, is the grand opportunity of the year for the giving and receiving of presents. it is occasionally possible to acclimatise a foreign custom. in this instance vendale felt no hesitation about making the attempt. his one difficulty was to decide what his new year's gift to marguerite should be. the defensive pride of the peasant's daughter--morbidly sensitive to the inequality between her social position and his--would be secretly roused against him if he ventured on a rich offering. a gift, which a poor man's purse might purchase, was the one gift that could be trusted to find its way to her heart, for the giver's sake. stoutly resisting temptation, in the form of diamonds and rubies, vendale bought a brooch of the filagree-work of genoa--the simplest and most unpretending ornament that he could find in the jeweller's shop. he slipped his gift into marguerite's hand as she held it out to welcome him on the day of the dinner. "this is your first new year's day in england," he said. "will you let me help to make it like a new year's day at home?" she thanked him, a little constrainedly, as she looked at the jeweller's box, uncertain what it might contain. opening the box, and discovering the studiously simple form under which vendale's little keepsake offered itself to her, she penetrated his motive on the spot. her face turned on him brightly, with a look which said, "i own you have pleased and flattered me." never had she been so charming, in vendale's eyes, as she was at that moment. her winter dress--a petticoat of dark silk, with a bodice of black velvet rising to her neck, and enclosing it softly in a little circle of swansdown--heightened, by all the force of contrast, the dazzling fairness of her hair and her complexion. it was only when she turned aside from him to the glass, and, taking out the brooch that she wore, put his new year's gift in its place, that vendale's attention wandered far enough away from her to discover the presence of other persons in the room. he now became conscious that the hands of obenreizer were affectionately in possession of his elbows. he now heard the voice of obenreizer thanking him for his attention to marguerite, with the faintest possible ring of mockery in its tone. ("such a simple present, dear sir! and showing such nice tact!") he now discovered, for the first time, that there was one other guest, and but one, besides himself, whom obenreizer presented as a compatriot and friend. the friend's face was mouldy, and the friend's figure was fat. his age was suggestive of the autumnal period of human life. in the course of the evening he developed two extraordinary capacities. one was a capacity for silence; the other was a capacity for emptying bottles. madame dor was not in the room. neither was there any visible place reserved for her when they sat down to table. obenreizer explained that it was "the good dor's simple habit to dine always in the middle of the day. she would make her excuses later in the evening." vendale wondered whether the good dor had, on this occasion, varied her domestic employment from cleaning obenreizer's gloves to cooking obenreizer's dinner. this at least was certain--the dishes served were, one and all, as achievements in cookery, high above the reach of the rude elementary art of england. the dinner was unobtrusively perfect. as for the wine, the eyes of the speechless friend rolled over it, as in solemn ecstasy. sometimes he said "good!" when a bottle came in full; and sometimes he said "ah!" when a bottle went out empty--and there his contributions to the gaiety of the evening ended. silence is occasionally infectious. oppressed by private anxieties of their own, marguerite and vendale appeared to feel the influence of the speechless friend. the whole responsibility of keeping the talk going rested on obenreizer's shoulders, and manfully did obenreizer sustain it. he opened his heart in the character of an enlightened foreigner, and sang the praises of england. when other topics ran dry, he returned to this inexhaustible source, and always set the stream running again as copiously as ever. obenreizer would have given an arm, an eye, or a leg to have been born an englishman. out of england there was no such institution as a home, no such thing as a fireside, no such object as a beautiful woman. his dear miss marguerite would excuse him, if he accounted for _her_ attractions on the theory that english blood must have mixed at some former time with their obscure and unknown ancestry. survey this english nation, and behold a tall, clean, plump, and solid people! look at their cities! what magnificence in their public buildings! what admirable order and propriety in their streets! admire their laws, combining the eternal principle of justice with the other eternal principle of pounds, shillings, and pence; and applying the product to all civil injuries, from an injury to a man's honour, to an injury to a man's nose! you have ruined my daughter--pounds, shillings, and pence! you have knocked me down with a blow in my face--pounds, shillings, and pence! where was the material prosperity of such a country as _that_ to stop? obenreizer, projecting himself into the future, failed to see the end of it. obenreizer's enthusiasm entreated permission to exhale itself, english fashion, in a toast. here is our modest little dinner over, here is our frugal dessert on the table, and here is the admirer of england conforming to national customs, and making a speech! a toast to your white cliffs of albion, mr. vendale! to your national virtues, your charming climate, and your fascinating women! to your hearths, to your homes, to your habeas corpus, and to all your other institutions! in one word--to england! heep-heep-heep! hooray! obenreizer's voice had barely chanted the last note of the english cheer, the speechless friend had barely drained the last drop out of his glass, when the festive proceedings were interrupted by a modest tap at the door. a woman-servant came in, and approached her master with a little note in her hand. obenreizer opened the note with a frown; and, after reading it with an expression of genuine annoyance, passed it on to his compatriot and friend. vendale's spirits rose as he watched these proceedings. had he found an ally in the annoying little note? was the long-looked-for chance actually coming at last? "i am afraid there is no help for it?" said obenreizer, addressing his fellow-countryman. "i am afraid we must go." the speechless friend handed back the letter, shrugged his heavy shoulders, and poured himself out a last glass of wine. his fat fingers lingered fondly round the neck of the bottle. they pressed it with a little amatory squeeze at parting. his globular eyes looked dimly, as through an intervening haze, at vendale and marguerite. his heavy articulation laboured, and brought forth a whole sentence at a birth. "i think," he said, "i should have liked a little more wine." his breath failed him after that effort; he gasped, and walked to the door. obenreizer addressed himself to vendale with an appearance of the deepest distress. "i am so shocked, so confused, so distressed," he began. "a misfortune has happened to one of my compatriots. he is alone, he is ignorant of your language--i and my good friend, here, have no choice but to go and help him. what can i say in my excuse? how can i describe my affliction at depriving myself in this way of the honour of your company?" he paused, evidently expecting to see vendale take up his hat and retire. discerning his opportunity at last, vendale determined to do nothing of the kind. he met obenreizer dexterously, with obenreizer's own weapons. "pray don't distress yourself," he said. "i'll wait here with the greatest pleasure till you come back." marguerite blushed deeply, and turned away to her embroidery-frame in a corner by the window. the film showed itself in obenreizer's eyes, and the smile came something sourly to obenreizer's lips. to have told vendale that there was no reasonable prospect of his coming back in good time, would have been to risk offending a man whose favourable opinion was of solid commercial importance to him. accepting his defeat with the best possible grace, he declared himself to be equally honoured and delighted by vendale's proposal. "so frank, so friendly, so english!" he bustled about, apparently looking for something he wanted, disappeared for a moment through the folding-doors communicating with the next room, came back with his hat and coat, and protesting that he would return at the earliest possible moment, embraced vendale's elbows, and vanished from the scene in company with the speechless friend. vendale turned to the corner by the window, in which marguerite had placed herself with her work. there, as if she had dropped from the ceiling, or come up through the floor--there, in the old attitude, with her face to the stove--sat an obstacle that had not been foreseen, in the person of madame dor! she half got up, half looked over her broad shoulder at vendale, and plumped down again. was she at work? yes. cleaning obenreizer's gloves, as before? no; darning obenreizer's stockings. the case was now desperate. two serious considerations presented themselves to vendale. was it possible to put madame dor into the stove? the stove wouldn't hold her. was it possible to treat madame dor, not as a living woman, but as an article of furniture? could the mind be brought to contemplate this respectable matron purely in the light of a chest of drawers, with a black gauze held-dress accidentally left on the top of it? yes, the mind could be brought to do that. with a comparatively trifling effort, vendale's mind did it. as he took his place on the old-fashioned window-seat, close by marguerite and her embroidery, a slight movement appeared in the chest of drawers, but no remark issued from it. let it be remembered that solid furniture is not easy to move, and that it has this advantage in consequence--there is no fear of upsetting it. unusually silent and unusually constrained--with the bright colour fast fading from her face, with a feverish energy possessing her fingers--the pretty marguerite bent over her embroidery, and worked as if her life depended on it. hardly less agitated himself, vendale felt the importance of leading her very gently to the avowal which he was eager to make--to the other sweeter avowal still, which he was longing to hear. a woman's love is never to be taken by storm; it yields insensibly to a system of gradual approach. it ventures by the roundabout way, and listens to the low voice. vendale led her memory back to their past meetings when they were travelling together in switzerland. they revived the impressions, they recalled the events, of the happy bygone time. little by little, marguerite's constraint vanished. she smiled, she was interested, she looked at vendale, she grew idle with her needle, she made false stitches in her work. their voices sank lower and lower; their faces bent nearer and nearer to each other as they spoke. and madame dor? madame dor behaved like an angel. she never looked round; she never said a word; she went on with obenreizer's stockings. pulling each stocking up tight over her left arm, and holding that arm aloft from time to time, to catch the light on her work, there were moments--delicate and indescribable moments--when madame dor appeared to be sitting upside down, and contemplating one of her own respectable legs, elevated in the air. as the minutes wore on, these elevations followed each other at longer and longer intervals. now and again, the black gauze head-dress nodded, dropped forward, recovered itself. a little heap of stockings slid softly from madame dor's lap, and remained unnoticed on the floor. a prodigious ball of worsted followed the stockings, and rolled lazily under the table. the black gauze head-dress nodded, dropped forward, recovered itself, nodded again, dropped forward again, and recovered itself no more. a composite sound, partly as of the purring of an immense cat, partly as of the planing of a soft board, rose over the hushed voices of the lovers, and hummed at regular intervals through the room. nature and madame dor had combined together in vendale's interests. the best of women was asleep. marguerite rose to stop--not the snoring--let us say, the audible repose of madame dor. vendale laid his hand on her arm, and pressed her back gently into her chair. "don't disturb her," he whispered. "i have been waiting to tell you a secret. let me tell it now." marguerite resumed her seat. she tried to resume her needle. it was useless; her eyes failed her; her hand failed her; she could find nothing. "we have been talking," said vendale, "of the happy time when we first met, and first travelled together. i have a confession to make. i have been concealing something. when we spoke of my first visit to switzerland, i told you of all the impressions i had brought back with me to england--except one. can you guess what that one is?" her eyes looked stedfastly at the embroidery, and her face turned a little away from him. signs of disturbance began to appear in her neat velvet bodice, round the region of the brooch. she made no reply. vendale pressed the question without mercy. "can you guess what the one swiss impression is which i have not told you yet?" her face turned back towards him, and a faint smile trembled on her lips. "an impression of the mountains, perhaps?" she said slyly. "no; a much more precious impression than that." "of the lakes?" "no. the lakes have not grown dearer and dearer in remembrance to me every day. the lakes are not associated with my happiness in the present, and my hopes in the future. marguerite! all that makes life worth having hangs, for me, on a word from your lips. marguerite! i love you!" her head drooped as he took her hand. he drew her to him, and looked at her. the tears escaped from her downcast eyes, and fell slowly over her cheeks. "o, mr. vendale," she said sadly, "it would have been kinder to have kept your secret. have you forgotten the distance between us? it can never, never be!" "there can be but one distance between us, marguerite--a distance of your making. my love, my darling, there is no higher rank in goodness, there is no higher rank in beauty, than yours! come! whisper the one little word which tells me you will be my wife!" she sighed bitterly. "think of your family," she murmured; "and think of mine!" vendale drew her a little nearer to him. "if you dwell on such an obstacle as that," he said, "i shall think but one thought--i shall think i have offended you." she started, and looked up. "o, no!" she exclaimed innocently. the instant the words passed her lips, she saw the construction that might be placed on them. her confession had escaped her in spite of herself. a lovely flush of colour overspread her face. she made a momentary effort to disengage herself from her lover's embrace. she looked up at him entreatingly. she tried to speak. the words died on her lips in the kiss that vendale pressed on them. "let me go, mr. vendale!" she said faintly. "call me george." she laid her head on his bosom. all her heart went out to him at last. "george!" she whispered. "say you love me!" her arms twined themselves gently round his neck. her lips, timidly touching his cheek, murmured the delicious words--"i love you!" in the moment of silence that followed, the sound of the opening and closing of the house-door came clear to them through the wintry stillness of the street. marguerite started to her feet. "let me go!" she said. "he has come back!" she hurried from the room, and touched madame dor's shoulder in passing. madame dor woke up with a loud snort, looked first over one shoulder and then over the other, peered down into her lap, and discovered neither stockings, worsted, nor darning-needle in it. at the same moment, footsteps became audible ascending the stairs. "mon dieu!" said madame dor, addressing herself to the stove, and trembling violently. vendale picked up the stockings and the ball, and huddled them all back in a heap over her shoulder. "mon dieu!" said madame dor, for the second time, as the avalanche of worsted poured into her capacious lap. the door opened, and obenreizer came in. his first glance round the room showed him that marguerite was absent. "what!" he exclaimed, "my niece is away? my niece is not here to entertain you in my absence? this is unpardonable. i shall bring her back instantly." vendale stopped him. "i beg you will not disturb miss obenreizer," he said. "you have returned, i see, without your friend?" "my friend remains, and consoles our afflicted compatriot. a heart-rending scene, mr. vendale! the household gods at the pawnbroker's--the family immersed in tears. we all embraced in silence. my admirable friend alone possessed his composure. he sent out, on the spot, for a bottle of wine." "can i say a word to you in private, mr. obenreizer?" "assuredly." he turned to madame dor. "my good creature, you are sinking for want of repose. mr. vendale will excuse you." madame dor rose, and set forth sideways on her journey from the stove to bed. she dropped a stocking. vendale picked it up for her, and opened one of the folding-doors. she advanced a step, and dropped three more stockings. vendale stooping to recover them as before, obenreizer interfered with profuse apologies, and with a warning look at madame dor. madame dor acknowledged the look by dropping the whole of the stockings in a heap, and then shuffling away panic-stricken from the scene of disaster. obenreizer swept up the complete collection fiercely in both hands. "go!" he cried, giving his prodigious handful a preparatory swing in the air. madame dor said, "mon dieu," and vanished into the next room, pursued by a shower of stockings. "what must you think, mr. vendale," said obenreizer, closing the door, "of this deplorable intrusion of domestic details? for myself, i blush at it. we are beginning the new year as badly as possible; everything has gone wrong to-night. be seated, pray--and say, what may i offer you? shall we pay our best respects to another of your noble english institutions? it is my study to be, what you call, jolly. i propose a grog." vendale declined the grog with all needful respect for that noble institution. "i wish to speak to you on a subject in which i am deeply interested," he said. "you must have observed, mr. obenreizer, that i have, from the first, felt no ordinary admiration for your charming niece?" "you are very good. in my niece's name, i thank you." "perhaps you may have noticed, latterly, that my admiration for miss obenreizer has grown into a tenderer and deeper feeling--?" "shall we say friendship, mr. vendale?" "say love--and we shall be nearer to the truth." obenreizer started out of his chair. the faintly discernible beat, which was his nearest approach to a change of colour, showed itself suddenly in his cheeks. "you are miss obenreizer's guardian," pursued vendale. "i ask you to confer upon me the greatest of all favours--i ask you to give me her hand in marriage." obenreizer dropped back into his chair. "mr. vendale," he said, "you petrify me." "i will wait," rejoined vendale, "until you have recovered yourself." "one word before i recover myself. you have said nothing about this to my niece?" "i have opened my whole heart to your niece. and i have reason to hope--" "what!" interposed obenreizer. "you have made a proposal to my niece, without first asking for my authority to pay your addresses to her?" he struck his hand on the table, and lost his hold over himself for the first time in vendale's experience of him. "sir!" he exclaimed, indignantly, "what sort of conduct is this? as a man of honour, speaking to a man of honour, how can you justify it?" "i can only justify it as one of our english institutions," said vendale quietly. "you admire our english institutions. i can't honestly tell you, mr. obenreizer, that i regret what i have done. i can only assure you that i have not acted in the matter with any intentional disrespect towards yourself. this said, may i ask you to tell me plainly what objection you see to favouring my suit?" "i see this immense objection," answered obenreizer, "that my niece and you are not on a social equality together. my niece is the daughter of a poor peasant; and you are the son of a gentleman. you do us an honour," he added, lowering himself again gradually to his customary polite level, "which deserves, and has, our most grateful acknowledgments. but the inequality is too glaring; the sacrifice is too great. you english are a proud people, mr. vendale. i have observed enough of this country to see that such a marriage as you propose would be a scandal here. not a hand would be held out to your peasant-wife; and all your best friends would desert you." "one moment," said vendale, interposing on his side. "i may claim, without any great arrogance, to know more of my country people in general, and of my own friends in particular, than you do. in the estimation of everybody whose opinion is worth having, my wife herself would be the one sufficient justification of my marriage. if i did not feel certain--observe, i say certain--that i am offering her a position which she can accept without so much as the shadow of a humiliation--i would never (cost me what it might) have asked her to be my wife. is there any other obstacle that you see? have you any personal objection to me?" obenreizer spread out both his hands in courteous protest. "personal objection!" he exclaimed. "dear sir, the bare question is painful to me." "we are both men of business," pursued vendale, "and you naturally expect me to satisfy you that i have the means of supporting a wife. i can explain my pecuniary position in two words. i inherit from my parents a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. in half of that sum i have only a life-interest, to which, if i die, leaving a widow, my widow succeeds. if i die, leaving children, the money itself is divided among them, as they come of age. the other half of my fortune is at my own disposal, and is invested in the wine-business. i see my way to greatly improving that business. as it stands at present, i cannot state my return from my capital embarked at more than twelve hundred a year. add the yearly value of my life-interest--and the total reaches a present annual income of fifteen hundred pounds. i have the fairest prospect of soon making it more. in the meantime, do you object to me on pecuniary grounds?" driven back to his last entrenchment, obenreizer rose, and took a turn backwards and forwards in the room. for the moment, he was plainly at a loss what to say or do next. "before i answer that last question," he said, after a little close consideration with himself, "i beg leave to revert for a moment to miss marguerite. you said something just now which seemed to imply that she returns the sentiment with which you are pleased to regard her?" "i have the inestimable happiness," said vendale, "of knowing that she loves me." obenreizer stood silent for a moment, with the film over his eyes, and the faintly perceptible beat becoming visible again in his cheeks. "if you will excuse me for a few minutes," he said, with ceremonious politeness, "i should like to have the opportunity of speaking to my niece." with those words, he bowed, and quitted the room. left by himself, vendale's thoughts (as a necessary result of the interview, thus far) turned instinctively to the consideration of obenreizer's motives. he had put obstacles in the way of the courtship; he was now putting obstacles in the way of the marriage--a marriage offering advantages which even his ingenuity could not dispute. on the face of it, his conduct was incomprehensible. what did it mean? seeking, under the surface, for the answer to that question--and remembering that obenreizer was a man of about his own age; also, that marguerite was, strictly speaking, his half-niece only--vendale asked himself, with a lover's ready jealousy, whether he had a rival to fear, as well as a guardian to conciliate. the thought just crossed his mind, and no more. the sense of marguerite's kiss still lingering on his cheek reminded him gently that even the jealousy of a moment was now a treason to _her_. on reflection, it seemed most likely that a personal motive of another kind might suggest the true explanation of obenreizer's conduct. marguerite's grace and beauty were precious ornaments in that little household. they gave it a special social attraction and a special social importance. they armed obenreizer with a certain influence in reserve, which he could always depend upon to make his house attractive, and which he might always bring more or less to bear on the forwarding of his own private ends. was he the sort of man to resign such advantages as were here implied, without obtaining the fullest possible compensation for the loss? a connection by marriage with vendale offered him solid advantages, beyond all doubt. but there were hundreds of men in london with far greater power and far wider influence than vendale possessed. was it possible that this man's ambition secretly looked higher than the highest prospects that could be offered to him by the alliance now proposed for his niece? as the question passed through vendale's mind, the man himself reappeared--to answer it, or not to answer it, as the event might prove. a marked change was visible in obenreizer when he resumed his place. his manner was less assured, and there were plain traces about his mouth of recent agitation which had not been successfully composed. had he said something, referring either to vendale or to himself, which had raised marguerite's spirit, and which had placed him, for the first time, face to face with a resolute assertion of his niece's will? it might or might not be. this only was certain--he looked like a man who had met with a repulse. "i have spoken to my niece," he began. "i find, mr. vendale, that even your influence has not entirely blinded her to the social objections to your proposal." "may i ask," returned vendale, "if that is the only result of your interview with miss obenreizer?" a momentary flash leapt out through the obenreizer film. "you are master of the situation," he answered, in a tone of sardonic submission. "if you insist on my admitting it, i do admit it in those words. my niece's will and mine used to be one, mr. vendale. you have come between us, and her will is now yours. in my country, we know when we are beaten, and we submit with our best grace. i submit, with my best grace, on certain conditions. let us revert to the statement of your pecuniary position. i have an objection to you, my dear sir--a most amazing, a most audacious objection, from a man in my position to a man in yours." "what is it?" "you have honoured me by making a proposal for my niece's hand. for the present (with best thanks and respects), i beg to decline it." "why?" "because you are not rich enough." the objection, as the speaker had foreseen, took vendale completely by surprise. for the moment he was speechless. "your income is fifteen hundred a year," pursued obenreizer. "in my miserable country i should fall on my knees before your income, and say, 'what a princely fortune!' in wealthy england, i sit as i am, and say, 'a modest independence, dear sir; nothing more. enough, perhaps, for a wife in your own rank of life who has no social prejudices to conquer. not more than half enough for a wife who is a meanly born foreigner, and who has all your social prejudices against her.' sir! if my niece is ever to marry you, she will have what you call uphill work of it in taking her place at starting. yes, yes; this is not your view, but it remains, immovably remains, my view for all that. for my niece's sake, i claim that this uphill work shall be made as smooth as possible. whatever material advantages she can have to help her, ought, in common justice, to be hers. now, tell me, mr. vendale, on your fifteen hundred a year can your wife have a house in a fashionable quarter, a footman to open her door, a butler to wait at her table, and a carriage and horses to drive about in? i see the answer in your face--your face says, no. very good. tell me one more thing, and i have done. take the mass of your educated, accomplished, and lovely country-women, is it, or is it not, the fact that a lady who has a house in a fashionable quarter, a footman to open her door, a butler to wait at her table, and a carriage and horses to drive about in, is a lady who has gained four steps, in female estimation, at starting? yes? or no?" "come to the point," said vendale. "you view this question as a question of terms. what are your terms?" "the lowest terms, dear sir, on which you can provide your wife with those four steps at starting. double your present income--the most rigid economy cannot do it in england on less. you said just now that you expected greatly to increase the value of your business. to work--and increase it! i am a good devil after all! on the day when you satisfy me, by plain proofs, that your income has risen to three thousand a year, ask me for my niece's hand, and it is yours." "may i inquire if you have mentioned this arrangement to miss obenreizer?" "certainly. she has a last little morsel of regard still left for me, mr. vendale, which is not yours yet; and she accepts my terms. in other words, she submits to be guided by her guardian's regard for her welfare, and by her guardian's superior knowledge of the world." he threw himself back in his chair, in firm reliance on his position, and in full possession of his excellent temper. any open assertion of his own interests, in the situation in which vendale was now placed, seemed to be (for the present at least) hopeless. he found himself literally left with no ground to stand on. whether obenreizer's objections were the genuine product of obenreizer's own view of the case, or whether he was simply delaying the marriage in the hope of ultimately breaking it off altogether--in either of these events, any present resistance on vendale's part would be equally useless. there was no help for it but to yield, making the best terms that he could on his own side. "i protest against the conditions you impose on me," he began. "naturally," said obenreizer; "i dare say i should protest, myself, in your place." "say, however," pursued vendale, "that i accept your terms. in that case, i must be permitted to make two stipulations on my part. in the first place, i shall expect to be allowed to see your niece." "aha! to see my niece? and to make her in as great a hurry to be married as you are yourself? suppose i say, no? you would see her perhaps without my permission?" "decidedly!" "how delightfully frank! how exquisitely english! you shall see her, mr. vendale, on certain days, which we will appoint together. what next?" "your objection to my income," proceeded vendale, "has taken me completely by surprise. i wish to be assured against any repetition of that surprise. your present views of my qualification for marriage require me to have an income of three thousand a year. can i be certain, in the future, as your experience of england enlarges, that your estimate will rise no higher?" "in plain english," said obenreizer, "you doubt my word?" "do you purpose to take _my_ word for it when i inform you that i have doubled my income?" asked vendale. "if my memory does not deceive me, you stipulated, a minute since, for plain proofs?" "well played, mr. vendale! you combine the foreign quickness with the english solidity. accept my best congratulations. accept, also, my written guarantee." he rose; seated himself at a writing-desk at a side-table, wrote a few lines, and presented them to vendale with a low bow. the engagement was perfectly explicit, and was signed and dated with scrupulous care. "are you satisfied with your guarantee?" "i am satisfied." "charmed to hear it, i am sure. we have had our little skirmish--we have really been wonderfully clever on both sides. for the present our affairs are settled. i bear no malice. you bear no malice. come, mr. vendale, a good english shake hands." vendale gave his hand, a little bewildered by obenreizer's sudden transitions from one humour to another. "when may i expect to see miss obenreizer again?" he asked, as he rose to go. "honour me with a visit to-morrow," said obenreizer, "and we will settle it then. do have a grog before you go! no? well! well! we will reserve the grog till you have your three thousand a year, and are ready to be married. aha! when will that be?" "i made an estimate, some months since, of the capacities of my business," said vendale. "if that estimate is correct, i shall double my present income--" "and be married!" added obenreizer. "and be married," repeated vendale, "within a year from this time. good- night." vendale makes mischief when vendale entered his office the next morning, the dull commercial routine at cripple corner met him with a new face. marguerite had an interest in it now! the whole machinery which wilding's death had set in motion, to realise the value of the business--the balancing of ledgers, the estimating of debts, the taking of stock, and the rest of it--was now transformed into machinery which indicated the chances for and against a speedy marriage. after looking over results, as presented by his accountant, and checking additions and subtractions, as rendered by the clerks, vendale turned his attention to the stock-taking department next, and sent a message to the cellars, desiring to see the report. the cellarman's appearance, the moment he put his head in at the door of his master's private room, suggested that something very extraordinary must have happened that morning. there was an approach to alacrity in joey ladle's movements! there was something which actually simulated cheerfulness in joey ladle's face "what's the matter?" asked vendale. "anything wrong?" "i should wish to mention one thing," answered joey. "young mr. vendale, i have never set myself up for a prophet." "who ever said you did?" "no prophet, as far as i've heard i tell of that profession," proceeded joey, "ever lived principally underground. no prophet, whatever else he might take in at the pores, ever took in wine from morning to night, for a number of years together. when i said to young master wilding, respecting his changing the name of the firm, that one of these days he might find he'd changed the luck of the firm--did i put myself forward as a prophet? no, i didn't. has what i said to him come true? yes, it has. in the time of pebbleson nephew, young mr. vendale, no such thing was ever known as a mistake made in a consignment delivered at these doors. there's a mistake been made now. please to remark that it happened before miss margaret came here. for which reason it don't go against what i've said respecting miss margaret singing round the luck. read that, sir," concluded joey, pointing attention to a special passage in the report, with a forefinger which appeared to be in process of taking in through the pores nothing more remarkable than dirt. "it's foreign to my nature to crow over the house i serve, but i feel it a kind of solemn duty to ask you to read that." vendale read as follows:--"note, respecting the swiss champagne. an irregularity has been discovered in the last consignment received from the firm of defresnier and co." vendale stopped, and referred to a memorandum-book by his side. "that was in mr. wilding's time," he said. "the vintage was a particularly good one, and he took the whole of it. the swiss champagne has done very well, hasn't it?" "i don't say it's done badly," answered the cellarman. "it may have got sick in our customers' bins, or it may have bust in our customers' hands. but i don't say it's done badly with us." vendale resumed the reading of the note: "we find the number of the cases to be quite correct by the books. but six of them, which present a slight difference from the rest in the brand, have been opened, and have been found to contain a red wine instead of champagne. the similarity in the brands, we suppose, caused a mistake to be made in sending the consignment from neuchatel. the error has not been found to extend beyond six cases." "is that all!" exclaimed vendale, tossing the note away from him. joey ladle's eye followed the flying morsel of paper drearily. "i'm glad to see you take it easy, sir," he said. "whatever happens, it will be always a comfort to you to remember that you took it easy at first. sometimes one mistake leads to another. a man drops a bit of orange-peel on the pavement by mistake, and another man treads on it by mistake, and there's a job at the hospital, and a party crippled for life. i'm glad you take it easy, sir. in pebbleson nephew's time we shouldn't have taken it easy till we had seen the end of it. without desiring to crow over the house, young mr. vendale, i wish you well through it. no offence, sir," said the cellarman, opening the door to go out, and looking in again ominously before he shut it. "i'm muddled and molloncolly, i grant you. but i'm an old servant of pebbleson nephew, and i wish you well through them six cases of red wine." left by himself, vendale laughed, and took up his pen. "i may as well send a line to defresnier and company," he thought, "before i forget it." he wrote at once in these terms: "dear sirs. we are taking stock, and a trifling mistake has been discovered in the last consignment of champagne sent by your house to ours. six of the cases contain red wine--which we hereby return to you. the matter can easily be set right, either by your sending us six cases of the champagne, if they can be produced, or, if not, by your crediting us with the value of six cases on the amount last paid (five hundred pounds) by our firm to yours. your faithful servants, "wilding and co." this letter despatched to the post, the subject dropped at once out of vendale's mind. he had other and far more interesting matters to think of. later in the day he paid the visit to obenreizer which had been agreed on between them. certain evenings in the week were set apart which he was privileged to spend with marguerite--always, however, in the presence of a third person. on this stipulation obenreizer politely but positively insisted. the one concession he made was to give vendale his choice of who the third person should be. confiding in past experience, his choice fell unhesitatingly upon the excellent woman who mended obenreizer's stockings. on hearing of the responsibility entrusted to her, madame dor's intellectual nature burst suddenly into a new stage of development. she waited till obenreizer's eye was off her--and then she looked at vendale, and dimly winked. the time passed--the happy evenings with marguerite came and went. it was the tenth morning since vendale had written to the swiss firm, when the answer appeared, on his desk, with the other letters of the day: "dear sirs. we beg to offer our excuses for the little mistake which has happened. at the same time, we regret to add that the statement of our error, with which you have favoured us, has led to a very unexpected discovery. the affair is a most serious one for you and for us. the particulars are as follows: "having no more champagne of the vintage last sent to you, we made arrangements to credit your firm to the value of six cases, as suggested by yourself. on taking this step, certain forms observed in our mode of doing business necessitated a reference to our bankers' book, as well as to our ledger. the result is a moral certainty that no such remittance as you mention can have reached our house, and a literal certainty that no such remittance has been paid to our account at the bank. "it is needless, at this stage of the proceedings, to trouble you with details. the money has unquestionably been stolen in the course of its transit from you to us. certain peculiarities which we observe, relating to the manner in which the fraud has been perpetrated, lead us to conclude that the thief may have calculated on being able to pay the missing sum to our bankers, before an inevitable discovery followed the annual striking of our balance. this would not have happened, in the usual course, for another three months. during that period, but for your letter, we might have remained perfectly unconscious of the robbery that has been committed. "we mention this last circumstance, as it may help to show you that we have to do, in this case, with no ordinary thief. thus far we have not even a suspicion of who that thief is. but we believe you will assist us in making some advance towards discovery, by examining the receipt (forged, of course) which has no doubt purported to come to you from our house. be pleased to look and see whether it is a receipt entirely in manuscript, or whether it is a numbered and printed form which merely requires the filling in of the amount. the settlement of this apparently trivial question is, we assure you, a matter of vital importance. anxiously awaiting your reply, we remain, with high esteem and consideration, "defresnier & cie." vendale had the letter on his desk, and waited a moment to steady his mind under the shock that had fallen on it. at the time of all others when it was most important to him to increase the value of his business, that business was threatened with a loss of five hundred pounds. he thought of marguerite, as he took the key from his pocket and opened the iron chamber in the wall in which the books and papers of the firm were kept. he was still in the chamber, searching for the forged receipt, when he was startled by a voice speaking close behind him. "a thousand pardons," said the voice; "i am afraid i disturb you." he turned, and found himself face to face with marguerite's guardian. "i have called," pursued obenreizer, "to know if i can be of any use. business of my own takes me away for some days to manchester and liverpool. can i combine any business of yours with it? i am entirely at your disposal, in the character of commercial traveller for the firm of wilding and co." "excuse me for one moment," said vendale; "i will speak to you directly." he turned round again, and continued his search among the papers. "you come at a time when friendly offers are more than usually precious to me," he resumed. "i have had very bad news this morning from neuchatel." "bad news," exclaimed obenreizer. "from defresnier and company?" "yes. a remittance we sent to them has been stolen. i am threatened with a loss of five hundred pounds. what's that?" turning sharply, and looking into the room for the second time, vendale discovered his envelope case overthrown on the floor, and obenreizer on his knees picking up the contents. "all my awkwardness," said obenreizer. "this dreadful news of yours startled me; i stepped back--" he became too deeply interested in collecting the scattered envelopes to finish the sentence. "don't trouble yourself," said vendale. "the clerk will pick the things up." "this dreadful news!" repeated obenreizer, persisting in collecting the envelopes. "this dreadful news!" "if you will read the letter," said vendale, "you will find i have exaggerated nothing. there it is, open on my desk." he resumed his search, and in a moment more discovered the forged receipt. it was on the numbered and printed form, described by the swiss firm. vendale made a memorandum of the number and the date. having replaced the receipt and locked up the iron chamber, he had leisure to notice obenreizer, reading the letter in the recess of a window at the far end of the room. "come to the fire," said vendale. "you look perished with the cold out there. i will ring for some more coals." obenreizer rose, and came slowly back to the desk. "marguerite will be as sorry to hear of this as i am," he said, kindly. "what do you mean to do?" "i am in the hands of defresnier and company," answered vendale. "in my total ignorance of the circumstances, i can only do what they recommend. the receipt which i have just found, turns out to be the numbered and printed form. they seem to attach some special importance to its discovery. you have had experience, when you were in the swiss house, of their way of doing business. can you guess what object they have in view?" obenreizer offered a suggestion. "suppose i examine the receipt?" he said. "are you ill?" asked vendale, startled by the change in his face, which now showed itself plainly for the first time. "pray go to the fire. you seem to be shivering--i hope you are not going to be ill?" "not i!" said obenreizer. "perhaps i have caught cold. your english climate might have spared an admirer of your english institutions. let me look at the receipt." vendale opened the iron chamber. obenreizer took a chair, and drew it close to the fire. he held both hands over the flames. "let me look at the receipt," he repeated, eagerly, as vendale reappeared with the paper in his hand. at the same moment a porter entered the room with a fresh supply of coals. vendale told him to make a good fire. the man obeyed the order with a disastrous alacrity. as he stepped forward and raised the scuttle, his foot caught in a fold of the rug, and he discharged his entire cargo of coals into the grate. the result was an instant smothering of the flame, and the production of a stream of yellow smoke, without a visible morsel of fire to account for it. "imbecile!" whispered obenreizer to himself, with a look at the man which the man remembered for many a long day afterwards. "will you come into the clerks' room?" asked vendale. "they have a stove there." "no, no. no matter." vendale handed him the receipt. obenreizer's interest in examining it appeared to have been quenched as suddenly and as effectually as the fire itself. he just glanced over the document, and said, "no; i don't understand it! i am sorry to be of no use." "i will write to neuchatel by to-night's post," said vendale, putting away the receipt for the second time. "we must wait, and see what comes of it." "by to-night's post," repeated obenreizer. "let me see. you will get the answer in eight or nine days' time. i shall be back before that. if i can be of any service, as commercial traveller, perhaps you will let me know between this and then. you will send me written instructions? my best thanks. i shall be most anxious for your answer from neuchatel. who knows? it may be a mistake, my dear friend, after all. courage! courage! courage!" he had entered the room with no appearance of being pressed for time. he now snatched up his hat, and took his leave with the air of a man who had not another moment to lose. left by himself, vendale took a turn thoughtfully in the room. his previous impression of obenreizer was shaken by what he had heard and seen at the interview which had just taken place. he was disposed, for the first time, to doubt whether, in this case, he had not been a little hasty and hard in his judgment on another man. obenreizer's surprise and regret, on hearing the news from neuchatel, bore the plainest marks of being honestly felt--not politely assumed for the occasion. with troubles of his own to encounter, suffering, to all appearance, from the first insidious attack of a serious illness, he had looked and spoken like a man who really deplored the disaster that had fallen on his friend. hitherto vendale had tried vainly to alter his first opinion of marguerite's guardian, for marguerite's sake. all the generous instincts in his nature now combined together and shook the evidence which had seemed unanswerable up to this time. "who knows?" he thought. "i may have read that man's face wrongly, after all." the time passed--the happy evenings with marguerite came and went. it was again the tenth morning since vendale had written to the swiss firm; and again the answer appeared on his desk with the other letters of the day: "dear sir. my senior partner, m. defresnier, has been called away, by urgent business, to milan. in his absence (and with his full concurrence and authority), i now write to you again on the subject of the missing five hundred pounds. "your discovery that the forged receipt is executed upon one of our numbered and printed forms has caused inexpressible surprise and distress to my partner and to myself. at the time when your remittance was stolen, but three keys were in existence opening the strong-box in which our receipt-forms are invariably kept. my partner had one key; i had the other. the third was in the possession of a gentleman who, at that period, occupied a position of trust in our house. we should as soon have thought of suspecting one of ourselves as of suspecting this person. suspicion now points at him, nevertheless. i cannot prevail on myself to inform you who the person is, so long as there is the shadow of a chance that he may come innocently out of the inquiry which must now be instituted. forgive my silence; the motive of it is good. "the form our investigation must now take is simple enough. the handwriting of your receipt must be compared, by competent persons whom we have at our disposal, with certain specimens of handwriting in our possession. i cannot send you the specimens for business reasons, which, when you hear them, you are sure to approve. i must beg you to send me the receipt to neuchatel--and, in making this request, i must accompany it by a word of necessary warning. "if the person, at whom suspicion now points, really proves to be the person who has committed this forger and theft, i have reason to fear that circumstances may have already put him on his guard. the only evidence against him is the evidence in your hands, and he will move heaven and earth to obtain and destroy it. i strongly urge you not to trust the receipt to the post. send it to me, without loss of time, by a private hand, and choose nobody for your messenger but a person long established in your own employment, accustomed to travelling, capable of speaking french; a man of courage, a man of honesty, and, above all things, a man who can be trusted to let no stranger scrape acquaintance with him on the route. tell no one--absolutely no one--but your messenger of the turn this matter has now taken. the safe transit of the receipt may depend on your interpreting _literally_ the advice which i give you at the end of this letter. "i have only to add that every possible saving of time is now of the last importance. more than one of our receipt-forms is missing--and it is impossible to say what new frauds may not be committed if we fail to lay our hands on the thief. your faithful servant rolland, (signing for defresnier and cie.) who was the suspected man? in vendale's position, it seemed useless to inquire. who was to be sent to neuchatel with the receipt? men of courage and men of honesty were to be had at cripple corner for the asking. but where was the man who was accustomed to foreign travelling, who could speak the french language, and who could be really relied on to let no stranger scrape acquaintance with him on his route? there was but one man at hand who combined all those requisites in his own person, and that man was vendale himself. it was a sacrifice to leave his business; it was a greater sacrifice to leave marguerite. but a matter of five hundred pounds was involved in the pending inquiry; and a literal interpretation of m. rolland's advice was insisted on in terms which there was no trifling with. the more vendale thought of it, the more plainly the necessity faced him, and said, "go!" as he locked up the letter with the receipt, the association of ideas reminded him of obenreizer. a guess at the identity of the suspected man looked more possible now. obenreizer might know. the thought had barely passed through his mind, when the door opened, and obenreizer entered the room. "they told me at soho square you were expected back last night," said vendale, greeting him. "have you done well in the country? are you better?" a thousand thanks. obenreizer had done admirably well; obenreizer was infinitely better. and now, what news? any letter from neuchatel? "a very strange letter," answered vendale. "the matter has taken a new turn, and the letter insists--without excepting anybody--on my keeping our next proceedings a profound secret." "without excepting anybody?" repeated obenreizer. as he said the words, he walked away again, thoughtfully, to the window at the other end of the room, looked out for a moment, and suddenly came back to vendale. "surely they must have forgotten?" he resumed, "or they would have excepted me?" "it is monsieur rolland who writes," said vendale. "and, as you say, he must certainly have forgotten. that view of the matter quite escaped me. i was just wishing i had you to consult, when you came into the room. and here i am tried by a formal prohibition, which cannot possibly have been intended to include you. how very annoying!" obenreizer's filmy eyes fixed on vendale attentively. "perhaps it is more than annoying!" he said. "i came this morning not only to hear the news, but to offer myself as messenger, negotiator--what you will. would you believe it? i have letters which oblige me to go to switzerland immediately. messages, documents, anything--i could have taken them all to defresnier and rolland for you." "you are the very man i wanted," returned vendale. "i had decided, most unwillingly, on going to neuchatel myself, not five minutes since, because i could find no one here capable of taking my place. let me look at the letter again." he opened the strong room to get at the letter. obenreizer, after first glancing round him to make sure that they were alone, followed a step or two and waited, measuring vendale with his eye. vendale was the tallest man, and unmistakably the strongest man also of the two. obenreizer turned away, and warmed himself at the fire. meanwhile, vendale read the last paragraph in the letter for the third time. there was the plain warning--there was the closing sentence, which insisted on a literal interpretation of it. the hand, which was leading vendale in the dark, led him on that condition only. a large sum was at stake: a terrible suspicion remained to be verified. if he acted on his own responsibility, and if anything happened to defeat the object in view, who would be blamed? as a man of business, vendale had but one course to follow. he locked the letter up again. "it is most annoying," he said to obenreizer--"it is a piece of forgetfulness on monsieur rolland's part which puts me to serious inconvenience, and places me in an absurdly false position towards you. what am i to do? i am acting in a very serious matter, and acting entirely in the dark. i have no choice but to be guided, not by the spirit, but by the letter of my instructions. you understand me, i am sure? you know, if i had not been fettered in this way, how gladly i should have accepted your services?" "say no more!" returned obenreizer. "in your place i should have done the same. my good friend, i take no offence. i thank you for your compliment. we shall be travelling companions, at any rate," added obenreizer. "you go, as i go, at once?" "at once. i must speak to marguerite first, of course!" "surely! surely! speak to her this evening. come, and pick me up on the way to the station. we go together by the mail train to-night?" "by the mail train to-night." * * * * * it was later than vendale had anticipated when he drove up to the house in soho square. business difficulties, occasioned by his sudden departure, had presented themselves by dozens. a cruelly large share of the time which he had hoped to devote to marguerite had been claimed by duties at his office which it was impossible to neglect. to his surprise and delight, she was alone in the drawing-room when he entered it. "we have only a few minutes, george," she said. "but madame dor has been good to me--and we can have those few minutes alone." she threw her arms round his neck, and whispered eagerly, "have you done anything to offend mr. obenreizer?" "i!" exclaimed vendale, in amazement. "hush!" she said, "i want to whisper it. you know the little photograph i have got of you. this afternoon it happened to be on the chimney-piece. he took it up and looked at it--and i saw his face in the glass. i know you have offended him! he is merciless; he is revengeful; he is as secret as the grave. don't go with him, george--don't go with him!" "my own love," returned vendale, "you are letting your fancy frighten you! obenreizer and i were never better friends than we are at this moment." before a word more could be said, the sudden movement of some ponderous body shook the floor of the next room. the shock was followed by the appearance of madame dor. "obenreizer" exclaimed this excellent person in a whisper, and plumped down instantly in her regular place by the stove. obenreizer came in with a courier's big strapped over his shoulder. "are you ready?" he asked, addressing vendale. "can i take anything for you? you have no travelling-bag. i have got one. here is the compartment for papers, open at your service." "thank you," said vendale. "i have only one paper of importance with me; and that paper i am bound to take charge of myself. here it is," he added, touching the breast-pocket of his coat, "and here it must remain till we get to neuchatel." as he said those words, marguerite's hand caught his, and pressed it significantly. she was looking towards obenreizer. before vendale could look, in his turn, obenreizer had wheeled round, and was taking leave of madame dor. "adieu, my charming niece!" he said, turning to marguerite next. "en route, my friend, for neuchatel!" he tapped vendale lightly over the breast-pocket of his coat and led the way to the door. vendale's last look was for marguerite. marguerite's last words to him were, "don't go!" act iii. in the valley it was about the middle of the month of february when vendale and obenreizer set forth on their expedition. the winter being a hard one, the time was bad for travellers. so bad was it that these two travellers, coming to strasbourg, found its great inns almost empty. and even the few people they did encounter in that city, who had started from england or from paris on business journeys towards the interior of switzerland, were turning back. many of the railroads in switzerland that tourists pass easily enough now, were almost or quite impracticable then. some were not begun; more were not completed. on such as were open, there were still large gaps of old road where communication in the winter season was often stopped; on others, there were weak points where the new work was not safe, either under conditions of severe frost, or of rapid thaw. the running of trains on this last class was not to be counted on in the worst time of the year, was contingent upon weather, or was wholly abandoned through the months considered the most dangerous. at strasbourg there were more travellers' stories afloat, respecting the difficulties of the way further on, than there were travellers to relate them. many of these tales were as wild as usual; but the more modestly marvellous did derive some colour from the circumstance that people were indisputably turning back. however, as the road to basle was open, vendale's resolution to push on was in no wise disturbed. obenreizer's resolution was necessarily vendale's, seeing that he stood at bay thus desperately: he must be ruined, or must destroy the evidence that vendale carried about him, even if he destroyed vendale with it. the state of mind of each of these two fellow-travellers towards the other was this. obenreizer, encircled by impending ruin through vendale's quickness of action, and seeing the circle narrowed every hour by vendale's energy, hated him with the animosity of a fierce cunning lower animal. he had always had instinctive movements in his breast against him; perhaps, because of that old sore of gentleman and peasant; perhaps, because of the openness of his nature, perhaps, because of his better looks; perhaps, because of his success with marguerite; perhaps, on all those grounds, the two last not the least. and now he saw in him, besides, the hunter who was tracking him down. vendale, on the other hand, always contending generously against his first vague mistrust, now felt bound to contend against it more than ever: reminding himself, "he is marguerite's guardian. we are on perfectly friendly terms; he is my companion of his own proposal, and can have no interested motive in sharing this undesirable journey." to which pleas in behalf of obenreizer, chance added one consideration more, when they came to basle after a journey of more than twice the average duration. they had had a late dinner, and were alone in an inn room there, overhanging the rhine: at that place rapid and deep, swollen and loud. vendale lounged upon a couch, and obenreizer walked to and fro: now, stopping at the window, looking at the crooked reflection of the town lights in the dark water (and peradventure thinking, "if i could fling him into it!"); now, resuming his walk with his eyes upon the floor. "where shall i rob him, if i can? where shall i murder him, if i must?" so, as he paced the room, ran the river, ran the river, ran the river. the burden seemed to him, at last, to be growing so plain, that he stopped; thinking it as well to suggest another burden to his companion. "the rhine sounds to-night," he said with a smile, "like the old waterfall at home. that waterfall which my mother showed to travellers (i told you of it once). the sound of it changed with the weather, as does the sound of all falling waters and flowing waters. when i was pupil of the watchmaker, i remembered it as sometimes saying to me for whole days, 'who are you, my little wretch? who are you, my little wretch?' i remembered it as saying, other times, when its sound was hollow, and storm was coming up the pass: 'boom, boom, boom. beat him, beat him, beat him.' like my mother enraged--if she was my mother." "if she was?" said vendale, gradually changing his attitude to a sitting one. "if she was? why do you say 'if'?" "what do i know?" replied the other negligently, throwing up his hands and letting them fall as they would. "what would you have? i am so obscurely born, that how can i say? i was very young, and all the rest of the family were men and women, and my so-called parents were old. anything is possible of a case like that." "did you ever doubt--" "i told you once, i doubt the marriage of those two," he replied, throwing up his hands again, as if he were throwing the unprofitable subject away. "but here i am in creation. _i_ come of no fine family. what does it matter?" "at least you are swiss," said vendale, after following him with his eyes to and fro. "how do i know?" he retorted abruptly, and stopping to look back over his shoulder. "i say to you, at least you are english. how do you know?" "by what i have been told from infancy." "ah! i know of myself that way." "and," added vendale, pursuing the thought that he could not drive back, "by my earliest recollections." "i also. i know of myself that way--if that way satisfies." "does it not satisfy you?" "it must. there is nothing like 'it must' in this little world. it must. two short words those, but stronger than long proof or reasoning." "you and poor wilding were born in the same year. you were nearly of an age," said vendale, again thoughtfully looking after him as he resumed his pacing up and down. "yes. very nearly." could obenreizer be the missing man? in the unknown associations of things, was there a subtler meaning than he himself thought, in that theory so often on his lips about the smallness of the world? had the swiss letter presenting him followed so close on mrs. goldstraw's revelation concerning the infant who had been taken away to switzerland, because he was that infant grown a man? in a world where so many depths lie unsounded, it might be. the chances, or the laws--call them either--that had wrought out the revival of vendale's own acquaintance with obenreizer, and had ripened it into intimacy, and had brought them here together this present winter night, were hardly less curious; while read by such a light, they were seen to cohere towards the furtherance of a continuous and an intelligible purpose. vendale's awakened thoughts ran high while his eyes musingly followed obenreizer pacing up and down the room, the river ever running to the tune: "where shall i rob him, if i can? where shall i murder him, if i must?" the secret of his dead friend was in no hazard from vendale's lips; but just as his friend had died of its weight, so did he in his lighter succession feel the burden of the trust, and the obligation to follow any clue, however obscure. he rapidly asked himself, would he like this man to be the real wilding? no. argue down his mistrust as he might, he was unwilling to put such a substitute in the place of his late guileless, outspoken childlike partner. he rapidly asked himself, would he like this man to be rich? no. he had more power than enough over marguerite as it was, and wealth might invest him with more. would he like this man to be marguerite's guardian, and yet proved to stand in no degree of relationship towards her, however disconnected and distant? no. but these were not considerations to come between him and fidelity to the dead. let him see to it that they passed him with no other notice than the knowledge that they _had_ passed him, and left him bent on the discharge of a solemn duty. and he did see to it, so soon that he followed his companion with ungrudging eyes, while he still paced the room; that companion, whom he supposed to be moodily reflecting on his own birth, and not on another man's--least of all what man's--violent death. the road in advance from basle to neuchatel was better than had been represented. the latest weather had done it good. drivers, both of horses and mules, had come in that evening after dark, and had reported nothing more difficult to be overcome than trials of patience, harness, wheels, axles, and whipcord. a bargain was soon struck for a carriage and horses, to take them on in the morning, and to start before daylight. "do you lock your door at night when travelling?" asked obenreizer, standing warming his hands by the wood fire in vendale's chamber, before going to his own. "not i. i sleep too soundly." "you are so sound a sleeper?" he retorted, with an admiring look. "what a blessing!" "anything but a blessing to the rest of the house," rejoined vendale, "if i had to be knocked up in the morning from the outside of my bedroom door." "i, too," said obenreizer, "leave open my room. but let me advise you, as a swiss who knows: always, when you travel in my country, put your papers--and, of course, your money--under your pillow. always the same place." "you are not complimentary to your countrymen," laughed vendale. "my countrymen," said obenreizer, with that light touch of his friend's elbows by way of good-night and benediction, "i suppose are like the majority of men. and the majority of men will take what they can get. adieu! at four in the morning." "adieu! at four." left to himself, vendale raked the logs together, sprinkled over them the white wood-ashes lying on the hearth, and sat down to compose his thoughts. but they still ran high on their latest theme, and the running of the river tended to agitate rather than to quiet them. as he sat thinking, what little disposition he had had to sleep departed. he felt it hopeless to lie down yet, and sat dressed by the fire. marguerite, wilding, obenreizer, the business he was then upon, and a thousand hopes and doubts that had nothing to do with it, occupied his mind at once. everything seemed to have power over him but slumber. the departed disposition to sleep kept far away. he had sat for a long time thinking, on the hearth, when his candle burned down and its light went out. it was of little moment; there was light enough in the fire. he changed his attitude, and, leaning his arm on the chair-back, and his chin upon that hand, sat thinking still. but he sat between the fire and the bed, and, as the fire flickered in the play of air from the fast-flowing river, his enlarged shadow fluttered on the white wall by the bedside. his attitude gave it an air, half of mourning and half of bending over the bed imploring. his eyes were observant of it, when he became troubled by the disagreeable fancy that it was like wilding's shadow, and not his own. a slight change of place would cause it to disappear. he made the change, and the apparition of his disturbed fancy vanished. he now sat in the shade of a little nook beside the fire, and the door of the room was before him. it had a long cumbrous iron latch. he saw the latch slowly and softly rise. the door opened a very little, and came to again, as though only the air had moved it. but he saw that the latch was out of the hasp. the door opened again very slowly, until it opened wide enough to admit some one. it afterwards remained still for a while, as though cautiously held open on the other side. the figure of a man then entered, with its face turned towards the bed, and stood quiet just within the door. until it said, in a low half-whisper, at the same time taking one stop forward: "vendale!" "what now?" he answered, springing from his seat; "who is it?" it was obenreizer, and he uttered a cry of surprise as vendale came upon him from that unexpected direction. "not in bed?" he said, catching him by both shoulders with an instinctive tendency to a struggle. "then something _is_ wrong!" "what do you mean?" said vendale, releasing himself. "first tell me; you are not ill?" "ill? no." "i have had a bad dream about you. how is it that i see you up and dressed?" "my good fellow, i may as well ask you how it is that i see _you_ up and undressed?" "i have told you why. i have had a bad dream about you. i tried to rest after it, but it was impossible. i could not make up my mind to stay where i was without knowing you were safe; and yet i could not make up my mind to come in here. i have been minutes hesitating at the door. it is so easy to laugh at a dream that you have not dreamed. where is your candle?" "burnt out." "i have a whole one in my room. shall i fetch it?" "do so." his room was very near, and he was absent for but a few seconds. coming back with the candle in his hand, he kneeled down on the hearth and lighted it. as he blew with his breath a charred billet into flame for the purpose, vendale, looking down at him, saw that his lips were white and not easy of control. "yes!" said obenreizer, setting the lighted candle on the table, "it was a bad dream. only look at me!" his feet were bare; his red-flannel shirt was thrown back at the throat, and its sleeves were rolled above the elbows; his only other garment, a pair of under pantaloons or drawers, reaching to the ankles, fitted him close and tight. a certain lithe and savage appearance was on his figure, and his eyes were very bright. "if there had been a wrestle with a robber, as i dreamed," said obenreizer, "you see, i was stripped for it." "and armed too," said vendale, glancing at his girdle. "a traveller's dagger, that i always carry on the road," he answered carelessly, half drawing it from its sheath with his left hand, and putting it back again. "do you carry no such thing?" "nothing of the kind." "no pistols?" said obenreizer, glancing at the table, and from it to the untouched pillow. "nothing of the sort." "you englishmen are so confident! you wish to sleep?" "i have wished to sleep this long time, but i can't do it." "i neither, after the bad dream. my fire has gone the way of your candle. may i come and sit by yours? two o'clock! it will so soon be four, that it is not worth the trouble to go to bed again." "i shall not take the trouble to go to bed at all, now," said vendale; "sit here and keep me company, and welcome." going back to his room to arrange his dress, obenreizer soon returned in a loose cloak and slippers, and they sat down on opposite sides of the hearth. in the interval vendale had replenished the fire from the wood- basket in his room, and obenreizer had put upon the table a flask and cup from his. "common cabaret brandy, i am afraid," he said, pouring out; "bought upon the road, and not like yours from cripple corner. but yours is exhausted; so much the worse. a cold night, a cold time of night, a cold country, and a cold house. this may be better than nothing; try it." vendale took the cup, and did so. "how do you find it?" "it has a coarse after-flavour," said vendale, giving back the cup with a slight shudder, "and i don't like it." "you are right," said obenreizer, tasting, and smacking his lips; "it _has_ a coarse after-flavour, and _i_ don't like it. booh! it burns, though!" he had flung what remained in the cup upon the fire. each of them leaned an elbow on the table, reclined his head upon his hand, and sat looking at the flaring logs. obenreizer remained watchful and still; but vendale, after certain nervous twitches and starts, in one of which he rose to his feet and looked wildly about him, fell into the strangest confusion of dreams. he carried his papers in a leather case or pocket-book, in an inner breast-pocket of his buttoned travelling-coat; and whatever he dreamed of, in the lethargy that got possession of him, something importunate in those papers called him out of that dream, though he could not wake from it. he was berated on the steppes of russia (some shadowy person gave that name to the place) with marguerite; and yet the sensation of a hand at his breast, softly feeling the outline of the packet-book as he lay asleep before the fire, was present to him. he was ship-wrecked in an open boat at sea, and having lost his clothes, had no other covering than an old sail; and yet a creeping hand, tracing outside all the other pockets of the dress he actually wore, for papers, and finding none answer its touch, warned him to rouse himself. he was in the ancient vault at cripple corner, to which was transferred the very bed substantial and present in that very room at basle; and wilding (not dead, as he had supposed, and yet he did not wonder much) shook him, and whispered, "look at that man! don't you see he has risen, and is turning the pillow? why should he turn the pillow, if not to seek those papers that are in your breast? awake!" and yet he slept, and wandered off into other dreams. watchful and still, with his elbow on the table, and his head upon that hand, his companion at length said: "vendale! we are called. past four!" then, opening his eyes, he saw, turned sideways on him, the filmy face of obenreizer. "you have been in a heavy sleep," he said. "the fatigue of constant travelling and the cold!" "i am broad awake now," cried vendale, springing up, but with an unsteady footing. "haven't you slept at all?" "i may have dozed, but i seem to have been patiently looking at the fire. whether or no, we must wash, and breakfast, and turn out. past four, vendale; past four!" it was said in a tone to rouse him, for already he was half asleep again. in his preparation for the day, too, and at his breakfast, he was often virtually asleep while in mechanical action. it was not until the cold dark day was closing in, that he had any distincter impressions of the ride than jingling bells, bitter weather, slipping horses, frowning hill- sides, bleak woods, and a stoppage at some wayside house of entertainment, where they had passed through a cow-house to reach the travellers' room above. he had been conscious of little more, except of obenreizer sitting thoughtful at his side all day, and eyeing him much. but when he shook off his stupor, obenreizer was not at his side. the carriage was stopping to bait at another wayside house; and a line of long narrow carts, laden with casks of wine, and drawn by horses with a quantity of blue collar and head-gear, were baiting too. these came from the direction in which the travellers were going, and obenreizer (not thoughtful now, but cheerful and alert) was talking with the foremost driver. as vendale stretched his limbs, circulated his blood, and cleared off the lees of his lethargy, with a sharp run to and fro in the bracing air, the line of carts moved on: the drivers all saluting obenreizer as they passed him. "who are those?" asked vendale. "they are our carriers--defresnier and company's," replied obenreizer. "those are our casks of wine." he was singing to himself, and lighting a cigar. "i have been drearily dull company to-day," said vendale. "i don't know what has been the matter with me." "you had no sleep last night; and a kind of brain-congestion frequently comes, at first, of such cold," said obenreizer. "i have seen it often. after all, we shall have our journey for nothing, it seems." "how for nothing?" "the house is at milan. you know, we are a wine house at neuchatel, and a silk house at milan? well, silk happening to press of a sudden, more than wine, defresnier was summoned to milan. rolland, the other partner, has been taken ill since his departure, and the doctors will allow him to see no one. a letter awaits you at neuchatel to tell you so. i have it from our chief carrier whom you saw me talking with. he was surprised to see me, and said he had that word for you if he met you. what do you do? go back?" "go on," said vendale. "on?" "on? yes. across the alps, and down to milan." obenreizer stopped in his smoking to look at vendale, and then smoked heavily, looked up the road, looked down the road, looked down at the stones in the road at his feet. "i have a very serious matter in charge," said vendale; "more of these missing forms may be turned to as bad account, or worse: i am urged to lose no time in helping the house to take the thief; and nothing shall turn me back." "no?" cried obenreizer, taking out his cigar to smile, and giving his hand to his fellow-traveller. "then nothing shall turn _me_ back. ho, driver! despatch. quick there! let us push on!" they travelled through the night. there had been snow, and there was a partial thaw, and they mostly travelled at a foot-pace, and always with many stoppages to breathe the splashed and floundering horses. after an hour's broad daylight, they drew rein at the inn-door at neuchatel, having been some eight-and-twenty hours in conquering some eighty english miles. when they had hurriedly refreshed and changed, they went together to the house of business of defresnier and company. there they found the letter which the wine-carrier had described, enclosing the tests and comparisons of handwriting essential to the discovery of the forger. vendale's determination to press forward, without resting, being already taken, the only question to delay them was by what pass could they cross the alps? respecting the state of the two passes of the st. gotthard and the simplon, the guides and mule-drivers differed greatly; and both passes were still far enough off, to prevent the travellers from having the benefit of any recent experience of either. besides which, they well knew that a fall of snow might altogether change the described conditions in a single hour, even if they were correctly stated. but, on the whole, the simplon appearing to be the hopefuller route, vendale decided to take it. obenreizer bore little or no part in the discussion, and scarcely spoke. to geneva, to lausanne, along the level margin of the lake to vevay, so into the winding valley between the spurs of the mountains, and into the valley of the rhone. the sound of the carriage-wheels, as they rattled on, through the day, through the night, became as the wheels of a great clock, recording the hours. no change of weather varied the journey, after it had hardened into a sullen frost. in a sombre-yellow sky, they saw the alpine ranges; and they saw enough of snow on nearer and much lower hill-tops and hill-sides, to sully, by contrast, the purity of lake, torrent, and waterfall, and make the villages look discoloured and dirty. but no snow fell, nor was there any snow-drift on the road. the stalking along the valley of more or less of white mist, changing on their hair and dress into icicles, was the only variety between them and the gloomy sky. and still by day, and still by night, the wheels. and still they rolled, in the hearing of one of them, to the burden, altered from the burden of the rhine: "the time is gone for robbing him alive, and i must murder him." they came, at length, to the poor little town of brieg, at the foot of the simplon. they came there after dark, but yet could see how dwarfed men's works and men became with the immense mountains towering over them. here they must lie for the night; and here was warmth of fire, and lamp, and dinner, and wine, and after-conference resounding, with guides and drivers. no human creature had come across the pass for four days. the snow above the snow-line was too soft for wheeled carriage, and not hard enough for sledge. there was snow in the sky. there had been snow in the sky for days past, and the marvel was that it had not fallen, and the certainty was that it must fall. no vehicle could cross. the journey might be tried on mules, or it might be tried on foot; but the best guides must be paid danger-price in either case, and that, too, whether they succeeded in taking the two travellers across, or turned for safety and brought them back. in this discussion, obenreizer bore no part whatever. he sat silently smoking by the fire until the room was cleared and vendale referred to him. "bah! i am weary of these poor devils and their trade," he said, in reply. "always the same story. it is the story of their trade to-day, as it was the story of their trade when i was a ragged boy. what do you and i want? we want a knapsack each, and a mountain-staff each. we want no guide; we should guide him; he would not guide us. we leave our portmanteaus here, and we cross together. we have been on the mountains together before now, and i am mountain-born, and i know this pass--pass!--rather high road!--by heart. we will leave these poor devils, in pity, to trade with others; but they must not delay us to make a pretence of earning money. which is all they mean." vendale, glad to be quit of the dispute, and to cut the knot: active, adventurous, bent on getting forward, and therefore very susceptible to the last hint: readily assented. within two hours, they had purchased what they wanted for the expedition, had packed their knapsacks, and lay down to sleep. at break of day, they found half the town collected in the narrow street to see them depart. the people talked together in groups; the guides and drivers whispered apart, and looked up at the sky; no one wished them a good journey. as they began the ascent, a gleam of run shone from the otherwise unaltered sky, and for a moment turned the tin spires of the town to silver. "a good omen!" said vendale (though it died out while he spoke). "perhaps our example will open the pass on this side." "no; we shall not be followed," returned obenreizer, looking up at the sky and back at the valley. "we shall be alone up yonder." on the mountain the road was fair enough for stout walkers, and the air grew lighter and easier to breathe as the two ascended. but the settled gloom remained as it had remained for days back. nature seemed to have come to a pause. the sense of hearing, no less than the sense of sight, was troubled by having to wait so long for the change, whatever it might be, that impended. the silence was as palpable and heavy as the lowering clouds--or rather cloud, for there seemed to be but one in all the sky, and that one covering the whole of it. although the light was thus dismally shrouded, the prospect was not obscured. down in the valley of the rhone behind them, the stream could be traced through all its many windings, oppressively sombre and solemn in its one leaden hue, a colourless waste. far and high above them, glaciers and suspended avalanches overhung the spots where they must pass, by-and-by; deep and dark below them on their right, were awful precipice and roaring torrent; tremendous mountains arose in every vista. the gigantic landscape, uncheered by a touch of changing light or a solitary ray of sun, was yet terribly distinct in its ferocity. the hearts of two lonely men might shrink a little, if they had to win their way for miles and hours among a legion of silent and motionless men--mere men like themselves--all looking at them with fixed and frowning front. but how much more, when the legion is of nature's mightiest works, and the frown may turn to fury in an instant! as they ascended, the road became gradually more rugged and difficult. but the spirits of vendale rose as they mounted higher, leaving so much more of the road behind them conquered. obenreizer spoke little, and held on with a determined purpose. both, in respect of agility and endurance, were well qualified for the expedition. whatever the born mountaineer read in the weather-tokens that was illegible to the other, he kept to himself. "shall we get across to-day?" asked vendale. "no," replied the other. "you see how much deeper the snow lies here than it lay half a league lower. the higher we mount the deeper the snow will lie. walking is half wading even now. and the days are so short! if we get as high as the fifth refuge, and lie to-night at the hospice, we shall do well." "is there no danger of the weather rising in the night," asked vendale, anxiously, "and snowing us up?" "there is danger enough about us," said obenreizer, with a cautious glance onward and upward, "to render silence our best policy. you have heard of the bridge of the ganther?" "i have crossed it once." "in the summer?" "yes; in the travelling season." "yes; but it is another thing at this season;" with a sneer, as though he were out of temper. "this is not a time of year, or a state of things, on an alpine pass, that you gentlemen holiday-travellers know much about." "you are my guide," said vendale, good humouredly. "i trust to you." "i am your guide," said obenreizer, "and i will guide you to your journey's end. there is the bridge before us." they had made a turn into a desolate and dismal ravine, where the snow lay deep below them, deep above them, deep on every side. while speaking, obenreizer stood pointing at the bridge, and observing vendale's face, with a very singular expression on his own. "if i, as guide, had sent you over there, in advance, and encouraged you to give a shout or two, you might have brought down upon yourself tons and tons and tons of snow, that would not only have struck you dead, but buried you deep, at a blow." "no doubt," said vendale. "no doubt. but that is not what i have to do, as guide. so pass silently. or, going as we go, our indiscretion might else crush and bury _me_. let us get on!" there was a great accumulation of snow on the bridge; and such enormous accumulations of snow overhung them from protecting masses of rock, that they might have been making their way through a stormy sky of white clouds. using his staff skilfully, sounding as he went, and looking upward, with bent shoulders, as it were to resist the mere idea of a fall from above, obenreizer softly led. vendale closely followed. they were yet in the midst of their dangerous way, when there came a mighty rush, followed by a sound as of thunder. obenreizer clapped his hand on vendale's mouth and pointed to the track behind them. its aspect had been wholly changed in a moment. an avalanche had swept over it, and plunged into the torrent at the bottom of the gulf below. their appearance at the solitary inn not far beyond this terrible bridge, elicited many expressions of astonishment from the people shut up in the house. "we stay but to rest," said obenreizer, shaking the snow from his dress at the fire. "this gentleman has very pressing occasion to get across; tell them, vendale." "assuredly, i have very pressing occasion. i must cross." "you hear, all of you. my friend has very pressing occasion to get across, and we want no advice and no help. i am as good a guide, my fellow-countrymen, as any of you. now, give us to eat and drink." in exactly the same way, and in nearly the same words, when it was coming on dark and they had struggled through the greatly increased difficulties of the road, and had at last reached their destination for the night, obenreizer said to the astonished people of the hospice, gathering about them at the fire, while they were yet in the act of getting their wet shoes off, and shaking the snow from their clothes: "it is well to understand one another, friends all. this gentleman--" "--has," said vendale, readily taking him up with a smile, "very pressing occasion to get across. must cross." "you hear?--has very pressing occasion to get across, must cross. we want no advice and no help. i am mountain-born, and act as guide. do not worry us by talking about it, but let us have supper, and wine, and bed." all through the intense cold of the night, the same awful stillness. again at sunrise, no sunny tinge to gild or redden the snow. the same interminable waste of deathly white; the same immovable air; the same monotonous gloom in the sky. "travellers!" a friendly voice called to them from the door, after they were afoot, knapsack on back and staff in hand, as yesterday; "recollect! there are five places of shelter, near together, on the dangerous road before you; and there is the wooden cross, and there is the next hospice. do not stray from the track. if the _tourmente_ comes on, take shelter instantly!" "the trade of these poor devils!" said obenreizer to his friend, with a contemptuous backward wave of his hand towards the voice. "how they stick to their trade! you englishmen say we swiss are mercenary. truly, it does look like it." they had divided between the two knapsacks such refreshments as they had been able to obtain that morning, and as they deemed it prudent to take. obenreizer carried the wine as his share of the burden; vendale, the bread and meat and cheese, and the flask of brandy. they had for some time laboured upward and onward through the snow--which was now above their knees in the track, and of unknown depth elsewhere--and they were still labouring upward and onward through the most frightful part of that tremendous desolation, when snow begin to fall. at first, but a few flakes descended slowly and steadily. after a little while the fall grew much denser, and suddenly it began without apparent cause to whirl itself into spiral shapes. instantly ensuing upon this last change, an icy blast came roaring at them, and every sound and force imprisoned until now was let loose. one of the dismal galleries through which the road is carried at that perilous point, a cave eked out by arches of great strength, was near at hand. they struggled into it, and the storm raged wildly. the noise of the wind, the noise of the water, the thundering down of displaced masses of rock and snow, the awful voices with which not only that gorge but every gorge in the whole monstrous range seemed to be suddenly endowed, the darkness as of night, the violent revolving of the snow which beat and broke it into spray and blinded them, the madness of everything around insatiate for destruction, the rapid substitution of furious violence for unnatural calm, and hosts of appalling sounds for silence: these were things, on the edge of a deep abyss, to chill the blood, though the fierce wind, made actually solid by ice and snow, had failed to chill it. obenreizer, walking to and fro in the gallery without ceasing, signed to vendale to help him unbuckle his knapsack. they could see each other, but could not have heard each other speak. vendale complying, obenreizer produced his bottle of wine, and poured some out, motioning vendale to take that for warmth's sake, and not brandy. vendale again complying, obenreizer seemed to drink after him, and the two walked backwards and forwards side by side; both well knowing that to rest or sleep would be to die. the snow came driving heavily into the gallery by the upper end at which they would pass out of it, if they ever passed out; for greater dangers lay on the road behind them than before. the snow soon began to choke the arch. an hour more, and it lay so high as to block out half the returning daylight. but it froze hard now, as it fell, and could be clambered through or over. the violence of the mountain storm was gradually yielding to steady snowfall. the wind still raged at intervals, but not incessantly; and when it paused, the snow fell in heavy flakes. they might have been two hours in their frightful prison, when obenreizer, now crunching into the mound, now creeping over it with his head bowed down and his body touching the top of the arch, made his way out. vendale followed close upon him, but followed without clear motive or calculation. for the lethargy of basle was creeping over him again, and mastering his senses. how far he had followed out of the gallery, or with what obstacles he had since contended, he knew not. he became roused to the knowledge that obenreizer had set upon him, and that they were struggling desperately in the snow. he became roused to the remembrance of what his assailant carried in a girdle. he felt for it, drew it, struck at him, struggled again, struck at him again, cast him off, and stood face to face with him. "i promised to guide you to your journey's end," said obenreizer, "and i have kept my promise. the journey of your life ends here. nothing can prolong it. you are sleeping as you stand." "you are a villain. what have you done to me?" "you are a fool. i have drugged you. you are doubly a fool, for i drugged you once before upon the journey, to try you. you are trebly a fool, for i am the thief and forger, and in a few moments i shall take those proofs against the thief and forger from your insensible body." the entrapped man tried to throw off the lethargy, but its fatal hold upon him was so sure that, even while he heard those words, he stupidly wondered which of them had been wounded, and whose blood it was that he saw sprinkled on the snow. "what have i done to you," he asked, heavily and thickly, "that you should be--so base--a murderer?" "done to me? you would have destroyed me, but that you have come to your journey's end. your cursed activity interposed between me, and the time i had counted on in which i might have replaced the money. done to me? you have come in my way--not once, not twice, but again and again and again. did i try to shake you off in the beginning, or no? you were not to be shaken off. therefore you die here." vendale tried to think coherently, tried to speak coherently, tried to pick up the iron-shod staff he had let fall; failing to touch it, tried to stagger on without its aid. all in vain, all in vain! he stumbled, and fell heavily forward on the brink of the deep chasm. stupefied, dozing, unable to stand upon his feet, a veil before his eyes, his sense of hearing deadened, he made such a vigorous rally that, supporting himself on his hands, he saw his enemy standing calmly over him, and heard him speak. "you call me murderer," said obenreizer, with a grim laugh. "the name matters very little. but at least i have set my life against yours, for i am surrounded by dangers, and may never make my way out of this place. the _tourmente_ is rising again. the snow is on the whirl. i must have the papers now. every moment has my life in it." "stop!" cried vendale, in a terrible voice, staggering up with a last flash of fire breaking out of him, and clutching the thievish hands at his breast, in both of his. "stop! stand away from me! god bless my marguerite! happily she will never know how i died. stand off from me, and let me look at your murderous face. let it remind me--of something--left to say." the sight of him fighting so hard for his senses, and the doubt whether he might not for the instant be possessed by the strength of a dozen men, kept his opponent still. wildly glaring at him, vendale faltered out the broken words: "it shall not be--the trust--of the dead--betrayed by me--reputed parents--misinherited fortune--see to it!" as his head dropped on his breast, and he stumbled on the brink of the chasm as before, the thievish hands went once more, quick and busy, to his breast. he made a convulsive attempt to cry "no!" desperately rolled himself over into the gulf; and sank away from his enemy's touch, like a phantom in a dreadful dream. * * * * * the mountain storm raged again, and passed again. the awful mountain- voices died away, the moon rose, and the soft and silent snow fell. two men and two large dogs came out at the door of the hospice. the men looked carefully around them, and up at the sky. the dogs rolled in the snow, and took it into their mouths, and cast it up with their paws. one of the men said to the other: "we may venture now. we may find them in one of the five refuges." each fastened on his back a basket; each took in his hand a strong spiked pole; each girded under his arms a looped end of a stout rope, so that they were tied together. suddenly the dogs desisted from their gambols in the snow, stood looking down the ascent, put their noses up, put their noses down, became greatly excited, and broke into a deep loud bay together. the two men looked in the faces of the two dogs. the two dogs looked, with at least equal intelligence, in the faces of the two men. "au secours, then! help! to the rescue!" cried the two men. the two dogs, with a glad, deep, generous bark, bounded away. "two more mad ones!" said the men, stricken motionless, and looking away in the moonlight. "is it possible in such weather! and one of them a woman!" each of the dogs had the corner of a woman's dress in its mouth, and drew her along. she fondled their heads as she came up, and she came up through the snow with an accustomed tread. not so the large man with her, who was spent and winded. "dear guides, dear friends of travellers! i am of your country. we seek two gentlemen crossing the pass, who should have reached the hospice this evening." "they have reached it, ma'amselle." "thank heaven! o thank heaven!" "but, unhappily, they have gone on again. we are setting forth to seek them even now. we had to wait until the _tourmente_ passed. it has been fearful up here." "dear guides, dear friends of travellers! let me go with you. let me go with you for the love of god! one of those gentlemen is to be my husband. i love him, o, so dearly. o so dearly! you see i am not faint, you see i am not tired. i am born a peasant girl. i will show you that i know well how to fasten myself to your ropes. i will do it with my own hands. i will swear to be brave and good. but let me go with you, let me go with you! if any mischance should have befallen him, my love would find him, when nothing else could. on my knees, dear friends of travellers! by the love your dear mothers had for your fathers!" the good rough fellows were moved. "after all," they murmured to one another, "she speaks but the truth. she knows the ways of the mountains. see how marvellously she has come here. but as to monsieur there, ma'amselle?" "dear mr. joey," said marguerite, addressing him in his own tongue, "you will remain at the house, and wait for me; will you not?" "if i know'd which o' you two recommended it," growled joey ladle, eyeing the two men with great indignation, "i'd fight you for sixpence, and give you half-a-crown towards your expenses. no, miss. i'll stick by you as long as there's any sticking left in me, and i'll die for you when i can't do better." the state of the moon rendering it highly important that no time should be lost, and the dogs showing signs of great uneasiness, the two men quickly took their resolution. the rope that yoked them together was exchanged for a longer one; the party were secured, marguerite second, and the cellarman last; and they set out for the refuges. the actual distance of those places was nothing: the whole five, and the next hospice to boot, being within two miles; but the ghastly way was whitened out and sheeted over. they made no miss in reaching the gallery where the two had taken shelter. the second storm of wind and snow had so wildly swept over it since, that their tracks were gone. but the dogs went to and fro with their noses down, and were confident. the party stopping, however, at the further arch, where the second storm had been especially furious, and where the drift was deep, the dogs became troubled, and went about and about, in quest of a lost purpose. the great abyss being known to lie on the right, they wandered too much to the left, and had to regain the way with infinite labour through a deep field of snow. the leader of the line had stopped it, and was taking note of the landmarks, when one of the dogs fell to tearing up the snow a little before them. advancing and stooping to look at it, thinking that some one might be overwhelmed there, they saw that it was stained, and that the stain was red. the other dog was now seen to look over the brink of the gulf, with his fore legs straightened out, lest he should fall into it, and to tremble in every limb. then the dog who had found the stained snow joined him, and then they ran to and fro, distressed and whining. finally, they both stopped on the brink together, and setting up their heads, howled dolefully. "there is some one lying below," said marguerite. "i think so," said the foremost man. "stand well inward, the two last, and let us look over." the last man kindled two torches from his basket, and handed them forward. the leader taking one, and marguerite the other, they looked down; now shading the torches, now moving them to the right or left, now raising them, now depressing them, as moonlight far below contended with black shadows. a piercing cry from marguerite broke a long silence. "my god! on a projecting point, where a wall of ice stretches forward over the torrent, i see a human form!" "where, ma'amselle, where?" "see, there! on the shelf of ice below the dogs!" the leader, with a sickened aspect, drew inward, and they were all silent. but they were not all inactive, for marguerite, with swift and skilful fingers, had detached both herself and him from the rope in a few seconds. "show me the baskets. these two are the only ropes?" "the only ropes here, ma'amselle; but at the hospice--" "if he is alive--i know it is my lover--he will be dead before you can return. dear guides! blessed friends of travellers! look at me. watch my hands. if they falter or go wrong, make me your prisoner by force. if they are steady and go right, help me to save him!" she girded herself with a cord under the breast and arms, she formed it into a kind of jacket, she drew it into knots, she laid its end side by side with the end of the other cord, she twisted and twined the two together, she knotted them together, she set her foot upon the knots, she strained them, she held them for the two men to strain at. "she is inspired," they said to one another. "by the almighty's mercy!" she exclaimed. "you both know that i am by far the lightest here. give me the brandy and the wine, and lower me down to him. then go for assistance and a stronger rope. you see that when it is lowered to me--look at this about me now--i can make it fast and safe to his body. alive or dead, i will bring him up, or die with him. i love him passionately. can i say more?" they turned to her companion, but he was lying senseless on the snow. "lower me down to him," she said, taking two little kegs they had brought, and hanging them about her, "or i will dash myself to pieces! i am a peasant, and i know no giddiness or fear; and this is nothing to me, and i passionately love him. lower me down!" "ma'amselle, ma'amselle, he must be dying or dead." "dying or dead, my husband's head shall lie upon my breast, or i will dash myself to pieces." they yielded, overborne. with such precautions as their skill and the circumstances admitted, they let her slip from the summit, guiding herself down the precipitous icy wall with her hand, and they lowered down, and lowered down, and lowered down, until the cry came up: "enough!" "is it really he, and is he dead?" they called down, looking over. the cry came up: "he is insensible; but his heart beats. it beats against mine." "how does he lie?" the cry came up: "upon a ledge of ice. it has thawed beneath him, and it will thaw beneath me. hasten. if we die, i am content." one of the two men hurried off with the dogs at such topmost speed as he could make; the other set up the lighted torches in the snow, and applied himself to recovering the englishman. much snow-chafing and some brandy got him on his legs, but delirious and quite unconscious where he was. the watch remained upon the brink, and his cry went down continually: "courage! they will soon be here. how goes it?" and the cry came up: "his heart still beats against mine. i warm him in my arms. i have cast off the rope, for the ice melts under us, and the rope would separate me from him; but i am not afraid." the moon went down behind the mountain tops, and all the abyss lay in darkness. the cry went down: "how goes it?" the cry came up: "we are sinking lower, but his heart still beats against mine." at length the eager barking of the dogs, and a flare of light upon the snow, proclaimed that help was coming on. twenty or thirty men, lamps, torches, litters, ropes, blankets, wood to kindle a great fire, restoratives and stimulants, came in fast. the dogs ran from one man to another, and from this thing to that, and ran to the edge of the abyss, dumbly entreating speed, speed, speed! the cry went down: "thanks to god, all is ready. how goes it?" the cry came up: "we are sinking still, and we are deadly cold. his heart no longer beats against mine. let no one come down, to add to our weight. lower the rope only." the fire was kindled high, a great glare of torches lighted the sides of the precipice, lamps were lowered, a strong rope was lowered. she could be seen passing it round him, and making it secure. the cry came up into a deathly silence: "raise! softly!" they could see her diminished figure shrink, as he was swung into the air. they gave no shout when some of them laid him on a litter, and others lowered another strong rope. the cry again came up into a deathly silence: "raise! softly!" but when they caught her at the brink, then they shouted, then they wept, then they gave thanks to heaven, then they kissed her feet, then they kissed her dress, then the dogs caressed her, licked her icy hands, and with their honest faces warmed her frozen bosom! she broke from them all, and sank over him on his litter, with both her loving hands upon the heart that stood still. act iv. the clock-lock the pleasant scene was neuchatel; the pleasant month was april; the pleasant place was a notary's office; the pleasant person in it was the notary: a rosy, hearty, handsome old man, chief notary of neuchatel, known far and wide in the canton as maitre voigt. professionally and personally, the notary was a popular citizen. his innumerable kindnesses and his innumerable oddities had for years made him one of the recognised public characters of the pleasant swiss town. his long brown frock-coat and his black skull-cap, were among the institutions of the place: and he carried a snuff-box which, in point of size, was popularly believed to be without a parallel in europe. there was another person in the notary's office, not so pleasant as the notary. this was obenreizer. an oddly pastoral kind of office it was, and one that would never have answered in england. it stood in a neat back yard, fenced off from a pretty flower-garden. goats browsed in the doorway, and a cow was within half-a-dozen feet of keeping company with the clerk. maitre voigt's room was a bright and varnished little room, with panelled walls, like a toy- chamber. according to the seasons of the year, roses, sunflowers, hollyhocks, peeped in at the windows. maitre voigt's bees hummed through the office all the summer, in at this window and out at that, taking it frequently in their day's work, as if honey were to be made from maitre voigt's sweet disposition. a large musical box on the chimney-piece often trilled away at the overture to fra diavolo, or a selection from william tell, with a chirruping liveliness that had to be stopped by force on the entrance of a client, and irrepressibly broke out again the moment his back was turned. "courage, courage, my good fellow!" said maitre voigt, patting obenreizer on the knee, in a fatherly and comforting way. "you will begin a new life to-morrow morning in my office here." obenreizer--dressed in mourning, and subdued in manner--lifted his hand, with a white handkerchief in it, to the region of his heart. "the gratitude is here," he said. "but the words to express it are not here." "ta-ta-ta! don't talk to me about gratitude!" said maitre voigt. "i hate to see a man oppressed. i see you oppressed, and i hold out my hand to you by instinct. besides, i am not too old yet, to remember my young days. your father sent me my first client. (it was on a question of half an acre of vineyard that seldom bore any grapes.) do i owe nothing to your father's son? i owe him a debt of friendly obligation, and i pay it to you. that's rather neatly expressed, i think," added maitre voigt, in high good humour with himself. "permit me to reward my own merit with a pinch of snuff!" obenreizer dropped his eyes to the ground, as though he were not even worthy to see the notary take snuff. "do me one last favour, sir," he said, when he raised his eyes. "do not act on impulse. thus far, you have only a general knowledge of my position. hear the case for and against me, in its details, before you take me into your office. let my claim on your benevolence be recognised by your sound reason as well as by your excellent heart. in _that_ case, i may hold up my head against the bitterest of my enemies, and build myself a new reputation on the ruins of the character i have lost." "as you will," said maitre voigt. "you speak well, my son. you will be a fine lawyer one of these days." "the details are not many," pursued obenreizer. "my troubles begin with the accidental death of my late travelling companion, my lost dear friend mr. vendale." "mr. vendale," repeated the notary. "just so. i have heard and read of the name, several times within these two months. the name of the unfortunate english gentleman who was killed on the simplon. when you got that scar upon your cheek and neck." "--from my own knife," said obenreizer, touching what must have been an ugly gash at the time of its infliction. "from your own knife," assented the notary, "and in trying to save him. good, good, good. that was very good. vendale. yes. i have several times, lately, thought it droll that i should once have had a client of that name." "but the world, sir," returned obenreizer, "is _so_ small!" nevertheless he made a mental note that the notary had once had a client of that name. "as i was saying, sir, the death of that dear travelling comrade begins my troubles. what follows? i save myself. i go down to milan. i am received with coldness by defresnier and company. shortly afterwards, i am discharged by defresnier and company. why? they give no reason why. i ask, do they assail my honour? no answer. i ask, what is the imputation against me? no answer. i ask, where are their proofs against me? no answer. i ask, what am i to think? the reply is, 'm. obenreizer is free to think what he will. what m. obenreizer thinks, is of no importance to defresnier and company.' and that is all." "perfectly. that is all," asserted the notary, taking a large pinch of snuff. "but is that enough, sir?" "that is not enough," said maitre voigt. "the house of defresnier are my fellow townsmen--much respected, much esteemed--but the house of defresnier must not silently destroy a man's character. you can rebut assertion. but how can you rebut silence?" "your sense of justice, my dear patron," answered obenreizer, "states in a word the cruelty of the case. does it stop there? no. for, what follows upon that?" "true, my poor boy," said the notary, with a comforting nod or two; "your ward rebels upon that." "rebels is too soft a word," retorted obenreizer. "my ward revolts from me with horror. my ward defies me. my ward withdraws herself from my authority, and takes shelter (madame dor with her) in the house of that english lawyer, mr. bintrey, who replies to your summons to her to submit herself to my authority, that she will not do so." "--and who afterwards writes," said the notary, moving his large snuff- box to look among the papers underneath it for the letter, "that he is coming to confer with me." "indeed?" replied obenreizer, rather checked. "well, sir. have i no legal rights?" "assuredly, my poor boy," returned the notary. "all but felons have their legal rights." "and who calls me felon?" said obenreizer, fiercely. "no one. be calm under your wrongs. if the house of defresnier would call you felon, indeed, we should know how to deal with them." while saying these words, he had handed bintrey's very short letter to obenreizer, who now read it and gave it back. "in saying," observed obenreizer, with recovered composure, "that he is coming to confer with you, this english lawyer means that he is coming to deny my authority over my ward." "you think so?" "i am sure of it. i know him. he is obstinate and contentious. you will tell me, my dear sir, whether my authority is unassailable, until my ward is of age?" "absolutely unassailable." "i will enforce it. i will make her submit herself to it. for," said obenreizer, changing his angry tone to one of grateful submission, "i owe it to you, sir; to you, who have so confidingly taken an injured man under your protection, and into your employment." "make your mind easy," said maitre voigt. "no more of this now, and no thanks! be here to-morrow morning, before the other clerk comes--between seven and eight. you will find me in this room; and i will myself initiate you in your work. go away! go away! i have letters to write. i won't hear a word more." dismissed with this generous abruptness, and satisfied with the favourable impression he had left on the old man's mind, obenreizer was at leisure to revert to the mental note he had made that maitre voigt once had a client whose name was vendale. "i ought to know england well enough by this time;" so his meditations ran, as he sat on a bench in the yard; "and it is not a name i ever encountered there, except--" he looked involuntarily over his shoulder--"as _his_ name. is the world so small that i cannot get away from him, even now when he is dead? he confessed at the last that he had betrayed the trust of the dead, and misinherited a fortune. and i was to see to it. and i was to stand off, that my face might remind him of it. why _my_ face, unless it concerned _me_? i am sure of his words, for they have been in my ears ever since. can there be anything bearing on them, in the keeping of this old idiot? anything to repair my fortunes, and blacken his memory? he dwelt upon my earliest remembrances, that night at basle. why, unless he had a purpose in it?" maitre voigt's two largest he-goats were butting at him to butt him out of the place, as if for that disrespectful mention of their master. so he got up and left the place. but he walked alone for a long time on the border of the lake, with his head drooped in deep thought. between seven and eight next morning, he presented himself again at the office. he found the notary ready for him, at work on some papers which had come in on the previous evening. in a few clear words, maitre voigt explained the routine of the office, and the duties obenreizer would be expected to perform. it still wanted five minutes to eight, when the preliminary instructions were declared to be complete. "i will show you over the house and the offices," said maitre voigt, "but i must put away these papers first. they come from the municipal authorities, and they must be taken special care of." obenreizer saw his chance, here, of finding out the repository in which his employer's private papers were kept. "can't i save you the trouble, sir?" he asked. "can't i put those documents away under your directions?" maitre voigt laughed softly to himself; closed the portfolio in which the papers had been sent to him; handed it to obenreizer. "suppose you try," he said. "all my papers of importance are kept yonder." he pointed to a heavy oaken door, thickly studded with nails, at the lower end of the room. approaching the door, with the portfolio, obenreizer discovered, to his astonishment, that there were no means whatever of opening it from the outside. there was no handle, no bolt, no key, and (climax of passive obstruction!) no keyhole. "there is a second door to this room?" said obenreizer, appealing to the notary. "no," said maitre voigt. "guess again." "there is a window?" "nothing of the sort. the window has been bricked up. the only way in, is the way by that door. do you give it up?" cried maitre voigt, in high triumph. "listen, my good fellow, and tell me if you hear nothing inside?" obenreizer listened for a moment, and started back from the door. "i know!" he exclaimed. "i heard of this when i was apprenticed here at the watchmaker's. perrin brothers have finished their famous clock-lock at last--and you have got it?" "bravo!" said maitre voigt. "the clock-lock it is! there, my son! there you have one more of what the good people of this town call, 'daddy voigt's follies.' with all my heart! let those laugh who win. no thief can steal _my_ keys. no burglar can pick _my_ lock. no power on earth, short of a battering-ram or a barrel of gunpowder, can move that door, till my little sentinel inside--my worthy friend who goes 'tick, tick,' as i tell him--says, 'open!' the big door obeys the little tick, tick, and the little tick, tick, obeys _me_. that!" cried daddy voigt, snapping his fingers, "for all the thieves in christendom!" "may i see it in action?" asked obenreizer. "pardon my curiosity, dear sir! you know that i was once a tolerable worker in the clock trade." "certainly you shall see it in action," said maitre voigt. "what is the time now? one minute to eight. watch, and in one minute you will see the door open of itself." in one minute, smoothly and slowly and silently, as if invisible hands had set it free, the heavy door opened inward, and disclosed a dark chamber beyond. on three sides, shelves filled the walls, from floor to ceiling. arranged on the shelves, were rows upon rows of boxes made in the pretty inlaid woodwork of switzerland, and bearing inscribed on their fronts (for the most part in fanciful coloured letters) the names of the notary's clients. maitre voigt lighted a taper, and led the way into the room. "you shall see the clock," he said proudly. "i possess the greatest curiosity in europe. it is only a privileged few whose eyes can look at it. i give the privilege to your good father's son--you shall be one of the favoured few who enter the room with me. see! here it is, on the right-hand wall at the side of the door." "an ordinary clock," exclaimed obenreizer. "no! not an ordinary clock. it has only one hand." "aha!" said maitre voigt. "not an ordinary clock, my friend. no, no. that one hand goes round the dial. as i put it, so it regulates the hour at which the door shall open. see! the hand points to eight. at eight the door opened, as you saw for yourself." "does it open more than once in the four-and-twenty hours?" asked obenreizer. "more than once?" repeated the notary, with great scorn. "you don't know my good friend, tick-tick! he will open the door as often as i ask him. all he wants is his directions, and he gets them here. look below the dial. here is a half-circle of steel let into the wall, and here is a hand (called the regulator) that travels round it, just as _my_ hand chooses. notice, if you please, that there are figures to guide me on the half-circle of steel. figure i. means: open once in the four-and- twenty hours. figure ii. means: open twice; and so on to the end. i set the regulator every morning, after i have read my letters, and when i know what my day's work is to be. would you like to see me set it now? what is to-day? wednesday. good! this is the day of our rifle-club; there is little business to do; i grant a half-holiday. no work here to- day, after three o'clock. let us first put away this portfolio of municipal papers. there! no need to trouble tick-tick to open the door until eight to-morrow. good! i leave the dial-hand at eight; i put back the regulator to i.; i close the door; and closed the door remains, past all opening by anybody, till to-morrow morning at eight." obenreizer's quickness instantly saw the means by which he might make the clock-lock betray its master's confidence, and place its master's papers at his disposal. "stop, sir!" he cried, at the moment when the notary was closing the door. "don't i see something moving among the boxes--on the floor there?" (maitre voigt turned his back for a moment to look. in that moment, obenreizer's ready hand put the regulator on, from the figure "i." to the figure "ii." unless the notary looked again at the half-circle of steel, the door would open at eight that evening, as well as at eight next morning, and nobody but obenreizer would know it.) "there is nothing!" said maitre voigt. "your troubles have shaken your nerves, my son. some shadow thrown by my taper; or some poor little beetle, who lives among the old lawyer's secrets, running away from the light. hark! i hear your fellow-clerk in the office. to work! to work! and build to-day the first step that leads to your new fortunes!" he good-humouredly pushed obenreizer out before him; extinguished the taper, with a last fond glance at his clock which passed harmlessly over the regulator beneath; and closed the oaken door. at three, the office was shut up. the notary and everybody in the notary's employment, with one exception, went to see the rifle-shooting. obenreizer had pleaded that he was not in spirits for a public festival. nobody knew what had become of him. it was believed that he had slipped away for a solitary walk. the house and offices had been closed but a few minutes, when the door of a shining wardrobe in the notary's shining room opened, and obenreizer stopped out. he walked to a window, unclosed the shutters, satisfied himself that he could escape unseen by way of the garden, turned back into the room, and took his place in the notary's easy-chair. he was locked up in the house, and there were five hours to wait before eight o'clock came. he wore his way through the five hours: sometimes reading the books and newspapers that lay on the table: sometimes thinking: sometimes walking to and fro. sunset came on. he closed the window-shutters before he kindled a light. the candle lighted, and the time drawing nearer and nearer, he sat, watch in hand, with his eyes on the oaken door. at eight, smoothly and softly and silently the door opened. one after another, he read the names on the outer rows of boxes. no such name as vendale! he removed the outer row, and looked at the row behind. these were older boxes, and shabbier boxes. the four first that he examined, were inscribed with french and german names. the fifth bore a name which was almost illegible. he brought it out into the room, and examined it closely. there, covered thickly with time-stains and dust, was the name: "vendale." the key hung to the box by a string. he unlocked the box, took out four loose papers that were in it, spread them open on the table, and began to read them. he had not so occupied a minute, when his face fell from its expression of eagerness and avidity, to one of haggard astonishment and disappointment. but, after a little consideration, he copied the papers. he then replaced the papers, replaced the box, closed the door, extinguished the candle, and stole away. as his murderous and thievish footfall passed out of the garden, the steps of the notary and some one accompanying him stopped at the front door of the house. the lamps were lighted in the little street, and the notary had his door-key in his hand. "pray do not pass my house, mr. bintrey," he said. "do me the honour to come in. it is one of our town half-holidays--our tir--but my people will be back directly. it is droll that you should ask your way to the hotel of me. let us eat and drink before you go there." "thank you; not to-night," said bintrey. "shall i come to you at ten to- morrow?" "i shall be enchanted, sir, to take so early an opportunity of redressing the wrongs of my injured client," returned the good notary. "yes," retorted bintrey; "your injured client is all very well--but--a word in your ear." he whispered to the notary and walked off. when the notary's housekeeper came home, she found him standing at his door motionless, with the key still in his hand, and the door unopened. obenreizer's victory the scene shifts again--to the foot of the simplon, on the swiss side. in one of the dreary rooms of the dreary little inn at brieg, mr. bintrey and maitre voigt sat together at a professional council of two. mr. bintrey was searching in his despatch-box. maitre voigt was looking towards a closed door, painted brown to imitate mahogany, and communicating with an inner room. "isn't it time he was here?" asked the notary, shifting his position, and glancing at a second door at the other end of the room, painted yellow to imitate deal. "he _is_ here," answered bintrey, after listening for a moment. the yellow door was opened by a waiter, and obenreizer walked in. after greeting maitre voigt with a cordiality which appeared to cause the notary no little embarrassment, obenreizer bowed with grave and distant politeness to bintrey. "for what reason have i been brought from neuchatel to the foot of the mountain?" he inquired, taking the seat which the english lawyer had indicated to him. "you shall be quite satisfied on that head before our interview is over," returned bintrey. "for the present, permit me to suggest proceeding at once to business. there has been a correspondence, mr. obenreizer, between you and your niece. i am here to represent your niece." "in other words, you, a lawyer, are here to represent an infraction of the law." "admirably put!" said bintrey. "if all the people i have to deal with were only like you, what an easy profession mine would be! i am here to represent an infraction of the law--that is your point of view. i am here to make a compromise between you and your niece--that is my point of view." "there must be two parties to a compromise," rejoined obenreizer. "i decline, in this case, to be one of them. the law gives me authority to control my niece's actions, until she comes of age. she is not yet of age; and i claim my authority." at this point maitre attempted to speak. bintrey silenced him with a compassionate indulgence of tone and manner, as if he was silencing a favourite child. "no, my worthy friend, not a word. don't excite yourself unnecessarily; leave it to me." he turned, and addressed himself again to obenreizer. "i can think of nothing comparable to you, mr. obenreizer, but granite--and even that wears out in course of time. in the interests of peace and quietness--for the sake of your own dignity--relax a little. if you will only delegate your authority to another person whom i know of, that person may be trusted never to lose sight of your niece, night or day!" "you are wasting your time and mine," returned obenreizer. "if my niece is not rendered up to my authority within one week from this day, i invoke the law. if you resist the law, i take her by force." he rose to his feet as he said the last word. maitre voigt looked round again towards the brown door which led into the inner room. "have some pity on the poor girl," pleaded bintrey. "remember how lately she lost her lover by a dreadful death! will nothing move you?" "nothing." bintrey, in his turn, rose to his feet, and looked at maitre voigt. maitre voigt's hand, resting on the table, began to tremble. maitre voigt's eyes remained fixed, as if by irresistible fascination, on the brown door. obenreizer, suspiciously observing him, looked that way too. "there is somebody listening in there!" he exclaimed, with a sharp backward glance at bintrey. "there are two people listening," answered bintrey. "who are they?" "you shall see." with this answer, he raised his voice and spoke the next words--the two common words which are on everybody's lips, at every hour of the day: "come in!" the brown door opened. supported on marguerite's arm--his sun-burnt colour gone, his right arm bandaged and clung over his breast--vendale stood before the murderer, a man risen from the dead. in the moment of silence that followed, the singing of a caged bird in the court-yard outside was the one sound stirring in the room. maitre voigt touched bintrey, and pointed to obenreizer. "look at him!" said the notary, in a whisper. the shock had paralysed every movement in the villain's body, but the movement of the blood. his face was like the face of a corpse. the one vestige of colour left in it was a livid purple streak which marked the course of the scar where his victim had wounded him on the cheek and neck. speechless, breathless, motionless alike in eye and limb, it seemed as if, at the sight of vendale, the death to which he had doomed vendale had struck him where he stood. "somebody ought to speak to him," said maitre voigt. "shall i?" even at that moment bintrey persisted in silencing the notary, and in keeping the lead in the proceedings to himself. checking maitre voigt by a gesture, he dismissed marguerite and vendale in these words:--"the object of your appearance here is answered," he said. "if you will withdraw for the present, it may help mr. obenreizer to recover himself." it did help him. as the two passed through the door and closed it behind them, he drew a deep breath of relief. he looked round him for the chair from which he had risen, and dropped into it. "give him time!" pleaded maitre voigt. "no," said bintrey. "i don't know what use he may make of it if i do." he turned once more to obenreizer, and went on. "i owe it to myself," he said--"i don't admit, mind, that i owe it to you--to account for my appearance in these proceedings, and to state what has been done under my advice, and on my sole responsibility. can you listen to me?" "i can listen to you." "recall the time when you started for switzerland with mr. vendale," bintrey begin. "you had not left england four-and-twenty hours before your niece committed an act of imprudence which not even your penetration could foresee. she followed her promised husband on his journey, without asking anybody's advice or permission, and without any better companion to protect her than a cellarman in mr. vendale's employment." "why did she follow me on the journey? and how came the cellarman to be the person who accompanied her?" "she followed you on the journey," answered bintrey, "because she suspected there had been some serious collision between you and mr. vendale, which had been kept secret from her; and because she rightly believed you to be capable of serving your interests, or of satisfying your enmity, at the price of a crime. as for the cellarman, he was one, among the other people in mr. vendale's establishment, to whom she had applied (the moment your back was turned) to know if anything had happened between their master and you. the cellarman alone had something to tell her. a senseless superstition, and a common accident which had happened to his master, in his master's cellar, had connected mr. vendale in this man's mind with the idea of danger by murder. your niece surprised him into a confession, which aggravated tenfold the terrors that possessed her. aroused to a sense of the mischief he had done, the man, of his own accord, made the one atonement in his power. 'if my master is in danger, miss,' he said, 'it's my duty to follow him, too; and it's more than my duty to take care of _you_.' the two set forth together--and, for once, a superstition has had its use. it decided your niece on taking the journey; and it led the way to saving a man's life. do you understand me, so far?" "i understand you, so far." "my first knowledge of the crime that you had committed," pursued bintrey, "came to me in the form of a letter from your niece. all you need know is that her love and her courage recovered the body of your victim, and aided the after-efforts which brought him back to life. while he lay helpless at brieg, under her care, she wrote to me to come out to him. before starting, i informed madame dor that i knew miss obenreizer to be safe, and knew where she was. madame dor informed me, in return, that a letter had come for your niece, which she knew to be in your handwriting. i took possession of it, and arranged for the forwarding of any other letters which might follow. arrived at brieg, i found mr. vendale out of danger, and at once devoted myself to hastening the day of reckoning with you. defresnier and company turned you off on suspicion; acting on information privately supplied by me. having stripped you of your false character, the next thing to do was to strip you of your authority over your niece. to reach this end, i not only had no scruple in digging the pitfall under your feet in the dark--i felt a certain professional pleasure in fighting you with your own weapons. by my advice the truth has been carefully concealed from you up to this day. by my advice the trap into which you have walked was set for you (you know why, now, as well as i do) in this place. there was but one certain way of shaking the devilish self-control which has hitherto made you a formidable man. that way has been tried, and (look at me as you may) that way has succeeded. the last thing that remains to be done," concluded bintrey, producing two little slips of manuscript from his despatch-box, "is to set your niece free. you have attempted murder, and you have committed forgery and theft. we have the evidence ready against you in both cases. if you are convicted as a felon, you know as well as i do what becomes of your authority over your niece. personally, i should have preferred taking that way out of it. but considerations are pressed on me which i am not able to resist, and this interview must end, as i have told you already, in a compromise. sign those lines, resigning all authority over miss obenreizer, and pledging yourself never to be seen in england or in switzerland again; and i will sign an indemnity which secures you against further proceedings on our part." obenreizer took the pen in silence, and signed his niece's release. on receiving the indemnity in return, he rose, but made no movement to leave the room. he stood looking at maitre voigt with a strange smile gathering at his lips, and a strange light flashing in his filmy eyes. "what are you waiting for?" asked bintrey. obenreizer pointed to the brown door. "call them back," he answered. "i have something to say in their presence before i go." "say it in my presence," retorted bintrey. "i decline to call them back." obenreizer turned to maitre voigt. "do you remember telling me that you once had an english client named vendale?" he asked. "well," answered the notary. "and what of that?" "maitre voigt, your clock-lock has betrayed you." "what do you mean?" "i have read the letters and certificates in your client's box. i have taken copies of them. i have got the copies here. is there, or is there not, a reason for calling them back?" for a moment the notary looked to and fro, between obenreizer and bintrey, in helpless astonishment. recovering himself, he drew his brother-lawyer aside, and hurriedly spoke a few words close at his ear. the face of bintrey--after first faithfully reflecting the astonishment on the face of maitre voigt--suddenly altered its expression. he sprang, with the activity of a young man, to the door of the inner room, entered it, remained inside for a minute, and returned followed by marguerite and vendale. "now, mr. obenreizer," said bintrey, "the last move in the game is yours. play it." "before i resign my position as that young lady's guardian," said obenreizer, "i have a secret to reveal in which she is interested. in making my disclosure, i am not claiming her attention for a narrative which she, or any other person present, is expected to take on trust. i am possessed of written proofs, copies of originals, the authenticity of which maitre voigt himself can attest. bear that in mind, and permit me to refer you, at starting, to a date long past--the month of february, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six." "mark the date, mr. vendale," said bintrey. "my first proof," said obenreizer, taking a paper from his pocket-book. "copy of a letter, written by an english lady (married) to her sister, a widow. the name of the person writing the letter i shall keep suppressed until i have done. the name of the person to whom the letter is written i am willing to reveal. it is addressed to 'mrs. jane anne miller, of groombridge wells, england.'" vendale started, and opened his lips to speak. bintrey instantly stopped him, as he had stopped maitre voigt. "no," said the pertinacious lawyer. "leave it to me." obenreizer went on: "it is needless to trouble you with the first half of the letter," he said. "i can give the substance of it in two words. the writer's position at the time is this. she has been long living in switzerland with her husband--obliged to live there for the sake of her husband's health. they are about to move to a new residence on the lake of neuchatel in a week, and they will be ready to receive mrs. miller as visitor in a fortnight from that time. this said, the writer next enters into an important domestic detail. she has been childless for years--she and her husband have now no hope of children; they are lonely; they want an interest in life; they have decided on adopting a child. here the important part of the letter begins; and here, therefore, i read it to you word for word." he folded back the first page of the letter and read as follows. "* * * will you help us, my dear sister, to realise our new project? as english people, we wish to adopt an english child. this may be done, i believe, at the foundling: my husband's lawyers in london will tell you how. i leave the choice to you, with only these conditions attached to it--that the child is to be an infant under a year old, and is to be a boy. will you pardon the trouble i am giving you, for my sake; and will you bring our adopted child to us, with your own children, when you come to neuchatel? "i must add a word as to my husband's wishes in this matter. he is resolved to spare the child whom we make our own any future mortification and loss of self-respect which might be caused by a discovery of his true origin. he will bear my husband's name, and he will be brought up in the belief that he is really our son. his inheritance of what we have to leave will be secured to him--not only according to the laws of england in such cases, but according to the laws of switzerland also; for we have lived so long in this country, that there is a doubt whether we may not be considered as i domiciled, in switzerland. the one precaution left to take is to prevent any after-discovery at the foundling. now, our name is a very uncommon one; and if we appear on the register of the institution as the persons adopting the child, there is just a chance that something might result from it. your name, my dear, is the name of thousands of other people; and if you will consent to appear on the register, there need be no fear of any discoveries in that quarter. we are moving, by the doctor's orders, to a part of switzerland in which our circumstances are quite unknown; and you, as i understand, are about to engage a new nurse for the journey when you come to see us. under these circumstances, the child may appear as my child, brought back to me under my sister's care. the only servant we take with us from our old home is my own maid, who can be safely trusted. as for the lawyers in england and in switzerland, it is their profession to keep secrets--and we may feel quite easy in that direction. so there you have our harmless little conspiracy! write by return of post, my love, and tell me you will join it." * * * "do you still conceal the name of the writer of that letter?" asked vendale. "i keep the name of the writer till the last," answered obenreizer, "and i proceed to my second proof--a mere slip of paper this time, as you see. memorandum given to the swiss lawyer, who drew the documents referred to in the letter i have just read, expressed as follows:--'adopted from the foundling hospital of england, d march, , a male infant, called, in the institution, walter wilding. person appearing on the register, as adopting the child, mrs. jane anne miller, widow, acting in this matter for her married sister, domiciled in switzerland.' patience!" resumed obenreizer, as vendale, breaking loose from bintrey, started to his feet. "i shall not keep the name concealed much longer. two more little slips of paper, and i have done. third proof! certificate of doctor ganz, still living in practice at neuchatel, dated july, . the doctor certifies (you shall read it for yourselves directly), first, that he attended the adopted child in its infant maladies; second, that, three months before the date of the certificate, the gentleman adopting the child as his son died; third, that on the date of the certificate, his widow and her maid, taking the adopted child with them, left neuchatel on their return to england. one more link now added to this, and my chain of evidence is complete. the maid remained with her mistress till her mistress's death, only a few years since. the maid can swear to the identity of the adopted infant, from his childhood to his youth--from his youth to his manhood, as he is now. there is her address in england--and there, mr. vendale, is the fourth, and final proof!" "why do you address yourself to _me_?" said vendale, as obenreizer threw the written address on the table. obenreizer turned on him, in a sudden frenzy of triumph. "_because you are the man_! if my niece marries you, she marries a bastard, brought up by public charity. if my niece marries you, she marries an impostor, without name or lineage, disguised in the character of a gentleman of rank and family." "bravo!" cried bintrey. "admirably put, mr. obenreizer! it only wants one word more to complete it. she marries--thanks entirely to your exertions--a man who inherits a handsome fortune, and a man whose origin will make him prouder than ever of his peasant-wife. george vendale, as brother-executors, let us congratulate each other! our dear dead friend's last wish on earth is accomplished. we have found the lost walter wilding. as mr. obenreizer said just now--you are the man!" the words passed by vendale unheeded. for the moment he was conscious of but one sensation; he heard but one voice. marguerite's hand was clasping his. marguerite's voice was whispering to him: "i never loved you, george, as i love you now!" the curtain falls may-day. there is merry-making in cripple corner, the chimneys smoke, the patriarchal dining-hall is hung with garlands, and mrs. goldstraw, the respected housekeeper, is very busy. for, on this bright morning the young master of cripple corner is married to its young mistress, far away: to wit, in the little town of brieg, in switzerland, lying at the foot of the simplon pass where she saved his life. the bells ring gaily in the little town of brieg, and flags are stretched across the street, and rifle shots are heard, and sounding music from brass instruments. streamer-decorated casks of wine have been rolled out under a gay awning in the public way before the inn, and there will be free feasting and revelry. what with bells and banners, draperies hanging from windows, explosion of gunpowder, and reverberation of brass music, the little town of brieg is all in a flutter, like the hearts of its simple people. it was a stormy night last night, and the mountains are covered with snow. but the sun is bright to-day, the sweet air is fresh, the tin spires of the little town of brieg are burnished silver, and the alps are ranges of far-off white cloud in a deep blue sky. the primitive people of the little town of brieg have built a greenwood arch across the street, under which the newly married pair shall pass in triumph from the church. it is inscribed, on that side, "honour and love to marguerite vendale!" for the people are proud of her to enthusiasm. this greeting of the bride under her new name is affectionately meant as a surprise, and therefore the arrangement has been made that she, unconscious why, shall be taken to the church by a tortuous back way. a scheme not difficult to carry into execution in the crooked little town of brieg. so, all things are in readiness, and they are to go and come on foot. assembled in the inn's best chamber, festively adorned, are the bride and bridegroom, the neuchatel notary, the london lawyer, madame dor, and a certain large mysterious englishman, popularly known as monsieur zhoe- ladelle. and behold madame dor, arrayed in a spotless pair of gloves of her own, with no hand in the air, but both hands clasped round the neck of the bride; to embrace whom madame dor has turned her broad back on the company, consistent to the last. "forgive me, my beautiful," pleads madame dor, "for that i ever was his she-cat!" "she-cat, madame dor? "engaged to sit watching my so charming mouse," are the explanatory words of madame dor, delivered with a penitential sob. "why, you were our best friend! george, dearest, tell madame dor. was she not our best friend?" "undoubtedly, darling. what should we have done without her?" "you are both so generous," cries madame dor, accepting consolation, and immediately relapsing. "but i commenced as a she-cat." "ah! but like the cat in the fairy-story, good madame dor," says vendale, saluting her cheek, "you were a true woman. and, being a true woman, the sympathy of your heart was with true love." "i don't wish to deprive madame dor of her share in the embraces that are going on," mr. bintrey puts in, watch in hand, "and i don't presume to offer any objection to your having got yourselves mixed together, in the corner there, like the three graces. i merely remark that i think it's time we were moving. what are _your_ sentiments on that subject, mr. ladle?" "clear, sir," replies joey, with a gracious grin. "i'm clearer altogether, sir, for having lived so many weeks upon the surface. i never was half so long upon the surface afore, and it's done me a power of good. at cripple corner, i was too much below it. atop of the simpleton, i was a deal too high above it. i've found the medium here, sir. and if ever i take it in convivial, in all the rest of my days, i mean to do it this day, to the toast of 'bless 'em both.'" "i, too!" says bintrey. "and now, monsieur voigt, let you and me be two men of marseilles, and allons, marchons, arm-in-arm!" they go down to the door, where others are waiting for them, and they go quietly to the church, and the happy marriage takes place. while the ceremony is yet in progress, the notary is called out. when it is finished, he has returned, is standing behind vendale, and touches him on the shoulder. "go to the side door, one moment, monsieur vendale. alone. leave madame to me." at the side door of the church, are the same two men from the hospice. they are snow-stained and travel-worn. they wish him joy, and then each lays his broad hand upon vendale's breast, and one says in a low voice, while the other steadfastly regards him: "it is here, monsieur. your litter. the very same." "my litter is here? why?" "hush! for the sake of madame. your companion of that day--" "what of him?" the man looks at his comrade, and his comrade takes him up. each keeps his hand laid earnestly on vendale's breast. "he had been living at the first refuge, monsieur, for some days. the weather was now good, now bad." "yes?" "he arrived at our hospice the day before yesterday, and, having refreshed himself with sleep on the floor before the fire, wrapped in his cloak, was resolute to go on, before dark, to the next hospice. he had a great fear of that part of the way, and thought it would be worse to-morrow." "yes?" "he went on alone. he had passed the gallery when an avalanche--like that which fell behind you near the bridge of the ganther--" "killed him?" "we dug him out, suffocated and broken all to pieces! but, monsieur, as to madame. we have brought him here on the litter, to be buried. we must ascend the street outside. madame must not see. it would be an accursed thing to bring the litter through the arch across the street, until madame has passed through. as you descend, we who accompany the litter will set it down on the stones of the street the second to the right, and will stand before it. but do not let madame turn her head towards the street the second to the right. there is no time to lose. madame will be alarmed by your absence. adieu!" vendale returns to his bride, and draws her hand through his unmainied arm. a pretty procession awaits them at the main door of the church. they take their station in it, and descend the street amidst the ringing of the bells, the firing of the guns, the waving of the flags, the playing of the music, the shouts, the smiles, and tears, of the excited town. heads are uncovered as she passes, hands are kissed to her, all the people bless her. "heaven's benediction on the dear girl! see where she goes in her youth and beauty; she who so nobly saved his life!" near the corner of the street the second to the right, he speaks to her, and calls her attention to the windows on the opposite side. the corner well passed, he says: "do not look round, my darling, for a reason that i have," and turns his head. then, looking back along the street, he sees the litter and its bearers passing up alone under the arch, as he and she and their marriage train go down towards the shining valley. transcribed from the chapman and hall "christmas stories" edition by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk mrs. lirriper's legacy chapter i--mrs. lirriper relates how she went on, and went over ah! it's pleasant to drop into my own easy-chair my dear though a little palpitating what with trotting up-stairs and what with trotting down, and why kitchen stairs should all be corner stairs is for the builders to justify though i do not think they fully understand their trade and never did, else why the sameness and why not more conveniences and fewer draughts and likewise making a practice of laying the plaster on too thick i am well convinced which holds the damp, and as to chimney-pots putting them on by guess-work like hats at a party and no more knowing what their effect will be upon the smoke bless you than i do if so much, except that it will mostly be either to send it down your throat in a straight form or give it a twist before it goes there. and what i says speaking as i find of those new metal chimneys all manner of shapes (there's a row of 'em at miss wozenham's lodging-house lower down on the other side of the way) is that they only work your smoke into artificial patterns for you before you swallow it and that i'd quite as soon swallow mine plain, the flavour being the same, not to mention the conceit of putting up signs on the top of your house to show the forms in which you take your smoke into your inside. being here before your eyes my dear in my own easy-chair in my own quiet room in my own lodging-house number eighty-one norfolk street strand london situated midway between the city and st. james's--if anything is where it used to be with these hotels calling themselves limited but called unlimited by major jackman rising up everywhere and rising up into flagstaffs where they can't go any higher, but my mind of those monsters is give me a landlord's or landlady's wholesome face when i come off a journey and not a brass plate with an electrified number clicking out of it which it's not in nature can be glad to see me and to which i don't want to be hoisted like molasses at the docks and left there telegraphing for help with the most ingenious instruments but quite in vain--being here my dear i have no call to mention that i am still in the lodgings as a business hoping to die in the same and if agreeable to the clergy partly read over at saint clement's danes and concluded in hatfield churchyard when lying once again by my poor lirriper ashes to ashes and dust to dust. neither should i tell you any news my dear in telling you that the major is still a fixture in the parlours quite as much so as the roof of the house, and that jemmy is of boys the best and brightest and has ever had kept from him the cruel story of his poor pretty young mother mrs. edson being deserted in the second floor and dying in my arms, fully believing that i am his born gran and him an orphan, though what with engineering since he took a taste for it and him and the major making locomotives out of parasols broken iron pots and cotton-reels and them absolutely a getting off the line and falling over the table and injuring the passengers almost equal to the originals it really is quite wonderful. and when i says to the major, "major can't you by _any_ means give us a communication with the guard?" the major says quite huffy, "no madam it's not to be done," and when i says "why not?" the major says, "that is between us who are in the railway interest madam and our friend the right honourable vice-president of the board of trade" and if you'll believe me my dear the major wrote to jemmy at school to consult him on the answer i should have before i could get even that amount of unsatisfactoriness out of the man, the reason being that when we first began with the little model and the working signals beautiful and perfect (being in general as wrong as the real) and when i says laughing "what appointment am i to hold in this undertaking gentlemen?" jemmy hugs me round the neck and tells me dancing, "you shall be the public gran" and consequently they put upon me just as much as ever they like and i sit a growling in my easy-chair. my dear whether it is that a grown man as clever as the major cannot give half his heart and mind to anything--even a plaything--but must get into right down earnest with it, whether it is so or whether it is not so i do not undertake to say, but jemmy is far out-done by the serious and believing ways of the major in the management of the united grand junction lirriper and jackman great norfolk parlour line, "for" says my jemmy with the sparkling eyes when it was christened, "we must have a whole mouthful of name gran or our dear old public" and there the young rogue kissed me, "won't stump up." so the public took the shares--ten at ninepence, and immediately when that was spent twelve preference at one and sixpence--and they were all signed by jemmy and countersigned by the major, and between ourselves much better worth the money than some shares i have paid for in my time. in the same holidays the line was made and worked and opened and ran excursions and had collisions and burst its boilers and all sorts of accidents and offences all most regular correct and pretty. the sense of responsibility entertained by the major as a military style of station-master my dear starting the down train behind time and ringing one of those little bells that you buy with the little coal-scuttles off the tray round the man's neck in the street did him honour, but noticing the major of a night when he is writing out his monthly report to jemmy at school of the state of the rolling stock and the permanent way and all the rest of it (the whole kept upon the major's sideboard and dusted with his own hands every morning before varnishing his boots) i notice him as full of thought and care as full can be and frowning in a fearful manner, but indeed the major does nothing by halves as witness his great delight in going out surveying with jemmy when he has jemmy to go with, carrying a chain and a measuring-tape and driving i don't know what improvements right through westminster abbey and fully believed in the streets to be knocking everything upside down by act of parliament. as please heaven will come to pass when jemmy takes to that as a profession! mentioning my poor lirriper brings into my head his own youngest brother the doctor though doctor of what i am sure it would be hard to say unless liquor, for neither physic nor music nor yet law does joshua lirriper know a morsel of except continually being summoned to the county court and having orders made upon him which he runs away from, and once was taken in the passage of this very house with an umbrella up and the major's hat on, giving his name with the door-mat round him as sir johnson jones, k.c.b. in spectacles residing at the horse guards. on which occasion he had got into the house not a minute before, through the girl letting him on the mat when he sent in a piece of paper twisted more like one of those spills for lighting candles than a note, offering me the choice between thirty shillings in hand and his brains on the premises marked immediate and waiting for an answer. my dear it gave me such a dreadful turn to think of the brains of my poor dear lirriper's own flesh and blood flying about the new oilcloth however unworthy to be so assisted, that i went out of my room here to ask him what he would take once for all not to do it for life when i found him in the custody of two gentlemen that i should have judged to be in the feather-bed trade if they had not announced the law, so fluffy were their personal appearance. "bring your chains, sir," says joshua to the littlest of the two in the biggest hat, "rivet on my fetters!" imagine my feelings when i pictered him clanking up norfolk street in irons and miss wozenham looking out of window! "gentlemen," i says all of a tremble and ready to drop "please to bring him into major jackman's apartments." so they brought him into the parlours, and when the major spies his own curly- brimmed hat on him which joshua lirriper had whipped off its peg in the passage for a military disguise he goes into such a tearing passion that he tips it off his head with his hand and kicks it up to the ceiling with his foot where it grazed long afterwards. "major" i says "be cool and advise me what to do with joshua my dead and gone lirriper's own youngest brother." "madam" says the major "my advice is that you board and lodge him in a powder mill, with a handsome gratuity to the proprietor when exploded." "major" i says "as a christian you cannot mean your words." "madam" says the major "by the lord i do!" and indeed the major besides being with all his merits a very passionate man for his size had a bad opinion of joshua on account of former troubles even unattended by liberties taken with his apparel. when joshua lirriper hears this conversation betwixt us he turns upon the littlest one with the biggest hat and says "come sir! remove me to my vile dungeon. where is my mouldy straw?" my dear at the picter of him rising in my mind dressed almost entirely in padlocks like baron trenck in jemmy's book i was so overcome that i burst into tears and i says to the major, "major take my keys and settle with these gentlemen or i shall never know a happy minute more," which was done several times both before and since, but still i must remember that joshua lirriper has his good feelings and shows them in being always so troubled in his mind when he cannot wear mourning for his brother. many a long year have i left off my widow's mourning not being wishful to intrude, but the tender point in joshua that i cannot help a little yielding to is when he writes "one single sovereign would enable me to wear a decent suit of mourning for my much-loved brother. i vowed at the time of his lamented death that i would ever wear sables in memory of him but alas how short-sighted is man, how keep that vow when penniless!" it says a good deal for the strength of his feelings that he couldn't have been seven year old when my poor lirriper died and to have kept to it ever since is highly creditable. but we know there's good in all of us,--if we only knew where it was in some of us,--and though it was far from delicate in joshua to work upon the dear child's feelings when first sent to school and write down into lincolnshire for his pocket- money by return of post and got it, still he is my poor lirriper's own youngest brother and mightn't have meant not paying his bill at the salisbury arms when his affection took him down to stay a fortnight at hatfield churchyard and might have meant to keep sober but for bad company. consequently if the major _had_ played on him with the garden- engine which he got privately into his room without my knowing of it, i think that much as i should have regretted it there would have been words betwixt the major and me. therefore my dear though he played on mr. buffle by mistake being hot in his head, and though it might have been misrepresented down at wozenham's into not being ready for mr. buffle in other respects he being the assessed taxes, still i do not so much regret it as perhaps i ought. and whether joshua lirriper will yet do well in life i cannot say, but i did hear of his coming, out at a private theatre in the character of a bandit without receiving any offers afterwards from the regular managers. mentioning mr. baffle gives an instance of there being good in persons where good is not expected, for it cannot be denied that mr. buffle's manners when engaged in his business were not agreeable. to collect is one thing, and to look about as if suspicious of the goods being gradually removing in the dead of the night by a back door is another, over taxing you have no control but suspecting is voluntary. allowances too must ever be made for a gentleman of the major's warmth not relishing being spoke to with a pen in the mouth, and while i do not know that it is more irritable to my own feelings to have a low-crowned hat with a broad brim kept on in doors than any other hat still i can appreciate the major's, besides which without bearing malice or vengeance the major is a man that scores up arrears as his habit always was with joshua lirriper. so at last my dear the major lay in wait for mr. buffle, and it worrited me a good deal. mr. buffle gives his rap of two sharp knocks one day and the major bounces to the door. "collector has called for two quarters' assessed taxes" says mr. buffle. "they are ready for him" says the major and brings him in here. but on the way mr. buffle looks about him in his usual suspicious manner and the major fires and asks him "do you see a ghost sir?" "no sir" says mr. buffle. "because i have before noticed you" says the major "apparently looking for a spectre very hard beneath the roof of my respected friend. when you find that supernatural agent, be so good as point him out sir." mr. buffle stares at the major and then nods at me. "mrs. lirriper sir" says the major going off into a perfect steam and introducing me with his hand. "pleasure of knowing her" says mr. buffle. "a--hum!--jemmy jackman sir!" says the major introducing himself. "honour of knowing you by sight" says mr. buffle. "jemmy jackman sir" says the major wagging his head sideways in a sort of obstinate fury "presents to you his esteemed friend that lady mrs. emma lirriper of eighty-one norfolk street strand london in the county of middlesex in the united kingdom of great britain and ireland. upon which occasion sir," says the major, "jemmy jackman takes your hat off." mr. buffle looks at his hat where the major drops it on the floor, and he picks it up and puts it on again. "sir" says the major very red and looking him full in the face "there are two quarters of the gallantry taxes due and the collector has called." upon which if you can believe my words my dear the major drops mr. buffle's hat off again. "this--" mr. buffle begins very angry with his pen in his mouth, when the major steaming more and more says "take your bit out sir! or by the whole infernal system of taxation of this country and every individual figure in the national debt, i'll get upon your back and ride you like a horse!" which it's my belief he would have done and even actually jerking his neat little legs ready for a spring as it was. "this," says mr. buffle without his pen "is an assault and i'll have the law of you." "sir" replies the major "if you are a man of honour, your collector of whatever may be due on the honourable assessment by applying to major jackman at the parlours mrs. lirriper's lodgings, may obtain what he wants in full at any moment." when the major glared at mr. buffle with those meaning words my dear i literally gasped for a teaspoonful of salvolatile in a wine-glass of water, and i says "pray let it go no farther gentlemen i beg and beseech of you!" but the major could be got to do nothing else but snort long after mr. buffle was gone, and the effect it had upon my whole mass of blood when on the next day of mr. buffle's rounds the major spruced himself up and went humming a tune up and down the street with one eye almost obliterated by his hat there are not expressions in johnson's dictionary to state. but i safely put the street door on the jar and got behind the major's blinds with my shawl on and my mind made up the moment i saw danger to rush out screeching till my voice failed me and catch the major round the neck till my strength went and have all parties bound. i had not been behind the blinds a quarter of an hour when i saw mr. buffle approaching with his collecting-books in his hand. the major likewise saw him approaching and hummed louder and himself approached. they met before the airy railings. the major takes off his hat at arm's length and says "mr. buffle i believe?" mr. buffle takes off _his_ hat at arm's length and says "that is my name sir." says the major "have you any commands for me, mr. buffle?" says mr. buffle "not any sir." then my dear both of 'em bowed very low and haughty and parted, and whenever mr. buffle made his rounds in future him and the major always met and bowed before the airy railings, putting me much in mind of hamlet and the other gentleman in mourning before killing one another, though i could have wished the other gentleman had done it fairer and even if less polite no poison. mr. buffle's family were not liked in this neighbourhood, for when you are a householder my dear you'll find it does not come by nature to like the assessed, and it was considered besides that a one-horse pheayton ought not to have elevated mrs. buffle to that height especially when purloined from the taxes which i myself did consider uncharitable. but they were _not_ liked and there was that domestic unhappiness in the family in consequence of their both being very hard with miss buffle and one another on account of miss buffle's favouring mr. buffle's articled young gentleman, that it _was_ whispered that miss buffle would go either into a consumption or a convent she being so very thin and off her appetite and two close-shaved gentlemen with white bands round their necks peeping round the corner whenever she went out in waistcoats resembling black pinafores. so things stood towards mr. buffle when one night i was woke by a frightful noise and a smell of burning, and going to my bedroom window saw the whole street in a glow. fortunately we had two sets empty just then and before i could hurry on some clothes i heard the major hammering at the attics' doors and calling out "dress yourselves!--fire! don't be frightened!--fire! collect your presence of mind!--fire! all right--fire!" most tremenjously. as i opened my bedroom door the major came tumbling in over himself and me, and caught me in his arms. "major" i says breathless "where is it?" "i don't know dearest madam" says the major--"fire! jemmy jackman will defend you to the last drop of his blood--fire! if the dear boy was at home what a treat this would be for him--fire!" and altogether very collected and bold except that he couldn't say a single sentence without shaking me to the very centre with roaring fire. we ran down to the drawing-room and put our heads out of window, and the major calls to an unfeeling young monkey, scampering by be joyful and ready to split "where is it?--fire!" the monkey answers without stopping "o here's a lark! old buffle's been setting his house alight to prevent its being found out that he boned the taxes. hurrah! fire!" and then the sparks came flying up and the smoke came pouring down and the crackling of flames and spatting of water and banging of engines and hacking of axes and breaking of glass and knocking at doors and the shouting and crying and hurrying and the heat and altogether gave me a dreadful palpitation. "don't be frightened dearest madam," says the major, "--fire! there's nothing to be alarmed at--fire! don't open the street door till i come back--fire! i'll go and see if i can be of any service--fire! you're quite composed and comfortable ain't you?--fire, fire, fire!" it was in vain for me to hold the man and tell him he'd be galloped to death by the engines--pumped to death by his over- exertions--wet-feeted to death by the slop and mess--flattened to death when the roofs fell in--his spirit was up and he went scampering off after the young monkey with all the breath he had and none to spare, and me and the girls huddled together at the parlour windows looking at the dreadful flames above the houses over the way, mr. buffle's being round the corner. presently what should we see but some people running down the street straight to our door, and then the major directing operations in the busiest way, and then some more people and then--carried in a chair similar to guy fawkes--mr. buffle in a blanket! my dear the major has mr. buffle brought up our steps and whisked into the parlour and carted out on the sofy, and then he and all the rest of them without so much as a word burst away again full speed leaving the impression of a vision except for mr. buffle awful in his blanket with his eyes a rolling. in a twinkling they all burst back again with mrs. buffle in another blanket, which whisked in and carted out on the sofy they all burst off again and all burst back again with miss buffle in another blanket, which again whisked in and carted out they all burst off again and all burst back again with mr. buffle's articled young gentleman in another blanket--him a holding round the necks of two men carrying him by the legs, similar to the picter of the disgraceful creetur who has lost the fight (but where the chair i do not know) and his hair having the appearance of newly played upon. when all four of a row, the major rubs his hands and whispers me with what little hoarseness he can get together, "if our dear remarkable boy was only at home what a delightful treat this would be for him!" my dear we made them some hot tea and toast and some hot brandy-and-water with a little comfortable nutmeg in it, and at first they were scared and low in their spirits but being fully insured got sociable. and the first use mr. buffle made of his tongue was to call the major his preserver and his best of friends and to say "my for ever dearest sir let me make you known to mrs. buffle" which also addressed him as her preserver and her best of friends and was fully as cordial as the blanket would admit of. also miss buffle. the articled young gentleman's head was a little light and he sat a moaning "robina is reduced to cinders, robina is reduced to cinders!" which went more to the heart on account of his having got wrapped in his blanket as if he was looking out of a violinceller case, until mr. buffle says "robina speak to him!" miss buffle says "dear george!" and but for the major's pouring down brandy-and-water on the instant which caused a catching in his throat owing to the nutmeg and a violent fit of coughing it might have proved too much for his strength. when the articled young gentleman got the better of it mr. buffle leaned up against mrs. buffle being two bundles, a little while in confidence, and then says with tears in his eyes which the major noticing wiped, "we have not been an united family, let us after this danger become so, take her george." the young gentleman could not put his arm out far to do it, but his spoken expressions were very beautiful though of a wandering class. and i do not know that i ever had a much pleasanter meal than the breakfast we took together after we had all dozed, when miss buffle made tea very sweetly in quite the roman style as depicted formerly at covent garden theatre and when the whole family was most agreeable, as they have ever proved since that night when the major stood at the foot of the fire- escape and claimed them as they came down--the young gentleman head-foremost, which accounts. and though i do not say that we should be less liable to think ill of one another if strictly limited to blankets, still i do say that we might most of us come to a better understanding if we kept one another less at a distance. why there's wozenham's lower down on the other side of the street. i had a feeling of much soreness several years respecting what i must still ever call miss wozenham's systematic underbidding and the likeness of the house in bradshaw having far too many windows and a most umbrageous and outrageous oak which never yet was seen in norfolk street nor yet a carriage and four at wozenham's door, which it would have been far more to bradshaw's credit to have drawn a cab. this frame of mind continued bitter down to the very afternoon in january last when one of my girls, sally rairyganoo which i still suspect of irish extraction though family represented cambridge, else why abscond with a bricklayer of the limerick persuasion and be married in pattens not waiting till his black eye was decently got round with all the company fourteen in number and one horse fighting outside on the roof of the vehicle,--i repeat my dear my ill- regulated state of mind towards miss wozenham continued down to the very afternoon of january last past when sally rairyganoo came banging (i can use no milder expression) into my room with a jump which may be cambridge and may not, and said "hurroo missis! miss wozenham's sold up!" my dear when i had it thrown in my face and conscience that the girl sally had reason to think i could be glad of the ruin of a fellow-creeter, i burst into tears and dropped back in my chair and i says "i am ashamed of myself!" well! i tried to settle to my tea but i could not do it what with thinking of miss wozenham and her distresses. it was a wretched night and i went up to a front window and looked over at wozenham's and as well as i could make it out down the street in the fog it was the dismallest of the dismal and not a light to be seen. so at last i save to myself "this will not do," and i puts on my oldest bonnet and shawl not wishing miss wozenham to be reminded of my best at such a time, and lo and behold you i goes over to wozenham's and knocks. "miss wozenham at home?" i says turning my head when i heard the door go. and then i saw it was miss wozenham herself who had opened it and sadly worn she was poor thing and her eyes all swelled and swelled with crying. "miss wozenham" i says "it is several years since there was a little unpleasantness betwixt us on the subject of my grandson's cap being down your airy. i have overlooked it and i hope you have done the same." "yes mrs. lirriper" she says in a surprise, "i have." "then my dear" i says "i should be glad to come in and speak a word to you." upon my calling her my dear miss wozenham breaks out a crying most pitiful, and a not unfeeling elderly person that might have been better shaved in a nightcap with a hat over it offering a polite apology for the mumps having worked themselves into his constitution, and also for sending home to his wife on the bellows which was in his hand as a writing-desk, looks out of the back parlour and says "the lady wants a word of comfort" and goes in again. so i was able to say quite natural "wants a word of comfort does she sir? then please the pigs she shall have it!" and miss wozenham and me we go into the front room with a wretched light that seemed to have been crying too and was sputtering out, and i says "now my dear, tell me all," and she wrings her hands and says "o mrs. lirriper that man is in possession here, and i have not a friend in the world who is able to help me with a shilling." it doesn't signify a bit what a talkative old body like me said to miss wozenham when she said that, and so i'll tell you instead my dear that i'd have given thirty shillings to have taken her over to tea, only i durstn't on account of the major. not you see but what i knew i could draw the major out like thread and wind him round my finger on most subjects and perhaps even on that if i was to set myself to it, but him and me had so often belied miss wozenham to one another that i was shamefaced, and i knew she had offended his pride and never mine, and likewise i felt timid that that rairyganoo girl might make things awkward. so i says "my dear if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head i should better understand your affairs." and we had the tea and the affairs too and after all it was but forty pound, and--there! she's as industrious and straight a creeter as ever lived and has paid back half of it already, and where's the use of saying more, particularly when it ain't the point? for the point is that when she was a kissing my hands and holding them in hers and kissing them again and blessing blessing blessing, i cheered up at last and i says "why what a waddling old goose i have been my dear to take you for something so very different!" "ah but i too" says she "how have _i_ mistaken _you_!" "come for goodness' sake tell me" i says "what you thought of me?" "o" says she "i thought you had no feeling for such a hard hand-to-mouth life as mine, and were rolling in affluence." i says shaking my sides (and very glad to do it for i had been a choking quite long enough) "only look at my figure my dear and give me your opinion whether if i was in affluence i should be likely to roll in it?" that did it? we got as merry as grigs (whatever _they_ are, if you happen to know my dear--_i_ don't) and i went home to my blessed home as happy and as thankful as could be. but before i make an end of it, think even of my having misunderstood the major! yes! for next forenoon the major came into my little room with his brushed hat in his hand and he begins "my dearest madam--" and then put his face in his hat as if he had just come into church. as i sat all in a maze he came out of his hat and began again. "my esteemed and beloved friend--" and then went into his hat again. "major," i cries out frightened "has anything happened to our darling boy?" "no, no, no" says the major "but miss wozenham has been here this morning to make her excuses to me, and by the lord i can't get over what she told me." "hoity toity, major," i says "you don't know yet that i was afraid of you last night and didn't think half as well of you as i ought! so come out of church major and forgive me like a dear old friend and i'll never do so any more." and i leave you to judge my dear whether i ever did or will. and how affecting to think of miss wozenham out of her small income and her losses doing so much for her poor old father, and keeping a brother that had had the misfortune to soften his brain against the hard mathematics as neat as a new pin in the three back represented to lodgers as a lumber-room and consuming a whole shoulder of mutton whenever provided! and now my dear i really am a going to tell you about my legacy if you're inclined to favour me with your attention, and i did fully intend to have come straight to it only one thing does so bring up another. it was the month of june and the day before midsummer day when my girl winifred madgers--she was what is termed a plymouth sister, and the plymouth brother that made away with her was quite right, for a tidier young woman for a wife never came into a house and afterwards called with the beautifullest plymouth twins--it was the day before midsummer day when winifred madgers comes and says to me "a gentleman from the consul's wishes particular to speak to mrs. lirriper." if you'll believe me my dear the consols at the bank where i have a little matter for jemmy got into my head, and i says "good gracious i hope he ain't had any dreadful fall!" says winifred "he don't look as if he had ma'am." and i says "show him in." the gentleman came in dark and with his hair cropped what i should consider too close, and he says very polite "madame lirrwiper!" i says, "yes sir. take a chair." "i come," says he "frrwom the frrwench consul's." so i saw at once that it wasn't the bank of england. "we have rrweceived," says the gentleman turning his r's very curious and skilful, "frrwom the mairrwie at sens, a communication which i will have the honour to rrwead. madame lirrwiper understands frrwench?" "o dear no sir!" says i. "madame lirriper don't understand anything of the sort." "it matters not," says the gentleman, "i will trrwanslate." with that my dear the gentleman after reading something about a department and a marie (which lord forgive me i supposed till the major came home was mary, and never was i more puzzled than to think how that young woman came to have so much to do with it) translated a lot with the most obliging pains, and it came to this:--that in the town of sons in france an unknown englishman lay a dying. that he was speechless and without motion. that in his lodging there was a gold watch and a purse containing such and such money and a trunk containing such and such clothes, but no passport and no papers, except that on his table was a pack of cards and that he had written in pencil on the back of the ace of hearts: "to the authorities. when i am dead, pray send what is left, as a last legacy, to mrs. lirriper eighty-one norfolk street strand london." when the gentleman had explained all this, which seemed to be drawn up much more methodical than i should have given the french credit for, not at that time knowing the nation, he put the document into my hand. and much the wiser i was for that you may be sure, except that it had the look of being made out upon grocery paper and was stamped all over with eagles. "does madame lirrwiper" says the gentleman "believe she rrwecognises her unfortunate compatrrwiot?" you may imagine the flurry it put me into my dear to be talked to about my compatriots. i says "excuse me. would you have the kindness sir to make your language as simple as you can?" "this englishman unhappy, at the point of death. this compatrrwiot afflicted," says the gentleman. "thank you sir" i says "i understand you now. no sir i have not the least idea who this can be." "has madame lirrwiper no son, no nephew, no godson, no frrwiend, no acquaintance of any kind in frrwance?" "to my certain knowledge" says i "no relation or friend, and to the best of my belief no acquaintance." "pardon me. you take locataires?" says the gentleman. my dear fully believing he was offering me something with his obliging foreign manners,--snuff for anything i knew,--i gave a little bend of my head and i says if you'll credit it, "no i thank you. i have not contracted the habit." the gentleman looks perplexed and says "lodgers!" "oh!" says i laughing. "bless the man! why yes to be sure!" "may it not be a former lodger?" says the gentleman. "some lodger that you pardoned some rrwent? you have pardoned lodgers some rrwent?" "hem! it has happened sir" says i, "but i assure you i can call to mind no gentleman of that description that this is at all likely to be." in short my dear, we could make nothing of it, and the gentleman noted down what i said and went away. but he left me the paper of which he had two with him, and when the major came in i says to the major as i put it in his hand "major here's old moore's almanac with the hieroglyphic complete, for your opinion." it took the major a little longer to read than i should have thought, judging from the copious flow with which he seemed to be gifted when attacking the organ-men, but at last he got through it, and stood a gazing at me in amazement. "major" i says "you're paralysed." "madam" says the major, "jemmy jackman is doubled up." now it did so happen that the major had been out to get a little information about railroads and steamboats, as our boy was coming home for his midsummer holidays next day and we were going to take him somewhere for a treat and a change. so while the major stood a gazing it came into my head to say to him "major i wish you'd go and look at some of your books and maps, and see whereabouts this same town of sens is in france." the major he roused himself and he went into the parlours and he poked about a little, and he came back to me and he says, "sens my dearest madam is seventy-odd miles south of paris." with what i may truly call a desperate effort "major," i says "we'll go there with our blessed boy." if ever the major was beside himself it was at the thoughts of that journey. all day long he was like the wild man of the woods after meeting with an advertisement in the papers telling him something to his advantage, and early next morning hours before jemmy could possibly come home he was outside in the street ready to call out to him that we was all a going to france. young rosycheeks you may believe was as wild as the major, and they did carry on to that degree that i says "if you two children ain't more orderly i'll pack you both off to bed." and then they fell to cleaning up the major's telescope to see france with, and went out and bought a leather bag with a snap to hang round jemmy, and him to carry the money like a little fortunatus with his purse. if i hadn't passed my word and raised their hopes, i doubt if i could have gone through with the undertaking but it was too late to go back now. so on the second day after midsummer day we went off by the morning mail. and when we came to the sea which i had never seen but once in my life and that when my poor lirriper was courting me, the freshness of it and the deepness and the airiness and to think that it had been rolling ever since and that it was always a rolling and so few of us minding, made me feel quite serious. but i felt happy too and so did jemmy and the major and not much motion on the whole, though me with a swimming in the head and a sinking but able to take notice that the foreign insides appear to be constructed hollower than the english, leading to much more tremenjous noises when bad sailors. but my dear the blueness and the lightness and the coloured look of everything and the very sentry-boxes striped and the shining rattling drums and the little soldiers with their waists and tidy gaiters, when we got across to the continent--it made me feel as if i don't know what--as if the atmosphere had been lifted off me. and as to lunch why bless you if i kept a man-cook and two kitchen-maids i couldn't got it done for twice the money, and no injured young woman a glaring at you and grudging you and acknowledging your patronage by wishing that your food might choke you, but so civil and so hot and attentive and every way comfortable except jemmy pouring wine down his throat by tumblers-full and me expecting to see him drop under the table. and the way in which jemmy spoke his french was a real charm. it was often wanted of him, for whenever anybody spoke a syllable to me i says "non-comprenny, you're very kind, but it's no use--now jemmy!" and then jemmy he fires away at 'em lovely, the only thing wanting in jemmy's french being as it appeared to me that he hardly ever understood a word of what they said to him which made it scarcely of the use it might have been though in other respects a perfect native, and regarding the major's fluency i should have been of the opinion judging french by english that there might have been a greater choice of words in the language though still i must admit that if i hadn't known him when he asked a military gentleman in a gray cloak what o'clock it was i should have took him for a frenchman born. before going on to look after my legacy we were to make one regular day in paris, and i leave you to judge my dear what a day _that_ was with jemmy and the major and the telescope and me and the prowling young man at the inn door (but very civil too) that went along with us to show the sights. all along the railway to paris jemmy and the major had been frightening me to death by stooping down on the platforms at stations to inspect the engines underneath their mechanical stomachs, and by creeping in and out i don't know where all, to find improvements for the united grand junction parlour, but when we got out into the brilliant streets on a bright morning they gave up all their london improvements as a bad job and gave their minds to paris. says the prowling young man to me "will i speak inglis no?" so i says "if you can young man i shall take it as a favour," but after half-an-hour of it when i fully believed the man had gone mad and me too i says "be so good as fall back on your french sir," knowing that then i shouldn't have the agonies of trying to understand him, which was a happy release. not that i lost much more than the rest either, for i generally noticed that when he had described something very long indeed and i says to jemmy "what does he say jemmy?" jemmy says looking with vengeance in his eye "he is so jolly indistinct!" and that when he had described it longer all over again and i says to jemmy "well jemmy what's it all about?" jemmy says "he says the building was repaired in seventeen hundred and four, gran." wherever that prowling young man formed his prowling habits i cannot be expected to know, but the way in which he went round the corner while we had our breakfasts and was there again when we swallowed the last crumb was most marvellous, and just the same at dinner and at night, prowling equally at the theatre and the inn gateway and the shop doors when we bought a trifle or two and everywhere else but troubled with a tendency to spit. and of paris i can tell you no more my dear than that it's town and country both in one, and carved stone and long streets of high houses and gardens and fountains and statues and trees and gold, and immensely big soldiers and immensely little soldiers and the pleasantest nurses with the whitest caps a playing at skipping-rope with the bunchiest babies in the flattest caps, and clean table-cloths spread everywhere for dinner and people sitting out of doors smoking and sipping all day long and little plays being acted in the open air for little people and every shop a complete and elegant room, and everybody seeming to play at everything in this world. and as to the sparkling lights my dear after dark, glittering high up and low down and on before and on behind and all round, and the crowd of theatres and the crowd of people and the crowd of all sorts, it's pure enchantment. and pretty well the only thing that grated on me was that whether you pay your fare at the railway or whether you change your money at a money-dealer's or whether you take your ticket at the theatre, the lady or gentleman is caged up (i suppose by government) behind the strongest iron bars having more of a zoological appearance than a free country. well to be sure when i did after all get my precious bones to bed that night, and my young rogue came in to kiss me and asks "what do you think of this lovely lovely paris, gran?" i says "jemmy i feel as if it was beautiful fireworks being let off in my head." and very cool and refreshing the pleasant country was next day when we went on to look after my legacy, and rested me much and did me a deal of good. so at length and at last my dear we come to sens, a pretty little town with a great two-towered cathedral and the rooks flying in and out of the loopholes and another tower atop of one of the towers like a sort of a stone pulpit. in which pulpit with the birds skimming below him if you'll believe me, i saw a speck while i was resting at the inn before dinner which they made signs to me was jemmy and which really was. i had been a fancying as i sat in the balcony of the hotel that an angel might light there and call down to the people to be good, but i little thought what jemmy all unknown to himself was a calling down from that high place to some one in the town. the pleasantest-situated inn my dear! right under the two towers, with their shadows a changing upon it all day like a kind of a sundial, and country people driving in and out of the courtyard in carts and hooded cabriolets and such like, and a market outside in front of the cathedral, and all so quaint and like a picter. the major and me agreed that whatever came of my legacy this was the place to stay in for our holiday, and we also agreed that our dear boy had best not be checked in his joy that night by the sight of the englishman if he was still alive, but that we would go together and alone. for you are to understand that the major not feeling himself quite equal in his wind to the height to which jemmy had climbed, had come back to me and left him with the guide. so after dinner when jemmy had set off to see the river, the major went down to the mairie, and presently came back with a military character in a sword and spurs and a cocked hat and a yellow shoulder-belt and long tags about him that he must have found inconvenient. and the major says "the englishman still lies in the same state dearest madam. this gentleman will conduct us to his lodging." upon which the military character pulled off his cocked hat to me, and i took notice that he had shaved his forehead in imitation of napoleon bonaparte but not like. we wont out at the courtyard gate and past the great doors of the cathedral and down a narrow high street where the people were sitting chatting at their shop doors and the children were at play. the military character went in front and he stopped at a pork-shop with a little statue of a pig sitting up, in the window, and a private door that a donkey was looking out of. when the donkey saw the military character he came slipping out on the pavement to turn round and then clattered along the passage into a back yard. so the coast being clear, the major and me were conducted up the common stair and into the front room on the second, a bare room with a red tiled floor and the outside lattice blinds pulled close to darken it. as the military character opened the blinds i saw the tower where i had seen jemmy, darkening as the sun got low, and i turned to the bed by the wall and saw the englishman. it was some kind of brain fever he had had, and his hair was all gone, and some wetted folded linen lay upon his head. i looked at him very attentive as he lay there all wasted away with his eyes closed, and i says to the major-- "_i_ never saw this face before." the major looked at him very attentive too, and he says "i never saw this face before." when the major explained our words to the military character, that gentleman shrugged his shoulders and showed the major the card on which it was written about the legacy for me. it had been written with a weak and trembling hand in bed, and i knew no more of the writing than of the face. neither did the major. though lying there alone, the poor creetur was as well taken care of as could be hoped, and would have been quite unconscious of any one's sitting by him then. i got the major to say that we were not going away at present and that i would come back to-morrow and watch a bit by the bedside. but i got him to add--and i shook my head hard to make it stronger--"we agree that we never saw this face before." our boy was greatly surprised when we told him sitting out in the balcony in the starlight, and he ran over some of those stories of former lodgers, of the major's putting down, and asked wasn't it possible that it might be this lodger or that lodger. it was not possible, and we went to bed. in the morning just at breakfast-time the military character came jingling round, and said that the doctor thought from the signs he saw there might be some rally before the end. so i says to the major and jemmy, "you two boys go and enjoy yourselves, and i'll take my prayer book and go sit by the bed." so i went, and i sat there some hours, reading a prayer for him poor soul now and then, and it was quite on in the day when he moved his hand. he had been so still, that the moment he moved i knew of it, and i pulled off my spectacles and laid down my book and rose and looked at him. from moving one hand he began to move both, and then his action was the action of a person groping in the dark. long after his eyes had opened, there was a film over them and he still felt for his way out into light. but by slow degrees his sight cleared and his hands stopped. he saw the ceiling, he saw the wall, he saw me. as his sight cleared, mine cleared too, and when at last we looked in one another's faces, i started back, and i cries passionately: "o you wicked wicked man! your sin has found you out!" for i knew him, the moment life looked out of his eyes, to be mr. edson, jemmy's father who had so cruelly deserted jemmy's young unmarried mother who had died in my arms, poor tender creetur, and left jemmy to me. "you cruel wicked man! you bad black traitor!" with the little strength he had, he made an attempt to turn over on his wretched face to hide it. his arm dropped out of the bed and his head with it, and there he lay before me crushed in body and in mind. surely the miserablest sight under the summer sun! "o blessed heaven," i says a crying, "teach me what to say to this broken mortal! i am a poor sinful creetur, and the judgment is not mine." as i lifted my eyes up to the clear bright sky, i saw the high tower where jemmy had stood above the birds, seeing that very window; and the last look of that poor pretty young mother when her soul brightened and got free, seemed to shine down from it. "o man, man, man!" i says, and i went on my knees beside the bed; "if your heart is rent asunder and you are truly penitent for what you did, our saviour will have mercy on you yet!" as i leaned my face against the bed, his feeble hand could just move itself enough to touch me. i hope the touch was penitent. it tried to hold my dress and keep hold, but the fingers were too weak to close. i lifted him back upon the pillows and i says to him: "can you hear me?" he looked yes. "do you know me?" he looked yes, even yet more plainly. "i am not here alone. the major is with me. you recollect the major?" yes. that is to say he made out yes, in the same way as before. "and even the major and i are not alone. my grandson--his godson--is with us. do you hear? my grandson." the fingers made another trial to catch my sleeve, but could only creep near it and fall. "do you know who my grandson is?" yes. "i pitied and loved his lonely mother. when his mother lay a dying i said to her, 'my dear, this baby is sent to a childless old woman.' he has been my pride and joy ever since. i love him as dearly as if he had drunk from my breast. do you ask to see my grandson before you die?" yes. "show me, when i leave off speaking, if you correctly understand what i say. he has been kept unacquainted with the story of his birth. he has no knowledge of it. no suspicion of it. if i bring him here to the side of this bed, he will suppose you to be a perfect stranger. it is more than i can do to keep from him the knowledge that there is such wrong and misery in the world; but that it was ever so near him in his innocent cradle i have kept from him, and i do keep from him, and i ever will keep from him, for his mother's sake, and for his own." he showed me that he distinctly understood, and the tears fell from his eyes. "now rest, and you shall see him." so i got him a little wine and some brandy, and i put things straight about his bed. but i began to be troubled in my mind lest jemmy and the major might be too long of coming back. what with this occupation for my thoughts and hands, i didn't hear a foot upon the stairs, and was startled when i saw the major stopped short in the middle of the room by the eyes of the man upon the bed, and knowing him then, as i had known him a little while ago. there was anger in the major's face, and there was horror and repugnance and i don't know what. so i went up to him and i led him to the bedside, and when i clasped my hands and lifted of them up, the major did the like. "o lord" i says "thou knowest what we two saw together of the sufferings and sorrows of that young creetur now with thee. if this dying man is truly penitent, we two together humbly pray thee to have mercy on him!" the major says "amen!" and then after a little stop i whispers him, "dear old friend fetch our beloved boy." and the major, so clever as to have got to understand it all without being told a word, went away and brought him. never never never shall i forget the fair bright face of our boy when he stood at the foot of the bed, looking at his unknown father. and o so like his dear young mother then! "jemmy" i says, "i have found out all about this poor gentleman who is so ill, and he did lodge in the old house once. and as he wants to see all belonging to it, now that he is passing away, i sent for you." "ah poor man!" says jemmy stepping forward and touching one of his hands with great gentleness. "my heart melts for him. poor, poor man!" the eyes that were so soon to close for ever turned to me, and i was not that strong in the pride of my strength that i could resist them. "my darling boy, there is a reason in the secret history of this fellow- creetur lying as the best and worst of us must all lie one day, which i think would ease his spirit in his last hour if you would lay your cheek against his forehead and say, 'may god forgive you!'" "o gran," says jemmy with a full heart, "i am not worthy!" but he leaned down and did it. then the faltering fingers made out to catch hold of my sleeve at last, and i believe he was a-trying to kiss me when he died. * * * * * there my dear! there you have the story of my legacy in full, and it's worth ten times the trouble i have spent upon it if you are pleased to like it. you might suppose that it set us against the little french town of sens, but no we didn't find that. i found myself that i never looked up at the high tower atop of the other tower, but the days came back again when that fair young creetur with her pretty bright hair trusted in me like a mother, and the recollection made the place so peaceful to me as i can't express. and every soul about the hotel down to the pigeons in the courtyard made friends with jemmy and the major, and went lumbering away with them on all sorts of expeditions in all sorts of vehicles drawn by rampagious cart-horses,--with heads and without,--mud for paint and ropes for harness,--and every new friend dressed in blue like a butcher, and every new horse standing on his hind legs wanting to devour and consume every other horse, and every man that had a whip to crack crack-crack- crack-crack-cracking it as if it was a schoolboy with his first. as to the major my dear that man lived the greater part of his time with a little tumbler in one hand and a bottle of small wine in the other, and whenever he saw anybody else with a little tumbler, no matter who it was,--the military character with the tags, or the inn-servants at their supper in the courtyard, or townspeople a chatting on a bench, or country people a starting home after market,--down rushes the major to clink his glass against their glasses and cry,--hola! vive somebody! or vive something! as if he was beside himself. and though i could not quite approve of the major's doing it, still the ways of the world are the ways of the world varying according to the different parts of it, and dancing at all in the open square with a lady that kept a barber's shop my opinion is that the major was right to dance his best and to lead off with a power that i did not think was in him, though i was a little uneasy at the barricading sound of the cries that were set up by the other dancers and the rest of the company, until when i says "what are they ever calling out jemmy?" jemmy says, "they're calling out gran, bravo the military english! bravo the military english!" which was very gratifying to my feelings as a briton and became the name the major was known by. but every evening at a regular time we all three sat out in the balcony of the hotel at the end of the courtyard, looking up at the golden and rosy light as it changed on the great towers, and looking at the shadows of the towers as they changed on all about us ourselves included, and what do you think we did there? my dear, if jemmy hadn't brought some other of those stories of the major's taking down from the telling of former lodgers at eighty-one norfolk street, and if he didn't bring 'em out with this speech: "here you are gran! here you are godfather! more of 'em! i'll read. and though you wrote 'em for me, godfather, i know you won't disapprove of my making 'em over to gran; will you?" "no, my dear boy," says the major. "everything we have is hers, and we are hers." "hers ever affectionately and devotedly j. jackman, and j. jackman lirriper," cries the young rogue giving me a close hug. "very well then godfather. look here. as gran is in the legacy way just now, i shall make these stories a part of gran's legacy. i'll leave 'em to her. what do you say godfather?" "hip hip hurrah!" says the major. "very well then," cries jemmy all in a bustle. "vive the military english! vive the lady lirriper! vive the jemmy jackman ditto! vive the legacy! now, you look out, gran. and you look out, godfather. _i'll_ read! and i'll tell you what i'll do besides. on the last night of our holiday here when we are all packed and going away, i'll top up with something of my own." "mind you do sir" says i. chapter ii--mrs. lirriper relates how jemmy topped up well my dear and so the evening readings of those jottings of the major's brought us round at last to the evening when we were all packed and going away next day, and i do assure you that by that time though it was deliciously comfortable to look forward to the dear old house in norfolk street again, i had formed quite a high opinion of the french nation and had noticed them to be much more homely and domestic in their families and far more simple and amiable in their lives than i had ever been led to expect, and it did strike me between ourselves that in one particular they might be imitated to advantage by another nation which i will not mention, and that is in the courage with which they take their little enjoyments on little means and with little things and don't let solemn big-wigs stare them out of countenance or speechify them dull, of which said solemn big-wigs i have ever had the one opinion that i wish they were all made comfortable separately in coppers with the lids on and never let out any more. "now young man," i says to jemmy when we brought our chairs into the balcony that last evening, "you please to remember who was to 'top up.'" "all right gran" says jemmy. "i am the illustrious personage." but he looked so serious after he had made me that light answer, that the major raised his eyebrows at me and i raised mine at the major. "gran and godfather," says jemmy, "you can hardly think how much my mind has run on mr. edson's death." it gave me a little check. "ah! it was a sad scene my love" i says, "and sad remembrances come back stronger than merry. but this" i says after a little silence, to rouse myself and the major and jemmy all together, "is not topping up. tell us your story my dear." "i will" says jemmy. "what is the date sir?" says i. "once upon a time when pigs drank wine?" "no gran," says jemmy, still serious; "once upon a time when the french drank wine." again i glanced at the major, and the major glanced at me. "in short, gran and godfather," says jemmy, looking up, "the date is this time, and i'm going to tell you mr. edson's story." the flutter that it threw me into. the change of colour on the part of the major! "that is to say, you understand," our bright-eyed boy says, "i am going to give you my version of it. i shall not ask whether it's right or not, firstly because you said you knew very little about it, gran, and secondly because what little you did know was a secret." i folded my hands in my lap and i never took my eyes off jemmy as he went running on. "the unfortunate gentleman" jemmy commences, "who is the subject of our present narrative was the son of somebody, and was born somewhere, and chose a profession somehow. it is not with those parts of his career that we have to deal; but with his early attachment to a young and beautiful lady." i thought i should have dropped. i durstn't look at the major; but i know what his state was, without looking at him. "the father of our ill-starred hero" says jemmy, copying as it seemed to me the style of some of his story-books, "was a worldly man who entertained ambitious views for his only son and who firmly set his face against the contemplated alliance with a virtuous but penniless orphan. indeed he went so far as roundly to assure our hero that unless he weaned his thoughts from the object of his devoted affection, he would disinherit him. at the same time, he proposed as a suitable match the daughter of a neighbouring gentleman of a good estate, who was neither ill-favoured nor unamiable, and whose eligibility in a pecuniary point of view could not be disputed. but young mr. edson, true to the first and only love that had inflamed his breast, rejected all considerations of self-advancement, and, deprecating his father's anger in a respectful letter, ran away with her." my dear i had begun to take a turn for the better, but when it come to running away i began to take another turn for the worse. "the lovers" says jemmy "fled to london and were united at the altar of saint clement's danes. and it is at this period of their simple but touching story that we find them inmates of the dwelling of a highly-respected and beloved lady of the name of gran, residing within a hundred miles of norfolk street." i felt that we were almost safe now, i felt that the dear boy had no suspicion of the bitter truth, and i looked at the major for the first time and drew a long breath. the major gave me a nod. "our hero's father" jemmy goes on "proving implacable and carrying his threat into unrelenting execution, the struggles of the young couple in london were severe, and would have been far more so, but for their good angel's having conducted them to the abode of mrs. gran; who, divining their poverty (in spite of their endeavours to conceal it from her), by a thousand delicate arts smoothed their rough way, and alleviated the sharpness of their first distress." here jemmy took one of my hands in one of his, and began a marking the turns of his story by making me give a beat from time to time upon his other hand. "after a while, they left the house of mrs. gran, and pursued their fortunes through a variety of successes and failures elsewhere. but in all reverses, whether for good or evil, the words of mr. edson to the fair young partner of his life were, 'unchanging love and truth will carry us through all!'" my hand trembled in the dear boy's, those words were so wofully unlike the fact. "unchanging love and truth" says jemmy over again, as if he had a proud kind of a noble pleasure in it, "will carry us through all! those were his words. and so they fought their way, poor but gallant and happy, until mrs. edson gave birth to a child." "a daughter," i says. "no," says jemmy, "a son. and the father was so proud of it that he could hardly bear it out of his sight. but a dark cloud overspread the scene. mrs. edson sickened, drooped, and died." "ah! sickened, drooped, and died!" i says. "and so mr. edson's only comfort, only hope on earth, and only stimulus to action, was his darling boy. as the child grew older, he grew so like his mother that he was her living picture. it used to make him wonder why his father cried when he kissed him. but unhappily he was like his mother in constitution as well as in face, and lo, died too before he had grown out of childhood. then mr. edson, who had good abilities, in his forlornness and despair, threw them all to the winds. he became apathetic, reckless, lost. little by little he sank down, down, down, down, until at last he almost lived (i think) by gaming. and so sickness overtook him in the town of sens in france, and he lay down to die. but now that he laid him down when all was done, and looked back upon the green past beyond the time when he had covered it with ashes, he thought gratefully of the good mrs. gran long lost sight of, who had been so kind to him and his young wife in the early days of their marriage, and he left the little that he had as a last legacy to her. and she, being brought to see him, at first no more knew him than she would know from seeing the ruin of a greek or roman temple, what it used to be before it fell; but at length she remembered him. and then he told her, with tears, of his regret for the misspent part of his life, and besought her to think as mildly of it as she could, because it was the poor fallen angel of his unchanging love and constancy after all. and because she had her grandson with her, and he fancied that his own boy, if he had lived, might have grown to be something like him, he asked her to let him touch his forehead with his cheek and say certain parting words." jemmy's voice sank low when it got to that, and tears filled my eyes, and filled the major's. "you little conjurer" i says, "how did you ever make it all out? go in and write it every word down, for it's a wonder." which jemmy did, and i have repeated it to you my dear from his writing. then the major took my hand and kissed it, and said, "dearest madam all has prospered with us." "ah major" i says drying my eyes, "we needn't have been afraid. we might have known it. treachery don't come natural to beaming youth; but trust and pity, love and constancy,--they do, thank god!" transcribed from the chapman and hall "christmas stories" edition by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk mugby junction chapter i--barbox brothers i. "guard! what place is this?" "mugby junction, sir." "a windy place!" "yes, it mostly is, sir." "and looks comfortless indeed!" "yes, it generally does, sir." "is it a rainy night still?" "pours, sir." "open the door. i'll get out." "you'll have, sir," said the guard, glistening with drops of wet, and looking at the tearful face of his watch by the light of his lantern as the traveller descended, "three minutes here." "more, i think.--for i am not going on." "thought you had a through ticket, sir?" "so i have, but i shall sacrifice the rest of it. i want my luggage." "please to come to the van and point it out, sir. be good enough to look very sharp, sir. not a moment to spare." the guard hurried to the luggage van, and the traveller hurried after him. the guard got into it, and the traveller looked into it. "those two large black portmanteaus in the corner where your light shines. those are mine." "name upon 'em, sir?" "barbox brothers." "stand clear, sir, if you please. one. two. right!" lamp waved. signal lights ahead already changing. shriek from engine. train gone. "mugby junction!" said the traveller, pulling up the woollen muffler round his throat with both hands. "at past three o'clock of a tempestuous morning! so!" he spoke to himself. there was no one else to speak to. perhaps, though there had been any one else to speak to, he would have preferred to speak to himself. speaking to himself he spoke to a man within five years of fifty either way, who had turned grey too soon, like a neglected fire; a man of pondering habit, brooding carriage of the head, and suppressed internal voice; a man with many indications on him of having been much alone. he stood unnoticed on the dreary platform, except by the rain and by the wind. those two vigilant assailants made a rush at him. "very well," said he, yielding. "it signifies nothing to me to what quarter i turn my face." thus, at mugby junction, at past three o'clock of a tempestuous morning, the traveller went where the weather drove him. not but what he could make a stand when he was so minded, for, coming to the end of the roofed shelter (it is of considerable extent at mugby junction), and looking out upon the dark night, with a yet darker spirit- wing of storm beating its wild way through it, he faced about, and held his own as ruggedly in the difficult direction as he had held it in the easier one. thus, with a steady step, the traveller went up and down, up and down, up and down, seeking nothing and finding it. a place replete with shadowy shapes, this mugby junction in the black hours of the four-and-twenty. mysterious goods trains, covered with palls and gliding on like vast weird funerals, conveying themselves guiltily away from the presence of the few lighted lamps, as if their freight had come to a secret and unlawful end. half-miles of coal pursuing in a detective manner, following when they lead, stopping when they stop, backing when they back. red-hot embers showering out upon the ground, down this dark avenue, and down the other, as if torturing fires were being raked clear; concurrently, shrieks and groans and grinds invading the ear, as if the tortured were at the height of their suffering. iron-barred cages full of cattle jangling by midway, the drooping beasts with horns entangled, eyes frozen with terror, and mouths too: at least they have long icicles (or what seem so) hanging from their lips. unknown languages in the air, conspiring in red, green, and white characters. an earthquake, accompanied with thunder and lightning, going up express to london. now, all quiet, all rusty, wind and rain in possession, lamps extinguished, mugby junction dead and indistinct, with its robe drawn over its head, like caesar. now, too, as the belated traveller plodded up and down, a shadowy train went by him in the gloom which was no other than the train of a life. from whatsoever intangible deep cutting or dark tunnel it emerged, here it came, unsummoned and unannounced, stealing upon him, and passing away into obscurity. here mournfully went by a child who had never had a childhood or known a parent, inseparable from a youth with a bitter sense of his namelessness, coupled to a man the enforced business of whose best years had been distasteful and oppressive, linked to an ungrateful friend, dragging after him a woman once beloved. attendant, with many a clank and wrench, were lumbering cares, dark meditations, huge dim disappointments, monotonous years, a long jarring line of the discords of a solitary and unhappy existence. "--yours, sir?" the traveller recalled his eyes from the waste into which they had been staring, and fell back a step or so under the abruptness, and perhaps the chance appropriateness, of the question. "oh! my thoughts were not here for the moment. yes. yes. those two portmanteaus are mine. are you a porter?" "on porter's wages, sir. but i am lamps." the traveller looked a little confused. "who did you say you are?" "lamps, sir," showing an oily cloth in his hand, as farther explanation. "surely, surely. is there any hotel or tavern here?" "not exactly here, sir. there is a refreshment room here, but--" lamps, with a mighty serious look, gave his head a warning roll that plainly added--"but it's a blessed circumstance for you that it's not open." "you couldn't recommend it, i see, if it was available?" "ask your pardon, sir. if it was--?" "open?" "it ain't my place, as a paid servant of the company, to give my opinion on any of the company's toepics,"--he pronounced it more like toothpicks,--"beyond lamp-ile and cottons," returned lamps in a confidential tone; "but, speaking as a man, i wouldn't recommend my father (if he was to come to life again) to go and try how he'd be treated at the refreshment room. not speaking as a man, no, i would _not_." the traveller nodded conviction. "i suppose i can put up in the town? there is a town here?" for the traveller (though a stay-at-home compared with most travellers) had been, like many others, carried on the steam winds and the iron tides through that junction before, without having ever, as one might say, gone ashore there. "oh yes, there's a town, sir! anyways, there's town enough to put up in. but," following the glance of the other at his luggage, "this is a very dead time of the night with us, sir. the deadest time. i might a'most call it our deadest and buriedest time." "no porters about?" "well, sir, you see," returned lamps, confidential again, "they in general goes off with the gas. that's how it is. and they seem to have overlooked you, through your walking to the furder end of the platform. but, in about twelve minutes or so, she may be up." "who may be up?" "the three forty-two, sir. she goes off in a sidin' till the up x passes, and then she"--here an air of hopeful vagueness pervaded lamps--"does all as lays in her power." "i doubt if i comprehend the arrangement." "i doubt if anybody do, sir. she's a parliamentary, sir. and, you see, a parliamentary, or a skirmishun--" "do you mean an excursion?" "that's it, sir.--a parliamentary or a skirmishun, she mostly _does_ go off into a sidin'. but, when she _can_ get a chance, she's whistled out of it, and she's whistled up into doin' all as,"--lamps again wore the air of a highly sanguine man who hoped for the best,--"all as lays in her power." he then explained that the porters on duty, being required to be in attendance on the parliamentary matron in question, would doubtless turn up with the gas. in the meantime, if the gentleman would not very much object to the smell of lamp-oil, and would accept the warmth of his little room--the gentleman, being by this time very cold, instantly closed with the proposal. a greasy little cabin it was, suggestive, to the sense of smell, of a cabin in a whaler. but there was a bright fire burning in its rusty grate, and on the floor there stood a wooden stand of newly trimmed and lighted lamps, ready for carriage service. they made a bright show, and their light, and the warmth, accounted for the popularity of the room, as borne witness to by many impressions of velveteen trousers on a form by the fire, and many rounded smears and smudges of stooping velveteen shoulders on the adjacent wall. various untidy shelves accommodated a quantity of lamps and oil-cans, and also a fragrant collection of what looked like the pocket-handkerchiefs of the whole lamp family. as barbox brothers (so to call the traveller on the warranty of his luggage) took his seat upon the form, and warmed his now ungloved hands at the fire, he glanced aside at a little deal desk, much blotched with ink, which his elbow touched. upon it were some scraps of coarse paper, and a superannuated steel pen in very reduced and gritty circumstances. from glancing at the scraps of paper, he turned involuntarily to his host, and said, with some roughness: "why, you are never a poet, man?" lamps had certainly not the conventional appearance of one, as he stood modestly rubbing his squab nose with a handkerchief so exceedingly oily, that he might have been in the act of mistaking himself for one of his charges. he was a spare man of about the barbox brothers time of life, with his features whimsically drawn upward as if they were attracted by the roots of his hair. he had a peculiarly shining transparent complexion, probably occasioned by constant oleaginous application; and his attractive hair, being cut short, and being grizzled, and standing straight up on end as if it in its turn were attracted by some invisible magnet above it, the top of his head was not very unlike a lamp-wick. "but, to be sure, it's no business of mine," said barbox brothers. "that was an impertinent observation on my part. be what you like." "some people, sir," remarked lamps in a tone of apology, "are sometimes what they don't like." "nobody knows that better than i do," sighed the other. "i have been what i don't like, all my life." "when i first took, sir," resumed lamps, "to composing little comic-songs--like--" barbox brothers eyed him with great disfavour. "--to composing little comic-songs-like--and what was more hard--to singing 'em afterwards," said lamps, "it went against the grain at that time, it did indeed." something that was not all oil here shining in lamps's eye, barbox brothers withdrew his own a little disconcerted, looked at the fire, and put a foot on the top bar. "why did you do it, then?" he asked after a short pause; abruptly enough, but in a softer tone. "if you didn't want to do it, why did you do it? where did you sing them? public-house?" to which mr. lamps returned the curious reply: "bedside." at this moment, while the traveller looked at him for elucidation, mugby junction started suddenly, trembled violently, and opened its gas eyes. "she's got up!" lamps announced, excited. "what lays in her power is sometimes more, and sometimes less; but it's laid in her power to get up to-night, by george!" the legend "barbox brothers," in large white letters on two black surfaces, was very soon afterwards trundling on a truck through a silent street, and, when the owner of the legend had shivered on the pavement half an hour, what time the porter's knocks at the inn door knocked up the whole town first, and the inn last, he groped his way into the close air of a shut-up house, and so groped between the sheets of a shut-up bed that seemed to have been expressly refrigerated for him when last made. ii. "you remember me, young jackson?" "what do i remember if not you? you are my first remembrance. it was you who told me that was my name. it was you who told me that on every twentieth of december my life had a penitential anniversary in it called a birthday. i suppose the last communication was truer than the first!" "what am i like, young jackson?" "you are like a blight all through the year to me. you hard-lined, thin- lipped, repressive, changeless woman with a wax mask on. you are like the devil to me; most of all when you teach me religious things, for you make me abhor them." "you remember me, mr. young jackson?" in another voice from another quarter. "most gratefully, sir. you were the ray of hope and prospering ambition in my life. when i attended your course, i believed that i should come to be a great healer, and i felt almost happy--even though i was still the one boarder in the house with that horrible mask, and ate and drank in silence and constraint with the mask before me, every day. as i had done every, every, every day, through my school-time and from my earliest recollection." "what am i like, mr. young jackson?" "you are like a superior being to me. you are like nature beginning to reveal herself to me. i hear you again, as one of the hushed crowd of young men kindling under the power of your presence and knowledge, and you bring into my eyes the only exultant tears that ever stood in them." "you remember me, mr. young jackson?" in a grating voice from quite another quarter. "too well. you made your ghostly appearance in my life one day, and announced that its course was to be suddenly and wholly changed. you showed me which was my wearisome seat in the galley of barbox brothers. (when _they_ were, if they ever were, is unknown to me; there was nothing of them but the name when i bent to the oar.) you told me what i was to do, and what to be paid; you told me afterwards, at intervals of years, when i was to sign for the firm, when i became a partner, when i became the firm. i know no more of it, or of myself." "what am i like, mr. young jackson?" "you are like my father, i sometimes think. you are hard enough and cold enough so to have brought up an acknowledged son. i see your scanty figure, your close brown suit, and your tight brown wig; but you, too, wear a wax mask to your death. you never by a chance remove it--it never by a chance falls off--and i know no more of you." throughout this dialogue, the traveller spoke to himself at his window in the morning, as he had spoken to himself at the junction overnight. and as he had then looked in the darkness, a man who had turned grey too soon, like a neglected fire: so he now looked in the sun-light, an ashier grey, like a fire which the brightness of the sun put out. the firm of barbox brothers had been some offshoot or irregular branch of the public notary and bill-broking tree. it had gained for itself a griping reputation before the days of young jackson, and the reputation had stuck to it and to him. as he had imperceptibly come into possession of the dim den up in the corner of a court off lombard street, on whose grimy windows the inscription barbox brothers had for many long years daily interposed itself between him and the sky, so he had insensibly found himself a personage held in chronic distrust, whom it was essential to screw tight to every transaction in which he engaged, whose word was never to be taken without his attested bond, whom all dealers with openly set up guards and wards against. this character had come upon him through no act of his own. it was as if the original barbox had stretched himself down upon the office floor, and had thither caused to be conveyed young jackson in his sleep, and had there effected a metempsychosis and exchange of persons with him. the discovery--aided in its turn by the deceit of the only woman he had ever loved, and the deceit of the only friend he had ever made: who eloped from him to be married together--the discovery, so followed up, completed what his earliest rearing had begun. he shrank, abashed, within the form of barbox, and lifted up his head and heart no more. but he did at last effect one great release in his condition. he broke the oar he had plied so long, and he scuttled and sank the galley. he prevented the gradual retirement of an old conventional business from him, by taking the initiative and retiring from it. with enough to live on (though, after all, with not too much), he obliterated the firm of barbox brothers from the pages of the post-office directory and the face of the earth, leaving nothing of it but its name on two portmanteaus. "for one must have some name in going about, for people to pick up," he explained to mugby high street, through the inn window, "and that name at least was real once. whereas, young jackson!--not to mention its being a sadly satirical misnomer for old jackson." he took up his hat and walked out, just in time to see, passing along on the opposite side of the way, a velveteen man, carrying his day's dinner in a small bundle that might have been larger without suspicion of gluttony, and pelting away towards the junction at a great pace. "there's lamps!" said barbox brothers. "and by the bye--" ridiculous, surely, that a man so serious, so self-contained, and not yet three days emancipated from a routine of drudgery, should stand rubbing his chin in the street, in a brown study about comic songs. "bedside?" said barbox brothers testily. "sings them at the bedside? why at the bedside, unless he goes to bed drunk? does, i shouldn't wonder. but it's no business of mine. let me see. mugby junction, mugby junction. where shall i go next? as it came into my head last night when i woke from an uneasy sleep in the carriage and found myself here, i can go anywhere from here. where shall i go? i'll go and look at the junction by daylight. there's no hurry, and i may like the look of one line better than another." but there were so many lines. gazing down upon them from a bridge at the junction, it was as if the concentrating companies formed a great industrial exhibition of the works of extraordinary ground spiders that spun iron. and then so many of the lines went such wonderful ways, so crossing and curving among one another, that the eye lost them. and then some of them appeared to start with the fixed intention of going five hundred miles, and all of a sudden gave it up at an insignificant barrier, or turned off into a workshop. and then others, like intoxicated men, went a little way very straight, and surprisingly slued round and came back again. and then others were so chock-full of trucks of coal, others were so blocked with trucks of casks, others were so gorged with trucks of ballast, others were so set apart for wheeled objects like immense iron cotton-reels: while others were so bright and clear, and others were so delivered over to rust and ashes and idle wheelbarrows out of work, with their legs in the air (looking much like their masters on strike), that there was no beginning, middle, or end to the bewilderment. barbox brothers stood puzzled on the bridge, passing his right hand across the lines on his forehead, which multiplied while he looked down, as if the railway lines were getting themselves photographed on that sensitive plate. then was heard a distant ringing of bells and blowing of whistles. then, puppet-looking heads of men popped out of boxes in perspective, and popped in again. then, prodigious wooden razors, set up on end, began shaving the atmosphere. then, several locomotive engines in several directions began to scream and be agitated. then, along one avenue a train came in. then, along another two trains appeared that didn't come in, but stopped without. then, bits of trains broke off. then, a struggling horse became involved with them. then, the locomotives shared the bits of trains, and ran away with the whole. "i have not made my next move much clearer by this. no hurry. no need to make up my mind to-day, or to-morrow, nor yet the day after. i'll take a walk." it fell out somehow (perhaps he meant it should) that the walk tended to the platform at which he had alighted, and to lamps's room. but lamps was not in his room. a pair of velveteen shoulders were adapting themselves to one of the impressions on the wall by lamps's fireplace, but otherwise the room was void. in passing back to get out of the station again, he learnt the cause of this vacancy, by catching sight of lamps on the opposite line of railway, skipping along the top of a train, from carriage to carriage, and catching lighted namesakes thrown up to him by a coadjutor. "he is busy. he has not much time for composing or singing comic songs this morning, i take it." the direction he pursued now was into the country, keeping very near to the side of one great line of railway, and within easy view of others. "i have half a mind,"' he said, glancing around, "to settle the question from this point, by saying, 'i'll take this set of rails, or that, or t'other, and stick to it.' they separate themselves from the confusion, out here, and go their ways." ascending a gentle hill of some extent, he came to a few cottages. there, looking about him as a very reserved man might who had never looked about him in his life before, he saw some six or eight young children come merrily trooping and whooping from one of the cottages, and disperse. but not until they had all turned at the little garden-gate, and kissed their hands to a face at the upper window: a low window enough, although the upper, for the cottage had but a story of one room above the ground. now, that the children should do this was nothing; but that they should do this to a face lying on the sill of the open window, turned towards them in a horizontal position, and apparently only a face, was something noticeable. he looked up at the window again. could only see a very fragile, though a very bright face, lying on one cheek on the window-sill. the delicate smiling face of a girl or woman. framed in long bright brown hair, round which was tied a light blue band or fillet, passing under the chin. he walked on, turned back, passed the window again, shyly glanced up again. no change. he struck off by a winding branch-road at the top of the hill--which he must otherwise have descended--kept the cottages in view, worked his way round at a distance so as to come out once more into the main road, and be obliged to pass the cottages again. the face still lay on the window-sill, but not so much inclined towards him. and now there were a pair of delicate hands too. they had the action of performing on some musical instrument, and yet it produced no sound that reached his ears. "mugby junction must be the maddest place in england," said barbox brothers, pursuing his way down the hill. "the first thing i find here is a railway porter who composes comic songs to sing at his bedside. the second thing i find here is a face, and a pair of hands playing a musical instrument that _don't_ play!" the day was a fine bright day in the early beginning of november, the air was clear and inspiriting, and the landscape was rich in beautiful colours. the prevailing colours in the court off lombard street, london city, had been few and sombre. sometimes, when the weather elsewhere was very bright indeed, the dwellers in those tents enjoyed a pepper-and-salt- coloured day or two, but their atmosphere's usual wear was slate or snuff coloured. he relished his walk so well that he repeated it next day. he was a little earlier at the cottage than on the day before, and he could hear the children upstairs singing to a regular measure, and clapping out the time with their hands. "still, there is no sound of any musical instrument," he said, listening at the corner, "and yet i saw the performing hands again as i came by. what are the children singing? why, good lord, they can never be singing the multiplication table?" they were, though, and with infinite enjoyment. the mysterious face had a voice attached to it, which occasionally led or set the children right. its musical cheerfulness was delightful. the measure at length stopped, and was succeeded by a murmuring of young voices, and then by a short song which he made out to be about the current month of the year, and about what work it yielded to the labourers in the fields and farmyards. then there was a stir of little feet, and the children came trooping and whooping out, as on the previous day. and again, as on the previous day, they all turned at the garden-gate, and kissed their hands--evidently to the face on the window-sill, though barbox brothers from his retired post of disadvantage at the corner could not see it. but, as the children dispersed, he cut off one small straggler--a brown- faced boy with flaxen hair--and said to him: "come here, little one. tell me, whose house is that?" the child, with one swarthy arm held up across his eyes, half in shyness, and half ready for defence, said from behind the inside of his elbow: "phoebe's." "and who," said barbox brothers, quite as much embarrassed by his part in the dialogue as the child could possibly be by his, "is phoebe?" to which the child made answer: "why, phoebe, of course." the small but sharp observer had eyed his questioner closely, and had taken his moral measure. he lowered his guard, and rather assumed a tone with him: as having discovered him to be an unaccustomed person in the art of polite conversation. "phoebe," said the child, "can't be anybobby else but phoebe. can she?" "no, i suppose not." "well," returned the child, "then why did you ask me?" deeming it prudent to shift his ground, barbox brothers took up a new position. "what do you do there? up there in that room where the open window is. what do you do there?" "cool," said the child. "eh?" "co-o-ol," the child repeated in a louder voice, lengthening out the word with a fixed look and great emphasis, as much as to say: "what's the use of your having grown up, if you're such a donkey as not to understand me?" "ah! school, school," said barbox brothers. "yes, yes, yes. and phoebe teaches you?" the child nodded. "good boy." "tound it out, have you?" said the child. "yes, i have found it out. what would you do with twopence, if i gave it you?" "pend it." the knock-down promptitude of this reply leaving him not a leg to stand upon, barbox brothers produced the twopence with great lameness, and withdrew in a state of humiliation. but, seeing the face on the window-sill as he passed the cottage, he acknowledged its presence there with a gesture, which was not a nod, not a bow, not a removal of his hat from his head, but was a diffident compromise between or struggle with all three. the eyes in the face seemed amused, or cheered, or both, and the lips modestly said: "good-day to you, sir." "i find i must stick for a time to mugby junction," said barbox brothers with much gravity, after once more stopping on his return road to look at the lines where they went their several ways so quietly. "i can't make up my mind yet which iron road to take. in fact, i must get a little accustomed to the junction before i can decide." so, he announced at the inn that he was "going to stay on for the present," and improved his acquaintance with the junction that night, and again next morning, and again next night and morning: going down to the station, mingling with the people there, looking about him down all the avenues of railway, and beginning to take an interest in the incomings and outgoings of the trains. at first, he often put his head into lamps's little room, but he never found lamps there. a pair or two of velveteen shoulders he usually found there, stooping over the fire, sometimes in connection with a clasped knife and a piece of bread and meat; but the answer to his inquiry, "where's lamps?" was, either that he was "t'other side the line," or, that it was his off-time, or (in the latter case) his own personal introduction to another lamps who was not his lamps. however, he was not so desperately set upon seeing lamps now, but he bore the disappointment. nor did he so wholly devote himself to his severe application to the study of mugby junction as to neglect exercise. on the contrary, he took a walk every day, and always the same walk. but the weather turned cold and wet again, and the window was never open. iii. at length, after a lapse of some days, there came another streak of fine bright hardy autumn weather. it was a saturday. the window was open, and the children were gone. not surprising, this, for he had patiently watched and waited at the corner until they _were_ gone. "good-day," he said to the face; absolutely getting his hat clear off his head this time. "good-day to you, sir." "i am glad you have a fine sky again to look at." "thank you, sir. it is kind if you." "you are an invalid, i fear?" "no, sir. i have very good health." "but are you not always lying down?" "oh yes, i am always lying down, because i cannot sit up! but i am not an invalid." the laughing eyes seemed highly to enjoy his great mistake. "would you mind taking the trouble to come in, sir? there is a beautiful view from this window. and you would see that i am not at all ill--being so good as to care." it was said to help him, as he stood irresolute, but evidently desiring to enter, with his diffident hand on the latch of the garden-gate. it did help him, and he went in. the room upstairs was a very clean white room with a low roof. its only inmate lay on a couch that brought her face to a level with the window. the couch was white too; and her simple dress or wrapper being light blue, like the band around her hair, she had an ethereal look, and a fanciful appearance of lying among clouds. he felt that she instinctively perceived him to be by habit a downcast taciturn man; it was another help to him to have established that understanding so easily, and got it over. there was an awkward constraint upon him, nevertheless, as he touched her hand, and took a chair at the side of her couch. "i see now," he began, not at all fluently, "how you occupy your hand. only seeing you from the path outside, i thought you were playing upon something." she was engaged in very nimbly and dexterously making lace. a lace-pillow lay upon her breast; and the quick movements and changes of her hands upon it, as she worked, had given them the action he had misinterpreted. "that is curious," she answered with a bright smile. "for i often fancy, myself, that i play tunes while i am at work." "have you any musical knowledge?" she shook her head. "i think i could pick out tunes, if i had any instrument, which could be made as handy to me as my lace-pillow. but i dare say i deceive myself. at all events, i shall never know." "you have a musical voice. excuse me; i have heard you sing." "with the children?" she answered, slightly colouring. "oh yes. i sing with the dear children, if it can be called singing." barbox brothers glanced at the two small forms in the room, and hazarded the speculation that she was fond of children, and that she was learned in new systems of teaching them? "very fond of them," she said, shaking her head again; "but i know nothing of teaching, beyond the interest i have in it, and the pleasure it gives me when they learn. perhaps your overhearing my little scholars sing some of their lessons has led you so far astray as to think me a grand teacher? ah! i thought so! no, i have only read and been told about that system. it seemed so pretty and pleasant, and to treat them so like the merry robins they are, that i took up with it in my little way. you don't need to be told what a very little way mine is, sir," she added with a glance at the small forms and round the room. all this time her hands were busy at her lace-pillow. as they still continued so, and as there was a kind of substitute for conversation in the click and play of its pegs, barbox brothers took the opportunity of observing her. he guessed her to be thirty. the charm of her transparent face and large bright brown eyes was, not that they were passively resigned, but that they were actively and thoroughly cheerful. even her busy hands, which of their own thinness alone might have besought compassion, plied their task with a gay courage that made mere compassion an unjustifiable assumption of superiority, and an impertinence. he saw her eyes in the act of rising towards his, and he directed his towards the prospect, saying: "beautiful, indeed!" "most beautiful, sir. i have sometimes had a fancy that i would like to sit up, for once, only to try how it looks to an erect head. but what a foolish fancy that would be to encourage! it cannot look more lovely to any one than it does to me." her eyes were turned to it, as she spoke, with most delighted admiration and enjoyment. there was not a trace in it of any sense of deprivation. "and those threads of railway, with their puffs of smoke and steam changing places so fast, make it so lively for me," she went on. "i think of the number of people who can go where they wish, on their business, or their pleasure; i remember that the puffs make signs to me that they are actually going while i look; and that enlivens the prospect with abundance of company, if i want company. there is the great junction, too. i don't see it under the foot of the hill, but i can very often hear it, and i always know it is there. it seems to join me, in a way, to i don't know how many places and things that i shall never see." with an abashed kind of idea that it might have already joined himself to something he had never seen, he said constrainedly: "just so." "and so you see, sir," pursued phoebe, "i am not the invalid you thought me, and i am very well off indeed." "you have a happy disposition," said barbox brothers: perhaps with a slight excusatory touch for his own disposition. "ah! but you should know my father," she replied. "his is the happy disposition!--don't mind, sir!" for his reserve took the alarm at a step upon the stairs, and he distrusted that he would be set down for a troublesome intruder. "this is my father coming." the door opened, and the father paused there. "why, lamps!" exclaimed barbox brothers, starting from his chair. "how do you do, lamps?" to which lamps responded: "the gentleman for nowhere! how do you do, sir?" and they shook hands, to the greatest admiration and surprise of lamp's daughter. "i have looked you up half-a-dozen times since that night," said barbox brothers, "but have never found you." "so i've heerd on, sir, so i've heerd on," returned lamps. "it's your being noticed so often down at the junction, without taking any train, that has begun to get you the name among us of the gentleman for nowhere. no offence in my having called you by it when took by surprise, i hope, sir?" "none at all. it's as good a name for me as any other you could call me by. but may i ask you a question in the corner here?" lamps suffered himself to be led aside from his daughter's couch by one of the buttons of his velveteen jacket. "is this the bedside where you sing your songs?" lamps nodded. the gentleman for nowhere clapped him on the shoulder, and they faced about again. "upon my word, my dear," said lamps then to his daughter, looking from her to her visitor, "it is such an amaze to me, to find you brought acquainted with this gentleman, that i must (if this gentleman will excuse me) take a rounder." mr. lamps demonstrated in action what this meant, by pulling out his oily handkerchief rolled up in the form of a ball, and giving himself an elaborate smear, from behind the right ear, up the cheek, across the forehead, and down the other cheek to behind his left ear. after this operation he shone exceedingly. "it's according to my custom when particular warmed up by any agitation, sir," he offered by way of apology. "and really, i am throwed into that state of amaze by finding you brought acquainted with phoebe, that i--that i think i will, if you'll excuse me, take another rounder." which he did, seeming to be greatly restored by it. they were now both standing by the side of her couch, and she was working at her lace-pillow. "your daughter tells me," said barbox brothers, still in a half-reluctant shamefaced way, "that she never sits up." "no, sir, nor never has done. you see, her mother (who died when she was a year and two months old) was subject to very bad fits, and as she had never mentioned to me that she _was_ subject to fits, they couldn't be guarded against. consequently, she dropped the baby when took, and this happened." "it was very wrong of her," said barbox brothers with a knitted brow, "to marry you, making a secret of her infirmity.' "well, sir!" pleaded lamps in behalf of the long-deceased. "you see, phoebe and me, we have talked that over too. and lord bless us! such a number on us has our infirmities, what with fits, and what with misfits, of one sort and another, that if we confessed to 'em all before we got married, most of us might never get married." "might not that be for the better?" "not in this case, sir," said phoebe, giving her hand to her father. "no, not in this case, sir," said her father, patting it between his own. "you correct me," returned barbox brothers with a blush; "and i must look so like a brute, that at all events it would be superfluous in me to confess to _that_ infirmity. i wish you would tell me a little more about yourselves. i hardly knew how to ask it of you, for i am conscious that i have a bad stiff manner, a dull discouraging way with me, but i wish you would." "with all our hearts, sir," returned lamps gaily for both. "and first of all, that you may know my name--" "stay!" interposed the visitor with a slight flush. "what signifies your name? lamps is name enough for me. i like it. it is bright and expressive. what do i want more?" "why, to be sure, sir," returned lamps. "i have in general no other name down at the junction; but i thought, on account of your being here as a first-class single, in a private character, that you might--" the visitor waved the thought away with his hand, and lamps acknowledged the mark of confidence by taking another rounder. "you are hard-worked, i take for granted?" said barbox brothers, when the subject of the rounder came out of it much dirtier than be went into it. lamps was beginning, "not particular so"--when his daughter took him up. "oh yes, sir, he is very hard-worked. fourteen, fifteen, eighteen hours a day. sometimes twenty-four hours at a time." "and you," said barbox brothers, "what with your school, phoebe, and what with your lace-making--" "but my school is a pleasure to me," she interrupted, opening her brown eyes wider, as if surprised to find him so obtuse. "i began it when i was but a child, because it brought me and other children into company, don't you see? _that_ was not work. i carry it on still, because it keeps children about me. _that_ is not work. i do it as love, not as work. then my lace-pillow;" her busy hands had stopped, as if her argument required all her cheerful earnestness, but now went on again at the name; "it goes with my thoughts when i think, and it goes with my tunes when i hum any, and _that's_ not work. why, you yourself thought it was music, you know, sir. and so it is to me." "everything is!" cried lamps radiantly. "everything is music to her, sir." "my father is, at any rate," said phoebe, exultingly pointing her thin forefinger at him. "there is more music in my father than there is in a brass band." "i say! my dear! it's very fillyillially done, you know; but you are flattering your father," he protested, sparkling. "no, i am not, sir, i assure you. no, i am not. if you could hear my father sing, you would know i am not. but you never will hear him sing, because he never sings to any one but me. however tired he is, he always sings to me when he comes home. when i lay here long ago, quite a poor little broken doll, he used to sing to me. more than that, he used to make songs, bringing in whatever little jokes we had between us. more than that, he often does so to this day. oh! i'll tell of you, father, as the gentleman has asked about you. he is a poet, sir." "i shouldn't wish the gentleman, my dear," observed lamps, for the moment turning grave, "to carry away that opinion of your father, because it might look as if i was given to asking the stars in a molloncolly manner what they was up to. which i wouldn't at once waste the time, and take the liberty, my dear." "my father," resumed phoebe, amending her text, "is always on the bright side, and the good side. you told me, just now, i had a happy disposition. how can i help it?" "well; but, my dear," returned lamps argumentatively, "how can i help it? put it to yourself sir. look at her. always as you see her now. always working--and after all, sir, for but a very few shillings a week--always contented, always lively, always interested in others, of all sorts. i said, this moment, she was always as you see her now. so she is, with a difference that comes to much the same. for, when it is my sunday off and the morning bells have done ringing, i hear the prayers and thanks read in the touchingest way, and i have the hymns sung to me--so soft, sir, that you couldn't hear 'em out of this room--in notes that seem to me, i am sure, to come from heaven and go back to it." it might have been merely through the association of these words with their sacredly quiet time, or it might have been through the larger association of the words with the redeemer's presence beside the bedridden; but here her dexterous fingers came to a stop on the lace-pillow, and clasped themselves around his neck as he bent down. there was great natural sensibility in both father and daughter, the visitor could easily see; but each made it, for the other's sake, retiring, not demonstrative; and perfect cheerfulness, intuitive or acquired, was either the first or second nature of both. in a very few moments lamps was taking another rounder with his comical features beaming, while phoebe's laughing eyes (just a glistening speck or so upon their lashes) were again directed by turns to him, and to her work, and to barbox brothers. "when my father, sir," she said brightly, "tells you about my being interested in other people, even though they know nothing about me--which, by the bye, i told you myself--you ought to know how that comes about. that's my father's doing." "no, it isn't!" he protested. "don't you believe him, sir; yes, it is. he tells me of everything he sees down at his work. you would be surprised what a quantity he gets together for me every day. he looks into the carriages, and tells me how the ladies are dressed--so that i know all the fashions! he looks into the carriages, and tells me what pairs of lovers he sees, and what new- married couples on their wedding trip--so that i know all about that! he collects chance newspapers and books--so that i have plenty to read! he tells me about the sick people who are travelling to try to get better--so that i know all about them! in short, as i began by saying, he tells me everything he sees and makes out down at his work, and you can't think what a quantity he does see and make out." "as to collecting newspapers and books, my dear," said lamps, "it's clear i can have no merit in that, because they're not my perquisites. you see, sir, it's this way: a guard, he'll say to me, 'hallo, here you are, lamps. i've saved this paper for your daughter. how is she a-going on?' a head-porter, he'll say to me, 'here! catch hold, lamps. here's a couple of wollumes for your daughter. is she pretty much where she were?' and that's what makes it double welcome, you see. if she had a thousand pound in a box, they wouldn't trouble themselves about her; but being what she is--that is, you understand," lamps added, somewhat hurriedly, "not having a thousand pound in a box--they take thought for her. and as concerning the young pairs, married and unmarried, it's only natural i should bring home what little i can about _them_, seeing that there's not a couple of either sort in the neighbourhood that don't come of their own accord to confide in phoebe." she raised her eyes triumphantly to barbox brothers as she said: "indeed, sir, that is true. if i could have got up and gone to church, i don't know how often i should have been a bridesmaid. but, if i could have done that, some girls in love might have been jealous of me, and, as it is, no girl is jealous of me. and my pillow would not have been half as ready to put the piece of cake under, as i always find it," she added, turning her face on it with a light sigh, and a smile at her father. the arrival of a little girl, the biggest of the scholars, now led to an understanding on the part of barbox brothers, that she was the domestic of the cottage, and had come to take active measures in it, attended by a pail that might have extinguished her, and a broom three times her height. he therefore rose to take his leave, and took it; saying that, if phoebe had no objection, he would come again. he had muttered that he would come "in the course of his walks." the course of his walks must have been highly favourable to his return, for he returned after an interval of a single day. "you thought you would never see me any more, i suppose?" he said to phoebe as he touched her hand, and sat down by her couch. "why should i think so?" was her surprised rejoinder. "i took it for granted you would mistrust me." "for granted, sir? have you been so much mistrusted?" "i think i am justified in answering yes. but i may have mistrusted, too, on my part. no matter just now. we were speaking of the junction last time. i have passed hours there since the day before yesterday." "are you now the gentleman for somewhere?" she asked with a smile. "certainly for somewhere; but i don't yet know where. you would never guess what i am travelling from. shall i tell you? i am travelling from my birthday." her hands stopped in her work, and she looked at him with incredulous astonishment. "yes," said barbox brothers, not quite easy in his chair, "from my birthday. i am, to myself, an unintelligible book with the earlier chapters all torn out, and thrown away. my childhood had no grace of childhood, my youth had no charm of youth, and what can be expected from such a lost beginning?" his eyes meeting hers as they were addressed intently to him, something seemed to stir within his breast, whispering: "was this bed a place for the graces of childhood and the charms of youth to take to kindly? oh, shame, shame!" "it is a disease with me," said barbox brothers, checking himself, and making as though he had a difficulty in swallowing something, "to go wrong about that. i don't know how i came to speak of that. i hope it is because of an old misplaced confidence in one of your sex involving an old bitter treachery. i don't know. i am all wrong together." her hands quietly and slowly resumed their work. glancing at her, he saw that her eyes were thoughtfully following them. "i am travelling from my birthday," he resumed, "because it has always been a dreary day to me. my first free birthday coming round some five or six weeks hence, i am travelling to put its predecessors far behind me, and to try to crush the day--or, at all events, put it out of my sight--by heaping new objects on it." as he paused, she looked at him; but only shook her head as being quite at a loss. "this is unintelligible to your happy disposition," he pursued, abiding by his former phrase as if there were some lingering virtue of self-defence in it. "i knew it would be, and am glad it is. however, on this travel of mine (in which i mean to pass the rest of my days, having abandoned all thought of a fixed home), i stopped, as you have heard from your father, at the junction here. the extent of its ramifications quite confused me as to whither i should go, _from_ here. i have not yet settled, being still perplexed among so many roads. what do you think i mean to do? how many of the branching roads can you see from your window?" looking out, full of interest, she answered, "seven." "seven," said barbox brothers, watching her with a grave smile. "well! i propose to myself at once to reduce the gross number to those very seven, and gradually to fine them down to one--the most promising for me--and to take that." "but how will you know, sir, which _is_ the most promising?" she asked, with her brightened eyes roving over the view. "ah!" said barbox brothers with another grave smile, and considerably improving in his ease of speech. "to be sure. in this way. where your father can pick up so much every day for a good purpose, i may once and again pick up a little for an indifferent purpose. the gentleman for nowhere must become still better known at the junction. he shall continue to explore it, until he attaches something that he has seen, heard, or found out, at the head of each of the seven roads, to the road itself. and so his choice of a road shall be determined by his choice among his discoveries." her hands still busy, she again glanced at the prospect, as if it comprehended something that had not been in it before, and laughed as if it yielded her new pleasure. "but i must not forget," said barbox brothers, "(having got so far) to ask a favour. i want your help in this expedient of mine. i want to bring you what i pick up at the heads of the seven roads that you lie here looking out at, and to compare notes with you about it. may i? they say two heads are better than one. i should say myself that probably depends upon the heads concerned. but i am quite sure, though we are so newly acquainted, that your head and your father's have found out better things, phoebe, than ever mine of itself discovered." she gave him her sympathetic right hand, in perfect rapture with his proposal, and eagerly and gratefully thanked him. "that's well!" said barbox brothers. "again i must not forget (having got so far) to ask a favour. will you shut your eyes?" laughing playfully at the strange nature of the request, she did so. "keep them shut," said barbox brothers, going softly to the door, and coming back. "you are on your honour, mind, not to open you eyes until i tell you that you may?" "yes! on my honour." "good. may i take your lace-pillow from you for a minute?" still laughing and wondering, she removed her hands from it, and he put it aside. "tell me. did you see the puffs of smoke and steam made by the morning fast-train yesterday on road number seven from here?" "behind the elm-trees and the spire?" "that's the road," said barbox brothers, directing his eyes towards it. "yes. i watched them melt away." "anything unusual in what they expressed?" "no!" she answered merrily. "not complimentary to me, for i was in that train. i went--don't open your eyes--to fetch you this, from the great ingenious town. it is not half so large as your lace-pillow, and lies easily and lightly in its place. these little keys are like the keys of a miniature piano, and you supply the air required with your left hand. may you pick out delightful music from it, my dear! for the present--you can open your eyes now--good- bye!" in his embarrassed way, he closed the door upon himself, and only saw, in doing so, that she ecstatically took the present to her bosom and caressed it. the glimpse gladdened his heart, and yet saddened it; for so might she, if her youth had flourished in its natural course, having taken to her breast that day the slumbering music of her own child's voice. chapter ii--barbox brothers and co. with good-will and earnest purpose, the gentleman for nowhere began, on the very next day, his researches at the heads of the seven roads. the results of his researches, as he and phoebe afterwards set them down in fair writing, hold their due places in this veracious chronicle. but they occupied a much longer time in the getting together than they ever will in the perusal. and this is probably the case with most reading matter, except when it is of that highly beneficial kind (for posterity) which is "thrown off in a few moments of leisure" by the superior poetic geniuses who scorn to take prose pains. it must be admitted, however, that barbox by no means hurried himself. his heart being in his work of good-nature, he revelled in it. there was the joy, too (it was a true joy to him), of sometimes sitting by, listening to phoebe as she picked out more and more discourse from her musical instrument, and as her natural taste and ear refined daily upon her first discoveries. besides being a pleasure, this was an occupation, and in the course of weeks it consumed hours. it resulted that his dreaded birthday was close upon him before he had troubled himself any more about it. the matter was made more pressing by the unforeseen circumstance that the councils held (at which mr. lamps, beaming most brilliantly, on a few rare occasions assisted) respecting the road to be selected were, after all, in nowise assisted by his investigations. for, he had connected this interest with this road, or that interest with the other, but could deduce no reason from it for giving any road the preference. consequently, when the last council was holden, that part of the business stood, in the end, exactly where it had stood in the beginning. "but, sir," remarked phoebe, "we have only six roads after all. is the seventh road dumb?" "the seventh road? oh!" said barbox brothers, rubbing his chin. "that is the road i took, you know, when i went to get your little present. that is _its_ story. phoebe." "would you mind taking that road again, sir?" she asked with hesitation. "not in the least; it is a great high-road after all." "i should like you to take it," returned phoebe with a persuasive smile, "for the love of that little present which must ever be so dear to me. i should like you to take it, because that road can never be again like any other road to me. i should like you to take it, in remembrance of your having done me so much good: of your having made me so much happier! if you leave me by the road you travelled when you went to do me this great kindness," sounding a faint chord as she spoke, "i shall feel, lying here watching at my window, as if it must conduct you to a prosperous end, and bring you back some day." "it shall be done, my dear; it shall be done." so at last the gentleman for nowhere took a ticket for somewhere, and his destination was the great ingenious town. he had loitered so long about the junction that it was the eighteenth of december when he left it. "high time," he reflected, as he seated himself in the train, "that i started in earnest! only one clear day remains between me and the day i am running away from. i'll push onward for the hill-country to-morrow. i'll go to wales." it was with some pains that he placed before himself the undeniable advantages to be gained in the way of novel occupation for his senses from misty mountains, swollen streams, rain, cold, a wild seashore, and rugged roads. and yet he scarcely made them out as distinctly as he could have wished. whether the poor girl, in spite of her new resource, her music, would have any feeling of loneliness upon her now--just at first--that she had not had before; whether she saw those very puffs of steam and smoke that he saw, as he sat in the train thinking of her; whether her face would have any pensive shadow on it as they died out of the distant view from her window; whether, in telling him he had done her so much good, she had not unconsciously corrected his old moody bemoaning of his station in life, by setting him thinking that a man might be a great healer, if he would, and yet not be a great doctor; these and other similar meditations got between him and his welsh picture. there was within him, too, that dull sense of vacuity which follows separation from an object of interest, and cessation of a pleasant pursuit; and this sense, being quite new to him, made him restless. further, in losing mugby junction, he had found himself again; and he was not the more enamoured of himself for having lately passed his time in better company. but surely here, not far ahead, must be the great ingenious town. this crashing and clashing that the train was undergoing, and this coupling on to it of a multitude of new echoes, could mean nothing less than approach to the great station. it did mean nothing less. after some stormy flashes of town lightning, in the way of swift revelations of red brick blocks of houses, high red brick chimney-shafts, vistas of red brick railway arches, tongues of fire, blocks of smoke, valleys of canal, and hills if coal, there came the thundering in at the journey's end. having seen his portmanteaus safely housed in the hotel he chose, and having appointed his dinner hour, barbox brothers went out for a walk in the busy streets. and now it began to be suspected by him that mugby junction was a junction of many branches, invisible as well as visible, and had joined him to an endless number of by-ways. for, whereas he would, but a little while ago, have walked these streets blindly brooding, he now had eyes and thoughts for a new external world. how the many toiling people lived, and loved, and died; how wonderful it was to consider the various trainings of eye and hand, the nice distinctions of sight and touch, that separated them into classes of workers, and even into classes of workers at subdivisions of one complete whole which combined their many intelligences and forces, though of itself but some cheap object of use or ornament in common life; how good it was to know that such assembling in a multitude on their part, and such contribution of their several dexterities towards a civilising end, did not deteriorate them as it was the fashion of the supercilious mayflies of humanity to pretend, but engendered among them a self-respect, and yet a modest desire to be much wiser than they were (the first evinced in their well-balanced bearing and manner of speech when he stopped to ask a question; the second, in the announcements of their popular studies and amusements on the public walls); these considerations, and a host of such, made his walk a memorable one. "i too am but a little part of a great whole," he began to think; "and to be serviceable to myself and others, or to be happy, i must cast my interest into, and draw it out of, the common stock." although he had arrived at his journey's end for the day by noon, he had since insensibly walked about the town so far and so long that the lamp- lighters were now at their work in the streets, and the shops were sparkling up brilliantly. thus reminded to turn towards his quarters, he was in the act of doing so, when a very little hand crept into his, and a very little voice said: "oh! if you please, i am lost!" he looked down, and saw a very little fair-haired girl. "yes," she said, confirming her words with a serious nod. "i am indeed. i am lost!" greatly perplexed, he stopped, looked about him for help, descried none, and said, bending low. "where do you live, my child?" "i don't know where i live," she returned. "i am lost." "what is your name?" "polly." "what is your other name?" the reply was prompt, but unintelligible. imitating the sound as he caught it, he hazarded the guess, "trivits." "oh no!" said the child, shaking her head. "nothing like that." "say it again, little one." an unpromising business. for this time it had quite a different sound. he made the venture, "paddens?" "oh no!" said the child. "nothing like that." "once more. let us try it again, dear." a most hopeless business. this time it swelled into four syllables. "it can't be tappitarver?" said barbox brothers, rubbing his head with his hat in discomfiture. "no! it ain't," the child quietly assented. on her trying this unfortunate name once more, with extraordinary efforts at distinctness, it swelled into eight syllables at least. "ah! i think," said barbox brothers with a desperate air of resignation, "that we had better give it up." "but i am lost," said the child, nestling her little hand more closely in his, "and you'll take care of me, won't you?" if ever a man were disconcerted by division between compassion on the one hand, and the very imbecility of irresolution on the other, here the man was. "lost!" he repeated, looking down at the child. "i am sure _i_ am. what is to be done?" "where do you live?" asked the child, looking up at him wistfully. "over there," he answered, pointing vaguely in the direction of his hotel. "hadn't we better go there?" said the child. "really," he replied, "i don't know but what we had." so they set off, hand-in-hand. he, through comparison of himself against his little companion, with a clumsy feeling on him as if he had just developed into a foolish giant. she, clearly elevated in her own tiny opinion by having got him so neatly out of his embarrassment. "we are going to have dinner when we get there, i suppose?" said polly. "well," he rejoined, "i--yes, i suppose we are." "do you like your dinner?" asked the child. "why, on the whole," said barbox brothers, "yes, i think i do." "i do mine," said polly. "have you any brothers and sisters?" "no. have you?" "mine are dead." "oh!" said barbox brothers. with that absurd sense of unwieldiness of mind and body weighing him down, he would have not known how to pursue the conversation beyond this curt rejoinder, but that the child was always ready for him. "what," she asked, turning her soft hand coaxingly in his, "are you going to do to amuse me after dinner?" "upon my soul, polly," exclaimed barbox brothers, very much at a loss, "i have not the slightest idea!" "then i tell you what," said polly. "have you got any cards at your house?" "plenty," said barbox brothers in a boastful vein. "very well. then i'll build houses, and you shall look at me. you mustn't blow, you know." "oh no," said barbox brothers. "no, no, no. no blowing. blowing's not fair." he flattered himself that he had said this pretty well for an idiotic monster; but the child, instantly perceiving the awkwardness of his attempt to adapt himself to her level, utterly destroyed his hopeful opinion of himself by saying compassionately: "what a funny man you are!" feeling, after this melancholy failure, as if he every minute grew bigger and heavier in person, and weaker in mind, barbox gave himself up for a bad job. no giant ever submitted more meekly to be led in triumph by all- conquering jack than he to be bound in slavery to polly. "do you know any stories?" she asked him. he was reduced to the humiliating confession: "no." "what a dunce you must be, mustn't you?" said polly. he was reduced to the humiliating confession: "yes." "would you like me to teach you a story? but you must remember it, you know, and be able to tell it right to somebody else afterwards." he professed that it would afford him the highest mental gratification to be taught a story, and that he would humbly endeavour to retain it in his mind. whereupon polly, giving her hand a new little turn in his, expressive of settling down for enjoyment, commenced a long romance, of which every relishing clause began with the words: "so this," or, "and so this." as, "so this boy;" or, "so this fairy;" or, "and so this pie was four yards round, and two yards and a quarter deep." the interest of the romance was derived from the intervention of this fairy to punish this boy for having a greedy appetite. to achieve which purpose, this fairy made this pie, and this boy ate and ate and ate, and his cheeks swelled and swelled and swelled. there were many tributary circumstances, but the forcible interest culminated in the total consumption of this pie, and the bursting of this boy. truly he was a fine sight, barbox brothers, with serious attentive face, and ear bent down, much jostled on the pavements of the busy town, but afraid of losing a single incident of the epic, lest he should be examined in it by-and-by, and found deficient. thus they arrived at the hotel. and there he had to say at the bar, and said awkwardly enough; "i have found a little girl!" the whole establishment turned out to look at the little girl. nobody knew her; nobody could make out her name, as she set it forth--except one chamber-maid, who said it was constantinople--which it wasn't. "i will dine with my young friend in a private room," said barbox brothers to the hotel authorities, "and perhaps you will be so good as to let the police know that the pretty baby is here. i suppose she is sure to be inquired for soon, if she has not been already. come along, polly." perfectly at ease and peace, polly came along, but, finding the stairs rather stiff work, was carried up by barbox brothers. the dinner was a most transcendant success, and the barbox sheepishness, under polly's directions how to mince her meat for her, and how to diffuse gravy over the plate with a liberal and equal hand, was another fine sight. "and now," said polly, "while we are at dinner, you be good, and tell me that story i taught you." with the tremors of a civil service examination upon him, and very uncertain indeed, not only as to the epoch at which the pie appeared in history, but also as to the measurements of that indispensable fact, barbox brothers made a shaky beginning, but under encouragement did very fairly. there was a want of breadth observable in his rendering of the cheeks, as well as the appetite, of the boy; and there was a certain tameness in his fairy, referable to an under-current of desire to account for her. still, as the first lumbering performance of a good-humoured monster, it passed muster. "i told you to be good," said polly, "and you are good, ain't you?" "i hope so," replied barbox brothers. such was his deference that polly, elevated on a platform of sofa cushions in a chair at his right hand, encouraged him with a pat or two on the face from the greasy bowl of her spoon, and even with a gracious kiss. in getting on her feet upon her chair, however, to give him this last reward, she toppled forward among the dishes, and caused him to exclaim, as he effected her rescue: "gracious angels! whew! i thought we were in the fire, polly!" "what a coward you are, ain't you?" said polly when replaced. "yes, i am rather nervous," he replied. "whew! don't, polly! don't flourish your spoon, or you'll go over sideways. don't tilt up your legs when you laugh, polly, or you'll go over backwards. whew! polly, polly, polly," said barbox brothers, nearly succumbing to despair, "we are environed with dangers!" indeed, he could descry no security from the pitfalls that were yawning for polly, but in proposing to her, after dinner, to sit upon a low stool. "i will, if you will," said polly. so, as peace of mind should go before all, he begged the waiter to wheel aside the table, bring a pack of cards, a couple of footstools, and a screen, and close in polly and himself before the fire, as it were in a snug room within the room. then, finest sight of all, was barbox brothers on his footstool, with a pint decanter on the rug, contemplating polly as she built successfully, and growing blue in the face with holding his breath, lest he should blow the house down. "how you stare, don't you?" said polly in a houseless pause. detected in the ignoble fact, he felt obliged to admit, apologetically: "i am afraid i was looking rather hard at you, polly." "why do you stare?" asked polly. "i cannot," he murmured to himself, "recall why.--i don't know, polly." "you must be a simpleton to do things and not know why, mustn't you?" said polly. in spite of which reproof, he looked at the child again intently, as she bent her head over her card structure, her rich curls shading her face. "it is impossible," he thought, "that i can ever have seen this pretty baby before. can i have dreamed of her? in some sorrowful dream?" he could make nothing of it. so he went into the building trade as a journeyman under polly, and they built three stories high, four stories high; even five. "i say! who do you think is coming?" asked polly, rubbing her eyes after tea. he guessed: "the waiter?" "no," said polly, "the dustman. i am getting sleepy." a new embarrassment for barbox brothers! "i don't think i am going to be fetched to-night," said polly. "what do you think?" he thought not, either. after another quarter of an hour, the dustman not merely impending, but actually arriving, recourse was had to the constantinopolitan chamber-maid: who cheerily undertook that the child should sleep in a comfortable and wholesome room, which she herself would share. "and i know you will be careful, won't you," said barbox brothers, as a new fear dawned upon him, "that she don't fall out of bed?" polly found this so highly entertaining that she was under the necessity of clutching him round the neck with both arms as he sat on his footstool picking up the cards, and rocking him to and fro, with her dimpled chin on his shoulder. "oh, what a coward you are, ain't you?" said polly. "do you fall out of bed?" "n--not generally, polly." "no more do i." with that, polly gave him a reassuring hug or two to keep him going, and then giving that confiding mite of a hand of hers to be swallowed up in the hand of the constantinopolitan chamber-maid, trotted off, chattering, without a vestige of anxiety. he looked after her, had the screen removed and the table and chairs replaced, and still looked after her. he paced the room for half an hour. "a most engaging little creature, but it's not that. a most winning little voice, but it's not that. that has much to do with it, but there is something more. how can it be that i seem to know this child? what was it she imperfectly recalled to me when i felt her touch in the street, and, looking down at her, saw her looking up at me?" "mr. jackson!" with a start he turned towards the sound of the subdued voice, and saw his answer standing at the door. "oh, mr. jackson, do not be severe with me! speak a word of encouragement to me, i beseech you." "you are polly's mother." "yes." yes. polly herself might come to this, one day. as you see what the rose was in its faded leaves; as you see what the summer growth of the woods was in their wintry branches; so polly might be traced, one day, in a careworn woman like this, with her hair turned grey. before him were the ashes of a dead fire that had once burned bright. this was the woman he had loved. this was the woman he had lost. such had been the constancy of his imagination to her, so had time spared her under its withholding, that now, seeing how roughly the inexorable hand had struck her, his soul was filled with pity and amazement. he led her to a chair, and stood leaning on a corner of the chimney-piece, with his head resting on his hand, and his face half averted. "did you see me in the street, and show me to your child?" he asked. "yes." "is the little creature, then, a party to deceit?" "i hope there is no deceit. i said to her, 'we have lost our way, and i must try to find mine by myself. go to that gentleman, and tell him you are lost. you shall be fetched by-and-by.' perhaps you have not thought how very young she is?" "she is very self-reliant." "perhaps because she is so young." he asked, after a short pause, "why did you do this?" "oh, mr. jackson, do you ask me? in the hope that you might see something in my innocent child to soften your heart towards me. not only towards me, but towards my husband." he suddenly turned about, and walked to the opposite end of the room. he came back again with a slower step, and resumed his former attitude, saying: "i thought you had emigrated to america?" "we did. but life went ill with us there, and we came back." "do you live in this town?" "yes. i am a daily teacher of music here. my husband is a book-keeper." "are you--forgive my asking--poor?" "we earn enough for our wants. that is not our distress. my husband is very, very ill of a lingering disorder. he will never recover--" "you check yourself. if it is for want of the encouraging word you spoke of, take it from me. i cannot forget the old time, beatrice." "god bless you!" she replied with a burst of tears, and gave him her trembling hand. "compose yourself. i cannot be composed if you are not, for to see you weep distresses me beyond expression. speak freely to me. trust me." she shaded her face with her veil, and after a little while spoke calmly. her voice had the ring of polly's. "it is not that my husband's mind is at all impaired by his bodily suffering, for i assure you that is not the case. but in his weakness, and in his knowledge that he is incurably ill, he cannot overcome the ascendancy of one idea. it preys upon him, embitters every moment of his painful life, and will shorten it." she stopping, he said again: "speak freely to me. trust me." "we have had five children before this darling, and they all lie in their little graves. he believes that they have withered away under a curse, and that it will blight this child like the rest." "under what curse?" "both i and he have it on our conscience that we tried you very heavily, and i do not know but that, if i were as ill as he, i might suffer in my mind as he does. this is the constant burden:--'i believe, beatrice, i was the only friend that mr. jackson ever cared to make, though i was so much his junior. the more influence he acquired in the business, the higher he advanced me, and i was alone in his private confidence. i came between him and you, and i took you from him. we were both secret, and the blow fell when he was wholly unprepared. the anguish it caused a man so compressed must have been terrible; the wrath it awakened inappeasable. so, a curse came to be invoked on our poor, pretty little flowers, and they fall.'" "and you, beatrice," he asked, when she had ceased to speak, and there had been a silence afterwards, "how say you?" "until within these few weeks i was afraid of you, and i believed that you would never, never forgive." "until within these few weeks," he repeated. "have you changed your opinion of me within these few weeks?" "yes." "for what reason?" "i was getting some pieces of music in a shop in this town, when, to my terror, you came in. as i veiled my face and stood in the dark end of the shop, i heard you explain that you wanted a musical instrument for a bedridden girl. your voice and manner were so softened, you showed such interest in its selection, you took it away yourself with so much tenderness of care and pleasure, that i knew you were a man with a most gentle heart. oh, mr. jackson, mr. jackson, if you could have felt the refreshing rain of tears that followed for me!" was phoebe playing at that moment on her distant couch? he seemed to hear her. "i inquired in the shop where you lived, but could get no information. as i had heard you say that you were going back by the next train (but you did not say where), i resolved to visit the station at about that time of day, as often as i could, between my lessons, on the chance of seeing you again. i have been there very often, but saw you no more until to-day. you were meditating as you walked the street, but the calm expression of your face emboldened me to send my child to you. and when i saw you bend your head to speak tenderly to her, i prayed to god to forgive me for having ever brought a sorrow on it. i now pray to you to forgive me, and to forgive my husband. i was very young, he was young too, and, in the ignorant hardihood of such a time of life, we don't know what we do to those who have undergone more discipline. you generous man! you good man! so to raise me up and make nothing of my crime against you!"--for he would not see her on her knees, and soothed her as a kind father might have soothed an erring daughter--"thank you, bless you, thank you!" when he next spoke, it was after having drawn aside the window curtain and looked out awhile. then he only said: "is polly asleep?" "yes. as i came in, i met her going away upstairs, and put her to bed myself." "leave her with me for to-morrow, beatrice, and write me your address on this leaf of my pocket-book. in the evening i will bring her home to you--and to her father." * * * "hallo!" cried polly, putting her saucy sunny face in at the door next morning when breakfast was ready: "i thought i was fetched last night?" "so you were, polly, but i asked leave to keep you here for the day, and to take you home in the evening." "upon my word!" said polly. "you are very cool, ain't you?" however, polly seemed to think it a good idea, and added: "i suppose i must give you a kiss, though you _are_ cool." the kiss given and taken, they sat down to breakfast in a highly conversational tone. "of course, you are going to amuse me?" said polly. "oh, of course!" said barbox brothers. in the pleasurable height of her anticipations, polly found it indispensable to put down her piece of toast, cross one of her little fat knees over the other, and bring her little fat right hand down into her left hand with a business-like slap. after this gathering of herself together, polly, by that time a mere heap of dimples, asked in a wheedling manner: "what are we going to do, you dear old thing?" "why, i was thinking," said barbox brothers, "--but are you fond of horses, polly?" "ponies, i am," said polly, "especially when their tails are long. but horses--n-no--too big, you know." "well," pursued barbox brothers, in a spirit of grave mysterious confidence adapted to the importance of the consultation, "i did see yesterday, polly, on the walls, pictures of two long-tailed ponies, speckled all over--" "no, no, no!" cried polly, in an ecstatic desire to linger on the charming details. "not speckled all over!" "speckled all over. which ponies jump through hoops--" "no, no, no!" cried polly as before. "they never jump through hoops!" "yes, they do. oh, i assure you they do! and eat pie in pinafores--" "ponies eating pie in pinafores!" said polly. "what a story-teller you are, ain't you?" "upon my honour.--and fire off guns." (polly hardly seemed to see the force of the ponies resorting to fire- arms.) "and i was thinking," pursued the exemplary barbox, "that if you and i were to go to the circus where these ponies are, it would do our constitutions good." "does that mean amuse us?" inquired polly. "what long words you do use, don't you?" apologetic for having wandered out of his depth, he replied: "that means amuse us. that is exactly what it means. there are many other wonders besides the ponies, and we shall see them all. ladies and gentlemen in spangled dresses, and elephants and lions and tigers." polly became observant of the teapot, with a curled-up nose indicating some uneasiness of mind. "they never get out, of course," she remarked as a mere truism. "the elephants and lions and tigers? oh, dear no!" "oh, dear no!" said polly. "and of course nobody's afraid of the ponies shooting anybody." "not the least in the world." "no, no, not the least in the world," said polly. "i was also thinking," proceeded barbox, "that if we were to look in at the toy-shop, to choose a doll--" "not dressed!" cried polly with a clap of her hands. "no, no, no, not dressed!" "full-dressed. together with a house, and all things necessary for housekeeping--" polly gave a little scream, and seemed in danger of falling into a swoon of bliss. "what a darling you are!" she languidly exclaimed, leaning back in her chair. "come and be hugged, or i must come and hug you." this resplendent programme was carried into execution with the utmost rigour of the law. it being essential to make the purchase of the doll its first feature--or that lady would have lost the ponies--the toy-shop expedition took precedence. polly in the magic warehouse, with a doll as large as herself under each arm, and a neat assortment of some twenty more on view upon the counter, did indeed present a spectacle of indecision not quite compatible with unalloyed happiness, but the light cloud passed. the lovely specimen oftenest chosen, oftenest rejected, and finally abided by, was of circassian descent, possessing as much boldness of beauty as was reconcilable with extreme feebleness of mouth, and combining a sky-blue silk pelisse with rose-coloured satin trousers, and a black velvet hat: which this fair stranger to our northern shores would seem to have founded on the portraits of the late duchess of kent. the name this distinguished foreigner brought with her from beneath the glowing skies of a sunny clime was (on polly's authority) miss melluka, and the costly nature of her outfit as a housekeeper, from the barbox coffers, may be inferred from the two facts that her silver tea-spoons were as large as her kitchen poker, and that the proportions of her watch exceeded those of her frying-pan. miss melluka was graciously pleased to express her entire approbation of the circus, and so was polly; for the ponies were speckled, and brought down nobody when they fired, and the savagery of the wild beasts appeared to be mere smoke--which article, in fact, they did produce in large quantities from their insides. the barbox absorption in the general subject throughout the realisation of these delights was again a sight to see, nor was it less worthy to behold at dinner, when he drank to miss melluka, tied stiff in a chair opposite to polly (the fair circassian possessing an unbendable spine), and even induced the waiter to assist in carrying out with due decorum the prevailing glorious idea. to wind up, there came the agreeable fever of getting miss melluka and all her wardrobe and rich possessions into a fly with polly, to be taken home. but, by that time, polly had become unable to look upon such accumulated joys with waking eyes, and had withdrawn her consciousness into the wonderful paradise of a child's sleep. "sleep, polly, sleep," said barbox brothers, as her head dropped on his shoulder; "you shall not fall out of this bed easily, at any rate!" what rustling piece of paper he took from his pocket, and carefully folded into the bosom of polly's frock, shall not be mentioned. he said nothing about it, and nothing shall be said about it. they drove to a modest suburb of the great ingenious town, and stopped at the fore-court of a small house. "do not wake the child," said barbox brothers softly to the driver; "i will carry her in as she is." greeting the light at the opened door which was held by polly's mother, polly's bearer passed on with mother and child in to a ground-floor room. there, stretched on a sofa, lay a sick man, sorely wasted, who covered his eyes with his emaciated hand. "tresham," said barbox in a kindly voice, "i have brought you back your polly, fast asleep. give me your hand, and tell me you are better." the sick man reached forth his right hand, and bowed his head over the hand into which it was taken, and kissed it. "thank you, thank you! i may say that i am well and happy." "that's brave," said barbox. "tresham, i have a fancy--can you make room for me beside you here?" he sat down on the sofa as he said the words, cherishing the plump peachey cheek that lay uppermost on his shoulder. "i have a fancy, tresham (i am getting quite an old fellow now, you know, and old fellows may take fancies into their heads sometimes), to give up polly, having found her, to no one but you. will you take her from me?" as the father held out his arms for the child, each of the two men looked steadily at the other. "she is very dear to you, tresham?" "unutterably dear." "god bless her! it is not much, polly," he continued, turning his eyes upon her peaceful face as he apostrophized her, "it is not much, polly, for a blind and sinful man to invoke a blessing on something so far better than himself as a little child is; but it would be much--much upon his cruel head, and much upon his guilty soul--if he could be so wicked as to invoke a curse. he had better have a millstone round his neck, and be cast into the deepest sea. live and thrive, my pretty baby!" here he kissed her. "live and prosper, and become in time the mother of other little children, like the angels who behold the father's face!" he kissed her again, gave her up gently to both her parents, and went out. but he went not to wales. no, he never went to wales. he went straightway for another stroll about the town, and he looked in upon the people at their work, and at their play, here, there, every-there, and where not. for he was barbox brothers and co. now, and had taken thousands of partners into the solitary firm. he had at length got back to his hotel room, and was standing before his fire refreshing himself with a glass of hot drink which he had stood upon the chimney-piece, when he heard the town clocks striking, and, referring to his watch, found the evening to have so slipped away, that they were striking twelve. as he put up his watch again, his eyes met those of his reflection in the chimney-glass. "why, it's your birthday already," he said, smiling. "you are looking very well. i wish you many happy returns of the day." he had never before bestowed that wish upon himself. "by jupiter!" he discovered, "it alters the whole case of running away from one's birthday! it's a thing to explain to phoebe. besides, here is quite a long story to tell her, that has sprung out of the road with no story. i'll go back, instead of going on. i'll go back by my friend lamps's up x presently." he went back to mugby junction, and, in point of fact, he established himself at mugby junction. it was the convenient place to live in, for brightening phoebe's life. it was the convenient place to live in, for having her taught music by beatrice. it was the convenient place to live in, for occasionally borrowing polly. it was the convenient place to live in, for being joined at will to all sorts of agreeable places and persons. so, he became settled there, and, his house standing in an elevated situation, it is noteworthy of him in conclusion, as polly herself might (not irreverently) have put it: "there was an old barbox who lived on a hill, and if he ain't gone, he lives there still." here follows the substance of what was seen, heard, or otherwise picked up, by the gentleman for nowhere, in his careful study of the junction. chapter iii--the boy at mugby i am the boy at mugby. that's about what _i_ am. you don't know what i mean? what a pity! but i think you do. i think you must. look here. i am the boy at what is called the refreshment room at mugby junction, and what's proudest boast is, that it never yet refreshed a mortal being. up in a corner of the down refreshment room at mugby junction, in the height of twenty-seven cross draughts (i've often counted 'em while they brush the first-class hair twenty-seven ways), behind the bottles, among the glasses, bounded on the nor'west by the beer, stood pretty far to the right of a metallic object that's at times the tea-urn and at times the soup-tureen, according to the nature of the last twang imparted to its contents which are the same groundwork, fended off from the traveller by a barrier of stale sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and lastly exposed sideways to the glare of our missis's eye--you ask a boy so sitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at mugby, for anything to drink; you take particular notice that he'll try to seem not to hear you, that he'll appear in a absent manner to survey the line through a transparent medium composed of your head and body, and that he won't serve you as long as you can possibly bear it. that's me. what a lark it is! we are the model establishment, we are, at mugby. other refreshment rooms send their imperfect young ladies up to be finished off by our missis. for some of the young ladies, when they're new to the business, come into it mild! ah! our missis, she soon takes that out of 'em. why, i originally come into the business meek myself. but our missis, she soon took that out of _me_. what a delightful lark it is! i look upon us refreshmenters as ockipying the only proudly independent footing on the line. there's papers, for instance,--my honourable friend, if he will allow me to call him so,--him as belongs to smith's bookstall. why, he no more dares to be up to our refreshmenting games than he dares to jump a top of a locomotive with her steam at full pressure, and cut away upon her alone, driving himself, at limited-mail speed. papers, he'd get his head punched at every compartment, first, second, and third, the whole length of a train, if he was to ventur to imitate my demeanour. it's the same with the porters, the same with the guards, the same with the ticket clerks, the same the whole way up to the secretary, traffic-manager, or very chairman. there ain't a one among 'em on the nobly independent footing we are. did you ever catch one of them, when you wanted anything of him, making a system of surveying the line through a transparent medium composed of your head and body? i should hope not. you should see our bandolining room at mugby junction. it's led to by the door behind the counter, which you'll notice usually stands ajar, and it's the room where our missis and our young ladies bandolines their hair. you should see 'em at it, betwixt trains, bandolining away, as if they was anointing themselves for the combat. when you're telegraphed, you should see their noses all a-going up with scorn, as if it was a part of the working of the same cooke and wheatstone electrical machinery. you should hear our missis give the word, "here comes the beast to be fed!" and then you should see 'em indignantly skipping across the line, from the up to the down, or wicer warsaw, and begin to pitch the stale pastry into the plates, and chuck the sawdust sangwiches under the glass covers, and get out the--ha, ha, ha!--the sherry,--o my eye, my eye!--for your refreshment. it's only in the isle of the brave and land of the free (by which, of course, i mean to say britannia) that refreshmenting is so effective, so 'olesome, so constitutional a check upon the public. there was a foreigner, which having politely, with his hat off, beseeched our young ladies and our missis for "a leetel gloss host prarndee," and having had the line surveyed through him by all and no other acknowledgment, was a- proceeding at last to help himself, as seems to be the custom in his own country, when our missis, with her hair almost a-coming un-bandolined with rage, and her eyes omitting sparks, flew at him, cotched the decanter out of his hand, and said, "put it down! i won't allow that!" the foreigner turned pale, stepped back with his arms stretched out in front of him, his hands clasped, and his shoulders riz, and exclaimed: "ah! is it possible, this! that these disdaineous females and this ferocious old woman are placed here by the administration, not only to empoison the voyagers, but to affront them! great heaven! how arrives it? the english people. or is he then a slave? or idiot?" another time, a merry, wideawake american gent had tried the sawdust and spit it out, and had tried the sherry and spit that out, and had tried in vain to sustain exhausted natur upon butter-scotch, and had been rather extra bandolined and line-surveyed through, when, as the bell was ringing and he paid our missis, he says, very loud and good-tempered: "i tell yew what 'tis, ma'arm. i la'af. theer! i la'af. i dew. i oughter ha' seen most things, for i hail from the onlimited side of the atlantic ocean, and i haive travelled right slick over the limited, head on through jeerusalemm and the east, and likeways france and italy, europe old world, and am now upon the track to the chief europian village; but such an institution as yew, and yewer young ladies, and yewer fixin's solid and liquid, afore the glorious tarnal i never did see yet! and if i hain't found the eighth wonder of monarchical creation, in finding yew and yewer young ladies, and yewer fixin's solid and liquid, all as aforesaid, established in a country where the people air not absolute loo- naticks, i am extra double darned with a nip and frizzle to the innermostest grit! wheerfur--theer!--i la'af! i dew, ma'arm. i la'af!" and so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along the platform all the way to his own compartment. i think it was her standing up agin the foreigner as giv' our missis the idea of going over to france, and droring a comparison betwixt refreshmenting as followed among the frog-eaters, and refreshmenting as triumphant in the isle of the brave and land of the free (by which, of course, i mean to say agin, britannia). our young ladies, miss whiff, miss piff, and mrs. sniff, was unanimous opposed to her going; for, as they says to our missis one and all, it is well beknown to the hends of the herth as no other nation except britain has a idea of anythink, but above all of business. why then should you tire yourself to prove what is already proved? our missis, however (being a teazer at all pints) stood out grim obstinate, and got a return pass by southeastern tidal, to go right through, if such should be her dispositions, to marseilles. sniff is husband to mrs. sniff, and is a regular insignificant cove. he looks arter the sawdust department in a back room, and is sometimes, when we are very hard put to it, let behind the counter with a corkscrew; but never when it can be helped, his demeanour towards the public being disgusting servile. how mrs. sniff ever come so far to lower herself as to marry him, i don't know; but i suppose he does, and i should think he wished he didn't, for he leads a awful life. mrs. sniff couldn't be much harder with him if he was public. similarly, miss whiff and miss piff, taking the tone of mrs. sniff, they shoulder sniff about when he _is_ let in with a corkscrew, and they whisk things out of his hands when in his servility he is a-going to let the public have 'em, and they snap him up when in the crawling baseness of his spirit he is a-going to answer a public question, and they drore more tears into his eyes than ever the mustard does which he all day long lays on to the sawdust. (but it ain't strong.) once, when sniff had the repulsiveness to reach across to get the milk-pot to hand over for a baby, i see our missis in her rage catch him by both his shoulders, and spin him out into the bandolining room. but mrs. sniff,--how different! she's the one! she's the one as you'll notice to be always looking another way from you, when you look at her. she's the one with the small waist buckled in tight in front, and with the lace cuffs at her wrists, which she puts on the edge of the counter before her, and stands a smoothing while the public foams. this smoothing the cuffs and looking another way while the public foams is the last accomplishment taught to the young ladies as come to mugby to be finished by our missis; and it's always taught by mrs. sniff. when our missis went away upon her journey, mrs. sniff was left in charge. she did hold the public in check most beautiful! in all my time, i never see half so many cups of tea given without milk to people as wanted it with, nor half so many cups of tea with milk given to people as wanted it without. when foaming ensued, mrs. sniff would say: "then you'd better settle it among yourselves, and change with one another." it was a most highly delicious lark. i enjoyed the refreshmenting business more than ever, and was so glad i had took to it when young. our missis returned. it got circulated among the young ladies, and it as it might be penetrated to me through the crevices of the bandolining room, that she had orrors to reveal, if revelations so contemptible could be dignified with the name. agitation become awakened. excitement was up in the stirrups. expectation stood a-tiptoe. at length it was put forth that on our slacked evening in the week, and at our slackest time of that evening betwixt trains, our missis would give her views of foreign refreshmenting, in the bandolining room. it was arranged tasteful for the purpose. the bandolining table and glass was hid in a corner, a arm-chair was elevated on a packing-case for our missis's ockypation, a table and a tumbler of water (no sherry in it, thankee) was placed beside it. two of the pupils, the season being autumn, and hollyhocks and dahlias being in, ornamented the wall with three devices in those flowers. on one might be read, "may albion never learn;" on another "keep the public down;" on another, "our refreshmenting charter." the whole had a beautiful appearance, with which the beauty of the sentiments corresponded. on our missis's brow was wrote severity, as she ascended the fatal platform. (not that that was anythink new.) miss whiff and miss piff sat at her feet. three chairs from the waiting room might have been perceived by a average eye, in front of her, on which the pupils was accommodated. behind them a very close observer might have discerned a boy. myself. "where," said our missis, glancing gloomily around, "is sniff?" "i thought it better," answered mrs. sniff, "that he should not be let to come in. he is such an ass." "no doubt," assented our missis. "but for that reason is it not desirable to improve his mind?" "oh, nothing will ever improve _him_," said mrs. sniff. "however," pursued our missis, "call him in, ezekiel." i called him in. the appearance of the low-minded cove was hailed with disapprobation from all sides, on account of his having brought his corkscrew with him. he pleaded "the force of habit." "the force!" said mrs. sniff. "don't let us have you talking about force, for gracious' sake. there! do stand still where you are, with your back against the wall." he is a smiling piece of vacancy, and he smiled in the mean way in which he will even smile at the public if he gets a chance (language can say no meaner of him), and he stood upright near the door with the back of his head agin the wall, as if he was a waiting for somebody to come and measure his heighth for the army. "i should not enter, ladies," says our missis, "on the revolting disclosures i am about to make, if it was not in the hope that they will cause you to be yet more implacable in the exercise of the power you wield in a constitutional country, and yet more devoted to the constitutional motto which i see before me,"--it was behind her, but the words sounded better so,--"'may albion never learn!'" here the pupils as had made the motto admired it, and cried, "hear! hear! hear!" sniff, showing an inclination to join in chorus, got himself frowned down by every brow. "the baseness of the french," pursued our missis, "as displayed in the fawning nature of their refreshmenting, equals, if not surpasses, anythink as was ever heard of the baseness of the celebrated bonaparte." miss whiff, miss piff, and me, we drored a heavy breath, equal to saying, "we thought as much!" miss whiff and miss piff seeming to object to my droring mine along with theirs, i drored another to aggravate 'em. "shall i be believed," says our missis, with flashing eyes, "when i tell you that no sooner had i set my foot upon that treacherous shore--" here sniff, either bursting out mad, or thinking aloud, says, in a low voice: "feet. plural, you know." the cowering that come upon him when he was spurned by all eyes, added to his being beneath contempt, was sufficient punishment for a cove so grovelling. in the midst of a silence rendered more impressive by the turned-up female noses with which it was pervaded, our missis went on: "shall i be believed when i tell you, that no sooner had i landed," this word with a killing look at sniff, "on that treacherous shore, than i was ushered into a refreshment room where there were--i do not exaggerate--actually eatable things to eat?" a groan burst from the ladies. i not only did myself the honour of jining, but also of lengthening it out. "where there were," our missis added, "not only eatable things to eat, but also drinkable things to drink?" a murmur, swelling almost into a scream, ariz. miss piff, trembling with indignation, called out, "name?" "i _will_ name," said our missis. "there was roast fowls, hot and cold; there was smoking roast veal surrounded with browned potatoes; there was hot soup with (again i ask shall i be credited?) nothing bitter in it, and no flour to choke off the consumer; there was a variety of cold dishes set off with jelly; there was salad; there was--mark me! _fresh_ pastry, and that of a light construction; there was a luscious show of fruit; there was bottles and decanters of sound small wine, of every size, and adapted to every pocket; the same odious statement will apply to brandy; and these were set out upon the counter so that all could help themselves." our missis's lips so quivered, that mrs. sniff, though scarcely less convulsed than she were, got up and held the tumbler to them. "this," proceeds our missis, "was my first unconstitutional experience. well would it have been if it had been my last and worst. but no. as i proceeded farther into that enslaved and ignorant land, its aspect became more hideous. i need not explain to this assembly the ingredients and formation of the british refreshment sangwich?" universal laughter,--except from sniff, who, as sangwich-cutter, shook his head in a state of the utmost dejection as he stood with it agin the wall. "well!" said our missis, with dilated nostrils. "take a fresh, crisp, long, crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and best flour. cut it longwise through the middle. insert a fair and nicely fitting slice of ham. tie a smart piece of ribbon round the middle of the whole to bind it together. add at one end a neat wrapper of clean white paper by which to hold it. and the universal french refreshment sangwich busts on your disgusted vision." a cry of "shame!" from all--except sniff, which rubbed his stomach with a soothing hand. "i need not," said our missis, "explain to this assembly the usual formation and fitting of the british refreshment room?" no, no, and laughter. sniff agin shaking his head in low spirits agin the wall. "well," said our missis, "what would you say to a general decoration of everythink, to hangings (sometimes elegant), to easy velvet furniture, to abundance of little tables, to abundance of little seats, to brisk bright waiters, to great convenience, to a pervading cleanliness and tastefulness positively addressing the public, and making the beast thinking itself worth the pains?" contemptuous fury on the part of all the ladies. mrs. sniff looking as if she wanted somebody to hold her, and everbody else looking as if they'd rayther not. "three times," said our missis, working herself into a truly terrimenjious state,--"three times did i see these shameful things, only between the coast and paris, and not counting either: at hazebroucke, at arras, at amiens. but worse remains. tell me, what would you call a person who should propose in england that there should be kept, say at our own model mugby junction, pretty baskets, each holding an assorted cold lunch and dessert for one, each at a certain fixed price, and each within a passenger's power to take away, to empty in the carriage at perfect leisure, and to return at another station fifty or a hundred miles farther on?" there was disagreement what such a person should be called. whether revolutionise, atheist, bright (_i_ said him), or un-english. miss piff screeched her shrill opinion last, in the words: "a malignant maniac!" "i adopt," says our missis, "the brand set upon such a person by the righteous indignation of my friend miss piff. a malignant maniac. know, then, that that malignant maniac has sprung from the congenial soil of france, and that his malignant madness was in unchecked action on this same part of my journey." i noticed that sniff was a-rubbing his hands, and that mrs. sniff had got her eye upon him. but i did not take more particular notice, owing to the excited state in which the young ladies was, and to feeling myself called upon to keep it up with a howl. "on my experience south of paris," said our missis, in a deep tone, "i will not expatiate. too loathsome were the task! but fancy this. fancy a guard coming round, with the train at full speed, to inquire how many for dinner. fancy his telegraphing forward the number of dinners. fancy every one expected, and the table elegantly laid for the complete party. fancy a charming dinner, in a charming room, and the head-cook, concerned for the honour of every dish, superintending in his clean white jacket and cap. fancy the beast travelling six hundred miles on end, very fast, and with great punctuality, yet being taught to expect all this to be done for it!" a spirited chorus of "the beast!" i noticed that sniff was agin a-rubbing his stomach with a soothing hand, and that he had drored up one leg. but agin i didn't take particular notice, looking on myself as called upon to stimulate public feeling. it being a lark besides. "putting everything together," said our missis, "french refreshmenting comes to this, and oh, it comes to a nice total! first: eatable things to eat, and drinkable things to drink." a groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me. "second: convenience, and even elegance." another groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me. "third: moderate charges." this time a groan from me, kep' up by the young ladies. "fourth:--and here," says our missis, "i claim your angriest sympathy,--attention, common civility, nay, even politeness!" me and the young ladies regularly raging mad all together. "and i cannot in conclusion," says our missis, with her spitefullest sneer, "give you a completer pictur of that despicable nation (after what i have related), than assuring you that they wouldn't bear our constitutional ways and noble independence at mugby junction, for a single month, and that they would turn us to the right-about and put another system in our places, as soon as look at us; perhaps sooner, for i do not believe they have the good taste to care to look at us twice." the swelling tumult was arrested in its rise. sniff, bore away by his servile disposition, had drored up his leg with a higher and a higher relish, and was now discovered to be waving his corkscrew over his head. it was at this moment that mrs. sniff, who had kep' her eye upon him like the fabled obelisk, descended on her victim. our missis followed them both out, and cries was heard in the sawdust department. you come into the down refreshment room, at the junction, making believe you don't know me, and i'll pint you out with my right thumb over my shoulder which is our missis, and which is miss whiff, and which is miss piff, and which is mrs. sniff. but you won't get a chance to see sniff, because he disappeared that night. whether he perished, tore to pieces, i cannot say; but his corkscrew alone remains, to bear witness to the servility of his disposition. transcribed from the chapman and hall edition of "christmas stories" by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk going into society at one period of its reverses, the house fell into the occupation of a showman. he was found registered as its occupier, on the parish books of the time when he rented the house, and there was therefore no need of any clue to his name. but, he himself was less easy to be found; for, he had led a wandering life, and settled people had lost sight of him, and people who plumed themselves on being respectable were shy of admitting that they had ever known anything of him. at last, among the marsh lands near the river's level, that lie about deptford and the neighbouring market-gardens, a grizzled personage in velveteen, with a face so cut up by varieties of weather that he looked as if he had been tattooed, was found smoking a pipe at the door of a wooden house on wheels. the wooden house was laid up in ordinary for the winter, near the mouth of a muddy creek; and everything near it, the foggy river, the misty marshes, and the steaming market-gardens, smoked in company with the grizzled man. in the midst of this smoking party, the funnel-chimney of the wooden house on wheels was not remiss, but took its pipe with the rest in a companionable manner. on being asked if it were he who had once rented the house to let, grizzled velveteen looked surprised, and said yes. then his name was magsman? that was it, toby magsman--which lawfully christened robert; but called in the line, from a infant, toby. there was nothing agin toby magsman, he believed? if there was suspicion of such--mention it! there was no suspicion of such, he might rest assured. but, some inquiries were making about that house, and would he object to say why he left it? not at all; why should he? he left it, along of a dwarf. along of a dwarf? mr. magsman repeated, deliberately and emphatically, along of a dwarf. might it be compatible with mr. magsman's inclination and convenience to enter, as a favour, into a few particulars? mr. magsman entered into the following particulars. it was a long time ago, to begin with;--afore lotteries and a deal more was done away with. mr. magsman was looking about for a good pitch, and he see that house, and he says to himself, "i'll have you, if you're to be had. if money'll get you, i'll have you." the neighbours cut up rough, and made complaints; but mr. magsman don't know what they _would_ have had. it was a lovely thing. first of all, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the giant, in spanish trunks and a ruff, who was himself half the heighth of the house, and was run up with a line and pulley to a pole on the roof, so that his ed was coeval with the parapet. then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the albina lady, showing her white air to the army and navy in correct uniform. then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the wild indian a scalpin a member of some foreign nation. then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of a child of a british planter, seized by two boa constrictors--not that _we_ never had no child, nor no constrictors neither. similarly, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the wild ass of the prairies--not that _we_ never had no wild asses, nor wouldn't have had 'em at a gift. last, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the dwarf, and like him too (considerin), with george the fourth in such a state of astonishment at him as his majesty couldn't with his utmost politeness and stoutness express. the front of the house was so covered with canvasses, that there wasn't a spark of daylight ever visible on that side. "magsman's amusements," fifteen foot long by two foot high, ran over the front door and parlour winders. the passage was a arbour of green baize and gardenstuff. a barrel-organ performed there unceasing. and as to respectability,--if threepence ain't respectable, what is? but, the dwarf is the principal article at present, and he was worth the money. he was wrote up as major tpschoffki, of the imperial bulgraderian brigade. nobody couldn't pronounce the name, and it never was intended anybody should. the public always turned it, as a regular rule, into chopski. in the line he was called chops; partly on that account, and partly because his real name, if he ever had any real name (which was very dubious), was stakes. he was a uncommon small man, he really was. certainly not so small as he was made out to be, but where _is_ your dwarf as is? he was a most uncommon small man, with a most uncommon large ed; and what he had inside that ed, nobody ever knowed but himself: even supposin himself to have ever took stock of it, which it would have been a stiff job for even him to do. the kindest little man as never growed! spirited, but not proud. when he travelled with the spotted baby--though he knowed himself to be a nat'ral dwarf, and knowed the baby's spots to be put upon him artificial, he nursed that baby like a mother. you never heerd him give a ill-name to a giant. he _did_ allow himself to break out into strong language respectin the fat lady from norfolk; but that was an affair of the 'art; and when a man's 'art has been trifled with by a lady, and the preference giv to a indian, he ain't master of his actions. he was always in love, of course; every human nat'ral phenomenon is. and he was always in love with a large woman; i never knowed the dwarf as could be got to love a small one. which helps to keep 'em the curiosities they are. one sing'ler idea he had in that ed of his, which must have meant something, or it wouldn't have been there. it was always his opinion that he was entitled to property. he never would put his name to anything. he had been taught to write, by the young man without arms, who got his living with his toes (quite a writing master _he_ was, and taught scores in the line), but chops would have starved to death, afore he'd have gained a bit of bread by putting his hand to a paper. this is the more curious to bear in mind, because he had no property, nor hope of property, except his house and a sarser. when i say his house, i mean the box, painted and got up outside like a reg'lar six-roomer, that he used to creep into, with a diamond ring (or quite as good to look at) on his forefinger, and ring a little bell out of what the public believed to be the drawing-room winder. and when i say a sarser, i mean a chaney sarser in which he made a collection for himself at the end of every entertainment. his cue for that, he took from me: "ladies and gentlemen, the little man will now walk three times round the cairawan, and retire behind the curtain." when he said anything important, in private life, he mostly wound it up with this form of words, and they was generally the last thing he said to me at night afore he went to bed. he had what i consider a fine mind--a poetic mind. his ideas respectin his property never come upon him so strong as when he sat upon a barrel- organ and had the handle turned. arter the wibration had run through him a little time, he would screech out, "toby, i feel my property coming--grind away! i'm counting my guineas by thousands, toby--grind away! toby, i shall be a man of fortun! i feel the mint a jingling in me, toby, and i'm swelling out into the bank of england!" such is the influence of music on a poetic mind. not that he was partial to any other music but a barrel-organ; on the contrary, hated it. he had a kind of a everlasting grudge agin the public: which is a thing you may notice in many phenomenons that get their living out of it. what riled him most in the nater of his occupation was, that it kep him out of society. he was continiwally saying, "toby, my ambition is, to go into society. the curse of my position towards the public is, that it keeps me hout of society. this don't signify to a low beast of a indian; he an't formed for society. this don't signify to a spotted baby; _he_ an't formed for society.--i am." nobody never could make out what chops done with his money. he had a good salary, down on the drum every saturday as the day came round, besides having the run of his teeth--and he was a woodpecker to eat--but all dwarfs are. the sarser was a little income, bringing him in so many halfpence that he'd carry 'em for a week together, tied up in a pocket- handkercher. and yet he never had money. and it couldn't be the fat lady from norfolk, as was once supposed; because it stands to reason that when you have a animosity towards a indian, which makes you grind your teeth at him to his face, and which can hardly hold you from goosing him audible when he's going through his war-dance--it stands to reason you wouldn't under them circumstances deprive yourself, to support that indian in the lap of luxury. most unexpected, the mystery come out one day at egham races. the public was shy of bein pulled in, and chops was ringin his little bell out of his drawing-room winder, and was snarlin to me over his shoulder as he kneeled down with his legs out at the back-door--for he couldn't be shoved into his house without kneeling down, and the premises wouldn't accommodate his legs--was snarlin, "here's a precious public for you; why the devil don't they tumble up?" when a man in the crowd holds up a carrier-pigeon, and cries out, "if there's any person here as has got a ticket, the lottery's just drawed, and the number as has come up for the great prize is three, seven, forty-two! three, seven, forty-two!" i was givin the man to the furies myself, for calling off the public's attention--for the public will turn away, at any time, to look at anything in preference to the thing showed 'em; and if you doubt it, get 'em together for any indiwidual purpose on the face of the earth, and send only two people in late, and see if the whole company an't far more interested in takin particular notice of them two than of you--i say, i wasn't best pleased with the man for callin out, and wasn't blessin him in my own mind, when i see chops's little bell fly out of winder at a old lady, and he gets up and kicks his box over, exposin the whole secret, and he catches hold of the calves of my legs and he says to me, "carry me into the wan, toby, and throw a pail of water over me or i'm a dead man, for i've come into my property!" twelve thousand odd hundred pound, was chops's winnins. he had bought a half-ticket for the twenty-five thousand prize, and it had come up. the first use he made of his property, was, to offer to fight the wild indian for five hundred pound a side, him with a poisoned darnin-needle and the indian with a club; but the indian being in want of backers to that amount, it went no further. arter he had been mad for a week--in a state of mind, in short, in which, if i had let him sit on the organ for only two minutes, i believe he would have bust--but we kep the organ from him--mr. chops come round, and behaved liberal and beautiful to all. he then sent for a young man he knowed, as had a wery genteel appearance and was a bonnet at a gaming- booth (most respectable brought up, father havin been imminent in the livery stable line but unfort'nate in a commercial crisis, through paintin a old gray, ginger-bay, and sellin him with a pedigree), and mr. chops said to this bonnet, who said his name was normandy, which it wasn't: "normandy, i'm a goin into society. will you go with me?" says normandy: "do i understand you, mr. chops, to hintimate that the 'ole of the expenses of that move will be borne by yourself?" "correct," says mr. chops. "and you shall have a princely allowance too." the bonnet lifted mr. chops upon a chair, to shake hands with him, and replied in poetry, with his eyes seemingly full of tears: "my boat is on the shore, and my bark is on the sea, and i do not ask for more, but i'll go:--along with thee." they went into society, in a chay and four grays with silk jackets. they took lodgings in pall mall, london, and they blazed away. in consequence of a note that was brought to bartlemy fair in the autumn of next year by a servant, most wonderful got up in milk-white cords and tops, i cleaned myself and went to pall mall, one evening appinted. the gentlemen was at their wine arter dinner, and mr. chops's eyes was more fixed in that ed of his than i thought good for him. there was three of 'em (in company, i mean), and i knowed the third well. when last met, he had on a white roman shirt, and a bishop's mitre covered with leopard- skin, and played the clarionet all wrong, in a band at a wild beast show. this gent took on not to know me, and mr. chops said: "gentlemen, this is a old friend of former days:" and normandy looked at me through a eye- glass, and said, "magsman, glad to see you!"--which i'll take my oath he wasn't. mr. chops, to git him convenient to the table, had his chair on a throne (much of the form of george the fourth's in the canvass), but he hardly appeared to me to be king there in any other pint of view, for his two gentlemen ordered about like emperors. they was all dressed like may- day--gorgeous!--and as to wine, they swam in all sorts. i made the round of the bottles, first separate (to say i had done it), and then mixed 'em all together (to say i had done it), and then tried two of 'em as half-and-half, and then t'other two. altogether, i passed a pleasin evenin, but with a tendency to feel muddled, until i considered it good manners to get up and say, "mr. chops, the best of friends must part, i thank you for the wariety of foreign drains you have stood so 'ansome, i looks towards you in red wine, and i takes my leave." mr. chops replied, "if you'll just hitch me out of this over your right arm, magsman, and carry me down-stairs, i'll see you out." i said i couldn't think of such a thing, but he would have it, so i lifted him off his throne. he smelt strong of maideary, and i couldn't help thinking as i carried him down that it was like carrying a large bottle full of wine, with a rayther ugly stopper, a good deal out of proportion. when i set him on the door-mat in the hall, he kep me close to him by holding on to my coat-collar, and he whispers: "i ain't 'appy, magsman." "what's on your mind, mr. chops?" "they don't use me well. they an't grateful to me. they puts me on the mantel-piece when i won't have in more champagne-wine, and they locks me in the sideboard when i won't give up my property." "get rid of 'em, mr. chops." "i can't. we're in society together, and what would society say?" "come out of society!" says i. "i can't. you don't know what you're talking about. when you have once gone into society, you mustn't come out of it." "then if you'll excuse the freedom, mr. chops," were my remark, shaking my head grave, "i think it's a pity you ever went in." mr. chops shook that deep ed of his, to a surprisin extent, and slapped it half a dozen times with his hand, and with more wice than i thought were in him. then, he says, "you're a good fellow, but you don't understand. good-night, go along. magsman, the little man will now walk three times round the cairawan, and retire behind the curtain." the last i see of him on that occasion was his tryin, on the extremest werge of insensibility, to climb up the stairs, one by one, with his hands and knees. they'd have been much too steep for him, if he had been sober; but he wouldn't be helped. it warn't long after that, that i read in the newspaper of mr. chops's being presented at court. it was printed, "it will be recollected"--and i've noticed in my life, that it is sure to be printed that it _will_ be recollected, whenever it won't--"that mr. chops is the individual of small stature, whose brilliant success in the last state lottery attracted so much attention." well, i says to myself, such is life! he has been and done it in earnest at last. he has astonished george the fourth! (on account of which, i had that canvass new-painted, him with a bag of money in his hand, a presentin it to george the fourth, and a lady in ostrich feathers fallin in love with him in a bag-wig, sword, and buckles correct.) i took the house as is the subject of present inquiries--though not the honour of bein acquainted--and i run magsman's amusements in it thirteen months--sometimes one thing, sometimes another, sometimes nothin particular, but always all the canvasses outside. one night, when we had played the last company out, which was a shy company, through its raining heavens hard, i was takin a pipe in the one pair back along with the young man with the toes, which i had taken on for a month (though he never drawed--except on paper), and i heard a kickin at the street door. "halloa!" i says to the young man, "what's up!" he rubs his eyebrows with his toes, and he says, "i can't imagine, mr. magsman"--which he never could imagine nothin, and was monotonous company. the noise not leavin off, i laid down my pipe, and i took up a candle, and i went down and opened the door. i looked out into the street; but nothin could i see, and nothin was i aware of, until i turned round quick, because some creetur run between my legs into the passage. there was mr. chops! "magsman," he says, "take me, on the old terms, and you've got me; if it's done, say done!" i was all of a maze, but i said, "done, sir." "done to your done, and double done!" says he. "have you got a bit of supper in the house?" bearin in mind them sparklin warieties of foreign drains as we'd guzzled away at in pall mall, i was ashamed to offer him cold sassages and gin- and-water; but he took 'em both and took 'em free; havin a chair for his table, and sittin down at it on a stool, like hold times. i, all of a maze all the while. it was arter he had made a clean sweep of the sassages (beef, and to the best of my calculations two pound and a quarter), that the wisdom as was in that little man began to come out of him like prespiration. "magsman," he says, "look upon me! you see afore you, one as has both gone into society and come out." "o! you _are_ out of it, mr. chops? how did you get out, sir?" "sold out!" says he. you never saw the like of the wisdom as his ed expressed, when he made use of them two words. "my friend magsman, i'll impart to you a discovery i've made. it's wallable; it's cost twelve thousand five hundred pound; it may do you good in life--the secret of this matter is, that it ain't so much that a person goes into society, as that society goes into a person." not exactly keepin up with his meanin, i shook my head, put on a deep look, and said, "you're right there, mr. chops." "magsman," he says, twitchin me by the leg, "society has gone into me, to the tune of every penny of my property." i felt that i went pale, and though nat'rally a bold speaker, i couldn't hardly say, "where's normandy?" "bolted. with the plate," said mr. chops. "and t'other one?" meaning him as formerly wore the bishop's mitre. "bolted. with the jewels," said mr. chops. i sat down and looked at him, and he stood up and looked at me. "magsman," he says, and he seemed to myself to get wiser as he got hoarser; "society, taken in the lump, is all dwarfs. at the court of st. james's, they was all a doing my old business--all a goin three times round the cairawan, in the hold court-suits and properties. elsewheres, they was most of 'em ringin their little bells out of make-believes. everywheres, the sarser was a goin round. magsman, the sarser is the uniwersal institution!" i perceived, you understand, that he was soured by his misfortunes, and i felt for mr. chops. "as to fat ladies," he says, giving his head a tremendious one agin the wall, "there's lots of _them_ in society, and worse than the original. _hers_ was a outrage upon taste--simply a outrage upon taste--awakenin contempt--carryin its own punishment in the form of a indian." here he giv himself another tremendious one. "but _theirs_, magsman, _theirs_ is mercenary outrages. lay in cashmeer shawls, buy bracelets, strew 'em and a lot of 'andsome fans and things about your rooms, let it be known that you give away like water to all as come to admire, and the fat ladies that don't exhibit for so much down upon the drum, will come from all the pints of the compass to flock about you, whatever you are. they'll drill holes in your 'art, magsman, like a cullender. and when you've no more left to give, they'll laugh at you to your face, and leave you to have your bones picked dry by wulturs, like the dead wild ass of the prairies that you deserve to be!" here he giv himself the most tremendious one of all, and dropped. i thought he was gone. his ed was so heavy, and he knocked it so hard, and he fell so stoney, and the sassagerial disturbance in him must have been so immense, that i thought he was gone. but, he soon come round with care, and he sat up on the floor, and he said to me, with wisdom comin out of his eyes, if ever it come: "magsman! the most material difference between the two states of existence through which your unhappy friend has passed;" he reached out his poor little hand, and his tears dropped down on the moustachio which it was a credit to him to have done his best to grow, but it is not in mortals to command success,--"the difference this. when i was out of society, i was paid light for being seen. when i went into society, i paid heavy for being seen. i prefer the former, even if i wasn't forced upon it. give me out through the trumpet, in the hold way, to-morrow." arter that, he slid into the line again as easy as if he had been iled all over. but the organ was kep from him, and no allusions was ever made, when a company was in, to his property. he got wiser every day; his views of society and the public was luminous, bewilderin, awful; and his ed got bigger and bigger as his wisdom expanded it. he took well, and pulled 'em in most excellent for nine weeks. at the expiration of that period, when his ed was a sight, he expressed one evenin, the last company havin been turned out, and the door shut, a wish to have a little music. "mr. chops," i said (i never dropped the "mr." with him; the world might do it, but not me); "mr. chops, are you sure as you are in a state of mind and body to sit upon the organ?" his answer was this: "toby, when next met with on the tramp, i forgive her and the indian. and i am." it was with fear and trembling that i began to turn the handle; but he sat like a lamb. i will be my belief to my dying day, that i see his ed expand as he sat; you may therefore judge how great his thoughts was. he sat out all the changes, and then he come off. "toby," he says, with a quiet smile, "the little man will now walk three times round the cairawan, and retire behind the curtain." when we called him in the morning, we found him gone into a much better society than mine or pall mall's. i giv mr. chops as comfortable a funeral as lay in my power, followed myself as chief, and had the george the fourth canvass carried first, in the form of a banner. but, the house was so dismal arterwards, that i giv it up, and took to the wan again. * * * * * "i don't triumph," said jarber, folding up the second manuscript, and looking hard at trottle. "i don't triumph over this worthy creature. i merely ask him if he is satisfied now?" "how can he be anything else?" i said, answering for trottle, who sat obstinately silent. "this time, jarber, you have not only read us a delightfully amusing story, but you have also answered the question about the house. of course it stands empty now. who would think of taking it after it had been turned into a caravan?" i looked at trottle, as i said those last words, and jarber waved his hand indulgently in the same direction. "let this excellent person speak," said jarber. "you were about to say, my good man?"-- "i only wished to ask, sir," said trottle doggedly, "if you could kindly oblige me with a date or two in connection with that last story?" "a date!" repeated jarber. "what does the man want with dates!" "i should be glad to know, with great respect," persisted trottle, "if the person named magsman was the last tenant who lived in the house. it's my opinion--if i may be excused for giving it--that he most decidedly was not." with those words, trottle made a low bow, and quietly left the room. there is no denying that jarber, when we were left together, looked sadly discomposed. he had evidently forgotten to inquire about dates; and, in spite of his magnificent talk about his series of discoveries, it was quite as plain that the two stories he had just read, had really and truly exhausted his present stock. i thought myself bound, in common gratitude, to help him out of his embarrassment by a timely suggestion. so i proposed that he should come to tea again, on the next monday evening, the thirteenth, and should make such inquiries in the meantime, as might enable him to dispose triumphantly of trottle's objection. he gallantly kissed my hand, made a neat little speech of acknowledgment, and took his leave. for the rest of the week i would not encourage trottle by allowing him to refer to the house at all. i suspected he was making his own inquiries about dates, but i put no questions to him. on monday evening, the thirteenth, that dear unfortunate jarber came, punctual to the appointed time. he looked so terribly harassed, that he was really quite a spectacle of feebleness and fatigue. i saw, at a glance, that the question of dates had gone against him, that mr. magsman had not been the last tenant of the house, and that the reason of its emptiness was still to seek. "what i have gone through," said jarber, "words are not eloquent enough to tell. o sophonisba, i have begun another series of discoveries! accept the last two as stories laid on your shrine; and wait to blame me for leaving your curiosity unappeased, until you have heard number three." number three looked like a very short manuscript, and i said as much. jarber explained to me that we were to have some poetry this time. in the course of his investigations he had stepped into the circulating library, to seek for information on the one important subject. all the library-people knew about the house was, that a female relative of the last tenant, as they believed, had, just after that tenant left, sent a little manuscript poem to them which she described as referring to events that had actually passed in the house; and which she wanted the proprietor of the library to publish. she had written no address on her letter; and the proprietor had kept the manuscript ready to be given back to her (the publishing of poems not being in his line) when she might call for it. she had never called for it; and the poem had been lent to jarber, at his express request, to read to me. before he began, i rang the bell for trottle; being determined to have him present at the new reading, as a wholesome check on his obstinacy. to my surprise peggy answered the bell, and told me, that trottle had stepped out without saying where. i instantly felt the strongest possible conviction that he was at his old tricks: and that his stepping out in the evening, without leave, meant--philandering. controlling myself on my visitor's account, i dismissed peggy, stifled my indignation, and prepared, as politely as might be, to listen to jarber. oliver twist or the parish boy's progress by charles dickens contents i treats of the place where oliver twist was born and of the circumstances attending his birth ii treats of oliver twist's growth, education, and board iii relates how oliver twist was very near getting a place which would not have been a sinecure iv oliver, being offered another place, makes his first entry into public life v oliver mingles with new associates. going to a funeral for the first time, he forms an unfavourable notion of his master's business vi oliver, being goaded by the taunts of noah, rouses into action, and rather astonishes him vii oliver continues refractory viii oliver walks to london. he encounters on the road a strange sort of young gentleman ix containing further particulars concerning the pleasant old gentleman, and his hopeful pupils x oliver becomes better acquainted with the characters of his new associates; and purchases experience at a high price. being a short, but very important chapter, in this history xi treats of mr. fang the police magistrate; and furnishes a slight specimen of his mode of administering justice xii in which oliver is taken better care of than he ever was before. and in which the narrative reverts to the merry old gentleman and his youthful friends. xiii some new acquaintances are introduced to the intelligent reader, connected with whom various pleasant matters are related, appertaining to this history xiv comprising further particulars of oliver's stay at mr. brownlow's, with the remarkable prediction which one mr. grimwig uttered concerning him, when he went out on an errand xv showing how very fond of oliver twist, the merry old jew and miss nancy were xvi relates what became of oliver twist, after he had been claimed by nancy xvii oliver's destiny continuing unpropitious, brings a great man to london to injure his reputation xviii how oliver passed his time in the improving society of his reputable friends xix in which a notable plan is discussed and determined on xx wherein oliver is delivered over to mr. william sikes xxi the expedition xxii the burglary xxiii which contains the substance of a pleasant conversation between mr. bumble and a lady; and shows that even a beadle may be susceptible on some points xxiv treats on a very poor subject. but is a short one, and may be found of importance in this history xxv wherein this history reverts to mr. fagin and company xxvi in which a mysterious character appears upon the scene; and many things, inseparable from this history, are done and performed xxvii atones for the unpoliteness of a former chapter; which deserted a lady, most unceremoniously xxviii looks after oliver, and proceeds with his adventures xxix has an introductory account of the inmates of the house, to which oliver resorted xxx relates what oliver's new visitors thought of him xxxi involves a critical position xxxii of the happy life oliver began to lead with his kind friends xxxiii wherein the happiness of oliver and his friends, experiences a sudden check xxxiv contains some introductory particulars relative to a young gentleman who now arrives upon the scene; and a new adventure which happened to oliver xxxv containing the unsatisfactory result of oliver's adventure; and a conversation of some importance between harry maylie and rose xxxvi is a very short one, and may appear of no great importance in its place, but it should be read notwithstanding, as a sequel to the last, and a key to one that will follow when its time arrives xxxvii in which the reader may perceive a contrast, not uncommon in matrimonial cases xxxviii containing an account of what passed between mr. and mrs. bumble, and mr. monks, at their nocturnal interview xxxix introduces some respectable characters with whom the reader is already acquainted, and shows how monks and the jew laid their worthy heads together xl a strange interview, which is a sequel to the last chamber xli containing fresh discoveries, and showing that suprises, like misfortunes, seldom come alone xlii an old acquaintance of oliver's, exhibiting decided marks of genius, becomes a public character in the metropolis xliii wherein is shown how the artful dodger got into trouble xliv the time arrives for nancy to redeem her pledge to rose maylie. she fails. xlv noah claypole is employed by fagin on a secret mission xlvi the appointment kept xlvii fatal consequences xlviii the flight of sikes xlix monks and mr. brownlow at length meet. their conversation, and the intelligence that interrupts it l the pursuit and escape li affording an explanation of more mysteries than one, and comprehending a proposal of marriage with no word of settlement or pin-money lii fagin's last night alive liii and last chapter i treats of the place where oliver twist was born and of the circumstances attending his birth among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which i will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which i need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter. for a long time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all; in which case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never have appeared; or, if they had, that being comprised within a couple of pages, they would have possessed the inestimable merit of being the most concise and faithful specimen of biography, extant in the literature of any age or country. although i am not disposed to maintain that the being born in a workhouse, is in itself the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befall a human being, i do mean to say that in this particular instance, it was the best thing for oliver twist that could by possibility have occurred. the fact is, that there was considerable difficulty in inducing oliver to take upon himself the office of respiration,--a troublesome practice, but one which custom has rendered necessary to our easy existence; and for some time he lay gasping on a little flock mattress, rather unequally poised between this world and the next: the balance being decidedly in favour of the latter. now, if, during this brief period, oliver had been surrounded by careful grandmothers, anxious aunts, experienced nurses, and doctors of profound wisdom, he would most inevitably and indubitably have been killed in no time. there being nobody by, however, but a pauper old woman, who was rendered rather misty by an unwonted allowance of beer; and a parish surgeon who did such matters by contract; oliver and nature fought out the point between them. the result was, that, after a few struggles, oliver breathed, sneezed, and proceeded to advertise to the inmates of the workhouse the fact of a new burden having been imposed upon the parish, by setting up as loud a cry as could reasonably have been expected from a male infant who had not been possessed of that very useful appendage, a voice, for a much longer space of time than three minutes and a quarter. as oliver gave this first proof of the free and proper action of his lungs, the patchwork coverlet which was carelessly flung over the iron bedstead, rustled; the pale face of a young woman was raised feebly from the pillow; and a faint voice imperfectly articulated the words, 'let me see the child, and die.' the surgeon had been sitting with his face turned towards the fire: giving the palms of his hands a warm and a rub alternately. as the young woman spoke, he rose, and advancing to the bed's head, said, with more kindness than might have been expected of him: 'oh, you must not talk about dying yet.' 'lor bless her dear heart, no!' interposed the nurse, hastily depositing in her pocket a green glass bottle, the contents of which she had been tasting in a corner with evident satisfaction. 'lor bless her dear heart, when she has lived as long as i have, sir, and had thirteen children of her own, and all on 'em dead except two, and them in the wurkus with me, she'll know better than to take on in that way, bless her dear heart! think what it is to be a mother, there's a dear young lamb do.' apparently this consolatory perspective of a mother's prospects failed in producing its due effect. the patient shook her head, and stretched out her hand towards the child. the surgeon deposited it in her arms. she imprinted her cold white lips passionately on its forehead; passed her hands over her face; gazed wildly round; shuddered; fell back--and died. they chafed her breast, hands, and temples; but the blood had stopped forever. they talked of hope and comfort. they had been strangers too long. 'it's all over, mrs. thingummy!' said the surgeon at last. 'ah, poor dear, so it is!' said the nurse, picking up the cork of the green bottle, which had fallen out on the pillow, as she stooped to take up the child. 'poor dear!' 'you needn't mind sending up to me, if the child cries, nurse,' said the surgeon, putting on his gloves with great deliberation. 'it's very likely it _will_ be troublesome. give it a little gruel if it is.' he put on his hat, and, pausing by the bed-side on his way to the door, added, 'she was a good-looking girl, too; where did she come from?' 'she was brought here last night,' replied the old woman, 'by the overseer's order. she was found lying in the street. she had walked some distance, for her shoes were worn to pieces; but where she came from, or where she was going to, nobody knows.' the surgeon leaned over the body, and raised the left hand. 'the old story,' he said, shaking his head: 'no wedding-ring, i see. ah! good-night!' the medical gentleman walked away to dinner; and the nurse, having once more applied herself to the green bottle, sat down on a low chair before the fire, and proceeded to dress the infant. what an excellent example of the power of dress, young oliver twist was! wrapped in the blanket which had hitherto formed his only covering, he might have been the child of a nobleman or a beggar; it would have been hard for the haughtiest stranger to have assigned him his proper station in society. but now that he was enveloped in the old calico robes which had grown yellow in the same service, he was badged and ticketed, and fell into his place at once--a parish child--the orphan of a workhouse--the humble, half-starved drudge--to be cuffed and buffeted through the world--despised by all, and pitied by none. oliver cried lustily. if he could have known that he was an orphan, left to the tender mercies of church-wardens and overseers, perhaps he would have cried the louder. chapter ii treats of oliver twist's growth, education, and board for the next eight or ten months, oliver was the victim of a systematic course of treachery and deception. he was brought up by hand. the hungry and destitute situation of the infant orphan was duly reported by the workhouse authorities to the parish authorities. the parish authorities inquired with dignity of the workhouse authorities, whether there was no female then domiciled in 'the house' who was in a situation to impart to oliver twist, the consolation and nourishment of which he stood in need. the workhouse authorities replied with humility, that there was not. upon this, the parish authorities magnanimously and humanely resolved, that oliver should be 'farmed,' or, in other words, that he should be dispatched to a branch-workhouse some three miles off, where twenty or thirty other juvenile offenders against the poor-laws, rolled about the floor all day, without the inconvenience of too much food or too much clothing, under the parental superintendence of an elderly female, who received the culprits at and for the consideration of sevenpence-halfpenny per small head per week. sevenpence-halfpenny's worth per week is a good round diet for a child; a great deal may be got for sevenpence-halfpenny, quite enough to overload its stomach, and make it uncomfortable. the elderly female was a woman of wisdom and experience; she knew what was good for children; and she had a very accurate perception of what was good for herself. so, she appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend to her own use, and consigned the rising parochial generation to even a shorter allowance than was originally provided for them. thereby finding in the lowest depth a deeper still; and proving herself a very great experimental philosopher. everybody knows the story of another experimental philosopher who had a great theory about a horse being able to live without eating, and who demonstrated it so well, that he had got his own horse down to a straw a day, and would unquestionably have rendered him a very spirited and rampacious animal on nothing at all, if he had not died, four-and-twenty hours before he was to have had his first comfortable bait of air. unfortunately for, the experimental philosophy of the female to whose protecting care oliver twist was delivered over, a similar result usually attended the operation of _her_ system; for at the very moment when the child had contrived to exist upon the smallest possible portion of the weakest possible food, it did perversely happen in eight and a half cases out of ten, either that it sickened from want and cold, or fell into the fire from neglect, or got half-smothered by accident; in any one of which cases, the miserable little being was usually summoned into another world, and there gathered to the fathers it had never known in this. occasionally, when there was some more than usually interesting inquest upon a parish child who had been overlooked in turning up a bedstead, or inadvertently scalded to death when there happened to be a washing--though the latter accident was very scarce, anything approaching to a washing being of rare occurrence in the farm--the jury would take it into their heads to ask troublesome questions, or the parishioners would rebelliously affix their signatures to a remonstrance. but these impertinences were speedily checked by the evidence of the surgeon, and the testimony of the beadle; the former of whom had always opened the body and found nothing inside (which was very probable indeed), and the latter of whom invariably swore whatever the parish wanted; which was very self-devotional. besides, the board made periodical pilgrimages to the farm, and always sent the beadle the day before, to say they were going. the children were neat and clean to behold, when _they_ went; and what more would the people have! it cannot be expected that this system of farming would produce any very extraordinary or luxuriant crop. oliver twist's ninth birthday found him a pale thin child, somewhat diminutive in stature, and decidedly small in circumference. but nature or inheritance had implanted a good sturdy spirit in oliver's breast. it had had plenty of room to expand, thanks to the spare diet of the establishment; and perhaps to this circumstance may be attributed his having any ninth birth-day at all. be this as it may, however, it was his ninth birthday; and he was keeping it in the coal-cellar with a select party of two other young gentleman, who, after participating with him in a sound thrashing, had been locked up for atrociously presuming to be hungry, when mrs. mann, the good lady of the house, was unexpectedly startled by the apparition of mr. bumble, the beadle, striving to undo the wicket of the garden-gate. 'goodness gracious! is that you, mr. bumble, sir?' said mrs. mann, thrusting her head out of the window in well-affected ecstasies of joy. '(susan, take oliver and them two brats upstairs, and wash 'em directly.)--my heart alive! mr. bumble, how glad i am to see you, sure-ly!' now, mr. bumble was a fat man, and a choleric; so, instead of responding to this open-hearted salutation in a kindred spirit, he gave the little wicket a tremendous shake, and then bestowed upon it a kick which could have emanated from no leg but a beadle's. 'lor, only think,' said mrs. mann, running out,--for the three boys had been removed by this time,--'only think of that! that i should have forgotten that the gate was bolted on the inside, on account of them dear children! walk in sir; walk in, pray, mr. bumble, do, sir.' although this invitation was accompanied with a curtsey that might have softened the heart of a church-warden, it by no means mollified the beadle. 'do you think this respectful or proper conduct, mrs. mann,' inquired mr. bumble, grasping his cane, 'to keep the parish officers a waiting at your garden-gate, when they come here upon porochial business with the porochial orphans? are you aweer, mrs. mann, that you are, as i may say, a porochial delegate, and a stipendiary?' 'i'm sure mr. bumble, that i was only a telling one or two of the dear children as is so fond of you, that it was you a coming,' replied mrs. mann with great humility. mr. bumble had a great idea of his oratorical powers and his importance. he had displayed the one, and vindicated the other. he relaxed. 'well, well, mrs. mann,' he replied in a calmer tone; 'it may be as you say; it may be. lead the way in, mrs. mann, for i come on business, and have something to say.' mrs. mann ushered the beadle into a small parlour with a brick floor; placed a seat for him; and officiously deposited his cocked hat and cane on the table before him. mr. bumble wiped from his forehead the perspiration which his walk had engendered, glanced complacently at the cocked hat, and smiled. yes, he smiled. beadles are but men: and mr. bumble smiled. 'now don't you be offended at what i'm a going to say,' observed mrs. mann, with captivating sweetness. 'you've had a long walk, you know, or i wouldn't mention it. now, will you take a little drop of somethink, mr. bumble?' 'not a drop. nor a drop,' said mr. bumble, waving his right hand in a dignified, but placid manner. 'i think you will,' said mrs. mann, who had noticed the tone of the refusal, and the gesture that had accompanied it. 'just a leetle drop, with a little cold water, and a lump of sugar.' mr. bumble coughed. 'now, just a leetle drop,' said mrs. mann persuasively. 'what is it?' inquired the beadle. 'why, it's what i'm obliged to keep a little of in the house, to put into the blessed infants' daffy, when they ain't well, mr. bumble,' replied mrs. mann as she opened a corner cupboard, and took down a bottle and glass. 'it's gin. i'll not deceive you, mr. b. it's gin.' 'do you give the children daffy, mrs. mann?' inquired bumble, following with his eyes the interesting process of mixing. 'ah, bless 'em, that i do, dear as it is,' replied the nurse. 'i couldn't see 'em suffer before my very eyes, you know sir.' 'no'; said mr. bumble approvingly; 'no, you could not. you are a humane woman, mrs. mann.' (here she set down the glass.) 'i shall take a early opportunity of mentioning it to the board, mrs. mann.' (he drew it towards him.) 'you feel as a mother, mrs. mann.' (he stirred the gin-and-water.) 'i--i drink your health with cheerfulness, mrs. mann'; and he swallowed half of it. 'and now about business,' said the beadle, taking out a leathern pocket-book. 'the child that was half-baptized oliver twist, is nine year old to-day.' 'bless him!' interposed mrs. mann, inflaming her left eye with the corner of her apron. 'and notwithstanding a offered reward of ten pound, which was afterwards increased to twenty pound. notwithstanding the most superlative, and, i may say, supernat'ral exertions on the part of this parish,' said bumble, 'we have never been able to discover who is his father, or what was his mother's settlement, name, or condition.' mrs. mann raised her hands in astonishment; but added, after a moment's reflection, 'how comes he to have any name at all, then?' the beadle drew himself up with great pride, and said, 'i inwented it.' 'you, mr. bumble!' 'i, mrs. mann. we name our fondlings in alphabetical order. the last was a s,--swubble, i named him. this was a t,--twist, i named _him_. the next one comes will be unwin, and the next vilkins. i have got names ready made to the end of the alphabet, and all the way through it again, when we come to z.' 'why, you're quite a literary character, sir!' said mrs. mann. 'well, well,' said the beadle, evidently gratified with the compliment; 'perhaps i may be. perhaps i may be, mrs. mann.' he finished the gin-and-water, and added, 'oliver being now too old to remain here, the board have determined to have him back into the house. i have come out myself to take him there. so let me see him at once.' 'i'll fetch him directly,' said mrs. mann, leaving the room for that purpose. oliver, having had by this time as much of the outer coat of dirt which encrusted his face and hands, removed, as could be scrubbed off in one washing, was led into the room by his benevolent protectress. 'make a bow to the gentleman, oliver,' said mrs. mann. oliver made a bow, which was divided between the beadle on the chair, and the cocked hat on the table. 'will you go along with me, oliver?' said mr. bumble, in a majestic voice. oliver was about to say that he would go along with anybody with great readiness, when, glancing upward, he caught sight of mrs. mann, who had got behind the beadle's chair, and was shaking her fist at him with a furious countenance. he took the hint at once, for the fist had been too often impressed upon his body not to be deeply impressed upon his recollection. 'will she go with me?' inquired poor oliver. 'no, she can't,' replied mr. bumble. 'but she'll come and see you sometimes.' this was no very great consolation to the child. young as he was, however, he had sense enough to make a feint of feeling great regret at going away. it was no very difficult matter for the boy to call tears into his eyes. hunger and recent ill-usage are great assistants if you want to cry; and oliver cried very naturally indeed. mrs. mann gave him a thousand embraces, and what oliver wanted a great deal more, a piece of bread and butter, less he should seem too hungry when he got to the workhouse. with the slice of bread in his hand, and the little brown-cloth parish cap on his head, oliver was then led away by mr. bumble from the wretched home where one kind word or look had never lighted the gloom of his infant years. and yet he burst into an agony of childish grief, as the cottage-gate closed after him. wretched as were the little companions in misery he was leaving behind, they were the only friends he had ever known; and a sense of his loneliness in the great wide world, sank into the child's heart for the first time. mr. bumble walked on with long strides; little oliver, firmly grasping his gold-laced cuff, trotted beside him, inquiring at the end of every quarter of a mile whether they were 'nearly there.' to these interrogations mr. bumble returned very brief and snappish replies; for the temporary blandness which gin-and-water awakens in some bosoms had by this time evaporated; and he was once again a beadle. oliver had not been within the walls of the workhouse a quarter of an hour, and had scarcely completed the demolition of a second slice of bread, when mr. bumble, who had handed him over to the care of an old woman, returned; and, telling him it was a board night, informed him that the board had said he was to appear before it forthwith. not having a very clearly defined notion of what a live board was, oliver was rather astounded by this intelligence, and was not quite certain whether he ought to laugh or cry. he had no time to think about the matter, however; for mr. bumble gave him a tap on the head, with his cane, to wake him up: and another on the back to make him lively: and bidding him to follow, conducted him into a large white-washed room, where eight or ten fat gentlemen were sitting round a table. at the top of the table, seated in an arm-chair rather higher than the rest, was a particularly fat gentleman with a very round, red face. 'bow to the board,' said bumble. oliver brushed away two or three tears that were lingering in his eyes; and seeing no board but the table, fortunately bowed to that. 'what's your name, boy?' said the gentleman in the high chair. oliver was frightened at the sight of so many gentlemen, which made him tremble: and the beadle gave him another tap behind, which made him cry. these two causes made him answer in a very low and hesitating voice; whereupon a gentleman in a white waistcoat said he was a fool. which was a capital way of raising his spirits, and putting him quite at his ease. 'boy,' said the gentleman in the high chair, 'listen to me. you know you're an orphan, i suppose?' 'what's that, sir?' inquired poor oliver. 'the boy _is_ a fool--i thought he was,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. 'hush!' said the gentleman who had spoken first. 'you know you've got no father or mother, and that you were brought up by the parish, don't you?' 'yes, sir,' replied oliver, weeping bitterly. 'what are you crying for?' inquired the gentleman in the white waistcoat. and to be sure it was very extraordinary. what _could_ the boy be crying for? 'i hope you say your prayers every night,' said another gentleman in a gruff voice; 'and pray for the people who feed you, and take care of you--like a christian.' 'yes, sir,' stammered the boy. the gentleman who spoke last was unconsciously right. it would have been very like a christian, and a marvellously good christian too, if oliver had prayed for the people who fed and took care of _him_. but he hadn't, because nobody had taught him. 'well! you have come here to be educated, and taught a useful trade,' said the red-faced gentleman in the high chair. 'so you'll begin to pick oakum to-morrow morning at six o'clock,' added the surly one in the white waistcoat. for the combination of both these blessings in the one simple process of picking oakum, oliver bowed low by the direction of the beadle, and was then hurried away to a large ward; where, on a rough, hard bed, he sobbed himself to sleep. what a novel illustration of the tender laws of england! they let the paupers go to sleep! poor oliver! he little thought, as he lay sleeping in happy unconsciousness of all around him, that the board had that very day arrived at a decision which would exercise the most material influence over all his future fortunes. but they had. and this was it: the members of this board were very sage, deep, philosophical men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse, they found out at once, what ordinary folks would never have discovered--the poor people liked it! it was a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer classes; a tavern where there was nothing to pay; a public breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper all the year round; a brick and mortar elysium, where it was all play and no work. 'oho!' said the board, looking very knowing; 'we are the fellows to set this to rights; we'll stop it all, in no time.' so, they established the rule, that all poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, not they), of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it. with this view, they contracted with the water-works to lay on an unlimited supply of water; and with a corn-factor to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal; and issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll of sundays. they made a great many other wise and humane regulations, having reference to the ladies, which it is not necessary to repeat; kindly undertook to divorce poor married people, in consequence of the great expense of a suit in doctors' commons; and, instead of compelling a man to support his family, as they had theretofore done, took his family away from him, and made him a bachelor! there is no saying how many applicants for relief, under these last two heads, might have started up in all classes of society, if it had not been coupled with the workhouse; but the board were long-headed men, and had provided for this difficulty. the relief was inseparable from the workhouse and the gruel; and that frightened people. for the first six months after oliver twist was removed, the system was in full operation. it was rather expensive at first, in consequence of the increase in the undertaker's bill, and the necessity of taking in the clothes of all the paupers, which fluttered loosely on their wasted, shrunken forms, after a week or two's gruel. but the number of workhouse inmates got thin as well as the paupers; and the board were in ecstasies. the room in which the boys were fed, was a large stone hall, with a copper at one end: out of which the master, dressed in an apron for the purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel at mealtimes. of this festive composition each boy had one porringer, and no more--except on occasions of great public rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides. the bowls never wanted washing. the boys polished them with their spoons till they shone again; and when they had performed this operation (which never took very long, the spoons being nearly as large as the bowls), they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed; employing themselves, meanwhile, in sucking their fingers most assiduously, with the view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereon. boys have generally excellent appetites. oliver twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months: at last they got so voracious and wild with hunger, that one boy, who was tall for his age, and hadn't been used to that sort of thing (for his father had kept a small cook-shop), hinted darkly to his companions, that unless he had another basin of gruel per diem, he was afraid he might some night happen to eat the boy who slept next him, who happened to be a weakly youth of tender age. he had a wild, hungry eye; and they implicitly believed him. a council was held; lots were cast who should walk up to the master after supper that evening, and ask for more; and it fell to oliver twist. the evening arrived; the boys took their places. the master, in his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was said over the short commons. the gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at oliver; while his next neighbors nudged him. child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. he rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity: 'please, sir, i want some more.' the master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. he gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. the assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear. 'what!' said the master at length, in a faint voice. 'please, sir,' replied oliver, 'i want some more.' the master aimed a blow at oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arm; and shrieked aloud for the beadle. the board were sitting in solemn conclave, when mr. bumble rushed into the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the high chair, said, 'mr. limbkins, i beg your pardon, sir! oliver twist has asked for more!' there was a general start. horror was depicted on every countenance. 'for _more_!' said mr. limbkins. 'compose yourself, bumble, and answer me distinctly. do i understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?' 'he did, sir,' replied bumble. 'that boy will be hung,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. 'i know that boy will be hung.' nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's opinion. an animated discussion took place. oliver was ordered into instant confinement; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would take oliver twist off the hands of the parish. in other words, five pounds and oliver twist were offered to any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade, business, or calling. 'i never was more convinced of anything in my life,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, as he knocked at the gate and read the bill next morning: 'i never was more convinced of anything in my life, than i am that that boy will come to be hung.' as i purpose to show in the sequel whether the white waistcoated gentleman was right or not, i should perhaps mar the interest of this narrative (supposing it to possess any at all), if i ventured to hint just yet, whether the life of oliver twist had this violent termination or no. chapter iii relates how oliver twist was very near getting a place which would not have been a sinecure for a week after the commission of the impious and profane offence of asking for more, oliver remained a close prisoner in the dark and solitary room to which he had been consigned by the wisdom and mercy of the board. it appears, at first sight not unreasonable to suppose, that, if he had entertained a becoming feeling of respect for the prediction of the gentleman in the white waistcoat, he would have established that sage individual's prophetic character, once and for ever, by tying one end of his pocket-handkerchief to a hook in the wall, and attaching himself to the other. to the performance of this feat, however, there was one obstacle: namely, that pocket-handkerchiefs being decided articles of luxury, had been, for all future times and ages, removed from the noses of paupers by the express order of the board, in council assembled: solemnly given and pronounced under their hands and seals. there was a still greater obstacle in oliver's youth and childishness. he only cried bitterly all day; and, when the long, dismal night came on, spread his little hands before his eyes to shut out the darkness, and crouching in the corner, tried to sleep: ever and anon waking with a start and tremble, and drawing himself closer and closer to the wall, as if to feel even its cold hard surface were a protection in the gloom and loneliness which surrounded him. let it not be supposed by the enemies of 'the system,' that, during the period of his solitary incarceration, oliver was denied the benefit of exercise, the pleasure of society, or the advantages of religious consolation. as for exercise, it was nice cold weather, and he was allowed to perform his ablutions every morning under the pump, in a stone yard, in the presence of mr. bumble, who prevented his catching cold, and caused a tingling sensation to pervade his frame, by repeated applications of the cane. as for society, he was carried every other day into the hall where the boys dined, and there sociably flogged as a public warning and example. and so far from being denied the advantages of religious consolation, he was kicked into the same apartment every evening at prayer-time, and there permitted to listen to, and console his mind with, a general supplication of the boys, containing a special clause, therein inserted by authority of the board, in which they entreated to be made good, virtuous, contented, and obedient, and to be guarded from the sins and vices of oliver twist: whom the supplication distinctly set forth to be under the exclusive patronage and protection of the powers of wickedness, and an article direct from the manufactory of the very devil himself. it chanced one morning, while oliver's affairs were in this auspicious and comfortable state, that mr. gamfield, chimney-sweep, went his way down the high street, deeply cogitating in his mind his ways and means of paying certain arrears of rent, for which his landlord had become rather pressing. mr. gamfield's most sanguine estimate of his finances could not raise them within full five pounds of the desired amount; and, in a species of arithmetical desperation, he was alternately cudgelling his brains and his donkey, when passing the workhouse, his eyes encountered the bill on the gate. 'wo--o!' said mr. gamfield to the donkey. the donkey was in a state of profound abstraction: wondering, probably, whether he was destined to be regaled with a cabbage-stalk or two when he had disposed of the two sacks of soot with which the little cart was laden; so, without noticing the word of command, he jogged onward. mr. gamfield growled a fierce imprecation on the donkey generally, but more particularly on his eyes; and, running after him, bestowed a blow on his head, which would inevitably have beaten in any skull but a donkey's. then, catching hold of the bridle, he gave his jaw a sharp wrench, by way of gentle reminder that he was not his own master; and by these means turned him round. he then gave him another blow on the head, just to stun him till he came back again. having completed these arrangements, he walked up to the gate, to read the bill. the gentleman with the white waistcoat was standing at the gate with his hands behind him, after having delivered himself of some profound sentiments in the board-room. having witnessed the little dispute between mr. gamfield and the donkey, he smiled joyously when that person came up to read the bill, for he saw at once that mr. gamfield was exactly the sort of master oliver twist wanted. mr. gamfield smiled, too, as he perused the document; for five pounds was just the sum he had been wishing for; and, as to the boy with which it was encumbered, mr. gamfield, knowing what the dietary of the workhouse was, well knew he would be a nice small pattern, just the very thing for register stoves. so, he spelt the bill through again, from beginning to end; and then, touching his fur cap in token of humility, accosted the gentleman in the white waistcoat. 'this here boy, sir, wot the parish wants to 'prentis,' said mr. gamfield. 'ay, my man,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, with a condescending smile. 'what of him?' 'if the parish vould like him to learn a right pleasant trade, in a good 'spectable chimbley-sweepin' bisness,' said mr. gamfield, 'i wants a 'prentis, and i am ready to take him.' 'walk in,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. mr. gamfield having lingered behind, to give the donkey another blow on the head, and another wrench of the jaw, as a caution not to run away in his absence, followed the gentleman with the white waistcoat into the room where oliver had first seen him. 'it's a nasty trade,' said mr. limbkins, when gamfield had again stated his wish. 'young boys have been smothered in chimneys before now,' said another gentleman. 'that's acause they damped the straw afore they lit it in the chimbley to make 'em come down again,' said gamfield; 'that's all smoke, and no blaze; vereas smoke ain't o' no use at all in making a boy come down, for it only sinds him to sleep, and that's wot he likes. boys is wery obstinit, and wery lazy, gen'l'men, and there's nothink like a good hot blaze to make 'em come down vith a run. it's humane too, gen'l'men, acause, even if they've stuck in the chimbley, roasting their feet makes 'em struggle to hextricate theirselves.' the gentleman in the white waistcoat appeared very much amused by this explanation; but his mirth was speedily checked by a look from mr. limbkins. the board then proceeded to converse among themselves for a few minutes, but in so low a tone, that the words 'saving of expenditure,' 'looked well in the accounts,' 'have a printed report published,' were alone audible. these only chanced to be heard, indeed, or account of their being very frequently repeated with great emphasis. at length the whispering ceased; and the members of the board, having resumed their seats and their solemnity, mr. limbkins said: 'we have considered your proposition, and we don't approve of it.' 'not at all,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. 'decidedly not,' added the other members. as mr. gamfield did happen to labour under the slight imputation of having bruised three or four boys to death already, it occurred to him that the board had, perhaps, in some unaccountable freak, taken it into their heads that this extraneous circumstance ought to influence their proceedings. it was very unlike their general mode of doing business, if they had; but still, as he had no particular wish to revive the rumour, he twisted his cap in his hands, and walked slowly from the table. 'so you won't let me have him, gen'l'men?' said mr. gamfield, pausing near the door. 'no,' replied mr. limbkins; 'at least, as it's a nasty business, we think you ought to take something less than the premium we offered.' mr. gamfield's countenance brightened, as, with a quick step, he returned to the table, and said, 'what'll you give, gen'l'men? come! don't be too hard on a poor man. what'll you give?' 'i should say, three pound ten was plenty,' said mr. limbkins. 'ten shillings too much,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. 'come!' said gamfield; 'say four pound, gen'l'men. say four pound, and you've got rid of him for good and all. there!' 'three pound ten,' repeated mr. limbkins, firmly. 'come! i'll split the diff'erence, gen'l'men,' urged gamfield. 'three pound fifteen.' 'not a farthing more,' was the firm reply of mr. limbkins. 'you're desperate hard upon me, gen'l'men,' said gamfield, wavering. 'pooh! pooh! nonsense!' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. 'he'd be cheap with nothing at all, as a premium. take him, you silly fellow! he's just the boy for you. he wants the stick, now and then: it'll do him good; and his board needn't come very expensive, for he hasn't been overfed since he was born. ha! ha! ha!' mr. gamfield gave an arch look at the faces round the table, and, observing a smile on all of them, gradually broke into a smile himself. the bargain was made. mr. bumble, was at once instructed that oliver twist and his indentures were to be conveyed before the magistrate, for signature and approval, that very afternoon. in pursuance of this determination, little oliver, to his excessive astonishment, was released from bondage, and ordered to put himself into a clean shirt. he had hardly achieved this very unusual gymnastic performance, when mr. bumble brought him, with his own hands, a basin of gruel, and the holiday allowance of two ounces and a quarter of bread. at this tremendous sight, oliver began to cry very piteously: thinking, not unnaturally, that the board must have determined to kill him for some useful purpose, or they never would have begun to fatten him up in that way. 'don't make your eyes red, oliver, but eat your food and be thankful,' said mr. bumble, in a tone of impressive pomposity. 'you're a going to be made a 'prentice of, oliver.' 'a prentice, sir!' said the child, trembling. 'yes, oliver,' said mr. bumble. 'the kind and blessed gentleman which is so many parents to you, oliver, when you have none of your own: are a going to 'prentice' you: and to set you up in life, and make a man of you: although the expense to the parish is three pound ten!--three pound ten, oliver!--seventy shillins--one hundred and forty sixpences!--and all for a naughty orphan which nobody can't love.' as mr. bumble paused to take breath, after delivering this address in an awful voice, the tears rolled down the poor child's face, and he sobbed bitterly. 'come,' said mr. bumble, somewhat less pompously, for it was gratifying to his feelings to observe the effect his eloquence had produced; 'come, oliver! wipe your eyes with the cuffs of your jacket, and don't cry into your gruel; that's a very foolish action, oliver.' it certainly was, for there was quite enough water in it already. on their way to the magistrate, mr. bumble instructed oliver that all he would have to do, would be to look very happy, and say, when the gentleman asked him if he wanted to be apprenticed, that he should like it very much indeed; both of which injunctions oliver promised to obey: the rather as mr. bumble threw in a gentle hint, that if he failed in either particular, there was no telling what would be done to him. when they arrived at the office, he was shut up in a little room by himself, and admonished by mr. bumble to stay there, until he came back to fetch him. there the boy remained, with a palpitating heart, for half an hour. at the expiration of which time mr. bumble thrust in his head, unadorned with the cocked hat, and said aloud: 'now, oliver, my dear, come to the gentleman.' as mr. bumble said this, he put on a grim and threatening look, and added, in a low voice, 'mind what i told you, you young rascal!' oliver stared innocently in mr. bumble's face at this somewhat contradictory style of address; but that gentleman prevented his offering any remark thereupon, by leading him at once into an adjoining room: the door of which was open. it was a large room, with a great window. behind a desk, sat two old gentleman with powdered heads: one of whom was reading the newspaper; while the other was perusing, with the aid of a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles, a small piece of parchment which lay before him. mr. limbkins was standing in front of the desk on one side; and mr. gamfield, with a partially washed face, on the other; while two or three bluff-looking men, in top-boots, were lounging about. the old gentleman with the spectacles gradually dozed off, over the little bit of parchment; and there was a short pause, after oliver had been stationed by mr. bumble in front of the desk. 'this is the boy, your worship,' said mr. bumble. the old gentleman who was reading the newspaper raised his head for a moment, and pulled the other old gentleman by the sleeve; whereupon, the last-mentioned old gentleman woke up. 'oh, is this the boy?' said the old gentleman. 'this is him, sir,' replied mr. bumble. 'bow to the magistrate, my dear.' oliver roused himself, and made his best obeisance. he had been wondering, with his eyes fixed on the magistrates' powder, whether all boards were born with that white stuff on their heads, and were boards from thenceforth on that account. 'well,' said the old gentleman, 'i suppose he's fond of chimney-sweeping?' 'he doats on it, your worship,' replied bumble; giving oliver a sly pinch, to intimate that he had better not say he didn't. 'and he _will_ be a sweep, will he?' inquired the old gentleman. 'if we was to bind him to any other trade to-morrow, he'd run away simultaneous, your worship,' replied bumble. 'and this man that's to be his master--you, sir--you'll treat him well, and feed him, and do all that sort of thing, will you?' said the old gentleman. 'when i says i will, i means i will,' replied mr. gamfield doggedly. 'you're a rough speaker, my friend, but you look an honest, open-hearted man,' said the old gentleman: turning his spectacles in the direction of the candidate for oliver's premium, whose villainous countenance was a regular stamped receipt for cruelty. but the magistrate was half blind and half childish, so he couldn't reasonably be expected to discern what other people did. 'i hope i am, sir,' said mr. gamfield, with an ugly leer. 'i have no doubt you are, my friend,' replied the old gentleman: fixing his spectacles more firmly on his nose, and looking about him for the inkstand. it was the critical moment of oliver's fate. if the inkstand had been where the old gentleman thought it was, he would have dipped his pen into it, and signed the indentures, and oliver would have been straightway hurried off. but, as it chanced to be immediately under his nose, it followed, as a matter of course, that he looked all over his desk for it, without finding it; and happening in the course of his search to look straight before him, his gaze encountered the pale and terrified face of oliver twist: who, despite all the admonitory looks and pinches of bumble, was regarding the repulsive countenance of his future master, with a mingled expression of horror and fear, too palpable to be mistaken, even by a half-blind magistrate. the old gentleman stopped, laid down his pen, and looked from oliver to mr. limbkins; who attempted to take snuff with a cheerful and unconcerned aspect. 'my boy!' said the old gentleman, 'you look pale and alarmed. what is the matter?' 'stand a little away from him, beadle,' said the other magistrate: laying aside the paper, and leaning forward with an expression of interest. 'now, boy, tell us what's the matter: don't be afraid.' oliver fell on his knees, and clasping his hands together, prayed that they would order him back to the dark room--that they would starve him--beat him--kill him if they pleased--rather than send him away with that dreadful man. 'well!' said mr. bumble, raising his hands and eyes with most impressive solemnity. 'well! of all the artful and designing orphans that ever i see, oliver, you are one of the most bare-facedest.' 'hold your tongue, beadle,' said the second old gentleman, when mr. bumble had given vent to this compound adjective. 'i beg your worship's pardon,' said mr. bumble, incredulous of having heard aright. 'did your worship speak to me?' 'yes. hold your tongue.' mr. bumble was stupefied with astonishment. a beadle ordered to hold his tongue! a moral revolution! the old gentleman in the tortoise-shell spectacles looked at his companion, he nodded significantly. 'we refuse to sanction these indentures,' said the old gentleman: tossing aside the piece of parchment as he spoke. 'i hope,' stammered mr. limbkins: 'i hope the magistrates will not form the opinion that the authorities have been guilty of any improper conduct, on the unsupported testimony of a child.' 'the magistrates are not called upon to pronounce any opinion on the matter,' said the second old gentleman sharply. 'take the boy back to the workhouse, and treat him kindly. he seems to want it.' that same evening, the gentleman in the white waistcoat most positively and decidedly affirmed, not only that oliver would be hung, but that he would be drawn and quartered into the bargain. mr. bumble shook his head with gloomy mystery, and said he wished he might come to good; whereunto mr. gamfield replied, that he wished he might come to him; which, although he agreed with the beadle in most matters, would seem to be a wish of a totally opposite description. the next morning, the public were once informed that oliver twist was again to let, and that five pounds would be paid to anybody who would take possession of him. chapter iv oliver, being offered another place, makes his first entry into public life in great families, when an advantageous place cannot be obtained, either in possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy, for the young man who is growing up, it is a very general custom to send him to sea. the board, in imitation of so wise and salutary an example, took counsel together on the expediency of shipping off oliver twist, in some small trading vessel bound to a good unhealthy port. this suggested itself as the very best thing that could possibly be done with him: the probability being, that the skipper would flog him to death, in a playful mood, some day after dinner, or would knock his brains out with an iron bar; both pastimes being, as is pretty generally known, very favourite and common recreations among gentleman of that class. the more the case presented itself to the board, in this point of view, the more manifold the advantages of the step appeared; so, they came to the conclusion that the only way of providing for oliver effectually, was to send him to sea without delay. mr. bumble had been despatched to make various preliminary inquiries, with the view of finding out some captain or other who wanted a cabin-boy without any friends; and was returning to the workhouse to communicate the result of his mission; when he encountered at the gate, no less a person than mr. sowerberry, the parochial undertaker. mr. sowerberry was a tall gaunt, large-jointed man, attired in a suit of threadbare black, with darned cotton stockings of the same colour, and shoes to answer. his features were not naturally intended to wear a smiling aspect, but he was in general rather given to professional jocosity. his step was elastic, and his face betokened inward pleasantry, as he advanced to mr. bumble, and shook him cordially by the hand. 'i have taken the measure of the two women that died last night, mr. bumble,' said the undertaker. 'you'll make your fortune, mr. sowerberry,' said the beadle, as he thrust his thumb and forefinger into the proffered snuff-box of the undertaker: which was an ingenious little model of a patent coffin. 'i say you'll make your fortune, mr. sowerberry,' repeated mr. bumble, tapping the undertaker on the shoulder, in a friendly manner, with his cane. 'think so?' said the undertaker in a tone which half admitted and half disputed the probability of the event. 'the prices allowed by the board are very small, mr. bumble.' 'so are the coffins,' replied the beadle: with precisely as near an approach to a laugh as a great official ought to indulge in. mr. sowerberry was much tickled at this: as of course he ought to be; and laughed a long time without cessation. 'well, well, mr. bumble,' he said at length, 'there's no denying that, since the new system of feeding has come in, the coffins are something narrower and more shallow than they used to be; but we must have some profit, mr. bumble. well-seasoned timber is an expensive article, sir; and all the iron handles come, by canal, from birmingham.' 'well, well,' said mr. bumble, 'every trade has its drawbacks. a fair profit is, of course, allowable.' 'of course, of course,' replied the undertaker; 'and if i don't get a profit upon this or that particular article, why, i make it up in the long-run, you see--he! he! he!' 'just so,' said mr. bumble. 'though i must say,' continued the undertaker, resuming the current of observations which the beadle had interrupted: 'though i must say, mr. bumble, that i have to contend against one very great disadvantage: which is, that all the stout people go off the quickest. the people who have been better off, and have paid rates for many years, are the first to sink when they come into the house; and let me tell you, mr. bumble, that three or four inches over one's calculation makes a great hole in one's profits: especially when one has a family to provide for, sir.' as mr. sowerberry said this, with the becoming indignation of an ill-used man; and as mr. bumble felt that it rather tended to convey a reflection on the honour of the parish; the latter gentleman thought it advisable to change the subject. oliver twist being uppermost in his mind, he made him his theme. 'by the bye,' said mr. bumble, 'you don't know anybody who wants a boy, do you? a porochial 'prentis, who is at present a dead-weight; a millstone, as i may say, round the porochial throat? liberal terms, mr. sowerberry, liberal terms?' as mr. bumble spoke, he raised his cane to the bill above him, and gave three distinct raps upon the words 'five pounds': which were printed thereon in roman capitals of gigantic size. 'gadso!' said the undertaker: taking mr. bumble by the gilt-edged lappel of his official coat; 'that's just the very thing i wanted to speak to you about. you know--dear me, what a very elegant button this is, mr. bumble! i never noticed it before.' 'yes, i think it rather pretty,' said the beadle, glancing proudly downwards at the large brass buttons which embellished his coat. 'the die is the same as the porochial seal--the good samaritan healing the sick and bruised man. the board presented it to me on newyear's morning, mr. sowerberry. i put it on, i remember, for the first time, to attend the inquest on that reduced tradesman, who died in a doorway at midnight.' 'i recollect,' said the undertaker. 'the jury brought it in, "died from exposure to the cold, and want of the common necessaries of life," didn't they?' mr. bumble nodded. 'and they made it a special verdict, i think,' said the undertaker, 'by adding some words to the effect, that if the relieving officer had--' 'tush! foolery!' interposed the beadle. 'if the board attended to all the nonsense that ignorant jurymen talk, they'd have enough to do.' 'very true,' said the undertaker; 'they would indeed.' 'juries,' said mr. bumble, grasping his cane tightly, as was his wont when working into a passion: 'juries is ineddicated, vulgar, grovelling wretches.' 'so they are,' said the undertaker. 'they haven't no more philosophy nor political economy about 'em than that,' said the beadle, snapping his fingers contemptuously. 'no more they have,' acquiesced the undertaker. 'i despise 'em,' said the beadle, growing very red in the face. 'so do i,' rejoined the undertaker. 'and i only wish we'd a jury of the independent sort, in the house for a week or two,' said the beadle; 'the rules and regulations of the board would soon bring their spirit down for 'em.' 'let 'em alone for that,' replied the undertaker. so saying, he smiled, approvingly: to calm the rising wrath of the indignant parish officer. mr bumble lifted off his cocked hat; took a handkerchief from the inside of the crown; wiped from his forehead the perspiration which his rage had engendered; fixed the cocked hat on again; and, turning to the undertaker, said in a calmer voice: 'well; what about the boy?' 'oh!' replied the undertaker; 'why, you know, mr. bumble, i pay a good deal towards the poor's rates.' 'hem!' said mr. bumble. 'well?' 'well,' replied the undertaker, 'i was thinking that if i pay so much towards 'em, i've a right to get as much out of 'em as i can, mr. bumble; and so--i think i'll take the boy myself.' mr. bumble grasped the undertaker by the arm, and led him into the building. mr. sowerberry was closeted with the board for five minutes; and it was arranged that oliver should go to him that evening 'upon liking'--a phrase which means, in the case of a parish apprentice, that if the master find, upon a short trial, that he can get enough work out of a boy without putting too much food into him, he shall have him for a term of years, to do what he likes with. when little oliver was taken before 'the gentlemen' that evening; and informed that he was to go, that night, as general house-lad to a coffin-maker's; and that if he complained of his situation, or ever came back to the parish again, he would be sent to sea, there to be drowned, or knocked on the head, as the case might be, he evinced so little emotion, that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened young rascal, and ordered mr. bumble to remove him forthwith. now, although it was very natural that the board, of all people in the world, should feel in a great state of virtuous astonishment and horror at the smallest tokens of want of feeling on the part of anybody, they were rather out, in this particular instance. the simple fact was, that oliver, instead of possessing too little feeling, possessed rather too much; and was in a fair way of being reduced, for life, to a state of brutal stupidity and sullenness by the ill usage he had received. he heard the news of his destination, in perfect silence; and, having had his luggage put into his hand--which was not very difficult to carry, inasmuch as it was all comprised within the limits of a brown paper parcel, about half a foot square by three inches deep--he pulled his cap over his eyes; and once more attaching himself to mr. bumble's coat cuff, was led away by that dignitary to a new scene of suffering. for some time, mr. bumble drew oliver along, without notice or remark; for the beadle carried his head very erect, as a beadle always should: and, it being a windy day, little oliver was completely enshrouded by the skirts of mr. bumble's coat as they blew open, and disclosed to great advantage his flapped waistcoat and drab plush knee-breeches. as they drew near to their destination, however, mr. bumble thought it expedient to look down, and see that the boy was in good order for inspection by his new master: which he accordingly did, with a fit and becoming air of gracious patronage. 'oliver!' said mr. bumble. 'yes, sir,' replied oliver, in a low, tremulous voice. 'pull that cap off your eyes, and hold up your head, sir.' although oliver did as he was desired, at once; and passed the back of his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes, he left a tear in them when he looked up at his conductor. as mr. bumble gazed sternly upon him, it rolled down his cheek. it was followed by another, and another. the child made a strong effort, but it was an unsuccessful one. withdrawing his other hand from mr. bumble's he covered his face with both; and wept until the tears sprung out from between his chin and bony fingers. 'well!' exclaimed mr. bumble, stopping short, and darting at his little charge a look of intense malignity. 'well! of _all_ the ungratefullest, and worst-disposed boys as ever i see, oliver, you are the--' 'no, no, sir,' sobbed oliver, clinging to the hand which held the well-known cane; 'no, no, sir; i will be good indeed; indeed, indeed i will, sir! i am a very little boy, sir; and it is so--so--' 'so what?' inquired mr. bumble in amazement. 'so lonely, sir! so very lonely!' cried the child. 'everybody hates me. oh! sir, don't, don't pray be cross to me!' the child beat his hand upon his heart; and looked in his companion's face, with tears of real agony. mr. bumble regarded oliver's piteous and helpless look, with some astonishment, for a few seconds; hemmed three or four times in a husky manner; and after muttering something about 'that troublesome cough,' bade oliver dry his eyes and be a good boy. then once more taking his hand, he walked on with him in silence. the undertaker, who had just put up the shutters of his shop, was making some entries in his day-book by the light of a most appropriate dismal candle, when mr. bumble entered. 'aha!' said the undertaker; looking up from the book, and pausing in the middle of a word; 'is that you, bumble?' 'no one else, mr. sowerberry,' replied the beadle. 'here! i've brought the boy.' oliver made a bow. 'oh! that's the boy, is it?' said the undertaker: raising the candle above his head, to get a better view of oliver. 'mrs. sowerberry, will you have the goodness to come here a moment, my dear?' mrs. sowerberry emerged from a little room behind the shop, and presented the form of a short, then, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish countenance. 'my dear,' said mr. sowerberry, deferentially, 'this is the boy from the workhouse that i told you of.' oliver bowed again. 'dear me!' said the undertaker's wife, 'he's very small.' 'why, he _is_ rather small,' replied mr. bumble: looking at oliver as if it were his fault that he was no bigger; 'he is small. there's no denying it. but he'll grow, mrs. sowerberry--he'll grow.' 'ah! i dare say he will,' replied the lady pettishly, 'on our victuals and our drink. i see no saving in parish children, not i; for they always cost more to keep, than they're worth. however, men always think they know best. there! get downstairs, little bag o' bones.' with this, the undertaker's wife opened a side door, and pushed oliver down a steep flight of stairs into a stone cell, damp and dark: forming the ante-room to the coal-cellar, and denominated 'kitchen'; wherein sat a slatternly girl, in shoes down at heel, and blue worsted stockings very much out of repair. 'here, charlotte,' said mr. sowerberry, who had followed oliver down, 'give this boy some of the cold bits that were put by for trip. he hasn't come home since the morning, so he may go without 'em. i dare say the boy isn't too dainty to eat 'em--are you, boy?' oliver, whose eyes had glistened at the mention of meat, and who was trembling with eagerness to devour it, replied in the negative; and a plateful of coarse broken victuals was set before him. i wish some well-fed philosopher, whose meat and drink turn to gall within him; whose blood is ice, whose heart is iron; could have seen oliver twist clutching at the dainty viands that the dog had neglected. i wish he could have witnessed the horrible avidity with which oliver tore the bits asunder with all the ferocity of famine. there is only one thing i should like better; and that would be to see the philosopher making the same sort of meal himself, with the same relish. 'well,' said the undertaker's wife, when oliver had finished his supper: which she had regarded in silent horror, and with fearful auguries of his future appetite: 'have you done?' there being nothing eatable within his reach, oliver replied in the affirmative. 'then come with me,' said mrs. sowerberry: taking up a dim and dirty lamp, and leading the way upstairs; 'your bed's under the counter. you don't mind sleeping among the coffins, i suppose? but it doesn't much matter whether you do or don't, for you can't sleep anywhere else. come; don't keep me here all night!' oliver lingered no longer, but meekly followed his new mistress. chapter v oliver mingles with new associates. going to a funeral for the first time, he forms an unfavourable notion of his master's business oliver, being left to himself in the undertaker's shop, set the lamp down on a workman's bench, and gazed timidly about him with a feeling of awe and dread, which many people a good deal older than he will be at no loss to understand. an unfinished coffin on black tressels, which stood in the middle of the shop, looked so gloomy and death-like that a cold tremble came over him, every time his eyes wandered in the direction of the dismal object: from which he almost expected to see some frightful form slowly rear its head, to drive him mad with terror. against the wall were ranged, in regular array, a long row of elm boards cut in the same shape: looking in the dim light, like high-shouldered ghosts with their hands in their breeches pockets. coffin-plates, elm-chips, bright-headed nails, and shreds of black cloth, lay scattered on the floor; and the wall behind the counter was ornamented with a lively representation of two mutes in very stiff neckcloths, on duty at a large private door, with a hearse drawn by four black steeds, approaching in the distance. the shop was close and hot. the atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. the recess beneath the counter in which his flock mattress was thrust, looked like a grave. nor were these the only dismal feelings which depressed oliver. he was alone in a strange place; and we all know how chilled and desolate the best of us will sometimes feel in such a situation. the boy had no friends to care for, or to care for him. the regret of no recent separation was fresh in his mind; the absence of no loved and well-remembered face sank heavily into his heart. but his heart was heavy, notwithstanding; and he wished, as he crept into his narrow bed, that that were his coffin, and that he could be lain in a calm and lasting sleep in the churchyard ground, with the tall grass waving gently above his head, and the sound of the old deep bell to soothe him in his sleep. oliver was awakened in the morning, by a loud kicking at the outside of the shop-door: which, before he could huddle on his clothes, was repeated, in an angry and impetuous manner, about twenty-five times. when he began to undo the chain, the legs desisted, and a voice began. 'open the door, will yer?' cried the voice which belonged to the legs which had kicked at the door. 'i will, directly, sir,' replied oliver: undoing the chain, and turning the key. 'i suppose yer the new boy, ain't yer?' said the voice through the key-hole. 'yes, sir,' replied oliver. 'how old are yer?' inquired the voice. 'ten, sir,' replied oliver. 'then i'll whop yer when i get in,' said the voice; 'you just see if i don't, that's all, my work'us brat!' and having made this obliging promise, the voice began to whistle. oliver had been too often subjected to the process to which the very expressive monosyllable just recorded bears reference, to entertain the smallest doubt that the owner of the voice, whoever he might be, would redeem his pledge, most honourably. he drew back the bolts with a trembling hand, and opened the door. for a second or two, oliver glanced up the street, and down the street, and over the way: impressed with the belief that the unknown, who had addressed him through the key-hole, had walked a few paces off, to warm himself; for nobody did he see but a big charity-boy, sitting on a post in front of the house, eating a slice of bread and butter: which he cut into wedges, the size of his mouth, with a clasp-knife, and then consumed with great dexterity. 'i beg your pardon, sir,' said oliver at length: seeing that no other visitor made his appearance; 'did you knock?' 'i kicked,' replied the charity-boy. 'did you want a coffin, sir?' inquired oliver, innocently. at this, the charity-boy looked monstrous fierce; and said that oliver would want one before long, if he cut jokes with his superiors in that way. 'yer don't know who i am, i suppose, work'us?' said the charity-boy, in continuation: descending from the top of the post, meanwhile, with edifying gravity. 'no, sir,' rejoined oliver. 'i'm mister noah claypole,' said the charity-boy, 'and you're under me. take down the shutters, yer idle young ruffian!' with this, mr. claypole administered a kick to oliver, and entered the shop with a dignified air, which did him great credit. it is difficult for a large-headed, small-eyed youth, of lumbering make and heavy countenance, to look dignified under any circumstances; but it is more especially so, when superadded to these personal attractions are a red nose and yellow smalls. oliver, having taken down the shutters, and broken a pane of glass in his effort to stagger away beneath the weight of the first one to a small court at the side of the house in which they were kept during the day, was graciously assisted by noah: who having consoled him with the assurance that 'he'd catch it,' condescended to help him. mr. sowerberry came down soon after. shortly afterwards, mrs. sowerberry appeared. oliver having 'caught it,' in fulfilment of noah's prediction, followed that young gentleman down the stairs to breakfast. 'come near the fire, noah,' said charlotte. 'i saved a nice little bit of bacon for you from master's breakfast. oliver, shut that door at mister noah's back, and take them bits that i've put out on the cover of the bread-pan. there's your tea; take it away to that box, and drink it there, and make haste, for they'll want you to mind the shop. d'ye hear?' 'd'ye hear, work'us?' said noah claypole. 'lor, noah!' said charlotte, 'what a rum creature you are! why don't you let the boy alone?' 'let him alone!' said noah. 'why everybody lets him alone enough, for the matter of that. neither his father nor his mother will ever interfere with him. all his relations let him have his own way pretty well. eh, charlotte? he! he! he!' 'oh, you queer soul!' said charlotte, bursting into a hearty laugh, in which she was joined by noah; after which they both looked scornfully at poor oliver twist, as he sat shivering on the box in the coldest corner of the room, and ate the stale pieces which had been specially reserved for him. noah was a charity-boy, but not a workhouse orphan. no chance-child was he, for he could trace his genealogy all the way back to his parents, who lived hard by; his mother being a washerwoman, and his father a drunken soldier, discharged with a wooden leg, and a diurnal pension of twopence-halfpenny and an unstateable fraction. the shop-boys in the neighbourhood had long been in the habit of branding noah in the public streets, with the ignominious epithets of 'leathers,' 'charity,' and the like; and noah had bourne them without reply. but, now that fortune had cast in his way a nameless orphan, at whom even the meanest could point the finger of scorn, he retorted on him with interest. this affords charming food for contemplation. it shows us what a beautiful thing human nature may be made to be; and how impartially the same amiable qualities are developed in the finest lord and the dirtiest charity-boy. oliver had been sojourning at the undertaker's some three weeks or a month. mr. and mrs. sowerberry--the shop being shut up--were taking their supper in the little back-parlour, when mr. sowerberry, after several deferential glances at his wife, said, 'my dear--' he was going to say more; but, mrs. sowerberry looking up, with a peculiarly unpropitious aspect, he stopped short. 'well,' said mrs. sowerberry, sharply. 'nothing, my dear, nothing,' said mr. sowerberry. 'ugh, you brute!' said mrs. sowerberry. 'not at all, my dear,' said mr. sowerberry humbly. 'i thought you didn't want to hear, my dear. i was only going to say--' 'oh, don't tell me what you were going to say,' interposed mrs. sowerberry. 'i am nobody; don't consult me, pray. _i_ don't want to intrude upon your secrets.' as mrs. sowerberry said this, she gave an hysterical laugh, which threatened violent consequences. 'but, my dear,' said sowerberry, 'i want to ask your advice.' 'no, no, don't ask mine,' replied mrs. sowerberry, in an affecting manner: 'ask somebody else's.' here, there was another hysterical laugh, which frightened mr. sowerberry very much. this is a very common and much-approved matrimonial course of treatment, which is often very effective. it at once reduced mr. sowerberry to begging, as a special favour, to be allowed to say what mrs. sowerberry was most curious to hear. after a short duration, the permission was most graciously conceded. 'it's only about young twist, my dear,' said mr. sowerberry. 'a very good-looking boy, that, my dear.' 'he need be, for he eats enough,' observed the lady. 'there's an expression of melancholy in his face, my dear,' resumed mr. sowerberry, 'which is very interesting. he would make a delightful mute, my love.' mrs. sowerberry looked up with an expression of considerable wonderment. mr. sowerberry remarked it and, without allowing time for any observation on the good lady's part, proceeded. 'i don't mean a regular mute to attend grown-up people, my dear, but only for children's practice. it would be very new to have a mute in proportion, my dear. you may depend upon it, it would have a superb effect.' mrs. sowerberry, who had a good deal of taste in the undertaking way, was much struck by the novelty of this idea; but, as it would have been compromising her dignity to have said so, under existing circumstances, she merely inquired, with much sharpness, why such an obvious suggestion had not presented itself to her husband's mind before? mr. sowerberry rightly construed this, as an acquiescence in his proposition; it was speedily determined, therefore, that oliver should be at once initiated into the mysteries of the trade; and, with this view, that he should accompany his master on the very next occasion of his services being required. the occasion was not long in coming. half an hour after breakfast next morning, mr. bumble entered the shop; and supporting his cane against the counter, drew forth his large leathern pocket-book: from which he selected a small scrap of paper, which he handed over to sowerberry. 'aha!' said the undertaker, glancing over it with a lively countenance; 'an order for a coffin, eh?' 'for a coffin first, and a porochial funeral afterwards,' replied mr. bumble, fastening the strap of the leathern pocket-book: which, like himself, was very corpulent. 'bayton,' said the undertaker, looking from the scrap of paper to mr. bumble. 'i never heard the name before.' bumble shook his head, as he replied, 'obstinate people, mr. sowerberry; very obstinate. proud, too, i'm afraid, sir.' 'proud, eh?' exclaimed mr. sowerberry with a sneer. 'come, that's too much.' 'oh, it's sickening,' replied the beadle. 'antimonial, mr. sowerberry!' 'so it is,' acquiesced the undertaker. 'we only heard of the family the night before last,' said the beadle; 'and we shouldn't have known anything about them, then, only a woman who lodges in the same house made an application to the porochial committee for them to send the porochial surgeon to see a woman as was very bad. he had gone out to dinner; but his 'prentice (which is a very clever lad) sent 'em some medicine in a blacking-bottle, offhand.' 'ah, there's promptness,' said the undertaker. 'promptness, indeed!' replied the beadle. 'but what's the consequence; what's the ungrateful behaviour of these rebels, sir? why, the husband sends back word that the medicine won't suit his wife's complaint, and so she shan't take it--says she shan't take it, sir! good, strong, wholesome medicine, as was given with great success to two irish labourers and a coal-heaver, only a week before--sent 'em for nothing, with a blackin'-bottle in,--and he sends back word that she shan't take it, sir!' as the atrocity presented itself to mr. bumble's mind in full force, he struck the counter sharply with his cane, and became flushed with indignation. 'well,' said the undertaker, 'i ne--ver--did--' 'never did, sir!' ejaculated the beadle. 'no, nor nobody never did; but now she's dead, we've got to bury her; and that's the direction; and the sooner it's done, the better.' thus saying, mr. bumble put on his cocked hat wrong side first, in a fever of parochial excitement; and flounced out of the shop. 'why, he was so angry, oliver, that he forgot even to ask after you!' said mr. sowerberry, looking after the beadle as he strode down the street. 'yes, sir,' replied oliver, who had carefully kept himself out of sight, during the interview; and who was shaking from head to foot at the mere recollection of the sound of mr. bumble's voice. he needn't haven taken the trouble to shrink from mr. bumble's glance, however; for that functionary, on whom the prediction of the gentleman in the white waistcoat had made a very strong impression, thought that now the undertaker had got oliver upon trial the subject was better avoided, until such time as he should be firmly bound for seven years, and all danger of his being returned upon the hands of the parish should be thus effectually and legally overcome. 'well,' said mr. sowerberry, taking up his hat, 'the sooner this job is done, the better. noah, look after the shop. oliver, put on your cap, and come with me.' oliver obeyed, and followed his master on his professional mission. they walked on, for some time, through the most crowded and densely inhabited part of the town; and then, striking down a narrow street more dirty and miserable than any they had yet passed through, paused to look for the house which was the object of their search. the houses on either side were high and large, but very old, and tenanted by people of the poorest class: as their neglected appearance would have sufficiently denoted, without the concurrent testimony afforded by the squalid looks of the few men and women who, with folded arms and bodies half doubled, occasionally skulked along. a great many of the tenements had shop-fronts; but these were fast closed, and mouldering away; only the upper rooms being inhabited. some houses which had become insecure from age and decay, were prevented from falling into the street, by huge beams of wood reared against the walls, and firmly planted in the road; but even these crazy dens seemed to have been selected as the nightly haunts of some houseless wretches, for many of the rough boards which supplied the place of door and window, were wrenched from their positions, to afford an aperture wide enough for the passage of a human body. the kennel was stagnant and filthy. the very rats, which here and there lay putrefying in its rottenness, were hideous with famine. there was neither knocker nor bell-handle at the open door where oliver and his master stopped; so, groping his way cautiously through the dark passage, and bidding oliver keep close to him and not be afraid the undertaker mounted to the top of the first flight of stairs. stumbling against a door on the landing, he rapped at it with his knuckles. it was opened by a young girl of thirteen or fourteen. the undertaker at once saw enough of what the room contained, to know it was the apartment to which he had been directed. he stepped in; oliver followed him. there was no fire in the room; but a man was crouching, mechanically, over the empty stove. an old woman, too, had drawn a low stool to the cold hearth, and was sitting beside him. there were some ragged children in another corner; and in a small recess, opposite the door, there lay upon the ground, something covered with an old blanket. oliver shuddered as he cast his eyes toward the place, and crept involuntarily closer to his master; for though it was covered up, the boy felt that it was a corpse. the man's face was thin and very pale; his hair and beard were grizzly; his eyes were bloodshot. the old woman's face was wrinkled; her two remaining teeth protruded over her under lip; and her eyes were bright and piercing. oliver was afraid to look at either her or the man. they seemed so like the rats he had seen outside. 'nobody shall go near her,' said the man, starting fiercely up, as the undertaker approached the recess. 'keep back! damn you, keep back, if you've a life to lose!' 'nonsense, my good man,' said the undertaker, who was pretty well used to misery in all its shapes. 'nonsense!' 'i tell you,' said the man: clenching his hands, and stamping furiously on the floor,--'i tell you i won't have her put into the ground. she couldn't rest there. the worms would worry her--not eat her--she is so worn away.' the undertaker offered no reply to this raving; but producing a tape from his pocket, knelt down for a moment by the side of the body. 'ah!' said the man: bursting into tears, and sinking on his knees at the feet of the dead woman; 'kneel down, kneel down--kneel round her, every one of you, and mark my words! i say she was starved to death. i never knew how bad she was, till the fever came upon her; and then her bones were starting through the skin. there was neither fire nor candle; she died in the dark--in the dark! she couldn't even see her children's faces, though we heard her gasping out their names. i begged for her in the streets: and they sent me to prison. when i came back, she was dying; and all the blood in my heart has dried up, for they starved her to death. i swear it before the god that saw it! they starved her!' he twined his hands in his hair; and, with a loud scream, rolled grovelling upon the floor: his eyes fixed, and the foam covering his lips. the terrified children cried bitterly; but the old woman, who had hitherto remained as quiet as if she had been wholly deaf to all that passed, menaced them into silence. having unloosened the cravat of the man who still remained extended on the ground, she tottered towards the undertaker. 'she was my daughter,' said the old woman, nodding her head in the direction of the corpse; and speaking with an idiotic leer, more ghastly than even the presence of death in such a place. 'lord, lord! well, it _is_ strange that i who gave birth to her, and was a woman then, should be alive and merry now, and she lying there: so cold and stiff! lord, lord!--to think of it; it's as good as a play--as good as a play!' as the wretched creature mumbled and chuckled in her hideous merriment, the undertaker turned to go away. 'stop, stop!' said the old woman in a loud whisper. 'will she be buried to-morrow, or next day, or to-night? i laid her out; and i must walk, you know. send me a large cloak: a good warm one: for it is bitter cold. we should have cake and wine, too, before we go! never mind; send some bread--only a loaf of bread and a cup of water. shall we have some bread, dear?' she said eagerly: catching at the undertaker's coat, as he once more moved towards the door. 'yes, yes,' said the undertaker,'of course. anything you like!' he disengaged himself from the old woman's grasp; and, drawing oliver after him, hurried away. the next day, (the family having been meanwhile relieved with a half-quartern loaf and a piece of cheese, left with them by mr. bumble himself,) oliver and his master returned to the miserable abode; where mr. bumble had already arrived, accompanied by four men from the workhouse, who were to act as bearers. an old black cloak had been thrown over the rags of the old woman and the man; and the bare coffin having been screwed down, was hoisted on the shoulders of the bearers, and carried into the street. 'now, you must put your best leg foremost, old lady!' whispered sowerberry in the old woman's ear; 'we are rather late; and it won't do, to keep the clergyman waiting. move on, my men,--as quick as you like!' thus directed, the bearers trotted on under their light burden; and the two mourners kept as near them, as they could. mr. bumble and sowerberry walked at a good smart pace in front; and oliver, whose legs were not so long as his master's, ran by the side. there was not so great a necessity for hurrying as mr. sowerberry had anticipated, however; for when they reached the obscure corner of the churchyard in which the nettles grew, and where the parish graves were made, the clergyman had not arrived; and the clerk, who was sitting by the vestry-room fire, seemed to think it by no means improbable that it might be an hour or so, before he came. so, they put the bier on the brink of the grave; and the two mourners waited patiently in the damp clay, with a cold rain drizzling down, while the ragged boys whom the spectacle had attracted into the churchyard played a noisy game at hide-and-seek among the tombstones, or varied their amusements by jumping backwards and forwards over the coffin. mr. sowerberry and bumble, being personal friends of the clerk, sat by the fire with him, and read the paper. at length, after a lapse of something more than an hour, mr. bumble, and sowerberry, and the clerk, were seen running towards the grave. immediately afterwards, the clergyman appeared: putting on his surplice as he came along. mr. bumble then thrashed a boy or two, to keep up appearances; and the reverend gentleman, having read as much of the burial service as could be compressed into four minutes, gave his surplice to the clerk, and walked away again. 'now, bill!' said sowerberry to the grave-digger. 'fill up!' it was no very difficult task, for the grave was so full, that the uppermost coffin was within a few feet of the surface. the grave-digger shovelled in the earth; stamped it loosely down with his feet: shouldered his spade; and walked off, followed by the boys, who murmured very loud complaints at the fun being over so soon. 'come, my good fellow!' said bumble, tapping the man on the back. 'they want to shut up the yard.' the man who had never once moved, since he had taken his station by the grave side, started, raised his head, stared at the person who had addressed him, walked forward for a few paces; and fell down in a swoon. the crazy old woman was too much occupied in bewailing the loss of her cloak (which the undertaker had taken off), to pay him any attention; so they threw a can of cold water over him; and when he came to, saw him safely out of the churchyard, locked the gate, and departed on their different ways. 'well, oliver,' said sowerberry, as they walked home, 'how do you like it?' 'pretty well, thank you, sir' replied oliver, with considerable hesitation. 'not very much, sir.' 'ah, you'll get used to it in time, oliver,' said sowerberry. 'nothing when you _are_ used to it, my boy.' oliver wondered, in his own mind, whether it had taken a very long time to get mr. sowerberry used to it. but he thought it better not to ask the question; and walked back to the shop: thinking over all he had seen and heard. chapter vi oliver, being goaded by the taunts of noah, rouses into action, and rather astonishes him the month's trial over, oliver was formally apprenticed. it was a nice sickly season just at this time. in commercial phrase, coffins were looking up; and, in the course of a few weeks, oliver acquired a great deal of experience. the success of mr. sowerberry's ingenious speculation, exceeded even his most sanguine hopes. the oldest inhabitants recollected no period at which measles had been so prevalent, or so fatal to infant existence; and many were the mournful processions which little oliver headed, in a hat-band reaching down to his knees, to the indescribable admiration and emotion of all the mothers in the town. as oliver accompanied his master in most of his adult expeditions too, in order that he might acquire that equanimity of demeanour and full command of nerve which was essential to a finished undertaker, he had many opportunities of observing the beautiful resignation and fortitude with which some strong-minded people bear their trials and losses. for instance; when sowerberry had an order for the burial of some rich old lady or gentleman, who was surrounded by a great number of nephews and nieces, who had been perfectly inconsolable during the previous illness, and whose grief had been wholly irrepressible even on the most public occasions, they would be as happy among themselves as need be--quite cheerful and contented--conversing together with as much freedom and gaiety, as if nothing whatever had happened to disturb them. husbands, too, bore the loss of their wives with the most heroic calmness. wives, again, put on weeds for their husbands, as if, so far from grieving in the garb of sorrow, they had made up their minds to render it as becoming and attractive as possible. it was observable, too, that ladies and gentlemen who were in passions of anguish during the ceremony of interment, recovered almost as soon as they reached home, and became quite composed before the tea-drinking was over. all this was very pleasant and improving to see; and oliver beheld it with great admiration. that oliver twist was moved to resignation by the example of these good people, i cannot, although i am his biographer, undertake to affirm with any degree of confidence; but i can most distinctly say, that for many months he continued meekly to submit to the domination and ill-treatment of noah claypole: who used him far worse than before, now that his jealousy was roused by seeing the new boy promoted to the black stick and hatband, while he, the old one, remained stationary in the muffin-cap and leathers. charlotte treated him ill, because noah did; and mrs. sowerberry was his decided enemy, because mr. sowerberry was disposed to be his friend; so, between these three on one side, and a glut of funerals on the other, oliver was not altogether as comfortable as the hungry pig was, when he was shut up, by mistake, in the grain department of a brewery. and now, i come to a very important passage in oliver's history; for i have to record an act, slight and unimportant perhaps in appearance, but which indirectly produced a material change in all his future prospects and proceedings. one day, oliver and noah had descended into the kitchen at the usual dinner-hour, to banquet upon a small joint of mutton--a pound and a half of the worst end of the neck--when charlotte being called out of the way, there ensued a brief interval of time, which noah claypole, being hungry and vicious, considered he could not possibly devote to a worthier purpose than aggravating and tantalising young oliver twist. intent upon this innocent amusement, noah put his feet on the table-cloth; and pulled oliver's hair; and twitched his ears; and expressed his opinion that he was a 'sneak'; and furthermore announced his intention of coming to see him hanged, whenever that desirable event should take place; and entered upon various topics of petty annoyance, like a malicious and ill-conditioned charity-boy as he was. but, making oliver cry, noah attempted to be more facetious still; and in his attempt, did what many sometimes do to this day, when they want to be funny. he got rather personal. 'work'us,' said noah, 'how's your mother?' 'she's dead,' replied oliver; 'don't you say anything about her to me!' oliver's colour rose as he said this; he breathed quickly; and there was a curious working of the mouth and nostrils, which mr. claypole thought must be the immediate precursor of a violent fit of crying. under this impression he returned to the charge. 'what did she die of, work'us?' said noah. 'of a broken heart, some of our old nurses told me,' replied oliver: more as if he were talking to himself, than answering noah. 'i think i know what it must be to die of that!' 'tol de rol lol lol, right fol lairy, work'us,' said noah, as a tear rolled down oliver's cheek. 'what's set you a snivelling now?' 'not _you_,' replied oliver, sharply. 'there; that's enough. don't say anything more to me about her; you'd better not!' 'better not!' exclaimed noah. 'well! better not! work'us, don't be impudent. _your_ mother, too! she was a nice 'un she was. oh, lor!' and here, noah nodded his head expressively; and curled up as much of his small red nose as muscular action could collect together, for the occasion. 'yer know, work'us,' continued noah, emboldened by oliver's silence, and speaking in a jeering tone of affected pity: of all tones the most annoying: 'yer know, work'us, it can't be helped now; and of course yer couldn't help it then; and i am very sorry for it; and i'm sure we all are, and pity yer very much. but yer must know, work'us, yer mother was a regular right-down bad 'un.' 'what did you say?' inquired oliver, looking up very quickly. 'a regular right-down bad 'un, work'us,' replied noah, coolly. 'and it's a great deal better, work'us, that she died when she did, or else she'd have been hard labouring in bridewell, or transported, or hung; which is more likely than either, isn't it?' crimson with fury, oliver started up; overthrew the chair and table; seized noah by the throat; shook him, in the violence of his rage, till his teeth chattered in his head; and collecting his whole force into one heavy blow, felled him to the ground. a minute ago, the boy had looked the quiet child, mild, dejected creature that harsh treatment had made him. but his spirit was roused at last; the cruel insult to his dead mother had set his blood on fire. his breast heaved; his attitude was erect; his eye bright and vivid; his whole person changed, as he stood glaring over the cowardly tormentor who now lay crouching at his feet; and defied him with an energy he had never known before. 'he'll murder me!' blubbered noah. 'charlotte! missis! here's the new boy a murdering of me! help! help! oliver's gone mad! char--lotte!' noah's shouts were responded to, by a loud scream from charlotte, and a louder from mrs. sowerberry; the former of whom rushed into the kitchen by a side-door, while the latter paused on the staircase till she was quite certain that it was consistent with the preservation of human life, to come further down. 'oh, you little wretch!' screamed charlotte: seizing oliver with her utmost force, which was about equal to that of a moderately strong man in particularly good training. 'oh, you little un-grate-ful, mur-de-rous, hor-rid villain!' and between every syllable, charlotte gave oliver a blow with all her might: accompanying it with a scream, for the benefit of society. charlotte's fist was by no means a light one; but, lest it should not be effectual in calming oliver's wrath, mrs. sowerberry plunged into the kitchen, and assisted to hold him with one hand, while she scratched his face with the other. in this favourable position of affairs, noah rose from the ground, and pommelled him behind. this was rather too violent exercise to last long. when they were all wearied out, and could tear and beat no longer, they dragged oliver, struggling and shouting, but nothing daunted, into the dust-cellar, and there locked him up. this being done, mrs. sowerberry sunk into a chair, and burst into tears. 'bless her, she's going off!' said charlotte. 'a glass of water, noah, dear. make haste!' 'oh! charlotte,' said mrs. sowerberry: speaking as well as she could, through a deficiency of breath, and a sufficiency of cold water, which noah had poured over her head and shoulders. 'oh! charlotte, what a mercy we have not all been murdered in our beds!' 'ah! mercy indeed, ma'am,' was the reply. i only hope this'll teach master not to have any more of these dreadful creatures, that are born to be murderers and robbers from their very cradle. poor noah! he was all but killed, ma'am, when i come in.' 'poor fellow!' said mrs. sowerberry: looking piteously on the charity-boy. noah, whose top waistcoat-button might have been somewhere on a level with the crown of oliver's head, rubbed his eyes with the inside of his wrists while this commiseration was bestowed upon him, and performed some affecting tears and sniffs. 'what's to be done!' exclaimed mrs. sowerberry. 'your master's not at home; there's not a man in the house, and he'll kick that door down in ten minutes.' oliver's vigorous plunges against the bit of timber in question, rendered this occurance highly probable. 'dear, dear! i don't know, ma'am,' said charlotte, 'unless we send for the police-officers.' 'or the millingtary,' suggested mr. claypole. 'no, no,' said mrs. sowerberry: bethinking herself of oliver's old friend. 'run to mr. bumble, noah, and tell him to come here directly, and not to lose a minute; never mind your cap! make haste! you can hold a knife to that black eye, as you run along. it'll keep the swelling down.' noah stopped to make no reply, but started off at his fullest speed; and very much it astonished the people who were out walking, to see a charity-boy tearing through the streets pell-mell, with no cap on his head, and a clasp-knife at his eye. chapter vii oliver continues refractory noah claypole ran along the streets at his swiftest pace, and paused not once for breath, until he reached the workhouse-gate. having rested here, for a minute or so, to collect a good burst of sobs and an imposing show of tears and terror, he knocked loudly at the wicket; and presented such a rueful face to the aged pauper who opened it, that even he, who saw nothing but rueful faces about him at the best of times, started back in astonishment. 'why, what's the matter with the boy!' said the old pauper. 'mr. bumble! mr. bumble!' cried noah, with well-affected dismay: and in tones so loud and agitated, that they not only caught the ear of mr. bumble himself, who happened to be hard by, but alarmed him so much that he rushed into the yard without his cocked hat,--which is a very curious and remarkable circumstance: as showing that even a beadle, acted upon a sudden and powerful impulse, may be afflicted with a momentary visitation of loss of self-possession, and forgetfulness of personal dignity. 'oh, mr. bumble, sir!' said noah: 'oliver, sir,--oliver has--' 'what? what?' interposed mr. bumble: with a gleam of pleasure in his metallic eyes. 'not run away; he hasn't run away, has he, noah?' 'no, sir, no. not run away, sir, but he's turned wicious,' replied noah. 'he tried to murder me, sir; and then he tried to murder charlotte; and then missis. oh! what dreadful pain it is! such agony, please, sir!' and here, noah writhed and twisted his body into an extensive variety of eel-like positions; thereby giving mr. bumble to understand that, from the violent and sanguinary onset of oliver twist, he had sustained severe internal injury and damage, from which he was at that moment suffering the acutest torture. when noah saw that the intelligence he communicated perfectly paralysed mr. bumble, he imparted additional effect thereunto, by bewailing his dreadful wounds ten times louder than before; and when he observed a gentleman in a white waistcoat crossing the yard, he was more tragic in his lamentations than ever: rightly conceiving it highly expedient to attract the notice, and rouse the indignation, of the gentleman aforesaid. the gentleman's notice was very soon attracted; for he had not walked three paces, when he turned angrily round, and inquired what that young cur was howling for, and why mr. bumble did not favour him with something which would render the series of vocular exclamations so designated, an involuntary process? 'it's a poor boy from the free-school, sir,' replied mr. bumble, 'who has been nearly murdered--all but murdered, sir,--by young twist.' 'by jove!' exclaimed the gentleman in the white waistcoat, stopping short. 'i knew it! i felt a strange presentiment from the very first, that that audacious young savage would come to be hung!' 'he has likewise attempted, sir, to murder the female servant,' said mr. bumble, with a face of ashy paleness. 'and his missis,' interposed mr. claypole. 'and his master, too, i think you said, noah?' added mr. bumble. 'no! he's out, or he would have murdered him,' replied noah. 'he said he wanted to.' 'ah! said he wanted to, did he, my boy?' inquired the gentleman in the white waistcoat. 'yes, sir,' replied noah. 'and please, sir, missis wants to know whether mr. bumble can spare time to step up there, directly, and flog him--'cause master's out.' 'certainly, my boy; certainly,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat: smiling benignly, and patting noah's head, which was about three inches higher than his own. 'you're a good boy--a very good boy. here's a penny for you. bumble, just step up to sowerberry's with your cane, and see what's best to be done. don't spare him, bumble.' 'no, i will not, sir,' replied the beadle. and the cocked hat and cane having been, by this time, adjusted to their owner's satisfaction, mr. bumble and noah claypole betook themselves with all speed to the undertaker's shop. here the position of affairs had not at all improved. sowerberry had not yet returned, and oliver continued to kick, with undiminished vigour, at the cellar-door. the accounts of his ferocity as related by mrs. sowerberry and charlotte, were of so startling a nature, that mr. bumble judged it prudent to parley, before opening the door. with this view he gave a kick at the outside, by way of prelude; and, then, applying his mouth to the keyhole, said, in a deep and impressive tone: 'oliver!' 'come; you let me out!' replied oliver, from the inside. 'do you know this here voice, oliver?' said mr. bumble. 'yes,' replied oliver. 'ain't you afraid of it, sir? ain't you a-trembling while i speak, sir?' said mr. bumble. 'no!' replied oliver, boldly. an answer so different from the one he had expected to elicit, and was in the habit of receiving, staggered mr. bumble not a little. he stepped back from the keyhole; drew himself up to his full height; and looked from one to another of the three bystanders, in mute astonishment. 'oh, you know, mr. bumble, he must be mad,' said mrs. sowerberry. 'no boy in half his senses could venture to speak so to you.' 'it's not madness, ma'am,' replied mr. bumble, after a few moments of deep meditation. 'it's meat.' 'what?' exclaimed mrs. sowerberry. 'meat, ma'am, meat,' replied bumble, with stern emphasis. 'you've over-fed him, ma'am. you've raised a artificial soul and spirit in him, ma'am unbecoming a person of his condition: as the board, mrs. sowerberry, who are practical philosophers, will tell you. what have paupers to do with soul or spirit? it's quite enough that we let 'em have live bodies. if you had kept the boy on gruel, ma'am, this would never have happened.' 'dear, dear!' ejaculated mrs. sowerberry, piously raising her eyes to the kitchen ceiling: 'this comes of being liberal!' the liberality of mrs. sowerberry to oliver, had consisted of a profuse bestowal upon him of all the dirty odds and ends which nobody else would eat; so there was a great deal of meekness and self-devotion in her voluntarily remaining under mr. bumble's heavy accusation. of which, to do her justice, she was wholly innocent, in thought, word, or deed. 'ah!' said mr. bumble, when the lady brought her eyes down to earth again; 'the only thing that can be done now, that i know of, is to leave him in the cellar for a day or so, till he's a little starved down; and then to take him out, and keep him on gruel all through the apprenticeship. he comes of a bad family. excitable natures, mrs. sowerberry! both the nurse and doctor said, that that mother of his made her way here, against difficulties and pain that would have killed any well-disposed woman, weeks before.' at this point of mr. bumble's discourse, oliver, just hearing enough to know that some allusion was being made to his mother, recommenced kicking, with a violence that rendered every other sound inaudible. sowerberry returned at this juncture. oliver's offence having been explained to him, with such exaggerations as the ladies thought best calculated to rouse his ire, he unlocked the cellar-door in a twinkling, and dragged his rebellious apprentice out, by the collar. oliver's clothes had been torn in the beating he had received; his face was bruised and scratched; and his hair scattered over his forehead. the angry flush had not disappeared, however; and when he was pulled out of his prison, he scowled boldly on noah, and looked quite undismayed. 'now, you are a nice young fellow, ain't you?' said sowerberry; giving oliver a shake, and a box on the ear. 'he called my mother names,' replied oliver. 'well, and what if he did, you little ungrateful wretch?' said mrs. sowerberry. 'she deserved what he said, and worse.' 'she didn't' said oliver. 'she did,' said mrs. sowerberry. 'it's a lie!' said oliver. mrs. sowerberry burst into a flood of tears. this flood of tears left mr. sowerberry no alternative. if he had hesitated for one instant to punish oliver most severely, it must be quite clear to every experienced reader that he would have been, according to all precedents in disputes of matrimony established, a brute, an unnatural husband, an insulting creature, a base imitation of a man, and various other agreeable characters too numerous for recital within the limits of this chapter. to do him justice, he was, as far as his power went--it was not very extensive--kindly disposed towards the boy; perhaps, because it was his interest to be so; perhaps, because his wife disliked him. the flood of tears, however, left him no resource; so he at once gave him a drubbing, which satisfied even mrs. sowerberry herself, and rendered mr. bumble's subsequent application of the parochial cane, rather unnecessary. for the rest of the day, he was shut up in the back kitchen, in company with a pump and a slice of bread; and at night, mrs. sowerberry, after making various remarks outside the door, by no means complimentary to the memory of his mother, looked into the room, and, amidst the jeers and pointings of noah and charlotte, ordered him upstairs to his dismal bed. it was not until he was left alone in the silence and stillness of the gloomy workshop of the undertaker, that oliver gave way to the feelings which the day's treatment may be supposed likely to have awakened in a mere child. he had listened to their taunts with a look of contempt; he had borne the lash without a cry: for he felt that pride swelling in his heart which would have kept down a shriek to the last, though they had roasted him alive. but now, when there were none to see or hear him, he fell upon his knees on the floor; and, hiding his face in his hands, wept such tears as, god send for the credit of our nature, few so young may ever have cause to pour out before him! for a long time, oliver remained motionless in this attitude. the candle was burning low in the socket when he rose to his feet. having gazed cautiously round him, and listened intently, he gently undid the fastenings of the door, and looked abroad. it was a cold, dark night. the stars seemed, to the boy's eyes, farther from the earth than he had ever seen them before; there was no wind; and the sombre shadows thrown by the trees upon the ground, looked sepulchral and death-like, from being so still. he softly reclosed the door. having availed himself of the expiring light of the candle to tie up in a handkerchief the few articles of wearing apparel he had, sat himself down upon a bench, to wait for morning. with the first ray of light that struggled through the crevices in the shutters, oliver arose, and again unbarred the door. one timid look around--one moment's pause of hesitation--he had closed it behind him, and was in the open street. he looked to the right and to the left, uncertain whither to fly. he remembered to have seen the waggons, as they went out, toiling up the hill. he took the same route; and arriving at a footpath across the fields: which he knew, after some distance, led out again into the road; struck into it, and walked quickly on. along this same footpath, oliver well-remembered he had trotted beside mr. bumble, when he first carried him to the workhouse from the farm. his way lay directly in front of the cottage. his heart beat quickly when he bethought himself of this; and he half resolved to turn back. he had come a long way though, and should lose a great deal of time by doing so. besides, it was so early that there was very little fear of his being seen; so he walked on. he reached the house. there was no appearance of its inmates stirring at that early hour. oliver stopped, and peeped into the garden. a child was weeding one of the little beds; as he stopped, he raised his pale face and disclosed the features of one of his former companions. oliver felt glad to see him, before he went; for, though younger than himself, he had been his little friend and playmate. they had been beaten, and starved, and shut up together, many and many a time. 'hush, dick!' said oliver, as the boy ran to the gate, and thrust his thin arm between the rails to greet him. 'is any one up?' 'nobody but me,' replied the child. 'you musn't say you saw me, dick,' said oliver. 'i am running away. they beat and ill-use me, dick; and i am going to seek my fortune, some long way off. i don't know where. how pale you are!' 'i heard the doctor tell them i was dying,' replied the child with a faint smile. 'i am very glad to see you, dear; but don't stop, don't stop!' 'yes, yes, i will, to say good-b'ye to you,' replied oliver. 'i shall see you again, dick. i know i shall! you will be well and happy!' 'i hope so,' replied the child. 'after i am dead, but not before. i know the doctor must be right, oliver, because i dream so much of heaven, and angels, and kind faces that i never see when i am awake. kiss me,' said the child, climbing up the low gate, and flinging his little arms round oliver's neck. 'good-b'ye, dear! god bless you!' the blessing was from a young child's lips, but it was the first that oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and through the struggles and sufferings, and troubles and changes, of his after life, he never once forgot it. chapter viii oliver walks to london. he encounters on the road a strange sort of young gentleman oliver reached the stile at which the by-path terminated; and once more gained the high-road. it was eight o'clock now. though he was nearly five miles away from the town, he ran, and hid behind the hedges, by turns, till noon: fearing that he might be pursued and overtaken. then he sat down to rest by the side of the milestone, and began to think, for the first time, where he had better go and try to live. the stone by which he was seated, bore, in large characters, an intimation that it was just seventy miles from that spot to london. the name awakened a new train of ideas in the boy's mind. london!--that great place!--nobody--not even mr. bumble--could ever find him there! he had often heard the old men in the workhouse, too, say that no lad of spirit need want in london; and that there were ways of living in that vast city, which those who had been bred up in country parts had no idea of. it was the very place for a homeless boy, who must die in the streets unless some one helped him. as these things passed through his thoughts, he jumped upon his feet, and again walked forward. he had diminished the distance between himself and london by full four miles more, before he recollected how much he must undergo ere he could hope to reach his place of destination. as this consideration forced itself upon him, he slackened his pace a little, and meditated upon his means of getting there. he had a crust of bread, a coarse shirt, and two pairs of stockings, in his bundle. he had a penny too--a gift of sowerberry's after some funeral in which he had acquitted himself more than ordinarily well--in his pocket. 'a clean shirt,' thought oliver, 'is a very comfortable thing; and so are two pairs of darned stockings; and so is a penny; but they are small helps to a sixty-five miles' walk in winter time.' but oliver's thoughts, like those of most other people, although they were extremely ready and active to point out his difficulties, were wholly at a loss to suggest any feasible mode of surmounting them; so, after a good deal of thinking to no particular purpose, he changed his little bundle over to the other shoulder, and trudged on. oliver walked twenty miles that day; and all that time tasted nothing but the crust of dry bread, and a few draughts of water, which he begged at the cottage-doors by the road-side. when the night came, he turned into a meadow; and, creeping close under a hay-rick, determined to lie there, till morning. he felt frightened at first, for the wind moaned dismally over the empty fields: and he was cold and hungry, and more alone than he had ever felt before. being very tired with his walk, however, he soon fell asleep and forgot his troubles. he felt cold and stiff, when he got up next morning, and so hungry that he was obliged to exchange the penny for a small loaf, in the very first village through which he passed. he had walked no more than twelve miles, when night closed in again. his feet were sore, and his legs so weak that they trembled beneath him. another night passed in the bleak damp air, made him worse; when he set forward on his journey next morning he could hardly crawl along. he waited at the bottom of a steep hill till a stage-coach came up, and then begged of the outside passengers; but there were very few who took any notice of him: and even those told him to wait till they got to the top of the hill, and then let them see how far he could run for a halfpenny. poor oliver tried to keep up with the coach a little way, but was unable to do it, by reason of his fatigue and sore feet. when the outsides saw this, they put their halfpence back into their pockets again, declaring that he was an idle young dog, and didn't deserve anything; and the coach rattled away and left only a cloud of dust behind. in some villages, large painted boards were fixed up: warning all persons who begged within the district, that they would be sent to jail. this frightened oliver very much, and made him glad to get out of those villages with all possible expedition. in others, he would stand about the inn-yards, and look mournfully at every one who passed: a proceeding which generally terminated in the landlady's ordering one of the post-boys who were lounging about, to drive that strange boy out of the place, for she was sure he had come to steal something. if he begged at a farmer's house, ten to one but they threatened to set the dog on him; and when he showed his nose in a shop, they talked about the beadle--which brought oliver's heart into his mouth,--very often the only thing he had there, for many hours together. in fact, if it had not been for a good-hearted turnpike-man, and a benevolent old lady, oliver's troubles would have been shortened by the very same process which had put an end to his mother's; in other words, he would most assuredly have fallen dead upon the king's highway. but the turnpike-man gave him a meal of bread and cheese; and the old lady, who had a shipwrecked grandson wandering barefoot in some distant part of the earth, took pity upon the poor orphan, and gave him what little she could afford--and more--with such kind and gentle words, and such tears of sympathy and compassion, that they sank deeper into oliver's soul, than all the sufferings he had ever undergone. early on the seventh morning after he had left his native place, oliver limped slowly into the little town of barnet. the window-shutters were closed; the street was empty; not a soul had awakened to the business of the day. the sun was rising in all its splendid beauty; but the light only served to show the boy his own lonesomeness and desolation, as he sat, with bleeding feet and covered with dust, upon a door-step. by degrees, the shutters were opened; the window-blinds were drawn up; and people began passing to and fro. some few stopped to gaze at oliver for a moment or two, or turned round to stare at him as they hurried by; but none relieved him, or troubled themselves to inquire how he came there. he had no heart to beg. and there he sat. he had been crouching on the step for some time: wondering at the great number of public-houses (every other house in barnet was a tavern, large or small), gazing listlessly at the coaches as they passed through, and thinking how strange it seemed that they could do, with ease, in a few hours, what it had taken him a whole week of courage and determination beyond his years to accomplish: when he was roused by observing that a boy, who had passed him carelessly some minutes before, had returned, and was now surveying him most earnestly from the opposite side of the way. he took little heed of this at first; but the boy remained in the same attitude of close observation so long, that oliver raised his head, and returned his steady look. upon this, the boy crossed over; and walking close up to oliver, said, 'hullo, my covey! what's the row?' the boy who addressed this inquiry to the young wayfarer, was about his own age: but one of the queerest looking boys that oliver had even seen. he was a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy enough; and as dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see; but he had about him all the airs and manners of a man. he was short of his age: with rather bow-legs, and little, sharp, ugly eyes. his hat was stuck on the top of his head so lightly, that it threatened to fall off every moment--and would have done so, very often, if the wearer had not had a knack of every now and then giving his head a sudden twitch, which brought it back to its old place again. he wore a man's coat, which reached nearly to his heels. he had turned the cuffs back, half-way up his arm, to get his hands out of the sleeves: apparently with the ultimate view of thrusting them into the pockets of his corduroy trousers; for there he kept them. he was, altogether, as roystering and swaggering a young gentleman as ever stood four feet six, or something less, in the bluchers. 'hullo, my covey! what's the row?' said this strange young gentleman to oliver. 'i am very hungry and tired,' replied oliver: the tears standing in his eyes as he spoke. 'i have walked a long way. i have been walking these seven days.' 'walking for sivin days!' said the young gentleman. 'oh, i see. beak's order, eh? but,' he added, noticing oliver's look of surprise, 'i suppose you don't know what a beak is, my flash com-pan-i-on.' oliver mildly replied, that he had always heard a bird's mouth described by the term in question. 'my eyes, how green!' exclaimed the young gentleman. 'why, a beak's a madgst'rate; and when you walk by a beak's order, it's not straight forerd, but always agoing up, and niver a coming down agin. was you never on the mill?' 'what mill?' inquired oliver. 'what mill! why, _the_ mill--the mill as takes up so little room that it'll work inside a stone jug; and always goes better when the wind's low with people, than when it's high; acos then they can't get workmen. but come,' said the young gentleman; 'you want grub, and you shall have it. i'm at low-water-mark myself--only one bob and a magpie; but, as far as it goes, i'll fork out and stump. up with you on your pins. there! now then! 'morrice!' assisting oliver to rise, the young gentleman took him to an adjacent chandler's shop, where he purchased a sufficiency of ready-dressed ham and a half-quartern loaf, or, as he himself expressed it, 'a fourpenny bran!' the ham being kept clean and preserved from dust, by the ingenious expedient of making a hole in the loaf by pulling out a portion of the crumb, and stuffing it therein. taking the bread under his arm, the young gentlman turned into a small public-house, and led the way to a tap-room in the rear of the premises. here, a pot of beer was brought in, by direction of the mysterious youth; and oliver, falling to, at his new friend's bidding, made a long and hearty meal, during the progress of which the strange boy eyed him from time to time with great attention. 'going to london?' said the strange boy, when oliver had at length concluded. 'yes.' 'got any lodgings?' 'no.' 'money?' 'no.' the strange boy whistled; and put his arms into his pockets, as far as the big coat-sleeves would let them go. 'do you live in london?' inquired oliver. 'yes. i do, when i'm at home,' replied the boy. 'i suppose you want some place to sleep in to-night, don't you?' 'i do, indeed,' answered oliver. 'i have not slept under a roof since i left the country.' 'don't fret your eyelids on that score,' said the young gentleman. 'i've got to be in london to-night; and i know a 'spectable old gentleman as lives there, wot'll give you lodgings for nothink, and never ask for the change--that is, if any genelman he knows interduces you. and don't he know me? oh, no! not in the least! by no means. certainly not!' the young gentleman smiled, as if to intimate that the latter fragments of discourse were playfully ironical; and finished the beer as he did so. this unexpected offer of shelter was too tempting to be resisted; especially as it was immediately followed up, by the assurance that the old gentleman referred to, would doubtless provide oliver with a comfortable place, without loss of time. this led to a more friendly and confidential dialogue; from which oliver discovered that his friend's name was jack dawkins, and that he was a peculiar pet and protege of the elderly gentleman before mentioned. mr. dawkin's appearance did not say a vast deal in favour of the comforts which his patron's interest obtained for those whom he took under his protection; but, as he had a rather flightly and dissolute mode of conversing, and furthermore avowed that among his intimate friends he was better known by the sobriquet of 'the artful dodger,' oliver concluded that, being of a dissipated and careless turn, the moral precepts of his benefactor had hitherto been thrown away upon him. under this impression, he secretly resolved to cultivate the good opinion of the old gentleman as quickly as possible; and, if he found the dodger incorrigible, as he more than half suspected he should, to decline the honour of his farther acquaintance. as john dawkins objected to their entering london before nightfall, it was nearly eleven o'clock when they reached the turnpike at islington. they crossed from the angel into st. john's road; struck down the small street which terminates at sadler's wells theatre; through exmouth street and coppice row; down the little court by the side of the workhouse; across the classic ground which once bore the name of hockley-in-the-hole; thence into little saffron hill; and so into saffron hill the great: along which the dodger scudded at a rapid pace, directing oliver to follow close at his heels. although oliver had enough to occupy his attention in keeping sight of his leader, he could not help bestowing a few hasty glances on either side of the way, as he passed along. a dirtier or more wretched place he had never seen. the street was very narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy odours. there were a good many small shops; but the only stock in trade appeared to be heaps of children, who, even at that time of night, were crawling in and out at the doors, or screaming from the inside. the sole places that seemed to prosper amid the general blight of the place, were the public-houses; and in them, the lowest orders of irish were wrangling with might and main. covered ways and yards, which here and there diverged from the main street, disclosed little knots of houses, where drunken men and women were positively wallowing in filth; and from several of the door-ways, great ill-looking fellows were cautiously emerging, bound, to all appearance, on no very well-disposed or harmless errands. oliver was just considering whether he hadn't better run away, when they reached the bottom of the hill. his conductor, catching him by the arm, pushed open the door of a house near field lane; and drawing him into the passage, closed it behind them. 'now, then!' cried a voice from below, in reply to a whistle from the dodger. 'plummy and slam!' was the reply. this seemed to be some watchword or signal that all was right; for the light of a feeble candle gleamed on the wall at the remote end of the passage; and a man's face peeped out, from where a balustrade of the old kitchen staircase had been broken away. 'there's two on you,' said the man, thrusting the candle farther out, and shielding his eyes with his hand. 'who's the t'other one?' 'a new pal,' replied jack dawkins, pulling oliver forward. 'where did he come from?' 'greenland. is fagin upstairs?' 'yes, he's a sortin' the wipes. up with you!' the candle was drawn back, and the face disappeared. oliver, groping his way with one hand, and having the other firmly grasped by his companion, ascended with much difficulty the dark and broken stairs: which his conductor mounted with an ease and expedition that showed he was well acquainted with them. he threw open the door of a back-room, and drew oliver in after him. the walls and ceiling of the room were perfectly black with age and dirt. there was a deal table before the fire: upon which were a candle, stuck in a ginger-beer bottle, two or three pewter pots, a loaf and butter, and a plate. in a frying-pan, which was on the fire, and which was secured to the mantelshelf by a string, some sausages were cooking; and standing over them, with a toasting-fork in his hand, was a very old shrivelled jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair. he was dressed in a greasy flannel gown, with his throat bare; and seemed to be dividing his attention between the frying-pan and the clothes-horse, over which a great number of silk handkerchiefs were hanging. several rough beds made of old sacks, were huddled side by side on the floor. seated round the table were four or five boys, none older than the dodger, smoking long clay pipes, and drinking spirits with the air of middle-aged men. these all crowded about their associate as he whispered a few words to the jew; and then turned round and grinned at oliver. so did the jew himself, toasting-fork in hand. 'this is him, fagin,' said jack dawkins;'my friend oliver twist.' the jew grinned; and, making a low obeisance to oliver, took him by the hand, and hoped he should have the honour of his intimate acquaintance. upon this, the young gentleman with the pipes came round him, and shook both his hands very hard--especially the one in which he held his little bundle. one young gentleman was very anxious to hang up his cap for him; and another was so obliging as to put his hands in his pockets, in order that, as he was very tired, he might not have the trouble of emptying them, himself, when he went to bed. these civilities would probably be extended much farther, but for a liberal exercise of the jew's toasting-fork on the heads and shoulders of the affectionate youths who offered them. 'we are very glad to see you, oliver, very,' said the jew. 'dodger, take off the sausages; and draw a tub near the fire for oliver. ah, you're a-staring at the pocket-handkerchiefs! eh, my dear. there are a good many of 'em, ain't there? we've just looked 'em out, ready for the wash; that's all, oliver; that's all. ha! ha! ha!' the latter part of this speech, was hailed by a boisterous shout from all the hopeful pupils of the merry old gentleman. in the midst of which they went to supper. oliver ate his share, and the jew then mixed him a glass of hot gin-and-water: telling him he must drink it off directly, because another gentleman wanted the tumbler. oliver did as he was desired. immediately afterwards he felt himself gently lifted on to one of the sacks; and then he sunk into a deep sleep. chapter ix containing further particulars concerning the pleasant old gentleman, and his hopeful pupils it was late next morning when oliver awoke, from a sound, long sleep. there was no other person in the room but the old jew, who was boiling some coffee in a saucepan for breakfast, and whistling softly to himself as he stirred it round and round, with an iron spoon. he would stop every now and then to listen when there was the least noise below: and when he had satisfied himself, he would go on whistling and stirring again, as before. although oliver had roused himself from sleep, he was not thoroughly awake. there is a drowsy state, between sleeping and waking, when you dream more in five minutes with your eyes half open, and yourself half conscious of everything that is passing around you, than you would in five nights with your eyes fast closed, and your senses wrapt in perfect unconsciousness. at such time, a mortal knows just enough of what his mind is doing, to form some glimmering conception of its mighty powers, its bounding from earth and spurning time and space, when freed from the restraint of its corporeal associate. oliver was precisely in this condition. he saw the jew with his half-closed eyes; heard his low whistling; and recognised the sound of the spoon grating against the saucepan's sides: and yet the self-same senses were mentally engaged, at the same time, in busy action with almost everybody he had ever known. when the coffee was done, the jew drew the saucepan to the hob. standing, then in an irresolute attitude for a few minutes, as if he did not well know how to employ himself, he turned round and looked at oliver, and called him by his name. he did not answer, and was to all appearances asleep. after satisfying himself upon this head, the jew stepped gently to the door: which he fastened. he then drew forth: as it seemed to oliver, from some trap in the floor: a small box, which he placed carefully on the table. his eyes glistened as he raised the lid, and looked in. dragging an old chair to the table, he sat down; and took from it a magnificent gold watch, sparkling with jewels. 'aha!' said the jew, shrugging up his shoulders, and distorting every feature with a hideous grin. 'clever dogs! clever dogs! staunch to the last! never told the old parson where they were. never poached upon old fagin! and why should they? it wouldn't have loosened the knot, or kept the drop up, a minute longer. no, no, no! fine fellows! fine fellows!' with these, and other muttered reflections of the like nature, the jew once more deposited the watch in its place of safety. at least half a dozen more were severally drawn forth from the same box, and surveyed with equal pleasure; besides rings, brooches, bracelets, and other articles of jewellery, of such magnificent materials, and costly workmanship, that oliver had no idea, even of their names. having replaced these trinkets, the jew took out another: so small that it lay in the palm of his hand. there seemed to be some very minute inscription on it; for the jew laid it flat upon the table, and shading it with his hand, pored over it, long and earnestly. at length he put it down, as if despairing of success; and, leaning back in his chair, muttered: 'what a fine thing capital punishment is! dead men never repent; dead men never bring awkward stories to light. ah, it's a fine thing for the trade! five of 'em strung up in a row, and none left to play booty, or turn white-livered!' as the jew uttered these words, his bright dark eyes, which had been staring vacantly before him, fell on oliver's face; the boy's eyes were fixed on his in mute curiousity; and although the recognition was only for an instant--for the briefest space of time that can possibly be conceived--it was enough to show the old man that he had been observed. he closed the lid of the box with a loud crash; and, laying his hand on a bread knife which was on the table, started furiously up. he trembled very much though; for, even in his terror, oliver could see that the knife quivered in the air. 'what's that?' said the jew. 'what do you watch me for? why are you awake? what have you seen? speak out, boy! quick--quick! for your life. 'i wasn't able to sleep any longer, sir,' replied oliver, meekly. 'i am very sorry if i have disturbed you, sir.' 'you were not awake an hour ago?' said the jew, scowling fiercely on the boy. 'no! no, indeed!' replied oliver. 'are you sure?' cried the jew: with a still fiercer look than before: and a threatening attitude. 'upon my word i was not, sir,' replied oliver, earnestly. 'i was not, indeed, sir.' 'tush, tush, my dear!' said the jew, abruptly resuming his old manner, and playing with the knife a little, before he laid it down; as if to induce the belief that he had caught it up, in mere sport. 'of course i know that, my dear. i only tried to frighten you. you're a brave boy. ha! ha! you're a brave boy, oliver.' the jew rubbed his hands with a chuckle, but glanced uneasily at the box, notwithstanding. 'did you see any of these pretty things, my dear?' said the jew, laying his hand upon it after a short pause. 'yes, sir,' replied oliver. 'ah!' said the jew, turning rather pale. 'they--they're mine, oliver; my little property. all i have to live upon, in my old age. the folks call me a miser, my dear. only a miser; that's all.' oliver thought the old gentleman must be a decided miser to live in such a dirty place, with so many watches; but, thinking that perhaps his fondness for the dodger and the other boys, cost him a good deal of money, he only cast a deferential look at the jew, and asked if he might get up. 'certainly, my dear, certainly,' replied the old gentleman. 'stay. there's a pitcher of water in the corner by the door. bring it here; and i'll give you a basin to wash in, my dear.' oliver got up; walked across the room; and stooped for an instant to raise the pitcher. when he turned his head, the box was gone. he had scarcely washed himself, and made everything tidy, by emptying the basin out of the window, agreeably to the jew's directions, when the dodger returned: accompanied by a very sprightly young friend, whom oliver had seen smoking on the previous night, and who was now formally introduced to him as charley bates. the four sat down, to breakfast, on the coffee, and some hot rolls and ham which the dodger had brought home in the crown of his hat. 'well,' said the jew, glancing slyly at oliver, and addressing himself to the dodger, 'i hope you've been at work this morning, my dears?' 'hard,' replied the dodger. 'as nails,' added charley bates. 'good boys, good boys!' said the jew. 'what have you got, dodger?' 'a couple of pocket-books,' replied that young gentlman. 'lined?' inquired the jew, with eagerness. 'pretty well,' replied the dodger, producing two pocket-books; one green, and the other red. 'not so heavy as they might be,' said the jew, after looking at the insides carefully; 'but very neat and nicely made. ingenious workman, ain't he, oliver?' 'very indeed, sir,' said oliver. at which mr. charles bates laughed uproariously; very much to the amazement of oliver, who saw nothing to laugh at, in anything that had passed. 'and what have you got, my dear?' said fagin to charley bates. 'wipes,' replied master bates; at the same time producing four pocket-handkerchiefs. 'well,' said the jew, inspecting them closely; 'they're very good ones, very. you haven't marked them well, though, charley; so the marks shall be picked out with a needle, and we'll teach oliver how to do it. shall us, oliver, eh? ha! ha! ha!' 'if you please, sir,' said oliver. 'you'd like to be able to make pocket-handkerchiefs as easy as charley bates, wouldn't you, my dear?' said the jew. 'very much, indeed, if you'll teach me, sir,' replied oliver. master bates saw something so exquisitely ludicrous in this reply, that he burst into another laugh; which laugh, meeting the coffee he was drinking, and carrying it down some wrong channel, very nearly terminated in his premature suffocation. 'he is so jolly green!' said charley when he recovered, as an apology to the company for his unpolite behaviour. the dodger said nothing, but he smoothed oliver's hair over his eyes, and said he'd know better, by and by; upon which the old gentleman, observing oliver's colour mounting, changed the subject by asking whether there had been much of a crowd at the execution that morning? this made him wonder more and more; for it was plain from the replies of the two boys that they had both been there; and oliver naturally wondered how they could possibly have found time to be so very industrious. when the breakfast was cleared away; the merry old gentlman and the two boys played at a very curious and uncommon game, which was performed in this way. the merry old gentleman, placing a snuff-box in one pocket of his trousers, a note-case in the other, and a watch in his waistcoat pocket, with a guard-chain round his neck, and sticking a mock diamond pin in his shirt: buttoned his coat tight round him, and putting his spectacle-case and handkerchief in his pockets, trotted up and down the room with a stick, in imitation of the manner in which old gentlemen walk about the streets any hour in the day. sometimes he stopped at the fire-place, and sometimes at the door, making believe that he was staring with all his might into shop-windows. at such times, he would look constantly round him, for fear of thieves, and would keep slapping all his pockets in turn, to see that he hadn't lost anything, in such a very funny and natural manner, that oliver laughed till the tears ran down his face. all this time, the two boys followed him closely about: getting out of his sight, so nimbly, every time he turned round, that it was impossible to follow their motions. at last, the dodger trod upon his toes, or ran upon his boot accidently, while charley bates stumbled up against him behind; and in that one moment they took from him, with the most extraordinary rapidity, snuff-box, note-case, watch-guard, chain, shirt-pin, pocket-handkerchief, even the spectacle-case. if the old gentlman felt a hand in any one of his pockets, he cried out where it was; and then the game began all over again. when this game had been played a great many times, a couple of young ladies called to see the young gentleman; one of whom was named bet, and the other nancy. they wore a good deal of hair, not very neatly turned up behind, and were rather untidy about the shoes and stockings. they were not exactly pretty, perhaps; but they had a great deal of colour in their faces, and looked quite stout and hearty. being remarkably free and agreeable in their manners, oliver thought them very nice girls indeed. as there is no doubt they were. the visitors stopped a long time. spirits were produced, in consequence of one of the young ladies complaining of a coldness in her inside; and the conversation took a very convivial and improving turn. at length, charley bates expressed his opinion that it was time to pad the hoof. this, it occurred to oliver, must be french for going out; for directly afterwards, the dodger, and charley, and the two young ladies, went away together, having been kindly furnished by the amiable old jew with money to spend. 'there, my dear,' said fagin. 'that's a pleasant life, isn't it? they have gone out for the day.' 'have they done work, sir?' inquired oliver. 'yes,' said the jew; 'that is, unless they should unexpectedly come across any, when they are out; and they won't neglect it, if they do, my dear, depend upon it. make 'em your models, my dear. make 'em your models,' tapping the fire-shovel on the hearth to add force to his words; 'do everything they bid you, and take their advice in all matters--especially the dodger's, my dear. he'll be a great man himself, and will make you one too, if you take pattern by him.--is my handkerchief hanging out of my pocket, my dear?' said the jew, stopping short. 'yes, sir,' said oliver. 'see if you can take it out, without my feeling it; as you saw them do, when we were at play this morning.' oliver held up the bottom of the pocket with one hand, as he had seen the dodger hold it, and drew the handkerchief lightly out of it with the other. 'is it gone?' cried the jew. 'here it is, sir,' said oliver, showing it in his hand. 'you're a clever boy, my dear,' said the playful old gentleman, patting oliver on the head approvingly. 'i never saw a sharper lad. here's a shilling for you. if you go on, in this way, you'll be the greatest man of the time. and now come here, and i'll show you how to take the marks out of the handkerchiefs.' oliver wondered what picking the old gentleman's pocket in play, had to do with his chances of being a great man. but, thinking that the jew, being so much his senior, must know best, he followed him quietly to the table, and was soon deeply involved in his new study. chapter x oliver becomes better acquainted with the characters of his new associates; and purchases experience at a high price. being a short, but very important chapter, in this history for many days, oliver remained in the jew's room, picking the marks out of the pocket-handkerchief, (of which a great number were brought home,) and sometimes taking part in the game already described: which the two boys and the jew played, regularly, every morning. at length, he began to languish for fresh air, and took many occasions of earnestly entreating the old gentleman to allow him to go out to work with his two companions. oliver was rendered the more anxious to be actively employed, by what he had seen of the stern morality of the old gentleman's character. whenever the dodger or charley bates came home at night, empty-handed, he would expatiate with great vehemence on the misery of idle and lazy habits; and would enforce upon them the necessity of an active life, by sending them supperless to bed. on one occasion, indeed, he even went so far as to knock them both down a flight of stairs; but this was carrying out his virtuous precepts to an unusual extent. at length, one morning, oliver obtained the permission he had so eagerly sought. there had been no handkerchiefs to work upon, for two or three days, and the dinners had been rather meagre. perhaps these were reasons for the old gentleman's giving his assent; but, whether they were or no, he told oliver he might go, and placed him under the joint guardianship of charley bates, and his friend the dodger. the three boys sallied out; the dodger with his coat-sleeves tucked up, and his hat cocked, as usual; master bates sauntering along with his hands in his pockets; and oliver between them, wondering where they were going, and what branch of manufacture he would be instructed in, first. the pace at which they went, was such a very lazy, ill-looking saunter, that oliver soon began to think his companions were going to deceive the old gentleman, by not going to work at all. the dodger had a vicious propensity, too, of pulling the caps from the heads of small boys and tossing them down areas; while charley bates exhibited some very loose notions concerning the rights of property, by pilfering divers apples and onions from the stalls at the kennel sides, and thrusting them into pockets which were so surprisingly capacious, that they seemed to undermine his whole suit of clothes in every direction. these things looked so bad, that oliver was on the point of declaring his intention of seeking his way back, in the best way he could; when his thoughts were suddenly directed into another channel, by a very mysterious change of behaviour on the part of the dodger. they were just emerging from a narrow court not far from the open square in clerkenwell, which is yet called, by some strange perversion of terms, 'the green': when the dodger made a sudden stop; and, laying his finger on his lip, drew his companions back again, with the greatest caution and circumspection. 'what's the matter?' demanded oliver. 'hush!' replied the dodger. 'do you see that old cove at the book-stall?' 'the old gentleman over the way?' said oliver. 'yes, i see him.' 'he'll do,' said the dodger. 'a prime plant,' observed master charley bates. oliver looked from one to the other, with the greatest surprise; but he was not permitted to make any inquiries; for the two boys walked stealthily across the road, and slunk close behind the old gentleman towards whom his attention had been directed. oliver walked a few paces after them; and, not knowing whether to advance or retire, stood looking on in silent amazement. the old gentleman was a very respectable-looking personage, with a powdered head and gold spectacles. he was dressed in a bottle-green coat with a black velvet collar; wore white trousers; and carried a smart bamboo cane under his arm. he had taken up a book from the stall, and there he stood, reading away, as hard as if he were in his elbow-chair, in his own study. it is very possible that he fancied himself there, indeed; for it was plain, from his abstraction, that he saw not the book-stall, nor the street, nor the boys, nor, in short, anything but the book itself: which he was reading straight through: turning over the leaf when he got to the bottom of a page, beginning at the top line of the next one, and going regularly on, with the greatest interest and eagerness. what was oliver's horror and alarm as he stood a few paces off, looking on with his eyelids as wide open as they would possibly go, to see the dodger plunge his hand into the old gentleman's pocket, and draw from thence a handkerchief! to see him hand the same to charley bates; and finally to behold them, both running away round the corner at full speed! in an instant the whole mystery of the hankerchiefs, and the watches, and the jewels, and the jew, rushed upon the boy's mind. he stood, for a moment, with the blood so tingling through all his veins from terror, that he felt as if he were in a burning fire; then, confused and frightened, he took to his heels; and, not knowing what he did, made off as fast as he could lay his feet to the ground. this was all done in a minute's space. in the very instant when oliver began to run, the old gentleman, putting his hand to his pocket, and missing his handkerchief, turned sharp round. seeing the boy scudding away at such a rapid pace, he very naturally concluded him to be the depredator; and shouting 'stop thief!' with all his might, made off after him, book in hand. but the old gentleman was not the only person who raised the hue-and-cry. the dodger and master bates, unwilling to attract public attention by running down the open street, had merely retired into the very first doorway round the corner. they no sooner heard the cry, and saw oliver running, than, guessing exactly how the matter stood, they issued forth with great promptitude; and, shouting 'stop thief!' too, joined in the pursuit like good citizens. although oliver had been brought up by philosophers, he was not theoretically acquainted with the beautiful axiom that self-preservation is the first law of nature. if he had been, perhaps he would have been prepared for this. not being prepared, however, it alarmed him the more; so away he went like the wind, with the old gentleman and the two boys roaring and shouting behind him. 'stop thief! stop thief!' there is a magic in the sound. the tradesman leaves his counter, and the car-man his waggon; the butcher throws down his tray; the baker his basket; the milkman his pail; the errand-boy his parcels; the school-boy his marbles; the paviour his pickaxe; the child his battledore. away they run, pell-mell, helter-skelter, slap-dash: tearing, yelling, screaming, knocking down the passengers as they turn the corners, rousing up the dogs, and astonishing the fowls: and streets, squares, and courts, re-echo with the sound. 'stop thief! stop thief!' the cry is taken up by a hundred voices, and the crowd accumulate at every turning. away they fly, splashing through the mud, and rattling along the pavements: up go the windows, out run the people, onward bear the mob, a whole audience desert punch in the very thickest of the plot, and, joining the rushing throng, swell the shout, and lend fresh vigour to the cry, 'stop thief! stop thief!' 'stop thief! stop thief!' there is a passion for _hunting_ _something_ deeply implanted in the human breast. one wretched breathless child, panting with exhaustion; terror in his looks; agony in his eyes; large drops of perspiration streaming down his face; strains every nerve to make head upon his pursuers; and as they follow on his track, and gain upon him every instant, they hail his decreasing strength with joy. 'stop thief!' ay, stop him for god's sake, were it only in mercy! stopped at last! a clever blow. he is down upon the pavement; and the crowd eagerly gather round him: each new comer, jostling and struggling with the others to catch a glimpse. 'stand aside!' 'give him a little air!' 'nonsense! he don't deserve it.' 'where's the gentleman?' 'here his is, coming down the street.' 'make room there for the gentleman!' 'is this the boy, sir!' 'yes.' oliver lay, covered with mud and dust, and bleeding from the mouth, looking wildly round upon the heap of faces that surrounded him, when the old gentleman was officiously dragged and pushed into the circle by the foremost of the pursuers. 'yes,' said the gentleman, 'i am afraid it is the boy.' 'afraid!' murmured the crowd. 'that's a good 'un!' 'poor fellow!' said the gentleman, 'he has hurt himself.' '_i_ did that, sir,' said a great lubberly fellow, stepping forward; 'and preciously i cut my knuckle agin' his mouth. i stopped him, sir.' the fellow touched his hat with a grin, expecting something for his pains; but, the old gentleman, eyeing him with an expression of dislike, look anxiously round, as if he contemplated running away himself: which it is very possible he might have attempted to do, and thus have afforded another chase, had not a police officer (who is generally the last person to arrive in such cases) at that moment made his way through the crowd, and seized oliver by the collar. 'come, get up,' said the man, roughly. 'it wasn't me indeed, sir. indeed, indeed, it was two other boys,' said oliver, clasping his hands passionately, and looking round. 'they are here somewhere.' 'oh no, they ain't,' said the officer. he meant this to be ironical, but it was true besides; for the dodger and charley bates had filed off down the first convenient court they came to. 'come, get up!' 'don't hurt him,' said the old gentleman, compassionately. 'oh no, i won't hurt him,' replied the officer, tearing his jacket half off his back, in proof thereof. 'come, i know you; it won't do. will you stand upon your legs, you young devil?' oliver, who could hardly stand, made a shift to raise himself on his feet, and was at once lugged along the streets by the jacket-collar, at a rapid pace. the gentleman walked on with them by the officer's side; and as many of the crowd as could achieve the feat, got a little ahead, and stared back at oliver from time to time. the boys shouted in triumph; and on they went. chapter xi treats of mr. fang the police magistrate; and furnishes a slight specimen of his mode of administering justice the offence had been committed within the district, and indeed in the immediate neighborhood of, a very notorious metropolitan police office. the crowd had only the satisfaction of accompanying oliver through two or three streets, and down a place called mutton hill, when he was led beneath a low archway, and up a dirty court, into this dispensary of summary justice, by the back way. it was a small paved yard into which they turned; and here they encountered a stout man with a bunch of whiskers on his face, and a bunch of keys in his hand. 'what's the matter now?' said the man carelessly. 'a young fogle-hunter,' replied the man who had oliver in charge. 'are you the party that's been robbed, sir?' inquired the man with the keys. 'yes, i am,' replied the old gentleman; 'but i am not sure that this boy actually took the handkerchief. i--i would rather not press the case.' 'must go before the magistrate now, sir,' replied the man. 'his worship will be disengaged in half a minute. now, young gallows!' this was an invitation for oliver to enter through a door which he unlocked as he spoke, and which led into a stone cell. here he was searched; and nothing being found upon him, locked up. this cell was in shape and size something like an area cellar, only not so light. it was most intolerably dirty; for it was monday morning; and it had been tenanted by six drunken people, who had been locked up, elsewhere, since saturday night. but this is little. in our station-houses, men and women are every night confined on the most trivial charges--the word is worth noting--in dungeons, compared with which, those in newgate, occupied by the most atrocious felons, tried, found guilty, and under sentence of death, are palaces. let any one who doubts this, compare the two. the old gentleman looked almost as rueful as oliver when the key grated in the lock. he turned with a sigh to the book, which had been the innocent cause of all this disturbance. 'there is something in that boy's face,' said the old gentleman to himself as he walked slowly away, tapping his chin with the cover of the book, in a thoughtful manner; 'something that touches and interests me. _can_ he be innocent? he looked like--bye the bye,' exclaimed the old gentleman, halting very abruptly, and staring up into the sky, 'bless my soul!--where have i seen something like that look before?' after musing for some minutes, the old gentleman walked, with the same meditative face, into a back anteroom opening from the yard; and there, retiring into a corner, called up before his mind's eye a vast amphitheatre of faces over which a dusky curtain had hung for many years. 'no,' said the old gentleman, shaking his head; 'it must be imagination.' he wandered over them again. he had called them into view, and it was not easy to replace the shroud that had so long concealed them. there were the faces of friends, and foes, and of many that had been almost strangers peering intrusively from the crowd; there were the faces of young and blooming girls that were now old women; there were faces that the grave had changed and closed upon, but which the mind, superior to its power, still dressed in their old freshness and beauty, calling back the lustre of the eyes, the brightness of the smile, the beaming of the soul through its mask of clay, and whispering of beauty beyond the tomb, changed but to be heightened, and taken from earth only to be set up as a light, to shed a soft and gentle glow upon the path to heaven. but the old gentleman could recall no one countenance of which oliver's features bore a trace. so, he heaved a sigh over the recollections he awakened; and being, happily for himself, an absent old gentleman, buried them again in the pages of the musty book. he was roused by a touch on the shoulder, and a request from the man with the keys to follow him into the office. he closed his book hastily; and was at once ushered into the imposing presence of the renowned mr. fang. the office was a front parlour, with a panelled wall. mr. fang sat behind a bar, at the upper end; and on one side the door was a sort of wooden pen in which poor little oliver was already deposited; trembling very much at the awfulness of the scene. mr. fang was a lean, long-backed, stiff-necked, middle-sized man, with no great quantity of hair, and what he had, growing on the back and sides of his head. his face was stern, and much flushed. if he were really not in the habit of drinking rather more than was exactly good for him, he might have brought action against his countenance for libel, and have recovered heavy damages. the old gentleman bowed respectfully; and advancing to the magistrate's desk, said, suiting the action to the word, 'that is my name and address, sir.' he then withdrew a pace or two; and, with another polite and gentlemanly inclination of the head, waited to be questioned. now, it so happened that mr. fang was at that moment perusing a leading article in a newspaper of the morning, adverting to some recent decision of his, and commending him, for the three hundred and fiftieth time, to the special and particular notice of the secretary of state for the home department. he was out of temper; and he looked up with an angry scowl. 'who are you?' said mr. fang. the old gentleman pointed, with some surprise, to his card. 'officer!' said mr. fang, tossing the card contemptuously away with the newspaper. 'who is this fellow?' 'my name, sir,' said the old gentleman, speaking _like_ a gentleman, 'my name, sir, is brownlow. permit me to inquire the name of the magistrate who offers a gratuitous and unprovoked insult to a respectable person, under the protection of the bench.' saying this, mr. brownlow looked around the office as if in search of some person who would afford him the required information. 'officer!' said mr. fang, throwing the paper on one side, 'what's this fellow charged with?' 'he's not charged at all, your worship,' replied the officer. 'he appears against this boy, your worship.' his worship knew this perfectly well; but it was a good annoyance, and a safe one. 'appears against the boy, does he?' said mr. fang, surveying mr. brownlow contemptuously from head to foot. 'swear him!' 'before i am sworn, i must beg to say one word,' said mr. brownlow; 'and that is, that i really never, without actual experience, could have believed--' 'hold your tongue, sir!' said mr. fang, peremptorily. 'i will not, sir!' replied the old gentleman. 'hold your tongue this instant, or i'll have you turned out of the office!' said mr. fang. 'you're an insolent impertinent fellow. how dare you bully a magistrate!' 'what!' exclaimed the old gentleman, reddening. 'swear this person!' said fang to the clerk. 'i'll not hear another word. swear him.' mr. brownlow's indignation was greatly roused; but reflecting perhaps, that he might only injure the boy by giving vent to it, he suppressed his feelings and submitted to be sworn at once. 'now,' said fang, 'what's the charge against this boy? what have you got to say, sir?' 'i was standing at a bookstall--' mr. brownlow began. 'hold your tongue, sir,' said mr. fang. 'policeman! where's the policeman? here, swear this policeman. now, policeman, what is this?' the policeman, with becoming humility, related how he had taken the charge; how he had searched oliver, and found nothing on his person; and how that was all he knew about it. 'are there any witnesses?' inquired mr. fang. 'none, your worship,' replied the policeman. mr. fang sat silent for some minutes, and then, turning round to the prosecutor, said in a towering passion. 'do you mean to state what your complaint against this boy is, man, or do you not? you have been sworn. now, if you stand there, refusing to give evidence, i'll punish you for disrespect to the bench; i will, by--' by what, or by whom, nobody knows, for the clerk and jailor coughed very loud, just at the right moment; and the former dropped a heavy book upon the floor, thus preventing the word from being heard--accidently, of course. with many interruptions, and repeated insults, mr. brownlow contrived to state his case; observing that, in the surprise of the moment, he had run after the boy because he had saw him running away; and expressing his hope that, if the magistrate should believe him, although not actually the thief, to be connected with the thieves, he would deal as leniently with him as justice would allow. 'he has been hurt already,' said the old gentleman in conclusion. 'and i fear,' he added, with great energy, looking towards the bar, 'i really fear that he is ill.' 'oh! yes, i dare say!' said mr. fang, with a sneer. 'come, none of your tricks here, you young vagabond; they won't do. what's your name?' oliver tried to reply but his tongue failed him. he was deadly pale; and the whole place seemed turning round and round. 'what's your name, you hardened scoundrel?' demanded mr. fang. 'officer, what's his name?' this was addressed to a bluff old fellow, in a striped waistcoat, who was standing by the bar. he bent over oliver, and repeated the inquiry; but finding him really incapable of understanding the question; and knowing that his not replying would only infuriate the magistrate the more, and add to the severity of his sentence; he hazarded a guess. 'he says his name's tom white, your worship,' said the kind-hearted thief-taker. 'oh, he won't speak out, won't he?' said fang. 'very well, very well. where does he live?' 'where he can, your worship,' replied the officer; again pretending to receive oliver's answer. 'has he any parents?' inquired mr. fang. 'he says they died in his infancy, your worship,' replied the officer: hazarding the usual reply. at this point of the inquiry, oliver raised his head; and, looking round with imploring eyes, murmured a feeble prayer for a draught of water. 'stuff and nonsense!' said mr. fang: 'don't try to make a fool of me.' 'i think he really is ill, your worship,' remonstrated the officer. 'i know better,' said mr. fang. 'take care of him, officer,' said the old gentleman, raising his hands instinctively; 'he'll fall down.' 'stand away, officer,' cried fang; 'let him, if he likes.' oliver availed himself of the kind permission, and fell to the floor in a fainting fit. the men in the office looked at each other, but no one dared to stir. 'i knew he was shamming,' said fang, as if this were incontestable proof of the fact. 'let him lie there; he'll soon be tired of that.' 'how do you propose to deal with the case, sir?' inquired the clerk in a low voice. 'summarily,' replied mr. fang. 'he stands committed for three months--hard labour of course. clear the office.' the door was opened for this purpose, and a couple of men were preparing to carry the insensible boy to his cell; when an elderly man of decent but poor appearance, clad in an old suit of black, rushed hastily into the office, and advanced towards the bench. 'stop, stop! don't take him away! for heaven's sake stop a moment!' cried the new comer, breathless with haste. although the presiding genii in such an office as this, exercise a summary and arbitrary power over the liberties, the good name, the character, almost the lives, of her majesty's subjects, expecially of the poorer class; and although, within such walls, enough fantastic tricks are daily played to make the angels blind with weeping; they are closed to the public, save through the medium of the daily press.[footnote: or were virtually, then.] mr. fang was consequently not a little indignant to see an unbidden guest enter in such irreverent disorder. 'what is this? who is this? turn this man out. clear the office!' cried mr. fang. 'i _will_ speak,' cried the man; 'i will not be turned out. i saw it all. i keep the book-stall. i demand to be sworn. i will not be put down. mr. fang, you must hear me. you must not refuse, sir.' the man was right. his manner was determined; and the matter was growing rather too serious to be hushed up. 'swear the man,' growled mr. fang, with a very ill grace. 'now, man, what have you got to say?' 'this,' said the man: 'i saw three boys: two others and the prisoner here: loitering on the opposite side of the way, when this gentleman was reading. the robbery was committed by another boy. i saw it done; and i saw that this boy was perfectly amazed and stupified by it.' having by this time recovered a little breath, the worthy book-stall keeper proceeded to relate, in a more coherent manner the exact circumstances of the robbery. 'why didn't you come here before?' said fang, after a pause. 'i hadn't a soul to mind the shop,' replied the man. 'everybody who could have helped me, had joined in the pursuit. i could get nobody till five minutes ago; and i've run here all the way.' 'the prosecutor was reading, was he?' inquired fang, after another pause. 'yes,' replied the man. 'the very book he has in his hand.' 'oh, that book, eh?' said fang. 'is it paid for?' 'no, it is not,' replied the man, with a smile. 'dear me, i forgot all about it!' exclaimed the absent old gentleman, innocently. 'a nice person to prefer a charge against a poor boy!' said fang, with a comical effort to look humane. 'i consider, sir, that you have obtained possession of that book, under very suspicious and disreputable circumstances; and you may think yourself very fortunate that the owner of the property declines to prosecute. let this be a lesson to you, my man, or the law will overtake you yet. the boy is discharged. clear the office!' 'd--n me!' cried the old gentleman, bursting out with the rage he had kept down so long, 'd--n me! i'll--' 'clear the office!' said the magistrate. 'officers, do you hear? clear the office!' the mandate was obeyed; and the indignant mr. brownlow was conveyed out, with the book in one hand, and the bamboo cane in the other: in a perfect phrenzy of rage and defiance. he reached the yard; and his passion vanished in a moment. little oliver twist lay on his back on the pavement, with his shirt unbuttoned, and his temples bathed with water; his face a deadly white; and a cold tremble convulsing his whole frame. 'poor boy, poor boy!' said mr. brownlow, bending over him. 'call a coach, somebody, pray. directly!' a coach was obtained, and oliver having been carefully laid on the seat, the old gentleman got in and sat himself on the other. 'may i accompany you?' said the book-stall keeper, looking in. 'bless me, yes, my dear sir,' said mr. brownlow quickly. 'i forgot you. dear, dear! i have this unhappy book still! jump in. poor fellow! there's no time to lose.' the book-stall keeper got into the coach; and away they drove. chapter xii in which oliver is taken better care of than he ever was before. and in which the narrative reverts to the merry old gentleman and his youthful friends. the coach rattled away, over nearly the same ground as that which oliver had traversed when he first entered london in company with the dodger; and, turning a different way when it reached the angel at islington, stopped at length before a neat house, in a quiet shady street near pentonville. here, a bed was prepared, without loss of time, in which mr. brownlow saw his young charge carefully and comfortably deposited; and here, he was tended with a kindness and solicitude that knew no bounds. but, for many days, oliver remained insensible to all the goodness of his new friends. the sun rose and sank, and rose and sank again, and many times after that; and still the boy lay stretched on his uneasy bed, dwindling away beneath the dry and wasting heat of fever. the worm does not work more surely on the dead body, than does this slow creeping fire upon the living frame. weak, and thin, and pallid, he awoke at last from what seemed to have been a long and troubled dream. feebly raising himself in the bed, with his head resting on his trembling arm, he looked anxiously around. 'what room is this? where have i been brought to?' said oliver. 'this is not the place i went to sleep in.' he uttered these words in a feeble voice, being very faint and weak; but they were overheard at once. the curtain at the bed's head was hastily drawn back, and a motherly old lady, very neatly and precisely dressed, rose as she undrew it, from an arm-chair close by, in which she had been sitting at needle-work. 'hush, my dear,' said the old lady softly. 'you must be very quiet, or you will be ill again; and you have been very bad,--as bad as bad could be, pretty nigh. lie down again; there's a dear!' with those words, the old lady very gently placed oliver's head upon the pillow; and, smoothing back his hair from his forehead, looked so kindly and loving in his face, that he could not help placing his little withered hand in hers, and drawing it round his neck. 'save us!' said the old lady, with tears in her eyes. 'what a grateful little dear it is. pretty creetur! what would his mother feel if she had sat by him as i have, and could see him now!' 'perhaps she does see me,' whispered oliver, folding his hands together; 'perhaps she has sat by me. i almost feel as if she had.' 'that was the fever, my dear,' said the old lady mildly. 'i suppose it was,' replied oliver, 'because heaven is a long way off; and they are too happy there, to come down to the bedside of a poor boy. but if she knew i was ill, she must have pitied me, even there; for she was very ill herself before she died. she can't know anything about me though,' added oliver after a moment's silence. 'if she had seen me hurt, it would have made her sorrowful; and her face has always looked sweet and happy, when i have dreamed of her.' the old lady made no reply to this; but wiping her eyes first, and her spectacles, which lay on the counterpane, afterwards, as if they were part and parcel of those features, brought some cool stuff for oliver to drink; and then, patting him on the cheek, told him he must lie very quiet, or he would be ill again. so, oliver kept very still; partly because he was anxious to obey the kind old lady in all things; and partly, to tell the truth, because he was completely exhausted with what he had already said. he soon fell into a gentle doze, from which he was awakened by the light of a candle: which, being brought near the bed, showed him a gentleman with a very large and loud-ticking gold watch in his hand, who felt his pulse, and said he was a great deal better. 'you _are_ a great deal better, are you not, my dear?' said the gentleman. 'yes, thank you, sir,' replied oliver. 'yes, i know you are,' said the gentleman: 'you're hungry too, an't you?' 'no, sir,' answered oliver. 'hem!' said the gentleman. 'no, i know you're not. he is not hungry, mrs. bedwin,' said the gentleman: looking very wise. the old lady made a respectful inclination of the head, which seemed to say that she thought the doctor was a very clever man. the doctor appeared much of the same opinion himself. 'you feel sleepy, don't you, my dear?' said the doctor. 'no, sir,' replied oliver. 'no,' said the doctor, with a very shrewd and satisfied look. 'you're not sleepy. nor thirsty. are you?' 'yes, sir, rather thirsty,' answered oliver. 'just as i expected, mrs. bedwin,' said the doctor. 'it's very natural that he should be thirsty. you may give him a little tea, ma'am, and some dry toast without any butter. don't keep him too warm, ma'am; but be careful that you don't let him be too cold; will you have the goodness?' the old lady dropped a curtsey. the doctor, after tasting the cool stuff, and expressing a qualified approval of it, hurried away: his boots creaking in a very important and wealthy manner as he went downstairs. oliver dozed off again, soon after this; when he awoke, it was nearly twelve o'clock. the old lady tenderly bade him good-night shortly afterwards, and left him in charge of a fat old woman who had just come: bringing with her, in a little bundle, a small prayer book and a large nightcap. putting the latter on her head and the former on the table, the old woman, after telling oliver that she had come to sit up with him, drew her chair close to the fire and went off into a series of short naps, chequered at frequent intervals with sundry tumblings forward, and divers moans and chokings. these, however, had no worse effect than causing her to rub her nose very hard, and then fall asleep again. and thus the night crept slowly on. oliver lay awake for some time, counting the little circles of light which the reflection of the rushlight-shade threw upon the ceiling; or tracing with his languid eyes the intricate pattern of the paper on the wall. the darkness and the deep stillness of the room were very solemn; as they brought into the boy's mind the thought that death had been hovering there, for many days and nights, and might yet fill it with the gloom and dread of his awful presence, he turned his face upon the pillow, and fervently prayed to heaven. gradually, he fell into that deep tranquil sleep which ease from recent suffering alone imparts; that calm and peaceful rest which it is pain to wake from. who, if this were death, would be roused again to all the struggles and turmoils of life; to all its cares for the present; its anxieties for the future; more than all, its weary recollections of the past! it had been bright day, for hours, when oliver opened his eyes; he felt cheerful and happy. the crisis of the disease was safely past. he belonged to the world again. in three days' time he was able to sit in an easy-chair, well propped up with pillows; and, as he was still too weak to walk, mrs. bedwin had him carried downstairs into the little housekeeper's room, which belonged to her. having him set, here, by the fire-side, the good old lady sat herself down too; and, being in a state of considerable delight at seeing him so much better, forthwith began to cry most violently. 'never mind me, my dear,' said the old lady; 'i'm only having a regular good cry. there; it's all over now; and i'm quite comfortable.' 'you're very, very kind to me, ma'am,' said oliver. 'well, never you mind that, my dear,' said the old lady; 'that's got nothing to do with your broth; and it's full time you had it; for the doctor says mr. brownlow may come in to see you this morning; and we must get up our best looks, because the better we look, the more he'll be pleased.' and with this, the old lady applied herself to warming up, in a little saucepan, a basin full of broth: strong enough, oliver thought, to furnish an ample dinner, when reduced to the regulation strength, for three hundred and fifty paupers, at the lowest computation. 'are you fond of pictures, dear?' inquired the old lady, seeing that oliver had fixed his eyes, most intently, on a portrait which hung against the wall; just opposite his chair. 'i don't quite know, ma'am,' said oliver, without taking his eyes from the canvas; 'i have seen so few that i hardly know. what a beautiful, mild face that lady's is!' 'ah!' said the old lady, 'painters always make ladies out prettier than they are, or they wouldn't get any custom, child. the man that invented the machine for taking likenesses might have known that would never succeed; it's a deal too honest. a deal,' said the old lady, laughing very heartily at her own acuteness. 'is--is that a likeness, ma'am?' said oliver. 'yes,' said the old lady, looking up for a moment from the broth; 'that's a portrait.' 'whose, ma'am?' asked oliver. 'why, really, my dear, i don't know,' answered the old lady in a good-humoured manner. 'it's not a likeness of anybody that you or i know, i expect. it seems to strike your fancy, dear.' 'it is so pretty,' replied oliver. 'why, sure you're not afraid of it?' said the old lady: observing in great surprise, the look of awe with which the child regarded the painting. 'oh no, no,' returned oliver quickly; 'but the eyes look so sorrowful; and where i sit, they seem fixed upon me. it makes my heart beat,' added oliver in a low voice, 'as if it was alive, and wanted to speak to me, but couldn't.' 'lord save us!' exclaimed the old lady, starting; 'don't talk in that way, child. you're weak and nervous after your illness. let me wheel your chair round to the other side; and then you won't see it. there!' said the old lady, suiting the action to the word; 'you don't see it now, at all events.' oliver _did_ see it in his mind's eye as distinctly as if he had not altered his position; but he thought it better not to worry the kind old lady; so he smiled gently when she looked at him; and mrs. bedwin, satisfied that he felt more comfortable, salted and broke bits of toasted bread into the broth, with all the bustle befitting so solemn a preparation. oliver got through it with extraordinary expedition. he had scarcely swallowed the last spoonful, when there came a soft rap at the door. 'come in,' said the old lady; and in walked mr. brownlow. now, the old gentleman came in as brisk as need be; but, he had no sooner raised his spectacles on his forehead, and thrust his hands behind the skirts of his dressing-gown to take a good long look at oliver, than his countenance underwent a very great variety of odd contortions. oliver looked very worn and shadowy from sickness, and made an ineffectual attempt to stand up, out of respect to his benefactor, which terminated in his sinking back into the chair again; and the fact is, if the truth must be told, that mr. brownlow's heart, being large enough for any six ordinary old gentlemen of humane disposition, forced a supply of tears into his eyes, by some hydraulic process which we are not sufficiently philosophical to be in a condition to explain. 'poor boy, poor boy!' said mr. brownlow, clearing his throat. 'i'm rather hoarse this morning, mrs. bedwin. i'm afraid i have caught cold.' 'i hope not, sir,' said mrs. bedwin. 'everything you have had, has been well aired, sir.' 'i don't know, bedwin. i don't know,' said mr. brownlow; 'i rather think i had a damp napkin at dinner-time yesterday; but never mind that. how do you feel, my dear?' 'very happy, sir,' replied oliver. 'and very grateful indeed, sir, for your goodness to me.' 'good by,' said mr. brownlow, stoutly. 'have you given him any nourishment, bedwin? any slops, eh?' 'he has just had a basin of beautiful strong broth, sir,' replied mrs. bedwin: drawing herself up slightly, and laying strong emphasis on the last word: to intimate that between slops, and broth will compounded, there existed no affinity or connection whatsoever. 'ugh!' said mr. brownlow, with a slight shudder; 'a couple of glasses of port wine would have done him a great deal more good. wouldn't they, tom white, eh?' 'my name is oliver, sir,' replied the little invalid: with a look of great astonishment. 'oliver,' said mr. brownlow; 'oliver what? oliver white, eh?' 'no, sir, twist, oliver twist.' 'queer name!' said the old gentleman. 'what made you tell the magistrate your name was white?' 'i never told him so, sir,' returned oliver in amazement. this sounded so like a falsehood, that the old gentleman looked somewhat sternly in oliver's face. it was impossible to doubt him; there was truth in every one of its thin and sharpened lineaments. 'some mistake,' said mr. brownlow. but, although his motive for looking steadily at oliver no longer existed, the old idea of the resemblance between his features and some familiar face came upon him so strongly, that he could not withdraw his gaze. 'i hope you are not angry with me, sir?' said oliver, raising his eyes beseechingly. 'no, no,' replied the old gentleman. 'why! what's this? bedwin, look there!' as he spoke, he pointed hastily to the picture over oliver's head, and then to the boy's face. there was its living copy. the eyes, the head, the mouth; every feature was the same. the expression was, for the instant, so precisely alike, that the minutest line seemed copied with startling accuracy! oliver knew not the cause of this sudden exclamation; for, not being strong enough to bear the start it gave him, he fainted away. a weakness on his part, which affords the narrative an opportunity of relieving the reader from suspense, in behalf of the two young pupils of the merry old gentleman; and of recording-- that when the dodger, and his accomplished friend master bates, joined in the hue-and-cry which was raised at oliver's heels, in consequence of their executing an illegal conveyance of mr. brownlow's personal property, as has been already described, they were actuated by a very laudable and becoming regard for themselves; and forasmuch as the freedom of the subject and the liberty of the individual are among the first and proudest boasts of a true-hearted englishman, so, i need hardly beg the reader to observe, that this action should tend to exalt them in the opinion of all public and patriotic men, in almost as great a degree as this strong proof of their anxiety for their own preservation and safety goes to corroborate and confirm the little code of laws which certain profound and sound-judging philosophers have laid down as the main-springs of all nature's deeds and actions: the said philosophers very wisely reducing the good lady's proceedings to matters of maxim and theory: and, by a very neat and pretty compliment to her exalted wisdom and understanding, putting entirely out of sight any considerations of heart, or generous impulse and feeling. for, these are matters totally beneath a female who is acknowledged by universal admission to be far above the numerous little foibles and weaknesses of her sex. if i wanted any further proof of the strictly philosophical nature of the conduct of these young gentlemen in their very delicate predicament, i should at once find it in the fact (also recorded in a foregoing part of this narrative), of their quitting the pursuit, when the general attention was fixed upon oliver; and making immediately for their home by the shortest possible cut. although i do not mean to assert that it is usually the practice of renowned and learned sages, to shorten the road to any great conclusion (their course indeed being rather to lengthen the distance, by various circumlocutions and discursive staggerings, like unto those in which drunken men under the pressure of a too mighty flow of ideas, are prone to indulge); still, i do mean to say, and do say distinctly, that it is the invariable practice of many mighty philosophers, in carrying out their theories, to evince great wisdom and foresight in providing against every possible contingency which can be supposed at all likely to affect themselves. thus, to do a great right, you may do a little wrong; and you may take any means which the end to be attained, will justify; the amount of the right, or the amount of the wrong, or indeed the distinction between the two, being left entirely to the philosopher concerned, to be settled and determined by his clear, comprehensive, and impartial view of his own particular case. it was not until the two boys had scoured, with great rapidity, through a most intricate maze of narrow streets and courts, that they ventured to halt beneath a low and dark archway. having remained silent here, just long enough to recover breath to speak, master bates uttered an exclamation of amusement and delight; and, bursting into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, flung himself upon a doorstep, and rolled thereon in a transport of mirth. 'what's the matter?' inquired the dodger. 'ha! ha! ha!' roared charley bates. 'hold your noise,' remonstrated the dodger, looking cautiously round. 'do you want to be grabbed, stupid?' 'i can't help it,' said charley, 'i can't help it! to see him splitting away at that pace, and cutting round the corners, and knocking up again' the posts, and starting on again as if he was made of iron as well as them, and me with the wipe in my pocket, singing out arter him--oh, my eye!' the vivid imagination of master bates presented the scene before him in too strong colours. as he arrived at this apostrophe, he again rolled upon the door-step, and laughed louder than before. 'what'll fagin say?' inquired the dodger; taking advantage of the next interval of breathlessness on the part of his friend to propound the question. 'what?' repeated charley bates. 'ah, what?' said the dodger. 'why, what should he say?' inquired charley: stopping rather suddenly in his merriment; for the dodger's manner was impressive. 'what should he say?' mr. dawkins whistled for a couple of minutes; then, taking off his hat, scratched his head, and nodded thrice. 'what do you mean?' said charley. 'toor rul lol loo, gammon and spinnage, the frog he wouldn't, and high cockolorum,' said the dodger: with a slight sneer on his intellectual countenance. this was explanatory, but not satisfactory. master bates felt it so; and again said, 'what do you mean?' the dodger made no reply; but putting his hat on again, and gathering the skirts of his long-tailed coat under his arm, thrust his tongue into his cheek, slapped the bridge of his nose some half-dozen times in a familiar but expressive manner, and turning on his heel, slunk down the court. master bates followed, with a thoughtful countenance. the noise of footsteps on the creaking stairs, a few minutes after the occurrence of this conversation, roused the merry old gentleman as he sat over the fire with a saveloy and a small loaf in his hand; a pocket-knife in his right; and a pewter pot on the trivet. there was a rascally smile on his white face as he turned round, and looking sharply out from under his thick red eyebrows, bent his ear towards the door, and listened. 'why, how's this?' muttered the jew: changing countenance; 'only two of 'em? where's the third? they can't have got into trouble. hark!' the footsteps approached nearer; they reached the landing. the door was slowly opened; and the dodger and charley bates entered, closing it behind them. chapter xiii some new acquaintances are introduced to the intelligent reader, connected with whom various pleasant matters are related, appertaining to this history 'where's oliver?' said the jew, rising with a menacing look. 'where's the boy?' the young thieves eyed their preceptor as if they were alarmed at his violence; and looked uneasily at each other. but they made no reply. 'what's become of the boy?' said the jew, seizing the dodger tightly by the collar, and threatening him with horrid imprecations. 'speak out, or i'll throttle you!' mr. fagin looked so very much in earnest, that charley bates, who deemed it prudent in all cases to be on the safe side, and who conceived it by no means improbable that it might be his turn to be throttled second, dropped upon his knees, and raised a loud, well-sustained, and continuous roar--something between a mad bull and a speaking trumpet. 'will you speak?' thundered the jew: shaking the dodger so much that his keeping in the big coat at all, seemed perfectly miraculous. 'why, the traps have got him, and that's all about it,' said the dodger, sullenly. 'come, let go o' me, will you!' and, swinging himself, at one jerk, clean out of the big coat, which he left in the jew's hands, the dodger snatched up the toasting fork, and made a pass at the merry old gentleman's waistcoat; which, if it had taken effect, would have let a little more merriment out than could have been easily replaced. the jew stepped back in this emergency, with more agility than could have been anticipated in a man of his apparent decrepitude; and, seizing up the pot, prepared to hurl it at his assailant's head. but charley bates, at this moment, calling his attention by a perfectly terrific howl, he suddenly altered its destination, and flung it full at that young gentleman. 'why, what the blazes is in the wind now!' growled a deep voice. 'who pitched that 'ere at me? it's well it's the beer, and not the pot, as hit me, or i'd have settled somebody. i might have know'd, as nobody but an infernal, rich, plundering, thundering old jew could afford to throw away any drink but water--and not that, unless he done the river company every quarter. wot's it all about, fagin? d--me, if my neck-handkercher an't lined with beer! come in, you sneaking warmint; wot are you stopping outside for, as if you was ashamed of your master! come in!' the man who growled out these words, was a stoutly-built fellow of about five-and-thirty, in a black velveteen coat, very soiled drab breeches, lace-up half boots, and grey cotton stockings which inclosed a bulky pair of legs, with large swelling calves;--the kind of legs, which in such costume, always look in an unfinished and incomplete state without a set of fetters to garnish them. he had a brown hat on his head, and a dirty belcher handkerchief round his neck: with the long frayed ends of which he smeared the beer from his face as he spoke. he disclosed, when he had done so, a broad heavy countenance with a beard of three days' growth, and two scowling eyes; one of which displayed various parti-coloured symptoms of having been recently damaged by a blow. 'come in, d'ye hear?' growled this engaging ruffian. a white shaggy dog, with his face scratched and torn in twenty different places, skulked into the room. 'why didn't you come in afore?' said the man. 'you're getting too proud to own me afore company, are you? lie down!' this command was accompanied with a kick, which sent the animal to the other end of the room. he appeared well used to it, however; for he coiled himself up in a corner very quietly, without uttering a sound, and winking his very ill-looking eyes twenty times in a minute, appeared to occupy himself in taking a survey of the apartment. 'what are you up to? ill-treating the boys, you covetous, avaricious, in-sa-ti-a-ble old fence?' said the man, seating himself deliberately. 'i wonder they don't murder you! i would if i was them. if i'd been your 'prentice, i'd have done it long ago, and--no, i couldn't have sold you afterwards, for you're fit for nothing but keeping as a curiousity of ugliness in a glass bottle, and i suppose they don't blow glass bottles large enough.' 'hush! hush! mr. sikes,' said the jew, trembling; 'don't speak so loud!' 'none of your mistering,' replied the ruffian; 'you always mean mischief when you come that. you know my name: out with it! i shan't disgrace it when the time comes.' 'well, well, then--bill sikes,' said the jew, with abject humility. 'you seem out of humour, bill.' 'perhaps i am,' replied sikes; 'i should think you was rather out of sorts too, unless you mean as little harm when you throw pewter pots about, as you do when you blab and--' 'are you mad?' said the jew, catching the man by the sleeve, and pointing towards the boys. mr. sikes contented himself with tying an imaginary knot under his left ear, and jerking his head over on the right shoulder; a piece of dumb show which the jew appeared to understand perfectly. he then, in cant terms, with which his whole conversation was plentifully besprinkled, but which would be quite unintelligible if they were recorded here, demanded a glass of liquor. 'and mind you don't poison it,' said mr. sikes, laying his hat upon the table. this was said in jest; but if the speaker could have seen the evil leer with which the jew bit his pale lip as he turned round to the cupboard, he might have thought the caution not wholly unnecessary, or the wish (at all events) to improve upon the distiller's ingenuity not very far from the old gentleman's merry heart. after swallowing two of three glasses of spirits, mr. sikes condescended to take some notice of the young gentlemen; which gracious act led to a conversation, in which the cause and manner of oliver's capture were circumstantially detailed, with such alterations and improvements on the truth, as to the dodger appeared most advisable under the circumstances. 'i'm afraid,' said the jew, 'that he may say something which will get us into trouble.' 'that's very likely,' returned sikes with a malicious grin. 'you're blowed upon, fagin.' 'and i'm afraid, you see,' added the jew, speaking as if he had not noticed the interruption; and regarding the other closely as he did so,--'i'm afraid that, if the game was up with us, it might be up with a good many more, and that it would come out rather worse for you than it would for me, my dear.' the man started, and turned round upon the jew. but the old gentleman's shoulders were shrugged up to his ears; and his eyes were vacantly staring on the opposite wall. there was a long pause. every member of the respectable coterie appeared plunged in his own reflections; not excepting the dog, who by a certain malicious licking of his lips seemed to be meditating an attack upon the legs of the first gentleman or lady he might encounter in the streets when he went out. 'somebody must find out wot's been done at the office,' said mr. sikes in a much lower tone than he had taken since he came in. the jew nodded assent. 'if he hasn't peached, and is committed, there's no fear till he comes out again,' said mr. sikes, 'and then he must be taken care on. you must get hold of him somehow.' again the jew nodded. the prudence of this line of action, indeed, was obvious; but, unfortunately, there was one very strong objection to its being adopted. this was, that the dodger, and charley bates, and fagin, and mr. william sikes, happened, one and all, to entertain a violent and deeply-rooted antipathy to going near a police-office on any ground or pretext whatever. how long they might have sat and looked at each other, in a state of uncertainty not the most pleasant of its kind, it is difficult to guess. it is not necessary to make any guesses on the subject, however; for the sudden entrance of the two young ladies whom oliver had seen on a former occasion, caused the conversation to flow afresh. 'the very thing!' said the jew. 'bet will go; won't you, my dear?' 'wheres?' inquired the young lady. 'only just up to the office, my dear,' said the jew coaxingly. it is due to the young lady to say that she did not positively affirm that she would not, but that she merely expressed an emphatic and earnest desire to be 'blessed' if she would; a polite and delicate evasion of the request, which shows the young lady to have been possessed of that natural good breeding which cannot bear to inflict upon a fellow-creature, the pain of a direct and pointed refusal. the jew's countenance fell. he turned from this young lady, who was gaily, not to say gorgeously attired, in a red gown, green boots, and yellow curl-papers, to the other female. 'nancy, my dear,' said the jew in a soothing manner, 'what do you say?' 'that it won't do; so it's no use a-trying it on, fagin,' replied nancy. 'what do you mean by that?' said mr. sikes, looking up in a surly manner. 'what i say, bill,' replied the lady collectedly. 'why, you're just the very person for it,' reasoned mr. sikes: 'nobody about here knows anything of you.' 'and as i don't want 'em to, neither,' replied nancy in the same composed manner, 'it's rather more no than yes with me, bill.' 'she'll go, fagin,' said sikes. 'no, she won't, fagin,' said nancy. 'yes, she will, fagin,' said sikes. and mr. sikes was right. by dint of alternate threats, promises, and bribes, the lady in question was ultimately prevailed upon to undertake the commission. she was not, indeed, withheld by the same considerations as her agreeable friend; for, having recently removed into the neighborhood of field lane from the remote but genteel suburb of ratcliffe, she was not under the same apprehension of being recognised by any of her numerous acquaintances. accordingly, with a clean white apron tied over her gown, and her curl-papers tucked up under a straw bonnet,--both articles of dress being provided from the jew's inexhaustible stock,--miss nancy prepared to issue forth on her errand. 'stop a minute, my dear,' said the jew, producing, a little covered basket. 'carry that in one hand. it looks more respectable, my dear.' 'give her a door-key to carry in her t'other one, fagin,' said sikes; 'it looks real and genivine like.' 'yes, yes, my dear, so it does,' said the jew, hanging a large street-door key on the forefinger of the young lady's right hand. 'there; very good! very good indeed, my dear!' said the jew, rubbing his hands. 'oh, my brother! my poor, dear, sweet, innocent little brother!' exclaimed nancy, bursting into tears, and wringing the little basket and the street-door key in an agony of distress. 'what has become of him! where have they taken him to! oh, do have pity, and tell me what's been done with the dear boy, gentlemen; do, gentlemen, if you please, gentlemen!' having uttered those words in a most lamentable and heart-broken tone: to the immeasurable delight of her hearers: miss nancy paused, winked to the company, nodded smilingly round, and disappeared. 'ah, she's a clever girl, my dears,' said the jew, turning round to his young friends, and shaking his head gravely, as if in mute admonition to them to follow the bright example they had just beheld. 'she's a honour to her sex,' said mr. sikes, filling his glass, and smiting the table with his enormous fist. 'here's her health, and wishing they was all like her!' while these, and many other encomiums, were being passed on the accomplished nancy, that young lady made the best of her way to the police-office; whither, notwithstanding a little natural timidity consequent upon walking through the streets alone and unprotected, she arrived in perfect safety shortly afterwards. entering by the back way, she tapped softly with the key at one of the cell-doors, and listened. there was no sound within: so she coughed and listened again. still there was no reply: so she spoke. 'nolly, dear?' murmured nancy in a gentle voice; 'nolly?' there was nobody inside but a miserable shoeless criminal, who had been taken up for playing the flute, and who, the offence against society having been clearly proved, had been very properly committed by mr. fang to the house of correction for one month; with the appropriate and amusing remark that since he had so much breath to spare, it would be more wholesomely expended on the treadmill than in a musical instrument. he made no answer: being occupied mentally bewailing the loss of the flute, which had been confiscated for the use of the county: so nancy passed on to the next cell, and knocked there. 'well!' cried a faint and feeble voice. 'is there a little boy here?' inquired nancy, with a preliminary sob. 'no,' replied the voice; 'god forbid.' this was a vagrant of sixty-five, who was going to prison for _not_ playing the flute; or, in other words, for begging in the streets, and doing nothing for his livelihood. in the next cell was another man, who was going to the same prison for hawking tin saucepans without license; thereby doing something for his living, in defiance of the stamp-office. but, as neither of these criminals answered to the name of oliver, or knew anything about him, nancy made straight up to the bluff officer in the striped waistcoat; and with the most piteous wailings and lamentations, rendered more piteous by a prompt and efficient use of the street-door key and the little basket, demanded her own dear brother. 'i haven't got him, my dear,' said the old man. 'where is he?' screamed nancy, in a distracted manner. 'why, the gentleman's got him,' replied the officer. 'what gentleman! oh, gracious heavens! what gentleman?' exclaimed nancy. in reply to this incoherent questioning, the old man informed the deeply affected sister that oliver had been taken ill in the office, and discharged in consequence of a witness having proved the robbery to have been committed by another boy, not in custody; and that the prosecutor had carried him away, in an insensible condition, to his own residence: of and concerning which, all the informant knew was, that it was somewhere in pentonville, he having heard that word mentioned in the directions to the coachman. in a dreadful state of doubt and uncertainty, the agonised young woman staggered to the gate, and then, exchanging her faltering walk for a swift run, returned by the most devious and complicated route she could think of, to the domicile of the jew. mr. bill sikes no sooner heard the account of the expedition delivered, than he very hastily called up the white dog, and, putting on his hat, expeditiously departed: without devoting any time to the formality of wishing the company good-morning. 'we must know where he is, my dears; he must be found,' said the jew greatly excited. 'charley, do nothing but skulk about, till you bring home some news of him! nancy, my dear, i must have him found. i trust to you, my dear,--to you and the artful for everything! stay, stay,' added the jew, unlocking a drawer with a shaking hand; 'there's money, my dears. i shall shut up this shop to-night. you'll know where to find me! don't stop here a minute. not an instant, my dears!' with these words, he pushed them from the room: and carefully double-locking and barring the door behind them, drew from its place of concealment the box which he had unintentionally disclosed to oliver. then, he hastily proceeded to dispose the watches and jewellery beneath his clothing. a rap at the door startled him in this occupation. 'who's there?' he cried in a shrill tone. 'me!' replied the voice of the dodger, through the key-hole. 'what now?' cried the jew impatiently. 'is he to be kidnapped to the other ken, nancy says?' inquired the dodger. 'yes,' replied the jew, 'wherever she lays hands on him. find him, find him out, that's all. i shall know what to do next; never fear.' the boy murmured a reply of intelligence: and hurried downstairs after his companions. 'he has not peached so far,' said the jew as he pursued his occupation. 'if he means to blab us among his new friends, we may stop his mouth yet.' chapter xiv comprising further particulars of oliver's stay at mr. brownlow's, with the remarkable prediction which one mr. grimwig uttered concerning him, when he went out on an errand oliver soon recovering from the fainting-fit into which mr. brownlow's abrupt exclamation had thrown him, the subject of the picture was carefully avoided, both by the old gentleman and mrs. bedwin, in the conversation that ensued: which indeed bore no reference to oliver's history or prospects, but was confined to such topics as might amuse without exciting him. he was still too weak to get up to breakfast; but, when he came down into the housekeeper's room next day, his first act was to cast an eager glance at the wall, in the hope of again looking on the face of the beautiful lady. his expectations were disappointed, however, for the picture had been removed. 'ah!' said the housekeeper, watching the direction of oliver's eyes. 'it is gone, you see.' 'i see it is ma'am,' replied oliver. 'why have they taken it away?' 'it has been taken down, child, because mr. brownlow said, that as it seemed to worry you, perhaps it might prevent your getting well, you know,' rejoined the old lady. 'oh, no, indeed. it didn't worry me, ma'am,' said oliver. 'i liked to see it. i quite loved it.' 'well, well!' said the old lady, good-humouredly; 'you get well as fast as ever you can, dear, and it shall be hung up again. there! i promise you that! now, let us talk about something else.' this was all the information oliver could obtain about the picture at that time. as the old lady had been so kind to him in his illness, he endeavoured to think no more of the subject just then; so he listened attentively to a great many stories she told him, about an amiable and handsome daughter of hers, who was married to an amiable and handsome man, and lived in the country; and about a son, who was clerk to a merchant in the west indies; and who was, also, such a good young man, and wrote such dutiful letters home four times a-year, that it brought the tears into her eyes to talk about them. when the old lady had expatiated, a long time, on the excellences of her children, and the merits of her kind good husband besides, who had been dead and gone, poor dear soul! just six-and-twenty years, it was time to have tea. after tea she began to teach oliver cribbage: which he learnt as quickly as she could teach: and at which game they played, with great interest and gravity, until it was time for the invalid to have some warm wine and water, with a slice of dry toast, and then to go cosily to bed. they were happy days, those of oliver's recovery. everything was so quiet, and neat, and orderly; everybody so kind and gentle; that after the noise and turbulence in the midst of which he had always lived, it seemed like heaven itself. he was no sooner strong enough to put his clothes on, properly, than mr. brownlow caused a complete new suit, and a new cap, and a new pair of shoes, to be provided for him. as oliver was told that he might do what he liked with the old clothes, he gave them to a servant who had been very kind to him, and asked her to sell them to a jew, and keep the money for herself. this she very readily did; and, as oliver looked out of the parlour window, and saw the jew roll them up in his bag and walk away, he felt quite delighted to think that they were safely gone, and that there was now no possible danger of his ever being able to wear them again. they were sad rags, to tell the truth; and oliver had never had a new suit before. one evening, about a week after the affair of the picture, as he was sitting talking to mrs. bedwin, there came a message down from mr. brownlow, that if oliver twist felt pretty well, he should like to see him in his study, and talk to him a little while. 'bless us, and save us! wash your hands, and let me part your hair nicely for you, child,' said mrs. bedwin. 'dear heart alive! if we had known he would have asked for you, we would have put you a clean collar on, and made you as smart as sixpence!' oliver did as the old lady bade him; and, although she lamented grievously, meanwhile, that there was not even time to crimp the little frill that bordered his shirt-collar; he looked so delicate and handsome, despite that important personal advantage, that she went so far as to say: looking at him with great complacency from head to foot, that she really didn't think it would have been possible, on the longest notice, to have made much difference in him for the better. thus encouraged, oliver tapped at the study door. on mr. brownlow calling to him to come in, he found himself in a little back room, quite full of books, with a window, looking into some pleasant little gardens. there was a table drawn up before the window, at which mr. brownlow was seated reading. when he saw oliver, he pushed the book away from him, and told him to come near the table, and sit down. oliver complied; marvelling where the people could be found to read such a great number of books as seemed to be written to make the world wiser. which is still a marvel to more experienced people than oliver twist, every day of their lives. 'there are a good many books, are there not, my boy?' said mr. brownlow, observing the curiosity with which oliver surveyed the shelves that reached from the floor to the ceiling. 'a great number, sir,' replied oliver. 'i never saw so many.' 'you shall read them, if you behave well,' said the old gentleman kindly; 'and you will like that, better than looking at the outsides,--that is, some cases; because there are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.' 'i suppose they are those heavy ones, sir,' said oliver, pointing to some large quartos, with a good deal of gilding about the binding. 'not always those,' said the old gentleman, patting oliver on the head, and smiling as he did so; 'there are other equally heavy ones, though of a much smaller size. how should you like to grow up a clever man, and write books, eh?' 'i think i would rather read them, sir,' replied oliver. 'what! wouldn't you like to be a book-writer?' said the old gentleman. oliver considered a little while; and at last said, he should think it would be a much better thing to be a book-seller; upon which the old gentleman laughed heartily, and declared he had said a very good thing. which oliver felt glad to have done, though he by no means knew what it was. 'well, well,' said the old gentleman, composing his features. 'don't be afraid! we won't make an author of you, while there's an honest trade to be learnt, or brick-making to turn to.' 'thank you, sir,' said oliver. at the earnest manner of his reply, the old gentleman laughed again; and said something about a curious instinct, which oliver, not understanding, paid no very great attention to. 'now,' said mr. brownlow, speaking if possible in a kinder, but at the same time in a much more serious manner, than oliver had ever known him assume yet, 'i want you to pay great attention, my boy, to what i am going to say. i shall talk to you without any reserve; because i am sure you are well able to understand me, as many older persons would be.' 'oh, don't tell you are going to send me away, sir, pray!' exclaimed oliver, alarmed at the serious tone of the old gentleman's commencement! 'don't turn me out of doors to wander in the streets again. let me stay here, and be a servant. don't send me back to the wretched place i came from. have mercy upon a poor boy, sir!' 'my dear child,' said the old gentleman, moved by the warmth of oliver's sudden appeal; 'you need not be afraid of my deserting you, unless you give me cause.' 'i never, never will, sir,' interposed oliver. 'i hope not,' rejoined the old gentleman. 'i do not think you ever will. i have been deceived, before, in the objects whom i have endeavoured to benefit; but i feel strongly disposed to trust you, nevertheless; and i am more interested in your behalf than i can well account for, even to myself. the persons on whom i have bestowed my dearest love, lie deep in their graves; but, although the happiness and delight of my life lie buried there too, i have not made a coffin of my heart, and sealed it up, forever, on my best affections. deep affliction has but strengthened and refined them.' as the old gentleman said this in a low voice: more to himself than to his companion: and as he remained silent for a short time afterwards: oliver sat quite still. 'well, well!' said the old gentleman at length, in a more cheerful tone, 'i only say this, because you have a young heart; and knowing that i have suffered great pain and sorrow, you will be more careful, perhaps, not to wound me again. you say you are an orphan, without a friend in the world; all the inquiries i have been able to make, confirm the statement. let me hear your story; where you come from; who brought you up; and how you got into the company in which i found you. speak the truth, and you shall not be friendless while i live.' oliver's sobs checked his utterance for some minutes; when he was on the point of beginning to relate how he had been brought up at the farm, and carried to the workhouse by mr. bumble, a peculiarly impatient little double-knock was heard at the street-door: and the servant, running upstairs, announced mr. grimwig. 'is he coming up?' inquired mr. brownlow. 'yes, sir,' replied the servant. 'he asked if there were any muffins in the house; and, when i told him yes, he said he had come to tea.' mr. brownlow smiled; and, turning to oliver, said that mr. grimwig was an old friend of his, and he must not mind his being a little rough in his manners; for he was a worthy creature at bottom, as he had reason to know. 'shall i go downstairs, sir?' inquired oliver. 'no,' replied mr. brownlow, 'i would rather you remained here.' at this moment, there walked into the room: supporting himself by a thick stick: a stout old gentleman, rather lame in one leg, who was dressed in a blue coat, striped waistcoat, nankeen breeches and gaiters, and a broad-brimmed white hat, with the sides turned up with green. a very small-plaited shirt frill stuck out from his waistcoat; and a very long steel watch-chain, with nothing but a key at the end, dangled loosely below it. the ends of his white neckerchief were twisted into a ball about the size of an orange; the variety of shapes into which his countenance was twisted, defy description. he had a manner of screwing his head on one side when he spoke; and of looking out of the corners of his eyes at the same time: which irresistibly reminded the beholder of a parrot. in this attitude, he fixed himself, the moment he made his appearance; and, holding out a small piece of orange-peel at arm's length, exclaimed, in a growling, discontented voice. 'look here! do you see this! isn't it a most wonderful and extraordinary thing that i can't call at a man's house but i find a piece of this poor surgeon's friend on the staircase? i've been lamed with orange-peel once, and i know orange-peel will be my death, or i'll be content to eat my own head, sir!' this was the handsome offer with which mr. grimwig backed and confirmed nearly every assertion he made; and it was the more singular in his case, because, even admitting for the sake of argument, the possibility of scientific improvements being brought to that pass which will enable a gentleman to eat his own head in the event of his being so disposed, mr. grimwig's head was such a particularly large one, that the most sanguine man alive could hardly entertain a hope of being able to get through it at a sitting--to put entirely out of the question, a very thick coating of powder. 'i'll eat my head, sir,' repeated mr. grimwig, striking his stick upon the ground. 'hallo! what's that!' looking at oliver, and retreating a pace or two. 'this is young oliver twist, whom we were speaking about,' said mr. brownlow. oliver bowed. 'you don't mean to say that's the boy who had the fever, i hope?' said mr. grimwig, recoiling a little more. 'wait a minute! don't speak! stop--' continued mr. grimwig, abruptly, losing all dread of the fever in his triumph at the discovery; 'that's the boy who had the orange! if that's not the boy, sir, who had the orange, and threw this bit of peel upon the staircase, i'll eat my head, and his too.' 'no, no, he has not had one,' said mr. brownlow, laughing. 'come! put down your hat; and speak to my young friend.' 'i feel strongly on this subject, sir,' said the irritable old gentleman, drawing off his gloves. 'there's always more or less orange-peel on the pavement in our street; and i _know_ it's put there by the surgeon's boy at the corner. a young woman stumbled over a bit last night, and fell against my garden-railings; directly she got up i saw her look towards his infernal red lamp with the pantomime-light. "don't go to him," i called out of the window, "he's an assassin! a man-trap!" so he is. if he is not--' here the irascible old gentleman gave a great knock on the ground with his stick; which was always understood, by his friends, to imply the customary offer, whenever it was not expressed in words. then, still keeping his stick in his hand, he sat down; and, opening a double eye-glass, which he wore attached to a broad black riband, took a view of oliver: who, seeing that he was the object of inspection, coloured, and bowed again. 'that's the boy, is it?' said mr. grimwig, at length. 'that's the boy,' replied mr. brownlow. 'how are you, boy?' said mr. grimwig. 'a great deal better, thank you, sir,' replied oliver. mr. brownlow, seeming to apprehend that his singular friend was about to say something disagreeable, asked oliver to step downstairs and tell mrs. bedwin they were ready for tea; which, as he did not half like the visitor's manner, he was very happy to do. 'he is a nice-looking boy, is he not?' inquired mr. brownlow. 'i don't know,' replied mr. grimwig, pettishly. 'don't know?' 'no. i don't know. i never see any difference in boys. i only knew two sort of boys. mealy boys, and beef-faced boys.' 'and which is oliver?' 'mealy. i know a friend who has a beef-faced boy; a fine boy, they call him; with a round head, and red cheeks, and glaring eyes; a horrid boy; with a body and limbs that appear to be swelling out of the seams of his blue clothes; with the voice of a pilot, and the appetite of a wolf. i know him! the wretch!' 'come,' said mr. brownlow, 'these are not the characteristics of young oliver twist; so he needn't excite your wrath.' 'they are not,' replied mr. grimwig. 'he may have worse.' here, mr. brownlow coughed impatiently; which appeared to afford mr. grimwig the most exquisite delight. 'he may have worse, i say,' repeated mr. grimwig. 'where does he come from! who is he? what is he? he has had a fever. what of that? fevers are not peculiar to good people; are they? bad people have fevers sometimes; haven't they, eh? i knew a man who was hung in jamaica for murdering his master. he had had a fever six times; he wasn't recommended to mercy on that account. pooh! nonsense!' now, the fact was, that in the inmost recesses of his own heart, mr. grimwig was strongly disposed to admit that oliver's appearance and manner were unusually prepossessing; but he had a strong appetite for contradiction, sharpened on this occasion by the finding of the orange-peel; and, inwardly determining that no man should dictate to him whether a boy was well-looking or not, he had resolved, from the first, to oppose his friend. when mr. brownlow admitted that on no one point of inquiry could he yet return a satisfactory answer; and that he had postponed any investigation into oliver's previous history until he thought the boy was strong enough to hear it; mr. grimwig chuckled maliciously. and he demanded, with a sneer, whether the housekeeper was in the habit of counting the plate at night; because if she didn't find a table-spoon or two missing some sunshiny morning, why, he would be content to--and so forth. all this, mr. brownlow, although himself somewhat of an impetuous gentleman: knowing his friend's peculiarities, bore with great good humour; as mr. grimwig, at tea, was graciously pleased to express his entire approval of the muffins, matters went on very smoothly; and oliver, who made one of the party, began to feel more at his ease than he had yet done in the fierce old gentleman's presence. 'and when are you going to hear a full, true, and particular account of the life and adventures of oliver twist?' asked grimwig of mr. brownlow, at the conclusion of the meal; looking sideways at oliver, as he resumed his subject. 'to-morrow morning,' replied mr. brownlow. 'i would rather he was alone with me at the time. come up to me to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, my dear.' 'yes, sir,' replied oliver. he answered with some hesitation, because he was confused by mr. grimwig's looking so hard at him. 'i'll tell you what,' whispered that gentleman to mr. brownlow; 'he won't come up to you to-morrow morning. i saw him hesitate. he is deceiving you, my good friend.' 'i'll swear he is not,' replied mr. brownlow, warmly. 'if he is not,' said mr. grimwig, 'i'll--' and down went the stick. 'i'll answer for that boy's truth with my life!' said mr. brownlow, knocking the table. 'and i for his falsehood with my head!' rejoined mr. grimwig, knocking the table also. 'we shall see,' said mr. brownlow, checking his rising anger. 'we will,' replied mr. grimwig, with a provoking smile; 'we will.' as fate would have it, mrs. bedwin chanced to bring in, at this moment, a small parcel of books, which mr. brownlow had that morning purchased of the identical bookstall-keeper, who has already figured in this history; having laid them on the table, she prepared to leave the room. 'stop the boy, mrs. bedwin!' said mr. brownlow; 'there is something to go back.' 'he has gone, sir,' replied mrs. bedwin. 'call after him,' said mr. brownlow; 'it's particular. he is a poor man, and they are not paid for. there are some books to be taken back, too.' the street-door was opened. oliver ran one way; and the girl ran another; and mrs. bedwin stood on the step and screamed for the boy; but there was no boy in sight. oliver and the girl returned, in a breathless state, to report that there were no tidings of him. 'dear me, i am very sorry for that,' exclaimed mr. brownlow; 'i particularly wished those books to be returned to-night.' 'send oliver with them,' said mr. grimwig, with an ironical smile; 'he will be sure to deliver them safely, you know.' 'yes; do let me take them, if you please, sir,' said oliver. 'i'll run all the way, sir.' the old gentleman was just going to say that oliver should not go out on any account; when a most malicious cough from mr. grimwig determined him that he should; and that, by his prompt discharge of the commission, he should prove to him the injustice of his suspicions: on this head at least: at once. 'you _shall_ go, my dear,' said the old gentleman. 'the books are on a chair by my table. fetch them down.' oliver, delighted to be of use, brought down the books under his arm in a great bustle; and waited, cap in hand, to hear what message he was to take. 'you are to say,' said mr. brownlow, glancing steadily at grimwig; 'you are to say that you have brought those books back; and that you have come to pay the four pound ten i owe him. this is a five-pound note, so you will have to bring me back, ten shillings change.' 'i won't be ten minutes, sir,' said oliver, eagerly. having buttoned up the bank-note in his jacket pocket, and placed the books carefully under his arm, he made a respectful bow, and left the room. mrs. bedwin followed him to the street-door, giving him many directions about the nearest way, and the name of the bookseller, and the name of the street: all of which oliver said he clearly understood. having superadded many injunctions to be sure and not take cold, the old lady at length permitted him to depart. 'bless his sweet face!' said the old lady, looking after him. 'i can't bear, somehow, to let him go out of my sight.' at this moment, oliver looked gaily round, and nodded before he turned the corner. the old lady smilingly returned his salutation, and, closing the door, went back to her own room. 'let me see; he'll be back in twenty minutes, at the longest,' said mr. brownlow, pulling out his watch, and placing it on the table. 'it will be dark by that time.' 'oh! you really expect him to come back, do you?' inquired mr. grimwig. 'don't you?' asked mr. brownlow, smiling. the spirit of contradiction was strong in mr. grimwig's breast, at the moment; and it was rendered stronger by his friend's confident smile. 'no,' he said, smiting the table with his fist, 'i do not. the boy has a new suit of clothes on his back, a set of valuable books under his arm, and a five-pound note in his pocket. he'll join his old friends the thieves, and laugh at you. if ever that boy returns to this house, sir, i'll eat my head.' with these words he drew his chair closer to the table; and there the two friends sat, in silent expectation, with the watch between them. it is worthy of remark, as illustrating the importance we attach to our own judgments, and the pride with which we put forth our most rash and hasty conclusions, that, although mr. grimwig was not by any means a bad-hearted man, and though he would have been unfeignedly sorry to see his respected friend duped and deceived, he really did most earnestly and strongly hope at that moment, that oliver twist might not come back. it grew so dark, that the figures on the dial-plate were scarcely discernible; but there the two old gentlemen continued to sit, in silence, with the watch between them. chapter xv showing how very fond of oliver twist, the merry old jew and miss nancy were in the obscure parlour of a low public-house, in the filthiest part of little saffron hill; a dark and gloomy den, where a flaring gas-light burnt all day in the winter-time; and where no ray of sun ever shone in the summer: there sat, brooding over a little pewter measure and a small glass, strongly impregnated with the smell of liquor, a man in a velveteen coat, drab shorts, half-boots and stockings, whom even by that dim light no experienced agent of the police would have hesitated to recognise as mr. william sikes. at his feet, sat a white-coated, red-eyed dog; who occupied himself, alternately, in winking at his master with both eyes at the same time; and in licking a large, fresh cut on one side of his mouth, which appeared to be the result of some recent conflict. 'keep quiet, you warmint! keep quiet!' said mr. sikes, suddenly breaking silence. whether his meditations were so intense as to be disturbed by the dog's winking, or whether his feelings were so wrought upon by his reflections that they required all the relief derivable from kicking an unoffending animal to allay them, is matter for argument and consideration. whatever was the cause, the effect was a kick and a curse, bestowed upon the dog simultaneously. dogs are not generally apt to revenge injuries inflicted upon them by their masters; but mr. sikes's dog, having faults of temper in common with his owner, and labouring, perhaps, at this moment, under a powerful sense of injury, made no more ado but at once fixed his teeth in one of the half-boots. having given in a hearty shake, he retired, growling, under a form; just escaping the pewter measure which mr. sikes levelled at his head. 'you would, would you?' said sikes, seizing the poker in one hand, and deliberately opening with the other a large clasp-knife, which he drew from his pocket. 'come here, you born devil! come here! d'ye hear?' the dog no doubt heard; because mr. sikes spoke in the very harshest key of a very harsh voice; but, appearing to entertain some unaccountable objection to having his throat cut, he remained where he was, and growled more fiercely than before: at the same time grasping the end of the poker between his teeth, and biting at it like a wild beast. this resistance only infuriated mr. sikes the more; who, dropping on his knees, began to assail the animal most furiously. the dog jumped from right to left, and from left to right; snapping, growling, and barking; the man thrust and swore, and struck and blasphemed; and the struggle was reaching a most critical point for one or other; when, the door suddenly opening, the dog darted out: leaving bill sikes with the poker and the clasp-knife in his hands. there must always be two parties to a quarrel, says the old adage. mr. sikes, being disappointed of the dog's participation, at once transferred his share in the quarrel to the new comer. 'what the devil do you come in between me and my dog for?' said sikes, with a fierce gesture. 'i didn't know, my dear, i didn't know,' replied fagin, humbly; for the jew was the new comer. 'didn't know, you white-livered thief!' growled sikes. 'couldn't you hear the noise?' 'not a sound of it, as i'm a living man, bill,' replied the jew. 'oh no! you hear nothing, you don't,' retorted sikes with a fierce sneer. 'sneaking in and out, so as nobody hears how you come or go! i wish you had been the dog, fagin, half a minute ago.' 'why?' inquired the jew with a forced smile. 'cause the government, as cares for the lives of such men as you, as haven't half the pluck of curs, lets a man kill a dog how he likes,' replied sikes, shutting up the knife with a very expressive look; 'that's why.' the jew rubbed his hands; and, sitting down at the table, affected to laugh at the pleasantry of his friend. he was obviously very ill at ease, however. 'grin away,' said sikes, replacing the poker, and surveying him with savage contempt; 'grin away. you'll never have the laugh at me, though, unless it's behind a nightcap. i've got the upper hand over you, fagin; and, d--me, i'll keep it. there! if i go, you go; so take care of me.' 'well, well, my dear,' said the jew, 'i know all that; we--we--have a mutual interest, bill,--a mutual interest.' 'humph,' said sikes, as if he thought the interest lay rather more on the jew's side than on his. 'well, what have you got to say to me?' 'it's all passed safe through the melting-pot,' replied fagin, 'and this is your share. it's rather more than it ought to be, my dear; but as i know you'll do me a good turn another time, and--' 'stow that gammon,' interposed the robber, impatiently. 'where is it? hand over!' 'yes, yes, bill; give me time, give me time,' replied the jew, soothingly. 'here it is! all safe!' as he spoke, he drew forth an old cotton handkerchief from his breast; and untying a large knot in one corner, produced a small brown-paper packet. sikes, snatching it from him, hastily opened it; and proceeded to count the sovereigns it contained. 'this is all, is it?' inquired sikes. 'all,' replied the jew. 'you haven't opened the parcel and swallowed one or two as you come along, have you?' inquired sikes, suspiciously. 'don't put on an injured look at the question; you've done it many a time. jerk the tinkler.' these words, in plain english, conveyed an injunction to ring the bell. it was answered by another jew: younger than fagin, but nearly as vile and repulsive in appearance. bill sikes merely pointed to the empty measure. the jew, perfectly understanding the hint, retired to fill it: previously exchanging a remarkable look with fagin, who raised his eyes for an instant, as if in expectation of it, and shook his head in reply; so slightly that the action would have been almost imperceptible to an observant third person. it was lost upon sikes, who was stooping at the moment to tie the boot-lace which the dog had torn. possibly, if he had observed the brief interchange of signals, he might have thought that it boded no good to him. 'is anybody here, barney?' inquired fagin; speaking, now that that sikes was looking on, without raising his eyes from the ground. 'dot a shoul,' replied barney; whose words: whether they came from the heart or not: made their way through the nose. 'nobody?' inquired fagin, in a tone of surprise: which perhaps might mean that barney was at liberty to tell the truth. 'dobody but biss dadsy,' replied barney. 'nancy!' exclaimed sikes. 'where? strike me blind, if i don't honour that 'ere girl, for her native talents.' 'she's bid havid a plate of boiled beef id the bar,' replied barney. 'send her here,' said sikes, pouring out a glass of liquor. 'send her here.' barney looked timidly at fagin, as if for permission; the jew remaining silent, and not lifting his eyes from the ground, he retired; and presently returned, ushering in nancy; who was decorated with the bonnet, apron, basket, and street-door key, complete. 'you are on the scent, are you, nancy?' inquired sikes, proffering the glass. 'yes, i am, bill,' replied the young lady, disposing of its contents; 'and tired enough of it i am, too. the young brat's been ill and confined to the crib; and--' 'ah, nancy, dear!' said fagin, looking up. now, whether a peculiar contraction of the jew's red eye-brows, and a half closing of his deeply-set eyes, warned miss nancy that she was disposed to be too communicative, is not a matter of much importance. the fact is all we need care for here; and the fact is, that she suddenly checked herself, and with several gracious smiles upon mr. sikes, turned the conversation to other matters. in about ten minutes' time, mr. fagin was seized with a fit of coughing; upon which nancy pulled her shawl over her shoulders, and declared it was time to go. mr. sikes, finding that he was walking a short part of her way himself, expressed his intention of accompanying her; they went away together, followed, at a little distant, by the dog, who slunk out of a back-yard as soon as his master was out of sight. the jew thrust his head out of the room door when sikes had left it; looked after him as he walked up the dark passage; shook his clenched fist; muttered a deep curse; and then, with a horrible grin, reseated himself at the table; where he was soon deeply absorbed in the interesting pages of the hue-and-cry. meanwhile, oliver twist, little dreaming that he was within so very short a distance of the merry old gentleman, was on his way to the book-stall. when he got into clerkenwell, he accidently turned down a by-street which was not exactly in his way; but not discovering his mistake until he had got half-way down it, and knowing it must lead in the right direction, he did not think it worth while to turn back; and so marched on, as quickly as he could, with the books under his arm. he was walking along, thinking how happy and contented he ought to feel; and how much he would give for only one look at poor little dick, who, starved and beaten, might be weeping bitterly at that very moment; when he was startled by a young woman screaming out very loud. 'oh, my dear brother!' and he had hardly looked up, to see what the matter was, when he was stopped by having a pair of arms thrown tight round his neck. 'don't,' cried oliver, struggling. 'let go of me. who is it? what are you stopping me for?' the only reply to this, was a great number of loud lamentations from the young woman who had embraced him; and who had a little basket and a street-door key in her hand. 'oh my gracious!' said the young woman, 'i have found him! oh! oliver! oliver! oh you naughty boy, to make me suffer such distress on your account! come home, dear, come. oh, i've found him. thank gracious goodness heavins, i've found him!' with these incoherent exclamations, the young woman burst into another fit of crying, and got so dreadfully hysterical, that a couple of women who came up at the moment asked a butcher's boy with a shiny head of hair anointed with suet, who was also looking on, whether he didn't think he had better run for the doctor. to which, the butcher's boy: who appeared of a lounging, not to say indolent disposition: replied, that he thought not. 'oh, no, no, never mind,' said the young woman, grasping oliver's hand; 'i'm better now. come home directly, you cruel boy! come!' 'oh, ma'am,' replied the young woman, 'he ran away, near a month ago, from his parents, who are hard-working and respectable people; and went and joined a set of thieves and bad characters; and almost broke his mother's heart.' 'young wretch!' said one woman. 'go home, do, you little brute,' said the other. 'i am not,' replied oliver, greatly alarmed. 'i don't know her. i haven't any sister, or father and mother either. i'm an orphan; i live at pentonville.' 'only hear him, how he braves it out!' cried the young woman. 'why, it's nancy!' exclaimed oliver; who now saw her face for the first time; and started back, in irrepressible astonishment. 'you see he knows me!' cried nancy, appealing to the bystanders. 'he can't help himself. make him come home, there's good people, or he'll kill his dear mother and father, and break my heart!' 'what the devil's this?' said a man, bursting out of a beer-shop, with a white dog at his heels; 'young oliver! come home to your poor mother, you young dog! come home directly.' 'i don't belong to them. i don't know them. help! help!' cried oliver, struggling in the man's powerful grasp. 'help!' repeated the man. 'yes; i'll help you, you young rascal! what books are these? you've been a stealing 'em, have you? give 'em here.' with these words, the man tore the volumes from his grasp, and struck him on the head. 'that's right!' cried a looker-on, from a garret-window. 'that's the only way of bringing him to his senses!' 'to be sure!' cried a sleepy-faced carpenter, casting an approving look at the garret-window. 'it'll do him good!' said the two women. 'and he shall have it, too!' rejoined the man, administering another blow, and seizing oliver by the collar. 'come on, you young villain! here, bull's-eye, mind him, boy! mind him!' weak with recent illness; stupified by the blows and the suddenness of the attack; terrified by the fierce growling of the dog, and the brutality of the man; overpowered by the conviction of the bystanders that he really was the hardened little wretch he was described to be; what could one poor child do! darkness had set in; it was a low neighborhood; no help was near; resistance was useless. in another moment he was dragged into a labyrinth of dark narrow courts, and was forced along them at a pace which rendered the few cries he dared to give utterance to, unintelligible. it was of little moment, indeed, whether they were intelligible or no; for there was nobody to care for them, had they been ever so plain. * * * * * the gas-lamps were lighted; mrs. bedwin was waiting anxiously at the open door; the servant had run up the street twenty times to see if there were any traces of oliver; and still the two old gentlemen sat, perseveringly, in the dark parlour, with the watch between them. chapter xvi relates what became of oliver twist, after he had been claimed by nancy the narrow streets and courts, at length, terminated in a large open space; scattered about which, were pens for beasts, and other indications of a cattle-market. sikes slackened his pace when they reached this spot: the girl being quite unable to support any longer, the rapid rate at which they had hitherto walked. turning to oliver, he roughly commanded him to take hold of nancy's hand. 'do you hear?' growled sikes, as oliver hesitated, and looked round. they were in a dark corner, quite out of the track of passengers. oliver saw, but too plainly, that resistance would be of no avail. he held out his hand, which nancy clasped tight in hers. 'give me the other,' said sikes, seizing oliver's unoccupied hand. 'here, bull's-eye!' the dog looked up, and growled. 'see here, boy!' said sikes, putting his other hand to oliver's throat; 'if he speaks ever so soft a word, hold him! d'ye mind!' the dog growled again; and licking his lips, eyed oliver as if he were anxious to attach himself to his windpipe without delay. 'he's as willing as a christian, strike me blind if he isn't!' said sikes, regarding the animal with a kind of grim and ferocious approval. 'now, you know what you've got to expect, master, so call away as quick as you like; the dog will soon stop that game. get on, young'un!' bull's-eye wagged his tail in acknowledgment of this unusually endearing form of speech; and, giving vent to another admonitory growl for the benefit of oliver, led the way onward. it was smithfield that they were crossing, although it might have been grosvenor square, for anything oliver knew to the contrary. the night was dark and foggy. the lights in the shops could scarecely struggle through the heavy mist, which thickened every moment and shrouded the streets and houses in gloom; rendering the strange place still stranger in oliver's eyes; and making his uncertainty the more dismal and depressing. they had hurried on a few paces, when a deep church-bell struck the hour. with its first stroke, his two conductors stopped, and turned their heads in the direction whence the sound proceeded. 'eight o' clock, bill,' said nancy, when the bell ceased. 'what's the good of telling me that; i can hear it, can't i!' replied sikes. 'i wonder whether they can hear it,' said nancy. 'of course they can,' replied sikes. 'it was bartlemy time when i was shopped; and there warn't a penny trumpet in the fair, as i couldn't hear the squeaking on. arter i was locked up for the night, the row and din outside made the thundering old jail so silent, that i could almost have beat my brains out against the iron plates of the door.' 'poor fellow!' said nancy, who still had her face turned towards the quarter in which the bell had sounded. 'oh, bill, such fine young chaps as them!' 'yes; that's all you women think of,' answered sikes. 'fine young chaps! well, they're as good as dead, so it don't much matter.' with this consolation, mr. sikes appeared to repress a rising tendency to jealousy, and, clasping oliver's wrist more firmly, told him to step out again. 'wait a minute!' said the girl: 'i wouldn't hurry by, if it was you that was coming out to be hung, the next time eight o'clock struck, bill. i'd walk round and round the place till i dropped, if the snow was on the ground, and i hadn't a shawl to cover me.' 'and what good would that do?' inquired the unsentimental mr. sikes. 'unless you could pitch over a file and twenty yards of good stout rope, you might as well be walking fifty mile off, or not walking at all, for all the good it would do me. come on, and don't stand preaching there.' the girl burst into a laugh; drew her shawl more closely round her; and they walked away. but oliver felt her hand tremble, and, looking up in her face as they passed a gas-lamp, saw that it had turned a deadly white. they walked on, by little-frequented and dirty ways, for a full half-hour: meeting very few people, and those appearing from their looks to hold much the same position in society as mr. sikes himself. at length they turned into a very filthy narrow street, nearly full of old-clothes shops; the dog running forward, as if conscious that there was no further occasion for his keeping on guard, stopped before the door of a shop that was closed and apparently untenanted; the house was in a ruinous condition, and on the door was nailed a board, intimating that it was to let: which looked as if it had hung there for many years. 'all right,' cried sikes, glancing cautiously about. nancy stooped below the shutters, and oliver heard the sound of a bell. they crossed to the opposite side of the street, and stood for a few moments under a lamp. a noise, as if a sash window were gently raised, was heard; and soon afterwards the door softly opened. mr. sikes then seized the terrified boy by the collar with very little ceremony; and all three were quickly inside the house. the passage was perfectly dark. they waited, while the person who had let them in, chained and barred the door. 'anybody here?' inquired sikes. 'no,' replied a voice, which oliver thought he had heard before. 'is the old 'un here?' asked the robber. 'yes,' replied the voice, 'and precious down in the mouth he has been. won't he be glad to see you? oh, no!' the style of this reply, as well as the voice which delivered it, seemed familiar to oliver's ears: but it was impossible to distinguish even the form of the speaker in the darkness. 'let's have a glim,' said sikes, 'or we shall go breaking our necks, or treading on the dog. look after your legs if you do!' 'stand still a moment, and i'll get you one,' replied the voice. the receding footsteps of the speaker were heard; and, in another minute, the form of mr. john dawkins, otherwise the artful dodger, appeared. he bore in his right hand a tallow candle stuck in the end of a cleft stick. the young gentleman did not stop to bestow any other mark of recognition upon oliver than a humourous grin; but, turning away, beckoned the visitors to follow him down a flight of stairs. they crossed an empty kitchen; and, opening the door of a low earthy-smelling room, which seemed to have been built in a small back-yard, were received with a shout of laughter. 'oh, my wig, my wig!' cried master charles bates, from whose lungs the laughter had proceeded: 'here he is! oh, cry, here he is! oh, fagin, look at him! fagin, do look at him! i can't bear it; it is such a jolly game, i cant' bear it. hold me, somebody, while i laugh it out.' with this irrepressible ebullition of mirth, master bates laid himself flat on the floor: and kicked convulsively for five minutes, in an ectasy of facetious joy. then jumping to his feet, he snatched the cleft stick from the dodger; and, advancing to oliver, viewed him round and round; while the jew, taking off his nightcap, made a great number of low bows to the bewildered boy. the artful, meantime, who was of a rather saturnine disposition, and seldom gave way to merriment when it interfered with business, rifled oliver's pockets with steady assiduity. 'look at his togs, fagin!' said charley, putting the light so close to his new jacket as nearly to set him on fire. 'look at his togs! superfine cloth, and the heavy swell cut! oh, my eye, what a game! and his books, too! nothing but a gentleman, fagin!' 'delighted to see you looking so well, my dear,' said the jew, bowing with mock humility. 'the artful shall give you another suit, my dear, for fear you should spoil that sunday one. why didn't you write, my dear, and say you were coming? we'd have got something warm for supper.' at his, master bates roared again: so loud, that fagin himself relaxed, and even the dodger smiled; but as the artful drew forth the five-pound note at that instant, it is doubtful whether the sally of the discovery awakened his merriment. 'hallo, what's that?' inquired sikes, stepping forward as the jew seized the note. 'that's mine, fagin.' 'no, no, my dear,' said the jew. 'mine, bill, mine. you shall have the books.' 'if that ain't mine!' said bill sikes, putting on his hat with a determined air; 'mine and nancy's that is; i'll take the boy back again.' the jew started. oliver started too, though from a very different cause; for he hoped that the dispute might really end in his being taken back. 'come! hand over, will you?' said sikes. 'this is hardly fair, bill; hardly fair, is it, nancy?' inquired the jew. 'fair, or not fair,' retorted sikes, 'hand over, i tell you! do you think nancy and me has got nothing else to do with our precious time but to spend it in scouting arter, and kidnapping, every young boy as gets grabbed through you? give it here, you avaricious old skeleton, give it here!' with this gentle remonstrance, mr. sikes plucked the note from between the jew's finger and thumb; and looking the old man coolly in the face, folded it up small, and tied it in his neckerchief. 'that's for our share of the trouble,' said sikes; 'and not half enough, neither. you may keep the books, if you're fond of reading. if you ain't, sell 'em.' 'they're very pretty,' said charley bates: who, with sundry grimaces, had been affecting to read one of the volumes in question; 'beautiful writing, isn't is, oliver?' at sight of the dismayed look with which oliver regarded his tormentors, master bates, who was blessed with a lively sense of the ludicrous, fell into another ectasy, more boisterous than the first. 'they belong to the old gentleman,' said oliver, wringing his hands; 'to the good, kind, old gentleman who took me into his house, and had me nursed, when i was near dying of the fever. oh, pray send them back; send him back the books and money. keep me here all my life long; but pray, pray send them back. he'll think i stole them; the old lady: all of them who were so kind to me: will think i stole them. oh, do have mercy upon me, and send them back!' with these words, which were uttered with all the energy of passionate grief, oliver fell upon his knees at the jew's feet; and beat his hands together, in perfect desperation. 'the boy's right,' remarked fagin, looking covertly round, and knitting his shaggy eyebrows into a hard knot. 'you're right, oliver, you're right; they will think you have stolen 'em. ha! ha!' chuckled the jew, rubbing his hands, 'it couldn't have happened better, if we had chosen our time!' 'of course it couldn't,' replied sikes; 'i know'd that, directly i see him coming through clerkenwell, with the books under his arm. it's all right enough. they're soft-hearted psalm-singers, or they wouldn't have taken him in at all; and they'll ask no questions after him, fear they should be obliged to prosecute, and so get him lagged. he's safe enough.' oliver had looked from one to the other, while these words were being spoken, as if he were bewildered, and could scarecely understand what passed; but when bill sikes concluded, he jumped suddenly to his feet, and tore wildly from the room: uttering shrieks for help, which made the bare old house echo to the roof. 'keep back the dog, bill!' cried nancy, springing before the door, and closing it, as the jew and his two pupils darted out in pursuit. 'keep back the dog; he'll tear the boy to pieces.' 'serve him right!' cried sikes, struggling to disengage himself from the girl's grasp. 'stand off from me, or i'll split your head against the wall.' 'i don't care for that, bill, i don't care for that,' screamed the girl, struggling violently with the man, 'the child shan't be torn down by the dog, unless you kill me first.' 'shan't he!' said sikes, setting his teeth. 'i'll soon do that, if you don't keep off.' the housebreaker flung the girl from him to the further end of the room, just as the jew and the two boys returned, dragging oliver among them. 'what's the matter here!' said fagin, looking round. 'the girl's gone mad, i think,' replied sikes, savagely. 'no, she hasn't,' said nancy, pale and breathless from the scuffle; 'no, she hasn't, fagin; don't think it.' 'then keep quiet, will you?' said the jew, with a threatening look. 'no, i won't do that, neither,' replied nancy, speaking very loud. 'come! what do you think of that?' mr. fagin was sufficiently well acquainted with the manners and customs of that particular species of humanity to which nancy belonged, to feel tolerably certain that it would be rather unsafe to prolong any conversation with her, at present. with the view of diverting the attention of the company, he turned to oliver. 'so you wanted to get away, my dear, did you?' said the jew, taking up a jagged and knotted club which law in a corner of the fireplace; 'eh?' oliver made no reply. but he watched the jew's motions, and breathed quickly. 'wanted to get assistance; called for the police; did you?' sneered the jew, catching the boy by the arm. 'we'll cure you of that, my young master.' the jew inflicted a smart blow on oliver's shoulders with the club; and was raising it for a second, when the girl, rushing forward, wrested it from his hand. she flung it into the fire, with a force that brought some of the glowing coals whirling out into the room. 'i won't stand by and see it done, fagin,' cried the girl. 'you've got the boy, and what more would you have?--let him be--let him be--or i shall put that mark on some of you, that will bring me to the gallows before my time.' the girl stamped her foot violently on the floor as she vented this threat; and with her lips compressed, and her hands clenched, looked alternately at the jew and the other robber: her face quite colourless from the passion of rage into which she had gradually worked herself. 'why, nancy!' said the jew, in a soothing tone; after a pause, during which he and mr. sikes had stared at one another in a disconcerted manner; 'you,--you're more clever than ever to-night. ha! ha! my dear, you are acting beautifully.' 'am i!' said the girl. 'take care i don't overdo it. you will be the worse for it, fagin, if i do; and so i tell you in good time to keep clear of me.' there is something about a roused woman: especially if she add to all her other strong passions, the fierce impulses of recklessness and despair; which few men like to provoke. the jew saw that it would be hopeless to affect any further mistake regarding the reality of miss nancy's rage; and, shrinking involuntarily back a few paces, cast a glance, half imploring and half cowardly, at sikes: as if to hint that he was the fittest person to pursue the dialogue. mr. sikes, thus mutely appealed to; and possibly feeling his personal pride and influence interested in the immediate reduction of miss nancy to reason; gave utterance to about a couple of score of curses and threats, the rapid production of which reflected great credit on the fertility of his invention. as they produced no visible effect on the object against whom they were discharged, however, he resorted to more tangible arguments. 'what do you mean by this?' said sikes; backing the inquiry with a very common imprecation concerning the most beautiful of human features: which, if it were heard above, only once out of every fifty thousand times that it is uttered below, would render blindness as common a disorder as measles: 'what do you mean by it? burn my body! do you know who you are, and what you are?' 'oh, yes, i know all about it,' replied the girl, laughing hysterically; and shaking her head from side to side, with a poor assumption of indifference. 'well, then, keep quiet,' rejoined sikes, with a growl like that he was accustomed to use when addressing his dog, 'or i'll quiet you for a good long time to come.' the girl laughed again: even less composedly than before; and, darting a hasty look at sikes, turned her face aside, and bit her lip till the blood came. 'you're a nice one,' added sikes, as he surveyed her with a contemptuous air, 'to take up the humane and gen--teel side! a pretty subject for the child, as you call him, to make a friend of!' 'god almighty help me, i am!' cried the girl passionately; 'and i wish i had been struck dead in the street, or had changed places with them we passed so near to-night, before i had lent a hand in bringing him here. he's a thief, a liar, a devil, all that's bad, from this night forth. isn't that enough for the old wretch, without blows?' 'come, come, sikes,' said the jew appealing to him in a remonstratory tone, and motioning towards the boys, who were eagerly attentive to all that passed; 'we must have civil words; civil words, bill.' 'civil words!' cried the girl, whose passion was frightful to see. 'civil words, you villain! yes, you deserve 'em from me. i thieved for you when i was a child not half as old as this!' pointing to oliver. 'i have been in the same trade, and in the same service, for twelve years since. don't you know it? speak out! don't you know it?' 'well, well,' replied the jew, with an attempt at pacification; 'and, if you have, it's your living!' 'aye, it is!' returned the girl; not speaking, but pouring out the words in one continuous and vehement scream. 'it is my living; and the cold, wet, dirty streets are my home; and you're the wretch that drove me to them long ago, and that'll keep me there, day and night, day and night, till i die!' 'i shall do you a mischief!' interposed the jew, goaded by these reproaches; 'a mischief worse than that, if you say much more!' the girl said nothing more; but, tearing her hair and dress in a transport of passion, made such a rush at the jew as would probably have left signal marks of her revenge upon him, had not her wrists been seized by sikes at the right moment; upon which, she made a few ineffectual struggles, and fainted. 'she's all right now,' said sikes, laying her down in a corner. 'she's uncommon strong in the arms, when she's up in this way.' the jew wiped his forehead: and smiled, as if it were a relief to have the disturbance over; but neither he, nor sikes, nor the dog, nor the boys, seemed to consider it in any other light than a common occurance incidental to business. 'it's the worst of having to do with women,' said the jew, replacing his club; 'but they're clever, and we can't get on, in our line, without 'em. charley, show oliver to bed.' 'i suppose he'd better not wear his best clothes tomorrow, fagin, had he?' inquired charley bates. 'certainly not,' replied the jew, reciprocating the grin with which charley put the question. master bates, apparently much delighted with his commission, took the cleft stick: and led oliver into an adjacent kitchen, where there were two or three of the beds on which he had slept before; and here, with many uncontrollable bursts of laughter, he produced the identical old suit of clothes which oliver had so much congratulated himself upon leaving off at mr. brownlow's; and the accidental display of which, to fagin, by the jew who purchased them, had been the very first clue received, of his whereabout. 'put off the smart ones,' said charley, 'and i'll give 'em to fagin to take care of. what fun it is!' poor oliver unwillingly complied. master bates rolling up the new clothes under his arm, departed from the room, leaving oliver in the dark, and locking the door behind him. the noise of charley's laughter, and the voice of miss betsy, who opportunely arrived to throw water over her friend, and perform other feminine offices for the promotion of her recovery, might have kept many people awake under more happy circumstances than those in which oliver was placed. but he was sick and weary; and he soon fell sound asleep. chapter xvii oliver's destiny continuing unpropitious, brings a great man to london to injure his reputation it is the custom on the stage, in all good murderous melodramas, to present the tragic and the comic scenes, in as regular alternation, as the layers of red and white in a side of streaky bacon. the hero sinks upon his straw bed, weighed down by fetters and misfortunes; in the next scene, his faithful but unconscious squire regales the audience with a comic song. we behold, with throbbing bosoms, the heroine in the grasp of a proud and ruthless baron: her virtue and her life alike in danger, drawing forth her dagger to preserve the one at the cost of the other; and just as our expectations are wrought up to the highest pitch, a whistle is heard, and we are straightway transported to the great hall of the castle; where a grey-headed seneschal sings a funny chorus with a funnier body of vassals, who are free of all sorts of places, from church vaults to palaces, and roam about in company, carolling perpetually. such changes appear absurd; but they are not so unnatural as they would seem at first sight. the transitions in real life from well-spread boards to death-beds, and from mourning-weeds to holiday garments, are not a whit less startling; only, there, we are busy actors, instead of passive lookers-on, which makes a vast difference. the actors in the mimic life of the theatre, are blind to violent transitions and abrupt impulses of passion or feeling, which, presented before the eyes of mere spectators, are at once condemned as outrageous and preposterous. as sudden shiftings of the scene, and rapid changes of time and place, are not only sanctioned in books by long usage, but are by many considered as the great art of authorship: an author's skill in his craft being, by such critics, chiefly estimated with relation to the dilemmas in which he leaves his characters at the end of every chapter: this brief introduction to the present one may perhaps be deemed unnecessary. if so, let it be considered a delicate intimation on the part of the historian that he is going back to the town in which oliver twist was born; the reader taking it for granted that there are good and substantial reasons for making the journey, or he would not be invited to proceed upon such an expedition. mr. bumble emerged at early morning from the workhouse-gate, and walked with portly carriage and commanding steps, up the high street. he was in the full bloom and pride of beadlehood; his cocked hat and coat were dazzling in the morning sun; he clutched his cane with the vigorous tenacity of health and power. mr. bumble always carried his head high; but this morning it was higher than usual. there was an abstraction in his eye, an elevation in his air, which might have warned an observant stranger that thoughts were passing in the beadle's mind, too great for utterance. mr. bumble stopped not to converse with the small shopkeepers and others who spoke to him, deferentially, as he passed along. he merely returned their salutations with a wave of his hand, and relaxed not in his dignified pace, until he reached the farm where mrs. mann tended the infant paupers with parochial care. 'drat that beadle!' said mrs. mann, hearing the well-known shaking at the garden-gate. 'if it isn't him at this time in the morning! lauk, mr. bumble, only think of its being you! well, dear me, it is a pleasure, this is! come into the parlour, sir, please.' the first sentence was addressed to susan; and the exclamations of delight were uttered to mr. bumble: as the good lady unlocked the garden-gate: and showed him, with great attention and respect, into the house. 'mrs. mann,' said mr. bumble; not sitting upon, or dropping himself into a seat, as any common jackanapes would: but letting himself gradually and slowly down into a chair; 'mrs. mann, ma'am, good morning.' 'well, and good morning to _you_, sir,' replied mrs. mann, with many smiles; 'and hoping you find yourself well, sir!' 'so-so, mrs. mann,' replied the beadle. 'a porochial life is not a bed of roses, mrs. mann.' 'ah, that it isn't indeed, mr. bumble,' rejoined the lady. and all the infant paupers might have chorussed the rejoinder with great propriety, if they had heard it. 'a porochial life, ma'am,' continued mr. bumble, striking the table with his cane, 'is a life of worrit, and vexation, and hardihood; but all public characters, as i may say, must suffer prosecution.' mrs. mann, not very well knowing what the beadle meant, raised her hands with a look of sympathy, and sighed. 'ah! you may well sigh, mrs. mann!' said the beadle. finding she had done right, mrs. mann sighed again: evidently to the satisfaction of the public character: who, repressing a complacent smile by looking sternly at his cocked hat, said, 'mrs. mann, i am going to london.' 'lauk, mr. bumble!' cried mrs. mann, starting back. 'to london, ma'am,' resumed the inflexible beadle, 'by coach. i and two paupers, mrs. mann! a legal action is a coming on, about a settlement; and the board has appointed me--me, mrs. mann--to dispose to the matter before the quarter-sessions at clerkinwell. and i very much question,' added mr. bumble, drawing himself up, 'whether the clerkinwell sessions will not find themselves in the wrong box before they have done with me.' 'oh! you mustn't be too hard upon them, sir,' said mrs. mann, coaxingly. 'the clerkinwell sessions have brought it upon themselves, ma'am,' replied mr. bumble; 'and if the clerkinwell sessions find that they come off rather worse than they expected, the clerkinwell sessions have only themselves to thank.' there was so much determination and depth of purpose about the menacing manner in which mr. bumble delivered himself of these words, that mrs. mann appeared quite awed by them. at length she said, 'you're going by coach, sir? i thought it was always usual to send them paupers in carts.' 'that's when they're ill, mrs. mann,' said the beadle. 'we put the sick paupers into open carts in the rainy weather, to prevent their taking cold.' 'oh!' said mrs. mann. 'the opposition coach contracts for these two; and takes them cheap,' said mr. bumble. 'they are both in a very low state, and we find it would come two pound cheaper to move 'em than to bury 'em--that is, if we can throw 'em upon another parish, which i think we shall be able to do, if they don't die upon the road to spite us. ha! ha! ha!' when mr. bumble had laughed a little while, his eyes again encountered the cocked hat; and he became grave. 'we are forgetting business, ma'am,' said the beadle; 'here is your porochial stipend for the month.' mr. bumble produced some silver money rolled up in paper, from his pocket-book; and requested a receipt: which mrs. mann wrote. 'it's very much blotted, sir,' said the farmer of infants; 'but it's formal enough, i dare say. thank you, mr. bumble, sir, i am very much obliged to you, i'm sure.' mr. bumble nodded, blandly, in acknowledgment of mrs. mann's curtsey; and inquired how the children were. 'bless their dear little hearts!' said mrs. mann with emotion, 'they're as well as can be, the dears! of course, except the two that died last week. and little dick.' 'isn't that boy no better?' inquired mr. bumble. mrs. mann shook her head. 'he's a ill-conditioned, wicious, bad-disposed porochial child that,' said mr. bumble angrily. 'where is he?' 'i'll bring him to you in one minute, sir,' replied mrs. mann. 'here, you dick!' after some calling, dick was discovered. having had his face put under the pump, and dried upon mrs. mann's gown, he was led into the awful presence of mr. bumble, the beadle. the child was pale and thin; his cheeks were sunken; and his eyes large and bright. the scanty parish dress, the livery of his misery, hung loosely on his feeble body; and his young limbs had wasted away, like those of an old man. such was the little being who stood trembling beneath mr. bumble's glance; not daring to lift his eyes from the floor; and dreading even to hear the beadle's voice. 'can't you look at the gentleman, you obstinate boy?' said mrs. mann. the child meekly raised his eyes, and encountered those of mr. bumble. 'what's the matter with you, porochial dick?' inquired mr. bumble, with well-timed jocularity. 'nothing, sir,' replied the child faintly. 'i should think not,' said mrs. mann, who had of course laughed very much at mr. bumble's humour. 'you want for nothing, i'm sure.' 'i should like--' faltered the child. 'hey-day!' interposed mr. mann, 'i suppose you're going to say that you do want for something, now? why, you little wretch--' 'stop, mrs. mann, stop!' said the beadle, raising his hand with a show of authority. 'like what, sir, eh?' 'i should like,' faltered the child, 'if somebody that can write, would put a few words down for me on a piece of paper, and fold it up and seal it, and keep it for me, after i am laid in the ground.' 'why, what does the boy mean?' exclaimed mr. bumble, on whom the earnest manner and wan aspect of the child had made some impression: accustomed as he was to such things. 'what do you mean, sir?' 'i should like,' said the child, 'to leave my dear love to poor oliver twist; and to let him know how often i have sat by myself and cried to think of his wandering about in the dark nights with nobody to help him. and i should like to tell him,' said the child pressing his small hands together, and speaking with great fervour, 'that i was glad to die when i was very young; for, perhaps, if i had lived to be a man, and had grown old, my little sister who is in heaven, might forget me, or be unlike me; and it would be so much happier if we were both children there together.' mr. bumble surveyed the little speaker, from head to foot, with indescribable astonishment; and, turning to his companion, said, 'they're all in one story, mrs. mann. that out-dacious oliver had demogalized them all!' 'i couldn't have believed it, sir' said mrs mann, holding up her hands, and looking malignantly at dick. 'i never see such a hardened little wretch!' 'take him away, ma'am!' said mr. bumble imperiously. 'this must be stated to the board, mrs. mann. 'i hope the gentleman will understand that it isn't my fault, sir?' said mrs. mann, whimpering pathetically. 'they shall understand that, ma'am; they shall be acquainted with the true state of the case,' said mr. bumble. 'there; take him away, i can't bear the sight on him.' dick was immediately taken away, and locked up in the coal-cellar. mr. bumble shortly afterwards took himself off, to prepare for his journey. at six o'clock next morning, mr. bumble: having exchanged his cocked hat for a round one, and encased his person in a blue great-coat with a cape to it: took his place on the outside of the coach, accompanied by the criminals whose settlement was disputed; with whom, in due course of time, he arrived in london. he experienced no other crosses on the way, than those which originated in the perverse behaviour of the two paupers, who persisted in shivering, and complaining of the cold, in a manner which, mr. bumble declared, caused his teeth to chatter in his head, and made him feel quite uncomfortable; although he had a great-coat on. having disposed of these evil-minded persons for the night, mr. bumble sat himself down in the house at which the coach stopped; and took a temperate dinner of steaks, oyster sauce, and porter. putting a glass of hot gin-and-water on the chimney-piece, he drew his chair to the fire; and, with sundry moral reflections on the too-prevalent sin of discontent and complaining, composed himself to read the paper. the very first paragraph upon which mr. bumble's eye rested, was the following advertisement. 'five guineas reward 'whereas a young boy, named oliver twist, absconded, or was enticed, on thursday evening last, from his home, at pentonville; and has not since been heard of. the above reward will be paid to any person who will give such information as will lead to the discovery of the said oliver twist, or tend to throw any light upon his previous history, in which the advertiser is, for many reasons, warmly interested.' and then followed a full description of oliver's dress, person, appearance, and disappearance: with the name and address of mr. brownlow at full length. mr. bumble opened his eyes; read the advertisement, slowly and carefully, three several times; and in something more than five minutes was on his way to pentonville: having actually, in his excitement, left the glass of hot gin-and-water, untasted. 'is mr. brownlow at home?' inquired mr. bumble of the girl who opened the door. to this inquiry the girl returned the not uncommon, but rather evasive reply of 'i don't know; where do you come from?' mr. bumble no sooner uttered oliver's name, in explanation of his errand, than mrs. bedwin, who had been listening at the parlour door, hastened into the passage in a breathless state. 'come in, come in,' said the old lady: 'i knew we should hear of him. poor dear! i knew we should! i was certain of it. bless his heart! i said so all along.' having heard this, the worthy old lady hurried back into the parlour again; and seating herself on a sofa, burst into tears. the girl, who was not quite so susceptible, had run upstairs meanwhile; and now returned with a request that mr. bumble would follow her immediately: which he did. he was shown into the little back study, where sat mr. brownlow and his friend mr. grimwig, with decanters and glasses before them. the latter gentleman at once burst into the exclamation: 'a beadle. a parish beadle, or i'll eat my head.' 'pray don't interrupt just now,' said mr. brownlow. 'take a seat, will you?' mr. bumble sat himself down; quite confounded by the oddity of mr. grimwig's manner. mr. brownlow moved the lamp, so as to obtain an uninterrupted view of the beadle's countenance; and said, with a little impatience, 'now, sir, you come in consequence of having seen the advertisement?' 'yes, sir,' said mr. bumble. 'and you are a beadle, are you not?' inquired mr. grimwig. 'i am a porochial beadle, gentlemen,' rejoined mr. bumble proudly. 'of course,' observed mr. grimwig aside to his friend, 'i knew he was. a beadle all over!' mr. brownlow gently shook his head to impose silence on his friend, and resumed: 'do you know where this poor boy is now?' 'no more than nobody,' replied mr. bumble. 'well, what do you know of him?' inquired the old gentleman. 'speak out, my friend, if you have anything to say. what do you know of him?' 'you don't happen to know any good of him, do you?' said mr. grimwig, caustically; after an attentive perusal of mr. bumble's features. mr. bumble, catching at the inquiry very quickly, shook his head with portentous solemnity. 'you see?' said mr. grimwig, looking triumphantly at mr. brownlow. mr. brownlow looked apprehensively at mr. bumble's pursed-up countenance; and requested him to communicate what he knew regarding oliver, in as few words as possible. mr. bumble put down his hat; unbuttoned his coat; folded his arms; inclined his head in a retrospective manner; and, after a few moments' reflection, commenced his story. it would be tedious if given in the beadle's words: occupying, as it did, some twenty minutes in the telling; but the sum and substance of it was, that oliver was a foundling, born of low and vicious parents. that he had, from his birth, displayed no better qualities than treachery, ingratitude, and malice. that he had terminated his brief career in the place of his birth, by making a sanguinary and cowardly attack on an unoffending lad, and running away in the night-time from his master's house. in proof of his really being the person he represented himself, mr. bumble laid upon the table the papers he had brought to town. folding his arms again, he then awaited mr. brownlow's observations. 'i fear it is all too true,' said the old gentleman sorrowfully, after looking over the papers. 'this is not much for your intelligence; but i would gladly have given you treble the money, if it had been favourable to the boy.' it is not improbable that if mr. bumble had been possessed of this information at an earlier period of the interview, he might have imparted a very different colouring to his little history. it was too late to do it now, however; so he shook his head gravely, and, pocketing the five guineas, withdrew. mr. brownlow paced the room to and fro for some minutes; evidently so much disturbed by the beadle's tale, that even mr. grimwig forbore to vex him further. at length he stopped, and rang the bell violently. 'mrs. bedwin,' said mr. brownlow, when the housekeeper appeared; 'that boy, oliver, is an imposter.' 'it can't be, sir. it cannot be,' said the old lady energetically. 'i tell you he is,' retorted the old gentleman. 'what do you mean by can't be? we have just heard a full account of him from his birth; and he has been a thorough-paced little villain, all his life.' 'i never will believe it, sir,' replied the old lady, firmly. 'never!' 'you old women never believe anything but quack-doctors, and lying story-books,' growled mr. grimwig. 'i knew it all along. why didn't you take my advise in the beginning; you would if he hadn't had a fever, i suppose, eh? he was interesting, wasn't he? interesting! bah!' and mr. grimwig poked the fire with a flourish. 'he was a dear, grateful, gentle child, sir,' retorted mrs. bedwin, indignantly. 'i know what children are, sir; and have done these forty years; and people who can't say the same, shouldn't say anything about them. that's my opinion!' this was a hard hit at mr. grimwig, who was a bachelor. as it extorted nothing from that gentleman but a smile, the old lady tossed her head, and smoothed down her apron preparatory to another speech, when she was stopped by mr. brownlow. 'silence!' said the old gentleman, feigning an anger he was far from feeling. 'never let me hear the boy's name again. i rang to tell you that. never. never, on any pretence, mind! you may leave the room, mrs. bedwin. remember! i am in earnest.' there were sad hearts at mr. brownlow's that night. oliver's heart sank within him, when he thought of his good friends; it was well for him that he could not know what they had heard, or it might have broken outright. chapter xviii how oliver passed his time in the improving society of his reputable friends about noon next day, when the dodger and master bates had gone out to pursue their customary avocations, mr. fagin took the opportunity of reading oliver a long lecture on the crying sin of ingratitude; of which he clearly demonstrated he had been guilty, to no ordinary extent, in wilfully absenting himself from the society of his anxious friends; and, still more, in endeavouring to escape from them after so much trouble and expense had been incurred in his recovery. mr. fagin laid great stress on the fact of his having taken oliver in, and cherished him, when, without his timely aid, he might have perished with hunger; and he related the dismal and affecting history of a young lad whom, in his philanthropy, he had succoured under parallel circumstances, but who, proving unworthy of his confidence and evincing a desire to communicate with the police, had unfortunately come to be hanged at the old bailey one morning. mr. fagin did not seek to conceal his share in the catastrophe, but lamented with tears in his eyes that the wrong-headed and treacherous behaviour of the young person in question, had rendered it necessary that he should become the victim of certain evidence for the crown: which, if it were not precisely true, was indispensably necessary for the safety of him (mr. fagin) and a few select friends. mr. fagin concluded by drawing a rather disagreeable picture of the discomforts of hanging; and, with great friendliness and politeness of manner, expressed his anxious hopes that he might never be obliged to submit oliver twist to that unpleasant operation. little oliver's blood ran cold, as he listened to the jew's words, and imperfectly comprehended the dark threats conveyed in them. that it was possible even for justice itself to confound the innocent with the guilty when they were in accidental companionship, he knew already; and that deeply-laid plans for the destruction of inconveniently knowing or over-communicative persons, had been really devised and carried out by the jew on more occasions than one, he thought by no means unlikely, when he recollected the general nature of the altercations between that gentleman and mr. sikes: which seemed to bear reference to some foregone conspiracy of the kind. as he glanced timidly up, and met the jew's searching look, he felt that his pale face and trembling limbs were neither unnoticed nor unrelished by that wary old gentleman. the jew, smiling hideously, patted oliver on the head, and said, that if he kept himself quiet, and applied himself to business, he saw they would be very good friends yet. then, taking his hat, and covering himself with an old patched great-coat, he went out, and locked the room-door behind him. and so oliver remained all that day, and for the greater part of many subsequent days, seeing nobody, between early morning and midnight, and left during the long hours to commune with his own thoughts. which, never failing to revert to his kind friends, and the opinion they must long ago have formed of him, were sad indeed. after the lapse of a week or so, the jew left the room-door unlocked; and he was at liberty to wander about the house. it was a very dirty place. the rooms upstairs had great high wooden chimney-pieces and large doors, with panelled walls and cornices to the ceiling; which, although they were black with neglect and dust, were ornamented in various ways. from all of these tokens oliver concluded that a long time ago, before the old jew was born, it had belonged to better people, and had perhaps been quite gay and handsome: dismal and dreary as it looked now. spiders had built their webs in the angles of the walls and ceilings; and sometimes, when oliver walked softly into a room, the mice would scamper across the floor, and run back terrified to their holes. with these exceptions, there was neither sight nor sound of any living thing; and often, when it grew dark, and he was tired of wandering from room to room, he would crouch in the corner of the passage by the street-door, to be as near living people as he could; and would remain there, listening and counting the hours, until the jew or the boys returned. in all the rooms, the mouldering shutters were fast closed: the bars which held them were screwed tight into the wood; the only light which was admitted, stealing its way through round holes at the top: which made the rooms more gloomy, and filled them with strange shadows. there was a back-garret window with rusty bars outside, which had no shutter; and out of this, oliver often gazed with a melancholy face for hours together; but nothing was to be descried from it but a confused and crowded mass of housetops, blackened chimneys, and gable-ends. sometimes, indeed, a grizzly head might be seen, peering over the parapet-wall of a distant house; but it was quickly withdrawn again; and as the window of oliver's observatory was nailed down, and dimmed with the rain and smoke of years, it was as much as he could do to make out the forms of the different objects beyond, without making any attempt to be seen or heard,--which he had as much chance of being, as if he had lived inside the ball of st. paul's cathedral. one afternoon, the dodger and master bates being engaged out that evening, the first-named young gentleman took it into his head to evince some anxiety regarding the decoration of his person (to do him justice, this was by no means an habitual weakness with him); and, with this end and aim, he condescendingly commanded oliver to assist him in his toilet, straightway. oliver was but too glad to make himself useful; too happy to have some faces, however bad, to look upon; too desirous to conciliate those about him when he could honestly do so; to throw any objection in the way of this proposal. so he at once expressed his readiness; and, kneeling on the floor, while the dodger sat upon the table so that he could take his foot in his laps, he applied himself to a process which mr. dawkins designated as 'japanning his trotter-cases.' the phrase, rendered into plain english, signifieth, cleaning his boots. whether it was the sense of freedom and independence which a rational animal may be supposed to feel when he sits on a table in an easy attitude smoking a pipe, swinging one leg carelessly to and fro, and having his boots cleaned all the time, without even the past trouble of having taken them off, or the prospective misery of putting them on, to disturb his reflections; or whether it was the goodness of the tobacco that soothed the feelings of the dodger, or the mildness of the beer that mollified his thoughts; he was evidently tinctured, for the nonce, with a spice of romance and enthusiasm, foreign to his general nature. he looked down on oliver, with a thoughtful countenance, for a brief space; and then, raising his head, and heaving a gentle sign, said, half in abstraction, and half to master bates: 'what a pity it is he isn't a prig!' 'ah!' said master charles bates; 'he don't know what's good for him.' the dodger sighed again, and resumed his pipe: as did charley bates. they both smoked, for some seconds, in silence. 'i suppose you don't even know what a prig is?' said the dodger mournfully. 'i think i know that,' replied oliver, looking up. 'it's a the--; you're one, are you not?' inquired oliver, checking himself. 'i am,' replied the dodger. 'i'd scorn to be anything else.' mr. dawkins gave his hat a ferocious cock, after delivering this sentiment, and looked at master bates, as if to denote that he would feel obliged by his saying anything to the contrary. 'i am,' repeated the dodger. 'so's charley. so's fagin. so's sikes. so's nancy. so's bet. so we all are, down to the dog. and he's the downiest one of the lot!' 'and the least given to peaching,' added charley bates. 'he wouldn't so much as bark in a witness-box, for fear of committing himself; no, not if you tied him up in one, and left him there without wittles for a fortnight,' said the dodger. 'not a bit of it,' observed charley. 'he's a rum dog. don't he look fierce at any strange cove that laughs or sings when he's in company!' pursued the dodger. 'won't he growl at all, when he hears a fiddle playing! and don't he hate other dogs as ain't of his breed! oh, no!' 'he's an out-and-out christian,' said charley. this was merely intended as a tribute to the animal's abilities, but it was an appropriate remark in another sense, if master bates had only known it; for there are a good many ladies and gentlemen, claiming to be out-and-out christians, between whom, and mr. sikes' dog, there exist strong and singular points of resemblance. 'well, well,' said the dodger, recurring to the point from which they had strayed: with that mindfulness of his profession which influenced all his proceedings. 'this hasn't go anything to do with young green here.' 'no more it has,' said charley. 'why don't you put yourself under fagin, oliver?' 'and make your fortun' out of hand?' added the dodger, with a grin. 'and so be able to retire on your property, and do the gen-teel: as i mean to, in the very next leap-year but four that ever comes, and the forty-second tuesday in trinity-week,' said charley bates. 'i don't like it,' rejoined oliver, timidly; 'i wish they would let me go. i--i--would rather go.' 'and fagin would rather not!' rejoined charley. oliver knew this too well; but thinking it might be dangerous to express his feelings more openly, he only sighed, and went on with his boot-cleaning. 'go!' exclaimed the dodger. 'why, where's your spirit?' don't you take any pride out of yourself? would you go and be dependent on your friends?' 'oh, blow that!' said master bates: drawing two or three silk handkerchiefs from his pocket, and tossing them into a cupboard, 'that's too mean; that is.' '_i_ couldn't do it,' said the dodger, with an air of haughty disgust. 'you can leave your friends, though,' said oliver with a half smile; 'and let them be punished for what you did.' 'that,' rejoined the dodger, with a wave of his pipe, 'that was all out of consideration for fagin, 'cause the traps know that we work together, and he might have got into trouble if we hadn't made our lucky; that was the move, wasn't it, charley?' master bates nodded assent, and would have spoken, but the recollection of oliver's flight came so suddenly upon him, that the smoke he was inhaling got entangled with a laugh, and went up into his head, and down into his throat: and brought on a fit of coughing and stamping, about five minutes long. 'look here!' said the dodger, drawing forth a handful of shillings and halfpence. 'here's a jolly life! what's the odds where it comes from? here, catch hold; there's plenty more where they were took from. you won't, won't you? oh, you precious flat!' 'it's naughty, ain't it, oliver?' inquired charley bates. 'he'll come to be scragged, won't he?' 'i don't know what that means,' replied oliver. 'something in this way, old feller,' said charly. as he said it, master bates caught up an end of his neckerchief; and, holding it erect in the air, dropped his head on his shoulder, and jerked a curious sound through his teeth; thereby indicating, by a lively pantomimic representation, that scragging and hanging were one and the same thing. 'that's what it means,' said charley. 'look how he stares, jack! i never did see such prime company as that 'ere boy; he'll be the death of me, i know he will.' master charley bates, having laughed heartily again, resumed his pipe with tears in his eyes. 'you've been brought up bad,' said the dodger, surveying his boots with much satisfaction when oliver had polished them. 'fagin will make something of you, though, or you'll be the first he ever had that turned out unprofitable. you'd better begin at once; for you'll come to the trade long before you think of it; and you're only losing time, oliver.' master bates backed this advice with sundry moral admonitions of his own: which, being exhausted, he and his friend mr. dawkins launched into a glowing description of the numerous pleasures incidental to the life they led, interspersed with a variety of hints to oliver that the best thing he could do, would be to secure fagin's favour without more delay, by the means which they themselves had employed to gain it. 'and always put this in your pipe, nolly,' said the dodger, as the jew was heard unlocking the door above, 'if you don't take fogels and tickers--' 'what's the good of talking in that way?' interposed master bates; 'he don't know what you mean.' 'if you don't take pocket-handkechers and watches,' said the dodger, reducing his conversation to the level of oliver's capacity, 'some other cove will; so that the coves that lose 'em will be all the worse, and you'll be all the worse, too, and nobody half a ha'p'orth the better, except the chaps wot gets them--and you've just as good a right to them as they have.' 'to be sure, to be sure!' said the jew, who had entered unseen by oliver. 'it all lies in a nutshell my dear; in a nutshell, take the dodger's word for it. ha! ha! ha! he understands the catechism of his trade.' the old man rubbed his hands gleefully together, as he corroborated the dodger's reasoning in these terms; and chuckled with delight at his pupil's proficiency. the conversation proceeded no farther at this time, for the jew had returned home accompanied by miss betsy, and a gentleman whom oliver had never seen before, but who was accosted by the dodger as tom chitling; and who, having lingered on the stairs to exchange a few gallantries with the lady, now made his appearance. mr. chitling was older in years than the dodger: having perhaps numbered eighteen winters; but there was a degree of deference in his deportment towards that young gentleman which seemed to indicate that he felt himself conscious of a slight inferiority in point of genius and professional aquirements. he had small twinkling eyes, and a pock-marked face; wore a fur cap, a dark corduroy jacket, greasy fustian trousers, and an apron. his wardrobe was, in truth, rather out of repair; but he excused himself to the company by stating that his 'time' was only out an hour before; and that, in consequence of having worn the regimentals for six weeks past, he had not been able to bestow any attention on his private clothes. mr. chitling added, with strong marks of irritation, that the new way of fumigating clothes up yonder was infernal unconstitutional, for it burnt holes in them, and there was no remedy against the county. the same remark he considered to apply to the regulation mode of cutting the hair: which he held to be decidedly unlawful. mr. chitling wound up his observations by stating that he had not touched a drop of anything for forty-two moral long hard-working days; and that he 'wished he might be busted if he warn't as dry as a lime-basket.' 'where do you think the gentleman has come from, oliver?' inquired the jew, with a grin, as the other boys put a bottle of spirits on the table. 'i--i--don't know, sir,' replied oliver. 'who's that?' inquired tom chitling, casting a contemptuous look at oliver. 'a young friend of mine, my dear,' replied the jew. 'he's in luck, then,' said the young man, with a meaning look at fagin. 'never mind where i came from, young 'un; you'll find your way there, soon enough, i'll bet a crown!' at this sally, the boys laughed. after some more jokes on the same subject, they exchanged a few short whispers with fagin; and withdrew. after some words apart between the last comer and fagin, they drew their chairs towards the fire; and the jew, telling oliver to come and sit by him, led the conversation to the topics most calculated to interest his hearers. these were, the great advantages of the trade, the proficiency of the dodger, the amiability of charley bates, and the liberality of the jew himself. at length these subjects displayed signs of being thoroughly exhausted; and mr. chitling did the same: for the house of correction becomes fatiguing after a week or two. miss betsy accordingly withdrew; and left the party to their repose. from this day, oliver was seldom left alone; but was placed in almost constant communication with the two boys, who played the old game with the jew every day: whether for their own improvement or oliver's, mr. fagin best knew. at other times the old man would tell them stories of robberies he had committed in his younger days: mixed up with so much that was droll and curious, that oliver could not help laughing heartily, and showing that he was amused in spite of all his better feelings. in short, the wily old jew had the boy in his toils. having prepared his mind, by solitude and gloom, to prefer any society to the companionship of his own sad thoughts in such a dreary place, he was now slowly instilling into his soul the poison which he hoped would blacken it, and change its hue for ever. chapter xix in which a notable plan is discussed and determined on it was a chill, damp, windy night, when the jew: buttoning his great-coat tight round his shrivelled body, and pulling the collar up over his ears so as completely to obscure the lower part of his face: emerged from his den. he paused on the step as the door was locked and chained behind him; and having listened while the boys made all secure, and until their retreating footsteps were no longer audible, slunk down the street as quickly as he could. the house to which oliver had been conveyed, was in the neighborhood of whitechapel. the jew stopped for an instant at the corner of the street; and, glancing suspiciously round, crossed the road, and struck off in the direction of the spitalfields. the mud lay thick upon the stones, and a black mist hung over the streets; the rain fell sluggishly down, and everything felt cold and clammy to the touch. it seemed just the night when it befitted such a being as the jew to be abroad. as he glided stealthily along, creeping beneath the shelter of the walls and doorways, the hideous old man seemed like some loathsome reptile, engendered in the slime and darkness through which he moved: crawling forth, by night, in search of some rich offal for a meal. he kept on his course, through many winding and narrow ways, until he reached bethnal green; then, turning suddenly off to the left, he soon became involved in a maze of the mean and dirty streets which abound in that close and densely-populated quarter. the jew was evidently too familiar with the ground he traversed to be at all bewildered, either by the darkness of the night, or the intricacies of the way. he hurried through several alleys and streets, and at length turned into one, lighted only by a single lamp at the farther end. at the door of a house in this street, he knocked; having exchanged a few muttered words with the person who opened it, he walked upstairs. a dog growled as he touched the handle of a room-door; and a man's voice demanded who was there. 'only me, bill; only me, my dear,' said the jew looking in. 'bring in your body then,' said sikes. 'lie down, you stupid brute! don't you know the devil when he's got a great-coat on?' apparently, the dog had been somewhat deceived by mr. fagin's outer garment; for as the jew unbuttoned it, and threw it over the back of a chair, he retired to the corner from which he had risen: wagging his tail as he went, to show that he was as well satisfied as it was in his nature to be. 'well!' said sikes. 'well, my dear,' replied the jew.--'ah! nancy.' the latter recognition was uttered with just enough of embarrassment to imply a doubt of its reception; for mr. fagin and his young friend had not met, since she had interfered in behalf of oliver. all doubts upon the subject, if he had any, were speedily removed by the young lady's behaviour. she took her feet off the fender, pushed back her chair, and bade fagin draw up his, without saying more about it: for it was a cold night, and no mistake. 'it is cold, nancy dear,' said the jew, as he warmed his skinny hands over the fire. 'it seems to go right through one,' added the old man, touching his side. 'it must be a piercer, if it finds its way through your heart,' said mr. sikes. 'give him something to drink, nancy. burn my body, make haste! it's enough to turn a man ill, to see his lean old carcase shivering in that way, like a ugly ghost just rose from the grave.' nancy quickly brought a bottle from a cupboard, in which there were many: which, to judge from the diversity of their appearance, were filled with several kinds of liquids. sikes pouring out a glass of brandy, bade the jew drink it off. 'quite enough, quite, thankye, bill,' replied the jew, putting down the glass after just setting his lips to it. 'what! you're afraid of our getting the better of you, are you?' inquired sikes, fixing his eyes on the jew. 'ugh!' with a hoarse grunt of contempt, mr. sikes seized the glass, and threw the remainder of its contents into the ashes: as a preparatory ceremony to filling it again for himself: which he did at once. the jew glanced round the room, as his companion tossed down the second glassful; not in curiousity, for he had seen it often before; but in a restless and suspicious manner habitual to him. it was a meanly furnished apartment, with nothing but the contents of the closet to induce the belief that its occupier was anything but a working man; and with no more suspicious articles displayed to view than two or three heavy bludgeons which stood in a corner, and a 'life-preserver' that hung over the chimney-piece. 'there,' said sikes, smacking his lips. 'now i'm ready.' 'for business?' inquired the jew. 'for business,' replied sikes; 'so say what you've got to say.' 'about the crib at chertsey, bill?' said the jew, drawing his chair forward, and speaking in a very low voice. 'yes. wot about it?' inquired sikes. 'ah! you know what i mean, my dear,' said the jew. 'he knows what i mean, nancy; don't he?' 'no, he don't,' sneered mr. sikes. 'or he won't, and that's the same thing. speak out, and call things by their right names; don't sit there, winking and blinking, and talking to me in hints, as if you warn't the very first that thought about the robbery. wot d'ye mean?' 'hush, bill, hush!' said the jew, who had in vain attempted to stop this burst of indignation; 'somebody will hear us, my dear. somebody will hear us.' 'let 'em hear!' said sikes; 'i don't care.' but as mr. sikes did care, on reflection, he dropped his voice as he said the words, and grew calmer. 'there, there,' said the jew, coaxingly. 'it was only my caution, nothing more. now, my dear, about that crib at chertsey; when is it to be done, bill, eh? when is it to be done? such plate, my dear, such plate!' said the jew: rubbing his hands, and elevating his eyebrows in a rapture of anticipation. 'not at all,' replied sikes coldly. 'not to be done at all!' echoed the jew, leaning back in his chair. 'no, not at all,' rejoined sikes. 'at least it can't be a put-up job, as we expected.' 'then it hasn't been properly gone about,' said the jew, turning pale with anger. 'don't tell me!' 'but i will tell you,' retorted sikes. 'who are you that's not to be told? i tell you that toby crackit has been hanging about the place for a fortnight, and he can't get one of the servants in line.' 'do you mean to tell me, bill,' said the jew: softening as the other grew heated: 'that neither of the two men in the house can be got over?' 'yes, i do mean to tell you so,' replied sikes. 'the old lady has had 'em these twenty years; and if you were to give 'em five hundred pound, they wouldn't be in it.' 'but do you mean to say, my dear,' remonstrated the jew, 'that the women can't be got over?' 'not a bit of it,' replied sikes. 'not by flash toby crackit?' said the jew incredulously. 'think what women are, bill,' 'no; not even by flash toby crackit,' replied sikes. 'he says he's worn sham whiskers, and a canary waistcoat, the whole blessed time he's been loitering down there, and it's all of no use.' 'he should have tried mustachios and a pair of military trousers, my dear,' said the jew. 'so he did,' rejoined sikes, 'and they warn't of no more use than the other plant.' the jew looked blank at this information. after ruminating for some minutes with his chin sunk on his breast, he raised his head and said, with a deep sigh, that if flash toby crackit reported aright, he feared the game was up. 'and yet,' said the old man, dropping his hands on his knees, 'it's a sad thing, my dear, to lose so much when we had set our hearts upon it.' 'so it is,' said mr. sikes. 'worse luck!' a long silence ensued; during which the jew was plunged in deep thought, with his face wrinkled into an expression of villainy perfectly demoniacal. sikes eyed him furtively from time to time. nancy, apparently fearful of irritating the housebreaker, sat with her eyes fixed upon the fire, as if she had been deaf to all that passed. 'fagin,' said sikes, abruptly breaking the stillness that prevailed; 'is it worth fifty shiners extra, if it's safely done from the outside?' 'yes,' said the jew, as suddenly rousing himself. 'is it a bargain?' inquired sikes. 'yes, my dear, yes,' rejoined the jew; his eyes glistening, and every muscle in his face working, with the excitement that the inquiry had awakened. 'then,' said sikes, thrusting aside the jew's hand, with some disdain, 'let it come off as soon as you like. toby and me were over the garden-wall the night afore last, sounding the panels of the door and shutters. the crib's barred up at night like a jail; but there's one part we can crack, safe and softly.' 'which is that, bill?' asked the jew eagerly. 'why,' whispered sikes, 'as you cross the lawn--' 'yes?' said the jew, bending his head forward, with his eyes almost starting out of it. 'umph!' cried sikes, stopping short, as the girl, scarcely moving her head, looked suddenly round, and pointed for an instant to the jew's face. 'never mind which part it is. you can't do it without me, i know; but it's best to be on the safe side when one deals with you.' 'as you like, my dear, as you like' replied the jew. 'is there no help wanted, but yours and toby's?' 'none,' said sikes. 'cept a centre-bit and a boy. the first we've both got; the second you must find us.' 'a boy!' exclaimed the jew. 'oh! then it's a panel, eh?' 'never mind wot it is!' replied sikes. 'i want a boy, and he musn't be a big 'un. lord!' said mr. sikes, reflectively, 'if i'd only got that young boy of ned, the chimbley-sweeper's! he kept him small on purpose, and let him out by the job. but the father gets lagged; and then the juvenile delinquent society comes, and takes the boy away from a trade where he was earning money, teaches him to read and write, and in time makes a 'prentice of him. and so they go on,' said mr. sikes, his wrath rising with the recollection of his wrongs, 'so they go on; and, if they'd got money enough (which it's a providence they haven't,) we shouldn't have half a dozen boys left in the whole trade, in a year or two.' 'no more we should,' acquiesced the jew, who had been considering during this speech, and had only caught the last sentence. 'bill!' 'what now?' inquired sikes. the jew nodded his head towards nancy, who was still gazing at the fire; and intimated, by a sign, that he would have her told to leave the room. sikes shrugged his shoulders impatiently, as if he thought the precaution unnecessary; but complied, nevertheless, by requesting miss nancy to fetch him a jug of beer. 'you don't want any beer,' said nancy, folding her arms, and retaining her seat very composedly. 'i tell you i do!' replied sikes. 'nonsense,' rejoined the girl coolly, 'go on, fagin. i know what he's going to say, bill; he needn't mind me.' the jew still hesitated. sikes looked from one to the other in some surprise. 'why, you don't mind the old girl, do you, fagin?' he asked at length. 'you've known her long enough to trust her, or the devil's in it. she ain't one to blab. are you nancy?' '_i_ should think not!' replied the young lady: drawing her chair up to the table, and putting her elbows upon it. 'no, no, my dear, i know you're not,' said the jew; 'but--' and again the old man paused. 'but wot?' inquired sikes. 'i didn't know whether she mightn't p'r'aps be out of sorts, you know, my dear, as she was the other night,' replied the jew. at this confession, miss nancy burst into a loud laugh; and, swallowing a glass of brandy, shook her head with an air of defiance, and burst into sundry exclamations of 'keep the game a-going!' 'never say die!' and the like. these seemed to have the effect of re-assuring both gentlemen; for the jew nodded his head with a satisfied air, and resumed his seat: as did mr. sikes likewise. 'now, fagin,' said nancy with a laugh. 'tell bill at once, about oliver!' 'ha! you're a clever one, my dear: the sharpest girl i ever saw!' said the jew, patting her on the neck. 'it was about oliver i was going to speak, sure enough. ha! ha! ha!' 'what about him?' demanded sikes. 'he's the boy for you, my dear,' replied the jew in a hoarse whisper; laying his finger on the side of his nose, and grinning frightfully. 'he!' exclaimed sikes. 'have him, bill!' said nancy. 'i would, if i was in your place. he mayn't be so much up, as any of the others; but that's not what you want, if he's only to open a door for you. depend upon it he's a safe one, bill.' 'i know he is,' rejoined fagin. 'he's been in good training these last few weeks, and it's time he began to work for his bread. besides, the others are all too big.' 'well, he is just the size i want,' said mr. sikes, ruminating. 'and will do everything you want, bill, my dear,' interposed the jew; 'he can't help himself. that is, if you frighten him enough.' 'frighten him!' echoed sikes. 'it'll be no sham frightening, mind you. if there's anything queer about him when we once get into the work; in for a penny, in for a pound. you won't see him alive again, fagin. think of that, before you send him. mark my words!' said the robber, poising a crowbar, which he had drawn from under the bedstead. 'i've thought of it all,' said the jew with energy. 'i've--i've had my eye upon him, my dears, close--close. once let him feel that he is one of us; once fill his mind with the idea that he has been a thief; and he's ours! ours for his life. oho! it couldn't have come about better! the old man crossed his arms upon his breast; and, drawing his head and shoulders into a heap, literally hugged himself for joy. 'ours!' said sikes. 'yours, you mean.' 'perhaps i do, my dear,' said the jew, with a shrill chuckle. 'mine, if you like, bill.' 'and wot,' said sikes, scowling fiercely on his agreeable friend, 'wot makes you take so much pains about one chalk-faced kid, when you know there are fifty boys snoozing about common garden every night, as you might pick and choose from?' 'because they're of no use to me, my dear,' replied the jew, with some confusion, 'not worth the taking. their looks convict 'em when they get into trouble, and i lose 'em all. with this boy, properly managed, my dears, i could do what i couldn't with twenty of them. besides,' said the jew, recovering his self-possession, 'he has us now if he could only give us leg-bail again; and he must be in the same boat with us. never mind how he came there; it's quite enough for my power over him that he was in a robbery; that's all i want. now, how much better this is, than being obliged to put the poor leetle boy out of the way--which would be dangerous, and we should lose by it besides.' 'when is it to be done?' asked nancy, stopping some turbulent exclamation on the part of mr. sikes, expressive of the disgust with which he received fagin's affectation of humanity. 'ah, to be sure,' said the jew; 'when is it to be done, bill?' 'i planned with toby, the night arter to-morrow,' rejoined sikes in a surly voice, 'if he heerd nothing from me to the contrairy.' 'good,' said the jew; 'there's no moon.' 'no,' rejoined sikes. 'it's all arranged about bringing off the swag, is it?' asked the jew. sikes nodded. 'and about--' 'oh, ah, it's all planned,' rejoined sikes, interrupting him. 'never mind particulars. you'd better bring the boy here to-morrow night. i shall get off the stone an hour arter daybreak. then you hold your tongue, and keep the melting-pot ready, and that's all you'll have to do.' after some discussion, in which all three took an active part, it was decided that nancy should repair to the jew's next evening when the night had set in, and bring oliver away with her; fagin craftily observing, that, if he evinced any disinclination to the task, he would be more willing to accompany the girl who had so recently interfered in his behalf, than anybody else. it was also solemnly arranged that poor oliver should, for the purposes of the contemplated expedition, be unreservedly consigned to the care and custody of mr. william sikes; and further, that the said sikes should deal with him as he thought fit; and should not be held responsible by the jew for any mischance or evil that might be necessary to visit him: it being understood that, to render the compact in this respect binding, any representations made by mr. sikes on his return should be required to be confirmed and corroborated, in all important particulars, by the testimony of flash toby crackit. these preliminaries adjusted, mr. sikes proceeded to drink brandy at a furious rate, and to flourish the crowbar in an alarming manner; yelling forth, at the same time, most unmusical snatches of song, mingled with wild execrations. at length, in a fit of professional enthusiasm, he insisted upon producing his box of housebreaking tools: which he had no sooner stumbled in with, and opened for the purpose of explaining the nature and properties of the various implements it contained, and the peculiar beauties of their construction, than he fell over the box upon the floor, and went to sleep where he fell. 'good-night, nancy,' said the jew, muffling himself up as before. 'good-night.' their eyes met, and the jew scrutinised her, narrowly. there was no flinching about the girl. she was as true and earnest in the matter as toby crackit himself could be. the jew again bade her good-night, and, bestowing a sly kick upon the prostrate form of mr. sikes while her back was turned, groped downstairs. 'always the way!' muttered the jew to himself as he turned homeward. 'the worst of these women is, that a very little thing serves to call up some long-forgotten feeling; and, the best of them is, that it never lasts. ha! ha! the man against the child, for a bag of gold!' beguiling the time with these pleasant reflections, mr. fagin wended his way, through mud and mire, to his gloomy abode: where the dodger was sitting up, impatiently awaiting his return. 'is oliver a-bed? i want to speak to him,' was his first remark as they descended the stairs. 'hours ago,' replied the dodger, throwing open a door. 'here he is!' the boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor; so pale with anxiety, and sadness, and the closeness of his prison, that he looked like death; not death as it shows in shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to heaven, and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed. 'not now,' said the jew, turning softly away. 'to-morrow. to-morrow.' chapter xx wherein oliver is delivered over to mr. william sikes when oliver awoke in the morning, he was a good deal surprised to find that a new pair of shoes, with strong thick soles, had been placed at his bedside; and that his old shoes had been removed. at first, he was pleased with the discovery: hoping that it might be the forerunner of his release; but such thoughts were quickly dispelled, on his sitting down to breakfast along with the jew, who told him, in a tone and manner which increased his alarm, that he was to be taken to the residence of bill sikes that night. 'to--to--stop there, sir?' asked oliver, anxiously. 'no, no, my dear. not to stop there,' replied the jew. 'we shouldn't like to lose you. don't be afraid, oliver, you shall come back to us again. ha! ha! ha! we won't be so cruel as to send you away, my dear. oh no, no!' the old man, who was stooping over the fire toasting a piece of bread, looked round as he bantered oliver thus; and chuckled as if to show that he knew he would still be very glad to get away if he could. 'i suppose,' said the jew, fixing his eyes on oliver, 'you want to know what you're going to bill's for---eh, my dear?' oliver coloured, involuntarily, to find that the old thief had been reading his thoughts; but boldly said, yes, he did want to know. 'why, do you think?' inquired fagin, parrying the question. 'indeed i don't know, sir,' replied oliver. 'bah!' said the jew, turning away with a disappointed countenance from a close perusal of the boy's face. 'wait till bill tells you, then.' the jew seemed much vexed by oliver's not expressing any greater curiosity on the subject; but the truth is, that, although oliver felt very anxious, he was too much confused by the earnest cunning of fagin's looks, and his own speculations, to make any further inquiries just then. he had no other opportunity: for the jew remained very surly and silent till night: when he prepared to go abroad. 'you may burn a candle,' said the jew, putting one upon the table. 'and here's a book for you to read, till they come to fetch you. good-night!' 'good-night!' replied oliver, softly. the jew walked to the door: looking over his shoulder at the boy as he went. suddenly stopping, he called him by his name. oliver looked up; the jew, pointing to the candle, motioned him to light it. he did so; and, as he placed the candlestick upon the table, saw that the jew was gazing fixedly at him, with lowering and contracted brows, from the dark end of the room. 'take heed, oliver! take heed!' said the old man, shaking his right hand before him in a warning manner. 'he's a rough man, and thinks nothing of blood when his own is up. whatever falls out, say nothing; and do what he bids you. mind!' placing a strong emphasis on the last word, he suffered his features gradually to resolve themselves into a ghastly grin, and, nodding his head, left the room. oliver leaned his head upon his hand when the old man disappeared, and pondered, with a trembling heart, on the words he had just heard. the more he thought of the jew's admonition, the more he was at a loss to divine its real purpose and meaning. he could think of no bad object to be attained by sending him to sikes, which would not be equally well answered by his remaining with fagin; and after meditating for a long time, concluded that he had been selected to perform some ordinary menial offices for the housebreaker, until another boy, better suited for his purpose could be engaged. he was too well accustomed to suffering, and had suffered too much where he was, to bewail the prospect of change very severely. he remained lost in thought for some minutes; and then, with a heavy sigh, snuffed the candle, and, taking up the book which the jew had left with him, began to read. he turned over the leaves. carelessly at first; but, lighting on a passage which attracted his attention, he soon became intent upon the volume. it was a history of the lives and trials of great criminals; and the pages were soiled and thumbed with use. here, he read of dreadful crimes that made the blood run cold; of secret murders that had been committed by the lonely wayside; of bodies hidden from the eye of man in deep pits and wells: which would not keep them down, deep as they were, but had yielded them up at last, after many years, and so maddened the murderers with the sight, that in their horror they had confessed their guilt, and yelled for the gibbet to end their agony. here, too, he read of men who, lying in their beds at dead of night, had been tempted (so they said) and led on, by their own bad thoughts, to such dreadful bloodshed as it made the flesh creep, and the limbs quail, to think of. the terrible descriptions were so real and vivid, that the sallow pages seemed to turn red with gore; and the words upon them, to be sounded in his ears, as if they were whispered, in hollow murmurs, by the spirits of the dead. in a paroxysm of fear, the boy closed the book, and thrust it from him. then, falling upon his knees, he prayed heaven to spare him from such deeds; and rather to will that he should die at once, than be reserved for crimes, so fearful and appalling. by degrees, he grew more calm, and besought, in a low and broken voice, that he might be rescued from his present dangers; and that if any aid were to be raised up for a poor outcast boy who had never known the love of friends or kindred, it might come to him now, when, desolate and deserted, he stood alone in the midst of wickedness and guilt. he had concluded his prayer, but still remained with his head buried in his hands, when a rustling noise aroused him. 'what's that!' he cried, starting up, and catching sight of a figure standing by the door. 'who's there?' 'me. only me,' replied a tremulous voice. oliver raised the candle above his head: and looked towards the door. it was nancy. 'put down the light,' said the girl, turning away her head. 'it hurts my eyes.' oliver saw that she was very pale, and gently inquired if she were ill. the girl threw herself into a chair, with her back towards him: and wrung her hands; but made no reply. 'god forgive me!' she cried after a while, 'i never thought of this.' 'has anything happened?' asked oliver. 'can i help you? i will if i can. i will, indeed.' she rocked herself to and fro; caught her throat; and, uttering a gurgling sound, gasped for breath. 'nancy!' cried oliver, 'what is it?' the girl beat her hands upon her knees, and her feet upon the ground; and, suddenly stopping, drew her shawl close round her: and shivered with cold. oliver stirred the fire. drawing her chair close to it, she sat there, for a little time, without speaking; but at length she raised her head, and looked round. 'i don't know what comes over me sometimes,' said she, affecting to busy herself in arranging her dress; 'it's this damp dirty room, i think. now, nolly, dear, are you ready?' 'am i to go with you?' asked oliver. 'yes. i have come from bill,' replied the girl. 'you are to go with me.' 'what for?' asked oliver, recoiling. 'what for?' echoed the girl, raising her eyes, and averting them again, the moment they encountered the boy's face. 'oh! for no harm.' 'i don't believe it,' said oliver: who had watched her closely. 'have it your own way,' rejoined the girl, affecting to laugh. 'for no good, then.' oliver could see that he had some power over the girl's better feelings, and, for an instant, thought of appealing to her compassion for his helpless state. but, then, the thought darted across his mind that it was barely eleven o'clock; and that many people were still in the streets: of whom surely some might be found to give credence to his tale. as the reflection occured to him, he stepped forward: and said, somewhat hastily, that he was ready. neither his brief consideration, nor its purport, was lost on his companion. she eyed him narrowly, while he spoke; and cast upon him a look of intelligence which sufficiently showed that she guessed what had been passing in his thoughts. 'hush!' said the girl, stooping over him, and pointing to the door as she looked cautiously round. 'you can't help yourself. i have tried hard for you, but all to no purpose. you are hedged round and round. if ever you are to get loose from here, this is not the time.' struck by the energy of her manner, oliver looked up in her face with great surprise. she seemed to speak the truth; her countenance was white and agitated; and she trembled with very earnestness. 'i have saved you from being ill-used once, and i will again, and i do now,' continued the girl aloud; 'for those who would have fetched you, if i had not, would have been far more rough than me. i have promised for your being quiet and silent; if you are not, you will only do harm to yourself and me too, and perhaps be my death. see here! i have borne all this for you already, as true as god sees me show it.' she pointed, hastily, to some livid bruises on her neck and arms; and continued, with great rapidity: 'remember this! and don't let me suffer more for you, just now. if i could help you, i would; but i have not the power. they don't mean to harm you; whatever they make you do, is no fault of yours. hush! every word from you is a blow for me. give me your hand. make haste! your hand!' she caught the hand which oliver instinctively placed in hers, and, blowing out the light, drew him after her up the stairs. the door was opened, quickly, by some one shrouded in the darkness, and was as quickly closed, when they had passed out. a hackney-cabriolet was in waiting; with the same vehemence which she had exhibited in addressing oliver, the girl pulled him in with her, and drew the curtains close. the driver wanted no directions, but lashed his horse into full speed, without the delay of an instant. the girl still held oliver fast by the hand, and continued to pour into his ear, the warnings and assurances she had already imparted. all was so quick and hurried, that he had scarcely time to recollect where he was, or how he came there, when the carriage stopped at the house to which the jew's steps had been directed on the previous evening. for one brief moment, oliver cast a hurried glance along the empty street, and a cry for help hung upon his lips. but the girl's voice was in his ear, beseeching him in such tones of agony to remember her, that he had not the heart to utter it. while he hesitated, the opportunity was gone; he was already in the house, and the door was shut. 'this way,' said the girl, releasing her hold for the first time. 'bill!' 'hallo!' replied sikes: appearing at the head of the stairs, with a candle. 'oh! that's the time of day. come on!' this was a very strong expression of approbation, an uncommonly hearty welcome, from a person of mr. sikes' temperament. nancy, appearing much gratified thereby, saluted him cordially. 'bull's-eye's gone home with tom,' observed sikes, as he lighted them up. 'he'd have been in the way.' 'that's right,' rejoined nancy. 'so you've got the kid,' said sikes when they had all reached the room: closing the door as he spoke. 'yes, here he is,' replied nancy. 'did he come quiet?' inquired sikes. 'like a lamb,' rejoined nancy. 'i'm glad to hear it,' said sikes, looking grimly at oliver; 'for the sake of his young carcase: as would otherways have suffered for it. come here, young 'un; and let me read you a lectur', which is as well got over at once.' thus addressing his new pupil, mr. sikes pulled off oliver's cap and threw it into a corner; and then, taking him by the shoulder, sat himself down by the table, and stood the boy in front of him. 'now, first: do you know wot this is?' inquired sikes, taking up a pocket-pistol which lay on the table. oliver replied in the affirmative. 'well, then, look here,' continued sikes. 'this is powder; that 'ere's a bullet; and this is a little bit of a old hat for waddin'.' oliver murmured his comprehension of the different bodies referred to; and mr. sikes proceeded to load the pistol, with great nicety and deliberation. 'now it's loaded,' said mr. sikes, when he had finished. 'yes, i see it is, sir,' replied oliver. 'well,' said the robber, grasping oliver's wrist, and putting the barrel so close to his temple that they touched; at which moment the boy could not repress a start; 'if you speak a word when you're out o'doors with me, except when i speak to you, that loading will be in your head without notice. so, if you _do_ make up your mind to speak without leave, say your prayers first.' having bestowed a scowl upon the object of this warning, to increase its effect, mr. sikes continued. 'as near as i know, there isn't anybody as would be asking very partickler arter you, if you _was_ disposed of; so i needn't take this devil-and-all of trouble to explain matters to you, if it warn't for your own good. d'ye hear me?' 'the short and the long of what you mean,' said nancy: speaking very emphatically, and slightly frowning at oliver as if to bespeak his serious attention to her words: 'is, that if you're crossed by him in this job you have on hand, you'll prevent his ever telling tales afterwards, by shooting him through the head, and will take your chance of swinging for it, as you do for a great many other things in the way of business, every month of your life.' 'that's it!' observed mr. sikes, approvingly; 'women can always put things in fewest words.--except when it's blowing up; and then they lengthens it out. and now that he's thoroughly up to it, let's have some supper, and get a snooze before starting.' in pursuance of this request, nancy quickly laid the cloth; disappearing for a few minutes, she presently returned with a pot of porter and a dish of sheep's heads: which gave occasion to several pleasant witticisms on the part of mr. sikes, founded upon the singular coincidence of 'jemmies' being a can name, common to them, and also to an ingenious implement much used in his profession. indeed, the worthy gentleman, stimulated perhaps by the immediate prospect of being on active service, was in great spirits and good humour; in proof whereof, it may be here remarked, that he humourously drank all the beer at a draught, and did not utter, on a rough calculation, more than four-score oaths during the whole progress of the meal. supper being ended--it may be easily conceived that oliver had no great appetite for it--mr. sikes disposed of a couple of glasses of spirits and water, and threw himself on the bed; ordering nancy, with many imprecations in case of failure, to call him at five precisely. oliver stretched himself in his clothes, by command of the same authority, on a mattress upon the floor; and the girl, mending the fire, sat before it, in readiness to rouse them at the appointed time. for a long time oliver lay awake, thinking it not impossible that nancy might seek that opportunity of whispering some further advice; but the girl sat brooding over the fire, without moving, save now and then to trim the light. weary with watching and anxiety, he at length fell asleep. when he awoke, the table was covered with tea-things, and sikes was thrusting various articles into the pockets of his great-coat, which hung over the back of a chair. nancy was busily engaged in preparing breakfast. it was not yet daylight; for the candle was still burning, and it was quite dark outside. a sharp rain, too, was beating against the window-panes; and the sky looked black and cloudy. 'now, then!' growled sikes, as oliver started up; 'half-past five! look sharp, or you'll get no breakfast; for it's late as it is.' oliver was not long in making his toilet; having taken some breakfast, he replied to a surly inquiry from sikes, by saying that he was quite ready. nancy, scarcely looking at the boy, threw him a handkerchief to tie round his throat; sikes gave him a large rough cape to button over his shoulders. thus attired, he gave his hand to the robber, who, merely pausing to show him with a menacing gesture that he had that same pistol in a side-pocket of his great-coat, clasped it firmly in his, and, exchanging a farewell with nancy, led him away. oliver turned, for an instant, when they reached the door, in the hope of meeting a look from the girl. but she had resumed her old seat in front of the fire, and sat, perfectly motionless before it. chapter xxi the expedition it was a cheerless morning when they got into the street; blowing and raining hard; and the clouds looking dull and stormy. the night had been very wet: large pools of water had collected in the road: and the kennels were overflowing. there was a faint glimmering of the coming day in the sky; but it rather aggravated than relieved the gloom of the scene: the sombre light only serving to pale that which the street lamps afforded, without shedding any warmer or brighter tints upon the wet house-tops, and dreary streets. there appeared to be nobody stirring in that quarter of the town; the windows of the houses were all closely shut; and the streets through which they passed, were noiseless and empty. by the time they had turned into the bethnal green road, the day had fairly begun to break. many of the lamps were already extinguished; a few country waggons were slowly toiling on, towards london; now and then, a stage-coach, covered with mud, rattled briskly by: the driver bestowing, as he passed, an admonitory lash upon the heavy waggoner who, by keeping on the wrong side of the road, had endangered his arriving at the office, a quarter of a minute after his time. the public-houses, with gas-lights burning inside, were already open. by degrees, other shops began to be unclosed, and a few scattered people were met with. then, came straggling groups of labourers going to their work; then, men and women with fish-baskets on their heads; donkey-carts laden with vegetables; chaise-carts filled with live-stock or whole carcasses of meat; milk-women with pails; an unbroken concourse of people, trudging out with various supplies to the eastern suburbs of the town. as they approached the city, the noise and traffic gradually increased; when they threaded the streets between shoreditch and smithfield, it had swelled into a roar of sound and bustle. it was as light as it was likely to be, till night came on again, and the busy morning of half the london population had begun. turning down sun street and crown street, and crossing finsbury square, mr. sikes struck, by way of chiswell street, into barbican: thence into long lane, and so into smithfield; from which latter place arose a tumult of discordant sounds that filled oliver twist with amazement. it was market-morning. the ground was covered, nearly ankle-deep, with filth and mire; a thick steam, perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above. all the pens in the centre of the large area, and as many temporary pens as could be crowded into the vacant space, were filled with sheep; tied up to posts by the gutter side were long lines of beasts and oxen, three or four deep. countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a mass; the whistling of drovers, the barking dogs, the bellowing and plunging of the oxen, the bleating of sheep, the grunting and squeaking of pigs, the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides; the ringing of bells and roar of voices, that issued from every public-house; the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping and yelling; the hideous and discordant dim that resounded from every corner of the market; and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and dirty figures constantly running to and fro, and bursting in and out of the throng; rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene, which quite confounded the senses. mr. sikes, dragging oliver after him, elbowed his way through the thickest of the crowd, and bestowed very little attention on the numerous sights and sounds, which so astonished the boy. he nodded, twice or thrice, to a passing friend; and, resisting as many invitations to take a morning dram, pressed steadily onward, until they were clear of the turmoil, and had made their way through hosier lane into holborn. 'now, young 'un!' said sikes, looking up at the clock of st. andrew's church, 'hard upon seven! you must step out. come, don't lag behind already, lazy-legs!' mr. sikes accompanied this speech with a jerk at his little companion's wrist; oliver, quickening his pace into a kind of trot between a fast walk and a run, kept up with the rapid strides of the house-breaker as well as he could. they held their course at this rate, until they had passed hyde park corner, and were on their way to kensington: when sikes relaxed his pace, until an empty cart which was at some little distance behind, came up. seeing 'hounslow' written on it, he asked the driver with as much civility as he could assume, if he would give them a lift as far as isleworth. 'jump up,' said the man. 'is that your boy?' 'yes; he's my boy,' replied sikes, looking hard at oliver, and putting his hand abstractedly into the pocket where the pistol was. 'your father walks rather too quick for you, don't he, my man?' inquired the driver: seeing that oliver was out of breath. 'not a bit of it,' replied sikes, interposing. 'he's used to it. here, take hold of my hand, ned. in with you!' thus addressing oliver, he helped him into the cart; and the driver, pointing to a heap of sacks, told him to lie down there, and rest himself. as they passed the different mile-stones, oliver wondered, more and more, where his companion meant to take him. kensington, hammersmith, chiswick, kew bridge, brentford, were all passed; and yet they went on as steadily as if they had only just begun their journey. at length, they came to a public-house called the coach and horses; a little way beyond which, another road appeared to run off. and here, the cart stopped. sikes dismounted with great precipitation, holding oliver by the hand all the while; and lifting him down directly, bestowed a furious look upon him, and rapped the side-pocket with his fist, in a significant manner. 'good-bye, boy,' said the man. 'he's sulky,' replied sikes, giving him a shake; 'he's sulky. a young dog! don't mind him.' 'not i!' rejoined the other, getting into his cart. 'it's a fine day, after all.' and he drove away. sikes waited until he had fairly gone; and then, telling oliver he might look about him if he wanted, once again led him onward on his journey. they turned round to the left, a short way past the public-house; and then, taking a right-hand road, walked on for a long time: passing many large gardens and gentlemen's houses on both sides of the way, and stopping for nothing but a little beer, until they reached a town. here against the wall of a house, oliver saw written up in pretty large letters, 'hampton.' they lingered about, in the fields, for some hours. at length they came back into the town; and, turning into an old public-house with a defaced sign-board, ordered some dinner by the kitchen fire. the kitchen was an old, low-roofed room; with a great beam across the middle of the ceiling, and benches, with high backs to them, by the fire; on which were seated several rough men in smock-frocks, drinking and smoking. they took no notice of oliver; and very little of sikes; and, as sikes took very little notice of them, he and his young comrade sat in a corner by themselves, without being much troubled by their company. they had some cold meat for dinner, and sat so long after it, while mr. sikes indulged himself with three or four pipes, that oliver began to feel quite certain they were not going any further. being much tired with the walk, and getting up so early, he dozed a little at first; then, quite overpowered by fatigue and the fumes of the tobacco, fell asleep. it was quite dark when he was awakened by a push from sikes. rousing himself sufficiently to sit up and look about him, he found that worthy in close fellowship and communication with a labouring man, over a pint of ale. 'so, you're going on to lower halliford, are you?' inquired sikes. 'yes, i am,' replied the man, who seemed a little the worse--or better, as the case might be--for drinking; 'and not slow about it neither. my horse hasn't got a load behind him going back, as he had coming up in the mornin'; and he won't be long a-doing of it. here's luck to him. ecod! he's a good 'un!' 'could you give my boy and me a lift as far as there?' demanded sikes, pushing the ale towards his new friend. 'if you're going directly, i can,' replied the man, looking out of the pot. 'are you going to halliford?' 'going on to shepperton,' replied sikes. 'i'm your man, as far as i go,' replied the other. 'is all paid, becky?' 'yes, the other gentleman's paid,' replied the girl. 'i say!' said the man, with tipsy gravity; 'that won't do, you know.' 'why not?' rejoined sikes. 'you're a-going to accommodate us, and wot's to prevent my standing treat for a pint or so, in return?' the stranger reflected upon this argument, with a very profound face; having done so, he seized sikes by the hand: and declared he was a real good fellow. to which mr. sikes replied, he was joking; as, if he had been sober, there would have been strong reason to suppose he was. after the exchange of a few more compliments, they bade the company good-night, and went out; the girl gathering up the pots and glasses as they did so, and lounging out to the door, with her hands full, to see the party start. the horse, whose health had been drunk in his absence, was standing outside: ready harnessed to the cart. oliver and sikes got in without any further ceremony; and the man to whom he belonged, having lingered for a minute or two 'to bear him up,' and to defy the hostler and the world to produce his equal, mounted also. then, the hostler was told to give the horse his head; and, his head being given him, he made a very unpleasant use of it: tossing it into the air with great disdain, and running into the parlour windows over the way; after performing those feats, and supporting himself for a short time on his hind-legs, he started off at great speed, and rattled out of the town right gallantly. the night was very dark. a damp mist rose from the river, and the marshy ground about; and spread itself over the dreary fields. it was piercing cold, too; all was gloomy and black. not a word was spoken; for the driver had grown sleepy; and sikes was in no mood to lead him into conversation. oliver sat huddled together, in a corner of the cart; bewildered with alarm and apprehension; and figuring strange objects in the gaunt trees, whose branches waved grimly to and fro, as if in some fantastic joy at the desolation of the scene. as they passed sunbury church, the clock struck seven. there was a light in the ferry-house window opposite: which streamed across the road, and threw into more sombre shadow a dark yew-tree with graves beneath it. there was a dull sound of falling water not far off; and the leaves of the old tree stirred gently in the night wind. it seemed like quiet music for the repose of the dead. sunbury was passed through, and they came again into the lonely road. two or three miles more, and the cart stopped. sikes alighted, took oliver by the hand, and they once again walked on. they turned into no house at shepperton, as the weary boy had expected; but still kept walking on, in mud and darkness, through gloomy lanes and over cold open wastes, until they came within sight of the lights of a town at no great distance. on looking intently forward, oliver saw that the water was just below them, and that they were coming to the foot of a bridge. sikes kept straight on, until they were close upon the bridge; then turned suddenly down a bank upon the left. 'the water!' thought oliver, turning sick with fear. 'he has brought me to this lonely place to murder me!' he was about to throw himself on the ground, and make one struggle for his young life, when he saw that they stood before a solitary house: all ruinous and decayed. there was a window on each side of the dilapidated entrance; and one story above; but no light was visible. the house was dark, dismantled: and the all appearance, uninhabited. sikes, with oliver's hand still in his, softly approached the low porch, and raised the latch. the door yielded to the pressure, and they passed in together. chapter xxii the burglary 'hallo!' cried a loud, hoarse voice, as soon as they set foot in the passage. 'don't make such a row,' said sikes, bolting the door. 'show a glim, toby.' 'aha! my pal!' cried the same voice. 'a glim, barney, a glim! show the gentleman in, barney; wake up first, if convenient.' the speaker appeared to throw a boot-jack, or some such article, at the person he addressed, to rouse him from his slumbers: for the noise of a wooden body, falling violently, was heard; and then an indistinct muttering, as of a man between sleep and awake. 'do you hear?' cried the same voice. 'there's bill sikes in the passage with nobody to do the civil to him; and you sleeping there, as if you took laudanum with your meals, and nothing stronger. are you any fresher now, or do you want the iron candlestick to wake you thoroughly?' a pair of slipshod feet shuffled, hastily, across the bare floor of the room, as this interrogatory was put; and there issued, from a door on the right hand; first, a feeble candle: and next, the form of the same individual who has been heretofore described as labouring under the infirmity of speaking through his nose, and officiating as waiter at the public-house on saffron hill. 'bister sikes!' exclaimed barney, with real or counterfeit joy; 'cub id, sir; cub id.' 'here! you get on first,' said sikes, putting oliver in front of him. 'quicker! or i shall tread upon your heels.' muttering a curse upon his tardiness, sikes pushed oliver before him; and they entered a low dark room with a smoky fire, two or three broken chairs, a table, and a very old couch: on which, with his legs much higher than his head, a man was reposing at full length, smoking a long clay pipe. he was dressed in a smartly-cut snuff-coloured coat, with large brass buttons; an orange neckerchief; a coarse, staring, shawl-pattern waistcoat; and drab breeches. mr. crackit (for he it was) had no very great quantity of hair, either upon his head or face; but what he had, was of a reddish dye, and tortured into long corkscrew curls, through which he occasionally thrust some very dirty fingers, ornamented with large common rings. he was a trifle above the middle size, and apparently rather weak in the legs; but this circumstance by no means detracted from his own admiration of his top-boots, which he contemplated, in their elevated situation, with lively satisfaction. 'bill, my boy!' said this figure, turning his head towards the door, 'i'm glad to see you. i was almost afraid you'd given it up: in which case i should have made a personal wentur. hallo!' uttering this exclamation in a tone of great surprise, as his eyes rested on oliver, mr. toby crackit brought himself into a sitting posture, and demanded who that was. 'the boy. only the boy!' replied sikes, drawing a chair towards the fire. 'wud of bister fagid's lads,' exclaimed barney, with a grin. 'fagin's, eh!' exclaimed toby, looking at oliver. 'wot an inwalable boy that'll make, for the old ladies' pockets in chapels! his mug is a fortin' to him.' 'there--there's enough of that,' interposed sikes, impatiently; and stooping over his recumbant friend, he whispered a few words in his ear: at which mr. crackit laughed immensely, and honoured oliver with a long stare of astonishment. 'now,' said sikes, as he resumed his seat, 'if you'll give us something to eat and drink while we're waiting, you'll put some heart in us; or in me, at all events. sit down by the fire, younker, and rest yourself; for you'll have to go out with us again to-night, though not very far off.' oliver looked at sikes, in mute and timid wonder; and drawing a stool to the fire, sat with his aching head upon his hands, scarecely knowing where he was, or what was passing around him. 'here,' said toby, as the young jew placed some fragments of food, and a bottle upon the table, 'success to the crack!' he rose to honour the toast; and, carefully depositing his empty pipe in a corner, advanced to the table, filled a glass with spirits, and drank off its contents. mr. sikes did the same. 'a drain for the boy,' said toby, half-filling a wine-glass. 'down with it, innocence.' 'indeed,' said oliver, looking piteously up into the man's face; 'indeed, i--' 'down with it!' echoed toby. 'do you think i don't know what's good for you? tell him to drink it, bill.' 'he had better!' said sikes clapping his hand upon his pocket. 'burn my body, if he isn't more trouble than a whole family of dodgers. drink it, you perwerse imp; drink it!' frightened by the menacing gestures of the two men, oliver hastily swallowed the contents of the glass, and immediately fell into a violent fit of coughing: which delighted toby crackit and barney, and even drew a smile from the surly mr. sikes. this done, and sikes having satisfied his appetite (oliver could eat nothing but a small crust of bread which they made him swallow), the two men laid themselves down on chairs for a short nap. oliver retained his stool by the fire; barney wrapped in a blanket, stretched himself on the floor: close outside the fender. they slept, or appeared to sleep, for some time; nobody stirring but barney, who rose once or twice to throw coals on the fire. oliver fell into a heavy doze: imagining himself straying along the gloomy lanes, or wandering about the dark churchyard, or retracing some one or other of the scenes of the past day: when he was roused by toby crackit jumping up and declaring it was half-past one. in an instant, the other two were on their legs, and all were actively engaged in busy preparation. sikes and his companion enveloped their necks and chins in large dark shawls, and drew on their great-coats; barney, opening a cupboard, brought forth several articles, which he hastily crammed into the pockets. 'barkers for me, barney,' said toby crackit. 'here they are,' replied barney, producing a pair of pistols. 'you loaded them yourself.' 'all right!' replied toby, stowing them away. 'the persuaders?' 'i've got 'em,' replied sikes. 'crape, keys, centre-bits, darkies--nothing forgotten?' inquired toby: fastening a small crowbar to a loop inside the skirt of his coat. 'all right,' rejoined his companion. 'bring them bits of timber, barney. that's the time of day.' with these words, he took a thick stick from barney's hands, who, having delivered another to toby, busied himself in fastening on oliver's cape. 'now then!' said sikes, holding out his hand. oliver: who was completely stupified by the unwonted exercise, and the air, and the drink which had been forced upon him: put his hand mechanically into that which sikes extended for the purpose. 'take his other hand, toby,' said sikes. 'look out, barney.' the man went to the door, and returned to announce that all was quiet. the two robbers issued forth with oliver between them. barney, having made all fast, rolled himself up as before, and was soon asleep again. it was now intensely dark. the fog was much heavier than it had been in the early part of the night; and the atmosphere was so damp, that, although no rain fell, oliver's hair and eyebrows, within a few minutes after leaving the house, had become stiff with the half-frozen moisture that was floating about. they crossed the bridge, and kept on towards the lights which he had seen before. they were at no great distance off; and, as they walked pretty briskly, they soon arrived at chertsey. 'slap through the town,' whispered sikes; 'there'll be nobody in the way, to-night, to see us.' toby acquiesced; and they hurried through the main street of the little town, which at that late hour was wholly deserted. a dim light shone at intervals from some bed-room window; and the hoarse barking of dogs occasionally broke the silence of the night. but there was nobody abroad. they had cleared the town, as the church-bell struck two. quickening their pace, they turned up a road upon the left hand. after walking about a quarter of a mile, they stopped before a detached house surrounded by a wall: to the top of which, toby crackit, scarcely pausing to take breath, climbed in a twinkling. 'the boy next,' said toby. 'hoist him up; i'll catch hold of him.' before oliver had time to look round, sikes had caught him under the arms; and in three or four seconds he and toby were lying on the grass on the other side. sikes followed directly. and they stole cautiously towards the house. and now, for the first time, oliver, well-nigh mad with grief and terror, saw that housebreaking and robbery, if not murder, were the objects of the expedition. he clasped his hands together, and involuntarily uttered a subdued exclamation of horror. a mist came before his eyes; the cold sweat stood upon his ashy face; his limbs failed him; and he sank upon his knees. 'get up!' murmured sikes, trembling with rage, and drawing the pistol from his pocket; 'get up, or i'll strew your brains upon the grass.' 'oh! for god's sake let me go!' cried oliver; 'let me run away and die in the fields. i will never come near london; never, never! oh! pray have mercy on me, and do not make me steal. for the love of all the bright angels that rest in heaven, have mercy upon me!' the man to whom this appeal was made, swore a dreadful oath, and had cocked the pistol, when toby, striking it from his grasp, placed his hand upon the boy's mouth, and dragged him to the house. 'hush!' cried the man; 'it won't answer here. say another word, and i'll do your business myself with a crack on the head. that makes no noise, and is quite as certain, and more genteel. here, bill, wrench the shutter open. he's game enough now, i'll engage. i've seen older hands of his age took the same way, for a minute or two, on a cold night.' sikes, invoking terrific imprecations upon fagin's head for sending oliver on such an errand, plied the crowbar vigorously, but with little noise. after some delay, and some assistance from toby, the shutter to which he had referred, swung open on its hinges. it was a little lattice window, about five feet and a half above the ground, at the back of the house: which belonged to a scullery, or small brewing-place, at the end of the passage. the aperture was so small, that the inmates had probably not thought it worth while to defend it more securely; but it was large enough to admit a boy of oliver's size, nevertheless. a very brief exercise of mr. sike's art, sufficed to overcome the fastening of the lattice; and it soon stood wide open also. 'now listen, you young limb,' whispered sikes, drawing a dark lantern from his pocket, and throwing the glare full on oliver's face; 'i'm a going to put you through there. take this light; go softly up the steps straight afore you, and along the little hall, to the street door; unfasten it, and let us in.' 'there's a bolt at the top, you won't be able to reach,' interposed toby. 'stand upon one of the hall chairs. there are three there, bill, with a jolly large blue unicorn and gold pitchfork on 'em: which is the old lady's arms.' 'keep quiet, can't you?' replied sikes, with a threatening look. 'the room-door is open, is it?' 'wide,' replied toby, after peeping in to satisfy himself. 'the game of that is, that they always leave it open with a catch, so that the dog, who's got a bed in here, may walk up and down the passage when he feels wakeful. ha! ha! barney 'ticed him away to-night. so neat!' although mr. crackit spoke in a scarcely audible whisper, and laughed without noise, sikes imperiously commanded him to be silent, and to get to work. toby complied, by first producing his lantern, and placing it on the ground; then by planting himself firmly with his head against the wall beneath the window, and his hands upon his knees, so as to make a step of his back. this was no sooner done, than sikes, mounting upon him, put oliver gently through the window with his feet first; and, without leaving hold of his collar, planted him safely on the floor inside. 'take this lantern,' said sikes, looking into the room. 'you see the stairs afore you?' oliver, more dead than alive, gasped out, 'yes.' sikes, pointing to the street-door with the pistol-barrel, briefly advised him to take notice that he was within shot all the way; and that if he faltered, he would fall dead that instant. 'it's done in a minute,' said sikes, in the same low whisper. 'directly i leave go of you, do your work. hark!' 'what's that?' whispered the other man. they listened intently. 'nothing,' said sikes, releasing his hold of oliver. 'now!' in the short time he had had to collect his senses, the boy had firmly resolved that, whether he died in the attempt or not, he would make one effort to dart upstairs from the hall, and alarm the family. filled with this idea, he advanced at once, but stealthily. 'come back!' suddenly cried sikes aloud. 'back! back!' scared by the sudden breaking of the dead stillness of the place, and by a loud cry which followed it, oliver let his lantern fall, and knew not whether to advance or fly. the cry was repeated--a light appeared--a vision of two terrified half-dressed men at the top of the stairs swam before his eyes--a flash--a loud noise--a smoke--a crash somewhere, but where he knew not,--and he staggered back. sikes had disappeared for an instant; but he was up again, and had him by the collar before the smoke had cleared away. he fired his own pistol after the men, who were already retreating; and dragged the boy up. 'clasp your arm tighter,' said sikes, as he drew him through the window. 'give me a shawl here. they've hit him. quick! how the boy bleeds!' then came the loud ringing of a bell, mingled with the noise of fire-arms, and the shouts of men, and the sensation of being carried over uneven ground at a rapid pace. and then, the noises grew confused in the distance; and a cold deadly feeling crept over the boy's heart; and he saw or heard no more. chapter xxiii which contains the substance of a pleasant conversation between mr. bumble and a lady; and shows that even a beadle may be susceptible on some points the night was bitter cold. the snow lay on the ground, frozen into a hard thick crust, so that only the heaps that had drifted into byways and corners were affected by the sharp wind that howled abroad: which, as if expending increased fury on such prey as it found, caught it savagely up in clouds, and, whirling it into a thousand misty eddies, scattered it in air. bleak, dark, and piercing cold, it was a night for the well-housed and fed to draw round the bright fire and thank god they were at home; and for the homeless, starving wretch to lay him down and die. many hunger-worn outcasts close their eyes in our bare streets, at such times, who, let their crimes have been what they may, can hardly open them in a more bitter world. such was the aspect of out-of-doors affairs, when mrs. corney, the matron of the workhouse to which our readers have been already introduced as the birthplace of oliver twist, sat herself down before a cheerful fire in her own little room, and glanced, with no small degree of complacency, at a small round table: on which stood a tray of corresponding size, furnished with all necessary materials for the most grateful meal that matrons enjoy. in fact, mrs. corney was about to solace herself with a cup of tea. as she glanced from the table to the fireplace, where the smallest of all possible kettles was singing a small song in a small voice, her inward satisfaction evidently increased,--so much so, indeed, that mrs. corney smiled. 'well!' said the matron, leaning her elbow on the table, and looking reflectively at the fire; 'i'm sure we have all on us a great deal to be grateful for! a great deal, if we did but know it. ah!' mrs. corney shook her head mournfully, as if deploring the mental blindness of those paupers who did not know it; and thrusting a silver spoon (private property) into the inmost recesses of a two-ounce tin tea-caddy, proceeded to make the tea. how slight a thing will disturb the equanimity of our frail minds! the black teapot, being very small and easily filled, ran over while mrs. corney was moralising; and the water slightly scalded mrs. corney's hand. 'drat the pot!' said the worthy matron, setting it down very hastily on the hob; 'a little stupid thing, that only holds a couple of cups! what use is it of, to anybody! except,' said mrs. corney, pausing, 'except to a poor desolate creature like me. oh dear!' with these words, the matron dropped into her chair, and, once more resting her elbow on the table, thought of her solitary fate. the small teapot, and the single cup, had awakened in her mind sad recollections of mr. corney (who had not been dead more than five-and-twenty years); and she was overpowered. 'i shall never get another!' said mrs. corney, pettishly; 'i shall never get another--like him.' whether this remark bore reference to the husband, or the teapot, is uncertain. it might have been the latter; for mrs. corney looked at it as she spoke; and took it up afterwards. she had just tasted her first cup, when she was disturbed by a soft tap at the room-door. 'oh, come in with you!' said mrs. corney, sharply. 'some of the old women dying, i suppose. they always die when i'm at meals. don't stand there, letting the cold air in, don't. what's amiss now, eh?' 'nothing, ma'am, nothing,' replied a man's voice. 'dear me!' exclaimed the matron, in a much sweeter tone, 'is that mr. bumble?' 'at your service, ma'am,' said mr. bumble, who had been stopping outside to rub his shoes clean, and to shake the snow off his coat; and who now made his appearance, bearing the cocked hat in one hand and a bundle in the other. 'shall i shut the door, ma'am?' the lady modestly hesitated to reply, lest there should be any impropriety in holding an interview with mr. bumble, with closed doors. mr. bumble taking advantage of the hesitation, and being very cold himself, shut it without permission. 'hard weather, mr. bumble,' said the matron. 'hard, indeed, ma'am,' replied the beadle. 'anti-porochial weather this, ma'am. we have given away, mrs. corney, we have given away a matter of twenty quartern loaves and a cheese and a half, this very blessed afternoon; and yet them paupers are not contented.' 'of course not. when would they be, mr. bumble?' said the matron, sipping her tea. 'when, indeed, ma'am!' rejoined mr. bumble. 'why here's one man that, in consideration of his wife and large family, has a quartern loaf and a good pound of cheese, full weight. is he grateful, ma'am? is he grateful? not a copper farthing's worth of it! what does he do, ma'am, but ask for a few coals; if it's only a pocket handkerchief full, he says! coals! what would he do with coals? toast his cheese with 'em and then come back for more. that's the way with these people, ma'am; give 'em a apron full of coals to-day, and they'll come back for another, the day after to-morrow, as brazen as alabaster.' the matron expressed her entire concurrence in this intelligible simile; and the beadle went on. 'i never,' said mr. bumble, 'see anything like the pitch it's got to. the day afore yesterday, a man--you have been a married woman, ma'am, and i may mention it to you--a man, with hardly a rag upon his back (here mrs. corney looked at the floor), goes to our overseer's door when he has got company coming to dinner; and says, he must be relieved, mrs. corney. as he wouldn't go away, and shocked the company very much, our overseer sent him out a pound of potatoes and half a pint of oatmeal. "my heart!" says the ungrateful villain, "what's the use of _this_ to me? you might as well give me a pair of iron spectacles!" "very good," says our overseer, taking 'em away again, "you won't get anything else here." "then i'll die in the streets!" says the vagrant. "oh no, you won't," says our overseer.' 'ha! ha! that was very good! so like mr. grannett, wasn't it?' interposed the matron. 'well, mr. bumble?' 'well, ma'am,' rejoined the beadle, 'he went away; and he _did_ die in the streets. there's a obstinate pauper for you!' 'it beats anything i could have believed,' observed the matron emphatically. 'but don't you think out-of-door relief a very bad thing, any way, mr. bumble? you're a gentleman of experience, and ought to know. come.' 'mrs. corney,' said the beadle, smiling as men smile who are conscious of superior information, 'out-of-door relief, properly managed: properly managed, ma'am: is the porochial safeguard. the great principle of out-of-door relief is, to give the paupers exactly what they don't want; and then they get tired of coming.' 'dear me!' exclaimed mrs. corney. 'well, that is a good one, too!' 'yes. betwixt you and me, ma'am,' returned mr. bumble, 'that's the great principle; and that's the reason why, if you look at any cases that get into them owdacious newspapers, you'll always observe that sick families have been relieved with slices of cheese. that's the rule now, mrs. corney, all over the country. but, however,' said the beadle, stopping to unpack his bundle, 'these are official secrets, ma'am; not to be spoken of; except, as i may say, among the porochial officers, such as ourselves. this is the port wine, ma'am, that the board ordered for the infirmary; real, fresh, genuine port wine; only out of the cask this forenoon; clear as a bell, and no sediment!' having held the first bottle up to the light, and shaken it well to test its excellence, mr. bumble placed them both on top of a chest of drawers; folded the handkerchief in which they had been wrapped; put it carefully in his pocket; and took up his hat, as if to go. 'you'll have a very cold walk, mr. bumble,' said the matron. 'it blows, ma'am,' replied mr. bumble, turning up his coat-collar, 'enough to cut one's ears off.' the matron looked, from the little kettle, to the beadle, who was moving towards the door; and as the beadle coughed, preparatory to bidding her good-night, bashfully inquired whether--whether he wouldn't take a cup of tea? mr. bumble instantaneously turned back his collar again; laid his hat and stick upon a chair; and drew another chair up to the table. as he slowly seated himself, he looked at the lady. she fixed her eyes upon the little teapot. mr. bumble coughed again, and slightly smiled. mrs. corney rose to get another cup and saucer from the closet. as she sat down, her eyes once again encountered those of the gallant beadle; she coloured, and applied herself to the task of making his tea. again mr. bumble coughed--louder this time than he had coughed yet. 'sweet? mr. bumble?' inquired the matron, taking up the sugar-basin. 'very sweet, indeed, ma'am,' replied mr. bumble. he fixed his eyes on mrs. corney as he said this; and if ever a beadle looked tender, mr. bumble was that beadle at that moment. the tea was made, and handed in silence. mr. bumble, having spread a handkerchief over his knees to prevent the crumbs from sullying the splendour of his shorts, began to eat and drink; varying these amusements, occasionally, by fetching a deep sigh; which, however, had no injurious effect upon his appetite, but, on the contrary, rather seemed to facilitate his operations in the tea and toast department. 'you have a cat, ma'am, i see,' said mr. bumble, glancing at one who, in the centre of her family, was basking before the fire; 'and kittens too, i declare!' 'i am so fond of them, mr. bumble, you can't think,' replied the matron. 'they're _so_ happy, _so_ frolicsome, and _so_ cheerful, that they are quite companions for me.' 'very nice animals, ma'am,' replied mr. bumble, approvingly; 'so very domestic.' 'oh, yes!' rejoined the matron with enthusiasm; 'so fond of their home too, that it's quite a pleasure, i'm sure.' 'mrs. corney, ma'am,' said mr. bumble, slowly, and marking the time with his teaspoon, 'i mean to say this, ma'am; that any cat, or kitten, that could live with you, ma'am, and _not_ be fond of its home, must be a ass, ma'am.' 'oh, mr. bumble!' remonstrated mrs. corney. 'it's of no use disguising facts, ma'am,' said mr. bumble, slowly flourishing the teaspoon with a kind of amorous dignity which made him doubly impressive; 'i would drown it myself, with pleasure.' 'then you're a cruel man,' said the matron vivaciously, as she held out her hand for the beadle's cup; 'and a very hard-hearted man besides.' 'hard-hearted, ma'am?' said mr. bumble. 'hard?' mr. bumble resigned his cup without another word; squeezed mrs. corney's little finger as she took it; and inflicting two open-handed slaps upon his laced waistcoat, gave a mighty sigh, and hitched his chair a very little morsel farther from the fire. it was a round table; and as mrs. corney and mr. bumble had been sitting opposite each other, with no great space between them, and fronting the fire, it will be seen that mr. bumble, in receding from the fire, and still keeping at the table, increased the distance between himself and mrs. corney; which proceeding, some prudent readers will doubtless be disposed to admire, and to consider an act of great heroism on mr. bumble's part: he being in some sort tempted by time, place, and opportunity, to give utterance to certain soft nothings, which however well they may become the lips of the light and thoughtless, do seem immeasurably beneath the dignity of judges of the land, members of parliament, ministers of state, lord mayors, and other great public functionaries, but more particularly beneath the stateliness and gravity of a beadle: who (as is well known) should be the sternest and most inflexible among them all. whatever were mr. bumble's intentions, however (and no doubt they were of the best): it unfortunately happened, as has been twice before remarked, that the table was a round one; consequently mr. bumble, moving his chair by little and little, soon began to diminish the distance between himself and the matron; and, continuing to travel round the outer edge of the circle, brought his chair, in time, close to that in which the matron was seated. indeed, the two chairs touched; and when they did so, mr. bumble stopped. now, if the matron had moved her chair to the right, she would have been scorched by the fire; and if to the left, she must have fallen into mr. bumble's arms; so (being a discreet matron, and no doubt foreseeing these consequences at a glance) she remained where she was, and handed mr. bumble another cup of tea. 'hard-hearted, mrs. corney?' said mr. bumble, stirring his tea, and looking up into the matron's face; 'are _you_ hard-hearted, mrs. corney?' 'dear me!' exclaimed the matron, 'what a very curious question from a single man. what can you want to know for, mr. bumble?' the beadle drank his tea to the last drop; finished a piece of toast; whisked the crumbs off his knees; wiped his lips; and deliberately kissed the matron. 'mr. bumble!' cried that discreet lady in a whisper; for the fright was so great, that she had quite lost her voice, 'mr. bumble, i shall scream!' mr. bumble made no reply; but in a slow and dignified manner, put his arm round the matron's waist. as the lady had stated her intention of screaming, of course she would have screamed at this additional boldness, but that the exertion was rendered unnecessary by a hasty knocking at the door: which was no sooner heard, than mr. bumble darted, with much agility, to the wine bottles, and began dusting them with great violence: while the matron sharply demanded who was there. it is worthy of remark, as a curious physical instance of the efficacy of a sudden surprise in counteracting the effects of extreme fear, that her voice had quite recovered all its official asperity. 'if you please, mistress,' said a withered old female pauper, hideously ugly: putting her head in at the door, 'old sally is a-going fast.' 'well, what's that to me?' angrily demanded the matron. 'i can't keep her alive, can i?' 'no, no, mistress,' replied the old woman, 'nobody can; she's far beyond the reach of help. i've seen a many people die; little babes and great strong men; and i know when death's a-coming, well enough. but she's troubled in her mind: and when the fits are not on her,--and that's not often, for she is dying very hard,--she says she has got something to tell, which you must hear. she'll never die quiet till you come, mistress.' at this intelligence, the worthy mrs. corney muttered a variety of invectives against old women who couldn't even die without purposely annoying their betters; and, muffling herself in a thick shawl which she hastily caught up, briefly requested mr. bumble to stay till she came back, lest anything particular should occur. bidding the messenger walk fast, and not be all night hobbling up the stairs, she followed her from the room with a very ill grace, scolding all the way. mr. bumble's conduct on being left to himself, was rather inexplicable. he opened the closet, counted the teaspoons, weighed the sugar-tongs, closely inspected a silver milk-pot to ascertain that it was of the genuine metal, and, having satisfied his curiosity on these points, put on his cocked hat corner-wise, and danced with much gravity four distinct times round the table. having gone through this very extraordinary performance, he took off the cocked hat again, and, spreading himself before the fire with his back towards it, seemed to be mentally engaged in taking an exact inventory of the furniture. chapter xxiv treats on a very poor subject. but is a short one, and may be found of importance in this history it was no unfit messenger of death, who had disturbed the quiet of the matron's room. her body was bent by age; her limbs trembled with palsy; her face, distorted into a mumbling leer, resembled more the grotesque shaping of some wild pencil, than the work of nature's hand. alas! how few of nature's faces are left alone to gladden us with their beauty! the cares, and sorrows, and hungerings, of the world, change them as they change hearts; and it is only when those passions sleep, and have lost their hold for ever, that the troubled clouds pass off, and leave heaven's surface clear. it is a common thing for the countenances of the dead, even in that fixed and rigid state, to subside into the long-forgotten expression of sleeping infancy, and settle into the very look of early life; so calm, so peaceful, do they grow again, that those who knew them in their happy childhood, kneel by the coffin's side in awe, and see the angel even upon earth. the old crone tottered along the passages, and up the stairs, muttering some indistinct answers to the chidings of her companion; being at length compelled to pause for breath, she gave the light into her hand, and remained behind to follow as she might: while the more nimble superior made her way to the room where the sick woman lay. it was a bare garret-room, with a dim light burning at the farther end. there was another old woman watching by the bed; the parish apothecary's apprentice was standing by the fire, making a toothpick out of a quill. 'cold night, mrs. corney,' said this young gentleman, as the matron entered. 'very cold, indeed, sir,' replied the mistress, in her most civil tones, and dropping a curtsey as she spoke. 'you should get better coals out of your contractors,' said the apothecary's deputy, breaking a lump on the top of the fire with the rusty poker; 'these are not at all the sort of thing for a cold night.' 'they're the board's choosing, sir,' returned the matron. 'the least they could do, would be to keep us pretty warm: for our places are hard enough.' the conversation was here interrupted by a moan from the sick woman. 'oh!' said the young mag, turning his face towards the bed, as if he had previously quite forgotten the patient, 'it's all u.p. there, mrs. corney.' 'it is, is it, sir?' asked the matron. 'if she lasts a couple of hours, i shall be surprised,' said the apothecary's apprentice, intent upon the toothpick's point. 'it's a break-up of the system altogether. is she dozing, old lady?' the attendant stooped over the bed, to ascertain; and nodded in the affirmative. 'then perhaps she'll go off in that way, if you don't make a row,' said the young man. 'put the light on the floor. she won't see it there.' the attendant did as she was told: shaking her head meanwhile, to intimate that the woman would not die so easily; having done so, she resumed her seat by the side of the other nurse, who had by this time returned. the mistress, with an expression of impatience, wrapped herself in her shawl, and sat at the foot of the bed. the apothecary's apprentice, having completed the manufacture of the toothpick, planted himself in front of the fire and made good use of it for ten minutes or so: when apparently growing rather dull, he wished mrs. corney joy of her job, and took himself off on tiptoe. when they had sat in silence for some time, the two old women rose from the bed, and crouching over the fire, held out their withered hands to catch the heat. the flame threw a ghastly light on their shrivelled faces, and made their ugliness appear terrible, as, in this position, they began to converse in a low voice. 'did she say any more, anny dear, while i was gone?' inquired the messenger. 'not a word,' replied the other. 'she plucked and tore at her arms for a little time; but i held her hands, and she soon dropped off. she hasn't much strength in her, so i easily kept her quiet. i ain't so weak for an old woman, although i am on parish allowance; no, no!' 'did she drink the hot wine the doctor said she was to have?' demanded the first. 'i tried to get it down,' rejoined the other. 'but her teeth were tight set, and she clenched the mug so hard that it was as much as i could do to get it back again. so i drank it; and it did me good!' looking cautiously round, to ascertain that they were not overheard, the two hags cowered nearer to the fire, and chuckled heartily. 'i mind the time,' said the first speaker, 'when she would have done the same, and made rare fun of it afterwards.' 'ay, that she would,' rejoined the other; 'she had a merry heart. 'a many, many, beautiful corpses she laid out, as nice and neat as waxwork. my old eyes have seen them--ay, and those old hands touched them too; for i have helped her, scores of times.' stretching forth her trembling fingers as she spoke, the old creature shook them exultingly before her face, and fumbling in her pocket, brought out an old time-discoloured tin snuff-box, from which she shook a few grains into the outstretched palm of her companion, and a few more into her own. while they were thus employed, the matron, who had been impatiently watching until the dying woman should awaken from her stupor, joined them by the fire, and sharply asked how long she was to wait? 'not long, mistress,' replied the second woman, looking up into her face. 'we have none of us long to wait for death. patience, patience! he'll be here soon enough for us all.' 'hold your tongue, you doting idiot!' said the matron sternly. 'you, martha, tell me; has she been in this way before?' 'often,' answered the first woman. 'but will never be again,' added the second one; 'that is, she'll never wake again but once--and mind, mistress, that won't be for long!' 'long or short,' said the matron, snappishly, 'she won't find me here when she does wake; take care, both of you, how you worry me again for nothing. it's no part of my duty to see all the old women in the house die, and i won't--that's more. mind that, you impudent old harridans. if you make a fool of me again, i'll soon cure you, i warrant you!' she was bouncing away, when a cry from the two women, who had turned towards the bed, caused her to look round. the patient had raised herself upright, and was stretching her arms towards them. 'who's that?' she cried, in a hollow voice. 'hush, hush!' said one of the women, stooping over her. 'lie down, lie down!' 'i'll never lie down again alive!' said the woman, struggling. 'i _will_ tell her! come here! nearer! let me whisper in your ear.' she clutched the matron by the arm, and forcing her into a chair by the bedside, was about to speak, when looking round, she caught sight of the two old women bending forward in the attitude of eager listeners. 'turn them away,' said the woman, drowsily; 'make haste! make haste!' the two old crones, chiming in together, began pouring out many piteous lamentations that the poor dear was too far gone to know her best friends; and were uttering sundry protestations that they would never leave her, when the superior pushed them from the room, closed the door, and returned to the bedside. on being excluded, the old ladies changed their tone, and cried through the keyhole that old sally was drunk; which, indeed, was not unlikely; since, in addition to a moderate dose of opium prescribed by the apothecary, she was labouring under the effects of a final taste of gin-and-water which had been privily administered, in the openness of their hearts, by the worthy old ladies themselves. 'now listen to me,' said the dying woman aloud, as if making a great effort to revive one latent spark of energy. 'in this very room--in this very bed--i once nursed a pretty young creetur', that was brought into the house with her feet cut and bruised with walking, and all soiled with dust and blood. she gave birth to a boy, and died. let me think--what was the year again!' 'never mind the year,' said the impatient auditor; 'what about her?' 'ay,' murmured the sick woman, relapsing into her former drowsy state, 'what about her?--what about--i know!' she cried, jumping fiercely up: her face flushed, and her eyes starting from her head--'i robbed her, so i did! she wasn't cold--i tell you she wasn't cold, when i stole it!' 'stole what, for god's sake?' cried the matron, with a gesture as if she would call for help. '_it_!' replied the woman, laying her hand over the other's mouth. 'the only thing she had. she wanted clothes to keep her warm, and food to eat; but she had kept it safe, and had it in her bosom. it was gold, i tell you! rich gold, that might have saved her life!' 'gold!' echoed the matron, bending eagerly over the woman as she fell back. 'go on, go on--yes--what of it? who was the mother? when was it?' 'she charged me to keep it safe,' replied the woman with a groan, 'and trusted me as the only woman about her. i stole it in my heart when she first showed it me hanging round her neck; and the child's death, perhaps, is on me besides! they would have treated him better, if they had known it all!' 'known what?' asked the other. 'speak!' 'the boy grew so like his mother,' said the woman, rambling on, and not heeding the question, 'that i could never forget it when i saw his face. poor girl! poor girl! she was so young, too! such a gentle lamb! wait; there's more to tell. i have not told you all, have i?' 'no, no,' replied the matron, inclining her head to catch the words, as they came more faintly from the dying woman. 'be quick, or it may be too late!' 'the mother,' said the woman, making a more violent effort than before; 'the mother, when the pains of death first came upon her, whispered in my ear that if her baby was born alive, and thrived, the day might come when it would not feel so much disgraced to hear its poor young mother named. "and oh, kind heaven!" she said, folding her thin hands together, "whether it be boy or girl, raise up some friends for it in this troubled world, and take pity upon a lonely desolate child, abandoned to its mercy!"' 'the boy's name?' demanded the matron. 'they _called_ him oliver,' replied the woman, feebly. 'the gold i stole was--' 'yes, yes--what?' cried the other. she was bending eagerly over the woman to hear her reply; but drew back, instinctively, as she once again rose, slowly and stiffly, into a sitting posture; then, clutching the coverlid with both hands, muttered some indistinct sounds in her throat, and fell lifeless on the bed. * * * * * 'stone dead!' said one of the old women, hurrying in as soon as the door was opened. 'and nothing to tell, after all,' rejoined the matron, walking carelessly away. the two crones, to all appearance, too busily occupied in the preparations for their dreadful duties to make any reply, were left alone, hovering about the body. chapter xxv wherein this history reverts to mr. fagin and company while these things were passing in the country workhouse, mr. fagin sat in the old den--the same from which oliver had been removed by the girl--brooding over a dull, smoky fire. he held a pair of bellows upon his knee, with which he had apparently been endeavouring to rouse it into more cheerful action; but he had fallen into deep thought; and with his arms folded on them, and his chin resting on his thumbs, fixed his eyes, abstractedly, on the rusty bars. at a table behind him sat the artful dodger, master charles bates, and mr. chitling: all intent upon a game of whist; the artful taking dummy against master bates and mr. chitling. the countenance of the first-named gentleman, peculiarly intelligent at all times, acquired great additional interest from his close observance of the game, and his attentive perusal of mr. chitling's hand; upon which, from time to time, as occasion served, he bestowed a variety of earnest glances: wisely regulating his own play by the result of his observations upon his neighbour's cards. it being a cold night, the dodger wore his hat, as, indeed, was often his custom within doors. he also sustained a clay pipe between his teeth, which he only removed for a brief space when he deemed it necessary to apply for refreshment to a quart pot upon the table, which stood ready filled with gin-and-water for the accommodation of the company. master bates was also attentive to the play; but being of a more excitable nature than his accomplished friend, it was observable that he more frequently applied himself to the gin-and-water, and moreover indulged in many jests and irrelevant remarks, all highly unbecoming a scientific rubber. indeed, the artful, presuming upon their close attachment, more than once took occasion to reason gravely with his companion upon these improprieties; all of which remonstrances, master bates received in extremely good part; merely requesting his friend to be 'blowed,' or to insert his head in a sack, or replying with some other neatly-turned witticism of a similar kind, the happy application of which, excited considerable admiration in the mind of mr. chitling. it was remarkable that the latter gentleman and his partner invariably lost; and that the circumstance, so far from angering master bates, appeared to afford him the highest amusement, inasmuch as he laughed most uproariously at the end of every deal, and protested that he had never seen such a jolly game in all his born days. 'that's two doubles and the rub,' said mr. chitling, with a very long face, as he drew half-a-crown from his waistcoat-pocket. 'i never see such a feller as you, jack; you win everything. even when we've good cards, charley and i can't make nothing of 'em.' either the master or the manner of this remark, which was made very ruefully, delighted charley bates so much, that his consequent shout of laughter roused the jew from his reverie, and induced him to inquire what was the matter. 'matter, fagin!' cried charley. 'i wish you had watched the play. tommy chitling hasn't won a point; and i went partners with him against the artfull and dumb.' 'ay, ay!' said the jew, with a grin, which sufficiently demonstrated that he was at no loss to understand the reason. 'try 'em again, tom; try 'em again.' 'no more of it for me, thank 'ee, fagin,' replied mr. chitling; 'i've had enough. that 'ere dodger has such a run of luck that there's no standing again' him.' 'ha! ha! my dear,' replied the jew, 'you must get up very early in the morning, to win against the dodger.' 'morning!' said charley bates; 'you must put your boots on over-night, and have a telescope at each eye, and a opera-glass between your shoulders, if you want to come over him.' mr. dawkins received these handsome compliments with much philosophy, and offered to cut any gentleman in company, for the first picture-card, at a shilling at a time. nobody accepting the challenge, and his pipe being by this time smoked out, he proceeded to amuse himself by sketching a ground-plan of newgate on the table with the piece of chalk which had served him in lieu of counters; whistling, meantime, with peculiar shrillness. 'how precious dull you are, tommy!' said the dodger, stopping short when there had been a long silence; and addressing mr. chitling. 'what do you think he's thinking of, fagin?' 'how should i know, my dear?' replied the jew, looking round as he plied the bellows. 'about his losses, maybe; or the little retirement in the country that he's just left, eh? ha! ha! is that it, my dear?' 'not a bit of it,' replied the dodger, stopping the subject of discourse as mr. chitling was about to reply. 'what do _you_ say, charley?' '_i_ should say,' replied master bates, with a grin, 'that he was uncommon sweet upon betsy. see how he's a-blushing! oh, my eye! here's a merry-go-rounder! tommy chitling's in love! oh, fagin, fagin! what a spree!' thoroughly overpowered with the notion of mr. chitling being the victim of the tender passion, master bates threw himself back in his chair with such violence, that he lost his balance, and pitched over upon the floor; where (the accident abating nothing of his merriment) he lay at full length until his laugh was over, when he resumed his former position, and began another laugh. 'never mind him, my dear,' said the jew, winking at mr. dawkins, and giving master bates a reproving tap with the nozzle of the bellows. 'betsy's a fine girl. stick up to her, tom. stick up to her.' 'what i mean to say, fagin,' replied mr. chitling, very red in the face, 'is, that that isn't anything to anybody here.' 'no more it is,' replied the jew; 'charley will talk. don't mind him, my dear; don't mind him. betsy's a fine girl. do as she bids you, tom, and you will make your fortune.' 'so i _do_ do as she bids me,' replied mr. chitling; 'i shouldn't have been milled, if it hadn't been for her advice. but it turned out a good job for you; didn't it, fagin! and what's six weeks of it? it must come, some time or another, and why not in the winter time when you don't want to go out a-walking so much; eh, fagin?' 'ah, to be sure, my dear,' replied the jew. 'you wouldn't mind it again, tom, would you,' asked the dodger, winking upon charley and the jew, 'if bet was all right?' 'i mean to say that i shouldn't,' replied tom, angrily. 'there, now. ah! who'll say as much as that, i should like to know; eh, fagin?' 'nobody, my dear,' replied the jew; 'not a soul, tom. i don't know one of 'em that would do it besides you; not one of 'em, my dear.' 'i might have got clear off, if i'd split upon her; mightn't i, fagin?' angrily pursued the poor half-witted dupe. 'a word from me would have done it; wouldn't it, fagin?' 'to be sure it would, my dear,' replied the jew. 'but i didn't blab it; did i, fagin?' demanded tom, pouring question upon question with great volubility. 'no, no, to be sure,' replied the jew; 'you were too stout-hearted for that. a deal too stout, my dear!' 'perhaps i was,' rejoined tom, looking round; 'and if i was, what's to laugh at, in that; eh, fagin?' the jew, perceiving that mr. chitling was considerably roused, hastened to assure him that nobody was laughing; and to prove the gravity of the company, appealed to master bates, the principal offender. but, unfortunately, charley, in opening his mouth to reply that he was never more serious in his life, was unable to prevent the escape of such a violent roar, that the abused mr. chitling, without any preliminary ceremonies, rushed across the room and aimed a blow at the offender; who, being skilful in evading pursuit, ducked to avoid it, and chose his time so well that it lighted on the chest of the merry old gentleman, and caused him to stagger to the wall, where he stood panting for breath, while mr. chitling looked on in intense dismay. 'hark!' cried the dodger at this moment, 'i heard the tinkler.' catching up the light, he crept softly upstairs. the bell was rung again, with some impatience, while the party were in darkness. after a short pause, the dodger reappeared, and whispered fagin mysteriously. 'what!' cried the jew, 'alone?' the dodger nodded in the affirmative, and, shading the flame of the candle with his hand, gave charley bates a private intimation, in dumb show, that he had better not be funny just then. having performed this friendly office, he fixed his eyes on the jew's face, and awaited his directions. the old man bit his yellow fingers, and meditated for some seconds; his face working with agitation the while, as if he dreaded something, and feared to know the worst. at length he raised his head. 'where is he?' he asked. the dodger pointed to the floor above, and made a gesture, as if to leave the room. 'yes,' said the jew, answering the mute inquiry; 'bring him down. hush! quiet, charley! gently, tom! scarce, scarce!' this brief direction to charley bates, and his recent antagonist, was softly and immediately obeyed. there was no sound of their whereabout, when the dodger descended the stairs, bearing the light in his hand, and followed by a man in a coarse smock-frock; who, after casting a hurried glance round the room, pulled off a large wrapper which had concealed the lower portion of his face, and disclosed: all haggard, unwashed, and unshorn: the features of flash toby crackit. 'how are you, faguey?' said this worthy, nodding to the jew. 'pop that shawl away in my castor, dodger, so that i may know where to find it when i cut; that's the time of day! you'll be a fine young cracksman afore the old file now.' with these words he pulled up the smock-frock; and, winding it round his middle, drew a chair to the fire, and placed his feet upon the hob. 'see there, faguey,' he said, pointing disconsolately to his top boots; 'not a drop of day and martin since you know when; not a bubble of blacking, by jove! but don't look at me in that way, man. all in good time. i can't talk about business till i've eat and drank; so produce the sustainance, and let's have a quiet fill-out for the first time these three days!' the jew motioned to the dodger to place what eatables there were, upon the table; and, seating himself opposite the housebreaker, waited his leisure. to judge from appearances, toby was by no means in a hurry to open the conversation. at first, the jew contented himself with patiently watching his countenance, as if to gain from its expression some clue to the intelligence he brought; but in vain. he looked tired and worn, but there was the same complacent repose upon his features that they always wore: and through dirt, and beard, and whisker, there still shone, unimpaired, the self-satisfied smirk of flash toby crackit. then the jew, in an agony of impatience, watched every morsel he put into his mouth; pacing up and down the room, meanwhile, in irrepressible excitement. it was all of no use. toby continued to eat with the utmost outward indifference, until he could eat no more; then, ordering the dodger out, he closed the door, mixed a glass of spirits and water, and composed himself for talking. 'first and foremost, faguey,' said toby. 'yes, yes!' interposed the jew, drawing up his chair. mr. crackit stopped to take a draught of spirits and water, and to declare that the gin was excellent; then placing his feet against the low mantelpiece, so as to bring his boots to about the level of his eye, he quietly resumed. 'first and foremost, faguey,' said the housebreaker, 'how's bill?' 'what!' screamed the jew, starting from his seat. 'why, you don't mean to say--' began toby, turning pale. 'mean!' cried the jew, stamping furiously on the ground. 'where are they? sikes and the boy! where are they? where have they been? where are they hiding? why have they not been here?' 'the crack failed,' said toby faintly. 'i know it,' replied the jew, tearing a newspaper from his pocket and pointing to it. 'what more?' 'they fired and hit the boy. we cut over the fields at the back, with him between us--straight as the crow flies--through hedge and ditch. they gave chase. damme! the whole country was awake, and the dogs upon us.' 'the boy!' 'bill had him on his back, and scudded like the wind. we stopped to take him between us; his head hung down, and he was cold. they were close upon our heels; every man for himself, and each from the gallows! we parted company, and left the youngster lying in a ditch. alive or dead, that's all i know about him.' the jew stopped to hear no more; but uttering a loud yell, and twining his hands in his hair, rushed from the room, and from the house. chapter xxvi in which a mysterious character appears upon the scene; and many things, inseparable from this history, are done and performed the old man had gained the street corner, before he began to recover the effect of toby crackit's intelligence. he had relaxed nothing of his unusual speed; but was still pressing onward, in the same wild and disordered manner, when the sudden dashing past of a carriage: and a boisterous cry from the foot passengers, who saw his danger: drove him back upon the pavement. avoiding, as much as was possible, all the main streets, and skulking only through the by-ways and alleys, he at length emerged on snow hill. here he walked even faster than before; nor did he linger until he had again turned into a court; when, as if conscious that he was now in his proper element, he fell into his usual shuffling pace, and seemed to breathe more freely. near to the spot on which snow hill and holborn hill meet, opens, upon the right hand as you come out of the city, a narrow and dismal alley, leading to saffron hill. in its filthy shops are exposed for sale huge bunches of second-hand silk handkerchiefs, of all sizes and patterns; for here reside the traders who purchase them from pick-pockets. hundreds of these handkerchiefs hang dangling from pegs outside the windows or flaunting from the door-posts; and the shelves, within, are piled with them. confined as the limits of field lane are, it has its barber, its coffee-shop, its beer-shop, and its fried-fish warehouse. it is a commercial colony of itself: the emporium of petty larceny: visited at early morning, and setting-in of dusk, by silent merchants, who traffic in dark back-parlours, and who go as strangely as they come. here, the clothesman, the shoe-vamper, and the rag-merchant, display their goods, as sign-boards to the petty thief; here, stores of old iron and bones, and heaps of mildewy fragments of woollen-stuff and linen, rust and rot in the grimy cellars. it was into this place that the jew turned. he was well known to the sallow denizens of the lane; for such of them as were on the look-out to buy or sell, nodded, familiarly, as he passed along. he replied to their salutations in the same way; but bestowed no closer recognition until he reached the further end of the alley; when he stopped, to address a salesman of small stature, who had squeezed as much of his person into a child's chair as the chair would hold, and was smoking a pipe at his warehouse door. 'why, the sight of you, mr. fagin, would cure the hoptalmy!' said this respectable trader, in acknowledgment of the jew's inquiry after his health. 'the neighbourhood was a little too hot, lively,' said fagin, elevating his eyebrows, and crossing his hands upon his shoulders. 'well, i've heerd that complaint of it, once or twice before,' replied the trader; 'but it soon cools down again; don't you find it so?' fagin nodded in the affirmative. pointing in the direction of saffron hill, he inquired whether any one was up yonder to-night. 'at the cripples?' inquired the man. the jew nodded. 'let me see,' pursued the merchant, reflecting. 'yes, there's some half-dozen of 'em gone in, that i knows. i don't think your friend's there.' 'sikes is not, i suppose?' inquired the jew, with a disappointed countenance. '_non istwentus_, as the lawyers say,' replied the little man, shaking his head, and looking amazingly sly. 'have you got anything in my line to-night?' 'nothing to-night,' said the jew, turning away. 'are you going up to the cripples, fagin?' cried the little man, calling after him. 'stop! i don't mind if i have a drop there with you!' but as the jew, looking back, waved his hand to intimate that he preferred being alone; and, moreover, as the little man could not very easily disengage himself from the chair; the sign of the cripples was, for a time, bereft of the advantage of mr. lively's presence. by the time he had got upon his legs, the jew had disappeared; so mr. lively, after ineffectually standing on tiptoe, in the hope of catching sight of him, again forced himself into the little chair, and, exchanging a shake of the head with a lady in the opposite shop, in which doubt and mistrust were plainly mingled, resumed his pipe with a grave demeanour. the three cripples, or rather the cripples; which was the sign by which the establishment was familiarly known to its patrons: was the public-house in which mr. sikes and his dog have already figured. merely making a sign to a man at the bar, fagin walked straight upstairs, and opening the door of a room, and softly insinuating himself into the chamber, looked anxiously about: shading his eyes with his hand, as if in search of some particular person. the room was illuminated by two gas-lights; the glare of which was prevented by the barred shutters, and closely-drawn curtains of faded red, from being visible outside. the ceiling was blackened, to prevent its colour from being injured by the flaring of the lamps; and the place was so full of dense tobacco smoke, that at first it was scarcely possible to discern anything more. by degrees, however, as some of it cleared away through the open door, an assemblage of heads, as confused as the noises that greeted the ear, might be made out; and as the eye grew more accustomed to the scene, the spectator gradually became aware of the presence of a numerous company, male and female, crowded round a long table: at the upper end of which, sat a chairman with a hammer of office in his hand; while a professional gentleman with a bluish nose, and his face tied up for the benefit of a toothache, presided at a jingling piano in a remote corner. as fagin stepped softly in, the professional gentleman, running over the keys by way of prelude, occasioned a general cry of order for a song; which having subsided, a young lady proceeded to entertain the company with a ballad in four verses, between each of which the accompanyist played the melody all through, as loud as he could. when this was over, the chairman gave a sentiment, after which, the professional gentleman on the chairman's right and left volunteered a duet, and sang it, with great applause. it was curious to observe some faces which stood out prominently from among the group. there was the chairman himself, (the landlord of the house,) a coarse, rough, heavy built fellow, who, while the songs were proceeding, rolled his eyes hither and thither, and, seeming to give himself up to joviality, had an eye for everything that was done, and an ear for everything that was said--and sharp ones, too. near him were the singers: receiving, with professional indifference, the compliments of the company, and applying themselves, in turn, to a dozen proffered glasses of spirits and water, tendered by their more boisterous admirers; whose countenances, expressive of almost every vice in almost every grade, irresistibly attracted the attention, by their very repulsiveness. cunning, ferocity, and drunkeness in all its stages, were there, in their strongest aspect; and women: some with the last lingering tinge of their early freshness almost fading as you looked: others with every mark and stamp of their sex utterly beaten out, and presenting but one loathsome blank of profligacy and crime; some mere girls, others but young women, and none past the prime of life; formed the darkest and saddest portion of this dreary picture. fagin, troubled by no grave emotions, looked eagerly from face to face while these proceedings were in progress; but apparently without meeting that of which he was in search. succeeding, at length, in catching the eye of the man who occupied the chair, he beckoned to him slightly, and left the room, as quietly as he had entered it. 'what can i do for you, mr. fagin?' inquired the man, as he followed him out to the landing. 'won't you join us? they'll be delighted, every one of 'em.' the jew shook his head impatiently, and said in a whisper, 'is _he_ here?' 'no,' replied the man. 'and no news of barney?' inquired fagin. 'none,' replied the landlord of the cripples; for it was he. 'he won't stir till it's all safe. depend on it, they're on the scent down there; and that if he moved, he'd blow upon the thing at once. he's all right enough, barney is, else i should have heard of him. i'll pound it, that barney's managing properly. let him alone for that.' 'will _he_ be here to-night?' asked the jew, laying the same emphasis on the pronoun as before. 'monks, do you mean?' inquired the landlord, hesitating. 'hush!' said the jew. 'yes.' 'certain,' replied the man, drawing a gold watch from his fob; 'i expected him here before now. if you'll wait ten minutes, he'll be--' 'no, no,' said the jew, hastily; as though, however desirous he might be to see the person in question, he was nevertheless relieved by his absence. 'tell him i came here to see him; and that he must come to me to-night. no, say to-morrow. as he is not here, to-morrow will be time enough.' 'good!' said the man. 'nothing more?' 'not a word now,' said the jew, descending the stairs. 'i say,' said the other, looking over the rails, and speaking in a hoarse whisper; 'what a time this would be for a sell! i've got phil barker here: so drunk, that a boy might take him!' 'ah! but it's not phil barker's time,' said the jew, looking up. 'phil has something more to do, before we can afford to part with him; so go back to the company, my dear, and tell them to lead merry lives--_while they last_. ha! ha! ha!' the landlord reciprocated the old man's laugh; and returned to his guests. the jew was no sooner alone, than his countenance resumed its former expression of anxiety and thought. after a brief reflection, he called a hack-cabriolet, and bade the man drive towards bethnal green. he dismissed him within some quarter of a mile of mr. sikes's residence, and performed the short remainder of the distance, on foot. 'now,' muttered the jew, as he knocked at the door, 'if there is any deep play here, i shall have it out of you, my girl, cunning as you are.' she was in her room, the woman said. fagin crept softly upstairs, and entered it without any previous ceremony. the girl was alone; lying with her head upon the table, and her hair straggling over it. 'she has been drinking,' thought the jew, cooly, 'or perhaps she is only miserable.' the old man turned to close the door, as he made this reflection; the noise thus occasioned, roused the girl. she eyed his crafty face narrowly, as she inquired to his recital of toby crackit's story. when it was concluded, she sank into her former attitude, but spoke not a word. she pushed the candle impatiently away; and once or twice as she feverishly changed her position, shuffled her feet upon the ground; but this was all. during the silence, the jew looked restlessly about the room, as if to assure himself that there were no appearances of sikes having covertly returned. apparently satisfied with his inspection, he coughed twice or thrice, and made as many efforts to open a conversation; but the girl heeded him no more than if he had been made of stone. at length he made another attempt; and rubbing his hands together, said, in his most conciliatory tone, 'and where should you think bill was now, my dear?' the girl moaned out some half intelligible reply, that she could not tell; and seemed, from the smothered noise that escaped her, to be crying. 'and the boy, too,' said the jew, straining his eyes to catch a glimpse of her face. 'poor leetle child! left in a ditch, nance; only think!' 'the child,' said the girl, suddenly looking up, 'is better where he is, than among us; and if no harm comes to bill from it, i hope he lies dead in the ditch and that his young bones may rot there.' 'what!' cried the jew, in amazement. 'ay, i do,' returned the girl, meeting his gaze. 'i shall be glad to have him away from my eyes, and to know that the worst is over. i can't bear to have him about me. the sight of him turns me against myself, and all of you.' 'pooh!' said the jew, scornfully. 'you're drunk.' 'am i?' cried the girl bitterly. 'it's no fault of yours, if i am not! you'd never have me anything else, if you had your will, except now;--the humour doesn't suit you, doesn't it?' 'no!' rejoined the jew, furiously. 'it does not.' 'change it, then!' responded the girl, with a laugh. 'change it!' exclaimed the jew, exasperated beyond all bounds by his companion's unexpected obstinacy, and the vexation of the night, 'i _will_ change it! listen to me, you drab. listen to me, who with six words, can strangle sikes as surely as if i had his bull's throat between my fingers now. if he comes back, and leaves the boy behind him; if he gets off free, and dead or alive, fails to restore him to me; murder him yourself if you would have him escape jack ketch. and do it the moment he sets foot in this room, or mind me, it will be too late!' 'what is all this?' cried the girl involuntarily. 'what is it?' pursued fagin, mad with rage. 'when the boy's worth hundreds of pounds to me, am i to lose what chance threw me in the way of getting safely, through the whims of a drunken gang that i could whistle away the lives of! and me bound, too, to a born devil that only wants the will, and has the power to, to--' panting for breath, the old man stammered for a word; and in that instant checked the torrent of his wrath, and changed his whole demeanour. a moment before, his clenched hands had grasped the air; his eyes had dilated; and his face grown livid with passion; but now, he shrunk into a chair, and, cowering together, trembled with the apprehension of having himself disclosed some hidden villainy. after a short silence, he ventured to look round at his companion. he appeared somewhat reassured, on beholding her in the same listless attitude from which he had first roused her. 'nancy, dear!' croaked the jew, in his usual voice. 'did you mind me, dear?' 'don't worry me now, fagin!' replied the girl, raising her head languidly. 'if bill has not done it this time, he will another. he has done many a good job for you, and will do many more when he can; and when he can't he won't; so no more about that.' 'regarding this boy, my dear?' said the jew, rubbing the palms of his hands nervously together. 'the boy must take his chance with the rest,' interrupted nancy, hastily; 'and i say again, i hope he is dead, and out of harm's way, and out of yours,--that is, if bill comes to no harm. and if toby got clear off, bill's pretty sure to be safe; for bill's worth two of toby any time.' 'and about what i was saying, my dear?' observed the jew, keeping his glistening eye steadily upon her. 'you must say it all over again, if it's anything you want me to do,' rejoined nancy; 'and if it is, you had better wait till to-morrow. you put me up for a minute; but now i'm stupid again.' fagin put several other questions: all with the same drift of ascertaining whether the girl had profited by his unguarded hints; but, she answered them so readily, and was withal so utterly unmoved by his searching looks, that his original impression of her being more than a trifle in liquor, was confirmed. nancy, indeed, was not exempt from a failing which was very common among the jew's female pupils; and in which, in their tenderer years, they were rather encouraged than checked. her disordered appearance, and a wholesale perfume of geneva which pervaded the apartment, afforded strong confirmatory evidence of the justice of the jew's supposition; and when, after indulging in the temporary display of violence above described, she subsided, first into dullness, and afterwards into a compound of feelings: under the influence of which she shed tears one minute, and in the next gave utterance to various exclamations of 'never say die!' and divers calculations as to what might be the amount of the odds so long as a lady or gentleman was happy, mr. fagin, who had had considerable experience of such matters in his time, saw, with great satisfaction, that she was very far gone indeed. having eased his mind by this discovery; and having accomplished his twofold object of imparting to the girl what he had, that night, heard, and of ascertaining, with his own eyes, that sikes had not returned, mr. fagin again turned his face homeward: leaving his young friend asleep, with her head upon the table. it was within an hour of midnight. the weather being dark, and piercing cold, he had no great temptation to loiter. the sharp wind that scoured the streets, seemed to have cleared them of passengers, as of dust and mud, for few people were abroad, and they were to all appearance hastening fast home. it blew from the right quarter for the jew, however, and straight before it he went: trembling, and shivering, as every fresh gust drove him rudely on his way. he had reached the corner of his own street, and was already fumbling in his pocket for the door-key, when a dark figure emerged from a projecting entrance which lay in deep shadow, and, crossing the road, glided up to him unperceived. 'fagin!' whispered a voice close to his ear. 'ah!' said the jew, turning quickly round, 'is that--' 'yes!' interrupted the stranger. 'i have been lingering here these two hours. where the devil have you been?' 'on your business, my dear,' replied the jew, glancing uneasily at his companion, and slackening his pace as he spoke. 'on your business all night.' 'oh, of course!' said the stranger, with a sneer. 'well; and what's come of it?' 'nothing good,' said the jew. 'nothing bad, i hope?' said the stranger, stopping short, and turning a startled look on his companion. the jew shook his head, and was about to reply, when the stranger, interrupting him, motioned to the house, before which they had by this time arrived: remarking, that he had better say what he had got to say, under cover: for his blood was chilled with standing about so long, and the wind blew through him. fagin looked as if he could have willingly excused himself from taking home a visitor at that unseasonable hour; and, indeed, muttered something about having no fire; but his companion repeating his request in a peremptory manner, he unlocked the door, and requested him to close it softly, while he got a light. 'it's as dark as the grave,' said the man, groping forward a few steps. 'make haste!' 'shut the door,' whispered fagin from the end of the passage. as he spoke, it closed with a loud noise. 'that wasn't my doing,' said the other man, feeling his way. 'the wind blew it to, or it shut of its own accord: one or the other. look sharp with the light, or i shall knock my brains out against something in this confounded hole.' fagin stealthily descended the kitchen stairs. after a short absence, he returned with a lighted candle, and the intelligence that toby crackit was asleep in the back room below, and that the boys were in the front one. beckoning the man to follow him, he led the way upstairs. 'we can say the few words we've got to say in here, my dear,' said the jew, throwing open a door on the first floor; 'and as there are holes in the shutters, and we never show lights to our neighbours, we'll set the candle on the stairs. there!' with those words, the jew, stooping down, placed the candle on an upper flight of stairs, exactly opposite to the room door. this done, he led the way into the apartment; which was destitute of all movables save a broken arm-chair, and an old couch or sofa without covering, which stood behind the door. upon this piece of furniture, the stranger sat himself with the air of a weary man; and the jew, drawing up the arm-chair opposite, they sat face to face. it was not quite dark; the door was partially open; and the candle outside, threw a feeble reflection on the opposite wall. they conversed for some time in whispers. though nothing of the conversation was distinguishable beyond a few disjointed words here and there, a listener might easily have perceived that fagin appeared to be defending himself against some remarks of the stranger; and that the latter was in a state of considerable irritation. they might have been talking, thus, for a quarter of an hour or more, when monks--by which name the jew had designated the strange man several times in the course of their colloquy--said, raising his voice a little, 'i tell you again, it was badly planned. why not have kept him here among the rest, and made a sneaking, snivelling pickpocket of him at once?' 'only hear him!' exclaimed the jew, shrugging his shoulders. 'why, do you mean to say you couldn't have done it, if you had chosen?' demanded monks, sternly. 'haven't you done it, with other boys, scores of times? if you had had patience for a twelvemonth, at most, couldn't you have got him convicted, and sent safely out of the kingdom; perhaps for life?' 'whose turn would that have served, my dear?' inquired the jew humbly. 'mine,' replied monks. 'but not mine,' said the jew, submissively. 'he might have become of use to me. when there are two parties to a bargain, it is only reasonable that the interests of both should be consulted; is it, my good friend?' 'what then?' demanded monks. 'i saw it was not easy to train him to the business,' replied the jew; 'he was not like other boys in the same circumstances.' 'curse him, no!' muttered the man, 'or he would have been a thief, long ago.' 'i had no hold upon him to make him worse,' pursued the jew, anxiously watching the countenance of his companion. 'his hand was not in. i had nothing to frighten him with; which we always must have in the beginning, or we labour in vain. what could i do? send him out with the dodger and charley? we had enough of that, at first, my dear; i trembled for us all.' '_that_ was not my doing,' observed monks. 'no, no, my dear!' renewed the jew. 'and i don't quarrel with it now; because, if it had never happened, you might never have clapped eyes on the boy to notice him, and so led to the discovery that it was him you were looking for. well! i got him back for you by means of the girl; and then _she_ begins to favour him.' 'throttle the girl!' said monks, impatiently. 'why, we can't afford to do that just now, my dear,' replied the jew, smiling; 'and, besides, that sort of thing is not in our way; or, one of these days, i might be glad to have it done. i know what these girls are, monks, well. as soon as the boy begins to harden, she'll care no more for him, than for a block of wood. you want him made a thief. if he is alive, i can make him one from this time; and, if--if--' said the jew, drawing nearer to the other,--'it's not likely, mind,--but if the worst comes to the worst, and he is dead--' 'it's no fault of mine if he is!' interposed the other man, with a look of terror, and clasping the jew's arm with trembling hands. 'mind that. fagin! i had no hand in it. anything but his death, i told you from the first. i won't shed blood; it's always found out, and haunts a man besides. if they shot him dead, i was not the cause; do you hear me? fire this infernal den! what's that?' 'what!' cried the jew, grasping the coward round the body, with both arms, as he sprung to his feet. 'where?' 'yonder! replied the man, glaring at the opposite wall. 'the shadow! i saw the shadow of a woman, in a cloak and bonnet, pass along the wainscot like a breath!' the jew released his hold, and they rushed tumultuously from the room. the candle, wasted by the draught, was standing where it had been placed. it showed them only the empty staircase, and their own white faces. they listened intently: a profound silence reigned throughout the house. 'it's your fancy,' said the jew, taking up the light and turning to his companion. 'i'll swear i saw it!' replied monks, trembling. 'it was bending forward when i saw it first; and when i spoke, it darted away.' the jew glanced contemptuously at the pale face of his associate, and, telling him he could follow, if he pleased, ascended the stairs. they looked into all the rooms; they were cold, bare, and empty. they descended into the passage, and thence into the cellars below. the green damp hung upon the low walls; the tracks of the snail and slug glistened in the light of the candle; but all was still as death. 'what do you think now?' said the jew, when they had regained the passage. 'besides ourselves, there's not a creature in the house except toby and the boys; and they're safe enough. see here!' as a proof of the fact, the jew drew forth two keys from his pocket; and explained, that when he first went downstairs, he had locked them in, to prevent any intrusion on the conference. this accumulated testimony effectually staggered mr. monks. his protestations had gradually become less and less vehement as they proceeded in their search without making any discovery; and, now, he gave vent to several very grim laughs, and confessed it could only have been his excited imagination. he declined any renewal of the conversation, however, for that night: suddenly remembering that it was past one o'clock. and so the amiable couple parted. chapter xxvii atones for the unpoliteness of a former chapter; which deserted a lady, most unceremoniously as it would be, by no means, seemly in a humble author to keep so mighty a personage as a beadle waiting, with his back to the fire, and the skirts of his coat gathered up under his arms, until such time as it might suit his pleasure to relieve him; and as it would still less become his station, or his gallantry to involve in the same neglect a lady on whom that beadle had looked with an eye of tenderness and affection, and in whose ear he had whispered sweet words, which, coming from such a quarter, might well thrill the bosom of maid or matron of whatsoever degree; the historian whose pen traces these words--trusting that he knows his place, and that he entertains a becoming reverence for those upon earth to whom high and important authority is delegated--hastens to pay them that respect which their position demands, and to treat them with all that duteous ceremony which their exalted rank, and (by consequence) great virtues, imperatively claim at his hands. towards this end, indeed, he had purposed to introduce, in this place, a dissertation touching the divine right of beadles, and elucidative of the position, that a beadle can do no wrong: which could not fail to have been both pleasurable and profitable to the right-minded reader but which he is unfortunately compelled, by want of time and space, to postpone to some more convenient and fitting opportunity; on the arrival of which, he will be prepared to show, that a beadle properly constituted: that is to say, a parochial beadle, attached to a parochial workhouse, and attending in his official capacity the parochial church: is, in right and virtue of his office, possessed of all the excellences and best qualities of humanity; and that to none of those excellences, can mere companies' beadles, or court-of-law beadles, or even chapel-of-ease beadles (save the last, and they in a very lowly and inferior degree), lay the remotest sustainable claim. mr. bumble had re-counted the teaspoons, re-weighed the sugar-tongs, made a closer inspection of the milk-pot, and ascertained to a nicety the exact condition of the furniture, down to the very horse-hair seats of the chairs; and had repeated each process full half a dozen times; before he began to think that it was time for mrs. corney to return. thinking begets thinking; as there were no sounds of mrs. corney's approach, it occured to mr. bumble that it would be an innocent and virtuous way of spending the time, if he were further to allay his curiousity by a cursory glance at the interior of mrs. corney's chest of drawers. having listened at the keyhole, to assure himself that nobody was approaching the chamber, mr. bumble, beginning at the bottom, proceeded to make himself acquainted with the contents of the three long drawers: which, being filled with various garments of good fashion and texture, carefully preserved between two layers of old newspapers, speckled with dried lavender: seemed to yield him exceeding satisfaction. arriving, in course of time, at the right-hand corner drawer (in which was the key), and beholding therein a small padlocked box, which, being shaken, gave forth a pleasant sound, as of the chinking of coin, mr. bumble returned with a stately walk to the fireplace; and, resuming his old attitude, said, with a grave and determined air, 'i'll do it!' he followed up this remarkable declaration, by shaking his head in a waggish manner for ten minutes, as though he were remonstrating with himself for being such a pleasant dog; and then, he took a view of his legs in profile, with much seeming pleasure and interest. he was still placidly engaged in this latter survey, when mrs. corney, hurrying into the room, threw herself, in a breathless state, on a chair by the fireside, and covering her eyes with one hand, placed the other over her heart, and gasped for breath. 'mrs. corney,' said mr. bumble, stooping over the matron, 'what is this, ma'am? has anything happened, ma'am? pray answer me: i'm on--on--' mr. bumble, in his alarm, could not immediately think of the word 'tenterhooks,' so he said 'broken bottles.' 'oh, mr. bumble!' cried the lady, 'i have been so dreadfully put out!' 'put out, ma'am!' exclaimed mr. bumble; 'who has dared to--? i know!' said mr. bumble, checking himself, with native majesty, 'this is them wicious paupers!' 'it's dreadful to think of!' said the lady, shuddering. 'then _don't_ think of it, ma'am,' rejoined mr. bumble. 'i can't help it,' whimpered the lady. 'then take something, ma'am,' said mr. bumble soothingly. 'a little of the wine?' 'not for the world!' replied mrs. corney. 'i couldn't,--oh! the top shelf in the right-hand corner--oh!' uttering these words, the good lady pointed, distractedly, to the cupboard, and underwent a convulsion from internal spasms. mr. bumble rushed to the closet; and, snatching a pint green-glass bottle from the shelf thus incoherently indicated, filled a tea-cup with its contents, and held it to the lady's lips. 'i'm better now,' said mrs. corney, falling back, after drinking half of it. mr. bumble raised his eyes piously to the ceiling in thankfulness; and, bringing them down again to the brim of the cup, lifted it to his nose. 'peppermint,' exclaimed mrs. corney, in a faint voice, smiling gently on the beadle as she spoke. 'try it! there's a little--a little something else in it.' mr. bumble tasted the medicine with a doubtful look; smacked his lips; took another taste; and put the cup down empty. 'it's very comforting,' said mrs. corney. 'very much so indeed, ma'am,' said the beadle. as he spoke, he drew a chair beside the matron, and tenderly inquired what had happened to distress her. 'nothing,' replied mrs. corney. 'i am a foolish, excitable, weak creetur.' 'not weak, ma'am,' retorted mr. bumble, drawing his chair a little closer. 'are you a weak creetur, mrs. corney?' 'we are all weak creeturs,' said mrs. corney, laying down a general principle. 'so we are,' said the beadle. nothing was said on either side, for a minute or two afterwards. by the expiration of that time, mr. bumble had illustrated the position by removing his left arm from the back of mrs. corney's chair, where it had previously rested, to mrs. corney's apron-string, round which it gradually became entwined. 'we are all weak creeturs,' said mr. bumble. mrs. corney sighed. 'don't sigh, mrs. corney,' said mr. bumble. 'i can't help it,' said mrs. corney. and she sighed again. 'this is a very comfortable room, ma'am,' said mr. bumble looking round. 'another room, and this, ma'am, would be a complete thing.' 'it would be too much for one,' murmured the lady. 'but not for two, ma'am,' rejoined mr. bumble, in soft accents. 'eh, mrs. corney?' mrs. corney drooped her head, when the beadle said this; the beadle drooped his, to get a view of mrs. corney's face. mrs. corney, with great propriety, turned her head away, and released her hand to get at her pocket-handkerchief; but insensibly replaced it in that of mr. bumble. 'the board allows you coals, don't they, mrs. corney?' inquired the beadle, affectionately pressing her hand. 'and candles,' replied mrs. corney, slightly returning the pressure. 'coals, candles, and house-rent free,' said mr. bumble. 'oh, mrs. corney, what an angel you are!' the lady was not proof against this burst of feeling. she sank into mr. bumble's arms; and that gentleman in his agitation, imprinted a passionate kiss upon her chaste nose. 'such porochial perfection!' exclaimed mr. bumble, rapturously. 'you know that mr. slout is worse to-night, my fascinator?' 'yes,' replied mrs. corney, bashfully. 'he can't live a week, the doctor says,' pursued mr. bumble. 'he is the master of this establishment; his death will cause a wacancy; that wacancy must be filled up. oh, mrs. corney, what a prospect this opens! what a opportunity for a jining of hearts and housekeepings!' mrs. corney sobbed. 'the little word?' said mr. bumble, bending over the bashful beauty. 'the one little, little, little word, my blessed corney?' 'ye--ye--yes!' sighed out the matron. 'one more,' pursued the beadle; 'compose your darling feelings for only one more. when is it to come off?' mrs. corney twice essayed to speak: and twice failed. at length summoning up courage, she threw her arms around mr. bumble's neck, and said, it might be as soon as ever he pleased, and that he was 'a irresistible duck.' matters being thus amicably and satisfactorily arranged, the contract was solemnly ratified in another teacupful of the peppermint mixture; which was rendered the more necessary, by the flutter and agitation of the lady's spirits. while it was being disposed of, she acquainted mr. bumble with the old woman's decease. 'very good,' said that gentleman, sipping his peppermint; 'i'll call at sowerberry's as i go home, and tell him to send to-morrow morning. was it that as frightened you, love?' 'it wasn't anything particular, dear,' said the lady evasively. 'it must have been something, love,' urged mr. bumble. 'won't you tell your own b.?' 'not now,' rejoined the lady; 'one of these days. after we're married, dear.' 'after we're married!' exclaimed mr. bumble. 'it wasn't any impudence from any of them male paupers as--' 'no, no, love!' interposed the lady, hastily. 'if i thought it was,' continued mr. bumble; 'if i thought as any one of 'em had dared to lift his wulgar eyes to that lovely countenance--' 'they wouldn't have dared to do it, love,' responded the lady. 'they had better not!' said mr. bumble, clenching his fist. 'let me see any man, porochial or extra-porochial, as would presume to do it; and i can tell him that he wouldn't do it a second time!' unembellished by any violence of gesticulation, this might have seemed no very high compliment to the lady's charms; but, as mr. bumble accompanied the threat with many warlike gestures, she was much touched with this proof of his devotion, and protested, with great admiration, that he was indeed a dove. the dove then turned up his coat-collar, and put on his cocked hat; and, having exchanged a long and affectionate embrace with his future partner, once again braved the cold wind of the night: merely pausing, for a few minutes, in the male paupers' ward, to abuse them a little, with the view of satisfying himself that he could fill the office of workhouse-master with needful acerbity. assured of his qualifications, mr. bumble left the building with a light heart, and bright visions of his future promotion: which served to occupy his mind until he reached the shop of the undertaker. now, mr. and mrs. sowerberry having gone out to tea and supper: and noah claypole not being at any time disposed to take upon himself a greater amount of physical exertion than is necessary to a convenient performance of the two functions of eating and drinking, the shop was not closed, although it was past the usual hour of shutting-up. mr. bumble tapped with his cane on the counter several times; but, attracting no attention, and beholding a light shining through the glass-window of the little parlour at the back of the shop, he made bold to peep in and see what was going forward; and when he saw what was going forward, he was not a little surprised. the cloth was laid for supper; the table was covered with bread and butter, plates and glasses; a porter-pot and a wine-bottle. at the upper end of the table, mr. noah claypole lolled negligently in an easy-chair, with his legs thrown over one of the arms: an open clasp-knife in one hand, and a mass of buttered bread in the other. close beside him stood charlotte, opening oysters from a barrel: which mr. claypole condescended to swallow, with remarkable avidity. a more than ordinary redness in the region of the young gentleman's nose, and a kind of fixed wink in his right eye, denoted that he was in a slight degree intoxicated; these symptoms were confirmed by the intense relish with which he took his oysters, for which nothing but a strong appreciation of their cooling properties, in cases of internal fever, could have sufficiently accounted. 'here's a delicious fat one, noah, dear!' said charlotte; 'try him, do; only this one.' 'what a delicious thing is a oyster!' remarked mr. claypole, after he had swallowed it. 'what a pity it is, a number of 'em should ever make you feel uncomfortable; isn't it, charlotte?' 'it's quite a cruelty,' said charlotte. 'so it is,' acquiesced mr. claypole. 'an't yer fond of oysters?' 'not overmuch,' replied charlotte. 'i like to see you eat 'em, noah dear, better than eating 'em myself.' 'lor!' said noah, reflectively; 'how queer!' 'have another,' said charlotte. 'here's one with such a beautiful, delicate beard!' 'i can't manage any more,' said noah. 'i'm very sorry. come here, charlotte, and i'll kiss yer.' 'what!' said mr. bumble, bursting into the room. 'say that again, sir.' charlotte uttered a scream, and hid her face in her apron. mr. claypole, without making any further change in his position than suffering his legs to reach the ground, gazed at the beadle in drunken terror. 'say it again, you wile, owdacious fellow!' said mr. bumble. 'how dare you mention such a thing, sir? and how dare you encourage him, you insolent minx? kiss her!' exclaimed mr. bumble, in strong indignation. 'faugh!' 'i didn't mean to do it!' said noah, blubbering. 'she's always a-kissing of me, whether i like it, or not.' 'oh, noah,' cried charlotte, reproachfully. 'yer are; yer know yer are!' retorted noah. 'she's always a-doin' of it, mr. bumble, sir; she chucks me under the chin, please, sir; and makes all manner of love!' 'silence!' cried mr. bumble, sternly. 'take yourself downstairs, ma'am. noah, you shut up the shop; say another word till your master comes home, at your peril; and, when he does come home, tell him that mr. bumble said he was to send a old woman's shell after breakfast to-morrow morning. do you hear sir? kissing!' cried mr. bumble, holding up his hands. 'the sin and wickedness of the lower orders in this porochial district is frightful! if parliament don't take their abominable courses under consideration, this country's ruined, and the character of the peasantry gone for ever!' with these words, the beadle strode, with a lofty and gloomy air, from the undertaker's premises. and now that we have accompanied him so far on his road home, and have made all necessary preparations for the old woman's funeral, let us set on foot a few inquires after young oliver twist, and ascertain whether he be still lying in the ditch where toby crackit left him. chapter xxviii looks after oliver, and proceeds with his adventures 'wolves tear your throats!' muttered sikes, grinding his teeth. 'i wish i was among some of you; you'd howl the hoarser for it.' as sikes growled forth this imprecation, with the most desperate ferocity that his desperate nature was capable of, he rested the body of the wounded boy across his bended knee; and turned his head, for an instant, to look back at his pursuers. there was little to be made out, in the mist and darkness; but the loud shouting of men vibrated through the air, and the barking of the neighbouring dogs, roused by the sound of the alarm bell, resounded in every direction. 'stop, you white-livered hound!' cried the robber, shouting after toby crackit, who, making the best use of his long legs, was already ahead. 'stop!' the repetition of the word, brought toby to a dead stand-still. for he was not quite satisfied that he was beyond the range of pistol-shot; and sikes was in no mood to be played with. 'bear a hand with the boy,' cried sikes, beckoning furiously to his confederate. 'come back!' toby made a show of returning; but ventured, in a low voice, broken for want of breath, to intimate considerable reluctance as he came slowly along. 'quicker!' cried sikes, laying the boy in a dry ditch at his feet, and drawing a pistol from his pocket. 'don't play booty with me.' at this moment the noise grew louder. sikes, again looking round, could discern that the men who had given chase were already climbing the gate of the field in which he stood; and that a couple of dogs were some paces in advance of them. 'it's all up, bill!' cried toby; 'drop the kid, and show 'em your heels.' with this parting advice, mr. crackit, preferring the chance of being shot by his friend, to the certainty of being taken by his enemies, fairly turned tail, and darted off at full speed. sikes clenched his teeth; took one look around; threw over the prostrate form of oliver, the cape in which he had been hurriedly muffled; ran along the front of the hedge, as if to distract the attention of those behind, from the spot where the boy lay; paused, for a second, before another hedge which met it at right angles; and whirling his pistol high into the air, cleared it at a bound, and was gone. 'ho, ho, there!' cried a tremulous voice in the rear. 'pincher! neptune! come here, come here!' the dogs, who, in common with their masters, seemed to have no particular relish for the sport in which they were engaged, readily answered to the command. three men, who had by this time advanced some distance into the field, stopped to take counsel together. 'my advice, or, leastways, i should say, my _orders_, is,' said the fattest man of the party, 'that we 'mediately go home again.' 'i am agreeable to anything which is agreeable to mr. giles,' said a shorter man; who was by no means of a slim figure, and who was very pale in the face, and very polite: as frightened men frequently are. 'i shouldn't wish to appear ill-mannered, gentlemen,' said the third, who had called the dogs back, 'mr. giles ought to know.' 'certainly,' replied the shorter man; 'and whatever mr. giles says, it isn't our place to contradict him. no, no, i know my sitiwation! thank my stars, i know my sitiwation.' to tell the truth, the little man _did_ seem to know his situation, and to know perfectly well that it was by no means a desirable one; for his teeth chattered in his head as he spoke. 'you are afraid, brittles,' said mr. giles. 'i an't,' said brittles. 'you are,' said giles. 'you're a falsehood, mr. giles,' said brittles. 'you're a lie, brittles,' said mr. giles. now, these four retorts arose from mr. giles's taunt; and mr. giles's taunt had arisen from his indignation at having the responsibility of going home again, imposed upon himself under cover of a compliment. the third man brought the dispute to a close, most philosophically. 'i'll tell you what it is, gentlemen,' said he, 'we're all afraid.' 'speak for yourself, sir,' said mr. giles, who was the palest of the party. 'so i do,' replied the man. 'it's natural and proper to be afraid, under such circumstances. i am.' 'so am i,' said brittles; 'only there's no call to tell a man he is, so bounceably.' these frank admissions softened mr. giles, who at once owned that _he_ was afraid; upon which, they all three faced about, and ran back again with the completest unanimity, until mr. giles (who had the shortest wind of the party, as was encumbered with a pitchfork) most handsomely insisted on stopping, to make an apology for his hastiness of speech. 'but it's wonderful,' said mr. giles, when he had explained, 'what a man will do, when his blood is up. i should have committed murder--i know i should--if we'd caught one of them rascals.' as the other two were impressed with a similar presentiment; and as their blood, like his, had all gone down again; some speculation ensued upon the cause of this sudden change in their temperament. 'i know what it was,' said mr. giles; 'it was the gate.' 'i shouldn't wonder if it was,' exclaimed brittles, catching at the idea. 'you may depend upon it,' said giles, 'that that gate stopped the flow of the excitement. i felt all mine suddenly going away, as i was climbing over it.' by a remarkable coincidence, the other two had been visited with the same unpleasant sensation at that precise moment. it was quite obvious, therefore, that it was the gate; especially as there was no doubt regarding the time at which the change had taken place, because all three remembered that they had come in sight of the robbers at the instant of its occurance. this dialogue was held between the two men who had surprised the burglars, and a travelling tinker who had been sleeping in an outhouse, and who had been roused, together with his two mongrel curs, to join in the pursuit. mr. giles acted in the double capacity of butler and steward to the old lady of the mansion; brittles was a lad of all-work: who, having entered her service a mere child, was treated as a promising young boy still, though he was something past thirty. encouraging each other with such converse as this; but, keeping very close together, notwithstanding, and looking apprehensively round, whenever a fresh gust rattled through the boughs; the three men hurried back to a tree, behind which they had left their lantern, lest its light should inform the thieves in what direction to fire. catching up the light, they made the best of their way home, at a good round trot; and long after their dusky forms had ceased to be discernible, the light might have been seen twinkling and dancing in the distance, like some exhalation of the damp and gloomy atmosphere through which it was swiftly borne. the air grew colder, as day came slowly on; and the mist rolled along the ground like a dense cloud of smoke. the grass was wet; the pathways, and low places, were all mire and water; the damp breath of an unwholesome wind went languidly by, with a hollow moaning. still, oliver lay motionless and insensible on the spot where sikes had left him. morning drew on apace. the air become more sharp and piercing, as its first dull hue--the death of night, rather than the birth of day--glimmered faintly in the sky. the objects which had looked dim and terrible in the darkness, grew more and more defined, and gradually resolved into their familiar shapes. the rain came down, thick and fast, and pattered noisily among the leafless bushes. but, oliver felt it not, as it beat against him; for he still lay stretched, helpless and unconscious, on his bed of clay. at length, a low cry of pain broke the stillness that prevailed; and uttering it, the boy awoke. his left arm, rudely bandaged in a shawl, hung heavy and useless at his side; the bandage was saturated with blood. he was so weak, that he could scarcely raise himself into a sitting posture; when he had done so, he looked feebly round for help, and groaned with pain. trembling in every joint, from cold and exhaustion, he made an effort to stand upright; but, shuddering from head to foot, fell prostrate on the ground. after a short return of the stupor in which he had been so long plunged, oliver: urged by a creeping sickness at his heart, which seemed to warn him that if he lay there, he must surely die: got upon his feet, and essayed to walk. his head was dizzy, and he staggered to and fro like a drunken man. but he kept up, nevertheless, and, with his head drooping languidly on his breast, went stumbling onward, he knew not whither. and now, hosts of bewildering and confused ideas came crowding on his mind. he seemed to be still walking between sikes and crackit, who were angrily disputing--for the very words they said, sounded in his ears; and when he caught his own attention, as it were, by making some violent effort to save himself from falling, he found that he was talking to them. then, he was alone with sikes, plodding on as on the previous day; and as shadowy people passed them, he felt the robber's grasp upon his wrist. suddenly, he started back at the report of firearms; there rose into the air, loud cries and shouts; lights gleamed before his eyes; all was noise and tumult, as some unseen hand bore him hurriedly away. through all these rapid visions, there ran an undefined, uneasy consciousness of pain, which wearied and tormented him incessantly. thus he staggered on, creeping, almost mechanically, between the bars of gates, or through hedge-gaps as they came in his way, until he reached a road. here the rain began to fall so heavily, that it roused him. he looked about, and saw that at no great distance there was a house, which perhaps he could reach. pitying his condition, they might have compassion on him; and if they did not, it would be better, he thought, to die near human beings, than in the lonely open fields. he summoned up all his strength for one last trial, and bent his faltering steps towards it. as he drew nearer to this house, a feeling come over him that he had seen it before. he remembered nothing of its details; but the shape and aspect of the building seemed familiar to him. that garden wall! on the grass inside, he had fallen on his knees last night, and prayed the two men's mercy. it was the very house they had attempted to rob. oliver felt such fear come over him when he recognised the place, that, for the instant, he forgot the agony of his wound, and thought only of flight. flight! he could scarcely stand: and if he were in full possession of all the best powers of his slight and youthful frame, whither could he fly? he pushed against the garden-gate; it was unlocked, and swung open on its hinges. he tottered across the lawn; climbed the steps; knocked faintly at the door; and, his whole strength failing him, sunk down against one of the pillars of the little portico. it happened that about this time, mr. giles, brittles, and the tinker, were recruiting themselves, after the fatigues and terrors of the night, with tea and sundries, in the kitchen. not that it was mr. giles's habit to admit to too great familiarity the humbler servants: towards whom it was rather his wont to deport himself with a lofty affability, which, while it gratified, could not fail to remind them of his superior position in society. but, death, fires, and burglary, make all men equals; so mr. giles sat with his legs stretched out before the kitchen fender, leaning his left arm on the table, while, with his right, he illustrated a circumstantial and minute account of the robbery, to which his bearers (but especially the cook and housemaid, who were of the party) listened with breathless interest. 'it was about half-past two,' said mr. giles, 'or i wouldn't swear that it mightn't have been a little nearer three, when i woke up, and, turning round in my bed, as it might be so, (here mr. giles turned round in his chair, and pulled the corner of the table-cloth over him to imitate bed-clothes,) i fancied i heerd a noise.' at this point of the narrative the cook turned pale, and asked the housemaid to shut the door: who asked brittles, who asked the tinker, who pretended not to hear. '--heerd a noise,' continued mr. giles. 'i says, at first, "this is illusion"; and was composing myself off to sleep, when i heerd the noise again, distinct.' 'what sort of a noise?' asked the cook. 'a kind of a busting noise,' replied mr. giles, looking round him. 'more like the noise of powdering a iron bar on a nutmeg-grater,' suggested brittles. 'it was, when _you_ heerd it, sir,' rejoined mr. giles; 'but, at this time, it had a busting sound. i turned down the clothes'; continued giles, rolling back the table-cloth, 'sat up in bed; and listened.' the cook and housemaid simultaneously ejaculated 'lor!' and drew their chairs closer together. 'i heerd it now, quite apparent,' resumed mr. giles. '"somebody," i says, "is forcing of a door, or window; what's to be done? i'll call up that poor lad, brittles, and save him from being murdered in his bed; or his throat," i says, "may be cut from his right ear to his left, without his ever knowing it."' here, all eyes were turned upon brittles, who fixed his upon the speaker, and stared at him, with his mouth wide open, and his face expressive of the most unmitigated horror. 'i tossed off the clothes,' said giles, throwing away the table-cloth, and looking very hard at the cook and housemaid, 'got softly out of bed; drew on a pair of--' 'ladies present, mr. giles,' murmured the tinker. '--of _shoes_, sir,' said giles, turning upon him, and laying great emphasis on the word; 'seized the loaded pistol that always goes upstairs with the plate-basket; and walked on tiptoes to his room. "brittles," i says, when i had woke him, "don't be frightened!"' 'so you did,' observed brittles, in a low voice. '"we're dead men, i think, brittles," i says,' continued giles; '"but don't be frightened."' '_was_ he frightened?' asked the cook. 'not a bit of it,' replied mr. giles. 'he was as firm--ah! pretty near as firm as i was.' 'i should have died at once, i'm sure, if it had been me,' observed the housemaid. 'you're a woman,' retorted brittles, plucking up a little. 'brittles is right,' said mr. giles, nodding his head, approvingly; 'from a woman, nothing else was to be expected. we, being men, took a dark lantern that was standing on brittle's hob, and groped our way downstairs in the pitch dark,--as it might be so.' mr. giles had risen from his seat, and taken two steps with his eyes shut, to accompany his description with appropriate action, when he started violently, in common with the rest of the company, and hurried back to his chair. the cook and housemaid screamed. 'it was a knock,' said mr. giles, assuming perfect serenity. 'open the door, somebody.' nobody moved. 'it seems a strange sort of a thing, a knock coming at such a time in the morning,' said mr. giles, surveying the pale faces which surrounded him, and looking very blank himself; 'but the door must be opened. do you hear, somebody?' mr. giles, as he spoke, looked at brittles; but that young man, being naturally modest, probably considered himself nobody, and so held that the inquiry could not have any application to him; at all events, he tendered no reply. mr. giles directed an appealing glance at the tinker; but he had suddenly fallen asleep. the women were out of the question. 'if brittles would rather open the door, in the presence of witnesses,' said mr. giles, after a short silence, 'i am ready to make one.' 'so am i,' said the tinker, waking up, as suddenly as he had fallen asleep. brittles capitulated on these terms; and the party being somewhat re-assured by the discovery (made on throwing open the shutters) that it was now broad day, took their way upstairs; with the dogs in front. the two women, who were afraid to stay below, brought up the rear. by the advice of mr. giles, they all talked very loud, to warn any evil-disposed person outside, that they were strong in numbers; and by a master-stoke of policy, originating in the brain of the same ingenious gentleman, the dogs' tails were well pinched, in the hall, to make them bark savagely. these precautions having been taken, mr. giles held on fast by the tinker's arm (to prevent his running away, as he pleasantly said), and gave the word of command to open the door. brittles obeyed; the group, peeping timorously over each other's shoulders, beheld no more formidable object than poor little oliver twist, speechless and exhausted, who raised his heavy eyes, and mutely solicited their compassion. 'a boy!' exclaimed mr. giles, valiantly, pushing the tinker into the background. 'what's the matter with the--eh?--why--brittles--look here--don't you know?' brittles, who had got behind the door to open it, no sooner saw oliver, than he uttered a loud cry. mr. giles, seizing the boy by one leg and one arm (fortunately not the broken limb) lugged him straight into the hall, and deposited him at full length on the floor thereof. 'here he is!' bawled giles, calling in a state of great excitement, up the staircase; 'here's one of the thieves, ma'am! here's a thief, miss! wounded, miss! i shot him, miss; and brittles held the light.' '--in a lantern, miss,' cried brittles, applying one hand to the side of his mouth, so that his voice might travel the better. the two women-servants ran upstairs to carry the intelligence that mr. giles had captured a robber; and the tinker busied himself in endeavouring to restore oliver, lest he should die before he could be hanged. in the midst of all this noise and commotion, there was heard a sweet female voice, which quelled it in an instant. 'giles!' whispered the voice from the stair-head. 'i'm here, miss,' replied mr. giles. 'don't be frightened, miss; i ain't much injured. he didn't make a very desperate resistance, miss! i was soon too many for him.' 'hush!' replied the young lady; 'you frighten my aunt as much as the thieves did. is the poor creature much hurt?' 'wounded desperate, miss,' replied giles, with indescribable complacency. 'he looks as if he was a-going, miss,' bawled brittles, in the same manner as before. 'wouldn't you like to come and look at him, miss, in case he should?' 'hush, pray; there's a good man!' rejoined the lady. 'wait quietly only one instant, while i speak to aunt.' with a footstep as soft and gentle as the voice, the speaker tripped away. she soon returned, with the direction that the wounded person was to be carried, carefully, upstairs to mr. giles's room; and that brittles was to saddle the pony and betake himself instantly to chertsey: from which place, he was to despatch, with all speed, a constable and doctor. 'but won't you take one look at him, first, miss?' asked mr. giles, with as much pride as if oliver were some bird of rare plumage, that he had skilfully brought down. 'not one little peep, miss?' 'not now, for the world,' replied the young lady. 'poor fellow! oh! treat him kindly, giles for my sake!' the old servant looked up at the speaker, as she turned away, with a glance as proud and admiring as if she had been his own child. then, bending over oliver, he helped to carry him upstairs, with the care and solicitude of a woman. chapter xxix has an introductory account of the inmates of the house, to which oliver resorted in a handsome room: though its furniture had rather the air of old-fashioned comfort, than of modern elegance: there sat two ladies at a well-spread breakfast-table. mr. giles, dressed with scrupulous care in a full suit of black, was in attendance upon them. he had taken his station some half-way between the side-board and the breakfast-table; and, with his body drawn up to its full height, his head thrown back, and inclined the merest trifle on one side, his left leg advanced, and his right hand thrust into his waist-coat, while his left hung down by his side, grasping a waiter, looked like one who laboured under a very agreeable sense of his own merits and importance. of the two ladies, one was well advanced in years; but the high-backed oaken chair in which she sat, was not more upright than she. dressed with the utmost nicety and precision, in a quaint mixture of by-gone costume, with some slight concessions to the prevailing taste, which rather served to point the old style pleasantly than to impair its effect, she sat, in a stately manner, with her hands folded on the table before her. her eyes (and age had dimmed but little of their brightness) were attentively upon her young companion. the younger lady was in the lovely bloom and spring-time of womanhood; at that age, when, if ever angels be for god's good purposes enthroned in mortal forms, they may be, without impiety, supposed to abide in such as hers. she was not past seventeen. cast in so slight and exquisite a mould; so mild and gentle; so pure and beautiful; that earth seemed not her element, nor its rough creatures her fit companions. the very intelligence that shone in her deep blue eye, and was stamped upon her noble head, seemed scarcely of her age, or of the world; and yet the changing expression of sweetness and good humour, the thousand lights that played about the face, and left no shadow there; above all, the smile, the cheerful, happy smile, were made for home, and fireside peace and happiness. she was busily engaged in the little offices of the table. chancing to raise her eyes as the elder lady was regarding her, she playfully put back her hair, which was simply braided on her forehead; and threw into her beaming look, such an expression of affection and artless loveliness, that blessed spirits might have smiled to look upon her. 'and brittles has been gone upwards of an hour, has he?' asked the old lady, after a pause. 'an hour and twelve minutes, ma'am,' replied mr. giles, referring to a silver watch, which he drew forth by a black ribbon. 'he is always slow,' remarked the old lady. 'brittles always was a slow boy, ma'am,' replied the attendant. and seeing, by the bye, that brittles had been a slow boy for upwards of thirty years, there appeared no great probability of his ever being a fast one. 'he gets worse instead of better, i think,' said the elder lady. 'it is very inexcusable in him if he stops to play with any other boys,' said the young lady, smiling. mr. giles was apparently considering the propriety of indulging in a respectful smile himself, when a gig drove up to the garden-gate: out of which there jumped a fat gentleman, who ran straight up to the door: and who, getting quickly into the house by some mysterious process, burst into the room, and nearly overturned mr. giles and the breakfast-table together. 'i never heard of such a thing!' exclaimed the fat gentleman. 'my dear mrs. maylie--bless my soul--in the silence of the night, too--i _never_ heard of such a thing!' with these expressions of condolence, the fat gentleman shook hands with both ladies, and drawing up a chair, inquired how they found themselves. 'you ought to be dead; positively dead with the fright,' said the fat gentleman. 'why didn't you send? bless me, my man should have come in a minute; and so would i; and my assistant would have been delighted; or anybody, i'm sure, under such circumstances. dear, dear! so unexpected! in the silence of the night, too!' the doctor seemed expecially troubled by the fact of the robbery having been unexpected, and attempted in the night-time; as if it were the established custom of gentlemen in the housebreaking way to transact business at noon, and to make an appointment, by post, a day or two previous. 'and you, miss rose,' said the doctor, turning to the young lady, 'i--' 'oh! very much so, indeed,' said rose, interrupting him; 'but there is a poor creature upstairs, whom aunt wishes you to see.' 'ah! to be sure,' replied the doctor, 'so there is. that was your handiwork, giles, i understand.' mr. giles, who had been feverishly putting the tea-cups to rights, blushed very red, and said that he had had that honour. 'honour, eh?' said the doctor; 'well, i don't know; perhaps it's as honourable to hit a thief in a back kitchen, as to hit your man at twelve paces. fancy that he fired in the air, and you've fought a duel, giles.' mr. giles, who thought this light treatment of the matter an unjust attempt at diminishing his glory, answered respectfully, that it was not for the like of him to judge about that; but he rather thought it was no joke to the opposite party. 'gad, that's true!' said the doctor. 'where is he? show me the way. i'll look in again, as i come down, mrs. maylie. that's the little window that he got in at, eh? well, i couldn't have believed it!' talking all the way, he followed mr. giles upstairs; and while he is going upstairs, the reader may be informed, that mr. losberne, a surgeon in the neighbourhood, known through a circuit of ten miles round as 'the doctor,' had grown fat, more from good-humour than from good living: and was as kind and hearty, and withal as eccentric an old bachelor, as will be found in five times that space, by any explorer alive. the doctor was absent, much longer than either he or the ladies had anticipated. a large flat box was fetched out of the gig; and a bedroom bell was rung very often; and the servants ran up and down stairs perpetually; from which tokens it was justly concluded that something important was going on above. at length he returned; and in reply to an anxious inquiry after his patient; looked very mysterious, and closed the door, carefully. 'this is a very extraordinary thing, mrs. maylie,' said the doctor, standing with his back to the door, as if to keep it shut. 'he is not in danger, i hope?' said the old lady. 'why, that would _not_ be an extraordinary thing, under the circumstances,' replied the doctor; 'though i don't think he is. have you seen the thief?' 'no,' rejoined the old lady. 'nor heard anything about him?' 'no.' 'i beg your pardon, ma'am, interposed mr. giles; 'but i was going to tell you about him when doctor losberne came in.' the fact was, that mr. giles had not, at first, been able to bring his mind to the avowal, that he had only shot a boy. such commendations had been bestowed upon his bravery, that he could not, for the life of him, help postponing the explanation for a few delicious minutes; during which he had flourished, in the very zenith of a brief reputation for undaunted courage. 'rose wished to see the man,' said mrs. maylie, 'but i wouldn't hear of it.' 'humph!' rejoined the doctor. 'there is nothing very alarming in his appearance. have you any objection to see him in my presence?' 'if it be necessary,' replied the old lady, 'certainly not.' 'then i think it is necessary,' said the doctor; 'at all events, i am quite sure that you would deeply regret not having done so, if you postponed it. he is perfectly quiet and comfortable now. allow me--miss rose, will you permit me? not the slightest fear, i pledge you my honour!' chapter xxx relates what oliver's new visitors thought of him with many loquacious assurances that they would be agreeably surprised in the aspect of the criminal, the doctor drew the young lady's arm through one of his; and offering his disengaged hand to mrs. maylie, led them, with much ceremony and stateliness, upstairs. 'now,' said the doctor, in a whisper, as he softly turned the handle of a bedroom-door, 'let us hear what you think of him. he has not been shaved very recently, but he don't look at all ferocious notwithstanding. stop, though! let me first see that he is in visiting order.' stepping before them, he looked into the room. motioning them to advance, he closed the door when they had entered; and gently drew back the curtains of the bed. upon it, in lieu of the dogged, black-visaged ruffian they had expected to behold, there lay a mere child: worn with pain and exhaustion, and sunk into a deep sleep. his wounded arm, bound and splintered up, was crossed upon his breast; his head reclined upon the other arm, which was half hidden by his long hair, as it streamed over the pillow. the honest gentleman held the curtain in his hand, and looked on, for a minute or so, in silence. whilst he was watching the patient thus, the younger lady glided softly past, and seating herself in a chair by the bedside, gathered oliver's hair from his face. as she stooped over him, her tears fell upon his forehead. the boy stirred, and smiled in his sleep, as though these marks of pity and compassion had awakened some pleasant dream of a love and affection he had never known. thus, a strain of gentle music, or the rippling of water in a silent place, or the odour of a flower, or the mention of a familiar word, will sometimes call up sudden dim remembrances of scenes that never were, in this life; which vanish like a breath; which some brief memory of a happier existence, long gone by, would seem to have awakened; which no voluntary exertion of the mind can ever recall. 'what can this mean?' exclaimed the elder lady. 'this poor child can never have been the pupil of robbers!' 'vice,' said the surgeon, replacing the curtain, 'takes up her abode in many temples; and who can say that a fair outside shell not enshrine her?' 'but at so early an age!' urged rose. 'my dear young lady,' rejoined the surgeon, mournfully shaking his head; 'crime, like death, is not confined to the old and withered alone. the youngest and fairest are too often its chosen victims.' 'but, can you--oh! can you really believe that this delicate boy has been the voluntary associate of the worst outcasts of society?' said rose. the surgeon shook his head, in a manner which intimated that he feared it was very possible; and observing that they might disturb the patient, led the way into an adjoining apartment. 'but even if he has been wicked,' pursued rose, 'think how young he is; think that he may never have known a mother's love, or the comfort of a home; that ill-usage and blows, or the want of bread, may have driven him to herd with men who have forced him to guilt. aunt, dear aunt, for mercy's sake, think of this, before you let them drag this sick child to a prison, which in any case must be the grave of all his chances of amendment. oh! as you love me, and know that i have never felt the want of parents in your goodness and affection, but that i might have done so, and might have been equally helpless and unprotected with this poor child, have pity upon him before it is too late!' 'my dear love,' said the elder lady, as she folded the weeping girl to her bosom, 'do you think i would harm a hair of his head?' 'oh, no!' replied rose, eagerly. 'no, surely,' said the old lady; 'my days are drawing to their close: and may mercy be shown to me as i show it to others! what can i do to save him, sir?' 'let me think, ma'am,' said the doctor; 'let me think.' mr. losberne thrust his hands into his pockets, and took several turns up and down the room; often stopping, and balancing himself on his toes, and frowning frightfully. after various exclamations of 'i've got it now' and 'no, i haven't,' and as many renewals of the walking and frowning, he at length made a dead halt, and spoke as follows: 'i think if you give me a full and unlimited commission to bully giles, and that little boy, brittles, i can manage it. giles is a faithful fellow and an old servant, i know; but you can make it up to him in a thousand ways, and reward him for being such a good shot besides. you don't object to that?' 'unless there is some other way of preserving the child,' replied mrs. maylie. 'there is no other,' said the doctor. 'no other, take my word for it.' 'then my aunt invests you with full power,' said rose, smiling through her tears; 'but pray don't be harder upon the poor fellows than is indispensably necessary.' 'you seem to think,' retorted the doctor, 'that everybody is disposed to be hard-hearted to-day, except yourself, miss rose. i only hope, for the sake of the rising male sex generally, that you may be found in as vulnerable and soft-hearted a mood by the first eligible young fellow who appeals to your compassion; and i wish i were a young fellow, that i might avail myself, on the spot, of such a favourable opportunity for doing so, as the present.' 'you are as great a boy as poor brittles himself,' returned rose, blushing. 'well,' said the doctor, laughing heartily, 'that is no very difficult matter. but to return to this boy. the great point of our agreement is yet to come. he will wake in an hour or so, i dare say; and although i have told that thick-headed constable-fellow downstairs that he musn't be moved or spoken to, on peril of his life, i think we may converse with him without danger. now i make this stipulation--that i shall examine him in your presence, and that, if, from what he says, we judge, and i can show to the satisfaction of your cool reason, that he is a real and thorough bad one (which is more than possible), he shall be left to his fate, without any farther interference on my part, at all events.' 'oh no, aunt!' entreated rose. 'oh yes, aunt!' said the doctor. 'is is a bargain?' 'he cannot be hardened in vice,' said rose; 'it is impossible.' 'very good,' retorted the doctor; 'then so much the more reason for acceding to my proposition.' finally the treaty was entered into; and the parties thereunto sat down to wait, with some impatience, until oliver should awake. the patience of the two ladies was destined to undergo a longer trial than mr. losberne had led them to expect; for hour after hour passed on, and still oliver slumbered heavily. it was evening, indeed, before the kind-hearted doctor brought them the intelligence, that he was at length sufficiently restored to be spoken to. the boy was very ill, he said, and weak from the loss of blood; but his mind was so troubled with anxiety to disclose something, that he deemed it better to give him the opportunity, than to insist upon his remaining quiet until next morning: which he should otherwise have done. the conference was a long one. oliver told them all his simple history, and was often compelled to stop, by pain and want of strength. it was a solemn thing, to hear, in the darkened room, the feeble voice of the sick child recounting a weary catalogue of evils and calamities which hard men had brought upon him. oh! if when we oppress and grind our fellow-creatures, we bestowed but one thought on the dark evidences of human error, which, like dense and heavy clouds, are rising, slowly it is true, but not less surely, to heaven, to pour their after-vengeance on our heads; if we heard but one instant, in imagination, the deep testimony of dead men's voices, which no power can stifle, and no pride shut out; where would be the injury and injustice, the suffering, misery, cruelty, and wrong, that each day's life brings with it! oliver's pillow was smoothed by gentle hands that night; and loveliness and virtue watched him as he slept. he felt calm and happy, and could have died without a murmur. the momentous interview was no sooner concluded, and oliver composed to rest again, than the doctor, after wiping his eyes, and condemning them for being weak all at once, betook himself downstairs to open upon mr. giles. and finding nobody about the parlours, it occurred to him, that he could perhaps originate the proceedings with better effect in the kitchen; so into the kitchen he went. there were assembled, in that lower house of the domestic parliament, the women-servants, mr. brittles, mr. giles, the tinker (who had received a special invitation to regale himself for the remainder of the day, in consideration of his services), and the constable. the latter gentleman had a large staff, a large head, large features, and large half-boots; and he looked as if he had been taking a proportionate allowance of ale--as indeed he had. the adventures of the previous night were still under discussion; for mr. giles was expatiating upon his presence of mind, when the doctor entered; mr. brittles, with a mug of ale in his hand, was corroborating everything, before his superior said it. 'sit still!' said the doctor, waving his hand. 'thank you, sir, said mr. giles. 'misses wished some ale to be given out, sir; and as i felt no ways inclined for my own little room, sir, and was disposed for company, i am taking mine among 'em here.' brittles headed a low murmur, by which the ladies and gentlemen generally were understood to express the gratification they derived from mr. giles's condescension. mr. giles looked round with a patronising air, as much as to say that so long as they behaved properly, he would never desert them. 'how is the patient to-night, sir?' asked giles. 'so-so'; returned the doctor. 'i am afraid you have got yourself into a scrape there, mr. giles.' 'i hope you don't mean to say, sir,' said mr. giles, trembling, 'that he's going to die. if i thought it, i should never be happy again. i wouldn't cut a boy off: no, not even brittles here; not for all the plate in the county, sir.' 'that's not the point,' said the doctor, mysteriously. 'mr. giles, are you a protestant?' 'yes, sir, i hope so,' faltered mr. giles, who had turned very pale. 'and what are _you_, boy?' said the doctor, turning sharply upon brittles. 'lord bless me, sir!' replied brittles, starting violently; 'i'm the same as mr. giles, sir.' 'then tell me this,' said the doctor, 'both of you, both of you! are you going to take upon yourselves to swear, that that boy upstairs is the boy that was put through the little window last night? out with it! come! we are prepared for you!' the doctor, who was universally considered one of the best-tempered creatures on earth, made this demand in such a dreadful tone of anger, that giles and brittles, who were considerably muddled by ale and excitement, stared at each other in a state of stupefaction. 'pay attention to the reply, constable, will you?' said the doctor, shaking his forefinger with great solemnity of manner, and tapping the bridge of his nose with it, to bespeak the exercise of that worthy's utmost acuteness. 'something may come of this before long.' the constable looked as wise as he could, and took up his staff of office: which had been reclining indolently in the chimney-corner. 'it's a simple question of identity, you will observe,' said the doctor. 'that's what it is, sir,' replied the constable, coughing with great violence; for he had finished his ale in a hurry, and some of it had gone the wrong way. 'here's the house broken into,' said the doctor, 'and a couple of men catch one moment's glimpse of a boy, in the midst of gunpowder smoke, and in all the distraction of alarm and darkness. here's a boy comes to that very same house, next morning, and because he happens to have his arm tied up, these men lay violent hands upon him--by doing which, they place his life in great danger--and swear he is the thief. now, the question is, whether these men are justified by the fact; if not, in what situation do they place themselves?' the constable nodded profoundly. he said, if that wasn't law, he would be glad to know what was. 'i ask you again,' thundered the doctor, 'are you, on your solemn oaths, able to identify that boy?' brittles looked doubtfully at mr. giles; mr. giles looked doubtfully at brittles; the constable put his hand behind his ear, to catch the reply; the two women and the tinker leaned forward to listen; the doctor glanced keenly round; when a ring was heard at the gate, and at the same moment, the sound of wheels. 'it's the runners!' cried brittles, to all appearance much relieved. 'the what?' exclaimed the doctor, aghast in his turn. 'the bow street officers, sir,' replied brittles, taking up a candle; 'me and mr. giles sent for 'em this morning.' 'what?' cried the doctor. 'yes,' replied brittles; 'i sent a message up by the coachman, and i only wonder they weren't here before, sir.' 'you did, did you? then confound your--slow coaches down here; that's all,' said the doctor, walking away. chapter xxxi involves a critical position 'who's that?' inquired brittles, opening the door a little way, with the chain up, and peeping out, shading the candle with his hand. 'open the door,' replied a man outside; 'it's the officers from bow street, as was sent to to-day.' much comforted by this assurance, brittles opened the door to its full width, and confronted a portly man in a great-coat; who walked in, without saying anything more, and wiped his shoes on the mat, as coolly as if he lived there. 'just send somebody out to relieve my mate, will you, young man?' said the officer; 'he's in the gig, a-minding the prad. have you got a coach 'us here, that you could put it up in, for five or ten minutes?' brittles replying in the affirmative, and pointing out the building, the portly man stepped back to the garden-gate, and helped his companion to put up the gig: while brittles lighted them, in a state of great admiration. this done, they returned to the house, and, being shown into a parlour, took off their great-coats and hats, and showed like what they were. the man who had knocked at the door, was a stout personage of middle height, aged about fifty: with shiny black hair, cropped pretty close; half-whiskers, a round face, and sharp eyes. the other was a red-headed, bony man, in top-boots; with a rather ill-favoured countenance, and a turned-up sinister-looking nose. 'tell your governor that blathers and duff is here, will you?' said the stouter man, smoothing down his hair, and laying a pair of handcuffs on the table. 'oh! good-evening, master. can i have a word or two with you in private, if you please?' this was addressed to mr. losberne, who now made his appearance; that gentleman, motioning brittles to retire, brought in the two ladies, and shut the door. 'this is the lady of the house,' said mr. losberne, motioning towards mrs. maylie. mr. blathers made a bow. being desired to sit down, he put his hat on the floor, and taking a chair, motioned to duff to do the same. the latter gentleman, who did not appear quite so much accustomed to good society, or quite so much at his ease in it--one of the two--seated himself, after undergoing several muscular affections of the limbs, and the head of his stick into his mouth, with some embarrassment. 'now, with regard to this here robbery, master,' said blathers. 'what are the circumstances?' mr. losberne, who appeared desirous of gaining time, recounted them at great length, and with much circumlocution. messrs. blathers and duff looked very knowing meanwhile, and occasionally exchanged a nod. 'i can't say, for certain, till i see the work, of course,' said blathers; 'but my opinion at once is,--i don't mind committing myself to that extent,--that this wasn't done by a yokel; eh, duff?' 'certainly not,' replied duff. 'and, translating the word yokel for the benefit of the ladies, i apprehend your meaning to be, that this attempt was not made by a countryman?' said mr. losberne, with a smile. 'that's it, master,' replied blathers. 'this is all about the robbery, is it?' 'all,' replied the doctor. 'now, what is this, about this here boy that the servants are a-talking on?' said blathers. 'nothing at all,' replied the doctor. 'one of the frightened servants chose to take it into his head, that he had something to do with this attempt to break into the house; but it's nonsense: sheer absurdity.' 'wery easy disposed of, if it is,' remarked duff. 'what he says is quite correct,' observed blathers, nodding his head in a confirmatory way, and playing carelessly with the handcuffs, as if they were a pair of castanets. 'who is the boy? what account does he give of himself? where did he come from? he didn't drop out of the clouds, did he, master?' 'of course not,' replied the doctor, with a nervous glance at the two ladies. 'i know his whole history: but we can talk about that presently. you would like, first, to see the place where the thieves made their attempt, i suppose?' 'certainly,' rejoined mr. blathers. 'we had better inspect the premises first, and examine the servants afterwards. that's the usual way of doing business.' lights were then procured; and messrs. blathers and duff, attended by the native constable, brittles, giles, and everybody else in short, went into the little room at the end of the passage and looked out at the window; and afterwards went round by way of the lawn, and looked in at the window; and after that, had a candle handed out to inspect the shutter with; and after that, a lantern to trace the footsteps with; and after that, a pitchfork to poke the bushes with. this done, amidst the breathless interest of all beholders, they came in again; and mr. giles and brittles were put through a melodramatic representation of their share in the previous night's adventures: which they performed some six times over: contradicting each other, in not more than one important respect, the first time, and in not more than a dozen the last. this consummation being arrived at, blathers and duff cleared the room, and held a long council together, compared with which, for secrecy and solemnity, a consultation of great doctors on the knottiest point in medicine, would be mere child's play. meanwhile, the doctor walked up and down the next room in a very uneasy state; and mrs. maylie and rose looked on, with anxious faces. 'upon my word,' he said, making a halt, after a great number of very rapid turns, 'i hardly know what to do.' 'surely,' said rose, 'the poor child's story, faithfully repeated to these men, will be sufficient to exonerate him.' 'i doubt it, my dear young lady,' said the doctor, shaking his head. 'i don't think it would exonerate him, either with them, or with legal functionaries of a higher grade. what is he, after all, they would say? a runaway. judged by mere worldly considerations and probabilities, his story is a very doubtful one.' 'you believe it, surely?' interrupted rose. '_i_ believe it, strange as it is; and perhaps i may be an old fool for doing so,' rejoined the doctor; 'but i don't think it is exactly the tale for a practical police-officer, nevertheless.' 'why not?' demanded rose. 'because, my pretty cross-examiner,' replied the doctor: 'because, viewed with their eyes, there are many ugly points about it; he can only prove the parts that look ill, and none of those that look well. confound the fellows, they _will_ have the why and the wherefore, and will take nothing for granted. on his own showing, you see, he has been the companion of thieves for some time past; he has been carried to a police-officer, on a charge of picking a gentleman's pocket; he has been taken away, forcibly, from that gentleman's house, to a place which he cannot describe or point out, and of the situation of which he has not the remotest idea. he is brought down to chertsey, by men who seem to have taken a violent fancy to him, whether he will or no; and is put through a window to rob a house; and then, just at the very moment when he is going to alarm the inmates, and so do the very thing that would set him all to rights, there rushes into the way, a blundering dog of a half-bred butler, and shoots him! as if on purpose to prevent his doing any good for himself! don't you see all this?' 'i see it, of course,' replied rose, smiling at the doctor's impetuosity; 'but still i do not see anything in it, to criminate the poor child.' 'no,' replied the doctor; 'of course not! bless the bright eyes of your sex! they never see, whether for good or bad, more than one side of any question; and that is, always, the one which first presents itself to them.' having given vent to this result of experience, the doctor put his hands into his pockets, and walked up and down the room with even greater rapidity than before. 'the more i think of it,' said the doctor, 'the more i see that it will occasion endless trouble and difficulty if we put these men in possession of the boy's real story. i am certain it will not be believed; and even if they can do nothing to him in the end, still the dragging it forward, and giving publicity to all the doubts that will be cast upon it, must interfere, materially, with your benevolent plan of rescuing him from misery.' 'oh! what is to be done?' cried rose. 'dear, dear! why did they send for these people?' 'why, indeed!' exclaimed mrs. maylie. 'i would not have had them here, for the world.' 'all i know is,' said mr. losberne, at last: sitting down with a kind of desperate calmness, 'that we must try and carry it off with a bold face. the object is a good one, and that must be our excuse. the boy has strong symptoms of fever upon him, and is in no condition to be talked to any more; that's one comfort. we must make the best of it; and if bad be the best, it is no fault of ours. come in!' 'well, master,' said blathers, entering the room followed by his colleague, and making the door fast, before he said any more. 'this warn't a put-up thing.' 'and what the devil's a put-up thing?' demanded the doctor, impatiently. 'we call it a put-up robbery, ladies,' said blathers, turning to them, as if he pitied their ignorance, but had a contempt for the doctor's, 'when the servants is in it.' 'nobody suspected them, in this case,' said mrs. maylie. 'wery likely not, ma'am,' replied blathers; 'but they might have been in it, for all that.' 'more likely on that wery account,' said duff. 'we find it was a town hand,' said blathers, continuing his report; 'for the style of work is first-rate.' 'wery pretty indeed it is,' remarked duff, in an undertone. 'there was two of 'em in it,' continued blathers; 'and they had a boy with 'em; that's plain from the size of the window. that's all to be said at present. we'll see this lad that you've got upstairs at once, if you please.' 'perhaps they will take something to drink first, mrs. maylie?' said the doctor: his face brightening, as if some new thought had occurred to him. 'oh! to be sure!' exclaimed rose, eagerly. 'you shall have it immediately, if you will.' 'why, thank you, miss!' said blathers, drawing his coat-sleeve across his mouth; 'it's dry work, this sort of duty. anythink that's handy, miss; don't put yourself out of the way, on our accounts.' 'what shall it be?' asked the doctor, following the young lady to the sideboard. 'a little drop of spirits, master, if it's all the same,' replied blathers. 'it's a cold ride from london, ma'am; and i always find that spirits comes home warmer to the feelings.' this interesting communication was addressed to mrs. maylie, who received it very graciously. while it was being conveyed to her, the doctor slipped out of the room. 'ah!' said mr. blathers: not holding his wine-glass by the stem, but grasping the bottom between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand: and placing it in front of his chest; 'i have seen a good many pieces of business like this, in my time, ladies.' 'that crack down in the back lane at edmonton, blathers,' said mr. duff, assisting his colleague's memory. 'that was something in this way, warn't it?' rejoined mr. blathers; 'that was done by conkey chickweed, that was.' 'you always gave that to him' replied duff. 'it was the family pet, i tell you. conkey hadn't any more to do with it than i had.' 'get out!' retorted mr. blathers; 'i know better. do you mind that time when conkey was robbed of his money, though? what a start that was! better than any novel-book _i_ ever see!' 'what was that?' inquired rose: anxious to encourage any symptoms of good-humour in the unwelcome visitors. 'it was a robbery, miss, that hardly anybody would have been down upon,' said blathers. 'this here conkey chickweed--' 'conkey means nosey, ma'am,' interposed duff. 'of course the lady knows that, don't she?' demanded mr. blathers. 'always interrupting, you are, partner! this here conkey chickweed, miss, kept a public-house over battlebridge way, and he had a cellar, where a good many young lords went to see cock-fighting, and badger-drawing, and that; and a wery intellectual manner the sports was conducted in, for i've seen 'em off'en. he warn't one of the family, at that time; and one night he was robbed of three hundred and twenty-seven guineas in a canvas bag, that was stole out of his bedroom in the dead of night, by a tall man with a black patch over his eye, who had concealed himself under the bed, and after committing the robbery, jumped slap out of window: which was only a story high. he was wery quick about it. but conkey was quick, too; for he fired a blunderbuss arter him, and roused the neighbourhood. they set up a hue-and-cry, directly, and when they came to look about 'em, found that conkey had hit the robber; for there was traces of blood, all the way to some palings a good distance off; and there they lost 'em. however, he had made off with the blunt; and, consequently, the name of mr. chickweed, licensed witler, appeared in the gazette among the other bankrupts; and all manner of benefits and subscriptions, and i don't know what all, was got up for the poor man, who was in a wery low state of mind about his loss, and went up and down the streets, for three or four days, a pulling his hair off in such a desperate manner that many people was afraid he might be going to make away with himself. one day he came up to the office, all in a hurry, and had a private interview with the magistrate, who, after a deal of talk, rings the bell, and orders jem spyers in (jem was a active officer), and tells him to go and assist mr. chickweed in apprehending the man as robbed his house. "i see him, spyers," said chickweed, "pass my house yesterday morning," "why didn't you up, and collar him!" says spyers. "i was so struck all of a heap, that you might have fractured my skull with a toothpick," says the poor man; "but we're sure to have him; for between ten and eleven o'clock at night he passed again." spyers no sooner heard this, than he put some clean linen and a comb, in his pocket, in case he should have to stop a day or two; and away he goes, and sets himself down at one of the public-house windows behind the little red curtain, with his hat on, all ready to bolt out, at a moment's notice. he was smoking his pipe here, late at night, when all of a sudden chickweed roars out, "here he is! stop thief! murder!" jem spyers dashes out; and there he sees chickweed, a-tearing down the street full cry. away goes spyers; on goes chickweed; round turns the people; everybody roars out, "thieves!" and chickweed himself keeps on shouting, all the time, like mad. spyers loses sight of him a minute as he turns a corner; shoots round; sees a little crowd; dives in; "which is the man?" "d--me!" says chickweed, "i've lost him again!" it was a remarkable occurrence, but he warn't to be seen nowhere, so they went back to the public-house. next morning, spyers took his old place, and looked out, from behind the curtain, for a tall man with a black patch over his eye, till his own two eyes ached again. at last, he couldn't help shutting 'em, to ease 'em a minute; and the very moment he did so, he hears chickweed a-roaring out, "here he is!" off he starts once more, with chickweed half-way down the street ahead of him; and after twice as long a run as the yesterday's one, the man's lost again! this was done, once or twice more, till one-half the neighbours gave out that mr. chickweed had been robbed by the devil, who was playing tricks with him arterwards; and the other half, that poor mr. chickweed had gone mad with grief.' 'what did jem spyers say?' inquired the doctor; who had returned to the room shortly after the commencement of the story. 'jem spyers,' resumed the officer, 'for a long time said nothing at all, and listened to everything without seeming to, which showed he understood his business. but, one morning, he walked into the bar, and taking out his snuffbox, says "chickweed, i've found out who done this here robbery." "have you?" said chickweed. "oh, my dear spyers, only let me have wengeance, and i shall die contented! oh, my dear spyers, where is the villain!" "come!" said spyers, offering him a pinch of snuff, "none of that gammon! you did it yourself." so he had; and a good bit of money he had made by it, too; and nobody would never have found it out, if he hadn't been so precious anxious to keep up appearances!' said mr. blathers, putting down his wine-glass, and clinking the handcuffs together. 'very curious, indeed,' observed the doctor. 'now, if you please, you can walk upstairs.' 'if _you_ please, sir,' returned mr. blathers. closely following mr. losberne, the two officers ascended to oliver's bedroom; mr. giles preceding the party, with a lighted candle. oliver had been dozing; but looked worse, and was more feverish than he had appeared yet. being assisted by the doctor, he managed to sit up in bed for a minute or so; and looked at the strangers without at all understanding what was going forward--in fact, without seeming to recollect where he was, or what had been passing. 'this,' said mr. losberne, speaking softly, but with great vehemence notwithstanding, 'this is the lad, who, being accidently wounded by a spring-gun in some boyish trespass on mr. what-d' ye-call-him's grounds, at the back here, comes to the house for assistance this morning, and is immediately laid hold of and maltreated, by that ingenious gentleman with the candle in his hand: who has placed his life in considerable danger, as i can professionally certify.' messrs. blathers and duff looked at mr. giles, as he was thus recommended to their notice. the bewildered butler gazed from them towards oliver, and from oliver towards mr. losberne, with a most ludicrous mixture of fear and perplexity. 'you don't mean to deny that, i suppose?' said the doctor, laying oliver gently down again. 'it was all done for the--for the best, sir,' answered giles. 'i am sure i thought it was the boy, or i wouldn't have meddled with him. i am not of an inhuman disposition, sir.' 'thought it was what boy?' inquired the senior officer. 'the housebreaker's boy, sir!' replied giles. 'they--they certainly had a boy.' 'well? do you think so now?' inquired blathers. 'think what, now?' replied giles, looking vacantly at his questioner. 'think it's the same boy, stupid-head?' rejoined blathers, impatiently. 'i don't know; i really don't know,' said giles, with a rueful countenance. 'i couldn't swear to him.' 'what do you think?' asked mr. blathers. 'i don't know what to think,' replied poor giles. 'i don't think it is the boy; indeed, i'm almost certain that it isn't. you know it can't be.' 'has this man been a-drinking, sir?' inquired blathers, turning to the doctor. 'what a precious muddle-headed chap you are!' said duff, addressing mr. giles, with supreme contempt. mr. losberne had been feeling the patient's pulse during this short dialogue; but he now rose from the chair by the bedside, and remarked, that if the officers had any doubts upon the subject, they would perhaps like to step into the next room, and have brittles before them. acting upon this suggestion, they adjourned to a neighbouring apartment, where mr. brittles, being called in, involved himself and his respected superior in such a wonderful maze of fresh contradictions and impossibilities, as tended to throw no particular light on anything, but the fact of his own strong mystification; except, indeed, his declarations that he shouldn't know the real boy, if he were put before him that instant; that he had only taken oliver to be he, because mr. giles had said he was; and that mr. giles had, five minutes previously, admitted in the kitchen, that he began to be very much afraid he had been a little too hasty. among other ingenious surmises, the question was then raised, whether mr. giles had really hit anybody; and upon examination of the fellow pistol to that which he had fired, it turned out to have no more destructive loading than gunpowder and brown paper: a discovery which made a considerable impression on everybody but the doctor, who had drawn the ball about ten minutes before. upon no one, however, did it make a greater impression than on mr. giles himself; who, after labouring, for some hours, under the fear of having mortally wounded a fellow-creature, eagerly caught at this new idea, and favoured it to the utmost. finally, the officers, without troubling themselves very much about oliver, left the chertsey constable in the house, and took up their rest for that night in the town; promising to return the next morning. with the next morning, there came a rumour, that two men and a boy were in the cage at kingston, who had been apprehended over night under suspicious circumstances; and to kingston messrs. blathers and duff journeyed accordingly. the suspicious circumstances, however, resolving themselves, on investigation, into the one fact, that they had been discovered sleeping under a haystack; which, although a great crime, is only punishable by imprisonment, and is, in the merciful eye of the english law, and its comprehensive love of all the king's subjects, held to be no satisfactory proof, in the absence of all other evidence, that the sleeper, or sleepers, have committed burglary accompanied with violence, and have therefore rendered themselves liable to the punishment of death; messrs. blathers and duff came back again, as wise as they went. in short, after some more examination, and a great deal more conversation, a neighbouring magistrate was readily induced to take the joint bail of mrs. maylie and mr. losberne for oliver's appearance if he should ever be called upon; and blathers and duff, being rewarded with a couple of guineas, returned to town with divided opinions on the subject of their expedition: the latter gentleman on a mature consideration of all the circumstances, inclining to the belief that the burglarious attempt had originated with the family pet; and the former being equally disposed to concede the full merit of it to the great mr. conkey chickweed. meanwhile, oliver gradually throve and prospered under the united care of mrs. maylie, rose, and the kind-hearted mr. losberne. if fervent prayers, gushing from hearts overcharged with gratitude, be heard in heaven--and if they be not, what prayers are!--the blessings which the orphan child called down upon them, sunk into their souls, diffusing peace and happiness. chapter xxxii of the happy life oliver began to lead with his kind friends oliver's ailings were neither slight nor few. in addition to the pain and delay attendant on a broken limb, his exposure to the wet and cold had brought on fever and ague: which hung about him for many weeks, and reduced him sadly. but, at length, he began, by slow degrees, to get better, and to be able to say sometimes, in a few tearful words, how deeply he felt the goodness of the two sweet ladies, and how ardently he hoped that when he grew strong and well again, he could do something to show his gratitude; only something, which would let them see the love and duty with which his breast was full; something, however slight, which would prove to them that their gentle kindness had not been cast away; but that the poor boy whom their charity had rescued from misery, or death, was eager to serve them with his whole heart and soul. 'poor fellow!' said rose, when oliver had been one day feebly endeavouring to utter the words of thankfulness that rose to his pale lips; 'you shall have many opportunities of serving us, if you will. we are going into the country, and my aunt intends that you shall accompany us. the quiet place, the pure air, and all the pleasure and beauties of spring, will restore you in a few days. we will employ you in a hundred ways, when you can bear the trouble.' 'the trouble!' cried oliver. 'oh! dear lady, if i could but work for you; if i could only give you pleasure by watering your flowers, or watching your birds, or running up and down the whole day long, to make you happy; what would i give to do it!' 'you shall give nothing at all,' said miss maylie, smiling; 'for, as i told you before, we shall employ you in a hundred ways; and if you only take half the trouble to please us, that you promise now, you will make me very happy indeed.' 'happy, ma'am!' cried oliver; 'how kind of you to say so!' 'you will make me happier than i can tell you,' replied the young lady. 'to think that my dear good aunt should have been the means of rescuing any one from such sad misery as you have described to us, would be an unspeakable pleasure to me; but to know that the object of her goodness and compassion was sincerely grateful and attached, in consequence, would delight me, more than you can well imagine. do you understand me?' she inquired, watching oliver's thoughtful face. 'oh yes, ma'am, yes!' replied oliver eagerly; 'but i was thinking that i am ungrateful now.' 'to whom?' inquired the young lady. 'to the kind gentleman, and the dear old nurse, who took so much care of me before,' rejoined oliver. 'if they knew how happy i am, they would be pleased, i am sure.' 'i am sure they would,' rejoined oliver's benefactress; 'and mr. losberne has already been kind enough to promise that when you are well enough to bear the journey, he will carry you to see them.' 'has he, ma'am?' cried oliver, his face brightening with pleasure. 'i don't know what i shall do for joy when i see their kind faces once again!' in a short time oliver was sufficiently recovered to undergo the fatigue of this expedition. one morning he and mr. losberne set out, accordingly, in a little carriage which belonged to mrs. maylie. when they came to chertsey bridge, oliver turned very pale, and uttered a loud exclamation. 'what's the matter with the boy?' cried the doctor, as usual, all in a bustle. 'do you see anything--hear anything--feel anything--eh?' 'that, sir,' cried oliver, pointing out of the carriage window. 'that house!' 'yes; well, what of it? stop coachman. pull up here,' cried the doctor. 'what of the house, my man; eh?' 'the thieves--the house they took me to!' whispered oliver. 'the devil it is!' cried the doctor. 'hallo, there! let me out!' but, before the coachman could dismount from his box, he had tumbled out of the coach, by some means or other; and, running down to the deserted tenement, began kicking at the door like a madman. 'halloa?' said a little ugly hump-backed man: opening the door so suddenly, that the doctor, from the very impetus of his last kick, nearly fell forward into the passage. 'what's the matter here?' 'matter!' exclaimed the other, collaring him, without a moment's reflection. 'a good deal. robbery is the matter.' 'there'll be murder the matter, too,' replied the hump-backed man, coolly, 'if you don't take your hands off. do you hear me?' 'i hear you,' said the doctor, giving his captive a hearty shake. 'where's--confound the fellow, what's his rascally name--sikes; that's it. where's sikes, you thief?' the hump-backed man stared, as if in excess of amazement and indignation; then, twisting himself, dexterously, from the doctor's grasp, growled forth a volley of horrid oaths, and retired into the house. before he could shut the door, however, the doctor had passed into the parlour, without a word of parley. he looked anxiously round; not an article of furniture; not a vestige of anything, animate or inanimate; not even the position of the cupboards; answered oliver's description! 'now!' said the hump-backed man, who had watched him keenly, 'what do you mean by coming into my house, in this violent way? do you want to rob me, or to murder me? which is it?' 'did you ever know a man come out to do either, in a chariot and pair, you ridiculous old vampire?' said the irritable doctor. 'what do you want, then?' demanded the hunchback. 'will you take yourself off, before i do you a mischief? curse you!' 'as soon as i think proper,' said mr. losberne, looking into the other parlour; which, like the first, bore no resemblance whatever to oliver's account of it. 'i shall find you out, some day, my friend.' 'will you?' sneered the ill-favoured cripple. 'if you ever want me, i'm here. i haven't lived here mad and all alone, for five-and-twenty years, to be scared by you. you shall pay for this; you shall pay for this.' and so saying, the mis-shapen little demon set up a yell, and danced upon the ground, as if wild with rage. 'stupid enough, this,' muttered the doctor to himself; 'the boy must have made a mistake. here! put that in your pocket, and shut yourself up again.' with these words he flung the hunchback a piece of money, and returned to the carriage. the man followed to the chariot door, uttering the wildest imprecations and curses all the way; but as mr. losberne turned to speak to the driver, he looked into the carriage, and eyed oliver for an instant with a glance so sharp and fierce and at the same time so furious and vindictive, that, waking or sleeping, he could not forget it for months afterwards. he continued to utter the most fearful imprecations, until the driver had resumed his seat; and when they were once more on their way, they could see him some distance behind: beating his feet upon the ground, and tearing his hair, in transports of real or pretended rage. 'i am an ass!' said the doctor, after a long silence. 'did you know that before, oliver?' 'no, sir.' 'then don't forget it another time.' 'an ass,' said the doctor again, after a further silence of some minutes. 'even if it had been the right place, and the right fellows had been there, what could i have done, single-handed? and if i had had assistance, i see no good that i should have done, except leading to my own exposure, and an unavoidable statement of the manner in which i have hushed up this business. that would have served me right, though. i am always involving myself in some scrape or other, by acting on impulse. it might have done me good.' now, the fact was that the excellent doctor had never acted upon anything but impulse all through his life, and it was no bad compliment to the nature of the impulses which governed him, that so far from being involved in any peculiar troubles or misfortunes, he had the warmest respect and esteem of all who knew him. if the truth must be told, he was a little out of temper, for a minute or two, at being disappointed in procuring corroborative evidence of oliver's story on the very first occasion on which he had a chance of obtaining any. he soon came round again, however; and finding that oliver's replies to his questions, were still as straightforward and consistent, and still delivered with as much apparent sincerity and truth, as they had ever been, he made up his mind to attach full credence to them, from that time forth. as oliver knew the name of the street in which mr. brownlow resided, they were enabled to drive straight thither. when the coach turned into it, his heart beat so violently, that he could scarcely draw his breath. 'now, my boy, which house is it?' inquired mr. losberne. 'that! that!' replied oliver, pointing eagerly out of the window. 'the white house. oh! make haste! pray make haste! i feel as if i should die: it makes me tremble so.' 'come, come!' said the good doctor, patting him on the shoulder. 'you will see them directly, and they will be overjoyed to find you safe and well.' 'oh! i hope so!' cried oliver. 'they were so good to me; so very, very good to me.' the coach rolled on. it stopped. no; that was the wrong house; the next door. it went on a few paces, and stopped again. oliver looked up at the windows, with tears of happy expectation coursing down his face. alas! the white house was empty, and there was a bill in the window. 'to let.' 'knock at the next door,' cried mr. losberne, taking oliver's arm in his. 'what has become of mr. brownlow, who used to live in the adjoining house, do you know?' the servant did not know; but would go and inquire. she presently returned, and said, that mr. brownlow had sold off his goods, and gone to the west indies, six weeks before. oliver clasped his hands, and sank feebly backward. 'has his housekeeper gone too?' inquired mr. losberne, after a moment's pause. 'yes, sir'; replied the servant. 'the old gentleman, the housekeeper, and a gentleman who was a friend of mr. brownlow's, all went together.' 'then turn towards home again,' said mr. losberne to the driver; 'and don't stop to bait the horses, till you get out of this confounded london!' 'the book-stall keeper, sir?' said oliver. 'i know the way there. see him, pray, sir! do see him!' 'my poor boy, this is disappointment enough for one day,' said the doctor. 'quite enough for both of us. if we go to the book-stall keeper's, we shall certainly find that he is dead, or has set his house on fire, or run away. no; home again straight!' and in obedience to the doctor's impulse, home they went. this bitter disappointment caused oliver much sorrow and grief, even in the midst of his happiness; for he had pleased himself, many times during his illness, with thinking of all that mr. brownlow and mrs. bedwin would say to him: and what delight it would be to tell them how many long days and nights he had passed in reflecting on what they had done for him, and in bewailing his cruel separation from them. the hope of eventually clearing himself with them, too, and explaining how he had been forced away, had buoyed him up, and sustained him, under many of his recent trials; and now, the idea that they should have gone so far, and carried with them the belief that he was an impostor and a robber--a belief which might remain uncontradicted to his dying day--was almost more than he could bear. the circumstance occasioned no alteration, however, in the behaviour of his benefactors. after another fortnight, when the fine warm weather had fairly begun, and every tree and flower was putting forth its young leaves and rich blossoms, they made preparations for quitting the house at chertsey, for some months. sending the plate, which had so excited fagin's cupidity, to the banker's; and leaving giles and another servant in care of the house, they departed to a cottage at some distance in the country, and took oliver with them. who can describe the pleasure and delight, the peace of mind and soft tranquillity, the sickly boy felt in the balmy air, and among the green hills and rich woods, of an inland village! who can tell how scenes of peace and quietude sink into the minds of pain-worn dwellers in close and noisy places, and carry their own freshness, deep into their jaded hearts! men who have lived in crowded, pent-up streets, through lives of toil, and who have never wished for change; men, to whom custom has indeed been second nature, and who have come almost to love each brick and stone that formed the narrow boundaries of their daily walks; even they, with the hand of death upon them, have been known to yearn at last for one short glimpse of nature's face; and, carried far from the scenes of their old pains and pleasures, have seemed to pass at once into a new state of being. crawling forth, from day to day, to some green sunny spot, they have had such memories wakened up within them by the sight of the sky, and hill and plain, and glistening water, that a foretaste of heaven itself has soothed their quick decline, and they have sunk into their tombs, as peacefully as the sun whose setting they watched from their lonely chamber window but a few hours before, faded from their dim and feeble sight! the memories which peaceful country scenes call up, are not of this world, nor of its thoughts and hopes. their gentle influence may teach us how to weave fresh garlands for the graves of those we loved: may purify our thoughts, and bear down before it old enmity and hatred; but beneath all this, there lingers, in the least reflective mind, a vague and half-formed consciousness of having held such feelings long before, in some remote and distant time, which calls up solemn thoughts of distant times to come, and bends down pride and worldliness beneath it. it was a lovely spot to which they repaired. oliver, whose days had been spent among squalid crowds, and in the midst of noise and brawling, seemed to enter on a new existence there. the rose and honeysuckle clung to the cottage walls; the ivy crept round the trunks of the trees; and the garden-flowers perfumed the air with delicious odours. hard by, was a little churchyard; not crowded with tall unsightly gravestones, but full of humble mounds, covered with fresh turf and moss: beneath which, the old people of the village lay at rest. oliver often wandered here; and, thinking of the wretched grave in which his mother lay, would sometimes sit him down and sob unseen; but, when he raised his eyes to the deep sky overhead, he would cease to think of her as lying in the ground, and would weep for her, sadly, but without pain. it was a happy time. the days were peaceful and serene; the nights brought with them neither fear nor care; no languishing in a wretched prison, or associating with wretched men; nothing but pleasant and happy thoughts. every morning he went to a white-headed old gentleman, who lived near the little church: who taught him to read better, and to write: and who spoke so kindly, and took such pains, that oliver could never try enough to please him. then, he would walk with mrs. maylie and rose, and hear them talk of books; or perhaps sit near them, in some shady place, and listen whilst the young lady read: which he could have done, until it grew too dark to see the letters. then, he had his own lesson for the next day to prepare; and at this, he would work hard, in a little room which looked into the garden, till evening came slowly on, when the ladies would walk out again, and he with them: listening with such pleasure to all they said: and so happy if they wanted a flower that he could climb to reach, or had forgotten anything he could run to fetch: that he could never be quick enough about it. when it became quite dark, and they returned home, the young lady would sit down to the piano, and play some pleasant air, or sing, in a low and gentle voice, some old song which it pleased her aunt to hear. there would be no candles lighted at such times as these; and oliver would sit by one of the windows, listening to the sweet music, in a perfect rapture. and when sunday came, how differently the day was spent, from any way in which he had ever spent it yet! and how happily too; like all the other days in that most happy time! there was the little church, in the morning, with the green leaves fluttering at the windows: the birds singing without: and the sweet-smelling air stealing in at the low porch, and filling the homely building with its fragrance. the poor people were so neat and clean, and knelt so reverently in prayer, that it seemed a pleasure, not a tedious duty, their assembling there together; and though the singing might be rude, it was real, and sounded more musical (to oliver's ears at least) than any he had ever heard in church before. then, there were the walks as usual, and many calls at the clean houses of the labouring men; and at night, oliver read a chapter or two from the bible, which he had been studying all the week, and in the performance of which duty he felt more proud and pleased, than if he had been the clergyman himself. in the morning, oliver would be a-foot by six o'clock, roaming the fields, and plundering the hedges, far and wide, for nosegays of wild flowers, with which he would return laden, home; and which it took great care and consideration to arrange, to the best advantage, for the embellishment of the breakfast-table. there was fresh groundsel, too, for miss maylie's birds, with which oliver, who had been studying the subject under the able tuition of the village clerk, would decorate the cages, in the most approved taste. when the birds were made all spruce and smart for the day, there was usually some little commission of charity to execute in the village; or, failing that, there was rare cricket-playing, sometimes, on the green; or, failing that, there was always something to do in the garden, or about the plants, to which oliver (who had studied this science also, under the same master, who was a gardener by trade,) applied himself with hearty good-will, until miss rose made her appearance: when there were a thousand commendations to be bestowed on all he had done. so three months glided away; three months which, in the life of the most blessed and favoured of mortals, might have been unmingled happiness, and which, in oliver's were true felicity. with the purest and most amiable generosity on one side; and the truest, warmest, soul-felt gratitude on the other; it is no wonder that, by the end of that short time, oliver twist had become completely domesticated with the old lady and her niece, and that the fervent attachment of his young and sensitive heart, was repaid by their pride in, and attachment to, himself. chapter xxxiii wherein the happiness of oliver and his friends, experiences a sudden check spring flew swiftly by, and summer came. if the village had been beautiful at first it was now in the full glow and luxuriance of its richness. the great trees, which had looked shrunken and bare in the earlier months, had now burst into strong life and health; and stretching forth their green arms over the thirsty ground, converted open and naked spots into choice nooks, where was a deep and pleasant shade from which to look upon the wide prospect, steeped in sunshine, which lay stretched beyond. the earth had donned her mantle of brightest green; and shed her richest perfumes abroad. it was the prime and vigour of the year; all things were glad and flourishing. still, the same quiet life went on at the little cottage, and the same cheerful serenity prevailed among its inmates. oliver had long since grown stout and healthy; but health or sickness made no difference in his warm feelings of a great many people. he was still the same gentle, attached, affectionate creature that he had been when pain and suffering had wasted his strength, and when he was dependent for every slight attention, and comfort on those who tended him. one beautiful night, when they had taken a longer walk than was customary with them: for the day had been unusually warm, and there was a brilliant moon, and a light wind had sprung up, which was unusually refreshing. rose had been in high spirits, too, and they had walked on, in merry conversation, until they had far exceeded their ordinary bounds. mrs. maylie being fatigued, they returned more slowly home. the young lady merely throwing off her simple bonnet, sat down to the piano as usual. after running abstractedly over the keys for a few minutes, she fell into a low and very solemn air; and as she played it, they heard a sound as if she were weeping. 'rose, my dear!' said the elder lady. rose made no reply, but played a little quicker, as though the words had roused her from some painful thoughts. 'rose, my love!' cried mrs. maylie, rising hastily, and bending over her. 'what is this? in tears! my dear child, what distresses you?' 'nothing, aunt; nothing,' replied the young lady. 'i don't know what it is; i can't describe it; but i feel--' 'not ill, my love?' interposed mrs. maylie. 'no, no! oh, not ill!' replied rose: shuddering as though some deadly chillness were passing over her, while she spoke; 'i shall be better presently. close the window, pray!' oliver hastened to comply with her request. the young lady, making an effort to recover her cheerfulness, strove to play some livelier tune; but her fingers dropped powerless over the keys. covering her face with her hands, she sank upon a sofa, and gave vent to the tears which she was now unable to repress. 'my child!' said the elderly lady, folding her arms about her, 'i never saw you so before.' 'i would not alarm you if i could avoid it,' rejoined rose; 'but indeed i have tried very hard, and cannot help this. i fear i _am_ ill, aunt.' she was, indeed; for, when candles were brought, they saw that in the very short time which had elapsed since their return home, the hue of her countenance had changed to a marble whiteness. its expression had lost nothing of its beauty; but it was changed; and there was an anxious haggard look about the gentle face, which it had never worn before. another minute, and it was suffused with a crimson flush: and a heavy wildness came over the soft blue eye. again this disappeared, like the shadow thrown by a passing cloud; and she was once more deadly pale. oliver, who watched the old lady anxiously, observed that she was alarmed by these appearances; and so in truth, was he; but seeing that she affected to make light of them, he endeavoured to do the same, and they so far succeeded, that when rose was persuaded by her aunt to retire for the night, she was in better spirits; and appeared even in better health: assuring them that she felt certain she should rise in the morning, quite well. 'i hope,' said oliver, when mrs. maylie returned, 'that nothing is the matter? she don't look well to-night, but--' the old lady motioned to him not to speak; and sitting herself down in a dark corner of the room, remained silent for some time. at length, she said, in a trembling voice: 'i hope not, oliver. i have been very happy with her for some years: too happy, perhaps. it may be time that i should meet with some misfortune; but i hope it is not this.' 'what?' inquired oliver. 'the heavy blow,' said the old lady, 'of losing the dear girl who has so long been my comfort and happiness.' 'oh! god forbid!' exclaimed oliver, hastily. 'amen to that, my child!' said the old lady, wringing her hands. 'surely there is no danger of anything so dreadful?' said oliver. 'two hours ago, she was quite well.' 'she is very ill now,' rejoined mrs. maylies; 'and will be worse, i am sure. my dear, dear rose! oh, what shall i do without her!' she gave way to such great grief, that oliver, suppressing his own emotion, ventured to remonstrate with her; and to beg, earnestly, that, for the sake of the dear young lady herself, she would be more calm. 'and consider, ma'am,' said oliver, as the tears forced themselves into his eyes, despite of his efforts to the contrary. 'oh! consider how young and good she is, and what pleasure and comfort she gives to all about her. i am sure--certain--quite certain--that, for your sake, who are so good yourself; and for her own; and for the sake of all she makes so happy; she will not die. heaven will never let her die so young.' 'hush!' said mrs. maylie, laying her hand on oliver's head. 'you think like a child, poor boy. but you teach me my duty, notwithstanding. i had forgotten it for a moment, oliver, but i hope i may be pardoned, for i am old, and have seen enough of illness and death to know the agony of separation from the objects of our love. i have seen enough, too, to know that it is not always the youngest and best who are spared to those that love them; but this should give us comfort in our sorrow; for heaven is just; and such things teach us, impressively, that there is a brighter world than this; and that the passage to it is speedy. god's will be done! i love her; and he knows how well!' oliver was surprised to see that as mrs. maylie said these words, she checked her lamentations as though by one effort; and drawing herself up as she spoke, became composed and firm. he was still more astonished to find that this firmness lasted; and that, under all the care and watching which ensued, mrs. maylie was ever ready and collected: performing all the duties which had devolved upon her, steadily, and, to all external appearances, even cheerfully. but he was young, and did not know what strong minds are capable of, under trying circumstances. how should he, when their possessors so seldom know themselves? an anxious night ensued. when morning came, mrs. maylie's predictions were but too well verified. rose was in the first stage of a high and dangerous fever. 'we must be active, oliver, and not give way to useless grief,' said mrs. maylie, laying her finger on her lip, as she looked steadily into his face; 'this letter must be sent, with all possible expedition, to mr. losberne. it must be carried to the market-town: which is not more than four miles off, by the footpath across the field: and thence dispatched, by an express on horseback, straight to chertsey. the people at the inn will undertake to do this: and i can trust to you to see it done, i know.' oliver could make no reply, but looked his anxiety to be gone at once. 'here is another letter,' said mrs. maylie, pausing to reflect; 'but whether to send it now, or wait until i see how rose goes on, i scarcely know. i would not forward it, unless i feared the worst.' 'is it for chertsey, too, ma'am?' inquired oliver; impatient to execute his commission, and holding out his trembling hand for the letter. 'no,' replied the old lady, giving it to him mechanically. oliver glanced at it, and saw that it was directed to harry maylie, esquire, at some great lord's house in the country; where, he could not make out. 'shall it go, ma'am?' asked oliver, looking up, impatiently. 'i think not,' replied mrs. maylie, taking it back. 'i will wait until to-morrow.' with these words, she gave oliver her purse, and he started off, without more delay, at the greatest speed he could muster. swiftly he ran across the fields, and down the little lanes which sometimes divided them: now almost hidden by the high corn on either side, and now emerging on an open field, where the mowers and haymakers were busy at their work: nor did he stop once, save now and then, for a few seconds, to recover breath, until he came, in a great heat, and covered with dust, on the little market-place of the market-town. here he paused, and looked about for the inn. there were a white bank, and a red brewery, and a yellow town-hall; and in one corner there was a large house, with all the wood about it painted green: before which was the sign of 'the george.' to this he hastened, as soon as it caught his eye. he spoke to a postboy who was dozing under the gateway; and who, after hearing what he wanted, referred him to the ostler; who after hearing all he had to say again, referred him to the landlord; who was a tall gentleman in a blue neckcloth, a white hat, drab breeches, and boots with tops to match, leaning against a pump by the stable-door, picking his teeth with a silver toothpick. this gentleman walked with much deliberation into the bar to make out the bill: which took a long time making out: and after it was ready, and paid, a horse had to be saddled, and a man to be dressed, which took up ten good minutes more. meanwhile oliver was in such a desperate state of impatience and anxiety, that he felt as if he could have jumped upon the horse himself, and galloped away, full tear, to the next stage. at length, all was ready; and the little parcel having been handed up, with many injunctions and entreaties for its speedy delivery, the man set spurs to his horse, and rattling over the uneven paving of the market-place, was out of the town, and galloping along the turnpike-road, in a couple of minutes. as it was something to feel certain that assistance was sent for, and that no time had been lost, oliver hurried up the inn-yard, with a somewhat lighter heart. he was turning out of the gateway when he accidently stumbled against a tall man wrapped in a cloak, who was at that moment coming out of the inn door. 'hah!' cried the man, fixing his eyes on oliver, and suddenly recoiling. 'what the devil's this?' 'i beg your pardon, sir,' said oliver; 'i was in a great hurry to get home, and didn't see you were coming.' 'death!' muttered the man to himself, glaring at the boy with his large dark eyes. 'who would have thought it! grind him to ashes! he'd start up from a stone coffin, to come in my way!' 'i am sorry,' stammered oliver, confused by the strange man's wild look. 'i hope i have not hurt you!' 'rot you!' murmured the man, in a horrible passion; between his clenched teeth; 'if i had only had the courage to say the word, i might have been free of you in a night. curses on your head, and black death on your heart, you imp! what are you doing here?' the man shook his fist, as he uttered these words incoherently. he advanced towards oliver, as if with the intention of aiming a blow at him, but fell violently on the ground: writhing and foaming, in a fit. oliver gazed, for a moment, at the struggles of the madman (for such he supposed him to be); and then darted into the house for help. having seen him safely carried into the hotel, he turned his face homewards, running as fast as he could, to make up for lost time: and recalling with a great deal of astonishment and some fear, the extraordinary behaviour of the person from whom he had just parted. the circumstance did not dwell in his recollection long, however: for when he reached the cottage, there was enough to occupy his mind, and to drive all considerations of self completely from his memory. rose maylie had rapidly grown worse; before mid-night she was delirious. a medical practitioner, who resided on the spot, was in constant attendance upon her; and after first seeing the patient, he had taken mrs. maylie aside, and pronounced her disorder to be one of a most alarming nature. 'in fact,' he said, 'it would be little short of a miracle, if she recovered.' how often did oliver start from his bed that night, and stealing out, with noiseless footstep, to the staircase, listen for the slightest sound from the sick chamber! how often did a tremble shake his frame, and cold drops of terror start upon his brow, when a sudden trampling of feet caused him to fear that something too dreadful to think of, had even then occurred! and what had been the fervency of all the prayers he had ever muttered, compared with those he poured forth, now, in the agony and passion of his supplication for the life and health of the gentle creature, who was tottering on the deep grave's verge! oh! the suspense, the fearful, acute suspense, of standing idly by while the life of one we dearly love, is trembling in the balance! oh! the racking thoughts that crowd upon the mind, and make the heart beat violently, and the breath come thick, by the force of the images they conjure up before it; the desperate anxiety _to be doing something_ to relieve the pain, or lessen the danger, which we have no power to alleviate; the sinking of soul and spirit, which the sad remembrance of our helplessness produces; what tortures can equal these; what reflections or endeavours can, in the full tide and fever of the time, allay them! morning came; and the little cottage was lonely and still. people spoke in whispers; anxious faces appeared at the gate, from time to time; women and children went away in tears. all the livelong day, and for hours after it had grown dark, oliver paced softly up and down the garden, raising his eyes every instant to the sick chamber, and shuddering to see the darkened window, looking as if death lay stretched inside. late that night, mr. losberne arrived. 'it is hard,' said the good doctor, turning away as he spoke; 'so young; so much beloved; but there is very little hope.' another morning. the sun shone brightly; as brightly as if it looked upon no misery or care; and, with every leaf and flower in full bloom about her; with life, and health, and sounds and sights of joy, surrounding her on every side: the fair young creature lay, wasting fast. oliver crept away to the old churchyard, and sitting down on one of the green mounds, wept and prayed for her, in silence. there was such peace and beauty in the scene; so much of brightness and mirth in the sunny landscape; such blithesome music in the songs of the summer birds; such freedom in the rapid flight of the rook, careering overhead; so much of life and joyousness in all; that, when the boy raised his aching eyes, and looked about, the thought instinctively occurred to him, that this was not a time for death; that rose could surely never die when humbler things were all so glad and gay; that graves were for cold and cheerless winter: not for sunlight and fragrance. he almost thought that shrouds were for the old and shrunken; and that they never wrapped the young and graceful form in their ghastly folds. a knell from the church bell broke harshly on these youthful thoughts. another! again! it was tolling for the funeral service. a group of humble mourners entered the gate: wearing white favours; for the corpse was young. they stood uncovered by a grave; and there was a mother--a mother once--among the weeping train. but the sun shone brightly, and the birds sang on. oliver turned homeward, thinking on the many kindnesses he had received from the young lady, and wishing that the time could come again, that he might never cease showing her how grateful and attached he was. he had no cause for self-reproach on the score of neglect, or want of thought, for he had been devoted to her service; and yet a hundred little occasions rose up before him, on which he fancied he might have been more zealous, and more earnest, and wished he had been. we need be careful how we deal with those about us, when every death carries to some small circle of survivors, thoughts of so much omitted, and so little done--of so many things forgotten, and so many more which might have been repaired! there is no remorse so deep as that which is unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this, in time. when he reached home mrs. maylie was sitting in the little parlour. oliver's heart sank at sight of her; for she had never left the bedside of her niece; and he trembled to think what change could have driven her away. he learnt that she had fallen into a deep sleep, from which she would waken, either to recovery and life, or to bid them farewell, and die. they sat, listening, and afraid to speak, for hours. the untasted meal was removed, with looks which showed that their thoughts were elsewhere, they watched the sun as he sank lower and lower, and, at length, cast over sky and earth those brilliant hues which herald his departure. their quick ears caught the sound of an approaching footstep. they both involuntarily darted to the door, as mr. losberne entered. 'what of rose?' cried the old lady. 'tell me at once! i can bear it; anything but suspense! oh, tell me! in the name of heaven!' 'you must compose yourself,' said the doctor supporting her. 'be calm, my dear ma'am, pray.' 'let me go, in god's name! my dear child! she is dead! she is dying!' 'no!' cried the doctor, passionately. 'as he is good and merciful, she will live to bless us all, for years to come.' the lady fell upon her knees, and tried to fold her hands together; but the energy which had supported her so long, fled up to heaven with her first thanksgiving; and she sank into the friendly arms which were extended to receive her. chapter xxxiv contains some introductory particulars relative to a young gentleman who now arrives upon the scene; and a new adventure which happened to oliver it was almost too much happiness to bear. oliver felt stunned and stupefied by the unexpected intelligence; he could not weep, or speak, or rest. he had scarcely the power of understanding anything that had passed, until, after a long ramble in the quiet evening air, a burst of tears came to his relief, and he seemed to awaken, all at once, to a full sense of the joyful change that had occurred, and the almost insupportable load of anguish which had been taken from his breast. the night was fast closing in, when he returned homeward: laden with flowers which he had culled, with peculiar care, for the adornment of the sick chamber. as he walked briskly along the road, he heard behind him, the noise of some vehicle, approaching at a furious pace. looking round, he saw that it was a post-chaise, driven at great speed; and as the horses were galloping, and the road was narrow, he stood leaning against a gate until it should have passed him. as it dashed on, oliver caught a glimpse of a man in a white nightcap, whose face seemed familiar to him, although his view was so brief that he could not identify the person. in another second or two, the nightcap was thrust out of the chaise-window, and a stentorian voice bellowed to the driver to stop: which he did, as soon as he could pull up his horses. then, the nightcap once again appeared: and the same voice called oliver by his name. 'here!' cried the voice. 'oliver, what's the news? miss rose! master o-li-ver!' 'is it you, giles?' cried oliver, running up to the chaise-door. giles popped out his nightcap again, preparatory to making some reply, when he was suddenly pulled back by a young gentleman who occupied the other corner of the chaise, and who eagerly demanded what was the news. 'in a word!' cried the gentleman, 'better or worse?' 'better--much better!' replied oliver, hastily. 'thank heaven!' exclaimed the gentleman. 'you are sure?' 'quite, sir,' replied oliver. 'the change took place only a few hours ago; and mr. losberne says, that all danger is at an end.' the gentleman said not another word, but, opening the chaise-door, leaped out, and taking oliver hurriedly by the arm, led him aside. 'you are quite certain? there is no possibility of any mistake on your part, my boy, is there?' demanded the gentleman in a tremulous voice. 'do not deceive me, by awakening hopes that are not to be fulfilled.' 'i would not for the world, sir,' replied oliver. 'indeed you may believe me. mr. losberne's words were, that she would live to bless us all for many years to come. i heard him say so.' the tears stood in oliver's eyes as he recalled the scene which was the beginning of so much happiness; and the gentleman turned his face away, and remained silent, for some minutes. oliver thought he heard him sob, more than once; but he feared to interrupt him by any fresh remark--for he could well guess what his feelings were--and so stood apart, feigning to be occupied with his nosegay. all this time, mr. giles, with the white nightcap on, had been sitting on the steps of the chaise, supporting an elbow on each knee, and wiping his eyes with a blue cotton pocket-handkerchief dotted with white spots. that the honest fellow had not been feigning emotion, was abundantly demonstrated by the very red eyes with which he regarded the young gentleman, when he turned round and addressed him. 'i think you had better go on to my mother's in the chaise, giles,' said he. 'i would rather walk slowly on, so as to gain a little time before i see her. you can say i am coming.' 'i beg your pardon, mr. harry,' said giles: giving a final polish to his ruffled countenance with the handkerchief; 'but if you would leave the postboy to say that, i should be very much obliged to you. it wouldn't be proper for the maids to see me in this state, sir; i should never have any more authority with them if they did.' 'well,' rejoined harry maylie, smiling, 'you can do as you like. let him go on with the luggage, if you wish it, and do you follow with us. only first exchange that nightcap for some more appropriate covering, or we shall be taken for madmen.' mr. giles, reminded of his unbecoming costume, snatched off and pocketed his nightcap; and substituted a hat, of grave and sober shape, which he took out of the chaise. this done, the postboy drove off; giles, mr. maylie, and oliver, followed at their leisure. as they walked along, oliver glanced from time to time with much interest and curiosity at the new comer. he seemed about five-and-twenty years of age, and was of the middle height; his countenance was frank and handsome; and his demeanor easy and prepossessing. notwithstanding the difference between youth and age, he bore so strong a likeness to the old lady, that oliver would have had no great difficulty in imagining their relationship, if he had not already spoken of her as his mother. mrs. maylie was anxiously waiting to receive her son when he reached the cottage. the meeting did not take place without great emotion on both sides. 'mother!' whispered the young man; 'why did you not write before?' 'i did,' replied mrs. maylie; 'but, on reflection, i determined to keep back the letter until i had heard mr. losberne's opinion.' 'but why,' said the young man, 'why run the chance of that occurring which so nearly happened? if rose had--i cannot utter that word now--if this illness had terminated differently, how could you ever have forgiven yourself! how could i ever have know happiness again!' 'if that _had_ been the case, harry,' said mrs. maylie, 'i fear your happiness would have been effectually blighted, and that your arrival here, a day sooner or a day later, would have been of very, very little import.' 'and who can wonder if it be so, mother?' rejoined the young man; 'or why should i say, _if_?--it is--it is--you know it, mother--you must know it!' 'i know that she deserves the best and purest love the heart of man can offer,' said mrs. maylie; 'i know that the devotion and affection of her nature require no ordinary return, but one that shall be deep and lasting. if i did not feel this, and know, besides, that a changed behaviour in one she loved would break her heart, i should not feel my task so difficult of performance, or have to encounter so many struggles in my own bosom, when i take what seems to me to be the strict line of duty.' 'this is unkind, mother,' said harry. 'do you still suppose that i am a boy ignorant of my own mind, and mistaking the impulses of my own soul?' 'i think, my dear son,' returned mrs. maylie, laying her hand upon his shoulder, 'that youth has many generous impulses which do not last; and that among them are some, which, being gratified, become only the more fleeting. above all, i think' said the lady, fixing her eyes on her son's face, 'that if an enthusiastic, ardent, and ambitious man marry a wife on whose name there is a stain, which, though it originate in no fault of hers, may be visited by cold and sordid people upon her, and upon his children also: and, in exact proportion to his success in the world, be cast in his teeth, and made the subject of sneers against him: he may, no matter how generous and good his nature, one day repent of the connection he formed in early life. and she may have the pain of knowing that he does so.' 'mother,' said the young man, impatiently, 'he would be a selfish brute, unworthy alike of the name of man and of the woman you describe, who acted thus.' 'you think so now, harry,' replied his mother. 'and ever will!' said the young man. 'the mental agony i have suffered, during the last two days, wrings from me the avowal to you of a passion which, as you well know, is not one of yesterday, nor one i have lightly formed. on rose, sweet, gentle girl! my heart is set, as firmly as ever heart of man was set on woman. i have no thought, no view, no hope in life, beyond her; and if you oppose me in this great stake, you take my peace and happiness in your hands, and cast them to the wind. mother, think better of this, and of me, and do not disregard the happiness of which you seem to think so little.' 'harry,' said mrs. maylie, 'it is because i think so much of warm and sensitive hearts, that i would spare them from being wounded. but we have said enough, and more than enough, on this matter, just now.' 'let it rest with rose, then,' interposed harry. 'you will not press these overstrained opinions of yours, so far, as to throw any obstacle in my way?' 'i will not,' rejoined mrs. maylie; 'but i would have you consider--' 'i _have_ considered!' was the impatient reply; 'mother, i have considered, years and years. i have considered, ever since i have been capable of serious reflection. my feelings remain unchanged, as they ever will; and why should i suffer the pain of a delay in giving them vent, which can be productive of no earthly good? no! before i leave this place, rose shall hear me.' 'she shall,' said mrs. maylie. 'there is something in your manner, which would almost imply that she will hear me coldly, mother,' said the young man. 'not coldly,' rejoined the old lady; 'far from it.' 'how then?' urged the young man. 'she has formed no other attachment?' 'no, indeed,' replied his mother; 'you have, or i mistake, too strong a hold on her affections already. what i would say,' resumed the old lady, stopping her son as he was about to speak, 'is this. before you stake your all on this chance; before you suffer yourself to be carried to the highest point of hope; reflect for a few moments, my dear child, on rose's history, and consider what effect the knowledge of her doubtful birth may have on her decision: devoted as she is to us, with all the intensity of her noble mind, and with that perfect sacrifice of self which, in all matters, great or trifling, has always been her characteristic.' 'what do you mean?' 'that i leave you to discover,' replied mrs. maylie. 'i must go back to her. god bless you!' 'i shall see you again to-night?' said the young man, eagerly. 'by and by,' replied the lady; 'when i leave rose.' 'you will tell her i am here?' said harry. 'of course,' replied mrs. maylie. 'and say how anxious i have been, and how much i have suffered, and how i long to see her. you will not refuse to do this, mother?' 'no,' said the old lady; 'i will tell her all.' and pressing her son's hand, affectionately, she hastened from the room. mr. losberne and oliver had remained at another end of the apartment while this hurried conversation was proceeding. the former now held out his hand to harry maylie; and hearty salutations were exchanged between them. the doctor then communicated, in reply to multifarious questions from his young friend, a precise account of his patient's situation; which was quite as consolatory and full of promise, as oliver's statement had encouraged him to hope; and to the whole of which, mr. giles, who affected to be busy about the luggage, listened with greedy ears. 'have you shot anything particular, lately, giles?' inquired the doctor, when he had concluded. 'nothing particular, sir,' replied mr. giles, colouring up to the eyes. 'nor catching any thieves, nor identifying any house-breakers?' said the doctor. 'none at all, sir,' replied mr. giles, with much gravity. 'well,' said the doctor, 'i am sorry to hear it, because you do that sort of thing admirably. pray, how is brittles?' 'the boy is very well, sir,' said mr. giles, recovering his usual tone of patronage; 'and sends his respectful duty, sir.' 'that's well,' said the doctor. 'seeing you here, reminds me, mr. giles, that on the day before that on which i was called away so hurriedly, i executed, at the request of your good mistress, a small commission in your favour. just step into this corner a moment, will you?' mr. giles walked into the corner with much importance, and some wonder, and was honoured with a short whispering conference with the doctor, on the termination of which, he made a great many bows, and retired with steps of unusual stateliness. the subject matter of this conference was not disclosed in the parlour, but the kitchen was speedily enlightened concerning it; for mr. giles walked straight thither, and having called for a mug of ale, announced, with an air of majesty, which was highly effective, that it had pleased his mistress, in consideration of his gallant behaviour on the occasion of that attempted robbery, to deposit, in the local savings-bank, the sum of five-and-twenty pounds, for his sole use and benefit. at this, the two women-servants lifted up their hands and eyes, and supposed that mr. giles, pulling out his shirt-frill, replied, 'no, no'; and that if they observed that he was at all haughty to his inferiors, he would thank them to tell him so. and then he made a great many other remarks, no less illustrative of his humility, which were received with equal favour and applause, and were, withal, as original and as much to the purpose, as the remarks of great men commonly are. above stairs, the remainder of the evening passed cheerfully away; for the doctor was in high spirits; and however fatigued or thoughtful harry maylie might have been at first, he was not proof against the worthy gentleman's good humour, which displayed itself in a great variety of sallies and professional recollections, and an abundance of small jokes, which struck oliver as being the drollest things he had ever heard, and caused him to laugh proportionately; to the evident satisfaction of the doctor, who laughed immoderately at himself, and made harry laugh almost as heartily, by the very force of sympathy. so, they were as pleasant a party as, under the circumstances, they could well have been; and it was late before they retired, with light and thankful hearts, to take that rest of which, after the doubt and suspense they had recently undergone, they stood much in need. oliver rose next morning, in better heart, and went about his usual occupations, with more hope and pleasure than he had known for many days. the birds were once more hung out, to sing, in their old places; and the sweetest wild flowers that could be found, were once more gathered to gladden rose with their beauty. the melancholy which had seemed to the sad eyes of the anxious boy to hang, for days past, over every object, beautiful as all were, was dispelled by magic. the dew seemed to sparkle more brightly on the green leaves; the air to rustle among them with a sweeter music; and the sky itself to look more blue and bright. such is the influence which the condition of our own thoughts, exercise, even over the appearance of external objects. men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colours are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. the real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision. it is worthy of remark, and oliver did not fail to note it at the time, that his morning expeditions were no longer made alone. harry maylie, after the very first morning when he met oliver coming laden home, was seized with such a passion for flowers, and displayed such a taste in their arrangement, as left his young companion far behind. if oliver were behindhand in these respects, he knew where the best were to be found; and morning after morning they scoured the country together, and brought home the fairest that blossomed. the window of the young lady's chamber was opened now; for she loved to feel the rich summer air stream in, and revive her with its freshness; but there always stood in water, just inside the lattice, one particular little bunch, which was made up with great care, every morning. oliver could not help noticing that the withered flowers were never thrown away, although the little vase was regularly replenished; nor, could he help observing, that whenever the doctor came into the garden, he invariably cast his eyes up to that particular corner, and nodded his head most expressively, as he set forth on his morning's walk. pending these observations, the days were flying by; and rose was rapidly recovering. nor did oliver's time hang heavy on his hands, although the young lady had not yet left her chamber, and there were no evening walks, save now and then, for a short distance, with mrs. maylie. he applied himself, with redoubled assiduity, to the instructions of the white-headed old gentleman, and laboured so hard that his quick progress surprised even himself. it was while he was engaged in this pursuit, that he was greatly startled and distressed by a most unexpected occurrence. the little room in which he was accustomed to sit, when busy at his books, was on the ground-floor, at the back of the house. it was quite a cottage-room, with a lattice-window: around which were clusters of jessamine and honeysuckle, that crept over the casement, and filled the place with their delicious perfume. it looked into a garden, whence a wicket-gate opened into a small paddock; all beyond, was fine meadow-land and wood. there was no other dwelling near, in that direction; and the prospect it commanded was very extensive. one beautiful evening, when the first shades of twilight were beginning to settle upon the earth, oliver sat at this window, intent upon his books. he had been poring over them for some time; and, as the day had been uncommonly sultry, and he had exerted himself a great deal, it is no disparagement to the authors, whoever they may have been, to say, that gradually and by slow degrees, he fell asleep. there is a kind of sleep that steals upon us sometimes, which, while it holds the body prisoner, does not free the mind from a sense of things about it, and enable it to ramble at its pleasure. so far as an overpowering heaviness, a prostration of strength, and an utter inability to control our thoughts or power of motion, can be called sleep, this is it; and yet, we have a consciousness of all that is going on about us, and, if we dream at such a time, words which are really spoken, or sounds which really exist at the moment, accommodate themselves with surprising readiness to our visions, until reality and imagination become so strangely blended that it is afterwards almost matter of impossibility to separate the two. nor is this, the most striking phenomenon incidental to such a state. it is an undoubted fact, that although our senses of touch and sight be for the time dead, yet our sleeping thoughts, and the visionary scenes that pass before us, will be influenced and materially influenced, by the _mere silent presence_ of some external object; which may not have been near us when we closed our eyes: and of whose vicinity we have had no waking consciousness. oliver knew, perfectly well, that he was in his own little room; that his books were lying on the table before him; that the sweet air was stirring among the creeping plants outside. and yet he was asleep. suddenly, the scene changed; the air became close and confined; and he thought, with a glow of terror, that he was in the jew's house again. there sat the hideous old man, in his accustomed corner, pointing at him, and whispering to another man, with his face averted, who sat beside him. 'hush, my dear!' he thought he heard the jew say; 'it is he, sure enough. come away.' 'he!' the other man seemed to answer; 'could i mistake him, think you? if a crowd of ghosts were to put themselves into his exact shape, and he stood amongst them, there is something that would tell me how to point him out. if you buried him fifty feet deep, and took me across his grave, i fancy i should know, if there wasn't a mark above it, that he lay buried there?' the man seemed to say this, with such dreadful hatred, that oliver awoke with the fear, and started up. good heaven! what was that, which sent the blood tingling to his heart, and deprived him of his voice, and of power to move! there--there--at the window--close before him--so close, that he could have almost touched him before he started back: with his eyes peering into the room, and meeting his: there stood the jew! and beside him, white with rage or fear, or both, were the scowling features of the man who had accosted him in the inn-yard. it was but an instant, a glance, a flash, before his eyes; and they were gone. but they had recognised him, and he them; and their look was as firmly impressed upon his memory, as if it had been deeply carved in stone, and set before him from his birth. he stood transfixed for a moment; then, leaping from the window into the garden, called loudly for help. chapter xxxv containing the unsatisfactory result of oliver's adventure; and a conversation of some importance between harry maylie and rose when the inmates of the house, attracted by oliver's cries, hurried to the spot from which they proceeded, they found him, pale and agitated, pointing in the direction of the meadows behind the house, and scarcely able to articulate the words, 'the jew! the jew!' mr. giles was at a loss to comprehend what this outcry meant; but harry maylie, whose perceptions were something quicker, and who had heard oliver's history from his mother, understood it at once. 'what direction did he take?' he asked, catching up a heavy stick which was standing in a corner. 'that,' replied oliver, pointing out the course the man had taken; 'i missed them in an instant.' 'then, they are in the ditch!' said harry. 'follow! and keep as near me, as you can.' so saying, he sprang over the hedge, and darted off with a speed which rendered it matter of exceeding difficulty for the others to keep near him. giles followed as well as he could; and oliver followed too; and in the course of a minute or two, mr. losberne, who had been out walking, and just then returned, tumbled over the hedge after them, and picking himself up with more agility than he could have been supposed to possess, struck into the same course at no contemptible speed, shouting all the while, most prodigiously, to know what was the matter. on they all went; nor stopped they once to breathe, until the leader, striking off into an angle of the field indicated by oliver, began to search, narrowly, the ditch and hedge adjoining; which afforded time for the remainder of the party to come up; and for oliver to communicate to mr. losberne the circumstances that had led to so vigorous a pursuit. the search was all in vain. there were not even the traces of recent footsteps, to be seen. they stood now, on the summit of a little hill, commanding the open fields in every direction for three or four miles. there was the village in the hollow on the left; but, in order to gain that, after pursuing the track oliver had pointed out, the men must have made a circuit of open ground, which it was impossible they could have accomplished in so short a time. a thick wood skirted the meadow-land in another direction; but they could not have gained that covert for the same reason. 'it must have been a dream, oliver,' said harry maylie. 'oh no, indeed, sir,' replied oliver, shuddering at the very recollection of the old wretch's countenance; 'i saw him too plainly for that. i saw them both, as plainly as i see you now.' 'who was the other?' inquired harry and mr. losberne, together. 'the very same man i told you of, who came so suddenly upon me at the inn,' said oliver. 'we had our eyes fixed full upon each other; and i could swear to him.' 'they took this way?' demanded harry: 'are you sure?' 'as i am that the men were at the window,' replied oliver, pointing down, as he spoke, to the hedge which divided the cottage-garden from the meadow. 'the tall man leaped over, just there; and the jew, running a few paces to the right, crept through that gap.' the two gentlemen watched oliver's earnest face, as he spoke, and looking from him to each other, seemed to feel satisfied of the accuracy of what he said. still, in no direction were there any appearances of the trampling of men in hurried flight. the grass was long; but it was trodden down nowhere, save where their own feet had crushed it. the sides and brinks of the ditches were of damp clay; but in no one place could they discern the print of men's shoes, or the slightest mark which would indicate that any feet had pressed the ground for hours before. 'this is strange!' said harry. 'strange?' echoed the doctor. 'blathers and duff, themselves, could make nothing of it.' notwithstanding the evidently useless nature of their search, they did not desist until the coming on of night rendered its further prosecution hopeless; and even then, they gave it up with reluctance. giles was dispatched to the different ale-houses in the village, furnished with the best description oliver could give of the appearance and dress of the strangers. of these, the jew was, at all events, sufficiently remarkable to be remembered, supposing he had been seen drinking, or loitering about; but giles returned without any intelligence, calculated to dispel or lessen the mystery. on the next day, fresh search was made, and the inquiries renewed; but with no better success. on the day following, oliver and mr. maylie repaired to the market-town, in the hope of seeing or hearing something of the men there; but this effort was equally fruitless. after a few days, the affair began to be forgotten, as most affairs are, when wonder, having no fresh food to support it, dies away of itself. meanwhile, rose was rapidly recovering. she had left her room: was able to go out; and mixing once more with the family, carried joy into the hearts of all. but, although this happy change had a visible effect on the little circle; and although cheerful voices and merry laughter were once more heard in the cottage; there was at times, an unwonted restraint upon some there: even upon rose herself: which oliver could not fail to remark. mrs. maylie and her son were often closeted together for a long time; and more than once rose appeared with traces of tears upon her face. after mr. losberne had fixed a day for his departure to chertsey, these symptoms increased; and it became evident that something was in progress which affected the peace of the young lady, and of somebody else besides. at length, one morning, when rose was alone in the breakfast-parlour, harry maylie entered; and, with some hesitation, begged permission to speak with her for a few moments. 'a few--a very few--will suffice, rose,' said the young man, drawing his chair towards her. 'what i shall have to say, has already presented itself to your mind; the most cherished hopes of my heart are not unknown to you, though from my lips you have not heard them stated.' rose had been very pale from the moment of his entrance; but that might have been the effect of her recent illness. she merely bowed; and bending over some plants that stood near, waited in silence for him to proceed. 'i--i--ought to have left here, before,' said harry. 'you should, indeed,' replied rose. 'forgive me for saying so, but i wish you had.' 'i was brought here, by the most dreadful and agonising of all apprehensions,' said the young man; 'the fear of losing the one dear being on whom my every wish and hope are fixed. you had been dying; trembling between earth and heaven. we know that when the young, the beautiful, and good, are visited with sickness, their pure spirits insensibly turn towards their bright home of lasting rest; we know, heaven help us! that the best and fairest of our kind, too often fade in blooming.' there were tears in the eyes of the gentle girl, as these words were spoken; and when one fell upon the flower over which she bent, and glistened brightly in its cup, making it more beautiful, it seemed as though the outpouring of her fresh young heart, claimed kindred naturally, with the loveliest things in nature. 'a creature,' continued the young man, passionately, 'a creature as fair and innocent of guile as one of god's own angels, fluttered between life and death. oh! who could hope, when the distant world to which she was akin, half opened to her view, that she would return to the sorrow and calamity of this! rose, rose, to know that you were passing away like some soft shadow, which a light from above, casts upon the earth; to have no hope that you would be spared to those who linger here; hardly to know a reason why you should be; to feel that you belonged to that bright sphere whither so many of the fairest and the best have winged their early flight; and yet to pray, amid all these consolations, that you might be restored to those who loved you--these were distractions almost too great to bear. they were mine, by day and night; and with them, came such a rushing torrent of fears, and apprehensions, and selfish regrets, lest you should die, and never know how devotedly i loved you, as almost bore down sense and reason in its course. you recovered. day by day, and almost hour by hour, some drop of health came back, and mingling with the spent and feeble stream of life which circulated languidly within you, swelled it again to a high and rushing tide. i have watched you change almost from death, to life, with eyes that turned blind with their eagerness and deep affection. do not tell me that you wish i had lost this; for it has softened my heart to all mankind.' 'i did not mean that,' said rose, weeping; 'i only wish you had left here, that you might have turned to high and noble pursuits again; to pursuits well worthy of you.' 'there is no pursuit more worthy of me: more worthy of the highest nature that exists: than the struggle to win such a heart as yours,' said the young man, taking her hand. 'rose, my own dear rose! for years--for years--i have loved you; hoping to win my way to fame, and then come proudly home and tell you it had been pursued only for you to share; thinking, in my daydreams, how i would remind you, in that happy moment, of the many silent tokens i had given of a boy's attachment, and claim your hand, as in redemption of some old mute contract that had been sealed between us! that time has not arrived; but here, with not fame won, and no young vision realised, i offer you the heart so long your own, and stake my all upon the words with which you greet the offer.' 'your behaviour has ever been kind and noble.' said rose, mastering the emotions by which she was agitated. 'as you believe that i am not insensible or ungrateful, so hear my answer.' 'it is, that i may endeavour to deserve you; it is, dear rose?' 'it is,' replied rose, 'that you must endeavour to forget me; not as your old and dearly-attached companion, for that would wound me deeply; but, as the object of your love. look into the world; think how many hearts you would be proud to gain, are there. confide some other passion to me, if you will; i will be the truest, warmest, and most faithful friend you have.' there was a pause, during which, rose, who had covered her face with one hand, gave free vent to her tears. harry still retained the other. 'and your reasons, rose,' he said, at length, in a low voice; 'your reasons for this decision?' 'you have a right to know them,' rejoined rose. 'you can say nothing to alter my resolution. it is a duty that i must perform. i owe it, alike to others, and to myself.' 'to yourself?' 'yes, harry. i owe it to myself, that i, a friendless, portionless, girl, with a blight upon my name, should not give your friends reason to suspect that i had sordidly yielded to your first passion, and fastened myself, a clog, on all your hopes and projects. i owe it to you and yours, to prevent you from opposing, in the warmth of your generous nature, this great obstacle to your progress in the world.' 'if your inclinations chime with your sense of duty--' harry began. 'they do not,' replied rose, colouring deeply. 'then you return my love?' said harry. 'say but that, dear rose; say but that; and soften the bitterness of this hard disappointment!' 'if i could have done so, without doing heavy wrong to him i loved,' rejoined rose, 'i could have--' 'have received this declaration very differently?' said harry. 'do not conceal that from me, at least, rose.' 'i could,' said rose. 'stay!' she added, disengaging her hand, 'why should we prolong this painful interview? most painful to me, and yet productive of lasting happiness, notwithstanding; for it _will_ be happiness to know that i once held the high place in your regard which i now occupy, and every triumph you achieve in life will animate me with new fortitude and firmness. farewell, harry! as we have met to-day, we meet no more; but in other relations than those in which this conversation have placed us, we may be long and happily entwined; and may every blessing that the prayers of a true and earnest heart can call down from the source of all truth and sincerity, cheer and prosper you!' 'another word, rose,' said harry. 'your reason in your own words. from your own lips, let me hear it!' 'the prospect before you,' answered rose, firmly, 'is a brilliant one. all the honours to which great talents and powerful connections can help men in public life, are in store for you. but those connections are proud; and i will neither mingle with such as may hold in scorn the mother who gave me life; nor bring disgrace or failure on the son of her who has so well supplied that mother's place. in a word,' said the young lady, turning away, as her temporary firmness forsook her, 'there is a stain upon my name, which the world visits on innocent heads. i will carry it into no blood but my own; and the reproach shall rest alone on me.' 'one word more, rose. dearest rose! one more!' cried harry, throwing himself before her. 'if i had been less--less fortunate, the world would call it--if some obscure and peaceful life had been my destiny--if i had been poor, sick, helpless--would you have turned from me then? or has my probable advancement to riches and honour, given this scruple birth?' 'do not press me to reply,' answered rose. 'the question does not arise, and never will. it is unfair, almost unkind, to urge it.' 'if your answer be what i almost dare to hope it is,' retorted harry, 'it will shed a gleam of happiness upon my lonely way, and light the path before me. it is not an idle thing to do so much, by the utterance of a few brief words, for one who loves you beyond all else. oh, rose: in the name of my ardent and enduring attachment; in the name of all i have suffered for you, and all you doom me to undergo; answer me this one question!' 'then, if your lot had been differently cast,' rejoined rose; 'if you had been even a little, but not so far, above me; if i could have been a help and comfort to you in any humble scene of peace and retirement, and not a blot and drawback in ambitious and distinguished crowds; i should have been spared this trial. i have every reason to be happy, very happy, now; but then, harry, i own i should have been happier.' busy recollections of old hopes, cherished as a girl, long ago, crowded into the mind of rose, while making this avowal; but they brought tears with them, as old hopes will when they come back withered; and they relieved her. 'i cannot help this weakness, and it makes my purpose stronger,' said rose, extending her hand. 'i must leave you now, indeed.' 'i ask one promise,' said harry. 'once, and only once more,--say within a year, but it may be much sooner,--i may speak to you again on this subject, for the last time.' 'not to press me to alter my right determination,' replied rose, with a melancholy smile; 'it will be useless.' 'no,' said harry; 'to hear you repeat it, if you will--finally repeat it! i will lay at your feet, whatever of station of fortune i may possess; and if you still adhere to your present resolution, will not seek, by word or act, to change it.' 'then let it be so,' rejoined rose; 'it is but one pang the more, and by that time i may be enabled to bear it better.' she extended her hand again. but the young man caught her to his bosom; and imprinting one kiss on her beautiful forehead, hurried from the room. chapter xxxvi is a very short one, and may appear of no great importance in its place, but it should be read notwithstanding, as a sequel to the last, and a key to one that will follow when its time arrives 'and so you are resolved to be my travelling companion this morning; eh?' said the doctor, as harry maylie joined him and oliver at the breakfast-table. 'why, you are not in the same mind or intention two half-hours together!' 'you will tell me a different tale one of these days,' said harry, colouring without any perceptible reason. 'i hope i may have good cause to do so,' replied mr. losberne; 'though i confess i don't think i shall. but yesterday morning you had made up your mind, in a great hurry, to stay here, and to accompany your mother, like a dutiful son, to the sea-side. before noon, you announce that you are going to do me the honour of accompanying me as far as i go, on your road to london. and at night, you urge me, with great mystery, to start before the ladies are stirring; the consequence of which is, that young oliver here is pinned down to his breakfast when he ought to be ranging the meadows after botanical phenomena of all kinds. too bad, isn't it, oliver?' 'i should have been very sorry not to have been at home when you and mr. maylie went away, sir,' rejoined oliver. 'that's a fine fellow,' said the doctor; 'you shall come and see me when you return. but, to speak seriously, harry; has any communication from the great nobs produced this sudden anxiety on your part to be gone?' 'the great nobs,' replied harry, 'under which designation, i presume, you include my most stately uncle, have not communicated with me at all, since i have been here; nor, at this time of the year, is it likely that anything would occur to render necessary my immediate attendance among them.' 'well,' said the doctor, 'you are a queer fellow. but of course they will get you into parliament at the election before christmas, and these sudden shiftings and changes are no bad preparation for political life. there's something in that. good training is always desirable, whether the race be for place, cup, or sweepstakes.' harry maylie looked as if he could have followed up this short dialogue by one or two remarks that would have staggered the doctor not a little; but he contented himself with saying, 'we shall see,' and pursued the subject no farther. the post-chaise drove up to the door shortly afterwards; and giles coming in for the luggage, the good doctor bustled out, to see it packed. 'oliver,' said harry maylie, in a low voice, 'let me speak a word with you.' oliver walked into the window-recess to which mr. maylie beckoned him; much surprised at the mixture of sadness and boisterous spirits, which his whole behaviour displayed. 'you can write well now?' said harry, laying his hand upon his arm. 'i hope so, sir,' replied oliver. 'i shall not be at home again, perhaps for some time; i wish you would write to me--say once a fort-night: every alternate monday: to the general post office in london. will you?' 'oh! certainly, sir; i shall be proud to do it,' exclaimed oliver, greatly delighted with the commission. 'i should like to know how--how my mother and miss maylie are,' said the young man; 'and you can fill up a sheet by telling me what walks you take, and what you talk about, and whether she--they, i mean--seem happy and quite well. you understand me?' 'oh! quite, sir, quite,' replied oliver. 'i would rather you did not mention it to them,' said harry, hurrying over his words; 'because it might make my mother anxious to write to me oftener, and it is a trouble and worry to her. let it be a secret between you and me; and mind you tell me everything! i depend upon you.' oliver, quite elated and honoured by a sense of his importance, faithfully promised to be secret and explicit in his communications. mr. maylie took leave of him, with many assurances of his regard and protection. the doctor was in the chaise; giles (who, it had been arranged, should be left behind) held the door open in his hand; and the women-servants were in the garden, looking on. harry cast one slight glance at the latticed window, and jumped into the carriage. 'drive on!' he cried, 'hard, fast, full gallop! nothing short of flying will keep pace with me, to-day.' 'halloa!' cried the doctor, letting down the front glass in a great hurry, and shouting to the postillion; 'something very short of flying will keep pace with _me_. do you hear?' jingling and clattering, till distance rendered its noise inaudible, and its rapid progress only perceptible to the eye, the vehicle wound its way along the road, almost hidden in a cloud of dust: now wholly disappearing, and now becoming visible again, as intervening objects, or the intricacies of the way, permitted. it was not until even the dusty cloud was no longer to be seen, that the gazers dispersed. and there was one looker-on, who remained with eyes fixed upon the spot where the carriage had disappeared, long after it was many miles away; for, behind the white curtain which had shrouded her from view when harry raised his eyes towards the window, sat rose herself. 'he seems in high spirits and happy,' she said, at length. 'i feared for a time he might be otherwise. i was mistaken. i am very, very glad.' tears are signs of gladness as well as grief; but those which coursed down rose's face, as she sat pensively at the window, still gazing in the same direction, seemed to tell more of sorrow than of joy. chapter xxxvii in which the reader may perceive a contrast, not uncommon in matrimonial cases mr. bumble sat in the workhouse parlour, with his eyes moodily fixed on the cheerless grate, whence, as it was summer time, no brighter gleam proceeded, than the reflection of certain sickly rays of the sun, which were sent back from its cold and shining surface. a paper fly-cage dangled from the ceiling, to which he occasionally raised his eyes in gloomy thought; and, as the heedless insects hovered round the gaudy net-work, mr. bumble would heave a deep sigh, while a more gloomy shadow overspread his countenance. mr. bumble was meditating; it might be that the insects brought to mind, some painful passage in his own past life. nor was mr. bumble's gloom the only thing calculated to awaken a pleasing melancholy in the bosom of a spectator. there were not wanting other appearances, and those closely connected with his own person, which announced that a great change had taken place in the position of his affairs. the laced coat, and the cocked hat; where were they? he still wore knee-breeches, and dark cotton stockings on his nether limbs; but they were not _the_ breeches. the coat was wide-skirted; and in that respect like _the_ coat, but, oh how different! the mighty cocked hat was replaced by a modest round one. mr. bumble was no longer a beadle. there are some promotions in life, which, independent of the more substantial rewards they offer, require peculiar value and dignity from the coats and waistcoats connected with them. a field-marshal has his uniform; a bishop his silk apron; a counsellor his silk gown; a beadle his cocked hat. strip the bishop of his apron, or the beadle of his hat and lace; what are they? men. mere men. dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine. mr. bumble had married mrs. corney, and was master of the workhouse. another beadle had come into power. on him the cocked hat, gold-laced coat, and staff, had all three descended. 'and to-morrow two months it was done!' said mr. bumble, with a sigh. 'it seems a age.' mr. bumble might have meant that he had concentrated a whole existence of happiness into the short space of eight weeks; but the sigh--there was a vast deal of meaning in the sigh. 'i sold myself,' said mr. bumble, pursuing the same train of relection, 'for six teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a milk-pot; with a small quantity of second-hand furniture, and twenty pound in money. i went very reasonable. cheap, dirt cheap!' 'cheap!' cried a shrill voice in mr. bumble's ear: 'you would have been dear at any price; and dear enough i paid for you, lord above knows that!' mr. bumble turned, and encountered the face of his interesting consort, who, imperfectly comprehending the few words she had overheard of his complaint, had hazarded the foregoing remark at a venture. 'mrs. bumble, ma'am!' said mr. bumble, with a sentimental sternness. 'well!' cried the lady. 'have the goodness to look at me,' said mr. bumble, fixing his eyes upon her. (if she stands such a eye as that,' said mr. bumble to himself, 'she can stand anything. it is a eye i never knew to fail with paupers. if it fails with her, my power is gone.') whether an exceedingly small expansion of eye be sufficient to quell paupers, who, being lightly fed, are in no very high condition; or whether the late mrs. corney was particularly proof against eagle glances; are matters of opinion. the matter of fact, is, that the matron was in no way overpowered by mr. bumble's scowl, but, on the contrary, treated it with great disdain, and even raised a laugh thereat, which sounded as though it were genuine. on hearing this most unexpected sound, mr. bumble looked, first incredulous, and afterwards amazed. he then relapsed into his former state; nor did he rouse himself until his attention was again awakened by the voice of his partner. 'are you going to sit snoring there, all day?' inquired mrs. bumble. 'i am going to sit here, as long as i think proper, ma'am,' rejoined mr. bumble; 'and although i was _not_ snoring, i shall snore, gape, sneeze, laugh, or cry, as the humour strikes me; such being my prerogative.' '_your_ prerogative!' sneered mrs. bumble, with ineffable contempt. 'i said the word, ma'am,' said mr. bumble. 'the prerogative of a man is to command.' 'and what's the prerogative of a woman, in the name of goodness?' cried the relict of mr. corney deceased. 'to obey, ma'am,' thundered mr. bumble. 'your late unfortunate husband should have taught it you; and then, perhaps, he might have been alive now. i wish he was, poor man!' mrs. bumble, seeing at a glance, that the decisive moment had now arrived, and that a blow struck for the mastership on one side or other, must necessarily be final and conclusive, no sooner heard this allusion to the dead and gone, than she dropped into a chair, and with a loud scream that mr. bumble was a hard-hearted brute, fell into a paroxysm of tears. but, tears were not the things to find their way to mr. bumble's soul; his heart was waterproof. like washable beaver hats that improve with rain, his nerves were rendered stouter and more vigorous, by showers of tears, which, being tokens of weakness, and so far tacit admissions of his own power, pleased and exalted him. he eyed his good lady with looks of great satisfaction, and begged, in an encouraging manner, that she should cry her hardest: the exercise being looked upon, by the faculty, as strongly conducive to health. 'it opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper,' said mr. bumble. 'so cry away.' as he discharged himself of this pleasantry, mr. bumble took his hat from a peg, and putting it on, rather rakishly, on one side, as a man might, who felt he had asserted his superiority in a becoming manner, thrust his hands into his pockets, and sauntered towards the door, with much ease and waggishness depicted in his whole appearance. now, mrs. corney that was, had tried the tears, because they were less troublesome than a manual assault; but, she was quite prepared to make trial of the latter mode of proceeding, as mr. bumble was not long in discovering. the first proof he experienced of the fact, was conveyed in a hollow sound, immediately succeeded by the sudden flying off of his hat to the opposite end of the room. this preliminary proceeding laying bare his head, the expert lady, clasping him tightly round the throat with one hand, inflicted a shower of blows (dealt with singular vigour and dexterity) upon it with the other. this done, she created a little variety by scratching his face, and tearing his hair; and, having, by this time, inflicted as much punishment as she deemed necessary for the offence, she pushed him over a chair, which was luckily well situated for the purpose: and defied him to talk about his prerogative again, if he dared. 'get up!' said mrs. bumble, in a voice of command. 'and take yourself away from here, unless you want me to do something desperate.' mr. bumble rose with a very rueful countenance: wondering much what something desperate might be. picking up his hat, he looked towards the door. 'are you going?' demanded mrs. bumble. 'certainly, my dear, certainly,' rejoined mr. bumble, making a quicker motion towards the door. 'i didn't intend to--i'm going, my dear! you are so very violent, that really i--' at this instant, mrs. bumble stepped hastily forward to replace the carpet, which had been kicked up in the scuffle. mr. bumble immediately darted out of the room, without bestowing another thought on his unfinished sentence: leaving the late mrs. corney in full possession of the field. mr. bumble was fairly taken by surprise, and fairly beaten. he had a decided propensity for bullying: derived no inconsiderable pleasure from the exercise of petty cruelty; and, consequently, was (it is needless to say) a coward. this is by no means a disparagement to his character; for many official personages, who are held in high respect and admiration, are the victims of similar infirmities. the remark is made, indeed, rather in his favour than otherwise, and with a view of impressing the reader with a just sense of his qualifications for office. but, the measure of his degradation was not yet full. after making a tour of the house, and thinking, for the first time, that the poor-laws really were too hard on people; and that men who ran away from their wives, leaving them chargeable to the parish, ought, in justice to be visited with no punishment at all, but rather rewarded as meritorious individuals who had suffered much; mr. bumble came to a room where some of the female paupers were usually employed in washing the parish linen: when the sound of voices in conversation, now proceeded. 'hem!' said mr. bumble, summoning up all his native dignity. 'these women at least shall continue to respect the prerogative. hallo! hallo there! what do you mean by this noise, you hussies?' with these words, mr. bumble opened the door, and walked in with a very fierce and angry manner: which was at once exchanged for a most humiliated and cowering air, as his eyes unexpectedly rested on the form of his lady wife. 'my dear,' said mr. bumble, 'i didn't know you were here.' 'didn't know i was here!' repeated mrs. bumble. 'what do _you_ do here?' 'i thought they were talking rather too much to be doing their work properly, my dear,' replied mr. bumble: glancing distractedly at a couple of old women at the wash-tub, who were comparing notes of admiration at the workhouse-master's humility. '_you_ thought they were talking too much?' said mrs. bumble. 'what business is it of yours?' 'why, my dear--' urged mr. bumble submissively. 'what business is it of yours?' demanded mrs. bumble, again. 'it's very true, you're matron here, my dear,' submitted mr. bumble; 'but i thought you mightn't be in the way just then.' 'i'll tell you what, mr. bumble,' returned his lady. 'we don't want any of your interference. you're a great deal too fond of poking your nose into things that don't concern you, making everybody in the house laugh, the moment your back is turned, and making yourself look like a fool every hour in the day. be off; come!' mr. bumble, seeing with excruciating feelings, the delight of the two old paupers, who were tittering together most rapturously, hesitated for an instant. mrs. bumble, whose patience brooked no delay, caught up a bowl of soap-suds, and motioning him towards the door, ordered him instantly to depart, on pain of receiving the contents upon his portly person. what could mr. bumble do? he looked dejectedly round, and slunk away; and, as he reached the door, the titterings of the paupers broke into a shrill chuckle of irrepressible delight. it wanted but this. he was degraded in their eyes; he had lost caste and station before the very paupers; he had fallen from all the height and pomp of beadleship, to the lowest depth of the most snubbed hen-peckery. 'all in two months!' said mr. bumble, filled with dismal thoughts. 'two months! no more than two months ago, i was not only my own master, but everybody else's, so far as the porochial workhouse was concerned, and now!--' it was too much. mr. bumble boxed the ears of the boy who opened the gate for him (for he had reached the portal in his reverie); and walked, distractedly, into the street. he walked up one street, and down another, until exercise had abated the first passion of his grief; and then the revulsion of feeling made him thirsty. he passed a great many public-houses; but, at length paused before one in a by-way, whose parlour, as he gathered from a hasty peep over the blinds, was deserted, save by one solitary customer. it began to rain, heavily, at the moment. this determined him. mr. bumble stepped in; and ordering something to drink, as he passed the bar, entered the apartment into which he had looked from the street. the man who was seated there, was tall and dark, and wore a large cloak. he had the air of a stranger; and seemed, by a certain haggardness in his look, as well as by the dusty soils on his dress, to have travelled some distance. he eyed bumble askance, as he entered, but scarcely deigned to nod his head in acknowledgment of his salutation. mr. bumble had quite dignity enough for two; supposing even that the stranger had been more familiar: so he drank his gin-and-water in silence, and read the paper with great show of pomp and circumstance. it so happened, however: as it will happen very often, when men fall into company under such circumstances: that mr. bumble felt, every now and then, a powerful inducement, which he could not resist, to steal a look at the stranger: and that whenever he did so, he withdrew his eyes, in some confusion, to find that the stranger was at that moment stealing a look at him. mr. bumble's awkwardness was enhanced by the very remarkable expression of the stranger's eye, which was keen and bright, but shadowed by a scowl of distrust and suspicion, unlike anything he had ever observed before, and repulsive to behold. when they had encountered each other's glance several times in this way, the stranger, in a harsh, deep voice, broke silence. 'were you looking for me,' he said, 'when you peered in at the window?' 'not that i am aware of, unless you're mr.--' here mr. bumble stopped short; for he was curious to know the stranger's name, and thought in his impatience, he might supply the blank. 'i see you were not,' said the stranger; an expression of quiet sarcasm playing about his mouth; 'or you have known my name. you don't know it. i would recommend you not to ask for it.' 'i meant no harm, young man,' observed mr. bumble, majestically. 'and have done none,' said the stranger. another silence succeeded this short dialogue: which was again broken by the stranger. 'i have seen you before, i think?' said he. 'you were differently dressed at that time, and i only passed you in the street, but i should know you again. you were beadle here, once; were you not?' 'i was,' said mr. bumble, in some surprise; 'porochial beadle.' 'just so,' rejoined the other, nodding his head. 'it was in that character i saw you. what are you now?' 'master of the workhouse,' rejoined mr. bumble, slowly and impressively, to check any undue familiarity the stranger might otherwise assume. 'master of the workhouse, young man!' 'you have the same eye to your own interest, that you always had, i doubt not?' resumed the stranger, looking keenly into mr. bumble's eyes, as he raised them in astonishment at the question. 'don't scruple to answer freely, man. i know you pretty well, you see.' 'i suppose, a married man,' replied mr. bumble, shading his eyes with his hand, and surveying the stranger, from head to foot, in evident perplexity, 'is not more averse to turning an honest penny when he can, than a single one. porochial officers are not so well paid that they can afford to refuse any little extra fee, when it comes to them in a civil and proper manner.' the stranger smiled, and nodded his head again: as much to say, he had not mistaken his man; then rang the bell. 'fill this glass again,' he said, handing mr. bumble's empty tumbler to the landlord. 'let it be strong and hot. you like it so, i suppose?' 'not too strong,' replied mr. bumble, with a delicate cough. 'you understand what that means, landlord!' said the stranger, drily. the host smiled, disappeared, and shortly afterwards returned with a steaming jorum: of which, the first gulp brought the water into mr. bumble's eyes. 'now listen to me,' said the stranger, after closing the door and window. 'i came down to this place, to-day, to find you out; and, by one of those chances which the devil throws in the way of his friends sometimes, you walked into the very room i was sitting in, while you were uppermost in my mind. i want some information from you. i don't ask you to give it for nothing, slight as it is. put up that, to begin with.' as he spoke, he pushed a couple of sovereigns across the table to his companion, carefully, as though unwilling that the chinking of money should be heard without. when mr. bumble had scrupulously examined the coins, to see that they were genuine, and had put them up, with much satisfaction, in his waistcoat-pocket, he went on: 'carry your memory back--let me see--twelve years, last winter.' 'it's a long time,' said mr. bumble. 'very good. i've done it.' 'the scene, the workhouse.' 'good!' 'and the time, night.' 'yes.' 'and the place, the crazy hole, wherever it was, in which miserable drabs brought forth the life and health so often denied to themselves--gave birth to puling children for the parish to rear; and hid their shame, rot 'em in the grave!' 'the lying-in room, i suppose?' said mr. bumble, not quite following the stranger's excited description. 'yes,' said the stranger. 'a boy was born there.' 'a many boys,' observed mr. bumble, shaking his head, despondingly. 'a murrain on the young devils!' cried the stranger; 'i speak of one; a meek-looking, pale-faced boy, who was apprenticed down here, to a coffin-maker--i wish he had made his coffin, and screwed his body in it--and who afterwards ran away to london, as it was supposed. 'why, you mean oliver! young twist!' said mr. bumble; 'i remember him, of course. there wasn't a obstinater young rascal--' 'it's not of him i want to hear; i've heard enough of him,' said the stranger, stopping mr. bumble in the outset of a tirade on the subject of poor oliver's vices. 'it's of a woman; the hag that nursed his mother. where is she?' 'where is she?' said mr. bumble, whom the gin-and-water had rendered facetious. 'it would be hard to tell. there's no midwifery there, whichever place she's gone to; so i suppose she's out of employment, anyway.' 'what do you mean?' demanded the stranger, sternly. 'that she died last winter,' rejoined mr. bumble. the man looked fixedly at him when he had given this information, and although he did not withdraw his eyes for some time afterwards, his gaze gradually became vacant and abstracted, and he seemed lost in thought. for some time, he appeared doubtful whether he ought to be relieved or disappointed by the intelligence; but at length he breathed more freely; and withdrawing his eyes, observed that it was no great matter. with that he rose, as if to depart. but mr. bumble was cunning enough; and he at once saw that an opportunity was opened, for the lucrative disposal of some secret in the possession of his better half. he well remembered the night of old sally's death, which the occurrences of that day had given him good reason to recollect, as the occasion on which he had proposed to mrs. corney; and although that lady had never confided to him the disclosure of which she had been the solitary witness, he had heard enough to know that it related to something that had occurred in the old woman's attendance, as workhouse nurse, upon the young mother of oliver twist. hastily calling this circumstance to mind, he informed the stranger, with an air of mystery, that one woman had been closeted with the old harridan shortly before she died; and that she could, as he had reason to believe, throw some light on the subject of his inquiry. 'how can i find her?' said the stranger, thrown off his guard; and plainly showing that all his fears (whatever they were) were aroused afresh by the intelligence. 'only through me,' rejoined mr. bumble. 'when?' cried the stranger, hastily. 'to-morrow,' rejoined bumble. 'at nine in the evening,' said the stranger, producing a scrap of paper, and writing down upon it, an obscure address by the water-side, in characters that betrayed his agitation; 'at nine in the evening, bring her to me there. i needn't tell you to be secret. it's your interest.' with these words, he led the way to the door, after stopping to pay for the liquor that had been drunk. shortly remarking that their roads were different, he departed, without more ceremony than an emphatic repetition of the hour of appointment for the following night. on glancing at the address, the parochial functionary observed that it contained no name. the stranger had not gone far, so he made after him to ask it. 'what do you want?' cried the man, turning quickly round, as bumble touched him on the arm. 'following me?' 'only to ask a question,' said the other, pointing to the scrap of paper. 'what name am i to ask for?' 'monks!' rejoined the man; and strode hastily, away. chapter xxxviii containing an account of what passed between mr. and mrs. bumble, and mr. monks, at their nocturnal interview it was a dull, close, overcast summer evening. the clouds, which had been threatening all day, spread out in a dense and sluggish mass of vapour, already yielded large drops of rain, and seemed to presage a violent thunder-storm, when mr. and mrs. bumble, turning out of the main street of the town, directed their course towards a scattered little colony of ruinous houses, distant from it some mile and a-half, or thereabouts, and erected on a low unwholesome swamp, bordering upon the river. they were both wrapped in old and shabby outer garments, which might, perhaps, serve the double purpose of protecting their persons from the rain, and sheltering them from observation. the husband carried a lantern, from which, however, no light yet shone; and trudged on, a few paces in front, as though--the way being dirty--to give his wife the benefit of treading in his heavy footprints. they went on, in profound silence; every now and then, mr. bumble relaxed his pace, and turned his head as if to make sure that his helpmate was following; then, discovering that she was close at his heels, he mended his rate of walking, and proceeded, at a considerable increase of speed, towards their place of destination. this was far from being a place of doubtful character; for it had long been known as the residence of none but low ruffians, who, under various pretences of living by their labour, subsisted chiefly on plunder and crime. it was a collection of mere hovels: some, hastily built with loose bricks: others, of old worm-eaten ship-timber: jumbled together without any attempt at order or arrangement, and planted, for the most part, within a few feet of the river's bank. a few leaky boats drawn up on the mud, and made fast to the dwarf wall which skirted it: and here and there an oar or coil of rope: appeared, at first, to indicate that the inhabitants of these miserable cottages pursued some avocation on the river; but a glance at the shattered and useless condition of the articles thus displayed, would have led a passer-by, without much difficulty, to the conjecture that they were disposed there, rather for the preservation of appearances, than with any view to their being actually employed. in the heart of this cluster of huts; and skirting the river, which its upper stories overhung; stood a large building, formerly used as a manufactory of some kind. it had, in its day, probably furnished employment to the inhabitants of the surrounding tenements. but it had long since gone to ruin. the rat, the worm, and the action of the damp, had weakened and rotted the piles on which it stood; and a considerable portion of the building had already sunk down into the water; while the remainder, tottering and bending over the dark stream, seemed to wait a favourable opportunity of following its old companion, and involving itself in the same fate. it was before this ruinous building that the worthy couple paused, as the first peal of distant thunder reverberated in the air, and the rain commenced pouring violently down. 'the place should be somewhere here,' said bumble, consulting a scrap of paper he held in his hand. 'halloa there!' cried a voice from above. following the sound, mr. bumble raised his head and descried a man looking out of a door, breast-high, on the second story. 'stand still, a minute,' cried the voice; 'i'll be with you directly.' with which the head disappeared, and the door closed. 'is that the man?' asked mr. bumble's good lady. mr. bumble nodded in the affirmative. 'then, mind what i told you,' said the matron: 'and be careful to say as little as you can, or you'll betray us at once.' mr. bumble, who had eyed the building with very rueful looks, was apparently about to express some doubts relative to the advisability of proceeding any further with the enterprise just then, when he was prevented by the appearance of monks: who opened a small door, near which they stood, and beckoned them inwards. 'come in!' he cried impatiently, stamping his foot upon the ground. 'don't keep me here!' the woman, who had hesitated at first, walked boldly in, without any other invitation. mr. bumble, who was ashamed or afraid to lag behind, followed: obviously very ill at ease and with scarcely any of that remarkable dignity which was usually his chief characteristic. 'what the devil made you stand lingering there, in the wet?' said monks, turning round, and addressing bumble, after he had bolted the door behind them. 'we--we were only cooling ourselves,' stammered bumble, looking apprehensively about him. 'cooling yourselves!' retorted monks. 'not all the rain that ever fell, or ever will fall, will put as much of hell's fire out, as a man can carry about with him. you won't cool yourself so easily; don't think it!' with this agreeable speech, monks turned short upon the matron, and bent his gaze upon her, till even she, who was not easily cowed, was fain to withdraw her eyes, and turn them towards the ground. 'this is the woman, is it?' demanded monks. 'hem! that is the woman,' replied mr. bumble, mindful of his wife's caution. 'you think women never can keep secrets, i suppose?' said the matron, interposing, and returning, as she spoke, the searching look of monks. 'i know they will always keep _one_ till it's found out,' said monks. 'and what may that be?' asked the matron. 'the loss of their own good name,' replied monks. 'so, by the same rule, if a woman's a party to a secret that might hang or transport her, i'm not afraid of her telling it to anybody; not i! do you understand, mistress?' 'no,' rejoined the matron, slightly colouring as she spoke. 'of course you don't!' said monks. 'how should you?' bestowing something half-way between a smile and a frown upon his two companions, and again beckoning them to follow him, the man hastened across the apartment, which was of considerable extent, but low in the roof. he was preparing to ascend a steep staircase, or rather ladder, leading to another floor of warehouses above: when a bright flash of lightning streamed down the aperture, and a peal of thunder followed, which shook the crazy building to its centre. 'hear it!' he cried, shrinking back. 'hear it! rolling and crashing on as if it echoed through a thousand caverns where the devils were hiding from it. i hate the sound!' he remained silent for a few moments; and then, removing his hands suddenly from his face, showed, to the unspeakable discomposure of mr. bumble, that it was much distorted and discoloured. 'these fits come over me, now and then,' said monks, observing his alarm; 'and thunder sometimes brings them on. don't mind me now; it's all over for this once.' thus speaking, he led the way up the ladder; and hastily closing the window-shutter of the room into which it led, lowered a lantern which hung at the end of a rope and pulley passed through one of the heavy beams in the ceiling: and which cast a dim light upon an old table and three chairs that were placed beneath it. 'now,' said monks, when they had all three seated themselves, 'the sooner we come to our business, the better for all. the woman know what it is, does she?' the question was addressed to bumble; but his wife anticipated the reply, by intimating that she was perfectly acquainted with it. 'he is right in saying that you were with this hag the night she died; and that she told you something--' 'about the mother of the boy you named,' replied the matron interrupting him. 'yes.' 'the first question is, of what nature was her communication?' said monks. 'that's the second,' observed the woman with much deliberation. 'the first is, what may the communication be worth?' 'who the devil can tell that, without knowing of what kind it is?' asked monks. 'nobody better than you, i am persuaded,' answered mrs. bumble: who did not want for spirit, as her yoke-fellow could abundantly testify. 'humph!' said monks significantly, and with a look of eager inquiry; 'there may be money's worth to get, eh?' 'perhaps there may,' was the composed reply. 'something that was taken from her,' said monks. 'something that she wore. something that--' 'you had better bid,' interrupted mrs. bumble. 'i have heard enough, already, to assure me that you are the man i ought to talk to.' mr. bumble, who had not yet been admitted by his better half into any greater share of the secret than he had originally possessed, listened to this dialogue with outstretched neck and distended eyes: which he directed towards his wife and monks, by turns, in undisguised astonishment; increased, if possible, when the latter sternly demanded, what sum was required for the disclosure. 'what's it worth to you?' asked the woman, as collectedly as before. 'it may be nothing; it may be twenty pounds,' replied monks. 'speak out, and let me know which.' 'add five pounds to the sum you have named; give me five-and-twenty pounds in gold,' said the woman; 'and i'll tell you all i know. not before.' 'five-and-twenty pounds!' exclaimed monks, drawing back. 'i spoke as plainly as i could,' replied mrs. bumble. 'it's not a large sum, either.' 'not a large sum for a paltry secret, that may be nothing when it's told!' cried monks impatiently; 'and which has been lying dead for twelve years past or more!' 'such matters keep well, and, like good wine, often double their value in course of time,' answered the matron, still preserving the resolute indifference she had assumed. 'as to lying dead, there are those who will lie dead for twelve thousand years to come, or twelve million, for anything you or i know, who will tell strange tales at last!' 'what if i pay it for nothing?' asked monks, hesitating. 'you can easily take it away again,' replied the matron. 'i am but a woman; alone here; and unprotected.' 'not alone, my dear, nor unprotected, neither,' submitted mr. bumble, in a voice tremulous with fear: '_i_ am here, my dear. and besides,' said mr. bumble, his teeth chattering as he spoke, 'mr. monks is too much of a gentleman to attempt any violence on porochial persons. mr. monks is aware that i am not a young man, my dear, and also that i am a little run to seed, as i may say; bu he has heerd: i say i have no doubt mr. monks has heerd, my dear: that i am a very determined officer, with very uncommon strength, if i'm once roused. i only want a little rousing; that's all.' as mr. bumble spoke, he made a melancholy feint of grasping his lantern with fierce determination; and plainly showed, by the alarmed expression of every feature, that he _did_ want a little rousing, and not a little, prior to making any very warlike demonstration: unless, indeed, against paupers, or other person or persons trained down for the purpose. 'you are a fool,' said mrs. bumble, in reply; 'and had better hold your tongue.' 'he had better have cut it out, before he came, if he can't speak in a lower tone,' said monks, grimly. 'so! he's your husband, eh?' 'he my husband!' tittered the matron, parrying the question. 'i thought as much, when you came in,' rejoined monks, marking the angry glance which the lady darted at her spouse as she spoke. 'so much the better; i have less hesitation in dealing with two people, when i find that there's only one will between them. i'm in earnest. see here!' he thrust his hand into a side-pocket; and producing a canvas bag, told out twenty-five sovereigns on the table, and pushed them over to the woman. 'now,' he said, 'gather them up; and when this cursed peal of thunder, which i feel is coming up to break over the house-top, is gone, let's hear your story.' the thunder, which seemed in fact much nearer, and to shiver and break almost over their heads, having subsided, monks, raising his face from the table, bent forward to listen to what the woman should say. the faces of the three nearly touched, as the two men leant over the small table in their eagerness to hear, and the woman also leant forward to render her whisper audible. the sickly rays of the suspended lantern falling directly upon them, aggravated the paleness and anxiety of their countenances: which, encircled by the deepest gloom and darkness, looked ghastly in the extreme. 'when this woman, that we called old sally, died,' the matron began, 'she and i were alone.' 'was there no one by?' asked monks, in the same hollow whisper; 'no sick wretch or idiot in some other bed? no one who could hear, and might, by possibility, understand?' 'not a soul,' replied the woman; 'we were alone. _i_ stood alone beside the body when death came over it.' 'good,' said monks, regarding her attentively. 'go on.' 'she spoke of a young creature,' resumed the matron, 'who had brought a child into the world some years before; not merely in the same room, but in the same bed, in which she then lay dying.' 'ay?' said monks, with quivering lip, and glancing over his shoulder, 'blood! how things come about!' 'the child was the one you named to him last night,' said the matron, nodding carelessly towards her husband; 'the mother this nurse had robbed.' 'in life?' asked monks. 'in death,' replied the woman, with something like a shudder. 'she stole from the corpse, when it had hardly turned to one, that which the dead mother had prayed her, with her last breath, to keep for the infant's sake.' 'she sold it,' cried monks, with desperate eagerness; 'did she sell it? where? when? to whom? how long before?' 'as she told me, with great difficulty, that she had done this,' said the matron, 'she fell back and died.' 'without saying more?' cried monks, in a voice which, from its very suppression, seemed only the more furious. 'it's a lie! i'll not be played with. she said more. i'll tear the life out of you both, but i'll know what it was.' 'she didn't utter another word,' said the woman, to all appearance unmoved (as mr. bumble was very far from being) by the strange man's violence; 'but she clutched my gown, violently, with one hand, which was partly closed; and when i saw that she was dead, and so removed the hand by force, i found it clasped a scrap of dirty paper.' 'which contained--' interposed monks, stretching forward. 'nothing,' replied the woman; 'it was a pawnbroker's duplicate.' 'for what?' demanded monks. 'in good time i'll tell you.' said the woman. 'i judge that she had kept the trinket, for some time, in the hope of turning it to better account; and then had pawned it; and had saved or scraped together money to pay the pawnbroker's interest year by year, and prevent its running out; so that if anything came of it, it could still be redeemed. nothing had come of it; and, as i tell you, she died with the scrap of paper, all worn and tattered, in her hand. the time was out in two days; i thought something might one day come of it too; and so redeemed the pledge.' 'where is it now?' asked monks quickly. '_there_,' replied the woman. and, as if glad to be relieved of it, she hastily threw upon the table a small kid bag scarcely large enough for a french watch, which monks pouncing upon, tore open with trembling hands. it contained a little gold locket: in which were two locks of hair, and a plain gold wedding-ring. 'it has the word "agnes" engraved on the inside,' said the woman. 'there is a blank left for the surname; and then follows the date; which is within a year before the child was born. i found out that.' 'and this is all?' said monks, after a close and eager scrutiny of the contents of the little packet. 'all,' replied the woman. mr. bumble drew a long breath, as if he were glad to find that the story was over, and no mention made of taking the five-and-twenty pounds back again; and now he took courage to wipe the perspiration which had been trickling over his nose, unchecked, during the whole of the previous dialogue. 'i know nothing of the story, beyond what i can guess at,' said his wife addressing monks, after a short silence; 'and i want to know nothing; for it's safer not. but i may ask you two questions, may i?' 'you may ask,' said monks, with some show of surprise; 'but whether i answer or not is another question.' '--which makes three,' observed mr. bumble, essaying a stroke of facetiousness. 'is that what you expected to get from me?' demanded the matron. 'it is,' replied monks. 'the other question?' 'what do you propose to do with it? can it be used against me?' 'never,' rejoined monks; 'nor against me either. see here! but don't move a step forward, or your life is not worth a bulrush.' with these words, he suddenly wheeled the table aside, and pulling an iron ring in the boarding, threw back a large trap-door which opened close at mr. bumble's feet, and caused that gentleman to retire several paces backward, with great precipitation. 'look down,' said monks, lowering the lantern into the gulf. 'don't fear me. i could have let you down, quietly enough, when you were seated over it, if that had been my game.' thus encouraged, the matron drew near to the brink; and even mr. bumble himself, impelled by curiousity, ventured to do the same. the turbid water, swollen by the heavy rain, was rushing rapidly on below; and all other sounds were lost in the noise of its plashing and eddying against the green and slimy piles. there had once been a water-mill beneath; the tide foaming and chafing round the few rotten stakes, and fragments of machinery that yet remained, seemed to dart onward, with a new impulse, when freed from the obstacles which had unavailingly attempted to stem its headlong course. 'if you flung a man's body down there, where would it be to-morrow morning?' said monks, swinging the lantern to and fro in the dark well. 'twelve miles down the river, and cut to pieces besides,' replied bumble, recoiling at the thought. monks drew the little packet from his breast, where he had hurriedly thrust it; and tying it to a leaden weight, which had formed a part of some pulley, and was lying on the floor, dropped it into the stream. it fell straight, and true as a die; clove the water with a scarcely audible splash; and was gone. the three looking into each other's faces, seemed to breathe more freely. 'there!' said monks, closing the trap-door, which fell heavily back into its former position. 'if the sea ever gives up its dead, as books say it will, it will keep its gold and silver to itself, and that trash among it. we have nothing more to say, and may break up our pleasant party.' 'by all means,' observed mr. bumble, with great alacrity. 'you'll keep a quiet tongue in your head, will you?' said monks, with a threatening look. 'i am not afraid of your wife.' 'you may depend upon me, young man,' answered mr. bumble, bowing himself gradually towards the ladder, with excessive politeness. 'on everybody's account, young man; on my own, you know, mr. monks.' 'i am glad, for your sake, to hear it,' remarked monks. 'light your lantern! and get away from here as fast as you can.' it was fortunate that the conversation terminated at this point, or mr. bumble, who had bowed himself to within six inches of the ladder, would infallibly have pitched headlong into the room below. he lighted his lantern from that which monks had detached from the rope, and now carried in his hand; and making no effort to prolong the discourse, descended in silence, followed by his wife. monks brought up the rear, after pausing on the steps to satisfy himself that there were no other sounds to be heard than the beating of the rain without, and the rushing of the water. they traversed the lower room, slowly, and with caution; for monks started at every shadow; and mr. bumble, holding his lantern a foot above the ground, walked not only with remarkable care, but with a marvellously light step for a gentleman of his figure: looking nervously about him for hidden trap-doors. the gate at which they had entered, was softly unfastened and opened by monks; merely exchanging a nod with their mysterious acquaintance, the married couple emerged into the wet and darkness outside. they were no sooner gone, than monks, who appeared to entertain an invincible repugnance to being left alone, called to a boy who had been hidden somewhere below. bidding him go first, and bear the light, he returned to the chamber he had just quitted. chapter xxxix introduces some respectable characters with whom the reader is already acquainted, and shows how monks and the jew laid their worthy heads together on the evening following that upon which the three worthies mentioned in the last chapter, disposed of their little matter of business as therein narrated, mr. william sikes, awakening from a nap, drowsily growled forth an inquiry what time of night it was. the room in which mr. sikes propounded this question, was not one of those he had tenanted, previous to the chertsey expedition, although it was in the same quarter of the town, and was situated at no great distance from his former lodgings. it was not, in appearance, so desirable a habitation as his old quarters: being a mean and badly-furnished apartment, of very limited size; lighted only by one small window in the shelving roof, and abutting on a close and dirty lane. nor were there wanting other indications of the good gentleman's having gone down in the world of late: for a great scarcity of furniture, and total absence of comfort, together with the disappearance of all such small moveables as spare clothes and linen, bespoke a state of extreme poverty; while the meagre and attenuated condition of mr. sikes himself would have fully confirmed these symptoms, if they had stood in any need of corroboration. the housebreaker was lying on the bed, wrapped in his white great-coat, by way of dressing-gown, and displaying a set of features in no degree improved by the cadaverous hue of illness, and the addition of a soiled nightcap, and a stiff, black beard of a week's growth. the dog sat at the bedside: now eyeing his master with a wistful look, and now pricking his ears, and uttering a low growl as some noise in the street, or in the lower part of the house, attracted his attention. seated by the window, busily engaged in patching an old waistcoat which formed a portion of the robber's ordinary dress, was a female: so pale and reduced with watching and privation, that there would have been considerable difficulty in recognising her as the same nancy who has already figured in this tale, but for the voice in which she replied to mr. sikes's question. 'not long gone seven,' said the girl. 'how do you feel to-night, bill?' 'as weak as water,' replied mr. sikes, with an imprecation on his eyes and limbs. 'here; lend us a hand, and let me get off this thundering bed anyhow.' illness had not improved mr. sikes's temper; for, as the girl raised him up and led him to a chair, he muttered various curses on her awkwardness, and struck her. 'whining are you?' said sikes. 'come! don't stand snivelling there. if you can't do anything better than that, cut off altogether. d'ye hear me?' 'i hear you,' replied the girl, turning her face aside, and forcing a laugh. 'what fancy have you got in your head now?' 'oh! you've thought better of it, have you?' growled sikes, marking the tear which trembled in her eye. 'all the better for you, you have.' 'why, you don't mean to say, you'd be hard upon me to-night, bill,' said the girl, laying her hand upon his shoulder. 'no!' cried mr. sikes. 'why not?' 'such a number of nights,' said the girl, with a touch of woman's tenderness, which communicated something like sweetness of tone, even to her voice: 'such a number of nights as i've been patient with you, nursing and caring for you, as if you had been a child: and this the first that i've seen you like yourself; you wouldn't have served me as you did just now, if you'd thought of that, would you? come, come; say you wouldn't.' 'well, then,' rejoined mr. sikes, 'i wouldn't. why, damme, now, the girls's whining again!' 'it's nothing,' said the girl, throwing herself into a chair. 'don't you seem to mind me. it'll soon be over.' 'what'll be over?' demanded mr. sikes in a savage voice. 'what foolery are you up to, now, again? get up and bustle about, and don't come over me with your woman's nonsense.' at any other time, this remonstrance, and the tone in which it was delivered, would have had the desired effect; but the girl being really weak and exhausted, dropped her head over the back of the chair, and fainted, before mr. sikes could get out a few of the appropriate oaths with which, on similar occasions, he was accustomed to garnish his threats. not knowing, very well, what to do, in this uncommon emergency; for miss nancy's hysterics were usually of that violent kind which the patient fights and struggles out of, without much assistance; mr. sikes tried a little blasphemy: and finding that mode of treatment wholly ineffectual, called for assistance. 'what's the matter here, my dear?' said fagin, looking in. 'lend a hand to the girl, can't you?' replied sikes impatiently. 'don't stand chattering and grinning at me!' with an exclamation of surprise, fagin hastened to the girl's assistance, while mr. john dawkins (otherwise the artful dodger), who had followed his venerable friend into the room, hastily deposited on the floor a bundle with which he was laden; and snatching a bottle from the grasp of master charles bates who came close at his heels, uncorked it in a twinkling with his teeth, and poured a portion of its contents down the patient's throat: previously taking a taste, himself, to prevent mistakes. 'give her a whiff of fresh air with the bellows, charley,' said mr. dawkins; 'and you slap her hands, fagin, while bill undoes the petticuts.' these united restoratives, administered with great energy: especially that department consigned to master bates, who appeared to consider his share in the proceedings, a piece of unexampled pleasantry: were not long in producing the desired effect. the girl gradually recovered her senses; and, staggering to a chair by the bedside, hid her face upon the pillow: leaving mr. sikes to confront the new comers, in some astonishment at their unlooked-for appearance. 'why, what evil wind has blowed you here?' he asked fagin. 'no evil wind at all, my dear, for evil winds blow nobody any good; and i've brought something good with me, that you'll be glad to see. dodger, my dear, open the bundle; and give bill the little trifles that we spent all our money on, this morning.' in compliance with mr. fagin's request, the artful untied this bundle, which was of large size, and formed of an old table-cloth; and handed the articles it contained, one by one, to charley bates: who placed them on the table, with various encomiums on their rarity and excellence. 'sitch a rabbit pie, bill,' exclaimed that young gentleman, disclosing to view a huge pasty; 'sitch delicate creeturs, with sitch tender limbs, bill, that the wery bones melt in your mouth, and there's no occasion to pick 'em; half a pound of seven and six-penny green, so precious strong that if you mix it with biling water, it'll go nigh to blow the lid of the tea-pot off; a pound and a half of moist sugar that the niggers didn't work at all at, afore they got it up to sitch a pitch of goodness,--oh no! two half-quartern brans; pound of best fresh; piece of double glo'ster; and, to wind up all, some of the richest sort you ever lushed!' uttering this last panegyric, master bates produced, from one of his extensive pockets, a full-sized wine-bottle, carefully corked; while mr. dawkins, at the same instant, poured out a wine-glassful of raw spirits from the bottle he carried: which the invalid tossed down his throat without a moment's hesitation. 'ah!' said fagin, rubbing his hands with great satisfaction. 'you'll do, bill; you'll do now.' 'do!' exclaimed mr. sikes; 'i might have been done for, twenty times over, afore you'd have done anything to help me. what do you mean by leaving a man in this state, three weeks and more, you false-hearted wagabond?' 'only hear him, boys!' said fagin, shrugging his shoulders. 'and us come to bring him all these beau-ti-ful things.' 'the things is well enough in their way,' observed mr. sikes: a little soothed as he glanced over the table; 'but what have you got to say for yourself, why you should leave me here, down in the mouth, health, blunt, and everything else; and take no more notice of me, all this mortal time, than if i was that 'ere dog.--drive him down, charley!' 'i never see such a jolly dog as that,' cried master bates, doing as he was desired. 'smelling the grub like a old lady a going to market! he'd make his fortun' on the stage that dog would, and rewive the drayma besides.' 'hold your din,' cried sikes, as the dog retreated under the bed: still growling angrily. 'what have you got to say for yourself, you withered old fence, eh?' 'i was away from london, a week and more, my dear, on a plant,' replied the jew. 'and what about the other fortnight?' demanded sikes. 'what about the other fortnight that you've left me lying here, like a sick rat in his hole?' 'i couldn't help it, bill. i can't go into a long explanation before company; but i couldn't help it, upon my honour.' 'upon your what?' growled sikes, with excessive disgust. 'here! cut me off a piece of that pie, one of you boys, to take the taste of that out of my mouth, or it'll choke me dead.' 'don't be out of temper, my dear,' urged fagin, submissively. 'i have never forgot you, bill; never once.' 'no! i'll pound it that you han't,' replied sikes, with a bitter grin. 'you've been scheming and plotting away, every hour that i have laid shivering and burning here; and bill was to do this; and bill was to do that; and bill was to do it all, dirt cheap, as soon as he got well: and was quite poor enough for your work. if it hadn't been for the girl, i might have died.' 'there now, bill,' remonstrated fagin, eagerly catching at the word. 'if it hadn't been for the girl! who but poor ould fagin was the means of your having such a handy girl about you?' 'he says true enough there!' said nancy, coming hastily forward. 'let him be; let him be.' nancy's appearance gave a new turn to the conversation; for the boys, receiving a sly wink from the wary old jew, began to ply her with liquor: of which, however, she took very sparingly; while fagin, assuming an unusual flow of spirits, gradually brought mr. sikes into a better temper, by affecting to regard his threats as a little pleasant banter; and, moreover, by laughing very heartily at one or two rough jokes, which, after repeated applications to the spirit-bottle, he condescended to make. 'it's all very well,' said mr. sikes; 'but i must have some blunt from you to-night.' 'i haven't a piece of coin about me,' replied the jew. 'then you've got lots at home,' retorted sikes; 'and i must have some from there.' 'lots!' cried fagin, holding up is hands. 'i haven't so much as would--' 'i don't know how much you've got, and i dare say you hardly know yourself, as it would take a pretty long time to count it,' said sikes; 'but i must have some to-night; and that's flat.' 'well, well,' said fagin, with a sigh, 'i'll send the artful round presently.' 'you won't do nothing of the kind,' rejoined mr. sikes. 'the artful's a deal too artful, and would forget to come, or lose his way, or get dodged by traps and so be perwented, or anything for an excuse, if you put him up to it. nancy shall go to the ken and fetch it, to make all sure; and i'll lie down and have a snooze while she's gone.' after a great deal of haggling and squabbling, fagin beat down the amount of the required advance from five pounds to three pounds four and sixpence: protesting with many solemn asseverations that that would only leave him eighteen-pence to keep house with; mr. sikes sullenly remarking that if he couldn't get any more he must accompany him home; with the dodger and master bates put the eatables in the cupboard. the jew then, taking leave of his affectionate friend, returned homeward, attended by nancy and the boys: mr. sikes, meanwhile, flinging himself on the bed, and composing himself to sleep away the time until the young lady's return. in due course, they arrived at fagin's abode, where they found toby crackit and mr. chitling intent upon their fifteenth game at cribbage, which it is scarcely necessary to say the latter gentleman lost, and with it, his fifteenth and last sixpence: much to the amusement of his young friends. mr. crackit, apparently somewhat ashamed at being found relaxing himself with a gentleman so much his inferior in station and mental endowments, yawned, and inquiring after sikes, took up his hat to go. 'has nobody been, toby?' asked fagin. 'not a living leg,' answered mr. crackit, pulling up his collar; 'it's been as dull as swipes. you ought to stand something handsome, fagin, to recompense me for keeping house so long. damme, i'm as flat as a juryman; and should have gone to sleep, as fast as newgate, if i hadn't had the good natur' to amuse this youngster. horrid dull, i'm blessed if i an't!' with these and other ejaculations of the same kind, mr. toby crackit swept up his winnings, and crammed them into his waistcoat pocket with a haughty air, as though such small pieces of silver were wholly beneath the consideration of a man of his figure; this done, he swaggered out of the room, with so much elegance and gentility, that mr. chitling, bestowing numerous admiring glances on his legs and boots till they were out of sight, assured the company that he considered his acquaintance cheap at fifteen sixpences an interview, and that he didn't value his losses the snap of his little finger. 'wot a rum chap you are, tom!' said master bates, highly amused by this declaration. 'not a bit of it,' replied mr. chitling. 'am i, fagin?' 'a very clever fellow, my dear,' said fagin, patting him on the shoulder, and winking to his other pupils. 'and mr. crackit is a heavy swell; an't he, fagin?' asked tom. 'no doubt at all of that, my dear.' 'and it is a creditable thing to have his acquaintance; an't it, fagin?' pursued tom. 'very much so, indeed, my dear. they're only jealous, tom, because he won't give it to them.' 'ah!' cried tom, triumphantly, 'that's where it is! he has cleaned me out. but i can go and earn some more, when i like; can't i, fagin?' 'to be sure you can, and the sooner you go the better, tom; so make up your loss at once, and don't lose any more time. dodger! charley! it's time you were on the lay. come! it's near ten, and nothing done yet.' in obedience to this hint, the boys, nodding to nancy, took up their hats, and left the room; the dodger and his vivacious friend indulging, as they went, in many witticisms at the expense of mr. chitling; in whose conduct, it is but justice to say, there was nothing very conspicuous or peculiar: inasmuch as there are a great number of spirited young bloods upon town, who pay a much higher price than mr. chitling for being seen in good society: and a great number of fine gentlemen (composing the good society aforesaid) who established their reputation upon very much the same footing as flash toby crackit. 'now,' said fagin, when they had left the room, 'i'll go and get you that cash, nancy. this is only the key of a little cupboard where i keep a few odd things the boys get, my dear. i never lock up my money, for i've got none to lock up, my dear--ha! ha! ha!--none to lock up. it's a poor trade, nancy, and no thanks; but i'm fond of seeing the young people about me; and i bear it all, i bear it all. hush!' he said, hastily concealing the key in his breast; 'who's that? listen!' the girl, who was sitting at the table with her arms folded, appeared in no way interested in the arrival: or to care whether the person, whoever he was, came or went: until the murmur of a man's voice reached her ears. the instant she caught the sound, she tore off her bonnet and shawl, with the rapidity of lightning, and thrust them under the table. the jew, turning round immediately afterwards, she muttered a complaint of the heat: in a tone of languor that contrasted, very remarkably, with the extreme haste and violence of this action: which, however, had been unobserved by fagin, who had his back towards her at the time. 'bah!' he whispered, as though nettled by the interruption; 'it's the man i expected before; he's coming downstairs. not a word about the money while he's here, nance. he won't stop long. not ten minutes, my dear.' laying his skinny forefinger upon his lip, the jew carried a candle to the door, as a man's step was heard upon the stairs without. he reached it, at the same moment as the visitor, who, coming hastily into the room, was close upon the girl before he observed her. it was monks. 'only one of my young people,' said fagin, observing that monks drew back, on beholding a stranger. 'don't move, nancy.' the girl drew closer to the table, and glancing at monks with an air of careless levity, withdrew her eyes; but as he turned towards fagin, she stole another look; so keen and searching, and full of purpose, that if there had been any bystander to observe the change, he could hardly have believed the two looks to have proceeded from the same person. 'any news?' inquired fagin. 'great.' 'and--and--good?' asked fagin, hesitating as though he feared to vex the other man by being too sanguine. 'not bad, any way,' replied monks with a smile. 'i have been prompt enough this time. let me have a word with you.' the girl drew closer to the table, and made no offer to leave the room, although she could see that monks was pointing to her. the jew: perhaps fearing she might say something aloud about the money, if he endeavoured to get rid of her: pointed upward, and took monks out of the room. 'not that infernal hole we were in before,' she could hear the man say as they went upstairs. fagin laughed; and making some reply which did not reach her, seemed, by the creaking of the boards, to lead his companion to the second story. before the sound of their footsteps had ceased to echo through the house, the girl had slipped off her shoes; and drawing her gown loosely over her head, and muffling her arms in it, stood at the door, listening with breathless interest. the moment the noise ceased, she glided from the room; ascended the stairs with incredible softness and silence; and was lost in the gloom above. the room remained deserted for a quarter of an hour or more; the girl glided back with the same unearthly tread; and, immediately afterwards, the two men were heard descending. monks went at once into the street; and the jew crawled upstairs again for the money. when he returned, the girl was adjusting her shawl and bonnet, as if preparing to be gone. 'why, nance!' exclaimed the jew, starting back as he put down the candle, 'how pale you are!' 'pale!' echoed the girl, shading her eyes with her hands, as if to look steadily at him. 'quite horrible. what have you been doing to yourself?' 'nothing that i know of, except sitting in this close place for i don't know how long and all,' replied the girl carelessly. 'come! let me get back; that's a dear.' with a sigh for every piece of money, fagin told the amount into her hand. they parted without more conversation, merely interchanging a 'good-night.' when the girl got into the open street, she sat down upon a doorstep; and seemed, for a few moments, wholly bewildered and unable to pursue her way. suddenly she arose; and hurrying on, in a direction quite opposite to that in which sikes was awaiting her returned, quickened her pace, until it gradually resolved into a violent run. after completely exhausting herself, she stopped to take breath: and, as if suddenly recollecting herself, and deploring her inability to do something she was bent upon, wrung her hands, and burst into tears. it might be that her tears relieved her, or that she felt the full hopelessness of her condition; but she turned back; and hurrying with nearly as great rapidity in the contrary direction; partly to recover lost time, and partly to keep pace with the violent current of her own thoughts: soon reached the dwelling where she had left the housebreaker. if she betrayed any agitation, when she presented herself to mr. sikes, he did not observe it; for merely inquiring if she had brought the money, and receiving a reply in the affirmative, he uttered a growl of satisfaction, and replacing his head upon the pillow, resumed the slumbers which her arrival had interrupted. it was fortunate for her that the possession of money occasioned him so much employment next day in the way of eating and drinking; and withal had so beneficial an effect in smoothing down the asperities of his temper; that he had neither time nor inclination to be very critical upon her behaviour and deportment. that she had all the abstracted and nervous manner of one who is on the eve of some bold and hazardous step, which it has required no common struggle to resolve upon, would have been obvious to the lynx-eyed fagin, who would most probably have taken the alarm at once; but mr. sikes lacking the niceties of discrimination, and being troubled with no more subtle misgivings than those which resolve themselves into a dogged roughness of behaviour towards everybody; and being, furthermore, in an unusually amiable condition, as has been already observed; saw nothing unusual in her demeanor, and indeed, troubled himself so little about her, that, had her agitation been far more perceptible than it was, it would have been very unlikely to have awakened his suspicions. as that day closed in, the girl's excitement increased; and, when night came on, and she sat by, watching until the housebreaker should drink himself asleep, there was an unusual paleness in her cheek, and a fire in her eye, that even sikes observed with astonishment. mr. sikes being weak from the fever, was lying in bed, taking hot water with his gin to render it less inflammatory; and had pushed his glass towards nancy to be replenished for the third or fourth time, when these symptoms first struck him. 'why, burn my body!' said the man, raising himself on his hands as he stared the girl in the face. 'you look like a corpse come to life again. what's the matter?' 'matter!' replied the girl. 'nothing. what do you look at me so hard for?' 'what foolery is this?' demanded sikes, grasping her by the arm, and shaking her roughly. 'what is it? what do you mean? what are you thinking of?' 'of many things, bill,' replied the girl, shivering, and as she did so, pressing her hands upon her eyes. 'but, lord! what odds in that?' the tone of forced gaiety in which the last words were spoken, seemed to produce a deeper impression on sikes than the wild and rigid look which had preceded them. 'i tell you wot it is,' said sikes; 'if you haven't caught the fever, and got it comin' on, now, there's something more than usual in the wind, and something dangerous too. you're not a-going to--. no, damme! you wouldn't do that!' 'do what?' asked the girl. 'there ain't,' said sikes, fixing his eyes upon her, and muttering the words to himself; 'there ain't a stauncher-hearted gal going, or i'd have cut her throat three months ago. she's got the fever coming on; that's it.' fortifying himself with this assurance, sikes drained the glass to the bottom, and then, with many grumbling oaths, called for his physic. the girl jumped up, with great alacrity; poured it quickly out, but with her back towards him; and held the vessel to his lips, while he drank off the contents. 'now,' said the robber, 'come and sit aside of me, and put on your own face; or i'll alter it so, that you won't know it agin when you do want it.' the girl obeyed. sikes, locking her hand in his, fell back upon the pillow: turning his eyes upon her face. they closed; opened again; closed once more; again opened. he shifted his position restlessly; and, after dozing again, and again, for two or three minutes, and as often springing up with a look of terror, and gazing vacantly about him, was suddenly stricken, as it were, while in the very attitude of rising, into a deep and heavy sleep. the grasp of his hand relaxed; the upraised arm fell languidly by his side; and he lay like one in a profound trance. 'the laudanum has taken effect at last,' murmured the girl, as she rose from the bedside. 'i may be too late, even now.' she hastily dressed herself in her bonnet and shawl: looking fearfully round, from time to time, as if, despite the sleeping draught, she expected every moment to feel the pressure of sikes's heavy hand upon her shoulder; then, stooping softly over the bed, she kissed the robber's lips; and then opening and closing the room-door with noiseless touch, hurried from the house. a watchman was crying half-past nine, down a dark passage through which she had to pass, in gaining the main thoroughfare. 'has it long gone the half-hour?' asked the girl. 'it'll strike the hour in another quarter,' said the man: raising his lantern to her face. 'and i cannot get there in less than an hour or more,' muttered nancy: brushing swiftly past him, and gliding rapidly down the street. many of the shops were already closing in the back lanes and avenues through which she tracked her way, in making from spitalfields towards the west-end of london. the clock struck ten, increasing her impatience. she tore along the narrow pavement: elbowing the passengers from side to side; and darting almost under the horses' heads, crossed crowded streets, where clusters of persons were eagerly watching their opportunity to do the like. 'the woman is mad!' said the people, turning to look after her as she rushed away. when she reached the more wealthy quarter of the town, the streets were comparatively deserted; and here her headlong progress excited a still greater curiosity in the stragglers whom she hurried past. some quickened their pace behind, as though to see whither she was hastening at such an unusual rate; and a few made head upon her, and looked back, surprised at her undiminished speed; but they fell off one by one; and when she neared her place of destination, she was alone. it was a family hotel in a quiet but handsome street near hyde park. as the brilliant light of the lamp which burnt before its door, guided her to the spot, the clock struck eleven. she had loitered for a few paces as though irresolute, and making up her mind to advance; but the sound determined her, and she stepped into the hall. the porter's seat was vacant. she looked round with an air of incertitude, and advanced towards the stairs. 'now, young woman!' said a smartly-dressed female, looking out from a door behind her, 'who do you want here?' 'a lady who is stopping in this house,' answered the girl. 'a lady!' was the reply, accompanied with a scornful look. 'what lady?' 'miss maylie,' said nancy. the young woman, who had by this time, noted her appearance, replied only by a look of virtuous disdain; and summoned a man to answer her. to him, nancy repeated her request. 'what name am i to say?' asked the waiter. 'it's of no use saying any,' replied nancy. 'nor business?' said the man. 'no, nor that neither,' rejoined the girl. 'i must see the lady.' 'come!' said the man, pushing her towards the door. 'none of this. take yourself off.' 'i shall be carried out if i go!' said the girl violently; 'and i can make that a job that two of you won't like to do. isn't there anybody here,' she said, looking round, 'that will see a simple message carried for a poor wretch like me?' this appeal produced an effect on a good-tempered-faced man-cook, who with some of the other servants was looking on, and who stepped forward to interfere. 'take it up for her, joe; can't you?' said this person. 'what's the good?' replied the man. 'you don't suppose the young lady will see such as her; do you?' this allusion to nancy's doubtful character, raised a vast quantity of chaste wrath in the bosoms of four housemaids, who remarked, with great fervour, that the creature was a disgrace to her sex; and strongly advocated her being thrown, ruthlessly, into the kennel. 'do what you like with me,' said the girl, turning to the men again; 'but do what i ask you first, and i ask you to give this message for god almighty's sake.' the soft-hearted cook added his intercession, and the result was that the man who had first appeared undertook its delivery. 'what's it to be?' said the man, with one foot on the stairs. 'that a young woman earnestly asks to speak to miss maylie alone,' said nancy; 'and that if the lady will only hear the first word she has to say, she will know whether to hear her business, or to have her turned out of doors as an impostor.' 'i say,' said the man, 'you're coming it strong!' 'you give the message,' said the girl firmly; 'and let me hear the answer.' the man ran upstairs. nancy remained, pale and almost breathless, listening with quivering lip to the very audible expressions of scorn, of which the chaste housemaids were very prolific; and of which they became still more so, when the man returned, and said the young woman was to walk upstairs. 'it's no good being proper in this world,' said the first housemaid. 'brass can do better than the gold what has stood the fire,' said the second. the third contented herself with wondering 'what ladies was made of'; and the fourth took the first in a quartette of 'shameful!' with which the dianas concluded. regardless of all this: for she had weightier matters at heart: nancy followed the man, with trembling limbs, to a small ante-chamber, lighted by a lamp from the ceiling. here he left her, and retired. chapter xl a strange interview, which is a sequel to the last chamber the girl's life had been squandered in the streets, and among the most noisome of the stews and dens of london, but there was something of the woman's original nature left in her still; and when she heard a light step approaching the door opposite to that by which she had entered, and thought of the wide contrast which the small room would in another moment contain, she felt burdened with the sense of her own deep shame, and shrunk as though she could scarcely bear the presence of her with whom she had sought this interview. but struggling with these better feelings was pride,--the vice of the lowest and most debased creatures no less than of the high and self-assured. the miserable companion of thieves and ruffians, the fallen outcast of low haunts, the associate of the scourings of the jails and hulks, living within the shadow of the gallows itself,--even this degraded being felt too proud to betray a feeble gleam of the womanly feeling which she thought a weakness, but which alone connected her with that humanity, of which her wasting life had obliterated so many, many traces when a very child. she raised her eyes sufficiently to observe that the figure which presented itself was that of a slight and beautiful girl; then, bending them on the ground, she tossed her head with affected carelessness as she said: 'it's a hard matter to get to see you, lady. if i had taken offence, and gone away, as many would have done, you'd have been sorry for it one day, and not without reason either.' 'i am very sorry if any one has behaved harshly to you,' replied rose. 'do not think of that. tell me why you wished to see me. i am the person you inquired for.' the kind tone of this answer, the sweet voice, the gentle manner, the absence of any accent of haughtiness or displeasure, took the girl completely by surprise, and she burst into tears. 'oh, lady, lady!' she said, clasping her hands passionately before her face, 'if there was more like you, there would be fewer like me,--there would--there would!' 'sit down,' said rose, earnestly. 'if you are in poverty or affliction i shall be truly glad to relieve you if i can,--i shall indeed. sit down.' 'let me stand, lady,' said the girl, still weeping, 'and do not speak to me so kindly till you know me better. it is growing late. is--is--that door shut?' 'yes,' said rose, recoiling a few steps, as if to be nearer assistance in case she should require it. 'why?' 'because,' said the girl, 'i am about to put my life and the lives of others in your hands. i am the girl that dragged little oliver back to old fagin's on the night he went out from the house in pentonville.' 'you!' said rose maylie. 'i, lady!' replied the girl. 'i am the infamous creature you have heard of, that lives among the thieves, and that never from the first moment i can recollect my eyes and senses opening on london streets have known any better life, or kinder words than they have given me, so help me god! do not mind shrinking openly from me, lady. i am younger than you would think, to look at me, but i am well used to it. the poorest women fall back, as i make my way along the crowded pavement.' 'what dreadful things are these!' said rose, involuntarily falling from her strange companion. 'thank heaven upon your knees, dear lady,' cried the girl, 'that you had friends to care for and keep you in your childhood, and that you were never in the midst of cold and hunger, and riot and drunkenness, and--and--something worse than all--as i have been from my cradle. i may use the word, for the alley and the gutter were mine, as they will be my deathbed.' 'i pity you!' said rose, in a broken voice. 'it wrings my heart to hear you!' 'heaven bless you for your goodness!' rejoined the girl. 'if you knew what i am sometimes, you would pity me, indeed. but i have stolen away from those who would surely murder me, if they knew i had been here, to tell you what i have overheard. do you know a man named monks?' 'no,' said rose. 'he knows you,' replied the girl; 'and knew you were here, for it was by hearing him tell the place that i found you out.' 'i never heard the name,' said rose. 'then he goes by some other amongst us,' rejoined the girl, 'which i more than thought before. some time ago, and soon after oliver was put into your house on the night of the robbery, i--suspecting this man--listened to a conversation held between him and fagin in the dark. i found out, from what i heard, that monks--the man i asked you about, you know--' 'yes,' said rose, 'i understand.' '--that monks,' pursued the girl, 'had seen him accidently with two of our boys on the day we first lost him, and had known him directly to be the same child that he was watching for, though i couldn't make out why. a bargain was struck with fagin, that if oliver was got back he should have a certain sum; and he was to have more for making him a thief, which this monks wanted for some purpose of his own.' 'for what purpose?' asked rose. 'he caught sight of my shadow on the wall as i listened, in the hope of finding out,' said the girl; 'and there are not many people besides me that could have got out of their way in time to escape discovery. but i did; and i saw him no more till last night.' 'and what occurred then?' 'i'll tell you, lady. last night he came again. again they went upstairs, and i, wrapping myself up so that my shadow would not betray me, again listened at the door. the first words i heard monks say were these: "so the only proofs of the boy's identity lie at the bottom of the river, and the old hag that received them from the mother is rotting in her coffin." they laughed, and talked of his success in doing this; and monks, talking on about the boy, and getting very wild, said that though he had got the young devil's money safely now, he'd rather have had it the other way; for, what a game it would have been to have brought down the boast of the father's will, by driving him through every jail in town, and then hauling him up for some capital felony which fagin could easily manage, after having made a good profit of him besides.' 'what is all this!' said rose. 'the truth, lady, though it comes from my lips,' replied the girl. 'then, he said, with oaths common enough in my ears, but strange to yours, that if he could gratify his hatred by taking the boy's life without bringing his own neck in danger, he would; but, as he couldn't, he'd be upon the watch to meet him at every turn in life; and if he took advantage of his birth and history, he might harm him yet. "in short, fagin," he says, "jew as you are, you never laid such snares as i'll contrive for my young brother, oliver."' 'his brother!' exclaimed rose. 'those were his words,' said nancy, glancing uneasily round, as she had scarcely ceased to do, since she began to speak, for a vision of sikes haunted her perpetually. 'and more. when he spoke of you and the other lady, and said it seemed contrived by heaven, or the devil, against him, that oliver should come into your hands, he laughed, and said there was some comfort in that too, for how many thousands and hundreds of thousands of pounds would you not give, if you had them, to know who your two-legged spaniel was.' 'you do not mean,' said rose, turning very pale, 'to tell me that this was said in earnest?' 'he spoke in hard and angry earnest, if a man ever did,' replied the girl, shaking her head. 'he is an earnest man when his hatred is up. i know many who do worse things; but i'd rather listen to them all a dozen times, than to that monks once. it is growing late, and i have to reach home without suspicion of having been on such an errand as this. i must get back quickly.' 'but what can i do?' said rose. 'to what use can i turn this communication without you? back! why do you wish to return to companions you paint in such terrible colors? if you repeat this information to a gentleman whom i can summon in an instant from the next room, you can be consigned to some place of safety without half an hour's delay.' 'i wish to go back,' said the girl. 'i must go back, because--how can i tell such things to an innocent lady like you?--because among the men i have told you of, there is one: the most desperate among them all; that i can't leave: no, not even to be saved from the life i am leading now.' 'your having interfered in this dear boy's behalf before,' said rose; 'your coming here, at so great a risk, to tell me what you have heard; your manner, which convinces me of the truth of what you say; your evident contrition, and sense of shame; all lead me to believe that you might yet be reclaimed. oh!' said the earnest girl, folding her hands as the tears coursed down her face, 'do not turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of one of your own sex; the first--the first, i do believe, who ever appealed to you in the voice of pity and compassion. do hear my words, and let me save you yet, for better things.' 'lady,' cried the girl, sinking on her knees, 'dear, sweet, angel lady, you _are_ the first that ever blessed me with such words as these, and if i had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!' 'it is never too late,' said rose, 'for penitence and atonement.' 'it is,' cried the girl, writhing in agony of her mind; 'i cannot leave him now! i could not be his death.' 'why should you be?' asked rose. 'nothing could save him,' cried the girl. 'if i told others what i have told you, and led to their being taken, he would be sure to die. he is the boldest, and has been so cruel!' 'is it possible,' cried rose, 'that for such a man as this, you can resign every future hope, and the certainty of immediate rescue? it is madness.' 'i don't know what it is,' answered the girl; 'i only know that it is so, and not with me alone, but with hundreds of others as bad and wretched as myself. i must go back. whether it is god's wrath for the wrong i have done, i do not know; but i am drawn back to him through every suffering and ill usage; and i should be, i believe, if i knew that i was to die by his hand at last.' 'what am i to do?' said rose. 'i should not let you depart from me thus.' 'you should, lady, and i know you will,' rejoined the girl, rising. 'you will not stop my going because i have trusted in your goodness, and forced no promise from you, as i might have done.' 'of what use, then, is the communication you have made?' said rose. 'this mystery must be investigated, or how will its disclosure to me, benefit oliver, whom you are anxious to serve?' 'you must have some kind gentleman about you that will hear it as a secret, and advise you what to do,' rejoined the girl. 'but where can i find you again when it is necessary?' asked rose. 'i do not seek to know where these dreadful people live, but where will you be walking or passing at any settled period from this time?' 'will you promise me that you will have my secret strictly kept, and come alone, or with the only other person that knows it; and that i shall not be watched or followed?' asked the girl. 'i promise you solemnly,' answered rose. 'every sunday night, from eleven until the clock strikes twelve,' said the girl without hesitation, 'i will walk on london bridge if i am alive.' 'stay another moment,' interposed rose, as the girl moved hurriedly towards the door. 'think once again on your own condition, and the opportunity you have of escaping from it. you have a claim on me: not only as the voluntary bearer of this intelligence, but as a woman lost almost beyond redemption. will you return to this gang of robbers, and to this man, when a word can save you? what fascination is it that can take you back, and make you cling to wickedness and misery? oh! is there no chord in your heart that i can touch! is there nothing left, to which i can appeal against this terrible infatuation!' 'when ladies as young, and good, and beautiful as you are,' replied the girl steadily, 'give away your hearts, love will carry you all lengths--even such as you, who have home, friends, other admirers, everything, to fill them. when such as i, who have no certain roof but the coffinlid, and no friend in sickness or death but the hospital nurse, set our rotten hearts on any man, and let him fill the place that has been a blank through all our wretched lives, who can hope to cure us? pity us, lady--pity us for having only one feeling of the woman left, and for having that turned, by a heavy judgment, from a comfort and a pride, into a new means of violence and suffering.' 'you will,' said rose, after a pause, 'take some money from me, which may enable you to live without dishonesty--at all events until we meet again?' 'not a penny,' replied the girl, waving her hand. 'do not close your heart against all my efforts to help you,' said rose, stepping gently forward. 'i wish to serve you indeed.' 'you would serve me best, lady,' replied the girl, wringing her hands, 'if you could take my life at once; for i have felt more grief to think of what i am, to-night, than i ever did before, and it would be something not to die in the hell in which i have lived. god bless you, sweet lady, and send as much happiness on your head as i have brought shame on mine!' thus speaking, and sobbing aloud, the unhappy creature turned away; while rose maylie, overpowered by this extraordinary interview, which had more the semblance of a rapid dream than an actual occurrence, sank into a chair, and endeavoured to collect her wandering thoughts. chapter xli containing fresh discoveries, and showing that suprises, like misfortunes, seldom come alone her situation was, indeed, one of no common trial and difficulty. while she felt the most eager and burning desire to penetrate the mystery in which oliver's history was enveloped, she could not but hold sacred the confidence which the miserable woman with whom she had just conversed, had reposed in her, as a young and guileless girl. her words and manner had touched rose maylie's heart; and, mingled with her love for her young charge, and scarcely less intense in its truth and fervour, was her fond wish to win the outcast back to repentance and hope. they purposed remaining in london only three days, prior to departing for some weeks to a distant part of the coast. it was now midnight of the first day. what course of action could she determine upon, which could be adopted in eight-and-forty hours? or how could she postpone the journey without exciting suspicion? mr. losberne was with them, and would be for the next two days; but rose was too well acquainted with the excellent gentleman's impetuosity, and foresaw too clearly the wrath with which, in the first explosion of his indignation, he would regard the instrument of oliver's recapture, to trust him with the secret, when her representations in the girl's behalf could be seconded by no experienced person. these were all reasons for the greatest caution and most circumspect behaviour in communicating it to mrs. maylie, whose first impulse would infallibly be to hold a conference with the worthy doctor on the subject. as to resorting to any legal adviser, even if she had known how to do so, it was scarcely to be thought of, for the same reason. once the thought occurred to her of seeking assistance from harry; but this awakened the recollection of their last parting, and it seemed unworthy of her to call him back, when--the tears rose to her eyes as she pursued this train of reflection--he might have by this time learnt to forget her, and to be happier away. disturbed by these different reflections; inclining now to one course and then to another, and again recoiling from all, as each successive consideration presented itself to her mind; rose passed a sleepless and anxious night. after more communing with herself next day, she arrived at the desperate conclusion of consulting harry. 'if it be painful to him,' she thought, 'to come back here, how painful it will be to me! but perhaps he will not come; he may write, or he may come himself, and studiously abstain from meeting me--he did when he went away. i hardly thought he would; but it was better for us both.' and here rose dropped the pen, and turned away, as though the very paper which was to be her messenger should not see her weep. she had taken up the same pen, and laid it down again fifty times, and had considered and reconsidered the first line of her letter without writing the first word, when oliver, who had been walking in the streets, with mr. giles for a body-guard, entered the room in such breathless haste and violent agitation, as seemed to betoken some new cause of alarm. 'what makes you look so flurried?' asked rose, advancing to meet him. 'i hardly know how; i feel as if i should be choked,' replied the boy. 'oh dear! to think that i should see him at last, and you should be able to know that i have told you the truth!' 'i never thought you had told us anything but the truth,' said rose, soothing him. 'but what is this?--of whom do you speak?' 'i have seen the gentleman,' replied oliver, scarcely able to articulate, 'the gentleman who was so good to me--mr. brownlow, that we have so often talked about.' 'where?' asked rose. 'getting out of a coach,' replied oliver, shedding tears of delight, 'and going into a house. i didn't speak to him--i couldn't speak to him, for he didn't see me, and i trembled so, that i was not able to go up to him. but giles asked, for me, whether he lived there, and they said he did. look here,' said oliver, opening a scrap of paper, 'here it is; here's where he lives--i'm going there directly! oh, dear me, dear me! what shall i do when i come to see him and hear him speak again!' with her attention not a little distracted by these and a great many other incoherent exclamations of joy, rose read the address, which was craven street, in the strand. she very soon determined upon turning the discovery to account. 'quick!' she said. 'tell them to fetch a hackney-coach, and be ready to go with me. i will take you there directly, without a minute's loss of time. i will only tell my aunt that we are going out for an hour, and be ready as soon as you are.' oliver needed no prompting to despatch, and in little more than five minutes they were on their way to craven street. when they arrived there, rose left oliver in the coach, under pretence of preparing the old gentleman to receive him; and sending up her card by the servant, requested to see mr. brownlow on very pressing business. the servant soon returned, to beg that she would walk upstairs; and following him into an upper room, miss maylie was presented to an elderly gentleman of benevolent appearance, in a bottle-green coat. at no great distance from whom, was seated another old gentleman, in nankeen breeches and gaiters; who did not look particularly benevolent, and who was sitting with his hands clasped on the top of a thick stick, and his chin propped thereupon. 'dear me,' said the gentleman, in the bottle-green coat, hastily rising with great politeness, 'i beg your pardon, young lady--i imagined it was some importunate person who--i beg you will excuse me. be seated, pray.' 'mr. brownlow, i believe, sir?' said rose, glancing from the other gentleman to the one who had spoken. 'that is my name,' said the old gentleman. 'this is my friend, mr. grimwig. grimwig, will you leave us for a few minutes?' 'i believe,' interposed miss maylie, 'that at this period of our interview, i need not give that gentleman the trouble of going away. if i am correctly informed, he is cognizant of the business on which i wish to speak to you.' mr. brownlow inclined his head. mr. grimwig, who had made one very stiff bow, and risen from his chair, made another very stiff bow, and dropped into it again. 'i shall surprise you very much, i have no doubt,' said rose, naturally embarrassed; 'but you once showed great benevolence and goodness to a very dear young friend of mine, and i am sure you will take an interest in hearing of him again.' 'indeed!' said mr. brownlow. 'oliver twist you knew him as,' replied rose. the words no sooner escaped her lips, than mr. grimwig, who had been affecting to dip into a large book that lay on the table, upset it with a great crash, and falling back in his chair, discharged from his features every expression but one of unmitigated wonder, and indulged in a prolonged and vacant stare; then, as if ashamed of having betrayed so much emotion, he jerked himself, as it were, by a convulsion into his former attitude, and looking out straight before him emitted a long deep whistle, which seemed, at last, not to be discharged on empty air, but to die away in the innermost recesses of his stomach. mr. browlow was no less surprised, although his astonishment was not expressed in the same eccentric manner. he drew his chair nearer to miss maylie's, and said, 'do me the favour, my dear young lady, to leave entirely out of the question that goodness and benevolence of which you speak, and of which nobody else knows anything; and if you have it in your power to produce any evidence which will alter the unfavourable opinion i was once induced to entertain of that poor child, in heaven's name put me in possession of it.' 'a bad one! i'll eat my head if he is not a bad one,' growled mr. grimwig, speaking by some ventriloquial power, without moving a muscle of his face. 'he is a child of a noble nature and a warm heart,' said rose, colouring; 'and that power which has thought fit to try him beyond his years, has planted in his breast affections and feelings which would do honour to many who have numbered his days six times over.' 'i'm only sixty-one,' said mr. grimwig, with the same rigid face. 'and, as the devil's in it if this oliver is not twelve years old at least, i don't see the application of that remark.' 'do not heed my friend, miss maylie,' said mr. brownlow; 'he does not mean what he says.' 'yes, he does,' growled mr. grimwig. 'no, he does not,' said mr. brownlow, obviously rising in wrath as he spoke. 'he'll eat his head, if he doesn't,' growled mr. grimwig. 'he would deserve to have it knocked off, if he does,' said mr. brownlow. 'and he'd uncommonly like to see any man offer to do it,' responded mr. grimwig, knocking his stick upon the floor. having gone thus far, the two old gentlemen severally took snuff, and afterwards shook hands, according to their invariable custom. 'now, miss maylie,' said mr. brownlow, 'to return to the subject in which your humanity is so much interested. will you let me know what intelligence you have of this poor child: allowing me to promise that i exhausted every means in my power of discovering him, and that since i have been absent from this country, my first impression that he had imposed upon me, and had been persuaded by his former associates to rob me, has been considerably shaken.' rose, who had had time to collect her thoughts, at once related, in a few natural words, all that had befallen oliver since he left mr. brownlow's house; reserving nancy's information for that gentleman's private ear, and concluding with the assurance that his only sorrow, for some months past, had been not being able to meet with his former benefactor and friend. 'thank god!' said the old gentleman. 'this is great happiness to me, great happiness. but you have not told me where he is now, miss maylie. you must pardon my finding fault with you,--but why not have brought him?' 'he is waiting in a coach at the door,' replied rose. 'at this door!' cried the old gentleman. with which he hurried out of the room, down the stairs, up the coachsteps, and into the coach, without another word. when the room-door closed behind him, mr. grimwig lifted up his head, and converting one of the hind legs of his chair into a pivot, described three distinct circles with the assistance of his stick and the table; sitting in it all the time. after performing this evolution, he rose and limped as fast as he could up and down the room at least a dozen times, and then stopping suddenly before rose, kissed her without the slightest preface. 'hush!' he said, as the young lady rose in some alarm at this unusual proceeding. 'don't be afraid. i'm old enough to be your grandfather. you're a sweet girl. i like you. here they are!' in fact, as he threw himself at one dexterous dive into his former seat, mr. brownlow returned, accompanied by oliver, whom mr. grimwig received very graciously; and if the gratification of that moment had been the only reward for all her anxiety and care in oliver's behalf, rose maylie would have been well repaid. 'there is somebody else who should not be forgotten, by the bye,' said mr. brownlow, ringing the bell. 'send mrs. bedwin here, if you please.' the old housekeeper answered the summons with all dispatch; and dropping a curtsey at the door, waited for orders. 'why, you get blinder every day, bedwin,' said mr. brownlow, rather testily. 'well, that i do, sir,' replied the old lady. 'people's eyes, at my time of life, don't improve with age, sir.' 'i could have told you that,' rejoined mr. brownlow; 'but put on your glasses, and see if you can't find out what you were wanted for, will you?' the old lady began to rummage in her pocket for her spectacles. but oliver's patience was not proof against this new trial; and yielding to his first impulse, he sprang into her arms. 'god be good to me!' cried the old lady, embracing him; 'it is my innocent boy!' 'my dear old nurse!' cried oliver. 'he would come back--i knew he would,' said the old lady, holding him in her arms. 'how well he looks, and how like a gentleman's son he is dressed again! where have you been, this long, long while? ah! the same sweet face, but not so pale; the same soft eye, but not so sad. i have never forgotten them or his quiet smile, but have seen them every day, side by side with those of my own dear children, dead and gone since i was a lightsome young creature.' running on thus, and now holding oliver from her to mark how he had grown, now clasping him to her and passing her fingers fondly through his hair, the good soul laughed and wept upon his neck by turns. leaving her and oliver to compare notes at leisure, mr. brownlow led the way into another room; and there, heard from rose a full narration of her interview with nancy, which occasioned him no little surprise and perplexity. rose also explained her reasons for not confiding in her friend mr. losberne in the first instance. the old gentleman considered that she had acted prudently, and readily undertook to hold solemn conference with the worthy doctor himself. to afford him an early opportunity for the execution of this design, it was arranged that he should call at the hotel at eight o'clock that evening, and that in the meantime mrs. maylie should be cautiously informed of all that had occurred. these preliminaries adjusted, rose and oliver returned home. rose had by no means overrated the measure of the good doctor's wrath. nancy's history was no sooner unfolded to him, than he poured forth a shower of mingled threats and execrations; threatened to make her the first victim of the combined ingenuity of messrs. blathers and duff; and actually put on his hat preparatory to sallying forth to obtain the assistance of those worthies. and, doubtless, he would, in this first outbreak, have carried the intention into effect without a moment's consideration of the consequences, if he had not been restrained, in part, by corresponding violence on the side of mr. brownlow, who was himself of an irascible temperament, and party by such arguments and representations as seemed best calculated to dissuade him from his hotbrained purpose. 'then what the devil is to be done?' said the impetuous doctor, when they had rejoined the two ladies. 'are we to pass a vote of thanks to all these vagabonds, male and female, and beg them to accept a hundred pounds, or so, apiece, as a trifling mark of our esteem, and some slight acknowledgment of their kindness to oliver?' 'not exactly that,' rejoined mr. brownlow, laughing; 'but we must proceed gently and with great care.' 'gentleness and care,' exclaimed the doctor. 'i'd send them one and all to--' 'never mind where,' interposed mr. brownlow. 'but reflect whether sending them anywhere is likely to attain the object we have in view.' 'what object?' asked the doctor. 'simply, the discovery of oliver's parentage, and regaining for him the inheritance of which, if this story be true, he has been fraudulently deprived.' 'ah!' said mr. losberne, cooling himself with his pocket-handkerchief; 'i almost forgot that.' 'you see,' pursued mr. brownlow; 'placing this poor girl entirely out of the question, and supposing it were possible to bring these scoundrels to justice without compromising her safety, what good should we bring about?' 'hanging a few of them at least, in all probability,' suggested the doctor, 'and transporting the rest.' 'very good,' replied mr. brownlow, smiling; 'but no doubt they will bring that about for themselves in the fulness of time, and if we step in to forestall them, it seems to me that we shall be performing a very quixotic act, in direct opposition to our own interest--or at least to oliver's, which is the same thing.' 'how?' inquired the doctor. 'thus. it is quite clear that we shall have extreme difficulty in getting to the bottom of this mystery, unless we can bring this man, monks, upon his knees. that can only be done by stratagem, and by catching him when he is not surrounded by these people. for, suppose he were apprehended, we have no proof against him. he is not even (so far as we know, or as the facts appear to us) concerned with the gang in any of their robberies. if he were not discharged, it is very unlikely that he could receive any further punishment than being committed to prison as a rogue and vagabond; and of course ever afterwards his mouth would be so obstinately closed that he might as well, for our purposes, be deaf, dumb, blind, and an idiot.' 'then,' said the doctor impetuously, 'i put it to you again, whether you think it reasonable that this promise to the girl should be considered binding; a promise made with the best and kindest intentions, but really--' 'do not discuss the point, my dear young lady, pray,' said mr. brownlow, interrupting rose as she was about to speak. 'the promise shall be kept. i don't think it will, in the slightest degree, interfere with our proceedings. but, before we can resolve upon any precise course of action, it will be necessary to see the girl; to ascertain from her whether she will point out this monks, on the understanding that he is to be dealt with by us, and not by the law; or, if she will not, or cannot do that, to procure from her such an account of his haunts and description of his person, as will enable us to identify him. she cannot be seen until next sunday night; this is tuesday. i would suggest that in the meantime, we remain perfectly quiet, and keep these matters secret even from oliver himself.' although mr. losberne received with many wry faces a proposal involving a delay of five whole days, he was fain to admit that no better course occurred to him just then; and as both rose and mrs. maylie sided very strongly with mr. brownlow, that gentleman's proposition was carried unanimously. 'i should like,' he said, 'to call in the aid of my friend grimwig. he is a strange creature, but a shrewd one, and might prove of material assistance to us; i should say that he was bred a lawyer, and quitted the bar in disgust because he had only one brief and a motion of course, in twenty years, though whether that is recommendation or not, you must determine for yourselves.' 'i have no objection to your calling in your friend if i may call in mine,' said the doctor. 'we must put it to the vote,' replied mr. brownlow, 'who may he be?' 'that lady's son, and this young lady's--very old friend,' said the doctor, motioning towards mrs. maylie, and concluding with an expressive glance at her niece. rose blushed deeply, but she did not make any audible objection to this motion (possibly she felt in a hopeless minority); and harry maylie and mr. grimwig were accordingly added to the committee. 'we stay in town, of course,' said mrs. maylie, 'while there remains the slightest prospect of prosecuting this inquiry with a chance of success. i will spare neither trouble nor expense in behalf of the object in which we are all so deeply interested, and i am content to remain here, if it be for twelve months, so long as you assure me that any hope remains.' 'good!' rejoined mr. brownlow. 'and as i see on the faces about me, a disposition to inquire how it happened that i was not in the way to corroborate oliver's tale, and had so suddenly left the kingdom, let me stipulate that i shall be asked no questions until such time as i may deem it expedient to forestall them by telling my own story. believe me, i make this request with good reason, for i might otherwise excite hopes destined never to be realised, and only increase difficulties and disappointments already quite numerous enough. come! supper has been announced, and young oliver, who is all alone in the next room, will have begun to think, by this time, that we have wearied of his company, and entered into some dark conspiracy to thrust him forth upon the world.' with these words, the old gentleman gave his hand to mrs. maylie, and escorted her into the supper-room. mr. losberne followed, leading rose; and the council was, for the present, effectually broken up. chapter xlii an old acquaintance of oliver's, exhibiting decided marks of genius, becomes a public character in the metropolis upon the night when nancy, having lulled mr. sikes to sleep, hurried on her self-imposed mission to rose maylie, there advanced towards london, by the great north road, two persons, upon whom it is expedient that this history should bestow some attention. they were a man and woman; or perhaps they would be better described as a male and female: for the former was one of those long-limbed, knock-kneed, shambling, bony people, to whom it is difficult to assign any precise age,--looking as they do, when they are yet boys, like undergrown men, and when they are almost men, like overgrown boys. the woman was young, but of a robust and hardy make, as she need have been to bear the weight of the heavy bundle which was strapped to her back. her companion was not encumbered with much luggage, as there merely dangled from a stick which he carried over his shoulder, a small parcel wrapped in a common handkerchief, and apparently light enough. this circumstance, added to the length of his legs, which were of unusual extent, enabled him with much ease to keep some half-dozen paces in advance of his companion, to whom he occasionally turned with an impatient jerk of the head: as if reproaching her tardiness, and urging her to greater exertion. thus, they had toiled along the dusty road, taking little heed of any object within sight, save when they stepped aside to allow a wider passage for the mail-coaches which were whirling out of town, until they passed through highgate archway; when the foremost traveller stopped and called impatiently to his companion, 'come on, can't yer? what a lazybones yer are, charlotte.' 'it's a heavy load, i can tell you,' said the female, coming up, almost breathless with fatigue. 'heavy! what are yer talking about? what are yer made for?' rejoined the male traveller, changing his own little bundle as he spoke, to the other shoulder. 'oh, there yer are, resting again! well, if yer ain't enough to tire anybody's patience out, i don't know what is!' 'is it much farther?' asked the woman, resting herself against a bank, and looking up with the perspiration streaming from her face. 'much farther! yer as good as there,' said the long-legged tramper, pointing out before him. 'look there! those are the lights of london.' 'they're a good two mile off, at least,' said the woman despondingly. 'never mind whether they're two mile off, or twenty,' said noah claypole; for he it was; 'but get up and come on, or i'll kick yer, and so i give yer notice.' as noah's red nose grew redder with anger, and as he crossed the road while speaking, as if fully prepared to put his threat into execution, the woman rose without any further remark, and trudged onward by his side. 'where do you mean to stop for the night, noah?' she asked, after they had walked a few hundred yards. 'how should i know?' replied noah, whose temper had been considerably impaired by walking. 'near, i hope,' said charlotte. 'no, not near,' replied mr. claypole. 'there! not near; so don't think it.' 'why not?' 'when i tell yer that i don't mean to do a thing, that's enough, without any why or because either,' replied mr. claypole with dignity. 'well, you needn't be so cross,' said his companion. 'a pretty thing it would be, wouldn't it to go and stop at the very first public-house outside the town, so that sowerberry, if he come up after us, might poke in his old nose, and have us taken back in a cart with handcuffs on,' said mr. claypole in a jeering tone. 'no! i shall go and lose myself among the narrowest streets i can find, and not stop till we come to the very out-of-the-wayest house i can set eyes on. 'cod, yer may thanks yer stars i've got a head; for if we hadn't gone, at first, the wrong road a purpose, and come back across country, yer'd have been locked up hard and fast a week ago, my lady. and serve yer right for being a fool.' 'i know i ain't as cunning as you are,' replied charlotte; 'but don't put all the blame on me, and say i should have been locked up. you would have been if i had been, any way.' 'yer took the money from the till, yer know yer did,' said mr. claypole. 'i took it for you, noah, dear,' rejoined charlotte. 'did i keep it?' asked mr. claypole. 'no; you trusted in me, and let me carry it like a dear, and so you are,' said the lady, chucking him under the chin, and drawing her arm through his. this was indeed the case; but as it was not mr. claypole's habit to repose a blind and foolish confidence in anybody, it should be observed, in justice to that gentleman, that he had trusted charlotte to this extent, in order that, if they were pursued, the money might be found on her: which would leave him an opportunity of asserting his innocence of any theft, and would greatly facilitate his chances of escape. of course, he entered at this juncture, into no explanation of his motives, and they walked on very lovingly together. in pursuance of this cautious plan, mr. claypole went on, without halting, until he arrived at the angel at islington, where he wisely judged, from the crowd of passengers and numbers of vehicles, that london began in earnest. just pausing to observe which appeared the most crowded streets, and consequently the most to be avoided, he crossed into saint john's road, and was soon deep in the obscurity of the intricate and dirty ways, which, lying between gray's inn lane and smithfield, render that part of the town one of the lowest and worst that improvement has left in the midst of london. through these streets, noah claypole walked, dragging charlotte after him; now stepping into the kennel to embrace at a glance the whole external character of some small public-house; now jogging on again, as some fancied appearance induced him to believe it too public for his purpose. at length, he stopped in front of one, more humble in appearance and more dirty than any he had yet seen; and, having crossed over and surveyed it from the opposite pavement, graciously announced his intention of putting up there, for the night. 'so give us the bundle,' said noah, unstrapping it from the woman's shoulders, and slinging it over his own; 'and don't yer speak, except when yer spoke to. what's the name of the house--t-h-r--three what?' 'cripples,' said charlotte. 'three cripples,' repeated noah, 'and a very good sign too. now, then! keep close at my heels, and come along.' with these injunctions, he pushed the rattling door with his shoulder, and entered the house, followed by his companion. there was nobody in the bar but a young jew, who, with his two elbows on the counter, was reading a dirty newspaper. he stared very hard at noah, and noah stared very hard at him. if noah had been attired in his charity-boy's dress, there might have been some reason for the jew opening his eyes so wide; but as he had discarded the coat and badge, and wore a short smock-frock over his leathers, there seemed no particular reason for his appearance exciting so much attention in a public-house. 'is this the three cripples?' asked noah. 'that is the dabe of this 'ouse,' replied the jew. 'a gentleman we met on the road, coming up from the country, recommended us here,' said noah, nudging charlotte, perhaps to call her attention to this most ingenious device for attracting respect, and perhaps to warn her to betray no surprise. 'we want to sleep here to-night.' 'i'b dot certaid you cad,' said barney, who was the attendant sprite; 'but i'll idquire.' 'show us the tap, and give us a bit of cold meat and a drop of beer while yer inquiring, will yer?' said noah. barney complied by ushering them into a small back-room, and setting the required viands before them; having done which, he informed the travellers that they could be lodged that night, and left the amiable couple to their refreshment. now, this back-room was immediately behind the bar, and some steps lower, so that any person connected with the house, undrawing a small curtain which concealed a single pane of glass fixed in the wall of the last-named apartment, about five feet from its flooring, could not only look down upon any guests in the back-room without any great hazard of being observed (the glass being in a dark angle of the wall, between which and a large upright beam the observer had to thrust himself), but could, by applying his ear to the partition, ascertain with tolerable distinctness, their subject of conversation. the landlord of the house had not withdrawn his eye from this place of espial for five minutes, and barney had only just returned from making the communication above related, when fagin, in the course of his evening's business, came into the bar to inquire after some of his young pupils. 'hush!' said barney: 'stradegers id the next roob.' 'strangers!' repeated the old man in a whisper. 'ah! ad rub uds too,' added barney. 'frob the cuttry, but subthig in your way, or i'b bistaked.' fagin appeared to receive this communication with great interest. mounting a stool, he cautiously applied his eye to the pane of glass, from which secret post he could see mr. claypole taking cold beef from the dish, and porter from the pot, and administering homeopathic doses of both to charlotte, who sat patiently by, eating and drinking at his pleasure. 'aha!' he whispered, looking round to barney, 'i like that fellow's looks. he'd be of use to us; he knows how to train the girl already. don't make as much noise as a mouse, my dear, and let me hear 'em talk--let me hear 'em.' he again applied his eye to the glass, and turning his ear to the partition, listened attentively: with a subtle and eager look upon his face, that might have appertained to some old goblin. 'so i mean to be a gentleman,' said mr. claypole, kicking out his legs, and continuing a conversation, the commencement of which fagin had arrived too late to hear. 'no more jolly old coffins, charlotte, but a gentleman's life for me: and, if yer like, yer shall be a lady.' 'i should like that well enough, dear,' replied charlotte; 'but tills ain't to be emptied every day, and people to get clear off after it.' 'tills be blowed!' said mr. claypole; 'there's more things besides tills to be emptied.' 'what do you mean?' asked his companion. 'pockets, women's ridicules, houses, mail-coaches, banks!' said mr. claypole, rising with the porter. 'but you can't do all that, dear,' said charlotte. 'i shall look out to get into company with them as can,' replied noah. 'they'll be able to make us useful some way or another. why, you yourself are worth fifty women; i never see such a precious sly and deceitful creetur as yer can be when i let yer.' 'lor, how nice it is to hear yer say so!' exclaimed charlotte, imprinting a kiss upon his ugly face. 'there, that'll do: don't yer be too affectionate, in case i'm cross with yer,' said noah, disengaging himself with great gravity. 'i should like to be the captain of some band, and have the whopping of 'em, and follering 'em about, unbeknown to themselves. that would suit me, if there was good profit; and if we could only get in with some gentleman of this sort, i say it would be cheap at that twenty-pound note you've got,--especially as we don't very well know how to get rid of it ourselves.' after expressing this opinion, mr. claypole looked into the porter-pot with an aspect of deep wisdom; and having well shaken its contents, nodded condescendingly to charlotte, and took a draught, wherewith he appeared greatly refreshed. he was meditating another, when the sudden opening of the door, and the appearance of a stranger, interrupted him. the stranger was mr. fagin. and very amiable he looked, and a very low bow he made, as he advanced, and setting himself down at the nearest table, ordered something to drink of the grinning barney. 'a pleasant night, sir, but cool for the time of year,' said fagin, rubbing his hands. 'from the country, i see, sir?' 'how do yer see that?' asked noah claypole. 'we have not so much dust as that in london,' replied fagin, pointing from noah's shoes to those of his companion, and from them to the two bundles. 'yer a sharp feller,' said noah. 'ha! ha! only hear that, charlotte!' 'why, one need be sharp in this town, my dear,' replied the jew, sinking his voice to a confidential whisper; 'and that's the truth.' fagin followed up this remark by striking the side of his nose with his right forefinger,--a gesture which noah attempted to imitate, though not with complete success, in consequence of his own nose not being large enough for the purpose. however, mr. fagin seemed to interpret the endeavour as expressing a perfect coincidence with his opinion, and put about the liquor which barney reappeared with, in a very friendly manner. 'good stuff that,' observed mr. claypole, smacking his lips. 'dear!' said fagin. 'a man need be always emptying a till, or a pocket, or a woman's reticule, or a house, or a mail-coach, or a bank, if he drinks it regularly.' mr. claypole no sooner heard this extract from his own remarks than he fell back in his chair, and looked from the jew to charlotte with a countenance of ashy paleness and excessive terror. 'don't mind me, my dear,' said fagin, drawing his chair closer. 'ha! ha! it was lucky it was only me that heard you by chance. it was very lucky it was only me.' 'i didn't take it,' stammered noah, no longer stretching out his legs like an independent gentleman, but coiling them up as well as he could under his chair; 'it was all her doing; yer've got it now, charlotte, yer know yer have.' 'no matter who's got it, or who did it, my dear,' replied fagin, glancing, nevertheless, with a hawk's eye at the girl and the two bundles. 'i'm in that way myself, and i like you for it.' 'in what way?' asked mr. claypole, a little recovering. 'in that way of business,' rejoined fagin; 'and so are the people of the house. you've hit the right nail upon the head, and are as safe here as you could be. there is not a safer place in all this town than is the cripples; that is, when i like to make it so. and i have taken a fancy to you and the young woman; so i've said the word, and you may make your minds easy.' noah claypole's mind might have been at ease after this assurance, but his body certainly was not; for he shuffled and writhed about, into various uncouth positions: eyeing his new friend meanwhile with mingled fear and suspicion. 'i'll tell you more,' said fagin, after he had reassured the girl, by dint of friendly nods and muttered encouragements. 'i have got a friend that i think can gratify your darling wish, and put you in the right way, where you can take whatever department of the business you think will suit you best at first, and be taught all the others.' 'yer speak as if yer were in earnest,' replied noah. 'what advantage would it be to me to be anything else?' inquired fagin, shrugging his shoulders. 'here! let me have a word with you outside.' 'there's no occasion to trouble ourselves to move,' said noah, getting his legs by gradual degrees abroad again. 'she'll take the luggage upstairs the while. charlotte, see to them bundles.' this mandate, which had been delivered with great majesty, was obeyed without the slightest demur; and charlotte made the best of her way off with the packages while noah held the door open and watched her out. 'she's kept tolerably well under, ain't she?' he asked as he resumed his seat: in the tone of a keeper who had tamed some wild animal. 'quite perfect,' rejoined fagin, clapping him on the shoulder. 'you're a genius, my dear.' 'why, i suppose if i wasn't, i shouldn't be here,' replied noah. 'but, i say, she'll be back if yer lose time.' 'now, what do you think?' said fagin. 'if you was to like my friend, could you do better than join him?' 'is he in a good way of business; that's where it is!' responded noah, winking one of his little eyes. 'the top of the tree; employs a power of hands; has the very best society in the profession.' 'regular town-maders?' asked mr. claypole. 'not a countryman among 'em; and i don't think he'd take you, even on my recommendation, if he didn't run rather short of assistants just now,' replied fagin. 'should i have to hand over?' said noah, slapping his breeches-pocket. 'it couldn't possibly be done without,' replied fagin, in a most decided manner. 'twenty pound, though--it's a lot of money!' 'not when it's in a note you can't get rid of,' retorted fagin. 'number and date taken, i suppose? payment stopped at the bank? ah! it's not worth much to him. it'll have to go abroad, and he couldn't sell it for a great deal in the market.' 'when could i see him?' asked noah doubtfully. 'to-morrow morning.' 'where?' 'here.' 'um!' said noah. 'what's the wages?' 'live like a gentleman--board and lodging, pipes and spirits free--half of all you earn, and half of all the young woman earns,' replied mr. fagin. whether noah claypole, whose rapacity was none of the least comprehensive, would have acceded even to these glowing terms, had he been a perfectly free agent, is very doubtful; but as he recollected that, in the event of his refusal, it was in the power of his new acquaintance to give him up to justice immediately (and more unlikely things had come to pass), he gradually relented, and said he thought that would suit him. 'but, yer see,' observed noah, 'as she will be able to do a good deal, i should like to take something very light.' 'a little fancy work?' suggested fagin. 'ah! something of that sort,' replied noah. 'what do you think would suit me now? something not too trying for the strength, and not very dangerous, you know. that's the sort of thing!' 'i heard you talk of something in the spy way upon the others, my dear,' said fagin. 'my friend wants somebody who would do that well, very much.' 'why, i did mention that, and i shouldn't mind turning my hand to it sometimes,' rejoined mr. claypole slowly; 'but it wouldn't pay by itself, you know.' 'that's true!' observed the jew, ruminating or pretending to ruminate. 'no, it might not.' 'what do you think, then?' asked noah, anxiously regarding him. 'something in the sneaking way, where it was pretty sure work, and not much more risk than being at home.' 'what do you think of the old ladies?' asked fagin. 'there's a good deal of money made in snatching their bags and parcels, and running round the corner.' 'don't they holler out a good deal, and scratch sometimes?' asked noah, shaking his head. 'i don't think that would answer my purpose. ain't there any other line open?' 'stop!' said fagin, laying his hand on noah's knee. 'the kinchin lay.' 'what's that?' demanded mr. claypole. 'the kinchins, my dear,' said fagin, 'is the young children that's sent on errands by their mothers, with sixpences and shillings; and the lay is just to take their money away--they've always got it ready in their hands,--then knock 'em into the kennel, and walk off very slow, as if there were nothing else the matter but a child fallen down and hurt itself. ha! ha! ha!' 'ha! ha!' roared mr. claypole, kicking up his legs in an ecstasy. 'lord, that's the very thing!' 'to be sure it is,' replied fagin; 'and you can have a few good beats chalked out in camden town, and battle bridge, and neighborhoods like that, where they're always going errands; and you can upset as many kinchins as you want, any hour in the day. ha! ha! ha!' with this, fagin poked mr. claypole in the side, and they joined in a burst of laughter both long and loud. 'well, that's all right!' said noah, when he had recovered himself, and charlotte had returned. 'what time to-morrow shall we say?' 'will ten do?' asked fagin, adding, as mr. claypole nodded assent, 'what name shall i tell my good friend.' 'mr. bolter,' replied noah, who had prepared himself for such emergency. 'mr. morris bolter. this is mrs. bolter.' 'mrs. bolter's humble servant,' said fagin, bowing with grotesque politeness. 'i hope i shall know her better very shortly.' 'do you hear the gentleman, charlotte?' thundered mr. claypole. 'yes, noah, dear!' replied mrs. bolter, extending her hand. 'she calls me noah, as a sort of fond way of talking,' said mr. morris bolter, late claypole, turning to fagin. 'you understand?' 'oh yes, i understand--perfectly,' replied fagin, telling the truth for once. 'good-night! good-night!' with many adieus and good wishes, mr. fagin went his way. noah claypole, bespeaking his good lady's attention, proceeded to enlighten her relative to the arrangement he had made, with all that haughtiness and air of superiority, becoming, not only a member of the sterner sex, but a gentleman who appreciated the dignity of a special appointment on the kinchin lay, in london and its vicinity. chapter xliii wherein is shown how the artful dodger got into trouble 'and so it was you that was your own friend, was it?' asked mr. claypole, otherwise bolter, when, by virtue of the compact entered into between them, he had removed next day to fagin's house. ''cod, i thought as much last night!' 'every man's his own friend, my dear,' replied fagin, with his most insinuating grin. 'he hasn't as good a one as himself anywhere.' 'except sometimes,' replied morris bolter, assuming the air of a man of the world. 'some people are nobody's enemies but their own, yer know.' 'don't believe that,' said fagin. 'when a man's his own enemy, it's only because he's too much his own friend; not because he's careful for everybody but himself. pooh! pooh! there ain't such a thing in nature.' 'there oughn't to be, if there is,' replied mr. bolter. 'that stands to reason. some conjurers say that number three is the magic number, and some say number seven. it's neither, my friend, neither. it's number one. 'ha! ha!' cried mr. bolter. 'number one for ever.' 'in a little community like ours, my dear,' said fagin, who felt it necessary to qualify this position, 'we have a general number one, without considering me too as the same, and all the other young people.' 'oh, the devil!' exclaimed mr. bolter. 'you see,' pursued fagin, affecting to disregard this interruption, 'we are so mixed up together, and identified in our interests, that it must be so. for instance, it's your object to take care of number one--meaning yourself.' 'certainly,' replied mr. bolter. 'yer about right there.' 'well! you can't take care of yourself, number one, without taking care of me, number one.' 'number two, you mean,' said mr. bolter, who was largely endowed with the quality of selfishness. 'no, i don't!' retorted fagin. 'i'm of the same importance to you, as you are to yourself.' 'i say,' interrupted mr. bolter, 'yer a very nice man, and i'm very fond of yer; but we ain't quite so thick together, as all that comes to.' 'only think,' said fagin, shrugging his shoulders, and stretching out his hands; 'only consider. you've done what's a very pretty thing, and what i love you for doing; but what at the same time would put the cravat round your throat, that's so very easily tied and so very difficult to unloose--in plain english, the halter!' mr. bolter put his hand to his neckerchief, as if he felt it inconveniently tight; and murmured an assent, qualified in tone but not in substance. 'the gallows,' continued fagin, 'the gallows, my dear, is an ugly finger-post, which points out a very short and sharp turning that has stopped many a bold fellow's career on the broad highway. to keep in the easy road, and keep it at a distance, is object number one with you.' 'of course it is,' replied mr. bolter. 'what do yer talk about such things for?' 'only to show you my meaning clearly,' said the jew, raising his eyebrows. 'to be able to do that, you depend upon me. to keep my little business all snug, i depend upon you. the first is your number one, the second my number one. the more you value your number one, the more careful you must be of mine; so we come at last to what i told you at first--that a regard for number one holds us all together, and must do so, unless we would all go to pieces in company.' 'that's true,' rejoined mr. bolter, thoughtfully. 'oh! yer a cunning old codger!' mr. fagin saw, with delight, that this tribute to his powers was no mere compliment, but that he had really impressed his recruit with a sense of his wily genius, which it was most important that he should entertain in the outset of their acquaintance. to strengthen an impression so desirable and useful, he followed up the blow by acquainting him, in some detail, with the magnitude and extent of his operations; blending truth and fiction together, as best served his purpose; and bringing both to bear, with so much art, that mr. bolter's respect visibly increased, and became tempered, at the same time, with a degree of wholesome fear, which it was highly desirable to awaken. 'it's this mutual trust we have in each other that consoles me under heavy losses,' said fagin. 'my best hand was taken from me, yesterday morning.' 'you don't mean to say he died?' cried mr. bolter. 'no, no,' replied fagin, 'not so bad as that. not quite so bad.' 'what, i suppose he was--' 'wanted,' interposed fagin. 'yes, he was wanted.' 'very particular?' inquired mr. bolter. 'no,' replied fagin, 'not very. he was charged with attempting to pick a pocket, and they found a silver snuff-box on him,--his own, my dear, his own, for he took snuff himself, and was very fond of it. they remanded him till to-day, for they thought they knew the owner. ah! he was worth fifty boxes, and i'd give the price of as many to have him back. you should have known the dodger, my dear; you should have known the dodger.' 'well, but i shall know him, i hope; don't yer think so?' said mr. bolter. 'i'm doubtful about it,' replied fagin, with a sigh. 'if they don't get any fresh evidence, it'll only be a summary conviction, and we shall have him back again after six weeks or so; but, if they do, it's a case of lagging. they know what a clever lad he is; he'll be a lifer. they'll make the artful nothing less than a lifer.' 'what do you mean by lagging and a lifer?' demanded mr. bolter. 'what's the good of talking in that way to me; why don't yer speak so as i can understand yer?' fagin was about to translate these mysterious expressions into the vulgar tongue; and, being interpreted, mr. bolter would have been informed that they represented that combination of words, 'transportation for life,' when the dialogue was cut short by the entry of master bates, with his hands in his breeches-pockets, and his face twisted into a look of semi-comical woe. 'it's all up, fagin,' said charley, when he and his new companion had been made known to each other. 'what do you mean?' 'they've found the gentleman as owns the box; two or three more's a coming to 'dentify him; and the artful's booked for a passage out,' replied master bates. 'i must have a full suit of mourning, fagin, and a hatband, to wisit him in, afore he sets out upon his travels. to think of jack dawkins--lummy jack--the dodger--the artful dodger--going abroad for a common twopenny-halfpenny sneeze-box! i never thought he'd a done it under a gold watch, chain, and seals, at the lowest. oh, why didn't he rob some rich old gentleman of all his walables, and go out as a gentleman, and not like a common prig, without no honour nor glory!' with this expression of feeling for his unfortunate friend, master bates sat himself on the nearest chair with an aspect of chagrin and despondency. 'what do you talk about his having neither honour nor glory for!' exclaimed fagin, darting an angry look at his pupil. 'wasn't he always the top-sawyer among you all! is there one of you that could touch him or come near him on any scent! eh?' 'not one,' replied master bates, in a voice rendered husky by regret; 'not one.' 'then what do you talk of?' replied fagin angrily; 'what are you blubbering for?' ''cause it isn't on the rec-ord, is it?' said charley, chafed into perfect defiance of his venerable friend by the current of his regrets; ''cause it can't come out in the 'dictment; 'cause nobody will never know half of what he was. how will he stand in the newgate calendar? p'raps not be there at all. oh, my eye, my eye, wot a blow it is!' 'ha! ha!' cried fagin, extending his right hand, and turning to mr. bolter in a fit of chuckling which shook him as though he had the palsy; 'see what a pride they take in their profession, my dear. ain't it beautiful?' mr. bolter nodded assent, and fagin, after contemplating the grief of charley bates for some seconds with evident satisfaction, stepped up to that young gentleman and patted him on the shoulder. 'never mind, charley,' said fagin soothingly; 'it'll come out, it'll be sure to come out. they'll all know what a clever fellow he was; he'll show it himself, and not disgrace his old pals and teachers. think how young he is too! what a distinction, charley, to be lagged at his time of life!' 'well, it is a honour that is!' said charley, a little consoled. 'he shall have all he wants,' continued the jew. 'he shall be kept in the stone jug, charley, like a gentleman. like a gentleman! with his beer every day, and money in his pocket to pitch and toss with, if he can't spend it.' 'no, shall he though?' cried charley bates. 'ay, that he shall,' replied fagin, 'and we'll have a big-wig, charley: one that's got the greatest gift of the gab: to carry on his defence; and he shall make a speech for himself too, if he likes; and we'll read it all in the papers--"artful dodger--shrieks of laughter--here the court was convulsed"--eh, charley, eh?' 'ha! ha!' laughed master bates, 'what a lark that would be, wouldn't it, fagin? i say, how the artful would bother 'em wouldn't he?' 'would!' cried fagin. 'he shall--he will!' 'ah, to be sure, so he will,' repeated charley, rubbing his hands. 'i think i see him now,' cried the jew, bending his eyes upon his pupil. 'so do i,' cried charley bates. 'ha! ha! ha! so do i. i see it all afore me, upon my soul i do, fagin. what a game! what a regular game! all the big-wigs trying to look solemn, and jack dawkins addressing of 'em as intimate and comfortable as if he was the judge's own son making a speech arter dinner--ha! ha! ha!' in fact, mr. fagin had so well humoured his young friend's eccentric disposition, that master bates, who had at first been disposed to consider the imprisoned dodger rather in the light of a victim, now looked upon him as the chief actor in a scene of most uncommon and exquisite humour, and felt quite impatient for the arrival of the time when his old companion should have so favourable an opportunity of displaying his abilities. 'we must know how he gets on to-day, by some handy means or other,' said fagin. 'let me think.' 'shall i go?' asked charley. 'not for the world,' replied fagin. 'are you mad, my dear, stark mad, that you'd walk into the very place where--no, charley, no. one is enough to lose at a time.' 'you don't mean to go yourself, i suppose?' said charley with a humorous leer. 'that wouldn't quite fit,' replied fagin shaking his head. 'then why don't you send this new cove?' asked master bates, laying his hand on noah's arm. 'nobody knows him.' 'why, if he didn't mind--' observed fagin. 'mind!' interposed charley. 'what should he have to mind?' 'really nothing, my dear,' said fagin, turning to mr. bolter, 'really nothing.' 'oh, i dare say about that, yer know,' observed noah, backing towards the door, and shaking his head with a kind of sober alarm. 'no, no--none of that. it's not in my department, that ain't.' 'wot department has he got, fagin?' inquired master bates, surveying noah's lank form with much disgust. 'the cutting away when there's anything wrong, and the eating all the wittles when there's everything right; is that his branch?' 'never mind,' retorted mr. bolter; 'and don't yer take liberties with yer superiors, little boy, or yer'll find yerself in the wrong shop.' master bates laughed so vehemently at this magnificent threat, that it was some time before fagin could interpose, and represent to mr. bolter that he incurred no possible danger in visiting the police-office; that, inasmuch as no account of the little affair in which he had engaged, nor any description of his person, had yet been forwarded to the metropolis, it was very probable that he was not even suspected of having resorted to it for shelter; and that, if he were properly disguised, it would be as safe a spot for him to visit as any in london, inasmuch as it would be, of all places, the very last, to which he could be supposed likely to resort of his own free will. persuaded, in part, by these representations, but overborne in a much greater degree by his fear of fagin, mr. bolter at length consented, with a very bad grace, to undertake the expedition. by fagin's directions, he immediately substituted for his own attire, a waggoner's frock, velveteen breeches, and leather leggings: all of which articles the jew had at hand. he was likewise furnished with a felt hat well garnished with turnpike tickets; and a carter's whip. thus equipped, he was to saunter into the office, as some country fellow from covent garden market might be supposed to do for the gratification of his curiousity; and as he was as awkward, ungainly, and raw-boned a fellow as need be, mr. fagin had no fear but that he would look the part to perfection. these arrangements completed, he was informed of the necessary signs and tokens by which to recognise the artful dodger, and was conveyed by master bates through dark and winding ways to within a very short distance of bow street. having described the precise situation of the office, and accompanied it with copious directions how he was to walk straight up the passage, and when he got into the side, and pull off his hat as he went into the room, charley bates bade him hurry on alone, and promised to bide his return on the spot of their parting. noah claypole, or morris bolter as the reader pleases, punctually followed the directions he had received, which--master bates being pretty well acquainted with the locality--were so exact that he was enabled to gain the magisterial presence without asking any question, or meeting with any interruption by the way. he found himself jostled among a crowd of people, chiefly women, who were huddled together in a dirty frowsy room, at the upper end of which was a raised platform railed off from the rest, with a dock for the prisoners on the left hand against the wall, a box for the witnesses in the middle, and a desk for the magistrates on the right; the awful locality last named, being screened off by a partition which concealed the bench from the common gaze, and left the vulgar to imagine (if they could) the full majesty of justice. there were only a couple of women in the dock, who were nodding to their admiring friends, while the clerk read some depositions to a couple of policemen and a man in plain clothes who leant over the table. a jailer stood reclining against the dock-rail, tapping his nose listlessly with a large key, except when he repressed an undue tendency to conversation among the idlers, by proclaiming silence; or looked sternly up to bid some woman 'take that baby out,' when the gravity of justice was disturbed by feeble cries, half-smothered in the mother's shawl, from some meagre infant. the room smelt close and unwholesome; the walls were dirt-discoloured; and the ceiling blackened. there was an old smoky bust over the mantel-shelf, and a dusty clock above the dock--the only thing present, that seemed to go on as it ought; for depravity, or poverty, or an habitual acquaintance with both, had left a taint on all the animate matter, hardly less unpleasant than the thick greasy scum on every inanimate object that frowned upon it. noah looked eagerly about him for the dodger; but although there were several women who would have done very well for that distinguished character's mother or sister, and more than one man who might be supposed to bear a strong resemblance to his father, nobody at all answering the description given him of mr. dawkins was to be seen. he waited in a state of much suspense and uncertainty until the women, being committed for trial, went flaunting out; and then was quickly relieved by the appearance of another prisoner who he felt at once could be no other than the object of his visit. it was indeed mr. dawkins, who, shuffling into the office with the big coat sleeves tucked up as usual, his left hand in his pocket, and his hat in his right hand, preceded the jailer, with a rolling gait altogether indescribable, and, taking his place in the dock, requested in an audible voice to know what he was placed in that 'ere disgraceful sitivation for. 'hold your tongue, will you?' said the jailer. 'i'm an englishman, ain't i?' rejoined the dodger. 'where are my priwileges?' 'you'll get your privileges soon enough,' retorted the jailer, 'and pepper with 'em.' 'we'll see wot the secretary of state for the home affairs has got to say to the beaks, if i don't,' replied mr. dawkins. 'now then! wot is this here business? i shall thank the madg'strates to dispose of this here little affair, and not to keep me while they read the paper, for i've got an appointment with a genelman in the city, and as i am a man of my word and wery punctual in business matters, he'll go away if i ain't there to my time, and then pr'aps ther won't be an action for damage against them as kep me away. oh no, certainly not!' at this point, the dodger, with a show of being very particular with a view to proceedings to be had thereafter, desired the jailer to communicate 'the names of them two files as was on the bench.' which so tickled the spectators, that they laughed almost as heartily as master bates could have done if he had heard the request. 'silence there!' cried the jailer. 'what is this?' inquired one of the magistrates. 'a pick-pocketing case, your worship.' 'has the boy ever been here before?' 'he ought to have been, a many times,' replied the jailer. 'he has been pretty well everywhere else. _i_ know him well, your worship.' 'oh! you know me, do you?' cried the artful, making a note of the statement. 'wery good. that's a case of deformation of character, any way.' here there was another laugh, and another cry of silence. 'now then, where are the witnesses?' said the clerk. 'ah! that's right,' added the dodger. 'where are they? i should like to see 'em.' this wish was immediately gratified, for a policeman stepped forward who had seen the prisoner attempt the pocket of an unknown gentleman in a crowd, and indeed take a handkerchief therefrom, which, being a very old one, he deliberately put back again, after trying it on his own countenance. for this reason, he took the dodger into custody as soon as he could get near him, and the said dodger, being searched, had upon his person a silver snuff-box, with the owner's name engraved upon the lid. this gentleman had been discovered on reference to the court guide, and being then and there present, swore that the snuff-box was his, and that he had missed it on the previous day, the moment he had disengaged himself from the crowd before referred to. he had also remarked a young gentleman in the throng, particularly active in making his way about, and that young gentleman was the prisoner before him. 'have you anything to ask this witness, boy?' said the magistrate. 'i wouldn't abase myself by descending to hold no conversation with him,' replied the dodger. 'have you anything to say at all?' 'do you hear his worship ask if you've anything to say?' inquired the jailer, nudging the silent dodger with his elbow. 'i beg your pardon,' said the dodger, looking up with an air of abstraction. 'did you redress yourself to me, my man?' 'i never see such an out-and-out young wagabond, your worship,' observed the officer with a grin. 'do you mean to say anything, you young shaver?' 'no,' replied the dodger, 'not here, for this ain't the shop for justice: besides which, my attorney is a-breakfasting this morning with the wice president of the house of commons; but i shall have something to say elsewhere, and so will he, and so will a wery numerous and 'spectable circle of acquaintance as'll make them beaks wish they'd never been born, or that they'd got their footmen to hang 'em up to their own hat-pegs, afore they let 'em come out this morning to try it on upon me. i'll--' 'there! he's fully committed!' interposed the clerk. 'take him away.' 'come on,' said the jailer. 'oh ah! i'll come on,' replied the dodger, brushing his hat with the palm of his hand. 'ah! (to the bench) it's no use your looking frightened; i won't show you no mercy, not a ha'porth of it. _you'll_ pay for this, my fine fellers. i wouldn't be you for something! i wouldn't go free, now, if you was to fall down on your knees and ask me. here, carry me off to prison! take me away!' with these last words, the dodger suffered himself to be led off by the collar; threatening, till he got into the yard, to make a parliamentary business of it; and then grinning in the officer's face, with great glee and self-approval. having seen him locked up by himself in a little cell, noah made the best of his way back to where he had left master bates. after waiting here some time, he was joined by that young gentleman, who had prudently abstained from showing himself until he had looked carefully abroad from a snug retreat, and ascertained that his new friend had not been followed by any impertinent person. the two hastened back together, to bear to mr. fagin the animating news that the dodger was doing full justice to his bringing-up, and establishing for himself a glorious reputation. chapter xliv the time arrives for nancy to redeem her pledge to rose maylie. she fails. adept as she was, in all the arts of cunning and dissimulation, the girl nancy could not wholly conceal the effect which the knowledge of the step she had taken, wrought upon her mind. she remembered that both the crafty jew and the brutal sikes had confided to her schemes, which had been hidden from all others: in the full confidence that she was trustworthy and beyond the reach of their suspicion. vile as those schemes were, desperate as were their originators, and bitter as were her feelings towards fagin, who had led her, step by step, deeper and deeper down into an abyss of crime and misery, whence was no escape; still, there were times when, even towards him, she felt some relenting, lest her disclosure should bring him within the iron grasp he had so long eluded, and he should fall at last--richly as he merited such a fate--by her hand. but, these were the mere wanderings of a mind unable wholly to detach itself from old companions and associations, though enabled to fix itself steadily on one object, and resolved not to be turned aside by any consideration. her fears for sikes would have been more powerful inducements to recoil while there was yet time; but she had stipulated that her secret should be rigidly kept, she had dropped no clue which could lead to his discovery, she had refused, even for his sake, a refuge from all the guilt and wretchedness that encompasses her--and what more could she do! she was resolved. though all her mental struggles terminated in this conclusion, they forced themselves upon her, again and again, and left their traces too. she grew pale and thin, even within a few days. at times, she took no heed of what was passing before her, or no part in conversations where once, she would have been the loudest. at other times, she laughed without merriment, and was noisy without a moment afterwards--she sat silent and dejected, brooding with her head upon her hands, while the very effort by which she roused herself, told, more forcibly than even these indications, that she was ill at ease, and that her thoughts were occupied with matters very different and distant from those in the course of discussion by her companions. it was sunday night, and the bell of the nearest church struck the hour. sikes and the jew were talking, but they paused to listen. the girl looked up from the low seat on which she crouched, and listened too. eleven. 'an hour this side of midnight,' said sikes, raising the blind to look out and returning to his seat. 'dark and heavy it is too. a good night for business this.' 'ah!' replied fagin. 'what a pity, bill, my dear, that there's none quite ready to be done.' 'you're right for once,' replied sikes gruffly. 'it is a pity, for i'm in the humour too.' fagin sighed, and shook his head despondingly. 'we must make up for lost time when we've got things into a good train. that's all i know,' said sikes. 'that's the way to talk, my dear,' replied fagin, venturing to pat him on the shoulder. 'it does me good to hear you.' 'does you good, does it!' cried sikes. 'well, so be it.' 'ha! ha! ha!' laughed fagin, as if he were relieved by even this concession. 'you're like yourself to-night, bill. quite like yourself.' 'i don't feel like myself when you lay that withered old claw on my shoulder, so take it away,' said sikes, casting off the jew's hand. 'it make you nervous, bill,--reminds you of being nabbed, does it?' said fagin, determined not to be offended. 'reminds me of being nabbed by the devil,' returned sikes. 'there never was another man with such a face as yours, unless it was your father, and i suppose _he_ is singeing his grizzled red beard by this time, unless you came straight from the old 'un without any father at all betwixt you; which i shouldn't wonder at, a bit.' fagin offered no reply to this compliment: but, pulling sikes by the sleeve, pointed his finger towards nancy, who had taken advantage of the foregoing conversation to put on her bonnet, and was now leaving the room. 'hallo!' cried sikes. 'nance. where's the gal going to at this time of night?' 'not far.' 'what answer's that?' retorted sikes. 'do you hear me?' 'i don't know where,' replied the girl. 'then i do,' said sikes, more in the spirit of obstinacy than because he had any real objection to the girl going where she listed. 'nowhere. sit down.' 'i'm not well. i told you that before,' rejoined the girl. 'i want a breath of air.' 'put your head out of the winder,' replied sikes. 'there's not enough there,' said the girl. 'i want it in the street.' 'then you won't have it,' replied sikes. with which assurance he rose, locked the door, took the key out, and pulling her bonnet from her head, flung it up to the top of an old press. 'there,' said the robber. 'now stop quietly where you are, will you?' 'it's not such a matter as a bonnet would keep me,' said the girl turning very pale. 'what do you mean, bill? do you know what you're doing?' 'know what i'm--oh!' cried sikes, turning to fagin, 'she's out of her senses, you know, or she daren't talk to me in that way.' 'you'll drive me on the something desperate,' muttered the girl placing both hands upon her breast, as though to keep down by force some violent outbreak. 'let me go, will you,--this minute--this instant.' 'no!' said sikes. 'tell him to let me go, fagin. he had better. it'll be better for him. do you hear me?' cried nancy stamping her foot upon the ground. 'hear you!' repeated sikes turning round in his chair to confront her. 'aye! and if i hear you for half a minute longer, the dog shall have such a grip on your throat as'll tear some of that screaming voice out. wot has come over you, you jade! wot is it?' 'let me go,' said the girl with great earnestness; then sitting herself down on the floor, before the door, she said, 'bill, let me go; you don't know what you are doing. you don't, indeed. for only one hour--do--do!' 'cut my limbs off one by one!' cried sikes, seizing her roughly by the arm, 'if i don't think the gal's stark raving mad. get up.' 'not till you let me go--not till you let me go--never--never!' screamed the girl. sikes looked on, for a minute, watching his opportunity, and suddenly pinioning her hands dragged her, struggling and wrestling with him by the way, into a small room adjoining, where he sat himself on a bench, and thrusting her into a chair, held her down by force. she struggled and implored by turns until twelve o'clock had struck, and then, wearied and exhausted, ceased to contest the point any further. with a caution, backed by many oaths, to make no more efforts to go out that night, sikes left her to recover at leisure and rejoined fagin. 'whew!' said the housebreaker wiping the perspiration from his face. 'wot a precious strange gal that is!' 'you may say that, bill,' replied fagin thoughtfully. 'you may say that.' 'wot did she take it into her head to go out to-night for, do you think?' asked sikes. 'come; you should know her better than me. wot does it mean?' 'obstinacy; woman's obstinacy, i suppose, my dear.' 'well, i suppose it is,' growled sikes. 'i thought i had tamed her, but she's as bad as ever.' 'worse,' said fagin thoughtfully. 'i never knew her like this, for such a little cause.' 'nor i,' said sikes. 'i think she's got a touch of that fever in her blood yet, and it won't come out--eh?' 'like enough.' 'i'll let her a little blood, without troubling the doctor, if she's took that way again,' said sikes. fagin nodded an expressive approval of this mode of treatment. 'she was hanging about me all day, and night too, when i was stretched on my back; and you, like a blackhearted wolf as you are, kept yourself aloof,' said sikes. 'we was poor too, all the time, and i think, one way or other, it's worried and fretted her; and that being shut up here so long has made her restless--eh?' 'that's it, my dear,' replied the jew in a whisper. 'hush!' as he uttered these words, the girl herself appeared and resumed her former seat. her eyes were swollen and red; she rocked herself to and fro; tossed her head; and, after a little time, burst out laughing. 'why, now she's on the other tack!' exclaimed sikes, turning a look of excessive surprise on his companion. fagin nodded to him to take no further notice just then; and, in a few minutes, the girl subsided into her accustomed demeanour. whispering sikes that there was no fear of her relapsing, fagin took up his hat and bade him good-night. he paused when he reached the room-door, and looking round, asked if somebody would light him down the dark stairs. 'light him down,' said sikes, who was filling his pipe. 'it's a pity he should break his neck himself, and disappoint the sight-seers. show him a light.' nancy followed the old man downstairs, with a candle. when they reached the passage, he laid his finger on his lip, and drawing close to the girl, said, in a whisper. 'what is it, nancy, dear?' 'what do you mean?' replied the girl, in the same tone. 'the reason of all this,' replied fagin. 'if _he_'--he pointed with his skinny fore-finger up the stairs--'is so hard with you (he's a brute, nance, a brute-beast), why don't you--' 'well?' said the girl, as fagin paused, with his mouth almost touching her ear, and his eyes looking into hers. 'no matter just now. we'll talk of this again. you have a friend in me, nance; a staunch friend. i have the means at hand, quiet and close. if you want revenge on those that treat you like a dog--like a dog! worse than his dog, for he humours him sometimes--come to me. i say, come to me. he is the mere hound of a day, but you know me of old, nance.' 'i know you well,' replied the girl, without manifesting the least emotion. 'good-night.' she shrank back, as fagin offered to lay his hand on hers, but said good-night again, in a steady voice, and, answering his parting look with a nod of intelligence, closed the door between them. fagin walked towards his home, intent upon the thoughts that were working within his brain. he had conceived the idea--not from what had just passed though that had tended to confirm him, but slowly and by degrees--that nancy, wearied of the housebreaker's brutality, had conceived an attachment for some new friend. her altered manner, her repeated absences from home alone, her comparative indifference to the interests of the gang for which she had once been so zealous, and, added to these, her desperate impatience to leave home that night at a particular hour, all favoured the supposition, and rendered it, to him at least, almost matter of certainty. the object of this new liking was not among his myrmidons. he would be a valuable acquisition with such an assistant as nancy, and must (thus fagin argued) be secured without delay. there was another, and a darker object, to be gained. sikes knew too much, and his ruffian taunts had not galled fagin the less, because the wounds were hidden. the girl must know, well, that if she shook him off, she could never be safe from his fury, and that it would be surely wreaked--to the maiming of limbs, or perhaps the loss of life--on the object of her more recent fancy. 'with a little persuasion,' thought fagin, 'what more likely than that she would consent to poison him? women have done such things, and worse, to secure the same object before now. there would be the dangerous villain: the man i hate: gone; another secured in his place; and my influence over the girl, with a knowledge of this crime to back it, unlimited.' these things passed through the mind of fagin, during the short time he sat alone, in the housebreaker's room; and with them uppermost in his thoughts, he had taken the opportunity afterwards afforded him, of sounding the girl in the broken hints he threw out at parting. there was no expression of surprise, no assumption of an inability to understand his meaning. the girl clearly comprehended it. her glance at parting showed _that_. but perhaps she would recoil from a plot to take the life of sikes, and that was one of the chief ends to be attained. 'how,' thought fagin, as he crept homeward, 'can i increase my influence with her? what new power can i acquire?' such brains are fertile in expedients. if, without extracting a confession from herself, he laid a watch, discovered the object of her altered regard, and threatened to reveal the whole history to sikes (of whom she stood in no common fear) unless she entered into his designs, could he not secure her compliance? 'i can,' said fagin, almost aloud. 'she durst not refuse me then. not for her life, not for her life! i have it all. the means are ready, and shall be set to work. i shall have you yet!' he cast back a dark look, and a threatening motion of the hand, towards the spot where he had left the bolder villain; and went on his way: busying his bony hands in the folds of his tattered garment, which he wrenched tightly in his grasp, as though there were a hated enemy crushed with every motion of his fingers. chapter xlv noah claypole is employed by fagin on a secret mission the old man was up, betimes, next morning, and waited impatiently for the appearance of his new associate, who after a delay that seemed interminable, at length presented himself, and commenced a voracious assault on the breakfast. 'bolter,' said fagin, drawing up a chair and seating himself opposite morris bolter. 'well, here i am,' returned noah. 'what's the matter? don't yer ask me to do anything till i have done eating. that's a great fault in this place. yer never get time enough over yer meals.' 'you can talk as you eat, can't you?' said fagin, cursing his dear young friend's greediness from the very bottom of his heart. 'oh yes, i can talk. i get on better when i talk,' said noah, cutting a monstrous slice of bread. 'where's charlotte?' 'out,' said fagin. 'i sent her out this morning with the other young woman, because i wanted us to be alone.' 'oh!' said noah. 'i wish yer'd ordered her to make some buttered toast first. well. talk away. yer won't interrupt me.' there seemed, indeed, no great fear of anything interrupting him, as he had evidently sat down with a determination to do a great deal of business. 'you did well yesterday, my dear,' said fagin. 'beautiful! six shillings and ninepence halfpenny on the very first day! the kinchin lay will be a fortune to you.' 'don't you forget to add three pint-pots and a milk-can,' said mr. bolter. 'no, no, my dear. the pint-pots were great strokes of genius: but the milk-can was a perfect masterpiece.' 'pretty well, i think, for a beginner,' remarked mr. bolter complacently. 'the pots i took off airy railings, and the milk-can was standing by itself outside a public-house. i thought it might get rusty with the rain, or catch cold, yer know. eh? ha! ha! ha!' fagin affected to laugh very heartily; and mr. bolter having had his laugh out, took a series of large bites, which finished his first hunk of bread and butter, and assisted himself to a second. 'i want you, bolter,' said fagin, leaning over the table, 'to do a piece of work for me, my dear, that needs great care and caution.' 'i say,' rejoined bolter, 'don't yer go shoving me into danger, or sending me any more o' yer police-offices. that don't suit me, that don't; and so i tell yer.' 'that's not the smallest danger in it--not the very smallest,' said the jew; 'it's only to dodge a woman.' 'an old woman?' demanded mr. bolter. 'a young one,' replied fagin. 'i can do that pretty well, i know,' said bolter. 'i was a regular cunning sneak when i was at school. what am i to dodge her for? not to--' 'not to do anything, but to tell me where she goes, who she sees, and, if possible, what she says; to remember the street, if it is a street, or the house, if it is a house; and to bring me back all the information you can.' 'what'll yer give me?' asked noah, setting down his cup, and looking his employer, eagerly, in the face. 'if you do it well, a pound, my dear. one pound,' said fagin, wishing to interest him in the scent as much as possible. 'and that's what i never gave yet, for any job of work where there wasn't valuable consideration to be gained.' 'who is she?' inquired noah. 'one of us.' 'oh lor!' cried noah, curling up his nose. 'yer doubtful of her, are yer?' 'she has found out some new friends, my dear, and i must know who they are,' replied fagin. 'i see,' said noah. 'just to have the pleasure of knowing them, if they're respectable people, eh? ha! ha! ha! i'm your man.' 'i knew you would be,' cried fagin, elated by the success of his proposal. 'of course, of course,' replied noah. 'where is she? where am i to wait for her? where am i to go?' 'all that, my dear, you shall hear from me. i'll point her out at the proper time,' said fagin. 'you keep ready, and leave the rest to me.' that night, and the next, and the next again, the spy sat booted and equipped in his carter's dress: ready to turn out at a word from fagin. six nights passed--six long weary nights--and on each, fagin came home with a disappointed face, and briefly intimated that it was not yet time. on the seventh, he returned earlier, and with an exultation he could not conceal. it was sunday. 'she goes abroad to-night,' said fagin, 'and on the right errand, i'm sure; for she has been alone all day, and the man she is afraid of will not be back much before daybreak. come with me. quick!' noah started up without saying a word; for the jew was in a state of such intense excitement that it infected him. they left the house stealthily, and hurrying through a labyrinth of streets, arrived at length before a public-house, which noah recognised as the same in which he had slept, on the night of his arrival in london. it was past eleven o'clock, and the door was closed. it opened softly on its hinges as fagin gave a low whistle. they entered, without noise; and the door was closed behind them. scarcely venturing to whisper, but substituting dumb show for words, fagin, and the young jew who had admitted them, pointed out the pane of glass to noah, and signed to him to climb up and observe the person in the adjoining room. 'is that the woman?' he asked, scarcely above his breath. fagin nodded yes. 'i can't see her face well,' whispered noah. 'she is looking down, and the candle is behind her. 'stay there,' whispered fagin. he signed to barney, who withdrew. in an instant, the lad entered the room adjoining, and, under pretence of snuffing the candle, moved it in the required position, and, speaking to the girl, caused her to raise her face. 'i see her now,' cried the spy. 'plainly?' 'i should know her among a thousand.' he hastily descended, as the room-door opened, and the girl came out. fagin drew him behind a small partition which was curtained off, and they held their breaths as she passed within a few feet of their place of concealment, and emerged by the door at which they had entered. 'hist!' cried the lad who held the door. 'dow.' noah exchanged a look with fagin, and darted out. 'to the left,' whispered the lad; 'take the left had, and keep od the other side.' he did so; and, by the light of the lamps, saw the girl's retreating figure, already at some distance before him. he advanced as near as he considered prudent, and kept on the opposite side of the street, the better to observe her motions. she looked nervously round, twice or thrice, and once stopped to let two men who were following close behind her, pass on. she seemed to gather courage as she advanced, and to walk with a steadier and firmer step. the spy preserved the same relative distance between them, and followed: with his eye upon her. chapter xlvi the appointment kept the church clocks chimed three quarters past eleven, as two figures emerged on london bridge. one, which advanced with a swift and rapid step, was that of a woman who looked eagerly about her as though in quest of some expected object; the other figure was that of a man, who slunk along in the deepest shadow he could find, and, at some distance, accommodated his pace to hers: stopping when she stopped: and as she moved again, creeping stealthily on: but never allowing himself, in the ardour of his pursuit, to gain upon her footsteps. thus, they crossed the bridge, from the middlesex to the surrey shore, when the woman, apparently disappointed in her anxious scrutiny of the foot-passengers, turned back. the movement was sudden; but he who watched her, was not thrown off his guard by it; for, shrinking into one of the recesses which surmount the piers of the bridge, and leaning over the parapet the better to conceal his figure, he suffered her to pass on the opposite pavement. when she was about the same distance in advance as she had been before, he slipped quietly down, and followed her again. at nearly the centre of the bridge, she stopped. the man stopped too. it was a very dark night. the day had been unfavourable, and at that hour and place there were few people stirring. such as there were, hurried quickly past: very possibly without seeing, but certainly without noticing, either the woman, or the man who kept her in view. their appearance was not calculated to attract the importunate regards of such of london's destitute population, as chanced to take their way over the bridge that night in search of some cold arch or doorless hovel wherein to lay their heads; they stood there in silence: neither speaking nor spoken to, by any one who passed. a mist hung over the river, deepening the red glare of the fires that burnt upon the small craft moored off the different wharfs, and rendering darker and more indistinct the murky buildings on the banks. the old smoke-stained storehouses on either side, rose heavy and dull from the dense mass of roofs and gables, and frowned sternly upon water too black to reflect even their lumbering shapes. the tower of old saint saviour's church, and the spire of saint magnus, so long the giant-warders of the ancient bridge, were visible in the gloom; but the forest of shipping below bridge, and the thickly scattered spires of churches above, were nearly all hidden from sight. the girl had taken a few restless turns to and fro--closely watched meanwhile by her hidden observer--when the heavy bell of st. paul's tolled for the death of another day. midnight had come upon the crowded city. the palace, the night-cellar, the jail, the madhouse: the chambers of birth and death, of health and sickness, the rigid face of the corpse and the calm sleep of the child: midnight was upon them all. the hour had not struck two minutes, when a young lady, accompanied by a grey-haired gentleman, alighted from a hackney-carriage within a short distance of the bridge, and, having dismissed the vehicle, walked straight towards it. they had scarcely set foot upon its pavement, when the girl started, and immediately made towards them. they walked onward, looking about them with the air of persons who entertained some very slight expectation which had little chance of being realised, when they were suddenly joined by this new associate. they halted with an exclamation of surprise, but suppressed it immediately; for a man in the garments of a countryman came close up--brushed against them, indeed--at that precise moment. 'not here,' said nancy hurriedly, 'i am afraid to speak to you here. come away--out of the public road--down the steps yonder!' as she uttered these words, and indicated, with her hand, the direction in which she wished them to proceed, the countryman looked round, and roughly asking what they took up the whole pavement for, passed on. the steps to which the girl had pointed, were those which, on the surrey bank, and on the same side of the bridge as saint saviour's church, form a landing-stairs from the river. to this spot, the man bearing the appearance of a countryman, hastened unobserved; and after a moment's survey of the place, he began to descend. these stairs are a part of the bridge; they consist of three flights. just below the end of the second, going down, the stone wall on the left terminates in an ornamental pilaster facing towards the thames. at this point the lower steps widen: so that a person turning that angle of the wall, is necessarily unseen by any others on the stairs who chance to be above him, if only a step. the countryman looked hastily round, when he reached this point; and as there seemed no better place of concealment, and, the tide being out, there was plenty of room, he slipped aside, with his back to the pilaster, and there waited: pretty certain that they would come no lower, and that even if he could not hear what was said, he could follow them again, with safety. so tardily stole the time in this lonely place, and so eager was the spy to penetrate the motives of an interview so different from what he had been led to expect, that he more than once gave the matter up for lost, and persuaded himself, either that they had stopped far above, or had resorted to some entirely different spot to hold their mysterious conversation. he was on the point of emerging from his hiding-place, and regaining the road above, when he heard the sound of footsteps, and directly afterwards of voices almost close at his ear. he drew himself straight upright against the wall, and, scarcely breathing, listened attentively. 'this is far enough,' said a voice, which was evidently that of the gentleman. 'i will not suffer the young lady to go any farther. many people would have distrusted you too much to have come even so far, but you see i am willing to humour you.' 'to humour me!' cried the voice of the girl whom he had followed. 'you're considerate, indeed, sir. to humour me! well, well, it's no matter.' 'why, for what,' said the gentleman in a kinder tone, 'for what purpose can you have brought us to this strange place? why not have let me speak to you, above there, where it is light, and there is something stirring, instead of bringing us to this dark and dismal hole?' 'i told you before,' replied nancy, 'that i was afraid to speak to you there. i don't know why it is,' said the girl, shuddering, 'but i have such a fear and dread upon me to-night that i can hardly stand.' 'a fear of what?' asked the gentleman, who seemed to pity her. 'i scarcely know of what,' replied the girl. 'i wish i did. horrible thoughts of death, and shrouds with blood upon them, and a fear that has made me burn as if i was on fire, have been upon me all day. i was reading a book to-night, to wile the time away, and the same things came into the print.' 'imagination,' said the gentleman, soothing her. 'no imagination,' replied the girl in a hoarse voice. 'i'll swear i saw "coffin" written in every page of the book in large black letters,--aye, and they carried one close to me, in the streets to-night.' 'there is nothing unusual in that,' said the gentleman. 'they have passed me often.' '_real ones_,' rejoined the girl. 'this was not.' there was something so uncommon in her manner, that the flesh of the concealed listener crept as he heard the girl utter these words, and the blood chilled within him. he had never experienced a greater relief than in hearing the sweet voice of the young lady as she begged her to be calm, and not allow herself to become the prey of such fearful fancies. 'speak to her kindly,' said the young lady to her companion. 'poor creature! she seems to need it.' 'your haughty religious people would have held their heads up to see me as i am to-night, and preached of flames and vengeance,' cried the girl. 'oh, dear lady, why ar'n't those who claim to be god's own folks as gentle and as kind to us poor wretches as you, who, having youth, and beauty, and all that they have lost, might be a little proud instead of so much humbler?' 'ah!' said the gentleman. 'a turk turns his face, after washing it well, to the east, when he says his prayers; these good people, after giving their faces such a rub against the world as to take the smiles off, turn with no less regularity, to the darkest side of heaven. between the mussulman and the pharisee, commend me to the first!' these words appeared to be addressed to the young lady, and were perhaps uttered with the view of affording nancy time to recover herself. the gentleman, shortly afterwards, addressed himself to her. 'you were not here last sunday night,' he said. 'i couldn't come,' replied nancy; 'i was kept by force.' 'by whom?' 'him that i told the young lady of before.' 'you were not suspected of holding any communication with anybody on the subject which has brought us here to-night, i hope?' asked the old gentleman. 'no,' replied the girl, shaking her head. 'it's not very easy for me to leave him unless he knows why; i couldn't give him a drink of laudanum before i came away.' 'did he awake before you returned?' inquired the gentleman. 'no; and neither he nor any of them suspect me.' 'good,' said the gentleman. 'now listen to me.' 'i am ready,' replied the girl, as he paused for a moment. 'this young lady,' the gentleman began, 'has communicated to me, and to some other friends who can be safely trusted, what you told her nearly a fortnight since. i confess to you that i had doubts, at first, whether you were to be implicitly relied upon, but now i firmly believe you are.' 'i am,' said the girl earnestly. 'i repeat that i firmly believe it. to prove to you that i am disposed to trust you, i tell you without reserve, that we propose to extort the secret, whatever it may be, from the fear of this man monks. but if--if--' said the gentleman, 'he cannot be secured, or, if secured, cannot be acted upon as we wish, you must deliver up the jew.' 'fagin,' cried the girl, recoiling. 'that man must be delivered up by you,' said the gentleman. 'i will not do it! i will never do it!' replied the girl. 'devil that he is, and worse than devil as he has been to me, i will never do that.' 'you will not?' said the gentleman, who seemed fully prepared for this answer. 'never!' returned the girl. 'tell me why?' 'for one reason,' rejoined the girl firmly, 'for one reason, that the lady knows and will stand by me in, i know she will, for i have her promise: and for this other reason, besides, that, bad life as he has led, i have led a bad life too; there are many of us who have kept the same courses together, and i'll not turn upon them, who might--any of them--have turned upon me, but didn't, bad as they are.' 'then,' said the gentleman, quickly, as if this had been the point he had been aiming to attain; 'put monks into my hands, and leave him to me to deal with.' 'what if he turns against the others?' 'i promise you that in that case, if the truth is forced from him, there the matter will rest; there must be circumstances in oliver's little history which it would be painful to drag before the public eye, and if the truth is once elicited, they shall go scot free.' 'and if it is not?' suggested the girl. 'then,' pursued the gentleman, 'this fagin shall not be brought to justice without your consent. in such a case i could show you reasons, i think, which would induce you to yield it.' 'have i the lady's promise for that?' asked the girl. 'you have,' replied rose. 'my true and faithful pledge.' 'monks would never learn how you knew what you do?' said the girl, after a short pause. 'never,' replied the gentleman. 'the intelligence should be brought to bear upon him, that he could never even guess.' 'i have been a liar, and among liars from a little child,' said the girl after another interval of silence, 'but i will take your words.' after receiving an assurance from both, that she might safely do so, she proceeded in a voice so low that it was often difficult for the listener to discover even the purport of what she said, to describe, by name and situation, the public-house whence she had been followed that night. from the manner in which she occasionally paused, it appeared as if the gentleman were making some hasty notes of the information she communicated. when she had thoroughly explained the localities of the place, the best position from which to watch it without exciting observation, and the night and hour on which monks was most in the habit of frequenting it, she seemed to consider for a few moments, for the purpose of recalling his features and appearances more forcibly to her recollection. 'he is tall,' said the girl, 'and a strongly made man, but not stout; he has a lurking walk; and as he walks, constantly looks over his shoulder, first on one side, and then on the other. don't forget that, for his eyes are sunk in his head so much deeper than any other man's, that you might almost tell him by that alone. his face is dark, like his hair and eyes; and, although he can't be more than six or eight and twenty, withered and haggard. his lips are often discoloured and disfigured with the marks of teeth; for he has desperate fits, and sometimes even bites his hands and covers them with wounds--why did you start?' said the girl, stopping suddenly. the gentleman replied, in a hurried manner, that he was not conscious of having done so, and begged her to proceed. 'part of this,' said the girl, 'i have drawn out from other people at the house i tell you of, for i have only seen him twice, and both times he was covered up in a large cloak. i think that's all i can give you to know him by. stay though,' she added. 'upon his throat: so high that you can see a part of it below his neckerchief when he turns his face: there is--' 'a broad red mark, like a burn or scald?' cried the gentleman. 'how's this?' said the girl. 'you know him!' the young lady uttered a cry of surprise, and for a few moments they were so still that the listener could distinctly hear them breathe. 'i think i do,' said the gentleman, breaking silence. 'i should by your description. we shall see. many people are singularly like each other. it may not be the same.' as he expressed himself to this effect, with assumed carelessness, he took a step or two nearer the concealed spy, as the latter could tell from the distinctness with which he heard him mutter, 'it must be he!' 'now,' he said, returning: so it seemed by the sound: to the spot where he had stood before, 'you have given us most valuable assistance, young woman, and i wish you to be the better for it. what can i do to serve you?' 'nothing,' replied nancy. 'you will not persist in saying that,' rejoined the gentleman, with a voice and emphasis of kindness that might have touched a much harder and more obdurate heart. 'think now. tell me.' 'nothing, sir,' rejoined the girl, weeping. 'you can do nothing to help me. i am past all hope, indeed.' 'you put yourself beyond its pale,' said the gentleman. 'the past has been a dreary waste with you, of youthful energies mis-spent, and such priceless treasures lavished, as the creator bestows but once and never grants again, but, for the future, you may hope. i do not say that it is in our power to offer you peace of heart and mind, for that must come as you seek it; but a quiet asylum, either in england, or, if you fear to remain here, in some foreign country, it is not only within the compass of our ability but our most anxious wish to secure you. before the dawn of morning, before this river wakes to the first glimpse of day-light, you shall be placed as entirely beyond the reach of your former associates, and leave as utter an absence of all trace behind you, as if you were to disappear from the earth this moment. come! i would not have you go back to exchange one word with any old companion, or take one look at any old haunt, or breathe the very air which is pestilence and death to you. quit them all, while there is time and opportunity!' 'she will be persuaded now,' cried the young lady. 'she hesitates, i am sure.' 'i fear not, my dear,' said the gentleman. 'no sir, i do not,' replied the girl, after a short struggle. 'i am chained to my old life. i loathe and hate it now, but i cannot leave it. i must have gone too far to turn back,--and yet i don't know, for if you had spoken to me so, some time ago, i should have laughed it off. but,' she said, looking hastily round, 'this fear comes over me again. i must go home.' 'home!' repeated the young lady, with great stress upon the word. 'home, lady,' rejoined the girl. 'to such a home as i have raised for myself with the work of my whole life. let us part. i shall be watched or seen. go! go! if i have done you any service all i ask is, that you leave me, and let me go my way alone.' 'it is useless,' said the gentleman, with a sigh. 'we compromise her safety, perhaps, by staying here. we may have detained her longer than she expected already.' 'yes, yes,' urged the girl. 'you have.' 'what,' cried the young lady, 'can be the end of this poor creature's life!' 'what!' repeated the girl. 'look before you, lady. look at that dark water. how many times do you read of such as i who spring into the tide, and leave no living thing, to care for, or bewail them. it may be years hence, or it may be only months, but i shall come to that at last.' 'do not speak thus, pray,' returned the young lady, sobbing. 'it will never reach your ears, dear lady, and god forbid such horrors should!' replied the girl. 'good-night, good-night!' the gentleman turned away. 'this purse,' cried the young lady. 'take it for my sake, that you may have some resource in an hour of need and trouble.' 'no!' replied the girl. 'i have not done this for money. let me have that to think of. and yet--give me something that you have worn: i should like to have something--no, no, not a ring--your gloves or handkerchief--anything that i can keep, as having belonged to you, sweet lady. there. bless you! god bless you. good-night, good-night!' the violent agitation of the girl, and the apprehension of some discovery which would subject her to ill-usage and violence, seemed to determine the gentleman to leave her, as she requested. the sound of retreating footsteps were audible and the voices ceased. the two figures of the young lady and her companion soon afterwards appeared upon the bridge. they stopped at the summit of the stairs. 'hark!' cried the young lady, listening. 'did she call! i thought i heard her voice.' 'no, my love,' replied mr. brownlow, looking sadly back. 'she has not moved, and will not till we are gone.' rose maylie lingered, but the old gentleman drew her arm through his, and led her, with gentle force, away. as they disappeared, the girl sunk down nearly at her full length upon one of the stone stairs, and vented the anguish of her heart in bitter tears. after a time she arose, and with feeble and tottering steps ascended the street. the astonished listener remained motionless on his post for some minutes afterwards, and having ascertained, with many cautious glances round him, that he was again alone, crept slowly from his hiding-place, and returned, stealthily and in the shade of the wall, in the same manner as he had descended. peeping out, more than once, when he reached the top, to make sure that he was unobserved, noah claypole darted away at his utmost speed, and made for the jew's house as fast as his legs would carry him. chapter xlvii fatal consequences it was nearly two hours before day-break; that time which in the autumn of the year, may be truly called the dead of night; when the streets are silent and deserted; when even sounds appear to slumber, and profligacy and riot have staggered home to dream; it was at this still and silent hour, that fagin sat watching in his old lair, with face so distorted and pale, and eyes so red and blood-shot, that he looked less like a man, than like some hideous phantom, moist from the grave, and worried by an evil spirit. he sat crouching over a cold hearth, wrapped in an old torn coverlet, with his face turned towards a wasting candle that stood upon a table by his side. his right hand was raised to his lips, and as, absorbed in thought, he hit his long black nails, he disclosed among his toothless gums a few such fangs as should have been a dog's or rat's. stretched upon a mattress on the floor, lay noah claypole, fast asleep. towards him the old man sometimes directed his eyes for an instant, and then brought them back again to the candle; which with a long-burnt wick drooping almost double, and hot grease falling down in clots upon the table, plainly showed that his thoughts were busy elsewhere. indeed they were. mortification at the overthrow of his notable scheme; hatred of the girl who had dared to palter with strangers; and utter distrust of the sincerity of her refusal to yield him up; bitter disappointment at the loss of his revenge on sikes; the fear of detection, and ruin, and death; and a fierce and deadly rage kindled by all; these were the passionate considerations which, following close upon each other with rapid and ceaseless whirl, shot through the brain of fagin, as every evil thought and blackest purpose lay working at his heart. he sat without changing his attitude in the least, or appearing to take the smallest heed of time, until his quick ear seemed to be attracted by a footstep in the street. 'at last,' he muttered, wiping his dry and fevered mouth. 'at last!' the bell rang gently as he spoke. he crept upstairs to the door, and presently returned accompanied by a man muffled to the chin, who carried a bundle under one arm. sitting down and throwing back his outer coat, the man displayed the burly frame of sikes. 'there!' he said, laying the bundle on the table. 'take care of that, and do the most you can with it. it's been trouble enough to get; i thought i should have been here, three hours ago.' fagin laid his hand upon the bundle, and locking it in the cupboard, sat down again without speaking. but he did not take his eyes off the robber, for an instant, during this action; and now that they sat over against each other, face to face, he looked fixedly at him, with his lips quivering so violently, and his face so altered by the emotions which had mastered him, that the housebreaker involuntarily drew back his chair, and surveyed him with a look of real affright. 'wot now?' cried sikes. 'wot do you look at a man so for?' fagin raised his right hand, and shook his trembling forefinger in the air; but his passion was so great, that the power of speech was for the moment gone. 'damme!' said sikes, feeling in his breast with a look of alarm. 'he's gone mad. i must look to myself here.' 'no, no,' rejoined fagin, finding his voice. 'it's not--you're not the person, bill. i've no--no fault to find with you.' 'oh, you haven't, haven't you?' said sikes, looking sternly at him, and ostentatiously passing a pistol into a more convenient pocket. 'that's lucky--for one of us. which one that is, don't matter.' 'i've got that to tell you, bill,' said fagin, drawing his chair nearer, 'will make you worse than me.' 'aye?' returned the robber with an incredulous air. 'tell away! look sharp, or nance will think i'm lost.' 'lost!' cried fagin. 'she has pretty well settled that, in her own mind, already.' sikes looked with an aspect of great perplexity into the jew's face, and reading no satisfactory explanation of the riddle there, clenched his coat collar in his huge hand and shook him soundly. 'speak, will you!' he said; 'or if you don't, it shall be for want of breath. open your mouth and say wot you've got to say in plain words. out with it, you thundering old cur, out with it!' 'suppose that lad that's laying there--' fagin began. sikes turned round to where noah was sleeping, as if he had not previously observed him. 'well!' he said, resuming his former position. 'suppose that lad,' pursued fagin, 'was to peach--to blow upon us all--first seeking out the right folks for the purpose, and then having a meeting with 'em in the street to paint our likenesses, describe every mark that they might know us by, and the crib where we might be most easily taken. suppose he was to do all this, and besides to blow upon a plant we've all been in, more or less--of his own fancy; not grabbed, trapped, tried, earwigged by the parson and brought to it on bread and water,--but of his own fancy; to please his own taste; stealing out at nights to find those most interested against us, and peaching to them. do you hear me?' cried the jew, his eyes flashing with rage. 'suppose he did all this, what then?' 'what then!' replied sikes; with a tremendous oath. 'if he was left alive till i came, i'd grind his skull under the iron heel of my boot into as many grains as there are hairs upon his head.' 'what if i did it!' cried fagin almost in a yell. 'i, that knows so much, and could hang so many besides myself!' 'i don't know,' replied sikes, clenching his teeth and turning white at the mere suggestion. 'i'd do something in the jail that 'ud get me put in irons; and if i was tried along with you, i'd fall upon you with them in the open court, and beat your brains out afore the people. i should have such strength,' muttered the robber, poising his brawny arm, 'that i could smash your head as if a loaded waggon had gone over it.' 'you would?' 'would i!' said the housebreaker. 'try me.' 'if it was charley, or the dodger, or bet, or--' 'i don't care who,' replied sikes impatiently. 'whoever it was, i'd serve them the same.' fagin looked hard at the robber; and, motioning him to be silent, stooped over the bed upon the floor, and shook the sleeper to rouse him. sikes leant forward in his chair: looking on with his hands upon his knees, as if wondering much what all this questioning and preparation was to end in. 'bolter, bolter! poor lad!' said fagin, looking up with an expression of devilish anticipation, and speaking slowly and with marked emphasis. 'he's tired--tired with watching for her so long,--watching for _her_, bill.' 'wot d'ye mean?' asked sikes, drawing back. fagin made no answer, but bending over the sleeper again, hauled him into a sitting posture. when his assumed name had been repeated several times, noah rubbed his eyes, and, giving a heavy yawn, looked sleepily about him. 'tell me that again--once again, just for him to hear,' said the jew, pointing to sikes as he spoke. 'tell yer what?' asked the sleepy noah, shaking himself pettishly. 'that about-- _nancy_,' said fagin, clutching sikes by the wrist, as if to prevent his leaving the house before he had heard enough. 'you followed her?' 'yes.' 'to london bridge?' 'yes.' 'where she met two people.' 'so she did.' 'a gentleman and a lady that she had gone to of her own accord before, who asked her to give up all her pals, and monks first, which she did--and to describe him, which she did--and to tell her what house it was that we meet at, and go to, which she did--and where it could be best watched from, which she did--and what time the people went there, which she did. she did all this. she told it all every word without a threat, without a murmur--she did--did she not?' cried fagin, half mad with fury. 'all right,' replied noah, scratching his head. 'that's just what it was!' 'what did they say, about last sunday?' 'about last sunday!' replied noah, considering. 'why i told yer that before.' 'again. tell it again!' cried fagin, tightening his grasp on sikes, and brandishing his other hand aloft, as the foam flew from his lips. 'they asked her,' said noah, who, as he grew more wakeful, seemed to have a dawning perception who sikes was, 'they asked her why she didn't come, last sunday, as she promised. she said she couldn't.' 'why--why? tell him that.' 'because she was forcibly kept at home by bill, the man she had told them of before,' replied noah. 'what more of him?' cried fagin. 'what more of the man she had told them of before? tell him that, tell him that.' 'why, that she couldn't very easily get out of doors unless he knew where she was going to,' said noah; 'and so the first time she went to see the lady, she--ha! ha! ha! it made me laugh when she said it, that it did--she gave him a drink of laudanum.' 'hell's fire!' cried sikes, breaking fiercely from the jew. 'let me go!' flinging the old man from him, he rushed from the room, and darted, wildly and furiously, up the stairs. 'bill, bill!' cried fagin, following him hastily. 'a word. only a word.' the word would not have been exchanged, but that the housebreaker was unable to open the door: on which he was expending fruitless oaths and violence, when the jew came panting up. 'let me out,' said sikes. 'don't speak to me; it's not safe. let me out, i say!' 'hear me speak a word,' rejoined fagin, laying his hand upon the lock. 'you won't be--' 'well,' replied the other. 'you won't be--too--violent, bill?' the day was breaking, and there was light enough for the men to see each other's faces. they exchanged one brief glance; there was a fire in the eyes of both, which could not be mistaken. 'i mean,' said fagin, showing that he felt all disguise was now useless, 'not too violent for safety. be crafty, bill, and not too bold.' sikes made no reply; but, pulling open the door, of which fagin had turned the lock, dashed into the silent streets. without one pause, or moment's consideration; without once turning his head to the right or left, or raising his eyes to the sky, or lowering them to the ground, but looking straight before him with savage resolution: his teeth so tightly compressed that the strained jaw seemed starting through his skin; the robber held on his headlong course, nor muttered a word, nor relaxed a muscle, until he reached his own door. he opened it, softly, with a key; strode lightly up the stairs; and entering his own room, double-locked the door, and lifting a heavy table against it, drew back the curtain of the bed. the girl was lying, half-dressed, upon it. he had roused her from her sleep, for she raised herself with a hurried and startled look. 'get up!' said the man. 'it is you, bill!' said the girl, with an expression of pleasure at his return. 'it is,' was the reply. 'get up.' there was a candle burning, but the man hastily drew it from the candlestick, and hurled it under the grate. seeing the faint light of early day without, the girl rose to undraw the curtain. 'let it be,' said sikes, thrusting his hand before her. 'there's enough light for wot i've got to do.' 'bill,' said the girl, in the low voice of alarm, 'why do you look like that at me!' the robber sat regarding her, for a few seconds, with dilated nostrils and heaving breast; and then, grasping her by the head and throat, dragged her into the middle of the room, and looking once towards the door, placed his heavy hand upon her mouth. 'bill, bill!' gasped the girl, wrestling with the strength of mortal fear,--'i--i won't scream or cry--not once--hear me--speak to me--tell me what i have done!' 'you know, you she devil!' returned the robber, suppressing his breath. 'you were watched to-night; every word you said was heard.' 'then spare my life for the love of heaven, as i spared yours,' rejoined the girl, clinging to him. 'bill, dear bill, you cannot have the heart to kill me. oh! think of all i have given up, only this one night, for you. you _shall_ have time to think, and save yourself this crime; i will not loose my hold, you cannot throw me off. bill, bill, for dear god's sake, for your own, for mine, stop before you spill my blood! i have been true to you, upon my guilty soul i have!' the man struggled violently, to release his arms; but those of the girl were clasped round his, and tear her as he would, he could not tear them away. 'bill,' cried the girl, striving to lay her head upon his breast, 'the gentleman and that dear lady, told me to-night of a home in some foreign country where i could end my days in solitude and peace. let me see them again, and beg them, on my knees, to show the same mercy and goodness to you; and let us both leave this dreadful place, and far apart lead better lives, and forget how we have lived, except in prayers, and never see each other more. it is never too late to repent. they told me so--i feel it now--but we must have time--a little, little time!' the housebreaker freed one arm, and grasped his pistol. the certainty of immediate detection if he fired, flashed across his mind even in the midst of his fury; and he beat it twice with all the force he could summon, upon the upturned face that almost touched his own. she staggered and fell: nearly blinded with the blood that rained down from a deep gash in her forehead; but raising herself, with difficulty, on her knees, drew from her bosom a white handkerchief--rose maylie's own--and holding it up, in her folded hands, as high towards heaven as her feeble strength would allow, breathed one prayer for mercy to her maker. it was a ghastly figure to look upon. the murderer staggering backward to the wall, and shutting out the sight with his hand, seized a heavy club and struck her down. chapter xlviii the flight of sikes of all bad deeds that, under cover of the darkness, had been committed within wide london's bounds since night hung over it, that was the worst. of all the horrors that rose with an ill scent upon the morning air, that was the foulest and most cruel. the sun--the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man--burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray. it lighted up the room where the murdered woman lay. it did. he tried to shut it out, but it would stream in. if the sight had been a ghastly one in the dull morning, what was it, now, in all that brilliant light! he had not moved; he had been afraid to stir. there had been a moan and motion of the hand; and, with terror added to rage, he had struck and struck again. once he threw a rug over it; but it was worse to fancy the eyes, and imagine them moving towards him, than to see them glaring upward, as if watching the reflection of the pool of gore that quivered and danced in the sunlight on the ceiling. he had plucked it off again. and there was the body--mere flesh and blood, no more--but such flesh, and so much blood! he struck a light, kindled a fire, and thrust the club into it. there was hair upon the end, which blazed and shrunk into a light cinder, and, caught by the air, whirled up the chimney. even that frightened him, sturdy as he was; but he held the weapon till it broke, and then piled it on the coals to burn away, and smoulder into ashes. he washed himself, and rubbed his clothes; there were spots that would not be removed, but he cut the pieces out, and burnt them. how those stains were dispersed about the room! the very feet of the dog were bloody. all this time he had, never once, turned his back upon the corpse; no, not for a moment. such preparations completed, he moved, backward, towards the door: dragging the dog with him, lest he should soil his feet anew and carry out new evidence of the crime into the streets. he shut the door softly, locked it, took the key, and left the house. he crossed over, and glanced up at the window, to be sure that nothing was visible from the outside. there was the curtain still drawn, which she would have opened to admit the light she never saw again. it lay nearly under there. _he_ knew that. god, how the sun poured down upon the very spot! the glance was instantaneous. it was a relief to have got free of the room. he whistled on the dog, and walked rapidly away. he went through islington; strode up the hill at highgate on which stands the stone in honour of whittington; turned down to highgate hill, unsteady of purpose, and uncertain where to go; struck off to the right again, almost as soon as he began to descend it; and taking the foot-path across the fields, skirted caen wood, and so came on hampstead heath. traversing the hollow by the vale of heath, he mounted the opposite bank, and crossing the road which joins the villages of hampstead and highgate, made along the remaining portion of the heath to the fields at north end, in one of which he laid himself down under a hedge, and slept. soon he was up again, and away,--not far into the country, but back towards london by the high-road--then back again--then over another part of the same ground as he already traversed--then wandering up and down in fields, and lying on ditches' brinks to rest, and starting up to make for some other spot, and do the same, and ramble on again. where could he go, that was near and not too public, to get some meat and drink? hendon. that was a good place, not far off, and out of most people's way. thither he directed his steps,--running sometimes, and sometimes, with a strange perversity, loitering at a snail's pace, or stopping altogether and idly breaking the hedges with a stick. but when he got there, all the people he met--the very children at the doors--seemed to view him with suspicion. back he turned again, without the courage to purchase bit or drop, though he had tasted no food for many hours; and once more he lingered on the heath, uncertain where to go. he wandered over miles and miles of ground, and still came back to the old place. morning and noon had passed, and the day was on the wane, and still he rambled to and fro, and up and down, and round and round, and still lingered about the same spot. at last he got away, and shaped his course for hatfield. it was nine o'clock at night, when the man, quite tired out, and the dog, limping and lame from the unaccustomed exercise, turned down the hill by the church of the quiet village, and plodding along the little street, crept into a small public-house, whose scanty light had guided them to the spot. there was a fire in the tap-room, and some country-labourers were drinking before it. they made room for the stranger, but he sat down in the furthest corner, and ate and drank alone, or rather with his dog: to whom he cast a morsel of food from time to time. the conversation of the men assembled here, turned upon the neighbouring land, and farmers; and when those topics were exhausted, upon the age of some old man who had been buried on the previous sunday; the young men present considering him very old, and the old men present declaring him to have been quite young--not older, one white-haired grandfather said, than he was--with ten or fifteen year of life in him at least--if he had taken care; if he had taken care. there was nothing to attract attention, or excite alarm in this. the robber, after paying his reckoning, sat silent and unnoticed in his corner, and had almost dropped asleep, when he was half wakened by the noisy entrance of a new comer. this was an antic fellow, half pedlar and half mountebank, who travelled about the country on foot to vend hones, strops, razors, washballs, harness-paste, medicine for dogs and horses, cheap perfumery, cosmetics, and such-like wares, which he carried in a case slung to his back. his entrance was the signal for various homely jokes with the countrymen, which slackened not until he had made his supper, and opened his box of treasures, when he ingeniously contrived to unite business with amusement. 'and what be that stoof? good to eat, harry?' asked a grinning countryman, pointing to some composition-cakes in one corner. 'this,' said the fellow, producing one, 'this is the infallible and invaluable composition for removing all sorts of stain, rust, dirt, mildew, spick, speck, spot, or spatter, from silk, satin, linen, cambric, cloth, crape, stuff, carpet, merino, muslin, bombazeen, or woollen stuff. wine-stains, fruit-stains, beer-stains, water-stains, paint-stains, pitch-stains, any stains, all come out at one rub with the infallible and invaluable composition. if a lady stains her honour, she has only need to swallow one cake and she's cured at once--for it's poison. if a gentleman wants to prove this, he has only need to bolt one little square, and he has put it beyond question--for it's quite as satisfactory as a pistol-bullet, and a great deal nastier in the flavour, consequently the more credit in taking it. one penny a square. with all these virtues, one penny a square!' there were two buyers directly, and more of the listeners plainly hesitated. the vendor observing this, increased in loquacity. 'it's all bought up as fast as it can be made,' said the fellow. 'there are fourteen water-mills, six steam-engines, and a galvanic battery, always a-working upon it, and they can't make it fast enough, though the men work so hard that they die off, and the widows is pensioned directly, with twenty pound a-year for each of the children, and a premium of fifty for twins. one penny a square! two half-pence is all the same, and four farthings is received with joy. one penny a square! wine-stains, fruit-stains, beer-stains, water-stains, paint-stains, pitch-stains, mud-stains, blood-stains! here is a stain upon the hat of a gentleman in company, that i'll take clean out, before he can order me a pint of ale.' 'hah!' cried sikes starting up. 'give that back.' 'i'll take it clean out, sir,' replied the man, winking to the company, 'before you can come across the room to get it. gentlemen all, observe the dark stain upon this gentleman's hat, no wider than a shilling, but thicker than a half-crown. whether it is a wine-stain, fruit-stain, beer-stain, water-stain, paint-stain, pitch-stain, mud-stain, or blood-stain--' the man got no further, for sikes with a hideous imprecation overthrew the table, and tearing the hat from him, burst out of the house. with the same perversity of feeling and irresolution that had fastened upon him, despite himself, all day, the murderer, finding that he was not followed, and that they most probably considered him some drunken sullen fellow, turned back up the town, and getting out of the glare of the lamps of a stage-coach that was standing in the street, was walking past, when he recognised the mail from london, and saw that it was standing at the little post-office. he almost knew what was to come; but he crossed over, and listened. the guard was standing at the door, waiting for the letter-bag. a man, dressed like a game-keeper, came up at the moment, and he handed him a basket which lay ready on the pavement. 'that's for your people,' said the guard. 'now, look alive in there, will you. damn that 'ere bag, it warn't ready night afore last; this won't do, you know!' 'anything new up in town, ben?' asked the game-keeper, drawing back to the window-shutters, the better to admire the horses. 'no, nothing that i knows on,' replied the man, pulling on his gloves. 'corn's up a little. i heerd talk of a murder, too, down spitalfields way, but i don't reckon much upon it.' 'oh, that's quite true,' said a gentleman inside, who was looking out of the window. 'and a dreadful murder it was.' 'was it, sir?' rejoined the guard, touching his hat. 'man or woman, pray, sir?' 'a woman,' replied the gentleman. 'it is supposed--' 'now, ben,' replied the coachman impatiently. 'damn that 'ere bag,' said the guard; 'are you gone to sleep in there?' 'coming!' cried the office keeper, running out. 'coming,' growled the guard. 'ah, and so's the young 'ooman of property that's going to take a fancy to me, but i don't know when. here, give hold. all ri--ight!' the horn sounded a few cheerful notes, and the coach was gone. sikes remained standing in the street, apparently unmoved by what he had just heard, and agitated by no stronger feeling than a doubt where to go. at length he went back again, and took the road which leads from hatfield to st. albans. he went on doggedly; but as he left the town behind him, and plunged into the solitude and darkness of the road, he felt a dread and awe creeping upon him which shook him to the core. every object before him, substance or shadow, still or moving, took the semblance of some fearful thing; but these fears were nothing compared to the sense that haunted him of that morning's ghastly figure following at his heels. he could trace its shadow in the gloom, supply the smallest item of the outline, and note how stiff and solemn it seemed to stalk along. he could hear its garments rustling in the leaves, and every breath of wind came laden with that last low cry. if he stopped it did the same. if he ran, it followed--not running too: that would have been a relief: but like a corpse endowed with the mere machinery of life, and borne on one slow melancholy wind that never rose or fell. at times, he turned, with desperate determination, resolved to beat this phantom off, though it should look him dead; but the hair rose on his head, and his blood stood still, for it had turned with him and was behind him then. he had kept it before him that morning, but it was behind now--always. he leaned his back against a bank, and felt that it stood above him, visibly out against the cold night-sky. he threw himself upon the road--on his back upon the road. at his head it stood, silent, erect, and still--a living grave-stone, with its epitaph in blood. let no man talk of murderers escaping justice, and hint that providence must sleep. there were twenty score of violent deaths in one long minute of that agony of fear. there was a shed in a field he passed, that offered shelter for the night. before the door, were three tall poplar trees, which made it very dark within; and the wind moaned through them with a dismal wail. he _could not_ walk on, till daylight came again; and here he stretched himself close to the wall--to undergo new torture. for now, a vision came before him, as constant and more terrible than that from which he had escaped. those widely staring eyes, so lustreless and so glassy, that he had better borne to see them than think upon them, appeared in the midst of the darkness: light in themselves, but giving light to nothing. there were but two, but they were everywhere. if he shut out the sight, there came the room with every well-known object--some, indeed, that he would have forgotten, if he had gone over its contents from memory--each in its accustomed place. the body was in _its_ place, and its eyes were as he saw them when he stole away. he got up, and rushed into the field without. the figure was behind him. he re-entered the shed, and shrunk down once more. the eyes were there, before he had laid himself along. and here he remained in such terror as none but he can know, trembling in every limb, and the cold sweat starting from every pore, when suddenly there arose upon the night-wind the noise of distant shouting, and the roar of voices mingled in alarm and wonder. any sound of men in that lonely place, even though it conveyed a real cause of alarm, was something to him. he regained his strength and energy at the prospect of personal danger; and springing to his feet, rushed into the open air. the broad sky seemed on fire. rising into the air with showers of sparks, and rolling one above the other, were sheets of flame, lighting the atmosphere for miles round, and driving clouds of smoke in the direction where he stood. the shouts grew louder as new voices swelled the roar, and he could hear the cry of fire! mingled with the ringing of an alarm-bell, the fall of heavy bodies, and the crackling of flames as they twined round some new obstacle, and shot aloft as though refreshed by food. the noise increased as he looked. there were people there--men and women--light, bustle. it was like new life to him. he darted onward--straight, headlong--dashing through brier and brake, and leaping gate and fence as madly as his dog, who careered with loud and sounding bark before him. he came upon the spot. there were half-dressed figures tearing to and fro, some endeavouring to drag the frightened horses from the stables, others driving the cattle from the yard and out-houses, and others coming laden from the burning pile, amidst a shower of falling sparks, and the tumbling down of red-hot beams. the apertures, where doors and windows stood an hour ago, disclosed a mass of raging fire; walls rocked and crumbled into the burning well; the molten lead and iron poured down, white hot, upon the ground. women and children shrieked, and men encouraged each other with noisy shouts and cheers. the clanking of the engine-pumps, and the spirting and hissing of the water as it fell upon the blazing wood, added to the tremendous roar. he shouted, too, till he was hoarse; and flying from memory and himself, plunged into the thickest of the throng. hither and thither he dived that night: now working at the pumps, and now hurrying through the smoke and flame, but never ceasing to engage himself wherever noise and men were thickest. up and down the ladders, upon the roofs of buildings, over floors that quaked and trembled with his weight, under the lee of falling bricks and stones, in every part of that great fire was he; but he bore a charmed life, and had neither scratch nor bruise, nor weariness nor thought, till morning dawned again, and only smoke and blackened ruins remained. this mad excitement over, there returned, with ten-fold force, the dreadful consciousness of his crime. he looked suspiciously about him, for the men were conversing in groups, and he feared to be the subject of their talk. the dog obeyed the significant beck of his finger, and they drew off, stealthily, together. he passed near an engine where some men were seated, and they called to him to share in their refreshment. he took some bread and meat; and as he drank a draught of beer, heard the firemen, who were from london, talking about the murder. 'he has gone to birmingham, they say,' said one: 'but they'll have him yet, for the scouts are out, and by to-morrow night there'll be a cry all through the country.' he hurried off, and walked till he almost dropped upon the ground; then lay down in a lane, and had a long, but broken and uneasy sleep. he wandered on again, irresolute and undecided, and oppressed with the fear of another solitary night. suddenly, he took the desperate resolution to going back to london. 'there's somebody to speak to there, at all event,' he thought. 'a good hiding-place, too. they'll never expect to nab me there, after this country scent. why can't i lie by for a week or so, and, forcing blunt from fagin, get abroad to france? damme, i'll risk it.' he acted upon this impulse without delay, and choosing the least frequented roads began his journey back, resolved to lie concealed within a short distance of the metropolis, and, entering it at dusk by a circuitous route, to proceed straight to that part of it which he had fixed on for his destination. the dog, though. if any description of him were out, it would not be forgotten that the dog was missing, and had probably gone with him. this might lead to his apprehension as he passed along the streets. he resolved to drown him, and walked on, looking about for a pond: picking up a heavy stone and tying it to his handkerchief as he went. the animal looked up into his master's face while these preparations were making; whether his instinct apprehended something of their purpose, or the robber's sidelong look at him was sterner than ordinary, he skulked a little farther in the rear than usual, and cowered as he came more slowly along. when his master halted at the brink of a pool, and looked round to call him, he stopped outright. 'do you hear me call? come here!' cried sikes. the animal came up from the very force of habit; but as sikes stooped to attach the handkerchief to his throat, he uttered a low growl and started back. 'come back!' said the robber. the dog wagged his tail, but moved not. sikes made a running noose and called him again. the dog advanced, retreated, paused an instant, and scoured away at his hardest speed. the man whistled again and again, and sat down and waited in the expectation that he would return. but no dog appeared, and at length he resumed his journey. chapter xlix monks and mr. brownlow at length meet. their conversation, and the intelligence that interrupts it the twilight was beginning to close in, when mr. brownlow alighted from a hackney-coach at his own door, and knocked softly. the door being opened, a sturdy man got out of the coach and stationed himself on one side of the steps, while another man, who had been seated on the box, dismounted too, and stood upon the other side. at a sign from mr. brownlow, they helped out a third man, and taking him between them, hurried him into the house. this man was monks. they walked in the same manner up the stairs without speaking, and mr. brownlow, preceding them, led the way into a back-room. at the door of this apartment, monks, who had ascended with evident reluctance, stopped. the two men looked at the old gentleman as if for instructions. 'he knows the alternative,' said mr. browlow. 'if he hesitates or moves a finger but as you bid him, drag him into the street, call for the aid of the police, and impeach him as a felon in my name.' 'how dare you say this of me?' asked monks. 'how dare you urge me to it, young man?' replied mr. brownlow, confronting him with a steady look. 'are you mad enough to leave this house? unhand him. there, sir. you are free to go, and we to follow. but i warn you, by all i hold most solemn and most sacred, that instant will have you apprehended on a charge of fraud and robbery. i am resolute and immoveable. if you are determined to be the same, your blood be upon your own head!' 'by what authority am i kidnapped in the street, and brought here by these dogs?' asked monks, looking from one to the other of the men who stood beside him. 'by mine,' replied mr. brownlow. 'those persons are indemnified by me. if you complain of being deprived of your liberty--you had power and opportunity to retrieve it as you came along, but you deemed it advisable to remain quiet--i say again, throw yourself for protection on the law. i will appeal to the law too; but when you have gone too far to recede, do not sue to me for leniency, when the power will have passed into other hands; and do not say i plunged you down the gulf into which you rushed, yourself.' monks was plainly disconcerted, and alarmed besides. he hesitated. 'you will decide quickly,' said mr. brownlow, with perfect firmness and composure. 'if you wish me to prefer my charges publicly, and consign you to a punishment the extent of which, although i can, with a shudder, foresee, i cannot control, once more, i say, for you know the way. if not, and you appeal to my forbearance, and the mercy of those you have deeply injured, seat yourself, without a word, in that chair. it has waited for you two whole days.' monks muttered some unintelligible words, but wavered still. 'you will be prompt,' said mr. brownlow. 'a word from me, and the alternative has gone for ever.' still the man hesitated. 'i have not the inclination to parley,' said mr. brownlow, 'and, as i advocate the dearest interests of others, i have not the right.' 'is there--' demanded monks with a faltering tongue,--'is there--no middle course?' 'none.' monks looked at the old gentleman, with an anxious eye; but, reading in his countenance nothing but severity and determination, walked into the room, and, shrugging his shoulders, sat down. 'lock the door on the outside,' said mr. brownlow to the attendants, 'and come when i ring.' the men obeyed, and the two were left alone together. 'this is pretty treatment, sir,' said monks, throwing down his hat and cloak, 'from my father's oldest friend.' 'it is because i was your father's oldest friend, young man,' returned mr. brownlow; 'it is because the hopes and wishes of young and happy years were bound up with him, and that fair creature of his blood and kindred who rejoined her god in youth, and left me here a solitary, lonely man: it is because he knelt with me beside his only sisters's death-bed when he was yet a boy, on the morning that would--but heaven willed otherwise--have made her my young wife; it is because my seared heart clung to him, from that time forth, through all his trials and errors, till he died; it is because old recollections and associations filled my heart, and even the sight of you brings with it old thoughts of him; it is because of all these things that i am moved to treat you gently now--yes, edward leeford, even now--and blush for your unworthiness who bear the name.' 'what has the name to do with it?' asked the other, after contemplating, half in silence, and half in dogged wonder, the agitation of his companion. 'what is the name to me?' 'nothing,' replied mr. brownlow, 'nothing to you. but it was _hers_, and even at this distance of time brings back to me, an old man, the glow and thrill which i once felt, only to hear it repeated by a stranger. i am very glad you have changed it--very--very.' 'this is all mighty fine,' said monks (to retain his assumed designation) after a long silence, during which he had jerked himself in sullen defiance to and fro, and mr. brownlow had sat, shading his face with his hand. 'but what do you want with me?' 'you have a brother,' said mr. brownlow, rousing himself: 'a brother, the whisper of whose name in your ear when i came behind you in the street, was, in itself, almost enough to make you accompany me hither, in wonder and alarm.' 'i have no brother,' replied monks. 'you know i was an only child. why do you talk to me of brothers? you know that, as well as i.' 'attend to what i do know, and you may not,' said mr. brownlow. 'i shall interest you by and by. i know that of the wretched marriage, into which family pride, and the most sordid and narrowest of all ambition, forced your unhappy father when a mere boy, you were the sole and most unnatural issue.' 'i don't care for hard names,' interrupted monks with a jeering laugh. 'you know the fact, and that's enough for me.' 'but i also know,' pursued the old gentleman, 'the misery, the slow torture, the protracted anguish of that ill-assorted union. i know how listlessly and wearily each of that wretched pair dragged on their heavy chain through a world that was poisoned to them both. i know how cold formalities were succeeded by open taunts; how indifference gave place to dislike, dislike to hate, and hate to loathing, until at last they wrenched the clanking bond asunder, and retiring a wide space apart, carried each a galling fragment, of which nothing but death could break the rivets, to hide it in new society beneath the gayest looks they could assume. your mother succeeded; she forgot it soon. but it rusted and cankered at your father's heart for years.' 'well, they were separated,' said monks, 'and what of that?' 'when they had been separated for some time,' returned mr. brownlow, 'and your mother, wholly given up to continental frivolities, had utterly forgotten the young husband ten good years her junior, who, with prospects blighted, lingered on at home, he fell among new friends. this circumstance, at least, you know already.' 'not i,' said monks, turning away his eyes and beating his foot upon the ground, as a man who is determined to deny everything. 'not i.' 'your manner, no less than your actions, assures me that you have never forgotten it, or ceased to think of it with bitterness,' returned mr. brownlow. 'i speak of fifteen years ago, when you were not more than eleven years old, and your father but one-and-thirty--for he was, i repeat, a boy, when _his_ father ordered him to marry. must i go back to events which cast a shade upon the memory of your parent, or will you spare it, and disclose to me the truth?' 'i have nothing to disclose,' rejoined monks. 'you must talk on if you will.' 'these new friends, then,' said mr. brownlow, 'were a naval officer retired from active service, whose wife had died some half-a-year before, and left him with two children--there had been more, but, of all their family, happily but two survived. they were both daughters; one a beautiful creature of nineteen, and the other a mere child of two or three years old.' 'what's this to me?' asked monks. 'they resided,' said mr. brownlow, without seeming to hear the interruption, 'in a part of the country to which your father in his wandering had repaired, and where he had taken up his abode. acquaintance, intimacy, friendship, fast followed on each other. your father was gifted as few men are. he had his sister's soul and person. as the old officer knew him more and more, he grew to love him. i would that it had ended there. his daughter did the same.' the old gentleman paused; monks was biting his lips, with his eyes fixed upon the floor; seeing this, he immediately resumed: 'the end of a year found him contracted, solemnly contracted, to that daughter; the object of the first, true, ardent, only passion of a guileless girl.' 'your tale is of the longest,' observed monks, moving restlessly in his chair. 'it is a true tale of grief and trial, and sorrow, young man,' returned mr. brownlow, 'and such tales usually are; if it were one of unmixed joy and happiness, it would be very brief. at length one of those rich relations to strengthen whose interest and importance your father had been sacrificed, as others are often--it is no uncommon case--died, and to repair the misery he had been instrumental in occasioning, left him his panacea for all griefs--money. it was necessary that he should immediately repair to rome, whither this man had sped for health, and where he had died, leaving his affairs in great confusion. he went; was seized with mortal illness there; was followed, the moment the intelligence reached paris, by your mother who carried you with her; he died the day after her arrival, leaving no will--_no will_--so that the whole property fell to her and you.' at this part of the recital monks held his breath, and listened with a face of intense eagerness, though his eyes were not directed towards the speaker. as mr. brownlow paused, he changed his position with the air of one who has experienced a sudden relief, and wiped his hot face and hands. 'before he went abroad, and as he passed through london on his way,' said mr. brownlow, slowly, and fixing his eyes upon the other's face, 'he came to me.' 'i never heard of that,' interrupted monks in a tone intended to appear incredulous, but savouring more of disagreeable surprise. 'he came to me, and left with me, among some other things, a picture--a portrait painted by himself--a likeness of this poor girl--which he did not wish to leave behind, and could not carry forward on his hasty journey. he was worn by anxiety and remorse almost to a shadow; talked in a wild, distracted way, of ruin and dishonour worked by himself; confided to me his intention to convert his whole property, at any loss, into money, and, having settled on his wife and you a portion of his recent acquisition, to fly the country--i guessed too well he would not fly alone--and never see it more. even from me, his old and early friend, whose strong attachment had taken root in the earth that covered one most dear to both--even from me he withheld any more particular confession, promising to write and tell me all, and after that to see me once again, for the last time on earth. alas! _that_ was the last time. i had no letter, and i never saw him more.' 'i went,' said mr. brownlow, after a short pause, 'i went, when all was over, to the scene of his--i will use the term the world would freely use, for worldly harshness or favour are now alike to him--of his guilty love, resolved that if my fears were realised that erring child should find one heart and home to shelter and compassionate her. the family had left that part a week before; they had called in such trifling debts as were outstanding, discharged them, and left the place by night. why, or whither, none can tell.' monks drew his breath yet more freely, and looked round with a smile of triumph. 'when your brother,' said mr. brownlow, drawing nearer to the other's chair, 'when your brother: a feeble, ragged, neglected child: was cast in my way by a stronger hand than chance, and rescued by me from a life of vice and infamy--' 'what?' cried monks. 'by me,' said mr. brownlow. 'i told you i should interest you before long. i say by me--i see that your cunning associate suppressed my name, although for ought he knew, it would be quite strange to your ears. when he was rescued by me, then, and lay recovering from sickness in my house, his strong resemblance to this picture i have spoken of, struck me with astonishment. even when i first saw him in all his dirt and misery, there was a lingering expression in his face that came upon me like a glimpse of some old friend flashing on one in a vivid dream. i need not tell you he was snared away before i knew his history--' 'why not?' asked monks hastily. 'because you know it well.' 'i!' 'denial to me is vain,' replied mr. brownlow. 'i shall show you that i know more than that.' 'you--you--can't prove anything against me,' stammered monks. 'i defy you to do it!' 'we shall see,' returned the old gentleman with a searching glance. 'i lost the boy, and no efforts of mine could recover him. your mother being dead, i knew that you alone could solve the mystery if anybody could, and as when i had last heard of you you were on your own estate in the west indies--whither, as you well know, you retired upon your mother's death to escape the consequences of vicious courses here--i made the voyage. you had left it, months before, and were supposed to be in london, but no one could tell where. i returned. your agents had no clue to your residence. you came and went, they said, as strangely as you had ever done: sometimes for days together and sometimes not for months: keeping to all appearance the same low haunts and mingling with the same infamous herd who had been your associates when a fierce ungovernable boy. i wearied them with new applications. i paced the streets by night and day, but until two hours ago, all my efforts were fruitless, and i never saw you for an instant.' 'and now you do see me,' said monks, rising boldly, 'what then? fraud and robbery are high-sounding words--justified, you think, by a fancied resemblance in some young imp to an idle daub of a dead man's brother! you don't even know that a child was born of this maudlin pair; you don't even know that.' 'i _did not_,' replied mr. brownlow, rising too; 'but within the last fortnight i have learnt it all. you have a brother; you know it, and him. there was a will, which your mother destroyed, leaving the secret and the gain to you at her own death. it contained a reference to some child likely to be the result of this sad connection, which child was born, and accidentally encountered by you, when your suspicions were first awakened by his resemblance to your father. you repaired to the place of his birth. there existed proofs--proofs long suppressed--of his birth and parentage. those proofs were destroyed by you, and now, in your own words to your accomplice the jew, "_the only proofs of the boy's identity lie at the bottom of the river, and the old hag that received them from the mother is rotting in her coffin_." unworthy son, coward, liar,--you, who hold your councils with thieves and murderers in dark rooms at night,--you, whose plots and wiles have brought a violent death upon the head of one worth millions such as you,--you, who from your cradle were gall and bitterness to your own father's heart, and in whom all evil passions, vice, and profligacy, festered, till they found a vent in a hideous disease which had made your face an index even to your mind--you, edward leeford, do you still brave me!' 'no, no, no!' returned the coward, overwhelmed by these accumulated charges. 'every word!' cried the gentleman, 'every word that has passed between you and this detested villain, is known to me. shadows on the wall have caught your whispers, and brought them to my ear; the sight of the persecuted child has turned vice itself, and given it the courage and almost the attributes of virtue. murder has been done, to which you were morally if not really a party.' 'no, no,' interposed monks. 'i--i knew nothing of that; i was going to inquire the truth of the story when you overtook me. i didn't know the cause. i thought it was a common quarrel.' 'it was the partial disclosure of your secrets,' replied mr. brownlow. 'will you disclose the whole?' 'yes, i will.' 'set your hand to a statement of truth and facts, and repeat it before witnesses?' 'that i promise too.' 'remain quietly here, until such a document is drawn up, and proceed with me to such a place as i may deem most advisable, for the purpose of attesting it?' 'if you insist upon that, i'll do that also,' replied monks. 'you must do more than that,' said mr. brownlow. 'make restitution to an innocent and unoffending child, for such he is, although the offspring of a guilty and most miserable love. you have not forgotten the provisions of the will. carry them into execution so far as your brother is concerned, and then go where you please. in this world you need meet no more.' while monks was pacing up and down, meditating with dark and evil looks on this proposal and the possibilities of evading it: torn by his fears on the one hand and his hatred on the other: the door was hurriedly unlocked, and a gentleman (mr. losberne) entered the room in violent agitation. 'the man will be taken,' he cried. 'he will be taken to-night!' 'the murderer?' asked mr. brownlow. 'yes, yes,' replied the other. 'his dog has been seen lurking about some old haunt, and there seems little doubt that his master either is, or will be, there, under cover of the darkness. spies are hovering about in every direction. i have spoken to the men who are charged with his capture, and they tell me he cannot escape. a reward of a hundred pounds is proclaimed by government to-night.' 'i will give fifty more,' said mr. brownlow, 'and proclaim it with my own lips upon the spot, if i can reach it. where is mr. maylie?' 'harry? as soon as he had seen your friend here, safe in a coach with you, he hurried off to where he heard this,' replied the doctor, 'and mounting his horse sallied forth to join the first party at some place in the outskirts agreed upon between them.' 'fagin,' said mr. brownlow; 'what of him?' 'when i last heard, he had not been taken, but he will be, or is, by this time. they're sure of him.' 'have you made up your mind?' asked mr. brownlow, in a low voice, of monks. 'yes,' he replied. 'you--you--will be secret with me?' 'i will. remain here till i return. it is your only hope of safety.' they left the room, and the door was again locked. 'what have you done?' asked the doctor in a whisper. 'all that i could hope to do, and even more. coupling the poor girl's intelligence with my previous knowledge, and the result of our good friend's inquiries on the spot, i left him no loophole of escape, and laid bare the whole villainy which by these lights became plain as day. write and appoint the evening after to-morrow, at seven, for the meeting. we shall be down there, a few hours before, but shall require rest: especially the young lady, who _may_ have greater need of firmness than either you or i can quite foresee just now. but my blood boils to avenge this poor murdered creature. which way have they taken?' 'drive straight to the office and you will be in time,' replied mr. losberne. 'i will remain here.' the two gentlemen hastily separated; each in a fever of excitement wholly uncontrollable. chapter l the pursuit and escape near to that part of the thames on which the church at rotherhithe abuts, where the buildings on the banks are dirtiest and the vessels on the river blackest with the dust of colliers and the smoke of close-built low-roofed houses, there exists the filthiest, the strangest, the most extraordinary of the many localities that are hidden in london, wholly unknown, even by name, to the great mass of its inhabitants. to reach this place, the visitor has to penetrate through a maze of close, narrow, and muddy streets, thronged by the roughest and poorest of waterside people, and devoted to the traffic they may be supposed to occasion. the cheapest and least delicate provisions are heaped in the shops; the coarsest and commonest articles of wearing apparel dangle at the salesman's door, and stream from the house-parapet and windows. jostling with unemployed labourers of the lowest class, ballast-heavers, coal-whippers, brazen women, ragged children, and the raff and refuse of the river, he makes his way with difficulty along, assailed by offensive sights and smells from the narrow alleys which branch off on the right and left, and deafened by the clash of ponderous waggons that bear great piles of merchandise from the stacks of warehouses that rise from every corner. arriving, at length, in streets remoter and less-frequented than those through which he has passed, he walks beneath tottering house-fronts projecting over the pavement, dismantled walls that seem to totter as he passes, chimneys half crushed half hesitating to fall, windows guarded by rusty iron bars that time and dirt have almost eaten away, every imaginable sign of desolation and neglect. in such a neighborhood, beyond dockhead in the borough of southwark, stands jacob's island, surrounded by a muddy ditch, six or eight feet deep and fifteen or twenty wide when the tide is in, once called mill pond, but known in the days of this story as folly ditch. it is a creek or inlet from the thames, and can always be filled at high water by opening the sluices at the lead mills from which it took its old name. at such times, a stranger, looking from one of the wooden bridges thrown across it at mill lane, will see the inhabitants of the houses on either side lowering from their back doors and windows, buckets, pails, domestic utensils of all kinds, in which to haul the water up; and when his eye is turned from these operations to the houses themselves, his utmost astonishment will be excited by the scene before him. crazy wooden galleries common to the backs of half a dozen houses, with holes from which to look upon the slime beneath; windows, broken and patched, with poles thrust out, on which to dry the linen that is never there; rooms so small, so filthy, so confined, that the air would seem too tainted even for the dirt and squalor which they shelter; wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud, and threatening to fall into it--as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations; every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage; all these ornament the banks of folly ditch. in jacob's island, the warehouses are roofless and empty; the walls are crumbling down; the windows are windows no more; the doors are falling into the streets; the chimneys are blackened, but they yield no smoke. thirty or forty years ago, before losses and chancery suits came upon it, it was a thriving place; but now it is a desolate island indeed. the houses have no owners; they are broken open, and entered upon by those who have the courage; and there they live, and there they die. they must have powerful motives for a secret residence, or be reduced to a destitute condition indeed, who seek a refuge in jacob's island. in an upper room of one of these houses--a detached house of fair size, ruinous in other respects, but strongly defended at door and window: of which house the back commanded the ditch in manner already described--there were assembled three men, who, regarding each other every now and then with looks expressive of perplexity and expectation, sat for some time in profound and gloomy silence. one of these was toby crackit, another mr. chitling, and the third a robber of fifty years, whose nose had been almost beaten in, in some old scuffle, and whose face bore a frightful scar which might probably be traced to the same occasion. this man was a returned transport, and his name was kags. 'i wish,' said toby turning to mr. chitling, 'that you had picked out some other crib when the two old ones got too warm, and had not come here, my fine feller.' 'why didn't you, blunder-head!' said kags. 'well, i thought you'd have been a little more glad to see me than this,' replied mr. chitling, with a melancholy air. 'why, look'e, young gentleman,' said toby, 'when a man keeps himself so very ex-clusive as i have done, and by that means has a snug house over his head with nobody a prying and smelling about it, it's rather a startling thing to have the honour of a wisit from a young gentleman (however respectable and pleasant a person he may be to play cards with at conweniency) circumstanced as you are.' 'especially, when the exclusive young man has got a friend stopping with him, that's arrived sooner than was expected from foreign parts, and is too modest to want to be presented to the judges on his return,' added mr. kags. there was a short silence, after which toby crackit, seeming to abandon as hopeless any further effort to maintain his usual devil-may-care swagger, turned to chitling and said, 'when was fagin took then?' 'just at dinner-time--two o'clock this afternoon. charley and i made our lucky up the wash-us chimney, and bolter got into the empty water-butt, head downwards; but his legs were so precious long that they stuck out at the top, and so they took him too.' 'and bet?' 'poor bet! she went to see the body, to speak to who it was,' replied chitling, his countenance falling more and more, 'and went off mad, screaming and raving, and beating her head against the boards; so they put a strait-weskut on her and took her to the hospital--and there she is.' 'wot's come of young bates?' demanded kags. 'he hung about, not to come over here afore dark, but he'll be here soon,' replied chitling. 'there's nowhere else to go to now, for the people at the cripples are all in custody, and the bar of the ken--i went up there and see it with my own eyes--is filled with traps.' 'this is a smash,' observed toby, biting his lips. 'there's more than one will go with this.' 'the sessions are on,' said kags: 'if they get the inquest over, and bolter turns king's evidence: as of course he will, from what he's said already: they can prove fagin an accessory before the fact, and get the trial on on friday, and he'll swing in six days from this, by g--!' 'you should have heard the people groan,' said chitling; 'the officers fought like devils, or they'd have torn him away. he was down once, but they made a ring round him, and fought their way along. you should have seen how he looked about him, all muddy and bleeding, and clung to them as if they were his dearest friends. i can see 'em now, not able to stand upright with the pressing of the mob, and draggin him along amongst 'em; i can see the people jumping up, one behind another, and snarling with their teeth and making at him; i can see the blood upon his hair and beard, and hear the cries with which the women worked themselves into the centre of the crowd at the street corner, and swore they'd tear his heart out!' the horror-stricken witness of this scene pressed his hands upon his ears, and with his eyes closed got up and paced violently to and fro, like one distracted. while he was thus engaged, and the two men sat by in silence with their eyes fixed upon the floor, a pattering noise was heard upon the stairs, and sikes's dog bounded into the room. they ran to the window, downstairs, and into the street. the dog had jumped in at an open window; he made no attempt to follow them, nor was his master to be seen. 'what's the meaning of this?' said toby when they had returned. 'he can't be coming here. i--i--hope not.' 'if he was coming here, he'd have come with the dog,' said kags, stooping down to examine the animal, who lay panting on the floor. 'here! give us some water for him; he has run himself faint.' 'he's drunk it all up, every drop,' said chitling after watching the dog some time in silence. 'covered with mud--lame--half blind--he must have come a long way.' 'where can he have come from!' exclaimed toby. 'he's been to the other kens of course, and finding them filled with strangers come on here, where he's been many a time and often. but where can he have come from first, and how comes he here alone without the other!' 'he'--(none of them called the murderer by his old name)--'he can't have made away with himself. what do you think?' said chitling. toby shook his head. 'if he had,' said kags, 'the dog 'ud want to lead us away to where he did it. no. i think he's got out of the country, and left the dog behind. he must have given him the slip somehow, or he wouldn't be so easy.' this solution, appearing the most probable one, was adopted as the right; the dog, creeping under a chair, coiled himself up to sleep, without more notice from anybody. it being now dark, the shutter was closed, and a candle lighted and placed upon the table. the terrible events of the last two days had made a deep impression on all three, increased by the danger and uncertainty of their own position. they drew their chairs closer together, starting at every sound. they spoke little, and that in whispers, and were as silent and awe-stricken as if the remains of the murdered woman lay in the next room. they had sat thus, some time, when suddenly was heard a hurried knocking at the door below. 'young bates,' said kags, looking angrily round, to check the fear he felt himself. the knocking came again. no, it wasn't he. he never knocked like that. crackit went to the window, and shaking all over, drew in his head. there was no need to tell them who it was; his pale face was enough. the dog too was on the alert in an instant, and ran whining to the door. 'we must let him in,' he said, taking up the candle. 'isn't there any help for it?' asked the other man in a hoarse voice. 'none. he _must_ come in.' 'don't leave us in the dark,' said kags, taking down a candle from the chimney-piece, and lighting it, with such a trembling hand that the knocking was twice repeated before he had finished. crackit went down to the door, and returned followed by a man with the lower part of his face buried in a handkerchief, and another tied over his head under his hat. he drew them slowly off. blanched face, sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, beard of three days' growth, wasted flesh, short thick breath; it was the very ghost of sikes. he laid his hand upon a chair which stood in the middle of the room, but shuddering as he was about to drop into it, and seeming to glance over his shoulder, dragged it back close to the wall--as close as it would go--and ground it against it--and sat down. not a word had been exchanged. he looked from one to another in silence. if an eye were furtively raised and met his, it was instantly averted. when his hollow voice broke silence, they all three started. they seemed never to have heard its tones before. 'how came that dog here?' he asked. 'alone. three hours ago.' 'to-night's paper says that fagin's took. is it true, or a lie?' 'true.' they were silent again. 'damn you all!' said sikes, passing his hand across his forehead. 'have you nothing to say to me?' there was an uneasy movement among them, but nobody spoke. 'you that keep this house,' said sikes, turning his face to crackit, 'do you mean to sell me, or to let me lie here till this hunt is over?' 'you may stop here, if you think it safe,' returned the person addressed, after some hesitation. sikes carried his eyes slowly up the wall behind him: rather trying to turn his head than actually doing it: and said, 'is--it--the body--is it buried?' they shook their heads. 'why isn't it!' he retorted with the same glance behind him. 'wot do they keep such ugly things above the ground for?--who's that knocking?' crackit intimated, by a motion of his hand as he left the room, that there was nothing to fear; and directly came back with charley bates behind him. sikes sat opposite the door, so that the moment the boy entered the room he encountered his figure. 'toby,' said the boy falling back, as sikes turned his eyes towards him, 'why didn't you tell me this, downstairs?' there had been something so tremendous in the shrinking off of the three, that the wretched man was willing to propitiate even this lad. accordingly he nodded, and made as though he would shake hands with him. 'let me go into some other room,' said the boy, retreating still farther. 'charley!' said sikes, stepping forward. 'don't you--don't you know me?' 'don't come nearer me,' answered the boy, still retreating, and looking, with horror in his eyes, upon the murderer's face. 'you monster!' the man stopped half-way, and they looked at each other; but sikes's eyes sunk gradually to the ground. 'witness you three,' cried the boy shaking his clenched fist, and becoming more and more excited as he spoke. 'witness you three--i'm not afraid of him--if they come here after him, i'll give him up; i will. i tell you out at once. he may kill me for it if he likes, or if he dares, but if i am here i'll give him up. i'd give him up if he was to be boiled alive. murder! help! if there's the pluck of a man among you three, you'll help me. murder! help! down with him!' pouring out these cries, and accompanying them with violent gesticulation, the boy actually threw himself, single-handed, upon the strong man, and in the intensity of his energy and the suddenness of his surprise, brought him heavily to the ground. the three spectators seemed quite stupefied. they offered no interference, and the boy and man rolled on the ground together; the former, heedless of the blows that showered upon him, wrenching his hands tighter and tighter in the garments about the murderer's breast, and never ceasing to call for help with all his might. the contest, however, was too unequal to last long. sikes had him down, and his knee was on his throat, when crackit pulled him back with a look of alarm, and pointed to the window. there were lights gleaming below, voices in loud and earnest conversation, the tramp of hurried footsteps--endless they seemed in number--crossing the nearest wooden bridge. one man on horseback seemed to be among the crowd; for there was the noise of hoofs rattling on the uneven pavement. the gleam of lights increased; the footsteps came more thickly and noisily on. then, came a loud knocking at the door, and then a hoarse murmur from such a multitude of angry voices as would have made the boldest quail. 'help!' shrieked the boy in a voice that rent the air. 'he's here! break down the door!' 'in the king's name,' cried the voices without; and the hoarse cry arose again, but louder. 'break down the door!' screamed the boy. 'i tell you they'll never open it. run straight to the room where the light is. break down the door!' strokes, thick and heavy, rattled upon the door and lower window-shutters as he ceased to speak, and a loud huzzah burst from the crowd; giving the listener, for the first time, some adequate idea of its immense extent. 'open the door of some place where i can lock this screeching hell-babe,' cried sikes fiercely; running to and fro, and dragging the boy, now, as easily as if he were an empty sack. 'that door. quick!' he flung him in, bolted it, and turned the key. 'is the downstairs door fast?' 'double-locked and chained,' replied crackit, who, with the other two men, still remained quite helpless and bewildered. 'the panels--are they strong?' 'lined with sheet-iron.' 'and the windows too?' 'yes, and the windows.' 'damn you!' cried the desperate ruffian, throwing up the sash and menacing the crowd. 'do your worst! i'll cheat you yet!' of all the terrific yells that ever fell on mortal ears, none could exceed the cry of the infuriated throng. some shouted to those who were nearest to set the house on fire; others roared to the officers to shoot him dead. among them all, none showed such fury as the man on horseback, who, throwing himself out of the saddle, and bursting through the crowd as if he were parting water, cried, beneath the window, in a voice that rose above all others, 'twenty guineas to the man who brings a ladder!' the nearest voices took up the cry, and hundreds echoed it. some called for ladders, some for sledge-hammers; some ran with torches to and fro as if to seek them, and still came back and roared again; some spent their breath in impotent curses and execrations; some pressed forward with the ecstasy of madmen, and thus impeded the progress of those below; some among the boldest attempted to climb up by the water-spout and crevices in the wall; and all waved to and fro, in the darkness beneath, like a field of corn moved by an angry wind: and joined from time to time in one loud furious roar. 'the tide,' cried the murderer, as he staggered back into the room, and shut the faces out, 'the tide was in as i came up. give me a rope, a long rope. they're all in front. i may drop into the folly ditch, and clear off that way. give me a rope, or i shall do three more murders and kill myself.' the panic-stricken men pointed to where such articles were kept; the murderer, hastily selecting the longest and strongest cord, hurried up to the house-top. all the window in the rear of the house had been long ago bricked up, except one small trap in the room where the boy was locked, and that was too small even for the passage of his body. but, from this aperture, he had never ceased to call on those without, to guard the back; and thus, when the murderer emerged at last on the house-top by the door in the roof, a loud shout proclaimed the fact to those in front, who immediately began to pour round, pressing upon each other in an unbroken stream. he planted a board, which he had carried up with him for the purpose, so firmly against the door that it must be matter of great difficulty to open it from the inside; and creeping over the tiles, looked over the low parapet. the water was out, and the ditch a bed of mud. the crowd had been hushed during these few moments, watching his motions and doubtful of his purpose, but the instant they perceived it and knew it was defeated, they raised a cry of triumphant execration to which all their previous shouting had been whispers. again and again it rose. those who were at too great a distance to know its meaning, took up the sound; it echoed and re-echoed; it seemed as though the whole city had poured its population out to curse him. on pressed the people from the front--on, on, on, in a strong struggling current of angry faces, with here and there a glaring torch to lighten them up, and show them out in all their wrath and passion. the houses on the opposite side of the ditch had been entered by the mob; sashes were thrown up, or torn bodily out; there were tiers and tiers of faces in every window; cluster upon cluster of people clinging to every house-top. each little bridge (and there were three in sight) bent beneath the weight of the crowd upon it. still the current poured on to find some nook or hole from which to vent their shouts, and only for an instant see the wretch. 'they have him now,' cried a man on the nearest bridge. 'hurrah!' the crowd grew light with uncovered heads; and again the shout uprose. 'i will give fifty pounds,' cried an old gentleman from the same quarter, 'to the man who takes him alive. i will remain here, till he come to ask me for it.' there was another roar. at this moment the word was passed among the crowd that the door was forced at last, and that he who had first called for the ladder had mounted into the room. the stream abruptly turned, as this intelligence ran from mouth to mouth; and the people at the windows, seeing those upon the bridges pouring back, quitted their stations, and running into the street, joined the concourse that now thronged pell-mell to the spot they had left: each man crushing and striving with his neighbor, and all panting with impatience to get near the door, and look upon the criminal as the officers brought him out. the cries and shrieks of those who were pressed almost to suffocation, or trampled down and trodden under foot in the confusion, were dreadful; the narrow ways were completely blocked up; and at this time, between the rush of some to regain the space in front of the house, and the unavailing struggles of others to extricate themselves from the mass, the immediate attention was distracted from the murderer, although the universal eagerness for his capture was, if possible, increased. the man had shrunk down, thoroughly quelled by the ferocity of the crowd, and the impossibility of escape; but seeing this sudden change with no less rapidity than it had occurred, he sprang upon his feet, determined to make one last effort for his life by dropping into the ditch, and, at the risk of being stifled, endeavouring to creep away in the darkness and confusion. roused into new strength and energy, and stimulated by the noise within the house which announced that an entrance had really been effected, he set his foot against the stack of chimneys, fastened one end of the rope tightly and firmly round it, and with the other made a strong running noose by the aid of his hands and teeth almost in a second. he could let himself down by the cord to within a less distance of the ground than his own height, and had his knife ready in his hand to cut it then and drop. at the very instant when he brought the loop over his head previous to slipping it beneath his arm-pits, and when the old gentleman before-mentioned (who had clung so tight to the railing of the bridge as to resist the force of the crowd, and retain his position) earnestly warned those about him that the man was about to lower himself down--at that very instant the murderer, looking behind him on the roof, threw his arms above his head, and uttered a yell of terror. 'the eyes again!' he cried in an unearthly screech. staggering as if struck by lightning, he lost his balance and tumbled over the parapet. the noose was on his neck. it ran up with his weight, tight as a bow-string, and swift as the arrow it speeds. he fell for five-and-thirty feet. there was a sudden jerk, a terrific convulsion of the limbs; and there he hung, with the open knife clenched in his stiffening hand. the old chimney quivered with the shock, but stood it bravely. the murderer swung lifeless against the wall; and the boy, thrusting aside the dangling body which obscured his view, called to the people to come and take him out, for god's sake. a dog, which had lain concealed till now, ran backwards and forwards on the parapet with a dismal howl, and collecting himself for a spring, jumped for the dead man's shoulders. missing his aim, he fell into the ditch, turning completely over as he went; and striking his head against a stone, dashed out his brains. chapter li affording an explanation of more mysteries than one, and comprehending a proposal of marriage with no word of settlement or pin-money the events narrated in the last chapter were yet but two days old, when oliver found himself, at three o'clock in the afternoon, in a travelling-carriage rolling fast towards his native town. mrs. maylie, and rose, and mrs. bedwin, and the good doctor were with him: and mr. brownlow followed in a post-chaise, accompanied by one other person whose name had not been mentioned. they had not talked much upon the way; for oliver was in a flutter of agitation and uncertainty which deprived him of the power of collecting his thoughts, and almost of speech, and appeared to have scarcely less effect on his companions, who shared it, in at least an equal degree. he and the two ladies had been very carefully made acquainted by mr. brownlow with the nature of the admissions which had been forced from monks; and although they knew that the object of their present journey was to complete the work which had been so well begun, still the whole matter was enveloped in enough of doubt and mystery to leave them in endurance of the most intense suspense. the same kind friend had, with mr. losberne's assistance, cautiously stopped all channels of communication through which they could receive intelligence of the dreadful occurrences that so recently taken place. 'it was quite true,' he said, 'that they must know them before long, but it might be at a better time than the present, and it could not be at a worse.' so, they travelled on in silence: each busied with reflections on the object which had brought them together: and no one disposed to give utterance to the thoughts which crowded upon all. but if oliver, under these influences, had remained silent while they journeyed towards his birth-place by a road he had never seen, how the whole current of his recollections ran back to old times, and what a crowd of emotions were wakened up in his breast, when they turned into that which he had traversed on foot: a poor houseless, wandering boy, without a friend to help him, or a roof to shelter his head. 'see there, there!' cried oliver, eagerly clasping the hand of rose, and pointing out at the carriage window; 'that's the stile i came over; there are the hedges i crept behind, for fear any one should overtake me and force me back! yonder is the path across the fields, leading to the old house where i was a little child! oh dick, dick, my dear old friend, if i could only see you now!' 'you will see him soon,' replied rose, gently taking his folded hands between her own. 'you shall tell him how happy you are, and how rich you have grown, and that in all your happiness you have none so great as the coming back to make him happy too.' 'yes, yes,' said oliver, 'and we'll--we'll take him away from here, and have him clothed and taught, and send him to some quiet country place where he may grow strong and well,--shall we?' rose nodded 'yes,' for the boy was smiling through such happy tears that she could not speak. 'you will be kind and good to him, for you are to every one,' said oliver. 'it will make you cry, i know, to hear what he can tell; but never mind, never mind, it will be all over, and you will smile again--i know that too--to think how changed he is; you did the same with me. he said "god bless you" to me when i ran away,' cried the boy with a burst of affectionate emotion; 'and i will say "god bless you" now, and show him how i love him for it!' as they approached the town, and at length drove through its narrow streets, it became matter of no small difficulty to restrain the boy within reasonable bounds. there was sowerberry's the undertaker's just as it used to be, only smaller and less imposing in appearance than he remembered it--there were all the well-known shops and houses, with almost every one of which he had some slight incident connected--there was gamfield's cart, the very cart he used to have, standing at the old public-house door--there was the workhouse, the dreary prison of his youthful days, with its dismal windows frowning on the street--there was the same lean porter standing at the gate, at sight of whom oliver involuntarily shrunk back, and then laughed at himself for being so foolish, then cried, then laughed again--there were scores of faces at the doors and windows that he knew quite well--there was nearly everything as if he had left it but yesterday, and all his recent life had been but a happy dream. but it was pure, earnest, joyful reality. they drove straight to the door of the chief hotel (which oliver used to stare up at, with awe, and think a mighty palace, but which had somehow fallen off in grandeur and size); and here was mr. grimwig all ready to receive them, kissing the young lady, and the old one too, when they got out of the coach, as if he were the grandfather of the whole party, all smiles and kindness, and not offering to eat his head--no, not once; not even when he contradicted a very old postboy about the nearest road to london, and maintained he knew it best, though he had only come that way once, and that time fast asleep. there was dinner prepared, and there were bedrooms ready, and everything was arranged as if by magic. notwithstanding all this, when the hurry of the first half-hour was over, the same silence and constraint prevailed that had marked their journey down. mr. brownlow did not join them at dinner, but remained in a separate room. the two other gentlemen hurried in and out with anxious faces, and, during the short intervals when they were present, conversed apart. once, mrs. maylie was called away, and after being absent for nearly an hour, returned with eyes swollen with weeping. all these things made rose and oliver, who were not in any new secrets, nervous and uncomfortable. they sat wondering, in silence; or, if they exchanged a few words, spoke in whispers, as if they were afraid to hear the sound of their own voices. at length, when nine o'clock had come, and they began to think they were to hear no more that night, mr. losberne and mr. grimwig entered the room, followed by mr. brownlow and a man whom oliver almost shrieked with surprise to see; for they told him it was his brother, and it was the same man he had met at the market-town, and seen looking in with fagin at the window of his little room. monks cast a look of hate, which, even then, he could not dissemble, at the astonished boy, and sat down near the door. mr. brownlow, who had papers in his hand, walked to a table near which rose and oliver were seated. 'this is a painful task,' said he, 'but these declarations, which have been signed in london before many gentlemen, must be in substance repeated here. i would have spared you the degradation, but we must hear them from your own lips before we part, and you know why.' 'go on,' said the person addressed, turning away his face. 'quick. i have almost done enough, i think. don't keep me here.' 'this child,' said mr. brownlow, drawing oliver to him, and laying his hand upon his head, 'is your half-brother; the illegitimate son of your father, my dear friend edwin leeford, by poor young agnes fleming, who died in giving him birth.' 'yes,' said monks, scowling at the trembling boy: the beating of whose heart he might have heard. 'that is the bastard child.' 'the term you use,' said mr. brownlow, sternly, 'is a reproach to those long since passed beyond the feeble censure of the world. it reflects disgrace on no one living, except you who use it. let that pass. he was born in this town.' 'in the workhouse of this town,' was the sullen reply. 'you have the story there.' he pointed impatiently to the papers as he spoke. 'i must have it here, too,' said mr. brownlow, looking round upon the listeners. 'listen then! you!' returned monks. 'his father being taken ill at rome, was joined by his wife, my mother, from whom he had been long separated, who went from paris and took me with her--to look after his property, for what i know, for she had no great affection for him, nor he for her. he knew nothing of us, for his senses were gone, and he slumbered on till next day, when he died. among the papers in his desk, were two, dated on the night his illness first came on, directed to yourself'; he addressed himself to mr. brownlow; 'and enclosed in a few short lines to you, with an intimation on the cover of the package that it was not to be forwarded till after he was dead. one of these papers was a letter to this girl agnes; the other a will.' 'what of the letter?' asked mr. brownlow. 'the letter?--a sheet of paper crossed and crossed again, with a penitent confession, and prayers to god to help her. he had palmed a tale on the girl that some secret mystery--to be explained one day--prevented his marrying her just then; and so she had gone on, trusting patiently to him, until she trusted too far, and lost what none could ever give her back. she was, at that time, within a few months of her confinement. he told her all he had meant to do, to hide her shame, if he had lived, and prayed her, if he died, not to curse his memory, or think the consequences of their sin would be visited on her or their young child; for all the guilt was his. he reminded her of the day he had given her the little locket and the ring with her christian name engraved upon it, and a blank left for that which he hoped one day to have bestowed upon her--prayed her yet to keep it, and wear it next her heart, as she had done before--and then ran on, wildly, in the same words, over and over again, as if he had gone distracted. i believe he had.' 'the will,' said mr. brownlow, as oliver's tears fell fast. monks was silent. 'the will,' said mr. brownlow, speaking for him, 'was in the same spirit as the letter. he talked of miseries which his wife had brought upon him; of the rebellious disposition, vice, malice, and premature bad passions of you his only son, who had been trained to hate him; and left you, and your mother, each an annuity of eight hundred pounds. the bulk of his property he divided into two equal portions--one for agnes fleming, and the other for their child, if it should be born alive, and ever come of age. if it were a girl, it was to inherit the money unconditionally; but if a boy, only on the stipulation that in his minority he should never have stained his name with any public act of dishonour, meanness, cowardice, or wrong. he did this, he said, to mark his confidence in the other, and his conviction--only strengthened by approaching death--that the child would share her gentle heart, and noble nature. if he were disappointed in this expectation, then the money was to come to you: for then, and not till then, when both children were equal, would he recognise your prior claim upon his purse, who had none upon his heart, but had, from an infant, repulsed him with coldness and aversion.' 'my mother,' said monks, in a louder tone, 'did what a woman should have done. she burnt this will. the letter never reached its destination; but that, and other proofs, she kept, in case they ever tried to lie away the blot. the girl's father had the truth from her with every aggravation that her violent hate--i love her for it now--could add. goaded by shame and dishonour he fled with his children into a remote corner of wales, changing his very name that his friends might never know of his retreat; and here, no great while afterwards, he was found dead in his bed. the girl had left her home, in secret, some weeks before; he had searched for her, on foot, in every town and village near; it was on the night when he returned home, assured that she had destroyed herself, to hide her shame and his, that his old heart broke.' there was a short silence here, until mr. brownlow took up the thread of the narrative. 'years after this,' he said, 'this man's--edward leeford's--mother came to me. he had left her, when only eighteen; robbed her of jewels and money; gambled, squandered, forged, and fled to london: where for two years he had associated with the lowest outcasts. she was sinking under a painful and incurable disease, and wished to recover him before she died. inquiries were set on foot, and strict searches made. they were unavailing for a long time, but ultimately successful; and he went back with her to france.' 'there she died,' said monks, 'after a lingering illness; and, on her death-bed, she bequeathed these secrets to me, together with her unquenchable and deadly hatred of all whom they involved--though she need not have left me that, for i had inherited it long before. she would not believe that the girl had destroyed herself, and the child too, but was filled with the impression that a male child had been born, and was alive. i swore to her, if ever it crossed my path, to hunt it down; never to let it rest; to pursue it with the bitterest and most unrelenting animosity; to vent upon it the hatred that i deeply felt, and to spit upon the empty vaunt of that insulting will by draggin it, if i could, to the very gallows-foot. she was right. he came in my way at last. i began well; and, but for babbling drabs, i would have finished as i began!' as the villain folded his arms tight together, and muttered curses on himself in the impotence of baffled malice, mr. brownlow turned to the terrified group beside him, and explained that the jew, who had been his old accomplice and confidant, had a large reward for keeping oliver ensnared: of which some part was to be given up, in the event of his being rescued: and that a dispute on this head had led to their visit to the country house for the purpose of identifying him. 'the locket and ring?' said mr. brownlow, turning to monks. 'i bought them from the man and woman i told you of, who stole them from the nurse, who stole them from the corpse,' answered monks without raising his eyes. 'you know what became of them.' mr. brownlow merely nodded to mr. grimwig, who disappearing with great alacrity, shortly returned, pushing in mrs. bumble, and dragging her unwilling consort after him. 'do my hi's deceive me!' cried mr. bumble, with ill-feigned enthusiasm, 'or is that little oliver? oh o-li-ver, if you know'd how i've been a-grieving for you--' 'hold your tongue, fool,' murmured mrs. bumble. 'isn't natur, natur, mrs. bumble?' remonstrated the workhouse master. 'can't i be supposed to feel--_i_ as brought him up porochially--when i see him a-setting here among ladies and gentlemen of the very affablest description! i always loved that boy as if he'd been my--my--my own grandfather,' said mr. bumble, halting for an appropriate comparison. 'master oliver, my dear, you remember the blessed gentleman in the white waistcoat? ah! he went to heaven last week, in a oak coffin with plated handles, oliver.' 'come, sir,' said mr. grimwig, tartly; 'suppress your feelings.' 'i will do my endeavours, sir,' replied mr. bumble. 'how do you do, sir? i hope you are very well.' this salutation was addressed to mr. brownlow, who had stepped up to within a short distance of the respectable couple. he inquired, as he pointed to monks, 'do you know that person?' 'no,' replied mrs. bumble flatly. 'perhaps _you_ don't?' said mr. brownlow, addressing her spouse. 'i never saw him in all my life,' said mr. bumble. 'nor sold him anything, perhaps?' 'no,' replied mrs. bumble. 'you never had, perhaps, a certain gold locket and ring?' said mr. brownlow. 'certainly not,' replied the matron. 'why are we brought here to answer to such nonsense as this?' again mr. brownlow nodded to mr. grimwig; and again that gentleman limped away with extraordinary readiness. but not again did he return with a stout man and wife; for this time, he led in two palsied women, who shook and tottered as they walked. 'you shut the door the night old sally died,' said the foremost one, raising her shrivelled hand, 'but you couldn't shut out the sound, nor stop the chinks.' 'no, no,' said the other, looking round her and wagging her toothless jaws. 'no, no, no.' 'we heard her try to tell you what she'd done, and saw you take a paper from her hand, and watched you too, next day, to the pawnbroker's shop,' said the first. 'yes,' added the second, 'and it was a "locket and gold ring." we found out that, and saw it given you. we were by. oh! we were by.' 'and we know more than that,' resumed the first, 'for she told us often, long ago, that the young mother had told her that, feeling she should never get over it, she was on her way, at the time that she was taken ill, to die near the grave of the father of the child.' 'would you like to see the pawnbroker himself?' asked mr. grimwig with a motion towards the door. 'no,' replied the woman; 'if he'--she pointed to monks--'has been coward enough to confess, as i see he has, and you have sounded all these hags till you have found the right ones, i have nothing more to say. i _did_ sell them, and they're where you'll never get them. what then?' 'nothing,' replied mr. brownlow, 'except that it remains for us to take care that neither of you is employed in a situation of trust again. you may leave the room.' 'i hope,' said mr. bumble, looking about him with great ruefulness, as mr. grimwig disappeared with the two old women: 'i hope that this unfortunate little circumstance will not deprive me of my porochial office?' 'indeed it will,' replied mr. brownlow. 'you may make up your mind to that, and think yourself well off besides.' 'it was all mrs. bumble. she _would_ do it,' urged mr. bumble; first looking round to ascertain that his partner had left the room. 'that is no excuse,' replied mr. brownlow. 'you were present on the occasion of the destruction of these trinkets, and indeed are the more guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.' 'if the law supposes that,' said mr. bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, 'the law is a ass--a idiot. if that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst i wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience--by experience.' laying great stress on the repetition of these two words, mr. bumble fixed his hat on very tight, and putting his hands in his pockets, followed his helpmate downstairs. 'young lady,' said mr. brownlow, turning to rose, 'give me your hand. do not tremble. you need not fear to hear the few remaining words we have to say.' 'if they have--i do not know how they can, but if they have--any reference to me,' said rose, 'pray let me hear them at some other time. i have not strength or spirits now.' 'nay,' returned the old gentlman, drawing her arm through his; 'you have more fortitude than this, i am sure. do you know this young lady, sir?' 'yes,' replied monks. 'i never saw you before,' said rose faintly. 'i have seen you often,' returned monks. 'the father of the unhappy agnes had _two_ daughters,' said mr. brownlow. 'what was the fate of the other--the child?' 'the child,' replied monks, 'when her father died in a strange place, in a strange name, without a letter, book, or scrap of paper that yielded the faintest clue by which his friends or relatives could be traced--the child was taken by some wretched cottagers, who reared it as their own.' 'go on,' said mr. brownlow, signing to mrs. maylie to approach. 'go on!' 'you couldn't find the spot to which these people had repaired,' said monks, 'but where friendship fails, hatred will often force a way. my mother found it, after a year of cunning search--ay, and found the child.' 'she took it, did she?' 'no. the people were poor and began to sicken--at least the man did--of their fine humanity; so she left it with them, giving them a small present of money which would not last long, and promised more, which she never meant to send. she didn't quite rely, however, on their discontent and poverty for the child's unhappiness, but told the history of the sister's shame, with such alterations as suited her; bade them take good heed of the child, for she came of bad blood; and told them she was illegitimate, and sure to go wrong at one time or other. the circumstances countenanced all this; the people believed it; and there the child dragged on an existence, miserable enough even to satisfy us, until a widow lady, residing, then, at chester, saw the girl by chance, pitied her, and took her home. there was some cursed spell, i think, against us; for in spite of all our efforts she remained there and was happy. i lost sight of her, two or three years ago, and saw her no more until a few months back.' 'do you see her now?' 'yes. leaning on your arm.' 'but not the less my niece,' cried mrs. maylie, folding the fainting girl in her arms; 'not the less my dearest child. i would not lose her now, for all the treasures of the world. my sweet companion, my own dear girl!' 'the only friend i ever had,' cried rose, clinging to her. 'the kindest, best of friends. my heart will burst. i cannot bear all this.' 'you have borne more, and have been, through all, the best and gentlest creature that ever shed happiness on every one she knew,' said mrs. maylie, embracing her tenderly. 'come, come, my love, remember who this is who waits to clasp you in his arms, poor child! see here--look, look, my dear!' 'not aunt,' cried oliver, throwing his arms about her neck; 'i'll never call her aunt--sister, my own dear sister, that something taught my heart to love so dearly from the first! rose, dear, darling rose!' let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in the long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred. a father, sister, and mother, were gained, and lost, in that one moment. joy and grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even grief itself arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character of pain. they were a long, long time alone. a soft tap at the door, at length announced that some one was without. oliver opened it, glided away, and gave place to harry maylie. 'i know it all,' he said, taking a seat beside the lovely girl. 'dear rose, i know it all.' 'i am not here by accident,' he added after a lengthened silence; 'nor have i heard all this to-night, for i knew it yesterday--only yesterday. do you guess that i have come to remind you of a promise?' 'stay,' said rose. 'you _do_ know all.' 'all. you gave me leave, at any time within a year, to renew the subject of our last discourse.' 'i did.' 'not to press you to alter your determination,' pursued the young man, 'but to hear you repeat it, if you would. i was to lay whatever of station or fortune i might possess at your feet, and if you still adhered to your former determination, i pledged myself, by no word or act, to seek to change it.' 'the same reasons which influenced me then, will influence me now,' said rose firmly. 'if i ever owed a strict and rigid duty to her, whose goodness saved me from a life of indigence and suffering, when should i ever feel it, as i should to-night? it is a struggle,' said rose, 'but one i am proud to make; it is a pang, but one my heart shall bear.' 'the disclosure of to-night,'--harry began. 'the disclosure of to-night,' replied rose softly, 'leaves me in the same position, with reference to you, as that in which i stood before.' 'you harden your heart against me, rose,' urged her lover. 'oh harry, harry,' said the young lady, bursting into tears; 'i wish i could, and spare myself this pain.' 'then why inflict it on yourself?' said harry, taking her hand. 'think, dear rose, think what you have heard to-night.' 'and what have i heard! what have i heard!' cried rose. 'that a sense of his deep disgrace so worked upon my own father that he shunned all--there, we have said enough, harry, we have said enough.' 'not yet, not yet,' said the young man, detaining her as she rose. 'my hopes, my wishes, prospects, feeling: every thought in life except my love for you: have undergone a change. i offer you, now, no distinction among a bustling crowd; no mingling with a world of malice and detraction, where the blood is called into honest cheeks by aught but real disgrace and shame; but a home--a heart and home--yes, dearest rose, and those, and those alone, are all i have to offer.' 'what do you mean!' she faltered. 'i mean but this--that when i left you last, i left you with a firm determination to level all fancied barriers between yourself and me; resolved that if my world could not be yours, i would make yours mine; that no pride of birth should curl the lip at you, for i would turn from it. this i have done. those who have shrunk from me because of this, have shrunk from you, and proved you so far right. such power and patronage: such relatives of influence and rank: as smiled upon me then, look coldly now; but there are smiling fields and waving trees in england's richest county; and by one village church--mine, rose, my own!--there stands a rustic dwelling which you can make me prouder of, than all the hopes i have renounced, measured a thousandfold. this is my rank and station now, and here i lay it down!' * * * * * 'it's a trying thing waiting supper for lovers,' said mr. grimwig, waking up, and pulling his pocket-handkerchief from over his head. truth to tell, the supper had been waiting a most unreasonable time. neither mrs. maylie, nor harry, nor rose (who all came in together), could offer a word in extenuation. 'i had serious thoughts of eating my head to-night,' said mr. grimwig, 'for i began to think i should get nothing else. i'll take the liberty, if you'll allow me, of saluting the bride that is to be.' mr. grimwig lost no time in carrying this notice into effect upon the blushing girl; and the example, being contagious, was followed both by the doctor and mr. brownlow: some people affirm that harry maylie had been observed to set it, originally, in a dark room adjoining; but the best authorities consider this downright scandal: he being young and a clergyman. 'oliver, my child,' said mrs. maylie, 'where have you been, and why do you look so sad? there are tears stealing down your face at this moment. what is the matter?' it is a world of disappointment: often to the hopes we most cherish, and hopes that do our nature the greatest honour. poor dick was dead! chapter lii fagin's last night alive the court was paved, from floor to roof, with human faces. inquisitive and eager eyes peered from every inch of space. from the rail before the dock, away into the sharpest angle of the smallest corner in the galleries, all looks were fixed upon one man--fagin. before him and behind: above, below, on the right and on the left: he seemed to stand surrounded by a firmament, all bright with gleaming eyes. he stood there, in all this glare of living light, with one hand resting on the wooden slab before him, the other held to his ear, and his head thrust forward to enable him to catch with greater distinctness every word that fell from the presiding judge, who was delivering his charge to the jury. at times, he turned his eyes sharply upon them to observe the effect of the slightest featherweight in his favour; and when the points against him were stated with terrible distinctness, looked towards his counsel, in mute appeal that he would, even then, urge something in his behalf. beyond these manifestations of anxiety, he stirred not hand or foot. he had scarcely moved since the trial began; and now that the judge ceased to speak, he still remained in the same strained attitude of close attention, with his gaze bent on him, as though he listened still. a slight bustle in the court, recalled him to himself. looking round, he saw that the juryman had turned together, to consider their verdict. as his eyes wandered to the gallery, he could see the people rising above each other to see his face: some hastily applying their glasses to their eyes: and others whispering their neighbours with looks expressive of abhorrence. a few there were, who seemed unmindful of him, and looked only to the jury, in impatient wonder how they could delay. but in no one face--not even among the women, of whom there were many there--could he read the faintest sympathy with himself, or any feeling but one of all-absorbing interest that he should be condemned. as he saw all this in one bewildered glance, the deathlike stillness came again, and looking back he saw that the jurymen had turned towards the judge. hush! they only sought permission to retire. he looked, wistfully, into their faces, one by one when they passed out, as though to see which way the greater number leant; but that was fruitless. the jailer touched him on the shoulder. he followed mechanically to the end of the dock, and sat down on a chair. the man pointed it out, or he would not have seen it. he looked up into the gallery again. some of the people were eating, and some fanning themselves with handkerchiefs; for the crowded place was very hot. there was one young man sketching his face in a little note-book. he wondered whether it was like, and looked on when the artist broke his pencil-point, and made another with his knife, as any idle spectator might have done. in the same way, when he turned his eyes towards the judge, his mind began to busy itself with the fashion of his dress, and what it cost, and how he put it on. there was an old fat gentleman on the bench, too, who had gone out, some half an hour before, and now come back. he wondered within himself whether this man had been to get his dinner, what he had had, and where he had had it; and pursued this train of careless thought until some new object caught his eye and roused another. not that, all this time, his mind was, for an instant, free from one oppressive overwhelming sense of the grave that opened at his feet; it was ever present to him, but in a vague and general way, and he could not fix his thoughts upon it. thus, even while he trembled, and turned burning hot at the idea of speedy death, he fell to counting the iron spikes before him, and wondering how the head of one had been broken off, and whether they would mend it, or leave it as it was. then, he thought of all the horrors of the gallows and the scaffold--and stopped to watch a man sprinkling the floor to cool it--and then went on to think again. at length there was a cry of silence, and a breathless look from all towards the door. the jury returned, and passed him close. he could glean nothing from their faces; they might as well have been of stone. perfect stillness ensued--not a rustle--not a breath--guilty. the building rang with a tremendous shout, and another, and another, and then it echoed loud groans, that gathered strength as they swelled out, like angry thunder. it was a peal of joy from the populace outside, greeting the news that he would die on monday. the noise subsided, and he was asked if he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon him. he had resumed his listening attitude, and looked intently at his questioner while the demand was made; but it was twice repeated before he seemed to hear it, and then he only muttered that he was an old man--an old man--and so, dropping into a whisper, was silent again. the judge assumed the black cap, and the prisoner still stood with the same air and gesture. a woman in the gallery, uttered some exclamation, called forth by this dread solemnity; he looked hastily up as if angry at the interruption, and bent forward yet more attentively. the address was solemn and impressive; the sentence fearful to hear. but he stood, like a marble figure, without the motion of a nerve. his haggard face was still thrust forward, his under-jaw hanging down, and his eyes staring out before him, when the jailer put his hand upon his arm, and beckoned him away. he gazed stupidly about him for an instant, and obeyed. they led him through a paved room under the court, where some prisoners were waiting till their turns came, and others were talking to their friends, who crowded round a grate which looked into the open yard. there was nobody there to speak to _him_; but, as he passed, the prisoners fell back to render him more visible to the people who were clinging to the bars: and they assailed him with opprobrious names, and screeched and hissed. he shook his fist, and would have spat upon them; but his conductors hurried him on, through a gloomy passage lighted by a few dim lamps, into the interior of the prison. here, he was searched, that he might not have about him the means of anticipating the law; this ceremony performed, they led him to one of the condemned cells, and left him there--alone. he sat down on a stone bench opposite the door, which served for seat and bedstead; and casting his blood-shot eyes upon the ground, tried to collect his thoughts. after awhile, he began to remember a few disjointed fragments of what the judge had said: though it had seemed to him, at the time, that he could not hear a word. these gradually fell into their proper places, and by degrees suggested more: so that in a little time he had the whole, almost as it was delivered. to be hanged by the neck, till he was dead--that was the end. to be hanged by the neck till he was dead. as it came on very dark, he began to think of all the men he had known who had died upon the scaffold; some of them through his means. they rose up, in such quick succession, that he could hardly count them. he had seen some of them die,--and had joked too, because they died with prayers upon their lips. with what a rattling noise the drop went down; and how suddenly they changed, from strong and vigorous men to dangling heaps of clothes! some of them might have inhabited that very cell--sat upon that very spot. it was very dark; why didn't they bring a light? the cell had been built for many years. scores of men must have passed their last hours there. it was like sitting in a vault strewn with dead bodies--the cap, the noose, the pinioned arms, the faces that he knew, even beneath that hideous veil.--light, light! at length, when his hands were raw with beating against the heavy door and walls, two men appeared: one bearing a candle, which he thrust into an iron candlestick fixed against the wall: the other dragging in a mattress on which to pass the night; for the prisoner was to be left alone no more. then came the night--dark, dismal, silent night. other watchers are glad to hear this church-clock strike, for they tell of life and coming day. to him they brought despair. the boom of every iron bell came laden with the one, deep, hollow sound--death. what availed the noise and bustle of cheerful morning, which penetrated even there, to him? it was another form of knell, with mockery added to the warning. the day passed off. day? there was no day; it was gone as soon as come--and night came on again; night so long, and yet so short; long in its dreadful silence, and short in its fleeting hours. at one time he raved and blasphemed; and at another howled and tore his hair. venerable men of his own persuasion had come to pray beside him, but he had driven them away with curses. they renewed their charitable efforts, and he beat them off. saturday night. he had only one night more to live. and as he thought of this, the day broke--sunday. it was not until the night of this last awful day, that a withering sense of his helpless, desperate state came in its full intensity upon his blighted soul; not that he had ever held any defined or positive hope of mercy, but that he had never been able to consider more than the dim probability of dying so soon. he had spoken little to either of the two men, who relieved each other in their attendance upon him; and they, for their parts, made no effort to rouse his attention. he had sat there, awake, but dreaming. now, he started up, every minute, and with gasping mouth and burning skin, hurried to and fro, in such a paroxysm of fear and wrath that even they--used to such sights--recoiled from him with horror. he grew so terrible, at last, in all the tortures of his evil conscience, that one man could not bear to sit there, eyeing him alone; and so the two kept watch together. he cowered down upon his stone bed, and thought of the past. he had been wounded with some missiles from the crowd on the day of his capture, and his head was bandaged with a linen cloth. his red hair hung down upon his bloodless face; his beard was torn, and twisted into knots; his eyes shone with a terrible light; his unwashed flesh crackled with the fever that burnt him up. eight--nine--then. if it was not a trick to frighten him, and those were the real hours treading on each other's heels, where would he be, when they came round again! eleven! another struck, before the voice of the previous hour had ceased to vibrate. at eight, he would be the only mourner in his own funeral train; at eleven-- those dreadful walls of newgate, which have hidden so much misery and such unspeakable anguish, not only from the eyes, but, too often, and too long, from the thoughts, of men, never held so dread a spectacle as that. the few who lingered as they passed, and wondered what the man was doing who was to be hanged to-morrow, would have slept but ill that night, if they could have seen him. from early in the evening until nearly midnight, little groups of two and three presented themselves at the lodge-gate, and inquired, with anxious faces, whether any reprieve had been received. these being answered in the negative, communicated the welcome intelligence to clusters in the street, who pointed out to one another the door from which he must come out, and showed where the scaffold would be built, and, walking with unwilling steps away, turned back to conjure up the scene. by degrees they fell off, one by one; and, for an hour, in the dead of night, the street was left to solitude and darkness. the space before the prison was cleared, and a few strong barriers, painted black, had been already thrown across the road to break the pressure of the expected crowd, when mr. brownlow and oliver appeared at the wicket, and presented an order of admission to the prisoner, signed by one of the sheriffs. they were immediately admitted into the lodge. 'is the young gentleman to come too, sir?' said the man whose duty it was to conduct them. 'it's not a sight for children, sir.' 'it is not indeed, my friend,' rejoined mr. brownlow; 'but my business with this man is intimately connected with him; and as this child has seen him in the full career of his success and villainy, i think it as well--even at the cost of some pain and fear--that he should see him now.' these few words had been said apart, so as to be inaudible to oliver. the man touched his hat; and glancing at oliver with some curiousity, opened another gate, opposite to that by which they had entered, and led them on, through dark and winding ways, towards the cells. 'this,' said the man, stopping in a gloomy passage where a couple of workmen were making some preparations in profound silence--'this is the place he passes through. if you step this way, you can see the door he goes out at.' he led them into a stone kitchen, fitted with coppers for dressing the prison food, and pointed to a door. there was an open grating above it, through which came the sound of men's voices, mingled with the noise of hammering, and the throwing down of boards. they were putting up the scaffold. from this place, they passed through several strong gates, opened by other turnkeys from the inner side; and, having entered an open yard, ascended a flight of narrow steps, and came into a passage with a row of strong doors on the left hand. motioning them to remain where they were, the turnkey knocked at one of these with his bunch of keys. the two attendants, after a little whispering, came out into the passage, stretching themselves as if glad of the temporary relief, and motioned the visitors to follow the jailer into the cell. they did so. the condemned criminal was seated on his bed, rocking himself from side to side, with a countenance more like that of a snared beast than the face of a man. his mind was evidently wandering to his old life, for he continued to mutter, without appearing conscious of their presence otherwise than as a part of his vision. 'good boy, charley--well done--' he mumbled. 'oliver, too, ha! ha! ha! oliver too--quite the gentleman now--quite the--take that boy away to bed!' the jailer took the disengaged hand of oliver; and, whispering him not to be alarmed, looked on without speaking. 'take him away to bed!' cried fagin. 'do you hear me, some of you? he has been the--the--somehow the cause of all this. it's worth the money to bring him up to it--bolter's throat, bill; never mind the girl--bolter's throat as deep as you can cut. saw his head off!' 'fagin,' said the jailer. 'that's me!' cried the jew, falling instantly, into the attitude of listening he had assumed upon his trial. 'an old man, my lord; a very old, old man!' 'here,' said the turnkey, laying his hand upon his breast to keep him down. 'here's somebody wants to see you, to ask you some questions, i suppose. fagin, fagin! are you a man?' 'i shan't be one long,' he replied, looking up with a face retaining no human expression but rage and terror. 'strike them all dead! what right have they to butcher me?' as he spoke he caught sight of oliver and mr. brownlow. shrinking to the furthest corner of the seat, he demanded to know what they wanted there. 'steady,' said the turnkey, still holding him down. 'now, sir, tell him what you want. quick, if you please, for he grows worse as the time gets on.' 'you have some papers,' said mr. brownlow advancing, 'which were placed in your hands, for better security, by a man called monks.' 'it's all a lie together,' replied fagin. 'i haven't one--not one.' 'for the love of god,' said mr. brownlow solemnly, 'do not say that now, upon the very verge of death; but tell me where they are. you know that sikes is dead; that monks has confessed; that there is no hope of any further gain. where are those papers?' 'oliver,' cried fagin, beckoning to him. 'here, here! let me whisper to you.' 'i am not afraid,' said oliver in a low voice, as he relinquished mr. brownlow's hand. 'the papers,' said fagin, drawing oliver towards him, 'are in a canvas bag, in a hole a little way up the chimney in the top front-room. i want to talk to you, my dear. i want to talk to you.' 'yes, yes,' returned oliver. 'let me say a prayer. do! let me say one prayer. say only one, upon your knees, with me, and we will talk till morning.' 'outside, outside,' replied fagin, pushing the boy before him towards the door, and looking vacantly over his head. 'say i've gone to sleep--they'll believe you. you can get me out, if you take me so. now then, now then!' 'oh! god forgive this wretched man!' cried the boy with a burst of tears. 'that's right, that's right,' said fagin. 'that'll help us on. this door first. if i shake and tremble, as we pass the gallows, don't you mind, but hurry on. now, now, now!' 'have you nothing else to ask him, sir?' inquired the turnkey. 'no other question,' replied mr. brownlow. 'if i hoped we could recall him to a sense of his position--' 'nothing will do that, sir,' replied the man, shaking his head. 'you had better leave him.' the door of the cell opened, and the attendants returned. 'press on, press on,' cried fagin. 'softly, but not so slow. faster, faster!' the men laid hands upon him, and disengaging oliver from his grasp, held him back. he struggled with the power of desperation, for an instant; and then sent up cry upon cry that penetrated even those massive walls, and rang in their ears until they reached the open yard. it was some time before they left the prison. oliver nearly swooned after this frightful scene, and was so weak that for an hour or more, he had not the strength to walk. day was dawning when they again emerged. a great multitude had already assembled; the windows were filled with people, smoking and playing cards to beguile the time; the crowd were pushing, quarrelling, joking. everything told of life and animation, but one dark cluster of objects in the centre of all--the black stage, the cross-beam, the rope, and all the hideous apparatus of death. chapter liii and last the fortunes of those who have figured in this tale are nearly closed. the little that remains to their historian to relate, is told in few and simple words. before three months had passed, rose fleming and harry maylie were married in the village church which was henceforth to be the scene of the young clergyman's labours; on the same day they entered into possession of their new and happy home. mrs. maylie took up her abode with her son and daughter-in-law, to enjoy, during the tranquil remainder of her days, the greatest felicity that age and worth can know--the contemplation of the happiness of those on whom the warmest affections and tenderest cares of a well-spent life, have been unceasingly bestowed. it appeared, on full and careful investigation, that if the wreck of property remaining in the custody of monks (which had never prospered either in his hands or in those of his mother) were equally divided between himself and oliver, it would yield, to each, little more than three thousand pounds. by the provisions of his father's will, oliver would have been entitled to the whole; but mr. brownlow, unwilling to deprive the elder son of the opportunity of retrieving his former vices and pursuing an honest career, proposed this mode of distribution, to which his young charge joyfully acceded. monks, still bearing that assumed name, retired with his portion to a distant part of the new world; where, having quickly squandered it, he once more fell into his old courses, and, after undergoing a long confinement for some fresh act of fraud and knavery, at length sunk under an attack of his old disorder, and died in prison. as far from home, died the chief remaining members of his friend fagin's gang. mr. brownlow adopted oliver as his son. removing with him and the old housekeeper to within a mile of the parsonage-house, where his dear friends resided, he gratified the only remaining wish of oliver's warm and earnest heart, and thus linked together a little society, whose condition approached as nearly to one of perfect happiness as can ever be known in this changing world. soon after the marriage of the young people, the worthy doctor returned to chertsey, where, bereft of the presence of his old friends, he would have been discontented if his temperament had admitted of such a feeling; and would have turned quite peevish if he had known how. for two or three months, he contented himself with hinting that he feared the air began to disagree with him; then, finding that the place really no longer was, to him, what it had been, he settled his business on his assistant, took a bachelor's cottage outside the village of which his young friend was pastor, and instantaneously recovered. here he took to gardening, planting, fishing, carpentering, and various other pursuits of a similar kind: all undertaken with his characteristic impetuosity. in each and all he has since become famous throughout the neighborhood, as a most profound authority. before his removal, he had managed to contract a strong friendship for mr. grimwig, which that eccentric gentleman cordially reciprocated. he is accordingly visited by mr. grimwig a great many times in the course of the year. on all such occasions, mr. grimwig plants, fishes, and carpenters, with great ardour; doing everything in a very singular and unprecedented manner, but always maintaining with his favourite asseveration, that his mode is the right one. on sundays, he never fails to criticise the sermon to the young clergyman's face: always informing mr. losberne, in strict confidence afterwards, that he considers it an excellent performance, but deems it as well not to say so. it is a standing and very favourite joke, for mr. brownlow to rally him on his old prophecy concerning oliver, and to remind him of the night on which they sat with the watch between them, waiting his return; but mr. grimwig contends that he was right in the main, and, in proof thereof, remarks that oliver did not come back after all; which always calls forth a laugh on his side, and increases his good humour. mr. noah claypole: receiving a free pardon from the crown in consequence of being admitted approver against fagin: and considering his profession not altogether as safe a one as he could wish: was, for some little time, at a loss for the means of a livelihood, not burdened with too much work. after some consideration, he went into business as an informer, in which calling he realises a genteel subsistence. his plan is, to walk out once a week during church time attended by charlotte in respectable attire. the lady faints away at the doors of charitable publicans, and the gentleman being accommodated with three-penny worth of brandy to restore her, lays an information next day, and pockets half the penalty. sometimes mr. claypole faints himself, but the result is the same. mr. and mrs. bumble, deprived of their situations, were gradually reduced to great indigence and misery, and finally became paupers in that very same workhouse in which they had once lorded it over others. mr. bumble has been heard to say, that in this reverse and degradation, he has not even spirits to be thankful for being separated from his wife. as to mr. giles and brittles, they still remain in their old posts, although the former is bald, and the last-named boy quite grey. they sleep at the parsonage, but divide their attentions so equally among its inmates, and oliver and mr. brownlow, and mr. losberne, that to this day the villagers have never been able to discover to which establishment they properly belong. master charles bates, appalled by sikes's crime, fell into a train of reflection whether an honest life was not, after all, the best. arriving at the conclusion that it certainly was, he turned his back upon the scenes of the past, resolved to amend it in some new sphere of action. he struggled hard, and suffered much, for some time; but, having a contented disposition, and a good purpose, succeeded in the end; and, from being a farmer's drudge, and a carrier's lad, he is now the merriest young grazier in all northamptonshire. and now, the hand that traces these words, falters, as it approaches the conclusion of its task; and would weave, for a little longer space, the thread of these adventures. i would fain linger yet with a few of those among whom i have so long moved, and share their happiness by endeavouring to depict it. i would show rose maylie in all the bloom and grace of early womanhood, shedding on her secluded path in life soft and gentle light, that fell on all who trod it with her, and shone into their hearts. i would paint her the life and joy of the fire-side circle and the lively summer group; i would follow her through the sultry fields at noon, and hear the low tones of her sweet voice in the moonlit evening walk; i would watch her in all her goodness and charity abroad, and the smiling untiring discharge of domestic duties at home; i would paint her and her dead sister's child happy in their love for one another, and passing whole hours together in picturing the friends whom they had so sadly lost; i would summon before me, once again, those joyous little faces that clustered round her knee, and listen to their merry prattle; i would recall the tones of that clear laugh, and conjure up the sympathising tear that glistened in the soft blue eye. these, and a thousand looks and smiles, and turns of thought and speech--i would fain recall them every one. how mr. brownlow went on, from day to day, filling the mind of his adopted child with stores of knowledge, and becoming attached to him, more and more, as his nature developed itself, and showed the thriving seeds of all he wished him to become--how he traced in him new traits of his early friend, that awakened in his own bosom old remembrances, melancholy and yet sweet and soothing--how the two orphans, tried by adversity, remembered its lessons in mercy to others, and mutual love, and fervent thanks to him who had protected and preserved them--these are all matters which need not to be told. i have said that they were truly happy; and without strong affection and humanity of heart, and gratitude to that being whose code is mercy, and whose great attribute is benevolence to all things that breathe, happiness can never be attained. within the altar of the old village church there stands a white marble tablet, which bears as yet but one word: 'agnes.' there is no coffin in that tomb; and may it be many, many years, before another name is placed above it! but, if the spirits of the dead ever come back to earth, to visit spots hallowed by the love--the love beyond the grave--of those whom they knew in life, i believe that the shade of agnes sometimes hovers round that solemn nook. i believe it none the less because that nook is in a church, and she was weak and erring. transcribed from the chapman & hall "works of charles dickens" edition by david price, email ccx @pglaf.org a child's history of england by charles dickens with illustrations by f. h. townsend and others london: chapman & hall, ld. new york: charles scribner's sons chapter i--ancient england and the romans if you look at a map of the world, you will see, in the left-hand upper corner of the eastern hemisphere, two islands lying in the sea. they are england and scotland, and ireland. england and scotland form the greater part of these islands. ireland is the next in size. the little neighbouring islands, which are so small upon the map as to be mere dots, are chiefly little bits of scotland,--broken off, i dare say, in the course of a great length of time, by the power of the restless water. in the old days, a long, long while ago, before our saviour was born on earth and lay asleep in a manger, these islands were in the same place, and the stormy sea roared round them, just as it roars now. but the sea was not alive, then, with great ships and brave sailors, sailing to and from all parts of the world. it was very lonely. the islands lay solitary, in the great expanse of water. the foaming waves dashed against their cliffs, and the bleak winds blew over their forests; but the winds and waves brought no adventurers to land upon the islands, and the savage islanders knew nothing of the rest of the world, and the rest of the world knew nothing of them. it is supposed that the phoenicians, who were an ancient people, famous for carrying on trade, came in ships to these islands, and found that they produced tin and lead; both very useful things, as you know, and both produced to this very hour upon the sea-coast. the most celebrated tin mines in cornwall are, still, close to the sea. one of them, which i have seen, is so close to it that it is hollowed out underneath the ocean; and the miners say, that in stormy weather, when they are at work down in that deep place, they can hear the noise of the waves thundering above their heads. so, the phoenicians, coasting about the islands, would come, without much difficulty, to where the tin and lead were. the phoenicians traded with the islanders for these metals, and gave the islanders some other useful things in exchange. the islanders were, at first, poor savages, going almost naked, or only dressed in the rough skins of beasts, and staining their bodies, as other savages do, with coloured earths and the juices of plants. but the phoenicians, sailing over to the opposite coasts of france and belgium, and saying to the people there, 'we have been to those white cliffs across the water, which you can see in fine weather, and from that country, which is called britain, we bring this tin and lead,' tempted some of the french and belgians to come over also. these people settled themselves on the south coast of england, which is now called kent; and, although they were a rough people too, they taught the savage britons some useful arts, and improved that part of the islands. it is probable that other people came over from spain to ireland, and settled there. thus, by little and little, strangers became mixed with the islanders, and the savage britons grew into a wild, bold people; almost savage, still, especially in the interior of the country away from the sea where the foreign settlers seldom went; but hardy, brave, and strong. the whole country was covered with forests, and swamps. the greater part of it was very misty and cold. there were no roads, no bridges, no streets, no houses that you would think deserving of the name. a town was nothing but a collection of straw-covered huts, hidden in a thick wood, with a ditch all round, and a low wall, made of mud, or the trunks of trees placed one upon another. the people planted little or no corn, but lived upon the flesh of their flocks and cattle. they made no coins, but used metal rings for money. they were clever in basket-work, as savage people often are; and they could make a coarse kind of cloth, and some very bad earthenware. but in building fortresses they were much more clever. they made boats of basket-work, covered with the skins of animals, but seldom, if ever, ventured far from the shore. they made swords, of copper mixed with tin; but, these swords were of an awkward shape, and so soft that a heavy blow would bend one. they made light shields, short pointed daggers, and spears--which they jerked back after they had thrown them at an enemy, by a long strip of leather fastened to the stem. the butt-end was a rattle, to frighten an enemy's horse. the ancient britons, being divided into as many as thirty or forty tribes, each commanded by its own little king, were constantly fighting with one another, as savage people usually do; and they always fought with these weapons. they were very fond of horses. the standard of kent was the picture of a white horse. they could break them in and manage them wonderfully well. indeed, the horses (of which they had an abundance, though they were rather small) were so well taught in those days, that they can scarcely be said to have improved since; though the men are so much wiser. they understood, and obeyed, every word of command; and would stand still by themselves, in all the din and noise of battle, while their masters went to fight on foot. the britons could not have succeeded in their most remarkable art, without the aid of these sensible and trusty animals. the art i mean, is the construction and management of war-chariots or cars, for which they have ever been celebrated in history. each of the best sort of these chariots, not quite breast high in front, and open at the back, contained one man to drive, and two or three others to fight--all standing up. the horses who drew them were so well trained, that they would tear, at full gallop, over the most stony ways, and even through the woods; dashing down their masters' enemies beneath their hoofs, and cutting them to pieces with the blades of swords, or scythes, which were fastened to the wheels, and stretched out beyond the car on each side, for that cruel purpose. in a moment, while at full speed, the horses would stop, at the driver's command. the men within would leap out, deal blows about them with their swords like hail, leap on the horses, on the pole, spring back into the chariots anyhow; and, as soon as they were safe, the horses tore away again. the britons had a strange and terrible religion, called the religion of the druids. it seems to have been brought over, in very early times indeed, from the opposite country of france, anciently called gaul, and to have mixed up the worship of the serpent, and of the sun and moon, with the worship of some of the heathen gods and goddesses. most of its ceremonies were kept secret by the priests, the druids, who pretended to be enchanters, and who carried magicians' wands, and wore, each of them, about his neck, what he told the ignorant people was a serpent's egg in a golden case. but it is certain that the druidical ceremonies included the sacrifice of human victims, the torture of some suspected criminals, and, on particular occasions, even the burning alive, in immense wicker cages, of a number of men and animals together. the druid priests had some kind of veneration for the oak, and for the mistletoe--the same plant that we hang up in houses at christmas time now--when its white berries grew upon the oak. they met together in dark woods, which they called sacred groves; and there they instructed, in their mysterious arts, young men who came to them as pupils, and who sometimes stayed with them as long as twenty years. these druids built great temples and altars, open to the sky, fragments of some of which are yet remaining. stonehenge, on salisbury plain, in wiltshire, is the most extraordinary of these. three curious stones, called kits coty house, on bluebell hill, near maidstone, in kent, form another. we know, from examination of the great blocks of which such buildings are made, that they could not have been raised without the aid of some ingenious machines, which are common now, but which the ancient britons certainly did not use in making their own uncomfortable houses. i should not wonder if the druids, and their pupils who stayed with them twenty years, knowing more than the rest of the britons, kept the people out of sight while they made these buildings, and then pretended that they built them by magic. perhaps they had a hand in the fortresses too; at all events, as they were very powerful, and very much believed in, and as they made and executed the laws, and paid no taxes, i don't wonder that they liked their trade. and, as they persuaded the people the more druids there were, the better off the people would be, i don't wonder that there were a good many of them. but it is pleasant to think that there are no druids, _now_, who go on in that way, and pretend to carry enchanters' wands and serpents' eggs--and of course there is nothing of the kind, anywhere. such was the improved condition of the ancient britons, fifty-five years before the birth of our saviour, when the romans, under their great general, julius caesar, were masters of all the rest of the known world. julius caesar had then just conquered gaul; and hearing, in gaul, a good deal about the opposite island with the white cliffs, and about the bravery of the britons who inhabited it--some of whom had been fetched over to help the gauls in the war against him--he resolved, as he was so near, to come and conquer britain next. so, julius caesar came sailing over to this island of ours, with eighty vessels and twelve thousand men. and he came from the french coast between calais and boulogne, 'because thence was the shortest passage into britain;' just for the same reason as our steam-boats now take the same track, every day. he expected to conquer britain easily: but it was not such easy work as he supposed--for the bold britons fought most bravely; and, what with not having his horse-soldiers with him (for they had been driven back by a storm), and what with having some of his vessels dashed to pieces by a high tide after they were drawn ashore, he ran great risk of being totally defeated. however, for once that the bold britons beat him, he beat them twice; though not so soundly but that he was very glad to accept their proposals of peace, and go away. but, in the spring of the next year, he came back; this time, with eight hundred vessels and thirty thousand men. the british tribes chose, as their general-in-chief, a briton, whom the romans in their latin language called cassivellaunus, but whose british name is supposed to have been caswallon. a brave general he was, and well he and his soldiers fought the roman army! so well, that whenever in that war the roman soldiers saw a great cloud of dust, and heard the rattle of the rapid british chariots, they trembled in their hearts. besides a number of smaller battles, there was a battle fought near canterbury, in kent; there was a battle fought near chertsey, in surrey; there was a battle fought near a marshy little town in a wood, the capital of that part of britain which belonged to cassivellaunus, and which was probably near what is now saint albans, in hertfordshire. however, brave cassivellaunus had the worst of it, on the whole; though he and his men always fought like lions. as the other british chiefs were jealous of him, and were always quarrelling with him, and with one another, he gave up, and proposed peace. julius caesar was very glad to grant peace easily, and to go away again with all his remaining ships and men. he had expected to find pearls in britain, and he may have found a few for anything i know; but, at all events, he found delicious oysters, and i am sure he found tough britons--of whom, i dare say, he made the same complaint as napoleon bonaparte the great french general did, eighteen hundred years afterwards, when he said they were such unreasonable fellows that they never knew when they were beaten. they never _did_ know, i believe, and never will. nearly a hundred years passed on, and all that time, there was peace in britain. the britons improved their towns and mode of life: became more civilised, travelled, and learnt a great deal from the gauls and romans. at last, the roman emperor, claudius, sent aulus plautius, a skilful general, with a mighty force, to subdue the island, and shortly afterwards arrived himself. they did little; and ostorius scapula, another general, came. some of the british chiefs of tribes submitted. others resolved to fight to the death. of these brave men, the bravest was caractacus, or caradoc, who gave battle to the romans, with his army, among the mountains of north wales. 'this day,' said he to his soldiers, 'decides the fate of britain! your liberty, or your eternal slavery, dates from this hour. remember your brave ancestors, who drove the great caesar himself across the sea!' on hearing these words, his men, with a great shout, rushed upon the romans. but the strong roman swords and armour were too much for the weaker british weapons in close conflict. the britons lost the day. the wife and daughter of the brave caractacus were taken prisoners; his brothers delivered themselves up; he himself was betrayed into the hands of the romans by his false and base stepmother: and they carried him, and all his family, in triumph to rome. but a great man will be great in misfortune, great in prison, great in chains. his noble air, and dignified endurance of distress, so touched the roman people who thronged the streets to see him, that he and his family were restored to freedom. no one knows whether his great heart broke, and he died in rome, or whether he ever returned to his own dear country. english oaks have grown up from acorns, and withered away, when they were hundreds of years old--and other oaks have sprung up in their places, and died too, very aged--since the rest of the history of the brave caractacus was forgotten. still, the britons _would not_ yield. they rose again and again, and died by thousands, sword in hand. they rose, on every possible occasion. suetonius, another roman general, came, and stormed the island of anglesey (then called mona), which was supposed to be sacred, and he burnt the druids in their own wicker cages, by their own fires. but, even while he was in britain, with his victorious troops, the britons rose. because boadicea, a british queen, the widow of the king of the norfolk and suffolk people, resisted the plundering of her property by the romans who were settled in england, she was scourged, by order of catus a roman officer; and her two daughters were shamefully insulted in her presence, and her husband's relations were made slaves. to avenge this injury, the britons rose, with all their might and rage. they drove catus into gaul; they laid the roman possessions waste; they forced the romans out of london, then a poor little town, but a trading place; they hanged, burnt, crucified, and slew by the sword, seventy thousand romans in a few days. suetonius strengthened his army, and advanced to give them battle. they strengthened their army, and desperately attacked his, on the field where it was strongly posted. before the first charge of the britons was made, boadicea, in a war-chariot, with her fair hair streaming in the wind, and her injured daughters lying at her feet, drove among the troops, and cried to them for vengeance on their oppressors, the licentious romans. the britons fought to the last; but they were vanquished with great slaughter, and the unhappy queen took poison. still, the spirit of the britons was not broken. when suetonius left the country, they fell upon his troops, and retook the island of anglesey. agricola came, fifteen or twenty years afterwards, and retook it once more, and devoted seven years to subduing the country, especially that part of it which is now called scotland; but, its people, the caledonians, resisted him at every inch of ground. they fought the bloodiest battles with him; they killed their very wives and children, to prevent his making prisoners of them; they fell, fighting, in such great numbers that certain hills in scotland are yet supposed to be vast heaps of stones piled up above their graves. hadrian came, thirty years afterwards, and still they resisted him. severus came, nearly a hundred years afterwards, and they worried his great army like dogs, and rejoiced to see them die, by thousands, in the bogs and swamps. caracalla, the son and successor of severus, did the most to conquer them, for a time; but not by force of arms. he knew how little that would do. he yielded up a quantity of land to the caledonians, and gave the britons the same privileges as the romans possessed. there was peace, after this, for seventy years. then new enemies arose. they were the saxons, a fierce, sea-faring people from the countries to the north of the rhine, the great river of germany on the banks of which the best grapes grow to make the german wine. they began to come, in pirate ships, to the sea-coast of gaul and britain, and to plunder them. they were repulsed by carausius, a native either of belgium or of britain, who was appointed by the romans to the command, and under whom the britons first began to fight upon the sea. but, after this time, they renewed their ravages. a few years more, and the scots (which was then the name for the people of ireland), and the picts, a northern people, began to make frequent plundering incursions into the south of britain. all these attacks were repeated, at intervals, during two hundred years, and through a long succession of roman emperors and chiefs; during all which length of time, the britons rose against the romans, over and over again. at last, in the days of the roman honorius, when the roman power all over the world was fast declining, and when rome wanted all her soldiers at home, the romans abandoned all hope of conquering britain, and went away. and still, at last, as at first, the britons rose against them, in their old brave manner; for, a very little while before, they had turned away the roman magistrates, and declared themselves an independent people. five hundred years had passed, since julius caesar's first invasion of the island, when the romans departed from it for ever. in the course of that time, although they had been the cause of terrible fighting and bloodshed, they had done much to improve the condition of the britons. they had made great military roads; they had built forts; they had taught them how to dress, and arm themselves, much better than they had ever known how to do before; they had refined the whole british way of living. agricola had built a great wall of earth, more than seventy miles long, extending from newcastle to beyond carlisle, for the purpose of keeping out the picts and scots; hadrian had strengthened it; severus, finding it much in want of repair, had built it afresh of stone. above all, it was in the roman time, and by means of roman ships, that the christian religion was first brought into britain, and its people first taught the great lesson that, to be good in the sight of god, they must love their neighbours as themselves, and do unto others as they would be done by. the druids declared that it was very wicked to believe in any such thing, and cursed all the people who did believe it, very heartily. but, when the people found that they were none the better for the blessings of the druids, and none the worse for the curses of the druids, but, that the sun shone and the rain fell without consulting the druids at all, they just began to think that the druids were mere men, and that it signified very little whether they cursed or blessed. after which, the pupils of the druids fell off greatly in numbers, and the druids took to other trades. thus i have come to the end of the roman time in england. it is but little that is known of those five hundred years; but some remains of them are still found. often, when labourers are digging up the ground, to make foundations for houses or churches, they light on rusty money that once belonged to the romans. fragments of plates from which they ate, of goblets from which they drank, and of pavement on which they trod, are discovered among the earth that is broken by the plough, or the dust that is crumbled by the gardener's spade. wells that the romans sunk, still yield water; roads that the romans made, form part of our highways. in some old battle-fields, british spear-heads and roman armour have been found, mingled together in decay, as they fell in the thick pressure of the fight. traces of roman camps overgrown with grass, and of mounds that are the burial-places of heaps of britons, are to be seen in almost all parts of the country. across the bleak moors of northumberland, the wall of severus, overrun with moss and weeds, still stretches, a strong ruin; and the shepherds and their dogs lie sleeping on it in the summer weather. on salisbury plain, stonehenge yet stands: a monument of the earlier time when the roman name was unknown in britain, and when the druids, with their best magic wands, could not have written it in the sands of the wild sea-shore. chapter ii--ancient england under the early saxons the romans had scarcely gone away from britain, when the britons began to wish they had never left it. for, the romans being gone, and the britons being much reduced in numbers by their long wars, the picts and scots came pouring in, over the broken and unguarded wall of severus, in swarms. they plundered the richest towns, and killed the people; and came back so often for more booty and more slaughter, that the unfortunate britons lived a life of terror. as if the picts and scots were not bad enough on land, the saxons attacked the islanders by sea; and, as if something more were still wanting to make them miserable, they quarrelled bitterly among themselves as to what prayers they ought to say, and how they ought to say them. the priests, being very angry with one another on these questions, cursed one another in the heartiest manner; and (uncommonly like the old druids) cursed all the people whom they could not persuade. so, altogether, the britons were very badly off, you may believe. they were in such distress, in short, that they sent a letter to rome entreating help--which they called the groans of the britons; and in which they said, 'the barbarians chase us into the sea, the sea throws us back upon the barbarians, and we have only the hard choice left us of perishing by the sword, or perishing by the waves.' but, the romans could not help them, even if they were so inclined; for they had enough to do to defend themselves against their own enemies, who were then very fierce and strong. at last, the britons, unable to bear their hard condition any longer, resolved to make peace with the saxons, and to invite the saxons to come into their country, and help them to keep out the picts and scots. it was a british prince named vortigern who took this resolution, and who made a treaty of friendship with hengist and horsa, two saxon chiefs. both of these names, in the old saxon language, signify horse; for the saxons, like many other nations in a rough state, were fond of giving men the names of animals, as horse, wolf, bear, hound. the indians of north america,--a very inferior people to the saxons, though--do the same to this day. hengist and horsa drove out the picts and scots; and vortigern, being grateful to them for that service, made no opposition to their settling themselves in that part of england which is called the isle of thanet, or to their inviting over more of their countrymen to join them. but hengist had a beautiful daughter named rowena; and when, at a feast, she filled a golden goblet to the brim with wine, and gave it to vortigern, saying in a sweet voice, 'dear king, thy health!' the king fell in love with her. my opinion is, that the cunning hengist meant him to do so, in order that the saxons might have greater influence with him; and that the fair rowena came to that feast, golden goblet and all, on purpose. at any rate, they were married; and, long afterwards, whenever the king was angry with the saxons, or jealous of their encroachments, rowena would put her beautiful arms round his neck, and softly say, 'dear king, they are my people! be favourable to them, as you loved that saxon girl who gave you the golden goblet of wine at the feast!' and, really, i don't see how the king could help himself. ah! we must all die! in the course of years, vortigern died--he was dethroned, and put in prison, first, i am afraid; and rowena died; and generations of saxons and britons died; and events that happened during a long, long time, would have been quite forgotten but for the tales and songs of the old bards, who used to go about from feast to feast, with their white beards, recounting the deeds of their forefathers. among the histories of which they sang and talked, there was a famous one, concerning the bravery and virtues of king arthur, supposed to have been a british prince in those old times. but, whether such a person really lived, or whether there were several persons whose histories came to be confused together under that one name, or whether all about him was invention, no one knows. i will tell you, shortly, what is most interesting in the early saxon times, as they are described in these songs and stories of the bards. in, and long after, the days of vortigern, fresh bodies of saxons, under various chiefs, came pouring into britain. one body, conquering the britons in the east, and settling there, called their kingdom essex; another body settled in the west, and called their kingdom wessex; the northfolk, or norfolk people, established themselves in one place; the southfolk, or suffolk people, established themselves in another; and gradually seven kingdoms or states arose in england, which were called the saxon heptarchy. the poor britons, falling back before these crowds of fighting men whom they had innocently invited over as friends, retired into wales and the adjacent country; into devonshire, and into cornwall. those parts of england long remained unconquered. and in cornwall now--where the sea-coast is very gloomy, steep, and rugged--where, in the dark winter-time, ships have often been wrecked close to the land, and every soul on board has perished--where the winds and waves howl drearily and split the solid rocks into arches and caverns--there are very ancient ruins, which the people call the ruins of king arthur's castle. kent is the most famous of the seven saxon kingdoms, because the christian religion was preached to the saxons there (who domineered over the britons too much, to care for what _they_ said about their religion, or anything else) by augustine, a monk from rome. king ethelbert, of kent, was soon converted; and the moment he said he was a christian, his courtiers all said _they_ were christians; after which, ten thousand of his subjects said they were christians too. augustine built a little church, close to this king's palace, on the ground now occupied by the beautiful cathedral of canterbury. sebert, the king's nephew, built on a muddy marshy place near london, where there had been a temple to apollo, a church dedicated to saint peter, which is now westminster abbey. and, in london itself, on the foundation of a temple to diana, he built another little church which has risen up, since that old time, to be saint paul's. after the death of ethelbert, edwin, king of northumbria, who was such a good king that it was said a woman or child might openly carry a purse of gold, in his reign, without fear, allowed his child to be baptised, and held a great council to consider whether he and his people should all be christians or not. it was decided that they should be. coifi, the chief priest of the old religion, made a great speech on the occasion. in this discourse, he told the people that he had found out the old gods to be impostors. 'i am quite satisfied of it,' he said. 'look at me! i have been serving them all my life, and they have done nothing for me; whereas, if they had been really powerful, they could not have decently done less, in return for all i have done for them, than make my fortune. as they have never made my fortune, i am quite convinced they are impostors!' when this singular priest had finished speaking, he hastily armed himself with sword and lance, mounted a war-horse, rode at a furious gallop in sight of all the people to the temple, and flung his lance against it as an insult. from that time, the christian religion spread itself among the saxons, and became their faith. the next very famous prince was egbert. he lived about a hundred and fifty years afterwards, and claimed to have a better right to the throne of wessex than beortric, another saxon prince who was at the head of that kingdom, and who married edburga, the daughter of offa, king of another of the seven kingdoms. this queen edburga was a handsome murderess, who poisoned people when they offended her. one day, she mixed a cup of poison for a certain noble belonging to the court; but her husband drank of it too, by mistake, and died. upon this, the people revolted, in great crowds; and running to the palace, and thundering at the gates, cried, 'down with the wicked queen, who poisons men!' they drove her out of the country, and abolished the title she had disgraced. when years had passed away, some travellers came home from italy, and said that in the town of pavia they had seen a ragged beggar-woman, who had once been handsome, but was then shrivelled, bent, and yellow, wandering about the streets, crying for bread; and that this beggar-woman was the poisoning english queen. it was, indeed, edburga; and so she died, without a shelter for her wretched head. egbert, not considering himself safe in england, in consequence of his having claimed the crown of wessex (for he thought his rival might take him prisoner and put him to death), sought refuge at the court of charlemagne, king of france. on the death of beortric, so unhappily poisoned by mistake, egbert came back to britain; succeeded to the throne of wessex; conquered some of the other monarchs of the seven kingdoms; added their territories to his own; and, for the first time, called the country over which he ruled, england. and now, new enemies arose, who, for a long time, troubled england sorely. these were the northmen, the people of denmark and norway, whom the english called the danes. they were a warlike people, quite at home upon the sea; not christians; very daring and cruel. they came over in ships, and plundered and burned wheresoever they landed. once, they beat egbert in battle. once, egbert beat them. but, they cared no more for being beaten than the english themselves. in the four following short reigns, of ethelwulf, and his sons, ethelbald, ethelbert, and ethelred, they came back, over and over again, burning and plundering, and laying england waste. in the last-mentioned reign, they seized edmund, king of east england, and bound him to a tree. then, they proposed to him that he should change his religion; but he, being a good christian, steadily refused. upon that, they beat him, made cowardly jests upon him, all defenceless as he was, shot arrows at him, and, finally, struck off his head. it is impossible to say whose head they might have struck off next, but for the death of king ethelred from a wound he had received in fighting against them, and the succession to his throne of the best and wisest king that ever lived in england. chapter iii--england under the good saxon, alfred alfred the great was a young man, three-and-twenty years of age, when he became king. twice in his childhood, he had been taken to rome, where the saxon nobles were in the habit of going on journeys which they supposed to be religious; and, once, he had stayed for some time in paris. learning, however, was so little cared for, then, that at twelve years old he had not been taught to read; although, of the sons of king ethelwulf, he, the youngest, was the favourite. but he had--as most men who grow up to be great and good are generally found to have had--an excellent mother; and, one day, this lady, whose name was osburga, happened, as she was sitting among her sons, to read a book of saxon poetry. the art of printing was not known until long and long after that period, and the book, which was written, was what is called 'illuminated,' with beautiful bright letters, richly painted. the brothers admiring it very much, their mother said, 'i will give it to that one of you four princes who first learns to read.' alfred sought out a tutor that very day, applied himself to learn with great diligence, and soon won the book. he was proud of it, all his life. this great king, in the first year of his reign, fought nine battles with the danes. he made some treaties with them too, by which the false danes swore they would quit the country. they pretended to consider that they had taken a very solemn oath, in swearing this upon the holy bracelets that they wore, and which were always buried with them when they died; but they cared little for it, for they thought nothing of breaking oaths and treaties too, as soon as it suited their purpose, and coming back again to fight, plunder, and burn, as usual. one fatal winter, in the fourth year of king alfred's reign, they spread themselves in great numbers over the whole of england; and so dispersed and routed the king's soldiers that the king was left alone, and was obliged to disguise himself as a common peasant, and to take refuge in the cottage of one of his cowherds who did not know his face. here, king alfred, while the danes sought him far and near, was left alone one day, by the cowherd's wife, to watch some cakes which she put to bake upon the hearth. but, being at work upon his bow and arrows, with which he hoped to punish the false danes when a brighter time should come, and thinking deeply of his poor unhappy subjects whom the danes chased through the land, his noble mind forgot the cakes, and they were burnt. 'what!' said the cowherd's wife, who scolded him well when she came back, and little thought she was scolding the king, 'you will be ready enough to eat them by-and-by, and yet you cannot watch them, idle dog?' at length, the devonshire men made head against a new host of danes who landed on their coast; killed their chief, and captured their flag; on which was represented the likeness of a raven--a very fit bird for a thievish army like that, i think. the loss of their standard troubled the danes greatly, for they believed it to be enchanted--woven by the three daughters of one father in a single afternoon--and they had a story among themselves that when they were victorious in battle, the raven stretched his wings and seemed to fly; and that when they were defeated, he would droop. he had good reason to droop, now, if he could have done anything half so sensible; for, king alfred joined the devonshire men; made a camp with them on a piece of firm ground in the midst of a bog in somersetshire; and prepared for a great attempt for vengeance on the danes, and the deliverance of his oppressed people. but, first, as it was important to know how numerous those pestilent danes were, and how they were fortified, king alfred, being a good musician, disguised himself as a glee-man or minstrel, and went, with his harp, to the danish camp. he played and sang in the very tent of guthrum the danish leader, and entertained the danes as they caroused. while he seemed to think of nothing but his music, he was watchful of their tents, their arms, their discipline, everything that he desired to know. and right soon did this great king entertain them to a different tune; for, summoning all his true followers to meet him at an appointed place, where they received him with joyful shouts and tears, as the monarch whom many of them had given up for lost or dead, he put himself at their head, marched on the danish camp, defeated the danes with great slaughter, and besieged them for fourteen days to prevent their escape. but, being as merciful as he was good and brave, he then, instead of killing them, proposed peace: on condition that they should altogether depart from that western part of england, and settle in the east; and that guthrum should become a christian, in remembrance of the divine religion which now taught his conqueror, the noble alfred, to forgive the enemy who had so often injured him. this, guthrum did. at his baptism, king alfred was his godfather. and guthrum was an honourable chief who well deserved that clemency; for, ever afterwards he was loyal and faithful to the king. the danes under him were faithful too. they plundered and burned no more, but worked like honest men. they ploughed, and sowed, and reaped, and led good honest english lives. and i hope the children of those danes played, many a time, with saxon children in the sunny fields; and that danish young men fell in love with saxon girls, and married them; and that english travellers, benighted at the doors of danish cottages, often went in for shelter until morning; and that danes and saxons sat by the red fire, friends, talking of king alfred the great. all the danes were not like these under guthrum; for, after some years, more of them came over, in the old plundering and burning way--among them a fierce pirate of the name of hastings, who had the boldness to sail up the thames to gravesend, with eighty ships. for three years, there was a war with these danes; and there was a famine in the country, too, and a plague, both upon human creatures and beasts. but king alfred, whose mighty heart never failed him, built large ships nevertheless, with which to pursue the pirates on the sea; and he encouraged his soldiers, by his brave example, to fight valiantly against them on the shore. at last, he drove them all away; and then there was repose in england. as great and good in peace, as he was great and good in war, king alfred never rested from his labours to improve his people. he loved to talk with clever men, and with travellers from foreign countries, and to write down what they told him, for his people to read. he had studied latin after learning to read english, and now another of his labours was, to translate latin books into the english-saxon tongue, that his people might be interested, and improved by their contents. he made just laws, that they might live more happily and freely; he turned away all partial judges, that no wrong might be done them; he was so careful of their property, and punished robbers so severely, that it was a common thing to say that under the great king alfred, garlands of golden chains and jewels might have hung across the streets, and no man would have touched one. he founded schools; he patiently heard causes himself in his court of justice; the great desires of his heart were, to do right to all his subjects, and to leave england better, wiser, happier in all ways, than he found it. his industry in these efforts was quite astonishing. every day he divided into certain portions, and in each portion devoted himself to a certain pursuit. that he might divide his time exactly, he had wax torches or candles made, which were all of the same size, were notched across at regular distances, and were always kept burning. thus, as the candles burnt down, he divided the day into notches, almost as accurately as we now divide it into hours upon the clock. but when the candles were first invented, it was found that the wind and draughts of air, blowing into the palace through the doors and windows, and through the chinks in the walls, caused them to gutter and burn unequally. to prevent this, the king had them put into cases formed of wood and white horn. and these were the first lanthorns ever made in england. all this time, he was afflicted with a terrible unknown disease, which caused him violent and frequent pain that nothing could relieve. he bore it, as he had borne all the troubles of his life, like a brave good man, until he was fifty-three years old; and then, having reigned thirty years, he died. he died in the year nine hundred and one; but, long ago as that is, his fame, and the love and gratitude with which his subjects regarded him, are freshly remembered to the present hour. in the next reign, which was the reign of edward, surnamed the elder, who was chosen in council to succeed, a nephew of king alfred troubled the country by trying to obtain the throne. the danes in the east of england took part with this usurper (perhaps because they had honoured his uncle so much, and honoured him for his uncle's sake), and there was hard fighting; but, the king, with the assistance of his sister, gained the day, and reigned in peace for four and twenty years. he gradually extended his power over the whole of england, and so the seven kingdoms were united into one. when england thus became one kingdom, ruled over by one saxon king, the saxons had been settled in the country more than four hundred and fifty years. great changes had taken place in its customs during that time. the saxons were still greedy eaters and great drinkers, and their feasts were often of a noisy and drunken kind; but many new comforts and even elegances had become known, and were fast increasing. hangings for the walls of rooms, where, in these modern days, we paste up paper, are known to have been sometimes made of silk, ornamented with birds and flowers in needlework. tables and chairs were curiously carved in different woods; were sometimes decorated with gold or silver; sometimes even made of those precious metals. knives and spoons were used at table; golden ornaments were worn--with silk and cloth, and golden tissues and embroideries; dishes were made of gold and silver, brass and bone. there were varieties of drinking-horns, bedsteads, musical instruments. a harp was passed round, at a feast, like the drinking-bowl, from guest to guest; and each one usually sang or played when his turn came. the weapons of the saxons were stoutly made, and among them was a terrible iron hammer that gave deadly blows, and was long remembered. the saxons themselves were a handsome people. the men were proud of their long fair hair, parted on the forehead; their ample beards, their fresh complexions, and clear eyes. the beauty of the saxon women filled all england with a new delight and grace. i have more to tell of the saxons yet, but i stop to say this now, because under the great alfred, all the best points of the english-saxon character were first encouraged, and in him first shown. it has been the greatest character among the nations of the earth. wherever the descendants of the saxon race have gone, have sailed, or otherwise made their way, even to the remotest regions of the world, they have been patient, persevering, never to be broken in spirit, never to be turned aside from enterprises on which they have resolved. in europe, asia, africa, america, the whole world over; in the desert, in the forest, on the sea; scorched by a burning sun, or frozen by ice that never melts; the saxon blood remains unchanged. wheresoever that race goes, there, law, and industry, and safety for life and property, and all the great results of steady perseverance, are certain to arise. i pause to think with admiration, of the noble king who, in his single person, possessed all the saxon virtues. whom misfortune could not subdue, whom prosperity could not spoil, whose perseverance nothing could shake. who was hopeful in defeat, and generous in success. who loved justice, freedom, truth, and knowledge. who, in his care to instruct his people, probably did more to preserve the beautiful old saxon language, than i can imagine. without whom, the english tongue in which i tell this story might have wanted half its meaning. as it is said that his spirit still inspires some of our best english laws, so, let you and i pray that it may animate our english hearts, at least to this--to resolve, when we see any of our fellow-creatures left in ignorance, that we will do our best, while life is in us, to have them taught; and to tell those rulers whose duty it is to teach them, and who neglect their duty, that they have profited very little by all the years that have rolled away since the year nine hundred and one, and that they are far behind the bright example of king alfred the great. chapter iv--england under athelstan and the six boy-kings athelstan, the son of edward the elder, succeeded that king. he reigned only fifteen years; but he remembered the glory of his grandfather, the great alfred, and governed england well. he reduced the turbulent people of wales, and obliged them to pay him a tribute in money, and in cattle, and to send him their best hawks and hounds. he was victorious over the cornish men, who were not yet quite under the saxon government. he restored such of the old laws as were good, and had fallen into disuse; made some wise new laws, and took care of the poor and weak. a strong alliance, made against him by anlaf a danish prince, constantine king of the scots, and the people of north wales, he broke and defeated in one great battle, long famous for the vast numbers slain in it. after that, he had a quiet reign; the lords and ladies about him had leisure to become polite and agreeable; and foreign princes were glad (as they have sometimes been since) to come to england on visits to the english court. when athelstan died, at forty-seven years old, his brother edmund, who was only eighteen, became king. he was the first of six boy-kings, as you will presently know. they called him the magnificent, because he showed a taste for improvement and refinement. but he was beset by the danes, and had a short and troubled reign, which came to a troubled end. one night, when he was feasting in his hall, and had eaten much and drunk deep, he saw, among the company, a noted robber named leof, who had been banished from england. made very angry by the boldness of this man, the king turned to his cup-bearer, and said, 'there is a robber sitting at the table yonder, who, for his crimes, is an outlaw in the land--a hunted wolf, whose life any man may take, at any time. command that robber to depart!' 'i will not depart!' said leof. 'no?' cried the king. 'no, by the lord!' said leof. upon that the king rose from his seat, and, making passionately at the robber, and seizing him by his long hair, tried to throw him down. but the robber had a dagger underneath his cloak, and, in the scuffle, stabbed the king to death. that done, he set his back against the wall, and fought so desperately, that although he was soon cut to pieces by the king's armed men, and the wall and pavement were splashed with his blood, yet it was not before he had killed and wounded many of them. you may imagine what rough lives the kings of those times led, when one of them could struggle, half drunk, with a public robber in his own dining-hall, and be stabbed in presence of the company who ate and drank with him. then succeeded the boy-king edred, who was weak and sickly in body, but of a strong mind. and his armies fought the northmen, the danes, and norwegians, or the sea-kings, as they were called, and beat them for the time. and, in nine years, edred died, and passed away. then came the boy-king edwy, fifteen years of age; but the real king, who had the real power, was a monk named dunstan--a clever priest, a little mad, and not a little proud and cruel. dunstan was then abbot of glastonbury abbey, whither the body of king edmund the magnificent was carried, to be buried. while yet a boy, he had got out of his bed one night (being then in a fever), and walked about glastonbury church when it was under repair; and, because he did not tumble off some scaffolds that were there, and break his neck, it was reported that he had been shown over the building by an angel. he had also made a harp that was said to play of itself--which it very likely did, as aeolian harps, which are played by the wind, and are understood now, always do. for these wonders he had been once denounced by his enemies, who were jealous of his favour with the late king athelstan, as a magician; and he had been waylaid, bound hand and foot, and thrown into a marsh. but he got out again, somehow, to cause a great deal of trouble yet. the priests of those days were, generally, the only scholars. they were learned in many things. having to make their own convents and monasteries on uncultivated grounds that were granted to them by the crown, it was necessary that they should be good farmers and good gardeners, or their lands would have been too poor to support them. for the decoration of the chapels where they prayed, and for the comfort of the refectories where they ate and drank, it was necessary that there should be good carpenters, good smiths, good painters, among them. for their greater safety in sickness and accident, living alone by themselves in solitary places, it was necessary that they should study the virtues of plants and herbs, and should know how to dress cuts, burns, scalds, and bruises, and how to set broken limbs. accordingly, they taught themselves, and one another, a great variety of useful arts; and became skilful in agriculture, medicine, surgery, and handicraft. and when they wanted the aid of any little piece of machinery, which would be simple enough now, but was marvellous then, to impose a trick upon the poor peasants, they knew very well how to make it; and _did_ make it many a time and often, i have no doubt. dunstan, abbot of glastonbury abbey, was one of the most sagacious of these monks. he was an ingenious smith, and worked at a forge in a little cell. this cell was made too short to admit of his lying at full length when he went to sleep--as if _that_ did any good to anybody!--and he used to tell the most extraordinary lies about demons and spirits, who, he said, came there to persecute him. for instance, he related that one day when he was at work, the devil looked in at the little window, and tried to tempt him to lead a life of idle pleasure; whereupon, having his pincers in the fire, red hot, he seized the devil by the nose, and put him to such pain, that his bellowings were heard for miles and miles. some people are inclined to think this nonsense a part of dunstan's madness (for his head never quite recovered the fever), but i think not. i observe that it induced the ignorant people to consider him a holy man, and that it made him very powerful. which was exactly what he always wanted. on the day of the coronation of the handsome boy-king edwy, it was remarked by odo, archbishop of canterbury (who was a dane by birth), that the king quietly left the coronation feast, while all the company were there. odo, much displeased, sent his friend dunstan to seek him. dunstan finding him in the company of his beautiful young wife elgiva, and her mother ethelgiva, a good and virtuous lady, not only grossly abused them, but dragged the young king back into the feasting-hall by force. some, again, think dunstan did this because the young king's fair wife was his own cousin, and the monks objected to people marrying their own cousins; but i believe he did it, because he was an imperious, audacious, ill-conditioned priest, who, having loved a young lady himself before he became a sour monk, hated all love now, and everything belonging to it. the young king was quite old enough to feel this insult. dunstan had been treasurer in the last reign, and he soon charged dunstan with having taken some of the last king's money. the glastonbury abbot fled to belgium (very narrowly escaping some pursuers who were sent to put out his eyes, as you will wish they had, when you read what follows), and his abbey was given to priests who were married; whom he always, both before and afterwards, opposed. but he quickly conspired with his friend, odo the dane, to set up the king's young brother, edgar, as his rival for the throne; and, not content with this revenge, he caused the beautiful queen elgiva, though a lovely girl of only seventeen or eighteen, to be stolen from one of the royal palaces, branded in the cheek with a red-hot iron, and sold into slavery in ireland. but the irish people pitied and befriended her; and they said, 'let us restore the girl-queen to the boy- king, and make the young lovers happy!' and they cured her of her cruel wound, and sent her home as beautiful as before. but the villain dunstan, and that other villain, odo, caused her to be waylaid at gloucester as she was joyfully hurrying to join her husband, and to be hacked and hewn with swords, and to be barbarously maimed and lamed, and left to die. when edwy the fair (his people called him so, because he was so young and handsome) heard of her dreadful fate, he died of a broken heart; and so the pitiful story of the poor young wife and husband ends! ah! better to be two cottagers in these better times, than king and queen of england in those bad days, though never so fair! then came the boy-king, edgar, called the peaceful, fifteen years old. dunstan, being still the real king, drove all married priests out of the monasteries and abbeys, and replaced them by solitary monks like himself, of the rigid order called the benedictines. he made himself archbishop of canterbury, for his greater glory; and exercised such power over the neighbouring british princes, and so collected them about the king, that once, when the king held his court at chester, and went on the river dee to visit the monastery of st. john, the eight oars of his boat were pulled (as the people used to delight in relating in stories and songs) by eight crowned kings, and steered by the king of england. as edgar was very obedient to dunstan and the monks, they took great pains to represent him as the best of kings. but he was really profligate, debauched, and vicious. he once forcibly carried off a young lady from the convent at wilton; and dunstan, pretending to be very much shocked, condemned him not to wear his crown upon his head for seven years--no great punishment, i dare say, as it can hardly have been a more comfortable ornament to wear, than a stewpan without a handle. his marriage with his second wife, elfrida, is one of the worst events of his reign. hearing of the beauty of this lady, he despatched his favourite courtier, athelwold, to her father's castle in devonshire, to see if she were really as charming as fame reported. now, she was so exceedingly beautiful that athelwold fell in love with her himself, and married her; but he told the king that she was only rich--not handsome. the king, suspecting the truth when they came home, resolved to pay the newly-married couple a visit; and, suddenly, told athelwold to prepare for his immediate coming. athelwold, terrified, confessed to his young wife what he had said and done, and implored her to disguise her beauty by some ugly dress or silly manner, that he might be safe from the king's anger. she promised that she would; but she was a proud woman, who would far rather have been a queen than the wife of a courtier. she dressed herself in her best dress, and adorned herself with her richest jewels; and when the king came, presently, he discovered the cheat. so, he caused his false friend, athelwold, to be murdered in a wood, and married his widow, this bad elfrida. six or seven years afterwards, he died; and was buried, as if he had been all that the monks said he was, in the abbey of glastonbury, which he--or dunstan for him--had much enriched. england, in one part of this reign, was so troubled by wolves, which, driven out of the open country, hid themselves in the mountains of wales when they were not attacking travellers and animals, that the tribute payable by the welsh people was forgiven them, on condition of their producing, every year, three hundred wolves' heads. and the welshmen were so sharp upon the wolves, to save their money, that in four years there was not a wolf left. then came the boy-king, edward, called the martyr, from the manner of his death. elfrida had a son, named ethelred, for whom she claimed the throne; but dunstan did not choose to favour him, and he made edward king. the boy was hunting, one day, down in dorsetshire, when he rode near to corfe castle, where elfrida and ethelred lived. wishing to see them kindly, he rode away from his attendants and galloped to the castle gate, where he arrived at twilight, and blew his hunting-horn. 'you are welcome, dear king,' said elfrida, coming out, with her brightest smiles. 'pray you dismount and enter.' 'not so, dear madam,' said the king. 'my company will miss me, and fear that i have met with some harm. please you to give me a cup of wine, that i may drink here, in the saddle, to you and to my little brother, and so ride away with the good speed i have made in riding here.' elfrida, going in to bring the wine, whispered an armed servant, one of her attendants, who stole out of the darkening gateway, and crept round behind the king's horse. as the king raised the cup to his lips, saying, 'health!' to the wicked woman who was smiling on him, and to his innocent brother whose hand she held in hers, and who was only ten years old, this armed man made a spring and stabbed him in the back. he dropped the cup and spurred his horse away; but, soon fainting with loss of blood, dropped from the saddle, and, in his fall, entangled one of his feet in the stirrup. the frightened horse dashed on; trailing his rider's curls upon the ground; dragging his smooth young face through ruts, and stones, and briers, and fallen leaves, and mud; until the hunters, tracking the animal's course by the king's blood, caught his bridle, and released the disfigured body. then came the sixth and last of the boy-kings, ethelred, whom elfrida, when he cried out at the sight of his murdered brother riding away from the castle gate, unmercifully beat with a torch which she snatched from one of the attendants. the people so disliked this boy, on account of his cruel mother and the murder she had done to promote him, that dunstan would not have had him for king, but would have made edgitha, the daughter of the dead king edgar, and of the lady whom he stole out of the convent at wilton, queen of england, if she would have consented. but she knew the stories of the youthful kings too well, and would not be persuaded from the convent where she lived in peace; so, dunstan put ethelred on the throne, having no one else to put there, and gave him the nickname of the unready--knowing that he wanted resolution and firmness. at first, elfrida possessed great influence over the young king, but, as he grew older and came of age, her influence declined. the infamous woman, not having it in her power to do any more evil, then retired from court, and, according, to the fashion of the time, built churches and monasteries, to expiate her guilt. as if a church, with a steeple reaching to the very stars, would have been any sign of true repentance for the blood of the poor boy, whose murdered form was trailed at his horse's heels! as if she could have buried her wickedness beneath the senseless stones of the whole world, piled up one upon another, for the monks to live in! about the ninth or tenth year of this reign, dunstan died. he was growing old then, but was as stern and artful as ever. two circumstances that happened in connexion with him, in this reign of ethelred, made a great noise. once, he was present at a meeting of the church, when the question was discussed whether priests should have permission to marry; and, as he sat with his head hung down, apparently thinking about it, a voice seemed to come out of a crucifix in the room, and warn the meeting to be of his opinion. this was some juggling of dunstan's, and was probably his own voice disguised. but he played off a worse juggle than that, soon afterwards; for, another meeting being held on the same subject, and he and his supporters being seated on one side of a great room, and their opponents on the other, he rose and said, 'to christ himself, as judge, do i commit this cause!' immediately on these words being spoken, the floor where the opposite party sat gave way, and some were killed and many wounded. you may be pretty sure that it had been weakened under dunstan's direction, and that it fell at dunstan's signal. _his_ part of the floor did not go down. no, no. he was too good a workman for that. when he died, the monks settled that he was a saint, and called him saint dunstan ever afterwards. they might just as well have settled that he was a coach-horse, and could just as easily have called him one. ethelred the unready was glad enough, i dare say, to be rid of this holy saint; but, left to himself, he was a poor weak king, and his reign was a reign of defeat and shame. the restless danes, led by sweyn, a son of the king of denmark who had quarrelled with his father and had been banished from home, again came into england, and, year after year, attacked and despoiled large towns. to coax these sea-kings away, the weak ethelred paid them money; but, the more money he paid, the more money the danes wanted. at first, he gave them ten thousand pounds; on their next invasion, sixteen thousand pounds; on their next invasion, four and twenty thousand pounds: to pay which large sums, the unfortunate english people were heavily taxed. but, as the danes still came back and wanted more, he thought it would be a good plan to marry into some powerful foreign family that would help him with soldiers. so, in the year one thousand and two, he courted and married emma, the sister of richard duke of normandy; a lady who was called the flower of normandy. and now, a terrible deed was done in england, the like of which was never done on english ground before or since. on the thirteenth of november, in pursuance of secret instructions sent by the king over the whole country, the inhabitants of every town and city armed, and murdered all the danes who were their neighbours. young and old, babies and soldiers, men and women, every dane was killed. no doubt there were among them many ferocious men who had done the english great wrong, and whose pride and insolence, in swaggering in the houses of the english and insulting their wives and daughters, had become unbearable; but no doubt there were also among them many peaceful christian danes who had married english women and become like english men. they were all slain, even to gunhilda, the sister of the king of denmark, married to an english lord; who was first obliged to see the murder of her husband and her child, and then was killed herself. when the king of the sea-kings heard of this deed of blood, he swore that he would have a great revenge. he raised an army, and a mightier fleet of ships than ever yet had sailed to england; and in all his army there was not a slave or an old man, but every soldier was a free man, and the son of a free man, and in the prime of life, and sworn to be revenged upon the english nation, for the massacre of that dread thirteenth of november, when his countrymen and countrywomen, and the little children whom they loved, were killed with fire and sword. and so, the sea-kings came to england in many great ships, each bearing the flag of its own commander. golden eagles, ravens, dragons, dolphins, beasts of prey, threatened england from the prows of those ships, as they came onward through the water; and were reflected in the shining shields that hung upon their sides. the ship that bore the standard of the king of the sea- kings was carved and painted like a mighty serpent; and the king in his anger prayed that the gods in whom he trusted might all desert him, if his serpent did not strike its fangs into england's heart. and indeed it did. for, the great army landing from the great fleet, near exeter, went forward, laying england waste, and striking their lances in the earth as they advanced, or throwing them into rivers, in token of their making all the island theirs. in remembrance of the black november night when the danes were murdered, wheresoever the invaders came, they made the saxons prepare and spread for them great feasts; and when they had eaten those feasts, and had drunk a curse to england with wild rejoicings, they drew their swords, and killed their saxon entertainers, and marched on. for six long years they carried on this war: burning the crops, farmhouses, barns, mills, granaries; killing the labourers in the fields; preventing the seed from being sown in the ground; causing famine and starvation; leaving only heaps of ruin and smoking ashes, where they had found rich towns. to crown this misery, english officers and men deserted, and even the favourites of ethelred the unready, becoming traitors, seized many of the english ships, turned pirates against their own country, and aided by a storm occasioned the loss of nearly the whole english navy. there was but one man of note, at this miserable pass, who was true to his country and the feeble king. he was a priest, and a brave one. for twenty days, the archbishop of canterbury defended that city against its danish besiegers; and when a traitor in the town threw the gates open and admitted them, he said, in chains, 'i will not buy my life with money that must be extorted from the suffering people. do with me what you please!' again and again, he steadily refused to purchase his release with gold wrung from the poor. at last, the danes being tired of this, and being assembled at a drunken merry-making, had him brought into the feasting-hall. 'now, bishop,' they said, 'we want gold!' he looked round on the crowd of angry faces; from the shaggy beards close to him, to the shaggy beards against the walls, where men were mounted on tables and forms to see him over the heads of others: and he knew that his time was come. 'i have no gold,' he said. 'get it, bishop!' they all thundered. 'that, i have often told you i will not,' said he. they gathered closer round him, threatening, but he stood unmoved. then, one man struck him; then, another; then a cursing soldier picked up from a heap in a corner of the hall, where fragments had been rudely thrown at dinner, a great ox-bone, and cast it at his face, from which the blood came spurting forth; then, others ran to the same heap, and knocked him down with other bones, and bruised and battered him; until one soldier whom he had baptised (willing, as i hope for the sake of that soldier's soul, to shorten the sufferings of the good man) struck him dead with his battle-axe. if ethelred had had the heart to emulate the courage of this noble archbishop, he might have done something yet. but he paid the danes forty-eight thousand pounds, instead, and gained so little by the cowardly act, that sweyn soon afterwards came over to subdue all england. so broken was the attachment of the english people, by this time, to their incapable king and their forlorn country which could not protect them, that they welcomed sweyn on all sides, as a deliverer. london faithfully stood out, as long as the king was within its walls; but, when he sneaked away, it also welcomed the dane. then, all was over; and the king took refuge abroad with the duke of normandy, who had already given shelter to the king's wife, once the flower of that country, and to her children. still, the english people, in spite of their sad sufferings, could not quite forget the great king alfred and the saxon race. when sweyn died suddenly, in little more than a month after he had been proclaimed king of england, they generously sent to ethelred, to say that they would have him for their king again, 'if he would only govern them better than he had governed them before.' the unready, instead of coming himself, sent edward, one of his sons, to make promises for him. at last, he followed, and the english declared him king. the danes declared canute, the son of sweyn, king. thus, direful war began again, and lasted for three years, when the unready died. and i know of nothing better that he did, in all his reign of eight and thirty years. was canute to be king now? not over the saxons, they said; they must have edmund, one of the sons of the unready, who was surnamed ironside, because of his strength and stature. edmund and canute thereupon fell to, and fought five battles--o unhappy england, what a fighting-ground it was!--and then ironside, who was a big man, proposed to canute, who was a little man, that they two should fight it out in single combat. if canute had been the big man, he would probably have said yes, but, being the little man, he decidedly said no. however, he declared that he was willing to divide the kingdom--to take all that lay north of watling street, as the old roman military road from dover to chester was called, and to give ironside all that lay south of it. most men being weary of so much bloodshed, this was done. but canute soon became sole king of england; for ironside died suddenly within two months. some think that he was killed, and killed by canute's orders. no one knows. chapter v--england under canute the dane canute reigned eighteen years. he was a merciless king at first. after he had clasped the hands of the saxon chiefs, in token of the sincerity with which he swore to be just and good to them in return for their acknowledging him, he denounced and slew many of them, as well as many relations of the late king. 'he who brings me the head of one of my enemies,' he used to say, 'shall be dearer to me than a brother.' and he was so severe in hunting down his enemies, that he must have got together a pretty large family of these dear brothers. he was strongly inclined to kill edmund and edward, two children, sons of poor ironside; but, being afraid to do so in england, he sent them over to the king of sweden, with a request that the king would be so good as 'dispose of them.' if the king of sweden had been like many, many other men of that day, he would have had their innocent throats cut; but he was a kind man, and brought them up tenderly. normandy ran much in canute's mind. in normandy were the two children of the late king--edward and alfred by name; and their uncle the duke might one day claim the crown for them. but the duke showed so little inclination to do so now, that he proposed to canute to marry his sister, the widow of the unready; who, being but a showy flower, and caring for nothing so much as becoming a queen again, left her children and was wedded to him. successful and triumphant, assisted by the valour of the english in his foreign wars, and with little strife to trouble him at home, canute had a prosperous reign, and made many improvements. he was a poet and a musician. he grew sorry, as he grew older, for the blood he had shed at first; and went to rome in a pilgrim's dress, by way of washing it out. he gave a great deal of money to foreigners on his journey; but he took it from the english before he started. on the whole, however, he certainly became a far better man when he had no opposition to contend with, and was as great a king as england had known for some time. the old writers of history relate how that canute was one day disgusted with his courtiers for their flattery, and how he caused his chair to be set on the sea-shore, and feigned to command the tide as it came up not to wet the edge of his robe, for the land was his; how the tide came up, of course, without regarding him; and how he then turned to his flatterers, and rebuked them, saying, what was the might of any earthly king, to the might of the creator, who could say unto the sea, 'thus far shalt thou go, and no farther!' we may learn from this, i think, that a little sense will go a long way in a king; and that courtiers are not easily cured of flattery, nor kings of a liking for it. if the courtiers of canute had not known, long before, that the king was fond of flattery, they would have known better than to offer it in such large doses. and if they had not known that he was vain of this speech (anything but a wonderful speech it seems to me, if a good child had made it), they would not have been at such great pains to repeat it. i fancy i see them all on the sea-shore together; the king's chair sinking in the sand; the king in a mighty good humour with his own wisdom; and the courtiers pretending to be quite stunned by it! it is not the sea alone that is bidden to go 'thus far, and no farther.' the great command goes forth to all the kings upon the earth, and went to canute in the year one thousand and thirty-five, and stretched him dead upon his bed. beside it, stood his norman wife. perhaps, as the king looked his last upon her, he, who had so often thought distrustfully of normandy, long ago, thought once more of the two exiled princes in their uncle's court, and of the little favour they could feel for either danes or saxons, and of a rising cloud in normandy that slowly moved towards england. chapter vi--england under harold harefoot, hardicanute, and edward the confessor canute left three sons, by name sweyn, harold, and hardicanute; but his queen, emma, once the flower of normandy, was the mother of only hardicanute. canute had wished his dominions to be divided between the three, and had wished harold to have england; but the saxon people in the south of england, headed by a nobleman with great possessions, called the powerful earl godwin (who is said to have been originally a poor cow-boy), opposed this, and desired to have, instead, either hardicanute, or one of the two exiled princes who were over in normandy. it seemed so certain that there would be more bloodshed to settle this dispute, that many people left their homes, and took refuge in the woods and swamps. happily, however, it was agreed to refer the whole question to a great meeting at oxford, which decided that harold should have all the country north of the thames, with london for his capital city, and that hardicanute should have all the south. the quarrel was so arranged; and, as hardicanute was in denmark troubling himself very little about anything but eating and getting drunk, his mother and earl godwin governed the south for him. they had hardly begun to do so, and the trembling people who had hidden themselves were scarcely at home again, when edward, the elder of the two exiled princes, came over from normandy with a few followers, to claim the english crown. his mother emma, however, who only cared for her last son hardicanute, instead of assisting him, as he expected, opposed him so strongly with all her influence that he was very soon glad to get safely back. his brother alfred was not so fortunate. believing in an affectionate letter, written some time afterwards to him and his brother, in his mother's name (but whether really with or without his mother's knowledge is now uncertain), he allowed himself to be tempted over to england, with a good force of soldiers, and landing on the kentish coast, and being met and welcomed by earl godwin, proceeded into surrey, as far as the town of guildford. here, he and his men halted in the evening to rest, having still the earl in their company; who had ordered lodgings and good cheer for them. but, in the dead of the night, when they were off their guard, being divided into small parties sleeping soundly after a long march and a plentiful supper in different houses, they were set upon by the king's troops, and taken prisoners. next morning they were drawn out in a line, to the number of six hundred men, and were barbarously tortured and killed; with the exception of every tenth man, who was sold into slavery. as to the wretched prince alfred, he was stripped naked, tied to a horse and sent away into the isle of ely, where his eyes were torn out of his head, and where in a few days he miserably died. i am not sure that the earl had wilfully entrapped him, but i suspect it strongly. harold was now king all over england, though it is doubtful whether the archbishop of canterbury (the greater part of the priests were saxons, and not friendly to the danes) ever consented to crown him. crowned or uncrowned, with the archbishop's leave or without it, he was king for four years: after which short reign he died, and was buried; having never done much in life but go a hunting. he was such a fast runner at this, his favourite sport, that the people called him harold harefoot. hardicanute was then at bruges, in flanders, plotting, with his mother (who had gone over there after the cruel murder of prince alfred), for the invasion of england. the danes and saxons, finding themselves without a king, and dreading new disputes, made common cause, and joined in inviting him to occupy the throne. he consented, and soon troubled them enough; for he brought over numbers of danes, and taxed the people so insupportably to enrich those greedy favourites that there were many insurrections, especially one at worcester, where the citizens rose and killed his tax-collectors; in revenge for which he burned their city. he was a brutal king, whose first public act was to order the dead body of poor harold harefoot to be dug up, beheaded, and thrown into the river. his end was worthy of such a beginning. he fell down drunk, with a goblet of wine in his hand, at a wedding-feast at lambeth, given in honour of the marriage of his standard-bearer, a dane named towed the proud. and he never spoke again. edward, afterwards called by the monks the confessor, succeeded; and his first act was to oblige his mother emma, who had favoured him so little, to retire into the country; where she died some ten years afterwards. he was the exiled prince whose brother alfred had been so foully killed. he had been invited over from normandy by hardicanute, in the course of his short reign of two years, and had been handsomely treated at court. his cause was now favoured by the powerful earl godwin, and he was soon made king. this earl had been suspected by the people, ever since prince alfred's cruel death; he had even been tried in the last reign for the prince's murder, but had been pronounced not guilty; chiefly, as it was supposed, because of a present he had made to the swinish king, of a gilded ship with a figure-head of solid gold, and a crew of eighty splendidly armed men. it was his interest to help the new king with his power, if the new king would help him against the popular distrust and hatred. so they made a bargain. edward the confessor got the throne. the earl got more power and more land, and his daughter editha was made queen; for it was a part of their compact that the king should take her for his wife. but, although she was a gentle lady, in all things worthy to be beloved--good, beautiful, sensible, and kind--the king from the first neglected her. her father and her six proud brothers, resenting this cold treatment, harassed the king greatly by exerting all their power to make him unpopular. having lived so long in normandy, he preferred the normans to the english. he made a norman archbishop, and norman bishops; his great officers and favourites were all normans; he introduced the norman fashions and the norman language; in imitation of the state custom of normandy, he attached a great seal to his state documents, instead of merely marking them, as the saxon kings had done, with the sign of the cross--just as poor people who have never been taught to write, now make the same mark for their names. all this, the powerful earl godwin and his six proud sons represented to the people as disfavour shown towards the english; and thus they daily increased their own power, and daily diminished the power of the king. they were greatly helped by an event that occurred when he had reigned eight years. eustace, earl of bologne, who had married the king's sister, came to england on a visit. after staying at the court some time, he set forth, with his numerous train of attendants, to return home. they were to embark at dover. entering that peaceful town in armour, they took possession of the best houses, and noisily demanded to be lodged and entertained without payment. one of the bold men of dover, who would not endure to have these domineering strangers jingling their heavy swords and iron corselets up and down his house, eating his meat and drinking his strong liquor, stood in his doorway and refused admission to the first armed man who came there. the armed man drew, and wounded him. the man of dover struck the armed man dead. intelligence of what he had done, spreading through the streets to where the count eustace and his men were standing by their horses, bridle in hand, they passionately mounted, galloped to the house, surrounded it, forced their way in (the doors and windows being closed when they came up), and killed the man of dover at his own fireside. they then clattered through the streets, cutting down and riding over men, women, and children. this did not last long, you may believe. the men of dover set upon them with great fury, killed nineteen of the foreigners, wounded many more, and, blockading the road to the port so that they should not embark, beat them out of the town by the way they had come. hereupon, count eustace rides as hard as man can ride to gloucester, where edward is, surrounded by norman monks and norman lords. 'justice!' cries the count, 'upon the men of dover, who have set upon and slain my people!' the king sends immediately for the powerful earl godwin, who happens to be near; reminds him that dover is under his government; and orders him to repair to dover and do military execution on the inhabitants. 'it does not become you,' says the proud earl in reply, 'to condemn without a hearing those whom you have sworn to protect. i will not do it.' the king, therefore, summoned the earl, on pain of banishment and loss of his titles and property, to appear before the court to answer this disobedience. the earl refused to appear. he, his eldest son harold, and his second son sweyn, hastily raised as many fighting men as their utmost power could collect, and demanded to have count eustace and his followers surrendered to the justice of the country. the king, in his turn, refused to give them up, and raised a strong force. after some treaty and delay, the troops of the great earl and his sons began to fall off. the earl, with a part of his family and abundance of treasure, sailed to flanders; harold escaped to ireland; and the power of the great family was for that time gone in england. but, the people did not forget them. then, edward the confessor, with the true meanness of a mean spirit, visited his dislike of the once powerful father and sons upon the helpless daughter and sister, his unoffending wife, whom all who saw her (her husband and his monks excepted) loved. he seized rapaciously upon her fortune and her jewels, and allowing her only one attendant, confined her in a gloomy convent, of which a sister of his--no doubt an unpleasant lady after his own heart--was abbess or jailer. having got earl godwin and his six sons well out of his way, the king favoured the normans more than ever. he invited over william, duke of normandy, the son of that duke who had received him and his murdered brother long ago, and of a peasant girl, a tanner's daughter, with whom that duke had fallen in love for her beauty as he saw her washing clothes in a brook. william, who was a great warrior, with a passion for fine horses, dogs, and arms, accepted the invitation; and the normans in england, finding themselves more numerous than ever when he arrived with his retinue, and held in still greater honour at court than before, became more and more haughty towards the people, and were more and more disliked by them. the old earl godwin, though he was abroad, knew well how the people felt; for, with part of the treasure he had carried away with him, he kept spies and agents in his pay all over england. accordingly, he thought the time was come for fitting out a great expedition against the norman-loving king. with it, he sailed to the isle of wight, where he was joined by his son harold, the most gallant and brave of all his family. and so the father and son came sailing up the thames to southwark; great numbers of the people declaring for them, and shouting for the english earl and the english harold, against the norman favourites! the king was at first as blind and stubborn as kings usually have been whensoever they have been in the hands of monks. but the people rallied so thickly round the old earl and his son, and the old earl was so steady in demanding without bloodshed the restoration of himself and his family to their rights, that at last the court took the alarm. the norman archbishop of canterbury, and the norman bishop of london, surrounded by their retainers, fought their way out of london, and escaped from essex to france in a fishing-boat. the other norman favourites dispersed in all directions. the old earl and his sons (except sweyn, who had committed crimes against the law) were restored to their possessions and dignities. editha, the virtuous and lovely queen of the insensible king, was triumphantly released from her prison, the convent, and once more sat in her chair of state, arrayed in the jewels of which, when she had no champion to support her rights, her cold-blooded husband had deprived her. the old earl godwin did not long enjoy his restored fortune. he fell down in a fit at the king's table, and died upon the third day afterwards. harold succeeded to his power, and to a far higher place in the attachment of the people than his father had ever held. by his valour he subdued the king's enemies in many bloody fights. he was vigorous against rebels in scotland--this was the time when macbeth slew duncan, upon which event our english shakespeare, hundreds of years afterwards, wrote his great tragedy; and he killed the restless welsh king griffith, and brought his head to england. what harold was doing at sea, when he was driven on the french coast by a tempest, is not at all certain; nor does it at all matter. that his ship was forced by a storm on that shore, and that he was taken prisoner, there is no doubt. in those barbarous days, all shipwrecked strangers were taken prisoners, and obliged to pay ransom. so, a certain count guy, who was the lord of ponthieu where harold's disaster happened, seized him, instead of relieving him like a hospitable and christian lord as he ought to have done, and expected to make a very good thing of it. but harold sent off immediately to duke william of normandy, complaining of this treatment; and the duke no sooner heard of it than he ordered harold to be escorted to the ancient town of rouen, where he then was, and where he received him as an honoured guest. now, some writers tell us that edward the confessor, who was by this time old and had no children, had made a will, appointing duke william of normandy his successor, and had informed the duke of his having done so. there is no doubt that he was anxious about his successor; because he had even invited over, from abroad, edward the outlaw, a son of ironside, who had come to england with his wife and three children, but whom the king had strangely refused to see when he did come, and who had died in london suddenly (princes were terribly liable to sudden death in those days), and had been buried in st. paul's cathedral. the king might possibly have made such a will; or, having always been fond of the normans, he might have encouraged norman william to aspire to the english crown, by something that he said to him when he was staying at the english court. but, certainly william did now aspire to it; and knowing that harold would be a powerful rival, he called together a great assembly of his nobles, offered harold his daughter adele in marriage, informed him that he meant on king edward's death to claim the english crown as his own inheritance, and required harold then and there to swear to aid him. harold, being in the duke's power, took this oath upon the missal, or prayer-book. it is a good example of the superstitions of the monks, that this missal, instead of being placed upon a table, was placed upon a tub; which, when harold had sworn, was uncovered, and shown to be full of dead men's bones--bones, as the monks pretended, of saints. this was supposed to make harold's oath a great deal more impressive and binding. as if the great name of the creator of heaven and earth could be made more solemn by a knuckle-bone, or a double-tooth, or a finger-nail, of dunstan! within a week or two after harold's return to england, the dreary old confessor was found to be dying. after wandering in his mind like a very weak old man, he died. as he had put himself entirely in the hands of the monks when he was alive, they praised him lustily when he was dead. they had gone so far, already, as to persuade him that he could work miracles; and had brought people afflicted with a bad disorder of the skin, to him, to be touched and cured. this was called 'touching for the king's evil,' which afterwards became a royal custom. you know, however, who really touched the sick, and healed them; and you know his sacred name is not among the dusty line of human kings. chapter vii--england under harold the second, and conquered by the normans harold was crowned king of england on the very day of the maudlin confessor's funeral. he had good need to be quick about it. when the news reached norman william, hunting in his park at rouen, he dropped his bow, returned to his palace, called his nobles to council, and presently sent ambassadors to harold, calling on him to keep his oath and resign the crown. harold would do no such thing. the barons of france leagued together round duke william for the invasion of england. duke william promised freely to distribute english wealth and english lands among them. the pope sent to normandy a consecrated banner, and a ring containing a hair which he warranted to have grown on the head of saint peter. he blessed the enterprise; and cursed harold; and requested that the normans would pay 'peter's pence'--or a tax to himself of a penny a year on every house--a little more regularly in future, if they could make it convenient. king harold had a rebel brother in flanders, who was a vassal of harold hardrada, king of norway. this brother, and this norwegian king, joining their forces against england, with duke william's help, won a fight in which the english were commanded by two nobles; and then besieged york. harold, who was waiting for the normans on the coast at hastings, with his army, marched to stamford bridge upon the river derwent to give them instant battle. he found them drawn up in a hollow circle, marked out by their shining spears. riding round this circle at a distance, to survey it, he saw a brave figure on horseback, in a blue mantle and a bright helmet, whose horse suddenly stumbled and threw him. 'who is that man who has fallen?' harold asked of one of his captains. 'the king of norway,' he replied. 'he is a tall and stately king,' said harold, 'but his end is near.' he added, in a little while, 'go yonder to my brother, and tell him, if he withdraw his troops, he shall be earl of northumberland, and rich and powerful in england.' the captain rode away and gave the message. 'what will he give to my friend the king of norway?' asked the brother. 'seven feet of earth for a grave,' replied the captain. 'no more?' returned the brother, with a smile. 'the king of norway being a tall man, perhaps a little more,' replied the captain. 'ride back!' said the brother, 'and tell king harold to make ready for the fight!' he did so, very soon. and such a fight king harold led against that force, that his brother, and the norwegian king, and every chief of note in all their host, except the norwegian king's son, olave, to whom he gave honourable dismissal, were left dead upon the field. the victorious army marched to york. as king harold sat there at the feast, in the midst of all his company, a stir was heard at the doors; and messengers all covered with mire from riding far and fast through broken ground came hurrying in, to report that the normans had landed in england. the intelligence was true. they had been tossed about by contrary winds, and some of their ships had been wrecked. a part of their own shore, to which they had been driven back, was strewn with norman bodies. but they had once more made sail, led by the duke's own galley, a present from his wife, upon the prow whereof the figure of a golden boy stood pointing towards england. by day, the banner of the three lions of normandy, the diverse coloured sails, the gilded vans, the many decorations of this gorgeous ship, had glittered in the sun and sunny water; by night, a light had sparkled like a star at her mast-head. and now, encamped near hastings, with their leader lying in the old roman castle of pevensey, the english retiring in all directions, the land for miles around scorched and smoking, fired and pillaged, was the whole norman power, hopeful and strong on english ground. harold broke up the feast and hurried to london. within a week, his army was ready. he sent out spies to ascertain the norman strength. william took them, caused them to be led through his whole camp, and then dismissed. 'the normans,' said these spies to harold, 'are not bearded on the upper lip as we english are, but are shorn. they are priests.' 'my men,' replied harold, with a laugh, 'will find those priests good soldiers!' 'the saxons,' reported duke william's outposts of norman soldiers, who were instructed to retire as king harold's army advanced, 'rush on us through their pillaged country with the fury of madmen.' 'let them come, and come soon!' said duke william. some proposals for a reconciliation were made, but were soon abandoned. in the middle of the month of october, in the year one thousand and sixty- six, the normans and the english came front to front. all night the armies lay encamped before each other, in a part of the country then called senlac, now called (in remembrance of them) battle. with the first dawn of day, they arose. there, in the faint light, were the english on a hill; a wood behind them; in their midst, the royal banner, representing a fighting warrior, woven in gold thread, adorned with precious stones; beneath the banner, as it rustled in the wind, stood king harold on foot, with two of his remaining brothers by his side; around them, still and silent as the dead, clustered the whole english army--every soldier covered by his shield, and bearing in his hand his dreaded english battle-axe. on an opposite hill, in three lines, archers, foot-soldiers, horsemen, was the norman force. of a sudden, a great battle-cry, 'god help us!' burst from the norman lines. the english answered with their own battle- cry, 'god's rood! holy rood!' the normans then came sweeping down the hill to attack the english. there was one tall norman knight who rode before the norman army on a prancing horse, throwing up his heavy sword and catching it, and singing of the bravery of his countrymen. an english knight, who rode out from the english force to meet him, fell by this knight's hand. another english knight rode out, and he fell too. but then a third rode out, and killed the norman. this was in the first beginning of the fight. it soon raged everywhere. the english, keeping side by side in a great mass, cared no more for the showers of norman arrows than if they had been showers of norman rain. when the norman horsemen rode against them, with their battle-axes they cut men and horses down. the normans gave way. the english pressed forward. a cry went forth among the norman troops that duke william was killed. duke william took off his helmet, in order that his face might be distinctly seen, and rode along the line before his men. this gave them courage. as they turned again to face the english, some of their norman horse divided the pursuing body of the english from the rest, and thus all that foremost portion of the english army fell, fighting bravely. the main body still remaining firm, heedless of the norman arrows, and with their battle-axes cutting down the crowds of horsemen when they rode up, like forests of young trees, duke william pretended to retreat. the eager english followed. the norman army closed again, and fell upon them with great slaughter. 'still,' said duke william, 'there are thousands of the english, firms as rocks around their king. shoot upward, norman archers, that your arrows may fall down upon their faces!' the sun rose high, and sank, and the battle still raged. through all the wild october day, the clash and din resounded in the air. in the red sunset, and in the white moonlight, heaps upon heaps of dead men lay strewn, a dreadful spectacle, all over the ground. king harold, wounded with an arrow in the eye, was nearly blind. his brothers were already killed. twenty norman knights, whose battered armour had flashed fiery and golden in the sunshine all day long, and now looked silvery in the moonlight, dashed forward to seize the royal banner from the english knights and soldiers, still faithfully collected round their blinded king. the king received a mortal wound, and dropped. the english broke and fled. the normans rallied, and the day was lost. o what a sight beneath the moon and stars, when lights were shining in the tent of the victorious duke william, which was pitched near the spot where harold fell--and he and his knights were carousing, within--and soldiers with torches, going slowly to and fro, without, sought for the corpse of harold among piles of dead--and the warrior, worked in golden thread and precious stones, lay low, all torn and soiled with blood--and the three norman lions kept watch over the field! chapter viii--england under william the first, the norman conqueror upon the ground where the brave harold fell, william the norman afterwards founded an abbey, which, under the name of battle abbey, was a rich and splendid place through many a troubled year, though now it is a grey ruin overgrown with ivy. but the first work he had to do, was to conquer the english thoroughly; and that, as you know by this time, was hard work for any man. he ravaged several counties; he burned and plundered many towns; he laid waste scores upon scores of miles of pleasant country; he destroyed innumerable lives. at length stigand, archbishop of canterbury, with other representatives of the clergy and the people, went to his camp, and submitted to him. edgar, the insignificant son of edmund ironside, was proclaimed king by others, but nothing came of it. he fled to scotland afterwards, where his sister, who was young and beautiful, married the scottish king. edgar himself was not important enough for anybody to care much about him. on christmas day, william was crowned in westminster abbey, under the title of william the first; but he is best known as william the conqueror. it was a strange coronation. one of the bishops who performed the ceremony asked the normans, in french, if they would have duke william for their king? they answered yes. another of the bishops put the same question to the saxons, in english. they too answered yes, with a loud shout. the noise being heard by a guard of norman horse-soldiers outside, was mistaken for resistance on the part of the english. the guard instantly set fire to the neighbouring houses, and a tumult ensued; in the midst of which the king, being left alone in the abbey, with a few priests (and they all being in a terrible fright together), was hurriedly crowned. when the crown was placed upon his head, he swore to govern the english as well as the best of their own monarchs. i dare say you think, as i do, that if we except the great alfred, he might pretty easily have done that. numbers of the english nobles had been killed in the last disastrous battle. their estates, and the estates of all the nobles who had fought against him there, king william seized upon, and gave to his own norman knights and nobles. many great english families of the present time acquired their english lands in this way, and are very proud of it. but what is got by force must be maintained by force. these nobles were obliged to build castles all over england, to defend their new property; and, do what he would, the king could neither soothe nor quell the nation as he wished. he gradually introduced the norman language and the norman customs; yet, for a long time the great body of the english remained sullen and revengeful. on his going over to normandy, to visit his subjects there, the oppressions of his half-brother odo, whom he left in charge of his english kingdom, drove the people mad. the men of kent even invited over, to take possession of dover, their old enemy count eustace of boulogne, who had led the fray when the dover man was slain at his own fireside. the men of hereford, aided by the welsh, and commanded by a chief named edric the wild, drove the normans out of their country. some of those who had been dispossessed of their lands, banded together in the north of england; some, in scotland; some, in the thick woods and marshes; and whensoever they could fall upon the normans, or upon the english who had submitted to the normans, they fought, despoiled, and murdered, like the desperate outlaws that they were. conspiracies were set on foot for a general massacre of the normans, like the old massacre of the danes. in short, the english were in a murderous mood all through the kingdom. king william, fearing he might lose his conquest, came back, and tried to pacify the london people by soft words. he then set forth to repress the country people by stern deeds. among the towns which he besieged, and where he killed and maimed the inhabitants without any distinction, sparing none, young or old, armed or unarmed, were oxford, warwick, leicester, nottingham, derby, lincoln, york. in all these places, and in many others, fire and sword worked their utmost horrors, and made the land dreadful to behold. the streams and rivers were discoloured with blood; the sky was blackened with smoke; the fields were wastes of ashes; the waysides were heaped up with dead. such are the fatal results of conquest and ambition! although william was a harsh and angry man, i do not suppose that he deliberately meant to work this shocking ruin, when he invaded england. but what he had got by the strong hand, he could only keep by the strong hand, and in so doing he made england a great grave. two sons of harold, by name edmund and godwin, came over from ireland, with some ships, against the normans, but were defeated. this was scarcely done, when the outlaws in the woods so harassed york, that the governor sent to the king for help. the king despatched a general and a large force to occupy the town of durham. the bishop of that place met the general outside the town, and warned him not to enter, as he would be in danger there. the general cared nothing for the warning, and went in with all his men. that night, on every hill within sight of durham, signal fires were seen to blaze. when the morning dawned, the english, who had assembled in great strength, forced the gates, rushed into the town, and slew the normans every one. the english afterwards besought the danes to come and help them. the danes came, with two hundred and forty ships. the outlawed nobles joined them; they captured york, and drove the normans out of that city. then, william bribed the danes to go away; and took such vengeance on the english, that all the former fire and sword, smoke and ashes, death and ruin, were nothing compared with it. in melancholy songs, and doleful stories, it was still sung and told by cottage fires on winter evenings, a hundred years afterwards, how, in those dreadful days of the normans, there was not, from the river humber to the river tyne, one inhabited village left, nor one cultivated field--how there was nothing but a dismal ruin, where the human creatures and the beasts lay dead together. the outlaws had, at this time, what they called a camp of refuge, in the midst of the fens of cambridgeshire. protected by those marshy grounds which were difficult of approach, they lay among the reeds and rushes, and were hidden by the mists that rose up from the watery earth. now, there also was, at that time, over the sea in flanders, an englishman named hereward, whose father had died in his absence, and whose property had been given to a norman. when he heard of this wrong that had been done him (from such of the exiled english as chanced to wander into that country), he longed for revenge; and joining the outlaws in their camp of refuge, became their commander. he was so good a soldier, that the normans supposed him to be aided by enchantment. william, even after he had made a road three miles in length across the cambridgeshire marshes, on purpose to attack this supposed enchanter, thought it necessary to engage an old lady, who pretended to be a sorceress, to come and do a little enchantment in the royal cause. for this purpose she was pushed on before the troops in a wooden tower; but hereward very soon disposed of this unfortunate sorceress, by burning her, tower and all. the monks of the convent of ely near at hand, however, who were fond of good living, and who found it very uncomfortable to have the country blockaded and their supplies of meat and drink cut off, showed the king a secret way of surprising the camp. so hereward was soon defeated. whether he afterwards died quietly, or whether he was killed after killing sixteen of the men who attacked him (as some old rhymes relate that he did), i cannot say. his defeat put an end to the camp of refuge; and, very soon afterwards, the king, victorious both in scotland and in england, quelled the last rebellious english noble. he then surrounded himself with norman lords, enriched by the property of english nobles; had a great survey made of all the land in england, which was entered as the property of its new owners, on a roll called doomsday book; obliged the people to put out their fires and candles at a certain hour every night, on the ringing of a bell which was called the curfew; introduced the norman dresses and manners; made the normans masters everywhere, and the english, servants; turned out the english bishops, and put normans in their places; and showed himself to be the conqueror indeed. but, even with his own normans, he had a restless life. they were always hungering and thirsting for the riches of the english; and the more he gave, the more they wanted. his priests were as greedy as his soldiers. we know of only one norman who plainly told his master, the king, that he had come with him to england to do his duty as a faithful servant, and that property taken by force from other men had no charms for him. his name was guilbert. we should not forget his name, for it is good to remember and to honour honest men. besides all these troubles, william the conqueror was troubled by quarrels among his sons. he had three living. robert, called curthose, because of his short legs; william, called rufus or the red, from the colour of his hair; and henry, fond of learning, and called, in the norman language, beauclerc, or fine-scholar. when robert grew up, he asked of his father the government of normandy, which he had nominally possessed, as a child, under his mother, matilda. the king refusing to grant it, robert became jealous and discontented; and happening one day, while in this temper, to be ridiculed by his brothers, who threw water on him from a balcony as he was walking before the door, he drew his sword, rushed up-stairs, and was only prevented by the king himself from putting them to death. that same night, he hotly departed with some followers from his father's court, and endeavoured to take the castle of rouen by surprise. failing in this, he shut himself up in another castle in normandy, which the king besieged, and where robert one day unhorsed and nearly killed him without knowing who he was. his submission when he discovered his father, and the intercession of the queen and others, reconciled them; but not soundly; for robert soon strayed abroad, and went from court to court with his complaints. he was a gay, careless, thoughtless fellow, spending all he got on musicians and dancers; but his mother loved him, and often, against the king's command, supplied him with money through a messenger named samson. at length the incensed king swore he would tear out samson's eyes; and samson, thinking that his only hope of safety was in becoming a monk, became one, went on such errands no more, and kept his eyes in his head. all this time, from the turbulent day of his strange coronation, the conqueror had been struggling, you see, at any cost of cruelty and bloodshed, to maintain what he had seized. all his reign, he struggled still, with the same object ever before him. he was a stern, bold man, and he succeeded in it. he loved money, and was particular in his eating, but he had only leisure to indulge one other passion, and that was his love of hunting. he carried it to such a height that he ordered whole villages and towns to be swept away to make forests for the deer. not satisfied with sixty- eight royal forests, he laid waste an immense district, to form another in hampshire, called the new forest. the many thousands of miserable peasants who saw their little houses pulled down, and themselves and children turned into the open country without a shelter, detested him for his merciless addition to their many sufferings; and when, in the twenty- first year of his reign (which proved to be the last), he went over to rouen, england was as full of hatred against him, as if every leaf on every tree in all his royal forests had been a curse upon his head. in the new forest, his son richard (for he had four sons) had been gored to death by a stag; and the people said that this so cruelly-made forest would yet be fatal to others of the conqueror's race. he was engaged in a dispute with the king of france about some territory. while he stayed at rouen, negotiating with that king, he kept his bed and took medicines: being advised by his physicians to do so, on account of having grown to an unwieldy size. word being brought to him that the king of france made light of this, and joked about it, he swore in a great rage that he should rue his jests. he assembled his army, marched into the disputed territory, burnt--his old way!--the vines, the crops, and fruit, and set the town of mantes on fire. but, in an evil hour; for, as he rode over the hot ruins, his horse, setting his hoofs upon some burning embers, started, threw him forward against the pommel of the saddle, and gave him a mortal hurt. for six weeks he lay dying in a monastery near rouen, and then made his will, giving england to william, normandy to robert, and five thousand pounds to henry. and now, his violent deeds lay heavy on his mind. he ordered money to be given to many english churches and monasteries, and--which was much better repentance--released his prisoners of state, some of whom had been confined in his dungeons twenty years. it was a september morning, and the sun was rising, when the king was awakened from slumber by the sound of a church bell. 'what bell is that?' he faintly asked. they told him it was the bell of the chapel of saint mary. 'i commend my soul,' said he, 'to mary!' and died. think of his name, the conqueror, and then consider how he lay in death! the moment he was dead, his physicians, priests, and nobles, not knowing what contest for the throne might now take place, or what might happen in it, hastened away, each man for himself and his own property; the mercenary servants of the court began to rob and plunder; the body of the king, in the indecent strife, was rolled from the bed, and lay alone, for hours, upon the ground. o conqueror, of whom so many great names are proud now, of whom so many great names thought nothing then, it were better to have conquered one true heart, than england! by-and-by, the priests came creeping in with prayers and candles; and a good knight, named herluin, undertook (which no one else would do) to convey the body to caen, in normandy, in order that it might be buried in st. stephen's church there, which the conqueror had founded. but fire, of which he had made such bad use in his life, seemed to follow him of itself in death. a great conflagration broke out in the town when the body was placed in the church; and those present running out to extinguish the flames, it was once again left alone. it was not even buried in peace. it was about to be let down, in its royal robes, into a tomb near the high altar, in presence of a great concourse of people, when a loud voice in the crowd cried out, 'this ground is mine! upon it, stood my father's house. this king despoiled me of both ground and house to build this church. in the great name of god, i here forbid his body to be covered with the earth that is my right!' the priests and bishops present, knowing the speaker's right, and knowing that the king had often denied him justice, paid him down sixty shillings for the grave. even then, the corpse was not at rest. the tomb was too small, and they tried to force it in. it broke, a dreadful smell arose, the people hurried out into the air, and, for the third time, it was left alone. where were the conqueror's three sons, that they were not at their father's burial? robert was lounging among minstrels, dancers, and gamesters, in france or germany. henry was carrying his five thousand pounds safely away in a convenient chest he had got made. william the red was hurrying to england, to lay hands upon the royal treasure and the crown. chapter ix--england under william the second, called rufus william the red, in breathless haste, secured the three great forts of dover, pevensey, and hastings, and made with hot speed for winchester, where the royal treasure was kept. the treasurer delivering him the keys, he found that it amounted to sixty thousand pounds in silver, besides gold and jewels. possessed of this wealth, he soon persuaded the archbishop of canterbury to crown him, and became william the second, king of england. rufus was no sooner on the throne, than he ordered into prison again the unhappy state captives whom his father had set free, and directed a goldsmith to ornament his father's tomb profusely with gold and silver. it would have been more dutiful in him to have attended the sick conqueror when he was dying; but england itself, like this red king, who once governed it, has sometimes made expensive tombs for dead men whom it treated shabbily when they were alive. the king's brother, robert of normandy, seeming quite content to be only duke of that country; and the king's other brother, fine-scholar, being quiet enough with his five thousand pounds in a chest; the king flattered himself, we may suppose, with the hope of an easy reign. but easy reigns were difficult to have in those days. the turbulent bishop odo (who had blessed the norman army at the battle of hastings, and who, i dare say, took all the credit of the victory to himself) soon began, in concert with some powerful norman nobles, to trouble the red king. the truth seems to be that this bishop and his friends, who had lands in england and lands in normandy, wished to hold both under one sovereign; and greatly preferred a thoughtless good-natured person, such as robert was, to rufus; who, though far from being an amiable man in any respect, was keen, and not to be imposed upon. they declared in robert's favour, and retired to their castles (those castles were very troublesome to kings) in a sullen humour. the red king, seeing the normans thus falling from him, revenged himself upon them by appealing to the english; to whom he made a variety of promises, which he never meant to perform--in particular, promises to soften the cruelty of the forest laws; and who, in return, so aided him with their valour, that odo was besieged in the castle of rochester, and forced to abandon it, and to depart from england for ever: whereupon the other rebellious norman nobles were soon reduced and scattered. then, the red king went over to normandy, where the people suffered greatly under the loose rule of duke robert. the king's object was to seize upon the duke's dominions. this, the duke, of course, prepared to resist; and miserable war between the two brothers seemed inevitable, when the powerful nobles on both sides, who had seen so much of war, interfered to prevent it. a treaty was made. each of the two brothers agreed to give up something of his claims, and that the longer-liver of the two should inherit all the dominions of the other. when they had come to this loving understanding, they embraced and joined their forces against fine-scholar; who had bought some territory of robert with a part of his five thousand pounds, and was considered a dangerous individual in consequence. st. michael's mount, in normandy (there is another st. michael's mount, in cornwall, wonderfully like it), was then, as it is now, a strong place perched upon the top of a high rock, around which, when the tide is in, the sea flows, leaving no road to the mainland. in this place, fine-scholar shut himself up with his soldiers, and here he was closely besieged by his two brothers. at one time, when he was reduced to great distress for want of water, the generous robert not only permitted his men to get water, but sent fine-scholar wine from his own table; and, on being remonstrated with by the red king, said 'what! shall we let our own brother die of thirst? where shall we get another, when he is gone?' at another time, the red king riding alone on the shore of the bay, looking up at the castle, was taken by two of fine-scholar's men, one of whom was about to kill him, when he cried out, 'hold, knave! i am the king of england!' the story says that the soldier raised him from the ground respectfully and humbly, and that the king took him into his service. the story may or may not be true; but at any rate it is true that fine-scholar could not hold out against his united brothers, and that he abandoned mount st. michael, and wandered about--as poor and forlorn as other scholars have been sometimes known to be. the scotch became unquiet in the red king's time, and were twice defeated--the second time, with the loss of their king, malcolm, and his son. the welsh became unquiet too. against them, rufus was less successful; for they fought among their native mountains, and did great execution on the king's troops. robert of normandy became unquiet too; and, complaining that his brother the king did not faithfully perform his part of their agreement, took up arms, and obtained assistance from the king of france, whom rufus, in the end, bought off with vast sums of money. england became unquiet too. lord mowbray, the powerful earl of northumberland, headed a great conspiracy to depose the king, and to place upon the throne, stephen, the conqueror's near relative. the plot was discovered; all the chief conspirators were seized; some were fined, some were put in prison, some were put to death. the earl of northumberland himself was shut up in a dungeon beneath windsor castle, where he died, an old man, thirty long years afterwards. the priests in england were more unquiet than any other class or power; for the red king treated them with such small ceremony that he refused to appoint new bishops or archbishops when the old ones died, but kept all the wealth belonging to those offices in his own hands. in return for this, the priests wrote his life when he was dead, and abused him well. i am inclined to think, myself, that there was little to choose between the priests and the red king; that both sides were greedy and designing; and that they were fairly matched. the red king was false of heart, selfish, covetous, and mean. he had a worthy minister in his favourite, ralph, nicknamed--for almost every famous person had a nickname in those rough days--flambard, or the firebrand. once, the king being ill, became penitent, and made anselm, a foreign priest and a good man, archbishop of canterbury. but he no sooner got well again than he repented of his repentance, and persisted in wrongfully keeping to himself some of the wealth belonging to the archbishopric. this led to violent disputes, which were aggravated by there being in rome at that time two rival popes; each of whom declared he was the only real original infallible pope, who couldn't make a mistake. at last, anselm, knowing the red king's character, and not feeling himself safe in england, asked leave to return abroad. the red king gladly gave it; for he knew that as soon as anselm was gone, he could begin to store up all the canterbury money again, for his own use. by such means, and by taxing and oppressing the english people in every possible way, the red king became very rich. when he wanted money for any purpose, he raised it by some means or other, and cared nothing for the injustice he did, or the misery he caused. having the opportunity of buying from robert the whole duchy of normandy for five years, he taxed the english people more than ever, and made the very convents sell their plate and valuables to supply him with the means to make the purchase. but he was as quick and eager in putting down revolt as he was in raising money; for, a part of the norman people objecting--very naturally, i think--to being sold in this way, he headed an army against them with all the speed and energy of his father. he was so impatient, that he embarked for normandy in a great gale of wind. and when the sailors told him it was dangerous to go to sea in such angry weather, he replied, 'hoist sail and away! did you ever hear of a king who was drowned?' you will wonder how it was that even the careless robert came to sell his dominions. it happened thus. it had long been the custom for many english people to make journeys to jerusalem, which were called pilgrimages, in order that they might pray beside the tomb of our saviour there. jerusalem belonging to the turks, and the turks hating christianity, these christian travellers were often insulted and ill used. the pilgrims bore it patiently for some time, but at length a remarkable man, of great earnestness and eloquence, called peter the hermit, began to preach in various places against the turks, and to declare that it was the duty of good christians to drive away those unbelievers from the tomb of our saviour, and to take possession of it, and protect it. an excitement such as the world had never known before was created. thousands and thousands of men of all ranks and conditions departed for jerusalem to make war against the turks. the war is called in history the first crusade, and every crusader wore a cross marked on his right shoulder. all the crusaders were not zealous christians. among them were vast numbers of the restless, idle, profligate, and adventurous spirit of the time. some became crusaders for the love of change; some, in the hope of plunder; some, because they had nothing to do at home; some, because they did what the priests told them; some, because they liked to see foreign countries; some, because they were fond of knocking men about, and would as soon knock a turk about as a christian. robert of normandy may have been influenced by all these motives; and by a kind desire, besides, to save the christian pilgrims from bad treatment in future. he wanted to raise a number of armed men, and to go to the crusade. he could not do so without money. he had no money; and he sold his dominions to his brother, the red king, for five years. with the large sum he thus obtained, he fitted out his crusaders gallantly, and went away to jerusalem in martial state. the red king, who made money out of everything, stayed at home, busily squeezing more money out of normans and english. after three years of great hardship and suffering--from shipwreck at sea; from travel in strange lands; from hunger, thirst, and fever, upon the burning sands of the desert; and from the fury of the turks--the valiant crusaders got possession of our saviour's tomb. the turks were still resisting and fighting bravely, but this success increased the general desire in europe to join the crusade. another great french duke was proposing to sell his dominions for a term to the rich red king, when the red king's reign came to a sudden and violent end. you have not forgotten the new forest which the conqueror made, and which the miserable people whose homes he had laid waste, so hated. the cruelty of the forest laws, and the torture and death they brought upon the peasantry, increased this hatred. the poor persecuted country people believed that the new forest was enchanted. they said that in thunder- storms, and on dark nights, demons appeared, moving beneath the branches of the gloomy trees. they said that a terrible spectre had foretold to norman hunters that the red king should be punished there. and now, in the pleasant season of may, when the red king had reigned almost thirteen years; and a second prince of the conqueror's blood--another richard, the son of duke robert--was killed by an arrow in this dreaded forest; the people said that the second time was not the last, and that there was another death to come. it was a lonely forest, accursed in the people's hearts for the wicked deeds that had been done to make it; and no man save the king and his courtiers and huntsmen, liked to stray there. but, in reality, it was like any other forest. in the spring, the green leaves broke out of the buds; in the summer, flourished heartily, and made deep shades; in the winter, shrivelled and blew down, and lay in brown heaps on the moss. some trees were stately, and grew high and strong; some had fallen of themselves; some were felled by the forester's axe; some were hollow, and the rabbits burrowed at their roots; some few were struck by lightning, and stood white and bare. there were hill-sides covered with rich fern, on which the morning dew so beautifully sparkled; there were brooks, where the deer went down to drink, or over which the whole herd bounded, flying from the arrows of the huntsmen; there were sunny glades, and solemn places where but little light came through the rustling leaves. the songs of the birds in the new forest were pleasanter to hear than the shouts of fighting men outside; and even when the red king and his court came hunting through its solitudes, cursing loud and riding hard, with a jingling of stirrups and bridles and knives and daggers, they did much less harm there than among the english or normans, and the stags died (as they lived) far easier than the people. upon a day in august, the red king, now reconciled to his brother, fine- scholar, came with a great train to hunt in the new forest. fine-scholar was of the party. they were a merry party, and had lain all night at malwood-keep, a hunting-lodge in the forest, where they had made good cheer, both at supper and breakfast, and had drunk a deal of wine. the party dispersed in various directions, as the custom of hunters then was. the king took with him only sir walter tyrrel, who was a famous sportsman, and to whom he had given, before they mounted horse that morning, two fine arrows. the last time the king was ever seen alive, he was riding with sir walter tyrrel, and their dogs were hunting together. it was almost night, when a poor charcoal-burner, passing through the forest with his cart, came upon the solitary body of a dead man, shot with an arrow in the breast, and still bleeding. he got it into his cart. it was the body of the king. shaken and tumbled, with its red beard all whitened with lime and clotted with blood, it was driven in the cart by the charcoal-burner next day to winchester cathedral, where it was received and buried. sir walter tyrrel, who escaped to normandy, and claimed the protection of the king of france, swore in france that the red king was suddenly shot dead by an arrow from an unseen hand, while they were hunting together; that he was fearful of being suspected as the king's murderer; and that he instantly set spurs to his horse, and fled to the sea-shore. others declared that the king and sir walter tyrrel were hunting in company, a little before sunset, standing in bushes opposite one another, when a stag came between them. that the king drew his bow and took aim, but the string broke. that the king then cried, 'shoot, walter, in the devil's name!' that sir walter shot. that the arrow glanced against a tree, was turned aside from the stag, and struck the king from his horse, dead. by whose hand the red king really fell, and whether that hand despatched the arrow to his breast by accident or by design, is only known to god. some think his brother may have caused him to be killed; but the red king had made so many enemies, both among priests and people, that suspicion may reasonably rest upon a less unnatural murderer. men know no more than that he was found dead in the new forest, which the suffering people had regarded as a doomed ground for his race. chapter x--england under henry the first, called fine-scholar fine-scholar, on hearing of the red king's death, hurried to winchester with as much speed as rufus himself had made, to seize the royal treasure. but the keeper of the treasure who had been one of the hunting- party in the forest, made haste to winchester too, and, arriving there at about the same time, refused to yield it up. upon this, fine-scholar drew his sword, and threatened to kill the treasurer; who might have paid for his fidelity with his life, but that he knew longer resistance to be useless when he found the prince supported by a company of powerful barons, who declared they were determined to make him king. the treasurer, therefore, gave up the money and jewels of the crown: and on the third day after the death of the red king, being a sunday, fine-scholar stood before the high altar in westminster abbey, and made a solemn declaration that he would resign the church property which his brother had seized; that he would do no wrong to the nobles; and that he would restore to the people the laws of edward the confessor, with all the improvements of william the conqueror. so began the reign of king henry the first. the people were attached to their new king, both because he had known distresses, and because he was an englishman by birth and not a norman. to strengthen this last hold upon them, the king wished to marry an english lady; and could think of no other wife than maud the good, the daughter of the king of scotland. although this good princess did not love the king, she was so affected by the representations the nobles made to her of the great charity it would be in her to unite the norman and saxon races, and prevent hatred and bloodshed between them for the future, that she consented to become his wife. after some disputing among the priests, who said that as she had been in a convent in her youth, and had worn the veil of a nun, she could not lawfully be married--against which the princess stated that her aunt, with whom she had lived in her youth, had indeed sometimes thrown a piece of black stuff over her, but for no other reason than because the nun's veil was the only dress the conquering normans respected in girl or woman, and not because she had taken the vows of a nun, which she never had--she was declared free to marry, and was made king henry's queen. a good queen she was; beautiful, kind-hearted, and worthy of a better husband than the king. for he was a cunning and unscrupulous man, though firm and clever. he cared very little for his word, and took any means to gain his ends. all this is shown in his treatment of his brother robert--robert, who had suffered him to be refreshed with water, and who had sent him the wine from his own table, when he was shut up, with the crows flying below him, parched with thirst, in the castle on the top of st. michael's mount, where his red brother would have let him die. before the king began to deal with robert, he removed and disgraced all the favourites of the late king; who were for the most part base characters, much detested by the people. flambard, or firebrand, whom the late king had made bishop of durham, of all things in the world, henry imprisoned in the tower; but firebrand was a great joker and a jolly companion, and made himself so popular with his guards that they pretended to know nothing about a long rope that was sent into his prison at the bottom of a deep flagon of wine. the guards took the wine, and firebrand took the rope; with which, when they were fast asleep, he let himself down from a window in the night, and so got cleverly aboard ship and away to normandy. now robert, when his brother fine-scholar came to the throne, was still absent in the holy land. henry pretended that robert had been made sovereign of that country; and he had been away so long, that the ignorant people believed it. but, behold, when henry had been some time king of england, robert came home to normandy; having leisurely returned from jerusalem through italy, in which beautiful country he had enjoyed himself very much, and had married a lady as beautiful as itself! in normandy, he found firebrand waiting to urge him to assert his claim to the english crown, and declare war against king henry. this, after great loss of time in feasting and dancing with his beautiful italian wife among his norman friends, he at last did. the english in general were on king henry's side, though many of the normans were on robert's. but the english sailors deserted the king, and took a great part of the english fleet over to normandy; so that robert came to invade this country in no foreign vessels, but in english ships. the virtuous anselm, however, whom henry had invited back from abroad, and made archbishop of canterbury, was steadfast in the king's cause; and it was so well supported that the two armies, instead of fighting, made a peace. poor robert, who trusted anybody and everybody, readily trusted his brother, the king; and agreed to go home and receive a pension from england, on condition that all his followers were fully pardoned. this the king very faithfully promised, but robert was no sooner gone than he began to punish them. among them was the earl of shrewsbury, who, on being summoned by the king to answer to five-and-forty accusations, rode away to one of his strong castles, shut himself up therein, called around him his tenants and vassals, and fought for his liberty, but was defeated and banished. robert, with all his faults, was so true to his word, that when he first heard of this nobleman having risen against his brother, he laid waste the earl of shrewsbury's estates in normandy, to show the king that he would favour no breach of their treaty. finding, on better information, afterwards, that the earl's only crime was having been his friend, he came over to england, in his old thoughtless, warm-hearted way, to intercede with the king, and remind him of the solemn promise to pardon all his followers. this confidence might have put the false king to the blush, but it did not. pretending to be very friendly, he so surrounded his brother with spies and traps, that robert, who was quite in his power, had nothing for it but to renounce his pension and escape while he could. getting home to normandy, and understanding the king better now, he naturally allied himself with his old friend the earl of shrewsbury, who had still thirty castles in that country. this was exactly what henry wanted. he immediately declared that robert had broken the treaty, and next year invaded normandy. he pretended that he came to deliver the normans, at their own request, from his brother's misrule. there is reason to fear that his misrule was bad enough; for his beautiful wife had died, leaving him with an infant son, and his court was again so careless, dissipated, and ill-regulated, that it was said he sometimes lay in bed of a day for want of clothes to put on--his attendants having stolen all his dresses. but he headed his army like a brave prince and a gallant soldier, though he had the misfortune to be taken prisoner by king henry, with four hundred of his knights. among them was poor harmless edgar atheling, who loved robert well. edgar was not important enough to be severe with. the king afterwards gave him a small pension, which he lived upon and died upon, in peace, among the quiet woods and fields of england. and robert--poor, kind, generous, wasteful, heedless robert, with so many faults, and yet with virtues that might have made a better and a happier man--what was the end of him? if the king had had the magnanimity to say with a kind air, 'brother, tell me, before these noblemen, that from this time you will be my faithful follower and friend, and never raise your hand against me or my forces more!' he might have trusted robert to the death. but the king was not a magnanimous man. he sentenced his brother to be confined for life in one of the royal castles. in the beginning of his imprisonment, he was allowed to ride out, guarded; but he one day broke away from his guard and galloped of. he had the evil fortune to ride into a swamp, where his horse stuck fast and he was taken. when the king heard of it he ordered him to be blinded, which was done by putting a red-hot metal basin on his eyes. and so, in darkness and in prison, many years, he thought of all his past life, of the time he had wasted, of the treasure he had squandered, of the opportunities he had lost, of the youth he had thrown away, of the talents he had neglected. sometimes, on fine autumn mornings, he would sit and think of the old hunting parties in the free forest, where he had been the foremost and the gayest. sometimes, in the still nights, he would wake, and mourn for the many nights that had stolen past him at the gaming-table; sometimes, would seem to hear, upon the melancholy wind, the old songs of the minstrels; sometimes, would dream, in his blindness, of the light and glitter of the norman court. many and many a time, he groped back, in his fancy, to jerusalem, where he had fought so well; or, at the head of his brave companions, bowed his feathered helmet to the shouts of welcome greeting him in italy, and seemed again to walk among the sunny vineyards, or on the shore of the blue sea, with his lovely wife. and then, thinking of her grave, and of his fatherless boy, he would stretch out his solitary arms and weep. at length, one day, there lay in prison, dead, with cruel and disfiguring scars upon his eyelids, bandaged from his jailer's sight, but on which the eternal heavens looked down, a worn old man of eighty. he had once been robert of normandy. pity him! {duke robert of normandy: p .jpg} at the time when robert of normandy was taken prisoner by his brother, robert's little son was only five years old. this child was taken, too, and carried before the king, sobbing and crying; for, young as he was, he knew he had good reason to be afraid of his royal uncle. the king was not much accustomed to pity those who were in his power, but his cold heart seemed for the moment to soften towards the boy. he was observed to make a great effort, as if to prevent himself from being cruel, and ordered the child to be taken away; whereupon a certain baron, who had married a daughter of duke robert's (by name, helie of saint saen), took charge of him, tenderly. the king's gentleness did not last long. before two years were over, he sent messengers to this lord's castle to seize the child and bring him away. the baron was not there at the time, but his servants were faithful, and carried the boy off in his sleep and hid him. when the baron came home, and was told what the king had done, he took the child abroad, and, leading him by the hand, went from king to king and from court to court, relating how the child had a claim to the throne of england, and how his uncle the king, knowing that he had that claim, would have murdered him, perhaps, but for his escape. the youth and innocence of the pretty little william fitz-robert (for that was his name) made him many friends at that time. when he became a young man, the king of france, uniting with the french counts of anjou and flanders, supported his cause against the king of england, and took many of the king's towns and castles in normandy. but, king henry, artful and cunning always, bribed some of william's friends with money, some with promises, some with power. he bought off the count of anjou, by promising to marry his eldest son, also named william, to the count's daughter; and indeed the whole trust of this king's life was in such bargains, and he believed (as many another king has done since, and as one king did in france a very little time ago) that every man's truth and honour can be bought at some price. for all this, he was so afraid of william fitz-robert and his friends, that, for a long time, he believed his life to be in danger; and never lay down to sleep, even in his palace surrounded by his guards, without having a sword and buckler at his bedside. to strengthen his power, the king with great ceremony betrothed his eldest daughter matilda, then a child only eight years old, to be the wife of henry the fifth, the emperor of germany. to raise her marriage- portion, he taxed the english people in a most oppressive manner; then treated them to a great procession, to restore their good humour; and sent matilda away, in fine state, with the german ambassadors, to be educated in the country of her future husband. and now his queen, maud the good, unhappily died. it was a sad thought for that gentle lady, that the only hope with which she had married a man whom she had never loved--the hope of reconciling the norman and english races--had failed. at the very time of her death, normandy and all france was in arms against england; for, so soon as his last danger was over, king henry had been false to all the french powers he had promised, bribed, and bought, and they had naturally united against him. after some fighting, however, in which few suffered but the unhappy common people (who always suffered, whatsoever was the matter), he began to promise, bribe, and buy again; and by those means, and by the help of the pope, who exerted himself to save more bloodshed, and by solemnly declaring, over and over again, that he really was in earnest this time, and would keep his word, the king made peace. one of the first consequences of this peace was, that the king went over to normandy with his son prince william and a great retinue, to have the prince acknowledged as his successor by the norman nobles, and to contract the promised marriage (this was one of the many promises the king had broken) between him and the daughter of the count of anjou. both these things were triumphantly done, with great show and rejoicing; and on the twenty-fifth of november, in the year one thousand one hundred and twenty, the whole retinue prepared to embark at the port of barfleur, for the voyage home. on that day, and at that place, there came to the king, fitz-stephen, a sea-captain, and said: 'my liege, my father served your father all his life, upon the sea. he steered the ship with the golden boy upon the prow, in which your father sailed to conquer england. i beseech you to grant me the same office. i have a fair vessel in the harbour here, called the white ship, manned by fifty sailors of renown. i pray you, sire, to let your servant have the honour of steering you in the white ship to england!' 'i am sorry, friend,' replied the king, 'that my vessel is already chosen, and that i cannot (therefore) sail with the son of the man who served my father. but the prince and all his company shall go along with you, in the fair white ship, manned by the fifty sailors of renown.' an hour or two afterwards, the king set sail in the vessel he had chosen, accompanied by other vessels, and, sailing all night with a fair and gentle wind, arrived upon the coast of england in the morning. while it was yet night, the people in some of those ships heard a faint wild cry come over the sea, and wondered what it was. now, the prince was a dissolute, debauched young man of eighteen, who bore no love to the english, and had declared that when he came to the throne he would yoke them to the plough like oxen. he went aboard the white ship, with one hundred and forty youthful nobles like himself, among whom were eighteen noble ladies of the highest rank. all this gay company, with their servants and the fifty sailors, made three hundred souls aboard the fair white ship. 'give three casks of wine, fitz-stephen,' said the prince, 'to the fifty sailors of renown! my father the king has sailed out of the harbour. what time is there to make merry here, and yet reach england with the rest?' 'prince!' said fitz-stephen, 'before morning, my fifty and the white ship shall overtake the swiftest vessel in attendance on your father the king, if we sail at midnight!' then the prince commanded to make merry; and the sailors drank out the three casks of wine; and the prince and all the noble company danced in the moonlight on the deck of the white ship. when, at last, she shot out of the harbour of barfleur, there was not a sober seaman on board. but the sails were all set, and the oars all going merrily. fitz-stephen had the helm. the gay young nobles and the beautiful ladies, wrapped in mantles of various bright colours to protect them from the cold, talked, laughed, and sang. the prince encouraged the fifty sailors to row harder yet, for the honour of the white ship. crash! a terrific cry broke from three hundred hearts. it was the cry the people in the distant vessels of the king heard faintly on the water. the white ship had struck upon a rock--was filling--going down! fitz-stephen hurried the prince into a boat, with some few nobles. 'push off,' he whispered; 'and row to land. it is not far, and the sea is smooth. the rest of us must die.' but, as they rowed away, fast, from the sinking ship, the prince heard the voice of his sister marie, the countess of perche, calling for help. he never in his life had been so good as he was then. he cried in an agony, 'row back at any risk! i cannot bear to leave her!' they rowed back. as the prince held out his arms to catch his sister, such numbers leaped in, that the boat was overset. and in the same instant the white ship went down. only two men floated. they both clung to the main yard of the ship, which had broken from the mast, and now supported them. one asked the other who he was? he said, 'i am a nobleman, godfrey by name, the son of gilbert de l'aigle. and you?' said he. 'i am berold, a poor butcher of rouen,' was the answer. then, they said together, 'lord be merciful to us both!' and tried to encourage one another, as they drifted in the cold benumbing sea on that unfortunate november night. by-and-by, another man came swimming towards them, whom they knew, when he pushed aside his long wet hair, to be fitz-stephen. 'where is the prince?' said he. 'gone! gone!' the two cried together. 'neither he, nor his brother, nor his sister, nor the king's niece, nor her brother, nor any one of all the brave three hundred, noble or commoner, except we three, has risen above the water!' fitz-stephen, with a ghastly face, cried, 'woe! woe, to me!' and sunk to the bottom. the other two clung to the yard for some hours. at length the young noble said faintly, 'i am exhausted, and chilled with the cold, and can hold no longer. farewell, good friend! god preserve you!' so, he dropped and sunk; and of all the brilliant crowd, the poor butcher of rouen alone was saved. in the morning, some fishermen saw him floating in his sheep-skin coat, and got him into their boat--the sole relater of the dismal tale. for three days, no one dared to carry the intelligence to the king. at length, they sent into his presence a little boy, who, weeping bitterly, and kneeling at his feet, told him that the white ship was lost with all on board. the king fell to the ground like a dead man, and never, never afterwards, was seen to smile. but he plotted again, and promised again, and bribed and bought again, in his old deceitful way. having no son to succeed him, after all his pains ('the prince will never yoke us to the plough, now!' said the english people), he took a second wife--adelais or alice, a duke's daughter, and the pope's niece. having no more children, however, he proposed to the barons to swear that they would recognise as his successor, his daughter matilda, whom, as she was now a widow, he married to the eldest son of the count of anjou, geoffrey, surnamed plantagenet, from a custom he had of wearing a sprig of flowering broom (called genet in french) in his cap for a feather. as one false man usually makes many, and as a false king, in particular, is pretty certain to make a false court, the barons took the oath about the succession of matilda (and her children after her), twice over, without in the least intending to keep it. the king was now relieved from any remaining fears of william fitz-robert, by his death in the monastery of st. omer, in france, at twenty-six years old, of a pike- wound in the hand. and as matilda gave birth to three sons, he thought the succession to the throne secure. he spent most of the latter part of his life, which was troubled by family quarrels, in normandy, to be near matilda. when he had reigned upward of thirty-five years, and was sixty-seven years old, he died of an indigestion and fever, brought on by eating, when he was far from well, of a fish called lamprey, against which he had often been cautioned by his physicians. his remains were brought over to reading abbey to be buried. you may perhaps hear the cunning and promise-breaking of king henry the first, called 'policy' by some people, and 'diplomacy' by others. neither of these fine words will in the least mean that it was true; and nothing that is not true can possibly be good. his greatest merit, that i know of, was his love of learning--i should have given him greater credit even for that, if it had been strong enough to induce him to spare the eyes of a certain poet he once took prisoner, who was a knight besides. but he ordered the poet's eyes to be torn from his head, because he had laughed at him in his verses; and the poet, in the pain of that torture, dashed out his own brains against his prison wall. king henry the first was avaricious, revengeful, and so false, that i suppose a man never lived whose word was less to be relied upon. chapter xi--england under matilda and stephen the king was no sooner dead than all the plans and schemes he had laboured at so long, and lied so much for, crumbled away like a hollow heap of sand. stephen, whom he had never mistrusted or suspected, started up to claim the throne. stephen was the son of adela, the conqueror's daughter, married to the count of blois. to stephen, and to his brother henry, the late king had been liberal; making henry bishop of winchester, and finding a good marriage for stephen, and much enriching him. this did not prevent stephen from hastily producing a false witness, a servant of the late king, to swear that the king had named him for his heir upon his death- bed. on this evidence the archbishop of canterbury crowned him. the new king, so suddenly made, lost not a moment in seizing the royal treasure, and hiring foreign soldiers with some of it to protect his throne. if the dead king had even done as the false witness said, he would have had small right to will away the english people, like so many sheep or oxen, without their consent. but he had, in fact, bequeathed all his territory to matilda; who, supported by robert, earl of gloucester, soon began to dispute the crown. some of the powerful barons and priests took her side; some took stephen's; all fortified their castles; and again the miserable english people were involved in war, from which they could never derive advantage whosoever was victorious, and in which all parties plundered, tortured, starved, and ruined them. five years had passed since the death of henry the first--and during those five years there had been two terrible invasions by the people of scotland under their king, david, who was at last defeated with all his army--when matilda, attended by her brother robert and a large force, appeared in england to maintain her claim. a battle was fought between her troops and king stephen's at lincoln; in which the king himself was taken prisoner, after bravely fighting until his battle-axe and sword were broken, and was carried into strict confinement at gloucester. matilda then submitted herself to the priests, and the priests crowned her queen of england. she did not long enjoy this dignity. the people of london had a great affection for stephen; many of the barons considered it degrading to be ruled by a woman; and the queen's temper was so haughty that she made innumerable enemies. the people of london revolted; and, in alliance with the troops of stephen, besieged her at winchester, where they took her brother robert prisoner, whom, as her best soldier and chief general, she was glad to exchange for stephen himself, who thus regained his liberty. then, the long war went on afresh. once, she was pressed so hard in the castle of oxford, in the winter weather when the snow lay thick upon the ground, that her only chance of escape was to dress herself all in white, and, accompanied by no more than three faithful knights, dressed in like manner that their figures might not be seen from stephen's camp as they passed over the snow, to steal away on foot, cross the frozen thames, walk a long distance, and at last gallop away on horseback. all this she did, but to no great purpose then; for her brother dying while the struggle was yet going on, she at last withdrew to normandy. in two or three years after her withdrawal her cause appeared in england, afresh, in the person of her son henry, young plantagenet, who, at only eighteen years of age, was very powerful: not only on account of his mother having resigned all normandy to him, but also from his having married eleanor, the divorced wife of the french king, a bad woman, who had great possessions in france. louis, the french king, not relishing this arrangement, helped eustace, king stephen's son, to invade normandy: but henry drove their united forces out of that country, and then returned here, to assist his partisans, whom the king was then besieging at wallingford upon the thames. here, for two days, divided only by the river, the two armies lay encamped opposite to one another--on the eve, as it seemed to all men, of another desperate fight, when the earl of arundel took heart and said 'that it was not reasonable to prolong the unspeakable miseries of two kingdoms to minister to the ambition of two princes.' many other noblemen repeating and supporting this when it was once uttered, stephen and young plantagenet went down, each to his own bank of the river, and held a conversation across it, in which they arranged a truce; very much to the dissatisfaction of eustace, who swaggered away with some followers, and laid violent hands on the abbey of st. edmund's- bury, where he presently died mad. the truce led to a solemn council at winchester, in which it was agreed that stephen should retain the crown, on condition of his declaring henry his successor; that william, another son of the king's, should inherit his father's rightful possessions; and that all the crown lands which stephen had given away should be recalled, and all the castles he had permitted to be built demolished. thus terminated the bitter war, which had now lasted fifteen years, and had again laid england waste. in the next year stephen died, after a troubled reign of nineteen years. although king stephen was, for the time in which he lived, a humane and moderate man, with many excellent qualities; and although nothing worse is known of him than his usurpation of the crown, which he probably excused to himself by the consideration that king henry the first was a usurper too--which was no excuse at all; the people of england suffered more in these dread nineteen years, than at any former period even of their suffering history. in the division of the nobility between the two rival claimants of the crown, and in the growth of what is called the feudal system (which made the peasants the born vassals and mere slaves of the barons), every noble had his strong castle, where he reigned the cruel king of all the neighbouring people. accordingly, he perpetrated whatever cruelties he chose. and never were worse cruelties committed upon earth than in wretched england in those nineteen years. the writers who were living then describe them fearfully. they say that the castles were filled with devils rather than with men; that the peasants, men and women, were put into dungeons for their gold and silver, were tortured with fire and smoke, were hung up by the thumbs, were hung up by the heels with great weights to their heads, were torn with jagged irons, killed with hunger, broken to death in narrow chests filled with sharp-pointed stones, murdered in countless fiendish ways. in england there was no corn, no meat, no cheese, no butter, there were no tilled lands, no harvests. ashes of burnt towns, and dreary wastes, were all that the traveller, fearful of the robbers who prowled abroad at all hours, would see in a long day's journey; and from sunrise until night, he would not come upon a home. the clergy sometimes suffered, and heavily too, from pillage, but many of them had castles of their own, and fought in helmet and armour like the barons, and drew lots with other fighting men for their share of booty. the pope (or bishop of rome), on king stephen's resisting his ambition, laid england under an interdict at one period of this reign; which means that he allowed no service to be performed in the churches, no couples to be married, no bells to be rung, no dead bodies to be buried. any man having the power to refuse these things, no matter whether he were called a pope or a poulterer, would, of course, have the power of afflicting numbers of innocent people. that nothing might be wanting to the miseries of king stephen's time, the pope threw in this contribution to the public store--not very like the widow's contribution, as i think, when our saviour sat in jerusalem over-against the treasury, 'and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.' chapter xii--england under henry the second part the first henry plantagenet, when he was but twenty-one years old, quietly succeeded to the throne of england, according to his agreement made with the late king at winchester. six weeks after stephen's death, he and his queen, eleanor, were crowned in that city; into which they rode on horseback in great state, side by side, amidst much shouting and rejoicing, and clashing of music, and strewing of flowers. the reign of king henry the second began well. the king had great possessions, and (what with his own rights, and what with those of his wife) was lord of one-third part of france. he was a young man of vigour, ability, and resolution, and immediately applied himself to remove some of the evils which had arisen in the last unhappy reign. he revoked all the grants of land that had been hastily made, on either side, during the late struggles; he obliged numbers of disorderly soldiers to depart from england; he reclaimed all the castles belonging to the crown; and he forced the wicked nobles to pull down their own castles, to the number of eleven hundred, in which such dismal cruelties had been inflicted on the people. the king's brother, geoffrey, rose against him in france, while he was so well employed, and rendered it necessary for him to repair to that country; where, after he had subdued and made a friendly arrangement with his brother (who did not live long), his ambition to increase his possessions involved him in a war with the french king, louis, with whom he had been on such friendly terms just before, that to the french king's infant daughter, then a baby in the cradle, he had promised one of his little sons in marriage, who was a child of five years old. however, the war came to nothing at last, and the pope made the two kings friends again. now, the clergy, in the troubles of the last reign, had gone on very ill indeed. there were all kinds of criminals among them--murderers, thieves, and vagabonds; and the worst of the matter was, that the good priests would not give up the bad priests to justice, when they committed crimes, but persisted in sheltering and defending them. the king, well knowing that there could be no peace or rest in england while such things lasted, resolved to reduce the power of the clergy; and, when he had reigned seven years, found (as he considered) a good opportunity for doing so, in the death of the archbishop of canterbury. 'i will have for the new archbishop,' thought the king, 'a friend in whom i can trust, who will help me to humble these rebellious priests, and to have them dealt with, when they do wrong, as other men who do wrong are dealt with.' so, he resolved to make his favourite, the new archbishop; and this favourite was so extraordinary a man, and his story is so curious, that i must tell you all about him. once upon a time, a worthy merchant of london, named gilbert a becket, made a pilgrimage to the holy land, and was taken prisoner by a saracen lord. this lord, who treated him kindly and not like a slave, had one fair daughter, who fell in love with the merchant; and who told him that she wanted to become a christian, and was willing to marry him if they could fly to a christian country. the merchant returned her love, until he found an opportunity to escape, when he did not trouble himself about the saracen lady, but escaped with his servant richard, who had been taken prisoner along with him, and arrived in england and forgot her. the saracen lady, who was more loving than the merchant, left her father's house in disguise to follow him, and made her way, under many hardships, to the sea-shore. the merchant had taught her only two english words (for i suppose he must have learnt the saracen tongue himself, and made love in that language), of which london was one, and his own name, gilbert, the other. she went among the ships, saying, 'london! london!' over and over again, until the sailors understood that she wanted to find an english vessel that would carry her there; so they showed her such a ship, and she paid for her passage with some of her jewels, and sailed away. well! the merchant was sitting in his counting-house in london one day, when he heard a great noise in the street; and presently richard came running in from the warehouse, with his eyes wide open and his breath almost gone, saying, 'master, master, here is the saracen lady!' the merchant thought richard was mad; but richard said, 'no, master! as i live, the saracen lady is going up and down the city, calling gilbert! gilbert!' then, he took the merchant by the sleeve, and pointed out of window; and there they saw her among the gables and water-spouts of the dark, dirty street, in her foreign dress, so forlorn, surrounded by a wondering crowd, and passing slowly along, calling gilbert, gilbert! when the merchant saw her, and thought of the tenderness she had shown him in his captivity, and of her constancy, his heart was moved, and he ran down into the street; and she saw him coming, and with a great cry fainted in his arms. they were married without loss of time, and richard (who was an excellent man) danced with joy the whole day of the wedding; and they all lived happy ever afterwards. this merchant and this saracen lady had one son, thomas a becket. he it was who became the favourite of king henry the second. he had become chancellor, when the king thought of making him archbishop. he was clever, gay, well educated, brave; had fought in several battles in france; had defeated a french knight in single combat, and brought his horse away as a token of the victory. he lived in a noble palace, he was the tutor of the young prince henry, he was served by one hundred and forty knights, his riches were immense. the king once sent him as his ambassador to france; and the french people, beholding in what state he travelled, cried out in the streets, 'how splendid must the king of england be, when this is only the chancellor!' they had good reason to wonder at the magnificence of thomas a becket, for, when he entered a french town, his procession was headed by two hundred and fifty singing boys; then, came his hounds in couples; then, eight waggons, each drawn by five horses driven by five drivers: two of the waggons filled with strong ale to be given away to the people; four, with his gold and silver plate and stately clothes; two, with the dresses of his numerous servants. then, came twelve horses, each with a monkey on his back; then, a train of people bearing shields and leading fine war-horses splendidly equipped; then, falconers with hawks upon their wrists; then, a host of knights, and gentlemen and priests; then, the chancellor with his brilliant garments flashing in the sun, and all the people capering and shouting with delight. the king was well pleased with all this, thinking that it only made himself the more magnificent to have so magnificent a favourite; but he sometimes jested with the chancellor upon his splendour too. once, when they were riding together through the streets of london in hard winter weather, they saw a shivering old man in rags. 'look at the poor object!' said the king. 'would it not be a charitable act to give that aged man a comfortable warm cloak?' 'undoubtedly it would,' said thomas a becket, 'and you do well, sir, to think of such christian duties.' 'come!' cried the king, 'then give him your cloak!' it was made of rich crimson trimmed with ermine. the king tried to pull it off, the chancellor tried to keep it on, both were near rolling from their saddles in the mud, when the chancellor submitted, and the king gave the cloak to the old beggar: much to the beggar's astonishment, and much to the merriment of all the courtiers in attendance. for, courtiers are not only eager to laugh when the king laughs, but they really do enjoy a laugh against a favourite. 'i will make,' thought king henry the second, 'this chancellor of mine, thomas a becket, archbishop of canterbury. he will then be the head of the church, and, being devoted to me, will help me to correct the church. he has always upheld my power against the power of the clergy, and once publicly told some bishops (i remember), that men of the church were equally bound to me, with men of the sword. thomas a becket is the man, of all other men in england, to help me in my great design.' so the king, regardless of all objection, either that he was a fighting man, or a lavish man, or a courtly man, or a man of pleasure, or anything but a likely man for the office, made him archbishop accordingly. now, thomas a becket was proud and loved to be famous. he was already famous for the pomp of his life, for his riches, his gold and silver plate, his waggons, horses, and attendants. he could do no more in that way than he had done; and being tired of that kind of fame (which is a very poor one), he longed to have his name celebrated for something else. nothing, he knew, would render him so famous in the world, as the setting of his utmost power and ability against the utmost power and ability of the king. he resolved with the whole strength of his mind to do it. he may have had some secret grudge against the king besides. the king may have offended his proud humour at some time or other, for anything i know. i think it likely, because it is a common thing for kings, princes, and other great people, to try the tempers of their favourites rather severely. even the little affair of the crimson cloak must have been anything but a pleasant one to a haughty man. thomas a becket knew better than any one in england what the king expected of him. in all his sumptuous life, he had never yet been in a position to disappoint the king. he could take up that proud stand now, as head of the church; and he determined that it should be written in history, either that he subdued the king, or that the king subdued him. so, of a sudden, he completely altered the whole manner of his life. he turned off all his brilliant followers, ate coarse food, drank bitter water, wore next his skin sackcloth covered with dirt and vermin (for it was then thought very religious to be very dirty), flogged his back to punish himself, lived chiefly in a little cell, washed the feet of thirteen poor people every day, and looked as miserable as he possibly could. if he had put twelve hundred monkeys on horseback instead of twelve, and had gone in procession with eight thousand waggons instead of eight, he could not have half astonished the people so much as by this great change. it soon caused him to be more talked about as an archbishop than he had been as a chancellor. the king was very angry; and was made still more so, when the new archbishop, claiming various estates from the nobles as being rightfully church property, required the king himself, for the same reason, to give up rochester castle, and rochester city too. not satisfied with this, he declared that no power but himself should appoint a priest to any church in the part of england over which he was archbishop; and when a certain gentleman of kent made such an appointment, as he claimed to have the right to do, thomas a becket excommunicated him. excommunication was, next to the interdict i told you of at the close of the last chapter, the great weapon of the clergy. it consisted in declaring the person who was excommunicated, an outcast from the church and from all religious offices; and in cursing him all over, from the top of his head to the sole of his foot, whether he was standing up, lying down, sitting, kneeling, walking, running, hopping, jumping, gaping, coughing, sneezing, or whatever else he was doing. this unchristian nonsense would of course have made no sort of difference to the person cursed--who could say his prayers at home if he were shut out of church, and whom none but god could judge--but for the fears and superstitions of the people, who avoided excommunicated persons, and made their lives unhappy. so, the king said to the new archbishop, 'take off this excommunication from this gentleman of kent.' to which the archbishop replied, 'i shall do no such thing.' the quarrel went on. a priest in worcestershire committed a most dreadful murder, that aroused the horror of the whole nation. the king demanded to have this wretch delivered up, to be tried in the same court and in the same way as any other murderer. the archbishop refused, and kept him in the bishop's prison. the king, holding a solemn assembly in westminster hall, demanded that in future all priests found guilty before their bishops of crimes against the law of the land should be considered priests no longer, and should be delivered over to the law of the land for punishment. the archbishop again refused. the king required to know whether the clergy would obey the ancient customs of the country? every priest there, but one, said, after thomas a becket, 'saving my order.' this really meant that they would only obey those customs when they did not interfere with their own claims; and the king went out of the hall in great wrath. some of the clergy began to be afraid, now, that they were going too far. though thomas a becket was otherwise as unmoved as westminster hall, they prevailed upon him, for the sake of their fears, to go to the king at woodstock, and promise to observe the ancient customs of the country, without saying anything about his order. the king received this submission favourably, and summoned a great council of the clergy to meet at the castle of clarendon, by salisbury. but when the council met, the archbishop again insisted on the words 'saying my order;' and he still insisted, though lords entreated him, and priests wept before him and knelt to him, and an adjoining room was thrown open, filled with armed soldiers of the king, to threaten him. at length he gave way, for that time, and the ancient customs (which included what the king had demanded in vain) were stated in writing, and were signed and sealed by the chief of the clergy, and were called the constitutions of clarendon. the quarrel went on, for all that. the archbishop tried to see the king. the king would not see him. the archbishop tried to escape from england. the sailors on the coast would launch no boat to take him away. then, he again resolved to do his worst in opposition to the king, and began openly to set the ancient customs at defiance. the king summoned him before a great council at northampton, where he accused him of high treason, and made a claim against him, which was not a just one, for an enormous sum of money. thomas a becket was alone against the whole assembly, and the very bishops advised him to resign his office and abandon his contest with the king. his great anxiety and agitation stretched him on a sick-bed for two days, but he was still undaunted. he went to the adjourned council, carrying a great cross in his right hand, and sat down holding it erect before him. the king angrily retired into an inner room. the whole assembly angrily retired and left him there. but there he sat. the bishops came out again in a body, and renounced him as a traitor. he only said, 'i hear!' and sat there still. they retired again into the inner room, and his trial proceeded without him. by-and-by, the earl of leicester, heading the barons, came out to read his sentence. he refused to hear it, denied the power of the court, and said he would refer his cause to the pope. as he walked out of the hall, with the cross in his hand, some of those present picked up rushes--rushes were strewn upon the floors in those days by way of carpet--and threw them at him. he proudly turned his head, and said that were he not archbishop, he would chastise those cowards with the sword he had known how to use in bygone days. he then mounted his horse, and rode away, cheered and surrounded by the common people, to whom he threw open his house that night and gave a supper, supping with them himself. that same night he secretly departed from the town; and so, travelling by night and hiding by day, and calling himself 'brother dearman,' got away, not without difficulty, to flanders. the struggle still went on. the angry king took possession of the revenues of the archbishopric, and banished all the relations and servants of thomas a becket, to the number of four hundred. the pope and the french king both protected him, and an abbey was assigned for his residence. stimulated by this support, thomas a becket, on a great festival day, formally proceeded to a great church crowded with people, and going up into the pulpit publicly cursed and excommunicated all who had supported the constitutions of clarendon: mentioning many english noblemen by name, and not distantly hinting at the king of england himself. when intelligence of this new affront was carried to the king in his chamber, his passion was so furious that he tore his clothes, and rolled like a madman on his bed of straw and rushes. but he was soon up and doing. he ordered all the ports and coasts of england to be narrowly watched, that no letters of interdict might be brought into the kingdom; and sent messengers and bribes to the pope's palace at rome. meanwhile, thomas a becket, for his part, was not idle at rome, but constantly employed his utmost arts in his own behalf. thus the contest stood, until there was peace between france and england (which had been for some time at war), and until the two children of the two kings were married in celebration of it. then, the french king brought about a meeting between henry and his old favourite, so long his enemy. even then, though thomas a becket knelt before the king, he was obstinate and immovable as to those words about his order. king louis of france was weak enough in his veneration for thomas a becket and such men, but this was a little too much for him. he said that a becket 'wanted to be greater than the saints and better than st. peter,' and rode away from him with the king of england. his poor french majesty asked a becket's pardon for so doing, however, soon afterwards, and cut a very pitiful figure. at last, and after a world of trouble, it came to this. there was another meeting on french ground between king henry and thomas a becket, and it was agreed that thomas a becket should be archbishop of canterbury, according to the customs of former archbishops, and that the king should put him in possession of the revenues of that post. and now, indeed, you might suppose the struggle at an end, and thomas a becket at rest. no, not even yet. for thomas a becket hearing, by some means, that king henry, when he was in dread of his kingdom being placed under an interdict, had had his eldest son prince henry secretly crowned, not only persuaded the pope to suspend the archbishop of york who had performed that ceremony, and to excommunicate the bishops who had assisted at it, but sent a messenger of his own into england, in spite of all the king's precautions along the coast, who delivered the letters of excommunication into the bishops' own hands. thomas a becket then came over to england himself, after an absence of seven years. he was privately warned that it was dangerous to come, and that an ireful knight, named ranulf de broc, had threatened that he should not live to eat a loaf of bread in england; but he came. the common people received him well, and marched about with him in a soldierly way, armed with such rustic weapons as they could get. he tried to see the young prince who had once been his pupil, but was prevented. he hoped for some little support among the nobles and priests, but found none. he made the most of the peasants who attended him, and feasted them, and went from canterbury to harrow-on-the-hill, and from harrow-on-the-hill back to canterbury, and on christmas day preached in the cathedral there, and told the people in his sermon that he had come to die among them, and that it was likely he would be murdered. he had no fear, however--or, if he had any, he had much more obstinacy--for he, then and there, excommunicated three of his enemies, of whom ranulf de broc, the ireful knight, was one. as men in general had no fancy for being cursed, in their sitting and walking, and gaping and sneezing, and all the rest of it, it was very natural in the persons so freely excommunicated to complain to the king. it was equally natural in the king, who had hoped that this troublesome opponent was at last quieted, to fall into a mighty rage when he heard of these new affronts; and, on the archbishop of york telling him that he never could hope for rest while thomas a becket lived, to cry out hastily before his court, 'have i no one here who will deliver me from this man?' there were four knights present, who, hearing the king's words, looked at one another, and went out. the names of these knights were reginald fitzurse, william tracy, hugh de morville, and richard brito; three of whom had been in the train of thomas a becket in the old days of his splendour. they rode away on horseback, in a very secret manner, and on the third day after christmas day arrived at saltwood house, not far from canterbury, which belonged to the family of ranulf de broc. they quietly collected some followers here, in case they should need any; and proceeding to canterbury, suddenly appeared (the four knights and twelve men) before the archbishop, in his own house, at two o'clock in the afternoon. they neither bowed nor spoke, but sat down on the floor in silence, staring at the archbishop. thomas a becket said, at length, 'what do you want?' 'we want,' said reginald fitzurse, 'the excommunication taken from the bishops, and you to answer for your offences to the king.' thomas a becket defiantly replied, that the power of the clergy was above the power of the king. that it was not for such men as they were, to threaten him. that if he were threatened by all the swords in england, he would never yield. 'then we will do more than threaten!' said the knights. and they went out with the twelve men, and put on their armour, and drew their shining swords, and came back. his servants, in the meantime, had shut up and barred the great gate of the palace. at first, the knights tried to shatter it with their battle- axes; but, being shown a window by which they could enter, they let the gate alone, and climbed in that way. while they were battering at the door, the attendants of thomas a becket had implored him to take refuge in the cathedral; in which, as a sanctuary or sacred place, they thought the knights would dare to do no violent deed. he told them, again and again, that he would not stir. hearing the distant voices of the monks singing the evening service, however, he said it was now his duty to attend, and therefore, and for no other reason, he would go. there was a near way between his palace and the cathedral, by some beautiful old cloisters which you may yet see. he went into the cathedral, without any hurry, and having the cross carried before him as usual. when he was safely there, his servants would have fastened the door, but he said no! it was the house of god and not a fortress. as he spoke, the shadow of reginald fitzurse appeared in the cathedral doorway, darkening the little light there was outside, on the dark winter evening. this knight said, in a strong voice, 'follow me, loyal servants of the king!' the rattle of the armour of the other knights echoed through the cathedral, as they came clashing in. it was so dark, in the lofty aisles and among the stately pillars of the church, and there were so many hiding-places in the crypt below and in the narrow passages above, that thomas a becket might even at that pass have saved himself if he would. but he would not. he told the monks resolutely that he would not. and though they all dispersed and left him there with no other follower than edward gryme, his faithful cross-bearer, he was as firm then, as ever he had been in his life. the knights came on, through the darkness, making a terrible noise with their armed tread upon the stone pavement of the church. 'where is the traitor?' they cried out. he made no answer. but when they cried, 'where is the archbishop?' he said proudly, 'i am here!' and came out of the shade and stood before them. the knights had no desire to kill him, if they could rid the king and themselves of him by any other means. they told him he must either fly or go with them. he said he would do neither; and he threw william tracy off with such force when he took hold of his sleeve, that tracy reeled again. by his reproaches and his steadiness, he so incensed them, and exasperated their fierce humour, that reginald fitzurse, whom he called by an ill name, said, 'then die!' and struck at his head. but the faithful edward gryme put out his arm, and there received the main force of the blow, so that it only made his master bleed. another voice from among the knights again called to thomas a becket to fly; but, with his blood running down his face, and his hands clasped, and his head bent, he commanded himself to god, and stood firm. then they cruelly killed him close to the altar of st. bennet; and his body fell upon the pavement, which was dirtied with his blood and brains. it is an awful thing to think of the murdered mortal, who had so showered his curses about, lying, all disfigured, in the church, where a few lamps here and there were but red specks on a pall of darkness; and to think of the guilty knights riding away on horseback, looking over their shoulders at the dim cathedral, and remembering what they had left inside. part the second when the king heard how thomas a becket had lost his life in canterbury cathedral, through the ferocity of the four knights, he was filled with dismay. some have supposed that when the king spoke those hasty words, 'have i no one here who will deliver me from this man?' he wished, and meant a becket to be slain. but few things are more unlikely; for, besides that the king was not naturally cruel (though very passionate), he was wise, and must have known full well what any stupid man in his dominions must have known, namely, that such a murder would rouse the pope and the whole church against him. he sent respectful messengers to the pope, to represent his innocence (except in having uttered the hasty words); and he swore solemnly and publicly to his innocence, and contrived in time to make his peace. as to the four guilty knights, who fled into yorkshire, and never again dared to show themselves at court, the pope excommunicated them; and they lived miserably for some time, shunned by all their countrymen. at last, they went humbly to jerusalem as a penance, and there died and were buried. it happened, fortunately for the pacifying of the pope, that an opportunity arose very soon after the murder of a becket, for the king to declare his power in ireland--which was an acceptable undertaking to the pope, as the irish, who had been converted to christianity by one patricius (otherwise saint patrick) long ago, before any pope existed, considered that the pope had nothing at all to do with them, or they with the pope, and accordingly refused to pay him peter's pence, or that tax of a penny a house which i have elsewhere mentioned. the king's opportunity arose in this way. the irish were, at that time, as barbarous a people as you can well imagine. they were continually quarrelling and fighting, cutting one another's throats, slicing one another's noses, burning one another's houses, carrying away one another's wives, and committing all sorts of violence. the country was divided into five kingdoms--desmond, thomond, connaught, ulster, and leinster--each governed by a separate king, of whom one claimed to be the chief of the rest. now, one of these kings, named dermond mac murrough (a wild kind of name, spelt in more than one wild kind of way), had carried off the wife of a friend of his, and concealed her on an island in a bog. the friend resenting this (though it was quite the custom of the country), complained to the chief king, and, with the chief king's help, drove dermond mac murrough out of his dominions. dermond came over to england for revenge; and offered to hold his realm as a vassal of king henry, if king henry would help him to regain it. the king consented to these terms; but only assisted him, then, with what were called letters patent, authorising any english subjects who were so disposed, to enter into his service, and aid his cause. there was, at bristol, a certain earl richard de clare, called strongbow; of no very good character; needy and desperate, and ready for anything that offered him a chance of improving his fortunes. there were, in south wales, two other broken knights of the same good-for-nothing sort, called robert fitz-stephen, and maurice fitz-gerald. these three, each with a small band of followers, took up dermond's cause; and it was agreed that if it proved successful, strongbow should marry dermond's daughter eva, and be declared his heir. the trained english followers of these knights were so superior in all the discipline of battle to the irish, that they beat them against immense superiority of numbers. in one fight, early in the war, they cut off three hundred heads, and laid them before mac murrough; who turned them every one up with his hands, rejoicing, and, coming to one which was the head of a man whom he had much disliked, grasped it by the hair and ears, and tore off the nose and lips with his teeth. you may judge from this, what kind of a gentleman an irish king in those times was. the captives, all through this war, were horribly treated; the victorious party making nothing of breaking their limbs, and casting them into the sea from the tops of high rocks. it was in the midst of the miseries and cruelties attendant on the taking of waterford, where the dead lay piled in the streets, and the filthy gutters ran with blood, that strongbow married eva. an odious marriage-company those mounds of corpse's must have made, i think, and one quite worthy of the young lady's father. he died, after waterford and dublin had been taken, and various successes achieved; and strongbow became king of leinster. now came king henry's opportunity. to restrain the growing power of strongbow, he himself repaired to dublin, as strongbow's royal master, and deprived him of his kingdom, but confirmed him in the enjoyment of great possessions. the king, then, holding state in dublin, received the homage of nearly all the irish kings and chiefs, and so came home again with a great addition to his reputation as lord of ireland, and with a new claim on the favour of the pope. and now, their reconciliation was completed--more easily and mildly by the pope, than the king might have expected, i think. at this period of his reign, when his troubles seemed so few and his prospects so bright, those domestic miseries began which gradually made the king the most unhappy of men, reduced his great spirit, wore away his health, and broke his heart. he had four sons. henry, now aged eighteen--his secret crowning of whom had given such offence to thomas a becket. richard, aged sixteen; geoffrey, fifteen; and john, his favourite, a young boy whom the courtiers named lackland, because he had no inheritance, but to whom the king meant to give the lordship of ireland. all these misguided boys, in their turn, were unnatural sons to him, and unnatural brothers to each other. prince henry, stimulated by the french king, and by his bad mother, queen eleanor, began the undutiful history, first, he demanded that his young wife, margaret, the french king's daughter, should be crowned as well as he. his father, the king, consented, and it was done. it was no sooner done, than he demanded to have a part of his father's dominions, during his father's life. this being refused, he made off from his father in the night, with his bad heart full of bitterness, and took refuge at the french king's court. within a day or two, his brothers richard and geoffrey followed. their mother tried to join them--escaping in man's clothes--but she was seized by king henry's men, and immured in prison, where she lay, deservedly, for sixteen years. every day, however, some grasping english noblemen, to whom the king's protection of his people from their avarice and oppression had given offence, deserted him and joined the princes. every day he heard some fresh intelligence of the princes levying armies against him; of prince henry's wearing a crown before his own ambassadors at the french court, and being called the junior king of england; of all the princes swearing never to make peace with him, their father, without the consent and approval of the barons of france. but, with his fortitude and energy unshaken, king henry met the shock of these disasters with a resolved and cheerful face. he called upon all royal fathers who had sons, to help him, for his cause was theirs; he hired, out of his riches, twenty thousand men to fight the false french king, who stirred his own blood against him; and he carried on the war with such vigour, that louis soon proposed a conference to treat for peace. the conference was held beneath an old wide-spreading green elm-tree, upon a plain in france. it led to nothing. the war recommenced. prince richard began his fighting career, by leading an army against his father; but his father beat him and his army back; and thousands of his men would have rued the day in which they fought in such a wicked cause, had not the king received news of an invasion of england by the scots, and promptly come home through a great storm to repress it. and whether he really began to fear that he suffered these troubles because a becket had been murdered; or whether he wished to rise in the favour of the pope, who had now declared a becket to be a saint, or in the favour of his own people, of whom many believed that even a becket's senseless tomb could work miracles, i don't know: but the king no sooner landed in england than he went straight to canterbury; and when he came within sight of the distant cathedral, he dismounted from his horse, took off his shoes, and walked with bare and bleeding feet to a becket's grave. there, he lay down on the ground, lamenting, in the presence of many people; and by-and- by he went into the chapter house, and, removing his clothes from his back and shoulders, submitted himself to be beaten with knotted cords (not beaten very hard, i dare say though) by eighty priests, one after another. it chanced that on the very day when the king made this curious exhibition of himself, a complete victory was obtained over the scots; which very much delighted the priests, who said that it was won because of his great example of repentance. for the priests in general had found out, since a becket's death, that they admired him of all things--though they had hated him very cordially when he was alive. the earl of flanders, who was at the head of the base conspiracy of the king's undutiful sons and their foreign friends, took the opportunity of the king being thus employed at home, to lay siege to rouen, the capital of normandy. but the king, who was extraordinarily quick and active in all his movements, was at rouen, too, before it was supposed possible that he could have left england; and there he so defeated the said earl of flanders, that the conspirators proposed peace, and his bad sons henry and geoffrey submitted. richard resisted for six weeks; but, being beaten out of castle after castle, he at last submitted too, and his father forgave him. to forgive these unworthy princes was only to afford them breathing-time for new faithlessness. they were so false, disloyal, and dishonourable, that they were no more to be trusted than common thieves. in the very next year, prince henry rebelled again, and was again forgiven. in eight years more, prince richard rebelled against his elder brother; and prince geoffrey infamously said that the brothers could never agree well together, unless they were united against their father. in the very next year after their reconciliation by the king, prince henry again rebelled against his father; and again submitted, swearing to be true; and was again forgiven; and again rebelled with geoffrey. but the end of this perfidious prince was come. he fell sick at a french town; and his conscience terribly reproaching him with his baseness, he sent messengers to the king his father, imploring him to come and see him, and to forgive him for the last time on his bed of death. the generous king, who had a royal and forgiving mind towards his children always, would have gone; but this prince had been so unnatural, that the noblemen about the king suspected treachery, and represented to him that he could not safely trust his life with such a traitor, though his own eldest son. therefore the king sent him a ring from off his finger as a token of forgiveness; and when the prince had kissed it, with much grief and many tears, and had confessed to those around him how bad, and wicked, and undutiful a son he had been; he said to the attendant priests: 'o, tie a rope about my body, and draw me out of bed, and lay me down upon a bed of ashes, that i may die with prayers to god in a repentant manner!' and so he died, at twenty-seven years old. three years afterwards, prince geoffrey, being unhorsed at a tournament, had his brains trampled out by a crowd of horses passing over him. so, there only remained prince richard, and prince john--who had grown to be a young man now, and had solemnly sworn to be faithful to his father. richard soon rebelled again, encouraged by his friend the french king, philip the second (son of louis, who was dead); and soon submitted and was again forgiven, swearing on the new testament never to rebel again; and in another year or so, rebelled again; and, in the presence of his father, knelt down on his knee before the king of france; and did the french king homage: and declared that with his aid he would possess himself, by force, of all his father's french dominions. and yet this richard called himself a soldier of our saviour! and yet this richard wore the cross, which the kings of france and england had both taken, in the previous year, at a brotherly meeting underneath the old wide-spreading elm-tree on the plain, when they had sworn (like him) to devote themselves to a new crusade, for the love and honour of the truth! sick at heart, wearied out by the falsehood of his sons, and almost ready to lie down and die, the unhappy king who had so long stood firm, began to fail. but the pope, to his honour, supported him; and obliged the french king and richard, though successful in fight, to treat for peace. richard wanted to be crowned king of england, and pretended that he wanted to be married (which he really did not) to the french king's sister, his promised wife, whom king henry detained in england. king henry wanted, on the other hand, that the french king's sister should be married to his favourite son, john: the only one of his sons (he said) who had never rebelled against him. at last king henry, deserted by his nobles one by one, distressed, exhausted, broken-hearted, consented to establish peace. one final heavy sorrow was reserved for him, even yet. when they brought him the proposed treaty of peace, in writing, as he lay very ill in bed, they brought him also the list of the deserters from their allegiance, whom he was required to pardon. the first name upon this list was john, his favourite son, in whom he had trusted to the last. 'o john! child of my heart!' exclaimed the king, in a great agony of mind. 'o john, whom i have loved the best! o john, for whom i have contended through these many troubles! have you betrayed me too!' and then he lay down with a heavy groan, and said, 'now let the world go as it will. i care for nothing more!' after a time, he told his attendants to take him to the french town of chinon--a town he had been fond of, during many years. but he was fond of no place now; it was too true that he could care for nothing more upon this earth. he wildly cursed the hour when he was born, and cursed the children whom he left behind him; and expired. as, one hundred years before, the servile followers of the court had abandoned the conqueror in the hour of his death, so they now abandoned his descendant. the very body was stripped, in the plunder of the royal chamber; and it was not easy to find the means of carrying it for burial to the abbey church of fontevraud. richard was said in after years, by way of flattery, to have the heart of a lion. it would have been far better, i think, to have had the heart of a man. his heart, whatever it was, had cause to beat remorsefully within his breast, when he came--as he did--into the solemn abbey, and looked on his dead father's uncovered face. his heart, whatever it was, had been a black and perjured heart, in all its dealings with the deceased king, and more deficient in a single touch of tenderness than any wild beast's in the forest. there is a pretty story told of this reign, called the story of fair rosamond. it relates how the king doted on fair rosamond, who was the loveliest girl in all the world; and how he had a beautiful bower built for her in a park at woodstock; and how it was erected in a labyrinth, and could only be found by a clue of silk. how the bad queen eleanor, becoming jealous of fair rosamond, found out the secret of the clue, and one day, appeared before her, with a dagger and a cup of poison, and left her to the choice between those deaths. how fair rosamond, after shedding many piteous tears and offering many useless prayers to the cruel queen, took the poison, and fell dead in the midst of the beautiful bower, while the unconscious birds sang gaily all around her. now, there _was_ a fair rosamond, and she was (i dare say) the loveliest girl in all the world, and the king was certainly very fond of her, and the bad queen eleanor was certainly made jealous. but i am afraid--i say afraid, because i like the story so much--that there was no bower, no labyrinth, no silken clue, no dagger, no poison. i am afraid fair rosamond retired to a nunnery near oxford, and died there, peaceably; her sister-nuns hanging a silken drapery over her tomb, and often dressing it with flowers, in remembrance of the youth and beauty that had enchanted the king when he too was young, and when his life lay fair before him. it was dark and ended now; faded and gone. henry plantagenet lay quiet in the abbey church of fontevraud, in the fifty-seventh year of his age--never to be completed--after governing england well, for nearly thirty-five years. chapter xiii--england under richard the first, called the lion-heart in the year of our lord one thousand one hundred and eighty-nine, richard of the lion heart succeeded to the throne of king henry the second, whose paternal heart he had done so much to break. he had been, as we have seen, a rebel from his boyhood; but, the moment he became a king against whom others might rebel, he found out that rebellion was a great wickedness. in the heat of this pious discovery, he punished all the leading people who had befriended him against his father. he could scarcely have done anything that would have been a better instance of his real nature, or a better warning to fawners and parasites not to trust in lion-hearted princes. he likewise put his late father's treasurer in chains, and locked him up in a dungeon from which he was not set free until he had relinquished, not only all the crown treasure, but all his own money too. so, richard certainly got the lion's share of the wealth of this wretched treasurer, whether he had a lion's heart or not. he was crowned king of england, with great pomp, at westminster: walking to the cathedral under a silken canopy stretched on the tops of four lances, each carried by a great lord. on the day of his coronation, a dreadful murdering of the jews took place, which seems to have given great delight to numbers of savage persons calling themselves christians. the king had issued a proclamation forbidding the jews (who were generally hated, though they were the most useful merchants in england) to appear at the ceremony; but as they had assembled in london from all parts, bringing presents to show their respect for the new sovereign, some of them ventured down to westminster hall with their gifts; which were very readily accepted. it is supposed, now, that some noisy fellow in the crowd, pretending to be a very delicate christian, set up a howl at this, and struck a jew who was trying to get in at the hall door with his present. a riot arose. the jews who had got into the hall, were driven forth; and some of the rabble cried out that the new king had commanded the unbelieving race to be put to death. thereupon the crowd rushed through the narrow streets of the city, slaughtering all the jews they met; and when they could find no more out of doors (on account of their having fled to their houses, and fastened themselves in), they ran madly about, breaking open all the houses where the jews lived, rushing in and stabbing or spearing them, sometimes even flinging old people and children out of window into blazing fires they had lighted up below. this great cruelty lasted four-and-twenty hours, and only three men were punished for it. even they forfeited their lives not for murdering and robbing the jews, but for burning the houses of some christians. king richard, who was a strong, restless, burly man, with one idea always in his head, and that the very troublesome idea of breaking the heads of other men, was mightily impatient to go on a crusade to the holy land, with a great army. as great armies could not be raised to go, even to the holy land, without a great deal of money, he sold the crown domains, and even the high offices of state; recklessly appointing noblemen to rule over his english subjects, not because they were fit to govern, but because they could pay high for the privilege. in this way, and by selling pardons at a dear rate and by varieties of avarice and oppression, he scraped together a large treasure. he then appointed two bishops to take care of his kingdom in his absence, and gave great powers and possessions to his brother john, to secure his friendship. john would rather have been made regent of england; but he was a sly man, and friendly to the expedition; saying to himself, no doubt, 'the more fighting, the more chance of my brother being killed; and when he _is_ killed, then i become king john!' before the newly levied army departed from england, the recruits and the general populace distinguished themselves by astonishing cruelties on the unfortunate jews: whom, in many large towns, they murdered by hundreds in the most horrible manner. at york, a large body of jews took refuge in the castle, in the absence of its governor, after the wives and children of many of them had been slain before their eyes. presently came the governor, and demanded admission. 'how can we give it thee, o governor!' said the jews upon the walls, 'when, if we open the gate by so much as the width of a foot, the roaring crowd behind thee will press in and kill us?' upon this, the unjust governor became angry, and told the people that he approved of their killing those jews; and a mischievous maniac of a friar, dressed all in white, put himself at the head of the assault, and they assaulted the castle for three days. then said jocen, the head-jew (who was a rabbi or priest), to the rest, 'brethren, there is no hope for us with the christians who are hammering at the gates and walls, and who must soon break in. as we and our wives and children must die, either by christian hands, or by our own, let it be by our own. let us destroy by fire what jewels and other treasure we have here, then fire the castle, and then perish!' a few could not resolve to do this, but the greater part complied. they made a blazing heap of all their valuables, and, when those were consumed, set the castle in flames. while the flames roared and crackled around them, and shooting up into the sky, turned it blood-red, jocen cut the throat of his beloved wife, and stabbed himself. all the others who had wives or children, did the like dreadful deed. when the populace broke in, they found (except the trembling few, cowering in corners, whom they soon killed) only heaps of greasy cinders, with here and there something like part of the blackened trunk of a burnt tree, but which had lately been a human creature, formed by the beneficent hand of the creator as they were. after this bad beginning, richard and his troops went on, in no very good manner, with the holy crusade. it was undertaken jointly by the king of england and his old friend philip of france. they commenced the business by reviewing their forces, to the number of one hundred thousand men. afterwards, they severally embarked their troops for messina, in sicily, which was appointed as the next place of meeting. king richard's sister had married the king of this place, but he was dead: and his uncle tancred had usurped the crown, cast the royal widow into prison, and possessed himself of her estates. richard fiercely demanded his sister's release, the restoration of her lands, and (according to the royal custom of the island) that she should have a golden chair, a golden table, four-and-twenty silver cups, and four-and- twenty silver dishes. as he was too powerful to be successfully resisted, tancred yielded to his demands; and then the french king grew jealous, and complained that the english king wanted to be absolute in the island of messina and everywhere else. richard, however, cared little or nothing for this complaint; and in consideration of a present of twenty thousand pieces of gold, promised his pretty little nephew arthur, then a child of two years old, in marriage to tancred's daughter. we shall hear again of pretty little arthur by-and-by. this sicilian affair arranged without anybody's brains being knocked out (which must have rather disappointed him), king richard took his sister away, and also a fair lady named berengaria, with whom he had fallen in love in france, and whom his mother, queen eleanor (so long in prison, you remember, but released by richard on his coming to the throne), had brought out there to be his wife; and sailed with them for cyprus. he soon had the pleasure of fighting the king of the island of cyprus, for allowing his subjects to pillage some of the english troops who were shipwrecked on the shore; and easily conquering this poor monarch, he seized his only daughter, to be a companion to the lady berengaria, and put the king himself into silver fetters. he then sailed away again with his mother, sister, wife, and the captive princess; and soon arrived before the town of acre, which the french king with his fleet was besieging from the sea. but the french king was in no triumphant condition, for his army had been thinned by the swords of the saracens, and wasted by the plague; and saladin, the brave sultan of the turks, at the head of a numerous army, was at that time gallantly defending the place from the hills that rise above it. wherever the united army of crusaders went, they agreed in few points except in gaming, drinking, and quarrelling, in a most unholy manner; in debauching the people among whom they tarried, whether they were friends or foes; and in carrying disturbance and ruin into quiet places. the french king was jealous of the english king, and the english king was jealous of the french king, and the disorderly and violent soldiers of the two nations were jealous of one another; consequently, the two kings could not at first agree, even upon a joint assault on acre; but when they did make up their quarrel for that purpose, the saracens promised to yield the town, to give up to the christians the wood of the holy cross, to set at liberty all their christian captives, and to pay two hundred thousand pieces of gold. all this was to be done within forty days; but, not being done, king richard ordered some three thousand saracen prisoners to be brought out in the front of his camp, and there, in full view of their own countrymen, to be butchered. the french king had no part in this crime; for he was by that time travelling homeward with the greater part of his men; being offended by the overbearing conduct of the english king; being anxious to look after his own dominions; and being ill, besides, from the unwholesome air of that hot and sandy country. king richard carried on the war without him; and remained in the east, meeting with a variety of adventures, nearly a year and a half. every night when his army was on the march, and came to a halt, the heralds cried out three times, to remind all the soldiers of the cause in which they were engaged, 'save the holy sepulchre!' and then all the soldiers knelt and said 'amen!' marching or encamping, the army had continually to strive with the hot air of the glaring desert, or with the saracen soldiers animated and directed by the brave saladin, or with both together. sickness and death, battle and wounds, were always among them; but through every difficulty king richard fought like a giant, and worked like a common labourer. long and long after he was quiet in his grave, his terrible battle-axe, with twenty english pounds of english steel in its mighty head, was a legend among the saracens; and when all the saracen and christian hosts had been dust for many a year, if a saracen horse started at any object by the wayside, his rider would exclaim, 'what dost thou fear, fool? dost thou think king richard is behind it?' no one admired this king's renown for bravery more than saladin himself, who was a generous and gallant enemy. when richard lay ill of a fever, saladin sent him fresh fruits from damascus, and snow from the mountain- tops. courtly messages and compliments were frequently exchanged between them--and then king richard would mount his horse and kill as many saracens as he could; and saladin would mount his, and kill as many christians as he could. in this way king richard fought to his heart's content at arsoof and at jaffa; and finding himself with nothing exciting to do at ascalon, except to rebuild, for his own defence, some fortifications there which the saracens had destroyed, he kicked his ally the duke of austria, for being too proud to work at them. the army at last came within sight of the holy city of jerusalem; but, being then a mere nest of jealousy, and quarrelling and fighting, soon retired, and agreed with the saracens upon a truce for three years, three months, three days, and three hours. then, the english christians, protected by the noble saladin from saracen revenge, visited our saviour's tomb; and then king richard embarked with a small force at acre to return home. but he was shipwrecked in the adriatic sea, and was fain to pass through germany, under an assumed name. now, there were many people in germany who had served in the holy land under that proud duke of austria who had been kicked; and some of them, easily recognising a man so remarkable as king richard, carried their intelligence to the kicked duke, who straightway took him prisoner at a little inn near vienna. the duke's master the emperor of germany, and the king of france, were equally delighted to have so troublesome a monarch in safe keeping. friendships which are founded on a partnership in doing wrong, are never true; and the king of france was now quite as heartily king richard's foe, as he had ever been his friend in his unnatural conduct to his father. he monstrously pretended that king richard had designed to poison him in the east; he charged him with having murdered, there, a man whom he had in truth befriended; he bribed the emperor of germany to keep him close prisoner; and, finally, through the plotting of these two princes, richard was brought before the german legislature, charged with the foregoing crimes, and many others. but he defended himself so well, that many of the assembly were moved to tears by his eloquence and earnestness. it was decided that he should be treated, during the rest of his captivity, in a manner more becoming his dignity than he had been, and that he should be set free on the payment of a heavy ransom. this ransom the english people willingly raised. when queen eleanor took it over to germany, it was at first evaded and refused. but she appealed to the honour of all the princes of the german empire in behalf of her son, and appealed so well that it was accepted, and the king released. thereupon, the king of france wrote to prince john--'take care of thyself. the devil is unchained!' prince john had reason to fear his brother, for he had been a traitor to him in his captivity. he had secretly joined the french king; had vowed to the english nobles and people that his brother was dead; and had vainly tried to seize the crown. he was now in france, at a place called evreux. being the meanest and basest of men, he contrived a mean and base expedient for making himself acceptable to his brother. he invited the french officers of the garrison in that town to dinner, murdered them all, and then took the fortress. with this recommendation to the good will of a lion-hearted monarch, he hastened to king richard, fell on his knees before him, and obtained the intercession of queen eleanor. 'i forgive him,' said the king, 'and i hope i may forget the injury he has done me, as easily as i know he will forget my pardon.' while king richard was in sicily, there had been trouble in his dominions at home: one of the bishops whom he had left in charge thereof, arresting the other; and making, in his pride and ambition, as great a show as if he were king himself. but the king hearing of it at messina, and appointing a new regency, this longchamp (for that was his name) had fled to france in a woman's dress, and had there been encouraged and supported by the french king. with all these causes of offence against philip in his mind, king richard had no sooner been welcomed home by his enthusiastic subjects with great display and splendour, and had no sooner been crowned afresh at winchester, than he resolved to show the french king that the devil was unchained indeed, and made war against him with great fury. there was fresh trouble at home about this time, arising out of the discontents of the poor people, who complained that they were far more heavily taxed than the rich, and who found a spirited champion in william fitz-osbert, called longbeard. he became the leader of a secret society, comprising fifty thousand men; he was seized by surprise; he stabbed the citizen who first laid hands upon him; and retreated, bravely fighting, to a church, which he maintained four days, until he was dislodged by fire, and run through the body as he came out. he was not killed, though; for he was dragged, half dead, at the tail of a horse to smithfield, and there hanged. death was long a favourite remedy for silencing the people's advocates; but as we go on with this history, i fancy we shall find them difficult to make an end of, for all that. the french war, delayed occasionally by a truce, was still in progress when a certain lord named vidomar, viscount of limoges, chanced to find in his ground a treasure of ancient coins. as the king's vassal, he sent the king half of it; but the king claimed the whole. the lord refused to yield the whole. the king besieged the lord in his castle, swore that he would take the castle by storm, and hang every man of its defenders on the battlements. there was a strange old song in that part of the country, to the effect that in limoges an arrow would be made by which king richard would die. it may be that bertrand de gourdon, a young man who was one of the defenders of the castle, had often sung it or heard it sung of a winter night, and remembered it when he saw, from his post upon the ramparts, the king attended only by his chief officer riding below the walls surveying the place. he drew an arrow to the head, took steady aim, said between his teeth, 'now i pray god speed thee well, arrow!' discharged it, and struck the king in the left shoulder. although the wound was not at first considered dangerous, it was severe enough to cause the king to retire to his tent, and direct the assault to be made without him. the castle was taken; and every man of its defenders was hanged, as the king had sworn all should be, except bertrand de gourdon, who was reserved until the royal pleasure respecting him should be known. by that time unskilful treatment had made the wound mortal and the king knew that he was dying. he directed bertrand to be brought into his tent. the young man was brought there, heavily chained, king richard looked at him steadily. he looked, as steadily, at the king. 'knave!' said king richard. 'what have i done to thee that thou shouldest take my life?' 'what hast thou done to me?' replied the young man. 'with thine own hands thou hast killed my father and my two brothers. myself thou wouldest have hanged. let me die now, by any torture that thou wilt. my comfort is, that no torture can save thee. thou too must die; and, through me, the world is quit of thee!' again the king looked at the young man steadily. again the young man looked steadily at him. perhaps some remembrance of his generous enemy saladin, who was not a christian, came into the mind of the dying king. 'youth!' he said, 'i forgive thee. go unhurt!' then, turning to the chief officer who had been riding in his company when he received the wound, king richard said: 'take off his chains, give him a hundred shillings, and let him depart.' he sunk down on his couch, and a dark mist seemed in his weakened eyes to fill the tent wherein he had so often rested, and he died. his age was forty-two; he had reigned ten years. his last command was not obeyed; for the chief officer flayed bertrand de gourdon alive, and hanged him. there is an old tune yet known--a sorrowful air will sometimes outlive many generations of strong men, and even last longer than battle-axes with twenty pounds of steel in the head--by which this king is said to have been discovered in his captivity. blondel, a favourite minstrel of king richard, as the story relates, faithfully seeking his royal master, went singing it outside the gloomy walls of many foreign fortresses and prisons; until at last he heard it echoed from within a dungeon, and knew the voice, and cried out in ecstasy, 'o richard, o my king!' you may believe it, if you like; it would be easy to believe worse things. richard was himself a minstrel and a poet. if he had not been a prince too, he might have been a better man perhaps, and might have gone out of the world with less bloodshed and waste of life to answer for. chapter xiv--england under king john, called lackland at two-and-thirty years of age, john became king of england. his pretty little nephew arthur had the best claim to the throne; but john seized the treasure, and made fine promises to the nobility, and got himself crowned at westminster within a few weeks after his brother richard's death. i doubt whether the crown could possibly have been put upon the head of a meaner coward, or a more detestable villain, if england had been searched from end to end to find him out. the french king, philip, refused to acknowledge the right of john to his new dignity, and declared in favour of arthur. you must not suppose that he had any generosity of feeling for the fatherless boy; it merely suited his ambitious schemes to oppose the king of england. so john and the french king went to war about arthur. he was a handsome boy, at that time only twelve years old. he was not born when his father, geoffrey, had his brains trampled out at the tournament; and, besides the misfortune of never having known a father's guidance and protection, he had the additional misfortune to have a foolish mother (constance by name), lately married to her third husband. she took arthur, upon john's accession, to the french king, who pretended to be very much his friend, and who made him a knight, and promised him his daughter in marriage; but, who cared so little about him in reality, that finding it his interest to make peace with king john for a time, he did so without the least consideration for the poor little prince, and heartlessly sacrificed all his interests. young arthur, for two years afterwards, lived quietly; and in the course of that time his mother died. but, the french king then finding it his interest to quarrel with king john again, again made arthur his pretence, and invited the orphan boy to court. 'you know your rights, prince,' said the french king, 'and you would like to be a king. is it not so?' 'truly,' said prince arthur, 'i should greatly like to be a king!' 'then,' said philip, 'you shall have two hundred gentlemen who are knights of mine, and with them you shall go to win back the provinces belonging to you, of which your uncle, the usurping king of england, has taken possession. i myself, meanwhile, will head a force against him in normandy.' poor arthur was so flattered and so grateful that he signed a treaty with the crafty french king, agreeing to consider him his superior lord, and that the french king should keep for himself whatever he could take from king john. now, king john was so bad in all ways, and king philip was so perfidious, that arthur, between the two, might as well have been a lamb between a fox and a wolf. but, being so young, he was ardent and flushed with hope; and, when the people of brittany (which was his inheritance) sent him five hundred more knights and five thousand foot soldiers, he believed his fortune was made. the people of brittany had been fond of him from his birth, and had requested that he might be called arthur, in remembrance of that dimly-famous english arthur, of whom i told you early in this book, whom they believed to have been the brave friend and companion of an old king of their own. they had tales among them about a prophet called merlin (of the same old time), who had foretold that their own king should be restored to them after hundreds of years; and they believed that the prophecy would be fulfilled in arthur; that the time would come when he would rule them with a crown of brittany upon his head; and when neither king of france nor king of england would have any power over them. when arthur found himself riding in a glittering suit of armour on a richly caparisoned horse, at the head of his train of knights and soldiers, he began to believe this too, and to consider old merlin a very superior prophet. he did not know--how could he, being so innocent and inexperienced?--that his little army was a mere nothing against the power of the king of england. the french king knew it; but the poor boy's fate was little to him, so that the king of england was worried and distressed. therefore, king philip went his way into normandy and prince arthur went his way towards mirebeau, a french town near poictiers, both very well pleased. prince arthur went to attack the town of mirebeau, because his grandmother eleanor, who has so often made her appearance in this history (and who had always been his mother's enemy), was living there, and because his knights said, 'prince, if you can take her prisoner, you will be able to bring the king your uncle to terms!' but she was not to be easily taken. she was old enough by this time--eighty--but she was as full of stratagem as she was full of years and wickedness. receiving intelligence of young arthur's approach, she shut herself up in a high tower, and encouraged her soldiers to defend it like men. prince arthur with his little army besieged the high tower. king john, hearing how matters stood, came up to the rescue, with _his_ army. so here was a strange family-party! the boy-prince besieging his grandmother, and his uncle besieging him! this position of affairs did not last long. one summer night king john, by treachery, got his men into the town, surprised prince arthur's force, took two hundred of his knights, and seized the prince himself in his bed. the knights were put in heavy irons, and driven away in open carts drawn by bullocks, to various dungeons where they were most inhumanly treated, and where some of them were starved to death. prince arthur was sent to the castle of falaise. one day, while he was in prison at that castle, mournfully thinking it strange that one so young should be in so much trouble, and looking out of the small window in the deep dark wall, at the summer sky and the birds, the door was softly opened, and he saw his uncle the king standing in the shadow of the archway, looking very grim. 'arthur,' said the king, with his wicked eyes more on the stone floor than on his nephew, 'will you not trust to the gentleness, the friendship, and the truthfulness of your loving uncle?' 'i will tell my loving uncle that,' replied the boy, 'when he does me right. let him restore to me my kingdom of england, and then come to me and ask the question.' the king looked at him and went out. 'keep that boy close prisoner,' said he to the warden of the castle. then, the king took secret counsel with the worst of his nobles how the prince was to be got rid of. some said, 'put out his eyes and keep him in prison, as robort of normandy was kept.' others said, 'have him stabbed.' others, 'have him hanged.' others, 'have him poisoned.' king john, feeling that in any case, whatever was done afterwards, it would be a satisfaction to his mind to have those handsome eyes burnt out that had looked at him so proudly while his own royal eyes were blinking at the stone floor, sent certain ruffians to falaise to blind the boy with red-hot irons. but arthur so pathetically entreated them, and shed such piteous tears, and so appealed to hubert de bourg (or burgh), the warden of the castle, who had a love for him, and was an honourable, tender man, that hubert could not bear it. to his eternal honour he prevented the torture from being performed, and, at his own risk, sent the savages away. the chafed and disappointed king bethought himself of the stabbing suggestion next, and, with his shuffling manner and his cruel face, proposed it to one william de bray. 'i am a gentleman and not an executioner,' said william de bray, and left the presence with disdain. but it was not difficult for a king to hire a murderer in those days. king john found one for his money, and sent him down to the castle of falaise. 'on what errand dost thou come?' said hubert to this fellow. 'to despatch young arthur,' he returned. 'go back to him who sent thee,' answered hubert, 'and say that i will do it!' king john very well knowing that hubert would never do it, but that he courageously sent this reply to save the prince or gain time, despatched messengers to convey the young prisoner to the castle of rouen. arthur was soon forced from the good hubert--of whom he had never stood in greater need than then--carried away by night, and lodged in his new prison: where, through his grated window, he could hear the deep waters of the river seine, rippling against the stone wall below. one dark night, as he lay sleeping, dreaming perhaps of rescue by those unfortunate gentlemen who were obscurely suffering and dying in his cause, he was roused, and bidden by his jailer to come down the staircase to the foot of the tower. he hurriedly dressed himself and obeyed. when they came to the bottom of the winding stairs, and the night air from the river blew upon their faces, the jailer trod upon his torch and put it out. then, arthur, in the darkness, was hurriedly drawn into a solitary boat. and in that boat, he found his uncle and one other man. he knelt to them, and prayed them not to murder him. deaf to his entreaties, they stabbed him and sunk his body in the river with heavy stones. when the spring-morning broke, the tower-door was closed, the boat was gone, the river sparkled on its way, and never more was any trace of the poor boy beheld by mortal eyes. the news of this atrocious murder being spread in england, awakened a hatred of the king (already odious for his many vices, and for his having stolen away and married a noble lady while his own wife was living) that never slept again through his whole reign. in brittany, the indignation was intense. arthur's own sister eleanor was in the power of john and shut up in a convent at bristol, but his half-sister alice was in brittany. the people chose her, and the murdered prince's father-in-law, the last husband of constance, to represent them; and carried their fiery complaints to king philip. king philip summoned king john (as the holder of territory in france) to come before him and defend himself. king john refusing to appear, king philip declared him false, perjured, and guilty; and again made war. in a little time, by conquering the greater part of his french territory, king philip deprived him of one-third of his dominions. and, through all the fighting that took place, king john was always found, either to be eating and drinking, like a gluttonous fool, when the danger was at a distance, or to be running away, like a beaten cur, when it was near. you might suppose that when he was losing his dominions at this rate, and when his own nobles cared so little for him or his cause that they plainly refused to follow his banner out of england, he had enemies enough. but he made another enemy of the pope, which he did in this way. the archbishop of canterbury dying, and the junior monks of that place wishing to get the start of the senior monks in the appointment of his successor, met together at midnight, secretly elected a certain reginald, and sent him off to rome to get the pope's approval. the senior monks and the king soon finding this out, and being very angry about it, the junior monks gave way, and all the monks together elected the bishop of norwich, who was the king's favourite. the pope, hearing the whole story, declared that neither election would do for him, and that _he_ elected stephen langton. the monks submitting to the pope, the king turned them all out bodily, and banished them as traitors. the pope sent three bishops to the king, to threaten him with an interdict. the king told the bishops that if any interdict were laid upon his kingdom, he would tear out the eyes and cut off the noses of all the monks he could lay hold of, and send them over to rome in that undecorated state as a present for their master. the bishops, nevertheless, soon published the interdict, and fled. after it had lasted a year, the pope proceeded to his next step; which was excommunication. king john was declared excommunicated, with all the usual ceremonies. the king was so incensed at this, and was made so desperate by the disaffection of his barons and the hatred of his people, that it is said he even privately sent ambassadors to the turks in spain, offering to renounce his religion and hold his kingdom of them if they would help him. it is related that the ambassadors were admitted to the presence of the turkish emir through long lines of moorish guards, and that they found the emir with his eyes seriously fixed on the pages of a large book, from which he never once looked up. that they gave him a letter from the king containing his proposals, and were gravely dismissed. that presently the emir sent for one of them, and conjured him, by his faith in his religion, to say what kind of man the king of england truly was? that the ambassador, thus pressed, replied that the king of england was a false tyrant, against whom his own subjects would soon rise. and that this was quite enough for the emir. money being, in his position, the next best thing to men, king john spared no means of getting it. he set on foot another oppressing and torturing of the unhappy jews (which was quite in his way), and invented a new punishment for one wealthy jew of bristol. until such time as that jew should produce a certain large sum of money, the king sentenced him to be imprisoned, and, every day, to have one tooth violently wrenched out of his head--beginning with the double teeth. for seven days, the oppressed man bore the daily pain and lost the daily tooth; but, on the eighth, he paid the money. with the treasure raised in such ways, the king made an expedition into ireland, where some english nobles had revolted. it was one of the very few places from which he did not run away; because no resistance was shown. he made another expedition into wales--whence he _did_ run away in the end: but not before he had got from the welsh people, as hostages, twenty-seven young men of the best families; every one of whom he caused to be slain in the following year. to interdict and excommunication, the pope now added his last sentence; deposition. he proclaimed john no longer king, absolved all his subjects from their allegiance, and sent stephen langton and others to the king of france to tell him that, if he would invade england, he should be forgiven all his sins--at least, should be forgiven them by the pope, if that would do. as there was nothing that king philip desired more than to invade england, he collected a great army at rouen, and a fleet of seventeen hundred ships to bring them over. but the english people, however bitterly they hated the king, were not a people to suffer invasion quietly. they flocked to dover, where the english standard was, in such great numbers to enrol themselves as defenders of their native land, that there were not provisions for them, and the king could only select and retain sixty thousand. but, at this crisis, the pope, who had his own reasons for objecting to either king john or king philip being too powerful, interfered. he entrusted a legate, whose name was pandolf, with the easy task of frightening king john. he sent him to the english camp, from france, to terrify him with exaggerations of king philip's power, and his own weakness in the discontent of the english barons and people. pandolf discharged his commission so well, that king john, in a wretched panic, consented to acknowledge stephen langton; to resign his kingdom 'to god, saint peter, and saint paul'--which meant the pope; and to hold it, ever afterwards, by the pope's leave, on payment of an annual sum of money. to this shameful contract he publicly bound himself in the church of the knights templars at dover: where he laid at the legate's feet a part of the tribute, which the legate haughtily trampled upon. but they _do_ say, that this was merely a genteel flourish, and that he was afterwards seen to pick it up and pocket it. there was an unfortunate prophet, the name of peter, who had greatly increased king john's terrors by predicting that he would be unknighted (which the king supposed to signify that he would die) before the feast of the ascension should be past. that was the day after this humiliation. when the next morning came, and the king, who had been trembling all night, found himself alive and safe, he ordered the prophet--and his son too--to be dragged through the streets at the tails of horses, and then hanged, for having frightened him. as king john had now submitted, the pope, to king philip's great astonishment, took him under his protection, and informed king philip that he found he could not give him leave to invade england. the angry philip resolved to do it without his leave but he gained nothing and lost much; for, the english, commanded by the earl of salisbury, went over, in five hundred ships, to the french coast, before the french fleet had sailed away from it, and utterly defeated the whole. the pope then took off his three sentences, one after another, and empowered stephen langton publicly to receive king john into the favour of the church again, and to ask him to dinner. the king, who hated langton with all his might and main--and with reason too, for he was a great and a good man, with whom such a king could have no sympathy--pretended to cry and to be _very_ grateful. there was a little difficulty about settling how much the king should pay as a recompense to the clergy for the losses he had caused them; but, the end of it was, that the superior clergy got a good deal, and the inferior clergy got little or nothing--which has also happened since king john's time, i believe. when all these matters were arranged, the king in his triumph became more fierce, and false, and insolent to all around him than he had ever been. an alliance of sovereigns against king philip, gave him an opportunity of landing an army in france; with which he even took a town! but, on the french king's gaining a great victory, he ran away, of course, and made a truce for five years. and now the time approached when he was to be still further humbled, and made to feel, if he could feel anything, what a wretched creature he was. of all men in the world, stephen langton seemed raised up by heaven to oppose and subdue him. when he ruthlessly burnt and destroyed the property of his own subjects, because their lords, the barons, would not serve him abroad, stephen langton fearlessly reproved and threatened him. when he swore to restore the laws of king edward, or the laws of king henry the first, stephen langton knew his falsehood, and pursued him through all his evasions. when the barons met at the abbey of saint edmund's-bury, to consider their wrongs and the king's oppressions, stephen langton roused them by his fervid words to demand a solemn charter of rights and liberties from their perjured master, and to swear, one by one, on the high altar, that they would have it, or would wage war against him to the death. when the king hid himself in london from the barons, and was at last obliged to receive them, they told him roundly they would not believe him unless stephen langton became a surety that he would keep his word. when he took the cross to invest himself with some interest, and belong to something that was received with favour, stephen langton was still immovable. when he appealed to the pope, and the pope wrote to stephen langton in behalf of his new favourite, stephen langton was deaf, even to the pope himself, and saw before him nothing but the welfare of england and the crimes of the english king. at easter-time, the barons assembled at stamford, in lincolnshire, in proud array, and, marching near to oxford where the king was, delivered into the hands of stephen langton and two others, a list of grievances. 'and these,' they said, 'he must redress, or we will do it for ourselves!' when stephen langton told the king as much, and read the list to him, he went half mad with rage. but that did him no more good than his afterwards trying to pacify the barons with lies. they called themselves and their followers, 'the army of god and the holy church.' marching through the country, with the people thronging to them everywhere (except at northampton, where they failed in an attack upon the castle), they at last triumphantly set up their banner in london itself, whither the whole land, tired of the tyrant, seemed to flock to join them. seven knights alone, of all the knights in england, remained with the king; who, reduced to this strait, at last sent the earl of pembroke to the barons to say that he approved of everything, and would meet them to sign their charter when they would. 'then,' said the barons, 'let the day be the fifteenth of june, and the place, runny-mead.' on monday, the fifteenth of june, one thousand two hundred and fourteen, the king came from windsor castle, and the barons came from the town of staines, and they met on runny-mead, which is still a pleasant meadow by the thames, where rushes grow in the clear water of the winding river, and its banks are green with grass and trees. on the side of the barons, came the general of their army, robert fitz-walter, and a great concourse of the nobility of england. with the king, came, in all, some four-and- twenty persons of any note, most of whom despised him, and were merely his advisers in form. on that great day, and in that great company, the king signed magna charta--the great charter of england--by which he pledged himself to maintain the church in its rights; to relieve the barons of oppressive obligations as vassals of the crown--of which the barons, in their turn, pledged themselves to relieve _their_ vassals, the people; to respect the liberties of london and all other cities and boroughs; to protect foreign merchants who came to england; to imprison no man without a fair trial; and to sell, delay, or deny justice to none. as the barons knew his falsehood well, they further required, as their securities, that he should send out of his kingdom all his foreign troops; that for two months they should hold possession of the city of london, and stephen langton of the tower; and that five-and-twenty of their body, chosen by themselves, should be a lawful committee to watch the keeping of the charter, and to make war upon him if he broke it. all this he was obliged to yield. he signed the charter with a smile, and, if he could have looked agreeable, would have done so, as he departed from the splendid assembly. when he got home to windsor castle, he was quite a madman in his helpless fury. and he broke the charter immediately afterwards. he sent abroad for foreign soldiers, and sent to the pope for help, and plotted to take london by surprise, while the barons should be holding a great tournament at stamford, which they had agreed to hold there as a celebration of the charter. the barons, however, found him out and put it off. then, when the barons desired to see him and tax him with his treachery, he made numbers of appointments with them, and kept none, and shifted from place to place, and was constantly sneaking and skulking about. at last he appeared at dover, to join his foreign soldiers, of whom numbers came into his pay; and with them he besieged and took rochester castle, which was occupied by knights and soldiers of the barons. he would have hanged them every one; but the leader of the foreign soldiers, fearful of what the english people might afterwards do to him, interfered to save the knights; therefore the king was fain to satisfy his vengeance with the death of all the common men. then, he sent the earl of salisbury, with one portion of his army, to ravage the eastern part of his own dominions, while he carried fire and slaughter into the northern part; torturing, plundering, killing, and inflicting every possible cruelty upon the people; and, every morning, setting a worthy example to his men by setting fire, with his own monster-hands, to the house where he had slept last night. nor was this all; for the pope, coming to the aid of his precious friend, laid the kingdom under an interdict again, because the people took part with the barons. it did not much matter, for the people had grown so used to it now, that they had begun to think nothing about it. it occurred to them--perhaps to stephen langton too--that they could keep their churches open, and ring their bells, without the pope's permission as well as with it. so, they tried the experiment--and found that it succeeded perfectly. it being now impossible to bear the country, as a wilderness of cruelty, or longer to hold any terms with such a forsworn outlaw of a king, the barons sent to louis, son of the french monarch, to offer him the english crown. caring as little for the pope's excommunication of him if he accepted the offer, as it is possible his father may have cared for the pope's forgiveness of his sins, he landed at sandwich (king john immediately running away from dover, where he happened to be), and went on to london. the scottish king, with whom many of the northern english lords had taken refuge; numbers of the foreign soldiers, numbers of the barons, and numbers of the people went over to him every day;--king john, the while, continually running away in all directions. the career of louis was checked however, by the suspicions of the barons, founded on the dying declaration of a french lord, that when the kingdom was conquered he was sworn to banish them as traitors, and to give their estates to some of his own nobles. rather than suffer this, some of the barons hesitated: others even went over to king john. it seemed to be the turning-point of king john's fortunes, for, in his savage and murderous course, he had now taken some towns and met with some successes. but, happily for england and humanity, his death was near. crossing a dangerous quicksand, called the wash, not very far from wisbeach, the tide came up and nearly drowned his army. he and his soldiers escaped; but, looking back from the shore when he was safe, he saw the roaring water sweep down in a torrent, overturn the waggons, horses, and men, that carried his treasure, and engulf them in a raging whirlpool from which nothing could be delivered. cursing, and swearing, and gnawing his fingers, he went on to swinestead abbey, where the monks set before him quantities of pears, and peaches, and new cider--some say poison too, but there is very little reason to suppose so--of which he ate and drank in an immoderate and beastly way. all night he lay ill of a burning fever, and haunted with horrible fears. next day, they put him in a horse-litter, and carried him to sleaford castle, where he passed another night of pain and horror. next day, they carried him, with greater difficulty than on the day before, to the castle of newark upon trent; and there, on the eighteenth of october, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the seventeenth of his vile reign, was an end of this miserable brute. chapter xv--england under henry the third, called, of winchester if any of the english barons remembered the murdered arthur's sister, eleanor the fair maid of brittany, shut up in her convent at bristol, none among them spoke of her now, or maintained her right to the crown. the dead usurper's eldest boy, henry by name, was taken by the earl of pembroke, the marshal of england, to the city of gloucester, and there crowned in great haste when he was only ten years old. as the crown itself had been lost with the king's treasure in the raging water, and as there was no time to make another, they put a circle of plain gold upon his head instead. 'we have been the enemies of this child's father,' said lord pembroke, a good and true gentleman, to the few lords who were present, 'and he merited our ill-will; but the child himself is innocent, and his youth demands our friendship and protection.' those lords felt tenderly towards the little boy, remembering their own young children; and they bowed their heads, and said, 'long live king henry the third!' next, a great council met at bristol, revised magna charta, and made lord pembroke regent or protector of england, as the king was too young to reign alone. the next thing to be done, was to get rid of prince louis of france, and to win over those english barons who were still ranged under his banner. he was strong in many parts of england, and in london itself; and he held, among other places, a certain castle called the castle of mount sorel, in leicestershire. to this fortress, after some skirmishing and truce-making, lord pembroke laid siege. louis despatched an army of six hundred knights and twenty thousand soldiers to relieve it. lord pembroke, who was not strong enough for such a force, retired with all his men. the army of the french prince, which had marched there with fire and plunder, marched away with fire and plunder, and came, in a boastful swaggering manner, to lincoln. the town submitted; but the castle in the town, held by a brave widow lady, named nichola de camville (whose property it was), made such a sturdy resistance, that the french count in command of the army of the french prince found it necessary to besiege this castle. while he was thus engaged, word was brought to him that lord pembroke, with four hundred knights, two hundred and fifty men with cross-bows, and a stout force both of horse and foot, was marching towards him. 'what care i?' said the french count. 'the englishman is not so mad as to attack me and my great army in a walled town!' but the englishman did it for all that, and did it--not so madly but so wisely, that he decoyed the great army into the narrow, ill-paved lanes and byways of lincoln, where its horse-soldiers could not ride in any strong body; and there he made such havoc with them, that the whole force surrendered themselves prisoners, except the count; who said that he would never yield to any english traitor alive, and accordingly got killed. the end of this victory, which the english called, for a joke, the fair of lincoln, was the usual one in those times--the common men were slain without any mercy, and the knights and gentlemen paid ransom and went home. the wife of louis, the fair blanche of castile, dutifully equipped a fleet of eighty good ships, and sent it over from france to her husband's aid. an english fleet of forty ships, some good and some bad, gallantly met them near the mouth of the thames, and took or sunk sixty-five in one fight. this great loss put an end to the french prince's hopes. a treaty was made at lambeth, in virtue of which the english barons who had remained attached to his cause returned to their allegiance, and it was engaged on both sides that the prince and all his troops should retire peacefully to france. it was time to go; for war had made him so poor that he was obliged to borrow money from the citizens of london to pay his expenses home. lord pembroke afterwards applied himself to governing the country justly, and to healing the quarrels and disturbances that had arisen among men in the days of the bad king john. he caused magna charta to be still more improved, and so amended the forest laws that a peasant was no longer put to death for killing a stag in a royal forest, but was only imprisoned. it would have been well for england if it could have had so good a protector many years longer, but that was not to be. within three years after the young king's coronation, lord pembroke died; and you may see his tomb, at this day, in the old temple church in london. the protectorship was now divided. peter de roches, whom king john had made bishop of winchester, was entrusted with the care of the person of the young sovereign; and the exercise of the royal authority was confided to earl hubert de burgh. these two personages had from the first no liking for each other, and soon became enemies. when the young king was declared of age, peter de roches, finding that hubert increased in power and favour, retired discontentedly, and went abroad. for nearly ten years afterwards hubert had full sway alone. but ten years is a long time to hold the favour of a king. this king, too, as he grew up, showed a strong resemblance to his father, in feebleness, inconsistency, and irresolution. the best that can be said of him is that he was not cruel. de roches coming home again, after ten years, and being a novelty, the king began to favour him and to look coldly on hubert. wanting money besides, and having made hubert rich, he began to dislike hubert. at last he was made to believe, or pretended to believe, that hubert had misappropriated some of the royal treasure; and ordered him to furnish an account of all he had done in his administration. besides which, the foolish charge was brought against hubert that he had made himself the king's favourite by magic. hubert very well knowing that he could never defend himself against such nonsense, and that his old enemy must be determined on his ruin, instead of answering the charges fled to merton abbey. then the king, in a violent passion, sent for the mayor of london, and said to the mayor, 'take twenty thousand citizens, and drag me hubert de burgh out of that abbey, and bring him here.' the mayor posted off to do it, but the archbishop of dublin (who was a friend of hubert's) warning the king that an abbey was a sacred place, and that if he committed any violence there, he must answer for it to the church, the king changed his mind and called the mayor back, and declared that hubert should have four months to prepare his defence, and should be safe and free during that time. hubert, who relied upon the king's word, though i think he was old enough to have known better, came out of merton abbey upon these conditions, and journeyed away to see his wife: a scottish princess who was then at st. edmund's-bury. almost as soon as he had departed from the sanctuary, his enemies persuaded the weak king to send out one sir godfrey de crancumb, who commanded three hundred vagabonds called the black band, with orders to seize him. they came up with him at a little town in essex, called brentwood, when he was in bed. he leaped out of bed, got out of the house, fled to the church, ran up to the altar, and laid his hand upon the cross. sir godfrey and the black band, caring neither for church, altar, nor cross, dragged him forth to the church door, with their drawn swords flashing round his head, and sent for a smith to rivet a set of chains upon him. when the smith (i wish i knew his name!) was brought, all dark and swarthy with the smoke of his forge, and panting with the speed he had made; and the black band, falling aside to show him the prisoner, cried with a loud uproar, 'make the fetters heavy! make them strong!' the smith dropped upon his knee--but not to the black band--and said, 'this is the brave earl hubert de burgh, who fought at dover castle, and destroyed the french fleet, and has done his country much good service. you may kill me, if you like, but i will never make a chain for earl hubert de burgh!' the black band never blushed, or they might have blushed at this. they knocked the smith about from one to another, and swore at him, and tied the earl on horseback, undressed as he was, and carried him off to the tower of london. the bishops, however, were so indignant at the violation of the sanctuary of the church, that the frightened king soon ordered the black band to take him back again; at the same time commanding the sheriff of essex to prevent his escaping out of brentwood church. well! the sheriff dug a deep trench all round the church, and erected a high fence, and watched the church night and day; the black band and their captain watched it too, like three hundred and one black wolves. for thirty-nine days, hubert de burgh remained within. at length, upon the fortieth day, cold and hunger were too much for him, and he gave himself up to the black band, who carried him off, for the second time, to the tower. when his trial came on, he refused to plead; but at last it was arranged that he should give up all the royal lands which had been bestowed upon him, and should be kept at the castle of devizes, in what was called 'free prison,' in charge of four knights appointed by four lords. there, he remained almost a year, until, learning that a follower of his old enemy the bishop was made keeper of the castle, and fearing that he might be killed by treachery, he climbed the ramparts one dark night, dropped from the top of the high castle wall into the moat, and coming safely to the ground, took refuge in another church. from this place he was delivered by a party of horse despatched to his help by some nobles, who were by this time in revolt against the king, and assembled in wales. he was finally pardoned and restored to his estates, but he lived privately, and never more aspired to a high post in the realm, or to a high place in the king's favour. and thus end--more happily than the stories of many favourites of kings--the adventures of earl hubert de burgh. the nobles, who had risen in revolt, were stirred up to rebellion by the overbearing conduct of the bishop of winchester, who, finding that the king secretly hated the great charter which had been forced from his father, did his utmost to confirm him in that dislike, and in the preference he showed to foreigners over the english. of this, and of his even publicly declaring that the barons of england were inferior to those of france, the english lords complained with such bitterness, that the king, finding them well supported by the clergy, became frightened for his throne, and sent away the bishop and all his foreign associates. on his marriage, however, with eleanor, a french lady, the daughter of the count of provence, he openly favoured the foreigners again; and so many of his wife's relations came over, and made such an immense family-party at court, and got so many good things, and pocketed so much money, and were so high with the english whose money they pocketed, that the bolder english barons murmured openly about a clause there was in the great charter, which provided for the banishment of unreasonable favourites. but, the foreigners only laughed disdainfully, and said, 'what are your english laws to us?' king philip of france had died, and had been succeeded by prince louis, who had also died after a short reign of three years, and had been succeeded by his son of the same name--so moderate and just a man that he was not the least in the world like a king, as kings went. isabella, king henry's mother, wished very much (for a certain spite she had) that england should make war against this king; and, as king henry was a mere puppet in anybody's hands who knew how to manage his feebleness, she easily carried her point with him. but, the parliament were determined to give him no money for such a war. so, to defy the parliament, he packed up thirty large casks of silver--i don't know how he got so much; i dare say he screwed it out of the miserable jews--and put them aboard ship, and went away himself to carry war into france: accompanied by his mother and his brother richard, earl of cornwall, who was rich and clever. but he only got well beaten, and came home. the good-humour of the parliament was not restored by this. they reproached the king with wasting the public money to make greedy foreigners rich, and were so stern with him, and so determined not to let him have more of it to waste if they could help it, that he was at his wit's end for some, and tried so shamelessly to get all he could from his subjects, by excuses or by force, that the people used to say the king was the sturdiest beggar in england. he took the cross, thinking to get some money by that means; but, as it was very well known that he never meant to go on a crusade, he got none. in all this contention, the londoners were particularly keen against the king, and the king hated them warmly in return. hating or loving, however, made no difference; he continued in the same condition for nine or ten years, when at last the barons said that if he would solemnly confirm their liberties afresh, the parliament would vote him a large sum. as he readily consented, there was a great meeting held in westminster hall, one pleasant day in may, when all the clergy, dressed in their robes and holding every one of them a burning candle in his hand, stood up (the barons being also there) while the archbishop of canterbury read the sentence of excommunication against any man, and all men, who should henceforth, in any way, infringe the great charter of the kingdom. when he had done, they all put out their burning candles with a curse upon the soul of any one, and every one, who should merit that sentence. the king concluded with an oath to keep the charter, 'as i am a man, as i am a christian, as i am a knight, as i am a king!' it was easy to make oaths, and easy to break them; and the king did both, as his father had done before him. he took to his old courses again when he was supplied with money, and soon cured of their weakness the few who had ever really trusted him. when his money was gone, and he was once more borrowing and begging everywhere with a meanness worthy of his nature, he got into a difficulty with the pope respecting the crown of sicily, which the pope said he had a right to give away, and which he offered to king henry for his second son, prince edmund. but, if you or i give away what we have not got, and what belongs to somebody else, it is likely that the person to whom we give it, will have some trouble in taking it. it was exactly so in this case. it was necessary to conquer the sicilian crown before it could be put upon young edmund's head. it could not be conquered without money. the pope ordered the clergy to raise money. the clergy, however, were not so obedient to him as usual; they had been disputing with him for some time about his unjust preference of italian priests in england; and they had begun to doubt whether the king's chaplain, whom he allowed to be paid for preaching in seven hundred churches, could possibly be, even by the pope's favour, in seven hundred places at once. 'the pope and the king together,' said the bishop of london, 'may take the mitre off my head; but, if they do, they will find that i shall put on a soldier's helmet. i pay nothing.' the bishop of worcester was as bold as the bishop of london, and would pay nothing either. such sums as the more timid or more helpless of the clergy did raise were squandered away, without doing any good to the king, or bringing the sicilian crown an inch nearer to prince edmund's head. the end of the business was, that the pope gave the crown to the brother of the king of france (who conquered it for himself), and sent the king of england in, a bill of one hundred thousand pounds for the expenses of not having won it. the king was now so much distressed that we might almost pity him, if it were possible to pity a king so shabby and ridiculous. his clever brother, richard, had bought the title of king of the romans from the german people, and was no longer near him, to help him with advice. the clergy, resisting the very pope, were in alliance with the barons. the barons were headed by simon de montfort, earl of leicester, married to king henry's sister, and, though a foreigner himself, the most popular man in england against the foreign favourites. when the king next met his parliament, the barons, led by this earl, came before him, armed from head to foot, and cased in armour. when the parliament again assembled, in a month's time, at oxford, this earl was at their head, and the king was obliged to consent, on oath, to what was called a committee of government: consisting of twenty-four members: twelve chosen by the barons, and twelve chosen by himself. but, at a good time for him, his brother richard came back. richard's first act (the barons would not admit him into england on other terms) was to swear to be faithful to the committee of government--which he immediately began to oppose with all his might. then, the barons began to quarrel among themselves; especially the proud earl of gloucester with the earl of leicester, who went abroad in disgust. then, the people began to be dissatisfied with the barons, because they did not do enough for them. the king's chances seemed so good again at length, that he took heart enough--or caught it from his brother--to tell the committee of government that he abolished them--as to his oath, never mind that, the pope said!--and to seize all the money in the mint, and to shut himself up in the tower of london. here he was joined by his eldest son, prince edward; and, from the tower, he made public a letter of the pope's to the world in general, informing all men that he had been an excellent and just king for five-and-forty years. as everybody knew he had been nothing of the sort, nobody cared much for this document. it so chanced that the proud earl of gloucester dying, was succeeded by his son; and that his son, instead of being the enemy of the earl of leicester, was (for the time) his friend. it fell out, therefore, that these two earls joined their forces, took several of the royal castles in the country, and advanced as hard as they could on london. the london people, always opposed to the king, declared for them with great joy. the king himself remained shut up, not at all gloriously, in the tower. prince edward made the best of his way to windsor castle. his mother, the queen, attempted to follow him by water; but, the people seeing her barge rowing up the river, and hating her with all their hearts, ran to london bridge, got together a quantity of stones and mud, and pelted the barge as it came through, crying furiously, 'drown the witch! drown her!' they were so near doing it, that the mayor took the old lady under his protection, and shut her up in st. paul's until the danger was past. it would require a great deal of writing on my part, and a great deal of reading on yours, to follow the king through his disputes with the barons, and to follow the barons through their disputes with one another--so i will make short work of it for both of us, and only relate the chief events that arose out of these quarrels. the good king of france was asked to decide between them. he gave it as his opinion that the king must maintain the great charter, and that the barons must give up the committee of government, and all the rest that had been done by the parliament at oxford: which the royalists, or king's party, scornfully called the mad parliament. the barons declared that these were not fair terms, and they would not accept them. then they caused the great bell of st. paul's to be tolled, for the purpose of rousing up the london people, who armed themselves at the dismal sound and formed quite an army in the streets. i am sorry to say, however, that instead of falling upon the king's party with whom their quarrel was, they fell upon the miserable jews, and killed at least five hundred of them. they pretended that some of these jews were on the king's side, and that they kept hidden in their houses, for the destruction of the people, a certain terrible composition called greek fire, which could not be put out with water, but only burnt the fiercer for it. what they really did keep in their houses was money; and this their cruel enemies wanted, and this their cruel enemies took, like robbers and murderers. the earl of leicester put himself at the head of these londoners and other forces, and followed the king to lewes in sussex, where he lay encamped with his army. before giving the king's forces battle here, the earl addressed his soldiers, and said that king henry the third had broken so many oaths, that he had become the enemy of god, and therefore they would wear white crosses on their breasts, as if they were arrayed, not against a fellow-christian, but against a turk. white-crossed accordingly, they rushed into the fight. they would have lost the day--the king having on his side all the foreigners in england: and, from scotland, john comyn, john baliol, and robert bruce, with all their men--but for the impatience of prince edward, who, in his hot desire to have vengeance on the people of london, threw the whole of his father's army into confusion. he was taken prisoner; so was the king; so was the king's brother the king of the romans; and five thousand englishmen were left dead upon the bloody grass. for this success, the pope excommunicated the earl of leicester: which neither the earl nor the people cared at all about. the people loved him and supported him, and he became the real king; having all the power of the government in his own hands, though he was outwardly respectful to king henry the third, whom he took with him wherever he went, like a poor old limp court-card. he summoned a parliament (in the year one thousand two hundred and sixty-five) which was the first parliament in england that the people had any real share in electing; and he grew more and more in favour with the people every day, and they stood by him in whatever he did. many of the other barons, and particularly the earl of gloucester, who had become by this time as proud as his father, grew jealous of this powerful and popular earl, who was proud too, and began to conspire against him. since the battle of lewes, prince edward had been kept as a hostage, and, though he was otherwise treated like a prince, had never been allowed to go out without attendants appointed by the earl of leicester, who watched him. the conspiring lords found means to propose to him, in secret, that they should assist him to escape, and should make him their leader; to which he very heartily consented. so, on a day that was agreed upon, he said to his attendants after dinner (being then at hereford), 'i should like to ride on horseback, this fine afternoon, a little way into the country.' as they, too, thought it would be very pleasant to have a canter in the sunshine, they all rode out of the town together in a gay little troop. when they came to a fine level piece of turf, the prince fell to comparing their horses one with another, and offering bets that one was faster than another; and the attendants, suspecting no harm, rode galloping matches until their horses were quite tired. the prince rode no matches himself, but looked on from his saddle, and staked his money. thus they passed the whole merry afternoon. now, the sun was setting, and they were all going slowly up a hill, the prince's horse very fresh and all the other horses very weary, when a strange rider mounted on a grey steed appeared at the top of the hill, and waved his hat. 'what does the fellow mean?' said the attendants one to another. the prince answered on the instant by setting spurs to his horse, dashing away at his utmost speed, joining the man, riding into the midst of a little crowd of horsemen who were then seen waiting under some trees, and who closed around him; and so he departed in a cloud of dust, leaving the road empty of all but the baffled attendants, who sat looking at one another, while their horses drooped their ears and panted. the prince joined the earl of gloucester at ludlow. the earl of leicester, with a part of the army and the stupid old king, was at hereford. one of the earl of leicester's sons, simon de montfort, with another part of the army, was in sussex. to prevent these two parts from uniting was the prince's first object. he attacked simon de montfort by night, defeated him, seized his banners and treasure, and forced him into kenilworth castle in warwickshire, which belonged to his family. his father, the earl of leicester, in the meanwhile, not knowing what had happened, marched out of hereford, with his part of the army and the king, to meet him. he came, on a bright morning in august, to evesham, which is watered by the pleasant river avon. looking rather anxiously across the prospect towards kenilworth, he saw his own banners advancing; and his face brightened with joy. but, it clouded darkly when he presently perceived that the banners were captured, and in the enemy's hands; and he said, 'it is over. the lord have mercy on our souls, for our bodies are prince edward's!' he fought like a true knight, nevertheless. when his horse was killed under him, he fought on foot. it was a fierce battle, and the dead lay in heaps everywhere. the old king, stuck up in a suit of armour on a big war-horse, which didn't mind him at all, and which carried him into all sorts of places where he didn't want to go, got into everybody's way, and very nearly got knocked on the head by one of his son's men. but he managed to pipe out, 'i am harry of winchester!' and the prince, who heard him, seized his bridle, and took him out of peril. the earl of leicester still fought bravely, until his best son henry was killed, and the bodies of his best friends choked his path; and then he fell, still fighting, sword in hand. they mangled his body, and sent it as a present to a noble lady--but a very unpleasant lady, i should think--who was the wife of his worst enemy. they could not mangle his memory in the minds of the faithful people, though. many years afterwards, they loved him more than ever, and regarded him as a saint, and always spoke of him as 'sir simon the righteous.' and even though he was dead, the cause for which he had fought still lived, and was strong, and forced itself upon the king in the very hour of victory. henry found himself obliged to respect the great charter, however much he hated it, and to make laws similar to the laws of the great earl of leicester, and to be moderate and forgiving towards the people at last--even towards the people of london, who had so long opposed him. there were more risings before all this was done, but they were set at rest by these means, and prince edward did his best in all things to restore peace. one sir adam de gourdon was the last dissatisfied knight in arms; but, the prince vanquished him in single combat, in a wood, and nobly gave him his life, and became his friend, instead of slaying him. sir adam was not ungrateful. he ever afterwards remained devoted to his generous conqueror. when the troubles of the kingdom were thus calmed, prince edward and his cousin henry took the cross, and went away to the holy land, with many english lords and knights. four years afterwards the king of the romans died, and, next year (one thousand two hundred and seventy-two), his brother the weak king of england died. he was sixty-eight years old then, and had reigned fifty-six years. he was as much of a king in death, as he had ever been in life. he was the mere pale shadow of a king at all times. chapter xvi--england under edward the first, called longshanks it was now the year of our lord one thousand two hundred and seventy-two; and prince edward, the heir to the throne, being away in the holy land, knew nothing of his father's death. the barons, however, proclaimed him king, immediately after the royal funeral; and the people very willingly consented, since most men knew too well by this time what the horrors of a contest for the crown were. so king edward the first, called, in a not very complimentary manner, longshanks, because of the slenderness of his legs, was peacefully accepted by the english nation. his legs had need to be strong, however long and thin they were; for they had to support him through many difficulties on the fiery sands of asia, where his small force of soldiers fainted, died, deserted, and seemed to melt away. but his prowess made light of it, and he said, 'i will go on, if i go on with no other follower than my groom!' a prince of this spirit gave the turks a deal of trouble. he stormed nazareth, at which place, of all places on earth, i am sorry to relate, he made a frightful slaughter of innocent people; and then he went to acre, where he got a truce of ten years from the sultan. he had very nearly lost his life in acre, through the treachery of a saracen noble, called the emir of jaffa, who, making the pretence that he had some idea of turning christian and wanted to know all about that religion, sent a trusty messenger to edward very often--with a dagger in his sleeve. at last, one friday in whitsun week, when it was very hot, and all the sandy prospect lay beneath the blazing sun, burnt up like a great overdone biscuit, and edward was lying on a couch, dressed for coolness in only a loose robe, the messenger, with his chocolate-coloured face and his bright dark eyes and white teeth, came creeping in with a letter, and kneeled down like a tame tiger. but, the moment edward stretched out his hand to take the letter, the tiger made a spring at his heart. he was quick, but edward was quick too. he seized the traitor by his chocolate throat, threw him to the ground, and slew him with the very dagger he had drawn. the weapon had struck edward in the arm, and although the wound itself was slight, it threatened to be mortal, for the blade of the dagger had been smeared with poison. thanks, however, to a better surgeon than was often to be found in those times, and to some wholesome herbs, and above all, to his faithful wife, eleanor, who devotedly nursed him, and is said by some to have sucked the poison from the wound with her own red lips (which i am very willing to believe), edward soon recovered and was sound again. as the king his father had sent entreaties to him to return home, he now began the journey. he had got as far as italy, when he met messengers who brought him intelligence of the king's death. hearing that all was quiet at home, he made no haste to return to his own dominions, but paid a visit to the pope, and went in state through various italian towns, where he was welcomed with acclamations as a mighty champion of the cross from the holy land, and where he received presents of purple mantles and prancing horses, and went along in great triumph. the shouting people little knew that he was the last english monarch who would ever embark in a crusade, or that within twenty years every conquest which the christians had made in the holy land at the cost of so much blood, would be won back by the turks. but all this came to pass. there was, and there is, an old town standing in a plain in france, called chalons. when the king was coming towards this place on his way to england, a wily french lord, called the count of chalons, sent him a polite challenge to come with his knights and hold a fair tournament with the count and _his_ knights, and make a day of it with sword and lance. it was represented to the king that the count of chalons was not to be trusted, and that, instead of a holiday fight for mere show and in good humour, he secretly meant a real battle, in which the english should be defeated by superior force. the king, however, nothing afraid, went to the appointed place on the appointed day with a thousand followers. when the count came with two thousand and attacked the english in earnest, the english rushed at them with such valour that the count's men and the count's horses soon began to be tumbled down all over the field. the count himself seized the king round the neck, but the king tumbled _him_ out of his saddle in return for the compliment, and, jumping from his own horse, and standing over him, beat away at his iron armour like a blacksmith hammering on his anvil. even when the count owned himself defeated and offered his sword, the king would not do him the honour to take it, but made him yield it up to a common soldier. there had been such fury shown in this fight, that it was afterwards called the little battle of chalons. the english were very well disposed to be proud of their king after these adventures; so, when he landed at dover in the year one thousand two hundred and seventy-four (being then thirty-six years old), and went on to westminster where he and his good queen were crowned with great magnificence, splendid rejoicings took place. for the coronation-feast there were provided, among other eatables, four hundred oxen, four hundred sheep, four hundred and fifty pigs, eighteen wild boars, three hundred flitches of bacon, and twenty thousand fowls. the fountains and conduits in the street flowed with red and white wine instead of water; the rich citizens hung silks and cloths of the brightest colours out of their windows to increase the beauty of the show, and threw out gold and silver by whole handfuls to make scrambles for the crowd. in short, there was such eating and drinking, such music and capering, such a ringing of bells and tossing of caps, such a shouting, and singing, and revelling, as the narrow overhanging streets of old london city had not witnessed for many a long day. all the people were merry except the poor jews, who, trembling within their houses, and scarcely daring to peep out, began to foresee that they would have to find the money for this joviality sooner or later. to dismiss this sad subject of the jews for the present, i am sorry to add that in this reign they were most unmercifully pillaged. they were hanged in great numbers, on accusations of having clipped the king's coin--which all kinds of people had done. they were heavily taxed; they were disgracefully badged; they were, on one day, thirteen years after the coronation, taken up with their wives and children and thrown into beastly prisons, until they purchased their release by paying to the king twelve thousand pounds. finally, every kind of property belonging to them was seized by the king, except so little as would defray the charge of their taking themselves away into foreign countries. many years elapsed before the hope of gain induced any of their race to return to england, where they had been treated so heartlessly and had suffered so much. if king edward the first had been as bad a king to christians as he was to jews, he would have been bad indeed. but he was, in general, a wise and great monarch, under whom the country much improved. he had no love for the great charter--few kings had, through many, many years--but he had high qualities. the first bold object which he conceived when he came home, was, to unite under one sovereign england, scotland, and wales; the two last of which countries had each a little king of its own, about whom the people were always quarrelling and fighting, and making a prodigious disturbance--a great deal more than he was worth. in the course of king edward's reign he was engaged, besides, in a war with france. to make these quarrels clearer, we will separate their histories and take them thus. wales, first. france, second. scotland, third. * * * * * llewellyn was the prince of wales. he had been on the side of the barons in the reign of the stupid old king, but had afterwards sworn allegiance to him. when king edward came to the throne, llewellyn was required to swear allegiance to him also; which he refused to do. the king, being crowned and in his own dominions, three times more required llewellyn to come and do homage; and three times more llewellyn said he would rather not. he was going to be married to eleanor de montfort, a young lady of the family mentioned in the last reign; and it chanced that this young lady, coming from france with her youngest brother, emeric, was taken by an english ship, and was ordered by the english king to be detained. upon this, the quarrel came to a head. the king went, with his fleet, to the coast of wales, where, so encompassing llewellyn, that he could only take refuge in the bleak mountain region of snowdon in which no provisions could reach him, he was soon starved into an apology, and into a treaty of peace, and into paying the expenses of the war. the king, however, forgave him some of the hardest conditions of the treaty, and consented to his marriage. and he now thought he had reduced wales to obedience. but the welsh, although they were naturally a gentle, quiet, pleasant people, who liked to receive strangers in their cottages among the mountains, and to set before them with free hospitality whatever they had to eat and drink, and to play to them on their harps, and sing their native ballads to them, were a people of great spirit when their blood was up. englishmen, after this affair, began to be insolent in wales, and to assume the air of masters; and the welsh pride could not bear it. moreover, they believed in that unlucky old merlin, some of whose unlucky old prophecies somebody always seemed doomed to remember when there was a chance of its doing harm; and just at this time some blind old gentleman with a harp and a long white beard, who was an excellent person, but had become of an unknown age and tedious, burst out with a declaration that merlin had predicted that when english money had become round, a prince of wales would be crowned in london. now, king edward had recently forbidden the english penny to be cut into halves and quarters for halfpence and farthings, and had actually introduced a round coin; therefore, the welsh people said this was the time merlin meant, and rose accordingly. king edward had bought over prince david, llewellyn's brother, by heaping favours upon him; but he was the first to revolt, being perhaps troubled in his conscience. one stormy night, he surprised the castle of hawarden, in possession of which an english nobleman had been left; killed the whole garrison, and carried off the nobleman a prisoner to snowdon. upon this, the welsh people rose like one man. king edward, with his army, marching from worcester to the menai strait, crossed it--near to where the wonderful tubular iron bridge now, in days so different, makes a passage for railway trains--by a bridge of boats that enabled forty men to march abreast. he subdued the island of anglesea, and sent his men forward to observe the enemy. the sudden appearance of the welsh created a panic among them, and they fell back to the bridge. the tide had in the meantime risen and separated the boats; the welsh pursuing them, they were driven into the sea, and there they sunk, in their heavy iron armour, by thousands. after this victory llewellyn, helped by the severe winter-weather of wales, gained another battle; but the king ordering a portion of his english army to advance through south wales, and catch him between two foes, and llewellyn bravely turning to meet this new enemy, he was surprised and killed--very meanly, for he was unarmed and defenceless. his head was struck off and sent to london, where it was fixed upon the tower, encircled with a wreath, some say of ivy, some say of willow, some say of silver, to make it look like a ghastly coin in ridicule of the prediction. david, however, still held out for six months, though eagerly sought after by the king, and hunted by his own countrymen. one of them finally betrayed him with his wife and children. he was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered; and from that time this became the established punishment of traitors in england--a punishment wholly without excuse, as being revolting, vile, and cruel, after its object is dead; and which has no sense in it, as its only real degradation (and that nothing can blot out) is to the country that permits on any consideration such abominable barbarity. wales was now subdued. the queen giving birth to a young prince in the castle of carnarvon, the king showed him to the welsh people as their countryman, and called him prince of wales; a title that has ever since been borne by the heir-apparent to the english throne--which that little prince soon became, by the death of his elder brother. the king did better things for the welsh than that, by improving their laws and encouraging their trade. disturbances still took place, chiefly occasioned by the avarice and pride of the english lords, on whom welsh lands and castles had been bestowed; but they were subdued, and the country never rose again. there is a legend that to prevent the people from being incited to rebellion by the songs of their bards and harpers, edward had them all put to death. some of them may have fallen among other men who held out against the king; but this general slaughter is, i think, a fancy of the harpers themselves, who, i dare say, made a song about it many years afterwards, and sang it by the welsh firesides until it came to be believed. the foreign war of the reign of edward the first arose in this way. the crews of two vessels, one a norman ship, and the other an english ship, happened to go to the same place in their boats to fill their casks with fresh water. being rough angry fellows, they began to quarrel, and then to fight--the english with their fists; the normans with their knives--and, in the fight, a norman was killed. the norman crew, instead of revenging themselves upon those english sailors with whom they had quarrelled (who were too strong for them, i suspect), took to their ship again in a great rage, attacked the first english ship they met, laid hold of an unoffending merchant who happened to be on board, and brutally hanged him in the rigging of their own vessel with a dog at his feet. this so enraged the english sailors that there was no restraining them; and whenever, and wherever, english sailors met norman sailors, they fell upon each other tooth and nail. the irish and dutch sailors took part with the english; the french and genoese sailors helped the normans; and thus the greater part of the mariners sailing over the sea became, in their way, as violent and raging as the sea itself when it is disturbed. king edward's fame had been so high abroad that he had been chosen to decide a difference between france and another foreign power, and had lived upon the continent three years. at first, neither he nor the french king philip (the good louis had been dead some time) interfered in these quarrels; but when a fleet of eighty english ships engaged and utterly defeated a norman fleet of two hundred, in a pitched battle fought round a ship at anchor, in which no quarter was given, the matter became too serious to be passed over. king edward, as duke of guienne, was summoned to present himself before the king of france, at paris, and answer for the damage done by his sailor subjects. at first, he sent the bishop of london as his representative, and then his brother edmund, who was married to the french queen's mother. i am afraid edmund was an easy man, and allowed himself to be talked over by his charming relations, the french court ladies; at all events, he was induced to give up his brother's dukedom for forty days--as a mere form, the french king said, to satisfy his honour--and he was so very much astonished, when the time was out, to find that the french king had no idea of giving it up again, that i should not wonder if it hastened his death: which soon took place. king edward was a king to win his foreign dukedom back again, if it could be won by energy and valour. he raised a large army, renounced his allegiance as duke of guienne, and crossed the sea to carry war into france. before any important battle was fought, however, a truce was agreed upon for two years; and in the course of that time, the pope effected a reconciliation. king edward, who was now a widower, having lost his affectionate and good wife, eleanor, married the french king's sister, margaret; and the prince of wales was contracted to the french king's daughter isabella. out of bad things, good things sometimes arise. out of this hanging of the innocent merchant, and the bloodshed and strife it caused, there came to be established one of the greatest powers that the english people now possess. the preparations for the war being very expensive, and king edward greatly wanting money, and being very arbitrary in his ways of raising it, some of the barons began firmly to oppose him. two of them, in particular, humphrey bohun, earl of hereford, and roger bigod, earl of norfolk, were so stout against him, that they maintained he had no right to command them to head his forces in guienne, and flatly refused to go there. 'by heaven, sir earl,' said the king to the earl of hereford, in a great passion, 'you shall either go or be hanged!' 'by heaven, sir king,' replied the earl, 'i will neither go nor yet will i be hanged!' and both he and the other earl sturdily left the court, attended by many lords. the king tried every means of raising money. he taxed the clergy, in spite of all the pope said to the contrary; and when they refused to pay, reduced them to submission, by saying very well, then they had no claim upon the government for protection, and any man might plunder them who would--which a good many men were very ready to do, and very readily did, and which the clergy found too losing a game to be played at long. he seized all the wool and leather in the hands of the merchants, promising to pay for it some fine day; and he set a tax upon the exportation of wool, which was so unpopular among the traders that it was called 'the evil toll.' but all would not do. the barons, led by those two great earls, declared any taxes imposed without the consent of parliament, unlawful; and the parliament refused to impose taxes, until the king should confirm afresh the two great charters, and should solemnly declare in writing, that there was no power in the country to raise money from the people, evermore, but the power of parliament representing all ranks of the people. the king was very unwilling to diminish his own power by allowing this great privilege in the parliament; but there was no help for it, and he at last complied. we shall come to another king by-and-by, who might have saved his head from rolling off, if he had profited by this example. the people gained other benefits in parliament from the good sense and wisdom of this king. many of the laws were much improved; provision was made for the greater safety of travellers, and the apprehension of thieves and murderers; the priests were prevented from holding too much land, and so becoming too powerful; and justices of the peace were first appointed (though not at first under that name) in various parts of the country. * * * * * and now we come to scotland, which was the great and lasting trouble of the reign of king edward the first. about thirteen years after king edward's coronation, alexander the third, the king of scotland, died of a fall from his horse. he had been married to margaret, king edward's sister. all their children being dead, the scottish crown became the right of a young princess only eight years old, the daughter of eric, king of norway, who had married a daughter of the deceased sovereign. king edward proposed, that the maiden of norway, as this princess was called, should be engaged to be married to his eldest son; but, unfortunately, as she was coming over to england she fell sick, and landing on one of the orkney islands, died there. a great commotion immediately began in scotland, where as many as thirteen noisy claimants to the vacant throne started up and made a general confusion. king edward being much renowned for his sagacity and justice, it seems to have been agreed to refer the dispute to him. he accepted the trust, and went, with an army, to the border-land where england and scotland joined. there, he called upon the scottish gentlemen to meet him at the castle of norham, on the english side of the river tweed; and to that castle they came. but, before he would take any step in the business, he required those scottish gentlemen, one and all, to do homage to him as their superior lord; and when they hesitated, he said, 'by holy edward, whose crown i wear, i will have my rights, or i will die in maintaining them!' the scottish gentlemen, who had not expected this, were disconcerted, and asked for three weeks to think about it. at the end of the three weeks, another meeting took place, on a green plain on the scottish side of the river. of all the competitors for the scottish throne, there were only two who had any real claim, in right of their near kindred to the royal family. these were john baliol and robert bruce: and the right was, i have no doubt, on the side of john baliol. at this particular meeting john baliol was not present, but robert bruce was; and on robert bruce being formally asked whether he acknowledged the king of england for his superior lord, he answered, plainly and distinctly, yes, he did. next day, john baliol appeared, and said the same. this point settled, some arrangements were made for inquiring into their titles. the inquiry occupied a pretty long time--more than a year. while it was going on, king edward took the opportunity of making a journey through scotland, and calling upon the scottish people of all degrees to acknowledge themselves his vassals, or be imprisoned until they did. in the meanwhile, commissioners were appointed to conduct the inquiry, a parliament was held at berwick about it, the two claimants were heard at full length, and there was a vast amount of talking. at last, in the great hall of the castle of berwick, the king gave judgment in favour of john baliol: who, consenting to receive his crown by the king of england's favour and permission, was crowned at scone, in an old stone chair which had been used for ages in the abbey there, at the coronations of scottish kings. then, king edward caused the great seal of scotland, used since the late king's death, to be broken in four pieces, and placed in the english treasury; and considered that he now had scotland (according to the common saying) under his thumb. scotland had a strong will of its own yet, however. king edward, determined that the scottish king should not forget he was his vassal, summoned him repeatedly to come and defend himself and his judges before the english parliament when appeals from the decisions of scottish courts of justice were being heard. at length, john baliol, who had no great heart of his own, had so much heart put into him by the brave spirit of the scottish people, who took this as a national insult, that he refused to come any more. thereupon, the king further required him to help him in his war abroad (which was then in progress), and to give up, as security for his good behaviour in future, the three strong scottish castles of jedburgh, roxburgh, and berwick. nothing of this being done; on the contrary, the scottish people concealing their king among their mountains in the highlands and showing a determination to resist; edward marched to berwick with an army of thirty thousand foot, and four thousand horse; took the castle, and slew its whole garrison, and the inhabitants of the town as well--men, women, and children. lord warrenne, earl of surrey, then went on to the castle of dunbar, before which a battle was fought, and the whole scottish army defeated with great slaughter. the victory being complete, the earl of surrey was left as guardian of scotland; the principal offices in that kingdom were given to englishmen; the more powerful scottish nobles were obliged to come and live in england; the scottish crown and sceptre were brought away; and even the old stone chair was carried off and placed in westminster abbey, where you may see it now. baliol had the tower of london lent him for a residence, with permission to range about within a circle of twenty miles. three years afterwards he was allowed to go to normandy, where he had estates, and where he passed the remaining six years of his life: far more happily, i dare say, than he had lived for a long while in angry scotland. now, there was, in the west of scotland, a gentleman of small fortune, named william wallace, the second son of a scottish knight. he was a man of great size and great strength; he was very brave and daring; when he spoke to a body of his countrymen, he could rouse them in a wonderful manner by the power of his burning words; he loved scotland dearly, and he hated england with his utmost might. the domineering conduct of the english who now held the places of trust in scotland made them as intolerable to the proud scottish people as they had been, under similar circumstances, to the welsh; and no man in all scotland regarded them with so much smothered rage as william wallace. one day, an englishman in office, little knowing what he was, affronted _him_. wallace instantly struck him dead, and taking refuge among the rocks and hills, and there joining with his countryman, sir william douglas, who was also in arms against king edward, became the most resolute and undaunted champion of a people struggling for their independence that ever lived upon the earth. the english guardian of the kingdom fled before him, and, thus encouraged, the scottish people revolted everywhere, and fell upon the english without mercy. the earl of surrey, by the king's commands, raised all the power of the border-counties, and two english armies poured into scotland. only one chief, in the face of those armies, stood by wallace, who, with a force of forty thousand men, awaited the invaders at a place on the river forth, within two miles of stirling. across the river there was only one poor wooden bridge, called the bridge of kildean--so narrow, that but two men could cross it abreast. with his eyes upon this bridge, wallace posted the greater part of his men among some rising grounds, and waited calmly. when the english army came up on the opposite bank of the river, messengers were sent forward to offer terms. wallace sent them back with a defiance, in the name of the freedom of scotland. some of the officers of the earl of surrey in command of the english, with _their_ eyes also on the bridge, advised him to be discreet and not hasty. he, however, urged to immediate battle by some other officers, and particularly by cressingham, king edward's treasurer, and a rash man, gave the word of command to advance. one thousand english crossed the bridge, two abreast; the scottish troops were as motionless as stone images. two thousand english crossed; three thousand, four thousand, five. not a feather, all this time, had been seen to stir among the scottish bonnets. now, they all fluttered. 'forward, one party, to the foot of the bridge!' cried wallace, 'and let no more english cross! the rest, down with me on the five thousand who have come over, and cut them all to pieces!' it was done, in the sight of the whole remainder of the english army, who could give no help. cressingham himself was killed, and the scotch made whips for their horses of his skin. king edward was abroad at this time, and during the successes on the scottish side which followed, and which enabled bold wallace to win the whole country back again, and even to ravage the english borders. but, after a few winter months, the king returned, and took the field with more than his usual energy. one night, when a kick from his horse as they both lay on the ground together broke two of his ribs, and a cry arose that he was killed, he leaped into his saddle, regardless of the pain he suffered, and rode through the camp. day then appearing, he gave the word (still, of course, in that bruised and aching state) forward! and led his army on to near falkirk, where the scottish forces were seen drawn up on some stony ground, behind a morass. here, he defeated wallace, and killed fifteen thousand of his men. with the shattered remainder, wallace drew back to stirling; but, being pursued, set fire to the town that it might give no help to the english, and escaped. the inhabitants of perth afterwards set fire to their houses for the same reason, and the king, unable to find provisions, was forced to withdraw his army. another robert bruce, the grandson of him who had disputed the scottish crown with baliol, was now in arms against the king (that elder bruce being dead), and also john comyn, baliol's nephew. these two young men might agree in opposing edward, but could agree in nothing else, as they were rivals for the throne of scotland. probably it was because they knew this, and knew what troubles must arise even if they could hope to get the better of the great english king, that the principal scottish people applied to the pope for his interference. the pope, on the principle of losing nothing for want of trying to get it, very coolly claimed that scotland belonged to him; but this was a little too much, and the parliament in a friendly manner told him so. in the spring time of the year one thousand three hundred and three, the king sent sir john segrave, whom he made governor of scotland, with twenty thousand men, to reduce the rebels. sir john was not as careful as he should have been, but encamped at rosslyn, near edinburgh, with his army divided into three parts. the scottish forces saw their advantage; fell on each part separately; defeated each; and killed all the prisoners. then, came the king himself once more, as soon as a great army could be raised; he passed through the whole north of scotland, laying waste whatsoever came in his way; and he took up his winter quarters at dunfermline. the scottish cause now looked so hopeless, that comyn and the other nobles made submission and received their pardons. wallace alone stood out. he was invited to surrender, though on no distinct pledge that his life should be spared; but he still defied the ireful king, and lived among the steep crags of the highland glens, where the eagles made their nests, and where the mountain torrents roared, and the white snow was deep, and the bitter winds blew round his unsheltered head, as he lay through many a pitch-dark night wrapped up in his plaid. nothing could break his spirit; nothing could lower his courage; nothing could induce him to forget or to forgive his country's wrongs. even when the castle of stirling, which had long held out, was besieged by the king with every kind of military engine then in use; even when the lead upon cathedral roofs was taken down to help to make them; even when the king, though an old man, commanded in the siege as if he were a youth, being so resolved to conquer; even when the brave garrison (then found with amazement to be not two hundred people, including several ladies) were starved and beaten out and were made to submit on their knees, and with every form of disgrace that could aggravate their sufferings; even then, when there was not a ray of hope in scotland, william wallace was as proud and firm as if he had beheld the powerful and relentless edward lying dead at his feet. who betrayed william wallace in the end, is not quite certain. that he was betrayed--probably by an attendant--is too true. he was taken to the castle of dumbarton, under sir john menteith, and thence to london, where the great fame of his bravery and resolution attracted immense concourses of people to behold him. he was tried in westminster hall, with a crown of laurel on his head--it is supposed because he was reported to have said that he ought to wear, or that he would wear, a crown there and was found guilty as a robber, a murderer, and a traitor. what they called a robber (he said to those who tried him) he was, because he had taken spoil from the king's men. what they called a murderer, he was, because he had slain an insolent englishman. what they called a traitor, he was not, for he had never sworn allegiance to the king, and had ever scorned to do it. he was dragged at the tails of horses to west smithfield, and there hanged on a high gallows, torn open before he was dead, beheaded, and quartered. his head was set upon a pole on london bridge, his right arm was sent to newcastle, his left arm to berwick, his legs to perth and aberdeen. but, if king edward had had his body cut into inches, and had sent every separate inch into a separate town, he could not have dispersed it half so far and wide as his fame. wallace will be remembered in songs and stories, while there are songs and stories in the english tongue, and scotland will hold him dear while her lakes and mountains last. released from this dreaded enemy, the king made a fairer plan of government for scotland, divided the offices of honour among scottish gentlemen and english gentlemen, forgave past offences, and thought, in his old age, that his work was done. but he deceived himself. comyn and bruce conspired, and made an appointment to meet at dumfries, in the church of the minorites. there is a story that comyn was false to bruce, and had informed against him to the king; that bruce was warned of his danger and the necessity of flight, by receiving, one night as he sat at supper, from his friend the earl of gloucester, twelve pennies and a pair of spurs; that as he was riding angrily to keep his appointment (through a snow-storm, with his horse's shoes reversed that he might not be tracked), he met an evil-looking serving man, a messenger of comyn, whom he killed, and concealed in whose dress he found letters that proved comyn's treachery. however this may be, they were likely enough to quarrel in any case, being hot-headed rivals; and, whatever they quarrelled about, they certainly did quarrel in the church where they met, and bruce drew his dagger and stabbed comyn, who fell upon the pavement. when bruce came out, pale and disturbed, the friends who were waiting for him asked what was the matter? 'i think i have killed comyn,' said he. 'you only think so?' returned one of them; 'i will make sure!' and going into the church, and finding him alive, stabbed him again and again. knowing that the king would never forgive this new deed of violence, the party then declared bruce king of scotland: got him crowned at scone--without the chair; and set up the rebellious standard once again. when the king heard of it he kindled with fiercer anger than he had ever shown yet. he caused the prince of wales and two hundred and seventy of the young nobility to be knighted--the trees in the temple gardens were cut down to make room for their tents, and they watched their armour all night, according to the old usage: some in the temple church: some in westminster abbey--and at the public feast which then took place, he swore, by heaven, and by two swans covered with gold network which his minstrels placed upon the table, that he would avenge the death of comyn, and would punish the false bruce. and before all the company, he charged the prince his son, in case that he should die before accomplishing his vow, not to bury him until it was fulfilled. next morning the prince and the rest of the young knights rode away to the border-country to join the english army; and the king, now weak and sick, followed in a horse-litter. bruce, after losing a battle and undergoing many dangers and much misery, fled to ireland, where he lay concealed through the winter. that winter, edward passed in hunting down and executing bruce's relations and adherents, sparing neither youth nor age, and showing no touch of pity or sign of mercy. in the following spring, bruce reappeared and gained some victories. in these frays, both sides were grievously cruel. for instance--bruce's two brothers, being taken captives desperately wounded, were ordered by the king to instant execution. bruce's friend sir john douglas, taking his own castle of douglas out of the hands of an english lord, roasted the dead bodies of the slaughtered garrison in a great fire made of every movable within it; which dreadful cookery his men called the douglas larder. bruce, still successful, however, drove the earl of pembroke and the earl of gloucester into the castle of ayr and laid siege to it. the king, who had been laid up all the winter, but had directed the army from his sick-bed, now advanced to carlisle, and there, causing the litter in which he had travelled to be placed in the cathedral as an offering to heaven, mounted his horse once more, and for the last time. he was now sixty-nine years old, and had reigned thirty-five years. he was so ill, that in four days he could go no more than six miles; still, even at that pace, he went on and resolutely kept his face towards the border. at length, he lay down at the village of burgh-upon-sands; and there, telling those around him to impress upon the prince that he was to remember his father's vow, and was never to rest until he had thoroughly subdued scotland, he yielded up his last breath. chapter xvii--england under edward the second king edward the second, the first prince of wales, was twenty-three years old when his father died. there was a certain favourite of his, a young man from gascony, named piers gaveston, of whom his father had so much disapproved that he had ordered him out of england, and had made his son swear by the side of his sick-bed, never to bring him back. but, the prince no sooner found himself king, than he broke his oath, as so many other princes and kings did (they were far too ready to take oaths), and sent for his dear friend immediately. now, this same gaveston was handsome enough, but was a reckless, insolent, audacious fellow. he was detested by the proud english lords: not only because he had such power over the king, and made the court such a dissipated place, but, also, because he could ride better than they at tournaments, and was used, in his impudence, to cut very bad jokes on them; calling one, the old hog; another, the stage-player; another, the jew; another, the black dog of ardenne. this was as poor wit as need be, but it made those lords very wroth; and the surly earl of warwick, who was the black dog, swore that the time should come when piers gaveston should feel the black dog's teeth. it was not come yet, however, nor did it seem to be coming. the king made him earl of cornwall, and gave him vast riches; and, when the king went over to france to marry the french princess, isabella, daughter of philip le bel: who was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world: he made gaveston, regent of the kingdom. his splendid marriage-ceremony in the church of our lady at boulogne, where there were four kings and three queens present (quite a pack of court cards, for i dare say the knaves were not wanting), being over, he seemed to care little or nothing for his beautiful wife; but was wild with impatience to meet gaveston again. when he landed at home, he paid no attention to anybody else, but ran into the favourite's arms before a great concourse of people, and hugged him, and kissed him, and called him his brother. at the coronation which soon followed, gaveston was the richest and brightest of all the glittering company there, and had the honour of carrying the crown. this made the proud lords fiercer than ever; the people, too, despised the favourite, and would never call him earl of cornwall, however much he complained to the king and asked him to punish them for not doing so, but persisted in styling him plain piers gaveston. the barons were so unceremonious with the king in giving him to understand that they would not bear this favourite, that the king was obliged to send him out of the country. the favourite himself was made to take an oath (more oaths!) that he would never come back, and the barons supposed him to be banished in disgrace, until they heard that he was appointed governor of ireland. even this was not enough for the besotted king, who brought him home again in a year's time, and not only disgusted the court and the people by his doting folly, but offended his beautiful wife too, who never liked him afterwards. he had now the old royal want--of money--and the barons had the new power of positively refusing to let him raise any. he summoned a parliament at york; the barons refused to make one, while the favourite was near him. he summoned another parliament at westminster, and sent gaveston away. then, the barons came, completely armed, and appointed a committee of themselves to correct abuses in the state and in the king's household. he got some money on these conditions, and directly set off with gaveston to the border-country, where they spent it in idling away the time, and feasting, while bruce made ready to drive the english out of scotland. for, though the old king had even made this poor weak son of his swear (as some say) that he would not bury his bones, but would have them boiled clean in a caldron, and carried before the english army until scotland was entirely subdued, the second edward was so unlike the first that bruce gained strength and power every day. the committee of nobles, after some months of deliberation, ordained that the king should henceforth call a parliament together, once every year, and even twice if necessary, instead of summoning it only when he chose. further, that gaveston should once more be banished, and, this time, on pain of death if he ever came back. the king's tears were of no avail; he was obliged to send his favourite to flanders. as soon as he had done so, however, he dissolved the parliament, with the low cunning of a mere fool, and set off to the north of england, thinking to get an army about him to oppose the nobles. and once again he brought gaveston home, and heaped upon him all the riches and titles of which the barons had deprived him. the lords saw, now, that there was nothing for it but to put the favourite to death. they could have done so, legally, according to the terms of his banishment; but they did so, i am sorry to say, in a shabby manner. led by the earl of lancaster, the king's cousin, they first of all attacked the king and gaveston at newcastle. they had time to escape by sea, and the mean king, having his precious gaveston with him, was quite content to leave his lovely wife behind. when they were comparatively safe, they separated; the king went to york to collect a force of soldiers; and the favourite shut himself up, in the meantime, in scarborough castle overlooking the sea. this was what the barons wanted. they knew that the castle could not hold out; they attacked it, and made gaveston surrender. he delivered himself up to the earl of pembroke--that lord whom he had called the jew--on the earl's pledging his faith and knightly word, that no harm should happen to him and no violence be done him. now, it was agreed with gaveston that he should be taken to the castle of wallingford, and there kept in honourable custody. they travelled as far as dedington, near banbury, where, in the castle of that place, they stopped for a night to rest. whether the earl of pembroke left his prisoner there, knowing what would happen, or really left him thinking no harm, and only going (as he pretended) to visit his wife, the countess, who was in the neighbourhood, is no great matter now; in any case, he was bound as an honourable gentleman to protect his prisoner, and he did not do it. in the morning, while the favourite was yet in bed, he was required to dress himself and come down into the court-yard. he did so without any mistrust, but started and turned pale when he found it full of strange armed men. 'i think you know me?' said their leader, also armed from head to foot. 'i am the black dog of ardenne!' the time was come when piers gaveston was to feel the black dog's teeth indeed. they set him on a mule, and carried him, in mock state and with military music, to the black dog's kennel--warwick castle--where a hasty council, composed of some great noblemen, considered what should be done with him. some were for sparing him, but one loud voice--it was the black dog's bark, i dare say--sounded through the castle hall, uttering these words: 'you have the fox in your power. let him go now, and you must hunt him again.' they sentenced him to death. he threw himself at the feet of the earl of lancaster--the old hog--but the old hog was as savage as the dog. he was taken out upon the pleasant road, leading from warwick to coventry, where the beautiful river avon, by which, long afterwards, william shakespeare was born and now lies buried, sparkled in the bright landscape of the beautiful may-day; and there they struck off his wretched head, and stained the dust with his blood. when the king heard of this black deed, in his grief and rage he denounced relentless war against his barons, and both sides were in arms for half a year. but, it then became necessary for them to join their forces against bruce, who had used the time well while they were divided, and had now a great power in scotland. intelligence was brought that bruce was then besieging stirling castle, and that the governor had been obliged to pledge himself to surrender it, unless he should be relieved before a certain day. hereupon, the king ordered the nobles and their fighting-men to meet him at berwick; but, the nobles cared so little for the king, and so neglected the summons, and lost time, that only on the day before that appointed for the surrender, did the king find himself at stirling, and even then with a smaller force than he had expected. however, he had, altogether, a hundred thousand men, and bruce had not more than forty thousand; but, bruce's army was strongly posted in three square columns, on the ground lying between the burn or brook of bannock and the walls of stirling castle. on the very evening, when the king came up, bruce did a brave act that encouraged his men. he was seen by a certain henry de bohun, an english knight, riding about before his army on a little horse, with a light battle-axe in his hand, and a crown of gold on his head. this english knight, who was mounted on a strong war-horse, cased in steel, strongly armed, and able (as he thought) to overthrow bruce by crushing him with his mere weight, set spurs to his great charger, rode on him, and made a thrust at him with his heavy spear. bruce parried the thrust, and with one blow of his battle-axe split his skull. the scottish men did not forget this, next day when the battle raged. randolph, bruce's valiant nephew, rode, with the small body of men he commanded, into such a host of the english, all shining in polished armour in the sunlight, that they seemed to be swallowed up and lost, as if they had plunged into the sea. but, they fought so well, and did such dreadful execution, that the english staggered. then came bruce himself upon them, with all the rest of his army. while they were thus hard pressed and amazed, there appeared upon the hills what they supposed to be a new scottish army, but what were really only the camp followers, in number fifteen thousand: whom bruce had taught to show themselves at that place and time. the earl of gloucester, commanding the english horse, made a last rush to change the fortune of the day; but bruce (like jack the giant-killer in the story) had had pits dug in the ground, and covered over with turfs and stakes. into these, as they gave way beneath the weight of the horses, riders and horses rolled by hundreds. the english were completely routed; all their treasure, stores, and engines, were taken by the scottish men; so many waggons and other wheeled vehicles were seized, that it is related that they would have reached, if they had been drawn out in a line, one hundred and eighty miles. the fortunes of scotland were, for the time, completely changed; and never was a battle won, more famous upon scottish ground, than this great battle of bannockburn. plague and famine succeeded in england; and still the powerless king and his disdainful lords were always in contention. some of the turbulent chiefs of ireland made proposals to bruce, to accept the rule of that country. he sent his brother edward to them, who was crowned king of ireland. he afterwards went himself to help his brother in his irish wars, but his brother was defeated in the end and killed. robert bruce, returning to scotland, still increased his strength there. as the king's ruin had begun in a favourite, so it seemed likely to end in one. he was too poor a creature to rely at all upon himself; and his new favourite was one hugh le despenser, the son of a gentleman of ancient family. hugh was handsome and brave, but he was the favourite of a weak king, whom no man cared a rush for, and that was a dangerous place to hold. the nobles leagued against him, because the king liked him; and they lay in wait, both for his ruin and his father's. now, the king had married him to the daughter of the late earl of gloucester, and had given both him and his father great possessions in wales. in their endeavours to extend these, they gave violent offence to an angry welsh gentleman, named john de mowbray, and to divers other angry welsh gentlemen, who resorted to arms, took their castles, and seized their estates. the earl of lancaster had first placed the favourite (who was a poor relation of his own) at court, and he considered his own dignity offended by the preference he received and the honours he acquired; so he, and the barons who were his friends, joined the welshmen, marched on london, and sent a message to the king demanding to have the favourite and his father banished. at first, the king unaccountably took it into his head to be spirited, and to send them a bold reply; but when they quartered themselves around holborn and clerkenwell, and went down, armed, to the parliament at westminster, he gave way, and complied with their demands. his turn of triumph came sooner than he expected. it arose out of an accidental circumstance. the beautiful queen happening to be travelling, came one night to one of the royal castles, and demanded to be lodged and entertained there until morning. the governor of this castle, who was one of the enraged lords, was away, and in his absence, his wife refused admission to the queen; a scuffle took place among the common men on either side, and some of the royal attendants were killed. the people, who cared nothing for the king, were very angry that their beautiful queen should be thus rudely treated in her own dominions; and the king, taking advantage of this feeling, besieged the castle, took it, and then called the two despensers home. upon this, the confederate lords and the welshmen went over to bruce. the king encountered them at boroughbridge, gained the victory, and took a number of distinguished prisoners; among them, the earl of lancaster, now an old man, upon whose destruction he was resolved. this earl was taken to his own castle of pontefract, and there tried and found guilty by an unfair court appointed for the purpose; he was not even allowed to speak in his own defence. he was insulted, pelted, mounted on a starved pony without saddle or bridle, carried out, and beheaded. eight-and-twenty knights were hanged, drawn, and quartered. when the king had despatched this bloody work, and had made a fresh and a long truce with bruce, he took the despensers into greater favour than ever, and made the father earl of winchester. one prisoner, and an important one, who was taken at boroughbridge, made his escape, however, and turned the tide against the king. this was roger mortimer, always resolutely opposed to him, who was sentenced to death, and placed for safe custody in the tower of london. he treated his guards to a quantity of wine into which he had put a sleeping potion; and, when they were insensible, broke out of his dungeon, got into a kitchen, climbed up the chimney, let himself down from the roof of the building with a rope-ladder, passed the sentries, got down to the river, and made away in a boat to where servants and horses were waiting for him. he finally escaped to france, where charles le bel, the brother of the beautiful queen, was king. charles sought to quarrel with the king of england, on pretence of his not having come to do him homage at his coronation. it was proposed that the beautiful queen should go over to arrange the dispute; she went, and wrote home to the king, that as he was sick and could not come to france himself, perhaps it would be better to send over the young prince, their son, who was only twelve years old, who could do homage to her brother in his stead, and in whose company she would immediately return. the king sent him: but, both he and the queen remained at the french court, and roger mortimer became the queen's lover. when the king wrote, again and again, to the queen to come home, she did not reply that she despised him too much to live with him any more (which was the truth), but said she was afraid of the two despensers. in short, her design was to overthrow the favourites' power, and the king's power, such as it was, and invade england. having obtained a french force of two thousand men, and being joined by all the english exiles then in france, she landed, within a year, at orewell, in suffolk, where she was immediately joined by the earls of kent and norfolk, the king's two brothers; by other powerful noblemen; and lastly, by the first english general who was despatched to check her: who went over to her with all his men. the people of london, receiving these tidings, would do nothing for the king, but broke open the tower, let out all his prisoners, and threw up their caps and hurrahed for the beautiful queen. the king, with his two favourites, fled to bristol, where he left old despenser in charge of the town and castle, while he went on with the son to wales. the bristol men being opposed to the king, and it being impossible to hold the town with enemies everywhere within the walls, despenser yielded it up on the third day, and was instantly brought to trial for having traitorously influenced what was called 'the king's mind'--though i doubt if the king ever had any. he was a venerable old man, upwards of ninety years of age, but his age gained no respect or mercy. he was hanged, torn open while he was yet alive, cut up into pieces, and thrown to the dogs. his son was soon taken, tried at hereford before the same judge on a long series of foolish charges, found guilty, and hanged upon a gallows fifty feet high, with a chaplet of nettles round his head. his poor old father and he were innocent enough of any worse crimes than the crime of having been friends of a king, on whom, as a mere man, they would never have deigned to cast a favourable look. it is a bad crime, i know, and leads to worse; but, many lords and gentlemen--i even think some ladies, too, if i recollect right--have committed it in england, who have neither been given to the dogs, nor hanged up fifty feet high. the wretched king was running here and there, all this time, and never getting anywhere in particular, until he gave himself up, and was taken off to kenilworth castle. when he was safely lodged there, the queen went to london and met the parliament. and the bishop of hereford, who was the most skilful of her friends, said, what was to be done now? here was an imbecile, indolent, miserable king upon the throne; wouldn't it be better to take him off, and put his son there instead? i don't know whether the queen really pitied him at this pass, but she began to cry; so, the bishop said, well, my lords and gentlemen, what do you think, upon the whole, of sending down to kenilworth, and seeing if his majesty (god bless him, and forbid we should depose him!) won't resign? my lords and gentlemen thought it a good notion, so a deputation of them went down to kenilworth; and there the king came into the great hall of the castle, commonly dressed in a poor black gown; and when he saw a certain bishop among them, fell down, poor feeble-headed man, and made a wretched spectacle of himself. somebody lifted him up, and then sir william trussel, the speaker of the house of commons, almost frightened him to death by making him a tremendous speech to the effect that he was no longer a king, and that everybody renounced allegiance to him. after which, sir thomas blount, the steward of the household, nearly finished him, by coming forward and breaking his white wand--which was a ceremony only performed at a king's death. being asked in this pressing manner what he thought of resigning, the king said he thought it was the best thing he could do. so, he did it, and they proclaimed his son next day. i wish i could close his history by saying that he lived a harmless life in the castle and the castle gardens at kenilworth, many years--that he had a favourite, and plenty to eat and drink--and, having that, wanted nothing. but he was shamefully humiliated. he was outraged, and slighted, and had dirty water from ditches given him to shave with, and wept and said he would have clean warm water, and was altogether very miserable. he was moved from this castle to that castle, and from that castle to the other castle, because this lord or that lord, or the other lord, was too kind to him: until at last he came to berkeley castle, near the river severn, where (the lord berkeley being then ill and absent) he fell into the hands of two black ruffians, called thomas gournay and william ogle. one night--it was the night of september the twenty-first, one thousand three hundred and twenty-seven--dreadful screams were heard, by the startled people in the neighbouring town, ringing through the thick walls of the castle, and the dark, deep night; and they said, as they were thus horribly awakened from their sleep, 'may heaven be merciful to the king; for those cries forbode that no good is being done to him in his dismal prison!' next morning he was dead--not bruised, or stabbed, or marked upon the body, but much distorted in the face; and it was whispered afterwards, that those two villains, gournay and ogle, had burnt up his inside with a red-hot iron. if you ever come near gloucester, and see the centre tower of its beautiful cathedral, with its four rich pinnacles, rising lightly in the air; you may remember that the wretched edward the second was buried in the old abbey of that ancient city, at forty-three years old, after being for nineteen years and a half a perfectly incapable king. chapter xviii--england under edward the third roger mortimer, the queen's lover (who escaped to france in the last chapter), was far from profiting by the examples he had had of the fate of favourites. having, through the queen's influence, come into possession of the estates of the two despensers, he became extremely proud and ambitious, and sought to be the real ruler of england. the young king, who was crowned at fourteen years of age with all the usual solemnities, resolved not to bear this, and soon pursued mortimer to his ruin. the people themselves were not fond of mortimer--first, because he was a royal favourite; secondly, because he was supposed to have helped to make a peace with scotland which now took place, and in virtue of which the young king's sister joan, only seven years old, was promised in marriage to david, the son and heir of robert bruce, who was only five years old. the nobles hated mortimer because of his pride, riches, and power. they went so far as to take up arms against him; but were obliged to submit. the earl of kent, one of those who did so, but who afterwards went over to mortimer and the queen, was made an example of in the following cruel manner: he seems to have been anything but a wise old earl; and he was persuaded by the agents of the favourite and the queen, that poor king edward the second was not really dead; and thus was betrayed into writing letters favouring his rightful claim to the throne. this was made out to be high treason, and he was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be executed. they took the poor old lord outside the town of winchester, and there kept him waiting some three or four hours until they could find somebody to cut off his head. at last, a convict said he would do it, if the government would pardon him in return; and they gave him the pardon; and at one blow he put the earl of kent out of his last suspense. while the queen was in france, she had found a lovely and good young lady, named philippa, who she thought would make an excellent wife for her son. the young king married this lady, soon after he came to the throne; and her first child, edward, prince of wales, afterwards became celebrated, as we shall presently see, under the famous title of edward the black prince. the young king, thinking the time ripe for the downfall of mortimer, took counsel with lord montacute how he should proceed. a parliament was going to be held at nottingham, and that lord recommended that the favourite should be seized by night in nottingham castle, where he was sure to be. now, this, like many other things, was more easily said than done; because, to guard against treachery, the great gates of the castle were locked every night, and the great keys were carried up-stairs to the queen, who laid them under her own pillow. but the castle had a governor, and the governor being lord montacute's friend, confided to him how he knew of a secret passage underground, hidden from observation by the weeds and brambles with which it was overgrown; and how, through that passage, the conspirators might enter in the dead of the night, and go straight to mortimer's room. accordingly, upon a certain dark night, at midnight, they made their way through this dismal place: startling the rats, and frightening the owls and bats: and came safely to the bottom of the main tower of the castle, where the king met them, and took them up a profoundly-dark staircase in a deep silence. they soon heard the voice of mortimer in council with some friends; and bursting into the room with a sudden noise, took him prisoner. the queen cried out from her bed-chamber, 'oh, my sweet son, my dear son, spare my gentle mortimer!' they carried him off, however; and, before the next parliament, accused him of having made differences between the young king and his mother, and of having brought about the death of the earl of kent, and even of the late king; for, as you know by this time, when they wanted to get rid of a man in those old days, they were not very particular of what they accused him. mortimer was found guilty of all this, and was sentenced to be hanged at tyburn. the king shut his mother up in genteel confinement, where she passed the rest of her life; and now he became king in earnest. the first effort he made was to conquer scotland. the english lords who had lands in scotland, finding that their rights were not respected under the late peace, made war on their own account: choosing for their general, edward, the son of john baliol, who made such a vigorous fight, that in less than two months he won the whole scottish kingdom. he was joined, when thus triumphant, by the king and parliament; and he and the king in person besieged the scottish forces in berwick. the whole scottish army coming to the assistance of their countrymen, such a furious battle ensued, that thirty thousand men are said to have been killed in it. baliol was then crowned king of scotland, doing homage to the king of england; but little came of his successes after all, for the scottish men rose against him, within no very long time, and david bruce came back within ten years and took his kingdom. france was a far richer country than scotland, and the king had a much greater mind to conquer it. so, he let scotland alone, and pretended that he had a claim to the french throne in right of his mother. he had, in reality, no claim at all; but that mattered little in those times. he brought over to his cause many little princes and sovereigns, and even courted the alliance of the people of flanders--a busy, working community, who had very small respect for kings, and whose head man was a brewer. with such forces as he raised by these means, edward invaded france; but he did little by that, except run into debt in carrying on the war to the extent of three hundred thousand pounds. the next year he did better; gaining a great sea-fight in the harbour of sluys. this success, however, was very shortlived, for the flemings took fright at the siege of saint omer and ran away, leaving their weapons and baggage behind them. philip, the french king, coming up with his army, and edward being very anxious to decide the war, proposed to settle the difference by single combat with him, or by a fight of one hundred knights on each side. the french king said, he thanked him; but being very well as he was, he would rather not. so, after some skirmishing and talking, a short peace was made. it was soon broken by king edward's favouring the cause of john, earl of montford; a french nobleman, who asserted a claim of his own against the french king, and offered to do homage to england for the crown of france, if he could obtain it through england's help. this french lord, himself, was soon defeated by the french king's son, and shut up in a tower in paris; but his wife, a courageous and beautiful woman, who is said to have had the courage of a man, and the heart of a lion, assembled the people of brittany, where she then was; and, showing them her infant son, made many pathetic entreaties to them not to desert her and their young lord. they took fire at this appeal, and rallied round her in the strong castle of hennebon. here she was not only besieged without by the french under charles de blois, but was endangered within by a dreary old bishop, who was always representing to the people what horrors they must undergo if they were faithful--first from famine, and afterwards from fire and sword. but this noble lady, whose heart never failed her, encouraged her soldiers by her own example; went from post to post like a great general; even mounted on horseback fully armed, and, issuing from the castle by a by-path, fell upon the french camp, set fire to the tents, and threw the whole force into disorder. this done, she got safely back to hennebon again, and was received with loud shouts of joy by the defenders of the castle, who had given her up for lost. as they were now very short of provisions, however, and as they could not dine off enthusiasm, and as the old bishop was always saying, 'i told you what it would come to!' they began to lose heart, and to talk of yielding the castle up. the brave countess retiring to an upper room and looking with great grief out to sea, where she expected relief from england, saw, at this very time, the english ships in the distance, and was relieved and rescued! sir walter manning, the english commander, so admired her courage, that, being come into the castle with the english knights, and having made a feast there, he assaulted the french by way of dessert, and beat them off triumphantly. then he and the knights came back to the castle with great joy; and the countess who had watched them from a high tower, thanked them with all her heart, and kissed them every one. this noble lady distinguished herself afterwards in a sea-fight with the french off guernsey, when she was on her way to england to ask for more troops. her great spirit roused another lady, the wife of another french lord (whom the french king very barbarously murdered), to distinguish herself scarcely less. the time was fast coming, however, when edward, prince of wales, was to be the great star of this french and english war. it was in the month of july, in the year one thousand three hundred and forty-six, when the king embarked at southampton for france, with an army of about thirty thousand men in all, attended by the prince of wales and by several of the chief nobles. he landed at la hogue in normandy; and, burning and destroying as he went, according to custom, advanced up the left bank of the river seine, and fired the small towns even close to paris; but, being watched from the right bank of the river by the french king and all his army, it came to this at last, that edward found himself, on saturday the twenty-sixth of august, one thousand three hundred and forty-six, on a rising ground behind the little french village of crecy, face to face with the french king's force. and, although the french king had an enormous army--in number more than eight times his--he there resolved to beat him or be beaten. the young prince, assisted by the earl of oxford and the earl of warwick, led the first division of the english army; two other great earls led the second; and the king, the third. when the morning dawned, the king received the sacrament, and heard prayers, and then, mounted on horseback with a white wand in his hand, rode from company to company, and rank to rank, cheering and encouraging both officers and men. then the whole army breakfasted, each man sitting on the ground where he had stood; and then they remained quietly on the ground with their weapons ready. up came the french king with all his great force. it was dark and angry weather; there was an eclipse of the sun; there was a thunder-storm, accompanied with tremendous rain; the frightened birds flew screaming above the soldiers' heads. a certain captain in the french army advised the french king, who was by no means cheerful, not to begin the battle until the morrow. the king, taking this advice, gave the word to halt. but, those behind not understanding it, or desiring to be foremost with the rest, came pressing on. the roads for a great distance were covered with this immense army, and with the common people from the villages, who were flourishing their rude weapons, and making a great noise. owing to these circumstances, the french army advanced in the greatest confusion; every french lord doing what he liked with his own men, and putting out the men of every other french lord. now, their king relied strongly upon a great body of cross-bowmen from genoa; and these he ordered to the front to begin the battle, on finding that he could not stop it. they shouted once, they shouted twice, they shouted three times, to alarm the english archers; but, the english would have heard them shout three thousand times and would have never moved. at last the cross-bowmen went forward a little, and began to discharge their bolts; upon which, the english let fly such a hail of arrows, that the genoese speedily made off--for their cross-bows, besides being heavy to carry, required to be wound up with a handle, and consequently took time to re-load; the english, on the other hand, could discharge their arrows almost as fast as the arrows could fly. when the french king saw the genoese turning, he cried out to his men to kill those scoundrels, who were doing harm instead of service. this increased the confusion. meanwhile the english archers, continuing to shoot as fast as ever, shot down great numbers of the french soldiers and knights; whom certain sly cornish-men and welshmen, from the english army, creeping along the ground, despatched with great knives. the prince and his division were at this time so hard-pressed, that the earl of warwick sent a message to the king, who was overlooking the battle from a windmill, beseeching him to send more aid. 'is my son killed?' said the king. 'no, sire, please god,' returned the messenger. 'is he wounded?' said the king. 'no, sire.' 'is he thrown to the ground?' said the king. 'no, sire, not so; but, he is very hard-pressed.' 'then,' said the king, 'go back to those who sent you, and tell them i shall send no aid; because i set my heart upon my son proving himself this day a brave knight, and because i am resolved, please god, that the honour of a great victory shall be his!' these bold words, being reported to the prince and his division, so raised their spirits, that they fought better than ever. the king of france charged gallantly with his men many times; but it was of no use. night closing in, his horse was killed under him by an english arrow, and the knights and nobles who had clustered thick about him early in the day, were now completely scattered. at last, some of his few remaining followers led him off the field by force since he would not retire of himself, and they journeyed away to amiens. the victorious english, lighting their watch-fires, made merry on the field, and the king, riding to meet his gallant son, took him in his arms, kissed him, and told him that he had acted nobly, and proved himself worthy of the day and of the crown. while it was yet night, king edward was hardly aware of the great victory he had gained; but, next day, it was discovered that eleven princes, twelve hundred knights, and thirty thousand common men lay dead upon the french side. among these was the king of bohemia, an old blind man; who, having been told that his son was wounded in the battle, and that no force could stand against the black prince, called to him two knights, put himself on horse-back between them, fastened the three bridles together, and dashed in among the english, where he was presently slain. he bore as his crest three white ostrich feathers, with the motto _ich dien_, signifying in english 'i serve.' this crest and motto were taken by the prince of wales in remembrance of that famous day, and have been borne by the prince of wales ever since. five days after this great battle, the king laid siege to calais. this siege--ever afterwards memorable--lasted nearly a year. in order to starve the inhabitants out, king edward built so many wooden houses for the lodgings of his troops, that it is said their quarters looked like a second calais suddenly sprung around the first. early in the siege, the governor of the town drove out what he called the useless mouths, to the number of seventeen hundred persons, men and women, young and old. king edward allowed them to pass through his lines, and even fed them, and dismissed them with money; but, later in the siege, he was not so merciful--five hundred more, who were afterwards driven out, dying of starvation and misery. the garrison were so hard-pressed at last, that they sent a letter to king philip, telling him that they had eaten all the horses, all the dogs, and all the rats and mice that could be found in the place; and, that if he did not relieve them, they must either surrender to the english, or eat one another. philip made one effort to give them relief; but they were so hemmed in by the english power, that he could not succeed, and was fain to leave the place. upon this they hoisted the english flag, and surrendered to king edward. 'tell your general,' said he to the humble messengers who came out of the town, 'that i require to have sent here, six of the most distinguished citizens, bare-legged, and in their shirts, with ropes about their necks; and let those six men bring with them the keys of the castle and the town.' when the governor of calais related this to the people in the market-place, there was great weeping and distress; in the midst of which, one worthy citizen, named eustace de saint pierre, rose up and said, that if the six men required were not sacrificed, the whole population would be; therefore, he offered himself as the first. encouraged by this bright example, five other worthy citizens rose up one after another, and offered themselves to save the rest. the governor, who was too badly wounded to be able to walk, mounted a poor old horse that had not been eaten, and conducted these good men to the gate, while all the people cried and mourned. edward received them wrathfully, and ordered the heads of the whole six to be struck off. however, the good queen fell upon her knees, and besought the king to give them up to her. the king replied, 'i wish you had been somewhere else; but i cannot refuse you.' so she had them properly dressed, made a feast for them, and sent them back with a handsome present, to the great rejoicing of the whole camp. i hope the people of calais loved the daughter to whom she gave birth soon afterwards, for her gentle mother's sake. now came that terrible disease, the plague, into europe, hurrying from the heart of china; and killed the wretched people--especially the poor--in such enormous numbers, that one-half of the inhabitants of england are related to have died of it. it killed the cattle, in great numbers, too; and so few working men remained alive, that there were not enough left to till the ground. after eight years of differing and quarrelling, the prince of wales again invaded france with an army of sixty thousand men. he went through the south of the country, burning and plundering wheresoever he went; while his father, who had still the scottish war upon his hands, did the like in scotland, but was harassed and worried in his retreat from that country by the scottish men, who repaid his cruelties with interest. the french king, philip, was now dead, and was succeeded by his son john. the black prince, called by that name from the colour of the armour he wore to set off his fair complexion, continuing to burn and destroy in france, roused john into determined opposition; and so cruel had the black prince been in his campaign, and so severely had the french peasants suffered, that he could not find one who, for love, or money, or the fear of death, would tell him what the french king was doing, or where he was. thus it happened that he came upon the french king's forces, all of a sudden, near the town of poitiers, and found that the whole neighbouring country was occupied by a vast french army. 'god help us!' said the black prince, 'we must make the best of it.' so, on a sunday morning, the eighteenth of september, the prince whose army was now reduced to ten thousand men in all--prepared to give battle to the french king, who had sixty thousand horse alone. while he was so engaged, there came riding from the french camp, a cardinal, who had persuaded john to let him offer terms, and try to save the shedding of christian blood. 'save my honour,' said the prince to this good priest, 'and save the honour of my army, and i will make any reasonable terms.' he offered to give up all the towns, castles, and prisoners, he had taken, and to swear to make no war in france for seven years; but, as john would hear of nothing but his surrender, with a hundred of his chief knights, the treaty was broken off, and the prince said quietly--'god defend the right; we shall fight to-morrow.' therefore, on the monday morning, at break of day, the two armies prepared for battle. the english were posted in a strong place, which could only be approached by one narrow lane, skirted by hedges on both sides. the french attacked them by this lane; but were so galled and slain by english arrows from behind the hedges, that they were forced to retreat. then went six hundred english bowmen round about, and, coming upon the rear of the french army, rained arrows on them thick and fast. the french knights, thrown into confusion, quitted their banners and dispersed in all directions. said sir john chandos to the prince, 'ride forward, noble prince, and the day is yours. the king of france is so valiant a gentleman, that i know he will never fly, and may be taken prisoner.' said the prince to this, 'advance, english banners, in the name of god and st. george!' and on they pressed until they came up with the french king, fighting fiercely with his battle-axe, and, when all his nobles had forsaken him, attended faithfully to the last by his youngest son philip, only sixteen years of age. father and son fought well, and the king had already two wounds in his face, and had been beaten down, when he at last delivered himself to a banished french knight, and gave him his right-hand glove in token that he had done so. the black prince was generous as well as brave, and he invited his royal prisoner to supper in his tent, and waited upon him at table, and, when they afterwards rode into london in a gorgeous procession, mounted the french king on a fine cream-coloured horse, and rode at his side on a little pony. this was all very kind, but i think it was, perhaps, a little theatrical too, and has been made more meritorious than it deserved to be; especially as i am inclined to think that the greatest kindness to the king of france would have been not to have shown him to the people at all. however, it must be said, for these acts of politeness, that, in course of time, they did much to soften the horrors of war and the passions of conquerors. it was a long, long time before the common soldiers began to have the benefit of such courtly deeds; but they did at last; and thus it is possible that a poor soldier who asked for quarter at the battle of waterloo, or any other such great fight, may have owed his life indirectly to edward the black prince. at this time there stood in the strand, in london, a palace called the savoy, which was given up to the captive king of france and his son for their residence. as the king of scotland had now been king edward's captive for eleven years too, his success was, at this time, tolerably complete. the scottish business was settled by the prisoner being released under the title of sir david, king of scotland, and by his engaging to pay a large ransom. the state of france encouraged england to propose harder terms to that country, where the people rose against the unspeakable cruelty and barbarity of its nobles; where the nobles rose in turn against the people; where the most frightful outrages were committed on all sides; and where the insurrection of the peasants, called the insurrection of the jacquerie, from jacques, a common christian name among the country people of france, awakened terrors and hatreds that have scarcely yet passed away. a treaty called the great peace, was at last signed, under which king edward agreed to give up the greater part of his conquests, and king john to pay, within six years, a ransom of three million crowns of gold. he was so beset by his own nobles and courtiers for having yielded to these conditions--though they could help him to no better--that he came back of his own will to his old palace-prison of the savoy, and there died. there was a sovereign of castile at that time, called pedro the cruel, who deserved the name remarkably well: having committed, among other cruelties, a variety of murders. this amiable monarch being driven from his throne for his crimes, went to the province of bordeaux, where the black prince--now married to his cousin joan, a pretty widow--was residing, and besought his help. the prince, who took to him much more kindly than a prince of such fame ought to have taken to such a ruffian, readily listened to his fair promises, and agreeing to help him, sent secret orders to some troublesome disbanded soldiers of his and his father's, who called themselves the free companions, and who had been a pest to the french people, for some time, to aid this pedro. the prince, himself, going into spain to head the army of relief, soon set pedro on his throne again--where he no sooner found himself, than, of course, he behaved like the villain he was, broke his word without the least shame, and abandoned all the promises he had made to the black prince. now, it had cost the prince a good deal of money to pay soldiers to support this murderous king; and finding himself, when he came back disgusted to bordeaux, not only in bad health, but deeply in debt, he began to tax his french subjects to pay his creditors. they appealed to the french king, charles; war again broke out; and the french town of limoges, which the prince had greatly benefited, went over to the french king. upon this he ravaged the province of which it was the capital; burnt, and plundered, and killed in the old sickening way; and refused mercy to the prisoners, men, women, and children taken in the offending town, though he was so ill and so much in need of pity himself from heaven, that he was carried in a litter. he lived to come home and make himself popular with the people and parliament, and he died on trinity sunday, the eighth of june, one thousand three hundred and seventy-six, at forty-six years old. the whole nation mourned for him as one of the most renowned and beloved princes it had ever had; and he was buried with great lamentations in canterbury cathedral. near to the tomb of edward the confessor, his monument, with his figure, carved in stone, and represented in the old black armour, lying on its back, may be seen at this day, with an ancient coat of mail, a helmet, and a pair of gauntlets hanging from a beam above it, which most people like to believe were once worn by the black prince. king edward did not outlive his renowned son, long. he was old, and one alice perrers, a beautiful lady, had contrived to make him so fond of her in his old age, that he could refuse her nothing, and made himself ridiculous. she little deserved his love, or--what i dare say she valued a great deal more--the jewels of the late queen, which he gave her among other rich presents. she took the very ring from his finger on the morning of the day when he died, and left him to be pillaged by his faithless servants. only one good priest was true to him, and attended him to the last. besides being famous for the great victories i have related, the reign of king edward the third was rendered memorable in better ways, by the growth of architecture and the erection of windsor castle. in better ways still, by the rising up of wickliffe, originally a poor parish priest: who devoted himself to exposing, with wonderful power and success, the ambition and corruption of the pope, and of the whole church of which he was the head. some of those flemings were induced to come to england in this reign too, and to settle in norfolk, where they made better woollen cloths than the english had ever had before. the order of the garter (a very fine thing in its way, but hardly so important as good clothes for the nation) also dates from this period. the king is said to have picked 'up a lady's garter at a ball, and to have said, _honi soit qui mal y pense_--in english, 'evil be to him who evil thinks of it.' the courtiers were usually glad to imitate what the king said or did, and hence from a slight incident the order of the garter was instituted, and became a great dignity. so the story goes. chapter xix--england under richard the second richard, son of the black prince, a boy eleven years of age, succeeded to the crown under the title of king richard the second. the whole english nation were ready to admire him for the sake of his brave father. as to the lords and ladies about the court, they declared him to be the most beautiful, the wisest, and the best--even of princes--whom the lords and ladies about the court, generally declare to be the most beautiful, the wisest, and the best of mankind. to flatter a poor boy in this base manner was not a very likely way to develop whatever good was in him; and it brought him to anything but a good or happy end. the duke of lancaster, the young king's uncle--commonly called john of gaunt, from having been born at ghent, which the common people so pronounced--was supposed to have some thoughts of the throne himself; but, as he was not popular, and the memory of the black prince was, he submitted to his nephew. the war with france being still unsettled, the government of england wanted money to provide for the expenses that might arise out of it; accordingly a certain tax, called the poll-tax, which had originated in the last reign, was ordered to be levied on the people. this was a tax on every person in the kingdom, male and female, above the age of fourteen, of three groats (or three four-penny pieces) a year; clergymen were charged more, and only beggars were exempt. i have no need to repeat that the common people of england had long been suffering under great oppression. they were still the mere slaves of the lords of the land on which they lived, and were on most occasions harshly and unjustly treated. but, they had begun by this time to think very seriously of not bearing quite so much; and, probably, were emboldened by that french insurrection i mentioned in the last chapter. the people of essex rose against the poll-tax, and being severely handled by the government officers, killed some of them. at this very time one of the tax-collectors, going his rounds from house to house, at dartford in kent came to the cottage of one wat, a tiler by trade, and claimed the tax upon his daughter. her mother, who was at home, declared that she was under the age of fourteen; upon that, the collector (as other collectors had already done in different parts of england) behaved in a savage way, and brutally insulted wat tyler's daughter. the daughter screamed, the mother screamed. wat the tiler, who was at work not far off, ran to the spot, and did what any honest father under such provocation might have done--struck the collector dead at a blow. instantly the people of that town uprose as one man. they made wat tyler their leader; they joined with the people of essex, who were in arms under a priest called jack straw; they took out of prison another priest named john ball; and gathering in numbers as they went along, advanced, in a great confused army of poor men, to blackheath. it is said that they wanted to abolish all property, and to declare all men equal. i do not think this very likely; because they stopped the travellers on the roads and made them swear to be true to king richard and the people. nor were they at all disposed to injure those who had done them no harm, merely because they were of high station; for, the king's mother, who had to pass through their camp at blackheath, on her way to her young son, lying for safety in the tower of london, had merely to kiss a few dirty- faced rough-bearded men who were noisily fond of royalty, and so got away in perfect safety. next day the whole mass marched on to london bridge. there was a drawbridge in the middle, which william walworth the mayor caused to be raised to prevent their coming into the city; but they soon terrified the citizens into lowering it again, and spread themselves, with great uproar, over the streets. they broke open the prisons; they burned the papers in lambeth palace; they destroyed the duke of lancaster's palace, the savoy, in the strand, said to be the most beautiful and splendid in england; they set fire to the books and documents in the temple; and made a great riot. many of these outrages were committed in drunkenness; since those citizens, who had well-filled cellars, were only too glad to throw them open to save the rest of their property; but even the drunken rioters were very careful to steal nothing. they were so angry with one man, who was seen to take a silver cup at the savoy palace, and put it in his breast, that they drowned him in the river, cup and all. the young king had been taken out to treat with them before they committed these excesses; but, he and the people about him were so frightened by the riotous shouts, that they got back to the tower in the best way they could. this made the insurgents bolder; so they went on rioting away, striking off the heads of those who did not, at a moment's notice, declare for king richard and the people; and killing as many of the unpopular persons whom they supposed to be their enemies as they could by any means lay hold of. in this manner they passed one very violent day, and then proclamation was made that the king would meet them at mile-end, and grant their requests. the rioters went to mile-end to the number of sixty thousand, and the king met them there, and to the king the rioters peaceably proposed four conditions. first, that neither they, nor their children, nor any coming after them, should be made slaves any more. secondly, that the rent of land should be fixed at a certain price in money, instead of being paid in service. thirdly, that they should have liberty to buy and sell in all markets and public places, like other free men. fourthly, that they should be pardoned for past offences. heaven knows, there was nothing very unreasonable in these proposals! the young king deceitfully pretended to think so, and kept thirty clerks up, all night, writing out a charter accordingly. now, wat tyler himself wanted more than this. he wanted the entire abolition of the forest laws. he was not at mile-end with the rest, but, while that meeting was being held, broke into the tower of london and slew the archbishop and the treasurer, for whose heads the people had cried out loudly the day before. he and his men even thrust their swords into the bed of the princess of wales while the princess was in it, to make certain that none of their enemies were concealed there. so, wat and his men still continued armed, and rode about the city. next morning, the king with a small train of some sixty gentlemen--among whom was walworth the mayor--rode into smithfield, and saw wat and his people at a little distance. says wat to his men, 'there is the king. i will go speak with him, and tell him what we want.' straightway wat rode up to him, and began to talk. 'king,' says wat, 'dost thou see all my men there?' 'ah,' says the king. 'why?' 'because,' says wat, 'they are all at my command, and have sworn to do whatever i bid them.' some declared afterwards that as wat said this, he laid his hand on the king's bridle. others declared that he was seen to play with his own dagger. i think, myself, that he just spoke to the king like a rough, angry man as he was, and did nothing more. at any rate he was expecting no attack, and preparing for no resistance, when walworth the mayor did the not very valiant deed of drawing a short sword and stabbing him in the throat. he dropped from his horse, and one of the king's people speedily finished him. so fell wat tyler. fawners and flatterers made a mighty triumph of it, and set up a cry which will occasionally find an echo to this day. but wat was a hard-working man, who had suffered much, and had been foully outraged; and it is probable that he was a man of a much higher nature and a much braver spirit than any of the parasites who exulted then, or have exulted since, over his defeat. seeing wat down, his men immediately bent their bows to avenge his fall. if the young king had not had presence of mind at that dangerous moment, both he and the mayor to boot, might have followed tyler pretty fast. but the king riding up to the crowd, cried out that tyler was a traitor, and that he would be their leader. they were so taken by surprise, that they set up a great shouting, and followed the boy until he was met at islington by a large body of soldiers. the end of this rising was the then usual end. as soon as the king found himself safe, he unsaid all he had said, and undid all he had done; some fifteen hundred of the rioters were tried (mostly in essex) with great rigour, and executed with great cruelty. many of them were hanged on gibbets, and left there as a terror to the country people; and, because their miserable friends took some of the bodies down to bury, the king ordered the rest to be chained up--which was the beginning of the barbarous custom of hanging in chains. the king's falsehood in this business makes such a pitiful figure, that i think wat tyler appears in history as beyond comparison the truer and more respectable man of the two. richard was now sixteen years of age, and married anne of bohemia, an excellent princess, who was called 'the good queen anne.' she deserved a better husband; for the king had been fawned and flattered into a treacherous, wasteful, dissolute, bad young man. there were two popes at this time (as if one were not enough!), and their quarrels involved europe in a great deal of trouble. scotland was still troublesome too; and at home there was much jealousy and distrust, and plotting and counter-plotting, because the king feared the ambition of his relations, and particularly of his uncle, the duke of lancaster, and the duke had his party against the king, and the king had his party against the duke. nor were these home troubles lessened when the duke went to castile to urge his claim to the crown of that kingdom; for then the duke of gloucester, another of richard's uncles, opposed him, and influenced the parliament to demand the dismissal of the king's favourite ministers. the king said in reply, that he would not for such men dismiss the meanest servant in his kitchen. but, it had begun to signify little what a king said when a parliament was determined; so richard was at last obliged to give way, and to agree to another government of the kingdom, under a commission of fourteen nobles, for a year. his uncle of gloucester was at the head of this commission, and, in fact, appointed everybody composing it. having done all this, the king declared as soon as he saw an opportunity that he had never meant to do it, and that it was all illegal; and he got the judges secretly to sign a declaration to that effect. the secret oozed out directly, and was carried to the duke of gloucester. the duke of gloucester, at the head of forty thousand men, met the king on his entering into london to enforce his authority; the king was helpless against him; his favourites and ministers were impeached and were mercilessly executed. among them were two men whom the people regarded with very different feelings; one, robert tresilian, chief justice, who was hated for having made what was called 'the bloody circuit' to try the rioters; the other, sir simon burley, an honourable knight, who had been the dear friend of the black prince, and the governor and guardian of the king. for this gentleman's life the good queen even begged of gloucester on her knees; but gloucester (with or without reason) feared and hated him, and replied, that if she valued her husband's crown, she had better beg no more. all this was done under what was called by some the wonderful--and by others, with better reason, the merciless--parliament. but gloucester's power was not to last for ever. he held it for only a year longer; in which year the famous battle of otterbourne, sung in the old ballad of chevy chase, was fought. when the year was out, the king, turning suddenly to gloucester, in the midst of a great council said, 'uncle, how old am i?' 'your highness,' returned the duke, 'is in your twenty-second year.' 'am i so much?' said the king; 'then i will manage my own affairs! i am much obliged to you, my good lords, for your past services, but i need them no more.' he followed this up, by appointing a new chancellor and a new treasurer, and announced to the people that he had resumed the government. he held it for eight years without opposition. through all that time, he kept his determination to revenge himself some day upon his uncle gloucester, in his own breast. at last the good queen died, and then the king, desiring to take a second wife, proposed to his council that he should marry isabella, of france, the daughter of charles the sixth: who, the french courtiers said (as the english courtiers had said of richard), was a marvel of beauty and wit, and quite a phenomenon--of seven years old. the council were divided about this marriage, but it took place. it secured peace between england and france for a quarter of a century; but it was strongly opposed to the prejudices of the english people. the duke of gloucester, who was anxious to take the occasion of making himself popular, declaimed against it loudly, and this at length decided the king to execute the vengeance he had been nursing so long. he went with a gay company to the duke of gloucester's house, pleshey castle, in essex, where the duke, suspecting nothing, came out into the court-yard to receive his royal visitor. while the king conversed in a friendly manner with the duchess, the duke was quietly seized, hurried away, shipped for calais, and lodged in the castle there. his friends, the earls of arundel and warwick, were taken in the same treacherous manner, and confined to their castles. a few days after, at nottingham, they were impeached of high treason. the earl of arundel was condemned and beheaded, and the earl of warwick was banished. then, a writ was sent by a messenger to the governor of calais, requiring him to send the duke of gloucester over to be tried. in three days he returned an answer that he could not do that, because the duke of gloucester had died in prison. the duke was declared a traitor, his property was confiscated to the king, a real or pretended confession he had made in prison to one of the justices of the common pleas was produced against him, and there was an end of the matter. how the unfortunate duke died, very few cared to know. whether he really died naturally; whether he killed himself; whether, by the king's order, he was strangled, or smothered between two beds (as a serving-man of the governor's named hall, did afterwards declare), cannot be discovered. there is not much doubt that he was killed, somehow or other, by his nephew's orders. among the most active nobles in these proceedings were the king's cousin, henry bolingbroke, whom the king had made duke of hereford to smooth down the old family quarrels, and some others: who had in the family-plotting times done just such acts themselves as they now condemned in the duke. they seem to have been a corrupt set of men; but such men were easily found about the court in such days. the people murmured at all this, and were still very sore about the french marriage. the nobles saw how little the king cared for law, and how crafty he was, and began to be somewhat afraid for themselves. the king's life was a life of continued feasting and excess; his retinue, down to the meanest servants, were dressed in the most costly manner, and caroused at his tables, it is related, to the number of ten thousand persons every day. he himself, surrounded by a body of ten thousand archers, and enriched by a duty on wool which the commons had granted him for life, saw no danger of ever being otherwise than powerful and absolute, and was as fierce and haughty as a king could be. he had two of his old enemies left, in the persons of the dukes of hereford and norfolk. sparing these no more than the others, he tampered with the duke of hereford until he got him to declare before the council that the duke of norfolk had lately held some treasonable talk with him, as he was riding near brentford; and that he had told him, among other things, that he could not believe the king's oath--which nobody could, i should think. for this treachery he obtained a pardon, and the duke of norfolk was summoned to appear and defend himself. as he denied the charge and said his accuser was a liar and a traitor, both noblemen, according to the manner of those times, were held in custody, and the truth was ordered to be decided by wager of battle at coventry. this wager of battle meant that whosoever won the combat was to be considered in the right; which nonsense meant in effect, that no strong man could ever be wrong. a great holiday was made; a great crowd assembled, with much parade and show; and the two combatants were about to rush at each other with their lances, when the king, sitting in a pavilion to see fair, threw down the truncheon he carried in his hand, and forbade the battle. the duke of hereford was to be banished for ten years, and the duke of norfolk was to be banished for life. so said the king. the duke of hereford went to france, and went no farther. the duke of norfolk made a pilgrimage to the holy land, and afterwards died at venice of a broken heart. faster and fiercer, after this, the king went on in his career. the duke of lancaster, who was the father of the duke of hereford, died soon after the departure of his son; and, the king, although he had solemnly granted to that son leave to inherit his father's property, if it should come to him during his banishment, immediately seized it all, like a robber. the judges were so afraid of him, that they disgraced themselves by declaring this theft to be just and lawful. his avarice knew no bounds. he outlawed seventeen counties at once, on a frivolous pretence, merely to raise money by way of fines for misconduct. in short, he did as many dishonest things as he could; and cared so little for the discontent of his subjects--though even the spaniel favourites began to whisper to him that there was such a thing as discontent afloat--that he took that time, of all others, for leaving england and making an expedition against the irish. he was scarcely gone, leaving the duke of york regent in his absence, when his cousin, henry of hereford, came over from france to claim the rights of which he had been so monstrously deprived. he was immediately joined by the two great earls of northumberland and westmoreland; and his uncle, the regent, finding the king's cause unpopular, and the disinclination of the army to act against henry, very strong, withdrew with the royal forces towards bristol. henry, at the head of an army, came from yorkshire (where he had landed) to london and followed him. they joined their forces--how they brought that about, is not distinctly understood--and proceeded to bristol castle, whither three noblemen had taken the young queen. the castle surrendering, they presently put those three noblemen to death. the regent then remained there, and henry went on to chester. all this time, the boisterous weather had prevented the king from receiving intelligence of what had occurred. at length it was conveyed to him in ireland, and he sent over the earl of salisbury, who, landing at conway, rallied the welshmen, and waited for the king a whole fortnight; at the end of that time the welshmen, who were perhaps not very warm for him in the beginning, quite cooled down and went home. when the king did land on the coast at last, he came with a pretty good power, but his men cared nothing for him, and quickly deserted. supposing the welshmen to be still at conway, he disguised himself as a priest, and made for that place in company with his two brothers and some few of their adherents. but, there were no welshmen left--only salisbury and a hundred soldiers. in this distress, the king's two brothers, exeter and surrey, offered to go to henry to learn what his intentions were. surrey, who was true to richard, was put into prison. exeter, who was false, took the royal badge, which was a hart, off his shield, and assumed the rose, the badge of henry. after this, it was pretty plain to the king what henry's intentions were, without sending any more messengers to ask. the fallen king, thus deserted--hemmed in on all sides, and pressed with hunger--rode here and rode there, and went to this castle, and went to that castle, endeavouring to obtain some provisions, but could find none. he rode wretchedly back to conway, and there surrendered himself to the earl of northumberland, who came from henry, in reality to take him prisoner, but in appearance to offer terms; and whose men were hidden not far off. by this earl he was conducted to the castle of flint, where his cousin henry met him, and dropped on his knee as if he were still respectful to his sovereign. 'fair cousin of lancaster,' said the king, 'you are very welcome' (very welcome, no doubt; but he would have been more so, in chains or without a head). 'my lord,' replied henry, 'i am come a little before my time; but, with your good pleasure, i will show you the reason. your people complain with some bitterness, that you have ruled them rigorously for two-and- twenty years. now, if it please god, i will help you to govern them better in future.' 'fair cousin,' replied the abject king, 'since it pleaseth you, it pleaseth me mightily.' after this, the trumpets sounded, and the king was stuck on a wretched horse, and carried prisoner to chester, where he was made to issue a proclamation, calling a parliament. from chester he was taken on towards london. at lichfield he tried to escape by getting out of a window and letting himself down into a garden; it was all in vain, however, and he was carried on and shut up in the tower, where no one pitied him, and where the whole people, whose patience he had quite tired out, reproached him without mercy. before he got there, it is related, that his very dog left him and departed from his side to lick the hand of henry. the day before the parliament met, a deputation went to this wrecked king, and told him that he had promised the earl of northumberland at conway castle to resign the crown. he said he was quite ready to do it, and signed a paper in which he renounced his authority and absolved his people from their allegiance to him. he had so little spirit left that he gave his royal ring to his triumphant cousin henry with his own hand, and said, that if he could have had leave to appoint a successor, that same henry was the man of all others whom he would have named. next day, the parliament assembled in westminster hall, where henry sat at the side of the throne, which was empty and covered with a cloth of gold. the paper just signed by the king was read to the multitude amid shouts of joy, which were echoed through all the streets; when some of the noise had died away, the king was formally deposed. then henry arose, and, making the sign of the cross on his forehead and breast, challenged the realm of england as his right; the archbishops of canterbury and york seated him on the throne. the multitude shouted again, and the shouts re-echoed throughout all the streets. no one remembered, now, that richard the second had ever been the most beautiful, the wisest, and the best of princes; and he now made living (to my thinking) a far more sorry spectacle in the tower of london, than wat tyler had made, lying dead, among the hoofs of the royal horses in smithfield. the poll-tax died with wat. the smiths to the king and royal family, could make no chains in which the king could hang the people's recollection of him; so the poll-tax was never collected. chapter xx--england under henry the fourth, called bolingbroke during the last reign, the preaching of wickliffe against the pride and cunning of the pope and all his men, had made a great noise in england. whether the new king wished to be in favour with the priests, or whether he hoped, by pretending to be very religious, to cheat heaven itself into the belief that he was not a usurper, i don't know. both suppositions are likely enough. it is certain that he began his reign by making a strong show against the followers of wickliffe, who were called lollards, or heretics--although his father, john of gaunt, had been of that way of thinking, as he himself had been more than suspected of being. it is no less certain that he first established in england the detestable and atrocious custom, brought from abroad, of burning those people as a punishment for their opinions. it was the importation into england of one of the practices of what was called the holy inquisition: which was the most _un_holy and the most infamous tribunal that ever disgraced mankind, and made men more like demons than followers of our saviour. no real right to the crown, as you know, was in this king. edward mortimer, the young earl of march--who was only eight or nine years old, and who was descended from the duke of clarence, the elder brother of henry's father--was, by succession, the real heir to the throne. however, the king got his son declared prince of wales; and, obtaining possession of the young earl of march and his little brother, kept them in confinement (but not severely) in windsor castle. he then required the parliament to decide what was to be done with the deposed king, who was quiet enough, and who only said that he hoped his cousin henry would be 'a good lord' to him. the parliament replied that they would recommend his being kept in some secret place where the people could not resort, and where his friends could not be admitted to see him. henry accordingly passed this sentence upon him, and it now began to be pretty clear to the nation that richard the second would not live very long. it was a noisy parliament, as it was an unprincipled one, and the lords quarrelled so violently among themselves as to which of them had been loyal and which disloyal, and which consistent and which inconsistent, that forty gauntlets are said to have been thrown upon the floor at one time as challenges to as many battles: the truth being that they were all false and base together, and had been, at one time with the old king, and at another time with the new one, and seldom true for any length of time to any one. they soon began to plot again. a conspiracy was formed to invite the king to a tournament at oxford, and then to take him by surprise and kill him. this murderous enterprise, which was agreed upon at secret meetings in the house of the abbot of westminster, was betrayed by the earl of rutland--one of the conspirators. the king, instead of going to the tournament or staying at windsor (where the conspirators suddenly went, on finding themselves discovered, with the hope of seizing him), retired to london, proclaimed them all traitors, and advanced upon them with a great force. they retired into the west of england, proclaiming richard king; but, the people rose against them, and they were all slain. their treason hastened the death of the deposed monarch. whether he was killed by hired assassins, or whether he was starved to death, or whether he refused food on hearing of his brothers being killed (who were in that plot), is very doubtful. he met his death somehow; and his body was publicly shown at st. paul's cathedral with only the lower part of the face uncovered. i can scarcely doubt that he was killed by the king's orders. the french wife of the miserable richard was now only ten years old; and, when her father, charles of france, heard of her misfortunes and of her lonely condition in england, he went mad: as he had several times done before, during the last five or six years. the french dukes of burgundy and bourbon took up the poor girl's cause, without caring much about it, but on the chance of getting something out of england. the people of bordeaux, who had a sort of superstitious attachment to the memory of richard, because he was born there, swore by the lord that he had been the best man in all his kingdom--which was going rather far--and promised to do great things against the english. nevertheless, when they came to consider that they, and the whole people of france, were ruined by their own nobles, and that the english rule was much the better of the two, they cooled down again; and the two dukes, although they were very great men, could do nothing without them. then, began negotiations between france and england for the sending home to paris of the poor little queen with all her jewels and her fortune of two hundred thousand francs in gold. the king was quite willing to restore the young lady, and even the jewels; but he said he really could not part with the money. so, at last she was safely deposited at paris without her fortune, and then the duke of burgundy (who was cousin to the french king) began to quarrel with the duke of orleans (who was brother to the french king) about the whole matter; and those two dukes made france even more wretched than ever. as the idea of conquering scotland was still popular at home, the king marched to the river tyne and demanded homage of the king of that country. this being refused, he advanced to edinburgh, but did little there; for, his army being in want of provisions, and the scotch being very careful to hold him in check without giving battle, he was obliged to retire. it is to his immortal honour that in this sally he burnt no villages and slaughtered no people, but was particularly careful that his army should be merciful and harmless. it was a great example in those ruthless times. a war among the border people of england and scotland went on for twelve months, and then the earl of northumberland, the nobleman who had helped henry to the crown, began to rebel against him--probably because nothing that henry could do for him would satisfy his extravagant expectations. there was a certain welsh gentleman, named owen glendower, who had been a student in one of the inns of court, and had afterwards been in the service of the late king, whose welsh property was taken from him by a powerful lord related to the present king, who was his neighbour. appealing for redress, and getting none, he took up arms, was made an outlaw, and declared himself sovereign of wales. he pretended to be a magician; and not only were the welsh people stupid enough to believe him, but, even henry believed him too; for, making three expeditions into wales, and being three times driven back by the wildness of the country, the bad weather, and the skill of glendower, he thought he was defeated by the welshman's magic arts. however, he took lord grey and sir edmund mortimer, prisoners, and allowed the relatives of lord grey to ransom him, but would not extend such favour to sir edmund mortimer. now, henry percy, called hotspur, son of the earl of northumberland, who was married to mortimer's sister, is supposed to have taken offence at this; and, therefore, in conjunction with his father and some others, to have joined owen glendower, and risen against henry. it is by no means clear that this was the real cause of the conspiracy; but perhaps it was made the pretext. it was formed, and was very powerful; including scroop, archbishop of york, and the earl of douglas, a powerful and brave scottish nobleman. the king was prompt and active, and the two armies met at shrewsbury. there were about fourteen thousand men in each. the old earl of northumberland being sick, the rebel forces were led by his son. the king wore plain armour to deceive the enemy; and four noblemen, with the same object, wore the royal arms. the rebel charge was so furious, that every one of those gentlemen was killed, the royal standard was beaten down, and the young prince of wales was severely wounded in the face. but he was one of the bravest and best soldiers that ever lived, and he fought so well, and the king's troops were so encouraged by his bold example, that they rallied immediately, and cut the enemy's forces all to pieces. hotspur was killed by an arrow in the brain, and the rout was so complete that the whole rebellion was struck down by this one blow. the earl of northumberland surrendered himself soon after hearing of the death of his son, and received a pardon for all his offences. there were some lingerings of rebellion yet: owen glendower being retired to wales, and a preposterous story being spread among the ignorant people that king richard was still alive. how they could have believed such nonsense it is difficult to imagine; but they certainly did suppose that the court fool of the late king, who was something like him, was he, himself; so that it seemed as if, after giving so much trouble to the country in his life, he was still to trouble it after his death. this was not the worst. the young earl of march and his brother were stolen out of windsor castle. being retaken, and being found to have been spirited away by one lady spencer, she accused her own brother, that earl of rutland who was in the former conspiracy and was now duke of york, of being in the plot. for this he was ruined in fortune, though not put to death; and then another plot arose among the old earl of northumberland, some other lords, and that same scroop, archbishop of york, who was with the rebels before. these conspirators caused a writing to be posted on the church doors, accusing the king of a variety of crimes; but, the king being eager and vigilant to oppose them, they were all taken, and the archbishop was executed. this was the first time that a great churchman had been slain by the law in england; but the king was resolved that it should be done, and done it was. the next most remarkable event of this time was the seizure, by henry, of the heir to the scottish throne--james, a boy of nine years old. he had been put aboard-ship by his father, the scottish king robert, to save him from the designs of his uncle, when, on his way to france, he was accidentally taken by some english cruisers. he remained a prisoner in england for nineteen years, and became in his prison a student and a famous poet. with the exception of occasional troubles with the welsh and with the french, the rest of king henry's reign was quiet enough. but, the king was far from happy, and probably was troubled in his conscience by knowing that he had usurped the crown, and had occasioned the death of his miserable cousin. the prince of wales, though brave and generous, is said to have been wild and dissipated, and even to have drawn his sword on gascoigne, the chief justice of the king's bench, because he was firm in dealing impartially with one of his dissolute companions. upon this the chief justice is said to have ordered him immediately to prison; the prince of wales is said to have submitted with a good grace; and the king is said to have exclaimed, 'happy is the monarch who has so just a judge, and a son so willing to obey the laws.' this is all very doubtful, and so is another story (of which shakespeare has made beautiful use), that the prince once took the crown out of his father's chamber as he was sleeping, and tried it on his own head. the king's health sank more and more, and he became subject to violent eruptions on the face and to bad epileptic fits, and his spirits sank every day. at last, as he was praying before the shrine of st. edward at westminster abbey, he was seized with a terrible fit, and was carried into the abbot's chamber, where he presently died. it had been foretold that he would die at jerusalem, which certainly is not, and never was, westminster. but, as the abbot's room had long been called the jerusalem chamber, people said it was all the same thing, and were quite satisfied with the prediction. the king died on the th of march, , in the forty-seventh year of his age, and the fourteenth of his reign. he was buried in canterbury cathedral. he had been twice married, and had, by his first wife, a family of four sons and two daughters. considering his duplicity before he came to the throne, his unjust seizure of it, and above all, his making that monstrous law for the burning of what the priests called heretics, he was a reasonably good king, as kings went. chapter xxi--england under henry the fifth first part the prince of wales began his reign like a generous and honest man. he set the young earl of march free; he restored their estates and their honours to the percy family, who had lost them by their rebellion against his father; he ordered the imbecile and unfortunate richard to be honourably buried among the kings of england; and he dismissed all his wild companions, with assurances that they should not want, if they would resolve to be steady, faithful, and true. it is much easier to burn men than to burn their opinions; and those of the lollards were spreading every day. the lollards were represented by the priests--probably falsely for the most part--to entertain treasonable designs against the new king; and henry, suffering himself to be worked upon by these representations, sacrificed his friend sir john oldcastle, the lord cobham, to them, after trying in vain to convert him by arguments. he was declared guilty, as the head of the sect, and sentenced to the flames; but he escaped from the tower before the day of execution (postponed for fifty days by the king himself), and summoned the lollards to meet him near london on a certain day. so the priests told the king, at least. i doubt whether there was any conspiracy beyond such as was got up by their agents. on the day appointed, instead of five-and-twenty thousand men, under the command of sir john oldcastle, in the meadows of st. giles, the king found only eighty men, and no sir john at all. there was, in another place, an addle-headed brewer, who had gold trappings to his horses, and a pair of gilt spurs in his breast--expecting to be made a knight next day by sir john, and so to gain the right to wear them--but there was no sir john, nor did anybody give information respecting him, though the king offered great rewards for such intelligence. thirty of these unfortunate lollards were hanged and drawn immediately, and were then burnt, gallows and all; and the various prisons in and around london were crammed full of others. some of these unfortunate men made various confessions of treasonable designs; but, such confessions were easily got, under torture and the fear of fire, and are very little to be trusted. to finish the sad story of sir john oldcastle at once, i may mention that he escaped into wales, and remained there safely, for four years. when discovered by lord powis, it is very doubtful if he would have been taken alive--so great was the old soldier's bravery--if a miserable old woman had not come behind him and broken his legs with a stool. he was carried to london in a horse-litter, was fastened by an iron chain to a gibbet, and so roasted to death. to make the state of france as plain as i can in a few words, i should tell you that the duke of orleans, and the duke of burgundy, commonly called 'john without fear,' had had a grand reconciliation of their quarrel in the last reign, and had appeared to be quite in a heavenly state of mind. immediately after which, on a sunday, in the public streets of paris, the duke of orleans was murdered by a party of twenty men, set on by the duke of burgundy--according to his own deliberate confession. the widow of king richard had been married in france to the eldest son of the duke of orleans. the poor mad king was quite powerless to help her, and the duke of burgundy became the real master of france. isabella dying, her husband (duke of orleans since the death of his father) married the daughter of the count of armagnac, who, being a much abler man than his young son-in-law, headed his party; thence called after him armagnacs. thus, france was now in this terrible condition, that it had in it the party of the king's son, the dauphin louis; the party of the duke of burgundy, who was the father of the dauphin's ill- used wife; and the party of the armagnacs; all hating each other; all fighting together; all composed of the most depraved nobles that the earth has ever known; and all tearing unhappy france to pieces. the late king had watched these dissensions from england, sensible (like the french people) that no enemy of france could injure her more than her own nobility. the present king now advanced a claim to the french throne. his demand being, of course, refused, he reduced his proposal to a certain large amount of french territory, and to demanding the french princess, catherine, in marriage, with a fortune of two millions of golden crowns. he was offered less territory and fewer crowns, and no princess; but he called his ambassadors home and prepared for war. then, he proposed to take the princess with one million of crowns. the french court replied that he should have the princess with two hundred thousand crowns less; he said this would not do (he had never seen the princess in his life), and assembled his army at southampton. there was a short plot at home just at that time, for deposing him, and making the earl of march king; but the conspirators were all speedily condemned and executed, and the king embarked for france. it is dreadful to observe how long a bad example will be followed; but, it is encouraging to know that a good example is never thrown away. the king's first act on disembarking at the mouth of the river seine, three miles from harfleur, was to imitate his father, and to proclaim his solemn orders that the lives and property of the peaceable inhabitants should be respected on pain of death. it is agreed by french writers, to his lasting renown, that even while his soldiers were suffering the greatest distress from want of food, these commands were rigidly obeyed. with an army in all of thirty thousand men, he besieged the town of harfleur both by sea and land for five weeks; at the end of which time the town surrendered, and the inhabitants were allowed to depart with only fivepence each, and a part of their clothes. all the rest of their possessions was divided amongst the english army. but, that army suffered so much, in spite of its successes, from disease and privation, that it was already reduced one half. still, the king was determined not to retire until he had struck a greater blow. therefore, against the advice of all his counsellors, he moved on with his little force towards calais. when he came up to the river somme he was unable to cross, in consequence of the fort being fortified; and, as the english moved up the left bank of the river looking for a crossing, the french, who had broken all the bridges, moved up the right bank, watching them, and waiting to attack them when they should try to pass it. at last the english found a crossing and got safely over. the french held a council of war at rouen, resolved to give the english battle, and sent heralds to king henry to know by which road he was going. 'by the road that will take me straight to calais!' said the king, and sent them away with a present of a hundred crowns. the english moved on, until they beheld the french, and then the king gave orders to form in line of battle. the french not coming on, the army broke up after remaining in battle array till night, and got good rest and refreshment at a neighbouring village. the french were now all lying in another village, through which they knew the english must pass. they were resolved that the english should begin the battle. the english had no means of retreat, if their king had any such intention; and so the two armies passed the night, close together. to understand these armies well, you must bear in mind that the immense french army had, among its notable persons, almost the whole of that wicked nobility, whose debauchery had made france a desert; and so besotted were they by pride, and by contempt for the common people, that they had scarcely any bowmen (if indeed they had any at all) in their whole enormous number: which, compared with the english army, was at least as six to one. for these proud fools had said that the bow was not a fit weapon for knightly hands, and that france must be defended by gentlemen only. we shall see, presently, what hand the gentlemen made of it. now, on the english side, among the little force, there was a good proportion of men who were not gentlemen by any means, but who were good stout archers for all that. among them, in the morning--having slept little at night, while the french were carousing and making sure of victory--the king rode, on a grey horse; wearing on his head a helmet of shining steel, surmounted by a crown of gold, sparkling with precious stones; and bearing over his armour, embroidered together, the arms of england and the arms of france. the archers looked at the shining helmet and the crown of gold and the sparkling jewels, and admired them all; but, what they admired most was the king's cheerful face, and his bright blue eye, as he told them that, for himself, he had made up his mind to conquer there or to die there, and that england should never have a ransom to pay for _him_. there was one brave knight who chanced to say that he wished some of the many gallant gentlemen and good soldiers, who were then idle at home in england, were there to increase their numbers. but the king told him that, for his part, he did not wish for one more man. 'the fewer we have,' said he, 'the greater will be the honour we shall win!' his men, being now all in good heart, were refreshed with bread and wine, and heard prayers, and waited quietly for the french. the king waited for the french, because they were drawn up thirty deep (the little english force was only three deep), on very difficult and heavy ground; and he knew that when they moved, there must be confusion among them. as they did not move, he sent off two parties:--one to lie concealed in a wood on the left of the french: the other, to set fire to some houses behind the french after the battle should be begun. this was scarcely done, when three of the proud french gentlemen, who were to defend their country without any help from the base peasants, came riding out, calling upon the english to surrender. the king warned those gentlemen himself to retire with all speed if they cared for their lives, and ordered the english banners to advance. upon that, sir thomas erpingham, a great english general, who commanded the archers, threw his truncheon into the air, joyfully, and all the english men, kneeling down upon the ground and biting it as if they took possession of the country, rose up with a great shout and fell upon the french. every archer was furnished with a great stake tipped with iron; and his orders were, to thrust this stake into the ground, to discharge his arrow, and then to fall back, when the french horsemen came on. as the haughty french gentlemen, who were to break the english archers and utterly destroy them with their knightly lances, came riding up, they were received with such a blinding storm of arrows, that they broke and turned. horses and men rolled over one another, and the confusion was terrific. those who rallied and charged the archers got among the stakes on slippery and boggy ground, and were so bewildered that the english archers--who wore no armour, and even took off their leathern coats to be more active--cut them to pieces, root and branch. only three french horsemen got within the stakes, and those were instantly despatched. all this time the dense french army, being in armour, were sinking knee-deep into the mire; while the light english archers, half-naked, were as fresh and active as if they were fighting on a marble floor. but now, the second division of the french coming to the relief of the first, closed up in a firm mass; the english, headed by the king, attacked them; and the deadliest part of the battle began. the king's brother, the duke of clarence, was struck down, and numbers of the french surrounded him; but, king henry, standing over the body, fought like a lion until they were beaten off. presently, came up a band of eighteen french knights, bearing the banner of a certain french lord, who had sworn to kill or take the english king. one of them struck him such a blow with a battle-axe that he reeled and fell upon his knees; but, his faithful men, immediately closing round him, killed every one of those eighteen knights, and so that french lord never kept his oath. the french duke of alencon, seeing this, made a desperate charge, and cut his way close up to the royal standard of england. he beat down the duke of york, who was standing near it; and, when the king came to his rescue, struck off a piece of the crown he wore. but, he never struck another blow in this world; for, even as he was in the act of saying who he was, and that he surrendered to the king; and even as the king stretched out his hand to give him a safe and honourable acceptance of the offer; he fell dead, pierced by innumerable wounds. the death of this nobleman decided the battle. the third division of the french army, which had never struck a blow yet, and which was, in itself, more than double the whole english power, broke and fled. at this time of the fight, the english, who as yet had made no prisoners, began to take them in immense numbers, and were still occupied in doing so, or in killing those who would not surrender, when a great noise arose in the rear of the french--their flying banners were seen to stop--and king henry, supposing a great reinforcement to have arrived, gave orders that all the prisoners should be put to death. as soon, however, as it was found that the noise was only occasioned by a body of plundering peasants, the terrible massacre was stopped. then king henry called to him the french herald, and asked him to whom the victory belonged. the herald replied, 'to the king of england.' '_we_ have not made this havoc and slaughter,' said the king. 'it is the wrath of heaven on the sins of france. what is the name of that castle yonder?' the herald answered him, 'my lord, it is the castle of azincourt.' said the king, 'from henceforth this battle shall be known to posterity, by the name of the battle of azincourt.' our english historians have made it agincourt; but, under that name, it will ever be famous in english annals. the loss upon the french side was enormous. three dukes were killed, two more were taken prisoners, seven counts were killed, three more were taken prisoners, and ten thousand knights and gentlemen were slain upon the field. the english loss amounted to sixteen hundred men, among whom were the duke of york and the earl of suffolk. war is a dreadful thing; and it is appalling to know how the english were obliged, next morning, to kill those prisoners mortally wounded, who yet writhed in agony upon the ground; how the dead upon the french side were stripped by their own countrymen and countrywomen, and afterwards buried in great pits; how the dead upon the english side were piled up in a great barn, and how their bodies and the barn were all burned together. it is in such things, and in many more much too horrible to relate, that the real desolation and wickedness of war consist. nothing can make war otherwise than horrible. but the dark side of it was little thought of and soon forgotten; and it cast no shade of trouble on the english people, except on those who had lost friends or relations in the fight. they welcomed their king home with shouts of rejoicing, and plunged into the water to bear him ashore on their shoulders, and flocked out in crowds to welcome him in every town through which he passed, and hung rich carpets and tapestries out of the windows, and strewed the streets with flowers, and made the fountains run with wine, as the great field of agincourt had run with blood. second part that proud and wicked french nobility who dragged their country to destruction, and who were every day and every year regarded with deeper hatred and detestation in the hearts of the french people, learnt nothing, even from the defeat of agincourt. so far from uniting against the common enemy, they became, among themselves, more violent, more bloody, and more false--if that were possible--than they had been before. the count of armagnac persuaded the french king to plunder of her treasures queen isabella of bavaria, and to make her a prisoner. she, who had hitherto been the bitter enemy of the duke of burgundy, proposed to join him, in revenge. he carried her off to troyes, where she proclaimed herself regent of france, and made him her lieutenant. the armagnac party were at that time possessed of paris; but, one of the gates of the city being secretly opened on a certain night to a party of the duke's men, they got into paris, threw into the prisons all the armagnacs upon whom they could lay their hands, and, a few nights afterwards, with the aid of a furious mob of sixty thousand people, broke the prisons open, and killed them all. the former dauphin was now dead, and the king's third son bore the title. him, in the height of this murderous scene, a french knight hurried out of bed, wrapped in a sheet, and bore away to poitiers. so, when the revengeful isabella and the duke of burgundy entered paris in triumph after the slaughter of their enemies, the dauphin was proclaimed at poitiers as the real regent. king henry had not been idle since his victory of agincourt, but had repulsed a brave attempt of the french to recover harfleur; had gradually conquered a great part of normandy; and, at this crisis of affairs, took the important town of rouen, after a siege of half a year. this great loss so alarmed the french, that the duke of burgundy proposed that a meeting to treat of peace should be held between the french and the english kings in a plain by the river seine. on the appointed day, king henry appeared there, with his two brothers, clarence and gloucester, and a thousand men. the unfortunate french king, being more mad than usual that day, could not come; but the queen came, and with her the princess catherine: who was a very lovely creature, and who made a real impression on king henry, now that he saw her for the first time. this was the most important circumstance that arose out of the meeting. as if it were impossible for a french nobleman of that time to be true to his word of honour in anything, henry discovered that the duke of burgundy was, at that very moment, in secret treaty with the dauphin; and he therefore abandoned the negotiation. the duke of burgundy and the dauphin, each of whom with the best reason distrusted the other as a noble ruffian surrounded by a party of noble ruffians, were rather at a loss how to proceed after this; but, at length they agreed to meet, on a bridge over the river yonne, where it was arranged that there should be two strong gates put up, with an empty space between them; and that the duke of burgundy should come into that space by one gate, with ten men only; and that the dauphin should come into that space by the other gate, also with ten men, and no more. so far the dauphin kept his word, but no farther. when the duke of burgundy was on his knee before him in the act of speaking, one of the dauphin's noble ruffians cut the said duke down with a small axe, and others speedily finished him. it was in vain for the dauphin to pretend that this base murder was not done with his consent; it was too bad, even for france, and caused a general horror. the duke's heir hastened to make a treaty with king henry, and the french queen engaged that her husband should consent to it, whatever it was. henry made peace, on condition of receiving the princess catherine in marriage, and being made regent of france during the rest of the king's lifetime, and succeeding to the french crown at his death. he was soon married to the beautiful princess, and took her proudly home to england, where she was crowned with great honour and glory. this peace was called the perpetual peace; we shall soon see how long it lasted. it gave great satisfaction to the french people, although they were so poor and miserable, that, at the time of the celebration of the royal marriage, numbers of them were dying with starvation, on the dunghills in the streets of paris. there was some resistance on the part of the dauphin in some few parts of france, but king henry beat it all down. and now, with his great possessions in france secured, and his beautiful wife to cheer him, and a son born to give him greater happiness, all appeared bright before him. but, in the fulness of his triumph and the height of his power, death came upon him, and his day was done. when he fell ill at vincennes, and found that he could not recover, he was very calm and quiet, and spoke serenely to those who wept around his bed. his wife and child, he said, he left to the loving care of his brother the duke of bedford, and his other faithful nobles. he gave them his advice that england should establish a friendship with the new duke of burgundy, and offer him the regency of france; that it should not set free the royal princes who had been taken at agincourt; and that, whatever quarrel might arise with france, england should never make peace without holding normandy. then, he laid down his head, and asked the attendant priests to chant the penitential psalms. amid which solemn sounds, on the thirty- first of august, one thousand four hundred and twenty-two, in only the thirty-fourth year of his age and the tenth of his reign, king henry the fifth passed away. slowly and mournfully they carried his embalmed body in a procession of great state to paris, and thence to rouen where his queen was: from whom the sad intelligence of his death was concealed until he had been dead some days. thence, lying on a bed of crimson and gold, with a golden crown upon the head, and a golden ball and sceptre lying in the nerveless hands, they carried it to calais, with such a great retinue as seemed to dye the road black. the king of scotland acted as chief mourner, all the royal household followed, the knights wore black armour and black plumes of feathers, crowds of men bore torches, making the night as light as day; and the widowed princess followed last of all. at calais there was a fleet of ships to bring the funeral host to dover. and so, by way of london bridge, where the service for the dead was chanted as it passed along, they brought the body to westminster abbey, and there buried it with great respect. chapter xxii--england under henry the sixth part the first it had been the wish of the late king, that while his infant son king henry the sixth, at this time only nine months old, was under age, the duke of gloucester should be appointed regent. the english parliament, however, preferred to appoint a council of regency, with the duke of bedford at its head: to be represented, in his absence only, by the duke of gloucester. the parliament would seem to have been wise in this, for gloucester soon showed himself to be ambitious and troublesome, and, in the gratification of his own personal schemes, gave dangerous offence to the duke of burgundy, which was with difficulty adjusted. as that duke declined the regency of france, it was bestowed by the poor french king upon the duke of bedford. but, the french king dying within two months, the dauphin instantly asserted his claim to the french throne, and was actually crowned under the title of charles the seventh. the duke of bedford, to be a match for him, entered into a friendly league with the dukes of burgundy and brittany, and gave them his two sisters in marriage. war with france was immediately renewed, and the perpetual peace came to an untimely end. in the first campaign, the english, aided by this alliance, were speedily successful. as scotland, however, had sent the french five thousand men, and might send more, or attack the north of england while england was busy with france, it was considered that it would be a good thing to offer the scottish king, james, who had been so long imprisoned, his liberty, on his paying forty thousand pounds for his board and lodging during nineteen years, and engaging to forbid his subjects from serving under the flag of france. it is pleasant to know, not only that the amiable captive at last regained his freedom upon these terms, but, that he married a noble english lady, with whom he had been long in love, and became an excellent king. i am afraid we have met with some kings in this history, and shall meet with some more, who would have been very much the better, and would have left the world much happier, if they had been imprisoned nineteen years too. in the second campaign, the english gained a considerable victory at verneuil, in a battle which was chiefly remarkable, otherwise, for their resorting to the odd expedient of tying their baggage-horses together by the heads and tails, and jumbling them up with the baggage, so as to convert them into a sort of live fortification--which was found useful to the troops, but which i should think was not agreeable to the horses. for three years afterwards very little was done, owing to both sides being too poor for war, which is a very expensive entertainment; but, a council was then held in paris, in which it was decided to lay siege to the town of orleans, which was a place of great importance to the dauphin's cause. an english army of ten thousand men was despatched on this service, under the command of the earl of salisbury, a general of fame. he being unfortunately killed early in the siege, the earl of suffolk took his place; under whom (reinforced by sir john falstaff, who brought up four hundred waggons laden with salt herrings and other provisions for the troops, and, beating off the french who tried to intercept him, came victorious out of a hot skirmish, which was afterwards called in jest the battle of the herrings) the town of orleans was so completely hemmed in, that the besieged proposed to yield it up to their countryman the duke of burgundy. the english general, however, replied that his english men had won it, so far, by their blood and valour, and that his english men must have it. there seemed to be no hope for the town, or for the dauphin, who was so dismayed that he even thought of flying to scotland or to spain--when a peasant girl rose up and changed the whole state of affairs. the story of this peasant girl i have now to tell. part the second: the story of joan of arc in a remote village among some wild hills in the province of lorraine, there lived a countryman whose name was jacques d'arc. he had a daughter, joan of arc, who was at this time in her twentieth year. she had been a solitary girl from her childhood; she had often tended sheep and cattle for whole days where no human figure was seen or human voice heard; and she had often knelt, for hours together, in the gloomy, empty, little village chapel, looking up at the altar and at the dim lamp burning before it, until she fancied that she saw shadowy figures standing there, and even that she heard them speak to her. the people in that part of france were very ignorant and superstitious, and they had many ghostly tales to tell about what they had dreamed, and what they saw among the lonely hills when the clouds and the mists were resting on them. so, they easily believed that joan saw strange sights, and they whispered among themselves that angels and spirits talked to her. at last, joan told her father that she had one day been surprised by a great unearthly light, and had afterwards heard a solemn voice, which said it was saint michael's voice, telling her that she was to go and help the dauphin. soon after this (she said), saint catherine and saint margaret had appeared to her with sparkling crowns upon their heads, and had encouraged her to be virtuous and resolute. these visions had returned sometimes; but the voices very often; and the voices always said, 'joan, thou art appointed by heaven to go and help the dauphin!' she almost always heard them while the chapel bells were ringing. there is no doubt, now, that joan believed she saw and heard these things. it is very well known that such delusions are a disease which is not by any means uncommon. it is probable enough that there were figures of saint michael, and saint catherine, and saint margaret, in the little chapel (where they would be very likely to have shining crowns upon their heads), and that they first gave joan the idea of those three personages. she had long been a moping, fanciful girl, and, though she was a very good girl, i dare say she was a little vain, and wishful for notoriety. her father, something wiser than his neighbours, said, 'i tell thee, joan, it is thy fancy. thou hadst better have a kind husband to take care of thee, girl, and work to employ thy mind!' but joan told him in reply, that she had taken a vow never to have a husband, and that she must go as heaven directed her, to help the dauphin. it happened, unfortunately for her father's persuasions, and most unfortunately for the poor girl, too, that a party of the dauphin's enemies found their way into the village while joan's disorder was at this point, and burnt the chapel, and drove out the inhabitants. the cruelties she saw committed, touched joan's heart and made her worse. she said that the voices and the figures were now continually with her; that they told her she was the girl who, according to an old prophecy, was to deliver france; and she must go and help the dauphin, and must remain with him until he should be crowned at rheims: and that she must travel a long way to a certain lord named baudricourt, who could and would, bring her into the dauphin's presence. as her father still said, 'i tell thee, joan, it is thy fancy,' she set off to find out this lord, accompanied by an uncle, a poor village wheelwright and cart-maker, who believed in the reality of her visions. they travelled a long way and went on and on, over a rough country, full of the duke of burgundy's men, and of all kinds of robbers and marauders, until they came to where this lord was. when his servants told him that there was a poor peasant girl named joan of arc, accompanied by nobody but an old village wheelwright and cart- maker, who wished to see him because she was commanded to help the dauphin and save france, baudricourt burst out a-laughing, and bade them send the girl away. but, he soon heard so much about her lingering in the town, and praying in the churches, and seeing visions, and doing harm to no one, that he sent for her, and questioned her. as she said the same things after she had been well sprinkled with holy water as she had said before the sprinkling, baudricourt began to think there might be something in it. at all events, he thought it worth while to send her on to the town of chinon, where the dauphin was. so, he bought her a horse, and a sword, and gave her two squires to conduct her. as the voices had told joan that she was to wear a man's dress, now, she put one on, and girded her sword to her side, and bound spurs to her heels, and mounted her horse and rode away with her two squires. as to her uncle the wheelwright, he stood staring at his niece in wonder until she was out of sight--as well he might--and then went home again. the best place, too. joan and her two squires rode on and on, until they came to chinon, where she was, after some doubt, admitted into the dauphin's presence. picking him out immediately from all his court, she told him that she came commanded by heaven to subdue his enemies and conduct him to his coronation at rheims. she also told him (or he pretended so afterwards, to make the greater impression upon his soldiers) a number of his secrets known only to himself, and, furthermore, she said there was an old, old sword in the cathedral of saint catherine at fierbois, marked with five old crosses on the blade, which saint catherine had ordered her to wear. {joan of arc: p .jpg} now, nobody knew anything about this old, old sword, but when the cathedral came to be examined--which was immediately done--there, sure enough, the sword was found! the dauphin then required a number of grave priests and bishops to give him their opinion whether the girl derived her power from good spirits or from evil spirits, which they held prodigiously long debates about, in the course of which several learned men fell fast asleep and snored loudly. at last, when one gruff old gentleman had said to joan, 'what language do your voices speak?' and when joan had replied to the gruff old gentleman, 'a pleasanter language than yours,' they agreed that it was all correct, and that joan of arc was inspired from heaven. this wonderful circumstance put new heart into the dauphin's soldiers when they heard of it, and dispirited the english army, who took joan for a witch. so joan mounted horse again, and again rode on and on, until she came to orleans. but she rode now, as never peasant girl had ridden yet. she rode upon a white war-horse, in a suit of glittering armour; with the old, old sword from the cathedral, newly burnished, in her belt; with a white flag carried before her, upon which were a picture of god, and the words jesus maria. in this splendid state, at the head of a great body of troops escorting provisions of all kinds for the starving inhabitants of orleans, she appeared before that beleaguered city. when the people on the walls beheld her, they cried out 'the maid is come! the maid of the prophecy is come to deliver us!' and this, and the sight of the maid fighting at the head of their men, made the french so bold, and made the english so fearful, that the english line of forts was soon broken, the troops and provisions were got into the town, and orleans was saved. joan, henceforth called the maid of orleans, remained within the walls for a few days, and caused letters to be thrown over, ordering lord suffolk and his englishmen to depart from before the town according to the will of heaven. as the english general very positively declined to believe that joan knew anything about the will of heaven (which did not mend the matter with his soldiers, for they stupidly said if she were not inspired she was a witch, and it was of no use to fight against a witch), she mounted her white war-horse again, and ordered her white banner to advance. the besiegers held the bridge, and some strong towers upon the bridge; and here the maid of orleans attacked them. the fight was fourteen hours long. she planted a scaling ladder with her own hands, and mounted a tower wall, but was struck by an english arrow in the neck, and fell into the trench. she was carried away and the arrow was taken out, during which operation she screamed and cried with the pain, as any other girl might have done; but presently she said that the voices were speaking to her and soothing her to rest. after a while, she got up, and was again foremost in the fight. when the english who had seen her fall and supposed her dead, saw this, they were troubled with the strangest fears, and some of them cried out that they beheld saint michael on a white horse (probably joan herself) fighting for the french. they lost the bridge, and lost the towers, and next day set their chain of forts on fire, and left the place. but as lord suffolk himself retired no farther than the town of jargeau, which was only a few miles off, the maid of orleans besieged him there, and he was taken prisoner. as the white banner scaled the wall, she was struck upon the head with a stone, and was again tumbled down into the ditch; but, she only cried all the more, as she lay there, 'on, on, my countrymen! and fear nothing, for the lord hath delivered them into our hands!' after this new success of the maid's, several other fortresses and places which had previously held out against the dauphin were delivered up without a battle; and at patay she defeated the remainder of the english army, and set up her victorious white banner on a field where twelve hundred englishmen lay dead. she now urged the dauphin (who always kept out of the way when there was any fighting) to proceed to rheims, as the first part of her mission was accomplished; and to complete the whole by being crowned there. the dauphin was in no particular hurry to do this, as rheims was a long way off, and the english and the duke of burgundy were still strong in the country through which the road lay. however, they set forth, with ten thousand men, and again the maid of orleans rode on and on, upon her white war-horse, and in her shining armour. whenever they came to a town which yielded readily, the soldiers believed in her; but, whenever they came to a town which gave them any trouble, they began to murmur that she was an impostor. the latter was particularly the case at troyes, which finally yielded, however, through the persuasion of one richard, a friar of the place. friar richard was in the old doubt about the maid of orleans, until he had sprinkled her well with holy water, and had also well sprinkled the threshold of the gate by which she came into the city. finding that it made no change in her or the gate, he said, as the other grave old gentlemen had said, that it was all right, and became her great ally. so, at last, by dint of riding on and on, the maid of orleans, and the dauphin, and the ten thousand sometimes believing and sometimes unbelieving men, came to rheims. and in the great cathedral of rheims, the dauphin actually was crowned charles the seventh in a great assembly of the people. then, the maid, who with her white banner stood beside the king in that hour of his triumph, kneeled down upon the pavement at his feet, and said, with tears, that what she had been inspired to do, was done, and that the only recompense she asked for, was, that she should now have leave to go back to her distant home, and her sturdily incredulous father, and her first simple escort the village wheelwright and cart-maker. but the king said 'no!' and made her and her family as noble as a king could, and settled upon her the income of a count. ah! happy had it been for the maid of orleans, if she had resumed her rustic dress that day, and had gone home to the little chapel and the wild hills, and had forgotten all these things, and had been a good man's wife, and had heard no stranger voices than the voices of little children! it was not to be, and she continued helping the king (she did a world for him, in alliance with friar richard), and trying to improve the lives of the coarse soldiers, and leading a religious, an unselfish, and a modest life, herself, beyond any doubt. still, many times she prayed the king to let her go home; and once she even took off her bright armour and hung it up in a church, meaning never to wear it more. but, the king always won her back again--while she was of any use to him--and so she went on and on and on, to her doom. when the duke of bedford, who was a very able man, began to be active for england, and, by bringing the war back into france and by holding the duke of burgundy to his faith, to distress and disturb charles very much, charles sometimes asked the maid of orleans what the voices said about it? but, the voices had become (very like ordinary voices in perplexed times) contradictory and confused, so that now they said one thing, and now said another, and the maid lost credit every day. charles marched on paris, which was opposed to him, and attacked the suburb of saint honore. in this fight, being again struck down into the ditch, she was abandoned by the whole army. she lay unaided among a heap of dead, and crawled out how she could. then, some of her believers went over to an opposition maid, catherine of la rochelle, who said she was inspired to tell where there were treasures of buried money--though she never did--and then joan accidentally broke the old, old sword, and others said that her power was broken with it. finally, at the siege of compiegne, held by the duke of burgundy, where she did valiant service, she was basely left alone in a retreat, though facing about and fighting to the last; and an archer pulled her off her horse. o the uproar that was made, and the thanksgivings that were sung, about the capture of this one poor country-girl! o the way in which she was demanded to be tried for sorcery and heresy, and anything else you like, by the inquisitor-general of france, and by this great man, and by that great man, until it is wearisome to think of! she was bought at last by the bishop of beauvais for ten thousand francs, and was shut up in her narrow prison: plain joan of arc again, and maid of orleans no more. i should never have done if i were to tell you how they had joan out to examine her, and cross-examine her, and re-examine her, and worry her into saying anything and everything; and how all sorts of scholars and doctors bestowed their utmost tediousness upon her. sixteen times she was brought out and shut up again, and worried, and entrapped, and argued with, until she was heart-sick of the dreary business. on the last occasion of this kind she was brought into a burial-place at rouen, dismally decorated with a scaffold, and a stake and faggots, and the executioner, and a pulpit with a friar therein, and an awful sermon ready. it is very affecting to know that even at that pass the poor girl honoured the mean vermin of a king, who had so used her for his purposes and so abandoned her; and, that while she had been regardless of reproaches heaped upon herself, she spoke out courageously for him. it was natural in one so young to hold to life. to save her life, she signed a declaration prepared for her--signed it with a cross, for she couldn't write--that all her visions and voices had come from the devil. upon her recanting the past, and protesting that she would never wear a man's dress in future, she was condemned to imprisonment for life, 'on the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction.' but, on the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction, the visions and the voices soon returned. it was quite natural that they should do so, for that kind of disease is much aggravated by fasting, loneliness, and anxiety of mind. it was not only got out of joan that she considered herself inspired again, but, she was taken in a man's dress, which had been left--to entrap her--in her prison, and which she put on, in her solitude; perhaps, in remembrance of her past glories, perhaps, because the imaginary voices told her. for this relapse into the sorcery and heresy and anything else you like, she was sentenced to be burnt to death. and, in the market-place of rouen, in the hideous dress which the monks had invented for such spectacles; with priests and bishops sitting in a gallery looking on, though some had the christian grace to go away, unable to endure the infamous scene; this shrieking girl--last seen amidst the smoke and fire, holding a crucifix between her hands; last heard, calling upon christ--was burnt to ashes. they threw her ashes into the river seine; but they will rise against her murderers on the last day. from the moment of her capture, neither the french king nor one single man in all his court raised a finger to save her. it is no defence of them that they may have never really believed in her, or that they may have won her victories by their skill and bravery. the more they pretended to believe in her, the more they had caused her to believe in herself; and she had ever been true to them, ever brave, ever nobly devoted. but, it is no wonder, that they, who were in all things false to themselves, false to one another, false to their country, false to heaven, false to earth, should be monsters of ingratitude and treachery to a helpless peasant girl. in the picturesque old town of rouen, where weeds and grass grow high on the cathedral towers, and the venerable norman streets are still warm in the blessed sunlight though the monkish fires that once gleamed horribly upon them have long grown cold, there is a statue of joan of arc, in the scene of her last agony, the square to which she has given its present name. i know some statues of modern times--even in the world's metropolis, i think--which commemorate less constancy, less earnestness, smaller claims upon the world's attention, and much greater impostors. part the third bad deeds seldom prosper, happily for mankind; and the english cause gained no advantage from the cruel death of joan of arc. for a long time, the war went heavily on. the duke of bedford died; the alliance with the duke of burgundy was broken; and lord talbot became a great general on the english side in france. but, two of the consequences of wars are, famine--because the people cannot peacefully cultivate the ground--and pestilence, which comes of want, misery, and suffering. both these horrors broke out in both countries, and lasted for two wretched years. then, the war went on again, and came by slow degrees to be so badly conducted by the english government, that, within twenty years from the execution of the maid of orleans, of all the great french conquests, the town of calais alone remained in english hands. while these victories and defeats were taking place in the course of time, many strange things happened at home. the young king, as he grew up, proved to be very unlike his great father, and showed himself a miserable puny creature. there was no harm in him--he had a great aversion to shedding blood: which was something--but, he was a weak, silly, helpless young man, and a mere shuttlecock to the great lordly battledores about the court. of these battledores, cardinal beaufort, a relation of the king, and the duke of gloucester, were at first the most powerful. the duke of gloucester had a wife, who was nonsensically accused of practising witchcraft to cause the king's death and lead to her husband's coming to the throne, he being the next heir. she was charged with having, by the help of a ridiculous old woman named margery (who was called a witch), made a little waxen doll in the king's likeness, and put it before a slow fire that it might gradually melt away. it was supposed, in such cases, that the death of the person whom the doll was made to represent, was sure to happen. whether the duchess was as ignorant as the rest of them, and really did make such a doll with such an intention, i don't know; but, you and i know very well that she might have made a thousand dolls, if she had been stupid enough, and might have melted them all, without hurting the king or anybody else. however, she was tried for it, and so was old margery, and so was one of the duke's chaplains, who was charged with having assisted them. both he and margery were put to death, and the duchess, after being taken on foot and bearing a lighted candle, three times round the city, as a penance, was imprisoned for life. the duke, himself, took all this pretty quietly, and made as little stir about the matter as if he were rather glad to be rid of the duchess. but, he was not destined to keep himself out of trouble long. the royal shuttlecock being three-and-twenty, the battledores were very anxious to get him married. the duke of gloucester wanted him to marry a daughter of the count of armagnac; but, the cardinal and the earl of suffolk were all for margaret, the daughter of the king of sicily, who they knew was a resolute, ambitious woman and would govern the king as she chose. to make friends with this lady, the earl of suffolk, who went over to arrange the match, consented to accept her for the king's wife without any fortune, and even to give up the two most valuable possessions england then had in france. so, the marriage was arranged, on terms very advantageous to the lady; and lord suffolk brought her to england, and she was married at westminster. on what pretence this queen and her party charged the duke of gloucester with high treason within a couple of years, it is impossible to make out, the matter is so confused; but, they pretended that the king's life was in danger, and they took the duke prisoner. a fortnight afterwards, he was found dead in bed (they said), and his body was shown to the people, and lord suffolk came in for the best part of his estates. you know by this time how strangely liable state prisoners were to sudden death. if cardinal beaufort had any hand in this matter, it did him no good, for he died within six weeks; thinking it very hard and curious--at eighty years old!--that he could not live to be pope. this was the time when england had completed her loss of all her great french conquests. the people charged the loss principally upon the earl of suffolk, now a duke, who had made those easy terms about the royal marriage, and who, they believed, had even been bought by france. so he was impeached as a traitor, on a great number of charges, but chiefly on accusations of having aided the french king, and of designing to make his own son king of england. the commons and the people being violent against him, the king was made (by his friends) to interpose to save him, by banishing him for five years, and proroguing the parliament. the duke had much ado to escape from a london mob, two thousand strong, who lay in wait for him in st. giles's fields; but, he got down to his own estates in suffolk, and sailed away from ipswich. sailing across the channel, he sent into calais to know if he might land there; but, they kept his boat and men in the harbour, until an english ship, carrying a hundred and fifty men and called the nicholas of the tower, came alongside his little vessel, and ordered him on board. 'welcome, traitor, as men say,' was the captain's grim and not very respectful salutation. he was kept on board, a prisoner, for eight-and-forty hours, and then a small boat appeared rowing toward the ship. as this boat came nearer, it was seen to have in it a block, a rusty sword, and an executioner in a black mask. the duke was handed down into it, and there his head was cut off with six strokes of the rusty sword. then, the little boat rowed away to dover beach, where the body was cast out, and left until the duchess claimed it. by whom, high in authority, this murder was committed, has never appeared. no one was ever punished for it. there now arose in kent an irishman, who gave himself the name of mortimer, but whose real name was jack cade. jack, in imitation of wat tyler, though he was a very different and inferior sort of man, addressed the kentish men upon their wrongs, occasioned by the bad government of england, among so many battledores and such a poor shuttlecock; and the kentish men rose up to the number of twenty thousand. their place of assembly was blackheath, where, headed by jack, they put forth two papers, which they called 'the complaint of the commons of kent,' and 'the requests of the captain of the great assembly in kent.' they then retired to sevenoaks. the royal army coming up with them here, they beat it and killed their general. then, jack dressed himself in the dead general's armour, and led his men to london. jack passed into the city from southwark, over the bridge, and entered it in triumph, giving the strictest orders to his men not to plunder. having made a show of his forces there, while the citizens looked on quietly, he went back into southwark in good order, and passed the night. next day, he came back again, having got hold in the meantime of lord say, an unpopular nobleman. says jack to the lord mayor and judges: 'will you be so good as to make a tribunal in guildhall, and try me this nobleman?' the court being hastily made, he was found guilty, and jack and his men cut his head off on cornhill. they also cut off the head of his son-in- law, and then went back in good order to southwark again. but, although the citizens could bear the beheading of an unpopular lord, they could not bear to have their houses pillaged. and it did so happen that jack, after dinner--perhaps he had drunk a little too much--began to plunder the house where he lodged; upon which, of course, his men began to imitate him. wherefore, the londoners took counsel with lord scales, who had a thousand soldiers in the tower; and defended london bridge, and kept jack and his people out. this advantage gained, it was resolved by divers great men to divide jack's army in the old way, by making a great many promises on behalf of the state, that were never intended to be performed. this _did_ divide them; some of jack's men saying that they ought to take the conditions which were offered, and others saying that they ought not, for they were only a snare; some going home at once; others staying where they were; and all doubting and quarrelling among themselves. jack, who was in two minds about fighting or accepting a pardon, and who indeed did both, saw at last that there was nothing to expect from his men, and that it was very likely some of them would deliver him up and get a reward of a thousand marks, which was offered for his apprehension. so, after they had travelled and quarrelled all the way from southwark to blackheath, and from blackheath to rochester, he mounted a good horse and galloped away into sussex. but, there galloped after him, on a better horse, one alexander iden, who came up with him, had a hard fight with him, and killed him. jack's head was set aloft on london bridge, with the face looking towards blackheath, where he had raised his flag; and alexander iden got the thousand marks. it is supposed by some, that the duke of york, who had been removed from a high post abroad through the queen's influence, and sent out of the way, to govern ireland, was at the bottom of this rising of jack and his men, because he wanted to trouble the government. he claimed (though not yet publicly) to have a better right to the throne than henry of lancaster, as one of the family of the earl of march, whom henry the fourth had set aside. touching this claim, which, being through female relationship, was not according to the usual descent, it is enough to say that henry the fourth was the free choice of the people and the parliament, and that his family had now reigned undisputed for sixty years. the memory of henry the fifth was so famous, and the english people loved it so much, that the duke of york's claim would, perhaps, never have been thought of (it would have been so hopeless) but for the unfortunate circumstance of the present king's being by this time quite an idiot, and the country very ill governed. these two circumstances gave the duke of york a power he could not otherwise have had. whether the duke knew anything of jack cade, or not, he came over from ireland while jack's head was on london bridge; being secretly advised that the queen was setting up his enemy, the duke of somerset, against him. he went to westminster, at the head of four thousand men, and on his knees before the king, represented to him the bad state of the country, and petitioned him to summon a parliament to consider it. this the king promised. when the parliament was summoned, the duke of york accused the duke of somerset, and the duke of somerset accused the duke of york; and, both in and out of parliament, the followers of each party were full of violence and hatred towards the other. at length the duke of york put himself at the head of a large force of his tenants, and, in arms, demanded the reformation of the government. being shut out of london, he encamped at dartford, and the royal army encamped at blackheath. according as either side triumphed, the duke of york was arrested, or the duke of somerset was arrested. the trouble ended, for the moment, in the duke of york renewing his oath of allegiance, and going in peace to one of his own castles. half a year afterwards the queen gave birth to a son, who was very ill received by the people, and not believed to be the son of the king. it shows the duke of york to have been a moderate man, unwilling to involve england in new troubles, that he did not take advantage of the general discontent at this time, but really acted for the public good. he was made a member of the cabinet, and the king being now so much worse that he could not be carried about and shown to the people with any decency, the duke was made lord protector of the kingdom, until the king should recover, or the prince should come of age. at the same time the duke of somerset was committed to the tower. so, now the duke of somerset was down, and the duke of york was up. by the end of the year, however, the king recovered his memory and some spark of sense; upon which the queen used her power--which recovered with him--to get the protector disgraced, and her favourite released. so now the duke of york was down, and the duke of somerset was up. these ducal ups and downs gradually separated the whole nation into the two parties of york and lancaster, and led to those terrible civil wars long known as the wars of the red and white roses, because the red rose was the badge of the house of lancaster, and the white rose was the badge of the house of york. the duke of york, joined by some other powerful noblemen of the white rose party, and leading a small army, met the king with another small army at st. alban's, and demanded that the duke of somerset should be given up. the poor king, being made to say in answer that he would sooner die, was instantly attacked. the duke of somerset was killed, and the king himself was wounded in the neck, and took refuge in the house of a poor tanner. whereupon, the duke of york went to him, led him with great submission to the abbey, and said he was very sorry for what had happened. having now the king in his possession, he got a parliament summoned and himself once more made protector, but, only for a few months; for, on the king getting a little better again, the queen and her party got him into their possession, and disgraced the duke once more. so, now the duke of york was down again. some of the best men in power, seeing the danger of these constant changes, tried even then to prevent the red and the white rose wars. they brought about a great council in london between the two parties. the white roses assembled in blackfriars, the red roses in whitefriars; and some good priests communicated between them, and made the proceedings known at evening to the king and the judges. they ended in a peaceful agreement that there should be no more quarrelling; and there was a great royal procession to st. paul's, in which the queen walked arm-in-arm with her old enemy, the duke of york, to show the people how comfortable they all were. this state of peace lasted half a year, when a dispute between the earl of warwick (one of the duke's powerful friends) and some of the king's servants at court, led to an attack upon that earl--who was a white rose--and to a sudden breaking out of all old animosities. so, here were greater ups and downs than ever. there were even greater ups and downs than these, soon after. after various battles, the duke of york fled to ireland, and his son the earl of march to calais, with their friends the earls of salisbury and warwick; and a parliament was held declaring them all traitors. little the worse for this, the earl of warwick presently came back, landed in kent, was joined by the archbishop of canterbury and other powerful noblemen and gentlemen, engaged the king's forces at northampton, signally defeated them, and took the king himself prisoner, who was found in his tent. warwick would have been glad, i dare say, to have taken the queen and prince too, but they escaped into wales and thence into scotland. the king was carried by the victorious force straight to london, and made to call a new parliament, which immediately declared that the duke of york and those other noblemen were not traitors, but excellent subjects. then, back comes the duke from ireland at the head of five hundred horsemen, rides from london to westminster, and enters the house of lords. there, he laid his hand upon the cloth of gold which covered the empty throne, as if he had half a mind to sit down in it--but he did not. on the archbishop of canterbury, asking him if he would visit the king, who was in his palace close by, he replied, 'i know no one in this country, my lord, who ought not to visit _me_.' none of the lords present spoke a single word; so, the duke went out as he had come in, established himself royally in the king's palace, and, six days afterwards, sent in to the lords a formal statement of his claim to the throne. the lords went to the king on this momentous subject, and after a great deal of discussion, in which the judges and the other law officers were afraid to give an opinion on either side, the question was compromised. it was agreed that the present king should retain the crown for his life, and that it should then pass to the duke of york and his heirs. but, the resolute queen, determined on asserting her son's right, would hear of no such thing. she came from scotland to the north of england, where several powerful lords armed in her cause. the duke of york, for his part, set off with some five thousand men, a little time before christmas day, one thousand four hundred and sixty, to give her battle. he lodged at sandal castle, near wakefield, and the red roses defied him to come out on wakefield green, and fight them then and there. his generals said, he had best wait until his gallant son, the earl of march, came up with his power; but, he was determined to accept the challenge. he did so, in an evil hour. he was hotly pressed on all sides, two thousand of his men lay dead on wakefield green, and he himself was taken prisoner. they set him down in mock state on an ant-hill, and twisted grass about his head, and pretended to pay court to him on their knees, saying, 'o king, without a kingdom, and prince without a people, we hope your gracious majesty is very well and happy!' they did worse than this; they cut his head off, and handed it on a pole to the queen, who laughed with delight when she saw it (you recollect their walking so religiously and comfortably to st. paul's!), and had it fixed, with a paper crown upon its head, on the walls of york. the earl of salisbury lost his head, too; and the duke of york's second son, a handsome boy who was flying with his tutor over wakefield bridge, was stabbed in the heart by a murderous, lord--lord clifford by name--whose father had been killed by the white roses in the fight at st. alban's. there was awful sacrifice of life in this battle, for no quarter was given, and the queen was wild for revenge. when men unnaturally fight against their own countrymen, they are always observed to be more unnaturally cruel and filled with rage than they are against any other enemy. but, lord clifford had stabbed the second son of the duke of york--not the first. the eldest son, edward earl of march, was at gloucester; and, vowing vengeance for the death of his father, his brother, and their faithful friends, he began to march against the queen. he had to turn and fight a great body of welsh and irish first, who worried his advance. these he defeated in a great fight at mortimer's cross, near hereford, where he beheaded a number of the red roses taken in battle, in retaliation for the beheading of the white roses at wakefield. the queen had the next turn of beheading. having moved towards london, and falling in, between st. alban's and barnet, with the earl of warwick and the duke of norfolk, white roses both, who were there with an army to oppose her, and had got the king with them; she defeated them with great loss, and struck off the heads of two prisoners of note, who were in the king's tent with him, and to whom the king had promised his protection. her triumph, however, was very short. she had no treasure, and her army subsisted by plunder. this caused them to be hated and dreaded by the people, and particularly by the london people, who were wealthy. as soon as the londoners heard that edward, earl of march, united with the earl of warwick, was advancing towards the city, they refused to send the queen supplies, and made a great rejoicing. the queen and her men retreated with all speed, and edward and warwick came on, greeted with loud acclamations on every side. the courage, beauty, and virtues of young edward could not be sufficiently praised by the whole people. he rode into london like a conqueror, and met with an enthusiastic welcome. a few days afterwards, lord falconbridge and the bishop of exeter assembled the citizens in st. john's field, clerkenwell, and asked them if they would have henry of lancaster for their king? to this they all roared, 'no, no, no!' and 'king edward! king edward!' then, said those noblemen, would they love and serve young edward? to this they all cried, 'yes, yes!' and threw up their caps and clapped their hands, and cheered tremendously. therefore, it was declared that by joining the queen and not protecting those two prisoners of note, henry of lancaster had forfeited the crown; and edward of york was proclaimed king. he made a great speech to the applauding people at westminster, and sat down as sovereign of england on that throne, on the golden covering of which his father--worthy of a better fate than the bloody axe which cut the thread of so many lives in england, through so many years--had laid his hand. chapter xxiii--england under edward the fourth king edward the fourth was not quite twenty-one years of age when he took that unquiet seat upon the throne of england. the lancaster party, the red roses, were then assembling in great numbers near york, and it was necessary to give them battle instantly. but, the stout earl of warwick leading for the young king, and the young king himself closely following him, and the english people crowding round the royal standard, the white and the red roses met, on a wild march day when the snow was falling heavily, at towton; and there such a furious battle raged between them, that the total loss amounted to forty thousand men--all englishmen, fighting, upon english ground, against one another. the young king gained the day, took down the heads of his father and brother from the walls of york, and put up the heads of some of the most famous noblemen engaged in the battle on the other side. then, he went to london and was crowned with great splendour. a new parliament met. no fewer than one hundred and fifty of the principal noblemen and gentlemen on the lancaster side were declared traitors, and the king--who had very little humanity, though he was handsome in person and agreeable in manners--resolved to do all he could, to pluck up the red rose root and branch. queen margaret, however, was still active for her young son. she obtained help from scotland and from normandy, and took several important english castles. but, warwick soon retook them; the queen lost all her treasure on board ship in a great storm; and both she and her son suffered great misfortunes. once, in the winter weather, as they were riding through a forest, they were attacked and plundered by a party of robbers; and, when they had escaped from these men and were passing alone and on foot through a thick dark part of the wood, they came, all at once, upon another robber. so the queen, with a stout heart, took the little prince by the hand, and going straight up to that robber, said to him, 'my friend, this is the young son of your lawful king! i confide him to your care.' the robber was surprised, but took the boy in his arms, and faithfully restored him and his mother to their friends. in the end, the queen's soldiers being beaten and dispersed, she went abroad again, and kept quiet for the present. now, all this time, the deposed king henry was concealed by a welsh knight, who kept him close in his castle. but, next year, the lancaster party recovering their spirits, raised a large body of men, and called him out of his retirement, to put him at their head. they were joined by some powerful noblemen who had sworn fidelity to the new king, but who were ready, as usual, to break their oaths, whenever they thought there was anything to be got by it. one of the worst things in the history of the war of the red and white roses, is the ease with which these noblemen, who should have set an example of honour to the people, left either side as they took slight offence, or were disappointed in their greedy expectations, and joined the other. well! warwick's brother soon beat the lancastrians, and the false noblemen, being taken, were beheaded without a moment's loss of time. the deposed king had a narrow escape; three of his servants were taken, and one of them bore his cap of estate, which was set with pearls and embroidered with two golden crowns. however, the head to which the cap belonged, got safely into lancashire, and lay pretty quietly there (the people in the secret being very true) for more than a year. at length, an old monk gave such intelligence as led to henry's being taken while he was sitting at dinner in a place called waddington hall. he was immediately sent to london, and met at islington by the earl of warwick, by whose directions he was put upon a horse, with his legs tied under it, and paraded three times round the pillory. then, he was carried off to the tower, where they treated him well enough. the white rose being so triumphant, the young king abandoned himself entirely to pleasure, and led a jovial life. but, thorns were springing up under his bed of roses, as he soon found out. for, having been privately married to elizabeth woodville, a young widow lady, very beautiful and very captivating; and at last resolving to make his secret known, and to declare her his queen; he gave some offence to the earl of warwick, who was usually called the king-maker, because of his power and influence, and because of his having lent such great help to placing edward on the throne. this offence was not lessened by the jealousy with which the nevil family (the earl of warwick's) regarded the promotion of the woodville family. for, the young queen was so bent on providing for her relations, that she made her father an earl and a great officer of state; married her five sisters to young noblemen of the highest rank; and provided for her younger brother, a young man of twenty, by marrying him to an immensely rich old duchess of eighty. the earl of warwick took all this pretty graciously for a man of his proud temper, until the question arose to whom the king's sister, margaret, should be married. the earl of warwick said, 'to one of the french king's sons,' and was allowed to go over to the french king to make friendly proposals for that purpose, and to hold all manner of friendly interviews with him. but, while he was so engaged, the woodville party married the young lady to the duke of burgundy! upon this he came back in great rage and scorn, and shut himself up discontented, in his castle of middleham. a reconciliation, though not a very sincere one, was patched up between the earl of warwick and the king, and lasted until the earl married his daughter, against the king's wishes, to the duke of clarence. while the marriage was being celebrated at calais, the people in the north of england, where the influence of the nevil family was strongest, broke out into rebellion; their complaint was, that england was oppressed and plundered by the woodville family, whom they demanded to have removed from power. as they were joined by great numbers of people, and as they openly declared that they were supported by the earl of warwick, the king did not know what to do. at last, as he wrote to the earl beseeching his aid, he and his new son-in-law came over to england, and began to arrange the business by shutting the king up in middleham castle in the safe keeping of the archbishop of york; so england was not only in the strange position of having two kings at once, but they were both prisoners at the same time. even as yet, however, the king-maker was so far true to the king, that he dispersed a new rising of the lancastrians, took their leader prisoner, and brought him to the king, who ordered him to be immediately executed. he presently allowed the king to return to london, and there innumerable pledges of forgiveness and friendship were exchanged between them, and between the nevils and the woodvilles; the king's eldest daughter was promised in marriage to the heir of the nevil family; and more friendly oaths were sworn, and more friendly promises made, than this book would hold. they lasted about three months. at the end of that time, the archbishop of york made a feast for the king, the earl of warwick, and the duke of clarence, at his house, the moor, in hertfordshire. the king was washing his hands before supper, when some one whispered him that a body of a hundred men were lying in ambush outside the house. whether this were true or untrue, the king took fright, mounted his horse, and rode through the dark night to windsor castle. another reconciliation was patched up between him and the king-maker, but it was a short one, and it was the last. a new rising took place in lincolnshire, and the king marched to repress it. having done so, he proclaimed that both the earl of warwick and the duke of clarence were traitors, who had secretly assisted it, and who had been prepared publicly to join it on the following day. in these dangerous circumstances they both took ship and sailed away to the french court. and here a meeting took place between the earl of warwick and his old enemy, the dowager queen margaret, through whom his father had had his head struck off, and to whom he had been a bitter foe. but, now, when he said that he had done with the ungrateful and perfidious edward of york, and that henceforth he devoted himself to the restoration of the house of lancaster, either in the person of her husband or of her little son, she embraced him as if he had ever been her dearest friend. she did more than that; she married her son to his second daughter, the lady anne. however agreeable this marriage was to the new friends, it was very disagreeable to the duke of clarence, who perceived that his father-in- law, the king-maker, would never make _him_ king, now. so, being but a weak-minded young traitor, possessed of very little worth or sense, he readily listened to an artful court lady sent over for the purpose, and promised to turn traitor once more, and go over to his brother, king edward, when a fitting opportunity should come. the earl of warwick, knowing nothing of this, soon redeemed his promise to the dowager queen margaret, by invading england and landing at plymouth, where he instantly proclaimed king henry, and summoned all englishmen between the ages of sixteen and sixty, to join his banner. then, with his army increasing as he marched along, he went northward, and came so near king edward, who was in that part of the country, that edward had to ride hard for it to the coast of norfolk, and thence to get away in such ships as he could find, to holland. thereupon, the triumphant king-maker and his false son-in-law, the duke of clarence, went to london, took the old king out of the tower, and walked him in a great procession to saint paul's cathedral with the crown upon his head. this did not improve the temper of the duke of clarence, who saw himself farther off from being king than ever; but he kept his secret, and said nothing. the nevil family were restored to all their honours and glories, and the woodvilles and the rest were disgraced. the king-maker, less sanguinary than the king, shed no blood except that of the earl of worcester, who had been so cruel to the people as to have gained the title of the butcher. him they caught hidden in a tree, and him they tried and executed. no other death stained the king-maker's triumph. to dispute this triumph, back came king edward again, next year, landing at ravenspur, coming on to york, causing all his men to cry 'long live king henry!' and swearing on the altar, without a blush, that he came to lay no claim to the crown. now was the time for the duke of clarence, who ordered his men to assume the white rose, and declare for his brother. the marquis of montague, though the earl of warwick's brother, also declining to fight against king edward, he went on successfully to london, where the archbishop of york let him into the city, and where the people made great demonstrations in his favour. for this they had four reasons. firstly, there were great numbers of the king's adherents hiding in the city and ready to break out; secondly, the king owed them a great deal of money, which they could never hope to get if he were unsuccessful; thirdly, there was a young prince to inherit the crown; and fourthly, the king was gay and handsome, and more popular than a better man might have been with the city ladies. after a stay of only two days with these worthy supporters, the king marched out to barnet common, to give the earl of warwick battle. and now it was to be seen, for the last time, whether the king or the king-maker was to carry the day. while the battle was yet pending, the fainthearted duke of clarence began to repent, and sent over secret messages to his father-in-law, offering his services in mediation with the king. but, the earl of warwick disdainfully rejected them, and replied that clarence was false and perjured, and that he would settle the quarrel by the sword. the battle began at four o'clock in the morning and lasted until ten, and during the greater part of the time it was fought in a thick mist--absurdly supposed to be raised by a magician. the loss of life was very great, for the hatred was strong on both sides. the king-maker was defeated, and the king triumphed. both the earl of warwick and his brother were slain, and their bodies lay in st. paul's, for some days, as a spectacle to the people. margaret's spirit was not broken even by this great blow. within five days she was in arms again, and raised her standard in bath, whence she set off with her army, to try and join lord pembroke, who had a force in wales. but, the king, coming up with her outside the town of tewkesbury, and ordering his brother, the duke of gloucester, who was a brave soldier, to attack her men, she sustained an entire defeat, and was taken prisoner, together with her son, now only eighteen years of age. the conduct of the king to this poor youth was worthy of his cruel character. he ordered him to be led into his tent. 'and what,' said he, 'brought _you_ to england?' 'i came to england,' replied the prisoner, with a spirit which a man of spirit might have admired in a captive, 'to recover my father's kingdom, which descended to him as his right, and from him descends to me, as mine.' the king, drawing off his iron gauntlet, struck him with it in the face; and the duke of clarence and some other lords, who were there, drew their noble swords, and killed him. his mother survived him, a prisoner, for five years; after her ransom by the king of france, she survived for six years more. within three weeks of this murder, henry died one of those convenient sudden deaths which were so common in the tower; in plainer words, he was murdered by the king's order. having no particular excitement on his hands after this great defeat of the lancaster party, and being perhaps desirous to get rid of some of his fat (for he was now getting too corpulent to be handsome), the king thought of making war on france. as he wanted more money for this purpose than the parliament could give him, though they were usually ready enough for war, he invented a new way of raising it, by sending for the principal citizens of london, and telling them, with a grave face, that he was very much in want of cash, and would take it very kind in them if they would lend him some. it being impossible for them safely to refuse, they complied, and the moneys thus forced from them were called--no doubt to the great amusement of the king and the court--as if they were free gifts, 'benevolences.' what with grants from parliament, and what with benevolences, the king raised an army and passed over to calais. as nobody wanted war, however, the french king made proposals of peace, which were accepted, and a truce was concluded for seven long years. the proceedings between the kings of france and england on this occasion, were very friendly, very splendid, and very distrustful. they finished with a meeting between the two kings, on a temporary bridge over the river somme, where they embraced through two holes in a strong wooden grating like a lion's cage, and made several bows and fine speeches to one another. it was time, now, that the duke of clarence should be punished for his treacheries; and fate had his punishment in store. he was, probably, not trusted by the king--for who could trust him who knew him!--and he had certainly a powerful opponent in his brother richard, duke of gloucester, who, being avaricious and ambitious, wanted to marry that widowed daughter of the earl of warwick's who had been espoused to the deceased young prince, at calais. clarence, who wanted all the family wealth for himself, secreted this lady, whom richard found disguised as a servant in the city of london, and whom he married; arbitrators appointed by the king, then divided the property between the brothers. this led to ill- will and mistrust between them. clarence's wife dying, and he wishing to make another marriage, which was obnoxious to the king, his ruin was hurried by that means, too. at first, the court struck at his retainers and dependents, and accused some of them of magic and witchcraft, and similar nonsense. successful against this small game, it then mounted to the duke himself, who was impeached by his brother the king, in person, on a variety of such charges. he was found guilty, and sentenced to be publicly executed. he never was publicly executed, but he met his death somehow, in the tower, and, no doubt, through some agency of the king or his brother gloucester, or both. it was supposed at the time that he was told to choose the manner of his death, and that he chose to be drowned in a butt of malmsey wine. i hope the story may be true, for it would have been a becoming death for such a miserable creature. the king survived him some five years. he died in the forty-second year of his life, and the twenty-third of his reign. he had a very good capacity and some good points, but he was selfish, careless, sensual, and cruel. he was a favourite with the people for his showy manners; and the people were a good example to him in the constancy of their attachment. he was penitent on his death-bed for his 'benevolences,' and other extortions, and ordered restitution to be made to the people who had suffered from them. he also called about his bed the enriched members of the woodville family, and the proud lords whose honours were of older date, and endeavoured to reconcile them, for the sake of the peaceful succession of his son and the tranquillity of england. chapter xxiv--england under edward the fifth the late king's eldest son, the prince of wales, called edward after him, was only thirteen years of age at his father's death. he was at ludlow castle with his uncle, the earl of rivers. the prince's brother, the duke of york, only eleven years of age, was in london with his mother. the boldest, most crafty, and most dreaded nobleman in england at that time was their uncle richard, duke of gloucester, and everybody wondered how the two poor boys would fare with such an uncle for a friend or a foe. the queen, their mother, being exceedingly uneasy about this, was anxious that instructions should be sent to lord rivers to raise an army to escort the young king safely to london. but, lord hastings, who was of the court party opposed to the woodvilles, and who disliked the thought of giving them that power, argued against the proposal, and obliged the queen to be satisfied with an escort of two thousand horse. the duke of gloucester did nothing, at first, to justify suspicion. he came from scotland (where he was commanding an army) to york, and was there the first to swear allegiance to his nephew. he then wrote a condoling letter to the queen-mother, and set off to be present at the coronation in london. now, the young king, journeying towards london too, with lord rivers and lord gray, came to stony stratford, as his uncle came to northampton, about ten miles distant; and when those two lords heard that the duke of gloucester was so near, they proposed to the young king that they should go back and greet him in his name. the boy being very willing that they should do so, they rode off and were received with great friendliness, and asked by the duke of gloucester to stay and dine with him. in the evening, while they were merry together, up came the duke of buckingham with three hundred horsemen; and next morning the two lords and the two dukes, and the three hundred horsemen, rode away together to rejoin the king. just as they were entering stony stratford, the duke of gloucester, checking his horse, turned suddenly on the two lords, charged them with alienating from him the affections of his sweet nephew, and caused them to be arrested by the three hundred horsemen and taken back. then, he and the duke of buckingham went straight to the king (whom they had now in their power), to whom they made a show of kneeling down, and offering great love and submission; and then they ordered his attendants to disperse, and took him, alone with them, to northampton. a few days afterwards they conducted him to london, and lodged him in the bishop's palace. but, he did not remain there long; for, the duke of buckingham with a tender face made a speech expressing how anxious he was for the royal boy's safety, and how much safer he would be in the tower until his coronation, than he could be anywhere else. so, to the tower he was taken, very carefully, and the duke of gloucester was named protector of the state. although gloucester had proceeded thus far with a very smooth countenance--and although he was a clever man, fair of speech, and not ill-looking, in spite of one of his shoulders being something higher than the other--and although he had come into the city riding bare-headed at the king's side, and looking very fond of him--he had made the king's mother more uneasy yet; and when the royal boy was taken to the tower, she became so alarmed that she took sanctuary in westminster with her five daughters. nor did she do this without reason, for, the duke of gloucester, finding that the lords who were opposed to the woodville family were faithful to the young king nevertheless, quickly resolved to strike a blow for himself. accordingly, while those lords met in council at the tower, he and those who were in his interest met in separate council at his own residence, crosby palace, in bishopsgate street. being at last quite prepared, he one day appeared unexpectedly at the council in the tower, and appeared to be very jocular and merry. he was particularly gay with the bishop of ely: praising the strawberries that grew in his garden on holborn hill, and asking him to have some gathered that he might eat them at dinner. the bishop, quite proud of the honour, sent one of his men to fetch some; and the duke, still very jocular and gay, went out; and the council all said what a very agreeable duke he was! in a little time, however, he came back quite altered--not at all jocular--frowning and fierce--and suddenly said,-- 'what do those persons deserve who have compassed my destruction; i being the king's lawful, as well as natural, protector?' to this strange question, lord hastings replied, that they deserved death, whosoever they were. 'then,' said the duke, 'i tell you that they are that sorceress my brother's wife;' meaning the queen: 'and that other sorceress, jane shore. who, by witchcraft, have withered my body, and caused my arm to shrink as i now show you.' he then pulled up his sleeve and showed them his arm, which was shrunken, it is true, but which had been so, as they all very well knew, from the hour of his birth. jane shore, being then the lover of lord hastings, as she had formerly been of the late king, that lord knew that he himself was attacked. so, he said, in some confusion, 'certainly, my lord, if they have done this, they be worthy of punishment.' 'if?' said the duke of gloucester; 'do you talk to me of ifs? i tell you that they _have_ so done, and i will make it good upon thy body, thou traitor!' with that, he struck the table a great blow with his fist. this was a signal to some of his people outside to cry 'treason!' they immediately did so, and there was a rush into the chamber of so many armed men that it was filled in a moment. 'first,' said the duke of gloucester to lord hastings, 'i arrest thee, traitor! and let him,' he added to the armed men who took him, 'have a priest at once, for by st. paul i will not dine until i have seen his head of!' lord hastings was hurried to the green by the tower chapel, and there beheaded on a log of wood that happened to be lying on the ground. then, the duke dined with a good appetite, and after dinner summoning the principal citizens to attend him, told them that lord hastings and the rest had designed to murder both himself and the duke if buckingham, who stood by his side, if he had not providentially discovered their design. he requested them to be so obliging as to inform their fellow-citizens of the truth of what he said, and issued a proclamation (prepared and neatly copied out beforehand) to the same effect. on the same day that the duke did these things in the tower, sir richard ratcliffe, the boldest and most undaunted of his men, went down to pontefract; arrested lord rivers, lord gray, and two other gentlemen; and publicly executed them on the scaffold, without any trial, for having intended the duke's death. three days afterwards the duke, not to lose time, went down the river to westminster in his barge, attended by divers bishops, lords, and soldiers, and demanded that the queen should deliver her second son, the duke of york, into his safe keeping. the queen, being obliged to comply, resigned the child after she had wept over him; and richard of gloucester placed him with his brother in the tower. then, he seized jane shore, and, because she had been the lover of the late king, confiscated her property, and got her sentenced to do public penance in the streets by walking in a scanty dress, with bare feet, and carrying a lighted candle, to st. paul's cathedral, through the most crowded part of the city. having now all things ready for his own advancement, he caused a friar to preach a sermon at the cross which stood in front of st. paul's cathedral, in which he dwelt upon the profligate manners of the late king, and upon the late shame of jane shore, and hinted that the princes were not his children. 'whereas, good people,' said the friar, whose name was shaw, 'my lord the protector, the noble duke of gloucester, that sweet prince, the pattern of all the noblest virtues, is the perfect image and express likeness of his father.' there had been a little plot between the duke and the friar, that the duke should appear in the crowd at this moment, when it was expected that the people would cry 'long live king richard!' but, either through the friar saying the words too soon, or through the duke's coming too late, the duke and the words did not come together, and the people only laughed, and the friar sneaked off ashamed. the duke of buckingham was a better hand at such business than the friar, so he went to the guildhall the next day, and addressed the citizens in the lord protector's behalf. a few dirty men, who had been hired and stationed there for the purpose, crying when he had done, 'god save king richard!' he made them a great bow, and thanked them with all his heart. next day, to make an end of it, he went with the mayor and some lords and citizens to bayard castle, by the river, where richard then was, and read an address, humbly entreating him to accept the crown of england. richard, who looked down upon them out of a window and pretended to be in great uneasiness and alarm, assured them there was nothing he desired less, and that his deep affection for his nephews forbade him to think of it. to this the duke of buckingham replied, with pretended warmth, that the free people of england would never submit to his nephew's rule, and that if richard, who was the lawful heir, refused the crown, why then they must find some one else to wear it. the duke of gloucester returned, that since he used that strong language, it became his painful duty to think no more of himself, and to accept the crown. upon that, the people cheered and dispersed; and the duke of gloucester and the duke of buckingham passed a pleasant evening, talking over the play they had just acted with so much success, and every word of which they had prepared together. chapter xxv--england under richard the third king richard the third was up betimes in the morning, and went to westminster hall. in the hall was a marble seat, upon which he sat himself down between two great noblemen, and told the people that he began the new reign in that place, because the first duty of a sovereign was to administer the laws equally to all, and to maintain justice. he then mounted his horse and rode back to the city, where he was received by the clergy and the crowd as if he really had a right to the throne, and really were a just man. the clergy and the crowd must have been rather ashamed of themselves in secret, i think, for being such poor-spirited knaves. the new king and his queen were soon crowned with a great deal of show and noise, which the people liked very much; and then the king set forth on a royal progress through his dominions. he was crowned a second time at york, in order that the people might have show and noise enough; and wherever he went was received with shouts of rejoicing--from a good many people of strong lungs, who were paid to strain their throats in crying, 'god save king richard!' the plan was so successful that i am told it has been imitated since, by other usurpers, in other progresses through other dominions. while he was on this journey, king richard stayed a week at warwick. and from warwick he sent instructions home for one of the wickedest murders that ever was done--the murder of the two young princes, his nephews, who were shut up in the tower of london. sir robert brackenbury was at that time governor of the tower. to him, by the hands of a messenger named john green, did king richard send a letter, ordering him by some means to put the two young princes to death. but sir robert--i hope because he had children of his own, and loved them--sent john green back again, riding and spurring along the dusty roads, with the answer that he could not do so horrible a piece of work. the king, having frowningly considered a little, called to him sir james tyrrel, his master of the horse, and to him gave authority to take command of the tower, whenever he would, for twenty-four hours, and to keep all the keys of the tower during that space of time. tyrrel, well knowing what was wanted, looked about him for two hardened ruffians, and chose john dighton, one of his own grooms, and miles forest, who was a murderer by trade. having secured these two assistants, he went, upon a day in august, to the tower, showed his authority from the king, took the command for four-and-twenty hours, and obtained possession of the keys. and when the black night came he went creeping, creeping, like a guilty villain as he was, up the dark, stone winding stairs, and along the dark stone passages, until he came to the door of the room where the two young princes, having said their prayers, lay fast asleep, clasped in each other's arms. and while he watched and listened at the door, he sent in those evil demons, john dighton and miles forest, who smothered the two princes with the bed and pillows, and carried their bodies down the stairs, and buried them under a great heap of stones at the staircase foot. and when the day came, he gave up the command of the tower, and restored the keys, and hurried away without once looking behind him; and sir robert brackenbury went with fear and sadness to the princes' room, and found the princes gone for ever. you know, through all this history, how true it is that traitors are never true, and you will not be surprised to learn that the duke of buckingham soon turned against king richard, and joined a great conspiracy that was formed to dethrone him, and to place the crown upon its rightful owner's head. richard had meant to keep the murder secret; but when he heard through his spies that this conspiracy existed, and that many lords and gentlemen drank in secret to the healths of the two young princes in the tower, he made it known that they were dead. the conspirators, though thwarted for a moment, soon resolved to set up for the crown against the murderous richard, henry earl of richmond, grandson of catherine: that widow of henry the fifth who married owen tudor. and as henry was of the house of lancaster, they proposed that he should marry the princess elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the late king, now the heiress of the house of york, and thus by uniting the rival families put an end to the fatal wars of the red and white roses. all being settled, a time was appointed for henry to come over from brittany, and for a great rising against richard to take place in several parts of england at the same hour. on a certain day, therefore, in october, the revolt took place; but unsuccessfully. richard was prepared, henry was driven back at sea by a storm, his followers in england were dispersed, and the duke of buckingham was taken, and at once beheaded in the market- place at salisbury. the time of his success was a good time, richard thought, for summoning a parliament and getting some money. so, a parliament was called, and it flattered and fawned upon him as much as he could possibly desire, and declared him to be the rightful king of england, and his only son edward, then eleven years of age, the next heir to the throne. richard knew full well that, let the parliament say what it would, the princess elizabeth was remembered by people as the heiress of the house of york; and having accurate information besides, of its being designed by the conspirators to marry her to henry of richmond, he felt that it would much strengthen him and weaken them, to be beforehand with them, and marry her to his son. with this view he went to the sanctuary at westminster, where the late king's widow and her daughter still were, and besought them to come to court: where (he swore by anything and everything) they should be safely and honourably entertained. they came, accordingly, but had scarcely been at court a month when his son died suddenly--or was poisoned--and his plan was crushed to pieces. in this extremity, king richard, always active, thought, 'i must make another plan.' and he made the plan of marrying the princess elizabeth himself, although she was his niece. there was one difficulty in the way: his wife, the queen anne, was alive. but, he knew (remembering his nephews) how to remove that obstacle, and he made love to the princess elizabeth, telling her he felt perfectly confident that the queen would die in february. the princess was not a very scrupulous young lady, for, instead of rejecting the murderer of her brothers with scorn and hatred, she openly declared she loved him dearly; and, when february came and the queen did not die, she expressed her impatient opinion that she was too long about it. however, king richard was not so far out in his prediction, but, that she died in march--he took good care of that--and then this precious pair hoped to be married. but they were disappointed, for the idea of such a marriage was so unpopular in the country, that the king's chief counsellors, ratcliffe and catesby, would by no means undertake to propose it, and the king was even obliged to declare in public that he had never thought of such a thing. he was, by this time, dreaded and hated by all classes of his subjects. his nobles deserted every day to henry's side; he dared not call another parliament, lest his crimes should be denounced there; and for want of money, he was obliged to get benevolences from the citizens, which exasperated them all against him. it was said too, that, being stricken by his conscience, he dreamed frightful dreams, and started up in the night-time, wild with terror and remorse. active to the last, through all this, he issued vigorous proclamations against henry of richmond and all his followers, when he heard that they were coming against him with a fleet from france; and took the field as fierce and savage as a wild boar--the animal represented on his shield. henry of richmond landed with six thousand men at milford haven, and came on against king richard, then encamped at leicester with an army twice as great, through north wales. on bosworth field the two armies met; and richard, looking along henry's ranks, and seeing them crowded with the english nobles who had abandoned him, turned pale when he beheld the powerful lord stanley and his son (whom he had tried hard to retain) among them. but, he was as brave as he was wicked, and plunged into the thickest of the fight. he was riding hither and thither, laying about him in all directions, when he observed the earl of northumberland--one of his few great allies--to stand inactive, and the main body of his troops to hesitate. at the same moment, his desperate glance caught henry of richmond among a little group of his knights. riding hard at him, and crying 'treason!' he killed his standard-bearer, fiercely unhorsed another gentleman, and aimed a powerful stroke at henry himself, to cut him down. but, sir william stanley parried it as it fell, and before richard could raise his arm again, he was borne down in a press of numbers, unhorsed, and killed. lord stanley picked up the crown, all bruised and trampled, and stained with blood, and put it upon richmond's head, amid loud and rejoicing cries of 'long live king henry!' that night, a horse was led up to the church of the grey friars at leicester; across whose back was tied, like some worthless sack, a naked body brought there for burial. it was the body of the last of the plantagenet line, king richard the third, usurper and murderer, slain at the battle of bosworth field in the thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of two years. chapter xxvi--england under henry the seventh king henry the seventh did not turn out to be as fine a fellow as the nobility and people hoped, in the first joy of their deliverance from richard the third. he was very cold, crafty, and calculating, and would do almost anything for money. he possessed considerable ability, but his chief merit appears to have been that he was not cruel when there was nothing to be got by it. the new king had promised the nobles who had espoused his cause that he would marry the princess elizabeth. the first thing he did, was, to direct her to be removed from the castle of sheriff hutton in yorkshire, where richard had placed her, and restored to the care of her mother in london. the young earl of warwick, edward plantagenet, son and heir of the late duke of clarence, had been kept a prisoner in the same old yorkshire castle with her. this boy, who was now fifteen, the new king placed in the tower for safety. then he came to london in great state, and gratified the people with a fine procession; on which kind of show he often very much relied for keeping them in good humour. the sports and feasts which took place were followed by a terrible fever, called the sweating sickness; of which great numbers of people died. lord mayors and aldermen are thought to have suffered most from it; whether, because they were in the habit of over-eating themselves, or because they were very jealous of preserving filth and nuisances in the city (as they have been since), i don't know. the king's coronation was postponed on account of the general ill-health, and he afterwards deferred his marriage, as if he were not very anxious that it should take place: and, even after that, deferred the queen's coronation so long that he gave offence to the york party. however, he set these things right in the end, by hanging some men and seizing on the rich possessions of others; by granting more popular pardons to the followers of the late king than could, at first, be got from him; and, by employing about his court, some very scrupulous persons who had been employed in the previous reign. as this reign was principally remarkable for two very curious impostures which have become famous in history, we will make those two stories its principal feature. there was a priest at oxford of the name of simons, who had for a pupil a handsome boy named lambert simnel, the son of a baker. partly to gratify his own ambitious ends, and partly to carry out the designs of a secret party formed against the king, this priest declared that his pupil, the boy, was no other than the young earl of warwick; who (as everybody might have known) was safely locked up in the tower of london. the priest and the boy went over to ireland; and, at dublin, enlisted in their cause all ranks of the people: who seem to have been generous enough, but exceedingly irrational. the earl of kildare, the governor of ireland, declared that he believed the boy to be what the priest represented; and the boy, who had been well tutored by the priest, told them such things of his childhood, and gave them so many descriptions of the royal family, that they were perpetually shouting and hurrahing, and drinking his health, and making all kinds of noisy and thirsty demonstrations, to express their belief in him. nor was this feeling confined to ireland alone, for the earl of lincoln--whom the late usurper had named as his successor--went over to the young pretender; and, after holding a secret correspondence with the dowager duchess of burgundy--the sister of edward the fourth, who detested the present king and all his race--sailed to dublin with two thousand german soldiers of her providing. in this promising state of the boy's fortunes, he was crowned there, with a crown taken off the head of a statue of the virgin mary; and was then, according to the irish custom of those days, carried home on the shoulders of a big chieftain possessing a great deal more strength than sense. father simons, you may be sure, was mighty busy at the coronation. ten days afterwards, the germans, and the irish, and the priest, and the boy, and the earl of lincoln, all landed in lancashire to invade england. the king, who had good intelligence of their movements, set up his standard at nottingham, where vast numbers resorted to him every day; while the earl of lincoln could gain but very few. with his small force he tried to make for the town of newark; but the king's army getting between him and that place, he had no choice but to risk a battle at stoke. it soon ended in the complete destruction of the pretender's forces, one half of whom were killed; among them, the earl himself. the priest and the baker's boy were taken prisoners. the priest, after confessing the trick, was shut up in prison, where he afterwards died--suddenly perhaps. the boy was taken into the king's kitchen and made a turnspit. he was afterwards raised to the station of one of the king's falconers; and so ended this strange imposition. there seems reason to suspect that the dowager queen--always a restless and busy woman--had had some share in tutoring the baker's son. the king was very angry with her, whether or no. he seized upon her property, and shut her up in a convent at bermondsey. one might suppose that the end of this story would have put the irish people on their guard; but they were quite ready to receive a second impostor, as they had received the first, and that same troublesome duchess of burgundy soon gave them the opportunity. all of a sudden there appeared at cork, in a vessel arriving from portugal, a young man of excellent abilities, of very handsome appearance and most winning manners, who declared himself to be richard, duke of york, the second son of king edward the fourth. 'o,' said some, even of those ready irish believers, 'but surely that young prince was murdered by his uncle in the tower!'--'it _is_ supposed so,' said the engaging young man; 'and my brother _was_ killed in that gloomy prison; but i escaped--it don't matter how, at present--and have been wandering about the world for seven long years.' this explanation being quite satisfactory to numbers of the irish people, they began again to shout and to hurrah, and to drink his health, and to make the noisy and thirsty demonstrations all over again. and the big chieftain in dublin began to look out for another coronation, and another young king to be carried home on his back. now, king henry being then on bad terms with france, the french king, charles the eighth, saw that, by pretending to believe in the handsome young man, he could trouble his enemy sorely. so, he invited him over to the french court, and appointed him a body-guard, and treated him in all respects as if he really were the duke of york. peace, however, being soon concluded between the two kings, the pretended duke was turned adrift, and wandered for protection to the duchess of burgundy. she, after feigning to inquire into the reality of his claims, declared him to be the very picture of her dear departed brother; gave him a body-guard at her court, of thirty halberdiers; and called him by the sounding name of the white rose of england. the leading members of the white rose party in england sent over an agent, named sir robert clifford, to ascertain whether the white rose's claims were good: the king also sent over his agents to inquire into the rose's history. the white roses declared the young man to be really the duke of york; the king declared him to be perkin warbeck, the son of a merchant of the city of tournay, who had acquired his knowledge of england, its language and manners, from the english merchants who traded in flanders; it was also stated by the royal agents that he had been in the service of lady brompton, the wife of an exiled english nobleman, and that the duchess of burgundy had caused him to be trained and taught, expressly for this deception. the king then required the archduke philip--who was the sovereign of burgundy--to banish this new pretender, or to deliver him up; but, as the archduke replied that he could not control the duchess in her own land, the king, in revenge, took the market of english cloth away from antwerp, and prevented all commercial intercourse between the two countries. he also, by arts and bribes, prevailed on sir robert clifford to betray his employers; and he denouncing several famous english noblemen as being secretly the friends of perkin warbeck, the king had three of the foremost executed at once. whether he pardoned the remainder because they were poor, i do not know; but it is only too probable that he refused to pardon one famous nobleman against whom the same clifford soon afterwards informed separately, because he was rich. this was no other than sir william stanley, who had saved the king's life at the battle of bosworth field. it is very doubtful whether his treason amounted to much more than his having said, that if he were sure the young man was the duke of york, he would not take arms against him. whatever he had done he admitted, like an honourable spirit; and he lost his head for it, and the covetous king gained all his wealth. perkin warbeck kept quiet for three years; but, as the flemings began to complain heavily of the loss of their trade by the stoppage of the antwerp market on his account, and as it was not unlikely that they might even go so far as to take his life, or give him up, he found it necessary to do something. accordingly he made a desperate sally, and landed, with only a few hundred men, on the coast of deal. but he was soon glad to get back to the place from whence he came; for the country people rose against his followers, killed a great many, and took a hundred and fifty prisoners: who were all driven to london, tied together with ropes, like a team of cattle. every one of them was hanged on some part or other of the sea-shore; in order, that if any more men should come over with perkin warbeck, they might see the bodies as a warning before they landed. then the wary king, by making a treaty of commerce with the flemings, drove perkin warbeck out of that country; and, by completely gaining over the irish to his side, deprived him of that asylum too. he wandered away to scotland, and told his story at that court. king james the fourth of scotland, who was no friend to king henry, and had no reason to be (for king henry had bribed his scotch lords to betray him more than once; but had never succeeded in his plots), gave him a great reception, called him his cousin, and gave him in marriage the lady catherine gordon, a beautiful and charming creature related to the royal house of stuart. alarmed by this successful reappearance of the pretender, the king still undermined, and bought, and bribed, and kept his doings and perkin warbeck's story in the dark, when he might, one would imagine, have rendered the matter clear to all england. but, for all this bribing of the scotch lords at the scotch king's court, he could not procure the pretender to be delivered up to him. james, though not very particular in many respects, would not betray him; and the ever-busy duchess of burgundy so provided him with arms, and good soldiers, and with money besides, that he had soon a little army of fifteen hundred men of various nations. with these, and aided by the scottish king in person, he crossed the border into england, and made a proclamation to the people, in which he called the king 'henry tudor;' offered large rewards to any who should take or distress him; and announced himself as king richard the fourth come to receive the homage of his faithful subjects. his faithful subjects, however, cared nothing for him, and hated his faithful troops: who, being of different nations, quarrelled also among themselves. worse than this, if worse were possible, they began to plunder the country; upon which the white rose said, that he would rather lose his rights, than gain them through the miseries of the english people. the scottish king made a jest of his scruples; but they and their whole force went back again without fighting a battle. the worst consequence of this attempt was, that a rising took place among the people of cornwall, who considered themselves too heavily taxed to meet the charges of the expected war. stimulated by flammock, a lawyer, and joseph, a blacksmith, and joined by lord audley and some other country gentlemen, they marched on all the way to deptford bridge, where they fought a battle with the king's army. they were defeated--though the cornish men fought with great bravery--and the lord was beheaded, and the lawyer and the blacksmith were hanged, drawn, and quartered. the rest were pardoned. the king, who believed every man to be as avaricious as himself, and thought that money could settle anything, allowed them to make bargains for their liberty with the soldiers who had taken them. perkin warbeck, doomed to wander up and down, and never to find rest anywhere--a sad fate: almost a sufficient punishment for an imposture, which he seems in time to have half believed himself--lost his scottish refuge through a truce being made between the two kings; and found himself, once more, without a country before him in which he could lay his head. but james (always honourable and true to him, alike when he melted down his plate, and even the great gold chain he had been used to wear, to pay soldiers in his cause; and now, when that cause was lost and hopeless) did not conclude the treaty, until he had safely departed out of the scottish dominions. he, and his beautiful wife, who was faithful to him under all reverses, and left her state and home to follow his poor fortunes, were put aboard ship with everything necessary for their comfort and protection, and sailed for ireland. but, the irish people had had enough of counterfeit earls of warwick and dukes of york, for one while; and would give the white rose no aid. so, the white rose--encircled by thorns indeed--resolved to go with his beautiful wife to cornwall as a forlorn resource, and see what might be made of the cornish men, who had risen so valiantly a little while before, and who had fought so bravely at deptford bridge. to whitsand bay, in cornwall, accordingly, came perkin warbeck and his wife; and the lovely lady he shut up for safety in the castle of st. michael's mount, and then marched into devonshire at the head of three thousand cornishmen. these were increased to six thousand by the time of his arrival in exeter; but, there the people made a stout resistance, and he went on to taunton, where he came in sight of the king's army. the stout cornish men, although they were few in number, and badly armed, were so bold, that they never thought of retreating; but bravely looked forward to a battle on the morrow. unhappily for them, the man who was possessed of so many engaging qualities, and who attracted so many people to his side when he had nothing else with which to tempt them, was not as brave as they. in the night, when the two armies lay opposite to each other, he mounted a swift horse and fled. when morning dawned, the poor confiding cornish men, discovering that they had no leader, surrendered to the king's power. some of them were hanged, and the rest were pardoned and went miserably home. before the king pursued perkin warbeck to the sanctuary of beaulieu in the new forest, where it was soon known that he had taken refuge, he sent a body of horsemen to st. michael's mount, to seize his wife. she was soon taken and brought as a captive before the king. but she was so beautiful, and so good, and so devoted to the man in whom she believed, that the king regarded her with compassion, treated her with great respect, and placed her at court, near the queen's person. and many years after perkin warbeck was no more, and when his strange story had become like a nursery tale, _she_ was called the white rose, by the people, in remembrance of her beauty. the sanctuary at beaulieu was soon surrounded by the king's men; and the king, pursuing his usual dark, artful ways, sent pretended friends to perkin warbeck to persuade him to come out and surrender himself. this he soon did; the king having taken a good look at the man of whom he had heard so much--from behind a screen--directed him to be well mounted, and to ride behind him at a little distance, guarded, but not bound in any way. so they entered london with the king's favourite show--a procession; and some of the people hooted as the pretender rode slowly through the streets to the tower; but the greater part were quiet, and very curious to see him. from the tower, he was taken to the palace at westminster, and there lodged like a gentleman, though closely watched. he was examined every now and then as to his imposture; but the king was so secret in all he did, that even then he gave it a consequence, which it cannot be supposed to have in itself deserved. at last perkin warbeck ran away, and took refuge in another sanctuary near richmond in surrey. from this he was again persuaded to deliver himself up; and, being conveyed to london, he stood in the stocks for a whole day, outside westminster hall, and there read a paper purporting to be his full confession, and relating his history as the king's agents had originally described it. he was then shut up in the tower again, in the company of the earl of warwick, who had now been there for fourteen years: ever since his removal out of yorkshire, except when the king had had him at court, and had shown him to the people, to prove the imposture of the baker's boy. it is but too probable, when we consider the crafty character of henry the seventh, that these two were brought together for a cruel purpose. a plot was soon discovered between them and the keepers, to murder the governor, get possession of the keys, and proclaim perkin warbeck as king richard the fourth. that there was some such plot, is likely; that they were tempted into it, is at least as likely; that the unfortunate earl of warwick--last male of the plantagenet line--was too unused to the world, and too ignorant and simple to know much about it, whatever it was, is perfectly certain; and that it was the king's interest to get rid of him, is no less so. he was beheaded on tower hill, and perkin warbeck was hanged at tyburn. such was the end of the pretended duke of york, whose shadowy history was made more shadowy--and ever will be--by the mystery and craft of the king. if he had turned his great natural advantages to a more honest account, he might have lived a happy and respected life, even in those days. but he died upon a gallows at tyburn, leaving the scottish lady, who had loved him so well, kindly protected at the queen's court. after some time she forgot her old loves and troubles, as many people do with time's merciful assistance, and married a welsh gentleman. her second husband, sir matthew cradoc, more honest and more happy than her first, lies beside her in a tomb in the old church of swansea. the ill-blood between france and england in this reign, arose out of the continued plotting of the duchess of burgundy, and disputes respecting the affairs of brittany. the king feigned to be very patriotic, indignant, and warlike; but he always contrived so as never to make war in reality, and always to make money. his taxation of the people, on pretence of war with france, involved, at one time, a very dangerous insurrection, headed by sir john egremont, and a common man called john a chambre. but it was subdued by the royal forces, under the command of the earl of surrey. the knighted john escaped to the duchess of burgundy, who was ever ready to receive any one who gave the king trouble; and the plain john was hanged at york, in the midst of a number of his men, but on a much higher gibbet, as being a greater traitor. hung high or hung low, however, hanging is much the same to the person hung. within a year after her marriage, the queen had given birth to a son, who was called prince arthur, in remembrance of the old british prince of romance and story; and who, when all these events had happened, being then in his fifteenth year, was married to catherine, the daughter of the spanish monarch, with great rejoicings and bright prospects; but in a very few months he sickened and died. as soon as the king had recovered from his grief, he thought it a pity that the fortune of the spanish princess, amounting to two hundred thousand crowns, should go out of the family; and therefore arranged that the young widow should marry his second son henry, then twelve years of age, when he too should be fifteen. there were objections to this marriage on the part of the clergy; but, as the infallible pope was gained over, and, as he _must_ be right, that settled the business for the time. the king's eldest daughter was provided for, and a long course of disturbance was considered to be set at rest, by her being married to the scottish king. and now the queen died. when the king had got over that grief too, his mind once more reverted to his darling money for consolation, and he thought of marrying the dowager queen of naples, who was immensely rich: but, as it turned out not to be practicable to gain the money however practicable it might have been to gain the lady, he gave up the idea. he was not so fond of her but that he soon proposed to marry the dowager duchess of savoy; and, soon afterwards, the widow of the king of castile, who was raving mad. but he made a money-bargain instead, and married neither. the duchess of burgundy, among the other discontented people to whom she had given refuge, had sheltered edmund de la pole (younger brother of that earl of lincoln who was killed at stoke), now earl of suffolk. the king had prevailed upon him to return to the marriage of prince arthur; but, he soon afterwards went away again; and then the king, suspecting a conspiracy, resorted to his favourite plan of sending him some treacherous friends, and buying of those scoundrels the secrets they disclosed or invented. some arrests and executions took place in consequence. in the end, the king, on a promise of not taking his life, obtained possession of the person of edmund de la pole, and shut him up in the tower. this was his last enemy. if he had lived much longer he would have made many more among the people, by the grinding exaction to which he constantly exposed them, and by the tyrannical acts of his two prime favourites in all money-raising matters, edmund dudley and richard empson. but death--the enemy who is not to be bought off or deceived, and on whom no money, and no treachery has any effect--presented himself at this juncture, and ended the king's reign. he died of the gout, on the twenty-second of april, one thousand five hundred and nine, and in the fifty-third year of his age, after reigning twenty-four years; he was buried in the beautiful chapel of westminster abbey, which he had himself founded, and which still bears his name. it was in this reign that the great christopher columbus, on behalf of spain, discovered what was then called the new world. great wonder, interest, and hope of wealth being awakened in england thereby, the king and the merchants of london and bristol fitted out an english expedition for further discoveries in the new world, and entrusted it to sebastian cabot, of bristol, the son of a venetian pilot there. he was very successful in his voyage, and gained high reputation, both for himself and england. chapter xxvii--england under henry the eighth, called bluff king hal and burly king harry part the first we now come to king henry the eighth, whom it has been too much the fashion to call 'bluff king hal,' and 'burly king harry,' and other fine names; but whom i shall take the liberty to call, plainly, one of the most detestable villains that ever drew breath. you will be able to judge, long before we come to the end of his life, whether he deserves the character. he was just eighteen years of age when he came to the throne. people said he was handsome then; but i don't believe it. he was a big, burly, noisy, small-eyed, large-faced, double-chinned, swinish-looking fellow in later life (as we know from the likenesses of him, painted by the famous hans holbein), and it is not easy to believe that so bad a character can ever have been veiled under a prepossessing appearance. he was anxious to make himself popular; and the people, who had long disliked the late king, were very willing to believe that he deserved to be so. he was extremely fond of show and display, and so were they. therefore there was great rejoicing when he married the princess catherine, and when they were both crowned. and the king fought at tournaments and always came off victorious--for the courtiers took care of that--and there was a general outcry that he was a wonderful man. empson, dudley, and their supporters were accused of a variety of crimes they had never committed, instead of the offences of which they really had been guilty; and they were pilloried, and set upon horses with their faces to the tails, and knocked about and beheaded, to the satisfaction of the people, and the enrichment of the king. the pope, so indefatigable in getting the world into trouble, had mixed himself up in a war on the continent of europe, occasioned by the reigning princes of little quarrelling states in italy having at various times married into other royal families, and so led to _their_ claiming a share in those petty governments. the king, who discovered that he was very fond of the pope, sent a herald to the king of france, to say that he must not make war upon that holy personage, because he was the father of all christians. as the french king did not mind this relationship in the least, and also refused to admit a claim king henry made to certain lands in france, war was declared between the two countries. not to perplex this story with an account of the tricks and designs of all the sovereigns who were engaged in it, it is enough to say that england made a blundering alliance with spain, and got stupidly taken in by that country; which made its own terms with france when it could and left england in the lurch. sir edward howard, a bold admiral, son of the earl of surrey, distinguished himself by his bravery against the french in this business; but, unfortunately, he was more brave than wise, for, skimming into the french harbour of brest with only a few row-boats, he attempted (in revenge for the defeat and death of sir thomas knyvett, another bold english admiral) to take some strong french ships, well defended with batteries of cannon. the upshot was, that he was left on board of one of them (in consequence of its shooting away from his own boat), with not more than about a dozen men, and was thrown into the sea and drowned: though not until he had taken from his breast his gold chain and gold whistle, which were the signs of his office, and had cast them into the sea to prevent their being made a boast of by the enemy. after this defeat--which was a great one, for sir edward howard was a man of valour and fame--the king took it into his head to invade france in person; first executing that dangerous earl of suffolk whom his father had left in the tower, and appointing queen catherine to the charge of his kingdom in his absence. he sailed to calais, where he was joined by maximilian, emperor of germany, who pretended to be his soldier, and who took pay in his service: with a good deal of nonsense of that sort, flattering enough to the vanity of a vain blusterer. the king might be successful enough in sham fights; but his idea of real battles chiefly consisted in pitching silken tents of bright colours that were ignominiously blown down by the wind, and in making a vast display of gaudy flags and golden curtains. fortune, however, favoured him better than he deserved; for, after much waste of time in tent pitching, flag flying, gold curtaining, and other such masquerading, he gave the french battle at a place called guinegate: where they took such an unaccountable panic, and fled with such swiftness, that it was ever afterwards called by the english the battle of spurs. instead of following up his advantage, the king, finding that he had had enough of real fighting, came home again. the scottish king, though nearly related to henry by marriage, had taken part against him in this war. the earl of surrey, as the english general, advanced to meet him when he came out of his own dominions and crossed the river tweed. the two armies came up with one another when the scottish king had also crossed the river till, and was encamped upon the last of the cheviot hills, called the hill of flodden. along the plain below it, the english, when the hour of battle came, advanced. the scottish army, which had been drawn up in five great bodies, then came steadily down in perfect silence. so they, in their turn, advanced to meet the english army, which came on in one long line; and they attacked it with a body of spearmen, under lord home. at first they had the best of it; but the english recovered themselves so bravely, and fought with such valour, that, when the scottish king had almost made his way up to the royal standard, he was slain, and the whole scottish power routed. ten thousand scottish men lay dead that day on flodden field; and among them, numbers of the nobility and gentry. for a long time afterwards, the scottish peasantry used to believe that their king had not been really killed in this battle, because no englishman had found an iron belt he wore about his body as a penance for having been an unnatural and undutiful son. but, whatever became of his belt, the english had his sword and dagger, and the ring from his finger, and his body too, covered with wounds. there is no doubt of it; for it was seen and recognised by english gentlemen who had known the scottish king well. when king henry was making ready to renew the war in france, the french king was contemplating peace. his queen, dying at this time, he proposed, though he was upwards of fifty years old, to marry king henry's sister, the princess mary, who, besides being only sixteen, was betrothed to the duke of suffolk. as the inclinations of young princesses were not much considered in such matters, the marriage was concluded, and the poor girl was escorted to france, where she was immediately left as the french king's bride, with only one of all her english attendants. that one was a pretty young girl named anne boleyn, niece of the earl of surrey, who had been made duke of norfolk, after the victory of flodden field. anne boleyn's is a name to be remembered, as you will presently find. and now the french king, who was very proud of his young wife, was preparing for many years of happiness, and she was looking forward, i dare say, to many years of misery, when he died within three months, and left her a young widow. the new french monarch, francis the first, seeing how important it was to his interests that she should take for her second husband no one but an englishman, advised her first lover, the duke of suffolk, when king henry sent him over to france to fetch her home, to marry her. the princess being herself so fond of that duke, as to tell him that he must either do so then, or for ever lose her, they were wedded; and henry afterwards forgave them. in making interest with the king, the duke of suffolk had addressed his most powerful favourite and adviser, thomas wolsey--a name very famous in history for its rise and downfall. wolsey was the son of a respectable butcher at ipswich, in suffolk and received so excellent an education that he became a tutor to the family of the marquis of dorset, who afterwards got him appointed one of the late king's chaplains. on the accession of henry the eighth, he was promoted and taken into great favour. he was now archbishop of york; the pope had made him a cardinal besides; and whoever wanted influence in england or favour with the king--whether he were a foreign monarch or an english nobleman--was obliged to make a friend of the great cardinal wolsey. he was a gay man, who could dance and jest, and sing and drink; and those were the roads to so much, or rather so little, of a heart as king henry had. he was wonderfully fond of pomp and glitter, and so was the king. he knew a good deal of the church learning of that time; much of which consisted in finding artful excuses and pretences for almost any wrong thing, and in arguing that black was white, or any other colour. this kind of learning pleased the king too. for many such reasons, the cardinal was high in estimation with the king; and, being a man of far greater ability, knew as well how to manage him, as a clever keeper may know how to manage a wolf or a tiger, or any other cruel and uncertain beast, that may turn upon him and tear him any day. never had there been seen in england such state as my lord cardinal kept. his wealth was enormous; equal, it was reckoned, to the riches of the crown. his palaces were as splendid as the king's, and his retinue was eight hundred strong. he held his court, dressed out from top to toe in flaming scarlet; and his very shoes were golden, set with precious stones. his followers rode on blood horses; while he, with a wonderful affectation of humility in the midst of his great splendour, ambled on a mule with a red velvet saddle and bridle and golden stirrups. through the influence of this stately priest, a grand meeting was arranged to take place between the french and english kings in france; but on ground belonging to england. a prodigious show of friendship and rejoicing was to be made on the occasion; and heralds were sent to proclaim with brazen trumpets through all the principal cities of europe, that, on a certain day, the kings of france and england, as companions and brothers in arms, each attended by eighteen followers, would hold a tournament against all knights who might choose to come. charles, the new emperor of germany (the old one being dead), wanted to prevent too cordial an alliance between these sovereigns, and came over to england before the king could repair to the place of meeting; and, besides making an agreeable impression upon him, secured wolsey's interest by promising that his influence should make him pope when the next vacancy occurred. on the day when the emperor left england, the king and all the court went over to calais, and thence to the place of meeting, between ardres and guisnes, commonly called the field of the cloth of gold. here, all manner of expense and prodigality was lavished on the decorations of the show; many of the knights and gentlemen being so superbly dressed that it was said they carried their whole estates upon their shoulders. there were sham castles, temporary chapels, fountains running wine, great cellars full of wine free as water to all comers, silk tents, gold lace and foil, gilt lions, and such things without end; and, in the midst of all, the rich cardinal out-shone and out-glittered all the noblemen and gentlemen assembled. after a treaty made between the two kings with as much solemnity as if they had intended to keep it, the lists--nine hundred feet long, and three hundred and twenty broad--were opened for the tournament; the queens of france and england looking on with great array of lords and ladies. then, for ten days, the two sovereigns fought five combats every day, and always beat their polite adversaries; though they _do_ write that the king of england, being thrown in a wrestle one day by the king of france, lost his kingly temper with his brother-in- arms, and wanted to make a quarrel of it. then, there is a great story belonging to this field of the cloth of gold, showing how the english were distrustful of the french, and the french of the english, until francis rode alone one morning to henry's tent; and, going in before he was out of bed, told him in joke that he was his prisoner; and how henry jumped out of bed and embraced francis; and how francis helped henry to dress, and warmed his linen for him; and how henry gave francis a splendid jewelled collar, and how francis gave henry, in return, a costly bracelet. all this and a great deal more was so written about, and sung about, and talked about at that time (and, indeed, since that time too), that the world has had good cause to be sick of it, for ever. of course, nothing came of all these fine doings but a speedy renewal of the war between england and france, in which the two royal companions and brothers in arms longed very earnestly to damage one another. but, before it broke out again, the duke of buckingham was shamefully executed on tower hill, on the evidence of a discharged servant--really for nothing, except the folly of having believed in a friar of the name of hopkins, who had pretended to be a prophet, and who had mumbled and jumbled out some nonsense about the duke's son being destined to be very great in the land. it was believed that the unfortunate duke had given offence to the great cardinal by expressing his mind freely about the expense and absurdity of the whole business of the field of the cloth of gold. at any rate, he was beheaded, as i have said, for nothing. and the people who saw it done were very angry, and cried out that it was the work of 'the butcher's son!' the new war was a short one, though the earl of surrey invaded france again, and did some injury to that country. it ended in another treaty of peace between the two kingdoms, and in the discovery that the emperor of germany was not such a good friend to england in reality, as he pretended to be. neither did he keep his promise to wolsey to make him pope, though the king urged him. two popes died in pretty quick succession; but the foreign priests were too much for the cardinal, and kept him out of the post. so the cardinal and king together found out that the emperor of germany was not a man to keep faith with; broke off a projected marriage between the king's daughter mary, princess of wales, and that sovereign; and began to consider whether it might not be well to marry the young lady, either to francis himself, or to his eldest son. there now arose at wittemberg, in germany, the great leader of the mighty change in england which is called the reformation, and which set the people free from their slavery to the priests. this was a learned doctor, named martin luther, who knew all about them, for he had been a priest, and even a monk, himself. the preaching and writing of wickliffe had set a number of men thinking on this subject; and luther, finding one day to his great surprise, that there really was a book called the new testament which the priests did not allow to be read, and which contained truths that they suppressed, began to be very vigorous against the whole body, from the pope downward. it happened, while he was yet only beginning his vast work of awakening the nation, that an impudent fellow named tetzel, a friar of very bad character, came into his neighbourhood selling what were called indulgences, by wholesale, to raise money for beautifying the great cathedral of st. peter's, at rome. whoever bought an indulgence of the pope was supposed to buy himself off from the punishment of heaven for his offences. luther told the people that these indulgences were worthless bits of paper, before god, and that tetzel and his masters were a crew of impostors in selling them. the king and the cardinal were mightily indignant at this presumption; and the king (with the help of sir thomas more, a wise man, whom he afterwards repaid by striking off his head) even wrote a book about it, with which the pope was so well pleased that he gave the king the title of defender of the faith. the king and the cardinal also issued flaming warnings to the people not to read luther's books, on pain of excommunication. but they did read them for all that; and the rumour of what was in them spread far and wide. when this great change was thus going on, the king began to show himself in his truest and worst colours. anne boleyn, the pretty little girl who had gone abroad to france with his sister, was by this time grown up to be very beautiful, and was one of the ladies in attendance on queen catherine. now, queen catherine was no longer young or handsome, and it is likely that she was not particularly good-tempered; having been always rather melancholy, and having been made more so by the deaths of four of her children when they were very young. so, the king fell in love with the fair anne boleyn, and said to himself, 'how can i be best rid of my own troublesome wife whom i am tired of, and marry anne?' {catherine was old, so he fell in love with anne boleyn: p .jpg} you recollect that queen catherine had been the wife of henry's brother. what does the king do, after thinking it over, but calls his favourite priests about him, and says, o! his mind is in such a dreadful state, and he is so frightfully uneasy, because he is afraid it was not lawful for him to marry the queen! not one of those priests had the courage to hint that it was rather curious he had never thought of that before, and that his mind seemed to have been in a tolerably jolly condition during a great many years, in which he certainly had not fretted himself thin; but, they all said, ah! that was very true, and it was a serious business; and perhaps the best way to make it right, would be for his majesty to be divorced! the king replied, yes, he thought that would be the best way, certainly; so they all went to work. if i were to relate to you the intrigues and plots that took place in the endeavour to get this divorce, you would think the history of england the most tiresome book in the world. so i shall say no more, than that after a vast deal of negotiation and evasion, the pope issued a commission to cardinal wolsey and cardinal campeggio (whom he sent over from italy for the purpose), to try the whole case in england. it is supposed--and i think with reason--that wolsey was the queen's enemy, because she had reproved him for his proud and gorgeous manner of life. but, he did not at first know that the king wanted to marry anne boleyn; and when he did know it, he even went down on his knees, in the endeavour to dissuade him. the cardinals opened their court in the convent of the black friars, near to where the bridge of that name in london now stands; and the king and queen, that they might be near it, took up their lodgings at the adjoining palace of bridewell, of which nothing now remains but a bad prison. on the opening of the court, when the king and queen were called on to appear, that poor ill-used lady, with a dignity and firmness and yet with a womanly affection worthy to be always admired, went and kneeled at the king's feet, and said that she had come, a stranger, to his dominions; that she had been a good and true wife to him for twenty years; and that she could acknowledge no power in those cardinals to try whether she should be considered his wife after all that time, or should be put away. with that, she got up and left the court, and would never afterwards come back to it. the king pretended to be very much overcome, and said, o! my lords and gentlemen, what a good woman she was to be sure, and how delighted he would be to live with her unto death, but for that terrible uneasiness in his mind which was quite wearing him away! so, the case went on, and there was nothing but talk for two months. then cardinal campeggio, who, on behalf of the pope, wanted nothing so much as delay, adjourned it for two more months; and before that time was elapsed, the pope himself adjourned it indefinitely, by requiring the king and queen to come to rome and have it tried there. but by good luck for the king, word was brought to him by some of his people, that they had happened to meet at supper, thomas cranmer, a learned doctor of cambridge, who had proposed to urge the pope on, by referring the case to all the learned doctors and bishops, here and there and everywhere, and getting their opinions that the king's marriage was unlawful. the king, who was now in a hurry to marry anne boleyn, thought this such a good idea, that he sent for cranmer, post haste, and said to lord rochfort, anne boleyn's father, 'take this learned doctor down to your country-house, and there let him have a good room for a study, and no end of books out of which to prove that i may marry your daughter.' lord rochfort, not at all reluctant, made the learned doctor as comfortable as he could; and the learned doctor went to work to prove his case. all this time, the king and anne boleyn were writing letters to one another almost daily, full of impatience to have the case settled; and anne boleyn was showing herself (as i think) very worthy of the fate which afterwards befel her. it was bad for cardinal wolsey that he had left cranmer to render this help. it was worse for him that he had tried to dissuade the king from marrying anne boleyn. such a servant as he, to such a master as henry, would probably have fallen in any case; but, between the hatred of the party of the queen that was, and the hatred of the party of the queen that was to be, he fell suddenly and heavily. going down one day to the court of chancery, where he now presided, he was waited upon by the dukes of norfolk and suffolk, who told him that they brought an order to him to resign that office, and to withdraw quietly to a house he had at esher, in surrey. the cardinal refusing, they rode off to the king; and next day came back with a letter from him, on reading which, the cardinal submitted. an inventory was made out of all the riches in his palace at york place (now whitehall), and he went sorrowfully up the river, in his barge, to putney. an abject man he was, in spite of his pride; for being overtaken, riding out of that place towards esher, by one of the king's chamberlains who brought him a kind message and a ring, he alighted from his mule, took off his cap, and kneeled down in the dirt. his poor fool, whom in his prosperous days he had always kept in his palace to entertain him, cut a far better figure than he; for, when the cardinal said to the chamberlain that he had nothing to send to his lord the king as a present, but that jester who was a most excellent one, it took six strong yeomen to remove the faithful fool from his master. the once proud cardinal was soon further disgraced, and wrote the most abject letters to his vile sovereign; who humbled him one day and encouraged him the next, according to his humour, until he was at last ordered to go and reside in his diocese of york. he said he was too poor; but i don't know how he made that out, for he took a hundred and sixty servants with him, and seventy-two cart-loads of furniture, food, and wine. he remained in that part of the country for the best part of a year, and showed himself so improved by his misfortunes, and was so mild and so conciliating, that he won all hearts. and indeed, even in his proud days, he had done some magnificent things for learning and education. at last, he was arrested for high treason; and, coming slowly on his journey towards london, got as far as leicester. arriving at leicester abbey after dark, and very ill, he said--when the monks came out at the gate with lighted torches to receive him--that he had come to lay his bones among them. he had indeed; for he was taken to a bed, from which he never rose again. his last words were, 'had i but served god as diligently as i have served the king, he would not have given me over, in my grey hairs. howbeit, this is my just reward for my pains and diligence, not regarding my service to god, but only my duty to my prince.' the news of his death was quickly carried to the king, who was amusing himself with archery in the garden of the magnificent palace at hampton court, which that very wolsey had presented to him. the greatest emotion his royal mind displayed at the loss of a servant so faithful and so ruined, was a particular desire to lay hold of fifteen hundred pounds which the cardinal was reported to have hidden somewhere. the opinions concerning the divorce, of the learned doctors and bishops and others, being at last collected, and being generally in the king's favour, were forwarded to the pope, with an entreaty that he would now grant it. the unfortunate pope, who was a timid man, was half distracted between his fear of his authority being set aside in england if he did not do as he was asked, and his dread of offending the emperor of germany, who was queen catherine's nephew. in this state of mind he still evaded and did nothing. then, thomas cromwell, who had been one of wolsey's faithful attendants, and had remained so even in his decline, advised the king to take the matter into his own hands, and make himself the head of the whole church. this, the king by various artful means, began to do; but he recompensed the clergy by allowing them to burn as many people as they pleased, for holding luther's opinions. you must understand that sir thomas more, the wise man who had helped the king with his book, had been made chancellor in wolsey's place. but, as he was truly attached to the church as it was even in its abuses, he, in this state of things, resigned. being now quite resolved to get rid of queen catherine, and to marry anne boleyn without more ado, the king made cranmer archbishop of canterbury, and directed queen catherine to leave the court. she obeyed; but replied that wherever she went, she was queen of england still, and would remain so, to the last. the king then married anne boleyn privately; and the new archbishop of canterbury, within half a year, declared his marriage with queen catherine void, and crowned anne boleyn queen. she might have known that no good could ever come from such wrong, and that the corpulent brute who had been so faithless and so cruel to his first wife, could be more faithless and more cruel to his second. she might have known that, even when he was in love with her, he had been a mean and selfish coward, running away, like a frightened cur, from her society and her house, when a dangerous sickness broke out in it, and when she might easily have taken it and died, as several of the household did. but, anne boleyn arrived at all this knowledge too late, and bought it at a dear price. her bad marriage with a worse man came to its natural end. its natural end was not, as we shall too soon see, a natural death for her. chapter xxviii--england under henry the eighth part the second the pope was thrown into a very angry state of mind when he heard of the king's marriage, and fumed exceedingly. many of the english monks and friars, seeing that their order was in danger, did the same; some even declaimed against the king in church before his face, and were not to be stopped until he himself roared out 'silence!' the king, not much the worse for this, took it pretty quietly; and was very glad when his queen gave birth to a daughter, who was christened elizabeth, and declared princess of wales as her sister mary had already been. one of the most atrocious features of this reign was that henry the eighth was always trimming between the reformed religion and the unreformed one; so that the more he quarrelled with the pope, the more of his own subjects he roasted alive for not holding the pope's opinions. thus, an unfortunate student named john frith, and a poor simple tailor named andrew hewet who loved him very much, and said that whatever john frith believed _he_ believed, were burnt in smithfield--to show what a capital christian the king was. but, these were speedily followed by two much greater victims, sir thomas more, and john fisher, the bishop of rochester. the latter, who was a good and amiable old man, had committed no greater offence than believing in elizabeth barton, called the maid of kent--another of those ridiculous women who pretended to be inspired, and to make all sorts of heavenly revelations, though they indeed uttered nothing but evil nonsense. for this offence--as it was pretended, but really for denying the king to be the supreme head of the church--he got into trouble, and was put in prison; but, even then, he might have been suffered to die naturally (short work having been made of executing the kentish maid and her principal followers), but that the pope, to spite the king, resolved to make him a cardinal. upon that the king made a ferocious joke to the effect that the pope might send fisher a red hat--which is the way they make a cardinal--but he should have no head on which to wear it; and he was tried with all unfairness and injustice, and sentenced to death. he died like a noble and virtuous old man, and left a worthy name behind him. the king supposed, i dare say, that sir thomas more would be frightened by this example; but, as he was not to be easily terrified, and, thoroughly believing in the pope, had made up his mind that the king was not the rightful head of the church, he positively refused to say that he was. for this crime he too was tried and sentenced, after having been in prison a whole year. when he was doomed to death, and came away from his trial with the edge of the executioner's axe turned towards him--as was always done in those times when a state prisoner came to that hopeless pass--he bore it quite serenely, and gave his blessing to his son, who pressed through the crowd in westminster hall and kneeled down to receive it. but, when he got to the tower wharf on his way back to his prison, and his favourite daughter, margaret roper, a very good woman, rushed through the guards again and again, to kiss him and to weep upon his neck, he was overcome at last. he soon recovered, and never more showed any feeling but cheerfulness and courage. when he was going up the steps of the scaffold to his death, he said jokingly to the lieutenant of the tower, observing that they were weak and shook beneath his tread, 'i pray you, master lieutenant, see me safe up; and, for my coming down, i can shift for myself.' also he said to the executioner, after he had laid his head upon the block, 'let me put my beard out of the way; for that, at least, has never committed any treason.' then his head was struck off at a blow. these two executions were worthy of king henry the eighth. sir thomas more was one of the most virtuous men in his dominions, and the bishop was one of his oldest and truest friends. but to be a friend of that fellow was almost as dangerous as to be his wife. when the news of these two murders got to rome, the pope raged against the murderer more than ever pope raged since the world began, and prepared a bull, ordering his subjects to take arms against him and dethrone him. the king took all possible precautions to keep that document out of his dominions, and set to work in return to suppress a great number of the english monasteries and abbeys. this destruction was begun by a body of commissioners, of whom cromwell (whom the king had taken into great favour) was the head; and was carried on through some few years to its entire completion. there is no doubt that many of these religious establishments were religious in nothing but in name, and were crammed with lazy, indolent, and sensual monks. there is no doubt that they imposed upon the people in every possible way; that they had images moved by wires, which they pretended were miraculously moved by heaven; that they had among them a whole tun measure full of teeth, all purporting to have come out of the head of one saint, who must indeed have been a very extraordinary person with that enormous allowance of grinders; that they had bits of coal which they said had fried saint lawrence, and bits of toe-nails which they said belonged to other famous saints; penknives, and boots, and girdles, which they said belonged to others; and that all these bits of rubbish were called relics, and adored by the ignorant people. but, on the other hand, there is no doubt either, that the king's officers and men punished the good monks with the bad; did great injustice; demolished many beautiful things and many valuable libraries; destroyed numbers of paintings, stained glass windows, fine pavements, and carvings; and that the whole court were ravenously greedy and rapacious for the division of this great spoil among them. the king seems to have grown almost mad in the ardour of this pursuit; for he declared thomas a becket a traitor, though he had been dead so many years, and had his body dug up out of his grave. he must have been as miraculous as the monks pretended, if they had told the truth, for he was found with one head on his shoulders, and they had shown another as his undoubted and genuine head ever since his death; it had brought them vast sums of money, too. the gold and jewels on his shrine filled two great chests, and eight men tottered as they carried them away. how rich the monasteries were you may infer from the fact that, when they were all suppressed, one hundred and thirty thousand pounds a year--in those days an immense sum--came to the crown. these things were not done without causing great discontent among the people. the monks had been good landlords and hospitable entertainers of all travellers, and had been accustomed to give away a great deal of corn, and fruit, and meat, and other things. in those days it was difficult to change goods into money, in consequence of the roads being very few and very bad, and the carts, and waggons of the worst description; and they must either have given away some of the good things they possessed in enormous quantities, or have suffered them to spoil and moulder. so, many of the people missed what it was more agreeable to get idly than to work for; and the monks who were driven out of their homes and wandered about encouraged their discontent; and there were, consequently, great risings in lincolnshire and yorkshire. these were put down by terrific executions, from which the monks themselves did not escape, and the king went on grunting and growling in his own fat way, like a royal pig. i have told all this story of the religious houses at one time, to make it plainer, and to get back to the king's domestic affairs. the unfortunate queen catherine was by this time dead; and the king was by this time as tired of his second queen as he had been of his first. as he had fallen in love with anne when she was in the service of catherine, so he now fell in love with another lady in the service of anne. see how wicked deeds are punished, and how bitterly and self-reproachfully the queen must now have thought of her own rise to the throne! the new fancy was a lady jane seymour; and the king no sooner set his mind on her, than he resolved to have anne boleyn's head. so, he brought a number of charges against anne, accusing her of dreadful crimes which she had never committed, and implicating in them her own brother and certain gentlemen in her service: among whom one norris, and mark smeaton a musician, are best remembered. as the lords and councillors were as afraid of the king and as subservient to him as the meanest peasant in england was, they brought in anne boleyn guilty, and the other unfortunate persons accused with her, guilty too. those gentlemen died like men, with the exception of smeaton, who had been tempted by the king into telling lies, which he called confessions, and who had expected to be pardoned; but who, i am very glad to say, was not. there was then only the queen to dispose of. she had been surrounded in the tower with women spies; had been monstrously persecuted and foully slandered; and had received no justice. but her spirit rose with her afflictions; and, after having in vain tried to soften the king by writing an affecting letter to him which still exists, 'from her doleful prison in the tower,' she resigned herself to death. she said to those about her, very cheerfully, that she had heard say the executioner was a good one, and that she had a little neck (she laughed and clasped it with her hands as she said that), and would soon be out of her pain. and she _was_ soon out of her pain, poor creature, on the green inside the tower, and her body was flung into an old box and put away in the ground under the chapel. there is a story that the king sat in his palace listening very anxiously for the sound of the cannon which was to announce this new murder; and that, when he heard it come booming on the air, he rose up in great spirits and ordered out his dogs to go a-hunting. he was bad enough to do it; but whether he did it or not, it is certain that he married jane seymour the very next day. i have not much pleasure in recording that she lived just long enough to give birth to a son who was christened edward, and then to die of a fever: for, i cannot but think that any woman who married such a ruffian, and knew what innocent blood was on his hands, deserved the axe that would assuredly have fallen on the neck of jane seymour, if she had lived much longer. cranmer had done what he could to save some of the church property for purposes of religion and education; but, the great families had been so hungry to get hold of it, that very little could be rescued for such objects. even miles coverdale, who did the people the inestimable service of translating the bible into english (which the unreformed religion never permitted to be done), was left in poverty while the great families clutched the church lands and money. the people had been told that when the crown came into possession of these funds, it would not be necessary to tax them; but they were taxed afresh directly afterwards. it was fortunate for them, indeed, that so many nobles were so greedy for this wealth; since, if it had remained with the crown, there might have been no end to tyranny for hundreds of years. one of the most active writers on the church's side against the king was a member of his own family--a sort of distant cousin, reginald pole by name--who attacked him in the most violent manner (though he received a pension from him all the time), and fought for the church with his pen, day and night. as he was beyond the king's reach--being in italy--the king politely invited him over to discuss the subject; but he, knowing better than to come, and wisely staying where he was, the king's rage fell upon his brother lord montague, the marquis of exeter, and some other gentlemen: who were tried for high treason in corresponding with him and aiding him--which they probably did--and were all executed. the pope made reginald pole a cardinal; but, so much against his will, that it is thought he even aspired in his own mind to the vacant throne of england, and had hopes of marrying the princess mary. his being made a high priest, however, put an end to all that. his mother, the venerable countess of salisbury--who was, unfortunately for herself, within the tyrant's reach--was the last of his relatives on whom his wrath fell. when she was told to lay her grey head upon the block, she answered the executioner, 'no! my head never committed treason, and if you want it, you shall seize it.' so, she ran round and round the scaffold with the executioner striking at her, and her grey hair bedabbled with blood; and even when they held her down upon the block she moved her head about to the last, resolved to be no party to her own barbarous murder. all this the people bore, as they had borne everything else. indeed they bore much more; for the slow fires of smithfield were continually burning, and people were constantly being roasted to death--still to show what a good christian the king was. he defied the pope and his bull, which was now issued, and had come into england; but he burned innumerable people whose only offence was that they differed from the pope's religious opinions. there was a wretched man named lambert, among others, who was tried for this before the king, and with whom six bishops argued one after another. when he was quite exhausted (as well he might be, after six bishops), he threw himself on the king's mercy; but the king blustered out that he had no mercy for heretics. so, _he_ too fed the fire. all this the people bore, and more than all this yet. the national spirit seems to have been banished from the kingdom at this time. the very people who were executed for treason, the very wives and friends of the 'bluff' king, spoke of him on the scaffold as a good prince, and a gentle prince--just as serfs in similar circumstances have been known to do, under the sultan and bashaws of the east, or under the fierce old tyrants of russia, who poured boiling and freezing water on them alternately, until they died. the parliament were as bad as the rest, and gave the king whatever he wanted; among other vile accommodations, they gave him new powers of murdering, at his will and pleasure, any one whom he might choose to call a traitor. but the worst measure they passed was an act of six articles, commonly called at the time 'the whip with six strings;' which punished offences against the pope's opinions, without mercy, and enforced the very worst parts of the monkish religion. cranmer would have modified it, if he could; but, being overborne by the romish party, had not the power. as one of the articles declared that priests should not marry, and as he was married himself, he sent his wife and children into germany, and began to tremble at his danger; none the less because he was, and had long been, the king's friend. this whip of six strings was made under the king's own eye. it should never be forgotten of him how cruelly he supported the worst of the popish doctrines when there was nothing to be got by opposing them. this amiable monarch now thought of taking another wife. he proposed to the french king to have some of the ladies of the french court exhibited before him, that he might make his royal choice; but the french king answered that he would rather not have his ladies trotted out to be shown like horses at a fair. he proposed to the dowager duchess of milan, who replied that she might have thought of such a match if she had had two heads; but, that only owning one, she must beg to keep it safe. at last cromwell represented that there was a protestant princess in germany--those who held the reformed religion were called protestants, because their leaders had protested against the abuses and impositions of the unreformed church--named anne of cleves, who was beautiful, and would answer the purpose admirably. the king said was she a large woman, because he must have a fat wife? 'o yes,' said cromwell; 'she was very large, just the thing.' on hearing this the king sent over his famous painter, hans holbein, to take her portrait. hans made her out to be so good-looking that the king was satisfied, and the marriage was arranged. but, whether anybody had paid hans to touch up the picture; or whether hans, like one or two other painters, flattered a princess in the ordinary way of business, i cannot say: all i know is, that when anne came over and the king went to rochester to meet her, and first saw her without her seeing him, he swore she was 'a great flanders mare,' and said he would never marry her. being obliged to do it now matters had gone so far, he would not give her the presents he had prepared, and would never notice her. he never forgave cromwell his part in the affair. his downfall dates from that time. it was quickened by his enemies, in the interests of the unreformed religion, putting in the king's way, at a state dinner, a niece of the duke of norfolk, catherine howard, a young lady of fascinating manners, though small in stature and not particularly beautiful. falling in love with her on the spot, the king soon divorced anne of cleves after making her the subject of much brutal talk, on pretence that she had been previously betrothed to some one else--which would never do for one of his dignity--and married catherine. it is probable that on his wedding day, of all days in the year, he sent his faithful cromwell to the scaffold, and had his head struck off. he further celebrated the occasion by burning at one time, and causing to be drawn to the fire on the same hurdles, some protestant prisoners for denying the pope's doctrines, and some roman catholic prisoners for denying his own supremacy. still the people bore it, and not a gentleman in england raised his hand. but, by a just retribution, it soon came out that catherine howard, before her marriage, had been really guilty of such crimes as the king had falsely attributed to his second wife anne boleyn; so, again the dreadful axe made the king a widower, and this queen passed away as so many in that reign had passed away before her. as an appropriate pursuit under the circumstances, henry then applied himself to superintending the composition of a religious book called 'a necessary doctrine for any christian man.' he must have been a little confused in his mind, i think, at about this period; for he was so false to himself as to be true to some one: that some one being cranmer, whom the duke of norfolk and others of his enemies tried to ruin; but to whom the king was steadfast, and to whom he one night gave his ring, charging him when he should find himself, next day, accused of treason, to show it to the council board. this cranmer did to the confusion of his enemies. i suppose the king thought he might want him a little longer. he married yet once more. yes, strange to say, he found in england another woman who would become his wife, and she was catherine parr, widow of lord latimer. she leaned towards the reformed religion; and it is some comfort to know, that she tormented the king considerably by arguing a variety of doctrinal points with him on all possible occasions. she had very nearly done this to her own destruction. after one of these conversations the king in a very black mood actually instructed gardiner, one of his bishops who favoured the popish opinions, to draw a bill of accusation against her, which would have inevitably brought her to the scaffold where her predecessors had died, but that one of her friends picked up the paper of instructions which had been dropped in the palace, and gave her timely notice. she fell ill with terror; but managed the king so well when he came to entrap her into further statements--by saying that she had only spoken on such points to divert his mind and to get some information from his extraordinary wisdom--that he gave her a kiss and called her his sweetheart. and, when the chancellor came next day actually to take her to the tower, the king sent him about his business, and honoured him with the epithets of a beast, a knave, and a fool. so near was catherine parr to the block, and so narrow was her escape! there was war with scotland in this reign, and a short clumsy war with france for favouring scotland; but, the events at home were so dreadful, and leave such an enduring stain on the country, that i need say no more of what happened abroad. a few more horrors, and this reign is over. there was a lady, anne askew, in lincolnshire, who inclined to the protestant opinions, and whose husband being a fierce catholic, turned her out of his house. she came to london, and was considered as offending against the six articles, and was taken to the tower, and put upon the rack--probably because it was hoped that she might, in her agony, criminate some obnoxious persons; if falsely, so much the better. she was tortured without uttering a cry, until the lieutenant of the tower would suffer his men to torture her no more; and then two priests who were present actually pulled off their robes, and turned the wheels of the rack with their own hands, so rending and twisting and breaking her that she was afterwards carried to the fire in a chair. she was burned with three others, a gentleman, a clergyman, and a tailor; and so the world went on. either the king became afraid of the power of the duke of norfolk, and his son the earl of surrey, or they gave him some offence, but he resolved to pull _them_ down, to follow all the rest who were gone. the son was tried first--of course for nothing--and defended himself bravely; but of course he was found guilty, and of course he was executed. then his father was laid hold of, and left for death too. but the king himself was left for death by a greater king, and the earth was to be rid of him at last. he was now a swollen, hideous spectacle, with a great hole in his leg, and so odious to every sense that it was dreadful to approach him. when he was found to be dying, cranmer was sent for from his palace at croydon, and came with all speed, but found him speechless. happily, in that hour he perished. he was in the fifty- sixth year of his age, and the thirty-eighth of his reign. henry the eighth has been favoured by some protestant writers, because the reformation was achieved in his time. but the mighty merit of it lies with other men and not with him; and it can be rendered none the worse by this monster's crimes, and none the better by any defence of them. the plain truth is, that he was a most intolerable ruffian, a disgrace to human nature, and a blot of blood and grease upon the history of england. chapter xxix--england under edward the sixth henry the eighth had made a will, appointing a council of sixteen to govern the kingdom for his son while he was under age (he was now only ten years old), and another council of twelve to help them. the most powerful of the first council was the earl of hertford, the young king's uncle, who lost no time in bringing his nephew with great state up to enfield, and thence to the tower. it was considered at the time a striking proof of virtue in the young king that he was sorry for his father's death; but, as common subjects have that virtue too, sometimes, we will say no more about it. there was a curious part of the late king's will, requiring his executors to fulfil whatever promises he had made. some of the court wondering what these might be, the earl of hertford and the other noblemen interested, said that they were promises to advance and enrich _them_. so, the earl of hertford made himself duke of somerset, and made his brother edward seymour a baron; and there were various similar promotions, all very agreeable to the parties concerned, and very dutiful, no doubt, to the late king's memory. to be more dutiful still, they made themselves rich out of the church lands, and were very comfortable. the new duke of somerset caused himself to be declared protector of the kingdom, and was, indeed, the king. as young edward the sixth had been brought up in the principles of the protestant religion, everybody knew that they would be maintained. but cranmer, to whom they were chiefly entrusted, advanced them steadily and temperately. many superstitious and ridiculous practices were stopped; but practices which were harmless were not interfered with. the duke of somerset, the protector, was anxious to have the young king engaged in marriage to the young queen of scotland, in order to prevent that princess from making an alliance with any foreign power; but, as a large party in scotland were unfavourable to this plan, he invaded that country. his excuse for doing so was, that the border men--that is, the scotch who lived in that part of the country where england and scotland joined--troubled the english very much. but there were two sides to this question; for the english border men troubled the scotch too; and, through many long years, there were perpetual border quarrels which gave rise to numbers of old tales and songs. however, the protector invaded scotland; and arran, the scottish regent, with an army twice as large as his, advanced to meet him. they encountered on the banks of the river esk, within a few miles of edinburgh; and there, after a little skirmish, the protector made such moderate proposals, in offering to retire if the scotch would only engage not to marry their princess to any foreign prince, that the regent thought the english were afraid. but in this he made a horrible mistake; for the english soldiers on land, and the english sailors on the water, so set upon the scotch, that they broke and fled, and more than ten thousand of them were killed. it was a dreadful battle, for the fugitives were slain without mercy. the ground for four miles, all the way to edinburgh, was strewn with dead men, and with arms, and legs, and heads. some hid themselves in streams and were drowned; some threw away their armour and were killed running, almost naked; but in this battle of pinkey the english lost only two or three hundred men. they were much better clothed than the scotch; at the poverty of whose appearance and country they were exceedingly astonished. a parliament was called when somerset came back, and it repealed the whip with six strings, and did one or two other good things; though it unhappily retained the punishment of burning for those people who did not make believe to believe, in all religious matters, what the government had declared that they must and should believe. it also made a foolish law (meant to put down beggars), that any man who lived idly and loitered about for three days together, should be burned with a hot iron, made a slave, and wear an iron fetter. but this savage absurdity soon came to an end, and went the way of a great many other foolish laws. the protector was now so proud that he sat in parliament before all the nobles, on the right hand of the throne. many other noblemen, who only wanted to be as proud if they could get a chance, became his enemies of course; and it is supposed that he came back suddenly from scotland because he had received news that his brother, lord seymour, was becoming dangerous to him. this lord was now high admiral of england; a very handsome man, and a great favourite with the court ladies--even with the young princess elizabeth, who romped with him a little more than young princesses in these times do with any one. he had married catherine parr, the late king's widow, who was now dead; and, to strengthen his power, he secretly supplied the young king with money. he may even have engaged with some of his brother's enemies in a plot to carry the boy off. on these and other accusations, at any rate, he was confined in the tower, impeached, and found guilty; his own brother's name being--unnatural and sad to tell--the first signed to the warrant of his execution. he was executed on tower hill, and died denying his treason. one of his last proceedings in this world was to write two letters, one to the princess elizabeth, and one to the princess mary, which a servant of his took charge of, and concealed in his shoe. these letters are supposed to have urged them against his brother, and to revenge his death. what they truly contained is not known; but there is no doubt that he had, at one time, obtained great influence over the princess elizabeth. all this while, the protestant religion was making progress. the images which the people had gradually come to worship, were removed from the churches; the people were informed that they need not confess themselves to priests unless they chose; a common prayer-book was drawn up in the english language, which all could understand, and many other improvements were made; still moderately. for cranmer was a very moderate man, and even restrained the protestant clergy from violently abusing the unreformed religion--as they very often did, and which was not a good example. but the people were at this time in great distress. the rapacious nobility who had come into possession of the church lands, were very bad landlords. they enclosed great quantities of ground for the feeding of sheep, which was then more profitable than the growing of crops; and this increased the general distress. so the people, who still understood little of what was going on about them, and still readily believed what the homeless monks told them--many of whom had been their good friends in their better days--took it into their heads that all this was owing to the reformed religion, and therefore rose, in many parts of the country. the most powerful risings were in devonshire and norfolk. in devonshire, the rebellion was so strong that ten thousand men united within a few days, and even laid siege to exeter. but lord russell, coming to the assistance of the citizens who defended that town, defeated the rebels; and, not only hanged the mayor of one place, but hanged the vicar of another from his own church steeple. what with hanging and killing by the sword, four thousand of the rebels are supposed to have fallen in that one county. in norfolk (where the rising was more against the enclosure of open lands than against the reformed religion), the popular leader was a man named robert ket, a tanner of wymondham. the mob were, in the first instance, excited against the tanner by one john flowerdew, a gentleman who owed him a grudge: but the tanner was more than a match for the gentleman, since he soon got the people on his side, and established himself near norwich with quite an army. there was a large oak-tree in that place, on a spot called moushold hill, which ket named the tree of reformation; and under its green boughs, he and his men sat, in the midsummer weather, holding courts of justice, and debating affairs of state. they were even impartial enough to allow some rather tiresome public speakers to get up into this tree of reformation, and point out their errors to them, in long discourses, while they lay listening (not always without some grumbling and growling) in the shade below. at last, one sunny july day, a herald appeared below the tree, and proclaimed ket and all his men traitors, unless from that moment they dispersed and went home: in which case they were to receive a pardon. but, ket and his men made light of the herald and became stronger than ever, until the earl of warwick went after them with a sufficient force, and cut them all to pieces. a few were hanged, drawn, and quartered, as traitors, and their limbs were sent into various country places to be a terror to the people. nine of them were hanged upon nine green branches of the oak of reformation; and so, for the time, that tree may be said to have withered away. the protector, though a haughty man, had compassion for the real distresses of the common people, and a sincere desire to help them. but he was too proud and too high in degree to hold even their favour steadily; and many of the nobles always envied and hated him, because they were as proud and not as high as he. he was at this time building a great palace in the strand: to get the stone for which he blew up church steeples with gunpowder, and pulled down bishops' houses: thus making himself still more disliked. at length, his principal enemy, the earl of warwick--dudley by name, and the son of that dudley who had made himself so odious with empson, in the reign of henry the seventh--joined with seven other members of the council against him, formed a separate council; and, becoming stronger in a few days, sent him to the tower under twenty-nine articles of accusation. after being sentenced by the council to the forfeiture of all his offices and lands, he was liberated and pardoned, on making a very humble submission. he was even taken back into the council again, after having suffered this fall, and married his daughter, lady anne seymour, to warwick's eldest son. but such a reconciliation was little likely to last, and did not outlive a year. warwick, having got himself made duke of northumberland, and having advanced the more important of his friends, then finished the history by causing the duke of somerset and his friend lord grey, and others, to be arrested for treason, in having conspired to seize and dethrone the king. they were also accused of having intended to seize the new duke of northumberland, with his friends lord northampton and lord pembroke; to murder them if they found need; and to raise the city to revolt. all this the fallen protector positively denied; except that he confessed to having spoken of the murder of those three noblemen, but having never designed it. he was acquitted of the charge of treason, and found guilty of the other charges; so when the people--who remembered his having been their friend, now that he was disgraced and in danger, saw him come out from his trial with the axe turned from him--they thought he was altogether acquitted, and sent up a loud shout of joy. but the duke of somerset was ordered to be beheaded on tower hill, at eight o'clock in the morning, and proclamations were issued bidding the citizens keep at home until after ten. they filled the streets, however, and crowded the place of execution as soon as it was light; and, with sad faces and sad hearts, saw the once powerful protector ascend the scaffold to lay his head upon the dreadful block. while he was yet saying his last words to them with manly courage, and telling them, in particular, how it comforted him, at that pass, to have assisted in reforming the national religion, a member of the council was seen riding up on horseback. they again thought that the duke was saved by his bringing a reprieve, and again shouted for joy. but the duke himself told them they were mistaken, and laid down his head and had it struck off at a blow. many of the bystanders rushed forward and steeped their handkerchiefs in his blood, as a mark of their affection. he had, indeed, been capable of many good acts, and one of them was discovered after he was no more. the bishop of durham, a very good man, had been informed against to the council, when the duke was in power, as having answered a treacherous letter proposing a rebellion against the reformed religion. as the answer could not be found, he could not be declared guilty; but it was now discovered, hidden by the duke himself among some private papers, in his regard for that good man. the bishop lost his office, and was deprived of his possessions. it is not very pleasant to know that while his uncle lay in prison under sentence of death, the young king was being vastly entertained by plays, and dances, and sham fights: but there is no doubt of it, for he kept a journal himself. it is pleasanter to know that not a single roman catholic was burnt in this reign for holding that religion; though two wretched victims suffered for heresy. one, a woman named joan bocher, for professing some opinions that even she could only explain in unintelligible jargon. the other, a dutchman, named von paris, who practised as a surgeon in london. edward was, to his credit, exceedingly unwilling to sign the warrant for the woman's execution: shedding tears before he did so, and telling cranmer, who urged him to do it (though cranmer really would have spared the woman at first, but for her own determined obstinacy), that the guilt was not his, but that of the man who so strongly urged the dreadful act. we shall see, too soon, whether the time ever came when cranmer is likely to have remembered this with sorrow and remorse. cranmer and ridley (at first bishop of rochester, and afterwards bishop of london) were the most powerful of the clergy of this reign. others were imprisoned and deprived of their property for still adhering to the unreformed religion; the most important among whom were gardiner bishop of winchester, heath bishop of worcester, day bishop of chichester, and bonner that bishop of london who was superseded by ridley. the princess mary, who inherited her mother's gloomy temper, and hated the reformed religion as connected with her mother's wrongs and sorrows--she knew nothing else about it, always refusing to read a single book in which it was truly described--held by the unreformed religion too, and was the only person in the kingdom for whom the old mass was allowed to be performed; nor would the young king have made that exception even in her favour, but for the strong persuasions of cranmer and ridley. he always viewed it with horror; and when he fell into a sickly condition, after having been very ill, first of the measles and then of the small-pox, he was greatly troubled in mind to think that if he died, and she, the next heir to the throne, succeeded, the roman catholic religion would be set up again. this uneasiness, the duke of northumberland was not slow to encourage: for, if the princess mary came to the throne, he, who had taken part with the protestants, was sure to be disgraced. now, the duchess of suffolk was descended from king henry the seventh; and, if she resigned what little or no right she had, in favour of her daughter lady jane grey, that would be the succession to promote the duke's greatness; because lord guilford dudley, one of his sons, was, at this very time, newly married to her. so, he worked upon the king's fears, and persuaded him to set aside both the princess mary and the princess elizabeth, and assert his right to appoint his successor. accordingly the young king handed to the crown lawyers a writing signed half a dozen times over by himself, appointing lady jane grey to succeed to the crown, and requiring them to have his will made out according to law. they were much against it at first, and told the king so; but the duke of northumberland--being so violent about it that the lawyers even expected him to beat them, and hotly declaring that, stripped to his shirt, he would fight any man in such a quarrel--they yielded. cranmer, also, at first hesitated; pleading that he had sworn to maintain the succession of the crown to the princess mary; but, he was a weak man in his resolutions, and afterwards signed the document with the rest of the council. it was completed none too soon; for edward was now sinking in a rapid decline; and, by way of making him better, they handed him over to a woman-doctor who pretended to be able to cure it. he speedily got worse. on the sixth of july, in the year one thousand five hundred and fifty- three, he died, very peaceably and piously, praying god, with his last breath, to protect the reformed religion. this king died in the sixteenth year of his age, and in the seventh of his reign. it is difficult to judge what the character of one so young might afterwards have become among so many bad, ambitious, quarrelling nobles. but, he was an amiable boy, of very good abilities, and had nothing coarse or cruel or brutal in his disposition--which in the son of such a father is rather surprising. chapter xxx--england under mary the duke of northumberland was very anxious to keep the young king's death a secret, in order that he might get the two princesses into his power. but, the princess mary, being informed of that event as she was on her way to london to see her sick brother, turned her horse's head, and rode away into norfolk. the earl of arundel was her friend, and it was he who sent her warning of what had happened. as the secret could not be kept, the duke of northumberland and the council sent for the lord mayor of london and some of the aldermen, and made a merit of telling it to them. then, they made it known to the people, and set off to inform lady jane grey that she was to be queen. she was a pretty girl of only sixteen, and was amiable, learned, and clever. when the lords who came to her, fell on their knees before her, and told her what tidings they brought, she was so astonished that she fainted. on recovering, she expressed her sorrow for the young king's death, and said that she knew she was unfit to govern the kingdom; but that if she must be queen, she prayed god to direct her. she was then at sion house, near brentford; and the lords took her down the river in state to the tower, that she might remain there (as the custom was) until she was crowned. but the people were not at all favourable to lady jane, considering that the right to be queen was mary's, and greatly disliking the duke of northumberland. they were not put into a better humour by the duke's causing a vintner's servant, one gabriel pot, to be taken up for expressing his dissatisfaction among the crowd, and to have his ears nailed to the pillory, and cut off. some powerful men among the nobility declared on mary's side. they raised troops to support her cause, had her proclaimed queen at norwich, and gathered around her at the castle of framlingham, which belonged to the duke of norfolk. for, she was not considered so safe as yet, but that it was best to keep her in a castle on the sea-coast, from whence she might be sent abroad, if necessary. the council would have despatched lady jane's father, the duke of suffolk, as the general of the army against this force; but, as lady jane implored that her father might remain with her, and as he was known to be but a weak man, they told the duke of northumberland that he must take the command himself. he was not very ready to do so, as he mistrusted the council much; but there was no help for it, and he set forth with a heavy heart, observing to a lord who rode beside him through shoreditch at the head of the troops, that, although the people pressed in great numbers to look at them, they were terribly silent. and his fears for himself turned out to be well founded. while he was waiting at cambridge for further help from the council, the council took it into their heads to turn their backs on lady jane's cause, and to take up the princess mary's. this was chiefly owing to the before-mentioned earl of arundel, who represented to the lord mayor and aldermen, in a second interview with those sagacious persons, that, as for himself, he did not perceive the reformed religion to be in much danger--which lord pembroke backed by flourishing his sword as another kind of persuasion. the lord mayor and aldermen, thus enlightened, said there could be no doubt that the princess mary ought to be queen. so, she was proclaimed at the cross by st. paul's, and barrels of wine were given to the people, and they got very drunk, and danced round blazing bonfires--little thinking, poor wretches, what other bonfires would soon be blazing in queen mary's name. after a ten days' dream of royalty, lady jane grey resigned the crown with great willingness, saying that she had only accepted it in obedience to her father and mother; and went gladly back to her pleasant house by the river, and her books. mary then came on towards london; and at wanstead in essex, was joined by her half-sister, the princess elizabeth. they passed through the streets of london to the tower, and there the new queen met some eminent prisoners then confined in it, kissed them, and gave them their liberty. among these was that gardiner, bishop of winchester, who had been imprisoned in the last reign for holding to the unreformed religion. him she soon made chancellor. the duke of northumberland had been taken prisoner, and, together with his son and five others, was quickly brought before the council. he, not unnaturally, asked that council, in his defence, whether it was treason to obey orders that had been issued under the great seal; and, if it were, whether they, who had obeyed them too, ought to be his judges? but they made light of these points; and, being resolved to have him out of the way, soon sentenced him to death. he had risen into power upon the death of another man, and made but a poor show (as might be expected) when he himself lay low. he entreated gardiner to let him live, if it were only in a mouse's hole; and, when he ascended the scaffold to be beheaded on tower hill, addressed the people in a miserable way, saying that he had been incited by others, and exhorting them to return to the unreformed religion, which he told them was his faith. there seems reason to suppose that he expected a pardon even then, in return for this confession; but it matters little whether he did or not. his head was struck off. mary was now crowned queen. she was thirty-seven years of age, short and thin, wrinkled in the face, and very unhealthy. but she had a great liking for show and for bright colours, and all the ladies of her court were magnificently dressed. she had a great liking too for old customs, without much sense in them; and she was oiled in the oldest way, and blessed in the oldest way, and done all manner of things to in the oldest way, at her coronation. i hope they did her good. she soon began to show her desire to put down the reformed religion, and put up the unreformed one: though it was dangerous work as yet, the people being something wiser than they used to be. they even cast a shower of stones--and among them a dagger--at one of the royal chaplains who attacked the reformed religion in a public sermon. but the queen and her priests went steadily on. ridley, the powerful bishop of the last reign, was seized and sent to the tower. latimer, also celebrated among the clergy of the last reign, was likewise sent to the tower, and cranmer speedily followed. latimer was an aged man; and, as his guards took him through smithfield, he looked round it, and said, 'this is a place that hath long groaned for me.' for he knew well, what kind of bonfires would soon be burning. nor was the knowledge confined to him. the prisons were fast filled with the chief protestants, who were there left rotting in darkness, hunger, dirt, and separation from their friends; many, who had time left them for escape, fled from the kingdom; and the dullest of the people began, now, to see what was coming. it came on fast. a parliament was got together; not without strong suspicion of unfairness; and they annulled the divorce, formerly pronounced by cranmer between the queen's mother and king henry the eighth, and unmade all the laws on the subject of religion that had been made in the last king edward's reign. they began their proceedings, in violation of the law, by having the old mass said before them in latin, and by turning out a bishop who would not kneel down. they also declared guilty of treason, lady jane grey for aspiring to the crown; her husband, for being her husband; and cranmer, for not believing in the mass aforesaid. they then prayed the queen graciously to choose a husband for herself, as soon as might be. now, the question who should be the queen's husband had given rise to a great deal of discussion, and to several contending parties. some said cardinal pole was the man--but the queen was of opinion that he was _not_ the man, he being too old and too much of a student. others said that the gallant young courtenay, whom the queen had made earl of devonshire, was the man--and the queen thought so too, for a while; but she changed her mind. at last it appeared that philip, prince of spain, was certainly the man--though certainly not the people's man; for they detested the idea of such a marriage from the beginning to the end, and murmured that the spaniard would establish in england, by the aid of foreign soldiers, the worst abuses of the popish religion, and even the terrible inquisition itself. these discontents gave rise to a conspiracy for marrying young courtenay to the princess elizabeth, and setting them up, with popular tumults all over the kingdom, against the queen. this was discovered in time by gardiner; but in kent, the old bold county, the people rose in their old bold way. sir thomas wyat, a man of great daring, was their leader. he raised his standard at maidstone, marched on to rochester, established himself in the old castle there, and prepared to hold out against the duke of norfolk, who came against him with a party of the queen's guards, and a body of five hundred london men. the london men, however, were all for elizabeth, and not at all for mary. they declared, under the castle walls, for wyat; the duke retreated; and wyat came on to deptford, at the head of fifteen thousand men. but these, in their turn, fell away. when he came to southwark, there were only two thousand left. not dismayed by finding the london citizens in arms, and the guns at the tower ready to oppose his crossing the river there, wyat led them off to kingston-upon-thames, intending to cross the bridge that he knew to be in that place, and so to work his way round to ludgate, one of the old gates of the city. he found the bridge broken down, but mended it, came across, and bravely fought his way up fleet street to ludgate hill. finding the gate closed against him, he fought his way back again, sword in hand, to temple bar. here, being overpowered, he surrendered himself, and three or four hundred of his men were taken, besides a hundred killed. wyat, in a moment of weakness (and perhaps of torture) was afterwards made to accuse the princess elizabeth as his accomplice to some very small extent. but his manhood soon returned to him, and he refused to save his life by making any more false confessions. he was quartered and distributed in the usual brutal way, and from fifty to a hundred of his followers were hanged. the rest were led out, with halters round their necks, to be pardoned, and to make a parade of crying out, 'god save queen mary!' in the danger of this rebellion, the queen showed herself to be a woman of courage and spirit. she disdained to retreat to any place of safety, and went down to the guildhall, sceptre in hand, and made a gallant speech to the lord mayor and citizens. but on the day after wyat's defeat, she did the most cruel act, even of her cruel reign, in signing the warrant for the execution of lady jane grey. they tried to persuade lady jane to accept the unreformed religion; but she steadily refused. on the morning when she was to die, she saw from her window the bleeding and headless body of her husband brought back in a cart from the scaffold on tower hill where he had laid down his life. but, as she had declined to see him before his execution, lest she should be overpowered and not make a good end, so, she even now showed a constancy and calmness that will never be forgotten. she came up to the scaffold with a firm step and a quiet face, and addressed the bystanders in a steady voice. they were not numerous; for she was too young, too innocent and fair, to be murdered before the people on tower hill, as her husband had just been; so, the place of her execution was within the tower itself. she said that she had done an unlawful act in taking what was queen mary's right; but that she had done so with no bad intent, and that she died a humble christian. she begged the executioner to despatch her quickly, and she asked him, 'will you take my head off before i lay me down?' he answered, 'no, madam,' and then she was very quiet while they bandaged her eyes. being blinded, and unable to see the block on which she was to lay her young head, she was seen to feel about for it with her hands, and was heard to say, confused, 'o what shall i do! where is it?' then they guided her to the right place, and the executioner struck off her head. you know too well, now, what dreadful deeds the executioner did in england, through many, many years, and how his axe descended on the hateful block through the necks of some of the bravest, wisest, and best in the land. but it never struck so cruel and so vile a blow as this. the father of lady jane soon followed, but was little pitied. queen mary's next object was to lay hold of elizabeth, and this was pursued with great eagerness. five hundred men were sent to her retired house at ashridge, by berkhampstead, with orders to bring her up, alive or dead. they got there at ten at night, when she was sick in bed. but, their leaders followed her lady into her bedchamber, whence she was brought out betimes next morning, and put into a litter to be conveyed to london. she was so weak and ill, that she was five days on the road; still, she was so resolved to be seen by the people that she had the curtains of the litter opened; and so, very pale and sickly, passed through the streets. she wrote to her sister, saying she was innocent of any crime, and asking why she was made a prisoner; but she got no answer, and was ordered to the tower. they took her in by the traitor's gate, to which she objected, but in vain. one of the lords who conveyed her offered to cover her with his cloak, as it was raining, but she put it away from her, proudly and scornfully, and passed into the tower, and sat down in a court-yard on a stone. they besought her to come in out of the wet; but she answered that it was better sitting there, than in a worse place. at length she went to her apartment, where she was kept a prisoner, though not so close a prisoner as at woodstock, whither she was afterwards removed, and where she is said to have one day envied a milkmaid whom she heard singing in the sunshine as she went through the green fields. gardiner, than whom there were not many worse men among the fierce and sullen priests, cared little to keep secret his stern desire for her death: being used to say that it was of little service to shake off the leaves, and lop the branches of the tree of heresy, if its root, the hope of heretics, were left. he failed, however, in his benevolent design. elizabeth was, at length, released; and hatfield house was assigned to her as a residence, under the care of one sir thomas pope. it would seem that philip, the prince of spain, was a main cause of this change in elizabeth's fortunes. he was not an amiable man, being, on the contrary, proud, overbearing, and gloomy; but he and the spanish lords who came over with him, assuredly did discountenance the idea of doing any violence to the princess. it may have been mere prudence, but we will hope it was manhood and honour. the queen had been expecting her husband with great impatience, and at length he came, to her great joy, though he never cared much for her. they were married by gardiner, at winchester, and there was more holiday-making among the people; but they had their old distrust of this spanish marriage, in which even the parliament shared. though the members of that parliament were far from honest, and were strongly suspected to have been bought with spanish money, they would pass no bill to enable the queen to set aside the princess elizabeth and appoint her own successor. although gardiner failed in this object, as well as in the darker one of bringing the princess to the scaffold, he went on at a great pace in the revival of the unreformed religion. a new parliament was packed, in which there were no protestants. preparations were made to receive cardinal pole in england as the pope's messenger, bringing his holy declaration that all the nobility who had acquired church property, should keep it--which was done to enlist their selfish interest on the pope's side. then a great scene was enacted, which was the triumph of the queen's plans. cardinal pole arrived in great splendour and dignity, and was received with great pomp. the parliament joined in a petition expressive of their sorrow at the change in the national religion, and praying him to receive the country again into the popish church. with the queen sitting on her throne, and the king on one side of her, and the cardinal on the other, and the parliament present, gardiner read the petition aloud. the cardinal then made a great speech, and was so obliging as to say that all was forgotten and forgiven, and that the kingdom was solemnly made roman catholic again. everything was now ready for the lighting of the terrible bonfires. the queen having declared to the council, in writing, that she would wish none of her subjects to be burnt without some of the council being present, and that she would particularly wish there to be good sermons at all burnings, the council knew pretty well what was to be done next. so, after the cardinal had blessed all the bishops as a preface to the burnings, the chancellor gardiner opened a high court at saint mary overy, on the southwark side of london bridge, for the trial of heretics. here, two of the late protestant clergymen, hooper, bishop of gloucester, and rogers, a prebendary of st. paul's, were brought to be tried. hooper was tried first for being married, though a priest, and for not believing in the mass. he admitted both of these accusations, and said that the mass was a wicked imposition. then they tried rogers, who said the same. next morning the two were brought up to be sentenced; and then rogers said that his poor wife, being a german woman and a stranger in the land, he hoped might be allowed to come to speak to him before he died. to this the inhuman gardiner replied, that she was not his wife. 'yea, but she is, my lord,' said rogers, 'and she hath been my wife these eighteen years.' his request was still refused, and they were both sent to newgate; all those who stood in the streets to sell things, being ordered to put out their lights that the people might not see them. but, the people stood at their doors with candles in their hands, and prayed for them as they went by. soon afterwards, rogers was taken out of jail to be burnt in smithfield; and, in the crowd as he went along, he saw his poor wife and his ten children, of whom the youngest was a little baby. and so he was burnt to death. the next day, hooper, who was to be burnt at gloucester, was brought out to take his last journey, and was made to wear a hood over his face that he might not be known by the people. but, they did know him for all that, down in his own part of the country; and, when he came near gloucester, they lined the road, making prayers and lamentations. his guards took him to a lodging, where he slept soundly all night. at nine o'clock next morning, he was brought forth leaning on a staff; for he had taken cold in prison, and was infirm. the iron stake, and the iron chain which was to bind him to it, were fixed up near a great elm-tree in a pleasant open place before the cathedral, where, on peaceful sundays, he had been accustomed to preach and to pray, when he was bishop of gloucester. this tree, which had no leaves then, it being february, was filled with people; and the priests of gloucester college were looking complacently on from a window, and there was a great concourse of spectators in every spot from which a glimpse of the dreadful sight could be beheld. when the old man kneeled down on the small platform at the foot of the stake, and prayed aloud, the nearest people were observed to be so attentive to his prayers that they were ordered to stand farther back; for it did not suit the romish church to have those protestant words heard. his prayers concluded, he went up to the stake and was stripped to his shirt, and chained ready for the fire. one of his guards had such compassion on him that, to shorten his agonies, he tied some packets of gunpowder about him. then they heaped up wood and straw and reeds, and set them all alight. but, unhappily, the wood was green and damp, and there was a wind blowing that blew what flame there was, away. thus, through three-quarters of an hour, the good old man was scorched and roasted and smoked, as the fire rose and sank; and all that time they saw him, as he burned, moving his lips in prayer, and beating his breast with one hand, even after the other was burnt away and had fallen off. cranmer, ridley, and latimer, were taken to oxford to dispute with a commission of priests and doctors about the mass. they were shamefully treated; and it is recorded that the oxford scholars hissed and howled and groaned, and misconducted themselves in an anything but a scholarly way. the prisoners were taken back to jail, and afterwards tried in st. mary's church. they were all found guilty. on the sixteenth of the month of october, ridley and latimer were brought out, to make another of the dreadful bonfires. the scene of the suffering of these two good protestant men was in the city ditch, near baliol college. on coming to the dreadful spot, they kissed the stakes, and then embraced each other. and then a learned doctor got up into a pulpit which was placed there, and preached a sermon from the text, 'though i give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.' when you think of the charity of burning men alive, you may imagine that this learned doctor had a rather brazen face. ridley would have answered his sermon when it came to an end, but was not allowed. when latimer was stripped, it appeared that he had dressed himself under his other clothes, in a new shroud; and, as he stood in it before all the people, it was noted of him, and long remembered, that, whereas he had been stooping and feeble but a few minutes before, he now stood upright and handsome, in the knowledge that he was dying for a just and a great cause. ridley's brother-in-law was there with bags of gunpowder; and when they were both chained up, he tied them round their bodies. then, a light was thrown upon the pile to fire it. 'be of good comfort, master ridley,' said latimer, at that awful moment, 'and play the man! we shall this day light such a candle, by god's grace, in england, as i trust shall never be put out.' and then he was seen to make motions with his hands as if he were washing them in the flames, and to stroke his aged face with them, and was heard to cry, 'father of heaven, receive my soul!' he died quickly, but the fire, after having burned the legs of ridley, sunk. there he lingered, chained to the iron post, and crying, 'o! i cannot burn! o! for christ's sake let the fire come unto me!' and still, when his brother-in-law had heaped on more wood, he was heard through the blinding smoke, still dismally crying, 'o! i cannot burn, i cannot burn!' at last, the gunpowder caught fire, and ended his miseries. five days after this fearful scene, gardiner went to his tremendous account before god, for the cruelties he had so much assisted in committing. cranmer remained still alive and in prison. he was brought out again in february, for more examining and trying, by bonner, bishop of london: another man of blood, who had succeeded to gardiner's work, even in his lifetime, when gardiner was tired of it. cranmer was now degraded as a priest, and left for death; but, if the queen hated any one on earth, she hated him, and it was resolved that he should be ruined and disgraced to the utmost. there is no doubt that the queen and her husband personally urged on these deeds, because they wrote to the council, urging them to be active in the kindling of the fearful fires. as cranmer was known not to be a firm man, a plan was laid for surrounding him with artful people, and inducing him to recant to the unreformed religion. deans and friars visited him, played at bowls with him, showed him various attentions, talked persuasively with him, gave him money for his prison comforts, and induced him to sign, i fear, as many as six recantations. but when, after all, he was taken out to be burnt, he was nobly true to his better self, and made a glorious end. after prayers and a sermon, dr. cole, the preacher of the day (who had been one of the artful priests about cranmer in prison), required him to make a public confession of his faith before the people. this, cole did, expecting that he would declare himself a roman catholic. 'i will make a profession of my faith,' said cranmer, 'and with a good will too.' then, he arose before them all, and took from the sleeve of his robe a written prayer and read it aloud. that done, he kneeled and said the lord's prayer, all the people joining; and then he arose again and told them that he believed in the bible, and that in what he had lately written, he had written what was not the truth, and that, because his right hand had signed those papers, he would burn his right hand first when he came to the fire. as for the pope, he did refuse him and denounce him as the enemy of heaven. hereupon the pious dr. cole cried out to the guards to stop that heretic's mouth and take him away. so they took him away, and chained him to the stake, where he hastily took off his own clothes to make ready for the flames. and he stood before the people with a bald head and a white and flowing beard. he was so firm now when the worst was come, that he again declared against his recantation, and was so impressive and so undismayed, that a certain lord, who was one of the directors of the execution, called out to the men to make haste! when the fire was lighted, cranmer, true to his latest word, stretched out his right hand, and crying out, 'this hand hath offended!' held it among the flames, until it blazed and burned away. his heart was found entire among his ashes, and he left at last a memorable name in english history. cardinal pole celebrated the day by saying his first mass, and next day he was made archbishop of canterbury in cranmer's place. the queen's husband, who was now mostly abroad in his own dominions, and generally made a coarse jest of her to his more familiar courtiers, was at war with france, and came over to seek the assistance of england. england was very unwilling to engage in a french war for his sake; but it happened that the king of france, at this very time, aided a descent upon the english coast. hence, war was declared, greatly to philip's satisfaction; and the queen raised a sum of money with which to carry it on, by every unjustifiable means in her power. it met with no profitable return, for the french duke of guise surprised calais, and the english sustained a complete defeat. the losses they met with in france greatly mortified the national pride, and the queen never recovered the blow. there was a bad fever raging in england at this time, and i am glad to write that the queen took it, and the hour of her death came. 'when i am dead and my body is opened,' she said to those around those around her, 'ye shall find calais written on my heart.' i should have thought, if anything were written on it, they would have found the words--jane grey, hooper, rogers, ridley, latimer, cranmer, and three hundred people burnt alive within four years of my wicked reign, including sixty women and forty little children. but it is enough that their deaths were written in heaven. the queen died on the seventeenth of november, fifteen hundred and fifty- eight, after reigning not quite five years and a half, and in the forty- fourth year of her age. cardinal pole died of the same fever next day. as bloody queen mary, this woman has become famous, and as bloody queen mary, she will ever be justly remembered with horror and detestation in great britain. her memory has been held in such abhorrence that some writers have arisen in later years to take her part, and to show that she was, upon the whole, quite an amiable and cheerful sovereign! 'by their fruits ye shall know them,' said our saviour. the stake and the fire were the fruits of this reign, and you will judge this queen by nothing else. chapter xxxi--england under elizabeth there was great rejoicing all over the land when the lords of the council went down to hatfield, to hail the princess elizabeth as the new queen of england. weary of the barbarities of mary's reign, the people looked with hope and gladness to the new sovereign. the nation seemed to wake from a horrible dream; and heaven, so long hidden by the smoke of the fires that roasted men and women to death, appeared to brighten once more. queen elizabeth was five-and-twenty years of age when she rode through the streets of london, from the tower to westminster abbey, to be crowned. her countenance was strongly marked, but on the whole, commanding and dignified; her hair was red, and her nose something too long and sharp for a woman's. she was not the beautiful creature her courtiers made out; but she was well enough, and no doubt looked all the better for coming after the dark and gloomy mary. she was well educated, but a roundabout writer, and rather a hard swearer and coarse talker. she was clever, but cunning and deceitful, and inherited much of her father's violent temper. i mention this now, because she has been so over-praised by one party, and so over-abused by another, that it is hardly possible to understand the greater part of her reign without first understanding what kind of woman she really was. she began her reign with the great advantage of having a very wise and careful minister, sir william cecil, whom she afterwards made lord burleigh. altogether, the people had greater reason for rejoicing than they usually had, when there were processions in the streets; and they were happy with some reason. all kinds of shows and images were set up; gog and magog were hoisted to the top of temple bar, and (which was more to the purpose) the corporation dutifully presented the young queen with the sum of a thousand marks in gold--so heavy a present, that she was obliged to take it into her carriage with both hands. the coronation was a great success; and, on the next day, one of the courtiers presented a petition to the new queen, praying that as it was the custom to release some prisoners on such occasions, she would have the goodness to release the four evangelists, matthew, mark, luke, and john, and also the apostle saint paul, who had been for some time shut up in a strange language so that the people could not get at them. to this, the queen replied that it would be better first to inquire of themselves whether they desired to be released or not; and, as a means of finding out, a great public discussion--a sort of religious tournament--was appointed to take place between certain champions of the two religions, in westminster abbey. you may suppose that it was soon made pretty clear to common sense, that for people to benefit by what they repeat or read, it is rather necessary they should understand something about it. accordingly, a church service in plain english was settled, and other laws and regulations were made, completely establishing the great work of the reformation. the romish bishops and champions were not harshly dealt with, all things considered; and the queen's ministers were both prudent and merciful. the one great trouble of this reign, and the unfortunate cause of the greater part of such turmoil and bloodshed as occurred in it, was mary stuart, queen of scots. we will try to understand, in as few words as possible, who mary was, what she was, and how she came to be a thorn in the royal pillow of elizabeth. she was the daughter of the queen regent of scotland, mary of guise. she had been married, when a mere child, to the dauphin, the son and heir of the king of france. the pope, who pretended that no one could rightfully wear the crown of england without his gracious permission, was strongly opposed to elizabeth, who had not asked for the said gracious permission. and as mary queen of scots would have inherited the english crown in right of her birth, supposing the english parliament not to have altered the succession, the pope himself, and most of the discontented who were followers of his, maintained that mary was the rightful queen of england, and elizabeth the wrongful queen. mary being so closely connected with france, and france being jealous of england, there was far greater danger in this than there would have been if she had had no alliance with that great power. and when her young husband, on the death of his father, became francis the second, king of france, the matter grew very serious. for, the young couple styled themselves king and queen of england, and the pope was disposed to help them by doing all the mischief he could. now, the reformed religion, under the guidance of a stern and powerful preacher, named john knox, and other such men, had been making fierce progress in scotland. it was still a half savage country, where there was a great deal of murdering and rioting continually going on; and the reformers, instead of reforming those evils as they should have done, went to work in the ferocious old scottish spirit, laying churches and chapels waste, pulling down pictures and altars, and knocking about the grey friars, and the black friars, and the white friars, and the friars of all sorts of colours, in all directions. this obdurate and harsh spirit of the scottish reformers (the scotch have always been rather a sullen and frowning people in religious matters) put up the blood of the romish french court, and caused france to send troops over to scotland, with the hope of setting the friars of all sorts of colours on their legs again; of conquering that country first, and england afterwards; and so crushing the reformation all to pieces. the scottish reformers, who had formed a great league which they called the congregation of the lord, secretly represented to elizabeth that, if the reformed religion got the worst of it with them, it would be likely to get the worst of it in england too; and thus, elizabeth, though she had a high notion of the rights of kings and queens to do anything they liked, sent an army to scotland to support the reformers, who were in arms against their sovereign. all these proceedings led to a treaty of peace at edinburgh, under which the french consented to depart from the kingdom. by a separate treaty, mary and her young husband engaged to renounce their assumed title of king and queen of england. but this treaty they never fulfilled. it happened, soon after matters had got to this state, that the young french king died, leaving mary a young widow. she was then invited by her scottish subjects to return home and reign over them; and as she was not now happy where she was, she, after a little time, complied. elizabeth had been queen three years, when mary queen of scots embarked at calais for her own rough, quarrelling country. as she came out of the harbour, a vessel was lost before her eyes, and she said, 'o! good god! what an omen this is for such a voyage!' she was very fond of france, and sat on the deck, looking back at it and weeping, until it was quite dark. when she went to bed, she directed to be called at daybreak, if the french coast were still visible, that she might behold it for the last time. as it proved to be a clear morning, this was done, and she again wept for the country she was leaving, and said many times, 'farewell, france! farewell, france! i shall never see thee again!' all this was long remembered afterwards, as sorrowful and interesting in a fair young princess of nineteen. indeed, i am afraid it gradually came, together with her other distresses, to surround her with greater sympathy than she deserved. when she came to scotland, and took up her abode at the palace of holyrood in edinburgh, she found herself among uncouth strangers and wild uncomfortable customs very different from her experiences in the court of france. the very people who were disposed to love her, made her head ache when she was tired out by her voyage, with a serenade of discordant music--a fearful concert of bagpipes, i suppose--and brought her and her train home to her palace on miserable little scotch horses that appeared to be half starved. among the people who were not disposed to love her, she found the powerful leaders of the reformed church, who were bitter upon her amusements, however innocent, and denounced music and dancing as works of the devil. john knox himself often lectured her, violently and angrily, and did much to make her life unhappy. all these reasons confirmed her old attachment to the romish religion, and caused her, there is no doubt, most imprudently and dangerously both for herself and for england too, to give a solemn pledge to the heads of the romish church that if she ever succeeded to the english crown, she would set up that religion again. in reading her unhappy history, you must always remember this; and also that during her whole life she was constantly put forward against the queen, in some form or other, by the romish party. that elizabeth, on the other hand, was not inclined to like her, is pretty certain. elizabeth was very vain and jealous, and had an extraordinary dislike to people being married. she treated lady catherine grey, sister of the beheaded lady jane, with such shameful severity, for no other reason than her being secretly married, that she died and her husband was ruined; so, when a second marriage for mary began to be talked about, probably elizabeth disliked her more. not that elizabeth wanted suitors of her own, for they started up from spain, austria, sweden, and england. her english lover at this time, and one whom she much favoured too, was lord robert dudley, earl of leicester--himself secretly married to amy robsart, the daughter of an english gentleman, whom he was strongly suspected of causing to be murdered, down at his country seat, cumnor hall in berkshire, that he might be free to marry the queen. upon this story, the great writer, sir walter scott, has founded one of his best romances. but if elizabeth knew how to lead her handsome favourite on, for her own vanity and pleasure, she knew how to stop him for her own pride; and his love, and all the other proposals, came to nothing. the queen always declared in good set speeches, that she would never be married at all, but would live and die a maiden queen. it was a very pleasant and meritorious declaration, i suppose; but it has been puffed and trumpeted so much, that i am rather tired of it myself. divers princes proposed to marry mary, but the english court had reasons for being jealous of them all, and even proposed as a matter of policy that she should marry that very earl of leicester who had aspired to be the husband of elizabeth. at last, lord darnley, son of the earl of lennox, and himself descended from the royal family of scotland, went over with elizabeth's consent to try his fortune at holyrood. he was a tall simpleton; and could dance and play the guitar; but i know of nothing else he could do, unless it were to get very drunk, and eat gluttonously, and make a contemptible spectacle of himself in many mean and vain ways. however, he gained mary's heart, not disdaining in the pursuit of his object to ally himself with one of her secretaries, david rizzio, who had great influence with her. he soon married the queen. this marriage does not say much for her, but what followed will presently say less. mary's brother, the earl of murray, and head of the protestant party in scotland, had opposed this marriage, partly on religious grounds, and partly perhaps from personal dislike of the very contemptible bridegroom. when it had taken place, through mary's gaining over to it the more powerful of the lords about her, she banished murray for his pains; and, when he and some other nobles rose in arms to support the reformed religion, she herself, within a month of her wedding day, rode against them in armour with loaded pistols in her saddle. driven out of scotland, they presented themselves before elizabeth--who called them traitors in public, and assisted them in private, according to her crafty nature. mary had been married but a little while, when she began to hate her husband, who, in his turn, began to hate that david rizzio, with whom he had leagued to gain her favour, and whom he now believed to be her lover. he hated rizzio to that extent, that he made a compact with lord ruthven and three other lords to get rid of him by murder. this wicked agreement they made in solemn secrecy upon the first of march, fifteen hundred and sixty-six, and on the night of saturday the ninth, the conspirators were brought by darnley up a private staircase, dark and steep, into a range of rooms where they knew that mary was sitting at supper with her sister, lady argyle, and this doomed man. when they went into the room, darnley took the queen round the waist, and lord ruthven, who had risen from a bed of sickness to do this murder, came in, gaunt and ghastly, leaning on two men. rizzio ran behind the queen for shelter and protection. 'let him come out of the room,' said ruthven. 'he shall not leave the room,' replied the queen; 'i read his danger in your face, and it is my will that he remain here.' they then set upon him, struggled with him, overturned the table, dragged him out, and killed him with fifty-six stabs. when the queen heard that he was dead, she said, 'no more tears. i will think now of revenge!' within a day or two, she gained her husband over, and prevailed on the tall idiot to abandon the conspirators and fly with her to dunbar. there, he issued a proclamation, audaciously and falsely denying that he had any knowledge of the late bloody business; and there they were joined by the earl bothwell and some other nobles. with their help, they raised eight thousand men; returned to edinburgh, and drove the assassins into england. mary soon afterwards gave birth to a son--still thinking of revenge. that she should have had a greater scorn for her husband after his late cowardice and treachery than she had had before, was natural enough. there is little doubt that she now began to love bothwell instead, and to plan with him means of getting rid of darnley. bothwell had such power over her that he induced her even to pardon the assassins of rizzio. the arrangements for the christening of the young prince were entrusted to him, and he was one of the most important people at the ceremony, where the child was named james: elizabeth being his godmother, though not present on the occasion. a week afterwards, darnley, who had left mary and gone to his father's house at glasgow, being taken ill with the small- pox, she sent her own physician to attend him. but there is reason to apprehend that this was merely a show and a pretence, and that she knew what was doing, when bothwell within another month proposed to one of the late conspirators against rizzio, to murder darnley, 'for that it was the queen's mind that he should be taken away.' it is certain that on that very day she wrote to her ambassador in france, complaining of him, and yet went immediately to glasgow, feigning to be very anxious about him, and to love him very much. if she wanted to get him in her power, she succeeded to her heart's content; for she induced him to go back with her to edinburgh, and to occupy, instead of the palace, a lone house outside the city called the kirk of field. here, he lived for about a week. one sunday night, she remained with him until ten o'clock, and then left him, to go to holyrood to be present at an entertainment given in celebration of the marriage of one of her favourite servants. at two o'clock in the morning the city was shaken by a great explosion, and the kirk of field was blown to atoms. darnley's body was found next day lying under a tree at some distance. how it came there, undisfigured and unscorched by gunpowder, and how this crime came to be so clumsily and strangely committed, it is impossible to discover. the deceitful character of mary, and the deceitful character of elizabeth, have rendered almost every part of their joint history uncertain and obscure. but, i fear that mary was unquestionably a party to her husband's murder, and that this was the revenge she had threatened. the scotch people universally believed it. voices cried out in the streets of edinburgh in the dead of the night, for justice on the murderess. placards were posted by unknown hands in the public places denouncing bothwell as the murderer, and the queen as his accomplice; and, when he afterwards married her (though himself already married), previously making a show of taking her prisoner by force, the indignation of the people knew no bounds. the women particularly are described as having been quite frantic against the queen, and to have hooted and cried after her in the streets with terrific vehemence. such guilty unions seldom prosper. this husband and wife had lived together but a month, when they were separated for ever by the successes of a band of scotch nobles who associated against them for the protection of the young prince: whom bothwell had vainly endeavoured to lay hold of, and whom he would certainly have murdered, if the earl of mar, in whose hands the boy was, had not been firmly and honourably faithful to his trust. before this angry power, bothwell fled abroad, where he died, a prisoner and mad, nine miserable years afterwards. mary being found by the associated lords to deceive them at every turn, was sent a prisoner to lochleven castle; which, as it stood in the midst of a lake, could only be approached by boat. here, one lord lindsay, who was so much of a brute that the nobles would have done better if they had chosen a mere gentleman for their messenger, made her sign her abdication, and appoint murray, regent of scotland. here, too, murray saw her in a sorrowing and humbled state. she had better have remained in the castle of lochleven, dull prison as it was, with the rippling of the lake against it, and the moving shadows of the water on the room walls; but she could not rest there, and more than once tried to escape. the first time she had nearly succeeded, dressed in the clothes of her own washer-woman, but, putting up her hand to prevent one of the boatmen from lifting her veil, the men suspected her, seeing how white it was, and rowed her back again. a short time afterwards, her fascinating manners enlisted in her cause a boy in the castle, called the little douglas, who, while the family were at supper, stole the keys of the great gate, went softly out with the queen, locked the gate on the outside, and rowed her away across the lake, sinking the keys as they went along. on the opposite shore she was met by another douglas, and some few lords; and, so accompanied, rode away on horseback to hamilton, where they raised three thousand men. here, she issued a proclamation declaring that the abdication she had signed in her prison was illegal, and requiring the regent to yield to his lawful queen. being a steady soldier, and in no way discomposed although he was without an army, murray pretended to treat with her, until he had collected a force about half equal to her own, and then he gave her battle. in one quarter of an hour he cut down all her hopes. she had another weary ride on horse-back of sixty long scotch miles, and took shelter at dundrennan abbey, whence she fled for safety to elizabeth's dominions. mary queen of scots came to england--to her own ruin, the trouble of the kingdom, and the misery and death of many--in the year one thousand five hundred and sixty-eight. how she left it and the world, nineteen years afterwards, we have now to see. second part when mary queen of scots arrived in england, without money and even without any other clothes than those she wore, she wrote to elizabeth, representing herself as an innocent and injured piece of royalty, and entreating her assistance to oblige her scottish subjects to take her back again and obey her. but, as her character was already known in england to be a very different one from what she made it out to be, she was told in answer that she must first clear herself. made uneasy by this condition, mary, rather than stay in england, would have gone to spain, or to france, or would even have gone back to scotland. but, as her doing either would have been likely to trouble england afresh, it was decided that she should be detained here. she first came to carlisle, and, after that, was moved about from castle to castle, as was considered necessary; but england she never left again. after trying very hard to get rid of the necessity of clearing herself, mary, advised by lord herries, her best friend in england, agreed to answer the charges against her, if the scottish noblemen who made them would attend to maintain them before such english noblemen as elizabeth might appoint for that purpose. accordingly, such an assembly, under the name of a conference, met, first at york, and afterwards at hampton court. in its presence lord lennox, darnley's father, openly charged mary with the murder of his son; and whatever mary's friends may now say or write in her behalf, there is no doubt that, when her brother murray produced against her a casket containing certain guilty letters and verses which he stated to have passed between her and bothwell, she withdrew from the inquiry. consequently, it is to be supposed that she was then considered guilty by those who had the best opportunities of judging of the truth, and that the feeling which afterwards arose in her behalf was a very generous but not a very reasonable one. however, the duke of norfolk, an honourable but rather weak nobleman, partly because mary was captivating, partly because he was ambitious, partly because he was over-persuaded by artful plotters against elizabeth, conceived a strong idea that he would like to marry the queen of scots--though he was a little frightened, too, by the letters in the casket. this idea being secretly encouraged by some of the noblemen of elizabeth's court, and even by the favourite earl of leicester (because it was objected to by other favourites who were his rivals), mary expressed her approval of it, and the king of france and the king of spain are supposed to have done the same. it was not so quietly planned, though, but that it came to elizabeth's ears, who warned the duke 'to be careful what sort of pillow he was going to lay his head upon.' he made a humble reply at the time; but turned sulky soon afterwards, and, being considered dangerous, was sent to the tower. thus, from the moment of mary's coming to england she began to be the centre of plots and miseries. a rise of the catholics in the north was the next of these, and it was only checked by many executions and much bloodshed. it was followed by a great conspiracy of the pope and some of the catholic sovereigns of europe to depose elizabeth, place mary on the throne, and restore the unreformed religion. it is almost impossible to doubt that mary knew and approved of this; and the pope himself was so hot in the matter that he issued a bull, in which he openly called elizabeth the 'pretended queen' of england, excommunicated her, and excommunicated all her subjects who should continue to obey her. a copy of this miserable paper got into london, and was found one morning publicly posted on the bishop of london's gate. a great hue and cry being raised, another copy was found in the chamber of a student of lincoln's inn, who confessed, being put upon the rack, that he had received it from one john felton, a rich gentleman who lived across the thames, near southwark. this john felton, being put upon the rack too, confessed that he had posted the placard on the bishop's gate. for this offence he was, within four days, taken to st. paul's churchyard, and there hanged and quartered. as to the pope's bull, the people by the reformation having thrown off the pope, did not care much, you may suppose, for the pope's throwing off them. it was a mere dirty piece of paper, and not half so powerful as a street ballad. on the very day when felton was brought to his trial, the poor duke of norfolk was released. it would have been well for him if he had kept away from the tower evermore, and from the snares that had taken him there. but, even while he was in that dismal place he corresponded with mary, and as soon as he was out of it, he began to plot again. being discovered in correspondence with the pope, with a view to a rising in england which should force elizabeth to consent to his marriage with mary and to repeal the laws against the catholics, he was re-committed to the tower and brought to trial. he was found guilty by the unanimous verdict of the lords who tried him, and was sentenced to the block. it is very difficult to make out, at this distance of time, and between opposite accounts, whether elizabeth really was a humane woman, or desired to appear so, or was fearful of shedding the blood of people of great name who were popular in the country. twice she commanded and countermanded the execution of this duke, and it did not take place until five months after his trial. the scaffold was erected on tower hill, and there he died like a brave man. he refused to have his eyes bandaged, saying that he was not at all afraid of death; and he admitted the justice of his sentence, and was much regretted by the people. although mary had shrunk at the most important time from disproving her guilt, she was very careful never to do anything that would admit it. all such proposals as were made to her by elizabeth for her release, required that admission in some form or other, and therefore came to nothing. moreover, both women being artful and treacherous, and neither ever trusting the other, it was not likely that they could ever make an agreement. so, the parliament, aggravated by what the pope had done, made new and strong laws against the spreading of the catholic religion in england, and declared it treason in any one to say that the queen and her successors were not the lawful sovereigns of england. it would have done more than this, but for elizabeth's moderation. since the reformation, there had come to be three great sects of religious people--or people who called themselves so--in england; that is to say, those who belonged to the reformed church, those who belonged to the unreformed church, and those who were called the puritans, because they said that they wanted to have everything very pure and plain in all the church service. these last were for the most part an uncomfortable people, who thought it highly meritorious to dress in a hideous manner, talk through their noses, and oppose all harmless enjoyments. but they were powerful too, and very much in earnest, and they were one and all the determined enemies of the queen of scots. the protestant feeling in england was further strengthened by the tremendous cruelties to which protestants were exposed in france and in the netherlands. scores of thousands of them were put to death in those countries with every cruelty that can be imagined, and at last, in the autumn of the year one thousand five hundred and seventy-two, one of the greatest barbarities ever committed in the world took place at paris. it is called in history, the massacre of saint bartholomew, because it took place on saint bartholomew's eve. the day fell on saturday the twenty-third of august. on that day all the great leaders of the protestants (who were there called huguenots) were assembled together, for the purpose, as was represented to them, of doing honour to the marriage of their chief, the young king of navarre, with the sister of charles the ninth: a miserable young king who then occupied the french throne. this dull creature was made to believe by his mother and other fierce catholics about him that the huguenots meant to take his life; and he was persuaded to give secret orders that, on the tolling of a great bell, they should be fallen upon by an overpowering force of armed men, and slaughtered wherever they could be found. when the appointed hour was close at hand, the stupid wretch, trembling from head to foot, was taken into a balcony by his mother to see the atrocious work begun. the moment the bell tolled, the murderers broke forth. during all that night and the two next days, they broke into the houses, fired the houses, shot and stabbed the protestants, men, women, and children, and flung their bodies into the streets. they were shot at in the streets as they passed along, and their blood ran down the gutters. upwards of ten thousand protestants were killed in paris alone; in all france four or five times that number. to return thanks to heaven for these diabolical murders, the pope and his train actually went in public procession at rome, and as if this were not shame enough for them, they had a medal struck to commemorate the event. but, however comfortable the wholesale murders were to these high authorities, they had not that soothing effect upon the doll-king. i am happy to state that he never knew a moment's peace afterwards; that he was continually crying out that he saw the huguenots covered with blood and wounds falling dead before him; and that he died within a year, shrieking and yelling and raving to that degree, that if all the popes who had ever lived had been rolled into one, they would not have afforded his guilty majesty the slightest consolation. when the terrible news of the massacre arrived in england, it made a powerful impression indeed upon the people. if they began to run a little wild against the catholics at about this time, this fearful reason for it, coming so soon after the days of bloody queen mary, must be remembered in their excuse. the court was not quite so honest as the people--but perhaps it sometimes is not. it received the french ambassador, with all the lords and ladies dressed in deep mourning, and keeping a profound silence. nevertheless, a proposal of marriage which he had made to elizabeth only two days before the eve of saint bartholomew, on behalf of the duke of alencon, the french king's brother, a boy of seventeen, still went on; while on the other hand, in her usual crafty way, the queen secretly supplied the huguenots with money and weapons. i must say that for a queen who made all those fine speeches, of which i have confessed myself to be rather tired, about living and dying a maiden queen, elizabeth was 'going' to be married pretty often. besides always having some english favourite or other whom she by turns encouraged and swore at and knocked about--for the maiden queen was very free with her fists--she held this french duke off and on through several years. when he at last came over to england, the marriage articles were actually drawn up, and it was settled that the wedding should take place in six weeks. the queen was then so bent upon it, that she prosecuted a poor puritan named stubbs, and a poor bookseller named page, for writing and publishing a pamphlet against it. their right hands were chopped off for this crime; and poor stubbs--more loyal than i should have been myself under the circumstances--immediately pulled off his hat with his left hand, and cried, 'god save the queen!' stubbs was cruelly treated; for the marriage never took place after all, though the queen pledged herself to the duke with a ring from her own finger. he went away, no better than he came, when the courtship had lasted some ten years altogether; and he died a couple of years afterwards, mourned by elizabeth, who appears to have been really fond of him. it is not much to her credit, for he was a bad enough member of a bad family. to return to the catholics. there arose two orders of priests, who were very busy in england, and who were much dreaded. these were the jesuits (who were everywhere in all sorts of disguises), and the seminary priests. the people had a great horror of the first, because they were known to have taught that murder was lawful if it were done with an object of which they approved; and they had a great horror of the second, because they came to teach the old religion, and to be the successors of 'queen mary's priests,' as those yet lingering in england were called, when they should die out. the severest laws were made against them, and were most unmercifully executed. those who sheltered them in their houses often suffered heavily for what was an act of humanity; and the rack, that cruel torture which tore men's limbs asunder, was constantly kept going. what these unhappy men confessed, or what was ever confessed by any one under that agony, must always be received with great doubt, as it is certain that people have frequently owned to the most absurd and impossible crimes to escape such dreadful suffering. but i cannot doubt it to have been proved by papers, that there were many plots, both among the jesuits, and with france, and with scotland, and with spain, for the destruction of queen elizabeth, for the placing of mary on the throne, and for the revival of the old religion. if the english people were too ready to believe in plots, there were, as i have said, good reasons for it. when the massacre of saint bartholomew was yet fresh in their recollection, a great protestant dutch hero, the prince of orange, was shot by an assassin, who confessed that he had been kept and trained for the purpose in a college of jesuits. the dutch, in this surprise and distress, offered to make elizabeth their sovereign, but she declined the honour, and sent them a small army instead, under the command of the earl of leicester, who, although a capital court favourite, was not much of a general. he did so little in holland, that his campaign there would probably have been forgotten, but for its occasioning the death of one of the best writers, the best knights, and the best gentlemen, of that or any age. this was sir philip sidney, who was wounded by a musket ball in the thigh as he mounted a fresh horse, after having had his own killed under him. he had to ride back wounded, a long distance, and was very faint with fatigue and loss of blood, when some water, for which he had eagerly asked, was handed to him. but he was so good and gentle even then, that seeing a poor badly wounded common soldier lying on the ground, looking at the water with longing eyes, he said, 'thy necessity is greater than mine,' and gave it up to him. this touching action of a noble heart is perhaps as well known as any incident in history--is as famous far and wide as the blood-stained tower of london, with its axe, and block, and murders out of number. so delightful is an act of true humanity, and so glad are mankind to remember it. at home, intelligence of plots began to thicken every day. i suppose the people never did live under such continual terrors as those by which they were possessed now, of catholic risings, and burnings, and poisonings, and i don't know what. still, we must always remember that they lived near and close to awful realities of that kind, and that with their experience it was not difficult to believe in any enormity. the government had the same fear, and did not take the best means of discovering the truth--for, besides torturing the suspected, it employed paid spies, who will always lie for their own profit. it even made some of the conspiracies it brought to light, by sending false letters to disaffected people, inviting them to join in pretended plots, which they too readily did. but, one great real plot was at length discovered, and it ended the career of mary, queen of scots. a seminary priest named ballard, and a spanish soldier named savage, set on and encouraged by certain french priests, imparted a design to one antony babington--a gentleman of fortune in derbyshire, who had been for some time a secret agent of mary's--for murdering the queen. babington then confided the scheme to some other catholic gentlemen who were his friends, and they joined in it heartily. they were vain, weak-headed young men, ridiculously confident, and preposterously proud of their plan; for they got a gimcrack painting made, of the six choice spirits who were to murder elizabeth, with babington in an attitude for the centre figure. two of their number, however, one of whom was a priest, kept elizabeth's wisest minister, sir francis walsingham, acquainted with the whole project from the first. the conspirators were completely deceived to the final point, when babington gave savage, because he was shabby, a ring from his finger, and some money from his purse, wherewith to buy himself new clothes in which to kill the queen. walsingham, having then full evidence against the whole band, and two letters of mary's besides, resolved to seize them. suspecting something wrong, they stole out of the city, one by one, and hid themselves in st. john's wood, and other places which really were hiding places then; but they were all taken, and all executed. when they were seized, a gentleman was sent from court to inform mary of the fact, and of her being involved in the discovery. her friends have complained that she was kept in very hard and severe custody. it does not appear very likely, for she was going out a hunting that very morning. queen elizabeth had been warned long ago, by one in france who had good information of what was secretly doing, that in holding mary alive, she held 'the wolf who would devour her.' the bishop of london had, more lately, given the queen's favourite minister the advice in writing, 'forthwith to cut off the scottish queen's head.' the question now was, what to do with her? the earl of leicester wrote a little note home from holland, recommending that she should be quietly poisoned; that noble favourite having accustomed his mind, it is possible, to remedies of that nature. his black advice, however, was disregarded, and she was brought to trial at fotheringay castle in northamptonshire, before a tribunal of forty, composed of both religions. there, and in the star chamber at westminster, the trial lasted a fortnight. she defended herself with great ability, but could only deny the confessions that had been made by babington and others; could only call her own letters, produced against her by her own secretaries, forgeries; and, in short, could only deny everything. she was found guilty, and declared to have incurred the penalty of death. the parliament met, approved the sentence, and prayed the queen to have it executed. the queen replied that she requested them to consider whether no means could be found of saving mary's life without endangering her own. the parliament rejoined, no; and the citizens illuminated their houses and lighted bonfires, in token of their joy that all these plots and troubles were to be ended by the death of the queen of scots. {mary queen of scots reading the death warrant: p .jpg} she, feeling sure that her time was now come, wrote a letter to the queen of england, making three entreaties; first, that she might be buried in france; secondly, that she might not be executed in secret, but before her servants and some others; thirdly, that after her death, her servants should not be molested, but should be suffered to go home with the legacies she left them. it was an affecting letter, and elizabeth shed tears over it, but sent no answer. then came a special ambassador from france, and another from scotland, to intercede for mary's life; and then the nation began to clamour, more and more, for her death. what the real feelings or intentions of elizabeth were, can never be known now; but i strongly suspect her of only wishing one thing more than mary's death, and that was to keep free of the blame of it. on the first of february, one thousand five hundred and eighty-seven, lord burleigh having drawn out the warrant for the execution, the queen sent to the secretary davison to bring it to her, that she might sign it: which she did. next day, when davison told her it was sealed, she angrily asked him why such haste was necessary? next day but one, she joked about it, and swore a little. again, next day but one, she seemed to complain that it was not yet done, but still she would not be plain with those about her. so, on the seventh, the earls of kent and shrewsbury, with the sheriff of northamptonshire, came with the warrant to fotheringay, to tell the queen of scots to prepare for death. when those messengers of ill omen were gone, mary made a frugal supper, drank to her servants, read over her will, went to bed, slept for some hours, and then arose and passed the remainder of the night saying prayers. in the morning she dressed herself in her best clothes; and, at eight o'clock when the sheriff came for her to her chapel, took leave of her servants who were there assembled praying with her, and went down- stairs, carrying a bible in one hand and a crucifix in the other. two of her women and four of her men were allowed to be present in the hall; where a low scaffold, only two feet from the ground, was erected and covered with black; and where the executioner from the tower, and his assistant, stood, dressed in black velvet. the hall was full of people. while the sentence was being read she sat upon a stool; and, when it was finished, she again denied her guilt, as she had done before. the earl of kent and the dean of peterborough, in their protestant zeal, made some very unnecessary speeches to her; to which she replied that she died in the catholic religion, and they need not trouble themselves about that matter. when her head and neck were uncovered by the executioners, she said that she had not been used to be undressed by such hands, or before so much company. finally, one of her women fastened a cloth over her face, and she laid her neck upon the block, and repeated more than once in latin, 'into thy hands, o lord, i commend my spirit!' some say her head was struck off in two blows, some say in three. however that be, when it was held up, streaming with blood, the real hair beneath the false hair she had long worn was seen to be as grey as that of a woman of seventy, though she was at that time only in her forty-sixth year. all her beauty was gone. but she was beautiful enough to her little dog, who cowered under her dress, frightened, when she went upon the scaffold, and who lay down beside her headless body when all her earthly sorrows were over. third part on its being formally made known to elizabeth that the sentence had been executed on the queen of scots, she showed the utmost grief and rage, drove her favourites from her with violent indignation, and sent davison to the tower; from which place he was only released in the end by paying an immense fine which completely ruined him. elizabeth not only over- acted her part in making these pretences, but most basely reduced to poverty one of her faithful servants for no other fault than obeying her commands. james, king of scotland, mary's son, made a show likewise of being very angry on the occasion; but he was a pensioner of england to the amount of five thousand pounds a year, and he had known very little of his mother, and he possibly regarded her as the murderer of his father, and he soon took it quietly. philip, king of spain, however, threatened to do greater things than ever had been done yet, to set up the catholic religion and punish protestant england. elizabeth, hearing that he and the prince of parma were making great preparations for this purpose, in order to be beforehand with them sent out admiral drake (a famous navigator, who had sailed about the world, and had already brought great plunder from spain) to the port of cadiz, where he burnt a hundred vessels full of stores. this great loss obliged the spaniards to put off the invasion for a year; but it was none the less formidable for that, amounting to one hundred and thirty ships, nineteen thousand soldiers, eight thousand sailors, two thousand slaves, and between two and three thousand great guns. england was not idle in making ready to resist this great force. all the men between sixteen years old and sixty, were trained and drilled; the national fleet of ships (in number only thirty-four at first) was enlarged by public contributions and by private ships, fitted out by noblemen; the city of london, of its own accord, furnished double the number of ships and men that it was required to provide; and, if ever the national spirit was up in england, it was up all through the country to resist the spaniards. some of the queen's advisers were for seizing the principal english catholics, and putting them to death; but the queen--who, to her honour, used to say, that she would never believe any ill of her subjects, which a parent would not believe of her own children--rejected the advice, and only confined a few of those who were the most suspected, in the fens in lincolnshire. the great body of catholics deserved this confidence; for they behaved most loyally, nobly, and bravely. so, with all england firing up like one strong, angry man, and with both sides of the thames fortified, and with the soldiers under arms, and with the sailors in their ships, the country waited for the coming of the proud spanish fleet, which was called the invincible armada. the queen herself, riding in armour on a white horse, and the earl of essex and the earl of leicester holding her bridal rein, made a brave speech to the troops at tilbury fort opposite gravesend, which was received with such enthusiasm as is seldom known. then came the spanish armada into the english channel, sailing along in the form of a half moon, of such great size that it was seven miles broad. but the english were quickly upon it, and woe then to all the spanish ships that dropped a little out of the half moon, for the english took them instantly! and it soon appeared that the great armada was anything but invincible, for on a summer night, bold drake sent eight blazing fire-ships right into the midst of it. in terrible consternation the spaniards tried to get out to sea, and so became dispersed; the english pursued them at a great advantage; a storm came on, and drove the spaniards among rocks and shoals; and the swift end of the invincible fleet was, that it lost thirty great ships and ten thousand men, and, defeated and disgraced, sailed home again. being afraid to go by the english channel, it sailed all round scotland and ireland; some of the ships getting cast away on the latter coast in bad weather, the irish, who were a kind of savages, plundered those vessels and killed their crews. so ended this great attempt to invade and conquer england. and i think it will be a long time before any other invincible fleet coming to england with the same object, will fare much better than the spanish armada. though the spanish king had had this bitter taste of english bravery, he was so little the wiser for it, as still to entertain his old designs, and even to conceive the absurd idea of placing his daughter on the english throne. but the earl of essex, sir walter raleigh, sir thomas howard, and some other distinguished leaders, put to sea from plymouth, entered the port of cadiz once more, obtained a complete victory over the shipping assembled there, and got possession of the town. in obedience to the queen's express instructions, they behaved with great humanity; and the principal loss of the spaniards was a vast sum of money which they had to pay for ransom. this was one of many gallant achievements on the sea, effected in this reign. sir walter raleigh himself, after marrying a maid of honour and giving offence to the maiden queen thereby, had already sailed to south america in search of gold. the earl of leicester was now dead, and so was sir thomas walsingham, whom lord burleigh was soon to follow. the principal favourite was the earl of essex, a spirited and handsome man, a favourite with the people too as well as with the queen, and possessed of many admirable qualities. it was much debated at court whether there should be peace with spain or no, and he was very urgent for war. he also tried hard to have his own way in the appointment of a deputy to govern in ireland. one day, while this question was in dispute, he hastily took offence, and turned his back upon the queen; as a gentle reminder of which impropriety, the queen gave him a tremendous box on the ear, and told him to go to the devil. he went home instead, and did not reappear at court for half a year or so, when he and the queen were reconciled, though never (as some suppose) thoroughly. from this time the fate of the earl of essex and that of the queen seemed to be blended together. the irish were still perpetually quarrelling and fighting among themselves, and he went over to ireland as lord lieutenant, to the great joy of his enemies (sir walter raleigh among the rest), who were glad to have so dangerous a rival far off. not being by any means successful there, and knowing that his enemies would take advantage of that circumstance to injure him with the queen, he came home again, though against her orders. the queen being taken by surprise when he appeared before her, gave him her hand to kiss, and he was overjoyed--though it was not a very lovely hand by this time--but in the course of the same day she ordered him to confine himself to his room, and two or three days afterwards had him taken into custody. with the same sort of caprice--and as capricious an old woman she now was, as ever wore a crown or a head either--she sent him broth from her own table on his falling ill from anxiety, and cried about him. he was a man who could find comfort and occupation in his books, and he did so for a time; not the least happy time, i dare say, of his life. but it happened unfortunately for him, that he held a monopoly in sweet wines: which means that nobody could sell them without purchasing his permission. this right, which was only for a term, expiring, he applied to have it renewed. the queen refused, with the rather strong observation--but she _did_ make strong observations--that an unruly beast must be stinted in his food. upon this, the angry earl, who had been already deprived of many offices, thought himself in danger of complete ruin, and turned against the queen, whom he called a vain old woman who had grown as crooked in her mind as she had in her figure. these uncomplimentary expressions the ladies of the court immediately snapped up and carried to the queen, whom they did not put in a better tempter, you may believe. the same court ladies, when they had beautiful dark hair of their own, used to wear false red hair, to be like the queen. so they were not very high-spirited ladies, however high in rank. the worst object of the earl of essex, and some friends of his who used to meet at lord southampton's house, was to obtain possession of the queen, and oblige her by force to dismiss her ministers and change her favourites. on saturday the seventh of february, one thousand six hundred and one, the council suspecting this, summoned the earl to come before them. he, pretending to be ill, declined; it was then settled among his friends, that as the next day would be sunday, when many of the citizens usually assembled at the cross by st. paul's cathedral, he should make one bold effort to induce them to rise and follow him to the palace. so, on the sunday morning, he and a small body of adherents started out of his house--essex house by the strand, with steps to the river--having first shut up in it, as prisoners, some members of the council who came to examine him--and hurried into the city with the earl at their head crying out 'for the queen! for the queen! a plot is laid for my life!' no one heeded them, however, and when they came to st. paul's there were no citizens there. in the meantime the prisoners at essex house had been released by one of the earl's own friends; he had been promptly proclaimed a traitor in the city itself; and the streets were barricaded with carts and guarded by soldiers. the earl got back to his house by water, with difficulty, and after an attempt to defend his house against the troops and cannon by which it was soon surrounded, gave himself up that night. he was brought to trial on the nineteenth, and found guilty; on the twenty-fifth, he was executed on tower hill, where he died, at thirty-four years old, both courageously and penitently. his step-father suffered with him. his enemy, sir walter raleigh, stood near the scaffold all the time--but not so near it as we shall see him stand, before we finish his history. in this case, as in the cases of the duke of norfolk and mary queen of scots, the queen had commanded, and countermanded, and again commanded, the execution. it is probable that the death of her young and gallant favourite in the prime of his good qualities, was never off her mind afterwards, but she held out, the same vain, obstinate and capricious woman, for another year. then she danced before her court on a state occasion--and cut, i should think, a mighty ridiculous figure, doing so in an immense ruff, stomacher and wig, at seventy years old. for another year still, she held out, but, without any more dancing, and as a moody, sorrowful, broken creature. at last, on the tenth of march, one thousand six hundred and three, having been ill of a very bad cold, and made worse by the death of the countess of nottingham who was her intimate friend, she fell into a stupor and was supposed to be dead. she recovered her consciousness, however, and then nothing would induce her to go to bed; for she said that she knew that if she did, she should never get up again. there she lay for ten days, on cushions on the floor, without any food, until the lord admiral got her into bed at last, partly by persuasions and partly by main force. when they asked her who should succeed her, she replied that her seat had been the seat of kings, and that she would have for her successor, 'no rascal's son, but a king's.' upon this, the lords present stared at one another, and took the liberty of asking whom she meant; to which she replied, 'whom should i mean, but our cousin of scotland!' this was on the twenty-third of march. they asked her once again that day, after she was speechless, whether she was still in the same mind? she struggled up in bed, and joined her hands over her head in the form of a crown, as the only reply she could make. at three o'clock next morning, she very quietly died, in the forty-fifth year of her reign. that reign had been a glorious one, and is made for ever memorable by the distinguished men who flourished in it. apart from the great voyagers, statesmen, and scholars, whom it produced, the names of bacon, spenser, and shakespeare, will always be remembered with pride and veneration by the civilised world, and will always impart (though with no great reason, perhaps) some portion of their lustre to the name of elizabeth herself. it was a great reign for discovery, for commerce, and for english enterprise and spirit in general. it was a great reign for the protestant religion and for the reformation which made england free. the queen was very popular, and in her progresses, or journeys about her dominions, was everywhere received with the liveliest joy. i think the truth is, that she was not half so good as she has been made out, and not half so bad as she has been made out. she had her fine qualities, but she was coarse, capricious, and treacherous, and had all the faults of an excessively vain young woman long after she was an old one. on the whole, she had a great deal too much of her father in her, to please me. many improvements and luxuries were introduced in the course of these five-and-forty years in the general manner of living; but cock-fighting, bull-baiting, and bear-baiting, were still the national amusements; and a coach was so rarely seen, and was such an ugly and cumbersome affair when it was seen, that even the queen herself, on many high occasions, rode on horseback on a pillion behind the lord chancellor. chapter xxxii--england under james the first 'our cousin of scotland' was ugly, awkward, and shuffling both in mind and person. his tongue was much too large for his mouth, his legs were much too weak for his body, and his dull goggle-eyes stared and rolled like an idiot's. he was cunning, covetous, wasteful, idle, drunken, greedy, dirty, cowardly, a great swearer, and the most conceited man on earth. his figure--what is commonly called rickety from his birth--presented a most ridiculous appearance, dressed in thick padded clothes, as a safeguard against being stabbed (of which he lived in continual fear), of a grass-green colour from head to foot, with a hunting-horn dangling at his side instead of a sword, and his hat and feather sticking over one eye, or hanging on the back of his head, as he happened to toss it on. he used to loll on the necks of his favourite courtiers, and slobber their faces, and kiss and pinch their cheeks; and the greatest favourite he ever had, used to sign himself in his letters to his royal master, his majesty's 'dog and slave,' and used to address his majesty as 'his sowship.' his majesty was the worst rider ever seen, and thought himself the best. he was one of the most impertinent talkers (in the broadest scotch) ever heard, and boasted of being unanswerable in all manner of argument. he wrote some of the most wearisome treatises ever read--among others, a book upon witchcraft, in which he was a devout believer--and thought himself a prodigy of authorship. he thought, and wrote, and said, that a king had a right to make and unmake what laws he pleased, and ought to be accountable to nobody on earth. this is the plain, true character of the personage whom the greatest men about the court praised and flattered to that degree, that i doubt if there be anything much more shameful in the annals of human nature. he came to the english throne with great ease. the miseries of a disputed succession had been felt so long, and so dreadfully, that he was proclaimed within a few hours of elizabeth's death, and was accepted by the nation, even without being asked to give any pledge that he would govern well, or that he would redress crying grievances. he took a month to come from edinburgh to london; and, by way of exercising his new power, hanged a pickpocket on the journey without any trial, and knighted everybody he could lay hold of. he made two hundred knights before he got to his palace in london, and seven hundred before he had been in it three months. he also shovelled sixty-two new peers into the house of lords--and there was a pretty large sprinkling of scotchmen among them, you may believe. his sowship's prime minister, cecil (for i cannot do better than call his majesty what his favourite called him), was the enemy of sir walter raleigh, and also of sir walter's political friend, lord cobham; and his sowship's first trouble was a plot originated by these two, and entered into by some others, with the old object of seizing the king and keeping him in imprisonment until he should change his ministers. there were catholic priests in the plot, and there were puritan noblemen too; for, although the catholics and puritans were strongly opposed to each other, they united at this time against his sowship, because they knew that he had a design against both, after pretending to be friendly to each; this design being to have only one high and convenient form of the protestant religion, which everybody should be bound to belong to, whether they liked it or not. this plot was mixed up with another, which may or may not have had some reference to placing on the throne, at some time, the lady arabella stuart; whose misfortune it was, to be the daughter of the younger brother of his sowship's father, but who was quite innocent of any part in the scheme. sir walter raleigh was accused on the confession of lord cobham--a miserable creature, who said one thing at one time, and another thing at another time, and could be relied upon in nothing. the trial of sir walter raleigh lasted from eight in the morning until nearly midnight; he defended himself with such eloquence, genius, and spirit against all accusations, and against the insults of coke, the attorney- general--who, according to the custom of the time, foully abused him--that those who went there detesting the prisoner, came away admiring him, and declaring that anything so wonderful and so captivating was never heard. he was found guilty, nevertheless, and sentenced to death. execution was deferred, and he was taken to the tower. the two catholic priests, less fortunate, were executed with the usual atrocity; and lord cobham and two others were pardoned on the scaffold. his sowship thought it wonderfully knowing in him to surprise the people by pardoning these three at the very block; but, blundering, and bungling, as usual, he had very nearly overreached himself. for, the messenger on horseback who brought the pardon, came so late, that he was pushed to the outside of the crowd, and was obliged to shout and roar out what he came for. the miserable cobham did not gain much by being spared that day. he lived, both as a prisoner and a beggar, utterly despised, and miserably poor, for thirteen years, and then died in an old outhouse belonging to one of his former servants. this plot got rid of, and sir walter raleigh safely shut up in the tower, his sowship held a great dispute with the puritans on their presenting a petition to him, and had it all his own way--not so very wonderful, as he would talk continually, and would not hear anybody else--and filled the bishops with admiration. it was comfortably settled that there was to be only one form of religion, and that all men were to think exactly alike. but, although this was arranged two centuries and a half ago, and although the arrangement was supported by much fining and imprisonment, i do not find that it is quite successful, even yet. his sowship, having that uncommonly high opinion of himself as a king, had a very low opinion of parliament as a power that audaciously wanted to control him. when he called his first parliament after he had been king a year, he accordingly thought he would take pretty high ground with them, and told them that he commanded them 'as an absolute king.' the parliament thought those strong words, and saw the necessity of upholding their authority. his sowship had three children: prince henry, prince charles, and the princess elizabeth. it would have been well for one of these, and we shall too soon see which, if he had learnt a little wisdom concerning parliaments from his father's obstinacy. now, the people still labouring under their old dread of the catholic religion, this parliament revived and strengthened the severe laws against it. and this so angered robert catesby, a restless catholic gentleman of an old family, that he formed one of the most desperate and terrible designs ever conceived in the mind of man; no less a scheme than the gunpowder plot. his object was, when the king, lords, and commons, should be assembled at the next opening of parliament, to blow them up, one and all, with a great mine of gunpowder. the first person to whom he confided this horrible idea was thomas winter, a worcestershire gentleman who had served in the army abroad, and had been secretly employed in catholic projects. while winter was yet undecided, and when he had gone over to the netherlands, to learn from the spanish ambassador there whether there was any hope of catholics being relieved through the intercession of the king of spain with his sowship, he found at ostend a tall, dark, daring man, whom he had known when they were both soldiers abroad, and whose name was guido--or guy--fawkes. resolved to join the plot, he proposed it to this man, knowing him to be the man for any desperate deed, and they two came back to england together. here, they admitted two other conspirators; thomas percy, related to the earl of northumberland, and john wright, his brother-in-law. all these met together in a solitary house in the open fields which were then near clement's inn, now a closely blocked-up part of london; and when they had all taken a great oath of secrecy, catesby told the rest what his plan was. they then went up-stairs into a garret, and received the sacrament from father gerard, a jesuit, who is said not to have known actually of the gunpowder plot, but who, i think, must have had his suspicions that there was something desperate afoot. percy was a gentleman pensioner, and as he had occasional duties to perform about the court, then kept at whitehall, there would be nothing suspicious in his living at westminster. so, having looked well about him, and having found a house to let, the back of which joined the parliament house, he hired it of a person named ferris, for the purpose of undermining the wall. having got possession of this house, the conspirators hired another on the lambeth side of the thames, which they used as a storehouse for wood, gunpowder, and other combustible matters. these were to be removed at night (and afterwards were removed), bit by bit, to the house at westminster; and, that there might be some trusty person to keep watch over the lambeth stores, they admitted another conspirator, by name robert kay, a very poor catholic gentleman. all these arrangements had been made some months, and it was a dark, wintry, december night, when the conspirators, who had been in the meantime dispersed to avoid observation, met in the house at westminster, and began to dig. they had laid in a good stock of eatables, to avoid going in and out, and they dug and dug with great ardour. but, the wall being tremendously thick, and the work very severe, they took into their plot christopher wright, a younger brother of john wright, that they might have a new pair of hands to help. and christopher wright fell to like a fresh man, and they dug and dug by night and by day, and fawkes stood sentinel all the time. and if any man's heart seemed to fail him at all, fawkes said, 'gentlemen, we have abundance of powder and shot here, and there is no fear of our being taken alive, even if discovered.' the same fawkes, who, in the capacity of sentinel, was always prowling about, soon picked up the intelligence that the king had prorogued the parliament again, from the seventh of february, the day first fixed upon, until the third of october. when the conspirators knew this, they agreed to separate until after the christmas holidays, and to take no notice of each other in the meanwhile, and never to write letters to one another on any account. so, the house in westminster was shut up again, and i suppose the neighbours thought that those strange-looking men who lived there so gloomily, and went out so seldom, were gone away to have a merry christmas somewhere. it was the beginning of february, sixteen hundred and five, when catesby met his fellow-conspirators again at this westminster house. he had now admitted three more; john grant, a warwickshire gentleman of a melancholy temper, who lived in a doleful house near stratford-upon-avon, with a frowning wall all round it, and a deep moat; robert winter, eldest brother of thomas; and catesby's own servant, thomas bates, who, catesby thought, had had some suspicion of what his master was about. these three had all suffered more or less for their religion in elizabeth's time. and now, they all began to dig again, and they dug and dug by night and by day. they found it dismal work alone there, underground, with such a fearful secret on their minds, and so many murders before them. they were filled with wild fancies. sometimes, they thought they heard a great bell tolling, deep down in the earth under the parliament house; sometimes, they thought they heard low voices muttering about the gunpowder plot; once in the morning, they really did hear a great rumbling noise over their heads, as they dug and sweated in their mine. every man stopped and looked aghast at his neighbour, wondering what had happened, when that bold prowler, fawkes, who had been out to look, came in and told them that it was only a dealer in coals who had occupied a cellar under the parliament house, removing his stock in trade to some other place. upon this, the conspirators, who with all their digging and digging had not yet dug through the tremendously thick wall, changed their plan; hired that cellar, which was directly under the house of lords; put six- and-thirty barrels of gunpowder in it, and covered them over with fagots and coals. then they all dispersed again till september, when the following new conspirators were admitted; sir edward baynham, of gloucestershire; sir everard digby, of rutlandshire; ambrose rookwood, of suffolk; francis tresham, of northamptonshire. most of these were rich, and were to assist the plot, some with money and some with horses on which the conspirators were to ride through the country and rouse the catholics after the parliament should be blown into air. parliament being again prorogued from the third of october to the fifth of november, and the conspirators being uneasy lest their design should have been found out, thomas winter said he would go up into the house of lords on the day of the prorogation, and see how matters looked. nothing could be better. the unconscious commissioners were walking about and talking to one another, just over the six-and-thirty barrels of gunpowder. he came back and told the rest so, and they went on with their preparations. they hired a ship, and kept it ready in the thames, in which fawkes was to sail for flanders after firing with a slow match the train that was to explode the powder. a number of catholic gentlemen not in the secret, were invited, on pretence of a hunting party, to meet sir everard digby at dunchurch on the fatal day, that they might be ready to act together. and now all was ready. but, now, the great wickedness and danger which had been all along at the bottom of this wicked plot, began to show itself. as the fifth of november drew near, most of the conspirators, remembering that they had friends and relations who would be in the house of lords that day, felt some natural relenting, and a wish to warn them to keep away. they were not much comforted by catesby's declaring that in such a cause he would blow up his own son. lord mounteagle, tresham's brother-in-law, was certain to be in the house; and when tresham found that he could not prevail upon the rest to devise any means of sparing their friends, he wrote a mysterious letter to this lord and left it at his lodging in the dusk, urging him to keep away from the opening of parliament, 'since god and man had concurred to punish the wickedness of the times.' it contained the words 'that the parliament should receive a terrible blow, and yet should not see who hurt them.' and it added, 'the danger is past, as soon as you have burnt the letter.' the ministers and courtiers made out that his sowship, by a direct miracle from heaven, found out what this letter meant. the truth is, that they were not long (as few men would be) in finding out for themselves; and it was decided to let the conspirators alone, until the very day before the opening of parliament. that the conspirators had their fears, is certain; for, tresham himself said before them all, that they were every one dead men; and, although even he did not take flight, there is reason to suppose that he had warned other persons besides lord mounteagle. however, they were all firm; and fawkes, who was a man of iron, went down every day and night to keep watch in the cellar as usual. he was there about two in the afternoon of the fourth, when the lord chamberlain and lord mounteagle threw open the door and looked in. 'who are you, friend?' said they. 'why,' said fawkes, 'i am mr. percy's servant, and am looking after his store of fuel here.' 'your master has laid in a pretty good store,' they returned, and shut the door, and went away. fawkes, upon this, posted off to the other conspirators to tell them all was quiet, and went back and shut himself up in the dark, black cellar again, where he heard the bell go twelve o'clock and usher in the fifth of november. about two hours afterwards, he slowly opened the door, and came out to look about him, in his old prowling way. he was instantly seized and bound, by a party of soldiers under sir thomas knevett. he had a watch upon him, some touchwood, some tinder, some slow matches; and there was a dark lantern with a candle in it, lighted, behind the door. he had his boots and spurs on--to ride to the ship, i suppose--and it was well for the soldiers that they took him so suddenly. if they had left him but a moment's time to light a match, he certainly would have tossed it in among the powder, and blown up himself and them. they took him to the king's bed-chamber first of all, and there the king (causing him to be held very tight, and keeping a good way off), asked him how he could have the heart to intend to destroy so many innocent people? 'because,' said guy fawkes, 'desperate diseases need desperate remedies.' to a little scotch favourite, with a face like a terrier, who asked him (with no particular wisdom) why he had collected so much gunpowder, he replied, because he had meant to blow scotchmen back to scotland, and it would take a deal of powder to do that. next day he was carried to the tower, but would make no confession. even after being horribly tortured, he confessed nothing that the government did not already know; though he must have been in a fearful state--as his signature, still preserved, in contrast with his natural hand-writing before he was put upon the dreadful rack, most frightfully shows. bates, a very different man, soon said the jesuits had had to do with the plot, and probably, under the torture, would as readily have said anything. tresham, taken and put in the tower too, made confessions and unmade them, and died of an illness that was heavy upon him. rookwood, who had stationed relays of his own horses all the way to dunchurch, did not mount to escape until the middle of the day, when the news of the plot was all over london. on the road, he came up with the two wrights, catesby, and percy; and they all galloped together into northamptonshire. thence to dunchurch, where they found the proposed party assembled. finding, however, that there had been a plot, and that it had been discovered, the party disappeared in the course of the night, and left them alone with sir everard digby. away they all rode again, through warwickshire and worcestershire, to a house called holbeach, on the borders of staffordshire. they tried to raise the catholics on their way, but were indignantly driven off by them. all this time they were hotly pursued by the sheriff of worcester, and a fast increasing concourse of riders. at last, resolving to defend themselves at holbeach, they shut themselves up in the house, and put some wet powder before the fire to dry. but it blew up, and catesby was singed and blackened, and almost killed, and some of the others were sadly hurt. still, knowing that they must die, they resolved to die there, and with only their swords in their hands appeared at the windows to be shot at by the sheriff and his assistants. catesby said to thomas winter, after thomas had been hit in the right arm which dropped powerless by his side, 'stand by me, tom, and we will die together!'--which they did, being shot through the body by two bullets from one gun. john wright, and christopher wright, and percy, were also shot. rookwood and digby were taken: the former with a broken arm and a wound in his body too. it was the fifteenth of january, before the trial of guy fawkes, and such of the other conspirators as were left alive, came on. they were all found guilty, all hanged, drawn, and quartered: some, in st. paul's churchyard, on the top of ludgate-hill; some, before the parliament house. a jesuit priest, named henry garnet, to whom the dreadful design was said to have been communicated, was taken and tried; and two of his servants, as well as a poor priest who was taken with him, were tortured without mercy. he himself was not tortured, but was surrounded in the tower by tamperers and traitors, and so was made unfairly to convict himself out of his own mouth. he said, upon his trial, that he had done all he could to prevent the deed, and that he could not make public what had been told him in confession--though i am afraid he knew of the plot in other ways. he was found guilty and executed, after a manful defence, and the catholic church made a saint of him; some rich and powerful persons, who had had nothing to do with the project, were fined and imprisoned for it by the star chamber; the catholics, in general, who had recoiled with horror from the idea of the infernal contrivance, were unjustly put under more severe laws than before; and this was the end of the gunpowder plot. second part his sowship would pretty willingly, i think, have blown the house of commons into the air himself; for, his dread and jealousy of it knew no bounds all through his reign. when he was hard pressed for money he was obliged to order it to meet, as he could get no money without it; and when it asked him first to abolish some of the monopolies in necessaries of life which were a great grievance to the people, and to redress other public wrongs, he flew into a rage and got rid of it again. at one time he wanted it to consent to the union of england with scotland, and quarrelled about that. at another time it wanted him to put down a most infamous church abuse, called the high commission court, and he quarrelled with it about that. at another time it entreated him not to be quite so fond of his archbishops and bishops who made speeches in his praise too awful to be related, but to have some little consideration for the poor puritan clergy who were persecuted for preaching in their own way, and not according to the archbishops and bishops; and they quarrelled about that. in short, what with hating the house of commons, and pretending not to hate it; and what with now sending some of its members who opposed him, to newgate or to the tower, and now telling the rest that they must not presume to make speeches about the public affairs which could not possibly concern them; and what with cajoling, and bullying, and fighting, and being frightened; the house of commons was the plague of his sowship's existence. it was pretty firm, however, in maintaining its rights, and insisting that the parliament should make the laws, and not the king by his own single proclamations (which he tried hard to do); and his sowship was so often distressed for money, in consequence, that he sold every sort of title and public office as if they were merchandise, and even invented a new dignity called a baronetcy, which anybody could buy for a thousand pounds. these disputes with his parliaments, and his hunting, and his drinking, and his lying in bed--for he was a great sluggard--occupied his sowship pretty well. the rest of his time he chiefly passed in hugging and slobbering his favourites. the first of these was sir philip herbert, who had no knowledge whatever, except of dogs, and horses, and hunting, but whom he soon made earl of montgomery. the next, and a much more famous one, was robert carr, or ker (for it is not certain which was his right name), who came from the border country, and whom he soon made viscount rochester, and afterwards, earl of somerset. the way in which his sowship doted on this handsome young man, is even more odious to think of, than the way in which the really great men of england condescended to bow down before him. the favourite's great friend was a certain sir thomas overbury, who wrote his love-letters for him, and assisted him in the duties of his many high places, which his own ignorance prevented him from discharging. but this same sir thomas having just manhood enough to dissuade the favourite from a wicked marriage with the beautiful countess of essex, who was to get a divorce from her husband for the purpose, the said countess, in her rage, got sir thomas put into the tower, and there poisoned him. then the favourite and this bad woman were publicly married by the king's pet bishop, with as much to-do and rejoicing, as if he had been the best man, and she the best woman, upon the face of the earth. but, after a longer sunshine than might have been expected--of seven years or so, that is to say--another handsome young man started up and eclipsed the earl of somerset. this was george villiers, the youngest son of a leicestershire gentleman: who came to court with all the paris fashions on him, and could dance as well as the best mountebank that ever was seen. he soon danced himself into the good graces of his sowship, and danced the other favourite out of favour. then, it was all at once discovered that the earl and countess of somerset had not deserved all those great promotions and mighty rejoicings, and they were separately tried for the murder of sir thomas overbury, and for other crimes. but, the king was so afraid of his late favourite's publicly telling some disgraceful things he knew of him--which he darkly threatened to do--that he was even examined with two men standing, one on either side of him, each with a cloak in his hand, ready to throw it over his head and stop his mouth if he should break out with what he had it in his power to tell. so, a very lame affair was purposely made of the trial, and his punishment was an allowance of four thousand pounds a year in retirement, while the countess was pardoned, and allowed to pass into retirement too. they hated one another by this time, and lived to revile and torment each other some years. while these events were in progress, and while his sowship was making such an exhibition of himself, from day to day and from year to year, as is not often seen in any sty, three remarkable deaths took place in england. the first was that of the minister, robert cecil, earl of salisbury, who was past sixty, and had never been strong, being deformed from his birth. he said at last that he had no wish to live; and no minister need have had, with his experience of the meanness and wickedness of those disgraceful times. the second was that of the lady arabella stuart, who alarmed his sowship mightily, by privately marrying william seymour, son of lord beauchamp, who was a descendant of king henry the seventh, and who, his sowship thought, might consequently increase and strengthen any claim she might one day set up to the throne. she was separated from her husband (who was put in the tower) and thrust into a boat to be confined at durham. she escaped in a man's dress to get away in a french ship from gravesend to france, but unhappily missed her husband, who had escaped too, and was soon taken. she went raving mad in the miserable tower, and died there after four years. the last, and the most important of these three deaths, was that of prince henry, the heir to the throne, in the nineteenth year of his age. he was a promising young prince, and greatly liked; a quiet, well-conducted youth, of whom two very good things are known: first, that his father was jealous of him; secondly, that he was the friend of sir walter raleigh, languishing through all those years in the tower, and often said that no man but his father would keep such a bird in such a cage. on the occasion of the preparations for the marriage of his sister the princess elizabeth with a foreign prince (and an unhappy marriage it turned out), he came from richmond, where he had been very ill, to greet his new brother-in-law, at the palace at whitehall. there he played a great game at tennis, in his shirt, though it was very cold weather, and was seized with an alarming illness, and died within a fortnight of a putrid fever. for this young prince sir walter raleigh wrote, in his prison in the tower, the beginning of a history of the world: a wonderful instance how little his sowship could do to confine a great man's mind, however long he might imprison his body. and this mention of sir walter raleigh, who had many faults, but who never showed so many merits as in trouble and adversity, may bring me at once to the end of his sad story. after an imprisonment in the tower of twelve long years, he proposed to resume those old sea voyages of his, and to go to south america in search of gold. his sowship, divided between his wish to be on good terms with the spaniards through whose territory sir walter must pass (he had long had an idea of marrying prince henry to a spanish princess), and his avaricious eagerness to get hold of the gold, did not know what to do. but, in the end, he set sir walter free, taking securities for his return; and sir walter fitted out an expedition at his own coast and, on the twenty-eighth of march, one thousand six hundred and seventeen, sailed away in command of one of its ships, which he ominously called the destiny. the expedition failed; the common men, not finding the gold they had expected, mutinied; a quarrel broke out between sir walter and the spaniards, who hated him for old successes of his against them; and he took and burnt a little town called saint thomas. for this he was denounced to his sowship by the spanish ambassador as a pirate; and returning almost broken-hearted, with his hopes and fortunes shattered, his company of friends dispersed, and his brave son (who had been one of them) killed, he was taken--through the treachery of sir lewis stukely, his near relation, a scoundrel and a vice- admiral--and was once again immured in his prison-home of so many years. his sowship being mightily disappointed in not getting any gold, sir walter raleigh was tried as unfairly, and with as many lies and evasions as the judges and law officers and every other authority in church and state habitually practised under such a king. after a great deal of prevarication on all parts but his own, it was declared that he must die under his former sentence, now fifteen years old. so, on the twenty-eighth of october, one thousand six hundred and eighteen, he was shut up in the gate house at westminster to pass his late night on earth, and there he took leave of his good and faithful lady who was worthy to have lived in better days. at eight o'clock next morning, after a cheerful breakfast, and a pipe, and a cup of good wine, he was taken to old palace yard in westminster, where the scaffold was set up, and where so many people of high degree were assembled to see him die, that it was a matter of some difficulty to get him through the crowd. he behaved most nobly, but if anything lay heavy on his mind, it was that earl of essex, whose head he had seen roll off; and he solemnly said that he had had no hand in bringing him to the block, and that he had shed tears for him when he died. as the morning was very cold, the sheriff said, would he come down to a fire for a little space, and warm himself? but sir walter thanked him, and said no, he would rather it were done at once, for he was ill of fever and ague, and in another quarter of an hour his shaking fit would come upon him if he were still alive, and his enemies might then suppose that he trembled for fear. with that, he kneeled and made a very beautiful and christian prayer. before he laid his head upon the block he felt the edge of the axe, and said, with a smile upon his face, that it was a sharp medicine, but would cure the worst disease. when he was bent down ready for death, he said to the executioner, finding that he hesitated, 'what dost thou fear? strike, man!' so, the axe came down and struck his head off, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. the new favourite got on fast. he was made a viscount, he was made duke of buckingham, he was made a marquis, he was made master of the horse, he was made lord high admiral--and the chief commander of the gallant english forces that had dispersed the spanish armada, was displaced to make room for him. he had the whole kingdom at his disposal, and his mother sold all the profits and honours of the state, as if she had kept a shop. he blazed all over with diamonds and other precious stones, from his hatband and his earrings to his shoes. yet he was an ignorant presumptuous, swaggering compound of knave and fool, with nothing but his beauty and his dancing to recommend him. this is the gentleman who called himself his majesty's dog and slave, and called his majesty your sowship. his sowship called him steenie; it is supposed, because that was a nickname for stephen, and because st. stephen was generally represented in pictures as a handsome saint. his sowship was driven sometimes to his wits'-end by his trimming between the general dislike of the catholic religion at home, and his desire to wheedle and flatter it abroad, as his only means of getting a rich princess for his son's wife: a part of whose fortune he might cram into his greasy pockets. prince charles--or as his sowship called him, baby charles--being now prince of wales, the old project of a marriage with the spanish king's daughter had been revived for him; and as she could not marry a protestant without leave from the pope, his sowship himself secretly and meanly wrote to his infallibility, asking for it. the negotiation for this spanish marriage takes up a larger space in great books, than you can imagine, but the upshot of it all is, that when it had been held off by the spanish court for a long time, baby charles and steenie set off in disguise as mr. thomas smith and mr. john smith, to see the spanish princess; that baby charles pretended to be desperately in love with her, and jumped off walls to look at her, and made a considerable fool of himself in a good many ways; that she was called princess of wales and that the whole spanish court believed baby charles to be all but dying for her sake, as he expressly told them he was; that baby charles and steenie came back to england, and were received with as much rapture as if they had been a blessing to it; that baby charles had actually fallen in love with henrietta maria, the french king's sister, whom he had seen in paris; that he thought it a wonderfully fine and princely thing to have deceived the spaniards, all through; and that he openly said, with a chuckle, as soon as he was safe and sound at home again, that the spaniards were great fools to have believed him. like most dishonest men, the prince and the favourite complained that the people whom they had deluded were dishonest. they made such misrepresentations of the treachery of the spaniards in this business of the spanish match, that the english nation became eager for a war with them. although the gravest spaniards laughed at the idea of his sowship in a warlike attitude, the parliament granted money for the beginning of hostilities, and the treaties with spain were publicly declared to be at an end. the spanish ambassador in london--probably with the help of the fallen favourite, the earl of somerset--being unable to obtain speech with his sowship, slipped a paper into his hand, declaring that he was a prisoner in his own house, and was entirely governed by buckingham and his creatures. the first effect of this letter was that his sowship began to cry and whine, and took baby charles away from steenie, and went down to windsor, gabbling all sorts of nonsense. the end of it was that his sowship hugged his dog and slave, and said he was quite satisfied. he had given the prince and the favourite almost unlimited power to settle anything with the pope as to the spanish marriage; and he now, with a view to the french one, signed a treaty that all roman catholics in england should exercise their religion freely, and should never be required to take any oath contrary thereto. in return for this, and for other concessions much less to be defended, henrietta maria was to become the prince's wife, and was to bring him a fortune of eight hundred thousand crowns. his sowship's eyes were getting red with eagerly looking for the money, when the end of a gluttonous life came upon him; and, after a fortnight's illness, on sunday the twenty-seventh of march, one thousand six hundred and twenty-five, he died. he had reigned twenty-two years, and was fifty- nine years old. i know of nothing more abominable in history than the adulation that was lavished on this king, and the vice and corruption that such a barefaced habit of lying produced in his court. it is much to be doubted whether one man of honour, and not utterly self-disgraced, kept his place near james the first. lord bacon, that able and wise philosopher, as the first judge in the kingdom in this reign, became a public spectacle of dishonesty and corruption; and in his base flattery of his sowship, and in his crawling servility to his dog and slave, disgraced himself even more. but, a creature like his sowship set upon a throne is like the plague, and everybody receives infection from him. chapter xxxiii--england under charles the first baby charles became king charles the first, in the twenty-fifth year of his age. unlike his father, he was usually amiable in his private character, and grave and dignified in his bearing; but, like his father, he had monstrously exaggerated notions of the rights of a king, and was evasive, and not to be trusted. if his word could have been relied upon, his history might have had a different end. his first care was to send over that insolent upstart, buckingham, to bring henrietta maria from paris to be his queen; upon which occasion buckingham--with his usual audacity--made love to the young queen of austria, and was very indignant indeed with cardinal richelieu, the french minister, for thwarting his intentions. the english people were very well disposed to like their new queen, and to receive her with great favour when she came among them as a stranger. but, she held the protestant religion in great dislike, and brought over a crowd of unpleasant priests, who made her do some very ridiculous things, and forced themselves upon the public notice in many disagreeable ways. hence, the people soon came to dislike her, and she soon came to dislike them; and she did so much all through this reign in setting the king (who was dotingly fond of her) against his subjects, that it would have been better for him if she had never been born. now, you are to understand that king charles the first--of his own determination to be a high and mighty king not to be called to account by anybody, and urged on by his queen besides--deliberately set himself to put his parliament down and to put himself up. you are also to understand, that even in pursuit of this wrong idea (enough in itself to have ruined any king) he never took a straight course, but always took a crooked one. he was bent upon war with spain, though neither the house of commons nor the people were quite clear as to the justice of that war, now that they began to think a little more about the story of the spanish match. but the king rushed into it hotly, raised money by illegal means to meet its expenses, and encountered a miserable failure at cadiz, in the very first year of his reign. an expedition to cadiz had been made in the hope of plunder, but as it was not successful, it was necessary to get a grant of money from the parliament; and when they met, in no very complying humour, the king told them, 'to make haste to let him have it, or it would be the worse for themselves.' not put in a more complying humour by this, they impeached the king's favourite, the duke of buckingham, as the cause (which he undoubtedly was) of many great public grievances and wrongs. the king, to save him, dissolved the parliament without getting the money he wanted; and when the lords implored him to consider and grant a little delay, he replied, 'no, not one minute.' he then began to raise money for himself by the following means among others. he levied certain duties called tonnage and poundage which had not been granted by the parliament, and could lawfully be levied by no other power; he called upon the seaport towns to furnish, and to pay all the cost for three months of, a fleet of armed ships; and he required the people to unite in lending him large sums of money, the repayment of which was very doubtful. if the poor people refused, they were pressed as soldiers or sailors; if the gentry refused, they were sent to prison. five gentlemen, named sir thomas darnel, john corbet, walter earl, john heveningham, and everard hampden, for refusing were taken up by a warrant of the king's privy council, and were sent to prison without any cause but the king's pleasure being stated for their imprisonment. then the question came to be solemnly tried, whether this was not a violation of magna charta, and an encroachment by the king on the highest rights of the english people. his lawyers contended no, because to encroach upon the rights of the english people would be to do wrong, and the king could do no wrong. the accommodating judges decided in favour of this wicked nonsense; and here was a fatal division between the king and the people. for all this, it became necessary to call another parliament. the people, sensible of the danger in which their liberties were, chose for it those who were best known for their determined opposition to the king; but still the king, quite blinded by his determination to carry everything before him, addressed them when they met, in a contemptuous manner, and just told them in so many words that he had only called them together because he wanted money. the parliament, strong enough and resolute enough to know that they would lower his tone, cared little for what he said, and laid before him one of the great documents of history, which is called the petition of right, requiring that the free men of england should no longer be called upon to lend the king money, and should no longer be pressed or imprisoned for refusing to do so; further, that the free men of england should no longer be seized by the king's special mandate or warrant, it being contrary to their rights and liberties and the laws of their country. at first the king returned an answer to this petition, in which he tried to shirk it altogether; but, the house of commons then showing their determination to go on with the impeachment of buckingham, the king in alarm returned an answer, giving his consent to all that was required of him. he not only afterwards departed from his word and honour on these points, over and over again, but, at this very time, he did the mean and dissembling act of publishing his first answer and not his second--merely that the people might suppose that the parliament had not got the better of him. that pestilent buckingham, to gratify his own wounded vanity, had by this time involved the country in war with france, as well as with spain. for such miserable causes and such miserable creatures are wars sometimes made! but he was destined to do little more mischief in this world. one morning, as he was going out of his house to his carriage, he turned to speak to a certain colonel fryer who was with him; and he was violently stabbed with a knife, which the murderer left sticking in his heart. this happened in his hall. he had had angry words up-stairs, just before, with some french gentlemen, who were immediately suspected by his servants, and had a close escape from being set upon and killed. in the midst of the noise, the real murderer, who had gone to the kitchen and might easily have got away, drew his sword and cried out, 'i am the man!' his name was john felton, a protestant and a retired officer in the army. he said he had had no personal ill-will to the duke, but had killed him as a curse to the country. he had aimed his blow well, for buckingham had only had time to cry out, 'villain!' and then he drew out the knife, fell against a table, and died. the council made a mighty business of examining john felton about this murder, though it was a plain case enough, one would think. he had come seventy miles to do it, he told them, and he did it for the reason he had declared; if they put him upon the rack, as that noble marquis of dorset whom he saw before him, had the goodness to threaten, he gave that marquis warning, that he would accuse _him_ as his accomplice! the king was unpleasantly anxious to have him racked, nevertheless; but as the judges now found out that torture was contrary to the law of england--it is a pity they did not make the discovery a little sooner--john felton was simply executed for the murder he had done. a murder it undoubtedly was, and not in the least to be defended: though he had freed england from one of the most profligate, contemptible, and base court favourites to whom it has ever yielded. a very different man now arose. this was sir thomas wentworth, a yorkshire gentleman, who had sat in parliament for a long time, and who had favoured arbitrary and haughty principles, but who had gone over to the people's side on receiving offence from buckingham. the king, much wanting such a man--for, besides being naturally favourable to the king's cause, he had great abilities--made him first a baron, and then a viscount, and gave him high employment, and won him most completely. a parliament, however, was still in existence, and was _not_ to be won. on the twentieth of january, one thousand six hundred and twenty-nine, sir john eliot, a great man who had been active in the petition of right, brought forward other strong resolutions against the king's chief instruments, and called upon the speaker to put them to the vote. to this the speaker answered, 'he was commanded otherwise by the king,' and got up to leave the chair--which, according to the rules of the house of commons would have obliged it to adjourn without doing anything more--when two members, named mr. hollis and mr. valentine, held him down. a scene of great confusion arose among the members; and while many swords were drawn and flashing about, the king, who was kept informed of all that was going on, told the captain of his guard to go down to the house and force the doors. the resolutions were by that time, however, voted, and the house adjourned. sir john eliot and those two members who had held the speaker down, were quickly summoned before the council. as they claimed it to be their privilege not to answer out of parliament for anything they had said in it, they were committed to the tower. the king then went down and dissolved the parliament, in a speech wherein he made mention of these gentlemen as 'vipers'--which did not do him much good that ever i have heard of. as they refused to gain their liberty by saying they were sorry for what they had done, the king, always remarkably unforgiving, never overlooked their offence. when they demanded to be brought up before the court of king's bench, he even resorted to the meanness of having them moved about from prison to prison, so that the writs issued for that purpose should not legally find them. at last they came before the court and were sentenced to heavy fines, and to be imprisoned during the king's pleasure. when sir john eliot's health had quite given way, and he so longed for change of air and scene as to petition for his release, the king sent back the answer (worthy of his sowship himself) that the petition was not humble enough. when he sent another petition by his young son, in which he pathetically offered to go back to prison when his health was restored, if he might be released for its recovery, the king still disregarded it. when he died in the tower, and his children petitioned to be allowed to take his body down to cornwall, there to lay it among the ashes of his forefathers, the king returned for answer, 'let sir john eliot's body be buried in the church of that parish where he died.' all this was like a very little king indeed, i think. and now, for twelve long years, steadily pursuing his design of setting himself up and putting the people down, the king called no parliament; but ruled without one. if twelve thousand volumes were written in his praise (as a good many have been) it would still remain a fact, impossible to be denied, that for twelve years king charles the first reigned in england unlawfully and despotically, seized upon his subjects' goods and money at his pleasure, and punished according to his unbridled will all who ventured to oppose him. it is a fashion with some people to think that this king's career was cut short; but i must say myself that i think he ran a pretty long one. william laud, archbishop of canterbury, was the king's right-hand man in the religious part of the putting down of the people's liberties. laud, who was a sincere man, of large learning but small sense--for the two things sometimes go together in very different quantities--though a protestant, held opinions so near those of the catholics, that the pope wanted to make a cardinal of him, if he would have accepted that favour. he looked upon vows, robes, lighted candles, images, and so forth, as amazingly important in religious ceremonies; and he brought in an immensity of bowing and candle-snuffing. he also regarded archbishops and bishops as a sort of miraculous persons, and was inveterate in the last degree against any who thought otherwise. accordingly, he offered up thanks to heaven, and was in a state of much pious pleasure, when a scotch clergyman, named leighton, was pilloried, whipped, branded in the cheek, and had one of his ears cut off and one of his nostrils slit, for calling bishops trumpery and the inventions of men. he originated on a sunday morning the prosecution of william prynne, a barrister who was of similar opinions, and who was fined a thousand pounds; who was pilloried; who had his ears cut off on two occasions--one ear at a time--and who was imprisoned for life. he highly approved of the punishment of doctor bastwick, a physician; who was also fined a thousand pounds; and who afterwards had _his_ ears cut off, and was imprisoned for life. these were gentle methods of persuasion, some will tell you: i think, they were rather calculated to be alarming to the people. in the money part of the putting down of the people's liberties, the king was equally gentle, as some will tell you: as i think, equally alarming. he levied those duties of tonnage and poundage, and increased them as he thought fit. he granted monopolies to companies of merchants on their paying him for them, notwithstanding the great complaints that had, for years and years, been made on the subject of monopolies. he fined the people for disobeying proclamations issued by his sowship in direct violation of law. he revived the detested forest laws, and took private property to himself as his forest right. above all, he determined to have what was called ship money; that is to say, money for the support of the fleet--not only from the seaports, but from all the counties of england: having found out that, in some ancient time or other, all the counties paid it. the grievance of this ship money being somewhat too strong, john chambers, a citizen of london, refused to pay his part of it. for this the lord mayor ordered john chambers to prison, and for that john chambers brought a suit against the lord mayor. lord say, also, behaved like a real nobleman, and declared he would not pay. but, the sturdiest and best opponent of the ship money was john hampden, a gentleman of buckinghamshire, who had sat among the 'vipers' in the house of commons when there was such a thing, and who had been the bosom friend of sir john eliot. this case was tried before the twelve judges in the court of exchequer, and again the king's lawyers said it was impossible that ship money could be wrong, because the king could do no wrong, however hard he tried--and he really did try very hard during these twelve years. seven of the judges said that was quite true, and mr. hampden was bound to pay: five of the judges said that was quite false, and mr. hampden was not bound to pay. so, the king triumphed (as he thought), by making hampden the most popular man in england; where matters were getting to that height now, that many honest englishmen could not endure their country, and sailed away across the seas to found a colony in massachusetts bay in america. it is said that hampden himself and his relation oliver cromwell were going with a company of such voyagers, and were actually on board ship, when they were stopped by a proclamation, prohibiting sea captains to carry out such passengers without the royal license. but o! it would have been well for the king if he had let them go! this was the state of england. if laud had been a madman just broke loose, he could not have done more mischief than he did in scotland. in his endeavours (in which he was seconded by the king, then in person in that part of his dominions) to force his own ideas of bishops, and his own religious forms and ceremonies upon the scotch, he roused that nation to a perfect frenzy. they formed a solemn league, which they called the covenant, for the preservation of their own religious forms; they rose in arms throughout the whole country; they summoned all their men to prayers and sermons twice a day by beat of drum; they sang psalms, in which they compared their enemies to all the evil spirits that ever were heard of; and they solemnly vowed to smite them with the sword. at first the king tried force, then treaty, then a scottish parliament which did not answer at all. then he tried the earl of strafford, formerly sir thomas wentworth; who, as lord wentworth, had been governing ireland. he, too, had carried it with a very high hand there, though to the benefit and prosperity of that country. strafford and laud were for conquering the scottish people by force of arms. other lords who were taken into council, recommended that a parliament should at last be called; to which the king unwillingly consented. so, on the thirteenth of april, one thousand six hundred and forty, that then strange sight, a parliament, was seen at westminster. it is called the short parliament, for it lasted a very little while. while the members were all looking at one another, doubtful who would dare to speak, mr. pym arose and set forth all that the king had done unlawfully during the past twelve years, and what was the position to which england was reduced. this great example set, other members took courage and spoke the truth freely, though with great patience and moderation. the king, a little frightened, sent to say that if they would grant him a certain sum on certain terms, no more ship money should be raised. they debated the matter for two days; and then, as they would not give him all he asked without promise or inquiry, he dissolved them. but they knew very well that he must have a parliament now; and he began to make that discovery too, though rather late in the day. wherefore, on the twenty-fourth of september, being then at york with an army collected against the scottish people, but his own men sullen and discontented like the rest of the nation, the king told the great council of the lords, whom he had called to meet him there, that he would summon another parliament to assemble on the third of november. the soldiers of the covenant had now forced their way into england and had taken possession of the northern counties, where the coals are got. as it would never do to be without coals, and as the king's troops could make no head against the covenanters so full of gloomy zeal, a truce was made, and a treaty with scotland was taken into consideration. meanwhile the northern counties paid the covenanters to leave the coals alone, and keep quiet. we have now disposed of the short parliament. we have next to see what memorable things were done by the long one. second part the long parliament assembled on the third of november, one thousand six hundred and forty-one. that day week the earl of strafford arrived from york, very sensible that the spirited and determined men who formed that parliament were no friends towards him, who had not only deserted the cause of the people, but who had on all occasions opposed himself to their liberties. the king told him, for his comfort, that the parliament 'should not hurt one hair of his head.' but, on the very next day mr. pym, in the house of commons, and with great solemnity, impeached the earl of strafford as a traitor. he was immediately taken into custody and fell from his proud height. it was the twenty-second of march before he was brought to trial in westminster hall; where, although he was very ill and suffered great pain, he defended himself with such ability and majesty, that it was doubtful whether he would not get the best of it. but on the thirteenth day of the trial, pym produced in the house of commons a copy of some notes of a council, found by young sir harry vane in a red velvet cabinet belonging to his father (secretary vane, who sat at the council-table with the earl), in which strafford had distinctly told the king that he was free from all rules and obligations of government, and might do with his people whatever he liked; and in which he had added--'you have an army in ireland that you may employ to reduce this kingdom to obedience.' it was not clear whether by the words 'this kingdom,' he had really meant england or scotland; but the parliament contended that he meant england, and this was treason. at the same sitting of the house of commons it was resolved to bring in a bill of attainder declaring the treason to have been committed: in preference to proceeding with the trial by impeachment, which would have required the treason to be proved. so, a bill was brought in at once, was carried through the house of commons by a large majority, and was sent up to the house of lords. while it was still uncertain whether the house of lords would pass it and the king consent to it, pym disclosed to the house of commons that the king and queen had both been plotting with the officers of the army to bring up the soldiers and control the parliament, and also to introduce two hundred soldiers into the tower of london to effect the earl's escape. the plotting with the army was revealed by one george goring, the son of a lord of that name: a bad fellow who was one of the original plotters, and turned traitor. the king had actually given his warrant for the admission of the two hundred men into the tower, and they would have got in too, but for the refusal of the governor--a sturdy scotchman of the name of balfour--to admit them. these matters being made public, great numbers of people began to riot outside the houses of parliament, and to cry out for the execution of the earl of strafford, as one of the king's chief instruments against them. the bill passed the house of lords while the people were in this state of agitation, and was laid before the king for his assent, together with another bill declaring that the parliament then assembled should not be dissolved or adjourned without their own consent. the king--not unwilling to save a faithful servant, though he had no great attachment for him--was in some doubt what to do; but he gave his consent to both bills, although he in his heart believed that the bill against the earl of strafford was unlawful and unjust. the earl had written to him, telling him that he was willing to die for his sake. but he had not expected that his royal master would take him at his word quite so readily; for, when he heard his doom, he laid his hand upon his heart, and said, 'put not your trust in princes!' the king, who never could be straightforward and plain, through one single day or through one single sheet of paper, wrote a letter to the lords, and sent it by the young prince of wales, entreating them to prevail with the commons that 'that unfortunate man should fulfil the natural course of his life in a close imprisonment.' in a postscript to the very same letter, he added, 'if he must die, it were charity to reprieve him till saturday.' if there had been any doubt of his fate, this weakness and meanness would have settled it. the very next day, which was the twelfth of may, he was brought out to be beheaded on tower hill. archbishop laud, who had been so fond of having people's ears cropped off and their noses slit, was now confined in the tower too; and when the earl went by his window to his death, he was there, at his request, to give him his blessing. they had been great friends in the king's cause, and the earl had written to him in the days of their power that he thought it would be an admirable thing to have mr. hampden publicly whipped for refusing to pay the ship money. however, those high and mighty doings were over now, and the earl went his way to death with dignity and heroism. the governor wished him to get into a coach at the tower gate, for fear the people should tear him to pieces; but he said it was all one to him whether he died by the axe or by the people's hands. so, he walked, with a firm tread and a stately look, and sometimes pulled off his hat to them as he passed along. they were profoundly quiet. he made a speech on the scaffold from some notes he had prepared (the paper was found lying there after his head was struck off), and one blow of the axe killed him, in the forty-ninth year of his age. this bold and daring act, the parliament accompanied by other famous measures, all originating (as even this did) in the king's having so grossly and so long abused his power. the name of delinquents was applied to all sheriffs and other officers who had been concerned in raising the ship money, or any other money, from the people, in an unlawful manner; the hampden judgment was reversed; the judges who had decided against hampden were called upon to give large securities that they would take such consequences as parliament might impose upon them; and one was arrested as he sat in high court, and carried off to prison. laud was impeached; the unfortunate victims whose ears had been cropped and whose noses had been slit, were brought out of prison in triumph; and a bill was passed declaring that a parliament should be called every third year, and that if the king and the king's officers did not call it, the people should assemble of themselves and summon it, as of their own right and power. great illuminations and rejoicings took place over all these things, and the country was wildly excited. that the parliament took advantage of this excitement and stirred them up by every means, there is no doubt; but you are always to remember those twelve long years, during which the king had tried so hard whether he really could do any wrong or not. all this time there was a great religious outcry against the right of the bishops to sit in parliament; to which the scottish people particularly objected. the english were divided on this subject, and, partly on this account and partly because they had had foolish expectations that the parliament would be able to take off nearly all the taxes, numbers of them sometimes wavered and inclined towards the king. i believe myself, that if, at this or almost any other period of his life, the king could have been trusted by any man not out of his senses, he might have saved himself and kept his throne. but, on the english army being disbanded, he plotted with the officers again, as he had done before, and established the fact beyond all doubt by putting his signature of approval to a petition against the parliamentary leaders, which was drawn up by certain officers. when the scottish army was disbanded, he went to edinburgh in four days--which was going very fast at that time--to plot again, and so darkly too, that it is difficult to decide what his whole object was. some suppose that he wanted to gain over the scottish parliament, as he did in fact gain over, by presents and favours, many scottish lords and men of power. some think that he went to get proofs against the parliamentary leaders in england of their having treasonably invited the scottish people to come and help them. with whatever object he went to scotland, he did little good by going. at the instigation of the earl of montrose, a desperate man who was then in prison for plotting, he tried to kidnap three scottish lords who escaped. a committee of the parliament at home, who had followed to watch him, writing an account of this incident, as it was called, to the parliament, the parliament made a fresh stir about it; were, or feigned to be, much alarmed for themselves; and wrote to the earl of essex, the commander-in- chief, for a guard to protect them. it is not absolutely proved that the king plotted in ireland besides, but it is very probable that he did, and that the queen did, and that he had some wild hope of gaining the irish people over to his side by favouring a rise among them. whether or no, they did rise in a most brutal and savage rebellion; in which, encouraged by their priests, they committed such atrocities upon numbers of the english, of both sexes and of all ages, as nobody could believe, but for their being related on oath by eye- witnesses. whether one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand protestants were murdered in this outbreak, is uncertain; but, that it was as ruthless and barbarous an outbreak as ever was known among any savage people, is certain. the king came home from scotland, determined to make a great struggle for his lost power. he believed that, through his presents and favours, scotland would take no part against him; and the lord mayor of london received him with such a magnificent dinner that he thought he must have become popular again in england. it would take a good many lord mayors, however, to make a people, and the king soon found himself mistaken. not so soon, though, but that there was a great opposition in the parliament to a celebrated paper put forth by pym and hampden and the rest, called 'the remonstrance,' which set forth all the illegal acts that the king had ever done, but politely laid the blame of them on his bad advisers. even when it was passed and presented to him, the king still thought himself strong enough to discharge balfour from his command in the tower, and to put in his place a man of bad character; to whom the commons instantly objected, and whom he was obliged to abandon. at this time, the old outcry about the bishops became louder than ever, and the old archbishop of york was so near being murdered as he went down to the house of lords--being laid hold of by the mob and violently knocked about, in return for very foolishly scolding a shrill boy who was yelping out 'no bishops!'--that he sent for all the bishops who were in town, and proposed to them to sign a declaration that, as they could no longer without danger to their lives attend their duty in parliament, they protested against the lawfulness of everything done in their absence. this they asked the king to send to the house of lords, which he did. then the house of commons impeached the whole party of bishops and sent them off to the tower: taking no warning from this; but encouraged by there being a moderate party in the parliament who objected to these strong measures, the king, on the third of january, one thousand six hundred and forty-two, took the rashest step that ever was taken by mortal man. of his own accord and without advice, he sent the attorney-general to the house of lords, to accuse of treason certain members of parliament who as popular leaders were the most obnoxious to him; lord kimbolton, sir arthur haselrig, denzil hollis, john pym (they used to call him king pym, he possessed such power and looked so big), john hampden, and william strode. the houses of those members he caused to be entered, and their papers to be sealed up. at the same time, he sent a messenger to the house of commons demanding to have the five gentlemen who were members of that house immediately produced. to this the house replied that they should appear as soon as there was any legal charge against them, and immediately adjourned. next day, the house of commons send into the city to let the lord mayor know that their privileges are invaded by the king, and that there is no safety for anybody or anything. then, when the five members are gone out of the way, down comes the king himself, with all his guard and from two to three hundred gentlemen and soldiers, of whom the greater part were armed. these he leaves in the hall; and then, with his nephew at his side, goes into the house, takes off his hat, and walks up to the speaker's chair. the speaker leaves it, the king stands in front of it, looks about him steadily for a little while, and says he has come for those five members. no one speaks, and then he calls john pym by name. no one speaks, and then he calls denzil hollis by name. no one speaks, and then he asks the speaker of the house where those five members are? the speaker, answering on his knee, nobly replies that he is the servant of that house, and that he has neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak, anything but what the house commands him. upon this, the king, beaten from that time evermore, replies that he will seek them himself, for they have committed treason; and goes out, with his hat in his hand, amid some audible murmurs from the members. no words can describe the hurry that arose out of doors when all this was known. the five members had gone for safety to a house in coleman-street, in the city, where they were guarded all night; and indeed the whole city watched in arms like an army. at ten o'clock in the morning, the king, already frightened at what he had done, came to the guildhall, with only half a dozen lords, and made a speech to the people, hoping they would not shelter those whom he accused of treason. next day, he issued a proclamation for the apprehension of the five members; but the parliament minded it so little that they made great arrangements for having them brought down to westminster in great state, five days afterwards. the king was so alarmed now at his own imprudence, if not for his own safety, that he left his palace at whitehall, and went away with his queen and children to hampton court. it was the eleventh of may, when the five members were carried in state and triumph to westminster. they were taken by water. the river could not be seen for the boats on it; and the five members were hemmed in by barges full of men and great guns, ready to protect them, at any cost. along the strand a large body of the train-bands of london, under their commander, skippon, marched to be ready to assist the little fleet. beyond them, came a crowd who choked the streets, roaring incessantly about the bishops and the papists, and crying out contemptuously as they passed whitehall, 'what has become of the king?' with this great noise outside the house of commons, and with great silence within, mr. pym rose and informed the house of the great kindness with which they had been received in the city. upon that, the house called the sheriffs in and thanked them, and requested the train-bands, under their commander skippon, to guard the house of commons every day. then, came four thousand men on horseback out of buckinghamshire, offering their services as a guard too, and bearing a petition to the king, complaining of the injury that had been done to mr. hampden, who was their county man and much beloved and honoured. when the king set off for hampton court, the gentlemen and soldiers who had been with him followed him out of town as far as kingston-upon-thames; next day, lord digby came to them from the king at hampton court, in his coach and six, to inform them that the king accepted their protection. this, the parliament said, was making war against the kingdom, and lord digby fled abroad. the parliament then immediately applied themselves to getting hold of the military power of the country, well knowing that the king was already trying hard to use it against them, and that he had secretly sent the earl of newcastle to hull, to secure a valuable magazine of arms and gunpowder that was there. in those times, every county had its own magazines of arms and powder, for its own train-bands or militia; so, the parliament brought in a bill claiming the right (which up to this time had belonged to the king) of appointing the lord lieutenants of counties, who commanded these train- bands; also, of having all the forts, castles, and garrisons in the kingdom, put into the hands of such governors as they, the parliament, could confide in. it also passed a law depriving the bishops of their votes. the king gave his assent to that bill, but would not abandon the right of appointing the lord lieutenants, though he said he was willing to appoint such as might be suggested to him by the parliament. when the earl of pembroke asked him whether he would not give way on that question for a time, he said, 'by god! not for one hour!' and upon this he and the parliament went to war. his young daughter was betrothed to the prince of orange. on pretence of taking her to the country of her future husband, the queen was already got safely away to holland, there to pawn the crown jewels for money to raise an army on the king's side. the lord admiral being sick, the house of commons now named the earl of warwick to hold his place for a year. the king named another gentleman; the house of commons took its own way, and the earl of warwick became lord admiral without the king's consent. the parliament sent orders down to hull to have that magazine removed to london; the king went down to hull to take it himself. the citizens would not admit him into the town, and the governor would not admit him into the castle. the parliament resolved that whatever the two houses passed, and the king would not consent to, should be called an ordinance, and should be as much a law as if he did consent to it. the king protested against this, and gave notice that these ordinances were not to be obeyed. the king, attended by the majority of the house of peers, and by many members of the house of commons, established himself at york. the chancellor went to him with the great seal, and the parliament made a new great seal. the queen sent over a ship full of arms and ammunition, and the king issued letters to borrow money at high interest. the parliament raised twenty regiments of foot and seventy-five troops of horse; and the people willingly aided them with their money, plate, jewellery, and trinkets--the married women even with their wedding-rings. every member of parliament who could raise a troop or a regiment in his own part of the country, dressed it according to his taste and in his own colours, and commanded it. foremost among them all, oliver cromwell raised a troop of horse--thoroughly in earnest and thoroughly well armed--who were, perhaps, the best soldiers that ever were seen. in some of their proceedings, this famous parliament passed the bounds of previous law and custom, yielded to and favoured riotous assemblages of the people, and acted tyrannically in imprisoning some who differed from the popular leaders. but again, you are always to remember that the twelve years during which the king had had his own wilful way, had gone before; and that nothing could make the times what they might, could, would, or should have been, if those twelve years had never rolled away. third part i shall not try to relate the particulars of the great civil war between king charles the first and the long parliament, which lasted nearly four years, and a full account of which would fill many large books. it was a sad thing that englishmen should once more be fighting against englishmen on english ground; but, it is some consolation to know that on both sides there was great humanity, forbearance, and honour. the soldiers of the parliament were far more remarkable for these good qualities than the soldiers of the king (many of whom fought for mere pay without much caring for the cause); but those of the nobility and gentry who were on the king's side were so brave, and so faithful to him, that their conduct cannot but command our highest admiration. among them were great numbers of catholics, who took the royal side because the queen was so strongly of their persuasion. the king might have distinguished some of these gallant spirits, if he had been as generous a spirit himself, by giving them the command of his army. instead of that, however, true to his old high notions of royalty, he entrusted it to his two nephews, prince rupert and prince maurice, who were of royal blood and came over from abroad to help him. it might have been better for him if they had stayed away; since prince rupert was an impetuous, hot-headed fellow, whose only idea was to dash into battle at all times and seasons, and lay about him. the general-in-chief of the parliamentary army was the earl of essex, a gentleman of honour and an excellent soldier. a little while before the war broke out, there had been some rioting at westminster between certain officious law students and noisy soldiers, and the shopkeepers and their apprentices, and the general people in the streets. at that time the king's friends called the crowd, roundheads, because the apprentices wore short hair; the crowd, in return, called their opponents cavaliers, meaning that they were a blustering set, who pretended to be very military. these two words now began to be used to distinguish the two sides in the civil war. the royalists also called the parliamentary men rebels and rogues, while the parliamentary men called _them_ malignants, and spoke of themselves as the godly, the honest, and so forth. the war broke out at portsmouth, where that double traitor goring had again gone over to the king and was besieged by the parliamentary troops. upon this, the king proclaimed the earl of essex and the officers serving under him, traitors, and called upon his loyal subjects to meet him in arms at nottingham on the twenty-fifth of august. but his loyal subjects came about him in scanty numbers, and it was a windy, gloomy day, and the royal standard got blown down, and the whole affair was very melancholy. the chief engagements after this, took place in the vale of the red horse near banbury, at brentford, at devizes, at chalgrave field (where mr. hampden was so sorely wounded while fighting at the head of his men, that he died within a week), at newbury (in which battle lord falkland, one of the best noblemen on the king's side, was killed), at leicester, at naseby, at winchester, at marston moor near york, at newcastle, and in many other parts of england and scotland. these battles were attended with various successes. at one time, the king was victorious; at another time, the parliament. but almost all the great and busy towns were against the king; and when it was considered necessary to fortify london, all ranks of people, from labouring men and women, up to lords and ladies, worked hard together with heartiness and good will. the most distinguished leaders on the parliamentary side were hampden, sir thomas fairfax, and, above all, oliver cromwell, and his son-in-law ireton. during the whole of this war, the people, to whom it was very expensive and irksome, and to whom it was made the more distressing by almost every family being divided--some of its members attaching themselves to one side and some to the other--were over and over again most anxious for peace. so were some of the best men in each cause. accordingly, treaties of peace were discussed between commissioners from the parliament and the king; at york, at oxford (where the king held a little parliament of his own), and at uxbridge. but they came to nothing. in all these negotiations, and in all his difficulties, the king showed himself at his best. he was courageous, cool, self-possessed, and clever; but, the old taint of his character was always in him, and he was never for one single moment to be trusted. lord clarendon, the historian, one of his highest admirers, supposes that he had unhappily promised the queen never to make peace without her consent, and that this must often be taken as his excuse. he never kept his word from night to morning. he signed a cessation of hostilities with the blood-stained irish rebels for a sum of money, and invited the irish regiments over, to help him against the parliament. in the battle of naseby, his cabinet was seized and was found to contain a correspondence with the queen, in which he expressly told her that he had deceived the parliament--a mongrel parliament, he called it now, as an improvement on his old term of vipers--in pretending to recognise it and to treat with it; and from which it further appeared that he had long been in secret treaty with the duke of lorraine for a foreign army of ten thousand men. disappointed in this, he sent a most devoted friend of his, the earl of glamorgan, to ireland, to conclude a secret treaty with the catholic powers, to send him an irish army of ten thousand men; in return for which he was to bestow great favours on the catholic religion. and, when this treaty was discovered in the carriage of a fighting irish archbishop who was killed in one of the many skirmishes of those days, he basely denied and deserted his attached friend, the earl, on his being charged with high treason; and--even worse than this--had left blanks in the secret instructions he gave him with his own kingly hand, expressly that he might thus save himself. at last, on the twenty-seventh day of april, one thousand six hundred and forty-six, the king found himself in the city of oxford, so surrounded by the parliamentary army who were closing in upon him on all sides that he felt that if he would escape he must delay no longer. so, that night, having altered the cut of his hair and beard, he was dressed up as a servant and put upon a horse with a cloak strapped behind him, and rode out of the town behind one of his own faithful followers, with a clergyman of that country who knew the road well, for a guide. he rode towards london as far as harrow, and then altered his plans and resolved, it would seem, to go to the scottish camp. the scottish men had been invited over to help the parliamentary army, and had a large force then in england. the king was so desperately intriguing in everything he did, that it is doubtful what he exactly meant by this step. he took it, anyhow, and delivered himself up to the earl of leven, the scottish general-in-chief, who treated him as an honourable prisoner. negotiations between the parliament on the one hand and the scottish authorities on the other, as to what should be done with him, lasted until the following february. then, when the king had refused to the parliament the concession of that old militia point for twenty years, and had refused to scotland the recognition of its solemn league and covenant, scotland got a handsome sum for its army and its help, and the king into the bargain. he was taken, by certain parliamentary commissioners appointed to receive him, to one of his own houses, called holmby house, near althorpe, in northamptonshire. while the civil war was still in progress, john pym died, and was buried with great honour in westminster abbey--not with greater honour than he deserved, for the liberties of englishmen owe a mighty debt to pym and hampden. the war was but newly over when the earl of essex died, of an illness brought on by his having overheated himself in a stag hunt in windsor forest. he, too, was buried in westminster abbey, with great state. i wish it were not necessary to add that archbishop laud died upon the scaffold when the war was not yet done. his trial lasted in all nearly a year, and, it being doubtful even then whether the charges brought against him amounted to treason, the odious old contrivance of the worst kings was resorted to, and a bill of attainder was brought in against him. he was a violently prejudiced and mischievous person; had had strong ear-cropping and nose-splitting propensities, as you know; and had done a world of harm. but he died peaceably, and like a brave old man. fourth part when the parliament had got the king into their hands, they became very anxious to get rid of their army, in which oliver cromwell had begun to acquire great power; not only because of his courage and high abilities, but because he professed to be very sincere in the scottish sort of puritan religion that was then exceedingly popular among the soldiers. they were as much opposed to the bishops as to the pope himself; and the very privates, drummers, and trumpeters, had such an inconvenient habit of starting up and preaching long-winded discourses, that i would not have belonged to that army on any account. so, the parliament, being far from sure but that the army might begin to preach and fight against them now it had nothing else to do, proposed to disband the greater part of it, to send another part to serve in ireland against the rebels, and to keep only a small force in england. but, the army would not consent to be broken up, except upon its own conditions; and, when the parliament showed an intention of compelling it, it acted for itself in an unexpected manner. a certain cornet, of the name of joice, arrived at holmby house one night, attended by four hundred horsemen, went into the king's room with his hat in one hand and a pistol in the other, and told the king that he had come to take him away. the king was willing enough to go, and only stipulated that he should be publicly required to do so next morning. next morning, accordingly, he appeared on the top of the steps of the house, and asked comet joice before his men and the guard set there by the parliament, what authority he had for taking him away? to this cornet joice replied, 'the authority of the army.' 'have you a written commission?' said the king. joice, pointing to his four hundred men on horseback, replied, 'that is my commission.' 'well,' said the king, smiling, as if he were pleased, 'i never before read such a commission; but it is written in fair and legible characters. this is a company of as handsome proper gentlemen as i have seen a long while.' he was asked where he would like to live, and he said at newmarket. so, to newmarket he and cornet joice and the four hundred horsemen rode; the king remarking, in the same smiling way, that he could ride as far at a spell as cornet joice, or any man there. the king quite believed, i think, that the army were his friends. he said as much to fairfax when that general, oliver cromwell, and ireton, went to persuade him to return to the custody of the parliament. he preferred to remain as he was, and resolved to remain as he was. and when the army moved nearer and nearer london to frighten the parliament into yielding to their demands, they took the king with them. it was a deplorable thing that england should be at the mercy of a great body of soldiers with arms in their hands; but the king certainly favoured them at this important time of his life, as compared with the more lawful power that tried to control him. it must be added, however, that they treated him, as yet, more respectfully and kindly than the parliament had done. they allowed him to be attended by his own servants, to be splendidly entertained at various houses, and to see his children--at cavesham house, near reading--for two days. whereas, the parliament had been rather hard with him, and had only allowed him to ride out and play at bowls. it is much to be believed that if the king could have been trusted, even at this time, he might have been saved. even oliver cromwell expressly said that he did believe that no man could enjoy his possessions in peace, unless the king had his rights. he was not unfriendly towards the king; he had been present when he received his children, and had been much affected by the pitiable nature of the scene; he saw the king often; he frequently walked and talked with him in the long galleries and pleasant gardens of the palace at hampton court, whither he was now removed; and in all this risked something of his influence with the army. but, the king was in secret hopes of help from the scottish people; and the moment he was encouraged to join them he began to be cool to his new friends, the army, and to tell the officers that they could not possibly do without him. at the very time, too, when he was promising to make cromwell and ireton noblemen, if they would help him up to his old height, he was writing to the queen that he meant to hang them. they both afterwards declared that they had been privately informed that such a letter would be found, on a certain evening, sewed up in a saddle which would be taken to the blue boar in holborn to be sent to dover; and that they went there, disguised as common soldiers, and sat drinking in the inn-yard until a man came with the saddle, which they ripped up with their knives, and therein found the letter. i see little reason to doubt the story. it is certain that oliver cromwell told one of the king's most faithful followers that the king could not be trusted, and that he would not be answerable if anything amiss were to happen to him. still, even after that, he kept a promise he had made to the king, by letting him know that there was a plot with a certain portion of the army to seize him. i believe that, in fact, he sincerely wanted the king to escape abroad, and so to be got rid of without more trouble or danger. that oliver himself had work enough with the army is pretty plain; for some of the troops were so mutinous against him, and against those who acted with him at this time, that he found it necessary to have one man shot at the head of his regiment to overawe the rest. the king, when he received oliver's warning, made his escape from hampton court; after some indecision and uncertainty, he went to carisbrooke castle in the isle of wight. at first, he was pretty free there; but, even there, he carried on a pretended treaty with the parliament, while he was really treating with commissioners from scotland to send an army into england to take his part. when he broke off this treaty with the parliament (having settled with scotland) and was treated as a prisoner, his treatment was not changed too soon, for he had plotted to escape that very night to a ship sent by the queen, which was lying off the island. he was doomed to be disappointed in his hopes from scotland. the agreement he had made with the scottish commissioners was not favourable enough to the religion of that country to please the scottish clergy; and they preached against it. the consequence was, that the army raised in scotland and sent over, was too small to do much; and that, although it was helped by a rising of the royalists in england and by good soldiers from ireland, it could make no head against the parliamentary army under such men as cromwell and fairfax. the king's eldest son, the prince of wales, came over from holland with nineteen ships (a part of the english fleet having gone over to him) to help his father; but nothing came of his voyage, and he was fain to return. the most remarkable event of this second civil war was the cruel execution by the parliamentary general, of sir charles lucas and sir george lisle, two grand royalist generals, who had bravely defended colchester under every disadvantage of famine and distress for nearly three months. when sir charles lucas was shot, sir george lisle kissed his body, and said to the soldiers who were to shoot him, 'come nearer, and make sure of me.' 'i warrant you, sir george,' said one of the soldiers, 'we shall hit you.' 'ay?' he returned with a smile, 'but i have been nearer to you, my friends, many a time, and you have missed me.' the parliament, after being fearfully bullied by the army--who demanded to have seven members whom they disliked given up to them--had voted that they would have nothing more to do with the king. on the conclusion, however, of this second civil war (which did not last more than six months), they appointed commissioners to treat with him. the king, then so far released again as to be allowed to live in a private house at newport in the isle of wight, managed his own part of the negotiation with a sense that was admired by all who saw him, and gave up, in the end, all that was asked of him--even yielding (which he had steadily refused, so far) to the temporary abolition of the bishops, and the transfer of their church land to the crown. still, with his old fatal vice upon him, when his best friends joined the commissioners in beseeching him to yield all those points as the only means of saving himself from the army, he was plotting to escape from the island; he was holding correspondence with his friends and the catholics in ireland, though declaring that he was not; and he was writing, with his own hand, that in what he yielded he meant nothing but to get time to escape. matters were at this pass when the army, resolved to defy the parliament, marched up to london. the parliament, not afraid of them now, and boldly led by hollis, voted that the king's concessions were sufficient ground for settling the peace of the kingdom. upon that, colonel rich and colonel pride went down to the house of commons with a regiment of horse soldiers and a regiment of foot; and colonel pride, standing in the lobby with a list of the members who were obnoxious to the army in his hand, had them pointed out to him as they came through, and took them all into custody. this proceeding was afterwards called by the people, for a joke, pride's purge. cromwell was in the north, at the head of his men, at the time, but when he came home, approved of what had been done. what with imprisoning some members and causing others to stay away, the army had now reduced the house of commons to some fifty or so. these soon voted that it was treason in a king to make war against his parliament and his people, and sent an ordinance up to the house of lords for the king's being tried as a traitor. the house of lords, then sixteen in number, to a man rejected it. thereupon, the commons made an ordinance of their own, that they were the supreme government of the country, and would bring the king to trial. the king had been taken for security to a place called hurst castle: a lonely house on a rock in the sea, connected with the coast of hampshire by a rough road two miles long at low water. thence, he was ordered to be removed to windsor; thence, after being but rudely used there, and having none but soldiers to wait upon him at table, he was brought up to st. james's palace in london, and told that his trial was appointed for next day. on saturday, the twentieth of january, one thousand six hundred and forty- nine, this memorable trial began. the house of commons had settled that one hundred and thirty-five persons should form the court, and these were taken from the house itself, from among the officers of the army, and from among the lawyers and citizens. john bradshaw, serjeant-at-law, was appointed president. the place was westminster hall. at the upper end, in a red velvet chair, sat the president, with his hat (lined with plates of iron for his protection) on his head. the rest of the court sat on side benches, also wearing their hats. the king's seat was covered with velvet, like that of the president, and was opposite to it. he was brought from st. james's to whitehall, and from whitehall he came by water to his trial. when he came in, he looked round very steadily on the court, and on the great number of spectators, and then sat down: presently he got up and looked round again. on the indictment 'against charles stuart, for high treason,' being read, he smiled several times, and he denied the authority of the court, saying that there could be no parliament without a house of lords, and that he saw no house of lords there. also, that the king ought to be there, and that he saw no king in the king's right place. bradshaw replied, that the court was satisfied with its authority, and that its authority was god's authority and the kingdom's. he then adjourned the court to the following monday. on that day, the trial was resumed, and went on all the week. when the saturday came, as the king passed forward to his place in the hall, some soldiers and others cried for 'justice!' and execution on him. that day, too, bradshaw, like an angry sultan, wore a red robe, instead of the black robe he had worn before. the king was sentenced to death that day. as he went out, one solitary soldier said, 'god bless you, sir!' for this, his officer struck him. the king said he thought the punishment exceeded the offence. the silver head of his walking-stick had fallen off while he leaned upon it, at one time of the trial. the accident seemed to disturb him, as if he thought it ominous of the falling of his own head; and he admitted as much, now it was all over. being taken back to whitehall, he sent to the house of commons, saying that as the time of his execution might be nigh, he wished he might be allowed to see his darling children. it was granted. on the monday he was taken back to st. james's; and his two children then in england, the princess elizabeth thirteen years old, and the duke of gloucester nine years old, were brought to take leave of him, from sion house, near brentford. it was a sad and touching scene, when he kissed and fondled those poor children, and made a little present of two diamond seals to the princess, and gave them tender messages to their mother (who little deserved them, for she had a lover of her own whom she married soon afterwards), and told them that he died 'for the laws and liberties of the land.' i am bound to say that i don't think he did, but i dare say he believed so. there were ambassadors from holland that day, to intercede for the unhappy king, whom you and i both wish the parliament had spared; but they got no answer. the scottish commissioners interceded too; so did the prince of wales, by a letter in which he offered as the next heir to the throne, to accept any conditions from the parliament; so did the queen, by letter likewise. notwithstanding all, the warrant for the execution was this day signed. there is a story that as oliver cromwell went to the table with the pen in his hand to put his signature to it, he drew his pen across the face of one of the commissioners, who was standing near, and marked it with ink. that commissioner had not signed his own name yet, and the story adds that when he came to do it he marked cromwell's face with ink in the same way. the king slept well, untroubled by the knowledge that it was his last night on earth, and rose on the thirtieth of january, two hours before day, and dressed himself carefully. he put on two shirts lest he should tremble with the cold, and had his hair very carefully combed. the warrant had been directed to three officers of the army, colonel hacker, colonel hunks, and colonel phayer. at ten o'clock, the first of these came to the door and said it was time to go to whitehall. the king, who had always been a quick walker, walked at his usual speed through the park, and called out to the guard, with his accustomed voice of command, 'march on apace!' when he came to whitehall, he was taken to his own bedroom, where a breakfast was set forth. as he had taken the sacrament, he would eat nothing more; but, at about the time when the church bells struck twelve at noon (for he had to wait, through the scaffold not being ready), he took the advice of the good bishop juxon who was with him, and ate a little bread and drank a glass of claret. soon after he had taken this refreshment, colonel hacker came to the chamber with the warrant in his hand, and called for charles stuart. and then, through the long gallery of whitehall palace, which he had often seen light and gay and merry and crowded, in very different times, the fallen king passed along, until he came to the centre window of the banqueting house, through which he emerged upon the scaffold, which was hung with black. he looked at the two executioners, who were dressed in black and masked; he looked at the troops of soldiers on horseback and on foot, and all looked up at him in silence; he looked at the vast array of spectators, filling up the view beyond, and turning all their faces upon him; he looked at his old palace of st. james's; and he looked at the block. he seemed a little troubled to find that it was so low, and asked, 'if there were no place higher?' then, to those upon the scaffold, he said, 'that it was the parliament who had begun the war, and not he; but he hoped they might be guiltless too, as ill instruments had gone between them. in one respect,' he said, 'he suffered justly; and that was because he had permitted an unjust sentence to be executed on another.' in this he referred to the earl of strafford. he was not at all afraid to die; but he was anxious to die easily. when some one touched the axe while he was speaking, he broke off and called out, 'take heed of the axe! take heed of the axe!' he also said to colonel hacker, 'take care that they do not put me to pain.' he told the executioner, 'i shall say but very short prayers, and then thrust out my hands'--as the sign to strike. he put his hair up, under a white satin cap which the bishop had carried, and said, 'i have a good cause and a gracious god on my side.' the bishop told him that he had but one stage more to travel in this weary world, and that, though it was a turbulent and troublesome stage, it was a short one, and would carry him a great way--all the way from earth to heaven. the king's last word, as he gave his cloak and the george--the decoration from his breast--to the bishop, was, 'remember!' he then kneeled down, laid his head on the block, spread out his hands, and was instantly killed. one universal groan broke from the crowd; and the soldiers, who had sat on their horses and stood in their ranks immovable as statues, were of a sudden all in motion, clearing the streets. thus, in the forty-ninth year of his age, falling at the same time of his career as strafford had fallen in his, perished charles the first. with all my sorrow for him, i cannot agree with him that he died 'the martyr of the people;' for the people had been martyrs to him, and to his ideas of a king's rights, long before. indeed, i am afraid that he was but a bad judge of martyrs; for he had called that infamous duke of buckingham 'the martyr of his sovereign.' chapter xxxiv--england under oliver cromwell before sunset on the memorable day on which king charles the first was executed, the house of commons passed an act declaring it treason in any one to proclaim the prince of wales--or anybody else--king of england. soon afterwards, it declared that the house of lords was useless and dangerous, and ought to be abolished; and directed that the late king's statue should be taken down from the royal exchange in the city and other public places. having laid hold of some famous royalists who had escaped from prison, and having beheaded the duke of hamilton, lord holland, and lord capel, in palace yard (all of whom died very courageously), they then appointed a council of state to govern the country. it consisted of forty-one members, of whom five were peers. bradshaw was made president. the house of commons also re-admitted members who had opposed the king's death, and made up its numbers to about a hundred and fifty. but, it still had an army of more than forty thousand men to deal with, and a very hard task it was to manage them. before the king's execution, the army had appointed some of its officers to remonstrate between them and the parliament; and now the common soldiers began to take that office upon themselves. the regiments under orders for ireland mutinied; one troop of horse in the city of london seized their own flag, and refused to obey orders. for this, the ringleader was shot: which did not mend the matter, for, both his comrades and the people made a public funeral for him, and accompanied the body to the grave with sound of trumpets and with a gloomy procession of persons carrying bundles of rosemary steeped in blood. oliver was the only man to deal with such difficulties as these, and he soon cut them short by bursting at midnight into the town of burford, near salisbury, where the mutineers were sheltered, taking four hundred of them prisoners, and shooting a number of them by sentence of court-martial. the soldiers soon found, as all men did, that oliver was not a man to be trifled with. and there was an end of the mutiny. the scottish parliament did not know oliver yet; so, on hearing of the king's execution, it proclaimed the prince of wales king charles the second, on condition of his respecting the solemn league and covenant. charles was abroad at that time, and so was montrose, from whose help he had hopes enough to keep him holding on and off with commissioners from scotland, just as his father might have done. these hopes were soon at an end; for, montrose, having raised a few hundred exiles in germany, and landed with them in scotland, found that the people there, instead of joining him, deserted the country at his approach. he was soon taken prisoner and carried to edinburgh. there he was received with every possible insult, and carried to prison in a cart, his officers going two and two before him. he was sentenced by the parliament to be hanged on a gallows thirty feet high, to have his head set on a spike in edinburgh, and his limbs distributed in other places, according to the old barbarous manner. he said he had always acted under the royal orders, and only wished he had limbs enough to be distributed through christendom, that it might be the more widely known how loyal he had been. he went to the scaffold in a bright and brilliant dress, and made a bold end at thirty- eight years of age. the breath was scarcely out of his body when charles abandoned his memory, and denied that he had ever given him orders to rise in his behalf. o the family failing was strong in that charles then! oliver had been appointed by the parliament to command the army in ireland, where he took a terrible vengeance for the sanguinary rebellion, and made tremendous havoc, particularly in the siege of drogheda, where no quarter was given, and where he found at least a thousand of the inhabitants shut up together in the great church: every one of whom was killed by his soldiers, usually known as oliver's ironsides. there were numbers of friars and priests among them, and oliver gruffly wrote home in his despatch that these were 'knocked on the head' like the rest. but, charles having got over to scotland where the men of the solemn league and covenant led him a prodigiously dull life and made him very weary with long sermons and grim sundays, the parliament called the redoubtable oliver home to knock the scottish men on the head for setting up that prince. oliver left his son-in-law, ireton, as general in ireland in his stead (he died there afterwards), and he imitated the example of his father-in-law with such good will that he brought the country to subjection, and laid it at the feet of the parliament. in the end, they passed an act for the settlement of ireland, generally pardoning all the common people, but exempting from this grace such of the wealthier sort as had been concerned in the rebellion, or in any killing of protestants, or who refused to lay down their arms. great numbers of irish were got out of the country to serve under catholic powers abroad, and a quantity of land was declared to have been forfeited by past offences, and was given to people who had lent money to the parliament early in the war. these were sweeping measures; but, if oliver cromwell had had his own way fully, and had stayed in ireland, he would have done more yet. however, as i have said, the parliament wanted oliver for scotland; so, home oliver came, and was made commander of all the forces of the commonwealth of england, and in three days away he went with sixteen thousand soldiers to fight the scottish men. now, the scottish men, being then--as you will generally find them now--mighty cautious, reflected that the troops they had were not used to war like the ironsides, and would be beaten in an open fight. therefore they said, 'if we live quiet in our trenches in edinburgh here, and if all the farmers come into the town and desert the country, the ironsides will be driven out by iron hunger and be forced to go away.' this was, no doubt, the wisest plan; but as the scottish clergy _would_ interfere with what they knew nothing about, and would perpetually preach long sermons exhorting the soldiers to come out and fight, the soldiers got it in their heads that they absolutely must come out and fight. accordingly, in an evil hour for themselves, they came out of their safe position. oliver fell upon them instantly, and killed three thousand, and took ten thousand prisoners. to gratify the scottish parliament, and preserve their favour, charles had signed a declaration they laid before him, reproaching the memory of his father and mother, and representing himself as a most religious prince, to whom the solemn league and covenant was as dear as life. he meant no sort of truth in this, and soon afterwards galloped away on horseback to join some tiresome highland friends, who were always flourishing dirks and broadswords. he was overtaken and induced to return; but this attempt, which was called 'the start,' did him just so much service, that they did not preach quite such long sermons at him afterwards as they had done before. on the first of january, one thousand six hundred and fifty-one, the scottish people crowned him at scone. he immediately took the chief command of an army of twenty thousand men, and marched to stirling. his hopes were heightened, i dare say, by the redoubtable oliver being ill of an ague; but oliver scrambled out of bed in no time, and went to work with such energy that he got behind the royalist army and cut it off from all communication with scotland. there was nothing for it then, but to go on to england; so it went on as far as worcester, where the mayor and some of the gentry proclaimed king charles the second straightway. his proclamation, however, was of little use to him, for very few royalists appeared; and, on the very same day, two people were publicly beheaded on tower hill for espousing his cause. up came oliver to worcester too, at double quick speed, and he and his ironsides so laid about them in the great battle which was fought there, that they completely beat the scottish men, and destroyed the royalist army; though the scottish men fought so gallantly that it took five hours to do. the escape of charles after this battle of worcester did him good service long afterwards, for it induced many of the generous english people to take a romantic interest in him, and to think much better of him than he ever deserved. he fled in the night, with not more than sixty followers, to the house of a catholic lady in staffordshire. there, for his greater safety, the whole sixty left him. he cropped his hair, stained his face and hands brown as if they were sunburnt, put on the clothes of a labouring countryman, and went out in the morning with his axe in his hand, accompanied by four wood-cutters who were brothers, and another man who was their brother-in-law. these good fellows made a bed for him under a tree, as the weather was very bad; and the wife of one of them brought him food to eat; and the old mother of the four brothers came and fell down on her knees before him in the wood, and thanked god that her sons were engaged in saving his life. at night, he came out of the forest and went on to another house which was near the river severn, with the intention of passing into wales; but the place swarmed with soldiers, and the bridges were guarded, and all the boats were made fast. so, after lying in a hayloft covered over with hay, for some time, he came out of his place, attended by colonel careless, a catholic gentleman who had met him there, and with whom he lay hid, all next day, up in the shady branches of a fine old oak. it was lucky for the king that it was september-time, and that the leaves had not begun to fall, since he and the colonel, perched up in this tree, could catch glimpses of the soldiers riding about below, and could hear the crash in the wood as they went about beating the boughs. after this, he walked and walked until his feet were all blistered; and, having been concealed all one day in a house which was searched by the troopers while he was there, went with lord wilmot, another of his good friends, to a place called bentley, where one miss lane, a protestant lady, had obtained a pass to be allowed to ride through the guards to see a relation of hers near bristol. disguised as a servant, he rode in the saddle before this young lady to the house of sir john winter, while lord wilmot rode there boldly, like a plain country gentleman, with dogs at his heels. it happened that sir john winter's butler had been servant in richmond palace, and knew charles the moment he set eyes upon him; but, the butler was faithful and kept the secret. as no ship could be found to carry him abroad, it was planned that he should go--still travelling with miss lane as her servant--to another house, at trent near sherborne in dorsetshire; and then miss lane and her cousin, mr. lascelles, who had gone on horseback beside her all the way, went home. i hope miss lane was going to marry that cousin, for i am sure she must have been a brave, kind girl. if i had been that cousin, i should certainly have loved miss lane. when charles, lonely for the loss of miss lane, was safe at trent, a ship was hired at lyme, the master of which engaged to take two gentlemen to france. in the evening of the same day, the king--now riding as servant before another young lady--set off for a public-house at a place called charmouth, where the captain of the vessel was to take him on board. but, the captain's wife, being afraid of her husband getting into trouble, locked him up and would not let him sail. then they went away to bridport; and, coming to the inn there, found the stable-yard full of soldiers who were on the look-out for charles, and who talked about him while they drank. he had such presence of mind, that he led the horses of his party through the yard as any other servant might have done, and said, 'come out of the way, you soldiers; let us have room to pass here!' as he went along, he met a half-tipsy ostler, who rubbed his eyes and said to him, 'why, i was formerly servant to mr. potter at exeter, and surely i have sometimes seen you there, young man?' he certainly had, for charles had lodged there. his ready answer was, 'ah, i did live with him once; but i have no time to talk now. we'll have a pot of beer together when i come back.' from this dangerous place he returned to trent, and lay there concealed several days. then he escaped to heale, near salisbury; where, in the house of a widow lady, he was hidden five days, until the master of a collier lying off shoreham in sussex, undertook to convey a 'gentleman' to france. on the night of the fifteenth of october, accompanied by two colonels and a merchant, the king rode to brighton, then a little fishing village, to give the captain of the ship a supper before going on board; but, so many people knew him, that this captain knew him too, and not only he, but the landlord and landlady also. before he went away, the landlord came behind his chair, kissed his hand, and said he hoped to live to be a lord and to see his wife a lady; at which charles laughed. they had had a good supper by this time, and plenty of smoking and drinking, at which the king was a first-rate hand; so, the captain assured him that he would stand by him, and he did. it was agreed that the captain should pretend to sail to deal, and that charles should address the sailors and say he was a gentleman in debt who was running away from his creditors, and that he hoped they would join him in persuading the captain to put him ashore in france. as the king acted his part very well indeed, and gave the sailors twenty shillings to drink, they begged the captain to do what such a worthy gentleman asked. he pretended to yield to their entreaties, and the king got safe to normandy. ireland being now subdued, and scotland kept quiet by plenty of forts and soldiers put there by oliver, the parliament would have gone on quietly enough, as far as fighting with any foreign enemy went, but for getting into trouble with the dutch, who in the spring of the year one thousand six hundred and fifty-one sent a fleet into the downs under their admiral van tromp, to call upon the bold english admiral blake (who was there with half as many ships as the dutch) to strike his flag. blake fired a raging broadside instead, and beat off van tromp; who, in the autumn, came back again with seventy ships, and challenged the bold blake--who still was only half as strong--to fight him. blake fought him all day; but, finding that the dutch were too many for him, got quietly off at night. what does van tromp upon this, but goes cruising and boasting about the channel, between the north foreland and the isle of wight, with a great dutch broom tied to his masthead, as a sign that he could and would sweep the english of the sea! within three months, blake lowered his tone though, and his broom too; for, he and two other bold commanders, dean and monk, fought him three whole days, took twenty-three of his ships, shivered his broom to pieces, and settled his business. things were no sooner quiet again, than the army began to complain to the parliament that they were not governing the nation properly, and to hint that they thought they could do it better themselves. oliver, who had now made up his mind to be the head of the state, or nothing at all, supported them in this, and called a meeting of officers and his own parliamentary friends, at his lodgings in whitehall, to consider the best way of getting rid of the parliament. it had now lasted just as many years as the king's unbridled power had lasted, before it came into existence. the end of the deliberation was, that oliver went down to the house in his usual plain black dress, with his usual grey worsted stockings, but with an unusual party of soldiers behind him. these last he left in the lobby, and then went in and sat down. presently he got up, made the parliament a speech, told them that the lord had done with them, stamped his foot and said, 'you are no parliament. bring them in! bring them in!' at this signal the door flew open, and the soldiers appeared. 'this is not honest,' said sir harry vane, one of the members. 'sir harry vane!' cried cromwell; 'o, sir harry vane! the lord deliver me from sir harry vane!' then he pointed out members one by one, and said this man was a drunkard, and that man a dissipated fellow, and that man a liar, and so on. then he caused the speaker to be walked out of his chair, told the guard to clear the house, called the mace upon the table--which is a sign that the house is sitting--'a fool's bauble,' and said, 'here, carry it away!' being obeyed in all these orders, he quietly locked the door, put the key in his pocket, walked back to whitehall again, and told his friends, who were still assembled there, what he had done. they formed a new council of state after this extraordinary proceeding, and got a new parliament together in their own way: which oliver himself opened in a sort of sermon, and which he said was the beginning of a perfect heaven upon earth. in this parliament there sat a well-known leather-seller, who had taken the singular name of praise god barebones, and from whom it was called, for a joke, barebones's parliament, though its general name was the little parliament. as it soon appeared that it was not going to put oliver in the first place, it turned out to be not at all like the beginning of heaven upon earth, and oliver said it really was not to be borne with. so he cleared off that parliament in much the same way as he had disposed of the other; and then the council of officers decided that he must be made the supreme authority of the kingdom, under the title of the lord protector of the commonwealth. so, on the sixteenth of december, one thousand six hundred and fifty-three, a great procession was formed at oliver's door, and he came out in a black velvet suit and a big pair of boots, and got into his coach and went down to westminster, attended by the judges, and the lord mayor, and the aldermen, and all the other great and wonderful personages of the country. there, in the court of chancery, he publicly accepted the office of lord protector. then he was sworn, and the city sword was handed to him, and the seal was handed to him, and all the other things were handed to him which are usually handed to kings and queens on state occasions. when oliver had handed them all back, he was quite made and completely finished off as lord protector; and several of the ironsides preached about it at great length, all the evening. second part oliver cromwell--whom the people long called old noll--in accepting the office of protector, had bound himself by a certain paper which was handed to him, called 'the instrument,' to summon a parliament, consisting of between four and five hundred members, in the election of which neither the royalists nor the catholics were to have any share. he had also pledged himself that this parliament should not be dissolved without its own consent until it had sat five months. when this parliament met, oliver made a speech to them of three hours long, very wisely advising them what to do for the credit and happiness of the country. to keep down the more violent members, he required them to sign a recognition of what they were forbidden by 'the instrument' to do; which was, chiefly, to take the power from one single person at the head of the state or to command the army. then he dismissed them to go to work. with his usual vigour and resolution he went to work himself with some frantic preachers--who were rather overdoing their sermons in calling him a villain and a tyrant--by shutting up their chapels, and sending a few of them off to prison. there was not at that time, in england or anywhere else, a man so able to govern the country as oliver cromwell. although he ruled with a strong hand, and levied a very heavy tax on the royalists (but not until they had plotted against his life), he ruled wisely, and as the times required. he caused england to be so respected abroad, that i wish some lords and gentlemen who have governed it under kings and queens in later days would have taken a leaf out of oliver cromwell's book. he sent bold admiral blake to the mediterranean sea, to make the duke of tuscany pay sixty thousand pounds for injuries he had done to british subjects, and spoliation he had committed on english merchants. he further despatched him and his fleet to algiers, tunis, and tripoli, to have every english ship and every english man delivered up to him that had been taken by pirates in those parts. all this was gloriously done; and it began to be thoroughly well known, all over the world, that england was governed by a man in earnest, who would not allow the english name to be insulted or slighted anywhere. these were not all his foreign triumphs. he sent a fleet to sea against the dutch; and the two powers, each with one hundred ships upon its side, met in the english channel off the north foreland, where the fight lasted all day long. dean was killed in this fight; but monk, who commanded in the same ship with him, threw his cloak over his body, that the sailors might not know of his death, and be disheartened. nor were they. the english broadsides so exceedingly astonished the dutch that they sheered off at last, though the redoubtable van tromp fired upon them with his own guns for deserting their flag. soon afterwards, the two fleets engaged again, off the coast of holland. there, the valiant van tromp was shot through the heart, and the dutch gave in, and peace was made. further than this, oliver resolved not to bear the domineering and bigoted conduct of spain, which country not only claimed a right to all the gold and silver that could be found in south america, and treated the ships of all other countries who visited those regions, as pirates, but put english subjects into the horrible spanish prisons of the inquisition. so, oliver told the spanish ambassador that english ships must be free to go wherever they would, and that english merchants must not be thrown into those same dungeons, no, not for the pleasure of all the priests in spain. to this, the spanish ambassador replied that the gold and silver country, and the holy inquisition, were his king's two eyes, neither of which he could submit to have put out. very well, said oliver, then he was afraid he (oliver) must damage those two eyes directly. so, another fleet was despatched under two commanders, penn and venables, for hispaniola; where, however, the spaniards got the better of the fight. consequently, the fleet came home again, after taking jamaica on the way. oliver, indignant with the two commanders who had not done what bold admiral blake would have done, clapped them both into prison, declared war against spain, and made a treaty with france, in virtue of which it was to shelter the king and his brother the duke of york no longer. then, he sent a fleet abroad under bold admiral blake, which brought the king of portugal to his senses--just to keep its hand in--and then engaged a spanish fleet, sunk four great ships, and took two more, laden with silver to the value of two millions of pounds: which dazzling prize was brought from portsmouth to london in waggons, with the populace of all the towns and villages through which the waggons passed, shouting with all their might. after this victory, bold admiral blake sailed away to the port of santa cruz to cut off the spanish treasure-ships coming from mexico. there, he found them, ten in number, with seven others to take care of them, and a big castle, and seven batteries, all roaring and blazing away at him with great guns. blake cared no more for great guns than for pop-guns--no more for their hot iron balls than for snow-balls. he dashed into the harbour, captured and burnt every one of the ships, and came sailing out again triumphantly, with the victorious english flag flying at his masthead. this was the last triumph of this great commander, who had sailed and fought until he was quite worn out. he died, as his successful ship was coming into plymouth harbour amidst the joyful acclamations of the people, and was buried in state in westminster abbey. not to lie there, long. over and above all this, oliver found that the vaudois, or protestant people of the valleys of lucerne, were insolently treated by the catholic powers, and were even put to death for their religion, in an audacious and bloody manner. instantly, he informed those powers that this was a thing which protestant england would not allow; and he speedily carried his point, through the might of his great name, and established their right to worship god in peace after their own harmless manner. lastly, his english army won such admiration in fighting with the french against the spaniards, that, after they had assaulted the town of dunkirk together, the french king in person gave it up to the english, that it might be a token to them of their might and valour. there were plots enough against oliver among the frantic religionists (who called themselves fifth monarchy men), and among the disappointed republicans. he had a difficult game to play, for the royalists were always ready to side with either party against him. the 'king over the water,' too, as charles was called, had no scruples about plotting with any one against his life; although there is reason to suppose that he would willingly have married one of his daughters, if oliver would have had such a son-in-law. there was a certain colonel saxby of the army, once a great supporter of oliver's but now turned against him, who was a grievous trouble to him through all this part of his career; and who came and went between the discontented in england and spain, and charles who put himself in alliance with spain on being thrown off by france. this man died in prison at last; but not until there had been very serious plots between the royalists and republicans, and an actual rising of them in england, when they burst into the city of salisbury, on a sunday night, seized the judges who were going to hold the assizes there next day, and would have hanged them but for the merciful objections of the more temperate of their number. oliver was so vigorous and shrewd that he soon put this revolt down, as he did most other conspiracies; and it was well for one of its chief managers--that same lord wilmot who had assisted in charles's flight, and was now earl of rochester--that he made his escape. oliver seemed to have eyes and ears everywhere, and secured such sources of information as his enemies little dreamed of. there was a chosen body of six persons, called the sealed knot, who were in the closest and most secret confidence of charles. one of the foremost of these very men, a sir richard willis, reported to oliver everything that passed among them, and had two hundred a year for it. miles syndarcomb, also of the old army, was another conspirator against the protector. he and a man named cecil, bribed one of his life guards to let them have good notice when he was going out--intending to shoot him from a window. but, owing either to his caution or his good fortune, they could never get an aim at him. disappointed in this design, they got into the chapel in whitehall, with a basketful of combustibles, which were to explode by means of a slow match in six hours; then, in the noise and confusion of the fire, they hoped to kill oliver. but, the life guardsman himself disclosed this plot; and they were seized, and miles died (or killed himself in prison) a little while before he was ordered for execution. a few such plotters oliver caused to be beheaded, a few more to be hanged, and many more, including those who rose in arms against him, to be sent as slaves to the west indies. if he were rigid, he was impartial too, in asserting the laws of england. when a portuguese nobleman, the brother of the portuguese ambassador, killed a london citizen in mistake for another man with whom he had had a quarrel, oliver caused him to be tried before a jury of englishmen and foreigners, and had him executed in spite of the entreaties of all the ambassadors in london. one of oliver's own friends, the duke of oldenburgh, in sending him a present of six fine coach-horses, was very near doing more to please the royalists than all the plotters put together. one day, oliver went with his coach, drawn by these six horses, into hyde park, to dine with his secretary and some of his other gentlemen under the trees there. after dinner, being merry, he took it into his head to put his friends inside and to drive them home: a postillion riding one of the foremost horses, as the custom was. on account of oliver's being too free with the whip, the six fine horses went off at a gallop, the postillion got thrown, and oliver fell upon the coach-pole and narrowly escaped being shot by his own pistol, which got entangled with his clothes in the harness, and went off. he was dragged some distance by the foot, until his foot came out of the shoe, and then he came safely to the ground under the broad body of the coach, and was very little the worse. the gentlemen inside were only bruised, and the discontented people of all parties were much disappointed. the rest of the history of the protectorate of oliver cromwell is a history of his parliaments. his first one not pleasing him at all, he waited until the five months were out, and then dissolved it. the next was better suited to his views; and from that he desired to get--if he could with safety to himself--the title of king. he had had this in his mind some time: whether because he thought that the english people, being more used to the title, were more likely to obey it; or whether because he really wished to be a king himself, and to leave the succession to that title in his family, is far from clear. he was already as high, in england and in all the world, as he would ever be, and i doubt if he cared for the mere name. however, a paper, called the 'humble petition and advice,' was presented to him by the house of commons, praying him to take a high title and to appoint his successor. that he would have taken the title of king there is no doubt, but for the strong opposition of the army. this induced him to forbear, and to assent only to the other points of the petition. upon which occasion there was another grand show in westminster hall, when the speaker of the house of commons formally invested him with a purple robe lined with ermine, and presented him with a splendidly bound bible, and put a golden sceptre in his hand. the next time the parliament met, he called a house of lords of sixty members, as the petition gave him power to do; but as that parliament did not please him either, and would not proceed to the business of the country, he jumped into a coach one morning, took six guards with him, and sent them to the right-about. i wish this had been a warning to parliaments to avoid long speeches, and do more work. it was the month of august, one thousand six hundred and fifty-eight, when oliver cromwell's favourite daughter, elizabeth claypole (who had lately lost her youngest son), lay very ill, and his mind was greatly troubled, because he loved her dearly. another of his daughters was married to lord falconberg, another to the grandson of the earl of warwick, and he had made his son richard one of the members of the upper house. he was very kind and loving to them all, being a good father and a good husband; but he loved this daughter the best of the family, and went down to hampton court to see her, and could hardly be induced to stir from her sick room until she died. although his religion had been of a gloomy kind, his disposition had been always cheerful. he had been fond of music in his home, and had kept open table once a week for all officers of the army not below the rank of captain, and had always preserved in his house a quiet, sensible dignity. he encouraged men of genius and learning, and loved to have them about him. milton was one of his great friends. he was good humoured too, with the nobility, whose dresses and manners were very different from his; and to show them what good information he had, he would sometimes jokingly tell them when they were his guests, where they had last drunk the health of the 'king over the water,' and would recommend them to be more private (if they could) another time. but he had lived in busy times, had borne the weight of heavy state affairs, and had often gone in fear of his life. he was ill of the gout and ague; and when the death of his beloved child came upon him in addition, he sank, never to raise his head again. he told his physicians on the twenty-fourth of august that the lord had assured him that he was not to die in that illness, and that he would certainly get better. this was only his sick fancy, for on the third of september, which was the anniversary of the great battle of worcester, and the day of the year which he called his fortunate day, he died, in the sixtieth year of his age. he had been delirious, and had lain insensible some hours, but he had been overheard to murmur a very good prayer the day before. the whole country lamented his death. if you want to know the real worth of oliver cromwell, and his real services to his country, you can hardly do better than compare england under him, with england under charles the second. he had appointed his son richard to succeed him, and after there had been, at somerset house in the strand, a lying in state more splendid than sensible--as all such vanities after death are, i think--richard became lord protector. he was an amiable country gentleman, but had none of his father's great genius, and was quite unfit for such a post in such a storm of parties. richard's protectorate, which only lasted a year and a half, is a history of quarrels between the officers of the army and the parliament, and between the officers among themselves; and of a growing discontent among the people, who had far too many long sermons and far too few amusements, and wanted a change. at last, general monk got the army well into his own hands, and then in pursuance of a secret plan he seems to have entertained from the time of oliver's death, declared for the king's cause. he did not do this openly; but, in his place in the house of commons, as one of the members for devonshire, strongly advocated the proposals of one sir john greenville, who came to the house with a letter from charles, dated from breda, and with whom he had previously been in secret communication. there had been plots and counterplots, and a recall of the last members of the long parliament, and an end of the long parliament, and risings of the royalists that were made too soon; and most men being tired out, and there being no one to head the country now great oliver was dead, it was readily agreed to welcome charles stuart. some of the wiser and better members said--what was most true--that in the letter from breda, he gave no real promise to govern well, and that it would be best to make him pledge himself beforehand as to what he should be bound to do for the benefit of the kingdom. monk said, however, it would be all right when he came, and he could not come too soon. so, everybody found out all in a moment that the country _must_ be prosperous and happy, having another stuart to condescend to reign over it; and there was a prodigious firing off of guns, lighting of bonfires, ringing of bells, and throwing up of caps. the people drank the king's health by thousands in the open streets, and everybody rejoiced. down came the arms of the commonwealth, up went the royal arms instead, and out came the public money. fifty thousand pounds for the king, ten thousand pounds for his brother the duke of york, five thousand pounds for his brother the duke of gloucester. prayers for these gracious stuarts were put up in all the churches; commissioners were sent to holland (which suddenly found out that charles was a great man, and that it loved him) to invite the king home; monk and the kentish grandees went to dover, to kneel down before him as he landed. he kissed and embraced monk, made him ride in the coach with himself and his brothers, came on to london amid wonderful shoutings, and passed through the army at blackheath on the twenty-ninth of may (his birthday), in the year one thousand six hundred and sixty. greeted by splendid dinners under tents, by flags and tapestry streaming from all the houses, by delighted crowds in all the streets, by troops of noblemen and gentlemen in rich dresses, by city companies, train-bands, drummers, trumpeters, the great lord mayor, and the majestic aldermen, the king went on to whitehall. on entering it, he commemorated his restoration with the joke that it really would seem to have been his own fault that he had not come long ago, since everybody told him that he had always wished for him with all his heart. chapter xxxv--england under charles the second, called the merry monarch there never were such profligate times in england as under charles the second. whenever you see his portrait, with his swarthy, ill-looking face and great nose, you may fancy him in his court at whitehall, surrounded by some of the very worst vagabonds in the kingdom (though they were lords and ladies), drinking, gambling, indulging in vicious conversation, and committing every kind of profligate excess. it has been a fashion to call charles the second 'the merry monarch.' let me try to give you a general idea of some of the merry things that were done, in the merry days when this merry gentleman sat upon his merry throne, in merry england. the first merry proceeding was--of course--to declare that he was one of the greatest, the wisest, and the noblest kings that ever shone, like the blessed sun itself, on this benighted earth. the next merry and pleasant piece of business was, for the parliament, in the humblest manner, to give him one million two hundred thousand pounds a year, and to settle upon him for life that old disputed tonnage and poundage which had been so bravely fought for. then, general monk being made earl of albemarle, and a few other royalists similarly rewarded, the law went to work to see what was to be done to those persons (they were called regicides) who had been concerned in making a martyr of the late king. ten of these were merrily executed; that is to say, six of the judges, one of the council, colonel hacker and another officer who had commanded the guards, and hugh peters, a preacher who had preached against the martyr with all his heart. these executions were so extremely merry, that every horrible circumstance which cromwell had abandoned was revived with appalling cruelty. the hearts of the sufferers were torn out of their living bodies; their bowels were burned before their faces; the executioner cut jokes to the next victim, as he rubbed his filthy hands together, that were reeking with the blood of the last; and the heads of the dead were drawn on sledges with the living to the place of suffering. still, even so merry a monarch could not force one of these dying men to say that he was sorry for what he had done. nay, the most memorable thing said among them was, that if the thing were to do again they would do it. sir harry vane, who had furnished the evidence against strafford, and was one of the most staunch of the republicans, was also tried, found guilty, and ordered for execution. when he came upon the scaffold on tower hill, after conducting his own defence with great power, his notes of what he had meant to say to the people were torn away from him, and the drums and trumpets were ordered to sound lustily and drown his voice; for, the people had been so much impressed by what the regicides had calmly said with their last breath, that it was the custom now, to have the drums and trumpets always under the scaffold, ready to strike up. vane said no more than this: 'it is a bad cause which cannot bear the words of a dying man:' and bravely died. these merry scenes were succeeded by another, perhaps even merrier. on the anniversary of the late king's death, the bodies of oliver cromwell, ireton, and bradshaw, were torn out of their graves in westminster abbey, dragged to tyburn, hanged there on a gallows all day long, and then beheaded. imagine the head of oliver cromwell set upon a pole to be stared at by a brutal crowd, not one of whom would have dared to look the living oliver in the face for half a moment! think, after you have read this reign, what england was under oliver cromwell who was torn out of his grave, and what it was under this merry monarch who sold it, like a merry judas, over and over again. of course, the remains of oliver's wife and daughter were not to be spared either, though they had been most excellent women. the base clergy of that time gave up their bodies, which had been buried in the abbey, and--to the eternal disgrace of england--they were thrown into a pit, together with the mouldering bones of pym and of the brave and bold old admiral blake. the clergy acted this disgraceful part because they hoped to get the nonconformists, or dissenters, thoroughly put down in this reign, and to have but one prayer-book and one service for all kinds of people, no matter what their private opinions were. this was pretty well, i think, for a protestant church, which had displaced the romish church because people had a right to their own opinions in religious matters. however, they carried it with a high hand, and a prayer-book was agreed upon, in which the extremest opinions of archbishop laud were not forgotten. an act was passed, too, preventing any dissenter from holding any office under any corporation. so, the regular clergy in their triumph were soon as merry as the king. the army being by this time disbanded, and the king crowned, everything was to go on easily for evermore. i must say a word here about the king's family. he had not been long upon the throne when his brother the duke of gloucester, and his sister the princess of orange, died within a few months of each other, of small- pox. his remaining sister, the princess henrietta, married the duke of orleans, the brother of louis the fourteenth, king of france. his brother james, duke of york, was made high admiral, and by-and-by became a catholic. he was a gloomy, sullen, bilious sort of man, with a remarkable partiality for the ugliest women in the country. he married, under very discreditable circumstances, anne hyde, the daughter of lord clarendon, then the king's principal minister--not at all a delicate minister either, but doing much of the dirty work of a very dirty palace. it became important now that the king himself should be married; and divers foreign monarchs, not very particular about the character of their son-in-law, proposed their daughters to him. the king of portugal offered his daughter, catherine of braganza, and fifty thousand pounds: in addition to which, the french king, who was favourable to that match, offered a loan of another fifty thousand. the king of spain, on the other hand, offered any one out of a dozen of princesses, and other hopes of gain. but the ready money carried the day, and catherine came over in state to her merry marriage. the whole court was a great flaunting crowd of debauched men and shameless women; and catherine's merry husband insulted and outraged her in every possible way, until she consented to receive those worthless creatures as her very good friends, and to degrade herself by their companionship. a mrs. palmer, whom the king made lady castlemaine, and afterwards duchess of cleveland, was one of the most powerful of the bad women about the court, and had great influence with the king nearly all through his reign. another merry lady named moll davies, a dancer at the theatre, was afterwards her rival. so was nell gwyn, first an orange girl and then an actress, who really had good in her, and of whom one of the worst things i know is, that actually she does seem to have been fond of the king. the first duke of st. albans was this orange girl's child. in like manner the son of a merry waiting-lady, whom the king created duchess of portsmouth, became the duke of richmond. upon the whole it is not so bad a thing to be a commoner. the merry monarch was so exceedingly merry among these merry ladies, and some equally merry (and equally infamous) lords and gentlemen, that he soon got through his hundred thousand pounds, and then, by way of raising a little pocket-money, made a merry bargain. he sold dunkirk to the french king for five millions of livres. when i think of the dignity to which oliver cromwell raised england in the eyes of foreign powers, and when i think of the manner in which he gained for england this very dunkirk, i am much inclined to consider that if the merry monarch had been made to follow his father for this action, he would have received his just deserts. though he was like his father in none of that father's greater qualities, he was like him in being worthy of no trust. when he sent that letter to the parliament, from breda, he did expressly promise that all sincere religious opinions should be respected. yet he was no sooner firm in his power than he consented to one of the worst acts of parliament ever passed. under this law, every minister who should not give his solemn assent to the prayer-book by a certain day, was declared to be a minister no longer, and to be deprived of his church. the consequence of this was that some two thousand honest men were taken from their congregations, and reduced to dire poverty and distress. it was followed by another outrageous law, called the conventicle act, by which any person above the age of sixteen who was present at any religious service not according to the prayer-book, was to be imprisoned three months for the first offence, six for the second, and to be transported for the third. this act alone filled the prisons, which were then most dreadful dungeons, to overflowing. the covenanters in scotland had already fared no better. a base parliament, usually known as the drunken parliament, in consequence of its principal members being seldom sober, had been got together to make laws against the covenanters, and to force all men to be of one mind in religious matters. the marquis of argyle, relying on the king's honour, had given himself up to him; but, he was wealthy, and his enemies wanted his wealth. he was tried for treason, on the evidence of some private letters in which he had expressed opinions--as well he might--more favourable to the government of the late lord protector than of the present merry and religious king. he was executed, as were two men of mark among the covenanters; and sharp, a traitor who had once been the friend of the presbyterians and betrayed them, was made archbishop of st. andrew's, to teach the scotch how to like bishops. things being in this merry state at home, the merry monarch undertook a war with the dutch; principally because they interfered with an african company, established with the two objects of buying gold-dust and slaves, of which the duke of york was a leading member. after some preliminary hostilities, the said duke sailed to the coast of holland with a fleet of ninety-eight vessels of war, and four fire-ships. this engaged with the dutch fleet, of no fewer than one hundred and thirteen ships. in the great battle between the two forces, the dutch lost eighteen ships, four admirals, and seven thousand men. but, the english on shore were in no mood of exultation when they heard the news. for, this was the year and the time of the great plague in london. during the winter of one thousand six hundred and sixty-four it had been whispered about, that some few people had died here and there of the disease called the plague, in some of the unwholesome suburbs around london. news was not published at that time as it is now, and some people believed these rumours, and some disbelieved them, and they were soon forgotten. but, in the month of may, one thousand six hundred and sixty-five, it began to be said all over the town that the disease had burst out with great violence in st. giles's, and that the people were dying in great numbers. this soon turned out to be awfully true. the roads out of london were choked up by people endeavouring to escape from the infected city, and large sums were paid for any kind of conveyance. the disease soon spread so fast, that it was necessary to shut up the houses in which sick people were, and to cut them off from communication with the living. every one of these houses was marked on the outside of the door with a red cross, and the words, lord, have mercy upon us! the streets were all deserted, grass grew in the public ways, and there was a dreadful silence in the air. when night came on, dismal rumblings used to be heard, and these were the wheels of the death-carts, attended by men with veiled faces and holding cloths to their mouths, who rang doleful bells and cried in a loud and solemn voice, 'bring out your dead!' the corpses put into these carts were buried by torchlight in great pits; no service being performed over them; all men being afraid to stay for a moment on the brink of the ghastly graves. in the general fear, children ran away from their parents, and parents from their children. some who were taken ill, died alone, and without any help. some were stabbed or strangled by hired nurses who robbed them of all their money, and stole the very beds on which they lay. some went mad, dropped from the windows, ran through the streets, and in their pain and frenzy flung themselves into the river. these were not all the horrors of the time. the wicked and dissolute, in wild desperation, sat in the taverns singing roaring songs, and were stricken as they drank, and went out and died. the fearful and superstitious persuaded themselves that they saw supernatural sights--burning swords in the sky, gigantic arms and darts. others pretended that at nights vast crowds of ghosts walked round and round the dismal pits. one madman, naked, and carrying a brazier full of burning coals upon his head, stalked through the streets, crying out that he was a prophet, commissioned to denounce the vengeance of the lord on wicked london. another always went to and fro, exclaiming, 'yet forty days, and london shall be destroyed!' a third awoke the echoes in the dismal streets, by night and by day, and made the blood of the sick run cold, by calling out incessantly, in a deep hoarse voice, 'o, the great and dreadful god!' through the months of july and august and september, the great plague raged more and more. great fires were lighted in the streets, in the hope of stopping the infection; but there was a plague of rain too, and it beat the fires out. at last, the winds which usually arise at that time of the year which is called the equinox, when day and night are of equal length all over the world, began to blow, and to purify the wretched town. the deaths began to decrease, the red crosses slowly to disappear, the fugitives to return, the shops to open, pale frightened faces to be seen in the streets. the plague had been in every part of england, but in close and unwholesome london it had killed one hundred thousand people. all this time, the merry monarch was as merry as ever, and as worthless as ever. all this time, the debauched lords and gentlemen and the shameless ladies danced and gamed and drank, and loved and hated one another, according to their merry ways. so little humanity did the government learn from the late affliction, that one of the first things the parliament did when it met at oxford (being as yet afraid to come to london), was to make a law, called the five mile act, expressly directed against those poor ministers who, in the time of the plague, had manfully come back to comfort the unhappy people. this infamous law, by forbidding them to teach in any school, or to come within five miles of any city, town, or village, doomed them to starvation and death. the fleet had been at sea, and healthy. the king of france was now in alliance with the dutch, though his navy was chiefly employed in looking on while the english and dutch fought. the dutch gained one victory; and the english gained another and a greater; and prince rupert, one of the english admirals, was out in the channel one windy night, looking for the french admiral, with the intention of giving him something more to do than he had had yet, when the gale increased to a storm, and blew him into saint helen's. that night was the third of september, one thousand six hundred and sixty-six, and that wind fanned the great fire of london. it broke out at a baker's shop near london bridge, on the spot on which the monument now stands as a remembrance of those raging flames. it spread and spread, and burned and burned, for three days. the nights were lighter than the days; in the daytime there was an immense cloud of smoke, and in the night-time there was a great tower of fire mounting up into the sky, which lighted the whole country landscape for ten miles round. showers of hot ashes rose into the air and fell on distant places; flying sparks carried the conflagration to great distances, and kindled it in twenty new spots at a time; church steeples fell down with tremendous crashes; houses crumbled into cinders by the hundred and the thousand. the summer had been intensely hot and dry, the streets were very narrow, and the houses mostly built of wood and plaster. nothing could stop the tremendous fire, but the want of more houses to burn; nor did it stop until the whole way from the tower to temple bar was a desert, composed of the ashes of thirteen thousand houses and eighty-nine churches. this was a terrible visitation at the time, and occasioned great loss and suffering to the two hundred thousand burnt-out people, who were obliged to lie in the fields under the open night sky, or in hastily-made huts of mud and straw, while the lanes and roads were rendered impassable by carts which had broken down as they tried to save their goods. but the fire was a great blessing to the city afterwards, for it arose from its ruins very much improved--built more regularly, more widely, more cleanly and carefully, and therefore much more healthily. it might be far more healthy than it is, but there are some people in it still--even now, at this time, nearly two hundred years later--so selfish, so pig-headed, and so ignorant, that i doubt if even another great fire would warm them up to do their duty. the catholics were accused of having wilfully set london in flames; one poor frenchman, who had been mad for years, even accused himself of having with his own hand fired the first house. there is no reasonable doubt, however, that the fire was accidental. an inscription on the monument long attributed it to the catholics; but it is removed now, and was always a malicious and stupid untruth. second part that the merry monarch might be very merry indeed, in the merry times when his people were suffering under pestilence and fire, he drank and gambled and flung away among his favourites the money which the parliament had voted for the war. the consequence of this was that the stout-hearted english sailors were merrily starving of want, and dying in the streets; while the dutch, under their admirals de witt and de ruyter, came into the river thames, and up the river medway as far as upnor, burned the guard-ships, silenced the weak batteries, and did what they would to the english coast for six whole weeks. most of the english ships that could have prevented them had neither powder nor shot on board; in this merry reign, public officers made themselves as merry as the king did with the public money; and when it was entrusted to them to spend in national defences or preparations, they put it into their own pockets with the merriest grace in the world. lord clarendon had, by this time, run as long a course as is usually allotted to the unscrupulous ministers of bad kings. he was impeached by his political opponents, but unsuccessfully. the king then commanded him to withdraw from england and retire to france, which he did, after defending himself in writing. he was no great loss at home, and died abroad some seven years afterwards. there then came into power a ministry called the cabal ministry, because it was composed of lord clifford, the earl of arlington, the duke of buckingham (a great rascal, and the king's most powerful favourite), lord ashley, and the duke of lauderdale, c. a. b. a. l. as the french were making conquests in flanders, the first cabal proceeding was to make a treaty with the dutch, for uniting with spain to oppose the french. it was no sooner made than the merry monarch, who always wanted to get money without being accountable to a parliament for his expenditure, apologised to the king of france for having had anything to do with it, and concluded a secret treaty with him, making himself his infamous pensioner to the amount of two millions of livres down, and three millions more a year; and engaging to desert that very spain, to make war against those very dutch, and to declare himself a catholic when a convenient time should arrive. this religious king had lately been crying to his catholic brother on the subject of his strong desire to be a catholic; and now he merrily concluded this treasonable conspiracy against the country he governed, by undertaking to become one as soon as he safely could. for all of which, though he had had ten merry heads instead of one, he richly deserved to lose them by the headsman's axe. as his one merry head might have been far from safe, if these things had been known, they were kept very quiet, and war was declared by france and england against the dutch. but, a very uncommon man, afterwards most important to english history and to the religion and liberty of this land, arose among them, and for many long years defeated the whole projects of france. this was william of nassau, prince of orange, son of the last prince of orange of the same name, who married the daughter of charles the first of england. he was a young man at this time, only just of age; but he was brave, cool, intrepid, and wise. his father had been so detested that, upon his death, the dutch had abolished the authority to which this son would have otherwise succeeded (stadtholder it was called), and placed the chief power in the hands of john de witt, who educated this young prince. now, the prince became very popular, and john de witt's brother cornelius was sentenced to banishment on a false accusation of conspiring to kill him. john went to the prison where he was, to take him away to exile, in his coach; and a great mob who collected on the occasion, then and there cruelly murdered both the brothers. this left the government in the hands of the prince, who was really the choice of the nation; and from this time he exercised it with the greatest vigour, against the whole power of france, under its famous generals conde and turenne, and in support of the protestant religion. it was full seven years before this war ended in a treaty of peace made at nimeguen, and its details would occupy a very considerable space. it is enough to say that william of orange established a famous character with the whole world; and that the merry monarch, adding to and improving on his former baseness, bound himself to do everything the king of france liked, and nothing the king of france did not like, for a pension of one hundred thousand pounds a year, which was afterwards doubled. besides this, the king of france, by means of his corrupt ambassador--who wrote accounts of his proceedings in england, which are not always to be believed, i think--bought our english members of parliament, as he wanted them. so, in point of fact, during a considerable portion of this merry reign, the king of france was the real king of this country. but there was a better time to come, and it was to come (though his royal uncle little thought so) through that very william, prince of orange. he came over to england, saw mary, the elder daughter of the duke of york, and married her. we shall see by-and-by what came of that marriage, and why it is never to be forgotten. this daughter was a protestant, but her mother died a catholic. she and her sister anne, also a protestant, were the only survivors of eight children. anne afterwards married george, prince of denmark, brother to the king of that country. lest you should do the merry monarch the injustice of supposing that he was even good humoured (except when he had everything his own way), or that he was high spirited and honourable, i will mention here what was done to a member of the house of commons, sir john coventry. he made a remark in a debate about taxing the theatres, which gave the king offence. the king agreed with his illegitimate son, who had been born abroad, and whom he had made duke of monmouth, to take the following merry vengeance. to waylay him at night, fifteen armed men to one, and to slit his nose with a penknife. like master, like man. the king's favourite, the duke of buckingham, was strongly suspected of setting on an assassin to murder the duke of ormond as he was returning home from a dinner; and that duke's spirited son, lord ossory, was so persuaded of his guilt, that he said to him at court, even as he stood beside the king, 'my lord, i know very well that you are at the bottom of this late attempt upon my father. but i give you warning, if he ever come to a violent end, his blood shall be upon you, and wherever i meet you i will pistol you! i will do so, though i find you standing behind the king's chair; and i tell you this in his majesty's presence, that you may be quite sure of my doing what i threaten.' those were merry times indeed. there was a fellow named blood, who was seized for making, with two companions, an audacious attempt to steal the crown, the globe, and sceptre, from the place where the jewels were kept in the tower. this robber, who was a swaggering ruffian, being taken, declared that he was the man who had endeavoured to kill the duke of ormond, and that he had meant to kill the king too, but was overawed by the majesty of his appearance, when he might otherwise have done it, as he was bathing at battersea. the king being but an ill-looking fellow, i don't believe a word of this. whether he was flattered, or whether he knew that buckingham had really set blood on to murder the duke, is uncertain. but it is quite certain that he pardoned this thief, gave him an estate of five hundred a year in ireland (which had had the honour of giving him birth), and presented him at court to the debauched lords and the shameless ladies, who made a great deal of him--as i have no doubt they would have made of the devil himself, if the king had introduced him. infamously pensioned as he was, the king still wanted money, and consequently was obliged to call parliaments. in these, the great object of the protestants was to thwart the catholic duke of york, who married a second time; his new wife being a young lady only fifteen years old, the catholic sister of the duke of modena. in this they were seconded by the protestant dissenters, though to their own disadvantage: since, to exclude catholics from power, they were even willing to exclude themselves. the king's object was to pretend to be a protestant, while he was really a catholic; to swear to the bishops that he was devoutly attached to the english church, while he knew he had bargained it away to the king of france; and by cheating and deceiving them, and all who were attached to royalty, to become despotic and be powerful enough to confess what a rascal he was. meantime, the king of france, knowing his merry pensioner well, intrigued with the king's opponents in parliament, as well as with the king and his friends. the fears that the country had of the catholic religion being restored, if the duke of york should come to the throne, and the low cunning of the king in pretending to share their alarms, led to some very terrible results. a certain dr. tonge, a dull clergyman in the city, fell into the hands of a certain titus oates, a most infamous character, who pretended to have acquired among the jesuits abroad a knowledge of a great plot for the murder of the king, and the re-establishment if the catholic religion. titus oates, being produced by this unlucky dr. tonge and solemnly examined before the council, contradicted himself in a thousand ways, told the most ridiculous and improbable stories, and implicated coleman, the secretary of the duchess of york. now, although what he charged against coleman was not true, and although you and i know very well that the real dangerous catholic plot was that one with the king of france of which the merry monarch was himself the head, there happened to be found among coleman's papers, some letters, in which he did praise the days of bloody queen mary, and abuse the protestant religion. this was great good fortune for titus, as it seemed to confirm him; but better still was in store. sir edmundbury godfrey, the magistrate who had first examined him, being unexpectedly found dead near primrose hill, was confidently believed to have been killed by the catholics. i think there is no doubt that he had been melancholy mad, and that he killed himself; but he had a great protestant funeral, and titus was called the saver of the nation, and received a pension of twelve hundred pounds a year. as soon as oates's wickedness had met with this success, up started another villain, named william bedloe, who, attracted by a reward of five hundred pounds offered for the apprehension of the murderers of godfrey, came forward and charged two jesuits and some other persons with having committed it at the queen's desire. oates, going into partnership with this new informer, had the audacity to accuse the poor queen herself of high treason. then appeared a third informer, as bad as either of the two, and accused a catholic banker named stayley of having said that the king was the greatest rogue in the world (which would not have been far from the truth), and that he would kill him with his own hand. this banker, being at once tried and executed, coleman and two others were tried and executed. then, a miserable wretch named prance, a catholic silversmith, being accused by bedloe, was tortured into confessing that he had taken part in godfrey's murder, and into accusing three other men of having committed it. then, five jesuits were accused by oates, bedloe, and prance together, and were all found guilty, and executed on the same kind of contradictory and absurd evidence. the queen's physician and three monks were next put on their trial; but oates and bedloe had for the time gone far enough and these four were acquitted. the public mind, however, was so full of a catholic plot, and so strong against the duke of york, that james consented to obey a written order from his brother, and to go with his family to brussels, provided that his rights should never be sacrificed in his absence to the duke of monmouth. the house of commons, not satisfied with this as the king hoped, passed a bill to exclude the duke from ever succeeding to the throne. in return, the king dissolved the parliament. he had deserted his old favourite, the duke of buckingham, who was now in the opposition. to give any sufficient idea of the miseries of scotland in this merry reign, would occupy a hundred pages. because the people would not have bishops, and were resolved to stand by their solemn league and covenant, such cruelties were inflicted upon them as make the blood run cold. ferocious dragoons galloped through the country to punish the peasants for deserting the churches; sons were hanged up at their fathers' doors for refusing to disclose where their fathers were concealed; wives were tortured to death for not betraying their husbands; people were taken out of their fields and gardens, and shot on the public roads without trial; lighted matches were tied to the fingers of prisoners, and a most horrible torment called the boot was invented, and constantly applied, which ground and mashed the victims' legs with iron wedges. witnesses were tortured as well as prisoners. all the prisons were full; all the gibbets were heavy with bodies; murder and plunder devastated the whole country. in spite of all, the covenanters were by no means to be dragged into the churches, and persisted in worshipping god as they thought right. a body of ferocious highlanders, turned upon them from the mountains of their own country, had no greater effect than the english dragoons under grahame of claverhouse, the most cruel and rapacious of all their enemies, whose name will ever be cursed through the length and breadth of scotland. archbishop sharp had ever aided and abetted all these outrages. but he fell at last; for, when the injuries of the scottish people were at their height, he was seen, in his coach-and-six coming across a moor, by a body of men, headed by one john balfour, who were waiting for another of their oppressors. upon this they cried out that heaven had delivered him into their hands, and killed him with many wounds. if ever a man deserved such a death, i think archbishop sharp did. it made a great noise directly, and the merry monarch--strongly suspected of having goaded the scottish people on, that he might have an excuse for a greater army than the parliament were willing to give him--sent down his son, the duke of monmouth, as commander-in-chief, with instructions to attack the scottish rebels, or whigs as they were called, whenever he came up with them. marching with ten thousand men from edinburgh, he found them, in number four or five thousand, drawn up at bothwell bridge, by the clyde. they were soon dispersed; and monmouth showed a more humane character towards them, than he had shown towards that member of parliament whose nose he had caused to be slit with a penknife. but the duke of lauderdale was their bitter foe, and sent claverhouse to finish them. as the duke of york became more and more unpopular, the duke of monmouth became more and more popular. it would have been decent in the latter not to have voted in favour of the renewed bill for the exclusion of james from the throne; but he did so, much to the king's amusement, who used to sit in the house of lords by the fire, hearing the debates, which he said were as good as a play. the house of commons passed the bill by a large majority, and it was carried up to the house of lords by lord russell, one of the best of the leaders on the protestant side. it was rejected there, chiefly because the bishops helped the king to get rid of it; and the fear of catholic plots revived again. there had been another got up, by a fellow out of newgate, named dangerfield, which is more famous than it deserves to be, under the name of the meal-tub plot. this jail-bird having been got out of newgate by a mrs. cellier, a catholic nurse, had turned catholic himself, and pretended that he knew of a plot among the presbyterians against the king's life. this was very pleasant to the duke of york, who hated the presbyterians, who returned the compliment. he gave dangerfield twenty guineas, and sent him to the king his brother. but dangerfield, breaking down altogether in his charge, and being sent back to newgate, almost astonished the duke out of his five senses by suddenly swearing that the catholic nurse had put that false design into his head, and that what he really knew about, was, a catholic plot against the king; the evidence of which would be found in some papers, concealed in a meal-tub in mrs. cellier's house. there they were, of course--for he had put them there himself--and so the tub gave the name to the plot. but, the nurse was acquitted on her trial, and it came to nothing. lord ashley, of the cabal, was now lord shaftesbury, and was strong against the succession of the duke of york. the house of commons, aggravated to the utmost extent, as we may well suppose, by suspicions of the king's conspiracy with the king of france, made a desperate point of the exclusion, still, and were bitter against the catholics generally. so unjustly bitter were they, i grieve to say, that they impeached the venerable lord stafford, a catholic nobleman seventy years old, of a design to kill the king. the witnesses were that atrocious oates and two other birds of the same feather. he was found guilty, on evidence quite as foolish as it was false, and was beheaded on tower hill. the people were opposed to him when he first appeared upon the scaffold; but, when he had addressed them and shown them how innocent he was and how wickedly he was sent there, their better nature was aroused, and they said, 'we believe you, my lord. god bless you, my lord!' the house of commons refused to let the king have any money until he should consent to the exclusion bill; but, as he could get it and did get it from his master the king of france, he could afford to hold them very cheap. he called a parliament at oxford, to which he went down with a great show of being armed and protected as if he were in danger of his life, and to which the opposition members also went armed and protected, alleging that they were in fear of the papists, who were numerous among the king's guards. however, they went on with the exclusion bill, and were so earnest upon it that they would have carried it again, if the king had not popped his crown and state robes into a sedan-chair, bundled himself into it along with them, hurried down to the chamber where the house of lords met, and dissolved the parliament. after which he scampered home, and the members of parliament scampered home too, as fast as their legs could carry them. the duke of york, then residing in scotland, had, under the law which excluded catholics from public trust, no right whatever to public employment. nevertheless, he was openly employed as the king's representative in scotland, and there gratified his sullen and cruel nature to his heart's content by directing the dreadful cruelties against the covenanters. there were two ministers named cargill and cameron who had escaped from the battle of bothwell bridge, and who returned to scotland, and raised the miserable but still brave and unsubdued covenanters afresh, under the name of cameronians. as cameron publicly posted a declaration that the king was a forsworn tyrant, no mercy was shown to his unhappy followers after he was slain in battle. the duke of york, who was particularly fond of the boot and derived great pleasure from having it applied, offered their lives to some of these people, if they would cry on the scaffold 'god save the king!' but their relations, friends, and countrymen, had been so barbarously tortured and murdered in this merry reign, that they preferred to die, and did die. the duke then obtained his merry brother's permission to hold a parliament in scotland, which first, with most shameless deceit, confirmed the laws for securing the protestant religion against popery, and then declared that nothing must or should prevent the succession of the popish duke. after this double-faced beginning, it established an oath which no human being could understand, but which everybody was to take, as a proof that his religion was the lawful religion. the earl of argyle, taking it with the explanation that he did not consider it to prevent him from favouring any alteration either in the church or state which was not inconsistent with the protestant religion or with his loyalty, was tried for high treason before a scottish jury of which the marquis of montrose was foreman, and was found guilty. he escaped the scaffold, for that time, by getting away, in the disguise of a page, in the train of his daughter, lady sophia lindsay. it was absolutely proposed, by certain members of the scottish council, that this lady should be whipped through the streets of edinburgh. but this was too much even for the duke, who had the manliness then (he had very little at most times) to remark that englishmen were not accustomed to treat ladies in that manner. in those merry times nothing could equal the brutal servility of the scottish fawners, but the conduct of similar degraded beings in england. after the settlement of these little affairs, the duke returned to england, and soon resumed his place at the council, and his office of high admiral--all this by his brother's favour, and in open defiance of the law. it would have been no loss to the country, if he had been drowned when his ship, in going to scotland to fetch his family, struck on a sand-bank, and was lost with two hundred souls on board. but he escaped in a boat with some friends; and the sailors were so brave and unselfish, that, when they saw him rowing away, they gave three cheers, while they themselves were going down for ever. the merry monarch, having got rid of his parliament, went to work to make himself despotic, with all speed. having had the villainy to order the execution of oliver plunket, bishop of armagh, falsely accused of a plot to establish popery in that country by means of a french army--the very thing this royal traitor was himself trying to do at home--and having tried to ruin lord shaftesbury, and failed--he turned his hand to controlling the corporations all over the country; because, if he could only do that, he could get what juries he chose, to bring in perjured verdicts, and could get what members he chose returned to parliament. these merry times produced, and made chief justice of the court of king's bench, a drunken ruffian of the name of jeffreys; a red-faced, swollen, bloated, horrible creature, with a bullying, roaring voice, and a more savage nature perhaps than was ever lodged in any human breast. this monster was the merry monarch's especial favourite, and he testified his admiration of him by giving him a ring from his own finger, which the people used to call judge jeffreys's bloodstone. him the king employed to go about and bully the corporations, beginning with london; or, as jeffreys himself elegantly called it, 'to give them a lick with the rough side of his tongue.' and he did it so thoroughly, that they soon became the basest and most sycophantic bodies in the kingdom--except the university of oxford, which, in that respect, was quite pre-eminent and unapproachable. lord shaftesbury (who died soon after the king's failure against him), lord william russell, the duke of monmouth, lord howard, lord jersey, algernon sidney, john hampden (grandson of the great hampden), and some others, used to hold a council together after the dissolution of the parliament, arranging what it might be necessary to do, if the king carried his popish plot to the utmost height. lord shaftesbury having been much the most violent of this party, brought two violent men into their secrets--rumsey, who had been a soldier in the republican army; and west, a lawyer. these two knew an old officer of cromwell's, called rumbold, who had married a maltster's widow, and so had come into possession of a solitary dwelling called the rye house, near hoddesdon, in hertfordshire. rumbold said to them what a capital place this house of his would be from which to shoot at the king, who often passed there going to and fro from newmarket. they liked the idea, and entertained it. but, one of their body gave information; and they, together with shepherd a wine merchant, lord russell, algernon sidney, lord essex, lord howard, and hampden, were all arrested. lord russell might have easily escaped, but scorned to do so, being innocent of any wrong; lord essex might have easily escaped, but scorned to do so, lest his flight should prejudice lord russell. but it weighed upon his mind that he had brought into their council, lord howard--who now turned a miserable traitor--against a great dislike lord russell had always had of him. he could not bear the reflection, and destroyed himself before lord russell was brought to trial at the old bailey. he knew very well that he had nothing to hope, having always been manful in the protestant cause against the two false brothers, the one on the throne, and the other standing next to it. he had a wife, one of the noblest and best of women, who acted as his secretary on his trial, who comforted him in his prison, who supped with him on the night before he died, and whose love and virtue and devotion have made her name imperishable. of course, he was found guilty, and was sentenced to be beheaded in lincoln's inn-fields, not many yards from his own house. when he had parted from his children on the evening before his death, his wife still stayed with him until ten o'clock at night; and when their final separation in this world was over, and he had kissed her many times, he still sat for a long while in his prison, talking of her goodness. hearing the rain fall fast at that time, he calmly said, 'such a rain to- morrow will spoil a great show, which is a dull thing on a rainy day.' at midnight he went to bed, and slept till four; even when his servant called him, he fell asleep again while his clothes were being made ready. he rode to the scaffold in his own carriage, attended by two famous clergymen, tillotson and burnet, and sang a psalm to himself very softly, as he went along. he was as quiet and as steady as if he had been going out for an ordinary ride. after saying that he was surprised to see so great a crowd, he laid down his head upon the block, as if upon the pillow of his bed, and had it struck off at the second blow. his noble wife was busy for him even then; for that true-hearted lady printed and widely circulated his last words, of which he had given her a copy. they made the blood of all the honest men in england boil. the university of oxford distinguished itself on the very same day by pretending to believe that the accusation against lord russell was true, and by calling the king, in a written paper, the breath of their nostrils and the anointed of the lord. this paper the parliament afterwards caused to be burned by the common hangman; which i am sorry for, as i wish it had been framed and glazed and hung up in some public place, as a monument of baseness for the scorn of mankind. next, came the trial of algernon sidney, at which jeffreys presided, like a great crimson toad, sweltering and swelling with rage. 'i pray god, mr. sidney,' said this chief justice of a merry reign, after passing sentence, 'to work in you a temper fit to go to the other world, for i see you are not fit for this.' 'my lord,' said the prisoner, composedly holding out his arm, 'feel my pulse, and see if i be disordered. i thank heaven i never was in better temper than i am now.' algernon sidney was executed on tower hill, on the seventh of december, one thousand six hundred and eighty-three. he died a hero, and died, in his own words, 'for that good old cause in which he had been engaged from his youth, and for which god had so often and so wonderfully declared himself.' the duke of monmouth had been making his uncle, the duke of york, very jealous, by going about the country in a royal sort of way, playing at the people's games, becoming godfather to their children, and even touching for the king's evil, or stroking the faces of the sick to cure them--though, for the matter of that, i should say he did them about as much good as any crowned king could have done. his father had got him to write a letter, confessing his having had a part in the conspiracy, for which lord russell had been beheaded; but he was ever a weak man, and as soon as he had written it, he was ashamed of it and got it back again. for this, he was banished to the netherlands; but he soon returned and had an interview with his father, unknown to his uncle. it would seem that he was coming into the merry monarch's favour again, and that the duke of york was sliding out of it, when death appeared to the merry galleries at whitehall, and astonished the debauched lords and gentlemen, and the shameless ladies, very considerably. on monday, the second of february, one thousand six hundred and eighty- five, the merry pensioner and servant of the king of france fell down in a fit of apoplexy. by the wednesday his case was hopeless, and on the thursday he was told so. as he made a difficulty about taking the sacrament from the protestant bishop of bath, the duke of york got all who were present away from the bed, and asked his brother, in a whisper, if he should send for a catholic priest? the king replied, 'for god's sake, brother, do!' the duke smuggled in, up the back stairs, disguised in a wig and gown, a priest named huddleston, who had saved the king's life after the battle of worcester: telling him that this worthy man in the wig had once saved his body, and was now come to save his soul. the merry monarch lived through that night, and died before noon on the next day, which was friday, the sixth. two of the last things he said were of a human sort, and your remembrance will give him the full benefit of them. when the queen sent to say she was too unwell to attend him and to ask his pardon, he said, 'alas! poor woman, _she_ beg _my_ pardon! i beg hers with all my heart. take back that answer to her.' and he also said, in reference to nell gwyn, 'do not let poor nelly starve.' he died in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and the twenty-fifth of his reign. chapter xxxvi--england under james the second king james the second was a man so very disagreeable, that even the best of historians has favoured his brother charles, as becoming, by comparison, quite a pleasant character. the one object of his short reign was to re-establish the catholic religion in england; and this he doggedly pursued with such a stupid obstinacy, that his career very soon came to a close. the first thing he did, was, to assure his council that he would make it his endeavour to preserve the government, both in church and state, as it was by law established; and that he would always take care to defend and support the church. great public acclamations were raised over this fair speech, and a great deal was said, from the pulpits and elsewhere, about the word of a king which was never broken, by credulous people who little supposed that he had formed a secret council for catholic affairs, of which a mischievous jesuit, called father petre, was one of the chief members. with tears of joy in his eyes, he received, as the beginning of _his_ pension from the king of france, five hundred thousand livres; yet, with a mixture of meanness and arrogance that belonged to his contemptible character, he was always jealous of making some show of being independent of the king of france, while he pocketed his money. as--notwithstanding his publishing two papers in favour of popery (and not likely to do it much service, i should think) written by the king, his brother, and found in his strong-box; and his open display of himself attending mass--the parliament was very obsequious, and granted him a large sum of money, he began his reign with a belief that he could do what he pleased, and with a determination to do it. before we proceed to its principal events, let us dispose of titus oates. he was tried for perjury, a fortnight after the coronation, and besides being very heavily fined, was sentenced to stand twice in the pillory, to be whipped from aldgate to newgate one day, and from newgate to tyburn two days afterwards, and to stand in the pillory five times a year as long as he lived. this fearful sentence was actually inflicted on the rascal. being unable to stand after his first flogging, he was dragged on a sledge from newgate to tyburn, and flogged as he was drawn along. he was so strong a villain that he did not die under the torture, but lived to be afterwards pardoned and rewarded, though not to be ever believed in any more. dangerfield, the only other one of that crew left alive, was not so fortunate. he was almost killed by a whipping from newgate to tyburn, and, as if that were not punishment enough, a ferocious barrister of gray's inn gave him a poke in the eye with his cane, which caused his death; for which the ferocious barrister was deservedly tried and executed. as soon as james was on the throne, argyle and monmouth went from brussels to rotterdam, and attended a meeting of scottish exiles held there, to concert measures for a rising in england. it was agreed that argyle should effect a landing in scotland, and monmouth in england; and that two englishmen should be sent with argyle to be in his confidence, and two scotchmen with the duke of monmouth. argyle was the first to act upon this contract. but, two of his men being taken prisoners at the orkney islands, the government became aware of his intention, and was able to act against him with such vigour as to prevent his raising more than two or three thousand highlanders, although he sent a fiery cross, by trusty messengers, from clan to clan and from glen to glen, as the custom then was when those wild people were to be excited by their chiefs. as he was moving towards glasgow with his small force, he was betrayed by some of his followers, taken, and carried, with his hands tied behind his back, to his old prison in edinburgh castle. james ordered him to be executed, on his old shamefully unjust sentence, within three days; and he appears to have been anxious that his legs should have been pounded with his old favourite the boot. however, the boot was not applied; he was simply beheaded, and his head was set upon the top of edinburgh jail. one of those englishmen who had been assigned to him was that old soldier rumbold, the master of the rye house. he was sorely wounded, and within a week after argyle had suffered with great courage, was brought up for trial, lest he should die and disappoint the king. he, too, was executed, after defending himself with great spirit, and saying that he did not believe that god had made the greater part of mankind to carry saddles on their backs and bridles in their mouths, and to be ridden by a few, booted and spurred for the purpose--in which i thoroughly agree with rumbold. the duke of monmouth, partly through being detained and partly through idling his time away, was five or six weeks behind his friend when he landed at lyme, in dorset: having at his right hand an unlucky nobleman called lord grey of werk, who of himself would have ruined a far more promising expedition. he immediately set up his standard in the market- place, and proclaimed the king a tyrant, and a popish usurper, and i know not what else; charging him, not only with what he had done, which was bad enough, but with what neither he nor anybody else had done, such as setting fire to london, and poisoning the late king. raising some four thousand men by these means, he marched on to taunton, where there were many protestant dissenters who were strongly opposed to the catholics. here, both the rich and poor turned out to receive him, ladies waved a welcome to him from all the windows as he passed along the streets, flowers were strewn in his way, and every compliment and honour that could be devised was showered upon him. among the rest, twenty young ladies came forward, in their best clothes, and in their brightest beauty, and gave him a bible ornamented with their own fair hands, together with other presents. encouraged by this homage, he proclaimed himself king, and went on to bridgewater. but, here the government troops, under the earl of feversham, were close at hand; and he was so dispirited at finding that he made but few powerful friends after all, that it was a question whether he should disband his army and endeavour to escape. it was resolved, at the instance of that unlucky lord grey, to make a night attack on the king's army, as it lay encamped on the edge of a morass called sedgemoor. the horsemen were commanded by the same unlucky lord, who was not a brave man. he gave up the battle almost at the first obstacle--which was a deep drain; and although the poor countrymen, who had turned out for monmouth, fought bravely with scythes, poles, pitchforks, and such poor weapons as they had, they were soon dispersed by the trained soldiers, and fled in all directions. when the duke of monmouth himself fled, was not known in the confusion; but the unlucky lord grey was taken early next day, and then another of the party was taken, who confessed that he had parted from the duke only four hours before. strict search being made, he was found disguised as a peasant, hidden in a ditch under fern and nettles, with a few peas in his pocket which he had gathered in the fields to eat. the only other articles he had upon him were a few papers and little books: one of the latter being a strange jumble, in his own writing, of charms, songs, recipes, and prayers. he was completely broken. he wrote a miserable letter to the king, beseeching and entreating to be allowed to see him. when he was taken to london, and conveyed bound into the king's presence, he crawled to him on his knees, and made a most degrading exhibition. as james never forgave or relented towards anybody, he was not likely to soften towards the issuer of the lyme proclamation, so he told the suppliant to prepare for death. on the fifteenth of july, one thousand six hundred and eighty-five, this unfortunate favourite of the people was brought out to die on tower hill. the crowd was immense, and the tops of all the houses were covered with gazers. he had seen his wife, the daughter of the duke of buccleuch, in the tower, and had talked much of a lady whom he loved far better--the lady harriet wentworth--who was one of the last persons he remembered in this life. before laying down his head upon the block he felt the edge of the axe, and told the executioner that he feared it was not sharp enough, and that the axe was not heavy enough. on the executioner replying that it was of the proper kind, the duke said, 'i pray you have a care, and do not use me so awkwardly as you used my lord russell.' the executioner, made nervous by this, and trembling, struck once and merely gashed him in the neck. upon this, the duke of monmouth raised his head and looked the man reproachfully in the face. then he struck twice, and then thrice, and then threw down the axe, and cried out in a voice of horror that he could not finish that work. the sheriffs, however, threatening him with what should be done to himself if he did not, he took it up again and struck a fourth time and a fifth time. then the wretched head at last fell off, and james, duke of monmouth, was dead, in the thirty-sixth year of his age. he was a showy, graceful man, with many popular qualities, and had found much favour in the open hearts of the english. the atrocities, committed by the government, which followed this monmouth rebellion, form the blackest and most lamentable page in english history. the poor peasants, having been dispersed with great loss, and their leaders having been taken, one would think that the implacable king might have been satisfied. but no; he let loose upon them, among other intolerable monsters, a colonel kirk, who had served against the moors, and whose soldiers--called by the people kirk's lambs, because they bore a lamb upon their flag, as the emblem of christianity--were worthy of their leader. the atrocities committed by these demons in human shape are far too horrible to be related here. it is enough to say, that besides most ruthlessly murdering and robbing them, and ruining them by making them buy their pardons at the price of all they possessed, it was one of kirk's favourite amusements, as he and his officers sat drinking after dinner, and toasting the king, to have batches of prisoners hanged outside the windows for the company's diversion; and that when their feet quivered in the convulsions of death, he used to swear that they should have music to their dancing, and would order the drums to beat and the trumpets to play. the detestable king informed him, as an acknowledgment of these services, that he was 'very well satisfied with his proceedings.' but the king's great delight was in the proceedings of jeffreys, now a peer, who went down into the west, with four other judges, to try persons accused of having had any share in the rebellion. the king pleasantly called this 'jeffreys's campaign.' the people down in that part of the country remember it to this day as the bloody assize. it began at winchester, where a poor deaf old lady, mrs. alicia lisle, the widow of one of the judges of charles the first (who had been murdered abroad by some royalist assassins), was charged with having given shelter in her house to two fugitives from sedgemoor. three times the jury refused to find her guilty, until jeffreys bullied and frightened them into that false verdict. when he had extorted it from them, he said, 'gentlemen, if i had been one of you, and she had been my own mother, i would have found her guilty;'--as i dare say he would. he sentenced her to be burned alive, that very afternoon. the clergy of the cathedral and some others interfered in her favour, and she was beheaded within a week. as a high mark of his approbation, the king made jeffreys lord chancellor; and he then went on to dorchester, to exeter, to taunton, and to wells. it is astonishing, when we read of the enormous injustice and barbarity of this beast, to know that no one struck him dead on the judgment-seat. it was enough for any man or woman to be accused by an enemy, before jeffreys, to be found guilty of high treason. one man who pleaded not guilty, he ordered to be taken out of court upon the instant, and hanged; and this so terrified the prisoners in general that they mostly pleaded guilty at once. at dorchester alone, in the course of a few days, jeffreys hanged eighty people; besides whipping, transporting, imprisoning, and selling as slaves, great numbers. he executed, in all, two hundred and fifty, or three hundred. these executions took place, among the neighbours and friends of the sentenced, in thirty-six towns and villages. their bodies were mangled, steeped in caldrons of boiling pitch and tar, and hung up by the roadsides, in the streets, over the very churches. the sight and smell of heads and limbs, the hissing and bubbling of the infernal caldrons, and the tears and terrors of the people, were dreadful beyond all description. one rustic, who was forced to steep the remains in the black pot, was ever afterwards called 'tom boilman.' the hangman has ever since been called jack ketch, because a man of that name went hanging and hanging, all day long, in the train of jeffreys. you will hear much of the horrors of the great french revolution. many and terrible they were, there is no doubt; but i know of nothing worse, done by the maddened people of france in that awful time, than was done by the highest judge in england, with the express approval of the king of england, in the bloody assize. nor was even this all. jeffreys was as fond of money for himself as of misery for others, and he sold pardons wholesale to fill his pockets. the king ordered, at one time, a thousand prisoners to be given to certain of his favourites, in order that they might bargain with them for their pardons. the young ladies of taunton who had presented the bible, were bestowed upon the maids of honour at court; and those precious ladies made very hard bargains with them indeed. when the bloody assize was at its most dismal height, the king was diverting himself with horse-races in the very place where mrs. lisle had been executed. when jeffreys had done his worst, and came home again, he was particularly complimented in the royal gazette; and when the king heard that through drunkenness and raging he was very ill, his odious majesty remarked that such another man could not easily be found in england. besides all this, a former sheriff of london, named cornish, was hanged within sight of his own house, after an abominably conducted trial, for having had a share in the rye house plot, on evidence given by rumsey, which that villain was obliged to confess was directly opposed to the evidence he had given on the trial of lord russell. and on the very same day, a worthy widow, named elizabeth gaunt, was burned alive at tyburn, for having sheltered a wretch who himself gave evidence against her. she settled the fuel about herself with her own hands, so that the flames should reach her quickly: and nobly said, with her last breath, that she had obeyed the sacred command of god, to give refuge to the outcast, and not to betray the wanderer. after all this hanging, beheading, burning, boiling, mutilating, exposing, robbing, transporting, and selling into slavery, of his unhappy subjects, the king not unnaturally thought that he could do whatever he would. so, he went to work to change the religion of the country with all possible speed; and what he did was this. he first of all tried to get rid of what was called the test act--which prevented the catholics from holding public employments--by his own power of dispensing with the penalties. he tried it in one case, and, eleven of the twelve judges deciding in his favour, he exercised it in three others, being those of three dignitaries of university college, oxford, who had become papists, and whom he kept in their places and sanctioned. he revived the hated ecclesiastical commission, to get rid of compton, bishop of london, who manfully opposed him. he solicited the pope to favour england with an ambassador, which the pope (who was a sensible man then) rather unwillingly did. he flourished father petre before the eyes of the people on all possible occasions. he favoured the establishment of convents in several parts of london. he was delighted to have the streets, and even the court itself, filled with monks and friars in the habits of their orders. he constantly endeavoured to make catholics of the protestants about him. he held private interviews, which he called 'closetings,' with those members of parliament who held offices, to persuade them to consent to the design he had in view. when they did not consent, they were removed, or resigned of themselves, and their places were given to catholics. he displaced protestant officers from the army, by every means in his power, and got catholics into their places too. he tried the same thing with the corporations, and also (though not so successfully) with the lord lieutenants of counties. to terrify the people into the endurance of all these measures, he kept an army of fifteen thousand men encamped on hounslow heath, where mass was openly performed in the general's tent, and where priests went among the soldiers endeavouring to persuade them to become catholics. for circulating a paper among those men advising them to be true to their religion, a protestant clergyman, named johnson, the chaplain of the late lord russell, was actually sentenced to stand three times in the pillory, and was actually whipped from newgate to tyburn. he dismissed his own brother-in-law from his council because he was a protestant, and made a privy councillor of the before-mentioned father petre. he handed ireland over to richard talbot, earl of tyrconnell, a worthless, dissolute knave, who played the same game there for his master, and who played the deeper game for himself of one day putting it under the protection of the french king. in going to these extremities, every man of sense and judgment among the catholics, from the pope to a porter, knew that the king was a mere bigoted fool, who would undo himself and the cause he sought to advance; but he was deaf to all reason, and, happily for england ever afterwards, went tumbling off his throne in his own blind way. a spirit began to arise in the country, which the besotted blunderer little expected. he first found it out in the university of cambridge. having made a catholic a dean at oxford without any opposition, he tried to make a monk a master of arts at cambridge: which attempt the university resisted, and defeated him. he then went back to his favourite oxford. on the death of the president of magdalen college, he commanded that there should be elected to succeed him, one mr. anthony farmer, whose only recommendation was, that he was of the king's religion. the university plucked up courage at last, and refused. the king substituted another man, and it still refused, resolving to stand by its own election of a mr. hough. the dull tyrant, upon this, punished mr. hough, and five-and-twenty more, by causing them to be expelled and declared incapable of holding any church preferment; then he proceeded to what he supposed to be his highest step, but to what was, in fact, his last plunge head-foremost in his tumble off his throne. he had issued a declaration that there should be no religious tests or penal laws, in order to let in the catholics more easily; but the protestant dissenters, unmindful of themselves, had gallantly joined the regular church in opposing it tooth and nail. the king and father petre now resolved to have this read, on a certain sunday, in all the churches, and to order it to be circulated for that purpose by the bishops. the latter took counsel with the archbishop of canterbury, who was in disgrace; and they resolved that the declaration should not be read, and that they would petition the king against it. the archbishop himself wrote out the petition, and six bishops went into the king's bedchamber the same night to present it, to his infinite astonishment. next day was the sunday fixed for the reading, and it was only read by two hundred clergymen out of ten thousand. the king resolved against all advice to prosecute the bishops in the court of king's bench, and within three weeks they were summoned before the privy council, and committed to the tower. as the six bishops were taken to that dismal place, by water, the people who were assembled in immense numbers fell upon their knees, and wept for them, and prayed for them. when they got to the tower, the officers and soldiers on guard besought them for their blessing. while they were confined there, the soldiers every day drank to their release with loud shouts. when they were brought up to the court of king's bench for their trial, which the attorney-general said was for the high offence of censuring the government, and giving their opinion about affairs of state, they were attended by similar multitudes, and surrounded by a throng of noblemen and gentlemen. when the jury went out at seven o'clock at night to consider of their verdict, everybody (except the king) knew that they would rather starve than yield to the king's brewer, who was one of them, and wanted a verdict for his customer. when they came into court next morning, after resisting the brewer all night, and gave a verdict of not guilty, such a shout rose up in westminster hall as it had never heard before; and it was passed on among the people away to temple bar, and away again to the tower. it did not pass only to the east, but passed to the west too, until it reached the camp at hounslow, where the fifteen thousand soldiers took it up and echoed it. and still, when the dull king, who was then with lord feversham, heard the mighty roar, asked in alarm what it was, and was told that it was 'nothing but the acquittal of the bishops,' he said, in his dogged way, 'call you that nothing? it is so much the worse for them.' between the petition and the trial, the queen had given birth to a son, which father petre rather thought was owing to saint winifred. but i doubt if saint winifred had much to do with it as the king's friend, inasmuch as the entirely new prospect of a catholic successor (for both the king's daughters were protestants) determined the earls of shrewsbury, danby, and devonshire, lord lumley, the bishop of london, admiral russell, and colonel sidney, to invite the prince of orange over to england. the royal mole, seeing his danger at last, made, in his fright, many great concessions, besides raising an army of forty thousand men; but the prince of orange was not a man for james the second to cope with. his preparations were extraordinarily vigorous, and his mind was resolved. for a fortnight after the prince was ready to sail for england, a great wind from the west prevented the departure of his fleet. even when the wind lulled, and it did sail, it was dispersed by a storm, and was obliged to put back to refit. at last, on the first of november, one thousand six hundred and eighty-eight, the protestant east wind, as it was long called, began to blow; and on the third, the people of dover and the people of calais saw a fleet twenty miles long sailing gallantly by, between the two places. on monday, the fifth, it anchored at torbay in devonshire, and the prince, with a splendid retinue of officers and men, marched into exeter. but the people in that western part of the country had suffered so much in the bloody assize, that they had lost heart. few people joined him; and he began to think of returning, and publishing the invitation he had received from those lords, as his justification for having come at all. at this crisis, some of the gentry joined him; the royal army began to falter; an engagement was signed, by which all who set their hand to it declared that they would support one another in defence of the laws and liberties of the three kingdoms, of the protestant religion, and of the prince of orange. from that time, the cause received no check; the greatest towns in england began, one after another, to declare for the prince; and he knew that it was all safe with him when the university of oxford offered to melt down its plate, if he wanted any money. by this time the king was running about in a pitiable way, touching people for the king's evil in one place, reviewing his troops in another, and bleeding from the nose in a third. the young prince was sent to portsmouth, father petre went off like a shot to france, and there was a general and swift dispersal of all the priests and friars. one after another, the king's most important officers and friends deserted him and went over to the prince. in the night, his daughter anne fled from whitehall palace; and the bishop of london, who had once been a soldier, rode before her with a drawn sword in his hand, and pistols at his saddle. 'god help me,' cried the miserable king: 'my very children have forsaken me!' in his wildness, after debating with such lords as were in london, whether he should or should not call a parliament, and after naming three of them to negotiate with the prince, he resolved to fly to france. he had the little prince of wales brought back from portsmouth; and the child and the queen crossed the river to lambeth in an open boat, on a miserable wet night, and got safely away. this was on the night of the ninth of december. at one o'clock on the morning of the eleventh, the king, who had, in the meantime, received a letter from the prince of orange, stating his objects, got out of bed, told lord northumberland who lay in his room not to open the door until the usual hour in the morning, and went down the back stairs (the same, i suppose, by which the priest in the wig and gown had come up to his brother) and crossed the river in a small boat: sinking the great seal of england by the way. horses having been provided, he rode, accompanied by sir edward hales, to feversham, where he embarked in a custom house hoy. the master of this hoy, wanting more ballast, ran into the isle of sheppy to get it, where the fishermen and smugglers crowded about the boat, and informed the king of their suspicions that he was a 'hatchet-faced jesuit.' as they took his money and would not let him go, he told them who he was, and that the prince of orange wanted to take his life; and he began to scream for a boat--and then to cry, because he had lost a piece of wood on his ride which he called a fragment of our saviour's cross. he put himself into the hands of the lord lieutenant of the county, and his detention was made known to the prince of orange at windsor--who, only wanting to get rid of him, and not caring where he went, so that he went away, was very much disconcerted that they did not let him go. however, there was nothing for it but to have him brought back, with some state in the way of life guards, to whitehall. and as soon as he got there, in his infatuation, he heard mass, and set a jesuit to say grace at his public dinner. the people had been thrown into the strangest state of confusion by his flight, and had taken it into their heads that the irish part of the army were going to murder the protestants. therefore, they set the bells a ringing, and lighted watch-fires, and burned catholic chapels, and looked about in all directions for father petre and the jesuits, while the pope's ambassador was running away in the dress of a footman. they found no jesuits; but a man, who had once been a frightened witness before jeffreys in court, saw a swollen, drunken face looking through a window down at wapping, which he well remembered. the face was in a sailor's dress, but he knew it to be the face of that accursed judge, and he seized him. the people, to their lasting honour, did not tear him to pieces. after knocking him about a little, they took him, in the basest agonies of terror, to the lord mayor, who sent him, at his own shrieking petition, to the tower for safety. there, he died. their bewilderment continuing, the people now lighted bonfires and made rejoicings, as if they had any reason to be glad to have the king back again. but, his stay was very short, for the english guards were removed from whitehall, dutch guards were marched up to it, and he was told by one of his late ministers that the prince would enter london, next day, and he had better go to ham. he said, ham was a cold, damp place, and he would rather go to rochester. he thought himself very cunning in this, as he meant to escape from rochester to france. the prince of orange and his friends knew that, perfectly well, and desired nothing more. so, he went to gravesend, in his royal barge, attended by certain lords, and watched by dutch troops, and pitied by the generous people, who were far more forgiving than he had ever been, when they saw him in his humiliation. on the night of the twenty-third of december, not even then understanding that everybody wanted to get rid of him, he went out, absurdly, through his rochester garden, down to the medway, and got away to france, where he rejoined the queen. there had been a council in his absence, of the lords, and the authorities of london. when the prince came, on the day after the king's departure, he summoned the lords to meet him, and soon afterwards, all those who had served in any of the parliaments of king charles the second. it was finally resolved by these authorities that the throne was vacant by the conduct of king james the second; that it was inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this protestant kingdom, to be governed by a popish prince; that the prince and princess of orange should be king and queen during their lives and the life of the survivor of them; and that their children should succeed them, if they had any. that if they had none, the princess anne and her children should succeed; that if she had none, the heirs of the prince of orange should succeed. on the thirteenth of january, one thousand six hundred and eighty-nine, the prince and princess, sitting on a throne in whitehall, bound themselves to these conditions. the protestant religion was established in england, and england's great and glorious revolution was complete. chapter xxxvii i have now arrived at the close of my little history. the events which succeeded the famous revolution of one thousand six hundred and eighty- eight, would neither be easily related nor easily understood in such a book as this. william and mary reigned together, five years. after the death of his good wife, william occupied the throne, alone, for seven years longer. during his reign, on the sixteenth of september, one thousand seven hundred and one, the poor weak creature who had once been james the second of england, died in france. in the meantime he had done his utmost (which was not much) to cause william to be assassinated, and to regain his lost dominions. james's son was declared, by the french king, the rightful king of england; and was called in france the chevalier saint george, and in england the pretender. some infatuated people in england, and particularly in scotland, took up the pretender's cause from time to time--as if the country had not had stuarts enough!--and many lives were sacrificed, and much misery was occasioned. king william died on sunday, the seventh of march, one thousand seven hundred and two, of the consequences of an accident occasioned by his horse stumbling with him. he was always a brave, patriotic prince, and a man of remarkable abilities. his manner was cold, and he made but few friends; but he had truly loved his queen. when he was dead, a lock of her hair, in a ring, was found tied with a black ribbon round his left arm. he was succeeded by the princess anne, a popular queen, who reigned twelve years. in her reign, in the month of may, one thousand seven hundred and seven, the union between england and scotland was effected, and the two countries were incorporated under the name of great britain. then, from the year one thousand seven hundred and fourteen to the year one thousand, eight hundred and thirty, reigned the four georges. it was in the reign of george the second, one thousand seven hundred and forty-five, that the pretender did his last mischief, and made his last appearance. being an old man by that time, he and the jacobites--as his friends were called--put forward his son, charles edward, known as the young chevalier. the highlanders of scotland, an extremely troublesome and wrong-headed race on the subject of the stuarts, espoused his cause, and he joined them, and there was a scottish rebellion to make him king, in which many gallant and devoted gentlemen lost their lives. it was a hard matter for charles edward to escape abroad again, with a high price on his head; but the scottish people were extraordinarily faithful to him, and, after undergoing many romantic adventures, not unlike those of charles the second, he escaped to france. a number of charming stories and delightful songs arose out of the jacobite feelings, and belong to the jacobite times. otherwise i think the stuarts were a public nuisance altogether. it was in the reign of george the third that england lost north america, by persisting in taxing her without her own consent. that immense country, made independent under washington, and left to itself, became the united states; one of the greatest nations of the earth. in these times in which i write, it is honourably remarkable for protecting its subjects, wherever they may travel, with a dignity and a determination which is a model for england. between you and me, england has rather lost ground in this respect since the days of oliver cromwell. the union of great britain with ireland--which had been getting on very ill by itself--took place in the reign of george the third, on the second of july, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight. william the fourth succeeded george the fourth, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty, and reigned seven years. queen victoria, his niece, the only child of the duke of kent, the fourth son of george the third, came to the throne on the twentieth of june, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven. she was married to prince albert of saxe gotha on the tenth of february, one thousand eight hundred and forty. she is very good, and much beloved. so i end, like the crier, with god save the queen! and revised by thomas berger and joseph e. loewenstein, m.d. bleak house by charles dickens contents preface i. in chancery ii. in fashion iii. a progress iv. telescopic philanthropy v. a morning adventure vi. quite at home vii. the ghost's walk viii. covering a multitude of sins ix. signs and tokens x. the law-writer xi. our dear brother xii. on the watch xiii. esther's narrative xiv. deportment xv. bell yard xvi. tom-all-alone's xvii. esther's narrative xviii. lady dedlock xix. moving on xx. a new lodger xxi. the smallweed family xxii. mr. bucket xxiii. esther's narrative xxiv. an appeal case xxv. mrs. snagsby sees it all xxvi. sharpshooters xxvii. more old soldiers than one xxviii. the ironmaster xxix. the young man xxx. esther's narrative xxxi. nurse and patient xxxii. the appointed time xxxiii. interlopers xxxiv. a turn of the screw xxxv. esther's narrative xxxvi. chesney wold xxxvii. jarndyce and jarndyce xxxviii. a struggle xxxix. attorney and client xl. national and domestic xli. in mr. tulkinghorn's room xlii. in mr. tulkinghorn's chambers xliii. esther's narrative xliv. the letter and the answer xlv. in trust xlvi. stop him! xlvii. jo's will xlviii. closing in xlix. dutiful friendship l. esther's narrative li. enlightened lii. obstinacy liii. the track liv. springing a mine lv. flight lvi. pursuit lvii. esther's narrative lviii. a wintry day and night lix. esther's narrative lx. perspective lxi. a discovery lxii. another discovery lxiii. steel and iron lxiv. esther's narrative lxv. beginning the world lxvi. down in lincolnshire lxvii. the close of esther's narrative preface a chancery judge once had the kindness to inform me, as one of a company of some hundred and fifty men and women not labouring under any suspicions of lunacy, that the court of chancery, though the shining subject of much popular prejudice (at which point i thought the judge's eye had a cast in my direction), was almost immaculate. there had been, he admitted, a trivial blemish or so in its rate of progress, but this was exaggerated and had been entirely owing to the "parsimony of the public," which guilty public, it appeared, had been until lately bent in the most determined manner on by no means enlarging the number of chancery judges appointed--i believe by richard the second, but any other king will do as well. this seemed to me too profound a joke to be inserted in the body of this book or i should have restored it to conversation kenge or to mr. vholes, with one or other of whom i think it must have originated. in such mouths i might have coupled it with an apt quotation from one of shakespeare's sonnets: "my nature is subdued to what it works in, like the dyer's hand: pity me, then, and wish i were renewed!" but as it is wholesome that the parsimonious public should know what has been doing, and still is doing, in this connexion, i mention here that everything set forth in these pages concerning the court of chancery is substantially true, and within the truth. the case of gridley is in no essential altered from one of actual occurrence, made public by a disinterested person who was professionally acquainted with the whole of the monstrous wrong from beginning to end. at the present moment (august, ) there is a suit before the court which was commenced nearly twenty years ago, in which from thirty to forty counsel have been known to appear at one time, in which costs have been incurred to the amount of seventy thousand pounds, which is a friendly suit, and which is (i am assured) no nearer to its termination now than when it was begun. there is another well-known suit in chancery, not yet decided, which was commenced before the close of the last century and in which more than double the amount of seventy thousand pounds has been swallowed up in costs. if i wanted other authorities for jarndyce and jarndyce, i could rain them on these pages, to the shame of--a parsimonious public. there is only one other point on which i offer a word of remark. the possibility of what is called spontaneous combustion has been denied since the death of mr. krook; and my good friend mr. lewes (quite mistaken, as he soon found, in supposing the thing to have been abandoned by all authorities) published some ingenious letters to me at the time when that event was chronicled, arguing that spontaneous combustion could not possibly be. i have no need to observe that i do not wilfully or negligently mislead my readers and that before i wrote that description i took pains to investigate the subject. there are about thirty cases on record, of which the most famous, that of the countess cornelia de baudi cesenate, was minutely investigated and described by giuseppe bianchini, a prebendary of verona, otherwise distinguished in letters, who published an account of it at verona in , which he afterwards republished at rome. the appearances, beyond all rational doubt, observed in that case are the appearances observed in mr. krook's case. the next most famous instance happened at rheims six years earlier, and the historian in that case is le cat, one of the most renowned surgeons produced by france. the subject was a woman, whose husband was ignorantly convicted of having murdered her; but on solemn appeal to a higher court, he was acquitted because it was shown upon the evidence that she had died the death of which this name of spontaneous combustion is given. i do not think it necessary to add to these notable facts, and that general reference to the authorities which will be found at page , vol. ii.,* the recorded opinions and experiences of distinguished medical professors, french, english, and scotch, in more modern days, contenting myself with observing that i shall not abandon the facts until there shall have been a considerable spontaneous combustion of the testimony on which human occurrences are usually received.** in bleak house i have purposely dwelt upon the romantic side of familiar things. *transcriber's note. this referred to a specific page in the printed book. in this project gutenberg edition the pertinent information is in chapter xxx, paragraph . ** another case, very clearly described by a dentist, occurred at the town of columbus, in the united states of america, quite recently. the subject was a german who kept a liquor-shop and was an inveterate drunkard. chapter i in chancery london. michaelmas term lately over, and the lord chancellor sitting in lincoln's inn hall. implacable november weather. as much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up holborn hill. smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes--gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. dogs, undistinguishable in mire. horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest. fog everywhere. fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. fog on the essex marshes, fog on the kentish heights. fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. fog in the eyes and throats of ancient greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds. gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. most of the shops lighted two hours before their time--as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look. the raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, temple bar. and hard by temple bar, in lincoln's inn hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the lord high chancellor in his high court of chancery. never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this high court of chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth. on such an afternoon, if ever, the lord high chancellor ought to be sitting here--as here he is--with a foggy glory round his head, softly fenced in with crimson cloth and curtains, addressed by a large advocate with great whiskers, a little voice, and an interminable brief, and outwardly directing his contemplation to the lantern in the roof, where he can see nothing but fog. on such an afternoon some score of members of the high court of chancery bar ought to be--as here they are--mistily engaged in one of the ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running their goat-hair and horsehair warded heads against walls of words and making a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players might. on such an afternoon the various solicitors in the cause, some two or three of whom have inherited it from their fathers, who made a fortune by it, ought to be--as are they not?--ranged in a line, in a long matted well (but you might look in vain for truth at the bottom of it) between the registrar's red table and the silk gowns, with bills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, injunctions, affidavits, issues, references to masters, masters' reports, mountains of costly nonsense, piled before them. well may the court be dim, with wasting candles here and there; well may the fog hang heavy in it, as if it would never get out; well may the stained-glass windows lose their colour and admit no light of day into the place; well may the uninitiated from the streets, who peep in through the glass panes in the door, be deterred from entrance by its owlish aspect and by the drawl, languidly echoing to the roof from the padded dais where the lord high chancellor looks into the lantern that has no light in it and where the attendant wigs are all stuck in a fog-bank! this is the court of chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give--who does not often give--the warning, "suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!" who happen to be in the lord chancellor's court this murky afternoon besides the lord chancellor, the counsel in the cause, two or three counsel who are never in any cause, and the well of solicitors before mentioned? there is the registrar below the judge, in wig and gown; and there are two or three maces, or petty-bags, or privy purses, or whatever they may be, in legal court suits. these are all yawning, for no crumb of amusement ever falls from jarndyce and jarndyce (the cause in hand), which was squeezed dry years upon years ago. the short-hand writers, the reporters of the court, and the reporters of the newspapers invariably decamp with the rest of the regulars when jarndyce and jarndyce comes on. their places are a blank. standing on a seat at the side of the hall, the better to peer into the curtained sanctuary, is a little mad old woman in a squeezed bonnet who is always in court, from its sitting to its rising, and always expecting some incomprehensible judgment to be given in her favour. some say she really is, or was, a party to a suit, but no one knows for certain because no one cares. she carries some small litter in a reticule which she calls her documents, principally consisting of paper matches and dry lavender. a sallow prisoner has come up, in custody, for the half-dozenth time to make a personal application "to purge himself of his contempt," which, being a solitary surviving executor who has fallen into a state of conglomeration about accounts of which it is not pretended that he had ever any knowledge, he is not at all likely ever to do. in the meantime his prospects in life are ended. another ruined suitor, who periodically appears from shropshire and breaks out into efforts to address the chancellor at the close of the day's business and who can by no means be made to understand that the chancellor is legally ignorant of his existence after making it desolate for a quarter of a century, plants himself in a good place and keeps an eye on the judge, ready to call out "my lord!" in a voice of sonorous complaint on the instant of his rising. a few lawyers' clerks and others who know this suitor by sight linger on the chance of his furnishing some fun and enlivening the dismal weather a little. jarndyce and jarndyce drones on. this scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. the parties to it understand it least, but it has been observed that no two chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises. innumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old people have died out of it. scores of persons have deliriously found themselves made parties in jarndyce and jarndyce without knowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the suit. the little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new rocking-horse when jarndyce and jarndyce should be settled has grown up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the other world. fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers; a long procession of chancellors has come in and gone out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere bills of mortality; there are not three jarndyces left upon the earth perhaps since old tom jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a coffee-house in chancery lane; but jarndyce and jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless. jarndyce and jarndyce has passed into a joke. that is the only good that has ever come of it. it has been death to many, but it is a joke in the profession. every master in chancery has had a reference out of it. every chancellor was "in it," for somebody or other, when he was counsel at the bar. good things have been said about it by blue-nosed, bulbous-shoed old benchers in select port-wine committee after dinner in hall. articled clerks have been in the habit of fleshing their legal wit upon it. the last lord chancellor handled it neatly, when, correcting mr. blowers, the eminent silk gown who said that such a thing might happen when the sky rained potatoes, he observed, "or when we get through jarndyce and jarndyce, mr. blowers"--a pleasantry that particularly tickled the maces, bags, and purses. how many people out of the suit jarndyce and jarndyce has stretched forth its unwholesome hand to spoil and corrupt would be a very wide question. from the master upon whose impaling files reams of dusty warrants in jarndyce and jarndyce have grimly writhed into many shapes, down to the copying-clerk in the six clerks' office who has copied his tens of thousands of chancery folio-pages under that eternal heading, no man's nature has been made better by it. in trickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never come to good. the very solicitors' boys who have kept the wretched suitors at bay, by protesting time out of mind that mr. chizzle, mizzle, or otherwise was particularly engaged and had appointments until dinner, may have got an extra moral twist and shuffle into themselves out of jarndyce and jarndyce. the receiver in the cause has acquired a goodly sum of money by it but has acquired too a distrust of his own mother and a contempt for his own kind. chizzle, mizzle, and otherwise have lapsed into a habit of vaguely promising themselves that they will look into that outstanding little matter and see what can be done for drizzle--who was not well used--when jarndyce and jarndyce shall be got out of the office. shirking and sharking in all their many varieties have been sown broadcast by the ill-fated cause; and even those who have contemplated its history from the outermost circle of such evil have been insensibly tempted into a loose way of letting bad things alone to take their own bad course, and a loose belief that if the world go wrong it was in some off-hand manner never meant to go right. thus, in the midst of the mud and at the heart of the fog, sits the lord high chancellor in his high court of chancery. "mr. tangle," says the lord high chancellor, latterly something restless under the eloquence of that learned gentleman. "mlud," says mr. tangle. mr. tangle knows more of jarndyce and jarndyce than anybody. he is famous for it--supposed never to have read anything else since he left school. "have you nearly concluded your argument?" "mlud, no--variety of points--feel it my duty tsubmit--ludship," is the reply that slides out of mr. tangle. "several members of the bar are still to be heard, i believe?" says the chancellor with a slight smile. eighteen of mr. tangle's learned friends, each armed with a little summary of eighteen hundred sheets, bob up like eighteen hammers in a pianoforte, make eighteen bows, and drop into their eighteen places of obscurity. "we will proceed with the hearing on wednesday fortnight," says the chancellor. for the question at issue is only a question of costs, a mere bud on the forest tree of the parent suit, and really will come to a settlement one of these days. the chancellor rises; the bar rises; the prisoner is brought forward in a hurry; the man from shropshire cries, "my lord!" maces, bags, and purses indignantly proclaim silence and frown at the man from shropshire. "in reference," proceeds the chancellor, still on jarndyce and jarndyce, "to the young girl--" "begludship's pardon--boy," says mr. tangle prematurely. "in reference," proceeds the chancellor with extra distinctness, "to the young girl and boy, the two young people"--mr. tangle crushed--"whom i directed to be in attendance to-day and who are now in my private room, i will see them and satisfy myself as to the expediency of making the order for their residing with their uncle." mr. tangle on his legs again. "begludship's pardon--dead." "with their"--chancellor looking through his double eye-glass at the papers on his desk--"grandfather." "begludship's pardon--victim of rash action--brains." suddenly a very little counsel with a terrific bass voice arises, fully inflated, in the back settlements of the fog, and says, "will your lordship allow me? i appear for him. he is a cousin, several times removed. i am not at the moment prepared to inform the court in what exact remove he is a cousin, but he is a cousin." leaving this address (delivered like a sepulchral message) ringing in the rafters of the roof, the very little counsel drops, and the fog knows him no more. everybody looks for him. nobody can see him. "i will speak with both the young people," says the chancellor anew, "and satisfy myself on the subject of their residing with their cousin. i will mention the matter to-morrow morning when i take my seat." the chancellor is about to bow to the bar when the prisoner is presented. nothing can possibly come of the prisoner's conglomeration but his being sent back to prison, which is soon done. the man from shropshire ventures another remonstrative "my lord!" but the chancellor, being aware of him, has dexterously vanished. everybody else quickly vanishes too. a battery of blue bags is loaded with heavy charges of papers and carried off by clerks; the little mad old woman marches off with her documents; the empty court is locked up. if all the injustice it has committed and all the misery it has caused could only be locked up with it, and the whole burnt away in a great funeral pyre--why so much the better for other parties than the parties in jarndyce and jarndyce! chapter ii in fashion it is but a glimpse of the world of fashion that we want on this same miry afternoon. it is not so unlike the court of chancery but that we may pass from the one scene to the other, as the crow flies. both the world of fashion and the court of chancery are things of precedent and usage: oversleeping rip van winkles who have played at strange games through a deal of thundery weather; sleeping beauties whom the knight will wake one day, when all the stopped spits in the kitchen shall begin to turn prodigiously! it is not a large world. relatively even to this world of ours, which has its limits too (as your highness shall find when you have made the tour of it and are come to the brink of the void beyond), it is a very little speck. there is much good in it; there are many good and true people in it; it has its appointed place. but the evil of it is that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller's cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds, and cannot see them as they circle round the sun. it is a deadened world, and its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air. my lady dedlock has returned to her house in town for a few days previous to her departure for paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain. the fashionable intelligence says so for the comfort of the parisians, and it knows all fashionable things. to know things otherwise were to be unfashionable. my lady dedlock has been down at what she calls, in familiar conversation, her "place" in lincolnshire. the waters are out in lincolnshire. an arch of the bridge in the park has been sapped and sopped away. the adjacent low-lying ground for half a mile in breadth is a stagnant river with melancholy trees for islands in it and a surface punctured all over, all day long, with falling rain. my lady dedlock's place has been extremely dreary. the weather for many a day and night has been so wet that the trees seem wet through, and the soft loppings and prunings of the woodman's axe can make no crash or crackle as they fall. the deer, looking soaked, leave quagmires where they pass. the shot of a rifle loses its sharpness in the moist air, and its smoke moves in a tardy little cloud towards the green rise, coppice-topped, that makes a background for the falling rain. the view from my lady dedlock's own windows is alternately a lead-coloured view and a view in indian ink. the vases on the stone terrace in the foreground catch the rain all day; and the heavy drops fall--drip, drip, drip--upon the broad flagged pavement, called from old time the ghost's walk, all night. on sundays the little church in the park is mouldy; the oaken pulpit breaks out into a cold sweat; and there is a general smell and taste as of the ancient dedlocks in their graves. my lady dedlock (who is childless), looking out in the early twilight from her boudoir at a keeper's lodge and seeing the light of a fire upon the latticed panes, and smoke rising from the chimney, and a child, chased by a woman, running out into the rain to meet the shining figure of a wrapped-up man coming through the gate, has been put quite out of temper. my lady dedlock says she has been "bored to death." therefore my lady dedlock has come away from the place in lincolnshire and has left it to the rain, and the crows, and the rabbits, and the deer, and the partridges and pheasants. the pictures of the dedlocks past and gone have seemed to vanish into the damp walls in mere lowness of spirits, as the housekeeper has passed along the old rooms shutting up the shutters. and when they will next come forth again, the fashionable intelligence--which, like the fiend, is omniscient of the past and present, but not the future--cannot yet undertake to say. sir leicester dedlock is only a baronet, but there is no mightier baronet than he. his family is as old as the hills, and infinitely more respectable. he has a general opinion that the world might get on without hills but would be done up without dedlocks. he would on the whole admit nature to be a good idea (a little low, perhaps, when not enclosed with a park-fence), but an idea dependent for its execution on your great county families. he is a gentleman of strict conscience, disdainful of all littleness and meanness and ready on the shortest notice to die any death you may please to mention rather than give occasion for the least impeachment of his integrity. he is an honourable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely prejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man. sir leicester is twenty years, full measure, older than my lady. he will never see sixty-five again, nor perhaps sixty-six, nor yet sixty-seven. he has a twist of the gout now and then and walks a little stiffly. he is of a worthy presence, with his light-grey hair and whiskers, his fine shirt-frill, his pure-white waistcoat, and his blue coat with bright buttons always buttoned. he is ceremonious, stately, most polite on every occasion to my lady, and holds her personal attractions in the highest estimation. his gallantry to my lady, which has never changed since he courted her, is the one little touch of romantic fancy in him. indeed, he married her for love. a whisper still goes about that she had not even family; howbeit, sir leicester had so much family that perhaps he had enough and could dispense with any more. but she had beauty, pride, ambition, insolent resolve, and sense enough to portion out a legion of fine ladies. wealth and station, added to these, soon floated her upward, and for years now my lady dedlock has been at the centre of the fashionable intelligence and at the top of the fashionable tree. how alexander wept when he had no more worlds to conquer, everybody knows--or has some reason to know by this time, the matter having been rather frequently mentioned. my lady dedlock, having conquered her world, fell not into the melting, but rather into the freezing, mood. an exhausted composure, a worn-out placidity, an equanimity of fatigue not to be ruffled by interest or satisfaction, are the trophies of her victory. she is perfectly well-bred. if she could be translated to heaven to-morrow, she might be expected to ascend without any rapture. she has beauty still, and if it be not in its heyday, it is not yet in its autumn. she has a fine face--originally of a character that would be rather called very pretty than handsome, but improved into classicality by the acquired expression of her fashionable state. her figure is elegant and has the effect of being tall. not that she is so, but that "the most is made," as the honourable bob stables has frequently asserted upon oath, "of all her points." the same authority observes that she is perfectly got up and remarks in commendation of her hair especially that she is the best-groomed woman in the whole stud. with all her perfections on her head, my lady dedlock has come up from her place in lincolnshire (hotly pursued by the fashionable intelligence) to pass a few days at her house in town previous to her departure for paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain. and at her house in town, upon this muddy, murky afternoon, presents himself an old-fashioned old gentleman, attorney-at-law and eke solicitor of the high court of chancery, who has the honour of acting as legal adviser of the dedlocks and has as many cast-iron boxes in his office with that name outside as if the present baronet were the coin of the conjuror's trick and were constantly being juggled through the whole set. across the hall, and up the stairs, and along the passages, and through the rooms, which are very brilliant in the season and very dismal out of it--fairy-land to visit, but a desert to live in--the old gentleman is conducted by a mercury in powder to my lady's presence. the old gentleman is rusty to look at, but is reputed to have made good thrift out of aristocratic marriage settlements and aristocratic wills, and to be very rich. he is surrounded by a mysterious halo of family confidences, of which he is known to be the silent depository. there are noble mausoleums rooted for centuries in retired glades of parks among the growing timber and the fern, which perhaps hold fewer noble secrets than walk abroad among men, shut up in the breast of mr. tulkinghorn. he is of what is called the old school--a phrase generally meaning any school that seems never to have been young--and wears knee-breeches tied with ribbons, and gaiters or stockings. one peculiarity of his black clothes and of his black stockings, be they silk or worsted, is that they never shine. mute, close, irresponsive to any glancing light, his dress is like himself. he never converses when not professionally consulted. he is found sometimes, speechless but quite at home, at corners of dinner-tables in great country houses and near doors of drawing-rooms, concerning which the fashionable intelligence is eloquent, where everybody knows him and where half the peerage stops to say "how do you do, mr. tulkinghorn?" he receives these salutations with gravity and buries them along with the rest of his knowledge. sir leicester dedlock is with my lady and is happy to see mr. tulkinghorn. there is an air of prescription about him which is always agreeable to sir leicester; he receives it as a kind of tribute. he likes mr. tulkinghorn's dress; there is a kind of tribute in that too. it is eminently respectable, and likewise, in a general way, retainer-like. it expresses, as it were, the steward of the legal mysteries, the butler of the legal cellar, of the dedlocks. has mr. tulkinghorn any idea of this himself? it may be so, or it may not, but there is this remarkable circumstance to be noted in everything associated with my lady dedlock as one of a class--as one of the leaders and representatives of her little world. she supposes herself to be an inscrutable being, quite out of the reach and ken of ordinary mortals--seeing herself in her glass, where indeed she looks so. yet every dim little star revolving about her, from her maid to the manager of the italian opera, knows her weaknesses, prejudices, follies, haughtinesses, and caprices and lives upon as accurate a calculation and as nice a measure of her moral nature as her dressmaker takes of her physical proportions. is a new dress, a new custom, a new singer, a new dancer, a new form of jewellery, a new dwarf or giant, a new chapel, a new anything, to be set up? there are deferential people in a dozen callings whom my lady dedlock suspects of nothing but prostration before her, who can tell you how to manage her as if she were a baby, who do nothing but nurse her all their lives, who, humbly affecting to follow with profound subservience, lead her and her whole troop after them; who, in hooking one, hook all and bear them off as lemuel gulliver bore away the stately fleet of the majestic lilliput. "if you want to address our people, sir," say blaze and sparkle, the jewellers--meaning by our people lady dedlock and the rest--"you must remember that you are not dealing with the general public; you must hit our people in their weakest place, and their weakest place is such a place." "to make this article go down, gentlemen," say sheen and gloss, the mercers, to their friends the manufacturers, "you must come to us, because we know where to have the fashionable people, and we can make it fashionable." "if you want to get this print upon the tables of my high connexion, sir," says mr. sladdery, the librarian, "or if you want to get this dwarf or giant into the houses of my high connexion, sir, or if you want to secure to this entertainment the patronage of my high connexion, sir, you must leave it, if you please, to me, for i have been accustomed to study the leaders of my high connexion, sir, and i may tell you without vanity that i can turn them round my finger"--in which mr. sladdery, who is an honest man, does not exaggerate at all. therefore, while mr. tulkinghorn may not know what is passing in the dedlock mind at present, it is very possible that he may. "my lady's cause has been again before the chancellor, has it, mr. tulkinghorn?" says sir leicester, giving him his hand. "yes. it has been on again to-day," mr. tulkinghorn replies, making one of his quiet bows to my lady, who is on a sofa near the fire, shading her face with a hand-screen. "it would be useless to ask," says my lady with the dreariness of the place in lincolnshire still upon her, "whether anything has been done." "nothing that you would call anything has been done to-day," replies mr. tulkinghorn. "nor ever will be," says my lady. sir leicester has no objection to an interminable chancery suit. it is a slow, expensive, british, constitutional kind of thing. to be sure, he has not a vital interest in the suit in question, her part in which was the only property my lady brought him; and he has a shadowy impression that for his name--the name of dedlock--to be in a cause, and not in the title of that cause, is a most ridiculous accident. but he regards the court of chancery, even if it should involve an occasional delay of justice and a trifling amount of confusion, as a something devised in conjunction with a variety of other somethings by the perfection of human wisdom for the eternal settlement (humanly speaking) of everything. and he is upon the whole of a fixed opinion that to give the sanction of his countenance to any complaints respecting it would be to encourage some person in the lower classes to rise up somewhere--like wat tyler. "as a few fresh affidavits have been put upon the file," says mr. tulkinghorn, "and as they are short, and as i proceed upon the troublesome principle of begging leave to possess my clients with any new proceedings in a cause"--cautious man mr. tulkinghorn, taking no more responsibility than necessary--"and further, as i see you are going to paris, i have brought them in my pocket." (sir leicester was going to paris too, by the by, but the delight of the fashionable intelligence was in his lady.) mr. tulkinghorn takes out his papers, asks permission to place them on a golden talisman of a table at my lady's elbow, puts on his spectacles, and begins to read by the light of a shaded lamp. "'in chancery. between john jarndyce--'" my lady interrupts, requesting him to miss as many of the formal horrors as he can. mr. tulkinghorn glances over his spectacles and begins again lower down. my lady carelessly and scornfully abstracts her attention. sir leicester in a great chair looks at the file and appears to have a stately liking for the legal repetitions and prolixities as ranging among the national bulwarks. it happens that the fire is hot where my lady sits and that the hand-screen is more beautiful than useful, being priceless but small. my lady, changing her position, sees the papers on the table--looks at them nearer--looks at them nearer still--asks impulsively, "who copied that?" mr. tulkinghorn stops short, surprised by my lady's animation and her unusual tone. "is it what you people call law-hand?" she asks, looking full at him in her careless way again and toying with her screen. "not quite. probably"--mr. tulkinghorn examines it as he speaks--"the legal character which it has was acquired after the original hand was formed. why do you ask?" "anything to vary this detestable monotony. oh, go on, do!" mr. tulkinghorn reads again. the heat is greater; my lady screens her face. sir leicester dozes, starts up suddenly, and cries, "eh? what do you say?" "i say i am afraid," says mr. tulkinghorn, who had risen hastily, "that lady dedlock is ill." "faint," my lady murmurs with white lips, "only that; but it is like the faintness of death. don't speak to me. ring, and take me to my room!" mr. tulkinghorn retires into another chamber; bells ring, feet shuffle and patter, silence ensues. mercury at last begs mr. tulkinghorn to return. "better now," quoth sir leicester, motioning the lawyer to sit down and read to him alone. "i have been quite alarmed. i never knew my lady swoon before. but the weather is extremely trying, and she really has been bored to death down at our place in lincolnshire." chapter iii a progress i have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of these pages, for i know i am not clever. i always knew that. i can remember, when i was a very little girl indeed, i used to say to my doll when we were alone together, "now, dolly, i am not clever, you know very well, and you must be patient with me, like a dear!" and so she used to sit propped up in a great arm-chair, with her beautiful complexion and rosy lips, staring at me--or not so much at me, i think, as at nothing--while i busily stitched away and told her every one of my secrets. my dear old doll! i was such a shy little thing that i seldom dared to open my lips, and never dared to open my heart, to anybody else. it almost makes me cry to think what a relief it used to be to me when i came home from school of a day to run upstairs to my room and say, "oh, you dear faithful dolly, i knew you would be expecting me!" and then to sit down on the floor, leaning on the elbow of her great chair, and tell her all i had noticed since we parted. i had always rather a noticing way--not a quick way, oh, no!--a silent way of noticing what passed before me and thinking i should like to understand it better. i have not by any means a quick understanding. when i love a person very tenderly indeed, it seems to brighten. but even that may be my vanity. i was brought up, from my earliest remembrance--like some of the princesses in the fairy stories, only i was not charming--by my godmother. at least, i only knew her as such. she was a good, good woman! she went to church three times every sunday, and to morning prayers on wednesdays and fridays, and to lectures whenever there were lectures; and never missed. she was handsome; and if she had ever smiled, would have been (i used to think) like an angel--but she never smiled. she was always grave and strict. she was so very good herself, i thought, that the badness of other people made her frown all her life. i felt so different from her, even making every allowance for the differences between a child and a woman; i felt so poor, so trifling, and so far off that i never could be unrestrained with her--no, could never even love her as i wished. it made me very sorry to consider how good she was and how unworthy of her i was, and i used ardently to hope that i might have a better heart; and i talked it over very often with the dear old doll, but i never loved my godmother as i ought to have loved her and as i felt i must have loved her if i had been a better girl. this made me, i dare say, more timid and retiring than i naturally was and cast me upon dolly as the only friend with whom i felt at ease. but something happened when i was still quite a little thing that helped it very much. i had never heard my mama spoken of. i had never heard of my papa either, but i felt more interested about my mama. i had never worn a black frock, that i could recollect. i had never been shown my mama's grave. i had never been told where it was. yet i had never been taught to pray for any relation but my godmother. i had more than once approached this subject of my thoughts with mrs. rachael, our only servant, who took my light away when i was in bed (another very good woman, but austere to me), and she had only said, "esther, good night!" and gone away and left me. although there were seven girls at the neighbouring school where i was a day boarder, and although they called me little esther summerson, i knew none of them at home. all of them were older than i, to be sure (i was the youngest there by a good deal), but there seemed to be some other separation between us besides that, and besides their being far more clever than i was and knowing much more than i did. one of them in the first week of my going to the school (i remember it very well) invited me home to a little party, to my great joy. but my godmother wrote a stiff letter declining for me, and i never went. i never went out at all. it was my birthday. there were holidays at school on other birthdays--none on mine. there were rejoicings at home on other birthdays, as i knew from what i heard the girls relate to one another--there were none on mine. my birthday was the most melancholy day at home in the whole year. i have mentioned that unless my vanity should deceive me (as i know it may, for i may be very vain without suspecting it, though indeed i don't), my comprehension is quickened when my affection is. my disposition is very affectionate, and perhaps i might still feel such a wound if such a wound could be received more than once with the quickness of that birthday. dinner was over, and my godmother and i were sitting at the table before the fire. the clock ticked, the fire clicked; not another sound had been heard in the room or in the house for i don't know how long. i happened to look timidly up from my stitching, across the table at my godmother, and i saw in her face, looking gloomily at me, "it would have been far better, little esther, that you had had no birthday, that you had never been born!" i broke out crying and sobbing, and i said, "oh, dear godmother, tell me, pray do tell me, did mama die on my birthday?" "no," she returned. "ask me no more, child!" "oh, do pray tell me something of her. do now, at last, dear godmother, if you please! what did i do to her? how did i lose her? why am i so different from other children, and why is it my fault, dear godmother? no, no, no, don't go away. oh, speak to me!" i was in a kind of fright beyond my grief, and i caught hold of her dress and was kneeling to her. she had been saying all the while, "let me go!" but now she stood still. her darkened face had such power over me that it stopped me in the midst of my vehemence. i put up my trembling little hand to clasp hers or to beg her pardon with what earnestness i might, but withdrew it as she looked at me, and laid it on my fluttering heart. she raised me, sat in her chair, and standing me before her, said slowly in a cold, low voice--i see her knitted brow and pointed finger--"your mother, esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. the time will come--and soon enough--when you will understand this better and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can. i have forgiven her"--but her face did not relent--"the wrong she did to me, and i say no more of it, though it was greater than you will ever know--than any one will ever know but i, the sufferer. for yourself, unfortunate girl, orphaned and degraded from the first of these evil anniversaries, pray daily that the sins of others be not visited upon your head, according to what is written. forget your mother and leave all other people to forget her who will do her unhappy child that greatest kindness. now, go!" she checked me, however, as i was about to depart from her--so frozen as i was!--and added this, "submission, self-denial, diligent work, are the preparations for a life begun with such a shadow on it. you are different from other children, esther, because you were not born, like them, in common sinfulness and wrath. you are set apart." i went up to my room, and crept to bed, and laid my doll's cheek against mine wet with tears, and holding that solitary friend upon my bosom, cried myself to sleep. imperfect as my understanding of my sorrow was, i knew that i had brought no joy at any time to anybody's heart and that i was to no one upon earth what dolly was to me. dear, dear, to think how much time we passed alone together afterwards, and how often i repeated to the doll the story of my birthday and confided to her that i would try as hard as ever i could to repair the fault i had been born with (of which i confessedly felt guilty and yet innocent) and would strive as i grew up to be industrious, contented, and kind-hearted and to do some good to some one, and win some love to myself if i could. i hope it is not self-indulgent to shed these tears as i think of it. i am very thankful, i am very cheerful, but i cannot quite help their coming to my eyes. there! i have wiped them away now and can go on again properly. i felt the distance between my godmother and myself so much more after the birthday, and felt so sensible of filling a place in her house which ought to have been empty, that i found her more difficult of approach, though i was fervently grateful to her in my heart, than ever. i felt in the same way towards my school companions; i felt in the same way towards mrs. rachael, who was a widow; and oh, towards her daughter, of whom she was proud, who came to see her once a fortnight! i was very retired and quiet, and tried to be very diligent. one sunny afternoon when i had come home from school with my books and portfolio, watching my long shadow at my side, and as i was gliding upstairs to my room as usual, my godmother looked out of the parlour-door and called me back. sitting with her, i found--which was very unusual indeed--a stranger. a portly, important-looking gentleman, dressed all in black, with a white cravat, large gold watch seals, a pair of gold eye-glasses, and a large seal-ring upon his little finger. "this," said my godmother in an undertone, "is the child." then she said in her naturally stern way of speaking, "this is esther, sir." the gentleman put up his eye-glasses to look at me and said, "come here, my dear!" he shook hands with me and asked me to take off my bonnet, looking at me all the while. when i had complied, he said, "ah!" and afterwards "yes!" and then, taking off his eye-glasses and folding them in a red case, and leaning back in his arm-chair, turning the case about in his two hands, he gave my godmother a nod. upon that, my godmother said, "you may go upstairs, esther!" and i made him my curtsy and left him. it must have been two years afterwards, and i was almost fourteen, when one dreadful night my godmother and i sat at the fireside. i was reading aloud, and she was listening. i had come down at nine o'clock as i always did to read the bible to her, and was reading from st. john how our saviour stooped down, writing with his finger in the dust, when they brought the sinful woman to him. "so when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto them, 'he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her!'" i was stopped by my godmother's rising, putting her hand to her head, and crying out in an awful voice from quite another part of the book, "'watch ye, therefore, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. and what i say unto you, i say unto all, watch!'" in an instant, while she stood before me repeating these words, she fell down on the floor. i had no need to cry out; her voice had sounded through the house and been heard in the street. she was laid upon her bed. for more than a week she lay there, little altered outwardly, with her old handsome resolute frown that i so well knew carved upon her face. many and many a time, in the day and in the night, with my head upon the pillow by her that my whispers might be plainer to her, i kissed her, thanked her, prayed for her, asked her for her blessing and forgiveness, entreated her to give me the least sign that she knew or heard me. no, no, no. her face was immovable. to the very last, and even afterwards, her frown remained unsoftened. on the day after my poor good godmother was buried, the gentleman in black with the white neckcloth reappeared. i was sent for by mrs. rachael, and found him in the same place, as if he had never gone away. "my name is kenge," he said; "you may remember it, my child; kenge and carboy, lincoln's inn." i replied that i remembered to have seen him once before. "pray be seated--here near me. don't distress yourself; it's of no use. mrs. rachael, i needn't inform you who were acquainted with the late miss barbary's affairs, that her means die with her and that this young lady, now her aunt is dead--" "my aunt, sir!" "it is really of no use carrying on a deception when no object is to be gained by it," said mr. kenge smoothly, "aunt in fact, though not in law. don't distress yourself! don't weep! don't tremble! mrs. rachael, our young friend has no doubt heard of--the--a--jarndyce and jarndyce." "never," said mrs. rachael. "is it possible," pursued mr. kenge, putting up his eye-glasses, "that our young friend--i beg you won't distress yourself!--never heard of jarndyce and jarndyce!" i shook my head, wondering even what it was. "not of jarndyce and jarndyce?" said mr. kenge, looking over his glasses at me and softly turning the case about and about as if he were petting something. "not of one of the greatest chancery suits known? not of jarndyce and jarndyce--the--a--in itself a monument of chancery practice. in which (i would say) every difficulty, every contingency, every masterly fiction, every form of procedure known in that court, is represented over and over again? it is a cause that could not exist out of this free and great country. i should say that the aggregate of costs in jarndyce and jarndyce, mrs. rachael"--i was afraid he addressed himself to her because i appeared inattentive"--amounts at the present hour to from six-ty to seven-ty thousand pounds!" said mr. kenge, leaning back in his chair. i felt very ignorant, but what could i do? i was so entirely unacquainted with the subject that i understood nothing about it even then. "and she really never heard of the cause!" said mr. kenge. "surprising!" "miss barbary, sir," returned mrs. rachael, "who is now among the seraphim--" "i hope so, i am sure," said mr. kenge politely. "--wished esther only to know what would be serviceable to her. and she knows, from any teaching she has had here, nothing more." "well!" said mr. kenge. "upon the whole, very proper. now to the point," addressing me. "miss barbary, your sole relation (in fact that is, for i am bound to observe that in law you had none) being deceased and it naturally not being to be expected that mrs. rachael--" "oh, dear no!" said mrs. rachael quickly. "quite so," assented mr. kenge; "--that mrs. rachael should charge herself with your maintenance and support (i beg you won't distress yourself), you are in a position to receive the renewal of an offer which i was instructed to make to miss barbary some two years ago and which, though rejected then, was understood to be renewable under the lamentable circumstances that have since occurred. now, if i avow that i represent, in jarndyce and jarndyce and otherwise, a highly humane, but at the same time singular, man, shall i compromise myself by any stretch of my professional caution?" said mr. kenge, leaning back in his chair again and looking calmly at us both. he appeared to enjoy beyond everything the sound of his own voice. i couldn't wonder at that, for it was mellow and full and gave great importance to every word he uttered. he listened to himself with obvious satisfaction and sometimes gently beat time to his own music with his head or rounded a sentence with his hand. i was very much impressed by him--even then, before i knew that he formed himself on the model of a great lord who was his client and that he was generally called conversation kenge. "mr. jarndyce," he pursued, "being aware of the--i would say, desolate--position of our young friend, offers to place her at a first-rate establishment where her education shall be completed, where her comfort shall be secured, where her reasonable wants shall be anticipated, where she shall be eminently qualified to discharge her duty in that station of life unto which it has pleased--shall i say providence?--to call her." my heart was filled so full, both by what he said and by his affecting manner of saying it, that i was not able to speak, though i tried. "mr. jarndyce," he went on, "makes no condition beyond expressing his expectation that our young friend will not at any time remove herself from the establishment in question without his knowledge and concurrence. that she will faithfully apply herself to the acquisition of those accomplishments, upon the exercise of which she will be ultimately dependent. that she will tread in the paths of virtue and honour, and--the--a--so forth." i was still less able to speak than before. "now, what does our young friend say?" proceeded mr. kenge. "take time, take time! i pause for her reply. but take time!" what the destitute subject of such an offer tried to say, i need not repeat. what she did say, i could more easily tell, if it were worth the telling. what she felt, and will feel to her dying hour, i could never relate. this interview took place at windsor, where i had passed (as far as i knew) my whole life. on that day week, amply provided with all necessaries, i left it, inside the stagecoach, for reading. mrs. rachael was too good to feel any emotion at parting, but i was not so good, and wept bitterly. i thought that i ought to have known her better after so many years and ought to have made myself enough of a favourite with her to make her sorry then. when she gave me one cold parting kiss upon my forehead, like a thaw-drop from the stone porch--it was a very frosty day--i felt so miserable and self-reproachful that i clung to her and told her it was my fault, i knew, that she could say good-bye so easily! "no, esther!" she returned. "it is your misfortune!" the coach was at the little lawn-gate--we had not come out until we heard the wheels--and thus i left her, with a sorrowful heart. she went in before my boxes were lifted to the coach-roof and shut the door. as long as i could see the house, i looked back at it from the window through my tears. my godmother had left mrs. rachael all the little property she possessed; and there was to be a sale; and an old hearth-rug with roses on it, which always seemed to me the first thing in the world i had ever seen, was hanging outside in the frost and snow. a day or two before, i had wrapped the dear old doll in her own shawl and quietly laid her--i am half ashamed to tell it--in the garden-earth under the tree that shaded my old window. i had no companion left but my bird, and him i carried with me in his cage. when the house was out of sight, i sat, with my bird-cage in the straw at my feet, forward on the low seat to look out of the high window, watching the frosty trees, that were like beautiful pieces of spar, and the fields all smooth and white with last night's snow, and the sun, so red but yielding so little heat, and the ice, dark like metal where the skaters and sliders had brushed the snow away. there was a gentleman in the coach who sat on the opposite seat and looked very large in a quantity of wrappings, but he sat gazing out of the other window and took no notice of me. i thought of my dead godmother, of the night when i read to her, of her frowning so fixedly and sternly in her bed, of the strange place i was going to, of the people i should find there, and what they would be like, and what they would say to me, when a voice in the coach gave me a terrible start. it said, "what the de-vil are you crying for?" i was so frightened that i lost my voice and could only answer in a whisper, "me, sir?" for of course i knew it must have been the gentleman in the quantity of wrappings, though he was still looking out of his window. "yes, you," he said, turning round. "i didn't know i was crying, sir," i faltered. "but you are!" said the gentleman. "look here!" he came quite opposite to me from the other corner of the coach, brushed one of his large furry cuffs across my eyes (but without hurting me), and showed me that it was wet. "there! now you know you are," he said. "don't you?" "yes, sir," i said. "and what are you crying for?" said the gentleman, "don't you want to go there?" "where, sir?" "where? why, wherever you are going," said the gentleman. "i am very glad to go there, sir," i answered. "well, then! look glad!" said the gentleman. i thought he was very strange, or at least that what i could see of him was very strange, for he was wrapped up to the chin, and his face was almost hidden in a fur cap with broad fur straps at the side of his head fastened under his chin; but i was composed again, and not afraid of him. so i told him that i thought i must have been crying because of my godmother's death and because of mrs. rachael's not being sorry to part with me. "confound mrs. rachael!" said the gentleman. "let her fly away in a high wind on a broomstick!" i began to be really afraid of him now and looked at him with the greatest astonishment. but i thought that he had pleasant eyes, although he kept on muttering to himself in an angry manner and calling mrs. rachael names. after a little while he opened his outer wrapper, which appeared to me large enough to wrap up the whole coach, and put his arm down into a deep pocket in the side. "now, look here!" he said. "in this paper," which was nicely folded, "is a piece of the best plum-cake that can be got for money--sugar on the outside an inch thick, like fat on mutton chops. here's a little pie (a gem this is, both for size and quality), made in france. and what do you suppose it's made of? livers of fat geese. there's a pie! now let's see you eat 'em." "thank you, sir," i replied; "thank you very much indeed, but i hope you won't be offended--they are too rich for me." "floored again!" said the gentleman, which i didn't at all understand, and threw them both out of window. he did not speak to me any more until he got out of the coach a little way short of reading, when he advised me to be a good girl and to be studious, and shook hands with me. i must say i was relieved by his departure. we left him at a milestone. i often walked past it afterwards, and never for a long time without thinking of him and half expecting to meet him. but i never did; and so, as time went on, he passed out of my mind. when the coach stopped, a very neat lady looked up at the window and said, "miss donny." "no, ma'am, esther summerson." "that is quite right," said the lady, "miss donny." i now understood that she introduced herself by that name, and begged miss donny's pardon for my mistake, and pointed out my boxes at her request. under the direction of a very neat maid, they were put outside a very small green carriage; and then miss donny, the maid, and i got inside and were driven away. "everything is ready for you, esther," said miss donny, "and the scheme of your pursuits has been arranged in exact accordance with the wishes of your guardian, mr. jarndyce." "of--did you say, ma'am?" "of your guardian, mr. jarndyce," said miss donny. i was so bewildered that miss donny thought the cold had been too severe for me and lent me her smelling-bottle. "do you know my--guardian, mr. jarndyce, ma'am?" i asked after a good deal of hesitation. "not personally, esther," said miss donny; "merely through his solicitors, messrs. kenge and carboy, of london. a very superior gentleman, mr. kenge. truly eloquent indeed. some of his periods quite majestic!" i felt this to be very true but was too confused to attend to it. our speedy arrival at our destination, before i had time to recover myself, increased my confusion, and i never shall forget the uncertain and the unreal air of everything at greenleaf (miss donny's house) that afternoon! but i soon became used to it. i was so adapted to the routine of greenleaf before long that i seemed to have been there a great while and almost to have dreamed rather than really lived my old life at my godmother's. nothing could be more precise, exact, and orderly than greenleaf. there was a time for everything all round the dial of the clock, and everything was done at its appointed moment. we were twelve boarders, and there were two miss donnys, twins. it was understood that i would have to depend, by and by, on my qualifications as a governess, and i was not only instructed in everything that was taught at greenleaf, but was very soon engaged in helping to instruct others. although i was treated in every other respect like the rest of the school, this single difference was made in my case from the first. as i began to know more, i taught more, and so in course of time i had plenty to do, which i was very fond of doing because it made the dear girls fond of me. at last, whenever a new pupil came who was a little downcast and unhappy, she was so sure--indeed i don't know why--to make a friend of me that all new-comers were confided to my care. they said i was so gentle, but i am sure they were! i often thought of the resolution i had made on my birthday to try to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted and to do some good to some one and win some love if i could; and indeed, indeed, i felt almost ashamed to have done so little and have won so much. i passed at greenleaf six happy, quiet years. i never saw in any face there, thank heaven, on my birthday, that it would have been better if i had never been born. when the day came round, it brought me so many tokens of affectionate remembrance that my room was beautiful with them from new year's day to christmas. in those six years i had never been away except on visits at holiday time in the neighbourhood. after the first six months or so i had taken miss donny's advice in reference to the propriety of writing to mr. kenge to say that i was happy and grateful, and with her approval i had written such a letter. i had received a formal answer acknowledging its receipt and saying, "we note the contents thereof, which shall be duly communicated to our client." after that i sometimes heard miss donny and her sister mention how regular my accounts were paid, and about twice a year i ventured to write a similar letter. i always received by return of post exactly the same answer in the same round hand, with the signature of kenge and carboy in another writing, which i supposed to be mr. kenge's. it seems so curious to me to be obliged to write all this about myself! as if this narrative were the narrative of my life! but my little body will soon fall into the background now. six quiet years (i find i am saying it for the second time) i had passed at greenleaf, seeing in those around me, as it might be in a looking-glass, every stage of my own growth and change there, when, one november morning, i received this letter. i omit the date. old square, lincoln's inn madam, jarndyce and jarndyce our clt mr. jarndyce being abt to rece into his house, under an order of the ct of chy, a ward of the ct in this cause, for whom he wishes to secure an elgble compn, directs us to inform you that he will be glad of your serces in the afsd capacity. we have arrngd for your being forded, carriage free, pr eight o'clock coach from reading, on monday morning next, to white horse cellar, piccadilly, london, where one of our clks will be in waiting to convey you to our offe as above. we are, madam, your obedt servts, kenge and carboy miss esther summerson oh, never, never, never shall i forget the emotion this letter caused in the house! it was so tender in them to care so much for me, it was so gracious in that father who had not forgotten me to have made my orphan way so smooth and easy and to have inclined so many youthful natures towards me, that i could hardly bear it. not that i would have had them less sorry--i am afraid not; but the pleasure of it, and the pain of it, and the pride and joy of it, and the humble regret of it were so blended that my heart seemed almost breaking while it was full of rapture. the letter gave me only five days' notice of my removal. when every minute added to the proofs of love and kindness that were given me in those five days, and when at last the morning came and when they took me through all the rooms that i might see them for the last time, and when some cried, "esther, dear, say good-bye to me here at my bedside, where you first spoke so kindly to me!" and when others asked me only to write their names, "with esther's love," and when they all surrounded me with their parting presents and clung to me weeping and cried, "what shall we do when dear, dear esther's gone!" and when i tried to tell them how forbearing and how good they had all been to me and how i blessed and thanked them every one, what a heart i had! and when the two miss donnys grieved as much to part with me as the least among them, and when the maids said, "bless you, miss, wherever you go!" and when the ugly lame old gardener, who i thought had hardly noticed me in all those years, came panting after the coach to give me a little nosegay of geraniums and told me i had been the light of his eyes--indeed the old man said so!--what a heart i had then! and could i help it if with all this, and the coming to the little school, and the unexpected sight of the poor children outside waving their hats and bonnets to me, and of a grey-haired gentleman and lady whose daughter i had helped to teach and at whose house i had visited (who were said to be the proudest people in all that country), caring for nothing but calling out, "good-bye, esther. may you be very happy!"--could i help it if i was quite bowed down in the coach by myself and said "oh, i am so thankful, i am so thankful!" many times over! but of course i soon considered that i must not take tears where i was going after all that had been done for me. therefore, of course, i made myself sob less and persuaded myself to be quiet by saying very often, "esther, now you really must! this will not do!" i cheered myself up pretty well at last, though i am afraid i was longer about it than i ought to have been; and when i had cooled my eyes with lavender water, it was time to watch for london. i was quite persuaded that we were there when we were ten miles off, and when we really were there, that we should never get there. however, when we began to jolt upon a stone pavement, and particularly when every other conveyance seemed to be running into us, and we seemed to be running into every other conveyance, i began to believe that we really were approaching the end of our journey. very soon afterwards we stopped. a young gentleman who had inked himself by accident addressed me from the pavement and said, "i am from kenge and carboy's, miss, of lincoln's inn." "if you please, sir," said i. he was very obliging, and as he handed me into a fly after superintending the removal of my boxes, i asked him whether there was a great fire anywhere? for the streets were so full of dense brown smoke that scarcely anything was to be seen. "oh, dear no, miss," he said. "this is a london particular." i had never heard of such a thing. "a fog, miss," said the young gentleman. "oh, indeed!" said i. we drove slowly through the dirtiest and darkest streets that ever were seen in the world (i thought) and in such a distracting state of confusion that i wondered how the people kept their senses, until we passed into sudden quietude under an old gateway and drove on through a silent square until we came to an odd nook in a corner, where there was an entrance up a steep, broad flight of stairs, like an entrance to a church. and there really was a churchyard outside under some cloisters, for i saw the gravestones from the staircase window. this was kenge and carboy's. the young gentleman showed me through an outer office into mr. kenge's room--there was no one in it--and politely put an arm-chair for me by the fire. he then called my attention to a little looking-glass hanging from a nail on one side of the chimney-piece. "in case you should wish to look at yourself, miss, after the journey, as you're going before the chancellor. not that it's requisite, i am sure," said the young gentleman civilly. "going before the chancellor?" i said, startled for a moment. "only a matter of form, miss," returned the young gentleman. "mr. kenge is in court now. he left his compliments, and would you partake of some refreshment"--there were biscuits and a decanter of wine on a small table--"and look over the paper," which the young gentleman gave me as he spoke. he then stirred the fire and left me. everything was so strange--the stranger from its being night in the day-time, the candles burning with a white flame, and looking raw and cold--that i read the words in the newspaper without knowing what they meant and found myself reading the same words repeatedly. as it was of no use going on in that way, i put the paper down, took a peep at my bonnet in the glass to see if it was neat, and looked at the room, which was not half lighted, and at the shabby, dusty tables, and at the piles of writings, and at a bookcase full of the most inexpressive-looking books that ever had anything to say for themselves. then i went on, thinking, thinking, thinking; and the fire went on, burning, burning, burning; and the candles went on flickering and guttering, and there were no snuffers--until the young gentleman by and by brought a very dirty pair--for two hours. at last mr. kenge came. he was not altered, but he was surprised to see how altered i was and appeared quite pleased. "as you are going to be the companion of the young lady who is now in the chancellor's private room, miss summerson," he said, "we thought it well that you should be in attendance also. you will not be discomposed by the lord chancellor, i dare say?" "no, sir," i said, "i don't think i shall," really not seeing on consideration why i should be. so mr. kenge gave me his arm and we went round the corner, under a colonnade, and in at a side door. and so we came, along a passage, into a comfortable sort of room where a young lady and a young gentleman were standing near a great, loud-roaring fire. a screen was interposed between them and it, and they were leaning on the screen, talking. they both looked up when i came in, and i saw in the young lady, with the fire shining upon her, such a beautiful girl! with such rich golden hair, such soft blue eyes, and such a bright, innocent, trusting face! "miss ada," said mr. kenge, "this is miss summerson." she came to meet me with a smile of welcome and her hand extended, but seemed to change her mind in a moment and kissed me. in short, she had such a natural, captivating, winning manner that in a few minutes we were sitting in the window-seat, with the light of the fire upon us, talking together as free and happy as could be. what a load off my mind! it was so delightful to know that she could confide in me and like me! it was so good of her, and so encouraging to me! the young gentleman was her distant cousin, she told me, and his name richard carstone. he was a handsome youth with an ingenuous face and a most engaging laugh; and after she had called him up to where we sat, he stood by us, in the light of the fire, talking gaily, like a light-hearted boy. he was very young, not more than nineteen then, if quite so much, but nearly two years older than she was. they were both orphans and (what was very unexpected and curious to me) had never met before that day. our all three coming together for the first time in such an unusual place was a thing to talk about, and we talked about it; and the fire, which had left off roaring, winked its red eyes at us--as richard said--like a drowsy old chancery lion. we conversed in a low tone because a full-dressed gentleman in a bag wig frequently came in and out, and when he did so, we could hear a drawling sound in the distance, which he said was one of the counsel in our case addressing the lord chancellor. he told mr. kenge that the chancellor would be up in five minutes; and presently we heard a bustle and a tread of feet, and mr. kenge said that the court had risen and his lordship was in the next room. the gentleman in the bag wig opened the door almost directly and requested mr. kenge to come in. upon that, we all went into the next room, mr. kenge first, with my darling--it is so natural to me now that i can't help writing it; and there, plainly dressed in black and sitting in an arm-chair at a table near the fire, was his lordship, whose robe, trimmed with beautiful gold lace, was thrown upon another chair. he gave us a searching look as we entered, but his manner was both courtly and kind. the gentleman in the bag wig laid bundles of papers on his lordship's table, and his lordship silently selected one and turned over the leaves. "miss clare," said the lord chancellor. "miss ada clare?" mr. kenge presented her, and his lordship begged her to sit down near him. that he admired her and was interested by her even i could see in a moment. it touched me that the home of such a beautiful young creature should be represented by that dry, official place. the lord high chancellor, at his best, appeared so poor a substitute for the love and pride of parents. "the jarndyce in question," said the lord chancellor, still turning over leaves, "is jarndyce of bleak house." "jarndyce of bleak house, my lord," said mr. kenge. "a dreary name," said the lord chancellor. "but not a dreary place at present, my lord," said mr. kenge. "and bleak house," said his lordship, "is in--" "hertfordshire, my lord." "mr. jarndyce of bleak house is not married?" said his lordship. "he is not, my lord," said mr. kenge. a pause. "young mr. richard carstone is present?" said the lord chancellor, glancing towards him. richard bowed and stepped forward. "hum!" said the lord chancellor, turning over more leaves. "mr. jarndyce of bleak house, my lord," mr. kenge observed in a low voice, "if i may venture to remind your lordship, provides a suitable companion for--" "for mr. richard carstone?" i thought (but i am not quite sure) i heard his lordship say in an equally low voice and with a smile. "for miss ada clare. this is the young lady. miss summerson." his lordship gave me an indulgent look and acknowledged my curtsy very graciously. "miss summerson is not related to any party in the cause, i think?" "no, my lord." mr. kenge leant over before it was quite said and whispered. his lordship, with his eyes upon his papers, listened, nodded twice or thrice, turned over more leaves, and did not look towards me again until we were going away. mr. kenge now retired, and richard with him, to where i was, near the door, leaving my pet (it is so natural to me that again i can't help it!) sitting near the lord chancellor, with whom his lordship spoke a little part, asking her, as she told me afterwards, whether she had well reflected on the proposed arrangement, and if she thought she would be happy under the roof of mr. jarndyce of bleak house, and why she thought so? presently he rose courteously and released her, and then he spoke for a minute or two with richard carstone, not seated, but standing, and altogether with more ease and less ceremony, as if he still knew, though he was lord chancellor, how to go straight to the candour of a boy. "very well!" said his lordship aloud. "i shall make the order. mr. jarndyce of bleak house has chosen, so far as i may judge," and this was when he looked at me, "a very good companion for the young lady, and the arrangement altogether seems the best of which the circumstances admit." he dismissed us pleasantly, and we all went out, very much obliged to him for being so affable and polite, by which he had certainly lost no dignity but seemed to us to have gained some. when we got under the colonnade, mr. kenge remembered that he must go back for a moment to ask a question and left us in the fog, with the lord chancellor's carriage and servants waiting for him to come out. "well!" said richard carstone. "that's over! and where do we go next, miss summerson?" "don't you know?" i said. "not in the least," said he. "and don't you know, my love?" i asked ada. "no!" said she. "don't you?" "not at all!" said i. we looked at one another, half laughing at our being like the children in the wood, when a curious little old woman in a squeezed bonnet and carrying a reticule came curtsying and smiling up to us with an air of great ceremony. "oh!" said she. "the wards in jarndyce! ve-ry happy, i am sure, to have the honour! it is a good omen for youth, and hope, and beauty when they find themselves in this place, and don't know what's to come of it." "mad!" whispered richard, not thinking she could hear him. "right! mad, young gentleman," she returned so quickly that he was quite abashed. "i was a ward myself. i was not mad at that time," curtsying low and smiling between every little sentence. "i had youth and hope. i believe, beauty. it matters very little now. neither of the three served or saved me. i have the honour to attend court regularly. with my documents. i expect a judgment. shortly. on the day of judgment. i have discovered that the sixth seal mentioned in the revelations is the great seal. it has been open a long time! pray accept my blessing." as ada was a little frightened, i said, to humour the poor old lady, that we were much obliged to her. "ye-es!" she said mincingly. "i imagine so. and here is conversation kenge. with his documents! how does your honourable worship do?" "quite well, quite well! now don't be troublesome, that's a good soul!" said mr. kenge, leading the way back. "by no means," said the poor old lady, keeping up with ada and me. "anything but troublesome. i shall confer estates on both--which is not being troublesome, i trust? i expect a judgment. shortly. on the day of judgment. this is a good omen for you. accept my blessing!" she stopped at the bottom of the steep, broad flight of stairs; but we looked back as we went up, and she was still there, saying, still with a curtsy and a smile between every little sentence, "youth. and hope. and beauty. and chancery. and conversation kenge! ha! pray accept my blessing!" chapter iv telescopic philanthropy we were to pass the night, mr. kenge told us when we arrived in his room, at mrs. jellyby's; and then he turned to me and said he took it for granted i knew who mrs. jellyby was. "i really don't, sir," i returned. "perhaps mr. carstone--or miss clare--" but no, they knew nothing whatever about mrs. jellyby. "in-deed! mrs. jellyby," said mr. kenge, standing with his back to the fire and casting his eyes over the dusty hearth-rug as if it were mrs. jellyby's biography, "is a lady of very remarkable strength of character who devotes herself entirely to the public. she has devoted herself to an extensive variety of public subjects at various times and is at present (until something else attracts her) devoted to the subject of africa, with a view to the general cultivation of the coffee berry--and the natives--and the happy settlement, on the banks of the african rivers, of our superabundant home population. mr. jarndyce, who is desirous to aid any work that is considered likely to be a good work and who is much sought after by philanthropists, has, i believe, a very high opinion of mrs. jellyby." mr. kenge, adjusting his cravat, then looked at us. "and mr. jellyby, sir?" suggested richard. "ah! mr. jellyby," said mr. kenge, "is--a--i don't know that i can describe him to you better than by saying that he is the husband of mrs. jellyby." "a nonentity, sir?" said richard with a droll look. "i don't say that," returned mr. kenge gravely. "i can't say that, indeed, for i know nothing whatever of mr. jellyby. i never, to my knowledge, had the pleasure of seeing mr. jellyby. he may be a very superior man, but he is, so to speak, merged--merged--in the more shining qualities of his wife." mr. kenge proceeded to tell us that as the road to bleak house would have been very long, dark, and tedious on such an evening, and as we had been travelling already, mr. jarndyce had himself proposed this arrangement. a carriage would be at mrs. jellyby's to convey us out of town early in the forenoon of to-morrow. he then rang a little bell, and the young gentleman came in. addressing him by the name of guppy, mr. kenge inquired whether miss summerson's boxes and the rest of the baggage had been "sent round." mr. guppy said yes, they had been sent round, and a coach was waiting to take us round too as soon as we pleased. "then it only remains," said mr. kenge, shaking hands with us, "for me to express my lively satisfaction in (good day, miss clare!) the arrangement this day concluded and my (good-bye to you, miss summerson!) lively hope that it will conduce to the happiness, the (glad to have had the honour of making your acquaintance, mr. carstone!) welfare, the advantage in all points of view, of all concerned! guppy, see the party safely there." "where is 'there,' mr. guppy?" said richard as we went downstairs. "no distance," said mr. guppy; "round in thavies inn, you know." "i can't say i know where it is, for i come from winchester and am strange in london." "only round the corner," said mr. guppy. "we just twist up chancery lane, and cut along holborn, and there we are in four minutes' time, as near as a toucher. this is about a london particular now, ain't it, miss?" he seemed quite delighted with it on my account. "the fog is very dense indeed!" said i. "not that it affects you, though, i'm sure," said mr. guppy, putting up the steps. "on the contrary, it seems to do you good, miss, judging from your appearance." i knew he meant well in paying me this compliment, so i laughed at myself for blushing at it when he had shut the door and got upon the box; and we all three laughed and chatted about our inexperience and the strangeness of london until we turned up under an archway to our destination--a narrow street of high houses like an oblong cistern to hold the fog. there was a confused little crowd of people, principally children, gathered about the house at which we stopped, which had a tarnished brass plate on the door with the inscription jellyby. "don't be frightened!" said mr. guppy, looking in at the coach-window. "one of the young jellybys been and got his head through the area railings!" "oh, poor child," said i; "let me out, if you please!" "pray be careful of yourself, miss. the young jellybys are always up to something," said mr. guppy. i made my way to the poor child, who was one of the dirtiest little unfortunates i ever saw, and found him very hot and frightened and crying loudly, fixed by the neck between two iron railings, while a milkman and a beadle, with the kindest intentions possible, were endeavouring to drag him back by the legs, under a general impression that his skull was compressible by those means. as i found (after pacifying him) that he was a little boy with a naturally large head, i thought that perhaps where his head could go, his body could follow, and mentioned that the best mode of extrication might be to push him forward. this was so favourably received by the milkman and beadle that he would immediately have been pushed into the area if i had not held his pinafore while richard and mr. guppy ran down through the kitchen to catch him when he should be released. at last he was happily got down without any accident, and then he began to beat mr. guppy with a hoop-stick in quite a frantic manner. nobody had appeared belonging to the house except a person in pattens, who had been poking at the child from below with a broom; i don't know with what object, and i don't think she did. i therefore supposed that mrs. jellyby was not at home, and was quite surprised when the person appeared in the passage without the pattens, and going up to the back room on the first floor before ada and me, announced us as, "them two young ladies, missis jellyby!" we passed several more children on the way up, whom it was difficult to avoid treading on in the dark; and as we came into mrs. jellyby's presence, one of the poor little things fell downstairs--down a whole flight (as it sounded to me), with a great noise. mrs. jellyby, whose face reflected none of the uneasiness which we could not help showing in our own faces as the dear child's head recorded its passage with a bump on every stair--richard afterwards said he counted seven, besides one for the landing--received us with perfect equanimity. she was a pretty, very diminutive, plump woman of from forty to fifty, with handsome eyes, though they had a curious habit of seeming to look a long way off. as if--i am quoting richard again--they could see nothing nearer than africa! "i am very glad indeed," said mrs. jellyby in an agreeable voice, "to have the pleasure of receiving you. i have a great respect for mr. jarndyce, and no one in whom he is interested can be an object of indifference to me." we expressed our acknowledgments and sat down behind the door, where there was a lame invalid of a sofa. mrs. jellyby had very good hair but was too much occupied with her african duties to brush it. the shawl in which she had been loosely muffled dropped onto her chair when she advanced to us; and as she turned to resume her seat, we could not help noticing that her dress didn't nearly meet up the back and that the open space was railed across with a lattice-work of stay-lace--like a summer-house. the room, which was strewn with papers and nearly filled by a great writing-table covered with similar litter, was, i must say, not only very untidy but very dirty. we were obliged to take notice of that with our sense of sight, even while, with our sense of hearing, we followed the poor child who had tumbled downstairs: i think into the back kitchen, where somebody seemed to stifle him. but what principally struck us was a jaded and unhealthy-looking though by no means plain girl at the writing-table, who sat biting the feather of her pen and staring at us. i suppose nobody ever was in such a state of ink. and from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet, which were disfigured with frayed and broken satin slippers trodden down at heel, she really seemed to have no article of dress upon her, from a pin upwards, that was in its proper condition or its right place. "you find me, my dears," said mrs. jellyby, snuffing the two great office candles in tin candlesticks, which made the room taste strongly of hot tallow (the fire had gone out, and there was nothing in the grate but ashes, a bundle of wood, and a poker), "you find me, my dears, as usual, very busy; but that you will excuse. the african project at present employs my whole time. it involves me in correspondence with public bodies and with private individuals anxious for the welfare of their species all over the country. i am happy to say it is advancing. we hope by this time next year to have from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating coffee and educating the natives of borrioboola-gha, on the left bank of the niger." as ada said nothing, but looked at me, i said it must be very gratifying. "it is gratifying," said mrs. jellyby. "it involves the devotion of all my energies, such as they are; but that is nothing, so that it succeeds; and i am more confident of success every day. do you know, miss summerson, i almost wonder that you never turned your thoughts to africa." this application of the subject was really so unexpected to me that i was quite at a loss how to receive it. i hinted that the climate-- "the finest climate in the world!" said mrs. jellyby. "indeed, ma'am?" "certainly. with precaution," said mrs. jellyby. "you may go into holborn, without precaution, and be run over. you may go into holborn, with precaution, and never be run over. just so with africa." i said, "no doubt." i meant as to holborn. "if you would like," said mrs. jellyby, putting a number of papers towards us, "to look over some remarks on that head, and on the general subject, which have been extensively circulated, while i finish a letter i am now dictating to my eldest daughter, who is my amanuensis--" the girl at the table left off biting her pen and made a return to our recognition, which was half bashful and half sulky. "--i shall then have finished for the present," proceeded mrs. jellyby with a sweet smile, "though my work is never done. where are you, caddy?" "'presents her compliments to mr. swallow, and begs--'" said caddy. "'and begs,'" said mrs. jellyby, dictating, "'to inform him, in reference to his letter of inquiry on the african project--' no, peepy! not on my account!" peepy (so self-named) was the unfortunate child who had fallen downstairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting himself, with a strip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his wounded knees, in which ada and i did not know which to pity most--the bruises or the dirt. mrs. jellyby merely added, with the serene composure with which she said everything, "go along, you naughty peepy!" and fixed her fine eyes on africa again. however, as she at once proceeded with her dictation, and as i interrupted nothing by doing it, i ventured quietly to stop poor peepy as he was going out and to take him up to nurse. he looked very much astonished at it and at ada's kissing him, but soon fell fast asleep in my arms, sobbing at longer and longer intervals, until he was quiet. i was so occupied with peepy that i lost the letter in detail, though i derived such a general impression from it of the momentous importance of africa, and the utter insignificance of all other places and things, that i felt quite ashamed to have thought so little about it. "six o'clock!" said mrs. jellyby. "and our dinner hour is nominally (for we dine at all hours) five! caddy, show miss clare and miss summerson their rooms. you will like to make some change, perhaps? you will excuse me, i know, being so much occupied. oh, that very bad child! pray put him down, miss summerson!" i begged permission to retain him, truly saying that he was not at all troublesome, and carried him upstairs and laid him on my bed. ada and i had two upper rooms with a door of communication between. they were excessively bare and disorderly, and the curtain to my window was fastened up with a fork. "you would like some hot water, wouldn't you?" said miss jellyby, looking round for a jug with a handle to it, but looking in vain. "if it is not being troublesome," said we. "oh, it's not the trouble," returned miss jellyby; "the question is, if there is any." the evening was so very cold and the rooms had such a marshy smell that i must confess it was a little miserable, and ada was half crying. we soon laughed, however, and were busily unpacking when miss jellyby came back to say that she was sorry there was no hot water, but they couldn't find the kettle, and the boiler was out of order. we begged her not to mention it and made all the haste we could to get down to the fire again. but all the little children had come up to the landing outside to look at the phenomenon of peepy lying on my bed, and our attention was distracted by the constant apparition of noses and fingers in situations of danger between the hinges of the doors. it was impossible to shut the door of either room, for my lock, with no knob to it, looked as if it wanted to be wound up; and though the handle of ada's went round and round with the greatest smoothness, it was attended with no effect whatever on the door. therefore i proposed to the children that they should come in and be very good at my table, and i would tell them the story of little red riding hood while i dressed; which they did, and were as quiet as mice, including peepy, who awoke opportunely before the appearance of the wolf. when we went downstairs we found a mug with "a present from tunbridge wells" on it lighted up in the staircase window with a floating wick, and a young woman, with a swelled face bound up in a flannel bandage blowing the fire of the drawing-room (now connected by an open door with mrs. jellyby's room) and choking dreadfully. it smoked to that degree, in short, that we all sat coughing and crying with the windows open for half an hour, during which mrs. jellyby, with the same sweetness of temper, directed letters about africa. her being so employed was, i must say, a great relief to me, for richard told us that he had washed his hands in a pie-dish and that they had found the kettle on his dressing-table, and he made ada laugh so that they made me laugh in the most ridiculous manner. soon after seven o'clock we went down to dinner, carefully, by mrs. jellyby's advice, for the stair-carpets, besides being very deficient in stair-wires, were so torn as to be absolute traps. we had a fine cod-fish, a piece of roast beef, a dish of cutlets, and a pudding; an excellent dinner, if it had had any cooking to speak of, but it was almost raw. the young woman with the flannel bandage waited, and dropped everything on the table wherever it happened to go, and never moved it again until she put it on the stairs. the person i had seen in pattens, who i suppose to have been the cook, frequently came and skirmished with her at the door, and there appeared to be ill will between them. all through dinner--which was long, in consequence of such accidents as the dish of potatoes being mislaid in the coal skuttle and the handle of the corkscrew coming off and striking the young woman in the chin--mrs. jellyby preserved the evenness of her disposition. she told us a great deal that was interesting about borrioboola-gha and the natives, and received so many letters that richard, who sat by her, saw four envelopes in the gravy at once. some of the letters were proceedings of ladies' committees or resolutions of ladies' meetings, which she read to us; others were applications from people excited in various ways about the cultivation of coffee, and natives; others required answers, and these she sent her eldest daughter from the table three or four times to write. she was full of business and undoubtedly was, as she had told us, devoted to the cause. i was a little curious to know who a mild bald gentleman in spectacles was, who dropped into a vacant chair (there was no top or bottom in particular) after the fish was taken away and seemed passively to submit himself to borrioboola-gha but not to be actively interested in that settlement. as he never spoke a word, he might have been a native but for his complexion. it was not until we left the table and he remained alone with richard that the possibility of his being mr. jellyby ever entered my head. but he was mr. jellyby; and a loquacious young man called mr. quale, with large shining knobs for temples and his hair all brushed to the back of his head, who came in the evening, and told ada he was a philanthropist, also informed her that he called the matrimonial alliance of mrs. jellyby with mr. jellyby the union of mind and matter. this young man, besides having a great deal to say for himself about africa and a project of his for teaching the coffee colonists to teach the natives to turn piano-forte legs and establish an export trade, delighted in drawing mrs. jellyby out by saying, "i believe now, mrs. jellyby, you have received as many as from one hundred and fifty to two hundred letters respecting africa in a single day, have you not?" or, "if my memory does not deceive me, mrs. jellyby, you once mentioned that you had sent off five thousand circulars from one post-office at one time?"--always repeating mrs. jellyby's answer to us like an interpreter. during the whole evening, mr. jellyby sat in a corner with his head against the wall as if he were subject to low spirits. it seemed that he had several times opened his mouth when alone with richard after dinner, as if he had something on his mind, but had always shut it again, to richard's extreme confusion, without saying anything. mrs. jellyby, sitting in quite a nest of waste paper, drank coffee all the evening and dictated at intervals to her eldest daughter. she also held a discussion with mr. quale, of which the subject seemed to be--if i understood it--the brotherhood of humanity, and gave utterance to some beautiful sentiments. i was not so attentive an auditor as i might have wished to be, however, for peepy and the other children came flocking about ada and me in a corner of the drawing-room to ask for another story; so we sat down among them and told them in whispers "puss in boots" and i don't know what else until mrs. jellyby, accidentally remembering them, sent them to bed. as peepy cried for me to take him to bed, i carried him upstairs, where the young woman with the flannel bandage charged into the midst of the little family like a dragon and overturned them into cribs. after that i occupied myself in making our room a little tidy and in coaxing a very cross fire that had been lighted to burn, which at last it did, quite brightly. on my return downstairs, i felt that mrs. jellyby looked down upon me rather for being so frivolous, and i was sorry for it, though at the same time i knew that i had no higher pretensions. it was nearly midnight before we found an opportunity of going to bed, and even then we left mrs. jellyby among her papers drinking coffee and miss jellyby biting the feather of her pen. "what a strange house!" said ada when we got upstairs. "how curious of my cousin jarndyce to send us here!" "my love," said i, "it quite confuses me. i want to understand it, and i can't understand it at all." "what?" asked ada with her pretty smile. "all this, my dear," said i. "it must be very good of mrs. jellyby to take such pains about a scheme for the benefit of natives--and yet--peepy and the housekeeping!" ada laughed and put her arm about my neck as i stood looking at the fire, and told me i was a quiet, dear, good creature and had won her heart. "you are so thoughtful, esther," she said, "and yet so cheerful! and you do so much, so unpretendingly! you would make a home out of even this house." my simple darling! she was quite unconscious that she only praised herself and that it was in the goodness of her own heart that she made so much of me! "may i ask you a question?" said i when we had sat before the fire a little while. "five hundred," said ada. "your cousin, mr. jarndyce. i owe so much to him. would you mind describing him to me?" shaking her golden hair, ada turned her eyes upon me with such laughing wonder that i was full of wonder too, partly at her beauty, partly at her surprise. "esther!" she cried. "my dear!" "you want a description of my cousin jarndyce?" "my dear, i never saw him." "and i never saw him!" returned ada. well, to be sure! no, she had never seen him. young as she was when her mama died, she remembered how the tears would come into her eyes when she spoke of him and of the noble generosity of his character, which she had said was to be trusted above all earthly things; and ada trusted it. her cousin jarndyce had written to her a few months ago--"a plain, honest letter," ada said--proposing the arrangement we were now to enter on and telling her that "in time it might heal some of the wounds made by the miserable chancery suit." she had replied, gratefully accepting his proposal. richard had received a similar letter and had made a similar response. he had seen mr. jarndyce once, but only once, five years ago, at winchester school. he had told ada, when they were leaning on the screen before the fire where i found them, that he recollected him as "a bluff, rosy fellow." this was the utmost description ada could give me. it set me thinking so that when ada was asleep, i still remained before the fire, wondering and wondering about bleak house, and wondering and wondering that yesterday morning should seem so long ago. i don't know where my thoughts had wandered when they were recalled by a tap at the door. i opened it softly and found miss jellyby shivering there with a broken candle in a broken candlestick in one hand and an egg-cup in the other. "good night!" she said very sulkily. "good night!" said i. "may i come in?" she shortly and unexpectedly asked me in the same sulky way. "certainly," said i. "don't wake miss clare." she would not sit down, but stood by the fire dipping her inky middle finger in the egg-cup, which contained vinegar, and smearing it over the ink stains on her face, frowning the whole time and looking very gloomy. "i wish africa was dead!" she said on a sudden. i was going to remonstrate. "i do!" she said "don't talk to me, miss summerson. i hate it and detest it. it's a beast!" i told her she was tired, and i was sorry. i put my hand upon her head, and touched her forehead, and said it was hot now but would be cool to-morrow. she still stood pouting and frowning at me, but presently put down her egg-cup and turned softly towards the bed where ada lay. "she is very pretty!" she said with the same knitted brow and in the same uncivil manner. i assented with a smile. "an orphan. ain't she?" "yes." "but knows a quantity, i suppose? can dance, and play music, and sing? she can talk french, i suppose, and do geography, and globes, and needlework, and everything?" "no doubt," said i. "i can't," she returned. "i can't do anything hardly, except write. i'm always writing for ma. i wonder you two were not ashamed of yourselves to come in this afternoon and see me able to do nothing else. it was like your ill nature. yet you think yourselves very fine, i dare say!" i could see that the poor girl was near crying, and i resumed my chair without speaking and looked at her (i hope) as mildly as i felt towards her. "it's disgraceful," she said. "you know it is. the whole house is disgraceful. the children are disgraceful. i'm disgraceful. pa's miserable, and no wonder! priscilla drinks--she's always drinking. it's a great shame and a great story of you if you say you didn't smell her to-day. it was as bad as a public-house, waiting at dinner; you know it was!" "my dear, i don't know it," said i. "you do," she said very shortly. "you shan't say you don't. you do!" "oh, my dear!" said i. "if you won't let me speak--" "you're speaking now. you know you are. don't tell stories, miss summerson." "my dear," said i, "as long as you won't hear me out--" "i don't want to hear you out." "oh, yes, i think you do," said i, "because that would be so very unreasonable. i did not know what you tell me because the servant did not come near me at dinner; but i don't doubt what you tell me, and i am sorry to hear it." "you needn't make a merit of that," said she. "no, my dear," said i. "that would be very foolish." she was still standing by the bed, and now stooped down (but still with the same discontented face) and kissed ada. that done, she came softly back and stood by the side of my chair. her bosom was heaving in a distressful manner that i greatly pitied, but i thought it better not to speak. "i wish i was dead!" she broke out. "i wish we were all dead. it would be a great deal better for us." in a moment afterwards, she knelt on the ground at my side, hid her face in my dress, passionately begged my pardon, and wept. i comforted her and would have raised her, but she cried no, no; she wanted to stay there! "you used to teach girls," she said, "if you could only have taught me, i could have learnt from you! i am so very miserable, and i like you so much!" i could not persuade her to sit by me or to do anything but move a ragged stool to where she was kneeling, and take that, and still hold my dress in the same manner. by degrees the poor tired girl fell asleep, and then i contrived to raise her head so that it should rest on my lap, and to cover us both with shawls. the fire went out, and all night long she slumbered thus before the ashy grate. at first i was painfully awake and vainly tried to lose myself, with my eyes closed, among the scenes of the day. at length, by slow degrees, they became indistinct and mingled. i began to lose the identity of the sleeper resting on me. now it was ada, now one of my old reading friends from whom i could not believe i had so recently parted. now it was the little mad woman worn out with curtsying and smiling, now some one in authority at bleak house. lastly, it was no one, and i was no one. the purblind day was feebly struggling with the fog when i opened my eyes to encounter those of a dirty-faced little spectre fixed upon me. peepy had scaled his crib, and crept down in his bed-gown and cap, and was so cold that his teeth were chattering as if he had cut them all. chapter v a morning adventure although the morning was raw, and although the fog still seemed heavy--i say seemed, for the windows were so encrusted with dirt that they would have made midsummer sunshine dim--i was sufficiently forewarned of the discomfort within doors at that early hour and sufficiently curious about london to think it a good idea on the part of miss jellyby when she proposed that we should go out for a walk. "ma won't be down for ever so long," she said, "and then it's a chance if breakfast's ready for an hour afterwards, they dawdle so. as to pa, he gets what he can and goes to the office. he never has what you would call a regular breakfast. priscilla leaves him out the loaf and some milk, when there is any, overnight. sometimes there isn't any milk, and sometimes the cat drinks it. but i'm afraid you must be tired, miss summerson, and perhaps you would rather go to bed." "i am not at all tired, my dear," said i, "and would much prefer to go out." "if you're sure you would," returned miss jellyby, "i'll get my things on." ada said she would go too, and was soon astir. i made a proposal to peepy, in default of being able to do anything better for him, that he should let me wash him and afterwards lay him down on my bed again. to this he submitted with the best grace possible, staring at me during the whole operation as if he never had been, and never could again be, so astonished in his life--looking very miserable also, certainly, but making no complaint, and going snugly to sleep as soon as it was over. at first i was in two minds about taking such a liberty, but i soon reflected that nobody in the house was likely to notice it. what with the bustle of dispatching peepy and the bustle of getting myself ready and helping ada, i was soon quite in a glow. we found miss jellyby trying to warm herself at the fire in the writing-room, which priscilla was then lighting with a smutty parlour candlestick, throwing the candle in to make it burn better. everything was just as we had left it last night and was evidently intended to remain so. below-stairs the dinner-cloth had not been taken away, but had been left ready for breakfast. crumbs, dust, and waste-paper were all over the house. some pewter pots and a milk-can hung on the area railings; the door stood open; and we met the cook round the corner coming out of a public-house, wiping her mouth. she mentioned, as she passed us, that she had been to see what o'clock it was. but before we met the cook, we met richard, who was dancing up and down thavies inn to warm his feet. he was agreeably surprised to see us stirring so soon and said he would gladly share our walk. so he took care of ada, and miss jellyby and i went first. i may mention that miss jellyby had relapsed into her sulky manner and that i really should not have thought she liked me much unless she had told me so. "where would you wish to go?" she asked. "anywhere, my dear," i replied. "anywhere's nowhere," said miss jellyby, stopping perversely. "let us go somewhere at any rate," said i. she then walked me on very fast. "i don't care!" she said. "now, you are my witness, miss summerson, i say i don't care--but if he was to come to our house with his great, shining, lumpy forehead night after night till he was as old as methuselah, i wouldn't have anything to say to him. such asses as he and ma make of themselves!" "my dear!" i remonstrated, in allusion to the epithet and the vigorous emphasis miss jellyby set upon it. "your duty as a child--" "oh! don't talk of duty as a child, miss summerson; where's ma's duty as a parent? all made over to the public and africa, i suppose! then let the public and africa show duty as a child; it's much more their affair than mine. you are shocked, i dare say! very well, so am i shocked too; so we are both shocked, and there's an end of it!" she walked me on faster yet. "but for all that, i say again, he may come, and come, and come, and i won't have anything to say to him. i can't bear him. if there's any stuff in the world that i hate and detest, it's the stuff he and ma talk. i wonder the very paving-stones opposite our house can have the patience to stay there and be a witness of such inconsistencies and contradictions as all that sounding nonsense, and ma's management!" i could not but understand her to refer to mr. quale, the young gentleman who had appeared after dinner yesterday. i was saved the disagreeable necessity of pursuing the subject by richard and ada coming up at a round pace, laughing and asking us if we meant to run a race. thus interrupted, miss jellyby became silent and walked moodily on at my side while i admired the long successions and varieties of streets, the quantity of people already going to and fro, the number of vehicles passing and repassing, the busy preparations in the setting forth of shop windows and the sweeping out of shops, and the extraordinary creatures in rags secretly groping among the swept-out rubbish for pins and other refuse. "so, cousin," said the cheerful voice of richard to ada behind me. "we are never to get out of chancery! we have come by another way to our place of meeting yesterday, and--by the great seal, here's the old lady again!" truly, there she was, immediately in front of us, curtsying, and smiling, and saying with her yesterday's air of patronage, "the wards in jarndyce! ve-ry happy, i am sure!" "you are out early, ma'am," said i as she curtsied to me. "ye-es! i usually walk here early. before the court sits. it's retired. i collect my thoughts here for the business of the day," said the old lady mincingly. "the business of the day requires a great deal of thought. chancery justice is so ve-ry difficult to follow." "who's this, miss summerson?" whispered miss jellyby, drawing my arm tighter through her own. the little old lady's hearing was remarkably quick. she answered for herself directly. "a suitor, my child. at your service. i have the honour to attend court regularly. with my documents. have i the pleasure of addressing another of the youthful parties in jarndyce?" said the old lady, recovering herself, with her head on one side, from a very low curtsy. richard, anxious to atone for his thoughtlessness of yesterday, good-naturedly explained that miss jellyby was not connected with the suit. "ha!" said the old lady. "she does not expect a judgment? she will still grow old. but not so old. oh, dear, no! this is the garden of lincoln's inn. i call it my garden. it is quite a bower in the summer-time. where the birds sing melodiously. i pass the greater part of the long vacation here. in contemplation. you find the long vacation exceedingly long, don't you?" we said yes, as she seemed to expect us to say so. "when the leaves are falling from the trees and there are no more flowers in bloom to make up into nosegays for the lord chancellor's court," said the old lady, "the vacation is fulfilled and the sixth seal, mentioned in the revelations, again prevails. pray come and see my lodging. it will be a good omen for me. youth, and hope, and beauty are very seldom there. it is a long, long time since i had a visit from either." she had taken my hand, and leading me and miss jellyby away, beckoned richard and ada to come too. i did not know how to excuse myself and looked to richard for aid. as he was half amused and half curious and all in doubt how to get rid of the old lady without offence, she continued to lead us away, and he and ada continued to follow, our strange conductress informing us all the time, with much smiling condescension, that she lived close by. it was quite true, as it soon appeared. she lived so close by that we had not time to have done humouring her for a few moments before she was at home. slipping us out at a little side gate, the old lady stopped most unexpectedly in a narrow back street, part of some courts and lanes immediately outside the wall of the inn, and said, "this is my lodging. pray walk up!" she had stopped at a shop over which was written krook, rag and bottle warehouse. also, in long thin letters, krook, dealer in marine stores. in one part of the window was a picture of a red paper mill at which a cart was unloading a quantity of sacks of old rags. in another was the inscription bones bought. in another, kitchen-stuff bought. in another, old iron bought. in another, waste-paper bought. in another, ladies' and gentlemen's wardrobes bought. everything seemed to be bought and nothing to be sold there. in all parts of the window were quantities of dirty bottles--blacking bottles, medicine bottles, ginger-beer and soda-water bottles, pickle bottles, wine bottles, ink bottles; i am reminded by mentioning the latter that the shop had in several little particulars the air of being in a legal neighbourhood and of being, as it were, a dirty hanger-on and disowned relation of the law. there were a great many ink bottles. there was a little tottering bench of shabby old volumes outside the door, labelled "law books, all at d." some of the inscriptions i have enumerated were written in law-hand, like the papers i had seen in kenge and carboy's office and the letters i had so long received from the firm. among them was one, in the same writing, having nothing to do with the business of the shop, but announcing that a respectable man aged forty-five wanted engrossing or copying to execute with neatness and dispatch: address to nemo, care of mr. krook, within. there were several second-hand bags, blue and red, hanging up. a little way within the shop-door lay heaps of old crackled parchment scrolls and discoloured and dog's-eared law-papers. i could have fancied that all the rusty keys, of which there must have been hundreds huddled together as old iron, had once belonged to doors of rooms or strong chests in lawyers' offices. the litter of rags tumbled partly into and partly out of a one-legged wooden scale, hanging without any counterpoise from a beam, might have been counsellors' bands and gowns torn up. one had only to fancy, as richard whispered to ada and me while we all stood looking in, that yonder bones in a corner, piled together and picked very clean, were the bones of clients, to make the picture complete. as it was still foggy and dark, and as the shop was blinded besides by the wall of lincoln's inn, intercepting the light within a couple of yards, we should not have seen so much but for a lighted lantern that an old man in spectacles and a hairy cap was carrying about in the shop. turning towards the door, he now caught sight of us. he was short, cadaverous, and withered, with his head sunk sideways between his shoulders and the breath issuing in visible smoke from his mouth as if he were on fire within. his throat, chin, and eyebrows were so frosted with white hairs and so gnarled with veins and puckered skin that he looked from his breast upward like some old root in a fall of snow. "hi, hi!" said the old man, coming to the door. "have you anything to sell?" we naturally drew back and glanced at our conductress, who had been trying to open the house-door with a key she had taken from her pocket, and to whom richard now said that as we had had the pleasure of seeing where she lived, we would leave her, being pressed for time. but she was not to be so easily left. she became so fantastically and pressingly earnest in her entreaties that we would walk up and see her apartment for an instant, and was so bent, in her harmless way, on leading me in, as part of the good omen she desired, that i (whatever the others might do) saw nothing for it but to comply. i suppose we were all more or less curious; at any rate, when the old man added his persuasions to hers and said, "aye, aye! please her! it won't take a minute! come in, come in! come in through the shop if t'other door's out of order!" we all went in, stimulated by richard's laughing encouragement and relying on his protection. "my landlord, krook," said the little old lady, condescending to him from her lofty station as she presented him to us. "he is called among the neighbours the lord chancellor. his shop is called the court of chancery. he is a very eccentric person. he is very odd. oh, i assure you he is very odd!" she shook her head a great many times and tapped her forehead with her finger to express to us that we must have the goodness to excuse him, "for he is a little--you know--m!" said the old lady with great stateliness. the old man overheard, and laughed. "it's true enough," he said, going before us with the lantern, "that they call me the lord chancellor and call my shop chancery. and why do you think they call me the lord chancellor and my shop chancery?" "i don't know, i am sure!" said richard rather carelessly. "you see," said the old man, stopping and turning round, "they--hi! here's lovely hair! i have got three sacks of ladies' hair below, but none so beautiful and fine as this. what colour, and what texture!" "that'll do, my good friend!" said richard, strongly disapproving of his having drawn one of ada's tresses through his yellow hand. "you can admire as the rest of us do without taking that liberty." the old man darted at him a sudden look which even called my attention from ada, who, startled and blushing, was so remarkably beautiful that she seemed to fix the wandering attention of the little old lady herself. but as ada interposed and laughingly said she could only feel proud of such genuine admiration, mr. krook shrunk into his former self as suddenly as he had leaped out of it. "you see, i have so many things here," he resumed, holding up the lantern, "of so many kinds, and all as the neighbours think (but they know nothing), wasting away and going to rack and ruin, that that's why they have given me and my place a christening. and i have so many old parchmentses and papers in my stock. and i have a liking for rust and must and cobwebs. and all's fish that comes to my net. and i can't abear to part with anything i once lay hold of (or so my neighbours think, but what do they know?) or to alter anything, or to have any sweeping, nor scouring, nor cleaning, nor repairing going on about me. that's the way i've got the ill name of chancery. i don't mind. i go to see my noble and learned brother pretty well every day, when he sits in the inn. he don't notice me, but i notice him. there's no great odds betwixt us. we both grub on in a muddle. hi, lady jane!" a large grey cat leaped from some neighbouring shelf on his shoulder and startled us all. "hi! show 'em how you scratch. hi! tear, my lady!" said her master. the cat leaped down and ripped at a bundle of rags with her tigerish claws, with a sound that it set my teeth on edge to hear. "she'd do as much for any one i was to set her on," said the old man. "i deal in cat-skins among other general matters, and hers was offered to me. it's a very fine skin, as you may see, but i didn't have it stripped off! that warn't like chancery practice though, says you!" he had by this time led us across the shop, and now opened a door in the back part of it, leading to the house-entry. as he stood with his hand upon the lock, the little old lady graciously observed to him before passing out, "that will do, krook. you mean well, but are tiresome. my young friends are pressed for time. i have none to spare myself, having to attend court very soon. my young friends are the wards in jarndyce." "jarndyce!" said the old man with a start. "jarndyce and jarndyce. the great suit, krook," returned his lodger. "hi!" exclaimed the old man in a tone of thoughtful amazement and with a wider stare than before. "think of it!" he seemed so rapt all in a moment and looked so curiously at us that richard said, "why, you appear to trouble yourself a good deal about the causes before your noble and learned brother, the other chancellor!" "yes," said the old man abstractedly. "sure! your name now will be--" "richard carstone." "carstone," he repeated, slowly checking off that name upon his forefinger; and each of the others he went on to mention upon a separate finger. "yes. there was the name of barbary, and the name of clare, and the name of dedlock, too, i think." "he knows as much of the cause as the real salaried chancellor!" said richard, quite astonished, to ada and me. "aye!" said the old man, coming slowly out of his abstraction. "yes! tom jarndyce--you'll excuse me, being related; but he was never known about court by any other name, and was as well known there as--she is now," nodding slightly at his lodger. "tom jarndyce was often in here. he got into a restless habit of strolling about when the cause was on, or expected, talking to the little shopkeepers and telling 'em to keep out of chancery, whatever they did. 'for,' says he, 'it's being ground to bits in a slow mill; it's being roasted at a slow fire; it's being stung to death by single bees; it's being drowned by drops; it's going mad by grains.' he was as near making away with himself, just where the young lady stands, as near could be." we listened with horror. "he come in at the door," said the old man, slowly pointing an imaginary track along the shop, "on the day he did it--the whole neighbourhood had said for months before that he would do it, of a certainty sooner or later--he come in at the door that day, and walked along there, and sat himself on a bench that stood there, and asked me (you'll judge i was a mortal sight younger then) to fetch him a pint of wine. 'for,' says he, 'krook, i am much depressed; my cause is on again, and i think i'm nearer judgment than i ever was.' i hadn't a mind to leave him alone; and i persuaded him to go to the tavern over the way there, t'other side my lane (i mean chancery lane); and i followed and looked in at the window, and saw him, comfortable as i thought, in the arm-chair by the fire, and company with him. i hadn't hardly got back here when i heard a shot go echoing and rattling right away into the inn. i ran out--neighbours ran out--twenty of us cried at once, 'tom jarndyce!'" the old man stopped, looked hard at us, looked down into the lantern, blew the light out, and shut the lantern up. "we were right, i needn't tell the present hearers. hi! to be sure, how the neighbourhood poured into court that afternoon while the cause was on! how my noble and learned brother, and all the rest of 'em, grubbed and muddled away as usual and tried to look as if they hadn't heard a word of the last fact in the case or as if they had--oh, dear me!--nothing at all to do with it if they had heard of it by any chance!" ada's colour had entirely left her, and richard was scarcely less pale. nor could i wonder, judging even from my emotions, and i was no party in the suit, that to hearts so untried and fresh it was a shock to come into the inheritance of a protracted misery, attended in the minds of many people with such dreadful recollections. i had another uneasiness, in the application of the painful story to the poor half-witted creature who had brought us there; but, to my surprise, she seemed perfectly unconscious of that and only led the way upstairs again, informing us with the toleration of a superior creature for the infirmities of a common mortal that her landlord was "a little m, you know!" she lived at the top of the house, in a pretty large room, from which she had a glimpse of lincoln's inn hall. this seemed to have been her principal inducement, originally, for taking up her residence there. she could look at it, she said, in the night, especially in the moonshine. her room was clean, but very, very bare. i noticed the scantiest necessaries in the way of furniture; a few old prints from books, of chancellors and barristers, wafered against the wall; and some half-dozen reticles and work-bags, "containing documents," as she informed us. there were neither coals nor ashes in the grate, and i saw no articles of clothing anywhere, nor any kind of food. upon a shelf in an open cupboard were a plate or two, a cup or two, and so forth, but all dry and empty. there was a more affecting meaning in her pinched appearance, i thought as i looked round, than i had understood before. "extremely honoured, i am sure," said our poor hostess with the greatest suavity, "by this visit from the wards in jarndyce. and very much indebted for the omen. it is a retired situation. considering. i am limited as to situation. in consequence of the necessity of attending on the chancellor. i have lived here many years. i pass my days in court, my evenings and my nights here. i find the nights long, for i sleep but little and think much. that is, of course, unavoidable, being in chancery. i am sorry i cannot offer chocolate. i expect a judgment shortly and shall then place my establishment on a superior footing. at present, i don't mind confessing to the wards in jarndyce (in strict confidence) that i sometimes find it difficult to keep up a genteel appearance. i have felt the cold here. i have felt something sharper than cold. it matters very little. pray excuse the introduction of such mean topics." she partly drew aside the curtain of the long, low garret window and called our attention to a number of bird-cages hanging there, some containing several birds. there were larks, linnets, and goldfinches--i should think at least twenty. "i began to keep the little creatures," she said, "with an object that the wards will readily comprehend. with the intention of restoring them to liberty. when my judgment should be given. ye-es! they die in prison, though. their lives, poor silly things, are so short in comparison with chancery proceedings that, one by one, the whole collection has died over and over again. i doubt, do you know, whether one of these, though they are all young, will live to be free! ve-ry mortifying, is it not?" although she sometimes asked a question, she never seemed to expect a reply, but rambled on as if she were in the habit of doing so when no one but herself was present. "indeed," she pursued, "i positively doubt sometimes, i do assure you, whether while matters are still unsettled, and the sixth or great seal still prevails, i may not one day be found lying stark and senseless here, as i have found so many birds!" richard, answering what he saw in ada's compassionate eyes, took the opportunity of laying some money, softly and unobserved, on the chimney-piece. we all drew nearer to the cages, feigning to examine the birds. "i can't allow them to sing much," said the little old lady, "for (you'll think this curious) i find my mind confused by the idea that they are singing while i am following the arguments in court. and my mind requires to be so very clear, you know! another time, i'll tell you their names. not at present. on a day of such good omen, they shall sing as much as they like. in honour of youth," a smile and curtsy, "hope," a smile and curtsy, "and beauty," a smile and curtsy. "there! we'll let in the full light." the birds began to stir and chirp. "i cannot admit the air freely," said the little old lady--the room was close, and would have been the better for it--"because the cat you saw downstairs, called lady jane, is greedy for their lives. she crouches on the parapet outside for hours and hours. i have discovered," whispering mysteriously, "that her natural cruelty is sharpened by a jealous fear of their regaining their liberty. in consequence of the judgment i expect being shortly given. she is sly and full of malice. i half believe, sometimes, that she is no cat, but the wolf of the old saying. it is so very difficult to keep her from the door." some neighbouring bells, reminding the poor soul that it was half-past nine, did more for us in the way of bringing our visit to an end than we could easily have done for ourselves. she hurriedly took up her little bag of documents, which she had laid upon the table on coming in, and asked if we were also going into court. on our answering no, and that we would on no account detain her, she opened the door to attend us downstairs. "with such an omen, it is even more necessary than usual that i should be there before the chancellor comes in," said she, "for he might mention my case the first thing. i have a presentiment that he will mention it the first thing this morning." she stopped to tell us in a whisper as we were going down that the whole house was filled with strange lumber which her landlord had bought piecemeal and had no wish to sell, in consequence of being a little m. this was on the first floor. but she had made a previous stoppage on the second floor and had silently pointed at a dark door there. "the only other lodger," she now whispered in explanation, "a law-writer. the children in the lanes here say he has sold himself to the devil. i don't know what he can have done with the money. hush!" she appeared to mistrust that the lodger might hear her even there, and repeating "hush!" went before us on tiptoe as though even the sound of her footsteps might reveal to him what she had said. passing through the shop on our way out, as we had passed through it on our way in, we found the old man storing a quantity of packets of waste-paper in a kind of well in the floor. he seemed to be working hard, with the perspiration standing on his forehead, and had a piece of chalk by him, with which, as he put each separate package or bundle down, he made a crooked mark on the panelling of the wall. richard and ada, and miss jellyby, and the little old lady had gone by him, and i was going when he touched me on the arm to stay me, and chalked the letter j upon the wall--in a very curious manner, beginning with the end of the letter and shaping it backward. it was a capital letter, not a printed one, but just such a letter as any clerk in messrs. kenge and carboy's office would have made. "can you read it?" he asked me with a keen glance. "surely," said i. "it's very plain." "what is it?" "j." with another glance at me, and a glance at the door, he rubbed it out and turned an "a" in its place (not a capital letter this time), and said, "what's that?" i told him. he then rubbed that out and turned the letter "r," and asked me the same question. he went on quickly until he had formed in the same curious manner, beginning at the ends and bottoms of the letters, the word jarndyce, without once leaving two letters on the wall together. "what does that spell?" he asked me. when i told him, he laughed. in the same odd way, yet with the same rapidity, he then produced singly, and rubbed out singly, the letters forming the words bleak house. these, in some astonishment, i also read; and he laughed again. "hi!" said the old man, laying aside the chalk. "i have a turn for copying from memory, you see, miss, though i can neither read nor write." he looked so disagreeable and his cat looked so wickedly at me, as if i were a blood-relation of the birds upstairs, that i was quite relieved by richard's appearing at the door and saying, "miss summerson, i hope you are not bargaining for the sale of your hair. don't be tempted. three sacks below are quite enough for mr. krook!" i lost no time in wishing mr. krook good morning and joining my friends outside, where we parted with the little old lady, who gave us her blessing with great ceremony and renewed her assurance of yesterday in reference to her intention of settling estates on ada and me. before we finally turned out of those lanes, we looked back and saw mr. krook standing at his shop-door, in his spectacles, looking after us, with his cat upon his shoulder, and her tail sticking up on one side of his hairy cap like a tall feather. "quite an adventure for a morning in london!" said richard with a sigh. "ah, cousin, cousin, it's a weary word this chancery!" "it is to me, and has been ever since i can remember," returned ada. "i am grieved that i should be the enemy--as i suppose i am--of a great number of relations and others, and that they should be my enemies--as i suppose they are--and that we should all be ruining one another without knowing how or why and be in constant doubt and discord all our lives. it seems very strange, as there must be right somewhere, that an honest judge in real earnest has not been able to find out through all these years where it is." "ah, cousin!" said richard. "strange, indeed! all this wasteful, wanton chess-playing is very strange. to see that composed court yesterday jogging on so serenely and to think of the wretchedness of the pieces on the board gave me the headache and the heartache both together. my head ached with wondering how it happened, if men were neither fools nor rascals; and my heart ached to think they could possibly be either. but at all events, ada--i may call you ada?" "of course you may, cousin richard." "at all events, chancery will work none of its bad influences on us. we have happily been brought together, thanks to our good kinsman, and it can't divide us now!" "never, i hope, cousin richard!" said ada gently. miss jellyby gave my arm a squeeze and me a very significant look. i smiled in return, and we made the rest of the way back very pleasantly. in half an hour after our arrival, mrs. jellyby appeared; and in the course of an hour the various things necessary for breakfast straggled one by one into the dining-room. i do not doubt that mrs. jellyby had gone to bed and got up in the usual manner, but she presented no appearance of having changed her dress. she was greatly occupied during breakfast, for the morning's post brought a heavy correspondence relative to borrioboola-gha, which would occasion her (she said) to pass a busy day. the children tumbled about, and notched memoranda of their accidents in their legs, which were perfect little calendars of distress; and peepy was lost for an hour and a half, and brought home from newgate market by a policeman. the equable manner in which mrs. jellyby sustained both his absence and his restoration to the family circle surprised us all. she was by that time perseveringly dictating to caddy, and caddy was fast relapsing into the inky condition in which we had found her. at one o'clock an open carriage arrived for us, and a cart for our luggage. mrs. jellyby charged us with many remembrances to her good friend mr. jarndyce; caddy left her desk to see us depart, kissed me in the passage, and stood biting her pen and sobbing on the steps; peepy, i am happy to say, was asleep and spared the pain of separation (i was not without misgivings that he had gone to newgate market in search of me); and all the other children got up behind the barouche and fell off, and we saw them, with great concern, scattered over the surface of thavies inn as we rolled out of its precincts. chapter vi quite at home the day had brightened very much, and still brightened as we went westward. we went our way through the sunshine and the fresh air, wondering more and more at the extent of the streets, the brilliancy of the shops, the great traffic, and the crowds of people whom the pleasanter weather seemed to have brought out like many-coloured flowers. by and by we began to leave the wonderful city and to proceed through suburbs which, of themselves, would have made a pretty large town in my eyes; and at last we got into a real country road again, with windmills, rick-yards, milestones, farmers' waggons, scents of old hay, swinging signs, and horse troughs: trees, fields, and hedge-rows. it was delightful to see the green landscape before us and the immense metropolis behind; and when a waggon with a train of beautiful horses, furnished with red trappings and clear-sounding bells, came by us with its music, i believe we could all three have sung to the bells, so cheerful were the influences around. "the whole road has been reminding me of my namesake whittington," said richard, "and that waggon is the finishing touch. halloa! what's the matter?" we had stopped, and the waggon had stopped too. its music changed as the horses came to a stand, and subsided to a gentle tinkling, except when a horse tossed his head or shook himself and sprinkled off a little shower of bell-ringing. "our postilion is looking after the waggoner," said richard, "and the waggoner is coming back after us. good day, friend!" the waggoner was at our coach-door. "why, here's an extraordinary thing!" added richard, looking closely at the man. "he has got your name, ada, in his hat!" he had all our names in his hat. tucked within the band were three small notes--one addressed to ada, one to richard, one to me. these the waggoner delivered to each of us respectively, reading the name aloud first. in answer to richard's inquiry from whom they came, he briefly answered, "master, sir, if you please"; and putting on his hat again (which was like a soft bowl), cracked his whip, re-awakened his music, and went melodiously away. "is that mr. jarndyce's waggon?" said richard, calling to our post-boy. "yes, sir," he replied. "going to london." we opened the notes. each was a counterpart of the other and contained these words in a solid, plain hand. i look forward, my dear, to our meeting easily and without constraint on either side. i therefore have to propose that we meet as old friends and take the past for granted. it will be a relief to you possibly, and to me certainly, and so my love to you. john jarndyce i had perhaps less reason to be surprised than either of my companions, having never yet enjoyed an opportunity of thanking one who had been my benefactor and sole earthly dependence through so many years. i had not considered how i could thank him, my gratitude lying too deep in my heart for that; but i now began to consider how i could meet him without thanking him, and felt it would be very difficult indeed. the notes revived in richard and ada a general impression that they both had, without quite knowing how they came by it, that their cousin jarndyce could never bear acknowledgments for any kindness he performed and that sooner than receive any he would resort to the most singular expedients and evasions or would even run away. ada dimly remembered to have heard her mother tell, when she was a very little child, that he had once done her an act of uncommon generosity and that on her going to his house to thank him, he happened to see her through a window coming to the door, and immediately escaped by the back gate, and was not heard of for three months. this discourse led to a great deal more on the same theme, and indeed it lasted us all day, and we talked of scarcely anything else. if we did by any chance diverge into another subject, we soon returned to this, and wondered what the house would be like, and when we should get there, and whether we should see mr. jarndyce as soon as we arrived or after a delay, and what he would say to us, and what we should say to him. all of which we wondered about, over and over again. the roads were very heavy for the horses, but the pathway was generally good, so we alighted and walked up all the hills, and liked it so well that we prolonged our walk on the level ground when we got to the top. at barnet there were other horses waiting for us, but as they had only just been fed, we had to wait for them too, and got a long fresh walk over a common and an old battle-field before the carriage came up. these delays so protracted the journey that the short day was spent and the long night had closed in before we came to st. albans, near to which town bleak house was, we knew. by that time we were so anxious and nervous that even richard confessed, as we rattled over the stones of the old street, to feeling an irrational desire to drive back again. as to ada and me, whom he had wrapped up with great care, the night being sharp and frosty, we trembled from head to foot. when we turned out of the town, round a corner, and richard told us that the post-boy, who had for a long time sympathized with our heightened expectation, was looking back and nodding, we both stood up in the carriage (richard holding ada lest she should be jolted down) and gazed round upon the open country and the starlight night for our destination. there was a light sparkling on the top of a hill before us, and the driver, pointing to it with his whip and crying, "that's bleak house!" put his horses into a canter and took us forward at such a rate, uphill though it was, that the wheels sent the road drift flying about our heads like spray from a water-mill. presently we lost the light, presently saw it, presently lost it, presently saw it, and turned into an avenue of trees and cantered up towards where it was beaming brightly. it was in a window of what seemed to be an old-fashioned house with three peaks in the roof in front and a circular sweep leading to the porch. a bell was rung as we drew up, and amidst the sound of its deep voice in the still air, and the distant barking of some dogs, and a gush of light from the opened door, and the smoking and steaming of the heated horses, and the quickened beating of our own hearts, we alighted in no inconsiderable confusion. "ada, my love, esther, my dear, you are welcome. i rejoice to see you! rick, if i had a hand to spare at present, i would give it you!" the gentleman who said these words in a clear, bright, hospitable voice had one of his arms round ada's waist and the other round mine, and kissed us both in a fatherly way, and bore us across the hall into a ruddy little room, all in a glow with a blazing fire. here he kissed us again, and opening his arms, made us sit down side by side on a sofa ready drawn out near the hearth. i felt that if we had been at all demonstrative, he would have run away in a moment. "now, rick!" said he. "i have a hand at liberty. a word in earnest is as good as a speech. i am heartily glad to see you. you are at home. warm yourself!" richard shook him by both hands with an intuitive mixture of respect and frankness, and only saying (though with an earnestness that rather alarmed me, i was so afraid of mr. jarndyce's suddenly disappearing), "you are very kind, sir! we are very much obliged to you!" laid aside his hat and coat and came up to the fire. "and how did you like the ride? and how did you like mrs. jellyby, my dear?" said mr. jarndyce to ada. while ada was speaking to him in reply, i glanced (i need not say with how much interest) at his face. it was a handsome, lively, quick face, full of change and motion; and his hair was a silvered iron-grey. i took him to be nearer sixty than fifty, but he was upright, hearty, and robust. from the moment of his first speaking to us his voice had connected itself with an association in my mind that i could not define; but now, all at once, a something sudden in his manner and a pleasant expression in his eyes recalled the gentleman in the stagecoach six years ago on the memorable day of my journey to reading. i was certain it was he. i never was so frightened in my life as when i made the discovery, for he caught my glance, and appearing to read my thoughts, gave such a look at the door that i thought we had lost him. however, i am happy to say he remained where he was, and asked me what i thought of mrs. jellyby. "she exerts herself very much for africa, sir," i said. "nobly!" returned mr. jarndyce. "but you answer like ada." whom i had not heard. "you all think something else, i see." "we rather thought," said i, glancing at richard and ada, who entreated me with their eyes to speak, "that perhaps she was a little unmindful of her home." "floored!" cried mr. jarndyce. i was rather alarmed again. "well! i want to know your real thoughts, my dear. i may have sent you there on purpose." "we thought that, perhaps," said i, hesitating, "it is right to begin with the obligations of home, sir; and that, perhaps, while those are overlooked and neglected, no other duties can possibly be substituted for them." "the little jellybys," said richard, coming to my relief, "are really--i can't help expressing myself strongly, sir--in a devil of a state." "she means well," said mr. jarndyce hastily. "the wind's in the east." "it was in the north, sir, as we came down," observed richard. "my dear rick," said mr. jarndyce, poking the fire, "i'll take an oath it's either in the east or going to be. i am always conscious of an uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing in the east." "rheumatism, sir?" said richard. "i dare say it is, rick. i believe it is. and so the little jell--i had my doubts about 'em--are in a--oh, lord, yes, it's easterly!" said mr. jarndyce. he had taken two or three undecided turns up and down while uttering these broken sentences, retaining the poker in one hand and rubbing his hair with the other, with a good-natured vexation at once so whimsical and so lovable that i am sure we were more delighted with him than we could possibly have expressed in any words. he gave an arm to ada and an arm to me, and bidding richard bring a candle, was leading the way out when he suddenly turned us all back again. "those little jellybys. couldn't you--didn't you--now, if it had rained sugar-plums, or three-cornered raspberry tarts, or anything of that sort!" said mr. jarndyce. "oh, cousin--" ada hastily began. "good, my pretty pet. i like cousin. cousin john, perhaps, is better." "then, cousin john--" ada laughingly began again. "ha, ha! very good indeed!" said mr. jarndyce with great enjoyment. "sounds uncommonly natural. yes, my dear?" "it did better than that. it rained esther." "aye?" said mr. jarndyce. "what did esther do?" "why, cousin john," said ada, clasping her hands upon his arm and shaking her head at me across him--for i wanted her to be quiet--"esther was their friend directly. esther nursed them, coaxed them to sleep, washed and dressed them, told them stories, kept them quiet, bought them keepsakes"--my dear girl! i had only gone out with peepy after he was found and given him a little, tiny horse!--"and, cousin john, she softened poor caroline, the eldest one, so much and was so thoughtful for me and so amiable! no, no, i won't be contradicted, esther dear! you know, you know, it's true!" the warm-hearted darling leaned across her cousin john and kissed me, and then looking up in his face, boldly said, "at all events, cousin john, i will thank you for the companion you have given me." i felt as if she challenged him to run away. but he didn't. "where did you say the wind was, rick?" asked mr. jarndyce. "in the north as we came down, sir." "you are right. there's no east in it. a mistake of mine. come, girls, come and see your home!" it was one of those delightfully irregular houses where you go up and down steps out of one room into another, and where you come upon more rooms when you think you have seen all there are, and where there is a bountiful provision of little halls and passages, and where you find still older cottage-rooms in unexpected places with lattice windows and green growth pressing through them. mine, which we entered first, was of this kind, with an up-and-down roof that had more corners in it than i ever counted afterwards and a chimney (there was a wood fire on the hearth) paved all around with pure white tiles, in every one of which a bright miniature of the fire was blazing. out of this room, you went down two steps into a charming little sitting-room looking down upon a flower-garden, which room was henceforth to belong to ada and me. out of this you went up three steps into ada's bedroom, which had a fine broad window commanding a beautiful view (we saw a great expanse of darkness lying underneath the stars), to which there was a hollow window-seat, in which, with a spring-lock, three dear adas might have been lost at once. out of this room you passed into a little gallery, with which the other best rooms (only two) communicated, and so, by a little staircase of shallow steps with a number of corner stairs in it, considering its length, down into the hall. but if instead of going out at ada's door you came back into my room, and went out at the door by which you had entered it, and turned up a few crooked steps that branched off in an unexpected manner from the stairs, you lost yourself in passages, with mangles in them, and three-cornered tables, and a native hindu chair, which was also a sofa, a box, and a bedstead, and looked in every form something between a bamboo skeleton and a great bird-cage, and had been brought from india nobody knew by whom or when. from these you came on richard's room, which was part library, part sitting-room, part bedroom, and seemed indeed a comfortable compound of many rooms. out of that you went straight, with a little interval of passage, to the plain room where mr. jarndyce slept, all the year round, with his window open, his bedstead without any furniture standing in the middle of the floor for more air, and his cold bath gaping for him in a smaller room adjoining. out of that you came into another passage, where there were back-stairs and where you could hear the horses being rubbed down outside the stable and being told to "hold up" and "get over," as they slipped about very much on the uneven stones. or you might, if you came out at another door (every room had at least two doors), go straight down to the hall again by half-a-dozen steps and a low archway, wondering how you got back there or had ever got out of it. the furniture, old-fashioned rather than old, like the house, was as pleasantly irregular. ada's sleeping-room was all flowers--in chintz and paper, in velvet, in needlework, in the brocade of two stiff courtly chairs which stood, each attended by a little page of a stool for greater state, on either side of the fire-place. our sitting-room was green and had framed and glazed upon the walls numbers of surprising and surprised birds, staring out of pictures at a real trout in a case, as brown and shining as if it had been served with gravy; at the death of captain cook; and at the whole process of preparing tea in china, as depicted by chinese artists. in my room there were oval engravings of the months--ladies haymaking in short waists and large hats tied under the chin, for june; smooth-legged noblemen pointing with cocked-hats to village steeples, for october. half-length portraits in crayons abounded all through the house, but were so dispersed that i found the brother of a youthful officer of mine in the china-closet and the grey old age of my pretty young bride, with a flower in her bodice, in the breakfast-room. as substitutes, i had four angels, of queen anne's reign, taking a complacent gentleman to heaven, in festoons, with some difficulty; and a composition in needlework representing fruit, a kettle, and an alphabet. all the movables, from the wardrobes to the chairs and tables, hangings, glasses, even to the pincushions and scent-bottles on the dressing-tables, displayed the same quaint variety. they agreed in nothing but their perfect neatness, their display of the whitest linen, and their storing-up, wheresoever the existence of a drawer, small or large, rendered it possible, of quantities of rose-leaves and sweet lavender. such, with its illuminated windows, softened here and there by shadows of curtains, shining out upon the starlight night; with its light, and warmth, and comfort; with its hospitable jingle, at a distance, of preparations for dinner; with the face of its generous master brightening everything we saw; and just wind enough without to sound a low accompaniment to everything we heard, were our first impressions of bleak house. "i am glad you like it," said mr. jarndyce when he had brought us round again to ada's sitting-room. "it makes no pretensions, but it is a comfortable little place, i hope, and will be more so with such bright young looks in it. you have barely half an hour before dinner. there's no one here but the finest creature upon earth--a child." "more children, esther!" said ada. "i don't mean literally a child," pursued mr. jarndyce; "not a child in years. he is grown up--he is at least as old as i am--but in simplicity, and freshness, and enthusiasm, and a fine guileless inaptitude for all worldly affairs, he is a perfect child." we felt that he must be very interesting. "he knows mrs. jellyby," said mr. jarndyce. "he is a musical man, an amateur, but might have been a professional. he is an artist too, an amateur, but might have been a professional. he is a man of attainments and of captivating manners. he has been unfortunate in his affairs, and unfortunate in his pursuits, and unfortunate in his family; but he don't care--he's a child!" "did you imply that he has children of his own, sir?" inquired richard. "yes, rick! half-a-dozen. more! nearer a dozen, i should think. but he has never looked after them. how could he? he wanted somebody to look after him. he is a child, you know!" said mr. jarndyce. "and have the children looked after themselves at all, sir?" inquired richard. "why, just as you may suppose," said mr. jarndyce, his countenance suddenly falling. "it is said that the children of the very poor are not brought up, but dragged up. harold skimpole's children have tumbled up somehow or other. the wind's getting round again, i am afraid. i feel it rather!" richard observed that the situation was exposed on a sharp night. "it is exposed," said mr. jarndyce. "no doubt that's the cause. bleak house has an exposed sound. but you are coming my way. come along!" our luggage having arrived and being all at hand, i was dressed in a few minutes and engaged in putting my worldly goods away when a maid (not the one in attendance upon ada, but another, whom i had not seen) brought a basket into my room with two bunches of keys in it, all labelled. "for you, miss, if you please," said she. "for me?" said i. "the housekeeping keys, miss." i showed my surprise, for she added with some little surprise on her own part, "i was told to bring them as soon as you was alone, miss. miss summerson, if i don't deceive myself?" "yes," said i. "that is my name." "the large bunch is the housekeeping, and the little bunch is the cellars, miss. any time you was pleased to appoint to-morrow morning, i was to show you the presses and things they belong to." i said i would be ready at half-past six, and after she was gone, stood looking at the basket, quite lost in the magnitude of my trust. ada found me thus and had such a delightful confidence in me when i showed her the keys and told her about them that it would have been insensibility and ingratitude not to feel encouraged. i knew, to be sure, that it was the dear girl's kindness, but i liked to be so pleasantly cheated. when we went downstairs, we were presented to mr. skimpole, who was standing before the fire telling richard how fond he used to be, in his school-time, of football. he was a little bright creature with a rather large head, but a delicate face and a sweet voice, and there was a perfect charm in him. all he said was so free from effort and spontaneous and was said with such a captivating gaiety that it was fascinating to hear him talk. being of a more slender figure than mr. jarndyce and having a richer complexion, with browner hair, he looked younger. indeed, he had more the appearance in all respects of a damaged young man than a well-preserved elderly one. there was an easy negligence in his manner and even in his dress (his hair carelessly disposed, and his neck-kerchief loose and flowing, as i have seen artists paint their own portraits) which i could not separate from the idea of a romantic youth who had undergone some unique process of depreciation. it struck me as being not at all like the manner or appearance of a man who had advanced in life by the usual road of years, cares, and experiences. i gathered from the conversation that mr. skimpole had been educated for the medical profession and had once lived, in his professional capacity, in the household of a german prince. he told us, however, that as he had always been a mere child in point of weights and measures and had never known anything about them (except that they disgusted him), he had never been able to prescribe with the requisite accuracy of detail. in fact, he said, he had no head for detail. and he told us, with great humour, that when he was wanted to bleed the prince or physic any of his people, he was generally found lying on his back in bed, reading the newspapers or making fancy-sketches in pencil, and couldn't come. the prince, at last, objecting to this, "in which," said mr. skimpole, in the frankest manner, "he was perfectly right," the engagement terminated, and mr. skimpole having (as he added with delightful gaiety) "nothing to live upon but love, fell in love, and married, and surrounded himself with rosy cheeks." his good friend jarndyce and some other of his good friends then helped him, in quicker or slower succession, to several openings in life, but to no purpose, for he must confess to two of the oldest infirmities in the world: one was that he had no idea of time, the other that he had no idea of money. in consequence of which he never kept an appointment, never could transact any business, and never knew the value of anything! well! so he had got on in life, and here he was! he was very fond of reading the papers, very fond of making fancy-sketches with a pencil, very fond of nature, very fond of art. all he asked of society was to let him live. that wasn't much. his wants were few. give him the papers, conversation, music, mutton, coffee, landscape, fruit in the season, a few sheets of bristol-board, and a little claret, and he asked no more. he was a mere child in the world, but he didn't cry for the moon. he said to the world, "go your several ways in peace! wear red coats, blue coats, lawn sleeves; put pens behind your ears, wear aprons; go after glory, holiness, commerce, trade, any object you prefer; only--let harold skimpole live!" all this and a great deal more he told us, not only with the utmost brilliancy and enjoyment, but with a certain vivacious candour--speaking of himself as if he were not at all his own affair, as if skimpole were a third person, as if he knew that skimpole had his singularities but still had his claims too, which were the general business of the community and must not be slighted. he was quite enchanting. if i felt at all confused at that early time in endeavouring to reconcile anything he said with anything i had thought about the duties and accountabilities of life (which i am far from sure of), i was confused by not exactly understanding why he was free of them. that he was free of them, i scarcely doubted; he was so very clear about it himself. "i covet nothing," said mr. skimpole in the same light way. "possession is nothing to me. here is my friend jarndyce's excellent house. i feel obliged to him for possessing it. i can sketch it and alter it. i can set it to music. when i am here, i have sufficient possession of it and have neither trouble, cost, nor responsibility. my steward's name, in short, is jarndyce, and he can't cheat me. we have been mentioning mrs. jellyby. there is a bright-eyed woman, of a strong will and immense power of business detail, who throws herself into objects with surprising ardour! i don't regret that i have not a strong will and an immense power of business detail to throw myself into objects with surprising ardour. i can admire her without envy. i can sympathize with the objects. i can dream of them. i can lie down on the grass--in fine weather--and float along an african river, embracing all the natives i meet, as sensible of the deep silence and sketching the dense overhanging tropical growth as accurately as if i were there. i don't know that it's of any direct use my doing so, but it's all i can do, and i do it thoroughly. then, for heaven's sake, having harold skimpole, a confiding child, petitioning you, the world, an agglomeration of practical people of business habits, to let him live and admire the human family, do it somehow or other, like good souls, and suffer him to ride his rocking-horse!" it was plain enough that mr. jarndyce had not been neglectful of the adjuration. mr. skimpole's general position there would have rendered it so without the addition of what he presently said. "it's only you, the generous creatures, whom i envy," said mr. skimpole, addressing us, his new friends, in an impersonal manner. "i envy you your power of doing what you do. it is what i should revel in myself. i don't feel any vulgar gratitude to you. i almost feel as if you ought to be grateful to me for giving you the opportunity of enjoying the luxury of generosity. i know you like it. for anything i can tell, i may have come into the world expressly for the purpose of increasing your stock of happiness. i may have been born to be a benefactor to you by sometimes giving you an opportunity of assisting me in my little perplexities. why should i regret my incapacity for details and worldly affairs when it leads to such pleasant consequences? i don't regret it therefore." of all his playful speeches (playful, yet always fully meaning what they expressed) none seemed to be more to the taste of mr. jarndyce than this. i had often new temptations, afterwards, to wonder whether it was really singular, or only singular to me, that he, who was probably the most grateful of mankind upon the least occasion, should so desire to escape the gratitude of others. we were all enchanted. i felt it a merited tribute to the engaging qualities of ada and richard that mr. skimpole, seeing them for the first time, should be so unreserved and should lay himself out to be so exquisitely agreeable. they (and especially richard) were naturally pleased, for similar reasons, and considered it no common privilege to be so freely confided in by such an attractive man. the more we listened, the more gaily mr. skimpole talked. and what with his fine hilarious manner and his engaging candour and his genial way of lightly tossing his own weaknesses about, as if he had said, "i am a child, you know! you are designing people compared with me" (he really made me consider myself in that light) "but i am gay and innocent; forget your worldly arts and play with me!" the effect was absolutely dazzling. he was so full of feeling too and had such a delicate sentiment for what was beautiful or tender that he could have won a heart by that alone. in the evening, when i was preparing to make tea and ada was touching the piano in the adjoining room and softly humming a tune to her cousin richard, which they had happened to mention, he came and sat down on the sofa near me and so spoke of ada that i almost loved him. "she is like the morning," he said. "with that golden hair, those blue eyes, and that fresh bloom on her cheek, she is like the summer morning. the birds here will mistake her for it. we will not call such a lovely young creature as that, who is a joy to all mankind, an orphan. she is the child of the universe." mr. jarndyce, i found, was standing near us with his hands behind him and an attentive smile upon his face. "the universe," he observed, "makes rather an indifferent parent, i am afraid." "oh! i don't know!" cried mr. skimpole buoyantly. "i think i do know," said mr. jarndyce. "well!" cried mr. skimpole. "you know the world (which in your sense is the universe), and i know nothing of it, so you shall have your way. but if i had mine," glancing at the cousins, "there should be no brambles of sordid realities in such a path as that. it should be strewn with roses; it should lie through bowers, where there was no spring, autumn, nor winter, but perpetual summer. age or change should never wither it. the base word money should never be breathed near it!" mr. jarndyce patted him on the head with a smile, as if he had been really a child, and passing a step or two on, and stopping a moment, glanced at the young cousins. his look was thoughtful, but had a benignant expression in it which i often (how often!) saw again, which has long been engraven on my heart. the room in which they were, communicating with that in which he stood, was only lighted by the fire. ada sat at the piano; richard stood beside her, bending down. upon the wall, their shadows blended together, surrounded by strange forms, not without a ghostly motion caught from the unsteady fire, though reflecting from motionless objects. ada touched the notes so softly and sang so low that the wind, sighing away to the distant hills, was as audible as the music. the mystery of the future and the little clue afforded to it by the voice of the present seemed expressed in the whole picture. but it is not to recall this fancy, well as i remember it, that i recall the scene. first, i was not quite unconscious of the contrast in respect of meaning and intention between the silent look directed that way and the flow of words that had preceded it. secondly, though mr. jarndyce's glance as he withdrew it rested for but a moment on me, i felt as if in that moment he confided to me--and knew that he confided to me and that i received the confidence--his hope that ada and richard might one day enter on a dearer relationship. mr. skimpole could play on the piano and the violoncello, and he was a composer--had composed half an opera once, but got tired of it--and played what he composed with taste. after tea we had quite a little concert, in which richard--who was enthralled by ada's singing and told me that she seemed to know all the songs that ever were written--and mr. jarndyce, and i were the audience. after a little while i missed first mr. skimpole and afterwards richard, and while i was thinking how could richard stay away so long and lose so much, the maid who had given me the keys looked in at the door, saying, "if you please, miss, could you spare a minute?" when i was shut out with her in the hall, she said, holding up her hands, "oh, if you please, miss, mr. carstone says would you come upstairs to mr. skimpole's room. he has been took, miss!" "took?" said i. "took, miss. sudden," said the maid. i was apprehensive that his illness might be of a dangerous kind, but of course i begged her to be quiet and not disturb any one and collected myself, as i followed her quickly upstairs, sufficiently to consider what were the best remedies to be applied if it should prove to be a fit. she threw open a door and i went into a chamber, where, to my unspeakable surprise, instead of finding mr. skimpole stretched upon the bed or prostrate on the floor, i found him standing before the fire smiling at richard, while richard, with a face of great embarrassment, looked at a person on the sofa, in a white great-coat, with smooth hair upon his head and not much of it, which he was wiping smoother and making less of with a pocket-handkerchief. "miss summerson," said richard hurriedly, "i am glad you are come. you will be able to advise us. our friend mr. skimpole--don't be alarmed!--is arrested for debt." "and really, my dear miss summerson," said mr. skimpole with his agreeable candour, "i never was in a situation in which that excellent sense and quiet habit of method and usefulness, which anybody must observe in you who has the happiness of being a quarter of an hour in your society, was more needed." the person on the sofa, who appeared to have a cold in his head, gave such a very loud snort that he startled me. "are you arrested for much, sir?" i inquired of mr. skimpole. "my dear miss summerson," said he, shaking his head pleasantly, "i don't know. some pounds, odd shillings, and halfpence, i think, were mentioned." "it's twenty-four pound, sixteen, and sevenpence ha'penny," observed the stranger. "that's wot it is." "and it sounds--somehow it sounds," said mr. skimpole, "like a small sum?" the strange man said nothing but made another snort. it was such a powerful one that it seemed quite to lift him out of his seat. "mr. skimpole," said richard to me, "has a delicacy in applying to my cousin jarndyce because he has lately--i think, sir, i understood you that you had lately--" "oh, yes!" returned mr. skimpole, smiling. "though i forgot how much it was and when it was. jarndyce would readily do it again, but i have the epicure-like feeling that i would prefer a novelty in help, that i would rather," and he looked at richard and me, "develop generosity in a new soil and in a new form of flower." "what do you think will be best, miss summerson?" said richard, aside. i ventured to inquire, generally, before replying, what would happen if the money were not produced. "jail," said the strange man, coolly putting his handkerchief into his hat, which was on the floor at his feet. "or coavinses." "may i ask, sir, what is--" "coavinses?" said the strange man. "a 'ouse." richard and i looked at one another again. it was a most singular thing that the arrest was our embarrassment and not mr. skimpole's. he observed us with a genial interest, but there seemed, if i may venture on such a contradiction, nothing selfish in it. he had entirely washed his hands of the difficulty, and it had become ours. "i thought," he suggested, as if good-naturedly to help us out, "that being parties in a chancery suit concerning (as people say) a large amount of property, mr. richard or his beautiful cousin, or both, could sign something, or make over something, or give some sort of undertaking, or pledge, or bond? i don't know what the business name of it may be, but i suppose there is some instrument within their power that would settle this?" "not a bit on it," said the strange man. "really?" returned mr. skimpole. "that seems odd, now, to one who is no judge of these things!" "odd or even," said the stranger gruffly, "i tell you, not a bit on it!" "keep your temper, my good fellow, keep your temper!" mr. skimpole gently reasoned with him as he made a little drawing of his head on the fly-leaf of a book. "don't be ruffled by your occupation. we can separate you from your office; we can separate the individual from the pursuit. we are not so prejudiced as to suppose that in private life you are otherwise than a very estimable man, with a great deal of poetry in your nature, of which you may not be conscious." the stranger only answered with another violent snort, whether in acceptance of the poetry-tribute or in disdainful rejection of it, he did not express to me. "now, my dear miss summerson, and my dear mr. richard," said mr. skimpole gaily, innocently, and confidingly as he looked at his drawing with his head on one side, "here you see me utterly incapable of helping myself, and entirely in your hands! i only ask to be free. the butterflies are free. mankind will surely not deny to harold skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!" "my dear miss summerson," said richard in a whisper, "i have ten pounds that i received from mr. kenge. i must try what that will do." i possessed fifteen pounds, odd shillings, which i had saved from my quarterly allowance during several years. i had always thought that some accident might happen which would throw me suddenly, without any relation or any property, on the world and had always tried to keep some little money by me that i might not be quite penniless. i told richard of my having this little store and having no present need of it, and i asked him delicately to inform mr. skimpole, while i should be gone to fetch it, that we would have the pleasure of paying his debt. when i came back, mr. skimpole kissed my hand and seemed quite touched. not on his own account (i was again aware of that perplexing and extraordinary contradiction), but on ours, as if personal considerations were impossible with him and the contemplation of our happiness alone affected him. richard, begging me, for the greater grace of the transaction, as he said, to settle with coavinses (as mr. skimpole now jocularly called him), i counted out the money and received the necessary acknowledgment. this, too, delighted mr. skimpole. his compliments were so delicately administered that i blushed less than i might have done and settled with the stranger in the white coat without making any mistakes. he put the money in his pocket and shortly said, "well, then, i'll wish you a good evening, miss. "my friend," said mr. skimpole, standing with his back to the fire after giving up the sketch when it was half finished, "i should like to ask you something, without offence." i think the reply was, "cut away, then!" "did you know this morning, now, that you were coming out on this errand?" said mr. skimpole. "know'd it yes'day aft'noon at tea-time," said coavinses. "it didn't affect your appetite? didn't make you at all uneasy?" "not a bit," said coavinses. "i know'd if you wos missed to-day, you wouldn't be missed to-morrow. a day makes no such odds." "but when you came down here," proceeded mr. skimpole, "it was a fine day. the sun was shining, the wind was blowing, the lights and shadows were passing across the fields, the birds were singing." "nobody said they warn't, in my hearing," returned coavinses. "no," observed mr. skimpole. "but what did you think upon the road?" "wot do you mean?" growled coavinses with an appearance of strong resentment. "think! i've got enough to do, and little enough to get for it without thinking. thinking!" (with profound contempt). "then you didn't think, at all events," proceeded mr. skimpole, "to this effect: 'harold skimpole loves to see the sun shine, loves to hear the wind blow, loves to watch the changing lights and shadows, loves to hear the birds, those choristers in nature's great cathedral. and does it seem to me that i am about to deprive harold skimpole of his share in such possessions, which are his only birthright!' you thought nothing to that effect?" "i--certainly--did--not," said coavinses, whose doggedness in utterly renouncing the idea was of that intense kind that he could only give adequate expression to it by putting a long interval between each word, and accompanying the last with a jerk that might have dislocated his neck. "very odd and very curious, the mental process is, in you men of business!" said mr. skimpole thoughtfully. "thank you, my friend. good night." as our absence had been long enough already to seem strange downstairs, i returned at once and found ada sitting at work by the fireside talking to her cousin john. mr. skimpole presently appeared, and richard shortly after him. i was sufficiently engaged during the remainder of the evening in taking my first lesson in backgammon from mr. jarndyce, who was very fond of the game and from whom i wished of course to learn it as quickly as i could in order that i might be of the very small use of being able to play when he had no better adversary. but i thought, occasionally, when mr. skimpole played some fragments of his own compositions or when, both at the piano and the violoncello, and at our table, he preserved with an absence of all effort his delightful spirits and his easy flow of conversation, that richard and i seemed to retain the transferred impression of having been arrested since dinner and that it was very curious altogether. it was late before we separated, for when ada was going at eleven o'clock, mr. skimpole went to the piano and rattled hilariously that the best of all ways to lengthen our days was to steal a few hours from night, my dear! it was past twelve before he took his candle and his radiant face out of the room, and i think he might have kept us there, if he had seen fit, until daybreak. ada and richard were lingering for a few moments by the fire, wondering whether mrs. jellyby had yet finished her dictation for the day, when mr. jarndyce, who had been out of the room, returned. "oh, dear me, what's this, what's this!" he said, rubbing his head and walking about with his good-humoured vexation. "what's this they tell me? rick, my boy, esther, my dear, what have you been doing? why did you do it? how could you do it? how much apiece was it? the wind's round again. i feel it all over me!" we neither of us quite knew what to answer. "come, rick, come! i must settle this before i sleep. how much are you out of pocket? you two made the money up, you know! why did you? how could you? oh, lord, yes, it's due east--must be!" "really, sir," said richard, "i don't think it would be honourable in me to tell you. mr. skimpole relied upon us--" "lord bless you, my dear boy! he relies upon everybody!" said mr. jarndyce, giving his head a great rub and stopping short. "indeed, sir?" "everybody! and he'll be in the same scrape again next week!" said mr. jarndyce, walking again at a great pace, with a candle in his hand that had gone out. "he's always in the same scrape. he was born in the same scrape. i verily believe that the announcement in the newspapers when his mother was confined was 'on tuesday last, at her residence in botheration buildings, mrs. skimpole of a son in difficulties.'" richard laughed heartily but added, "still, sir, i don't want to shake his confidence or to break his confidence, and if i submit to your better knowledge again, that i ought to keep his secret, i hope you will consider before you press me any more. of course, if you do press me, sir, i shall know i am wrong and will tell you." "well!" cried mr. jarndyce, stopping again, and making several absent endeavours to put his candlestick in his pocket. "i--here! take it away, my dear. i don't know what i am about with it; it's all the wind--invariably has that effect--i won't press you, rick; you may be right. but really--to get hold of you and esther--and to squeeze you like a couple of tender young saint michael's oranges! it'll blow a gale in the course of the night!" he was now alternately putting his hands into his pockets as if he were going to keep them there a long time, and taking them out again and vehemently rubbing them all over his head. i ventured to take this opportunity of hinting that mr. skimpole, being in all such matters quite a child-- "eh, my dear?" said mr. jarndyce, catching at the word. "being quite a child, sir," said i, "and so different from other people--" "you are right!" said mr. jarndyce, brightening. "your woman's wit hits the mark. he is a child--an absolute child. i told you he was a child, you know, when i first mentioned him." certainly! certainly! we said. "and he is a child. now, isn't he?" asked mr. jarndyce, brightening more and more. he was indeed, we said. "when you come to think of it, it's the height of childishness in you--i mean me--" said mr. jarndyce, "to regard him for a moment as a man. you can't make him responsible. the idea of harold skimpole with designs or plans, or knowledge of consequences! ha, ha, ha!" it was so delicious to see the clouds about his bright face clearing, and to see him so heartily pleased, and to know, as it was impossible not to know, that the source of his pleasure was the goodness which was tortured by condemning, or mistrusting, or secretly accusing any one, that i saw the tears in ada's eyes, while she echoed his laugh, and felt them in my own. "why, what a cod's head and shoulders i am," said mr. jarndyce, "to require reminding of it! the whole business shows the child from beginning to end. nobody but a child would have thought of singling you two out for parties in the affair! nobody but a child would have thought of your having the money! if it had been a thousand pounds, it would have been just the same!" said mr. jarndyce with his whole face in a glow. we all confirmed it from our night's experience. "to be sure, to be sure!" said mr. jarndyce. "however, rick, esther, and you too, ada, for i don't know that even your little purse is safe from his inexperience--i must have a promise all round that nothing of this sort shall ever be done any more. no advances! not even sixpences." we all promised faithfully, richard with a merry glance at me touching his pocket as if to remind me that there was no danger of our transgressing. "as to skimpole," said mr. jarndyce, "a habitable doll's house with good board and a few tin people to get into debt with and borrow money of would set the boy up in life. he is in a child's sleep by this time, i suppose; it's time i should take my craftier head to my more worldly pillow. good night, my dears. god bless you!" he peeped in again, with a smiling face, before we had lighted our candles, and said, "oh! i have been looking at the weather-cock. i find it was a false alarm about the wind. it's in the south!" and went away singing to himself. ada and i agreed, as we talked together for a little while upstairs, that this caprice about the wind was a fiction and that he used the pretence to account for any disappointment he could not conceal, rather than he would blame the real cause of it or disparage or depreciate any one. we thought this very characteristic of his eccentric gentleness and of the difference between him and those petulant people who make the weather and the winds (particularly that unlucky wind which he had chosen for such a different purpose) the stalking-horses of their splenetic and gloomy humours. indeed, so much affection for him had been added in this one evening to my gratitude that i hoped i already began to understand him through that mingled feeling. any seeming inconsistencies in mr. skimpole or in mrs. jellyby i could not expect to be able to reconcile, having so little experience or practical knowledge. neither did i try, for my thoughts were busy when i was alone, with ada and richard and with the confidence i had seemed to receive concerning them. my fancy, made a little wild by the wind perhaps, would not consent to be all unselfish, either, though i would have persuaded it to be so if i could. it wandered back to my godmother's house and came along the intervening track, raising up shadowy speculations which had sometimes trembled there in the dark as to what knowledge mr. jarndyce had of my earliest history--even as to the possibility of his being my father, though that idle dream was quite gone now. it was all gone now, i remembered, getting up from the fire. it was not for me to muse over bygones, but to act with a cheerful spirit and a grateful heart. so i said to myself, "esther, esther, esther! duty, my dear!" and gave my little basket of housekeeping keys such a shake that they sounded like little bells and rang me hopefully to bed. chapter vii the ghost's walk while esther sleeps, and while esther wakes, it is still wet weather down at the place in lincolnshire. the rain is ever falling--drip, drip, drip--by day and night upon the broad flagged terrace-pavement, the ghost's walk. the weather is so very bad down in lincolnshire that the liveliest imagination can scarcely apprehend its ever being fine again. not that there is any superabundant life of imagination on the spot, for sir leicester is not here (and, truly, even if he were, would not do much for it in that particular), but is in paris with my lady; and solitude, with dusky wings, sits brooding upon chesney wold. there may be some motions of fancy among the lower animals at chesney wold. the horses in the stables--the long stables in a barren, red-brick court-yard, where there is a great bell in a turret, and a clock with a large face, which the pigeons who live near it and who love to perch upon its shoulders seem to be always consulting--they may contemplate some mental pictures of fine weather on occasions, and may be better artists at them than the grooms. the old roan, so famous for cross-country work, turning his large eyeball to the grated window near his rack, may remember the fresh leaves that glisten there at other times and the scents that stream in, and may have a fine run with the hounds, while the human helper, clearing out the next stall, never stirs beyond his pitchfork and birch-broom. the grey, whose place is opposite the door and who with an impatient rattle of his halter pricks his ears and turns his head so wistfully when it is opened, and to whom the opener says, "woa grey, then, steady! noabody wants you to-day!" may know it quite as well as the man. the whole seemingly monotonous and uncompanionable half-dozen, stabled together, may pass the long wet hours when the door is shut in livelier communication than is held in the servants' hall or at the dedlock arms, or may even beguile the time by improving (perhaps corrupting) the pony in the loose-box in the corner. so the mastiff, dozing in his kennel in the court-yard with his large head on his paws, may think of the hot sunshine when the shadows of the stable-buildings tire his patience out by changing and leave him at one time of the day no broader refuge than the shadow of his own house, where he sits on end, panting and growling short, and very much wanting something to worry besides himself and his chain. so now, half-waking and all-winking, he may recall the house full of company, the coach-houses full of vehicles, the stables full of horses, and the out-buildings full of attendants upon horses, until he is undecided about the present and comes forth to see how it is. then, with that impatient shake of himself, he may growl in the spirit, "rain, rain, rain! nothing but rain--and no family here!" as he goes in again and lies down with a gloomy yawn. so with the dogs in the kennel-buildings across the park, who have their restless fits and whose doleful voices when the wind has been very obstinate have even made it known in the house itself--upstairs, downstairs, and in my lady's chamber. they may hunt the whole country-side, while the raindrops are pattering round their inactivity. so the rabbits with their self-betraying tails, frisking in and out of holes at roots of trees, may be lively with ideas of the breezy days when their ears are blown about or of those seasons of interest when there are sweet young plants to gnaw. the turkey in the poultry-yard, always troubled with a class-grievance (probably christmas), may be reminiscent of that summer morning wrongfully taken from him when he got into the lane among the felled trees, where there was a barn and barley. the discontented goose, who stoops to pass under the old gateway, twenty feet high, may gabble out, if we only knew it, a waddling preference for weather when the gateway casts its shadow on the ground. be this as it may, there is not much fancy otherwise stirring at chesney wold. if there be a little at any odd moment, it goes, like a little noise in that old echoing place, a long way and usually leads off to ghosts and mystery. it has rained so hard and rained so long down in lincolnshire that mrs. rouncewell, the old housekeeper at chesney wold, has several times taken off her spectacles and cleaned them to make certain that the drops were not upon the glasses. mrs. rouncewell might have been sufficiently assured by hearing the rain, but that she is rather deaf, which nothing will induce her to believe. she is a fine old lady, handsome, stately, wonderfully neat, and has such a back and such a stomacher that if her stays should turn out when she dies to have been a broad old-fashioned family fire-grate, nobody who knows her would have cause to be surprised. weather affects mrs. rouncewell little. the house is there in all weathers, and the house, as she expresses it, "is what she looks at." she sits in her room (in a side passage on the ground floor, with an arched window commanding a smooth quadrangle, adorned at regular intervals with smooth round trees and smooth round blocks of stone, as if the trees were going to play at bowls with the stones), and the whole house reposes on her mind. she can open it on occasion and be busy and fluttered, but it is shut up now and lies on the breadth of mrs. rouncewell's iron-bound bosom in a majestic sleep. it is the next difficult thing to an impossibility to imagine chesney wold without mrs. rouncewell, but she has only been here fifty years. ask her how long, this rainy day, and she shall answer "fifty year, three months, and a fortnight, by the blessing of heaven, if i live till tuesday." mr. rouncewell died some time before the decease of the pretty fashion of pig-tails, and modestly hid his own (if he took it with him) in a corner of the churchyard in the park near the mouldy porch. he was born in the market-town, and so was his young widow. her progress in the family began in the time of the last sir leicester and originated in the still-room. the present representative of the dedlocks is an excellent master. he supposes all his dependents to be utterly bereft of individual characters, intentions, or opinions, and is persuaded that he was born to supersede the necessity of their having any. if he were to make a discovery to the contrary, he would be simply stunned--would never recover himself, most likely, except to gasp and die. but he is an excellent master still, holding it a part of his state to be so. he has a great liking for mrs. rouncewell; he says she is a most respectable, creditable woman. he always shakes hands with her when he comes down to chesney wold and when he goes away; and if he were very ill, or if he were knocked down by accident, or run over, or placed in any situation expressive of a dedlock at a disadvantage, he would say if he could speak, "leave me, and send mrs. rouncewell here!" feeling his dignity, at such a pass, safer with her than with anybody else. mrs. rouncewell has known trouble. she has had two sons, of whom the younger ran wild, and went for a soldier, and never came back. even to this hour, mrs. rouncewell's calm hands lose their composure when she speaks of him, and unfolding themselves from her stomacher, hover about her in an agitated manner as she says what a likely lad, what a fine lad, what a gay, good-humoured, clever lad he was! her second son would have been provided for at chesney wold and would have been made steward in due season, but he took, when he was a schoolboy, to constructing steam-engines out of saucepans and setting birds to draw their own water with the least possible amount of labour, so assisting them with artful contrivance of hydraulic pressure that a thirsty canary had only, in a literal sense, to put his shoulder to the wheel and the job was done. this propensity gave mrs. rouncewell great uneasiness. she felt it with a mother's anguish to be a move in the wat tyler direction, well knowing that sir leicester had that general impression of an aptitude for any art to which smoke and a tall chimney might be considered essential. but the doomed young rebel (otherwise a mild youth, and very persevering), showing no sign of grace as he got older but, on the contrary, constructing a model of a power-loom, she was fain, with many tears, to mention his backslidings to the baronet. "mrs. rouncewell," said sir leicester, "i can never consent to argue, as you know, with any one on any subject. you had better get rid of your boy; you had better get him into some works. the iron country farther north is, i suppose, the congenial direction for a boy with these tendencies." farther north he went, and farther north he grew up; and if sir leicester dedlock ever saw him when he came to chesney wold to visit his mother, or ever thought of him afterwards, it is certain that he only regarded him as one of a body of some odd thousand conspirators, swarthy and grim, who were in the habit of turning out by torchlight two or three nights in the week for unlawful purposes. nevertheless, mrs. rouncewell's son has, in the course of nature and art, grown up, and established himself, and married, and called unto him mrs. rouncewell's grandson, who, being out of his apprenticeship, and home from a journey in far countries, whither he was sent to enlarge his knowledge and complete his preparations for the venture of this life, stands leaning against the chimney-piece this very day in mrs. rouncewell's room at chesney wold. "and, again and again, i am glad to see you, watt! and, once again, i am glad to see you, watt!" says mrs. rouncewell. "you are a fine young fellow. you are like your poor uncle george. ah!" mrs. rouncewell's hands unquiet, as usual, on this reference. "they say i am like my father, grandmother." "like him, also, my dear--but most like your poor uncle george! and your dear father." mrs. rouncewell folds her hands again. "he is well?" "thriving, grandmother, in every way." "i am thankful!" mrs. rouncewell is fond of her son but has a plaintive feeling towards him, much as if he were a very honourable soldier who had gone over to the enemy. "he is quite happy?" says she. "quite." "i am thankful! so he has brought you up to follow in his ways and has sent you into foreign countries and the like? well, he knows best. there may be a world beyond chesney wold that i don't understand. though i am not young, either. and i have seen a quantity of good company too!" "grandmother," says the young man, changing the subject, "what a very pretty girl that was i found with you just now. you called her rosa?" "yes, child. she is daughter of a widow in the village. maids are so hard to teach, now-a-days, that i have put her about me young. she's an apt scholar and will do well. she shows the house already, very pretty. she lives with me at my table here." "i hope i have not driven her away?" "she supposes we have family affairs to speak about, i dare say. she is very modest. it is a fine quality in a young woman. and scarcer," says mrs. rouncewell, expanding her stomacher to its utmost limits, "than it formerly was!" the young man inclines his head in acknowledgment of the precepts of experience. mrs. rouncewell listens. "wheels!" says she. they have long been audible to the younger ears of her companion. "what wheels on such a day as this, for gracious sake?" after a short interval, a tap at the door. "come in!" a dark-eyed, dark-haired, shy, village beauty comes in--so fresh in her rosy and yet delicate bloom that the drops of rain which have beaten on her hair look like the dew upon a flower fresh gathered. "what company is this, rosa?" says mrs. rouncewell. "it's two young men in a gig, ma'am, who want to see the house--yes, and if you please, i told them so!" in quick reply to a gesture of dissent from the housekeeper. "i went to the hall-door and told them it was the wrong day and the wrong hour, but the young man who was driving took off his hat in the wet and begged me to bring this card to you." "read it, my dear watt," says the housekeeper. rosa is so shy as she gives it to him that they drop it between them and almost knock their foreheads together as they pick it up. rosa is shyer than before. "mr. guppy" is all the information the card yields. "guppy!" repeats mrs. rouncewell, "mr. guppy! nonsense, i never heard of him!" "if you please, he told me that!" says rosa. "but he said that he and the other young gentleman came from london only last night by the mail, on business at the magistrates' meeting, ten miles off, this morning, and that as their business was soon over, and they had heard a great deal said of chesney wold, and really didn't know what to do with themselves, they had come through the wet to see it. they are lawyers. he says he is not in mr. tulkinghorn's office, but he is sure he may make use of mr. tulkinghorn's name if necessary." finding, now she leaves off, that she has been making quite a long speech, rosa is shyer than ever. now, mr. tulkinghorn is, in a manner, part and parcel of the place, and besides, is supposed to have made mrs. rouncewell's will. the old lady relaxes, consents to the admission of the visitors as a favour, and dismisses rosa. the grandson, however, being smitten by a sudden wish to see the house himself, proposes to join the party. the grandmother, who is pleased that he should have that interest, accompanies him--though to do him justice, he is exceedingly unwilling to trouble her. "much obliged to you, ma'am!" says mr. guppy, divesting himself of his wet dreadnought in the hall. "us london lawyers don't often get an out, and when we do, we like to make the most of it, you know." the old housekeeper, with a gracious severity of deportment, waves her hand towards the great staircase. mr. guppy and his friend follow rosa; mrs. rouncewell and her grandson follow them; a young gardener goes before to open the shutters. as is usually the case with people who go over houses, mr. guppy and his friend are dead beat before they have well begun. they straggle about in wrong places, look at wrong things, don't care for the right things, gape when more rooms are opened, exhibit profound depression of spirits, and are clearly knocked up. in each successive chamber that they enter, mrs. rouncewell, who is as upright as the house itself, rests apart in a window-seat or other such nook and listens with stately approval to rosa's exposition. her grandson is so attentive to it that rosa is shyer than ever--and prettier. thus they pass on from room to room, raising the pictured dedlocks for a few brief minutes as the young gardener admits the light, and reconsigning them to their graves as he shuts it out again. it appears to the afflicted mr. guppy and his inconsolable friend that there is no end to the dedlocks, whose family greatness seems to consist in their never having done anything to distinguish themselves for seven hundred years. even the long drawing-room of chesney wold cannot revive mr. guppy's spirits. he is so low that he droops on the threshold and has hardly strength of mind to enter. but a portrait over the chimney-piece, painted by the fashionable artist of the day, acts upon him like a charm. he recovers in a moment. he stares at it with uncommon interest; he seems to be fixed and fascinated by it. "dear me!" says mr. guppy. "who's that?" "the picture over the fire-place," says rosa, "is the portrait of the present lady dedlock. it is considered a perfect likeness, and the best work of the master." "blest," says mr. guppy, staring in a kind of dismay at his friend, "if i can ever have seen her. yet i know her! has the picture been engraved, miss?" "the picture has never been engraved. sir leicester has always refused permission." "well!" says mr. guppy in a low voice. "i'll be shot if it ain't very curious how well i know that picture! so that's lady dedlock, is it!" "the picture on the right is the present sir leicester dedlock. the picture on the left is his father, the late sir leicester." mr. guppy has no eyes for either of these magnates. "it's unaccountable to me," he says, still staring at the portrait, "how well i know that picture! i'm dashed," adds mr. guppy, looking round, "if i don't think i must have had a dream of that picture, you know!" as no one present takes any especial interest in mr. guppy's dreams, the probability is not pursued. but he still remains so absorbed by the portrait that he stands immovable before it until the young gardener has closed the shutters, when he comes out of the room in a dazed state that is an odd though a sufficient substitute for interest and follows into the succeeding rooms with a confused stare, as if he were looking everywhere for lady dedlock again. he sees no more of her. he sees her rooms, which are the last shown, as being very elegant, and he looks out of the windows from which she looked out, not long ago, upon the weather that bored her to death. all things have an end, even houses that people take infinite pains to see and are tired of before they begin to see them. he has come to the end of the sight, and the fresh village beauty to the end of her description; which is always this: "the terrace below is much admired. it is called, from an old story in the family, the ghost's walk." "no?" says mr. guppy, greedily curious. "what's the story, miss? is it anything about a picture?" "pray tell us the story," says watt in a half whisper. "i don't know it, sir." rosa is shyer than ever. "it is not related to visitors; it is almost forgotten," says the housekeeper, advancing. "it has never been more than a family anecdote." "you'll excuse my asking again if it has anything to do with a picture, ma'am," observes mr. guppy, "because i do assure you that the more i think of that picture the better i know it, without knowing how i know it!" the story has nothing to do with a picture; the housekeeper can guarantee that. mr. guppy is obliged to her for the information and is, moreover, generally obliged. he retires with his friend, guided down another staircase by the young gardener, and presently is heard to drive away. it is now dusk. mrs. rouncewell can trust to the discretion of her two young hearers and may tell them how the terrace came to have that ghostly name. she seats herself in a large chair by the fast-darkening window and tells them: "in the wicked days, my dears, of king charles the first--i mean, of course, in the wicked days of the rebels who leagued themselves against that excellent king--sir morbury dedlock was the owner of chesney wold. whether there was any account of a ghost in the family before those days, i can't say. i should think it very likely indeed." mrs. rouncewell holds this opinion because she considers that a family of such antiquity and importance has a right to a ghost. she regards a ghost as one of the privileges of the upper classes, a genteel distinction to which the common people have no claim. "sir morbury dedlock," says mrs. rouncewell, "was, i have no occasion to say, on the side of the blessed martyr. but it is supposed that his lady, who had none of the family blood in her veins, favoured the bad cause. it is said that she had relations among king charles's enemies, that she was in correspondence with them, and that she gave them information. when any of the country gentlemen who followed his majesty's cause met here, it is said that my lady was always nearer to the door of their council-room than they supposed. do you hear a sound like a footstep passing along the terrace, watt?" rosa draws nearer to the housekeeper. "i hear the rain-drip on the stones," replies the young man, "and i hear a curious echo--i suppose an echo--which is very like a halting step." the housekeeper gravely nods and continues: "partly on account of this division between them, and partly on other accounts, sir morbury and his lady led a troubled life. she was a lady of a haughty temper. they were not well suited to each other in age or character, and they had no children to moderate between them. after her favourite brother, a young gentleman, was killed in the civil wars (by sir morbury's near kinsman), her feeling was so violent that she hated the race into which she had married. when the dedlocks were about to ride out from chesney wold in the king's cause, she is supposed to have more than once stolen down into the stables in the dead of night and lamed their horses; and the story is that once at such an hour, her husband saw her gliding down the stairs and followed her into the stall where his own favourite horse stood. there he seized her by the wrist, and in a struggle or in a fall or through the horse being frightened and lashing out, she was lamed in the hip and from that hour began to pine away." the housekeeper has dropped her voice to a little more than a whisper. "she had been a lady of a handsome figure and a noble carriage. she never complained of the change; she never spoke to any one of being crippled or of being in pain, but day by day she tried to walk upon the terrace, and with the help of the stone balustrade, went up and down, up and down, up and down, in sun and shadow, with greater difficulty every day. at last, one afternoon her husband (to whom she had never, on any persuasion, opened her lips since that night), standing at the great south window, saw her drop upon the pavement. he hastened down to raise her, but she repulsed him as he bent over her, and looking at him fixedly and coldly, said, 'i will die here where i have walked. and i will walk here, though i am in my grave. i will walk here until the pride of this house is humbled. and when calamity or when disgrace is coming to it, let the dedlocks listen for my step!'" watt looks at rosa. rosa in the deepening gloom looks down upon the ground, half frightened and half shy. "there and then she died. and from those days," says mrs. rouncewell, "the name has come down--the ghost's walk. if the tread is an echo, it is an echo that is only heard after dark, and is often unheard for a long while together. but it comes back from time to time; and so sure as there is sickness or death in the family, it will be heard then." "and disgrace, grandmother--" says watt. "disgrace never comes to chesney wold," returns the housekeeper. her grandson apologizes with "true. true." "that is the story. whatever the sound is, it is a worrying sound," says mrs. rouncewell, getting up from her chair; "and what is to be noticed in it is that it must be heard. my lady, who is afraid of nothing, admits that when it is there, it must be heard. you cannot shut it out. watt, there is a tall french clock behind you (placed there, 'a purpose) that has a loud beat when it is in motion and can play music. you understand how those things are managed?" "pretty well, grandmother, i think." "set it a-going." watt sets it a-going--music and all. "now, come hither," says the housekeeper. "hither, child, towards my lady's pillow. i am not sure that it is dark enough yet, but listen! can you hear the sound upon the terrace, through the music, and the beat, and everything?" "i certainly can!" "so my lady says." chapter viii covering a multitude of sins it was interesting when i dressed before daylight to peep out of window, where my candles were reflected in the black panes like two beacons, and finding all beyond still enshrouded in the indistinctness of last night, to watch how it turned out when the day came on. as the prospect gradually revealed itself and disclosed the scene over which the wind had wandered in the dark, like my memory over my life, i had a pleasure in discovering the unknown objects that had been around me in my sleep. at first they were faintly discernible in the mist, and above them the later stars still glimmered. that pale interval over, the picture began to enlarge and fill up so fast that at every new peep i could have found enough to look at for an hour. imperceptibly my candles became the only incongruous part of the morning, the dark places in my room all melted away, and the day shone bright upon a cheerful landscape, prominent in which the old abbey church, with its massive tower, threw a softer train of shadow on the view than seemed compatible with its rugged character. but so from rough outsides (i hope i have learnt), serene and gentle influences often proceed. every part of the house was in such order, and every one was so attentive to me, that i had no trouble with my two bunches of keys, though what with trying to remember the contents of each little store-room drawer and cupboard; and what with making notes on a slate about jams, and pickles, and preserves, and bottles, and glass, and china, and a great many other things; and what with being generally a methodical, old-maidish sort of foolish little person, i was so busy that i could not believe it was breakfast-time when i heard the bell ring. away i ran, however, and made tea, as i had already been installed into the responsibility of the tea-pot; and then, as they were all rather late and nobody was down yet, i thought i would take a peep at the garden and get some knowledge of that too. i found it quite a delightful place--in front, the pretty avenue and drive by which we had approached (and where, by the by, we had cut up the gravel so terribly with our wheels that i asked the gardener to roll it); at the back, the flower-garden, with my darling at her window up there, throwing it open to smile out at me, as if she would have kissed me from that distance. beyond the flower-garden was a kitchen-garden, and then a paddock, and then a snug little rick-yard, and then a dear little farm-yard. as to the house itself, with its three peaks in the roof; its various-shaped windows, some so large, some so small, and all so pretty; its trellis-work, against the south-front for roses and honey-suckle, and its homely, comfortable, welcoming look--it was, as ada said when she came out to meet me with her arm through that of its master, worthy of her cousin john, a bold thing to say, though he only pinched her dear cheek for it. mr. skimpole was as agreeable at breakfast as he had been overnight. there was honey on the table, and it led him into a discourse about bees. he had no objection to honey, he said (and i should think he had not, for he seemed to like it), but he protested against the overweening assumptions of bees. he didn't at all see why the busy bee should be proposed as a model to him; he supposed the bee liked to make honey, or he wouldn't do it--nobody asked him. it was not necessary for the bee to make such a merit of his tastes. if every confectioner went buzzing about the world banging against everything that came in his way and egotistically calling upon everybody to take notice that he was going to his work and must not be interrupted, the world would be quite an unsupportable place. then, after all, it was a ridiculous position to be smoked out of your fortune with brimstone as soon as you had made it. you would have a very mean opinion of a manchester man if he spun cotton for no other purpose. he must say he thought a drone the embodiment of a pleasanter and wiser idea. the drone said unaffectedly, "you will excuse me; i really cannot attend to the shop! i find myself in a world in which there is so much to see and so short a time to see it in that i must take the liberty of looking about me and begging to be provided for by somebody who doesn't want to look about him." this appeared to mr. skimpole to be the drone philosophy, and he thought it a very good philosophy, always supposing the drone to be willing to be on good terms with the bee, which, so far as he knew, the easy fellow always was, if the consequential creature would only let him, and not be so conceited about his honey! he pursued this fancy with the lightest foot over a variety of ground and made us all merry, though again he seemed to have as serious a meaning in what he said as he was capable of having. i left them still listening to him when i withdrew to attend to my new duties. they had occupied me for some time, and i was passing through the passages on my return with my basket of keys on my arm when mr. jarndyce called me into a small room next his bed-chamber, which i found to be in part a little library of books and papers and in part quite a little museum of his boots and shoes and hat-boxes. "sit down, my dear," said mr. jarndyce. "this, you must know, is the growlery. when i am out of humour, i come and growl here." "you must be here very seldom, sir," said i. "oh, you don't know me!" he returned. "when i am deceived or disappointed in--the wind, and it's easterly, i take refuge here. the growlery is the best-used room in the house. you are not aware of half my humours yet. my dear, how you are trembling!" i could not help it; i tried very hard, but being alone with that benevolent presence, and meeting his kind eyes, and feeling so happy and so honoured there, and my heart so full--i kissed his hand. i don't know what i said, or even that i spoke. he was disconcerted and walked to the window; i almost believed with an intention of jumping out, until he turned and i was reassured by seeing in his eyes what he had gone there to hide. he gently patted me on the head, and i sat down. "there! there!" he said. "that's over. pooh! don't be foolish." "it shall not happen again, sir," i returned, "but at first it is difficult--" "nonsense!" he said. "it's easy, easy. why not? i hear of a good little orphan girl without a protector, and i take it into my head to be that protector. she grows up, and more than justifies my good opinion, and i remain her guardian and her friend. what is there in all this? so, so! now, we have cleared off old scores, and i have before me thy pleasant, trusting, trusty face again." i said to myself, "esther, my dear, you surprise me! this really is not what i expected of you!" and it had such a good effect that i folded my hands upon my basket and quite recovered myself. mr. jarndyce, expressing his approval in his face, began to talk to me as confidentially as if i had been in the habit of conversing with him every morning for i don't know how long. i almost felt as if i had. "of course, esther," he said, "you don't understand this chancery business?" and of course i shook my head. "i don't know who does," he returned. "the lawyers have twisted it into such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the case have long disappeared from the face of the earth. it's about a will and the trusts under a will--or it was once. it's about nothing but costs now. we are always appearing, and disappearing, and swearing, and interrogating, and filing, and cross-filing, and arguing, and sealing, and motioning, and referring, and reporting, and revolving about the lord chancellor and all his satellites, and equitably waltzing ourselves off to dusty death, about costs. that's the great question. all the rest, by some extraordinary means, has melted away." "but it was, sir," said i, to bring him back, for he began to rub his head, "about a will?" "why, yes, it was about a will when it was about anything," he returned. "a certain jarndyce, in an evil hour, made a great fortune, and made a great will. in the question how the trusts under that will are to be administered, the fortune left by the will is squandered away; the legatees under the will are reduced to such a miserable condition that they would be sufficiently punished if they had committed an enormous crime in having money left them, and the will itself is made a dead letter. all through the deplorable cause, everything that everybody in it, except one man, knows already is referred to that only one man who don't know, it to find out--all through the deplorable cause, everybody must have copies, over and over again, of everything that has accumulated about it in the way of cartloads of papers (or must pay for them without having them, which is the usual course, for nobody wants them) and must go down the middle and up again through such an infernal country-dance of costs and fees and nonsense and corruption as was never dreamed of in the wildest visions of a witch's sabbath. equity sends questions to law, law sends questions back to equity; law finds it can't do this, equity finds it can't do that; neither can so much as say it can't do anything, without this solicitor instructing and this counsel appearing for a, and that solicitor instructing and that counsel appearing for b; and so on through the whole alphabet, like the history of the apple pie. and thus, through years and years, and lives and lives, everything goes on, constantly beginning over and over again, and nothing ever ends. and we can't get out of the suit on any terms, for we are made parties to it, and must be parties to it, whether we like it or not. but it won't do to think of it! when my great uncle, poor tom jarndyce, began to think of it, it was the beginning of the end!" "the mr. jarndyce, sir, whose story i have heard?" he nodded gravely. "i was his heir, and this was his house, esther. when i came here, it was bleak indeed. he had left the signs of his misery upon it." "how changed it must be now!" i said. "it had been called, before his time, the peaks. he gave it its present name and lived here shut up, day and night poring over the wicked heaps of papers in the suit and hoping against hope to disentangle it from its mystification and bring it to a close. in the meantime, the place became dilapidated, the wind whistled through the cracked walls, the rain fell through the broken roof, the weeds choked the passage to the rotting door. when i brought what remained of him home here, the brains seemed to me to have been blown out of the house too, it was so shattered and ruined." he walked a little to and fro after saying this to himself with a shudder, and then looked at me, and brightened, and came and sat down again with his hands in his pockets. "i told you this was the growlery, my dear. where was i?" i reminded him, at the hopeful change he had made in bleak house. "bleak house; true. there is, in that city of london there, some property of ours which is much at this day what bleak house was then; i say property of ours, meaning of the suit's, but i ought to call it the property of costs, for costs is the only power on earth that will ever get anything out of it now or will ever know it for anything but an eyesore and a heartsore. it is a street of perishing blind houses, with their eyes stoned out, without a pane of glass, without so much as a window-frame, with the bare blank shutters tumbling from their hinges and falling asunder, the iron rails peeling away in flakes of rust, the chimneys sinking in, the stone steps to every door (and every door might be death's door) turning stagnant green, the very crutches on which the ruins are propped decaying. although bleak house was not in chancery, its master was, and it was stamped with the same seal. these are the great seal's impressions, my dear, all over england--the children know them!" "how changed it is!" i said again. "why, so it is," he answered much more cheerfully; "and it is wisdom in you to keep me to the bright side of the picture." (the idea of my wisdom!) "these are things i never talk about or even think about, excepting in the growlery here. if you consider it right to mention them to rick and ada," looking seriously at me, "you can. i leave it to your discretion, esther." "i hope, sir--" said i. "i think you had better call me guardian, my dear." i felt that i was choking again--i taxed myself with it, "esther, now, you know you are!"--when he feigned to say this slightly, as if it were a whim instead of a thoughtful tenderness. but i gave the housekeeping keys the least shake in the world as a reminder to myself, and folding my hands in a still more determined manner on the basket, looked at him quietly. "i hope, guardian," said i, "that you may not trust too much to my discretion. i hope you may not mistake me. i am afraid it will be a disappointment to you to know that i am not clever, but it really is the truth, and you would soon find it out if i had not the honesty to confess it." he did not seem at all disappointed; quite the contrary. he told me, with a smile all over his face, that he knew me very well indeed and that i was quite clever enough for him. "i hope i may turn out so," said i, "but i am much afraid of it, guardian." "you are clever enough to be the good little woman of our lives here, my dear," he returned playfully; "the little old woman of the child's (i don't mean skimpole's) rhyme: "'little old woman, and whither so high?' 'to sweep the cobwebs out of the sky.' "you will sweep them so neatly out of our sky in the course of your housekeeping, esther, that one of these days we shall have to abandon the growlery and nail up the door." this was the beginning of my being called old woman, and little old woman, and cobweb, and mrs. shipton, and mother hubbard, and dame durden, and so many names of that sort that my own name soon became quite lost among them. "however," said mr. jarndyce, "to return to our gossip. here's rick, a fine young fellow full of promise. what's to be done with him?" oh, my goodness, the idea of asking my advice on such a point! "here he is, esther," said mr. jarndyce, comfortably putting his hands into his pockets and stretching out his legs. "he must have a profession; he must make some choice for himself. there will be a world more wiglomeration about it, i suppose, but it must be done." "more what, guardian?" said i. "more wiglomeration," said he. "it's the only name i know for the thing. he is a ward in chancery, my dear. kenge and carboy will have something to say about it; master somebody--a sort of ridiculous sexton, digging graves for the merits of causes in a back room at the end of quality court, chancery lane--will have something to say about it; counsel will have something to say about it; the chancellor will have something to say about it; the satellites will have something to say about it; they will all have to be handsomely feed, all round, about it; the whole thing will be vastly ceremonious, wordy, unsatisfactory, and expensive, and i call it, in general, wiglomeration. how mankind ever came to be afflicted with wiglomeration, or for whose sins these young people ever fell into a pit of it, i don't know; so it is." he began to rub his head again and to hint that he felt the wind. but it was a delightful instance of his kindness towards me that whether he rubbed his head, or walked about, or did both, his face was sure to recover its benignant expression as it looked at mine; and he was sure to turn comfortable again and put his hands in his pockets and stretch out his legs. "perhaps it would be best, first of all," said i, "to ask mr. richard what he inclines to himself." "exactly so," he returned. "that's what i mean! you know, just accustom yourself to talk it over, with your tact and in your quiet way, with him and ada, and see what you all make of it. we are sure to come at the heart of the matter by your means, little woman." i really was frightened at the thought of the importance i was attaining and the number of things that were being confided to me. i had not meant this at all; i had meant that he should speak to richard. but of course i said nothing in reply except that i would do my best, though i feared (i really felt it necessary to repeat this) that he thought me much more sagacious than i was. at which my guardian only laughed the pleasantest laugh i ever heard. "come!" he said, rising and pushing back his chair. "i think we may have done with the growlery for one day! only a concluding word. esther, my dear, do you wish to ask me anything?" he looked so attentively at me that i looked attentively at him and felt sure i understood him. "about myself, sir?" said i. "yes." "guardian," said i, venturing to put my hand, which was suddenly colder than i could have wished, in his, "nothing! i am quite sure that if there were anything i ought to know or had any need to know, i should not have to ask you to tell it to me. if my whole reliance and confidence were not placed in you, i must have a hard heart indeed. i have nothing to ask you, nothing in the world." he drew my hand through his arm and we went away to look for ada. from that hour i felt quite easy with him, quite unreserved, quite content to know no more, quite happy. we lived, at first, rather a busy life at bleak house, for we had to become acquainted with many residents in and out of the neighbourhood who knew mr. jarndyce. it seemed to ada and me that everybody knew him who wanted to do anything with anybody else's money. it amazed us when we began to sort his letters and to answer some of them for him in the growlery of a morning to find how the great object of the lives of nearly all his correspondents appeared to be to form themselves into committees for getting in and laying out money. the ladies were as desperate as the gentlemen; indeed, i think they were even more so. they threw themselves into committees in the most impassioned manner and collected subscriptions with a vehemence quite extraordinary. it appeared to us that some of them must pass their whole lives in dealing out subscription-cards to the whole post-office directory--shilling cards, half-crown cards, half-sovereign cards, penny cards. they wanted everything. they wanted wearing apparel, they wanted linen rags, they wanted money, they wanted coals, they wanted soup, they wanted interest, they wanted autographs, they wanted flannel, they wanted whatever mr. jarndyce had--or had not. their objects were as various as their demands. they were going to raise new buildings, they were going to pay off debts on old buildings, they were going to establish in a picturesque building (engraving of proposed west elevation attached) the sisterhood of mediaeval marys, they were going to give a testimonial to mrs. jellyby, they were going to have their secretary's portrait painted and presented to his mother-in-law, whose deep devotion to him was well known, they were going to get up everything, i really believe, from five hundred thousand tracts to an annuity and from a marble monument to a silver tea-pot. they took a multitude of titles. they were the women of england, the daughters of britain, the sisters of all the cardinal virtues separately, the females of america, the ladies of a hundred denominations. they appeared to be always excited about canvassing and electing. they seemed to our poor wits, and according to their own accounts, to be constantly polling people by tens of thousands, yet never bringing their candidates in for anything. it made our heads ache to think, on the whole, what feverish lives they must lead. among the ladies who were most distinguished for this rapacious benevolence (if i may use the expression) was a mrs. pardiggle, who seemed, as i judged from the number of her letters to mr. jarndyce, to be almost as powerful a correspondent as mrs. jellyby herself. we observed that the wind always changed when mrs. pardiggle became the subject of conversation and that it invariably interrupted mr. jarndyce and prevented his going any farther, when he had remarked that there were two classes of charitable people; one, the people who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal and made no noise at all. we were therefore curious to see mrs. pardiggle, suspecting her to be a type of the former class, and were glad when she called one day with her five young sons. she was a formidable style of lady with spectacles, a prominent nose, and a loud voice, who had the effect of wanting a great deal of room. and she really did, for she knocked down little chairs with her skirts that were quite a great way off. as only ada and i were at home, we received her timidly, for she seemed to come in like cold weather and to make the little pardiggles blue as they followed. "these, young ladies," said mrs. pardiggle with great volubility after the first salutations, "are my five boys. you may have seen their names in a printed subscription list (perhaps more than one) in the possession of our esteemed friend mr. jarndyce. egbert, my eldest (twelve), is the boy who sent out his pocket-money, to the amount of five and threepence, to the tockahoopo indians. oswald, my second (ten and a half), is the child who contributed two and nine-pence to the great national smithers testimonial. francis, my third (nine), one and sixpence halfpenny; felix, my fourth (seven), eightpence to the superannuated widows; alfred, my youngest (five), has voluntarily enrolled himself in the infant bonds of joy, and is pledged never, through life, to use tobacco in any form." we had never seen such dissatisfied children. it was not merely that they were weazened and shrivelled--though they were certainly that too--but they looked absolutely ferocious with discontent. at the mention of the tockahoopo indians, i could really have supposed egbert to be one of the most baleful members of that tribe, he gave me such a savage frown. the face of each child, as the amount of his contribution was mentioned, darkened in a peculiarly vindictive manner, but his was by far the worst. i must except, however, the little recruit into the infant bonds of joy, who was stolidly and evenly miserable. "you have been visiting, i understand," said mrs. pardiggle, "at mrs. jellyby's?" we said yes, we had passed one night there. "mrs. jellyby," pursued the lady, always speaking in the same demonstrative, loud, hard tone, so that her voice impressed my fancy as if it had a sort of spectacles on too--and i may take the opportunity of remarking that her spectacles were made the less engaging by her eyes being what ada called "choking eyes," meaning very prominent--"mrs. jellyby is a benefactor to society and deserves a helping hand. my boys have contributed to the african project--egbert, one and six, being the entire allowance of nine weeks; oswald, one and a penny halfpenny, being the same; the rest, according to their little means. nevertheless, i do not go with mrs. jellyby in all things. i do not go with mrs. jellyby in her treatment of her young family. it has been noticed. it has been observed that her young family are excluded from participation in the objects to which she is devoted. she may be right, she may be wrong; but, right or wrong, this is not my course with my young family. i take them everywhere." i was afterwards convinced (and so was ada) that from the ill-conditioned eldest child, these words extorted a sharp yell. he turned it off into a yawn, but it began as a yell. "they attend matins with me (very prettily done) at half-past six o'clock in the morning all the year round, including of course the depth of winter," said mrs. pardiggle rapidly, "and they are with me during the revolving duties of the day. i am a school lady, i am a visiting lady, i am a reading lady, i am a distributing lady; i am on the local linen box committee and many general committees; and my canvassing alone is very extensive--perhaps no one's more so. but they are my companions everywhere; and by these means they acquire that knowledge of the poor, and that capacity of doing charitable business in general--in short, that taste for the sort of thing--which will render them in after life a service to their neighbours and a satisfaction to themselves. my young family are not frivolous; they expend the entire amount of their allowance in subscriptions, under my direction; and they have attended as many public meetings and listened to as many lectures, orations, and discussions as generally fall to the lot of few grown people. alfred (five), who, as i mentioned, has of his own election joined the infant bonds of joy, was one of the very few children who manifested consciousness on that occasion after a fervid address of two hours from the chairman of the evening." alfred glowered at us as if he never could, or would, forgive the injury of that night. "you may have observed, miss summerson," said mrs. pardiggle, "in some of the lists to which i have referred, in the possession of our esteemed friend mr. jarndyce, that the names of my young family are concluded with the name of o. a. pardiggle, f.r.s., one pound. that is their father. we usually observe the same routine. i put down my mite first; then my young family enrol their contributions, according to their ages and their little means; and then mr. pardiggle brings up the rear. mr. pardiggle is happy to throw in his limited donation, under my direction; and thus things are made not only pleasant to ourselves, but, we trust, improving to others." suppose mr. pardiggle were to dine with mr. jellyby, and suppose mr. jellyby were to relieve his mind after dinner to mr. pardiggle, would mr. pardiggle, in return, make any confidential communication to mr. jellyby? i was quite confused to find myself thinking this, but it came into my head. "you are very pleasantly situated here!" said mrs. pardiggle. we were glad to change the subject, and going to the window, pointed out the beauties of the prospect, on which the spectacles appeared to me to rest with curious indifference. "you know mr. gusher?" said our visitor. we were obliged to say that we had not the pleasure of mr. gusher's acquaintance. "the loss is yours, i assure you," said mrs. pardiggle with her commanding deportment. "he is a very fervid, impassioned speaker--full of fire! stationed in a waggon on this lawn, now, which, from the shape of the land, is naturally adapted to a public meeting, he would improve almost any occasion you could mention for hours and hours! by this time, young ladies," said mrs. pardiggle, moving back to her chair and overturning, as if by invisible agency, a little round table at a considerable distance with my work-basket on it, "by this time you have found me out, i dare say?" this was really such a confusing question that ada looked at me in perfect dismay. as to the guilty nature of my own consciousness after what i had been thinking, it must have been expressed in the colour of my cheeks. "found out, i mean," said mrs. pardiggle, "the prominent point in my character. i am aware that it is so prominent as to be discoverable immediately. i lay myself open to detection, i know. well! i freely admit, i am a woman of business. i love hard work; i enjoy hard work. the excitement does me good. i am so accustomed and inured to hard work that i don't know what fatigue is." we murmured that it was very astonishing and very gratifying, or something to that effect. i don't think we knew what it was either, but this is what our politeness expressed. "i do not understand what it is to be tired; you cannot tire me if you try!" said mrs. pardiggle. "the quantity of exertion (which is no exertion to me), the amount of business (which i regard as nothing), that i go through sometimes astonishes myself. i have seen my young family, and mr. pardiggle, quite worn out with witnessing it, when i may truly say i have been as fresh as a lark!" if that dark-visaged eldest boy could look more malicious than he had already looked, this was the time when he did it. i observed that he doubled his right fist and delivered a secret blow into the crown of his cap, which was under his left arm. "this gives me a great advantage when i am making my rounds," said mrs. pardiggle. "if i find a person unwilling to hear what i have to say, i tell that person directly, 'i am incapable of fatigue, my good friend, i am never tired, and i mean to go on until i have done.' it answers admirably! miss summerson, i hope i shall have your assistance in my visiting rounds immediately, and miss clare's very soon." at first i tried to excuse myself for the present on the general ground of having occupations to attend to which i must not neglect. but as this was an ineffectual protest, i then said, more particularly, that i was not sure of my qualifications. that i was inexperienced in the art of adapting my mind to minds very differently situated, and addressing them from suitable points of view. that i had not that delicate knowledge of the heart which must be essential to such a work. that i had much to learn, myself, before i could teach others, and that i could not confide in my good intentions alone. for these reasons i thought it best to be as useful as i could, and to render what kind services i could to those immediately about me, and to try to let that circle of duty gradually and naturally expand itself. all this i said with anything but confidence, because mrs. pardiggle was much older than i, and had great experience, and was so very military in her manners. "you are wrong, miss summerson," said she, "but perhaps you are not equal to hard work or the excitement of it, and that makes a vast difference. if you would like to see how i go through my work, i am now about--with my young family--to visit a brickmaker in the neighbourhood (a very bad character) and shall be glad to take you with me. miss clare also, if she will do me the favour." ada and i interchanged looks, and as we were going out in any case, accepted the offer. when we hastily returned from putting on our bonnets, we found the young family languishing in a corner and mrs. pardiggle sweeping about the room, knocking down nearly all the light objects it contained. mrs. pardiggle took possession of ada, and i followed with the family. ada told me afterwards that mrs. pardiggle talked in the same loud tone (that, indeed, i overheard) all the way to the brickmaker's about an exciting contest which she had for two or three years waged against another lady relative to the bringing in of their rival candidates for a pension somewhere. there had been a quantity of printing, and promising, and proxying, and polling, and it appeared to have imparted great liveliness to all concerned, except the pensioners--who were not elected yet. i am very fond of being confided in by children and am happy in being usually favoured in that respect, but on this occasion it gave me great uneasiness. as soon as we were out of doors, egbert, with the manner of a little footpad, demanded a shilling of me on the ground that his pocket-money was "boned" from him. on my pointing out the great impropriety of the word, especially in connexion with his parent (for he added sulkily "by her!"), he pinched me and said, "oh, then! now! who are you! you wouldn't like it, i think? what does she make a sham for, and pretend to give me money, and take it away again? why do you call it my allowance, and never let me spend it?" these exasperating questions so inflamed his mind and the minds of oswald and francis that they all pinched me at once, and in a dreadfully expert way--screwing up such little pieces of my arms that i could hardly forbear crying out. felix, at the same time, stamped upon my toes. and the bond of joy, who on account of always having the whole of his little income anticipated stood in fact pledged to abstain from cakes as well as tobacco, so swelled with grief and rage when we passed a pastry-cook's shop that he terrified me by becoming purple. i never underwent so much, both in body and mind, in the course of a walk with young people as from these unnaturally constrained children when they paid me the compliment of being natural. i was glad when we came to the brickmaker's house, though it was one of a cluster of wretched hovels in a brick-field, with pigsties close to the broken windows and miserable little gardens before the doors growing nothing but stagnant pools. here and there an old tub was put to catch the droppings of rain-water from a roof, or they were banked up with mud into a little pond like a large dirt-pie. at the doors and windows some men and women lounged or prowled about, and took little notice of us except to laugh to one another or to say something as we passed about gentlefolks minding their own business and not troubling their heads and muddying their shoes with coming to look after other people's. mrs. pardiggle, leading the way with a great show of moral determination and talking with much volubility about the untidy habits of the people (though i doubted if the best of us could have been tidy in such a place), conducted us into a cottage at the farthest corner, the ground-floor room of which we nearly filled. besides ourselves, there were in this damp, offensive room a woman with a black eye, nursing a poor little gasping baby by the fire; a man, all stained with clay and mud and looking very dissipated, lying at full length on the ground, smoking a pipe; a powerful young man fastening a collar on a dog; and a bold girl doing some kind of washing in very dirty water. they all looked up at us as we came in, and the woman seemed to turn her face towards the fire as if to hide her bruised eye; nobody gave us any welcome. "well, my friends," said mrs. pardiggle, but her voice had not a friendly sound, i thought; it was much too business-like and systematic. "how do you do, all of you? i am here again. i told you, you couldn't tire me, you know. i am fond of hard work, and am true to my word." "there an't," growled the man on the floor, whose head rested on his hand as he stared at us, "any more on you to come in, is there?" "no, my friend," said mrs. pardiggle, seating herself on one stool and knocking down another. "we are all here." "because i thought there warn't enough of you, perhaps?" said the man, with his pipe between his lips as he looked round upon us. the young man and the girl both laughed. two friends of the young man, whom we had attracted to the doorway and who stood there with their hands in their pockets, echoed the laugh noisily. "you can't tire me, good people," said mrs. pardiggle to these latter. "i enjoy hard work, and the harder you make mine, the better i like it." "then make it easy for her!" growled the man upon the floor. "i wants it done, and over. i wants a end of these liberties took with my place. i wants an end of being drawed like a badger. now you're a-going to poll-pry and question according to custom--i know what you're a-going to be up to. well! you haven't got no occasion to be up to it. i'll save you the trouble. is my daughter a-washin? yes, she is a-washin. look at the water. smell it! that's wot we drinks. how do you like it, and what do you think of gin instead! an't my place dirty? yes, it is dirty--it's nat'rally dirty, and it's nat'rally onwholesome; and we've had five dirty and onwholesome children, as is all dead infants, and so much the better for them, and for us besides. have i read the little book wot you left? no, i an't read the little book wot you left. there an't nobody here as knows how to read it; and if there wos, it wouldn't be suitable to me. it's a book fit for a babby, and i'm not a babby. if you was to leave me a doll, i shouldn't nuss it. how have i been conducting of myself? why, i've been drunk for three days; and i'da been drunk four if i'da had the money. don't i never mean for to go to church? no, i don't never mean for to go to church. i shouldn't be expected there, if i did; the beadle's too gen-teel for me. and how did my wife get that black eye? why, i give it her; and if she says i didn't, she's a lie!" he had pulled his pipe out of his mouth to say all this, and he now turned over on his other side and smoked again. mrs. pardiggle, who had been regarding him through her spectacles with a forcible composure, calculated, i could not help thinking, to increase his antagonism, pulled out a good book as if it were a constable's staff and took the whole family into custody. i mean into religious custody, of course; but she really did it as if she were an inexorable moral policeman carrying them all off to a station-house. ada and i were very uncomfortable. we both felt intrusive and out of place, and we both thought that mrs. pardiggle would have got on infinitely better if she had not had such a mechanical way of taking possession of people. the children sulked and stared; the family took no notice of us whatever, except when the young man made the dog bark, which he usually did when mrs. pardiggle was most emphatic. we both felt painfully sensible that between us and these people there was an iron barrier which could not be removed by our new friend. by whom or how it could be removed, we did not know, but we knew that. even what she read and said seemed to us to be ill-chosen for such auditors, if it had been imparted ever so modestly and with ever so much tact. as to the little book to which the man on the floor had referred, we acquired a knowledge of it afterwards, and mr. jarndyce said he doubted if robinson crusoe could have read it, though he had had no other on his desolate island. we were much relieved, under these circumstances, when mrs. pardiggle left off. the man on the floor, then turning his head round again, said morosely, "well! you've done, have you?" "for to-day, i have, my friend. but i am never fatigued. i shall come to you again in your regular order," returned mrs. pardiggle with demonstrative cheerfulness. "so long as you goes now," said he, folding his arms and shutting his eyes with an oath, "you may do wot you like!" mrs. pardiggle accordingly rose and made a little vortex in the confined room from which the pipe itself very narrowly escaped. taking one of her young family in each hand, and telling the others to follow closely, and expressing her hope that the brickmaker and all his house would be improved when she saw them next, she then proceeded to another cottage. i hope it is not unkind in me to say that she certainly did make, in this as in everything else, a show that was not conciliatory of doing charity by wholesale and of dealing in it to a large extent. she supposed that we were following her, but as soon as the space was left clear, we approached the woman sitting by the fire to ask if the baby were ill. she only looked at it as it lay on her lap. we had observed before that when she looked at it she covered her discoloured eye with her hand, as though she wished to separate any association with noise and violence and ill treatment from the poor little child. ada, whose gentle heart was moved by its appearance, bent down to touch its little face. as she did so, i saw what happened and drew her back. the child died. "oh, esther!" cried ada, sinking on her knees beside it. "look here! oh, esther, my love, the little thing! the suffering, quiet, pretty little thing! i am so sorry for it. i am so sorry for the mother. i never saw a sight so pitiful as this before! oh, baby, baby!" such compassion, such gentleness, as that with which she bent down weeping and put her hand upon the mother's might have softened any mother's heart that ever beat. the woman at first gazed at her in astonishment and then burst into tears. presently i took the light burden from her lap, did what i could to make the baby's rest the prettier and gentler, laid it on a shelf, and covered it with my own handkerchief. we tried to comfort the mother, and we whispered to her what our saviour said of children. she answered nothing, but sat weeping--weeping very much. when i turned, i found that the young man had taken out the dog and was standing at the door looking in upon us with dry eyes, but quiet. the girl was quiet too and sat in a corner looking on the ground. the man had risen. he still smoked his pipe with an air of defiance, but he was silent. an ugly woman, very poorly clothed, hurried in while i was glancing at them, and coming straight up to the mother, said, "jenny! jenny!" the mother rose on being so addressed and fell upon the woman's neck. she also had upon her face and arms the marks of ill usage. she had no kind of grace about her, but the grace of sympathy; but when she condoled with the woman, and her own tears fell, she wanted no beauty. i say condoled, but her only words were "jenny! jenny!" all the rest was in the tone in which she said them. i thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and shabby and beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one another; to see how they felt for one another, how the heart of each to each was softened by the hard trials of their lives. i think the best side of such people is almost hidden from us. what the poor are to the poor is little known, excepting to themselves and god. we felt it better to withdraw and leave them uninterrupted. we stole out quietly and without notice from any one except the man. he was leaning against the wall near the door, and finding that there was scarcely room for us to pass, went out before us. he seemed to want to hide that he did this on our account, but we perceived that he did, and thanked him. he made no answer. ada was so full of grief all the way home, and richard, whom we found at home, was so distressed to see her in tears (though he said to me, when she was not present, how beautiful it was too!), that we arranged to return at night with some little comforts and repeat our visit at the brick-maker's house. we said as little as we could to mr. jarndyce, but the wind changed directly. richard accompanied us at night to the scene of our morning expedition. on our way there, we had to pass a noisy drinking-house, where a number of men were flocking about the door. among them, and prominent in some dispute, was the father of the little child. at a short distance, we passed the young man and the dog, in congenial company. the sister was standing laughing and talking with some other young women at the corner of the row of cottages, but she seemed ashamed and turned away as we went by. we left our escort within sight of the brickmaker's dwelling and proceeded by ourselves. when we came to the door, we found the woman who had brought such consolation with her standing there looking anxiously out. "it's you, young ladies, is it?" she said in a whisper. "i'm a-watching for my master. my heart's in my mouth. if he was to catch me away from home, he'd pretty near murder me." "do you mean your husband?" said i. "yes, miss, my master. jenny's asleep, quite worn out. she's scarcely had the child off her lap, poor thing, these seven days and nights, except when i've been able to take it for a minute or two." as she gave way for us, she went softly in and put what we had brought near the miserable bed on which the mother slept. no effort had been made to clean the room--it seemed in its nature almost hopeless of being clean; but the small waxen form from which so much solemnity diffused itself had been composed afresh, and washed, and neatly dressed in some fragments of white linen; and on my handkerchief, which still covered the poor baby, a little bunch of sweet herbs had been laid by the same rough, scarred hands, so lightly, so tenderly! "may heaven reward you!" we said to her. "you are a good woman." "me, young ladies?" she returned with surprise. "hush! jenny, jenny!" the mother had moaned in her sleep and moved. the sound of the familiar voice seemed to calm her again. she was quiet once more. how little i thought, when i raised my handkerchief to look upon the tiny sleeper underneath and seemed to see a halo shine around the child through ada's drooping hair as her pity bent her head--how little i thought in whose unquiet bosom that handkerchief would come to lie after covering the motionless and peaceful breast! i only thought that perhaps the angel of the child might not be all unconscious of the woman who replaced it with so compassionate a hand; not all unconscious of her presently, when we had taken leave, and left her at the door, by turns looking, and listening in terror for herself, and saying in her old soothing manner, "jenny, jenny!" chapter ix signs and tokens i don't know how it is i seem to be always writing about myself. i mean all the time to write about other people, and i try to think about myself as little as possible, and i am sure, when i find myself coming into the story again, i am really vexed and say, "dear, dear, you tiresome little creature, i wish you wouldn't!" but it is all of no use. i hope any one who may read what i write will understand that if these pages contain a great deal about me, i can only suppose it must be because i have really something to do with them and can't be kept out. my darling and i read together, and worked, and practised, and found so much employment for our time that the winter days flew by us like bright-winged birds. generally in the afternoons, and always in the evenings, richard gave us his company. although he was one of the most restless creatures in the world, he certainly was very fond of our society. he was very, very, very fond of ada. i mean it, and i had better say it at once. i had never seen any young people falling in love before, but i found them out quite soon. i could not say so, of course, or show that i knew anything about it. on the contrary, i was so demure and used to seem so unconscious that sometimes i considered within myself while i was sitting at work whether i was not growing quite deceitful. but there was no help for it. all i had to do was to be quiet, and i was as quiet as a mouse. they were as quiet as mice too, so far as any words were concerned, but the innocent manner in which they relied more and more upon me as they took more and more to one another was so charming that i had great difficulty in not showing how it interested me. "our dear little old woman is such a capital old woman," richard would say, coming up to meet me in the garden early, with his pleasant laugh and perhaps the least tinge of a blush, "that i can't get on without her. before i begin my harum-scarum day--grinding away at those books and instruments and then galloping up hill and down dale, all the country round, like a highwayman--it does me so much good to come and have a steady walk with our comfortable friend, that here i am again!" "you know, dame durden, dear," ada would say at night, with her head upon my shoulder and the firelight shining in her thoughtful eyes, "i don't want to talk when we come upstairs here. only to sit a little while thinking, with your dear face for company, and to hear the wind and remember the poor sailors at sea--" ah! perhaps richard was going to be a sailor. we had talked it over very often now, and there was some talk of gratifying the inclination of his childhood for the sea. mr. jarndyce had written to a relation of the family, a great sir leicester dedlock, for his interest in richard's favour, generally; and sir leicester had replied in a gracious manner that he would be happy to advance the prospects of the young gentleman if it should ever prove to be within his power, which was not at all probable, and that my lady sent her compliments to the young gentleman (to whom she perfectly remembered that she was allied by remote consanguinity) and trusted that he would ever do his duty in any honourable profession to which he might devote himself. "so i apprehend it's pretty clear," said richard to me, "that i shall have to work my own way. never mind! plenty of people have had to do that before now, and have done it. i only wish i had the command of a clipping privateer to begin with and could carry off the chancellor and keep him on short allowance until he gave judgment in our cause. he'd find himself growing thin, if he didn't look sharp!" with a buoyancy and hopefulness and a gaiety that hardly ever flagged, richard had a carelessness in his character that quite perplexed me, principally because he mistook it, in such a very odd way, for prudence. it entered into all his calculations about money in a singular manner which i don't think i can better explain than by reverting for a moment to our loan to mr. skimpole. mr. jarndyce had ascertained the amount, either from mr. skimpole himself or from coavinses, and had placed the money in my hands with instructions to me to retain my own part of it and hand the rest to richard. the number of little acts of thoughtless expenditure which richard justified by the recovery of his ten pounds, and the number of times he talked to me as if he had saved or realized that amount, would form a sum in simple addition. "my prudent mother hubbard, why not?" he said to me when he wanted, without the least consideration, to bestow five pounds on the brickmaker. "i made ten pounds, clear, out of coavinses' business." "how was that?" said i. "why, i got rid of ten pounds which i was quite content to get rid of and never expected to see any more. you don't deny that?" "no," said i. "very well! then i came into possession of ten pounds--" "the same ten pounds," i hinted. "that has nothing to do with it!" returned richard. "i have got ten pounds more than i expected to have, and consequently i can afford to spend it without being particular." in exactly the same way, when he was persuaded out of the sacrifice of these five pounds by being convinced that it would do no good, he carried that sum to his credit and drew upon it. "let me see!" he would say. "i saved five pounds out of the brickmaker's affair, so if i have a good rattle to london and back in a post-chaise and put that down at four pounds, i shall have saved one. and it's a very good thing to save one, let me tell you: a penny saved is a penny got!" i believe richard's was as frank and generous a nature as there possibly can be. he was ardent and brave, and in the midst of all his wild restlessness, was so gentle that i knew him like a brother in a few weeks. his gentleness was natural to him and would have shown itself abundantly even without ada's influence; but with it, he became one of the most winning of companions, always so ready to be interested and always so happy, sanguine, and light-hearted. i am sure that i, sitting with them, and walking with them, and talking with them, and noticing from day to day how they went on, falling deeper and deeper in love, and saying nothing about it, and each shyly thinking that this love was the greatest of secrets, perhaps not yet suspected even by the other--i am sure that i was scarcely less enchanted than they were and scarcely less pleased with the pretty dream. we were going on in this way, when one morning at breakfast mr. jarndyce received a letter, and looking at the superscription, said, "from boythorn? aye, aye!" and opened and read it with evident pleasure, announcing to us in a parenthesis when he was about half-way through, that boythorn was "coming down" on a visit. now who was boythorn, we all thought. and i dare say we all thought too--i am sure i did, for one--would boythorn at all interfere with what was going forward? "i went to school with this fellow, lawrence boythorn," said mr. jarndyce, tapping the letter as he laid it on the table, "more than five and forty years ago. he was then the most impetuous boy in the world, and he is now the most impetuous man. he was then the loudest boy in the world, and he is now the loudest man. he was then the heartiest and sturdiest boy in the world, and he is now the heartiest and sturdiest man. he is a tremendous fellow." "in stature, sir?" asked richard. "pretty well, rick, in that respect," said mr. jarndyce; "being some ten years older than i and a couple of inches taller, with his head thrown back like an old soldier, his stalwart chest squared, his hands like a clean blacksmith's, and his lungs! there's no simile for his lungs. talking, laughing, or snoring, they make the beams of the house shake." as mr. jarndyce sat enjoying the image of his friend boythorn, we observed the favourable omen that there was not the least indication of any change in the wind. "but it's the inside of the man, the warm heart of the man, the passion of the man, the fresh blood of the man, rick--and ada, and little cobweb too, for you are all interested in a visitor--that i speak of," he pursued. "his language is as sounding as his voice. he is always in extremes, perpetually in the superlative degree. in his condemnation he is all ferocity. you might suppose him to be an ogre from what he says, and i believe he has the reputation of one with some people. there! i tell you no more of him beforehand. you must not be surprised to see him take me under his protection, for he has never forgotten that i was a low boy at school and that our friendship began in his knocking two of my head tyrant's teeth out (he says six) before breakfast. boythorn and his man," to me, "will be here this afternoon, my dear." i took care that the necessary preparations were made for mr. boythorn's reception, and we looked forward to his arrival with some curiosity. the afternoon wore away, however, and he did not appear. the dinner-hour arrived, and still he did not appear. the dinner was put back an hour, and we were sitting round the fire with no light but the blaze when the hall-door suddenly burst open and the hall resounded with these words, uttered with the greatest vehemence and in a stentorian tone: "we have been misdirected, jarndyce, by a most abandoned ruffian, who told us to take the turning to the right instead of to the left. he is the most intolerable scoundrel on the face of the earth. his father must have been a most consummate villain, ever to have such a son. i would have had that fellow shot without the least remorse!" "did he do it on purpose?" mr. jarndyce inquired. "i have not the slightest doubt that the scoundrel has passed his whole existence in misdirecting travellers!" returned the other. "by my soul, i thought him the worst-looking dog i had ever beheld when he was telling me to take the turning to the right. and yet i stood before that fellow face to face and didn't knock his brains out!" "teeth, you mean?" said mr. jarndyce. "ha, ha, ha!" laughed mr. lawrence boythorn, really making the whole house vibrate. "what, you have not forgotten it yet! ha, ha, ha! and that was another most consummate vagabond! by my soul, the countenance of that fellow when he was a boy was the blackest image of perfidy, cowardice, and cruelty ever set up as a scarecrow in a field of scoundrels. if i were to meet that most unparalleled despot in the streets to-morrow, i would fell him like a rotten tree!" "i have no doubt of it," said mr. jarndyce. "now, will you come upstairs?" "by my soul, jarndyce," returned his guest, who seemed to refer to his watch, "if you had been married, i would have turned back at the garden-gate and gone away to the remotest summits of the himalaya mountains sooner than i would have presented myself at this unseasonable hour." "not quite so far, i hope?" said mr. jarndyce. "by my life and honour, yes!" cried the visitor. "i wouldn't be guilty of the audacious insolence of keeping a lady of the house waiting all this time for any earthly consideration. i would infinitely rather destroy myself--infinitely rather!" talking thus, they went upstairs, and presently we heard him in his bedroom thundering "ha, ha, ha!" and again "ha, ha, ha!" until the flattest echo in the neighbourhood seemed to catch the contagion and to laugh as enjoyingly as he did or as we did when we heard him laugh. we all conceived a prepossession in his favour, for there was a sterling quality in this laugh, and in his vigorous, healthy voice, and in the roundness and fullness with which he uttered every word he spoke, and in the very fury of his superlatives, which seemed to go off like blank cannons and hurt nothing. but we were hardly prepared to have it so confirmed by his appearance when mr. jarndyce presented him. he was not only a very handsome old gentleman--upright and stalwart as he had been described to us--with a massive grey head, a fine composure of face when silent, a figure that might have become corpulent but for his being so continually in earnest that he gave it no rest, and a chin that might have subsided into a double chin but for the vehement emphasis in which it was constantly required to assist; but he was such a true gentleman in his manner, so chivalrously polite, his face was lighted by a smile of so much sweetness and tenderness, and it seemed so plain that he had nothing to hide, but showed himself exactly as he was--incapable, as richard said, of anything on a limited scale, and firing away with those blank great guns because he carried no small arms whatever--that really i could not help looking at him with equal pleasure as he sat at dinner, whether he smilingly conversed with ada and me, or was led by mr. jarndyce into some great volley of superlatives, or threw up his head like a bloodhound and gave out that tremendous "ha, ha, ha!" "you have brought your bird with you, i suppose?" said mr. jarndyce. "by heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in europe!" replied the other. "he is the most wonderful creature! i wouldn't take ten thousand guineas for that bird. i have left an annuity for his sole support in case he should outlive me. he is, in sense and attachment, a phenomenon. and his father before him was one of the most astonishing birds that ever lived!" the subject of this laudation was a very little canary, who was so tame that he was brought down by mr. boythorn's man, on his forefinger, and after taking a gentle flight round the room, alighted on his master's head. to hear mr. boythorn presently expressing the most implacable and passionate sentiments, with this fragile mite of a creature quietly perched on his forehead, was to have a good illustration of his character, i thought. "by my soul, jarndyce," he said, very gently holding up a bit of bread to the canary to peck at, "if i were in your place i would seize every master in chancery by the throat to-morrow morning and shake him until his money rolled out of his pockets and his bones rattled in his skin. i would have a settlement out of somebody, by fair means or by foul. if you would empower me to do it, i would do it for you with the greatest satisfaction!" (all this time the very small canary was eating out of his hand.) "i thank you, lawrence, but the suit is hardly at such a point at present," returned mr. jarndyce, laughing, "that it would be greatly advanced even by the legal process of shaking the bench and the whole bar." "there never was such an infernal cauldron as that chancery on the face of the earth!" said mr. boythorn. "nothing but a mine below it on a busy day in term time, with all its records, rules, and precedents collected in it and every functionary belonging to it also, high and low, upward and downward, from its son the accountant-general to its father the devil, and the whole blown to atoms with ten thousand hundredweight of gunpowder, would reform it in the least!" it was impossible not to laugh at the energetic gravity with which he recommended this strong measure of reform. when we laughed, he threw up his head and shook his broad chest, and again the whole country seemed to echo to his "ha, ha, ha!" it had not the least effect in disturbing the bird, whose sense of security was complete and who hopped about the table with its quick head now on this side and now on that, turning its bright sudden eye on its master as if he were no more than another bird. "but how do you and your neighbour get on about the disputed right of way?" said mr. jarndyce. "you are not free from the toils of the law yourself!" "the fellow has brought actions against me for trespass, and i have brought actions against him for trespass," returned mr. boythorn. "by heaven, he is the proudest fellow breathing. it is morally impossible that his name can be sir leicester. it must be sir lucifer." "complimentary to our distant relation!" said my guardian laughingly to ada and richard. "i would beg miss clare's pardon and mr. carstone's pardon," resumed our visitor, "if i were not reassured by seeing in the fair face of the lady and the smile of the gentleman that it is quite unnecessary and that they keep their distant relation at a comfortable distance." "or he keeps us," suggested richard. "by my soul," exclaimed mr. boythorn, suddenly firing another volley, "that fellow is, and his father was, and his grandfather was, the most stiff-necked, arrogant imbecile, pig-headed numskull, ever, by some inexplicable mistake of nature, born in any station of life but a walking-stick's! the whole of that family are the most solemnly conceited and consummate blockheads! but it's no matter; he should not shut up my path if he were fifty baronets melted into one and living in a hundred chesney wolds, one within another, like the ivory balls in a chinese carving. the fellow, by his agent, or secretary, or somebody, writes to me 'sir leicester dedlock, baronet, presents his compliments to mr. lawrence boythorn, and has to call his attention to the fact that the green pathway by the old parsonage-house, now the property of mr. lawrence boythorn, is sir leicester's right of way, being in fact a portion of the park of chesney wold, and that sir leicester finds it convenient to close up the same.' i write to the fellow, 'mr. lawrence boythorn presents his compliments to sir leicester dedlock, baronet, and has to call his attention to the fact that he totally denies the whole of sir leicester dedlock's positions on every possible subject and has to add, in reference to closing up the pathway, that he will be glad to see the man who may undertake to do it.' the fellow sends a most abandoned villain with one eye to construct a gateway. i play upon that execrable scoundrel with a fire-engine until the breath is nearly driven out of his body. the fellow erects a gate in the night. i chop it down and burn it in the morning. he sends his myrmidons to come over the fence and pass and repass. i catch them in humane man traps, fire split peas at their legs, play upon them with the engine--resolve to free mankind from the insupportable burden of the existence of those lurking ruffians. he brings actions for trespass; i bring actions for trespass. he brings actions for assault and battery; i defend them and continue to assault and batter. ha, ha, ha!" to hear him say all this with unimaginable energy, one might have thought him the angriest of mankind. to see him at the very same time, looking at the bird now perched upon his thumb and softly smoothing its feathers with his forefinger, one might have thought him the gentlest. to hear him laugh and see the broad good nature of his face then, one might have supposed that he had not a care in the world, or a dispute, or a dislike, but that his whole existence was a summer joke. "no, no," he said, "no closing up of my paths by any dedlock! though i willingly confess," here he softened in a moment, "that lady dedlock is the most accomplished lady in the world, to whom i would do any homage that a plain gentleman, and no baronet with a head seven hundred years thick, may. a man who joined his regiment at twenty and within a week challenged the most imperious and presumptuous coxcomb of a commanding officer that ever drew the breath of life through a tight waist--and got broke for it--is not the man to be walked over by all the sir lucifers, dead or alive, locked or unlocked. ha, ha, ha!" "nor the man to allow his junior to be walked over either?" said my guardian. "most assuredly not!" said mr. boythorn, clapping him on the shoulder with an air of protection that had something serious in it, though he laughed. "he will stand by the low boy, always. jarndyce, you may rely upon him! but speaking of this trespass--with apologies to miss clare and miss summerson for the length at which i have pursued so dry a subject--is there nothing for me from your men kenge and carboy?" "i think not, esther?" said mr. jarndyce. "nothing, guardian." "much obliged!" said mr. boythorn. "had no need to ask, after even my slight experience of miss summerson's forethought for every one about her." (they all encouraged me; they were determined to do it.) "i inquired because, coming from lincolnshire, i of course have not yet been in town, and i thought some letters might have been sent down here. i dare say they will report progress to-morrow morning." i saw him so often in the course of the evening, which passed very pleasantly, contemplate richard and ada with an interest and a satisfaction that made his fine face remarkably agreeable as he sat at a little distance from the piano listening to the music--and he had small occasion to tell us that he was passionately fond of music, for his face showed it--that i asked my guardian as we sat at the backgammon board whether mr. boythorn had ever been married. "no," said he. "no." "but he meant to be!" said i. "how did you find out that?" he returned with a smile. "why, guardian," i explained, not without reddening a little at hazarding what was in my thoughts, "there is something so tender in his manner, after all, and he is so very courtly and gentle to us, and--" mr. jarndyce directed his eyes to where he was sitting as i have just described him. i said no more. "you are right, little woman," he answered. "he was all but married once. long ago. and once." "did the lady die?" "no--but she died to him. that time has had its influence on all his later life. would you suppose him to have a head and a heart full of romance yet?" "i think, guardian, i might have supposed so. but it is easy to say that when you have told me so." "he has never since been what he might have been," said mr. jarndyce, "and now you see him in his age with no one near him but his servant and his little yellow friend. it's your throw, my dear!" i felt, from my guardian's manner, that beyond this point i could not pursue the subject without changing the wind. i therefore forbore to ask any further questions. i was interested, but not curious. i thought a little while about this old love story in the night, when i was awakened by mr. boythorn's lusty snoring; and i tried to do that very difficult thing, imagine old people young again and invested with the graces of youth. but i fell asleep before i had succeeded, and dreamed of the days when i lived in my godmother's house. i am not sufficiently acquainted with such subjects to know whether it is at all remarkable that i almost always dreamed of that period of my life. with the morning there came a letter from messrs. kenge and carboy to mr. boythorn informing him that one of their clerks would wait upon him at noon. as it was the day of the week on which i paid the bills, and added up my books, and made all the household affairs as compact as possible, i remained at home while mr. jarndyce, ada, and richard took advantage of a very fine day to make a little excursion, mr. boythorn was to wait for kenge and carboy's clerk and then was to go on foot to meet them on their return. well! i was full of business, examining tradesmen's books, adding up columns, paying money, filing receipts, and i dare say making a great bustle about it when mr. guppy was announced and shown in. i had had some idea that the clerk who was to be sent down might be the young gentleman who had met me at the coach-office, and i was glad to see him, because he was associated with my present happiness. i scarcely knew him again, he was so uncommonly smart. he had an entirely new suit of glossy clothes on, a shining hat, lilac-kid gloves, a neckerchief of a variety of colours, a large hot-house flower in his button-hole, and a thick gold ring on his little finger. besides which, he quite scented the dining-room with bear's-grease and other perfumery. he looked at me with an attention that quite confused me when i begged him to take a seat until the servant should return; and as he sat there crossing and uncrossing his legs in a corner, and i asked him if he had had a pleasant ride, and hoped that mr. kenge was well, i never looked at him, but i found him looking at me in the same scrutinizing and curious way. when the request was brought to him that he would go upstairs to mr. boythorn's room, i mentioned that he would find lunch prepared for him when he came down, of which mr. jarndyce hoped he would partake. he said with some embarrassment, holding the handle of the door, "shall i have the honour of finding you here, miss?" i replied yes, i should be there; and he went out with a bow and another look. i thought him only awkward and shy, for he was evidently much embarrassed; and i fancied that the best thing i could do would be to wait until i saw that he had everything he wanted and then to leave him to himself. the lunch was soon brought, but it remained for some time on the table. the interview with mr. boythorn was a long one, and a stormy one too, i should think, for although his room was at some distance i heard his loud voice rising every now and then like a high wind, and evidently blowing perfect broadsides of denunciation. at last mr. guppy came back, looking something the worse for the conference. "my eye, miss," he said in a low voice, "he's a tartar!" "pray take some refreshment, sir," said i. mr. guppy sat down at the table and began nervously sharpening the carving-knife on the carving-fork, still looking at me (as i felt quite sure without looking at him) in the same unusual manner. the sharpening lasted so long that at last i felt a kind of obligation on me to raise my eyes in order that i might break the spell under which he seemed to labour, of not being able to leave off. he immediately looked at the dish and began to carve. "what will you take yourself, miss? you'll take a morsel of something?" "no, thank you," said i. "shan't i give you a piece of anything at all, miss?" said mr. guppy, hurriedly drinking off a glass of wine. "nothing, thank you," said i. "i have only waited to see that you have everything you want. is there anything i can order for you?" "no, i am much obliged to you, miss, i'm sure. i've everything that i can require to make me comfortable--at least i--not comfortable--i'm never that." he drank off two more glasses of wine, one after another. i thought i had better go. "i beg your pardon, miss!" said mr. guppy, rising when he saw me rise. "but would you allow me the favour of a minute's private conversation?" not knowing what to say, i sat down again. "what follows is without prejudice, miss?" said mr. guppy, anxiously bringing a chair towards my table. "i don't understand what you mean," said i, wondering. "it's one of our law terms, miss. you won't make any use of it to my detriment at kenge and carboy's or elsewhere. if our conversation shouldn't lead to anything, i am to be as i was and am not to be prejudiced in my situation or worldly prospects. in short, it's in total confidence." "i am at a loss, sir," said i, "to imagine what you can have to communicate in total confidence to me, whom you have never seen but once; but i should be very sorry to do you any injury." "thank you, miss. i'm sure of it--that's quite sufficient." all this time mr. guppy was either planing his forehead with his handkerchief or tightly rubbing the palm of his left hand with the palm of his right. "if you would excuse my taking another glass of wine, miss, i think it might assist me in getting on without a continual choke that cannot fail to be mutually unpleasant." he did so, and came back again. i took the opportunity of moving well behind my table. "you wouldn't allow me to offer you one, would you miss?" said mr. guppy, apparently refreshed. "not any," said i. "not half a glass?" said mr. guppy. "quarter? no! then, to proceed. my present salary, miss summerson, at kenge and carboy's, is two pound a week. when i first had the happiness of looking upon you, it was one fifteen, and had stood at that figure for a lengthened period. a rise of five has since taken place, and a further rise of five is guaranteed at the expiration of a term not exceeding twelve months from the present date. my mother has a little property, which takes the form of a small life annuity, upon which she lives in an independent though unassuming manner in the old street road. she is eminently calculated for a mother-in-law. she never interferes, is all for peace, and her disposition easy. she has her failings--as who has not?--but i never knew her do it when company was present, at which time you may freely trust her with wines, spirits, or malt liquors. my own abode is lodgings at penton place, pentonville. it is lowly, but airy, open at the back, and considered one of the 'ealthiest outlets. miss summerson! in the mildest language, i adore you. would you be so kind as to allow me (as i may say) to file a declaration--to make an offer!" mr. guppy went down on his knees. i was well behind my table and not much frightened. i said, "get up from that ridiculous position immediately, sir, or you will oblige me to break my implied promise and ring the bell!" "hear me out, miss!" said mr. guppy, folding his hands. "i cannot consent to hear another word, sir," i returned, "unless you get up from the carpet directly and go and sit down at the table as you ought to do if you have any sense at all." he looked piteously, but slowly rose and did so. "yet what a mockery it is, miss," he said with his hand upon his heart and shaking his head at me in a melancholy manner over the tray, "to be stationed behind food at such a moment. the soul recoils from food at such a moment, miss." "i beg you to conclude," said i; "you have asked me to hear you out, and i beg you to conclude." "i will, miss," said mr. guppy. "as i love and honour, so likewise i obey. would that i could make thee the subject of that vow before the shrine!" "that is quite impossible," said i, "and entirely out of the question." "i am aware," said mr. guppy, leaning forward over the tray and regarding me, as i again strangely felt, though my eyes were not directed to him, with his late intent look, "i am aware that in a worldly point of view, according to all appearances, my offer is a poor one. but, miss summerson! angel! no, don't ring--i have been brought up in a sharp school and am accustomed to a variety of general practice. though a young man, i have ferreted out evidence, got up cases, and seen lots of life. blest with your hand, what means might i not find of advancing your interests and pushing your fortunes! what might i not get to know, nearly concerning you? i know nothing now, certainly; but what might i not if i had your confidence, and you set me on?" i told him that he addressed my interest or what he supposed to be my interest quite as unsuccessfully as he addressed my inclination, and he would now understand that i requested him, if he pleased, to go away immediately. "cruel miss," said mr. guppy, "hear but another word! i think you must have seen that i was struck with those charms on the day when i waited at the whytorseller. i think you must have remarked that i could not forbear a tribute to those charms when i put up the steps of the 'ackney-coach. it was a feeble tribute to thee, but it was well meant. thy image has ever since been fixed in my breast. i have walked up and down of an evening opposite jellyby's house only to look upon the bricks that once contained thee. this out of to-day, quite an unnecessary out so far as the attendance, which was its pretended object, went, was planned by me alone for thee alone. if i speak of interest, it is only to recommend myself and my respectful wretchedness. love was before it, and is before it." "i should be pained, mr. guppy," said i, rising and putting my hand upon the bell-rope, "to do you or any one who was sincere the injustice of slighting any honest feeling, however disagreeably expressed. if you have really meant to give me a proof of your good opinion, though ill-timed and misplaced, i feel that i ought to thank you. i have very little reason to be proud, and i am not proud. i hope," i think i added, without very well knowing what i said, "that you will now go away as if you had never been so exceedingly foolish and attend to messrs. kenge and carboy's business." "half a minute, miss!" cried mr. guppy, checking me as i was about to ring. "this has been without prejudice?" "i will never mention it," said i, "unless you should give me future occasion to do so." "a quarter of a minute, miss! in case you should think better at any time, however distant--that's no consequence, for my feelings can never alter--of anything i have said, particularly what might i not do, mr. william guppy, eighty-seven, penton place, or if removed, or dead (of blighted hopes or anything of that sort), care of mrs. guppy, three hundred and two, old street road, will be sufficient." i rang the bell, the servant came, and mr. guppy, laying his written card upon the table and making a dejected bow, departed. raising my eyes as he went out, i once more saw him looking at me after he had passed the door. i sat there for another hour or more, finishing my books and payments and getting through plenty of business. then i arranged my desk, and put everything away, and was so composed and cheerful that i thought i had quite dismissed this unexpected incident. but, when i went upstairs to my own room, i surprised myself by beginning to laugh about it and then surprised myself still more by beginning to cry about it. in short, i was in a flutter for a little while and felt as if an old chord had been more coarsely touched than it ever had been since the days of the dear old doll, long buried in the garden. chapter x the law-writer on the eastern borders of chancery lane, that is to say, more particularly in cook's court, cursitor street, mr. snagsby, law-stationer, pursues his lawful calling. in the shade of cook's court, at most times a shady place, mr. snagsby has dealt in all sorts of blank forms of legal process; in skins and rolls of parchment; in paper--foolscap, brief, draft, brown, white, whitey-brown, and blotting; in stamps; in office-quills, pens, ink, india-rubber, pounce, pins, pencils, sealing-wax, and wafers; in red tape and green ferret; in pocket-books, almanacs, diaries, and law lists; in string boxes, rulers, inkstands--glass and leaden--pen-knives, scissors, bodkins, and other small office-cutlery; in short, in articles too numerous to mention, ever since he was out of his time and went into partnership with peffer. on that occasion, cook's court was in a manner revolutionized by the new inscription in fresh paint, peffer and snagsby, displacing the time-honoured and not easily to be deciphered legend peffer only. for smoke, which is the london ivy, had so wreathed itself round peffer's name and clung to his dwelling-place that the affectionate parasite quite overpowered the parent tree. peffer is never seen in cook's court now. he is not expected there, for he has been recumbent this quarter of a century in the churchyard of st. andrews, holborn, with the waggons and hackney-coaches roaring past him all the day and half the night like one great dragon. if he ever steal forth when the dragon is at rest to air himself again in cook's court until admonished to return by the crowing of the sanguine cock in the cellar at the little dairy in cursitor street, whose ideas of daylight it would be curious to ascertain, since he knows from his personal observation next to nothing about it--if peffer ever do revisit the pale glimpses of cook's court, which no law-stationer in the trade can positively deny, he comes invisibly, and no one is the worse or wiser. in his lifetime, and likewise in the period of snagsby's "time" of seven long years, there dwelt with peffer in the same law-stationering premises a niece--a short, shrewd niece, something too violently compressed about the waist, and with a sharp nose like a sharp autumn evening, inclining to be frosty towards the end. the cook's courtiers had a rumour flying among them that the mother of this niece did, in her daughter's childhood, moved by too jealous a solicitude that her figure should approach perfection, lace her up every morning with her maternal foot against the bed-post for a stronger hold and purchase; and further, that she exhibited internally pints of vinegar and lemon-juice, which acids, they held, had mounted to the nose and temper of the patient. with whichsoever of the many tongues of rumour this frothy report originated, it either never reached or never influenced the ears of young snagsby, who, having wooed and won its fair subject on his arrival at man's estate, entered into two partnerships at once. so now, in cook's court, cursitor street, mr. snagsby and the niece are one; and the niece still cherishes her figure, which, however tastes may differ, is unquestionably so far precious that there is mighty little of it. mr. and mrs. snagsby are not only one bone and one flesh, but, to the neighbours' thinking, one voice too. that voice, appearing to proceed from mrs. snagsby alone, is heard in cook's court very often. mr. snagsby, otherwise than as he finds expression through these dulcet tones, is rarely heard. he is a mild, bald, timid man with a shining head and a scrubby clump of black hair sticking out at the back. he tends to meekness and obesity. as he stands at his door in cook's court in his grey shop-coat and black calico sleeves, looking up at the clouds, or stands behind a desk in his dark shop with a heavy flat ruler, snipping and slicing at sheepskin in company with his two 'prentices, he is emphatically a retiring and unassuming man. from beneath his feet, at such times, as from a shrill ghost unquiet in its grave, there frequently arise complainings and lamentations in the voice already mentioned; and haply, on some occasions when these reach a sharper pitch than usual, mr. snagsby mentions to the 'prentices, "i think my little woman is a-giving it to guster!" this proper name, so used by mr. snagsby, has before now sharpened the wit of the cook's courtiers to remark that it ought to be the name of mrs. snagsby, seeing that she might with great force and expression be termed a guster, in compliment to her stormy character. it is, however, the possession, and the only possession except fifty shillings per annum and a very small box indifferently filled with clothing, of a lean young woman from a workhouse (by some supposed to have been christened augusta) who, although she was farmed or contracted for during her growing time by an amiable benefactor of his species resident at tooting, and cannot fail to have been developed under the most favourable circumstances, "has fits," which the parish can't account for. guster, really aged three or four and twenty, but looking a round ten years older, goes cheap with this unaccountable drawback of fits, and is so apprehensive of being returned on the hands of her patron saint that except when she is found with her head in the pail, or the sink, or the copper, or the dinner, or anything else that happens to be near her at the time of her seizure, she is always at work. she is a satisfaction to the parents and guardians of the 'prentices, who feel that there is little danger of her inspiring tender emotions in the breast of youth; she is a satisfaction to mrs. snagsby, who can always find fault with her; she is a satisfaction to mr. snagsby, who thinks it a charity to keep her. the law-stationer's establishment is, in guster's eyes, a temple of plenty and splendour. she believes the little drawing-room upstairs, always kept, as one may say, with its hair in papers and its pinafore on, to be the most elegant apartment in christendom. the view it commands of cook's court at one end (not to mention a squint into cursitor street) and of coavinses' the sheriff's officer's backyard at the other she regards as a prospect of unequalled beauty. the portraits it displays in oil--and plenty of it too--of mr. snagsby looking at mrs. snagsby and of mrs. snagsby looking at mr. snagsby are in her eyes as achievements of raphael or titian. guster has some recompenses for her many privations. mr. snagsby refers everything not in the practical mysteries of the business to mrs. snagsby. she manages the money, reproaches the tax-gatherers, appoints the times and places of devotion on sundays, licenses mr. snagsby's entertainments, and acknowledges no responsibility as to what she thinks fit to provide for dinner, insomuch that she is the high standard of comparison among the neighbouring wives a long way down chancery lane on both sides, and even out in holborn, who in any domestic passages of arms habitually call upon their husbands to look at the difference between their (the wives') position and mrs. snagsby's, and their (the husbands') behaviour and mr. snagsby's. rumour, always flying bat-like about cook's court and skimming in and out at everybody's windows, does say that mrs. snagsby is jealous and inquisitive and that mr. snagsby is sometimes worried out of house and home, and that if he had the spirit of a mouse he wouldn't stand it. it is even observed that the wives who quote him to their self-willed husbands as a shining example in reality look down upon him and that nobody does so with greater superciliousness than one particular lady whose lord is more than suspected of laying his umbrella on her as an instrument of correction. but these vague whisperings may arise from mr. snagsby's being in his way rather a meditative and poetical man, loving to walk in staple inn in the summer-time and to observe how countrified the sparrows and the leaves are, also to lounge about the rolls yard of a sunday afternoon and to remark (if in good spirits) that there were old times once and that you'd find a stone coffin or two now under that chapel, he'll be bound, if you was to dig for it. he solaces his imagination, too, by thinking of the many chancellors and vices, and masters of the rolls who are deceased; and he gets such a flavour of the country out of telling the two 'prentices how he has heard say that a brook "as clear as crystal" once ran right down the middle of holborn, when turnstile really was a turnstile, leading slap away into the meadows--gets such a flavour of the country out of this that he never wants to go there. the day is closing in and the gas is lighted, but is not yet fully effective, for it is not quite dark. mr. snagsby standing at his shop-door looking up at the clouds sees a crow who is out late skim westward over the slice of sky belonging to cook's court. the crow flies straight across chancery lane and lincoln's inn garden into lincoln's inn fields. here, in a large house, formerly a house of state, lives mr. tulkinghorn. it is let off in sets of chambers now, and in those shrunken fragments of its greatness, lawyers lie like maggots in nuts. but its roomy staircases, passages, and antechambers still remain; and even its painted ceilings, where allegory, in roman helmet and celestial linen, sprawls among balustrades and pillars, flowers, clouds, and big-legged boys, and makes the head ache--as would seem to be allegory's object always, more or less. here, among his many boxes labelled with transcendent names, lives mr. tulkinghorn, when not speechlessly at home in country-houses where the great ones of the earth are bored to death. here he is to-day, quiet at his table. an oyster of the old school whom nobody can open. like as he is to look at, so is his apartment in the dusk of the present afternoon. rusty, out of date, withdrawing from attention, able to afford it. heavy, broad-backed, old-fashioned, mahogany-and-horsehair chairs, not easily lifted; obsolete tables with spindle-legs and dusty baize covers; presentation prints of the holders of great titles in the last generation or the last but one, environ him. a thick and dingy turkey-carpet muffles the floor where he sits, attended by two candles in old-fashioned silver candlesticks that give a very insufficient light to his large room. the titles on the backs of his books have retired into the binding; everything that can have a lock has got one; no key is visible. very few loose papers are about. he has some manuscript near him, but is not referring to it. with the round top of an inkstand and two broken bits of sealing-wax he is silently and slowly working out whatever train of indecision is in his mind. now the inkstand top is in the middle, now the red bit of sealing-wax, now the black bit. that's not it. mr. tulkinghorn must gather them all up and begin again. here, beneath the painted ceiling, with foreshortened allegory staring down at his intrusion as if it meant to swoop upon him, and he cutting it dead, mr. tulkinghorn has at once his house and office. he keeps no staff, only one middle-aged man, usually a little out at elbows, who sits in a high pew in the hall and is rarely overburdened with business. mr. tulkinghorn is not in a common way. he wants no clerks. he is a great reservoir of confidences, not to be so tapped. his clients want him; he is all in all. drafts that he requires to be drawn are drawn by special-pleaders in the temple on mysterious instructions; fair copies that he requires to be made are made at the stationers', expense being no consideration. the middle-aged man in the pew knows scarcely more of the affairs of the peerage than any crossing-sweeper in holborn. the red bit, the black bit, the inkstand top, the other inkstand top, the little sand-box. so! you to the middle, you to the right, you to the left. this train of indecision must surely be worked out now or never. now! mr. tulkinghorn gets up, adjusts his spectacles, puts on his hat, puts the manuscript in his pocket, goes out, tells the middle-aged man out at elbows, "i shall be back presently." very rarely tells him anything more explicit. mr. tulkinghorn goes, as the crow came--not quite so straight, but nearly--to cook's court, cursitor street. to snagsby's, law-stationer's, deeds engrossed and copied, law-writing executed in all its branches, &c., &c., &c. it is somewhere about five or six o'clock in the afternoon, and a balmy fragrance of warm tea hovers in cook's court. it hovers about snagsby's door. the hours are early there: dinner at half-past one and supper at half-past nine. mr. snagsby was about to descend into the subterranean regions to take tea when he looked out of his door just now and saw the crow who was out late. "master at home?" guster is minding the shop, for the 'prentices take tea in the kitchen with mr. and mrs. snagsby; consequently, the robe-maker's two daughters, combing their curls at the two glasses in the two second-floor windows of the opposite house, are not driving the two 'prentices to distraction as they fondly suppose, but are merely awakening the unprofitable admiration of guster, whose hair won't grow, and never would, and it is confidently thought, never will. "master at home?" says mr. tulkinghorn. master is at home, and guster will fetch him. guster disappears, glad to get out of the shop, which she regards with mingled dread and veneration as a storehouse of awful implements of the great torture of the law--a place not to be entered after the gas is turned off. mr. snagsby appears, greasy, warm, herbaceous, and chewing. bolts a bit of bread and butter. says, "bless my soul, sir! mr. tulkinghorn!" "i want half a word with you, snagsby." "certainly, sir! dear me, sir, why didn't you send your young man round for me? pray walk into the back shop, sir." snagsby has brightened in a moment. the confined room, strong of parchment-grease, is warehouse, counting-house, and copying-office. mr. tulkinghorn sits, facing round, on a stool at the desk. "jarndyce and jarndyce, snagsby." "yes, sir." mr. snagsby turns up the gas and coughs behind his hand, modestly anticipating profit. mr. snagsby, as a timid man, is accustomed to cough with a variety of expressions, and so to save words. "you copied some affidavits in that cause for me lately." "yes, sir, we did." "there was one of them," says mr. tulkinghorn, carelessly feeling--tight, unopenable oyster of the old school!--in the wrong coat-pocket, "the handwriting of which is peculiar, and i rather like. as i happened to be passing, and thought i had it about me, i looked in to ask you--but i haven't got it. no matter, any other time will do. ah! here it is! i looked in to ask you who copied this." "who copied this, sir?" says mr. snagsby, taking it, laying it flat on the desk, and separating all the sheets at once with a twirl and a twist of the left hand peculiar to lawstationers. "we gave this out, sir. we were giving out rather a large quantity of work just at that time. i can tell you in a moment who copied it, sir, by referring to my book." mr. snagsby takes his book down from the safe, makes another bolt of the bit of bread and butter which seemed to have stopped short, eyes the affidavit aside, and brings his right forefinger travelling down a page of the book, "jewby--packer--jarndyce." "jarndyce! here we are, sir," says mr. snagsby. "to be sure! i might have remembered it. this was given out, sir, to a writer who lodges just over on the opposite side of the lane." mr. tulkinghorn has seen the entry, found it before the law-stationer, read it while the forefinger was coming down the hill. "what do you call him? nemo?" says mr. tulkinghorn. "nemo, sir. here it is. forty-two folio. given out on the wednesday night at eight o'clock, brought in on the thursday morning at half after nine." "nemo!" repeats mr. tulkinghorn. "nemo is latin for no one." "it must be english for some one, sir, i think," mr. snagsby submits with his deferential cough. "it is a person's name. here it is, you see, sir! forty-two folio. given out wednesday night, eight o'clock; brought in thursday morning, half after nine." the tail of mr. snagsby's eye becomes conscious of the head of mrs. snagsby looking in at the shop-door to know what he means by deserting his tea. mr. snagsby addresses an explanatory cough to mrs. snagsby, as who should say, "my dear, a customer!" "half after nine, sir," repeats mr. snagsby. "our law-writers, who live by job-work, are a queer lot; and this may not be his name, but it's the name he goes by. i remember now, sir, that he gives it in a written advertisement he sticks up down at the rule office, and the king's bench office, and the judges' chambers, and so forth. you know the kind of document, sir--wanting employ?" mr. tulkinghorn glances through the little window at the back of coavinses', the sheriff's officer's, where lights shine in coavinses' windows. coavinses' coffee-room is at the back, and the shadows of several gentlemen under a cloud loom cloudily upon the blinds. mr. snagsby takes the opportunity of slightly turning his head to glance over his shoulder at his little woman and to make apologetic motions with his mouth to this effect: "tul-king-horn--rich--in-flu-en-tial!" "have you given this man work before?" asks mr. tulkinghorn. "oh, dear, yes, sir! work of yours." "thinking of more important matters, i forget where you said he lived?" "across the lane, sir. in fact, he lodges at a--" mr. snagsby makes another bolt, as if the bit of bread and butter were insurmountable "--at a rag and bottle shop." "can you show me the place as i go back?" "with the greatest pleasure, sir!" mr. snagsby pulls off his sleeves and his grey coat, pulls on his black coat, takes his hat from its peg. "oh! here is my little woman!" he says aloud. "my dear, will you be so kind as to tell one of the lads to look after the shop while i step across the lane with mr. tulkinghorn? mrs. snagsby, sir--i shan't be two minutes, my love!" mrs. snagsby bends to the lawyer, retires behind the counter, peeps at them through the window-blind, goes softly into the back office, refers to the entries in the book still lying open. is evidently curious. "you will find that the place is rough, sir," says mr. snagsby, walking deferentially in the road and leaving the narrow pavement to the lawyer; "and the party is very rough. but they're a wild lot in general, sir. the advantage of this particular man is that he never wants sleep. he'll go at it right on end if you want him to, as long as ever you like." it is quite dark now, and the gas-lamps have acquired their full effect. jostling against clerks going to post the day's letters, and against counsel and attorneys going home to dinner, and against plaintiffs and defendants and suitors of all sorts, and against the general crowd, in whose way the forensic wisdom of ages has interposed a million of obstacles to the transaction of the commonest business of life; diving through law and equity, and through that kindred mystery, the street mud, which is made of nobody knows what and collects about us nobody knows whence or how--we only knowing in general that when there is too much of it we find it necessary to shovel it away--the lawyer and the law-stationer come to a rag and bottle shop and general emporium of much disregarded merchandise, lying and being in the shadow of the wall of lincoln's inn, and kept, as is announced in paint, to all whom it may concern, by one krook. "this is where he lives, sir," says the law-stationer. "this is where he lives, is it?" says the lawyer unconcernedly. "thank you." "are you not going in, sir?" "no, thank you, no; i am going on to the fields at present. good evening. thank you!" mr. snagsby lifts his hat and returns to his little woman and his tea. but mr. tulkinghorn does not go on to the fields at present. he goes a short way, turns back, comes again to the shop of mr. krook, and enters it straight. it is dim enough, with a blot-headed candle or so in the windows, and an old man and a cat sitting in the back part by a fire. the old man rises and comes forward, with another blot-headed candle in his hand. "pray is your lodger within?" "male or female, sir?" says mr. krook. "male. the person who does copying." mr. krook has eyed his man narrowly. knows him by sight. has an indistinct impression of his aristocratic repute. "did you wish to see him, sir?" "yes." "it's what i seldom do myself," says mr. krook with a grin. "shall i call him down? but it's a weak chance if he'd come, sir!" "i'll go up to him, then," says mr. tulkinghorn. "second floor, sir. take the candle. up there!" mr. krook, with his cat beside him, stands at the bottom of the staircase, looking after mr. tulkinghorn. "hi-hi!" he says when mr. tulkinghorn has nearly disappeared. the lawyer looks down over the hand-rail. the cat expands her wicked mouth and snarls at him. "order, lady jane! behave yourself to visitors, my lady! you know what they say of my lodger?" whispers krook, going up a step or two. "what do they say of him?" "they say he has sold himself to the enemy, but you and i know better--he don't buy. i'll tell you what, though; my lodger is so black-humoured and gloomy that i believe he'd as soon make that bargain as any other. don't put him out, sir. that's my advice!" mr. tulkinghorn with a nod goes on his way. he comes to the dark door on the second floor. he knocks, receives no answer, opens it, and accidentally extinguishes his candle in doing so. the air of the room is almost bad enough to have extinguished it if he had not. it is a small room, nearly black with soot, and grease, and dirt. in the rusty skeleton of a grate, pinched at the middle as if poverty had gripped it, a red coke fire burns low. in the corner by the chimney stand a deal table and a broken desk, a wilderness marked with a rain of ink. in another corner a ragged old portmanteau on one of the two chairs serves for cabinet or wardrobe; no larger one is needed, for it collapses like the cheeks of a starved man. the floor is bare, except that one old mat, trodden to shreds of rope-yarn, lies perishing upon the hearth. no curtain veils the darkness of the night, but the discoloured shutters are drawn together, and through the two gaunt holes pierced in them, famine might be staring in--the banshee of the man upon the bed. for, on a low bed opposite the fire, a confusion of dirty patchwork, lean-ribbed ticking, and coarse sacking, the lawyer, hesitating just within the doorway, sees a man. he lies there, dressed in shirt and trousers, with bare feet. he has a yellow look in the spectral darkness of a candle that has guttered down until the whole length of its wick (still burning) has doubled over and left a tower of winding-sheet above it. his hair is ragged, mingling with his whiskers and his beard--the latter, ragged too, and grown, like the scum and mist around him, in neglect. foul and filthy as the room is, foul and filthy as the air is, it is not easy to perceive what fumes those are which most oppress the senses in it; but through the general sickliness and faintness, and the odour of stale tobacco, there comes into the lawyer's mouth the bitter, vapid taste of opium. "hallo, my friend!" he cries, and strikes his iron candlestick against the door. he thinks he has awakened his friend. he lies a little turned away, but his eyes are surely open. "hallo, my friend!" he cries again. "hallo! hallo!" as he rattles on the door, the candle which has drooped so long goes out and leaves him in the dark, with the gaunt eyes in the shutters staring down upon the bed. chapter xi our dear brother a touch on the lawyer's wrinkled hand as he stands in the dark room, irresolute, makes him start and say, "what's that?" "it's me," returns the old man of the house, whose breath is in his ear. "can't you wake him?" "no." "what have you done with your candle?" "it's gone out. here it is." krook takes it, goes to the fire, stoops over the red embers, and tries to get a light. the dying ashes have no light to spare, and his endeavours are vain. muttering, after an ineffectual call to his lodger, that he will go downstairs and bring a lighted candle from the shop, the old man departs. mr. tulkinghorn, for some new reason that he has, does not await his return in the room, but on the stairs outside. the welcome light soon shines upon the wall, as krook comes slowly up with his green-eyed cat following at his heels. "does the man generally sleep like this?" inquired the lawyer in a low voice. "hi! i don't know," says krook, shaking his head and lifting his eyebrows. "i know next to nothing of his habits except that he keeps himself very close." thus whispering, they both go in together. as the light goes in, the great eyes in the shutters, darkening, seem to close. not so the eyes upon the bed. "god save us!" exclaims mr. tulkinghorn. "he is dead!" krook drops the heavy hand he has taken up so suddenly that the arm swings over the bedside. they look at one another for a moment. "send for some doctor! call for miss flite up the stairs, sir. here's poison by the bed! call out for flite, will you?" says krook, with his lean hands spread out above the body like a vampire's wings. mr. tulkinghorn hurries to the landing and calls, "miss flite! flite! make haste, here, whoever you are! flite!" krook follows him with his eyes, and while he is calling, finds opportunity to steal to the old portmanteau and steal back again. "run, flite, run! the nearest doctor! run!" so mr. krook addresses a crazy little woman who is his female lodger, who appears and vanishes in a breath, who soon returns accompanied by a testy medical man brought from his dinner, with a broad, snuffy upper lip and a broad scotch tongue. "ey! bless the hearts o' ye," says the medical man, looking up at them after a moment's examination. "he's just as dead as phairy!" mr. tulkinghorn (standing by the old portmanteau) inquires if he has been dead any time. "any time, sir?" says the medical gentleman. "it's probable he wull have been dead aboot three hours." "about that time, i should say," observes a dark young man on the other side of the bed. "air you in the maydickle prayfession yourself, sir?" inquires the first. the dark young man says yes. "then i'll just tak' my depairture," replies the other, "for i'm nae gude here!" with which remark he finishes his brief attendance and returns to finish his dinner. the dark young surgeon passes the candle across and across the face and carefully examines the law-writer, who has established his pretensions to his name by becoming indeed no one. "i knew this person by sight very well," says he. "he has purchased opium of me for the last year and a half. was anybody present related to him?" glancing round upon the three bystanders. "i was his landlord," grimly answers krook, taking the candle from the surgeon's outstretched hand. "he told me once i was the nearest relation he had." "he has died," says the surgeon, "of an over-dose of opium, there is no doubt. the room is strongly flavoured with it. there is enough here now," taking an old tea-pot from mr. krook, "to kill a dozen people." "do you think he did it on purpose?" asks krook. "took the over-dose?" "yes!" krook almost smacks his lips with the unction of a horrible interest. "i can't say. i should think it unlikely, as he has been in the habit of taking so much. but nobody can tell. he was very poor, i suppose?" "i suppose he was. his room--don't look rich," says krook, who might have changed eyes with his cat, as he casts his sharp glance around. "but i have never been in it since he had it, and he was too close to name his circumstances to me." "did he owe you any rent?" "six weeks." "he will never pay it!" says the young man, resuming his examination. "it is beyond a doubt that he is indeed as dead as pharaoh; and to judge from his appearance and condition, i should think it a happy release. yet he must have been a good figure when a youth, and i dare say, good-looking." he says this, not unfeelingly, while sitting on the bedstead's edge with his face towards that other face and his hand upon the region of the heart. "i recollect once thinking there was something in his manner, uncouth as it was, that denoted a fall in life. was that so?" he continues, looking round. krook replies, "you might as well ask me to describe the ladies whose heads of hair i have got in sacks downstairs. than that he was my lodger for a year and a half and lived--or didn't live--by law-writing, i know no more of him." during this dialogue mr. tulkinghorn has stood aloof by the old portmanteau, with his hands behind him, equally removed, to all appearance, from all three kinds of interest exhibited near the bed--from the young surgeon's professional interest in death, noticeable as being quite apart from his remarks on the deceased as an individual; from the old man's unction; and the little crazy woman's awe. his imperturbable face has been as inexpressive as his rusty clothes. one could not even say he has been thinking all this while. he has shown neither patience nor impatience, nor attention nor abstraction. he has shown nothing but his shell. as easily might the tone of a delicate musical instrument be inferred from its case, as the tone of mr. tulkinghorn from his case. he now interposes, addressing the young surgeon in his unmoved, professional way. "i looked in here," he observes, "just before you, with the intention of giving this deceased man, whom i never saw alive, some employment at his trade of copying. i had heard of him from my stationer--snagsby of cook's court. since no one here knows anything about him, it might be as well to send for snagsby. ah!" to the little crazy woman, who has often seen him in court, and whom he has often seen, and who proposes, in frightened dumb-show, to go for the law-stationer. "suppose you do!" while she is gone, the surgeon abandons his hopeless investigation and covers its subject with the patchwork counterpane. mr. krook and he interchange a word or two. mr. tulkinghorn says nothing, but stands, ever, near the old portmanteau. mr. snagsby arrives hastily in his grey coat and his black sleeves. "dear me, dear me," he says; "and it has come to this, has it! bless my soul!" "can you give the person of the house any information about this unfortunate creature, snagsby?" inquires mr. tulkinghorn. "he was in arrears with his rent, it seems. and he must be buried, you know." "well, sir," says mr. snagsby, coughing his apologetic cough behind his hand, "i really don't know what advice i could offer, except sending for the beadle." "i don't speak of advice," returns mr. tulkinghorn. "i could advise--" "no one better, sir, i am sure," says mr. snagsby, with his deferential cough. "i speak of affording some clue to his connexions, or to where he came from, or to anything concerning him." "i assure you, sir," says mr. snagsby after prefacing his reply with his cough of general propitiation, "that i no more know where he came from than i know--" "where he has gone to, perhaps," suggests the surgeon to help him out. a pause. mr. tulkinghorn looking at the law-stationer. mr. krook, with his mouth open, looking for somebody to speak next. "as to his connexions, sir," says mr. snagsby, "if a person was to say to me, 'snagsby, here's twenty thousand pound down, ready for you in the bank of england if you'll only name one of 'em,' i couldn't do it, sir! about a year and a half ago--to the best of my belief, at the time when he first came to lodge at the present rag and bottle shop--" "that was the time!" says krook with a nod. "about a year and a half ago," says mr. snagsby, strengthened, "he came into our place one morning after breakfast, and finding my little woman (which i name mrs. snagsby when i use that appellation) in our shop, produced a specimen of his handwriting and gave her to understand that he was in want of copying work to do and was, not to put too fine a point upon it," a favourite apology for plain speaking with mr. snagsby, which he always offers with a sort of argumentative frankness, "hard up! my little woman is not in general partial to strangers, particular--not to put too fine a point upon it--when they want anything. but she was rather took by something about this person, whether by his being unshaved, or by his hair being in want of attention, or by what other ladies' reasons, i leave you to judge; and she accepted of the specimen, and likewise of the address. my little woman hasn't a good ear for names," proceeds mr. snagsby after consulting his cough of consideration behind his hand, "and she considered nemo equally the same as nimrod. in consequence of which, she got into a habit of saying to me at meals, 'mr. snagsby, you haven't found nimrod any work yet!' or 'mr. snagsby, why didn't you give that eight and thirty chancery folio in jarndyce to nimrod?' or such like. and that is the way he gradually fell into job-work at our place; and that is the most i know of him except that he was a quick hand, and a hand not sparing of night-work, and that if you gave him out, say, five and forty folio on the wednesday night, you would have it brought in on the thursday morning. all of which--" mr. snagsby concludes by politely motioning with his hat towards the bed, as much as to add, "i have no doubt my honourable friend would confirm if he were in a condition to do it." "hadn't you better see," says mr. tulkinghorn to krook, "whether he had any papers that may enlighten you? there will be an inquest, and you will be asked the question. you can read?" "no, i can't," returns the old man with a sudden grin. "snagsby," says mr. tulkinghorn, "look over the room for him. he will get into some trouble or difficulty otherwise. being here, i'll wait if you make haste, and then i can testify on his behalf, if it should ever be necessary, that all was fair and right. if you will hold the candle for mr. snagsby, my friend, he'll soon see whether there is anything to help you." "in the first place, here's an old portmanteau, sir," says snagsby. ah, to be sure, so there is! mr. tulkinghorn does not appear to have seen it before, though he is standing so close to it, and though there is very little else, heaven knows. the marine-store merchant holds the light, and the law-stationer conducts the search. the surgeon leans against the corner of the chimney-piece; miss flite peeps and trembles just within the door. the apt old scholar of the old school, with his dull black breeches tied with ribbons at the knees, his large black waistcoat, his long-sleeved black coat, and his wisp of limp white neckerchief tied in the bow the peerage knows so well, stands in exactly the same place and attitude. there are some worthless articles of clothing in the old portmanteau; there is a bundle of pawnbrokers' duplicates, those turnpike tickets on the road of poverty; there is a crumpled paper, smelling of opium, on which are scrawled rough memoranda--as, took, such a day, so many grains; took, such another day, so many more--begun some time ago, as if with the intention of being regularly continued, but soon left off. there are a few dirty scraps of newspapers, all referring to coroners' inquests; there is nothing else. they search the cupboard and the drawer of the ink-splashed table. there is not a morsel of an old letter or of any other writing in either. the young surgeon examines the dress on the law-writer. a knife and some odd halfpence are all he finds. mr. snagsby's suggestion is the practical suggestion after all, and the beadle must be called in. so the little crazy lodger goes for the beadle, and the rest come out of the room. "don't leave the cat there!" says the surgeon; "that won't do!" mr. krook therefore drives her out before him, and she goes furtively downstairs, winding her lithe tail and licking her lips. "good night!" says mr. tulkinghorn, and goes home to allegory and meditation. by this time the news has got into the court. groups of its inhabitants assemble to discuss the thing, and the outposts of the army of observation (principally boys) are pushed forward to mr. krook's window, which they closely invest. a policeman has already walked up to the room, and walked down again to the door, where he stands like a tower, only condescending to see the boys at his base occasionally; but whenever he does see them, they quail and fall back. mrs. perkins, who has not been for some weeks on speaking terms with mrs. piper in consequence for an unpleasantness originating in young perkins' having "fetched" young piper "a crack," renews her friendly intercourse on this auspicious occasion. the potboy at the corner, who is a privileged amateur, as possessing official knowledge of life and having to deal with drunken men occasionally, exchanges confidential communications with the policeman and has the appearance of an impregnable youth, unassailable by truncheons and unconfinable in station-houses. people talk across the court out of window, and bare-headed scouts come hurrying in from chancery lane to know what's the matter. the general feeling seems to be that it's a blessing mr. krook warn't made away with first, mingled with a little natural disappointment that he was not. in the midst of this sensation, the beadle arrives. the beadle, though generally understood in the neighbourhood to be a ridiculous institution, is not without a certain popularity for the moment, if it were only as a man who is going to see the body. the policeman considers him an imbecile civilian, a remnant of the barbarous watchmen times, but gives him admission as something that must be borne with until government shall abolish him. the sensation is heightened as the tidings spread from mouth to mouth that the beadle is on the ground and has gone in. by and by the beadle comes out, once more intensifying the sensation, which has rather languished in the interval. he is understood to be in want of witnesses for the inquest to-morrow who can tell the coroner and jury anything whatever respecting the deceased. is immediately referred to innumerable people who can tell nothing whatever. is made more imbecile by being constantly informed that mrs. green's son "was a law-writer his-self and knowed him better than anybody," which son of mrs. green's appears, on inquiry, to be at the present time aboard a vessel bound for china, three months out, but considered accessible by telegraph on application to the lords of the admiralty. beadle goes into various shops and parlours, examining the inhabitants, always shutting the door first, and by exclusion, delay, and general idiotcy exasperating the public. policeman seen to smile to potboy. public loses interest and undergoes reaction. taunts the beadle in shrill youthful voices with having boiled a boy, choruses fragments of a popular song to that effect and importing that the boy was made into soup for the workhouse. policeman at last finds it necessary to support the law and seize a vocalist, who is released upon the flight of the rest on condition of his getting out of this then, come, and cutting it--a condition he immediately observes. so the sensation dies off for the time; and the unmoved policeman (to whom a little opium, more or less, is nothing), with his shining hat, stiff stock, inflexible great-coat, stout belt and bracelet, and all things fitting, pursues his lounging way with a heavy tread, beating the palms of his white gloves one against the other and stopping now and then at a street-corner to look casually about for anything between a lost child and a murder. under cover of the night, the feeble-minded beadle comes flitting about chancery lane with his summonses, in which every juror's name is wrongly spelt, and nothing rightly spelt but the beadle's own name, which nobody can read or wants to know. the summonses served and his witnesses forewarned, the beadle goes to mr. krook's to keep a small appointment he has made with certain paupers, who, presently arriving, are conducted upstairs, where they leave the great eyes in the shutter something new to stare at, in that last shape which earthly lodgings take for no one--and for every one. and all that night the coffin stands ready by the old portmanteau; and the lonely figure on the bed, whose path in life has lain through five and forty years, lies there with no more track behind him that any one can trace than a deserted infant. next day the court is all alive--is like a fair, as mrs. perkins, more than reconciled to mrs. piper, says in amicable conversation with that excellent woman. the coroner is to sit in the first-floor room at the sol's arms, where the harmonic meetings take place twice a week and where the chair is filled by a gentleman of professional celebrity, faced by little swills, the comic vocalist, who hopes (according to the bill in the window) that his friends will rally round him and support first-rate talent. the sol's arms does a brisk stroke of business all the morning. even children so require sustaining under the general excitement that a pieman who has established himself for the occasion at the corner of the court says his brandy-balls go off like smoke. what time the beadle, hovering between the door of mr. krook's establishment and the door of the sol's arms, shows the curiosity in his keeping to a few discreet spirits and accepts the compliment of a glass of ale or so in return. at the appointed hour arrives the coroner, for whom the jurymen are waiting and who is received with a salute of skittles from the good dry skittle-ground attached to the sol's arms. the coroner frequents more public-houses than any man alive. the smell of sawdust, beer, tobacco-smoke, and spirits is inseparable in his vocation from death in its most awful shapes. he is conducted by the beadle and the landlord to the harmonic meeting room, where he puts his hat on the piano and takes a windsor-chair at the head of a long table formed of several short tables put together and ornamented with glutinous rings in endless involutions, made by pots and glasses. as many of the jury as can crowd together at the table sit there. the rest get among the spittoons and pipes or lean against the piano. over the coroner's head is a small iron garland, the pendant handle of a bell, which rather gives the majesty of the court the appearance of going to be hanged presently. call over and swear the jury! while the ceremony is in progress, sensation is created by the entrance of a chubby little man in a large shirt-collar, with a moist eye and an inflamed nose, who modestly takes a position near the door as one of the general public, but seems familiar with the room too. a whisper circulates that this is little swills. it is considered not unlikely that he will get up an imitation of the coroner and make it the principal feature of the harmonic meeting in the evening. "well, gentlemen--" the coroner begins. "silence there, will you!" says the beadle. not to the coroner, though it might appear so. "well, gentlemen," resumes the coroner. "you are impanelled here to inquire into the death of a certain man. evidence will be given before you as to the circumstances attending that death, and you will give your verdict according to the--skittles; they must be stopped, you know, beadle!--evidence, and not according to anything else. the first thing to be done is to view the body." "make way there!" cries the beadle. so they go out in a loose procession, something after the manner of a straggling funeral, and make their inspection in mr. krook's back second floor, from which a few of the jurymen retire pale and precipitately. the beadle is very careful that two gentlemen not very neat about the cuffs and buttons (for whose accommodation he has provided a special little table near the coroner in the harmonic meeting room) should see all that is to be seen. for they are the public chroniclers of such inquiries by the line; and he is not superior to the universal human infirmity, but hopes to read in print what "mooney, the active and intelligent beadle of the district," said and did and even aspires to see the name of mooney as familiarly and patronizingly mentioned as the name of the hangman is, according to the latest examples. little swills is waiting for the coroner and jury on their return. mr. tulkinghorn, also. mr. tulkinghorn is received with distinction and seated near the coroner between that high judicial officer, a bagatelle-board, and the coal-box. the inquiry proceeds. the jury learn how the subject of their inquiry died, and learn no more about him. "a very eminent solicitor is in attendance, gentlemen," says the coroner, "who, i am informed, was accidentally present when discovery of the death was made, but he could only repeat the evidence you have already heard from the surgeon, the landlord, the lodger, and the law-stationer, and it is not necessary to trouble him. is anybody in attendance who knows anything more?" mrs. piper pushed forward by mrs. perkins. mrs. piper sworn. anastasia piper, gentlemen. married woman. now, mrs. piper, what have you got to say about this? why, mrs. piper has a good deal to say, chiefly in parentheses and without punctuation, but not much to tell. mrs. piper lives in the court (which her husband is a cabinet-maker), and it has long been well beknown among the neighbours (counting from the day next but one before the half-baptizing of alexander james piper aged eighteen months and four days old on accounts of not being expected to live such was the sufferings gentlemen of that child in his gums) as the plaintive--so mrs. piper insists on calling the deceased--was reported to have sold himself. thinks it was the plaintive's air in which that report originatinin. see the plaintive often and considered as his air was feariocious and not to be allowed to go about some children being timid (and if doubted hoping mrs. perkins may be brought forard for she is here and will do credit to her husband and herself and family). has seen the plaintive wexed and worrited by the children (for children they will ever be and you cannot expect them specially if of playful dispositions to be methoozellers which you was not yourself). on accounts of this and his dark looks has often dreamed as she see him take a pick-axe from his pocket and split johnny's head (which the child knows not fear and has repeatually called after him close at his eels). never however see the plaintive take a pick-axe or any other wepping far from it. has seen him hurry away when run and called after as if not partial to children and never see him speak to neither child nor grown person at any time (excepting the boy that sweeps the crossing down the lane over the way round the corner which if he was here would tell you that he has been seen a-speaking to him frequent). says the coroner, is that boy here? says the beadle, no, sir, he is not here. says the coroner, go and fetch him then. in the absence of the active and intelligent, the coroner converses with mr. tulkinghorn. oh! here's the boy, gentlemen! here he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. now, boy! but stop a minute. caution. this boy must be put through a few preliminary paces. name, jo. nothing else that he knows on. don't know that everybody has two names. never heerd of sich a think. don't know that jo is short for a longer name. thinks it long enough for him. he don't find no fault with it. spell it? no. he can't spell it. no father, no mother, no friends. never been to school. what's home? knows a broom's a broom, and knows it's wicked to tell a lie. don't recollect who told him about the broom or about the lie, but knows both. can't exactly say what'll be done to him arter he's dead if he tells a lie to the gentlemen here, but believes it'll be something wery bad to punish him, and serve him right--and so he'll tell the truth. "this won't do, gentlemen!" says the coroner with a melancholy shake of the head. "don't you think you can receive his evidence, sir?" asks an attentive juryman. "out of the question," says the coroner. "you have heard the boy. 'can't exactly say' won't do, you know. we can't take that in a court of justice, gentlemen. it's terrible depravity. put the boy aside." boy put aside, to the great edification of the audience, especially of little swills, the comic vocalist. now. is there any other witness? no other witness. very well, gentlemen! here's a man unknown, proved to have been in the habit of taking opium in large quantities for a year and a half, found dead of too much opium. if you think you have any evidence to lead you to the conclusion that he committed suicide, you will come to that conclusion. if you think it is a case of accidental death, you will find a verdict accordingly. verdict accordingly. accidental death. no doubt. gentlemen, you are discharged. good afternoon. while the coroner buttons his great-coat, mr. tulkinghorn and he give private audience to the rejected witness in a corner. that graceless creature only knows that the dead man (whom he recognized just now by his yellow face and black hair) was sometimes hooted and pursued about the streets. that one cold winter night when he, the boy, was shivering in a doorway near his crossing, the man turned to look at him, and came back, and having questioned him and found that he had not a friend in the world, said, "neither have i. not one!" and gave him the price of a supper and a night's lodging. that the man had often spoken to him since and asked him whether he slept sound at night, and how he bore cold and hunger, and whether he ever wished to die, and similar strange questions. that when the man had no money, he would say in passing, "i am as poor as you to-day, jo," but that when he had any, he had always (as the boy most heartily believes) been glad to give him some. "he was wery good to me," says the boy, wiping his eyes with his wretched sleeve. "wen i see him a-layin' so stritched out just now, i wished he could have heerd me tell him so. he wos wery good to me, he wos!" as he shuffles downstairs, mr. snagsby, lying in wait for him, puts a half-crown in his hand. "if you ever see me coming past your crossing with my little woman--i mean a lady--" says mr. snagsby with his finger on his nose, "don't allude to it!" for some little time the jurymen hang about the sol's arms colloquially. in the sequel, half-a-dozen are caught up in a cloud of pipe-smoke that pervades the parlour of the sol's arms; two stroll to hampstead; and four engage to go half-price to the play at night, and top up with oysters. little swills is treated on several hands. being asked what he thinks of the proceedings, characterizes them (his strength lying in a slangular direction) as "a rummy start." the landlord of the sol's arms, finding little swills so popular, commends him highly to the jurymen and public, observing that for a song in character he don't know his equal and that that man's character-wardrobe would fill a cart. thus, gradually the sol's arms melts into the shadowy night and then flares out of it strong in gas. the harmonic meeting hour arriving, the gentleman of professional celebrity takes the chair, is faced (red-faced) by little swills; their friends rally round them and support first-rate talent. in the zenith of the evening, little swills says, "gentlemen, if you'll permit me, i'll attempt a short description of a scene of real life that came off here to-day." is much applauded and encouraged; goes out of the room as swills; comes in as the coroner (not the least in the world like him); describes the inquest, with recreative intervals of piano-forte accompaniment, to the refrain: with his (the coroner's) tippy tol li doll, tippy tol lo doll, tippy tol li doll, dee! the jingling piano at last is silent, and the harmonic friends rally round their pillows. then there is rest around the lonely figure, now laid in its last earthly habitation; and it is watched by the gaunt eyes in the shutters through some quiet hours of night. if this forlorn man could have been prophetically seen lying here by the mother at whose breast he nestled, a little child, with eyes upraised to her loving face, and soft hand scarcely knowing how to close upon the neck to which it crept, what an impossibility the vision would have seemed! oh, if in brighter days the now-extinguished fire within him ever burned for one woman who held him in her heart, where is she, while these ashes are above the ground! it is anything but a night of rest at mr. snagsby's, in cook's court, where guster murders sleep by going, as mr. snagsby himself allows--not to put too fine a point upon it--out of one fit into twenty. the occasion of this seizure is that guster has a tender heart and a susceptible something that possibly might have been imagination, but for tooting and her patron saint. be it what it may, now, it was so direfully impressed at tea-time by mr. snagsby's account of the inquiry at which he had assisted that at supper-time she projected herself into the kitchen, preceded by a flying dutch cheese, and fell into a fit of unusual duration, which she only came out of to go into another, and another, and so on through a chain of fits, with short intervals between, of which she has pathetically availed herself by consuming them in entreaties to mrs. snagsby not to give her warning "when she quite comes to," and also in appeals to the whole establishment to lay her down on the stones and go to bed. hence, mr. snagsby, at last hearing the cock at the little dairy in cursitor street go into that disinterested ecstasy of his on the subject of daylight, says, drawing a long breath, though the most patient of men, "i thought you was dead, i am sure!" what question this enthusiastic fowl supposes he settles when he strains himself to such an extent, or why he should thus crow (so men crow on various triumphant public occasions, however) about what cannot be of any moment to him, is his affair. it is enough that daylight comes, morning comes, noon comes. then the active and intelligent, who has got into the morning papers as such, comes with his pauper company to mr. krook's and bears off the body of our dear brother here departed to a hemmed-in churchyard, pestiferous and obscene, whence malignant diseases are communicated to the bodies of our dear brothers and sisters who have not departed, while our dear brothers and sisters who hang about official back-stairs--would to heaven they had departed!--are very complacent and agreeable. into a beastly scrap of ground which a turk would reject as a savage abomination and a caffre would shudder at, they bring our dear brother here departed to receive christian burial. with houses looking on, on every side, save where a reeking little tunnel of a court gives access to the iron gate--with every villainy of life in action close on death, and every poisonous element of death in action close on life--here they lower our dear brother down a foot or two, here sow him in corruption, to be raised in corruption: an avenging ghost at many a sick-bedside, a shameful testimony to future ages how civilization and barbarism walked this boastful island together. come night, come darkness, for you cannot come too soon or stay too long by such a place as this! come, straggling lights into the windows of the ugly houses; and you who do iniquity therein, do it at least with this dread scene shut out! come, flame of gas, burning so sullenly above the iron gate, on which the poisoned air deposits its witch-ointment slimy to the touch! it is well that you should call to every passerby, "look here!" with the night comes a slouching figure through the tunnel-court to the outside of the iron gate. it holds the gate with its hands and looks in between the bars, stands looking in for a little while. it then, with an old broom it carries, softly sweeps the step and makes the archway clean. it does so very busily and trimly, looks in again a little while, and so departs. jo, is it thou? well, well! though a rejected witness, who "can't exactly say" what will be done to him in greater hands than men's, thou art not quite in outer darkness. there is something like a distant ray of light in thy muttered reason for this: "he wos wery good to me, he wos!" chapter xii on the watch it has left off raining down in lincolnshire at last, and chesney wold has taken heart. mrs. rouncewell is full of hospitable cares, for sir leicester and my lady are coming home from paris. the fashionable intelligence has found it out and communicates the glad tidings to benighted england. it has also found out that they will entertain a brilliant and distinguished circle of the elite of the beau monde (the fashionable intelligence is weak in english, but a giant refreshed in french) at the ancient and hospitable family seat in lincolnshire. for the greater honour of the brilliant and distinguished circle, and of chesney wold into the bargain, the broken arch of the bridge in the park is mended; and the water, now retired within its proper limits and again spanned gracefully, makes a figure in the prospect from the house. the clear, cold sunshine glances into the brittle woods and approvingly beholds the sharp wind scattering the leaves and drying the moss. it glides over the park after the moving shadows of the clouds, and chases them, and never catches them, all day. it looks in at the windows and touches the ancestral portraits with bars and patches of brightness never contemplated by the painters. athwart the picture of my lady, over the great chimney-piece, it throws a broad bend-sinister of light that strikes down crookedly into the hearth and seems to rend it. through the same cold sunshine and the same sharp wind, my lady and sir leicester, in their travelling chariot (my lady's woman and sir leicester's man affectionate in the rumble), start for home. with a considerable amount of jingling and whip-cracking, and many plunging demonstrations on the part of two bare-backed horses and two centaurs with glazed hats, jack-boots, and flowing manes and tails, they rattle out of the yard of the hotel bristol in the place vendome and canter between the sun-and-shadow-chequered colonnade of the rue de rivoli and the garden of the ill-fated palace of a headless king and queen, off by the place of concord, and the elysian fields, and the gate of the star, out of paris. sooth to say, they cannot go away too fast, for even here my lady dedlock has been bored to death. concert, assembly, opera, theatre, drive, nothing is new to my lady under the worn-out heavens. only last sunday, when poor wretches were gay--within the walls playing with children among the clipped trees and the statues in the palace garden; walking, a score abreast, in the elysian fields, made more elysian by performing dogs and wooden horses; between whiles filtering (a few) through the gloomy cathedral of our lady to say a word or two at the base of a pillar within flare of a rusty little gridiron-full of gusty little tapers; without the walls encompassing paris with dancing, love-making, wine-drinking, tobacco-smoking, tomb-visiting, billiard card and domino playing, quack-doctoring, and much murderous refuse, animate and inanimate--only last sunday, my lady, in the desolation of boredom and the clutch of giant despair, almost hated her own maid for being in spirits. she cannot, therefore, go too fast from paris. weariness of soul lies before her, as it lies behind--her ariel has put a girdle of it round the whole earth, and it cannot be unclasped--but the imperfect remedy is always to fly from the last place where it has been experienced. fling paris back into the distance, then, exchanging it for endless avenues and cross-avenues of wintry trees! and, when next beheld, let it be some leagues away, with the gate of the star a white speck glittering in the sun, and the city a mere mound in a plain--two dark square towers rising out of it, and light and shadow descending on it aslant, like the angels in jacob's dream! sir leicester is generally in a complacent state, and rarely bored. when he has nothing else to do, he can always contemplate his own greatness. it is a considerable advantage to a man to have so inexhaustible a subject. after reading his letters, he leans back in his corner of the carriage and generally reviews his importance to society. "you have an unusual amount of correspondence this morning?" says my lady after a long time. she is fatigued with reading. has almost read a page in twenty miles. "nothing in it, though. nothing whatever." "i saw one of mr. tulkinghorn's long effusions, i think?" "you see everything," says sir leicester with admiration. "ha!" sighs my lady. "he is the most tiresome of men!" "he sends--i really beg your pardon--he sends," says sir leicester, selecting the letter and unfolding it, "a message to you. our stopping to change horses as i came to his postscript drove it out of my memory. i beg you'll excuse me. he says--" sir leicester is so long in taking out his eye-glass and adjusting it that my lady looks a little irritated. "he says 'in the matter of the right of way--' i beg your pardon, that's not the place. he says--yes! here i have it! he says, 'i beg my respectful compliments to my lady, who, i hope, has benefited by the change. will you do me the favour to mention (as it may interest her) that i have something to tell her on her return in reference to the person who copied the affidavit in the chancery suit, which so powerfully stimulated her curiosity. i have seen him.'" my lady, leaning forward, looks out of her window. "that's the message," observes sir leicester. "i should like to walk a little," says my lady, still looking out of her window. "walk?" repeats sir leicester in a tone of surprise. "i should like to walk a little," says my lady with unmistakable distinctness. "please to stop the carriage." the carriage is stopped, the affectionate man alights from the rumble, opens the door, and lets down the steps, obedient to an impatient motion of my lady's hand. my lady alights so quickly and walks away so quickly that sir leicester, for all his scrupulous politeness, is unable to assist her, and is left behind. a space of a minute or two has elapsed before he comes up with her. she smiles, looks very handsome, takes his arm, lounges with him for a quarter of a mile, is very much bored, and resumes her seat in the carriage. the rattle and clatter continue through the greater part of three days, with more or less of bell-jingling and whip-cracking, and more or less plunging of centaurs and bare-backed horses. their courtly politeness to each other at the hotels where they tarry is the theme of general admiration. though my lord is a little aged for my lady, says madame, the hostess of the golden ape, and though he might be her amiable father, one can see at a glance that they love each other. one observes my lord with his white hair, standing, hat in hand, to help my lady to and from the carriage. one observes my lady, how recognisant of my lord's politeness, with an inclination of her gracious head and the concession of her so-genteel fingers! it is ravishing! the sea has no appreciation of great men, but knocks them about like the small fry. it is habitually hard upon sir leicester, whose countenance it greenly mottles in the manner of sage-cheese and in whose aristocratic system it effects a dismal revolution. it is the radical of nature to him. nevertheless, his dignity gets over it after stopping to refit, and he goes on with my lady for chesney wold, lying only one night in london on the way to lincolnshire. through the same cold sunlight, colder as the day declines, and through the same sharp wind, sharper as the separate shadows of bare trees gloom together in the woods, and as the ghost's walk, touched at the western corner by a pile of fire in the sky, resigns itself to coming night, they drive into the park. the rooks, swinging in their lofty houses in the elm-tree avenue, seem to discuss the question of the occupancy of the carriage as it passes underneath, some agreeing that sir leicester and my lady are come down, some arguing with malcontents who won't admit it, now all consenting to consider the question disposed of, now all breaking out again in violent debate, incited by one obstinate and drowsy bird who will persist in putting in a last contradictory croak. leaving them to swing and caw, the travelling chariot rolls on to the house, where fires gleam warmly through some of the windows, though not through so many as to give an inhabited expression to the darkening mass of front. but the brilliant and distinguished circle will soon do that. mrs. rouncewell is in attendance and receives sir leicester's customary shake of the hand with a profound curtsy. "how do you do, mrs. rouncewell? i am glad to see you." "i hope i have the honour of welcoming you in good health, sir leicester?" "in excellent health, mrs. rouncewell." "my lady is looking charmingly well," says mrs. rouncewell with another curtsy. my lady signifies, without profuse expenditure of words, that she is as wearily well as she can hope to be. but rosa is in the distance, behind the housekeeper; and my lady, who has not subdued the quickness of her observation, whatever else she may have conquered, asks, "who is that girl?" "a young scholar of mine, my lady. rosa." "come here, rosa!" lady dedlock beckons her, with even an appearance of interest. "why, do you know how pretty you are, child?" she says, touching her shoulder with her two forefingers. rosa, very much abashed, says, "no, if you please, my lady!" and glances up, and glances down, and don't know where to look, but looks all the prettier. "how old are you?" "nineteen, my lady." "nineteen," repeats my lady thoughtfully. "take care they don't spoil you by flattery." "yes, my lady." my lady taps her dimpled cheek with the same delicate gloved fingers and goes on to the foot of the oak staircase, where sir leicester pauses for her as her knightly escort. a staring old dedlock in a panel, as large as life and as dull, looks as if he didn't know what to make of it, which was probably his general state of mind in the days of queen elizabeth. that evening, in the housekeeper's room, rosa can do nothing but murmur lady dedlock's praises. she is so affable, so graceful, so beautiful, so elegant; has such a sweet voice and such a thrilling touch that rosa can feel it yet! mrs. rouncewell confirms all this, not without personal pride, reserving only the one point of affability. mrs. rouncewell is not quite sure as to that. heaven forbid that she should say a syllable in dispraise of any member of that excellent family, above all, of my lady, whom the whole world admires; but if my lady would only be "a little more free," not quite so cold and distant, mrs. rouncewell thinks she would be more affable. "'tis almost a pity," mrs. rouncewell adds--only "almost" because it borders on impiety to suppose that anything could be better than it is, in such an express dispensation as the dedlock affairs--"that my lady has no family. if she had had a daughter now, a grown young lady, to interest her, i think she would have had the only kind of excellence she wants." "might not that have made her still more proud, grandmother?" says watt, who has been home and come back again, he is such a good grandson. "more and most, my dear," returns the housekeeper with dignity, "are words it's not my place to use--nor so much as to hear--applied to any drawback on my lady." "i beg your pardon, grandmother. but she is proud, is she not?" "if she is, she has reason to be. the dedlock family have always reason to be." "well," says watt, "it's to be hoped they line out of their prayer-books a certain passage for the common people about pride and vainglory. forgive me, grandmother! only a joke!" "sir leicester and lady dedlock, my dear, are not fit subjects for joking." "sir leicester is no joke by any means," says watt, "and i humbly ask his pardon. i suppose, grandmother, that even with the family and their guests down here, there is no objection to my prolonging my stay at the dedlock arms for a day or two, as any other traveller might?" "surely, none in the world, child." "i am glad of that," says watt, "because i have an inexpressible desire to extend my knowledge of this beautiful neighbourhood." he happens to glance at rosa, who looks down and is very shy indeed. but according to the old superstition, it should be rosa's ears that burn, and not her fresh bright cheeks, for my lady's maid is holding forth about her at this moment with surpassing energy. my lady's maid is a frenchwoman of two and thirty, from somewhere in the southern country about avignon and marseilles, a large-eyed brown woman with black hair who would be handsome but for a certain feline mouth and general uncomfortable tightness of face, rendering the jaws too eager and the skull too prominent. there is something indefinably keen and wan about her anatomy, and she has a watchful way of looking out of the corners of her eyes without turning her head which could be pleasantly dispensed with, especially when she is in an ill humour and near knives. through all the good taste of her dress and little adornments, these objections so express themselves that she seems to go about like a very neat she-wolf imperfectly tamed. besides being accomplished in all the knowledge appertaining to her post, she is almost an englishwoman in her acquaintance with the language; consequently, she is in no want of words to shower upon rosa for having attracted my lady's attention, and she pours them out with such grim ridicule as she sits at dinner that her companion, the affectionate man, is rather relieved when she arrives at the spoon stage of that performance. ha, ha, ha! she, hortense, been in my lady's service since five years and always kept at the distance, and this doll, this puppet, caressed--absolutely caressed--by my lady on the moment of her arriving at the house! ha, ha, ha! "and do you know how pretty you are, child?" "no, my lady." you are right there! "and how old are you, child! and take care they do not spoil you by flattery, child!" oh, how droll! it is the best thing altogether. in short, it is such an admirable thing that mademoiselle hortense can't forget it; but at meals for days afterwards, even among her countrywomen and others attached in like capacity to the troop of visitors, relapses into silent enjoyment of the joke--an enjoyment expressed, in her own convivial manner, by an additional tightness of face, thin elongation of compressed lips, and sidewise look, which intense appreciation of humour is frequently reflected in my lady's mirrors when my lady is not among them. all the mirrors in the house are brought into action now, many of them after a long blank. they reflect handsome faces, simpering faces, youthful faces, faces of threescore and ten that will not submit to be old; the entire collection of faces that have come to pass a january week or two at chesney wold, and which the fashionable intelligence, a mighty hunter before the lord, hunts with a keen scent, from their breaking cover at the court of st. james's to their being run down to death. the place in lincolnshire is all alive. by day guns and voices are heard ringing in the woods, horsemen and carriages enliven the park roads, servants and hangers-on pervade the village and the dedlock arms. seen by night from distant openings in the trees, the row of windows in the long drawing-room, where my lady's picture hangs over the great chimney-piece, is like a row of jewels set in a black frame. on sunday the chill little church is almost warmed by so much gallant company, and the general flavour of the dedlock dust is quenched in delicate perfumes. the brilliant and distinguished circle comprehends within it no contracted amount of education, sense, courage, honour, beauty, and virtue. yet there is something a little wrong about it in despite of its immense advantages. what can it be? dandyism? there is no king george the fourth now (more the pity) to set the dandy fashion; there are no clear-starched jack-towel neckcloths, no short-waisted coats, no false calves, no stays. there are no caricatures, now, of effeminate exquisites so arrayed, swooning in opera boxes with excess of delight and being revived by other dainty creatures poking long-necked scent-bottles at their noses. there is no beau whom it takes four men at once to shake into his buckskins, or who goes to see all the executions, or who is troubled with the self-reproach of having once consumed a pea. but is there dandyism in the brilliant and distinguished circle notwithstanding, dandyism of a more mischievous sort, that has got below the surface and is doing less harmless things than jack-towelling itself and stopping its own digestion, to which no rational person need particularly object? why, yes. it cannot be disguised. there are at chesney wold this january week some ladies and gentlemen of the newest fashion, who have set up a dandyism--in religion, for instance. who in mere lackadaisical want of an emotion have agreed upon a little dandy talk about the vulgar wanting faith in things in general, meaning in the things that have been tried and found wanting, as though a low fellow should unaccountably lose faith in a bad shilling after finding it out! who would make the vulgar very picturesque and faithful by putting back the hands upon the clock of time and cancelling a few hundred years of history. there are also ladies and gentlemen of another fashion, not so new, but very elegant, who have agreed to put a smooth glaze on the world and to keep down all its realities. for whom everything must be languid and pretty. who have found out the perpetual stoppage. who are to rejoice at nothing and be sorry for nothing. who are not to be disturbed by ideas. on whom even the fine arts, attending in powder and walking backward like the lord chamberlain, must array themselves in the milliners' and tailors' patterns of past generations and be particularly careful not to be in earnest or to receive any impress from the moving age. then there is my lord boodle, of considerable reputation with his party, who has known what office is and who tells sir leicester dedlock with much gravity, after dinner, that he really does not see to what the present age is tending. a debate is not what a debate used to be; the house is not what the house used to be; even a cabinet is not what it formerly was. he perceives with astonishment that supposing the present government to be overthrown, the limited choice of the crown, in the formation of a new ministry, would lie between lord coodle and sir thomas doodle--supposing it to be impossible for the duke of foodle to act with goodle, which may be assumed to be the case in consequence of the breach arising out of that affair with hoodle. then, giving the home department and the leadership of the house of commons to joodle, the exchequer to koodle, the colonies to loodle, and the foreign office to moodle, what are you to do with noodle? you can't offer him the presidency of the council; that is reserved for poodle. you can't put him in the woods and forests; that is hardly good enough for quoodle. what follows? that the country is shipwrecked, lost, and gone to pieces (as is made manifest to the patriotism of sir leicester dedlock) because you can't provide for noodle! on the other hand, the right honourable william buffy, m.p., contends across the table with some one else that the shipwreck of the country--about which there is no doubt; it is only the manner of it that is in question--is attributable to cuffy. if you had done with cuffy what you ought to have done when he first came into parliament, and had prevented him from going over to duffy, you would have got him into alliance with fuffy, you would have had with you the weight attaching as a smart debater to guffy, you would have brought to bear upon the elections the wealth of huffy, you would have got in for three counties juffy, kuffy, and luffy, and you would have strengthened your administration by the official knowledge and the business habits of muffy. all this, instead of being as you now are, dependent on the mere caprice of puffy! as to this point, and as to some minor topics, there are differences of opinion; but it is perfectly clear to the brilliant and distinguished circle, all round, that nobody is in question but boodle and his retinue, and buffy and his retinue. these are the great actors for whom the stage is reserved. a people there are, no doubt--a certain large number of supernumeraries, who are to be occasionally addressed, and relied upon for shouts and choruses, as on the theatrical stage; but boodle and buffy, their followers and families, their heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, are the born first-actors, managers, and leaders, and no others can appear upon the scene for ever and ever. in this, too, there is perhaps more dandyism at chesney wold than the brilliant and distinguished circle will find good for itself in the long run. for it is, even with the stillest and politest circles, as with the circle the necromancer draws around him--very strange appearances may be seen in active motion outside. with this difference, that being realities and not phantoms, there is the greater danger of their breaking in. chesney wold is quite full anyhow, so full that a burning sense of injury arises in the breasts of ill-lodged ladies'-maids, and is not to be extinguished. only one room is empty. it is a turret chamber of the third order of merit, plainly but comfortably furnished and having an old-fashioned business air. it is mr. tulkinghorn's room, and is never bestowed on anybody else, for he may come at any time. he is not come yet. it is his quiet habit to walk across the park from the village in fine weather, to drop into this room as if he had never been out of it since he was last seen there, to request a servant to inform sir leicester that he is arrived in case he should be wanted, and to appear ten minutes before dinner in the shadow of the library-door. he sleeps in his turret with a complaining flag-staff over his head, and has some leads outside on which, any fine morning when he is down here, his black figure may be seen walking before breakfast like a larger species of rook. every day before dinner, my lady looks for him in the dusk of the library, but he is not there. every day at dinner, my lady glances down the table for the vacant place that would be waiting to receive him if he had just arrived, but there is no vacant place. every night my lady casually asks her maid, "is mr. tulkinghorn come?" every night the answer is, "no, my lady, not yet." one night, while having her hair undressed, my lady loses herself in deep thought after this reply until she sees her own brooding face in the opposite glass, and a pair of black eyes curiously observing her. "be so good as to attend," says my lady then, addressing the reflection of hortense, "to your business. you can contemplate your beauty at another time." "pardon! it was your ladyship's beauty." "that," says my lady, "you needn't contemplate at all." at length, one afternoon a little before sunset, when the bright groups of figures which have for the last hour or two enlivened the ghost's walk are all dispersed and only sir leicester and my lady remain upon the terrace, mr. tulkinghorn appears. he comes towards them at his usual methodical pace, which is never quickened, never slackened. he wears his usual expressionless mask--if it be a mask--and carries family secrets in every limb of his body and every crease of his dress. whether his whole soul is devoted to the great or whether he yields them nothing beyond the services he sells is his personal secret. he keeps it, as he keeps the secrets of his clients; he is his own client in that matter, and will never betray himself. "how do you do, mr. tulkinghorn?" says sir leicester, giving him his hand. mr. tulkinghorn is quite well. sir leicester is quite well. my lady is quite well. all highly satisfactory. the lawyer, with his hands behind him, walks at sir leicester's side along the terrace. my lady walks upon the other side. "we expected you before," says sir leicester. a gracious observation. as much as to say, "mr. tulkinghorn, we remember your existence when you are not here to remind us of it by your presence. we bestow a fragment of our minds upon you, sir, you see!" mr. tulkinghorn, comprehending it, inclines his head and says he is much obliged. "i should have come down sooner," he explains, "but that i have been much engaged with those matters in the several suits between yourself and boythorn." "a man of a very ill-regulated mind," observes sir leicester with severity. "an extremely dangerous person in any community. a man of a very low character of mind." "he is obstinate," says mr. tulkinghorn. "it is natural to such a man to be so," says sir leicester, looking most profoundly obstinate himself. "i am not at all surprised to hear it." "the only question is," pursues the lawyer, "whether you will give up anything." "no, sir," replies sir leicester. "nothing. i give up?" "i don't mean anything of importance. that, of course, i know you would not abandon. i mean any minor point." "mr. tulkinghorn," returns sir leicester, "there can be no minor point between myself and mr. boythorn. if i go farther, and observe that i cannot readily conceive how any right of mine can be a minor point, i speak not so much in reference to myself as an individual as in reference to the family position i have it in charge to maintain." mr. tulkinghorn inclines his head again. "i have now my instructions," he says. "mr. boythorn will give us a good deal of trouble--" "it is the character of such a mind, mr. tulkinghorn," sir leicester interrupts him, "to give trouble. an exceedingly ill-conditioned, levelling person. a person who, fifty years ago, would probably have been tried at the old bailey for some demagogue proceeding, and severely punished--if not," adds sir leicester after a moment's pause, "if not hanged, drawn, and quartered." sir leicester appears to discharge his stately breast of a burden in passing this capital sentence, as if it were the next satisfactory thing to having the sentence executed. "but night is coming on," says he, "and my lady will take cold. my dear, let us go in." as they turn towards the hall-door, lady dedlock addresses mr. tulkinghorn for the first time. "you sent me a message respecting the person whose writing i happened to inquire about. it was like you to remember the circumstance; i had quite forgotten it. your message reminded me of it again. i can't imagine what association i had with a hand like that, but i surely had some." "you had some?" mr. tulkinghorn repeats. "oh, yes!" returns my lady carelessly. "i think i must have had some. and did you really take the trouble to find out the writer of that actual thing--what is it!--affidavit?" "yes." "how very odd!" they pass into a sombre breakfast-room on the ground floor, lighted in the day by two deep windows. it is now twilight. the fire glows brightly on the panelled wall and palely on the window-glass, where, through the cold reflection of the blaze, the colder landscape shudders in the wind and a grey mist creeps along, the only traveller besides the waste of clouds. my lady lounges in a great chair in the chimney-corner, and sir leicester takes another great chair opposite. the lawyer stands before the fire with his hand out at arm's length, shading his face. he looks across his arm at my lady. "yes," he says, "i inquired about the man, and found him. and, what is very strange, i found him--" "not to be any out-of-the-way person, i am afraid!" lady dedlock languidly anticipates. "i found him dead." "oh, dear me!" remonstrated sir leicester. not so much shocked by the fact as by the fact of the fact being mentioned. "i was directed to his lodging--a miserable, poverty-stricken place--and i found him dead." "you will excuse me, mr. tulkinghorn," observes sir leicester. "i think the less said--" "pray, sir leicester, let me hear the story out" (it is my lady speaking). "it is quite a story for twilight. how very shocking! dead?" mr. tulkinghorn re-asserts it by another inclination of his head. "whether by his own hand--" "upon my honour!" cries sir leicester. "really!" "do let me hear the story!" says my lady. "whatever you desire, my dear. but, i must say--" "no, you mustn't say! go on, mr. tulkinghorn." sir leicester's gallantry concedes the point, though he still feels that to bring this sort of squalor among the upper classes is really--really-- "i was about to say," resumes the lawyer with undisturbed calmness, "that whether he had died by his own hand or not, it was beyond my power to tell you. i should amend that phrase, however, by saying that he had unquestionably died of his own act, though whether by his own deliberate intention or by mischance can never certainly be known. the coroner's jury found that he took the poison accidentally." "and what kind of man," my lady asks, "was this deplorable creature?" "very difficult to say," returns the lawyer, shaking his head. "he had lived so wretchedly and was so neglected, with his gipsy colour and his wild black hair and beard, that i should have considered him the commonest of the common. the surgeon had a notion that he had once been something better, both in appearance and condition." "what did they call the wretched being?" "they called him what he had called himself, but no one knew his name." "not even any one who had attended on him?" "no one had attended on him. he was found dead. in fact, i found him." "without any clue to anything more?" "without any; there was," says the lawyer meditatively, "an old portmanteau, but--no, there were no papers." during the utterance of every word of this short dialogue, lady dedlock and mr. tulkinghorn, without any other alteration in their customary deportment, have looked very steadily at one another--as was natural, perhaps, in the discussion of so unusual a subject. sir leicester has looked at the fire, with the general expression of the dedlock on the staircase. the story being told, he renews his stately protest, saying that as it is quite clear that no association in my lady's mind can possibly be traceable to this poor wretch (unless he was a begging-letter writer), he trusts to hear no more about a subject so far removed from my lady's station. "certainly, a collection of horrors," says my lady, gathering up her mantles and furs, "but they interest one for the moment! have the kindness, mr. tulkinghorn, to open the door for me." mr. tulkinghorn does so with deference and holds it open while she passes out. she passes close to him, with her usual fatigued manner and insolent grace. they meet again at dinner--again, next day--again, for many days in succession. lady dedlock is always the same exhausted deity, surrounded by worshippers, and terribly liable to be bored to death, even while presiding at her own shrine. mr. tulkinghorn is always the same speechless repository of noble confidences, so oddly out of place and yet so perfectly at home. they appear to take as little note of one another as any two people enclosed within the same walls could. but whether each evermore watches and suspects the other, evermore mistrustful of some great reservation; whether each is evermore prepared at all points for the other, and never to be taken unawares; what each would give to know how much the other knows--all this is hidden, for the time, in their own hearts. chapter xiii esther's narrative we held many consultations about what richard was to be, first without mr. jarndyce, as he had requested, and afterwards with him, but it was a long time before we seemed to make progress. richard said he was ready for anything. when mr. jarndyce doubted whether he might not already be too old to enter the navy, richard said he had thought of that, and perhaps he was. when mr. jarndyce asked him what he thought of the army, richard said he had thought of that, too, and it wasn't a bad idea. when mr. jarndyce advised him to try and decide within himself whether his old preference for the sea was an ordinary boyish inclination or a strong impulse, richard answered, well he really had tried very often, and he couldn't make out. "how much of this indecision of character," mr. jarndyce said to me, "is chargeable on that incomprehensible heap of uncertainty and procrastination on which he has been thrown from his birth, i don't pretend to say; but that chancery, among its other sins, is responsible for some of it, i can plainly see. it has engendered or confirmed in him a habit of putting off--and trusting to this, that, and the other chance, without knowing what chance--and dismissing everything as unsettled, uncertain, and confused. the character of much older and steadier people may be even changed by the circumstances surrounding them. it would be too much to expect that a boy's, in its formation, should be the subject of such influences and escape them." i felt this to be true; though if i may venture to mention what i thought besides, i thought it much to be regretted that richard's education had not counteracted those influences or directed his character. he had been eight years at a public school and had learnt, i understood, to make latin verses of several sorts in the most admirable manner. but i never heard that it had been anybody's business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to him. he had been adapted to the verses and had learnt the art of making them to such perfection that if he had remained at school until he was of age, i suppose he could only have gone on making them over and over again unless he had enlarged his education by forgetting how to do it. still, although i had no doubt that they were very beautiful, and very improving, and very sufficient for a great many purposes of life, and always remembered all through life, i did doubt whether richard would not have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his studying them quite so much. to be sure, i knew nothing of the subject and do not even now know whether the young gentlemen of classic rome or greece made verses to the same extent--or whether the young gentlemen of any country ever did. "i haven't the least idea," said richard, musing, "what i had better be. except that i am quite sure i don't want to go into the church, it's a toss-up." "you have no inclination in mr. kenge's way?" suggested mr. jarndyce. "i don't know that, sir!" replied richard. "i am fond of boating. articled clerks go a good deal on the water. it's a capital profession!" "surgeon--" suggested mr. jarndyce. "that's the thing, sir!" cried richard. i doubt if he had ever once thought of it before. "that's the thing, sir," repeated richard with the greatest enthusiasm. "we have got it at last. m.r.c.s.!" he was not to be laughed out of it, though he laughed at it heartily. he said he had chosen his profession, and the more he thought of it, the more he felt that his destiny was clear; the art of healing was the art of all others for him. mistrusting that he only came to this conclusion because, having never had much chance of finding out for himself what he was fitted for and having never been guided to the discovery, he was taken by the newest idea and was glad to get rid of the trouble of consideration, i wondered whether the latin verses often ended in this or whether richard's was a solitary case. mr. jarndyce took great pains to talk with him seriously and to put it to his good sense not to deceive himself in so important a matter. richard was a little grave after these interviews, but invariably told ada and me that it was all right, and then began to talk about something else. "by heaven!" cried mr. boythorn, who interested himself strongly in the subject--though i need not say that, for he could do nothing weakly; "i rejoice to find a young gentleman of spirit and gallantry devoting himself to that noble profession! the more spirit there is in it, the better for mankind and the worse for those mercenary task-masters and low tricksters who delight in putting that illustrious art at a disadvantage in the world. by all that is base and despicable," cried mr. boythorn, "the treatment of surgeons aboard ship is such that i would submit the legs--both legs--of every member of the admiralty board to a compound fracture and render it a transportable offence in any qualified practitioner to set them if the system were not wholly changed in eight and forty hours!" "wouldn't you give them a week?" asked mr. jarndyce. "no!" cried mr. boythorn firmly. "not on any consideration! eight and forty hours! as to corporations, parishes, vestry-boards, and similar gatherings of jolter-headed clods who assemble to exchange such speeches that, by heaven, they ought to be worked in quicksilver mines for the short remainder of their miserable existence, if it were only to prevent their detestable english from contaminating a language spoken in the presence of the sun--as to those fellows, who meanly take advantage of the ardour of gentlemen in the pursuit of knowledge to recompense the inestimable services of the best years of their lives, their long study, and their expensive education with pittances too small for the acceptance of clerks, i would have the necks of every one of them wrung and their skulls arranged in surgeons' hall for the contemplation of the whole profession in order that its younger members might understand from actual measurement, in early life, how thick skulls may become!" he wound up this vehement declaration by looking round upon us with a most agreeable smile and suddenly thundering, "ha, ha, ha!" over and over again, until anybody else might have been expected to be quite subdued by the exertion. as richard still continued to say that he was fixed in his choice after repeated periods for consideration had been recommended by mr. jarndyce and had expired, and he still continued to assure ada and me in the same final manner that it was "all right," it became advisable to take mr. kenge into council. mr. kenge, therefore, came down to dinner one day, and leaned back in his chair, and turned his eye-glasses over and over, and spoke in a sonorous voice, and did exactly what i remembered to have seen him do when i was a little girl. "ah!" said mr. kenge. "yes. well! a very good profession, mr. jarndyce, a very good profession." "the course of study and preparation requires to be diligently pursued," observed my guardian with a glance at richard. "oh, no doubt," said mr. kenge. "diligently." "but that being the case, more or less, with all pursuits that are worth much," said mr. jarndyce, "it is not a special consideration which another choice would be likely to escape." "truly," said mr. kenge. "and mr. richard carstone, who has so meritoriously acquitted himself in the--shall i say the classic shades?--in which his youth had been passed, will, no doubt, apply the habits, if not the principles and practice, of versification in that tongue in which a poet was said (unless i mistake) to be born, not made, to the more eminently practical field of action on which he enters." "you may rely upon it," said richard in his off-hand manner, "that i shall go at it and do my best." "very well, mr. jarndyce!" said mr. kenge, gently nodding his head. "really, when we are assured by mr. richard that he means to go at it and to do his best," nodding feelingly and smoothly over those expressions, "i would submit to you that we have only to inquire into the best mode of carrying out the object of his ambition. now, with reference to placing mr. richard with some sufficiently eminent practitioner. is there any one in view at present?" "no one, rick, i think?" said my guardian. "no one, sir," said richard. "quite so!" observed mr. kenge. "as to situation, now. is there any particular feeling on that head?" "n--no," said richard. "quite so!" observed mr. kenge again. "i should like a little variety," said richard; "i mean a good range of experience." "very requisite, no doubt," returned mr. kenge. "i think this may be easily arranged, mr. jarndyce? we have only, in the first place, to discover a sufficiently eligible practitioner; and as soon as we make our want--and shall i add, our ability to pay a premium?--known, our only difficulty will be in the selection of one from a large number. we have only, in the second place, to observe those little formalities which are rendered necessary by our time of life and our being under the guardianship of the court. we shall soon be--shall i say, in mr. richard's own light-hearted manner, 'going at it'--to our heart's content. it is a coincidence," said mr. kenge with a tinge of melancholy in his smile, "one of those coincidences which may or may not require an explanation beyond our present limited faculties, that i have a cousin in the medical profession. he might be deemed eligible by you and might be disposed to respond to this proposal. i can answer for him as little as for you, but he might!" as this was an opening in the prospect, it was arranged that mr. kenge should see his cousin. and as mr. jarndyce had before proposed to take us to london for a few weeks, it was settled next day that we should make our visit at once and combine richard's business with it. mr. boythorn leaving us within a week, we took up our abode at a cheerful lodging near oxford street over an upholsterer's shop. london was a great wonder to us, and we were out for hours and hours at a time, seeing the sights, which appeared to be less capable of exhaustion than we were. we made the round of the principal theatres, too, with great delight, and saw all the plays that were worth seeing. i mention this because it was at the theatre that i began to be made uncomfortable again by mr. guppy. i was sitting in front of the box one night with ada, and richard was in the place he liked best, behind ada's chair, when, happening to look down into the pit, i saw mr. guppy, with his hair flattened down upon his head and woe depicted in his face, looking up at me. i felt all through the performance that he never looked at the actors but constantly looked at me, and always with a carefully prepared expression of the deepest misery and the profoundest dejection. it quite spoiled my pleasure for that night because it was so very embarrassing and so very ridiculous. but from that time forth, we never went to the play without my seeing mr. guppy in the pit, always with his hair straight and flat, his shirt-collar turned down, and a general feebleness about him. if he were not there when we went in, and i began to hope he would not come and yielded myself for a little while to the interest of the scene, i was certain to encounter his languishing eyes when i least expected it and, from that time, to be quite sure that they were fixed upon me all the evening. i really cannot express how uneasy this made me. if he would only have brushed up his hair or turned up his collar, it would have been bad enough; but to know that that absurd figure was always gazing at me, and always in that demonstrative state of despondency, put such a constraint upon me that i did not like to laugh at the play, or to cry at it, or to move, or to speak. i seemed able to do nothing naturally. as to escaping mr. guppy by going to the back of the box, i could not bear to do that because i knew richard and ada relied on having me next them and that they could never have talked together so happily if anybody else had been in my place. so there i sat, not knowing where to look--for wherever i looked, i knew mr. guppy's eyes were following me--and thinking of the dreadful expense to which this young man was putting himself on my account. sometimes i thought of telling mr. jarndyce. then i feared that the young man would lose his situation and that i might ruin him. sometimes i thought of confiding in richard, but was deterred by the possibility of his fighting mr. guppy and giving him black eyes. sometimes i thought, should i frown at him or shake my head. then i felt i could not do it. sometimes i considered whether i should write to his mother, but that ended in my being convinced that to open a correspondence would be to make the matter worse. i always came to the conclusion, finally, that i could do nothing. mr. guppy's perseverance, all this time, not only produced him regularly at any theatre to which we went, but caused him to appear in the crowd as we were coming out, and even to get up behind our fly--where i am sure i saw him, two or three times, struggling among the most dreadful spikes. after we got home, he haunted a post opposite our house. the upholsterer's where we lodged being at the corner of two streets, and my bedroom window being opposite the post, i was afraid to go near the window when i went upstairs, lest i should see him (as i did one moonlight night) leaning against the post and evidently catching cold. if mr. guppy had not been, fortunately for me, engaged in the daytime, i really should have had no rest from him. while we were making this round of gaieties, in which mr. guppy so extraordinarily participated, the business which had helped to bring us to town was not neglected. mr. kenge's cousin was a mr. bayham badger, who had a good practice at chelsea and attended a large public institution besides. he was quite willing to receive richard into his house and to superintend his studies, and as it seemed that those could be pursued advantageously under mr. badger's roof, and mr. badger liked richard, and as richard said he liked mr. badger "well enough," an agreement was made, the lord chancellor's consent was obtained, and it was all settled. on the day when matters were concluded between richard and mr. badger, we were all under engagement to dine at mr. badger's house. we were to be "merely a family party," mrs. badger's note said; and we found no lady there but mrs. badger herself. she was surrounded in the drawing-room by various objects, indicative of her painting a little, playing the piano a little, playing the guitar a little, playing the harp a little, singing a little, working a little, reading a little, writing poetry a little, and botanizing a little. she was a lady of about fifty, i should think, youthfully dressed, and of a very fine complexion. if i add to the little list of her accomplishments that she rouged a little, i do not mean that there was any harm in it. mr. bayham badger himself was a pink, fresh-faced, crisp-looking gentleman with a weak voice, white teeth, light hair, and surprised eyes, some years younger, i should say, than mrs. bayham badger. he admired her exceedingly, but principally, and to begin with, on the curious ground (as it seemed to us) of her having had three husbands. we had barely taken our seats when he said to mr. jarndyce quite triumphantly, "you would hardly suppose that i am mrs. bayham badger's third!" "indeed?" said mr. jarndyce. "her third!" said mr. badger. "mrs. bayham badger has not the appearance, miss summerson, of a lady who has had two former husbands?" i said "not at all!" "and most remarkable men!" said mr. badger in a tone of confidence. "captain swosser of the royal navy, who was mrs. badger's first husband, was a very distinguished officer indeed. the name of professor dingo, my immediate predecessor, is one of european reputation." mrs. badger overheard him and smiled. "yes, my dear!" mr. badger replied to the smile, "i was observing to mr. jarndyce and miss summerson that you had had two former husbands--both very distinguished men. and they found it, as people generally do, difficult to believe." "i was barely twenty," said mrs. badger, "when i married captain swosser of the royal navy. i was in the mediterranean with him; i am quite a sailor. on the twelfth anniversary of my wedding-day, i became the wife of professor dingo." "of european reputation," added mr. badger in an undertone. "and when mr. badger and myself were married," pursued mrs. badger, "we were married on the same day of the year. i had become attached to the day." "so that mrs. badger has been married to three husbands--two of them highly distinguished men," said mr. badger, summing up the facts, "and each time upon the twenty-first of march at eleven in the forenoon!" we all expressed our admiration. "but for mr. badger's modesty," said mr. jarndyce, "i would take leave to correct him and say three distinguished men." "thank you, mr. jarndyce! what i always tell him!" observed mrs. badger. "and, my dear," said mr. badger, "what do i always tell you? that without any affectation of disparaging such professional distinction as i may have attained (which our friend mr. carstone will have many opportunities of estimating), i am not so weak--no, really," said mr. badger to us generally, "so unreasonable--as to put my reputation on the same footing with such first-rate men as captain swosser and professor dingo. perhaps you may be interested, mr. jarndyce," continued mr. bayham badger, leading the way into the next drawing-room, "in this portrait of captain swosser. it was taken on his return home from the african station, where he had suffered from the fever of the country. mrs. badger considers it too yellow. but it's a very fine head. a very fine head!" we all echoed, "a very fine head!" "i feel when i look at it," said mr. badger, "'that's a man i should like to have seen!' it strikingly bespeaks the first-class man that captain swosser pre-eminently was. on the other side, professor dingo. i knew him well--attended him in his last illness--a speaking likeness! over the piano, mrs. bayham badger when mrs. swosser. over the sofa, mrs. bayham badger when mrs. dingo. of mrs. bayham badger in esse, i possess the original and have no copy." dinner was now announced, and we went downstairs. it was a very genteel entertainment, very handsomely served. but the captain and the professor still ran in mr. badger's head, and as ada and i had the honour of being under his particular care, we had the full benefit of them. "water, miss summerson? allow me! not in that tumbler, pray. bring me the professor's goblet, james!" ada very much admired some artificial flowers under a glass. "astonishing how they keep!" said mr. badger. "they were presented to mrs. bayham badger when she was in the mediterranean." he invited mr. jarndyce to take a glass of claret. "not that claret!" he said. "excuse me! this is an occasion, and on an occasion i produce some very special claret i happen to have. (james, captain swosser's wine!) mr. jarndyce, this is a wine that was imported by the captain, we will not say how many years ago. you will find it very curious. my dear, i shall be happy to take some of this wine with you. (captain swosser's claret to your mistress, james!) my love, your health!" after dinner, when we ladies retired, we took mrs. badger's first and second husband with us. mrs. badger gave us in the drawing-room a biographical sketch of the life and services of captain swosser before his marriage and a more minute account of him dating from the time when he fell in love with her at a ball on board the crippler, given to the officers of that ship when she lay in plymouth harbour. "the dear old crippler!" said mrs. badger, shaking her head. "she was a noble vessel. trim, ship-shape, all a taunto, as captain swosser used to say. you must excuse me if i occasionally introduce a nautical expression; i was quite a sailor once. captain swosser loved that craft for my sake. when she was no longer in commission, he frequently said that if he were rich enough to buy her old hulk, he would have an inscription let into the timbers of the quarter-deck where we stood as partners in the dance to mark the spot where he fell--raked fore and aft (captain swosser used to say) by the fire from my tops. it was his naval way of mentioning my eyes." mrs. badger shook her head, sighed, and looked in the glass. "it was a great change from captain swosser to professor dingo," she resumed with a plaintive smile. "i felt it a good deal at first. such an entire revolution in my mode of life! but custom, combined with science--particularly science--inured me to it. being the professor's sole companion in his botanical excursions, i almost forgot that i had ever been afloat, and became quite learned. it is singular that the professor was the antipodes of captain swosser and that mr. badger is not in the least like either!" we then passed into a narrative of the deaths of captain swosser and professor dingo, both of whom seem to have had very bad complaints. in the course of it, mrs. badger signified to us that she had never madly loved but once and that the object of that wild affection, never to be recalled in its fresh enthusiasm, was captain swosser. the professor was yet dying by inches in the most dismal manner, and mrs. badger was giving us imitations of his way of saying, with great difficulty, "where is laura? let laura give me my toast and water!" when the entrance of the gentlemen consigned him to the tomb. now, i observed that evening, as i had observed for some days past, that ada and richard were more than ever attached to each other's society, which was but natural, seeing that they were going to be separated so soon. i was therefore not very much surprised when we got home, and ada and i retired upstairs, to find ada more silent than usual, though i was not quite prepared for her coming into my arms and beginning to speak to me, with her face hidden. "my darling esther!" murmured ada. "i have a great secret to tell you!" a mighty secret, my pretty one, no doubt! "what is it, ada?" "oh, esther, you would never guess!" "shall i try to guess?" said i. "oh, no! don't! pray don't!" cried ada, very much startled by the idea of my doing so. "now, i wonder who it can be about?" said i, pretending to consider. "it's about--" said ada in a whisper. "it's about--my cousin richard!" "well, my own!" said i, kissing her bright hair, which was all i could see. "and what about him?" "oh, esther, you would never guess!" it was so pretty to have her clinging to me in that way, hiding her face, and to know that she was not crying in sorrow but in a little glow of joy, and pride, and hope, that i would not help her just yet. "he says--i know it's very foolish, we are both so young--but he says," with a burst of tears, "that he loves me dearly, esther." "does he indeed?" said i. "i never heard of such a thing! why, my pet of pets, i could have told you that weeks and weeks ago!" to see ada lift up her flushed face in joyful surprise, and hold me round the neck, and laugh, and cry, and blush, was so pleasant! "why, my darling," said i, "what a goose you must take me for! your cousin richard has been loving you as plainly as he could for i don't know how long!" "and yet you never said a word about it!" cried ada, kissing me. "no, my love," said i. "i waited to be told." "but now i have told you, you don't think it wrong of me, do you?" returned ada. she might have coaxed me to say no if i had been the hardest-hearted duenna in the world. not being that yet, i said no very freely. "and now," said i, "i know the worst of it." "oh, that's not quite the worst of it, esther dear!" cried ada, holding me tighter and laying down her face again upon my breast. "no?" said i. "not even that?" "no, not even that!" said ada, shaking her head. "why, you never mean to say--" i was beginning in joke. but ada, looking up and smiling through her tears, cried, "yes, i do! you know, you know i do!" and then sobbed out, "with all my heart i do! with all my whole heart, esther!" i told her, laughing, why i had known that, too, just as well as i had known the other! and we sat before the fire, and i had all the talking to myself for a little while (though there was not much of it); and ada was soon quiet and happy. "do you think my cousin john knows, dear dame durden?" she asked. "unless my cousin john is blind, my pet," said i, "i should think my cousin john knows pretty well as much as we know." "we want to speak to him before richard goes," said ada timidly, "and we wanted you to advise us, and to tell him so. perhaps you wouldn't mind richard's coming in, dame durden?" "oh! richard is outside, is he, my dear?" said i. "i am not quite certain," returned ada with a bashful simplicity that would have won my heart if she had not won it long before, "but i think he's waiting at the door." there he was, of course. they brought a chair on either side of me, and put me between them, and really seemed to have fallen in love with me instead of one another, they were so confiding, and so trustful, and so fond of me. they went on in their own wild way for a little while--i never stopped them; i enjoyed it too much myself--and then we gradually fell to considering how young they were, and how there must be a lapse of several years before this early love could come to anything, and how it could come to happiness only if it were real and lasting and inspired them with a steady resolution to do their duty to each other, with constancy, fortitude, and perseverance, each always for the other's sake. well! richard said that he would work his fingers to the bone for ada, and ada said that she would work her fingers to the bone for richard, and they called me all sorts of endearing and sensible names, and we sat there, advising and talking, half the night. finally, before we parted, i gave them my promise to speak to their cousin john to-morrow. so, when to-morrow came, i went to my guardian after breakfast, in the room that was our town-substitute for the growlery, and told him that i had it in trust to tell him something. "well, little woman," said he, shutting up his book, "if you have accepted the trust, there can be no harm in it." "i hope not, guardian," said i. "i can guarantee that there is no secrecy in it. for it only happened yesterday." "aye? and what is it, esther?" "guardian," said i, "you remember the happy night when first we came down to bleak house? when ada was singing in the dark room?" i wished to call to his remembrance the look he had given me then. unless i am much mistaken, i saw that i did so. "because--" said i with a little hesitation. "yes, my dear!" said he. "don't hurry." "because," said i, "ada and richard have fallen in love. and have told each other so." "already!" cried my guardian, quite astonished. "yes!" said i. "and to tell you the truth, guardian, i rather expected it." "the deuce you did!" said he. he sat considering for a minute or two, with his smile, at once so handsome and so kind, upon his changing face, and then requested me to let them know that he wished to see them. when they came, he encircled ada with one arm in his fatherly way and addressed himself to richard with a cheerful gravity. "rick," said mr. jarndyce, "i am glad to have won your confidence. i hope to preserve it. when i contemplated these relations between us four which have so brightened my life and so invested it with new interests and pleasures, i certainly did contemplate, afar off, the possibility of you and your pretty cousin here (don't be shy, ada, don't be shy, my dear!) being in a mind to go through life together. i saw, and do see, many reasons to make it desirable. but that was afar off, rick, afar off!" "we look afar off, sir," returned richard. "well!" said mr. jarndyce. "that's rational. now, hear me, my dears! i might tell you that you don't know your own minds yet, that a thousand things may happen to divert you from one another, that it is well this chain of flowers you have taken up is very easily broken, or it might become a chain of lead. but i will not do that. such wisdom will come soon enough, i dare say, if it is to come at all. i will assume that a few years hence you will be in your hearts to one another what you are to-day. all i say before speaking to you according to that assumption is, if you do change--if you do come to find that you are more commonplace cousins to each other as man and woman than you were as boy and girl (your manhood will excuse me, rick!)--don't be ashamed still to confide in me, for there will be nothing monstrous or uncommon in it. i am only your friend and distant kinsman. i have no power over you whatever. but i wish and hope to retain your confidence if i do nothing to forfeit it." "i am very sure, sir," returned richard, "that i speak for ada too when i say that you have the strongest power over us both--rooted in respect, gratitude, and affection--strengthening every day." "dear cousin john," said ada, on his shoulder, "my father's place can never be empty again. all the love and duty i could ever have rendered to him is transferred to you." "come!" said mr. jarndyce. "now for our assumption. now we lift our eyes up and look hopefully at the distance! rick, the world is before you; and it is most probable that as you enter it, so it will receive you. trust in nothing but in providence and your own efforts. never separate the two, like the heathen waggoner. constancy in love is a good thing, but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort. if you had the abilities of all the great men, past and present, you could do nothing well without sincerely meaning it and setting about it. if you entertain the supposition that any real success, in great things or in small, ever was or could be, ever will or can be, wrested from fortune by fits and starts, leave that wrong idea here or leave your cousin ada here." "i will leave it here, sir," replied richard smiling, "if i brought it here just now (but i hope i did not), and will work my way on to my cousin ada in the hopeful distance." "right!" said mr. jarndyce. "if you are not to make her happy, why should you pursue her?" "i wouldn't make her unhappy--no, not even for her love," retorted richard proudly. "well said!" cried mr. jarndyce. "that's well said! she remains here, in her home with me. love her, rick, in your active life, no less than in her home when you revisit it, and all will go well. otherwise, all will go ill. that's the end of my preaching. i think you and ada had better take a walk." ada tenderly embraced him, and richard heartily shook hands with him, and then the cousins went out of the room, looking back again directly, though, to say that they would wait for me. the door stood open, and we both followed them with our eyes as they passed down the adjoining room, on which the sun was shining, and out at its farther end. richard with his head bent, and her hand drawn through his arm, was talking to her very earnestly; and she looked up in his face, listening, and seemed to see nothing else. so young, so beautiful, so full of hope and promise, they went on lightly through the sunlight as their own happy thoughts might then be traversing the years to come and making them all years of brightness. so they passed away into the shadow and were gone. it was only a burst of light that had been so radiant. the room darkened as they went out, and the sun was clouded over. "am i right, esther?" said my guardian when they were gone. he was so good and wise to ask me whether he was right! "rick may gain, out of this, the quality he wants. wants, at the core of so much that is good!" said mr. jarndyce, shaking his head. "i have said nothing to ada, esther. she has her friend and counsellor always near." and he laid his hand lovingly upon my head. i could not help showing that i was a little moved, though i did all i could to conceal it. "tut tut!" said he. "but we must take care, too, that our little woman's life is not all consumed in care for others." "care? my dear guardian, i believe i am the happiest creature in the world!" "i believe so, too," said he. "but some one may find out what esther never will--that the little woman is to be held in remembrance above all other people!" i have omitted to mention in its place that there was some one else at the family dinner party. it was not a lady. it was a gentleman. it was a gentleman of a dark complexion--a young surgeon. he was rather reserved, but i thought him very sensible and agreeable. at least, ada asked me if i did not, and i said yes. chapter xiv deportment richard left us on the very next evening to begin his new career, and committed ada to my charge with great love for her and great trust in me. it touched me then to reflect, and it touches me now, more nearly, to remember (having what i have to tell) how they both thought of me, even at that engrossing time. i was a part of all their plans, for the present and the future. i was to write richard once a week, making my faithful report of ada, who was to write to him every alternate day. i was to be informed, under his own hand, of all his labours and successes; i was to observe how resolute and persevering he would be; i was to be ada's bridesmaid when they were married; i was to live with them afterwards; i was to keep all the keys of their house; i was to be made happy for ever and a day. "and if the suit should make us rich, esther--which it may, you know!" said richard to crown all. a shade crossed ada's face. "my dearest ada," asked richard, "why not?" "it had better declare us poor at once," said ada. "oh! i don't know about that," returned richard, "but at all events, it won't declare anything at once. it hasn't declared anything in heaven knows how many years." "too true," said ada. "yes, but," urged richard, answering what her look suggested rather than her words, "the longer it goes on, dear cousin, the nearer it must be to a settlement one way or other. now, is not that reasonable?" "you know best, richard. but i am afraid if we trust to it, it will make us unhappy." "but, my ada, we are not going to trust to it!" cried richard gaily. "we know it better than to trust to it. we only say that if it should make us rich, we have no constitutional objection to being rich. the court is, by solemn settlement of law, our grim old guardian, and we are to suppose that what it gives us (when it gives us anything) is our right. it is not necessary to quarrel with our right." "no," said ada, "but it may be better to forget all about it." "well, well," cried richard, "then we will forget all about it! we consign the whole thing to oblivion. dame durden puts on her approving face, and it's done!" "dame durden's approving face," said i, looking out of the box in which i was packing his books, "was not very visible when you called it by that name; but it does approve, and she thinks you can't do better." so, richard said there was an end of it, and immediately began, on no other foundation, to build as many castles in the air as would man the great wall of china. he went away in high spirits. ada and i, prepared to miss him very much, commenced our quieter career. on our arrival in london, we had called with mr. jarndyce at mrs. jellyby's but had not been so fortunate as to find her at home. it appeared that she had gone somewhere to a tea-drinking and had taken miss jellyby with her. besides the tea-drinking, there was to be some considerable speech-making and letter-writing on the general merits of the cultivation of coffee, conjointly with natives, at the settlement of borrioboola-gha. all this involved, no doubt, sufficient active exercise of pen and ink to make her daughter's part in the proceedings anything but a holiday. it being now beyond the time appointed for mrs. jellyby's return, we called again. she was in town, but not at home, having gone to mile end directly after breakfast on some borrioboolan business, arising out of a society called the east london branch aid ramification. as i had not seen peepy on the occasion of our last call (when he was not to be found anywhere, and when the cook rather thought he must have strolled away with the dustman's cart), i now inquired for him again. the oyster shells he had been building a house with were still in the passage, but he was nowhere discoverable, and the cook supposed that he had "gone after the sheep." when we repeated, with some surprise, "the sheep?" she said, oh, yes, on market days he sometimes followed them quite out of town and came back in such a state as never was! i was sitting at the window with my guardian on the following morning, and ada was busy writing--of course to richard--when miss jellyby was announced, and entered, leading the identical peepy, whom she had made some endeavours to render presentable by wiping the dirt into corners of his face and hands and making his hair very wet and then violently frizzling it with her fingers. everything the dear child wore was either too large for him or too small. among his other contradictory decorations he had the hat of a bishop and the little gloves of a baby. his boots were, on a small scale, the boots of a ploughman, while his legs, so crossed and recrossed with scratches that they looked like maps, were bare below a very short pair of plaid drawers finished off with two frills of perfectly different patterns. the deficient buttons on his plaid frock had evidently been supplied from one of mr. jellyby's coats, they were so extremely brazen and so much too large. most extraordinary specimens of needlework appeared on several parts of his dress, where it had been hastily mended, and i recognized the same hand on miss jellyby's. she was, however, unaccountably improved in her appearance and looked very pretty. she was conscious of poor little peepy being but a failure after all her trouble, and she showed it as she came in by the way in which she glanced first at him and then at us. "oh, dear me!" said my guardian. "due east!" ada and i gave her a cordial welcome and presented her to mr. jarndyce, to whom she said as she sat down, "ma's compliments, and she hopes you'll excuse her, because she's correcting proofs of the plan. she's going to put out five thousand new circulars, and she knows you'll be interested to hear that. i have brought one of them with me. ma's compliments." with which she presented it sulkily enough. "thank you," said my guardian. "i am much obliged to mrs. jellyby. oh, dear me! this is a very trying wind!" we were busy with peepy, taking off his clerical hat, asking him if he remembered us, and so on. peepy retired behind his elbow at first, but relented at the sight of sponge-cake and allowed me to take him on my lap, where he sat munching quietly. mr. jarndyce then withdrawing into the temporary growlery, miss jellyby opened a conversation with her usual abruptness. "we are going on just as bad as ever in thavies inn," said she. "i have no peace of my life. talk of africa! i couldn't be worse off if i was a what's-his-name--man and a brother!" i tried to say something soothing. "oh, it's of no use, miss summerson," exclaimed miss jellyby, "though i thank you for the kind intention all the same. i know how i am used, and i am not to be talked over. you wouldn't be talked over if you were used so. peepy, go and play at wild beasts under the piano!" "i shan't!" said peepy. "very well, you ungrateful, naughty, hard-hearted boy!" returned miss jellyby with tears in her eyes. "i'll never take pains to dress you any more." "yes, i will go, caddy!" cried peepy, who was really a good child and who was so moved by his sister's vexation that he went at once. "it seems a little thing to cry about," said poor miss jellyby apologetically, "but i am quite worn out. i was directing the new circulars till two this morning. i detest the whole thing so that that alone makes my head ache till i can't see out of my eyes. and look at that poor unfortunate child! was there ever such a fright as he is!" peepy, happily unconscious of the defects in his appearance, sat on the carpet behind one of the legs of the piano, looking calmly out of his den at us while he ate his cake. "i have sent him to the other end of the room," observed miss jellyby, drawing her chair nearer ours, "because i don't want him to hear the conversation. those little things are so sharp! i was going to say, we really are going on worse than ever. pa will be a bankrupt before long, and then i hope ma will be satisfied. there'll he nobody but ma to thank for it." we said we hoped mr. jellyby's affairs were not in so bad a state as that. "it's of no use hoping, though it's very kind of you," returned miss jellyby, shaking her head. "pa told me only yesterday morning (and dreadfully unhappy he is) that he couldn't weather the storm. i should be surprised if he could. when all our tradesmen send into our house any stuff they like, and the servants do what they like with it, and i have no time to improve things if i knew how, and ma don't care about anything, i should like to make out how pa is to weather the storm. i declare if i was pa, i'd run away." "my dear!" said i, smiling. "your papa, no doubt, considers his family." "oh, yes, his family is all very fine, miss summerson," replied miss jellyby; "but what comfort is his family to him? his family is nothing but bills, dirt, waste, noise, tumbles downstairs, confusion, and wretchedness. his scrambling home, from week's end to week's end, is like one great washing-day--only nothing's washed!" miss jellyby tapped her foot upon the floor and wiped her eyes. "i am sure i pity pa to that degree," she said, "and am so angry with ma that i can't find words to express myself! however, i am not going to bear it, i am determined. i won't be a slave all my life, and i won't submit to be proposed to by mr. quale. a pretty thing, indeed, to marry a philanthropist. as if i hadn't had enough of that!" said poor miss jellyby. i must confess that i could not help feeling rather angry with mrs. jellyby myself, seeing and hearing this neglected girl and knowing how much of bitterly satirical truth there was in what she said. "if it wasn't that we had been intimate when you stopped at our house," pursued miss jellyby, "i should have been ashamed to come here to-day, for i know what a figure i must seem to you two. but as it is, i made up my mind to call, especially as i am not likely to see you again the next time you come to town." she said this with such great significance that ada and i glanced at one another, foreseeing something more. "no!" said miss jellyby, shaking her head. "not at all likely! i know i may trust you two. i am sure you won't betray me. i am engaged." "without their knowledge at home?" said i. "why, good gracious me, miss summerson," she returned, justifying herself in a fretful but not angry manner, "how can it be otherwise? you know what ma is--and i needn't make poor pa more miserable by telling him." "but would it not be adding to his unhappiness to marry without his knowledge or consent, my dear?" said i. "no," said miss jellyby, softening. "i hope not. i should try to make him happy and comfortable when he came to see me, and peepy and the others should take it in turns to come and stay with me, and they should have some care taken of them then." there was a good deal of affection in poor caddy. she softened more and more while saying this and cried so much over the unwonted little home-picture she had raised in her mind that peepy, in his cave under the piano, was touched, and turned himself over on his back with loud lamentations. it was not until i had brought him to kiss his sister, and had restored him to his place on my lap, and had shown him that caddy was laughing (she laughed expressly for the purpose), that we could recall his peace of mind; even then it was for some time conditional on his taking us in turns by the chin and smoothing our faces all over with his hand. at last, as his spirits were not equal to the piano, we put him on a chair to look out of window; and miss jellyby, holding him by one leg, resumed her confidence. "it began in your coming to our house," she said. we naturally asked how. "i felt i was so awkward," she replied, "that i made up my mind to be improved in that respect at all events and to learn to dance. i told ma i was ashamed of myself, and i must be taught to dance. ma looked at me in that provoking way of hers as if i wasn't in sight, but i was quite determined to be taught to dance, and so i went to mr. turveydrop's academy in newman street." "and was it there, my dear--" i began. "yes, it was there," said caddy, "and i am engaged to mr. turveydrop. there are two mr. turveydrops, father and son. my mr. turveydrop is the son, of course. i only wish i had been better brought up and was likely to make him a better wife, for i am very fond of him." "i am sorry to hear this," said i, "i must confess." "i don't know why you should be sorry," she retorted a little anxiously, "but i am engaged to mr. turveydrop, whether or no, and he is very fond of me. it's a secret as yet, even on his side, because old mr. turveydrop has a share in the connexion and it might break his heart or give him some other shock if he was told of it abruptly. old mr. turveydrop is a very gentlemanly man indeed--very gentlemanly." "does his wife know of it?" asked ada. "old mr. turveydrop's wife, miss clare?" returned miss jellyby, opening her eyes. "there's no such person. he is a widower." we were here interrupted by peepy, whose leg had undergone so much on account of his sister's unconsciously jerking it like a bell-rope whenever she was emphatic that the afflicted child now bemoaned his sufferings with a very low-spirited noise. as he appealed to me for compassion, and as i was only a listener, i undertook to hold him. miss jellyby proceeded, after begging peepy's pardon with a kiss and assuring him that she hadn't meant to do it. "that's the state of the case," said caddy. "if i ever blame myself, i still think it's ma's fault. we are to be married whenever we can, and then i shall go to pa at the office and write to ma. it won't much agitate ma; i am only pen and ink to her. one great comfort is," said caddy with a sob, "that i shall never hear of africa after i am married. young mr. turveydrop hates it for my sake, and if old mr. turveydrop knows there is such a place, it's as much as he does." "it was he who was very gentlemanly, i think!" said i. "very gentlemanly indeed," said caddy. "he is celebrated almost everywhere for his deportment." "does he teach?" asked ada. "no, he don't teach anything in particular," replied caddy. "but his deportment is beautiful." caddy went on to say with considerable hesitation and reluctance that there was one thing more she wished us to know, and felt we ought to know, and which she hoped would not offend us. it was that she had improved her acquaintance with miss flite, the little crazy old lady, and that she frequently went there early in the morning and met her lover for a few minutes before breakfast--only for a few minutes. "i go there at other times," said caddy, "but prince does not come then. young mr. turveydrop's name is prince; i wish it wasn't, because it sounds like a dog, but of course he didn't christen himself. old mr. turveydrop had him christened prince in remembrance of the prince regent. old mr. turveydrop adored the prince regent on account of his deportment. i hope you won't think the worse of me for having made these little appointments at miss flite's, where i first went with you, because i like the poor thing for her own sake and i believe she likes me. if you could see young mr. turveydrop, i am sure you would think well of him--at least, i am sure you couldn't possibly think any ill of him. i am going there now for my lesson. i couldn't ask you to go with me, miss summerson; but if you would," said caddy, who had said all this earnestly and tremblingly, "i should be very glad--very glad." it happened that we had arranged with my guardian to go to miss flite's that day. we had told him of our former visit, and our account had interested him; but something had always happened to prevent our going there again. as i trusted that i might have sufficient influence with miss jellyby to prevent her taking any very rash step if i fully accepted the confidence she was so willing to place in me, poor girl, i proposed that she and i and peepy should go to the academy and afterwards meet my guardian and ada at miss flite's, whose name i now learnt for the first time. this was on condition that miss jellyby and peepy should come back with us to dinner. the last article of the agreement being joyfully acceded to by both, we smartened peepy up a little with the assistance of a few pins, some soap and water, and a hair-brush, and went out, bending our steps towards newman street, which was very near. i found the academy established in a sufficiently dingy house at the corner of an archway, with busts in all the staircase windows. in the same house there were also established, as i gathered from the plates on the door, a drawing-master, a coal-merchant (there was, certainly, no room for his coals), and a lithographic artist. on the plate which, in size and situation, took precedence of all the rest, i read, mr. turveydrop. the door was open, and the hall was blocked up by a grand piano, a harp, and several other musical instruments in cases, all in progress of removal, and all looking rakish in the daylight. miss jellyby informed me that the academy had been lent, last night, for a concert. we went upstairs--it had been quite a fine house once, when it was anybody's business to keep it clean and fresh, and nobody's business to smoke in it all day--and into mr. turveydrop's great room, which was built out into a mews at the back and was lighted by a skylight. it was a bare, resounding room smelling of stables, with cane forms along the walls, and the walls ornamented at regular intervals with painted lyres and little cut-glass branches for candles, which seemed to be shedding their old-fashioned drops as other branches might shed autumn leaves. several young lady pupils, ranging from thirteen or fourteen years of age to two or three and twenty, were assembled; and i was looking among them for their instructor when caddy, pinching my arm, repeated the ceremony of introduction. "miss summerson, mr. prince turveydrop!" i curtsied to a little blue-eyed fair man of youthful appearance with flaxen hair parted in the middle and curling at the ends all round his head. he had a little fiddle, which we used to call at school a kit, under his left arm, and its little bow in the same hand. his little dancing-shoes were particularly diminutive, and he had a little innocent, feminine manner which not only appealed to me in an amiable way, but made this singular effect upon me, that i received the impression that he was like his mother and that his mother had not been much considered or well used. "i am very happy to see miss jellyby's friend," he said, bowing low to me. "i began to fear," with timid tenderness, "as it was past the usual time, that miss jellyby was not coming." "i beg you will have the goodness to attribute that to me, who have detained her, and to receive my excuses, sir," said i. "oh, dear!" said he. "and pray," i entreated, "do not allow me to be the cause of any more delay." with that apology i withdrew to a seat between peepy (who, being well used to it, had already climbed into a corner place) and an old lady of a censorious countenance whose two nieces were in the class and who was very indignant with peepy's boots. prince turveydrop then tinkled the strings of his kit with his fingers, and the young ladies stood up to dance. just then there appeared from a side-door old mr. turveydrop, in the full lustre of his deportment. he was a fat old gentleman with a false complexion, false teeth, false whiskers, and a wig. he had a fur collar, and he had a padded breast to his coat, which only wanted a star or a broad blue ribbon to be complete. he was pinched in, and swelled out, and got up, and strapped down, as much as he could possibly bear. he had such a neckcloth on (puffing his very eyes out of their natural shape), and his chin and even his ears so sunk into it, that it seemed as though he must inevitably double up if it were cast loose. he had under his arm a hat of great size and weight, shelving downward from the crown to the brim, and in his hand a pair of white gloves with which he flapped it as he stood poised on one leg in a high-shouldered, round-elbowed state of elegance not to be surpassed. he had a cane, he had an eye-glass, he had a snuff-box, he had rings, he had wristbands, he had everything but any touch of nature; he was not like youth, he was not like age, he was not like anything in the world but a model of deportment. "father! a visitor. miss jellyby's friend, miss summerson." "distinguished," said mr. turveydrop, "by miss summerson's presence." as he bowed to me in that tight state, i almost believe i saw creases come into the whites of his eyes. "my father," said the son, aside, to me with quite an affecting belief in him, "is a celebrated character. my father is greatly admired." "go on, prince! go on!" said mr. turveydrop, standing with his back to the fire and waving his gloves condescendingly. "go on, my son!" at this command, or by this gracious permission, the lesson went on. prince turveydrop sometimes played the kit, dancing; sometimes played the piano, standing; sometimes hummed the tune with what little breath he could spare, while he set a pupil right; always conscientiously moved with the least proficient through every step and every part of the figure; and never rested for an instant. his distinguished father did nothing whatever but stand before the fire, a model of deportment. "and he never does anything else," said the old lady of the censorious countenance. "yet would you believe that it's his name on the door-plate?" "his son's name is the same, you know," said i. "he wouldn't let his son have any name if he could take it from him," returned the old lady. "look at the son's dress!" it certainly was plain--threadbare--almost shabby. "yet the father must be garnished and tricked out," said the old lady, "because of his deportment. i'd deport him! transport him would be better!" i felt curious to know more concerning this person. i asked, "does he give lessons in deportment now?" "now!" returned the old lady shortly. "never did." after a moment's consideration, i suggested that perhaps fencing had been his accomplishment. "i don't believe he can fence at all, ma'am," said the old lady. i looked surprised and inquisitive. the old lady, becoming more and more incensed against the master of deportment as she dwelt upon the subject, gave me some particulars of his career, with strong assurances that they were mildly stated. he had married a meek little dancing-mistress, with a tolerable connexion (having never in his life before done anything but deport himself), and had worked her to death, or had, at the best, suffered her to work herself to death, to maintain him in those expenses which were indispensable to his position. at once to exhibit his deportment to the best models and to keep the best models constantly before himself, he had found it necessary to frequent all public places of fashionable and lounging resort, to be seen at brighton and elsewhere at fashionable times, and to lead an idle life in the very best clothes. to enable him to do this, the affectionate little dancing-mistress had toiled and laboured and would have toiled and laboured to that hour if her strength had lasted so long. for the mainspring of the story was that in spite of the man's absorbing selfishness, his wife (overpowered by his deportment) had, to the last, believed in him and had, on her death-bed, in the most moving terms, confided him to their son as one who had an inextinguishable claim upon him and whom he could never regard with too much pride and deference. the son, inheriting his mother's belief, and having the deportment always before him, had lived and grown in the same faith, and now, at thirty years of age, worked for his father twelve hours a day and looked up to him with veneration on the old imaginary pinnacle. "the airs the fellow gives himself!" said my informant, shaking her head at old mr. turveydrop with speechless indignation as he drew on his tight gloves, of course unconscious of the homage she was rendering. "he fully believes he is one of the aristocracy! and he is so condescending to the son he so egregiously deludes that you might suppose him the most virtuous of parents. oh!" said the old lady, apostrophizing him with infinite vehemence. "i could bite you!" i could not help being amused, though i heard the old lady out with feelings of real concern. it was difficult to doubt her with the father and son before me. what i might have thought of them without the old lady's account, or what i might have thought of the old lady's account without them, i cannot say. there was a fitness of things in the whole that carried conviction with it. my eyes were yet wandering, from young mr. turveydrop working so hard, to old mr. turveydrop deporting himself so beautifully, when the latter came ambling up to me and entered into conversation. he asked me, first of all, whether i conferred a charm and a distinction on london by residing in it? i did not think it necessary to reply that i was perfectly aware i should not do that, in any case, but merely told him where i did reside. "a lady so graceful and accomplished," he said, kissing his right glove and afterwards extending it towards the pupils, "will look leniently on the deficiencies here. we do our best to polish--polish--polish!" he sat down beside me, taking some pains to sit on the form, i thought, in imitation of the print of his illustrious model on the sofa. and really he did look very like it. "to polish--polish--polish!" he repeated, taking a pinch of snuff and gently fluttering his fingers. "but we are not, if i may say so to one formed to be graceful both by nature and art--" with the high-shouldered bow, which it seemed impossible for him to make without lifting up his eyebrows and shutting his eyes "--we are not what we used to be in point of deportment." "are we not, sir?" said i. "we have degenerated," he returned, shaking his head, which he could do to a very limited extent in his cravat. "a levelling age is not favourable to deportment. it develops vulgarity. perhaps i speak with some little partiality. it may not be for me to say that i have been called, for some years now, gentleman turveydrop, or that his royal highness the prince regent did me the honour to inquire, on my removing my hat as he drove out of the pavilion at brighton (that fine building), 'who is he? who the devil is he? why don't i know him? why hasn't he thirty thousand a year?' but these are little matters of anecdote--the general property, ma'am--still repeated occasionally among the upper classes." "indeed?" said i. he replied with the high-shouldered bow. "where what is left among us of deportment," he added, "still lingers. england--alas, my country!--has degenerated very much, and is degenerating every day. she has not many gentlemen left. we are few. i see nothing to succeed us but a race of weavers." "one might hope that the race of gentlemen would be perpetuated here," said i. "you are very good." he smiled with a high-shouldered bow again. "you flatter me. but, no--no! i have never been able to imbue my poor boy with that part of his art. heaven forbid that i should disparage my dear child, but he has--no deportment." "he appears to be an excellent master," i observed. "understand me, my dear madam, he is an excellent master. all that can be acquired, he has acquired. all that can be imparted, he can impart. but there are things--" he took another pinch of snuff and made the bow again, as if to add, "this kind of thing, for instance." i glanced towards the centre of the room, where miss jellyby's lover, now engaged with single pupils, was undergoing greater drudgery than ever. "my amiable child," murmured mr. turveydrop, adjusting his cravat. "your son is indefatigable," said i. "it is my reward," said mr. turveydrop, "to hear you say so. in some respects, he treads in the footsteps of his sainted mother. she was a devoted creature. but wooman, lovely wooman," said mr. turveydrop with very disagreeable gallantry, "what a sex you are!" i rose and joined miss jellyby, who was by this time putting on her bonnet. the time allotted to a lesson having fully elapsed, there was a general putting on of bonnets. when miss jellyby and the unfortunate prince found an opportunity to become betrothed i don't know, but they certainly found none on this occasion to exchange a dozen words. "my dear," said mr. turveydrop benignly to his son, "do you know the hour?" "no, father." the son had no watch. the father had a handsome gold one, which he pulled out with an air that was an example to mankind. "my son," said he, "it's two o'clock. recollect your school at kensington at three." "that's time enough for me, father," said prince. "i can take a morsel of dinner standing and be off." "my dear boy," returned his father, "you must be very quick. you will find the cold mutton on the table." "thank you, father. are you off now, father?" "yes, my dear. i suppose," said mr. turveydrop, shutting his eyes and lifting up his shoulders with modest consciousness, "that i must show myself, as usual, about town." "you had better dine out comfortably somewhere," said his son. "my dear child, i intend to. i shall take my little meal, i think, at the french house, in the opera colonnade." "that's right. good-bye, father!" said prince, shaking hands. "good-bye, my son. bless you!" mr. turveydrop said this in quite a pious manner, and it seemed to do his son good, who, in parting from him, was so pleased with him, so dutiful to him, and so proud of him that i almost felt as if it were an unkindness to the younger man not to be able to believe implicitly in the elder. the few moments that were occupied by prince in taking leave of us (and particularly of one of us, as i saw, being in the secret), enhanced my favourable impression of his almost childish character. i felt a liking for him and a compassion for him as he put his little kit in his pocket--and with it his desire to stay a little while with caddy--and went away good-humouredly to his cold mutton and his school at kensington, that made me scarcely less irate with his father than the censorious old lady. the father opened the room door for us and bowed us out in a manner, i must acknowledge, worthy of his shining original. in the same style he presently passed us on the other side of the street, on his way to the aristocratic part of the town, where he was going to show himself among the few other gentlemen left. for some moments, i was so lost in reconsidering what i had heard and seen in newman street that i was quite unable to talk to caddy or even to fix my attention on what she said to me, especially when i began to inquire in my mind whether there were, or ever had been, any other gentlemen, not in the dancing profession, who lived and founded a reputation entirely on their deportment. this became so bewildering and suggested the possibility of so many mr. turveydrops that i said, "esther, you must make up your mind to abandon this subject altogether and attend to caddy." i accordingly did so, and we chatted all the rest of the way to lincoln's inn. caddy told me that her lover's education had been so neglected that it was not always easy to read his notes. she said if he were not so anxious about his spelling and took less pains to make it clear, he would do better; but he put so many unnecessary letters into short words that they sometimes quite lost their english appearance. "he does it with the best intention," observed caddy, "but it hasn't the effect he means, poor fellow!" caddy then went on to reason, how could he be expected to be a scholar when he had passed his whole life in the dancing-school and had done nothing but teach and fag, fag and teach, morning, noon, and night! and what did it matter? she could write letters enough for both, as she knew to her cost, and it was far better for him to be amiable than learned. "besides, it's not as if i was an accomplished girl who had any right to give herself airs," said caddy. "i know little enough, i am sure, thanks to ma! "there's another thing i want to tell you, now we are alone," continued caddy, "which i should not have liked to mention unless you had seen prince, miss summerson. you know what a house ours is. it's of no use my trying to learn anything that it would be useful for prince's wife to know in our house. we live in such a state of muddle that it's impossible, and i have only been more disheartened whenever i have tried. so i get a little practice with--who do you think? poor miss flite! early in the morning i help her to tidy her room and clean her birds, and i make her cup of coffee for her (of course she taught me), and i have learnt to make it so well that prince says it's the very best coffee he ever tasted, and would quite delight old mr. turveydrop, who is very particular indeed about his coffee. i can make little puddings too; and i know how to buy neck of mutton, and tea, and sugar, and butter, and a good many housekeeping things. i am not clever at my needle, yet," said caddy, glancing at the repairs on peepy's frock, "but perhaps i shall improve, and since i have been engaged to prince and have been doing all this, i have felt better-tempered, i hope, and more forgiving to ma. it rather put me out at first this morning to see you and miss clare looking so neat and pretty and to feel ashamed of peepy and myself too, but on the whole i hope i am better-tempered than i was and more forgiving to ma." the poor girl, trying so hard, said it from her heart, and touched mine. "caddy, my love," i replied, "i begin to have a great affection for you, and i hope we shall become friends." "oh, do you?" cried caddy. "how happy that would make me!" "my dear caddy," said i, "let us be friends from this time, and let us often have a chat about these matters and try to find the right way through them." caddy was overjoyed. i said everything i could in my old-fashioned way to comfort and encourage her, and i would not have objected to old mr. turveydrop that day for any smaller consideration than a settlement on his daughter-in-law. by this time we were come to mr. krook's, whose private door stood open. there was a bill, pasted on the door-post, announcing a room to let on the second floor. it reminded caddy to tell me as we proceeded upstairs that there had been a sudden death there and an inquest and that our little friend had been ill of the fright. the door and window of the vacant room being open, we looked in. it was the room with the dark door to which miss flite had secretly directed my attention when i was last in the house. a sad and desolate place it was, a gloomy, sorrowful place that gave me a strange sensation of mournfulness and even dread. "you look pale," said caddy when we came out, "and cold!" i felt as if the room had chilled me. we had walked slowly while we were talking, and my guardian and ada were here before us. we found them in miss flite's garret. they were looking at the birds, while a medical gentleman who was so good as to attend miss flite with much solicitude and compassion spoke with her cheerfully by the fire. "i have finished my professional visit," he said, coming forward. "miss flite is much better and may appear in court (as her mind is set upon it) to-morrow. she has been greatly missed there, i understand." miss flite received the compliment with complacency and dropped a general curtsy to us. "honoured, indeed," said she, "by another visit from the wards in jarndyce! ve-ry happy to receive jarndyce of bleak house beneath my humble roof!" with a special curtsy. "fitz-jarndyce, my dear"--she had bestowed that name on caddy, it appeared, and always called her by it--"a double welcome!" "has she been very ill?" asked mr. jarndyce of the gentleman whom we had found in attendance on her. she answered for herself directly, though he had put the question in a whisper. "oh, decidedly unwell! oh, very unwell indeed," she said confidentially. "not pain, you know--trouble. not bodily so much as nervous, nervous! the truth is," in a subdued voice and trembling, "we have had death here. there was poison in the house. i am very susceptible to such horrid things. it frightened me. only mr. woodcourt knows how much. my physician, mr. woodcourt!" with great stateliness. "the wards in jarndyce--jarndyce of bleak house--fitz-jarndyce!" "miss flite," said mr. woodcourt in a grave kind of voice, as if he were appealing to her while speaking to us, and laying his hand gently on her arm, "miss flite describes her illness with her usual accuracy. she was alarmed by an occurrence in the house which might have alarmed a stronger person, and was made ill by the distress and agitation. she brought me here in the first hurry of the discovery, though too late for me to be of any use to the unfortunate man. i have compensated myself for that disappointment by coming here since and being of some small use to her." "the kindest physician in the college," whispered miss flite to me. "i expect a judgment. on the day of judgment. and shall then confer estates." "she will be as well in a day or two," said mr. woodcourt, looking at her with an observant smile, "as she ever will be. in other words, quite well of course. have you heard of her good fortune?" "most extraordinary!" said miss flite, smiling brightly. "you never heard of such a thing, my dear! every saturday, conversation kenge or guppy (clerk to conversation k.) places in my hand a paper of shillings. shillings. i assure you! always the same number in the paper. always one for every day in the week. now you know, really! so well-timed, is it not? ye-es! from whence do these papers come, you say? that is the great question. naturally. shall i tell you what i think? i think," said miss flite, drawing herself back with a very shrewd look and shaking her right forefinger in a most significant manner, "that the lord chancellor, aware of the length of time during which the great seal has been open (for it has been open a long time!), forwards them. until the judgment i expect is given. now that's very creditable, you know. to confess in that way that he is a little slow for human life. so delicate! attending court the other day--i attend it regularly, with my documents--i taxed him with it, and he almost confessed. that is, i smiled at him from my bench, and he smiled at me from his bench. but it's great good fortune, is it not? and fitz-jarndyce lays the money out for me to great advantage. oh, i assure you to the greatest advantage!" i congratulated her (as she addressed herself to me) upon this fortunate addition to her income and wished her a long continuance of it. i did not speculate upon the source from which it came or wonder whose humanity was so considerate. my guardian stood before me, contemplating the birds, and i had no need to look beyond him. "and what do you call these little fellows, ma'am?" said he in his pleasant voice. "have they any names?" "i can answer for miss flite that they have," said i, "for she promised to tell us what they were. ada remembers?" ada remembered very well. "did i?" said miss flite. "who's that at my door? what are you listening at my door for, krook?" the old man of the house, pushing it open before him, appeared there with his fur cap in his hand and his cat at his heels. "i warn't listening, miss flite," he said, "i was going to give a rap with my knuckles, only you're so quick!" "make your cat go down. drive her away!" the old lady angrily exclaimed. "bah, bah! there ain't no danger, gentlefolks," said mr. krook, looking slowly and sharply from one to another until he had looked at all of us; "she'd never offer at the birds when i was here unless i told her to it." "you will excuse my landlord," said the old lady with a dignified air. "m, quite m! what do you want, krook, when i have company?" "hi!" said the old man. "you know i am the chancellor." "well?" returned miss flite. "what of that?" "for the chancellor," said the old man with a chuckle, "not to be acquainted with a jarndyce is queer, ain't it, miss flite? mightn't i take the liberty? your servant, sir. i know jarndyce and jarndyce a'most as well as you do, sir. i knowed old squire tom, sir. i never to my knowledge see you afore though, not even in court. yet, i go there a mortal sight of times in the course of the year, taking one day with another." "i never go there," said mr. jarndyce (which he never did on any consideration). "i would sooner go--somewhere else." "would you though?" returned krook, grinning. "you're bearing hard upon my noble and learned brother in your meaning, sir, though perhaps it is but nat'ral in a jarndyce. the burnt child, sir! what, you're looking at my lodger's birds, mr. jarndyce?" the old man had come by little and little into the room until he now touched my guardian with his elbow and looked close up into his face with his spectacled eyes. "it's one of her strange ways that she'll never tell the names of these birds if she can help it, though she named 'em all." this was in a whisper. "shall i run 'em over, flite?" he asked aloud, winking at us and pointing at her as she turned away, affecting to sweep the grate. "if you like," she answered hurriedly. the old man, looking up at the cages after another look at us, went through the list. "hope, joy, youth, peace, rest, life, dust, ashes, waste, want, ruin, despair, madness, death, cunning, folly, words, wigs, rags, sheepskin, plunder, precedent, jargon, gammon, and spinach. that's the whole collection," said the old man, "all cooped up together, by my noble and learned brother." "this is a bitter wind!" muttered my guardian. "when my noble and learned brother gives his judgment, they're to be let go free," said krook, winking at us again. "and then," he added, whispering and grinning, "if that ever was to happen--which it won't--the birds that have never been caged would kill 'em." "if ever the wind was in the east," said my guardian, pretending to look out of the window for a weathercock, "i think it's there to-day!" we found it very difficult to get away from the house. it was not miss flite who detained us; she was as reasonable a little creature in consulting the convenience of others as there possibly could be. it was mr. krook. he seemed unable to detach himself from mr. jarndyce. if he had been linked to him, he could hardly have attended him more closely. he proposed to show us his court of chancery and all the strange medley it contained; during the whole of our inspection (prolonged by himself) he kept close to mr. jarndyce and sometimes detained him under one pretence or other until we had passed on, as if he were tormented by an inclination to enter upon some secret subject which he could not make up his mind to approach. i cannot imagine a countenance and manner more singularly expressive of caution and indecision, and a perpetual impulse to do something he could not resolve to venture on, than mr. krook's was that day. his watchfulness of my guardian was incessant. he rarely removed his eyes from his face. if he went on beside him, he observed him with the slyness of an old white fox. if he went before, he looked back. when we stood still, he got opposite to him, and drawing his hand across and across his open mouth with a curious expression of a sense of power, and turning up his eyes, and lowering his grey eyebrows until they appeared to be shut, seemed to scan every lineament of his face. at last, having been (always attended by the cat) all over the house and having seen the whole stock of miscellaneous lumber, which was certainly curious, we came into the back part of the shop. here on the head of an empty barrel stood on end were an ink-bottle, some old stumps of pens, and some dirty playbills; and against the wall were pasted several large printed alphabets in several plain hands. "what are you doing here?" asked my guardian. "trying to learn myself to read and write," said krook. "and how do you get on?" "slow. bad," returned the old man impatiently. "it's hard at my time of life." "it would be easier to be taught by some one," said my guardian. "aye, but they might teach me wrong!" returned the old man with a wonderfully suspicious flash of his eye. "i don't know what i may have lost by not being learned afore. i wouldn't like to lose anything by being learned wrong now." "wrong?" said my guardian with his good-humoured smile. "who do you suppose would teach you wrong?" "i don't know, mr. jarndyce of bleak house!" replied the old man, turning up his spectacles on his forehead and rubbing his hands. "i don't suppose as anybody would, but i'd rather trust my own self than another!" these answers and his manner were strange enough to cause my guardian to inquire of mr. woodcourt, as we all walked across lincoln's inn together, whether mr. krook were really, as his lodger represented him, deranged. the young surgeon replied, no, he had seen no reason to think so. he was exceedingly distrustful, as ignorance usually was, and he was always more or less under the influence of raw gin, of which he drank great quantities and of which he and his back-shop, as we might have observed, smelt strongly; but he did not think him mad as yet. on our way home, i so conciliated peepy's affections by buying him a windmill and two flour-sacks that he would suffer nobody else to take off his hat and gloves and would sit nowhere at dinner but at my side. caddy sat upon the other side of me, next to ada, to whom we imparted the whole history of the engagement as soon as we got back. we made much of caddy, and peepy too; and caddy brightened exceedingly; and my guardian was as merry as we were; and we were all very happy indeed until caddy went home at night in a hackney-coach, with peepy fast asleep, but holding tight to the windmill. i have forgotten to mention--at least i have not mentioned--that mr. woodcourt was the same dark young surgeon whom we had met at mr. badger's. or that mr. jarndyce invited him to dinner that day. or that he came. or that when they were all gone and i said to ada, "now, my darling, let us have a little talk about richard!" ada laughed and said-- but i don't think it matters what my darling said. she was always merry. chapter xv bell yard while we were in london mr. jarndyce was constantly beset by the crowd of excitable ladies and gentlemen whose proceedings had so much astonished us. mr. quale, who presented himself soon after our arrival, was in all such excitements. he seemed to project those two shining knobs of temples of his into everything that went on and to brush his hair farther and farther back, until the very roots were almost ready to fly out of his head in inappeasable philanthropy. all objects were alike to him, but he was always particularly ready for anything in the way of a testimonial to any one. his great power seemed to be his power of indiscriminate admiration. he would sit for any length of time, with the utmost enjoyment, bathing his temples in the light of any order of luminary. having first seen him perfectly swallowed up in admiration of mrs. jellyby, i had supposed her to be the absorbing object of his devotion. i soon discovered my mistake and found him to be train-bearer and organ-blower to a whole procession of people. mrs. pardiggle came one day for a subscription to something, and with her, mr. quale. whatever mrs. pardiggle said, mr. quale repeated to us; and just as he had drawn mrs. jellyby out, he drew mrs. pardiggle out. mrs. pardiggle wrote a letter of introduction to my guardian in behalf of her eloquent friend mr. gusher. with mr. gusher appeared mr. quale again. mr. gusher, being a flabby gentleman with a moist surface and eyes so much too small for his moon of a face that they seemed to have been originally made for somebody else, was not at first sight prepossessing; yet he was scarcely seated before mr. quale asked ada and me, not inaudibly, whether he was not a great creature--which he certainly was, flabbily speaking, though mr. quale meant in intellectual beauty--and whether we were not struck by his massive configuration of brow. in short, we heard of a great many missions of various sorts among this set of people, but nothing respecting them was half so clear to us as that it was mr. quale's mission to be in ecstasies with everybody else's mission and that it was the most popular mission of all. mr. jarndyce had fallen into this company in the tenderness of his heart and his earnest desire to do all the good in his power; but that he felt it to be too often an unsatisfactory company, where benevolence took spasmodic forms, where charity was assumed as a regular uniform by loud professors and speculators in cheap notoriety, vehement in profession, restless and vain in action, servile in the last degree of meanness to the great, adulatory of one another, and intolerable to those who were anxious quietly to help the weak from failing rather than with a great deal of bluster and self-laudation to raise them up a little way when they were down, he plainly told us. when a testimonial was originated to mr. quale by mr. gusher (who had already got one, originated by mr. quale), and when mr. gusher spoke for an hour and a half on the subject to a meeting, including two charity schools of small boys and girls, who were specially reminded of the widow's mite, and requested to come forward with halfpence and be acceptable sacrifices, i think the wind was in the east for three whole weeks. i mention this because i am coming to mr. skimpole again. it seemed to me that his off-hand professions of childishness and carelessness were a great relief to my guardian, by contrast with such things, and were the more readily believed in since to find one perfectly undesigning and candid man among many opposites could not fail to give him pleasure. i should be sorry to imply that mr. skimpole divined this and was politic; i really never understood him well enough to know. what he was to my guardian, he certainly was to the rest of the world. he had not been very well; and thus, though he lived in london, we had seen nothing of him until now. he appeared one morning in his usual agreeable way and as full of pleasant spirits as ever. well, he said, here he was! he had been bilious, but rich men were often bilious, and therefore he had been persuading himself that he was a man of property. so he was, in a certain point of view--in his expansive intentions. he had been enriching his medical attendant in the most lavish manner. he had always doubled, and sometimes quadrupled, his fees. he had said to the doctor, "now, my dear doctor, it is quite a delusion on your part to suppose that you attend me for nothing. i am overwhelming you with money--in my expansive intentions--if you only knew it!" and really (he said) he meant it to that degree that he thought it much the same as doing it. if he had had those bits of metal or thin paper to which mankind attached so much importance to put in the doctor's hand, he would have put them in the doctor's hand. not having them, he substituted the will for the deed. very well! if he really meant it--if his will were genuine and real, which it was--it appeared to him that it was the same as coin, and cancelled the obligation. "it may be, partly, because i know nothing of the value of money," said mr. skimpole, "but i often feel this. it seems so reasonable! my butcher says to me he wants that little bill. it's a part of the pleasant unconscious poetry of the man's nature that he always calls it a 'little' bill--to make the payment appear easy to both of us. i reply to the butcher, 'my good friend, if you knew it, you are paid. you haven't had the trouble of coming to ask for the little bill. you are paid. i mean it.'" "but, suppose," said my guardian, laughing, "he had meant the meat in the bill, instead of providing it?" "my dear jarndyce," he returned, "you surprise me. you take the butcher's position. a butcher i once dealt with occupied that very ground. says he, 'sir, why did you eat spring lamb at eighteen pence a pound?' 'why did i eat spring lamb at eighteen pence a pound, my honest friend?' said i, naturally amazed by the question. 'i like spring lamb!' this was so far convincing. 'well, sir,' says he, 'i wish i had meant the lamb as you mean the money!' 'my good fellow,' said i, 'pray let us reason like intellectual beings. how could that be? it was impossible. you had got the lamb, and i have not got the money. you couldn't really mean the lamb without sending it in, whereas i can, and do, really mean the money without paying it!' he had not a word. there was an end of the subject." "did he take no legal proceedings?" inquired my guardian. "yes, he took legal proceedings," said mr. skimpole. "but in that he was influenced by passion, not by reason. passion reminds me of boythorn. he writes me that you and the ladies have promised him a short visit at his bachelor-house in lincolnshire." "he is a great favourite with my girls," said mr. jarndyce, "and i have promised for them." "nature forgot to shade him off, i think," observed mr. skimpole to ada and me. "a little too boisterous--like the sea. a little too vehement--like a bull who has made up his mind to consider every colour scarlet. but i grant a sledge-hammering sort of merit in him!" i should have been surprised if those two could have thought very highly of one another, mr. boythorn attaching so much importance to many things and mr. skimpole caring so little for anything. besides which, i had noticed mr. boythorn more than once on the point of breaking out into some strong opinion when mr. skimpole was referred to. of course i merely joined ada in saying that we had been greatly pleased with him. "he has invited me," said mr. skimpole; "and if a child may trust himself in such hands--which the present child is encouraged to do, with the united tenderness of two angels to guard him--i shall go. he proposes to frank me down and back again. i suppose it will cost money? shillings perhaps? or pounds? or something of that sort? by the by, coavinses. you remember our friend coavinses, miss summerson?" he asked me as the subject arose in his mind, in his graceful, light-hearted manner and without the least embarrassment. "oh, yes!" said i. "coavinses has been arrested by the great bailiff," said mr. skimpole. "he will never do violence to the sunshine any more." it quite shocked me to hear it, for i had already recalled with anything but a serious association the image of the man sitting on the sofa that night wiping his head. "his successor informed me of it yesterday," said mr. skimpole. "his successor is in my house now--in possession, i think he calls it. he came yesterday, on my blue-eyed daughter's birthday. i put it to him, 'this is unreasonable and inconvenient. if you had a blue-eyed daughter you wouldn't like me to come, uninvited, on her birthday?' but he stayed." mr. skimpole laughed at the pleasant absurdity and lightly touched the piano by which he was seated. "and he told me," he said, playing little chords where i shall put full stops, "the coavinses had left. three children. no mother. and that coavinses' profession. being unpopular. the rising coavinses. were at a considerable disadvantage." mr. jarndyce got up, rubbing his head, and began to walk about. mr. skimpole played the melody of one of ada's favourite songs. ada and i both looked at mr. jarndyce, thinking that we knew what was passing in his mind. after walking and stopping, and several times leaving off rubbing his head, and beginning again, my guardian put his hand upon the keys and stopped mr. skimpole's playing. "i don't like this, skimpole," he said thoughtfully. mr. skimpole, who had quite forgotten the subject, looked up surprised. "the man was necessary," pursued my guardian, walking backward and forward in the very short space between the piano and the end of the room and rubbing his hair up from the back of his head as if a high east wind had blown it into that form. "if we make such men necessary by our faults and follies, or by our want of worldly knowledge, or by our misfortunes, we must not revenge ourselves upon them. there was no harm in his trade. he maintained his children. one would like to know more about this." "oh! coavinses?" cried mr. skimpole, at length perceiving what he meant. "nothing easier. a walk to coavinses' headquarters, and you can know what you will." mr. jarndyce nodded to us, who were only waiting for the signal. "come! we will walk that way, my dears. why not that way as soon as another!" we were quickly ready and went out. mr. skimpole went with us and quite enjoyed the expedition. it was so new and so refreshing, he said, for him to want coavinses instead of coavinses wanting him! he took us, first, to cursitor street, chancery lane, where there was a house with barred windows, which he called coavinses' castle. on our going into the entry and ringing a bell, a very hideous boy came out of a sort of office and looked at us over a spiked wicket. "who did you want?" said the boy, fitting two of the spikes into his chin. "there was a follower, or an officer, or something, here," said mr. jarndyce, "who is dead." "yes?" said the boy. "well?" "i want to know his name, if you please?" "name of neckett," said the boy. "and his address?" "bell yard," said the boy. "chandler's shop, left hand side, name of blinder." "was he--i don't know how to shape the question--" murmured my guardian, "industrious?" "was neckett?" said the boy. "yes, wery much so. he was never tired of watching. he'd set upon a post at a street corner eight or ten hours at a stretch if he undertook to do it." "he might have done worse," i heard my guardian soliloquize. "he might have undertaken to do it and not done it. thank you. that's all i want." we left the boy, with his head on one side and his arms on the gate, fondling and sucking the spikes, and went back to lincoln's inn, where mr. skimpole, who had not cared to remain nearer coavinses, awaited us. then we all went to bell yard, a narrow alley at a very short distance. we soon found the chandler's shop. in it was a good-natured-looking old woman with a dropsy, or an asthma, or perhaps both. "neckett's children?" said she in reply to my inquiry. "yes, surely, miss. three pair, if you please. door right opposite the stairs." and she handed me the key across the counter. i glanced at the key and glanced at her, but she took it for granted that i knew what to do with it. as it could only be intended for the children's door, i came out without asking any more questions and led the way up the dark stairs. we went as quietly as we could, but four of us made some noise on the aged boards, and when we came to the second story we found we had disturbed a man who was standing there looking out of his room. "is it gridley that's wanted?" he said, fixing his eyes on me with an angry stare. "no, sir," said i; "i am going higher up." he looked at ada, and at mr. jarndyce, and at mr. skimpole, fixing the same angry stare on each in succession as they passed and followed me. mr. jarndyce gave him good day. "good day!" he said abruptly and fiercely. he was a tall, sallow man with a careworn head on which but little hair remained, a deeply lined face, and prominent eyes. he had a combative look and a chafing, irritable manner which, associated with his figure--still large and powerful, though evidently in its decline--rather alarmed me. he had a pen in his hand, and in the glimpse i caught of his room in passing, i saw that it was covered with a litter of papers. leaving him standing there, we went up to the top room. i tapped at the door, and a little shrill voice inside said, "we are locked in. mrs. blinder's got the key!" i applied the key on hearing this and opened the door. in a poor room with a sloping ceiling and containing very little furniture was a mite of a boy, some five or six years old, nursing and hushing a heavy child of eighteen months. there was no fire, though the weather was cold; both children were wrapped in some poor shawls and tippets as a substitute. their clothing was not so warm, however, but that their noses looked red and pinched and their small figures shrunken as the boy walked up and down nursing and hushing the child with its head on his shoulder. "who has locked you up here alone?" we naturally asked. "charley," said the boy, standing still to gaze at us. "is charley your brother?" "no. she's my sister, charlotte. father called her charley." "are there any more of you besides charley?" "me," said the boy, "and emma," patting the limp bonnet of the child he was nursing. "and charley." "where is charley now?" "out a-washing," said the boy, beginning to walk up and down again and taking the nankeen bonnet much too near the bedstead by trying to gaze at us at the same time. we were looking at one another and at these two children when there came into the room a very little girl, childish in figure but shrewd and older-looking in the face--pretty-faced too--wearing a womanly sort of bonnet much too large for her and drying her bare arms on a womanly sort of apron. her fingers were white and wrinkled with washing, and the soap-suds were yet smoking which she wiped off her arms. but for this, she might have been a child playing at washing and imitating a poor working-woman with a quick observation of the truth. she had come running from some place in the neighbourhood and had made all the haste she could. consequently, though she was very light, she was out of breath and could not speak at first, as she stood panting, and wiping her arms, and looking quietly at us. "oh, here's charley!" said the boy. the child he was nursing stretched forth its arms and cried out to be taken by charley. the little girl took it, in a womanly sort of manner belonging to the apron and the bonnet, and stood looking at us over the burden that clung to her most affectionately. "is it possible," whispered my guardian as we put a chair for the little creature and got her to sit down with her load, the boy keeping close to her, holding to her apron, "that this child works for the rest? look at this! for god's sake, look at this!" it was a thing to look at. the three children close together, and two of them relying solely on the third, and the third so young and yet with an air of age and steadiness that sat so strangely on the childish figure. "charley, charley!" said my guardian. "how old are you?" "over thirteen, sir," replied the child. "oh! what a great age," said my guardian. "what a great age, charley!" i cannot describe the tenderness with which he spoke to her, half playfully yet all the more compassionately and mournfully. "and do you live alone here with these babies, charley?" said my guardian. "yes, sir," returned the child, looking up into his face with perfect confidence, "since father died." "and how do you live, charley? oh! charley," said my guardian, turning his face away for a moment, "how do you live?" "since father died, sir, i've gone out to work. i'm out washing to-day." "god help you, charley!" said my guardian. "you're not tall enough to reach the tub!" "in pattens i am, sir," she said quickly. "i've got a high pair as belonged to mother." "and when did mother die? poor mother!" "mother died just after emma was born," said the child, glancing at the face upon her bosom. "then father said i was to be as good a mother to her as i could. and so i tried. and so i worked at home and did cleaning and nursing and washing for a long time before i began to go out. and that's how i know how; don't you see, sir?" "and do you often go out?" "as often as i can," said charley, opening her eyes and smiling, "because of earning sixpences and shillings!" "and do you always lock the babies up when you go out?" "to keep 'em safe, sir, don't you see?" said charley. "mrs. blinder comes up now and then, and mr. gridley comes up sometimes, and perhaps i can run in sometimes, and they can play you know, and tom an't afraid of being locked up, are you, tom?" "no-o!" said tom stoutly. "when it comes on dark, the lamps are lighted down in the court, and they show up here quite bright--almost quite bright. don't they, tom?" "yes, charley," said tom, "almost quite bright." "then he's as good as gold," said the little creature--oh, in such a motherly, womanly way! "and when emma's tired, he puts her to bed. and when he's tired he goes to bed himself. and when i come home and light the candle and has a bit of supper, he sits up again and has it with me. don't you, tom?" "oh, yes, charley!" said tom. "that i do!" and either in this glimpse of the great pleasure of his life or in gratitude and love for charley, who was all in all to him, he laid his face among the scanty folds of her frock and passed from laughing into crying. it was the first time since our entry that a tear had been shed among these children. the little orphan girl had spoken of their father and their mother as if all that sorrow were subdued by the necessity of taking courage, and by her childish importance in being able to work, and by her bustling busy way. but now, when tom cried, although she sat quite tranquil, looking quietly at us, and did not by any movement disturb a hair of the head of either of her little charges, i saw two silent tears fall down her face. i stood at the window with ada, pretending to look at the housetops, and the blackened stack of chimneys, and the poor plants, and the birds in little cages belonging to the neighbours, when i found that mrs. blinder, from the shop below, had come in (perhaps it had taken her all this time to get upstairs) and was talking to my guardian. "it's not much to forgive 'em the rent, sir," she said; "who could take it from them!" "well, well!" said my guardian to us two. "it is enough that the time will come when this good woman will find that it was much, and that forasmuch as she did it unto the least of these--this child," he added after a few moments, "could she possibly continue this?" "really, sir, i think she might," said mrs. blinder, getting her heavy breath by painful degrees. "she's as handy as it's possible to be. bless you, sir, the way she tended them two children after the mother died was the talk of the yard! and it was a wonder to see her with him after he was took ill, it really was! 'mrs. blinder,' he said to me the very last he spoke--he was lying there--'mrs. blinder, whatever my calling may have been, i see a angel sitting in this room last night along with my child, and i trust her to our father!'" "he had no other calling?" said my guardian. "no, sir," returned mrs. blinder, "he was nothing but a follerers. when he first came to lodge here, i didn't know what he was, and i confess that when i found out i gave him notice. it wasn't liked in the yard. it wasn't approved by the other lodgers. it is not a genteel calling," said mrs. blinder, "and most people do object to it. mr. gridley objected to it very strong, and he is a good lodger, though his temper has been hard tried." "so you gave him notice?" said my guardian. "so i gave him notice," said mrs. blinder. "but really when the time came, and i knew no other ill of him, i was in doubts. he was punctual and diligent; he did what he had to do, sir," said mrs. blinder, unconsciously fixing mr. skimpole with her eye, "and it's something in this world even to do that." "so you kept him after all?" "why, i said that if he could arrange with mr. gridley, i could arrange it with the other lodgers and should not so much mind its being liked or disliked in the yard. mr. gridley gave his consent gruff--but gave it. he was always gruff with him, but he has been kind to the children since. a person is never known till a person is proved." "have many people been kind to the children?" asked mr. jarndyce. "upon the whole, not so bad, sir," said mrs. blinder; "but certainly not so many as would have been if their father's calling had been different. mr. coavins gave a guinea, and the follerers made up a little purse. some neighbours in the yard that had always joked and tapped their shoulders when he went by came forward with a little subscription, and--in general--not so bad. similarly with charlotte. some people won't employ her because she was a follerer's child; some people that do employ her cast it at her; some make a merit of having her to work for them, with that and all her draw-backs upon her, and perhaps pay her less and put upon her more. but she's patienter than others would be, and is clever too, and always willing, up to the full mark of her strength and over. so i should say, in general, not so bad, sir, but might be better." mrs. blinder sat down to give herself a more favourable opportunity of recovering her breath, exhausted anew by so much talking before it was fully restored. mr. jarndyce was turning to speak to us when his attention was attracted by the abrupt entrance into the room of the mr. gridley who had been mentioned and whom we had seen on our way up. "i don't know what you may be doing here, ladies and gentlemen," he said, as if he resented our presence, "but you'll excuse my coming in. i don't come in to stare about me. well, charley! well, tom! well, little one! how is it with us all to-day?" he bent over the group in a caressing way and clearly was regarded as a friend by the children, though his face retained its stern character and his manner to us was as rude as it could be. my guardian noticed it and respected it. "no one, surely, would come here to stare about him," he said mildly. "may be so, sir, may be so," returned the other, taking tom upon his knee and waving him off impatiently. "i don't want to argue with ladies and gentlemen. i have had enough of arguing to last one man his life." "you have sufficient reason, i dare say," said mr. jarndyce, "for being chafed and irritated--" "there again!" exclaimed the man, becoming violently angry. "i am of a quarrelsome temper. i am irascible. i am not polite!" "not very, i think." "sir," said gridley, putting down the child and going up to him as if he meant to strike him, "do you know anything of courts of equity?" "perhaps i do, to my sorrow." "to your sorrow?" said the man, pausing in his wrath, "if so, i beg your pardon. i am not polite, i know. i beg your pardon! sir," with renewed violence, "i have been dragged for five and twenty years over burning iron, and i have lost the habit of treading upon velvet. go into the court of chancery yonder and ask what is one of the standing jokes that brighten up their business sometimes, and they will tell you that the best joke they have is the man from shropshire. i," he said, beating one hand on the other passionately, "am the man from shropshire." "i believe i and my family have also had the honour of furnishing some entertainment in the same grave place," said my guardian composedly. "you may have heard my name--jarndyce." "mr. jarndyce," said gridley with a rough sort of salutation, "you bear your wrongs more quietly than i can bear mine. more than that, i tell you--and i tell this gentleman, and these young ladies, if they are friends of yours--that if i took my wrongs in any other way, i should be driven mad! it is only by resenting them, and by revenging them in my mind, and by angrily demanding the justice i never get, that i am able to keep my wits together. it is only that!" he said, speaking in a homely, rustic way and with great vehemence. "you may tell me that i over-excite myself. i answer that it's in my nature to do it, under wrong, and i must do it. there's nothing between doing it, and sinking into the smiling state of the poor little mad woman that haunts the court. if i was once to sit down under it, i should become imbecile." the passion and heat in which he was, and the manner in which his face worked, and the violent gestures with which he accompanied what he said, were most painful to see. "mr. jarndyce," he said, "consider my case. as true as there is a heaven above us, this is my case. i am one of two brothers. my father (a farmer) made a will and left his farm and stock and so forth to my mother for her life. after my mother's death, all was to come to me except a legacy of three hundred pounds that i was then to pay my brother. my mother died. my brother some time afterwards claimed his legacy. i and some of my relations said that he had had a part of it already in board and lodging and some other things. now mind! that was the question, and nothing else. no one disputed the will; no one disputed anything but whether part of that three hundred pounds had been already paid or not. to settle that question, my brother filing a bill, i was obliged to go into this accursed chancery; i was forced there because the law forced me and would let me go nowhere else. seventeen people were made defendants to that simple suit! it first came on after two years. it was then stopped for another two years while the master (may his head rot off!) inquired whether i was my father's son, about which there was no dispute at all with any mortal creature. he then found out that there were not defendants enough--remember, there were only seventeen as yet!--but that we must have another who had been left out and must begin all over again. the costs at that time--before the thing was begun!--were three times the legacy. my brother would have given up the legacy, and joyful, to escape more costs. my whole estate, left to me in that will of my father's, has gone in costs. the suit, still undecided, has fallen into rack, and ruin, and despair, with everything else--and here i stand, this day! now, mr. jarndyce, in your suit there are thousands and thousands involved, where in mine there are hundreds. is mine less hard to bear or is it harder to bear, when my whole living was in it and has been thus shamefully sucked away?" mr. jarndyce said that he condoled with him with all his heart and that he set up no monopoly himself in being unjustly treated by this monstrous system. "there again!" said mr. gridley with no diminution of his rage. "the system! i am told on all hands, it's the system. i mustn't look to individuals. it's the system. i mustn't go into court and say, 'my lord, i beg to know this from you--is this right or wrong? have you the face to tell me i have received justice and therefore am dismissed?' my lord knows nothing of it. he sits there to administer the system. i mustn't go to mr. tulkinghorn, the solicitor in lincoln's inn fields, and say to him when he makes me furious by being so cool and satisfied--as they all do, for i know they gain by it while i lose, don't i?--i mustn't say to him, 'i will have something out of some one for my ruin, by fair means or foul!' he is not responsible. it's the system. but, if i do no violence to any of them, here--i may! i don't know what may happen if i am carried beyond myself at last! i will accuse the individual workers of that system against me, face to face, before the great eternal bar!" his passion was fearful. i could not have believed in such rage without seeing it. "i have done!" he said, sitting down and wiping his face. "mr. jarndyce, i have done! i am violent, i know. i ought to know it. i have been in prison for contempt of court. i have been in prison for threatening the solicitor. i have been in this trouble, and that trouble, and shall be again. i am the man from shropshire, and i sometimes go beyond amusing them, though they have found it amusing, too, to see me committed into custody and brought up in custody and all that. it would be better for me, they tell me, if i restrained myself. i tell them that if i did restrain myself i should become imbecile. i was a good-enough-tempered man once, i believe. people in my part of the country say they remember me so, but now i must have this vent under my sense of injury or nothing could hold my wits together. it would be far better for you, mr. gridley,' the lord chancellor told me last week, 'not to waste your time here, and to stay, usefully employed, down in shropshire.' 'my lord, my lord, i know it would,' said i to him, 'and it would have been far better for me never to have heard the name of your high office, but unhappily for me, i can't undo the past, and the past drives me here!' besides," he added, breaking fiercely out, "i'll shame them. to the last, i'll show myself in that court to its shame. if i knew when i was going to die, and could be carried there, and had a voice to speak with, i would die there, saying, 'you have brought me here and sent me from here many and many a time. now send me out feet foremost!'" his countenance had, perhaps for years, become so set in its contentious expression that it did not soften, even now when he was quiet. "i came to take these babies down to my room for an hour," he said, going to them again, "and let them play about. i didn't mean to say all this, but it don't much signify. you're not afraid of me, tom, are you?" "no!" said tom. "you ain't angry with me." "you are right, my child. you're going back, charley? aye? come then, little one!" he took the youngest child on his arm, where she was willing enough to be carried. "i shouldn't wonder if we found a ginger-bread soldier downstairs. let's go and look for him!" he made his former rough salutation, which was not deficient in a certain respect, to mr. jarndyce, and bowing slightly to us, went downstairs to his room. upon that, mr. skimpole began to talk, for the first time since our arrival, in his usual gay strain. he said, well, it was really very pleasant to see how things lazily adapted themselves to purposes. here was this mr. gridley, a man of a robust will and surprising energy--intellectually speaking, a sort of inharmonious blacksmith--and he could easily imagine that there gridley was, years ago, wandering about in life for something to expend his superfluous combativeness upon--a sort of young love among the thorns--when the court of chancery came in his way and accommodated him with the exact thing he wanted. there they were, matched, ever afterwards! otherwise he might have been a great general, blowing up all sorts of towns, or he might have been a great politician, dealing in all sorts of parliamentary rhetoric; but as it was, he and the court of chancery had fallen upon each other in the pleasantest way, and nobody was much the worse, and gridley was, so to speak, from that hour provided for. then look at coavinses! how delightfully poor coavinses (father of these charming children) illustrated the same principle! he, mr. skimpole, himself, had sometimes repined at the existence of coavinses. he had found coavinses in his way. he could had dispensed with coavinses. there had been times when, if he had been a sultan, and his grand vizier had said one morning, "what does the commander of the faithful require at the hands of his slave?" he might have even gone so far as to reply, "the head of coavinses!" but what turned out to be the case? that, all that time, he had been giving employment to a most deserving man, that he had been a benefactor to coavinses, that he had actually been enabling coavinses to bring up these charming children in this agreeable way, developing these social virtues! insomuch that his heart had just now swelled and the tears had come into his eyes when he had looked round the room and thought, "i was the great patron of coavinses, and his little comforts were my work!" there was something so captivating in his light way of touching these fantastic strings, and he was such a mirthful child by the side of the graver childhood we had seen, that he made my guardian smile even as he turned towards us from a little private talk with mrs. blinder. we kissed charley, and took her downstairs with us, and stopped outside the house to see her run away to her work. i don't know where she was going, but we saw her run, such a little, little creature in her womanly bonnet and apron, through a covered way at the bottom of the court and melt into the city's strife and sound like a dewdrop in an ocean. chapter xvi tom-all-alone's my lady dedlock is restless, very restless. the astonished fashionable intelligence hardly knows where to have her. to-day she is at chesney wold; yesterday she was at her house in town; to-morrow she may be abroad, for anything the fashionable intelligence can with confidence predict. even sir leicester's gallantry has some trouble to keep pace with her. it would have more but that his other faithful ally, for better and for worse--the gout--darts into the old oak bed-chamber at chesney wold and grips him by both legs. sir leicester receives the gout as a troublesome demon, but still a demon of the patrician order. all the dedlocks, in the direct male line, through a course of time during and beyond which the memory of man goeth not to the contrary, have had the gout. it can be proved, sir. other men's fathers may have died of the rheumatism or may have taken base contagion from the tainted blood of the sick vulgar, but the dedlock family have communicated something exclusive even to the levelling process of dying by dying of their own family gout. it has come down through the illustrious line like the plate, or the pictures, or the place in lincolnshire. it is among their dignities. sir leicester is perhaps not wholly without an impression, though he has never resolved it into words, that the angel of death in the discharge of his necessary duties may observe to the shades of the aristocracy, "my lords and gentlemen, i have the honour to present to you another dedlock certified to have arrived per the family gout." hence sir leicester yields up his family legs to the family disorder as if he held his name and fortune on that feudal tenure. he feels that for a dedlock to be laid upon his back and spasmodically twitched and stabbed in his extremities is a liberty taken somewhere, but he thinks, "we have all yielded to this; it belongs to us; it has for some hundreds of years been understood that we are not to make the vaults in the park interesting on more ignoble terms; and i submit myself to the compromise." and a goodly show he makes, lying in a flush of crimson and gold in the midst of the great drawing-room before his favourite picture of my lady, with broad strips of sunlight shining in, down the long perspective, through the long line of windows, and alternating with soft reliefs of shadow. outside, the stately oaks, rooted for ages in the green ground which has never known ploughshare, but was still a chase when kings rode to battle with sword and shield and rode a-hunting with bow and arrow, bear witness to his greatness. inside, his forefathers, looking on him from the walls, say, "each of us was a passing reality here and left this coloured shadow of himself and melted into remembrance as dreamy as the distant voices of the rooks now lulling you to rest," and hear their testimony to his greatness too. and he is very great this day. and woe to boythorn or other daring wight who shall presumptuously contest an inch with him! my lady is at present represented, near sir leicester, by her portrait. she has flitted away to town, with no intention of remaining there, and will soon flit hither again, to the confusion of the fashionable intelligence. the house in town is not prepared for her reception. it is muffled and dreary. only one mercury in powder gapes disconsolate at the hall-window; and he mentioned last night to another mercury of his acquaintance, also accustomed to good society, that if that sort of thing was to last--which it couldn't, for a man of his spirits couldn't bear it, and a man of his figure couldn't be expected to bear it--there would be no resource for him, upon his honour, but to cut his throat! what connexion can there be between the place in lincolnshire, the house in town, the mercury in powder, and the whereabout of jo the outlaw with the broom, who had that distant ray of light upon him when he swept the churchyard-step? what connexion can there have been between many people in the innumerable histories of this world who from opposite sides of great gulfs have, nevertheless, been very curiously brought together! jo sweeps his crossing all day long, unconscious of the link, if any link there be. he sums up his mental condition when asked a question by replying that he "don't know nothink." he knows that it's hard to keep the mud off the crossing in dirty weather, and harder still to live by doing it. nobody taught him even that much; he found it out. jo lives--that is to say, jo has not yet died--in a ruinous place known to the like of him by the name of tom-all-alone's. it is a black, dilapidated street, avoided by all decent people, where the crazy houses were seized upon, when their decay was far advanced, by some bold vagrants who after establishing their own possession took to letting them out in lodgings. now, these tumbling tenements contain, by night, a swarm of misery. as on the ruined human wretch vermin parasites appear, so these ruined shelters have bred a crowd of foul existence that crawls in and out of gaps in walls and boards; and coils itself to sleep, in maggot numbers, where the rain drips in; and comes and goes, fetching and carrying fever and sowing more evil in its every footprint than lord coodle, and sir thomas doodle, and the duke of foodle, and all the fine gentlemen in office, down to zoodle, shall set right in five hundred years--though born expressly to do it. twice lately there has been a crash and a cloud of dust, like the springing of a mine, in tom-all-alone's; and each time a house has fallen. these accidents have made a paragraph in the newspapers and have filled a bed or two in the nearest hospital. the gaps remain, and there are not unpopular lodgings among the rubbish. as several more houses are nearly ready to go, the next crash in tom-all-alone's may be expected to be a good one. this desirable property is in chancery, of course. it would be an insult to the discernment of any man with half an eye to tell him so. whether "tom" is the popular representative of the original plaintiff or defendant in jarndyce and jarndyce, or whether tom lived here when the suit had laid the street waste, all alone, until other settlers came to join him, or whether the traditional title is a comprehensive name for a retreat cut off from honest company and put out of the pale of hope, perhaps nobody knows. certainly jo don't know. "for i don't," says jo, "i don't know nothink." it must be a strange state to be like jo! to shuffle through the streets, unfamiliar with the shapes, and in utter darkness as to the meaning, of those mysterious symbols, so abundant over the shops, and at the corners of streets, and on the doors, and in the windows! to see people read, and to see people write, and to see the postmen deliver letters, and not to have the least idea of all that language--to be, to every scrap of it, stone blind and dumb! it must be very puzzling to see the good company going to the churches on sundays, with their books in their hands, and to think (for perhaps jo does think at odd times) what does it all mean, and if it means anything to anybody, how comes it that it means nothing to me? to be hustled, and jostled, and moved on; and really to feel that it would appear to be perfectly true that i have no business here, or there, or anywhere; and yet to be perplexed by the consideration that i am here somehow, too, and everybody overlooked me until i became the creature that i am! it must be a strange state, not merely to be told that i am scarcely human (as in the case of my offering myself for a witness), but to feel it of my own knowledge all my life! to see the horses, dogs, and cattle go by me and to know that in ignorance i belong to them and not to the superior beings in my shape, whose delicacy i offend! jo's ideas of a criminal trial, or a judge, or a bishop, or a government, or that inestimable jewel to him (if he only knew it) the constitution, should be strange! his whole material and immaterial life is wonderfully strange; his death, the strangest thing of all. jo comes out of tom-all-alone's, meeting the tardy morning which is always late in getting down there, and munches his dirty bit of bread as he comes along. his way lying through many streets, and the houses not yet being open, he sits down to breakfast on the door-step of the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts and gives it a brush when he has finished as an acknowledgment of the accommodation. he admires the size of the edifice and wonders what it's all about. he has no idea, poor wretch, of the spiritual destitution of a coral reef in the pacific or what it costs to look up the precious souls among the coco-nuts and bread-fruit. he goes to his crossing and begins to lay it out for the day. the town awakes; the great tee-totum is set up for its daily spin and whirl; all that unaccountable reading and writing, which has been suspended for a few hours, recommences. jo and the other lower animals get on in the unintelligible mess as they can. it is market-day. the blinded oxen, over-goaded, over-driven, never guided, run into wrong places and are beaten out, and plunge red-eyed and foaming at stone walls, and often sorely hurt the innocent, and often sorely hurt themselves. very like jo and his order; very, very like! a band of music comes and plays. jo listens to it. so does a dog--a drover's dog, waiting for his master outside a butcher's shop, and evidently thinking about those sheep he has had upon his mind for some hours and is happily rid of. he seems perplexed respecting three or four, can't remember where he left them, looks up and down the street as half expecting to see them astray, suddenly pricks up his ears and remembers all about it. a thoroughly vagabond dog, accustomed to low company and public-houses; a terrific dog to sheep, ready at a whistle to scamper over their backs and tear out mouthfuls of their wool; but an educated, improved, developed dog who has been taught his duties and knows how to discharge them. he and jo listen to the music, probably with much the same amount of animal satisfaction; likewise as to awakened association, aspiration, or regret, melancholy or joyful reference to things beyond the senses, they are probably upon a par. but, otherwise, how far above the human listener is the brute! turn that dog's descendants wild, like jo, and in a very few years they will so degenerate that they will lose even their bark--but not their bite. the day changes as it wears itself away and becomes dark and drizzly. jo fights it out at his crossing among the mud and wheels, the horses, whips, and umbrellas, and gets but a scanty sum to pay for the unsavoury shelter of tom-all-alone's. twilight comes on; gas begins to start up in the shops; the lamplighter, with his ladder, runs along the margin of the pavement. a wretched evening is beginning to close in. in his chambers mr. tulkinghorn sits meditating an application to the nearest magistrate to-morrow morning for a warrant. gridley, a disappointed suitor, has been here to-day and has been alarming. we are not to be put in bodily fear, and that ill-conditioned fellow shall be held to bail again. from the ceiling, foreshortened allegory, in the person of one impossible roman upside down, points with the arm of samson (out of joint, and an odd one) obtrusively toward the window. why should mr. tulkinghorn, for such no reason, look out of window? is the hand not always pointing there? so he does not look out of window. and if he did, what would it be to see a woman going by? there are women enough in the world, mr. tulkinghorn thinks--too many; they are at the bottom of all that goes wrong in it, though, for the matter of that, they create business for lawyers. what would it be to see a woman going by, even though she were going secretly? they are all secret. mr. tulkinghorn knows that very well. but they are not all like the woman who now leaves him and his house behind, between whose plain dress and her refined manner there is something exceedingly inconsistent. she should be an upper servant by her attire, yet in her air and step, though both are hurried and assumed--as far as she can assume in the muddy streets, which she treads with an unaccustomed foot--she is a lady. her face is veiled, and still she sufficiently betrays herself to make more than one of those who pass her look round sharply. she never turns her head. lady or servant, she has a purpose in her and can follow it. she never turns her head until she comes to the crossing where jo plies with his broom. he crosses with her and begs. still, she does not turn her head until she has landed on the other side. then she slightly beckons to him and says, "come here!" jo follows her a pace or two into a quiet court. "are you the boy i've read of in the papers?" she asked behind her veil. "i don't know," says jo, staring moodily at the veil, "nothink about no papers. i don't know nothink about nothink at all." "were you examined at an inquest?" "i don't know nothink about no--where i was took by the beadle, do you mean?" says jo. "was the boy's name at the inkwhich jo?" "yes." "that's me!" says jo. "come farther up." "you mean about the man?" says jo, following. "him as wos dead?" "hush! speak in a whisper! yes. did he look, when he was living, so very ill and poor?" "oh, jist!" says jo. "did he look like--not like you?" says the woman with abhorrence. "oh, not so bad as me," says jo. "i'm a reg'lar one i am! you didn't know him, did you?" "how dare you ask me if i knew him?" "no offence, my lady," says jo with much humility, for even he has got at the suspicion of her being a lady. "i am not a lady. i am a servant." "you are a jolly servant!" says jo without the least idea of saying anything offensive, merely as a tribute of admiration. "listen and be silent. don't talk to me, and stand farther from me! can you show me all those places that were spoken of in the account i read? the place he wrote for, the place he died at, the place where you were taken to, and the place where he was buried? do you know the place where he was buried?" jo answers with a nod, having also nodded as each other place was mentioned. "go before me and show me all those dreadful places. stop opposite to each, and don't speak to me unless i speak to you. don't look back. do what i want, and i will pay you well." jo attends closely while the words are being spoken; tells them off on his broom-handle, finding them rather hard; pauses to consider their meaning; considers it satisfactory; and nods his ragged head. "i'm fly," says jo. "but fen larks, you know. stow hooking it!" "what does the horrible creature mean?" exclaims the servant, recoiling from him. "stow cutting away, you know!" says jo. "i don't understand you. go on before! i will give you more money than you ever had in your life." jo screws up his mouth into a whistle, gives his ragged head a rub, takes his broom under his arm, and leads the way, passing deftly with his bare feet over the hard stones and through the mud and mire. cook's court. jo stops. a pause. "who lives here?" "him wot give him his writing and give me half a bull," says jo in a whisper without looking over his shoulder. "go on to the next." krook's house. jo stops again. a longer pause. "who lives here?" "he lived here," jo answers as before. after a silence he is asked, "in which room?" "in the back room up there. you can see the winder from this corner. up there! that's where i see him stritched out. this is the public-ouse where i was took to." "go on to the next!" it is a longer walk to the next, but jo, relieved of his first suspicions, sticks to the forms imposed upon him and does not look round. by many devious ways, reeking with offence of many kinds, they come to the little tunnel of a court, and to the gas-lamp (lighted now), and to the iron gate. "he was put there," says jo, holding to the bars and looking in. "where? oh, what a scene of horror!" "there!" says jo, pointing. "over yinder. among them piles of bones, and close to that there kitchin winder! they put him wery nigh the top. they was obliged to stamp upon it to git it in. i could unkiver it for you with my broom if the gate was open. that's why they locks it, i s'pose," giving it a shake. "it's always locked. look at the rat!" cries jo, excited. "hi! look! there he goes! ho! into the ground!" the servant shrinks into a corner, into a corner of that hideous archway, with its deadly stains contaminating her dress; and putting out her two hands and passionately telling him to keep away from her, for he is loathsome to her, so remains for some moments. jo stands staring and is still staring when she recovers herself. "is this place of abomination consecrated ground?" "i don't know nothink of consequential ground," says jo, still staring. "is it blessed?" "which?" says jo, in the last degree amazed. "is it blessed?" "i'm blest if i know," says jo, staring more than ever; "but i shouldn't think it warn't. blest?" repeats jo, something troubled in his mind. "it an't done it much good if it is. blest? i should think it was t'othered myself. but i don't know nothink!" the servant takes as little heed of what he says as she seems to take of what she has said herself. she draws off her glove to get some money from her purse. jo silently notices how white and small her hand is and what a jolly servant she must be to wear such sparkling rings. she drops a piece of money in his hand without touching it, and shuddering as their hands approach. "now," she adds, "show me the spot again!" jo thrusts the handle of his broom between the bars of the gate, and with his utmost power of elaboration, points it out. at length, looking aside to see if he has made himself intelligible, he finds that he is alone. his first proceeding is to hold the piece of money to the gas-light and to be overpowered at finding that it is yellow--gold. his next is to give it a one-sided bite at the edge as a test of its quality. his next, to put it in his mouth for safety and to sweep the step and passage with great care. his job done, he sets off for tom-all-alone's, stopping in the light of innumerable gas-lamps to produce the piece of gold and give it another one-sided bite as a reassurance of its being genuine. the mercury in powder is in no want of society to-night, for my lady goes to a grand dinner and three or four balls. sir leicester is fidgety down at chesney wold, with no better company than the gout; he complains to mrs. rouncewell that the rain makes such a monotonous pattering on the terrace that he can't read the paper even by the fireside in his own snug dressing-room. "sir leicester would have done better to try the other side of the house, my dear," says mrs. rouncewell to rosa. "his dressing-room is on my lady's side. and in all these years i never heard the step upon the ghost's walk more distinct than it is to-night!" chapter xvii esther's narrative richard very often came to see us while we remained in london (though he soon failed in his letter-writing), and with his quick abilities, his good spirits, his good temper, his gaiety and freshness, was always delightful. but though i liked him more and more the better i knew him, i still felt more and more how much it was to be regretted that he had been educated in no habits of application and concentration. the system which had addressed him in exactly the same manner as it had addressed hundreds of other boys, all varying in character and capacity, had enabled him to dash through his tasks, always with fair credit and often with distinction, but in a fitful, dazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities in himself which it had been most desirable to direct and train. they were good qualities, without which no high place can be meritoriously won, but like fire and water, though excellent servants, they were very bad masters. if they had been under richard's direction, they would have been his friends; but richard being under their direction, they became his enemies. i write down these opinions not because i believe that this or any other thing was so because i thought so, but only because i did think so and i want to be quite candid about all i thought and did. these were my thoughts about richard. i thought i often observed besides how right my guardian was in what he had said, and that the uncertainties and delays of the chancery suit had imparted to his nature something of the careless spirit of a gamester who felt that he was part of a great gaming system. mr. and mrs. bayham badger coming one afternoon when my guardian was not at home, in the course of conversation i naturally inquired after richard. "why, mr. carstone," said mrs. badger, "is very well and is, i assure you, a great acquisition to our society. captain swosser used to say of me that i was always better than land a-head and a breeze a-starn to the midshipmen's mess when the purser's junk had become as tough as the fore-topsel weather earings. it was his naval way of mentioning generally that i was an acquisition to any society. i may render the same tribute, i am sure, to mr. carstone. but i--you won't think me premature if i mention it?" i said no, as mrs. badger's insinuating tone seemed to require such an answer. "nor miss clare?" said mrs. bayham badger sweetly. ada said no, too, and looked uneasy. "why, you see, my dears," said mrs. badger, "--you'll excuse me calling you my dears?" we entreated mrs. badger not to mention it. "because you really are, if i may take the liberty of saying so," pursued mrs. badger, "so perfectly charming. you see, my dears, that although i am still young--or mr. bayham badger pays me the compliment of saying so--" "no," mr. badger called out like some one contradicting at a public meeting. "not at all!" "very well," smiled mrs. badger, "we will say still young." "undoubtedly," said mr. badger. "my dears, though still young, i have had many opportunities of observing young men. there were many such on board the dear old crippler, i assure you. after that, when i was with captain swosser in the mediterranean, i embraced every opportunity of knowing and befriending the midshipmen under captain swosser's command. you never heard them called the young gentlemen, my dears, and probably would not understand allusions to their pipe-claying their weekly accounts, but it is otherwise with me, for blue water has been a second home to me, and i have been quite a sailor. again, with professor dingo." "a man of european reputation," murmured mr. badger. "when i lost my dear first and became the wife of my dear second," said mrs. badger, speaking of her former husbands as if they were parts of a charade, "i still enjoyed opportunities of observing youth. the class attendant on professor dingo's lectures was a large one, and it became my pride, as the wife of an eminent scientific man seeking herself in science the utmost consolation it could impart, to throw our house open to the students as a kind of scientific exchange. every tuesday evening there was lemonade and a mixed biscuit for all who chose to partake of those refreshments. and there was science to an unlimited extent." "remarkable assemblies those, miss summerson," said mr. badger reverentially. "there must have been great intellectual friction going on there under the auspices of such a man!" "and now," pursued mrs. badger, "now that i am the wife of my dear third, mr. badger, i still pursue those habits of observation which were formed during the lifetime of captain swosser and adapted to new and unexpected purposes during the lifetime of professor dingo. i therefore have not come to the consideration of mr. carstone as a neophyte. and yet i am very much of the opinion, my dears, that he has not chosen his profession advisedly." ada looked so very anxious now that i asked mrs. badger on what she founded her supposition. "my dear miss summerson," she replied, "on mr. carstone's character and conduct. he is of such a very easy disposition that probably he would never think it worth-while to mention how he really feels, but he feels languid about the profession. he has not that positive interest in it which makes it his vocation. if he has any decided impression in reference to it, i should say it was that it is a tiresome pursuit. now, this is not promising. young men like mr. allan woodcourt who take it from a strong interest in all that it can do will find some reward in it through a great deal of work for a very little money and through years of considerable endurance and disappointment. but i am quite convinced that this would never be the case with mr. carstone." "does mr. badger think so too?" asked ada timidly. "why," said mr. badger, "to tell the truth, miss clare, this view of the matter had not occurred to me until mrs. badger mentioned it. but when mrs. badger put it in that light, i naturally gave great consideration to it, knowing that mrs. badger's mind, in addition to its natural advantages, has had the rare advantage of being formed by two such very distinguished (i will even say illustrious) public men as captain swosser of the royal navy and professor dingo. the conclusion at which i have arrived is--in short, is mrs. badger's conclusion." "it was a maxim of captain swosser's," said mrs. badger, "speaking in his figurative naval manner, that when you make pitch hot, you cannot make it too hot; and that if you only have to swab a plank, you should swab it as if davy jones were after you. it appears to me that this maxim is applicable to the medical as well as to the nautical profession. "to all professions," observed mr. badger. "it was admirably said by captain swosser. beautifully said." "people objected to professor dingo when we were staying in the north of devon after our marriage," said mrs. badger, "that he disfigured some of the houses and other buildings by chipping off fragments of those edifices with his little geological hammer. but the professor replied that he knew of no building save the temple of science. the principle is the same, i think?" "precisely the same," said mr. badger. "finely expressed! the professor made the same remark, miss summerson, in his last illness, when (his mind wandering) he insisted on keeping his little hammer under the pillow and chipping at the countenances of the attendants. the ruling passion!" although we could have dispensed with the length at which mr. and mrs. badger pursued the conversation, we both felt that it was disinterested in them to express the opinion they had communicated to us and that there was a great probability of its being sound. we agreed to say nothing to mr. jarndyce until we had spoken to richard; and as he was coming next evening, we resolved to have a very serious talk with him. so after he had been a little while with ada, i went in and found my darling (as i knew she would be) prepared to consider him thoroughly right in whatever he said. "and how do you get on, richard?" said i. i always sat down on the other side of him. he made quite a sister of me. "oh! well enough!" said richard. "he can't say better than that, esther, can he?" cried my pet triumphantly. i tried to look at my pet in the wisest manner, but of course i couldn't. "well enough?" i repeated. "yes," said richard, "well enough. it's rather jog-trotty and humdrum. but it'll do as well as anything else!" "oh! my dear richard!" i remonstrated. "what's the matter?" said richard. "do as well as anything else!" "i don't think there's any harm in that, dame durden," said ada, looking so confidingly at me across him; "because if it will do as well as anything else, it will do very well, i hope." "oh, yes, i hope so," returned richard, carelessly tossing his hair from his forehead. "after all, it may be only a kind of probation till our suit is--i forgot though. i am not to mention the suit. forbidden ground! oh, yes, it's all right enough. let us talk about something else." ada would have done so willingly, and with a full persuasion that we had brought the question to a most satisfactory state. but i thought it would be useless to stop there, so i began again. "no, but richard," said i, "and my dear ada! consider how important it is to you both, and what a point of honour it is towards your cousin, that you, richard, should be quite in earnest without any reservation. i think we had better talk about this, really, ada. it will be too late very soon." "oh, yes! we must talk about it!" said ada. "but i think richard is right." what was the use of my trying to look wise when she was so pretty, and so engaging, and so fond of him! "mr. and mrs. badger were here yesterday, richard," said i, "and they seemed disposed to think that you had no great liking for the profession." "did they though?" said richard. "oh! well, that rather alters the case, because i had no idea that they thought so, and i should not have liked to disappoint or inconvenience them. the fact is, i don't care much about it. but, oh, it don't matter! it'll do as well as anything else!" "you hear him, ada!" said i. "the fact is," richard proceeded, half thoughtfully and half jocosely, "it is not quite in my way. i don't take to it. and i get too much of mrs. bayham badger's first and second." "i am sure that's very natural!" cried ada, quite delighted. "the very thing we both said yesterday, esther!" "then," pursued richard, "it's monotonous, and to-day is too like yesterday, and to-morrow is too like to-day." "but i am afraid," said i, "this is an objection to all kinds of application--to life itself, except under some very uncommon circumstances." "do you think so?" returned richard, still considering. "perhaps! ha! why, then, you know," he added, suddenly becoming gay again, "we travel outside a circle to what i said just now. it'll do as well as anything else. oh, it's all right enough! let us talk about something else." but even ada, with her loving face--and if it had seemed innocent and trusting when i first saw it in that memorable november fog, how much more did it seem now when i knew her innocent and trusting heart--even ada shook her head at this and looked serious. so i thought it a good opportunity to hint to richard that if he were sometimes a little careless of himself, i was very sure he never meant to be careless of ada, and that it was a part of his affectionate consideration for her not to slight the importance of a step that might influence both their lives. this made him almost grave. "my dear mother hubbard," he said, "that's the very thing! i have thought of that several times and have been quite angry with myself for meaning to be so much in earnest and--somehow--not exactly being so. i don't know how it is; i seem to want something or other to stand by. even you have no idea how fond i am of ada (my darling cousin, i love you, so much!), but i don't settle down to constancy in other things. it's such uphill work, and it takes such a time!" said richard with an air of vexation. "that may be," i suggested, "because you don't like what you have chosen." "poor fellow!" said ada. "i am sure i don't wonder at it!" no. it was not of the least use my trying to look wise. i tried again, but how could i do it, or how could it have any effect if i could, while ada rested her clasped hands upon his shoulder and while he looked at her tender blue eyes, and while they looked at him! "you see, my precious girl," said richard, passing her golden curls through and through his hand, "i was a little hasty perhaps; or i misunderstood my own inclinations perhaps. they don't seem to lie in that direction. i couldn't tell till i tried. now the question is whether it's worth-while to undo all that has been done. it seems like making a great disturbance about nothing particular." "my dear richard," said i, "how can you say about nothing particular?" "i don't mean absolutely that," he returned. "i mean that it may be nothing particular because i may never want it." both ada and i urged, in reply, not only that it was decidedly worth-while to undo what had been done, but that it must be undone. i then asked richard whether he had thought of any more congenial pursuit. "there, my dear mrs. shipton," said richard, "you touch me home. yes, i have. i have been thinking that the law is the boy for me." "the law!" repeated ada as if she were afraid of the name. "if i went into kenge's office," said richard, "and if i were placed under articles to kenge, i should have my eye on the--hum!--the forbidden ground--and should be able to study it, and master it, and to satisfy myself that it was not neglected and was being properly conducted. i should be able to look after ada's interests and my own interests (the same thing!); and i should peg away at blackstone and all those fellows with the most tremendous ardour." i was not by any means so sure of that, and i saw how his hankering after the vague things yet to come of those long-deferred hopes cast a shade on ada's face. but i thought it best to encourage him in any project of continuous exertion, and only advised him to be quite sure that his mind was made up now. "my dear minerva," said richard, "i am as steady as you are. i made a mistake; we are all liable to mistakes; i won't do so any more, and i'll become such a lawyer as is not often seen. that is, you know," said richard, relapsing into doubt, "if it really is worth-while, after all, to make such a disturbance about nothing particular!" this led to our saying again, with a great deal of gravity, all that we had said already and to our coming to much the same conclusion afterwards. but we so strongly advised richard to be frank and open with mr. jarndyce, without a moment's delay, and his disposition was naturally so opposed to concealment that he sought him out at once (taking us with him) and made a full avowal. "rick," said my guardian, after hearing him attentively, "we can retreat with honour, and we will. but we must be careful--for our cousin's sake, rick, for our cousin's sake--that we make no more such mistakes. therefore, in the matter of the law, we will have a good trial before we decide. we will look before we leap, and take plenty of time about it." richard's energy was of such an impatient and fitful kind that he would have liked nothing better than to have gone to mr. kenge's office in that hour and to have entered into articles with him on the spot. submitting, however, with a good grace to the caution that we had shown to be so necessary, he contented himself with sitting down among us in his lightest spirits and talking as if his one unvarying purpose in life from childhood had been that one which now held possession of him. my guardian was very kind and cordial with him, but rather grave, enough so to cause ada, when he had departed and we were going upstairs to bed, to say, "cousin john, i hope you don't think the worse of richard?" "no, my love," said he. "because it was very natural that richard should be mistaken in such a difficult case. it is not uncommon." "no, no, my love," said he. "don't look unhappy." "oh, i am not unhappy, cousin john!" said ada, smiling cheerfully, with her hand upon his shoulder, where she had put it in bidding him good night. "but i should be a little so if you thought at all the worse of richard." "my dear," said mr. jarndyce, "i should think the worse of him only if you were ever in the least unhappy through his means. i should be more disposed to quarrel with myself even then, than with poor rick, for i brought you together. but, tut, all this is nothing! he has time before him, and the race to run. i think the worse of him? not i, my loving cousin! and not you, i swear!" "no, indeed, cousin john," said ada, "i am sure i could not--i am sure i would not--think any ill of richard if the whole world did. i could, and i would, think better of him then than at any other time!" so quietly and honestly she said it, with her hands upon his shoulders--both hands now--and looking up into his face, like the picture of truth! "i think," said my guardian, thoughtfully regarding her, "i think it must be somewhere written that the virtues of the mothers shall occasionally be visited on the children, as well as the sins of the father. good night, my rosebud. good night, little woman. pleasant slumbers! happy dreams!" this was the first time i ever saw him follow ada with his eyes with something of a shadow on their benevolent expression. i well remembered the look with which he had contemplated her and richard when she was singing in the firelight; it was but a very little while since he had watched them passing down the room in which the sun was shining, and away into the shade; but his glance was changed, and even the silent look of confidence in me which now followed it once more was not quite so hopeful and untroubled as it had originally been. ada praised richard more to me that night than ever she had praised him yet. she went to sleep with a little bracelet he had given her clasped upon her arm. i fancied she was dreaming of him when i kissed her cheek after she had slept an hour and saw how tranquil and happy she looked. for i was so little inclined to sleep myself that night that i sat up working. it would not be worth mentioning for its own sake, but i was wakeful and rather low-spirited. i don't know why. at least i don't think i know why. at least, perhaps i do, but i don't think it matters. at any rate, i made up my mind to be so dreadfully industrious that i would leave myself not a moment's leisure to be low-spirited. for i naturally said, "esther! you to be low-spirited. you!" and it really was time to say so, for i--yes, i really did see myself in the glass, almost crying. "as if you had anything to make you unhappy, instead of everything to make you happy, you ungrateful heart!" said i. if i could have made myself go to sleep, i would have done it directly, but not being able to do that, i took out of my basket some ornamental work for our house (i mean bleak house) that i was busy with at that time and sat down to it with great determination. it was necessary to count all the stitches in that work, and i resolved to go on with it until i couldn't keep my eyes open, and then to go to bed. i soon found myself very busy. but i had left some silk downstairs in a work-table drawer in the temporary growlery, and coming to a stop for want of it, i took my candle and went softly down to get it. to my great surprise, on going in i found my guardian still there, and sitting looking at the ashes. he was lost in thought, his book lay unheeded by his side, his silvered iron-grey hair was scattered confusedly upon his forehead as though his hand had been wandering among it while his thoughts were elsewhere, and his face looked worn. almost frightened by coming upon him so unexpectedly, i stood still for a moment and should have retired without speaking had he not, in again passing his hand abstractedly through his hair, seen me and started. "esther!" i told him what i had come for. "at work so late, my dear?" "i am working late to-night," said i, "because i couldn't sleep and wished to tire myself. but, dear guardian, you are late too, and look weary. you have no trouble, i hope, to keep you waking?" "none, little woman, that you would readily understand," said he. he spoke in a regretful tone so new to me that i inwardly repeated, as if that would help me to his meaning, "that i could readily understand!" "remain a moment, esther," said he, "you were in my thoughts." "i hope i was not the trouble, guardian?" he slightly waved his hand and fell into his usual manner. the change was so remarkable, and he appeared to make it by dint of so much self-command, that i found myself again inwardly repeating, "none that i could understand!" "little woman," said my guardian, "i was thinking--that is, i have been thinking since i have been sitting here--that you ought to know of your own history all i know. it is very little. next to nothing." "dear guardian," i replied, "when you spoke to me before on that subject--" "but since then," he gravely interposed, anticipating what i meant to say, "i have reflected that your having anything to ask me, and my having anything to tell you, are different considerations, esther. it is perhaps my duty to impart to you the little i know." "if you think so, guardian, it is right." "i think so," he returned very gently, and kindly, and very distinctly. "my dear, i think so now. if any real disadvantage can attach to your position in the mind of any man or woman worth a thought, it is right that you at least of all the world should not magnify it to yourself by having vague impressions of its nature." i sat down and said after a little effort to be as calm as i ought to be, "one of my earliest remembrances, guardian, is of these words: 'your mother, esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. the time will come, and soon enough, when you will understand this better, and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can.'" i had covered my face with my hands in repeating the words, but i took them away now with a better kind of shame, i hope, and told him that to him i owed the blessing that i had from my childhood to that hour never, never, never felt it. he put up his hand as if to stop me. i well knew that he was never to be thanked, and said no more. "nine years, my dear," he said after thinking for a little while, "have passed since i received a letter from a lady living in seclusion, written with a stern passion and power that rendered it unlike all other letters i have ever read. it was written to me (as it told me in so many words), perhaps because it was the writer's idiosyncrasy to put that trust in me, perhaps because it was mine to justify it. it told me of a child, an orphan girl then twelve years old, in some such cruel words as those which live in your remembrance. it told me that the writer had bred her in secrecy from her birth, had blotted out all trace of her existence, and that if the writer were to die before the child became a woman, she would be left entirely friendless, nameless, and unknown. it asked me to consider if i would, in that case, finish what the writer had begun." i listened in silence and looked attentively at him. "your early recollection, my dear, will supply the gloomy medium through which all this was seen and expressed by the writer, and the distorted religion which clouded her mind with impressions of the need there was for the child to expiate an offence of which she was quite innocent. i felt concerned for the little creature, in her darkened life, and replied to the letter." i took his hand and kissed it. "it laid the injunction on me that i should never propose to see the writer, who had long been estranged from all intercourse with the world, but who would see a confidential agent if i would appoint one. i accredited mr. kenge. the lady said, of her own accord and not of his seeking, that her name was an assumed one. that she was, if there were any ties of blood in such a case, the child's aunt. that more than this she would never (and he was well persuaded of the steadfastness of her resolution) for any human consideration disclose. my dear, i have told you all." i held his hand for a little while in mine. "i saw my ward oftener than she saw me," he added, cheerily making light of it, "and i always knew she was beloved, useful, and happy. she repays me twenty-thousandfold, and twenty more to that, every hour in every day!" "and oftener still," said i, "she blesses the guardian who is a father to her!" at the word father, i saw his former trouble come into his face. he subdued it as before, and it was gone in an instant; but it had been there and it had come so swiftly upon my words that i felt as if they had given him a shock. i again inwardly repeated, wondering, "that i could readily understand. none that i could readily understand!" no, it was true. i did not understand it. not for many and many a day. "take a fatherly good night, my dear," said he, kissing me on the forehead, "and so to rest. these are late hours for working and thinking. you do that for all of us, all day long, little housekeeper!" i neither worked nor thought any more that night. i opened my grateful heart to heaven in thankfulness for its providence to me and its care of me, and fell asleep. we had a visitor next day. mr. allan woodcourt came. he came to take leave of us; he had settled to do so beforehand. he was going to china and to india as a surgeon on board ship. he was to be away a long, long time. i believe--at least i know--that he was not rich. all his widowed mother could spare had been spent in qualifying him for his profession. it was not lucrative to a young practitioner, with very little influence in london; and although he was, night and day, at the service of numbers of poor people and did wonders of gentleness and skill for them, he gained very little by it in money. he was seven years older than i. not that i need mention it, for it hardly seems to belong to anything. i think--i mean, he told us--that he had been in practice three or four years and that if he could have hoped to contend through three or four more, he would not have made the voyage on which he was bound. but he had no fortune or private means, and so he was going away. he had been to see us several times altogether. we thought it a pity he should go away. because he was distinguished in his art among those who knew it best, and some of the greatest men belonging to it had a high opinion of him. when he came to bid us good-bye, he brought his mother with him for the first time. she was a pretty old lady, with bright black eyes, but she seemed proud. she came from wales and had had, a long time ago, an eminent person for an ancestor, of the name of morgan ap-kerrig--of some place that sounded like gimlet--who was the most illustrious person that ever was known and all of whose relations were a sort of royal family. he appeared to have passed his life in always getting up into mountains and fighting somebody; and a bard whose name sounded like crumlinwallinwer had sung his praises in a piece which was called, as nearly as i could catch it, mewlinnwillinwodd. mrs. woodcourt, after expatiating to us on the fame of her great kinsman, said that no doubt wherever her son allan went he would remember his pedigree and would on no account form an alliance below it. she told him that there were many handsome english ladies in india who went out on speculation, and that there were some to be picked up with property, but that neither charms nor wealth would suffice for the descendant from such a line without birth, which must ever be the first consideration. she talked so much about birth that for a moment i half fancied, and with pain--but what an idle fancy to suppose that she could think or care what mine was! mr. woodcourt seemed a little distressed by her prolixity, but he was too considerate to let her see it and contrived delicately to bring the conversation round to making his acknowledgments to my guardian for his hospitality and for the very happy hours--he called them the very happy hours--he had passed with us. the recollection of them, he said, would go with him wherever he went and would be always treasured. and so we gave him our hands, one after another--at least, they did--and i did; and so he put his lips to ada's hand--and to mine; and so he went away upon his long, long voyage! i was very busy indeed all day and wrote directions home to the servants, and wrote notes for my guardian, and dusted his books and papers, and jingled my housekeeping keys a good deal, one way and another. i was still busy between the lights, singing and working by the window, when who should come in but caddy, whom i had no expectation of seeing! "why, caddy, my dear," said i, "what beautiful flowers!" she had such an exquisite little nosegay in her hand. "indeed, i think so, esther," replied caddy. "they are the loveliest i ever saw." "prince, my dear?" said i in a whisper. "no," answered caddy, shaking her head and holding them to me to smell. "not prince." "well, to be sure, caddy!" said i. "you must have two lovers!" "what? do they look like that sort of thing?" said caddy. "do they look like that sort of thing?" i repeated, pinching her cheek. caddy only laughed in return, and telling me that she had come for half an hour, at the expiration of which time prince would be waiting for her at the corner, sat chatting with me and ada in the window, every now and then handing me the flowers again or trying how they looked against my hair. at last, when she was going, she took me into my room and put them in my dress. "for me?" said i, surprised. "for you," said caddy with a kiss. "they were left behind by somebody." "left behind?" "at poor miss flite's," said caddy. "somebody who has been very good to her was hurrying away an hour ago to join a ship and left these flowers behind. no, no! don't take them out. let the pretty little things lie here," said caddy, adjusting them with a careful hand, "because i was present myself, and i shouldn't wonder if somebody left them on purpose!" "do they look like that sort of thing?" said ada, coming laughingly behind me and clasping me merrily round the waist. "oh, yes, indeed they do, dame durden! they look very, very like that sort of thing. oh, very like it indeed, my dear!" chapter xviii lady dedlock it was not so easy as it had appeared at first to arrange for richard's making a trial of mr. kenge's office. richard himself was the chief impediment. as soon as he had it in his power to leave mr. badger at any moment, he began to doubt whether he wanted to leave him at all. he didn't know, he said, really. it wasn't a bad profession; he couldn't assert that he disliked it; perhaps he liked it as well as he liked any other--suppose he gave it one more chance! upon that, he shut himself up for a few weeks with some books and some bones and seemed to acquire a considerable fund of information with great rapidity. his fervour, after lasting about a month, began to cool, and when it was quite cooled, began to grow warm again. his vacillations between law and medicine lasted so long that midsummer arrived before he finally separated from mr. badger and entered on an experimental course of messrs. kenge and carboy. for all his waywardness, he took great credit to himself as being determined to be in earnest "this time." and he was so good-natured throughout, and in such high spirits, and so fond of ada, that it was very difficult indeed to be otherwise than pleased with him. "as to mr. jarndyce," who, i may mention, found the wind much given, during this period, to stick in the east; "as to mr. jarndyce," richard would say to me, "he is the finest fellow in the world, esther! i must be particularly careful, if it were only for his satisfaction, to take myself well to task and have a regular wind-up of this business now." the idea of his taking himself well to task, with that laughing face and heedless manner and with a fancy that everything could catch and nothing could hold, was ludicrously anomalous. however, he told us between-whiles that he was doing it to such an extent that he wondered his hair didn't turn grey. his regular wind-up of the business was (as i have said) that he went to mr. kenge's about midsummer to try how he liked it. all this time he was, in money affairs, what i have described him in a former illustration--generous, profuse, wildly careless, but fully persuaded that he was rather calculating and prudent. i happened to say to ada, in his presence, half jestingly, half seriously, about the time of his going to mr. kenge's, that he needed to have fortunatus' purse, he made so light of money, which he answered in this way, "my jewel of a dear cousin, you hear this old woman! why does she say that? because i gave eight pounds odd (or whatever it was) for a certain neat waistcoat and buttons a few days ago. now, if i had stayed at badger's i should have been obliged to spend twelve pounds at a blow for some heart-breaking lecture-fees. so i make four pounds--in a lump--by the transaction!" it was a question much discussed between him and my guardian what arrangements should be made for his living in london while he experimented on the law, for we had long since gone back to bleak house, and it was too far off to admit of his coming there oftener than once a week. my guardian told me that if richard were to settle down at mr. kenge's he would take some apartments or chambers where we too could occasionally stay for a few days at a time; "but, little woman," he added, rubbing his head very significantly, "he hasn't settled down there yet!" the discussions ended in our hiring for him, by the month, a neat little furnished lodging in a quiet old house near queen square. he immediately began to spend all the money he had in buying the oddest little ornaments and luxuries for this lodging; and so often as ada and i dissuaded him from making any purchase that he had in contemplation which was particularly unnecessary and expensive, he took credit for what it would have cost and made out that to spend anything less on something else was to save the difference. while these affairs were in abeyance, our visit to mr. boythorn's was postponed. at length, richard having taken possession of his lodging, there was nothing to prevent our departure. he could have gone with us at that time of the year very well, but he was in the full novelty of his new position and was making most energetic attempts to unravel the mysteries of the fatal suit. consequently we went without him, and my darling was delighted to praise him for being so busy. we made a pleasant journey down into lincolnshire by the coach and had an entertaining companion in mr. skimpole. his furniture had been all cleared off, it appeared, by the person who took possession of it on his blue-eyed daughter's birthday, but he seemed quite relieved to think that it was gone. chairs and table, he said, were wearisome objects; they were monotonous ideas, they had no variety of expression, they looked you out of countenance, and you looked them out of countenance. how pleasant, then, to be bound to no particular chairs and tables, but to sport like a butterfly among all the furniture on hire, and to flit from rosewood to mahogany, and from mahogany to walnut, and from this shape to that, as the humour took one! "the oddity of the thing is," said mr. skimpole with a quickened sense of the ludicrous, "that my chairs and tables were not paid for, and yet my landlord walks off with them as composedly as possible. now, that seems droll! there is something grotesque in it. the chair and table merchant never engaged to pay my landlord my rent. why should my landlord quarrel with him? if i have a pimple on my nose which is disagreeable to my landlord's peculiar ideas of beauty, my landlord has no business to scratch my chair and table merchant's nose, which has no pimple on it. his reasoning seems defective!" "well," said my guardian good-humouredly, "it's pretty clear that whoever became security for those chairs and tables will have to pay for them." "exactly!" returned mr. skimpole. "that's the crowning point of unreason in the business! i said to my landlord, 'my good man, you are not aware that my excellent friend jarndyce will have to pay for those things that you are sweeping off in that indelicate manner. have you no consideration for his property?' he hadn't the least." "and refused all proposals," said my guardian. "refused all proposals," returned mr. skimpole. "i made him business proposals. i had him into my room. i said, 'you are a man of business, i believe?' he replied, 'i am,' 'very well,' said i, 'now let us be business-like. here is an inkstand, here are pens and paper, here are wafers. what do you want? i have occupied your house for a considerable period, i believe to our mutual satisfaction until this unpleasant misunderstanding arose; let us be at once friendly and business-like. what do you want?' in reply to this, he made use of the figurative expression--which has something eastern about it--that he had never seen the colour of my money. 'my amiable friend,' said i, 'i never have any money. i never know anything about money.' 'well, sir,' said he, 'what do you offer if i give you time?' 'my good fellow,' said i, 'i have no idea of time; but you say you are a man of business, and whatever you can suggest to be done in a business-like way with pen, and ink, and paper--and wafers--i am ready to do. don't pay yourself at another man's expense (which is foolish), but be business-like!' however, he wouldn't be, and there was an end of it." if these were some of the inconveniences of mr. skimpole's childhood, it assuredly possessed its advantages too. on the journey he had a very good appetite for such refreshment as came in our way (including a basket of choice hothouse peaches), but never thought of paying for anything. so when the coachman came round for his fee, he pleasantly asked him what he considered a very good fee indeed, now--a liberal one--and on his replying half a crown for a single passenger, said it was little enough too, all things considered, and left mr. jarndyce to give it him. it was delightful weather. the green corn waved so beautifully, the larks sang so joyfully, the hedges were so full of wild flowers, the trees were so thickly out in leaf, the bean-fields, with a light wind blowing over them, filled the air with such a delicious fragrance! late in the afternoon we came to the market-town where we were to alight from the coach--a dull little town with a church-spire, and a marketplace, and a market-cross, and one intensely sunny street, and a pond with an old horse cooling his legs in it, and a very few men sleepily lying and standing about in narrow little bits of shade. after the rustling of the leaves and the waving of the corn all along the road, it looked as still, as hot, as motionless a little town as england could produce. at the inn we found mr. boythorn on horseback, waiting with an open carriage to take us to his house, which was a few miles off. he was overjoyed to see us and dismounted with great alacrity. "by heaven!" said he after giving us a courteous greeting. "this a most infamous coach. it is the most flagrant example of an abominable public vehicle that ever encumbered the face of the earth. it is twenty-five minutes after its time this afternoon. the coachman ought to be put to death!" "is he after his time?" said mr. skimpole, to whom he happened to address himself. "you know my infirmity." "twenty-five minutes! twenty-six minutes!" replied mr. boythorn, referring to his watch. "with two ladies in the coach, this scoundrel has deliberately delayed his arrival six and twenty minutes. deliberately! it is impossible that it can be accidental! but his father--and his uncle--were the most profligate coachmen that ever sat upon a box." while he said this in tones of the greatest indignation, he handed us into the little phaeton with the utmost gentleness and was all smiles and pleasure. "i am sorry, ladies," he said, standing bare-headed at the carriage-door when all was ready, "that i am obliged to conduct you nearly two miles out of the way. but our direct road lies through sir leicester dedlock's park, and in that fellow's property i have sworn never to set foot of mine, or horse's foot of mine, pending the present relations between us, while i breathe the breath of life!" and here, catching my guardian's eye, he broke into one of his tremendous laughs, which seemed to shake even the motionless little market-town. "are the dedlocks down here, lawrence?" said my guardian as we drove along and mr. boythorn trotted on the green turf by the roadside. "sir arrogant numskull is here," replied mr. boythorn. "ha ha ha! sir arrogant is here, and i am glad to say, has been laid by the heels here. my lady," in naming whom he always made a courtly gesture as if particularly to exclude her from any part in the quarrel, "is expected, i believe, daily. i am not in the least surprised that she postpones her appearance as long as possible. whatever can have induced that transcendent woman to marry that effigy and figure-head of a baronet is one of the most impenetrable mysteries that ever baffled human inquiry. ha ha ha ha!" "i suppose," said my guardian, laughing, "we may set foot in the park while we are here? the prohibition does not extend to us, does it?" "i can lay no prohibition on my guests," he said, bending his head to ada and me with the smiling politeness which sat so gracefully upon him, "except in the matter of their departure. i am only sorry that i cannot have the happiness of being their escort about chesney wold, which is a very fine place! but by the light of this summer day, jarndyce, if you call upon the owner while you stay with me, you are likely to have but a cool reception. he carries himself like an eight-day clock at all times, like one of a race of eight-day clocks in gorgeous cases that never go and never went--ha ha ha!--but he will have some extra stiffness, i can promise you, for the friends of his friend and neighbour boythorn!" "i shall not put him to the proof," said my guardian. "he is as indifferent to the honour of knowing me, i dare say, as i am to the honour of knowing him. the air of the grounds and perhaps such a view of the house as any other sightseer might get are quite enough for me." "well!" said mr. boythorn. "i am glad of it on the whole. it's in better keeping. i am looked upon about here as a second ajax defying the lightning. ha ha ha ha! when i go into our little church on a sunday, a considerable part of the inconsiderable congregation expect to see me drop, scorched and withered, on the pavement under the dedlock displeasure. ha ha ha ha! i have no doubt he is surprised that i don't. for he is, by heaven, the most self-satisfied, and the shallowest, and the most coxcombical and utterly brainless ass!" our coming to the ridge of a hill we had been ascending enabled our friend to point out chesney wold itself to us and diverted his attention from its master. it was a picturesque old house in a fine park richly wooded. among the trees and not far from the residence he pointed out the spire of the little church of which he had spoken. oh, the solemn woods over which the light and shadow travelled swiftly, as if heavenly wings were sweeping on benignant errands through the summer air; the smooth green slopes, the glittering water, the garden where the flowers were so symmetrically arranged in clusters of the richest colours, how beautiful they looked! the house, with gable and chimney, and tower, and turret, and dark doorway, and broad terrace-walk, twining among the balustrades of which, and lying heaped upon the vases, there was one great flush of roses, seemed scarcely real in its light solidity and in the serene and peaceful hush that rested on all around it. to ada and to me, that above all appeared the pervading influence. on everything, house, garden, terrace, green slopes, water, old oaks, fern, moss, woods again, and far away across the openings in the prospect to the distance lying wide before us with a purple bloom upon it, there seemed to be such undisturbed repose. when we came into the little village and passed a small inn with the sign of the dedlock arms swinging over the road in front, mr. boythorn interchanged greetings with a young gentleman sitting on a bench outside the inn-door who had some fishing-tackle lying beside him. "that's the housekeeper's grandson, mr. rouncewell by name," said, he, "and he is in love with a pretty girl up at the house. lady dedlock has taken a fancy to the pretty girl and is going to keep her about her own fair person--an honour which my young friend himself does not at all appreciate. however, he can't marry just yet, even if his rosebud were willing; so he is fain to make the best of it. in the meanwhile, he comes here pretty often for a day or two at a time to--fish. ha ha ha ha!" "are he and the pretty girl engaged, mr. boythorn?" asked ada. "why, my dear miss clare," he returned, "i think they may perhaps understand each other; but you will see them soon, i dare say, and i must learn from you on such a point--not you from me." ada blushed, and mr. boythorn, trotting forward on his comely grey horse, dismounted at his own door and stood ready with extended arm and uncovered head to welcome us when we arrived. he lived in a pretty house, formerly the parsonage house, with a lawn in front, a bright flower-garden at the side, and a well-stocked orchard and kitchen-garden in the rear, enclosed with a venerable wall that had of itself a ripened ruddy look. but, indeed, everything about the place wore an aspect of maturity and abundance. the old lime-tree walk was like green cloisters, the very shadows of the cherry-trees and apple-trees were heavy with fruit, the gooseberry-bushes were so laden that their branches arched and rested on the earth, the strawberries and raspberries grew in like profusion, and the peaches basked by the hundred on the wall. tumbled about among the spread nets and the glass frames sparkling and winking in the sun there were such heaps of drooping pods, and marrows, and cucumbers, that every foot of ground appeared a vegetable treasury, while the smell of sweet herbs and all kinds of wholesome growth (to say nothing of the neighbouring meadows where the hay was carrying) made the whole air a great nosegay. such stillness and composure reigned within the orderly precincts of the old red wall that even the feathers hung in garlands to scare the birds hardly stirred; and the wall had such a ripening influence that where, here and there high up, a disused nail and scrap of list still clung to it, it was easy to fancy that they had mellowed with the changing seasons and that they had rusted and decayed according to the common fate. the house, though a little disorderly in comparison with the garden, was a real old house with settles in the chimney of the brick-floored kitchen and great beams across the ceilings. on one side of it was the terrible piece of ground in dispute, where mr. boythorn maintained a sentry in a smock-frock day and night, whose duty was supposed to be, in cases of aggression, immediately to ring a large bell hung up there for the purpose, to unchain a great bull-dog established in a kennel as his ally, and generally to deal destruction on the enemy. not content with these precautions, mr. boythorn had himself composed and posted there, on painted boards to which his name was attached in large letters, the following solemn warnings: "beware of the bull-dog. he is most ferocious. lawrence boythorn." "the blunderbus is loaded with slugs. lawrence boythorn." "man-traps and spring-guns are set here at all times of the day and night. lawrence boythorn." "take notice. that any person or persons audaciously presuming to trespass on this property will be punished with the utmost severity of private chastisement and prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law. lawrence boythorn." these he showed us from the drawing-room window, while his bird was hopping about his head, and he laughed, "ha ha ha ha! ha ha ha ha!" to that extent as he pointed them out that i really thought he would have hurt himself. "but this is taking a good deal of trouble," said mr. skimpole in his light way, "when you are not in earnest after all." "not in earnest!" returned mr. boythorn with unspeakable warmth. "not in earnest! if i could have hoped to train him, i would have bought a lion instead of that dog and would have turned him loose upon the first intolerable robber who should dare to make an encroachment on my rights. let sir leicester dedlock consent to come out and decide this question by single combat, and i will meet him with any weapon known to mankind in any age or country. i am that much in earnest. not more!" we arrived at his house on a saturday. on the sunday morning we all set forth to walk to the little church in the park. entering the park, almost immediately by the disputed ground, we pursued a pleasant footpath winding among the verdant turf and the beautiful trees until it brought us to the church-porch. the congregation was extremely small and quite a rustic one with the exception of a large muster of servants from the house, some of whom were already in their seats, while others were yet dropping in. there were some stately footmen, and there was a perfect picture of an old coachman, who looked as if he were the official representative of all the pomps and vanities that had ever been put into his coach. there was a very pretty show of young women, and above them, the handsome old face and fine responsible portly figure of the housekeeper towered pre-eminent. the pretty girl of whom mr. boythorn had told us was close by her. she was so very pretty that i might have known her by her beauty even if i had not seen how blushingly conscious she was of the eyes of the young fisherman, whom i discovered not far off. one face, and not an agreeable one, though it was handsome, seemed maliciously watchful of this pretty girl, and indeed of every one and everything there. it was a frenchwoman's. as the bell was yet ringing and the great people were not yet come, i had leisure to glance over the church, which smelt as earthy as a grave, and to think what a shady, ancient, solemn little church it was. the windows, heavily shaded by trees, admitted a subdued light that made the faces around me pale, and darkened the old brasses in the pavement and the time and damp-worn monuments, and rendered the sunshine in the little porch, where a monotonous ringer was working at the bell, inestimably bright. but a stir in that direction, a gathering of reverential awe in the rustic faces, and a blandly ferocious assumption on the part of mr. boythorn of being resolutely unconscious of somebody's existence forewarned me that the great people were come and that the service was going to begin. "'enter not into judgment with thy servant, o lord, for in thy sight--'" shall i ever forget the rapid beating at my heart, occasioned by the look i met as i stood up! shall i ever forget the manner in which those handsome proud eyes seemed to spring out of their languor and to hold mine! it was only a moment before i cast mine down--released again, if i may say so--on my book; but i knew the beautiful face quite well in that short space of time. and, very strangely, there was something quickened within me, associated with the lonely days at my godmother's; yes, away even to the days when i had stood on tiptoe to dress myself at my little glass after dressing my doll. and this, although i had never seen this lady's face before in all my life--i was quite sure of it--absolutely certain. it was easy to know that the ceremonious, gouty, grey-haired gentleman, the only other occupant of the great pew, was sir leicester dedlock, and that the lady was lady dedlock. but why her face should be, in a confused way, like a broken glass to me, in which i saw scraps of old remembrances, and why i should be so fluttered and troubled (for i was still) by having casually met her eyes, i could not think. i felt it to be an unmeaning weakness in me and tried to overcome it by attending to the words i heard. then, very strangely, i seemed to hear them, not in the reader's voice, but in the well-remembered voice of my godmother. this made me think, did lady dedlock's face accidentally resemble my godmother's? it might be that it did, a little; but the expression was so different, and the stern decision which had worn into my godmother's face, like weather into rocks, was so completely wanting in the face before me that it could not be that resemblance which had struck me. neither did i know the loftiness and haughtiness of lady dedlock's face, at all, in any one. and yet i--i, little esther summerson, the child who lived a life apart and on whose birthday there was no rejoicing--seemed to arise before my own eyes, evoked out of the past by some power in this fashionable lady, whom i not only entertained no fancy that i had ever seen, but whom i perfectly well knew i had never seen until that hour. it made me tremble so to be thrown into this unaccountable agitation that i was conscious of being distressed even by the observation of the french maid, though i knew she had been looking watchfully here, and there, and everywhere, from the moment of her coming into the church. by degrees, though very slowly, i at last overcame my strange emotion. after a long time, i looked towards lady dedlock again. it was while they were preparing to sing, before the sermon. she took no heed of me, and the beating at my heart was gone. neither did it revive for more than a few moments when she once or twice afterwards glanced at ada or at me through her glass. the service being concluded, sir leicester gave his arm with much taste and gallantry to lady dedlock--though he was obliged to walk by the help of a thick stick--and escorted her out of church to the pony carriage in which they had come. the servants then dispersed, and so did the congregation, whom sir leicester had contemplated all along (mr. skimpole said to mr. boythorn's infinite delight) as if he were a considerable landed proprietor in heaven. "he believes he is!" said mr. boythorn. "he firmly believes it. so did his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather!" "do you know," pursued mr. skimpole very unexpectedly to mr. boythorn, "it's agreeable to me to see a man of that sort." "is it!" said mr. boythorn. "say that he wants to patronize me," pursued mr. skimpole. "very well! i don't object." "i do," said mr. boythorn with great vigour. "do you really?" returned mr. skimpole in his easy light vein. "but that's taking trouble, surely. and why should you take trouble? here am i, content to receive things childishly as they fall out, and i never take trouble! i come down here, for instance, and i find a mighty potentate exacting homage. very well! i say 'mighty potentate, here is my homage! it's easier to give it than to withhold it. here it is. if you have anything of an agreeable nature to show me, i shall be happy to see it; if you have anything of an agreeable nature to give me, i shall be happy to accept it.' mighty potentate replies in effect, 'this is a sensible fellow. i find him accord with my digestion and my bilious system. he doesn't impose upon me the necessity of rolling myself up like a hedgehog with my points outward. i expand, i open, i turn my silver lining outward like milton's cloud, and it's more agreeable to both of us.' that's my view of such things, speaking as a child!" "but suppose you went down somewhere else to-morrow," said mr. boythorn, "where there was the opposite of that fellow--or of this fellow. how then?" "how then?" said mr. skimpole with an appearance of the utmost simplicity and candour. "just the same then! i should say, 'my esteemed boythorn'--to make you the personification of our imaginary friend--'my esteemed boythorn, you object to the mighty potentate? very good. so do i. i take it that my business in the social system is to be agreeable; i take it that everybody's business in the social system is to be agreeable. it's a system of harmony, in short. therefore if you object, i object. now, excellent boythorn, let us go to dinner!'" "but excellent boythorn might say," returned our host, swelling and growing very red, "i'll be--" "i understand," said mr. skimpole. "very likely he would." "--if i will go to dinner!" cried mr. boythorn in a violent burst and stopping to strike his stick upon the ground. "and he would probably add, 'is there such a thing as principle, mr. harold skimpole?'" "to which harold skimpole would reply, you know," he returned in his gayest manner and with his most ingenuous smile, "'upon my life i have not the least idea! i don't know what it is you call by that name, or where it is, or who possesses it. if you possess it and find it comfortable, i am quite delighted and congratulate you heartily. but i know nothing about it, i assure you; for i am a mere child, and i lay no claim to it, and i don't want it!' so, you see, excellent boythorn and i would go to dinner after all!" this was one of many little dialogues between them which i always expected to end, and which i dare say would have ended under other circumstances, in some violent explosion on the part of our host. but he had so high a sense of his hospitable and responsible position as our entertainer, and my guardian laughed so sincerely at and with mr. skimpole, as a child who blew bubbles and broke them all day long, that matters never went beyond this point. mr. skimpole, who always seemed quite unconscious of having been on delicate ground, then betook himself to beginning some sketch in the park which he never finished, or to playing fragments of airs on the piano, or to singing scraps of songs, or to lying down on his back under a tree and looking at the sky--which he couldn't help thinking, he said, was what he was meant for; it suited him so exactly. "enterprise and effort," he would say to us (on his back), "are delightful to me. i believe i am truly cosmopolitan. i have the deepest sympathy with them. i lie in a shady place like this and think of adventurous spirits going to the north pole or penetrating to the heart of the torrid zone with admiration. mercenary creatures ask, 'what is the use of a man's going to the north pole? what good does it do?' i can't say; but, for anything i can say, he may go for the purpose--though he don't know it--of employing my thoughts as i lie here. take an extreme case. take the case of the slaves on american plantations. i dare say they are worked hard, i dare say they don't altogether like it. i dare say theirs is an unpleasant experience on the whole; but they people the landscape for me, they give it a poetry for me, and perhaps that is one of the pleasanter objects of their existence. i am very sensible of it, if it be, and i shouldn't wonder if it were!" i always wondered on these occasions whether he ever thought of mrs. skimpole and the children, and in what point of view they presented themselves to his cosmopolitan mind. so far as i could understand, they rarely presented themselves at all. the week had gone round to the saturday following that beating of my heart in the church; and every day had been so bright and blue that to ramble in the woods, and to see the light striking down among the transparent leaves and sparkling in the beautiful interlacings of the shadows of the trees, while the birds poured out their songs and the air was drowsy with the hum of insects, had been most delightful. we had one favourite spot, deep in moss and last year's leaves, where there were some felled trees from which the bark was all stripped off. seated among these, we looked through a green vista supported by thousands of natural columns, the whitened stems of trees, upon a distant prospect made so radiant by its contrast with the shade in which we sat and made so precious by the arched perspective through which we saw it that it was like a glimpse of the better land. upon the saturday we sat here, mr. jarndyce, ada, and i, until we heard thunder muttering in the distance and felt the large raindrops rattle through the leaves. the weather had been all the week extremely sultry, but the storm broke so suddenly--upon us, at least, in that sheltered spot--that before we reached the outskirts of the wood the thunder and lightning were frequent and the rain came plunging through the leaves as if every drop were a great leaden bead. as it was not a time for standing among trees, we ran out of the wood, and up and down the moss-grown steps which crossed the plantation-fence like two broad-staved ladders placed back to back, and made for a keeper's lodge which was close at hand. we had often noticed the dark beauty of this lodge standing in a deep twilight of trees, and how the ivy clustered over it, and how there was a steep hollow near, where we had once seen the keeper's dog dive down into the fern as if it were water. the lodge was so dark within, now the sky was overcast, that we only clearly saw the man who came to the door when we took shelter there and put two chairs for ada and me. the lattice-windows were all thrown open, and we sat just within the doorway watching the storm. it was grand to see how the wind awoke, and bent the trees, and drove the rain before it like a cloud of smoke; and to hear the solemn thunder and to see the lightning; and while thinking with awe of the tremendous powers by which our little lives are encompassed, to consider how beneficent they are and how upon the smallest flower and leaf there was already a freshness poured from all this seeming rage which seemed to make creation new again. "is it not dangerous to sit in so exposed a place?" "oh, no, esther dear!" said ada quietly. ada said it to me, but i had not spoken. the beating of my heart came back again. i had never heard the voice, as i had never seen the face, but it affected me in the same strange way. again, in a moment, there arose before my mind innumerable pictures of myself. lady dedlock had taken shelter in the lodge before our arrival there and had come out of the gloom within. she stood behind my chair with her hand upon it. i saw her with her hand close to my shoulder when i turned my head. "i have frightened you?" she said. no. it was not fright. why should i be frightened! "i believe," said lady dedlock to my guardian, "i have the pleasure of speaking to mr. jarndyce." "your remembrance does me more honour than i had supposed it would, lady dedlock," he returned. "i recognized you in church on sunday. i am sorry that any local disputes of sir leicester's--they are not of his seeking, however, i believe--should render it a matter of some absurd difficulty to show you any attention here." "i am aware of the circumstances," returned my guardian with a smile, "and am sufficiently obliged." she had given him her hand in an indifferent way that seemed habitual to her and spoke in a correspondingly indifferent manner, though in a very pleasant voice. she was as graceful as she was beautiful, perfectly self-possessed, and had the air, i thought, of being able to attract and interest any one if she had thought it worth her while. the keeper had brought her a chair on which she sat in the middle of the porch between us. "is the young gentleman disposed of whom you wrote to sir leicester about and whose wishes sir leicester was sorry not to have it in his power to advance in any way?" she said over her shoulder to my guardian. "i hope so," said he. she seemed to respect him and even to wish to conciliate him. there was something very winning in her haughty manner, and it became more familiar--i was going to say more easy, but that could hardly be--as she spoke to him over her shoulder. "i presume this is your other ward, miss clare?" he presented ada, in form. "you will lose the disinterested part of your don quixote character," said lady dedlock to mr. jarndyce over her shoulder again, "if you only redress the wrongs of beauty like this. but present me," and she turned full upon me, "to this young lady too!" "miss summerson really is my ward," said mr. jarndyce. "i am responsible to no lord chancellor in her case." "has miss summerson lost both her parents?" said my lady. "yes." "she is very fortunate in her guardian." lady dedlock looked at me, and i looked at her and said i was indeed. all at once she turned from me with a hasty air, almost expressive of displeasure or dislike, and spoke to him over her shoulder again. "ages have passed since we were in the habit of meeting, mr. jarndyce." "a long time. at least i thought it was a long time, until i saw you last sunday," he returned. "what! even you are a courtier, or think it necessary to become one to me!" she said with some disdain. "i have achieved that reputation, i suppose." "you have achieved so much, lady dedlock," said my guardian, "that you pay some little penalty, i dare say. but none to me." "so much!" she repeated, slightly laughing. "yes!" with her air of superiority, and power, and fascination, and i know not what, she seemed to regard ada and me as little more than children. so, as she slightly laughed and afterwards sat looking at the rain, she was as self-possessed and as free to occupy herself with her own thoughts as if she had been alone. "i think you knew my sister when we were abroad together better than you know me?" she said, looking at him again. "yes, we happened to meet oftener," he returned. "we went our several ways," said lady dedlock, "and had little in common even before we agreed to differ. it is to be regretted, i suppose, but it could not be helped." lady dedlock again sat looking at the rain. the storm soon began to pass upon its way. the shower greatly abated, the lightning ceased, the thunder rolled among the distant hills, and the sun began to glisten on the wet leaves and the falling rain. as we sat there, silently, we saw a little pony phaeton coming towards us at a merry pace. "the messenger is coming back, my lady," said the keeper, "with the carriage." as it drove up, we saw that there were two people inside. there alighted from it, with some cloaks and wrappers, first the frenchwoman whom i had seen in church, and secondly the pretty girl, the frenchwoman with a defiant confidence, the pretty girl confused and hesitating. "what now?" said lady dedlock. "two!" "i am your maid, my lady, at the present," said the frenchwoman. "the message was for the attendant." "i was afraid you might mean me, my lady," said the pretty girl. "i did mean you, child," replied her mistress calmly. "put that shawl on me." she slightly stooped her shoulders to receive it, and the pretty girl lightly dropped it in its place. the frenchwoman stood unnoticed, looking on with her lips very tightly set. "i am sorry," said lady dedlock to mr. jarndyce, "that we are not likely to renew our former acquaintance. you will allow me to send the carriage back for your two wards. it shall be here directly." but as he would on no account accept this offer, she took a graceful leave of ada--none of me--and put her hand upon his proffered arm, and got into the carriage, which was a little, low, park carriage with a hood. "come in, child," she said to the pretty girl; "i shall want you. go on!" the carriage rolled away, and the frenchwoman, with the wrappers she had brought hanging over her arm, remained standing where she had alighted. i suppose there is nothing pride can so little bear with as pride itself, and that she was punished for her imperious manner. her retaliation was the most singular i could have imagined. she remained perfectly still until the carriage had turned into the drive, and then, without the least discomposure of countenance, slipped off her shoes, left them on the ground, and walked deliberately in the same direction through the wettest of the wet grass. "is that young woman mad?" said my guardian. "oh, no, sir!" said the keeper, who, with his wife, was looking after her. "hortense is not one of that sort. she has as good a head-piece as the best. but she's mortal high and passionate--powerful high and passionate; and what with having notice to leave, and having others put above her, she don't take kindly to it." "but why should she walk shoeless through all that water?" said my guardian. "why, indeed, sir, unless it is to cool her down!" said the man. "or unless she fancies it's blood," said the woman. "she'd as soon walk through that as anything else, i think, when her own's up!" we passed not far from the house a few minutes afterwards. peaceful as it had looked when we first saw it, it looked even more so now, with a diamond spray glittering all about it, a light wind blowing, the birds no longer hushed but singing strongly, everything refreshed by the late rain, and the little carriage shining at the doorway like a fairy carriage made of silver. still, very steadfastly and quietly walking towards it, a peaceful figure too in the landscape, went mademoiselle hortense, shoeless, through the wet grass. chapter xix moving on it is the long vacation in the regions of chancery lane. the good ships law and equity, those teak-built, copper-bottomed, iron-fastened, brazen-faced, and not by any means fast-sailing clippers are laid up in ordinary. the flying dutchman, with a crew of ghostly clients imploring all whom they may encounter to peruse their papers, has drifted, for the time being, heaven knows where. the courts are all shut up; the public offices lie in a hot sleep. westminster hall itself is a shady solitude where nightingales might sing, and a tenderer class of suitors than is usually found there, walk. the temple, chancery lane, serjeants' inn, and lincoln's inn even unto the fields are like tidal harbours at low water, where stranded proceedings, offices at anchor, idle clerks lounging on lop-sided stools that will not recover their perpendicular until the current of term sets in, lie high and dry upon the ooze of the long vacation. outer doors of chambers are shut up by the score, messages and parcels are to be left at the porter's lodge by the bushel. a crop of grass would grow in the chinks of the stone pavement outside lincoln's inn hall, but that the ticket-porters, who have nothing to do beyond sitting in the shade there, with their white aprons over their heads to keep the flies off, grub it up and eat it thoughtfully. there is only one judge in town. even he only comes twice a week to sit in chambers. if the country folks of those assize towns on his circuit could see him now! no full-bottomed wig, no red petticoats, no fur, no javelin-men, no white wands. merely a close-shaved gentleman in white trousers and a white hat, with sea-bronze on the judicial countenance, and a strip of bark peeled by the solar rays from the judicial nose, who calls in at the shell-fish shop as he comes along and drinks iced ginger-beer! the bar of england is scattered over the face of the earth. how england can get on through four long summer months without its bar--which is its acknowledged refuge in adversity and its only legitimate triumph in prosperity--is beside the question; assuredly that shield and buckler of britannia are not in present wear. the learned gentleman who is always so tremendously indignant at the unprecedented outrage committed on the feelings of his client by the opposite party that he never seems likely to recover it is doing infinitely better than might be expected in switzerland. the learned gentleman who does the withering business and who blights all opponents with his gloomy sarcasm is as merry as a grig at a french watering-place. the learned gentleman who weeps by the pint on the smallest provocation has not shed a tear these six weeks. the very learned gentleman who has cooled the natural heat of his gingery complexion in pools and fountains of law until he has become great in knotty arguments for term-time, when he poses the drowsy bench with legal "chaff," inexplicable to the uninitiated and to most of the initiated too, is roaming, with a characteristic delight in aridity and dust, about constantinople. other dispersed fragments of the same great palladium are to be found on the canals of venice, at the second cataract of the nile, in the baths of germany, and sprinkled on the sea-sand all over the english coast. scarcely one is to be encountered in the deserted region of chancery lane. if such a lonely member of the bar do flit across the waste and come upon a prowling suitor who is unable to leave off haunting the scenes of his anxiety, they frighten one another and retreat into opposite shades. it is the hottest long vacation known for many years. all the young clerks are madly in love, and according to their various degrees, pine for bliss with the beloved object, at margate, ramsgate, or gravesend. all the middle-aged clerks think their families too large. all the unowned dogs who stray into the inns of court and pant about staircases and other dry places seeking water give short howls of aggravation. all the blind men's dogs in the streets draw their masters against pumps or trip them over buckets. a shop with a sun-blind, and a watered pavement, and a bowl of gold and silver fish in the window, is a sanctuary. temple bar gets so hot that it is, to the adjacent strand and fleet street, what a heater is in an urn, and keeps them simmering all night. there are offices about the inns of court in which a man might be cool, if any coolness were worth purchasing at such a price in dullness; but the little thoroughfares immediately outside those retirements seem to blaze. in mr. krook's court, it is so hot that the people turn their houses inside out and sit in chairs upon the pavement--mr. krook included, who there pursues his studies, with his cat (who never is too hot) by his side. the sol's arms has discontinued the harmonic meetings for the season, and little swills is engaged at the pastoral gardens down the river, where he comes out in quite an innocent manner and sings comic ditties of a juvenile complexion calculated (as the bill says) not to wound the feelings of the most fastidious mind. over all the legal neighbourhood there hangs, like some great veil of rust or gigantic cobweb, the idleness and pensiveness of the long vacation. mr. snagsby, law-stationer of cook's court, cursitor street, is sensible of the influence not only in his mind as a sympathetic and contemplative man, but also in his business as a law-stationer aforesaid. he has more leisure for musing in staple inn and in the rolls yard during the long vacation than at other seasons, and he says to the two 'prentices, what a thing it is in such hot weather to think that you live in an island with the sea a-rolling and a-bowling right round you. guster is busy in the little drawing-room on this present afternoon in the long vacation, when mr. and mrs. snagsby have it in contemplation to receive company. the expected guests are rather select than numerous, being mr. and mrs. chadband and no more. from mr. chadband's being much given to describe himself, both verbally and in writing, as a vessel, he is occasionally mistaken by strangers for a gentleman connected with navigation, but he is, as he expresses it, "in the ministry." mr. chadband is attached to no particular denomination and is considered by his persecutors to have nothing so very remarkable to say on the greatest of subjects as to render his volunteering, on his own account, at all incumbent on his conscience; but he has his followers, and mrs. snagsby is of the number. mrs. snagsby has but recently taken a passage upward by the vessel, chadband; and her attention was attracted to that bark a , when she was something flushed by the hot weather. "my little woman," says mr. snagsby to the sparrows in staple inn, "likes to have her religion rather sharp, you see!" so guster, much impressed by regarding herself for the time as the handmaid of chadband, whom she knows to be endowed with the gift of holding forth for four hours at a stretch, prepares the little drawing-room for tea. all the furniture is shaken and dusted, the portraits of mr. and mrs. snagsby are touched up with a wet cloth, the best tea-service is set forth, and there is excellent provision made of dainty new bread, crusty twists, cool fresh butter, thin slices of ham, tongue, and german sausage, and delicate little rows of anchovies nestling in parsley, not to mention new-laid eggs, to be brought up warm in a napkin, and hot buttered toast. for chadband is rather a consuming vessel--the persecutors say a gorging vessel--and can wield such weapons of the flesh as a knife and fork remarkably well. mr. snagsby in his best coat, looking at all the preparations when they are completed and coughing his cough of deference behind his hand, says to mrs. snagsby, "at what time did you expect mr. and mrs. chadband, my love?" "at six," says mrs. snagsby. mr. snagsby observes in a mild and casual way that "it's gone that." "perhaps you'd like to begin without them," is mrs. snagsby's reproachful remark. mr. snagsby does look as if he would like it very much, but he says, with his cough of mildness, "no, my dear, no. i merely named the time." "what's time," says mrs. snagsby, "to eternity?" "very true, my dear," says mr. snagsby. "only when a person lays in victuals for tea, a person does it with a view--perhaps--more to time. and when a time is named for having tea, it's better to come up to it." "to come up to it!" mrs. snagsby repeats with severity. "up to it! as if mr. chadband was a fighter!" "not at all, my dear," says mr. snagsby. here, guster, who had been looking out of the bedroom window, comes rustling and scratching down the little staircase like a popular ghost, and falling flushed into the drawing-room, announces that mr. and mrs. chadband have appeared in the court. the bell at the inner door in the passage immediately thereafter tinkling, she is admonished by mrs. snagsby, on pain of instant reconsignment to her patron saint, not to omit the ceremony of announcement. much discomposed in her nerves (which were previously in the best order) by this threat, she so fearfully mutilates that point of state as to announce "mr. and mrs. cheeseming, least which, imeantersay, whatsername!" and retires conscience-stricken from the presence. mr. chadband is a large yellow man with a fat smile and a general appearance of having a good deal of train oil in his system. mrs. chadband is a stern, severe-looking, silent woman. mr. chadband moves softly and cumbrously, not unlike a bear who has been taught to walk upright. he is very much embarrassed about the arms, as if they were inconvenient to him and he wanted to grovel, is very much in a perspiration about the head, and never speaks without first putting up his great hand, as delivering a token to his hearers that he is going to edify them. "my friends," says mr. chadband, "peace be on this house! on the master thereof, on the mistress thereof, on the young maidens, and on the young men! my friends, why do i wish for peace? what is peace? is it war? no. is it strife? no. is it lovely, and gentle, and beautiful, and pleasant, and serene, and joyful? oh, yes! therefore, my friends, i wish for peace, upon you and upon yours." in consequence of mrs. snagsby looking deeply edified, mr. snagsby thinks it expedient on the whole to say amen, which is well received. "now, my friends," proceeds mr. chadband, "since i am upon this theme--" guster presents herself. mrs. snagsby, in a spectral bass voice and without removing her eyes from chadband, says with dreadful distinctness, "go away!" "now, my friends," says chadband, "since i am upon this theme, and in my lowly path improving it--" guster is heard unaccountably to murmur "one thousing seven hundred and eighty-two." the spectral voice repeats more solemnly, "go away!" "now, my friends," says mr. chadband, "we will inquire in a spirit of love--" still guster reiterates "one thousing seven hundred and eighty-two." mr. chadband, pausing with the resignation of a man accustomed to be persecuted and languidly folding up his chin into his fat smile, says, "let us hear the maiden! speak, maiden!" "one thousing seven hundred and eighty-two, if you please, sir. which he wish to know what the shilling ware for," says guster, breathless. "for?" returns mrs. chadband. "for his fare!" guster replied that "he insistes on one and eightpence or on summonsizzing the party." mrs. snagsby and mrs. chadband are proceeding to grow shrill in indignation when mr. chadband quiets the tumult by lifting up his hand. "my friends," says he, "i remember a duty unfulfilled yesterday. it is right that i should be chastened in some penalty. i ought not to murmur. rachael, pay the eightpence!" while mrs. snagsby, drawing her breath, looks hard at mr. snagsby, as who should say, "you hear this apostle!" and while mr. chadband glows with humility and train oil, mrs. chadband pays the money. it is mr. chadband's habit--it is the head and front of his pretensions indeed--to keep this sort of debtor and creditor account in the smallest items and to post it publicly on the most trivial occasions. "my friends," says chadband, "eightpence is not much; it might justly have been one and fourpence; it might justly have been half a crown. o let us be joyful, joyful! o let us be joyful!" with which remark, which appears from its sound to be an extract in verse, mr. chadband stalks to the table, and before taking a chair, lifts up his admonitory hand. "my friends," says he, "what is this which we now behold as being spread before us? refreshment. do we need refreshment then, my friends? we do. and why do we need refreshment, my friends? because we are but mortal, because we are but sinful, because we are but of the earth, because we are not of the air. can we fly, my friends? we cannot. why can we not fly, my friends?" mr. snagsby, presuming on the success of his last point, ventures to observe in a cheerful and rather knowing tone, "no wings." but is immediately frowned down by mrs. snagsby. "i say, my friends," pursues mr. chadband, utterly rejecting and obliterating mr. snagsby's suggestion, "why can we not fly? is it because we are calculated to walk? it is. could we walk, my friends, without strength? we could not. what should we do without strength, my friends? our legs would refuse to bear us, our knees would double up, our ankles would turn over, and we should come to the ground. then from whence, my friends, in a human point of view, do we derive the strength that is necessary to our limbs? is it," says chadband, glancing over the table, "from bread in various forms, from butter which is churned from the milk which is yielded unto us by the cow, from the eggs which are laid by the fowl, from ham, from tongue, from sausage, and from such like? it is. then let us partake of the good things which are set before us!" the persecutors denied that there was any particular gift in mr. chadband's piling verbose flights of stairs, one upon another, after this fashion. but this can only be received as a proof of their determination to persecute, since it must be within everybody's experience that the chadband style of oratory is widely received and much admired. mr. chadband, however, having concluded for the present, sits down at mr. snagsby's table and lays about him prodigiously. the conversion of nutriment of any sort into oil of the quality already mentioned appears to be a process so inseparable from the constitution of this exemplary vessel that in beginning to eat and drink, he may be described as always becoming a kind of considerable oil mills or other large factory for the production of that article on a wholesale scale. on the present evening of the long vacation, in cook's court, cursitor street, he does such a powerful stroke of business that the warehouse appears to be quite full when the works cease. at this period of the entertainment, guster, who has never recovered her first failure, but has neglected no possible or impossible means of bringing the establishment and herself into contempt--among which may be briefly enumerated her unexpectedly performing clashing military music on mr. chadband's head with plates, and afterwards crowning that gentleman with muffins--at which period of the entertainment, guster whispers mr. snagsby that he is wanted. "and being wanted in the--not to put too fine a point upon it--in the shop," says mr. snagsby, rising, "perhaps this good company will excuse me for half a minute." mr. snagsby descends and finds the two 'prentices intently contemplating a police constable, who holds a ragged boy by the arm. "why, bless my heart," says mr. snagsby, "what's the matter!" "this boy," says the constable, "although he's repeatedly told to, won't move on--" "i'm always a-moving on, sar," cries the boy, wiping away his grimy tears with his arm. "i've always been a-moving and a-moving on, ever since i was born. where can i possibly move to, sir, more nor i do move!" "he won't move on," says the constable calmly, with a slight professional hitch of his neck involving its better settlement in his stiff stock, "although he has been repeatedly cautioned, and therefore i am obliged to take him into custody. he's as obstinate a young gonoph as i know. he won't move on." "oh, my eye! where can i move to!" cries the boy, clutching quite desperately at his hair and beating his bare feet upon the floor of mr. snagsby's passage. "don't you come none of that or i shall make blessed short work of you!" says the constable, giving him a passionless shake. "my instructions are that you are to move on. i have told you so five hundred times." "but where?" cries the boy. "well! really, constable, you know," says mr. snagsby wistfully, and coughing behind his hand his cough of great perplexity and doubt, "really, that does seem a question. where, you know?" "my instructions don't go to that," replies the constable. "my instructions are that this boy is to move on." do you hear, jo? it is nothing to you or to any one else that the great lights of the parliamentary sky have failed for some few years in this business to set you the example of moving on. the one grand recipe remains for you--the profound philosophical prescription--the be-all and the end-all of your strange existence upon earth. move on! you are by no means to move off, jo, for the great lights can't at all agree about that. move on! mr. snagsby says nothing to this effect, says nothing at all indeed, but coughs his forlornest cough, expressive of no thoroughfare in any direction. by this time mr. and mrs. chadband and mrs. snagsby, hearing the altercation, have appeared upon the stairs. guster having never left the end of the passage, the whole household are assembled. "the simple question is, sir," says the constable, "whether you know this boy. he says you do." mrs. snagsby, from her elevation, instantly cries out, "no he don't!" "my lit-tle woman!" says mr. snagsby, looking up the staircase. "my love, permit me! pray have a moment's patience, my dear. i do know something of this lad, and in what i know of him, i can't say that there's any harm; perhaps on the contrary, constable." to whom the law-stationer relates his joful and woeful experience, suppressing the half-crown fact. "well!" says the constable, "so far, it seems, he had grounds for what he said. when i took him into custody up in holborn, he said you knew him. upon that, a young man who was in the crowd said he was acquainted with you, and you were a respectable housekeeper, and if i'd call and make the inquiry, he'd appear. the young man don't seem inclined to keep his word, but--oh! here is the young man!" enter mr. guppy, who nods to mr. snagsby and touches his hat with the chivalry of clerkship to the ladies on the stairs. "i was strolling away from the office just now when i found this row going on," says mr. guppy to the law-stationer, "and as your name was mentioned, i thought it was right the thing should be looked into." "it was very good-natured of you, sir," says mr. snagsby, "and i am obliged to you." and mr. snagsby again relates his experience, again suppressing the half-crown fact. "now, i know where you live," says the constable, then, to jo. "you live down in tom-all-alone's. that's a nice innocent place to live in, ain't it?" "i can't go and live in no nicer place, sir," replies jo. "they wouldn't have nothink to say to me if i wos to go to a nice innocent place fur to live. who ud go and let a nice innocent lodging to such a reg'lar one as me!" "you are very poor, ain't you?" says the constable. "yes, i am indeed, sir, wery poor in gin'ral," replies jo. "i leave you to judge now! i shook these two half-crowns out of him," says the constable, producing them to the company, "in only putting my hand upon him!" "they're wot's left, mr. snagsby," says jo, "out of a sov-ring as wos give me by a lady in a wale as sed she wos a servant and as come to my crossin one night and asked to be showd this 'ere ouse and the ouse wot him as you giv the writin to died at, and the berrin-ground wot he's berrid in. she ses to me she ses 'are you the boy at the inkwhich?' she ses. i ses 'yes' i ses. she ses to me she ses 'can you show me all them places?' i ses 'yes i can' i ses. and she ses to me 'do it' and i dun it and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it. and i an't had much of the sov'ring neither," says jo, with dirty tears, "fur i had to pay five bob, down in tom-all-alone's, afore they'd square it fur to give me change, and then a young man he thieved another five while i was asleep and another boy he thieved ninepence and the landlord he stood drains round with a lot more on it." "you don't expect anybody to believe this, about the lady and the sovereign, do you?" says the constable, eyeing him aside with ineffable disdain. "i don't know as i do, sir," replies jo. "i don't expect nothink at all, sir, much, but that's the true hist'ry on it." "you see what he is!" the constable observes to the audience. "well, mr. snagsby, if i don't lock him up this time, will you engage for his moving on?" "no!" cries mrs. snagsby from the stairs. "my little woman!" pleads her husband. "constable, i have no doubt he'll move on. you know you really must do it," says mr. snagsby. "i'm everyways agreeable, sir," says the hapless jo. "do it, then," observes the constable. "you know what you have got to do. do it! and recollect you won't get off so easy next time. catch hold of your money. now, the sooner you're five mile off, the better for all parties." with this farewell hint and pointing generally to the setting sun as a likely place to move on to, the constable bids his auditors good afternoon and makes the echoes of cook's court perform slow music for him as he walks away on the shady side, carrying his iron-bound hat in his hand for a little ventilation. now, jo's improbable story concerning the lady and the sovereign has awakened more or less the curiosity of all the company. mr. guppy, who has an inquiring mind in matters of evidence and who has been suffering severely from the lassitude of the long vacation, takes that interest in the case that he enters on a regular cross-examination of the witness, which is found so interesting by the ladies that mrs. snagsby politely invites him to step upstairs and drink a cup of tea, if he will excuse the disarranged state of the tea-table, consequent on their previous exertions. mr. guppy yielding his assent to this proposal, jo is requested to follow into the drawing-room doorway, where mr. guppy takes him in hand as a witness, patting him into this shape, that shape, and the other shape like a butterman dealing with so much butter, and worrying him according to the best models. nor is the examination unlike many such model displays, both in respect of its eliciting nothing and of its being lengthy, for mr. guppy is sensible of his talent, and mrs. snagsby feels not only that it gratifies her inquisitive disposition, but that it lifts her husband's establishment higher up in the law. during the progress of this keen encounter, the vessel chadband, being merely engaged in the oil trade, gets aground and waits to be floated off. "well!" says mr. guppy. "either this boy sticks to it like cobbler's-wax or there is something out of the common here that beats anything that ever came into my way at kenge and carboy's." mrs. chadband whispers mrs. snagsby, who exclaims, "you don't say so!" "for years!" replied mrs. chadband. "has known kenge and carboy's office for years," mrs. snagsby triumphantly explains to mr. guppy. "mrs. chadband--this gentleman's wife--reverend mr. chadband." "oh, indeed!" says mr. guppy. "before i married my present husband," says mrs. chadband. "was you a party in anything, ma'am?" says mr. guppy, transferring his cross-examination. "no." "not a party in anything, ma'am?" says mr. guppy. mrs. chadband shakes her head. "perhaps you were acquainted with somebody who was a party in something, ma'am?" says mr. guppy, who likes nothing better than to model his conversation on forensic principles. "not exactly that, either," replies mrs. chadband, humouring the joke with a hard-favoured smile. "not exactly that, either!" repeats mr. guppy. "very good. pray, ma'am, was it a lady of your acquaintance who had some transactions (we will not at present say what transactions) with kenge and carboy's office, or was it a gentleman of your acquaintance? take time, ma'am. we shall come to it presently. man or woman, ma'am?" "neither," says mrs. chadband as before. "oh! a child!" says mr. guppy, throwing on the admiring mrs. snagsby the regular acute professional eye which is thrown on british jurymen. "now, ma'am, perhaps you'll have the kindness to tell us what child." "you have got it at last, sir," says mrs. chadband with another hard-favoured smile. "well, sir, it was before your time, most likely, judging from your appearance. i was left in charge of a child named esther summerson, who was put out in life by messrs. kenge and carboy." "miss summerson, ma'am!" cries mr. guppy, excited. "i call her esther summerson," says mrs. chadband with austerity. "there was no miss-ing of the girl in my time. it was esther. 'esther, do this! esther, do that!' and she was made to do it." "my dear ma'am," returns mr. guppy, moving across the small apartment, "the humble individual who now addresses you received that young lady in london when she first came here from the establishment to which you have alluded. allow me to have the pleasure of taking you by the hand." mr. chadband, at last seeing his opportunity, makes his accustomed signal and rises with a smoking head, which he dabs with his pocket-handkerchief. mrs. snagsby whispers "hush!" "my friends," says chadband, "we have partaken in moderation" (which was certainly not the case so far as he was concerned) "of the comforts which have been provided for us. may this house live upon the fatness of the land; may corn and wine be plentiful therein; may it grow, may it thrive, may it prosper, may it advance, may it proceed, may it press forward! but, my friends, have we partaken of anything else? we have. my friends, of what else have we partaken? of spiritual profit? yes. from whence have we derived that spiritual profit? my young friend, stand forth!" jo, thus apostrophized, gives a slouch backward, and another slouch forward, and another slouch to each side, and confronts the eloquent chadband with evident doubts of his intentions. "my young friend," says chadband, "you are to us a pearl, you are to us a diamond, you are to us a gem, you are to us a jewel. and why, my young friend?" "i don't know," replies jo. "i don't know nothink." "my young friend," says chadband, "it is because you know nothing that you are to us a gem and jewel. for what are you, my young friend? are you a beast of the field? no. a bird of the air? no. a fish of the sea or river? no. you are a human boy, my young friend. a human boy. o glorious to be a human boy! and why glorious, my young friend? because you are capable of receiving the lessons of wisdom, because you are capable of profiting by this discourse which i now deliver for your good, because you are not a stick, or a staff, or a stock, or a stone, or a post, or a pillar. o running stream of sparkling joy to be a soaring human boy! and do you cool yourself in that stream now, my young friend? no. why do you not cool yourself in that stream now? because you are in a state of darkness, because you are in a state of obscurity, because you are in a state of sinfulness, because you are in a state of bondage. my young friend, what is bondage? let us, in a spirit of love, inquire." at this threatening stage of the discourse, jo, who seems to have been gradually going out of his mind, smears his right arm over his face and gives a terrible yawn. mrs. snagsby indignantly expresses her belief that he is a limb of the arch-fiend. "my friends," says mr. chadband with his persecuted chin folding itself into its fat smile again as he looks round, "it is right that i should be humbled, it is right that i should be tried, it is right that i should be mortified, it is right that i should be corrected. i stumbled, on sabbath last, when i thought with pride of my three hours' improving. the account is now favourably balanced: my creditor has accepted a composition. o let us be joyful, joyful! o let us be joyful!" great sensation on the part of mrs. snagsby. "my friends," says chadband, looking round him in conclusion, "i will not proceed with my young friend now. will you come to-morrow, my young friend, and inquire of this good lady where i am to be found to deliver a discourse unto you, and will you come like the thirsty swallow upon the next day, and upon the day after that, and upon the day after that, and upon many pleasant days, to hear discourses?" (this with a cow-like lightness.) jo, whose immediate object seems to be to get away on any terms, gives a shuffling nod. mr. guppy then throws him a penny, and mrs. snagsby calls to guster to see him safely out of the house. but before he goes downstairs, mr. snagsby loads him with some broken meats from the table, which he carries away, hugging in his arms. so, mr. chadband--of whom the persecutors say that it is no wonder he should go on for any length of time uttering such abominable nonsense, but that the wonder rather is that he should ever leave off, having once the audacity to begin--retires into private life until he invests a little capital of supper in the oil-trade. jo moves on, through the long vacation, down to blackfriars bridge, where he finds a baking stony corner wherein to settle to his repast. and there he sits, munching and gnawing, and looking up at the great cross on the summit of st. paul's cathedral, glittering above a red-and-violet-tinted cloud of smoke. from the boy's face one might suppose that sacred emblem to be, in his eyes, the crowning confusion of the great, confused city--so golden, so high up, so far out of his reach. there he sits, the sun going down, the river running fast, the crowd flowing by him in two streams--everything moving on to some purpose and to one end--until he is stirred up and told to "move on" too. chapter xx a new lodger the long vacation saunters on towards term-time like an idle river very leisurely strolling down a flat country to the sea. mr. guppy saunters along with it congenially. he has blunted the blade of his penknife and broken the point off by sticking that instrument into his desk in every direction. not that he bears the desk any ill will, but he must do something, and it must be something of an unexciting nature, which will lay neither his physical nor his intellectual energies under too heavy contribution. he finds that nothing agrees with him so well as to make little gyrations on one leg of his stool, and stab his desk, and gape. kenge and carboy are out of town, and the articled clerk has taken out a shooting license and gone down to his father's, and mr. guppy's two fellow-stipendiaries are away on leave. mr. guppy and mr. richard carstone divide the dignity of the office. but mr. carstone is for the time being established in kenge's room, whereat mr. guppy chafes. so exceedingly that he with biting sarcasm informs his mother, in the confidential moments when he sups with her off a lobster and lettuce in the old street road, that he is afraid the office is hardly good enough for swells, and that if he had known there was a swell coming, he would have got it painted. mr. guppy suspects everybody who enters on the occupation of a stool in kenge and carboy's office of entertaining, as a matter of course, sinister designs upon him. he is clear that every such person wants to depose him. if he be ever asked how, why, when, or wherefore, he shuts up one eye and shakes his head. on the strength of these profound views, he in the most ingenious manner takes infinite pains to counterplot when there is no plot, and plays the deepest games of chess without any adversary. it is a source of much gratification to mr. guppy, therefore, to find the new-comer constantly poring over the papers in jarndyce and jarndyce, for he well knows that nothing but confusion and failure can come of that. his satisfaction communicates itself to a third saunterer through the long vacation in kenge and carboy's office, to wit, young smallweed. whether young smallweed (metaphorically called small and eke chick weed, as it were jocularly to express a fledgling) was ever a boy is much doubted in lincoln's inn. he is now something under fifteen and an old limb of the law. he is facetiously understood to entertain a passion for a lady at a cigar-shop in the neighbourhood of chancery lane and for her sake to have broken off a contract with another lady, to whom he had been engaged some years. he is a town-made article, of small stature and weazen features, but may be perceived from a considerable distance by means of his very tall hat. to become a guppy is the object of his ambition. he dresses at that gentleman (by whom he is patronized), talks at him, walks at him, founds himself entirely on him. he is honoured with mr. guppy's particular confidence and occasionally advises him, from the deep wells of his experience, on difficult points in private life. mr. guppy has been lolling out of window all the morning after trying all the stools in succession and finding none of them easy, and after several times putting his head into the iron safe with a notion of cooling it. mr. smallweed has been twice dispatched for effervescent drinks, and has twice mixed them in the two official tumblers and stirred them up with the ruler. mr. guppy propounds for mr. smallweed's consideration the paradox that the more you drink the thirstier you are and reclines his head upon the window-sill in a state of hopeless languor. while thus looking out into the shade of old square, lincoln's inn, surveying the intolerable bricks and mortar, mr. guppy becomes conscious of a manly whisker emerging from the cloistered walk below and turning itself up in the direction of his face. at the same time, a low whistle is wafted through the inn and a suppressed voice cries, "hip! gup-py!" "why, you don't mean it!" says mr. guppy, aroused. "small! here's jobling!" small's head looks out of window too and nods to jobling. "where have you sprung up from?" inquires mr. guppy. "from the market-gardens down by deptford. i can't stand it any longer. i must enlist. i say! i wish you'd lend me half a crown. upon my soul, i'm hungry." jobling looks hungry and also has the appearance of having run to seed in the market-gardens down by deptford. "i say! just throw out half a crown if you have got one to spare. i want to get some dinner." "will you come and dine with me?" says mr. guppy, throwing out the coin, which mr. jobling catches neatly. "how long should i have to hold out?" says jobling. "not half an hour. i am only waiting here till the enemy goes, returns mr. guppy, butting inward with his head. "what enemy?" "a new one. going to be articled. will you wait?" "can you give a fellow anything to read in the meantime?" says mr. jobling. smallweed suggests the law list. but mr. jobling declares with much earnestness that he "can't stand it." "you shall have the paper," says mr. guppy. "he shall bring it down. but you had better not be seen about here. sit on our staircase and read. it's a quiet place." jobling nods intelligence and acquiescence. the sagacious smallweed supplies him with the newspaper and occasionally drops his eye upon him from the landing as a precaution against his becoming disgusted with waiting and making an untimely departure. at last the enemy retreats, and then smallweed fetches mr. jobling up. "well, and how are you?" says mr. guppy, shaking hands with him. "so, so. how are you?" mr. guppy replying that he is not much to boast of, mr. jobling ventures on the question, "how is she?" this mr. guppy resents as a liberty, retorting, "jobling, there are chords in the human mind--" jobling begs pardon. "any subject but that!" says mr. guppy with a gloomy enjoyment of his injury. "for there are chords, jobling--" mr. jobling begs pardon again. during this short colloquy, the active smallweed, who is of the dinner party, has written in legal characters on a slip of paper, "return immediately." this notification to all whom it may concern, he inserts in the letter-box, and then putting on the tall hat at the angle of inclination at which mr. guppy wears his, informs his patron that they may now make themselves scarce. accordingly they betake themselves to a neighbouring dining-house, of the class known among its frequenters by the denomination slap-bang, where the waitress, a bouncing young female of forty, is supposed to have made some impression on the susceptible smallweed, of whom it may be remarked that he is a weird changeling to whom years are nothing. he stands precociously possessed of centuries of owlish wisdom. if he ever lay in a cradle, it seems as if he must have lain there in a tail-coat. he has an old, old eye, has smallweed; and he drinks and smokes in a monkeyish way; and his neck is stiff in his collar; and he is never to be taken in; and he knows all about it, whatever it is. in short, in his bringing up he has been so nursed by law and equity that he has become a kind of fossil imp, to account for whose terrestrial existence it is reported at the public offices that his father was john doe and his mother the only female member of the roe family, also that his first long-clothes were made from a blue bag. into the dining-house, unaffected by the seductive show in the window of artificially whitened cauliflowers and poultry, verdant baskets of peas, coolly blooming cucumbers, and joints ready for the spit, mr. smallweed leads the way. they know him there and defer to him. he has his favourite box, he bespeaks all the papers, he is down upon bald patriarchs, who keep them more than ten minutes afterwards. it is of no use trying him with anything less than a full-sized "bread" or proposing to him any joint in cut unless it is in the very best cut. in the matter of gravy he is adamant. conscious of his elfin power and submitting to his dread experience, mr. guppy consults him in the choice of that day's banquet, turning an appealing look towards him as the waitress repeats the catalogue of viands and saying "what do you take, chick?" chick, out of the profundity of his artfulness, preferring "veal and ham and french beans--and don't you forget the stuffing, polly" (with an unearthly cock of his venerable eye), mr. guppy and mr. jobling give the like order. three pint pots of half-and-half are superadded. quickly the waitress returns bearing what is apparently a model of the tower of babel but what is really a pile of plates and flat tin dish-covers. mr. smallweed, approving of what is set before him, conveys intelligent benignity into his ancient eye and winks upon her. then, amid a constant coming in, and going out, and running about, and a clatter of crockery, and a rumbling up and down of the machine which brings the nice cuts from the kitchen, and a shrill crying for more nice cuts down the speaking-pipe, and a shrill reckoning of the cost of nice cuts that have been disposed of, and a general flush and steam of hot joints, cut and uncut, and a considerably heated atmosphere in which the soiled knives and tablecloths seem to break out spontaneously into eruptions of grease and blotches of beer, the legal triumvirate appease their appetites. mr. jobling is buttoned up closer than mere adornment might require. his hat presents at the rims a peculiar appearance of a glistening nature, as if it had been a favourite snail-promenade. the same phenomenon is visible on some parts of his coat, and particularly at the seams. he has the faded appearance of a gentleman in embarrassed circumstances; even his light whiskers droop with something of a shabby air. his appetite is so vigorous that it suggests spare living for some little time back. he makes such a speedy end of his plate of veal and ham, bringing it to a close while his companions are yet midway in theirs, that mr. guppy proposes another. "thank you, guppy," says mr. jobling, "i really don't know but what i will take another." another being brought, he falls to with great goodwill. mr. guppy takes silent notice of him at intervals until he is half way through this second plate and stops to take an enjoying pull at his pint pot of half-and-half (also renewed) and stretches out his legs and rubs his hands. beholding him in which glow of contentment, mr. guppy says, "you are a man again, tony!" "well, not quite yet," says mr. jobling. "say, just born." "will you take any other vegetables? grass? peas? summer cabbage?" "thank you, guppy," says mr. jobling. "i really don't know but what i will take summer cabbage." order given; with the sarcastic addition (from mr. smallweed) of "without slugs, polly!" and cabbage produced. "i am growing up, guppy," says mr. jobling, plying his knife and fork with a relishing steadiness. "glad to hear it." "in fact, i have just turned into my teens," says mr. jobling. he says no more until he has performed his task, which he achieves as messrs. guppy and smallweed finish theirs, thus getting over the ground in excellent style and beating those two gentlemen easily by a veal and ham and a cabbage. "now, small," says mr. guppy, "what would you recommend about pastry?" "marrow puddings," says mr. smallweed instantly. "aye, aye!" cries mr. jobling with an arch look. "you're there, are you? thank you, mr. guppy, i don't know but what i will take a marrow pudding." three marrow puddings being produced, mr. jobling adds in a pleasant humour that he is coming of age fast. to these succeed, by command of mr. smallweed, "three cheshires," and to those "three small rums." this apex of the entertainment happily reached, mr. jobling puts up his legs on the carpeted seat (having his own side of the box to himself), leans against the wall, and says, "i am grown up now, guppy. i have arrived at maturity." "what do you think, now," says mr. guppy, "about--you don't mind smallweed?" "not the least in the world. i have the pleasure of drinking his good health." "sir, to you!" says mr. smallweed. "i was saying, what do you think now," pursues mr. guppy, "of enlisting?" "why, what i may think after dinner," returns mr. jobling, "is one thing, my dear guppy, and what i may think before dinner is another thing. still, even after dinner, i ask myself the question, what am i to do? how am i to live? ill fo manger, you know," says mr. jobling, pronouncing that word as if he meant a necessary fixture in an english stable. "ill fo manger. that's the french saying, and mangering is as necessary to me as it is to a frenchman. or more so." mr. smallweed is decidedly of opinion "much more so." "if any man had told me," pursues jobling, "even so lately as when you and i had the frisk down in lincolnshire, guppy, and drove over to see that house at castle wold--" mr. smallweed corrects him--chesney wold. "chesney wold. (i thank my honourable friend for that cheer.) if any man had told me then that i should be as hard up at the present time as i literally find myself, i should have--well, i should have pitched into him," says mr. jobling, taking a little rum-and-water with an air of desperate resignation; "i should have let fly at his head." "still, tony, you were on the wrong side of the post then," remonstrates mr. guppy. "you were talking about nothing else in the gig." "guppy," says mr. jobling, "i will not deny it. i was on the wrong side of the post. but i trusted to things coming round." that very popular trust in flat things coming round! not in their being beaten round, or worked round, but in their "coming" round! as though a lunatic should trust in the world's "coming" triangular! "i had confident expectations that things would come round and be all square," says mr. jobling with some vagueness of expression and perhaps of meaning too. "but i was disappointed. they never did. and when it came to creditors making rows at the office and to people that the office dealt with making complaints about dirty trifles of borrowed money, why there was an end of that connexion. and of any new professional connexion too, for if i was to give a reference to-morrow, it would be mentioned and would sew me up. then what's a fellow to do? i have been keeping out of the way and living cheap down about the market-gardens, but what's the use of living cheap when you have got no money? you might as well live dear." "better," mr. smallweed thinks. "certainly. it's the fashionable way; and fashion and whiskers have been my weaknesses, and i don't care who knows it," says mr. jobling. "they are great weaknesses--damme, sir, they are great. well," proceeds mr. jobling after a defiant visit to his rum-and-water, "what can a fellow do, i ask you, but enlist?" mr. guppy comes more fully into the conversation to state what, in his opinion, a fellow can do. his manner is the gravely impressive manner of a man who has not committed himself in life otherwise than as he has become the victim of a tender sorrow of the heart. "jobling," says mr. guppy, "myself and our mutual friend smallweed--" mr. smallweed modestly observes, "gentlemen both!" and drinks. "--have had a little conversation on this matter more than once since you--" "say, got the sack!" cries mr. jobling bitterly. "say it, guppy. you mean it." "no-o-o! left the inn," mr. smallweed delicately suggests. "since you left the inn, jobling," says mr. guppy; "and i have mentioned to our mutual friend smallweed a plan i have lately thought of proposing. you know snagsby the stationer?" "i know there is such a stationer," returns mr. jobling. "he was not ours, and i am not acquainted with him." "he is ours, jobling, and i am acquainted with him," mr. guppy retorts. "well, sir! i have lately become better acquainted with him through some accidental circumstances that have made me a visitor of his in private life. those circumstances it is not necessary to offer in argument. they may--or they may not--have some reference to a subject which may--or may not--have cast its shadow on my existence." as it is mr. guppy's perplexing way with boastful misery to tempt his particular friends into this subject, and the moment they touch it, to turn on them with that trenchant severity about the chords in the human mind, both mr. jobling and mr. smallweed decline the pitfall by remaining silent. "such things may be," repeats mr. guppy, "or they may not be. they are no part of the case. it is enough to mention that both mr. and mrs. snagsby are very willing to oblige me and that snagsby has, in busy times, a good deal of copying work to give out. he has all tulkinghorn's, and an excellent business besides. i believe if our mutual friend smallweed were put into the box, he could prove this?" mr. smallweed nods and appears greedy to be sworn. "now, gentlemen of the jury," says mr. guppy, "--i mean, now, jobling--you may say this is a poor prospect of a living. granted. but it's better than nothing, and better than enlistment. you want time. there must be time for these late affairs to blow over. you might live through it on much worse terms than by writing for snagsby." mr. jobling is about to interrupt when the sagacious smallweed checks him with a dry cough and the words, "hem! shakspeare!" "there are two branches to this subject, jobling," says mr. guppy. "that is the first. i come to the second. you know krook, the chancellor, across the lane. come, jobling," says mr. guppy in his encouraging cross-examination-tone, "i think you know krook, the chancellor, across the lane?" "i know him by sight," says mr. jobling. "you know him by sight. very well. and you know little flite?" "everybody knows her," says mr. jobling. "everybody knows her. very well. now it has been one of my duties of late to pay flite a certain weekly allowance, deducting from it the amount of her weekly rent, which i have paid (in consequence of instructions i have received) to krook himself, regularly in her presence. this has brought me into communication with krook and into a knowledge of his house and his habits. i know he has a room to let. you may live there at a very low charge under any name you like, as quietly as if you were a hundred miles off. he'll ask no questions and would accept you as a tenant at a word from me--before the clock strikes, if you chose. and i tell you another thing, jobling," says mr. guppy, who has suddenly lowered his voice and become familiar again, "he's an extraordinary old chap--always rummaging among a litter of papers and grubbing away at teaching himself to read and write, without getting on a bit, as it seems to me. he is a most extraordinary old chap, sir. i don't know but what it might be worth a fellow's while to look him up a bit." "you don't mean--" mr. jobling begins. "i mean," returns mr. guppy, shrugging his shoulders with becoming modesty, "that i can't make him out. i appeal to our mutual friend smallweed whether he has or has not heard me remark that i can't make him out." mr. smallweed bears the concise testimony, "a few!" "i have seen something of the profession and something of life, tony," says mr. guppy, "and it's seldom i can't make a man out, more or less. but such an old card as this, so deep, so sly, and secret (though i don't believe he is ever sober), i never came across. now, he must be precious old, you know, and he has not a soul about him, and he is reported to be immensely rich; and whether he is a smuggler, or a receiver, or an unlicensed pawnbroker, or a money-lender--all of which i have thought likely at different times--it might pay you to knock up a sort of knowledge of him. i don't see why you shouldn't go in for it, when everything else suits." mr. jobling, mr. guppy, and mr. smallweed all lean their elbows on the table and their chins upon their hands, and look at the ceiling. after a time, they all drink, slowly lean back, put their hands in their pockets, and look at one another. "if i had the energy i once possessed, tony!" says mr. guppy with a sigh. "but there are chords in the human mind--" expressing the remainder of the desolate sentiment in rum-and-water, mr. guppy concludes by resigning the adventure to tony jobling and informing him that during the vacation and while things are slack, his purse, "as far as three or four or even five pound goes," will be at his disposal. "for never shall it be said," mr. guppy adds with emphasis, "that william guppy turned his back upon his friend!" the latter part of the proposal is so directly to the purpose that mr. jobling says with emotion, "guppy, my trump, your fist!" mr. guppy presents it, saying, "jobling, my boy, there it is!" mr. jobling returns, "guppy, we have been pals now for some years!" mr. guppy replies, "jobling, we have." they then shake hands, and mr. jobling adds in a feeling manner, "thank you, guppy, i don't know but what i will take another glass for old acquaintance sake." "krook's last lodger died there," observes mr. guppy in an incidental way. "did he though!" says mr. jobling. "there was a verdict. accidental death. you don't mind that?" "no," says mr. jobling, "i don't mind it; but he might as well have died somewhere else. it's devilish odd that he need go and die at my place!" mr. jobling quite resents this liberty, several times returning to it with such remarks as, "there are places enough to die in, i should think!" or, "he wouldn't have liked my dying at his place, i dare say!" however, the compact being virtually made, mr. guppy proposes to dispatch the trusty smallweed to ascertain if mr. krook is at home, as in that case they may complete the negotiation without delay. mr. jobling approving, smallweed puts himself under the tall hat and conveys it out of the dining-rooms in the guppy manner. he soon returns with the intelligence that mr. krook is at home and that he has seen him through the shop-door, sitting in the back premises, sleeping "like one o'clock." "then i'll pay," says mr. guppy, "and we'll go and see him. small, what will it be?" mr. smallweed, compelling the attendance of the waitress with one hitch of his eyelash, instantly replies as follows: "four veals and hams is three, and four potatoes is three and four, and one summer cabbage is three and six, and three marrows is four and six, and six breads is five, and three cheshires is five and three, and four half-pints of half-and-half is six and three, and four small rums is eight and three, and three pollys is eight and six. eight and six in half a sovereign, polly, and eighteenpence out!" not at all excited by these stupendous calculations, smallweed dismisses his friends with a cool nod and remains behind to take a little admiring notice of polly, as opportunity may serve, and to read the daily papers, which are so very large in proportion to himself, shorn of his hat, that when he holds up the times to run his eye over the columns, he seems to have retired for the night and to have disappeared under the bedclothes. mr. guppy and mr. jobling repair to the rag and bottle shop, where they find krook still sleeping like one o'clock, that is to say, breathing stertorously with his chin upon his breast and quite insensible to any external sounds or even to gentle shaking. on the table beside him, among the usual lumber, stand an empty gin-bottle and a glass. the unwholesome air is so stained with this liquor that even the green eyes of the cat upon her shelf, as they open and shut and glimmer on the visitors, look drunk. "hold up here!" says mr. guppy, giving the relaxed figure of the old man another shake. "mr. krook! halloa, sir!" but it would seem as easy to wake a bundle of old clothes with a spirituous heat smouldering in it. "did you ever see such a stupor as he falls into, between drink and sleep?" says mr. guppy. "if this is his regular sleep," returns jobling, rather alarmed, "it'll last a long time one of these days, i am thinking." "it's always more like a fit than a nap," says mr. guppy, shaking him again. "halloa, your lordship! why, he might be robbed fifty times over! open your eyes!" after much ado, he opens them, but without appearing to see his visitors or any other objects. though he crosses one leg on another, and folds his hands, and several times closes and opens his parched lips, he seems to all intents and purposes as insensible as before. "he is alive, at any rate," says mr. guppy. "how are you, my lord chancellor. i have brought a friend of mine, sir, on a little matter of business." the old man still sits, often smacking his dry lips without the least consciousness. after some minutes he makes an attempt to rise. they help him up, and he staggers against the wall and stares at them. "how do you do, mr. krook?" says mr. guppy in some discomfiture. "how do you do, sir? you are looking charming, mr. krook. i hope you are pretty well?" the old man, in aiming a purposeless blow at mr. guppy, or at nothing, feebly swings himself round and comes with his face against the wall. so he remains for a minute or two, heaped up against it, and then staggers down the shop to the front door. the air, the movement in the court, the lapse of time, or the combination of these things recovers him. he comes back pretty steadily, adjusting his fur cap on his head and looking keenly at them. "your servant, gentlemen; i've been dozing. hi! i am hard to wake, odd times." "rather so, indeed, sir," responds mr. guppy. "what? you've been a-trying to do it, have you?" says the suspicious krook. "only a little," mr. guppy explains. the old man's eye resting on the empty bottle, he takes it up, examines it, and slowly tilts it upside down. "i say!" he cries like the hobgoblin in the story. "somebody's been making free here!" "i assure you we found it so," says mr. guppy. "would you allow me to get it filled for you?" "yes, certainly i would!" cries krook in high glee. "certainly i would! don't mention it! get it filled next door--sol's arms--the lord chancellor's fourteenpenny. bless you, they know me!" he so presses the empty bottle upon mr. guppy that that gentleman, with a nod to his friend, accepts the trust and hurries out and hurries in again with the bottle filled. the old man receives it in his arms like a beloved grandchild and pats it tenderly. "but, i say," he whispers, with his eyes screwed up, after tasting it, "this ain't the lord chancellor's fourteenpenny. this is eighteenpenny!" "i thought you might like that better," says mr. guppy. "you're a nobleman, sir," returns krook with another taste, and his hot breath seems to come towards them like a flame. "you're a baron of the land." taking advantage of this auspicious moment, mr. guppy presents his friend under the impromptu name of mr. weevle and states the object of their visit. krook, with his bottle under his arm (he never gets beyond a certain point of either drunkenness or sobriety), takes time to survey his proposed lodger and seems to approve of him. "you'd like to see the room, young man?" he says. "ah! it's a good room! been whitewashed. been cleaned down with soft soap and soda. hi! it's worth twice the rent, letting alone my company when you want it and such a cat to keep the mice away." commending the room after this manner, the old man takes them upstairs, where indeed they do find it cleaner than it used to be and also containing some old articles of furniture which he has dug up from his inexhaustible stores. the terms are easily concluded--for the lord chancellor cannot be hard on mr. guppy, associated as he is with kenge and carboy, jarndyce and jarndyce, and other famous claims on his professional consideration--and it is agreed that mr. weevle shall take possession on the morrow. mr. weevle and mr. guppy then repair to cook's court, cursitor street, where the personal introduction of the former to mr. snagsby is effected and (more important) the vote and interest of mrs. snagsby are secured. they then report progress to the eminent smallweed, waiting at the office in his tall hat for that purpose, and separate, mr. guppy explaining that he would terminate his little entertainment by standing treat at the play but that there are chords in the human mind which would render it a hollow mockery. on the morrow, in the dusk of evening, mr. weevle modestly appears at krook's, by no means incommoded with luggage, and establishes himself in his new lodging, where the two eyes in the shutters stare at him in his sleep, as if they were full of wonder. on the following day mr. weevle, who is a handy good-for-nothing kind of young fellow, borrows a needle and thread of miss flite and a hammer of his landlord and goes to work devising apologies for window-curtains, and knocking up apologies for shelves, and hanging up his two teacups, milkpot, and crockery sundries on a pennyworth of little hooks, like a shipwrecked sailor making the best of it. but what mr. weevle prizes most of all his few possessions (next after his light whiskers, for which he has an attachment that only whiskers can awaken in the breast of man) is a choice collection of copper-plate impressions from that truly national work the divinities of albion, or galaxy gallery of british beauty, representing ladies of title and fashion in every variety of smirk that art, combined with capital, is capable of producing. with these magnificent portraits, unworthily confined in a band-box during his seclusion among the market-gardens, he decorates his apartment; and as the galaxy gallery of british beauty wears every variety of fancy dress, plays every variety of musical instrument, fondles every variety of dog, ogles every variety of prospect, and is backed up by every variety of flower-pot and balustrade, the result is very imposing. but fashion is mr. weevle's, as it was tony jobling's, weakness. to borrow yesterday's paper from the sol's arms of an evening and read about the brilliant and distinguished meteors that are shooting across the fashionable sky in every direction is unspeakable consolation to him. to know what member of what brilliant and distinguished circle accomplished the brilliant and distinguished feat of joining it yesterday or contemplates the no less brilliant and distinguished feat of leaving it to-morrow gives him a thrill of joy. to be informed what the galaxy gallery of british beauty is about, and means to be about, and what galaxy marriages are on the tapis, and what galaxy rumours are in circulation, is to become acquainted with the most glorious destinies of mankind. mr. weevle reverts from this intelligence to the galaxy portraits implicated, and seems to know the originals, and to be known of them. for the rest he is a quiet lodger, full of handy shifts and devices as before mentioned, able to cook and clean for himself as well as to carpenter, and developing social inclinations after the shades of evening have fallen on the court. at those times, when he is not visited by mr. guppy or by a small light in his likeness quenched in a dark hat, he comes out of his dull room--where he has inherited the deal wilderness of desk bespattered with a rain of ink--and talks to krook or is "very free," as they call it in the court, commendingly, with any one disposed for conversation. wherefore, mrs. piper, who leads the court, is impelled to offer two remarks to mrs. perkins: firstly, that if her johnny was to have whiskers, she could wish 'em to be identically like that young man's; and secondly, "mark my words, mrs. perkins, ma'am, and don't you be surprised, lord bless you, if that young man comes in at last for old krook's money!" chapter xxi the smallweed family in a rather ill-favoured and ill-savoured neighbourhood, though one of its rising grounds bears the name of mount pleasant, the elfin smallweed, christened bartholomew and known on the domestic hearth as bart, passes that limited portion of his time on which the office and its contingencies have no claim. he dwells in a little narrow street, always solitary, shady, and sad, closely bricked in on all sides like a tomb, but where there yet lingers the stump of an old forest tree whose flavour is about as fresh and natural as the smallweed smack of youth. there has been only one child in the smallweed family for several generations. little old men and women there have been, but no child, until mr. smallweed's grandmother, now living, became weak in her intellect and fell (for the first time) into a childish state. with such infantine graces as a total want of observation, memory, understanding, and interest, and an eternal disposition to fall asleep over the fire and into it, mr. smallweed's grandmother has undoubtedly brightened the family. mr. smallweed's grandfather is likewise of the party. he is in a helpless condition as to his lower, and nearly so as to his upper, limbs, but his mind is unimpaired. it holds, as well as it ever held, the first four rules of arithmetic and a certain small collection of the hardest facts. in respect of ideality, reverence, wonder, and other such phrenological attributes, it is no worse off than it used to be. everything that mr. smallweed's grandfather ever put away in his mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. in all his life he has never bred a single butterfly. the father of this pleasant grandfather, of the neighbourhood of mount pleasant, was a horny-skinned, two-legged, money-getting species of spider who spun webs to catch unwary flies and retired into holes until they were entrapped. the name of this old pagan's god was compound interest. he lived for it, married it, died of it. meeting with a heavy loss in an honest little enterprise in which all the loss was intended to have been on the other side, he broke something--something necessary to his existence, therefore it couldn't have been his heart--and made an end of his career. as his character was not good, and he had been bred at a charity school in a complete course, according to question and answer, of those ancient people the amorites and hittites, he was frequently quoted as an example of the failure of education. his spirit shone through his son, to whom he had always preached of "going out" early in life and whom he made a clerk in a sharp scrivener's office at twelve years old. there the young gentleman improved his mind, which was of a lean and anxious character, and developing the family gifts, gradually elevated himself into the discounting profession. going out early in life and marrying late, as his father had done before him, he too begat a lean and anxious-minded son, who in his turn, going out early in life and marrying late, became the father of bartholomew and judith smallweed, twins. during the whole time consumed in the slow growth of this family tree, the house of smallweed, always early to go out and late to marry, has strengthened itself in its practical character, has discarded all amusements, discountenanced all story-books, fairy-tales, fictions, and fables, and banished all levities whatsoever. hence the gratifying fact that it has had no child born to it and that the complete little men and women whom it has produced have been observed to bear a likeness to old monkeys with something depressing on their minds. at the present time, in the dark little parlour certain feet below the level of the street--a grim, hard, uncouth parlour, only ornamented with the coarsest of baize table-covers, and the hardest of sheet-iron tea-trays, and offering in its decorative character no bad allegorical representation of grandfather smallweed's mind--seated in two black horsehair porter's chairs, one on each side of the fire-place, the superannuated mr. and mrs. smallweed while away the rosy hours. on the stove are a couple of trivets for the pots and kettles which it is grandfather smallweed's usual occupation to watch, and projecting from the chimney-piece between them is a sort of brass gallows for roasting, which he also superintends when it is in action. under the venerable mr. smallweed's seat and guarded by his spindle legs is a drawer in his chair, reported to contain property to a fabulous amount. beside him is a spare cushion with which he is always provided in order that he may have something to throw at the venerable partner of his respected age whenever she makes an allusion to money--a subject on which he is particularly sensitive. "and where's bart?" grandfather smallweed inquires of judy, bart's twin sister. "he an't come in yet," says judy. "it's his tea-time, isn't it?" "no." "how much do you mean to say it wants then?" "ten minutes." "hey?" "ten minutes." (loud on the part of judy.) "ho!" says grandfather smallweed. "ten minutes." grandmother smallweed, who has been mumbling and shaking her head at the trivets, hearing figures mentioned, connects them with money and screeches like a horrible old parrot without any plumage, "ten ten-pound notes!" grandfather smallweed immediately throws the cushion at her. "drat you, be quiet!" says the good old man. the effect of this act of jaculation is twofold. it not only doubles up mrs. smallweed's head against the side of her porter's chair and causes her to present, when extricated by her granddaughter, a highly unbecoming state of cap, but the necessary exertion recoils on mr. smallweed himself, whom it throws back into his porter's chair like a broken puppet. the excellent old gentleman being at these times a mere clothes-bag with a black skull-cap on the top of it, does not present a very animated appearance until he has undergone the two operations at the hands of his granddaughter of being shaken up like a great bottle and poked and punched like a great bolster. some indication of a neck being developed in him by these means, he and the sharer of his life's evening again fronting one another in their two porter's chairs, like a couple of sentinels long forgotten on their post by the black serjeant, death. judy the twin is worthy company for these associates. she is so indubitably sister to mr. smallweed the younger that the two kneaded into one would hardly make a young person of average proportions, while she so happily exemplifies the before-mentioned family likeness to the monkey tribe that attired in a spangled robe and cap she might walk about the table-land on the top of a barrel-organ without exciting much remark as an unusual specimen. under existing circumstances, however, she is dressed in a plain, spare gown of brown stuff. judy never owned a doll, never heard of cinderella, never played at any game. she once or twice fell into children's company when she was about ten years old, but the children couldn't get on with judy, and judy couldn't get on with them. she seemed like an animal of another species, and there was instinctive repugnance on both sides. it is very doubtful whether judy knows how to laugh. she has so rarely seen the thing done that the probabilities are strong the other way. of anything like a youthful laugh, she certainly can have no conception. if she were to try one, she would find her teeth in her way, modelling that action of her face, as she has unconsciously modelled all its other expressions, on her pattern of sordid age. such is judy. and her twin brother couldn't wind up a top for his life. he knows no more of jack the giant killer or of sinbad the sailor than he knows of the people in the stars. he could as soon play at leap-frog or at cricket as change into a cricket or a frog himself. but he is so much the better off than his sister that on his narrow world of fact an opening has dawned into such broader regions as lie within the ken of mr. guppy. hence his admiration and his emulation of that shining enchanter. judy, with a gong-like clash and clatter, sets one of the sheet-iron tea-trays on the table and arranges cups and saucers. the bread she puts on in an iron basket, and the butter (and not much of it) in a small pewter plate. grandfather smallweed looks hard after the tea as it is served out and asks judy where the girl is. "charley, do you mean?" says judy. "hey?" from grandfather smallweed. "charley, do you mean?" this touches a spring in grandmother smallweed, who, chuckling as usual at the trivets, cries, "over the water! charley over the water, charley over the water, over the water to charley, charley over the water, over the water to charley!" and becomes quite energetic about it. grandfather looks at the cushion but has not sufficiently recovered his late exertion. "ha!" he says when there is silence. "if that's her name. she eats a deal. it would be better to allow her for her keep." judy, with her brother's wink, shakes her head and purses up her mouth into no without saying it. "no?" returns the old man. "why not?" "she'd want sixpence a day, and we can do it for less," says judy. "sure?" judy answers with a nod of deepest meaning and calls, as she scrapes the butter on the loaf with every precaution against waste and cuts it into slices, "you, charley, where are you?" timidly obedient to the summons, a little girl in a rough apron and a large bonnet, with her hands covered with soap and water and a scrubbing brush in one of them, appears, and curtsys. "what work are you about now?" says judy, making an ancient snap at her like a very sharp old beldame. "i'm a-cleaning the upstairs back room, miss," replies charley. "mind you do it thoroughly, and don't loiter. shirking won't do for me. make haste! go along!" cries judy with a stamp upon the ground. "you girls are more trouble than you're worth, by half." on this severe matron, as she returns to her task of scraping the butter and cutting the bread, falls the shadow of her brother, looking in at the window. for whom, knife and loaf in hand, she opens the street-door. "aye, aye, bart!" says grandfather smallweed. "here you are, hey?" "here i am," says bart. "been along with your friend again, bart?" small nods. "dining at his expense, bart?" small nods again. "that's right. live at his expense as much as you can, and take warning by his foolish example. that's the use of such a friend. the only use you can put him to," says the venerable sage. his grandson, without receiving this good counsel as dutifully as he might, honours it with all such acceptance as may lie in a slight wink and a nod and takes a chair at the tea-table. the four old faces then hover over teacups like a company of ghastly cherubim, mrs. smallweed perpetually twitching her head and chattering at the trivets and mr. smallweed requiring to be repeatedly shaken up like a large black draught. "yes, yes," says the good old gentleman, reverting to his lesson of wisdom. "that's such advice as your father would have given you, bart. you never saw your father. more's the pity. he was my true son." whether it is intended to be conveyed that he was particularly pleasant to look at, on that account, does not appear. "he was my true son," repeats the old gentleman, folding his bread and butter on his knee, "a good accountant, and died fifteen years ago." mrs. smallweed, following her usual instinct, breaks out with "fifteen hundred pound. fifteen hundred pound in a black box, fifteen hundred pound locked up, fifteen hundred pound put away and hid!" her worthy husband, setting aside his bread and butter, immediately discharges the cushion at her, crushes her against the side of her chair, and falls back in his own, overpowered. his appearance, after visiting mrs. smallweed with one of these admonitions, is particularly impressive and not wholly prepossessing, firstly because the exertion generally twists his black skull-cap over one eye and gives him an air of goblin rakishness, secondly because he mutters violent imprecations against mrs. smallweed, and thirdly because the contrast between those powerful expressions and his powerless figure is suggestive of a baleful old malignant who would be very wicked if he could. all this, however, is so common in the smallweed family circle that it produces no impression. the old gentleman is merely shaken and has his internal feathers beaten up, the cushion is restored to its usual place beside him, and the old lady, perhaps with her cap adjusted and perhaps not, is planted in her chair again, ready to be bowled down like a ninepin. some time elapses in the present instance before the old gentleman is sufficiently cool to resume his discourse, and even then he mixes it up with several edifying expletives addressed to the unconscious partner of his bosom, who holds communication with nothing on earth but the trivets. as thus: "if your father, bart, had lived longer, he might have been worth a deal of money--you brimstone chatterer!--but just as he was beginning to build up the house that he had been making the foundations for, through many a year--you jade of a magpie, jackdaw, and poll-parrot, what do you mean!--he took ill and died of a low fever, always being a sparing and a spare man, full of business care--i should like to throw a cat at you instead of a cushion, and i will too if you make such a confounded fool of yourself!--and your mother, who was a prudent woman as dry as a chip, just dwindled away like touchwood after you and judy were born--you are an old pig. you are a brimstone pig. you're a head of swine!" judy, not interested in what she has often heard, begins to collect in a basin various tributary streams of tea, from the bottoms of cups and saucers and from the bottom of the tea-pot for the little charwoman's evening meal. in like manner she gets together, in the iron bread-basket, as many outside fragments and worn-down heels of loaves as the rigid economy of the house has left in existence. "but your father and me were partners, bart," says the old gentleman, "and when i am gone, you and judy will have all there is. it's rare for you both that you went out early in life--judy to the flower business, and you to the law. you won't want to spend it. you'll get your living without it, and put more to it. when i am gone, judy will go back to the flower business and you'll still stick to the law." one might infer from judy's appearance that her business rather lay with the thorns than the flowers, but she has in her time been apprenticed to the art and mystery of artificial flower-making. a close observer might perhaps detect both in her eye and her brother's, when their venerable grandsire anticipates his being gone, some little impatience to know when he may be going, and some resentful opinion that it is time he went. "now, if everybody has done," says judy, completing her preparations, "i'll have that girl in to her tea. she would never leave off if she took it by herself in the kitchen." charley is accordingly introduced, and under a heavy fire of eyes, sits down to her basin and a druidical ruin of bread and butter. in the active superintendence of this young person, judy smallweed appears to attain a perfectly geological age and to date from the remotest periods. her systematic manner of flying at her and pouncing on her, with or without pretence, whether or no, is wonderful, evincing an accomplishment in the art of girl-driving seldom reached by the oldest practitioners. "now, don't stare about you all the afternoon," cries judy, shaking her head and stamping her foot as she happens to catch the glance which has been previously sounding the basin of tea, "but take your victuals and get back to your work." "yes, miss," says charley. "don't say yes," returns miss smallweed, "for i know what you girls are. do it without saying it, and then i may begin to believe you." charley swallows a great gulp of tea in token of submission and so disperses the druidical ruins that miss smallweed charges her not to gormandize, which "in you girls," she observes, is disgusting. charley might find some more difficulty in meeting her views on the general subject of girls but for a knock at the door. "see who it is, and don't chew when you open it!" cries judy. the object of her attentions withdrawing for the purpose, miss smallweed takes that opportunity of jumbling the remainder of the bread and butter together and launching two or three dirty tea-cups into the ebb-tide of the basin of tea as a hint that she considers the eating and drinking terminated. "now! who is it, and what's wanted?" says the snappish judy. it is one mr. george, it appears. without other announcement or ceremony, mr. george walks in. "whew!" says mr. george. "you are hot here. always a fire, eh? well! perhaps you do right to get used to one." mr. george makes the latter remark to himself as he nods to grandfather smallweed. "ho! it's you!" cries the old gentleman. "how de do? how de do?" "middling," replies mr. george, taking a chair. "your granddaughter i have had the honour of seeing before; my service to you, miss." "this is my grandson," says grandfather smallweed. "you ha'n't seen him before. he is in the law and not much at home." "my service to him, too! he is like his sister. he is very like his sister. he is devilish like his sister," says mr. george, laying a great and not altogether complimentary stress on his last adjective. "and how does the world use you, mr. george?" grandfather smallweed inquires, slowly rubbing his legs. "pretty much as usual. like a football." he is a swarthy brown man of fifty, well made, and good looking, with crisp dark hair, bright eyes, and a broad chest. his sinewy and powerful hands, as sunburnt as his face, have evidently been used to a pretty rough life. what is curious about him is that he sits forward on his chair as if he were, from long habit, allowing space for some dress or accoutrements that he has altogether laid aside. his step too is measured and heavy and would go well with a weighty clash and jingle of spurs. he is close-shaved now, but his mouth is set as if his upper lip had been for years familiar with a great moustache; and his manner of occasionally laying the open palm of his broad brown hand upon it is to the same effect. altogether one might guess mr. george to have been a trooper once upon a time. a special contrast mr. george makes to the smallweed family. trooper was never yet billeted upon a household more unlike him. it is a broadsword to an oyster-knife. his developed figure and their stunted forms, his large manner filling any amount of room and their little narrow pinched ways, his sounding voice and their sharp spare tones, are in the strongest and the strangest opposition. as he sits in the middle of the grim parlour, leaning a little forward, with his hands upon his thighs and his elbows squared, he looks as though, if he remained there long, he would absorb into himself the whole family and the whole four-roomed house, extra little back-kitchen and all. "do you rub your legs to rub life into 'em?" he asks of grandfather smallweed after looking round the room. "why, it's partly a habit, mr. george, and--yes--it partly helps the circulation," he replies. "the cir-cu-la-tion!" repeats mr. george, folding his arms upon his chest and seeming to become two sizes larger. "not much of that, i should think." "truly i'm old, mr. george," says grandfather smallweed. "but i can carry my years. i'm older than her," nodding at his wife, "and see what she is? you're a brimstone chatterer!" with a sudden revival of his late hostility. "unlucky old soul!" says mr. george, turning his head in that direction. "don't scold the old lady. look at her here, with her poor cap half off her head and her poor hair all in a muddle. hold up, ma'am. that's better. there we are! think of your mother, mr. smallweed," says mr. george, coming back to his seat from assisting her, "if your wife an't enough." "i suppose you were an excellent son, mr. george?" the old man hints with a leer. the colour of mr. george's face rather deepens as he replies, "why no. i wasn't." "i am astonished at it." "so am i. i ought to have been a good son, and i think i meant to have been one. but i wasn't. i was a thundering bad son, that's the long and the short of it, and never was a credit to anybody." "surprising!" cries the old man. "however," mr. george resumes, "the less said about it, the better now. come! you know the agreement. always a pipe out of the two months' interest! (bosh! it's all correct. you needn't be afraid to order the pipe. here's the new bill, and here's the two months' interest-money, and a devil-and-all of a scrape it is to get it together in my business.)" mr. george sits, with his arms folded, consuming the family and the parlour while grandfather smallweed is assisted by judy to two black leathern cases out of a locked bureau, in one of which he secures the document he has just received, and from the other takes another similar document which he hands to mr. george, who twists it up for a pipelight. as the old man inspects, through his glasses, every up-stroke and down-stroke of both documents before he releases them from their leathern prison, and as he counts the money three times over and requires judy to say every word she utters at least twice, and is as tremulously slow of speech and action as it is possible to be, this business is a long time in progress. when it is quite concluded, and not before, he disengages his ravenous eyes and fingers from it and answers mr. george's last remark by saying, "afraid to order the pipe? we are not so mercenary as that, sir. judy, see directly to the pipe and the glass of cold brandy-and-water for mr. george." the sportive twins, who have been looking straight before them all this time except when they have been engrossed by the black leathern cases, retire together, generally disdainful of the visitor, but leaving him to the old man as two young cubs might leave a traveller to the parental bear. "and there you sit, i suppose, all the day long, eh?" says mr. george with folded arms. "just so, just so," the old man nods. "and don't you occupy yourself at all?" "i watch the fire--and the boiling and the roasting--" "when there is any," says mr. george with great expression. "just so. when there is any." "don't you read or get read to?" the old man shakes his head with sharp sly triumph. "no, no. we have never been readers in our family. it don't pay. stuff. idleness. folly. no, no!" "there's not much to choose between your two states," says the visitor in a key too low for the old man's dull hearing as he looks from him to the old woman and back again. "i say!" in a louder voice. "i hear you." "you'll sell me up at last, i suppose, when i am a day in arrear." "my dear friend!" cries grandfather smallweed, stretching out both hands to embrace him. "never! never, my dear friend! but my friend in the city that i got to lend you the money--he might!" "oh! you can't answer for him?" says mr. george, finishing the inquiry in his lower key with the words "you lying old rascal!" "my dear friend, he is not to be depended on. i wouldn't trust him. he will have his bond, my dear friend." "devil doubt him," says mr. george. charley appearing with a tray, on which are the pipe, a small paper of tobacco, and the brandy-and-water, he asks her, "how do you come here! you haven't got the family face." "i goes out to work, sir," returns charley. the trooper (if trooper he be or have been) takes her bonnet off, with a light touch for so strong a hand, and pats her on the head. "you give the house almost a wholesome look. it wants a bit of youth as much as it wants fresh air." then he dismisses her, lights his pipe, and drinks to mr. smallweed's friend in the city--the one solitary flight of that esteemed old gentleman's imagination. "so you think he might be hard upon me, eh?" "i think he might--i am afraid he would. i have known him do it," says grandfather smallweed incautiously, "twenty times." incautiously, because his stricken better-half, who has been dozing over the fire for some time, is instantly aroused and jabbers "twenty thousand pounds, twenty twenty-pound notes in a money-box, twenty guineas, twenty million twenty per cent, twenty--" and is then cut short by the flying cushion, which the visitor, to whom this singular experiment appears to be a novelty, snatches from her face as it crushes her in the usual manner. "you're a brimstone idiot. you're a scorpion--a brimstone scorpion! you're a sweltering toad. you're a chattering clattering broomstick witch that ought to be burnt!" gasps the old man, prostrate in his chair. "my dear friend, will you shake me up a little?" mr. george, who has been looking first at one of them and then at the other, as if he were demented, takes his venerable acquaintance by the throat on receiving this request, and dragging him upright in his chair as easily as if he were a doll, appears in two minds whether or no to shake all future power of cushioning out of him and shake him into his grave. resisting the temptation, but agitating him violently enough to make his head roll like a harlequin's, he puts him smartly down in his chair again and adjusts his skull-cap with such a rub that the old man winks with both eyes for a minute afterwards. "o lord!" gasps mr. smallweed. "that'll do. thank you, my dear friend, that'll do. oh, dear me, i'm out of breath. o lord!" and mr. smallweed says it not without evident apprehensions of his dear friend, who still stands over him looming larger than ever. the alarming presence, however, gradually subsides into its chair and falls to smoking in long puffs, consoling itself with the philosophical reflection, "the name of your friend in the city begins with a d, comrade, and you're about right respecting the bond." "did you speak, mr. george?" inquires the old man. the trooper shakes his head, and leaning forward with his right elbow on his right knee and his pipe supported in that hand, while his other hand, resting on his left leg, squares his left elbow in a martial manner, continues to smoke. meanwhile he looks at mr. smallweed with grave attention and now and then fans the cloud of smoke away in order that he may see him the more clearly. "i take it," he says, making just as much and as little change in his position as will enable him to reach the glass to his lips with a round, full action, "that i am the only man alive (or dead either) that gets the value of a pipe out of you?" "well," returns the old man, "it's true that i don't see company, mr. george, and that i don't treat. i can't afford to it. but as you, in your pleasant way, made your pipe a condition--" "why, it's not for the value of it; that's no great thing. it was a fancy to get it out of you. to have something in for my money." "ha! you're prudent, prudent, sir!" cries grandfather smallweed, rubbing his legs. "very. i always was." puff. "it's a sure sign of my prudence that i ever found the way here." puff. "also, that i am what i am." puff. "i am well known to be prudent," says mr. george, composedly smoking. "i rose in life that way." "don't be down-hearted, sir. you may rise yet." mr. george laughs and drinks. "ha'n't you no relations, now," asks grandfather smallweed with a twinkle in his eyes, "who would pay off this little principal or who would lend you a good name or two that i could persuade my friend in the city to make you a further advance upon? two good names would be sufficient for my friend in the city. ha'n't you no such relations, mr. george?" mr. george, still composedly smoking, replies, "if i had, i shouldn't trouble them. i have been trouble enough to my belongings in my day. it may be a very good sort of penitence in a vagabond, who has wasted the best time of his life, to go back then to decent people that he never was a credit to and live upon them, but it's not my sort. the best kind of amends then for having gone away is to keep away, in my opinion." "but natural affection, mr. george," hints grandfather smallweed. "for two good names, hey?" says mr. george, shaking his head and still composedly smoking. "no. that's not my sort either." grandfather smallweed has been gradually sliding down in his chair since his last adjustment and is now a bundle of clothes with a voice in it calling for judy. that houri, appearing, shakes him up in the usual manner and is charged by the old gentleman to remain near him. for he seems chary of putting his visitor to the trouble of repeating his late attentions. "ha!" he observes when he is in trim again. "if you could have traced out the captain, mr. george, it would have been the making of you. if when you first came here, in consequence of our advertisement in the newspapers--when i say 'our,' i'm alluding to the advertisements of my friend in the city, and one or two others who embark their capital in the same way, and are so friendly towards me as sometimes to give me a lift with my little pittance--if at that time you could have helped us, mr. george, it would have been the making of you." "i was willing enough to be 'made,' as you call it," says mr. george, smoking not quite so placidly as before, for since the entrance of judy he has been in some measure disturbed by a fascination, not of the admiring kind, which obliges him to look at her as she stands by her grandfather's chair, "but on the whole, i am glad i wasn't now." "why, mr. george? in the name of--of brimstone, why?" says grandfather smallweed with a plain appearance of exasperation. (brimstone apparently suggested by his eye lighting on mrs. smallweed in her slumber.) "for two reasons, comrade." "and what two reasons, mr. george? in the name of the--" "of our friend in the city?" suggests mr. george, composedly drinking. "aye, if you like. what two reasons?" "in the first place," returns mr. george, but still looking at judy as if she being so old and so like her grandfather it is indifferent which of the two he addresses, "you gentlemen took me in. you advertised that mr. hawdon (captain hawdon, if you hold to the saying 'once a captain, always a captain') was to hear of something to his advantage." "well?" returns the old man shrilly and sharply. "well!" says mr. george, smoking on. "it wouldn't have been much to his advantage to have been clapped into prison by the whole bill and judgment trade of london." "how do you know that? some of his rich relations might have paid his debts or compounded for 'em. besides, he had taken us in. he owed us immense sums all round. i would sooner have strangled him than had no return. if i sit here thinking of him," snarls the old man, holding up his impotent ten fingers, "i want to strangle him now." and in a sudden access of fury, he throws the cushion at the unoffending mrs. smallweed, but it passes harmlessly on one side of her chair. "i don't need to be told," returns the trooper, taking his pipe from his lips for a moment and carrying his eyes back from following the progress of the cushion to the pipe-bowl which is burning low, "that he carried on heavily and went to ruin. i have been at his right hand many a day when he was charging upon ruin full-gallop. i was with him when he was sick and well, rich and poor. i laid this hand upon him after he had run through everything and broken down everything beneath him--when he held a pistol to his head." "i wish he had let it off," says the benevolent old man, "and blown his head into as many pieces as he owed pounds!" "that would have been a smash indeed," returns the trooper coolly; "any way, he had been young, hopeful, and handsome in the days gone by, and i am glad i never found him, when he was neither, to lead to a result so much to his advantage. that's reason number one." "i hope number two's as good?" snarls the old man. "why, no. it's more of a selfish reason. if i had found him, i must have gone to the other world to look. he was there." "how do you know he was there?" "he wasn't here." "how do you know he wasn't here?" "don't lose your temper as well as your money," says mr. george, calmly knocking the ashes out of his pipe. "he was drowned long before. i am convinced of it. he went over a ship's side. whether intentionally or accidentally, i don't know. perhaps your friend in the city does. do you know what that tune is, mr. smallweed?" he adds after breaking off to whistle one, accompanied on the table with the empty pipe. "tune!" replied the old man. "no. we never have tunes here." "that's the dead march in saul. they bury soldiers to it, so it's the natural end of the subject. now, if your pretty granddaughter--excuse me, miss--will condescend to take care of this pipe for two months, we shall save the cost of one next time. good evening, mr. smallweed!" "my dear friend!" the old man gives him both his hands. "so you think your friend in the city will be hard upon me if i fall in a payment?" says the trooper, looking down upon him like a giant. "my dear friend, i am afraid he will," returns the old man, looking up at him like a pygmy. mr. george laughs, and with a glance at mr. smallweed and a parting salutation to the scornful judy, strides out of the parlour, clashing imaginary sabres and other metallic appurtenances as he goes. "you're a damned rogue," says the old gentleman, making a hideous grimace at the door as he shuts it. "but i'll lime you, you dog, i'll lime you!" after this amiable remark, his spirit soars into those enchanting regions of reflection which its education and pursuits have opened to it, and again he and mrs. smallweed while away the rosy hours, two unrelieved sentinels forgotten as aforesaid by the black serjeant. while the twain are faithful to their post, mr. george strides through the streets with a massive kind of swagger and a grave-enough face. it is eight o'clock now, and the day is fast drawing in. he stops hard by waterloo bridge and reads a playbill, decides to go to astley's theatre. being there, is much delighted with the horses and the feats of strength; looks at the weapons with a critical eye; disapproves of the combats as giving evidences of unskilful swordsmanship; but is touched home by the sentiments. in the last scene, when the emperor of tartary gets up into a cart and condescends to bless the united lovers by hovering over them with the union jack, his eyelashes are moistened with emotion. the theatre over, mr. george comes across the water again and makes his way to that curious region lying about the haymarket and leicester square which is a centre of attraction to indifferent foreign hotels and indifferent foreigners, racket-courts, fighting-men, swordsmen, footguards, old china, gaming-houses, exhibitions, and a large medley of shabbiness and shrinking out of sight. penetrating to the heart of this region, he arrives by a court and a long whitewashed passage at a great brick building composed of bare walls, floors, roof-rafters, and skylights, on the front of which, if it can be said to have any front, is painted george's shooting gallery, &c. into george's shooting gallery, &c., he goes; and in it there are gaslights (partly turned off now), and two whitened targets for rifle-shooting, and archery accommodation, and fencing appliances, and all necessaries for the british art of boxing. none of these sports or exercises being pursued in george's shooting gallery to-night, which is so devoid of company that a little grotesque man with a large head has it all to himself and lies asleep upon the floor. the little man is dressed something like a gunsmith, in a green-baize apron and cap; and his face and hands are dirty with gunpowder and begrimed with the loading of guns. as he lies in the light before a glaring white target, the black upon him shines again. not far off is the strong, rough, primitive table with a vice upon it at which he has been working. he is a little man with a face all crushed together, who appears, from a certain blue and speckled appearance that one of his cheeks presents, to have been blown up, in the way of business, at some odd time or times. "phil!" says the trooper in a quiet voice. "all right!" cries phil, scrambling to his feet. "anything been doing?" "flat as ever so much swipes," says phil. "five dozen rifle and a dozen pistol. as to aim!" phil gives a howl at the recollection. "shut up shop, phil!" as phil moves about to execute this order, it appears that he is lame, though able to move very quickly. on the speckled side of his face he has no eyebrow, and on the other side he has a bushy black one, which want of uniformity gives him a very singular and rather sinister appearance. everything seems to have happened to his hands that could possibly take place consistently with the retention of all the fingers, for they are notched, and seamed, and crumpled all over. he appears to be very strong and lifts heavy benches about as if he had no idea what weight was. he has a curious way of limping round the gallery with his shoulder against the wall and tacking off at objects he wants to lay hold of instead of going straight to them, which has left a smear all round the four walls, conventionally called "phil's mark." this custodian of george's gallery in george's absence concludes his proceedings, when he has locked the great doors and turned out all the lights but one, which he leaves to glimmer, by dragging out from a wooden cabin in a corner two mattresses and bedding. these being drawn to opposite ends of the gallery, the trooper makes his own bed and phil makes his. "phil!" says the master, walking towards him without his coat and waistcoat, and looking more soldierly than ever in his braces. "you were found in a doorway, weren't you?" "gutter," says phil. "watchman tumbled over me." "then vagabondizing came natural to you from the beginning." "as nat'ral as possible," says phil. "good night!" "good night, guv'ner." phil cannot even go straight to bed, but finds it necessary to shoulder round two sides of the gallery and then tack off at his mattress. the trooper, after taking a turn or two in the rifle-distance and looking up at the moon now shining through the skylights, strides to his own mattress by a shorter route and goes to bed too. chapter xxii mr. bucket allegory looks pretty cool in lincoln's inn fields, though the evening is hot, for both mr. tulkinghorn's windows are wide open, and the room is lofty, gusty, and gloomy. these may not be desirable characteristics when november comes with fog and sleet or january with ice and snow, but they have their merits in the sultry long vacation weather. they enable allegory, though it has cheeks like peaches, and knees like bunches of blossoms, and rosy swellings for calves to its legs and muscles to its arms, to look tolerably cool to-night. plenty of dust comes in at mr. tulkinghorn's windows, and plenty more has generated among his furniture and papers. it lies thick everywhere. when a breeze from the country that has lost its way takes fright and makes a blind hurry to rush out again, it flings as much dust in the eyes of allegory as the law--or mr. tulkinghorn, one of its trustiest representatives--may scatter, on occasion, in the eyes of the laity. in his lowering magazine of dust, the universal article into which his papers and himself, and all his clients, and all things of earth, animate and inanimate, are resolving, mr. tulkinghorn sits at one of the open windows enjoying a bottle of old port. though a hard-grained man, close, dry, and silent, he can enjoy old wine with the best. he has a priceless bin of port in some artful cellar under the fields, which is one of his many secrets. when he dines alone in chambers, as he has dined to-day, and has his bit of fish and his steak or chicken brought in from the coffee-house, he descends with a candle to the echoing regions below the deserted mansion, and heralded by a remote reverberation of thundering doors, comes gravely back encircled by an earthy atmosphere and carrying a bottle from which he pours a radiant nectar, two score and ten years old, that blushes in the glass to find itself so famous and fills the whole room with the fragrance of southern grapes. mr. tulkinghorn, sitting in the twilight by the open window, enjoys his wine. as if it whispered to him of its fifty years of silence and seclusion, it shuts him up the closer. more impenetrable than ever, he sits, and drinks, and mellows as it were in secrecy, pondering at that twilight hour on all the mysteries he knows, associated with darkening woods in the country, and vast blank shut-up houses in town, and perhaps sparing a thought or two for himself, and his family history, and his money, and his will--all a mystery to every one--and that one bachelor friend of his, a man of the same mould and a lawyer too, who lived the same kind of life until he was seventy-five years old, and then suddenly conceiving (as it is supposed) an impression that it was too monotonous, gave his gold watch to his hair-dresser one summer evening and walked leisurely home to the temple and hanged himself. but mr. tulkinghorn is not alone to-night to ponder at his usual length. seated at the same table, though with his chair modestly and uncomfortably drawn a little way from it, sits a bald, mild, shining man who coughs respectfully behind his hand when the lawyer bids him fill his glass. "now, snagsby," says mr. tulkinghorn, "to go over this odd story again." "if you please, sir." "you told me when you were so good as to step round here last night--" "for which i must ask you to excuse me if it was a liberty, sir; but i remember that you had taken a sort of an interest in that person, and i thought it possible that you might--just--wish--to--" mr. tulkinghorn is not the man to help him to any conclusion or to admit anything as to any possibility concerning himself. so mr. snagsby trails off into saying, with an awkward cough, "i must ask you to excuse the liberty, sir, i am sure." "not at all," says mr. tulkinghorn. "you told me, snagsby, that you put on your hat and came round without mentioning your intention to your wife. that was prudent i think, because it's not a matter of such importance that it requires to be mentioned." "well, sir," returns mr. snagsby, "you see, my little woman is--not to put too fine a point upon it--inquisitive. she's inquisitive. poor little thing, she's liable to spasms, and it's good for her to have her mind employed. in consequence of which she employs it--i should say upon every individual thing she can lay hold of, whether it concerns her or not--especially not. my little woman has a very active mind, sir." mr. snagsby drinks and murmurs with an admiring cough behind his hand, "dear me, very fine wine indeed!" "therefore you kept your visit to yourself last night?" says mr. tulkinghorn. "and to-night too?" "yes, sir, and to-night, too. my little woman is at present in--not to put too fine a point on it--in a pious state, or in what she considers such, and attends the evening exertions (which is the name they go by) of a reverend party of the name of chadband. he has a great deal of eloquence at his command, undoubtedly, but i am not quite favourable to his style myself. that's neither here nor there. my little woman being engaged in that way made it easier for me to step round in a quiet manner." mr. tulkinghorn assents. "fill your glass, snagsby." "thank you, sir, i am sure," returns the stationer with his cough of deference. "this is wonderfully fine wine, sir!" "it is a rare wine now," says mr. tulkinghorn. "it is fifty years old." "is it indeed, sir? but i am not surprised to hear it, i am sure. it might be--any age almost." after rendering this general tribute to the port, mr. snagsby in his modesty coughs an apology behind his hand for drinking anything so precious. "will you run over, once again, what the boy said?" asks mr. tulkinghorn, putting his hands into the pockets of his rusty smallclothes and leaning quietly back in his chair. "with pleasure, sir." then, with fidelity, though with some prolixity, the law-stationer repeats jo's statement made to the assembled guests at his house. on coming to the end of his narrative, he gives a great start and breaks off with, "dear me, sir, i wasn't aware there was any other gentleman present!" mr. snagsby is dismayed to see, standing with an attentive face between himself and the lawyer at a little distance from the table, a person with a hat and stick in his hand who was not there when he himself came in and has not since entered by the door or by either of the windows. there is a press in the room, but its hinges have not creaked, nor has a step been audible upon the floor. yet this third person stands there with his attentive face, and his hat and stick in his hands, and his hands behind him, a composed and quiet listener. he is a stoutly built, steady-looking, sharp-eyed man in black, of about the middle-age. except that he looks at mr. snagsby as if he were going to take his portrait, there is nothing remarkable about him at first sight but his ghostly manner of appearing. "don't mind this gentleman," says mr. tulkinghorn in his quiet way. "this is only mr. bucket." "oh, indeed, sir?" returns the stationer, expressing by a cough that he is quite in the dark as to who mr. bucket may be. "i wanted him to hear this story," says the lawyer, "because i have half a mind (for a reason) to know more of it, and he is very intelligent in such things. what do you say to this, bucket?" "it's very plain, sir. since our people have moved this boy on, and he's not to be found on his old lay, if mr. snagsby don't object to go down with me to tom-all-alone's and point him out, we can have him here in less than a couple of hours' time. i can do it without mr. snagsby, of course, but this is the shortest way." "mr. bucket is a detective officer, snagsby," says the lawyer in explanation. "is he indeed, sir?" says mr. snagsby with a strong tendency in his clump of hair to stand on end. "and if you have no real objection to accompany mr. bucket to the place in question," pursues the lawyer, "i shall feel obliged to you if you will do so." in a moment's hesitation on the part of mr. snagsby, bucket dips down to the bottom of his mind. "don't you be afraid of hurting the boy," he says. "you won't do that. it's all right as far as the boy's concerned. we shall only bring him here to ask him a question or so i want to put to him, and he'll be paid for his trouble and sent away again. it'll be a good job for him. i promise you, as a man, that you shall see the boy sent away all right. don't you be afraid of hurting him; you an't going to do that." "very well, mr. tulkinghorn!" cries mr. snagsby cheerfully. and reassured, "since that's the case--" "yes! and lookee here, mr. snagsby," resumes bucket, taking him aside by the arm, tapping him familiarly on the breast, and speaking in a confidential tone. "you're a man of the world, you know, and a man of business, and a man of sense. that's what you are." "i am sure i am much obliged to you for your good opinion," returns the stationer with his cough of modesty, "but--" "that's what you are, you know," says bucket. "now, it an't necessary to say to a man like you, engaged in your business, which is a business of trust and requires a person to be wide awake and have his senses about him and his head screwed on tight (i had an uncle in your business once)--it an't necessary to say to a man like you that it's the best and wisest way to keep little matters like this quiet. don't you see? quiet!" "certainly, certainly," returns the other. "i don't mind telling you," says bucket with an engaging appearance of frankness, "that as far as i can understand it, there seems to be a doubt whether this dead person wasn't entitled to a little property, and whether this female hasn't been up to some games respecting that property, don't you see?" "oh!" says mr. snagsby, but not appearing to see quite distinctly. "now, what you want," pursues bucket, again tapping mr. snagsby on the breast in a comfortable and soothing manner, "is that every person should have their rights according to justice. that's what you want." "to be sure," returns mr. snagsby with a nod. "on account of which, and at the same time to oblige a--do you call it, in your business, customer or client? i forget how my uncle used to call it." "why, i generally say customer myself," replies mr. snagsby. "you're right!" returns mr. bucket, shaking hands with him quite affectionately. "--on account of which, and at the same time to oblige a real good customer, you mean to go down with me, in confidence, to tom-all-alone's and to keep the whole thing quiet ever afterwards and never mention it to any one. that's about your intentions, if i understand you?" "you are right, sir. you are right," says mr. snagsby. "then here's your hat," returns his new friend, quite as intimate with it as if he had made it; "and if you're ready, i am." they leave mr. tulkinghorn, without a ruffle on the surface of his unfathomable depths, drinking his old wine, and go down into the streets. "you don't happen to know a very good sort of person of the name of gridley, do you?" says bucket in friendly converse as they descend the stairs. "no," says mr. snagsby, considering, "i don't know anybody of that name. why?" "nothing particular," says bucket; "only having allowed his temper to get a little the better of him and having been threatening some respectable people, he is keeping out of the way of a warrant i have got against him--which it's a pity that a man of sense should do." as they walk along, mr. snagsby observes, as a novelty, that however quick their pace may be, his companion still seems in some undefinable manner to lurk and lounge; also, that whenever he is going to turn to the right or left, he pretends to have a fixed purpose in his mind of going straight ahead, and wheels off, sharply, at the very last moment. now and then, when they pass a police-constable on his beat, mr. snagsby notices that both the constable and his guide fall into a deep abstraction as they come towards each other, and appear entirely to overlook each other, and to gaze into space. in a few instances, mr. bucket, coming behind some under-sized young man with a shining hat on, and his sleek hair twisted into one flat curl on each side of his head, almost without glancing at him touches him with his stick, upon which the young man, looking round, instantly evaporates. for the most part mr. bucket notices things in general, with a face as unchanging as the great mourning ring on his little finger or the brooch, composed of not much diamond and a good deal of setting, which he wears in his shirt. when they come at last to tom-all-alone's, mr. bucket stops for a moment at the corner and takes a lighted bull's-eye from the constable on duty there, who then accompanies him with his own particular bull's-eye at his waist. between his two conductors, mr. snagsby passes along the middle of a villainous street, undrained, unventilated, deep in black mud and corrupt water--though the roads are dry elsewhere--and reeking with such smells and sights that he, who has lived in london all his life, can scarce believe his senses. branching from this street and its heaps of ruins are other streets and courts so infamous that mr. snagsby sickens in body and mind and feels as if he were going every moment deeper down into the infernal gulf. "draw off a bit here, mr. snagsby," says bucket as a kind of shabby palanquin is borne towards them, surrounded by a noisy crowd. "here's the fever coming up the street!" as the unseen wretch goes by, the crowd, leaving that object of attraction, hovers round the three visitors like a dream of horrible faces and fades away up alleys and into ruins and behind walls, and with occasional cries and shrill whistles of warning, thenceforth flits about them until they leave the place. "are those the fever-houses, darby?" mr. bucket coolly asks as he turns his bull's-eye on a line of stinking ruins. darby replies that "all them are," and further that in all, for months and months, the people "have been down by dozens" and have been carried out dead and dying "like sheep with the rot." bucket observing to mr. snagsby as they go on again that he looks a little poorly, mr. snagsby answers that he feels as if he couldn't breathe the dreadful air. there is inquiry made at various houses for a boy named jo. as few people are known in tom-all-alone's by any christian sign, there is much reference to mr. snagsby whether he means carrots, or the colonel, or gallows, or young chisel, or terrier tip, or lanky, or the brick. mr. snagsby describes over and over again. there are conflicting opinions respecting the original of his picture. some think it must be carrots, some say the brick. the colonel is produced, but is not at all near the thing. whenever mr. snagsby and his conductors are stationary, the crowd flows round, and from its squalid depths obsequious advice heaves up to mr. bucket. whenever they move, and the angry bull's-eyes glare, it fades away and flits about them up the alleys, and in the ruins, and behind the walls, as before. at last there is a lair found out where toughy, or the tough subject, lays him down at night; and it is thought that the tough subject may be jo. comparison of notes between mr. snagsby and the proprietress of the house--a drunken face tied up in a black bundle, and flaring out of a heap of rags on the floor of a dog-hutch which is her private apartment--leads to the establishment of this conclusion. toughy has gone to the doctor's to get a bottle of stuff for a sick woman but will be here anon. "and who have we got here to-night?" says mr. bucket, opening another door and glaring in with his bull's-eye. "two drunken men, eh? and two women? the men are sound enough," turning back each sleeper's arm from his face to look at him. "are these your good men, my dears?" "yes, sir," returns one of the women. "they are our husbands." "brickmakers, eh?" "yes, sir." "what are you doing here? you don't belong to london." "no, sir. we belong to hertfordshire." "whereabouts in hertfordshire?" "saint albans." "come up on the tramp?" "we walked up yesterday. there's no work down with us at present, but we have done no good by coming here, and shall do none, i expect." "that's not the way to do much good," says mr. bucket, turning his head in the direction of the unconscious figures on the ground. "it an't indeed," replies the woman with a sigh. "jenny and me knows it full well." the room, though two or three feet higher than the door, is so low that the head of the tallest of the visitors would touch the blackened ceiling if he stood upright. it is offensive to every sense; even the gross candle burns pale and sickly in the polluted air. there are a couple of benches and a higher bench by way of table. the men lie asleep where they stumbled down, but the women sit by the candle. lying in the arms of the woman who has spoken is a very young child. "why, what age do you call that little creature?" says bucket. "it looks as if it was born yesterday." he is not at all rough about it; and as he turns his light gently on the infant, mr. snagsby is strangely reminded of another infant, encircled with light, that he has seen in pictures. "he is not three weeks old yet, sir," says the woman. "is he your child?" "mine." the other woman, who was bending over it when they came in, stoops down again and kisses it as it lies asleep. "you seem as fond of it as if you were the mother yourself," says mr. bucket. "i was the mother of one like it, master, and it died." "ah, jenny, jenny!" says the other woman to her. "better so. much better to think of dead than alive, jenny! much better!" "why, you an't such an unnatural woman, i hope," returns bucket sternly, "as to wish your own child dead?" "god knows you are right, master," she returns. "i am not. i'd stand between it and death with my own life if i could, as true as any pretty lady." "then don't talk in that wrong manner," says mr. bucket, mollified again. "why do you do it?" "it's brought into my head, master," returns the woman, her eyes filling with tears, "when i look down at the child lying so. if it was never to wake no more, you'd think me mad, i should take on so. i know that very well. i was with jenny when she lost hers--warn't i, jenny?--and i know how she grieved. but look around you at this place. look at them," glancing at the sleepers on the ground. "look at the boy you're waiting for, who's gone out to do me a good turn. think of the children that your business lays with often and often, and that you see grow up!" "well, well," says mr. bucket, "you train him respectable, and he'll be a comfort to you, and look after you in your old age, you know." "i mean to try hard," she answers, wiping her eyes. "but i have been a-thinking, being over-tired to-night and not well with the ague, of all the many things that'll come in his way. my master will be against it, and he'll be beat, and see me beat, and made to fear his home, and perhaps to stray wild. if i work for him ever so much, and ever so hard, there's no one to help me; and if he should be turned bad 'spite of all i could do, and the time should come when i should sit by him in his sleep, made hard and changed, an't it likely i should think of him as he lies in my lap now and wish he had died as jenny's child died!" "there, there!" says jenny. "liz, you're tired and ill. let me take him." in doing so, she displaces the mother's dress, but quickly readjusts it over the wounded and bruised bosom where the baby has been lying. "it's my dead child," says jenny, walking up and down as she nurses, "that makes me love this child so dear, and it's my dead child that makes her love it so dear too, as even to think of its being taken away from her now. while she thinks that, i think what fortune would i give to have my darling back. but we mean the same thing, if we knew how to say it, us two mothers does in our poor hearts!" as mr. snagsby blows his nose and coughs his cough of sympathy, a step is heard without. mr. bucket throws his light into the doorway and says to mr. snagsby, "now, what do you say to toughy? will he do?" "that's jo," says mr. snagsby. jo stands amazed in the disk of light, like a ragged figure in a magic-lantern, trembling to think that he has offended against the law in not having moved on far enough. mr. snagsby, however, giving him the consolatory assurance, "it's only a job you will be paid for, jo," he recovers; and on being taken outside by mr. bucket for a little private confabulation, tells his tale satisfactorily, though out of breath. "i have squared it with the lad," says mr. bucket, returning, "and it's all right. now, mr. snagsby, we're ready for you." first, jo has to complete his errand of good nature by handing over the physic he has been to get, which he delivers with the laconic verbal direction that "it's to be all took d'rectly." secondly, mr. snagsby has to lay upon the table half a crown, his usual panacea for an immense variety of afflictions. thirdly, mr. bucket has to take jo by the arm a little above the elbow and walk him on before him, without which observance neither the tough subject nor any other subject could be professionally conducted to lincoln's inn fields. these arrangements completed, they give the women good night and come out once more into black and foul tom-all-alone's. by the noisome ways through which they descended into that pit, they gradually emerge from it, the crowd flitting, and whistling, and skulking about them until they come to the verge, where restoration of the bull's-eyes is made to darby. here the crowd, like a concourse of imprisoned demons, turns back, yelling, and is seen no more. through the clearer and fresher streets, never so clear and fresh to mr. snagsby's mind as now, they walk and ride until they come to mr. tulkinghorn's gate. as they ascend the dim stairs (mr. tulkinghorn's chambers being on the first floor), mr. bucket mentions that he has the key of the outer door in his pocket and that there is no need to ring. for a man so expert in most things of that kind, bucket takes time to open the door and makes some noise too. it may be that he sounds a note of preparation. howbeit, they come at last into the hall, where a lamp is burning, and so into mr. tulkinghorn's usual room--the room where he drank his old wine to-night. he is not there, but his two old-fashioned candlesticks are, and the room is tolerably light. mr. bucket, still having his professional hold of jo and appearing to mr. snagsby to possess an unlimited number of eyes, makes a little way into this room, when jo starts and stops. "what's the matter?" says bucket in a whisper. "there she is!" cries jo. "who!" "the lady!" a female figure, closely veiled, stands in the middle of the room, where the light falls upon it. it is quite still and silent. the front of the figure is towards them, but it takes no notice of their entrance and remains like a statue. "now, tell me," says bucket aloud, "how you know that to be the lady." "i know the wale," replies jo, staring, "and the bonnet, and the gownd." "be quite sure of what you say, tough," returns bucket, narrowly observant of him. "look again." "i am a-looking as hard as ever i can look," says jo with starting eyes, "and that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd." "what about those rings you told me of?" asks bucket. "a-sparkling all over here," says jo, rubbing the fingers of his left hand on the knuckles of his right without taking his eyes from the figure. the figure removes the right-hand glove and shows the hand. "now, what do you say to that?" asks bucket. jo shakes his head. "not rings a bit like them. not a hand like that." "what are you talking of?" says bucket, evidently pleased though, and well pleased too. "hand was a deal whiter, a deal delicater, and a deal smaller," returns jo. "why, you'll tell me i'm my own mother next," says mr. bucket. "do you recollect the lady's voice?" "i think i does," says jo. the figure speaks. "was it at all like this? i will speak as long as you like if you are not sure. was it this voice, or at all like this voice?" jo looks aghast at mr. bucket. "not a bit!" "then, what," retorts that worthy, pointing to the figure, "did you say it was the lady for?" "cos," says jo with a perplexed stare but without being at all shaken in his certainty, "cos that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd. it is her and it an't her. it an't her hand, nor yet her rings, nor yet her woice. but that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd, and they're wore the same way wot she wore 'em, and it's her height wot she wos, and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it." "well!" says mr. bucket slightly, "we haven't got much good out of you. but, however, here's five shillings for you. take care how you spend it, and don't get yourself into trouble." bucket stealthily tells the coins from one hand into the other like counters--which is a way he has, his principal use of them being in these games of skill--and then puts them, in a little pile, into the boy's hand and takes him out to the door, leaving mr. snagsby, not by any means comfortable under these mysterious circumstances, alone with the veiled figure. but on mr. tulkinghorn's coming into the room, the veil is raised and a sufficiently good-looking frenchwoman is revealed, though her expression is something of the intensest. "thank you, mademoiselle hortense," says mr. tulkinghorn with his usual equanimity. "i will give you no further trouble about this little wager." "you will do me the kindness to remember, sir, that i am not at present placed?" says mademoiselle. "certainly, certainly!" "and to confer upon me the favour of your distinguished recommendation?" "by all means, mademoiselle hortense." "a word from mr. tulkinghorn is so powerful." "it shall not be wanting, mademoiselle." "receive the assurance of my devoted gratitude, dear sir." "good night." mademoiselle goes out with an air of native gentility; and mr. bucket, to whom it is, on an emergency, as natural to be groom of the ceremonies as it is to be anything else, shows her downstairs, not without gallantry. "well, bucket?" quoth mr. tulkinghorn on his return. "it's all squared, you see, as i squared it myself, sir. there an't a doubt that it was the other one with this one's dress on. the boy was exact respecting colours and everything. mr. snagsby, i promised you as a man that he should be sent away all right. don't say it wasn't done!" "you have kept your word, sir," returns the stationer; "and if i can be of no further use, mr. tulkinghorn, i think, as my little woman will be getting anxious--" "thank you, snagsby, no further use," says mr. tulkinghorn. "i am quite indebted to you for the trouble you have taken already." "not at all, sir. i wish you good night." "you see, mr. snagsby," says mr. bucket, accompanying him to the door and shaking hands with him over and over again, "what i like in you is that you're a man it's of no use pumping; that's what you are. when you know you have done a right thing, you put it away, and it's done with and gone, and there's an end of it. that's what you do." "that is certainly what i endeavour to do, sir," returns mr. snagsby. "no, you don't do yourself justice. it an't what you endeavour to do," says mr. bucket, shaking hands with him and blessing him in the tenderest manner, "it's what you do. that's what i estimate in a man in your way of business." mr. snagsby makes a suitable response and goes homeward so confused by the events of the evening that he is doubtful of his being awake and out--doubtful of the reality of the streets through which he goes--doubtful of the reality of the moon that shines above him. he is presently reassured on these subjects by the unchallengeable reality of mrs. snagsby, sitting up with her head in a perfect beehive of curl-papers and night-cap, who has dispatched guster to the police-station with official intelligence of her husband's being made away with, and who within the last two hours has passed through every stage of swooning with the greatest decorum. but as the little woman feelingly says, many thanks she gets for it! chapter xxiii esther's narrative we came home from mr. boythorn's after six pleasant weeks. we were often in the park and in the woods and seldom passed the lodge where we had taken shelter without looking in to speak to the keeper's wife; but we saw no more of lady dedlock, except at church on sundays. there was company at chesney wold; and although several beautiful faces surrounded her, her face retained the same influence on me as at first. i do not quite know even now whether it was painful or pleasurable, whether it drew me towards her or made me shrink from her. i think i admired her with a kind of fear, and i know that in her presence my thoughts always wandered back, as they had done at first, to that old time of my life. i had a fancy, on more than one of these sundays, that what this lady so curiously was to me, i was to her--i mean that i disturbed her thoughts as she influenced mine, though in some different way. but when i stole a glance at her and saw her so composed and distant and unapproachable, i felt this to be a foolish weakness. indeed, i felt the whole state of my mind in reference to her to be weak and unreasonable, and i remonstrated with myself about it as much as i could. one incident that occurred before we quitted mr. boythorn's house, i had better mention in this place. i was walking in the garden with ada when i was told that some one wished to see me. going into the breakfast-room where this person was waiting, i found it to be the french maid who had cast off her shoes and walked through the wet grass on the day when it thundered and lightened. "mademoiselle," she began, looking fixedly at me with her too-eager eyes, though otherwise presenting an agreeable appearance and speaking neither with boldness nor servility, "i have taken a great liberty in coming here, but you know how to excuse it, being so amiable, mademoiselle." "no excuse is necessary," i returned, "if you wish to speak to me." "that is my desire, mademoiselle. a thousand thanks for the permission. i have your leave to speak. is it not?" she said in a quick, natural way. "certainly," said i. "mademoiselle, you are so amiable! listen then, if you please. i have left my lady. we could not agree. my lady is so high, so very high. pardon! mademoiselle, you are right!" her quickness anticipated what i might have said presently but as yet had only thought. "it is not for me to come here to complain of my lady. but i say she is so high, so very high. i will not say a word more. all the world knows that." "go on, if you please," said i. "assuredly; mademoiselle, i am thankful for your politeness. mademoiselle, i have an inexpressible desire to find service with a young lady who is good, accomplished, beautiful. you are good, accomplished, and beautiful as an angel. ah, could i have the honour of being your domestic!" "i am sorry--" i began. "do not dismiss me so soon, mademoiselle!" she said with an involuntary contraction of her fine black eyebrows. "let me hope a moment! mademoiselle, i know this service would be more retired than that which i have quitted. well! i wish that. i know this service would be less distinguished than that which i have quitted. well! i wish that, i know that i should win less, as to wages here. good. i am content." "i assure you," said i, quite embarrassed by the mere idea of having such an attendant, "that i keep no maid--" "ah, mademoiselle, but why not? why not, when you can have one so devoted to you! who would be enchanted to serve you; who would be so true, so zealous, and so faithful every day! mademoiselle, i wish with all my heart to serve you. do not speak of money at present. take me as i am. for nothing!" she was so singularly earnest that i drew back, almost afraid of her. without appearing to notice it, in her ardour she still pressed herself upon me, speaking in a rapid subdued voice, though always with a certain grace and propriety. "mademoiselle, i come from the south country where we are quick and where we like and dislike very strong. my lady was too high for me; i was too high for her. it is done--past--finished! receive me as your domestic, and i will serve you well. i will do more for you than you figure to yourself now. chut! mademoiselle, i will--no matter, i will do my utmost possible in all things. if you accept my service, you will not repent it. mademoiselle, you will not repent it, and i will serve you well. you don't know how well!" there was a lowering energy in her face as she stood looking at me while i explained the impossibility of my engaging her (without thinking it necessary to say how very little i desired to do so), which seemed to bring visibly before me some woman from the streets of paris in the reign of terror. she heard me out without interruption and then said with her pretty accent and in her mildest voice, "hey, mademoiselle, i have received my answer! i am sorry of it. but i must go elsewhere and seek what i have not found here. will you graciously let me kiss your hand?" she looked at me more intently as she took it, and seemed to take note, with her momentary touch, of every vein in it. "i fear i surprised you, mademoiselle, on the day of the storm?" she said with a parting curtsy. i confessed that she had surprised us all. "i took an oath, mademoiselle," she said, smiling, "and i wanted to stamp it on my mind so that i might keep it faithfully. and i will! adieu, mademoiselle!" so ended our conference, which i was very glad to bring to a close. i supposed she went away from the village, for i saw her no more; and nothing else occurred to disturb our tranquil summer pleasures until six weeks were out and we returned home as i began just now by saying. at that time, and for a good many weeks after that time, richard was constant in his visits. besides coming every saturday or sunday and remaining with us until monday morning, he sometimes rode out on horseback unexpectedly and passed the evening with us and rode back again early next day. he was as vivacious as ever and told us he was very industrious, but i was not easy in my mind about him. it appeared to me that his industry was all misdirected. i could not find that it led to anything but the formation of delusive hopes in connexion with the suit already the pernicious cause of so much sorrow and ruin. he had got at the core of that mystery now, he told us, and nothing could be plainer than that the will under which he and ada were to take i don't know how many thousands of pounds must be finally established if there were any sense or justice in the court of chancery--but oh, what a great if that sounded in my ears--and that this happy conclusion could not be much longer delayed. he proved this to himself by all the weary arguments on that side he had read, and every one of them sunk him deeper in the infatuation. he had even begun to haunt the court. he told us how he saw miss flite there daily, how they talked together, and how he did her little kindnesses, and how, while he laughed at her, he pitied her from his heart. but he never thought--never, my poor, dear, sanguine richard, capable of so much happiness then, and with such better things before him--what a fatal link was riveting between his fresh youth and her faded age, between his free hopes and her caged birds, and her hungry garret, and her wandering mind. ada loved him too well to mistrust him much in anything he said or did, and my guardian, though he frequently complained of the east wind and read more than usual in the growlery, preserved a strict silence on the subject. so i thought one day when i went to london to meet caddy jellyby, at her solicitation, i would ask richard to be in waiting for me at the coach-office, that we might have a little talk together. i found him there when i arrived, and we walked away arm in arm. "well, richard," said i as soon as i could begin to be grave with him, "are you beginning to feel more settled now?" "oh, yes, my dear!" returned richard. "i'm all right enough." "but settled?" said i. "how do you mean, settled?" returned richard with his gay laugh. "settled in the law," said i. "oh, aye," replied richard, "i'm all right enough." "you said that before, my dear richard." "and you don't think it's an answer, eh? well! perhaps it's not. settled? you mean, do i feel as if i were settling down?" "yes." "why, no, i can't say i am settling down," said richard, strongly emphasizing "down," as if that expressed the difficulty, "because one can't settle down while this business remains in such an unsettled state. when i say this business, of course i mean the--forbidden subject." "do you think it will ever be in a settled state?" said i. "not the least doubt of it," answered richard. we walked a little way without speaking, and presently richard addressed me in his frankest and most feeling manner, thus: "my dear esther, i understand you, and i wish to heaven i were a more constant sort of fellow. i don't mean constant to ada, for i love her dearly--better and better every day--but constant to myself. (somehow, i mean something that i can't very well express, but you'll make it out.) if i were a more constant sort of fellow, i should have held on either to badger or to kenge and carboy like grim death, and should have begun to be steady and systematic by this time, and shouldn't be in debt, and--" "are you in debt, richard?" "yes," said richard, "i am a little so, my dear. also, i have taken rather too much to billiards and that sort of thing. now the murder's out; you despise me, esther, don't you?" "you know i don't," said i. "you are kinder to me than i often am to myself," he returned. "my dear esther, i am a very unfortunate dog not to be more settled, but how can i be more settled? if you lived in an unfinished house, you couldn't settle down in it; if you were condemned to leave everything you undertook unfinished, you would find it hard to apply yourself to anything; and yet that's my unhappy case. i was born into this unfinished contention with all its chances and changes, and it began to unsettle me before i quite knew the difference between a suit at law and a suit of clothes; and it has gone on unsettling me ever since; and here i am now, conscious sometimes that i am but a worthless fellow to love my confiding cousin ada." we were in a solitary place, and he put his hands before his eyes and sobbed as he said the words. "oh, richard!" said i. "do not be so moved. you have a noble nature, and ada's love may make you worthier every day." "i know, my dear," he replied, pressing my arm, "i know all that. you mustn't mind my being a little soft now, for i have had all this upon my mind for a long time, and have often meant to speak to you, and have sometimes wanted opportunity and sometimes courage. i know what the thought of ada ought to do for me, but it doesn't do it. i am too unsettled even for that. i love her most devotedly, and yet i do her wrong, in doing myself wrong, every day and hour. but it can't last for ever. we shall come on for a final hearing and get judgment in our favour, and then you and ada shall see what i can really be!" it had given me a pang to hear him sob and see the tears start out between his fingers, but that was infinitely less affecting to me than the hopeful animation with which he said these words. "i have looked well into the papers, esther. i have been deep in them for months," he continued, recovering his cheerfulness in a moment, "and you may rely upon it that we shall come out triumphant. as to years of delay, there has been no want of them, heaven knows! and there is the greater probability of our bringing the matter to a speedy close; in fact, it's on the paper now. it will be all right at last, and then you shall see!" recalling how he had just now placed messrs. kenge and carboy in the same category with mr. badger, i asked him when he intended to be articled in lincoln's inn. "there again! i think not at all, esther," he returned with an effort. "i fancy i have had enough of it. having worked at jarndyce and jarndyce like a galley slave, i have slaked my thirst for the law and satisfied myself that i shouldn't like it. besides, i find it unsettles me more and more to be so constantly upon the scene of action. so what," continued richard, confident again by this time, "do i naturally turn my thoughts to?" "i can't imagine," said i. "don't look so serious," returned richard, "because it's the best thing i can do, my dear esther, i am certain. it's not as if i wanted a profession for life. these proceedings will come to a termination, and then i am provided for. no. i look upon it as a pursuit which is in its nature more or less unsettled, and therefore suited to my temporary condition--i may say, precisely suited. what is it that i naturally turn my thoughts to?" i looked at him and shook my head. "what," said richard, in a tone of perfect conviction, "but the army!" "the army?" said i. "the army, of course. what i have to do is to get a commission; and--there i am, you know!" said richard. and then he showed me, proved by elaborate calculations in his pocket-book, that supposing he had contracted, say, two hundred pounds of debt in six months out of the army; and that he contracted no debt at all within a corresponding period in the army--as to which he had quite made up his mind; this step must involve a saving of four hundred pounds in a year, or two thousand pounds in five years, which was a considerable sum. and then he spoke so ingenuously and sincerely of the sacrifice he made in withdrawing himself for a time from ada, and of the earnestness with which he aspired--as in thought he always did, i know full well--to repay her love, and to ensure her happiness, and to conquer what was amiss in himself, and to acquire the very soul of decision, that he made my heart ache keenly, sorely. for, i thought, how would this end, how could this end, when so soon and so surely all his manly qualities were touched by the fatal blight that ruined everything it rested on! i spoke to richard with all the earnestness i felt, and all the hope i could not quite feel then, and implored him for ada's sake not to put any trust in chancery. to all i said, richard readily assented, riding over the court and everything else in his easy way and drawing the brightest pictures of the character he was to settle into--alas, when the grievous suit should loose its hold upon him! we had a long talk, but it always came back to that, in substance. at last we came to soho square, where caddy jellyby had appointed to wait for me, as a quiet place in the neighbourhood of newman street. caddy was in the garden in the centre and hurried out as soon as i appeared. after a few cheerful words, richard left us together. "prince has a pupil over the way, esther," said caddy, "and got the key for us. so if you will walk round and round here with me, we can lock ourselves in and i can tell you comfortably what i wanted to see your dear good face about." "very well, my dear," said i. "nothing could be better." so caddy, after affectionately squeezing the dear good face as she called it, locked the gate, and took my arm, and we began to walk round the garden very cosily. "you see, esther," said caddy, who thoroughly enjoyed a little confidence, "after you spoke to me about its being wrong to marry without ma's knowledge, or even to keep ma long in the dark respecting our engagement--though i don't believe ma cares much for me, i must say--i thought it right to mention your opinions to prince. in the first place because i want to profit by everything you tell me, and in the second place because i have no secrets from prince." "i hope he approved, caddy?" "oh, my dear! i assure you he would approve of anything you could say. you have no idea what an opinion he has of you!" "indeed!" "esther, it's enough to make anybody but me jealous," said caddy, laughing and shaking her head; "but it only makes me joyful, for you are the first friend i ever had, and the best friend i ever can have, and nobody can respect and love you too much to please me." "upon my word, caddy," said i, "you are in the general conspiracy to keep me in a good humour. well, my dear?" "well! i am going to tell you," replied caddy, crossing her hands confidentially upon my arm. "so we talked a good deal about it, and so i said to prince, 'prince, as miss summerson--'" "i hope you didn't say 'miss summerson'?" "no. i didn't!" cried caddy, greatly pleased and with the brightest of faces. "i said, 'esther.' i said to prince, 'as esther is decidedly of that opinion, prince, and has expressed it to me, and always hints it when she writes those kind notes, which you are so fond of hearing me read to you, i am prepared to disclose the truth to ma whenever you think proper. and i think, prince,' said i, 'that esther thinks that i should be in a better, and truer, and more honourable position altogether if you did the same to your papa.'" "yes, my dear," said i. "esther certainly does think so." "so i was right, you see!" exclaimed caddy. "well! this troubled prince a good deal, not because he had the least doubt about it, but because he is so considerate of the feelings of old mr. turveydrop; and he had his apprehensions that old mr. turveydrop might break his heart, or faint away, or be very much overcome in some affecting manner or other if he made such an announcement. he feared old mr. turveydrop might consider it undutiful and might receive too great a shock. for old mr. turveydrop's deportment is very beautiful, you know, esther," said caddy, "and his feelings are extremely sensitive." "are they, my dear?" "oh, extremely sensitive. prince says so. now, this has caused my darling child--i didn't mean to use the expression to you, esther," caddy apologized, her face suffused with blushes, "but i generally call prince my darling child." i laughed; and caddy laughed and blushed, and went on. "this has caused him, esther--" "caused whom, my dear?" "oh, you tiresome thing!" said caddy, laughing, with her pretty face on fire. "my darling child, if you insist upon it! this has caused him weeks of uneasiness and has made him delay, from day to day, in a very anxious manner. at last he said to me, 'caddy, if miss summerson, who is a great favourite with my father, could be prevailed upon to be present when i broke the subject, i think i could do it.' so i promised i would ask you. and i made up my mind, besides," said caddy, looking at me hopefully but timidly, "that if you consented, i would ask you afterwards to come with me to ma. this is what i meant when i said in my note that i had a great favour and a great assistance to beg of you. and if you thought you could grant it, esther, we should both be very grateful." "let me see, caddy," said i, pretending to consider. "really, i think i could do a greater thing than that if the need were pressing. i am at your service and the darling child's, my dear, whenever you like." caddy was quite transported by this reply of mine, being, i believe, as susceptible to the least kindness or encouragement as any tender heart that ever beat in this world; and after another turn or two round the garden, during which she put on an entirely new pair of gloves and made herself as resplendent as possible that she might do no avoidable discredit to the master of deportment, we went to newman street direct. prince was teaching, of course. we found him engaged with a not very hopeful pupil--a stubborn little girl with a sulky forehead, a deep voice, and an inanimate, dissatisfied mama--whose case was certainly not rendered more hopeful by the confusion into which we threw her preceptor. the lesson at last came to an end, after proceeding as discordantly as possible; and when the little girl had changed her shoes and had had her white muslin extinguished in shawls, she was taken away. after a few words of preparation, we then went in search of mr. turveydrop, whom we found, grouped with his hat and gloves, as a model of deportment, on the sofa in his private apartment--the only comfortable room in the house. he appeared to have dressed at his leisure in the intervals of a light collation, and his dressing-case, brushes, and so forth, all of quite an elegant kind, lay about. "father, miss summerson; miss jellyby." "charmed! enchanted!" said mr. turveydrop, rising with his high-shouldered bow. "permit me!" handing chairs. "be seated!" kissing the tips of his left fingers. "overjoyed!" shutting his eyes and rolling. "my little retreat is made a paradise." recomposing himself on the sofa like the second gentleman in europe. "again you find us, miss summerson," said he, "using our little arts to polish, polish! again the sex stimulates us and rewards us by the condescension of its lovely presence. it is much in these times (and we have made an awfully degenerating business of it since the days of his royal highness the prince regent--my patron, if i may presume to say so) to experience that deportment is not wholly trodden under foot by mechanics. that it can yet bask in the smile of beauty, my dear madam." i said nothing, which i thought a suitable reply; and he took a pinch of snuff. "my dear son," said mr. turveydrop, "you have four schools this afternoon. i would recommend a hasty sandwich." "thank you, father," returned prince, "i will be sure to be punctual. my dear father, may i beg you to prepare your mind for what i am going to say?" "good heaven!" exclaimed the model, pale and aghast as prince and caddy, hand in hand, bent down before him. "what is this? is this lunacy! or what is this?" "father," returned prince with great submission, "i love this young lady, and we are engaged." "engaged!" cried mr. turveydrop, reclining on the sofa and shutting out the sight with his hand. "an arrow launched at my brain by my own child!" "we have been engaged for some time, father," faltered prince, "and miss summerson, hearing of it, advised that we should declare the fact to you and was so very kind as to attend on the present occasion. miss jellyby is a young lady who deeply respects you, father." mr. turveydrop uttered a groan. "no, pray don't! pray don't, father," urged his son. "miss jellyby is a young lady who deeply respects you, and our first desire is to consider your comfort." mr. turveydrop sobbed. "no, pray don't, father!" cried his son. "boy," said mr. turveydrop, "it is well that your sainted mother is spared this pang. strike deep, and spare not. strike home, sir, strike home!" "pray don't say so, father," implored prince, in tears. "it goes to my heart. i do assure you, father, that our first wish and intention is to consider your comfort. caroline and i do not forget our duty--what is my duty is caroline's, as we have often said together--and with your approval and consent, father, we will devote ourselves to making your life agreeable." "strike home," murmured mr. turveydrop. "strike home!" but he seemed to listen, i thought, too. "my dear father," returned prince, "we well know what little comforts you are accustomed to and have a right to, and it will always be our study and our pride to provide those before anything. if you will bless us with your approval and consent, father, we shall not think of being married until it is quite agreeable to you; and when we are married, we shall always make you--of course--our first consideration. you must ever be the head and master here, father; and we feel how truly unnatural it would be in us if we failed to know it or if we failed to exert ourselves in every possible way to please you." mr. turveydrop underwent a severe internal struggle and came upright on the sofa again with his cheeks puffing over his stiff cravat, a perfect model of parental deportment. "my son!" said mr. turveydrop. "my children! i cannot resist your prayer. be happy!" his benignity as he raised his future daughter-in-law and stretched out his hand to his son (who kissed it with affectionate respect and gratitude) was the most confusing sight i ever saw. "my children," said mr. turveydrop, paternally encircling caddy with his left arm as she sat beside him, and putting his right hand gracefully on his hip. "my son and daughter, your happiness shall be my care. i will watch over you. you shall always live with me"--meaning, of course, i will always live with you--"this house is henceforth as much yours as mine; consider it your home. may you long live to share it with me!" the power of his deportment was such that they really were as much overcome with thankfulness as if, instead of quartering himself upon them for the rest of his life, he were making some munificent sacrifice in their favour. "for myself, my children," said mr. turveydrop, "i am falling into the sear and yellow leaf, and it is impossible to say how long the last feeble traces of gentlemanly deportment may linger in this weaving and spinning age. but, so long, i will do my duty to society and will show myself, as usual, about town. my wants are few and simple. my little apartment here, my few essentials for the toilet, my frugal morning meal, and my little dinner will suffice. i charge your dutiful affection with the supply of these requirements, and i charge myself with all the rest." they were overpowered afresh by his uncommon generosity. "my son," said mr. turveydrop, "for those little points in which you are deficient--points of deportment, which are born with a man, which may be improved by cultivation, but can never be originated--you may still rely on me. i have been faithful to my post since the days of his royal highness the prince regent, and i will not desert it now. no, my son. if you have ever contemplated your father's poor position with a feeling of pride, you may rest assured that he will do nothing to tarnish it. for yourself, prince, whose character is different (we cannot be all alike, nor is it advisable that we should), work, be industrious, earn money, and extend the connexion as much as possible." "that you may depend i will do, dear father, with all my heart," replied prince. "i have no doubt of it," said mr. turveydrop. "your qualities are not shining, my dear child, but they are steady and useful. and to both of you, my children, i would merely observe, in the spirit of a sainted wooman on whose path i had the happiness of casting, i believe, some ray of light, take care of the establishment, take care of my simple wants, and bless you both!" old mr. turveydrop then became so very gallant, in honour of the occasion, that i told caddy we must really go to thavies inn at once if we were to go at all that day. so we took our departure after a very loving farewell between caddy and her betrothed, and during our walk she was so happy and so full of old mr. turveydrop's praises that i would not have said a word in his disparagement for any consideration. the house in thavies inn had bills in the windows announcing that it was to let, and it looked dirtier and gloomier and ghastlier than ever. the name of poor mr. jellyby had appeared in the list of bankrupts but a day or two before, and he was shut up in the dining-room with two gentlemen and a heap of blue bags, account-books, and papers, making the most desperate endeavours to understand his affairs. they appeared to me to be quite beyond his comprehension, for when caddy took me into the dining-room by mistake and we came upon mr. jellyby in his spectacles, forlornly fenced into a corner by the great dining-table and the two gentlemen, he seemed to have given up the whole thing and to be speechless and insensible. going upstairs to mrs. jellyby's room (the children were all screaming in the kitchen, and there was no servant to be seen), we found that lady in the midst of a voluminous correspondence, opening, reading, and sorting letters, with a great accumulation of torn covers on the floor. she was so preoccupied that at first she did not know me, though she sat looking at me with that curious, bright-eyed, far-off look of hers. "ah! miss summerson!" she said at last. "i was thinking of something so different! i hope you are well. i am happy to see you. mr. jarndyce and miss clare quite well?" i hoped in return that mr. jellyby was quite well. "why, not quite, my dear," said mrs. jellyby in the calmest manner. "he has been unfortunate in his affairs and is a little out of spirits. happily for me, i am so much engaged that i have no time to think about it. we have, at the present moment, one hundred and seventy families, miss summerson, averaging five persons in each, either gone or going to the left bank of the niger." i thought of the one family so near us who were neither gone nor going to the left bank of the niger, and wondered how she could be so placid. "you have brought caddy back, i see," observed mrs. jellyby with a glance at her daughter. "it has become quite a novelty to see her here. she has almost deserted her old employment and in fact obliges me to employ a boy." "i am sure, ma--" began caddy. "now you know, caddy," her mother mildly interposed, "that i do employ a boy, who is now at his dinner. what is the use of your contradicting?" "i was not going to contradict, ma," returned caddy. "i was only going to say that surely you wouldn't have me be a mere drudge all my life." "i believe, my dear," said mrs. jellyby, still opening her letters, casting her bright eyes smilingly over them, and sorting them as she spoke, "that you have a business example before you in your mother. besides. a mere drudge? if you had any sympathy with the destinies of the human race, it would raise you high above any such idea. but you have none. i have often told you, caddy, you have no such sympathy." "not if it's africa, ma, i have not." "of course you have not. now, if i were not happily so much engaged, miss summerson," said mrs. jellyby, sweetly casting her eyes for a moment on me and considering where to put the particular letter she had just opened, "this would distress and disappoint me. but i have so much to think of, in connexion with borrioboola-gha and it is so necessary i should concentrate myself that there is my remedy, you see." as caddy gave me a glance of entreaty, and as mrs. jellyby was looking far away into africa straight through my bonnet and head, i thought it a good opportunity to come to the subject of my visit and to attract mrs. jellyby's attention. "perhaps," i began, "you will wonder what has brought me here to interrupt you." "i am always delighted to see miss summerson," said mrs. jellyby, pursuing her employment with a placid smile. "though i wish," and she shook her head, "she was more interested in the borrioboolan project." "i have come with caddy," said i, "because caddy justly thinks she ought not to have a secret from her mother and fancies i shall encourage and aid her (though i am sure i don't know how) in imparting one." "caddy," said mrs. jellyby, pausing for a moment in her occupation and then serenely pursuing it after shaking her head, "you are going to tell me some nonsense." caddy untied the strings of her bonnet, took her bonnet off, and letting it dangle on the floor by the strings, and crying heartily, said, "ma, i am engaged." "oh, you ridiculous child!" observed mrs. jellyby with an abstracted air as she looked over the dispatch last opened; "what a goose you are!" "i am engaged, ma," sobbed caddy, "to young mr. turveydrop, at the academy; and old mr. turveydrop (who is a very gentlemanly man indeed) has given his consent, and i beg and pray you'll give us yours, ma, because i never could be happy without it. i never, never could!" sobbed caddy, quite forgetful of her general complainings and of everything but her natural affection. "you see again, miss summerson," observed mrs. jellyby serenely, "what a happiness it is to be so much occupied as i am and to have this necessity for self-concentration that i have. here is caddy engaged to a dancing-master's son--mixed up with people who have no more sympathy with the destinies of the human race than she has herself! this, too, when mr. quale, one of the first philanthropists of our time, has mentioned to me that he was really disposed to be interested in her!" "ma, i always hated and detested mr. quale!" sobbed caddy. "caddy, caddy!" returned mrs. jellyby, opening another letter with the greatest complacency. "i have no doubt you did. how could you do otherwise, being totally destitute of the sympathies with which he overflows! now, if my public duties were not a favourite child to me, if i were not occupied with large measures on a vast scale, these petty details might grieve me very much, miss summerson. but can i permit the film of a silly proceeding on the part of caddy (from whom i expect nothing else) to interpose between me and the great african continent? no. no," repeated mrs. jellyby in a calm clear voice, and with an agreeable smile, as she opened more letters and sorted them. "no, indeed." i was so unprepared for the perfect coolness of this reception, though i might have expected it, that i did not know what to say. caddy seemed equally at a loss. mrs. jellyby continued to open and sort letters and to repeat occasionally in quite a charming tone of voice and with a smile of perfect composure, "no, indeed." "i hope, ma," sobbed poor caddy at last, "you are not angry?" "oh, caddy, you really are an absurd girl," returned mrs. jellyby, "to ask such questions after what i have said of the preoccupation of my mind." "and i hope, ma, you give us your consent and wish us well?" said caddy. "you are a nonsensical child to have done anything of this kind," said mrs. jellyby; "and a degenerate child, when you might have devoted yourself to the great public measure. but the step is taken, and i have engaged a boy, and there is no more to be said. now, pray, caddy," said mrs. jellyby, for caddy was kissing her, "don't delay me in my work, but let me clear off this heavy batch of papers before the afternoon post comes in!" i thought i could not do better than take my leave; i was detained for a moment by caddy's saying, "you won't object to my bringing him to see you, ma?" "oh, dear me, caddy," cried mrs. jellyby, who had relapsed into that distant contemplation, "have you begun again? bring whom?" "him, ma." "caddy, caddy!" said mrs. jellyby, quite weary of such little matters. "then you must bring him some evening which is not a parent society night, or a branch night, or a ramification night. you must accommodate the visit to the demands upon my time. my dear miss summerson, it was very kind of you to come here to help out this silly chit. good-bye! when i tell you that i have fifty-eight new letters from manufacturing families anxious to understand the details of the native and coffee-cultivation question this morning, i need not apologize for having very little leisure." i was not surprised by caddy's being in low spirits when we went downstairs, or by her sobbing afresh on my neck, or by her saying she would far rather have been scolded than treated with such indifference, or by her confiding to me that she was so poor in clothes that how she was ever to be married creditably she didn't know. i gradually cheered her up by dwelling on the many things she would do for her unfortunate father and for peepy when she had a home of her own; and finally we went downstairs into the damp dark kitchen, where peepy and his little brothers and sisters were grovelling on the stone floor and where we had such a game of play with them that to prevent myself from being quite torn to pieces i was obliged to fall back on my fairy-tales. from time to time i heard loud voices in the parlour overhead, and occasionally a violent tumbling about of the furniture. the last effect i am afraid was caused by poor mr. jellyby's breaking away from the dining-table and making rushes at the window with the intention of throwing himself into the area whenever he made any new attempt to understand his affairs. as i rode quietly home at night after the day's bustle, i thought a good deal of caddy's engagement and felt confirmed in my hopes (in spite of the elder mr. turveydrop) that she would be the happier and better for it. and if there seemed to be but a slender chance of her and her husband ever finding out what the model of deportment really was, why that was all for the best too, and who would wish them to be wiser? i did not wish them to be any wiser and indeed was half ashamed of not entirely believing in him myself. and i looked up at the stars, and thought about travellers in distant countries and the stars they saw, and hoped i might always be so blest and happy as to be useful to some one in my small way. they were so glad to see me when i got home, as they always were, that i could have sat down and cried for joy if that had not been a method of making myself disagreeable. everybody in the house, from the lowest to the highest, showed me such a bright face of welcome, and spoke so cheerily, and was so happy to do anything for me, that i suppose there never was such a fortunate little creature in the world. we got into such a chatty state that night, through ada and my guardian drawing me out to tell them all about caddy, that i went on prose, prose, prosing for a length of time. at last i got up to my own room, quite red to think how i had been holding forth, and then i heard a soft tap at my door. so i said, "come in!" and there came in a pretty little girl, neatly dressed in mourning, who dropped a curtsy. "if you please, miss," said the little girl in a soft voice, "i am charley." "why, so you are," said i, stooping down in astonishment and giving her a kiss. "how glad am i to see you, charley!" "if you please, miss," pursued charley in the same soft voice, "i'm your maid." "charley?" "if you please, miss, i'm a present to you, with mr. jarndyce's love." i sat down with my hand on charley's neck and looked at charley. "and oh, miss," says charley, clapping her hands, with the tears starting down her dimpled cheeks, "tom's at school, if you please, and learning so good! and little emma, she's with mrs. blinder, miss, a-being took such care of! and tom, he would have been at school--and emma, she would have been left with mrs. blinder--and me, i should have been here--all a deal sooner, miss; only mr. jarndyce thought that tom and emma and me had better get a little used to parting first, we was so small. don't cry, if you please, miss!" "i can't help it, charley." "no, miss, nor i can't help it," says charley. "and if you please, miss, mr. jarndyce's love, and he thinks you'll like to teach me now and then. and if you please, tom and emma and me is to see each other once a month. and i'm so happy and so thankful, miss," cried charley with a heaving heart, "and i'll try to be such a good maid!" "oh, charley dear, never forget who did all this!" "no, miss, i never will. nor tom won't. nor yet emma. it was all you, miss." "i have known nothing of it. it was mr. jarndyce, charley." "yes, miss, but it was all done for the love of you and that you might be my mistress. if you please, miss, i am a little present with his love, and it was all done for the love of you. me and tom was to be sure to remember it." charley dried her eyes and entered on her functions, going in her matronly little way about and about the room and folding up everything she could lay her hands upon. presently charley came creeping back to my side and said, "oh, don't cry, if you please, miss." and i said again, "i can't help it, charley." and charley said again, "no, miss, nor i can't help it." and so, after all, i did cry for joy indeed, and so did she. chapter xxiv an appeal case as soon as richard and i had held the conversation of which i have given an account, richard communicated the state of his mind to mr. jarndyce. i doubt if my guardian were altogether taken by surprise when he received the representation, though it caused him much uneasiness and disappointment. he and richard were often closeted together, late at night and early in the morning, and passed whole days in london, and had innumerable appointments with mr. kenge, and laboured through a quantity of disagreeable business. while they were thus employed, my guardian, though he underwent considerable inconvenience from the state of the wind and rubbed his head so constantly that not a single hair upon it ever rested in its right place, was as genial with ada and me as at any other time, but maintained a steady reserve on these matters. and as our utmost endeavours could only elicit from richard himself sweeping assurances that everything was going on capitally and that it really was all right at last, our anxiety was not much relieved by him. we learnt, however, as the time went on, that a new application was made to the lord chancellor on richard's behalf as an infant and a ward, and i don't know what, and that there was a quantity of talking, and that the lord chancellor described him in open court as a vexatious and capricious infant, and that the matter was adjourned and readjourned, and referred, and reported on, and petitioned about until richard began to doubt (as he told us) whether, if he entered the army at all, it would not be as a veteran of seventy or eighty years of age. at last an appointment was made for him to see the lord chancellor again in his private room, and there the lord chancellor very seriously reproved him for trifling with time and not knowing his mind--"a pretty good joke, i think," said richard, "from that quarter!"--and at last it was settled that his application should be granted. his name was entered at the horse guards as an applicant for an ensign's commission; the purchase-money was deposited at an agent's; and richard, in his usual characteristic way, plunged into a violent course of military study and got up at five o'clock every morning to practise the broadsword exercise. thus, vacation succeeded term, and term succeeded vacation. we sometimes heard of jarndyce and jarndyce as being in the paper or out of the paper, or as being to be mentioned, or as being to be spoken to; and it came on, and it went off. richard, who was now in a professor's house in london, was able to be with us less frequently than before; my guardian still maintained the same reserve; and so time passed until the commission was obtained and richard received directions with it to join a regiment in ireland. he arrived post-haste with the intelligence one evening, and had a long conference with my guardian. upwards of an hour elapsed before my guardian put his head into the room where ada and i were sitting and said, "come in, my dears!" we went in and found richard, whom we had last seen in high spirits, leaning on the chimney-piece looking mortified and angry. "rick and i, ada," said mr. jarndyce, "are not quite of one mind. come, come, rick, put a brighter face upon it!" "you are very hard with me, sir," said richard. "the harder because you have been so considerate to me in all other respects and have done me kindnesses that i can never acknowledge. i never could have been set right without you, sir." "well, well!" said mr. jarndyce. "i want to set you more right yet. i want to set you more right with yourself." "i hope you will excuse my saying, sir," returned richard in a fiery way, but yet respectfully, "that i think i am the best judge about myself." "i hope you will excuse my saying, my dear rick," observed mr. jarndyce with the sweetest cheerfulness and good humour, "that it's quite natural in you to think so, but i don't think so. i must do my duty, rick, or you could never care for me in cool blood; and i hope you will always care for me, cool and hot." ada had turned so pale that he made her sit down in his reading-chair and sat beside her. "it's nothing, my dear," he said, "it's nothing. rick and i have only had a friendly difference, which we must state to you, for you are the theme. now you are afraid of what's coming." "i am not indeed, cousin john," replied ada with a smile, "if it is to come from you." "thank you, my dear. do you give me a minute's calm attention, without looking at rick. and, little woman, do you likewise. my dear girl," putting his hand on hers as it lay on the side of the easy-chair, "you recollect the talk we had, we four when the little woman told me of a little love affair?" "it is not likely that either richard or i can ever forget your kindness that day, cousin john." "i can never forget it," said richard. "and i can never forget it," said ada. "so much the easier what i have to say, and so much the easier for us to agree," returned my guardian, his face irradiated by the gentleness and honour of his heart. "ada, my bird, you should know that rick has now chosen his profession for the last time. all that he has of certainty will be expended when he is fully equipped. he has exhausted his resources and is bound henceforward to the tree he has planted." "quite true that i have exhausted my present resources, and i am quite content to know it. but what i have of certainty, sir," said richard, "is not all i have." "rick, rick!" cried my guardian with a sudden terror in his manner, and in an altered voice, and putting up his hands as if he would have stopped his ears. "for the love of god, don't found a hope or expectation on the family curse! whatever you do on this side the grave, never give one lingering glance towards the horrible phantom that has haunted us so many years. better to borrow, better to beg, better to die!" we were all startled by the fervour of this warning. richard bit his lip and held his breath, and glanced at me as if he felt, and knew that i felt too, how much he needed it. "ada, my dear," said mr. jarndyce, recovering his cheerfulness, "these are strong words of advice, but i live in bleak house and have seen a sight here. enough of that. all richard had to start him in the race of life is ventured. i recommend to him and you, for his sake and your own, that he should depart from us with the understanding that there is no sort of contract between you. i must go further. i will be plain with you both. you were to confide freely in me, and i will confide freely in you. i ask you wholly to relinquish, for the present, any tie but your relationship." "better to say at once, sir," returned richard, "that you renounce all confidence in me and that you advise ada to do the same." "better to say nothing of the sort, rick, because i don't mean it." "you think i have begun ill, sir," retorted richard. "i have, i know." "how i hoped you would begin, and how go on, i told you when we spoke of these things last," said mr. jarndyce in a cordial and encouraging manner. "you have not made that beginning yet, but there is a time for all things, and yours is not gone by; rather, it is just now fully come. make a clear beginning altogether. you two (very young, my dears) are cousins. as yet, you are nothing more. what more may come must come of being worked out, rick, and no sooner." "you are very hard with me, sir," said richard. "harder than i could have supposed you would be." "my dear boy," said mr. jarndyce, "i am harder with myself when i do anything that gives you pain. you have your remedy in your own hands. ada, it is better for him that he should be free and that there should be no youthful engagement between you. rick, it is better for her, much better; you owe it to her. come! each of you will do what is best for the other, if not what is best for yourselves." "why is it best, sir?" returned richard hastily. "it was not when we opened our hearts to you. you did not say so then." "i have had experience since. i don't blame you, rick, but i have had experience since." "you mean of me, sir." "well! yes, of both of you," said mr. jarndyce kindly. "the time is not come for your standing pledged to one another. it is not right, and i must not recognize it. come, come, my young cousins, begin afresh! bygones shall be bygones, and a new page turned for you to write your lives in." richard gave an anxious glance at ada but said nothing. "i have avoided saying one word to either of you or to esther," said mr. jarndyce, "until now, in order that we might be open as the day, and all on equal terms. i now affectionately advise, i now most earnestly entreat, you two to part as you came here. leave all else to time, truth, and steadfastness. if you do otherwise, you will do wrong, and you will have made me do wrong in ever bringing you together." a long silence succeeded. "cousin richard," said ada then, raising her blue eyes tenderly to his face, "after what our cousin john has said, i think no choice is left us. your mind may be quite at ease about me, for you will leave me here under his care and will be sure that i can have nothing to wish for--quite sure if i guide myself by his advice. i--i don't doubt, cousin richard," said ada, a little confused, "that you are very fond of me, and i--i don't think you will fall in love with anybody else. but i should like you to consider well about it too, as i should like you to be in all things very happy. you may trust in me, cousin richard. i am not at all changeable; but i am not unreasonable, and should never blame you. even cousins may be sorry to part; and in truth i am very, very sorry, richard, though i know it's for your welfare. i shall always think of you affectionately, and often talk of you with esther, and--and perhaps you will sometimes think a little of me, cousin richard. so now," said ada, going up to him and giving him her trembling hand, "we are only cousins again, richard--for the time perhaps--and i pray for a blessing on my dear cousin, wherever he goes!" it was strange to me that richard should not be able to forgive my guardian for entertaining the very same opinion of him which he himself had expressed of himself in much stronger terms to me. but it was certainly the case. i observed with great regret that from this hour he never was as free and open with mr. jarndyce as he had been before. he had every reason given him to be so, but he was not; and solely on his side, an estrangement began to arise between them. in the business of preparation and equipment he soon lost himself, and even his grief at parting from ada, who remained in hertfordshire while he, mr. jarndyce, and i went up to london for a week. he remembered her by fits and starts, even with bursts of tears, and at such times would confide to me the heaviest self-reproaches. but in a few minutes he would recklessly conjure up some undefinable means by which they were both to be made rich and happy for ever, and would become as gay as possible. it was a busy time, and i trotted about with him all day long, buying a variety of things of which he stood in need. of the things he would have bought if he had been left to his own ways i say nothing. he was perfectly confidential with me, and often talked so sensibly and feelingly about his faults and his vigorous resolutions, and dwelt so much upon the encouragement he derived from these conversations that i could never have been tired if i had tried. there used, in that week, to come backward and forward to our lodging to fence with richard a person who had formerly been a cavalry soldier; he was a fine bluff-looking man, of a frank free bearing, with whom richard had practised for some months. i heard so much about him, not only from richard, but from my guardian too, that i was purposely in the room with my work one morning after breakfast when he came. "good morning, mr. george," said my guardian, who happened to be alone with me. "mr. carstone will be here directly. meanwhile, miss summerson is very happy to see you, i know. sit down." he sat down, a little disconcerted by my presence, i thought, and without looking at me, drew his heavy sunburnt hand across and across his upper lip. "you are as punctual as the sun," said mr. jarndyce. "military time, sir," he replied. "force of habit. a mere habit in me, sir. i am not at all business-like." "yet you have a large establishment, too, i am told?" said mr. jarndyce. "not much of a one, sir. i keep a shooting gallery, but not much of a one." "and what kind of a shot and what kind of a swordsman do you make of mr. carstone?" said my guardian. "pretty good, sir," he replied, folding his arms upon his broad chest and looking very large. "if mr. carstone was to give his full mind to it, he would come out very good." "but he don't, i suppose?" said my guardian. "he did at first, sir, but not afterwards. not his full mind. perhaps he has something else upon it--some young lady, perhaps." his bright dark eyes glanced at me for the first time. "he has not me upon his mind, i assure you, mr. george," said i, laughing, "though you seem to suspect me." he reddened a little through his brown and made me a trooper's bow. "no offence, i hope, miss. i am one of the roughs." "not at all," said i. "i take it as a compliment." if he had not looked at me before, he looked at me now in three or four quick successive glances. "i beg your pardon, sir," he said to my guardian with a manly kind of diffidence, "but you did me the honour to mention the young lady's name--" "miss summerson." "miss summerson," he repeated, and looked at me again. "do you know the name?" i asked. "no, miss. to my knowledge i never heard it. i thought i had seen you somewhere." "i think not," i returned, raising my head from my work to look at him; and there was something so genuine in his speech and manner that i was glad of the opportunity. "i remember faces very well." "so do i, miss!" he returned, meeting my look with the fullness of his dark eyes and broad forehead. "humph! what set me off, now, upon that!" his once more reddening through his brown and being disconcerted by his efforts to remember the association brought my guardian to his relief. "have you many pupils, mr. george?" "they vary in their number, sir. mostly they're but a small lot to live by." "and what classes of chance people come to practise at your gallery?" "all sorts, sir. natives and foreigners. from gentlemen to 'prentices. i have had frenchwomen come, before now, and show themselves dabs at pistol-shooting. mad people out of number, of course, but they go everywhere where the doors stand open." "people don't come with grudges and schemes of finishing their practice with live targets, i hope?" said my guardian, smiling. "not much of that, sir, though that has happened. mostly they come for skill--or idleness. six of one, and half-a-dozen of the other. i beg your pardon," said mr. george, sitting stiffly upright and squaring an elbow on each knee, "but i believe you're a chancery suitor, if i have heard correct?" "i am sorry to say i am." "i have had one of your compatriots in my time, sir." "a chancery suitor?" returned my guardian. "how was that?" "why, the man was so badgered and worried and tortured by being knocked about from post to pillar, and from pillar to post," said mr. george, "that he got out of sorts. i don't believe he had any idea of taking aim at anybody, but he was in that condition of resentment and violence that he would come and pay for fifty shots and fire away till he was red hot. one day i said to him when there was nobody by and he had been talking to me angrily about his wrongs, 'if this practice is a safety-valve, comrade, well and good; but i don't altogether like your being so bent upon it in your present state of mind; i'd rather you took to something else.' i was on my guard for a blow, he was that passionate; but he received it in very good part and left off directly. we shook hands and struck up a sort of friendship." "what was that man?" asked my guardian in a new tone of interest. "why, he began by being a small shropshire farmer before they made a baited bull of him," said mr. george. "was his name gridley?" "it was, sir." mr. george directed another succession of quick bright glances at me as my guardian and i exchanged a word or two of surprise at the coincidence, and i therefore explained to him how we knew the name. he made me another of his soldierly bows in acknowledgment of what he called my condescension. "i don't know," he said as he looked at me, "what it is that sets me off again--but--bosh! what's my head running against!" he passed one of his heavy hands over his crisp dark hair as if to sweep the broken thoughts out of his mind and sat a little forward, with one arm akimbo and the other resting on his leg, looking in a brown study at the ground. "i am sorry to learn that the same state of mind has got this gridley into new troubles and that he is in hiding," said my guardian. "so i am told, sir," returned mr. george, still musing and looking on the ground. "so i am told." "you don't know where?" "no, sir," returned the trooper, lifting up his eyes and coming out of his reverie. "i can't say anything about him. he will be worn out soon, i expect. you may file a strong man's heart away for a good many years, but it will tell all of a sudden at last." richard's entrance stopped the conversation. mr. george rose, made me another of his soldierly bows, wished my guardian a good day, and strode heavily out of the room. this was the morning of the day appointed for richard's departure. we had no more purchases to make now; i had completed all his packing early in the afternoon; and our time was disengaged until night, when he was to go to liverpool for holyhead. jarndyce and jarndyce being again expected to come on that day, richard proposed to me that we should go down to the court and hear what passed. as it was his last day, and he was eager to go, and i had never been there, i gave my consent and we walked down to westminster, where the court was then sitting. we beguiled the way with arrangements concerning the letters that richard was to write to me and the letters that i was to write to him and with a great many hopeful projects. my guardian knew where we were going and therefore was not with us. when we came to the court, there was the lord chancellor--the same whom i had seen in his private room in lincoln's inn--sitting in great state and gravity on the bench, with the mace and seals on a red table below him and an immense flat nosegay, like a little garden, which scented the whole court. below the table, again, was a long row of solicitors, with bundles of papers on the matting at their feet; and then there were the gentlemen of the bar in wigs and gowns--some awake and some asleep, and one talking, and nobody paying much attention to what he said. the lord chancellor leaned back in his very easy chair with his elbow on the cushioned arm and his forehead resting on his hand; some of those who were present dozed; some read the newspapers; some walked about or whispered in groups: all seemed perfectly at their ease, by no means in a hurry, very unconcerned, and extremely comfortable. to see everything going on so smoothly and to think of the roughness of the suitors' lives and deaths; to see all that full dress and ceremony and to think of the waste, and want, and beggared misery it represented; to consider that while the sickness of hope deferred was raging in so many hearts this polite show went calmly on from day to day, and year to year, in such good order and composure; to behold the lord chancellor and the whole array of practitioners under him looking at one another and at the spectators as if nobody had ever heard that all over england the name in which they were assembled was a bitter jest, was held in universal horror, contempt, and indignation, was known for something so flagrant and bad that little short of a miracle could bring any good out of it to any one--this was so curious and self-contradictory to me, who had no experience of it, that it was at first incredible, and i could not comprehend it. i sat where richard put me, and tried to listen, and looked about me; but there seemed to be no reality in the whole scene except poor little miss flite, the madwoman, standing on a bench and nodding at it. miss flite soon espied us and came to where we sat. she gave me a gracious welcome to her domain and indicated, with much gratification and pride, its principal attractions. mr. kenge also came to speak to us and did the honours of the place in much the same way, with the bland modesty of a proprietor. it was not a very good day for a visit, he said; he would have preferred the first day of term; but it was imposing, it was imposing. when we had been there half an hour or so, the case in progress--if i may use a phrase so ridiculous in such a connexion--seemed to die out of its own vapidity, without coming, or being by anybody expected to come, to any result. the lord chancellor then threw down a bundle of papers from his desk to the gentlemen below him, and somebody said, "jarndyce and jarndyce." upon this there was a buzz, and a laugh, and a general withdrawal of the bystanders, and a bringing in of great heaps, and piles, and bags and bags full of papers. i think it came on "for further directions"--about some bill of costs, to the best of my understanding, which was confused enough. but i counted twenty-three gentlemen in wigs who said they were "in it," and none of them appeared to understand it much better than i. they chatted about it with the lord chancellor, and contradicted and explained among themselves, and some of them said it was this way, and some of them said it was that way, and some of them jocosely proposed to read huge volumes of affidavits, and there was more buzzing and laughing, and everybody concerned was in a state of idle entertainment, and nothing could be made of it by anybody. after an hour or so of this, and a good many speeches being begun and cut short, it was "referred back for the present," as mr. kenge said, and the papers were bundled up again before the clerks had finished bringing them in. i glanced at richard on the termination of these hopeless proceedings and was shocked to see the worn look of his handsome young face. "it can't last for ever, dame durden. better luck next time!" was all he said. i had seen mr. guppy bringing in papers and arranging them for mr. kenge; and he had seen me and made me a forlorn bow, which rendered me desirous to get out of the court. richard had given me his arm and was taking me away when mr. guppy came up. "i beg your pardon, mr. carstone," said he in a whisper, "and miss summerson's also, but there's a lady here, a friend of mine, who knows her and wishes to have the pleasure of shaking hands." as he spoke, i saw before me, as if she had started into bodily shape from my remembrance, mrs. rachael of my godmother's house. "how do you do, esther?" said she. "do you recollect me?" i gave her my hand and told her yes and that she was very little altered. "i wonder you remember those times, esther," she returned with her old asperity. "they are changed now. well! i am glad to see you, and glad you are not too proud to know me." but indeed she seemed disappointed that i was not. "proud, mrs. rachael!" i remonstrated. "i am married, esther," she returned, coldly correcting me, "and am mrs. chadband. well! i wish you good day, and i hope you'll do well." mr. guppy, who had been attentive to this short dialogue, heaved a sigh in my ear and elbowed his own and mrs. rachael's way through the confused little crowd of people coming in and going out, which we were in the midst of and which the change in the business had brought together. richard and i were making our way through it, and i was yet in the first chill of the late unexpected recognition when i saw, coming towards us, but not seeing us, no less a person than mr. george. he made nothing of the people about him as he tramped on, staring over their heads into the body of the court. "george!" said richard as i called his attention to him. "you are well met, sir," he returned. "and you, miss. could you point a person out for me, i want? i don't understand these places." turning as he spoke and making an easy way for us, he stopped when we were out of the press in a corner behind a great red curtain. "there's a little cracked old woman," he began, "that--" i put up my finger, for miss flite was close by me, having kept beside me all the time and having called the attention of several of her legal acquaintance to me (as i had overheard to my confusion) by whispering in their ears, "hush! fitz jarndyce on my left!" "hem!" said mr. george. "you remember, miss, that we passed some conversation on a certain man this morning? gridley," in a low whisper behind his hand. "yes," said i. "he is hiding at my place. i couldn't mention it. hadn't his authority. he is on his last march, miss, and has a whim to see her. he says they can feel for one another, and she has been almost as good as a friend to him here. i came down to look for her, for when i sat by gridley this afternoon, i seemed to hear the roll of the muffled drums." "shall i tell her?" said i. "would you be so good?" he returned with a glance of something like apprehension at miss flite. "it's a providence i met you, miss; i doubt if i should have known how to get on with that lady." and he put one hand in his breast and stood upright in a martial attitude as i informed little miss flite, in her ear, of the purport of his kind errand. "my angry friend from shropshire! almost as celebrated as myself!" she exclaimed. "now really! my dear, i will wait upon him with the greatest pleasure." "he is living concealed at mr. george's," said i. "hush! this is mr. george." "in--deed!" returned miss flite. "very proud to have the honour! a military man, my dear. you know, a perfect general!" she whispered to me. poor miss flite deemed it necessary to be so courtly and polite, as a mark of her respect for the army, and to curtsy so very often that it was no easy matter to get her out of the court. when this was at last done, and addressing mr. george as "general," she gave him her arm, to the great entertainment of some idlers who were looking on, he was so discomposed and begged me so respectfully "not to desert him" that i could not make up my mind to do it, especially as miss flite was always tractable with me and as she too said, "fitz jarndyce, my dear, you will accompany us, of course." as richard seemed quite willing, and even anxious, that we should see them safely to their destination, we agreed to do so. and as mr. george informed us that gridley's mind had run on mr. jarndyce all the afternoon after hearing of their interview in the morning, i wrote a hasty note in pencil to my guardian to say where we were gone and why. mr. george sealed it at a coffee-house, that it might lead to no discovery, and we sent it off by a ticket-porter. we then took a hackney-coach and drove away to the neighbourhood of leicester square. we walked through some narrow courts, for which mr. george apologized, and soon came to the shooting gallery, the door of which was closed. as he pulled a bell-handle which hung by a chain to the door-post, a very respectable old gentleman with grey hair, wearing spectacles, and dressed in a black spencer and gaiters and a broad-brimmed hat, and carrying a large gold-beaded cane, addressed him. "i ask your pardon, my good friend," said he, "but is this george's shooting gallery?" "it is, sir," returned mr. george, glancing up at the great letters in which that inscription was painted on the whitewashed wall. "oh! to be sure!" said the old gentleman, following his eyes. "thank you. have you rung the bell?" "my name is george, sir, and i have rung the bell." "oh, indeed?" said the old gentleman. "your name is george? then i am here as soon as you, you see. you came for me, no doubt?" "no, sir. you have the advantage of me." "oh, indeed?" said the old gentleman. "then it was your young man who came for me. i am a physician and was requested--five minutes ago--to come and visit a sick man at george's shooting gallery." "the muffled drums," said mr. george, turning to richard and me and gravely shaking his head. "it's quite correct, sir. will you please to walk in." the door being at that moment opened by a very singular-looking little man in a green-baize cap and apron, whose face and hands and dress were blackened all over, we passed along a dreary passage into a large building with bare brick walls where there were targets, and guns, and swords, and other things of that kind. when we had all arrived here, the physician stopped, and taking off his hat, appeared to vanish by magic and to leave another and quite a different man in his place. "now lookee here, george," said the man, turning quickly round upon him and tapping him on the breast with a large forefinger. "you know me, and i know you. you're a man of the world, and i'm a man of the world. my name's bucket, as you are aware, and i have got a peace-warrant against gridley. you have kept him out of the way a long time, and you have been artful in it, and it does you credit." mr. george, looking hard at him, bit his lip and shook his head. "now, george," said the other, keeping close to him, "you're a sensible man and a well-conducted man; that's what you are, beyond a doubt. and mind you, i don't talk to you as a common character, because you have served your country and you know that when duty calls we must obey. consequently you're very far from wanting to give trouble. if i required assistance, you'd assist me; that's what you'd do. phil squod, don't you go a-sidling round the gallery like that"--the dirty little man was shuffling about with his shoulder against the wall, and his eyes on the intruder, in a manner that looked threatening--"because i know you and won't have it." "phil!" said mr. george. "yes, guv'ner." "be quiet." the little man, with a low growl, stood still. "ladies and gentlemen," said mr. bucket, "you'll excuse anything that may appear to be disagreeable in this, for my name's inspector bucket of the detective, and i have a duty to perform. george, i know where my man is because i was on the roof last night and saw him through the skylight, and you along with him. he is in there, you know," pointing; "that's where he is--on a sofy. now i must see my man, and i must tell my man to consider himself in custody; but you know me, and you know i don't want to take any uncomfortable measures. you give me your word, as from one man to another (and an old soldier, mind you, likewise), that it's honourable between us two, and i'll accommodate you to the utmost of my power." "i give it," was the reply. "but it wasn't handsome in you, mr. bucket." "gammon, george! not handsome?" said mr. bucket, tapping him on his broad breast again and shaking hands with him. "i don't say it wasn't handsome in you to keep my man so close, do i? be equally good-tempered to me, old boy! old william tell, old shaw, the life guardsman! why, he's a model of the whole british army in himself, ladies and gentlemen. i'd give a fifty-pun' note to be such a figure of a man!" the affair being brought to this head, mr. george, after a little consideration, proposed to go in first to his comrade (as he called him), taking miss flite with him. mr. bucket agreeing, they went away to the further end of the gallery, leaving us sitting and standing by a table covered with guns. mr. bucket took this opportunity of entering into a little light conversation, asking me if i were afraid of fire-arms, as most young ladies were; asking richard if he were a good shot; asking phil squod which he considered the best of those rifles and what it might be worth first-hand, telling him in return that it was a pity he ever gave way to his temper, for he was naturally so amiable that he might have been a young woman, and making himself generally agreeable. after a time he followed us to the further end of the gallery, and richard and i were going quietly away when mr. george came after us. he said that if we had no objection to see his comrade, he would take a visit from us very kindly. the words had hardly passed his lips when the bell was rung and my guardian appeared, "on the chance," he slightly observed, "of being able to do any little thing for a poor fellow involved in the same misfortune as himself." we all four went back together and went into the place where gridley was. it was a bare room, partitioned off from the gallery with unpainted wood. as the screening was not more than eight or ten feet high and only enclosed the sides, not the top, the rafters of the high gallery roof were overhead, and the skylight through which mr. bucket had looked down. the sun was low--near setting--and its light came redly in above, without descending to the ground. upon a plain canvas-covered sofa lay the man from shropshire, dressed much as we had seen him last, but so changed that at first i recognized no likeness in his colourless face to what i recollected. he had been still writing in his hiding-place, and still dwelling on his grievances, hour after hour. a table and some shelves were covered with manuscript papers and with worn pens and a medley of such tokens. touchingly and awfully drawn together, he and the little mad woman were side by side and, as it were, alone. she sat on a chair holding his hand, and none of us went close to them. his voice had faded, with the old expression of his face, with his strength, with his anger, with his resistance to the wrongs that had at last subdued him. the faintest shadow of an object full of form and colour is such a picture of it as he was of the man from shropshire whom we had spoken with before. he inclined his head to richard and me and spoke to my guardian. "mr. jarndyce, it is very kind of you to come to see me. i am not long to be seen, i think. i am very glad to take your hand, sir. you are a good man, superior to injustice, and god knows i honour you." they shook hands earnestly, and my guardian said some words of comfort to him. "it may seem strange to you, sir," returned gridley; "i should not have liked to see you if this had been the first time of our meeting. but you know i made a fight for it, you know i stood up with my single hand against them all, you know i told them the truth to the last, and told them what they were, and what they had done to me; so i don't mind your seeing me, this wreck." "you have been courageous with them many and many a time," returned my guardian. "sir, i have been," with a faint smile. "i told you what would come of it when i ceased to be so, and see here! look at us--look at us!" he drew the hand miss flite held through her arm and brought her something nearer to him. "this ends it. of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul alone comes natural to me, and i am fit for. there is a tie of many suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie i ever had on earth that chancery has not broken." "accept my blessing, gridley," said miss flite in tears. "accept my blessing!" "i thought, boastfully, that they never could break my heart, mr. jarndyce. i was resolved that they should not. i did believe that i could, and would, charge them with being the mockery they were until i died of some bodily disorder. but i am worn out. how long i have been wearing out, i don't know; i seemed to break down in an hour. i hope they may never come to hear of it. i hope everybody here will lead them to believe that i died defying them, consistently and perseveringly, as i did through so many years." here mr. bucket, who was sitting in a corner by the door, good-naturedly offered such consolation as he could administer. "come, come!" he said from his corner. "don't go on in that way, mr. gridley. you are only a little low. we are all of us a little low sometimes. i am. hold up, hold up! you'll lose your temper with the whole round of 'em, again and again; and i shall take you on a score of warrants yet, if i have luck." he only shook his head. "don't shake your head," said mr. bucket. "nod it; that's what i want to see you do. why, lord bless your soul, what times we have had together! haven't i seen you in the fleet over and over again for contempt? haven't i come into court, twenty afternoons for no other purpose than to see you pin the chancellor like a bull-dog? don't you remember when you first began to threaten the lawyers, and the peace was sworn against you two or three times a week? ask the little old lady there; she has been always present. hold up, mr. gridley, hold up, sir!" "what are you going to do about him?" asked george in a low voice. "i don't know yet," said bucket in the same tone. then resuming his encouragement, he pursued aloud: "worn out, mr. gridley? after dodging me for all these weeks and forcing me to climb the roof here like a tom cat and to come to see you as a doctor? that ain't like being worn out. i should think not! now i tell you what you want. you want excitement, you know, to keep you up; that's what you want. you're used to it, and you can't do without it. i couldn't myself. very well, then; here's this warrant got by mr. tulkinghorn of lincoln's inn fields, and backed into half-a-dozen counties since. what do you say to coming along with me, upon this warrant, and having a good angry argument before the magistrates? it'll do you good; it'll freshen you up and get you into training for another turn at the chancellor. give in? why, i am surprised to hear a man of your energy talk of giving in. you mustn't do that. you're half the fun of the fair in the court of chancery. george, you lend mr. gridley a hand, and let's see now whether he won't be better up than down." "he is very weak," said the trooper in a low voice. "is he?" returned bucket anxiously. "i only want to rouse him. i don't like to see an old acquaintance giving in like this. it would cheer him up more than anything if i could make him a little waxy with me. he's welcome to drop into me, right and left, if he likes. i shall never take advantage of it." the roof rang with a scream from miss flite, which still rings in my ears. "oh, no, gridley!" she cried as he fell heavily and calmly back from before her. "not without my blessing. after so many years!" the sun was down, the light had gradually stolen from the roof, and the shadow had crept upward. but to me the shadow of that pair, one living and one dead, fell heavier on richard's departure than the darkness of the darkest night. and through richard's farewell words i heard it echoed: "of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul alone comes natural to me, and i am fit for. there is a tie of many suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie i ever had on earth that chancery has not broken!" chapter xxv mrs. snagsby sees it all there is disquietude in cook's court, cursitor street. black suspicion hides in that peaceful region. the mass of cook's courtiers are in their usual state of mind, no better and no worse; but mr. snagsby is changed, and his little woman knows it. for tom-all-alone's and lincoln's inn fields persist in harnessing themselves, a pair of ungovernable coursers, to the chariot of mr. snagsby's imagination; and mr. bucket drives; and the passengers are jo and mr. tulkinghorn; and the complete equipage whirls though the law-stationery business at wild speed all round the clock. even in the little front kitchen where the family meals are taken, it rattles away at a smoking pace from the dinner-table, when mr. snagsby pauses in carving the first slice of the leg of mutton baked with potatoes and stares at the kitchen wall. mr. snagsby cannot make out what it is that he has had to do with. something is wrong somewhere, but what something, what may come of it, to whom, when, and from which unthought of and unheard of quarter is the puzzle of his life. his remote impressions of the robes and coronets, the stars and garters, that sparkle through the surface-dust of mr. tulkinghorn's chambers; his veneration for the mysteries presided over by that best and closest of his customers, whom all the inns of court, all chancery lane, and all the legal neighbourhood agree to hold in awe; his remembrance of detective mr. bucket with his forefinger and his confidential manner, impossible to be evaded or declined, persuade him that he is a party to some dangerous secret without knowing what it is. and it is the fearful peculiarity of this condition that, at any hour of his daily life, at any opening of the shop-door, at any pull of the bell, at any entrance of a messenger, or any delivery of a letter, the secret may take air and fire, explode, and blow up--mr. bucket only knows whom. for which reason, whenever a man unknown comes into the shop (as many men unknown do) and says, "is mr. snagsby in?" or words to that innocent effect, mr. snagsby's heart knocks hard at his guilty breast. he undergoes so much from such inquiries that when they are made by boys he revenges himself by flipping at their ears over the counter and asking the young dogs what they mean by it and why they can't speak out at once? more impracticable men and boys persist in walking into mr. snagsby's sleep and terrifying him with unaccountable questions, so that often when the cock at the little dairy in cursitor street breaks out in his usual absurd way about the morning, mr. snagsby finds himself in a crisis of nightmare, with his little woman shaking him and saying "what's the matter with the man!" the little woman herself is not the least item in his difficulty. to know that he is always keeping a secret from her, that he has under all circumstances to conceal and hold fast a tender double tooth, which her sharpness is ever ready to twist out of his head, gives mr. snagsby, in her dentistical presence, much of the air of a dog who has a reservation from his master and will look anywhere rather than meet his eye. these various signs and tokens, marked by the little woman, are not lost upon her. they impel her to say, "snagsby has something on his mind!" and thus suspicion gets into cook's court, cursitor street. from suspicion to jealousy, mrs. snagsby finds the road as natural and short as from cook's court to chancery lane. and thus jealousy gets into cook's court, cursitor street. once there (and it was always lurking thereabout), it is very active and nimble in mrs. snagsby's breast, prompting her to nocturnal examinations of mr. snagsby's pockets; to secret perusals of mr. snagsby's letters; to private researches in the day book and ledger, till, cash-box, and iron safe; to watchings at windows, listenings behind doors, and a general putting of this and that together by the wrong end. mrs. snagsby is so perpetually on the alert that the house becomes ghostly with creaking boards and rustling garments. the 'prentices think somebody may have been murdered there in bygone times. guster holds certain loose atoms of an idea (picked up at tooting, where they were found floating among the orphans) that there is buried money underneath the cellar, guarded by an old man with a white beard, who cannot get out for seven thousand years because he said the lord's prayer backwards. "who was nimrod?" mrs. snagsby repeatedly inquires of herself. "who was that lady--that creature? and who is that boy?" now, nimrod being as dead as the mighty hunter whose name mrs. snagsby has appropriated, and the lady being unproducible, she directs her mental eye, for the present, with redoubled vigilance to the boy. "and who," quoth mrs. snagsby for the thousand and first time, "is that boy? who is that--!" and there mrs. snagsby is seized with an inspiration. he has no respect for mr. chadband. no, to be sure, and he wouldn't have, of course. naturally he wouldn't, under those contagious circumstances. he was invited and appointed by mr. chadband--why, mrs. snagsby heard it herself with her own ears!--to come back, and be told where he was to go, to be addressed by mr. chadband; and he never came! why did he never come? because he was told not to come. who told him not to come? who? ha, ha! mrs. snagsby sees it all. but happily (and mrs. snagsby tightly shakes her head and tightly smiles) that boy was met by mr. chadband yesterday in the streets; and that boy, as affording a subject which mr. chadband desires to improve for the spiritual delight of a select congregation, was seized by mr. chadband and threatened with being delivered over to the police unless he showed the reverend gentleman where he lived and unless he entered into, and fulfilled, an undertaking to appear in cook's court to-morrow night, "to--mor--row--night," mrs. snagsby repeats for mere emphasis with another tight smile and another tight shake of her head; and to-morrow night that boy will be here, and to-morrow night mrs. snagsby will have her eye upon him and upon some one else; and oh, you may walk a long while in your secret ways (says mrs. snagsby with haughtiness and scorn), but you can't blind me! mrs. snagsby sounds no timbrel in anybody's ears, but holds her purpose quietly, and keeps her counsel. to-morrow comes, the savoury preparations for the oil trade come, the evening comes. comes mr. snagsby in his black coat; come the chadbands; come (when the gorging vessel is replete) the 'prentices and guster, to be edified; comes at last, with his slouching head, and his shuffle backward, and his shuffle forward, and his shuffle to the right, and his shuffle to the left, and his bit of fur cap in his muddy hand, which he picks as if it were some mangy bird he had caught and was plucking before eating raw, jo, the very, very tough subject mr. chadband is to improve. mrs. snagsby screws a watchful glance on jo as he is brought into the little drawing-room by guster. he looks at mr. snagsby the moment he comes in. aha! why does he look at mr. snagsby? mr. snagsby looks at him. why should he do that, but that mrs. snagsby sees it all? why else should that look pass between them, why else should mr. snagsby be confused and cough a signal cough behind his hand? it is as clear as crystal that mr. snagsby is that boy's father. "peace, my friends," says chadband, rising and wiping the oily exudations from his reverend visage. "peace be with us! my friends, why with us? because," with his fat smile, "it cannot be against us, because it must be for us; because it is not hardening, because it is softening; because it does not make war like the hawk, but comes home unto us like the dove. therefore, my friends, peace be with us! my human boy, come forward!" stretching forth his flabby paw, mr. chadband lays the same on jo's arm and considers where to station him. jo, very doubtful of his reverend friend's intentions and not at all clear but that something practical and painful is going to be done to him, mutters, "you let me alone. i never said nothink to you. you let me alone." "no, my young friend," says chadband smoothly, "i will not let you alone. and why? because i am a harvest-labourer, because i am a toiler and a moiler, because you are delivered over unto me and are become as a precious instrument in my hands. my friends, may i so employ this instrument as to use it to your advantage, to your profit, to your gain, to your welfare, to your enrichment! my young friend, sit upon this stool." jo, apparently possessed by an impression that the reverend gentleman wants to cut his hair, shields his head with both arms and is got into the required position with great difficulty and every possible manifestation of reluctance. when he is at last adjusted like a lay-figure, mr. chadband, retiring behind the table, holds up his bear's-paw and says, "my friends!" this is the signal for a general settlement of the audience. the 'prentices giggle internally and nudge each other. guster falls into a staring and vacant state, compounded of a stunned admiration of mr. chadband and pity for the friendless outcast whose condition touches her nearly. mrs. snagsby silently lays trains of gunpowder. mrs. chadband composes herself grimly by the fire and warms her knees, finding that sensation favourable to the reception of eloquence. it happens that mr. chadband has a pulpit habit of fixing some member of his congregation with his eye and fatly arguing his points with that particular person, who is understood to be expected to be moved to an occasional grunt, groan, gasp, or other audible expression of inward working, which expression of inward working, being echoed by some elderly lady in the next pew and so communicated like a game of forfeits through a circle of the more fermentable sinners present, serves the purpose of parliamentary cheering and gets mr. chadband's steam up. from mere force of habit, mr. chadband in saying "my friends!" has rested his eye on mr. snagsby and proceeds to make that ill-starred stationer, already sufficiently confused, the immediate recipient of his discourse. "we have here among us, my friends," says chadband, "a gentile and a heathen, a dweller in the tents of tom-all-alone's and a mover-on upon the surface of the earth. we have here among us, my friends," and mr. chadband, untwisting the point with his dirty thumb-nail, bestows an oily smile on mr. snagsby, signifying that he will throw him an argumentative back-fall presently if he be not already down, "a brother and a boy. devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold and silver and of precious stones. now, my friends, why do i say he is devoid of these possessions? why? why is he?" mr. chadband states the question as if he were propounding an entirely new riddle of much ingenuity and merit to mr. snagsby and entreating him not to give it up. mr. snagsby, greatly perplexed by the mysterious look he received just now from his little woman--at about the period when mr. chadband mentioned the word parents--is tempted into modestly remarking, "i don't know, i'm sure, sir." on which interruption mrs. chadband glares and mrs. snagsby says, "for shame!" "i hear a voice," says chadband; "is it a still small voice, my friends? i fear not, though i fain would hope so--" "ah--h!" from mrs. snagsby. "which says, 'i don't know.' then i will tell you why. i say this brother present here among us is devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold, of silver, and of precious stones because he is devoid of the light that shines in upon some of us. what is that light? what is it? i ask you, what is that light?" mr. chadband draws back his head and pauses, but mr. snagsby is not to be lured on to his destruction again. mr. chadband, leaning forward over the table, pierces what he has got to follow directly into mr. snagsby with the thumb-nail already mentioned. "it is," says chadband, "the ray of rays, the sun of suns, the moon of moons, the star of stars. it is the light of terewth." mr. chadband draws himself up again and looks triumphantly at mr. snagsby as if he would be glad to know how he feels after that. "of terewth," says mr. chadband, hitting him again. "say not to me that it is not the lamp of lamps. i say to you it is. i say to you, a million of times over, it is. it is! i say to you that i will proclaim it to you, whether you like it or not; nay, that the less you like it, the more i will proclaim it to you. with a speaking-trumpet! i say to you that if you rear yourself against it, you shall fall, you shall be bruised, you shall be battered, you shall be flawed, you shall be smashed." the present effect of this flight of oratory--much admired for its general power by mr. chadband's followers--being not only to make mr. chadband unpleasantly warm, but to represent the innocent mr. snagsby in the light of a determined enemy to virtue, with a forehead of brass and a heart of adamant, that unfortunate tradesman becomes yet more disconcerted and is in a very advanced state of low spirits and false position when mr. chadband accidentally finishes him. "my friends," he resumes after dabbing his fat head for some time--and it smokes to such an extent that he seems to light his pocket-handkerchief at it, which smokes, too, after every dab--"to pursue the subject we are endeavouring with our lowly gifts to improve, let us in a spirit of love inquire what is that terewth to which i have alluded. for, my young friends," suddenly addressing the 'prentices and guster, to their consternation, "if i am told by the doctor that calomel or castor-oil is good for me, i may naturally ask what is calomel, and what is castor-oil. i may wish to be informed of that before i dose myself with either or with both. now, my young friends, what is this terewth then? firstly (in a spirit of love), what is the common sort of terewth--the working clothes--the every-day wear, my young friends? is it deception?" "ah--h!" from mrs. snagsby. "is it suppression?" a shiver in the negative from mrs. snagsby. "is it reservation?" a shake of the head from mrs. snagsby--very long and very tight. "no, my friends, it is neither of these. neither of these names belongs to it. when this young heathen now among us--who is now, my friends, asleep, the seal of indifference and perdition being set upon his eyelids; but do not wake him, for it is right that i should have to wrestle, and to combat and to struggle, and to conquer, for his sake--when this young hardened heathen told us a story of a cock, and of a bull, and of a lady, and of a sovereign, was that the terewth? no. or if it was partly, was it wholly and entirely? no, my friends, no!" if mr. snagsby could withstand his little woman's look as it enters at his eyes, the windows of his soul, and searches the whole tenement, he were other than the man he is. he cowers and droops. "or, my juvenile friends," says chadband, descending to the level of their comprehension with a very obtrusive demonstration in his greasily meek smile of coming a long way downstairs for the purpose, "if the master of this house was to go forth into the city and there see an eel, and was to come back, and was to call unto him the mistress of this house, and was to say, 'sarah, rejoice with me, for i have seen an elephant!' would that be terewth?" mrs. snagsby in tears. "or put it, my juvenile friends, that he saw an elephant, and returning said 'lo, the city is barren, i have seen but an eel,' would that be terewth?" mrs. snagsby sobbing loudly. "or put it, my juvenile friends," said chadband, stimulated by the sound, "that the unnatural parents of this slumbering heathen--for parents he had, my juvenile friends, beyond a doubt--after casting him forth to the wolves and the vultures, and the wild dogs and the young gazelles, and the serpents, went back to their dwellings and had their pipes, and their pots, and their flutings and their dancings, and their malt liquors, and their butcher's meat and poultry, would that be terewth?" mrs. snagsby replies by delivering herself a prey to spasms, not an unresisting prey, but a crying and a tearing one, so that cook's court re-echoes with her shrieks. finally, becoming cataleptic, she has to be carried up the narrow staircase like a grand piano. after unspeakable suffering, productive of the utmost consternation, she is pronounced, by expresses from the bedroom, free from pain, though much exhausted, in which state of affairs mr. snagsby, trampled and crushed in the piano-forte removal, and extremely timid and feeble, ventures to come out from behind the door in the drawing-room. all this time jo has been standing on the spot where he woke up, ever picking his cap and putting bits of fur in his mouth. he spits them out with a remorseful air, for he feels that it is in his nature to be an unimprovable reprobate and that it's no good his trying to keep awake, for he won't never know nothink. though it may be, jo, that there is a history so interesting and affecting even to minds as near the brutes as thine, recording deeds done on this earth for common men, that if the chadbands, removing their own persons from the light, would but show it thee in simple reverence, would but leave it unimproved, would but regard it as being eloquent enough without their modest aid--it might hold thee awake, and thou might learn from it yet! jo never heard of any such book. its compilers and the reverend chadband are all one to him, except that he knows the reverend chadband and would rather run away from him for an hour than hear him talk for five minutes. "it an't no good my waiting here no longer," thinks jo. "mr. snagsby an't a-going to say nothink to me to-night." and downstairs he shuffles. but downstairs is the charitable guster, holding by the handrail of the kitchen stairs and warding off a fit, as yet doubtfully, the same having been induced by mrs. snagsby's screaming. she has her own supper of bread and cheese to hand to jo, with whom she ventures to interchange a word or so for the first time. "here's something to eat, poor boy," says guster. "thank'ee, mum," says jo. "are you hungry?" "jist!" says jo. "what's gone of your father and your mother, eh?" jo stops in the middle of a bite and looks petrified. for this orphan charge of the christian saint whose shrine was at tooting has patted him on the shoulder, and it is the first time in his life that any decent hand has been so laid upon him. "i never know'd nothink about 'em," says jo. "no more didn't i of mine," cries guster. she is repressing symptoms favourable to the fit when she seems to take alarm at something and vanishes down the stairs. "jo," whispers the law-stationer softly as the boy lingers on the step. "here i am, mr. snagsby!" "i didn't know you were gone--there's another half-crown, jo. it was quite right of you to say nothing about the lady the other night when we were out together. it would breed trouble. you can't be too quiet, jo." "i am fly, master!" and so, good night. a ghostly shade, frilled and night-capped, follows the law-stationer to the room he came from and glides higher up. and henceforth he begins, go where he will, to be attended by another shadow than his own, hardly less constant than his own, hardly less quiet than his own. and into whatsoever atmosphere of secrecy his own shadow may pass, let all concerned in the secrecy beware! for the watchful mrs. snagsby is there too--bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, shadow of his shadow. chapter xxvi sharpshooters wintry morning, looking with dull eyes and sallow face upon the neighbourhood of leicester square, finds its inhabitants unwilling to get out of bed. many of them are not early risers at the brightest of times, being birds of night who roost when the sun is high and are wide awake and keen for prey when the stars shine out. behind dingy blind and curtain, in upper story and garret, skulking more or less under false names, false hair, false titles, false jewellery, and false histories, a colony of brigands lie in their first sleep. gentlemen of the green-baize road who could discourse from personal experience of foreign galleys and home treadmills; spies of strong governments that eternally quake with weakness and miserable fear, broken traitors, cowards, bullies, gamesters, shufflers, swindlers, and false witnesses; some not unmarked by the branding-iron beneath their dirty braid; all with more cruelty in them than was in nero, and more crime than is in newgate. for howsoever bad the devil can be in fustian or smock-frock (and he can be very bad in both), he is a more designing, callous, and intolerable devil when he sticks a pin in his shirt-front, calls himself a gentleman, backs a card or colour, plays a game or so of billiards, and knows a little about bills and promissory notes than in any other form he wears. and in such form mr. bucket shall find him, when he will, still pervading the tributary channels of leicester square. but the wintry morning wants him not and wakes him not. it wakes mr. george of the shooting gallery and his familiar. they arise, roll up and stow away their mattresses. mr. george, having shaved himself before a looking-glass of minute proportions, then marches out, bare-headed and bare-chested, to the pump in the little yard and anon comes back shining with yellow soap, friction, drifting rain, and exceedingly cold water. as he rubs himself upon a large jack-towel, blowing like a military sort of diver just come up, his hair curling tighter and tighter on his sunburnt temples the more he rubs it so that it looks as if it never could be loosened by any less coercive instrument than an iron rake or a curry-comb--as he rubs, and puffs, and polishes, and blows, turning his head from side to side the more conveniently to excoriate his throat, and standing with his body well bent forward to keep the wet from his martial legs, phil, on his knees lighting a fire, looks round as if it were enough washing for him to see all that done, and sufficient renovation for one day to take in the superfluous health his master throws off. when mr. george is dry, he goes to work to brush his head with two hard brushes at once, to that unmerciful degree that phil, shouldering his way round the gallery in the act of sweeping it, winks with sympathy. this chafing over, the ornamental part of mr. george's toilet is soon performed. he fills his pipe, lights it, and marches up and down smoking, as his custom is, while phil, raising a powerful odour of hot rolls and coffee, prepares breakfast. he smokes gravely and marches in slow time. perhaps this morning's pipe is devoted to the memory of gridley in his grave. "and so, phil," says george of the shooting gallery after several turns in silence, "you were dreaming of the country last night?" phil, by the by, said as much in a tone of surprise as he scrambled out of bed. "yes, guv'ner." "what was it like?" "i hardly know what it was like, guv'ner," said phil, considering. "how did you know it was the country?" "on account of the grass, i think. and the swans upon it," says phil after further consideration. "what were the swans doing on the grass?" "they was a-eating of it, i expect," says phil. the master resumes his march, and the man resumes his preparation of breakfast. it is not necessarily a lengthened preparation, being limited to the setting forth of very simple breakfast requisites for two and the broiling of a rasher of bacon at the fire in the rusty grate; but as phil has to sidle round a considerable part of the gallery for every object he wants, and never brings two objects at once, it takes time under the circumstances. at length the breakfast is ready. phil announcing it, mr. george knocks the ashes out of his pipe on the hob, stands his pipe itself in the chimney corner, and sits down to the meal. when he has helped himself, phil follows suit, sitting at the extreme end of the little oblong table and taking his plate on his knees. either in humility, or to hide his blackened hands, or because it is his natural manner of eating. "the country," says mr. george, plying his knife and fork; "why, i suppose you never clapped your eyes on the country, phil?" "i see the marshes once," says phil, contentedly eating his breakfast. "what marshes?" "the marshes, commander," returns phil. "where are they?" "i don't know where they are," says phil; "but i see 'em, guv'ner. they was flat. and miste." governor and commander are interchangeable terms with phil, expressive of the same respect and deference and applicable to nobody but mr. george. "i was born in the country, phil." "was you indeed, commander?" "yes. and bred there." phil elevates his one eyebrow, and after respectfully staring at his master to express interest, swallows a great gulp of coffee, still staring at him. "there's not a bird's note that i don't know," says mr. george. "not many an english leaf or berry that i couldn't name. not many a tree that i couldn't climb yet if i was put to it. i was a real country boy, once. my good mother lived in the country." "she must have been a fine old lady, guv'ner," phil observes. "aye! and not so old either, five and thirty years ago," says mr. george. "but i'll wager that at ninety she would be near as upright as me, and near as broad across the shoulders." "did she die at ninety, guv'ner?" inquires phil. "no. bosh! let her rest in peace, god bless her!" says the trooper. "what set me on about country boys, and runaways, and good-for-nothings? you, to be sure! so you never clapped your eyes upon the country--marshes and dreams excepted. eh?" phil shakes his head. "do you want to see it?" "n-no, i don't know as i do, particular," says phil. "the town's enough for you, eh?" "why, you see, commander," says phil, "i ain't acquainted with anythink else, and i doubt if i ain't a-getting too old to take to novelties." "how old are you, phil?" asks the trooper, pausing as he conveys his smoking saucer to his lips. "i'm something with a eight in it," says phil. "it can't be eighty. nor yet eighteen. it's betwixt 'em, somewheres." mr. george, slowly putting down his saucer without tasting its contents, is laughingly beginning, "why, what the deuce, phil--" when he stops, seeing that phil is counting on his dirty fingers. "i was just eight," says phil, "agreeable to the parish calculation, when i went with the tinker. i was sent on a errand, and i see him a-sittin under a old buildin with a fire all to himself wery comfortable, and he says, 'would you like to come along a me, my man?' i says 'yes,' and him and me and the fire goes home to clerkenwell together. that was april fool day. i was able to count up to ten; and when april fool day come round again, i says to myself, 'now, old chap, you're one and a eight in it.' april fool day after that, i says, 'now, old chap, you're two and a eight in it.' in course of time, i come to ten and a eight in it; two tens and a eight in it. when it got so high, it got the upper hand of me, but this is how i always know there's a eight in it." "ah!" says mr. george, resuming his breakfast. "and where's the tinker?" "drink put him in the hospital, guv'ner, and the hospital put him--in a glass-case, i have heerd," phil replies mysteriously. "by that means you got promotion? took the business, phil?" "yes, commander, i took the business. such as it was. it wasn't much of a beat--round saffron hill, hatton garden, clerkenwell, smiffeld, and there--poor neighbourhood, where they uses up the kettles till they're past mending. most of the tramping tinkers used to come and lodge at our place; that was the best part of my master's earnings. but they didn't come to me. i warn't like him. he could sing 'em a good song. i couldn't! he could play 'em a tune on any sort of pot you please, so as it was iron or block tin. i never could do nothing with a pot but mend it or bile it--never had a note of music in me. besides, i was too ill-looking, and their wives complained of me." "they were mighty particular. you would pass muster in a crowd, phil!" says the trooper with a pleasant smile. "no, guv'ner," returns phil, shaking his head. "no, i shouldn't. i was passable enough when i went with the tinker, though nothing to boast of then; but what with blowing the fire with my mouth when i was young, and spileing my complexion, and singeing my hair off, and swallering the smoke, and what with being nat'rally unfort'nate in the way of running against hot metal and marking myself by sich means, and what with having turn-ups with the tinker as i got older, almost whenever he was too far gone in drink--which was almost always--my beauty was queer, wery queer, even at that time. as to since, what with a dozen years in a dark forge where the men was given to larking, and what with being scorched in a accident at a gas-works, and what with being blowed out of winder case-filling at the firework business, i am ugly enough to be made a show on!" resigning himself to which condition with a perfectly satisfied manner, phil begs the favour of another cup of coffee. while drinking it, he says, "it was after the case-filling blow-up when i first see you, commander. you remember?" "i remember, phil. you were walking along in the sun." "crawling, guv'ner, again a wall--" "true, phil--shouldering your way on--" "in a night-cap!" exclaims phil, excited. "in a night-cap--" "and hobbling with a couple of sticks!" cries phil, still more excited. "with a couple of sticks. when--" "when you stops, you know," cries phil, putting down his cup and saucer and hastily removing his plate from his knees, "and says to me, 'what, comrade! you have been in the wars!' i didn't say much to you, commander, then, for i was took by surprise that a person so strong and healthy and bold as you was should stop to speak to such a limping bag of bones as i was. but you says to me, says you, delivering it out of your chest as hearty as possible, so that it was like a glass of something hot, 'what accident have you met with? you have been badly hurt. what's amiss, old boy? cheer up, and tell us about it!' cheer up! i was cheered already! i says as much to you, you says more to me, i says more to you, you says more to me, and here i am, commander! here i am, commander!" cries phil, who has started from his chair and unaccountably begun to sidle away. "if a mark's wanted, or if it will improve the business, let the customers take aim at me. they can't spoil my beauty. i'm all right. come on! if they want a man to box at, let 'em box at me. let 'em knock me well about the head. i don't mind. if they want a light-weight to be throwed for practice, cornwall, devonshire, or lancashire, let 'em throw me. they won't hurt me. i have been throwed, all sorts of styles, all my life!" with this unexpected speech, energetically delivered and accompanied by action illustrative of the various exercises referred to, phil squod shoulders his way round three sides of the gallery, and abruptly tacking off at his commander, makes a butt at him with his head, intended to express devotion to his service. he then begins to clear away the breakfast. mr. george, after laughing cheerfully and clapping him on the shoulder, assists in these arrangements and helps to get the gallery into business order. that done, he takes a turn at the dumb-bells, and afterwards weighing himself and opining that he is getting "too fleshy," engages with great gravity in solitary broadsword practice. meanwhile phil has fallen to work at his usual table, where he screws and unscrews, and cleans, and files, and whistles into small apertures, and blackens himself more and more, and seems to do and undo everything that can be done and undone about a gun. master and man are at length disturbed by footsteps in the passage, where they make an unusual sound, denoting the arrival of unusual company. these steps, advancing nearer and nearer to the gallery, bring into it a group at first sight scarcely reconcilable with any day in the year but the fifth of november. it consists of a limp and ugly figure carried in a chair by two bearers and attended by a lean female with a face like a pinched mask, who might be expected immediately to recite the popular verses commemorative of the time when they did contrive to blow old england up alive but for her keeping her lips tightly and defiantly closed as the chair is put down. at which point the figure in it gasping, "o lord! oh, dear me! i am shaken!" adds, "how de do, my dear friend, how de do?" mr. george then descries, in the procession, the venerable mr. smallweed out for an airing, attended by his granddaughter judy as body-guard. "mr. george, my dear friend," says grandfather smallweed, removing his right arm from the neck of one of his bearers, whom he has nearly throttled coming along, "how de do? you're surprised to see me, my dear friend." "i should hardly have been more surprised to have seen your friend in the city," returns mr. george. "i am very seldom out," pants mr. smallweed. "i haven't been out for many months. it's inconvenient--and it comes expensive. but i longed so much to see you, my dear mr. george. how de do, sir?" "i am well enough," says mr. george. "i hope you are the same." "you can't be too well, my dear friend." mr. smallweed takes him by both hands. "i have brought my granddaughter judy. i couldn't keep her away. she longed so much to see you." "hum! she bears it calmly!" mutters mr. george. "so we got a hackney-cab, and put a chair in it, and just round the corner they lifted me out of the cab and into the chair, and carried me here that i might see my dear friend in his own establishment! this," says grandfather smallweed, alluding to the bearer, who has been in danger of strangulation and who withdraws adjusting his windpipe, "is the driver of the cab. he has nothing extra. it is by agreement included in his fare. this person," the other bearer, "we engaged in the street outside for a pint of beer. which is twopence. judy, give the person twopence. i was not sure you had a workman of your own here, my dear friend, or we needn't have employed this person." grandfather smallweed refers to phil with a glance of considerable terror and a half-subdued "o lord! oh, dear me!" nor in his apprehension, on the surface of things, without some reason, for phil, who has never beheld the apparition in the black-velvet cap before, has stopped short with a gun in his hand with much of the air of a dead shot intent on picking mr. smallweed off as an ugly old bird of the crow species. "judy, my child," says grandfather smallweed, "give the person his twopence. it's a great deal for what he has done." the person, who is one of those extraordinary specimens of human fungus that spring up spontaneously in the western streets of london, ready dressed in an old red jacket, with a "mission" for holding horses and calling coaches, received his twopence with anything but transport, tosses the money into the air, catches it over-handed, and retires. "my dear mr. george," says grandfather smallweed, "would you be so kind as help to carry me to the fire? i am accustomed to a fire, and i am an old man, and i soon chill. oh, dear me!" his closing exclamation is jerked out of the venerable gentleman by the suddenness with which mr. squod, like a genie, catches him up, chair and all, and deposits him on the hearth-stone. "o lord!" says mr. smallweed, panting. "oh, dear me! oh, my stars! my dear friend, your workman is very strong--and very prompt. o lord, he is very prompt! judy, draw me back a little. i'm being scorched in the legs," which indeed is testified to the noses of all present by the smell of his worsted stockings. the gentle judy, having backed her grandfather a little way from the fire, and having shaken him up as usual, and having released his overshadowed eye from its black-velvet extinguisher, mr. smallweed again says, "oh, dear me! o lord!" and looking about and meeting mr. george's glance, again stretches out both hands. "my dear friend! so happy in this meeting! and this is your establishment? it's a delightful place. it's a picture! you never find that anything goes off here accidentally, do you, my dear friend?" adds grandfather smallweed, very ill at ease. "no, no. no fear of that." "and your workman. he--oh, dear me!--he never lets anything off without meaning it, does he, my dear friend?" "he has never hurt anybody but himself," says mr. george, smiling. "but he might, you know. he seems to have hurt himself a good deal, and he might hurt somebody else," the old gentleman returns. "he mightn't mean it--or he even might. mr. george, will you order him to leave his infernal fire-arms alone and go away?" obedient to a nod from the trooper, phil retires, empty-handed, to the other end of the gallery. mr. smallweed, reassured, falls to rubbing his legs. "and you're doing well, mr. george?" he says to the trooper, squarely standing faced about towards him with his broadsword in his hand. "you are prospering, please the powers?" mr. george answers with a cool nod, adding, "go on. you have not come to say that, i know." "you are so sprightly, mr. george," returns the venerable grandfather. "you are such good company." "ha ha! go on!" says mr. george. "my dear friend! but that sword looks awful gleaming and sharp. it might cut somebody, by accident. it makes me shiver, mr. george. curse him!" says the excellent old gentleman apart to judy as the trooper takes a step or two away to lay it aside. "he owes me money, and might think of paying off old scores in this murdering place. i wish your brimstone grandmother was here, and he'd shave her head off." mr. george, returning, folds his arms, and looking down at the old man, sliding every moment lower and lower in his chair, says quietly, "now for it!" "ho!" cries mr. smallweed, rubbing his hands with an artful chuckle. "yes. now for it. now for what, my dear friend?" "for a pipe," says mr. george, who with great composure sets his chair in the chimney-corner, takes his pipe from the grate, fills it and lights it, and falls to smoking peacefully. this tends to the discomfiture of mr. smallweed, who finds it so difficult to resume his object, whatever it may be, that he becomes exasperated and secretly claws the air with an impotent vindictiveness expressive of an intense desire to tear and rend the visage of mr. george. as the excellent old gentleman's nails are long and leaden, and his hands lean and veinous, and his eyes green and watery; and, over and above this, as he continues, while he claws, to slide down in his chair and to collapse into a shapeless bundle, he becomes such a ghastly spectacle, even in the accustomed eyes of judy, that that young virgin pounces at him with something more than the ardour of affection and so shakes him up and pats and pokes him in divers parts of his body, but particularly in that part which the science of self-defence would call his wind, that in his grievous distress he utters enforced sounds like a paviour's rammer. when judy has by these means set him up again in his chair, with a white face and a frosty nose (but still clawing), she stretches out her weazen forefinger and gives mr. george one poke in the back. the trooper raising his head, she makes another poke at her esteemed grandfather, and having thus brought them together, stares rigidly at the fire. "aye, aye! ho, ho! u--u--u--ugh!" chatters grandfather smallweed, swallowing his rage. "my dear friend!" (still clawing). "i tell you what," says mr. george. "if you want to converse with me, you must speak out. i am one of the roughs, and i can't go about and about. i haven't the art to do it. i am not clever enough. it don't suit me. when you go winding round and round me," says the trooper, putting his pipe between his lips again, "damme, if i don't feel as if i was being smothered!" and he inflates his broad chest to its utmost extent as if to assure himself that he is not smothered yet. "if you have come to give me a friendly call," continues mr. george, "i am obliged to you; how are you? if you have come to see whether there's any property on the premises, look about you; you are welcome. if you want to out with something, out with it!" the blooming judy, without removing her gaze from the fire, gives her grandfather one ghostly poke. "you see! it's her opinion too. and why the devil that young woman won't sit down like a christian," says mr. george with his eyes musingly fixed on judy, "i can't comprehend." "she keeps at my side to attend to me, sir," says grandfather smallweed. "i am an old man, my dear mr. george, and i need some attention. i can carry my years; i am not a brimstone poll-parrot" (snarling and looking unconsciously for the cushion), "but i need attention, my dear friend." "well!" returns the trooper, wheeling his chair to face the old man. "now then?" "my friend in the city, mr. george, has done a little business with a pupil of yours." "has he?" says mr. george. "i am sorry to hear it." "yes, sir." grandfather smallweed rubs his legs. "he is a fine young soldier now, mr. george, by the name of carstone. friends came forward and paid it all up, honourable." "did they?" returns mr. george. "do you think your friend in the city would like a piece of advice?" "i think he would, my dear friend. from you." "i advise him, then, to do no more business in that quarter. there's no more to be got by it. the young gentleman, to my knowledge, is brought to a dead halt." "no, no, my dear friend. no, no, mr. george. no, no, no, sir," remonstrates grandfather smallweed, cunningly rubbing his spare legs. "not quite a dead halt, i think. he has good friends, and he is good for his pay, and he is good for the selling price of his commission, and he is good for his chance in a lawsuit, and he is good for his chance in a wife, and--oh, do you know, mr. george, i think my friend would consider the young gentleman good for something yet?" says grandfather smallweed, turning up his velvet cap and scratching his ear like a monkey. mr. george, who has put aside his pipe and sits with an arm on his chair-back, beats a tattoo on the ground with his right foot as if he were not particularly pleased with the turn the conversation has taken. "but to pass from one subject to another," resumes mr. smallweed. "'to promote the conversation,' as a joker might say. to pass, mr. george, from the ensign to the captain." "what are you up to, now?" asks mr. george, pausing with a frown in stroking the recollection of his moustache. "what captain?" "our captain. the captain we know of. captain hawdon." "oh! that's it, is it?" says mr. george with a low whistle as he sees both grandfather and granddaughter looking hard at him. "you are there! well? what about it? come, i won't be smothered any more. speak!" "my dear friend," returns the old man, "i was applied--judy, shake me up a little!--i was applied to yesterday about the captain, and my opinion still is that the captain is not dead." "bosh!" observes mr. george. "what was your remark, my dear friend?" inquires the old man with his hand to his ear. "bosh!" "ho!" says grandfather smallweed. "mr. george, of my opinion you can judge for yourself according to the questions asked of me and the reasons given for asking 'em. now, what do you think the lawyer making the inquiries wants?" "a job," says mr. george. "nothing of the kind!" "can't be a lawyer, then," says mr. george, folding his arms with an air of confirmed resolution. "my dear friend, he is a lawyer, and a famous one. he wants to see some fragment in captain hawdon's writing. he don't want to keep it. he only wants to see it and compare it with a writing in his possession." "well?" "well, mr. george. happening to remember the advertisement concerning captain hawdon and any information that could be given respecting him, he looked it up and came to me--just as you did, my dear friend. will you shake hands? so glad you came that day! i should have missed forming such a friendship if you hadn't come!" "well, mr. smallweed?" says mr. george again after going through the ceremony with some stiffness. "i had no such thing. i have nothing but his signature. plague pestilence and famine, battle murder and sudden death upon him," says the old man, making a curse out of one of his few remembrances of a prayer and squeezing up his velvet cap between his angry hands, "i have half a million of his signatures, i think! but you," breathlessly recovering his mildness of speech as judy re-adjusts the cap on his skittle-ball of a head, "you, my dear mr. george, are likely to have some letter or paper that would suit the purpose. anything would suit the purpose, written in the hand." "some writing in that hand," says the trooper, pondering; "may be, i have." "my dearest friend!" "may be, i have not." "ho!" says grandfather smallweed, crest-fallen. "but if i had bushels of it, i would not show as much as would make a cartridge without knowing why." "sir, i have told you why. my dear mr. george, i have told you why." "not enough," says the trooper, shaking his head. "i must know more, and approve it." "then, will you come to the lawyer? my dear friend, will you come and see the gentleman?" urges grandfather smallweed, pulling out a lean old silver watch with hands like the leg of a skeleton. "i told him it was probable i might call upon him between ten and eleven this forenoon, and it's now half after ten. will you come and see the gentleman, mr. george?" "hum!" says he gravely. "i don't mind that. though why this should concern you so much, i don't know." "everything concerns me that has a chance in it of bringing anything to light about him. didn't he take us all in? didn't he owe us immense sums, all round? concern me? who can anything about him concern more than me? not, my dear friend," says grandfather smallweed, lowering his tone, "that i want you to betray anything. far from it. are you ready to come, my dear friend?" "aye! i'll come in a moment. i promise nothing, you know." "no, my dear mr. george; no." "and you mean to say you're going to give me a lift to this place, wherever it is, without charging for it?" mr. george inquires, getting his hat and thick wash-leather gloves. this pleasantry so tickles mr. smallweed that he laughs, long and low, before the fire. but ever while he laughs, he glances over his paralytic shoulder at mr. george and eagerly watches him as he unlocks the padlock of a homely cupboard at the distant end of the gallery, looks here and there upon the higher shelves, and ultimately takes something out with a rustling of paper, folds it, and puts it in his breast. then judy pokes mr. smallweed once, and mr. smallweed pokes judy once. "i am ready," says the trooper, coming back. "phil, you can carry this old gentleman to his coach, and make nothing of him." "oh, dear me! o lord! stop a moment!" says mr. smallweed. "he's so very prompt! are you sure you can do it carefully, my worthy man?" phil makes no reply, but seizing the chair and its load, sidles away, tightly hugged by the now speechless mr. smallweed, and bolts along the passage as if he had an acceptable commission to carry the old gentleman to the nearest volcano. his shorter trust, however, terminating at the cab, he deposits him there; and the fair judy takes her place beside him, and the chair embellishes the roof, and mr. george takes the vacant place upon the box. mr. george is quite confounded by the spectacle he beholds from time to time as he peeps into the cab through the window behind him, where the grim judy is always motionless, and the old gentleman with his cap over one eye is always sliding off the seat into the straw and looking upward at him out of his other eye with a helpless expression of being jolted in the back. chapter xxvii more old soldiers than one mr. george has not far to ride with folded arms upon the box, for their destination is lincoln's inn fields. when the driver stops his horses, mr. george alights, and looking in at the window, says, "what, mr. tulkinghorn's your man, is he?" "yes, my dear friend. do you know him, mr. george?" "why, i have heard of him--seen him too, i think. but i don't know him, and he don't know me." there ensues the carrying of mr. smallweed upstairs, which is done to perfection with the trooper's help. he is borne into mr. tulkinghorn's great room and deposited on the turkey rug before the fire. mr. tulkinghorn is not within at the present moment but will be back directly. the occupant of the pew in the hall, having said thus much, stirs the fire and leaves the triumvirate to warm themselves. mr. george is mightily curious in respect of the room. he looks up at the painted ceiling, looks round at the old law-books, contemplates the portraits of the great clients, reads aloud the names on the boxes. "'sir leicester dedlock, baronet,'" mr. george reads thoughtfully. "ha! 'manor of chesney wold.' humph!" mr. george stands looking at these boxes a long while--as if they were pictures--and comes back to the fire repeating, "sir leicester dedlock, baronet, and manor of chesney wold, hey?" "worth a mint of money, mr. george!" whispers grandfather smallweed, rubbing his legs. "powerfully rich!" "who do you mean? this old gentleman, or the baronet?" "this gentleman, this gentleman." "so i have heard; and knows a thing or two, i'll hold a wager. not bad quarters, either," says mr. george, looking round again. "see the strong-box yonder!" this reply is cut short by mr. tulkinghorn's arrival. there is no change in him, of course. rustily drest, with his spectacles in his hand, and their very case worn threadbare. in manner, close and dry. in voice, husky and low. in face, watchful behind a blind; habitually not uncensorious and contemptuous perhaps. the peerage may have warmer worshippers and faithfuller believers than mr. tulkinghorn, after all, if everything were known. "good morning, mr. smallweed, good morning!" he says as he comes in. "you have brought the sergeant, i see. sit down, sergeant." as mr. tulkinghorn takes off his gloves and puts them in his hat, he looks with half-closed eyes across the room to where the trooper stands and says within himself perchance, "you'll do, my friend!" "sit down, sergeant," he repeats as he comes to his table, which is set on one side of the fire, and takes his easy-chair. "cold and raw this morning, cold and raw!" mr. tulkinghorn warms before the bars, alternately, the palms and knuckles of his hands and looks (from behind that blind which is always down) at the trio sitting in a little semicircle before him. "now, i can feel what i am about" (as perhaps he can in two senses), "mr. smallweed." the old gentleman is newly shaken up by judy to bear his part in the conversation. "you have brought our good friend the sergeant, i see." "yes, sir," returns mr. smallweed, very servile to the lawyer's wealth and influence. "and what does the sergeant say about this business?" "mr. george," says grandfather smallweed with a tremulous wave of his shrivelled hand, "this is the gentleman, sir." mr. george salutes the gentleman but otherwise sits bolt upright and profoundly silent--very forward in his chair, as if the full complement of regulation appendages for a field-day hung about him. mr. tulkinghorn proceeds, "well, george--i believe your name is george?" "it is so, sir." "what do you say, george?" "i ask your pardon, sir," returns the trooper, "but i should wish to know what you say?" "do you mean in point of reward?" "i mean in point of everything, sir." this is so very trying to mr. smallweed's temper that he suddenly breaks out with "you're a brimstone beast!" and as suddenly asks pardon of mr. tulkinghorn, excusing himself for this slip of the tongue by saying to judy, "i was thinking of your grandmother, my dear." "i supposed, sergeant," mr. tulkinghorn resumes as he leans on one side of his chair and crosses his legs, "that mr. smallweed might have sufficiently explained the matter. it lies in the smallest compass, however. you served under captain hawdon at one time, and were his attendant in illness, and rendered him many little services, and were rather in his confidence, i am told. that is so, is it not?" "yes, sir, that is so," says mr. george with military brevity. "therefore you may happen to have in your possession something--anything, no matter what; accounts, instructions, orders, a letter, anything--in captain hawdon's writing. i wish to compare his writing with some that i have. if you can give me the opportunity, you shall be rewarded for your trouble. three, four, five, guineas, you would consider handsome, i dare say." "noble, my dear friend!" cries grandfather smallweed, screwing up his eyes. "if not, say how much more, in your conscience as a soldier, you can demand. there is no need for you to part with the writing, against your inclination--though i should prefer to have it." mr. george sits squared in exactly the same attitude, looks at the painted ceiling, and says never a word. the irascible mr. smallweed scratches the air. "the question is," says mr. tulkinghorn in his methodical, subdued, uninterested way, "first, whether you have any of captain hawdon's writing?" "first, whether i have any of captain hawdon's writing, sir," repeats mr. george. "secondly, what will satisfy you for the trouble of producing it?" "secondly, what will satisfy me for the trouble of producing it, sir," repeats mr. george. "thirdly, you can judge for yourself whether it is at all like that," says mr. tulkinghorn, suddenly handing him some sheets of written paper tied together. "whether it is at all like that, sir. just so," repeats mr. george. all three repetitions mr. george pronounces in a mechanical manner, looking straight at mr. tulkinghorn; nor does he so much as glance at the affidavit in jarndyce and jarndyce, that has been given to him for his inspection (though he still holds it in his hand), but continues to look at the lawyer with an air of troubled meditation. "well?" says mr. tulkinghorn. "what do you say?" "well, sir," replies mr. george, rising erect and looking immense, "i would rather, if you'll excuse me, have nothing to do with this." mr. tulkinghorn, outwardly quite undisturbed, demands, "why not?" "why, sir," returns the trooper. "except on military compulsion, i am not a man of business. among civilians i am what they call in scotland a ne'er-do-weel. i have no head for papers, sir. i can stand any fire better than a fire of cross questions. i mentioned to mr. smallweed, only an hour or so ago, that when i come into things of this kind i feel as if i was being smothered. and that is my sensation," says mr. george, looking round upon the company, "at the present moment." with that, he takes three strides forward to replace the papers on the lawyer's table and three strides backward to resume his former station, where he stands perfectly upright, now looking at the ground and now at the painted ceiling, with his hands behind him as if to prevent himself from accepting any other document whatever. under this provocation, mr. smallweed's favourite adjective of disparagement is so close to his tongue that he begins the words "my dear friend" with the monosyllable "brim," thus converting the possessive pronoun into brimmy and appearing to have an impediment in his speech. once past this difficulty, however, he exhorts his dear friend in the tenderest manner not to be rash, but to do what so eminent a gentleman requires, and to do it with a good grace, confident that it must be unobjectionable as well as profitable. mr. tulkinghorn merely utters an occasional sentence, as, "you are the best judge of your own interest, sergeant." "take care you do no harm by this." "please yourself, please yourself." "if you know what you mean, that's quite enough." these he utters with an appearance of perfect indifference as he looks over the papers on his table and prepares to write a letter. mr. george looks distrustfully from the painted ceiling to the ground, from the ground to mr. smallweed, from mr. smallweed to mr. tulkinghorn, and from mr. tulkinghorn to the painted ceiling again, often in his perplexity changing the leg on which he rests. "i do assure you, sir," says mr. george, "not to say it offensively, that between you and mr. smallweed here, i really am being smothered fifty times over. i really am, sir. i am not a match for you gentlemen. will you allow me to ask why you want to see the captain's hand, in the case that i could find any specimen of it?" mr. tulkinghorn quietly shakes his head. "no. if you were a man of business, sergeant, you would not need to be informed that there are confidential reasons, very harmless in themselves, for many such wants in the profession to which i belong. but if you are afraid of doing any injury to captain hawdon, you may set your mind at rest about that." "aye! he is dead, sir." "is he?" mr. tulkinghorn quietly sits down to write. "well, sir," says the trooper, looking into his hat after another disconcerted pause, "i am sorry not to have given you more satisfaction. if it would be any satisfaction to any one that i should be confirmed in my judgment that i would rather have nothing to do with this by a friend of mine who has a better head for business than i have, and who is an old soldier, i am willing to consult with him. i--i really am so completely smothered myself at present," says mr. george, passing his hand hopelessly across his brow, "that i don't know but what it might be a satisfaction to me." mr. smallweed, hearing that this authority is an old soldier, so strongly inculcates the expediency of the trooper's taking counsel with him, and particularly informing him of its being a question of five guineas or more, that mr. george engages to go and see him. mr. tulkinghorn says nothing either way. "i'll consult my friend, then, by your leave, sir," says the trooper, "and i'll take the liberty of looking in again with the final answer in the course of the day. mr. smallweed, if you wish to be carried downstairs--" "in a moment, my dear friend, in a moment. will you first let me speak half a word with this gentleman in private?" "certainly, sir. don't hurry yourself on my account." the trooper retires to a distant part of the room and resumes his curious inspection of the boxes, strong and otherwise. "if i wasn't as weak as a brimstone baby, sir," whispers grandfather smallweed, drawing the lawyer down to his level by the lapel of his coat and flashing some half-quenched green fire out of his angry eyes, "i'd tear the writing away from him. he's got it buttoned in his breast. i saw him put it there. judy saw him put it there. speak up, you crabbed image for the sign of a walking-stick shop, and say you saw him put it there!" this vehement conjuration the old gentleman accompanies with such a thrust at his granddaughter that it is too much for his strength, and he slips away out of his chair, drawing mr. tulkinghorn with him, until he is arrested by judy, and well shaken. "violence will not do for me, my friend," mr. tulkinghorn then remarks coolly. "no, no, i know, i know, sir. but it's chafing and galling--it's--it's worse than your smattering chattering magpie of a grandmother," to the imperturbable judy, who only looks at the fire, "to know he has got what's wanted and won't give it up. he, not to give it up! he! a vagabond! but never mind, sir, never mind. at the most, he has only his own way for a little while. i have him periodically in a vice. i'll twist him, sir. i'll screw him, sir. if he won't do it with a good grace, i'll make him do it with a bad one, sir! now, my dear mr. george," says grandfather smallweed, winking at the lawyer hideously as he releases him, "i am ready for your kind assistance, my excellent friend!" mr. tulkinghorn, with some shadowy sign of amusement manifesting itself through his self-possession, stands on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire, watching the disappearance of mr. smallweed and acknowledging the trooper's parting salute with one slight nod. it is more difficult to get rid of the old gentleman, mr. george finds, than to bear a hand in carrying him downstairs, for when he is replaced in his conveyance, he is so loquacious on the subject of the guineas and retains such an affectionate hold of his button--having, in truth, a secret longing to rip his coat open and rob him--that some degree of force is necessary on the trooper's part to effect a separation. it is accomplished at last, and he proceeds alone in quest of his adviser. by the cloisterly temple, and by whitefriars (there, not without a glance at hanging-sword alley, which would seem to be something in his way), and by blackfriars bridge, and blackfriars road, mr. george sedately marches to a street of little shops lying somewhere in that ganglion of roads from kent and surrey, and of streets from the bridges of london, centring in the far-famed elephant who has lost his castle formed of a thousand four-horse coaches to a stronger iron monster than he, ready to chop him into mince-meat any day he dares. to one of the little shops in this street, which is a musician's shop, having a few fiddles in the window, and some pan's pipes and a tambourine, and a triangle, and certain elongated scraps of music, mr. george directs his massive tread. and halting at a few paces from it, as he sees a soldierly looking woman, with her outer skirts tucked up, come forth with a small wooden tub, and in that tub commence a-whisking and a-splashing on the margin of the pavement, mr. george says to himself, "she's as usual, washing greens. i never saw her, except upon a baggage-waggon, when she wasn't washing greens!" the subject of this reflection is at all events so occupied in washing greens at present that she remains unsuspicious of mr. george's approach until, lifting up herself and her tub together when she has poured the water off into the gutter, she finds him standing near her. her reception of him is not flattering. "george, i never see you but i wish you was a hundred mile away!" the trooper, without remarking on this welcome, follows into the musical-instrument shop, where the lady places her tub of greens upon the counter, and having shaken hands with him, rests her arms upon it. "i never," she says, "george, consider matthew bagnet safe a minute when you're near him. you are that restless and that roving--" "yes! i know i am, mrs. bagnet. i know i am." "you know you are!" says mrs. bagnet. "what's the use of that? why are you?" "the nature of the animal, i suppose," returns the trooper good-humouredly. "ah!" cries mrs. bagnet, something shrilly. "but what satisfaction will the nature of the animal be to me when the animal shall have tempted my mat away from the musical business to new zealand or australey?" mrs. bagnet is not at all an ill-looking woman. rather large-boned, a little coarse in the grain, and freckled by the sun and wind which have tanned her hair upon the forehead, but healthy, wholesome, and bright-eyed. a strong, busy, active, honest-faced woman of from forty-five to fifty. clean, hardy, and so economically dressed (though substantially) that the only article of ornament of which she stands possessed appear's to be her wedding-ring, around which her finger has grown to be so large since it was put on that it will never come off again until it shall mingle with mrs. bagnet's dust. "mrs. bagnet," says the trooper, "i am on my parole with you. mat will get no harm from me. you may trust me so far." "well, i think i may. but the very looks of you are unsettling," mrs. bagnet rejoins. "ah, george, george! if you had only settled down and married joe pouch's widow when he died in north america, she'd have combed your hair for you." "it was a chance for me, certainly," returns the trooper half laughingly, half seriously, "but i shall never settle down into a respectable man now. joe pouch's widow might have done me good--there was something in her, and something of her--but i couldn't make up my mind to it. if i had had the luck to meet with such a wife as mat found!" mrs. bagnet, who seems in a virtuous way to be under little reserve with a good sort of fellow, but to be another good sort of fellow herself for that matter, receives this compliment by flicking mr. george in the face with a head of greens and taking her tub into the little room behind the shop. "why, quebec, my poppet," says george, following, on invitation, into that department. "and little malta, too! come and kiss your bluffy!" these young ladies--not supposed to have been actually christened by the names applied to them, though always so called in the family from the places of their birth in barracks--are respectively employed on three-legged stools, the younger (some five or six years old) in learning her letters out of a penny primer, the elder (eight or nine perhaps) in teaching her and sewing with great assiduity. both hail mr. george with acclamations as an old friend and after some kissing and romping plant their stools beside him. "and how's young woolwich?" says mr. george. "ah! there now!" cries mrs. bagnet, turning about from her saucepans (for she is cooking dinner) with a bright flush on her face. "would you believe it? got an engagement at the theayter, with his father, to play the fife in a military piece." "well done, my godson!" cries mr. george, slapping his thigh. "i believe you!" says mrs. bagnet. "he's a briton. that's what woolwich is. a briton!" "and mat blows away at his bassoon, and you're respectable civilians one and all," says mr. george. "family people. children growing up. mat's old mother in scotland, and your old father somewhere else, corresponded with, and helped a little, and--well, well! to be sure, i don't know why i shouldn't be wished a hundred mile away, for i have not much to do with all this!" mr. george is becoming thoughtful, sitting before the fire in the whitewashed room, which has a sanded floor and a barrack smell and contains nothing superfluous and has not a visible speck of dirt or dust in it, from the faces of quebec and malta to the bright tin pots and pannikins upon the dresser shelves--mr. george is becoming thoughtful, sitting here while mrs. bagnet is busy, when mr. bagnet and young woolwich opportunely come home. mr. bagnet is an ex-artilleryman, tall and upright, with shaggy eyebrows and whiskers like the fibres of a coco-nut, not a hair upon his head, and a torrid complexion. his voice, short, deep, and resonant, is not at all unlike the tones of the instrument to which he is devoted. indeed there may be generally observed in him an unbending, unyielding, brass-bound air, as if he were himself the bassoon of the human orchestra. young woolwich is the type and model of a young drummer. both father and son salute the trooper heartily. he saying, in due season, that he has come to advise with mr. bagnet, mr. bagnet hospitably declares that he will hear of no business until after dinner and that his friend shall not partake of his counsel without first partaking of boiled pork and greens. the trooper yielding to this invitation, he and mr. bagnet, not to embarrass the domestic preparations, go forth to take a turn up and down the little street, which they promenade with measured tread and folded arms, as if it were a rampart. "george," says mr. bagnet. "you know me. it's my old girl that advises. she has the head. but i never own to it before her. discipline must be maintained. wait till the greens is off her mind. then we'll consult. whatever the old girl says, do--do it!" "i intend to, mat," replies the other. "i would sooner take her opinion than that of a college." "college," returns mr. bagnet in short sentences, bassoon-like. "what college could you leave--in another quarter of the world--with nothing but a grey cloak and an umbrella--to make its way home to europe? the old girl would do it to-morrow. did it once!" "you are right," says mr. george. "what college," pursues bagnet, "could you set up in life--with two penn'orth of white lime--a penn'orth of fuller's earth--a ha'porth of sand--and the rest of the change out of sixpence in money? that's what the old girl started on. in the present business." "i am rejoiced to hear it's thriving, mat." "the old girl," says mr. bagnet, acquiescing, "saves. has a stocking somewhere. with money in it. i never saw it. but i know she's got it. wait till the greens is off her mind. then she'll set you up." "she is a treasure!" exclaims mr. george. "she's more. but i never own to it before her. discipline must be maintained. it was the old girl that brought out my musical abilities. i should have been in the artillery now but for the old girl. six years i hammered at the fiddle. ten at the flute. the old girl said it wouldn't do; intention good, but want of flexibility; try the bassoon. the old girl borrowed a bassoon from the bandmaster of the rifle regiment. i practised in the trenches. got on, got another, get a living by it!" george remarks that she looks as fresh as a rose and as sound as an apple. "the old girl," says mr. bagnet in reply, "is a thoroughly fine woman. consequently she is like a thoroughly fine day. gets finer as she gets on. i never saw the old girl's equal. but i never own to it before her. discipline must be maintained!" proceeding to converse on indifferent matters, they walk up and down the little street, keeping step and time, until summoned by quebec and malta to do justice to the pork and greens, over which mrs. bagnet, like a military chaplain, says a short grace. in the distribution of these comestibles, as in every other household duty, mrs. bagnet developes an exact system, sitting with every dish before her, allotting to every portion of pork its own portion of pot-liquor, greens, potatoes, and even mustard, and serving it out complete. having likewise served out the beer from a can and thus supplied the mess with all things necessary, mrs. bagnet proceeds to satisfy her own hunger, which is in a healthy state. the kit of the mess, if the table furniture may be so denominated, is chiefly composed of utensils of horn and tin that have done duty in several parts of the world. young woolwich's knife, in particular, which is of the oyster kind, with the additional feature of a strong shutting-up movement which frequently balks the appetite of that young musician, is mentioned as having gone in various hands the complete round of foreign service. the dinner done, mrs. bagnet, assisted by the younger branches (who polish their own cups and platters, knives and forks), makes all the dinner garniture shine as brightly as before and puts it all away, first sweeping the hearth, to the end that mr. bagnet and the visitor may not be retarded in the smoking of their pipes. these household cares involve much pattening and counter-pattening in the backyard and considerable use of a pail, which is finally so happy as to assist in the ablutions of mrs. bagnet herself. that old girl reappearing by and by, quite fresh, and sitting down to her needlework, then and only then--the greens being only then to be considered as entirely off her mind--mr. bagnet requests the trooper to state his case. this mr. george does with great discretion, appearing to address himself to mr. bagnet, but having an eye solely on the old girl all the time, as bagnet has himself. she, equally discreet, busies herself with her needlework. the case fully stated, mr. bagnet resorts to his standard artifice for the maintenance of discipline. "that's the whole of it, is it, george?" says he. "that's the whole of it." "you act according to my opinion?" "i shall be guided," replies george, "entirely by it." "old girl," says mr. bagnet, "give him my opinion. you know it. tell him what it is." it is that he cannot have too little to do with people who are too deep for him and cannot be too careful of interference with matters he does not understand--that the plain rule is to do nothing in the dark, to be a party to nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never to put his foot where he cannot see the ground. this, in effect, is mr. bagnet's opinion, as delivered through the old girl, and it so relieves mr. george's mind by confirming his own opinion and banishing his doubts that he composes himself to smoke another pipe on that exceptional occasion and to have a talk over old times with the whole bagnet family, according to their various ranges of experience. through these means it comes to pass that mr. george does not again rise to his full height in that parlour until the time is drawing on when the bassoon and fife are expected by a british public at the theatre; and as it takes time even then for mr. george, in his domestic character of bluffy, to take leave of quebec and malta and insinuate a sponsorial shilling into the pocket of his godson with felicitations on his success in life, it is dark when mr. george again turns his face towards lincoln's inn fields. "a family home," he ruminates as he marches along, "however small it is, makes a man like me look lonely. but it's well i never made that evolution of matrimony. i shouldn't have been fit for it. i am such a vagabond still, even at my present time of life, that i couldn't hold to the gallery a month together if it was a regular pursuit or if i didn't camp there, gipsy fashion. come! i disgrace nobody and cumber nobody; that's something. i have not done that for many a long year!" so he whistles it off and marches on. arrived in lincoln's inn fields and mounting mr. tulkinghorn's stair, he finds the outer door closed and the chambers shut, but the trooper not knowing much about outer doors, and the staircase being dark besides, he is yet fumbling and groping about, hoping to discover a bell-handle or to open the door for himself, when mr. tulkinghorn comes up the stairs (quietly, of course) and angrily asks, "who is that? what are you doing there?" "i ask your pardon, sir. it's george. the sergeant." "and couldn't george, the sergeant, see that my door was locked?" "why, no, sir, i couldn't. at any rate, i didn't," says the trooper, rather nettled. "have you changed your mind? or are you in the same mind?" mr. tulkinghorn demands. but he knows well enough at a glance. "in the same mind, sir." "i thought so. that's sufficient. you can go. so you are the man," says mr. tulkinghorn, opening his door with the key, "in whose hiding-place mr. gridley was found?" "yes, i am the man," says the trooper, stopping two or three stairs down. "what then, sir?" "what then? i don't like your associates. you should not have seen the inside of my door this morning if i had thought of your being that man. gridley? a threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow." with these words, spoken in an unusually high tone for him, the lawyer goes into his rooms and shuts the door with a thundering noise. mr. george takes his dismissal in great dudgeon, the greater because a clerk coming up the stairs has heard the last words of all and evidently applies them to him. "a pretty character to bear," the trooper growls with a hasty oath as he strides downstairs. "a threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow!" and looking up, he sees the clerk looking down at him and marking him as he passes a lamp. this so intensifies his dudgeon that for five minutes he is in an ill humour. but he whistles that off like the rest of it and marches home to the shooting gallery. chapter xxviii the ironmaster sir leicester dedlock has got the better, for the time being, of the family gout and is once more, in a literal no less than in a figurative point of view, upon his legs. he is at his place in lincolnshire; but the waters are out again on the low-lying grounds, and the cold and damp steal into chesney wold, though well defended, and eke into sir leicester's bones. the blazing fires of faggot and coal--dedlock timber and antediluvian forest--that blaze upon the broad wide hearths and wink in the twilight on the frowning woods, sullen to see how trees are sacrificed, do not exclude the enemy. the hot-water pipes that trail themselves all over the house, the cushioned doors and windows, and the screens and curtains fail to supply the fires' deficiencies and to satisfy sir leicester's need. hence the fashionable intelligence proclaims one morning to the listening earth that lady dedlock is expected shortly to return to town for a few weeks. it is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations. indeed great men have often more than their fair share of poor relations, inasmuch as very red blood of the superior quality, like inferior blood unlawfully shed, will cry aloud and will be heard. sir leicester's cousins, in the remotest degree, are so many murders in the respect that they "will out." among whom there are cousins who are so poor that one might almost dare to think it would have been the happier for them never to have been plated links upon the dedlock chain of gold, but to have been made of common iron at first and done base service. service, however (with a few limited reservations, genteel but not profitable), they may not do, being of the dedlock dignity. so they visit their richer cousins, and get into debt when they can, and live but shabbily when they can't, and find--the women no husbands, and the men no wives--and ride in borrowed carriages, and sit at feasts that are never of their own making, and so go through high life. the rich family sum has been divided by so many figures, and they are the something over that nobody knows what to do with. everybody on sir leicester dedlock's side of the question and of his way of thinking would appear to be his cousin more or less. from my lord boodle, through the duke of foodle, down to noodle, sir leicester, like a glorious spider, stretches his threads of relationship. but while he is stately in the cousinship of the everybodys, he is a kind and generous man, according to his dignified way, in the cousinship of the nobodys; and at the present time, in despite of the damp, he stays out the visit of several such cousins at chesney wold with the constancy of a martyr. of these, foremost in the front rank stands volumnia dedlock, a young lady (of sixty) who is doubly highly related, having the honour to be a poor relation, by the mother's side, to another great family. miss volumnia, displaying in early life a pretty talent for cutting ornaments out of coloured paper, and also for singing to the guitar in the spanish tongue, and propounding french conundrums in country houses, passed the twenty years of her existence between twenty and forty in a sufficiently agreeable manner. lapsing then out of date and being considered to bore mankind by her vocal performances in the spanish language, she retired to bath, where she lives slenderly on an annual present from sir leicester and whence she makes occasional resurrections in the country houses of her cousins. she has an extensive acquaintance at bath among appalling old gentlemen with thin legs and nankeen trousers, and is of high standing in that dreary city. but she is a little dreaded elsewhere in consequence of an indiscreet profusion in the article of rouge and persistency in an obsolete pearl necklace like a rosary of little bird's-eggs. in any country in a wholesome state, volumnia would be a clear case for the pension list. efforts have been made to get her on it, and when william buffy came in, it was fully expected that her name would be put down for a couple of hundred a year. but william buffy somehow discovered, contrary to all expectation, that these were not the times when it could be done, and this was the first clear indication sir leicester dedlock had conveyed to him that the country was going to pieces. there is likewise the honourable bob stables, who can make warm mashes with the skill of a veterinary surgeon and is a better shot than most gamekeepers. he has been for some time particularly desirous to serve his country in a post of good emoluments, unaccompanied by any trouble or responsibility. in a well-regulated body politic this natural desire on the part of a spirited young gentleman so highly connected would be speedily recognized, but somehow william buffy found when he came in that these were not times in which he could manage that little matter either, and this was the second indication sir leicester dedlock had conveyed to him that the country was going to pieces. the rest of the cousins are ladies and gentlemen of various ages and capacities, the major part amiable and sensible and likely to have done well enough in life if they could have overcome their cousinship; as it is, they are almost all a little worsted by it, and lounge in purposeless and listless paths, and seem to be quite as much at a loss how to dispose of themselves as anybody else can be how to dispose of them. in this society, and where not, my lady dedlock reigns supreme. beautiful, elegant, accomplished, and powerful in her little world (for the world of fashion does not stretch all the way from pole to pole), her influence in sir leicester's house, however haughty and indifferent her manner, is greatly to improve it and refine it. the cousins, even those older cousins who were paralysed when sir leicester married her, do her feudal homage; and the honourable bob stables daily repeats to some chosen person between breakfast and lunch his favourite original remark, that she is the best-groomed woman in the whole stud. such the guests in the long drawing-room at chesney wold this dismal night when the step on the ghost's walk (inaudible here, however) might be the step of a deceased cousin shut out in the cold. it is near bed-time. bedroom fires blaze brightly all over the house, raising ghosts of grim furniture on wall and ceiling. bedroom candlesticks bristle on the distant table by the door, and cousins yawn on ottomans. cousins at the piano, cousins at the soda-water tray, cousins rising from the card-table, cousins gathered round the fire. standing on one side of his own peculiar fire (for there are two), sir leicester. on the opposite side of the broad hearth, my lady at her table. volumnia, as one of the more privileged cousins, in a luxurious chair between them. sir leicester glancing, with magnificent displeasure, at the rouge and the pearl necklace. "i occasionally meet on my staircase here," drawls volumnia, whose thoughts perhaps are already hopping up it to bed, after a long evening of very desultory talk, "one of the prettiest girls, i think, that i ever saw in my life." "a protegee of my lady's," observes sir leicester. "i thought so. i felt sure that some uncommon eye must have picked that girl out. she really is a marvel. a dolly sort of beauty perhaps," says miss volumnia, reserving her own sort, "but in its way, perfect; such bloom i never saw!" sir leicester, with his magnificent glance of displeasure at the rouge, appears to say so too. "indeed," remarks my lady languidly, "if there is any uncommon eye in the case, it is mrs. rouncewell's, and not mine. rosa is her discovery." "your maid, i suppose?" "no. my anything; pet--secretary--messenger--i don't know what." "you like to have her about you, as you would like to have a flower, or a bird, or a picture, or a poodle--no, not a poodle, though--or anything else that was equally pretty?" says volumnia, sympathizing. "yes, how charming now! and how well that delightful old soul mrs. rouncewell is looking. she must be an immense age, and yet she is as active and handsome! she is the dearest friend i have, positively!" sir leicester feels it to be right and fitting that the housekeeper of chesney wold should be a remarkable person. apart from that, he has a real regard for mrs. rouncewell and likes to hear her praised. so he says, "you are right, volumnia," which volumnia is extremely glad to hear. "she has no daughter of her own, has she?" "mrs. rouncewell? no, volumnia. she has a son. indeed, she had two." my lady, whose chronic malady of boredom has been sadly aggravated by volumnia this evening, glances wearily towards the candlesticks and heaves a noiseless sigh. "and it is a remarkable example of the confusion into which the present age has fallen; of the obliteration of landmarks, the opening of floodgates, and the uprooting of distinctions," says sir leicester with stately gloom, "that i have been informed by mr. tulkinghorn that mrs. rouncewell's son has been invited to go into parliament." miss volumnia utters a little sharp scream. "yes, indeed," repeats sir leicester. "into parliament." "i never heard of such a thing! good gracious, what is the man?" exclaims volumnia. "he is called, i believe--an--ironmaster." sir leicester says it slowly and with gravity and doubt, as not being sure but that he is called a lead-mistress or that the right word may be some other word expressive of some other relationship to some other metal. volumnia utters another little scream. "he has declined the proposal, if my information from mr. tulkinghorn be correct, as i have no doubt it is. mr. tulkinghorn being always correct and exact; still that does not," says sir leicester, "that does not lessen the anomaly, which is fraught with strange considerations--startling considerations, as it appears to me." miss volumnia rising with a look candlestick-wards, sir leicester politely performs the grand tour of the drawing-room, brings one, and lights it at my lady's shaded lamp. "i must beg you, my lady," he says while doing so, "to remain a few moments, for this individual of whom i speak arrived this evening shortly before dinner and requested in a very becoming note"--sir leicester, with his habitual regard to truth, dwells upon it--"i am bound to say, in a very becoming and well-expressed note, the favour of a short interview with yourself and myself on the subject of this young girl. as it appeared that he wished to depart to-night, i replied that we would see him before retiring." miss volumnia with a third little scream takes flight, wishing her hosts--o lud!--well rid of the--what is it?--ironmaster! the other cousins soon disperse, to the last cousin there. sir leicester rings the bell, "make my compliments to mr. rouncewell, in the housekeeper's apartments, and say i can receive him now." my lady, who has heard all this with slight attention outwardly, looks towards mr. rouncewell as he comes in. he is a little over fifty perhaps, of a good figure, like his mother, and has a clear voice, a broad forehead from which his dark hair has retired, and a shrewd though open face. he is a responsible-looking gentleman dressed in black, portly enough, but strong and active. has a perfectly natural and easy air and is not in the least embarrassed by the great presence into which he comes. "sir leicester and lady dedlock, as i have already apologized for intruding on you, i cannot do better than be very brief. i thank you, sir leicester." the head of the dedlocks has motioned towards a sofa between himself and my lady. mr. rouncewell quietly takes his seat there. "in these busy times, when so many great undertakings are in progress, people like myself have so many workmen in so many places that we are always on the flight." sir leicester is content enough that the ironmaster should feel that there is no hurry there; there, in that ancient house, rooted in that quiet park, where the ivy and the moss have had time to mature, and the gnarled and warted elms and the umbrageous oaks stand deep in the fern and leaves of a hundred years; and where the sun-dial on the terrace has dumbly recorded for centuries that time which was as much the property of every dedlock--while he lasted--as the house and lands. sir leicester sits down in an easy-chair, opposing his repose and that of chesney wold to the restless flights of ironmasters. "lady dedlock has been so kind," proceeds mr. rouncewell with a respectful glance and a bow that way, "as to place near her a young beauty of the name of rosa. now, my son has fallen in love with rosa and has asked my consent to his proposing marriage to her and to their becoming engaged if she will take him--which i suppose she will. i have never seen rosa until to-day, but i have some confidence in my son's good sense--even in love. i find her what he represents her, to the best of my judgment; and my mother speaks of her with great commendation." "she in all respects deserves it," says my lady. "i am happy, lady dedlock, that you say so, and i need not comment on the value to me of your kind opinion of her." "that," observes sir leicester with unspeakable grandeur, for he thinks the ironmaster a little too glib, "must be quite unnecessary." "quite unnecessary, sir leicester. now, my son is a very young man, and rosa is a very young woman. as i made my way, so my son must make his; and his being married at present is out of the question. but supposing i gave my consent to his engaging himself to this pretty girl, if this pretty girl will engage herself to him, i think it a piece of candour to say at once--i am sure, sir leicester and lady dedlock, you will understand and excuse me--i should make it a condition that she did not remain at chesney wold. therefore, before communicating further with my son, i take the liberty of saying that if her removal would be in any way inconvenient or objectionable, i will hold the matter over with him for any reasonable time and leave it precisely where it is." not remain at chesney wold! make it a condition! all sir leicester's old misgivings relative to wat tyler and the people in the iron districts who do nothing but turn out by torchlight come in a shower upon his head, the fine grey hair of which, as well as of his whiskers, actually stirs with indignation. "am i to understand, sir," says sir leicester, "and is my lady to understand"--he brings her in thus specially, first as a point of gallantry, and next as a point of prudence, having great reliance on her sense--"am i to understand, mr. rouncewell, and is my lady to understand, sir, that you consider this young woman too good for chesney wold or likely to be injured by remaining here?" "certainly not, sir leicester," "i am glad to hear it." sir leicester very lofty indeed. "pray, mr. rouncewell," says my lady, warning sir leicester off with the slightest gesture of her pretty hand, as if he were a fly, "explain to me what you mean." "willingly, lady dedlock. there is nothing i could desire more." addressing her composed face, whose intelligence, however, is too quick and active to be concealed by any studied impassiveness, however habitual, to the strong saxon face of the visitor, a picture of resolution and perseverance, my lady listens with attention, occasionally slightly bending her head. "i am the son of your housekeeper, lady dedlock, and passed my childhood about this house. my mother has lived here half a century and will die here i have no doubt. she is one of those examples--perhaps as good a one as there is--of love, and attachment, and fidelity in such a nation, which england may well be proud of, but of which no order can appropriate the whole pride or the whole merit, because such an instance bespeaks high worth on two sides--on the great side assuredly, on the small one no less assuredly." sir leicester snorts a little to hear the law laid down in this way, but in his honour and his love of truth, he freely, though silently, admits the justice of the ironmaster's proposition. "pardon me for saying what is so obvious, but i wouldn't have it hastily supposed," with the least turn of his eyes towards sir leicester, "that i am ashamed of my mother's position here, or wanting in all just respect for chesney wold and the family. i certainly may have desired--i certainly have desired, lady dedlock--that my mother should retire after so many years and end her days with me. but as i have found that to sever this strong bond would be to break her heart, i have long abandoned that idea." sir leicester very magnificent again at the notion of mrs. rouncewell being spirited off from her natural home to end her days with an ironmaster. "i have been," proceeds the visitor in a modest, clear way, "an apprentice and a workman. i have lived on workman's wages, years and years, and beyond a certain point have had to educate myself. my wife was a foreman's daughter, and plainly brought up. we have three daughters besides this son of whom i have spoken, and being fortunately able to give them greater advantages than we have had ourselves, we have educated them well, very well. it has been one of our great cares and pleasures to make them worthy of any station." a little boastfulness in his fatherly tone here, as if he added in his heart, "even of the chesney wold station." not a little more magnificence, therefore, on the part of sir leicester. "all this is so frequent, lady dedlock, where i live, and among the class to which i belong, that what would be generally called unequal marriages are not of such rare occurrence with us as elsewhere. a son will sometimes make it known to his father that he has fallen in love, say, with a young woman in the factory. the father, who once worked in a factory himself, will be a little disappointed at first very possibly. it may be that he had other views for his son. however, the chances are that having ascertained the young woman to be of unblemished character, he will say to his son, 'i must be quite sure you are in earnest here. this is a serious matter for both of you. therefore i shall have this girl educated for two years,' or it may be, 'i shall place this girl at the same school with your sisters for such a time, during which you will give me your word and honour to see her only so often. if at the expiration of that time, when she has so far profited by her advantages as that you may be upon a fair equality, you are both in the same mind, i will do my part to make you happy.' i know of several cases such as i describe, my lady, and i think they indicate to me my own course now." sir leicester's magnificence explodes. calmly, but terribly. "mr. rouncewell," says sir leicester with his right hand in the breast of his blue coat, the attitude of state in which he is painted in the gallery, "do you draw a parallel between chesney wold and a--" here he resists a disposition to choke, "a factory?" "i need not reply, sir leicester, that the two places are very different; but for the purposes of this case, i think a parallel may be justly drawn between them." sir leicester directs his majestic glance down one side of the long drawing-room and up the other before he can believe that he is awake. "are you aware, sir, that this young woman whom my lady--my lady--has placed near her person was brought up at the village school outside the gates?" "sir leicester, i am quite aware of it. a very good school it is, and handsomely supported by this family." "then, mr. rouncewell," returns sir leicester, "the application of what you have said is, to me, incomprehensible." "will it be more comprehensible, sir leicester, if i say," the ironmaster is reddening a little, "that i do not regard the village school as teaching everything desirable to be known by my son's wife?" from the village school of chesney wold, intact as it is this minute, to the whole framework of society; from the whole framework of society, to the aforesaid framework receiving tremendous cracks in consequence of people (iron-masters, lead-mistresses, and what not) not minding their catechism, and getting out of the station unto which they are called--necessarily and for ever, according to sir leicester's rapid logic, the first station in which they happen to find themselves; and from that, to their educating other people out of their stations, and so obliterating the landmarks, and opening the floodgates, and all the rest of it; this is the swift progress of the dedlock mind. "my lady, i beg your pardon. permit me, for one moment!" she has given a faint indication of intending to speak. "mr. rouncewell, our views of duty, and our views of station, and our views of education, and our views of--in short, all our views--are so diametrically opposed, that to prolong this discussion must be repellent to your feelings and repellent to my own. this young woman is honoured with my lady's notice and favour. if she wishes to withdraw herself from that notice and favour or if she chooses to place herself under the influence of any one who may in his peculiar opinions--you will allow me to say, in his peculiar opinions, though i readily admit that he is not accountable for them to me--who may, in his peculiar opinions, withdraw her from that notice and favour, she is at any time at liberty to do so. we are obliged to you for the plainness with which you have spoken. it will have no effect of itself, one way or other, on the young woman's position here. beyond this, we can make no terms; and here we beg--if you will be so good--to leave the subject." the visitor pauses a moment to give my lady an opportunity, but she says nothing. he then rises and replies, "sir leicester and lady dedlock, allow me to thank you for your attention and only to observe that i shall very seriously recommend my son to conquer his present inclinations. good night!" "mr. rouncewell," says sir leicester with all the nature of a gentleman shining in him, "it is late, and the roads are dark. i hope your time is not so precious but that you will allow my lady and myself to offer you the hospitality of chesney wold, for to-night at least." "i hope so," adds my lady. "i am much obliged to you, but i have to travel all night in order to reach a distant part of the country punctually at an appointed time in the morning." therewith the ironmaster takes his departure, sir leicester ringing the bell and my lady rising as he leaves the room. when my lady goes to her boudoir, she sits down thoughtfully by the fire, and inattentive to the ghost's walk, looks at rosa, writing in an inner room. presently my lady calls her. "come to me, child. tell me the truth. are you in love?" "oh! my lady!" my lady, looking at the downcast and blushing face, says smiling, "who is it? is it mrs. rouncewell's grandson?" "yes, if you please, my lady. but i don't know that i am in love with him--yet." "yet, you silly little thing! do you know that he loves you, yet?" "i think he likes me a little, my lady." and rosa bursts into tears. is this lady dedlock standing beside the village beauty, smoothing her dark hair with that motherly touch, and watching her with eyes so full of musing interest? aye, indeed it is! "listen to me, child. you are young and true, and i believe you are attached to me." "indeed i am, my lady. indeed there is nothing in the world i wouldn't do to show how much." "and i don't think you would wish to leave me just yet, rosa, even for a lover?" "no, my lady! oh, no!" rosa looks up for the first time, quite frightened at the thought. "confide in me, my child. don't fear me. i wish you to be happy, and will make you so--if i can make anybody happy on this earth." rosa, with fresh tears, kneels at her feet and kisses her hand. my lady takes the hand with which she has caught it, and standing with her eyes fixed on the fire, puts it about and about between her own two hands, and gradually lets it fall. seeing her so absorbed, rosa softly withdraws; but still my lady's eyes are on the fire. in search of what? of any hand that is no more, of any hand that never was, of any touch that might have magically changed her life? or does she listen to the ghost's walk and think what step does it most resemble? a man's? a woman's? the pattering of a little child's feet, ever coming on--on--on? some melancholy influence is upon her, or why should so proud a lady close the doors and sit alone upon the hearth so desolate? volumnia is away next day, and all the cousins are scattered before dinner. not a cousin of the batch but is amazed to hear from sir leicester at breakfast-time of the obliteration of landmarks, and opening of floodgates, and cracking of the framework of society, manifested through mrs. rouncewell's son. not a cousin of the batch but is really indignant, and connects it with the feebleness of william buffy when in office, and really does feel deprived of a stake in the country--or the pension list--or something--by fraud and wrong. as to volumnia, she is handed down the great staircase by sir leicester, as eloquent upon the theme as if there were a general rising in the north of england to obtain her rouge-pot and pearl necklace. and thus, with a clatter of maids and valets--for it is one appurtenance of their cousinship that however difficult they may find it to keep themselves, they must keep maids and valets--the cousins disperse to the four winds of heaven; and the one wintry wind that blows to-day shakes a shower from the trees near the deserted house, as if all the cousins had been changed into leaves. chapter xxix the young man chesney wold is shut up, carpets are rolled into great scrolls in corners of comfortless rooms, bright damask does penance in brown holland, carving and gilding puts on mortification, and the dedlock ancestors retire from the light of day again. around and around the house the leaves fall thick, but never fast, for they come circling down with a dead lightness that is sombre and slow. let the gardener sweep and sweep the turf as he will, and press the leaves into full barrows, and wheel them off, still they lie ankle-deep. howls the shrill wind round chesney wold; the sharp rain beats, the windows rattle, and the chimneys growl. mists hide in the avenues, veil the points of view, and move in funeral-wise across the rising grounds. on all the house there is a cold, blank smell like the smell of a little church, though something dryer, suggesting that the dead and buried dedlocks walk there in the long nights and leave the flavour of their graves behind them. but the house in town, which is rarely in the same mind as chesney wold at the same time, seldom rejoicing when it rejoices or mourning when it mourns, excepting when a dedlock dies--the house in town shines out awakened. as warm and bright as so much state may be, as delicately redolent of pleasant scents that bear no trace of winter as hothouse flowers can make it, soft and hushed so that the ticking of the clocks and the crisp burning of the fires alone disturb the stillness in the rooms, it seems to wrap those chilled bones of sir leicester's in rainbow-coloured wool. and sir leicester is glad to repose in dignified contentment before the great fire in the library, condescendingly perusing the backs of his books or honouring the fine arts with a glance of approbation. for he has his pictures, ancient and modern. some of the fancy ball school in which art occasionally condescends to become a master, which would be best catalogued like the miscellaneous articles in a sale. as "three high-backed chairs, a table and cover, long-necked bottle (containing wine), one flask, one spanish female's costume, three-quarter face portrait of miss jogg the model, and a suit of armour containing don quixote." or "one stone terrace (cracked), one gondola in distance, one venetian senator's dress complete, richly embroidered white satin costume with profile portrait of miss jogg the model, one scimitar superbly mounted in gold with jewelled handle, elaborate moorish dress (very rare), and othello." mr. tulkinghorn comes and goes pretty often, there being estate business to do, leases to be renewed, and so on. he sees my lady pretty often, too; and he and she are as composed, and as indifferent, and take as little heed of one another, as ever. yet it may be that my lady fears this mr. tulkinghorn and that he knows it. it may be that he pursues her doggedly and steadily, with no touch of compunction, remorse, or pity. it may be that her beauty and all the state and brilliancy surrounding her only gives him the greater zest for what he is set upon and makes him the more inflexible in it. whether he be cold and cruel, whether immovable in what he has made his duty, whether absorbed in love of power, whether determined to have nothing hidden from him in ground where he has burrowed among secrets all his life, whether he in his heart despises the splendour of which he is a distant beam, whether he is always treasuring up slights and offences in the affability of his gorgeous clients--whether he be any of this, or all of this, it may be that my lady had better have five thousand pairs of fashionable eyes upon her, in distrustful vigilance, than the two eyes of this rusty lawyer with his wisp of neckcloth and his dull black breeches tied with ribbons at the knees. sir leicester sits in my lady's room--that room in which mr. tulkinghorn read the affidavit in jarndyce and jarndyce--particularly complacent. my lady, as on that day, sits before the fire with her screen in her hand. sir leicester is particularly complacent because he has found in his newspaper some congenial remarks bearing directly on the floodgates and the framework of society. they apply so happily to the late case that sir leicester has come from the library to my lady's room expressly to read them aloud. "the man who wrote this article," he observes by way of preface, nodding at the fire as if he were nodding down at the man from a mount, "has a well-balanced mind." the man's mind is not so well balanced but that he bores my lady, who, after a languid effort to listen, or rather a languid resignation of herself to a show of listening, becomes distraught and falls into a contemplation of the fire as if it were her fire at chesney wold, and she had never left it. sir leicester, quite unconscious, reads on through his double eye-glass, occasionally stopping to remove his glass and express approval, as "very true indeed," "very properly put," "i have frequently made the same remark myself," invariably losing his place after each observation, and going up and down the column to find it again. sir leicester is reading with infinite gravity and state when the door opens, and the mercury in powder makes this strange announcement, "the young man, my lady, of the name of guppy." sir leicester pauses, stares, repeats in a killing voice, "the young man of the name of guppy?" looking round, he beholds the young man of the name of guppy, much discomfited and not presenting a very impressive letter of introduction in his manner and appearance. "pray," says sir leicester to mercury, "what do you mean by announcing with this abruptness a young man of the name of guppy?" "i beg your pardon, sir leicester, but my lady said she would see the young man whenever he called. i was not aware that you were here, sir leicester." with this apology, mercury directs a scornful and indignant look at the young man of the name of guppy which plainly says, "what do you come calling here for and getting me into a row?" "it's quite right. i gave him those directions," says my lady. "let the young man wait." "by no means, my lady. since he has your orders to come, i will not interrupt you." sir leicester in his gallantry retires, rather declining to accept a bow from the young man as he goes out and majestically supposing him to be some shoemaker of intrusive appearance. lady dedlock looks imperiously at her visitor when the servant has left the room, casting her eyes over him from head to foot. she suffers him to stand by the door and asks him what he wants. "that your ladyship would have the kindness to oblige me with a little conversation," returns mr. guppy, embarrassed. "you are, of course, the person who has written me so many letters?" "several, your ladyship. several before your ladyship condescended to favour me with an answer." "and could you not take the same means of rendering a conversation unnecessary? can you not still?" mr. guppy screws his mouth into a silent "no!" and shakes his head. "you have been strangely importunate. if it should appear, after all, that what you have to say does not concern me--and i don't know how it can, and don't expect that it will--you will allow me to cut you short with but little ceremony. say what you have to say, if you please." my lady, with a careless toss of her screen, turns herself towards the fire again, sitting almost with her back to the young man of the name of guppy. "with your ladyship's permission, then," says the young man, "i will now enter on my business. hem! i am, as i told your ladyship in my first letter, in the law. being in the law, i have learnt the habit of not committing myself in writing, and therefore i did not mention to your ladyship the name of the firm with which i am connected and in which my standing--and i may add income--is tolerably good. i may now state to your ladyship, in confidence, that the name of that firm is kenge and carboy, of lincoln's inn, which may not be altogether unknown to your ladyship in connexion with the case in chancery of jarndyce and jarndyce." my lady's figure begins to be expressive of some attention. she has ceased to toss the screen and holds it as if she were listening. "now, i may say to your ladyship at once," says mr. guppy, a little emboldened, "it is no matter arising out of jarndyce and jarndyce that made me so desirous to speak to your ladyship, which conduct i have no doubt did appear, and does appear, obtrusive--in fact, almost blackguardly." after waiting for a moment to receive some assurance to the contrary, and not receiving any, mr. guppy proceeds, "if it had been jarndyce and jarndyce, i should have gone at once to your ladyship's solicitor, mr. tulkinghorn, of the fields. i have the pleasure of being acquainted with mr. tulkinghorn--at least we move when we meet one another--and if it had been any business of that sort, i should have gone to him." my lady turns a little round and says, "you had better sit down." "thank your ladyship." mr. guppy does so. "now, your ladyship"--mr. guppy refers to a little slip of paper on which he has made small notes of his line of argument and which seems to involve him in the densest obscurity whenever he looks at it--"i--oh, yes!--i place myself entirely in your ladyship's hands. if your ladyship was to make any complaint to kenge and carboy or to mr. tulkinghorn of the present visit, i should be placed in a very disagreeable situation. that, i openly admit. consequently, i rely upon your ladyship's honour." my lady, with a disdainful gesture of the hand that holds the screen, assures him of his being worth no complaint from her. "thank your ladyship," says mr. guppy; "quite satisfactory. now--i--dash it!--the fact is that i put down a head or two here of the order of the points i thought of touching upon, and they're written short, and i can't quite make out what they mean. if your ladyship will excuse me taking it to the window half a moment, i--" mr. guppy, going to the window, tumbles into a pair of love-birds, to whom he says in his confusion, "i beg your pardon, i am sure." this does not tend to the greater legibility of his notes. he murmurs, growing warm and red and holding the slip of paper now close to his eyes, now a long way off, "c.s. what's c.s. for? oh! c.s.! oh, i know! yes, to be sure!" and comes back enlightened. "i am not aware," says mr. guppy, standing midway between my lady and his chair, "whether your ladyship ever happened to hear of, or to see, a young lady of the name of miss esther summerson." my lady's eyes look at him full. "i saw a young lady of that name not long ago. this past autumn." "now, did it strike your ladyship that she was like anybody?" asks mr. guppy, crossing his arms, holding his head on one side, and scratching the corner of his mouth with his memoranda. my lady removes her eyes from him no more. "no." "not like your ladyship's family?" "no." "i think your ladyship," says mr. guppy, "can hardly remember miss summerson's face?" "i remember the young lady very well. what has this to do with me?" "your ladyship, i do assure you that having miss summerson's image imprinted on my 'eart--which i mention in confidence--i found, when i had the honour of going over your ladyship's mansion of chesney wold while on a short out in the county of lincolnshire with a friend, such a resemblance between miss esther summerson and your ladyship's own portrait that it completely knocked me over, so much so that i didn't at the moment even know what it was that knocked me over. and now i have the honour of beholding your ladyship near (i have often, since that, taken the liberty of looking at your ladyship in your carriage in the park, when i dare say you was not aware of me, but i never saw your ladyship so near), it's really more surprising than i thought it." young man of the name of guppy! there have been times, when ladies lived in strongholds and had unscrupulous attendants within call, when that poor life of yours would not have been worth a minute's purchase, with those beautiful eyes looking at you as they look at this moment. my lady, slowly using her little hand-screen as a fan, asks him again what he supposes that his taste for likenesses has to do with her. "your ladyship," replies mr. guppy, again referring to his paper, "i am coming to that. dash these notes! oh! 'mrs. chadband.' yes." mr. guppy draws his chair a little forward and seats himself again. my lady reclines in her chair composedly, though with a trifle less of graceful ease than usual perhaps, and never falters in her steady gaze. "a--stop a minute, though!" mr. guppy refers again. "e.s. twice? oh, yes! yes, i see my way now, right on." rolling up the slip of paper as an instrument to point his speech with, mr. guppy proceeds. "your ladyship, there is a mystery about miss esther summerson's birth and bringing up. i am informed of that fact because--which i mention in confidence--i know it in the way of my profession at kenge and carboy's. now, as i have already mentioned to your ladyship, miss summerson's image is imprinted on my 'eart. if i could clear this mystery for her, or prove her to be well related, or find that having the honour to be a remote branch of your ladyship's family she had a right to be made a party in jarndyce and jarndyce, why, i might make a sort of a claim upon miss summerson to look with an eye of more dedicated favour on my proposals than she has exactly done as yet. in fact, as yet she hasn't favoured them at all." a kind of angry smile just dawns upon my lady's face. "now, it's a very singular circumstance, your ladyship," says mr. guppy, "though one of those circumstances that do fall in the way of us professional men--which i may call myself, for though not admitted, yet i have had a present of my articles made to me by kenge and carboy, on my mother's advancing from the principal of her little income the money for the stamp, which comes heavy--that i have encountered the person who lived as servant with the lady who brought miss summerson up before mr. jarndyce took charge of her. that lady was a miss barbary, your ladyship." is the dead colour on my lady's face reflected from the screen which has a green silk ground and which she holds in her raised hand as if she had forgotten it, or is it a dreadful paleness that has fallen on her? "did your ladyship," says mr. guppy, "ever happen to hear of miss barbary?" "i don't know. i think so. yes." "was miss barbary at all connected with your ladyship's family?" my lady's lips move, but they utter nothing. she shakes her head. "not connected?" says mr. guppy. "oh! not to your ladyship's knowledge, perhaps? ah! but might be? yes." after each of these interrogatories, she has inclined her head. "very good! now, this miss barbary was extremely close--seems to have been extraordinarily close for a female, females being generally (in common life at least) rather given to conversation--and my witness never had an idea whether she possessed a single relative. on one occasion, and only one, she seems to have been confidential to my witness on a single point, and she then told her that the little girl's real name was not esther summerson, but esther hawdon." "my god!" mr. guppy stares. lady dedlock sits before him looking him through, with the same dark shade upon her face, in the same attitude even to the holding of the screen, with her lips a little apart, her brow a little contracted, but for the moment dead. he sees her consciousness return, sees a tremor pass across her frame like a ripple over water, sees her lips shake, sees her compose them by a great effort, sees her force herself back to the knowledge of his presence and of what he has said. all this, so quickly, that her exclamation and her dead condition seem to have passed away like the features of those long-preserved dead bodies sometimes opened up in tombs, which, struck by the air like lightning, vanish in a breath. "your ladyship is acquainted with the name of hawdon?" "i have heard it before." "name of any collateral or remote branch of your ladyship's family?" "no." "now, your ladyship," says mr. guppy, "i come to the last point of the case, so far as i have got it up. it's going on, and i shall gather it up closer and closer as it goes on. your ladyship must know--if your ladyship don't happen, by any chance, to know already--that there was found dead at the house of a person named krook, near chancery lane, some time ago, a law-writer in great distress. upon which law-writer there was an inquest, and which law-writer was an anonymous character, his name being unknown. but, your ladyship, i have discovered very lately that that law-writer's name was hawdon." "and what is that to me?" "aye, your ladyship, that's the question! now, your ladyship, a queer thing happened after that man's death. a lady started up, a disguised lady, your ladyship, who went to look at the scene of action and went to look at his grave. she hired a crossing-sweeping boy to show it her. if your ladyship would wish to have the boy produced in corroboration of this statement, i can lay my hand upon him at any time." the wretched boy is nothing to my lady, and she does not wish to have him produced. "oh, i assure your ladyship it's a very queer start indeed," says mr. guppy. "if you was to hear him tell about the rings that sparkled on her fingers when she took her glove off, you'd think it quite romantic." there are diamonds glittering on the hand that holds the screen. my lady trifles with the screen and makes them glitter more, again with that expression which in other times might have been so dangerous to the young man of the name of guppy. "it was supposed, your ladyship, that he left no rag or scrap behind him by which he could be possibly identified. but he did. he left a bundle of old letters." the screen still goes, as before. all this time her eyes never once release him. "they were taken and secreted. and to-morrow night, your ladyship, they will come into my possession." "still i ask you, what is this to me?" "your ladyship, i conclude with that." mr. guppy rises. "if you think there's enough in this chain of circumstances put together--in the undoubted strong likeness of this young lady to your ladyship, which is a positive fact for a jury; in her having been brought up by miss barbary; in miss barbary stating miss summerson's real name to be hawdon; in your ladyship's knowing both these names very well; and in hawdon's dying as he did--to give your ladyship a family interest in going further into the case, i will bring these papers here. i don't know what they are, except that they are old letters: i have never had them in my possession yet. i will bring those papers here as soon as i get them and go over them for the first time with your ladyship. i have told your ladyship my object. i have told your ladyship that i should be placed in a very disagreeable situation if any complaint was made, and all is in strict confidence." is this the full purpose of the young man of the name of guppy, or has he any other? do his words disclose the length, breadth, depth, of his object and suspicion in coming here; or if not, what do they hide? he is a match for my lady there. she may look at him, but he can look at the table and keep that witness-box face of his from telling anything. "you may bring the letters," says my lady, "if you choose." "your ladyship is not very encouraging, upon my word and honour," says mr. guppy, a little injured. "you may bring the letters," she repeats in the same tone, "if you--please." "it shall be done. i wish your ladyship good day." on a table near her is a rich bauble of a casket, barred and clasped like an old strong-chest. she, looking at him still, takes it to her and unlocks it. "oh! i assure your ladyship i am not actuated by any motives of that sort," says mr. guppy, "and i couldn't accept anything of the kind. i wish your ladyship good day, and am much obliged to you all the same." so the young man makes his bow and goes downstairs, where the supercilious mercury does not consider himself called upon to leave his olympus by the hall-fire to let the young man out. as sir leicester basks in his library and dozes over his newspaper, is there no influence in the house to startle him, not to say to make the very trees at chesney wold fling up their knotted arms, the very portraits frown, the very armour stir? no. words, sobs, and cries are but air, and air is so shut in and shut out throughout the house in town that sounds need be uttered trumpet-tongued indeed by my lady in her chamber to carry any faint vibration to sir leicester's ears; and yet this cry is in the house, going upward from a wild figure on its knees. "o my child, my child! not dead in the first hours of her life, as my cruel sister told me, but sternly nurtured by her, after she had renounced me and my name! o my child, o my child!" chapter xxx esther's narrative richard had been gone away some time when a visitor came to pass a few days with us. it was an elderly lady. it was mrs. woodcourt, who, having come from wales to stay with mrs. bayham badger and having written to my guardian, "by her son allan's desire," to report that she had heard from him and that he was well "and sent his kind remembrances to all of us," had been invited by my guardian to make a visit to bleak house. she stayed with us nearly three weeks. she took very kindly to me and was extremely confidential, so much so that sometimes she almost made me uncomfortable. i had no right, i knew very well, to be uncomfortable because she confided in me, and i felt it was unreasonable; still, with all i could do, i could not quite help it. she was such a sharp little lady and used to sit with her hands folded in each other looking so very watchful while she talked to me that perhaps i found that rather irksome. or perhaps it was her being so upright and trim, though i don't think it was that, because i thought that quaintly pleasant. nor can it have been the general expression of her face, which was very sparkling and pretty for an old lady. i don't know what it was. or at least if i do now, i thought i did not then. or at least--but it don't matter. of a night when i was going upstairs to bed, she would invite me into her room, where she sat before the fire in a great chair; and, dear me, she would tell me about morgan ap-kerrig until i was quite low-spirited! sometimes she recited a few verses from crumlinwallinwer and the mewlinnwillinwodd (if those are the right names, which i dare say they are not), and would become quite fiery with the sentiments they expressed. though i never knew what they were (being in welsh), further than that they were highly eulogistic of the lineage of morgan ap-kerrig. "so, miss summerson," she would say to me with stately triumph, "this, you see, is the fortune inherited by my son. wherever my son goes, he can claim kindred with ap-kerrig. he may not have money, but he always has what is much better--family, my dear." i had my doubts of their caring so very much for morgan ap-kerrig in india and china, but of course i never expressed them. i used to say it was a great thing to be so highly connected. "it is, my dear, a great thing," mrs. woodcourt would reply. "it has its disadvantages; my son's choice of a wife, for instance, is limited by it, but the matrimonial choice of the royal family is limited in much the same manner." then she would pat me on the arm and smooth my dress, as much as to assure me that she had a good opinion of me, the distance between us notwithstanding. "poor mr. woodcourt, my dear," she would say, and always with some emotion, for with her lofty pedigree she had a very affectionate heart, "was descended from a great highland family, the maccoorts of maccoort. he served his king and country as an officer in the royal highlanders, and he died on the field. my son is one of the last representatives of two old families. with the blessing of heaven he will set them up again and unite them with another old family." it was in vain for me to try to change the subject, as i used to try, only for the sake of novelty or perhaps because--but i need not be so particular. mrs. woodcourt never would let me change it. "my dear," she said one night, "you have so much sense and you look at the world in a quiet manner so superior to your time of life that it is a comfort to me to talk to you about these family matters of mine. you don't know much of my son, my dear; but you know enough of him, i dare say, to recollect him?" "yes, ma'am. i recollect him." "yes, my dear. now, my dear, i think you are a judge of character, and i should like to have your opinion of him." "oh, mrs. woodcourt," said i, "that is so difficult!" "why is it so difficult, my dear?" she returned. "i don't see it myself." "to give an opinion--" "on so slight an acquaintance, my dear. that's true." i didn't mean that, because mr. woodcourt had been at our house a good deal altogether and had become quite intimate with my guardian. i said so, and added that he seemed to be very clever in his profession--we thought--and that his kindness and gentleness to miss flite were above all praise. "you do him justice!" said mrs. woodcourt, pressing my hand. "you define him exactly. allan is a dear fellow, and in his profession faultless. i say it, though i am his mother. still, i must confess he is not without faults, love." "none of us are," said i. "ah! but his really are faults that he might correct, and ought to correct," returned the sharp old lady, sharply shaking her head. "i am so much attached to you that i may confide in you, my dear, as a third party wholly disinterested, that he is fickleness itself." i said i should have thought it hardly possible that he could have been otherwise than constant to his profession and zealous in the pursuit of it, judging from the reputation he had earned. "you are right again, my dear," the old lady retorted, "but i don't refer to his profession, look you." "oh!" said i. "no," said she. "i refer, my dear, to his social conduct. he is always paying trivial attentions to young ladies, and always has been, ever since he was eighteen. now, my dear, he has never really cared for any one of them and has never meant in doing this to do any harm or to express anything but politeness and good nature. still, it's not right, you know; is it?" "no," said i, as she seemed to wait for me. "and it might lead to mistaken notions, you see, my dear." i supposed it might. "therefore, i have told him many times that he really should be more careful, both in justice to himself and in justice to others. and he has always said, 'mother, i will be; but you know me better than anybody else does, and you know i mean no harm--in short, mean nothing.' all of which is very true, my dear, but is no justification. however, as he is now gone so far away and for an indefinite time, and as he will have good opportunities and introductions, we may consider this past and gone. and you, my dear," said the old lady, who was now all nods and smiles, "regarding your dear self, my love?" "me, mrs. woodcourt?" "not to be always selfish, talking of my son, who has gone to seek his fortune and to find a wife--when do you mean to seek your fortune and to find a husband, miss summerson? hey, look you! now you blush!" i don't think i did blush--at all events, it was not important if i did--and i said my present fortune perfectly contented me and i had no wish to change it. "shall i tell you what i always think of you and the fortune yet to come for you, my love?" said mrs. woodcourt. "if you believe you are a good prophet," said i. "why, then, it is that you will marry some one very rich and very worthy, much older--five and twenty years, perhaps--than yourself. and you will be an excellent wife, and much beloved, and very happy." "that is a good fortune," said i. "but why is it to be mine?" "my dear," she returned, "there's suitability in it--you are so busy, and so neat, and so peculiarly situated altogether that there's suitability in it, and it will come to pass. and nobody, my love, will congratulate you more sincerely on such a marriage than i shall." it was curious that this should make me uncomfortable, but i think it did. i know it did. it made me for some part of that night uncomfortable. i was so ashamed of my folly that i did not like to confess it even to ada, and that made me more uncomfortable still. i would have given anything not to have been so much in the bright old lady's confidence if i could have possibly declined it. it gave me the most inconsistent opinions of her. at one time i thought she was a story-teller, and at another time that she was the pink of truth. now i suspected that she was very cunning, next moment i believed her honest welsh heart to be perfectly innocent and simple. and after all, what did it matter to me, and why did it matter to me? why could not i, going up to bed with my basket of keys, stop to sit down by her fire and accommodate myself for a little while to her, at least as well as to anybody else, and not trouble myself about the harmless things she said to me? impelled towards her, as i certainly was, for i was very anxious that she should like me and was very glad indeed that she did, why should i harp afterwards, with actual distress and pain, on every word she said and weigh it over and over again in twenty scales? why was it so worrying to me to have her in our house, and confidential to me every night, when i yet felt that it was better and safer somehow that she should be there than anywhere else? these were perplexities and contradictions that i could not account for. at least, if i could--but i shall come to all that by and by, and it is mere idleness to go on about it now. so when mrs. woodcourt went away, i was sorry to lose her but was relieved too. and then caddy jellyby came down, and caddy brought such a packet of domestic news that it gave us abundant occupation. first caddy declared (and would at first declare nothing else) that i was the best adviser that ever was known. this, my pet said, was no news at all; and this, i said, of course, was nonsense. then caddy told us that she was going to be married in a month and that if ada and i would be her bridesmaids, she was the happiest girl in the world. to be sure, this was news indeed; and i thought we never should have done talking about it, we had so much to say to caddy, and caddy had so much to say to us. it seemed that caddy's unfortunate papa had got over his bankruptcy--"gone through the gazette," was the expression caddy used, as if it were a tunnel--with the general clemency and commiseration of his creditors, and had got rid of his affairs in some blessed manner without succeeding in understanding them, and had given up everything he possessed (which was not worth much, i should think, to judge from the state of the furniture), and had satisfied every one concerned that he could do no more, poor man. so, he had been honourably dismissed to "the office" to begin the world again. what he did at the office, i never knew; caddy said he was a "custom-house and general agent," and the only thing i ever understood about that business was that when he wanted money more than usual he went to the docks to look for it, and hardly ever found it. as soon as her papa had tranquillized his mind by becoming this shorn lamb, and they had removed to a furnished lodging in hatton garden (where i found the children, when i afterwards went there, cutting the horse hair out of the seats of the chairs and choking themselves with it), caddy had brought about a meeting between him and old mr. turveydrop; and poor mr. jellyby, being very humble and meek, had deferred to mr. turveydrop's deportment so submissively that they had become excellent friends. by degrees, old mr. turveydrop, thus familiarized with the idea of his son's marriage, had worked up his parental feelings to the height of contemplating that event as being near at hand and had given his gracious consent to the young couple commencing housekeeping at the academy in newman street when they would. "and your papa, caddy. what did he say?" "oh! poor pa," said caddy, "only cried and said he hoped we might get on better than he and ma had got on. he didn't say so before prince, he only said so to me. and he said, 'my poor girl, you have not been very well taught how to make a home for your husband, but unless you mean with all your heart to strive to do it, you had better murder him than marry him--if you really love him.'" "and how did you reassure him, caddy?" "why, it was very distressing, you know, to see poor pa so low and hear him say such terrible things, and i couldn't help crying myself. but i told him that i did mean it with all my heart and that i hoped our house would be a place for him to come and find some comfort in of an evening and that i hoped and thought i could be a better daughter to him there than at home. then i mentioned peepy's coming to stay with me, and then pa began to cry again and said the children were indians." "indians, caddy?" "yes," said caddy, "wild indians. and pa said"--here she began to sob, poor girl, not at all like the happiest girl in the world--"that he was sensible the best thing that could happen to them was their being all tomahawked together." ada suggested that it was comfortable to know that mr. jellyby did not mean these destructive sentiments. "no, of course i know pa wouldn't like his family to be weltering in their blood," said caddy, "but he means that they are very unfortunate in being ma's children and that he is very unfortunate in being ma's husband; and i am sure that's true, though it seems unnatural to say so." i asked caddy if mrs. jellyby knew that her wedding-day was fixed. "oh! you know what ma is, esther," she returned. "it's impossible to say whether she knows it or not. she has been told it often enough; and when she is told it, she only gives me a placid look, as if i was i don't know what--a steeple in the distance," said caddy with a sudden idea; "and then she shakes her head and says 'oh, caddy, caddy, what a tease you are!' and goes on with the borrioboola letters." "and about your wardrobe, caddy?" said i. for she was under no restraint with us. "well, my dear esther," she returned, drying her eyes, "i must do the best i can and trust to my dear prince never to have an unkind remembrance of my coming so shabbily to him. if the question concerned an outfit for borrioboola, ma would know all about it and would be quite excited. being what it is, she neither knows nor cares." caddy was not at all deficient in natural affection for her mother, but mentioned this with tears as an undeniable fact, which i am afraid it was. we were sorry for the poor dear girl and found so much to admire in the good disposition which had survived under such discouragement that we both at once (i mean ada and i) proposed a little scheme that made her perfectly joyful. this was her staying with us for three weeks, my staying with her for one, and our all three contriving and cutting out, and repairing, and sewing, and saving, and doing the very best we could think of to make the most of her stock. my guardian being as pleased with the idea as caddy was, we took her home next day to arrange the matter and brought her out again in triumph with her boxes and all the purchases that could be squeezed out of a ten-pound note, which mr. jellyby had found in the docks i suppose, but which he at all events gave her. what my guardian would not have given her if we had encouraged him, it would be difficult to say, but we thought it right to compound for no more than her wedding-dress and bonnet. he agreed to this compromise, and if caddy had ever been happy in her life, she was happy when we sat down to work. she was clumsy enough with her needle, poor girl, and pricked her fingers as much as she had been used to ink them. she could not help reddening a little now and then, partly with the smart and partly with vexation at being able to do no better, but she soon got over that and began to improve rapidly. so day after day she, and my darling, and my little maid charley, and a milliner out of the town, and i, sat hard at work, as pleasantly as possible. over and above this, caddy was very anxious "to learn housekeeping," as she said. now, mercy upon us! the idea of her learning housekeeping of a person of my vast experience was such a joke that i laughed, and coloured up, and fell into a comical confusion when she proposed it. however, i said, "caddy, i am sure you are very welcome to learn anything that you can learn of me, my dear," and i showed her all my books and methods and all my fidgety ways. you would have supposed that i was showing her some wonderful inventions, by her study of them; and if you had seen her, whenever i jingled my housekeeping keys, get up and attend me, certainly you might have thought that there never was a greater imposter than i with a blinder follower than caddy jellyby. so what with working and housekeeping, and lessons to charley, and backgammon in the evening with my guardian, and duets with ada, the three weeks slipped fast away. then i went home with caddy to see what could be done there, and ada and charley remained behind to take care of my guardian. when i say i went home with caddy, i mean to the furnished lodging in hatton garden. we went to newman street two or three times, where preparations were in progress too--a good many, i observed, for enhancing the comforts of old mr. turveydrop, and a few for putting the newly married couple away cheaply at the top of the house--but our great point was to make the furnished lodging decent for the wedding-breakfast and to imbue mrs. jellyby beforehand with some faint sense of the occasion. the latter was the more difficult thing of the two because mrs. jellyby and an unwholesome boy occupied the front sitting-room (the back one was a mere closet), and it was littered down with waste-paper and borrioboolan documents, as an untidy stable might be littered with straw. mrs. jellyby sat there all day drinking strong coffee, dictating, and holding borrioboolan interviews by appointment. the unwholesome boy, who seemed to me to be going into a decline, took his meals out of the house. when mr. jellyby came home, he usually groaned and went down into the kitchen. there he got something to eat if the servant would give him anything, and then, feeling that he was in the way, went out and walked about hatton garden in the wet. the poor children scrambled up and tumbled down the house as they had always been accustomed to do. the production of these devoted little sacrifices in any presentable condition being quite out of the question at a week's notice, i proposed to caddy that we should make them as happy as we could on her marriage morning in the attic where they all slept, and should confine our greatest efforts to her mama and her mama's room, and a clean breakfast. in truth mrs. jellyby required a good deal of attention, the lattice-work up her back having widened considerably since i first knew her and her hair looking like the mane of a dustman's horse. thinking that the display of caddy's wardrobe would be the best means of approaching the subject, i invited mrs. jellyby to come and look at it spread out on caddy's bed in the evening after the unwholesome boy was gone. "my dear miss summerson," said she, rising from her desk with her usual sweetness of temper, "these are really ridiculous preparations, though your assisting them is a proof of your kindness. there is something so inexpressibly absurd to me in the idea of caddy being married! oh, caddy, you silly, silly, silly puss!" she came upstairs with us notwithstanding and looked at the clothes in her customary far-off manner. they suggested one distinct idea to her, for she said with her placid smile, and shaking her head, "my good miss summerson, at half the cost, this weak child might have been equipped for africa!" on our going downstairs again, mrs. jellyby asked me whether this troublesome business was really to take place next wednesday. and on my replying yes, she said, "will my room be required, my dear miss summerson? for it's quite impossible that i can put my papers away." i took the liberty of saying that the room would certainly be wanted and that i thought we must put the papers away somewhere. "well, my dear miss summerson," said mrs. jellyby, "you know best, i dare say. but by obliging me to employ a boy, caddy has embarrassed me to that extent, overwhelmed as i am with public business, that i don't know which way to turn. we have a ramification meeting, too, on wednesday afternoon, and the inconvenience is very serious." "it is not likely to occur again," said i, smiling. "caddy will be married but once, probably." "that's true," mrs. jellyby replied; "that's true, my dear. i suppose we must make the best of it!" the next question was how mrs. jellyby should be dressed on the occasion. i thought it very curious to see her looking on serenely from her writing-table while caddy and i discussed it, occasionally shaking her head at us with a half-reproachful smile like a superior spirit who could just bear with our trifling. the state in which her dresses were, and the extraordinary confusion in which she kept them, added not a little to our difficulty; but at length we devised something not very unlike what a common-place mother might wear on such an occasion. the abstracted manner in which mrs. jellyby would deliver herself up to having this attire tried on by the dressmaker, and the sweetness with which she would then observe to me how sorry she was that i had not turned my thoughts to africa, were consistent with the rest of her behaviour. the lodging was rather confined as to space, but i fancied that if mrs. jellyby's household had been the only lodgers in saint paul's or saint peter's, the sole advantage they would have found in the size of the building would have been its affording a great deal of room to be dirty in. i believe that nothing belonging to the family which it had been possible to break was unbroken at the time of those preparations for caddy's marriage, that nothing which it had been possible to spoil in any way was unspoilt, and that no domestic object which was capable of collecting dirt, from a dear child's knee to the door-plate, was without as much dirt as could well accumulate upon it. poor mr. jellyby, who very seldom spoke and almost always sat when he was at home with his head against the wall, became interested when he saw that caddy and i were attempting to establish some order among all this waste and ruin and took off his coat to help. but such wonderful things came tumbling out of the closets when they were opened--bits of mouldy pie, sour bottles, mrs. jellyby's caps, letters, tea, forks, odd boots and shoes of children, firewood, wafers, saucepan-lids, damp sugar in odds and ends of paper bags, footstools, blacklead brushes, bread, mrs. jellyby's bonnets, books with butter sticking to the binding, guttered candle ends put out by being turned upside down in broken candlesticks, nutshells, heads and tails of shrimps, dinner-mats, gloves, coffee-grounds, umbrellas--that he looked frightened, and left off again. but he came regularly every evening and sat without his coat, with his head against the wall, as though he would have helped us if he had known how. "poor pa!" said caddy to me on the night before the great day, when we really had got things a little to rights. "it seems unkind to leave him, esther. but what could i do if i stayed! since i first knew you, i have tidied and tidied over and over again, but it's useless. ma and africa, together, upset the whole house directly. we never have a servant who don't drink. ma's ruinous to everything." mr. jellyby could not hear what she said, but he seemed very low indeed and shed tears, i thought. "my heart aches for him; that it does!" sobbed caddy. "i can't help thinking to-night, esther, how dearly i hope to be happy with prince, and how dearly pa hoped, i dare say, to be happy with ma. what a disappointed life!" "my dear caddy!" said mr. jellyby, looking slowly round from the wail. it was the first time, i think, i ever heard him say three words together. "yes, pa!" cried caddy, going to him and embracing him affectionately. "my dear caddy," said mr. jellyby. "never have--" "not prince, pa?" faltered caddy. "not have prince?" "yes, my dear," said mr. jellyby. "have him, certainly. but, never have--" i mentioned in my account of our first visit in thavies inn that richard described mr. jellyby as frequently opening his mouth after dinner without saying anything. it was a habit of his. he opened his mouth now a great many times and shook his head in a melancholy manner. "what do you wish me not to have? don't have what, dear pa?" asked caddy, coaxing him, with her arms round his neck. "never have a mission, my dear child." mr. jellyby groaned and laid his head against the wall again, and this was the only time i ever heard him make any approach to expressing his sentiments on the borrioboolan question. i suppose he had been more talkative and lively once, but he seemed to have been completely exhausted long before i knew him. i thought mrs. jellyby never would have left off serenely looking over her papers and drinking coffee that night. it was twelve o'clock before we could obtain possession of the room, and the clearance it required then was so discouraging that caddy, who was almost tired out, sat down in the middle of the dust and cried. but she soon cheered up, and we did wonders with it before we went to bed. in the morning it looked, by the aid of a few flowers and a quantity of soap and water and a little arrangement, quite gay. the plain breakfast made a cheerful show, and caddy was perfectly charming. but when my darling came, i thought--and i think now--that i never had seen such a dear face as my beautiful pet's. we made a little feast for the children upstairs, and we put peepy at the head of the table, and we showed them caddy in her bridal dress, and they clapped their hands and hurrahed, and caddy cried to think that she was going away from them and hugged them over and over again until we brought prince up to fetch her away--when, i am sorry to say, peepy bit him. then there was old mr. turveydrop downstairs, in a state of deportment not to be expressed, benignly blessing caddy and giving my guardian to understand that his son's happiness was his own parental work and that he sacrificed personal considerations to ensure it. "my dear sir," said mr. turveydrop, "these young people will live with me; my house is large enough for their accommodation, and they shall not want the shelter of my roof. i could have wished--you will understand the allusion, mr. jarndyce, for you remember my illustrious patron the prince regent--i could have wished that my son had married into a family where there was more deportment, but the will of heaven be done!" mr. and mrs. pardiggle were of the party--mr. pardiggle, an obstinate-looking man with a large waistcoat and stubbly hair, who was always talking in a loud bass voice about his mite, or mrs. pardiggle's mite, or their five boys' mites. mr. quale, with his hair brushed back as usual and his knobs of temples shining very much, was also there, not in the character of a disappointed lover, but as the accepted of a young--at least, an unmarried--lady, a miss wisk, who was also there. miss wisk's mission, my guardian said, was to show the world that woman's mission was man's mission and that the only genuine mission of both man and woman was to be always moving declaratory resolutions about things in general at public meetings. the guests were few, but were, as one might expect at mrs. jellyby's, all devoted to public objects only. besides those i have mentioned, there was an extremely dirty lady with her bonnet all awry and the ticketed price of her dress still sticking on it, whose neglected home, caddy told me, was like a filthy wilderness, but whose church was like a fancy fair. a very contentious gentleman, who said it was his mission to be everybody's brother but who appeared to be on terms of coolness with the whole of his large family, completed the party. a party, having less in common with such an occasion, could hardly have been got together by any ingenuity. such a mean mission as the domestic mission was the very last thing to be endured among them; indeed, miss wisk informed us, with great indignation, before we sat down to breakfast, that the idea of woman's mission lying chiefly in the narrow sphere of home was an outrageous slander on the part of her tyrant, man. one other singularity was that nobody with a mission--except mr. quale, whose mission, as i think i have formerly said, was to be in ecstasies with everybody's mission--cared at all for anybody's mission. mrs. pardiggle being as clear that the only one infallible course was her course of pouncing upon the poor and applying benevolence to them like a strait-waistcoat; as miss wisk was that the only practical thing for the world was the emancipation of woman from the thraldom of her tyrant, man. mrs. jellyby, all the while, sat smiling at the limited vision that could see anything but borrioboola-gha. but i am anticipating now the purport of our conversation on the ride home instead of first marrying caddy. we all went to church, and mr. jellyby gave her away. of the air with which old mr. turveydrop, with his hat under his left arm (the inside presented at the clergyman like a cannon) and his eyes creasing themselves up into his wig, stood stiff and high-shouldered behind us bridesmaids during the ceremony, and afterwards saluted us, i could never say enough to do it justice. miss wisk, whom i cannot report as prepossessing in appearance, and whose manner was grim, listened to the proceedings, as part of woman's wrongs, with a disdainful face. mrs. jellyby, with her calm smile and her bright eyes, looked the least concerned of all the company. we duly came back to breakfast, and mrs. jellyby sat at the head of the table and mr. jellyby at the foot. caddy had previously stolen upstairs to hug the children again and tell them that her name was turveydrop. but this piece of information, instead of being an agreeable surprise to peepy, threw him on his back in such transports of kicking grief that i could do nothing on being sent for but accede to the proposal that he should be admitted to the breakfast table. so he came down and sat in my lap; and mrs. jellyby, after saying, in reference to the state of his pinafore, "oh, you naughty peepy, what a shocking little pig you are!" was not at all discomposed. he was very good except that he brought down noah with him (out of an ark i had given him before we went to church) and would dip him head first into the wine-glasses and then put him in his mouth. my guardian, with his sweet temper and his quick perception and his amiable face, made something agreeable even out of the ungenial company. none of them seemed able to talk about anything but his, or her, own one subject, and none of them seemed able to talk about even that as part of a world in which there was anything else; but my guardian turned it all to the merry encouragement of caddy and the honour of the occasion, and brought us through the breakfast nobly. what we should have done without him, i am afraid to think, for all the company despising the bride and bridegroom and old mr. turveydrop--and old mr. thurveydrop, in virtue of his deportment, considering himself vastly superior to all the company--it was a very unpromising case. at last the time came when poor caddy was to go and when all her property was packed on the hired coach and pair that was to take her and her husband to gravesend. it affected us to see caddy clinging, then, to her deplorable home and hanging on her mother's neck with the greatest tenderness. "i am very sorry i couldn't go on writing from dictation, ma," sobbed caddy. "i hope you forgive me now." "oh, caddy, caddy!" said mrs. jellyby. "i have told you over and over again that i have engaged a boy, and there's an end of it." "you are sure you are not the least angry with me, ma? say you are sure before i go away, ma?" "you foolish caddy," returned mrs. jellyby, "do i look angry, or have i inclination to be angry, or time to be angry? how can you?" "take a little care of pa while i am gone, mama!" mrs. jellyby positively laughed at the fancy. "you romantic child," said she, lightly patting caddy's back. "go along. i am excellent friends with you. now, good-bye, caddy, and be very happy!" then caddy hung upon her father and nursed his cheek against hers as if he were some poor dull child in pain. all this took place in the hall. her father released her, took out his pocket handkerchief, and sat down on the stairs with his head against the wall. i hope he found some consolation in walls. i almost think he did. and then prince took her arm in his and turned with great emotion and respect to his father, whose deportment at that moment was overwhelming. "thank you over and over again, father!" said prince, kissing his hand. "i am very grateful for all your kindness and consideration regarding our marriage, and so, i can assure you, is caddy." "very," sobbed caddy. "ve-ry!" "my dear son," said mr. turveydrop, "and dear daughter, i have done my duty. if the spirit of a sainted wooman hovers above us and looks down on the occasion, that, and your constant affection, will be my recompense. you will not fail in your duty, my son and daughter, i believe?" "dear father, never!" cried prince. "never, never, dear mr. turveydrop!" said caddy. "this," returned mr. turveydrop, "is as it should be. my children, my home is yours, my heart is yours, my all is yours. i will never leave you; nothing but death shall part us. my dear son, you contemplate an absence of a week, i think?" "a week, dear father. we shall return home this day week." "my dear child," said mr. turveydrop, "let me, even under the present exceptional circumstances, recommend strict punctuality. it is highly important to keep the connexion together; and schools, if at all neglected, are apt to take offence." "this day week, father, we shall be sure to be home to dinner." "good!" said mr. turveydrop. "you will find fires, my dear caroline, in your own room, and dinner prepared in my apartment. yes, yes, prince!" anticipating some self-denying objection on his son's part with a great air. "you and our caroline will be strange in the upper part of the premises and will, therefore, dine that day in my apartment. now, bless ye!" they drove away, and whether i wondered most at mrs. jellyby or at mr. turveydrop, i did not know. ada and my guardian were in the same condition when we came to talk it over. but before we drove away too, i received a most unexpected and eloquent compliment from mr. jellyby. he came up to me in the hall, took both my hands, pressed them earnestly, and opened his mouth twice. i was so sure of his meaning that i said, quite flurried, "you are very welcome, sir. pray don't mention it!" "i hope this marriage is for the best, guardian," said i when we three were on our road home. "i hope it is, little woman. patience. we shall see." "is the wind in the east to-day?" i ventured to ask him. he laughed heartily and answered, "no." "but it must have been this morning, i think," said i. he answered "no" again, and this time my dear girl confidently answered "no" too and shook the lovely head which, with its blooming flowers against the golden hair, was like the very spring. "much you know of east winds, my ugly darling," said i, kissing her in my admiration--i couldn't help it. well! it was only their love for me, i know very well, and it is a long time ago. i must write it even if i rub it out again, because it gives me so much pleasure. they said there could be no east wind where somebody was; they said that wherever dame durden went, there was sunshine and summer air. chapter xxxi nurse and patient i had not been at home again many days when one evening i went upstairs into my own room to take a peep over charley's shoulder and see how she was getting on with her copy-book. writing was a trying business to charley, who seemed to have no natural power over a pen, but in whose hand every pen appeared to become perversely animated, and to go wrong and crooked, and to stop, and splash, and sidle into corners like a saddle-donkey. it was very odd to see what old letters charley's young hand had made, they so wrinkled, and shrivelled, and tottering, it so plump and round. yet charley was uncommonly expert at other things and had as nimble little fingers as i ever watched. "well, charley," said i, looking over a copy of the letter o in which it was represented as square, triangular, pear-shaped, and collapsed in all kinds of ways, "we are improving. if we only get to make it round, we shall be perfect, charley." then i made one, and charley made one, and the pen wouldn't join charley's neatly, but twisted it up into a knot. "never mind, charley. we shall do it in time." charley laid down her pen, the copy being finished, opened and shut her cramped little hand, looked gravely at the page, half in pride and half in doubt, and got up, and dropped me a curtsy. "thank you, miss. if you please, miss, did you know a poor person of the name of jenny?" "a brickmaker's wife, charley? yes." "she came and spoke to me when i was out a little while ago, and said you knew her, miss. she asked me if i wasn't the young lady's little maid--meaning you for the young lady, miss--and i said yes, miss." "i thought she had left this neighbourhood altogether, charley." "so she had, miss, but she's come back again to where she used to live--she and liz. did you know another poor person of the name of liz, miss?" "i think i do, charley, though not by name." "that's what she said!" returned charley. "they have both come back, miss, and have been tramping high and low." "tramping high and low, have they, charley?" "yes, miss." if charley could only have made the letters in her copy as round as the eyes with which she looked into my face, they would have been excellent. "and this poor person came about the house three or four days, hoping to get a glimpse of you, miss--all she wanted, she said--but you were away. that was when she saw me. she saw me a-going about, miss," said charley with a short laugh of the greatest delight and pride, "and she thought i looked like your maid!" "did she though, really, charley?" "yes, miss!" said charley. "really and truly." and charley, with another short laugh of the purest glee, made her eyes very round again and looked as serious as became my maid. i was never tired of seeing charley in the full enjoyment of that great dignity, standing before me with her youthful face and figure, and her steady manner, and her childish exultation breaking through it now and then in the pleasantest way. "and where did you see her, charley?" said i. my little maid's countenance fell as she replied, "by the doctor's shop, miss." for charley wore her black frock yet. i asked if the brickmaker's wife were ill, but charley said no. it was some one else. some one in her cottage who had tramped down to saint albans and was tramping he didn't know where. a poor boy, charley said. no father, no mother, no any one. "like as tom might have been, miss, if emma and me had died after father," said charley, her round eyes filling with tears. "and she was getting medicine for him, charley?" "she said, miss," returned charley, "how that he had once done as much for her." my little maid's face was so eager and her quiet hands were folded so closely in one another as she stood looking at me that i had no great difficulty in reading her thoughts. "well, charley," said i, "it appears to me that you and i can do no better than go round to jenny's and see what's the matter." the alacrity with which charley brought my bonnet and veil, and having dressed me, quaintly pinned herself into her warm shawl and made herself look like a little old woman, sufficiently expressed her readiness. so charley and i, without saying anything to any one, went out. it was a cold, wild night, and the trees shuddered in the wind. the rain had been thick and heavy all day, and with little intermission for many days. none was falling just then, however. the sky had partly cleared, but was very gloomy--even above us, where a few stars were shining. in the north and north-west, where the sun had set three hours before, there was a pale dead light both beautiful and awful; and into it long sullen lines of cloud waved up like a sea stricken immovable as it was heaving. towards london a lurid glare overhung the whole dark waste, and the contrast between these two lights, and the fancy which the redder light engendered of an unearthly fire, gleaming on all the unseen buildings of the city and on all the faces of its many thousands of wondering inhabitants, was as solemn as might be. i had no thought that night--none, i am quite sure--of what was soon to happen to me. but i have always remembered since that when we had stopped at the garden-gate to look up at the sky, and when we went upon our way, i had for a moment an undefinable impression of myself as being something different from what i then was. i know it was then and there that i had it. i have ever since connected the feeling with that spot and time and with everything associated with that spot and time, to the distant voices in the town, the barking of a dog, and the sound of wheels coming down the miry hill. it was saturday night, and most of the people belonging to the place where we were going were drinking elsewhere. we found it quieter than i had previously seen it, though quite as miserable. the kilns were burning, and a stifling vapour set towards us with a pale-blue glare. we came to the cottage, where there was a feeble candle in the patched window. we tapped at the door and went in. the mother of the little child who had died was sitting in a chair on one side of the poor fire by the bed; and opposite to her, a wretched boy, supported by the chimney-piece, was cowering on the floor. he held under his arm, like a little bundle, a fragment of a fur cap; and as he tried to warm himself, he shook until the crazy door and window shook. the place was closer than before and had an unhealthy and a very peculiar smell. i had not lifted my veil when i first spoke to the woman, which was at the moment of our going in. the boy staggered up instantly and stared at me with a remarkable expression of surprise and terror. his action was so quick and my being the cause of it was so evident that i stood still instead of advancing nearer. "i won't go no more to the berryin ground," muttered the boy; "i ain't a-going there, so i tell you!" i lifted my veil and spoke to the woman. she said to me in a low voice, "don't mind him, ma'am. he'll soon come back to his head," and said to him, "jo, jo, what's the matter?" "i know wot she's come for!" cried the boy. "who?" "the lady there. she's come to get me to go along with her to the berryin ground. i won't go to the berryin ground. i don't like the name on it. she might go a-berryin me." his shivering came on again, and as he leaned against the wall, he shook the hovel. "he has been talking off and on about such like all day, ma'am," said jenny softly. "why, how you stare! this is my lady, jo." "is it?" returned the boy doubtfully, and surveying me with his arm held out above his burning eyes. "she looks to me the t'other one. it ain't the bonnet, nor yet it ain't the gownd, but she looks to me the t'other one." my little charley, with her premature experience of illness and trouble, had pulled off her bonnet and shawl and now went quietly up to him with a chair and sat him down in it like an old sick nurse. except that no such attendant could have shown him charley's youthful face, which seemed to engage his confidence. "i say!" said the boy. "you tell me. ain't the lady the t'other lady?" charley shook her head as she methodically drew his rags about him and made him as warm as she could. "oh!" the boy muttered. "then i s'pose she ain't." "i came to see if i could do you any good," said i. "what is the matter with you?" "i'm a-being froze," returned the boy hoarsely, with his haggard gaze wandering about me, "and then burnt up, and then froze, and then burnt up, ever so many times in a hour. and my head's all sleepy, and all a-going mad-like--and i'm so dry--and my bones isn't half so much bones as pain. "when did he come here?" i asked the woman. "this morning, ma'am, i found him at the corner of the town. i had known him up in london yonder. hadn't i, jo?" "tom-all-alone's," the boy replied. whenever he fixed his attention or his eyes, it was only for a very little while. he soon began to droop his head again, and roll it heavily, and speak as if he were half awake. "when did he come from london?" i asked. "i come from london yes'day," said the boy himself, now flushed and hot. "i'm a-going somewheres." "where is he going?" i asked. "somewheres," repeated the boy in a louder tone. "i have been moved on, and moved on, more nor ever i was afore, since the t'other one give me the sov'ring. mrs. snagsby, she's always a-watching, and a-driving of me--what have i done to her?--and they're all a-watching and a-driving of me. every one of 'em's doing of it, from the time when i don't get up, to the time when i don't go to bed. and i'm a-going somewheres. that's where i'm a-going. she told me, down in tom-all-alone's, as she came from stolbuns, and so i took the stolbuns road. it's as good as another." he always concluded by addressing charley. "what is to be done with him?" said i, taking the woman aside. "he could not travel in this state even if he had a purpose and knew where he was going!" "i know no more, ma'am, than the dead," she replied, glancing compassionately at him. "perhaps the dead know better, if they could only tell us. i've kept him here all day for pity's sake, and i've given him broth and physic, and liz has gone to try if any one will take him in (here's my pretty in the bed--her child, but i call it mine); but i can't keep him long, for if my husband was to come home and find him here, he'd be rough in putting him out and might do him a hurt. hark! here comes liz back!" the other woman came hurriedly in as she spoke, and the boy got up with a half-obscured sense that he was expected to be going. when the little child awoke, and when and how charley got at it, took it out of bed, and began to walk about hushing it, i don't know. there she was, doing all this in a quiet motherly manner as if she were living in mrs. blinder's attic with tom and emma again. the friend had been here and there, and had been played about from hand to hand, and had come back as she went. at first it was too early for the boy to be received into the proper refuge, and at last it was too late. one official sent her to another, and the other sent her back again to the first, and so backward and forward, until it appeared to me as if both must have been appointed for their skill in evading their duties instead of performing them. and now, after all, she said, breathing quickly, for she had been running and was frightened too, "jenny, your master's on the road home, and mine's not far behind, and the lord help the boy, for we can do no more for him!" they put a few halfpence together and hurried them into his hand, and so, in an oblivious, half-thankful, half-insensible way, he shuffled out of the house. "give me the child, my dear," said its mother to charley, "and thank you kindly too! jenny, woman dear, good night! young lady, if my master don't fall out with me, i'll look down by the kiln by and by, where the boy will be most like, and again in the morning!" she hurried off, and presently we passed her hushing and singing to her child at her own door and looking anxiously along the road for her drunken husband. i was afraid of staying then to speak to either woman, lest i should bring her into trouble. but i said to charley that we must not leave the boy to die. charley, who knew what to do much better than i did, and whose quickness equalled her presence of mind, glided on before me, and presently we came up with jo, just short of the brick-kiln. i think he must have begun his journey with some small bundle under his arm and must have had it stolen or lost it. for he still carried his wretched fragment of fur cap like a bundle, though he went bare-headed through the rain, which now fell fast. he stopped when we called to him and again showed a dread of me when i came up, standing with his lustrous eyes fixed upon me, and even arrested in his shivering fit. i asked him to come with us, and we would take care that he had some shelter for the night. "i don't want no shelter," he said; "i can lay amongst the warm bricks." "but don't you know that people die there?" replied charley. "they dies everywheres," said the boy. "they dies in their lodgings--she knows where; i showed her--and they dies down in tom-all-alone's in heaps. they dies more than they lives, according to what i see." then he hoarsely whispered charley, "if she ain't the t'other one, she ain't the forrenner. is there three of 'em then?" charley looked at me a little frightened. i felt half frightened at myself when the boy glared on me so. but he turned and followed when i beckoned to him, and finding that he acknowledged that influence in me, i led the way straight home. it was not far, only at the summit of the hill. we passed but one man. i doubted if we should have got home without assistance, the boy's steps were so uncertain and tremulous. he made no complaint, however, and was strangely unconcerned about himself, if i may say so strange a thing. leaving him in the hall for a moment, shrunk into the corner of the window-seat and staring with an indifference that scarcely could be called wonder at the comfort and brightness about him, i went into the drawing-room to speak to my guardian. there i found mr. skimpole, who had come down by the coach, as he frequently did without notice, and never bringing any clothes with him, but always borrowing everything he wanted. they came out with me directly to look at the boy. the servants had gathered in the hall too, and he shivered in the window-seat with charley standing by him, like some wounded animal that had been found in a ditch. "this is a sorrowful case," said my guardian after asking him a question or two and touching him and examining his eyes. "what do you say, harold?" "you had better turn him out," said mr. skimpole. "what do you mean?" inquired my guardian, almost sternly. "my dear jarndyce," said mr. skimpole, "you know what i am: i am a child. be cross to me if i deserve it. but i have a constitutional objection to this sort of thing. i always had, when i was a medical man. he's not safe, you know. there's a very bad sort of fever about him." mr. skimpole had retreated from the hall to the drawing-room again and said this in his airy way, seated on the music-stool as we stood by. "you'll say it's childish," observed mr. skimpole, looking gaily at us. "well, i dare say it may be; but i am a child, and i never pretend to be anything else. if you put him out in the road, you only put him where he was before. he will be no worse off than he was, you know. even make him better off, if you like. give him sixpence, or five shillings, or five pound ten--you are arithmeticians, and i am not--and get rid of him!" "and what is he to do then?" asked my guardian. "upon my life," said mr. skimpole, shrugging his shoulders with his engaging smile, "i have not the least idea what he is to do then. but i have no doubt he'll do it." "now, is it not a horrible reflection," said my guardian, to whom i had hastily explained the unavailing efforts of the two women, "is it not a horrible reflection," walking up and down and rumpling his hair, "that if this wretched creature were a convicted prisoner, his hospital would be wide open to him, and he would be as well taken care of as any sick boy in the kingdom?" "my dear jarndyce," returned mr. skimpole, "you'll pardon the simplicity of the question, coming as it does from a creature who is perfectly simple in worldly matters, but why isn't he a prisoner then?" my guardian stopped and looked at him with a whimsical mixture of amusement and indignation in his face. "our young friend is not to be suspected of any delicacy, i should imagine," said mr. skimpole, unabashed and candid. "it seems to me that it would be wiser, as well as in a certain kind of way more respectable, if he showed some misdirected energy that got him into prison. there would be more of an adventurous spirit in it, and consequently more of a certain sort of poetry." "i believe," returned my guardian, resuming his uneasy walk, "that there is not such another child on earth as yourself." "do you really?" said mr. skimpole. "i dare say! but i confess i don't see why our young friend, in his degree, should not seek to invest himself with such poetry as is open to him. he is no doubt born with an appetite--probably, when he is in a safer state of health, he has an excellent appetite. very well. at our young friend's natural dinner hour, most likely about noon, our young friend says in effect to society, 'i am hungry; will you have the goodness to produce your spoon and feed me?' society, which has taken upon itself the general arrangement of the whole system of spoons and professes to have a spoon for our young friend, does not produce that spoon; and our young friend, therefore, says 'you really must excuse me if i seize it.' now, this appears to me a case of misdirected energy, which has a certain amount of reason in it and a certain amount of romance; and i don't know but what i should be more interested in our young friend, as an illustration of such a case, than merely as a poor vagabond--which any one can be." "in the meantime," i ventured to observe, "he is getting worse." "in the meantime," said mr. skimpole cheerfully, "as miss summerson, with her practical good sense, observes, he is getting worse. therefore i recommend your turning him out before he gets still worse." the amiable face with which he said it, i think i shall never forget. "of course, little woman," observed my guardian, turning to me, "i can ensure his admission into the proper place by merely going there to enforce it, though it's a bad state of things when, in his condition, that is necessary. but it's growing late, and is a very bad night, and the boy is worn out already. there is a bed in the wholesome loft-room by the stable; we had better keep him there till morning, when he can be wrapped up and removed. we'll do that." "oh!" said mr. skimpole, with his hands upon the keys of the piano as we moved away. "are you going back to our young friend?" "yes," said my guardian. "how i envy you your constitution, jarndyce!" returned mr. skimpole with playful admiration. "you don't mind these things; neither does miss summerson. you are ready at all times to go anywhere, and do anything. such is will! i have no will at all--and no won't--simply can't." "you can't recommend anything for the boy, i suppose?" said my guardian, looking back over his shoulder half angrily; only half angrily, for he never seemed to consider mr. skimpole an accountable being. "my dear jarndyce, i observed a bottle of cooling medicine in his pocket, and it's impossible for him to do better than take it. you can tell them to sprinkle a little vinegar about the place where he sleeps and to keep it moderately cool and him moderately warm. but it is mere impertinence in me to offer any recommendation. miss summerson has such a knowledge of detail and such a capacity for the administration of detail that she knows all about it." we went back into the hall and explained to jo what we proposed to do, which charley explained to him again and which he received with the languid unconcern i had already noticed, wearily looking on at what was done as if it were for somebody else. the servants compassionating his miserable state and being very anxious to help, we soon got the loft-room ready; and some of the men about the house carried him across the wet yard, well wrapped up. it was pleasant to observe how kind they were to him and how there appeared to be a general impression among them that frequently calling him "old chap" was likely to revive his spirits. charley directed the operations and went to and fro between the loft-room and the house with such little stimulants and comforts as we thought it safe to give him. my guardian himself saw him before he was left for the night and reported to me when he returned to the growlery to write a letter on the boy's behalf, which a messenger was charged to deliver at day-light in the morning, that he seemed easier and inclined to sleep. they had fastened his door on the outside, he said, in case of his being delirious, but had so arranged that he could not make any noise without being heard. ada being in our room with a cold, mr. skimpole was left alone all this time and entertained himself by playing snatches of pathetic airs and sometimes singing to them (as we heard at a distance) with great expression and feeling. when we rejoined him in the drawing-room he said he would give us a little ballad which had come into his head "apropos of our young friend," and he sang one about a peasant boy, "thrown on the wide world, doomed to wander and roam, bereft of his parents, bereft of a home." quite exquisitely. it was a song that always made him cry, he told us. he was extremely gay all the rest of the evening, for he absolutely chirped--those were his delighted words--when he thought by what a happy talent for business he was surrounded. he gave us, in his glass of negus, "better health to our young friend!" and supposed and gaily pursued the case of his being reserved like whittington to become lord mayor of london. in that event, no doubt, he would establish the jarndyce institution and the summerson almshouses, and a little annual corporation pilgrimage to st. albans. he had no doubt, he said, that our young friend was an excellent boy in his way, but his way was not the harold skimpole way; what harold skimpole was, harold skimpole had found himself, to his considerable surprise, when he first made his own acquaintance; he had accepted himself with all his failings and had thought it sound philosophy to make the best of the bargain; and he hoped we would do the same. charley's last report was that the boy was quiet. i could see, from my window, the lantern they had left him burning quietly; and i went to bed very happy to think that he was sheltered. there was more movement and more talking than usual a little before daybreak, and it awoke me. as i was dressing, i looked out of my window and asked one of our men who had been among the active sympathizers last night whether there was anything wrong about the house. the lantern was still burning in the loft-window. "it's the boy, miss," said he. "is he worse?" i inquired. "gone, miss. "dead!" "dead, miss? no. gone clean off." at what time of the night he had gone, or how, or why, it seemed hopeless ever to divine. the door remaining as it had been left, and the lantern standing in the window, it could only be supposed that he had got out by a trap in the floor which communicated with an empty cart-house below. but he had shut it down again, if that were so; and it looked as if it had not been raised. nothing of any kind was missing. on this fact being clearly ascertained, we all yielded to the painful belief that delirium had come upon him in the night and that, allured by some imaginary object or pursued by some imaginary horror, he had strayed away in that worse than helpless state; all of us, that is to say, but mr. skimpole, who repeatedly suggested, in his usual easy light style, that it had occurred to our young friend that he was not a safe inmate, having a bad kind of fever upon him, and that he had with great natural politeness taken himself off. every possible inquiry was made, and every place was searched. the brick-kilns were examined, the cottages were visited, the two women were particularly questioned, but they knew nothing of him, and nobody could doubt that their wonder was genuine. the weather had for some time been too wet and the night itself had been too wet to admit of any tracing by footsteps. hedge and ditch, and wall, and rick and stack, were examined by our men for a long distance round, lest the boy should be lying in such a place insensible or dead; but nothing was seen to indicate that he had ever been near. from the time when he was left in the loft-room, he vanished. the search continued for five days. i do not mean that it ceased even then, but that my attention was then diverted into a current very memorable to me. as charley was at her writing again in my room in the evening, and as i sat opposite to her at work, i felt the table tremble. looking up, i saw my little maid shivering from head to foot. "charley," said i, "are you so cold?" "i think i am, miss," she replied. "i don't know what it is. i can't hold myself still. i felt so yesterday at about this same time, miss. don't be uneasy, i think i'm ill." i heard ada's voice outside, and i hurried to the door of communication between my room and our pretty sitting-room, and locked it. just in time, for she tapped at it while my hand was yet upon the key. ada called to me to let her in, but i said, "not now, my dearest. go away. there's nothing the matter; i will come to you presently." ah! it was a long, long time before my darling girl and i were companions again. charley fell ill. in twelve hours she was very ill. i moved her to my room, and laid her in my bed, and sat down quietly to nurse her. i told my guardian all about it, and why i felt it was necessary that i should seclude myself, and my reason for not seeing my darling above all. at first she came very often to the door, and called to me, and even reproached me with sobs and tears; but i wrote her a long letter saying that she made me anxious and unhappy and imploring her, as she loved me and wished my mind to be at peace, to come no nearer than the garden. after that she came beneath the window even oftener than she had come to the door, and if i had learnt to love her dear sweet voice before when we were hardly ever apart, how did i learn to love it then, when i stood behind the window-curtain listening and replying, but not so much as looking out! how did i learn to love it afterwards, when the harder time came! they put a bed for me in our sitting-room; and by keeping the door wide open, i turned the two rooms into one, now that ada had vacated that part of the house, and kept them always fresh and airy. there was not a servant in or about the house but was so good that they would all most gladly have come to me at any hour of the day or night without the least fear or unwillingness, but i thought it best to choose one worthy woman who was never to see ada and whom i could trust to come and go with all precaution. through her means i got out to take the air with my guardian when there was no fear of meeting ada, and wanted for nothing in the way of attendance, any more than in any other respect. and thus poor charley sickened and grew worse, and fell into heavy danger of death, and lay severely ill for many a long round of day and night. so patient she was, so uncomplaining, and inspired by such a gentle fortitude that very often as i sat by charley holding her head in my arms--repose would come to her, so, when it would come to her in no other attitude--i silently prayed to our father in heaven that i might not forget the lesson which this little sister taught me. i was very sorrowful to think that charley's pretty looks would change and be disfigured, even if she recovered--she was such a child with her dimpled face--but that thought was, for the greater part, lost in her greater peril. when she was at the worst, and her mind rambled again to the cares of her father's sick bed and the little children, she still knew me so far as that she would be quiet in my arms when she could lie quiet nowhere else, and murmur out the wanderings of her mind less restlessly. at those times i used to think, how should i ever tell the two remaining babies that the baby who had learned of her faithful heart to be a mother to them in their need was dead! there were other times when charley knew me well and talked to me, telling me that she sent her love to tom and emma and that she was sure tom would grow up to be a good man. at those times charley would speak to me of what she had read to her father as well as she could to comfort him, of that young man carried out to be buried who was the only son of his mother and she was a widow, of the ruler's daughter raised up by the gracious hand upon her bed of death. and charley told me that when her father died she had kneeled down and prayed in her first sorrow that he likewise might be raised up and given back to his poor children, and that if she should never get better and should die too, she thought it likely that it might come into tom's mind to offer the same prayer for her. then would i show tom how these people of old days had been brought back to life on earth, only that we might know our hope to be restored to heaven! but of all the various times there were in charley's illness, there was not one when she lost the gentle qualities i have spoken of. and there were many, many when i thought in the night of the last high belief in the watching angel, and the last higher trust in god, on the part of her poor despised father. and charley did not die. she flutteringly and slowly turned the dangerous point, after long lingering there, and then began to mend. the hope that never had been given, from the first, of charley being in outward appearance charley any more soon began to be encouraged; and even that prospered, and i saw her growing into her old childish likeness again. it was a great morning when i could tell ada all this as she stood out in the garden; and it was a great evening when charley and i at last took tea together in the next room. but on that same evening, i felt that i was stricken cold. happily for both of us, it was not until charley was safe in bed again and placidly asleep that i began to think the contagion of her illness was upon me. i had been able easily to hide what i felt at tea-time, but i was past that already now, and i knew that i was rapidly following in charley's steps. i was well enough, however, to be up early in the morning, and to return my darling's cheerful blessing from the garden, and to talk with her as long as usual. but i was not free from an impression that i had been walking about the two rooms in the night, a little beside myself, though knowing where i was; and i felt confused at times--with a curious sense of fullness, as if i were becoming too large altogether. in the evening i was so much worse that i resolved to prepare charley, with which view i said, "you're getting quite strong, charley, are you not?' "oh, quite!" said charley. "strong enough to be told a secret, i think, charley?" "quite strong enough for that, miss!" cried charley. but charley's face fell in the height of her delight, for she saw the secret in my face; and she came out of the great chair, and fell upon my bosom, and said "oh, miss, it's my doing! it's my doing!" and a great deal more out of the fullness of her grateful heart. "now, charley," said i after letting her go on for a little while, "if i am to be ill, my great trust, humanly speaking, is in you. and unless you are as quiet and composed for me as you always were for yourself, you can never fulfil it, charley." "if you'll let me cry a little longer, miss," said charley. "oh, my dear, my dear! if you'll only let me cry a little longer. oh, my dear!"--how affectionately and devotedly she poured this out as she clung to my neck, i never can remember without tears--"i'll be good." so i let charley cry a little longer, and it did us both good. "trust in me now, if you please, miss," said charley quietly. "i am listening to everything you say." "it's very little at present, charley. i shall tell your doctor to-night that i don't think i am well and that you are going to nurse me." for that the poor child thanked me with her whole heart. "and in the morning, when you hear miss ada in the garden, if i should not be quite able to go to the window-curtain as usual, do you go, charley, and say i am asleep--that i have rather tired myself, and am asleep. at all times keep the room as i have kept it, charley, and let no one come." charley promised, and i lay down, for i was very heavy. i saw the doctor that night and asked the favour of him that i wished to ask relative to his saying nothing of my illness in the house as yet. i have a very indistinct remembrance of that night melting into day, and of day melting into night again; but i was just able on the first morning to get to the window and speak to my darling. on the second morning i heard her dear voice--oh, how dear now!--outside; and i asked charley, with some difficulty (speech being painful to me), to go and say i was asleep. i heard her answer softly, "don't disturb her, charley, for the world!" "how does my own pride look, charley?" i inquired. "disappointed, miss," said charley, peeping through the curtain. "but i know she is very beautiful this morning." "she is indeed, miss," answered charley, peeping. "still looking up at the window." with her blue clear eyes, god bless them, always loveliest when raised like that! i called charley to me and gave her her last charge. "now, charley, when she knows i am ill, she will try to make her way into the room. keep her out, charley, if you love me truly, to the last! charley, if you let her in but once, only to look upon me for one moment as i lie here, i shall die." "i never will! i never will!" she promised me. "i believe it, my dear charley. and now come and sit beside me for a little while, and touch me with your hand. for i cannot see you, charley; i am blind." chapter xxxii the appointed time it is night in lincoln's inn--perplexed and troublous valley of the shadow of the law, where suitors generally find but little day--and fat candles are snuffed out in offices, and clerks have rattled down the crazy wooden stairs and dispersed. the bell that rings at nine o'clock has ceased its doleful clangour about nothing; the gates are shut; and the night-porter, a solemn warder with a mighty power of sleep, keeps guard in his lodge. from tiers of staircase windows clogged lamps like the eyes of equity, bleared argus with a fathomless pocket for every eye and an eye upon it, dimly blink at the stars. in dirty upper casements, here and there, hazy little patches of candlelight reveal where some wise draughtsman and conveyancer yet toils for the entanglement of real estate in meshes of sheep-skin, in the average ratio of about a dozen of sheep to an acre of land. over which bee-like industry these benefactors of their species linger yet, though office-hours be past, that they may give, for every day, some good account at last. in the neighbouring court, where the lord chancellor of the rag and bottle shop dwells, there is a general tendency towards beer and supper. mrs. piper and mrs. perkins, whose respective sons, engaged with a circle of acquaintance in the game of hide and seek, have been lying in ambush about the by-ways of chancery lane for some hours and scouring the plain of the same thoroughfare to the confusion of passengers--mrs. piper and mrs. perkins have but now exchanged congratulations on the children being abed, and they still linger on a door-step over a few parting words. mr. krook and his lodger, and the fact of mr. krook's being "continually in liquor," and the testamentary prospects of the young man are, as usual, the staple of their conversation. but they have something to say, likewise, of the harmonic meeting at the sol's arms, where the sound of the piano through the partly opened windows jingles out into the court, and where little swills, after keeping the lovers of harmony in a roar like a very yorick, may now be heard taking the gruff line in a concerted piece and sentimentally adjuring his friends and patrons to "listen, listen, listen, tew the wa-ter fall!" mrs. perkins and mrs. piper compare opinions on the subject of the young lady of professional celebrity who assists at the harmonic meetings and who has a space to herself in the manuscript announcement in the window, mrs. perkins possessing information that she has been married a year and a half, though announced as miss m. melvilleson, the noted siren, and that her baby is clandestinely conveyed to the sol's arms every night to receive its natural nourishment during the entertainments. "sooner than which, myself," says mrs. perkins, "i would get my living by selling lucifers." mrs. piper, as in duty bound, is of the same opinion, holding that a private station is better than public applause, and thanking heaven for her own (and, by implication, mrs. perkins') respectability. by this time the pot-boy of the sol's arms appearing with her supper-pint well frothed, mrs. piper accepts that tankard and retires indoors, first giving a fair good night to mrs. perkins, who has had her own pint in her hand ever since it was fetched from the same hostelry by young perkins before he was sent to bed. now there is a sound of putting up shop-shutters in the court and a smell as of the smoking of pipes; and shooting stars are seen in upper windows, further indicating retirement to rest. now, too, the policeman begins to push at doors; to try fastenings; to be suspicious of bundles; and to administer his beat, on the hypothesis that every one is either robbing or being robbed. it is a close night, though the damp cold is searching too, and there is a laggard mist a little way up in the air. it is a fine steaming night to turn the slaughter-houses, the unwholesome trades, the sewerage, bad water, and burial-grounds to account, and give the registrar of deaths some extra business. it may be something in the air--there is plenty in it--or it may be something in himself that is in fault; but mr. weevle, otherwise jobling, is very ill at ease. he comes and goes between his own room and the open street door twenty times an hour. he has been doing so ever since it fell dark. since the chancellor shut up his shop, which he did very early to-night, mr. weevle has been down and up, and down and up (with a cheap tight velvet skull-cap on his head, making his whiskers look out of all proportion), oftener than before. it is no phenomenon that mr. snagsby should be ill at ease too, for he always is so, more or less, under the oppressive influence of the secret that is upon him. impelled by the mystery of which he is a partaker and yet in which he is not a sharer, mr. snagsby haunts what seems to be its fountain-head--the rag and bottle shop in the court. it has an irresistible attraction for him. even now, coming round by the sol's arms with the intention of passing down the court, and out at the chancery lane end, and so terminating his unpremeditated after-supper stroll of ten minutes' long from his own door and back again, mr. snagsby approaches. "what, mr. weevle?" says the stationer, stopping to speak. "are you there?" "aye!" says weevle, "here i am, mr. snagsby." "airing yourself, as i am doing, before you go to bed?" the stationer inquires. "why, there's not much air to be got here; and what there is, is not very freshening," weevle answers, glancing up and down the court. "very true, sir. don't you observe," says mr. snagsby, pausing to sniff and taste the air a little, "don't you observe, mr. weevle, that you're--not to put too fine a point upon it--that you're rather greasy here, sir?" "why, i have noticed myself that there is a queer kind of flavour in the place to-night," mr. weevle rejoins. "i suppose it's chops at the sol's arms." "chops, do you think? oh! chops, eh?" mr. snagsby sniffs and tastes again. "well, sir, i suppose it is. but i should say their cook at the sol wanted a little looking after. she has been burning 'em, sir! and i don't think"--mr. snagsby sniffs and tastes again and then spits and wipes his mouth--"i don't think--not to put too fine a point upon it--that they were quite fresh when they were shown the gridiron." "that's very likely. it's a tainting sort of weather." "it is a tainting sort of weather," says mr. snagsby, "and i find it sinking to the spirits." "by george! i find it gives me the horrors," returns mr. weevle. "then, you see, you live in a lonesome way, and in a lonesome room, with a black circumstance hanging over it," says mr. snagsby, looking in past the other's shoulder along the dark passage and then falling back a step to look up at the house. "i couldn't live in that room alone, as you do, sir. i should get so fidgety and worried of an evening, sometimes, that i should be driven to come to the door and stand here sooner than sit there. but then it's very true that you didn't see, in your room, what i saw there. that makes a difference." "i know quite enough about it," returns tony. "it's not agreeable, is it?" pursues mr. snagsby, coughing his cough of mild persuasion behind his hand. "mr. krook ought to consider it in the rent. i hope he does, i am sure." "i hope he does," says tony. "but i doubt it." "you find the rent too high, do you, sir?" returns the stationer. "rents are high about here. i don't know how it is exactly, but the law seems to put things up in price. not," adds mr. snagsby with his apologetic cough, "that i mean to say a word against the profession i get my living by." mr. weevle again glances up and down the court and then looks at the stationer. mr. snagsby, blankly catching his eye, looks upward for a star or so and coughs a cough expressive of not exactly seeing his way out of this conversation. "it's a curious fact, sir," he observes, slowly rubbing his hands, "that he should have been--" "who's he?" interrupts mr. weevle. "the deceased, you know," says mr. snagsby, twitching his head and right eyebrow towards the staircase and tapping his acquaintance on the button. "ah, to be sure!" returns the other as if he were not over-fond of the subject. "i thought we had done with him." "i was only going to say it's a curious fact, sir, that he should have come and lived here, and been one of my writers, and then that you should come and live here, and be one of my writers too. which there is nothing derogatory, but far from it in the appellation," says mr. snagsby, breaking off with a mistrust that he may have unpolitely asserted a kind of proprietorship in mr. weevle, "because i have known writers that have gone into brewers' houses and done really very respectable indeed. eminently respectable, sir," adds mr. snagsby with a misgiving that he has not improved the matter. "it's a curious coincidence, as you say," answers weevle, once more glancing up and down the court. "seems a fate in it, don't there?" suggests the stationer. "there does." "just so," observes the stationer with his confirmatory cough. "quite a fate in it. quite a fate. well, mr. weevle, i am afraid i must bid you good night"--mr. snagsby speaks as if it made him desolate to go, though he has been casting about for any means of escape ever since he stopped to speak--"my little woman will be looking for me else. good night, sir!" if mr. snagsby hastens home to save his little woman the trouble of looking for him, he might set his mind at rest on that score. his little woman has had her eye upon him round the sol's arms all this time and now glides after him with a pocket handkerchief wrapped over her head, honouring mr. weevle and his doorway with a searching glance as she goes past. "you'll know me again, ma'am, at all events," says mr. weevle to himself; "and i can't compliment you on your appearance, whoever you are, with your head tied up in a bundle. is this fellow never coming!" this fellow approaches as he speaks. mr. weevle softly holds up his finger, and draws him into the passage, and closes the street door. then they go upstairs, mr. weevle heavily, and mr. guppy (for it is he) very lightly indeed. when they are shut into the back room, they speak low. "i thought you had gone to jericho at least instead of coming here," says tony. "why, i said about ten." "you said about ten," tony repeats. "yes, so you did say about ten. but according to my count, it's ten times ten--it's a hundred o'clock. i never had such a night in my life!" "what has been the matter?" "that's it!" says tony. "nothing has been the matter. but here have i been stewing and fuming in this jolly old crib till i have had the horrors falling on me as thick as hail. there's a blessed-looking candle!" says tony, pointing to the heavily burning taper on his table with a great cabbage head and a long winding-sheet. "that's easily improved," mr. guppy observes as he takes the snuffers in hand. "is it?" returns his friend. "not so easily as you think. it has been smouldering like that ever since it was lighted." "why, what's the matter with you, tony?" inquires mr. guppy, looking at him, snuffers in hand, as he sits down with his elbow on the table. "william guppy," replies the other, "i am in the downs. it's this unbearably dull, suicidal room--and old boguey downstairs, i suppose." mr. weevle moodily pushes the snuffers-tray from him with his elbow, leans his head on his hand, puts his feet on the fender, and looks at the fire. mr. guppy, observing him, slightly tosses his head and sits down on the other side of the table in an easy attitude. "wasn't that snagsby talking to you, tony?" "yes, and he--yes, it was snagsby," said mr. weevle, altering the construction of his sentence. "on business?" "no. no business. he was only sauntering by and stopped to prose." "i thought it was snagsby," says mr. guppy, "and thought it as well that he shouldn't see me, so i waited till he was gone." "there we go again, william g.!" cried tony, looking up for an instant. "so mysterious and secret! by george, if we were going to commit a murder, we couldn't have more mystery about it!" mr. guppy affects to smile, and with the view of changing the conversation, looks with an admiration, real or pretended, round the room at the galaxy gallery of british beauty, terminating his survey with the portrait of lady dedlock over the mantelshelf, in which she is represented on a terrace, with a pedestal upon the terrace, and a vase upon the pedestal, and her shawl upon the vase, and a prodigious piece of fur upon the shawl, and her arm on the prodigious piece of fur, and a bracelet on her arm. "that's very like lady dedlock," says mr. guppy. "it's a speaking likeness." "i wish it was," growls tony, without changing his position. "i should have some fashionable conversation, here, then." finding by this time that his friend is not to be wheedled into a more sociable humour, mr. guppy puts about upon the ill-used tack and remonstrates with him. "tony," says he, "i can make allowances for lowness of spirits, for no man knows what it is when it does come upon a man better than i do, and no man perhaps has a better right to know it than a man who has an unrequited image imprinted on his 'eart. but there are bounds to these things when an unoffending party is in question, and i will acknowledge to you, tony, that i don't think your manner on the present occasion is hospitable or quite gentlemanly." "this is strong language, william guppy," returns mr. weevle. "sir, it may be," retorts mr. william guppy, "but i feel strongly when i use it." mr. weevle admits that he has been wrong and begs mr. william guppy to think no more about it. mr. william guppy, however, having got the advantage, cannot quite release it without a little more injured remonstrance. "no! dash it, tony," says that gentleman, "you really ought to be careful how you wound the feelings of a man who has an unrequited image imprinted on his 'eart and who is not altogether happy in those chords which vibrate to the tenderest emotions. you, tony, possess in yourself all that is calculated to charm the eye and allure the taste. it is not--happily for you, perhaps, and i may wish that i could say the same--it is not your character to hover around one flower. the ole garden is open to you, and your airy pinions carry you through it. still, tony, far be it from me, i am sure, to wound even your feelings without a cause!" tony again entreats that the subject may be no longer pursued, saying emphatically, "william guppy, drop it!" mr. guppy acquiesces, with the reply, "i never should have taken it up, tony, of my own accord." "and now," says tony, stirring the fire, "touching this same bundle of letters. isn't it an extraordinary thing of krook to have appointed twelve o'clock to-night to hand 'em over to me?" "very. what did he do it for?" "what does he do anything for? he don't know. said to-day was his birthday and he'd hand 'em over to-night at twelve o'clock. he'll have drunk himself blind by that time. he has been at it all day." "he hasn't forgotten the appointment, i hope?" "forgotten? trust him for that. he never forgets anything. i saw him to-night, about eight--helped him to shut up his shop--and he had got the letters then in his hairy cap. he pulled it off and showed 'em me. when the shop was closed, he took them out of his cap, hung his cap on the chair-back, and stood turning them over before the fire. i heard him a little while afterwards, through the floor here, humming like the wind, the only song he knows--about bibo, and old charon, and bibo being drunk when he died, or something or other. he has been as quiet since as an old rat asleep in his hole." "and you are to go down at twelve?" "at twelve. and as i tell you, when you came it seemed to me a hundred." "tony," says mr. guppy after considering a little with his legs crossed, "he can't read yet, can he?" "read! he'll never read. he can make all the letters separately, and he knows most of them separately when he sees them; he has got on that much, under me; but he can't put them together. he's too old to acquire the knack of it now--and too drunk." "tony," says mr. guppy, uncrossing and recrossing his legs, "how do you suppose he spelt out that name of hawdon?" "he never spelt it out. you know what a curious power of eye he has and how he has been used to employ himself in copying things by eye alone. he imitated it, evidently from the direction of a letter, and asked me what it meant." "tony," says mr. guppy, uncrossing and recrossing his legs again, "should you say that the original was a man's writing or a woman's?" "a woman's. fifty to one a lady's--slopes a good deal, and the end of the letter 'n,' long and hasty." mr. guppy has been biting his thumb-nail during this dialogue, generally changing the thumb when he has changed the cross leg. as he is going to do so again, he happens to look at his coat-sleeve. it takes his attention. he stares at it, aghast. "why, tony, what on earth is going on in this house to-night? is there a chimney on fire?" "chimney on fire!" "ah!" returns mr. guppy. "see how the soot's falling. see here, on my arm! see again, on the table here! confound the stuff, it won't blow off--smears like black fat!" they look at one another, and tony goes listening to the door, and a little way upstairs, and a little way downstairs. comes back and says it's all right and all quiet, and quotes the remark he lately made to mr. snagsby about their cooking chops at the sol's arms. "and it was then," resumes mr. guppy, still glancing with remarkable aversion at the coat-sleeve, as they pursue their conversation before the fire, leaning on opposite sides of the table, with their heads very near together, "that he told you of his having taken the bundle of letters from his lodger's portmanteau?" "that was the time, sir," answers tony, faintly adjusting his whiskers. "whereupon i wrote a line to my dear boy, the honourable william guppy, informing him of the appointment for to-night and advising him not to call before, boguey being a slyboots." the light vivacious tone of fashionable life which is usually assumed by mr. weevle sits so ill upon him to-night that he abandons that and his whiskers together, and after looking over his shoulder, appears to yield himself up a prey to the horrors again. "you are to bring the letters to your room to read and compare, and to get yourself into a position to tell him all about them. that's the arrangement, isn't it, tony?" asks mr. guppy, anxiously biting his thumb-nail. "you can't speak too low. yes. that's what he and i agreed." "i tell you what, tony--" "you can't speak too low," says tony once more. mr. guppy nods his sagacious head, advances it yet closer, and drops into a whisper. "i tell you what. the first thing to be done is to make another packet like the real one so that if he should ask to see the real one while it's in my possession, you can show him the dummy." "and suppose he detects the dummy as soon as he sees it, which with his biting screw of an eye is about five hundred times more likely than not," suggests tony. "then we'll face it out. they don't belong to him, and they never did. you found that, and you placed them in my hands--a legal friend of yours--for security. if he forces us to it, they'll be producible, won't they?" "ye-es," is mr. weevle's reluctant admission. "why, tony," remonstrates his friend, "how you look! you don't doubt william guppy? you don't suspect any harm?" "i don't suspect anything more than i know, william," returns the other gravely. "and what do you know?" urges mr. guppy, raising his voice a little; but on his friend's once more warning him, "i tell you, you can't speak too low," he repeats his question without any sound at all, forming with his lips only the words, "what do you know?" "i know three things. first, i know that here we are whispering in secrecy, a pair of conspirators." "well!" says mr. guppy. "and we had better be that than a pair of noodles, which we should be if we were doing anything else, for it's the only way of doing what we want to do. secondly?" "secondly, it's not made out to me how it's likely to be profitable, after all." mr. guppy casts up his eyes at the portrait of lady dedlock over the mantelshelf and replies, "tony, you are asked to leave that to the honour of your friend. besides its being calculated to serve that friend in those chords of the human mind which--which need not be called into agonizing vibration on the present occasion--your friend is no fool. what's that?" "it's eleven o'clock striking by the bell of saint paul's. listen and you'll hear all the bells in the city jangling." both sit silent, listening to the metal voices, near and distant, resounding from towers of various heights, in tones more various than their situations. when these at length cease, all seems more mysterious and quiet than before. one disagreeable result of whispering is that it seems to evoke an atmosphere of silence, haunted by the ghosts of sound--strange cracks and tickings, the rustling of garments that have no substance in them, and the tread of dreadful feet that would leave no mark on the sea-sand or the winter snow. so sensitive the two friends happen to be that the air is full of these phantoms, and the two look over their shoulders by one consent to see that the door is shut. "yes, tony?" says mr. guppy, drawing nearer to the fire and biting his unsteady thumb-nail. "you were going to say, thirdly?" "it's far from a pleasant thing to be plotting about a dead man in the room where he died, especially when you happen to live in it." "but we are plotting nothing against him, tony." "may be not, still i don't like it. live here by yourself and see how you like it." "as to dead men, tony," proceeds mr. guppy, evading this proposal, "there have been dead men in most rooms." "i know there have, but in most rooms you let them alone, and--and they let you alone," tony answers. the two look at each other again. mr. guppy makes a hurried remark to the effect that they may be doing the deceased a service, that he hopes so. there is an oppressive blank until mr. weevle, by stirring the fire suddenly, makes mr. guppy start as if his heart had been stirred instead. "fah! here's more of this hateful soot hanging about," says he. "let us open the window a bit and get a mouthful of air. it's too close." he raises the sash, and they both rest on the window-sill, half in and half out of the room. the neighbouring houses are too near to admit of their seeing any sky without craning their necks and looking up, but lights in frowsy windows here and there, and the rolling of distant carriages, and the new expression that there is of the stir of men, they find to be comfortable. mr. guppy, noiselessly tapping on the window-sill, resumes his whispering in quite a light-comedy tone. "by the by, tony, don't forget old smallweed," meaning the younger of that name. "i have not let him into this, you know. that grandfather of his is too keen by half. it runs in the family." "i remember," says tony. "i am up to all that." "and as to krook," resumes mr. guppy. "now, do you suppose he really has got hold of any other papers of importance, as he has boasted to you, since you have been such allies?" tony shakes his head. "i don't know. can't imagine. if we get through this business without rousing his suspicions, i shall be better informed, no doubt. how can i know without seeing them, when he don't know himself? he is always spelling out words from them, and chalking them over the table and the shop-wall, and asking what this is and what that is; but his whole stock from beginning to end may easily be the waste-paper he bought it as, for anything i can say. it's a monomania with him to think he is possessed of documents. he has been going to learn to read them this last quarter of a century, i should judge, from what he tells me." "how did he first come by that idea, though? that's the question," mr. guppy suggests with one eye shut, after a little forensic meditation. "he may have found papers in something he bought, where papers were not supposed to be, and may have got it into his shrewd head from the manner and place of their concealment that they are worth something." "or he may have been taken in, in some pretended bargain. or he may have been muddled altogether by long staring at whatever he has got, and by drink, and by hanging about the lord chancellor's court and hearing of documents for ever," returns mr. weevle. mr. guppy sitting on the window-sill, nodding his head and balancing all these possibilities in his mind, continues thoughtfully to tap it, and clasp it, and measure it with his hand, until he hastily draws his hand away. "what, in the devil's name," he says, "is this! look at my fingers!" a thick, yellow liquor defiles them, which is offensive to the touch and sight and more offensive to the smell. a stagnant, sickening oil with some natural repulsion in it that makes them both shudder. "what have you been doing here? what have you been pouring out of window?" "i pouring out of window! nothing, i swear! never, since i have been here!" cries the lodger. and yet look here--and look here! when he brings the candle here, from the corner of the window-sill, it slowly drips and creeps away down the bricks, here lies in a little thick nauseous pool. "this is a horrible house," says mr. guppy, shutting down the window. "give me some water or i shall cut my hand off." he so washes, and rubs, and scrubs, and smells, and washes, that he has not long restored himself with a glass of brandy and stood silently before the fire when saint paul's bell strikes twelve and all those other bells strike twelve from their towers of various heights in the dark air, and in their many tones. when all is quiet again, the lodger says, "it's the appointed time at last. shall i go?" mr. guppy nods and gives him a "lucky touch" on the back, but not with the washed hand, though it is his right hand. he goes downstairs, and mr. guppy tries to compose himself before the fire for waiting a long time. but in no more than a minute or two the stairs creak and tony comes swiftly back. "have you got them?" "got them! no. the old man's not there." he has been so horribly frightened in the short interval that his terror seizes the other, who makes a rush at him and asks loudly, "what's the matter?" "i couldn't make him hear, and i softly opened the door and looked in. and the burning smell is there--and the soot is there, and the oil is there--and he is not there!" tony ends this with a groan. mr. guppy takes the light. they go down, more dead than alive, and holding one another, push open the door of the back shop. the cat has retreated close to it and stands snarling, not at them, at something on the ground before the fire. there is a very little fire left in the grate, but there is a smouldering, suffocating vapour in the room and a dark, greasy coating on the walls and ceiling. the chairs and table, and the bottle so rarely absent from the table, all stand as usual. on one chair-back hang the old man's hairy cap and coat. "look!" whispers the lodger, pointing his friend's attention to these objects with a trembling finger. "i told you so. when i saw him last, he took his cap off, took out the little bundle of old letters, hung his cap on the back of the chair--his coat was there already, for he had pulled that off before he went to put the shutters up--and i left him turning the letters over in his hand, standing just where that crumbled black thing is upon the floor." is he hanging somewhere? they look up. no. "see!" whispers tony. "at the foot of the same chair there lies a dirty bit of thin red cord that they tie up pens with. that went round the letters. he undid it slowly, leering and laughing at me, before he began to turn them over, and threw it there. i saw it fall." "what's the matter with the cat?" says mr. guppy. "look at her!" "mad, i think. and no wonder in this evil place." they advance slowly, looking at all these things. the cat remains where they found her, still snarling at the something on the ground before the fire and between the two chairs. what is it? hold up the light. here is a small burnt patch of flooring; here is the tinder from a little bundle of burnt paper, but not so light as usual, seeming to be steeped in something; and here is--is it the cinder of a small charred and broken log of wood sprinkled with white ashes, or is it coal? oh, horror, he is here! and this from which we run away, striking out the light and overturning one another into the street, is all that represents him. help, help, help! come into this house for heaven's sake! plenty will come in, but none can help. the lord chancellor of that court, true to his title in his last act, has died the death of all lord chancellors in all courts and of all authorities in all places under all names soever, where false pretences are made, and where injustice is done. call the death by any name your highness will, attribute it to whom you will, or say it might have been prevented how you will, it is the same death eternally--inborn, inbred, engendered in the corrupted humours of the vicious body itself, and that only--spontaneous combustion, and none other of all the deaths that can be died. chapter xxxiii interlopers now do those two gentlemen not very neat about the cuffs and buttons who attended the last coroner's inquest at the sol's arms reappear in the precincts with surprising swiftness (being, in fact, breathlessly fetched by the active and intelligent beadle), and institute perquisitions through the court, and dive into the sol's parlour, and write with ravenous little pens on tissue-paper. now do they note down, in the watches of the night, how the neighbourhood of chancery lane was yesterday, at about midnight, thrown into a state of the most intense agitation and excitement by the following alarming and horrible discovery. now do they set forth how it will doubtless be remembered that some time back a painful sensation was created in the public mind by a case of mysterious death from opium occurring in the first floor of the house occupied as a rag, bottle, and general marine store shop, by an eccentric individual of intemperate habits, far advanced in life, named krook; and how, by a remarkable coincidence, krook was examined at the inquest, which it may be recollected was held on that occasion at the sol's arms, a well-conducted tavern immediately adjoining the premises in question on the west side and licensed to a highly respectable landlord, mr. james george bogsby. now do they show (in as many words as possible) how during some hours of yesterday evening a very peculiar smell was observed by the inhabitants of the court, in which the tragical occurrence which forms the subject of that present account transpired; and which odour was at one time so powerful that mr. swills, a comic vocalist professionally engaged by mr. j. g. bogsby, has himself stated to our reporter that he mentioned to miss m. melvilleson, a lady of some pretensions to musical ability, likewise engaged by mr. j. g. bogsby to sing at a series of concerts called harmonic assemblies, or meetings, which it would appear are held at the sol's arms under mr. bogsby's direction pursuant to the act of george the second, that he (mr. swills) found his voice seriously affected by the impure state of the atmosphere, his jocose expression at the time being that he was like an empty post-office, for he hadn't a single note in him. how this account of mr. swills is entirely corroborated by two intelligent married females residing in the same court and known respectively by the names of mrs. piper and mrs. perkins, both of whom observed the foetid effluvia and regarded them as being emitted from the premises in the occupation of krook, the unfortunate deceased. all this and a great deal more the two gentlemen who have formed an amicable partnership in the melancholy catastrophe write down on the spot; and the boy population of the court (out of bed in a moment) swarm up the shutters of the sol's arms parlour, to behold the tops of their heads while they are about it. the whole court, adult as well as boy, is sleepless for that night, and can do nothing but wrap up its many heads, and talk of the ill-fated house, and look at it. miss flite has been bravely rescued from her chamber, as if it were in flames, and accommodated with a bed at the sol's arms. the sol neither turns off its gas nor shuts its door all night, for any kind of public excitement makes good for the sol and causes the court to stand in need of comfort. the house has not done so much in the stomachic article of cloves or in brandy-and-water warm since the inquest. the moment the pot-boy heard what had happened, he rolled up his shirt-sleeves tight to his shoulders and said, "there'll be a run upon us!" in the first outcry, young piper dashed off for the fire-engines and returned in triumph at a jolting gallop perched up aloft on the phoenix and holding on to that fabulous creature with all his might in the midst of helmets and torches. one helmet remains behind after careful investigation of all chinks and crannies and slowly paces up and down before the house in company with one of the two policemen who have likewise been left in charge thereof. to this trio everybody in the court possessed of sixpence has an insatiate desire to exhibit hospitality in a liquid form. mr. weevle and his friend mr. guppy are within the bar at the sol and are worth anything to the sol that the bar contains if they will only stay there. "this is not a time," says mr. bogsby, "to haggle about money," though he looks something sharply after it, over the counter; "give your orders, you two gentlemen, and you're welcome to whatever you put a name to." thus entreated, the two gentlemen (mr. weevle especially) put names to so many things that in course of time they find it difficult to put a name to anything quite distinctly, though they still relate to all new-comers some version of the night they have had of it, and of what they said, and what they thought, and what they saw. meanwhile, one or other of the policemen often flits about the door, and pushing it open a little way at the full length of his arm, looks in from outer gloom. not that he has any suspicions, but that he may as well know what they are up to in there. thus night pursues its leaden course, finding the court still out of bed through the unwonted hours, still treating and being treated, still conducting itself similarly to a court that has had a little money left it unexpectedly. thus night at length with slow-retreating steps departs, and the lamp-lighter going his rounds, like an executioner to a despotic king, strikes off the little heads of fire that have aspired to lessen the darkness. thus the day cometh, whether or no. and the day may discern, even with its dim london eye, that the court has been up all night. over and above the faces that have fallen drowsily on tables and the heels that lie prone on hard floors instead of beds, the brick and mortar physiognomy of the very court itself looks worn and jaded. and now the neighbourhood, waking up and beginning to hear of what has happened, comes streaming in, half dressed, to ask questions; and the two policemen and the helmet (who are far less impressible externally than the court) have enough to do to keep the door. "good gracious, gentlemen!" says mr. snagsby, coming up. "what's this i hear!" "why, it's true," returns one of the policemen. "that's what it is. now move on here, come!" "why, good gracious, gentlemen," says mr. snagsby, somewhat promptly backed away, "i was at this door last night betwixt ten and eleven o'clock in conversation with the young man who lodges here." "indeed?" returns the policeman. "you will find the young man next door then. now move on here, some of you." "not hurt, i hope?" says mr. snagsby. "hurt? no. what's to hurt him!" mr. snagsby, wholly unable to answer this or any question in his troubled mind, repairs to the sol's arms and finds mr. weevle languishing over tea and toast with a considerable expression on him of exhausted excitement and exhausted tobacco-smoke. "and mr. guppy likewise!" quoth mr. snagsby. "dear, dear, dear! what a fate there seems in all this! and my lit--" mr. snagsby's power of speech deserts him in the formation of the words "my little woman." for to see that injured female walk into the sol's arms at that hour of the morning and stand before the beer-engine, with her eyes fixed upon him like an accusing spirit, strikes him dumb. "my dear," says mr. snagsby when his tongue is loosened, "will you take anything? a little--not to put too fine a point upon it--drop of shrub?" "no," says mrs. snagsby. "my love, you know these two gentlemen?" "yes!" says mrs. snagsby, and in a rigid manner acknowledges their presence, still fixing mr. snagsby with her eye. the devoted mr. snagsby cannot bear this treatment. he takes mrs. snagsby by the hand and leads her aside to an adjacent cask. "my little woman, why do you look at me in that way? pray don't do it." "i can't help my looks," says mrs. snagsby, "and if i could i wouldn't." mr. snagsby, with his cough of meekness, rejoins, "wouldn't you really, my dear?" and meditates. then coughs his cough of trouble and says, "this is a dreadful mystery, my love!" still fearfully disconcerted by mrs. snagsby's eye. "it is," returns mrs. snagsby, shaking her head, "a dreadful mystery." "my little woman," urges mr. snagsby in a piteous manner, "don't for goodness' sake speak to me with that bitter expression and look at me in that searching way! i beg and entreat of you not to do it. good lord, you don't suppose that i would go spontaneously combusting any person, my dear?" "i can't say," returns mrs. snagsby. on a hasty review of his unfortunate position, mr. snagsby "can't say" either. he is not prepared positively to deny that he may have had something to do with it. he has had something--he don't know what--to do with so much in this connexion that is mysterious that it is possible he may even be implicated, without knowing it, in the present transaction. he faintly wipes his forehead with his handkerchief and gasps. "my life," says the unhappy stationer, "would you have any objections to mention why, being in general so delicately circumspect in your conduct, you come into a wine-vaults before breakfast?" "why do you come here?" inquires mrs. snagsby. "my dear, merely to know the rights of the fatal accident which has happened to the venerable party who has been--combusted." mr. snagsby has made a pause to suppress a groan. "i should then have related them to you, my love, over your french roll." "i dare say you would! you relate everything to me, mr. snagsby." "every--my lit--" "i should be glad," says mrs. snagsby after contemplating his increased confusion with a severe and sinister smile, "if you would come home with me; i think you may be safer there, mr. snagsby, than anywhere else." "my love, i don't know but what i may be, i am sure. i am ready to go." mr. snagsby casts his eye forlornly round the bar, gives messrs. weevle and guppy good morning, assures them of the satisfaction with which he sees them uninjured, and accompanies mrs. snagsby from the sol's arms. before night his doubt whether he may not be responsible for some inconceivable part in the catastrophe which is the talk of the whole neighbourhood is almost resolved into certainty by mrs. snagsby's pertinacity in that fixed gaze. his mental sufferings are so great that he entertains wandering ideas of delivering himself up to justice and requiring to be cleared if innocent and punished with the utmost rigour of the law if guilty. mr. weevle and mr. guppy, having taken their breakfast, step into lincoln's inn to take a little walk about the square and clear as many of the dark cobwebs out of their brains as a little walk may. "there can be no more favourable time than the present, tony," says mr. guppy after they have broodingly made out the four sides of the square, "for a word or two between us upon a point on which we must, with very little delay, come to an understanding." "now, i tell you what, william g.!" returns the other, eyeing his companion with a bloodshot eye. "if it's a point of conspiracy, you needn't take the trouble to mention it. i have had enough of that, and i ain't going to have any more. we shall have you taking fire next or blowing up with a bang." this supposititious phenomenon is so very disagreeable to mr. guppy that his voice quakes as he says in a moral way, "tony, i should have thought that what we went through last night would have been a lesson to you never to be personal any more as long as you lived." to which mr. weevle returns, "william, i should have thought it would have been a lesson to you never to conspire any more as long as you lived." to which mr. guppy says, "who's conspiring?" to which mr. jobling replies, "why, you are!" to which mr. guppy retorts, "no, i am not." to which mr. jobling retorts again, "yes, you are!" to which mr. guppy retorts, "who says so?" to which mr. jobling retorts, "i say so!" to which mr. guppy retorts, "oh, indeed?" to which mr. jobling retorts, "yes, indeed!" and both being now in a heated state, they walk on silently for a while to cool down again. "tony," says mr. guppy then, "if you heard your friend out instead of flying at him, you wouldn't fall into mistakes. but your temper is hasty and you are not considerate. possessing in yourself, tony, all that is calculated to charm the eye--" "oh! blow the eye!" cries mr. weevle, cutting him short. "say what you have got to say!" finding his friend in this morose and material condition, mr. guppy only expresses the finer feelings of his soul through the tone of injury in which he recommences, "tony, when i say there is a point on which we must come to an understanding pretty soon, i say so quite apart from any kind of conspiring, however innocent. you know it is professionally arranged beforehand in all cases that are tried what facts the witnesses are to prove. is it or is it not desirable that we should know what facts we are to prove on the inquiry into the death of this unfortunate old mo--gentleman?" (mr. guppy was going to say "mogul," but thinks "gentleman" better suited to the circumstances.) "what facts? the facts." "the facts bearing on that inquiry. those are"--mr. guppy tells them off on his fingers--"what we knew of his habits, when you saw him last, what his condition was then, the discovery that we made, and how we made it." "yes," says mr. weevle. "those are about the facts." "we made the discovery in consequence of his having, in his eccentric way, an appointment with you at twelve o'clock at night, when you were to explain some writing to him as you had often done before on account of his not being able to read. i, spending the evening with you, was called down--and so forth. the inquiry being only into the circumstances touching the death of the deceased, it's not necessary to go beyond these facts, i suppose you'll agree?" "no!" returns mr. weevle. "i suppose not." "and this is not a conspiracy, perhaps?" says the injured guppy. "no," returns his friend; "if it's nothing worse than this, i withdraw the observation." "now, tony," says mr. guppy, taking his arm again and walking him slowly on, "i should like to know, in a friendly way, whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your continuing to live at that place?" "what do you mean?" says tony, stopping. "whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your continuing to live at that place?" repeats mr. guppy, walking him on again. "at what place? that place?" pointing in the direction of the rag and bottle shop. mr. guppy nods. "why, i wouldn't pass another night there for any consideration that you could offer me," says mr. weevle, haggardly staring. "do you mean it though, tony?" "mean it! do i look as if i mean it? i feel as if i do; i know that," says mr. weevle with a very genuine shudder. "then the possibility or probability--for such it must be considered--of your never being disturbed in possession of those effects lately belonging to a lone old man who seemed to have no relation in the world, and the certainty of your being able to find out what he really had got stored up there, don't weigh with you at all against last night, tony, if i understand you?" says mr. guppy, biting his thumb with the appetite of vexation. "certainly not. talk in that cool way of a fellow's living there?" cries mr. weevle indignantly. "go and live there yourself." "oh! i, tony!" says mr. guppy, soothing him. "i have never lived there and couldn't get a lodging there now, whereas you have got one." "you are welcome to it," rejoins his friend, "and--ugh!--you may make yourself at home in it." "then you really and truly at this point," says mr. guppy, "give up the whole thing, if i understand you, tony?" "you never," returns tony with a most convincing steadfastness, "said a truer word in all your life. i do!" while they are so conversing, a hackney-coach drives into the square, on the box of which vehicle a very tall hat makes itself manifest to the public. inside the coach, and consequently not so manifest to the multitude, though sufficiently so to the two friends, for the coach stops almost at their feet, are the venerable mr. smallweed and mrs. smallweed, accompanied by their granddaughter judy. an air of haste and excitement pervades the party, and as the tall hat (surmounting mr. smallweed the younger) alights, mr. smallweed the elder pokes his head out of window and bawls to mr. guppy, "how de do, sir! how de do!" "what do chick and his family want here at this time of the morning, i wonder!" says mr. guppy, nodding to his familiar. "my dear sir," cries grandfather smallweed, "would you do me a favour? would you and your friend be so very obleeging as to carry me into the public-house in the court, while bart and his sister bring their grandmother along? would you do an old man that good turn, sir?" mr. guppy looks at his friend, repeating inquiringly, "the public-house in the court?" and they prepare to bear the venerable burden to the sol's arms. "there's your fare!" says the patriarch to the coachman with a fierce grin and shaking his incapable fist at him. "ask me for a penny more, and i'll have my lawful revenge upon you. my dear young men, be easy with me, if you please. allow me to catch you round the neck. i won't squeeze you tighter than i can help. oh, lord! oh, dear me! oh, my bones!" it is well that the sol is not far off, for mr. weevle presents an apoplectic appearance before half the distance is accomplished. with no worse aggravation of his symptoms, however, than the utterance of divers croaking sounds expressive of obstructed respiration, he fulfils his share of the porterage and the benevolent old gentleman is deposited by his own desire in the parlour of the sol's arms. "oh, lord!" gasps mr. smallweed, looking about him, breathless, from an arm-chair. "oh, dear me! oh, my bones and back! oh, my aches and pains! sit down, you dancing, prancing, shambling, scrambling poll-parrot! sit down!" this little apostrophe to mrs. smallweed is occasioned by a propensity on the part of that unlucky old lady whenever she finds herself on her feet to amble about and "set" to inanimate objects, accompanying herself with a chattering noise, as in a witch dance. a nervous affection has probably as much to do with these demonstrations as any imbecile intention in the poor old woman, but on the present occasion they are so particularly lively in connexion with the windsor arm-chair, fellow to that in which mr. smallweed is seated, that she only quite desists when her grandchildren have held her down in it, her lord in the meanwhile bestowing upon her, with great volubility, the endearing epithet of "a pig-headed jackdaw," repeated a surprising number of times. "my dear sir," grandfather smallweed then proceeds, addressing mr. guppy, "there has been a calamity here. have you heard of it, either of you?" "heard of it, sir! why, we discovered it." "you discovered it. you two discovered it! bart, they discovered it!" the two discoverers stare at the smallweeds, who return the compliment. "my dear friends," whines grandfather smallweed, putting out both his hands, "i owe you a thousand thanks for discharging the melancholy office of discovering the ashes of mrs. smallweed's brother." "eh?" says mr. guppy. "mrs. smallweed's brother, my dear friend--her only relation. we were not on terms, which is to be deplored now, but he never would be on terms. he was not fond of us. he was eccentric--he was very eccentric. unless he has left a will (which is not at all likely) i shall take out letters of administration. i have come down to look after the property; it must be sealed up, it must be protected. i have come down," repeats grandfather smallweed, hooking the air towards him with all his ten fingers at once, "to look after the property." "i think, small," says the disconsolate mr. guppy, "you might have mentioned that the old man was your uncle." "you two were so close about him that i thought you would like me to be the same," returns that old bird with a secretly glistening eye. "besides, i wasn't proud of him." "besides which, it was nothing to you, you know, whether he was or not," says judy. also with a secretly glistening eye. "he never saw me in his life to know me," observed small; "i don't know why i should introduce him, i am sure!" "no, he never communicated with us, which is to be deplored," the old gentleman strikes in, "but i have come to look after the property--to look over the papers, and to look after the property. we shall make good our title. it is in the hands of my solicitor. mr. tulkinghorn, of lincoln's inn fields, over the way there, is so good as to act as my solicitor; and grass don't grow under his feet, i can tell ye. krook was mrs. smallweed's only brother; she had no relation but krook, and krook had no relation but mrs. smallweed. i am speaking of your brother, you brimstone black-beetle, that was seventy-six years of age." mrs. smallweed instantly begins to shake her head and pipe up, "seventy-six pound seven and sevenpence! seventy-six thousand bags of money! seventy-six hundred thousand million of parcels of bank-notes!" "will somebody give me a quart pot?" exclaims her exasperated husband, looking helplessly about him and finding no missile within his reach. "will somebody obleege me with a spittoon? will somebody hand me anything hard and bruising to pelt at her? you hag, you cat, you dog, you brimstone barker!" here mr. smallweed, wrought up to the highest pitch by his own eloquence, actually throws judy at her grandmother in default of anything else, by butting that young virgin at the old lady with such force as he can muster and then dropping into his chair in a heap. "shake me up, somebody, if you'll be so good," says the voice from within the faintly struggling bundle into which he has collapsed. "i have come to look after the property. shake me up, and call in the police on duty at the next house to be explained to about the property. my solicitor will be here presently to protect the property. transportation or the gallows for anybody who shall touch the property!" as his dutiful grandchildren set him up, panting, and putting him through the usual restorative process of shaking and punching, he still repeats like an echo, "the--the property! the property! property!" mr. weevle and mr. guppy look at each other, the former as having relinquished the whole affair, the latter with a discomfited countenance as having entertained some lingering expectations yet. but there is nothing to be done in opposition to the smallweed interest. mr. tulkinghorn's clerk comes down from his official pew in the chambers to mention to the police that mr. tulkinghorn is answerable for its being all correct about the next of kin and that the papers and effects will be formally taken possession of in due time and course. mr. smallweed is at once permitted so far to assert his supremacy as to be carried on a visit of sentiment into the next house and upstairs into miss flite's deserted room, where he looks like a hideous bird of prey newly added to her aviary. the arrival of this unexpected heir soon taking wind in the court still makes good for the sol and keeps the court upon its mettle. mrs. piper and mrs. perkins think it hard upon the young man if there really is no will, and consider that a handsome present ought to be made him out of the estate. young piper and young perkins, as members of that restless juvenile circle which is the terror of the foot-passengers in chancery lane, crumble into ashes behind the pump and under the archway all day long, where wild yells and hootings take place over their remains. little swills and miss m. melvilleson enter into affable conversation with their patrons, feeling that these unusual occurrences level the barriers between professionals and non-professionals. mr. bogsby puts up "the popular song of king death, with chorus by the whole strength of the company," as the great harmonic feature of the week and announces in the bill that "j. g. b. is induced to do so at a considerable extra expense in consequence of a wish which has been very generally expressed at the bar by a large body of respectable individuals and in homage to a late melancholy event which has aroused so much sensation." there is one point connected with the deceased upon which the court is particularly anxious, namely, that the fiction of a full-sized coffin should be preserved, though there is so little to put in it. upon the undertaker's stating in the sol's bar in the course of the day that he has received orders to construct "a six-footer," the general solicitude is much relieved, and it is considered that mr. smallweed's conduct does him great honour. out of the court, and a long way out of it, there is considerable excitement too, for men of science and philosophy come to look, and carriages set down doctors at the corner who arrive with the same intent, and there is more learned talk about inflammable gases and phosphuretted hydrogen than the court has ever imagined. some of these authorities (of course the wisest) hold with indignation that the deceased had no business to die in the alleged manner; and being reminded by other authorities of a certain inquiry into the evidence for such deaths reprinted in the sixth volume of the philosophical transactions; and also of a book not quite unknown on english medical jurisprudence; and likewise of the italian case of the countess cornelia baudi as set forth in detail by one bianchini, prebendary of verona, who wrote a scholarly work or so and was occasionally heard of in his time as having gleams of reason in him; and also of the testimony of messrs. fodere and mere, two pestilent frenchmen who would investigate the subject; and further, of the corroborative testimony of monsieur le cat, a rather celebrated french surgeon once upon a time, who had the unpoliteness to live in a house where such a case occurred and even to write an account of it--still they regard the late mr. krook's obstinacy in going out of the world by any such by-way as wholly unjustifiable and personally offensive. the less the court understands of all this, the more the court likes it, and the greater enjoyment it has in the stock in trade of the sol's arms. then there comes the artist of a picture newspaper, with a foreground and figures ready drawn for anything from a wreck on the cornish coast to a review in hyde park or a meeting in manchester, and in mrs. perkins' own room, memorable evermore, he then and there throws in upon the block mr. krook's house, as large as life; in fact, considerably larger, making a very temple of it. similarly, being permitted to look in at the door of the fatal chamber, he depicts that apartment as three-quarters of a mile long by fifty yards high, at which the court is particularly charmed. all this time the two gentlemen before mentioned pop in and out of every house and assist at the philosophical disputations--go everywhere and listen to everybody--and yet are always diving into the sol's parlour and writing with the ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper. at last come the coroner and his inquiry, like as before, except that the coroner cherishes this case as being out of the common way and tells the gentlemen of the jury, in his private capacity, that "that would seem to be an unlucky house next door, gentlemen, a destined house; but so we sometimes find it, and these are mysteries we can't account for!" after which the six-footer comes into action and is much admired. in all these proceedings mr. guppy has so slight a part, except when he gives his evidence, that he is moved on like a private individual and can only haunt the secret house on the outside, where he has the mortification of seeing mr. smallweed padlocking the door, and of bitterly knowing himself to be shut out. but before these proceedings draw to a close, that is to say, on the night next after the catastrophe, mr. guppy has a thing to say that must be said to lady dedlock. for which reason, with a sinking heart and with that hang-dog sense of guilt upon him which dread and watching enfolded in the sol's arms have produced, the young man of the name of guppy presents himself at the town mansion at about seven o'clock in the evening and requests to see her ladyship. mercury replies that she is going out to dinner; don't he see the carriage at the door? yes, he does see the carriage at the door; but he wants to see my lady too. mercury is disposed, as he will presently declare to a fellow-gentleman in waiting, "to pitch into the young man"; but his instructions are positive. therefore he sulkily supposes that the young man must come up into the library. there he leaves the young man in a large room, not over-light, while he makes report of him. mr. guppy looks into the shade in all directions, discovering everywhere a certain charred and whitened little heap of coal or wood. presently he hears a rustling. is it--? no, it's no ghost, but fair flesh and blood, most brilliantly dressed. "i have to beg your ladyship's pardon," mr. guppy stammers, very downcast. "this is an inconvenient time--" "i told you, you could come at any time." she takes a chair, looking straight at him as on the last occasion. "thank your ladyship. your ladyship is very affable." "you can sit down." there is not much affability in her tone. "i don't know, your ladyship, that it's worth while my sitting down and detaining you, for i--i have not got the letters that i mentioned when i had the honour of waiting on your ladyship." "have you come merely to say so?" "merely to say so, your ladyship." mr. guppy besides being depressed, disappointed, and uneasy, is put at a further disadvantage by the splendour and beauty of her appearance. she knows its influence perfectly, has studied it too well to miss a grain of its effect on any one. as she looks at him so steadily and coldly, he not only feels conscious that he has no guide in the least perception of what is really the complexion of her thoughts, but also that he is being every moment, as it were, removed further and further from her. she will not speak, it is plain. so he must. "in short, your ladyship," says mr. guppy like a meanly penitent thief, "the person i was to have had the letters of, has come to a sudden end, and--" he stops. lady dedlock calmly finishes the sentence. "and the letters are destroyed with the person?" mr. guppy would say no if he could--as he is unable to hide. "i believe so, your ladyship." if he could see the least sparkle of relief in her face now? no, he could see no such thing, even if that brave outside did not utterly put him away, and he were not looking beyond it and about it. he falters an awkward excuse or two for his failure. "is this all you have to say?" inquires lady dedlock, having heard him out--or as nearly out as he can stumble. mr. guppy thinks that's all. "you had better be sure that you wish to say nothing more to me, this being the last time you will have the opportunity." mr. guppy is quite sure. and indeed he has no such wish at present, by any means. "that is enough. i will dispense with excuses. good evening to you!" and she rings for mercury to show the young man of the name of guppy out. but in that house, in that same moment, there happens to be an old man of the name of tulkinghorn. and that old man, coming with his quiet footstep to the library, has his hand at that moment on the handle of the door--comes in--and comes face to face with the young man as he is leaving the room. one glance between the old man and the lady, and for an instant the blind that is always down flies up. suspicion, eager and sharp, looks out. another instant, close again. "i beg your pardon, lady dedlock. i beg your pardon a thousand times. it is so very unusual to find you here at this hour. i supposed the room was empty. i beg your pardon!" "stay!" she negligently calls him back. "remain here, i beg. i am going out to dinner. i have nothing more to say to this young man!" the disconcerted young man bows, as he goes out, and cringingly hopes that mr. tulkinghorn of the fields is well. "aye, aye?" says the lawyer, looking at him from under his bent brows, though he has no need to look again--not he. "from kenge and carboy's, surely?" "kenge and carboy's, mr. tulkinghorn. name of guppy, sir." "to be sure. why, thank you, mr. guppy, i am very well!" "happy to hear it, sir. you can't be too well, sir, for the credit of the profession." "thank you, mr. guppy!" mr. guppy sneaks away. mr. tulkinghorn, such a foil in his old-fashioned rusty black to lady dedlock's brightness, hands her down the staircase to her carriage. he returns rubbing his chin, and rubs it a good deal in the course of the evening. chapter xxxiv a turn of the screw "now, what," says mr. george, "may this be? is it blank cartridge or ball? a flash in the pan or a shot?" an open letter is the subject of the trooper's speculations, and it seems to perplex him mightily. he looks at it at arm's length, brings it close to him, holds it in his right hand, holds it in his left hand, reads it with his head on this side, with his head on that side, contracts his eyebrows, elevates them, still cannot satisfy himself. he smooths it out upon the table with his heavy palm, and thoughtfully walking up and down the gallery, makes a halt before it every now and then to come upon it with a fresh eye. even that won't do. "is it," mr. george still muses, "blank cartridge or ball?" phil squod, with the aid of a brush and paint-pot, is employed in the distance whitening the targets, softly whistling in quick-march time and in drum-and-fife manner that he must and will go back again to the girl he left behind him. "phil!" the trooper beckons as he calls him. phil approaches in his usual way, sidling off at first as if he were going anywhere else and then bearing down upon his commander like a bayonet-charge. certain splashes of white show in high relief upon his dirty face, and he scrapes his one eyebrow with the handle of the brush. "attention, phil! listen to this." "steady, commander, steady." "'sir. allow me to remind you (though there is no legal necessity for my doing so, as you are aware) that the bill at two months' date drawn on yourself by mr. matthew bagnet, and by you accepted, for the sum of ninety-seven pounds four shillings and ninepence, will become due to-morrow, when you will please be prepared to take up the same on presentation. yours, joshua smallweed.' what do you make of that, phil?" "mischief, guv'ner." "why?" "i think," replies phil after pensively tracing out a cross-wrinkle in his forehead with the brush-handle, "that mischeevious consequences is always meant when money's asked for." "lookye, phil," says the trooper, sitting on the table. "first and last, i have paid, i may say, half as much again as this principal in interest and one thing and another." phil intimates by sidling back a pace or two, with a very unaccountable wrench of his wry face, that he does not regard the transaction as being made more promising by this incident. "and lookye further, phil," says the trooper, staying his premature conclusions with a wave of his hand. "there has always been an understanding that this bill was to be what they call renewed. and it has been renewed no end of times. what do you say now?" "i say that i think the times is come to a end at last." "you do? humph! i am much of the same mind myself." "joshua smallweed is him that was brought here in a chair?" "the same." "guv'ner," says phil with exceeding gravity, "he's a leech in his dispositions, he's a screw and a wice in his actions, a snake in his twistings, and a lobster in his claws." having thus expressively uttered his sentiments, mr. squod, after waiting a little to ascertain if any further remark be expected of him, gets back by his usual series of movements to the target he has in hand and vigorously signifies through his former musical medium that he must and he will return to that ideal young lady. george, having folded the letter, walks in that direction. "there is a way, commander," says phil, looking cunningly at him, "of settling this." "paying the money, i suppose? i wish i could." phil shakes his head. "no, guv'ner, no; not so bad as that. there is a way," says phil with a highly artistic turn of his brush; "what i'm a-doing at present." "whitewashing." phil nods. "a pretty way that would be! do you know what would become of the bagnets in that case? do you know they would be ruined to pay off my old scores? you're a moral character," says the trooper, eyeing him in his large way with no small indignation; "upon my life you are, phil!" phil, on one knee at the target, is in course of protesting earnestly, though not without many allegorical scoops of his brush and smoothings of the white surface round the rim with his thumb, that he had forgotten the bagnet responsibility and would not so much as injure a hair of the head of any member of that worthy family when steps are audible in the long passage without, and a cheerful voice is heard to wonder whether george is at home. phil, with a look at his master, hobbles up, saying, "here's the guv'ner, mrs. bagnet! here he is!" and the old girl herself, accompanied by mr. bagnet, appears. the old girl never appears in walking trim, in any season of the year, without a grey cloth cloak, coarse and much worn but very clean, which is, undoubtedly, the identical garment rendered so interesting to mr. bagnet by having made its way home to europe from another quarter of the globe in company with mrs. bagnet and an umbrella. the latter faithful appendage is also invariably a part of the old girl's presence out of doors. it is of no colour known in this life and has a corrugated wooden crook for a handle, with a metallic object let into its prow, or beak, resembling a little model of a fanlight over a street door or one of the oval glasses out of a pair of spectacles, which ornamental object has not that tenacious capacity of sticking to its post that might be desired in an article long associated with the british army. the old girl's umbrella is of a flabby habit of waist and seems to be in need of stays--an appearance that is possibly referable to its having served through a series of years at home as a cupboard and on journeys as a carpet bag. she never puts it up, having the greatest reliance on her well-proved cloak with its capacious hood, but generally uses the instrument as a wand with which to point out joints of meat or bunches of greens in marketing or to arrest the attention of tradesmen by a friendly poke. without her market-basket, which is a sort of wicker well with two flapping lids, she never stirs abroad. attended by these her trusty companions, therefore, her honest sunburnt face looking cheerily out of a rough straw bonnet, mrs. bagnet now arrives, fresh-coloured and bright, in george's shooting gallery. "well, george, old fellow," says she, "and how do you do, this sunshiny morning?" giving him a friendly shake of the hand, mrs. bagnet draws a long breath after her walk and sits down to enjoy a rest. having a faculty, matured on the tops of baggage-waggons and in other such positions, of resting easily anywhere, she perches on a rough bench, unties her bonnet-strings, pushes back her bonnet, crosses her arms, and looks perfectly comfortable. mr. bagnet in the meantime has shaken hands with his old comrade and with phil, on whom mrs. bagnet likewise bestows a good-humoured nod and smile. "now, george," said mrs. bagnet briskly, "here we are, lignum and myself"--she often speaks of her husband by this appellation, on account, as it is supposed, of lignum vitae having been his old regimental nickname when they first became acquainted, in compliment to the extreme hardness and toughness of his physiognomy--"just looked in, we have, to make it all correct as usual about that security. give him the new bill to sign, george, and he'll sign it like a man." "i was coming to you this morning," observes the trooper reluctantly. "yes, we thought you'd come to us this morning, but we turned out early and left woolwich, the best of boys, to mind his sisters and came to you instead--as you see! for lignum, he's tied so close now, and gets so little exercise, that a walk does him good. but what's the matter, george?" asks mrs. bagnet, stopping in her cheerful talk. "you don't look yourself." "i am not quite myself," returns the trooper; "i have been a little put out, mrs. bagnet." her bright quick eye catches the truth directly. "george!" holding up her forefinger. "don't tell me there's anything wrong about that security of lignum's! don't do it, george, on account of the children!" the trooper looks at her with a troubled visage. "george," says mrs. bagnet, using both her arms for emphasis and occasionally bringing down her open hands upon her knees. "if you have allowed anything wrong to come to that security of lignum's, and if you have let him in for it, and if you have put us in danger of being sold up--and i see sold up in your face, george, as plain as print--you have done a shameful action and have deceived us cruelly. i tell you, cruelly, george. there!" mr. bagnet, otherwise as immovable as a pump or a lamp-post, puts his large right hand on the top of his bald head as if to defend it from a shower-bath and looks with great uneasiness at mrs. bagnet. "george," says that old girl, "i wonder at you! george, i am ashamed of you! george, i couldn't have believed you would have done it! i always knew you to be a rolling stone that gathered no moss, but i never thought you would have taken away what little moss there was for bagnet and the children to lie upon. you know what a hard-working, steady-going chap he is. you know what quebec and malta and woolwich are, and i never did think you would, or could, have had the heart to serve us so. oh, george!" mrs. bagnet gathers up her cloak to wipe her eyes on in a very genuine manner, "how could you do it?" mrs. bagnet ceasing, mr. bagnet removes his hand from his head as if the shower-bath were over and looks disconsolately at mr. george, who has turned quite white and looks distressfully at the grey cloak and straw bonnet. "mat," says the trooper in a subdued voice, addressing him but still looking at his wife, "i am sorry you take it so much to heart, because i do hope it's not so bad as that comes to. i certainly have, this morning, received this letter"--which he reads aloud--"but i hope it may be set right yet. as to a rolling stone, why, what you say is true. i am a rolling stone, and i never rolled in anybody's way, i fully believe, that i rolled the least good to. but it's impossible for an old vagabond comrade to like your wife and family better than i like 'em, mat, and i trust you'll look upon me as forgivingly as you can. don't think i've kept anything from you. i haven't had the letter more than a quarter of an hour." "old girl," murmurs mr. bagnet after a short silence, "will you tell him my opinion?" "oh! why didn't he marry," mrs. bagnet answers, half laughing and half crying, "joe pouch's widder in north america? then he wouldn't have got himself into these troubles." "the old girl," says mr. bagnet, "puts it correct--why didn't you?" "well, she has a better husband by this time, i hope," returns the trooper. "anyhow, here i stand, this present day, not married to joe pouch's widder. what shall i do? you see all i have got about me. it's not mine; it's yours. give the word, and i'll sell off every morsel. if i could have hoped it would have brought in nearly the sum wanted, i'd have sold all long ago. don't believe that i'll leave you or yours in the lurch, mat. i'd sell myself first. i only wish," says the trooper, giving himself a disparaging blow in the chest, "that i knew of any one who'd buy such a second-hand piece of old stores." "old girl," murmurs mr. bagnet, "give him another bit of my mind." "george," says the old girl, "you are not so much to be blamed, on full consideration, except for ever taking this business without the means." "and that was like me!" observes the penitent trooper, shaking his head. "like me, i know." "silence! the old girl," says mr. bagnet, "is correct--in her way of giving my opinions--hear me out!" "that was when you never ought to have asked for the security, george, and when you never ought to have got it, all things considered. but what's done can't be undone. you are always an honourable and straightforward fellow, as far as lays in your power, though a little flighty. on the other hand, you can't admit but what it's natural in us to be anxious with such a thing hanging over our heads. so forget and forgive all round, george. come! forget and forgive all round!" mrs. bagnet, giving him one of her honest hands and giving her husband the other, mr. george gives each of them one of his and holds them while he speaks. "i do assure you both, there's nothing i wouldn't do to discharge this obligation. but whatever i have been able to scrape together has gone every two months in keeping it up. we have lived plainly enough here, phil and i. but the gallery don't quite do what was expected of it, and it's not--in short, it's not the mint. it was wrong in me to take it? well, so it was. but i was in a manner drawn into that step, and i thought it might steady me, and set me up, and you'll try to overlook my having such expectations, and upon my soul, i am very much obliged to you, and very much ashamed of myself." with these concluding words, mr. george gives a shake to each of the hands he holds, and relinquishing them, backs a pace or two in a broad-chested, upright attitude, as if he had made a final confession and were immediately going to be shot with all military honours. "george, hear me out!" says mr. bagnet, glancing at his wife. "old girl, go on!" mr. bagnet, being in this singular manner heard out, has merely to observe that the letter must be attended to without any delay, that it is advisable that george and he should immediately wait on mr. smallweed in person, and that the primary object is to save and hold harmless mr. bagnet, who had none of the money. mr. george, entirely assenting, puts on his hat and prepares to march with mr. bagnet to the enemy's camp. "don't you mind a woman's hasty word, george," says mrs. bagnet, patting him on the shoulder. "i trust my old lignum to you, and i am sure you'll bring him through it." the trooper returns that this is kindly said and that he will bring lignum through it somehow. upon which mrs. bagnet, with her cloak, basket, and umbrella, goes home, bright-eyed again, to the rest of her family, and the comrades sally forth on the hopeful errand of mollifying mr. smallweed. whether there are two people in england less likely to come satisfactorily out of any negotiation with mr. smallweed than mr. george and mr. matthew bagnet may be very reasonably questioned. also, notwithstanding their martial appearance, broad square shoulders, and heavy tread, whether there are within the same limits two more simple and unaccustomed children in all the smallweedy affairs of life. as they proceed with great gravity through the streets towards the region of mount pleasant, mr. bagnet, observing his companion to be thoughtful, considers it a friendly part to refer to mrs. bagnet's late sally. "george, you know the old girl--she's as sweet and as mild as milk. but touch her on the children--or myself--and she's off like gunpowder." "it does her credit, mat!" "george," says mr. bagnet, looking straight before him, "the old girl--can't do anything--that don't do her credit. more or less. i never say so. discipline must be maintained." "she's worth her weight in gold," says the trooper. "in gold?" says mr. bagnet. "i'll tell you what. the old girl's weight--is twelve stone six. would i take that weight--in any metal--for the old girl? no. why not? because the old girl's metal is far more precious--than the preciousest metal. and she's all metal!" "you are right, mat!" "when she took me--and accepted of the ring--she 'listed under me and the children--heart and head, for life. she's that earnest," says mr. bagnet, "and true to her colours--that, touch us with a finger--and she turns out--and stands to her arms. if the old girl fires wide--once in a way--at the call of duty--look over it, george. for she's loyal!" "why, bless her, mat," returns the trooper, "i think the higher of her for it!" "you are right!" says mr. bagnet with the warmest enthusiasm, though without relaxing the rigidity of a single muscle. "think as high of the old girl--as the rock of gibraltar--and still you'll be thinking low--of such merits. but i never own to it before her. discipline must be maintained." these encomiums bring them to mount pleasant and to grandfather smallweed's house. the door is opened by the perennial judy, who, having surveyed them from top to toe with no particular favour, but indeed with a malignant sneer, leaves them standing there while she consults the oracle as to their admission. the oracle may be inferred to give consent from the circumstance of her returning with the words on her honey lips that they can come in if they want to it. thus privileged, they come in and find mr. smallweed with his feet in the drawer of his chair as if it were a paper foot-bath and mrs. smallweed obscured with the cushion like a bird that is not to sing. "my dear friend," says grandfather smallweed with those two lean affectionate arms of his stretched forth. "how de do? how de do? who is our friend, my dear friend?" "why this," returns george, not able to be very conciliatory at first, "is matthew bagnet, who has obliged me in that matter of ours, you know." "oh! mr. bagnet? surely!" the old man looks at him under his hand. "hope you're well, mr. bagnet? fine man, mr. george! military air, sir!" no chairs being offered, mr. george brings one forward for bagnet and one for himself. they sit down, mr. bagnet as if he had no power of bending himself, except at the hips, for that purpose. "judy," says mr. smallweed, "bring the pipe." "why, i don't know," mr. george interposes, "that the young woman need give herself that trouble, for to tell you the truth, i am not inclined to smoke it to-day." "ain't you?" returns the old man. "judy, bring the pipe." "the fact is, mr. smallweed," proceeds george, "that i find myself in rather an unpleasant state of mind. it appears to me, sir, that your friend in the city has been playing tricks." "oh, dear no!" says grandfather smallweed. "he never does that!" "don't he? well, i am glad to hear it, because i thought it might be his doing. this, you know, i am speaking of. this letter." grandfather smallweed smiles in a very ugly way in recognition of the letter. "what does it mean?" asks mr. george. "judy," says the old man. "have you got the pipe? give it to me. did you say what does it mean, my good friend?" "aye! now, come, come, you know, mr. smallweed," urges the trooper, constraining himself to speak as smoothly and confidentially as he can, holding the open letter in one hand and resting the broad knuckles of the other on his thigh, "a good lot of money has passed between us, and we are face to face at the present moment, and are both well aware of the understanding there has always been. i am prepared to do the usual thing which i have done regularly and to keep this matter going. i never got a letter like this from you before, and i have been a little put about by it this morning, because here's my friend matthew bagnet, who, you know, had none of the money--" "i don't know it, you know," says the old man quietly. "why, con-found you--it, i mean--i tell you so, don't i?" "oh, yes, you tell me so," returns grandfather smallweed. "but i don't know it." "well!" says the trooper, swallowing his fire. "i know it." mr. smallweed replies with excellent temper, "ah! that's quite another thing!" and adds, "but it don't matter. mr. bagnet's situation is all one, whether or no." the unfortunate george makes a great effort to arrange the affair comfortably and to propitiate mr. smallweed by taking him upon his own terms. "that's just what i mean. as you say, mr. smallweed, here's matthew bagnet liable to be fixed whether or no. now, you see, that makes his good lady very uneasy in her mind, and me too, for whereas i'm a harum-scarum sort of a good-for-nought that more kicks than halfpence come natural to, why he's a steady family man, don't you see? now, mr. smallweed," says the trooper, gaining confidence as he proceeds in his soldierly mode of doing business, "although you and i are good friends enough in a certain sort of a way, i am well aware that i can't ask you to let my friend bagnet off entirely." "oh, dear, you are too modest. you can ask me anything, mr. george." (there is an ogreish kind of jocularity in grandfather smallweed to-day.) "and you can refuse, you mean, eh? or not you so much, perhaps, as your friend in the city? ha ha ha!" "ha ha ha!" echoes grandfather smallweed. in such a very hard manner and with eyes so particularly green that mr. bagnet's natural gravity is much deepened by the contemplation of that venerable man. "come!" says the sanguine george. "i am glad to find we can be pleasant, because i want to arrange this pleasantly. here's my friend bagnet, and here am i. we'll settle the matter on the spot, if you please, mr. smallweed, in the usual way. and you'll ease my friend bagnet's mind, and his family's mind, a good deal if you'll just mention to him what our understanding is." here some shrill spectre cries out in a mocking manner, "oh, good gracious! oh!" unless, indeed, it be the sportive judy, who is found to be silent when the startled visitors look round, but whose chin has received a recent toss, expressive of derision and contempt. mr. bagnet's gravity becomes yet more profound. "but i think you asked me, mr. george"--old smallweed, who all this time has had the pipe in his hand, is the speaker now--"i think you asked me, what did the letter mean?" "why, yes, i did," returns the trooper in his off-hand way, "but i don't care to know particularly, if it's all correct and pleasant." mr. smallweed, purposely balking himself in an aim at the trooper's head, throws the pipe on the ground and breaks it to pieces. "that's what it means, my dear friend. i'll smash you. i'll crumble you. i'll powder you. go to the devil!" the two friends rise and look at one another. mr. bagnet's gravity has now attained its profoundest point. "go to the devil!" repeats the old man. "i'll have no more of your pipe-smokings and swaggerings. what? you're an independent dragoon, too! go to my lawyer (you remember where; you have been there before) and show your independence now, will you? come, my dear friend, there's a chance for you. open the street door, judy; put these blusterers out! call in help if they don't go. put 'em out!" he vociferates this so loudly that mr. bagnet, laying his hands on the shoulders of his comrade before the latter can recover from his amazement, gets him on the outside of the street door, which is instantly slammed by the triumphant judy. utterly confounded, mr. george awhile stands looking at the knocker. mr. bagnet, in a perfect abyss of gravity, walks up and down before the little parlour window like a sentry and looks in every time he passes, apparently revolving something in his mind. "come, mat," says mr. george when he has recovered himself, "we must try the lawyer. now, what do you think of this rascal?" mr. bagnet, stopping to take a farewell look into the parlour, replies with one shake of his head directed at the interior, "if my old girl had been here--i'd have told him!" having so discharged himself of the subject of his cogitations, he falls into step and marches off with the trooper, shoulder to shoulder. when they present themselves in lincoln's inn fields, mr. tulkinghorn is engaged and not to be seen. he is not at all willing to see them, for when they have waited a full hour, and the clerk, on his bell being rung, takes the opportunity of mentioning as much, he brings forth no more encouraging message than that mr. tulkinghorn has nothing to say to them and they had better not wait. they do wait, however, with the perseverance of military tactics, and at last the bell rings again and the client in possession comes out of mr. tulkinghorn's room. the client is a handsome old lady, no other than mrs. rouncewell, housekeeper at chesney wold. she comes out of the sanctuary with a fair old-fashioned curtsy and softly shuts the door. she is treated with some distinction there, for the clerk steps out of his pew to show her through the outer office and to let her out. the old lady is thanking him for his attention when she observes the comrades in waiting. "i beg your pardon, sir, but i think those gentlemen are military?" the clerk referring the question to them with his eye, and mr. george not turning round from the almanac over the fire-place. mr. bagnet takes upon himself to reply, "yes, ma'am. formerly." "i thought so. i was sure of it. my heart warms, gentlemen, at the sight of you. it always does at the sight of such. god bless you, gentlemen! you'll excuse an old woman, but i had a son once who went for a soldier. a fine handsome youth he was, and good in his bold way, though some people did disparage him to his poor mother. i ask your pardon for troubling you, sir. god bless you, gentlemen!" "same to you, ma'am!" returns mr. bagnet with right good will. there is something very touching in the earnestness of the old lady's voice and in the tremble that goes through her quaint old figure. but mr. george is so occupied with the almanac over the fire-place (calculating the coming months by it perhaps) that he does not look round until she has gone away and the door is closed upon her. "george," mr. bagnet gruffly whispers when he does turn from the almanac at last. "don't be cast down! 'why, soldiers, why--should we be melancholy, boys?' cheer up, my hearty!" the clerk having now again gone in to say that they are still there and mr. tulkinghorn being heard to return with some irascibility, "let 'em come in then!" they pass into the great room with the painted ceiling and find him standing before the fire. "now, you men, what do you want? sergeant, i told you the last time i saw you that i don't desire your company here." sergeant replies--dashed within the last few minutes as to his usual manner of speech, and even as to his usual carriage--that he has received this letter, has been to mr. smallweed about it, and has been referred there. "i have nothing to say to you," rejoins mr. tulkinghorn. "if you get into debt, you must pay your debts or take the consequences. you have no occasion to come here to learn that, i suppose?" sergeant is sorry to say that he is not prepared with the money. "very well! then the other man--this man, if this is he--must pay it for you." sergeant is sorry to add that the other man is not prepared with the money either. "very well! then you must pay it between you or you must both be sued for it and both suffer. you have had the money and must refund it. you are not to pocket other people's pounds, shillings, and pence and escape scot-free." the lawyer sits down in his easy-chair and stirs the fire. mr. george hopes he will have the goodness to--"i tell you, sergeant, i have nothing to say to you. i don't like your associates and don't want you here. this matter is not at all in my course of practice and is not in my office. mr. smallweed is good enough to offer these affairs to me, but they are not in my way. you must go to melchisedech's in clifford's inn." "i must make an apology to you, sir," says mr. george, "for pressing myself upon you with so little encouragement--which is almost as unpleasant to me as it can be to you--but would you let me say a private word to you?" mr. tulkinghorn rises with his hands in his pockets and walks into one of the window recesses. "now! i have no time to waste." in the midst of his perfect assumption of indifference, he directs a sharp look at the trooper, taking care to stand with his own back to the light and to have the other with his face towards it. "well, sir," says mr. george, "this man with me is the other party implicated in this unfortunate affair--nominally, only nominally--and my sole object is to prevent his getting into trouble on my account. he is a most respectable man with a wife and family, formerly in the royal artillery--" "my friend, i don't care a pinch of snuff for the whole royal artillery establishment--officers, men, tumbrils, waggons, horses, guns, and ammunition." "'tis likely, sir. but i care a good deal for bagnet and his wife and family being injured on my account. and if i could bring them through this matter, i should have no help for it but to give up without any other consideration what you wanted of me the other day." "have you got it here?" "i have got it here, sir." "sergeant," the lawyer proceeds in his dry passionless manner, far more hopeless in the dealing with than any amount of vehemence, "make up your mind while i speak to you, for this is final. after i have finished speaking i have closed the subject, and i won't re-open it. understand that. you can leave here, for a few days, what you say you have brought here if you choose; you can take it away at once if you choose. in case you choose to leave it here, i can do this for you--i can replace this matter on its old footing, and i can go so far besides as to give you a written undertaking that this man bagnet shall never be troubled in any way until you have been proceeded against to the utmost, that your means shall be exhausted before the creditor looks to his. this is in fact all but freeing him. have you decided?" the trooper puts his hand into his breast and answers with a long breath, "i must do it, sir." so mr. tulkinghorn, putting on his spectacles, sits down and writes the undertaking, which he slowly reads and explains to bagnet, who has all this time been staring at the ceiling and who puts his hand on his bald head again, under this new verbal shower-bath, and seems exceedingly in need of the old girl through whom to express his sentiments. the trooper then takes from his breast-pocket a folded paper, which he lays with an unwilling hand at the lawyer's elbow. "'tis only a letter of instructions, sir. the last i ever had from him." look at a millstone, mr. george, for some change in its expression, and you will find it quite as soon as in the face of mr. tulkinghorn when he opens and reads the letter! he refolds it and lays it in his desk with a countenance as unperturbable as death. nor has he anything more to say or do but to nod once in the same frigid and discourteous manner and to say briefly, "you can go. show these men out, there!" being shown out, they repair to mr. bagnet's residence to dine. boiled beef and greens constitute the day's variety on the former repast of boiled pork and greens, and mrs. bagnet serves out the meal in the same way and seasons it with the best of temper, being that rare sort of old girl that she receives good to her arms without a hint that it might be better and catches light from any little spot of darkness near her. the spot on this occasion is the darkened brow of mr. george; he is unusually thoughtful and depressed. at first mrs. bagnet trusts to the combined endearments of quebec and malta to restore him, but finding those young ladies sensible that their existing bluffy is not the bluffy of their usual frolicsome acquaintance, she winks off the light infantry and leaves him to deploy at leisure on the open ground of the domestic hearth. but he does not. he remains in close order, clouded and depressed. during the lengthy cleaning up and pattening process, when he and mr. bagnet are supplied with their pipes, he is no better than he was at dinner. he forgets to smoke, looks at the fire and ponders, lets his pipe out, fills the breast of mr. bagnet with perturbation and dismay by showing that he has no enjoyment of tobacco. therefore when mrs. bagnet at last appears, rosy from the invigorating pail, and sits down to her work, mr. bagnet growls, "old girl!" and winks monitions to her to find out what's the matter. "why, george!" says mrs. bagnet, quietly threading her needle. "how low you are!" "am i? not good company? well, i am afraid i am not." "he ain't at all like bluffy, mother!" cries little malta. "because he ain't well, i think, mother," adds quebec. "sure that's a bad sign not to be like bluffy, too!" returns the trooper, kissing the young damsels. "but it's true," with a sigh, "true, i am afraid. these little ones are always right!" "george," says mrs. bagnet, working busily, "if i thought you cross enough to think of anything that a shrill old soldier's wife--who could have bitten her tongue off afterwards and ought to have done it almost--said this morning, i don't know what i shouldn't say to you now." "my kind soul of a darling," returns the trooper. "not a morsel of it." "because really and truly, george, what i said and meant to say was that i trusted lignum to you and was sure you'd bring him through it. and you have brought him through it, noble!" "thankee, my dear!" says george. "i am glad of your good opinion." in giving mrs. bagnet's hand, with her work in it, a friendly shake--for she took her seat beside him--the trooper's attention is attracted to her face. after looking at it for a little while as she plies her needle, he looks to young woolwich, sitting on his stool in the corner, and beckons that fifer to him. "see there, my boy," says george, very gently smoothing the mother's hair with his hand, "there's a good loving forehead for you! all bright with love of you, my boy. a little touched by the sun and the weather through following your father about and taking care of you, but as fresh and wholesome as a ripe apple on a tree." mr. bagnet's face expresses, so far as in its wooden material lies, the highest approbation and acquiescence. "the time will come, my boy," pursues the trooper, "when this hair of your mother's will be grey, and this forehead all crossed and re-crossed with wrinkles, and a fine old lady she'll be then. take care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, 'i never whitened a hair of her dear head--i never marked a sorrowful line in her face!' for of all the many things that you can think of when you are a man, you had better have that by you, woolwich!" mr. george concludes by rising from his chair, seating the boy beside his mother in it, and saying, with something of a hurry about him, that he'll smoke his pipe in the street a bit. chapter xxxv esther's narrative i lay ill through several weeks, and the usual tenor of my life became like an old remembrance. but this was not the effect of time so much as of the change in all my habits made by the helplessness and inaction of a sick-room. before i had been confined to it many days, everything else seemed to have retired into a remote distance where there was little or no separation between the various stages of my life which had been really divided by years. in falling ill, i seemed to have crossed a dark lake and to have left all my experiences, mingled together by the great distance, on the healthy shore. my housekeeping duties, though at first it caused me great anxiety to think that they were unperformed, were soon as far off as the oldest of the old duties at greenleaf or the summer afternoons when i went home from school with my portfolio under my arm, and my childish shadow at my side, to my godmother's house. i had never known before how short life really was and into how small a space the mind could put it. while i was very ill, the way in which these divisions of time became confused with one another distressed my mind exceedingly. at once a child, an elder girl, and the little woman i had been so happy as, i was not only oppressed by cares and difficulties adapted to each station, but by the great perplexity of endlessly trying to reconcile them. i suppose that few who have not been in such a condition can quite understand what i mean or what painful unrest arose from this source. for the same reason i am almost afraid to hint at that time in my disorder--it seemed one long night, but i believe there were both nights and days in it--when i laboured up colossal staircases, ever striving to reach the top, and ever turned, as i have seen a worm in a garden path, by some obstruction, and labouring again. i knew perfectly at intervals, and i think vaguely at most times, that i was in my bed; and i talked with charley, and felt her touch, and knew her very well; yet i would find myself complaining, "oh, more of these never-ending stairs, charley--more and more--piled up to the sky', i think!" and labouring on again. dare i hint at that worse time when, strung together somewhere in great black space, there was a flaming necklace, or ring, or starry circle of some kind, of which i was one of the beads! and when my only prayer was to be taken off from the rest and when it was such inexplicable agony and misery to be a part of the dreadful thing? perhaps the less i say of these sick experiences, the less tedious and the more intelligible i shall be. i do not recall them to make others unhappy or because i am now the least unhappy in remembering them. it may be that if we knew more of such strange afflictions we might be the better able to alleviate their intensity. the repose that succeeded, the long delicious sleep, the blissful rest, when in my weakness i was too calm to have any care for myself and could have heard (or so i think now) that i was dying, with no other emotion than with a pitying love for those i left behind--this state can be perhaps more widely understood. i was in this state when i first shrunk from the light as it twinkled on me once more, and knew with a boundless joy for which no words are rapturous enough that i should see again. i had heard my ada crying at the door, day and night; i had heard her calling to me that i was cruel and did not love her; i had heard her praying and imploring to be let in to nurse and comfort me and to leave my bedside no more; but i had only said, when i could speak, "never, my sweet girl, never!" and i had over and over again reminded charley that she was to keep my darling from the room whether i lived or died. charley had been true to me in that time of need, and with her little hand and her great heart had kept the door fast. but now, my sight strengthening and the glorious light coming every day more fully and brightly on me, i could read the letters that my dear wrote to me every morning and evening and could put them to my lips and lay my cheek upon them with no fear of hurting her. i could see my little maid, so tender and so careful, going about the two rooms setting everything in order and speaking cheerfully to ada from the open window again. i could understand the stillness in the house and the thoughtfulness it expressed on the part of all those who had always been so good to me. i could weep in the exquisite felicity of my heart and be as happy in my weakness as ever i had been in my strength. by and by my strength began to be restored. instead of lying, with so strange a calmness, watching what was done for me, as if it were done for some one else whom i was quietly sorry for, i helped it a little, and so on to a little more and much more, until i became useful to myself, and interested, and attached to life again. how well i remember the pleasant afternoon when i was raised in bed with pillows for the first time to enjoy a great tea-drinking with charley! the little creature--sent into the world, surely, to minister to the weak and sick--was so happy, and so busy, and stopped so often in her preparations to lay her head upon my bosom, and fondle me, and cry with joyful tears she was so glad, she was so glad, that i was obliged to say, "charley, if you go on in this way, i must lie down again, my darling, for i am weaker than i thought i was!" so charley became as quiet as a mouse and took her bright face here and there across and across the two rooms, out of the shade into the divine sunshine, and out of the sunshine into the shade, while i watched her peacefully. when all her preparations were concluded and the pretty tea-table with its little delicacies to tempt me, and its white cloth, and its flowers, and everything so lovingly and beautifully arranged for me by ada downstairs, was ready at the bedside, i felt sure i was steady enough to say something to charley that was not new to my thoughts. first i complimented charley on the room, and indeed it was so fresh and airy, so spotless and neat, that i could scarce believe i had been lying there so long. this delighted charley, and her face was brighter than before. "yet, charley," said i, looking round, "i miss something, surely, that i am accustomed to?" poor little charley looked round too and pretended to shake her head as if there were nothing absent. "are the pictures all as they used to be?" i asked her. "every one of them, miss," said charley. "and the furniture, charley?" "except where i have moved it about to make more room, miss." "and yet," said i, "i miss some familiar object. ah, i know what it is, charley! it's the looking-glass." charley got up from the table, making as if she had forgotten something, and went into the next room; and i heard her sob there. i had thought of this very often. i was now certain of it. i could thank god that it was not a shock to me now. i called charley back, and when she came--at first pretending to smile, but as she drew nearer to me, looking grieved--i took her in my arms and said, "it matters very little, charley. i hope i can do without my old face very well." i was presently so far advanced as to be able to sit up in a great chair and even giddily to walk into the adjoining room, leaning on charley. the mirror was gone from its usual place in that room too, but what i had to bear was none the harder to bear for that. my guardian had throughout been earnest to visit me, and there was now no good reason why i should deny myself that happiness. he came one morning, and when he first came in, could only hold me in his embrace and say, "my dear, dear girl!" i had long known--who could know better?--what a deep fountain of affection and generosity his heart was; and was it not worth my trivial suffering and change to fill such a place in it? "oh, yes!" i thought. "he has seen me, and he loves me better than he did; he has seen me and is even fonder of me than he was before; and what have i to mourn for!" he sat down by me on the sofa, supporting me with his arm. for a little while he sat with his hand over his face, but when he removed it, fell into his usual manner. there never can have been, there never can be, a pleasanter manner. "my little woman," said he, "what a sad time this has been. such an inflexible little woman, too, through all!" "only for the best, guardian," said i. "for the best?" he repeated tenderly. "of course, for the best. but here have ada and i been perfectly forlorn and miserable; here has your friend caddy been coming and going late and early; here has every one about the house been utterly lost and dejected; here has even poor rick been writing--to me too--in his anxiety for you!" i had read of caddy in ada's letters, but not of richard. i told him so. "why, no, my dear," he replied. "i have thought it better not to mention it to her." "and you speak of his writing to you," said i, repeating his emphasis. "as if it were not natural for him to do so, guardian; as if he could write to a better friend!" "he thinks he could, my love," returned my guardian, "and to many a better. the truth is, he wrote to me under a sort of protest while unable to write to you with any hope of an answer--wrote coldly, haughtily, distantly, resentfully. well, dearest little woman, we must look forbearingly on it. he is not to blame. jarndyce and jarndyce has warped him out of himself and perverted me in his eyes. i have known it do as bad deeds, and worse, many a time. if two angels could be concerned in it, i believe it would change their nature." "it has not changed yours, guardian." "oh, yes, it has, my dear," he said laughingly. "it has made the south wind easterly, i don't know how often. rick mistrusts and suspects me--goes to lawyers, and is taught to mistrust and suspect me. hears i have conflicting interests, claims clashing against his and what not. whereas, heaven knows that if i could get out of the mountains of wiglomeration on which my unfortunate name has been so long bestowed (which i can't) or could level them by the extinction of my own original right (which i can't either, and no human power ever can, anyhow, i believe, to such a pass have we got), i would do it this hour. i would rather restore to poor rick his proper nature than be endowed with all the money that dead suitors, broken, heart and soul, upon the wheel of chancery, have left unclaimed with the accountant-general--and that's money enough, my dear, to be cast into a pyramid, in memory of chancery's transcendent wickedness." "is it possible, guardian," i asked, amazed, "that richard can be suspicious of you?" "ah, my love, my love," he said, "it is in the subtle poison of such abuses to breed such diseases. his blood is infected, and objects lose their natural aspects in his sight. it is not his fault." "but it is a terrible misfortune, guardian." "it is a terrible misfortune, little woman, to be ever drawn within the influences of jarndyce and jarndyce. i know none greater. by little and little he has been induced to trust in that rotten reed, and it communicates some portion of its rottenness to everything around him. but again i say with all my soul, we must be patient with poor rick and not blame him. what a troop of fine fresh hearts like his have i seen in my time turned by the same means!" i could not help expressing something of my wonder and regret that his benevolent, disinterested intentions had prospered so little. "we must not say so, dame durden," he cheerfully replied; "ada is the happier, i hope, and that is much. i did think that i and both these young creatures might be friends instead of distrustful foes and that we might so far counter-act the suit and prove too strong for it. but it was too much to expect. jarndyce and jarndyce was the curtain of rick's cradle." "but, guardian, may we not hope that a little experience will teach him what a false and wretched thing it is?" "we will hope so, my esther," said mr. jarndyce, "and that it may not teach him so too late. in any case we must not be hard on him. there are not many grown and matured men living while we speak, good men too, who if they were thrown into this same court as suitors would not be vitally changed and depreciated within three years--within two--within one. how can we stand amazed at poor rick? a young man so unfortunate," here he fell into a lower tone, as if he were thinking aloud, "cannot at first believe (who could?) that chancery is what it is. he looks to it, flushed and fitfully, to do something with his interests and bring them to some settlement. it procrastinates, disappoints, tries, tortures him; wears out his sanguine hopes and patience, thread by thread; but he still looks to it, and hankers after it, and finds his whole world treacherous and hollow. well, well, well! enough of this, my dear!" he had supported me, as at first, all this time, and his tenderness was so precious to me that i leaned my head upon his shoulder and loved him as if he had been my father. i resolved in my own mind in this little pause, by some means, to see richard when i grew strong and try to set him right. "there are better subjects than these," said my guardian, "for such a joyful time as the time of our dear girl's recovery. and i had a commission to broach one of them as soon as i should begin to talk. when shall ada come to see you, my love?" i had been thinking of that too. a little in connexion with the absent mirrors, but not much, for i knew my loving girl would be changed by no change in my looks. "dear guardian," said i, "as i have shut her out so long--though indeed, indeed, she is like the light to me--" "i know it well, dame durden, well." he was so good, his touch expressed such endearing compassion and affection, and the tone of his voice carried such comfort into my heart that i stopped for a little while, quite unable to go on. "yes, yes, you are tired," said he. "rest a little." "as i have kept ada out so long," i began afresh after a short while, "i think i should like to have my own way a little longer, guardian. it would be best to be away from here before i see her. if charley and i were to go to some country lodging as soon as i can move, and if i had a week there in which to grow stronger and to be revived by the sweet air and to look forward to the happiness of having ada with me again, i think it would be better for us." i hope it was not a poor thing in me to wish to be a little more used to my altered self before i met the eyes of the dear girl i longed so ardently to see, but it is the truth. i did. he understood me, i was sure; but i was not afraid of that. if it were a poor thing, i knew he would pass it over. "our spoilt little woman," said my guardian, "shall have her own way even in her inflexibility, though at the price, i know, of tears downstairs. and see here! here is boythorn, heart of chivalry, breathing such ferocious vows as never were breathed on paper before, that if you don't go and occupy his whole house, he having already turned out of it expressly for that purpose, by heaven and by earth he'll pull it down and not leave one brick standing on another!" and my guardian put a letter in my hand, without any ordinary beginning such as "my dear jarndyce," but rushing at once into the words, "i swear if miss summerson do not come down and take possession of my house, which i vacate for her this day at one o'clock, p.m.," and then with the utmost seriousness, and in the most emphatic terms, going on to make the extraordinary declaration he had quoted. we did not appreciate the writer the less for laughing heartily over it, and we settled that i should send him a letter of thanks on the morrow and accept his offer. it was a most agreeable one to me, for all the places i could have thought of, i should have liked to go to none so well as chesney wold. "now, little housewife," said my guardian, looking at his watch, "i was strictly timed before i came upstairs, for you must not be tired too soon; and my time has waned away to the last minute. i have one other petition. little miss flite, hearing a rumour that you were ill, made nothing of walking down here--twenty miles, poor soul, in a pair of dancing shoes--to inquire. it was heaven's mercy we were at home, or she would have walked back again." the old conspiracy to make me happy! everybody seemed to be in it! "now, pet," said my guardian, "if it would not be irksome to you to admit the harmless little creature one afternoon before you save boythorn's otherwise devoted house from demolition, i believe you would make her prouder and better pleased with herself than i--though my eminent name is jarndyce--could do in a lifetime." i have no doubt he knew there would be something in the simple image of the poor afflicted creature that would fall like a gentle lesson on my mind at that time. i felt it as he spoke to me. i could not tell him heartily enough how ready i was to receive her. i had always pitied her, never so much as now. i had always been glad of my little power to soothe her under her calamity, but never, never, half so glad before. we arranged a time for miss flite to come out by the coach and share my early dinner. when my guardian left me, i turned my face away upon my couch and prayed to be forgiven if i, surrounded by such blessings, had magnified to myself the little trial that i had to undergo. the childish prayer of that old birthday when i had aspired to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted and to do good to some one and win some love to myself if i could came back into my mind with a reproachful sense of all the happiness i had since enjoyed and all the affectionate hearts that had been turned towards me. if i were weak now, what had i profited by those mercies? i repeated the old childish prayer in its old childish words and found that its old peace had not departed from it. my guardian now came every day. in a week or so more i could walk about our rooms and hold long talks with ada from behind the window-curtain. yet i never saw her, for i had not as yet the courage to look at the dear face, though i could have done so easily without her seeing me. on the appointed day miss flite arrived. the poor little creature ran into my room quite forgetful of her usual dignity, and crying from her very heart of hearts, "my dear fitz jarndyce!" fell upon my neck and kissed me twenty times. "dear me!" said she, putting her hand into her reticule, "i have nothing here but documents, my dear fitz jarndyce; i must borrow a pocket handkerchief." charley gave her one, and the good creature certainly made use of it, for she held it to her eyes with both hands and sat so, shedding tears for the next ten minutes. "with pleasure, my dear fitz jarndyce," she was careful to explain. "not the least pain. pleasure to see you well again. pleasure at having the honour of being admitted to see you. i am so much fonder of you, my love, than of the chancellor. though i do attend court regularly. by the by, my dear, mentioning pocket handkerchiefs--" miss flite here looked at charley, who had been to meet her at the place where the coach stopped. charley glanced at me and looked unwilling to pursue the suggestion. "ve-ry right!" said miss flite, "ve-ry correct. truly! highly indiscreet of me to mention it; but my dear miss fitz jarndyce, i am afraid i am at times (between ourselves, you wouldn't think it) a little--rambling you know," said miss flite, touching her forehead. "nothing more." "what were you going to tell me?" said i, smiling, for i saw she wanted to go on. "you have roused my curiosity, and now you must gratify it." miss flite looked at charley for advice in this important crisis, who said, "if you please, ma'am, you had better tell then," and therein gratified miss flite beyond measure. "so sagacious, our young friend," said she to me in her mysterious way. "diminutive. but ve-ry sagacious! well, my dear, it's a pretty anecdote. nothing more. still i think it charming. who should follow us down the road from the coach, my dear, but a poor person in a very ungenteel bonnet--" "jenny, if you please, miss," said charley. "just so!" miss flite acquiesced with the greatest suavity. "jenny. ye-es! and what does she tell our young friend but that there has been a lady with a veil inquiring at her cottage after my dear fitz jarndyce's health and taking a handkerchief away with her as a little keepsake merely because it was my amiable fitz jarndyce's! now, you know, so very prepossessing in the lady with the veil!" "if you please, miss," said charley, to whom i looked in some astonishment, "jenny says that when her baby died, you left a handkerchief there, and that she put it away and kept it with the baby's little things. i think, if you please, partly because it was yours, miss, and partly because it had covered the baby." "diminutive," whispered miss flite, making a variety of motions about her own forehead to express intellect in charley. "but exceedingly sagacious! and so dear! my love, she's clearer than any counsel i ever heard!" "yes, charley," i returned. "i remember it. well?" "well, miss," said charley, "and that's the handkerchief the lady took. and jenny wants you to know that she wouldn't have made away with it herself for a heap of money but that the lady took it and left some money instead. jenny don't know her at all, if you please, miss!" "why, who can she be?" said i. "my love," miss flite suggested, advancing her lips to my ear with her most mysterious look, "in my opinion--don't mention this to our diminutive friend--she's the lord chancellor's wife. he's married, you know. and i understand she leads him a terrible life. throws his lordship's papers into the fire, my dear, if he won't pay the jeweller!" i did not think very much about this lady then, for i had an impression that it might be caddy. besides, my attention was diverted by my visitor, who was cold after her ride and looked hungry and who, our dinner being brought in, required some little assistance in arraying herself with great satisfaction in a pitiable old scarf and a much-worn and often-mended pair of gloves, which she had brought down in a paper parcel. i had to preside, too, over the entertainment, consisting of a dish of fish, a roast fowl, a sweetbread, vegetables, pudding, and madeira; and it was so pleasant to see how she enjoyed it, and with what state and ceremony she did honour to it, that i was soon thinking of nothing else. when we had finished and had our little dessert before us, embellished by the hands of my dear, who would yield the superintendence of everything prepared for me to no one, miss flite was so very chatty and happy that i thought i would lead her to her own history, as she was always pleased to talk about herself. i began by saying "you have attended on the lord chancellor many years, miss flite?" "oh, many, many, many years, my dear. but i expect a judgment. shortly." there was an anxiety even in her hopefulness that made me doubtful if i had done right in approaching the subject. i thought i would say no more about it. "my father expected a judgment," said miss flite. "my brother. my sister. they all expected a judgment. the same that i expect." "they are all--" "ye-es. dead of course, my dear," said she. as i saw she would go on, i thought it best to try to be serviceable to her by meeting the theme rather than avoiding it. "would it not be wiser," said i, "to expect this judgment no more?" "why, my dear," she answered promptly, "of course it would!" "and to attend the court no more?" "equally of course," said she. "very wearing to be always in expectation of what never comes, my dear fitz jarndyce! wearing, i assure you, to the bone!" she slightly showed me her arm, and it was fearfully thin indeed. "but, my dear," she went on in her mysterious way, "there's a dreadful attraction in the place. hush! don't mention it to our diminutive friend when she comes in. or it may frighten her. with good reason. there's a cruel attraction in the place. you can't leave it. and you must expect." i tried to assure her that this was not so. she heard me patiently and smilingly, but was ready with her own answer. "aye, aye, aye! you think so because i am a little rambling. ve-ry absurd, to be a little rambling, is it not? ve-ry confusing, too. to the head. i find it so. but, my dear, i have been there many years, and i have noticed. it's the mace and seal upon the table." what could they do, did she think? i mildly asked her. "draw," returned miss flite. "draw people on, my dear. draw peace out of them. sense out of them. good looks out of them. good qualities out of them. i have felt them even drawing my rest away in the night. cold and glittering devils!" she tapped me several times upon the arm and nodded good-humouredly as if she were anxious i should understand that i had no cause to fear her, though she spoke so gloomily, and confided these awful secrets to me. "let me see," said she. "i'll tell you my own case. before they ever drew me--before i had ever seen them--what was it i used to do? tambourine playing? no. tambour work. i and my sister worked at tambour work. our father and our brother had a builder's business. we all lived together. ve-ry respectably, my dear! first, our father was drawn--slowly. home was drawn with him. in a few years he was a fierce, sour, angry bankrupt without a kind word or a kind look for any one. he had been so different, fitz jarndyce. he was drawn to a debtors' prison. there he died. then our brother was drawn--swiftly--to drunkenness. and rags. and death. then my sister was drawn. hush! never ask to what! then i was ill and in misery, and heard, as i had often heard before, that this was all the work of chancery. when i got better, i went to look at the monster. and then i found out how it was, and i was drawn to stay there." having got over her own short narrative, in the delivery of which she had spoken in a low, strained voice, as if the shock were fresh upon her, she gradually resumed her usual air of amiable importance. "you don't quite credit me, my dear! well, well! you will, some day. i am a little rambling. but i have noticed. i have seen many new faces come, unsuspicious, within the influence of the mace and seal in these many years. as my father's came there. as my brother's. as my sister's. as my own. i hear conversation kenge and the rest of them say to the new faces, 'here's little miss flite. oh, you are new here; and you must come and be presented to little miss flite!' ve-ry good. proud i am sure to have the honour! and we all laugh. but, fitz jarndyce, i know what will happen. i know, far better than they do, when the attraction has begun. i know the signs, my dear. i saw them begin in gridley. and i saw them end. fitz jarndyce, my love," speaking low again, "i saw them beginning in our friend the ward in jarndyce. let some one hold him back. or he'll be drawn to ruin." she looked at me in silence for some moments, with her face gradually softening into a smile. seeming to fear that she had been too gloomy, and seeming also to lose the connexion in her mind, she said politely as she sipped her glass of wine, "yes, my dear, as i was saying, i expect a judgment shortly. then i shall release my birds, you know, and confer estates." i was much impressed by her allusion to richard and by the sad meaning, so sadly illustrated in her poor pinched form, that made its way through all her incoherence. but happily for her, she was quite complacent again now and beamed with nods and smiles. "but, my dear," she said, gaily, reaching another hand to put it upon mine. "you have not congratulated me on my physician. positively not once, yet!" i was obliged to confess that i did not quite know what she meant. "my physician, mr. woodcourt, my dear, who was so exceedingly attentive to me. though his services were rendered quite gratuitously. until the day of judgment. i mean the judgment that will dissolve the spell upon me of the mace and seal." "mr. woodcourt is so far away, now," said i, "that i thought the time for such congratulation was past, miss flite." "but, my child," she returned, "is it possible that you don't know what has happened?" "no," said i. "not what everybody has been talking of, my beloved fitz jarndyce!" "no," said i. "you forget how long i have been here." "true! my dear, for the moment--true. i blame myself. but my memory has been drawn out of me, with everything else, by what i mentioned. ve-ry strong influence, is it not? well, my dear, there has been a terrible shipwreck over in those east indian seas." "mr. woodcourt shipwrecked!" "don't be agitated, my dear. he is safe. an awful scene. death in all shapes. hundreds of dead and dying. fire, storm, and darkness. numbers of the drowning thrown upon a rock. there, and through it all, my dear physician was a hero. calm and brave through everything. saved many lives, never complained in hunger and thirst, wrapped naked people in his spare clothes, took the lead, showed them what to do, governed them, tended the sick, buried the dead, and brought the poor survivors safely off at last! my dear, the poor emaciated creatures all but worshipped him. they fell down at his feet when they got to the land and blessed him. the whole country rings with it. stay! where's my bag of documents? i have got it there, and you shall read it, you shall read it!" and i did read all the noble history, though very slowly and imperfectly then, for my eyes were so dimmed that i could not see the words, and i cried so much that i was many times obliged to lay down the long account she had cut out of the newspaper. i felt so triumphant ever to have known the man who had done such generous and gallant deeds, i felt such glowing exultation in his renown, i so admired and loved what he had done, that i envied the storm-worn people who had fallen at his feet and blessed him as their preserver. i could myself have kneeled down then, so far away, and blessed him in my rapture that he should be so truly good and brave. i felt that no one--mother, sister, wife--could honour him more than i. i did, indeed! my poor little visitor made me a present of the account, and when as the evening began to close in she rose to take her leave, lest she should miss the coach by which she was to return, she was still full of the shipwreck, which i had not yet sufficiently composed myself to understand in all its details. "my dear," said she as she carefully folded up her scarf and gloves, "my brave physician ought to have a title bestowed upon him. and no doubt he will. you are of that opinion?" that he well deserved one, yes. that he would ever have one, no. "why not, fitz jarndyce?" she asked rather sharply. i said it was not the custom in england to confer titles on men distinguished by peaceful services, however good and great, unless occasionally when they consisted of the accumulation of some very large amount of money. "why, good gracious," said miss flite, "how can you say that? surely you know, my dear, that all the greatest ornaments of england in knowledge, imagination, active humanity, and improvement of every sort are added to its nobility! look round you, my dear, and consider. you must be rambling a little now, i think, if you don't know that this is the great reason why titles will always last in the land!" i am afraid she believed what she said, for there were moments when she was very mad indeed. and now i must part with the little secret i have thus far tried to keep. i had thought, sometimes, that mr. woodcourt loved me and that if he had been richer he would perhaps have told me that he loved me before he went away. i had thought, sometimes, that if he had done so, i should have been glad of it. but how much better it was now that this had never happened! what should i have suffered if i had had to write to him and tell him that the poor face he had known as mine was quite gone from me and that i freely released him from his bondage to one whom he had never seen! oh, it was so much better as it was! with a great pang mercifully spared me, i could take back to my heart my childish prayer to be all he had so brightly shown himself; and there was nothing to be undone: no chain for me to break or for him to drag; and i could go, please god, my lowly way along the path of duty, and he could go his nobler way upon its broader road; and though we were apart upon the journey, i might aspire to meet him, unselfishly, innocently, better far than he had thought me when i found some favour in his eyes, at the journey's end. chapter xxxvi chesney wold charley and i did not set off alone upon our expedition into lincolnshire. my guardian had made up his mind not to lose sight of me until i was safe in mr. boythorn's house, so he accompanied us, and we were two days upon the road. i found every breath of air, and every scent, and every flower and leaf and blade of grass, and every passing cloud, and everything in nature, more beautiful and wonderful to me than i had ever found it yet. this was my first gain from my illness. how little i had lost, when the wide world was so full of delight for me. my guardian intending to go back immediately, we appointed, on our way down, a day when my dear girl should come. i wrote her a letter, of which he took charge, and he left us within half an hour of our arrival at our destination, on a delightful evening in the early summer-time. if a good fairy had built the house for me with a wave of her wand, and i had been a princess and her favoured god-child, i could not have been more considered in it. so many preparations were made for me and such an endearing remembrance was shown of all my little tastes and likings that i could have sat down, overcome, a dozen times before i had revisited half the rooms. i did better than that, however, by showing them all to charley instead. charley's delight calmed mine; and after we had had a walk in the garden, and charley had exhausted her whole vocabulary of admiring expressions, i was as tranquilly happy as i ought to have been. it was a great comfort to be able to say to myself after tea, "esther, my dear, i think you are quite sensible enough to sit down now and write a note of thanks to your host." he had left a note of welcome for me, as sunny as his own face, and had confided his bird to my care, which i knew to be his highest mark of confidence. accordingly i wrote a little note to him in london, telling him how all his favourite plants and trees were looking, and how the most astonishing of birds had chirped the honours of the house to me in the most hospitable manner, and how, after singing on my shoulder, to the inconceivable rapture of my little maid, he was then at roost in the usual corner of his cage, but whether dreaming or no i could not report. my note finished and sent off to the post, i made myself very busy in unpacking and arranging; and i sent charley to bed in good time and told her i should want her no more that night. for i had not yet looked in the glass and had never asked to have my own restored to me. i knew this to be a weakness which must be overcome, but i had always said to myself that i would begin afresh when i got to where i now was. therefore i had wanted to be alone, and therefore i said, now alone, in my own room, "esther, if you are to be happy, if you are to have any right to pray to be true-hearted, you must keep your word, my dear." i was quite resolved to keep it, but i sat down for a little while first to reflect upon all my blessings. and then i said my prayers and thought a little more. my hair had not been cut off, though it had been in danger more than once. it was long and thick. i let it down, and shook it out, and went up to the glass upon the dressing-table. there was a little muslin curtain drawn across it. i drew it back and stood for a moment looking through such a veil of my own hair that i could see nothing else. then i put my hair aside and looked at the reflection in the mirror, encouraged by seeing how placidly it looked at me. i was very much changed--oh, very, very much. at first my face was so strange to me that i think i should have put my hands before it and started back but for the encouragement i have mentioned. very soon it became more familiar, and then i knew the extent of the alteration in it better than i had done at first. it was not like what i had expected, but i had expected nothing definite, and i dare say anything definite would have surprised me. i had never been a beauty and had never thought myself one, but i had been very different from this. it was all gone now. heaven was so good to me that i could let it go with a few not bitter tears and could stand there arranging my hair for the night quite thankfully. one thing troubled me, and i considered it for a long time before i went to sleep. i had kept mr. woodcourt's flowers. when they were withered i had dried them and put them in a book that i was fond of. nobody knew this, not even ada. i was doubtful whether i had a right to preserve what he had sent to one so different--whether it was generous towards him to do it. i wished to be generous to him, even in the secret depths of my heart, which he would never know, because i could have loved him--could have been devoted to him. at last i came to the conclusion that i might keep them if i treasured them only as a remembrance of what was irrevocably past and gone, never to be looked back on any more, in any other light. i hope this may not seem trivial. i was very much in earnest. i took care to be up early in the morning and to be before the glass when charley came in on tiptoe. "dear, dear, miss!" cried charley, starting. "is that you?" "yes, charley," said i, quietly putting up my hair. "and i am very well indeed, and very happy." i saw it was a weight off charley's mind, but it was a greater weight off mine. i knew the worst now and was composed to it. i shall not conceal, as i go on, the weaknesses i could not quite conquer, but they always passed from me soon and the happier frame of mind stayed by me faithfully. wishing to be fully re-established in my strength and my good spirits before ada came, i now laid down a little series of plans with charley for being in the fresh air all day long. we were to be out before breakfast, and were to dine early, and were to be out again before and after dinner, and were to talk in the garden after tea, and were to go to rest betimes, and were to climb every hill and explore every road, lane, and field in the neighbourhood. as to restoratives and strengthening delicacies, mr. boythorn's good housekeeper was for ever trotting about with something to eat or drink in her hand; i could not even be heard of as resting in the park but she would come trotting after me with a basket, her cheerful face shining with a lecture on the importance of frequent nourishment. then there was a pony expressly for my riding, a chubby pony with a short neck and a mane all over his eyes who could canter--when he would--so easily and quietly that he was a treasure. in a very few days he would come to me in the paddock when i called him, and eat out of my hand, and follow me about. we arrived at such a capital understanding that when he was jogging with me lazily, and rather obstinately, down some shady lane, if i patted his neck and said, "stubbs, i am surprised you don't canter when you know how much i like it; and i think you might oblige me, for you are only getting stupid and going to sleep," he would give his head a comical shake or two and set off directly, while charley would stand still and laugh with such enjoyment that her laughter was like music. i don't know who had given stubbs his name, but it seemed to belong to him as naturally as his rough coat. once we put him in a little chaise and drove him triumphantly through the green lanes for five miles; but all at once, as we were extolling him to the skies, he seemed to take it ill that he should have been accompanied so far by the circle of tantalizing little gnats that had been hovering round and round his ears the whole way without appearing to advance an inch, and stopped to think about it. i suppose he came to the decision that it was not to be borne, for he steadily refused to move until i gave the reins to charley and got out and walked, when he followed me with a sturdy sort of good humour, putting his head under my arm and rubbing his ear against my sleeve. it was in vain for me to say, "now, stubbs, i feel quite sure from what i know of you that you will go on if i ride a little while," for the moment i left him, he stood stock still again. consequently i was obliged to lead the way, as before; and in this order we returned home, to the great delight of the village. charley and i had reason to call it the most friendly of villages, i am sure, for in a week's time the people were so glad to see us go by, though ever so frequently in the course of a day, that there were faces of greeting in every cottage. i had known many of the grown people before and almost all the children, but now the very steeple began to wear a familiar and affectionate look. among my new friends was an old old woman who lived in such a little thatched and whitewashed dwelling that when the outside shutter was turned up on its hinges, it shut up the whole house-front. this old lady had a grandson who was a sailor, and i wrote a letter to him for her and drew at the top of it the chimney-corner in which she had brought him up and where his old stool yet occupied its old place. this was considered by the whole village the most wonderful achievement in the world, but when an answer came back all the way from plymouth, in which he mentioned that he was going to take the picture all the way to america, and from america would write again, i got all the credit that ought to have been given to the post-office and was invested with the merit of the whole system. thus, what with being so much in the air, playing with so many children, gossiping with so many people, sitting on invitation in so many cottages, going on with charley's education, and writing long letters to ada every day, i had scarcely any time to think about that little loss of mine and was almost always cheerful. if i did think of it at odd moments now and then, i had only to be busy and forget it. i felt it more than i had hoped i should once when a child said, "mother, why is the lady not a pretty lady now like she used to be?" but when i found the child was not less fond of me, and drew its soft hand over my face with a kind of pitying protection in its touch, that soon set me up again. there were many little occurrences which suggested to me, with great consolation, how natural it is to gentle hearts to be considerate and delicate towards any inferiority. one of these particularly touched me. i happened to stroll into the little church when a marriage was just concluded, and the young couple had to sign the register. the bridegroom, to whom the pen was handed first, made a rude cross for his mark; the bride, who came next, did the same. now, i had known the bride when i was last there, not only as the prettiest girl in the place, but as having quite distinguished herself in the school, and i could not help looking at her with some surprise. she came aside and whispered to me, while tears of honest love and admiration stood in her bright eyes, "he's a dear good fellow, miss; but he can't write yet--he's going to learn of me--and i wouldn't shame him for the world!" why, what had i to fear, i thought, when there was this nobility in the soul of a labouring man's daughter! the air blew as freshly and revivingly upon me as it had ever blown, and the healthy colour came into my new face as it had come into my old one. charley was wonderful to see, she was so radiant and so rosy; and we both enjoyed the whole day and slept soundly the whole night. there was a favourite spot of mine in the park-woods of chesney wold where a seat had been erected commanding a lovely view. the wood had been cleared and opened to improve this point of sight, and the bright sunny landscape beyond was so beautiful that i rested there at least once every day. a picturesque part of the hall, called the ghost's walk, was seen to advantage from this higher ground; and the startling name, and the old legend in the dedlock family which i had heard from mr. boythorn accounting for it, mingled with the view and gave it something of a mysterious interest in addition to its real charms. there was a bank here, too, which was a famous one for violets; and as it was a daily delight of charley's to gather wild flowers, she took as much to the spot as i did. it would be idle to inquire now why i never went close to the house or never went inside it. the family were not there, i had heard on my arrival, and were not expected. i was far from being incurious or uninterested about the building; on the contrary, i often sat in this place wondering how the rooms ranged and whether any echo like a footstep really did resound at times, as the story said, upon the lonely ghost's walk. the indefinable feeling with which lady dedlock had impressed me may have had some influence in keeping me from the house even when she was absent. i am not sure. her face and figure were associated with it, naturally; but i cannot say that they repelled me from it, though something did. for whatever reason or no reason, i had never once gone near it, down to the day at which my story now arrives. i was resting at my favourite point after a long ramble, and charley was gathering violets at a little distance from me. i had been looking at the ghost's walk lying in a deep shade of masonry afar off and picturing to myself the female shape that was said to haunt it when i became aware of a figure approaching through the wood. the perspective was so long and so darkened by leaves, and the shadows of the branches on the ground made it so much more intricate to the eye, that at first i could not discern what figure it was. by little and little it revealed itself to be a woman's--a lady's--lady dedlock's. she was alone and coming to where i sat with a much quicker step, i observed to my surprise, than was usual with her. i was fluttered by her being unexpectedly so near (she was almost within speaking distance before i knew her) and would have risen to continue my walk. but i could not. i was rendered motionless. not so much by her hurried gesture of entreaty, not so much by her quick advance and outstretched hands, not so much by the great change in her manner and the absence of her haughty self-restraint, as by a something in her face that i had pined for and dreamed of when i was a little child, something i had never seen in any face, something i had never seen in hers before. a dread and faintness fell upon me, and i called to charley. lady dedlock stopped upon the instant and changed back almost to what i had known her. "miss summerson, i am afraid i have startled you," she said, now advancing slowly. "you can scarcely be strong yet. you have been very ill, i know. i have been much concerned to hear it." i could no more have removed my eyes from her pale face than i could have stirred from the bench on which i sat. she gave me her hand, and its deadly coldness, so at variance with the enforced composure of her features, deepened the fascination that overpowered me. i cannot say what was in my whirling thoughts. "you are recovering again?" she asked kindly. "i was quite well but a moment ago, lady dedlock." "is this your young attendant?" "yes." "will you send her on before and walk towards your house with me?" "charley," said i, "take your flowers home, and i will follow you directly." charley, with her best curtsy, blushingly tied on her bonnet and went her way. when she was gone, lady dedlock sat down on the seat beside me. i cannot tell in any words what the state of my mind was when i saw in her hand my handkerchief with which i had covered the dead baby. i looked at her, but i could not see her, i could not hear her, i could not draw my breath. the beating of my heart was so violent and wild that i felt as if my life were breaking from me. but when she caught me to her breast, kissed me, wept over me, compassionated me, and called me back to myself; when she fell down on her knees and cried to me, "oh, my child, my child, i am your wicked and unhappy mother! oh, try to forgive me!"--when i saw her at my feet on the bare earth in her great agony of mind, i felt, through all my tumult of emotion, a burst of gratitude to the providence of god that i was so changed as that i never could disgrace her by any trace of likeness, as that nobody could ever now look at me and look at her and remotely think of any near tie between us. i raised my mother up, praying and beseeching her not to stoop before me in such affliction and humiliation. i did so in broken, incoherent words, for besides the trouble i was in, it frightened me to see her at my feet. i told her--or i tried to tell her--that if it were for me, her child, under any circumstances to take upon me to forgive her, i did it, and had done it, many, many years. i told her that my heart overflowed with love for her, that it was natural love which nothing in the past had changed or could change. that it was not for me, then resting for the first time on my mother's bosom, to take her to account for having given me life, but that my duty was to bless her and receive her, though the whole world turned from her, and that i only asked her leave to do it. i held my mother in my embrace, and she held me in hers, and among the still woods in the silence of the summer day there seemed to be nothing but our two troubled minds that was not at peace. "to bless and receive me," groaned my mother, "it is far too late. i must travel my dark road alone, and it will lead me where it will. from day to day, sometimes from hour to hour, i do not see the way before my guilty feet. this is the earthly punishment i have brought upon myself. i bear it, and i hide it." even in the thinking of her endurance, she drew her habitual air of proud indifference about her like a veil, though she soon cast it off again. "i must keep this secret, if by any means it can be kept, not wholly for myself. i have a husband, wretched and dishonouring creature that i am!" these words she uttered with a suppressed cry of despair, more terrible in its sound than any shriek. covering her face with her hands, she shrank down in my embrace as if she were unwilling that i should touch her; nor could i, by my utmost persuasions or by any endearments i could use, prevail upon her to rise. she said, no, no, no, she could only speak to me so; she must be proud and disdainful everywhere else; she would be humbled and ashamed there, in the only natural moments of her life. my unhappy mother told me that in my illness she had been nearly frantic. she had but then known that her child was living. she could not have suspected me to be that child before. she had followed me down here to speak to me but once in all her life. we never could associate, never could communicate, never probably from that time forth could interchange another word on earth. she put into my hands a letter she had written for my reading only and said when i had read it and destroyed it--but not so much for her sake, since she asked nothing, as for her husband's and my own--i must evermore consider her as dead. if i could believe that she loved me, in this agony in which i saw her, with a mother's love, she asked me to do that, for then i might think of her with a greater pity, imagining what she suffered. she had put herself beyond all hope and beyond all help. whether she preserved her secret until death or it came to be discovered and she brought dishonour and disgrace upon the name she had taken, it was her solitary struggle always; and no affection could come near her, and no human creature could render her any aid. "but is the secret safe so far?" i asked. "is it safe now, dearest mother?" "no," replied my mother. "it has been very near discovery. it was saved by an accident. it may be lost by another accident--to-morrow, any day." "do you dread a particular person?" "hush! do not tremble and cry so much for me. i am not worthy of these tears," said my mother, kissing my hands. "i dread one person very much." "an enemy?" "not a friend. one who is too passionless to be either. he is sir leicester dedlock's lawyer, mechanically faithful without attachment, and very jealous of the profit, privilege, and reputation of being master of the mysteries of great houses." "has he any suspicions?" "many." "not of you?" i said alarmed. "yes! he is always vigilant and always near me. i may keep him at a standstill, but i can never shake him off." "has he so little pity or compunction?" "he has none, and no anger. he is indifferent to everything but his calling. his calling is the acquisition of secrets and the holding possession of such power as they give him, with no sharer or opponent in it." "could you trust in him?" "i shall never try. the dark road i have trodden for so many years will end where it will. i follow it alone to the end, whatever the end be. it may be near, it may be distant; while the road lasts, nothing turns me." "dear mother, are you so resolved?" "i am resolved. i have long outbidden folly with folly, pride with pride, scorn with scorn, insolence with insolence, and have outlived many vanities with many more. i will outlive this danger, and outdie it, if i can. it has closed around me almost as awfully as if these woods of chesney wold had closed around the house, but my course through it is the same. i have but one; i can have but one." "mr. jarndyce--" i was beginning when my mother hurriedly inquired, "does he suspect?" "no," said i. "no, indeed! be assured that he does not!" and i told her what he had related to me as his knowledge of my story. "but he is so good and sensible," said i, "that perhaps if he knew--" my mother, who until this time had made no change in her position, raised her hand up to my lips and stopped me. "confide fully in him," she said after a little while. "you have my free consent--a small gift from such a mother to her injured child!--but do not tell me of it. some pride is left in me even yet." i explained, as nearly as i could then, or can recall now--for my agitation and distress throughout were so great that i scarcely understood myself, though every word that was uttered in the mother's voice, so unfamiliar and so melancholy to me, which in my childhood i had never learned to love and recognize, had never been sung to sleep with, had never heard a blessing from, had never had a hope inspired by, made an enduring impression on my memory--i say i explained, or tried to do it, how i had only hoped that mr. jarndyce, who had been the best of fathers to me, might be able to afford some counsel and support to her. but my mother answered no, it was impossible; no one could help her. through the desert that lay before her, she must go alone. "my child, my child!" she said. "for the last time! these kisses for the last time! these arms upon my neck for the last time! we shall meet no more. to hope to do what i seek to do, i must be what i have been so long. such is my reward and doom. if you hear of lady dedlock, brilliant, prosperous, and flattered, think of your wretched mother, conscience-stricken, underneath that mask! think that the reality is in her suffering, in her useless remorse, in her murdering within her breast the only love and truth of which it is capable! and then forgive her if you can, and cry to heaven to forgive her, which it never can!" we held one another for a little space yet, but she was so firm that she took my hands away, and put them back against my breast, and with a last kiss as she held them there, released them, and went from me into the wood. i was alone, and calm and quiet below me in the sun and shade lay the old house, with its terraces and turrets, on which there had seemed to me to be such complete repose when i first saw it, but which now looked like the obdurate and unpitying watcher of my mother's misery. stunned as i was, as weak and helpless at first as i had ever been in my sick chamber, the necessity of guarding against the danger of discovery, or even of the remotest suspicion, did me service. i took such precautions as i could to hide from charley that i had been crying, and i constrained myself to think of every sacred obligation that there was upon me to be careful and collected. it was not a little while before i could succeed or could even restrain bursts of grief, but after an hour or so i was better and felt that i might return. i went home very slowly and told charley, whom i found at the gate looking for me, that i had been tempted to extend my walk after lady dedlock had left me and that i was over-tired and would lie down. safe in my own room, i read the letter. i clearly derived from it--and that was much then--that i had not been abandoned by my mother. her elder and only sister, the godmother of my childhood, discovering signs of life in me when i had been laid aside as dead, had in her stern sense of duty, with no desire or willingness that i should live, reared me in rigid secrecy and had never again beheld my mother's face from within a few hours of my birth. so strangely did i hold my place in this world that until within a short time back i had never, to my own mother's knowledge, breathed--had been buried--had never been endowed with life--had never borne a name. when she had first seen me in the church she had been startled and had thought of what would have been like me if it had ever lived, and had lived on, but that was all then. what more the letter told me needs not to be repeated here. it has its own times and places in my story. my first care was to burn what my mother had written and to consume even its ashes. i hope it may not appear very unnatural or bad in me that i then became heavily sorrowful to think i had ever been reared. that i felt as if i knew it would have been better and happier for many people if indeed i had never breathed. that i had a terror of myself as the danger and the possible disgrace of my own mother and of a proud family name. that i was so confused and shaken as to be possessed by a belief that it was right and had been intended that i should die in my birth, and that it was wrong and not intended that i should be then alive. these are the real feelings that i had. i fell asleep worn out, and when i awoke i cried afresh to think that i was back in the world with my load of trouble for others. i was more than ever frightened of myself, thinking anew of her against whom i was a witness, of the owner of chesney wold, of the new and terrible meaning of the old words now moaning in my ear like a surge upon the shore, "your mother, esther, was your disgrace, and you are hers. the time will come--and soon enough--when you will understand this better, and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can." with them, those other words returned, "pray daily that the sins of others be not visited upon your head." i could not disentangle all that was about me, and i felt as if the blame and the shame were all in me, and the visitation had come down. the day waned into a gloomy evening, overcast and sad, and i still contended with the same distress. i went out alone, and after walking a little in the park, watching the dark shades falling on the trees and the fitful flight of the bats, which sometimes almost touched me, was attracted to the house for the first time. perhaps i might not have gone near it if i had been in a stronger frame of mind. as it was, i took the path that led close by it. i did not dare to linger or to look up, but i passed before the terrace garden with its fragrant odours, and its broad walks, and its well-kept beds and smooth turf; and i saw how beautiful and grave it was, and how the old stone balustrades and parapets, and wide flights of shallow steps, were seamed by time and weather; and how the trained moss and ivy grew about them, and around the old stone pedestal of the sun-dial; and i heard the fountain falling. then the way went by long lines of dark windows diversified by turreted towers and porches of eccentric shapes, where old stone lions and grotesque monsters bristled outside dens of shadow and snarled at the evening gloom over the escutcheons they held in their grip. thence the path wound underneath a gateway, and through a court-yard where the principal entrance was (i hurried quickly on), and by the stables where none but deep voices seemed to be, whether in the murmuring of the wind through the strong mass of ivy holding to a high red wall, or in the low complaining of the weathercock, or in the barking of the dogs, or in the slow striking of a clock. so, encountering presently a sweet smell of limes, whose rustling i could hear, i turned with the turning of the path to the south front, and there above me were the balustrades of the ghost's walk and one lighted window that might be my mother's. the way was paved here, like the terrace overhead, and my footsteps from being noiseless made an echoing sound upon the flags. stopping to look at nothing, but seeing all i did see as i went, i was passing quickly on, and in a few moments should have passed the lighted window, when my echoing footsteps brought it suddenly into my mind that there was a dreadful truth in the legend of the ghost's walk, that it was i who was to bring calamity upon the stately house and that my warning feet were haunting it even then. seized with an augmented terror of myself which turned me cold, i ran from myself and everything, retraced the way by which i had come, and never paused until i had gained the lodge-gate, and the park lay sullen and black behind me. not before i was alone in my own room for the night and had again been dejected and unhappy there did i begin to know how wrong and thankless this state was. but from my darling who was coming on the morrow, i found a joyful letter, full of such loving anticipation that i must have been of marble if it had not moved me; from my guardian, too, i found another letter, asking me to tell dame durden, if i should see that little woman anywhere, that they had moped most pitiably without her, that the housekeeping was going to rack and ruin, that nobody else could manage the keys, and that everybody in and about the house declared it was not the same house and was becoming rebellious for her return. two such letters together made me think how far beyond my deserts i was beloved and how happy i ought to be. that made me think of all my past life; and that brought me, as it ought to have done before, into a better condition. for i saw very well that i could not have been intended to die, or i should never have lived; not to say should never have been reserved for such a happy life. i saw very well how many things had worked together for my welfare, and that if the sins of the fathers were sometimes visited upon the children, the phrase did not mean what i had in the morning feared it meant. i knew i was as innocent of my birth as a queen of hers and that before my heavenly father i should not be punished for birth nor a queen rewarded for it. i had had experience, in the shock of that very day, that i could, even thus soon, find comforting reconcilements to the change that had fallen on me. i renewed my resolutions and prayed to be strengthened in them, pouring out my heart for myself and for my unhappy mother and feeling that the darkness of the morning was passing away. it was not upon my sleep; and when the next day's light awoke me, it was gone. my dear girl was to arrive at five o'clock in the afternoon. how to help myself through the intermediate time better than by taking a long walk along the road by which she was to come, i did not know; so charley and i and stubbs--stubbs saddled, for we never drove him after the one great occasion--made a long expedition along that road and back. on our return, we held a great review of the house and garden and saw that everything was in its prettiest condition, and had the bird out ready as an important part of the establishment. there were more than two full hours yet to elapse before she could come, and in that interval, which seemed a long one, i must confess i was nervously anxious about my altered looks. i loved my darling so well that i was more concerned for their effect on her than on any one. i was not in this slight distress because i at all repined--i am quite certain i did not, that day--but, i thought, would she be wholly prepared? when she first saw me, might she not be a little shocked and disappointed? might it not prove a little worse than she expected? might she not look for her old esther and not find her? might she not have to grow used to me and to begin all over again? i knew the various expressions of my sweet girl's face so well, and it was such an honest face in its loveliness, that i was sure beforehand she could not hide that first look from me. and i considered whether, if it should signify any one of these meanings, which was so very likely, could i quite answer for myself? well, i thought i could. after last night, i thought i could. but to wait and wait, and expect and expect, and think and think, was such bad preparation that i resolved to go along the road again and meet her. so i said to charley, "charley, i will go by myself and walk along the road until she comes." charley highly approving of anything that pleased me, i went and left her at home. but before i got to the second milestone, i had been in so many palpitations from seeing dust in the distance (though i knew it was not, and could not, be the coach yet) that i resolved to turn back and go home again. and when i had turned, i was in such fear of the coach coming up behind me (though i still knew that it neither would, nor could, do any such thing) that i ran the greater part of the way to avoid being overtaken. then, i considered, when i had got safe back again, this was a nice thing to have done! now i was hot and had made the worst of it instead of the best. at last, when i believed there was at least a quarter of an hour more yet, charley all at once cried out to me as i was trembling in the garden, "here she comes, miss! here she is!" i did not mean to do it, but i ran upstairs into my room and hid myself behind the door. there i stood trembling, even when i heard my darling calling as she came upstairs, "esther, my dear, my love, where are you? little woman, dear dame durden!" she ran in, and was running out again when she saw me. ah, my angel girl! the old dear look, all love, all fondness, all affection. nothing else in it--no, nothing, nothing! oh, how happy i was, down upon the floor, with my sweet beautiful girl down upon the floor too, holding my scarred face to her lovely cheek, bathing it with tears and kisses, rocking me to and fro like a child, calling me by every tender name that she could think of, and pressing me to her faithful heart. chapter xxxvii jarndyce and jarndyce if the secret i had to keep had been mine, i must have confided it to ada before we had been long together. but it was not mine, and i did not feel that i had a right to tell it, even to my guardian, unless some great emergency arose. it was a weight to bear alone; still my present duty appeared to be plain, and blest in the attachment of my dear, i did not want an impulse and encouragement to do it. though often when she was asleep and all was quiet, the remembrance of my mother kept me waking and made the night sorrowful, i did not yield to it at another time; and ada found me what i used to be--except, of course, in that particular of which i have said enough and which i have no intention of mentioning any more just now, if i can help it. the difficulty that i felt in being quite composed that first evening when ada asked me, over our work, if the family were at the house, and when i was obliged to answer yes, i believed so, for lady dedlock had spoken to me in the woods the day before yesterday, was great. greater still when ada asked me what she had said, and when i replied that she had been kind and interested, and when ada, while admitting her beauty and elegance, remarked upon her proud manner and her imperious chilling air. but charley helped me through, unconsciously, by telling us that lady dedlock had only stayed at the house two nights on her way from london to visit at some other great house in the next county and that she had left early on the morning after we had seen her at our view, as we called it. charley verified the adage about little pitchers, i am sure, for she heard of more sayings and doings in a day than would have come to my ears in a month. we were to stay a month at mr. boythorn's. my pet had scarcely been there a bright week, as i recollect the time, when one evening after we had finished helping the gardener in watering his flowers, and just as the candles were lighted, charley, appearing with a very important air behind ada's chair, beckoned me mysteriously out of the room. "oh! if you please, miss," said charley in a whisper, with her eyes at their roundest and largest. "you're wanted at the dedlock arms." "why, charley," said i, "who can possibly want me at the public-house?" "i don't know, miss," returned charley, putting her head forward and folding her hands tight upon the band of her little apron, which she always did in the enjoyment of anything mysterious or confidential, "but it's a gentleman, miss, and his compliments, and will you please to come without saying anything about it." "whose compliments, charley?" "his'n, miss," returned charley, whose grammatical education was advancing, but not very rapidly. "and how do you come to be the messenger, charley?" "i am not the messenger, if you please, miss," returned my little maid. "it was w. grubble, miss." "and who is w. grubble, charley?" "mister grubble, miss," returned charley. "don't you know, miss? the dedlock arms, by w. grubble," which charley delivered as if she were slowly spelling out the sign. "aye? the landlord, charley?" "yes, miss. if you please, miss, his wife is a beautiful woman, but she broke her ankle, and it never joined. and her brother's the sawyer that was put in the cage, miss, and they expect he'll drink himself to death entirely on beer," said charley. not knowing what might be the matter, and being easily apprehensive now, i thought it best to go to this place by myself. i bade charley be quick with my bonnet and veil and my shawl, and having put them on, went away down the little hilly street, where i was as much at home as in mr. boythorn's garden. mr. grubble was standing in his shirt-sleeves at the door of his very clean little tavern waiting for me. he lifted off his hat with both hands when he saw me coming, and carrying it so, as if it were an iron vessel (it looked as heavy), preceded me along the sanded passage to his best parlour, a neat carpeted room with more plants in it than were quite convenient, a coloured print of queen caroline, several shells, a good many tea-trays, two stuffed and dried fish in glass cases, and either a curious egg or a curious pumpkin (but i don't know which, and i doubt if many people did) hanging from his ceiling. i knew mr. grubble very well by sight, from his often standing at his door. a pleasant-looking, stoutish, middle-aged man who never seemed to consider himself cozily dressed for his own fire-side without his hat and top-boots, but who never wore a coat except at church. he snuffed the candle, and backing away a little to see how it looked, backed out of the room--unexpectedly to me, for i was going to ask him by whom he had been sent. the door of the opposite parlour being then opened, i heard some voices, familiar in my ears i thought, which stopped. a quick light step approached the room in which i was, and who should stand before me but richard! "my dear esther!" he said. "my best friend!" and he really was so warm-hearted and earnest that in the first surprise and pleasure of his brotherly greeting i could scarcely find breath to tell him that ada was well. "answering my very thoughts--always the same dear girl!" said richard, leading me to a chair and seating himself beside me. i put my veil up, but not quite. "always the same dear girl!" said richard just as heartily as before. i put up my veil altogether, and laying my hand on richard's sleeve and looking in his face, told him how much i thanked him for his kind welcome and how greatly i rejoiced to see him, the more so because of the determination i had made in my illness, which i now conveyed to him. "my love," said richard, "there is no one with whom i have a greater wish to talk than you, for i want you to understand me." "and i want you, richard," said i, shaking my head, "to understand some one else." "since you refer so immediately to john jarndyce," said richard, "--i suppose you mean him?" "of course i do." "then i may say at once that i am glad of it, because it is on that subject that i am anxious to be understood. by you, mind--you, my dear! i am not accountable to mr. jarndyce or mr. anybody." i was pained to find him taking this tone, and he observed it. "well, well, my dear," said richard, "we won't go into that now. i want to appear quietly in your country-house here, with you under my arm, and give my charming cousin a surprise. i suppose your loyalty to john jarndyce will allow that?" "my dear richard," i returned, "you know you would be heartily welcome at his house--your home, if you will but consider it so; and you are as heartily welcome here!" "spoken like the best of little women!" cried richard gaily. i asked him how he liked his profession. "oh, i like it well enough!" said richard. "it's all right. it does as well as anything else, for a time. i don't know that i shall care about it when i come to be settled, but i can sell out then and--however, never mind all that botheration at present." so young and handsome, and in all respects so perfectly the opposite of miss flite! and yet, in the clouded, eager, seeking look that passed over him, so dreadfully like her! "i am in town on leave just now," said richard. "indeed?" "yes. i have run over to look after my--my chancery interests before the long vacation," said richard, forcing a careless laugh. "we are beginning to spin along with that old suit at last, i promise you." no wonder that i shook my head! "as you say, it's not a pleasant subject." richard spoke with the same shade crossing his face as before. "let it go to the four winds for to-night. puff! gone! who do you suppose is with me?" "was it mr. skimpole's voice i heard?" "that's the man! he does me more good than anybody. what a fascinating child it is!" i asked richard if any one knew of their coming down together. he answered, no, nobody. he had been to call upon the dear old infant--so he called mr. skimpole--and the dear old infant had told him where we were, and he had told the dear old infant he was bent on coming to see us, and the dear old infant had directly wanted to come too; and so he had brought him. "and he is worth--not to say his sordid expenses--but thrice his weight in gold," said richard. "he is such a cheery fellow. no worldliness about him. fresh and green-hearted!" i certainly did not see the proof of mr. skimpole's worldliness in his having his expenses paid by richard, but i made no remark about that. indeed, he came in and turned our conversation. he was charmed to see me, said he had been shedding delicious tears of joy and sympathy at intervals for six weeks on my account, had never been so happy as in hearing of my progress, began to understand the mixture of good and evil in the world now, felt that he appreciated health the more when somebody else was ill, didn't know but what it might be in the scheme of things that a should squint to make b happier in looking straight or that c should carry a wooden leg to make d better satisfied with his flesh and blood in a silk stocking. "my dear miss summerson, here is our friend richard," said mr. skimpole, "full of the brightest visions of the future, which he evokes out of the darkness of chancery. now that's delightful, that's inspiriting, that's full of poetry! in old times the woods and solitudes were made joyous to the shepherd by the imaginary piping and dancing of pan and the nymphs. this present shepherd, our pastoral richard, brightens the dull inns of court by making fortune and her train sport through them to the melodious notes of a judgment from the bench. that's very pleasant, you know! some ill-conditioned growling fellow may say to me, 'what's the use of these legal and equitable abuses? how do you defend them?' i reply, 'my growling friend, i don't defend them, but they are very agreeable to me. there is a shepherd--youth, a friend of mine, who transmutes them into something highly fascinating to my simplicity. i don't say it is for this that they exist--for i am a child among you worldly grumblers, and not called upon to account to you or myself for anything--but it may be so.'" i began seriously to think that richard could scarcely have found a worse friend than this. it made me uneasy that at such a time when he most required some right principle and purpose he should have this captivating looseness and putting-off of everything, this airy dispensing with all principle and purpose, at his elbow. i thought i could understand how such a nature as my guardian's, experienced in the world and forced to contemplate the miserable evasions and contentions of the family misfortune, found an immense relief in mr. skimpole's avowal of his weaknesses and display of guileless candour; but i could not satisfy myself that it was as artless as it seemed or that it did not serve mr. skimpole's idle turn quite as well as any other part, and with less trouble. they both walked back with me, and mr. skimpole leaving us at the gate, i walked softly in with richard and said, "ada, my love, i have brought a gentleman to visit you." it was not difficult to read the blushing, startled face. she loved him dearly, and he knew it, and i knew it. it was a very transparent business, that meeting as cousins only. i almost mistrusted myself as growing quite wicked in my suspicions, but i was not so sure that richard loved her dearly. he admired her very much--any one must have done that--and i dare say would have renewed their youthful engagement with great pride and ardour but that he knew how she would respect her promise to my guardian. still i had a tormenting idea that the influence upon him extended even here, that he was postponing his best truth and earnestness in this as in all things until jarndyce and jarndyce should be off his mind. ah me! what richard would have been without that blight, i never shall know now! he told ada, in his most ingenuous way, that he had not come to make any secret inroad on the terms she had accepted (rather too implicitly and confidingly, he thought) from mr. jarndyce, that he had come openly to see her and to see me and to justify himself for the present terms on which he stood with mr. jarndyce. as the dear old infant would be with us directly, he begged that i would make an appointment for the morning, when he might set himself right through the means of an unreserved conversation with me. i proposed to walk with him in the park at seven o'clock, and this was arranged. mr. skimpole soon afterwards appeared and made us merry for an hour. he particularly requested to see little coavinses (meaning charley) and told her, with a patriarchal air, that he had given her late father all the business in his power and that if one of her little brothers would make haste to get set up in the same profession, he hoped he should still be able to put a good deal of employment in his way. "for i am constantly being taken in these nets," said mr. skimpole, looking beamingly at us over a glass of wine-and-water, "and am constantly being bailed out--like a boat. or paid off--like a ship's company. somebody always does it for me. i can't do it, you know, for i never have any money. but somebody does it. i get out by somebody's means; i am not like the starling; i get out. if you were to ask me who somebody is, upon my word i couldn't tell you. let us drink to somebody. god bless him!" richard was a little late in the morning, but i had not to wait for him long, and we turned into the park. the air was bright and dewy and the sky without a cloud. the birds sang delightfully; the sparkles in the fern, the grass, and trees, were exquisite to see; the richness of the woods seemed to have increased twenty-fold since yesterday, as if, in the still night when they had looked so massively hushed in sleep, nature, through all the minute details of every wonderful leaf, had been more wakeful than usual for the glory of that day. "this is a lovely place," said richard, looking round. "none of the jar and discord of law-suits here!" but there was other trouble. "i tell you what, my dear girl," said richard, "when i get affairs in general settled, i shall come down here, i think, and rest." "would it not be better to rest now?" i asked. "oh, as to resting now," said richard, "or as to doing anything very definite now, that's not easy. in short, it can't be done; i can't do it at least." "why not?" said i. "you know why not, esther. if you were living in an unfinished house, liable to have the roof put on or taken off--to be from top to bottom pulled down or built up--to-morrow, next day, next week, next month, next year--you would find it hard to rest or settle. so do i. now? there's no now for us suitors." i could almost have believed in the attraction on which my poor little wandering friend had expatiated when i saw again the darkened look of last night. terrible to think it had in it also a shade of that unfortunate man who had died. "my dear richard," said i, "this is a bad beginning of our conversation." "i knew you would tell me so, dame durden." "and not i alone, dear richard. it was not i who cautioned you once never to found a hope or expectation on the family curse." "there you come back to john jarndyce!" said richard impatiently. "well! we must approach him sooner or later, for he is the staple of what i have to say, and it's as well at once. my dear esther, how can you be so blind? don't you see that he is an interested party and that it may be very well for him to wish me to know nothing of the suit, and care nothing about it, but that it may not be quite so well for me?" "oh, richard," i remonstrated, "is it possible that you can ever have seen him and heard him, that you can ever have lived under his roof and known him, and can yet breathe, even to me in this solitary place where there is no one to hear us, such unworthy suspicions?" he reddened deeply, as if his natural generosity felt a pang of reproach. he was silent for a little while before he replied in a subdued voice, "esther, i am sure you know that i am not a mean fellow and that i have some sense of suspicion and distrust being poor qualities in one of my years." "i know it very well," said i. "i am not more sure of anything." "that's a dear girl," retorted richard, "and like you, because it gives me comfort. i had need to get some scrap of comfort out of all this business, for it's a bad one at the best, as i have no occasion to tell you." "i know perfectly," said i. "i know as well, richard--what shall i say? as well as you do--that such misconstructions are foreign to your nature. and i know, as well as you know, what so changes it." "come, sister, come," said richard a little more gaily, "you will be fair with me at all events. if i have the misfortune to be under that influence, so has he. if it has a little twisted me, it may have a little twisted him too. i don't say that he is not an honourable man, out of all this complication and uncertainty; i am sure he is. but it taints everybody. you know it taints everybody. you have heard him say so fifty times. then why should he escape?" "because," said i, "his is an uncommon character, and he has resolutely kept himself outside the circle, richard." "oh, because and because!" replied richard in his vivacious way. "i am not sure, my dear girl, but that it may be wise and specious to preserve that outward indifference. it may cause other parties interested to become lax about their interests; and people may die off, and points may drag themselves out of memory, and many things may smoothly happen that are convenient enough." i was so touched with pity for richard that i could not reproach him any more, even by a look. i remembered my guardian's gentleness towards his errors and with what perfect freedom from resentment he had spoken of them. "esther," richard resumed, "you are not to suppose that i have come here to make underhanded charges against john jarndyce. i have only come to justify myself. what i say is, it was all very well and we got on very well while i was a boy, utterly regardless of this same suit; but as soon as i began to take an interest in it and to look into it, then it was quite another thing. then john jarndyce discovers that ada and i must break off and that if i don't amend that very objectionable course, i am not fit for her. now, esther, i don't mean to amend that very objectionable course: i will not hold john jarndyce's favour on those unfair terms of compromise, which he has no right to dictate. whether it pleases him or displeases him, i must maintain my rights and ada's. i have been thinking about it a good deal, and this is the conclusion i have come to." poor dear richard! he had indeed been thinking about it a good deal. his face, his voice, his manner, all showed that too plainly. "so i tell him honourably (you are to know i have written to him about all this) that we are at issue and that we had better be at issue openly than covertly. i thank him for his goodwill and his protection, and he goes his road, and i go mine. the fact is, our roads are not the same. under one of the wills in dispute, i should take much more than he. i don't mean to say that it is the one to be established, but there it is, and it has its chance." "i have not to learn from you, my dear richard," said i, "of your letter. i had heard of it already without an offended or angry word." "indeed?" replied richard, softening. "i am glad i said he was an honourable man, out of all this wretched affair. but i always say that and have never doubted it. now, my dear esther, i know these views of mine appear extremely harsh to you, and will to ada when you tell her what has passed between us. but if you had gone into the case as i have, if you had only applied yourself to the papers as i did when i was at kenge's, if you only knew what an accumulation of charges and counter-charges, and suspicions and cross-suspicions, they involve, you would think me moderate in comparison." "perhaps so," said i. "but do you think that, among those many papers, there is much truth and justice, richard?" "there is truth and justice somewhere in the case, esther--" "or was once, long ago," said i. "is--is--must be somewhere," pursued richard impetuously, "and must be brought out. to allow ada to be made a bribe and hush-money of is not the way to bring it out. you say the suit is changing me; john jarndyce says it changes, has changed, and will change everybody who has any share in it. then the greater right i have on my side when i resolve to do all i can to bring it to an end." "all you can, richard! do you think that in these many years no others have done all they could? has the difficulty grown easier because of so many failures?" "it can't last for ever," returned richard with a fierceness kindling in him which again presented to me that last sad reminder. "i am young and earnest, and energy and determination have done wonders many a time. others have only half thrown themselves into it. i devote myself to it. i make it the object of my life." "oh, richard, my dear, so much the worse, so much the worse!" "no, no, no, don't you be afraid for me," he returned affectionately. "you're a dear, good, wise, quiet, blessed girl; but you have your prepossessions. so i come round to john jarndyce. i tell you, my good esther, when he and i were on those terms which he found so convenient, we were not on natural terms." "are division and animosity your natural terms, richard?" "no, i don't say that. i mean that all this business puts us on unnatural terms, with which natural relations are incompatible. see another reason for urging it on! i may find out when it's over that i have been mistaken in john jarndyce. my head may be clearer when i am free of it, and i may then agree with what you say to-day. very well. then i shall acknowledge it and make him reparation." everything postponed to that imaginary time! everything held in confusion and indecision until then! "now, my best of confidantes," said richard, "i want my cousin ada to understand that i am not captious, fickle, and wilful about john jarndyce, but that i have this purpose and reason at my back. i wish to represent myself to her through you, because she has a great esteem and respect for her cousin john; and i know you will soften the course i take, even though you disapprove of it; and--and in short," said richard, who had been hesitating through these words, "i--i don't like to represent myself in this litigious, contentious, doubting character to a confiding girl like ada." i told him that he was more like himself in those latter words than in anything he had said yet. "why," acknowledged richard, "that may be true enough, my love. i rather feel it to be so. but i shall be able to give myself fair-play by and by. i shall come all right again, then, don't you be afraid." i asked him if this were all he wished me to tell ada. "not quite," said richard. "i am bound not to withhold from her that john jarndyce answered my letter in his usual manner, addressing me as 'my dear rick,' trying to argue me out of my opinions, and telling me that they should make no difference in him. (all very well of course, but not altering the case.) i also want ada to know that if i see her seldom just now, i am looking after her interests as well as my own--we two being in the same boat exactly--and that i hope she will not suppose from any flying rumours she may hear that i am at all light-headed or imprudent; on the contrary, i am always looking forward to the termination of the suit, and always planning in that direction. being of age now and having taken the step i have taken, i consider myself free from any accountability to john jarndyce; but ada being still a ward of the court, i don't yet ask her to renew our engagement. when she is free to act for herself, i shall be myself once more and we shall both be in very different worldly circumstances, i believe. if you tell her all this with the advantage of your considerate way, you will do me a very great and a very kind service, my dear esther; and i shall knock jarndyce and jarndyce on the head with greater vigour. of course i ask for no secrecy at bleak house." "richard," said i, "you place great confidence in me, but i fear you will not take advice from me?" "it's impossible that i can on this subject, my dear girl. on any other, readily." as if there were any other in his life! as if his whole career and character were not being dyed one colour! "but i may ask you a question, richard?" "i think so," said he, laughing. "i don't know who may not, if you may not." "you say, yourself, you are not leading a very settled life." "how can i, my dear esther, with nothing settled!" "are you in debt again?" "why, of course i am," said richard, astonished at my simplicity. "is it of course?" "my dear child, certainly. i can't throw myself into an object so completely without expense. you forget, or perhaps you don't know, that under either of the wills ada and i take something. it's only a question between the larger sum and the smaller. i shall be within the mark any way. bless your heart, my excellent girl," said richard, quite amused with me, "i shall be all right! i shall pull through, my dear!" i felt so deeply sensible of the danger in which he stood that i tried, in ada's name, in my guardian's, in my own, by every fervent means that i could think of, to warn him of it and to show him some of his mistakes. he received everything i said with patience and gentleness, but it all rebounded from him without taking the least effect. i could not wonder at this after the reception his preoccupied mind had given to my guardian's letter, but i determined to try ada's influence yet. so when our walk brought us round to the village again, and i went home to breakfast, i prepared ada for the account i was going to give her and told her exactly what reason we had to dread that richard was losing himself and scattering his whole life to the winds. it made her very unhappy, of course, though she had a far, far greater reliance on his correcting his errors than i could have--which was so natural and loving in my dear!--and she presently wrote him this little letter: my dearest cousin, esther has told me all you said to her this morning. i write this to repeat most earnestly for myself all that she said to you and to let you know how sure i am that you will sooner or later find our cousin john a pattern of truth, sincerity, and goodness, when you will deeply, deeply grieve to have done him (without intending it) so much wrong. i do not quite know how to write what i wish to say next, but i trust you will understand it as i mean it. i have some fears, my dearest cousin, that it may be partly for my sake you are now laying up so much unhappiness for yourself--and if for yourself, for me. in case this should be so, or in case you should entertain much thought of me in what you are doing, i most earnestly entreat and beg you to desist. you can do nothing for my sake that will make me half so happy as for ever turning your back upon the shadow in which we both were born. do not be angry with me for saying this. pray, pray, dear richard, for my sake, and for your own, and in a natural repugnance for that source of trouble which had its share in making us both orphans when we were very young, pray, pray, let it go for ever. we have reason to know by this time that there is no good in it and no hope, that there is nothing to be got from it but sorrow. my dearest cousin, it is needless for me to say that you are quite free and that it is very likely you may find some one whom you will love much better than your first fancy. i am quite sure, if you will let me say so, that the object of your choice would greatly prefer to follow your fortunes far and wide, however moderate or poor, and see you happy, doing your duty and pursuing your chosen way, than to have the hope of being, or even to be, very rich with you (if such a thing were possible) at the cost of dragging years of procrastination and anxiety and of your indifference to other aims. you may wonder at my saying this so confidently with so little knowledge or experience, but i know it for a certainty from my own heart. ever, my dearest cousin, your most affectionate ada this note brought richard to us very soon, but it made little change in him if any. we would fairly try, he said, who was right and who was wrong--he would show us--we should see! he was animated and glowing, as if ada's tenderness had gratified him; but i could only hope, with a sigh, that the letter might have some stronger effect upon his mind on re-perusal than it assuredly had then. as they were to remain with us that day and had taken their places to return by the coach next morning, i sought an opportunity of speaking to mr. skimpole. our out-of-door life easily threw one in my way, and i delicately said that there was a responsibility in encouraging richard. "responsibility, my dear miss summerson?" he repeated, catching at the word with the pleasantest smile. "i am the last man in the world for such a thing. i never was responsible in my life--i can't be." "i am afraid everybody is obliged to be," said i timidly enough, he being so much older and more clever than i. "no, really?" said mr. skimpole, receiving this new light with a most agreeable jocularity of surprise. "but every man's not obliged to be solvent? i am not. i never was. see, my dear miss summerson," he took a handful of loose silver and halfpence from his pocket, "there's so much money. i have not an idea how much. i have not the power of counting. call it four and ninepence--call it four pound nine. they tell me i owe more than that. i dare say i do. i dare say i owe as much as good-natured people will let me owe. if they don't stop, why should i? there you have harold skimpole in little. if that's responsibility, i am responsible." the perfect ease of manner with which he put the money up again and looked at me with a smile on his refined face, as if he had been mentioning a curious little fact about somebody else, almost made me feel as if he really had nothing to do with it. "now, when you mention responsibility," he resumed, "i am disposed to say that i never had the happiness of knowing any one whom i should consider so refreshingly responsible as yourself. you appear to me to be the very touchstone of responsibility. when i see you, my dear miss summerson, intent upon the perfect working of the whole little orderly system of which you are the centre, i feel inclined to say to myself--in fact i do say to myself very often--that's responsibility!" it was difficult, after this, to explain what i meant; but i persisted so far as to say that we all hoped he would check and not confirm richard in the sanguine views he entertained just then. "most willingly," he retorted, "if i could. but, my dear miss summerson, i have no art, no disguise. if he takes me by the hand and leads me through westminster hall in an airy procession after fortune, i must go. if he says, 'skimpole, join the dance!' i must join it. common sense wouldn't, i know, but i have no common sense." it was very unfortunate for richard, i said. "do you think so!" returned mr. skimpole. "don't say that, don't say that. let us suppose him keeping company with common sense--an excellent man--a good deal wrinkled--dreadfully practical--change for a ten-pound note in every pocket--ruled account-book in his hand--say, upon the whole, resembling a tax-gatherer. our dear richard, sanguine, ardent, overleaping obstacles, bursting with poetry like a young bud, says to this highly respectable companion, 'i see a golden prospect before me; it's very bright, it's very beautiful, it's very joyous; here i go, bounding over the landscape to come at it!' the respectable companion instantly knocks him down with the ruled account-book; tells him in a literal, prosaic way that he sees no such thing; shows him it's nothing but fees, fraud, horsehair wigs, and black gowns. now you know that's a painful change--sensible in the last degree, i have no doubt, but disagreeable. i can't do it. i haven't got the ruled account-book, i have none of the tax-gathering elements in my composition, i am not at all respectable, and i don't want to be. odd perhaps, but so it is!" it was idle to say more, so i proposed that we should join ada and richard, who were a little in advance, and i gave up mr. skimpole in despair. he had been over the hall in the course of the morning and whimsically described the family pictures as we walked. there were such portentous shepherdesses among the ladies dedlock dead and gone, he told us, that peaceful crooks became weapons of assault in their hands. they tended their flocks severely in buckram and powder and put their sticking-plaster patches on to terrify commoners as the chiefs of some other tribes put on their war-paint. there was a sir somebody dedlock, with a battle, a sprung-mine, volumes of smoke, flashes of lightning, a town on fire, and a stormed fort, all in full action between his horse's two hind legs, showing, he supposed, how little a dedlock made of such trifles. the whole race he represented as having evidently been, in life, what he called "stuffed people"--a large collection, glassy eyed, set up in the most approved manner on their various twigs and perches, very correct, perfectly free from animation, and always in glass cases. i was not so easy now during any reference to the name but that i felt it a relief when richard, with an exclamation of surprise, hurried away to meet a stranger whom he first descried coming slowly towards us. "dear me!" said mr. skimpole. "vholes!" we asked if that were a friend of richard's. "friend and legal adviser," said mr. skimpole. "now, my dear miss summerson, if you want common sense, responsibility, and respectability, all united--if you want an exemplary man--vholes is the man." we had not known, we said, that richard was assisted by any gentleman of that name. "when he emerged from legal infancy," returned mr. skimpole, "he parted from our conversational friend kenge and took up, i believe, with vholes. indeed, i know he did, because i introduced him to vholes." "had you known him long?" asked ada. "vholes? my dear miss clare, i had had that kind of acquaintance with him which i have had with several gentlemen of his profession. he had done something or other in a very agreeable, civil manner--taken proceedings, i think, is the expression--which ended in the proceeding of his taking me. somebody was so good as to step in and pay the money--something and fourpence was the amount; i forget the pounds and shillings, but i know it ended with fourpence, because it struck me at the time as being so odd that i could owe anybody fourpence--and after that i brought them together. vholes asked me for the introduction, and i gave it. now i come to think of it," he looked inquiringly at us with his frankest smile as he made the discovery, "vholes bribed me, perhaps? he gave me something and called it commission. was it a five-pound note? do you know, i think it must have been a five-pound note!" his further consideration of the point was prevented by richard's coming back to us in an excited state and hastily representing mr. vholes--a sallow man with pinched lips that looked as if they were cold, a red eruption here and there upon his face, tall and thin, about fifty years of age, high-shouldered, and stooping. dressed in black, black-gloved, and buttoned to the chin, there was nothing so remarkable in him as a lifeless manner and a slow, fixed way he had of looking at richard. "i hope i don't disturb you, ladies," said mr. vholes, and now i observed that he was further remarkable for an inward manner of speaking. "i arranged with mr. carstone that he should always know when his cause was in the chancellor's paper, and being informed by one of my clerks last night after post time that it stood, rather unexpectedly, in the paper for to-morrow, i put myself into the coach early this morning and came down to confer with him." "yes," said richard, flushed, and looking triumphantly at ada and me, "we don't do these things in the old slow way now. we spin along now! mr. vholes, we must hire something to get over to the post town in, and catch the mail to-night, and go up by it!" "anything you please, sir," returned mr. vholes. "i am quite at your service." "let me see," said richard, looking at his watch. "if i run down to the dedlock, and get my portmanteau fastened up, and order a gig, or a chaise, or whatever's to be got, we shall have an hour then before starting. i'll come back to tea. cousin ada, will you and esther take care of mr. vholes when i am gone?" he was away directly, in his heat and hurry, and was soon lost in the dusk of evening. we who were left walked on towards the house. "is mr. carstone's presence necessary to-morrow, sir?" said i. "can it do any good?" "no, miss," mr. vholes replied. "i am not aware that it can." both ada and i expressed our regret that he should go, then, only to be disappointed. "mr. carstone has laid down the principle of watching his own interests," said mr. vholes, "and when a client lays down his own principle, and it is not immoral, it devolves upon me to carry it out. i wish in business to be exact and open. i am a widower with three daughters--emma, jane, and caroline--and my desire is so to discharge the duties of life as to leave them a good name. this appears to be a pleasant spot, miss." the remark being made to me in consequence of my being next him as we walked, i assented and enumerated its chief attractions. "indeed?" said mr. vholes. "i have the privilege of supporting an aged father in the vale of taunton--his native place--and i admire that country very much. i had no idea there was anything so attractive here." to keep up the conversation, i asked mr. vholes if he would like to live altogether in the country. "there, miss," said he, "you touch me on a tender string. my health is not good (my digestion being much impaired), and if i had only myself to consider, i should take refuge in rural habits, especially as the cares of business have prevented me from ever coming much into contact with general society, and particularly with ladies' society, which i have most wished to mix in. but with my three daughters, emma, jane, and caroline--and my aged father--i cannot afford to be selfish. it is true i have no longer to maintain a dear grandmother who died in her hundred and second year, but enough remains to render it indispensable that the mill should be always going." it required some attention to hear him on account of his inward speaking and his lifeless manner. "you will excuse my having mentioned my daughters," he said. "they are my weak point. i wish to leave the poor girls some little independence, as well as a good name." we now arrived at mr. boythorn's house, where the tea-table, all prepared, was awaiting us. richard came in restless and hurried shortly afterwards, and leaning over mr. vholes's chair, whispered something in his ear. mr. vholes replied aloud--or as nearly aloud i suppose as he had ever replied to anything--"you will drive me, will you, sir? it is all the same to me, sir. anything you please. i am quite at your service." we understood from what followed that mr. skimpole was to be left until the morning to occupy the two places which had been already paid for. as ada and i were both in low spirits concerning richard and very sorry so to part with him, we made it as plain as we politely could that we should leave mr. skimpole to the dedlock arms and retire when the night-travellers were gone. richard's high spirits carrying everything before them, we all went out together to the top of the hill above the village, where he had ordered a gig to wait and where we found a man with a lantern standing at the head of the gaunt pale horse that had been harnessed to it. i never shall forget those two seated side by side in the lantern's light, richard all flush and fire and laughter, with the reins in his hand; mr. vholes quite still, black-gloved, and buttoned up, looking at him as if he were looking at his prey and charming it. i have before me the whole picture of the warm dark night, the summer lightning, the dusty track of road closed in by hedgerows and high trees, the gaunt pale horse with his ears pricked up, and the driving away at speed to jarndyce and jarndyce. my dear girl told me that night how richard's being thereafter prosperous or ruined, befriended or deserted, could only make this difference to her, that the more he needed love from one unchanging heart, the more love that unchanging heart would have to give him; how he thought of her through his present errors, and she would think of him at all times--never of herself if she could devote herself to him, never of her own delights if she could minister to his. and she kept her word? i look along the road before me, where the distance already shortens and the journey's end is growing visible; and true and good above the dead sea of the chancery suit and all the ashy fruit it cast ashore, i think i see my darling. chapter xxxviii a struggle when our time came for returning to bleak house again, we were punctual to the day and were received with an overpowering welcome. i was perfectly restored to health and strength, and finding my housekeeping keys laid ready for me in my room, rang myself in as if i had been a new year, with a merry little peal. "once more, duty, duty, esther," said i; "and if you are not overjoyed to do it, more than cheerfully and contentedly, through anything and everything, you ought to be. that's all i have to say to you, my dear!" the first few mornings were mornings of so much bustle and business, devoted to such settlements of accounts, such repeated journeys to and fro between the growlery and all other parts of the house, so many rearrangements of drawers and presses, and such a general new beginning altogether, that i had not a moment's leisure. but when these arrangements were completed and everything was in order, i paid a visit of a few hours to london, which something in the letter i had destroyed at chesney wold had induced me to decide upon in my own mind. i made caddy jellyby--her maiden name was so natural to me that i always called her by it--the pretext for this visit and wrote her a note previously asking the favour of her company on a little business expedition. leaving home very early in the morning, i got to london by stage-coach in such good time that i got to newman street with the day before me. caddy, who had not seen me since her wedding-day, was so glad and so affectionate that i was half inclined to fear i should make her husband jealous. but he was, in his way, just as bad--i mean as good; and in short it was the old story, and nobody would leave me any possibility of doing anything meritorious. the elder mr. turveydrop was in bed, i found, and caddy was milling his chocolate, which a melancholy little boy who was an apprentice--it seemed such a curious thing to be apprenticed to the trade of dancing--was waiting to carry upstairs. her father-in-law was extremely kind and considerate, caddy told me, and they lived most happily together. (when she spoke of their living together, she meant that the old gentleman had all the good things and all the good lodging, while she and her husband had what they could get, and were poked into two corner rooms over the mews.) "and how is your mama, caddy?" said i. "why, i hear of her, esther," replied caddy, "through pa, but i see very little of her. we are good friends, i am glad to say, but ma thinks there is something absurd in my having married a dancing-master, and she is rather afraid of its extending to her." it struck me that if mrs. jellyby had discharged her own natural duties and obligations before she swept the horizon with a telescope in search of others, she would have taken the best precautions against becoming absurd, but i need scarcely observe that i kept this to myself. "and your papa, caddy?" "he comes here every evening," returned caddy, "and is so fond of sitting in the corner there that it's a treat to see him." looking at the corner, i plainly perceived the mark of mr. jellyby's head against the wall. it was consolatory to know that he had found such a resting-place for it. "and you, caddy," said i, "you are always busy, i'll be bound?" "well, my dear," returned caddy, "i am indeed, for to tell you a grand secret, i am qualifying myself to give lessons. prince's health is not strong, and i want to be able to assist him. what with schools, and classes here, and private pupils, and the apprentices, he really has too much to do, poor fellow!" the notion of the apprentices was still so odd to me that i asked caddy if there were many of them. "four," said caddy. "one in-door, and three out. they are very good children; only when they get together they will play--children-like--instead of attending to their work. so the little boy you saw just now waltzes by himself in the empty kitchen, and we distribute the others over the house as well as we can." "that is only for their steps, of course?" said i. "only for their steps," said caddy. "in that way they practise, so many hours at a time, whatever steps they happen to be upon. they dance in the academy, and at this time of year we do figures at five every morning." "why, what a laborious life!" i exclaimed. "i assure you, my dear," returned caddy, smiling, "when the out-door apprentices ring us up in the morning (the bell rings into our room, not to disturb old mr. turveydrop), and when i put up the window and see them standing on the door-step with their little pumps under their arms, i am actually reminded of the sweeps." all this presented the art to me in a singular light, to be sure. caddy enjoyed the effect of her communication and cheerfully recounted the particulars of her own studies. "you see, my dear, to save expense i ought to know something of the piano, and i ought to know something of the kit too, and consequently i have to practise those two instruments as well as the details of our profession. if ma had been like anybody else, i might have had some little musical knowledge to begin upon. however, i hadn't any; and that part of the work is, at first, a little discouraging, i must allow. but i have a very good ear, and i am used to drudgery--i have to thank ma for that, at all events--and where there's a will there's a way, you know, esther, the world over." saying these words, caddy laughingly sat down at a little jingling square piano and really rattled off a quadrille with great spirit. then she good-humouredly and blushingly got up again, and while she still laughed herself, said, "don't laugh at me, please; that's a dear girl!" i would sooner have cried, but i did neither. i encouraged her and praised her with all my heart. for i conscientiously believed, dancing-master's wife though she was, and dancing-mistress though in her limited ambition she aspired to be, she had struck out a natural, wholesome, loving course of industry and perseverance that was quite as good as a mission. "my dear," said caddy, delighted, "you can't think how you cheer me. i shall owe you, you don't know how much. what changes, esther, even in my small world! you recollect that first night, when i was so unpolite and inky? who would have thought, then, of my ever teaching people to dance, of all other possibilities and impossibilities!" her husband, who had left us while we had this chat, now coming back, preparatory to exercising the apprentices in the ball-room, caddy informed me she was quite at my disposal. but it was not my time yet, i was glad to tell her, for i should have been vexed to take her away then. therefore we three adjourned to the apprentices together, and i made one in the dance. the apprentices were the queerest little people. besides the melancholy boy, who, i hoped, had not been made so by waltzing alone in the empty kitchen, there were two other boys and one dirty little limp girl in a gauzy dress. such a precocious little girl, with such a dowdy bonnet on (that, too, of a gauzy texture), who brought her sandalled shoes in an old threadbare velvet reticule. such mean little boys, when they were not dancing, with string, and marbles, and cramp-bones in their pockets, and the most untidy legs and feet--and heels particularly. i asked caddy what had made their parents choose this profession for them. caddy said she didn't know; perhaps they were designed for teachers, perhaps for the stage. they were all people in humble circumstances, and the melancholy boy's mother kept a ginger-beer shop. we danced for an hour with great gravity, the melancholy child doing wonders with his lower extremities, in which there appeared to be some sense of enjoyment though it never rose above his waist. caddy, while she was observant of her husband and was evidently founded upon him, had acquired a grace and self-possession of her own, which, united to her pretty face and figure, was uncommonly agreeable. she already relieved him of much of the instruction of these young people, and he seldom interfered except to walk his part in the figure if he had anything to do in it. he always played the tune. the affectation of the gauzy child, and her condescension to the boys, was a sight. and thus we danced an hour by the clock. when the practice was concluded, caddy's husband made himself ready to go out of town to a school, and caddy ran away to get ready to go out with me. i sat in the ball-room in the interval, contemplating the apprentices. the two out-door boys went upon the staircase to put on their half-boots and pull the in-door boy's hair, as i judged from the nature of his objections. returning with their jackets buttoned and their pumps stuck in them, they then produced packets of cold bread and meat and bivouacked under a painted lyre on the wall. the little gauzy child, having whisked her sandals into the reticule and put on a trodden-down pair of shoes, shook her head into the dowdy bonnet at one shake, and answering my inquiry whether she liked dancing by replying, "not with boys," tied it across her chin, and went home contemptuous. "old mr. turveydrop is so sorry," said caddy, "that he has not finished dressing yet and cannot have the pleasure of seeing you before you go. you are such a favourite of his, esther." i expressed myself much obliged to him, but did not think it necessary to add that i readily dispensed with this attention. "it takes him a long time to dress," said caddy, "because he is very much looked up to in such things, you know, and has a reputation to support. you can't think how kind he is to pa. he talks to pa of an evening about the prince regent, and i never saw pa so interested." there was something in the picture of mr. turveydrop bestowing his deportment on mr. jellyby that quite took my fancy. i asked caddy if he brought her papa out much. "no," said caddy, "i don't know that he does that, but he talks to pa, and pa greatly admires him, and listens, and likes it. of course i am aware that pa has hardly any claims to deportment, but they get on together delightfully. you can't think what good companions they make. i never saw pa take snuff before in my life, but he takes one pinch out of mr. turveydrop's box regularly and keeps putting it to his nose and taking it away again all the evening." that old mr. turveydrop should ever, in the chances and changes of life, have come to the rescue of mr. jellyby from borrioboola-gha appeared to me to be one of the pleasantest of oddities. "as to peepy," said caddy with a little hesitation, "whom i was most afraid of--next to having any family of my own, esther--as an inconvenience to mr. turveydrop, the kindness of the old gentleman to that child is beyond everything. he asks to see him, my dear! he lets him take the newspaper up to him in bed; he gives him the crusts of his toast to eat; he sends him on little errands about the house; he tells him to come to me for sixpences. in short," said caddy cheerily, "and not to prose, i am a very fortunate girl and ought to be very grateful. where are we going, esther?" "to the old street road," said i, "where i have a few words to say to the solicitor's clerk who was sent to meet me at the coach-office on the very day when i came to london and first saw you, my dear. now i think of it, the gentleman who brought us to your house." "then, indeed, i seem to be naturally the person to go with you," returned caddy. to the old street road we went and there inquired at mrs. guppy's residence for mrs. guppy. mrs. guppy, occupying the parlours and having indeed been visibly in danger of cracking herself like a nut in the front-parlour door by peeping out before she was asked for, immediately presented herself and requested us to walk in. she was an old lady in a large cap, with rather a red nose and rather an unsteady eye, but smiling all over. her close little sitting-room was prepared for a visit, and there was a portrait of her son in it which, i had almost written here, was more like than life: it insisted upon him with such obstinacy, and was so determined not to let him off. not only was the portrait there, but we found the original there too. he was dressed in a great many colours and was discovered at a table reading law-papers with his forefinger to his forehead. "miss summerson," said mr. guppy, rising, "this is indeed an oasis. mother, will you be so good as to put a chair for the other lady and get out of the gangway." mrs. guppy, whose incessant smiling gave her quite a waggish appearance, did as her son requested and then sat down in a corner, holding her pocket handkerchief to her chest, like a fomentation, with both hands. i presented caddy, and mr. guppy said that any friend of mine was more than welcome. i then proceeded to the object of my visit. "i took the liberty of sending you a note, sir," said i. mr. guppy acknowledged the receipt by taking it out of his breast-pocket, putting it to his lips, and returning it to his pocket with a bow. mr. guppy's mother was so diverted that she rolled her head as she smiled and made a silent appeal to caddy with her elbow. "could i speak to you alone for a moment?" said i. anything like the jocoseness of mr. guppy's mother just now, i think i never saw. she made no sound of laughter, but she rolled her head, and shook it, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, and appealed to caddy with her elbow, and her hand, and her shoulder, and was so unspeakably entertained altogether that it was with some difficulty she could marshal caddy through the little folding-door into her bedroom adjoining. "miss summerson," said mr. guppy, "you will excuse the waywardness of a parent ever mindful of a son's appiness. my mother, though highly exasperating to the feelings, is actuated by maternal dictates." i could hardly have believed that anybody could in a moment have turned so red or changed so much as mr. guppy did when i now put up my veil. "i asked the favour of seeing you for a few moments here," said i, "in preference to calling at mr. kenge's because, remembering what you said on an occasion when you spoke to me in confidence, i feared i might otherwise cause you some embarrassment, mr. guppy." i caused him embarrassment enough as it was, i am sure. i never saw such faltering, such confusion, such amazement and apprehension. "miss summerson," stammered mr. guppy, "i--i--beg your pardon, but in our profession--we--we--find it necessary to be explicit. you have referred to an occasion, miss, when i--when i did myself the honour of making a declaration which--" something seemed to rise in his throat that he could not possibly swallow. he put his hand there, coughed, made faces, tried again to swallow it, coughed again, made faces again, looked all round the room, and fluttered his papers. "a kind of giddy sensation has come upon me, miss," he explained, "which rather knocks me over. i--er--a little subject to this sort of thing--er--by george!" i gave him a little time to recover. he consumed it in putting his hand to his forehead and taking it away again, and in backing his chair into the corner behind him. "my intention was to remark, miss," said mr. guppy, "dear me--something bronchial, i think--hem!--to remark that you was so good on that occasion as to repel and repudiate that declaration. you--you wouldn't perhaps object to admit that? though no witnesses are present, it might be a satisfaction to--to your mind--if you was to put in that admission." "there can be no doubt," said i, "that i declined your proposal without any reservation or qualification whatever, mr. guppy." "thank you, miss," he returned, measuring the table with his troubled hands. "so far that's satisfactory, and it does you credit. er--this is certainly bronchial!--must be in the tubes--er--you wouldn't perhaps be offended if i was to mention--not that it's necessary, for your own good sense or any person's sense must show 'em that--if i was to mention that such declaration on my part was final, and there terminated?" "i quite understand that," said i. "perhaps--er--it may not be worth the form, but it might be a satisfaction to your mind--perhaps you wouldn't object to admit that, miss?" said mr. guppy. "i admit it most fully and freely," said i. "thank you," returned mr. guppy. "very honourable, i am sure. i regret that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over which i have no control, will put it out of my power ever to fall back upon that offer or to renew it in any shape or form whatever, but it will ever be a retrospect entwined--er--with friendship's bowers." mr. guppy's bronchitis came to his relief and stopped his measurement of the table. "i may now perhaps mention what i wished to say to you?" i began. "i shall be honoured, i am sure," said mr. guppy. "i am so persuaded that your own good sense and right feeling, miss, will--will keep you as square as possible--that i can have nothing but pleasure, i am sure, in hearing any observations you may wish to offer." "you were so good as to imply, on that occasion--" "excuse me, miss," said mr. guppy, "but we had better not travel out of the record into implication. i cannot admit that i implied anything." "you said on that occasion," i recommenced, "that you might possibly have the means of advancing my interests and promoting my fortunes by making discoveries of which i should be the subject. i presume that you founded that belief upon your general knowledge of my being an orphan girl, indebted for everything to the benevolence of mr. jarndyce. now, the beginning and the end of what i have come to beg of you is, mr. guppy, that you will have the kindness to relinquish all idea of so serving me. i have thought of this sometimes, and i have thought of it most lately--since i have been ill. at length i have decided, in case you should at any time recall that purpose and act upon it in any way, to come to you and assure you that you are altogether mistaken. you could make no discovery in reference to me that would do me the least service or give me the least pleasure. i am acquainted with my personal history, and i have it in my power to assure you that you never can advance my welfare by such means. you may, perhaps, have abandoned this project a long time. if so, excuse my giving you unnecessary trouble. if not, i entreat you, on the assurance i have given you, henceforth to lay it aside. i beg you to do this, for my peace." "i am bound to confess," said mr. guppy, "that you express yourself, miss, with that good sense and right feeling for which i gave you credit. nothing can be more satisfactory than such right feeling, and if i mistook any intentions on your part just now, i am prepared to tender a full apology. i should wish to be understood, miss, as hereby offering that apology--limiting it, as your own good sense and right feeling will point out the necessity of, to the present proceedings." i must say for mr. guppy that the snuffling manner he had had upon him improved very much. he seemed truly glad to be able to do something i asked, and he looked ashamed. "if you will allow me to finish what i have to say at once so that i may have no occasion to resume," i went on, seeing him about to speak, "you will do me a kindness, sir. i come to you as privately as possible because you announced this impression of yours to me in a confidence which i have really wished to respect--and which i always have respected, as you remember. i have mentioned my illness. there really is no reason why i should hesitate to say that i know very well that any little delicacy i might have had in making a request to you is quite removed. therefore i make the entreaty i have now preferred, and i hope you will have sufficient consideration for me to accede to it." i must do mr. guppy the further justice of saying that he had looked more and more ashamed and that he looked most ashamed and very earnest when he now replied with a burning face, "upon my word and honour, upon my life, upon my soul, miss summerson, as i am a living man, i'll act according to your wish! i'll never go another step in opposition to it. i'll take my oath to it if it will be any satisfaction to you. in what i promise at this present time touching the matters now in question," continued mr. guppy rapidly, as if he were repeating a familiar form of words, "i speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so--" "i am quite satisfied," said i, rising at this point, "and i thank you very much. caddy, my dear, i am ready!" mr. guppy's mother returned with caddy (now making me the recipient of her silent laughter and her nudges), and we took our leave. mr. guppy saw us to the door with the air of one who was either imperfectly awake or walking in his sleep; and we left him there, staring. but in a minute he came after us down the street without any hat, and with his long hair all blown about, and stopped us, saying fervently, "miss summerson, upon my honour and soul, you may depend upon me!" "i do," said i, "quite confidently." "i beg your pardon, miss," said mr. guppy, going with one leg and staying with the other, "but this lady being present--your own witness--it might be a satisfaction to your mind (which i should wish to set at rest) if you was to repeat those admissions." "well, caddy," said i, turning to her, "perhaps you will not be surprised when i tell you, my dear, that there never has been any engagement--" "no proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever," suggested mr. guppy. "no proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever," said i, "between this gentleman--" "william guppy, of penton place, pentonville, in the county of middlesex," he murmured. "between this gentleman, mr. william guppy, of penton place, pentonville, in the county of middlesex, and myself." "thank you, miss," said mr. guppy. "very full--er--excuse me--lady's name, christian and surname both?" i gave them. "married woman, i believe?" said mr. guppy. "married woman. thank you. formerly caroline jellyby, spinster, then of thavies inn, within the city of london, but extra-parochial; now of newman street, oxford street. much obliged." he ran home and came running back again. "touching that matter, you know, i really and truly am very sorry that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over which i have no control, should prevent a renewal of what was wholly terminated some time back," said mr. guppy to me forlornly and despondently, "but it couldn't be. now could it, you know! i only put it to you." i replied it certainly could not. the subject did not admit of a doubt. he thanked me and ran to his mother's again--and back again. "it's very honourable of you, miss, i am sure," said mr. guppy. "if an altar could be erected in the bowers of friendship--but, upon my soul, you may rely upon me in every respect save and except the tender passion only!" the struggle in mr. guppy's breast and the numerous oscillations it occasioned him between his mother's door and us were sufficiently conspicuous in the windy street (particularly as his hair wanted cutting) to make us hurry away. i did so with a lightened heart; but when we last looked back, mr. guppy was still oscillating in the same troubled state of mind. chapter xxxix attorney and client the name of mr. vholes, preceded by the legend ground-floor, is inscribed upon a door-post in symond's inn, chancery lane--a little, pale, wall-eyed, woebegone inn like a large dust-binn of two compartments and a sifter. it looks as if symond were a sparing man in his way and constructed his inn of old building materials which took kindly to the dry rot and to dirt and all things decaying and dismal, and perpetuated symond's memory with congenial shabbiness. quartered in this dingy hatchment commemorative of symond are the legal bearings of mr. vholes. mr. vholes's office, in disposition retiring and in situation retired, is squeezed up in a corner and blinks at a dead wall. three feet of knotty-floored dark passage bring the client to mr. vholes's jet-black door, in an angle profoundly dark on the brightest midsummer morning and encumbered by a black bulk-head of cellarage staircase against which belated civilians generally strike their brows. mr. vholes's chambers are on so small a scale that one clerk can open the door without getting off his stool, while the other who elbows him at the same desk has equal facilities for poking the fire. a smell as of unwholesome sheep blending with the smell of must and dust is referable to the nightly (and often daily) consumption of mutton fat in candles and to the fretting of parchment forms and skins in greasy drawers. the atmosphere is otherwise stale and close. the place was last painted or whitewashed beyond the memory of man, and the two chimneys smoke, and there is a loose outer surface of soot everywhere, and the dull cracked windows in their heavy frames have but one piece of character in them, which is a determination to be always dirty and always shut unless coerced. this accounts for the phenomenon of the weaker of the two usually having a bundle of firewood thrust between its jaws in hot weather. mr. vholes is a very respectable man. he has not a large business, but he is a very respectable man. he is allowed by the greater attorneys who have made good fortunes or are making them to be a most respectable man. he never misses a chance in his practice, which is a mark of respectability. he never takes any pleasure, which is another mark of respectability. he is reserved and serious, which is another mark of respectability. his digestion is impaired, which is highly respectable. and he is making hay of the grass which is flesh, for his three daughters. and his father is dependent on him in the vale of taunton. the one great principle of the english law is to make business for itself. there is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it. let them but once clearly perceive that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their expense, and surely they will cease to grumble. but not perceiving this quite plainly--only seeing it by halves in a confused way--the laity sometimes suffer in peace and pocket, with a bad grace, and do grumble very much. then this respectability of mr. vholes is brought into powerful play against them. "repeal this statute, my good sir?" says mr. kenge to a smarting client. "repeal it, my dear sir? never, with my consent. alter this law, sir, and what will be the effect of your rash proceeding on a class of practitioners very worthily represented, allow me to say to you, by the opposite attorney in the case, mr. vholes? sir, that class of practitioners would be swept from the face of the earth. now you cannot afford--i will say, the social system cannot afford--to lose an order of men like mr. vholes. diligent, persevering, steady, acute in business. my dear sir, i understand your present feelings against the existing state of things, which i grant to be a little hard in your case; but i can never raise my voice for the demolition of a class of men like mr. vholes." the respectability of mr. vholes has even been cited with crushing effect before parliamentary committees, as in the following blue minutes of a distinguished attorney's evidence. "question (number five hundred and seventeen thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine): if i understand you, these forms of practice indisputably occasion delay? answer: yes, some delay. question: and great expense? answer: most assuredly they cannot be gone through for nothing. question: and unspeakable vexation? answer: i am not prepared to say that. they have never given me any vexation; quite the contrary. question: but you think that their abolition would damage a class of practitioners? answer: i have no doubt of it. question: can you instance any type of that class? answer: yes. i would unhesitatingly mention mr. vholes. he would be ruined. question: mr. vholes is considered, in the profession, a respectable man? answer:"--which proved fatal to the inquiry for ten years--"mr. vholes is considered, in the profession, a most respectable man." so in familiar conversation, private authorities no less disinterested will remark that they don't know what this age is coming to, that we are plunging down precipices, that now here is something else gone, that these changes are death to people like vholes--a man of undoubted respectability, with a father in the vale of taunton, and three daughters at home. take a few steps more in this direction, say they, and what is to become of vholes's father? is he to perish? and of vholes's daughters? are they to be shirt-makers, or governesses? as though, mr. vholes and his relations being minor cannibal chiefs and it being proposed to abolish cannibalism, indignant champions were to put the case thus: make man-eating unlawful, and you starve the vholeses! in a word, mr. vholes, with his three daughters and his father in the vale of taunton, is continually doing duty, like a piece of timber, to shore up some decayed foundation that has become a pitfall and a nuisance. and with a great many people in a great many instances, the question is never one of a change from wrong to right (which is quite an extraneous consideration), but is always one of injury or advantage to that eminently respectable legion, vholes. the chancellor is, within these ten minutes, "up" for the long vacation. mr. vholes, and his young client, and several blue bags hastily stuffed out of all regularity of form, as the larger sort of serpents are in their first gorged state, have returned to the official den. mr. vholes, quiet and unmoved, as a man of so much respectability ought to be, takes off his close black gloves as if he were skinning his hands, lifts off his tight hat as if he were scalping himself, and sits down at his desk. the client throws his hat and gloves upon the ground--tosses them anywhere, without looking after them or caring where they go; flings himself into a chair, half sighing and half groaning; rests his aching head upon his hand and looks the portrait of young despair. "again nothing done!" says richard. "nothing, nothing done!" "don't say nothing done, sir," returns the placid vholes. "that is scarcely fair, sir, scarcely fair!" "why, what is done?" says richard, turning gloomily upon him. "that may not be the whole question," returns vholes, "the question may branch off into what is doing, what is doing?" "and what is doing?" asks the moody client. vholes, sitting with his arms on the desk, quietly bringing the tips of his five right fingers to meet the tips of his five left fingers, and quietly separating them again, and fixedly and slowly looking at his client, replies, "a good deal is doing, sir. we have put our shoulders to the wheel, mr. carstone, and the wheel is going round." "yes, with ixion on it. how am i to get through the next four or five accursed months?" exclaims the young man, rising from his chair and walking about the room. "mr. c.," returns vholes, following him close with his eyes wherever he goes, "your spirits are hasty, and i am sorry for it on your account. excuse me if i recommend you not to chafe so much, not to be so impetuous, not to wear yourself out so. you should have more patience. you should sustain yourself better." "i ought to imitate you, in fact, mr. vholes?" says richard, sitting down again with an impatient laugh and beating the devil's tattoo with his boot on the patternless carpet. "sir," returns vholes, always looking at the client as if he were making a lingering meal of him with his eyes as well as with his professional appetite. "sir," returns vholes with his inward manner of speech and his bloodless quietude, "i should not have had the presumption to propose myself as a model for your imitation or any man's. let me but leave the good name to my three daughters, and that is enough for me; i am not a self-seeker. but since you mention me so pointedly, i will acknowledge that i should like to impart to you a little of my--come, sir, you are disposed to call it insensibility, and i am sure i have no objection--say insensibility--a little of my insensibility." "mr. vholes," explains the client, somewhat abashed, "i had no intention to accuse you of insensibility." "i think you had, sir, without knowing it," returns the equable vholes. "very naturally. it is my duty to attend to your interests with a cool head, and i can quite understand that to your excited feelings i may appear, at such times as the present, insensible. my daughters may know me better; my aged father may know me better. but they have known me much longer than you have, and the confiding eye of affection is not the distrustful eye of business. not that i complain, sir, of the eye of business being distrustful; quite the contrary. in attending to your interests, i wish to have all possible checks upon me; it is right that i should have them; i court inquiry. but your interests demand that i should be cool and methodical, mr. carstone; and i cannot be otherwise--no, sir, not even to please you." mr. vholes, after glancing at the official cat who is patiently watching a mouse's hole, fixes his charmed gaze again on his young client and proceeds in his buttoned-up, half-audible voice as if there were an unclean spirit in him that will neither come out nor speak out, "what are you to do, sir, you inquire, during the vacation. i should hope you gentlemen of the army may find many means of amusing yourselves if you give your minds to it. if you had asked me what i was to do during the vacation, i could have answered you more readily. i am to attend to your interests. i am to be found here, day by day, attending to your interests. that is my duty, mr. c., and term-time or vacation makes no difference to me. if you wish to consult me as to your interests, you will find me here at all times alike. other professional men go out of town. i don't. not that i blame them for going; i merely say i don't go. this desk is your rock, sir!" mr. vholes gives it a rap, and it sounds as hollow as a coffin. not to richard, though. there is encouragement in the sound to him. perhaps mr. vholes knows there is. "i am perfectly aware, mr. vholes," says richard, more familiarly and good-humouredly, "that you are the most reliable fellow in the world and that to have to do with you is to have to do with a man of business who is not to be hoodwinked. but put yourself in my case, dragging on this dislocated life, sinking deeper and deeper into difficulty every day, continually hoping and continually disappointed, conscious of change upon change for the worse in myself, and of no change for the better in anything else, and you will find it a dark-looking case sometimes, as i do." "you know," says mr. vholes, "that i never give hopes, sir. i told you from the first, mr. c., that i never give hopes. particularly in a case like this, where the greater part of the costs comes out of the estate, i should not be considerate of my good name if i gave hopes. it might seem as if costs were my object. still, when you say there is no change for the better, i must, as a bare matter of fact, deny that." "aye?" returns richard, brightening. "but how do you make it out?" "mr. carstone, you are represented by--" "you said just now--a rock." "yes, sir," says mr. vholes, gently shaking his head and rapping the hollow desk, with a sound as if ashes were falling on ashes, and dust on dust, "a rock. that's something. you are separately represented, and no longer hidden and lost in the interests of others. that's something. the suit does not sleep; we wake it up, we air it, we walk it about. that's something. it's not all jarndyce, in fact as well as in name. that's something. nobody has it all his own way now, sir. and that's something, surely." richard, his face flushing suddenly, strikes the desk with his clenched hand. "mr. vholes! if any man had told me when i first went to john jarndyce's house that he was anything but the disinterested friend he seemed--that he was what he has gradually turned out to be--i could have found no words strong enough to repel the slander; i could not have defended him too ardently. so little did i know of the world! whereas now i do declare to you that he becomes to me the embodiment of the suit; that in place of its being an abstraction, it is john jarndyce; that the more i suffer, the more indignant i am with him; that every new delay and every new disappointment is only a new injury from john jarndyce's hand." "no, no," says vholes. "don't say so. we ought to have patience, all of us. besides, i never disparage, sir. i never disparage." "mr. vholes," returns the angry client. "you know as well as i that he would have strangled the suit if he could." "he was not active in it," mr. vholes admits with an appearance of reluctance. "he certainly was not active in it. but however, but however, he might have had amiable intentions. who can read the heart, mr. c.!" "you can," returns richard. "i, mr. c.?" "well enough to know what his intentions were. are or are not our interests conflicting? tell--me--that!" says richard, accompanying his last three words with three raps on his rock of trust. "mr. c.," returns vholes, immovable in attitude and never winking his hungry eyes, "i should be wanting in my duty as your professional adviser, i should be departing from my fidelity to your interests, if i represented those interests as identical with the interests of mr. jarndyce. they are no such thing, sir. i never impute motives; i both have and am a father, and i never impute motives. but i must not shrink from a professional duty, even if it sows dissensions in families. i understand you to be now consulting me professionally as to your interests? you are so? i reply, then, they are not identical with those of mr. jarndyce." "of course they are not!" cries richard. "you found that out long ago." "mr. c.," returns vholes, "i wish to say no more of any third party than is necessary. i wish to leave my good name unsullied, together with any little property of which i may become possessed through industry and perseverance, to my daughters emma, jane, and caroline. i also desire to live in amity with my professional brethren. when mr. skimpole did me the honour, sir--i will not say the very high honour, for i never stoop to flattery--of bringing us together in this room, i mentioned to you that i could offer no opinion or advice as to your interests while those interests were entrusted to another member of the profession. and i spoke in such terms as i was bound to speak of kenge and carboy's office, which stands high. you, sir, thought fit to withdraw your interests from that keeping nevertheless and to offer them to me. you brought them with clean hands, sir, and i accepted them with clean hands. those interests are now paramount in this office. my digestive functions, as you may have heard me mention, are not in a good state, and rest might improve them; but i shall not rest, sir, while i am your representative. whenever you want me, you will find me here. summon me anywhere, and i will come. during the long vacation, sir, i shall devote my leisure to studying your interests more and more closely and to making arrangements for moving heaven and earth (including, of course, the chancellor) after michaelmas term; and when i ultimately congratulate you, sir," says mr. vholes with the severity of a determined man, "when i ultimately congratulate you, sir, with all my heart, on your accession to fortune--which, but that i never give hopes, i might say something further about--you will owe me nothing beyond whatever little balance may be then outstanding of the costs as between solicitor and client not included in the taxed costs allowed out of the estate. i pretend to no claim upon you, mr. c., but for the zealous and active discharge--not the languid and routine discharge, sir: that much credit i stipulate for--of my professional duty. my duty prosperously ended, all between us is ended." vholes finally adds, by way of rider to this declaration of his principles, that as mr. carstone is about to rejoin his regiment, perhaps mr. c. will favour him with an order on his agent for twenty pounds on account. "for there have been many little consultations and attendances of late, sir," observes vholes, turning over the leaves of his diary, "and these things mount up, and i don't profess to be a man of capital. when we first entered on our present relations i stated to you openly--it is a principle of mine that there never can be too much openness between solicitor and client--that i was not a man of capital and that if capital was your object you had better leave your papers in kenge's office. no, mr. c., you will find none of the advantages or disadvantages of capital here, sir. this," vholes gives the desk one hollow blow again, "is your rock; it pretends to be nothing more." the client, with his dejection insensibly relieved and his vague hopes rekindled, takes pen and ink and writes the draft, not without perplexed consideration and calculation of the date it may bear, implying scant effects in the agent's hands. all the while, vholes, buttoned up in body and mind, looks at him attentively. all the while, vholes's official cat watches the mouse's hole. lastly, the client, shaking hands, beseeches mr. vholes, for heaven's sake and earth's sake, to do his utmost to "pull him through" the court of chancery. mr. vholes, who never gives hopes, lays his palm upon the client's shoulder and answers with a smile, "always here, sir. personally, or by letter, you will always find me here, sir, with my shoulder to the wheel." thus they part, and vholes, left alone, employs himself in carrying sundry little matters out of his diary into his draft bill book for the ultimate behoof of his three daughters. so might an industrious fox or bear make up his account of chickens or stray travellers with an eye to his cubs, not to disparage by that word the three raw-visaged, lank, and buttoned-up maidens who dwell with the parent vholes in an earthy cottage situated in a damp garden at kennington. richard, emerging from the heavy shade of symond's inn into the sunshine of chancery lane--for there happens to be sunshine there to-day--walks thoughtfully on, and turns into lincoln's inn, and passes under the shadow of the lincoln's inn trees. on many such loungers have the speckled shadows of those trees often fallen; on the like bent head, the bitten nail, the lowering eye, the lingering step, the purposeless and dreamy air, the good consuming and consumed, the life turned sour. this lounger is not shabby yet, but that may come. chancery, which knows no wisdom but in precedent, is very rich in such precedents; and why should one be different from ten thousand? yet the time is so short since his depreciation began that as he saunters away, reluctant to leave the spot for some long months together, though he hates it, richard himself may feel his own case as if it were a startling one. while his heart is heavy with corroding care, suspense, distrust, and doubt, it may have room for some sorrowful wonder when he recalls how different his first visit there, how different he, how different all the colours of his mind. but injustice breeds injustice; the fighting with shadows and being defeated by them necessitates the setting up of substances to combat; from the impalpable suit which no man alive can understand, the time for that being long gone by, it has become a gloomy relief to turn to the palpable figure of the friend who would have saved him from this ruin and make him his enemy. richard has told vholes the truth. is he in a hardened or a softened mood, he still lays his injuries equally at that door; he was thwarted, in that quarter, of a set purpose, and that purpose could only originate in the one subject that is resolving his existence into itself; besides, it is a justification to him in his own eyes to have an embodied antagonist and oppressor. is richard a monster in all this, or would chancery be found rich in such precedents too if they could be got for citation from the recording angel? two pairs of eyes not unused to such people look after him, as, biting his nails and brooding, he crosses the square and is swallowed up by the shadow of the southern gateway. mr. guppy and mr. weevle are the possessors of those eyes, and they have been leaning in conversation against the low stone parapet under the trees. he passes close by them, seeing nothing but the ground. "william," says mr. weevle, adjusting his whiskers, "there's combustion going on there! it's not a case of spontaneous, but it's smouldering combustion it is." "ah!" says mr. guppy. "he wouldn't keep out of jarndyce, and i suppose he's over head and ears in debt. i never knew much of him. he was as high as the monument when he was on trial at our place. a good riddance to me, whether as clerk or client! well, tony, that as i was mentioning is what they're up to." mr. guppy, refolding his arms, resettles himself against the parapet, as resuming a conversation of interest. "they are still up to it, sir," says mr. guppy, "still taking stock, still examining papers, still going over the heaps and heaps of rubbish. at this rate they'll be at it these seven years." "and small is helping?" "small left us at a week's notice. told kenge his grandfather's business was too much for the old gentleman and he could better himself by undertaking it. there had been a coolness between myself and small on account of his being so close. but he said you and i began it, and as he had me there--for we did--i put our acquaintance on the old footing. that's how i come to know what they're up to." "you haven't looked in at all?" "tony," says mr. guppy, a little disconcerted, "to be unreserved with you, i don't greatly relish the house, except in your company, and therefore i have not; and therefore i proposed this little appointment for our fetching away your things. there goes the hour by the clock! tony"--mr. guppy becomes mysteriously and tenderly eloquent--"it is necessary that i should impress upon your mind once more that circumstances over which i have no control have made a melancholy alteration in my most cherished plans and in that unrequited image which i formerly mentioned to you as a friend. that image is shattered, and that idol is laid low. my only wish now in connexion with the objects which i had an idea of carrying out in the court with your aid as a friend is to let 'em alone and bury 'em in oblivion. do you think it possible, do you think it at all likely (i put it to you, tony, as a friend), from your knowledge of that capricious and deep old character who fell a prey to the--spontaneous element, do you, tony, think it at all likely that on second thoughts he put those letters away anywhere, after you saw him alive, and that they were not destroyed that night?" mr. weevle reflects for some time. shakes his head. decidedly thinks not. "tony," says mr. guppy as they walk towards the court, "once again understand me, as a friend. without entering into further explanations, i may repeat that the idol is down. i have no purpose to serve now but burial in oblivion. to that i have pledged myself. i owe it to myself, and i owe it to the shattered image, as also to the circumstances over which i have no control. if you was to express to me by a gesture, by a wink, that you saw lying anywhere in your late lodgings any papers that so much as looked like the papers in question, i would pitch them into the fire, sir, on my own responsibility." mr. weevle nods. mr. guppy, much elevated in his own opinion by having delivered these observations, with an air in part forensic and in part romantic--this gentleman having a passion for conducting anything in the form of an examination, or delivering anything in the form of a summing up or a speech--accompanies his friend with dignity to the court. never since it has been a court has it had such a fortunatus' purse of gossip as in the proceedings at the rag and bottle shop. regularly, every morning at eight, is the elder mr. smallweed brought down to the corner and carried in, accompanied by mrs. smallweed, judy, and bart; and regularly, all day, do they all remain there until nine at night, solaced by gipsy dinners, not abundant in quantity, from the cook's shop, rummaging and searching, digging, delving, and diving among the treasures of the late lamented. what those treasures are they keep so secret that the court is maddened. in its delirium it imagines guineas pouring out of tea-pots, crown-pieces overflowing punch-bowls, old chairs and mattresses stuffed with bank of england notes. it possesses itself of the sixpenny history (with highly coloured folding frontispiece) of mr. daniel dancer and his sister, and also of mr. elwes, of suffolk, and transfers all the facts from those authentic narratives to mr. krook. twice when the dustman is called in to carry off a cartload of old paper, ashes, and broken bottles, the whole court assembles and pries into the baskets as they come forth. many times the two gentlemen who write with the ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper are seen prowling in the neighbourhood--shy of each other, their late partnership being dissolved. the sol skilfully carries a vein of the prevailing interest through the harmonic nights. little swills, in what are professionally known as "patter" allusions to the subject, is received with loud applause; and the same vocalist "gags" in the regular business like a man inspired. even miss m. melvilleson, in the revived caledonian melody of "we're a-nodding," points the sentiment that "the dogs love broo" (whatever the nature of that refreshment may be) with such archness and such a turn of the head towards next door that she is immediately understood to mean mr. smallweed loves to find money, and is nightly honoured with a double encore. for all this, the court discovers nothing; and as mrs. piper and mrs. perkins now communicate to the late lodger whose appearance is the signal for a general rally, it is in one continual ferment to discover everything, and more. mr. weevle and mr. guppy, with every eye in the court's head upon them, knock at the closed door of the late lamented's house, in a high state of popularity. but being contrary to the court's expectation admitted, they immediately become unpopular and are considered to mean no good. the shutters are more or less closed all over the house, and the ground-floor is sufficiently dark to require candles. introduced into the back shop by mr. smallweed the younger, they, fresh from the sunlight, can at first see nothing save darkness and shadows; but they gradually discern the elder mr. smallweed seated in his chair upon the brink of a well or grave of waste-paper, the virtuous judy groping therein like a female sexton, and mrs. smallweed on the level ground in the vicinity snowed up in a heap of paper fragments, print, and manuscript which would appear to be the accumulated compliments that have been sent flying at her in the course of the day. the whole party, small included, are blackened with dust and dirt and present a fiendish appearance not relieved by the general aspect of the room. there is more litter and lumber in it than of old, and it is dirtier if possible; likewise, it is ghostly with traces of its dead inhabitant and even with his chalked writing on the wall. on the entrance of visitors, mr. smallweed and judy simultaneously fold their arms and stop in their researches. "aha!" croaks the old gentleman. "how de do, gentlemen, how de do! come to fetch your property, mr. weevle? that's well, that's well. ha! ha! we should have been forced to sell you up, sir, to pay your warehouse room if you had left it here much longer. you feel quite at home here again, i dare say? glad to see you, glad to see you!" mr. weevle, thanking him, casts an eye about. mr. guppy's eye follows mr. weevle's eye. mr. weevle's eye comes back without any new intelligence in it. mr. guppy's eye comes back and meets mr. smallweed's eye. that engaging old gentleman is still murmuring, like some wound-up instrument running down, "how de do, sir--how de--how--" and then having run down, he lapses into grinning silence, as mr. guppy starts at seeing mr. tulkinghorn standing in the darkness opposite with his hands behind him. "gentleman so kind as to act as my solicitor," says grandfather smallweed. "i am not the sort of client for a gentleman of such note, but he is so good!" mr. guppy, slightly nudging his friend to take another look, makes a shuffling bow to mr. tulkinghorn, who returns it with an easy nod. mr. tulkinghorn is looking on as if he had nothing else to do and were rather amused by the novelty. "a good deal of property here, sir, i should say," mr. guppy observes to mr. smallweed. "principally rags and rubbish, my dear friend! rags and rubbish! me and bart and my granddaughter judy are endeavouring to make out an inventory of what's worth anything to sell. but we haven't come to much as yet; we--haven't--come--to--hah!" mr. smallweed has run down again, while mr. weevle's eye, attended by mr. guppy's eye, has again gone round the room and come back. "well, sir," says mr. weevle. "we won't intrude any longer if you'll allow us to go upstairs." "anywhere, my dear sir, anywhere! you're at home. make yourself so, pray!" as they go upstairs, mr. guppy lifts his eyebrows inquiringly and looks at tony. tony shakes his head. they find the old room very dull and dismal, with the ashes of the fire that was burning on that memorable night yet in the discoloured grate. they have a great disinclination to touch any object, and carefully blow the dust from it first. nor are they desirous to prolong their visit, packing the few movables with all possible speed and never speaking above a whisper. "look here," says tony, recoiling. "here's that horrible cat coming in!" mr. guppy retreats behind a chair. "small told me of her. she went leaping and bounding and tearing about that night like a dragon, and got out on the house-top, and roamed about up there for a fortnight, and then came tumbling down the chimney very thin. did you ever see such a brute? looks as if she knew all about it, don't she? almost looks as if she was krook. shoohoo! get out, you goblin!" lady jane, in the doorway, with her tiger snarl from ear to ear and her club of a tail, shows no intention of obeying; but mr. tulkinghorn stumbling over her, she spits at his rusty legs, and swearing wrathfully, takes her arched back upstairs. possibly to roam the house-tops again and return by the chimney. "mr. guppy," says mr. tulkinghorn, "could i have a word with you?" mr. guppy is engaged in collecting the galaxy gallery of british beauty from the wall and depositing those works of art in their old ignoble band-box. "sir," he returns, reddening, "i wish to act with courtesy towards every member of the profession, and especially, i am sure, towards a member of it so well known as yourself--i will truly add, sir, so distinguished as yourself. still, mr. tulkinghorn, sir, i must stipulate that if you have any word with me, that word is spoken in the presence of my friend." "oh, indeed?" says mr. tulkinghorn. "yes, sir. my reasons are not of a personal nature at all, but they are amply sufficient for myself." "no doubt, no doubt." mr. tulkinghorn is as imperturbable as the hearthstone to which he has quietly walked. "the matter is not of that consequence that i need put you to the trouble of making any conditions, mr. guppy." he pauses here to smile, and his smile is as dull and rusty as his pantaloons. "you are to be congratulated, mr. guppy; you are a fortunate young man, sir." "pretty well so, mr. tulkinghorn; i don't complain." "complain? high friends, free admission to great houses, and access to elegant ladies! why, mr. guppy, there are people in london who would give their ears to be you." mr. guppy, looking as if he would give his own reddening and still reddening ears to be one of those people at present instead of himself, replies, "sir, if i attend to my profession and do what is right by kenge and carboy, my friends and acquaintances are of no consequence to them nor to any member of the profession, not excepting mr. tulkinghorn of the fields. i am not under any obligation to explain myself further; and with all respect for you, sir, and without offence--i repeat, without offence--" "oh, certainly!" "--i don't intend to do it." "quite so," says mr. tulkinghorn with a calm nod. "very good; i see by these portraits that you take a strong interest in the fashionable great, sir?" he addresses this to the astounded tony, who admits the soft impeachment. "a virtue in which few englishmen are deficient," observes mr. tulkinghorn. he has been standing on the hearthstone with his back to the smoked chimney-piece, and now turns round with his glasses to his eyes. "who is this? 'lady dedlock.' ha! a very good likeness in its way, but it wants force of character. good day to you, gentlemen; good day!" when he has walked out, mr. guppy, in a great perspiration, nerves himself to the hasty completion of the taking down of the galaxy gallery, concluding with lady dedlock. "tony," he says hurriedly to his astonished companion, "let us be quick in putting the things together and in getting out of this place. it were in vain longer to conceal from you, tony, that between myself and one of the members of a swan-like aristocracy whom i now hold in my hand, there has been undivulged communication and association. the time might have been when i might have revealed it to you. it never will be more. it is due alike to the oath i have taken, alike to the shattered idol, and alike to circumstances over which i have no control, that the whole should be buried in oblivion. i charge you as a friend, by the interest you have ever testified in the fashionable intelligence, and by any little advances with which i may have been able to accommodate you, so to bury it without a word of inquiry!" this charge mr. guppy delivers in a state little short of forensic lunacy, while his friend shows a dazed mind in his whole head of hair and even in his cultivated whiskers. chapter xl national and domestic england has been in a dreadful state for some weeks. lord coodle would go out, sir thomas doodle wouldn't come in, and there being nobody in great britain (to speak of) except coodle and doodle, there has been no government. it is a mercy that the hostile meeting between those two great men, which at one time seemed inevitable, did not come off, because if both pistols had taken effect, and coodle and doodle had killed each other, it is to be presumed that england must have waited to be governed until young coodle and young doodle, now in frocks and long stockings, were grown up. this stupendous national calamity, however, was averted by lord coodle's making the timely discovery that if in the heat of debate he had said that he scorned and despised the whole ignoble career of sir thomas doodle, he had merely meant to say that party differences should never induce him to withhold from it the tribute of his warmest admiration; while it as opportunely turned out, on the other hand, that sir thomas doodle had in his own bosom expressly booked lord coodle to go down to posterity as the mirror of virtue and honour. still england has been some weeks in the dismal strait of having no pilot (as was well observed by sir leicester dedlock) to weather the storm; and the marvellous part of the matter is that england has not appeared to care very much about it, but has gone on eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage as the old world did in the days before the flood. but coodle knew the danger, and doodle knew the danger, and all their followers and hangers-on had the clearest possible perception of the danger. at last sir thomas doodle has not only condescended to come in, but has done it handsomely, bringing in with him all his nephews, all his male cousins, and all his brothers-in-law. so there is hope for the old ship yet. doodle has found that he must throw himself upon the country, chiefly in the form of sovereigns and beer. in this metamorphosed state he is available in a good many places simultaneously and can throw himself upon a considerable portion of the country at one time. britannia being much occupied in pocketing doodle in the form of sovereigns, and swallowing doodle in the form of beer, and in swearing herself black in the face that she does neither--plainly to the advancement of her glory and morality--the london season comes to a sudden end, through all the doodleites and coodleites dispersing to assist britannia in those religious exercises. hence mrs. rouncewell, housekeeper at chesney wold, foresees, though no instructions have yet come down, that the family may shortly be expected, together with a pretty large accession of cousins and others who can in any way assist the great constitutional work. and hence the stately old dame, taking time by the forelock, leads him up and down the staircases, and along the galleries and passages, and through the rooms, to witness before he grows any older that everything is ready, that floors are rubbed bright, carpets spread, curtains shaken out, beds puffed and patted, still-room and kitchen cleared for action--all things prepared as beseems the dedlock dignity. this present summer evening, as the sun goes down, the preparations are complete. dreary and solemn the old house looks, with so many appliances of habitation and with no inhabitants except the pictured forms upon the walls. so did these come and go, a dedlock in possession might have ruminated passing along; so did they see this gallery hushed and quiet, as i see it now; so think, as i think, of the gap that they would make in this domain when they were gone; so find it, as i find it, difficult to believe that it could be without them; so pass from my world, as i pass from theirs, now closing the reverberating door; so leave no blank to miss them, and so die. through some of the fiery windows beautiful from without, and set, at this sunset hour, not in dull-grey stone but in a glorious house of gold, the light excluded at other windows pours in rich, lavish, overflowing like the summer plenty in the land. then do the frozen dedlocks thaw. strange movements come upon their features as the shadows of leaves play there. a dense justice in a corner is beguiled into a wink. a staring baronet, with a truncheon, gets a dimple in his chin. down into the bosom of a stony shepherdess there steals a fleck of light and warmth that would have done it good a hundred years ago. one ancestress of volumnia, in high-heeled shoes, very like her--casting the shadow of that virgin event before her full two centuries--shoots out into a halo and becomes a saint. a maid of honour of the court of charles the second, with large round eyes (and other charms to correspond), seems to bathe in glowing water, and it ripples as it glows. but the fire of the sun is dying. even now the floor is dusky, and shadow slowly mounts the walls, bringing the dedlocks down like age and death. and now, upon my lady's picture over the great chimney-piece, a weird shade falls from some old tree, that turns it pale, and flutters it, and looks as if a great arm held a veil or hood, watching an opportunity to draw it over her. higher and darker rises shadow on the wall--now a red gloom on the ceiling--now the fire is out. all that prospect, which from the terrace looked so near, has moved solemnly away and changed--not the first nor the last of beautiful things that look so near and will so change--into a distant phantom. light mists arise, and the dew falls, and all the sweet scents in the garden are heavy in the air. now the woods settle into great masses as if they were each one profound tree. and now the moon rises to separate them, and to glimmer here and there in horizontal lines behind their stems, and to make the avenue a pavement of light among high cathedral arches fantastically broken. now the moon is high; and the great house, needing habitation more than ever, is like a body without life. now it is even awful, stealing through it, to think of the live people who have slept in the solitary bedrooms, to say nothing of the dead. now is the time for shadow, when every corner is a cavern and every downward step a pit, when the stained glass is reflected in pale and faded hues upon the floors, when anything and everything can be made of the heavy staircase beams excepting their own proper shapes, when the armour has dull lights upon it not easily to be distinguished from stealthy movement, and when barred helmets are frightfully suggestive of heads inside. but of all the shadows in chesney wold, the shadow in the long drawing-room upon my lady's picture is the first to come, the last to be disturbed. at this hour and by this light it changes into threatening hands raised up and menacing the handsome face with every breath that stirs. "she is not well, ma'am," says a groom in mrs. rouncewell's audience-chamber. "my lady not well! what's the matter?" "why, my lady has been but poorly, ma'am, since she was last here--i don't mean with the family, ma'am, but when she was here as a bird of passage like. my lady has not been out much, for her, and has kept her room a good deal." "chesney wold, thomas," rejoins the housekeeper with proud complacency, "will set my lady up! there is no finer air and no healthier soil in the world!" thomas may have his own personal opinions on this subject, probably hints them in his manner of smoothing his sleek head from the nape of his neck to his temples, but he forbears to express them further and retires to the servants' hall to regale on cold meat-pie and ale. this groom is the pilot-fish before the nobler shark. next evening, down come sir leicester and my lady with their largest retinue, and down come the cousins and others from all the points of the compass. thenceforth for some weeks backward and forward rush mysterious men with no names, who fly about all those particular parts of the country on which doodle is at present throwing himself in an auriferous and malty shower, but who are merely persons of a restless disposition and never do anything anywhere. on these national occasions sir leicester finds the cousins useful. a better man than the honourable bob stables to meet the hunt at dinner, there could not possibly be. better got up gentlemen than the other cousins to ride over to polling-booths and hustings here and there, and show themselves on the side of england, it would be hard to find. volumnia is a little dim, but she is of the true descent; and there are many who appreciate her sprightly conversation, her french conundrums so old as to have become in the cycles of time almost new again, the honour of taking the fair dedlock in to dinner, or even the privilege of her hand in the dance. on these national occasions dancing may be a patriotic service, and volumnia is constantly seen hopping about for the good of an ungrateful and unpensioning country. my lady takes no great pains to entertain the numerous guests, and being still unwell, rarely appears until late in the day. but at all the dismal dinners, leaden lunches, basilisk balls, and other melancholy pageants, her mere appearance is a relief. as to sir leicester, he conceives it utterly impossible that anything can be wanting, in any direction, by any one who has the good fortune to be received under that roof; and in a state of sublime satisfaction, he moves among the company, a magnificent refrigerator. daily the cousins trot through dust and canter over roadside turf, away to hustings and polling-booths (with leather gloves and hunting-whips for the counties and kid gloves and riding-canes for the boroughs), and daily bring back reports on which sir leicester holds forth after dinner. daily the restless men who have no occupation in life present the appearance of being rather busy. daily volumnia has a little cousinly talk with sir leicester on the state of the nation, from which sir leicester is disposed to conclude that volumnia is a more reflecting woman than he had thought her. "how are we getting on?" says miss volumnia, clasping her hands. "are we safe?" the mighty business is nearly over by this time, and doodle will throw himself off the country in a few days more. sir leicester has just appeared in the long drawing-room after dinner, a bright particular star surrounded by clouds of cousins. "volumnia," replies sir leicester, who has a list in his hand, "we are doing tolerably." "only tolerably!" although it is summer weather, sir leicester always has his own particular fire in the evening. he takes his usual screened seat near it and repeats with much firmness and a little displeasure, as who should say, i am not a common man, and when i say tolerably, it must not be understood as a common expression, "volumnia, we are doing tolerably." "at least there is no opposition to you," volumnia asserts with confidence. "no, volumnia. this distracted country has lost its senses in many respects, i grieve to say, but--" "it is not so mad as that. i am glad to hear it!" volumnia's finishing the sentence restores her to favour. sir leicester, with a gracious inclination of his head, seems to say to himself, "a sensible woman this, on the whole, though occasionally precipitate." in fact, as to this question of opposition, the fair dedlock's observation was superfluous, sir leicester on these occasions always delivering in his own candidateship, as a kind of handsome wholesale order to be promptly executed. two other little seats that belong to him he treats as retail orders of less importance, merely sending down the men and signifying to the tradespeople, "you will have the goodness to make these materials into two members of parliament and to send them home when done." "i regret to say, volumnia, that in many places the people have shown a bad spirit, and that this opposition to the government has been of a most determined and most implacable description." "w-r-retches!" says volumnia. "even," proceeds sir leicester, glancing at the circumjacent cousins on sofas and ottomans, "even in many--in fact, in most--of those places in which the government has carried it against a faction--" (note, by the way, that the coodleites are always a faction with the doodleites, and that the doodleites occupy exactly the same position towards the coodleites.) "--even in them i am shocked, for the credit of englishmen, to be constrained to inform you that the party has not triumphed without being put to an enormous expense. hundreds," says sir leicester, eyeing the cousins with increasing dignity and swelling indignation, "hundreds of thousands of pounds!" if volumnia have a fault, it is the fault of being a trifle too innocent, seeing that the innocence which would go extremely well with a sash and tucker is a little out of keeping with the rouge and pearl necklace. howbeit, impelled by innocence, she asks, "what for?" "volumnia," remonstrates sir leicester with his utmost severity. "volumnia!" "no, no, i don't mean what for," cries volumnia with her favourite little scream. "how stupid i am! i mean what a pity!" "i am glad," returns sir leicester, "that you do mean what a pity." volumnia hastens to express her opinion that the shocking people ought to be tried as traitors and made to support the party. "i am glad, volumnia," repeats sir leicester, unmindful of these mollifying sentiments, "that you do mean what a pity. it is disgraceful to the electors. but as you, though inadvertently and without intending so unreasonable a question, asked me 'what for?' let me reply to you. for necessary expenses. and i trust to your good sense, volumnia, not to pursue the subject, here or elsewhere." sir leicester feels it incumbent on him to observe a crushing aspect towards volumnia because it is whispered abroad that these necessary expenses will, in some two hundred election petitions, be unpleasantly connected with the word bribery, and because some graceless jokers have consequently suggested the omission from the church service of the ordinary supplication in behalf of the high court of parliament and have recommended instead that the prayers of the congregation be requested for six hundred and fifty-eight gentlemen in a very unhealthy state. "i suppose," observes volumnia, having taken a little time to recover her spirits after her late castigation, "i suppose mr. tulkinghorn has been worked to death." "i don't know," says sir leicester, opening his eyes, "why mr. tulkinghorn should be worked to death. i don't know what mr. tulkinghorn's engagements may be. he is not a candidate." volumnia had thought he might have been employed. sir leicester could desire to know by whom, and what for. volumnia, abashed again, suggests, by somebody--to advise and make arrangements. sir leicester is not aware that any client of mr. tulkinghorn has been in need of his assistance. lady dedlock, seated at an open window with her arm upon its cushioned ledge and looking out at the evening shadows falling on the park, has seemed to attend since the lawyer's name was mentioned. a languid cousin with a moustache in a state of extreme debility now observes from his couch that man told him ya'as'dy that tulkinghorn had gone down t' that iron place t' give legal 'pinion 'bout something, and that contest being over t' day, 'twould be highly jawlly thing if tulkinghorn should 'pear with news that coodle man was floored. mercury in attendance with coffee informs sir leicester, hereupon, that mr. tulkinghorn has arrived and is taking dinner. my lady turns her head inward for the moment, then looks out again as before. volumnia is charmed to hear that her delight is come. he is so original, such a stolid creature, such an immense being for knowing all sorts of things and never telling them! volumnia is persuaded that he must be a freemason. is sure he is at the head of a lodge, and wears short aprons, and is made a perfect idol of with candlesticks and trowels. these lively remarks the fair dedlock delivers in her youthful manner, while making a purse. "he has not been here once," she adds, "since i came. i really had some thoughts of breaking my heart for the inconstant creature. i had almost made up my mind that he was dead." it may be the gathering gloom of evening, or it may be the darker gloom within herself, but a shade is on my lady's face, as if she thought, "i would he were!" "mr. tulkinghorn," says sir leicester, "is always welcome here and always discreet wheresoever he is. a very valuable person, and deservedly respected." the debilitated cousin supposes he is "'normously rich fler." "he has a stake in the country," says sir leicester, "i have no doubt. he is, of course, handsomely paid, and he associates almost on a footing of equality with the highest society." everybody starts. for a gun is fired close by. "good gracious, what's that?" cries volumnia with her little withered scream. "a rat," says my lady. "and they have shot him." enter mr. tulkinghorn, followed by mercuries with lamps and candles. "no, no," says sir leicester, "i think not. my lady, do you object to the twilight?" on the contrary, my lady prefers it. "volumnia?" oh! nothing is so delicious to volumnia as to sit and talk in the dark. "then take them away," says sir leicester. "tulkinghorn, i beg your pardon. how do you do?" mr. tulkinghorn with his usual leisurely ease advances, renders his passing homage to my lady, shakes sir leicester's hand, and subsides into the chair proper to him when he has anything to communicate, on the opposite side of the baronet's little newspaper-table. sir leicester is apprehensive that my lady, not being very well, will take cold at that open window. my lady is obliged to him, but would rather sit there for the air. sir leicester rises, adjusts her scarf about her, and returns to his seat. mr. tulkinghorn in the meanwhile takes a pinch of snuff. "now," says sir leicester. "how has that contest gone?" "oh, hollow from the beginning. not a chance. they have brought in both their people. you are beaten out of all reason. three to one." it is a part of mr. tulkinghorn's policy and mastery to have no political opinions; indeed, no opinions. therefore he says "you" are beaten, and not "we." sir leicester is majestically wroth. volumnia never heard of such a thing. 'the debilitated cousin holds that it's sort of thing that's sure tapn slongs votes--giv'n--mob. "it's the place, you know," mr. tulkinghorn goes on to say in the fast-increasing darkness when there is silence again, "where they wanted to put up mrs. rouncewell's son." "a proposal which, as you correctly informed me at the time, he had the becoming taste and perception," observes sir leicester, "to decline. i cannot say that i by any means approve of the sentiments expressed by mr. rouncewell when he was here for some half-hour in this room, but there was a sense of propriety in his decision which i am glad to acknowledge." "ha!" says mr. tulkinghorn. "it did not prevent him from being very active in this election, though." sir leicester is distinctly heard to gasp before speaking. "did i understand you? did you say that mr. rouncewell had been very active in this election?" "uncommonly active." "against--" "oh, dear yes, against you. he is a very good speaker. plain and emphatic. he made a damaging effect, and has great influence. in the business part of the proceedings he carried all before him." it is evident to the whole company, though nobody can see him, that sir leicester is staring majestically. "and he was much assisted," says mr. tulkinghorn as a wind-up, "by his son." "by his son, sir?" repeats sir leicester with awful politeness. "by his son." "the son who wished to marry the young woman in my lady's service?" "that son. he has but one." "then upon my honour," says sir leicester after a terrific pause during which he has been heard to snort and felt to stare, "then upon my honour, upon my life, upon my reputation and principles, the floodgates of society are burst open, and the waters have--a--obliterated the landmarks of the framework of the cohesion by which things are held together!" general burst of cousinly indignation. volumnia thinks it is really high time, you know, for somebody in power to step in and do something strong. debilitated cousin thinks--country's going--dayvle--steeple-chase pace. "i beg," says sir leicester in a breathless condition, "that we may not comment further on this circumstance. comment is superfluous. my lady, let me suggest in reference to that young woman--" "i have no intention," observes my lady from her window in a low but decided tone, "of parting with her." "that was not my meaning," returns sir leicester. "i am glad to hear you say so. i would suggest that as you think her worthy of your patronage, you should exert your influence to keep her from these dangerous hands. you might show her what violence would be done in such association to her duties and principles, and you might preserve her for a better fate. you might point out to her that she probably would, in good time, find a husband at chesney wold by whom she would not be--" sir leicester adds, after a moment's consideration, "dragged from the altars of her forefathers." these remarks he offers with his unvarying politeness and deference when he addresses himself to his wife. she merely moves her head in reply. the moon is rising, and where she sits there is a little stream of cold pale light, in which her head is seen. "it is worthy of remark," says mr. tulkinghorn, "however, that these people are, in their way, very proud." "proud?" sir leicester doubts his hearing. "i should not be surprised if they all voluntarily abandoned the girl--yes, lover and all--instead of her abandoning them, supposing she remained at chesney wold under such circumstances." "well!" says sir leicester tremulously. "well! you should know, mr. tulkinghorn. you have been among them." "really, sir leicester," returns the lawyer, "i state the fact. why, i could tell you a story--with lady dedlock's permission." her head concedes it, and volumnia is enchanted. a story! oh, he is going to tell something at last! a ghost in it, volumnia hopes? "no. real flesh and blood." mr. tulkinghorn stops for an instant and repeats with some little emphasis grafted upon his usual monotony, "real flesh and blood, miss dedlock. sir leicester, these particulars have only lately become known to me. they are very brief. they exemplify what i have said. i suppress names for the present. lady dedlock will not think me ill-bred, i hope?" by the light of the fire, which is low, he can be seen looking towards the moonlight. by the light of the moon lady dedlock can be seen, perfectly still. "a townsman of this mrs. rouncewell, a man in exactly parallel circumstances as i am told, had the good fortune to have a daughter who attracted the notice of a great lady. i speak of really a great lady, not merely great to him, but married to a gentleman of your condition, sir leicester." sir leicester condescendingly says, "yes, mr. tulkinghorn," implying that then she must have appeared of very considerable moral dimensions indeed in the eyes of an iron-master. "the lady was wealthy and beautiful, and had a liking for the girl, and treated her with great kindness, and kept her always near her. now this lady preserved a secret under all her greatness, which she had preserved for many years. in fact, she had in early life been engaged to marry a young rake--he was a captain in the army--nothing connected with whom came to any good. she never did marry him, but she gave birth to a child of which he was the father." by the light of the fire he can be seen looking towards the moonlight. by the moonlight, lady dedlock can be seen in profile, perfectly still. "the captain in the army being dead, she believed herself safe; but a train of circumstances with which i need not trouble you led to discovery. as i received the story, they began in an imprudence on her own part one day when she was taken by surprise, which shows how difficult it is for the firmest of us (she was very firm) to be always guarded. there was great domestic trouble and amazement, you may suppose; i leave you to imagine, sir leicester, the husband's grief. but that is not the present point. when mr. rouncewell's townsman heard of the disclosure, he no more allowed the girl to be patronized and honoured than he would have suffered her to be trodden underfoot before his eyes. such was his pride, that he indignantly took her away, as if from reproach and disgrace. he had no sense of the honour done him and his daughter by the lady's condescension; not the least. he resented the girl's position, as if the lady had been the commonest of commoners. that is the story. i hope lady dedlock will excuse its painful nature." there are various opinions on the merits, more or less conflicting with volumnia's. that fair young creature cannot believe there ever was any such lady and rejects the whole history on the threshold. the majority incline to the debilitated cousin's sentiment, which is in few words--"no business--rouncewell's fernal townsman." sir leicester generally refers back in his mind to wat tyler and arranges a sequence of events on a plan of his own. there is not much conversation in all, for late hours have been kept at chesney wold since the necessary expenses elsewhere began, and this is the first night in many on which the family have been alone. it is past ten when sir leicester begs mr. tulkinghorn to ring for candles. then the stream of moonlight has swelled into a lake, and then lady dedlock for the first time moves, and rises, and comes forward to a table for a glass of water. winking cousins, bat-like in the candle glare, crowd round to give it; volumnia (always ready for something better if procurable) takes another, a very mild sip of which contents her; lady dedlock, graceful, self-possessed, looked after by admiring eyes, passes away slowly down the long perspective by the side of that nymph, not at all improving her as a question of contrast. chapter xli in mr. tulkinghorn's room mr. tulkinghorn arrives in his turret-room a little breathed by the journey up, though leisurely performed. there is an expression on his face as if he had discharged his mind of some grave matter and were, in his close way, satisfied. to say of a man so severely and strictly self-repressed that he is triumphant would be to do him as great an injustice as to suppose him troubled with love or sentiment or any romantic weakness. he is sedately satisfied. perhaps there is a rather increased sense of power upon him as he loosely grasps one of his veinous wrists with his other hand and holding it behind his back walks noiselessly up and down. there is a capacious writing-table in the room on which is a pretty large accumulation of papers. the green lamp is lighted, his reading-glasses lie upon the desk, the easy-chair is wheeled up to it, and it would seem as though he had intended to bestow an hour or so upon these claims on his attention before going to bed. but he happens not to be in a business mind. after a glance at the documents awaiting his notice--with his head bent low over the table, the old man's sight for print or writing being defective at night--he opens the french window and steps out upon the leads. there he again walks slowly up and down in the same attitude, subsiding, if a man so cool may have any need to subside, from the story he has related downstairs. the time was once when men as knowing as mr. tulkinghorn would walk on turret-tops in the starlight and look up into the sky to read their fortunes there. hosts of stars are visible to-night, though their brilliancy is eclipsed by the splendour of the moon. if he be seeking his own star as he methodically turns and turns upon the leads, it should be but a pale one to be so rustily represented below. if he be tracing out his destiny, that may be written in other characters nearer to his hand. as he paces the leads with his eyes most probably as high above his thoughts as they are high above the earth, he is suddenly stopped in passing the window by two eyes that meet his own. the ceiling of his room is rather low; and the upper part of the door, which is opposite the window, is of glass. there is an inner baize door, too, but the night being warm he did not close it when he came upstairs. these eyes that meet his own are looking in through the glass from the corridor outside. he knows them well. the blood has not flushed into his face so suddenly and redly for many a long year as when he recognizes lady dedlock. he steps into the room, and she comes in too, closing both the doors behind her. there is a wild disturbance--is it fear or anger?--in her eyes. in her carriage and all else she looks as she looked downstairs two hours ago. is it fear or is it anger now? he cannot be sure. both might be as pale, both as intent. "lady dedlock?" she does not speak at first, nor even when she has slowly dropped into the easy-chair by the table. they look at each other, like two pictures. "why have you told my story to so many persons?" "lady dedlock, it was necessary for me to inform you that i knew it." "how long have you known it?" "i have suspected it a long while--fully known it a little while." "months?" "days." he stands before her with one hand on a chair-back and the other in his old-fashioned waistcoat and shirt-frill, exactly as he has stood before her at any time since her marriage. the same formal politeness, the same composed deference that might as well be defiance; the whole man the same dark, cold object, at the same distance, which nothing has ever diminished. "is this true concerning the poor girl?" he slightly inclines and advances his head as not quite understanding the question. "you know what you related. is it true? do her friends know my story also? is it the town-talk yet? is it chalked upon the walls and cried in the streets?" so! anger, and fear, and shame. all three contending. what power this woman has to keep these raging passions down! mr. tulkinghorn's thoughts take such form as he looks at her, with his ragged grey eyebrows a hair's breadth more contracted than usual under her gaze. "no, lady dedlock. that was a hypothetical case, arising out of sir leicester's unconsciously carrying the matter with so high a hand. but it would be a real case if they knew--what we know." "then they do not know it yet?" "no." "can i save the poor girl from injury before they know it?" "really, lady dedlock," mr. tulkinghorn replies, "i cannot give a satisfactory opinion on that point." and he thinks, with the interest of attentive curiosity, as he watches the struggle in her breast, "the power and force of this woman are astonishing!" "sir," she says, for the moment obliged to set her lips with all the energy she has, that she may speak distinctly, "i will make it plainer. i do not dispute your hypothetical case. i anticipated it, and felt its truth as strongly as you can do, when i saw mr. rouncewell here. i knew very well that if he could have had the power of seeing me as i was, he would consider the poor girl tarnished by having for a moment been, although most innocently, the subject of my great and distinguished patronage. but i have an interest in her, or i should rather say--no longer belonging to this place--i had, and if you can find so much consideration for the woman under your foot as to remember that, she will be very sensible of your mercy." mr. tulkinghorn, profoundly attentive, throws this off with a shrug of self-depreciation and contracts his eyebrows a little more. "you have prepared me for my exposure, and i thank you for that too. is there anything that you require of me? is there any claim that i can release or any charge or trouble that i can spare my husband in obtaining his release by certifying to the exactness of your discovery? i will write anything, here and now, that you will dictate. i am ready to do it." and she would do it, thinks the lawyer, watchful of the firm hand with which she takes the pen! "i will not trouble you, lady dedlock. pray spare yourself." "i have long expected this, as you know. i neither wish to spare myself nor to be spared. you can do nothing worse to me than you have done. do what remains now." "lady dedlock, there is nothing to be done. i will take leave to say a few words when you have finished." their need for watching one another should be over now, but they do it all this time, and the stars watch them both through the opened window. away in the moonlight lie the woodland fields at rest, and the wide house is as quiet as the narrow one. the narrow one! where are the digger and the spade, this peaceful night, destined to add the last great secret to the many secrets of the tulkinghorn existence? is the man born yet, is the spade wrought yet? curious questions to consider, more curious perhaps not to consider, under the watching stars upon a summer night. "of repentance or remorse or any feeling of mine," lady dedlock presently proceeds, "i say not a word. if i were not dumb, you would be deaf. let that go by. it is not for your ears." he makes a feint of offering a protest, but she sweeps it away with her disdainful hand. "of other and very different things i come to speak to you. my jewels are all in their proper places of keeping. they will be found there. so, my dresses. so, all the valuables i have. some ready money i had with me, please to say, but no large amount. i did not wear my own dress, in order that i might avoid observation. i went to be henceforward lost. make this known. i leave no other charge with you." "excuse me, lady dedlock," says mr. tulkinghorn, quite unmoved. "i am not sure that i understand you. you want--" "to be lost to all here. i leave chesney wold to-night. i go this hour." mr. tulkinghorn shakes his head. she rises, but he, without moving hand from chair-back or from old-fashioned waistcoat and shirt-frill, shakes his head. "what? not go as i have said?" "no, lady dedlock," he very calmly replies. "do you know the relief that my disappearance will be? have you forgotten the stain and blot upon this place, and where it is, and who it is?" "no, lady dedlock, not by any means." without deigning to rejoin, she moves to the inner door and has it in her hand when he says to her, without himself stirring hand or foot or raising his voice, "lady dedlock, have the goodness to stop and hear me, or before you reach the staircase i shall ring the alarm-bell and rouse the house. and then i must speak out before every guest and servant, every man and woman, in it." he has conquered her. she falters, trembles, and puts her hand confusedly to her head. slight tokens these in any one else, but when so practised an eye as mr. tulkinghorn's sees indecision for a moment in such a subject, he thoroughly knows its value. he promptly says again, "have the goodness to hear me, lady dedlock," and motions to the chair from which she has risen. she hesitates, but he motions again, and she sits down. "the relations between us are of an unfortunate description, lady dedlock; but as they are not of my making, i will not apologize for them. the position i hold in reference to sir leicester is so well known to you that i can hardly imagine but that i must long have appeared in your eyes the natural person to make this discovery." "sir," she returns without looking up from the ground on which her eyes are now fixed, "i had better have gone. it would have been far better not to have detained me. i have no more to say." "excuse me, lady dedlock, if i add a little more to hear." "i wish to hear it at the window, then. i can't breathe where i am." his jealous glance as she walks that way betrays an instant's misgiving that she may have it in her thoughts to leap over, and dashing against ledge and cornice, strike her life out upon the terrace below. but a moment's observation of her figure as she stands in the window without any support, looking out at the stars--not up--gloomily out at those stars which are low in the heavens, reassures him. by facing round as she has moved, he stands a little behind her. "lady dedlock, i have not yet been able to come to a decision satisfactory to myself on the course before me. i am not clear what to do or how to act next. i must request you, in the meantime, to keep your secret as you have kept it so long and not to wonder that i keep it too." he pauses, but she makes no reply. "pardon me, lady dedlock. this is an important subject. you are honouring me with your attention?" "i am." "thank you. i might have known it from what i have seen of your strength of character. i ought not to have asked the question, but i have the habit of making sure of my ground, step by step, as i go on. the sole consideration in this unhappy case is sir leicester." "then why," she asks in a low voice and without removing her gloomy look from those distant stars, "do you detain me in his house?" "because he is the consideration. lady dedlock, i have no occasion to tell you that sir leicester is a very proud man, that his reliance upon you is implicit, that the fall of that moon out of the sky would not amaze him more than your fall from your high position as his wife." she breathes quickly and heavily, but she stands as unflinchingly as ever he has seen her in the midst of her grandest company. "i declare to you, lady dedlock, that with anything short of this case that i have, i would as soon have hoped to root up by means of my own strength and my own hands the oldest tree on this estate as to shake your hold upon sir leicester and sir leicester's trust and confidence in you. and even now, with this case, i hesitate. not that he could doubt (that, even with him, is impossible), but that nothing can prepare him for the blow." "not my flight?" she returned. "think of it again." "your flight, lady dedlock, would spread the whole truth, and a hundred times the whole truth, far and wide. it would be impossible to save the family credit for a day. it is not to be thought of." there is a quiet decision in his reply which admits of no remonstrance. "when i speak of sir leicester being the sole consideration, he and the family credit are one. sir leicester and the baronetcy, sir leicester and chesney wold, sir leicester and his ancestors and his patrimony"--mr. tulkinghorn very dry here--"are, i need not say to you, lady dedlock, inseparable." "go on!" "therefore," says mr. tulkinghorn, pursuing his case in his jog-trot style, "i have much to consider. this is to be hushed up if it can be. how can it be, if sir leicester is driven out of his wits or laid upon a death-bed? if i inflicted this shock upon him to-morrow morning, how could the immediate change in him be accounted for? what could have caused it? what could have divided you? lady dedlock, the wall-chalking and the street-crying would come on directly, and you are to remember that it would not affect you merely (whom i cannot at all consider in this business) but your husband, lady dedlock, your husband." he gets plainer as he gets on, but not an atom more emphatic or animated. "there is another point of view," he continues, "in which the case presents itself. sir leicester is devoted to you almost to infatuation. he might not be able to overcome that infatuation, even knowing what we know. i am putting an extreme case, but it might be so. if so, it were better that he knew nothing. better for common sense, better for him, better for me. i must take all this into account, and it combines to render a decision very difficult." she stands looking out at the same stars without a word. they are beginning to pale, and she looks as if their coldness froze her. "my experience teaches me," says mr. tulkinghorn, who has by this time got his hands in his pockets and is going on in his business consideration of the matter like a machine. "my experience teaches me, lady dedlock, that most of the people i know would do far better to leave marriage alone. it is at the bottom of three fourths of their troubles. so i thought when sir leicester married, and so i always have thought since. no more about that. i must now be guided by circumstances. in the meanwhile i must beg you to keep your own counsel, and i will keep mine." "i am to drag my present life on, holding its pains at your pleasure, day by day?" she asks, still looking at the distant sky. "yes, i am afraid so, lady dedlock." "it is necessary, you think, that i should be so tied to the stake?" "i am sure that what i recommend is necessary." "i am to remain on this gaudy platform on which my miserable deception has been so long acted, and it is to fall beneath me when you give the signal?" she said slowly. "not without notice, lady dedlock. i shall take no step without forewarning you." she asks all her questions as if she were repeating them from memory or calling them over in her sleep. "we are to meet as usual?" "precisely as usual, if you please." "and i am to hide my guilt, as i have done so many years?" "as you have done so many years. i should not have made that reference myself, lady dedlock, but i may now remind you that your secret can be no heavier to you than it was, and is no worse and no better than it was. i know it certainly, but i believe we have never wholly trusted each other." she stands absorbed in the same frozen way for some little time before asking, "is there anything more to be said to-night?" "why," mr. tulkinghorn returns methodically as he softly rubs his hands, "i should like to be assured of your acquiescence in my arrangements, lady dedlock." "you may be assured of it." "good. and i would wish in conclusion to remind you, as a business precaution, in case it should be necessary to recall the fact in any communication with sir leicester, that throughout our interview i have expressly stated my sole consideration to be sir leicester's feelings and honour and the family reputation. i should have been happy to have made lady dedlock a prominent consideration, too, if the case had admitted of it; but unfortunately it does not." "i can attest your fidelity, sir." both before and after saying it she remains absorbed, but at length moves, and turns, unshaken in her natural and acquired presence, towards the door. mr. tulkinghorn opens both the doors exactly as he would have done yesterday, or as he would have done ten years ago, and makes his old-fashioned bow as she passes out. it is not an ordinary look that he receives from the handsome face as it goes into the darkness, and it is not an ordinary movement, though a very slight one, that acknowledges his courtesy. but as he reflects when he is left alone, the woman has been putting no common constraint upon herself. he would know it all the better if he saw the woman pacing her own rooms with her hair wildly thrown from her flung-back face, her hands clasped behind her head, her figure twisted as if by pain. he would think so all the more if he saw the woman thus hurrying up and down for hours, without fatigue, without intermission, followed by the faithful step upon the ghost's walk. but he shuts out the now chilled air, draws the window-curtain, goes to bed, and falls asleep. and truly when the stars go out and the wan day peeps into the turret-chamber, finding him at his oldest, he looks as if the digger and the spade were both commissioned and would soon be digging. the same wan day peeps in at sir leicester pardoning the repentant country in a majestically condescending dream; and at the cousins entering on various public employments, principally receipt of salary; and at the chaste volumnia, bestowing a dower of fifty thousand pounds upon a hideous old general with a mouth of false teeth like a pianoforte too full of keys, long the admiration of bath and the terror of every other community. also into rooms high in the roof, and into offices in court-yards, and over stables, where humbler ambition dreams of bliss, in keepers' lodges, and in holy matrimony with will or sally. up comes the bright sun, drawing everything up with it--the wills and sallys, the latent vapour in the earth, the drooping leaves and flowers, the birds and beasts and creeping things, the gardeners to sweep the dewy turf and unfold emerald velvet where the roller passes, the smoke of the great kitchen fire wreathing itself straight and high into the lightsome air. lastly, up comes the flag over mr. tulkinghorn's unconscious head cheerfully proclaiming that sir leicester and lady dedlock are in their happy home and that there is hospitality at the place in lincolnshire. chapter xlii in mr. tulkinghorn's chambers from the verdant undulations and the spreading oaks of the dedlock property, mr. tulkinghorn transfers himself to the stale heat and dust of london. his manner of coming and going between the two places is one of his impenetrabilities. he walks into chesney wold as if it were next door to his chambers and returns to his chambers as if he had never been out of lincoln's inn fields. he neither changes his dress before the journey nor talks of it afterwards. he melted out of his turret-room this morning, just as now, in the late twilight, he melts into his own square. like a dingy london bird among the birds at roost in these pleasant fields, where the sheep are all made into parchment, the goats into wigs, and the pasture into chaff, the lawyer, smoke-dried and faded, dwelling among mankind but not consorting with them, aged without experience of genial youth, and so long used to make his cramped nest in holes and corners of human nature that he has forgotten its broader and better range, comes sauntering home. in the oven made by the hot pavements and hot buildings, he has baked himself dryer than usual; and he has in his thirsty mind his mellowed port-wine half a century old. the lamplighter is skipping up and down his ladder on mr. tulkinghorn's side of the fields when that high-priest of noble mysteries arrives at his own dull court-yard. he ascends the door-steps and is gliding into the dusky hall when he encounters, on the top step, a bowing and propitiatory little man. "is that snagsby?" "yes, sir. i hope you are well, sir. i was just giving you up, sir, and going home." "aye? what is it? what do you want with me?" "well, sir," says mr. snagsby, holding his hat at the side of his head in his deference towards his best customer, "i was wishful to say a word to you, sir." "can you say it here?" "perfectly, sir." "say it then." the lawyer turns, leans his arms on the iron railing at the top of the steps, and looks at the lamplighter lighting the court-yard. "it is relating," says mr. snagsby in a mysterious low voice, "it is relating--not to put too fine a point upon it--to the foreigner, sir!" mr. tulkinghorn eyes him with some surprise. "what foreigner?" "the foreign female, sir. french, if i don't mistake? i am not acquainted with that language myself, but i should judge from her manners and appearance that she was french; anyways, certainly foreign. her that was upstairs, sir, when mr. bucket and me had the honour of waiting upon you with the sweeping-boy that night." "oh! yes, yes. mademoiselle hortense." "indeed, sir?" mr. snagsby coughs his cough of submission behind his hat. "i am not acquainted myself with the names of foreigners in general, but i have no doubt it would be that." mr. snagsby appears to have set out in this reply with some desperate design of repeating the name, but on reflection coughs again to excuse himself. "and what can you have to say, snagsby," demands mr. tulkinghorn, "about her?" "well, sir," returns the stationer, shading his communication with his hat, "it falls a little hard upon me. my domestic happiness is very great--at least, it's as great as can be expected, i'm sure--but my little woman is rather given to jealousy. not to put too fine a point upon it, she is very much given to jealousy. and you see, a foreign female of that genteel appearance coming into the shop, and hovering--i should be the last to make use of a strong expression if i could avoid it, but hovering, sir--in the court--you know it is--now ain't it? i only put it to yourself, sir." mr. snagsby, having said this in a very plaintive manner, throws in a cough of general application to fill up all the blanks. "why, what do you mean?" asks mr. tulkinghorn. "just so, sir," returns mr. snagsby; "i was sure you would feel it yourself and would excuse the reasonableness of my feelings when coupled with the known excitableness of my little woman. you see, the foreign female--which you mentioned her name just now, with quite a native sound i am sure--caught up the word snagsby that night, being uncommon quick, and made inquiry, and got the direction and come at dinner-time. now guster, our young woman, is timid and has fits, and she, taking fright at the foreigner's looks--which are fierce--and at a grinding manner that she has of speaking--which is calculated to alarm a weak mind--gave way to it, instead of bearing up against it, and tumbled down the kitchen stairs out of one into another, such fits as i do sometimes think are never gone into, or come out of, in any house but ours. consequently there was by good fortune ample occupation for my little woman, and only me to answer the shop. when she did say that mr. tulkinghorn, being always denied to her by his employer (which i had no doubt at the time was a foreign mode of viewing a clerk), she would do herself the pleasure of continually calling at my place until she was let in here. since then she has been, as i began by saying, hovering, hovering, sir"--mr. snagsby repeats the word with pathetic emphasis--"in the court. the effects of which movement it is impossible to calculate. i shouldn't wonder if it might have already given rise to the painfullest mistakes even in the neighbours' minds, not mentioning (if such a thing was possible) my little woman. whereas, goodness knows," says mr. snagsby, shaking his head, "i never had an idea of a foreign female, except as being formerly connected with a bunch of brooms and a baby, or at the present time with a tambourine and earrings. i never had, i do assure you, sir!" mr. tulkinghorn had listened gravely to this complaint and inquires when the stationer has finished, "and that's all, is it, snagsby?" "why yes, sir, that's all," says mr. snagsby, ending with a cough that plainly adds, "and it's enough too--for me." "i don't know what mademoiselle hortense may want or mean, unless she is mad," says the lawyer. "even if she was, you know, sir," mr. snagsby pleads, "it wouldn't be a consolation to have some weapon or another in the form of a foreign dagger planted in the family." "no," says the other. "well, well! this shall be stopped. i am sorry you have been inconvenienced. if she comes again, send her here." mr. snagsby, with much bowing and short apologetic coughing, takes his leave, lightened in heart. mr. tulkinghorn goes upstairs, saying to himself, "these women were created to give trouble the whole earth over. the mistress not being enough to deal with, here's the maid now! but i will be short with this jade at least!" so saying, he unlocks his door, gropes his way into his murky rooms, lights his candles, and looks about him. it is too dark to see much of the allegory overhead there, but that importunate roman, who is for ever toppling out of the clouds and pointing, is at his old work pretty distinctly. not honouring him with much attention, mr. tulkinghorn takes a small key from his pocket, unlocks a drawer in which there is another key, which unlocks a chest in which there is another, and so comes to the cellar-key, with which he prepares to descend to the regions of old wine. he is going towards the door with a candle in his hand when a knock comes. "who's this? aye, aye, mistress, it's you, is it? you appear at a good time. i have just been hearing of you. now! what do you want?" he stands the candle on the chimney-piece in the clerk's hall and taps his dry cheek with the key as he addresses these words of welcome to mademoiselle hortense. that feline personage, with her lips tightly shut and her eyes looking out at him sideways, softly closes the door before replying. "i have had great deal of trouble to find you, sir." "have you!" "i have been here very often, sir. it has always been said to me, he is not at home, he is engage, he is this and that, he is not for you." "quite right, and quite true." "not true. lies!" at times there is a suddenness in the manner of mademoiselle hortense so like a bodily spring upon the subject of it that such subject involuntarily starts and fails back. it is mr. tulkinghorn's case at present, though mademoiselle hortense, with her eyes almost shut up (but still looking out sideways), is only smiling contemptuously and shaking her head. "now, mistress," says the lawyer, tapping the key hastily upon the chimney-piece. "if you have anything to say, say it, say it." "sir, you have not use me well. you have been mean and shabby." "mean and shabby, eh?" returns the lawyer, rubbing his nose with the key. "yes. what is it that i tell you? you know you have. you have attrapped me--catched me--to give you information; you have asked me to show you the dress of mine my lady must have wore that night, you have prayed me to come in it here to meet that boy. say! is it not?" mademoiselle hortense makes another spring. "you are a vixen, a vixen!" mr. tulkinghorn seems to meditate as he looks distrustfully at her, then he replies, "well, wench, well. i paid you." "you paid me!" she repeats with fierce disdain. "two sovereign! i have not change them, i re-fuse them, i des-pise them, i throw them from me!" which she literally does, taking them out of her bosom as she speaks and flinging them with such violence on the floor that they jerk up again into the light before they roll away into corners and slowly settle down there after spinning vehemently. "now!" says mademoiselle hortense, darkening her large eyes again. "you have paid me? eh, my god, oh yes!" mr. tulkinghorn rubs his head with the key while she entertains herself with a sarcastic laugh. "you must be rich, my fair friend," he composedly observes, "to throw money about in that way!" "i am rich," she returns. "i am very rich in hate. i hate my lady, of all my heart. you know that." "know it? how should i know it?" "because you have known it perfectly before you prayed me to give you that information. because you have known perfectly that i was en-r-r-r-raged!" it appears impossible for mademoiselle to roll the letter "r" sufficiently in this word, notwithstanding that she assists her energetic delivery by clenching both her hands and setting all her teeth. "oh! i knew that, did i?" says mr. tulkinghorn, examining the wards of the key. "yes, without doubt. i am not blind. you have made sure of me because you knew that. you had reason! i det-est her." mademoiselle hortense folds her arms and throws this last remark at him over one of her shoulders. "having said this, have you anything else to say, mademoiselle?" "i am not yet placed. place me well. find me a good condition! if you cannot, or do not choose to do that, employ me to pursue her, to chase her, to disgrace and to dishonour her. i will help you well, and with a good will. it is what you do. do i not know that?" "you appear to know a good deal," mr. tulkinghorn retorts. "do i not? is it that i am so weak as to believe, like a child, that i come here in that dress to rec-eive that boy only to decide a little bet, a wager? eh, my god, oh yes!" in this reply, down to the word "wager" inclusive, mademoiselle has been ironically polite and tender, then as suddenly dashed into the bitterest and most defiant scorn, with her black eyes in one and the same moment very nearly shut and staringly wide open. "now, let us see," says mr. tulkinghorn, tapping his chin with the key and looking imperturbably at her, "how this matter stands." "ah! let us see," mademoiselle assents, with many angry and tight nods of her head. "you come here to make a remarkably modest demand, which you have just stated, and it not being conceded, you will come again." "and again," says mademoiselle with more tight and angry nods. "and yet again. and yet again. and many times again. in effect, for ever!" "and not only here, but you will go to mr. snagsby's too, perhaps? that visit not succeeding either, you will go again perhaps?" "and again," repeats mademoiselle, cataleptic with determination. "and yet again. and yet again. and many times again. in effect, for ever!" "very well. now, mademoiselle hortense, let me recommend you to take the candle and pick up that money of yours. i think you will find it behind the clerk's partition in the corner yonder." she merely throws a laugh over her shoulder and stands her ground with folded arms. "you will not, eh?" "no, i will not!" "so much the poorer you; so much the richer i! look, mistress, this is the key of my wine-cellar. it is a large key, but the keys of prisons are larger. in this city there are houses of correction (where the treadmills are, for women), the gates of which are very strong and heavy, and no doubt the keys too. i am afraid a lady of your spirit and activity would find it an inconvenience to have one of those keys turned upon her for any length of time. what do you think?" "i think," mademoiselle replies without any action and in a clear, obliging voice, "that you are a miserable wretch." "probably," returns mr. tulkinghorn, quietly blowing his nose. "but i don't ask what you think of myself; i ask what you think of the prison." "nothing. what does it matter to me?" "why, it matters this much, mistress," says the lawyer, deliberately putting away his handkerchief and adjusting his frill; "the law is so despotic here that it interferes to prevent any of our good english citizens from being troubled, even by a lady's visits against his desire. and on his complaining that he is so troubled, it takes hold of the troublesome lady and shuts her up in prison under hard discipline. turns the key upon her, mistress." illustrating with the cellar-key. "truly?" returns mademoiselle in the same pleasant voice. "that is droll! but--my faith!--still what does it matter to me?" "my fair friend," says mr. tulkinghorn, "make another visit here, or at mr. snagsby's, and you shall learn." "in that case you will send me to the prison, perhaps?" "perhaps." it would be contradictory for one in mademoiselle's state of agreeable jocularity to foam at the mouth, otherwise a tigerish expansion thereabouts might look as if a very little more would make her do it. "in a word, mistress," says mr. tulkinghorn, "i am sorry to be unpolite, but if you ever present yourself uninvited here--or there--again, i will give you over to the police. their gallantry is great, but they carry troublesome people through the streets in an ignominious manner, strapped down on a board, my good wench." "i will prove you," whispers mademoiselle, stretching out her hand, "i will try if you dare to do it!" "and if," pursues the lawyer without minding her, "i place you in that good condition of being locked up in jail, it will be some time before you find yourself at liberty again." "i will prove you," repeats mademoiselle in her former whisper. "and now," proceeds the lawyer, still without minding her, "you had better go. think twice before you come here again." "think you," she answers, "twice two hundred times!" "you were dismissed by your lady, you know," mr. tulkinghorn observes, following her out upon the staircase, "as the most implacable and unmanageable of women. now turn over a new leaf and take warning by what i say to you. for what i say, i mean; and what i threaten, i will do, mistress." she goes down without answering or looking behind her. when she is gone, he goes down too, and returning with his cobweb-covered bottle, devotes himself to a leisurely enjoyment of its contents, now and then, as he throws his head back in his chair, catching sight of the pertinacious roman pointing from the ceiling. chapter xliii esther's narrative it matters little now how much i thought of my living mother who had told me evermore to consider her dead. i could not venture to approach her or to communicate with her in writing, for my sense of the peril in which her life was passed was only to be equalled by my fears of increasing it. knowing that my mere existence as a living creature was an unforeseen danger in her way, i could not always conquer that terror of myself which had seized me when i first knew the secret. at no time did i dare to utter her name. i felt as if i did not even dare to hear it. if the conversation anywhere, when i was present, took that direction, as it sometimes naturally did, i tried not to hear: i mentally counted, repeated something that i knew, or went out of the room. i am conscious now that i often did these things when there can have been no danger of her being spoken of, but i did them in the dread i had of hearing anything that might lead to her betrayal, and to her betrayal through me. it matters little now how often i recalled the tones of my mother's voice, wondered whether i should ever hear it again as i so longed to do, and thought how strange and desolate it was that it should be so new to me. it matters little that i watched for every public mention of my mother's name; that i passed and repassed the door of her house in town, loving it, but afraid to look at it; that i once sat in the theatre when my mother was there and saw me, and when we were so wide asunder before the great company of all degrees that any link or confidence between us seemed a dream. it is all, all over. my lot has been so blest that i can relate little of myself which is not a story of goodness and generosity in others. i may well pass that little and go on. when we were settled at home again, ada and i had many conversations with my guardian of which richard was the theme. my dear girl was deeply grieved that he should do their kind cousin so much wrong, but she was so faithful to richard that she could not bear to blame him even for that. my guardian was assured of it, and never coupled his name with a word of reproof. "rick is mistaken, my dear," he would say to her. "well, well! we have all been mistaken over and over again. we must trust to you and time to set him right." we knew afterwards what we suspected then, that he did not trust to time until he had often tried to open richard's eyes. that he had written to him, gone to him, talked with him, tried every gentle and persuasive art his kindness could devise. our poor devoted richard was deaf and blind to all. if he were wrong, he would make amends when the chancery suit was over. if he were groping in the dark, he could not do better than do his utmost to clear away those clouds in which so much was confused and obscured. suspicion and misunderstanding were the fault of the suit? then let him work the suit out and come through it to his right mind. this was his unvarying reply. jarndyce and jarndyce had obtained such possession of his whole nature that it was impossible to place any consideration before him which he did not, with a distorted kind of reason, make a new argument in favour of his doing what he did. "so that it is even more mischievous," said my guardian once to me, "to remonstrate with the poor dear fellow than to leave him alone." i took one of these opportunities of mentioning my doubts of mr. skimpole as a good adviser for richard. "adviser!" returned my guardian, laughing, "my dear, who would advise with skimpole?" "encourager would perhaps have been a better word," said i. "encourager!" returned my guardian again. "who could be encouraged by skimpole?" "not richard?" i asked. "no," he replied. "such an unworldly, uncalculating, gossamer creature is a relief to him and an amusement. but as to advising or encouraging or occupying a serious station towards anybody or anything, it is simply not to be thought of in such a child as skimpole." "pray, cousin john," said ada, who had just joined us and now looked over my shoulder, "what made him such a child?" "what made him such a child?" inquired my guardian, rubbing his head, a little at a loss. "yes, cousin john." "why," he slowly replied, roughening his head more and more, "he is all sentiment, and--and susceptibility, and--and sensibility, and--and imagination. and these qualities are not regulated in him, somehow. i suppose the people who admired him for them in his youth attached too much importance to them and too little to any training that would have balanced and adjusted them, and so he became what he is. hey?" said my guardian, stopping short and looking at us hopefully. "what do you think, you two?" ada, glancing at me, said she thought it was a pity he should be an expense to richard. "so it is, so it is," returned my guardian hurriedly. "that must not be. we must arrange that. i must prevent it. that will never do." and i said i thought it was to be regretted that he had ever introduced richard to mr. vholes for a present of five pounds. "did he?" said my guardian with a passing shade of vexation on his face. "but there you have the man. there you have the man! there is nothing mercenary in that with him. he has no idea of the value of money. he introduces rick, and then he is good friends with mr. vholes and borrows five pounds of him. he means nothing by it and thinks nothing of it. he told you himself, i'll be bound, my dear?" "oh, yes!" said i. "exactly!" cried my guardian, quite triumphant. "there you have the man! if he had meant any harm by it or was conscious of any harm in it, he wouldn't tell it. he tells it as he does it in mere simplicity. but you shall see him in his own home, and then you'll understand him better. we must pay a visit to harold skimpole and caution him on these points. lord bless you, my dears, an infant, an infant!" in pursuance of this plan, we went into london on an early day and presented ourselves at mr. skimpole's door. he lived in a place called the polygon, in somers town, where there were at that time a number of poor spanish refugees walking about in cloaks, smoking little paper cigars. whether he was a better tenant than one might have supposed, in consequence of his friend somebody always paying his rent at last, or whether his inaptitude for business rendered it particularly difficult to turn him out, i don't know; but he had occupied the same house some years. it was in a state of dilapidation quite equal to our expectation. two or three of the area railings were gone, the water-butt was broken, the knocker was loose, the bell-handle had been pulled off a long time to judge from the rusty state of the wire, and dirty footprints on the steps were the only signs of its being inhabited. a slatternly full-blown girl who seemed to be bursting out at the rents in her gown and the cracks in her shoes like an over-ripe berry answered our knock by opening the door a very little way and stopping up the gap with her figure. as she knew mr. jarndyce (indeed ada and i both thought that she evidently associated him with the receipt of her wages), she immediately relented and allowed us to pass in. the lock of the door being in a disabled condition, she then applied herself to securing it with the chain, which was not in good action either, and said would we go upstairs? we went upstairs to the first floor, still seeing no other furniture than the dirty footprints. mr. jarndyce without further ceremony entered a room there, and we followed. it was dingy enough and not at all clean, but furnished with an odd kind of shabby luxury, with a large footstool, a sofa, and plenty of cushions, an easy-chair, and plenty of pillows, a piano, books, drawing materials, music, newspapers, and a few sketches and pictures. a broken pane of glass in one of the dirty windows was papered and wafered over, but there was a little plate of hothouse nectarines on the table, and there was another of grapes, and another of sponge-cakes, and there was a bottle of light wine. mr. skimpole himself reclined upon the sofa in a dressing-gown, drinking some fragrant coffee from an old china cup--it was then about mid-day--and looking at a collection of wallflowers in the balcony. he was not in the least disconcerted by our appearance, but rose and received us in his usual airy manner. "here i am, you see!" he said when we were seated, not without some little difficulty, the greater part of the chairs being broken. "here i am! this is my frugal breakfast. some men want legs of beef and mutton for breakfast; i don't. give me my peach, my cup of coffee, and my claret; i am content. i don't want them for themselves, but they remind me of the sun. there's nothing solar about legs of beef and mutton. mere animal satisfaction!" "this is our friend's consulting-room (or would be, if he ever prescribed), his sanctum, his studio," said my guardian to us. "yes," said mr. skimpole, turning his bright face about, "this is the bird's cage. this is where the bird lives and sings. they pluck his feathers now and then and clip his wings, but he sings, he sings!" he handed us the grapes, repeating in his radiant way, "he sings! not an ambitious note, but still he sings." "these are very fine," said my guardian. "a present?" "no," he answered. "no! some amiable gardener sells them. his man wanted to know, when he brought them last evening, whether he should wait for the money. 'really, my friend,' i said, 'i think not--if your time is of any value to you.' i suppose it was, for he went away." my guardian looked at us with a smile, as though he asked us, "is it possible to be worldly with this baby?" "this is a day," said mr. skimpole, gaily taking a little claret in a tumbler, "that will ever be remembered here. we shall call it saint clare and saint summerson day. you must see my daughters. i have a blue-eyed daughter who is my beauty daughter, i have a sentiment daughter, and i have a comedy daughter. you must see them all. they'll be enchanted." he was going to summon them when my guardian interposed and asked him to pause a moment, as he wished to say a word to him first. "my dear jarndyce," he cheerfully replied, going back to his sofa, "as many moments as you please. time is no object here. we never know what o'clock it is, and we never care. not the way to get on in life, you'll tell me? certainly. but we don't get on in life. we don't pretend to do it." my guardian looked at us again, plainly saying, "you hear him?" "now, harold," he began, "the word i have to say relates to rick." "the dearest friend i have!" returned mr. skimpole cordially. "i suppose he ought not to be my dearest friend, as he is not on terms with you. but he is, i can't help it; he is full of youthful poetry, and i love him. if you don't like it, i can't help it. i love him." the engaging frankness with which he made this declaration really had a disinterested appearance and captivated my guardian, if not, for the moment, ada too. "you are welcome to love him as much as you like," returned mr. jarndyce, "but we must save his pocket, harold." "oh!" said mr. skimpole. "his pocket? now you are coming to what i don't understand." taking a little more claret and dipping one of the cakes in it, he shook his head and smiled at ada and me with an ingenuous foreboding that he never could be made to understand. "if you go with him here or there," said my guardian plainly, "you must not let him pay for both." "my dear jarndyce," returned mr. skimpole, his genial face irradiated by the comicality of this idea, "what am i to do? if he takes me anywhere, i must go. and how can i pay? i never have any money. if i had any money, i don't know anything about it. suppose i say to a man, how much? suppose the man says to me seven and sixpence? i know nothing about seven and sixpence. it is impossible for me to pursue the subject with any consideration for the man. i don't go about asking busy people what seven and sixpence is in moorish--which i don't understand. why should i go about asking them what seven and sixpence is in money--which i don't understand?" "well," said my guardian, by no means displeased with this artless reply, "if you come to any kind of journeying with rick, you must borrow the money of me (never breathing the least allusion to that circumstance), and leave the calculation to him." "my dear jarndyce," returned mr. skimpole, "i will do anything to give you pleasure, but it seems an idle form--a superstition. besides, i give you my word, miss clare and my dear miss summerson, i thought mr. carstone was immensely rich. i thought he had only to make over something, or to sign a bond, or a draft, or a cheque, or a bill, or to put something on a file somewhere, to bring down a shower of money." "indeed it is not so, sir," said ada. "he is poor." "no, really?" returned mr. skimpole with his bright smile. "you surprise me. "and not being the richer for trusting in a rotten reed," said my guardian, laying his hand emphatically on the sleeve of mr. skimpole's dressing-gown, "be you very careful not to encourage him in that reliance, harold." "my dear good friend," returned mr. skimpole, "and my dear miss simmerson, and my dear miss clare, how can i do that? it's business, and i don't know business. it is he who encourages me. he emerges from great feats of business, presents the brightest prospects before me as their result, and calls upon me to admire them. i do admire them--as bright prospects. but i know no more about them, and i tell him so." the helpless kind of candour with which he presented this before us, the light-hearted manner in which he was amused by his innocence, the fantastic way in which he took himself under his own protection and argued about that curious person, combined with the delightful ease of everything he said exactly to make out my guardian's case. the more i saw of him, the more unlikely it seemed to me, when he was present, that he could design, conceal, or influence anything; and yet the less likely that appeared when he was not present, and the less agreeable it was to think of his having anything to do with any one for whom i cared. hearing that his examination (as he called it) was now over, mr. skimpole left the room with a radiant face to fetch his daughters (his sons had run away at various times), leaving my guardian quite delighted by the manner in which he had vindicated his childish character. he soon came back, bringing with him the three young ladies and mrs. skimpole, who had once been a beauty but was now a delicate high-nosed invalid suffering under a complication of disorders. "this," said mr. skimpole, "is my beauty daughter, arethusa--plays and sings odds and ends like her father. this is my sentiment daughter, laura--plays a little but don't sing. this is my comedy daughter, kitty--sings a little but don't play. we all draw a little and compose a little, and none of us have any idea of time or money." mrs. skimpole sighed, i thought, as if she would have been glad to strike out this item in the family attainments. i also thought that she rather impressed her sigh upon my guardian and that she took every opportunity of throwing in another. "it is pleasant," said mr. skimpole, turning his sprightly eyes from one to the other of us, "and it is whimsically interesting to trace peculiarities in families. in this family we are all children, and i am the youngest." the daughters, who appeared to be very fond of him, were amused by this droll fact, particularly the comedy daughter. "my dears, it is true," said mr. skimpole, "is it not? so it is, and so it must be, because like the dogs in the hymn, 'it is our nature to.' now, here is miss summerson with a fine administrative capacity and a knowledge of details perfectly surprising. it will sound very strange in miss summerson's ears, i dare say, that we know nothing about chops in this house. but we don't, not the least. we can't cook anything whatever. a needle and thread we don't know how to use. we admire the people who possess the practical wisdom we want, but we don't quarrel with them. then why should they quarrel with us? live and let live, we say to them. live upon your practical wisdom, and let us live upon you!" he laughed, but as usual seemed quite candid and really to mean what he said. "we have sympathy, my roses," said mr. skimpole, "sympathy for everything. have we not?" "oh, yes, papa!" cried the three daughters. "in fact, that is our family department," said mr. skimpole, "in this hurly-burly of life. we are capable of looking on and of being interested, and we do look on, and we are interested. what more can we do? here is my beauty daughter, married these three years. now i dare say her marrying another child, and having two more, was all wrong in point of political economy, but it was very agreeable. we had our little festivities on those occasions and exchanged social ideas. she brought her young husband home one day, and they and their young fledglings have their nest upstairs. i dare say at some time or other sentiment and comedy will bring their husbands home and have their nests upstairs too. so we get on, we don't know how, but somehow." she looked very young indeed to be the mother of two children, and i could not help pitying both her and them. it was evident that the three daughters had grown up as they could and had had just as little haphazard instruction as qualified them to be their father's playthings in his idlest hours. his pictorial tastes were consulted, i observed, in their respective styles of wearing their hair, the beauty daughter being in the classic manner, the sentiment daughter luxuriant and flowing, and the comedy daughter in the arch style, with a good deal of sprightly forehead, and vivacious little curls dotted about the corners of her eyes. they were dressed to correspond, though in a most untidy and negligent way. ada and i conversed with these young ladies and found them wonderfully like their father. in the meanwhile mr. jarndyce (who had been rubbing his head to a great extent, and hinted at a change in the wind) talked with mrs. skimpole in a corner, where we could not help hearing the chink of money. mr. skimpole had previously volunteered to go home with us and had withdrawn to dress himself for the purpose. "my roses," he said when he came back, "take care of mama. she is poorly to-day. by going home with mr. jarndyce for a day or two, i shall hear the larks sing and preserve my amiability. it has been tried, you know, and would be tried again if i remained at home." "that bad man!" said the comedy daughter. "at the very time when he knew papa was lying ill by his wallflowers, looking at the blue sky," laura complained. "and when the smell of hay was in the air!" said arethusa. "it showed a want of poetry in the man," mr. skimpole assented, but with perfect good humour. "it was coarse. there was an absence of the finer touches of humanity in it! my daughters have taken great offence," he explained to us, "at an honest man--" "not honest, papa. impossible!" they all three protested. "at a rough kind of fellow--a sort of human hedgehog rolled up," said mr. skimpole, "who is a baker in this neighbourhood and from whom we borrowed a couple of arm-chairs. we wanted a couple of arm-chairs, and we hadn't got them, and therefore of course we looked to a man who had got them, to lend them. well! this morose person lent them, and we wore them out. when they were worn out, he wanted them back. he had them back. he was contented, you will say. not at all. he objected to their being worn. i reasoned with him, and pointed out his mistake. i said, 'can you, at your time of life, be so headstrong, my friend, as to persist that an arm-chair is a thing to put upon a shelf and look at? that it is an object to contemplate, to survey from a distance, to consider from a point of sight? don't you know that these arm-chairs were borrowed to be sat upon?' he was unreasonable and unpersuadable and used intemperate language. being as patient as i am at this minute, i addressed another appeal to him. i said, 'now, my good man, however our business capacities may vary, we are all children of one great mother, nature. on this blooming summer morning here you see me' (i was on the sofa) 'with flowers before me, fruit upon the table, the cloudless sky above me, the air full of fragrance, contemplating nature. i entreat you, by our common brotherhood, not to interpose between me and a subject so sublime, the absurd figure of an angry baker!' but he did," said mr. skimpole, raising his laughing eyes in playful astonishment; "he did interpose that ridiculous figure, and he does, and he will again. and therefore i am very glad to get out of his way and to go home with my friend jarndyce." it seemed to escape his consideration that mrs. skimpole and the daughters remained behind to encounter the baker, but this was so old a story to all of them that it had become a matter of course. he took leave of his family with a tenderness as airy and graceful as any other aspect in which he showed himself and rode away with us in perfect harmony of mind. we had an opportunity of seeing through some open doors, as we went downstairs, that his own apartment was a palace to the rest of the house. i could have no anticipation, and i had none, that something very startling to me at the moment, and ever memorable to me in what ensued from it, was to happen before this day was out. our guest was in such spirits on the way home that i could do nothing but listen to him and wonder at him; nor was i alone in this, for ada yielded to the same fascination. as to my guardian, the wind, which had threatened to become fixed in the east when we left somers town, veered completely round before we were a couple of miles from it. whether of questionable childishness or not in any other matters, mr. skimpole had a child's enjoyment of change and bright weather. in no way wearied by his sallies on the road, he was in the drawing-room before any of us; and i heard him at the piano while i was yet looking after my housekeeping, singing refrains of barcaroles and drinking songs, italian and german, by the score. we were all assembled shortly before dinner, and he was still at the piano idly picking out in his luxurious way little strains of music, and talking between whiles of finishing some sketches of the ruined old verulam wall to-morrow, which he had begun a year or two ago and had got tired of, when a card was brought in and my guardian read aloud in a surprised voice, "sir leicester dedlock!" the visitor was in the room while it was yet turning round with me and before i had the power to stir. if i had had it, i should have hurried away. i had not even the presence of mind, in my giddiness, to retire to ada in the window, or to see the window, or to know where it was. i heard my name and found that my guardian was presenting me before i could move to a chair. "pray be seated, sir leicester." "mr. jarndyce," said sir leicester in reply as he bowed and seated himself, "i do myself the honour of calling here--" "you do me the honour, sir leicester." "thank you--of calling here on my road from lincolnshire to express my regret that any cause of complaint, however strong, that i may have against a gentleman who--who is known to you and has been your host, and to whom therefore i will make no farther reference, should have prevented you, still more ladies under your escort and charge, from seeing whatever little there may be to gratify a polite and refined taste at my house, chesney wold." "you are exceedingly obliging, sir leicester, and on behalf of those ladies (who are present) and for myself, i thank you very much." "it is possible, mr. jarndyce, that the gentleman to whom, for the reasons i have mentioned, i refrain from making further allusion--it is possible, mr. jarndyce, that that gentleman may have done me the honour so far to misapprehend my character as to induce you to believe that you would not have been received by my local establishment in lincolnshire with that urbanity, that courtesy, which its members are instructed to show to all ladies and gentlemen who present themselves at that house. i merely beg to observe, sir, that the fact is the reverse." my guardian delicately dismissed this remark without making any verbal answer. "it has given me pain, mr. jarndyce," sir leicester weightily proceeded. "i assure you, sir, it has given--me--pain--to learn from the housekeeper at chesney wold that a gentleman who was in your company in that part of the county, and who would appear to possess a cultivated taste for the fine arts, was likewise deterred by some such cause from examining the family pictures with that leisure, that attention, that care, which he might have desired to bestow upon them and which some of them might possibly have repaid." here he produced a card and read, with much gravity and a little trouble, through his eye-glass, "mr. hirrold--herald--harold--skampling--skumpling--i beg your pardon--skimpole." "this is mr. harold skimpole," said my guardian, evidently surprised. "oh!" exclaimed sir leicester, "i am happy to meet mr. skimpole and to have the opportunity of tendering my personal regrets. i hope, sir, that when you again find yourself in my part of the county, you will be under no similar sense of restraint." "you are very obliging, sir leicester dedlock. so encouraged, i shall certainly give myself the pleasure and advantage of another visit to your beautiful house. the owners of such places as chesney wold," said mr. skimpole with his usual happy and easy air, "are public benefactors. they are good enough to maintain a number of delightful objects for the admiration and pleasure of us poor men; and not to reap all the admiration and pleasure that they yield is to be ungrateful to our benefactors." sir leicester seemed to approve of this sentiment highly. "an artist, sir?" "no," returned mr. skimpole. "a perfectly idle man. a mere amateur." sir leicester seemed to approve of this even more. he hoped he might have the good fortune to be at chesney wold when mr. skimpole next came down into lincolnshire. mr. skimpole professed himself much flattered and honoured. "mr. skimpole mentioned," pursued sir leicester, addressing himself again to my guardian, "mentioned to the housekeeper, who, as he may have observed, is an old and attached retainer of the family--" ("that is, when i walked through the house the other day, on the occasion of my going down to visit miss summerson and miss clare," mr. skimpole airily explained to us.) "--that the friend with whom he had formerly been staying there was mr. jarndyce." sir leicester bowed to the bearer of that name. "and hence i became aware of the circumstance for which i have professed my regret. that this should have occurred to any gentleman, mr. jarndyce, but especially a gentleman formerly known to lady dedlock, and indeed claiming some distant connexion with her, and for whom (as i learn from my lady herself) she entertains a high respect, does, i assure you, give--me--pain." "pray say no more about it, sir leicester," returned my guardian. "i am very sensible, as i am sure we all are, of your consideration. indeed the mistake was mine, and i ought to apologize for it." i had not once looked up. i had not seen the visitor and had not even appeared to myself to hear the conversation. it surprises me to find that i can recall it, for it seemed to make no impression on me as it passed. i heard them speaking, but my mind was so confused and my instinctive avoidance of this gentleman made his presence so distressing to me that i thought i understood nothing, through the rushing in my head and the beating of my heart. "i mentioned the subject to lady dedlock," said sir leicester, rising, "and my lady informed me that she had had the pleasure of exchanging a few words with mr. jarndyce and his wards on the occasion of an accidental meeting during their sojourn in the vicinity. permit me, mr. jarndyce, to repeat to yourself, and to these ladies, the assurance i have already tendered to mr. skimpole. circumstances undoubtedly prevent my saying that it would afford me any gratification to hear that mr. boythorn had favoured my house with his presence, but those circumstances are confined to that gentleman himself and do not extend beyond him." "you know my old opinion of him," said mr. skimpole, lightly appealing to us. "an amiable bull who is determined to make every colour scarlet!" sir leicester dedlock coughed as if he could not possibly hear another word in reference to such an individual and took his leave with great ceremony and politeness. i got to my own room with all possible speed and remained there until i had recovered my self-command. it had been very much disturbed, but i was thankful to find when i went downstairs again that they only rallied me for having been shy and mute before the great lincolnshire baronet. by that time i had made up my mind that the period was come when i must tell my guardian what i knew. the possibility of my being brought into contact with my mother, of my being taken to her house, even of mr. skimpole's, however distantly associated with me, receiving kindnesses and obligations from her husband, was so painful that i felt i could no longer guide myself without his assistance. when we had retired for the night, and ada and i had had our usual talk in our pretty room, i went out at my door again and sought my guardian among his books. i knew he always read at that hour, and as i drew near i saw the light shining out into the passage from his reading-lamp. "may i come in, guardian?" "surely, little woman. what's the matter?" "nothing is the matter. i thought i would like to take this quiet time of saying a word to you about myself." he put a chair for me, shut his book, and put it by, and turned his kind attentive face towards me. i could not help observing that it wore that curious expression i had observed in it once before--on that night when he had said that he was in no trouble which i could readily understand. "what concerns you, my dear esther," said he, "concerns us all. you cannot be more ready to speak than i am to hear." "i know that, guardian. but i have such need of your advice and support. oh! you don't know how much need i have to-night." he looked unprepared for my being so earnest, and even a little alarmed. "or how anxious i have been to speak to you," said i, "ever since the visitor was here to-day." "the visitor, my dear! sir leicester dedlock?" "yes." he folded his arms and sat looking at me with an air of the profoundest astonishment, awaiting what i should say next. i did not know how to prepare him. "why, esther," said he, breaking into a smile, "our visitor and you are the two last persons on earth i should have thought of connecting together!" "oh, yes, guardian, i know it. and i too, but a little while ago." the smile passed from his face, and he became graver than before. he crossed to the door to see that it was shut (but i had seen to that) and resumed his seat before me. "guardian," said i, "do you remember, when we were overtaken by the thunder-storm, lady dedlock's speaking to you of her sister?" "of course. of course i do." "and reminding you that she and her sister had differed, had gone their several ways?" "of course." "why did they separate, guardian?" his face quite altered as he looked at me. "my child, what questions are these! i never knew. no one but themselves ever did know, i believe. who could tell what the secrets of those two handsome and proud women were! you have seen lady dedlock. if you had ever seen her sister, you would know her to have been as resolute and haughty as she." "oh, guardian, i have seen her many and many a time!" "seen her?" he paused a little, biting his lip. "then, esther, when you spoke to me long ago of boythorn, and when i told you that he was all but married once, and that the lady did not die, but died to him, and that that time had had its influence on his later life--did you know it all, and know who the lady was?" "no, guardian," i returned, fearful of the light that dimly broke upon me. "nor do i know yet." "lady dedlock's sister." "and why," i could scarcely ask him, "why, guardian, pray tell me why were they parted?" "it was her act, and she kept its motives in her inflexible heart. he afterwards did conjecture (but it was mere conjecture) that some injury which her haughty spirit had received in her cause of quarrel with her sister had wounded her beyond all reason, but she wrote him that from the date of that letter she died to him--as in literal truth she did--and that the resolution was exacted from her by her knowledge of his proud temper and his strained sense of honour, which were both her nature too. in consideration for those master points in him, and even in consideration for them in herself, she made the sacrifice, she said, and would live in it and die in it. she did both, i fear; certainly he never saw her, never heard of her from that hour. nor did any one." "oh, guardian, what have i done!" i cried, giving way to my grief; "what sorrow have i innocently caused!" "you caused, esther?" "yes, guardian. innocently, but most surely. that secluded sister is my first remembrance." "no, no!" he cried, starting. "yes, guardian, yes! and her sister is my mother!" i would have told him all my mother's letter, but he would not hear it then. he spoke so tenderly and wisely to me, and he put so plainly before me all i had myself imperfectly thought and hoped in my better state of mind, that, penetrated as i had been with fervent gratitude towards him through so many years, i believed i had never loved him so dearly, never thanked him in my heart so fully, as i did that night. and when he had taken me to my room and kissed me at the door, and when at last i lay down to sleep, my thought was how could i ever be busy enough, how could i ever be good enough, how in my little way could i ever hope to be forgetful enough of myself, devoted enough to him, and useful enough to others, to show him how i blessed and honoured him. chapter xliv the letter and the answer my guardian called me into his room next morning, and then i told him what had been left untold on the previous night. there was nothing to be done, he said, but to keep the secret and to avoid another such encounter as that of yesterday. he understood my feeling and entirely shared it. he charged himself even with restraining mr. skimpole from improving his opportunity. one person whom he need not name to me, it was not now possible for him to advise or help. he wished it were, but no such thing could be. if her mistrust of the lawyer whom she had mentioned were well-founded, which he scarcely doubted, he dreaded discovery. he knew something of him, both by sight and by reputation, and it was certain that he was a dangerous man. whatever happened, he repeatedly impressed upon me with anxious affection and kindness, i was as innocent of as himself and as unable to influence. "nor do i understand," said he, "that any doubts tend towards you, my dear. much suspicion may exist without that connexion." "with the lawyer," i returned. "but two other persons have come into my mind since i have been anxious. then i told him all about mr. guppy, who i feared might have had his vague surmises when i little understood his meaning, but in whose silence after our last interview i expressed perfect confidence. "well," said my guardian. "then we may dismiss him for the present. who is the other?" i called to his recollection the french maid and the eager offer of herself she had made to me. "ha!" he returned thoughtfully. "that is a more alarming person than the clerk. but after all, my dear, it was but seeking for a new service. she had seen you and ada a little while before, and it was natural that you should come into her head. she merely proposed herself for your maid, you know. she did nothing more." "her manner was strange," said i. "yes, and her manner was strange when she took her shoes off and showed that cool relish for a walk that might have ended in her death-bed," said my guardian. "it would be useless self-distress and torment to reckon up such chances and possibilities. there are very few harmless circumstances that would not seem full of perilous meaning, so considered. be hopeful, little woman. you can be nothing better than yourself; be that, through this knowledge, as you were before you had it. it is the best you can do for everybody's sake. i, sharing the secret with you--" "and lightening it, guardian, so much," said i. "--will be attentive to what passes in that family, so far as i can observe it from my distance. and if the time should come when i can stretch out a hand to render the least service to one whom it is better not to name even here, i will not fail to do it for her dear daughter's sake." i thanked him with my whole heart. what could i ever do but thank him! i was going out at the door when he asked me to stay a moment. quickly turning round, i saw that same expression on his face again; and all at once, i don't know how, it flashed upon me as a new and far-off possibility that i understood it. "my dear esther," said my guardian, "i have long had something in my thoughts that i have wished to say to you." "indeed?" "i have had some difficulty in approaching it, and i still have. i should wish it to be so deliberately said, and so deliberately considered. would you object to my writing it?" "dear guardian, how could i object to your writing anything for me to read?" "then see, my love," said he with his cheery smile, "am i at this moment quite as plain and easy--do i seem as open, as honest and old-fashioned--as i am at any time?" i answered in all earnestness, "quite." with the strictest truth, for his momentary hesitation was gone (it had not lasted a minute), and his fine, sensible, cordial, sterling manner was restored. "do i look as if i suppressed anything, meant anything but what i said, had any reservation at all, no matter what?" said he with his bright clear eyes on mine. i answered, most assuredly he did not. "can you fully trust me, and thoroughly rely on what i profess, esther?" "most thoroughly," said i with my whole heart. "my dear girl," returned my guardian, "give me your hand." he took it in his, holding me lightly with his arm, and looking down into my face with the same genuine freshness and faithfulness of manner--the old protecting manner which had made that house my home in a moment--said, "you have wrought changes in me, little woman, since the winter day in the stage-coach. first and last you have done me a world of good since that time." "ah, guardian, what have you done for me since that time!" "but," said he, "that is not to be remembered now." "it never can be forgotten." "yes, esther," said he with a gentle seriousness, "it is to be forgotten now, to be forgotten for a while. you are only to remember now that nothing can change me as you know me. can you feel quite assured of that, my dear?" "i can, and i do," i said. "that's much," he answered. "that's everything. but i must not take that at a word. i will not write this something in my thoughts until you have quite resolved within yourself that nothing can change me as you know me. if you doubt that in the least degree, i will never write it. if you are sure of that, on good consideration, send charley to me this night week--'for the letter.' but if you are not quite certain, never send. mind, i trust to your truth, in this thing as in everything. if you are not quite certain on that one point, never send!" "guardian," said i, "i am already certain, i can no more be changed in that conviction than you can be changed towards me. i shall send charley for the letter." he shook my hand and said no more. nor was any more said in reference to this conversation, either by him or me, through the whole week. when the appointed night came, i said to charley as soon as i was alone, "go and knock at mr. jarndyce's door, charley, and say you have come from me--'for the letter.'" charley went up the stairs, and down the stairs, and along the passages--the zig-zag way about the old-fashioned house seemed very long in my listening ears that night--and so came back, along the passages, and down the stairs, and up the stairs, and brought the letter. "lay it on the table, charley," said i. so charley laid it on the table and went to bed, and i sat looking at it without taking it up, thinking of many things. i began with my overshadowed childhood, and passed through those timid days to the heavy time when my aunt lay dead, with her resolute face so cold and set, and when i was more solitary with mrs. rachael than if i had had no one in the world to speak to or to look at. i passed to the altered days when i was so blest as to find friends in all around me, and to be beloved. i came to the time when i first saw my dear girl and was received into that sisterly affection which was the grace and beauty of my life. i recalled the first bright gleam of welcome which had shone out of those very windows upon our expectant faces on that cold bright night, and which had never paled. i lived my happy life there over again, i went through my illness and recovery, i thought of myself so altered and of those around me so unchanged; and all this happiness shone like a light from one central figure, represented before me by the letter on the table. i opened it and read it. it was so impressive in its love for me, and in the unselfish caution it gave me, and the consideration it showed for me in every word, that my eyes were too often blinded to read much at a time. but i read it through three times before i laid it down. i had thought beforehand that i knew its purport, and i did. it asked me, would i be the mistress of bleak house. it was not a love letter, though it expressed so much love, but was written just as he would at any time have spoken to me. i saw his face, and heard his voice, and felt the influence of his kind protecting manner in every line. it addressed me as if our places were reversed, as if all the good deeds had been mine and all the feelings they had awakened his. it dwelt on my being young, and he past the prime of life; on his having attained a ripe age, while i was a child; on his writing to me with a silvered head, and knowing all this so well as to set it in full before me for mature deliberation. it told me that i would gain nothing by such a marriage and lose nothing by rejecting it, for no new relation could enhance the tenderness in which he held me, and whatever my decision was, he was certain it would be right. but he had considered this step anew since our late confidence and had decided on taking it, if it only served to show me through one poor instance that the whole world would readily unite to falsify the stern prediction of my childhood. i was the last to know what happiness i could bestow upon him, but of that he said no more, for i was always to remember that i owed him nothing and that he was my debtor, and for very much. he had often thought of our future, and foreseeing that the time must come, and fearing that it might come soon, when ada (now very nearly of age) would leave us, and when our present mode of life must be broken up, had become accustomed to reflect on this proposal. thus he made it. if i felt that i could ever give him the best right he could have to be my protector, and if i felt that i could happily and justly become the dear companion of his remaining life, superior to all lighter chances and changes than death, even then he could not have me bind myself irrevocably while this letter was yet so new to me, but even then i must have ample time for reconsideration. in that case, or in the opposite case, let him be unchanged in his old relation, in his old manner, in the old name by which i called him. and as to his bright dame durden and little housekeeper, she would ever be the same, he knew. this was the substance of the letter, written throughout with a justice and a dignity as if he were indeed my responsible guardian impartially representing the proposal of a friend against whom in his integrity he stated the full case. but he did not hint to me that when i had been better looking he had had this same proceeding in his thoughts and had refrained from it. that when my old face was gone from me, and i had no attractions, he could love me just as well as in my fairer days. that the discovery of my birth gave him no shock. that his generosity rose above my disfigurement and my inheritance of shame. that the more i stood in need of such fidelity, the more firmly i might trust in him to the last. but i knew it, i knew it well now. it came upon me as the close of the benignant history i had been pursuing, and i felt that i had but one thing to do. to devote my life to his happiness was to thank him poorly, and what had i wished for the other night but some new means of thanking him? still i cried very much, not only in the fullness of my heart after reading the letter, not only in the strangeness of the prospect--for it was strange though i had expected the contents--but as if something for which there was no name or distinct idea were indefinitely lost to me. i was very happy, very thankful, very hopeful; but i cried very much. by and by i went to my old glass. my eyes were red and swollen, and i said, "oh, esther, esther, can that be you!" i am afraid the face in the glass was going to cry again at this reproach, but i held up my finger at it, and it stopped. "that is more like the composed look you comforted me with, my dear, when you showed me such a change!" said i, beginning to let down my hair. "when you are mistress of bleak house, you are to be as cheerful as a bird. in fact, you are always to be cheerful; so let us begin for once and for all." i went on with my hair now, quite comfortably. i sobbed a little still, but that was because i had been crying, not because i was crying then. "and so esther, my dear, you are happy for life. happy with your best friends, happy in your old home, happy in the power of doing a great deal of good, and happy in the undeserved love of the best of men." i thought, all at once, if my guardian had married some one else, how should i have felt, and what should i have done! that would have been a change indeed. it presented my life in such a new and blank form that i rang my housekeeping keys and gave them a kiss before i laid them down in their basket again. then i went on to think, as i dressed my hair before the glass, how often had i considered within myself that the deep traces of my illness and the circumstances of my birth were only new reasons why i should be busy, busy, busy--useful, amiable, serviceable, in all honest, unpretending ways. this was a good time, to be sure, to sit down morbidly and cry! as to its seeming at all strange to me at first (if that were any excuse for crying, which it was not) that i was one day to be the mistress of bleak house, why should it seem strange? other people had thought of such things, if i had not. "don't you remember, my plain dear," i asked myself, looking at the glass, "what mrs. woodcourt said before those scars were there about your marrying--" perhaps the name brought them to my remembrance. the dried remains of the flowers. it would be better not to keep them now. they had only been preserved in memory of something wholly past and gone, but it would be better not to keep them now. they were in a book, and it happened to be in the next room--our sitting-room, dividing ada's chamber from mine. i took a candle and went softly in to fetch it from its shelf. after i had it in my hand, i saw my beautiful darling, through the open door, lying asleep, and i stole in to kiss her. it was weak in me, i know, and i could have no reason for crying; but i dropped a tear upon her dear face, and another, and another. weaker than that, i took the withered flowers out and put them for a moment to her lips. i thought about her love for richard, though, indeed, the flowers had nothing to do with that. then i took them into my own room and burned them at the candle, and they were dust in an instant. on entering the breakfast-room next morning, i found my guardian just as usual, quite as frank, as open, and free. there being not the least constraint in his manner, there was none (or i think there was none) in mine. i was with him several times in the course of the morning, in and out, when there was no one there, and i thought it not unlikely that he might speak to me about the letter, but he did not say a word. so, on the next morning, and the next, and for at least a week, over which time mr. skimpole prolonged his stay. i expected, every day, that my guardian might speak to me about the letter, but he never did. i thought then, growing uneasy, that i ought to write an answer. i tried over and over again in my own room at night, but i could not write an answer that at all began like a good answer, so i thought each night i would wait one more day. and i waited seven more days, and he never said a word. at last, mr. skimpole having departed, we three were one afternoon going out for a ride; and i, being dressed before ada and going down, came upon my guardian, with his back towards me, standing at the drawing-room window looking out. he turned on my coming in and said, smiling, "aye, it's you, little woman, is it?" and looked out again. i had made up my mind to speak to him now. in short, i had come down on purpose. "guardian," i said, rather hesitating and trembling, "when would you like to have the answer to the letter charley came for?" "when it's ready, my dear," he replied. "i think it is ready," said i. "is charley to bring it?" he asked pleasantly. "no. i have brought it myself, guardian," i returned. i put my two arms round his neck and kissed him, and he said was this the mistress of bleak house, and i said yes; and it made no difference presently, and we all went out together, and i said nothing to my precious pet about it. chapter xlv in trust one morning when i had done jingling about with my baskets of keys, as my beauty and i were walking round and round the garden i happened to turn my eyes towards the house and saw a long thin shadow going in which looked like mr. vholes. ada had been telling me only that morning of her hopes that richard might exhaust his ardour in the chancery suit by being so very earnest in it; and therefore, not to damp my dear girl's spirits, i said nothing about mr. vholes's shadow. presently came charley, lightly winding among the bushes and tripping along the paths, as rosy and pretty as one of flora's attendants instead of my maid, saying, "oh, if you please, miss, would you step and speak to mr. jarndyce!" it was one of charley's peculiarities that whenever she was charged with a message she always began to deliver it as soon as she beheld, at any distance, the person for whom it was intended. therefore i saw charley asking me in her usual form of words to "step and speak" to mr. jarndyce long before i heard her. and when i did hear her, she had said it so often that she was out of breath. i told ada i would make haste back and inquired of charley as we went in whether there was not a gentleman with mr. jarndyce. to which charley, whose grammar, i confess to my shame, never did any credit to my educational powers, replied, "yes, miss. him as come down in the country with mr. richard." a more complete contrast than my guardian and mr. vholes i suppose there could not be. i found them looking at one another across a table, the one so open and the other so close, the one so broad and upright and the other so narrow and stooping, the one giving out what he had to say in such a rich ringing voice and the other keeping it in in such a cold-blooded, gasping, fish-like manner that i thought i never had seen two people so unmatched. "you know mr. vholes, my dear," said my guardian. not with the greatest urbanity, i must say. mr. vholes rose, gloved and buttoned up as usual, and seated himself again, just as he had seated himself beside richard in the gig. not having richard to look at, he looked straight before him. "mr. vholes," said my guardian, eyeing his black figure as if he were a bird of ill omen, "has brought an ugly report of our most unfortunate rick." laying a marked emphasis on "most unfortunate" as if the words were rather descriptive of his connexion with mr. vholes. i sat down between them; mr. vholes remained immovable, except that he secretly picked at one of the red pimples on his yellow face with his black glove. "and as rick and you are happily good friends, i should like to know," said my guardian, "what you think, my dear. would you be so good as to--as to speak up, mr. vholes?" doing anything but that, mr. vholes observed, "i have been saying that i have reason to know, miss summerson, as mr. c.'s professional adviser, that mr. c.'s circumstances are at the present moment in an embarrassed state. not so much in point of amount as owing to the peculiar and pressing nature of liabilities mr. c. has incurred and the means he has of liquidating or meeting the same. i have staved off many little matters for mr. c., but there is a limit to staving off, and we have reached it. i have made some advances out of pocket to accommodate these unpleasantnesses, but i necessarily look to being repaid, for i do not pretend to be a man of capital, and i have a father to support in the vale of taunton, besides striving to realize some little independence for three dear girls at home. my apprehension is, mr. c.'s circumstances being such, lest it should end in his obtaining leave to part with his commission, which at all events is desirable to be made known to his connexions." mr. vholes, who had looked at me while speaking, here emerged into the silence he could hardly be said to have broken, so stifled was his tone, and looked before him again. "imagine the poor fellow without even his present resource," said my guardian to me. "yet what can i do? you know him, esther. he would never accept of help from me now. to offer it or hint at it would be to drive him to an extremity, if nothing else did." mr. vholes hereupon addressed me again. "what mr. jarndyce remarks, miss, is no doubt the case, and is the difficulty. i do not see that anything is to be done. i do not say that anything is to be done. far from it. i merely come down here under the seal of confidence and mention it in order that everything may be openly carried on and that it may not be said afterwards that everything was not openly carried on. my wish is that everything should be openly carried on. i desire to leave a good name behind me. if i consulted merely my own interests with mr. c., i should not be here. so insurmountable, as you must well know, would be his objections. this is not a professional attendance. this can he charged to nobody. i have no interest in it except as a member of society and a father--and a son," said mr. vholes, who had nearly forgotten that point. it appeared to us that mr. vholes said neither more nor less than the truth in intimating that he sought to divide the responsibility, such as it was, of knowing richard's situation. i could only suggest that i should go down to deal, where richard was then stationed, and see him, and try if it were possible to avert the worst. without consulting mr. vholes on this point, i took my guardian aside to propose it, while mr. vholes gauntly stalked to the fire and warmed his funeral gloves. the fatigue of the journey formed an immediate objection on my guardian's part, but as i saw he had no other, and as i was only too happy to go, i got his consent. we had then merely to dispose of mr. vholes. "well, sir," said mr. jarndyce, "miss summerson will communicate with mr. carstone, and you can only hope that his position may be yet retrievable. you will allow me to order you lunch after your journey, sir." "i thank you, mr. jarndyce," said mr. vholes, putting out his long black sleeve to check the ringing of the bell, "not any. i thank you, no, not a morsel. my digestion is much impaired, and i am but a poor knife and fork at any time. if i was to partake of solid food at this period of the day, i don't know what the consequences might be. everything having been openly carried on, sir, i will now with your permission take my leave." "and i would that you could take your leave, and we could all take our leave, mr. vholes," returned my guardian bitterly, "of a cause you know of." mr. vholes, whose black dye was so deep from head to foot that it had quite steamed before the fire, diffusing a very unpleasant perfume, made a short one-sided inclination of his head from the neck and slowly shook it. "we whose ambition it is to be looked upon in the light of respectable practitioners, sir, can but put our shoulders to the wheel. we do it, sir. at least, i do it myself; and i wish to think well of my professional brethren, one and all. you are sensible of an obligation not to refer to me, miss, in communicating with mr. c.?" i said i would be careful not to do it. "just so, miss. good morning. mr. jarndyce, good morning, sir." mr. vholes put his dead glove, which scarcely seemed to have any hand in it, on my fingers, and then on my guardian's fingers, and took his long thin shadow away. i thought of it on the outside of the coach, passing over all the sunny landscape between us and london, chilling the seed in the ground as it glided along. of course it became necessary to tell ada where i was going and why i was going, and of course she was anxious and distressed. but she was too true to richard to say anything but words of pity and words of excuse, and in a more loving spirit still--my dear devoted girl!--she wrote him a long letter, of which i took charge. charley was to be my travelling companion, though i am sure i wanted none and would willingly have left her at home. we all went to london that afternoon, and finding two places in the mail, secured them. at our usual bed-time, charley and i were rolling away seaward with the kentish letters. it was a night's journey in those coach times, but we had the mail to ourselves and did not find the night very tedious. it passed with me as i suppose it would with most people under such circumstances. at one while my journey looked hopeful, and at another hopeless. now i thought i should do some good, and now i wondered how i could ever have supposed so. now it seemed one of the most reasonable things in the world that i should have come, and now one of the most unreasonable. in what state i should find richard, what i should say to him, and what he would say to me occupied my mind by turns with these two states of feeling; and the wheels seemed to play one tune (to which the burden of my guardian's letter set itself) over and over again all night. at last we came into the narrow streets of deal, and very gloomy they were upon a raw misty morning. the long flat beach, with its little irregular houses, wooden and brick, and its litter of capstans, and great boats, and sheds, and bare upright poles with tackle and blocks, and loose gravelly waste places overgrown with grass and weeds, wore as dull an appearance as any place i ever saw. the sea was heaving under a thick white fog; and nothing else was moving but a few early ropemakers, who, with the yarn twisted round their bodies, looked as if, tired of their present state of existence, they were spinning themselves into cordage. but when we got into a warm room in an excellent hotel and sat down, comfortably washed and dressed, to an early breakfast (for it was too late to think of going to bed), deal began to look more cheerful. our little room was like a ship's cabin, and that delighted charley very much. then the fog began to rise like a curtain, and numbers of ships that we had had no idea were near appeared. i don't know how many sail the waiter told us were then lying in the downs. some of these vessels were of grand size--one was a large indiaman just come home; and when the sun shone through the clouds, making silvery pools in the dark sea, the way in which these ships brightened, and shadowed, and changed, amid a bustle of boats pulling off from the shore to them and from them to the shore, and a general life and motion in themselves and everything around them, was most beautiful. the large indiaman was our great attraction because she had come into the downs in the night. she was surrounded by boats, and we said how glad the people on board of her must be to come ashore. charley was curious, too, about the voyage, and about the heat in india, and the serpents and the tigers; and as she picked up such information much faster than grammar, i told her what i knew on those points. i told her, too, how people in such voyages were sometimes wrecked and cast on rocks, where they were saved by the intrepidity and humanity of one man. and charley asking how that could be, i told her how we knew at home of such a case. i had thought of sending richard a note saying i was there, but it seemed so much better to go to him without preparation. as he lived in barracks i was a little doubtful whether this was feasible, but we went out to reconnoitre. peeping in at the gate of the barrack-yard, we found everything very quiet at that time in the morning, and i asked a sergeant standing on the guardhouse-steps where he lived. he sent a man before to show me, who went up some bare stairs, and knocked with his knuckles at a door, and left us. "now then!" cried richard from within. so i left charley in the little passage, and going on to the half-open door, said, "can i come in, richard? it's only dame durden." he was writing at a table, with a great confusion of clothes, tin cases, books, boots, brushes, and portmanteaus strewn all about the floor. he was only half dressed--in plain clothes, i observed, not in uniform--and his hair was unbrushed, and he looked as wild as his room. all this i saw after he had heartily welcomed me and i was seated near him, for he started upon hearing my voice and caught me in his arms in a moment. dear richard! he was ever the same to me. down to--ah, poor poor fellow!--to the end, he never received me but with something of his old merry boyish manner. "good heaven, my dear little woman," said he, "how do you come here? who could have thought of seeing you! nothing the matter? ada is well?" "quite well. lovelier than ever, richard!" "ah!" he said, leaning back in his chair. "my poor cousin! i was writing to you, esther." so worn and haggard as he looked, even in the fullness of his handsome youth, leaning back in his chair and crushing the closely written sheet of paper in his hand! "have you been at the trouble of writing all that, and am i not to read it after all?" i asked. "oh, my dear," he returned with a hopeless gesture. "you may read it in the whole room. it is all over here." i mildly entreated him not to be despondent. i told him that i had heard by chance of his being in difficulty and had come to consult with him what could best be done. "like you, esther, but useless, and so not like you!" said he with a melancholy smile. "i am away on leave this day--should have been gone in another hour--and that is to smooth it over, for my selling out. well! let bygones be bygones. so this calling follows the rest. i only want to have been in the church to have made the round of all the professions." "richard," i urged, "it is not so hopeless as that?" "esther," he returned, "it is indeed. i am just so near disgrace as that those who are put in authority over me (as the catechism goes) would far rather be without me than with me. and they are right. apart from debts and duns and all such drawbacks, i am not fit even for this employment. i have no care, no mind, no heart, no soul, but for one thing. why, if this bubble hadn't broken now," he said, tearing the letter he had written into fragments and moodily casting them away, by driblets, "how could i have gone abroad? i must have been ordered abroad, but how could i have gone? how could i, with my experience of that thing, trust even vholes unless i was at his back!" i suppose he knew by my face what i was about to say, but he caught the hand i had laid upon his arm and touched my own lips with it to prevent me from going on. "no, dame durden! two subjects i forbid--must forbid. the first is john jarndyce. the second, you know what. call it madness, and i tell you i can't help it now, and can't be sane. but it is no such thing; it is the one object i have to pursue. it is a pity i ever was prevailed upon to turn out of my road for any other. it would be wisdom to abandon it now, after all the time, anxiety, and pains i have bestowed upon it! oh, yes, true wisdom. it would be very agreeable, too, to some people; but i never will." he was in that mood in which i thought it best not to increase his determination (if anything could increase it) by opposing him. i took out ada's letter and put it in his hand. "am i to read it now?" he asked. as i told him yes, he laid it on the table, and resting his head upon his hand, began. he had not read far when he rested his head upon his two hands--to hide his face from me. in a little while he rose as if the light were bad and went to the window. he finished reading it there, with his back towards me, and after he had finished and had folded it up, stood there for some minutes with the letter in his hand. when he came back to his chair, i saw tears in his eyes. "of course, esther, you know what she says here?" he spoke in a softened voice and kissed the letter as he asked me. "yes, richard." "offers me," he went on, tapping his foot upon the floor, "the little inheritance she is certain of so soon--just as little and as much as i have wasted--and begs and prays me to take it, set myself right with it, and remain in the service." "i know your welfare to be the dearest wish of her heart," said i. "and, oh, my dear richard, ada's is a noble heart." "i am sure it is. i--i wish i was dead!" he went back to the window, and laying his arm across it, leaned his head down on his arm. it greatly affected me to see him so, but i hoped he might become more yielding, and i remained silent. my experience was very limited; i was not at all prepared for his rousing himself out of this emotion to a new sense of injury. "and this is the heart that the same john jarndyce, who is not otherwise to be mentioned between us, stepped in to estrange from me," said he indignantly. "and the dear girl makes me this generous offer from under the same john jarndyce's roof, and with the same john jarndyce's gracious consent and connivance, i dare say, as a new means of buying me off." "richard!" i cried out, rising hastily. "i will not hear you say such shameful words!" i was very angry with him indeed, for the first time in my life, but it only lasted a moment. when i saw his worn young face looking at me as if he were sorry, i put my hand on his shoulder and said, "if you please, my dear richard, do not speak in such a tone to me. consider!" he blamed himself exceedingly and told me in the most generous manner that he had been very wrong and that he begged my pardon a thousand times. at that i laughed, but trembled a little too, for i was rather fluttered after being so fiery. "to accept this offer, my dear esther," said he, sitting down beside me and resuming our conversation, "--once more, pray, pray forgive me; i am deeply grieved--to accept my dearest cousin's offer is, i need not say, impossible. besides, i have letters and papers that i could show you which would convince you it is all over here. i have done with the red coat, believe me. but it is some satisfaction, in the midst of my troubles and perplexities, to know that i am pressing ada's interests in pressing my own. vholes has his shoulder to the wheel, and he cannot help urging it on as much for her as for me, thank god!" his sanguine hopes were rising within him and lighting up his features, but they made his face more sad to me than it had been before. "no, no!" cried richard exultingly. "if every farthing of ada's little fortune were mine, no part of it should be spent in retaining me in what i am not fit for, can take no interest in, and am weary of. it should be devoted to what promises a better return, and should be used where she has a larger stake. don't be uneasy for me! i shall now have only one thing on my mind, and vholes and i will work it. i shall not be without means. free of my commission, i shall be able to compound with some small usurers who will hear of nothing but their bond now--vholes says so. i should have a balance in my favour anyway, but that would swell it. come, come! you shall carry a letter to ada from me, esther, and you must both of you be more hopeful of me and not believe that i am quite cast away just yet, my dear." i will not repeat what i said to richard. i know it was tiresome, and nobody is to suppose for a moment that it was at all wise. it only came from my heart. he heard it patiently and feelingly, but i saw that on the two subjects he had reserved it was at present hopeless to make any representation to him. i saw too, and had experienced in this very interview, the sense of my guardian's remark that it was even more mischievous to use persuasion with him than to leave him as he was. therefore i was driven at last to asking richard if he would mind convincing me that it really was all over there, as he had said, and that it was not his mere impression. he showed me without hesitation a correspondence making it quite plain that his retirement was arranged. i found, from what he told me, that mr. vholes had copies of these papers and had been in consultation with him throughout. beyond ascertaining this, and having been the bearer of ada's letter, and being (as i was going to be) richard's companion back to london, i had done no good by coming down. admitting this to myself with a reluctant heart, i said i would return to the hotel and wait until he joined me there, so he threw a cloak over his shoulders and saw me to the gate, and charley and i went back along the beach. there was a concourse of people in one spot, surrounding some naval officers who were landing from a boat, and pressing about them with unusual interest. i said to charley this would be one of the great indiaman's boats now, and we stopped to look. the gentlemen came slowly up from the waterside, speaking good-humouredly to each other and to the people around and glancing about them as if they were glad to be in england again. "charley, charley," said i, "come away!" and i hurried on so swiftly that my little maid was surprised. it was not until we were shut up in our cabin-room and i had had time to take breath that i began to think why i had made such haste. in one of the sunburnt faces i had recognized mr. allan woodcourt, and i had been afraid of his recognizing me. i had been unwilling that he should see my altered looks. i had been taken by surprise, and my courage had quite failed me. but i knew this would not do, and i now said to myself, "my dear, there is no reason--there is and there can be no reason at all--why it should be worse for you now than it ever has been. what you were last month, you are to-day; you are no worse, you are no better. this is not your resolution; call it up, esther, call it up!" i was in a great tremble--with running--and at first was quite unable to calm myself; but i got better, and i was very glad to know it. the party came to the hotel. i heard them speaking on the staircase. i was sure it was the same gentlemen because i knew their voices again--i mean i knew mr. woodcourt's. it would still have been a great relief to me to have gone away without making myself known, but i was determined not to do so. "no, my dear, no. no, no, no!" i untied my bonnet and put my veil half up--i think i mean half down, but it matters very little--and wrote on one of my cards that i happened to be there with mr. richard carstone, and i sent it in to mr. woodcourt. he came immediately. i told him i was rejoiced to be by chance among the first to welcome him home to england. and i saw that he was very sorry for me. "you have been in shipwreck and peril since you left us, mr. woodcourt," said i, "but we can hardly call that a misfortune which enabled you to be so useful and so brave. we read of it with the truest interest. it first came to my knowledge through your old patient, poor miss flite, when i was recovering from my severe illness." "ah! little miss flite!" he said. "she lives the same life yet?" "just the same." i was so comfortable with myself now as not to mind the veil and to be able to put it aside. "her gratitude to you, mr. woodcourt, is delightful. she is a most affectionate creature, as i have reason to say." "you--you have found her so?" he returned. "i--i am glad of that." he was so very sorry for me that he could scarcely speak. "i assure you," said i, "that i was deeply touched by her sympathy and pleasure at the time i have referred to." "i was grieved to hear that you had been very ill." "i was very ill." "but you have quite recovered?" "i have quite recovered my health and my cheerfulness," said i. "you know how good my guardian is and what a happy life we lead, and i have everything to be thankful for and nothing in the world to desire." i felt as if he had greater commiseration for me than i had ever had for myself. it inspired me with new fortitude and new calmness to find that it was i who was under the necessity of reassuring him. i spoke to him of his voyage out and home, and of his future plans, and of his probable return to india. he said that was very doubtful. he had not found himself more favoured by fortune there than here. he had gone out a poor ship's surgeon and had come home nothing better. while we were talking, and when i was glad to believe that i had alleviated (if i may use such a term) the shock he had had in seeing me, richard came in. he had heard downstairs who was with me, and they met with cordial pleasure. i saw that after their first greetings were over, and when they spoke of richard's career, mr. woodcourt had a perception that all was not going well with him. he frequently glanced at his face as if there were something in it that gave him pain, and more than once he looked towards me as though he sought to ascertain whether i knew what the truth was. yet richard was in one of his sanguine states and in good spirits and was thoroughly pleased to see mr. woodcourt again, whom he had always liked. richard proposed that we all should go to london together; but mr. woodcourt, having to remain by his ship a little longer, could not join us. he dined with us, however, at an early hour, and became so much more like what he used to be that i was still more at peace to think i had been able to soften his regrets. yet his mind was not relieved of richard. when the coach was almost ready and richard ran down to look after his luggage, he spoke to me about him. i was not sure that i had a right to lay his whole story open, but i referred in a few words to his estrangement from mr jarndyce and to his being entangled in the ill-fated chancery suit. mr. woodcourt listened with interest and expressed his regret. "i saw you observe him rather closely," said i, "do you think him so changed?" "he is changed," he returned, shaking his head. i felt the blood rush into my face for the first time, but it was only an instantaneous emotion. i turned my head aside, and it was gone. "it is not," said mr. woodcourt, "his being so much younger or older, or thinner or fatter, or paler or ruddier, as there being upon his face such a singular expression. i never saw so remarkable a look in a young person. one cannot say that it is all anxiety or all weariness; yet it is both, and like ungrown despair." "you do not think he is ill?" said i. no. he looked robust in body. "that he cannot be at peace in mind, we have too much reason to know," i proceeded. "mr. woodcourt, you are going to london?" "to-morrow or the next day." "there is nothing richard wants so much as a friend. he always liked you. pray see him when you get there. pray help him sometimes with your companionship if you can. you do not know of what service it might be. you cannot think how ada, and mr. jarndyce, and even i--how we should all thank you, mr. woodcourt!" "miss summerson," he said, more moved than he had been from the first, "before heaven, i will be a true friend to him! i will accept him as a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!" "god bless you!" said i, with my eyes filling fast; but i thought they might, when it was not for myself. "ada loves him--we all love him, but ada loves him as we cannot. i will tell her what you say. thank you, and god bless you, in her name!" richard came back as we finished exchanging these hurried words and gave me his arm to take me to the coach. "woodcourt," he said, unconscious with what application, "pray let us meet in london!" "meet?" returned the other. "i have scarcely a friend there now but you. where shall i find you?" "why, i must get a lodging of some sort," said richard, pondering. "say at vholes's, symond's inn." "good! without loss of time." they shook hands heartily. when i was seated in the coach and richard was yet standing in the street, mr. woodcourt laid his friendly hand on richard's shoulder and looked at me. i understood him and waved mine in thanks. and in his last look as we drove away, i saw that he was very sorry for me. i was glad to see it. i felt for my old self as the dead may feel if they ever revisit these scenes. i was glad to be tenderly remembered, to be gently pitied, not to be quite forgotten. chapter xlvi stop him! darkness rests upon tom-all-alone's. dilating and dilating since the sun went down last night, it has gradually swelled until it fills every void in the place. for a time there were some dungeon lights burning, as the lamp of life hums in tom-all-alone's, heavily, heavily, in the nauseous air, and winking--as that lamp, too, winks in tom-all-alone's--at many horrible things. but they are blotted out. the moon has eyed tom with a dull cold stare, as admitting some puny emulation of herself in his desert region unfit for life and blasted by volcanic fires; but she has passed on and is gone. the blackest nightmare in the infernal stables grazes on tom-all-alone's, and tom is fast asleep. much mighty speech-making there has been, both in and out of parliament, concerning tom, and much wrathful disputation how tom shall be got right. whether he shall be put into the main road by constables, or by beadles, or by bell-ringing, or by force of figures, or by correct principles of taste, or by high church, or by low church, or by no church; whether he shall be set to splitting trusses of polemical straws with the crooked knife of his mind or whether he shall be put to stone-breaking instead. in the midst of which dust and noise there is but one thing perfectly clear, to wit, that tom only may and can, or shall and will, be reclaimed according to somebody's theory but nobody's practice. and in the hopeful meantime, tom goes to perdition head foremost in his old determined spirit. but he has his revenge. even the winds are his messengers, and they serve him in these hours of darkness. there is not a drop of tom's corrupted blood but propagates infection and contagion somewhere. it shall pollute, this very night, the choice stream (in which chemists on analysis would find the genuine nobility) of a norman house, and his grace shall not be able to say nay to the infamous alliance. there is not an atom of tom's slime, not a cubic inch of any pestilential gas in which he lives, not one obscenity or degradation about him, not an ignorance, not a wickedness, not a brutality of his committing, but shall work its retribution through every order of society up to the proudest of the proud and to the highest of the high. verily, what with tainting, plundering, and spoiling, tom has his revenge. it is a moot point whether tom-all-alone's be uglier by day or by night, but on the argument that the more that is seen of it the more shocking it must be, and that no part of it left to the imagination is at all likely to be made so bad as the reality, day carries it. the day begins to break now; and in truth it might be better for the national glory even that the sun should sometimes set upon the british dominions than that it should ever rise upon so vile a wonder as tom. a brown sunburnt gentleman, who appears in some inaptitude for sleep to be wandering abroad rather than counting the hours on a restless pillow, strolls hitherward at this quiet time. attracted by curiosity, he often pauses and looks about him, up and down the miserable by-ways. nor is he merely curious, for in his bright dark eye there is compassionate interest; and as he looks here and there, he seems to understand such wretchedness and to have studied it before. on the banks of the stagnant channel of mud which is the main street of tom-all-alone's, nothing is to be seen but the crazy houses, shut up and silent. no waking creature save himself appears except in one direction, where he sees the solitary figure of a woman sitting on a door-step. he walks that way. approaching, he observes that she has journeyed a long distance and is footsore and travel-stained. she sits on the door-step in the manner of one who is waiting, with her elbow on her knee and her head upon her hand. beside her is a canvas bag, or bundle, she has carried. she is dozing probably, for she gives no heed to his steps as he comes toward her. the broken footway is so narrow that when allan woodcourt comes to where the woman sits, he has to turn into the road to pass her. looking down at her face, his eye meets hers, and he stops. "what is the matter?" "nothing, sir." "can't you make them hear? do you want to be let in?" "i'm waiting till they get up at another house--a lodging-house--not here," the woman patiently returns. "i'm waiting here because there will be sun here presently to warm me." "i am afraid you are tired. i am sorry to see you sitting in the street." "thank you, sir. it don't matter." a habit in him of speaking to the poor and of avoiding patronage or condescension or childishness (which is the favourite device, many people deeming it quite a subtlety to talk to them like little spelling books) has put him on good terms with the woman easily. "let me look at your forehead," he says, bending down. "i am a doctor. don't be afraid. i wouldn't hurt you for the world." he knows that by touching her with his skilful and accustomed hand he can soothe her yet more readily. she makes a slight objection, saying, "it's nothing"; but he has scarcely laid his fingers on the wounded place when she lifts it up to the light. "aye! a bad bruise, and the skin sadly broken. this must be very sore." "it do ache a little, sir," returns the woman with a started tear upon her cheek. "let me try to make it more comfortable. my handkerchief won't hurt you." "oh, dear no, sir, i'm sure of that!" he cleanses the injured place and dries it, and having carefully examined it and gently pressed it with the palm of his hand, takes a small case from his pocket, dresses it, and binds it up. while he is thus employed, he says, after laughing at his establishing a surgery in the street, "and so your husband is a brickmaker?" "how do you know that, sir?" asks the woman, astonished. "why, i suppose so from the colour of the clay upon your bag and on your dress. and i know brickmakers go about working at piecework in different places. and i am sorry to say i have known them cruel to their wives too." the woman hastily lifts up her eyes as if she would deny that her injury is referable to such a cause. but feeling the hand upon her forehead, and seeing his busy and composed face, she quietly drops them again. "where is he now?" asks the surgeon. "he got into trouble last night, sir; but he'll look for me at the lodging-house." "he will get into worse trouble if he often misuses his large and heavy hand as he has misused it here. but you forgive him, brutal as he is, and i say no more of him, except that i wish he deserved it. you have no young child?" the woman shakes her head. "one as i calls mine, sir, but it's liz's." "your own is dead. i see! poor little thing!" by this time he has finished and is putting up his case. "i suppose you have some settled home. is it far from here?" he asks, good-humouredly making light of what he has done as she gets up and curtsys. "it's a good two or three and twenty mile from here, sir. at saint albans. you know saint albans, sir? i thought you gave a start like, as if you did." "yes, i know something of it. and now i will ask you a question in return. have you money for your lodging?" "yes, sir," she says, "really and truly." and she shows it. he tells her, in acknowledgment of her many subdued thanks, that she is very welcome, gives her good day, and walks away. tom-all-alone's is still asleep, and nothing is astir. yes, something is! as he retraces his way to the point from which he descried the woman at a distance sitting on the step, he sees a ragged figure coming very cautiously along, crouching close to the soiled walls--which the wretchedest figure might as well avoid--and furtively thrusting a hand before it. it is the figure of a youth whose face is hollow and whose eyes have an emaciated glare. he is so intent on getting along unseen that even the apparition of a stranger in whole garments does not tempt him to look back. he shades his face with his ragged elbow as he passes on the other side of the way, and goes shrinking and creeping on with his anxious hand before him and his shapeless clothes hanging in shreds. clothes made for what purpose, or of what material, it would be impossible to say. they look, in colour and in substance, like a bundle of rank leaves of swampy growth that rotted long ago. allan woodcourt pauses to look after him and note all this, with a shadowy belief that he has seen the boy before. he cannot recall how or where, but there is some association in his mind with such a form. he imagines that he must have seen it in some hospital or refuge, still, cannot make out why it comes with any special force on his remembrance. he is gradually emerging from tom-all-alone's in the morning light, thinking about it, when he hears running feet behind him, and looking round, sees the boy scouring towards him at great speed, followed by the woman. "stop him, stop him!" cries the woman, almost breathless. "stop him, sir!" he darts across the road into the boy's path, but the boy is quicker than he, makes a curve, ducks, dives under his hands, comes up half-a-dozen yards beyond him, and scours away again. still the woman follows, crying, "stop him, sir, pray stop him!" allan, not knowing but that he has just robbed her of her money, follows in chase and runs so hard that he runs the boy down a dozen times, but each time he repeats the curve, the duck, the dive, and scours away again. to strike at him on any of these occasions would be to fell and disable him, but the pursuer cannot resolve to do that, and so the grimly ridiculous pursuit continues. at last the fugitive, hard-pressed, takes to a narrow passage and a court which has no thoroughfare. here, against a hoarding of decaying timber, he is brought to bay and tumbles down, lying gasping at his pursuer, who stands and gasps at him until the woman comes up. "oh, you, jo!" cries the woman. "what? i have found you at last!" "jo," repeats allan, looking at him with attention, "jo! stay. to be sure! i recollect this lad some time ago being brought before the coroner." "yes, i see you once afore at the inkwhich," whimpers jo. "what of that? can't you never let such an unfortnet as me alone? an't i unfortnet enough for you yet? how unfortnet do you want me fur to be? i've been a-chivied and a-chivied, fust by one on you and nixt by another on you, till i'm worritted to skins and bones. the inkwhich warn't my fault. i done nothink. he wos wery good to me, he wos; he wos the only one i knowed to speak to, as ever come across my crossing. it ain't wery likely i should want him to be inkwhiched. i only wish i wos, myself. i don't know why i don't go and make a hole in the water, i'm sure i don't." he says it with such a pitiable air, and his grimy tears appear so real, and he lies in the corner up against the hoarding so like a growth of fungus or any unwholesome excrescence produced there in neglect and impurity, that allan woodcourt is softened towards him. he says to the woman, "miserable creature, what has he done?" to which she only replies, shaking her head at the prostrate figure more amazedly than angrily, "oh, you jo, you jo. i have found you at last!" "what has he done?" says allan. "has he robbed you?" "no, sir, no. robbed me? he did nothing but what was kind-hearted by me, and that's the wonder of it." allan looks from jo to the woman, and from the woman to jo, waiting for one of them to unravel the riddle. "but he was along with me, sir," says the woman. "oh, you jo! he was along with me, sir, down at saint albans, ill, and a young lady, lord bless her for a good friend to me, took pity on him when i durstn't, and took him home--" allan shrinks back from him with a sudden horror. "yes, sir, yes. took him home, and made him comfortable, and like a thankless monster he ran away in the night and never has been seen or heard of since till i set eyes on him just now. and that young lady that was such a pretty dear caught his illness, lost her beautiful looks, and wouldn't hardly be known for the same young lady now if it wasn't for her angel temper, and her pretty shape, and her sweet voice. do you know it? you ungrateful wretch, do you know that this is all along of you and of her goodness to you?" demands the woman, beginning to rage at him as she recalls it and breaking into passionate tears. the boy, in rough sort stunned by what he hears, falls to smearing his dirty forehead with his dirty palm, and to staring at the ground, and to shaking from head to foot until the crazy hoarding against which he leans rattles. allan restrains the woman, merely by a quiet gesture, but effectually. "richard told me--" he falters. "i mean, i have heard of this--don't mind me for a moment, i will speak presently." he turns away and stands for a while looking out at the covered passage. when he comes back, he has recovered his composure, except that he contends against an avoidance of the boy, which is so very remarkable that it absorbs the woman's attention. "you hear what she says. but get up, get up!" jo, shaking and chattering, slowly rises and stands, after the manner of his tribe in a difficulty, sideways against the hoarding, resting one of his high shoulders against it and covertly rubbing his right hand over his left and his left foot over his right. "you hear what she says, and i know it's true. have you been here ever since?" "wishermaydie if i seen tom-all-alone's till this blessed morning," replies jo hoarsely. "why have you come here now?" jo looks all round the confined court, looks at his questioner no higher than the knees, and finally answers, "i don't know how to do nothink, and i can't get nothink to do. i'm wery poor and ill, and i thought i'd come back here when there warn't nobody about, and lay down and hide somewheres as i knows on till arter dark, and then go and beg a trifle of mr. snagsby. he wos allus willin fur to give me somethink he wos, though mrs. snagsby she was allus a-chivying on me--like everybody everywheres." "where have you come from?" jo looks all round the court again, looks at his questioner's knees again, and concludes by laying his profile against the hoarding in a sort of resignation. "did you hear me ask you where you have come from?" "tramp then," says jo. "now tell me," proceeds allan, making a strong effort to overcome his repugnance, going very near to him, and leaning over him with an expression of confidence, "tell me how it came about that you left that house when the good young lady had been so unfortunate as to pity you and take you home." jo suddenly comes out of his resignation and excitedly declares, addressing the woman, that he never known about the young lady, that he never heern about it, that he never went fur to hurt her, that he would sooner have hurt his own self, that he'd sooner have had his unfortnet ed chopped off than ever gone a-nigh her, and that she wos wery good to him, she wos. conducting himself throughout as if in his poor fashion he really meant it, and winding up with some very miserable sobs. allan woodcourt sees that this is not a sham. he constrains himself to touch him. "come, jo. tell me." "no. i dustn't," says jo, relapsing into the profile state. "i dustn't, or i would." "but i must know," returns the other, "all the same. come, jo." after two or three such adjurations, jo lifts up his head again, looks round the court again, and says in a low voice, "well, i'll tell you something. i was took away. there!" "took away? in the night?" "ah!" very apprehensive of being overheard, jo looks about him and even glances up some ten feet at the top of the hoarding and through the cracks in it lest the object of his distrust should be looking over or hidden on the other side. "who took you away?" "i dustn't name him," says jo. "i dustn't do it, sir. "but i want, in the young lady's name, to know. you may trust me. no one else shall hear." "ah, but i don't know," replies jo, shaking his head fearfully, "as he don't hear." "why, he is not in this place." "oh, ain't he though?" says jo. "he's in all manner of places, all at wanst." allan looks at him in perplexity, but discovers some real meaning and good faith at the bottom of this bewildering reply. he patiently awaits an explicit answer; and jo, more baffled by his patience than by anything else, at last desperately whispers a name in his ear. "aye!" says allan. "why, what had you been doing?" "nothink, sir. never done nothink to get myself into no trouble, 'sept in not moving on and the inkwhich. but i'm a-moving on now. i'm a-moving on to the berryin ground--that's the move as i'm up to." "no, no, we will try to prevent that. but what did he do with you?" "put me in a horsepittle," replied jo, whispering, "till i was discharged, then giv me a little money--four half-bulls, wot you may call half-crowns--and ses 'hook it! nobody wants you here,' he ses. 'you hook it. you go and tramp,' he ses. 'you move on,' he ses. 'don't let me ever see you nowheres within forty mile of london, or you'll repent it.' so i shall, if ever he doos see me, and he'll see me if i'm above ground," concludes jo, nervously repeating all his former precautions and investigations. allan considers a little, then remarks, turning to the woman but keeping an encouraging eye on jo, "he is not so ungrateful as you supposed. he had a reason for going away, though it was an insufficient one." "thankee, sir, thankee!" exclaims jo. "there now! see how hard you wos upon me. but ony you tell the young lady wot the genlmn ses, and it's all right. for you wos wery good to me too, and i knows it." "now, jo," says allan, keeping his eye upon him, "come with me and i will find you a better place than this to lie down and hide in. if i take one side of the way and you the other to avoid observation, you will not run away, i know very well, if you make me a promise." "i won't, not unless i wos to see him a-coming, sir." "very well. i take your word. half the town is getting up by this time, and the whole town will be broad awake in another hour. come along. good day again, my good woman." "good day again, sir, and i thank you kindly many times again." she has been sitting on her bag, deeply attentive, and now rises and takes it up. jo, repeating, "ony you tell the young lady as i never went fur to hurt her and wot the genlmn ses!" nods and shambles and shivers, and smears and blinks, and half laughs and half cries, a farewell to her, and takes his creeping way along after allan woodcourt, close to the houses on the opposite side of the street. in this order, the two come up out of tom-all-alone's into the broad rays of the sunlight and the purer air. chapter xlvii jo's will as allan woodcourt and jo proceed along the streets where the high church spires and the distances are so near and clear in the morning light that the city itself seems renewed by rest, allan revolves in his mind how and where he shall bestow his companion. "it surely is a strange fact," he considers, "that in the heart of a civilized world this creature in human form should be more difficult to dispose of than an unowned dog." but it is none the less a fact because of its strangeness, and the difficulty remains. at first he looks behind him often to assure himself that jo is still really following. but look where he will, he still beholds him close to the opposite houses, making his way with his wary hand from brick to brick and from door to door, and often, as he creeps along, glancing over at him watchfully. soon satisfied that the last thing in his thoughts is to give him the slip, allan goes on, considering with a less divided attention what he shall do. a breakfast-stall at a street-corner suggests the first thing to be done. he stops there, looks round, and beckons jo. jo crosses and comes halting and shuffling up, slowly scooping the knuckles of his right hand round and round in the hollowed palm of his left, kneading dirt with a natural pestle and mortar. what is a dainty repast to jo is then set before him, and he begins to gulp the coffee and to gnaw the bread and butter, looking anxiously about him in all directions as he eats and drinks, like a scared animal. but he is so sick and miserable that even hunger has abandoned him. "i thought i was amost a-starvin, sir," says jo, soon putting down his food, "but i don't know nothink--not even that. i don't care for eating wittles nor yet for drinking on 'em." and jo stands shivering and looking at the breakfast wonderingly. allan woodcourt lays his hand upon his pulse and on his chest. "draw breath, jo!" "it draws," says jo, "as heavy as a cart." he might add, "and rattles like it," but he only mutters, "i'm a-moving on, sir." allan looks about for an apothecary's shop. there is none at hand, but a tavern does as well or better. he obtains a little measure of wine and gives the lad a portion of it very carefully. he begins to revive almost as soon as it passes his lips. "we may repeat that dose, jo," observes allan after watching him with his attentive face. "so! now we will take five minutes' rest, and then go on again." leaving the boy sitting on the bench of the breakfast-stall, with his back against an iron railing, allan woodcourt paces up and down in the early sunshine, casting an occasional look towards him without appearing to watch him. it requires no discernment to perceive that he is warmed and refreshed. if a face so shaded can brighten, his face brightens somewhat; and by little and little he eats the slice of bread he had so hopelessly laid down. observant of these signs of improvement, allan engages him in conversation and elicits to his no small wonder the adventure of the lady in the veil, with all its consequences. jo slowly munches as he slowly tells it. when he has finished his story and his bread, they go on again. intending to refer his difficulty in finding a temporary place of refuge for the boy to his old patient, zealous little miss flite, allan leads the way to the court where he and jo first foregathered. but all is changed at the rag and bottle shop; miss flite no longer lodges there; it is shut up; and a hard-featured female, much obscured by dust, whose age is a problem, but who is indeed no other than the interesting judy, is tart and spare in her replies. these sufficing, however, to inform the visitor that miss flite and her birds are domiciled with a mrs. blinder, in bell yard, he repairs to that neighbouring place, where miss flite (who rises early that she may be punctual at the divan of justice held by her excellent friend the chancellor) comes running downstairs with tears of welcome and with open arms. "my dear physician!" cries miss flite. "my meritorious, distinguished, honourable officer!" she uses some odd expressions, but is as cordial and full of heart as sanity itself can be--more so than it often is. allan, very patient with her, waits until she has no more raptures to express, then points out jo, trembling in a doorway, and tells her how he comes there. "where can i lodge him hereabouts for the present? now, you have a fund of knowledge and good sense and can advise me." miss flite, mighty proud of the compliment, sets herself to consider; but it is long before a bright thought occurs to her. mrs. blinder is entirely let, and she herself occupies poor gridley's room. "gridley!" exclaims miss flite, clapping her hands after a twentieth repetition of this remark. "gridley! to be sure! of course! my dear physician! general george will help us out." it is hopeless to ask for any information about general george, and would be, though miss flite had not already run upstairs to put on her pinched bonnet and her poor little shawl and to arm herself with her reticule of documents. but as she informs her physician in her disjointed manner on coming down in full array that general george, whom she often calls upon, knows her dear fitz jarndyce and takes a great interest in all connected with her, allan is induced to think that they may be in the right way. so he tells jo, for his encouragement, that this walking about will soon be over now; and they repair to the general's. fortunately it is not far. from the exterior of george's shooting gallery, and the long entry, and the bare perspective beyond it, allan woodcourt augurs well. he also descries promise in the figure of mr. george himself, striding towards them in his morning exercise with his pipe in his mouth, no stock on, and his muscular arms, developed by broadsword and dumbbell, weightily asserting themselves through his light shirt-sleeves. "your servant, sir," says mr. george with a military salute. good-humouredly smiling all over his broad forehead up into his crisp hair, he then defers to miss flite, as, with great stateliness, and at some length, she performs the courtly ceremony of presentation. he winds it up with another "your servant, sir!" and another salute. "excuse me, sir. a sailor, i believe?" says mr. george. "i am proud to find i have the air of one," returns allan; "but i am only a sea-going doctor." "indeed, sir! i should have thought you was a regular blue-jacket myself." allan hopes mr. george will forgive his intrusion the more readily on that account, and particularly that he will not lay aside his pipe, which, in his politeness, he has testified some intention of doing. "you are very good, sir," returns the trooper. "as i know by experience that it's not disagreeable to miss flite, and since it's equally agreeable to yourself--" and finishes the sentence by putting it between his lips again. allan proceeds to tell him all he knows about jo, unto which the trooper listens with a grave face. "and that's the lad, sir, is it?" he inquires, looking along the entry to where jo stands staring up at the great letters on the whitewashed front, which have no meaning in his eyes. "that's he," says allan. "and, mr. george, i am in this difficulty about him. i am unwilling to place him in a hospital, even if i could procure him immediate admission, because i foresee that he would not stay there many hours if he could be so much as got there. the same objection applies to a workhouse, supposing i had the patience to be evaded and shirked, and handed about from post to pillar in trying to get him into one, which is a system that i don't take kindly to." "no man does, sir," returns mr. george. "i am convinced that he would not remain in either place, because he is possessed by an extraordinary terror of this person who ordered him to keep out of the way; in his ignorance, he believes this person to be everywhere, and cognizant of everything." "i ask your pardon, sir," says mr. george. "but you have not mentioned that party's name. is it a secret, sir?" "the boy makes it one. but his name is bucket." "bucket the detective, sir?" "the same man." "the man is known to me, sir," returns the trooper after blowing out a cloud of smoke and squaring his chest, "and the boy is so far correct that he undoubtedly is a--rum customer." mr. george smokes with a profound meaning after this and surveys miss flite in silence. "now, i wish mr. jarndyce and miss summerson at least to know that this jo, who tells so strange a story, has reappeared, and to have it in their power to speak with him if they should desire to do so. therefore i want to get him, for the present moment, into any poor lodging kept by decent people where he would be admitted. decent people and jo, mr. george," says allan, following the direction of the trooper's eyes along the entry, "have not been much acquainted, as you see. hence the difficulty. do you happen to know any one in this neighbourhood who would receive him for a while on my paying for him beforehand?" as he puts the question, he becomes aware of a dirty-faced little man standing at the trooper's elbow and looking up, with an oddly twisted figure and countenance, into the trooper's face. after a few more puffs at his pipe, the trooper looks down askant at the little man, and the little man winks up at the trooper. "well, sir," says mr. george, "i can assure you that i would willingly be knocked on the head at any time if it would be at all agreeable to miss summerson, and consequently i esteem it a privilege to do that young lady any service, however small. we are naturally in the vagabond way here, sir, both myself and phil. you see what the place is. you are welcome to a quiet corner of it for the boy if the same would meet your views. no charge made, except for rations. we are not in a flourishing state of circumstances here, sir. we are liable to be tumbled out neck and crop at a moment's notice. however, sir, such as the place is, and so long as it lasts, here it is at your service." with a comprehensive wave of his pipe, mr. george places the whole building at his visitor's disposal. "i take it for granted, sir," he adds, "you being one of the medical staff, that there is no present infection about this unfortunate subject?" allan is quite sure of it. "because, sir," says mr. george, shaking his head sorrowfully, "we have had enough of that." his tone is no less sorrowfully echoed by his new acquaintance. "still i am bound to tell you," observes allan after repeating his former assurance, "that the boy is deplorably low and reduced and that he may be--i do not say that he is--too far gone to recover." "do you consider him in present danger, sir?" inquires the trooper. "yes, i fear so." "then, sir," returns the trooper in a decisive manner, "it appears to me--being naturally in the vagabond way myself--that the sooner he comes out of the street, the better. you, phil! bring him in!" mr. squod tacks out, all on one side, to execute the word of command; and the trooper, having smoked his pipe, lays it by. jo is brought in. he is not one of mrs. pardiggle's tockahoopo indians; he is not one of mrs. jellyby's lambs, being wholly unconnected with borrioboola-gha; he is not softened by distance and unfamiliarity; he is not a genuine foreign-grown savage; he is the ordinary home-made article. dirty, ugly, disagreeable to all the senses, in body a common creature of the common streets, only in soul a heathen. homely filth begrimes him, homely parasites devour him, homely sores are in him, homely rags are on him; native ignorance, the growth of english soil and climate, sinks his immortal nature lower than the beasts that perish. stand forth, jo, in uncompromising colours! from the sole of thy foot to the crown of thy head, there is nothing interesting about thee. he shuffles slowly into mr. george's gallery and stands huddled together in a bundle, looking all about the floor. he seems to know that they have an inclination to shrink from him, partly for what he is and partly for what he has caused. he, too, shrinks from them. he is not of the same order of things, not of the same place in creation. he is of no order and no place, neither of the beasts nor of humanity. "look here, jo!" says allan. "this is mr. george." jo searches the floor for some time longer, then looks up for a moment, and then down again. "he is a kind friend to you, for he is going to give you lodging room here." jo makes a scoop with one hand, which is supposed to be a bow. after a little more consideration and some backing and changing of the foot on which he rests, he mutters that he is "wery thankful." "you are quite safe here. all you have to do at present is to be obedient and to get strong. and mind you tell us the truth here, whatever you do, jo." "wishermaydie if i don't, sir," says jo, reverting to his favourite declaration. "i never done nothink yit, but wot you knows on, to get myself into no trouble. i never was in no other trouble at all, sir, 'sept not knowin' nothink and starwation." "i believe it, now attend to mr. george. i see he is going to speak to you." "my intention merely was, sir," observes mr. george, amazingly broad and upright, "to point out to him where he can lie down and get a thorough good dose of sleep. now, look here." as the trooper speaks, he conducts them to the other end of the gallery and opens one of the little cabins. "there you are, you see! here is a mattress, and here you may rest, on good behaviour, as long as mr., i ask your pardon, sir"--he refers apologetically to the card allan has given him--"mr. woodcourt pleases. don't you be alarmed if you hear shots; they'll be aimed at the target, and not you. now, there's another thing i would recommend, sir," says the trooper, turning to his visitor. "phil, come here!" phil bears down upon them according to his usual tactics. "here is a man, sir, who was found, when a baby, in the gutter. consequently, it is to be expected that he takes a natural interest in this poor creature. you do, don't you, phil?" "certainly and surely i do, guv'ner," is phil's reply. "now i was thinking, sir," says mr. george in a martial sort of confidence, as if he were giving his opinion in a council of war at a drum-head, "that if this man was to take him to a bath and was to lay out a few shillings in getting him one or two coarse articles--" "mr. george, my considerate friend," returns allan, taking out his purse, "it is the very favour i would have asked." phil squod and jo are sent out immediately on this work of improvement. miss flite, quite enraptured by her success, makes the best of her way to court, having great fears that otherwise her friend the chancellor may be uneasy about her or may give the judgment she has so long expected in her absence, and observing "which you know, my dear physician, and general, after so many years, would be too absurdly unfortunate!" allan takes the opportunity of going out to procure some restorative medicines, and obtaining them near at hand, soon returns to find the trooper walking up and down the gallery, and to fall into step and walk with him. "i take it, sir," says mr. george, "that you know miss summerson pretty well?" yes, it appears. "not related to her, sir?" no, it appears. "excuse the apparent curiosity," says mr. george. "it seemed to me probable that you might take more than a common interest in this poor creature because miss summerson had taken that unfortunate interest in him. 'tis my case, sir, i assure you." "and mine, mr. george." the trooper looks sideways at allan's sunburnt cheek and bright dark eye, rapidly measures his height and build, and seems to approve of him. "since you have been out, sir, i have been thinking that i unquestionably know the rooms in lincoln's inn fields, where bucket took the lad, according to his account. though he is not acquainted with the name, i can help you to it. it's tulkinghorn. that's what it is." allan looks at him inquiringly, repeating the name. "tulkinghorn. that's the name, sir. i know the man, and know him to have been in communication with bucket before, respecting a deceased person who had given him offence. i know the man, sir. to my sorrow." allan naturally asks what kind of man he is. "what kind of man! do you mean to look at?" "i think i know that much of him. i mean to deal with. generally, what kind of man?" "why, then i'll tell you, sir," returns the trooper, stopping short and folding his arms on his square chest so angrily that his face fires and flushes all over; "he is a confoundedly bad kind of man. he is a slow-torturing kind of man. he is no more like flesh and blood than a rusty old carbine is. he is a kind of man--by george!--that has caused me more restlessness, and more uneasiness, and more dissatisfaction with myself than all other men put together. that's the kind of man mr. tulkinghorn is!" "i am sorry," says allan, "to have touched so sore a place." "sore?" the trooper plants his legs wider apart, wets the palm of his broad right hand, and lays it on the imaginary moustache. "it's no fault of yours, sir; but you shall judge. he has got a power over me. he is the man i spoke of just now as being able to tumble me out of this place neck and crop. he keeps me on a constant see-saw. he won't hold off, and he won't come on. if i have a payment to make him, or time to ask him for, or anything to go to him about, he don't see me, don't hear me--passes me on to melchisedech's in clifford's inn, melchisedech's in clifford's inn passes me back again to him--he keeps me prowling and dangling about him as if i was made of the same stone as himself. why, i spend half my life now, pretty well, loitering and dodging about his door. what does he care? nothing. just as much as the rusty old carbine i have compared him to. he chafes and goads me till--bah! nonsense! i am forgetting myself. mr. woodcourt," the trooper resumes his march, "all i say is, he is an old man; but i am glad i shall never have the chance of setting spurs to my horse and riding at him in a fair field. for if i had that chance, in one of the humours he drives me into--he'd go down, sir!" mr. george has been so excited that he finds it necessary to wipe his forehead on his shirt-sleeve. even while he whistles his impetuosity away with the national anthem, some involuntary shakings of his head and heavings of his chest still linger behind, not to mention an occasional hasty adjustment with both hands of his open shirt-collar, as if it were scarcely open enough to prevent his being troubled by a choking sensation. in short, allan woodcourt has not much doubt about the going down of mr. tulkinghorn on the field referred to. jo and his conductor presently return, and jo is assisted to his mattress by the careful phil, to whom, after due administration of medicine by his own hands, allan confides all needful means and instructions. the morning is by this time getting on apace. he repairs to his lodgings to dress and breakfast, and then, without seeking rest, goes away to mr. jarndyce to communicate his discovery. with him mr. jarndyce returns alone, confidentially telling him that there are reasons for keeping this matter very quiet indeed and showing a serious interest in it. to mr. jarndyce, jo repeats in substance what he said in the morning, without any material variation. only that cart of his is heavier to draw, and draws with a hollower sound. "let me lay here quiet and not be chivied no more," falters jo, "and be so kind any person as is a-passin nigh where i used fur to sleep, as jist to say to mr. sangsby that jo, wot he known once, is a-moving on right forards with his duty, and i'll be wery thankful. i'd be more thankful than i am aready if it wos any ways possible for an unfortnet to be it." he makes so many of these references to the law-stationer in the course of a day or two that allan, after conferring with mr. jarndyce, good-naturedly resolves to call in cook's court, the rather, as the cart seems to be breaking down. to cook's court, therefore, he repairs. mr. snagsby is behind his counter in his grey coat and sleeves, inspecting an indenture of several skins which has just come in from the engrosser's, an immense desert of law-hand and parchment, with here and there a resting-place of a few large letters to break the awful monotony and save the traveller from despair. mr snagsby puts up at one of these inky wells and greets the stranger with his cough of general preparation for business. "you don't remember me, mr. snagsby?" the stationer's heart begins to thump heavily, for his old apprehensions have never abated. it is as much as he can do to answer, "no, sir, i can't say i do. i should have considered--not to put too fine a point upon it--that i never saw you before, sir." "twice before," says allan woodcourt. "once at a poor bedside, and once--" "it's come at last!" thinks the afflicted stationer, as recollection breaks upon him. "it's got to a head now and is going to burst!" but he has sufficient presence of mind to conduct his visitor into the little counting-house and to shut the door. "are you a married man, sir?" "no, i am not." "would you make the attempt, though single," says mr. snagsby in a melancholy whisper, "to speak as low as you can? for my little woman is a-listening somewheres, or i'll forfeit the business and five hundred pound!" in deep dejection mr. snagsby sits down on his stool, with his back against his desk, protesting, "i never had a secret of my own, sir. i can't charge my memory with ever having once attempted to deceive my little woman on my own account since she named the day. i wouldn't have done it, sir. not to put too fine a point upon it, i couldn't have done it, i dursn't have done it. whereas, and nevertheless, i find myself wrapped round with secrecy and mystery, till my life is a burden to me." his visitor professes his regret to hear it and asks him does he remember jo. mr. snagsby answers with a suppressed groan, oh, don't he! "you couldn't name an individual human being--except myself--that my little woman is more set and determined against than jo," says mr. snagsby. allan asks why. "why?" repeats mr. snagsby, in his desperation clutching at the clump of hair at the back of his bald head. "how should i know why? but you are a single person, sir, and may you long be spared to ask a married person such a question!" with this beneficent wish, mr. snagsby coughs a cough of dismal resignation and submits himself to hear what the visitor has to communicate. "there again!" says mr. snagsby, who, between the earnestness of his feelings and the suppressed tones of his voice is discoloured in the face. "at it again, in a new direction! a certain person charges me, in the solemnest way, not to talk of jo to any one, even my little woman. then comes another certain person, in the person of yourself, and charges me, in an equally solemn way, not to mention jo to that other certain person above all other persons. why, this is a private asylum! why, not to put too fine a point upon it, this is bedlam, sir!" says mr. snagsby. but it is better than he expected after all, being no explosion of the mine below him or deepening of the pit into which he has fallen. and being tender-hearted and affected by the account he hears of jo's condition, he readily engages to "look round" as early in the evening as he can manage it quietly. he looks round very quietly when the evening comes, but it may turn out that mrs. snagsby is as quiet a manager as he. jo is very glad to see his old friend and says, when they are left alone, that he takes it uncommon kind as mr. sangsby should come so far out of his way on accounts of sich as him. mr. snagsby, touched by the spectacle before him, immediately lays upon the table half a crown, that magic balsam of his for all kinds of wounds. "and how do you find yourself, my poor lad?" inquires the stationer with his cough of sympathy. "i am in luck, mr. sangsby, i am," returns jo, "and don't want for nothink. i'm more cumfbler nor you can't think. mr. sangsby! i'm wery sorry that i done it, but i didn't go fur to do it, sir." the stationer softly lays down another half-crown and asks him what it is that he is sorry for having done. "mr. sangsby," says jo, "i went and giv a illness to the lady as wos and yit as warn't the t'other lady, and none of 'em never says nothink to me for having done it, on accounts of their being ser good and my having been s'unfortnet. the lady come herself and see me yesday, and she ses, 'ah, jo!' she ses. 'we thought we'd lost you, jo!' she ses. and she sits down a-smilin so quiet, and don't pass a word nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don't, and i turns agin the wall, i doos, mr. sangsby. and mr. jarnders, i see him a-forced to turn away his own self. and mr. woodcot, he come fur to giv me somethink fur to ease me, wot he's allus a-doin' on day and night, and wen he come a-bending over me and a-speakin up so bold, i see his tears a-fallin, mr. sangsby." the softened stationer deposits another half-crown on the table. nothing less than a repetition of that infallible remedy will relieve his feelings. "wot i was a-thinkin on, mr. sangsby," proceeds jo, "wos, as you wos able to write wery large, p'raps?" "yes, jo, please god," returns the stationer. "uncommon precious large, p'raps?" says jo with eagerness. "yes, my poor boy." jo laughs with pleasure. "wot i wos a-thinking on then, mr. sangsby, wos, that when i wos moved on as fur as ever i could go and couldn't be moved no furder, whether you might be so good p'raps as to write out, wery large so that any one could see it anywheres, as that i wos wery truly hearty sorry that i done it and that i never went fur to do it, and that though i didn't know nothink at all, i knowd as mr. woodcot once cried over it and wos allus grieved over it, and that i hoped as he'd be able to forgive me in his mind. if the writin could be made to say it wery large, he might." "it shall say it, jo. very large." jo laughs again. "thankee, mr. sangsby. it's wery kind of you, sir, and it makes me more cumfbler nor i was afore." the meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, slips down his fourth half-crown--he has never been so close to a case requiring so many--and is fain to depart. and jo and he, upon this little earth, shall meet no more. no more. for the cart so hard to draw is near its journey's end and drags over stony ground. all round the clock it labours up the broken steps, shattered and worn. not many times can the sun rise and behold it still upon its weary road. phil squod, with his smoky gunpowder visage, at once acts as nurse and works as armourer at his little table in a corner, often looking round and saying with a nod of his green-baize cap and an encouraging elevation of his one eyebrow, "hold up, my boy! hold up!" there, too, is mr. jarndyce many a time, and allan woodcourt almost always, both thinking, much, how strangely fate has entangled this rough outcast in the web of very different lives. there, too, the trooper is a frequent visitor, filling the doorway with his athletic figure and, from his superfluity of life and strength, seeming to shed down temporary vigour upon jo, who never fails to speak more robustly in answer to his cheerful words. jo is in a sleep or in a stupor to-day, and allan woodcourt, newly arrived, stands by him, looking down upon his wasted form. after a while he softly seats himself upon the bedside with his face towards him--just as he sat in the law-writer's room--and touches his chest and heart. the cart had very nearly given up, but labours on a little more. the trooper stands in the doorway, still and silent. phil has stopped in a low clinking noise, with his little hammer in his hand. mr. woodcourt looks round with that grave professional interest and attention on his face, and glancing significantly at the trooper, signs to phil to carry his table out. when the little hammer is next used, there will be a speck of rust upon it. "well, jo! what is the matter? don't be frightened." "i thought," says jo, who has started and is looking round, "i thought i was in tom-all-alone's agin. ain't there nobody here but you, mr. woodcot?" "nobody." "and i ain't took back to tom-all-alone's. am i, sir?" "no." jo closes his eyes, muttering, "i'm wery thankful." after watching him closely a little while, allan puts his mouth very near his ear and says to him in a low, distinct voice, "jo! did you ever know a prayer?" "never knowd nothink, sir." "not so much as one short prayer?" "no, sir. nothink at all. mr. chadbands he wos a-prayin wunst at mr. sangsby's and i heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin to hisself, and not to me. he prayed a lot, but i couldn't make out nothink on it. different times there was other genlmen come down tom-all-alone's a-prayin, but they all mostly sed as the t'other 'wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talking to theirselves, or a-passing blame on the t'others, and not a-talkin to us. we never knowd nothink. i never knowd what it wos all about." it takes him a long time to say this, and few but an experienced and attentive listener could hear, or, hearing, understand him. after a short relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes, of a sudden, a strong effort to get out of bed. "stay, jo! what now?" "it's time for me to go to that there berryin ground, sir," he returns with a wild look. "lie down, and tell me. what burying ground, jo?" "where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me indeed, he wos. it's time fur me to go down to that there berryin ground, sir, and ask to be put along with him. i wants to go there and be berried. he used fur to say to me, 'i am as poor as you to-day, jo,' he ses. i wants to tell him that i am as poor as him now and have come there to be laid along with him." "by and by, jo. by and by." "ah! p'raps they wouldn't do it if i wos to go myself. but will you promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?" "i will, indeed." "thankee, sir. thankee, sir. they'll have to get the key of the gate afore they can take me in, for it's allus locked. and there's a step there, as i used for to clean with my broom. it's turned wery dark, sir. is there any light a-comin?" "it is coming fast, jo." fast. the cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very near its end. "jo, my poor fellow!" "i hear you, sir, in the dark, but i'm a-gropin--a-gropin--let me catch hold of your hand." "jo, can you say what i say?" "i'll say anythink as you say, sir, for i knows it's good." "our father." "our father! yes, that's wery good, sir." "which art in heaven." "art in heaven--is the light a-comin, sir?" "it is close at hand. hallowed be thy name!" "hallowed be--thy--" the light is come upon the dark benighted way. dead! dead, your majesty. dead, my lords and gentlemen. dead, right reverends and wrong reverends of every order. dead, men and women, born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. and dying thus around us every day. chapter xlviii closing in the place in lincolnshire has shut its many eyes again, and the house in town is awake. in lincolnshire the dedlocks of the past doze in their picture-frames, and the low wind murmurs through the long drawing-room as if they were breathing pretty regularly. in town the dedlocks of the present rattle in their fire-eyed carriages through the darkness of the night, and the dedlock mercuries, with ashes (or hair-powder) on their heads, symptomatic of their great humility, loll away the drowsy mornings in the little windows of the hall. the fashionable world--tremendous orb, nearly five miles round--is in full swing, and the solar system works respectfully at its appointed distances. where the throng is thickest, where the lights are brightest, where all the senses are ministered to with the greatest delicacy and refinement, lady dedlock is. from the shining heights she has scaled and taken, she is never absent. though the belief she of old reposed in herself as one able to reserve whatsoever she would under her mantle of pride is beaten down, though she has no assurance that what she is to those around her she will remain another day, it is not in her nature when envious eyes are looking on to yield or to droop. they say of her that she has lately grown more handsome and more haughty. the debilitated cousin says of her that she's beauty nough--tsetup shopofwomen--but rather larming kind--remindingmanfact--inconvenient woman--who will getoutofbedandbawthstahlishment--shakespeare. mr. tulkinghorn says nothing, looks nothing. now, as heretofore, he is to be found in doorways of rooms, with his limp white cravat loosely twisted into its old-fashioned tie, receiving patronage from the peerage and making no sign. of all men he is still the last who might be supposed to have any influence upon my lady. of all women she is still the last who might be supposed to have any dread of him. one thing has been much on her mind since their late interview in his turret-room at chesney wold. she is now decided, and prepared to throw it off. it is morning in the great world, afternoon according to the little sun. the mercuries, exhausted by looking out of window, are reposing in the hall and hang their heavy heads, the gorgeous creatures, like overblown sunflowers. like them, too, they seem to run to a deal of seed in their tags and trimmings. sir leicester, in the library, has fallen asleep for the good of the country over the report of a parliamentary committee. my lady sits in the room in which she gave audience to the young man of the name of guppy. rosa is with her and has been writing for her and reading to her. rosa is now at work upon embroidery or some such pretty thing, and as she bends her head over it, my lady watches her in silence. not for the first time to-day. "rosa." the pretty village face looks brightly up. then, seeing how serious my lady is, looks puzzled and surprised. "see to the door. is it shut?" yes. she goes to it and returns, and looks yet more surprised. "i am about to place confidence in you, child, for i know i may trust your attachment, if not your judgment. in what i am going to do, i will not disguise myself to you at least. but i confide in you. say nothing to any one of what passes between us." the timid little beauty promises in all earnestness to be trustworthy. "do you know," lady dedlock asks her, signing to her to bring her chair nearer, "do you know, rosa, that i am different to you from what i am to any one?" "yes, my lady. much kinder. but then i often think i know you as you really are." "you often think you know me as i really am? poor child, poor child!" she says it with a kind of scorn--though not of rosa--and sits brooding, looking dreamily at her. "do you think, rosa, you are any relief or comfort to me? do you suppose your being young and natural, and fond of me and grateful to me, makes it any pleasure to me to have you near me?" "i don't know, my lady; i can scarcely hope so. but with all my heart, i wish it was so." "it is so, little one." the pretty face is checked in its flush of pleasure by the dark expression on the handsome face before it. it looks timidly for an explanation. "and if i were to say to-day, 'go! leave me!' i should say what would give me great pain and disquiet, child, and what would leave me very solitary." "my lady! have i offended you?" "in nothing. come here." rosa bends down on the footstool at my lady's feet. my lady, with that motherly touch of the famous ironmaster night, lays her hand upon her dark hair and gently keeps it there. "i told you, rosa, that i wished you to be happy and that i would make you so if i could make anybody happy on this earth. i cannot. there are reasons now known to me, reasons in which you have no part, rendering it far better for you that you should not remain here. you must not remain here. i have determined that you shall not. i have written to the father of your lover, and he will be here to-day. all this i have done for your sake." the weeping girl covers her hand with kisses and says what shall she do, what shall she do, when they are separated! her mistress kisses her on the cheek and makes no other answer. "now, be happy, child, under better circumstances. be beloved and happy!" "ah, my lady, i have sometimes thought--forgive my being so free--that you are not happy." "i!" "will you be more so when you have sent me away? pray, pray, think again. let me stay a little while!" "i have said, my child, that what i do, i do for your sake, not my own. it is done. what i am towards you, rosa, is what i am now--not what i shall be a little while hence. remember this, and keep my confidence. do so much for my sake, and thus all ends between us!" she detaches herself from her simple-hearted companion and leaves the room. late in the afternoon, when she next appears upon the staircase, she is in her haughtiest and coldest state. as indifferent as if all passion, feeling, and interest had been worn out in the earlier ages of the world and had perished from its surface with its other departed monsters. mercury has announced mr. rouncewell, which is the cause of her appearance. mr. rouncewell is not in the library, but she repairs to the library. sir leicester is there, and she wishes to speak to him first. "sir leicester, i am desirous--but you are engaged." oh, dear no! not at all. only mr. tulkinghorn. always at hand. haunting every place. no relief or security from him for a moment. "i beg your pardon, lady dedlock. will you allow me to retire?" with a look that plainly says, "you know you have the power to remain if you will," she tells him it is not necessary and moves towards a chair. mr. tulkinghorn brings it a little forward for her with his clumsy bow and retires into a window opposite. interposed between her and the fading light of day in the now quiet street, his shadow falls upon her, and he darkens all before her. even so does he darken her life. it is a dull street under the best conditions, where the two long rows of houses stare at each other with that severity that half-a-dozen of its greatest mansions seem to have been slowly stared into stone rather than originally built in that material. it is a street of such dismal grandeur, so determined not to condescend to liveliness, that the doors and windows hold a gloomy state of their own in black paint and dust, and the echoing mews behind have a dry and massive appearance, as if they were reserved to stable the stone chargers of noble statues. complicated garnish of iron-work entwines itself over the flights of steps in this awful street, and from these petrified bowers, extinguishers for obsolete flambeaux gasp at the upstart gas. here and there a weak little iron hoop, through which bold boys aspire to throw their friends' caps (its only present use), retains its place among the rusty foliage, sacred to the memory of departed oil. nay, even oil itself, yet lingering at long intervals in a little absurd glass pot, with a knob in the bottom like an oyster, blinks and sulks at newer lights every night, like its high and dry master in the house of lords. therefore there is not much that lady dedlock, seated in her chair, could wish to see through the window in which mr. tulkinghorn stands. and yet--and yet--she sends a look in that direction as if it were her heart's desire to have that figure moved out of the way. sir leicester begs his lady's pardon. she was about to say? "only that mr. rouncewell is here (he has called by my appointment) and that we had better make an end of the question of that girl. i am tired to death of the matter." "what can i do--to--assist?" demands sir leicester in some considerable doubt. "let us see him here and have done with it. will you tell them to send him up?" "mr. tulkinghorn, be so good as to ring. thank you. request," says sir leicester to mercury, not immediately remembering the business term, "request the iron gentleman to walk this way." mercury departs in search of the iron gentleman, finds, and produces him. sir leicester receives that ferruginous person graciously. "i hope you are well, mr. rouncewell. be seated. (my solicitor, mr. tulkinghorn.) my lady was desirous, mr. rouncewell," sir leicester skilfully transfers him with a solemn wave of his hand, "was desirous to speak with you. hem!" "i shall be very happy," returns the iron gentleman, "to give my best attention to anything lady dedlock does me the honour to say." as he turns towards her, he finds that the impression she makes upon him is less agreeable than on the former occasion. a distant supercilious air makes a cold atmosphere about her, and there is nothing in her bearing, as there was before, to encourage openness. "pray, sir," says lady dedlock listlessly, "may i be allowed to inquire whether anything has passed between you and your son respecting your son's fancy?" it is almost too troublesome to her languid eyes to bestow a look upon him as she asks this question. "if my memory serves me, lady dedlock, i said, when i had the pleasure of seeing you before, that i should seriously advise my son to conquer that--fancy." the ironmaster repeats her expression with a little emphasis. "and did you?" "oh! of course i did." sir leicester gives a nod, approving and confirmatory. very proper. the iron gentleman, having said that he would do it, was bound to do it. no difference in this respect between the base metals and the precious. highly proper. "and pray has he done so?" "really, lady dedlock, i cannot make you a definite reply. i fear not. probably not yet. in our condition of life, we sometimes couple an intention with our--our fancies which renders them not altogether easy to throw off. i think it is rather our way to be in earnest." sir leicester has a misgiving that there may be a hidden wat tylerish meaning in this expression, and fumes a little. mr. rouncewell is perfectly good-humoured and polite, but within such limits, evidently adapts his tone to his reception. "because," proceeds my lady, "i have been thinking of the subject, which is tiresome to me." "i am very sorry, i am sure." "and also of what sir leicester said upon it, in which i quite concur"--sir leicester flattered--"and if you cannot give us the assurance that this fancy is at an end, i have come to the conclusion that the girl had better leave me." "i can give no such assurance, lady dedlock. nothing of the kind." "then she had better go." "excuse me, my lady," sir leicester considerately interposes, "but perhaps this may be doing an injury to the young woman which she has not merited. here is a young woman," says sir leicester, magnificently laying out the matter with his right hand like a service of plate, "whose good fortune it is to have attracted the notice and favour of an eminent lady and to live, under the protection of that eminent lady, surrounded by the various advantages which such a position confers, and which are unquestionably very great--i believe unquestionably very great, sir--for a young woman in that station of life. the question then arises, should that young woman be deprived of these many advantages and that good fortune simply because she has"--sir leicester, with an apologetic but dignified inclination of his head towards the ironmaster, winds up his sentence--"has attracted the notice of mr rouncewell's son? now, has she deserved this punishment? is this just towards her? is this our previous understanding?" "i beg your pardon," interposes mr. rouncewell's son's father. "sir leicester, will you allow me? i think i may shorten the subject. pray dismiss that from your consideration. if you remember anything so unimportant--which is not to be expected--you would recollect that my first thought in the affair was directly opposed to her remaining here." dismiss the dedlock patronage from consideration? oh! sir leicester is bound to believe a pair of ears that have been handed down to him through such a family, or he really might have mistrusted their report of the iron gentleman's observations. "it is not necessary," observes my lady in her coldest manner before he can do anything but breathe amazedly, "to enter into these matters on either side. the girl is a very good girl; i have nothing whatever to say against her, but she is so far insensible to her many advantages and her good fortune that she is in love--or supposes she is, poor little fool--and unable to appreciate them." sir leicester begs to observe that wholly alters the case. he might have been sure that my lady had the best grounds and reasons in support of her view. he entirely agrees with my lady. the young woman had better go. "as sir leicester observed, mr. rouncewell, on the last occasion when we were fatigued by this business," lady dedlock languidly proceeds, "we cannot make conditions with you. without conditions, and under present circumstances, the girl is quite misplaced here and had better go. i have told her so. would you wish to have her sent back to the village, or would you like to take her with you, or what would you prefer?" "lady dedlock, if i may speak plainly--" "by all means." "--i should prefer the course which will the soonest relieve you of the incumbrance and remove her from her present position." "and to speak as plainly," she returns with the same studied carelessness, "so should i. do i understand that you will take her with you?" the iron gentleman makes an iron bow. "sir leicester, will you ring?" mr. tulkinghorn steps forward from his window and pulls the bell. "i had forgotten you. thank you." he makes his usual bow and goes quietly back again. mercury, swift-responsive, appears, receives instructions whom to produce, skims away, produces the aforesaid, and departs. rosa has been crying and is yet in distress. on her coming in, the ironmaster leaves his chair, takes her arm in his, and remains with her near the door ready to depart. "you are taken charge of, you see," says my lady in her weary manner, "and are going away well protected. i have mentioned that you are a very good girl, and you have nothing to cry for." "she seems after all," observes mr. tulkinghorn, loitering a little forward with his hands behind him, "as if she were crying at going away." "why, she is not well-bred, you see," returns mr. rouncewell with some quickness in his manner, as if he were glad to have the lawyer to retort upon, "and she is an inexperienced little thing and knows no better. if she had remained here, sir, she would have improved, no doubt." "no doubt," is mr. tulkinghorn's composed reply. rosa sobs out that she is very sorry to leave my lady, and that she was happy at chesney wold, and has been happy with my lady, and that she thanks my lady over and over again. "out, you silly little puss!" says the ironmaster, checking her in a low voice, though not angrily. "have a spirit, if you're fond of watt!" my lady merely waves her off with indifference, saying, "there, there, child! you are a good girl. go away!" sir leicester has magnificently disengaged himself from the subject and retired into the sanctuary of his blue coat. mr. tulkinghorn, an indistinct form against the dark street now dotted with lamps, looms in my lady's view, bigger and blacker than before. "sir leicester and lady dedlock," says mr. rouncewell after a pause of a few moments, "i beg to take my leave, with an apology for having again troubled you, though not of my own act, on this tiresome subject. i can very well understand, i assure you, how tiresome so small a matter must have become to lady dedlock. if i am doubtful of my dealing with it, it is only because i did not at first quietly exert my influence to take my young friend here away without troubling you at all. but it appeared to me--i dare say magnifying the importance of the thing--that it was respectful to explain to you how the matter stood and candid to consult your wishes and convenience. i hope you will excuse my want of acquaintance with the polite world." sir leicester considers himself evoked out of the sanctuary by these remarks. "mr. rouncewell," he returns, "do not mention it. justifications are unnecessary, i hope, on either side." "i am glad to hear it, sir leicester; and if i may, by way of a last word, revert to what i said before of my mother's long connexion with the family and the worth it bespeaks on both sides, i would point out this little instance here on my arm who shows herself so affectionate and faithful in parting and in whom my mother, i dare say, has done something to awaken such feelings--though of course lady dedlock, by her heartfelt interest and her genial condescension, has done much more." if he mean this ironically, it may be truer than he thinks. he points it, however, by no deviation from his straightforward manner of speech, though in saying it he turns towards that part of the dim room where my lady sits. sir leicester stands to return his parting salutation, mr. tulkinghorn again rings, mercury takes another flight, and mr. rouncewell and rosa leave the house. then lights are brought in, discovering mr. tulkinghorn still standing in his window with his hands behind him and my lady still sitting with his figure before her, closing up her view of the night as well as of the day. she is very pale. mr. tulkinghorn, observing it as she rises to retire, thinks, "well she may be! the power of this woman is astonishing. she has been acting a part the whole time." but he can act a part too--his one unchanging character--and as he holds the door open for this woman, fifty pairs of eyes, each fifty times sharper than sir leicester's pair, should find no flaw in him. lady dedlock dines alone in her own room to-day. sir leicester is whipped in to the rescue of the doodle party and the discomfiture of the coodle faction. lady dedlock asks on sitting down to dinner, still deadly pale (and quite an illustration of the debilitated cousin's text), whether he is gone out? yes. whether mr. tulkinghorn is gone yet? no. presently she asks again, is he gone yet? no. what is he doing? mercury thinks he is writing letters in the library. would my lady wish to see him? anything but that. but he wishes to see my lady. within a few more minutes he is reported as sending his respects, and could my lady please to receive him for a word or two after her dinner? my lady will receive him now. he comes now, apologizing for intruding, even by her permission, while she is at table. when they are alone, my lady waves her hand to dispense with such mockeries. "what do you want, sir?" "why, lady dedlock," says the lawyer, taking a chair at a little distance from her and slowly rubbing his rusty legs up and down, up and down, up and down, "i am rather surprised by the course you have taken." "indeed?" "yes, decidedly. i was not prepared for it. i consider it a departure from our agreement and your promise. it puts us in a new position, lady dedlock. i feel myself under the necessity of saying that i don't approve of it." he stops in his rubbing and looks at her, with his hands on his knees. imperturbable and unchangeable as he is, there is still an indefinable freedom in his manner which is new and which does not escape this woman's observation. "i do not quite understand you." "oh, yes you do, i think. i think you do. come, come, lady dedlock, we must not fence and parry now. you know you like this girl." "well, sir?" "and you know--and i know--that you have not sent her away for the reasons you have assigned, but for the purpose of separating her as much as possible from--excuse my mentioning it as a matter of business--any reproach and exposure that impend over yourself." "well, sir?" "well, lady dedlock," returns the lawyer, crossing his legs and nursing the uppermost knee. "i object to that. i consider that a dangerous proceeding. i know it to be unnecessary and calculated to awaken speculation, doubt, rumour, i don't know what, in the house. besides, it is a violation of our agreement. you were to be exactly what you were before. whereas, it must be evident to yourself, as it is to me, that you have been this evening very different from what you were before. why, bless my soul, lady dedlock, transparently so!" "if, sir," she begins, "in my knowledge of my secret--" but he interrupts her. "now, lady dedlock, this is a matter of business, and in a matter of business the ground cannot be kept too clear. it is no longer your secret. excuse me. that is just the mistake. it is my secret, in trust for sir leicester and the family. if it were your secret, lady dedlock, we should not be here holding this conversation." "that is very true. if in my knowledge of the secret i do what i can to spare an innocent girl (especially, remembering your own reference to her when you told my story to the assembled guests at chesney wold) from the taint of my impending shame, i act upon a resolution i have taken. nothing in the world, and no one in the world, could shake it or could move me." this she says with great deliberation and distinctness and with no more outward passion than himself. as for him, he methodically discusses his matter of business as if she were any insensible instrument used in business. "really? then you see, lady dedlock," he returns, "you are not to be trusted. you have put the case in a perfectly plain way, and according to the literal fact; and that being the case, you are not to be trusted." "perhaps you may remember that i expressed some anxiety on this same point when we spoke at night at chesney wold?" "yes," says mr. tulkinghorn, coolly getting up and standing on the hearth. "yes. i recollect, lady dedlock, that you certainly referred to the girl, but that was before we came to our arrangement, and both the letter and the spirit of our arrangement altogether precluded any action on your part founded upon my discovery. there can be no doubt about that. as to sparing the girl, of what importance or value is she? spare! lady dedlock, here is a family name compromised. one might have supposed that the course was straight on--over everything, neither to the right nor to the left, regardless of all considerations in the way, sparing nothing, treading everything under foot." she has been looking at the table. she lifts up her eyes and looks at him. there is a stern expression on her face and a part of her lower lip is compressed under her teeth. "this woman understands me," mr. tulkinghorn thinks as she lets her glance fall again. "she cannot be spared. why should she spare others?" for a little while they are silent. lady dedlock has eaten no dinner, but has twice or thrice poured out water with a steady hand and drunk it. she rises from table, takes a lounging-chair, and reclines in it, shading her face. there is nothing in her manner to express weakness or excite compassion. it is thoughtful, gloomy, concentrated. "this woman," thinks mr. tulkinghorn, standing on the hearth, again a dark object closing up her view, "is a study." he studies her at his leisure, not speaking for a time. she too studies something at her leisure. she is not the first to speak, appearing indeed so unlikely to be so, though he stood there until midnight, that even he is driven upon breaking silence. "lady dedlock, the most disagreeable part of this business interview remains, but it is business. our agreement is broken. a lady of your sense and strength of character will be prepared for my now declaring it void and taking my own course." "i am quite prepared." mr. tulkinghorn inclines his head. "that is all i have to trouble you with, lady dedlock." she stops him as he is moving out of the room by asking, "this is the notice i was to receive? i wish not to misapprehend you." "not exactly the notice you were to receive, lady dedlock, because the contemplated notice supposed the agreement to have been observed. but virtually the same, virtually the same. the difference is merely in a lawyer's mind." "you intend to give me no other notice?" "you are right. no." "do you contemplate undeceiving sir leicester to-night?" "a home question!" says mr. tulkinghorn with a slight smile and cautiously shaking his head at the shaded face. "no, not to-night." "to-morrow?" "all things considered, i had better decline answering that question, lady dedlock. if i were to say i don't know when, exactly, you would not believe me, and it would answer no purpose. it may be to-morrow. i would rather say no more. you are prepared, and i hold out no expectations which circumstances might fail to justify. i wish you good evening." she removes her hand, turns her pale face towards him as he walks silently to the door, and stops him once again as he is about to open it. "do you intend to remain in the house any time? i heard you were writing in the library. are you going to return there?" "only for my hat. i am going home." she bows her eyes rather than her head, the movement is so slight and curious, and he withdraws. clear of the room he looks at his watch but is inclined to doubt it by a minute or thereabouts. there is a splendid clock upon the staircase, famous, as splendid clocks not often are, for its accuracy. "and what do you say," mr. tulkinghorn inquires, referring to it. "what do you say?" if it said now, "don't go home!" what a famous clock, hereafter, if it said to-night of all the nights that it has counted off, to this old man of all the young and old men who have ever stood before it, "don't go home!" with its sharp clear bell it strikes three quarters after seven and ticks on again. "why, you are worse than i thought you," says mr. tulkinghorn, muttering reproof to his watch. "two minutes wrong? at this rate you won't last my time." what a watch to return good for evil if it ticked in answer, "don't go home!" he passes out into the streets and walks on, with his hands behind him, under the shadow of the lofty houses, many of whose mysteries, difficulties, mortgages, delicate affairs of all kinds, are treasured up within his old black satin waistcoat. he is in the confidence of the very bricks and mortar. the high chimney-stacks telegraph family secrets to him. yet there is not a voice in a mile of them to whisper, "don't go home!" through the stir and motion of the commoner streets; through the roar and jar of many vehicles, many feet, many voices; with the blazing shop-lights lighting him on, the west wind blowing him on, and the crowd pressing him on, he is pitilessly urged upon his way, and nothing meets him murmuring, "don't go home!" arrived at last in his dull room to light his candles, and look round and up, and see the roman pointing from the ceiling, there is no new significance in the roman's hand to-night or in the flutter of the attendant groups to give him the late warning, "don't come here!" it is a moonlight night, but the moon, being past the full, is only now rising over the great wilderness of london. the stars are shining as they shone above the turret-leads at chesney wold. this woman, as he has of late been so accustomed to call her, looks out upon them. her soul is turbulent within her; she is sick at heart and restless. the large rooms are too cramped and close. she cannot endure their restraint and will walk alone in a neighbouring garden. too capricious and imperious in all she does to be the cause of much surprise in those about her as to anything she does, this woman, loosely muffled, goes out into the moonlight. mercury attends with the key. having opened the garden-gate, he delivers the key into his lady's hands at her request and is bidden to go back. she will walk there some time to ease her aching head. she may be an hour, she may be more. she needs no further escort. the gate shuts upon its spring with a clash, and he leaves her passing on into the dark shade of some trees. a fine night, and a bright large moon, and multitudes of stars. mr. tulkinghorn, in repairing to his cellar and in opening and shutting those resounding doors, has to cross a little prison-like yard. he looks up casually, thinking what a fine night, what a bright large moon, what multitudes of stars! a quiet night, too. a very quiet night. when the moon shines very brilliantly, a solitude and stillness seem to proceed from her that influence even crowded places full of life. not only is it a still night on dusty high roads and on hill-summits, whence a wide expanse of country may be seen in repose, quieter and quieter as it spreads away into a fringe of trees against the sky with the grey ghost of a bloom upon them; not only is it a still night in gardens and in woods, and on the river where the water-meadows are fresh and green, and the stream sparkles on among pleasant islands, murmuring weirs, and whispering rushes; not only does the stillness attend it as it flows where houses cluster thick, where many bridges are reflected in it, where wharves and shipping make it black and awful, where it winds from these disfigurements through marshes whose grim beacons stand like skeletons washed ashore, where it expands through the bolder region of rising grounds, rich in cornfield wind-mill and steeple, and where it mingles with the ever-heaving sea; not only is it a still night on the deep, and on the shore where the watcher stands to see the ship with her spread wings cross the path of light that appears to be presented to only him; but even on this stranger's wilderness of london there is some rest. its steeples and towers and its one great dome grow more ethereal; its smoky house-tops lose their grossness in the pale effulgence; the noises that arise from the streets are fewer and are softened, and the footsteps on the pavements pass more tranquilly away. in these fields of mr. tulkinghorn's inhabiting, where the shepherds play on chancery pipes that have no stop, and keep their sheep in the fold by hook and by crook until they have shorn them exceeding close, every noise is merged, this moonlight night, into a distant ringing hum, as if the city were a vast glass, vibrating. what's that? who fired a gun or pistol? where was it? the few foot-passengers start, stop, and stare about them. some windows and doors are opened, and people come out to look. it was a loud report and echoed and rattled heavily. it shook one house, or so a man says who was passing. it has aroused all the dogs in the neighbourhood, who bark vehemently. terrified cats scamper across the road. while the dogs are yet barking and howling--there is one dog howling like a demon--the church-clocks, as if they were startled too, begin to strike. the hum from the streets, likewise, seems to swell into a shout. but it is soon over. before the last clock begins to strike ten, there is a lull. when it has ceased, the fine night, the bright large moon, and multitudes of stars, are left at peace again. has mr. tulkinghorn been disturbed? his windows are dark and quiet, and his door is shut. it must be something unusual indeed to bring him out of his shell. nothing is heard of him, nothing is seen of him. what power of cannon might it take to shake that rusty old man out of his immovable composure? for many years the persistent roman has been pointing, with no particular meaning, from that ceiling. it is not likely that he has any new meaning in him to-night. once pointing, always pointing--like any roman, or even briton, with a single idea. there he is, no doubt, in his impossible attitude, pointing, unavailingly, all night long. moonlight, darkness, dawn, sunrise, day. there he is still, eagerly pointing, and no one minds him. but a little after the coming of the day come people to clean the rooms. and either the roman has some new meaning in him, not expressed before, or the foremost of them goes wild, for looking up at his outstretched hand and looking down at what is below it, that person shrieks and flies. the others, looking in as the first one looked, shriek and fly too, and there is an alarm in the street. what does it mean? no light is admitted into the darkened chamber, and people unaccustomed to it enter, and treading softly but heavily, carry a weight into the bedroom and lay it down. there is whispering and wondering all day, strict search of every corner, careful tracing of steps, and careful noting of the disposition of every article of furniture. all eyes look up at the roman, and all voices murmur, "if he could only tell what he saw!" he is pointing at a table with a bottle (nearly full of wine) and a glass upon it and two candles that were blown out suddenly soon after being lighted. he is pointing at an empty chair and at a stain upon the ground before it that might be almost covered with a hand. these objects lie directly within his range. an excited imagination might suppose that there was something in them so terrific as to drive the rest of the composition, not only the attendant big-legged boys, but the clouds and flowers and pillars too--in short, the very body and soul of allegory, and all the brains it has--stark mad. it happens surely that every one who comes into the darkened room and looks at these things looks up at the roman and that he is invested in all eyes with mystery and awe, as if he were a paralysed dumb witness. so it shall happen surely, through many years to come, that ghostly stories shall be told of the stain upon the floor, so easy to be covered, so hard to be got out, and that the roman, pointing from the ceiling shall point, so long as dust and damp and spiders spare him, with far greater significance than he ever had in mr. tulkinghorn's time, and with a deadly meaning. for mr. tulkinghorn's time is over for evermore, and the roman pointed at the murderous hand uplifted against his life, and pointed helplessly at him, from night to morning, lying face downward on the floor, shot through the heart. chapter xlix dutiful friendship a great annual occasion has come round in the establishment of mr. matthew bagnet, otherwise lignum vitae, ex-artilleryman and present bassoon-player. an occasion of feasting and festival. the celebration of a birthday in the family. it is not mr. bagnet's birthday. mr. bagnet merely distinguishes that epoch in the musical instrument business by kissing the children with an extra smack before breakfast, smoking an additional pipe after dinner, and wondering towards evening what his poor old mother is thinking about it--a subject of infinite speculation, and rendered so by his mother having departed this life twenty years. some men rarely revert to their father, but seem, in the bank-books of their remembrance, to have transferred all the stock of filial affection into their mother's name. mr. bagnet is one of these. perhaps his exalted appreciation of the merits of the old girl causes him usually to make the noun-substantive "goodness" of the feminine gender. it is not the birthday of one of the three children. those occasions are kept with some marks of distinction, but they rarely overleap the bounds of happy returns and a pudding. on young woolwich's last birthday, mr. bagnet certainly did, after observing on his growth and general advancement, proceed, in a moment of profound reflection on the changes wrought by time, to examine him in the catechism, accomplishing with extreme accuracy the questions number one and two, "what is your name?" and "who gave you that name?" but there failing in the exact precision of his memory and substituting for number three the question "and how do you like that name?" which he propounded with a sense of its importance, in itself so edifying and improving as to give it quite an orthodox air. this, however, was a speciality on that particular birthday, and not a general solemnity. it is the old girl's birthday, and that is the greatest holiday and reddest-letter day in mr. bagnet's calendar. the auspicious event is always commemorated according to certain forms settled and prescribed by mr. bagnet some years since. mr. bagnet, being deeply convinced that to have a pair of fowls for dinner is to attain the highest pitch of imperial luxury, invariably goes forth himself very early in the morning of this day to buy a pair; he is, as invariably, taken in by the vendor and installed in the possession of the oldest inhabitants of any coop in europe. returning with these triumphs of toughness tied up in a clean blue and white cotton handkerchief (essential to the arrangements), he in a casual manner invites mrs. bagnet to declare at breakfast what she would like for dinner. mrs. bagnet, by a coincidence never known to fail, replying fowls, mr. bagnet instantly produces his bundle from a place of concealment amidst general amazement and rejoicing. he further requires that the old girl shall do nothing all day long but sit in her very best gown and be served by himself and the young people. as he is not illustrious for his cookery, this may be supposed to be a matter of state rather than enjoyment on the old girl's part, but she keeps her state with all imaginable cheerfulness. on this present birthday, mr. bagnet has accomplished the usual preliminaries. he has bought two specimens of poultry, which, if there be any truth in adages, were certainly not caught with chaff, to be prepared for the spit; he has amazed and rejoiced the family by their unlooked-for production; he is himself directing the roasting of the poultry; and mrs. bagnet, with her wholesome brown fingers itching to prevent what she sees going wrong, sits in her gown of ceremony, an honoured guest. quebec and malta lay the cloth for dinner, while woolwich, serving, as beseems him, under his father, keeps the fowls revolving. to these young scullions mrs. bagnet occasionally imparts a wink, or a shake of the head, or a crooked face, as they made mistakes. "at half after one." says mr. bagnet. "to the minute. they'll be done." mrs. bagnet, with anguish, beholds one of them at a standstill before the fire and beginning to burn. "you shall have a dinner, old girl," says mr. bagnet. "fit for a queen." mrs. bagnet shows her white teeth cheerfully, but to the perception of her son, betrays so much uneasiness of spirit that he is impelled by the dictates of affection to ask her, with his eyes, what is the matter, thus standing, with his eyes wide open, more oblivious of the fowls than before, and not affording the least hope of a return to consciousness. fortunately his elder sister perceives the cause of the agitation in mrs. bagnet's breast and with an admonitory poke recalls him. the stopped fowls going round again, mrs. bagnet closes her eyes in the intensity of her relief. "george will look us up," says mr. bagnet. "at half after four. to the moment. how many years, old girl. has george looked us up. this afternoon?" "ah, lignum, lignum, as many as make an old woman of a young one, i begin to think. just about that, and no less," returns mrs. bagnet, laughing and shaking her head. "old girl," says mr. bagnet, "never mind. you'd be as young as ever you was. if you wasn't younger. which you are. as everybody knows." quebec and malta here exclaim, with clapping of hands, that bluffy is sure to bring mother something, and begin to speculate on what it will be. "do you know, lignum," says mrs. bagnet, casting a glance on the table-cloth, and winking "salt!" at malta with her right eye, and shaking the pepper away from quebec with her head, "i begin to think george is in the roving way again. "george," returns mr. bagnet, "will never desert. and leave his old comrade. in the lurch. don't be afraid of it." "no, lignum. no. i don't say he will. i don't think he will. but if he could get over this money trouble of his, i believe he would be off." mr. bagnet asks why. "well," returns his wife, considering, "george seems to me to be getting not a little impatient and restless. i don't say but what he's as free as ever. of course he must be free or he wouldn't be george, but he smarts and seems put out." "he's extra-drilled," says mr. bagnet. "by a lawyer. who would put the devil out." "there's something in that," his wife assents; "but so it is, lignum." further conversation is prevented, for the time, by the necessity under which mr. bagnet finds himself of directing the whole force of his mind to the dinner, which is a little endangered by the dry humour of the fowls in not yielding any gravy, and also by the made gravy acquiring no flavour and turning out of a flaxen complexion. with a similar perverseness, the potatoes crumble off forks in the process of peeling, upheaving from their centres in every direction, as if they were subject to earthquakes. the legs of the fowls, too, are longer than could be desired, and extremely scaly. overcoming these disadvantages to the best of his ability, mr. bagnet at last dishes and they sit down at table, mrs. bagnet occupying the guest's place at his right hand. it is well for the old girl that she has but one birthday in a year, for two such indulgences in poultry might be injurious. every kind of finer tendon and ligament that is in the nature of poultry to possess is developed in these specimens in the singular form of guitar-strings. their limbs appear to have struck roots into their breasts and bodies, as aged trees strike roots into the earth. their legs are so hard as to encourage the idea that they must have devoted the greater part of their long and arduous lives to pedestrian exercises and the walking of matches. but mr. bagnet, unconscious of these little defects, sets his heart on mrs. bagnet eating a most severe quantity of the delicacies before her; and as that good old girl would not cause him a moment's disappointment on any day, least of all on such a day, for any consideration, she imperils her digestion fearfully. how young woolwich cleans the drum-sticks without being of ostrich descent, his anxious mother is at a loss to understand. the old girl has another trial to undergo after the conclusion of the repast in sitting in state to see the room cleared, the hearth swept, and the dinner-service washed up and polished in the backyard. the great delight and energy with which the two young ladies apply themselves to these duties, turning up their skirts in imitation of their mother and skating in and out on little scaffolds of pattens, inspire the highest hopes for the future, but some anxiety for the present. the same causes lead to confusion of tongues, a clattering of crockery, a rattling of tin mugs, a whisking of brooms, and an expenditure of water, all in excess, while the saturation of the young ladies themselves is almost too moving a spectacle for mrs. bagnet to look upon with the calmness proper to her position. at last the various cleansing processes are triumphantly completed; quebec and malta appear in fresh attire, smiling and dry; pipes, tobacco, and something to drink are placed upon the table; and the old girl enjoys the first peace of mind she ever knows on the day of this delightful entertainment. when mr. bagnet takes his usual seat, the hands of the clock are very near to half-past four; as they mark it accurately, mr. bagnet announces, "george! military time." it is george, and he has hearty congratulations for the old girl (whom he kisses on the great occasion), and for the children, and for mr. bagnet. "happy returns to all!" says mr. george. "but, george, old man!" cries mrs. bagnet, looking at him curiously. "what's come to you?" "come to me?" "ah! you are so white, george--for you--and look so shocked. now don't he, lignum?" "george," says mr. bagnet, "tell the old girl. what's the matter." "i didn't know i looked white," says the trooper, passing his hand over his brow, "and i didn't know i looked shocked, and i'm sorry i do. but the truth is, that boy who was taken in at my place died yesterday afternoon, and it has rather knocked me over." "poor creetur!" says mrs. bagnet with a mother's pity. "is he gone? dear, dear!" "i didn't mean to say anything about it, for it's not birthday talk, but you have got it out of me, you see, before i sit down. i should have roused up in a minute," says the trooper, making himself speak more gaily, "but you're so quick, mrs. bagnet." "you're right. the old girl," says mr. bagnet. "is as quick. as powder." "and what's more, she's the subject of the day, and we'll stick to her," cries mr. george. "see here, i have brought a little brooch along with me. it's a poor thing, you know, but it's a keepsake. that's all the good it is, mrs. bagnet." mr. george produces his present, which is greeted with admiring leapings and clappings by the young family, and with a species of reverential admiration by mr. bagnet. "old girl," says mr. bagnet. "tell him my opinion of it." "why, it's a wonder, george!" mrs. bagnet exclaims. "it's the beautifullest thing that ever was seen!" "good!" says mr. bagnet. "my opinion." "it's so pretty, george," cries mrs. bagnet, turning it on all sides and holding it out at arm's length, "that it seems too choice for me." "bad!" says mr. bagnet. "not my opinion." "but whatever it is, a hundred thousand thanks, old fellow," says mrs. bagnet, her eyes sparkling with pleasure and her hand stretched out to him; "and though i have been a crossgrained soldier's wife to you sometimes, george, we are as strong friends, i am sure, in reality, as ever can be. now you shall fasten it on yourself, for good luck, if you will, george." the children close up to see it done, and mr. bagnet looks over young woolwich's head to see it done with an interest so maturely wooden, yet pleasantly childish, that mrs. bagnet cannot help laughing in her airy way and saying, "oh, lignum, lignum, what a precious old chap you are!" but the trooper fails to fasten the brooch. his hand shakes, he is nervous, and it falls off. "would any one believe this?" says he, catching it as it drops and looking round. "i am so out of sorts that i bungle at an easy job like this!" mrs. bagnet concludes that for such a case there is no remedy like a pipe, and fastening the brooch herself in a twinkling, causes the trooper to be inducted into his usual snug place and the pipes to be got into action. "if that don't bring you round, george," says she, "just throw your eye across here at your present now and then, and the two together must do it." "you ought to do it of yourself," george answers; "i know that very well, mrs. bagnet. i'll tell you how, one way and another, the blues have got to be too many for me. here was this poor lad. 'twas dull work to see him dying as he did, and not be able to help him." "what do you mean, george? you did help him. you took him under your roof." "i helped him so far, but that's little. i mean, mrs. bagnet, there he was, dying without ever having been taught much more than to know his right hand from his left. and he was too far gone to be helped out of that." "ah, poor creetur!" says mrs. bagnet. "then," says the trooper, not yet lighting his pipe, and passing his heavy hand over his hair, "that brought up gridley in a man's mind. his was a bad case too, in a different way. then the two got mixed up in a man's mind with a flinty old rascal who had to do with both. and to think of that rusty carbine, stock and barrel, standing up on end in his corner, hard, indifferent, taking everything so evenly--it made flesh and blood tingle, i do assure you." "my advice to you," returns mrs. bagnet, "is to light your pipe and tingle that way. it's wholesomer and comfortabler, and better for the health altogether." "you're right," says the trooper, "and i'll do it." so he does it, though still with an indignant gravity that impresses the young bagnets, and even causes mr. bagnet to defer the ceremony of drinking mrs. bagnet's health, always given by himself on these occasions in a speech of exemplary terseness. but the young ladies having composed what mr. bagnet is in the habit of calling "the mixtur," and george's pipe being now in a glow, mr. bagnet considers it his duty to proceed to the toast of the evening. he addresses the assembled company in the following terms. "george. woolwich. quebec. malta. this is her birthday. take a day's march. and you won't find such another. here's towards her!" the toast having been drunk with enthusiasm, mrs. bagnet returns thanks in a neat address of corresponding brevity. this model composition is limited to the three words "and wishing yours!" which the old girl follows up with a nod at everybody in succession and a well-regulated swig of the mixture. this she again follows up, on the present occasion, by the wholly unexpected exclamation, "here's a man!" here is a man, much to the astonishment of the little company, looking in at the parlour-door. he is a sharp-eyed man--a quick keen man--and he takes in everybody's look at him, all at once, individually and collectively, in a manner that stamps him a remarkable man. "george," says the man, nodding, "how do you find yourself?" "why, it's bucket!" cries mr. george. "yes," says the man, coming in and closing the door. "i was going down the street here when i happened to stop and look in at the musical instruments in the shop-window--a friend of mine is in want of a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone--and i saw a party enjoying themselves, and i thought it was you in the corner; i thought i couldn't be mistaken. how goes the world with you, george, at the present moment? pretty smooth? and with you, ma'am? and with you, governor? and lord," says mr. bucket, opening his arms, "here's children too! you may do anything with me if you only show me children. give us a kiss, my pets. no occasion to inquire who your father and mother is. never saw such a likeness in my life!" mr. bucket, not unwelcome, has sat himself down next to mr. george and taken quebec and malta on his knees. "you pretty dears," says mr. bucket, "give us another kiss; it's the only thing i'm greedy in. lord bless you, how healthy you look! and what may be the ages of these two, ma'am? i should put 'em down at the figures of about eight and ten." "you're very near, sir," says mrs. bagnet. "i generally am near," returns mr. bucket, "being so fond of children. a friend of mine has had nineteen of 'em, ma'am, all by one mother, and she's still as fresh and rosy as the morning. not so much so as yourself, but, upon my soul, she comes near you! and what do you call these, my darling?" pursues mr. bucket, pinching malta's cheeks. "these are peaches, these are. bless your heart! and what do you think about father? do you think father could recommend a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone for mr. bucket's friend, my dear? my name's bucket. ain't that a funny name?" these blandishments have entirely won the family heart. mrs. bagnet forgets the day to the extent of filling a pipe and a glass for mr. bucket and waiting upon him hospitably. she would be glad to receive so pleasant a character under any circumstances, but she tells him that as a friend of george's she is particularly glad to see him this evening, for george has not been in his usual spirits. "not in his usual spirits?" exclaims mr. bucket. "why, i never heard of such a thing! what's the matter, george? you don't intend to tell me you've been out of spirits. what should you be out of spirits for? you haven't got anything on your mind, you know." "nothing particular," returns the trooper. "i should think not," rejoins mr. bucket. "what could you have on your mind, you know! and have these pets got anything on their minds, eh? not they, but they'll be upon the minds of some of the young fellows, some of these days, and make 'em precious low-spirited. i ain't much of a prophet, but i can tell you that, ma'am." mrs. bagnet, quite charmed, hopes mr. bucket has a family of his own. "there, ma'am!" says mr. bucket. "would you believe it? no, i haven't. my wife and a lodger constitute my family. mrs. bucket is as fond of children as myself and as wishful to have 'em, but no. so it is. worldly goods are divided unequally, and man must not repine. what a very nice backyard, ma'am! any way out of that yard, now?" there is no way out of that yard. "ain't there really?" says mr. bucket. "i should have thought there might have been. well, i don't know as i ever saw a backyard that took my fancy more. would you allow me to look at it? thank you. no, i see there's no way out. but what a very good-proportioned yard it is!" having cast his sharp eye all about it, mr. bucket returns to his chair next his friend mr. george and pats mr. george affectionately on the shoulder. "how are your spirits now, george?" "all right now," returns the trooper. "that's your sort!" says mr. bucket. "why should you ever have been otherwise? a man of your fine figure and constitution has no right to be out of spirits. that ain't a chest to be out of spirits, is it, ma'am? and you haven't got anything on your mind, you know, george; what could you have on your mind!" somewhat harping on this phrase, considering the extent and variety of his conversational powers, mr. bucket twice or thrice repeats it to the pipe he lights, and with a listening face that is particularly his own. but the sun of his sociality soon recovers from this brief eclipse and shines again. "and this is brother, is it, my dears?" says mr. bucket, referring to quebec and malta for information on the subject of young woolwich. "and a nice brother he is--half-brother i mean to say. for he's too old to be your boy, ma'am." "i can certify at all events that he is not anybody else's," returns mrs. bagnet, laughing. "well, you do surprise me! yet he's like you, there's no denying. lord, he's wonderfully like you! but about what you may call the brow, you know, there his father comes out!" mr. bucket compares the faces with one eye shut up, while mr. bagnet smokes in stolid satisfaction. this is an opportunity for mrs. bagnet to inform him that the boy is george's godson. "george's godson, is he?" rejoins mr. bucket with extreme cordiality. "i must shake hands over again with george's godson. godfather and godson do credit to one another. and what do you intend to make of him, ma'am? does he show any turn for any musical instrument?" mr. bagnet suddenly interposes, "plays the fife. beautiful." "would you believe it, governor," says mr. bucket, struck by the coincidence, "that when i was a boy i played the fife myself? not in a scientific way, as i expect he does, but by ear. lord bless you! 'british grenadiers'--there's a tune to warm an englishman up! could you give us 'british grenadiers,' my fine fellow?" nothing could be more acceptable to the little circle than this call upon young woolwich, who immediately fetches his fife and performs the stirring melody, during which performance mr. bucket, much enlivened, beats time and never fails to come in sharp with the burden, "british gra-a-anadeers!" in short, he shows so much musical taste that mr. bagnet actually takes his pipe from his lips to express his conviction that he is a singer. mr. bucket receives the harmonious impeachment so modestly, confessing how that he did once chaunt a little, for the expression of the feelings of his own bosom, and with no presumptuous idea of entertaining his friends, that he is asked to sing. not to be behindhand in the sociality of the evening, he complies and gives them "believe me, if all those endearing young charms." this ballad, he informs mrs. bagnet, he considers to have been his most powerful ally in moving the heart of mrs. bucket when a maiden, and inducing her to approach the altar--mr. bucket's own words are "to come up to the scratch." this sparkling stranger is such a new and agreeable feature in the evening that mr. george, who testified no great emotions of pleasure on his entrance, begins, in spite of himself, to be rather proud of him. he is so friendly, is a man of so many resources, and so easy to get on with, that it is something to have made him known there. mr. bagnet becomes, after another pipe, so sensible of the value of his acquaintance that he solicits the honour of his company on the old girl's next birthday. if anything can more closely cement and consolidate the esteem which mr. bucket has formed for the family, it is the discovery of the nature of the occasion. he drinks to mrs. bagnet with a warmth approaching to rapture, engages himself for that day twelvemonth more than thankfully, makes a memorandum of the day in a large black pocket-book with a girdle to it, and breathes a hope that mrs. bucket and mrs. bagnet may before then become, in a manner, sisters. as he says himself, what is public life without private ties? he is in his humble way a public man, but it is not in that sphere that he finds happiness. no, it must be sought within the confines of domestic bliss. it is natural, under these circumstances, that he, in his turn, should remember the friend to whom he is indebted for so promising an acquaintance. and he does. he keeps very close to him. whatever the subject of the conversation, he keeps a tender eye upon him. he waits to walk home with him. he is interested in his very boots and observes even them attentively as mr. george sits smoking cross-legged in the chimney-corner. at length mr. george rises to depart. at the same moment mr. bucket, with the secret sympathy of friendship, also rises. he dotes upon the children to the last and remembers the commission he has undertaken for an absent friend. "respecting that second-hand wiolinceller, governor--could you recommend me such a thing?" "scores," says mr. bagnet. "i am obliged to you," returns mr. bucket, squeezing his hand. "you're a friend in need. a good tone, mind you! my friend is a regular dab at it. ecod, he saws away at mozart and handel and the rest of the big-wigs like a thorough workman. and you needn't," says mr. bucket in a considerate and private voice, "you needn't commit yourself to too low a figure, governor. i don't want to pay too large a price for my friend, but i want you to have your proper percentage and be remunerated for your loss of time. that is but fair. every man must live, and ought to it." mr. bagnet shakes his head at the old girl to the effect that they have found a jewel of price. "suppose i was to give you a look in, say, at half arter ten to-morrow morning. perhaps you could name the figures of a few wiolincellers of a good tone?" says mr. bucket. nothing easier. mr. and mrs. bagnet both engage to have the requisite information ready and even hint to each other at the practicability of having a small stock collected there for approval. "thank you," says mr. bucket, "thank you. good night, ma'am. good night, governor. good night, darlings. i am much obliged to you for one of the pleasantest evenings i ever spent in my life." they, on the contrary, are much obliged to him for the pleasure he has given them in his company; and so they part with many expressions of goodwill on both sides. "now george, old boy," says mr. bucket, taking his arm at the shop-door, "come along!" as they go down the little street and the bagnets pause for a minute looking after them, mrs. bagnet remarks to the worthy lignum that mr. bucket "almost clings to george like, and seems to be really fond of him." the neighbouring streets being narrow and ill-paved, it is a little inconvenient to walk there two abreast and arm in arm. mr. george therefore soon proposes to walk singly. but mr. bucket, who cannot make up his mind to relinquish his friendly hold, replies, "wait half a minute, george. i should wish to speak to you first." immediately afterwards, he twists him into a public-house and into a parlour, where he confronts him and claps his own back against the door. "now, george," says mr. bucket, "duty is duty, and friendship is friendship. i never want the two to clash if i can help it. i have endeavoured to make things pleasant to-night, and i put it to you whether i have done it or not. you must consider yourself in custody, george." "custody? what for?" returns the trooper, thunderstruck. "now, george," says mr. bucket, urging a sensible view of the case upon him with his fat forefinger, "duty, as you know very well, is one thing, and conversation is another. it's my duty to inform you that any observations you may make will be liable to be used against you. therefore, george, be careful what you say. you don't happen to have heard of a murder?" "murder!" "now, george," says mr. bucket, keeping his forefinger in an impressive state of action, "bear in mind what i've said to you. i ask you nothing. you've been in low spirits this afternoon. i say, you don't happen to have heard of a murder?" "no. where has there been a murder?" "now, george," says mr. bucket, "don't you go and commit yourself. i'm a-going to tell you what i want you for. there has been a murder in lincoln's inn fields--gentleman of the name of tulkinghorn. he was shot last night. i want you for that." the trooper sinks upon a seat behind him, and great drops start out upon his forehead, and a deadly pallor overspreads his face. "bucket! it's not possible that mr. tulkinghorn has been killed and that you suspect me?" "george," returns mr. bucket, keeping his forefinger going, "it is certainly possible, because it's the case. this deed was done last night at ten o'clock. now, you know where you were last night at ten o'clock, and you'll be able to prove it, no doubt." "last night! last night?" repeats the trooper thoughtfully. then it flashes upon him. "why, great heaven, i was there last night!" "so i have understood, george," returns mr. bucket with great deliberation. "so i have understood. likewise you've been very often there. you've been seen hanging about the place, and you've been heard more than once in a wrangle with him, and it's possible--i don't say it's certainly so, mind you, but it's possible--that he may have been heard to call you a threatening, murdering, dangerous fellow." the trooper gasps as if he would admit it all if he could speak. "now, george," continues mr. bucket, putting his hat upon the table with an air of business rather in the upholstery way than otherwise, "my wish is, as it has been all the evening, to make things pleasant. i tell you plainly there's a reward out, of a hundred guineas, offered by sir leicester dedlock, baronet. you and me have always been pleasant together; but i have got a duty to discharge; and if that hundred guineas is to be made, it may as well be made by me as any other man. on all of which accounts, i should hope it was clear to you that i must have you, and that i'm damned if i don't have you. am i to call in any assistance, or is the trick done?" mr. george has recovered himself and stands up like a soldier. "come," he says; "i am ready." "george," continues mr. bucket, "wait a bit!" with his upholsterer manner, as if the trooper were a window to be fitted up, he takes from his pocket a pair of handcuffs. "this is a serious charge, george, and such is my duty." the trooper flushes angrily and hesitates a moment, but holds out his two hands, clasped together, and says, "there! put them on!" mr. bucket adjusts them in a moment. "how do you find them? are they comfortable? if not, say so, for i wish to make things as pleasant as is consistent with my duty, and i've got another pair in my pocket." this remark he offers like a most respectable tradesman anxious to execute an order neatly and to the perfect satisfaction of his customer. "they'll do as they are? very well! now, you see, george"--he takes a cloak from a corner and begins adjusting it about the trooper's neck--"i was mindful of your feelings when i come out, and brought this on purpose. there! who's the wiser?" "only i," returns the trooper, "but as i know it, do me one more good turn and pull my hat over my eyes." "really, though! do you mean it? ain't it a pity? it looks so." "i can't look chance men in the face with these things on," mr. george hurriedly replies. "do, for god's sake, pull my hat forward." so strongly entreated, mr. bucket complies, puts his own hat on, and conducts his prize into the streets, the trooper marching on as steadily as usual, though with his head less erect, and mr. bucket steering him with his elbow over the crossings and up the turnings. chapter l esther's narrative it happened that when i came home from deal i found a note from caddy jellyby (as we always continued to call her), informing me that her health, which had been for some time very delicate, was worse and that she would be more glad than she could tell me if i would go to see her. it was a note of a few lines, written from the couch on which she lay and enclosed to me in another from her husband, in which he seconded her entreaty with much solicitude. caddy was now the mother, and i the godmother, of such a poor little baby--such a tiny old-faced mite, with a countenance that seemed to be scarcely anything but cap-border, and a little lean, long-fingered hand, always clenched under its chin. it would lie in this attitude all day, with its bright specks of eyes open, wondering (as i used to imagine) how it came to be so small and weak. whenever it was moved it cried, but at all other times it was so patient that the sole desire of its life appeared to be to lie quiet and think. it had curious little dark veins in its face and curious little dark marks under its eyes like faint remembrances of poor caddy's inky days, and altogether, to those who were not used to it, it was quite a piteous little sight. but it was enough for caddy that she was used to it. the projects with which she beguiled her illness, for little esther's education, and little esther's marriage, and even for her own old age as the grandmother of little esther's little esthers, was so prettily expressive of devotion to this pride of her life that i should be tempted to recall some of them but for the timely remembrance that i am getting on irregularly as it is. to return to the letter. caddy had a superstition about me which had been strengthening in her mind ever since that night long ago when she had lain asleep with her head in my lap. she almost--i think i must say quite--believed that i did her good whenever i was near her. now although this was such a fancy of the affectionate girl's that i am almost ashamed to mention it, still it might have all the force of a fact when she was really ill. therefore i set off to caddy, with my guardian's consent, post-haste; and she and prince made so much of me that there never was anything like it. next day i went again to sit with her, and next day i went again. it was a very easy journey, for i had only to rise a little earlier in the morning, and keep my accounts, and attend to housekeeping matters before leaving home. but when i had made these three visits, my guardian said to me, on my return at night, "now, little woman, little woman, this will never do. constant dropping will wear away a stone, and constant coaching will wear out a dame durden. we will go to london for a while and take possession of our old lodgings." "not for me, dear guardian," said i, "for i never feel tired," which was strictly true. i was only too happy to be in such request. "for me then," returned my guardian, "or for ada, or for both of us. it is somebody's birthday to-morrow, i think." "truly i think it is," said i, kissing my darling, who would be twenty-one to-morrow. "well," observed my guardian, half pleasantly, half seriously, "that's a great occasion and will give my fair cousin some necessary business to transact in assertion of her independence, and will make london a more convenient place for all of us. so to london we will go. that being settled, there is another thing--how have you left caddy?" "very unwell, guardian. i fear it will be some time before she regains her health and strength." "what do you call some time, now?" asked my guardian thoughtfully. "some weeks, i am afraid." "ah!" he began to walk about the room with his hands in his pockets, showing that he had been thinking as much. "now, what do you say about her doctor? is he a good doctor, my love?" i felt obliged to confess that i knew nothing to the contrary but that prince and i had agreed only that evening that we would like his opinion to be confirmed by some one. "well, you know," returned my guardian quickly, "there's woodcourt." i had not meant that, and was rather taken by surprise. for a moment all that i had had in my mind in connexion with mr. woodcourt seemed to come back and confuse me. "you don't object to him, little woman?" "object to him, guardian? oh no!" "and you don't think the patient would object to him?" so far from that, i had no doubt of her being prepared to have a great reliance on him and to like him very much. i said that he was no stranger to her personally, for she had seen him often in his kind attendance on miss flite. "very good," said my guardian. "he has been here to-day, my dear, and i will see him about it to-morrow." i felt in this short conversation--though i did not know how, for she was quiet, and we interchanged no look--that my dear girl well remembered how merrily she had clasped me round the waist when no other hands than caddy's had brought me the little parting token. this caused me to feel that i ought to tell her, and caddy too, that i was going to be the mistress of bleak house and that if i avoided that disclosure any longer i might become less worthy in my own eyes of its master's love. therefore, when we went upstairs and had waited listening until the clock struck twelve in order that only i might be the first to wish my darling all good wishes on her birthday and to take her to my heart, i set before her, just as i had set before myself, the goodness and honour of her cousin john and the happy life that was in store for me. if ever my darling were fonder of me at one time than another in all our intercourse, she was surely fondest of me that night. and i was so rejoiced to know it and so comforted by the sense of having done right in casting this last idle reservation away that i was ten times happier than i had been before. i had scarcely thought it a reservation a few hours ago, but now that it was gone i felt as if i understood its nature better. next day we went to london. we found our old lodging vacant, and in half an hour were quietly established there, as if we had never gone away. mr. woodcourt dined with us to celebrate my darling's birthday, and we were as pleasant as we could be with the great blank among us that richard's absence naturally made on such an occasion. after that day i was for some weeks--eight or nine as i remember--very much with caddy, and thus it fell out that i saw less of ada at this time than any other since we had first come together, except the time of my own illness. she often came to caddy's, but our function there was to amuse and cheer her, and we did not talk in our usual confidential manner. whenever i went home at night we were together, but caddy's rest was broken by pain, and i often remained to nurse her. with her husband and her poor little mite of a baby to love and their home to strive for, what a good creature caddy was! so self-denying, so uncomplaining, so anxious to get well on their account, so afraid of giving trouble, and so thoughtful of the unassisted labours of her husband and the comforts of old mr. turveydrop; i had never known the best of her until now. and it seemed so curious that her pale face and helpless figure should be lying there day after day where dancing was the business of life, where the kit and the apprentices began early every morning in the ball-room, and where the untidy little boy waltzed by himself in the kitchen all the afternoon. at caddy's request i took the supreme direction of her apartment, trimmed it up, and pushed her, couch and all, into a lighter and more airy and more cheerful corner than she had yet occupied; then, every day, when we were in our neatest array, i used to lay my small small namesake in her arms and sit down to chat or work or read to her. it was at one of the first of these quiet times that i told caddy about bleak house. we had other visitors besides ada. first of all we had prince, who in his hurried intervals of teaching used to come softly in and sit softly down, with a face of loving anxiety for caddy and the very little child. whatever caddy's condition really was, she never failed to declare to prince that she was all but well--which i, heaven forgive me, never failed to confirm. this would put prince in such good spirits that he would sometimes take the kit from his pocket and play a chord or two to astonish the baby, which i never knew it to do in the least degree, for my tiny namesake never noticed it at all. then there was mrs. jellyby. she would come occasionally, with her usual distraught manner, and sit calmly looking miles beyond her grandchild as if her attention were absorbed by a young borrioboolan on its native shores. as bright-eyed as ever, as serene, and as untidy, she would say, "well, caddy, child, and how do you do to-day?" and then would sit amiably smiling and taking no notice of the reply or would sweetly glide off into a calculation of the number of letters she had lately received and answered or of the coffee-bearing power of borrioboola-gha. this she would always do with a serene contempt for our limited sphere of action, not to be disguised. then there was old mr. turveydrop, who was from morning to night and from night to morning the subject of innumerable precautions. if the baby cried, it was nearly stifled lest the noise should make him uncomfortable. if the fire wanted stirring in the night, it was surreptitiously done lest his rest should be broken. if caddy required any little comfort that the house contained, she first carefully discussed whether he was likely to require it too. in return for this consideration he would come into the room once a day, all but blessing it--showing a condescension, and a patronage, and a grace of manner in dispensing the light of his high-shouldered presence from which i might have supposed him (if i had not known better) to have been the benefactor of caddy's life. "my caroline," he would say, making the nearest approach that he could to bending over her. "tell me that you are better to-day." "oh, much better, thank you, mr. turveydrop," caddy would reply. "delighted! enchanted! and our dear miss summerson. she is not quite prostrated by fatigue?" here he would crease up his eyelids and kiss his fingers to me, though i am happy to say he had ceased to be particular in his attentions since i had been so altered. "not at all," i would assure him. "charming! we must take care of our dear caroline, miss summerson. we must spare nothing that will restore her. we must nourish her. my dear caroline"--he would turn to his daughter-in-law with infinite generosity and protection--"want for nothing, my love. frame a wish and gratify it, my daughter. everything this house contains, everything my room contains, is at your service, my dear. do not," he would sometimes add in a burst of deportment, "even allow my simple requirements to be considered if they should at any time interfere with your own, my caroline. your necessities are greater than mine." he had established such a long prescriptive right to this deportment (his son's inheritance from his mother) that i several times knew both caddy and her husband to be melted to tears by these affectionate self-sacrifices. "nay, my dears," he would remonstrate; and when i saw caddy's thin arm about his fat neck as he said it, i would be melted too, though not by the same process. "nay, nay! i have promised never to leave ye. be dutiful and affectionate towards me, and i ask no other return. now, bless ye! i am going to the park." he would take the air there presently and get an appetite for his hotel dinner. i hope i do old mr. turveydrop no wrong, but i never saw any better traits in him than these i faithfully record, except that he certainly conceived a liking for peepy and would take the child out walking with great pomp, always on those occasions sending him home before he went to dinner himself, and occasionally with a halfpenny in his pocket. but even this disinterestedness was attended with no inconsiderable cost, to my knowledge, for before peepy was sufficiently decorated to walk hand in hand with the professor of deportment, he had to be newly dressed, at the expense of caddy and her husband, from top to toe. last of our visitors, there was mr. jellyby. really when he used to come in of an evening, and ask caddy in his meek voice how she was, and then sit down with his head against the wall, and make no attempt to say anything more, i liked him very much. if he found me bustling about doing any little thing, he sometimes half took his coat off, as if with an intention of helping by a great exertion; but he never got any further. his sole occupation was to sit with his head against the wall, looking hard at the thoughtful baby; and i could not quite divest my mind of a fancy that they understood one another. i have not counted mr. woodcourt among our visitors because he was now caddy's regular attendant. she soon began to improve under his care, but he was so gentle, so skilful, so unwearying in the pains he took that it is not to be wondered at, i am sure. i saw a good deal of mr. woodcourt during this time, though not so much as might be supposed, for knowing caddy to be safe in his hands, i often slipped home at about the hours when he was expected. we frequently met, notwithstanding. i was quite reconciled to myself now, but i still felt glad to think that he was sorry for me, and he still was sorry for me i believed. he helped mr. badger in his professional engagements, which were numerous, and had as yet no settled projects for the future. it was when caddy began to recover that i began to notice a change in my dear girl. i cannot say how it first presented itself to me, because i observed it in many slight particulars which were nothing in themselves and only became something when they were pieced together. but i made it out, by putting them together, that ada was not so frankly cheerful with me as she used to be. her tenderness for me was as loving and true as ever; i did not for a moment doubt that; but there was a quiet sorrow about her which she did not confide to me, and in which i traced some hidden regret. now, i could not understand this, and i was so anxious for the happiness of my own pet that it caused me some uneasiness and set me thinking often. at length, feeling sure that ada suppressed this something from me lest it should make me unhappy too, it came into my head that she was a little grieved--for me--by what i had told her about bleak house. how i persuaded myself that this was likely, i don't know. i had no idea that there was any selfish reference in my doing so. i was not grieved for myself: i was quite contented and quite happy. still, that ada might be thinking--for me, though i had abandoned all such thoughts--of what once was, but was now all changed, seemed so easy to believe that i believed it. what could i do to reassure my darling (i considered then) and show her that i had no such feelings? well! i could only be as brisk and busy as possible, and that i had tried to be all along. however, as caddy's illness had certainly interfered, more or less, with my home duties--though i had always been there in the morning to make my guardian's breakfast, and he had a hundred times laughed and said there must be two little women, for his little woman was never missing--i resolved to be doubly diligent and gay. so i went about the house humming all the tunes i knew, and i sat working and working in a desperate manner, and i talked and talked, morning, noon, and night. and still there was the same shade between me and my darling. "so, dame trot," observed my guardian, shutting up his book one night when we were all three together, "so woodcourt has restored caddy jellyby to the full enjoyment of life again?" "yes," i said; "and to be repaid by such gratitude as hers is to be made rich, guardian." "i wish it was," he returned, "with all my heart." so did i too, for that matter. i said so. "aye! we would make him as rich as a jew if we knew how. would we not, little woman?" i laughed as i worked and replied that i was not sure about that, for it might spoil him, and he might not be so useful, and there might be many who could ill spare him. as miss flite, and caddy herself, and many others. "true," said my guardian. "i had forgotten that. but we would agree to make him rich enough to live, i suppose? rich enough to work with tolerable peace of mind? rich enough to have his own happy home and his own household gods--and household goddess, too, perhaps?" that was quite another thing, i said. we must all agree in that. "to be sure," said my guardian. "all of us. i have a great regard for woodcourt, a high esteem for him; and i have been sounding him delicately about his plans. it is difficult to offer aid to an independent man with that just kind of pride which he possesses. and yet i would be glad to do it if i might or if i knew how. he seems half inclined for another voyage. but that appears like casting such a man away." "it might open a new world to him," said i. "so it might, little woman," my guardian assented. "i doubt if he expects much of the old world. do you know i have fancied that he sometimes feels some particular disappointment or misfortune encountered in it. you never heard of anything of that sort?" i shook my head. "humph," said my guardian. "i am mistaken, i dare say." as there was a little pause here, which i thought, for my dear girl's satisfaction, had better be filled up, i hummed an air as i worked which was a favourite with my guardian. "and do you think mr. woodcourt will make another voyage?" i asked him when i had hummed it quietly all through. "i don't quite know what to think, my dear, but i should say it was likely at present that he will give a long trip to another country." "i am sure he will take the best wishes of all our hearts with him wherever he goes," said i; "and though they are not riches, he will never be the poorer for them, guardian, at least." "never, little woman," he replied. i was sitting in my usual place, which was now beside my guardian's chair. that had not been my usual place before the letter, but it was now. i looked up to ada, who was sitting opposite, and i saw, as she looked at me, that her eyes were filled with tears and that tears were falling down her face. i felt that i had only to be placid and merry once for all to undeceive my dear and set her loving heart at rest. i really was so, and i had nothing to do but to be myself. so i made my sweet girl lean upon my shoulder--how little thinking what was heavy on her mind!--and i said she was not quite well, and put my arm about her, and took her upstairs. when we were in our own room, and when she might perhaps have told me what i was so unprepared to hear, i gave her no encouragement to confide in me; i never thought she stood in need of it. "oh, my dear good esther," said ada, "if i could only make up my mind to speak to you and my cousin john when you are together!" "why, my love!" i remonstrated. "ada, why should you not speak to us!" ada only dropped her head and pressed me closer to her heart. "you surely don't forget, my beauty," said i, smiling, "what quiet, old-fashioned people we are and how i have settled down to be the discreetest of dames? you don't forget how happily and peacefully my life is all marked out for me, and by whom? i am certain that you don't forget by what a noble character, ada. that can never be." "no, never, esther." "why then, my dear," said i, "there can be nothing amiss--and why should you not speak to us?" "nothing amiss, esther?" returned ada. "oh, when i think of all these years, and of his fatherly care and kindness, and of the old relations among us, and of you, what shall i do, what shall i do!" i looked at my child in some wonder, but i thought it better not to answer otherwise than by cheering her, and so i turned off into many little recollections of our life together and prevented her from saying more. when she lay down to sleep, and not before, i returned to my guardian to say good night, and then i came back to ada and sat near her for a little while. she was asleep, and i thought as i looked at her that she was a little changed. i had thought so more than once lately. i could not decide, even looking at her while she was unconscious, how she was changed, but something in the familiar beauty of her face looked different to me. my guardian's old hopes of her and richard arose sorrowfully in my mind, and i said to myself, "she has been anxious about him," and i wondered how that love would end. when i had come home from caddy's while she was ill, i had often found ada at work, and she had always put her work away, and i had never known what it was. some of it now lay in a drawer near her, which was not quite closed. i did not open the drawer, but i still rather wondered what the work could be, for it was evidently nothing for herself. and i noticed as i kissed my dear that she lay with one hand under her pillow so that it was hidden. how much less amiable i must have been than they thought me, how much less amiable than i thought myself, to be so preoccupied with my own cheerfulness and contentment as to think that it only rested with me to put my dear girl right and set her mind at peace! but i lay down, self-deceived, in that belief. and i awoke in it next day to find that there was still the same shade between me and my darling. chapter li enlightened when mr. woodcourt arrived in london, he went, that very same day, to mr. vholes's in symond's inn. for he never once, from the moment when i entreated him to be a friend to richard, neglected or forgot his promise. he had told me that he accepted the charge as a sacred trust, and he was ever true to it in that spirit. he found mr. vholes in his office and informed mr. vholes of his agreement with richard that he should call there to learn his address. "just so, sir," said mr. vholes. "mr. c.'s address is not a hundred miles from here, sir, mr. c.'s address is not a hundred miles from here. would you take a seat, sir?" mr. woodcourt thanked mr. vholes, but he had no business with him beyond what he had mentioned. "just so, sir. i believe, sir," said mr. vholes, still quietly insisting on the seat by not giving the address, "that you have influence with mr. c. indeed i am aware that you have." "i was not aware of it myself," returned mr. woodcourt; "but i suppose you know best." "sir," rejoined mr. vholes, self-contained as usual, voice and all, "it is a part of my professional duty to know best. it is a part of my professional duty to study and to understand a gentleman who confides his interests to me. in my professional duty i shall not be wanting, sir, if i know it. i may, with the best intentions, be wanting in it without knowing it; but not if i know it, sir." mr. woodcourt again mentioned the address. "give me leave, sir," said mr. vholes. "bear with me for a moment. sir, mr. c. is playing for a considerable stake, and cannot play without--need i say what?" "money, i presume?" "sir," said mr. vholes, "to be honest with you (honesty being my golden rule, whether i gain by it or lose, and i find that i generally lose), money is the word. now, sir, upon the chances of mr. c.'s game i express to you no opinion, no opinion. it might be highly impolitic in mr. c., after playing so long and so high, to leave off; it might be the reverse; i say nothing. no, sir," said mr. vholes, bringing his hand flat down upon his desk in a positive manner, "nothing." "you seem to forget," returned mr. woodcourt, "that i ask you to say nothing and have no interest in anything you say." "pardon me, sir!" retorted mr. vholes. "you do yourself an injustice. no, sir! pardon me! you shall not--shall not in my office, if i know it--do yourself an injustice. you are interested in anything, and in everything, that relates to your friend. i know human nature much better, sir, than to admit for an instant that a gentleman of your appearance is not interested in whatever concerns his friend." "well," replied mr. woodcourt, "that may be. i am particularly interested in his address." "the number, sir," said mr. vholes parenthetically, "i believe i have already mentioned. if mr. c. is to continue to play for this considerable stake, sir, he must have funds. understand me! there are funds in hand at present. i ask for nothing; there are funds in hand. but for the onward play, more funds must be provided, unless mr. c. is to throw away what he has already ventured, which is wholly and solely a point for his consideration. this, sir, i take the opportunity of stating openly to you as the friend of mr. c. without funds i shall always be happy to appear and act for mr. c. to the extent of all such costs as are safe to be allowed out of the estate, not beyond that. i could not go beyond that, sir, without wronging some one. i must either wrong my three dear girls or my venerable father, who is entirely dependent on me, in the vale of taunton; or some one. whereas, sir, my resolution is (call it weakness or folly if you please) to wrong no one." mr. woodcourt rather sternly rejoined that he was glad to hear it. "i wish, sir," said mr. vholes, "to leave a good name behind me. therefore i take every opportunity of openly stating to a friend of mr. c. how mr. c. is situated. as to myself, sir, the labourer is worthy of his hire. if i undertake to put my shoulder to the wheel, i do it, and i earn what i get. i am here for that purpose. my name is painted on the door outside, with that object." "and mr. carstone's address, mr. vholes?" "sir," returned mr. vholes, "as i believe i have already mentioned, it is next door. on the second story you will find mr. c.'s apartments. mr. c. desires to be near his professional adviser, and i am far from objecting, for i court inquiry." upon this mr. woodcourt wished mr. vholes good day and went in search of richard, the change in whose appearance he began to understand now but too well. he found him in a dull room, fadedly furnished, much as i had found him in his barrack-room but a little while before, except that he was not writing but was sitting with a book before him, from which his eyes and thoughts were far astray. as the door chanced to be standing open, mr. woodcourt was in his presence for some moments without being perceived, and he told me that he never could forget the haggardness of his face and the dejection of his manner before he was aroused from his dream. "woodcourt, my dear fellow," cried richard, starting up with extended hands, "you come upon my vision like a ghost." "a friendly one," he replied, "and only waiting, as they say ghosts do, to be addressed. how does the mortal world go?" they were seated now, near together. "badly enough, and slowly enough," said richard, "speaking at least for my part of it." "what part is that?" "the chancery part." "i never heard," returned mr. woodcourt, shaking his head, "of its going well yet." "nor i," said richard moodily. "who ever did?" he brightened again in a moment and said with his natural openness, "woodcourt, i should be sorry to be misunderstood by you, even if i gained by it in your estimation. you must know that i have done no good this long time. i have not intended to do much harm, but i seem to have been capable of nothing else. it may be that i should have done better by keeping out of the net into which my destiny has worked me, but i think not, though i dare say you will soon hear, if you have not already heard, a very different opinion. to make short of a long story, i am afraid i have wanted an object; but i have an object now--or it has me--and it is too late to discuss it. take me as i am, and make the best of me." "a bargain," said mr. woodcourt. "do as much by me in return." "oh! you," returned richard, "you can pursue your art for its own sake, and can put your hand upon the plough and never turn, and can strike a purpose out of anything. you and i are very different creatures." he spoke regretfully and lapsed for a moment into his weary condition. "well, well!" he cried, shaking it off. "everything has an end. we shall see! so you will take me as i am, and make the best of me?" "aye! indeed i will." they shook hands upon it laughingly, but in deep earnestness. i can answer for one of them with my heart of hearts. "you come as a godsend," said richard, "for i have seen nobody here yet but vholes. woodcourt, there is one subject i should like to mention, for once and for all, in the beginning of our treaty. you can hardly make the best of me if i don't. you know, i dare say, that i have an attachment to my cousin ada?" mr. woodcourt replied that i had hinted as much to him. "now pray," returned richard, "don't think me a heap of selfishness. don't suppose that i am splitting my head and half breaking my heart over this miserable chancery suit for my own rights and interests alone. ada's are bound up with mine; they can't be separated; vholes works for both of us. do think of that!" he was so very solicitous on this head that mr. woodcourt gave him the strongest assurances that he did him no injustice. "you see," said richard, with something pathetic in his manner of lingering on the point, though it was off-hand and unstudied, "to an upright fellow like you, bringing a friendly face like yours here, i cannot bear the thought of appearing selfish and mean. i want to see ada righted, woodcourt, as well as myself; i want to do my utmost to right her, as well as myself; i venture what i can scrape together to extricate her, as well as myself. do, i beseech you, think of that!" afterwards, when mr. woodcourt came to reflect on what had passed, he was so very much impressed by the strength of richard's anxiety on this point that in telling me generally of his first visit to symond's inn he particularly dwelt upon it. it revived a fear i had had before that my dear girl's little property would be absorbed by mr. vholes and that richard's justification to himself would be sincerely this. it was just as i began to take care of caddy that the interview took place, and i now return to the time when caddy had recovered and the shade was still between me and my darling. i proposed to ada that morning that we should go and see richard. it a little surprised me to find that she hesitated and was not so radiantly willing as i had expected. "my dear," said i, "you have not had any difference with richard since i have been so much away?" "no, esther." "not heard of him, perhaps?" said i. "yes, i have heard of him," said ada. such tears in her eyes, and such love in her face. i could not make my darling out. should i go to richard's by myself? i said. no, ada thought i had better not go by myself. would she go with me? yes, ada thought she had better go with me. should we go now? yes, let us go now. well, i could not understand my darling, with the tears in her eyes and the love in her face! we were soon equipped and went out. it was a sombre day, and drops of chill rain fell at intervals. it was one of those colourless days when everything looks heavy and harsh. the houses frowned at us, the dust rose at us, the smoke swooped at us, nothing made any compromise about itself or wore a softened aspect. i fancied my beautiful girl quite out of place in the rugged streets, and i thought there were more funerals passing along the dismal pavements than i had ever seen before. we had first to find out symond's inn. we were going to inquire in a shop when ada said she thought it was near chancery lane. "we are not likely to be far out, my love, if we go in that direction," said i. so to chancery lane we went, and there, sure enough, we saw it written up. symond's inn. we had next to find out the number. "or mr. vholes's office will do," i recollected, "for mr. vholes's office is next door." upon which ada said, perhaps that was mr. vholes's office in the corner there. and it really was. then came the question, which of the two next doors? i was going for the one, and my darling was going for the other; and my darling was right again. so up we went to the second story, when we came to richard's name in great white letters on a hearse-like panel. i should have knocked, but ada said perhaps we had better turn the handle and go in. thus we came to richard, poring over a table covered with dusty bundles of papers which seemed to me like dusty mirrors reflecting his own mind. wherever i looked i saw the ominous words that ran in it repeated. jarndyce and jarndyce. he received us very affectionately, and we sat down. "if you had come a little earlier," he said, "you would have found woodcourt here. there never was such a good fellow as woodcourt is. he finds time to look in between-whiles, when anybody else with half his work to do would be thinking about not being able to come. and he is so cheery, so fresh, so sensible, so earnest, so--everything that i am not, that the place brightens whenever he comes, and darkens whenever he goes again." "god bless him," i thought, "for his truth to me!" "he is not so sanguine, ada," continued richard, casting his dejected look over the bundles of papers, "as vholes and i are usually, but he is only an outsider and is not in the mysteries. we have gone into them, and he has not. he can't be expected to know much of such a labyrinth." as his look wandered over the papers again and he passed his two hands over his head, i noticed how sunken and how large his eyes appeared, how dry his lips were, and how his finger-nails were all bitten away. "is this a healthy place to live in, richard, do you think?" said i. "why, my dear minerva," answered richard with his old gay laugh, "it is neither a rural nor a cheerful place; and when the sun shines here, you may lay a pretty heavy wager that it is shining brightly in an open spot. but it's well enough for the time. it's near the offices and near vholes." "perhaps," i hinted, "a change from both--" "might do me good?" said richard, forcing a laugh as he finished the sentence. "i shouldn't wonder! but it can only come in one way now--in one of two ways, i should rather say. either the suit must be ended, esther, or the suitor. but it shall be the suit, my dear girl, the suit, my dear girl!" these latter words were addressed to ada, who was sitting nearest to him. her face being turned away from me and towards him, i could not see it. "we are doing very well," pursued richard. "vholes will tell you so. we are really spinning along. ask vholes. we are giving them no rest. vholes knows all their windings and turnings, and we are upon them everywhere. we have astonished them already. we shall rouse up that nest of sleepers, mark my words!" his hopefulness had long been more painful to me than his despondency; it was so unlike hopefulness, had something so fierce in its determination to be it, was so hungry and eager, and yet so conscious of being forced and unsustainable that it had long touched me to the heart. but the commentary upon it now indelibly written in his handsome face made it far more distressing than it used to be. i say indelibly, for i felt persuaded that if the fatal cause could have been for ever terminated, according to his brightest visions, in that same hour, the traces of the premature anxiety, self-reproach, and disappointment it had occasioned him would have remained upon his features to the hour of his death. "the sight of our dear little woman," said richard, ada still remaining silent and quiet, "is so natural to me, and her compassionate face is so like the face of old days--" ah! no, no. i smiled and shook my head. "--so exactly like the face of old days," said richard in his cordial voice, and taking my hand with the brotherly regard which nothing ever changed, "that i can't make pretences with her. i fluctuate a little; that's the truth. sometimes i hope, my dear, and sometimes i--don't quite despair, but nearly. i get," said richard, relinquishing my hand gently and walking across the room, "so tired!" he took a few turns up and down and sunk upon the sofa. "i get," he repeated gloomily, "so tired. it is such weary, weary work!" he was leaning on his arm saying these words in a meditative voice and looking at the ground when my darling rose, put off her bonnet, kneeled down beside him with her golden hair falling like sunlight on his head, clasped her two arms round his neck, and turned her face to me. oh, what a loving and devoted face i saw! "esther, dear," she said very quietly, "i am not going home again." a light shone in upon me all at once. "never any more. i am going to stay with my dear husband. we have been married above two months. go home without me, my own esther; i shall never go home any more!" with those words my darling drew his head down on her breast and held it there. and if ever in my life i saw a love that nothing but death could change, i saw it then before me. "speak to esther, my dearest," said richard, breaking the silence presently. "tell her how it was." i met her before she could come to me and folded her in my arms. we neither of us spoke, but with her cheek against my own i wanted to hear nothing. "my pet," said i. "my love. my poor, poor girl!" i pitied her so much. i was very fond of richard, but the impulse that i had upon me was to pity her so much. "esther, will you forgive me? will my cousin john forgive me?" "my dear," said i, "to doubt it for a moment is to do him a great wrong. and as to me!" why, as to me, what had i to forgive! i dried my sobbing darling's eyes and sat beside her on the sofa, and richard sat on my other side; and while i was reminded of that so different night when they had first taken me into their confidence and had gone on in their own wild happy way, they told me between them how it was. "all i had was richard's," ada said; "and richard would not take it, esther, and what could i do but be his wife when i loved him dearly!" "and you were so fully and so kindly occupied, excellent dame durden," said richard, "that how could we speak to you at such a time! and besides, it was not a long-considered step. we went out one morning and were married." "and when it was done, esther," said my darling, "i was always thinking how to tell you and what to do for the best. and sometimes i thought you ought to know it directly, and sometimes i thought you ought not to know it and keep it from my cousin john; and i could not tell what to do, and i fretted very much." how selfish i must have been not to have thought of this before! i don't know what i said now. i was so sorry, and yet i was so fond of them and so glad that they were fond of me; i pitied them so much, and yet i felt a kind of pride in their loving one another. i never had experienced such painful and pleasurable emotion at one time, and in my own heart i did not know which predominated. but i was not there to darken their way; i did not do that. when i was less foolish and more composed, my darling took her wedding-ring from her bosom, and kissed it, and put it on. then i remembered last night and told richard that ever since her marriage she had worn it at night when there was no one to see. then ada blushingly asked me how did i know that, my dear. then i told ada how i had seen her hand concealed under her pillow and had little thought why, my dear. then they began telling me how it was all over again, and i began to be sorry and glad again, and foolish again, and to hide my plain old face as much as i could lest i should put them out of heart. thus the time went on until it became necessary for me to think of returning. when that time arrived it was the worst of all, for then my darling completely broke down. she clung round my neck, calling me by every dear name she could think of and saying what should she do without me! nor was richard much better; and as for me, i should have been the worst of the three if i had not severely said to myself, "now esther, if you do, i'll never speak to you again!" "why, i declare," said i, "i never saw such a wife. i don't think she loves her husband at all. here, richard, take my child, for goodness' sake." but i held her tight all the while, and could have wept over her i don't know how long. "i give this dear young couple notice," said i, "that i am only going away to come back to-morrow and that i shall be always coming backwards and forwards until symond's inn is tired of the sight of me. so i shall not say good-bye, richard. for what would be the use of that, you know, when i am coming back so soon!" i had given my darling to him now, and i meant to go; but i lingered for one more look of the precious face which it seemed to rive my heart to turn from. so i said (in a merry, bustling manner) that unless they gave me some encouragement to come back, i was not sure that i could take that liberty, upon which my dear girl looked up, faintly smiling through her tears, and i folded her lovely face between my hands, and gave it one last kiss, and laughed, and ran away. and when i got downstairs, oh, how i cried! it almost seemed to me that i had lost my ada for ever. i was so lonely and so blank without her, and it was so desolate to be going home with no hope of seeing her there, that i could get no comfort for a little while as i walked up and down in a dim corner sobbing and crying. i came to myself by and by, after a little scolding, and took a coach home. the poor boy whom i had found at st. albans had reappeared a short time before and was lying at the point of death; indeed, was then dead, though i did not know it. my guardian had gone out to inquire about him and did not return to dinner. being quite alone, i cried a little again, though on the whole i don't think i behaved so very, very ill. it was only natural that i should not be quite accustomed to the loss of my darling yet. three or four hours were not a long time after years. but my mind dwelt so much upon the uncongenial scene in which i had left her, and i pictured it as such an overshadowed stony-hearted one, and i so longed to be near her and taking some sort of care of her, that i determined to go back in the evening only to look up at her windows. it was foolish, i dare say, but it did not then seem at all so to me, and it does not seem quite so even now. i took charley into my confidence, and we went out at dusk. it was dark when we came to the new strange home of my dear girl, and there was a light behind the yellow blinds. we walked past cautiously three or four times, looking up, and narrowly missed encountering mr. vholes, who came out of his office while we were there and turned his head to look up too before going home. the sight of his lank black figure and the lonesome air of that nook in the dark were favourable to the state of my mind. i thought of the youth and love and beauty of my dear girl, shut up in such an ill-assorted refuge, almost as if it were a cruel place. it was very solitary and very dull, and i did not doubt that i might safely steal upstairs. i left charley below and went up with a light foot, not distressed by any glare from the feeble oil lanterns on the way. i listened for a few moments, and in the musty rotting silence of the house believed that i could hear the murmur of their young voices. i put my lips to the hearse-like panel of the door as a kiss for my dear and came quietly down again, thinking that one of these days i would confess to the visit. and it really did me good, for though nobody but charley and i knew anything about it, i somehow felt as if it had diminished the separation between ada and me and had brought us together again for those moments. i went back, not quite accustomed yet to the change, but all the better for that hovering about my darling. my guardian had come home and was standing thoughtfully by the dark window. when i went in, his face cleared and he came to his seat, but he caught the light upon my face as i took mine. "little woman," said he, "you have been crying." "why, yes, guardian," said i, "i am afraid i have been, a little. ada has been in such distress, and is so very sorry, guardian." i put my arm on the back of his chair, and i saw in his glance that my words and my look at her empty place had prepared him. "is she married, my dear?" i told him all about it and how her first entreaties had referred to his forgiveness. "she has no need of it," said he. "heaven bless her and her husband!" but just as my first impulse had been to pity her, so was his. "poor girl, poor girl! poor rick! poor ada!" neither of us spoke after that, until he said with a sigh, "well, well, my dear! bleak house is thinning fast." "but its mistress remains, guardian." though i was timid about saying it, i ventured because of the sorrowful tone in which he had spoken. "she will do all she can to make it happy," said i. "she will succeed, my love!" the letter had made no difference between us except that the seat by his side had come to be mine; it made none now. he turned his old bright fatherly look upon me, laid his hand on my hand in his old way, and said again, "she will succeed, my dear. nevertheless, bleak house is thinning fast, o little woman!" i was sorry presently that this was all we said about that. i was rather disappointed. i feared i might not quite have been all i had meant to be since the letter and the answer. chapter lii obstinacy but one other day had intervened when, early in the morning as we were going to breakfast, mr. woodcourt came in haste with the astounding news that a terrible murder had been committed for which mr. george had been apprehended and was in custody. when he told us that a large reward was offered by sir leicester dedlock for the murderer's apprehension, i did not in my first consternation understand why; but a few more words explained to me that the murdered person was sir leicester's lawyer, and immediately my mother's dread of him rushed into my remembrance. this unforeseen and violent removal of one whom she had long watched and distrusted and who had long watched and distrusted her, one for whom she could have had few intervals of kindness, always dreading in him a dangerous and secret enemy, appeared so awful that my first thoughts were of her. how appalling to hear of such a death and be able to feel no pity! how dreadful to remember, perhaps, that she had sometimes even wished the old man away who was so swiftly hurried out of life! such crowding reflections, increasing the distress and fear i always felt when the name was mentioned, made me so agitated that i could scarcely hold my place at the table. i was quite unable to follow the conversation until i had had a little time to recover. but when i came to myself and saw how shocked my guardian was and found that they were earnestly speaking of the suspected man and recalling every favourable impression we had formed of him out of the good we had known of him, my interest and my fears were so strongly aroused in his behalf that i was quite set up again. "guardian, you don't think it possible that he is justly accused?" "my dear, i can't think so. this man whom we have seen so open-hearted and compassionate, who with the might of a giant has the gentleness of a child, who looks as brave a fellow as ever lived and is so simple and quiet with it, this man justly accused of such a crime? i can't believe it. it's not that i don't or i won't. i can't!" "and i can't," said mr. woodcourt. "still, whatever we believe or know of him, we had better not forget that some appearances are against him. he bore an animosity towards the deceased gentleman. he has openly mentioned it in many places. he is said to have expressed himself violently towards him, and he certainly did about him, to my knowledge. he admits that he was alone on the scene of the murder within a few minutes of its commission. i sincerely believe him to be as innocent of any participation in it as i am, but these are all reasons for suspicion falling upon him." "true," said my guardian. and he added, turning to me, "it would be doing him a very bad service, my dear, to shut our eyes to the truth in any of these respects." i felt, of course, that we must admit, not only to ourselves but to others, the full force of the circumstances against him. yet i knew withal (i could not help saying) that their weight would not induce us to desert him in his need. "heaven forbid!" returned my guardian. "we will stand by him, as he himself stood by the two poor creatures who are gone." he meant mr. gridley and the boy, to both of whom mr. george had given shelter. mr. woodcourt then told us that the trooper's man had been with him before day, after wandering about the streets all night like a distracted creature. that one of the trooper's first anxieties was that we should not suppose him guilty. that he had charged his messenger to represent his perfect innocence with every solemn assurance he could send us. that mr. woodcourt had only quieted the man by undertaking to come to our house very early in the morning with these representations. he added that he was now upon his way to see the prisoner himself. my guardian said directly he would go too. now, besides that i liked the retired soldier very much and that he liked me, i had that secret interest in what had happened which was only known to my guardian. i felt as if it came close and near to me. it seemed to become personally important to myself that the truth should be discovered and that no innocent people should be suspected, for suspicion, once run wild, might run wilder. in a word, i felt as if it were my duty and obligation to go with them. my guardian did not seek to dissuade me, and i went. it was a large prison with many courts and passages so like one another and so uniformly paved that i seemed to gain a new comprehension, as i passed along, of the fondness that solitary prisoners, shut up among the same staring walls from year to year, have had--as i have read--for a weed or a stray blade of grass. in an arched room by himself, like a cellar upstairs, with walls so glaringly white that they made the massive iron window-bars and iron-bound door even more profoundly black than they were, we found the trooper standing in a corner. he had been sitting on a bench there and had risen when he heard the locks and bolts turn. when he saw us, he came forward a step with his usual heavy tread, and there stopped and made a slight bow. but as i still advanced, putting out my hand to him, he understood us in a moment. "this is a load off my mind, i do assure you, miss and gentlemen," said he, saluting us with great heartiness and drawing a long breath. "and now i don't so much care how it ends." he scarcely seemed to be the prisoner. what with his coolness and his soldierly bearing, he looked far more like the prison guard. "this is even a rougher place than my gallery to receive a lady in," said mr. george, "but i know miss summerson will make the best of it." as he handed me to the bench on which he had been sitting, i sat down, which seemed to give him great satisfaction. "i thank you, miss," said he. "now, george," observed my guardian, "as we require no new assurances on your part, so i believe we need give you none on ours." "not at all, sir. i thank you with all my heart. if i was not innocent of this crime, i couldn't look at you and keep my secret to myself under the condescension of the present visit. i feel the present visit very much. i am not one of the eloquent sort, but i feel it, miss summerson and gentlemen, deeply." he laid his hand for a moment on his broad chest and bent his head to us. although he squared himself again directly, he expressed a great amount of natural emotion by these simple means. "first," said my guardian, "can we do anything for your personal comfort, george?" "for which, sir?" he inquired, clearing his throat. "for your personal comfort. is there anything you want that would lessen the hardship of this confinement?" "well, sir," replied george, after a little cogitation, "i am equally obliged to you, but tobacco being against the rules, i can't say that there is." "you will think of many little things perhaps, by and by. whenever you do, george, let us know." "thank you, sir. howsoever," observed mr. george with one of his sunburnt smiles, "a man who has been knocking about the world in a vagabond kind of a way as long as i have gets on well enough in a place like the present, so far as that goes." "next, as to your case," observed my guardian. "exactly so, sir," returned mr. george, folding his arms upon his breast with perfect self-possession and a little curiosity. "how does it stand now?" "why, sir, it is under remand at present. bucket gives me to understand that he will probably apply for a series of remands from time to time until the case is more complete. how it is to be made more complete i don't myself see, but i dare say bucket will manage it somehow." "why, heaven save us, man," exclaimed my guardian, surprised into his old oddity and vehemence, "you talk of yourself as if you were somebody else!" "no offence, sir," said mr. george. "i am very sensible of your kindness. but i don't see how an innocent man is to make up his mind to this kind of thing without knocking his head against the walls unless he takes it in that point of view. "that is true enough to a certain extent," returned my guardian, softened. "but my good fellow, even an innocent man must take ordinary precautions to defend himself." "certainly, sir. and i have done so. i have stated to the magistrates, 'gentlemen, i am as innocent of this charge as yourselves; what has been stated against me in the way of facts is perfectly true; i know no more about it.' i intend to continue stating that, sir. what more can i do? it's the truth." "but the mere truth won't do," rejoined my guardian. "won't it indeed, sir? rather a bad look-out for me!" mr. george good-humouredly observed. "you must have a lawyer," pursued my guardian. "we must engage a good one for you." "i ask your pardon, sir," said mr. george with a step backward. "i am equally obliged. but i must decidedly beg to be excused from anything of that sort." "you won't have a lawyer?" "no, sir." mr. george shook his head in the most emphatic manner. "i thank you all the same, sir, but--no lawyer!" "why not?" "i don't take kindly to the breed," said mr. george. "gridley didn't. and--if you'll excuse my saying so much--i should hardly have thought you did yourself, sir." "that's equity," my guardian explained, a little at a loss; "that's equity, george." "is it, indeed, sir?" returned the trooper in his off-hand manner. "i am not acquainted with those shades of names myself, but in a general way i object to the breed." unfolding his arms and changing his position, he stood with one massive hand upon the table and the other on his hip, as complete a picture of a man who was not to be moved from a fixed purpose as ever i saw. it was in vain that we all three talked to him and endeavoured to persuade him; he listened with that gentleness which went so well with his bluff bearing, but was evidently no more shaken by our representations that his place of confinement was. "pray think, once more, mr. george," said i. "have you no wish in reference to your case?" "i certainly could wish it to be tried, miss," he returned, "by court-martial; but that is out of the question, as i am well aware. if you will be so good as to favour me with your attention for a couple of minutes, miss, not more, i'll endeavour to explain myself as clearly as i can." he looked at us all three in turn, shook his head a little as if he were adjusting it in the stock and collar of a tight uniform, and after a moment's reflection went on. "you see, miss, i have been handcuffed and taken into custody and brought here. i am a marked and disgraced man, and here i am. my shooting gallery is rummaged, high and low, by bucket; such property as i have--'tis small--is turned this way and that till it don't know itself; and (as aforesaid) here i am! i don't particular complain of that. though i am in these present quarters through no immediately preceding fault of mine, i can very well understand that if i hadn't gone into the vagabond way in my youth, this wouldn't have happened. it has happened. then comes the question how to meet it." he rubbed his swarthy forehead for a moment with a good-humoured look and said apologetically, "i am such a short-winded talker that i must think a bit." having thought a bit, he looked up again and resumed. "how to meet it. now, the unfortunate deceased was himself a lawyer and had a pretty tight hold of me. i don't wish to rake up his ashes, but he had, what i should call if he was living, a devil of a tight hold of me. i don't like his trade the better for that. if i had kept clear of his trade, i should have kept outside this place. but that's not what i mean. now, suppose i had killed him. suppose i really had discharged into his body any one of those pistols recently fired off that bucket has found at my place, and dear me, might have found there any day since it has been my place. what should i have done as soon as i was hard and fast here? got a lawyer." he stopped on hearing some one at the locks and bolts and did not resume until the door had been opened and was shut again. for what purpose opened, i will mention presently. "i should have got a lawyer, and he would have said (as i have often read in the newspapers), 'my client says nothing, my client reserves his defence': my client this, that, and t'other. well, 'tis not the custom of that breed to go straight, according to my opinion, or to think that other men do. say i am innocent and i get a lawyer. he would be as likely to believe me guilty as not; perhaps more. what would he do, whether or not? act as if i was--shut my mouth up, tell me not to commit myself, keep circumstances back, chop the evidence small, quibble, and get me off perhaps! but, miss summerson, do i care for getting off in that way; or would i rather be hanged in my own way--if you'll excuse my mentioning anything so disagreeable to a lady?" he had warmed into his subject now, and was under no further necessity to wait a bit. "i would rather be hanged in my own way. and i mean to be! i don't intend to say," looking round upon us with his powerful arms akimbo and his dark eyebrows raised, "that i am more partial to being hanged than another man. what i say is, i must come off clear and full or not at all. therefore, when i hear stated against me what is true, i say it's true; and when they tell me, 'whatever you say will be used,' i tell them i don't mind that; i mean it to be used. if they can't make me innocent out of the whole truth, they are not likely to do it out of anything less, or anything else. and if they are, it's worth nothing to me." taking a pace or two over the stone floor, he came back to the table and finished what he had to say. "i thank you, miss and gentlemen both, many times for your attention, and many times more for your interest. that's the plain state of the matter as it points itself out to a mere trooper with a blunt broadsword kind of a mind. i have never done well in life beyond my duty as a soldier, and if the worst comes after all, i shall reap pretty much as i have sown. when i got over the first crash of being seized as a murderer--it don't take a rover who has knocked about so much as myself so very long to recover from a crash--i worked my way round to what you find me now. as such i shall remain. no relations will be disgraced by me or made unhappy for me, and--and that's all i've got to say." the door had been opened to admit another soldier-looking man of less prepossessing appearance at first sight and a weather-tanned, bright-eyed wholesome woman with a basket, who, from her entrance, had been exceedingly attentive to all mr. george had said. mr. george had received them with a familiar nod and a friendly look, but without any more particular greeting in the midst of his address. he now shook them cordially by the hand and said, "miss summerson and gentlemen, this is an old comrade of mine, matthew bagnet. and this is his wife, mrs. bagnet." mr. bagnet made us a stiff military bow, and mrs. bagnet dropped us a curtsy. "real good friends of mine, they are," sald mr. george. "it was at their house i was taken." "with a second-hand wiolinceller," mr. bagnet put in, twitching his head angrily. "of a good tone. for a friend. that money was no object to." "mat," said mr. george, "you have heard pretty well all i have been saying to this lady and these two gentlemen. i know it meets your approval?" mr. bagnet, after considering, referred the point to his wife. "old girl," said he. "tell him. whether or not. it meets my approval." "why, george," exclaimed mrs. bagnet, who had been unpacking her basket, in which there was a piece of cold pickled pork, a little tea and sugar, and a brown loaf, "you ought to know it don't. you ought to know it's enough to drive a person wild to hear you. you won't be got off this way, and you won't be got off that way--what do you mean by such picking and choosing? it's stuff and nonsense, george." "don't be severe upon me in my misfortunes, mrs. bagnet," said the trooper lightly. "oh! bother your misfortunes," cried mrs. bagnet, "if they don't make you more reasonable than that comes to. i never was so ashamed in my life to hear a man talk folly as i have been to hear you talk this day to the present company. lawyers? why, what but too many cooks should hinder you from having a dozen lawyers if the gentleman recommended them to you." "this is a very sensible woman," said my guardian. "i hope you will persuade him, mrs. bagnet." "persuade him, sir?" she returned. "lord bless you, no. you don't know george. now, there!" mrs. bagnet left her basket to point him out with both her bare brown hands. "there he stands! as self-willed and as determined a man, in the wrong way, as ever put a human creature under heaven out of patience! you could as soon take up and shoulder an eight and forty pounder by your own strength as turn that man when he has got a thing into his head and fixed it there. why, don't i know him!" cried mrs. bagnet. "don't i know you, george! you don't mean to set up for a new character with me after all these years, i hope?" her friendly indignation had an exemplary effect upon her husband, who shook his head at the trooper several times as a silent recommendation to him to yield. between whiles, mrs. bagnet looked at me; and i understood from the play of her eyes that she wished me to do something, though i did not comprehend what. "but i have given up talking to you, old fellow, years and years," said mrs. bagnet as she blew a little dust off the pickled pork, looking at me again; "and when ladies and gentlemen know you as well as i do, they'll give up talking to you too. if you are not too headstrong to accept of a bit of dinner, here it is." "i accept it with many thanks," returned the trooper. "do you though, indeed?" said mrs. bagnet, continuing to grumble on good-humouredly. "i'm sure i'm surprised at that. i wonder you don't starve in your own way also. it would only be like you. perhaps you'll set your mind upon that next." here she again looked at me, and i now perceived from her glances at the door and at me, by turns, that she wished us to retire and to await her following us outside the prison. communicating this by similar means to my guardian and mr. woodcourt, i rose. "we hope you will think better of it, mr. george," said i, "and we shall come to see you again, trusting to find you more reasonable." "more grateful, miss summerson, you can't find me," he returned. "but more persuadable we can, i hope," said i. "and let me entreat you to consider that the clearing up of this mystery and the discovery of the real perpetrator of this deed may be of the last importance to others besides yourself." he heard me respectfully but without much heeding these words, which i spoke a little turned from him, already on my way to the door; he was observing (this they afterwards told me) my height and figure, which seemed to catch his attention all at once. "'tis curious," said he. "and yet i thought so at the time!" my guardian asked him what he meant. "why, sir," he answered, "when my ill fortune took me to the dead man's staircase on the night of his murder, i saw a shape so like miss summerson's go by me in the dark that i had half a mind to speak to it." for an instant i felt such a shudder as i never felt before or since and hope i shall never feel again. "it came downstairs as i went up," said the trooper, "and crossed the moonlighted window with a loose black mantle on; i noticed a deep fringe to it. however, it has nothing to do with the present subject, excepting that miss summerson looked so like it at the moment that it came into my head." i cannot separate and define the feelings that arose in me after this; it is enough that the vague duty and obligation i had felt upon me from the first of following the investigation was, without my distinctly daring to ask myself any question, increased, and that i was indignantly sure of there being no possibility of a reason for my being afraid. we three went out of the prison and walked up and down at some short distance from the gate, which was in a retired place. we had not waited long when mr. and mrs. bagnet came out too and quickly joined us. there was a tear in each of mrs. bagnet's eyes, and her face was flushed and hurried. "i didn't let george see what i thought about it, you know, miss," was her first remark when she came up, "but he's in a bad way, poor old fellow!" "not with care and prudence and good help," said my guardian. "a gentleman like you ought to know best, sir," returned mrs. bagnet, hurriedly drying her eyes on the hem of her grey cloak, "but i am uneasy for him. he has been so careless and said so much that he never meant. the gentlemen of the juries might not understand him as lignum and me do. and then such a number of circumstances have happened bad for him, and such a number of people will be brought forward to speak against him, and bucket is so deep." "with a second-hand wiolinceller. and said he played the fife. when a boy," mr. bagnet added with great solemnity. "now, i tell you, miss," said mrs. bagnet; "and when i say miss, i mean all! just come into the corner of the wall and i'll tell you!" mrs. bagnet hurried us into a more secluded place and was at first too breathless to proceed, occasioning mr. bagnet to say, "old girl! tell 'em!" "why, then, miss," the old girl proceeded, untying the strings of her bonnet for more air, "you could as soon move dover castle as move george on this point unless you had got a new power to move him with. and i have got it!" "you are a jewel of a woman," said my guardian. "go on!" "now, i tell you, miss," she proceeded, clapping her hands in her hurry and agitation a dozen times in every sentence, "that what he says concerning no relations is all bosh. they don't know of him, but he does know of them. he has said more to me at odd times than to anybody else, and it warn't for nothing that he once spoke to my woolwich about whitening and wrinkling mothers' heads. for fifty pounds he had seen his mother that day. she's alive and must be brought here straight!" instantly mrs. bagnet put some pins into her mouth and began pinning up her skirts all round a little higher than the level of her grey cloak, which she accomplished with surpassing dispatch and dexterity. "lignum," said mrs. bagnet, "you take care of the children, old man, and give me the umbrella! i'm away to lincolnshire to bring that old lady here." "but, bless the woman," cried my guardian with his hand in his pocket, "how is she going? what money has she got?" mrs. bagnet made another application to her skirts and brought forth a leathern purse in which she hastily counted over a few shillings and which she then shut up with perfect satisfaction. "never you mind for me, miss. i'm a soldier's wife and accustomed to travel my own way. lignum, old boy," kissing him, "one for yourself, three for the children. now i'm away into lincolnshire after george's mother!" and she actually set off while we three stood looking at one another lost in amazement. she actually trudged away in her grey cloak at a sturdy pace, and turned the corner, and was gone. "mr. bagnet," said my guardian. "do you mean to let her go in that way?" "can't help it," he returned. "made her way home once from another quarter of the world. with the same grey cloak. and same umbrella. whatever the old girl says, do. do it! whenever the old girl says, i'll do it. she does it." "then she is as honest and genuine as she looks," rejoined my guardian, "and it is impossible to say more for her." "she's colour-sergeant of the nonpareil battalion," said mr. bagnet, looking at us over his shoulder as he went his way also. "and there's not such another. but i never own to it before her. discipline must be maintained." chapter liii the track mr. bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together under existing circumstances. when mr. bucket has a matter of this pressing interest under his consideration, the fat forefinger seems to rise, to the dignity of a familiar demon. he puts it to his ears, and it whispers information; he puts it to his lips, and it enjoins him to secrecy; he rubs it over his nose, and it sharpens his scent; he shakes it before a guilty man, and it charms him to his destruction. the augurs of the detective temple invariably predict that when mr. bucket and that finger are in much conference, a terrible avenger will be heard of before long. otherwise mildly studious in his observation of human nature, on the whole a benignant philosopher not disposed to be severe upon the follies of mankind, mr. bucket pervades a vast number of houses and strolls about an infinity of streets, to outward appearance rather languishing for want of an object. he is in the friendliest condition towards his species and will drink with most of them. he is free with his money, affable in his manners, innocent in his conversation--but through the placid stream of his life there glides an under-current of forefinger. time and place cannot bind mr. bucket. like man in the abstract, he is here to-day and gone to-morrow--but, very unlike man indeed, he is here again the next day. this evening he will be casually looking into the iron extinguishers at the door of sir leicester dedlock's house in town; and to-morrow morning he will be walking on the leads at chesney wold, where erst the old man walked whose ghost is propitiated with a hundred guineas. drawers, desks, pockets, all things belonging to him, mr. bucket examines. a few hours afterwards, he and the roman will be alone together comparing forefingers. it is likely that these occupations are irreconcilable with home enjoyment, but it is certain that mr. bucket at present does not go home. though in general he highly appreciates the society of mrs. bucket--a lady of a natural detective genius, which if it had been improved by professional exercise, might have done great things, but which has paused at the level of a clever amateur--he holds himself aloof from that dear solace. mrs. bucket is dependent on their lodger (fortunately an amiable lady in whom she takes an interest) for companionship and conversation. a great crowd assembles in lincoln's inn fields on the day of the funeral. sir leicester dedlock attends the ceremony in person; strictly speaking, there are only three other human followers, that is to say, lord doodle, william buffy, and the debilitated cousin (thrown in as a make-weight), but the amount of inconsolable carriages is immense. the peerage contributes more four-wheeled affliction than has ever been seen in that neighbourhood. such is the assemblage of armorial bearings on coach panels that the herald's college might be supposed to have lost its father and mother at a blow. the duke of foodle sends a splendid pile of dust and ashes, with silver wheel-boxes, patent axles, all the last improvements, and three bereaved worms, six feet high, holding on behind, in a bunch of woe. all the state coachmen in london seem plunged into mourning; and if that dead old man of the rusty garb be not beyond a taste in horseflesh (which appears impossible), it must be highly gratified this day. quiet among the undertakers and the equipages and the calves of so many legs all steeped in grief, mr. bucket sits concealed in one of the inconsolable carriages and at his ease surveys the crowd through the lattice blinds. he has a keen eye for a crowd--as for what not?--and looking here and there, now from this side of the carriage, now from the other, now up at the house windows, now along the people's heads, nothing escapes him. "and there you are, my partner, eh?" says mr. bucket to himself, apostrophizing mrs. bucket, stationed, by his favour, on the steps of the deceased's house. "and so you are. and so you are! and very well indeed you are looking, mrs. bucket!" the procession has not started yet, but is waiting for the cause of its assemblage to be brought out. mr. bucket, in the foremost emblazoned carriage, uses his two fat forefingers to hold the lattice a hair's breadth open while he looks. and it says a great deal for his attachment, as a husband, that he is still occupied with mrs. b. "there you are, my partner, eh?" he murmuringly repeats. "and our lodger with you. i'm taking notice of you, mrs. bucket; i hope you're all right in your health, my dear!" not another word does mr. bucket say, but sits with most attentive eyes until the sacked depository of noble secrets is brought down--where are all those secrets now? does he keep them yet? did they fly with him on that sudden journey?--and until the procession moves, and mr. bucket's view is changed. after which he composes himself for an easy ride and takes note of the fittings of the carriage in case he should ever find such knowledge useful. contrast enough between mr. tulkinghorn shut up in his dark carriage and mr. bucket shut up in his. between the immeasurable track of space beyond the little wound that has thrown the one into the fixed sleep which jolts so heavily over the stones of the streets, and the narrow track of blood which keeps the other in the watchful state expressed in every hair of his head! but it is all one to both; neither is troubled about that. mr. bucket sits out the procession in his own easy manner and glides from the carriage when the opportunity he has settled with himself arrives. he makes for sir leicester dedlock's, which is at present a sort of home to him, where he comes and goes as he likes at all hours, where he is always welcome and made much of, where he knows the whole establishment, and walks in an atmosphere of mysterious greatness. no knocking or ringing for mr. bucket. he has caused himself to be provided with a key and can pass in at his pleasure. as he is crossing the hall, mercury informs him, "here's another letter for you, mr. bucket, come by post," and gives it him. "another one, eh?" says mr. bucket. if mercury should chance to be possessed by any lingering curiosity as to mr. bucket's letters, that wary person is not the man to gratify it. mr. bucket looks at him as if his face were a vista of some miles in length and he were leisurely contemplating the same. "do you happen to carry a box?" says mr. bucket. unfortunately mercury is no snuff-taker. "could you fetch me a pinch from anywheres?" says mr. bucket. "thankee. it don't matter what it is; i'm not particular as to the kind. thankee!" having leisurely helped himself from a canister borrowed from somebody downstairs for the purpose, and having made a considerable show of tasting it, first with one side of his nose and then with the other, mr. bucket, with much deliberation, pronounces it of the right sort and goes on, letter in hand. now although mr. bucket walks upstairs to the little library within the larger one with the face of a man who receives some scores of letters every day, it happens that much correspondence is not incidental to his life. he is no great scribe, rather handling his pen like the pocket-staff he carries about with him always convenient to his grasp, and discourages correspondence with himself in others as being too artless and direct a way of doing delicate business. further, he often sees damaging letters produced in evidence and has occasion to reflect that it was a green thing to write them. for these reasons he has very little to do with letters, either as sender or receiver. and yet he has received a round half-dozen within the last twenty-four hours. "and this," says mr. bucket, spreading it out on the table, "is in the same hand, and consists of the same two words." what two words? he turns the key in the door, ungirdles his black pocket-book (book of fate to many), lays another letter by it, and reads, boldly written in each, "lady dedlock." "yes, yes," says mr. bucket. "but i could have made the money without this anonymous information." having put the letters in his book of fate and girdled it up again, he unlocks the door just in time to admit his dinner, which is brought upon a goodly tray with a decanter of sherry. mr. bucket frequently observes, in friendly circles where there is no restraint, that he likes a toothful of your fine old brown east inder sherry better than anything you can offer him. consequently he fills and empties his glass with a smack of his lips and is proceeding with his refreshment when an idea enters his mind. mr. bucket softly opens the door of communication between that room and the next and looks in. the library is deserted, and the fire is sinking low. mr. bucket's eye, after taking a pigeon-flight round the room, alights upon a table where letters are usually put as they arrive. several letters for sir leicester are upon it. mr. bucket draws near and examines the directions. "no," he says, "there's none in that hand. it's only me as is written to. i can break it to sir leicester dedlock, baronet, to-morrow." with that he returns to finish his dinner with a good appetite, and after a light nap, is summoned into the drawing-room. sir leicester has received him there these several evenings past to know whether he has anything to report. the debilitated cousin (much exhausted by the funeral) and volumnia are in attendance. mr. bucket makes three distinctly different bows to these three people. a bow of homage to sir leicester, a bow of gallantry to volumnia, and a bow of recognition to the debilitated cousin, to whom it airily says, "you are a swell about town, and you know me, and i know you." having distributed these little specimens of his tact, mr. bucket rubs his hands. "have you anything new to communicate, officer?" inquires sir leicester. "do you wish to hold any conversation with me in private?" "why--not to-night, sir leicester dedlock, baronet." "because my time," pursues sir leicester, "is wholly at your disposal with a view to the vindication of the outraged majesty of the law." mr. bucket coughs and glances at volumnia, rouged and necklaced, as though he would respectfully observe, "i do assure you, you're a pretty creetur. i've seen hundreds worse looking at your time of life, i have indeed." the fair volumnia, not quite unconscious perhaps of the humanizing influence of her charms, pauses in the writing of cocked-hat notes and meditatively adjusts the pearl necklace. mr. bucket prices that decoration in his mind and thinks it as likely as not that volumnia is writing poetry. "if i have not," pursues sir leicester, "in the most emphatic manner, adjured you, officer, to exercise your utmost skill in this atrocious case, i particularly desire to take the present opportunity of rectifying any omission i may have made. let no expense be a consideration. i am prepared to defray all charges. you can incur none in pursuit of the object you have undertaken that i shall hesitate for a moment to bear." mr. bucket made sir leicester's bow again as a response to this liberality. "my mind," sir leicester adds with a generous warmth, "has not, as may be easily supposed, recovered its tone since the late diabolical occurrence. it is not likely ever to recover its tone. but it is full of indignation to-night after undergoing the ordeal of consigning to the tomb the remains of a faithful, a zealous, a devoted adherent." sir leicester's voice trembles and his grey hair stirs upon his head. tears are in his eyes; the best part of his nature is aroused. "i declare," he says, "i solemnly declare that until this crime is discovered and, in the course of justice, punished, i almost feel as if there were a stain upon my name. a gentleman who has devoted a large portion of his life to me, a gentleman who has devoted the last day of his life to me, a gentleman who has constantly sat at my table and slept under my roof, goes from my house to his own, and is struck down within an hour of his leaving my house. i cannot say but that he may have been followed from my house, watched at my house, even first marked because of his association with my house--which may have suggested his possessing greater wealth and being altogether of greater importance than his own retiring demeanour would have indicated. if i cannot with my means and influence and my position bring all the perpetrators of such a crime to light, i fail in the assertion of my respect for that gentleman's memory and of my fidelity towards one who was ever faithful to me." while he makes this protestation with great emotion and earnestness, looking round the room as if he were addressing an assembly, mr. bucket glances at him with an observant gravity in which there might be, but for the audacity of the thought, a touch of compassion. "the ceremony of to-day," continues sir leicester, "strikingly illustrative of the respect in which my deceased friend"--he lays a stress upon the word, for death levels all distinctions--"was held by the flower of the land, has, i say, aggravated the shock i have received from this most horrible and audacious crime. if it were my brother who had committed it, i would not spare him." mr. bucket looks very grave. volumnia remarks of the deceased that he was the trustiest and dearest person! "you must feel it as a deprivation to you, miss," replies mr. bucket soothingly, "no doubt. he was calculated to be a deprivation, i'm sure he was." volumnia gives mr. bucket to understand, in reply, that her sensitive mind is fully made up never to get the better of it as long as she lives, that her nerves are unstrung for ever, and that she has not the least expectation of ever smiling again. meanwhile she folds up a cocked hat for that redoubtable old general at bath, descriptive of her melancholy condition. "it gives a start to a delicate female," says mr. bucket sympathetically, "but it'll wear off." volumnia wishes of all things to know what is doing? whether they are going to convict, or whatever it is, that dreadful soldier? whether he had any accomplices, or whatever the thing is called in the law? and a great deal more to the like artless purpose. "why you see, miss," returns mr. bucket, bringing the finger into persuasive action--and such is his natural gallantry that he had almost said "my dear"--"it ain't easy to answer those questions at the present moment. not at the present moment. i've kept myself on this case, sir leicester dedlock, baronet," whom mr. bucket takes into the conversation in right of his importance, "morning, noon, and night. but for a glass or two of sherry, i don't think i could have had my mind so much upon the stretch as it has been. i could answer your questions, miss, but duty forbids it. sir leicester dedlock, baronet, will very soon be made acquainted with all that has been traced. and i hope that he may find it"--mr. bucket again looks grave--"to his satisfaction." the debilitated cousin only hopes some fler'll be executed--zample. thinks more interest's wanted--get man hanged presentime--than get man place ten thousand a year. hasn't a doubt--zample--far better hang wrong fler than no fler. "you know life, you know, sir," says mr. bucket with a complimentary twinkle of his eye and crook of his finger, "and you can confirm what i've mentioned to this lady. you don't want to be told that from information i have received i have gone to work. you're up to what a lady can't be expected to be up to. lord! especially in your elevated station of society, miss," says mr. bucket, quite reddening at another narrow escape from "my dear." "the officer, volumnia," observes sir leicester, "is faithful to his duty, and perfectly right." mr. bucket murmurs, "glad to have the honour of your approbation, sir leicester dedlock, baronet." "in fact, volumnia," proceeds sir leicester, "it is not holding up a good model for imitation to ask the officer any such questions as you have put to him. he is the best judge of his own responsibility; he acts upon his responsibility. and it does not become us, who assist in making the laws, to impede or interfere with those who carry them into execution. or," says sir leicester somewhat sternly, for volumnia was going to cut in before he had rounded his sentence, "or who vindicate their outraged majesty." volumnia with all humility explains that she had not merely the plea of curiosity to urge (in common with the giddy youth of her sex in general) but that she is perfectly dying with regret and interest for the darling man whose loss they all deplore. "very well, volumnia," returns sir leicester. "then you cannot be too discreet." mr. bucket takes the opportunity of a pause to be heard again. "sir leicester dedlock, baronet, i have no objections to telling this lady, with your leave and among ourselves, that i look upon the case as pretty well complete. it is a beautiful case--a beautiful case--and what little is wanting to complete it, i expect to be able to supply in a few hours." "i am very glad indeed to hear it," says sir leicester. "highly creditable to you." "sir leicester dedlock, baronet," returns mr. bucket very seriously, "i hope it may at one and the same time do me credit and prove satisfactory to all. when i depict it as a beautiful case, you see, miss," mr. bucket goes on, glancing gravely at sir leicester, "i mean from my point of view. as considered from other points of view, such cases will always involve more or less unpleasantness. very strange things comes to our knowledge in families, miss; bless your heart, what you would think to be phenomenons, quite." volumnia, with her innocent little scream, supposes so. "aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great families," says mr. bucket, again gravely eyeing sir leicester aside. "i have had the honour of being employed in high families before, and you have no idea--come, i'll go so far as to say not even you have any idea, sir," this to the debilitated cousin, "what games goes on!" the cousin, who has been casting sofa-pillows on his head, in a prostration of boredom yawns, "vayli," being the used-up for "very likely." sir leicester, deeming it time to dismiss the officer, here majestically interposes with the words, "very good. thank you!" and also with a wave of his hand, implying not only that there is an end of the discourse, but that if high families fall into low habits they must take the consequences. "you will not forget, officer," he adds with condescension, "that i am at your disposal when you please." mr. bucket (still grave) inquires if to-morrow morning, now, would suit, in case he should be as for'ard as he expects to be. sir leicester replies, "all times are alike to me." mr. bucket makes his three bows and is withdrawing when a forgotten point occurs to him. "might i ask, by the by," he says in a low voice, cautiously returning, "who posted the reward-bill on the staircase." "i ordered it to be put up there," replies sir leicester. "would it be considered a liberty, sir leicester dedlock, baronet, if i was to ask you why?" "not at all. i chose it as a conspicuous part of the house. i think it cannot be too prominently kept before the whole establishment. i wish my people to be impressed with the enormity of the crime, the determination to punish it, and the hopelessness of escape. at the same time, officer, if you in your better knowledge of the subject see any objection--" mr. bucket sees none now; the bill having been put up, had better not be taken down. repeating his three bows he withdraws, closing the door on volumnia's little scream, which is a preliminary to her remarking that that charmingly horrible person is a perfect blue chamber. in his fondness for society and his adaptability to all grades, mr. bucket is presently standing before the hall-fire--bright and warm on the early winter night--admiring mercury. "why, you're six foot two, i suppose?" says mr. bucket. "three," says mercury. "are you so much? but then, you see, you're broad in proportion and don't look it. you're not one of the weak-legged ones, you ain't. was you ever modelled now?" mr. bucket asks, conveying the expression of an artist into the turn of his eye and head. mercury never was modelled. "then you ought to be, you know," says mr. bucket; "and a friend of mine that you'll hear of one day as a royal academy sculptor would stand something handsome to make a drawing of your proportions for the marble. my lady's out, ain't she?" "out to dinner." "goes out pretty well every day, don't she?" "yes." "not to be wondered at!" says mr. bucket. "such a fine woman as her, so handsome and so graceful and so elegant, is like a fresh lemon on a dinner-table, ornamental wherever she goes. was your father in the same way of life as yourself?" answer in the negative. "mine was," says mr. bucket. "my father was first a page, then a footman, then a butler, then a steward, then an inn-keeper. lived universally respected, and died lamented. said with his last breath that he considered service the most honourable part of his career, and so it was. i've a brother in service, and a brother-in-law. my lady a good temper?" mercury replies, "as good as you can expect." "ah!" says mr. bucket. "a little spoilt? a little capricious? lord! what can you anticipate when they're so handsome as that? and we like 'em all the better for it, don't we?" mercury, with his hands in the pockets of his bright peach-blossom small-clothes, stretches his symmetrical silk legs with the air of a man of gallantry and can't deny it. come the roll of wheels and a violent ringing at the bell. "talk of the angels," says mr. bucket. "here she is!" the doors are thrown open, and she passes through the hall. still very pale, she is dressed in slight mourning and wears two beautiful bracelets. either their beauty or the beauty of her arms is particularly attractive to mr. bucket. he looks at them with an eager eye and rattles something in his pocket--halfpence perhaps. noticing him at his distance, she turns an inquiring look on the other mercury who has brought her home. "mr. bucket, my lady." mr. bucket makes a leg and comes forward, passing his familiar demon over the region of his mouth. "are you waiting to see sir leicester?" "no, my lady, i've seen him!" "have you anything to say to me?" "not just at present, my lady." "have you made any new discoveries?" "a few, my lady." this is merely in passing. she scarcely makes a stop, and sweeps upstairs alone. mr. bucket, moving towards the staircase-foot, watches her as she goes up the steps the old man came down to his grave, past murderous groups of statuary repeated with their shadowy weapons on the wall, past the printed bill, which she looks at going by, out of view. "she's a lovely woman, too, she really is," says mr. bucket, coming back to mercury. "don't look quite healthy though." is not quite healthy, mercury informs him. suffers much from headaches. really? that's a pity! walking, mr. bucket would recommend for that. well, she tries walking, mercury rejoins. walks sometimes for two hours when she has them bad. by night, too. "are you sure you're quite so much as six foot three?" asks mr. bucket. "begging your pardon for interrupting you a moment?" not a doubt about it. "you're so well put together that i shouldn't have thought it. but the household troops, though considered fine men, are built so straggling. walks by night, does she? when it's moonlight, though?" oh, yes. when it's moonlight! of course. oh, of course! conversational and acquiescent on both sides. "i suppose you ain't in the habit of walking yourself?" says mr. bucket. "not much time for it, i should say?" besides which, mercury don't like it. prefers carriage exercise. "to be sure," says mr. bucket. "that makes a difference. now i think of it," says mr. bucket, warming his hands and looking pleasantly at the blaze, "she went out walking the very night of this business." "to be sure she did! i let her into the garden over the way." "and left her there. certainly you did. i saw you doing it." "i didn't see you," says mercury. "i was rather in a hurry," returns mr. bucket, "for i was going to visit a aunt of mine that lives at chelsea--next door but two to the old original bun house--ninety year old the old lady is, a single woman, and got a little property. yes, i chanced to be passing at the time. let's see. what time might it be? it wasn't ten." "half-past nine." "you're right. so it was. and if i don't deceive myself, my lady was muffled in a loose black mantle, with a deep fringe to it?" "of course she was." of course she was. mr. bucket must return to a little work he has to get on with upstairs, but he must shake hands with mercury in acknowledgment of his agreeable conversation, and will he--this is all he asks--will he, when he has a leisure half-hour, think of bestowing it on that royal academy sculptor, for the advantage of both parties? chapter liv springing a mine refreshed by sleep, mr. bucket rises betimes in the morning and prepares for a field-day. smartened up by the aid of a clean shirt and a wet hairbrush, with which instrument, on occasions of ceremony, he lubricates such thin locks as remain to him after his life of severe study, mr. bucket lays in a breakfast of two mutton chops as a foundation to work upon, together with tea, eggs, toast, and marmalade on a corresponding scale. having much enjoyed these strengthening matters and having held subtle conference with his familiar demon, he confidently instructs mercury "just to mention quietly to sir leicester dedlock, baronet, that whenever he's ready for me, i'm ready for him." a gracious message being returned that sir leicester will expedite his dressing and join mr. bucket in the library within ten minutes, mr. bucket repairs to that apartment and stands before the fire with his finger on his chin, looking at the blazing coals. thoughtful mr. bucket is, as a man may be with weighty work to do, but composed, sure, confident. from the expression of his face he might be a famous whist-player for a large stake--say a hundred guineas certain--with the game in his hand, but with a high reputation involved in his playing his hand out to the last card in a masterly way. not in the least anxious or disturbed is mr. bucket when sir leicester appears, but he eyes the baronet aside as he comes slowly to his easy-chair with that observant gravity of yesterday in which there might have been yesterday, but for the audacity of the idea, a touch of compassion. "i am sorry to have kept you waiting, officer, but i am rather later than my usual hour this morning. i am not well. the agitation and the indignation from which i have recently suffered have been too much for me. i am subject to--gout"--sir leicester was going to say indisposition and would have said it to anybody else, but mr. bucket palpably knows all about it--"and recent circumstances have brought it on." as he takes his seat with some difficulty and with an air of pain, mr. bucket draws a little nearer, standing with one of his large hands on the library-table. "i am not aware, officer," sir leicester observes; raising his eyes to his face, "whether you wish us to be alone, but that is entirely as you please. if you do, well and good. if not, miss dedlock would be interested--" "why, sir leicester dedlock, baronet," returns mr. bucket with his head persuasively on one side and his forefinger pendant at one ear like an earring, "we can't be too private just at present. you will presently see that we can't be too private. a lady, under the circumstances, and especially in miss dedlock's elevated station of society, can't but be agreeable to me, but speaking without a view to myself, i will take the liberty of assuring you that i know we can't be too private." "that is enough." "so much so, sir leicester dedlock, baronet," mr. bucket resumes, "that i was on the point of asking your permission to turn the key in the door." "by all means." mr. bucket skilfully and softly takes that precaution, stooping on his knee for a moment from mere force of habit so to adjust the key in the lock as that no one shall peep in from the outerside. "sir leicester dedlock, baronet, i mentioned yesterday evening that i wanted but a very little to complete this case. i have now completed it and collected proof against the person who did this crime." "against the soldier?" "no, sir leicester dedlock; not the soldier." sir leicester looks astounded and inquires, "is the man in custody?" mr. bucket tells him, after a pause, "it was a woman." sir leicester leans back in his chair, and breathlessly ejaculates, "good heaven!" "now, sir leicester dedlock, baronet," mr. bucket begins, standing over him with one hand spread out on the library-table and the forefinger of the other in impressive use, "it's my duty to prepare you for a train of circumstances that may, and i go so far as to say that will, give you a shock. but sir leicester dedlock, baronet, you are a gentleman, and i know what a gentleman is and what a gentleman is capable of. a gentleman can bear a shock when it must come, boldly and steadily. a gentleman can make up his mind to stand up against almost any blow. why, take yourself, sir leicester dedlock, baronet. if there's a blow to be inflicted on you, you naturally think of your family. you ask yourself, how would all them ancestors of yours, away to julius caesar--not to go beyond him at present--have borne that blow; you remember scores of them that would have borne it well; and you bear it well on their accounts, and to maintain the family credit. that's the way you argue, and that's the way you act, sir leicester dedlock, baronet." sir leicester, leaning back in his chair and grasping the elbows, sits looking at him with a stony face. "now, sir leicester dedlock," proceeds mr. bucket, "thus preparing you, let me beg of you not to trouble your mind for a moment as to anything having come to my knowledge. i know so much about so many characters, high and low, that a piece of information more or less don't signify a straw. i don't suppose there's a move on the board that would surprise me, and as to this or that move having taken place, why my knowing it is no odds at all, any possible move whatever (provided it's in a wrong direction) being a probable move according to my experience. therefore, what i say to you, sir leicester dedlock, baronet, is, don't you go and let yourself be put out of the way because of my knowing anything of your family affairs." "i thank you for your preparation," returns sir leicester after a silence, without moving hand, foot, or feature, "which i hope is not necessary; though i give it credit for being well intended. be so good as to go on. also"--sir leicester seems to shrink in the shadow of his figure--"also, to take a seat, if you have no objection." none at all. mr. bucket brings a chair and diminishes his shadow. "now, sir leicester dedlock, baronet, with this short preface i come to the point. lady dedlock--" sir leicester raises himself in his seat and stares at him fiercely. mr. bucket brings the finger into play as an emollient. "lady dedlock, you see she's universally admired. that's what her ladyship is; she's universally admired," says mr. bucket. "i would greatly prefer, officer," sir leicester returns stiffly, "my lady's name being entirely omitted from this discussion." "so would i, sir leicester dedlock, baronet, but--it's impossible." "impossible?" mr. bucket shakes his relentless head. "sir leicester dedlock, baronet, it's altogether impossible. what i have got to say is about her ladyship. she is the pivot it all turns on." "officer," retorts sir leicester with a fiery eye and a quivering lip, "you know your duty. do your duty, but be careful not to overstep it. i would not suffer it. i would not endure it. you bring my lady's name into this communication upon your responsibility--upon your responsibility. my lady's name is not a name for common persons to trifle with!" "sir leicester dedlock, baronet, i say what i must say, and no more." "i hope it may prove so. very well. go on. go on, sir!" glancing at the angry eyes which now avoid him and at the angry figure trembling from head to foot, yet striving to be still, mr. bucket feels his way with his forefinger and in a low voice proceeds. "sir leicester dedlock, baronet, it becomes my duty to tell you that the deceased mr. tulkinghorn long entertained mistrusts and suspicions of lady dedlock." "if he had dared to breathe them to me, sir--which he never did--i would have killed him myself!" exclaims sir leicester, striking his hand upon the table. but in the very heat and fury of the act he stops, fixed by the knowing eyes of mr. bucket, whose forefinger is slowly going and who, with mingled confidence and patience, shakes his head. "sir leicester dedlock, the deceased mr. tulkinghorn was deep and close, and what he fully had in his mind in the very beginning i can't quite take upon myself to say. but i know from his lips that he long ago suspected lady dedlock of having discovered, through the sight of some handwriting--in this very house, and when you yourself, sir leicester dedlock, were present--the existence, in great poverty, of a certain person who had been her lover before you courted her and who ought to have been her husband." mr. bucket stops and deliberately repeats, "ought to have been her husband, not a doubt about it. i know from his lips that when that person soon afterwards died, he suspected lady dedlock of visiting his wretched lodging and his wretched grave, alone and in secret. i know from my own inquiries and through my eyes and ears that lady dedlock did make such visit in the dress of her own maid, for the deceased mr. tulkinghorn employed me to reckon up her ladyship--if you'll excuse my making use of the term we commonly employ--and i reckoned her up, so far, completely. i confronted the maid in the chambers in lincoln's inn fields with a witness who had been lady dedlock's guide, and there couldn't be the shadow of a doubt that she had worn the young woman's dress, unknown to her. sir leicester dedlock, baronet, i did endeavour to pave the way a little towards these unpleasant disclosures yesterday by saying that very strange things happened even in high families sometimes. all this, and more, has happened in your own family, and to and through your own lady. it's my belief that the deceased mr. tulkinghorn followed up these inquiries to the hour of his death and that he and lady dedlock even had bad blood between them upon the matter that very night. now, only you put that to lady dedlock, sir leicester dedlock, baronet, and ask her ladyship whether, even after he had left here, she didn't go down to his chambers with the intention of saying something further to him, dressed in a loose black mantle with a deep fringe to it." sir leicester sits like a statue, gazing at the cruel finger that is probing the life-blood of his heart. "you put that to her ladyship, sir leicester dedlock, baronet, from me, inspector bucket of the detective. and if her ladyship makes any difficulty about admitting of it, you tell her that it's no use, that inspector bucket knows it and knows that she passed the soldier as you called him (though he's not in the army now) and knows that she knows she passed him on the staircase. now, sir leicester dedlock, baronet, why do i relate all this?" sir leicester, who has covered his face with his hands, uttering a single groan, requests him to pause for a moment. by and by he takes his hands away, and so preserves his dignity and outward calmness, though there is no more colour in his face than in his white hair, that mr. bucket is a little awed by him. something frozen and fixed is upon his manner, over and above its usual shell of haughtiness, and mr. bucket soon detects an unusual slowness in his speech, with now and then a curious trouble in beginning, which occasions him to utter inarticulate sounds. with such sounds he now breaks silence, soon, however, controlling himself to say that he does not comprehend why a gentleman so faithful and zealous as the late mr. tulkinghorn should have communicated to him nothing of this painful, this distressing, this unlooked-for, this overwhelming, this incredible intelligence. "again, sir leicester dedlock, baronet," returns mr. bucket, "put it to her ladyship to clear that up. put it to her ladyship, if you think it right, from inspector bucket of the detective. you'll find, or i'm much mistaken, that the deceased mr. tulkinghorn had the intention of communicating the whole to you as soon as he considered it ripe, and further, that he had given her ladyship so to understand. why, he might have been going to reveal it the very morning when i examined the body! you don't know what i'm going to say and do five minutes from this present time, sir leicester dedlock, baronet; and supposing i was to be picked off now, you might wonder why i hadn't done it, don't you see?" true. sir leicester, avoiding, with some trouble those obtrusive sounds, says, "true." at this juncture a considerable noise of voices is heard in the hall. mr. bucket, after listening, goes to the library-door, softly unlocks and opens it, and listens again. then he draws in his head and whispers hurriedly but composedly, "sir leicester dedlock, baronet, this unfortunate family affair has taken air, as i expected it might, the deceased mr. tulkinghorn being cut down so sudden. the chance to hush it is to let in these people now in a wrangle with your footmen. would you mind sitting quiet--on the family account--while i reckon 'em up? and would you just throw in a nod when i seem to ask you for it?" sir leicester indistinctly answers, "officer. the best you can, the best you can!" and mr. bucket, with a nod and a sagacious crook of the forefinger, slips down into the hall, where the voices quickly die away. he is not long in returning; a few paces ahead of mercury and a brother deity also powdered and in peach-blossomed smalls, who bear between them a chair in which is an incapable old man. another man and two women come behind. directing the pitching of the chair in an affable and easy manner, mr. bucket dismisses the mercuries and locks the door again. sir leicester looks on at this invasion of the sacred precincts with an icy stare. "now, perhaps you may know me, ladies and gentlemen," says mr. bucket in a confidential voice. "i am inspector bucket of the detective, i am; and this," producing the tip of his convenient little staff from his breast-pocket, "is my authority. now, you wanted to see sir leicester dedlock, baronet. well! you do see him, and mind you, it ain't every one as is admitted to that honour. your name, old gentleman, is smallweed; that's what your name is; i know it well." "well, and you never heard any harm of it!" cries mr. smallweed in a shrill loud voice. "you don't happen to know why they killed the pig, do you?" retorts mr. bucket with a steadfast look, but without loss of temper. "no!" "why, they killed him," says mr. bucket, "on account of his having so much cheek. don't you get into the same position, because it isn't worthy of you. you ain't in the habit of conversing with a deaf person, are you?" "yes," snarls mr. smallweed, "my wife's deaf." "that accounts for your pitching your voice so high. but as she ain't here; just pitch it an octave or two lower, will you, and i'll not only be obliged to you, but it'll do you more credit," says mr. bucket. "this other gentleman is in the preaching line, i think?" "name of chadband," mr. smallweed puts in, speaking henceforth in a much lower key. "once had a friend and brother serjeant of the same name," says mr. bucket, offering his hand, "and consequently feel a liking for it. mrs. chadband, no doubt?" "and mrs. snagsby," mr. smallweed introduces. "husband a law-stationer and a friend of my own," says mr. bucket. "love him like a brother! now, what's up?" "do you mean what business have we come upon?" mr. smallweed asks, a little dashed by the suddenness of this turn. "ah! you know what i mean. let us hear what it's all about in presence of sir leicester dedlock, baronet. come." mr. smallweed, beckoning mr. chadband, takes a moment's counsel with him in a whisper. mr. chadband, expressing a considerable amount of oil from the pores of his forehead and the palms of his hands, says aloud, "yes. you first!" and retires to his former place. "i was the client and friend of mr. tulkinghorn," pipes grandfather smallweed then; "i did business with him. i was useful to him, and he was useful to me. krook, dead and gone, was my brother-in-law. he was own brother to a brimstone magpie--leastways mrs. smallweed. i come into krook's property. i examined all his papers and all his effects. they was all dug out under my eyes. there was a bundle of letters belonging to a dead and gone lodger as was hid away at the back of a shelf in the side of lady jane's bed--his cat's bed. he hid all manner of things away, everywheres. mr. tulkinghorn wanted 'em and got 'em, but i looked 'em over first. i'm a man of business, and i took a squint at 'em. they was letters from the lodger's sweetheart, and she signed honoria. dear me, that's not a common name, honoria, is it? there's no lady in this house that signs honoria is there? oh, no, i don't think so! oh, no, i don't think so! and not in the same hand, perhaps? oh, no, i don't think so!" here mr. smallweed, seized with a fit of coughing in the midst of his triumph, breaks off to ejaculate, "oh, dear me! oh, lord! i'm shaken all to pieces!" "now, when you're ready," says mr. bucket after awaiting his recovery, "to come to anything that concerns sir leicester dedlock, baronet, here the gentleman sits, you know." "haven't i come to it, mr. bucket?" cries grandfather smallweed. "isn't the gentleman concerned yet? not with captain hawdon, and his ever affectionate honoria, and their child into the bargain? come, then, i want to know where those letters are. that concerns me, if it don't concern sir leicester dedlock. i will know where they are. i won't have 'em disappear so quietly. i handed 'em over to my friend and solicitor, mr. tulkinghorn, not to anybody else." "why, he paid you for them, you know, and handsome too," says mr. bucket. "i don't care for that. i want to know who's got 'em. and i tell you what we want--what we all here want, mr. bucket. we want more painstaking and search-making into this murder. we know where the interest and the motive was, and you have not done enough. if george the vagabond dragoon had any hand in it, he was only an accomplice, and was set on. you know what i mean as well as any man." "now i tell you what," says mr. bucket, instantaneously altering his manner, coming close to him, and communicating an extraordinary fascination to the forefinger, "i am damned if i am a-going to have my case spoilt, or interfered with, or anticipated by so much as half a second of time by any human being in creation. you want more painstaking and search-making! you do? do you see this hand, and do you think that i don't know the right time to stretch it out and put it on the arm that fired that shot?" such is the dread power of the man, and so terribly evident it is that he makes no idle boast, that mr. smallweed begins to apologize. mr. bucket, dismissing his sudden anger, checks him. "the advice i give you is, don't you trouble your head about the murder. that's my affair. you keep half an eye on the newspapers, and i shouldn't wonder if you was to read something about it before long, if you look sharp. i know my business, and that's all i've got to say to you on that subject. now about those letters. you want to know who's got 'em. i don't mind telling you. i have got 'em. is that the packet?" mr. smallweed looks, with greedy eyes, at the little bundle mr. bucket produces from a mysterious part of his coat, and identifies it as the same. "what have you got to say next?" asks mr. bucket. "now, don't open your mouth too wide, because you don't look handsome when you do it." "i want five hundred pound." "no, you don't; you mean fifty," says mr. bucket humorously. it appears, however, that mr. smallweed means five hundred. "that is, i am deputed by sir leicester dedlock, baronet, to consider (without admitting or promising anything) this bit of business," says mr. bucket--sir leicester mechanically bows his head--"and you ask me to consider a proposal of five hundred pounds. why, it's an unreasonable proposal! two fifty would be bad enough, but better than that. hadn't you better say two fifty?" mr. smallweed is quite clear that he had better not. "then," says mr. bucket, "let's hear mr. chadband. lord! many a time i've heard my old fellow-serjeant of that name; and a moderate man he was in all respects, as ever i come across!" thus invited, mr. chadband steps forth, and after a little sleek smiling and a little oil-grinding with the palms of his hands, delivers himself as follows, "my friends, we are now--rachael, my wife, and i--in the mansions of the rich and great. why are we now in the mansions of the rich and great, my friends? is it because we are invited? because we are bidden to feast with them, because we are bidden to rejoice with them, because we are bidden to play the lute with them, because we are bidden to dance with them? no. then why are we here, my friends? air we in possession of a sinful secret, and do we require corn, and wine, and oil, or what is much the same thing, money, for the keeping thereof? probably so, my friends." "you're a man of business, you are," returns mr. bucket, very attentive, "and consequently you're going on to mention what the nature of your secret is. you are right. you couldn't do better." "let us then, my brother, in a spirit of love," says mr. chadband with a cunning eye, "proceed unto it. rachael, my wife, advance!" mrs. chadband, more than ready, so advances as to jostle her husband into the background and confronts mr. bucket with a hard, frowning smile. "since you want to know what we know," says she, "i'll tell you. i helped to bring up miss hawdon, her ladyship's daughter. i was in the service of her ladyship's sister, who was very sensitive to the disgrace her ladyship brought upon her, and gave out, even to her ladyship, that the child was dead--she was very nearly so--when she was born. but she's alive, and i know her." with these words, and a laugh, and laying a bitter stress on the word "ladyship," mrs. chadband folds her arms and looks implacably at mr. bucket. "i suppose now," returns that officer, "you will be expecting a twenty-pound note or a present of about that figure?" mrs. chadband merely laughs and contemptuously tells him he can "offer" twenty pence. "my friend the law-stationer's good lady, over there," says mr. bucket, luring mrs. snagsby forward with the finger. "what may your game be, ma'am?" mrs. snagsby is at first prevented, by tears and lamentations, from stating the nature of her game, but by degrees it confusedly comes to light that she is a woman overwhelmed with injuries and wrongs, whom mr. snagsby has habitually deceived, abandoned, and sought to keep in darkness, and whose chief comfort, under her afflictions, has been the sympathy of the late mr. tulkinghorn, who showed so much commiseration for her on one occasion of his calling in cook's court in the absence of her perjured husband that she has of late habitually carried to him all her woes. everybody it appears, the present company excepted, has plotted against mrs. snagsby's peace. there is mr. guppy, clerk to kenge and carboy, who was at first as open as the sun at noon, but who suddenly shut up as close as midnight, under the influence--no doubt--of mr. snagsby's suborning and tampering. there is mr. weevle, friend of mr. guppy, who lived mysteriously up a court, owing to the like coherent causes. there was krook, deceased; there was nimrod, deceased; and there was jo, deceased; and they were "all in it." in what, mrs. snagsby does not with particularity express, but she knows that jo was mr. snagsby's son, "as well as if a trumpet had spoken it," and she followed mr. snagsby when he went on his last visit to the boy, and if he was not his son why did he go? the one occupation of her life has been, for some time back, to follow mr. snagsby to and fro, and up and down, and to piece suspicious circumstances together--and every circumstance that has happened has been most suspicious; and in this way she has pursued her object of detecting and confounding her false husband, night and day. thus did it come to pass that she brought the chadbands and mr. tulkinghorn together, and conferred with mr. tulkinghorn on the change in mr. guppy, and helped to turn up the circumstances in which the present company are interested, casually, by the wayside, being still and ever on the great high road that is to terminate in mr. snagsby's full exposure and a matrimonial separation. all this, mrs. snagsby, as an injured woman, and the friend of mrs. chadband, and the follower of mr. chadband, and the mourner of the late mr. tulkinghorn, is here to certify under the seal of confidence, with every possible confusion and involvement possible and impossible, having no pecuniary motive whatever, no scheme or project but the one mentioned, and bringing here, and taking everywhere, her own dense atmosphere of dust, arising from the ceaseless working of her mill of jealousy. while this exordium is in hand--and it takes some time--mr. bucket, who has seen through the transparency of mrs. snagsby's vinegar at a glance, confers with his familiar demon and bestows his shrewd attention on the chadbands and mr. smallweed. sir leicester dedlock remains immovable, with the same icy surface upon him, except that he once or twice looks towards mr. bucket, as relying on that officer alone of all mankind. "very good," says mr. bucket. "now i understand you, you know, and being deputed by sir leicester dedlock, baronet, to look into this little matter," again sir leicester mechanically bows in confirmation of the statement, "can give it my fair and full attention. now i won't allude to conspiring to extort money or anything of that sort, because we are men and women of the world here, and our object is to make things pleasant. but i tell you what i do wonder at; i am surprised that you should think of making a noise below in the hall. it was so opposed to your interests. that's what i look at." "we wanted to get in," pleads mr. smallweed. "why, of course you wanted to get in," mr. bucket asserts with cheerfulness; "but for a old gentleman at your time of life--what i call truly venerable, mind you!--with his wits sharpened, as i have no doubt they are, by the loss of the use of his limbs, which occasions all his animation to mount up into his head, not to consider that if he don't keep such a business as the present as close as possible it can't be worth a mag to him, is so curious! you see your temper got the better of you; that's where you lost ground," says mr. bucket in an argumentative and friendly way. "i only said i wouldn't go without one of the servants came up to sir leicester dedlock," returns mr. smallweed. "that's it! that's where your temper got the better of you. now, you keep it under another time and you'll make money by it. shall i ring for them to carry you down?" "when are we to hear more of this?" mrs. chadband sternly demands. "bless your heart for a true woman! always curious, your delightful sex is!" replies mr. bucket with gallantry. "i shall have the pleasure of giving you a call to-morrow or next day--not forgetting mr. smallweed and his proposal of two fifty." "five hundred!" exclaims mr. smallweed. "all right! nominally five hundred." mr. bucket has his hand on the bell-rope. "shall i wish you good day for the present on the part of myself and the gentleman of the house?" he asks in an insinuating tone. nobody having the hardihood to object to his doing so, he does it, and the party retire as they came up. mr. bucket follows them to the door, and returning, says with an air of serious business, "sir leicester dedlock, baronet, it's for you to consider whether or not to buy this up. i should recommend, on the whole, it's being bought up myself; and i think it may be bought pretty cheap. you see, that little pickled cowcumber of a mrs. snagsby has been used by all sides of the speculation and has done a deal more harm in bringing odds and ends together than if she had meant it. mr. tulkinghorn, deceased, he held all these horses in his hand and could have drove 'em his own way, i haven't a doubt; but he was fetched off the box head-foremost, and now they have got their legs over the traces, and are all dragging and pulling their own ways. so it is, and such is life. the cat's away, and the mice they play; the frost breaks up, and the water runs. now, with regard to the party to be apprehended." sir leicester seems to wake, though his eyes have been wide open, and he looks intently at mr. bucket as mr. bucket refers to his watch. "the party to be apprehended is now in this house," proceeds mr. bucket, putting up his watch with a steady hand and with rising spirits, "and i'm about to take her into custody in your presence. sir leicester dedlock, baronet, don't you say a word nor yet stir. there'll be no noise and no disturbance at all. i'll come back in the course of the evening, if agreeable to you, and endeavour to meet your wishes respecting this unfortunate family matter and the nobbiest way of keeping it quiet. now, sir leicester dedlock, baronet, don't you be nervous on account of the apprehension at present coming off. you shall see the whole case clear, from first to last." mr. bucket rings, goes to the door, briefly whispers mercury, shuts the door, and stands behind it with his arms folded. after a suspense of a minute or two the door slowly opens and a frenchwoman enters. mademoiselle hortense. the moment she is in the room mr. bucket claps the door to and puts his back against it. the suddenness of the noise occasions her to turn, and then for the first time she sees sir leicester dedlock in his chair. "i ask you pardon," she mutters hurriedly. "they tell me there was no one here." her step towards the door brings her front to front with mr. bucket. suddenly a spasm shoots across her face and she turns deadly pale. "this is my lodger, sir leicester dedlock," says mr. bucket, nodding at her. "this foreign young woman has been my lodger for some weeks back." "what do sir leicester care for that, you think, my angel?" returns mademoiselle in a jocular strain. "why, my angel," returns mr. bucket, "we shall see." mademoiselle hortense eyes him with a scowl upon her tight face, which gradually changes into a smile of scorn, "you are very mysterieuse. are you drunk?" "tolerable sober, my angel," returns mr. bucket. "i come from arriving at this so detestable house with your wife. your wife have left me since some minutes. they tell me downstairs that your wife is here. i come here, and your wife is not here. what is the intention of this fool's play, say then?" mademoiselle demands, with her arms composedly crossed, but with something in her dark cheek beating like a clock. mr. bucket merely shakes the finger at her. "ah, my god, you are an unhappy idiot!" cries mademoiselle with a toss of her head and a laugh. "leave me to pass downstairs, great pig." with a stamp of her foot and a menace. "now, mademoiselle," says mr. bucket in a cool determined way, "you go and sit down upon that sofy." "i will not sit down upon nothing," she replies with a shower of nods. "now, mademoiselle," repeats mr. bucket, making no demonstration except with the finger, "you sit down upon that sofy." "why?" "because i take you into custody on a charge of murder, and you don't need to be told it. now, i want to be polite to one of your sex and a foreigner if i can. if i can't, i must be rough, and there's rougher ones outside. what i am to be depends on you. so i recommend you, as a friend, afore another half a blessed moment has passed over your head, to go and sit down upon that sofy." mademoiselle complies, saying in a concentrated voice while that something in her cheek beats fast and hard, "you are a devil." "now, you see," mr. bucket proceeds approvingly, "you're comfortable and conducting yourself as i should expect a foreign young woman of your sense to do. so i'll give you a piece of advice, and it's this, don't you talk too much. you're not expected to say anything here, and you can't keep too quiet a tongue in your head. in short, the less you parlay, the better, you know." mr. bucket is very complacent over this french explanation. mademoiselle, with that tigerish expansion of the mouth and her black eyes darting fire upon him, sits upright on the sofa in a rigid state, with her hands clenched--and her feet too, one might suppose--muttering, "oh, you bucket, you are a devil!" "now, sir leicester dedlock, baronet," says mr. bucket, and from this time forth the finger never rests, "this young woman, my lodger, was her ladyship's maid at the time i have mentioned to you; and this young woman, besides being extraordinary vehement and passionate against her ladyship after being discharged--" "lie!" cries mademoiselle. "i discharge myself." "now, why don't you take my advice?" returns mr. bucket in an impressive, almost in an imploring, tone. "i'm surprised at the indiscreetness you commit. you'll say something that'll be used against you, you know. you're sure to come to it. never you mind what i say till it's given in evidence. it is not addressed to you." "discharge, too," cries mademoiselle furiously, "by her ladyship! eh, my faith, a pretty ladyship! why, i r-r-r-ruin my character by remaining with a ladyship so infame!" "upon my soul i wonder at you!" mr. bucket remonstrates. "i thought the french were a polite nation, i did, really. yet to hear a female going on like that before sir leicester dedlock, baronet!" "he is a poor abused!" cries mademoiselle. "i spit upon his house, upon his name, upon his imbecility," all of which she makes the carpet represent. "oh, that he is a great man! oh, yes, superb! oh, heaven! bah!" "well, sir leicester dedlock," proceeds mr. bucket, "this intemperate foreigner also angrily took it into her head that she had established a claim upon mr. tulkinghorn, deceased, by attending on the occasion i told you of at his chambers, though she was liberally paid for her time and trouble." "lie!" cries mademoiselle. "i ref-use his money all togezzer." "if you will parlay, you know," says mr. bucket parenthetically, "you must take the consequences. now, whether she became my lodger, sir leicester dedlock, with any deliberate intention then of doing this deed and blinding me, i give no opinion on; but she lived in my house in that capacity at the time that she was hovering about the chambers of the deceased mr. tulkinghorn with a view to a wrangle, and likewise persecuting and half frightening the life out of an unfortunate stationer." "lie!" cries mademoiselle. "all lie!" "the murder was committed, sir leicester dedlock, baronet, and you know under what circumstances. now, i beg of you to follow me close with your attention for a minute or two. i was sent for, and the case was entrusted to me. i examined the place, and the body, and the papers, and everything. from information i received (from a clerk in the same house) i took george into custody as having been seen hanging about there on the night, and at very nigh the time of the murder, also as having been overheard in high words with the deceased on former occasions--even threatening him, as the witness made out. if you ask me, sir leicester dedlock, whether from the first i believed george to be the murderer, i tell you candidly no, but he might be, notwithstanding, and there was enough against him to make it my duty to take him and get him kept under remand. now, observe!" as mr. bucket bends forward in some excitement--for him--and inaugurates what he is going to say with one ghostly beat of his forefinger in the air, mademoiselle hortense fixes her black eyes upon him with a dark frown and sets her dry lips closely and firmly together. "i went home, sir leicester dedlock, baronet, at night and found this young woman having supper with my wife, mrs. bucket. she had made a mighty show of being fond of mrs. bucket from her first offering herself as our lodger, but that night she made more than ever--in fact, overdid it. likewise she overdid her respect, and all that, for the lamented memory of the deceased mr. tulkinghorn. by the living lord it flashed upon me, as i sat opposite to her at the table and saw her with a knife in her hand, that she had done it!" mademoiselle is hardly audible in straining through her teeth and lips the words, "you are a devil." "now where," pursues mr. bucket, "had she been on the night of the murder? she had been to the theayter. (she really was there, i have since found, both before the deed and after it.) i knew i had an artful customer to deal with and that proof would be very difficult; and i laid a trap for her--such a trap as i never laid yet, and such a venture as i never made yet. i worked it out in my mind while i was talking to her at supper. when i went upstairs to bed, our house being small and this young woman's ears sharp, i stuffed the sheet into mrs. bucket's mouth that she shouldn't say a word of surprise and told her all about it. my dear, don't you give your mind to that again, or i shall link your feet together at the ankles." mr. bucket, breaking off, has made a noiseless descent upon mademoiselle and laid his heavy hand upon her shoulder. "what is the matter with you now?" she asks him. "don't you think any more," returns mr. bucket with admonitory finger, "of throwing yourself out of window. that's what's the matter with me. come! just take my arm. you needn't get up; i'll sit down by you. now take my arm, will you? i'm a married man, you know; you're acquainted with my wife. just take my arm." vainly endeavouring to moisten those dry lips, with a painful sound she struggles with herself and complies. "now we're all right again. sir leicester dedlock, baronet, this case could never have been the case it is but for mrs. bucket, who is a woman in fifty thousand--in a hundred and fifty thousand! to throw this young woman off her guard, i have never set foot in our house since, though i've communicated with mrs. bucket in the baker's loaves and in the milk as often as required. my whispered words to mrs. bucket when she had the sheet in her mouth were, 'my dear, can you throw her off continually with natural accounts of my suspicions against george, and this, and that, and t'other? can you do without rest and keep watch upon her night and day? can you undertake to say, 'she shall do nothing without my knowledge, she shall be my prisoner without suspecting it, she shall no more escape from me than from death, and her life shall be my life, and her soul my soul, till i have got her, if she did this murder?' mrs. bucket says to me, as well as she could speak on account of the sheet, 'bucket, i can!' and she has acted up to it glorious!" "lies!" mademoiselle interposes. "all lies, my friend!" "sir leicester dedlock, baronet, how did my calculations come out under these circumstances? when i calculated that this impetuous young woman would overdo it in new directions, was i wrong or right? i was right. what does she try to do? don't let it give you a turn? to throw the murder on her ladyship." sir leicester rises from his chair and staggers down again. "and she got encouragement in it from hearing that i was always here, which was done a-purpose. now, open that pocket-book of mine, sir leicester dedlock, if i may take the liberty of throwing it towards you, and look at the letters sent to me, each with the two words 'lady dedlock' in it. open the one directed to yourself, which i stopped this very morning, and read the three words 'lady dedlock, murderess' in it. these letters have been falling about like a shower of lady-birds. what do you say now to mrs. bucket, from her spy-place having seen them all 'written by this young woman? what do you say to mrs. bucket having, within this half-hour, secured the corresponding ink and paper, fellow half-sheets and what not? what do you say to mrs. bucket having watched the posting of 'em every one by this young woman, sir leicester dedlock, baronet?" mr. bucket asks, triumphant in his admiration of his lady's genius. two things are especially observable as mr. bucket proceeds to a conclusion. first, that he seems imperceptibly to establish a dreadful right of property in mademoiselle. secondly, that the very atmosphere she breathes seems to narrow and contract about her as if a close net or a pall were being drawn nearer and yet nearer around her breathless figure. "there is no doubt that her ladyship was on the spot at the eventful period," says mr. bucket, "and my foreign friend here saw her, i believe, from the upper part of the staircase. her ladyship and george and my foreign friend were all pretty close on one another's heels. but that don't signify any more, so i'll not go into it. i found the wadding of the pistol with which the deceased mr. tulkinghorn was shot. it was a bit of the printed description of your house at chesney wold. not much in that, you'll say, sir leicester dedlock, baronet. no. but when my foreign friend here is so thoroughly off her guard as to think it a safe time to tear up the rest of that leaf, and when mrs. bucket puts the pieces together and finds the wadding wanting, it begins to look like queer street." "these are very long lies," mademoiselle interposes. "you prose great deal. is it that you have almost all finished, or are you speaking always?" "sir leicester dedlock, baronet," proceeds mr. bucket, who delights in a full title and does violence to himself when he dispenses with any fragment of it, "the last point in the case which i am now going to mention shows the necessity of patience in our business, and never doing a thing in a hurry. i watched this young woman yesterday without her knowledge when she was looking at the funeral, in company with my wife, who planned to take her there; and i had so much to convict her, and i saw such an expression in her face, and my mind so rose against her malice towards her ladyship, and the time was altogether such a time for bringing down what you may call retribution upon her, that if i had been a younger hand with less experience, i should have taken her, certain. equally, last night, when her ladyship, as is so universally admired i am sure, come home looking--why, lord, a man might almost say like venus rising from the ocean--it was so unpleasant and inconsistent to think of her being charged with a murder of which she was innocent that i felt quite to want to put an end to the job. what should i have lost? sir leicester dedlock, baronet, i should have lost the weapon. my prisoner here proposed to mrs. bucket, after the departure of the funeral, that they should go per bus a little ways into the country and take tea at a very decent house of entertainment. now, near that house of entertainment there's a piece of water. at tea, my prisoner got up to fetch her pocket handkercher from the bedroom where the bonnets was; she was rather a long time gone and came back a little out of wind. as soon as they came home this was reported to me by mrs. bucket, along with her observations and suspicions. i had the piece of water dragged by moonlight, in presence of a couple of our men, and the pocket pistol was brought up before it had been there half-a-dozen hours. now, my dear, put your arm a little further through mine, and hold it steady, and i shan't hurt you!" in a trice mr. bucket snaps a handcuff on her wrist. "that's one," says mr. bucket. "now the other, darling. two, and all told!" he rises; she rises too. "where," she asks him, darkening her large eyes until their drooping lids almost conceal them--and yet they stare, "where is your false, your treacherous, and cursed wife?" "she's gone forrard to the police office," returns mr. bucket. "you'll see her there, my dear." "i would like to kiss her!" exclaims mademoiselle hortense, panting tigress-like. "you'd bite her, i suspect," says mr. bucket. "i would!" making her eyes very large. "i would love to tear her limb from limb." "bless you, darling," says mr. bucket with the greatest composure, "i'm fully prepared to hear that. your sex have such a surprising animosity against one another when you do differ. you don't mind me half so much, do you?" "no. though you are a devil still." "angel and devil by turns, eh?" cries mr. bucket. "but i am in my regular employment, you must consider. let me put your shawl tidy. i've been lady's maid to a good many before now. anything wanting to the bonnet? there's a cab at the door." mademoiselle hortense, casting an indignant eye at the glass, shakes herself perfectly neat in one shake and looks, to do her justice, uncommonly genteel. "listen then, my angel," says she after several sarcastic nods. "you are very spiritual. but can you restore him back to life?" mr. bucket answers, "not exactly." "that is droll. listen yet one time. you are very spiritual. can you make a honourable lady of her?" "don't be so malicious," says mr. bucket. "or a haughty gentleman of him?" cries mademoiselle, referring to sir leicester with ineffable disdain. "eh! oh, then regard him! the poor infant! ha! ha! ha!" "come, come, why this is worse parlaying than the other," says mr. bucket. "come along!" "you cannot do these things? then you can do as you please with me. it is but the death, it is all the same. let us go, my angel. adieu, you old man, grey. i pity you, and i despise you!" with these last words she snaps her teeth together as if her mouth closed with a spring. it is impossible to describe how mr. bucket gets her out, but he accomplishes that feat in a manner so peculiar to himself, enfolding and pervading her like a cloud, and hovering away with her as if he were a homely jupiter and she the object of his affections. sir leicester, left alone, remains in the same attitude, as though he were still listening and his attention were still occupied. at length he gazes round the empty room, and finding it deserted, rises unsteadily to his feet, pushes back his chair, and walks a few steps, supporting himself by the table. then he stops, and with more of those inarticulate sounds, lifts up his eyes and seems to stare at something. heaven knows what he sees. the green, green woods of chesney wold, the noble house, the pictures of his forefathers, strangers defacing them, officers of police coarsely handling his most precious heirlooms, thousands of fingers pointing at him, thousands of faces sneering at him. but if such shadows flit before him to his bewilderment, there is one other shadow which he can name with something like distinctness even yet and to which alone he addresses his tearing of his white hair and his extended arms. it is she in association with whom, saving that she has been for years a main fibre of the root of his dignity and pride, he has never had a selfish thought. it is she whom he has loved, admired, honoured, and set up for the world to respect. it is she who, at the core of all the constrained formalities and conventionalities of his life, has been a stock of living tenderness and love, susceptible as nothing else is of being struck with the agony he feels. he sees her, almost to the exclusion of himself, and cannot bear to look upon her cast down from the high place she has graced so well. and even to the point of his sinking on the ground, oblivious of his suffering, he can yet pronounce her name with something like distinctness in the midst of those intrusive sounds, and in a tone of mourning and compassion rather than reproach. chapter lv flight inspector bucket of the detective has not yet struck his great blow, as just now chronicled, but is yet refreshing himself with sleep preparatory to his field-day, when through the night and along the freezing wintry roads a chaise and pair comes out of lincolnshire, making its way towards london. railroads shall soon traverse all this country, and with a rattle and a glare the engine and train shall shoot like a meteor over the wide night-landscape, turning the moon paler; but as yet such things are non-existent in these parts, though not wholly unexpected. preparations are afoot, measurements are made, ground is staked out. bridges are begun, and their not yet united piers desolately look at one another over roads and streams like brick and mortar couples with an obstacle to their union; fragments of embankments are thrown up and left as precipices with torrents of rusty carts and barrows tumbling over them; tripods of tall poles appear on hilltops, where there are rumours of tunnels; everything looks chaotic and abandoned in full hopelessness. along the freezing roads, and through the night, the post-chaise makes its way without a railroad on its mind. mrs. rouncewell, so many years housekeeper at chesney wold, sits within the chaise; and by her side sits mrs. bagnet with her grey cloak and umbrella. the old girl would prefer the bar in front, as being exposed to the weather and a primitive sort of perch more in accordance with her usual course of travelling, but mrs. rouncewell is too thoughtful of her comfort to admit of her proposing it. the old lady cannot make enough of the old girl. she sits, in her stately manner, holding her hand, and regardless of its roughness, puts it often to her lips. "you are a mother, my dear soul," says she many times, "and you found out my george's mother!" "why, george," returns mrs. bagnet, "was always free with me, ma'am, and when he said at our house to my woolwich that of all the things my woolwich could have to think of when he grew to be a man, the comfortablest would be that he had never brought a sorrowful line into his mother's face or turned a hair of her head grey, then i felt sure, from his way, that something fresh had brought his own mother into his mind. i had often known him say to me, in past times, that he had behaved bad to her." "never, my dear!" returns mrs. rouncewell, bursting into tears. "my blessing on him, never! he was always fond of me, and loving to me, was my george! but he had a bold spirit, and he ran a little wild and went for a soldier. and i know he waited at first, in letting us know about himself, till he should rise to be an officer; and when he didn't rise, i know he considered himself beneath us, and wouldn't be a disgrace to us. for he had a lion heart, had my george, always from a baby!" the old lady's hands stray about her as of yore, while she recalls, all in a tremble, what a likely lad, what a fine lad, what a gay good-humoured clever lad he was; how they all took to him down at chesney wold; how sir leicester took to him when he was a young gentleman; how the dogs took to him; how even the people who had been angry with him forgave him the moment he was gone, poor boy. and now to see him after all, and in a prison too! and the broad stomacher heaves, and the quaint upright old-fashioned figure bends under its load of affectionate distress. mrs. bagnet, with the instinctive skill of a good warm heart, leaves the old housekeeper to her emotions for a little while--not without passing the back of her hand across her own motherly eyes--and presently chirps up in her cheery manner, "so i says to george when i goes to call him in to tea (he pretended to be smoking his pipe outside), 'what ails you this afternoon, george, for gracious sake? i have seen all sorts, and i have seen you pretty often in season and out of season, abroad and at home, and i never see you so melancholy penitent.' 'why, mrs. bagnet,' says george, 'it's because i am melancholy and penitent both, this afternoon, that you see me so.' 'what have you done, old fellow?' i says. 'why, mrs. bagnet,' says george, shaking his head, 'what i have done has been done this many a long year, and is best not tried to be undone now. if i ever get to heaven it won't be for being a good son to a widowed mother; i say no more.' now, ma'am, when george says to me that it's best not tried to be undone now, i have my thoughts as i have often had before, and i draw it out of george how he comes to have such things on him that afternoon. then george tells me that he has seen by chance, at the lawyer's office, a fine old lady that has brought his mother plain before him, and he runs on about that old lady till he quite forgets himself and paints her picture to me as she used to be, years upon years back. so i says to george when he has done, who is this old lady he has seen? and george tells me it's mrs. rouncewell, housekeeper for more than half a century to the dedlock family down at chesney wold in lincolnshire. george has frequently told me before that he's a lincolnshire man, and i says to my old lignum that night, 'lignum, that's his mother for five and for-ty pound!'" all this mrs. bagnet now relates for the twentieth time at least within the last four hours. trilling it out like a kind of bird, with a pretty high note, that it may be audible to the old lady above the hum of the wheels. "bless you, and thank you," says mrs. rouncewell. "bless you, and thank you, my worthy soul!" "dear heart!" cries mrs. bagnet in the most natural manner. "no thanks to me, i am sure. thanks to yourself, ma'am, for being so ready to pay 'em! and mind once more, ma'am, what you had best do on finding george to be your own son is to make him--for your sake--have every sort of help to put himself in the right and clear himself of a charge of which he is as innocent as you or me. it won't do to have truth and justice on his side; he must have law and lawyers," exclaims the old girl, apparently persuaded that the latter form a separate establishment and have dissolved partnership with truth and justice for ever and a day. "he shall have," says mrs. rouncewell, "all the help that can be got for him in the world, my dear. i will spend all i have, and thankfully, to procure it. sir leicester will do his best, the whole family will do their best. i--i know something, my dear; and will make my own appeal, as his mother parted from him all these years, and finding him in a jail at last." the extreme disquietude of the old housekeeper's manner in saying this, her broken words, and her wringing of her hands make a powerful impression on mrs. bagnet and would astonish her but that she refers them all to her sorrow for her son's condition. and yet mrs. bagnet wonders too why mrs. rouncewell should murmur so distractedly, "my lady, my lady, my lady!" over and over again. the frosty night wears away, and the dawn breaks, and the post-chaise comes rolling on through the early mist like the ghost of a chaise departed. it has plenty of spectral company in ghosts of trees and hedges, slowly vanishing and giving place to the realities of day. london reached, the travellers alight, the old housekeeper in great tribulation and confusion, mrs. bagnet quite fresh and collected--as she would be if her next point, with no new equipage and outfit, were the cape of good hope, the island of ascension, hong kong, or any other military station. but when they set out for the prison where the trooper is confined, the old lady has managed to draw about her, with her lavender-coloured dress, much of the staid calmness which is its usual accompaniment. a wonderfully grave, precise, and handsome piece of old china she looks, though her heart beats fast and her stomacher is ruffled more than even the remembrance of this wayward son has ruffled it these many years. approaching the cell, they find the door opening and a warder in the act of coming out. the old girl promptly makes a sign of entreaty to him to say nothing; assenting with a nod, he suffers them to enter as he shuts the door. so george, who is writing at his table, supposing himself to be alone, does not raise his eyes, but remains absorbed. the old housekeeper looks at him, and those wandering hands of hers are quite enough for mrs. bagnet's confirmation, even if she could see the mother and the son together, knowing what she knows, and doubt their relationship. not a rustle of the housekeeper's dress, not a gesture, not a word betrays her. she stands looking at him as he writes on, all unconscious, and only her fluttering hands give utterance to her emotions. but they are very eloquent, very, very eloquent. mrs. bagnet understands them. they speak of gratitude, of joy, of grief, of hope; of inextinguishable affection, cherished with no return since this stalwart man was a stripling; of a better son loved less, and this son loved so fondly and so proudly; and they speak in such touching language that mrs. bagnet's eyes brim up with tears and they run glistening down her sun-brown face. "george rouncewell! oh, my dear child, turn and look at me!" the trooper starts up, clasps his mother round the neck, and falls down on his knees before her. whether in a late repentance, whether in the first association that comes back upon him, he puts his hands together as a child does when it says its prayers, and raising them towards her breast, bows down his head, and cries. "my george, my dearest son! always my favourite, and my favourite still, where have you been these cruel years and years? grown such a man too, grown such a fine strong man. grown so like what i knew he must be, if it pleased god he was alive!" she can ask, and he can answer, nothing connected for a time. all that time the old girl, turned away, leans one arm against the whitened wall, leans her honest forehead upon it, wipes her eyes with her serviceable grey cloak, and quite enjoys herself like the best of old girls as she is. "mother," says the trooper when they are more composed, "forgive me first of all, for i know my need of it." forgive him! she does it with all her heart and soul. she always has done it. she tells him how she has had it written in her will, these many years, that he was her beloved son george. she has never believed any ill of him, never. if she had died without this happiness--and she is an old woman now and can't look to live very long--she would have blessed him with her last breath, if she had had her senses, as her beloved son george. "mother, i have been an undutiful trouble to you, and i have my reward; but of late years i have had a kind of glimmering of a purpose in me too. when i left home i didn't care much, mother--i am afraid not a great deal--for leaving; and went away and 'listed, harum-scarum, making believe to think that i cared for nobody, no not i, and that nobody cared for me." the trooper has dried his eyes and put away his handkerchief, but there is an extraordinary contrast between his habitual manner of expressing himself and carrying himself and the softened tone in which he speaks, interrupted occasionally by a half-stifled sob. "so i wrote a line home, mother, as you too well know, to say i had 'listed under another name, and i went abroad. abroad, at one time i thought i would write home next year, when i might be better off; and when that year was out, i thought i would write home next year, when i might be better off; and when that year was out again, perhaps i didn't think much about it. so on, from year to year, through a service of ten years, till i began to get older, and to ask myself why should i ever write." "i don't find any fault, child--but not to ease my mind, george? not a word to your loving mother, who was growing older too?" this almost overturns the trooper afresh, but he sets himself up with a great, rough, sounding clearance of his throat. "heaven forgive me, mother, but i thought there would be small consolation then in hearing anything about me. there were you, respected and esteemed. there was my brother, as i read in chance north country papers now and then, rising to be prosperous and famous. there was i a dragoon, roving, unsettled, not self-made like him, but self-unmade--all my earlier advantages thrown away, all my little learning unlearnt, nothing picked up but what unfitted me for most things that i could think of. what business had i to make myself known? after letting all that time go by me, what good could come of it? the worst was past with you, mother. i knew by that time (being a man) how you had mourned for me, and wept for me, and prayed for me; and the pain was over, or was softened down, and i was better in your mind as it was." the old lady sorrowfully shakes her head, and taking one of his powerful hands, lays it lovingly upon her shoulder. "no, i don't say that it was so, mother, but that i made it out to be so. i said just now, what good could come of it? well, my dear mother, some good might have come of it to myself--and there was the meanness of it. you would have sought me out; you would have purchased my discharge; you would have taken me down to chesney wold; you would have brought me and my brother and my brother's family together; you would all have considered anxiously how to do something for me and set me up as a respectable civilian. but how could any of you feel sure of me when i couldn't so much as feel sure of myself? how could you help regarding as an incumbrance and a discredit to you an idle dragooning chap who was an incumbrance and a discredit to himself, excepting under discipline? how could i look my brother's children in the face and pretend to set them an example--i, the vagabond boy who had run away from home and been the grief and unhappiness of my mother's life? 'no, george.' such were my words, mother, when i passed this in review before me: 'you have made your bed. now, lie upon it.'" mrs. rouncewell, drawing up her stately form, shakes her head at the old girl with a swelling pride upon her, as much as to say, "i told you so!" the old girl relieves her feelings and testifies her interest in the conversation by giving the trooper a great poke between the shoulders with her umbrella; this action she afterwards repeats, at intervals, in a species of affectionate lunacy, never failing, after the administration of each of these remonstrances, to resort to the whitened wall and the grey cloak again. "this was the way i brought myself to think, mother, that my best amends was to lie upon that bed i had made, and die upon it. and i should have done it (though i have been to see you more than once down at chesney wold, when you little thought of me) but for my old comrade's wife here, who i find has been too many for me. but i thank her for it. i thank you for it, mrs. bagnet, with all my heart and might." to which mrs. bagnet responds with two pokes. and now the old lady impresses upon her son george, her own dear recovered boy, her joy and pride, the light of her eyes, the happy close of her life, and every fond name she can think of, that he must be governed by the best advice obtainable by money and influence, that he must yield up his case to the greatest lawyers that can be got, that he must act in this serious plight as he shall be advised to act and must not be self-willed, however right, but must promise to think only of his poor old mother's anxiety and suffering until he is released, or he will break her heart. "mother, 'tis little enough to consent to," returns the trooper, stopping her with a kiss; "tell me what i shall do, and i'll make a late beginning and do it. mrs. bagnet, you'll take care of my mother, i know?" a very hard poke from the old girl's umbrella. "if you'll bring her acquainted with mr. jarndyce and miss summerson, she will find them of her way of thinking, and they will give her the best advice and assistance." "and, george," says the old lady, "we must send with all haste for your brother. he is a sensible sound man as they tell me--out in the world beyond chesney wold, my dear, though i don't know much of it myself--and will be of great service." "mother," returns the trooper, "is it too soon to ask a favour?" "surely not, my dear." "then grant me this one great favour. don't let my brother know." "not know what, my dear?" "not know of me. in fact, mother, i can't bear it; i can't make up my mind to it. he has proved himself so different from me and has done so much to raise himself while i've been soldiering that i haven't brass enough in my composition to see him in this place and under this charge. how could a man like him be expected to have any pleasure in such a discovery? it's impossible. no, keep my secret from him, mother; do me a greater kindness than i deserve and keep my secret from my brother, of all men." "but not always, dear george?" "why, mother, perhaps not for good and all--though i may come to ask that too--but keep it now, i do entreat you. if it's ever broke to him that his rip of a brother has turned up, i could wish," says the trooper, shaking his head very doubtfully, "to break it myself and be governed as to advancing or retreating by the way in which he seems to take it." as he evidently has a rooted feeling on this point, and as the depth of it is recognized in mrs. bagnet's face, his mother yields her implicit assent to what he asks. for this he thanks her kindly. "in all other respects, my dear mother, i'll be as tractable and obedient as you can wish; on this one alone, i stand out. so now i am ready even for the lawyers. i have been drawing up," he glances at his writing on the table, "an exact account of what i knew of the deceased and how i came to be involved in this unfortunate affair. it's entered, plain and regular, like an orderly-book; not a word in it but what's wanted for the facts. i did intend to read it, straight on end, whensoever i was called upon to say anything in my defence. i hope i may be let to do it still; but i have no longer a will of my own in this case, and whatever is said or done, i give my promise not to have any." matters being brought to this so far satisfactory pass, and time being on the wane, mrs. bagnet proposes a departure. again and again the old lady hangs upon her son's neck, and again and again the trooper holds her to his broad chest. "where are you going to take my mother, mrs. bagnet?" "i am going to the town house, my dear, the family house. i have some business there that must be looked to directly," mrs. rouncewell answers. "will you see my mother safe there in a coach, mrs. bagnet? but of course i know you will. why should i ask it!" why indeed, mrs. bagnet expresses with the umbrella. "take her, my old friend, and take my gratitude along with you. kisses to quebec and malta, love to my godson, a hearty shake of the hand to lignum, and this for yourself, and i wish it was ten thousand pound in gold, my dear!" so saying, the trooper puts his lips to the old girl's tanned forehead, and the door shuts upon him in his cell. no entreaties on the part of the good old housekeeper will induce mrs. bagnet to retain the coach for her own conveyance home. jumping out cheerfully at the door of the dedlock mansion and handing mrs. rouncewell up the steps, the old girl shakes hands and trudges off, arriving soon afterwards in the bosom of the bagnet family and falling to washing the greens as if nothing had happened. my lady is in that room in which she held her last conference with the murdered man, and is sitting where she sat that night, and is looking at the spot where he stood upon the hearth studying her so leisurely, when a tap comes at the door. who is it? mrs. rouncewell. what has brought mrs. rouncewell to town so unexpectedly? "trouble, my lady. sad trouble. oh, my lady, may i beg a word with you?" what new occurrence is it that makes this tranquil old woman tremble so? far happier than her lady, as her lady has often thought, why does she falter in this manner and look at her with such strange mistrust? "what is the matter? sit down and take your breath." "oh, my lady, my lady. i have found my son--my youngest, who went away for a soldier so long ago. and he is in prison." "for debt?" "oh, no, my lady; i would have paid any debt, and joyful." "for what is he in prison then?" "charged with a murder, my lady, of which he is as innocent as--as i am. accused of the murder of mr. tulkinghorn." what does she mean by this look and this imploring gesture? why does she come so close? what is the letter that she holds? "lady dedlock, my dear lady, my good lady, my kind lady! you must have a heart to feel for me, you must have a heart to forgive me. i was in this family before you were born. i am devoted to it. but think of my dear son wrongfully accused." "i do not accuse him." "no, my lady, no. but others do, and he is in prison and in danger. oh, lady dedlock, if you can say but a word to help to clear him, say it!" what delusion can this be? what power does she suppose is in the person she petitions to avert this unjust suspicion, if it be unjust? her lady's handsome eyes regard her with astonishment, almost with fear. "my lady, i came away last night from chesney wold to find my son in my old age, and the step upon the ghost's walk was so constant and so solemn that i never heard the like in all these years. night after night, as it has fallen dark, the sound has echoed through your rooms, but last night it was awfullest. and as it fell dark last night, my lady, i got this letter." "what letter is it?" "hush! hush!" the housekeeper looks round and answers in a frightened whisper, "my lady, i have not breathed a word of it, i don't believe what's written in it, i know it can't be true, i am sure and certain that it is not true. but my son is in danger, and you must have a heart to pity me. if you know of anything that is not known to others, if you have any suspicion, if you have any clue at all, and any reason for keeping it in your own breast, oh, my dear lady, think of me, and conquer that reason, and let it be known! this is the most i consider possible. i know you are not a hard lady, but you go your own way always without help, and you are not familiar with your friends; and all who admire you--and all do--as a beautiful and elegant lady, know you to be one far away from themselves who can't be approached close. my lady, you may have some proud or angry reasons for disdaining to utter something that you know; if so, pray, oh, pray, think of a faithful servant whose whole life has been passed in this family which she dearly loves, and relent, and help to clear my son! my lady, my good lady," the old housekeeper pleads with genuine simplicity, "i am so humble in my place and you are by nature so high and distant that you may not think what i feel for my child, but i feel so much that i have come here to make so bold as to beg and pray you not to be scornful of us if you can do us any right or justice at this fearful time!" lady dedlock raises her without one word, until she takes the letter from her hand. "am i to read this?" "when i am gone, my lady, if you please, and then remembering the most that i consider possible." "i know of nothing i can do. i know of nothing i reserve that can affect your son. i have never accused him." "my lady, you may pity him the more under a false accusation after reading the letter." the old housekeeper leaves her with the letter in her hand. in truth she is not a hard lady naturally, and the time has been when the sight of the venerable figure suing to her with such strong earnestness would have moved her to great compassion. but so long accustomed to suppress emotion and keep down reality, so long schooled for her own purposes in that destructive school which shuts up the natural feelings of the heart like flies in amber and spreads one uniform and dreary gloss over the good and bad, the feeling and the unfeeling, the sensible and the senseless, she had subdued even her wonder until now. she opens the letter. spread out upon the paper is a printed account of the discovery of the body as it lay face downward on the floor, shot through the heart; and underneath is written her own name, with the word "murderess" attached. it falls out of her hand. how long it may have lain upon the ground she knows not, but it lies where it fell when a servant stands before her announcing the young man of the name of guppy. the words have probably been repeated several times, for they are ringing in her head before she begins to understand them. "let him come in!" he comes in. holding the letter in her hand, which she has taken from the floor, she tries to collect her thoughts. in the eyes of mr. guppy she is the same lady dedlock, holding the same prepared, proud, chilling state. "your ladyship may not be at first disposed to excuse this visit from one who has never been welcome to your ladyship"--which he don't complain of, for he is bound to confess that there never has been any particular reason on the face of things why he should be--"but i hope when i mention my motives to your ladyship you will not find fault with me," says mr. guppy. "do so." "thank your ladyship. i ought first to explain to your ladyship," mr. guppy sits on the edge of a chair and puts his hat on the carpet at his feet, "that miss summerson, whose image, as i formerly mentioned to your ladyship, was at one period of my life imprinted on my 'eart until erased by circumstances over which i had no control, communicated to me, after i had the pleasure of waiting on your ladyship last, that she particularly wished me to take no steps whatever in any manner at all relating to her. and miss summerson's wishes being to me a law (except as connected with circumstances over which i have no control), i consequently never expected to have the distinguished honour of waiting on your ladyship again." and yet he is here now, lady dedlock moodily reminds him. "and yet i am here now," mr. guppy admits. "my object being to communicate to your ladyship, under the seal of confidence, why i am here." he cannot do so, she tells him, too plainly or too briefly. "nor can i," mr. guppy returns with a sense of injury upon him, "too particularly request your ladyship to take particular notice that it's no personal affair of mine that brings me here. i have no interested views of my own to serve in coming here. if it was not for my promise to miss summerson and my keeping of it sacred--i, in point of fact, shouldn't have darkened these doors again, but should have seen 'em further first." mr. guppy considers this a favourable moment for sticking up his hair with both hands. "your ladyship will remember when i mention it that the last time i was here i run against a party very eminent in our profession and whose loss we all deplore. that party certainly did from that time apply himself to cutting in against me in a way that i will call sharp practice, and did make it, at every turn and point, extremely difficult for me to be sure that i hadn't inadvertently led up to something contrary to miss summerson's wishes. self-praise is no recommendation, but i may say for myself that i am not so bad a man of business neither." lady dedlock looks at him in stern inquiry. mr. guppy immediately withdraws his eyes from her face and looks anywhere else. "indeed, it has been made so hard," he goes on, "to have any idea what that party was up to in combination with others that until the loss which we all deplore i was gravelled--an expression which your ladyship, moving in the higher circles, will be so good as to consider tantamount to knocked over. small likewise--a name by which i refer to another party, a friend of mine that your ladyship is not acquainted with--got to be so close and double-faced that at times it wasn't easy to keep one's hands off his 'ead. however, what with the exertion of my humble abilities, and what with the help of a mutual friend by the name of mr. tony weevle (who is of a high aristocratic turn and has your ladyship's portrait always hanging up in his room), i have now reasons for an apprehension as to which i come to put your ladyship upon your guard. first, will your ladyship allow me to ask you whether you have had any strange visitors this morning? i don't mean fashionable visitors, but such visitors, for instance, as miss barbary's old servant, or as a person without the use of his lower extremities, carried upstairs similarly to a guy?" "no!" "then i assure your ladyship that such visitors have been here and have been received here. because i saw them at the door, and waited at the corner of the square till they came out, and took half an hour's turn afterwards to avoid them." "what have i to do with that, or what have you? i do not understand you. what do you mean?" "your ladyship, i come to put you on your guard. there may be no occasion for it. very well. then i have only done my best to keep my promise to miss summerson. i strongly suspect (from what small has dropped, and from what we have corkscrewed out of him) that those letters i was to have brought to your ladyship were not destroyed when i supposed they were. that if there was anything to be blown upon, it is blown upon. that the visitors i have alluded to have been here this morning to make money of it. and that the money is made, or making." mr. guppy picks up his hat and rises. "your ladyship, you know best whether there's anything in what i say or whether there's nothing. something or nothing, i have acted up to miss summerson's wishes in letting things alone and in undoing what i had begun to do, as far as possible; that's sufficient for me. in case i should be taking a liberty in putting your ladyship on your guard when there's no necessity for it, you will endeavour, i should hope, to outlive my presumption, and i shall endeavour to outlive your disapprobation. i now take my farewell of your ladyship, and assure you that there's no danger of your ever being waited on by me again." she scarcely acknowledges these parting words by any look, but when he has been gone a little while, she rings her bell. "where is sir leicester?" mercury reports that he is at present shut up in the library alone. "has sir leicester had any visitors this morning?" several, on business. mercury proceeds to a description of them, which has been anticipated by mr. guppy. enough; he may go. so! all is broken down. her name is in these many mouths, her husband knows his wrongs, her shame will be published--may be spreading while she thinks about it--and in addition to the thunderbolt so long foreseen by her, so unforeseen by him, she is denounced by an invisible accuser as the murderess of her enemy. her enemy he was, and she has often, often, often wished him dead. her enemy he is, even in his grave. this dreadful accusation comes upon her like a new torment at his lifeless hand. and when she recalls how she was secretly at his door that night, and how she may be represented to have sent her favourite girl away so soon before merely to release herself from observation, she shudders as if the hangman's hands were at her neck. she has thrown herself upon the floor and lies with her hair all wildly scattered and her face buried in the cushions of a couch. she rises up, hurries to and fro, flings herself down again, and rocks and moans. the horror that is upon her is unutterable. if she really were the murderess, it could hardly be, for the moment, more intense. for as her murderous perspective, before the doing of the deed, however subtle the precautions for its commission, would have been closed up by a gigantic dilatation of the hateful figure, preventing her from seeing any consequences beyond it; and as those consequences would have rushed in, in an unimagined flood, the moment the figure was laid low--which always happens when a murder is done; so, now she sees that when he used to be on the watch before her, and she used to think, "if some mortal stroke would but fall on this old man and take him from my way!" it was but wishing that all he held against her in his hand might be flung to the winds and chance-sown in many places. so, too, with the wicked relief she has felt in his death. what was his death but the key-stone of a gloomy arch removed, and now the arch begins to fall in a thousand fragments, each crushing and mangling piecemeal! thus, a terrible impression steals upon and overshadows her that from this pursuer, living or dead--obdurate and imperturbable before her in his well-remembered shape, or not more obdurate and imperturbable in his coffin-bed--there is no escape but in death. hunted, she flies. the complication of her shame, her dread, remorse, and misery, overwhelms her at its height; and even her strength of self-reliance is overturned and whirled away like a leaf before a mighty wind. she hurriedly addresses these lines to her husband, seals, and leaves them on her table: if i am sought for, or accused of, his murder, believe that i am wholly innocent. believe no other good of me, for i am innocent of nothing else that you have heard, or will hear, laid to my charge. he prepared me, on that fatal night, for his disclosure of my guilt to you. after he had left me, i went out on pretence of walking in the garden where i sometimes walk, but really to follow him and make one last petition that he would not protract the dreadful suspense on which i have been racked by him, you do not know how long, but would mercifully strike next morning. i found his house dark and silent. i rang twice at his door, but there was no reply, and i came home. i have no home left. i will encumber you no more. may you, in your just resentment, be able to forget the unworthy woman on whom you have wasted a most generous devotion--who avoids you only with a deeper shame than that with which she hurries from herself--and who writes this last adieu. she veils and dresses quickly, leaves all her jewels and her money, listens, goes downstairs at a moment when the hall is empty, opens and shuts the great door, flutters away in the shrill frosty wind. chapter lvi pursuit impassive, as behoves its high breeding, the dedlock town house stares at the other houses in the street of dismal grandeur and gives no outward sign of anything going wrong within. carriages rattle, doors are battered at, the world exchanges calls; ancient charmers with skeleton throats and peachy cheeks that have a rather ghastly bloom upon them seen by daylight, when indeed these fascinating creatures look like death and the lady fused together, dazzle the eyes of men. forth from the frigid mews come easily swinging carriages guided by short-legged coachmen in flaxen wigs, deep sunk into downy hammercloths, and up behind mount luscious mercuries bearing sticks of state and wearing cocked hats broadwise, a spectacle for the angels. the dedlock town house changes not externally, and hours pass before its exalted dullness is disturbed within. but volumnia the fair, being subject to the prevalent complaint of boredom and finding that disorder attacking her spirits with some virulence, ventures at length to repair to the library for change of scene. her gentle tapping at the door producing no response, she opens it and peeps in; seeing no one there, takes possession. the sprightly dedlock is reputed, in that grass-grown city of the ancients, bath, to be stimulated by an urgent curiosity which impels her on all convenient and inconvenient occasions to sidle about with a golden glass at her eye, peering into objects of every description. certain it is that she avails herself of the present opportunity of hovering over her kinsman's letters and papers like a bird, taking a short peck at this document and a blink with her head on one side at that document, and hopping about from table to table with her glass at her eye in an inquisitive and restless manner. in the course of these researches she stumbles over something, and turning her glass in that direction, sees her kinsman lying on the ground like a felled tree. volumnia's pet little scream acquires a considerable augmentation of reality from this surprise, and the house is quickly in commotion. servants tear up and down stairs, bells are violently rung, doctors are sent for, and lady dedlock is sought in all directions, but not found. nobody has seen or heard her since she last rang her bell. her letter to sir leicester is discovered on her table, but it is doubtful yet whether he has not received another missive from another world requiring to be personally answered, and all the living languages, and all the dead, are as one to him. they lay him down upon his bed, and chafe, and rub, and fan, and put ice to his head, and try every means of restoration. howbeit, the day has ebbed away, and it is night in his room before his stertorous breathing lulls or his fixed eyes show any consciousness of the candle that is occasionally passed before them. but when this change begins, it goes on; and by and by he nods or moves his eyes or even his hand in token that he hears and comprehends. he fell down, this morning, a handsome stately gentleman, somewhat infirm, but of a fine presence, and with a well-filled face. he lies upon his bed, an aged man with sunken cheeks, the decrepit shadow of himself. his voice was rich and mellow and he had so long been thoroughly persuaded of the weight and import to mankind of any word he said that his words really had come to sound as if there were something in them. but now he can only whisper, and what he whispers sounds like what it is--mere jumble and jargon. his favourite and faithful housekeeper stands at his bedside. it is the first act he notices, and he clearly derives pleasure from it. after vainly trying to make himself understood in speech, he makes signs for a pencil. so inexpressively that they cannot at first understand him; it is his old housekeeper who makes out what he wants and brings in a slate. after pausing for some time, he slowly scrawls upon it in a hand that is not his, "chesney wold?" no, she tells him; he is in london. he was taken ill in the library this morning. right thankful she is that she happened to come to london and is able to attend upon him. "it is not an illness of any serious consequence, sir leicester. you will be much better to-morrow, sir leicester. all the gentlemen say so." this, with the tears coursing down her fair old face. after making a survey of the room and looking with particular attention all round the bed where the doctors stand, he writes, "my lady." "my lady went out, sir leicester, before you were taken ill, and don't know of your illness yet." he points again, in great agitation, at the two words. they all try to quiet him, but he points again with increased agitation. on their looking at one another, not knowing what to say, he takes the slate once more and writes "my lady. for god's sake, where?" and makes an imploring moan. it is thought better that his old housekeeper should give him lady dedlock's letter, the contents of which no one knows or can surmise. she opens it for him and puts it out for his perusal. having read it twice by a great effort, he turns it down so that it shall not be seen and lies moaning. he passes into a kind of relapse or into a swoon, and it is an hour before he opens his eyes, reclining on his faithful and attached old servant's arm. the doctors know that he is best with her, and when not actively engaged about him, stand aloof. the slate comes into requisition again, but the word he wants to write he cannot remember. his anxiety, his eagerness, and affliction at this pass are pitiable to behold. it seems as if he must go mad in the necessity he feels for haste and the inability under which he labours of expressing to do what or to fetch whom. he has written the letter b, and there stopped. of a sudden, in the height of his misery, he puts mr. before it. the old housekeeper suggests bucket. thank heaven! that's his meaning. mr. bucket is found to be downstairs, by appointment. shall he come up? there is no possibility of misconstruing sir leicester's burning wish to see him or the desire he signifies to have the room cleared of every one but the housekeeper. it is speedily done, and mr. bucket appears. of all men upon earth, sir leicester seems fallen from his high estate to place his sole trust and reliance upon this man. "sir leicester dedlock, baronet, i'm sorry to see you like this. i hope you'll cheer up. i'm sure you will, on account of the family credit." sir leicester puts her letter in his hands and looks intently in his face while he reads it. a new intelligence comes into mr. bucket's eye as he reads on; with one hook of his finger, while that eye is still glancing over the words, he indicates, "sir leicester dedlock, baronet, i understand you." sir leicester writes upon the slate. "full forgiveness. find--" mr. bucket stops his hand. "sir leicester dedlock, baronet, i'll find her. but my search after her must be begun out of hand. not a minute must be lost." with the quickness of thought, he follows sir leicester dedlock's look towards a little box upon a table. "bring it here, sir leicester dedlock, baronet? certainly. open it with one of these here keys? certainly. the littlest key? to be sure. take the notes out? so i will. count 'em? that's soon done. twenty and thirty's fifty, and twenty's seventy, and fifty's one twenty, and forty's one sixty. take 'em for expenses? that i'll do, and render an account of course. don't spare money? no i won't." the velocity and certainty of mr. bucket's interpretation on all these heads is little short of miraculous. mrs. rouncewell, who holds the light, is giddy with the swiftness of his eyes and hands as he starts up, furnished for his journey. "you're george's mother, old lady; that's about what you are, i believe?" says mr. bucket aside, with his hat already on and buttoning his coat. "yes, sir, i am his distressed mother." "so i thought, according to what he mentioned to me just now. well, then, i'll tell you something. you needn't be distressed no more. your son's all right. now, don't you begin a-crying, because what you've got to do is to take care of sir leicester dedlock, baronet, and you won't do that by crying. as to your son, he's all right, i tell you; and he sends his loving duty, and hoping you're the same. he's discharged honourable; that's about what he is; with no more imputation on his character than there is on yours, and yours is a tidy one, i'll bet a pound. you may trust me, for i took your son. he conducted himself in a game way, too, on that occasion; and he's a fine-made man, and you're a fine-made old lady, and you're a mother and son, the pair of you, as might be showed for models in a caravan. sir leicester dedlock, baronet, what you've trusted to me i'll go through with. don't you be afraid of my turning out of my way, right or left, or taking a sleep, or a wash, or a shave till i have found what i go in search of. say everything as is kind and forgiving on your part? sir leicester dedlock, baronet, i will. and i wish you better, and these family affairs smoothed over--as, lord, many other family affairs equally has been, and equally will be, to the end of time." with this peroration, mr. bucket, buttoned up, goes quietly out, looking steadily before him as if he were already piercing the night in quest of the fugitive. his first step is to take himself to lady dedlock's rooms and look all over them for any trifling indication that may help him. the rooms are in darkness now; and to see mr. bucket with a wax-light in his hand, holding it above his head and taking a sharp mental inventory of the many delicate objects so curiously at variance with himself, would be to see a sight--which nobody does see, as he is particular to lock himself in. "a spicy boudoir, this," says mr. bucket, who feels in a manner furbished up in his french by the blow of the morning. "must have cost a sight of money. rum articles to cut away from, these; she must have been hard put to it!" opening and shutting table-drawers and looking into caskets and jewel-cases, he sees the reflection of himself in various mirrors, and moralizes thereon. "one might suppose i was a-moving in the fashionable circles and getting myself up for almac's," says mr. bucket. "i begin to think i must be a swell in the guards without knowing it." ever looking about, he has opened a dainty little chest in an inner drawer. his great hand, turning over some gloves which it can scarcely feel, they are so light and soft within it, comes upon a white handkerchief. "hum! let's have a look at you," says mr. bucket, putting down the light. "what should you be kept by yourself for? what's your motive? are you her ladyship's property, or somebody else's? you've got a mark upon you somewheres or another, i suppose?" he finds it as he speaks, "esther summerson." "oh!" says mr. bucket, pausing, with his finger at his ear. "come, i'll take you." he completes his observations as quietly and carefully as he has carried them on, leaves everything else precisely as he found it, glides away after some five minutes in all, and passes into the street. with a glance upward at the dimly lighted windows of sir leicester's room, he sets off, full-swing, to the nearest coach-stand, picks out the horse for his money, and directs to be driven to the shooting gallery. mr. bucket does not claim to be a scientific judge of horses, but he lays out a little money on the principal events in that line, and generally sums up his knowledge of the subject in the remark that when he sees a horse as can go, he knows him. his knowledge is not at fault in the present instance. clattering over the stones at a dangerous pace, yet thoughtfully bringing his keen eyes to bear on every slinking creature whom he passes in the midnight streets, and even on the lights in upper windows where people are going or gone to bed, and on all the turnings that he rattles by, and alike on the heavy sky, and on the earth where the snow lies thin--for something may present itself to assist him, anywhere--he dashes to his destination at such a speed that when he stops the horse half smothers him in a cloud of steam. "unbear him half a moment to freshen him up, and i'll be back." he runs up the long wooden entry and finds the trooper smoking his pipe. "i thought i should, george, after what you have gone through, my lad. i haven't a word to spare. now, honour! all to save a woman. miss summerson that was here when gridley died--that was the name, i know--all right--where does she live?" the trooper has just come from there and gives him the address, near oxford street. "you won't repent it, george. good night!" he is off again, with an impression of having seen phil sitting by the frosty fire staring at him open-mouthed, and gallops away again, and gets out in a cloud of steam again. mr. jarndyce, the only person up in the house, is just going to bed, rises from his book on hearing the rapid ringing at the bell, and comes down to the door in his dressing-gown. "don't be alarmed, sir." in a moment his visitor is confidential with him in the hall, has shut the door, and stands with his hand upon the lock. "i've had the pleasure of seeing you before. inspector bucket. look at that handkerchief, sir, miss esther summerson's. found it myself put away in a drawer of lady dedlock's, quarter of an hour ago. not a moment to lose. matter of life or death. you know lady dedlock?" "yes." "there has been a discovery there to-day. family affairs have come out. sir leicester dedlock, baronet, has had a fit--apoplexy or paralysis--and couldn't be brought to, and precious time has been lost. lady dedlock disappeared this afternoon and left a letter for him that looks bad. run your eye over it. here it is!" mr. jarndyce, having read it, asks him what he thinks. "i don't know. it looks like suicide. anyways, there's more and more danger, every minute, of its drawing to that. i'd give a hundred pound an hour to have got the start of the present time. now, mr. jarndyce, i am employed by sir leicester dedlock, baronet, to follow her and find her, to save her and take her his forgiveness. i have money and full power, but i want something else. i want miss summerson." mr. jarndyce in a troubled voice repeats, "miss summerson?" "now, mr. jarndyce"--mr. bucket has read his face with the greatest attention all along--"i speak to you as a gentleman of a humane heart, and under such pressing circumstances as don't often happen. if ever delay was dangerous, it's dangerous now; and if ever you couldn't afterwards forgive yourself for causing it, this is the time. eight or ten hours, worth, as i tell you, a hundred pound apiece at least, have been lost since lady dedlock disappeared. i am charged to find her. i am inspector bucket. besides all the rest that's heavy on her, she has upon her, as she believes, suspicion of murder. if i follow her alone, she, being in ignorance of what sir leicester dedlock, baronet, has communicated to me, may be driven to desperation. but if i follow her in company with a young lady, answering to the description of a young lady that she has a tenderness for--i ask no question, and i say no more than that--she will give me credit for being friendly. let me come up with her and be able to have the hold upon her of putting that young lady for'ard, and i'll save her and prevail with her if she is alive. let me come up with her alone--a hard matter--and i'll do my best, but i don't answer for what the best may be. time flies; it's getting on for one o'clock. when one strikes, there's another hour gone, and it's worth a thousand pound now instead of a hundred." this is all true, and the pressing nature of the case cannot be questioned. mr. jarndyce begs him to remain there while he speaks to miss summerson. mr. bucket says he will, but acting on his usual principle, does no such thing, following upstairs instead and keeping his man in sight. so he remains, dodging and lurking about in the gloom of the staircase while they confer. in a very little time mr. jarndyce comes down and tells him that miss summerson will join him directly and place herself under his protection to accompany him where he pleases. mr. bucket, satisfied, expresses high approval and awaits her coming at the door. there he mounts a high tower in his mind and looks out far and wide. many solitary figures he perceives creeping through the streets; many solitary figures out on heaths, and roads, and lying under haystacks. but the figure that he seeks is not among them. other solitaries he perceives, in nooks of bridges, looking over; and in shadowed places down by the river's level; and a dark, dark, shapeless object drifting with the tide, more solitary than all, clings with a drowning hold on his attention. where is she? living or dead, where is she? if, as he folds the handkerchief and carefully puts it up, it were able with an enchanted power to bring before him the place where she found it and the night-landscape near the cottage where it covered the little child, would he descry her there? on the waste where the brick-kilns are burning with a pale blue flare, where the straw-roofs of the wretched huts in which the bricks are made are being scattered by the wind, where the clay and water are hard frozen and the mill in which the gaunt blind horse goes round all day looks like an instrument of human torture--traversing this deserted, blighted spot there is a lonely figure with the sad world to itself, pelted by the snow and driven by the wind, and cast out, it would seem, from all companionship. it is the figure of a woman, too; but it is miserably dressed, and no such clothes ever came through the hall and out at the great door of the dedlock mansion. chapter lvii esther's narrative i had gone to bed and fallen asleep when my guardian knocked at the door of my room and begged me to get up directly. on my hurrying to speak to him and learn what had happened, he told me, after a word or two of preparation, that there had been a discovery at sir leicester dedlock's. that my mother had fled, that a person was now at our door who was empowered to convey to her the fullest assurances of affectionate protection and forgiveness if he could possibly find her, and that i was sought for to accompany him in the hope that my entreaties might prevail upon her if his failed. something to this general purpose i made out, but i was thrown into such a tumult of alarm, and hurry and distress, that in spite of every effort i could make to subdue my agitation, i did not seem, to myself, fully to recover my right mind until hours had passed. but i dressed and wrapped up expeditiously without waking charley or any one and went down to mr. bucket, who was the person entrusted with the secret. in taking me to him my guardian told me this, and also explained how it was that he had come to think of me. mr. bucket, in a low voice, by the light of my guardian's candle, read to me in the hall a letter that my mother had left upon her table; and i suppose within ten minutes of my having been aroused i was sitting beside him, rolling swiftly through the streets. his manner was very keen, and yet considerate when he explained to me that a great deal might depend on my being able to answer, without confusion, a few questions that he wished to ask me. these were, chiefly, whether i had had much communication with my mother (to whom he only referred as lady dedlock), when and where i had spoken with her last, and how she had become possessed of my handkerchief. when i had satisfied him on these points, he asked me particularly to consider--taking time to think--whether within my knowledge there was any one, no matter where, in whom she might be at all likely to confide under circumstances of the last necessity. i could think of no one but my guardian. but by and by i mentioned mr. boythorn. he came into my mind as connected with his old chivalrous manner of mentioning my mother's name and with what my guardian had informed me of his engagement to her sister and his unconscious connexion with her unhappy story. my companion had stopped the driver while we held this conversation, that we might the better hear each other. he now told him to go on again and said to me, after considering within himself for a few moments, that he had made up his mind how to proceed. he was quite willing to tell me what his plan was, but i did not feel clear enough to understand it. we had not driven very far from our lodgings when we stopped in a by-street at a public-looking place lighted up with gas. mr. bucket took me in and sat me in an arm-chair by a bright fire. it was now past one, as i saw by the clock against the wall. two police officers, looking in their perfectly neat uniform not at all like people who were up all night, were quietly writing at a desk; and the place seemed very quiet altogether, except for some beating and calling out at distant doors underground, to which nobody paid any attention. a third man in uniform, whom mr. bucket called and to whom he whispered his instructions, went out; and then the two others advised together while one wrote from mr. bucket's subdued dictation. it was a description of my mother that they were busy with, for mr. bucket brought it to me when it was done and read it in a whisper. it was very accurate indeed. the second officer, who had attended to it closely, then copied it out and called in another man in uniform (there were several in an outer room), who took it up and went away with it. all this was done with the greatest dispatch and without the waste of a moment; yet nobody was at all hurried. as soon as the paper was sent out upon its travels, the two officers resumed their former quiet work of writing with neatness and care. mr. bucket thoughtfully came and warmed the soles of his boots, first one and then the other, at the fire. "are you well wrapped up, miss summerson?" he asked me as his eyes met mine. "it's a desperate sharp night for a young lady to be out in." i told him i cared for no weather and was warmly clothed. "it may be a long job," he observed; "but so that it ends well, never mind, miss." "i pray to heaven it may end well!" said i. he nodded comfortingly. "you see, whatever you do, don't you go and fret yourself. you keep yourself cool and equal for anything that may happen, and it'll be the better for you, the better for me, the better for lady dedlock, and the better for sir leicester dedlock, baronet." he was really very kind and gentle, and as he stood before the fire warming his boots and rubbing his face with his forefinger, i felt a confidence in his sagacity which reassured me. it was not yet a quarter to two when i heard horses' feet and wheels outside. "now, miss summerson," said he, "we are off, if you please!" he gave me his arm, and the two officers courteously bowed me out, and we found at the door a phaeton or barouche with a postilion and post horses. mr. bucket handed me in and took his own seat on the box. the man in uniform whom he had sent to fetch this equipage then handed him up a dark lantern at his request, and when he had given a few directions to the driver, we rattled away. i was far from sure that i was not in a dream. we rattled with great rapidity through such a labyrinth of streets that i soon lost all idea where we were, except that we had crossed and re-crossed the river, and still seemed to be traversing a low-lying, waterside, dense neighbourhood of narrow thoroughfares chequered by docks and basins, high piles of warehouses, swing-bridges, and masts of ships. at length we stopped at the corner of a little slimy turning, which the wind from the river, rushing up it, did not purify; and i saw my companion, by the light of his lantern, in conference with several men who looked like a mixture of police and sailors. against the mouldering wall by which they stood, there was a bill, on which i could discern the words, "found drowned"; and this and an inscription about drags possessed me with the awful suspicion shadowed forth in our visit to that place. i had no need to remind myself that i was not there by the indulgence of any feeling of mine to increase the difficulties of the search, or to lessen its hopes, or enhance its delays. i remained quiet, but what i suffered in that dreadful spot i never can forget. and still it was like the horror of a dream. a man yet dark and muddy, in long swollen sodden boots and a hat like them, was called out of a boat and whispered with mr. bucket, who went away with him down some slippery steps--as if to look at something secret that he had to show. they came back, wiping their hands upon their coats, after turning over something wet; but thank god it was not what i feared! after some further conference, mr. bucket (whom everybody seemed to know and defer to) went in with the others at a door and left me in the carriage, while the driver walked up and down by his horses to warm himself. the tide was coming in, as i judged from the sound it made, and i could hear it break at the end of the alley with a little rush towards me. it never did so--and i thought it did so, hundreds of times, in what can have been at the most a quarter of an hour, and probably was less--but the thought shuddered through me that it would cast my mother at the horses' feet. mr. bucket came out again, exhorting the others to be vigilant, darkened his lantern, and once more took his seat. "don't you be alarmed, miss summerson, on account of our coming down here," he said, turning to me. "i only want to have everything in train and to know that it is in train by looking after it myself. get on, my lad!" we appeared to retrace the way we had come. not that i had taken note of any particular objects in my perturbed state of mind, but judging from the general character of the streets. we called at another office or station for a minute and crossed the river again. during the whole of this time, and during the whole search, my companion, wrapped up on the box, never relaxed in his vigilance a single moment; but when we crossed the bridge he seemed, if possible, to be more on the alert than before. he stood up to look over the parapet, he alighted and went back after a shadowy female figure that flitted past us, and he gazed into the profound black pit of water with a face that made my heart die within me. the river had a fearful look, so overcast and secret, creeping away so fast between the low flat lines of shore--so heavy with indistinct and awful shapes, both of substance and shadow; so death-like and mysterious. i have seen it many times since then, by sunlight and by moonlight, but never free from the impressions of that journey. in my memory the lights upon the bridge are always burning dim, the cutting wind is eddying round the homeless woman whom we pass, the monotonous wheels are whirling on, and the light of the carriage-lamps reflected back looks palely in upon me--a face rising out of the dreaded water. clattering and clattering through the empty streets, we came at length from the pavement on to dark smooth roads and began to leave the houses behind us. after a while i recognized the familiar way to saint albans. at barnet fresh horses were ready for us, and we changed and went on. it was very cold indeed, and the open country was white with snow, though none was falling then. "an old acquaintance of yours, this road, miss summerson," said mr. bucket cheerfully. "yes," i returned. "have you gathered any intelligence?" "none that can be quite depended on as yet," he answered, "but it's early times as yet." he had gone into every late or early public-house where there was a light (they were not a few at that time, the road being then much frequented by drovers) and had got down to talk to the turnpike-keepers. i had heard him ordering drink, and chinking money, and making himself agreeable and merry everywhere; but whenever he took his seat upon the box again, his face resumed its watchful steady look, and he always said to the driver in the same business tone, "get on, my lad!" with all these stoppages, it was between five and six o'clock and we were yet a few miles short of saint albans when he came out of one of these houses and handed me in a cup of tea. "drink it, miss summerson, it'll do you good. you're beginning to get more yourself now, ain't you?" i thanked him and said i hoped so. "you was what you may call stunned at first," he returned; "and lord, no wonder! don't speak loud, my dear. it's all right. she's on ahead." i don't know what joyful exclamation i made or was going to make, but he put up his finger and i stopped myself. "passed through here on foot this evening about eight or nine. i heard of her first at the archway toll, over at highgate, but couldn't make quite sure. traced her all along, on and off. picked her up at one place, and dropped her at another; but she's before us now, safe. take hold of this cup and saucer, ostler. now, if you wasn't brought up to the butter trade, look out and see if you can catch half a crown in your t'other hand. one, two, three, and there you are! now, my lad, try a gallop!" we were soon in saint albans and alighted a little before day, when i was just beginning to arrange and comprehend the occurrences of the night and really to believe that they were not a dream. leaving the carriage at the posting-house and ordering fresh horses to be ready, my companion gave me his arm, and we went towards home. "as this is your regular abode, miss summerson, you see," he observed, "i should like to know whether you've been asked for by any stranger answering the description, or whether mr. jarndyce has. i don't much expect it, but it might be." as we ascended the hill, he looked about him with a sharp eye--the day was now breaking--and reminded me that i had come down it one night, as i had reason for remembering, with my little servant and poor jo, whom he called toughey. i wondered how he knew that. "when you passed a man upon the road, just yonder, you know," said mr. bucket. yes, i remembered that too, very well. "that was me," said mr. bucket. seeing my surprise, he went on, "i drove down in a gig that afternoon to look after that boy. you might have heard my wheels when you came out to look after him yourself, for i was aware of you and your little maid going up when i was walking the horse down. making an inquiry or two about him in the town, i soon heard what company he was in and was coming among the brick-fields to look for him when i observed you bringing him home here." "had he committed any crime?" i asked. "none was charged against him," said mr. bucket, coolly lifting off his hat, "but i suppose he wasn't over-particular. no. what i wanted him for was in connexion with keeping this very matter of lady dedlock quiet. he had been making his tongue more free than welcome as to a small accidental service he had been paid for by the deceased mr. tulkinghorn; and it wouldn't do, at any sort of price, to have him playing those games. so having warned him out of london, i made an afternoon of it to warn him to keep out of it now he was away, and go farther from it, and maintain a bright look-out that i didn't catch him coming back again." "poor creature!" said i. "poor enough," assented mr. bucket, "and trouble enough, and well enough away from london, or anywhere else. i was regularly turned on my back when i found him taken up by your establishment, i do assure you." i asked him why. "why, my dear?" said mr. bucket. "naturally there was no end to his tongue then. he might as well have been born with a yard and a half of it, and a remnant over." although i remember this conversation now, my head was in confusion at the time, and my power of attention hardly did more than enable me to understand that he entered into these particulars to divert me. with the same kind intention, manifestly, he often spoke to me of indifferent things, while his face was busy with the one object that we had in view. he still pursued this subject as we turned in at the garden-gate. "ah!" said mr. bucket. "here we are, and a nice retired place it is. puts a man in mind of the country house in the woodpecker-tapping, that was known by the smoke which so gracefully curled. they're early with the kitchen fire, and that denotes good servants. but what you've always got to be careful of with servants is who comes to see 'em; you never know what they're up to if you don't know that. and another thing, my dear. whenever you find a young man behind the kitchen-door, you give that young man in charge on suspicion of being secreted in a dwelling-house with an unlawful purpose." we were now in front of the house; he looked attentively and closely at the gravel for footprints before he raised his eyes to the windows. "do you generally put that elderly young gentleman in the same room when he's on a visit here, miss summerson?" he inquired, glancing at mr. skimpole's usual chamber. "you know mr. skimpole!" said i. "what do you call him again?" returned mr. bucket, bending down his ear. "skimpole, is it? i've often wondered what his name might be. skimpole. not john, i should say, nor yet jacob?" "harold," i told him. "harold. yes. he's a queer bird is harold," said mr. bucket, eyeing me with great expression. "he is a singular character," said i. "no idea of money," observed mr. bucket. "he takes it, though!" i involuntarily returned for answer that i perceived mr. bucket knew him. "why, now i'll tell you, miss summerson," he replied. "your mind will be all the better for not running on one point too continually, and i'll tell you for a change. it was him as pointed out to me where toughey was. i made up my mind that night to come to the door and ask for toughey, if that was all; but willing to try a move or so first, if any such was on the board, i just pitched up a morsel of gravel at that window where i saw a shadow. as soon as harold opens it and i have had a look at him, thinks i, you're the man for me. so i smoothed him down a bit about not wanting to disturb the family after they was gone to bed and about its being a thing to be regretted that charitable young ladies should harbour vagrants; and then, when i pretty well understood his ways, i said i should consider a fypunnote well bestowed if i could relieve the premises of toughey without causing any noise or trouble. then says he, lifting up his eyebrows in the gayest way, 'it's no use mentioning a fypunnote to me, my friend, because i'm a mere child in such matters and have no idea of money.' of course i understood what his taking it so easy meant; and being now quite sure he was the man for me, i wrapped the note round a little stone and threw it up to him. well! he laughs and beams, and looks as innocent as you like, and says, 'but i don't know the value of these things. what am i to do with this?' 'spend it, sir,' says i. 'but i shall be taken in,' he says, 'they won't give me the right change, i shall lose it, it's no use to me.' lord, you never saw such a face as he carried it with! of course he told me where to find toughey, and i found him." i regarded this as very treacherous on the part of mr. skimpole towards my guardian and as passing the usual bounds of his childish innocence. "bounds, my dear?" returned mr. bucket. "bounds? now, miss summerson, i'll give you a piece of advice that your husband will find useful when you are happily married and have got a family about you. whenever a person says to you that they are as innocent as can be in all concerning money, look well after your own money, for they are dead certain to collar it if they can. whenever a person proclaims to you 'in worldly matters i'm a child,' you consider that that person is only a-crying off from being held accountable and that you have got that person's number, and it's number one. now, i am not a poetical man myself, except in a vocal way when it goes round a company, but i'm a practical one, and that's my experience. so's this rule. fast and loose in one thing, fast and loose in everything. i never knew it fail. no more will you. nor no one. with which caution to the unwary, my dear, i take the liberty of pulling this here bell, and so go back to our business." i believe it had not been for a moment out of his mind, any more than it had been out of my mind, or out of his face. the whole household were amazed to see me, without any notice, at that time in the morning, and so accompanied; and their surprise was not diminished by my inquiries. no one, however, had been there. it could not be doubted that this was the truth. "then, miss summerson," said my companion, "we can't be too soon at the cottage where those brickmakers are to be found. most inquiries there i leave to you, if you'll be so good as to make 'em. the naturalest way is the best way, and the naturalest way is your own way." we set off again immediately. on arriving at the cottage, we found it shut up and apparently deserted, but one of the neighbours who knew me and who came out when i was trying to make some one hear informed me that the two women and their husbands now lived together in another house, made of loose rough bricks, which stood on the margin of the piece of ground where the kilns were and where the long rows of bricks were drying. we lost no time in repairing to this place, which was within a few hundred yards; and as the door stood ajar, i pushed it open. there were only three of them sitting at breakfast, the child lying asleep on a bed in the corner. it was jenny, the mother of the dead child, who was absent. the other woman rose on seeing me; and the men, though they were, as usual, sulky and silent, each gave me a morose nod of recognition. a look passed between them when mr. bucket followed me in, and i was surprised to see that the woman evidently knew him. i had asked leave to enter of course. liz (the only name by which i knew her) rose to give me her own chair, but i sat down on a stool near the fire, and mr. bucket took a corner of the bedstead. now that i had to speak and was among people with whom i was not familiar, i became conscious of being hurried and giddy. it was very difficult to begin, and i could not help bursting into tears. "liz," said i, "i have come a long way in the night and through the snow to inquire after a lady--" "who has been here, you know," mr. bucket struck in, addressing the whole group with a composed propitiatory face; "that's the lady the young lady means. the lady that was here last night, you know." "and who told you as there was anybody here?" inquired jenny's husband, who had made a surly stop in his eating to listen and now measured him with his eye. "a person of the name of michael jackson, with a blue welveteen waistcoat with a double row of mother of pearl buttons," mr. bucket immediately answered. "he had as good mind his own business, whoever he is," growled the man. "he's out of employment, i believe," said mr. bucket apologetically for michael jackson, "and so gets talking." the woman had not resumed her chair, but stood faltering with her hand upon its broken back, looking at me. i thought she would have spoken to me privately if she had dared. she was still in this attitude of uncertainty when her husband, who was eating with a lump of bread and fat in one hand and his clasp-knife in the other, struck the handle of his knife violently on the table and told her with an oath to mind her own business at any rate and sit down. "i should like to have seen jenny very much," said i, "for i am sure she would have told me all she could about this lady, whom i am very anxious indeed--you cannot think how anxious--to overtake. will jenny be here soon? where is she?" the woman had a great desire to answer, but the man, with another oath, openly kicked at her foot with his heavy boot. he left it to jenny's husband to say what he chose, and after a dogged silence the latter turned his shaggy head towards me. "i'm not partial to gentlefolks coming into my place, as you've heerd me say afore now, i think, miss. i let their places be, and it's curious they can't let my place be. there'd be a pretty shine made if i was to go a-wisitin them, i think. howsoever, i don't so much complain of you as of some others, and i'm agreeable to make you a civil answer, though i give notice that i'm not a-going to be drawed like a badger. will jenny be here soon? no she won't. where is she? she's gone up to lunnun." "did she go last night?" i asked. "did she go last night? ah! she went last night," he answered with a sulky jerk of his head. "but was she here when the lady came? and what did the lady say to her? and where is the lady gone? i beg and pray you to be so kind as to tell me," said i, "for i am in great distress to know." "if my master would let me speak, and not say a word of harm--" the woman timidly began. "your master," said her husband, muttering an imprecation with slow emphasis, "will break your neck if you meddle with wot don't concern you." after another silence, the husband of the absent woman, turning to me again, answered me with his usual grumbling unwillingness. "wos jenny here when the lady come? yes, she wos here when the lady come. wot did the lady say to her? well, i'll tell you wot the lady said to her. she said, 'you remember me as come one time to talk to you about the young lady as had been a-wisiting of you? you remember me as give you somethink handsome for a handkercher wot she had left?' ah, she remembered. so we all did. well, then, wos that young lady up at the house now? no, she warn't up at the house now. well, then, lookee here. the lady was upon a journey all alone, strange as we might think it, and could she rest herself where you're a setten for a hour or so. yes she could, and so she did. then she went--it might be at twenty minutes past eleven, and it might be at twenty minutes past twelve; we ain't got no watches here to know the time by, nor yet clocks. where did she go? i don't know where she go'd. she went one way, and jenny went another; one went right to lunnun, and t'other went right from it. that's all about it. ask this man. he heerd it all, and see it all. he knows." the other man repeated, "that's all about it." "was the lady crying?" i inquired. "devil a bit," returned the first man. "her shoes was the worse, and her clothes was the worse, but she warn't--not as i see." the woman sat with her arms crossed and her eyes upon the ground. her husband had turned his seat a little so as to face her and kept his hammer-like hand upon the table as if it were in readiness to execute his threat if she disobeyed him. "i hope you will not object to my asking your wife," said i, "how the lady looked." "come, then!" he gruffly cried to her. "you hear what she says. cut it short and tell her." "bad," replied the woman. "pale and exhausted. very bad." "did she speak much?" "not much, but her voice was hoarse." she answered, looking all the while at her husband for leave. "was she faint?" said i. "did she eat or drink here?" "go on!" said the husband in answer to her look. "tell her and cut it short." "she had a little water, miss, and jenny fetched her some bread and tea. but she hardly touched it." "and when she went from here," i was proceeding, when jenny's husband impatiently took me up. "when she went from here, she went right away nor'ard by the high road. ask on the road if you doubt me, and see if it warn't so. now, there's the end. that's all about it." i glanced at my companion, and finding that he had already risen and was ready to depart, thanked them for what they had told me, and took my leave. the woman looked full at mr. bucket as he went out, and he looked full at her. "now, miss summerson," he said to me as we walked quickly away. "they've got her ladyship's watch among 'em. that's a positive fact." "you saw it?" i exclaimed. "just as good as saw it," he returned. "else why should he talk about his 'twenty minutes past' and about his having no watch to tell the time by? twenty minutes! he don't usually cut his time so fine as that. if he comes to half-hours, it's as much as he does. now, you see, either her ladyship gave him that watch or he took it. i think she gave it him. now, what should she give it him for? what should she give it him for?" he repeated this question to himself several times as we hurried on, appearing to balance between a variety of answers that arose in his mind. "if time could be spared," said mr. bucket, "which is the only thing that can't be spared in this case, i might get it out of that woman; but it's too doubtful a chance to trust to under present circumstances. they are up to keeping a close eye upon her, and any fool knows that a poor creetur like her, beaten and kicked and scarred and bruised from head to foot, will stand by the husband that ill uses her through thick and thin. there's something kept back. it's a pity but what we had seen the other woman." i regretted it exceedingly, for she was very grateful, and i felt sure would have resisted no entreaty of mine. "it's possible, miss summerson," said mr. bucket, pondering on it, "that her ladyship sent her up to london with some word for you, and it's possible that her husband got the watch to let her go. it don't come out altogether so plain as to please me, but it's on the cards. now, i don't take kindly to laying out the money of sir leicester dedlock, baronet, on these roughs, and i don't see my way to the usefulness of it at present. no! so far our road, miss summerson, is for'ard--straight ahead--and keeping everything quiet!" we called at home once more that i might send a hasty note to my guardian, and then we hurried back to where we had left the carriage. the horses were brought out as soon as we were seen coming, and we were on the road again in a few minutes. it had set in snowing at daybreak, and it now snowed hard. the air was so thick with the darkness of the day and the density of the fall that we could see but a very little way in any direction. although it was extremely cold, the snow was but partially frozen, and it churned--with a sound as if it were a beach of small shells--under the hoofs of the horses into mire and water. they sometimes slipped and floundered for a mile together, and we were obliged to come to a standstill to rest them. one horse fell three times in this first stage, and trembled so and was so shaken that the driver had to dismount from his saddle and lead him at last. i could eat nothing and could not sleep, and i grew so nervous under those delays and the slow pace at which we travelled that i had an unreasonable desire upon me to get out and walk. yielding to my companion's better sense, however, i remained where i was. all this time, kept fresh by a certain enjoyment of the work in which he was engaged, he was up and down at every house we came to, addressing people whom he had never beheld before as old acquaintances, running in to warm himself at every fire he saw, talking and drinking and shaking hands at every bar and tap, friendly with every waggoner, wheelwright, blacksmith, and toll-taker, yet never seeming to lose time, and always mounting to the box again with his watchful, steady face and his business-like "get on, my lad!" when we were changing horses the next time, he came from the stable-yard, with the wet snow encrusted upon him and dropping off him--plashing and crashing through it to his wet knees as he had been doing frequently since we left saint albans--and spoke to me at the carriage side. "keep up your spirits. it's certainly true that she came on here, miss summerson. there's not a doubt of the dress by this time, and the dress has been seen here." "still on foot?" said i. "still on foot. i think the gentleman you mentioned must be the point she's aiming at, and yet i don't like his living down in her own part of the country neither." "i know so little," said i. "there may be some one else nearer here, of whom i never heard." "that's true. but whatever you do, don't you fall a-crying, my dear; and don't you worry yourself no more than you can help. get on, my lad!" the sleet fell all that day unceasingly, a thick mist came on early, and it never rose or lightened for a moment. such roads i had never seen. i sometimes feared we had missed the way and got into the ploughed grounds or the marshes. if i ever thought of the time i had been out, it presented itself as an indefinite period of great duration, and i seemed, in a strange way, never to have been free from the anxiety under which i then laboured. as we advanced, i began to feel misgivings that my companion lost confidence. he was the same as before with all the roadside people, but he looked graver when he sat by himself on the box. i saw his finger uneasily going across and across his mouth during the whole of one long weary stage. i overheard that he began to ask the drivers of coaches and other vehicles coming towards us what passengers they had seen in other coaches and vehicles that were in advance. their replies did not encourage him. he always gave me a reassuring beck of his finger and lift of his eyelid as he got upon the box again, but he seemed perplexed now when he said, "get on, my lad!" at last, when we were changing, he told me that he had lost the track of the dress so long that he began to be surprised. it was nothing, he said, to lose such a track for one while, and to take it up for another while, and so on; but it had disappeared here in an unaccountable manner, and we had not come upon it since. this corroborated the apprehensions i had formed, when he began to look at direction-posts, and to leave the carriage at cross roads for a quarter of an hour at a time while he explored them. but i was not to be down-hearted, he told me, for it was as likely as not that the next stage might set us right again. the next stage, however, ended as that one ended; we had no new clue. there was a spacious inn here, solitary, but a comfortable substantial building, and as we drove in under a large gateway before i knew it, where a landlady and her pretty daughters came to the carriage-door, entreating me to alight and refresh myself while the horses were making ready, i thought it would be uncharitable to refuse. they took me upstairs to a warm room and left me there. it was at the corner of the house, i remember, looking two ways. on one side to a stable-yard open to a by-road, where the ostlers were unharnessing the splashed and tired horses from the muddy carriage, and beyond that to the by-road itself, across which the sign was heavily swinging; on the other side to a wood of dark pine-trees. their branches were encumbered with snow, and it silently dropped off in wet heaps while i stood at the window. night was setting in, and its bleakness was enhanced by the contrast of the pictured fire glowing and gleaming in the window-pane. as i looked among the stems of the trees and followed the discoloured marks in the snow where the thaw was sinking into it and undermining it, i thought of the motherly face brightly set off by daughters that had just now welcomed me and of my mother lying down in such a wood to die. i was frightened when i found them all about me, but i remembered that before i fainted i tried very hard not to do it; and that was some little comfort. they cushioned me up on a large sofa by the fire, and then the comely landlady told me that i must travel no further to-night, but must go to bed. but this put me into such a tremble lest they should detain me there that she soon recalled her words and compromised for a rest of half an hour. a good endearing creature she was. she and her three fair girls, all so busy about me. i was to take hot soup and broiled fowl, while mr. bucket dried himself and dined elsewhere; but i could not do it when a snug round table was presently spread by the fireside, though i was very unwilling to disappoint them. however, i could take some toast and some hot negus, and as i really enjoyed that refreshment, it made some recompense. punctual to the time, at the half-hour's end the carriage came rumbling under the gateway, and they took me down, warmed, refreshed, comforted by kindness, and safe (i assured them) not to faint any more. after i had got in and had taken a grateful leave of them all, the youngest daughter--a blooming girl of nineteen, who was to be the first married, they had told me--got upon the carriage step, reached in, and kissed me. i have never seen her, from that hour, but i think of her to this hour as my friend. the transparent windows with the fire and light, looking so bright and warm from the cold darkness out of doors, were soon gone, and again we were crushing and churning the loose snow. we went on with toil enough, but the dismal roads were not much worse than they had been, and the stage was only nine miles. my companion smoking on the box--i had thought at the last inn of begging him to do so when i saw him standing at a great fire in a comfortable cloud of tobacco--was as vigilant as ever and as quickly down and up again when we came to any human abode or any human creature. he had lighted his little dark lantern, which seemed to be a favourite with him, for we had lamps to the carriage; and every now and then he turned it upon me to see that i was doing well. there was a folding-window to the carriage-head, but i never closed it, for it seemed like shutting out hope. we came to the end of the stage, and still the lost trace was not recovered. i looked at him anxiously when we stopped to change, but i knew by his yet graver face as he stood watching the ostlers that he had heard nothing. almost in an instant afterwards, as i leaned back in my seat, he looked in, with his lighted lantern in his hand, an excited and quite different man. "what is it?" said i, starting. "is she here?" "no, no. don't deceive yourself, my dear. nobody's here. but i've got it!" the crystallized snow was in his eyelashes, in his hair, lying in ridges on his dress. he had to shake it from his face and get his breath before he spoke to me. "now, miss summerson," said he, beating his finger on the apron, "don't you be disappointed at what i'm a-going to do. you know me. i'm inspector bucket, and you can trust me. we've come a long way; never mind. four horses out there for the next stage up! quick!" there was a commotion in the yard, and a man came running out of the stables to know if he meant up or down. "up, i tell you! up! ain't it english? up!" "up?" said i, astonished. "to london! are we going back?" "miss summerson," he answered, "back. straight back as a die. you know me. don't be afraid. i'll follow the other, by g----" "the other?" i repeated. "who?" "you called her jenny, didn't you? i'll follow her. bring those two pair out here for a crown a man. wake up, some of you!" "you will not desert this lady we are in search of; you will not abandon her on such a night and in such a state of mind as i know her to be in!" said i, in an agony, and grasping his hand. "you are right, my dear, i won't. but i'll follow the other. look alive here with them horses. send a man for'ard in the saddle to the next stage, and let him send another for'ard again, and order four on, up, right through. my darling, don't you be afraid!" these orders and the way in which he ran about the yard urging them caused a general excitement that was scarcely less bewildering to me than the sudden change. but in the height of the confusion, a mounted man galloped away to order the relays, and our horses were put to with great speed. "my dear," said mr. bucket, jumping to his seat and looking in again, "--you'll excuse me if i'm too familiar--don't you fret and worry yourself no more than you can help. i say nothing else at present; but you know me, my dear; now, don't you?" i endeavoured to say that i knew he was far more capable than i of deciding what we ought to do, but was he sure that this was right? could i not go forward by myself in search of--i grasped his hand again in my distress and whispered it to him--of my own mother. "my dear," he answered, "i know, i know, and would i put you wrong, do you think? inspector bucket. now you know me, don't you?" what could i say but yes! "then you keep up as good a heart as you can, and you rely upon me for standing by you, no less than by sir leicester dedlock, baronet. now, are you right there?" "all right, sir!" "off she goes, then. and get on, my lads!" we were again upon the melancholy road by which we had come, tearing up the miry sleet and thawing snow as if they were torn up by a waterwheel. chapter lviii a wintry day and night still impassive, as behoves its breeding, the dedlock town house carries itself as usual towards the street of dismal grandeur. there are powdered heads from time to time in the little windows of the hall, looking out at the untaxed powder falling all day from the sky; and in the same conservatory there is peach blossom turning itself exotically to the great hall fire from the nipping weather out of doors. it is given out that my lady has gone down into lincolnshire, but is expected to return presently. rumour, busy overmuch, however, will not go down into lincolnshire. it persists in flitting and chattering about town. it knows that that poor unfortunate man, sir leicester, has been sadly used. it hears, my dear child, all sorts of shocking things. it makes the world of five miles round quite merry. not to know that there is something wrong at the dedlocks' is to augur yourself unknown. one of the peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats is already apprised of all the principal circumstances that will come out before the lords on sir leicester's application for a bill of divorce. at blaze and sparkle's the jewellers and at sheen and gloss's the mercers, it is and will be for several hours the topic of the age, the feature of the century. the patronesses of those establishments, albeit so loftily inscrutable, being as nicely weighed and measured there as any other article of the stock-in-trade, are perfectly understood in this new fashion by the rawest hand behind the counter. "our people, mr. jones," said blaze and sparkle to the hand in question on engaging him, "our people, sir, are sheep--mere sheep. where two or three marked ones go, all the rest follow. keep those two or three in your eye, mr. jones, and you have the flock." so, likewise, sheen and gloss to their jones, in reference to knowing where to have the fashionable people and how to bring what they (sheen and gloss) choose into fashion. on similar unerring principles, mr. sladdery the librarian, and indeed the great farmer of gorgeous sheep, admits this very day, "why yes, sir, there certainly are reports concerning lady dedlock, very current indeed among my high connexion, sir. you see, my high connexion must talk about something, sir; and it's only to get a subject into vogue with one or two ladies i could name to make it go down with the whole. just what i should have done with those ladies, sir, in the case of any novelty you had left to me to bring in, they have done of themselves in this case through knowing lady dedlock and being perhaps a little innocently jealous of her too, sir. you'll find, sir, that this topic will be very popular among my high connexion. if it had been a speculation, sir, it would have brought money. and when i say so, you may trust to my being right, sir, for i have made it my business to study my high connexion and to be able to wind it up like a clock, sir." thus rumour thrives in the capital, and will not go down into lincolnshire. by half-past five, post meridian, horse guards' time, it has even elicited a new remark from the honourable mr. stables, which bids fair to outshine the old one, on which he has so long rested his colloquial reputation. this sparkling sally is to the effect that although he always knew she was the best-groomed woman in the stud, he had no idea she was a bolter. it is immensely received in turf-circles. at feasts and festivals also, in firmaments she has often graced, and among constellations she outshone but yesterday, she is still the prevalent subject. what is it? who is it? when was it? where was it? how was it? she is discussed by her dear friends with all the genteelest slang in vogue, with the last new word, the last new manner, the last new drawl, and the perfection of polite indifference. a remarkable feature of the theme is that it is found to be so inspiring that several people come out upon it who never came out before--positively say things! william buffy carries one of these smartnesses from the place where he dines down to the house, where the whip for his party hands it about with his snuff-box to keep men together who want to be off, with such effect that the speaker (who has had it privately insinuated into his own ear under the corner of his wig) cries, "order at the bar!" three times without making an impression. and not the least amazing circumstance connected with her being vaguely the town talk is that people hovering on the confines of mr. sladdery's high connexion, people who know nothing and ever did know nothing about her, think it essential to their reputation to pretend that she is their topic too, and to retail her at second-hand with the last new word and the last new manner, and the last new drawl, and the last new polite indifference, and all the rest of it, all at second-hand but considered equal to new in inferior systems and to fainter stars. if there be any man of letters, art, or science among these little dealers, how noble in him to support the feeble sisters on such majestic crutches! so goes the wintry day outside the dedlock mansion. how within it? sir leicester, lying in his bed, can speak a little, though with difficulty and indistinctness. he is enjoined to silence and to rest, and they have given him some opiate to lull his pain, for his old enemy is very hard with him. he is never asleep, though sometimes he seems to fall into a dull waking doze. he caused his bedstead to be moved out nearer to the window when he heard it was such inclement weather, and his head to be so adjusted that he could see the driving snow and sleet. he watches it as it falls, throughout the whole wintry day. upon the least noise in the house, which is kept hushed, his hand is at the pencil. the old housekeeper, sitting by him, knows what he would write and whispers, "no, he has not come back yet, sir leicester. it was late last night when he went. he has been but a little time gone yet." he withdraws his hand and falls to looking at the sleet and snow again until they seem, by being long looked at, to fall so thick and fast that he is obliged to close his eyes for a minute on the giddy whirl of white flakes and icy blots. he began to look at them as soon as it was light. the day is not yet far spent when he conceives it to be necessary that her rooms should be prepared for her. it is very cold and wet. let there be good fires. let them know that she is expected. please see to it yourself. he writes to this purpose on his slate, and mrs. rouncewell with a heavy heart obeys. "for i dread, george," the old lady says to her son, who waits below to keep her company when she has a little leisure, "i dread, my dear, that my lady will never more set foot within these walls." "that's a bad presentiment, mother." "nor yet within the walls of chesney wold, my dear." "that's worse. but why, mother?" "when i saw my lady yesterday, george, she looked to me--and i may say at me too--as if the step on the ghost's walk had almost walked her down." "come, come! you alarm yourself with old-story fears, mother." "no i don't, my dear. no i don't. it's going on for sixty year that i have been in this family, and i never had any fears for it before. but it's breaking up, my dear; the great old dedlock family is breaking up." "i hope not, mother." "i am thankful i have lived long enough to be with sir leicester in this illness and trouble, for i know i am not too old nor too useless to be a welcomer sight to him than anybody else in my place would be. but the step on the ghost's walk will walk my lady down, george; it has been many a day behind her, and now it will pass her and go on." "well, mother dear, i say again, i hope not." "ah, so do i, george," the old lady returns, shaking her head and parting her folded hands. "but if my fears come true, and he has to know it, who will tell him!" "are these her rooms?" "these are my lady's rooms, just as she left them." "why, now," says the trooper, glancing round him and speaking in a lower voice, "i begin to understand how you come to think as you do think, mother. rooms get an awful look about them when they are fitted up, like these, for one person you are used to see in them, and that person is away under any shadow, let alone being god knows where." he is not far out. as all partings foreshadow the great final one, so, empty rooms, bereft of a familiar presence, mournfully whisper what your room and what mine must one day be. my lady's state has a hollow look, thus gloomy and abandoned; and in the inner apartment, where mr. bucket last night made his secret perquisition, the traces of her dresses and her ornaments, even the mirrors accustomed to reflect them when they were a portion of herself, have a desolate and vacant air. dark and cold as the wintry day is, it is darker and colder in these deserted chambers than in many a hut that will barely exclude the weather; and though the servants heap fires in the grates and set the couches and the chairs within the warm glass screens that let their ruddy light shoot through to the furthest corners, there is a heavy cloud upon the rooms which no light will dispel. the old housekeeper and her son remain until the preparations are complete, and then she returns upstairs. volumnia has taken mrs. rouncewell's place in the meantime, though pearl necklaces and rouge pots, however calculated to embellish bath, are but indifferent comforts to the invalid under present circumstances. volumnia, not being supposed to know (and indeed not knowing) what is the matter, has found it a ticklish task to offer appropriate observations and consequently has supplied their place with distracting smoothings of the bed-linen, elaborate locomotion on tiptoe, vigilant peeping at her kinsman's eyes, and one exasperating whisper to herself of, "he is asleep." in disproof of which superfluous remark sir leicester has indignantly written on the slate, "i am not." yielding, therefore, the chair at the bedside to the quaint old housekeeper, volumnia sits at a table a little removed, sympathetically sighing. sir leicester watches the sleet and snow and listens for the returning steps that he expects. in the ears of his old servant, looking as if she had stepped out of an old picture-frame to attend a summoned dedlock to another world, the silence is fraught with echoes of her own words, "who will tell him!" he has been under his valet's hands this morning to be made presentable and is as well got up as the circumstances will allow. he is propped with pillows, his grey hair is brushed in its usual manner, his linen is arranged to a nicety, and he is wrapped in a responsible dressing-gown. his eye-glass and his watch are ready to his hand. it is necessary--less to his own dignity now perhaps than for her sake--that he should be seen as little disturbed and as much himself as may be. women will talk, and volumnia, though a dedlock, is no exceptional case. he keeps her here, there is little doubt, to prevent her talking somewhere else. he is very ill, but he makes his present stand against distress of mind and body most courageously. the fair volumnia, being one of those sprightly girls who cannot long continue silent without imminent peril of seizure by the dragon boredom, soon indicates the approach of that monster with a series of undisguisable yawns. finding it impossible to suppress those yawns by any other process than conversation, she compliments mrs. rouncewell on her son, declaring that he positively is one of the finest figures she ever saw and as soldierly a looking person, she should think, as what's his name, her favourite life guardsman--the man she dotes on, the dearest of creatures--who was killed at waterloo. sir leicester hears this tribute with so much surprise and stares about him in such a confused way that mrs. rouncewell feels it necessary to explain. "miss dedlock don't speak of my eldest son, sir leicester, but my youngest. i have found him. he has come home." sir leicester breaks silence with a harsh cry. "george? your son george come home, mrs. rouncewell?" the old housekeeper wipes her eyes. "thank god. yes, sir leicester." does this discovery of some one lost, this return of some one so long gone, come upon him as a strong confirmation of his hopes? does he think, "shall i not, with the aid i have, recall her safely after this, there being fewer hours in her case than there are years in his?" it is of no use entreating him; he is determined to speak now, and he does. in a thick crowd of sounds, but still intelligibly enough to be understood. "why did you not tell me, mrs. rouncewell?" "it happened only yesterday, sir leicester, and i doubted your being well enough to be talked to of such things." besides, the giddy volumnia now remembers with her little scream that nobody was to have known of his being mrs. rouncewell's son and that she was not to have told. but mrs. rouncewell protests, with warmth enough to swell the stomacher, that of course she would have told sir leicester as soon as he got better. "where is your son george, mrs. rouncewell?" asks sir leicester, mrs. rouncewell, not a little alarmed by his disregard of the doctor's injunctions, replies, in london. "where in london?" mrs. rouncewell is constrained to admit that he is in the house. "bring him here to my room. bring him directly." the old lady can do nothing but go in search of him. sir leicester, with such power of movement as he has, arranges himself a little to receive him. when he has done so, he looks out again at the falling sleet and snow and listens again for the returning steps. a quantity of straw has been tumbled down in the street to deaden the noises there, and she might be driven to the door perhaps without his hearing wheels. he is lying thus, apparently forgetful of his newer and minor surprise, when the housekeeper returns, accompanied by her trooper son. mr. george approaches softly to the bedside, makes his bow, squares his chest, and stands, with his face flushed, very heartily ashamed of himself. "good heaven, and it is really george rouncewell!" exclaims sir leicester. "do you remember me, george?" the trooper needs to look at him and to separate this sound from that sound before he knows what he has said, but doing this and being a little helped by his mother, he replies, "i must have a very bad memory, indeed, sir leicester, if i failed to remember you." "when i look at you, george rouncewell," sir leicester observes with difficulty, "i see something of a boy at chesney wold--i remember well--very well." he looks at the trooper until tears come into his eyes, and then he looks at the sleet and snow again. "i ask your pardon, sir leicester," says the trooper, "but would you accept of my arms to raise you up? you would lie easier, sir leicester, if you would allow me to move you." "if you please, george rouncewell; if you will be so good." the trooper takes him in his arms like a child, lightly raises him, and turns him with his face more towards the window. "thank you. you have your mother's gentleness," returns sir leicester, "and your own strength. thank you." he signs to him with his hand not to go away. george quietly remains at the bedside, waiting to be spoken to. "why did you wish for secrecy?" it takes sir leicester some time to ask this. "truly i am not much to boast of, sir leicester, and i--i should still, sir leicester, if you was not so indisposed--which i hope you will not be long--i should still hope for the favour of being allowed to remain unknown in general. that involves explanations not very hard to be guessed at, not very well timed here, and not very creditable to myself. however opinions may differ on a variety of subjects, i should think it would be universally agreed, sir leicester, that i am not much to boast of." "you have been a soldier," observes sir leicester, "and a faithful one." george makes his military bow. "as far as that goes, sir leicester, i have done my duty under discipline, and it was the least i could do." "you find me," says sir leicester, whose eyes are much attracted towards him, "far from well, george rouncewell." "i am very sorry both to hear it and to see it, sir leicester." "i am sure you are. no. in addition to my older malady, i have had a sudden and bad attack. something that deadens," making an endeavour to pass one hand down one side, "and confuses," touching his lips. george, with a look of assent and sympathy, makes another bow. the different times when they were both young men (the trooper much the younger of the two) and looked at one another down at chesney wold arise before them both and soften both. sir leicester, evidently with a great determination to say, in his own manner, something that is on his mind before relapsing into silence, tries to raise himself among his pillows a little more. george, observant of the action, takes him in his arms again and places him as he desires to be. "thank you, george. you are another self to me. you have often carried my spare gun at chesney wold, george. you are familiar to me in these strange circumstances, very familiar." he has put sir leicester's sounder arm over his shoulder in lifting him up, and sir leicester is slow in drawing it away again as he says these words. "i was about to add," he presently goes on, "i was about to add, respecting this attack, that it was unfortunately simultaneous with a slight misunderstanding between my lady and myself. i do not mean that there was any difference between us (for there has been none), but that there was a misunderstanding of certain circumstances important only to ourselves, which deprives me, for a little while, of my lady's society. she has found it necessary to make a journey--i trust will shortly return. volumnia, do i make myself intelligible? the words are not quite under my command in the manner of pronouncing them." volumnia understands him perfectly, and in truth he delivers himself with far greater plainness than could have been supposed possible a minute ago. the effort by which he does so is written in the anxious and labouring expression of his face. nothing but the strength of his purpose enables him to make it. "therefore, volumnia, i desire to say in your presence--and in the presence of my old retainer and friend, mrs. rouncewell, whose truth and fidelity no one can question, and in the presence of her son george, who comes back like a familiar recollection of my youth in the home of my ancestors at chesney wold--in case i should relapse, in case i should not recover, in case i should lose both my speech and the power of writing, though i hope for better things--" the old housekeeper weeping silently; volumnia in the greatest agitation, with the freshest bloom on her cheeks; the trooper with his arms folded and his head a little bent, respectfully attentive. "therefore i desire to say, and to call you all to witness--beginning, volumnia, with yourself, most solemnly--that i am on unaltered terms with lady dedlock. that i assert no cause whatever of complaint against her. that i have ever had the strongest affection for her, and that i retain it undiminished. say this to herself, and to every one. if you ever say less than this, you will be guilty of deliberate falsehood to me." volumnia tremblingly protests that she will observe his injunctions to the letter. "my lady is too high in position, too handsome, too accomplished, too superior in most respects to the best of those by whom she is surrounded, not to have her enemies and traducers, i dare say. let it be known to them, as i make it known to you, that being of sound mind, memory, and understanding, i revoke no disposition i have made in her favour. i abridge nothing i have ever bestowed upon her. i am on unaltered terms with her, and i recall--having the full power to do it if i were so disposed, as you see--no act i have done for her advantage and happiness." his formal array of words might have at any other time, as it has often had, something ludicrous in it, but at this time it is serious and affecting. his noble earnestness, his fidelity, his gallant shielding of her, his generous conquest of his own wrong and his own pride for her sake, are simply honourable, manly, and true. nothing less worthy can be seen through the lustre of such qualities in the commonest mechanic, nothing less worthy can be seen in the best-born gentleman. in such a light both aspire alike, both rise alike, both children of the dust shine equally. overpowered by his exertions, he lays his head back on his pillows and closes his eyes for not more than a minute, when he again resumes his watching of the weather and his attention to the muffled sounds. in the rendering of those little services, and in the manner of their acceptance, the trooper has become installed as necessary to him. nothing has been said, but it is quite understood. he falls a step or two backward to be out of sight and mounts guard a little behind his mother's chair. the day is now beginning to decline. the mist and the sleet into which the snow has all resolved itself are darker, and the blaze begins to tell more vividly upon the room walls and furniture. the gloom augments; the bright gas springs up in the streets; and the pertinacious oil lamps which yet hold their ground there, with their source of life half frozen and half thawed, twinkle gaspingly like fiery fish out of water--as they are. the world, which has been rumbling over the straw and pulling at the bell, "to inquire," begins to go home, begins to dress, to dine, to discuss its dear friend with all the last new modes, as already mentioned. now does sir leicester become worse, restless, uneasy, and in great pain. volumnia, lighting a candle (with a predestined aptitude for doing something objectionable), is bidden to put it out again, for it is not yet dark enough. yet it is very dark too, as dark as it will be all night. by and by she tries again. no! put it out. it is not dark enough yet. his old housekeeper is the first to understand that he is striving to uphold the fiction with himself that it is not growing late. "dear sir leicester, my honoured master," she softly whispers, "i must, for your own good, and my duty, take the freedom of begging and praying that you will not lie here in the lone darkness watching and waiting and dragging through the time. let me draw the curtains, and light the candles, and make things more comfortable about you. the church-clocks will strike the hours just the same, sir leicester, and the night will pass away just the same. my lady will come back, just the same." "i know it, mrs. rouncewell, but i am weak--and she has been so long gone." "not so very long, sir leicester. not twenty-four hours yet." "but that is a long time. oh, it is a long time!" he says it with a groan that wrings her heart. she knows that this is not a period for bringing the rough light upon him; she thinks his tears too sacred to be seen, even by her. therefore she sits in the darkness for a while without a word, then gently begins to move about, now stirring the fire, now standing at the dark window looking out. finally he tells her, with recovered self-command, "as you say, mrs. rouncewell, it is no worse for being confessed. it is getting late, and they are not come. light the room!" when it is lighted and the weather shut out, it is only left to him to listen. but they find that however dejected and ill he is, he brightens when a quiet pretence is made of looking at the fires in her rooms and being sure that everything is ready to receive her. poor pretence as it is, these allusions to her being expected keep up hope within him. midnight comes, and with it the same blank. the carriages in the streets are few, and other late sounds in that neighbourhood there are none, unless a man so very nomadically drunk as to stray into the frigid zone goes brawling and bellowing along the pavement. upon this wintry night it is so still that listening to the intense silence is like looking at intense darkness. if any distant sound be audible in this case, it departs through the gloom like a feeble light in that, and all is heavier than before. the corporation of servants are dismissed to bed (not unwilling to go, for they were up all last night), and only mrs. rouncewell and george keep watch in sir leicester's room. as the night lags tardily on--or rather when it seems to stop altogether, at between two and three o'clock--they find a restless craving on him to know more about the weather, now he cannot see it. hence george, patrolling regularly every half-hour to the rooms so carefully looked after, extends his march to the hall-door, looks about him, and brings back the best report he can make of the worst of nights, the sleet still falling and even the stone footways lying ankle-deep in icy sludge. volumnia, in her room up a retired landing on the staircase--the second turning past the end of the carving and gilding, a cousinly room containing a fearful abortion of a portrait of sir leicester banished for its crimes, and commanding in the day a solemn yard planted with dried-up shrubs like antediluvian specimens of black tea--is a prey to horrors of many kinds. not last nor least among them, possibly, is a horror of what may befall her little income in the event, as she expresses it, "of anything happening" to sir leicester. anything, in this sense, meaning one thing only; and that the last thing that can happen to the consciousness of any baronet in the known world. an effect of these horrors is that volumnia finds she cannot go to bed in her own room or sit by the fire in her own room, but must come forth with her fair head tied up in a profusion of shawl, and her fair form enrobed in drapery, and parade the mansion like a ghost, particularly haunting the rooms, warm and luxurious, prepared for one who still does not return. solitude under such circumstances being not to be thought of, volumnia is attended by her maid, who, impressed from her own bed for that purpose, extremely cold, very sleepy, and generally an injured maid as condemned by circumstances to take office with a cousin, when she had resolved to be maid to nothing less than ten thousand a year, has not a sweet expression of countenance. the periodical visits of the trooper to these rooms, however, in the course of his patrolling is an assurance of protection and company both to mistress and maid, which renders them very acceptable in the small hours of the night. whenever he is heard advancing, they both make some little decorative preparation to receive him; at other times they divide their watches into short scraps of oblivion and dialogues not wholly free from acerbity, as to whether miss dedlock, sitting with her feet upon the fender, was or was not falling into the fire when rescued (to her great displeasure) by her guardian genius the maid. "how is sir leicester now, mr. george?" inquires volumnia, adjusting her cowl over her head. "why, sir leicester is much the same, miss. he is very low and ill, and he even wanders a little sometimes." "has he asked for me?" inquires volumnia tenderly. "why, no, i can't say he has, miss. not within my hearing, that is to say." "this is a truly sad time, mr. george." "it is indeed, miss. hadn't you better go to bed?" "you had a deal better go to bed, miss dedlock," quoth the maid sharply. but volumnia answers no! no! she may be asked for, she may be wanted at a moment's notice. she never should forgive herself "if anything was to happen" and she was not on the spot. she declines to enter on the question, mooted by the maid, how the spot comes to be there, and not in her room (which is nearer to sir leicester's), but staunchly declares that on the spot she will remain. volumnia further makes a merit of not having "closed an eye"--as if she had twenty or thirty--though it is hard to reconcile this statement with her having most indisputably opened two within five minutes. but when it comes to four o'clock, and still the same blank, volumnia's constancy begins to fail her, or rather it begins to strengthen, for she now considers that it is her duty to be ready for the morrow, when much may be expected of her, that, in fact, howsoever anxious to remain upon the spot, it may be required of her, as an act of self-devotion, to desert the spot. so when the trooper reappears with his, "hadn't you better go to bed, miss?" and when the maid protests, more sharply than before, "you had a deal better go to bed, miss dedlock!" she meekly rises and says, "do with me what you think best!" mr. george undoubtedly thinks it best to escort her on his arm to the door of her cousinly chamber, and the maid as undoubtedly thinks it best to hustle her into bed with mighty little ceremony. accordingly, these steps are taken; and now the trooper, in his rounds, has the house to himself. there is no improvement in the weather. from the portico, from the eaves, from the parapet, from every ledge and post and pillar, drips the thawed snow. it has crept, as if for shelter, into the lintels of the great door--under it, into the corners of the windows, into every chink and crevice of retreat, and there wastes and dies. it is falling still; upon the roof, upon the skylight, even through the skylight, and drip, drip, drip, with the regularity of the ghost's walk, on the stone floor below. the trooper, his old recollections awakened by the solitary grandeur of a great house--no novelty to him once at chesney wold--goes up the stairs and through the chief rooms, holding up his light at arm's length. thinking of his varied fortunes within the last few weeks, and of his rustic boyhood, and of the two periods of his life so strangely brought together across the wide intermediate space; thinking of the murdered man whose image is fresh in his mind; thinking of the lady who has disappeared from these very rooms and the tokens of whose recent presence are all here; thinking of the master of the house upstairs and of the foreboding, "who will tell him!" he looks here and looks there, and reflects how he might see something now, which it would tax his boldness to walk up to, lay his hand upon, and prove to be a fancy. but it is all blank, blank as the darkness above and below, while he goes up the great staircase again, blank as the oppressive silence. "all is still in readiness, george rouncewell?" "quite orderly and right, sir leicester." "no word of any kind?" the trooper shakes his head. "no letter that can possibly have been overlooked?" but he knows there is no such hope as that and lays his head down without looking for an answer. very familiar to him, as he said himself some hours ago, george rouncewell lifts him into easier positions through the long remainder of the blank wintry night, and equally familiar with his unexpressed wish, extinguishes the light and undraws the curtains at the first late break of day. the day comes like a phantom. cold, colourless, and vague, it sends a warning streak before it of a deathlike hue, as if it cried out, "look what i am bringing you who watch there! who will tell him!" chapter lix esther's narrative it was three o'clock in the morning when the houses outside london did at last begin to exclude the country and to close us in with streets. we had made our way along roads in a far worse condition than when we had traversed them by daylight, both the fall and the thaw having lasted ever since; but the energy of my companion never slackened. it had only been, as i thought, of less assistance than the horses in getting us on, and it had often aided them. they had stopped exhausted half-way up hills, they had been driven through streams of turbulent water, they had slipped down and become entangled with the harness; but he and his little lantern had been always ready, and when the mishap was set right, i had never heard any variation in his cool, "get on, my lads!" the steadiness and confidence with which he had directed our journey back i could not account for. never wavering, he never even stopped to make an inquiry until we were within a few miles of london. a very few words, here and there, were then enough for him; and thus we came, at between three and four o'clock in the morning, into islington. i will not dwell on the suspense and anxiety with which i reflected all this time that we were leaving my mother farther and farther behind every minute. i think i had some strong hope that he must be right and could not fail to have a satisfactory object in following this woman, but i tormented myself with questioning it and discussing it during the whole journey. what was to ensue when we found her and what could compensate us for this loss of time were questions also that i could not possibly dismiss; my mind was quite tortured by long dwelling on such reflections when we stopped. we stopped in a high-street where there was a coach-stand. my companion paid our two drivers, who were as completely covered with splashes as if they had been dragged along the roads like the carriage itself, and giving them some brief direction where to take it, lifted me out of it and into a hackney-coach he had chosen from the rest. "why, my dear!" he said as he did this. "how wet you are!" i had not been conscious of it. but the melted snow had found its way into the carriage, and i had got out two or three times when a fallen horse was plunging and had to be got up, and the wet had penetrated my dress. i assured him it was no matter, but the driver, who knew him, would not be dissuaded by me from running down the street to his stable, whence he brought an armful of clean dry straw. they shook it out and strewed it well about me, and i found it warm and comfortable. "now, my dear," said mr. bucket, with his head in at the window after i was shut up. "we're a-going to mark this person down. it may take a little time, but you don't mind that. you're pretty sure that i've got a motive. ain't you?" i little thought what it was, little thought in how short a time i should understand it better, but i assured him that i had confidence in him. "so you may have, my dear," he returned. "and i tell you what! if you only repose half as much confidence in me as i repose in you after what i've experienced of you, that'll do. lord! you're no trouble at all. i never see a young woman in any station of society--and i've seen many elevated ones too--conduct herself like you have conducted yourself since you was called out of your bed. you're a pattern, you know, that's what you are," said mr. bucket warmly; "you're a pattern." i told him i was very glad, as indeed i was, to have been no hindrance to him, and that i hoped i should be none now. "my dear," he returned, "when a young lady is as mild as she's game, and as game as she's mild, that's all i ask, and more than i expect. she then becomes a queen, and that's about what you are yourself." with these encouraging words--they really were encouraging to me under those lonely and anxious circumstances--he got upon the box, and we once more drove away. where we drove i neither knew then nor have ever known since, but we appeared to seek out the narrowest and worst streets in london. whenever i saw him directing the driver, i was prepared for our descending into a deeper complication of such streets, and we never failed to do so. sometimes we emerged upon a wider thoroughfare or came to a larger building than the generality, well lighted. then we stopped at offices like those we had visited when we began our journey, and i saw him in consultation with others. sometimes he would get down by an archway or at a street corner and mysteriously show the light of his little lantern. this would attract similar lights from various dark quarters, like so many insects, and a fresh consultation would be held. by degrees we appeared to contract our search within narrower and easier limits. single police-officers on duty could now tell mr. bucket what he wanted to know and point to him where to go. at last we stopped for a rather long conversation between him and one of these men, which i supposed to be satisfactory from his manner of nodding from time to time. when it was finished he came to me looking very busy and very attentive. "now, miss summerson," he said to me, "you won't be alarmed whatever comes off, i know. it's not necessary for me to give you any further caution than to tell you that we have marked this person down and that you may be of use to me before i know it myself. i don't like to ask such a thing, my dear, but would you walk a little way?" of course i got out directly and took his arm. "it ain't so easy to keep your feet," said mr. bucket, "but take time." although i looked about me confusedly and hurriedly as we crossed the street, i thought i knew the place. "are we in holborn?" i asked him. "yes," said mr. bucket. "do you know this turning?" "it looks like chancery lane." "and was christened so, my dear," said mr. bucket. we turned down it, and as we went shuffling through the sleet, i heard the clocks strike half-past five. we passed on in silence and as quickly as we could with such a foot-hold, when some one coming towards us on the narrow pavement, wrapped in a cloak, stopped and stood aside to give me room. in the same moment i heard an exclamation of wonder and my own name from mr. woodcourt. i knew his voice very well. it was so unexpected and so--i don't know what to call it, whether pleasant or painful--to come upon it after my feverish wandering journey, and in the midst of the night, that i could not keep back the tears from my eyes. it was like hearing his voice in a strange country. "my dear miss summerson, that you should be out at this hour, and in such weather!" he had heard from my guardian of my having been called away on some uncommon business and said so to dispense with any explanation. i told him that we had but just left a coach and were going--but then i was obliged to look at my companion. "why, you see, mr. woodcourt"--he had caught the name from me--"we are a-going at present into the next street. inspector bucket." mr. woodcourt, disregarding my remonstrances, had hurriedly taken off his cloak and was putting it about me. "that's a good move, too," said mr. bucket, assisting, "a very good move." "may i go with you?" said mr. woodcourt. i don't know whether to me or to my companion. "why, lord!" exclaimed mr. bucket, taking the answer on himself. "of course you may." it was all said in a moment, and they took me between them, wrapped in the cloak. "i have just left richard," said mr. woodcourt. "i have been sitting with him since ten o'clock last night." "oh, dear me, he is ill!" "no, no, believe me; not ill, but not quite well. he was depressed and faint--you know he gets so worried and so worn sometimes--and ada sent to me of course; and when i came home i found her note and came straight here. well! richard revived so much after a little while, and ada was so happy and so convinced of its being my doing, though god knows i had little enough to do with it, that i remained with him until he had been fast asleep some hours. as fast asleep as she is now, i hope!" his friendly and familiar way of speaking of them, his unaffected devotion to them, the grateful confidence with which i knew he had inspired my darling, and the comfort he was to her; could i separate all this from his promise to me? how thankless i must have been if it had not recalled the words he said to me when he was so moved by the change in my appearance: "i will accept him as a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!" we now turned into another narrow street. "mr. woodcourt," said mr. bucket, who had eyed him closely as we came along, "our business takes us to a law-stationer's here, a certain mr. snagsby's. what, you know him, do you?" he was so quick that he saw it in an instant. "yes, i know a little of him and have called upon him at this place." "indeed, sir?" said mr. bucket. "then you will be so good as to let me leave miss summerson with you for a moment while i go and have half a word with him?" the last police-officer with whom he had conferred was standing silently behind us. i was not aware of it until he struck in on my saying i heard some one crying. "don't be alarmed, miss," he returned. "it's snagsby's servant." "why, you see," said mr. bucket, "the girl's subject to fits, and has 'em bad upon her to-night. a most contrary circumstance it is, for i want certain information out of that girl, and she must be brought to reason somehow." "at all events, they wouldn't be up yet if it wasn't for her, mr. bucket," said the other man. "she's been at it pretty well all night, sir." "well, that's true," he returned. "my light's burnt out. show yours a moment." all this passed in a whisper a door or two from the house in which i could faintly hear crying and moaning. in the little round of light produced for the purpose, mr. bucket went up to the door and knocked. the door was opened after he had knocked twice, and he went in, leaving us standing in the street. "miss summerson," said mr. woodcourt, "if without obtruding myself on your confidence i may remain near you, pray let me do so." "you are truly kind," i answered. "i need wish to keep no secret of my own from you; if i keep any, it is another's." "i quite understand. trust me, i will remain near you only so long as i can fully respect it." "i trust implicitly to you," i said. "i know and deeply feel how sacredly you keep your promise." after a short time the little round of light shone out again, and mr. bucket advanced towards us in it with his earnest face. "please to come in, miss summerson," he said, "and sit down by the fire. mr. woodcourt, from information i have received i understand you are a medical man. would you look to this girl and see if anything can be done to bring her round. she has a letter somewhere that i particularly want. it's not in her box, and i think it must be about her; but she is so twisted and clenched up that she is difficult to handle without hurting." we all three went into the house together; although it was cold and raw, it smelt close too from being up all night. in the passage behind the door stood a scared, sorrowful-looking little man in a grey coat who seemed to have a naturally polite manner and spoke meekly. "downstairs, if you please, mr. bucket," said he. "the lady will excuse the front kitchen; we use it as our workaday sitting-room. the back is guster's bedroom, and in it she's a-carrying on, poor thing, to a frightful extent!" we went downstairs, followed by mr. snagsby, as i soon found the little man to be. in the front kitchen, sitting by the fire, was mrs. snagsby, with very red eyes and a very severe expression of face. "my little woman," said mr. snagsby, entering behind us, "to wave--not to put too fine a point upon it, my dear--hostilities for one single moment in the course of this prolonged night, here is inspector bucket, mr. woodcourt, and a lady." she looked very much astonished, as she had reason for doing, and looked particularly hard at me. "my little woman," said mr. snagsby, sitting down in the remotest corner by the door, as if he were taking a liberty, "it is not unlikely that you may inquire of me why inspector bucket, mr. woodcourt, and a lady call upon us in cook's court, cursitor street, at the present hour. i don't know. i have not the least idea. if i was to be informed, i should despair of understanding, and i'd rather not be told." he appeared so miserable, sitting with his head upon his hand, and i appeared so unwelcome, that i was going to offer an apology when mr. bucket took the matter on himself. "now, mr. snagsby," said he, "the best thing you can do is to go along with mr. woodcourt to look after your guster--" "my guster, mr. bucket!" cried mr. snagsby. "go on, sir, go on. i shall be charged with that next." "and to hold the candle," pursued mr. bucket without correcting himself, "or hold her, or make yourself useful in any way you're asked. which there's not a man alive more ready to do, for you're a man of urbanity and suavity, you know, and you've got the sort of heart that can feel for another. mr. woodcourt, would you be so good as see to her, and if you can get that letter from her, to let me have it as soon as ever you can?" as they went out, mr. bucket made me sit down in a corner by the fire and take off my wet shoes, which he turned up to dry upon the fender, talking all the time. "don't you be at all put out, miss, by the want of a hospitable look from mrs. snagsby there, because she's under a mistake altogether. she'll find that out sooner than will be agreeable to a lady of her generally correct manner of forming her thoughts, because i'm a-going to explain it to her." here, standing on the hearth with his wet hat and shawls in his hand, himself a pile of wet, he turned to mrs. snagsby. "now, the first thing that i say to you, as a married woman possessing what you may call charms, you know--'believe me, if all those endearing,' and cetrer--you're well acquainted with the song, because it's in vain for you to tell me that you and good society are strangers--charms--attractions, mind you, that ought to give you confidence in yourself--is, that you've done it." mrs. snagsby looked rather alarmed, relented a little and faltered, what did mr. bucket mean. "what does mr. bucket mean?" he repeated, and i saw by his face that all the time he talked he was listening for the discovery of the letter, to my own great agitation, for i knew then how important it must be; "i'll tell you what he means, ma'am. go and see othello acted. that's the tragedy for you." mrs. snagsby consciously asked why. "why?" said mr. bucket. "because you'll come to that if you don't look out. why, at the very moment while i speak, i know what your mind's not wholly free from respecting this young lady. but shall i tell you who this young lady is? now, come, you're what i call an intellectual woman--with your soul too large for your body, if you come to that, and chafing it--and you know me, and you recollect where you saw me last, and what was talked of in that circle. don't you? yes! very well. this young lady is that young lady." mrs. snagsby appeared to understand the reference better than i did at the time. "and toughey--him as you call jo--was mixed up in the same business, and no other; and the law-writer that you know of was mixed up in the same business, and no other; and your husband, with no more knowledge of it than your great grandfather, was mixed up (by mr. tulkinghorn, deceased, his best customer) in the same business, and no other; and the whole bileing of people was mixed up in the same business, and no other. and yet a married woman, possessing your attractions, shuts her eyes (and sparklers too), and goes and runs her delicate-formed head against a wall. why, i am ashamed of you! (i expected mr. woodcourt might have got it by this time.)" mrs. snagsby shook her head and put her handkerchief to her eyes. "is that all?" said mr. bucket excitedly. "no. see what happens. another person mixed up in that business and no other, a person in a wretched state, comes here to-night and is seen a-speaking to your maid-servant; and between her and your maid-servant there passes a paper that i would give a hundred pound for, down. what do you do? you hide and you watch 'em, and you pounce upon that maid-servant--knowing what she's subject to and what a little thing will bring 'em on--in that surprising manner and with that severity that, by the lord, she goes off and keeps off, when a life may be hanging upon that girl's words!" he so thoroughly meant what he said now that i involuntarily clasped my hands and felt the room turning away from me. but it stopped. mr. woodcourt came in, put a paper into his hand, and went away again. "now, mrs. snagsby, the only amends you can make," said mr. bucket, rapidly glancing at it, "is to let me speak a word to this young lady in private here. and if you know of any help that you can give to that gentleman in the next kitchen there or can think of any one thing that's likelier than another to bring the girl round, do your swiftest and best!" in an instant she was gone, and he had shut the door. "now my dear, you're steady and quite sure of yourself?" "quite," said i. "whose writing is that?" it was my mother's. a pencil-writing, on a crushed and torn piece of paper, blotted with wet. folded roughly like a letter, and directed to me at my guardian's. "you know the hand," he said, "and if you are firm enough to read it to me, do! but be particular to a word." it had been written in portions, at different times. i read what follows: i came to the cottage with two objects. first, to see the dear one, if i could, once more--but only to see her--not to speak to her or let her know that i was near. the other object, to elude pursuit and to be lost. do not blame the mother for her share. the assistance that she rendered me, she rendered on my strongest assurance that it was for the dear one's good. you remember her dead child. the men's consent i bought, but her help was freely given. "'i came.' that was written," said my companion, "when she rested there. it bears out what i made of it. i was right." the next was written at another time: i have wandered a long distance, and for many hours, and i know that i must soon die. these streets! i have no purpose but to die. when i left, i had a worse, but i am saved from adding that guilt to the rest. cold, wet, and fatigue are sufficient causes for my being found dead, but i shall die of others, though i suffer from these. it was right that all that had sustained me should give way at once and that i should die of terror and my conscience. "take courage," said mr. bucket. "there's only a few words more." those, too, were written at another time. to all appearance, almost in the dark: i have done all i could do to be lost. i shall be soon forgotten so, and shall disgrace him least. i have nothing about me by which i can be recognized. this paper i part with now. the place where i shall lie down, if i can get so far, has been often in my mind. farewell. forgive. mr. bucket, supporting me with his arm, lowered me gently into my chair. "cheer up! don't think me hard with you, my dear, but as soon as ever you feel equal to it, get your shoes on and be ready." i did as he required, but i was left there a long time, praying for my unhappy mother. they were all occupied with the poor girl, and i heard mr. woodcourt directing them and speaking to her often. at length he came in with mr. bucket and said that as it was important to address her gently, he thought it best that i should ask her for whatever information we desired to obtain. there was no doubt that she could now reply to questions if she were soothed and not alarmed. the questions, mr. bucket said, were how she came by the letter, what passed between her and the person who gave her the letter, and where the person went. holding my mind as steadily as i could to these points, i went into the next room with them. mr. woodcourt would have remained outside, but at my solicitation went in with us. the poor girl was sitting on the floor where they had laid her down. they stood around her, though at a little distance, that she might have air. she was not pretty and looked weak and poor, but she had a plaintive and a good face, though it was still a little wild. i kneeled on the ground beside her and put her poor head upon my shoulder, whereupon she drew her arm round my neck and burst into tears. "my poor girl," said i, laying my face against her forehead, for indeed i was crying too, and trembling, "it seems cruel to trouble you now, but more depends on our knowing something about this letter than i could tell you in an hour." she began piteously declaring that she didn't mean any harm, she didn't mean any harm, mrs. snagsby! "we are all sure of that," said i. "but pray tell me how you got it." "yes, dear lady, i will, and tell you true. i'll tell true, indeed, mrs. snagsby." "i am sure of that," said i. "and how was it?" "i had been out on an errand, dear lady--long after it was dark--quite late; and when i came home, i found a common-looking person, all wet and muddy, looking up at our house. when she saw me coming in at the door, she called me back and said did i live here. and i said yes, and she said she knew only one or two places about here, but had lost her way and couldn't find them. oh, what shall i do, what shall i do! they won't believe me! she didn't say any harm to me, and i didn't say any harm to her, indeed, mrs. snagsby!" it was necessary for her mistress to comfort her--which she did, i must say, with a good deal of contrition--before she could be got beyond this. "she could not find those places," said i. "no!" cried the girl, shaking her head. "no! couldn't find them. and she was so faint, and lame, and miserable, oh so wretched, that if you had seen her, mr. snagsby, you'd have given her half a crown, i know!" "well, guster, my girl," said he, at first not knowing what to say. "i hope i should." "and yet she was so well spoken," said the girl, looking at me with wide open eyes, "that it made a person's heart bleed. and so she said to me, did i know the way to the burying ground? and i asked her which burying ground. and she said, the poor burying ground. and so i told her i had been a poor child myself, and it was according to parishes. but she said she meant a poor burying ground not very far from here, where there was an archway, and a step, and an iron gate." as i watched her face and soothed her to go on, i saw that mr. bucket received this with a look which i could not separate from one of alarm. "oh, dear, dear!" cried the girl, pressing her hair back with her hands. "what shall i do, what shall i do! she meant the burying ground where the man was buried that took the sleeping-stuff--that you came home and told us of, mr. snagsby--that frightened me so, mrs. snagsby. oh, i am frightened again. hold me!" "you are so much better now," sald i. "pray, pray tell me more." "yes i will, yes i will! but don't be angry with me, that's a dear lady, because i have been so ill." angry with her, poor soul! "there! now i will, now i will. so she said, could i tell her how to find it, and i said yes, and i told her; and she looked at me with eyes like almost as if she was blind, and herself all waving back. and so she took out the letter, and showed it me, and said if she was to put that in the post-office, it would be rubbed out and not minded and never sent; and would i take it from her, and send it, and the messenger would be paid at the house. and so i said yes, if it was no harm, and she said no--no harm. and so i took it from her, and she said she had nothing to give me, and i said i was poor myself and consequently wanted nothing. and so she said god bless you, and went." "and did she go--" "yes," cried the girl, anticipating the inquiry. "yes! she went the way i had shown her. then i came in, and mrs. snagsby came behind me from somewhere and laid hold of me, and i was frightened." mr. woodcourt took her kindly from me. mr. bucket wrapped me up, and immediately we were in the street. mr. woodcourt hesitated, but i said, "don't leave me now!" and mr. bucket added, "you'll be better with us, we may want you; don't lose time!" i have the most confused impressions of that walk. i recollect that it was neither night nor day, that morning was dawning but the street-lamps were not yet put out, that the sleet was still falling and that all the ways were deep with it. i recollect a few chilled people passing in the streets. i recollect the wet house-tops, the clogged and bursting gutters and water-spouts, the mounds of blackened ice and snow over which we passed, the narrowness of the courts by which we went. at the same time i remember that the poor girl seemed to be yet telling her story audibly and plainly in my hearing, that i could feel her resting on my arm, that the stained house-fronts put on human shapes and looked at me, that great water-gates seemed to be opening and closing in my head or in the air, and that the unreal things were more substantial than the real. at last we stood under a dark and miserable covered way, where one lamp was burning over an iron gate and where the morning faintly struggled in. the gate was closed. beyond it was a burial ground--a dreadful spot in which the night was very slowly stirring, but where i could dimly see heaps of dishonoured graves and stones, hemmed in by filthy houses with a few dull lights in their windows and on whose walls a thick humidity broke out like a disease. on the step at the gate, drenched in the fearful wet of such a place, which oozed and splashed down everywhere, i saw, with a cry of pity and horror, a woman lying--jenny, the mother of the dead child. i ran forward, but they stopped me, and mr. woodcourt entreated me with the greatest earnestness, even with tears, before i went up to the figure to listen for an instant to what mr. bucket said. i did so, as i thought. i did so, as i am sure. "miss summerson, you'll understand me, if you think a moment. they changed clothes at the cottage." they changed clothes at the cottage. i could repeat the words in my mind, and i knew what they meant of themselves, but i attached no meaning to them in any other connexion. "and one returned," said mr. bucket, "and one went on. and the one that went on only went on a certain way agreed upon to deceive and then turned across country and went home. think a moment!" i could repeat this in my mind too, but i had not the least idea what it meant. i saw before me, lying on the step, the mother of the dead child. she lay there with one arm creeping round a bar of the iron gate and seeming to embrace it. she lay there, who had so lately spoken to my mother. she lay there, a distressed, unsheltered, senseless creature. she who had brought my mother's letter, who could give me the only clue to where my mother was; she, who was to guide us to rescue and save her whom we had sought so far, who had come to this condition by some means connected with my mother that i could not follow, and might be passing beyond our reach and help at that moment; she lay there, and they stopped me! i saw but did not comprehend the solemn and compassionate look in mr. woodcourt's face. i saw but did not comprehend his touching the other on the breast to keep him back. i saw him stand uncovered in the bitter air, with a reverence for something. but my understanding for all this was gone. i even heard it said between them, "shall she go?" "she had better go. her hands should be the first to touch her. they have a higher right than ours." i passed on to the gate and stooped down. i lifted the heavy head, put the long dank hair aside, and turned the face. and it was my mother, cold and dead. chapter lx perspective i proceed to other passages of my narrative. from the goodness of all about me i derived such consolation as i can never think of unmoved. i have already said so much of myself, and so much still remains, that i will not dwell upon my sorrow. i had an illness, but it was not a long one; and i would avoid even this mention of it if i could quite keep down the recollection of their sympathy. i proceed to other passages of my narrative. during the time of my illness, we were still in london, where mrs. woodcourt had come, on my guardian's invitation, to stay with us. when my guardian thought me well and cheerful enough to talk with him in our old way--though i could have done that sooner if he would have believed me--i resumed my work and my chair beside his. he had appointed the time himself, and we were alone. "dame trot," said he, receiving me with a kiss, "welcome to the growlery again, my dear. i have a scheme to develop, little woman. i propose to remain here, perhaps for six months, perhaps for a longer time--as it may be. quite to settle here for a while, in short." "and in the meanwhile leave bleak house?" said i. "aye, my dear? bleak house," he returned, "must learn to take care of itself." i thought his tone sounded sorrowful, but looking at him, i saw his kind face lighted up by its pleasantest smile. "bleak house," he repeated--and his tone did not sound sorrowful, i found--"must learn to take care of itself. it is a long way from ada, my dear, and ada stands much in need of you." "it's like you, guardian," said i, "to have been taking that into consideration for a happy surprise to both of us." "not so disinterested either, my dear, if you mean to extol me for that virtue, since if you were generally on the road, you could be seldom with me. and besides, i wish to hear as much and as often of ada as i can in this condition of estrangement from poor rick. not of her alone, but of him too, poor fellow." "have you seen mr. woodcourt, this morning, guardian?" "i see mr. woodcourt every morning, dame durden." "does he still say the same of richard?" "just the same. he knows of no direct bodily illness that he has; on the contrary, he believes that he has none. yet he is not easy about him; who can be?" my dear girl had been to see us lately every day, some times twice in a day. but we had foreseen, all along, that this would only last until i was quite myself. we knew full well that her fervent heart was as full of affection and gratitude towards her cousin john as it had ever been, and we acquitted richard of laying any injunctions upon her to stay away; but we knew on the other hand that she felt it a part of her duty to him to be sparing of her visits at our house. my guardian's delicacy had soon perceived this and had tried to convey to her that he thought she was right. "dear, unfortunate, mistaken richard," said i. "when will he awake from his delusion!" "he is not in the way to do so now, my dear," replied my guardian. "the more he suffers, the more averse he will be to me, having made me the principal representative of the great occasion of his suffering." i could not help adding, "so unreasonably!" "ah, dame trot, dame trot," returned my guardian, "what shall we find reasonable in jarndyce and jarndyce! unreason and injustice at the top, unreason and injustice at the heart and at the bottom, unreason and injustice from beginning to end--if it ever has an end--how should poor rick, always hovering near it, pluck reason out of it? he no more gathers grapes from thorns or figs from thistles than older men did in old times." his gentleness and consideration for richard whenever we spoke of him touched me so that i was always silent on this subject very soon. "i suppose the lord chancellor, and the vice chancellors, and the whole chancery battery of great guns would be infinitely astonished by such unreason and injustice in one of their suitors," pursued my guardian. "when those learned gentlemen begin to raise moss-roses from the powder they sow in their wigs, i shall begin to be astonished too!" he checked himself in glancing towards the window to look where the wind was and leaned on the back of my chair instead. "well, well, little woman! to go on, my dear. this rock we must leave to time, chance, and hopeful circumstance. we must not shipwreck ada upon it. she cannot afford, and he cannot afford, the remotest chance of another separation from a friend. therefore i have particularly begged of woodcourt, and i now particularly beg of you, my dear, not to move this subject with rick. let it rest. next week, next month, next year, sooner or later, he will see me with clearer eyes. i can wait." but i had already discussed it with him, i confessed; and so, i thought, had mr. woodcourt. "so he tells me," returned my guardian. "very good. he has made his protest, and dame durden has made hers, and there is nothing more to be said about it. now i come to mrs. woodcourt. how do you like her, my dear?" in answer to this question, which was oddly abrupt, i said i liked her very much and thought she was more agreeable than she used to be. "i think so too," said my guardian. "less pedigree? not so much of morgan ap--what's his name?" that was what i meant, i acknowledged, though he was a very harmless person, even when we had had more of him. "still, upon the whole, he is as well in his native mountains," said my guardian. "i agree with you. then, little woman, can i do better for a time than retain mrs. woodcourt here?" no. and yet-- my guardian looked at me, waiting for what i had to say. i had nothing to say. at least i had nothing in my mind that i could say. i had an undefined impression that it might have been better if we had had some other inmate, but i could hardly have explained why even to myself. or, if to myself, certainly not to anybody else. "you see," said my guardian, "our neighbourhood is in woodcourt's way, and he can come here to see her as often as he likes, which is agreeable to them both; and she is familiar to us and fond of you." yes. that was undeniable. i had nothing to say against it. i could not have suggested a better arrangement, but i was not quite easy in my mind. esther, esther, why not? esther, think! "it is a very good plan indeed, dear guardian, and we could not do better." "sure, little woman?" quite sure. i had had a moment's time to think, since i had urged that duty on myself, and i was quite sure. "good," said my guardian. "it shall be done. carried unanimously." "carried unanimously," i repeated, going on with my work. it was a cover for his book-table that i happened to be ornamenting. it had been laid by on the night preceding my sad journey and never resumed. i showed it to him now, and he admired it highly. after i had explained the pattern to him and all the great effects that were to come out by and by, i thought i would go back to our last theme. "you said, dear guardian, when we spoke of mr. woodcourt before ada left us, that you thought he would give a long trial to another country. have you been advising him since?" "yes, little woman, pretty often." "has he decided to do so?" "i rather think not." "some other prospect has opened to him, perhaps?" said i. "why--yes--perhaps," returned my guardian, beginning his answer in a very deliberate manner. "about half a year hence or so, there is a medical attendant for the poor to be appointed at a certain place in yorkshire. it is a thriving place, pleasantly situated--streams and streets, town and country, mill and moor--and seems to present an opening for such a man. i mean a man whose hopes and aims may sometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, i dare say) above the ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough after all if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good service leading to no other. all generous spirits are ambitious, i suppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road, instead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind i care for. it is woodcourt's kind." "and will he get this appointment?" i asked. "why, little woman," returned my guardian, smiling, "not being an oracle, i cannot confidently say, but i think so. his reputation stands very high; there were people from that part of the country in the shipwreck; and strange to say, i believe the best man has the best chance. you must not suppose it to be a fine endowment. it is a very, very commonplace affair, my dear, an appointment to a great amount of work and a small amount of pay; but better things will gather about it, it may be fairly hoped." "the poor of that place will have reason to bless the choice if it falls on mr. woodcourt, guardian." "you are right, little woman; that i am sure they will." we said no more about it, nor did he say a word about the future of bleak house. but it was the first time i had taken my seat at his side in my mourning dress, and that accounted for it, i considered. i now began to visit my dear girl every day in the dull dark corner where she lived. the morning was my usual time, but whenever i found i had an hour or so to spare, i put on my bonnet and bustled off to chancery lane. they were both so glad to see me at all hours, and used to brighten up so when they heard me opening the door and coming in (being quite at home, i never knocked), that i had no fear of becoming troublesome just yet. on these occasions i frequently found richard absent. at other times he would be writing or reading papers in the cause at that table of his, so covered with papers, which was never disturbed. sometimes i would come upon him lingering at the door of mr. vholes's office. sometimes i would meet him in the neighbourhood lounging about and biting his nails. i often met him wandering in lincoln's inn, near the place where i had first seen him, oh how different, how different! that the money ada brought him was melting away with the candles i used to see burning after dark in mr. vholes's office i knew very well. it was not a large amount in the beginning, he had married in debt, and i could not fail to understand, by this time, what was meant by mr. vholes's shoulder being at the wheel--as i still heard it was. my dear made the best of housekeepers and tried hard to save, but i knew that they were getting poorer and poorer every day. she shone in the miserable corner like a beautiful star. she adorned and graced it so that it became another place. paler than she had been at home, and a little quieter than i had thought natural when she was yet so cheerful and hopeful, her face was so unshadowed that i half believed she was blinded by her love for richard to his ruinous career. i went one day to dine with them while i was under this impression. as i turned into symond's inn, i met little miss flite coming out. she had been to make a stately call upon the wards in jarndyce, as she still called them, and had derived the highest gratification from that ceremony. ada had already told me that she called every monday at five o'clock, with one little extra white bow in her bonnet, which never appeared there at any other time, and with her largest reticule of documents on her arm. "my dear!" she began. "so delighted! how do you do! so glad to see you. and you are going to visit our interesting jarndyce wards? to be sure! our beauty is at home, my dear, and will be charmed to see you." "then richard is not come in yet?" said i. "i am glad of that, for i was afraid of being a little late." "no, he is not come in," returned miss flite. "he has had a long day in court. i left him there with vholes. you don't like vholes, i hope? don't like vholes. dan-gerous man!" "i am afraid you see richard oftener than ever now," said i. "my dearest," returned miss flite, "daily and hourly. you know what i told you of the attraction on the chancellor's table? my dear, next to myself he is the most constant suitor in court. he begins quite to amuse our little party. ve-ry friendly little party, are we not?" it was miserable to hear this from her poor mad lips, though it was no surprise. "in short, my valued friend," pursued miss flite, advancing her lips to my ear with an air of equal patronage and mystery, "i must tell you a secret. i have made him my executor. nominated, constituted, and appointed him. in my will. ye-es." "indeed?" said i. "ye-es," repeated miss flite in her most genteel accents, "my executor, administrator, and assign. (our chancery phrases, my love.) i have reflected that if i should wear out, he will be able to watch that judgment. being so very regular in his attendance." it made me sigh to think of him. "i did at one time mean," said miss flite, echoing the sigh, "to nominate, constitute, and appoint poor gridley. also very regular, my charming girl. i assure you, most exemplary! but he wore out, poor man, so i have appointed his successor. don't mention it. this is in confidence." she carefully opened her reticule a little way and showed me a folded piece of paper inside as the appointment of which she spoke. "another secret, my dear. i have added to my collection of birds." "really, miss flite?" said i, knowing how it pleased her to have her confidence received with an appearance of interest. she nodded several times, and her face became overcast and gloomy. "two more. i call them the wards in jarndyce. they are caged up with all the others. with hope, joy, youth, peace, rest, life, dust, ashes, waste, want, ruin, despair, madness, death, cunning, folly, words, wigs, rags, sheepskin, plunder, precedent, jargon, gammon, and spinach!" the poor soul kissed me with the most troubled look i had ever seen in her and went her way. her manner of running over the names of her birds, as if she were afraid of hearing them even from her own lips, quite chilled me. this was not a cheering preparation for my visit, and i could have dispensed with the company of mr. vholes, when richard (who arrived within a minute or two after me) brought him to share our dinner. although it was a very plain one, ada and richard were for some minutes both out of the room together helping to get ready what we were to eat and drink. mr. vholes took that opportunity of holding a little conversation in a low voice with me. he came to the window where i was sitting and began upon symond's inn. "a dull place, miss summerson, for a life that is not an official one," said mr. vholes, smearing the glass with his black glove to make it clearer for me. "there is not much to see here," said i. "nor to hear, miss," returned mr. vholes. "a little music does occasionally stray in, but we are not musical in the law and soon eject it. i hope mr. jarndyce is as well as his friends could wish him?" i thanked mr. vholes and said he was quite well. "i have not the pleasure to be admitted among the number of his friends myself," said mr. vholes, "and i am aware that the gentlemen of our profession are sometimes regarded in such quarters with an unfavourable eye. our plain course, however, under good report and evil report, and all kinds of prejudice (we are the victims of prejudice), is to have everything openly carried on. how do you find mr. c. looking, miss summerson?" "he looks very ill. dreadfully anxious." "just so," said mr. vholes. he stood behind me with his long black figure reaching nearly to the ceiling of those low rooms, feeling the pimples on his face as if they were ornaments and speaking inwardly and evenly as though there were not a human passion or emotion in his nature. "mr. woodcourt is in attendance upon mr. c., i believe?" he resumed. "mr. woodcourt is his disinterested friend," i answered. "but i mean in professional attendance, medical attendance." "that can do little for an unhappy mind," said i. "just so," said mr. vholes. so slow, so eager, so bloodless and gaunt, i felt as if richard were wasting away beneath the eyes of this adviser and there were something of the vampire in him. "miss summerson," said mr. vholes, very slowly rubbing his gloved hands, as if, to his cold sense of touch, they were much the same in black kid or out of it, "this was an ill-advised marriage of mr. c.'s." i begged he would excuse me from discussing it. they had been engaged when they were both very young, i told him (a little indignantly) and when the prospect before them was much fairer and brighter. when richard had not yielded himself to the unhappy influence which now darkened his life. "just so," assented mr. vholes again. "still, with a view to everything being openly carried on, i will, with your permission, miss summerson, observe to you that i consider this a very ill-advised marriage indeed. i owe the opinion not only to mr. c.'s connexions, against whom i should naturally wish to protect myself, but also to my own reputation--dear to myself as a professional man aiming to keep respectable; dear to my three girls at home, for whom i am striving to realize some little independence; dear, i will even say, to my aged father, whom it is my privilege to support." "it would become a very different marriage, a much happier and better marriage, another marriage altogether, mr. vholes," said i, "if richard were persuaded to turn his back on the fatal pursuit in which you are engaged with him." mr. vholes, with a noiseless cough--or rather gasp--into one of his black gloves, inclined his head as if he did not wholly dispute even that. "miss summerson," he said, "it may be so; and i freely admit that the young lady who has taken mr. c.'s name upon herself in so ill-advised a manner--you will i am sure not quarrel with me for throwing out that remark again, as a duty i owe to mr. c.'s connexions--is a highly genteel young lady. business has prevented me from mixing much with general society in any but a professional character; still i trust i am competent to perceive that she is a highly genteel young lady. as to beauty, i am not a judge of that myself, and i never did give much attention to it from a boy, but i dare say the young lady is equally eligible in that point of view. she is considered so (i have heard) among the clerks in the inn, and it is a point more in their way than in mine. in reference to mr. c.'s pursuit of his interests--" "oh! his interests, mr. vholes!" "pardon me," returned mr. vholes, going on in exactly the same inward and dispassionate manner. "mr. c. takes certain interests under certain wills disputed in the suit. it is a term we use. in reference to mr. c,'s pursuit of his interests, i mentioned to you, miss summerson, the first time i had the pleasure of seeing you, in my desire that everything should be openly carried on--i used those words, for i happened afterwards to note them in my diary, which is producible at any time--i mentioned to you that mr. c. had laid down the principle of watching his own interests, and that when a client of mine laid down a principle which was not of an immoral (that is to say, unlawful) nature, it devolved upon me to carry it out. i have carried it out; i do carry it out. but i will not smooth things over to any connexion of mr. c.'s on any account. as open as i was to mr. jarndyce, i am to you. i regard it in the light of a professional duty to be so, though it can be charged to no one. i openly say, unpalatable as it may be, that i consider mr. c.'s affairs in a very bad way, that i consider mr. c. himself in a very bad way, and that i regard this as an exceedingly ill-advised marriage. am i here, sir? yes, i thank you; i am here, mr. c., and enjoying the pleasure of some agreeable conversation with miss summerson, for which i have to thank you very much, sir!" he broke off thus in answer to richard, who addressed him as he came into the room. by this time i too well understood mr. vholes's scrupulous way of saving himself and his respectability not to feel that our worst fears did but keep pace with his client's progress. we sat down to dinner, and i had an opportunity of observing richard, anxiously. i was not disturbed by mr. vholes (who took off his gloves to dine), though he sat opposite to me at the small table, for i doubt if, looking up at all, he once removed his eyes from his host's face. i found richard thin and languid, slovenly in his dress, abstracted in his manner, forcing his spirits now and then, and at other intervals relapsing into a dull thoughtfulness. about his large bright eyes that used to be so merry there was a wanness and a restlessness that changed them altogether. i cannot use the expression that he looked old. there is a ruin of youth which is not like age, and into such a ruin richard's youth and youthful beauty had all fallen away. he ate little and seemed indifferent what it was, showed himself to be much more impatient than he used to be, and was quick even with ada. i thought at first that his old light-hearted manner was all gone, but it shone out of him sometimes as i had occasionally known little momentary glimpses of my own old face to look out upon me from the glass. his laugh had not quite left him either, but it was like the echo of a joyful sound, and that is always sorrowful. yet he was as glad as ever, in his old affectionate way, to have me there, and we talked of the old times pleasantly. these did not appear to be interesting to mr. vholes, though he occasionally made a gasp which i believe was his smile. he rose shortly after dinner and said that with the permission of the ladies he would retire to his office. "always devoted to business, vholes!" cried richard. "yes, mr. c.," he returned, "the interests of clients are never to be neglected, sir. they are paramount in the thoughts of a professional man like myself, who wishes to preserve a good name among his fellow-practitioners and society at large. my denying myself the pleasure of the present agreeable conversation may not be wholly irrespective of your own interests, mr. c." richard expressed himself quite sure of that and lighted mr. vholes out. on his return he told us, more than once, that vholes was a good fellow, a safe fellow, a man who did what he pretended to do, a very good fellow indeed! he was so defiant about it that it struck me he had begun to doubt mr. vholes. then he threw himself on the sofa, tired out; and ada and i put things to rights, for they had no other servant than the woman who attended to the chambers. my dear girl had a cottage piano there and quietly sat down to sing some of richard's favourites, the lamp being first removed into the next room, as he complained of its hurting his eyes. i sat between them, at my dear girl's side, and felt very melancholy listening to her sweet voice. i think richard did too; i think he darkened the room for that reason. she had been singing some time, rising between whiles to bend over him and speak to him, when mr. woodcourt came in. then he sat down by richard and half playfully, half earnestly, quite naturally and easily, found out how he felt and where he had been all day. presently he proposed to accompany him in a short walk on one of the bridges, as it was a moonlight airy night; and richard readily consenting, they went out together. they left my dear girl still sitting at the piano and me still sitting beside her. when they were gone out, i drew my arm round her waist. she put her left hand in mine (i was sitting on that side), but kept her right upon the keys, going over and over them without striking any note. "esther, my dearest," she said, breaking silence, "richard is never so well and i am never so easy about him as when he is with allan woodcourt. we have to thank you for that." i pointed out to my darling how this could scarcely be, because mr. woodcourt had come to her cousin john's house and had known us all there, and because he had always liked richard, and richard had always liked him, and--and so forth. "all true," said ada, "but that he is such a devoted friend to us we owe to you." i thought it best to let my dear girl have her way and to say no more about it. so i said as much. i said it lightly, because i felt her trembling. "esther, my dearest, i want to be a good wife, a very, very good wife indeed. you shall teach me." i teach! i said no more, for i noticed the hand that was fluttering over the keys, and i knew that it was not i who ought to speak, that it was she who had something to say to me. "when i married richard i was not insensible to what was before him. i had been perfectly happy for a long time with you, and i had never known any trouble or anxiety, so loved and cared for, but i understood the danger he was in, dear esther." "i know, i know, my darling." "when we were married i had some little hope that i might be able to convince him of his mistake, that he might come to regard it in a new way as my husband and not pursue it all the more desperately for my sake--as he does. but if i had not had that hope, i would have married him just the same, esther. just the same!" in the momentary firmness of the hand that was never still--a firmness inspired by the utterance of these last words, and dying away with them--i saw the confirmation of her earnest tones. "you are not to think, my dearest esther, that i fail to see what you see and fear what you fear. no one can understand him better than i do. the greatest wisdom that ever lived in the world could scarcely know richard better than my love does." she spoke so modestly and softly and her trembling hand expressed such agitation as it moved to and fro upon the silent notes! my dear, dear girl! "i see him at his worst every day. i watch him in his sleep. i know every change of his face. but when i married richard i was quite determined, esther, if heaven would help me, never to show him that i grieved for what he did and so to make him more unhappy. i want him, when he comes home, to find no trouble in my face. i want him, when he looks at me, to see what he loved in me. i married him to do this, and this supports me." i felt her trembling more. i waited for what was yet to come, and i now thought i began to know what it was. "and something else supports me, esther." she stopped a minute. stopped speaking only; her hand was still in motion. "i look forward a little while, and i don't know what great aid may come to me. when richard turns his eyes upon me then, there may be something lying on my breast more eloquent than i have been, with greater power than mine to show him his true course and win him back." her hand stopped now. she clasped me in her arms, and i clasped her in mine. "if that little creature should fail too, esther, i still look forward. i look forward a long while, through years and years, and think that then, when i am growing old, or when i am dead perhaps, a beautiful woman, his daughter, happily married, may be proud of him and a blessing to him. or that a generous brave man, as handsome as he used to be, as hopeful, and far more happy, may walk in the sunshine with him, honouring his grey head and saying to himself, 'i thank god this is my father! ruined by a fatal inheritance, and restored through me!'" oh, my sweet girl, what a heart was that which beat so fast against me! "these hopes uphold me, my dear esther, and i know they will. though sometimes even they depart from me before a dread that arises when i look at richard." i tried to cheer my darling, and asked her what it was. sobbing and weeping, she replied, "that he may not live to see his child." chapter lxi a discovery the days when i frequented that miserable corner which my dear girl brightened can never fade in my remembrance. i never see it, and i never wish to see it now; i have been there only once since, but in my memory there is a mournful glory shining on the place which will shine for ever. not a day passed without my going there, of course. at first i found mr. skimpole there, on two or three occasions, idly playing the piano and talking in his usual vivacious strain. now, besides my very much mistrusting the probability of his being there without making richard poorer, i felt as if there were something in his careless gaiety too inconsistent with what i knew of the depths of ada's life. i clearly perceived, too, that ada shared my feelings. i therefore resolved, after much thinking of it, to make a private visit to mr. skimpole and try delicately to explain myself. my dear girl was the great consideration that made me bold. i set off one morning, accompanied by charley, for somers town. as i approached the house, i was strongly inclined to turn back, for i felt what a desperate attempt it was to make an impression on mr. skimpole and how extremely likely it was that he would signally defeat me. however, i thought that being there, i would go through with it. i knocked with a trembling hand at mr. skimpole's door--literally with a hand, for the knocker was gone--and after a long parley gained admission from an irishwoman, who was in the area when i knocked, breaking up the lid of a water-butt with a poker to light the fire with. mr. skimpole, lying on the sofa in his room, playing the flute a little, was enchanted to see me. now, who should receive me, he asked. who would i prefer for mistress of the ceremonies? would i have his comedy daughter, his beauty daughter, or his sentiment daughter? or would i have all the daughters at once in a perfect nosegay? i replied, half defeated already, that i wished to speak to himself only if he would give me leave. "my dear miss summerson, most joyfully! of course," he said, bringing his chair nearer mine and breaking into his fascinating smile, "of course it's not business. then it's pleasure!" i said it certainly was not business that i came upon, but it was not quite a pleasant matter. "then, my dear miss summerson," said he with the frankest gaiety, "don't allude to it. why should you allude to anything that is not a pleasant matter? i never do. and you are a much pleasanter creature, in every point of view, than i. you are perfectly pleasant; i am imperfectly pleasant; then, if i never allude to an unpleasant matter, how much less should you! so that's disposed of, and we will talk of something else." although i was embarrassed, i took courage to intimate that i still wished to pursue the subject. "i should think it a mistake," said mr. skimpole with his airy laugh, "if i thought miss summerson capable of making one. but i don't!" "mr. skimpole," said i, raising my eyes to his, "i have so often heard you say that you are unacquainted with the common affairs of life--" "meaning our three banking-house friends, l, s, and who's the junior partner? d?" said mr. skimpole, brightly. "not an idea of them!" "--that perhaps," i went on, "you will excuse my boldness on that account. i think you ought most seriously to know that richard is poorer than he was." "dear me!" said mr. skimpole. "so am i, they tell me." "and in very embarrassed circumstances." "parallel case, exactly!" said mr. skimpole with a delighted countenance. "this at present naturally causes ada much secret anxiety, and as i think she is less anxious when no claims are made upon her by visitors, and as richard has one uneasiness always heavy on his mind, it has occurred to me to take the liberty of saying that--if you would--not--" i was coming to the point with great difficulty when he took me by both hands and with a radiant face and in the liveliest way anticipated it. "not go there? certainly not, my dear miss summerson, most assuredly not. why should i go there? when i go anywhere, i go for pleasure. i don't go anywhere for pain, because i was made for pleasure. pain comes to me when it wants me. now, i have had very little pleasure at our dear richard's lately, and your practical sagacity demonstrates why. our young friends, losing the youthful poetry which was once so captivating in them, begin to think, 'this is a man who wants pounds.' so i am; i always want pounds; not for myself, but because tradespeople always want them of me. next, our young friends begin to think, becoming mercenary, 'this is the man who had pounds, who borrowed them,' which i did. i always borrow pounds. so our young friends, reduced to prose (which is much to be regretted), degenerate in their power of imparting pleasure to me. why should i go to see them, therefore? absurd!" through the beaming smile with which he regarded me as he reasoned thus, there now broke forth a look of disinterested benevolence quite astonishing. "besides," he said, pursuing his argument in his tone of light-hearted conviction, "if i don't go anywhere for pain--which would be a perversion of the intention of my being, and a monstrous thing to do--why should i go anywhere to be the cause of pain? if i went to see our young friends in their present ill-regulated state of mind, i should give them pain. the associations with me would be disagreeable. they might say, 'this is the man who had pounds and who can't pay pounds,' which i can't, of course; nothing could be more out of the question! then kindness requires that i shouldn't go near them--and i won't." he finished by genially kissing my hand and thanking me. nothing but miss summerson's fine tact, he said, would have found this out for him. i was much disconcerted, but i reflected that if the main point were gained, it mattered little how strangely he perverted everything leading to it. i had determined to mention something else, however, and i thought i was not to be put off in that. "mr. skimpole," said i, "i must take the liberty of saying before i conclude my visit that i was much surprised to learn, on the best authority, some little time ago, that you knew with whom that poor boy left bleak house and that you accepted a present on that occasion. i have not mentioned it to my guardian, for i fear it would hurt him unnecessarily; but i may say to you that i was much surprised." "no? really surprised, my dear miss summerson?" he returned inquiringly, raising his pleasant eyebrows. "greatly surprised." he thought about it for a little while with a highly agreeable and whimsical expression of face, then quite gave it up and said in his most engaging manner, "you know what a child i am. why surprised?" i was reluctant to enter minutely into that question, but as he begged i would, for he was really curious to know, i gave him to understand in the gentlest words i could use that his conduct seemed to involve a disregard of several moral obligations. he was much amused and interested when he heard this and said, "no, really?" with ingenuous simplicity. "you know i don't intend to be responsible. i never could do it. responsibility is a thing that has always been above me--or below me," said mr. skimpole. "i don't even know which; but as i understand the way in which my dear miss summerson (always remarkable for her practical good sense and clearness) puts this case, i should imagine it was chiefly a question of money, do you know?" i incautiously gave a qualified assent to this. "ah! then you see," said mr. skimpole, shaking his head, "i am hopeless of understanding it." i suggested, as i rose to go, that it was not right to betray my guardian's confidence for a bribe. "my dear miss summerson," he returned with a candid hilarity that was all his own, "i can't be bribed." "not by mr. bucket?" said i. "no," said he. "not by anybody. i don't attach any value to money. i don't care about it, i don't know about it, i don't want it, i don't keep it--it goes away from me directly. how can i be bribed?" i showed that i was of a different opinion, though i had not the capacity for arguing the question. "on the contrary," said mr. skimpole, "i am exactly the man to be placed in a superior position in such a case as that. i am above the rest of mankind in such a case as that. i can act with philosophy in such a case as that. i am not warped by prejudices, as an italian baby is by bandages. i am as free as the air. i feel myself as far above suspicion as caesar's wife." anything to equal the lightness of his manner and the playful impartiality with which he seemed to convince himself, as he tossed the matter about like a ball of feathers, was surely never seen in anybody else! "observe the case, my dear miss summerson. here is a boy received into the house and put to bed in a state that i strongly object to. the boy being in bed, a man arrives--like the house that jack built. here is the man who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in a state that i strongly object to. here is a bank-note produced by the man who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in a state that i strongly object to. here is the skimpole who accepts the bank-note produced by the man who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in a state that i strongly object to. those are the facts. very well. should the skimpole have refused the note? why should the skimpole have refused the note? skimpole protests to bucket, 'what's this for? i don't understand it, it is of no use to me, take it away.' bucket still entreats skimpole to accept it. are there reasons why skimpole, not being warped by prejudices, should accept it? yes. skimpole perceives them. what are they? skimpole reasons with himself, this is a tamed lynx, an active police-officer, an intelligent man, a person of a peculiarly directed energy and great subtlety both of conception and execution, who discovers our friends and enemies for us when they run away, recovers our property for us when we are robbed, avenges us comfortably when we are murdered. this active police-officer and intelligent man has acquired, in the exercise of his art, a strong faith in money; he finds it very useful to him, and he makes it very useful to society. shall i shake that faith in bucket because i want it myself; shall i deliberately blunt one of bucket's weapons; shall i positively paralyse bucket in his next detective operation? and again. if it is blameable in skimpole to take the note, it is blameable in bucket to offer the note--much more blameable in bucket, because he is the knowing man. now, skimpole wishes to think well of bucket; skimpole deems it essential, in its little place, to the general cohesion of things, that he should think well of bucket. the state expressly asks him to trust to bucket. and he does. and that's all he does!" i had nothing to offer in reply to this exposition and therefore took my leave. mr. skimpole, however, who was in excellent spirits, would not hear of my returning home attended only by "little coavinses," and accompanied me himself. he entertained me on the way with a variety of delightful conversation and assured me, at parting, that he should never forget the fine tact with which i had found that out for him about our young friends. as it so happened that i never saw mr. skimpole again, i may at once finish what i know of his history. a coolness arose between him and my guardian, based principally on the foregoing grounds and on his having heartlessly disregarded my guardian's entreaties (as we afterwards learned from ada) in reference to richard. his being heavily in my guardian's debt had nothing to do with their separation. he died some five years afterwards and left a diary behind him, with letters and other materials towards his life, which was published and which showed him to have been the victim of a combination on the part of mankind against an amiable child. it was considered very pleasant reading, but i never read more of it myself than the sentence on which i chanced to light on opening the book. it was this: "jarndyce, in common with most other men i have known, is the incarnation of selfishness." and now i come to a part of my story touching myself very nearly indeed, and for which i was quite unprepared when the circumstance occurred. whatever little lingerings may have now and then revived in my mind associated with my poor old face had only revived as belonging to a part of my life that was gone--gone like my infancy or my childhood. i have suppressed none of my many weaknesses on that subject, but have written them as faithfully as my memory has recalled them. and i hope to do, and mean to do, the same down to the last words of these pages, which i see now not so very far before me. the months were gliding away, and my dear girl, sustained by the hopes she had confided in me, was the same beautiful star in the miserable corner. richard, more worn and haggard, haunted the court day after day, listlessly sat there the whole day long when he knew there was no remote chance of the suit being mentioned, and became one of the stock sights of the place. i wonder whether any of the gentlemen remembered him as he was when he first went there. so completely was he absorbed in his fixed idea that he used to avow in his cheerful moments that he should never have breathed the fresh air now "but for woodcourt." it was only mr. woodcourt who could occasionally divert his attention for a few hours at a time and rouse him, even when he sunk into a lethargy of mind and body that alarmed us greatly, and the returns of which became more frequent as the months went on. my dear girl was right in saying that he only pursued his errors the more desperately for her sake. i have no doubt that his desire to retrieve what he had lost was rendered the more intense by his grief for his young wife, and became like the madness of a gamester. i was there, as i have mentioned, at all hours. when i was there at night, i generally went home with charley in a coach; sometimes my guardian would meet me in the neighbourhood, and we would walk home together. one evening he had arranged to meet me at eight o'clock. i could not leave, as i usually did, quite punctually at the time, for i was working for my dear girl and had a few stitches more to do to finish what i was about; but it was within a few minutes of the hour when i bundled up my little work-basket, gave my darling my last kiss for the night, and hurried downstairs. mr. woodcourt went with me, as it was dusk. when we came to the usual place of meeting--it was close by, and mr. woodcourt had often accompanied me before--my guardian was not there. we waited half an hour, walking up and down, but there were no signs of him. we agreed that he was either prevented from coming or that he had come and gone away, and mr. woodcourt proposed to walk home with me. it was the first walk we had ever taken together, except that very short one to the usual place of meeting. we spoke of richard and ada the whole way. i did not thank him in words for what he had done--my appreciation of it had risen above all words then--but i hoped he might not be without some understanding of what i felt so strongly. arriving at home and going upstairs, we found that my guardian was out and that mrs. woodcourt was out too. we were in the very same room into which i had brought my blushing girl when her youthful lover, now her so altered husband, was the choice of her young heart, the very same room from which my guardian and i had watched them going away through the sunlight in the fresh bloom of their hope and promise. we were standing by the opened window looking down into the street when mr. woodcourt spoke to me. i learned in a moment that he loved me. i learned in a moment that my scarred face was all unchanged to him. i learned in a moment that what i had thought was pity and compassion was devoted, generous, faithful love. oh, too late to know it now, too late, too late. that was the first ungrateful thought i had. too late. "when i returned," he told me, "when i came back, no richer than when i went away, and found you newly risen from a sick bed, yet so inspired by sweet consideration for others and so free from a selfish thought--" "oh, mr. woodcourt, forbear, forbear!" i entreated him. "i do not deserve your high praise. i had many selfish thoughts at that time, many!" "heaven knows, beloved of my life," said he, "that my praise is not a lover's praise, but the truth. you do not know what all around you see in esther summerson, how many hearts she touches and awakens, what sacred admiration and what love she wins." "oh, mr. woodcourt," cried i, "it is a great thing to win love, it is a great thing to win love! i am proud of it, and honoured by it; and the hearing of it causes me to shed these tears of mingled joy and sorrow--joy that i have won it, sorrow that i have not deserved it better; but i am not free to think of yours." i said it with a stronger heart, for when he praised me thus and when i heard his voice thrill with his belief that what he said was true, i aspired to be more worthy of it. it was not too late for that. although i closed this unforeseen page in my life to-night, i could be worthier of it all through my life. and it was a comfort to me, and an impulse to me, and i felt a dignity rise up within me that was derived from him when i thought so. he broke the silence. "i should poorly show the trust that i have in the dear one who will evermore be as dear to me as now"--and the deep earnestness with which he said it at once strengthened me and made me weep--"if, after her assurance that she is not free to think of my love, i urged it. dear esther, let me only tell you that the fond idea of you which i took abroad was exalted to the heavens when i came home. i have always hoped, in the first hour when i seemed to stand in any ray of good fortune, to tell you this. i have always feared that i should tell it you in vain. my hopes and fears are both fulfilled to-night. i distress you. i have said enough." something seemed to pass into my place that was like the angel he thought me, and i felt so sorrowful for the loss he had sustained! i wished to help him in his trouble, as i had wished to do when he showed that first commiseration for me. "dear mr. woodcourt," said i, "before we part to-night, something is left for me to say. i never could say it as i wish--i never shall--but--" i had to think again of being more deserving of his love and his affliction before i could go on. "--i am deeply sensible of your generosity, and i shall treasure its remembrance to my dying hour. i know full well how changed i am, i know you are not unacquainted with my history, and i know what a noble love that is which is so faithful. what you have said to me could have affected me so much from no other lips, for there are none that could give it such a value to me. it shall not be lost. it shall make me better." he covered his eyes with his hand and turned away his head. how could i ever be worthy of those tears? "if, in the unchanged intercourse we shall have together--in tending richard and ada, and i hope in many happier scenes of life--you ever find anything in me which you can honestly think is better than it used to be, believe that it will have sprung up from to-night and that i shall owe it to you. and never believe, dear dear mr. woodcourt, never believe that i forget this night or that while my heart beats it can be insensible to the pride and joy of having been beloved by you." he took my hand and kissed it. he was like himself again, and i felt still more encouraged. "i am induced by what you said just now," said i, "to hope that you have succeeded in your endeavour." "i have," he answered. "with such help from mr. jarndyce as you who know him so well can imagine him to have rendered me, i have succeeded." "heaven bless him for it," said i, giving him my hand; "and heaven bless you in all you do!" "i shall do it better for the wish," he answered; "it will make me enter on these new duties as on another sacred trust from you." "ah! richard!" i exclaimed involuntarily, "what will he do when you are gone!" "i am not required to go yet; i would not desert him, dear miss summerson, even if i were." one other thing i felt it needful to touch upon before he left me. i knew that i should not be worthier of the love i could not take if i reserved it. "mr. woodcourt," said i, "you will be glad to know from my lips before i say good night that in the future, which is clear and bright before me, i am most happy, most fortunate, have nothing to regret or desire." it was indeed a glad hearing to him, he replied. "from my childhood i have been," said i, "the object of the untiring goodness of the best of human beings, to whom i am so bound by every tie of attachment, gratitude, and love, that nothing i could do in the compass of a life could express the feelings of a single day." "i share those feelings," he returned. "you speak of mr. jarndyce." "you know his virtues well," said i, "but few can know the greatness of his character as i know it. all its highest and best qualities have been revealed to me in nothing more brightly than in the shaping out of that future in which i am so happy. and if your highest homage and respect had not been his already--which i know they are--they would have been his, i think, on this assurance and in the feeling it would have awakened in you towards him for my sake." he fervently replied that indeed indeed they would have been. i gave him my hand again. "good night," i said, "good-bye." "the first until we meet to-morrow, the second as a farewell to this theme between us for ever." "yes." "good night; good-bye." he left me, and i stood at the dark window watching the street. his love, in all its constancy and generosity, had come so suddenly upon me that he had not left me a minute when my fortitude gave way again and the street was blotted out by my rushing tears. but they were not tears of regret and sorrow. no. he had called me the beloved of his life and had said i would be evermore as dear to him as i was then, and i felt as if my heart would not hold the triumph of having heard those words. my first wild thought had died away. it was not too late to hear them, for it was not too late to be animated by them to be good, true, grateful, and contented. how easy my path, how much easier than his! chapter lxii another discovery i had not the courage to see any one that night. i had not even the courage to see myself, for i was afraid that my tears might a little reproach me. i went up to my room in the dark, and prayed in the dark, and lay down in the dark to sleep. i had no need of any light to read my guardian's letter by, for i knew it by heart. i took it from the place where i kept it, and repeated its contents by its own clear light of integrity and love, and went to sleep with it on my pillow. i was up very early in the morning and called charley to come for a walk. we bought flowers for the breakfast-table, and came back and arranged them, and were as busy as possible. we were so early that i had a good time still for charley's lesson before breakfast; charley (who was not in the least improved in the old defective article of grammar) came through it with great applause; and we were altogether very notable. when my guardian appeared he said, "why, little woman, you look fresher than your flowers!" and mrs. woodcourt repeated and translated a passage from the mewlinnwillinwodd expressive of my being like a mountain with the sun upon it. this was all so pleasant that i hope it made me still more like the mountain than i had been before. after breakfast i waited my opportunity and peeped about a little until i saw my guardian in his own room--the room of last night--by himself. then i made an excuse to go in with my housekeeping keys, shutting the door after me. "well, dame durden?" said my guardian; the post had brought him several letters, and he was writing. "you want money?" "no, indeed, i have plenty in hand." "there never was such a dame durden," said my guardian, "for making money last." he had laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair looking at me. i have often spoken of his bright face, but i thought i had never seen it look so bright and good. there was a high happiness upon it which made me think, "he has been doing some great kindness this morning." "there never was," said my guardian, musing as he smiled upon me, "such a dame durden for making money last." he had never yet altered his old manner. i loved it and him so much that when i now went up to him and took my usual chair, which was always put at his side--for sometimes i read to him, and sometimes i talked to him, and sometimes i silently worked by him--i hardly liked to disturb it by laying my hand on his breast. but i found i did not disturb it at all. "dear guardian," said i, "i want to speak to you. have i been remiss in anything?" "remiss in anything, my dear!" "have i not been what i have meant to be since--i brought the answer to your letter, guardian?" "you have been everything i could desire, my love." "i am very glad indeed to hear that," i returned. "you know, you said to me, was this the mistress of bleak house. and i said, yes." "yes," said my guardian, nodding his head. he had put his arm about me as if there were something to protect me from and looked in my face, smiling. "since then," said i, "we have never spoken on the subject except once." "and then i said bleak house was thinning fast; and so it was, my dear." "and i said," i timidly reminded him, "but its mistress remained." he still held me in the same protecting manner and with the same bright goodness in his face. "dear guardian," said i, "i know how you have felt all that has happened, and how considerate you have been. as so much time has passed, and as you spoke only this morning of my being so well again, perhaps you expect me to renew the subject. perhaps i ought to do so. i will be the mistress of bleak house when you please." "see," he returned gaily, "what a sympathy there must be between us! i have had nothing else, poor rick excepted--it's a large exception--in my mind. when you came in, i was full of it. when shall we give bleak house its mistress, little woman?" "when you please." "next month?" "next month, dear guardian." "the day on which i take the happiest and best step of my life--the day on which i shall be a man more exulting and more enviable than any other man in the world--the day on which i give bleak house its little mistress--shall be next month then," said my guardian. i put my arms round his neck and kissed him just as i had done on the day when i brought my answer. a servant came to the door to announce mr. bucket, which was quite unnecessary, for mr. bucket was already looking in over the servant's shoulder. "mr. jarndyce and miss summerson," said he, rather out of breath, "with all apologies for intruding, will you allow me to order up a person that's on the stairs and that objects to being left there in case of becoming the subject of observations in his absence? thank you. be so good as chair that there member in this direction, will you?" said mr. bucket, beckoning over the banisters. this singular request produced an old man in a black skull-cap, unable to walk, who was carried up by a couple of bearers and deposited in the room near the door. mr. bucket immediately got rid of the bearers, mysteriously shut the door, and bolted it. "now you see, mr. jarndyce," he then began, putting down his hat and opening his subject with a flourish of his well-remembered finger, "you know me, and miss summerson knows me. this gentleman likewise knows me, and his name is smallweed. the discounting line is his line principally, and he's what you may call a dealer in bills. that's about what you are, you know, ain't you?" said mr. bucket, stopping a little to address the gentleman in question, who was exceedingly suspicious of him. he seemed about to dispute this designation of himself when he was seized with a violent fit of coughing. "now, moral, you know!" said mr. bucket, improving the accident. "don't you contradict when there ain't no occasion, and you won't be took in that way. now, mr. jarndyce, i address myself to you. i've been negotiating with this gentleman on behalf of sir leicester dedlock, baronet, and one way and another i've been in and out and about his premises a deal. his premises are the premises formerly occupied by krook, marine store dealer--a relation of this gentleman's that you saw in his lifetime if i don't mistake?" my guardian replied, "yes." "well! you are to understand," said mr. bucket, "that this gentleman he come into krook's property, and a good deal of magpie property there was. vast lots of waste-paper among the rest. lord bless you, of no use to nobody!" the cunning of mr. bucket's eye and the masterly manner in which he contrived, without a look or a word against which his watchful auditor could protest, to let us know that he stated the case according to previous agreement and could say much more of mr. smallweed if he thought it advisable, deprived us of any merit in quite understanding him. his difficulty was increased by mr. smallweed's being deaf as well as suspicious and watching his face with the closest attention. "among them odd heaps of old papers, this gentleman, when he comes into the property, naturally begins to rummage, don't you see?" said mr. bucket. "to which? say that again," cried mr. smallweed in a shrill, sharp voice. "to rummage," repeated mr. bucket. "being a prudent man and accustomed to take care of your own affairs, you begin to rummage among the papers as you have come into; don't you?" "of course i do," cried mr. smallweed. "of course you do," said mr. bucket conversationally, "and much to blame you would be if you didn't. and so you chance to find, you know," mr. bucket went on, stooping over him with an air of cheerful raillery which mr. smallweed by no means reciprocated, "and so you chance to find, you know, a paper with the signature of jarndyce to it. don't you?" mr. smallweed glanced with a troubled eye at us and grudgingly nodded assent. "and coming to look at that paper at your full leisure and convenience--all in good time, for you're not curious to read it, and why should you be?--what do you find it to be but a will, you see. that's the drollery of it," said mr. bucket with the same lively air of recalling a joke for the enjoyment of mr. smallweed, who still had the same crest-fallen appearance of not enjoying it at all; "what do you find it to be but a will?" "i don't know that it's good as a will or as anything else," snarled mr. smallweed. mr. bucket eyed the old man for a moment--he had slipped and shrunk down in his chair into a mere bundle--as if he were much disposed to pounce upon him; nevertheless, he continued to bend over him with the same agreeable air, keeping the corner of one of his eyes upon us. "notwithstanding which," said mr. bucket, "you get a little doubtful and uncomfortable in your mind about it, having a very tender mind of your own." "eh? what do you say i have got of my own?" asked mr. smallweed with his hand to his ear. "a very tender mind." "ho! well, go on," said mr. smallweed. "and as you've heard a good deal mentioned regarding a celebrated chancery will case of the same name, and as you know what a card krook was for buying all manner of old pieces of furniter, and books, and papers, and what not, and never liking to part with 'em, and always a-going to teach himself to read, you begin to think--and you never was more correct in your born days--'ecod, if i don't look about me, i may get into trouble regarding this will.'" "now, mind how you put it, bucket," cried the old man anxiously with his hand at his ear. "speak up; none of your brimstone tricks. pick me up; i want to hear better. oh, lord, i am shaken to bits!" mr. bucket had certainly picked him up at a dart. however, as soon as he could be heard through mr. smallweed's coughing and his vicious ejaculations of "oh, my bones! oh, dear! i've no breath in my body! i'm worse than the chattering, clattering, brimstone pig at home!" mr. bucket proceeded in the same convivial manner as before. "so, as i happen to be in the habit of coming about your premises, you take me into your confidence, don't you?" i think it would be impossible to make an admission with more ill will and a worse grace than mr. smallweed displayed when he admitted this, rendering it perfectly evident that mr. bucket was the very last person he would have thought of taking into his confidence if he could by any possibility have kept him out of it. "and i go into the business with you--very pleasant we are over it; and i confirm you in your well-founded fears that you will get yourself into a most precious line if you don't come out with that there will," said mr. bucket emphatically; "and accordingly you arrange with me that it shall be delivered up to this present mr. jarndyce, on no conditions. if it should prove to be valuable, you trusting yourself to him for your reward; that's about where it is, ain't it?" "that's what was agreed," mr. smallweed assented with the same bad grace. "in consequence of which," said mr. bucket, dismissing his agreeable manner all at once and becoming strictly business-like, "you've got that will upon your person at the present time, and the only thing that remains for you to do is just to out with it!" having given us one glance out of the watching corner of his eye, and having given his nose one triumphant rub with his forefinger, mr. bucket stood with his eyes fastened on his confidential friend and his hand stretched forth ready to take the paper and present it to my guardian. it was not produced without much reluctance and many declarations on the part of mr. smallweed that he was a poor industrious man and that he left it to mr. jarndyce's honour not to let him lose by his honesty. little by little he very slowly took from a breast-pocket a stained, discoloured paper which was much singed upon the outside and a little burnt at the edges, as if it had long ago been thrown upon a fire and hastily snatched off again. mr. bucket lost no time in transferring this paper, with the dexterity of a conjuror, from mr. smallweed to mr. jarndyce. as he gave it to my guardian, he whispered behind his fingers, "hadn't settled how to make their market of it. quarrelled and hinted about it. i laid out twenty pound upon it. first the avaricious grandchildren split upon him on account of their objections to his living so unreasonably long, and then they split on one another. lord! there ain't one of the family that wouldn't sell the other for a pound or two, except the old lady--and she's only out of it because she's too weak in her mind to drive a bargain." "mr bucket," said my guardian aloud, "whatever the worth of this paper may be to any one, my obligations are great to you; and if it be of any worth, i hold myself bound to see mr. smallweed remunerated accordingly." "not according to your merits, you know," said mr. bucket in friendly explanation to mr. smallweed. "don't you be afraid of that. according to its value." "that is what i mean," said my guardian. "you may observe, mr. bucket, that i abstain from examining this paper myself. the plain truth is, i have forsworn and abjured the whole business these many years, and my soul is sick of it. but miss summerson and i will immediately place the paper in the hands of my solicitor in the cause, and its existence shall be made known without delay to all other parties interested." "mr. jarndyce can't say fairer than that, you understand," observed mr. bucket to his fellow-visitor. "and it being now made clear to you that nobody's a-going to be wronged--which must be a great relief to your mind--we may proceed with the ceremony of chairing you home again." he unbolted the door, called in the bearers, wished us good morning, and with a look full of meaning and a crook of his finger at parting went his way. we went our way too, which was to lincoln's inn, as quickly as possible. mr. kenge was disengaged, and we found him at his table in his dusty room with the inexpressive-looking books and the piles of papers. chairs having been placed for us by mr. guppy, mr. kenge expressed the surprise and gratification he felt at the unusual sight of mr. jarndyce in his office. he turned over his double eye-glass as he spoke and was more conversation kenge than ever. "i hope," said mr. kenge, "that the genial influence of miss summerson," he bowed to me, "may have induced mr. jarndyce," he bowed to him, "to forego some little of his animosity towards a cause and towards a court which are--shall i say, which take their place in the stately vista of the pillars of our profession?" "i am inclined to think," returned my guardian, "that miss summerson has seen too much of the effects of the court and the cause to exert any influence in their favour. nevertheless, they are a part of the occasion of my being here. mr. kenge, before i lay this paper on your desk and have done with it, let me tell you how it has come into my hands." he did so shortly and distinctly. "it could not, sir," said mr. kenge, "have been stated more plainly and to the purpose if it had been a case at law." "did you ever know english law, or equity either, plain and to the purpose?" said my guardian. "oh, fie!" said mr. kenge. at first he had not seemed to attach much importance to the paper, but when he saw it he appeared more interested, and when he had opened and read a little of it through his eye-glass, he became amazed. "mr. jarndyce," he said, looking off it, "you have perused this?" "not i!" returned my guardian. "but, my dear sir," said mr. kenge, "it is a will of later date than any in the suit. it appears to be all in the testator's handwriting. it is duly executed and attested. and even if intended to be cancelled, as might possibly be supposed to be denoted by these marks of fire, it is not cancelled. here it is, a perfect instrument!" "well!" said my guardian. "what is that to me?" "mr. guppy!" cried mr. kenge, raising his voice. "i beg your pardon, mr. jarndyce." "sir." "mr. vholes of symond's inn. my compliments. jarndyce and jarndyce. glad to speak with him." mr. guppy disappeared. "you ask me what is this to you, mr. jarndyce. if you had perused this document, you would have seen that it reduces your interest considerably, though still leaving it a very handsome one, still leaving it a very handsome one," said mr. kenge, waving his hand persuasively and blandly. "you would further have seen that the interests of mr. richard carstone and of miss ada clare, now mrs. richard carstone, are very materially advanced by it." "kenge," said my guardian, "if all the flourishing wealth that the suit brought into this vile court of chancery could fall to my two young cousins, i should be well contented. but do you ask me to believe that any good is to come of jarndyce and jarndyce?" "oh, really, mr. jarndyce! prejudice, prejudice. my dear sir, this is a very great country, a very great country. its system of equity is a very great system, a very great system. really, really!" my guardian said no more, and mr. vholes arrived. he was modestly impressed by mr. kenge's professional eminence. "how do you do, mr. vholes? will you be so good as to take a chair here by me and look over this paper?" mr. vholes did as he was asked and seemed to read it every word. he was not excited by it, but he was not excited by anything. when he had well examined it, he retired with mr. kenge into a window, and shading his mouth with his black glove, spoke to him at some length. i was not surprised to observe mr. kenge inclined to dispute what he said before he had said much, for i knew that no two people ever did agree about anything in jarndyce and jarndyce. but he seemed to get the better of mr. kenge too in a conversation that sounded as if it were almost composed of the words "receiver-general," "accountant-general," "report," "estate," and "costs." when they had finished, they came back to mr. kenge's table and spoke aloud. "well! but this is a very remarkable document, mr. vholes," said mr. kenge. mr. vholes said, "very much so." "and a very important document, mr. vholes," said mr. kenge. again mr. vholes said, "very much so." "and as you say, mr. vholes, when the cause is in the paper next term, this document will be an unexpected and interesting feature in it," said mr. kenge, looking loftily at my guardian. mr. vholes was gratified, as a smaller practitioner striving to keep respectable, to be confirmed in any opinion of his own by such an authority. "and when," asked my guardian, rising after a pause, during which mr. kenge had rattled his money and mr. vholes had picked his pimples, "when is next term?" "next term, mr. jarndyce, will be next month," said mr. kenge. "of course we shall at once proceed to do what is necessary with this document and to collect the necessary evidence concerning it; and of course you will receive our usual notification of the cause being in the paper." "to which i shall pay, of course, my usual attention." "still bent, my dear sir," said mr. kenge, showing us through the outer office to the door, "still bent, even with your enlarged mind, on echoing a popular prejudice? we are a prosperous community, mr. jarndyce, a very prosperous community. we are a great country, mr. jarndyce, we are a very great country. this is a great system, mr. jarndyce, and would you wish a great country to have a little system? now, really, really!" he said this at the stair-head, gently moving his right hand as if it were a silver trowel with which to spread the cement of his words on the structure of the system and consolidate it for a thousand ages. chapter lxiii steel and iron george's shooting gallery is to let, and the stock is sold off, and george himself is at chesney wold attending on sir leicester in his rides and riding very near his bridle-rein because of the uncertain hand with which he guides his horse. but not to-day is george so occupied. he is journeying to-day into the iron country farther north to look about him. as he comes into the iron country farther north, such fresh green woods as those of chesney wold are left behind; and coal pits and ashes, high chimneys and red bricks, blighted verdure, scorching fires, and a heavy never-lightening cloud of smoke become the features of the scenery. among such objects rides the trooper, looking about him and always looking for something he has come to find. at last, on the black canal bridge of a busy town, with a clang of iron in it, and more fires and more smoke than he has seen yet, the trooper, swart with the dust of the coal roads, checks his horse and asks a workman does he know the name of rouncewell thereabouts. "why, master," quoth the workman, "do i know my own name?" "'tis so well known here, is it, comrade?" asks the trooper. "rouncewell's? ah! you're right." "and where might it be now?" asks the trooper with a glance before him. "the bank, the factory, or the house?" the workman wants to know. "hum! rouncewell's is so great apparently," mutters the trooper, stroking his chin, "that i have as good as half a mind to go back again. why, i don't know which i want. should i find mr. rouncewell at the factory, do you think?" "tain't easy to say where you'd find him--at this time of the day you might find either him or his son there, if he's in town; but his contracts take him away." and which is the factory? why, he sees those chimneys--the tallest ones! yes, he sees them. well! let him keep his eye on those chimneys, going on as straight as ever he can, and presently he'll see 'em down a turning on the left, shut in by a great brick wall which forms one side of the street. that's rouncewell's. the trooper thanks his informant and rides slowly on, looking about him. he does not turn back, but puts up his horse (and is much disposed to groom him too) at a public-house where some of rouncewell's hands are dining, as the ostler tells him. some of rouncewell's hands have just knocked off for dinner-time and seem to be invading the whole town. they are very sinewy and strong, are rouncewell's hands--a little sooty too. he comes to a gateway in the brick wall, looks in, and sees a great perplexity of iron lying about in every stage and in a vast variety of shapes--in bars, in wedges, in sheets; in tanks, in boilers, in axles, in wheels, in cogs, in cranks, in rails; twisted and wrenched into eccentric and perverse forms as separate parts of machinery; mountains of it broken up, and rusty in its age; distant furnaces of it glowing and bubbling in its youth; bright fireworks of it showering about under the blows of the steam-hammer; red-hot iron, white-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, an iron smell, and a babel of iron sounds. "this is a place to make a man's head ache too!" says the trooper, looking about him for a counting-house. "who comes here? this is very like me before i was set up. this ought to be my nephew, if likenesses run in families. your servant, sir." "yours, sir. are you looking for any one?" "excuse me. young mr. rouncewell, i believe?" "yes." "i was looking for your father, sir. i wish to have a word with him." the young man, telling him he is fortunate in his choice of a time, for his father is there, leads the way to the office where he is to be found. "very like me before i was set up--devilish like me!" thinks the trooper as he follows. they come to a building in the yard with an office on an upper floor. at sight of the gentleman in the office, mr. george turns very red. "what name shall i say to my father?" asks the young man. george, full of the idea of iron, in desperation answers "steel," and is so presented. he is left alone with the gentleman in the office, who sits at a table with account-books before him and some sheets of paper blotted with hosts of figures and drawings of cunning shapes. it is a bare office, with bare windows, looking on the iron view below. tumbled together on the table are some pieces of iron, purposely broken to be tested at various periods of their service, in various capacities. there is iron-dust on everything; and the smoke is seen through the windows rolling heavily out of the tall chimneys to mingle with the smoke from a vaporous babylon of other chimneys. "i am at your service, mr. steel," says the gentleman when his visitor has taken a rusty chair. "well, mr. rouncewell," george replies, leaning forward with his left arm on his knee and his hat in his hand, and very chary of meeting his brother's eye, "i am not without my expectations that in the present visit i may prove to be more free than welcome. i have served as a dragoon in my day, and a comrade of mine that i was once rather partial to was, if i don't deceive myself, a brother of yours. i believe you had a brother who gave his family some trouble, and ran away, and never did any good but in keeping away?" "are you quite sure," returns the ironmaster in an altered voice, "that your name is steel?" the trooper falters and looks at him. his brother starts up, calls him by his name, and grasps him by both hands. "you are too quick for me!" cries the trooper with the tears springing out of his eyes. "how do you do, my dear old fellow? i never could have thought you would have been half so glad to see me as all this. how do you do, my dear old fellow, how do you do!" they shake hands and embrace each other over and over again, the trooper still coupling his "how do you do, my dear old fellow!" with his protestation that he never thought his brother would have been half so glad to see him as all this! "so far from it," he declares at the end of a full account of what has preceded his arrival there, "i had very little idea of making myself known. i thought if you took by any means forgivingly to my name i might gradually get myself up to the point of writing a letter. but i should not have been surprised, brother, if you had considered it anything but welcome news to hear of me." "we will show you at home what kind of news we think it, george," returns his brother. "this is a great day at home, and you could not have arrived, you bronzed old soldier, on a better. i make an agreement with my son watt to-day that on this day twelvemonth he shall marry as pretty and as good a girl as you have seen in all your travels. she goes to germany to-morrow with one of your nieces for a little polishing up in her education. we make a feast of the event, and you will be made the hero of it." mr. george is so entirely overcome at first by this prospect that he resists the proposed honour with great earnestness. being overborne, however, by his brother and his nephew--concerning whom he renews his protestations that he never could have thought they would have been half so glad to see him--he is taken home to an elegant house in all the arrangements of which there is to be observed a pleasant mixture of the originally simple habits of the father and mother with such as are suited to their altered station and the higher fortunes of their children. here mr. george is much dismayed by the graces and accomplishments of his nieces that are and by the beauty of rosa, his niece that is to be, and by the affectionate salutations of these young ladies, which he receives in a sort of dream. he is sorely taken aback, too, by the dutiful behaviour of his nephew and has a woeful consciousness upon him of being a scapegrace. however, there is great rejoicing and a very hearty company and infinite enjoyment, and mr. george comes bluff and martial through it all, and his pledge to be present at the marriage and give away the bride is received with universal favour. a whirling head has mr. george that night when he lies down in the state-bed of his brother's house to think of all these things and to see the images of his nieces (awful all the evening in their floating muslins) waltzing, after the german manner, over his counterpane. the brothers are closeted next morning in the ironmaster's room, where the elder is proceeding, in his clear sensible way, to show how he thinks he may best dispose of george in his business, when george squeezes his hand and stops him. "brother, i thank you a million times for your more than brotherly welcome, and a million times more to that for your more than brotherly intentions. but my plans are made. before i say a word as to them, i wish to consult you upon one family point. how," says the trooper, folding his arms and looking with indomitable firmness at his brother, "how is my mother to be got to scratch me?" "i am not sure that i understand you, george," replies the ironmaster. "i say, brother, how is my mother to be got to scratch me? she must be got to do it somehow." "scratch you out of her will, i think you mean?" "of course i do. in short," says the trooper, folding his arms more resolutely yet, "i mean--to--scratch me!" "my dear george," returns his brother, "is it so indispensable that you should undergo that process?" "quite! absolutely! i couldn't be guilty of the meanness of coming back without it. i should never be safe not to be off again. i have not sneaked home to rob your children, if not yourself, brother, of your rights. i, who forfeited mine long ago! if i am to remain and hold up my head, i must be scratched. come. you are a man of celebrated penetration and intelligence, and you can tell me how it's to be brought about." "i can tell you, george," replies the ironmaster deliberately, "how it is not to be brought about, which i hope may answer the purpose as well. look at our mother, think of her, recall her emotion when she recovered you. do you believe there is a consideration in the world that would induce her to take such a step against her favourite son? do you believe there is any chance of her consent, to balance against the outrage it would be to her (loving dear old lady!) to propose it? if you do, you are wrong. no, george! you must make up your mind to remain unscratched, i think." there is an amused smile on the ironmaster's face as he watches his brother, who is pondering, deeply disappointed. "i think you may manage almost as well as if the thing were done, though." "how, brother?" "being bent upon it, you can dispose by will of anything you have the misfortune to inherit in any way you like, you know." "that's true!" says the trooper, pondering again. then he wistfully asks, with his hand on his brother's, "would you mind mentioning that, brother, to your wife and family?" "not at all." "thank you. you wouldn't object to say, perhaps, that although an undoubted vagabond, i am a vagabond of the harum-scarum order, and not of the mean sort?" the ironmaster, repressing his amused smile, assents. "thank you. thank you. it's a weight off my mind," says the trooper with a heave of his chest as he unfolds his arms and puts a hand on each leg, "though i had set my heart on being scratched, too!" the brothers are very like each other, sitting face to face; but a certain massive simplicity and absence of usage in the ways of the world is all on the trooper's side. "well," he proceeds, throwing off his disappointment, "next and last, those plans of mine. you have been so brotherly as to propose to me to fall in here and take my place among the products of your perseverance and sense. i thank you heartily. it's more than brotherly, as i said before, and i thank you heartily for it," shaking him a long time by the hand. "but the truth is, brother, i am a--i am a kind of a weed, and it's too late to plant me in a regular garden." "my dear george," returns the elder, concentrating his strong steady brow upon him and smiling confidently, "leave that to me, and let me try." george shakes his head. "you could do it, i have not a doubt, if anybody could; but it's not to be done. not to be done, sir! whereas it so falls out, on the other hand, that i am able to be of some trifle of use to sir leicester dedlock since his illness--brought on by family sorrows--and that he would rather have that help from our mother's son than from anybody else." "well, my dear george," returns the other with a very slight shade upon his open face, "if you prefer to serve in sir leicester dedlock's household brigade--" "there it is, brother," cries the trooper, checking him, with his hand upon his knee again; "there it is! you don't take kindly to that idea; i don't mind it. you are not used to being officered; i am. everything about you is in perfect order and discipline; everything about me requires to be kept so. we are not accustomed to carry things with the same hand or to look at 'em from the same point. i don't say much about my garrison manners because i found myself pretty well at my ease last night, and they wouldn't be noticed here, i dare say, once and away. but i shall get on best at chesney wold, where there's more room for a weed than there is here; and the dear old lady will be made happy besides. therefore i accept of sir leicester dedlock's proposals. when i come over next year to give away the bride, or whenever i come, i shall have the sense to keep the household brigade in ambuscade and not to manoeuvre it on your ground. i thank you heartily again and am proud to think of the rouncewells as they'll be founded by you." "you know yourself, george," says the elder brother, returning the grip of his hand, "and perhaps you know me better than i know myself. take your way. so that we don't quite lose one another again, take your way." "no fear of that!" returns the trooper. "now, before i turn my horse's head homewards, brother, i will ask you--if you'll be so good--to look over a letter for me. i brought it with me to send from these parts, as chesney wold might be a painful name just now to the person it's written to. i am not much accustomed to correspondence myself, and i am particular respecting this present letter because i want it to be both straightforward and delicate." herewith he hands a letter, closely written in somewhat pale ink but in a neat round hand, to the ironmaster, who reads as follows: miss esther summerson, a communication having been made to me by inspector bucket of a letter to myself being found among the papers of a certain person, i take the liberty to make known to you that it was but a few lines of instruction from abroad, when, where, and how to deliver an enclosed letter to a young and beautiful lady, then unmarried, in england. i duly observed the same. i further take the liberty to make known to you that it was got from me as a proof of handwriting only and that otherwise i would not have given it up, as appearing to be the most harmless in my possession, without being previously shot through the heart. i further take the liberty to mention that if i could have supposed a certain unfortunate gentleman to have been in existence, i never could and never would have rested until i had discovered his retreat and shared my last farthing with him, as my duty and my inclination would have equally been. but he was (officially) reported drowned, and assuredly went over the side of a transport-ship at night in an irish harbour within a few hours of her arrival from the west indies, as i have myself heard both from officers and men on board, and know to have been (officially) confirmed. i further take the liberty to state that in my humble quality as one of the rank and file, i am, and shall ever continue to be, your thoroughly devoted and admiring servant and that i esteem the qualities you possess above all others far beyond the limits of the present dispatch. i have the honour to be, george "a little formal," observes the elder brother, refolding it with a puzzled face. "but nothing that might not be sent to a pattern young lady?" asks the younger. "nothing at all." therefore it is sealed and deposited for posting among the iron correspondence of the day. this done, mr. george takes a hearty farewell of the family party and prepares to saddle and mount. his brother, however, unwilling to part with him so soon, proposes to ride with him in a light open carriage to the place where he will bait for the night, and there remain with him until morning, a servant riding for so much of the journey on the thoroughbred old grey from chesney wold. the offer, being gladly accepted, is followed by a pleasant ride, a pleasant dinner, and a pleasant breakfast, all in brotherly communion. then they once more shake hands long and heartily and part, the ironmaster turning his face to the smoke and fires, and the trooper to the green country. early in the afternoon the subdued sound of his heavy military trot is heard on the turf in the avenue as he rides on with imaginary clank and jingle of accoutrements under the old elm-trees. chapter lxiv esther's narrative soon after i had that conversation with my guardian, he put a sealed paper in my hand one morning and said, "this is for next month, my dear." i found in it two hundred pounds. i now began very quietly to make such preparations as i thought were necessary. regulating my purchases by my guardian's taste, which i knew very well of course, i arranged my wardrobe to please him and hoped i should be highly successful. i did it all so quietly because i was not quite free from my old apprehension that ada would be rather sorry and because my guardian was so quiet himself. i had no doubt that under all the circumstances we should be married in the most private and simple manner. perhaps i should only have to say to ada, "would you like to come and see me married to-morrow, my pet?" perhaps our wedding might even be as unpretending as her own, and i might not find it necessary to say anything about it until it was over. i thought that if i were to choose, i would like this best. the only exception i made was mrs. woodcourt. i told her that i was going to be married to my guardian and that we had been engaged some time. she highly approved. she could never do enough for me and was remarkably softened now in comparison with what she had been when we first knew her. there was no trouble she would not have taken to have been of use to me, but i need hardly say that i only allowed her to take as little as gratified her kindness without tasking it. of course this was not a time to neglect my guardian, and of course it was not a time for neglecting my darling. so i had plenty of occupation, which i was glad of; and as to charley, she was absolutely not to be seen for needlework. to surround herself with great heaps of it--baskets full and tables full--and do a little, and spend a great deal of time in staring with her round eyes at what there was to do, and persuade herself that she was going to do it, were charley's great dignities and delights. meanwhile, i must say, i could not agree with my guardian on the subject of the will, and i had some sanguine hopes of jarndyce and jarndyce. which of us was right will soon appear, but i certainly did encourage expectations. in richard, the discovery gave occasion for a burst of business and agitation that buoyed him up for a little time, but he had lost the elasticity even of hope now and seemed to me to retain only its feverish anxieties. from something my guardian said one day when we were talking about this, i understood that my marriage would not take place until after the term-time we had been told to look forward to; and i thought the more, for that, how rejoiced i should be if i could be married when richard and ada were a little more prosperous. the term was very near indeed when my guardian was called out of town and went down into yorkshire on mr. woodcourt's business. he had told me beforehand that his presence there would be necessary. i had just come in one night from my dear girl's and was sitting in the midst of all my new clothes, looking at them all around me and thinking, when a letter from my guardian was brought to me. it asked me to join him in the country and mentioned by what stage-coach my place was taken and at what time in the morning i should have to leave town. it added in a postscript that i would not be many hours from ada. i expected few things less than a journey at that time, but i was ready for it in half an hour and set off as appointed early next morning. i travelled all day, wondering all day what i could be wanted for at such a distance; now i thought it might be for this purpose, and now i thought it might be for that purpose, but i was never, never, never near the truth. it was night when i came to my journey's end and found my guardian waiting for me. this was a great relief, for towards evening i had begun to fear (the more so as his letter was a very short one) that he might be ill. however, there he was, as well as it was possible to be; and when i saw his genial face again at its brightest and best, i said to myself, he has been doing some other great kindness. not that it required much penetration to say that, because i knew that his being there at all was an act of kindness. supper was ready at the hotel, and when we were alone at table he said, "full of curiosity, no doubt, little woman, to know why i have brought you here?" "well, guardian," said i, "without thinking myself a fatima or you a blue beard, i am a little curious about it." "then to ensure your night's rest, my love," he returned gaily, "i won't wait until to-morrow to tell you. i have very much wished to express to woodcourt, somehow, my sense of his humanity to poor unfortunate jo, his inestimable services to my young cousins, and his value to us all. when it was decided that he should settle here, it came into my head that i might ask his acceptance of some unpretending and suitable little place to lay his own head in. i therefore caused such a place to be looked out for, and such a place was found on very easy terms, and i have been touching it up for him and making it habitable. however, when i walked over it the day before yesterday and it was reported ready, i found that i was not housekeeper enough to know whether things were all as they ought to be. so i sent off for the best little housekeeper that could possibly be got to come and give me her advice and opinion. and here she is," said my guardian, "laughing and crying both together!" because he was so dear, so good, so admirable. i tried to tell him what i thought of him, but i could not articulate a word. "tut, tut!" said my guardian. "you make too much of it, little woman. why, how you sob, dame durden, how you sob!" "it is with exquisite pleasure, guardian--with a heart full of thanks." "well, well," said he. "i am delighted that you approve. i thought you would. i meant it as a pleasant surprise for the little mistress of bleak house." i kissed him and dried my eyes. "i know now!" said i. "i have seen this in your face a long while." "no; have you really, my dear?" said he. "what a dame durden it is to read a face!" he was so quaintly cheerful that i could not long be otherwise, and was almost ashamed of having been otherwise at all. when i went to bed, i cried. i am bound to confess that i cried; but i hope it was with pleasure, though i am not quite sure it was with pleasure. i repeated every word of the letter twice over. a most beautiful summer morning succeeded, and after breakfast we went out arm in arm to see the house of which i was to give my mighty housekeeping opinion. we entered a flower-garden by a gate in a side wall, of which he had the key, and the first thing i saw was that the beds and flowers were all laid out according to the manner of my beds and flowers at home. "you see, my dear," observed my guardian, standing still with a delighted face to watch my looks, "knowing there could be no better plan, i borrowed yours." we went on by a pretty little orchard, where the cherries were nestling among the green leaves and the shadows of the apple-trees were sporting on the grass, to the house itself--a cottage, quite a rustic cottage of doll's rooms; but such a lovely place, so tranquil and so beautiful, with such a rich and smiling country spread around it; with water sparkling away into the distance, here all overhung with summer-growth, there turning a humming mill; at its nearest point glancing through a meadow by the cheerful town, where cricket-players were assembling in bright groups and a flag was flying from a white tent that rippled in the sweet west wind. and still, as we went through the pretty rooms, out at the little rustic verandah doors, and underneath the tiny wooden colonnades garlanded with woodbine, jasmine, and honey-suckle, i saw in the papering on the walls, in the colours of the furniture, in the arrangement of all the pretty objects, my little tastes and fancies, my little methods and inventions which they used to laugh at while they praised them, my odd ways everywhere. i could not say enough in admiration of what was all so beautiful, but one secret doubt arose in my mind when i saw this, i thought, oh, would he be the happier for it! would it not have been better for his peace that i should not have been so brought before him? because although i was not what he thought me, still he loved me very dearly, and it might remind him mournfully of what be believed he had lost. i did not wish him to forget me--perhaps he might not have done so, without these aids to his memory--but my way was easier than his, and i could have reconciled myself even to that so that he had been the happier for it. "and now, little woman," said my guardian, whom i had never seen so proud and joyful as in showing me these things and watching my appreciation of them, "now, last of all, for the name of this house." "what is it called, dear guardian?" "my child," said he, "come and see," he took me to the porch, which he had hitherto avoided, and said, pausing before we went out, "my dear child, don't you guess the name?" "no!" said i. we went out of the porch and he showed me written over it, bleak house. he led me to a seat among the leaves close by, and sitting down beside me and taking my hand in his, spoke to me thus, "my darling girl, in what there has been between us, i have, i hope, been really solicitous for your happiness. when i wrote you the letter to which you brought the answer," smiling as he referred to it, "i had my own too much in view; but i had yours too. whether, under different circumstances, i might ever have renewed the old dream i sometimes dreamed when you were very young, of making you my wife one day, i need not ask myself. i did renew it, and i wrote my letter, and you brought your answer. you are following what i say, my child?" i was cold, and i trembled violently, but not a word he uttered was lost. as i sat looking fixedly at him and the sun's rays descended, softly shining through the leaves upon his bare head, i felt as if the brightness on him must be like the brightness of the angels. "hear me, my love, but do not speak. it is for me to speak now. when it was that i began to doubt whether what i had done would really make you happy is no matter. woodcourt came home, and i soon had no doubt at all." i clasped him round the neck and hung my head upon his breast and wept. "lie lightly, confidently here, my child," said he, pressing me gently to him. "i am your guardian and your father now. rest confidently here." soothingly, like the gentle rustling of the leaves; and genially, like the ripening weather; and radiantly and beneficently, like the sunshine, he went on. "understand me, my dear girl. i had no doubt of your being contented and happy with me, being so dutiful and so devoted; but i saw with whom you would be happier. that i penetrated his secret when dame durden was blind to it is no wonder, for i knew the good that could never change in her better far than she did. well! i have long been in allan woodcourt's confidence, although he was not, until yesterday, a few hours before you came here, in mine. but i would not have my esther's bright example lost; i would not have a jot of my dear girl's virtues unobserved and unhonoured; i would not have her admitted on sufferance into the line of morgan ap-kerrig, no, not for the weight in gold of all the mountains in wales!" he stopped to kiss me on the forehead, and i sobbed and wept afresh. for i felt as if i could not bear the painful delight of his praise. "hush, little woman! don't cry; this is to be a day of joy. i have looked forward to it," he said exultingly, "for months on months! a few words more, dame trot, and i have said my say. determined not to throw away one atom of my esther's worth, i took mrs. woodcourt into a separate confidence. 'now, madam,' said i, 'i clearly perceive--and indeed i know, to boot--that your son loves my ward. i am further very sure that my ward loves your son, but will sacrifice her love to a sense of duty and affection, and will sacrifice it so completely, so entirely, so religiously, that you should never suspect it though you watched her night and day.' then i told her all our story--ours--yours and mine. 'now, madam,' said i, 'come you, knowing this, and live with us. come you, and see my child from hour to hour; set what you see against her pedigree, which is this, and this'--for i scorned to mince it--'and tell me what is the true legitimacy when you shall have quite made up your mind on that subject.' why, honour to her old welsh blood, my dear," cried my guardian with enthusiasm, "i believe the heart it animates beats no less warmly, no less admiringly, no less lovingly, towards dame durden than my own!" he tenderly raised my head, and as i clung to him, kissed me in his old fatherly way again and again. what a light, now, on the protecting manner i had thought about! "one more last word. when allan woodcourt spoke to you, my dear, he spoke with my knowledge and consent--but i gave him no encouragement, not i, for these surprises were my great reward, and i was too miserly to part with a scrap of it. he was to come and tell me all that passed, and he did. i have no more to say. my dearest, allan woodcourt stood beside your father when he lay dead--stood beside your mother. this is bleak house. this day i give this house its little mistress; and before god, it is the brightest day in all my life!" he rose and raised me with him. we were no longer alone. my husband--i have called him by that name full seven happy years now--stood at my side. "allan," said my guardian, "take from me a willing gift, the best wife that ever man had. what more can i say for you than that i know you deserve her! take with her the little home she brings you. you know what she will make it, allan; you know what she has made its namesake. let me share its felicity sometimes, and what do i sacrifice? nothing, nothing." he kissed me once again, and now the tears were in his eyes as he said more softly, "esther, my dearest, after so many years, there is a kind of parting in this too. i know that my mistake has caused you some distress. forgive your old guardian, in restoring him to his old place in your affections; and blot it out of your memory. allan, take my dear." he moved away from under the green roof of leaves, and stopping in the sunlight outside and turning cheerfully towards us, said, "i shall be found about here somewhere. it's a west wind, little woman, due west! let no one thank me any more, for i am going to revert to my bachelor habits, and if anybody disregards this warning, i'll run away and never come back!" what happiness was ours that day, what joy, what rest, what hope, what gratitude, what bliss! we were to be married before the month was out, but when we were to come and take possession of our own house was to depend on richard and ada. we all three went home together next day. as soon as we arrived in town, allan went straight to see richard and to carry our joyful news to him and my darling. late as it was, i meant to go to her for a few minutes before lying down to sleep, but i went home with my guardian first to make his tea for him and to occupy the old chair by his side, for i did not like to think of its being empty so soon. when we came home we found that a young man had called three times in the course of that one day to see me and that having been told on the occasion of his third call that i was not expected to return before ten o'clock at night, he had left word that he would call about then. he had left his card three times. mr. guppy. as i naturally speculated on the object of these visits, and as i always associated something ludicrous with the visitor, it fell out that in laughing about mr. guppy i told my guardian of his old proposal and his subsequent retraction. "after that," said my guardian, "we will certainly receive this hero." so instructions were given that mr. guppy should be shown in when he came again, and they were scarcely given when he did come again. he was embarrassed when he found my guardian with me, but recovered himself and said, "how de do, sir?" "how do you do, sir?" returned my guardian. "thank you, sir, i am tolerable," returned mr. guppy. "will you allow me to introduce my mother, mrs. guppy of the old street road, and my particular friend, mr. weevle. that is to say, my friend has gone by the name of weevle, but his name is really and truly jobling." my guardian begged them to be seated, and they all sat down. "tony," said mr. guppy to his friend after an awkward silence. "will you open the case?" "do it yourself," returned the friend rather tartly. "well, mr. jarndyce, sir," mr. guppy, after a moment's consideration, began, to the great diversion of his mother, which she displayed by nudging mr. jobling with her elbow and winking at me in a most remarkable manner, "i had an idea that i should see miss summerson by herself and was not quite prepared for your esteemed presence. but miss summerson has mentioned to you, perhaps, that something has passed between us on former occasions?" "miss summerson," returned my guardian, smiling, "has made a communication to that effect to me." "that," said mr. guppy, "makes matters easier. sir, i have come out of my articles at kenge and carboy's, and i believe with satisfaction to all parties. i am now admitted (after undergoing an examination that's enough to badger a man blue, touching a pack of nonsense that he don't want to know) on the roll of attorneys and have taken out my certificate, if it would be any satisfaction to you to see it." "thank you, mr. guppy," returned my guardian. "i am quite willing--i believe i use a legal phrase--to admit the certificate." mr. guppy therefore desisted from taking something out of his pocket and proceeded without it. "i have no capital myself, but my mother has a little property which takes the form of an annuity"--here mr. guppy's mother rolled her head as if she never could sufficiently enjoy the observation, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, and again winked at me--"and a few pounds for expenses out of pocket in conducting business will never be wanting, free of interest, which is an advantage, you know," said mr. guppy feelingly. "certainly an advantage," returned my guardian. "i have some connexion," pursued mr. guppy, "and it lays in the direction of walcot square, lambeth. i have therefore taken a 'ouse in that locality, which, in the opinion of my friends, is a hollow bargain (taxes ridiculous, and use of fixtures included in the rent), and intend setting up professionally for myself there forthwith." here mr. guppy's mother fell into an extraordinary passion of rolling her head and smiling waggishly at anybody who would look at her. "it's a six-roomer, exclusive of kitchens," said mr. guppy, "and in the opinion of my friends, a commodious tenement. when i mention my friends, i refer principally to my friend jobling, who i believe has known me," mr. guppy looked at him with a sentimental air, "from boyhood's hour." mr. jobling confirmed this with a sliding movement of his legs. "my friend jobling will render me his assistance in the capacity of clerk and will live in the 'ouse," said mr. guppy. "my mother will likewise live in the 'ouse when her present quarter in the old street road shall have ceased and expired; and consequently there will be no want of society. my friend jobling is naturally aristocratic by taste, and besides being acquainted with the movements of the upper circles, fully backs me in the intentions i am now developing." mr. jobling said "certainly" and withdrew a little from the elbow of mr guppy's mother. "now, i have no occasion to mention to you, sir, you being in the confidence of miss summerson," said mr. guppy, "(mother, i wish you'd be so good as to keep still), that miss summerson's image was formerly imprinted on my 'eart and that i made her a proposal of marriage." "that i have heard," returned my guardian. "circumstances," pursued mr. guppy, "over which i had no control, but quite the contrary, weakened the impression of that image for a time. at which time miss summerson's conduct was highly genteel; i may even add, magnanimous." my guardian patted me on the shoulder and seemed much amused. "now, sir," said mr. guppy, "i have got into that state of mind myself that i wish for a reciprocity of magnanimous behaviour. i wish to prove to miss summerson that i can rise to a heighth of which perhaps she hardly thought me capable. i find that the image which i did suppose had been eradicated from my 'eart is not eradicated. its influence over me is still tremenjous, and yielding to it, i am willing to overlook the circumstances over which none of us have had any control and to renew those proposals to miss summerson which i had the honour to make at a former period. i beg to lay the 'ouse in walcot square, the business, and myself before miss summerson for her acceptance." "very magnanimous indeed, sir," observed my guardian. "well, sir," replied mr. guppy with candour, "my wish is to be magnanimous. i do not consider that in making this offer to miss summerson i am by any means throwing myself away; neither is that the opinion of my friends. still, there are circumstances which i submit may be taken into account as a set off against any little drawbacks of mine, and so a fair and equitable balance arrived at." "i take upon myself, sir," said my guardian, laughing as he rang the bell, "to reply to your proposals on behalf of miss summerson. she is very sensible of your handsome intentions, and wishes you good evening, and wishes you well." "oh!" said mr. guppy with a blank look. "is that tantamount, sir, to acceptance, or rejection, or consideration?" "to decided rejection, if you please," returned my guardian. mr. guppy looked incredulously at his friend, and at his mother, who suddenly turned very angry, and at the floor, and at the ceiling. "indeed?" said he. "then, jobling, if you was the friend you represent yourself, i should think you might hand my mother out of the gangway instead of allowing her to remain where she ain't wanted." but mrs. guppy positively refused to come out of the gangway. she wouldn't hear of it. "why, get along with you," said she to my guardian, "what do you mean? ain't my son good enough for you? you ought to be ashamed of yourself. get out with you!" "my good lady," returned my guardian, "it is hardly reasonable to ask me to get out of my own room." "i don't care for that," said mrs. guppy. "get out with you. if we ain't good enough for you, go and procure somebody that is good enough. go along and find 'em." i was quite unprepared for the rapid manner in which mrs. guppy's power of jocularity merged into a power of taking the profoundest offence. "go along and find somebody that's good enough for you," repeated mrs. guppy. "get out!" nothing seemed to astonish mr. guppy's mother so much and to make her so very indignant as our not getting out. "why don't you get out?" said mrs. guppy. "what are you stopping here for?" "mother," interposed her son, always getting before her and pushing her back with one shoulder as she sidled at my guardian, "will you hold your tongue?" "no, william," she returned, "i won't! not unless he gets out, i won't!" however, mr. guppy and mr. jobling together closed on mr. guppy's mother (who began to be quite abusive) and took her, very much against her will, downstairs, her voice rising a stair higher every time her figure got a stair lower, and insisting that we should immediately go and find somebody who was good enough for us, and above all things that we should get out. chapter lxv beginning the world the term had commenced, and my guardian found an intimation from mr. kenge that the cause would come on in two days. as i had sufficient hopes of the will to be in a flutter about it, allan and i agreed to go down to the court that morning. richard was extremely agitated and was so weak and low, though his illness was still of the mind, that my dear girl indeed had sore occasion to be supported. but she looked forward--a very little way now--to the help that was to come to her, and never drooped. it was at westminster that the cause was to come on. it had come on there, i dare say, a hundred times before, but i could not divest myself of an idea that it might lead to some result now. we left home directly after breakfast to be at westminster hall in good time and walked down there through the lively streets--so happily and strangely it seemed!--together. as we were going along, planning what we should do for richard and ada, i heard somebody calling "esther! my dear esther! esther!" and there was caddy jellyby, with her head out of the window of a little carriage which she hired now to go about in to her pupils (she had so many), as if she wanted to embrace me at a hundred yards' distance. i had written her a note to tell her of all that my guardian had done, but had not had a moment to go and see her. of course we turned back, and the affectionate girl was in that state of rapture, and was so overjoyed to talk about the night when she brought me the flowers, and was so determined to squeeze my face (bonnet and all) between her hands, and go on in a wild manner altogether, calling me all kinds of precious names, and telling allan i had done i don't know what for her, that i was just obliged to get into the little carriage and calm her down by letting her say and do exactly what she liked. allan, standing at the window, was as pleased as caddy; and i was as pleased as either of them; and i wonder that i got away as i did, rather than that i came off laughing, and red, and anything but tidy, and looking after caddy, who looked after us out of the coach-window as long as she could see us. this made us some quarter of an hour late, and when we came to westminster hall we found that the day's business was begun. worse than that, we found such an unusual crowd in the court of chancery that it was full to the door, and we could neither see nor hear what was passing within. it appeared to be something droll, for occasionally there was a laugh and a cry of "silence!" it appeared to be something interesting, for every one was pushing and striving to get nearer. it appeared to be something that made the professional gentlemen very merry, for there were several young counsellors in wigs and whiskers on the outside of the crowd, and when one of them told the others about it, they put their hands in their pockets, and quite doubled themselves up with laughter, and went stamping about the pavement of the hall. we asked a gentleman by us if he knew what cause was on. he told us jarndyce and jarndyce. we asked him if he knew what was doing in it. he said really, no he did not, nobody ever did, but as well as he could make out, it was over. over for the day? we asked him. no, he said, over for good. over for good! when we heard this unaccountable answer, we looked at one another quite lost in amazement. could it be possible that the will had set things right at last and that richard and ada were going to be rich? it seemed too good to be true. alas it was! our suspense was short, for a break-up soon took place in the crowd, and the people came streaming out looking flushed and hot and bringing a quantity of bad air with them. still they were all exceedingly amused and were more like people coming out from a farce or a juggler than from a court of justice. we stood aside, watching for any countenance we knew, and presently great bundles of paper began to be carried out--bundles in bags, bundles too large to be got into any bags, immense masses of papers of all shapes and no shapes, which the bearers staggered under, and threw down for the time being, anyhow, on the hall pavement, while they went back to bring out more. even these clerks were laughing. we glanced at the papers, and seeing jarndyce and jarndyce everywhere, asked an official-looking person who was standing in the midst of them whether the cause was over. yes, he said, it was all up with it at last, and burst out laughing too. at this juncture we perceived mr. kenge coming out of court with an affable dignity upon him, listening to mr. vholes, who was deferential and carried his own bag. mr. vholes was the first to see us. "here is miss summerson, sir," he said. "and mr. woodcourt." "oh, indeed! yes. truly!" said mr. kenge, raising his hat to me with polished politeness. "how do you do? glad to see you. mr. jarndyce is not here?" no. he never came there, i reminded him. "really," returned mr. kenge, "it is as well that he is not here to-day, for his--shall i say, in my good friend's absence, his indomitable singularity of opinion?--might have been strengthened, perhaps; not reasonably, but might have been strengthened." "pray what has been done to-day?" asked allan. "i beg your pardon?" said mr. kenge with excessive urbanity. "what has been done to-day?" "what has been done," repeated mr. kenge. "quite so. yes. why, not much has been done; not much. we have been checked--brought up suddenly, i would say--upon the--shall i term it threshold?" "is this will considered a genuine document, sir?" said allan. "will you tell us that?" "most certainly, if i could," said mr. kenge; "but we have not gone into that, we have not gone into that." "we have not gone into that," repeated mr. vholes as if his low inward voice were an echo. "you are to reflect, mr. woodcourt," observed mr. kenge, using his silver trowel persuasively and smoothingly, "that this has been a great cause, that this has been a protracted cause, that this has been a complex cause. jarndyce and jarndyce has been termed, not inaptly, a monument of chancery practice." "and patience has sat upon it a long time," said allan. "very well indeed, sir," returned mr. kenge with a certain condescending laugh he had. "very well! you are further to reflect, mr. woodcourt," becoming dignified almost to severity, "that on the numerous difficulties, contingencies, masterly fictions, and forms of procedure in this great cause, there has been expended study, ability, eloquence, knowledge, intellect, mr. woodcourt, high intellect. for many years, the--a--i would say the flower of the bar, and the--a--i would presume to add, the matured autumnal fruits of the woolsack--have been lavished upon jarndyce and jarndyce. if the public have the benefit, and if the country have the adornment, of this great grasp, it must be paid for in money or money's worth, sir." "mr. kenge," said allan, appearing enlightened all in a moment. "excuse me, our time presses. do i understand that the whole estate is found to have been absorbed in costs?" "hem! i believe so," returned mr. kenge. "mr. vholes, what do you say?" "i believe so," said mr. vholes. "and that thus the suit lapses and melts away?" "probably," returned mr. kenge. "mr. vholes?" "probably," said mr. vholes. "my dearest life," whispered allan, "this will break richard's heart!" there was such a shock of apprehension in his face, and he knew richard so perfectly, and i too had seen so much of his gradual decay, that what my dear girl had said to me in the fullness of her foreboding love sounded like a knell in my ears. "in case you should be wanting mr. c., sir," said mr. vholes, coming after us, "you'll find him in court. i left him there resting himself a little. good day, sir; good day, miss summerson." as he gave me that slowly devouring look of his, while twisting up the strings of his bag before he hastened with it after mr. kenge, the benignant shadow of whose conversational presence he seemed afraid to leave, he gave one gasp as if he had swallowed the last morsel of his client, and his black buttoned-up unwholesome figure glided away to the low door at the end of the hall. "my dear love," said allan, "leave to me, for a little while, the charge you gave me. go home with this intelligence and come to ada's by and by!" i would not let him take me to a coach, but entreated him to go to richard without a moment's delay and leave me to do as he wished. hurrying home, i found my guardian and told him gradually with what news i had returned. "little woman," said he, quite unmoved for himself, "to have done with the suit on any terms is a greater blessing than i had looked for. but my poor young cousins!" we talked about them all the morning and discussed what it was possible to do. in the afternoon my guardian walked with me to symond's inn and left me at the door. i went upstairs. when my darling heard my footsteps, she came out into the small passage and threw her arms round my neck, but she composed herself directly and said that richard had asked for me several times. allan had found him sitting in the corner of the court, she told me, like a stone figure. on being roused, he had broken away and made as if he would have spoken in a fierce voice to the judge. he was stopped by his mouth being full of blood, and allan had brought him home. he was lying on a sofa with his eyes closed when i went in. there were restoratives on the table; the room was made as airy as possible, and was darkened, and was very orderly and quiet. allan stood behind him watching him gravely. his face appeared to me to be quite destitute of colour, and now that i saw him without his seeing me, i fully saw, for the first time, how worn away he was. but he looked handsomer than i had seen him look for many a day. i sat down by his side in silence. opening his eyes by and by, he said in a weak voice, but with his old smile, "dame durden, kiss me, my dear!" it was a great comfort and surprise to me to find him in his low state cheerful and looking forward. he was happier, he said, in our intended marriage than he could find words to tell me. my husband had been a guardian angel to him and ada, and he blessed us both and wished us all the joy that life could yield us. i almost felt as if my own heart would have broken when i saw him take my husband's hand and hold it to his breast. we spoke of the future as much as possible, and he said several times that he must be present at our marriage if he could stand upon his feet. ada would contrive to take him, somehow, he said. "yes, surely, dearest richard!" but as my darling answered him thus hopefully, so serene and beautiful, with the help that was to come to her so near--i knew--i knew! it was not good for him to talk too much, and when he was silent, we were silent too. sitting beside him, i made a pretence of working for my dear, as he had always been used to joke about my being busy. ada leaned upon his pillow, holding his head upon her arm. he dozed often, and whenever he awoke without seeing him, said first of all, "where is woodcourt?" evening had come on when i lifted up my eyes and saw my guardian standing in the little hall. "who is that, dame durden?" richard asked me. the door was behind him, but he had observed in my face that some one was there. i looked to allan for advice, and as he nodded "yes," bent over richard and told him. my guardian saw what passed, came softly by me in a moment, and laid his hand on richard's. "oh, sir," said richard, "you are a good man, you are a good man!" and burst into tears for the first time. my guardian, the picture of a good man, sat down in my place, keeping his hand on richard's. "my dear rick," said he, "the clouds have cleared away, and it is bright now. we can see now. we were all bewildered, rick, more or less. what matters! and how are you, my dear boy?" "i am very weak, sir, but i hope i shall be stronger. i have to begin the world." "aye, truly; well said!" cried my guardian. "i will not begin it in the old way now," said richard with a sad smile. "i have learned a lesson now, sir. it was a hard one, but you shall be assured, indeed, that i have learned it." "well, well," said my guardian, comforting him; "well, well, well, dear boy!" "i was thinking, sir," resumed richard, "that there is nothing on earth i should so much like to see as their house--dame durden's and woodcourt's house. if i could be removed there when i begin to recover my strength, i feel as if i should get well there sooner than anywhere." "why, so have i been thinking too, rick," said my guardian, "and our little woman likewise; she and i have been talking of it this very day. i dare say her husband won't object. what do you think?" richard smiled and lifted up his arm to touch him as he stood behind the head of the couch. "i say nothing of ada," said richard, "but i think of her, and have thought of her very much. look at her! see her here, sir, bending over this pillow when she has so much need to rest upon it herself, my dear love, my poor girl!" he clasped her in his arms, and none of us spoke. he gradually released her, and she looked upon us, and looked up to heaven, and moved her lips. "when i get down to bleak house," said richard, "i shall have much to tell you, sir, and you will have much to show me. you will go, won't you?" "undoubtedly, dear rick." "thank you; like you, like you," said richard. "but it's all like you. they have been telling me how you planned it and how you remembered all esther's familiar tastes and ways. it will be like coming to the old bleak house again." "and you will come there too, i hope, rick. i am a solitary man now, you know, and it will be a charity to come to me. a charity to come to me, my love!" he repeated to ada as he gently passed his hand over her golden hair and put a lock of it to his lips. (i think he vowed within himself to cherish her if she were left alone.) "it was a troubled dream?" said richard, clasping both my guardian's hands eagerly. "nothing more, rick; nothing more." "and you, being a good man, can pass it as such, and forgive and pity the dreamer, and be lenient and encouraging when he wakes?" "indeed i can. what am i but another dreamer, rick?" "i will begin the world!" said richard with a light in his eyes. my husband drew a little nearer towards ada, and i saw him solemnly lift up his hand to warn my guardian. "when shall i go from this place to that pleasant country where the old times are, where i shall have strength to tell what ada has been to me, where i shall be able to recall my many faults and blindnesses, where i shall prepare myself to be a guide to my unborn child?" said richard. "when shall i go?" "dear rick, when you are strong enough," returned my guardian. "ada, my darling!" he sought to raise himself a little. allan raised him so that she could hold him on her bosom, which was what he wanted. "i have done you many wrongs, my own. i have fallen like a poor stray shadow on your way, i have married you to poverty and trouble, i have scattered your means to the winds. you will forgive me all this, my ada, before i begin the world?" a smile irradiated his face as she bent to kiss him. he slowly laid his face down upon her bosom, drew his arms closer round her neck, and with one parting sob began the world. not this world, oh, not this! the world that sets this right. when all was still, at a late hour, poor crazed miss flite came weeping to me and told me she had given her birds their liberty. chapter lxvi down in lincolnshire there is a hush upon chesney wold in these altered days, as there is upon a portion of the family history. the story goes that sir leicester paid some who could have spoken out to hold their peace; but it is a lame story, feebly whispering and creeping about, and any brighter spark of life it shows soon dies away. it is known for certain that the handsome lady dedlock lies in the mausoleum in the park, where the trees arch darkly overhead, and the owl is heard at night making the woods ring; but whence she was brought home to be laid among the echoes of that solitary place, or how she died, is all mystery. some of her old friends, principally to be found among the peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats, did once occasionally say, as they toyed in a ghastly manner with large fans--like charmers reduced to flirting with grim death, after losing all their other beaux--did once occasionally say, when the world assembled together, that they wondered the ashes of the dedlocks, entombed in the mausoleum, never rose against the profanation of her company. but the dead-and-gone dedlocks take it very calmly and have never been known to object. up from among the fern in the hollow, and winding by the bridle-road among the trees, comes sometimes to this lonely spot the sound of horses' hoofs. then may be seen sir leicester--invalided, bent, and almost blind, but of worthy presence yet--riding with a stalwart man beside him, constant to his bridle-rein. when they come to a certain spot before the mausoleum-door, sir leicester's accustomed horse stops of his own accord, and sir leicester, pulling off his hat, is still for a few moments before they ride away. war rages yet with the audacious boythorn, though at uncertain intervals, and now hotly, and now coolly, flickering like an unsteady fire. the truth is said to be that when sir leicester came down to lincolnshire for good, mr. boythorn showed a manifest desire to abandon his right of way and do whatever sir leicester would, which sir leicester, conceiving to be a condescension to his illness or misfortune, took in such high dudgeon, and was so magnificently aggrieved by, that mr. boythorn found himself under the necessity of committing a flagrant trespass to restore his neighbour to himself. similarly, mr. boythorn continues to post tremendous placards on the disputed thoroughfare and (with his bird upon his head) to hold forth vehemently against sir leicester in the sanctuary of his own home; similarly, also, he defies him as of old in the little church by testifying a bland unconsciousness of his existence. but it is whispered that when he is most ferocious towards his old foe, he is really most considerate, and that sir leicester, in the dignity of being implacable, little supposes how much he is humoured. as little does he think how near together he and his antagonist have suffered in the fortunes of two sisters, and his antagonist, who knows it now, is not the man to tell him. so the quarrel goes on to the satisfaction of both. in one of the lodges of the park--that lodge within sight of the house where, once upon a time, when the waters were out down in lincolnshire, my lady used to see the keeper's child--the stalwart man, the trooper formerly, is housed. some relics of his old calling hang upon the walls, and these it is the chosen recreation of a little lame man about the stable-yard to keep gleaming bright. a busy little man he always is, in the polishing at harness-house doors, of stirrup-irons, bits, curb-chains, harness bosses, anything in the way of a stable-yard that will take a polish, leading a life of friction. a shaggy little damaged man, withal, not unlike an old dog of some mongrel breed, who has been considerably knocked about. he answers to the name of phil. a goodly sight it is to see the grand old housekeeper (harder of hearing now) going to church on the arm of her son and to observe--which few do, for the house is scant of company in these times--the relations of both towards sir leicester, and his towards them. they have visitors in the high summer weather, when a grey cloak and umbrella, unknown to chesney wold at other periods, are seen among the leaves; when two young ladies are occasionally found gambolling in sequestered saw-pits and such nooks of the park; and when the smoke of two pipes wreathes away into the fragrant evening air from the trooper's door. then is a fife heard trolling within the lodge on the inspiring topic of the "british grenadiers"; and as the evening closes in, a gruff inflexible voice is heard to say, while two men pace together up and down, "but i never own to it before the old girl. discipline must be maintained." the greater part of the house is shut up, and it is a show-house no longer; yet sir leicester holds his shrunken state in the long drawing-room for all that, and reposes in his old place before my lady's picture. closed in by night with broad screens, and illumined only in that part, the light of the drawing-room seems gradually contracting and dwindling until it shall be no more. a little more, in truth, and it will be all extinguished for sir leicester; and the damp door in the mausoleum which shuts so tight, and looks so obdurate, will have opened and received him. volumnia, growing with the flight of time pinker as to the red in her face, and yellower as to the white, reads to sir leicester in the long evenings and is driven to various artifices to conceal her yawns, of which the chief and most efficacious is the insertion of the pearl necklace between her rosy lips. long-winded treatises on the buffy and boodle question, showing how buffy is immaculate and boodle villainous, and how the country is lost by being all boodle and no buffy, or saved by being all buffy and no boodle (it must be one of the two, and cannot be anything else), are the staple of her reading. sir leicester is not particular what it is and does not appear to follow it very closely, further than that he always comes broad awake the moment volumnia ventures to leave off, and sonorously repeating her last words, begs with some displeasure to know if she finds herself fatigued. however, volumnia, in the course of her bird-like hopping about and pecking at papers, has alighted on a memorandum concerning herself in the event of "anything happening" to her kinsman, which is handsome compensation for an extensive course of reading and holds even the dragon boredom at bay. the cousins generally are rather shy of chesney wold in its dullness, but take to it a little in the shooting season, when guns are heard in the plantations, and a few scattered beaters and keepers wait at the old places of appointment for low-spirited twos and threes of cousins. the debilitated cousin, more debilitated by the dreariness of the place, gets into a fearful state of depression, groaning under penitential sofa-pillows in his gunless hours and protesting that such fernal old jail's--nough t'sew fler up--frever. the only great occasions for volumnia in this changed aspect of the place in lincolnshire are those occasions, rare and widely separated, when something is to be done for the county or the country in the way of gracing a public ball. then, indeed, does the tuckered sylph come out in fairy form and proceed with joy under cousinly escort to the exhausted old assembly-room, fourteen heavy miles off, which, during three hundred and sixty-four days and nights of every ordinary year, is a kind of antipodean lumber-room full of old chairs and tables upside down. then, indeed, does she captivate all hearts by her condescension, by her girlish vivacity, and by her skipping about as in the days when the hideous old general with the mouth too full of teeth had not cut one of them at two guineas each. then does she twirl and twine, a pastoral nymph of good family, through the mazes of the dance. then do the swains appear with tea, with lemonade, with sandwiches, with homage. then is she kind and cruel, stately and unassuming, various, beautifully wilful. then is there a singular kind of parallel between her and the little glass chandeliers of another age embellishing that assembly-room, which, with their meagre stems, their spare little drops, their disappointing knobs where no drops are, their bare little stalks from which knobs and drops have both departed, and their little feeble prismatic twinkling, all seem volumnias. for the rest, lincolnshire life to volumnia is a vast blank of overgrown house looking out upon trees, sighing, wringing their hands, bowing their heads, and casting their tears upon the window-panes in monotonous depressions. a labyrinth of grandeur, less the property of an old family of human beings and their ghostly likenesses than of an old family of echoings and thunderings which start out of their hundred graves at every sound and go resounding through the building. a waste of unused passages and staircases in which to drop a comb upon a bedroom floor at night is to send a stealthy footfall on an errand through the house. a place where few people care to go about alone, where a maid screams if an ash drops from the fire, takes to crying at all times and seasons, becomes the victim of a low disorder of the spirits, and gives warning and departs. thus chesney wold. with so much of itself abandoned to darkness and vacancy; with so little change under the summer shining or the wintry lowering; so sombre and motionless always--no flag flying now by day, no rows of lights sparkling by night; with no family to come and go, no visitors to be the souls of pale cold shapes of rooms, no stir of life about it--passion and pride, even to the stranger's eye, have died away from the place in lincolnshire and yielded it to dull repose. chapter lxvii the close of esther's narrative full seven happy years i have been the mistress of bleak house. the few words that i have to add to what i have written are soon penned; then i and the unknown friend to whom i write will part for ever. not without much dear remembrance on my side. not without some, i hope, on his or hers. they gave my darling into my arms, and through many weeks i never left her. the little child who was to have done so much was born before the turf was planted on its father's grave. it was a boy; and i, my husband, and my guardian gave him his father's name. the help that my dear counted on did come to her, though it came, in the eternal wisdom, for another purpose. though to bless and restore his mother, not his father, was the errand of this baby, its power was mighty to do it. when i saw the strength of the weak little hand and how its touch could heal my darling's heart and raised hope within her, i felt a new sense of the goodness and the tenderness of god. they throve, and by degrees i saw my dear girl pass into my country garden and walk there with her infant in her arms. i was married then. i was the happiest of the happy. it was at this time that my guardian joined us and asked ada when she would come home. "both houses are your home, my dear," said he, "but the older bleak house claims priority. when you and my boy are strong enough to do it, come and take possession of your home." ada called him "her dearest cousin, john." but he said, no, it must be guardian now. he was her guardian henceforth, and the boy's; and he had an old association with the name. so she called him guardian, and has called him guardian ever since. the children know him by no other name. i say the children; i have two little daughters. it is difficult to believe that charley (round-eyed still, and not at all grammatical) is married to a miller in our neighbourhood; yet so it is; and even now, looking up from my desk as i write early in the morning at my summer window, i see the very mill beginning to go round. i hope the miller will not spoil charley; but he is very fond of her, and charley is rather vain of such a match, for he is well to do and was in great request. so far as my small maid is concerned, i might suppose time to have stood for seven years as still as the mill did half an hour ago, since little emma, charley's sister, is exactly what charley used to be. as to tom, charley's brother, i am really afraid to say what he did at school in ciphering, but i think it was decimals. he is apprenticed to the miller, whatever it was, and is a good bashful fellow, always falling in love with somebody and being ashamed of it. caddy jellyby passed her very last holidays with us and was a dearer creature than ever, perpetually dancing in and out of the house with the children as if she had never given a dancing-lesson in her life. caddy keeps her own little carriage now instead of hiring one, and lives full two miles further westward than newman street. she works very hard, her husband (an excellent one) being lame and able to do very little. still, she is more than contented and does all she has to do with all her heart. mr. jellyby spends his evenings at her new house with his head against the wall as he used to do in her old one. i have heard that mrs. jellyby was understood to suffer great mortification from her daughter's ignoble marriage and pursuits, but i hope she got over it in time. she has been disappointed in borrioboola-gha, which turned out a failure in consequence of the king of borrioboola wanting to sell everybody--who survived the climate--for rum, but she has taken up with the rights of women to sit in parliament, and caddy tells me it is a mission involving more correspondence than the old one. i had almost forgotten caddy's poor little girl. she is not such a mite now, but she is deaf and dumb. i believe there never was a better mother than caddy, who learns, in her scanty intervals of leisure, innumerable deaf and dumb arts to soften the affliction of her child. as if i were never to have done with caddy, i am reminded here of peepy and old mr. turveydrop. peepy is in the custom house, and doing extremely well. old mr. turveydrop, very apoplectic, still exhibits his deportment about town, still enjoys himself in the old manner, is still believed in in the old way. he is constant in his patronage of peepy and is understood to have bequeathed him a favourite french clock in his dressing-room--which is not his property. with the first money we saved at home, we added to our pretty house by throwing out a little growlery expressly for my guardian, which we inaugurated with great splendour the next time he came down to see us. i try to write all this lightly, because my heart is full in drawing to an end, but when i write of him, my tears will have their way. i never look at him but i hear our poor dear richard calling him a good man. to ada and her pretty boy, he is the fondest father; to me he is what he has ever been, and what name can i give to that? he is my husband's best and dearest friend, he is our children's darling, he is the object of our deepest love and veneration. yet while i feel towards him as if he were a superior being, i am so familiar with him and so easy with him that i almost wonder at myself. i have never lost my old names, nor has he lost his; nor do i ever, when he is with us, sit in any other place than in my old chair at his side, dame trot, dame durden, little woman--all just the same as ever; and i answer, "yes, dear guardian!" just the same. i have never known the wind to be in the east for a single moment since the day when he took me to the porch to read the name. i remarked to him once that the wind seemed never in the east now, and he said, no, truly; it had finally departed from that quarter on that very day. i think my darling girl is more beautiful than ever. the sorrow that has been in her face--for it is not there now--seems to have purified even its innocent expression and to have given it a diviner quality. sometimes when i raise my eyes and see her in the black dress that she still wears, teaching my richard, i feel--it is difficult to express--as if it were so good to know that she remembers her dear esther in her prayers. i call him my richard! but he says that he has two mamas, and i am one. we are not rich in the bank, but we have always prospered, and we have quite enough. i never walk out with my husband but i hear the people bless him. i never go into a house of any degree but i hear his praises or see them in grateful eyes. i never lie down at night but i know that in the course of that day he has alleviated pain and soothed some fellow-creature in the time of need. i know that from the beds of those who were past recovery, thanks have often, often gone up, in the last hour, for his patient ministration. is not this to be rich? the people even praise me as the doctor's wife. the people even like me as i go about, and make so much of me that i am quite abashed. i owe it all to him, my love, my pride! they like me for his sake, as i do everything i do in life for his sake. a night or two ago, after bustling about preparing for my darling and my guardian and little richard, who are coming to-morrow, i was sitting out in the porch of all places, that dearly memorable porch, when allan came home. so he said, "my precious little woman, what are you doing here?" and i said, "the moon is shining so brightly, allan, and the night is so delicious, that i have been sitting here thinking." "what have you been thinking about, my dear?" said allan then. "how curious you are!" said i. "i am almost ashamed to tell you, but i will. i have been thinking about my old looks--such as they were." "and what have you been thinking about them, my busy bee?" said allan. "i have been thinking that i thought it was impossible that you could have loved me any better, even if i had retained them." "'such as they were'?" said allan, laughing. "such as they were, of course." "my dear dame durden," said allan, drawing my arm through his, "do you ever look in the glass?" "you know i do; you see me do it." "and don't you know that you are prettier than you ever were?" "i did not know that; i am not certain that i know it now. but i know that my dearest little pets are very pretty, and that my darling is very beautiful, and that my husband is very handsome, and that my guardian has the brightest and most benevolent face that ever was seen, and that they can very well do without much beauty in me--even supposing--." prisoners*** transcribed from the chapman and hall "christmas stories" edition by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk the perils of certain english prisoners chapter i--the island of silver-store it was in the year of our lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-four, that i, gill davis to command, his mark, having then the honour to be a private in the royal marines, stood a-leaning over the bulwarks of the armed sloop christopher columbus, in the south american waters off the mosquito shore. my lady remarks to me, before i go any further, that there is no such christian-name as gill, and that her confident opinion is, that the name given to me in the baptism wherein i was made, &c., was gilbert. she is certain to be right, but i never heard of it. i was a foundling child, picked up somewhere or another, and i always understood my christian-name to be gill. it is true that i was called gills when employed at snorridge bottom betwixt chatham and maidstone to frighten birds; but that had nothing to do with the baptism wherein i was made, &c., and wherein a number of things were promised for me by somebody, who let me alone ever afterwards as to performing any of them, and who, i consider, must have been the beadle. such name of gills was entirely owing to my cheeks, or gills, which at that time of my life were of a raspy description. my lady stops me again, before i go any further, by laughing exactly in her old way and waving the feather of her pen at me. that action on her part, calls to my mind as i look at her hand with the rings on it--well! i won't! to be sure it will come in, in its own place. but it's always strange to me, noticing the quiet hand, and noticing it (as i have done, you know, so many times) a-fondling children and grandchildren asleep, to think that when blood and honour were up--there! i won't! not at present!--scratch it out. she won't scratch it out, and quite honourable; because we have made an understanding that everything is to be taken down, and that nothing that is once taken down shall be scratched out. i have the great misfortune not to be able to read and write, and i am speaking my true and faithful account of those adventures, and my lady is writing it, word for word. i say, there i was, a-leaning over the bulwarks of the sloop christopher columbus in the south american waters off the mosquito shore: a subject of his gracious majesty king george of england, and a private in the royal marines. in those climates, you don't want to do much. i was doing nothing. i was thinking of the shepherd (my father, i wonder?) on the hillsides by snorridge bottom, with a long staff, and with a rough white coat in all weathers all the year round, who used to let me lie in a corner of his hut by night, and who used to let me go about with him and his sheep by day when i could get nothing else to do, and who used to give me so little of his victuals and so much of his staff, that i ran away from him--which was what he wanted all along, i expect--to be knocked about the world in preference to snorridge bottom. i had been knocked about the world for nine-and-twenty years in all, when i stood looking along those bright blue south american waters. looking after the shepherd, i may say. watching him in a half-waking dream, with my eyes half-shut, as he, and his flock of sheep, and his two dogs, seemed to move away from the ship's side, far away over the blue water, and go right down into the sky. "it's rising out of the water, steady," a voice said close to me. i had been thinking on so, that it like woke me with a start, though it was no stranger voice than the voice of harry charker, my own comrade. "what's rising out of the water, steady?" i asked my comrade. "what?" says he. "the island." "o! the island!" says i, turning my eyes towards it. "true. i forgot the island." "forgot the port you're going to? that's odd, ain't it?" "it is odd," says i. "and odd," he said, slowly considering with himself, "ain't even. is it, gill?" he had always a remark just like that to make, and seldom another. as soon as he had brought a thing round to what it was not, he was satisfied. he was one of the best of men, and, in a certain sort of a way, one with the least to say for himself. i qualify it, because, besides being able to read and write like a quarter-master, he had always one most excellent idea in his mind. that was, duty. upon my soul, i don't believe, though i admire learning beyond everything, that he could have got a better idea out of all the books in the world, if he had learnt them every word, and been the cleverest of scholars. my comrade and i had been quartered in jamaica, and from there we had been drafted off to the british settlement of belize, lying away west and north of the mosquito coast. at belize there had been great alarm of one cruel gang of pirates (there were always more pirates than enough in those caribbean seas), and as they got the better of our english cruisers by running into out-of-the-way creeks and shallows, and taking the land when they were hotly pressed, the governor of belize had received orders from home to keep a sharp look-out for them along shore. now, there was an armed sloop came once a-year from port royal, jamaica, to the island, laden with all manner of necessaries, to eat, and to drink, and to wear, and to use in various ways; and it was aboard of that sloop which had touched at belize, that i was a-standing, leaning over the bulwarks. the island was occupied by a very small english colony. it had been given the name of silver-store. the reason of its being so called, was, that the english colony owned and worked a silver-mine over on the mainland, in honduras, and used this island as a safe and convenient place to store their silver in, until it was annually fetched away by the sloop. it was brought down from the mine to the coast on the backs of mules, attended by friendly indians and guarded by white men; from thence it was conveyed over to silver-store, when the weather was fair, in the canoes of that country; from silver-store, it was carried to jamaica by the armed sloop once a-year, as i have already mentioned; from jamaica, it went, of course, all over the world. how i came to be aboard the armed sloop, is easily told. four-and-twenty marines under command of a lieutenant--that officer's name was linderwood--had been told off at belize, to proceed to silver-store, in aid of boats and seamen stationed there for the chase of the pirates. the island was considered a good post of observation against the pirates, both by land and sea; neither the pirate ship nor yet her boats had been seen by any of us, but they had been so much heard of, that the reinforcement was sent. of that party, i was one. it included a corporal and a sergeant. charker was corporal, and the sergeant's name was drooce. he was the most tyrannical non-commissioned officer in his majesty's service. the night came on, soon after i had had the foregoing words with charker. all the wonderful bright colours went out of the sea and sky in a few minutes, and all the stars in the heavens seemed to shine out together, and to look down at themselves in the sea, over one another's shoulders, millions deep. next morning, we cast anchor off the island. there was a snug harbour within a little reef; there was a sandy beach; there were cocoa-nut trees with high straight stems, quite bare, and foliage at the top like plumes of magnificent green feathers; there were all the objects that are usually seen in those parts, and _i_ am not going to describe them, having something else to tell about. great rejoicings, to be sure, were made on our arrival. all the flags in the place were hoisted, all the guns in the place were fired, and all the people in the place came down to look at us. one of those sambo fellows--they call those natives sambos, when they are half-negro and half-indian--had come off outside the reef, to pilot us in, and remained on board after we had let go our anchor. he was called christian george king, and was fonder of all hands than anybody else was. now, i confess, for myself, that on that first day, if i had been captain of the christopher columbus, instead of private in the royal marines, i should have kicked christian george king--who was no more a christian than he was a king or a george--over the side, without exactly knowing why, except that it was the right thing to do. but, i must likewise confess, that i was not in a particularly pleasant humour, when i stood under arms that morning, aboard the christopher columbus in the harbour of the island of silver-store. i had had a hard life, and the life of the english on the island seemed too easy and too gay to please me. "here you are," i thought to myself, "good scholars and good livers; able to read what you like, able to write what you like, able to eat and drink what you like, and spend what you like, and do what you like; and much _you_ care for a poor, ignorant private in the royal marines! yet it's hard, too, i think, that you should have all the half- pence, and i all the kicks; you all the smooth, and i all the rough; you all the oil, and i all the vinegar." it was as envious a thing to think as might be, let alone its being nonsensical; but, i thought it. i took it so much amiss, that, when a very beautiful young english lady came aboard, i grunted to myself, "ah! _you_ have got a lover, i'll be bound!" as if there was any new offence to me in that, if she had! she was sister to the captain of our sloop, who had been in a poor way for some time, and who was so ill then that he was obliged to be carried ashore. she was the child of a military officer, and had come out there with her sister, who was married to one of the owners of the silver-mine, and who had three children with her. it was easy to see that she was the light and spirit of the island. after i had got a good look at her, i grunted to myself again, in an even worse state of mind than before, "i'll be damned, if i don't hate him, whoever he is!" my officer, lieutenant linderwood, was as ill as the captain of the sloop, and was carried ashore, too. they were both young men of about my age, who had been delicate in the west india climate. i even took _that_ in bad part. i thought i was much fitter for the work than they were, and that if all of us had our deserts, i should be both of them rolled into one. (it may be imagined what sort of an officer of marines i should have made, without the power of reading a written order. and as to any knowledge how to command the sloop--lord! i should have sunk her in a quarter of an hour!) however, such were my reflections; and when we men were ashore and dismissed, i strolled about the place along with charker, making my observations in a similar spirit. it was a pretty place: in all its arrangements partly south american and partly english, and very agreeable to look at on that account, being like a bit of home that had got chipped off and had floated away to that spot, accommodating itself to circumstances as it drifted along. the huts of the sambos, to the number of five-and-twenty, perhaps, were down by the beach to the left of the anchorage. on the right was a sort of barrack, with a south american flag and the union jack, flying from the same staff, where the little english colony could all come together, if they saw occasion. it was a walled square of building, with a sort of pleasure-ground inside, and inside that again a sunken block like a powder magazine, with a little square trench round it, and steps down to the door. charker and i were looking in at the gate, which was not guarded; and i had said to charker, in reference to the bit like a powder magazine, "that's where they keep the silver you see;" and charker had said to me, after thinking it over, "and silver ain't gold. is it, gill?" when the beautiful young english lady i had been so bilious about, looked out of a door, or a window--at all events looked out, from under a bright awning. she no sooner saw us two in uniform, than she came out so quickly that she was still putting on her broad mexican hat of plaited straw when we saluted. "would you like to come in," she said, "and see the place? it is rather a curious place." we thanked the young lady, and said we didn't wish to be troublesome; but, she said it could be no trouble to an english soldier's daughter, to show english soldiers how their countrymen and country-women fared, so far away from england; and consequently we saluted again, and went in. then, as we stood in the shade, she showed us (being as affable as beautiful), how the different families lived in their separate houses, and how there was a general house for stores, and a general reading-room, and a general room for music and dancing, and a room for church; and how there were other houses on the rising ground called the signal hill, where they lived in the hotter weather. "your officer has been carried up there," she said, "and my brother, too, for the better air. at present, our few residents are dispersed over both spots: deducting, that is to say, such of our number as are always going to, or coming from, or staying at, the mine." ("_he_ is among one of those parties," i thought, "and i wish somebody would knock his head off.") "some of our married ladies live here," she said, "during at least half the year, as lonely as widows, with their children." "many children here, ma'am?" "seventeen. there are thirteen married ladies, and there are eight like me." there were not eight like her--there was not one like her--in the world. she meant single. "which, with about thirty englishmen of various degrees," said the young lady, "form the little colony now on the island. i don't count the sailors, for they don't belong to us. nor the soldiers," she gave us a gracious smile when she spoke of the soldiers, "for the same reason." "nor the sambos, ma'am," said i. "no." "under your favour, and with your leave, ma'am," said i, "are they trustworthy?" "perfectly! we are all very kind to them, and they are very grateful to us." "indeed, ma'am? now--christian george king?--" "very much attached to us all. would die for us." she was, as in my uneducated way i have observed, very beautiful women almost always to be, so composed, that her composure gave great weight to what she said, and i believed it. then, she pointed out to us the building like a powder magazine, and explained to us in what manner the silver was brought from the mine, and was brought over from the mainland, and was stored here. the christopher columbus would have a rich lading, she said, for there had been a great yield that year, a much richer yield than usual, and there was a chest of jewels besides the silver. when we had looked about us, and were getting sheepish, through fearing we were troublesome, she turned us over to a young woman, english born but west india bred, who served her as her maid. this young woman was the widow of a non-commissioned officer in a regiment of the line. she had got married and widowed at st. vincent, with only a few months between the two events. she was a little saucy woman, with a bright pair of eyes, rather a neat little foot and figure, and rather a neat little turned-up nose. the sort of young woman, i considered at the time, who appeared to invite you to give her a kiss, and who would have slapped your face if you accepted the invitation. i couldn't make out her name at first; for, when she gave it in answer to my inquiry, it sounded like beltot, which didn't sound right. but, when we became better acquainted--which was while charker and i were drinking sugar-cane sangaree, which she made in a most excellent manner--i found that her christian name was isabella, which they shortened into bell, and that the name of the deceased non-commissioned officer was tott. being the kind of neat little woman it was natural to make a toy of--i never saw a woman so like a toy in my life--she had got the plaything name of belltott. in short, she had no other name on the island. even mr. commissioner pordage (and _he_ was a grave one!) formally addressed her as mrs. belltott, but, i shall come to mr. commissioner pordage presently. the name of the captain of the sloop was captain maryon, and therefore it was no news to hear from mrs. belltott, that his sister, the beautiful unmarried young english lady, was miss maryon. the novelty was, that her christian-name was marion too. marion maryon. many a time i have run off those two names in my thoughts, like a bit of verse. oh many, and many, and many a time! we saw out all the drink that was produced, like good men and true, and then took our leaves, and went down to the beach. the weather was beautiful; the wind steady, low, and gentle; the island, a picture; the sea, a picture; the sky, a picture. in that country there are two rainy seasons in the year. one sets in at about our english midsummer; the other, about a fortnight after our english michaelmas. it was the beginning of august at that time; the first of these rainy seasons was well over; and everything was in its most beautiful growth, and had its loveliest look upon it. "they enjoy themselves here," i says to charker, turning surly again. "this is better than private-soldiering." we had come down to the beach, to be friendly with the boat's-crew who were camped and hutted there; and we were approaching towards their quarters over the sand, when christian george king comes up from the landing-place at a wolf's-trot, crying, "yup, so-jeer!"--which was that sambo pilot's barbarous way of saying, hallo, soldier! i have stated myself to be a man of no learning, and, if i entertain prejudices, i hope allowance may be made. i will now confess to one. it may be a right one or it may be a wrong one; but, i never did like natives, except in the form of oysters. so, when christian george king, who was individually unpleasant to me besides, comes a trotting along the sand, clucking, "yup, so-jeer!" i had a thundering good mind to let fly at him with my right. i certainly should have done it, but that it would have exposed me to reprimand. "yup, so-jeer!" says he. "bad job." "what do you mean?" says i. "yup, so-jeer!" says he, "ship leakee." "ship leaky?" says i. "iss," says he, with a nod that looked as if it was jerked out of him by a most violent hiccup--which is the way with those savages. i cast my eyes at charker, and we both heard the pumps going aboard the sloop, and saw the signal run up, "come on board; hands wanted from the shore." in no time some of the sloop's liberty-men were already running down to the water's edge, and the party of seamen, under orders against the pirates, were putting off to the columbus in two boats. "o christian george king sar berry sorry!" says that sambo vagabond, then. "christian george king cry, english fashion!" his english fashion of crying was to screw his black knuckles into his eyes, howl like a dog, and roll himself on his back on the sand. it was trying not to kick him, but i gave charker the word, "double-quick, harry!" and we got down to the water's edge, and got on board the sloop. by some means or other, she had sprung such a leak, that no pumping would keep her free; and what between the two fears that she would go down in the harbour, and that, even if she did not, all the supplies she had brought for the little colony would be destroyed by the sea-water as it rose in her, there was great confusion. in the midst of it, captain maryon was heard hailing from the beach. he had been carried down in his hammock, and looked very bad; but he insisted on being stood there on his feet; and i saw him, myself, come off in the boat, sitting upright in the stern-sheets, as if nothing was wrong with him. a quick sort of council was held, and captain maryon soon resolved that we must all fall to work to get the cargo out, and that when that was done, the guns and heavy matters must be got out, and that the sloop must be hauled ashore, and careened, and the leak stopped. we were all mustered (the pirate-chace party volunteering), and told off into parties, with so many hours of spell and so many hours of relief, and we all went at it with a will. christian george king was entered one of the party in which i worked, at his own request, and he went at it with as good a will as any of the rest. he went at it with so much heartiness, to say the truth, that he rose in my good opinion almost as fast as the water rose in the ship. which was fast enough, and faster. mr. commissioner pordage kept in a red-and-black japanned box, like a family lump-sugar box, some document or other, which some sambo chief or other had got drunk and spilt some ink over (as well as i could understand the matter), and by that means had given up lawful possession of the island. through having hold of this box, mr. pordage got his title of commissioner. he was styled consul too, and spoke of himself as "government." he was a stiff-jointed, high-nosed old gentleman, without an ounce of fat on him, of a very angry temper and a very yellow complexion. mrs. commissioner pordage, making allowance for difference of sex, was much the same. mr. kitten, a small, youngish, bald, botanical and mineralogical gentleman, also connected with the mine--but everybody there was that, more or less--was sometimes called by mr. commissioner pordage, his vice-commissioner, and sometimes his deputy-consul. or sometimes he spoke of mr. kitten, merely as being "under government." the beach was beginning to be a lively scene with the preparations for careening the sloop, and with cargo, and spars, and rigging, and water- casks, dotted about it, and with temporary quarters for the men rising up there out of such sails and odds and ends as could be best set on one side to make them, when mr. commissioner pordage comes down in a high fluster, and asks for captain maryon. the captain, ill as he was, was slung in his hammock betwixt two trees, that he might direct; and he raised his head, and answered for himself. "captain maryon," cries mr. commissioner pordage, "this is not official. this is not regular." "sir," says the captain, "it hath been arranged with the clerk and supercargo, that you should be communicated with, and requested to render any little assistance that may lie in your power. i am quite certain that hath been duly done." "captain maryon," replied mr. commissioner pordage, "there hath been no written correspondence. no documents have passed, no memoranda have been made, no minutes have been made, no entries and counter-entries appear in the official muniments. this is indecent. i call upon you, sir, to desist, until all is regular, or government will take this up." "sir," says captain maryon, chafing a little, as he looked out of his hammock; "between the chances of government taking this up, and my ship taking herself down, i much prefer to trust myself to the former." "you do, sir?" cries mr. commissioner pordage. "i do, sir," says captain maryon, lying down again. "then, mr. kitten," says the commissioner, "send up instantly for my diplomatic coat." he was dressed in a linen suit at that moment; but, mr. kitten started off himself and brought down the diplomatic coat, which was a blue cloth one, gold-laced, and with a crown on the button. "now, mr. kitten," says pordage, "i instruct you, as vice-commissioner, and deputy-consul of this place, to demand of captain maryon, of the sloop christopher columbus, whether he drives me to the act of putting this coat on?" "mr. pordage," says captain maryon, looking out of his hammock again, "as i can hear what you say, i can answer it without troubling the gentleman. i should be sorry that you should be at the pains of putting on too hot a coat on my account; but, otherwise, you may put it on hind-side before, or inside-out, or with your legs in the sleeves, or your head in the skirts, for any objection that i have to offer to your thoroughly pleasing yourself." "very good, captain maryon," says pordage, in a tremendous passion. "very good, sir. be the consequences on your own head! mr. kitten, as it has come to this, help me on with it." when he had given that order, he walked off in the coat, and all our names were taken, and i was afterwards told that mr. kitten wrote from his dictation more than a bushel of large paper on the subject, which cost more before it was done with, than ever could be calculated, and which only got done with after all, by being lost. our work went on merrily, nevertheless, and the christopher columbus, hauled up, lay helpless on her side like a great fish out of water. while she was in that state, there was a feast, or a ball, or an entertainment, or more properly all three together, given us in honour of the ship, and the ship's company, and the other visitors. at that assembly, i believe, i saw all the inhabitants then upon the island, without any exception. i took no particular notice of more than a few, but i found it very agreeable in that little corner of the world to see the children, who were of all ages, and mostly very pretty--as they mostly are. there was one handsome elderly lady, with very dark eyes and gray hair, that i inquired about. i was told that her name was mrs. venning; and her married daughter, a fair slight thing, was pointed out to me by the name of fanny fisher. quite a child she looked, with a little copy of herself holding to her dress; and her husband, just come back from the mine, exceeding proud of her. they were a good-looking set of people on the whole, but i didn't like them. i was out of sorts; in conversation with charker, i found fault with all of them. i said of mrs. venning, she was proud; of mrs. fisher, she was a delicate little baby-fool. what did i think of this one? why, he was a fine gentleman. what did i say to that one? why, she was a fine lady. what could you expect them to be (i asked charker), nursed in that climate, with the tropical night shining for them, musical instruments playing to them, great trees bending over them, soft lamps lighting them, fire-flies sparkling in among them, bright flowers and birds brought into existence to please their eyes, delicious drinks to be had for the pouring out, delicious fruits to be got for the picking, and every one dancing and murmuring happily in the scented air, with the sea breaking low on the reef for a pleasant chorus. "fine gentlemen and fine ladies, harry?" i says to charker. "yes, i think so! dolls! dolls! not the sort of stuff for wear, that comes of poor private soldiering in the royal marines!" however, i could not gainsay that they were very hospitable people, and that they treated us uncommonly well. every man of us was at the entertainment, and mrs. belltott had more partners than she could dance with: though she danced all night, too. as to jack (whether of the christopher columbus, or of the pirate pursuit party, it made no difference), he danced with his brother jack, danced with himself, danced with the moon, the stars, the trees, the prospect, anything. i didn't greatly take to the chief-officer of that party, with his bright eyes, brown face, and easy figure. i didn't much like his way when he first happened to come where we were, with miss maryon on his arm. "o, captain carton," she says, "here are two friends of mine!" he says, "indeed? these two marines?"--meaning charker and self. "yes," says she, "i showed these two friends of mine when they first came, all the wonders of silver-store." he gave us a laughing look, and says he, "you are in luck, men. i would be disrated and go before the mast to-morrow, to be shown the way upward again by such a guide. you are in luck, men." when we had saluted, and he and the lady had waltzed away, i said, "you are a pretty follow, too, to talk of luck. you may go to the devil!" mr. commissioner pordage and mrs. commissioner, showed among the company on that occasion like the king and queen of a much greater britain than great britain. only two other circumstances in that jovial night made much separate impression on me. one was this. a man in our draft of marines, named tom packer, a wild unsteady young fellow, but the son of a respectable shipwright in portsmouth yard, and a good scholar who had been well brought up, comes to me after a spell of dancing, and takes me aside by the elbow, and says, swearing angrily: "gill davis, i hope i may not be the death of sergeant drooce one day!" now, i knew drooce had always borne particularly hard on this man, and i knew this man to be of a very hot temper: so, i said: "tut, nonsense! don't talk so to me! if there's a man in the corps who scorns the name of an assassin, that man and tom packer are one." tom wipes his head, being in a mortal sweat, and says he: "i hope so, but i can't answer for myself when he lords it over me, as he has just now done, before a woman. i tell you what, gill! mark my words! it will go hard with sergeant drooce, if ever we are in an engagement together, and he has to look to me to save him. let him say a prayer then, if he knows one, for it's all over with him, and he is on his death-bed. mark my words!" i did mark his words, and very soon afterwards, too, as will shortly be taken down. the other circumstance that i noticed at that ball, was, the gaiety and attachment of christian george king. the innocent spirits that sambo pilot was in, and the impossibility he found himself under of showing all the little colony, but especially the ladies and children, how fond he was of them, how devoted to them, and how faithful to them for life and death, for present, future, and everlasting, made a great impression on me. if ever a man, sambo or no sambo, was trustful and trusted, to what may be called quite an infantine and sweetly beautiful extent, surely, i thought that morning when i did at last lie down to rest, it was that sambo pilot, christian george king. this may account for my dreaming of him. he stuck in my sleep, cornerwise, and i couldn't get him out. he was always flitting about me, dancing round me, and peeping in over my hammock, though i woke and dozed off again fifty times. at last, when i opened my eyes, there he really was, looking in at the open side of the little dark hut; which was made of leaves, and had charker's hammock slung in it as well as mine. "so-jeer!" says he, in a sort of a low croak. "yup!" "hallo!" says i, starting up. "what? you _are_ there, are you?" "iss," says he. "christian george king got news." "what news has he got?" "pirates out!" i was on my feet in a second. so was charker. we were both aware that captain carton, in command of the boats, constantly watched the mainland for a secret signal, though, of course, it was not known to such as us what the signal was. christian george king had vanished before we touched the ground. but, the word was already passing from hut to hut to turn out quietly, and we knew that the nimble barbarian had got hold of the truth, or something near it. in a space among the trees behind the encampment of us visitors, naval and military, was a snugly-screened spot, where we kept the stores that were in use, and did our cookery. the word was passed to assemble here. it was very quickly given, and was given (so far as we were concerned) by sergeant drooce, who was as good in a soldier point of view, as he was bad in a tyrannical one. we were ordered to drop into this space, quietly, behind the trees, one by one. as we assembled here, the seamen assembled too. within ten minutes, as i should estimate, we were all here, except the usual guard upon the beach. the beach (we could see it through the wood) looked as it always had done in the hottest time of the day. the guard were in the shadow of the sloop's hull, and nothing was moving but the sea,--and that moved very faintly. work had always been knocked off at that hour, until the sun grew less fierce, and the sea- breeze rose; so that its being holiday with us, made no difference, just then, in the look of the place. but i may mention that it was a holiday, and the first we had had since our hard work began. last night's ball had been given, on the leak's being repaired, and the careening done. the worst of the work was over, and to-morrow we were to begin to get the sloop afloat again. we marines were now drawn up here under arms. the chace-party were drawn up separate. the men of the columbus were drawn up separate. the officers stepped out into the midst of the three parties, and spoke so as all might hear. captain carton was the officer in command, and he had a spy-glass in his hand. his coxswain stood by him with another spy-glass, and with a slate on which he seemed to have been taking down signals. "now, men!" says captain carton; "i have to let you know, for your satisfaction: firstly, that there are ten pirate-boats, strongly manned and armed, lying hidden up a creek yonder on the coast, under the overhanging branches of the dense trees. secondly, that they will certainly come out this night when the moon rises, on a pillaging and murdering expedition, of which some part of the mainland is the object. thirdly--don't cheer, men!--that we will give chace, and, if we can get at them, rid the world of them, please god!" nobody spoke, that i heard, and nobody moved, that i saw. yet there was a kind of ring, as if every man answered and approved with the best blood that was inside of him. "sir," says captain maryon, "i beg to volunteer on this service, with my boats. my people volunteer, to the ship's boys." "in his majesty's name and service," the other answers, touching his hat, "i accept your aid with pleasure. lieutenant linderwood, how will you divide your men?" i was ashamed--i give it out to be written down as large and plain as possible--i was heart and soul ashamed of my thoughts of those two sick officers, captain maryon and lieutenant linderwood, when i saw them, then and there. the spirit in those two gentlemen beat down their illness (and very ill i knew them to be) like saint george beating down the dragon. pain and weakness, want of ease and want of rest, had no more place in their minds than fear itself. meaning now to express for my lady to write down, exactly what i felt then and there, i felt this: "you two brave fellows that i had been so grudgeful of, i know that if you were dying you would put it off to get up and do your best, and then you would be so modest that in lying down again to die, you would hardly say, 'i did it!'" it did me good. it really did me good. but, to go back to where i broke off. says captain carton to lieutenant linderwood, "sir, how will you divide your men? there is not room for all; and a few men should, in any case, be left here." there was some debate about it. at last, it was resolved to leave eight marines and four seamen on the island, besides the sloop's two boys. and because it was considered that the friendly sambos would only want to be commanded in case of any danger (though none at all was apprehended there), the officers were in favour of leaving the two non-commissioned officers, drooce and charker. it was a heavy disappointment to them, just as my being one of the left was a heavy disappointment to me--then, but not soon afterwards. we men drew lots for it, and i drew "island." so did tom packer. so of course, did four more of our rank and file. when this was settled, verbal instructions were given to all hands to keep the intended expedition secret, in order that the women and children might not be alarmed, or the expedition put in a difficulty by more volunteers. the assembly was to be on that same spot at sunset. every man was to keep up an appearance, meanwhile, of occupying himself in his usual way. that is to say, every man excepting four old trusty seamen, who were appointed, with an officer, to see to the arms and ammunition, and to muffle the rullocks of the boats, and to make everything as trim and swift and silent as it could be made. the sambo pilot had been present all the while, in case of his being wanted, and had said to the officer in command, five hundred times over if he had said it once, that christian george king would stay with the so- jeers, and take care of the booffer ladies and the booffer childs--booffer being that native's expression for beautiful. he was now asked a few questions concerning the putting off of the boats, and in particular whether there was any way of embarking at the back of the island: which captain carton would have half liked to do, and then have dropped round in its shadow and slanted across to the main. but, "no," says christian george king. "no, no, no! told you so, ten time. no, no, no! all reef, all rock, all swim, all drown!" striking out as he said it, like a swimmer gone mad, and turning over on his back on dry land, and spluttering himself to death, in a manner that made him quite an exhibition. the sun went down, after appearing to be a long time about it, and the assembly was called. every man answered to his name, of course, and was at his post. it was not yet black dark, and the roll was only just gone through, when up comes mr. commissioner pordage with his diplomatic coat on. "captain carton," says he, "sir, what is this?" "this, mr. commissioner" (he was very short with him), "is an expedition against the pirates. it is a secret expedition, so please to keep it a secret." "sir," says commissioner pordage, "i trust there is going to be no unnecessary cruelty committed?" "sir," returns the officer, "i trust not." "that is not enough, sir," cries commissioner pordage, getting wroth. "captain carton, i give you notice. government requires you to treat the enemy with great delicacy, consideration, clemency, and forbearance." "sir," says captain carton, "i am an english officer, commanding english men, and i hope i am not likely to disappoint the government's just expectations. but, i presume you know that these villains under their black flag have despoiled our countrymen of their property, burnt their homes, barbarously murdered them and their little children, and worse than murdered their wives and daughters?" "perhaps i do, captain carton," answers pordage, waving his hand, with dignity; "perhaps i do not. it is not customary, sir, for government to commit itself." "it matters very little, mr. pordage, whether or no. believing that i hold my commission by the allowance of god, and not that i have received it direct from the devil, i shall certainly use it, with all avoidance of unnecessary suffering and with all merciful swiftness of execution, to exterminate these people from the face of the earth. let me recommend you to go home, sir, and to keep out of the night-air." never another syllable did that officer say to the commissioner, but turned away to his men. the commissioner buttoned his diplomatic coat to the chin, said, "mr. kitten, attend me!" gasped, half choked himself, and took himself off. it now fell very dark, indeed. i have seldom, if ever, seen it darker, nor yet so dark. the moon was not due until one in the morning, and it was but a little after nine when our men lay down where they were mustered. it was pretended that they were to take a nap, but everybody knew that no nap was to be got under the circumstances. though all were very quiet, there was a restlessness among the people; much what i have seen among the people on a race-course, when the bell has rung for the saddling for a great race with large stakes on it. at ten, they put off; only one boat putting off at a time; another following in five minutes; both then lying on their oars until another followed. ahead of all, paddling his own outlandish little canoe without a sound, went the sambo pilot, to take them safely outside the reef. no light was shown but once, and that was in the commanding officer's own hand. i lighted the dark lantern for him, and he took it from me when he embarked. they had blue lights and such like with them, but kept themselves as dark as murder. the expedition got away with wonderful quietness, and christian george king soon came back dancing with joy. "yup, so-jeer," says he to myself in a very objectionable kind of convulsions, "christian george king sar berry glad. pirates all be blown a-pieces. yup! yup!" my reply to that cannibal was, "however glad you may be, hold your noise, and don't dance jigs and slap your knees about it, for i can't abear to see you do it." i was on duty then; we twelve who were left being divided into four watches of three each, three hours' spell. i was relieved at twelve. a little before that time, i had challenged, and miss maryon and mrs. belltott had come in. "good davis," says miss maryon, "what is the matter? where is my brother?" i told her what was the matter, and where her brother was. "o heaven help him!" says she, clasping her hands and looking up--she was close in front of me, and she looked most lovely to be sure; "he is not sufficiently recovered, not strong enough for such strife!" "if you had seen him, miss," i told her, "as i saw him when he volunteered, you would have known that his spirit is strong enough for any strife. it will bear his body, miss, to wherever duty calls him. it will always bear him to an honourable life, or a brave death." "heaven bless you!" says she, touching my arm. "i know it. heaven bless you!" mrs. belltott surprised me by trembling and saying nothing. they were still standing looking towards the sea and listening, after the relief had come round. it continuing very dark, i asked to be allowed to take them back. miss maryon thanked me, and she put her arm in mine, and i did take them back. i have now got to make a confession that will appear singular. after i had left them, i laid myself down on my face on the beach, and cried for the first time since i had frightened birds as a boy at snorridge bottom, to think what a poor, ignorant, low-placed, private soldier i was. it was only for half a minute or so. a man can't at all times be quite master of himself, and it was only for half a minute or so. then i up and went to my hut, and turned into my hammock, and fell asleep with wet eyelashes, and a sore, sore heart. just as i had often done when i was a child, and had been worse used than usual. i slept (as a child under those circumstances might) very sound, and yet very sore at heart all through my sleep. i was awoke by the words, "he is a determined man." i had sprung out of my hammock, and had seized my firelock, and was standing on the ground, saying the words myself. "he is a determined man." but, the curiosity of my state was, that i seemed to be repeating them after somebody, and to have been wonderfully startled by hearing them. as soon as i came to myself, i went out of the hut, and away to where the guard was. charker challenged: "who goes there?" "a friend." "not gill?" says he, as he shouldered his piece. "gill," says i. "why, what the deuce do you do out of your hammock?" says he. "too hot for sleep," says i; "is all right?" "right!" says charker, "yes, yes; all's right enough here; what should be wrong here? it's the boats that we want to know of. except for fire- flies twinkling about, and the lonesome splashes of great creatures as they drop into the water, there's nothing going on here to ease a man's mind from the boats." the moon was above the sea, and had risen, i should say, some half-an- hour. as charker spoke, with his face towards the sea, i, looking landward, suddenly laid my right hand on his breast, and said, "don't move. don't turn. don't raise your voice! you never saw a maltese face here?" "no. what do you mean?" he asks, staring at me. "nor yet, an english face, with one eye and a patch across the nose?" "no. what ails you? what do you mean?" i had seen both, looking at us round the stem of a cocoa-nut tree, where the moon struck them. i had seen that sambo pilot, with one hand laid on the stem of the tree, drawing them back into the heavy shadow. i had seen their naked cutlasses twinkle and shine, like bits of the moonshine in the water that had got blown ashore among the trees by the light wind. i had seen it all, in a moment. and i saw in a moment (as any man would), that the signalled move of the pirates on the mainland was a plot and a feint; that the leak had been made to disable the sloop; that the boats had been tempted away, to leave the island unprotected; that the pirates had landed by some secreted way at the back; and that christian george king was a double-dyed traitor, and a most infernal villain. i considered, still all in one and the same moment, that charker was a brave man, but not quick with his head; and that sergeant drooce, with a much better head, was close by. all i said to charker was, "i am afraid we are betrayed. turn your back full to the moonlight on the sea, and cover the stem of the cocoa-nut tree which will then be right before you, at the height of a man's heart. are you right?" "i am right," says charker, turning instantly, and falling into the position with a nerve of iron; "and right ain't left. is it, gill?" a few seconds brought me to sergeant drooce's hut. he was fast asleep, and being a heavy sleeper, i had to lay my hand upon him to rouse him. the instant i touched him he came rolling out of his hammock, and upon me like a tiger. and a tiger he was, except that he knew what he was up to, in his utmost heat, as well as any man. i had to struggle with him pretty hard to bring him to his senses, panting all the while (for he gave me a breather), "sergeant, i am gill davis! treachery! pirates on the island!" the last words brought him round, and he took his hands of. "i have seen two of them within this minute," said i. and so i told him what i had told harry charker. his soldierly, though tyrannical, head was clear in an instant. he didn't waste one word, even of surprise. "order the guard," says he, "to draw off quietly into the fort." (they called the enclosure i have before mentioned, the fort, though it was not much of that.) "then get you to the fort as quick as you can, rouse up every soul there, and fasten the gate. i will bring in all those who are at the signal hill. if we are surrounded before we can join you, you must make a sally and cut us out if you can. the word among our men is, 'women and children!'" he burst away, like fire going before the wind over dry reeds. he roused up the seven men who were off duty, and had them bursting away with him, before they know they were not asleep. i reported orders to charker, and ran to the fort, as i have never run at any other time in all my life: no, not even in a dream. the gate was not fast, and had no good fastening: only a double wooden bar, a poor chain, and a bad lock. those, i secured as well as they could be secured in a few seconds by one pair of hands, and so ran to that part of the building where miss maryon lived. i called to her loudly by her name until she answered. i then called loudly all the names i knew--mrs. macey (miss maryon's married sister), mr. macey, mrs. venning, mr. and mrs. fisher, even mr. and mrs. pordage. then i called out, "all you gentlemen here, get up and defend the place! we are caught in a trap. pirates have landed. we are attacked!" at the terrible word "pirates!"--for, those villains had done such deeds in those seas as never can be told in writing, and can scarcely be so much as thought of--cries and screams rose up from every part of the place. quickly lights moved about from window to window, and the cries moved about with them, and men, women, and children came flying down into the square. i remarked to myself, even then, what a number of things i seemed to see at once. i noticed mrs. macey coming towards me, carrying all her three children together. i noticed mr. pordage in the greatest terror, in vain trying to get on his diplomatic coat; and mr. kitten respectfully tying his pocket-handkerchief over mrs. pordage's nightcap. i noticed mrs. belltott run out screaming, and shrink upon the ground near me, and cover her face in her hands, and lie all of a bundle, shivering. but, what i noticed with the greatest pleasure was, the determined eyes with which those men of the mine that i had thought fine gentlemen, came round me with what arms they had: to the full as cool and resolute as i could be, for my life--ay, and for my soul, too, into the bargain! the chief person being mr. macey, i told him how the three men of the guard would be at the gate directly, if they were not already there, and how sergeant drooce and the other seven were gone to bring in the outlying part of the people of silver-store. i next urged him, for the love of all who were dear to him, to trust no sambo, and, above all, if he could got any good chance at christian george king, not to lose it, but to put him out of the world. "i will follow your advice to the letter, davis," says he; "what next?" my answer was, "i think, sir, i would recommend you next, to order down such heavy furniture and lumber as can be moved, and make a barricade within the gate." "that's good again," says he: "will you see it done?" "i'll willingly help to do it," says i, "unless or until my superior, sergeant drooce, gives me other orders." he shook me by the hand, and having told off some of his companions to help me, bestirred himself to look to the arms and ammunition. a proper quick, brave, steady, ready gentleman! one of their three little children was deaf and dumb, miss maryon had been from the first with all the children, soothing them, and dressing them (poor little things, they had been brought out of their beds), and making them believe that it was a game of play, so that some of them were now even laughing. i had been working hard with the others at the barricade, and had got up a pretty good breastwork within the gate. drooce and the seven men had come back, bringing in the people from the signal hill, and had worked along with us: but, i had not so much as spoken a word to drooce, nor had drooce so much as spoken a word to me, for we were both too busy. the breastwork was now finished, and i found miss maryon at my side, with a child in her arms. her dark hair was fastened round her head with a band. she had a quantity of it, and it looked even richer and more precious, put up hastily out of her way, than i had seen it look when it was carefully arranged. she was very pale, but extraordinarily quiet and still. "dear good davis," said she, "i have been waiting to speak one word to you." i turned to her directly. if i had received a musket-ball in the heart, and she had stood there, i almost believe i should have turned to her before i dropped. "this pretty little creature," said she, kissing the child in her arms, who was playing with her hair and trying to pull it down, "cannot hear what we say--can hear nothing. i trust you so much, and have such great confidence in you, that i want you to make me a promise." "what is it, miss?" "that if we are defeated, and you are absolutely sure of my being taken, you will kill me." "i shall not be alive to do it, miss. i shall have died in your defence before it comes to that. they must step across my body to lay a hand on you." "but, if you are alive, you brave soldier." how she looked at me! "and if you cannot save me from the pirates, living, you will save me, dead. tell me so." well! i told her i would do that at the last, if all else failed. she took my hand--my rough, coarse hand--and put it to her lips. she put it to the child's lips, and the child kissed it. i believe i had the strength of half a dozen men in me, from that moment, until the fight was over. all this time, mr. commissioner pordage had been wanting to make a proclamation to the pirates to lay down their arms and go away; and everybody had been hustling him about and tumbling over him, while he was calling for pen and ink to write it with. mrs. pordage, too, had some curious ideas about the british respectability of her nightcap (which had as many frills to it, growing in layers one inside another, as if it was a white vegetable of the artichoke sort), and she wouldn't take the nightcap off, and would be angry when it got crushed by the other ladies who were handing things about, and, in short, she gave as much trouble as her husband did. but, as we were now forming for the defence of the place, they were both poked out of the way with no ceremony. the children and ladies were got into the little trench which surrounded the silver-house (we were afraid of leaving them in any of the light buildings, lest they should be set on fire), and we made the best disposition we could. there was a pretty good store, in point of amount, of tolerable swords and cutlasses. those were issued. there were, also, perhaps a score or so of spare muskets. those were brought out. to my astonishment, little mrs. fisher that i had taken for a doll and a baby, was not only very active in that service, but volunteered to load the spare arms. "for, i understand it well," says she, cheerfully, without a shake in her voice. "i am a soldier's daughter and a sailor's sister, and i understand it too," says miss maryon, just in the same way. steady and busy behind where i stood, those two beautiful and delicate young women fell to handling the guns, hammering the flints, looking to the locks, and quietly directing others to pass up powder and bullets from hand to hand, as unflinching as the best of tried soldiers. sergeant drooce had brought in word that the pirates were very strong in numbers--over a hundred was his estimate--and that they were not, even then, all landed; for, he had seen them in a very good position on the further side of the signal hill, evidently waiting for the rest of their men to come up. in the present pause, the first we had had since the alarm, he was telling this over again to mr. macey, when mr. macey suddenly cried our: "the signal! nobody has thought of the signal!" we knew of no signal, so we could not have thought of it. "what signal may you mean, sir?" says sergeant drooce, looking sharp at him. "there is a pile of wood upon the signal hill. if it could be lighted--which never has been done yet--it would be a signal of distress to the mainland." charker cries, directly: "sergeant drooce, dispatch me on that duty. give me the two men who were on guard with me to-night, and i'll light the fire, if it can be done." "and if it can't, corporal--" mr. macey strikes in. "look at these ladies and children, sir!" says charker. "i'd sooner _light myself_, than not try any chance to save them." we gave him a hurrah!--it burst from us, come of it what might--and he got his two men, and was let out at the gate, and crept away. i had no sooner come back to my place from being one of the party to handle the gate, than miss maryon said in a low voice behind me: "davis, will you look at this powder? this is not right." i turned my head. christian george king again, and treachery again! sea- water had been conveyed into the magazine, and every grain of powder was spoiled! "stay a moment," said sergeant drooce, when i had told him, without causing a movement in a muscle of his face: "look to your pouch, my lad. you tom packer, look to your pouch, confound you! look to your pouches, all you marines." the same artful savage had got at them, somehow or another, and the cartridges were all unserviceable. "hum!" says the sergeant. "look to your loading, men. you are right so far?" yes; we were right so far. "well, my lads, and gentlemen all," says the sergeant, "this will be a hand-to-hand affair, and so much the better." he treated himself to a pinch of snuff, and stood up, square-shouldered and broad-chested, in the light of the moon--which was now very bright--as cool as if he was waiting for a play to begin. he stood quiet, and we all stood quiet, for a matter of something like half-an-hour. i took notice from such whispered talk as there was, how little we that the silver did not belong to, thought about it, and how much the people that it did belong to, thought about it. at the end of the half-hour, it was reported from the gate that charker and the two were falling back on us, pursued by about a dozen. "sally! gate-party, under gill davis," says the sergeant, "and bring 'em in! like men, now!" we were not long about it, and we brought them in. "don't take me," says charker, holding me round the neck, and stumbling down at my feet when the gate was fast, "don't take me near the ladies or the children, gill. they had better not see death, till it can't be helped. they'll see it soon enough." "harry!" i answered, holding up his head. "comrade!" he was cut to pieces. the signal had been secured by the first pirate party that landed; his hair was all singed off, and his face was blackened with the running pitch from a torch. he made no complaint of pain, or of anything. "good-bye, old chap," was all he said, with a smile. "i've got my death. and death ain't life. is it, gill?" having helped to lay his poor body on one side, i went back to my post. sergeant drooce looked at me, with his eyebrows a little lifted. i nodded. "close up here men, and gentlemen all!" said the sergeant. "a place too many, in the line." the pirates were so close upon us at this time, that the foremost of them were already before the gate. more and more came up with a great noise, and shouting loudly. when we believed from the sound that they were all there, we gave three english cheers. the poor little children joined, and were so fully convinced of our being at play, that they enjoyed the noise, and were heard clapping their hands in the silence that followed. our disposition was this, beginning with the rear. mrs. venning, holding her daughter's child in her arms, sat on the steps of the little square trench surrounding the silver-house, encouraging and directing those women and children as she might have done in the happiest and easiest time of her life. then, there was an armed line, under mr. macey, across the width of the enclosure, facing that way and having their backs towards the gate, in order that they might watch the walls and prevent our being taken by surprise. then there was a space of eight or ten feet deep, in which the spare arms were, and in which miss maryon and mrs. fisher, their hands and dresses blackened with the spoilt gunpowder, worked on their knees, tying such things as knives, old bayonets, and spear-heads, to the muzzles of the useless muskets. then, there was a second armed line, under sergeant drooce, also across the width of the enclosure, but facing to the gate. then came the breastwork we had made, with a zigzag way through it for me and my little party to hold good in retreating, as long as we could, when we were driven from the gate. we all knew that it was impossible to hold the place long, and that our only hope was in the timely discovery of the plot by the boats, and in their coming back. i and my men were now thrown forward to the gate. from a spy-hole, i could see the whole crowd of pirates. there were malays among them, dutch, maltese, greeks, sambos, negroes, and convict englishmen from the west india islands; among the last, him with the one eye and the patch across the nose. there were some portuguese, too, and a few spaniards. the captain was a portuguese; a little man with very large ear-rings under a very broad hat, and a great bright shawl twisted about his shoulders. they were all strongly armed, but like a boarding party, with pikes, swords, cutlasses, and axes. i noticed a good many pistols, but not a gun of any kind among them. this gave me to understand that they had considered that a continued roll of musketry might perhaps have been heard on the mainland; also, that for the reason that fire would be seen from the mainland they would not set the fort in flames and roast us alive; which was one of their favourite ways of carrying on. i looked about for christian george king, and if i had seen him i am much mistaken if he would not have received my one round of ball-cartridge in his head. but, no christian george king was visible. a sort of a wild portuguese demon, who seemed either fierce-mad or fierce- drunk--but, they all seemed one or the other--came forward with the black flag, and gave it a wave or two. after that, the portuguese captain called out in shrill english, "i say you! english fools! open the gate! surrender!" as we kept close and quiet, he said something to his men which i didn't understand, and when he had said it, the one-eyed english rascal with the patch (who had stepped out when he began), said it again in english. it was only this. "boys of the black flag, this is to be quickly done. take all the prisoners you can. if they don't yield, kill the children to make them. forward!" then, they all came on at the gate, and in another half-minute were smashing and splitting it in. we struck at them through the gaps and shivers, and we dropped many of them, too; but, their very weight would have carried such a gate, if they had been unarmed. i soon found sergeant drooce at my side, forming us six remaining marines in line--tom packer next to me--and ordering us to fall back three paces, and, as they broke in, to give them our one little volley at short distance. "then," says he, "receive them behind your breastwork on the bayonet, and at least let every man of you pin one of the cursed cockchafers through the body." we checked them by our fire, slight as it was, and we checked them at the breastwork. however, they broke over it like swarms of devils--they were, really and truly, more devils than men--and then it was hand to hand, indeed. we clubbed our muskets and laid about us; even then, those two ladies--always behind me--were steady and ready with the arms. i had a lot of maltese and malays upon me, and, but for a broadsword that miss maryon's own hand put in mine, should have got my end from them. but, was that all? no. i saw a heap of banded dark hair and a white dress come thrice between me and them, under my own raised right arm, which each time might have destroyed the wearer of the white dress; and each time one of the lot went down, struck dead. drooce was armed with a broadsword, too, and did such things with it, that there was a cry, in half-a-dozen languages, of "kill that sergeant!" as i knew, by the cry being raised in english, and taken up in other tongues. i had received a severe cut across the left arm a few moments before, and should have known nothing of it, except supposing that somebody had struck me a smart blow, if i had not felt weak, and seen myself covered with spouting blood, and, at the same instant of time, seen miss maryon tearing her dress and binding it with mrs. fisher's help round the wound. they called to tom packer, who was scouring by, to stop and guard me for one minute, while i was bound, or i should bleed to death in trying to defend myself. tom stopped directly, with a good sabre in his hand. in that same moment--all things seem to happen in that same moment, at such a time--half-a-dozen had rushed howling at sergeant drooce. the sergeant, stepping back against the wall, stopped one howl for ever with such a terrible blow, and waited for the rest to come on, with such a wonderfully unmoved face, that they stopped and looked at him. "see him now!" cried tom packer. "now, when i could cut him out! gill! did i tell you to mark my words?" i implored tom packer in the lord's name, as well as i could in my faintness, to go to the sergeant's aid. "i hate and detest him," says tom, moodily wavering. "still, he is a brave man." then he calls out, "sergeant drooce, sergeant drooce! tell me you have driven me too hard, and are sorry for it." the sergeant, without turning his eyes from his assailants, which would have been instant death to him, answers. "no. i won't." "sergeant drooce!" cries tom, in a kind of an agony. "i have passed my word that i would never save you from death, if i could, but would leave you to die. tell me you have driven me too hard and are sorry for it, and that shall go for nothing." one of the group laid the sergeant's bald bare head open. the sergeant laid him dead. "i tell you," says the sergeant, breathing a little short, and waiting for the next attack, "no. i won't. if you are not man enough to strike for a fellow-soldier because he wants help, and because of nothing else, i'll go into the other world and look for a better man." tom swept upon them, and cut him out. tom and he fought their way through another knot of them, and sent them flying, and came over to where i was beginning again to feel, with inexpressible joy, that i had got a sword in my hand. they had hardly come to us, when i heard, above all the other noises, a tremendous cry of women's voices. i also saw miss maryon, with quite a new face, suddenly clap her two hands over mrs. fisher's eyes. i looked towards the silver-house, and saw mrs. venning--standing upright on the top of the steps of the trench, with her gray hair and her dark eyes--hide her daughter's child behind her, among the folds of her dress, strike a pirate with her other hand, and fall, shot by his pistol. the cry arose again, and there was a terrible and confusing rush of the women into the midst of the struggle. in another moment, something came tumbling down upon me that i thought was the wall. it was a heap of sambos who had come over the wall; and of four men who clung to my legs like serpents, one who clung to my right leg was christian george king. "yup, so-jeer," says he, "christian george king sar berry glad so-jeer a prisoner. christian george king been waiting for so-jeer sech long time. yup, yup!" what could i do, with five-and-twenty of them on me, but be tied hand and foot? so, i was tied hand and foot. it was all over now--boats not come back--all lost! when i was fast bound and was put up against the wall, the one-eyed english convict came up with the portuguese captain, to have a look at me. "see!" says he. "here's the determined man! if you had slept sounder, last night, you'd have slept your soundest last night, my determined man." the portuguese captain laughed in a cool way, and with the flat of his cutlass, hit me crosswise, as if i was the bough of a tree that he played with: first on the face, and then across the chest and the wounded arm. i looked him steady in the face without tumbling while he looked at me, i am happy to say; but, when they went away, i fell, and lay there. the sun was up, when i was roused and told to come down to the beach and be embarked. i was full of aches and pains, and could not at first remember; but, i remembered quite soon enough. the killed were lying about all over the place, and the pirates were burying their dead, and taking away their wounded on hastily-made litters, to the back of the island. as for us prisoners, some of their boats had come round to the usual harbour, to carry us off. we looked a wretched few, i thought, when i got down there; still, it was another sign that we had fought well, and made the enemy suffer. the portuguese captain had all the women already embarked in the boat he himself commanded, which was just putting off when i got down. miss maryon sat on one side of him, and gave me a moment's look, as full of quiet courage, and pity, and confidence, as if it had been an hour long. on the other side of him was poor little mrs. fisher, weeping for her child and her mother. i was shoved into the same boat with drooce and packer, and the remainder of our party of marines: of whom we had lost two privates, besides charker, my poor, brave comrade. we all made a melancholy passage, under the hot sun over to the mainland. there, we landed in a solitary place, and were mustered on the sea sand. mr. and mrs. macey and their children were amongst us, mr. and mrs. pordage, mr. kitten, mr. fisher, and mrs. belltott. we mustered only fourteen men, fifteen women, and seven children. those were all that remained of the english who had lain down to sleep last night, unsuspecting and happy, on the island of silver-store. chapter iii { }--the rafts on the river we contrived to keep afloat all that night, and, the stream running strong with us, to glide a long way down the river. but, we found the night to be a dangerous time for such navigation, on account of the eddies and rapids, and it was therefore settled next day that in future we would bring-to at sunset, and encamp on the shore. as we knew of no boats that the pirates possessed, up at the prison in the woods, we settled always to encamp on the opposite side of the stream, so as to have the breadth of the river between our sleep and them. our opinion was, that if they were acquainted with any near way by land to the mouth of this river, they would come up it in force, and retake us or kill us, according as they could; but that if that was not the case, and if the river ran by none of their secret stations, we might escape. when i say we settled this or that, i do not mean that we planned anything with any confidence as to what might happen an hour hence. so much had happened in one night, and such great changes had been violently and suddenly made in the fortunes of many among us, that we had got better used to uncertainty, in a little while, than i dare say most people do in the course of their lives. the difficulties we soon got into, through the off-settings and point- currents of the stream, made the likelihood of our being drowned, alone,--to say nothing of our being retaken--as broad and plain as the sun at noonday to all of us. but, we all worked hard at managing the rafts, under the direction of the seamen (of our own skill, i think we never could have prevented them from oversetting), and we also worked hard at making good the defects in their first hasty construction--which the water soon found out. while we humbly resigned ourselves to going down, if it was the will of our father that was in heaven, we humbly made up our minds, that we would all do the best that was in us. and so we held on, gliding with the stream. it drove us to this bank, and it drove us to that bank, and it turned us, and whirled us; but yet it carried us on. sometimes much too slowly; sometimes much too fast, but yet it carried us on. my little deaf and dumb boy slumbered a good deal now, and that was the case with all the children. they caused very little trouble to any one. they seemed, in my eyes, to get more like one another, not only in quiet manner, but in the face, too. the motion of the raft was usually so much the same, the scene was usually so much the same, the sound of the soft wash and ripple of the water was usually so much the same, that they were made drowsy, as they might have been by the constant playing of one tune. even on the grown people, who worked hard and felt anxiety, the same things produced something of the same effect. every day was so like the other, that i soon lost count of the days, myself, and had to ask miss maryon, for instance, whether this was the third or fourth? miss maryon had a pocket-book and pencil, and she kept the log; that is to say, she entered up a clear little journal of the time, and of the distances our seamen thought we had made, each night. so, as i say, we kept afloat and glided on. all day long, and every day, the water, and the woods, and sky; all day long, and every day, the constant watching of both sides of the river, and far ahead at every bold turn and sweep it made, for any signs of pirate-boats, or pirate-dwellings. so, as i say, we kept afloat and glided on. the days melting themselves together to that degree, that i could hardly believe my ears when i asked "how many now, miss?" and she answered "seven." to be sure, poor mr. pordage had, by about now, got his diplomatic coat into such a state as never was seen. what with the mud of the river, what with the water of the river, what with the sun, and the dews, and the tearing boughs, and the thickets, it hung about him in discoloured shreds like a mop. the sun had touched him a bit. he had taken to always polishing one particular button, which just held on to his left wrist, and to always calling for stationery. i suppose that man called for pens, ink, and paper, tape, and scaling-wax, upwards of one thousand times in four-and-twenty hours. he had an idea that we should never get out of that river unless we were written out of it in a formal memorandum; and the more we laboured at navigating the rafts, the more he ordered us not to touch them at our peril, and the more he sat and roared for stationery. mrs. pordage, similarly, persisted in wearing her nightcap. i doubt if any one but ourselves who had seen the progress of that article of dress, could by this time have told what it was meant for. it had got so limp and ragged that she couldn't see out of her eyes for it. it was so dirty, that whether it was vegetable matter out of a swamp, or weeds out of the river, or an old porter's-knot from england, i don't think any new spectator could have said. yet, this unfortunate old woman had a notion that it was not only vastly genteel, but that it was the correct thing as to propriety. and she really did carry herself over the other ladies who had no nightcaps, and who were forced to tie up their hair how they could, in a superior manner that was perfectly amazing. i don't know what she looked like, sitting in that blessed nightcap, on a log of wood, outside the hut or cabin upon our raft. she would have rather resembled a fortune-teller in one of the picture-books that used to be in the shop windows in my boyhood, except for her stateliness. but, lord bless my heart, the dignity with which she sat and moped, with her head in that bundle of tatters, was like nothing else in the world! she was not on speaking terms with more than three of the ladies. some of them had, what she called, "taken precedence" of her--in getting into, or out of, that miserable little shelter!--and others had not called to pay their respects, or something of that kind. so, there she sat, in her own state and ceremony, while her husband sat on the same log of wood, ordering us one and all to let the raft go to the bottom, and to bring him stationery. what with this noise on the part of mr. commissioner pordage, and what with the cries of sergeant drooce on the raft astern (which were sometimes more than tom packer could silence), we often made our slow way down the river, anything but quietly. yet, that it was of great importance that no ears should be able to hear us from the woods on the banks, could not be doubted. we were looked for, to a certainty, and we might be retaken at any moment. it was an anxious time; it was, indeed, indeed, an anxious time. on the seventh night of our voyage on the rafts, we made fast, as usual, on the opposite side of the river to that from which we had started, in as dark a place as we could pick out. our little encampment was soon made, and supper was eaten, and the children fell asleep. the watch was set, and everything made orderly for the night. such a starlight night, with such blue in the sky, and such black in the places of heavy shade on the banks of the great stream! those two ladies, miss maryon and mrs. fisher, had always kept near me since the night of the attack. mr. fisher, who was untiring in the work of our raft, had said to me: "my dear little childless wife has grown so attached to you, davis, and you are such a gentle fellow, as well as such a determined one;" our party had adopted that last expression from the one-eyed english pirate, and i repeat what mr. fisher said, only because he said it; "that it takes a load off my mind to leave her in your charge." i said to him: "your lady is in far better charge than mine, sir, having miss maryon to take care of her; but, you may rely upon it, that i will guard them both--faithful and true." says he: "i do rely upon it, davis, and i heartily wish all the silver on our old island was yours." that seventh starlight night, as i have said, we made our camp, and got our supper, and set our watch, and the children fell asleep. it was solemn and beautiful in those wild and solitary parts, to see them, every night before they lay down, kneeling under the bright sky, saying their little prayers at women's laps. at that time we men all uncovered, and mostly kept at a distance. when the innocent creatures rose up, we murmured "amen!" all together. for, though we had not heard what they said, we know it must be good for us. at that time, too, as was only natural, those poor mothers in our company, whose children had been killed, shed many tears. i thought the sight seemed to console them while it made them cry; but, whether i was right or wrong in that, they wept very much. on this seventh night, mrs. fisher had cried for her lost darling until she cried herself asleep. she was lying on a little couch of leaves and such-like (i made the best little couch i could for them every night), and miss maryon had covered her, and sat by her, holding her hand. the stars looked down upon them. as for me, i guarded them. "davis!" says miss maryon. (i am not going to say what a voice she had. i couldn't if i tried.) "i am here, miss." "the river sounds as if it were swollen to-night." "we all think, miss, that we are coming near the sea." "do you believe now, we shall escape?" "i do now, miss, really believe it." i had always said i did; but, i had in my own mind been doubtful. "how glad you will be, my good davis, to see england again!" i have another confession to make that will appear singular. when she said these words, something rose in my throat; and the stars i looked away at, seemed to break into sparkles that fell down my face and burnt it. "england is not much to me, miss, except as a name." "o, so true an englishman should not say that!--are you not well to-night, davis?" very kindly, and with a quick change. "quite well, miss." "are you sure? your voice sounds altered in my hearing." "no, miss, i am a stronger man than ever. but, england is nothing to me." miss maryon sat silent for so long a while, that i believed she had done speaking to me for one time. however, she had not; for by-and-by she said in a distinct clear tone: "no, good friend; you must not say that england is nothing to you. it is to be much to you, yet--everything to you. you have to take back to england the good name you have earned here, and the gratitude and attachment and respect you have won here: and you have to make some good english girl very happy and proud, by marrying her; and i shall one day see her, i hope, and make her happier and prouder still, by telling her what noble services her husband's were in south america, and what a noble friend he was to me there." though she spoke these kind words in a cheering manner, she spoke them compassionately. i said nothing. it will appear to be another strange confession, that i paced to and fro, within call, all that night, a most unhappy man, reproaching myself all the night long. "you are as ignorant as any man alive; you are as obscure as any man alive; you are as poor as any man alive; you are no better than the mud under your foot." that was the way in which i went on against myself until the morning. with the day, came the day's labour. what i should have done--without the labour, i don't know. we were afloat again at the usual hour, and were again making our way down the river. it was broader, and clearer of obstructions than it had been, and it seemed to flow faster. this was one of drooce's quiet days; mr. pordage, besides being sulky, had almost lost his voice; and we made good way, and with little noise. there was always a seaman forward on the raft, keeping a bright look-out. suddenly, in the full heat of the day, when the children were slumbering, and the very trees and reeds appeared to be slumbering, this man--it was short--holds up his hand, and cries with great caution: "avast! voices ahead!" we held on against the stream as soon as we could bring her up, and the other raft followed suit. at first, mr. macey, mr. fisher, and myself, could hear nothing; though both the seamen aboard of us agreed that they could hear voices and oars. after a little pause, however, we united in thinking that we _could_ hear the sound of voices, and the dip of oars. but, you can hear a long way in those countries, and there was a bend of the river before us, and nothing was to be seen except such waters and such banks as we were now in the eighth day (and might, for the matter of our feelings, have been in the eightieth), of having seen with anxious eyes. it was soon decided to put a man ashore, who should creep through the wood, see what was coming, and warn the rafts. the rafts in the meantime to keep the middle of the stream. the man to be put ashore, and not to swim ashore, as the first thing could be more quickly done than the second. the raft conveying him, to get back into mid-stream, and to hold on along with the other, as well is it could, until signalled by the man. in case of danger, the man to shift for himself until it should be safe to take him on board again. i volunteered to be the man. we knew that the voices and oars must come up slowly against the stream; and our seamen knew, by the set of the stream, under which bank they would come. i was put ashore accordingly. the raft got off well, and i broke into the wood. steaming hot it was, and a tearing place to get through. so much the better for me, since it was something to contend against and do. i cut off the bend of the river, at a great saving of space, came to the water's edge again, and hid myself, and waited. i could now hear the dip of the oars very distinctly; the voices had ceased. the sound came on in a regular tune, and as i lay hidden, i fancied the tune so played to be, "chris'en--george--king! chris'en--george--king! chris'en--george--king!" over and over again, always the same, with the pauses always at the same places. i had likewise time to make up my mind that if these were the pirates, i could and would (barring my being shot) swim off to my raft, in spite of my wound, the moment i had given the alarm, and hold my old post by miss maryon. "chris'en--george--king! chris'en--george--king! chris'en--george--king!" coming up, now, very near. i took a look at the branches about me, to see where a shower of bullets would be most likely to do me least hurt; and i took a look back at the track i had made in forcing my way in; and now i was wholly prepared and fully ready for them. "chris'en--george--king! chris'en--george--king! chris'en--george--king!" here they are! who were they? the barbarous pirates, scum of all nations, headed by such men as the hideous little portuguese monkey, and the one-eyed english convict with the gash across his face, that ought to have gashed his wicked head off? the worst men in the world picked out from the worst, to do the cruellest and most atrocious deeds that ever stained it? the howling, murdering, black-flag waving, mad, and drunken crowd of devils that had overcome us by numbers and by treachery? no. these were english men in english boats--good blue-jackets and red-coats--marines that i knew myself, and sailors that knew our seamen! at the helm of the first boat, captain carton, eager and steady. at the helm of the second boat, captain maryon, brave and bold. at the helm of the third boat, an old seaman, with determination carved into his watchful face, like the figure-head of a ship. every man doubly and trebly armed from head to foot. every man lying-to at his work, with a will that had all his heart and soul in it. every man looking out for any trace of friend or enemy, and burning to be the first to do good or avenge evil. every man with his face on fire when he saw me, his countryman who had been taken prisoner, and hailed me with a cheer, as captain carton's boat ran in and took me on board. i reported, "all escaped, sir! all well, all safe, all here!" god bless me--and god bless them--what a cheer! it turned me weak, as i was passed on from hand to hand to the stern of the boat: every hand patting me or grasping me in some way or other, in the moment of my going by. "hold up, my brave fellow," says captain carton, clapping me on the shoulder like a friend, and giving me a flask. "put your lips to that, and they'll be red again. now, boys, give way!" the banks flew by us as if the mightiest stream that ever ran was with us; and so it was, i am sure, meaning the stream to those men's ardour and spirit. the banks flew by us, and we came in sight of the rafts--the banks flew by us, and we came alongside of the rafts--the banks stopped; and there was a tumult of laughing and crying, and kissing and shaking of hands, and catching up of children and setting of them down again, and a wild hurry of thankfulness and joy that melted every one and softened all hearts. i had taken notice, in captain carton's boat, that there was a curious and quite new sort of fitting on board. it was a kind of a little bower made of flowers, and it was set up behind the captain, and betwixt him and the rudder. not only was this arbour, so to call it, neatly made of flowers, but it was ornamented in a singular way. some of the men had taken the ribbons and buckles off their hats, and hung them among the flowers; others had made festoons and streamers of their handkerchiefs, and hung them there; others had intermixed such trifles as bits of glass and shining fragments of lockets and tobacco-boxes with the flowers; so that altogether it was a very bright and lively object in the sunshine. but why there, or what for, i did not understand. now, as soon as the first bewilderment was over, captain carton gave the order to land for the present. but this boat of his, with two hands left in her, immediately put off again when the men were out of her, and kept off, some yards from the shore. as she floated there, with the two hands gently backing water to keep her from going down the stream, this pretty little arbour attracted many eyes. none of the boat's crew, however, had anything to say about it, except that it was the captain's fancy. the captain--with the women and children clustering round him, and the men of all ranks grouped outside them, and all listening--stood telling how the expedition, deceived by its bad intelligence, had chased the light pirate boats all that fatal night, and had still followed in their wake next day, and had never suspected until many hours too late that the great pirate body had drawn off in the darkness when the chase began, and shot over to the island. he stood telling how the expedition, supposing the whole array of armed boats to be ahead of it, got tempted into shallows and went aground; but not without having its revenge upon the two decoy-boats, both of which it had come up with, overhand, and sent to the bottom with all on board. he stood telling how the expedition, fearing then that the case stood as it did, got afloat again, by great exertion, after the loss of four more tides, and returned to the island, where they found the sloop scuttled and the treasure gone. he stood telling how my officer, lieutenant linderwood, was left upon the island, with as strong a force as could be got together hurriedly from the mainland, and how the three boats we saw before us were manned and armed and had come away, exploring the coast and inlets, in search of any tidings of us. he stood telling all this, with his face to the river; and, as he stood telling it, the little arbour of flowers floated in the sunshine before all the faces there. leaning on captain carton's shoulder, between him and miss maryon, was mrs. fisher, her head drooping on her arm. she asked him, without raising it, when he had told so much, whether he had found her mother? "be comforted! she lies," said the captain gently, "under the cocoa-nut trees on the beach." "and my child, captain carton, did you find my child, too? does my darling rest with my mother?" "no. your pretty child sleeps," said the captain, "under a shade of flowers." his voice shook; but there was something in it that struck all the hearers. at that moment there sprung from the arbour in his boat a little creature, clapping her hands and stretching out her arms, and crying, "dear papa! dear mamma! i am not killed. i am saved. i am coming to kiss you. take me to them, take me to them, good, kind sailors!" nobody who saw that scene has ever forgotten it, i am sure, or ever will forget it. the child had kept quite still, where her brave grandmamma had put her (first whispering in her ear, "whatever happens to me, do not stir, my dear!"), and had remained quiet until the fort was deserted; she had then crept out of the trench, and gone into her mother's house; and there, alone on the solitary island, in her mother's room, and asleep on her mother's bed, the captain had found her. nothing could induce her to be parted from him after he took her up in his arms, and he had brought her away with him, and the men had made the bower for her. to see those men now, was a sight. the joy of the women was beautiful; the joy of those women who had lost their own children, was quite sacred and divine; but, the ecstasies of captain carton's boat's crew, when their pet was restored to her parents, were wonderful for the tenderness they showed in the midst of roughness. as the captain stood with the child in his arms, and the child's own little arms now clinging round his neck, now round her father's, now round her mother's, now round some one who pressed up to kiss her, the boat's crew shook hands with one another, waved their hats over their heads, laughed, sang, cried, danced--and all among themselves, without wanting to interfere with anybody--in a manner never to be represented. at last, i saw the coxswain and another, two very hard-faced men, with grizzled heads, who had been the heartiest of the hearty all along, close with one another, get each of them the other's head under his arm, and pommel away at it with his fist as hard as he could, in his excess of joy. when we had well rested and refreshed ourselves--and very glad we were to have some of the heartening things to eat and drink that had come up in the boats--we recommenced our voyage down the river: rafts, and boats, and all. i said to myself, it was a _very_ different kind of voyage now, from what it had been; and i fell into my proper place and station among my fellow-soldiers. but, when we halted for the night, i found that miss maryon had spoken to captain carton concerning me. for, the captain came straight up to me, and says he, "my brave fellow, you have been miss maryon's body-guard all along, and you shall remain so. nobody shall supersede you in the distinction and pleasure of protecting that young lady." i thanked his honour in the fittest words i could find, and that night i was placed on my old post of watching the place where she slept. more than once in the night, i saw captain carton come out into the air, and stroll about there, to see that all was well. i have now this other singular confession to make, that i saw him with a heavy heart. yes; i saw him with a heavy, heavy heart. in the day-time, i had the like post in captain carton's boat. i had a special station of my own, behind miss maryon, and no hands but hers ever touched my wound. (it has been healed these many long years; but, no other hands have ever touched it.) mr. pordage was kept tolerably quiet now, with pen and ink, and began to pick up his senses a little. seated in the second boat, he made documents with mr. kitten, pretty well all day; and he generally handed in a protest about something whenever we stopped. the captain, however, made so very light of these papers, that it grew into a saying among the men, when one of them wanted a match for his pipe, "hand us over a protest, jack!" as to mrs. pordage, she still wore the nightcap, and she now had cut all the ladies on account of her not having been formally and separately rescued by captain carton before anybody else. the end of mr. pordage, to bring to an end all i know about him, was, that he got great compliments at home for his conduct on these trying occasions, and that he died of yellow jaundice, a governor and a k.c.b. sergeant drooce had fallen from a high fever into a low one. tom packer--the only man who could have pulled the sergeant through it--kept hospital aboard the old raft, and mrs. belltott, as brisk as ever again (but the spirit of that little woman, when things tried it, was not equal to appearances), was head-nurse under his directions. before we got down to the mosquito coast, the joke had been made by one of our men, that we should see her gazetted mrs. tom packer, _vice_ belltott exchanged. when we reached the coast, we got native boats as substitutes for the rafts; and we rowed along under the land; and in that beautiful climate, and upon that beautiful water, the blooming days were like enchantment. ah! they were running away, faster than any sea or river, and there was no tide to bring them back. we were coming very near the settlement where the people of silver-store were to be left, and from which we marines were under orders to return to belize. captain carton had, in the boat by him, a curious long-barrelled spanish gun, and he had said to miss maryon one day that it was the best of guns, and had turned his head to me, and said: "gill davis, load her fresh with a couple of slugs, against a chance of showing how good she is." so, i had discharged the gun over the sea, and had loaded her, according to orders, and there it had lain at the captain's feet, convenient to the captain's hand. the last day but one of our journey was an uncommonly hot day. we started very early; but, there was no cool air on the sea as the day got on, and by noon the heat was really hard to bear, considering that there were women and children to bear it. now, we happened to open, just at that time, a very pleasant little cove or bay, where there was a deep shade from a great growth of trees. now, the captain, therefore, made the signal to the other boats to follow him in and lie by a while. the men who were off duty went ashore, and lay down, but were ordered, for caution's sake, not to stray, and to keep within view. the others rested on their oars, and dozed. awnings had been made of one thing and another, in all the boats, and the passengers found it cooler to be under them in the shade, when there was room enough, than to be in the thick woods. so, the passengers were all afloat, and mostly sleeping. i kept my post behind miss maryon, and she was on captain carton's right in the boat, and mrs. fisher sat on her right again. the captain had mrs. fisher's daughter on his knee. he and the two ladies were talking about the pirates, and were talking softly; partly, because people do talk softly under such indolent circumstances, and partly because the little girl had gone off asleep. i think i have before given it out for my lady to write down, that captain carton had a fine bright eye of his own. all at once, he darted me a side look, as much as to say, "steady--don't take on--i see something!"--and gave the child into her mother's arms. that eye of his was so easy to understand, that i obeyed it by not so much as looking either to the right or to the left out of a corner of my own, or changing my attitude the least trifle. the captain went on talking in the same mild and easy way; but began--with his arms resting across his knees, and his head a little hanging forward, as if the heat were rather too much for him--began to play with the spanish gun. "they had laid their plans, you see," says the captain, taking up the spanish gun across his knees, and looking, lazily, at the inlaying on the stock, "with a great deal of art; and the corrupt or blundering local authorities were so easily deceived;" he ran his left hand idly along the barrel, but i saw, with my breath held, that he covered the action of cocking the gun with his right--"so easily deceived, that they summoned us out to come into the trap. but my intention as to future operations--" in a flash the spanish gun was at his bright eye, and he fired. all started up; innumerable echoes repeated the sound of the discharge; a cloud of bright-coloured birds flew out of the woods screaming; a handful of leaves were scattered in the place where the shot had struck; a crackling of branches was heard; and some lithe but heavy creature sprang into the air, and fell forward, head down, over the muddy bank. "what is it?" cries captain maryon from his boat. all silent then, but the echoes rolling away. "it is a traitor and a spy," said captain carton, handing me the gun to load again. "and i think the other name of the animal is christian george king!" shot through the heart. some of the people ran round to the spot, and drew him out, with the slime and wet trickling down his face; but his face itself would never stir any more to the end of time. "leave him hanging to that tree," cried captain carton; his boat's crew giving way, and he leaping ashore. "but first into this wood, every man in his place. and boats! out of gunshot!" it was a quick change, well meant and well made, though it ended in disappointment. no pirates were there; no one but the spy was found. it was supposed that the pirates, unable to retake us, and expecting a great attack upon them to be the consequence of our escape, had made from the ruins in the forest, taken to their ship along with the treasure, and left the spy to pick up what intelligence he could. in the evening we went away, and he was left hanging to the tree, all alone, with the red sun making a kind of a dead sunset on his black face. next day, we gained the settlement on the mosquito coast for which we were bound. having stayed there to refresh seven days, and having been much commended, and highly spoken of, and finely entertained, we marines stood under orders to march from the town-gate (it was neither much of a town nor much of a gate), at five in the morning. my officer had joined us before then. when we turned out at the gate, all the people were there; in the front of them all those who had been our fellow-prisoners, and all the seamen. "davis," says lieutenant linderwood. "stand out, my friend!" i stood out from the ranks, and miss maryon and captain carton came up to me. "dear davis," says miss maryon, while the tears fell fast down her face, "your grateful friends, in most unwillingly taking leave of you, ask the favour that, while you bear away with you their affectionate remembrance, which nothing can ever impair, you will also take this purse of money--far more valuable to you, we all know, for the deep attachment and thankfulness with which it is offered, than for its own contents, though we hope those may prove useful to you, too, in after life." i got out, in answer, that i thankfully accepted the attachment and affection, but not the money. captain carton looked at me very attentively, and stepped back, and moved away. i made him my bow as he stepped back, to thank him for being so delicate. "no, miss," said i, "i think it would break my heart to accept of money. but, if you could condescend to give to a man so ignorant and common as myself, any little thing you have worn--such as a bit of ribbon--" she took a ring from her finger, and put it in my hand. and she rested her hand in mine, while she said these words: "the brave gentlemen of old--but not one of them was braver, or had a nobler nature than you--took such gifts from ladies, and did all their good actions for the givers' sakes. if you will do yours for mine, i shall think with pride that i continue to have some share in the life of a gallant and generous man." for the second time in my life she kissed my hand. i made so bold, for the first time, as to kiss hers; and i tied the ring at my breast, and i fell back to my place. then, the horse-litter went out at the gate with sergeant drooce in it; and the horse-litter went out at the gate with mrs. belltott in it; and lieutenant linderwood gave the word of command, "quick march!" and, cheered and cried for, we went out of the gate too, marching along the level plain towards the serene blue sky, as if we were marching straight to heaven. when i have added here that the pirate scheme was blown to shivers, by the pirate-ship which had the treasure on board being so vigorously attacked by one of his majesty's cruisers, among the west india keys, and being so swiftly boarded and carried, that nobody suspected anything about the scheme until three-fourths of the pirates were killed, and the other fourth were in irons, and the treasure was recovered; i come to the last singular confession i have got to make. it is this. i well knew what an immense and hopeless distance there was between me and miss maryon; i well knew that i was no fitter company for her than i was for the angels; i well knew, that she was as high above my reach as the sky over my head; and yet i loved her. what put it in my low heart to be so daring, or whether such a thing ever happened before or since, as that a man so uninstructed and obscure as myself got his unhappy thoughts lifted up to such a height, while knowing very well how presumptuous and impossible to be realised they were, i am unable to say; still, the suffering to me was just as great as if i had been a gentleman. i suffered agony--agony. i suffered hard, and i suffered long. i thought of her last words to me, however, and i never disgraced them. if it had not been for those dear words, i think i should have lost myself in despair and recklessness. the ring will be found lying on my heart, of course, and will be laid with me wherever i am laid. i am getting on in years now, though i am able and hearty. i was recommended for promotion, and everything was done to reward me that could be done; but my total want of all learning stood in my way, and i found myself so completely out of the road to it that i could not conquer any learning, though i tried. i was long in the service, and i respected it, and was respected in it, and the service is dear to me at this present hour. at this present hour, when i give this out to my lady to be written down, all my old pain has softened away, and i am as happy as a man can be, at this present fine old country-house of admiral sir george carton, baronet. it was my lady carton who herself sought me out, over a great many miles of the wide world, and found me in hospital wounded, and brought me here. it is my lady carton who writes down my words. my lady was miss maryon. and now, that i conclude what i had to tell, i see my lady's honoured gray hair droop over her face, as she leans a little lower at her desk; and i fervently thank her for being so tender as i see she is, towards the past pain and trouble of her poor, old, faithful, humble soldier. footnotes { } dicken's didn't write the second chapter and it is omitted in this edition. in it the prisoners are firstly made a ransom of for the treasure left on the island and then manage to escape from the pirates. transcribed from the chapman and hall "christmas stories" edition by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk somebody's luggage chapter i--his leaving it till called for the writer of these humble lines being a waiter, and having come of a family of waiters, and owning at the present time five brothers who are all waiters, and likewise an only sister who is a waitress, would wish to offer a few words respecting his calling; first having the pleasure of hereby in a friendly manner offering the dedication of the same unto _joseph_, much respected head waiter at the slamjam coffee-house, london, e.c., than which a individual more eminently deserving of the name of man, or a more amenable honour to his own head and heart, whether considered in the light of a waiter or regarded as a human being, do not exist. in case confusion should arise in the public mind (which it is open to confusion on many subjects) respecting what is meant or implied by the term waiter, the present humble lines would wish to offer an explanation. it may not be generally known that the person as goes out to wait is _not_ a waiter. it may not be generally known that the hand as is called in extra, at the freemasons' tavern, or the london, or the albion, or otherwise, is _not_ a waiter. such hands may be took on for public dinners by the bushel (and you may know them by their breathing with difficulty when in attendance, and taking away the bottle ere yet it is half out); but such are _not_ waiters. for you cannot lay down the tailoring, or the shoemaking, or the brokering, or the green-grocering, or the pictorial-periodicalling, or the second-hand wardrobe, or the small fancy businesses,--you cannot lay down those lines of life at your will and pleasure by the half-day or evening, and take up waitering. you may suppose you can, but you cannot; or you may go so far as to say you do, but you do not. nor yet can you lay down the gentleman's-service when stimulated by prolonged incompatibility on the part of cooks (and here it may be remarked that cooking and incompatibility will be mostly found united), and take up waitering. it has been ascertained that what a gentleman will sit meek under, at home, he will not bear out of doors, at the slamjam or any similar establishment. then, what is the inference to be drawn respecting true waitering? you must be bred to it. you must be born to it. would you know how born to it, fair reader,--if of the adorable female sex? then learn from the biographical experience of one that is a waiter in the sixty-first year of his age. you were conveyed,--ere yet your dawning powers were otherwise developed than to harbour vacancy in your inside,--you were conveyed, by surreptitious means, into a pantry adjoining the admiral nelson, civic and general dining-rooms, there to receive by stealth that healthful sustenance which is the pride and boast of the british female constitution. your mother was married to your father (himself a distant waiter) in the profoundest secrecy; for a waitress known to be married would ruin the best of businesses,--it is the same as on the stage. hence your being smuggled into the pantry, and that--to add to the infliction--by an unwilling grandmother. under the combined influence of the smells of roast and boiled, and soup, and gas, and malt liquors, you partook of your earliest nourishment; your unwilling grandmother sitting prepared to catch you when your mother was called and dropped you; your grandmother's shawl ever ready to stifle your natural complainings; your innocent mind surrounded by uncongenial cruets, dirty plates, dish-covers, and cold gravy; your mother calling down the pipe for veals and porks, instead of soothing you with nursery rhymes. under these untoward circumstances you were early weaned. your unwilling grandmother, ever growing more unwilling as your food assimilated less, then contracted habits of shaking you till your system curdled, and your food would not assimilate at all. at length she was no longer spared, and could have been thankfully spared much sooner. when your brothers began to appear in succession, your mother retired, left off her smart dressing (she had previously been a smart dresser), and her dark ringlets (which had previously been flowing), and haunted your father late of nights, lying in wait for him, through all weathers, up the shabby court which led to the back door of the royal old dust-bin (said to have been so named by george the fourth), where your father was head. but the dust- bin was going down then, and your father took but little,--excepting from a liquid point of view. your mother's object in those visits was of a house-keeping character, and you was set on to whistle your father out. sometimes he came out, but generally not. come or not come, however, all that part of his existence which was unconnected with open waitering was kept a close secret, and was acknowledged by your mother to be a close secret, and you and your mother flitted about the court, close secrets both of you, and would scarcely have confessed under torture that you know your father, or that your father had any name than dick (which wasn't his name, though he was never known by any other), or that he had kith or kin or chick or child. perhaps the attraction of this mystery, combined with your father's having a damp compartment, to himself, behind a leaky cistern, at the dust-bin,--a sort of a cellar compartment, with a sink in it, and a smell, and a plate-rack, and a bottle-rack, and three windows that didn't match each other or anything else, and no daylight,--caused your young mind to feel convinced that you must grow up to be a waiter too; but you did feel convinced of it, and so did all your brothers, down to your sister. every one of you felt convinced that you was born to the waitering. at this stage of your career, what was your feelings one day when your father came home to your mother in open broad daylight,--of itself an act of madness on the part of a waiter,--and took to his bed (leastwise, your mother and family's bed), with the statement that his eyes were devilled kidneys. physicians being in vain, your father expired, after repeating at intervals for a day and a night, when gleams of reason and old business fitfully illuminated his being, "two and two is five. and three is sixpence." interred in the parochial department of the neighbouring churchyard, and accompanied to the grave by as many waiters of long standing as could spare the morning time from their soiled glasses (namely, one), your bereaved form was attired in a white neckankecher, and you was took on from motives of benevolence at the george and gridiron, theatrical and supper. here, supporting nature on what you found in the plates (which was as it happened, and but too often thoughtlessly, immersed in mustard), and on what you found in the glasses (which rarely went beyond driblets and lemon), by night you dropped asleep standing, till you was cuffed awake, and by day was set to polishing every individual article in the coffee-room. your couch being sawdust; your counterpane being ashes of cigars. here, frequently hiding a heavy heart under the smart tie of your white neckankecher (or correctly speaking lower down and more to the left), you picked up the rudiments of knowledge from an extra, by the name of bishops, and by calling plate-washer, and gradually elevating your mind with chalk on the back of the corner-box partition, until such time as you used the inkstand when it was out of hand, attained to manhood, and to be the waiter that you find yourself. i could wish here to offer a few respectful words on behalf of the calling so long the calling of myself and family, and the public interest in which is but too often very limited. we are not generally understood. no, we are not. allowance enough is not made for us. for, say that we ever show a little drooping listlessness of spirits, or what might be termed indifference or apathy. put it to yourself what would your own state of mind be, if you was one of an enormous family every member of which except you was always greedy, and in a hurry. put it to yourself that you was regularly replete with animal food at the slack hours of one in the day and again at nine p.m., and that the repleter you was, the more voracious all your fellow-creatures came in. put it to yourself that it was your business, when your digestion was well on, to take a personal interest and sympathy in a hundred gentlemen fresh and fresh (say, for the sake of argument, only a hundred), whose imaginations was given up to grease and fat and gravy and melted butter, and abandoned to questioning you about cuts of this, and dishes of that,--each of 'em going on as if him and you and the bill of fare was alone in the world. then look what you are expected to know. you are never out, but they seem to think you regularly attend everywhere. "what's this, christopher, that i hear about the smashed excursion train? how are they doing at the italian opera, christopher?" "christopher, what are the real particulars of this business at the yorkshire bank?" similarly a ministry gives me more trouble than it gives the queen. as to lord palmerston, the constant and wearing connection into which i have been brought with his lordship during the last few years is deserving of a pension. then look at the hypocrites we are made, and the lies (white, i hope) that are forced upon us! why must a sedentary-pursuited waiter be considered to be a judge of horseflesh, and to have a most tremendous interest in horse-training and racing? yet it would be half our little incomes out of our pockets if we didn't take on to have those sporting tastes. it is the same (inconceivable why!) with farming. shooting, equally so. i am sure that so regular as the months of august, september, and october come round, i am ashamed of myself in my own private bosom for the way in which i make believe to care whether or not the grouse is strong on the wing (much their wings, or drumsticks either, signifies to me, uncooked!), and whether the partridges is plentiful among the turnips, and whether the pheasants is shy or bold, or anything else you please to mention. yet you may see me, or any other waiter of my standing, holding on by the back of the box, and leaning over a gentleman with his purse out and his bill before him, discussing these points in a confidential tone of voice, as if my happiness in life entirely depended on 'em. i have mentioned our little incomes. look at the most unreasonable point of all, and the point on which the greatest injustice is done us! whether it is owing to our always carrying so much change in our right-hand trousers-pocket, and so many halfpence in our coat-tails, or whether it is human nature (which i were loth to believe), what is meant by the everlasting fable that head waiters is rich? how did that fable get into circulation? who first put it about, and what are the facts to establish the unblushing statement? come forth, thou slanderer, and refer the public to the waiter's will in doctors' commons supporting thy malignant hiss! yet this is so commonly dwelt upon--especially by the screws who give waiters the least--that denial is vain; and we are obliged, for our credit's sake, to carry our heads as if we were going into a business, when of the two we are much more likely to go into a union. there was formerly a screw as frequented the slamjam ere yet the present writer had quitted that establishment on a question of tea-ing his assistant staff out of his own pocket, which screw carried the taunt to its bitterest height. never soaring above threepence, and as often as not grovelling on the earth a penny lower, he yet represented the present writer as a large holder of consols, a lender of money on mortgage, a capitalist. he has been overheard to dilate to other customers on the allegation that the present writer put out thousands of pounds at interest in distilleries and breweries. "well, christopher," he would say (having grovelled his lowest on the earth, half a moment before), "looking out for a house to open, eh? can't find a business to be disposed of on a scale as is up to your resources, humph?" to such a dizzy precipice of falsehood has this misrepresentation taken wing, that the well-known and highly-respected old charles, long eminent at the west country hotel, and by some considered the father of the waitering, found himself under the obligation to fall into it through so many years that his own wife (for he had an unbeknown old lady in that capacity towards himself) believed it! and what was the consequence? when he was borne to his grave on the shoulders of six picked waiters, with six more for change, six more acting as pall-bearers, all keeping step in a pouring shower without a dry eye visible, and a concourse only inferior to royalty, his pantry and lodgings was equally ransacked high and low for property, and none was found! how could it be found, when, beyond his last monthly collection of walking-sticks, umbrellas, and pocket-handkerchiefs (which happened to have been not yet disposed of, though he had ever been through life punctual in clearing off his collections by the month), there was no property existing? such, however, is the force of this universal libel, that the widow of old charles, at the present hour an inmate of the almshouses of the cork-cutters' company, in blue anchor road (identified sitting at the door of one of 'em, in a clean cap and a windsor arm-chair, only last monday), expects john's hoarded wealth to be found hourly! nay, ere yet he had succumbed to the grisly dart, and when his portrait was painted in oils life-size, by subscription of the frequenters of the west country, to hang over the coffee-room chimney- piece, there were not wanting those who contended that what is termed the accessories of such a portrait ought to be the bank of england out of window, and a strong-box on the table. and but for better-regulated minds contending for a bottle and screw and the attitude of drawing,--and carrying their point,--it would have been so handed down to posterity. i am now brought to the title of the present remarks. having, i hope without offence to any quarter, offered such observations as i felt it my duty to offer, in a free country which has ever dominated the seas, on the general subject, i will now proceed to wait on the particular question. at a momentous period of my life, when i was off, so far as concerned notice given, with a house that shall be nameless,--for the question on which i took my departing stand was a fixed charge for waiters, and no house as commits itself to that eminently un-english act of more than foolishness and baseness shall be advertised by me,--i repeat, at a momentous crisis, when i was off with a house too mean for mention, and not yet on with that to which i have ever since had the honour of being attached in the capacity of head, { } i was casting about what to do next. then it were that proposals were made to me on behalf of my present establishment. stipulations were necessary on my part, emendations were necessary on my part: in the end, ratifications ensued on both sides, and i entered on a new career. we are a bed business, and a coffee-room business. we are not a general dining business, nor do we wish it. in consequence, when diners drop in, we know what to give 'em as will keep 'em away another time. we are a private room or family business also; but coffee-room principal. me and the directory and the writing materials and cetrer occupy a place to ourselves--a place fended of up a step or two at the end of the coffee- room, in what i call the good old-fashioned style. the good old-fashioned style is, that whatever you want, down to a wafer, you must be olely and solely dependent on the head waiter for. you must put yourself a new-born child into his hands. there is no other way in which a business untinged with continental vice can be conducted. (it were bootless to add, that if languages is required to be jabbered and english is not good enough, both families and gentlemen had better go somewhere else.) when i began to settle down in this right-principled and well-conducted house, i noticed, under the bed in no. b (which it is up a angle off the staircase, and usually put off upon the lowly-minded), a heap of things in a corner. i asked our head chambermaid in the course of the day, "what are them things in b?" to which she answered with a careless air, "somebody's luggage." regarding her with a eye not free from severity, i says, "whose luggage?" evading my eye, she replied, "lor! how should _i_ know!" --being, it may be right to mention, a female of some pertness, though acquainted with her business. a head waiter must be either head or tail. he must be at one extremity or the other of the social scale. he cannot be at the waist of it, or anywhere else but the extremities. it is for him to decide which of the extremities. on the eventful occasion under consideration, i give mrs. pratchett so distinctly to understand my decision, that i broke her spirit as towards myself, then and there, and for good. let not inconsistency be suspected on account of my mentioning mrs. pratchett as "mrs.," and having formerly remarked that a waitress must not be married. readers are respectfully requested to notice that mrs. pratchett was not a waitress, but a chambermaid. now a chambermaid _may_ be married; if head, generally is married,--or says so. it comes to the same thing as expressing what is customary. (n.b. mr. pratchett is in australia, and his address there is "the bush.") having took mrs. pratchett down as many pegs as was essential to the future happiness of all parties, i requested her to explain herself. "for instance," i says, to give her a little encouragement, "who is somebody?" "i give you my sacred honour, mr. christopher," answers pratchett, "that i haven't the faintest notion." but for the manner in which she settled her cap-strings, i should have doubted this; but in respect of positiveness it was hardly to be discriminated from an affidavit. "then you never saw him?" i followed her up with. "nor yet," said mrs. pratchett, shutting her eyes and making as if she had just took a pill of unusual circumference,--which gave a remarkable force to her denial,--"nor yet any servant in this house. all have been changed, mr. christopher, within five year, and somebody left his luggage here before then." inquiry of miss martin yielded (in the language of the bard of a. .) "confirmation strong." so it had really and truly happened. miss martin is the young lady at the bar as makes out our bills; and though higher than i could wish considering her station, is perfectly well-behaved. farther investigations led to the disclosure that there was a bill against this luggage to the amount of two sixteen six. the luggage had been lying under the bedstead of b over six year. the bedstead is a four-poster, with a deal of old hanging and valance, and is, as i once said, probably connected with more than bs,--which i remember my hearers was pleased to laugh at, at the time. i don't know why,--when do we know why?--but this luggage laid heavy on my mind. i fell a wondering about somebody, and what he had got and been up to. i couldn't satisfy my thoughts why he should leave so much luggage against so small a bill. for i had the luggage out within a day or two and turned it over, and the following were the items:--a black portmanteau, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a brown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick. it was all very dusty and fluey. i had our porter up to get under the bed and fetch it out; and though he habitually wallows in dust,--swims in it from morning to night, and wears a close-fitting waistcoat with black calimanco sleeves for the purpose,--it made him sneeze again, and his throat was that hot with it that it was obliged to be cooled with a drink of allsopp's draft. the luggage so got the better of me, that instead of having it put back when it was well dusted and washed with a wet cloth,--previous to which it was so covered with feathers that you might have thought it was turning into poultry, and would by-and-by begin to lay,--i say, instead of having it put back, i had it carried into one of my places down-stairs. there from time to time i stared at it and stared at it, till it seemed to grow big and grow little, and come forward at me and retreat again, and go through all manner of performances resembling intoxication. when this had lasted weeks,--i may say months, and not be far out,--i one day thought of asking miss martin for the particulars of the two sixteen six total. she was so obliging as to extract it from the books,--it dating before her time,--and here follows a true copy: coffee-room. . no. . pounds s. d. feb. d, pen and paper port negus ditto pen and paper tumbler broken brandy pen and paper anchovy toast pen and paper bed feb. d, pen and paper breakfast broiled ham eggs watercresses shrimps pen and paper blotting-paper messenger to paternoster row and back again, when no answer brandy s., devilled pork chop s. pens and paper messenger to albemarle street and back again (detained), when no answer salt-cellar broken large liquour-glass orange brandy dinner, soup, fish, joint, and bird bottle old east india brown pen and paper pounds mem.: january st, . he went out after dinner, directing luggage to be ready when he called for it. never called. * * * * * so far from throwing a light upon the subject, this bill appeared to me, if i may so express my doubts, to involve it in a yet more lurid halo. speculating it over with the mistress, she informed me that the luggage had been advertised in the master's time as being to be sold after such and such a day to pay expenses, but no farther steps had been taken. (i may here remark, that the mistress is a widow in her fourth year. the master was possessed of one of those unfortunate constitutions in which spirits turns to water, and rises in the ill-starred victim.) my speculating it over, not then only, but repeatedly, sometimes with the mistress, sometimes with one, sometimes with another, led up to the mistress's saying to me,--whether at first in joke or in earnest, or half joke and half earnest, it matters not: "christopher, i am going to make you a handsome offer." (if this should meet her eye,--a lovely blue,--may she not take it ill my mentioning that if i had been eight or ten year younger, i would have done as much by her! that is, i would have made her a offer. it is for others than me to denominate it a handsome one.) "christopher, i am going to make you a handsome offer." "put a name to it, ma'am." "look here, christopher. run over the articles of somebody's luggage. you've got it all by heart, i know." "a black portmanteau, ma'am, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a brown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick." "all just as they were left. nothing opened, nothing tampered with." "you are right, ma'am. all locked but the brown-paper parcel, and that sealed." the mistress was leaning on miss martin's desk at the bar-window, and she taps the open book that lays upon the desk,--she has a pretty-made hand to be sure,--and bobs her head over it and laughs. "come," says she, "christopher. pay me somebody's bill, and you shall have somebody's luggage." i rather took to the idea from the first moment; but, "it mayn't be worth the money," i objected, seeming to hold back. "that's a lottery," says the mistress, folding her arms upon the book,--it ain't her hands alone that's pretty made, the observation extends right up her arms. "won't you venture two pound sixteen shillings and sixpence in the lottery? why, there's no blanks!" says the mistress; laughing and bobbing her head again, "you _must_ win. if you lose, you must win! all prizes in this lottery! draw a blank, and remember, gentlemen-sportsmen, you'll still be entitled to a black portmanteau, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a sheet of brown paper, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick!" to make short of it, miss martin come round me, and mrs. pratchett come round me, and the mistress she was completely round me already, and all the women in the house come round me, and if it had been sixteen two instead of two sixteen, i should have thought myself well out of it. for what can you do when they do come round you? so i paid the money--down--and such a laughing as there was among 'em! but i turned the tables on 'em regularly, when i said: "my family-name is blue-beard. i'm going to open somebody's luggage all alone in the secret chamber, and not a female eye catches sight of the contents!" whether i thought proper to have the firmness to keep to this, don't signify, or whether any female eye, and if any, how many, was really present when the opening of the luggage came off. somebody's luggage is the question at present: nobody's eyes, nor yet noses. what i still look at most, in connection with that luggage, is the extraordinary quantity of writing-paper, and all written on! and not our paper neither,--not the paper charged in the bill, for we know our paper,--so he must have been always at it. and he had crumpled up this writing of his, everywhere, in every part and parcel of his luggage. there was writing in his dressing-case, writing in his boots, writing among his shaving-tackle, writing in his hat-box, writing folded away down among the very whalebones of his umbrella. his clothes wasn't bad, what there was of 'em. his dressing-case was poor,--not a particle of silver stopper,--bottle apertures with nothing in 'em, like empty little dog-kennels,--and a most searching description of tooth-powder diffusing itself around, as under a deluded mistake that all the chinks in the fittings was divisions in teeth. his clothes i parted with, well enough, to a second-hand dealer not far from st. clement's danes, in the strand,--him as the officers in the army mostly dispose of their uniforms to, when hard pressed with debts of honour, if i may judge from their coats and epaulets diversifying the window with their backs towards the public. the same party bought in one lot the portmanteau, the bag, the desk, the dressing-case, the hat-box, the umbrella, strap, and walking-stick. on my remarking that i should have thought those articles not quite in his line, he said: "no more ith a man'th grandmother, mithter chrithtopher; but if any man will bring hith grandmother here, and offer her at a fair trifle below what the'll feth with good luck when the'th thcoured and turned--i'll buy her!" these transactions brought me home, and, indeed, more than home, for they left a goodish profit on the original investment. and now there remained the writings; and the writings i particular wish to bring under the candid attention of the reader. i wish to do so without postponement, for this reason. that is to say, namely, viz. i.e., as follows, thus:--before i proceed to recount the mental sufferings of which i became the prey in consequence of the writings, and before following up that harrowing tale with a statement of the wonderful and impressive catastrophe, as thrilling in its nature as unlooked for in any other capacity, which crowned the ole and filled the cup of unexpectedness to overflowing, the writings themselves ought to stand forth to view. therefore it is that they now come next. one word to introduce them, and i lay down my pen (i hope, my unassuming pen) until i take it up to trace the gloomy sequel of a mind with something on it. he was a smeary writer, and wrote a dreadful bad hand. utterly regardless of ink, he lavished it on every undeserving object--on his clothes, his desk, his hat, the handle of his tooth-brush, his umbrella. ink was found freely on the coffee-room carpet by no. table, and two blots was on his restless couch. a reference to the document i have given entire will show that on the morning of the third of february, eighteen fifty-six, he procured his no less than fifth pen and paper. to whatever deplorable act of ungovernable composition he immolated those materials obtained from the bar, there is no doubt that the fatal deed was committed in bed, and that it left its evidences but too plainly, long afterwards, upon the pillow-case. he had put no heading to any of his writings. alas! was he likely to have a heading without a head, and where was _his_ head when he took such things into it? in some cases, such as his boots, he would appear to have hid the writings; thereby involving his style in greater obscurity. but his boots was at least pairs,--and no two of his writings can put in any claim to be so regarded. here follows (not to give more specimens) what was found in chapter ii--his boots "eh! well then, monsieur mutuel! what do i know, what can i say? i assure you that he calls himself monsieur the englishman." "pardon. but i think it is impossible," said monsieur mutuel,--a spectacled, snuffy, stooping old gentleman in carpet shoes and a cloth cap with a peaked shade, a loose blue frock-coat reaching to his heels, a large limp white shirt-frill, and cravat to correspond,--that is to say, white was the natural colour of his linen on sundays, but it toned down with the week. "it is," repeated monsieur mutuel, his amiable old walnut-shell countenance very walnut-shelly indeed as he smiled and blinked in the bright morning sunlight,--"it is, my cherished madame bouclet, i think, impossible!" "hey!" (with a little vexed cry and a great many tosses of her head.) "but it is not impossible that you are a pig!" retorted madame bouclet, a compact little woman of thirty-five or so. "see then,--look there,--read! 'on the second floor monsieur l'anglais.' is it not so?" "it is so," said monsieur mutuel. "good. continue your morning walk. get out!" madame bouclet dismissed him with a lively snap of her fingers. the morning walk of monsieur mutuel was in the brightest patch that the sun made in the grande place of a dull old fortified french town. the manner of his morning walk was with his hands crossed behind him; an umbrella, in figure the express image of himself, always in one hand; a snuffbox in the other. thus, with the shuffling gait of the elephant (who really does deal with the very worst trousers-maker employed by the zoological world, and who appeared to have recommended him to monsieur mutuel), the old gentleman sunned himself daily when sun was to be had--of course, at the same time sunning a red ribbon at his button-hole; for was he not an ancient frenchman? being told by one of the angelic sex to continue his morning walk and get out, monsieur mutuel laughed a walnut-shell laugh, pulled off his cap at arm's length with the hand that contained his snuffbox, kept it off for a considerable period after he had parted from madame bouclet, and continued his morning walk and got out, like a man of gallantry as he was. the documentary evidence to which madame bouclet had referred monsieur mutuel was the list of her lodgers, sweetly written forth by her own nephew and bookkeeper, who held the pen of an angel, and posted up at the side of her gateway, for the information of the police: "au second, m. l'anglais, proprietaire." on the second floor, mr. the englishman, man of property. so it stood; nothing could be plainer. madame bouclet now traced the line with her forefinger, as it were to confirm and settle herself in her parting snap at monsieur mutuel, and so placing her right hand on her hip with a defiant air, as if nothing should ever tempt her to unsnap that snap, strolled out into the place to glance up at the windows of mr. the englishman. that worthy happening to be looking out of window at the moment, madame bouclet gave him a graceful salutation with her head, looked to the right and looked to the left to account to him for her being there, considered for a moment, like one who accounted to herself for somebody she had expected not being there, and reentered her own gateway. madame bouclet let all her house giving on the place in furnished flats or floors, and lived up the yard behind in company with monsieur bouclet her husband (great at billiards), an inherited brewing business, several fowls, two carts, a nephew, a little dog in a big kennel, a grape-vine, a counting-house, four horses, a married sister (with a share in the brewing business), the husband and two children of the married sister, a parrot, a drum (performed on by the little boy of the married sister), two billeted soldiers, a quantity of pigeons, a fife (played by the nephew in a ravishing manner), several domestics and supernumeraries, a perpetual flavour of coffee and soup, a terrific range of artificial rocks and wooden precipices at least four feet high, a small fountain, and half-a-dozen large sunflowers. now the englishman, in taking his appartement,--or, as one might say on our side of the channel, his set of chambers,--had given his name, correct to the letter, langley. but as he had a british way of not opening his mouth very wide on foreign soil, except at meals, the brewery had been able to make nothing of it but l'anglais. so mr. the englishman he had become and he remained. "never saw such a people!" muttered mr. the englishman, as he now looked out of window. "never did, in my life!" this was true enough, for he had never before been out of his own country,--a right little island, a tight little island, a bright little island, a show-fight little island, and full of merit of all sorts; but not the whole round world. "these chaps," said mr. the englishman to himself, as his eye rolled over the place, sprinkled with military here and there, "are no more like soldiers--" nothing being sufficiently strong for the end of his sentence, he left it unended. this again (from the point of view of his experience) was strictly correct; for though there was a great agglomeration of soldiers in the town and neighbouring country, you might have held a grand review and field-day of them every one, and looked in vain among them all for a soldier choking behind his foolish stock, or a soldier lamed by his ill- fitting shoes, or a soldier deprived of the use of his limbs by straps and buttons, or a soldier elaborately forced to be self-helpless in all the small affairs of life. a swarm of brisk, bright, active, bustling, handy, odd, skirmishing fellows, able to turn cleverly at anything, from a siege to soup, from great guns to needles and thread, from the broadsword exercise to slicing an onion, from making war to making omelets, was all you would have found. what a swarm! from the great place under the eye of mr. the englishman, where a few awkward squads from the last conscription were doing the goose-step--some members of those squads still as to their bodies, in the chrysalis peasant-state of blouse, and only military butterflies as to their regimentally-clothed legs--from the great place, away outside the fortifications, and away for miles along the dusty roads, soldiers swarmed. all day long, upon the grass-grown ramparts of the town, practising soldiers trumpeted and bugled; all day long, down in angles of dry trenches, practising soldiers drummed and drummed. every forenoon, soldiers burst out of the great barracks into the sandy gymnasium-ground hard by, and flew over the wooden horse, and hung on to flying ropes, and dangled upside-down between parallel bars, and shot themselves off wooden platforms,--splashes, sparks, coruscations, showers of soldiers. at every corner of the town-wall, every guard-house, every gateway, every sentry-box, every drawbridge, every reedy ditch, and rushy dike, soldiers, soldiers, soldiers. and the town being pretty well all wall, guard-house, gateway, sentry-box, drawbridge, reedy ditch, and rushy dike, the town was pretty well all soldiers. what would the sleepy old town have been without the soldiers, seeing that even with them it had so overslept itself as to have slept its echoes hoarse, its defensive bars and locks and bolts and chains all rusty, and its ditches stagnant! from the days when vauban engineered it to that perplexing extent that to look at it was like being knocked on the head with it, the stranger becoming stunned and stertorous under the shock of its incomprehensibility,--from the days when vauban made it the express incorporation of every substantive and adjective in the art of military engineering, and not only twisted you into it and twisted you out of it, to the right, to the left, opposite, under here, over there, in the dark, in the dirt, by the gateway, archway, covered way, dry way, wet way, fosse, portcullis, drawbridge, sluice, squat tower, pierced wall, and heavy battery, but likewise took a fortifying dive under the neighbouring country, and came to the surface three or four miles off, blowing out incomprehensible mounds and batteries among the quiet crops of chicory and beet-root,--from those days to these the town had been asleep, and dust and rust and must had settled on its drowsy arsenals and magazines, and grass had grown up in its silent streets. on market-days alone, its great place suddenly leaped out of bed. on market-days, some friendly enchanter struck his staff upon the stones of the great place, and instantly arose the liveliest booths and stalls, and sittings and standings, and a pleasant hum of chaffering and huckstering from many hundreds of tongues, and a pleasant, though peculiar, blending of colours,--white caps, blue blouses, and green vegetables,--and at last the knight destined for the adventure seemed to have come in earnest, and all the vaubanois sprang up awake. and now, by long, low-lying avenues of trees, jolting in white-hooded donkey-cart, and on donkey-back, and in tumbril and wagon, and cart and cabriolet, and afoot with barrow and burden,--and along the dikes and ditches and canals, in little peak-prowed country boats,--came peasant-men and women in flocks and crowds, bringing articles for sale. and here you had boots and shoes, and sweetmeats and stuffs to wear, and here (in the cool shade of the town-hall) you had milk and cream and butter and cheese, and here you had fruits and onions and carrots, and all things needful for your soup, and here you had poultry and flowers and protesting pigs, and here new shovels, axes, spades, and bill-hooks for your farming work, and here huge mounds of bread, and here your unground grain in sacks, and here your children's dolls, and here the cake-seller, announcing his wares by beat and roll of drum. and hark! fanfaronade of trumpets, and here into the great place, resplendent in an open carriage, with four gorgeously- attired servitors up behind, playing horns, drums, and cymbals, rolled "the daughter of a physician" in massive golden chains and ear-rings, and blue-feathered hat, shaded from the admiring sun by two immense umbrellas of artificial roses, to dispense (from motives of philanthropy) that small and pleasant dose which had cured so many thousands! toothache, earache, headache, heartache, stomach-ache, debility, nervousness, fits, fainting, fever, ague, all equally cured by the small and pleasant dose of the great physician's great daughter! the process was this,--she, the daughter of a physician, proprietress of the superb equipage you now admired with its confirmatory blasts of trumpet, drum, and cymbal, told you so: on the first day after taking the small and pleasant dose, you would feel no particular influence beyond a most harmonious sensation of indescribable and irresistible joy; on the second day you would be so astonishingly better that you would think yourself changed into somebody else; on the third day you would be entirely free from disorder, whatever its nature and however long you had had it, and would seek out the physician's daughter to throw yourself at her feet, kiss the hem of her garment, and buy as many more of the small and pleasant doses as by the sale of all your few effects you could obtain; but she would be inaccessible,--gone for herbs to the pyramids of egypt,--and you would be (though cured) reduced to despair! thus would the physician's daughter drive her trade (and briskly too), and thus would the buying and selling and mingling of tongues and colours continue, until the changing sunlight, leaving the physician's daughter in the shadow of high roofs, admonished her to jolt out westward, with a departing effect of gleam and glitter on the splendid equipage and brazen blast. and now the enchanter struck his staff upon the stones of the great place once more, and down went the booths, the sittings and standings, and vanished the merchandise, and with it the barrows, donkeys, donkey-carts, and tumbrils, and all other things on wheels and feet, except the slow scavengers with unwieldy carts and meagre horses clearing up the rubbish, assisted by the sleek town pigeons, better plumped out than on non-market days. while there was yet an hour or two to wane before the autumn sunset, the loiterer outside town-gate and drawbridge, and postern and double-ditch, would see the last white-hooded cart lessening in the avenue of lengthening shadows of trees, or the last country boat, paddled by the last market-woman on her way home, showing black upon the reddening, long, low, narrow dike between him and the mill; and as the paddle-parted scum and weed closed over the boat's track, he might be comfortably sure that its sluggish rest would be troubled no more until next market-day. as it was not one of the great place's days for getting out of bed, when mr. the englishman looked down at the young soldiers practising the goose- step there, his mind was left at liberty to take a military turn. "these fellows are billeted everywhere about," said he; "and to see them lighting the people's fires, boiling the people's pots, minding the people's babies, rocking the people's cradles, washing the people's greens, and making themselves generally useful, in every sort of unmilitary way, is most ridiculous! never saw such a set of fellows,--never did in my life!" all perfectly true again. was there not private valentine in that very house, acting as sole housemaid, valet, cook, steward, and nurse, in the family of his captain, monsieur le capitaine de la cour,--cleaning the floors, making the beds, doing the marketing, dressing the captain, dressing the dinners, dressing the salads, and dressing the baby, all with equal readiness? or, to put him aside, he being in loyal attendance on his chief, was there not private hyppolite, billeted at the perfumer's two hundred yards off, who, when not on duty, volunteered to keep shop while the fair perfumeress stepped out to speak to a neighbour or so, and laughingly sold soap with his war-sword girded on him? was there not emile, billeted at the clock-maker's, perpetually turning to of an evening, with his coat off, winding up the stock? was there not eugene, billeted at the tinman's, cultivating, pipe in mouth, a garden four feet square, for the tinman, in the little court, behind the shop, and extorting the fruits of the earth from the same, on his knees, with the sweat of his brow? not to multiply examples, was there not baptiste, billeted on the poor water-carrier, at that very instant sitting on the pavement in the sunlight, with his martial legs asunder, and one of the water-carrier's spare pails between them, which (to the delight and glory of the heart of the water-carrier coming across the place from the fountain, yoked and burdened) he was painting bright-green outside and bright-red within? or, to go no farther than the barber's at the very next door, was there not corporal theophile-- "no," said mr. the englishman, glancing down at the barber's, "he is not there at present. there's the child, though." a mere mite of a girl stood on the steps of the barber's shop, looking across the place. a mere baby, one might call her, dressed in the close white linen cap which small french country children wear (like the children in dutch pictures), and in a frock of homespun blue, that had no shape except where it was tied round her little fat throat. so that, being naturally short and round all over, she looked, behind, as if she had been cut off at her natural waist, and had had her head neatly fitted on it. "there's the child, though." to judge from the way in which the dimpled hand was rubbing the eyes, the eyes had been closed in a nap, and were newly opened. but they seemed to be looking so intently across the place, that the englishman looked in the same direction. "o!" said he presently. "i thought as much. the corporal's there." the corporal, a smart figure of a man of thirty, perhaps a thought under the middle size, but very neatly made,--a sunburnt corporal with a brown peaked beard,--faced about at the moment, addressing voluble words of instruction to the squad in hand. nothing was amiss or awry about the corporal. a lithe and nimble corporal, quite complete, from the sparkling dark eyes under his knowing uniform cap to his sparkling white gaiters. the very image and presentment of a corporal of his country's army, in the line of his shoulders, the line of his waist, the broadest line of his bloomer trousers, and their narrowest line at the calf of his leg. mr. the englishman looked on, and the child looked on, and the corporal looked on (but the last-named at his men), until the drill ended a few minutes afterwards, and the military sprinkling dried up directly, and was gone. then said mr. the englishman to himself, "look here! by george!" and the corporal, dancing towards the barber's with his arms wide open, caught up the child, held her over his head in a flying attitude, caught her down again, kissed her, and made off with her into the barber's house. now mr. the englishman had had a quarrel with his erring and disobedient and disowned daughter, and there was a child in that case too. had not his daughter been a child, and had she not taken angel-flights above his head as this child had flown above the corporal's? "he's a "--national participled--"fool!" said the englishman, and shut his window. but the windows of the house of memory, and the windows of the house of mercy, are not so easily closed as windows of glass and wood. they fly open unexpectedly; they rattle in the night; they must be nailed up. mr. the englishman had tried nailing them, but had not driven the nails quite home. so he passed but a disturbed evening and a worse night. by nature a good-tempered man? no; very little gentleness, confounding the quality with weakness. fierce and wrathful when crossed? very, and stupendously unreasonable. moody? exceedingly so. vindictive? well; he had had scowling thoughts that he would formally curse his daughter, as he had seen it done on the stage. but remembering that the real heaven is some paces removed from the mock one in the great chandelier of the theatre, he had given that up. and he had come abroad to be rid of his repudiated daughter for the rest of his life. and here he was. at bottom, it was for this reason, more than for any other, that mr. the englishman took it extremely ill that corporal theophile should be so devoted to little bebelle, the child at the barber's shop. in an unlucky moment he had chanced to say to himself, "why, confound the fellow, he is not her father!" there was a sharp sting in the speech which ran into him suddenly, and put him in a worse mood. so he had national participled the unconscious corporal with most hearty emphasis, and had made up his mind to think no more about such a mountebank. but it came to pass that the corporal was not to be dismissed. if he had known the most delicate fibres of the englishman's mind, instead of knowing nothing on earth about him, and if he had been the most obstinate corporal in the grand army of france, instead of being the most obliging, he could not have planted himself with more determined immovability plump in the midst of all the englishman's thoughts. not only so, but he seemed to be always in his view. mr. the englishman had but to look out of window, to look upon the corporal with little bebelle. he had but to go for a walk, and there was the corporal walking with bebelle. he had but to come home again, disgusted, and the corporal and bebelle were at home before him. if he looked out at his back windows early in the morning, the corporal was in the barber's back yard, washing and dressing and brushing bebelle. if he took refuge at his front windows, the corporal brought his breakfast out into the place, and shared it there with bebelle. always corporal and always bebelle. never corporal without bebelle. never bebelle without corporal. mr. the englishman was not particularly strong in the french language as a means of oral communication, though he read it very well. it is with languages as with people,--when you only know them by sight, you are apt to mistake them; you must be on speaking terms before you can be said to have established an acquaintance. for this reason, mr. the englishman had to gird up his loins considerably before he could bring himself to the point of exchanging ideas with madame bouclet on the subject of this corporal and this bebelle. but madame bouclet looking in apologetically one morning to remark, that, o heaven! she was in a state of desolation because the lamp-maker had not sent home that lamp confided to him to repair, but that truly he was a lamp-maker against whom the whole world shrieked out, mr. the englishman seized the occasion. "madame, that baby--" "pardon, monsieur. that lamp." "no, no, that little girl." "but, pardon!" said madame bonclet, angling for a clew, "one cannot light a little girl, or send her to be repaired?" "the little girl--at the house of the barber." "ah-h-h!" cried madame bouclet, suddenly catching the idea with her delicate little line and rod. "little bebelle? yes, yes, yes! and her friend the corporal? yes, yes, yes, yes! so genteel of him,--is it not?" "he is not--?" "not at all; not at all! he is not one of her relations. not at all!" "why, then, he--" "perfectly!" cried madame bouclet, "you are right, monsieur. it is so genteel of him. the less relation, the more genteel. as you say." "is she--?" "the child of the barber?" madame bouclet whisked up her skilful little line and rod again. "not at all, not at all! she is the child of--in a word, of no one." "the wife of the barber, then--?" "indubitably. as you say. the wife of the barber receives a small stipend to take care of her. so much by the month. eh, then! it is without doubt very little, for we are all poor here." "you are not poor, madame." "as to my lodgers," replied madame bouclet, with a smiling and a gracious bend of her head, "no. as to all things else, so-so." "you flatter me, madame." "monsieur, it is you who flatter me in living here." certain fishy gasps on mr. the englishman's part, denoting that he was about to resume his subject under difficulties, madame bouclet observed him closely, and whisked up her delicate line and rod again with triumphant success. "o no, monsieur, certainly not. the wife of the barber is not cruel to the poor child, but she is careless. her health is delicate, and she sits all day, looking out at window. consequently, when the corporal first came, the poor little bebelle was much neglected." "it is a curious--" began mr. the englishman. "name? that bebelle? again you are right, monsieur. but it is a playful name for gabrielle." "and so the child is a mere fancy of the corporal's?" said mr. the englishman, in a gruffly disparaging tone of voice. "eh, well!" returned madame bouclet, with a pleading shrug: "one must love something. human nature is weak." ("devilish weak," muttered the englishman, in his own language.) "and the corporal," pursued madame bouclet, "being billeted at the barber's,--where he will probably remain a long time, for he is attached to the general,--and finding the poor unowned child in need of being loved, and finding himself in need of loving,--why, there you have it all, you see!" mr. the englishman accepted this interpretation of the matter with an indifferent grace, and observed to himself, in an injured manner, when he was again alone: "i shouldn't mind it so much, if these people were not such a"--national participled--"sentimental people!" there was a cemetery outside the town, and it happened ill for the reputation of the vaubanois, in this sentimental connection, that he took a walk there that same afternoon. to be sure there were some wonderful things in it (from the englishman's point of view), and of a certainty in all britain you would have found nothing like it. not to mention the fanciful flourishes of hearts and crosses in wood and iron, that were planted all over the place, making it look very like a firework-ground, where a most splendid pyrotechnic display might be expected after dark, there were so many wreaths upon the graves, embroidered, as it might be, "to my mother," "to my daughter," "to my father," "to my brother," "to my sister," "to my friend," and those many wreaths were in so many stages of elaboration and decay, from the wreath of yesterday, all fresh colour and bright beads, to the wreath of last year, a poor mouldering wisp of straw! there were so many little gardens and grottos made upon graves, in so many tastes, with plants and shells and plaster figures and porcelain pitchers, and so many odds and ends! there were so many tributes of remembrance hanging up, not to be discriminated by the closest inspection from little round waiters, whereon were depicted in glowing lines either a lady or a gentleman with a white pocket-handkerchief out of all proportion, leaning, in a state of the most faultless mourning and most profound affliction, on the most architectural and gorgeous urn! there were so many surviving wives who had put their names on the tombs of their deceased husbands, with a blank for the date of their own departure from this weary world; and there were so many surviving husbands who had rendered the same homage to their deceased wives; and out of the number there must have been so many who had long ago married again! in fine, there was so much in the place that would have seemed more frippery to a stranger, save for the consideration that the lightest paper flower that lay upon the poorest heap of earth was never touched by a rude hand, but perished there, a sacred thing! "nothing of the solemnity of death here," mr. the englishman had been going to say, when this last consideration touched him with a mild appeal, and on the whole he walked out without saying it. "but these people are," he insisted, by way of compensation, when he was well outside the gate, "they are so"--participled--"sentimental!" his way back lay by the military gymnasium-ground. and there he passed the corporal glibly instructing young soldiers how to swing themselves over rapid and deep watercourses on their way to glory, by means of a rope, and himself deftly plunging off a platform, and flying a hundred feet or two, as an encouragement to them to begin. and there he also passed, perched on a crowning eminence (probably the corporal's careful hands), the small bebelle, with her round eyes wide open, surveying the proceeding like a wondering sort of blue and white bird. "if that child was to die," this was his reflection as he turned his back and went his way,--"and it would almost serve the fellow right for making such a fool of himself,--i suppose we should have him sticking up a wreath and a waiter in that fantastic burying-ground." nevertheless, after another early morning or two of looking out of window, he strolled down into the place, when the corporal and bebelle were walking there, and touching his hat to the corporal (an immense achievement), wished him good-day. "good-day, monsieur." "this is a rather pretty child you have here," said mr. the englishman, taking her chin in his hand, and looking down into her astonished blue eyes. "monsieur, she is a very pretty child," returned the corporal, with a stress on his polite correction of the phrase. "and good?" said the englishman. "and very good. poor little thing!" "hah!" the englishman stooped down and patted her cheek, not without awkwardness, as if he were going too far in his conciliation. "and what is this medal round your neck, my little one?" bebelle having no other reply on her lips than her chubby right fist, the corporal offered his services as interpreter. "monsieur demands, what is this, bebelle?" "it is the holy virgin," said bebelle. "and who gave it you?" asked the englishman. "theophile." "and who is theophile?" bebelle broke into a laugh, laughed merrily and heartily, clapped her chubby hands, and beat her little feet on the stone pavement of the place. "he doesn't know theophile! why, he doesn't know any one! he doesn't know anything!" then, sensible of a small solecism in her manners, bebelle twisted her right hand in a leg of the corporal's bloomer trousers, and, laying her cheek against the place, kissed it. "monsieur theophile, i believe?" said the englishman to the corporal. "it is i, monsieur." "permit me." mr. the englishman shook him heartily by the hand and turned away. but he took it mighty ill that old monsieur mutuel in his patch of sunlight, upon whom he came as he turned, should pull off his cap to him with a look of pleased approval. and he muttered, in his own tongue, as he returned the salutation, "well, walnut-shell! and what business is it of _yours_?" mr. the englishman went on for many weeks passing but disturbed evenings and worse nights, and constantly experiencing that those aforesaid windows in the houses of memory and mercy rattled after dark, and that he had very imperfectly nailed them up. likewise, he went on for many weeks daily improving the acquaintance of the corporal and bebelle. that is to say, he took bebelle by the chin, and the corporal by the hand, and offered bebelle sous and the corporal cigars, and even got the length of changing pipes with the corporal and kissing bebelle. but he did it all in a shamefaced way, and always took it extremely ill that monsieur mutuel in his patch of sunlight should note what he did. whenever that seemed to be the case, he always growled in his own tongue, "there you are again, walnut-shell! what business is it of yours?" in a word, it had become the occupation of mr. the englishman's life to look after the corporal and little bebelle, and to resent old monsieur mutuel's looking after _him_. an occupation only varied by a fire in the town one windy night, and much passing of water-buckets from hand to hand (in which the englishman rendered good service), and much beating of drums,--when all of a sudden the corporal disappeared. next, all of a sudden, bebelle disappeared. she had been visible a few days later than the corporal,--sadly deteriorated as to washing and brushing,--but she had not spoken when addressed by mr. the englishman, and had looked scared and had run away. and now it would seem that she had run away for good. and there lay the great place under the windows, bare and barren. in his shamefaced and constrained way, mr. the englishman asked no question of any one, but watched from his front windows and watched from his back windows, and lingered about the place, and peeped in at the barber's shop, and did all this and much more with a whistling and tune- humming pretence of not missing anything, until one afternoon when monsieur mutuel's patch of sunlight was in shadow, and when, according to all rule and precedent, he had no right whatever to bring his red ribbon out of doors, behold here he was, advancing with his cap already in his hand twelve paces off! mr. the englishman had got as far into his usual objurgation as, "what bu- si--" when he checked himself. "ah, it is sad, it is sad! helas, it is unhappy, it is sad!" thus old monsieur mutuel, shaking his gray head. "what busin--at least, i would say, what do you mean, monsieur mutuel?" "our corporal. helas, our dear corporal!" "what has happened to him?" "you have not heard?" "no." "at the fire. but he was so brave, so ready. ah, too brave, too ready!" "may the devil carry you away!" the englishman broke in impatiently; "i beg your pardon,--i mean me,--i am not accustomed to speak french,--go on, will you?" "and a falling beam--" "good god!" exclaimed the englishman. "it was a private soldier who was killed?" "no. a corporal, the same corporal, our dear corporal. beloved by all his comrades. the funeral ceremony was touching,--penetrating. monsieur the englishman, your eyes fill with tears." "what bu-si--" "monsieur the englishman, i honour those emotions. i salute you with profound respect. i will not obtrude myself upon your noble heart." monsieur mutuel,--a gentleman in every thread of his cloudy linen, under whose wrinkled hand every grain in the quarter of an ounce of poor snuff in his poor little tin box became a gentleman's property,--monsieur mutuel passed on, with his cap in his hand. "i little thought," said the englishman, after walking for several minutes, and more than once blowing his nose, "when i was looking round that cemetery--i'll go there!" straight he went there, and when he came within the gate he paused, considering whether he should ask at the lodge for some direction to the grave. but he was less than ever in a mood for asking questions, and he thought, "i shall see something on it to know it by." in search of the corporal's grave he went softly on, up this walk and down that, peering in, among the crosses and hearts and columns and obelisks and tombstones, for a recently disturbed spot. it troubled him now to think how many dead there were in the cemetery,--he had not thought them a tenth part so numerous before,--and after he had walked and sought for some time, he said to himself, as he struck down a new vista of tombs, "i might suppose that every one was dead but i." not every one. a live child was lying on the ground asleep. truly he had found something on the corporal's grave to know it by, and the something was bebelle. with such a loving will had the dead soldier's comrades worked at his resting-place, that it was already a neat garden. on the green turf of the garden bebelle lay sleeping, with her cheek touching it. a plain, unpainted little wooden cross was planted in the turf, and her short arm embraced this little cross, as it had many a time embraced the corporal's neck. they had put a tiny flag (the flag of france) at his head, and a laurel garland. mr. the englishman took off his hat, and stood for a while silent. then, covering his head again, he bent down on one knee, and softly roused the child. "bebelle! my little one!" opening her eyes, on which the tears were still wet, bebelle was at first frightened; but seeing who it was, she suffered him to take her in his arms, looking steadfastly at him. "you must not lie here, my little one. you must come with me." "no, no. i can't leave theophile. i want the good dear theophile." "we will go and seek him, bebelle. we will go and look for him in england. we will go and look for him at my daughter's, bebelle." "shall we find him there?" "we shall find the best part of him there. come with me, poor forlorn little one. heaven is my witness," said the englishman, in a low voice, as, before he rose, he touched the turf above the gentle corporal's breast, "that i thankfully accept this trust!" it was a long way for the child to have come unaided. she was soon asleep again, with her embrace transferred to the englishman's neck. he looked at her worn shoes, and her galled feet, and her tired face, and believed that she had come there every day. he was leaving the grave with the slumbering bebelle in his arms, when he stopped, looked wistfully down at it, and looked wistfully at the other graves around. "it is the innocent custom of the people," said mr. the englishman, with hesitation. "i think i should like to do it. no one sees." careful not to wake bebelle as he went, he repaired to the lodge where such little tokens of remembrance were sold, and bought two wreaths. one, blue and white and glistening silver, "to my friend;" one of a soberer red and black and yellow, "to my friend." with these he went back to the grave, and so down on one knee again. touching the child's lips with the brighter wreath, he guided her hand to hang it on the cross; then hung his own wreath there. after all, the wreaths were not far out of keeping with the little garden. to my friend. to my friend. mr. the englishman took it very ill when he looked round a street corner into the great place, carrying bebelle in his arms, that old mutuel should be there airing his red ribbon. he took a world of pains to dodge the worthy mutuel, and devoted a surprising amount of time and trouble to skulking into his own lodging like a man pursued by justice. safely arrived there at last, he made bebelle's toilet with as accurate a remembrance as he could bring to bear upon that work of the way in which he had often seen the poor corporal make it, and having given her to eat and drink, laid her down on his own bed. then he slipped out into the barber's shop, and after a brief interview with the barber's wife, and a brief recourse to his purse and card-case, came back again with the whole of bebelle's personal property in such a very little bundle that it was quite lost under his arm. as it was irreconcilable with his whole course and character that he should carry bebelle off in state, or receive any compliments or congratulations on that feat, he devoted the next day to getting his two portmanteaus out of the house by artfulness and stealth, and to comporting himself in every particular as if he were going to run away,--except, indeed, that he paid his few debts in the town, and prepared a letter to leave for madame bouclet, enclosing a sufficient sum of money in lieu of notice. a railway train would come through at midnight, and by that train he would take away bebelle to look for theophile in england and at his forgiven daughter's. at midnight, on a moonlight night, mr. the englishman came creeping forth like a harmless assassin, with bebelle on his breast instead of a dagger. quiet the great place, and quiet the never-stirring streets; closed the cafes; huddled together motionless their billiard-balls; drowsy the guard or sentinel on duty here and there; lulled for the time, by sleep, even the insatiate appetite of the office of town-dues. mr. the englishman left the place behind, and left the streets behind, and left the civilian-inhabited town behind, and descended down among the military works of vauban, hemming all in. as the shadow of the first heavy arch and postern fell upon him and was left behind, as the shadow of the second heavy arch and postern fell upon him and was left behind, as his hollow tramp over the first drawbridge was succeeded by a gentler sound, as his hollow tramp over the second drawbridge was succeeded by a gentler sound, as he overcame the stagnant ditches one by one, and passed out where the flowing waters were and where the moonlight, so the dark shades and the hollow sounds and the unwholesomely locked currents of his soul were vanquished and set free. see to it, vaubans of your own hearts, who gird them in with triple walls and ditches, and with bolt and chain and bar and lifted bridge,--raze those fortifications, and lay them level with the all-absorbing dust, before the night cometh when no hand can work! all went prosperously, and he got into an empty carriage in the train, where he could lay bebelle on the seat over against him, as on a couch, and cover her from head to foot with his mantle. he had just drawn himself up from perfecting this arrangement, and had just leaned back in his own seat contemplating it with great satisfaction, when he became aware of a curious appearance at the open carriage window,--a ghostly little tin box floating up in the moonlight, and hovering there. he leaned forward, and put out his head. down among the rails and wheels and ashes, monsieur mutuel, red ribbon and all! "excuse me, monsieur the englishman," said monsieur mutuel, holding up his box at arm's length, the carriage being so high and he so low; "but i shall reverence the little box for ever, if your so generous hand will take a pinch from it at parting." mr. the englishman reached out of the window before complying, and--without asking the old fellow what business it was of his--shook hands and said, "adieu! god bless you!" "and, mr. the englishman, god bless _you_!" cried madame bouclet, who was also there among the rails and wheels and ashes. "and god will bless you in the happiness of the protected child now with you. and god will bless you in your own child at home. and god will bless you in your own remembrances. and this from me!" he had barely time to catch a bouquet from her hand, when the train was flying through the night. round the paper that enfolded it was bravely written (doubtless by the nephew who held the pen of an angel), "homage to the friend of the friendless." "not bad people, bebelle!" said mr. the englishman, softly drawing the mantle a little from her sleeping face, that he might kiss it, "though they are so--" too "sentimental" himself at the moment to be able to get out that word, he added nothing but a sob, and travelled for some miles, through the moonlight, with his hand before his eyes. chapter iii--his brown-paper parcel my works are well known. i am a young man in the art line. you have seen my works many a time, though it's fifty thousand to one if you have seen me. you say you don't want to see me? you say your interest is in my works, and not in me? don't be too sure about that. stop a bit. let us have it down in black and white at the first go off, so that there may be no unpleasantness or wrangling afterwards. and this is looked over by a friend of mine, a ticket writer, that is up to literature. i am a young man in the art line--in the fine-art line. you have seen my works over and over again, and you have been curious about me, and you think you have seen me. now, as a safe rule, you never have seen me, and you never do see me, and you never will see me. i think that's plainly put--and it's what knocks me over. if there's a blighted public character going, i am the party. it has been remarked by a certain (or an uncertain,) philosopher, that the world knows nothing of its greatest men. he might have put it plainer if he had thrown his eye in my direction. he might have put it, that while the world knows something of them that apparently go in and win, it knows nothing of them that really go in and don't win. there it is again in another form--and that's what knocks me over. not that it's only myself that suffers from injustice, but that i am more alive to my own injuries than to any other man's. being, as i have mentioned, in the fine-art line, and not the philanthropic line, i openly admit it. as to company in injury, i have company enough. who are you passing every day at your competitive excruciations? the fortunate candidates whose heads and livers you have turned upside down for life? not you. you are really passing the crammers and coaches. if your principle is right, why don't you turn out to-morrow morning with the keys of your cities on velvet cushions, your musicians playing, and your flags flying, and read addresses to the crammers and coaches on your bended knees, beseeching them to come out and govern you? then, again, as to your public business of all sorts, your financial statements and your budgets; the public knows much, truly, about the real doers of all that! your nobles and right honourables are first-rate men? yes, and so is a goose a first-rate bird. but i'll tell you this about the goose;--you'll find his natural flavour disappointing, without stuffing. perhaps i am soured by not being popular? but suppose i am popular. suppose my works never fail to attract. suppose that, whether they are exhibited by natural light or by artificial, they invariably draw the public. then no doubt they are preserved in some collection? no, they are not; they are not preserved in any collection. copyright? no, nor yet copyright. anyhow they must be somewhere? wrong again, for they are often nowhere. says you, "at all events, you are in a moody state of mind, my friend." my answer is, i have described myself as a public character with a blight upon him--which fully accounts for the curdling of the milk in _that_ cocoa-nut. those that are acquainted with london are aware of a locality on the surrey side of the river thames, called the obelisk, or, more generally, the obstacle. those that are not acquainted with london will also be aware of it, now that i have named it. my lodging is not far from that locality. i am a young man of that easy disposition, that i lie abed till it's absolutely necessary to get up and earn something, and then i lie abed again till i have spent it. it was on an occasion when i had had to turn to with a view to victuals, that i found myself walking along the waterloo road, one evening after dark, accompanied by an acquaintance and fellow-lodger in the gas-fitting way of life. he is very good company, having worked at the theatres, and, indeed, he has a theatrical turn himself, and wishes to be brought out in the character of othello; but whether on account of his regular work always blacking his face and hands more or less, i cannot say. "tom," he says, "what a mystery hangs over you!" "yes, mr. click"--the rest of the house generally give him his name, as being first, front, carpeted all over, his own furniture, and if not mahogany, an out-and-out imitation--"yes, mr. click, a mystery does hang over me." "makes you low, you see, don't it?" says he, eyeing me sideways. "why, yes, mr. click, there are circumstances connected with it that have," i yielded to a sigh, "a lowering effect." "gives you a touch of the misanthrope too, don't it?" says he. "well, i'll tell you what. if i was you, i'd shake it of." "if i was you, i would, mr. click; but, if you was me, you wouldn't." "ah!" says he, "there's something in that." when we had walked a little further, he took it up again by touching me on the chest. "you see, tom, it seems to me as if, in the words of the poet who wrote the domestic drama of the stranger, you had a silent sorrow there." "i have, mr. click." "i hope, tom," lowering his voice in a friendly way, "it isn't coining, or smashing?" "no, mr. click. don't be uneasy." "nor yet forg--" mr. click checked himself, and added, "counterfeiting anything, for instance?" "no, mr. click. i am lawfully in the art line--fine-art line--but i can say no more." "ah! under a species of star? a kind of malignant spell? a sort of a gloomy destiny? a cankerworm pegging away at your vitals in secret, as well as i make it out?" said mr. click, eyeing me with some admiration. i told mr. click that was about it, if we came to particulars; and i thought he appeared rather proud of me. our conversation had brought us to a crowd of people, the greater part struggling for a front place from which to see something on the pavement, which proved to be various designs executed in coloured chalks on the pavement stones, lighted by two candles stuck in mud sconces. the subjects consisted of a fine fresh salmon's head and shoulders, supposed to have been recently sent home from the fishmonger's; a moonlight night at sea (in a circle); dead game; scroll-work; the head of a hoary hermit engaged in devout contemplation; the head of a pointer smoking a pipe; and a cherubim, his flesh creased as in infancy, going on a horizontal errand against the wind. all these subjects appeared to me to be exquisitely done. on his knees on one side of this gallery, a shabby person of modest appearance who shivered dreadfully (though it wasn't at all cold), was engaged in blowing the chalk-dust off the moon, toning the outline of the back of the hermit's head with a bit of leather, and fattening the down- stroke of a letter or two in the writing. i have forgotten to mention that writing formed a part of the composition, and that it also--as it appeared to me--was exquisitely done. it ran as follows, in fine round characters: "an honest man is the noblest work of god. . pounds s. d. employment in an office is humbly requested. honour the queen. hunger is a sharp thorn. chip chop, cherry chop, fol de rol de ri do. astronomy and mathematics. i do this to support my family." murmurs of admiration at the exceeding beauty of this performance went about among the crowd. the artist, having finished his touching (and having spoilt those places), took his seat on the pavement, with his knees crouched up very nigh his chin; and halfpence began to rattle in. "a pity to see a man of that talent brought so low; ain't it?" said one of the crowd to me. "what he might have done in the coach-painting, or house-decorating!" said another man, who took up the first speaker because i did not. "why, he writes--alone--like the lord chancellor!" said another man. "better," said another. "i know his writing. he couldn't support his family this way." then, a woman noticed the natural fluffiness of the hermit's hair, and another woman, her friend, mentioned of the salmon's gills that you could almost see him gasp. then, an elderly country gentleman stepped forward and asked the modest man how he executed his work? and the modest man took some scraps of brown paper with colours in 'em out of his pockets, and showed them. then a fair-complexioned donkey, with sandy hair and spectacles, asked if the hermit was a portrait? to which the modest man, casting a sorrowful glance upon it, replied that it was, to a certain extent, a recollection of his father. this caused a boy to yelp out, "is the pinter a smoking the pipe your mother?" who was immediately shoved out of view by a sympathetic carpenter with his basket of tools at his back. at every fresh question or remark the crowd leaned forward more eagerly, and dropped the halfpence more freely, and the modest man gathered them up more meekly. at last, another elderly gentleman came to the front, and gave the artist his card, to come to his office to-morrow, and get some copying to do. the card was accompanied by sixpence, and the artist was profoundly grateful, and, before he put the card in his hat, read it several times by the light of his candles to fix the address well in his mind, in case he should lose it. the crowd was deeply interested by this last incident, and a man in the second row with a gruff voice growled to the artist, "you've got a chance in life now, ain't you?" the artist answered (sniffing in a very low-spirited way, however), "i'm thankful to hope so." upon which there was a general chorus of "you are all right," and the halfpence slackened very decidedly. i felt myself pulled away by the arm, and mr. click and i stood alone at the corner of the next crossing. "why, tom," said mr. click, "what a horrid expression of face you've got!" "have i?" says i. "have you?" says mr. click. "why, you looked as if you would have his blood." "whose blood?" "the artist's." "the artist's?" i repeated. and i laughed, frantically, wildly, gloomily, incoherently, disagreeably. i am sensible that i did. i know i did. mr. click stared at me in a scared sort of a way, but said nothing until we had walked a street's length. he then stopped short, and said, with excitement on the part of his forefinger: "thomas, i find it necessary to be plain with you. i don't like the envious man. i have identified the cankerworm that's pegging away at _your_ vitals, and it's envy, thomas." "is it?" says i. "yes, it is," says be. "thomas, beware of envy. it is the green-eyed monster which never did and never will improve each shining hour, but quite the reverse. i dread the envious man, thomas. i confess that i am afraid of the envious man, when he is so envious as you are. whilst you contemplated the works of a gifted rival, and whilst you heard that rival's praises, and especially whilst you met his humble glance as he put that card away, your countenance was so malevolent as to be terrific. thomas, i have heard of the envy of them that follows the fine-art line, but i never believed it could be what yours is. i wish you well, but i take my leave of you. and if you should ever got into trouble through knifeing--or say, garotting--a brother artist, as i believe you will, don't call me to character, thomas, or i shall be forced to injure your case." mr. click parted from me with those words, and we broke off our acquaintance. i became enamoured. her name was henrietta. contending with my easy disposition, i frequently got up to go after her. she also dwelt in the neighbourhood of the obstacle, and i did fondly hope that no other would interpose in the way of our union. to say that henrietta was volatile is but to say that she was woman. to say that she was in the bonnet-trimming is feebly to express the taste which reigned predominant in her own. she consented to walk with me. let me do her the justice to say that she did so upon trial. "i am not," said henrietta, "as yet prepared to regard you, thomas, in any other light than as a friend; but as a friend i am willing to walk with you, on the understanding that softer sentiments may flow." we walked. under the influence of henrietta's beguilements, i now got out of bed daily. i pursued my calling with an industry before unknown, and it cannot fail to have been observed at that period, by those most familiar with the streets of london, that there was a larger supply. but hold! the time is not yet come! one evening in october i was walking with henrietta, enjoying the cool breezes wafted over vauxhall bridge. after several slow turns, henrietta gaped frequently (so inseparable from woman is the love of excitement), and said, "let's go home by grosvenor place, piccadilly, and waterloo"--localities, i may state for the information of the stranger and the foreigner, well known in london, and the last a bridge. "no. not by piccadilly, henrietta," said i. "and why not piccadilly, for goodness' sake?" said henrietta. could i tell her? could i confess to the gloomy presentiment that overshadowed me? could i make myself intelligible to her? no. "i don't like piccadilly, henrietta." "but i do," said she. "it's dark now, and the long rows of lamps in piccadilly after dark are beautiful. i _will_ go to piccadilly!" of course we went. it was a pleasant night, and there were numbers of people in the streets. it was a brisk night, but not too cold, and not damp. let me darkly observe, it was the best of all nights--for the purpose. as we passed the garden wall of the royal palace, going up grosvenor place, henrietta murmured: "i wish i was a queen!" "why so, henrietta?" "i would make _you_ something," said she, and crossed her two hands on my arm, and turned away her head. judging from this that the softer sentiments alluded to above had begun to flow, i adapted my conduct to that belief. thus happily we passed on into the detested thoroughfare of piccadilly. on the right of that thoroughfare is a row of trees, the railing of the green park, and a fine broad eligible piece of pavement. "oh my!" cried henrietta presently. "there's been an accident!" i looked to the left, and said, "where, henrietta?" "not there, stupid!" said she. "over by the park railings. where the crowd is. oh no, it's not an accident, it's something else to look at! what's them lights?" she referred to two lights twinkling low amongst the legs of the assemblage: two candles on the pavement. "oh, do come along!" cried henrietta, skipping across the road with me. i hung back, but in vain. "do let's look!" again, designs upon the pavement. centre compartment, mount vesuvius going it (in a circle), supported by four oval compartments, severally representing a ship in heavy weather, a shoulder of mutton attended by two cucumbers, a golden harvest with distant cottage of proprietor, and a knife and fork after nature; above the centre compartment a bunch of grapes, and over the whole a rainbow. the whole, as it appeared to me, exquisitely done. the person in attendance on these works of art was in all respects, shabbiness excepted, unlike the former personage. his whole appearance and manner denoted briskness. though threadbare, he expressed to the crowd that poverty had not subdued his spirit, or tinged with any sense of shame this honest effort to turn his talents to some account. the writing which formed a part of his composition was conceived in a similarly cheerful tone. it breathed the following sentiments: "the writer is poor, but not despondent. to a british public he pounds s. d. appeals. honour to our brave army! and also to our gallant navy. britons strike the a b c d e f g writer in common chalks would be grateful for any suitable employment home! hurrah!" the whole of this writing appeared to me to be exquisitely done. but this man, in one respect like the last, though seemingly hard at it with a great show of brown paper and rubbers, was only really fattening the down-stroke of a letter here and there, or blowing the loose chalk off the rainbow, or toning the outside edge of the shoulder of mutton. though he did this with the greatest confidence, he did it (as it struck me) in so ignorant a manner, and so spoilt everything he touched, that when he began upon the purple smoke from the chimney of the distant cottage of the proprietor of the golden harvest (which smoke was beautifully soft), i found myself saying aloud, without considering of it: "let that alone, will you?" "halloa!" said the man next me in the crowd, jerking me roughly from him with his elbow, "why didn't you send a telegram? if we had known you was coming, we'd have provided something better for you. you understand the man's work better than he does himself, don't you? have you made your will? you're too clever to live long." "don't be hard upon the gentleman, sir," said the person in attendance on the works of art, with a twinkle in his eye as he looked at me; "he may chance to be an artist himself. if so, sir, he will have a fellow-feeling with me, sir, when i"--he adapted his action to his words as he went on, and gave a smart slap of his hands between each touch, working himself all the time about and about the composition--"when i lighten the bloom of my grapes--shade off the orange in my rainbow--dot the i of my britons--throw a yellow light into my cow-cum-_ber_--insinuate another morsel of fat into my shoulder of mutton--dart another zigzag flash of lightning at my ship in distress!" he seemed to do this so neatly, and was so nimble about it, that the halfpence came flying in. "thanks, generous public, thanks!" said the professor. "you will stimulate me to further exertions. my name will be found in the list of british painters yet. i shall do better than this, with encouragement. i shall indeed." "you never can do better than that bunch of grapes," said henrietta. "oh, thomas, them grapes!" "not better than _that_, lady? i hope for the time when i shall paint anything but your own bright eyes and lips equal to life." "(thomas, did you ever?) but it must take a long time, sir," said henrietta, blushing, "to paint equal to that." "i was prenticed to it, miss," said the young man, smartly touching up the composition--"prenticed to it in the caves of spain and portingale, ever so long and two year over." there was a laugh from the crowd; and a new man who had worked himself in next me, said, "he's a smart chap, too; ain't he?" "and what a eye!" exclaimed henrietta softly. "ah! he need have a eye," said the man. "ah! he just need," was murmured among the crowd. "he couldn't come that 'ere burning mountain without a eye," said the man. he had got himself accepted as an authority, somehow, and everybody looked at his finger as it pointed out vesuvius. "to come that effect in a general illumination would require a eye; but to come it with two dips--why, it's enough to blind him!" that impostor, pretending not to have heard what was said, now winked to any extent with both eyes at once, as if the strain upon his sight was too much, and threw back his long hair--it was very long--as if to cool his fevered brow. i was watching him doing it, when henrietta suddenly whispered, "oh, thomas, how horrid you look!" and pulled me out by the arm. remembering mr. click's words, i was confused when i retorted, "what do you mean by horrid?" "oh gracious! why, you looked," said henrietta, "as if you would have his blood." i was going to answer, "so i would, for twopence--from his nose," when i checked myself and remained silent. we returned home in silence. every step of the way, the softer sentiments that had flowed, ebbed twenty mile an hour. adapting my conduct to the ebbing, as i had done to the flowing, i let my arm drop limp, so as she could scarcely keep hold of it, and i wished her such a cold good-night at parting, that i keep within the bounds of truth when i characterise it as a rasper. in the course of the next day i received the following document: "henrietta informs thomas that my eyes are open to you. i must ever wish you well, but walking and us is separated by an unfarmable abyss. one so malignant to superiority--oh that look at him!--can never never conduct henrietta p.s.--to the altar." yielding to the easiness of my disposition, i went to bed for a week, after receiving this letter. during the whole of such time, london was bereft of the usual fruits of my labour. when i resumed it, i found that henrietta was married to the artist of piccadilly. did i say to the artist? what fell words were those, expressive of what a galling hollowness, of what a bitter mockery! i--i--i--am the artist. i was the real artist of piccadilly, i was the real artist of the waterloo road, i am the only artist of all those pavement-subjects which daily and nightly arouse your admiration. i do 'em, and i let 'em out. the man you behold with the papers of chalks and the rubbers, touching up the down-strokes of the writing and shading off the salmon, the man you give the credit to, the man you give the money to, hires--yes! and i live to tell it!--hires those works of art of me, and brings nothing to 'em but the candles. such is genius in a commercial country. i am not up to the shivering, i am not up to the liveliness, i am not up to the wanting-employment-in-an- office move; i am only up to originating and executing the work. in consequence of which you never see me; you think you see me when you see somebody else, and that somebody else is a mere commercial character. the one seen by self and mr. click in the waterloo road can only write a single word, and that i taught him, and it's multiplication--which you may see him execute upside down, because he can't do it the natural way. the one seen by self and henrietta by the green park railings can just smear into existence the two ends of a rainbow, with his cuff and a rubber--if very hard put upon making a show--but he could no more come the arch of the rainbow, to save his life, than he could come the moonlight, fish, volcano, shipwreck, mutton, hermit, or any of my most celebrated effects. to conclude as i began: if there's a blighted public character going, i am the party. and often as you have seen, do see, and will see, my works, it's fifty thousand to one if you'll ever see me, unless, when the candles are burnt down and the commercial character is gone, you should happen to notice a neglected young man perseveringly rubbing out the last traces of the pictures, so that nobody can renew the same. that's me. chapter iv--his wonderful end it will have been, ere now, perceived that i sold the foregoing writings. from the fact of their being printed in these pages, the inference will, ere now, have been drawn by the reader (may i add, the gentle reader?) that i sold them to one who never yet--{ } having parted with the writings on most satisfactory terms,--for, in opening negotiations with the present journal, was i not placing myself in the hands of one of whom it may be said, in the words of another, { ,}--resumed my usual functions. but i too soon discovered that peace of mind had fled from a brow which, up to that time, time had merely took the hair off, leaving an unruffled expanse within. it were superfluous to veil it,--the brow to which i allude is my own. yes, over that brow uneasiness gathered like the sable wing of the fabled bird, as--as no doubt will be easily identified by all right-minded individuals. if not, i am unable, on the spur of the moment, to enter into particulars of him. the reflection that the writings must now inevitably get into print, and that he might yet live and meet with them, sat like the hag of night upon my jaded form. the elasticity of my spirits departed. fruitless was the bottle, whether wine or medicine. i had recourse to both, and the effect of both upon my system was witheringly lowering. in this state of depression, into which i subsided when i first began to revolve what could i ever say if he--the unknown--was to appear in the coffee-room and demand reparation, i one forenoon in this last november received a turn that appeared to be given me by the finger of fate and conscience, hand in hand. i was alone in the coffee-room, and had just poked the fire into a blaze, and was standing with my back to it, trying whether heat would penetrate with soothing influence to the voice within, when a young man in a cap, of an intelligent countenance, though requiring his hair cut, stood before me. "mr. christopher, the head waiter?" "the same." the young man shook his hair out of his vision,--which it impeded,--to a packet from his breast, and handing it over to me, said, with his eye (or did i dream?) fixed with a lambent meaning on me, "the proofs." although i smelt my coat-tails singeing at the fire, i had not the power to withdraw them. the young man put the packet in my faltering grasp, and repeated,--let me do him the justice to add, with civility: "the proofs. a. y. r." with those words he departed. a. y. r.? and you remember. was that his meaning? at your risk. were the letters short for _that_ reminder? anticipate your retribution. did they stand for _that_ warning? out-dacious youth repent? but no; for that, a o was happily wanting, and the vowel here was a a. i opened the packet, and found that its contents were the foregoing writings printed just as the reader (may i add the discerning reader?) peruses them. in vain was the reassuring whisper,--a.y.r., all the year round,--it could not cancel the proofs. too appropriate name. the proofs of my having sold the writings. my wretchedness daily increased. i had not thought of the risk i ran, and the defying publicity i put my head into, until all was done, and all was in print. give up the money to be off the bargain and prevent the publication, i could not. my family was down in the world, christmas was coming on, a brother in the hospital and a sister in the rheumatics could not be entirely neglected. and it was not only ins in the family that had told on the resources of one unaided waitering; outs were not wanting. a brother out of a situation, and another brother out of money to meet an acceptance, and another brother out of his mind, and another brother out at new york (not the same, though it might appear so), had really and truly brought me to a stand till i could turn myself round. i got worse and worse in my meditations, constantly reflecting "the proofs," and reflecting that when christmas drew nearer, and the proofs were published, there could be no safety from hour to hour but that he might confront me in the coffee-room, and in the face of day and his country demand his rights. the impressive and unlooked-for catastrophe towards which i dimly pointed the reader (shall i add, the highly intellectual reader?) in my first remarks now rapidly approaches. it was november still, but the last echoes of the guy foxes had long ceased to reverberate. we was slack,--several joints under our average mark, and wine, of course, proportionate. so slack had we become at last, that beds nos. , , , and , having took their six o'clock dinners, and dozed over their respective pints, had drove away in their respective hansoms for their respective night mail-trains and left us empty. i had took the evening paper to no. table,--which is warm and most to be preferred,--and, lost in the all-absorbing topics of the day, had dropped into a slumber. i was recalled to consciousness by the well-known intimation, "waiter!" and replying, "sir!" found a gentleman standing at no. table. the reader (shall i add, the observant reader?) will please to notice the locality of the gentleman,--_at no. table_. he had one of the newfangled uncollapsable bags in his hand (which i am against, for i don't see why you shouldn't collapse, while you are about it, as your fathers collapsed before you), and he said: "i want to dine, waiter. i shall sleep here to-night." "very good, sir. what will you take for dinner, sir?" "soup, bit of codfish, oyster sauce, and the joint." "thank you, sir." i rang the chambermaid's bell; and mrs. pratchett marched in, according to custom, demurely carrying a lighted flat candle before her, as if she was one of a long public procession, all the other members of which was invisible. in the meanwhile the gentleman had gone up to the mantelpiece, right in front of the fire, and had laid his forehead against the mantelpiece (which it is a low one, and brought him into the attitude of leap-frog), and had heaved a tremenjous sigh. his hair was long and lightish; and when he laid his forehead against the mantelpiece, his hair all fell in a dusty fluff together over his eyes; and when he now turned round and lifted up his head again, it all fell in a dusty fluff together over his ears. this give him a wild appearance, similar to a blasted heath. "o! the chambermaid. ah!" he was turning something in his mind. "to be sure. yes. i won't go up-stairs now, if you will take my bag. it will be enough for the present to know my number.--can you give me b?" (o conscience, what a adder art thou!) mrs. pratchett allotted him the room, and took his bag to it. he then went back before the fire, and fell a biting his nails. "waiter!" biting between the words, "give me," bite, "pen and paper; and in five minutes," bite, "let me have, if you please," bite, "a", bite, "messenger." unmindful of his waning soup, he wrote and sent off six notes before he touched his dinner. three were city; three west-end. the city letters were to cornhill, ludgate-hill, and farringdon street. the west-end letters were to great marlborough street, new burlington street, and piccadilly. everybody was systematically denied at every one of the six places, and there was not a vestige of any answer. our light porter whispered to me, when he came back with that report, "all booksellers." but before then he had cleared off his dinner, and his bottle of wine. he now--mark the concurrence with the document formerly given in full!--knocked a plate of biscuits off the table with his agitated elber (but without breakage), and demanded boiling brandy-and-water. now fully convinced that it was himself, i perspired with the utmost freedom. when he became flushed with the heated stimulant referred to, he again demanded pen and paper, and passed the succeeding two hours in producing a manuscript which he put in the fire when completed. he then went up to bed, attended by mrs. pratchett. mrs. pratchett (who was aware of my emotions) told me, on coming down, that she had noticed his eye rolling into every corner of the passages and staircase, as if in search of his luggage, and that, looking back as she shut the door of b, she perceived him with his coat already thrown off immersing himself bodily under the bedstead, like a chimley-sweep before the application of machinery. the next day--i forbear the horrors of that night--was a very foggy day in our part of london, insomuch that it was necessary to light the coffee- room gas. we was still alone, and no feverish words of mine can do justice to the fitfulness of his appearance as he sat at no. table, increased by there being something wrong with the meter. having again ordered his dinner, he went out, and was out for the best part of two hours. inquiring on his return whether any of the answers had arrived, and receiving an unqualified negative, his instant call was for mulligatawny, the cayenne pepper, and orange brandy. feeling that the mortal struggle was now at hand, i also felt that i must be equal to him, and with that view resolved that whatever he took i would take. behind my partition, but keeping my eye on him over the curtain, i therefore operated on mulligatawny, cayenne pepper, and orange brandy. and at a later period of the day, when he again said, "orange brandy," i said so too, in a lower tone, to george, my second lieutenant (my first was absent on leave), who acts between me and the bar. throughout that awful day he walked about the coffee-room continually. often he came close up to my partition, and then his eye rolled within, too evidently in search of any signs of his luggage. half-past six came, and i laid his cloth. he ordered a bottle of old brown. i likewise ordered a bottle of old brown. he drank his. i drank mine (as nearly as my duties would permit) glass for glass against his. he topped with coffee and a small glass. i topped with coffee and a small glass. he dozed. i dozed. at last, "waiter!"--and he ordered his bill. the moment was now at hand when we two must be locked in the deadly grapple. swift as the arrow from the bow, i had formed my resolution; in other words, i had hammered it out between nine and nine. it was, that i would be the first to open up the subject with a full acknowledgment, and would offer any gradual settlement within my power. he paid his bill (doing what was right by attendance) with his eye rolling about him to the last for any tokens of his luggage. one only time our gaze then met, with the lustrous fixedness (i believe i am correct in imputing that character to it?) of the well-known basilisk. the decisive moment had arrived. with a tolerable steady hand, though with humility, i laid the proofs before him. "gracious heavens!" he cries out, leaping up, and catching hold of his hair. "what's this? print!" "sir," i replied, in a calming voice, and bending forward, "i humbly acknowledge to being the unfortunate cause of it. but i hope, sir, that when you have heard the circumstances explained, and the innocence of my intentions--" to my amazement, i was stopped short by his catching me in both his arms, and pressing me to his breast-bone; where i must confess to my face (and particular, nose) having undergone some temporary vexation from his wearing his coat buttoned high up, and his buttons being uncommon hard. "ha, ha, ha!" he cries, releasing me with a wild laugh, and grasping my hand. "what is your name, my benefactor?" "my name, sir" (i was crumpled, and puzzled to make him out), "is christopher; and i hope, sir, that, as such, when you've heard my ex--" "in print!" he exclaims again, dashing the proofs over and over as if he was bathing in them.--"in print!! o christopher! philanthropist! nothing can recompense you,--but what sum of money would be acceptable to you?" i had drawn a step back from him, or i should have suffered from his buttons again. "sir, i assure you, i have been already well paid, and--" "no, no, christopher! don't talk like that! what sum of money would be acceptable to you, christopher? would you find twenty pounds acceptable, christopher?" however great my surprise, i naturally found words to say, "sir, i am not aware that the man was ever yet born without more than the average amount of water on the brain as would not find twenty pounds acceptable. but--extremely obliged to you, sir, i'm sure;" for he had tumbled it out of his purse and crammed it in my hand in two bank-notes; "but i could wish to know, sir, if not intruding, how i have merited this liberality?" "know then, my christopher," he says, "that from boyhood's hour i have unremittingly and unavailingly endeavoured to get into print. know, christopher, that all the booksellers alive--and several dead--have refused to put me into print. know, christopher, that i have written unprinted reams. but they shall be read to you, my friend and brother. you sometimes have a holiday?" seeing the great danger i was in, i had the presence of mind to answer, "never!" to make it more final, i added, "never! not from the cradle to the grave." "well," says he, thinking no more about that, and chuckling at his proofs again. "but i am in print! the first flight of ambition emanating from my father's lowly cot is realised at length! the golden bow"--he was getting on,--"struck by the magic hand, has emitted a complete and perfect sound! when did this happen, my christopher?" "which happen, sir?" "this," he held it out at arms length to admire it,--"this per-rint." when i had given him my detailed account of it, he grasped me by the hand again, and said: "dear christopher, it should be gratifying to you to know that you are an instrument in the hands of destiny. because you _are_." a passing something of a melancholy cast put it into my head to shake it, and to say, "perhaps we all are." "i don't mean that," he answered; "i don't take that wide range; i confine myself to the special case. observe me well, my christopher! hopeless of getting rid, through any effort of my own, of any of the manuscripts among my luggage,--all of which, send them where i would, were always coming back to me,--it is now some seven years since i left that luggage here, on the desperate chance, either that the too, too faithful manuscripts would come back to me no more, or that some one less accursed than i might give them to the world. you follow me, my christopher?" "pretty well, sir." i followed him so far as to judge that he had a weak head, and that the orange, the boiling, and old brown combined was beginning to tell. (the old brown, being heady, is best adapted to seasoned cases.) "years elapsed, and those compositions slumbered in dust. at length, destiny, choosing her agent from all mankind, sent you here, christopher, and lo! the casket was burst asunder, and the giant was free!" he made hay of his hair after he said this, and he stood a-tiptoe. "but," he reminded himself in a state of excitement, "we must sit up all night, my christopher. i must correct these proofs for the press. fill all the inkstands, and bring me several new pens." he smeared himself and he smeared the proofs, the night through, to that degree that when sol gave him warning to depart (in a four-wheeler), few could have said which was them, and which was him, and which was blots. his last instructions was, that i should instantly run and take his corrections to the office of the present journal. i did so. they most likely will not appear in print, for i noticed a message being brought round from beauford printing house, while i was a throwing this concluding statement on paper, that the ole resources of that establishment was unable to make out what they meant. upon which a certain gentleman in company, as i will not more particularly name,--but of whom it will be sufficient to remark, standing on the broad basis of a wave-girt isle, that whether we regard him in the light of,--{ } laughed, and put the corrections in the fire. footnotes { } its name and address at length, with other full particulars, all editorially struck out. { } the remainder of this complimentary sentence editorially struck out. { } the remainder of this complimentary parenthesis editorially struck out. transcribed from the chapman and hall "christmas stories" edition by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk mrs. lirriper's lodgings chapter i--how mrs. lirriper carried on the business whoever would begin to be worried with letting lodgings that wasn't a lone woman with a living to get is a thing inconceivable to me, my dear; excuse the familiarity, but it comes natural to me in my own little room, when wishing to open my mind to those that i can trust, and i should be truly thankful if they were all mankind, but such is not so, for have but a furnished bill in the window and your watch on the mantelpiece, and farewell to it if you turn your back for but a second, however gentlemanly the manners; nor is being of your own sex any safeguard, as i have reason, in the form of sugar-tongs to know, for that lady (and a fine woman she was) got me to run for a glass of water, on the plea of going to be confined, which certainly turned out true, but it was in the station-house. number eighty-one norfolk street, strand--situated midway between the city and st. james's, and within five minutes' walk of the principal places of public amusement--is my address. i have rented this house many years, as the parish rate-books will testify; and i could wish my landlord was as alive to the fact as i am myself; but no, bless you, not a half a pound of paint to save his life, nor so much, my dear, as a tile upon the roof, though on your bended knees. my dear, you never have found number eighty-one norfolk street strand advertised in bradshaw's _railway guide_, and with the blessing of heaven you never will or shall so find it. some there are who do not think it lowering themselves to make their names that cheap, and even going the lengths of a portrait of the house not like it with a blot in every window and a coach and four at the door, but what will suit wozenham's lower down on the other side of the way will not suit me, miss wozenham having her opinions and me having mine, though when it comes to systematic underbidding capable of being proved on oath in a court of justice and taking the form of "if mrs. lirriper names eighteen shillings a week, i name fifteen and six," it then comes to a settlement between yourself and your conscience, supposing for the sake of argument your name to be wozenham, which i am well aware it is not or my opinion of you would be greatly lowered, and as to airy bedrooms and a night-porter in constant attendance the less said the better, the bedrooms being stuffy and the porter stuff. it is forty years ago since me and my poor lirriper got married at st. clement's danes, where i now have a sitting in a very pleasant pew with genteel company and my own hassock, and being partial to evening service not too crowded. my poor lirriper was a handsome figure of a man, with a beaming eye and a voice as mellow as a musical instrument made of honey and steel, but he had ever been a free liver being in the commercial travelling line and travelling what he called a limekiln road--"a dry road, emma my dear," my poor lirriper says to me, "where i have to lay the dust with one drink or another all day long and half the night, and it wears me emma"--and this led to his running through a good deal and might have run through the turnpike too when that dreadful horse that never would stand still for a single instant set off, but for its being night and the gate shut and consequently took his wheel, my poor lirriper and the gig smashed to atoms and never spoke afterwards. he was a handsome figure of a man, and a man with a jovial heart and a sweet temper; but if they had come up then they never could have given you the mellowness of his voice, and indeed i consider photographs wanting in mellowness as a general rule and making you look like a new-ploughed field. my poor lirriper being behindhand with the world and being buried at hatfield church in hertfordshire, not that it was his native place but that he had a liking for the salisbury arms where we went upon our wedding-day and passed as happy a fortnight as ever happy was, i went round to the creditors and i says "gentlemen i am acquainted with the fact that i am not answerable for my late husband's debts but i wish to pay them for i am his lawful wife and his good name is dear to me. i am going into the lodgings gentlemen as a business and if i prosper every farthing that my late husband owed shall be paid for the sake of the love i bore him, by this right hand." it took a long time to do but it was done, and the silver cream-jug which is between ourselves and the bed and the mattress in my room up-stairs (or it would have found legs so sure as ever the furnished bill was up) being presented by the gentlemen engraved "to mrs. lirriper a mark of grateful respect for her honourable conduct" gave me a turn which was too much for my feelings, till mr. betley which at that time had the parlours and loved his joke says "cheer up mrs. lirriper, you should feel as if it was only your christening and they were your godfathers and godmothers which did promise for you." and it brought me round, and i don't mind confessing to you my dear that i then put a sandwich and a drop of sherry in a little basket and went down to hatfield church-yard outside the coach and kissed my hand and laid it with a kind of proud and swelling love on my husband's grave, though bless you it had taken me so long to clear his name that my wedding-ring was worn quite fine and smooth when i laid it on the green green waving grass. i am an old woman now and my good looks are gone but that's me my dear over the plate-warmer and considered like in the times when you used to pay two guineas on ivory and took your chance pretty much how you came out, which made you very careful how you left it about afterwards because people were turned so red and uncomfortable by mostly guessing it was somebody else quite different, and there was once a certain person that had put his money in a hop business that came in one morning to pay his rent and his respects being the second floor that would have taken it down from its hook and put it in his breast-pocket--you understand my dear--for the l, he says of the original--only there was no mellowness in _his_ voice and i wouldn't let him, but his opinion of it you may gather from his saying to it "speak to me emma!" which was far from a rational observation no doubt but still a tribute to its being a likeness, and i think myself it _was_ like me when i was young and wore that sort of stays. but it was about the lodgings that i was intending to hold forth and certainly i ought to know something of the business having been in it so long, for it was early in the second year of my married life that i lost my poor lirriper and i set up at islington directly afterwards and afterwards came here, being two houses and eight-and-thirty years and some losses and a deal of experience. girls are your first trial after fixtures and they try you even worse than what i call the wandering christians, though why _they_ should roam the earth looking for bills and then coming in and viewing the apartments and stickling about terms and never at all wanting them or dreaming of taking them being already provided, is, a mystery i should be thankful to have explained if by any miracle it could be. it's wonderful they live so long and thrive so on it but i suppose the exercise makes it healthy, knocking so much and going from house to house and up and down-stairs all day, and then their pretending to be so particular and punctual is a most astonishing thing, looking at their watches and saying "could you give me the refusal of the rooms till twenty minutes past eleven the day after to- morrow in the forenoon, and supposing it to be considered essential by my friend from the country could there be a small iron bedstead put in the little room upon the stairs?" why when i was new to it my dear i used to consider before i promised and to make my mind anxious with calculations and to get quite wearied out with disappointments, but now i says "certainly by all means" well knowing it's a wandering christian and i shall hear no more about it, indeed by this time i know most of the wandering christians by sight as well as they know me, it being the habit of each individual revolving round london in that capacity to come back about twice a year, and it's very remarkable that it runs in families and the children grow up to it, but even were it otherwise i should no sooner hear of the friend from the country which is a certain sign than i should nod and say to myself you're a wandering christian, though whether they are (as i _have_ heard) persons of small property with a taste for regular employment and frequent change of scene i cannot undertake to tell you. girls as i was beginning to remark are one of your first and your lasting troubles, being like your teeth which begin with convulsions and never cease tormenting you from the time you cut them till they cut you, and then you don't want to part with them which seems hard but we must all succumb or buy artificial, and even where you get a will nine times out of ten you'll get a dirty face with it and naturally lodgers do not like good society to be shown in with a smear of black across the nose or a smudgy eyebrow. where they pick the black up is a mystery i cannot solve, as in the case of the willingest girl that ever came into a house half-starved poor thing, a girl so willing that i called her willing sophy down upon her knees scrubbing early and late and ever cheerful but always smiling with a black face. and i says to sophy, "now sophy my good girl have a regular day for your stoves and keep the width of the airy between yourself and the blacking and do not brush your hair with the bottoms of the saucepans and do not meddle with the snuffs of the candles and it stands to reason that it can no longer be" yet there it was and always on her nose, which turning up and being broad at the end seemed to boast of it and caused warning from a steady gentleman and excellent lodger with breakfast by the week but a little irritable and use of a sitting-room when required, his words being "mrs. lirriper i have arrived at the point of admitting that the black is a man and a brother, but only in a natural form and when it can't be got off." well consequently i put poor sophy on to other work and forbid her answering the door or answering a bell on any account but she was so unfortunately willing that nothing would stop her flying up the kitchen-stairs whenever a bell was heard to tingle. i put it to her "o sophy sophy for goodness' goodness' sake where does it come from?" to which that poor unlucky willing mortal--bursting out crying to see me so vexed replied "i took a deal of black into me ma'am when i was a small child being much neglected and i think it must be, that it works out," so it continuing to work out of that poor thing and not having another fault to find with her i says "sophy what do you seriously think of my helping you away to new south wales where it might not be noticed?" nor did i ever repent the money which was well spent, for she married the ship's cook on the voyage (himself a mulotter) and did well and lived happy, and so far as ever i heard it was _not_ noticed in a new state of society to her dying day. in what way miss wozenham lower down on the other side of the way reconciled it to her feelings as a lady (which she is not) to entice mary anne perkinsop from my service is best known to herself, i do not know and i do not wish to know how opinions are formed at wozenham's on any point. but mary anne perkinsop although i behaved handsomely to her and she behaved unhandsomely to me was worth her weight in gold as overawing lodgers without driving them away, for lodgers would be far more sparing of their bells with mary anne than i ever knew them to be with maid or mistress, which is a great triumph especially when accompanied with a cast in the eye and a bag of bones, but it was the steadiness of her way with them through her father's having failed in pork. it was mary anne's looking so respectable in her person and being so strict in her spirits that conquered the tea-and-sugarest gentleman (for he weighed them both in a pair of scales every morning) that i have ever had to deal with and no lamb grew meeker, still it afterwards came round to me that miss wozenham happening to pass and seeing mary anne take in the milk of a milkman that made free in a rosy-faced way (i think no worse of him) with every girl in the street but was quite frozen up like the statue at charing-cross by her, saw mary anne's value in the lodging business and went as high as one pound per quarter more, consequently mary anne with not a word betwixt us says "if you will provide yourself mrs. lirriper in a month from this day i have already done the same," which hurt me and i said so, and she then hurt me more by insinuating that her father having failed in pork had laid her open to it. my dear i do assure you it's a harassing thing to know what kind of girls to give the preference to, for if they are lively they get bell'd off their legs and if they are sluggish you suffer from it yourself in complaints and if they are sparkling-eyed they get made love to, and if they are smart in their persons they try on your lodgers' bonnets and if they are musical i defy you to keep them away from bands and organs, and allowing for any difference you like in their heads their heads will be always out of window just the same. and then what the gentlemen like in girls the ladies don't, which is fruitful hot water for all parties, and then there's temper though such a temper as caroline maxey's i hope not often. a good-looking black-eyed girl was caroline and a comely-made girl to your cost when she did break out and laid about her, as took place first and last through a new-married couple come to see london in the first floor and the lady very high and it _was_ supposed not liking the good looks of caroline having none of her own to spare, but anyhow she did try caroline though that was no excuse. so one afternoon caroline comes down into the kitchen flushed and flashing, and she says to me "mrs. lirriper that woman in the first has aggravated me past bearing," i says "caroline keep your temper," caroline says with a curdling laugh "keep my temper? you're right mrs. lirriper, so i will. capital d her!" bursts out caroline (you might have struck me into the centre of the earth with a feather when she said it) "i'll give her a touch of the temper that _i_ keep!" caroline downs with her hair my dear, screeches and rushes up-stairs, i following as fast as my trembling legs could bear me, but before i got into the room the dinner-cloth and pink-and-white service all dragged off upon the floor with a crash and the new-married couple on their backs in the firegrate, him with the shovel and tongs and a dish of cucumber across him and a mercy it was summer-time. "caroline" i says "be calm," but she catches off my cap and tears it in her teeth as she passes me, then pounces on the new-married lady makes her a bundle of ribbons takes her by the two ears and knocks the back of her head upon the carpet murder screaming all the time policemen running down the street and wozenham's windows (judge of my feelings when i came to know it) thrown up and miss wozenham calling out from the balcony with crocodile's tears "it's mrs. lirriper been overcharging somebody to madness--she'll be murdered--i always thought so--pleeseman save her!" my dear four of them and caroline behind the chiffoniere attacking with the poker and when disarmed prize-fighting with her double fists, and down and up and up and down and dreadful! but i couldn't bear to see the poor young creature roughly handled and her hair torn when they got the better of her, and i says "gentlemen policemen pray remember that her sex is the sex of your mothers and sisters and your sweethearts, and god bless them and you!" and there she was sitting down on the ground handcuffed, taking breath against the skirting-board and them cool with their coats in strips, and all she says was "mrs. lirriper i'm sorry as ever i touched you, for you're a kind motherly old thing," and it made me think that i had often wished i had been a mother indeed and how would my heart have felt if i had been the mother of that girl! well you know it turned out at the police-office that she had done it before, and she had her clothes away and was sent to prison, and when she was to come out i trotted off to the gate in the evening with just a morsel of jelly in that little basket of mine to give her a mite of strength to face the world again, and there i met with a very decent mother waiting for her son through bad company and a stubborn one he was with his half-boots not laced. so out came caroline and i says "caroline come along with me and sit down under the wall where it's retired and eat a little trifle that i have brought with me to do you good," and she throws her arms round my neck and says sobbing "o why were you never a mother when there are such mothers as there are!" she says, and in half a minute more she begins to laugh and says "did i really tear your cap to shreds?" and when i told her "you certainly did so caroline" she laughed again and said while she patted my face "then why do you wear such queer old caps you dear old thing? if you hadn't worn such queer old caps i don't think i should have done it even then." fancy the girl! nothing could get out of her what she was going to do except o she would do well enough, and we parted she being very thankful and kissing my hands, and i nevermore saw or heard of that girl, except that i shall always believe that a very genteel cap which was brought anonymous to me one saturday night in an oilskin basket by a most impertinent young sparrow of a monkey whistling with dirty shoes on the clean steps and playing the harp on the airy railings with a hoop-stick came from caroline. what you lay yourself open to my dear in the way of being the object of uncharitable suspicions when you go into the lodging business i have not the words to tell you, but never was i so dishonourable as to have two keys nor would i willingly think it even of miss wozenham lower down on the other side of the way sincerely hoping that it may not be, though doubtless at the same time money cannot come from nowhere and it is not reason to suppose that bradshaws put it in for love be it blotty as it may. it _is_ a hardship hurting to the feelings that lodgers open their minds so wide to the idea that you are trying to get the better of them and shut their minds so close to the idea that they are trying to get the better of you, but as major jackman says to me, "i know the ways of this circular world mrs. lirriper, and that's one of 'em all round it" and many is the little ruffle in my mind that the major has smoothed, for he is a clever man who has seen much. dear dear, thirteen years have passed though it seems but yesterday since i was sitting with my glasses on at the open front parlour window one evening in august (the parlours being then vacant) reading yesterday's paper my eyes for print being poor though still i am thankful to say a long sight at a distance, when i hear a gentleman come posting across the road and up the street in a dreadful rage talking to himself in a fury and d'ing and c'ing somebody. "by george!" says he out loud and clutching his walking-stick, "i'll go to mrs. lirriper's. which is mrs. lirriper's?" then looking round and seeing me he flourishes his hat right off his head as if i had been the queen and he says, "excuse the intrusion madam, but pray madam can you tell me at what number in this street there resides a well-known and much- respected lady by the name of lirriper?" a little flustered though i must say gratified i took off my glasses and courtesied and said "sir, mrs. lirriper is your humble servant." "astonishing!" says he. "a million pardons! madam, may i ask you to have the kindness to direct one of your domestics to open the door to a gentleman in search of apartments, by the name of jackman?" i had never heard the name but a politer gentleman i never hope to see, for says he, "madam i am shocked at your opening the door yourself to no worthier a fellow than jemmy jackman. after you madam. i never precede a lady." then he comes into the parlours and he sniffs, and he says "hah! these are parlours! not musty cupboards" he says "but parlours, and no smell of coal-sacks." now my dear it having been remarked by some inimical to the whole neighbourhood that it always smells of coal-sacks which might prove a drawback to lodgers if encouraged, i says to the major gently though firmly that i think he is referring to arundel or surrey or howard but not norfolk. "madam" says he "i refer to wozenham's lower down over the way--madam you can form no notion what wozenham's is--madam it is a vast coal-sack, and miss wozenham has the principles and manners of a female heaver--madam from the manner in which i have heard her mention you i know she has no appreciation of a lady, and from the manner in which she has conducted herself towards me i know she has no appreciation of a gentleman--madam my name is jackman--should you require any other reference than what i have already said, i name the bank of england--perhaps you know it!" such was the beginning of the major's occupying the parlours and from that hour to this the same and a most obliging lodger and punctual in all respects except one irregular which i need not particularly specify, but made up for by his being a protection and at all times ready to fill in the papers of the assessed taxes and juries and that, and once collared a young man with the drawing-room clock under his coat, and once on the parapets with his own hands and blankets put out the kitchen chimney and afterwards attending the summons made a most eloquent speech against the parish before the magistrates and saved the engine, and ever quite the gentleman though passionate. and certainly miss wozenham's detaining the trunks and umbrella was not in a liberal spirit though it may have been according to her rights in law or an act _i_ would myself have stooped to, the major being so much the gentleman that though he is far from tall he seems almost so when he has his shirt-frill out and his frock-coat on and his hat with the curly brims, and in what service he was i cannot truly tell you my dear whether militia or foreign, for i never heard him even name himself as major but always simple "jemmy jackman" and once soon after he came when i felt it my duty to let him know that miss wozenham had put it about that he was no major and i took the liberty of adding "which you are sir" his words were "madam at any rate i am not a minor, and sufficient for the day is the evil thereof" which cannot be denied to be the sacred truth, nor yet his military ways of having his boots with only the dirt brushed off taken to him in the front parlour every morning on a clean plate and varnishing them himself with a little sponge and a saucer and a whistle in a whisper so sure as ever his breakfast is ended, and so neat his ways that it never soils his linen which is scrupulous though more in quality than quantity, neither that nor his mustachios which to the best of my belief are done at the same time and which are as black and shining as his boots, his head of hair being a lovely white. it was the third year nearly up of the major's being in the parlours that early one morning in the month of february when parliament was coming on and you may therefore suppose a number of impostors were about ready to take hold of anything they could get, a gentleman and a lady from the country came in to view the second, and i well remember that i had been looking out of window and had watched them and the heavy sleet driving down the street together looking for bills. i did not quite take to the face of the gentleman though he was good-looking too but the lady was a very pretty young thing and delicate, and it seemed too rough for her to be out at all though she had only come from the adelphi hotel which would not have been much above a quarter of a mile if the weather had been less severe. now it did so happen my dear that i had been forced to put five shillings weekly additional on the second in consequence of a loss from running away full dressed as if going out to a dinner-party, which was very artful and had made me rather suspicious taking it along with parliament, so when the gentleman proposed three months certain and the money in advance and leave then reserved to renew on the same terms for six months more, i says i was not quite certain but that i might have engaged myself to another party but would step down-stairs and look into it if they would take a seat. they took a seat and i went down to the handle of the major's door that i had already began to consult finding it a great blessing, and i knew by his whistling in a whisper that he was varnishing his boots which was generally considered private, however he kindly calls out "if it's you, madam, come in," and i went in and told him. "well, madam," says the major rubbing his nose--as i did fear at the moment with the black sponge but it was only his knuckle, he being always neat and dexterous with his fingers--"well, madam, i suppose you would be glad of the money?" i was delicate of saying "yes" too out, for a little extra colour rose into the major's cheeks and there was irregularity which i will not particularly specify in a quarter which i will not name. "i am of opinion, madam," says the major, "that when money is ready for you--when it is ready for you, mrs. lirriper--you ought to take it. what is there against it, madam, in this case up-stairs?" "i really cannot say there is anything against it, sir, still i thought i would consult you." "you said a newly-married couple, i think, madam?" says the major. i says "ye-es. evidently. and indeed the young lady mentioned to me in a casual way that she had not been married many months." the major rubbed his nose again and stirred the varnish round and round in its little saucer with his piece of sponge and took to his whistling in a whisper for a few moments. then he says "you would call it a good let, madam?" "o certainly a good let sir." "say they renew for the additional six months. would it put you about very much madam if--if the worst was to come to the worst?" said the major. "well i hardly know," i says to the major. "it depends upon circumstances. would _you_ object sir for instance?" "i?" says the major. "object? jemmy jackman? mrs. lirriper close with the proposal." so i went up-stairs and accepted, and they came in next day which was saturday and the major was so good as to draw up a memorandum of an agreement in a beautiful round hand and expressions that sounded to me equally legal and military, and mr. edson signed it on the monday morning and the major called upon mr. edson on the tuesday and mr. edson called upon the major on the wednesday and the second and the parlours were as friendly as could be wished. the three months paid for had run out and we had got without any fresh overtures as to payment into may my dear, when there came an obligation upon mr. edson to go a business expedition right across the isle of man, which fell quite unexpected upon that pretty little thing and is not a place that according to my views is particularly in the way to anywhere at any time but that may be a matter of opinion. so short a notice was it that he was to go next day, and dreadfully she cried poor pretty, and i am sure i cried too when i saw her on the cold pavement in the sharp east wind--it being a very backward spring that year--taking a last leave of him with her pretty bright hair blowing this way and that and her arms clinging round his neck and him saying "there there there. now let me go peggy." and by that time it was plain that what the major had been so accommodating as to say he would not object to happening in the house, would happen in it, and i told her as much when he was gone while i comforted her with my arm up the staircase, for i says "you will soon have others to keep up for my pretty and you must think of that." his letter never came when it ought to have come and what she went through morning after morning when the postman brought none for her the very postman himself compassionated when she ran down to the door, and yet we cannot wonder at its being calculated to blunt the feelings to have all the trouble of other people's letters and none of the pleasure and doing it oftener in the mud and mizzle than not and at a rate of wages more resembling little britain than great. but at last one morning when she was too poorly to come running down-stairs he says to me with a pleased look in his face that made me next to love the man in his uniform coat though he was dripping wet "i have taken you first in the street this morning mrs. lirriper, for here's the one for mrs. edson." i went up to her bedroom with it as fast as ever i could go, and she sat up in bed when she saw it and kissed it and tore it open and then a blank stare came upon her. "it's very short!" she says lifting her large eyes to my face. "o mrs. lirriper it's very short!" i says "my dear mrs. edson no doubt that's because your husband hadn't time to write more just at that time." "no doubt, no doubt," says she, and puts her two hands on her face and turns round in her bed. i shut her softly in and i crept down-stairs and i tapped at the major's door, and when the major having his thin slices of bacon in his own dutch oven saw me he came out of his chair and put me down on the sofa. "hush!" says he, "i see something's the matter. don't speak--take time." i says "o major i'm afraid there's cruel work up-stairs." "yes yes" says he "i had begun to be afraid of it--take time." and then in opposition to his own words he rages out frightfully, and says "i shall never forgive myself madam, that i, jemmy jackman, didn't see it all that morning--didn't go straight up-stairs when my boot-sponge was in my hand--didn't force it down his throat--and choke him dead with it on the spot!" the major and me agreed when we came to ourselves that just at present we could do no more than take on to suspect nothing and use our best endeavours to keep that poor young creature quiet, and what i ever should have done without the major when it got about among the organ-men that quiet was our object is unknown, for he made lion and tiger war upon them to that degree that without seeing it i could not have believed it was in any gentleman to have such a power of bursting out with fire-irons walking-sticks water-jugs coals potatoes off his table the very hat off his head, and at the same time so furious in foreign languages that they would stand with their handles half-turned fixed like the sleeping ugly--for i cannot say beauty. ever to see the postman come near the house now gave me such i fear that it was a reprieve when he went by, but in about another ten days or a fortnight he says again, "here's one for mrs. edson.--is she pretty well?" "she is pretty well postman, but not well enough to rise so early as she used" which was so far gospel-truth. i carried the letter in to the major at his breakfast and i says tottering "major i have not the courage to take it up to her." "it's an ill-looking villain of a letter," says the major. "i have not the courage major" i says again in a tremble "to take it up to her." after seeming lost in consideration for some moments the major says, raising his head as if something new and useful had occurred to his mind "mrs. lirriper, i shall never forgive myself that i, jemmy jackman, didn't go straight up-stairs that morning when my boot-sponge was in my hand--and force it down his throat--and choke him dead with it." "major" i says a little hasty "you didn't do it which is a blessing, for it would have done no good and i think your sponge was better employed on your own honourable boots." so we got to be rational, and planned that i should tap at her bedroom door and lay the letter on the mat outside and wait on the upper landing for what might happen, and never was gunpowder cannon-balls or shells or rockets more dreaded than that dreadful letter was by me as i took it to the second floor. a terrible loud scream sounded through the house the minute after she had opened it, and i found her on the floor lying as if her life was gone. my dear i never looked at the face of the letter which was lying, open by her, for there was no occasion. everything i needed to bring her round the major brought up with his own hands, besides running out to the chemist's for what was not in the house and likewise having the fiercest of all his many skirmishes with a musical instrument representing a ball-room i do not know in what particular country and company waltzing in and out at folding-doors with rolling eyes. when after a long time i saw her coming to, i slipped on the landing till i heard her cry, and then i went in and says cheerily "mrs. edson you're not well my dear and it's not to be wondered at," as if i had not been in before. whether she believed or disbelieved i cannot say and it would signify nothing if i could, but i stayed by her for hours and then she god ever blesses me! and says she will try to rest for her head is bad. "major," i whispers, looking in at the parlours, "i beg and pray of you don't go out." the major whispers, "madam, trust me i will do no such a thing. how is she?" i says "major the good lord above us only knows what burns and rages in her poor mind. i left her sitting at her window. i am going to sit at mine." it came on afternoon and it came on evening. norfolk is a delightful street to lodge in--provided you don't go lower down--but of a summer evening when the dust and waste paper lie in it and stray children play in it and a kind of a gritty calm and bake settles on it and a peal of church-bells is practising in the neighbourhood it is a trifle dull, and never have i seen it since at such a time and never shall i see it evermore at such a time without seeing the dull june evening when that forlorn young creature sat at her open corner window on the second and me at my open corner window (the other corner) on the third. something merciful, something wiser and better far than my own self, had moved me while it was yet light to sit in my bonnet and shawl, and as the shadows fell and the tide rose i could sometimes--when i put out my head and looked at her window below--see that she leaned out a little looking down the street. it was just settling dark when i saw _her_ in the street. so fearful of losing sight of her that it almost stops my breath while i tell it, i went down-stairs faster than i ever moved in all my life and only tapped with my hand at the major's door in passing it and slipping out. she was gone already. i made the same speed down the street and when i came to the corner of howard street i saw that she had turned it and was there plain before me going towards the west. o with what a thankful heart i saw her going along! she was quite unacquainted with london and had very seldom been out for more than an airing in our own street where she knew two or three little children belonging to neighbours and had sometimes stood among them at the street looking at the water. she must be going at hazard i knew, still she kept the by-streets quite correctly as long as they would serve her, and then turned up into the strand. but at every corner i could see her head turned one way, and that way was always the river way. it may have been only the darkness and quiet of the adelphi that caused her to strike into it but she struck into it much as readily as if she had set out to go there, which perhaps was the case. she went straight down to the terrace and along it and looked over the iron rail, and i often woke afterwards in my own bed with the horror of seeing her do it. the desertion of the wharf below and the flowing of the high water there seemed to settle her purpose. she looked about as if to make out the way down, and she struck out the right way or the wrong way--i don't know which, for i don't know the place before or since--and i followed her the way she went. it was noticeable that all this time she never once looked back. but there was now a great change in the manner of her going, and instead of going at a steady quick walk with her arms folded before her,--among the dark dismal arches she went in a wild way with her arms opened wide, as if they were wings and she was flying to her death. we were on the wharf and she stopped. i stopped. i saw her hands at her bonnet-strings, and i rushed between her and the brink and took her round the waist with both my arms. she might have drowned me, i felt then, but she could never have got quit of me. down to that moment my mind had been all in a maze and not half an idea had i had in it what i should say to her, but the instant i touched her it came to me like magic and i had my natural voice and my senses and even almost my breath. "mrs. edson!" i says "my dear! take care. how ever did you lose your way and stumble on a dangerous place like this? why you must have come here by the most perplexing streets in all london. no wonder you are lost, i'm sure. and this place too! why i thought nobody ever got here, except me to order my coals and the major in the parlours to smoke his cigar!"--for i saw that blessed man close by, pretending to it. "hah--hah--hum!" coughs the major. "and good gracious me" i says, "why here he is!" "halloa! who goes there?" says the major in a military manner. "well!" i says, "if this don't beat everything! don't you know us major jackman?" "halloa!" says the major. "who calls on jemmy jackman?" (and more out of breath he was, and did it less like life than i should have expected.) "why here's mrs. edson major" i says, "strolling out to cool her poor head which has been very bad, has missed her way and got lost, and goodness knows where she might have got to but for me coming here to drop an order into my coal merchant's letter-box and you coming here to smoke your cigar!--and you really are not well enough my dear" i says to her "to be half so far from home without me. and your arm will be very acceptable i am sure major" i says to him "and i know she may lean upon it as heavy as she likes." and now we had both got her--thanks be above!--one on each side. she was all in a cold shiver and she so continued till i laid her on her own bed, and up to the early morning she held me by the hand and moaned and moaned "o wicked, wicked, wicked!" but when at last i made believe to droop my head and be overpowered with a dead sleep, i heard that poor young creature give such touching and such humble thanks for being preserved from taking her own life in her madness that i thought i should have cried my eyes out on the counterpane and i knew she was safe. being well enough to do and able to afford it, me and the major laid our little plans next day while she was asleep worn out, and so i says to her as soon as i could do it nicely: "mrs. edson my dear, when mr. edson paid me the rent for these farther six months--" she gave a start and i felt her large eyes look at me, but i went on with it and with my needlework. "--i can't say that i am quite sure i dated the receipt right. could you let me look at it?" she laid her frozen cold hand upon mine and she looked through me when i was forced to look up from my needlework, but i had taken the precaution of having on my spectacles. "i have no receipt" says she. "ah! then he has got it" i says in a careless way. "it's of no great consequence. a receipt's a receipt." from that time she always had hold of my hand when i could spare it which was generally only when i read to her, for of course she and me had our bits of needlework to plod at and neither of us was very handy at those little things, though i am still rather proud of my share in them too considering. and though she took to all i read to her, i used to fancy that next to what was taught upon the mount she took most of all to his gentle compassion for us poor women and to his young life and to how his mother was proud of him and treasured his sayings in her heart. she had a grateful look in her eyes that never never never will be out of mine until they are closed in my last sleep, and when i chanced to look at her without thinking of it i would always meet that look, and she would often offer me her trembling lip to kiss, much more like a little affectionate half broken-hearted child than ever i can imagine any grown person. one time the trembling of this poor lip was so strong and her tears ran down so fast that i thought she was going to tell me all her woe, so i takes her two hands in mine and i says: "no my dear not now, you had best not try to do it now. wait for better times when you have got over this and are strong, and then you shall tell me whatever you will. shall it be agreed?" with our hands still joined she nodded her head many times, and she lifted my hands and put them to her lips and to her bosom. "only one word now my dear" i says. "is there any one?" she looked inquiringly "any one?" "that i can go to?" she shook her head. "no one that i can bring?" she shook her head. "no one is wanted by _me_ my dear. now that may be considered past and gone." not much more than a week afterwards--for this was far on in the time of our being so together--i was bending over at her bedside with my ear down to her lips, by turns listening for her breath and looking for a sign of life in her face. at last it came in a solemn way--not in a flash but like a kind of pale faint light brought very slow to the face. she said something to me that had no sound in it, but i saw she asked me: "is this death?" and i says: "poor dear poor dear, i think it is." knowing somehow that she wanted me to move her weak right hand, i took it and laid it on her breast and then folded her other hand upon it, and she prayed a good good prayer and i joined in it poor me though there were no words spoke. then i brought the baby in its wrappers from where it lay, and i says: "my dear this is sent to a childless old woman. this is for me to take care of." the trembling lip was put up towards my face for the last time, and i dearly kissed it. "yes my dear," i says. "please god! me and the major." i don't know how to tell it right, but i saw her soul brighten and leap up, and get free and fly away in the grateful look. * * * * * so this is the why and wherefore of its coming to pass my dear that we called him jemmy, being after the major his own godfather with lirriper for a surname being after myself, and never was a dear child such a brightening thing in a lodgings or such a playmate to his grandmother as jemmy to this house and me, and always good and minding what he was told (upon the whole) and soothing for the temper and making everything pleasanter except when he grew old enough to drop his cap down wozenham's airy and they wouldn't hand it up to him, and being worked into a state i put on my best bonnet and gloves and parasol with the child in my hand and i says "miss wozenham i little thought ever to have entered your house but unless my grandson's cap is instantly restored, the laws of this country regulating the property of the subject shall at length decide betwixt yourself and me, cost what it may." with a sneer upon her face which did strike me i must say as being expressive of two keys but it may have been a mistake and if there is any doubt let miss wozenham have the full benefit of it as is but right, she rang the bell and she says "jane, is there a street-child's old cap down our airy?" i says "miss wozenham before your housemaid answers that question you must allow me to inform you to your face that my grandson is _not_ a street-child and is _not_ in the habit of wearing old caps. in fact" i says "miss wozenham i am far from sure that my grandson's cap may not be newer than your own" which was perfectly savage in me, her lace being the commonest machine-make washed and torn besides, but i had been put into a state to begin with fomented by impertinence. miss wozenham says red in the face "jane you heard my question, is there any child's cap down our airy?" "yes ma'am" says jane, "i think i did see some such rubbish a-lying there." "then" says miss wozenham "let these visitors out, and then throw up that worthless article out of my premises." but here the child who had been staring at miss wozenham with all his eyes and more, frowns down his little eyebrows purses up his little mouth puts his chubby legs far apart turns his little dimpled fists round and round slowly over one another like a little coffee-mill, and says to her "oo impdent to mi gran, me tut oor hi!" "o!" says miss wozenham looking down scornfully at the mite "this is not a street-child is it not! really!" i bursts out laughing and i says "miss wozenham if this ain't a pretty sight to you i don't envy your feelings and i wish you good-day. jemmy come along with gran." and i was still in the best of humours though his cap came flying up into the street as if it had been just turned on out of the water-plug, and i went home laughing all the way, all owing to that dear boy. the miles and miles that me and the major have travelled with jemmy in the dusk between the lights are not to be calculated, jemmy driving on the coach-box which is the major's brass-bound writing desk on the table, me inside in the easy-chair and the major guard up behind with a brown- paper horn doing it really wonderful. i do assure you my dear that sometimes when i have taken a few winks in my place inside the coach and have come half awake by the flashing light of the fire and have heard that precious pet driving and the major blowing up behind to have the change of horses ready when we got to the inn, i have half believed we were on the old north road that my poor lirriper knew so well. then to see that child and the major both wrapped up getting down to warm their feet and going stamping about and having glasses of ale out of the paper matchboxes on the chimney-piece is to see the major enjoying it fully as much as the child i am very sure, and it's equal to any play when coachee opens the coach-door to look in at me inside and say "wery 'past that 'tage.--'prightened old lady?" but what my inexpressible feelings were when we lost that child can only be compared to the major's which were not a shade better, through his straying out at five years old and eleven o'clock in the forenoon and never heard of by word or sign or deed till half-past nine at night, when the major had gone to the editor of the _times_ newspaper to put in an advertisement, which came out next day four-and-twenty hours after he was found, and which i mean always carefully to keep in my lavender drawer as the first printed account of him. the more the day got on, the more i got distracted and the major too and both of us made worse by the composed ways of the police though very civil and obliging and what i must call their obstinacy in not entertaining the idea that he was stolen. "we mostly find mum" says the sergeant who came round to comfort me, which he didn't at all and he had been one of the private constables in caroline's time to which he referred in his opening words when he said "don't give way to uneasiness in your mind mum, it'll all come as right as my nose did when i got the same barked by that young woman in your second floor"--says this sergeant "we mostly find mum as people ain't over-anxious to have what i may call second-hand children. _you'll_ get him back mum." "o but my dear good sir" i says clasping my hands and wringing them and clasping them again "he is such an uncommon child!" "yes mum" says the sergeant, "we mostly find that too mum. the question is what his clothes were worth." "his clothes" i says "were not worth much sir for he had only got his playing-dress on, but the dear child!--" "all right mum" says the sergeant. "you'll get him back mum. and even if he'd had his best clothes on, it wouldn't come to worse than his being found wrapped up in a cabbage-leaf, a shivering in a lane." his words pierced my heart like daggers and daggers, and me and the major ran in and out like wild things all day long till the major returning from his interview with the editor of the _times_ at night rushes into my little room hysterical and squeezes my hand and wipes his eyes and says "joy joy--officer in plain clothes came up on the steps as i was letting myself in--compose your feelings--jemmy's found." consequently i fainted away and when i came to, embraced the legs of the officer in plain clothes who seemed to be taking a kind of a quiet inventory in his mind of the property in my little room with brown whiskers, and i says "blessings on you sir where is the darling!" and he says "in kennington station house." i was dropping at his feet stone at the image of that innocence in cells with murderers when he adds "he followed the monkey." i says deeming it slang language "o sir explain for a loving grandmother what monkey!" he says "him in the spangled cap with the strap under the chin, as won't keep on--him as sweeps the crossings on a round table and don't want to draw his sabre more than he can help." then i understood it all and most thankfully thanked him, and me and the major and him drove over to kennington and there we found our boy lying quite comfortable before a blazing fire having sweetly played himself to sleep upon a small accordion nothing like so big as a flat-iron which they had been so kind as to lend him for the purpose and which it appeared had been stopped upon a very young person. my dear the system upon which the major commenced and as i may say perfected jemmy's learning when he was so small that if the dear was on the other side of the table you had to look under it instead of over it to see him with his mother's own bright hair in beautiful curls, is a thing that ought to be known to the throne and lords and commons and then might obtain some promotion for the major which he well deserves and would be none the worse for (speaking between friends) l. s. d.-ically. when the major first undertook his learning he says to me: "i'm going madam," he says "to make our child a calculating boy. "major," i says, "you terrify me and may do the pet a permanent injury you would never forgive yourself." "madam," says the major, "next to my regret that when i had my boot-sponge in my hand, i didn't choke that scoundrel with it--on the spot--" "there! for gracious' sake," i interrupts, "let his conscience find him without sponges." "--i say next to that regret, madam," says the major "would be the regret with which my breast," which he tapped, "would be surcharged if this fine mind was not early cultivated. but mark me madam," says the major holding up his forefinger "cultivated on a principle that will make it a delight." "major" i says "i will be candid with you and tell you openly that if ever i find the dear child fall off in his appetite i shall know it is his calculations and shall put a stop to them at two minutes' notice. or if i find them mounting to his head" i says, "or striking anyways cold to his stomach or leading to anything approaching flabbiness in his legs, the result will be the same, but major you are a clever man and have seen much and you love the child and are his own godfather, and if you feel a confidence in trying try." "spoken madam" says the major "like emma lirriper. all i have to ask, madam, is that you will leave my godson and myself to make a week or two's preparations for surprising you, and that you will give me leave to have up and down any small articles not actually in use that i may require from the kitchen." "from the kitchen major?" i says half feeling as if he had a mind to cook the child. "from the kitchen" says the major, and smiles and swells, and at the same time looks taller. so i passed my word and the major and the dear boy were shut up together for half an hour at a time through a certain while, and never could i hear anything going on betwixt them but talking and laughing and jemmy clapping his hands and screaming out numbers, so i says to myself "it has not harmed him yet" nor could i on examining the dear find any signs of it anywhere about him which was likewise a great relief. at last one day jemmy brings me a card in joke in the major's neat writing "the messrs. jemmy jackman" for we had given him the major's other name too "request the honour of mrs. lirriper's company at the jackman institution in the front parlour this evening at five, military time, to witness a few slight feats of elementary arithmetic." and if you'll believe me there in the front parlour at five punctual to the moment was the major behind the pembroke table with both leaves up and a lot of things from the kitchen tidily set out on old newspapers spread atop of it, and there was the mite stood upon a chair with his rosy cheeks flushing and his eyes sparkling clusters of diamonds. "now gran" says he, "oo tit down and don't oo touch ler people"--for he saw with every one of those diamonds of his that i was going to give him a squeeze. "very well sir" i says "i am obedient in this good company i am sure." and i sits down in the easy-chair that was put for me, shaking my sides. but picture my admiration when the major going on almost as quick as if he was conjuring sets out all the articles he names, and says "three saucepans, an italian iron, a hand-bell, a toasting-fork, a nutmeg-grater, four potlids, a spice-box, two egg-cups, and a chopping- board--how many?" and when that mite instantly cries "tifteen, tut down tive and carry ler 'toppin-board" and then claps his hands draws up his legs and dances on his chair. my dear with the same astonishing ease and correctness him and the major added up the tables chairs and sofy, the picters fenders and fire-irons their own selves me and the cat and the eyes in miss wozenham's head, and whenever the sum was done young roses and diamonds claps his hands and draws up his legs and dances on his chair. the pride of the major! ("_here's_ a mind ma'am!" he says to me behind his hand.) then he says aloud, "we now come to the next elementary rule,--which is called--" "umtraction!" cries jemmy. "right," says the major. "we have here a toasting-fork, a potato in its natural state, two potlids, one egg-cup, a wooden spoon, and two skewers, from which it is necessary for commercial purposes to subtract a sprat- gridiron, a small pickle-jar, two lemons, one pepper-castor, a blackbeetle-trap, and a knob of the dresser-drawer--what remains?" "toatin-fork!" cries jemmy. "in numbers how many?" says the major. "one!" cries jemmy. ("_here's_ a boy, ma'am!" says the major to me behind his hand.) then the major goes on: "we now approach the next elementary rule,--which is entitled--" "tickleication" cries jemmy. "correct" says the major. but my dear to relate to you in detail the way in which they multiplied fourteen sticks of firewood by two bits of ginger and a larding needle, or divided pretty well everything else there was on the table by the heater of the italian iron and a chamber candlestick, and got a lemon over, would make my head spin round and round and round as it did at the time. so i says "if you'll excuse my addressing the chair professor jackman i think the period of the lecture has now arrived when it becomes necessary that i should take a good hug of this young scholar." upon which jemmy calls out from his station on the chair, "gran oo open oor arms and me'll make a 'pring into 'em." so i opened my arms to him as i had opened my sorrowful heart when his poor young mother lay a dying, and he had his jump and we had a good long hug together and the major prouder than any peacock says to me behind his hand, "you need not let him know it madam" (which i certainly need not for the major was quite audible) "but he _is_ a boy!" in this way jemmy grew and grew and went to day-school and continued under the major too, and in summer we were as happy as the days were long, and in winter we were as happy as the days were short and there seemed to rest a blessing on the lodgings for they as good as let themselves and would have done it if there had been twice the accommodation, when sore and hard against my will i one day says to the major. "major you know what i am going to break to you. our boy must go to boarding-school." it was a sad sight to see the major's countenance drop, and i pitied the good soul with all my heart. "yes major" i says, "though he is as popular with the lodgers as you are yourself and though he is to you and me what only you and me know, still it is in the course of things and life is made of partings and we must part with our pet." bold as i spoke, i saw two majors and half-a-dozen fireplaces, and when the poor major put one of his neat bright-varnished boots upon the fender and his elbow on his knee and his head upon his hand and rocked himself a little to and fro, i was dreadfully cut up. "but" says i clearing my throat "you have so well prepared him major--he has had such a tutor in you--that he will have none of the first drudgery to go through. and he is so clever besides that he'll soon make his way to the front rank." "he is a boy" says the major--having sniffed--"that has not his like on the face of the earth." "true as you say major, and it is not for us merely for our own sakes to do anything to keep him back from being a credit and an ornament wherever he goes and perhaps even rising to be a great man, is it major? he will have all my little savings when my work is done (being all the world to me) and we must try to make him a wise man and a good man, mustn't we major?" "madam" says the major rising "jemmy jackman is becoming an older file than i was aware of, and you put him to shame. you are thoroughly right madam. you are simply and undeniably right.--and if you'll excuse me, i'll take a walk." so the major being gone out and jemmy being at home, i got the child into my little room here and i stood him by my chair and i took his mother's own curls in my hand and i spoke to him loving and serious. and when i had reminded the darling how that he was now in his tenth year and when i had said to him about his getting on in life pretty much what i had said to the major i broke to him how that we must have this same parting, and there i was forced to stop for there i saw of a sudden the well-remembered lip with its tremble, and it so brought back that time! but with the spirit that was in him he controlled it soon and he says gravely nodding through his tears, "i understand gran--i know it _must_ be, gran--go on gran, don't be afraid of _me_." and when i had said all that ever i could think of, he turned his bright steady face to mine and he says just a little broken here and there "you shall see gran that i can be a man and that i can do anything that is grateful and loving to you--and if i don't grow up to be what you would like to have me--i hope it will be--because i shall die." and with that he sat down by me and i went on to tell him of the school of which i had excellent recommendations and where it was and how many scholars and what games they played as i had heard and what length of holidays, to all of which he listened bright and clear. and so it came that at last he says "and now dear gran let me kneel down here where i have been used to say my prayers and let me fold my face for just a minute in your gown and let me cry, for you have been more than father--more than mother--more than brothers sisters friends--to me!" and so he did cry and i too and we were both much the better for it. from that time forth he was true to his word and ever blithe and ready, and even when me and the major took him down into lincolnshire he was far the gayest of the party though for sure and certain he might easily have been that, but he really was and put life into us only when it came to the last good-bye, he says with a wistful look, "you wouldn't have me not really sorry would you gran?" and when i says "no dear, lord forbid!" he says "i am glad of that!" and ran in out of sight. but now that the child was gone out of the lodgings the major fell into a regularly moping state. it was taken notice of by all the lodgers that the major moped. he hadn't even the same air of being rather tall than he used to have, and if he varnished his boots with a single gleam of interest it was as much as he did. one evening the major came into my little room to take a cup of tea and a morsel of buttered toast and to read jemmy's newest letter which had arrived that afternoon (by the very same postman more than middle-aged upon the beat now), and the letter raising him up a little i says to the major: "major you mustn't get into a moping way." the major shook his head. "jemmy jackman madam," he says with a deep sigh, "is an older file than i thought him." "moping is not the way to grow younger major." "my dear madam," says the major, "is there _any_ way of growing younger?" feeling that the major was getting rather the best of that point i made a diversion to another. "thirteen years! thir-teen years! many lodgers have come and gone, in the thirteen years that you have lived in the parlours major." "hah!" says the major warming. "many madam, many." "and i should say you have been familiar with them all?" "as a rule (with its exceptions like all rules) my dear madam" says the major, "they have honoured me with their acquaintance, and not unfrequently with their confidence." watching the major as he drooped his white head and stroked his black mustachios and moped again, a thought which i think must have been going about looking for an owner somewhere dropped into my old noddle if you will excuse the expression. "the walls of my lodgings" i says in a casual way--for my dear it is of no use going straight at a man who mopes--"might have something to tell if they could tell it." the major neither moved nor said anything but i saw he was attending with his shoulders my dear--attending with his shoulders to what i said. in fact i saw that his shoulders were struck by it. "the dear boy was always fond of story-books" i went on, like as if i was talking to myself. "i am sure this house--his own home--might write a story or two for his reading one day or another." the major's shoulders gave a dip and a curve and his head came up in his shirt-collar. the major's head came up in his shirt-collar as i hadn't seen it come up since jemmy went to school. "it is unquestionable that in intervals of cribbage and a friendly rubber, my dear madam," says the major, "and also over what used to be called in my young times--in the salad days of jemmy jackman--the social glass, i have exchanged many a reminiscence with your lodgers." my remark was--i confess i made it with the deepest and artfullest of intentions--"i wish our dear boy had heard them!" "are you serious madam?" asked the major starting and turning full round. "why not major?" "madam" says the major, turning up one of his cuffs, "they shall be written for him." "ah! now you speak" i says giving my hands a pleased clap. "now you are in a way out of moping major!" "between this and my holidays--i mean the dear boy's" says the major turning up his other cuff, "a good deal may be done towards it." "major you are a clever man and you have seen much and not a doubt of it." "i'll begin," says the major looking as tall as ever he did, "to-morrow." my dear the major was another man in three days and he was himself again in a week and he wrote and wrote and wrote with his pen scratching like rats behind the wainscot, and whether he had many grounds to go upon or whether he did at all romance i cannot tell you, but what he has written is in the left-hand glass closet of the little bookcase close behind you. chapter ii--how the parlours added a few words i have the honour of presenting myself by the name of jackman. i esteem it a proud privilege to go down to posterity through the instrumentality of the most remarkable boy that ever lived,--by the name of jemmy jackman lirriper,--and of my most worthy and most highly respected friend, mrs. emma lirriper, of eighty-one, norfolk street, strand, in the county of middlesex, in the united kingdom of great britain and ireland. it is not for me to express the rapture with which we received that dear and eminently remarkable boy, on the occurrence of his first christmas holidays. suffice it to observe that when he came flying into the house with two splendid prizes (arithmetic, and exemplary conduct), mrs. lirriper and myself embraced with emotion, and instantly took him to the play, where we were all three admirably entertained. nor is it to render homage to the virtues of the best of her good and honoured sex--whom, in deference to her unassuming worth, i will only here designate by the initials e. l.--that i add this record to the bundle of papers with which our, in a most distinguished degree, remarkable boy has expressed himself delighted, before re-consigning the same to the left-hand glass closet of mrs. lirriper's little bookcase. neither is it to obtrude the name of the old original superannuated obscure jemmy jackman, once (to his degradation) of wozenham's, long (to his elevation) of lirriper's. if i could be consciously guilty of that piece of bad taste, it would indeed be a work of supererogation, now that the name is borne by jemmy jackman lirriper. no, i take up my humble pen to register a little record of our strikingly remarkable boy, which my poor capacity regards as presenting a pleasant little picture of the dear boy's mind. the picture may be interesting to himself when he is a man. our first reunited christmas-day was the most delightful one we have ever passed together. jemmy was never silent for five minutes, except in church-time. he talked as we sat by the fire, he talked when we were out walking, he talked as we sat by the fire again, he talked incessantly at dinner, though he made a dinner almost as remarkable as himself. it was the spring of happiness in his fresh young heart flowing and flowing, and it fertilised (if i may be allowed so bold a figure) my much-esteemed friend, and j. j. the present writer. there were only we three. we dined in my esteemed friend's little room, and our entertainment was perfect. but everything in the establishment is, in neatness, order, and comfort, always perfect. after dinner our boy slipped away to his old stool at my esteemed friend's knee, and there, with his hot chestnuts and his glass of brown sherry (really, a most excellent wine!) on a chair for a table, his face outshone the apples in the dish. we talked of these jottings of mine, which jemmy had read through and through by that time; and so it came about that my esteemed friend remarked, as she sat smoothing jemmy's curls: "and as you belong to the house too, jemmy,--and so much more than the lodgers, having been born in it,--why, your story ought to be added to the rest, i think, one of these days." jemmy's eyes sparkled at this, and he said, "so _i_ think, gran." then he sat looking at the fire, and then he began to laugh in a sort of confidence with the fire, and then he said, folding his arms across my esteemed friend's lap, and raising his bright face to hers. "would you like to hear a boy's story, gran?" "of all things," replied my esteemed friend. "would you, godfather?" "of all things," i too replied. "well, then," said jemmy, "i'll tell you one." here our indisputably remarkable boy gave himself a hug, and laughed again, musically, at the idea of his coming out in that new line. then he once more took the fire into the same sort of confidence as before, and began: "once upon a time, when pigs drank wine, and monkeys chewed tobaccer, 'twas neither in your time nor mine, but that's no macker--" "bless the child!" cried my esteemed friend, "what's amiss with his brain?" "it's poetry, gran," returned jemmy, shouting with laughter. "we always begin stories that way at school." "gave me quite a turn, major," said my esteemed friend, fanning herself with a plate. "thought he was light-headed!" "in those remarkable times, gran and godfather, there was once a boy,--not me, you know." "no, no," says my respected friend, "not you. not him, major, you understand?" "no, no," says i. "and he went to school in rutlandshire--" "why not lincolnshire?" says my respected friend. "why not, you dear old gran? because _i_ go to school in lincolnshire, don't i?" "ah, to be sure!" says my respected friend. "and it's not jemmy, you understand, major?" "no, no," says i. "well!" our boy proceeded, hugging himself comfortably, and laughing merrily (again in confidence with the fire), before he again looked up in mrs. lirriper's face, "and so he was tremendously in love with his schoolmaster's daughter, and she was the most beautiful creature that ever was seen, and she had brown eyes, and she had brown hair all curling beautifully, and she had a delicious voice, and she was delicious altogether, and her name was seraphina." "what's the name of _your_ schoolmaster's daughter, jemmy?" asks my respected friend. "polly!" replied jemmy, pointing his forefinger at her. "there now! caught you! ha, ha, ha!" when he and my respected friend had had a laugh and a hug together, our admittedly remarkable boy resumed with a great relish: "well! and so he loved her. and so he thought about her, and dreamed about her, and made her presents of oranges and nuts, and would have made her presents of pearls and diamonds if he could have afforded it out of his pocket-money, but he couldn't. and so her father--o, he was a tartar! keeping the boys up to the mark, holding examinations once a month, lecturing upon all sorts of subjects at all sorts of times, and knowing everything in the world out of book. and so this boy--" "had he any name?" asks my respected friend. "no, he hadn't, gran. ha, ha! there now! caught you again!" after this, they had another laugh and another hug, and then our boy went on. "well! and so this boy, he had a friend about as old as himself at the same school, and his name (for he _had_ a name, as it happened) was--let me remember--was bobbo." "not bob," says my respected friend. "of course not," says jemmy. "what made you think it was, gran? well! and so this friend was the cleverest and bravest and best-looking and most generous of all the friends that ever were, and so he was in love with seraphina's sister, and so seraphina's sister was in love with him, and so they all grew up." "bless us!" says my respected friend. "they were very sudden about it." "so they all grew up," our boy repeated, laughing heartily, "and bobbo and this boy went away together on horseback to seek their fortunes, and they partly got their horses by favour, and partly in a bargain; that is to say, they had saved up between them seven and fourpence, and the two horses, being arabs, were worth more, only the man said he would take that, to favour them. well! and so they made their fortunes and came prancing back to the school, with their pockets full of gold, enough to last for ever. and so they rang at the parents' and visitors' bell (not the back gate), and when the bell was answered they proclaimed 'the same as if it was scarlet fever! every boy goes home for an indefinite period!' and then there was great hurrahing, and then they kissed seraphina and her sister,--each his own love, and not the other's on any account,--and then they ordered the tartar into instant confinement." "poor man!" said my respected friend. "into instant confinement, gran," repeated jemmy, trying to look severe and roaring with laughter; "and he was to have nothing to eat but the boys' dinners, and was to drink half a cask of their beer every day. and so then the preparations were made for the two weddings, and there were hampers, and potted things, and sweet things, and nuts, and postage-stamps, and all manner of things. and so they were so jolly, that they let the tartar out, and he was jolly too." "i am glad they let him out," says my respected friend, "because he had only done his duty." "o, but hadn't he overdone it, though!" cried jemmy. "well! and so then this boy mounted his horse, with his bride in his arms, and cantered away, and cantered on and on till he came to a certain place where he had a certain gran and a certain godfather,--not you two, you know." "no, no," we both said. "and there he was received with great rejoicings, and he filled the cupboard and the bookcase with gold, and he showered it out on his gran and his godfather because they were the two kindest and dearest people that ever lived in this world. and so while they were sitting up to their knees in gold, a knocking was heard at the street door, and who should it be but bobbo, also on horseback with his bride in his arms, and what had he come to say but that he would take (at double rent) all the lodgings for ever, that were not wanted by this a boy and this gran and this godfather, and that they would all live together, and all be happy! and so they were, and so it never ended!" "and was there no quarrelling?" asked my respected friend, as jemmy sat upon her lap and hugged her. "no! nobody ever quarrelled." "and did the money never melt away?" "no! nobody could ever spend it all." "and did none of them ever grow older?" "no! nobody ever grew older after that." "and did none of them ever die?" "o, no, no, no, gran!" exclaimed our dear boy, laying his cheek upon her breast, and drawing her closer to him. "nobody ever died." "ah, major, major!" says my respected friend, smiling benignly upon me, "this beats our stories. let us end with the boy's story, major, for the boy's story is the best that is ever told!" in submission to which request on the part of the best of women, i have here noted it down as faithfully as my best abilities, coupled with my best intentions, would admit, subscribing it with my name, j. jackman. the parlours. mrs. lirriper's lodgings. transcribed from the chapman and hall "christmas stories" edition by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk a message from the sea chapter i--the village "and a mighty sing'lar and pretty place it is, as ever i saw in all the days of my life!" said captain jorgan, looking up at it. captain jorgan had to look high to look at it, for the village was built sheer up the face of a steep and lofty cliff. there was no road in it, there was no wheeled vehicle in it, there was not a level yard in it. from the sea-beach to the cliff-top two irregular rows of white houses, placed opposite to one another, and twisting here and there, and there and here, rose, like the sides of a long succession of stages of crooked ladders, and you climbed up the village or climbed down the village by the staves between, some six feet wide or so, and made of sharp irregular stones. the old pack-saddle, long laid aside in most parts of england as one of the appendages of its infancy, flourished here intact. strings of pack-horses and pack-donkeys toiled slowly up the staves of the ladders, bearing fish, and coal, and such other cargo as was unshipping at the pier from the dancing fleet of village boats, and from two or three little coasting traders. as the beasts of burden ascended laden, or descended light, they got so lost at intervals in the floating clouds of village smoke, that they seemed to dive down some of the village chimneys, and come to the surface again far off, high above others. no two houses in the village were alike, in chimney, size, shape, door, window, gable, roof-tree, anything. the sides of the ladders were musical with water, running clear and bright. the staves were musical with the clattering feet of the pack-horses and pack-donkeys, and the voices of the fishermen urging them up, mingled with the voices of the fishermen's wives and their many children. the pier was musical with the wash of the sea, the creaking of capstans and windlasses, and the airy fluttering of little vanes and sails. the rough, sea-bleached boulders of which the pier was made, and the whiter boulders of the shore, were brown with drying nets. the red-brown cliffs, richly wooded to their extremest verge, had their softened and beautiful forms reflected in the bluest water, under the clear north devonshire sky of a november day without a cloud. the village itself was so steeped in autumnal foliage, from the houses lying on the pier to the topmost round of the topmost ladder, that one might have fancied it was out a bird's-nesting, and was (as indeed it was) a wonderful climber. and mentioning birds, the place was not without some music from them too; for the rook was very busy on the higher levels, and the gull with his flapping wings was fishing in the bay, and the lusty little robin was hopping among the great stone blocks and iron rings of the breakwater, fearless in the faith of his ancestors, and the children in the wood. thus it came to pass that captain jorgan, sitting balancing himself on the pier-wall, struck his leg with his open hand, as some men do when they are pleased--and as he always did when he was pleased--and said,-- "a mighty sing'lar and pretty place it is, as ever i saw in all the days of my life!" captain jorgan had not been through the village, but had come down to the pier by a winding side-road, to have a preliminary look at it from the level of his own natural element. he had seen many things and places, and had stowed them all away in a shrewd intellect and a vigorous memory. he was an american born, was captain jorgan,--a new-englander,--but he was a citizen of the world, and a combination of most of the best qualities of most of its best countries. for captain jorgan to sit anywhere in his long-skirted blue coat and blue trousers, without holding converse with everybody within speaking distance, was a sheer impossibility. so the captain fell to talking with the fishermen, and to asking them knowing questions about the fishery, and the tides, and the currents, and the race of water off that point yonder, and what you kept in your eye, and got into a line with what else when you ran into the little harbour; and other nautical profundities. among the men who exchanged ideas with the captain was a young fellow, who exactly hit his fancy,--a young fisherman of two or three and twenty, in the rough sea-dress of his craft, with a brown face, dark curling hair, and bright, modest eyes under his sou'wester hat, and with a frank, but simple and retiring manner, which the captain found uncommonly taking. "i'd bet a thousand dollars," said the captain to himself, "that your father was an honest man!" "might you be married now?" asked the captain, when he had had some talk with this new acquaintance. "not yet." "going to be?" said the captain. "i hope so." the captain's keen glance followed the slightest possible turn of the dark eye, and the slightest possible tilt of the sou'wester hat. the captain then slapped both his legs, and said to himself,-- "never knew such a good thing in all my life! there's his sweetheart looking over the wall!" there was a very pretty girl looking over the wall, from a little platform of cottage, vine, and fuchsia; and she certainly dig not look as if the presence of this young fisherman in the landscape made it any the less sunny and hopeful for her. captain jorgan, having doubled himself up to laugh with that hearty good- nature which is quite exultant in the innocent happiness of other people, had undoubted himself, and was going to start a new subject, when there appeared coming down the lower ladders of stones, a man whom he hailed as "tom pettifer, ho!" tom pettifer, ho, responded with alacrity, and in speedy course descended on the pier. "afraid of a sun-stroke in england in november, tom, that you wear your tropical hat, strongly paid outside and paper-lined inside, here?" said the captain, eyeing it. "it's as well to be on the safe side, sir," replied tom. "safe side!" repeated the captain, laughing. "you'd guard against a sun- stroke, with that old hat, in an ice pack. wa'al! what have you made out at the post-office?" "it _is_ the post-office, sir." "what's the post-office?" said the captain. "the name, sir. the name keeps the post-office." "a coincidence!" said the captain. "a lucky bit! show me where it is. good-bye, shipmates, for the present! i shall come and have another look at you, afore i leave, this afternoon." this was addressed to all there, but especially the young fisherman; so all there acknowledged it, but especially the young fisherman. "_he's_ a sailor!" said one to another, as they looked after the captain moving away. that he was; and so outspeaking was the sailor in him, that although his dress had nothing nautical about it, with the single exception of its colour, but was a suit of a shore-going shape and form, too long in the sleeves and too short in the legs, and too unaccommodating everywhere, terminating earthward in a pair of wellington boots, and surmounted by a tall, stiff hat, which no mortal could have worn at sea in any wind under heaven; nevertheless, a glimpse of his sagacious, weather-beaten face, or his strong, brown hand, would have established the captain's calling. whereas mr. pettifer--a man of a certain plump neatness, with a curly whisker, and elaborately nautical in a jacket, and shoes, and all things correspondent--looked no more like a seaman, beside captain jorgan, than he looked like a sea-serpent. the two climbed high up the village,--which had the most arbitrary turns and twists in it, so that the cobbler's house came dead across the ladder, and to have held a reasonable course, you must have gone through his house, and through him too, as he sat at his work between two little windows,--with one eye microscopically on the geological formation of that part of devonshire, and the other telescopically on the open sea,--the two climbed high up the village, and stopped before a quaint little house, on which was painted, "mrs. raybrock, draper;" and also "post-office." before it, ran a rill of murmuring water, and access to it was gained by a little plank-bridge. "here's the name," said captain jorgan, "sure enough. you can come in if you like, tom." the captain opened the door, and passed into an odd little shop, about six feet high, with a great variety of beams and bumps in the ceiling, and, besides the principal window giving on the ladder of stones, a purblind little window of a single pane of glass, peeping out of an abutting corner at the sun-lighted ocean, and winking at its brightness. "how do you do, ma'am?" said the captain. "i am very glad to see you. i have come a long way to see you." "_have_ you, sir? then i am sure i am very glad to see _you_, though i don't know you from adam." thus a comely elderly woman, short of stature, plump of form, sparkling and dark of eye, who, perfectly clean and neat herself, stood in the midst of her perfectly clean and neat arrangements, and surveyed captain jorgan with smiling curiosity. "ah! but you are a sailor, sir," she added, almost immediately, and with a slight movement of her hands, that was not very unlike wringing them; "then you are heartily welcome." "thank'ee, ma'am," said the captain, "i don't know what it is, i am sure; that brings out the salt in me, but everybody seems to see it on the crown of my hat and the collar of my coat. yes, ma'am, i am in that way of life." "and the other gentleman, too," said mrs. raybrock. "well now, ma'am," said the captain, glancing shrewdly at the other gentleman, "you are that nigh right, that he goes to sea,--if that makes him a sailor. this is my steward, ma'am, tom pettifer; he's been a'most all trades you could name, in the course of his life,--would have bought all your chairs and tables once, if you had wished to sell 'em,--but now he's my steward. my name's jorgan, and i'm a ship-owner, and i sail my own and my partners' ships, and have done so this five-and-twenty year. according to custom i am called captain jorgan, but i am no more a captain, bless your heart, than you are." "perhaps you'll come into my parlour, sir, and take a chair?" said mrs. raybrock. "ex-actly what i was going to propose myself, ma'am. after you." thus replying, and enjoining tom to give an eye to the shop, captain jorgan followed mrs. raybrock into the little, low back-room,--decorated with divers plants in pots, tea-trays, old china teapots, and punch-bowls,--which was at once the private sitting-room of the raybrock family and the inner cabinet of the post-office of the village of steepways. "now, ma'am," said the captain, "it don't signify a cent to you where i was born, except--" but here the shadow of some one entering fell upon the captain's figure, and he broke off to double himself up, slap both his legs, and ejaculate, "never knew such a thing in all my life! here he is again! how are you?" these words referred to the young fellow who had so taken captain jorgan's fancy down at the pier. to make it all quite complete he came in accompanied by the sweetheart whom the captain had detected looking over the wall. a prettier sweetheart the sun could not have shone upon that shining day. as she stood before the captain, with her rosy lips just parted in surprise, her brown eyes a little wider open than was usual from the same cause, and her breathing a little quickened by the ascent (and possibly by some mysterious hurry and flurry at the parlour door, in which the captain had observed her face to be for a moment totally eclipsed by the sou'wester hat), she looked so charming, that the captain felt himself under a moral obligation to slap both his legs again. she was very simply dressed, with no other ornament than an autumnal flower in her bosom. she wore neither hat nor bonnet, but merely a scarf or kerchief, folded squarely back over the head, to keep the sun off,--according to a fashion that may be sometimes seen in the more genial parts of england as well as of italy, and which is probably the first fashion of head-dress that came into the world when grasses and leaves went out. "in my country," said the captain, rising to give her his chair, and dexterously sliding it close to another chair on which the young fisherman must necessarily establish himself,--"in my country we should call devonshire beauty first-rate!" whenever a frank manner is offensive, it is because it is strained or feigned; for there may be quite as much intolerable affectation in plainness as in mincing nicety. all that the captain said and did was honestly according to his nature; and his nature was open nature and good nature; therefore, when he paid this little compliment, and expressed with a sparkle or two of his knowing eye, "i see how it is, and nothing could be better," he had established a delicate confidence on that subject with the family. "i was saying to your worthy mother," said the captain to the young man, after again introducing himself by name and occupation,--"i was saying to your mother (and you're very like her) that it didn't signify where i was born, except that i was raised on question-asking ground, where the babies as soon as ever they come into the world, inquire of their mothers, 'neow, how old may _you_ be, and wa'at air you a goin' to name me?'--which is a fact." here he slapped his leg. "such being the case, i may be excused for asking you if your name's alfred?" "yes, sir, my name is alfred," returned the young man. "i am not a conjurer," pursued the captain, "and don't think me so, or i shall right soon undeceive you. likewise don't think, if you please, though i _do_ come from that country of the babies, that i am asking questions for question-asking's sake, for i am not. somebody belonging to you went to sea?" "my elder brother, hugh," returned the young man. he said it in an altered and lower voice, and glanced at his mother, who raised her hands hurriedly, and put them together across her black gown, and looked eagerly at the visitor. "no! for god's sake, don't think that!" said the captain, in a solemn way; "i bring no good tidings of him." there was a silence, and the mother turned her face to the fire and put her hand between it and her eyes. the young fisherman slightly motioned toward the window, and the captain, looking in that direction, saw a young widow, sitting at a neighbouring window across a little garden, engaged in needlework, with a young child sleeping on her bosom. the silence continued until the captain asked of alfred,-- "how long is it since it happened?" "he shipped for his last voyage better than three years ago." "ship struck upon some reef or rock, as i take it," said the captain, "and all hands lost?" "yes." "wa'al!" said the captain, after a shorter silence, "here i sit who may come to the same end, like enough. he holds the seas in the hollow of his hand. we must all strike somewhere and go down. our comfort, then, for ourselves and one another is to have done our duty. i'd wager your brother did his!" "he did!" answered the young fisherman. "if ever man strove faithfully on all occasions to do his duty, my brother did. my brother was not a quick man (anything but that), but he was a faithful, true, and just man. we were the sons of only a small tradesman in this county, sir; yet our father was as watchful of his good name as if he had been a king." "a precious sight more so, i hope--bearing in mind the general run of that class of crittur," said the captain. "but i interrupt." "my brother considered that our father left the good name to us, to keep clear and true." "your brother considered right," said the captain; "and you couldn't take care of a better legacy. but again i interrupt." "no; for i have nothing more to say. we know that hugh lived well for the good name, and we feel certain that he died well for the good name. and now it has come into my keeping. and that's all." "well spoken!" cried the captain. "well spoken, young man! concerning the manner of your brother's death,"--by this time the captain had released the hand he had shaken, and sat with his own broad, brown hands spread out on his knees, and spoke aside,--"concerning the manner of your brother's death, it may be that i have some information to give you; though it may not be, for i am far from sure. can we have a little talk alone?" the young man rose; but not before the captain's quick eye had noticed that, on the pretty sweetheart's turning to the window to greet the young widow with a nod and a wave of the hand, the young widow had held up to her the needlework on which she was engaged, with a patient and pleasant smile. so the captain said, being on his legs,-- "what might she be making now?" "what is margaret making, kitty?" asked the young fisherman,--with one of his arms apparently mislaid somewhere. as kitty only blushed in reply, the captain doubled himself up as far as he could, standing, and said, with a slap of his leg,-- "in my country we should call it wedding-clothes. fact! we should, i do assure you." but it seemed to strike the captain in another light too; for his laugh was not a long one, and he added, in quite a gentle tone,-- "and it's very pretty, my dear, to see her--poor young thing, with her fatherless child upon her bosom--giving up her thoughts to your home and your happiness. it's very pretty, my dear, and it's very good. may your marriage be more prosperous than hers, and be a comfort to her too. may the blessed sun see you all happy together, in possession of the good name, long after i have done ploughing the great salt field that is never sown!" kitty answered very earnestly, "o! thank you, sir, with all my heart!" and, in her loving little way, kissed her hand to him, and possibly by implication to the young fisherman, too, as the latter held the parlour- door open for the captain to pass out. chapter ii--the money "the stairs are very narrow, sir," said alfred raybrock to captain jorgan. "like my cabin-stairs," returned the captain, "on many a voyage." "and they are rather inconvenient for the head." "if my head can't take care of itself by this time, after all the knocking about the world it has had," replied the captain, as unconcernedly as if he had no connection with it, "it's not worth looking after." thus they came into the young fisherman's bedroom, which was as perfectly neat and clean as the shop and parlour below; though it was but a little place, with a sliding window, and a phrenological ceiling expressive of all the peculiarities of the house-roof. here the captain sat down on the foot of the bed, and glancing at a dreadful libel on kitty which ornamented the wall,--the production of some wandering limner, whom the captain secretly admired as having studied portraiture from the figure- heads of ships,--motioned to the young man to take the rush-chair on the other side of the small round table. that done, the captain put his hand in the deep breast-pocket of his long-skirted blue coat, and took out of it a strong square case-bottle,--not a large bottle, but such as may be seen in any ordinary ship's medicine-chest. setting this bottle on the table without removing his hand from it, captain jorgan then spake as follows:-- "in my last voyage homeward-bound," said the captain, "and that's the voyage off of which i now come straight, i encountered such weather off the horn as is not very often met with, even there. i have rounded that stormy cape pretty often, and i believe i first beat about there in the identical storms that blew the devil's horns and tail off, and led to the horns being worked up into tooth-picks for the plantation overseers in my country, who may be seen (if you travel down south, or away west, fur enough) picking their teeth with 'em, while the whips, made of the tail, flog hard. in this last voyage, homeward-bound for liverpool from south america, i say to you, my young friend, it blew. whole measures! no half measures, nor making believe to blow; it blew! now i warn't blown clean out of the water into the sky,--though i expected to be even that,--but i was blown clean out of my course; and when at last it fell calm, it fell dead calm, and a strong current set one way, day and night, night and day, and i drifted--drifted--drifted--out of all the ordinary tracks and courses of ships, and drifted yet, and yet drifted. it behooves a man who takes charge of fellow-critturs' lives, never to rest from making himself master of his calling. i never did rest, and consequently i knew pretty well ('specially looking over the side in the dead calm of that strong current) what dangers to expect, and what precautions to take against 'em. in short, we were driving head on to an island. there was no island in the chart, and, therefore, you may say it was ill-manners in the island to be there; i don't dispute its bad breeding, but there it was. thanks be to heaven, i was as ready for the island as the island was ready for me. i made it out myself from the masthead, and i got enough way upon her in good time to keep her off. i ordered a boat to be lowered and manned, and went in that boat myself to explore the island. there was a reef outside it, and, floating in a corner of the smooth water within the reef, was a heap of sea-weed, and entangled in that sea-weed was this bottle." here the captain took his hand from the bottle for a moment, that the young fisherman might direct a wondering glance at it; and then replaced his band and went on:-- "if ever you come--or even if ever you don't come--to a desert place, use you your eyes and your spy-glass well; for the smallest thing you see may prove of use to you; and may have some information or some warning in it. that's the principle on which i came to see this bottle. i picked up the bottle and ran the boat alongside the island, and made fast and went ashore armed, with a part of my boat's crew. we found that every scrap of vegetation on the island (i give it you as my opinion, but scant and scrubby at the best of times) had been consumed by fire. as we were making our way, cautiously and toilsomely, over the pulverised embers, one of my people sank into the earth breast-high. he turned pale, and 'haul me out smart, shipmates,' says he, 'for my feet are among bones.' we soon got him on his legs again, and then we dug up the spot, and we found that the man was right, and that his feet had been among bones. more than that, they were human bones; though whether the remains of one man, or of two or three men, what with calcination and ashes, and what with a poor practical knowledge of anatomy, i can't undertake to say. we examined the whole island and made out nothing else, save and except that, from its opposite side, i sighted a considerable tract of land, which land i was able to identify, and according to the bearings of which (not to trouble you with my log) i took a fresh departure. when i got aboard again i opened the bottle, which was oilskin-covered as you see, and glass-stoppered as you see. inside of it," pursued the captain, suiting his action to his words, "i found this little crumpled, folded paper, just as you see. outside of it was written, as you see, these words: 'whoever finds this, is solemnly entreated by the dead to convey it unread to alfred raybrock, steepways, north devon, england.' a sacred charge," said the captain, concluding his narrative, "and, alfred raybrock, there it is!" "this is my poor brother's writing!" "i suppose so," said captain jorgan. "i'll take a look out of this little window while you read it." "pray no, sir! i should be hurt. my brother couldn't know it would fall into such hands as yours." the captain sat down again on the foot of the bed, and the young man opened the folded paper with a trembling hand, and spread it on the table. the ragged paper, evidently creased and torn both before and after being written on, was much blotted and stained, and the ink had faded and run, and many words were wanting. what the captain and the young fisherman made out together, after much re-reading and much humouring of the folds of the paper, is given on the next page. the young fisherman had become more and more agitated, as the writing had become clearer to him. he now left it lying before the captain, over whose shoulder he had been reading it, and dropping into his former seat, leaned forward on the table and laid his face in his hands. "what, man," urged the captain, "don't give in! be up and doing _like_ a man!" "it is selfish, i know,--but doing what, doing what?" cried the young fisherman, in complete despair, and stamping his sea-boot on the ground. "doing what?" returned the captain. "something! i'd go down to the little breakwater below yonder, and take a wrench at one of the salt-rusted iron rings there, and either wrench it up by the roots or wrench my teeth out of my head, sooner than i'd do nothing. nothing!" ejaculated the captain. "any fool or fainting heart can do _that_, and nothing can come of nothing,--which was pretended to be found out, i believe, by one of them latin critters," said the captain with the deepest disdain; "as if adam hadn't found it out, afore ever he so much as named the beasts!" yet the captain saw, in spite of his bold words, that there was some greater reason than he yet understood for the young man's distress. and he eyed him with a sympathising curiosity. "come, come!" continued the captain, "speak out. what is it, boy!" "you have seen how beautiful she is, sir," said the young man, looking up for the moment, with a flushed face and rumpled hair. "did any man ever say she warn't beautiful?" retorted the captain. "if so, go and lick him." the young man laughed fretfully in spite of himself, and said-- "it's not that, it's not that." "wa'al, then, what is it?" said the captain in a more soothing tone. the young fisherman mournfully composed himself to tell the captain what it was, and began: "we were to have been married next monday week--" "were to have been!" interrupted captain jorgan. "and are to be? hey?" young raybrock shook his head, and traced out with his fore-finger the words, "_poor father's five hundred pounds_," in the written paper. "go along," said the captain. "five hundred pounds? yes?" "that sum of money," pursued the young fisherman, entering with the greatest earnestness on his demonstration, while the captain eyed him with equal earnestness, "was all my late father possessed. when he died, he owed no man more than he left means to pay, but he had been able to lay by only five hundred pounds." "five hundred pounds," repeated the captain. "yes?" "in his lifetime, years before, he had expressly laid the money aside to leave to my mother,--like to settle upon her, if i make myself understood." "yes?" "he had risked it once--my father put down in writing at that time, respecting the money--and was resolved never to risk it again." "not a spectator," said the captain. "my country wouldn't have suited him. yes?" "my mother has never touched the money till now. and now it was to have been laid out, this very next week, in buying me a handsome share in our neighbouring fishery here, to settle me in life with kitty." the captain's face fell, and he passed and repassed his sun-browned right hand over his thin hair, in a discomfited manner. "kitty's father has no more than enough to live on, even in the sparing way in which we live about here. he is a kind of bailiff or steward of manor rights here, and they are not much, and it is but a poor little office. he was better off once, and kitty must never marry to mere drudgery and hard living." the captain still sat stroking his thin hair, and looking at the young fisherman. "i am as certain that my father had no knowledge that any one was wronged as to this money, or that any restitution ought to be made, as i am certain that the sun now shines. but, after this solemn warning from my brother's grave in the sea, that the money is stolen money," said young raybrock, forcing himself to the utterance of the words, "can i doubt it? can i touch it?" "about not doubting, i ain't so sure," observed the captain; "but about not touching--no--i don't think you can." "see then," said young raybrock, "why i am so grieved. think of kitty. think what i have got to tell her!" his heart quite failed him again when he had come round to that, and he once more beat his sea-boot softly on the floor. but not for long; he soon began again, in a quietly resolute tone. "however! enough of that! you spoke some brave words to me just now, captain jorgan, and they shall not be spoken in vain. i have got to do something. what i have got to do, before all other things, is to trace out the meaning of this paper, for the sake of the good name that has no one else to put it right. and still for the sake of the good name, and my father's memory, not a word of this writing must be breathed to my mother, or to kitty, or to any human creature. you agree in this?" "i don't know what they'll think of us below," said the captain, "but for certain i can't oppose it. now, as to tracing. how will you do?" they both, as by consent, bent over the paper again, and again carefully puzzled out the whole of the writing. "i make out that this would stand, if all the writing was here, 'inquire among the old men living there, for'--some one. most like, you'll go to this village named here?" said the captain, musing, with his finger on the name. "yes! and mr. tregarthen is a cornishman, and--to be sure!--comes from lanrean." "does he?" said the captain quietly. "as i ain't acquainted with him, who may _he_ be?" "mr. tregarthen is kitty's father." "ay, ay!" cried the captain. "now you speak! tregarthen knows this village of lanrean, then?" "beyond all doubt he does. i have often heard him mention it, as being his native place. he knows it well." "stop half a moment," said the captain. "we want a name here. you could ask tregarthen (or if you couldn't i could) what names of old men he remembers in his time in those diggings? hey?" "i can go straight to his cottage, and ask him now." "take me with you," said the captain, rising in a solid way that had a most comfortable reliability in it, "and just a word more first. i have knocked about harder than you, and have got along further than you. i have had, all my sea-going life long, to keep my wits polished bright with acid and friction, like the brass cases of the ship's instruments. i'll keep you company on this expedition. now you don't live by talking any more than i do. clench that hand of yours in this hand of mine, and that's a speech on both sides." captain jorgan took command of the expedition with that hearty shake. he at once refolded the paper exactly as before, replaced it in the bottle, put the stopper in, put the oilskin over the stopper, confided the whole to young raybrock's keeping, and led the way down-stairs. but it was harder navigation below-stairs than above. the instant they set foot in the parlour the quick, womanly eye detected that there was something wrong. kitty exclaimed, frightened, as she ran to her lover's side, "alfred! what's the matter?" mrs. raybrock cried out to the captain, "gracious! what have you done to my son to change him like this all in a minute?" and the young widow--who was there with her work upon her arm--was at first so agitated that she frightened the little girl she held in her hand, who hid her face in her mother's skirts and screamed. the captain, conscious of being held responsible for this domestic change, contemplated it with quite a guilty expression of countenance, and looked to the young fisherman to come to his rescue. "kitty, darling," said young raybrock, "kitty, dearest love, i must go away to lanrean, and i don't know where else or how much further, this very day. worse than that--our marriage, kitty, must be put off, and i don't know for how long." kitty stared at him, in doubt and wonder and in anger, and pushed him from her with her hand. "put off?" cried mrs. raybrock. "the marriage put off? and you going to lanrean! why, in the name of the dear lord?" "mother dear, i can't say why; i must not say why. it would be dishonourable and undutiful to say why." "dishonourable and undutiful?" returned the dame. "and is there nothing dishonourable or undutiful in the boy's breaking the heart of his own plighted love, and his mother's heart too, for the sake of the dark secrets and counsels of a wicked stranger? why did you ever come here?" she apostrophised the innocent captain. "who wanted you? where did you come from? why couldn't you rest in your own bad place, wherever it is, instead of disturbing the peace of quiet unoffending folk like us?" "and what," sobbed the poor little kitty, "have i ever done to you, you hard and cruel captain, that you should come and serve me so?" and then they both began to weep most pitifully, while the captain could only look from the one to the other, and lay hold of himself by the coat collar. "margaret," said the poor young fisherman, on his knees at kitty's feet, while kitty kept both her hands before her tearful face, to shut out the traitor from her view,--but kept her fingers wide asunder and looked at him all the time,--"margaret, you have suffered so much, so uncomplainingly, and are always so careful and considerate! do take my part, for poor hugh's sake!" the quiet margaret was not appealed to in vain. "i will, alfred," she returned, "and i do. i wish this gentleman had never come near us;" whereupon the captain laid hold of himself the tighter; "but i take your part for all that. i am sure you have some strong reason and some sufficient reason for what you do, strange as it is, and even for not saying why you do it, strange as that is. and, kitty darling, you are bound to think so more than any one, for true love believes everything, and bears everything, and trusts everything. and, mother dear, you are bound to think so too, for you know you have been blest with good sons, whose word was always as good as their oath, and who were brought up in as true a sense of honour as any gentleman in this land. and i am sure you have no more call, mother, to doubt your living son than to doubt your dead son; and for the sake of the dear dead, i stand up for the dear living." "wa'al now," the captain struck in, with enthusiasm, "this i say, that whether your opinions flatter me or not, you are a young woman of sense, and spirit, and feeling; and i'd sooner have you by my side in the hour of danger, than a good half of the men i've ever fallen in with--or fallen out with, ayther." margaret did not return the captain's compliment, or appear fully to reciprocate his good opinion, but she applied herself to the consolation of kitty, and of kitty's mother-in-law that was to have been next monday week, and soon restored the parlour to a quiet condition. "kitty, my darling," said the young fisherman, "i must go to your father to entreat him still to trust me in spite of this wretched change and mystery, and to ask him for some directions concerning lanrean. will you come home? will you come with me, kitty?" kitty answered not a word, but rose sobbing, with the end of her simple head-dress at her eyes. captain jorgan followed the lovers out, quite sheepishly, pausing in the shop to give an instruction to mr. pettifer. "here, tom!" said the captain, in a low voice. "here's something in your line. here's an old lady poorly and low in her spirits. cheer her up a bit, tom. cheer 'em all up." mr. pettifer, with a brisk nod of intelligence, immediately assumed his steward face, and went with his quiet, helpful, steward step into the parlour, where the captain had the great satisfaction of seeing him, through the glass door, take the child in his arms (who offered no objection), and bend over mrs. raybrock, administering soft words of consolation. "though what he finds to say, unless he's telling her that 't'll soon be over, or that most people is so at first, or that it'll do her good afterward, i cannot imaginate!" was the captain's reflection as he followed the lovers. he had not far to follow them, since it was but a short descent down the stony ways to the cottage of kitty's father. but short as the distance was, it was long enough to enable the captain to observe that he was fast becoming the village ogre; for there was not a woman standing working at her door, or a fisherman coming up or going down, who saw young raybrock unhappy and little kitty in tears, but he or she instantly darted a suspicious and indignant glance at the captain, as the foreigner who must somehow be responsible for this unusual spectacle. consequently, when they came into tregarthen's little garden,--which formed the platform from which the captain had seen kitty peeping over the wall,--the captain brought to, and stood off and on at the gate, while kitty hurried to hide her tears in her own room, and alfred spoke with her father, who was working in the garden. he was a rather infirm man, but could scarcely be called old yet, with an agreeable face and a promising air of making the best of things. the conversation began on his side with great cheerfulness and good humour, but soon became distrustful, and soon angry. that was the captain's cue for striking both into the conversation and the garden. "morning, sir!" said captain jorgan. "how do you do?" "the gentleman i am going away with," said the young fisherman to tregarthen. "o!" returned kitty's father, surveying the unfortunate captain with a look of extreme disfavour. "i confess that i can't say i am glad to see you." "no," said the captain, "and, to admit the truth, that seems to be the general opinion in these parts. but don't be hasty; you may think better of me by-and-by." "i hope so," observed tregarthen. "wa'al, _i_ hope so," observed the captain, quite at his ease; "more than that, i believe so,--though you don't. now, mr. tregarthen, you don't want to exchange words of mistrust with me; and if you did, you couldn't, because i wouldn't. you and i are old enough to know better than to judge against experience from surfaces and appearances; and if you haven't lived to find out the evil and injustice of such judgments, you are a lucky man." the other seemed to shrink under this remark, and replied, "sir, i _have_ lived to feel it deeply." "wa'al," said the captain, mollified, "then i've made a good cast without knowing it. now, tregarthen, there stands the lover of your only child, and here stand i who know his secret. i warrant it a righteous secret, and none of his making, though bound to be of his keeping. i want to help him out with it, and tewwards that end we ask you to favour us with the names of two or three old residents in the village of lanrean. as i am taking out my pocket-book and pencil to put the names down, i may as well observe to you that this, wrote atop of the first page here, is my name and address: 'silas jonas jorgan, salem, massachusetts, united states.' if ever you take it in your head to run over any morning, i shall be glad to welcome you. now, what may be the spelling of these said names?" "there was an elderly man," said tregarthen, "named david polreath. he may be dead." "wa'al," said the captain, cheerfully, "if polreath's dead and buried, and can be made of any service to us, polreath won't object to our digging of him up. polreath's down, anyhow." "there was another named penrewen. i don't know his christian name." "never mind his chris'en name," said the captain; "penrewen, for short." "there was another named john tredgear." "and a pleasant-sounding name, too," said the captain; "john tredgear's booked." "i can recall no other except old parvis." "one of old parvis's fam'ly i reckon," said the captain, "kept a dry-goods store in new york city, and realised a handsome competency by burning his house to ashes. same name, anyhow. david polreath, unchris'en penrewen, john tredgear, and old arson parvis." "i cannot recall any others at the moment." "thank'ee," said the captain. "and so, tregarthen, hoping for your good opinion yet, and likewise for the fair devonshire flower's, your daughter's, i give you my hand, sir, and wish you good day." young raybrock accompanied him disconsolately; for there was no kitty at the window when he looked up, no kitty in the garden when he shut the gate, no kitty gazing after them along the stony ways when they begin to climb back. "now i tell you what," said the captain. "not being at present calculated to promote harmony in your family, i won't come in. you go and get your dinner at home, and i'll get mine at the little hotel. let our hour of meeting be two o'clock, and you'll find me smoking a cigar in the sun afore the hotel door. tell tom pettifer, my steward, to consider himself on duty, and to look after your people till we come back; you'll find he'll have made himself useful to 'em already, and will be quite acceptable." all was done as captain jorgan directed. punctually at two o'clock the young fisherman appeared with his knapsack at his back; and punctually at two o'clock the captain jerked away the last feather-end of his cigar. "let me carry your baggage, captain jorgan; i can easily take it with mine." "thank'ee," said the captain. "i'll carry it myself. it's only a comb." they climbed out of the village, and paused among the trees and fern on the summit of the hill above, to take breath, and to look down at the beautiful sea. suddenly the captain gave his leg a resounding slap, and cried, "never knew such a right thing in all my life!"--and ran away. the cause of this abrupt retirement on the part of the captain was little kitty among the trees. the captain went out of sight and waited, and kept out of sight and waited, until it occurred to him to beguile the time with another cigar. he lighted it, and smoked it out, and still he was out of sight and waiting. he stole within sight at last, and saw the lovers, with their arms entwined and their bent heads touching, moving slowly among the trees. it was the golden time of the afternoon then, and the captain said to himself, "golden sun, golden sea, golden sails, golden leaves, golden love, golden youth,--a golden state of things altogether!" nevertheless the captain found it necessary to hail his young companion before going out of sight again. in a few moments more he came up and they began their journey. "that still young woman with the fatherless child," said captain jorgan, as they fell into step, "didn't throw her words away; but good honest words are never thrown away. and now that i am conveying you off from that tender little thing that loves, and relies, and hopes, i feel just as if i was the snarling crittur in the picters, with the tight legs, the long nose, and the feather in his cap, the tips of whose moustaches get up nearer to his eyes the wickeder he gets." the young fisherman knew nothing of mephistopheles; but he smiled when the captain stopped to double himself up and slap his leg, and they went along in right goodfellowship. chapter v { }--the restitution captain jorgan, up and out betimes, had put the whole village of lanrean under an amicable cross-examination, and was returning to the king arthur's arms to breakfast, none the wiser for his trouble, when he beheld the young fisherman advancing to meet him, accompanied by a stranger. a glance at this stranger assured the captain that he could be no other than the seafaring man; and the captain was about to hail him as a fellow-craftsman, when the two stood still and silent before the captain, and the captain stood still, silent, and wondering before them. "why, what's this?" cried the captain, when at last he broke the silence. "you two are alike. you two are much alike. what's this?" not a word was answered on the other side, until after the seafaring brother had got hold of the captain's right hand, and the fisherman brother had got hold of the captain's left hand; and if ever the captain had had his fill of hand-shaking, from his birth to that hour, he had it then. and presently up and spoke the two brothers, one at a time, two at a time, two dozen at a time for the bewilderment into which they plunged the captain, until he gradually had hugh raybrock's deliverance made clear to him, and also unravelled the fact that the person referred to in the half-obliterated paper was tregarthen himself. "formerly, dear captain jorgan," said alfred, "of lanrean, you recollect? kitty and her father came to live at steepways after hugh shipped on his last voyage." "ay, ay!" cried the captain, fetching a breath. "_now_ you have me in tow. then your brother here don't know his sister-in-law that is to be so much as by name?" "never saw her; never heard of her!" "ay, ay, ay!" cried the captain. "why then we every one go back together--paper, writer, and all--and take tregarthen into the secret we kept from him?" "surely," said alfred, "we can't help it now. we must go through with our duty." "not a doubt," returned the captain. "give me an arm apiece, and let us set this ship-shape." so walking up and down in the shrill wind on the wild moor, while the neglected breakfast cooled within, the captain and the brothers settled their course of action. it was that they should all proceed by the quickest means they could secure to barnstaple, and there look over the father's books and papers in the lawyer's keeping; as hugh had proposed to himself to do if ever he reached home. that, enlightened or unenlightened, they should then return to steepways and go straight to mr. tregarthen, and tell him all they knew, and see what came of it, and act accordingly. lastly, that when they got there they should enter the village with all precautions against hugh's being recognised by any chance; and that to the captain should be consigned the task of preparing his wife and mother for his restoration to this life. "for you see," quoth captain jorgan, touching the last head, "it requires caution any way, great joys being as dangerous as great griefs, if not more dangerous, as being more uncommon (and therefore less provided against) in this round world of ours. and besides, i should like to free my name with the ladies, and take you home again at your brightest and luckiest; so don't let's throw away a chance of success." the captain was highly lauded by the brothers for his kind interest and foresight. "and now stop!" said the captain, coming to a standstill, and looking from one brother to the other, with quite a new rigging of wrinkles about each eye; "you are of opinion," to the elder, "that you are ra'ather slow?" "i assure you i am very slow," said the honest hugh. "wa'al," replied the captain, "i assure you that to the best of my belief i am ra'ather smart. now a slow man ain't good at quick business, is he?" that was clear to both. "you," said the captain, turning to the younger brother, "are a little in love; ain't you?" "not a little, captain jorgan." "much or little, you're sort preoccupied; ain't you?" it was impossible to be denied. "and a sort preoccupied man ain't good at quick business, is he?" said the captain. equally clear on all sides. "now," said the captain, "i ain't in love myself, and i've made many a smart run across the ocean, and i should like to carry on and go ahead with this affair of yours, and make a run slick through it. shall i try? will you hand it over to me?" they were both delighted to do so, and thanked him heartily. "good," said the captain, taking out his watch. "this is half-past eight a.m., friday morning. i'll jot that down, and we'll compute how many hours we've been out when we run into your mother's post-office. there! the entry's made, and now we go ahead." they went ahead so well that before the barnstaple lawyer's office was open next morning, the captain was sitting whistling on the step of the door, waiting for the clerk to come down the street with his key and open it. but instead of the clerk there came the master, with whom the captain fraternised on the spot to an extent that utterly confounded him. as he personally knew both hugh and alfred, there was no difficulty in obtaining immediate access to such of the father's papers as were in his keeping. these were chiefly old letters and cash accounts; from which the captain, with a shrewdness and despatch that left the lawyer far behind, established with perfect clearness, by noon, the following particulars:-- that one lawrence clissold had borrowed of the deceased, at a time when he was a thriving young tradesman in the town of barnstaple, the sum of five hundred pounds. that he had borrowed it on the written statement that it was to be laid out in furtherance of a speculation which he expected would raise him to independence; he being, at the time of writing that letter, no more than a clerk in the house of dringworth brothers, america square, london. that the money was borrowed for a stipulated period; but that, when the term was out, the aforesaid speculation failed, and clissold was without means of repayment. that, hereupon, he had written to his creditor, in no very persuasive terms, vaguely requesting further time. that the creditor had refused this concession, declaring that he could not afford delay. that clissold then paid the debt, accompanying the remittance of the money with an angry letter describing it as having been advanced by a relative to save him from ruin. that, in acknowlodging the receipt, raybrock had cautioned clissold to seek to borrow money of him no more, as he would never so risk money again. before the lawyer the captain said never a word in reference to these discoveries. but when the papers had been put back in their box, and he and his two companions were well out of the office, his right leg suffered for it, and he said,-- "so far this run's begun with a fair wind and a prosperous; for don't you see that all this agrees with that dutiful trust in his father maintained by the slow member of the raybrock family?" whether the brothers had seen it before or no, they saw it now. not that the captain gave them much time to contemplate the state of things at their ease, for he instantly whipped them into a chaise again, and bore them off to steepways. although the afternoon was but just beginning to decline when they reached it, and it was broad day-light, still they had no difficulty, by dint of muffing the returned sailor up, and ascending the village rather than descending it, in reaching tregarthen's cottage unobserved. kitty was not visible, and they surprised tregarthen sitting writing in the small bay-window of his little room. "sir," said the captain, instantly shaking hands with him, pen and all, "i'm glad to see you, sir. how do you do, sir? i told you you'd think better of me by-and-by, and i congratulate you on going to do it." here the captain's eye fell on tom pettifer ho, engaged in preparing some cookery at the fire. "that critter," said the captain, smiting his leg, "is a born steward, and never ought to have been in any other way of life. stop where you are, tom, and make yourself useful. now, tregarthen, i'm going to try a chair." accordingly the captain drew one close to him, and went on:-- "this loving member of the raybrock family you know, sir. this slow member of the same family you don't know, sir. wa'al, these two are brothers,--fact! hugh's come to life again, and here he stands. now see here, my friend! you don't want to be told that he was cast away, but you do want to be told (for there's a purpose in it) that he was cast away with another man. that man by name was lawrence clissold." at the mention of this name tregarthen started and changed colour. "what's the matter?" said the captain. "he was a fellow-clerk of mine thirty--five-and-thirty--years ago." "true," said the captain, immediately catching at the clew: "dringworth brothers, america square, london city." the other started again, nodded, and said, "that was the house." "now," pursued the captain, "between those two men cast away there arose a mystery concerning the round sum of five hundred pound." again tregarthen started, changing colour. again the captain said, "what's the matter?" as tregarthen only answered, "please to go on," the captain recounted, very tersely and plainly, the nature of clissold's wanderings on the barren island, as he had condensed them in his mind from the seafaring man. tregarthen became greatly agitated during this recital, and at length exclaimed,-- "clissold was the man who ruined me! i have suspected it for many a long year, and now i know it." "and how," said the captain, drawing his chair still closer to tregarthen, and clapping his hand upon his shoulder,--"how may you know it?" "when we were fellow-clerks," replied tregarthen, "in that london house, it was one of my duties to enter daily in a certain book an account of the sums received that day by the firm, and afterward paid into the bankers'. one memorable day,--a wednesday, the black day of my life,--among the sums i so entered was one of five hundred pounds." "i begin to make it out," said the captain. "yes?" "it was one of clissold's duties to copy from this entry a memorandum of the sums which the clerk employed to go to the bankers' paid in there. it was my duty to hand the money to clissold; it was clissold's to hand it to the clerk, with that memorandum of his writing. on that wednesday i entered a sum of five hundred pounds received. i handed that sum, as i handed the other sums in the day's entry, to clissold. i was absolutely certain of it at the time; i have been absolutely certain of it ever since. a sum of five hundred pounds was afterward found by the house to have been that day wanting from the bag, from clissold's memorandum, and from the entries in my book. clissold, being questioned, stood upon his perfect clearness in the matter, and emphatically declared that he asked no better than to be tested by 'tregarthen's book.' my book was examined, and the entry of five hundred pounds was not there." "how not there," said the captain, "when you made it yourself?" tregarthen continued:-- "i was then questioned. had i made the entry? certainly i had. the house produced my book, and it was not there. i could not deny my book; i could not deny my writing. i knew there must be forgery by some one; but the writing was wonderfully like mine, and i could impeach no one if the house could not. i was required to pay the money back. i did so; and i left the house, almost broken-hearted, rather than remain there,--even if i could have done so,--with a dark shadow of suspicion always on me. i returned to my native place, lanrean, and remained there, clerk to a mine, until i was appointed to my little post here." "i well remember," said the captain, "that i told you that if you had no experience of ill judgments on deceiving appearances, you were a lucky man. you went hurt at that, and i see why. i'm sorry." "thus it is," said tregarthen. "of my own innocence i have of course been sure; it has been at once my comfort and my trial. of clissold i have always had suspicions almost amounting to certainty; but they have never been confirmed until now. for my daughter's sake and for my own i have carried this subject in my own heart, as the only secret of my life, and have long believed that it would die with me." "wa'al, my good sir," said the captain cordially, "the present question is, and will be long, i hope, concerning living, and not dying. now, here are our two honest friends, the loving raybrock and the slow. here they stand, agreed on one point, on which i'd back 'em round the world, and right across it from north to south, and then again from east to west, and through it, from your deepest cornish mine to china. it is, that they will never use this same so-often-mentioned sum of money, and that restitution of it must be made to you. these two, the loving member and the slow, for the sake of the right and of their father's memory, will have it ready for you to-morrow. take it, and ease their minds and mine, and end a most unfortunate transaction." tregarthen took the captain by the hand, and gave his hand to each of the young men, but positively and finally answered no. he said, they trusted to his word, and he was glad of it, and at rest in his mind; but there was no proof, and the money must remain as it was. all were very earnest over this; and earnestness in men, when they are right and true, is so impressive, that mr. pettifer deserted his cookery and looked on quite moved. "and so," said the captain, "so we come--as that lawyer-crittur over yonder where we were this morning might--to mere proof; do we? we must have it; must we? how? from this clissold's wanderings, and from what you say, it ain't hard to make out that there was a neat forgery of your writing committed by the too smart rowdy that was grease and ashes when i made his acquaintance, and a substitution of a forged leaf in your book for a real and torn leaf torn out. now was that real and true leaf then and there destroyed? no,--for says he, in his drunken way, he slipped it into a crack in his own desk, because you came into the office before there was time to burn it, and could never get back to it arterwards. wait a bit. where is that desk now? do you consider it likely to be in america square, london city?" tregarthen shook his head. "the house has not, for years, transacted business in that place. i have heard of it, and read of it, as removed, enlarged, every way altered. things alter so fast in these times." "you think so," returned the captain, with compassion; "but you should come over and see _me_ afore you talk about _that_. wa'al, now. this desk, this paper,--this paper, this desk," said the captain, ruminating and walking about, and looking, in his uneasy abstraction, into mr. pettifer's hat on a table, among other things. "this desk, this paper,--this paper, this desk," the captain continued, musing and roaming about the room, "i'd give--" however, he gave nothing, but took up his steward's hat instead, and stood looking into it, as if he had just come into church. after that he roamed again, and again said, "this desk, belonging to this house of dringworth brothers, america square, london city--" mr. pettifer, still strangely moved, and now more moved than before, cut the captain off as he backed across the room, and bespake him thus:-- "captain jorgan, i have been wishful to engage your attention, but i couldn't do it. i am unwilling to interrupt captain jorgan, but i must do it. _i_ knew something about that house." the captain stood stock-still and looked at him,--with his (mr. pettifer's) hat under his arm. "you're aware," pursued his steward, "that i was once in the broking business, captain jorgan?" "i was aware," said the captain, "that you had failed in that calling, and in half the businesses going, tom." "not quite so, captain jorgan; but i failed in the broking business. i was partners with my brother, sir. there was a sale of old office furniture at dringworth brothers' when the house was moved from america square, and me and my brother made what we call in the trade a deal there, sir. and i'll make bold to say, sir, that the only thing i ever had from my brother, or from any relation,--for my relations have mostly taken property from me instead of giving me any,--was an old desk we bought at that same sale, with a crack in it. my brother wouldn't have given me even that, when we broke partnership, if it had been worth anything." "where is that desk now?" said the captain. "well, captain jorgan," replied the steward, "i couldn't say for certain where it is now; but when i saw it last,--which was last time we were outward bound,--it was at a very nice lady's at wapping, along with a little chest of mine which was detained for a small matter of a bill owing." the captain, instead of paying that rapt attention to his steward which was rendered by the other three persons present, went to church again, in respect of the steward's hat. and a most especially agitated and memorable face the captain produced from it, after a short pause. "now, tom," said the captain, "i spoke to you, when we first came here, respecting your constitutional weakness on the subject of sun-stroke." "you did, sir." "will my slow friend," said the captain, "lend me his arm, or i shall sink right back'ards into this blessed steward's cookery? now, tom," pursued the captain, when the required assistance was given, "on your oath as a steward, didn't you take that desk to pieces to make a better one of it, and put it together fresh,--or something of the kind?" "on my oath i did, sir," replied the steward. "and by the blessing of heaven, my friends, one and all," cried the captain, radiant with joy,--"of the heaven that put it into this tom pettifer's head to take so much care of his head against the bright sun,--he lined his hat with the original leaf in tregarthen's writing,--and here it is!" with that the captain, to the utter destruction of mr. pettifer's favourite hat, produced the book-leaf, very much worn, but still legible, and gave both his legs such tremendous slaps that they were heard far off in the bay, and never accounted for. "a quarter past five p.m.," said the captain, pulling out his watch, "and that's thirty-three hours and a quarter in all, and a pritty run!" how they were all overpowered with delight and triumph; how the money was restored, then and there, to tregarthen; how tregarthen, then and there, gave it all to his daughter; how the captain undertook to go to dringworth brothers and re-establish the reputation of their forgotten old clerk; how kitty came in, and was nearly torn to pieces, and the marriage was reappointed, needs not to be told. nor how she and the young fisherman went home to the post-office to prepare the way for the captain's coming, by declaring him to be the mightiest of men, who had made all their fortunes,--and then dutifully withdrew together, in order that he might have the domestic coast entirely to himself. how he availed himself of it is all that remains to tell. deeply delighted with his trust, and putting his heart into it, he raised the latch of the post-office parlour where mrs. raybrock and the young widow sat, and said,-- "may i come in?" "sure you may, captain jorgan!" replied the old lady. "and good reason you have to be free of the house, though you have not been too well used in it by some who ought to have known better. i ask your pardon." "no you don't, ma'am," said the captain, "for i won't let you. wa'al, to be sure!" by this time he had taken a chair on the hearth between them. "never felt such an evil spirit in the whole course of my life! there! i tell you! i could a'most have cut my own connection. like the dealer in my country, away west, who when he had let himself be outdone in a bargain, said to himself, 'now i tell you what! i'll never speak to you again.' and he never did, but joined a settlement of oysters, and translated the multiplication table into their language,--which is a fact that can be proved. if you doubt it, mention it to any oyster you come across, and see if he'll have the face to contradict it." he took the child from her mother's lap and set it on his knee. "not a bit afraid of me now, you see. knows i am fond of small people. i have a child, and she's a girl, and i sing to her sometimes." "what do you sing?" asked margaret. "not a long song, my dear. silas jorgan played the organ. that's about all. and sometimes i tell her stories,--stories of sailors supposed to be lost, and recovered after all hope was abandoned." here the captain musingly went back to his song,-- silas jorgan played the organ; repeating it with his eyes on the fire, as he softly danced the child on his knee. for he felt that margaret had stopped working. "yes," said the captain, still looking at the fire, "i make up stories and tell 'em to that child. stories of shipwreck on desert islands, and long delay in getting back to civilised lauds. it is to stories the like of that, mostly, that silas jorgan plays the organ." there was no light in the room but the light of the fire; for the shades of night were on the village, and the stars had begun to peep out of the sky one by one, as the houses of the village peeped out from among the foliage when the night departed. the captain felt that margaret's eyes were upon him, and thought it discreetest to keep his own eyes on the fire. "yes; i make 'em up," said the captain. "i make up stories of brothers brought together by the good providence of god,--of sons brought back to mothers, husbands brought back to wives, fathers raised from the deep, for little children like herself." margaret's touch was on his arm, and he could not choose but look round now. next moment her hand moved imploringly to his breast, and she was on her knees before him,--supporting the mother, who was also kneeling. "what's the matter?" said the captain. "what's the matter? silas jorgan played the-- their looks and tears were too much for him, and he could not finish the song, short as it was. "mistress margaret, you have borne ill fortune well. could you bear good fortune equally well, if it was to come?" "i hope so. i thankfully and humbly and earnestly hope so!" "wa'al, my dear," said the captain, "p'rhaps it has come. he's--don't be frightened--shall i say the word--" "alive?" "yes!" the thanks they fervently addressed to heaven were again too much for the captain, who openly took out his handkerchief and dried his eyes. "he's no further off," resumed the captain, "than my country. indeed, he's no further off than his own native country. to tell you the truth, he's no further off than falmouth. indeed, i doubt if he's quite so fur. indeed, if you was sure you could bear it nicely, and i was to do no more than whistle for him--" the captain's trust was discharged. a rush came, and they were all together again. this was a fine opportunity for tom pettifer to appear with a tumbler of cold water, and he presently appeared with it, and administered it to the ladies; at the same time soothing them, and composing their dresses, exactly as if they had been passengers crossing the channel. the extent to which the captain slapped his legs, when mr. pettifer acquitted himself of this act of stewardship, could have been thoroughly appreciated by no one but himself; inasmuch as he must have slapped them black and blue, and they must have smarted tremendously. he couldn't stay for the wedding, having a few appointments to keep at the irreconcilable distance of about four thousand miles. so next morning all the village cheered him up to the level ground above, and there he shook hands with a complete census of its population, and invited the whole, without exception, to come and stay several months with him at salem, mass., u.s. and there as he stood on the spot where he had seen that little golden picture of love and parting, and from which he could that morning contemplate another golden picture with a vista of golden years in it, little kitty put her arms around his neck, and kissed him on both his bronzed cheeks, and laid her pretty face upon his storm-beaten breast, in sight of all,--ashamed to have called such a noble captain names. and there the captain waved his hat over his head three final times; and there he was last seen, going away accompanied by tom pettifer ho, and carrying his hands in his pockets. and there, before that ground was softened with the fallen leaves of three more summers, a rosy little boy took his first unsteady run to a fair young mother's breast, and the name of that infant fisherman was jorgan raybrock. footnotes { } dicken's didn't write chapters three and four and they are omitted in this edition. the story continues with captain jorgan and alfred at lanrean. transcribed from the chapman and hall "christmas stories" edition by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk tom tiddler's ground chapter i--picking up soot and cinders "and why tom tiddler's ground?" said the traveller. "because he scatters halfpence to tramps and such-like," returned the landlord, "and of course they pick 'em up. and this being done on his own land (which it _is_ his own land, you observe, and were his family's before him), why it is but regarding the halfpence as gold and silver, and turning the ownership of the property a bit round your finger, and there you have the name of the children's game complete. and it's appropriate too," said the landlord, with his favourite action of stooping a little, to look across the table out of window at vacancy, under the window-blind which was half drawn down. "leastwise it has been so considered by many gentlemen which have partook of chops and tea in the present humble parlour." the traveller was partaking of chops and tea in the present humble parlour, and the landlord's shot was fired obliquely at him. "and you call him a hermit?" said the traveller. "they call him such," returned the landlord, evading personal responsibility; "he is in general so considered." "what _is_ a hermit?" asked the traveller. "what is it?" repeated the landlord, drawing his hand across his chin. "yes, what is it?" the landlord stooped again, to get a more comprehensive view of vacancy under the window-blind, and--with an asphyxiated appearance on him as one unaccustomed to definition--made no answer. "i'll tell you what i suppose it to be," said the traveller. "an abominably dirty thing." "mr. mopes is dirty, it cannot be denied," said the landlord. "intolerably conceited." "mr. mopes is vain of the life he leads, some do say," replied the landlord, as another concession. "a slothful, unsavoury, nasty reversal of the laws of human mature," said the traveller; "and for the sake of god's working world and its wholesomeness, both moral and physical, i would put the thing on the treadmill (if i had my way) wherever i found it; whether on a pillar, or in a hole; whether on tom tiddler's ground, or the pope of rome's ground, or a hindoo fakeer's ground, or any other ground." "i don't know about putting mr. mopes on the treadmill," said the landlord, shaking his head very seriously. "there ain't a doubt but what he has got landed property." "how far may it be to this said tom tiddler's ground?" asked the traveller. "put it at five mile," returned the landlord. "well! when i have done my breakfast," said the traveller, "i'll go there. i came over here this morning, to find it out and see it." "many does," observed the landlord. the conversation passed, in the midsummer weather of no remote year of grace, down among the pleasant dales and trout-streams of a green english county. no matter what county. enough that you may hunt there, shoot there, fish there, traverse long grass-grown roman roads there, open ancient barrows there, see many a square mile of richly cultivated land there, and hold arcadian talk with a bold peasantry, their country's pride, who will tell you (if you want to know) how pastoral housekeeping is done on nine shillings a week. mr. traveller sat at his breakfast in the little sanded parlour of the peal of bells village alehouse, with the dew and dust of an early walk upon his shoes--an early walk by road and meadow and coppice, that had sprinkled him bountifully with little blades of grass, and scraps of new hay, and with leaves both young and old, and with other such fragrant tokens of the freshness and wealth of summer. the window through which the landlord had concentrated his gaze upon vacancy was shaded, because the morning sun was hot and bright on the village street. the village street was like most other village streets: wide for its height, silent for its size, and drowsy in the dullest degree. the quietest little dwellings with the largest of window-shutters (to shut up nothing as carefully as if it were the mint, or the bank of england) had called in the doctor's house so suddenly, that his brass door-plate and three stories stood among them as conspicuous and different as the doctor himself in his broadcloth, among the smock-frocks of his patients. the village residences seemed to have gone to law with a similar absence of consideration, for a score of weak little lath-and-plaster cabins clung in confusion about the attorney's red-brick house, which, with glaring door-steps and a most terrific scraper, seemed to serve all manner of ejectments upon them. they were as various as labourers--high-shouldered, wry-necked, one-eyed, goggle-eyed, squinting, bow-legged, knock-knee'd, rheumatic, crazy. some of the small tradesmen's houses, such as the crockery-shop and the harness-maker, had a cyclops window in the middle of the gable, within an inch or two of its apex, suggesting that some forlorn rural prentice must wriggle himself into that apartment horizontally, when he retired to rest, after the manner of the worm. so bountiful in its abundance was the surrounding country, and so lean and scant the village, that one might have thought the village had sown and planted everything it once possessed, to convert the same into crops. this would account for the bareness of the little shops, the bareness of the few boards and trestles designed for market purposes in a corner of the street, the bareness of the obsolete inn and inn yard, with the ominous inscription "excise office" not yet faded out from the gateway, as indicating the very last thing that poverty could get rid of. this would also account for the determined abandonment of the village by one stray dog, fast lessening in the perspective where the white posts and the pond were, and would explain his conduct on the hypothesis that he was going (through the act of suicide) to convert himself into manure, and become a part proprietor in turnips or mangold-wurzel. mr. traveller having finished his breakfast and paid his moderate score, walked out to the threshold of the peal of bells, and, thence directed by the pointing finger of his host, betook himself towards the ruined hermitage of mr. mopes the hermit. for, mr. mopes, by suffering everything about him to go to ruin, and by dressing himself in a blanket and skewer, and by steeping himself in soot and grease and other nastiness, had acquired great renown in all that country-side--far greater renown than he could ever have won for himself, if his career had been that of any ordinary christian, or decent hottentot. he had even blanketed and skewered and sooted and greased himself, into the london papers. and it was curious to find, as mr. traveller found by stopping for a new direction at this farm-house or at that cottage as he went along, with how much accuracy the morbid mopes had counted on the weakness of his neighbours to embellish him. a mist of home-brewed marvel and romance surrounded mopes, in which (as in all fogs) the real proportions of the real object were extravagantly heightened. he had murdered his beautiful beloved in a fit of jealousy and was doing penance; he had made a vow under the influence of grief; he had made a vow under the influence of a fatal accident; he had made a vow under the influence of religion; he had made a vow under the influence of drink; he had made a vow under the influence of disappointment; he had never made any vow, but "had got led into it" by the possession of a mighty and most awful secret; he was enormously rich, he was stupendously charitable, he was profoundly learned, he saw spectres, he knew and could do all kinds of wonders. some said he went out every night, and was met by terrified wayfarers stalking along dark roads, others said he never went out, some knew his penance to be nearly expired, others had positive information that his seclusion was not a penance at all, and would never expire but with himself. even, as to the easy facts of how old he was, or how long he had held verminous occupation of his blanket and skewer, no consistent information was to be got, from those who must know if they would. he was represented as being all the ages between five-and-twenty and sixty, and as having been a hermit seven years, twelve, twenty, thirty,--though twenty, on the whole, appeared the favourite term. "well, well!" said mr. traveller. "at any rate, let us see what a real live hermit looks like." so, mr. traveller went on, and on, and on, until he came to tom tiddler's ground. it was a nook in a rustic by-road, which the genius of mopes had laid waste as completely, as if he had been born an emperor and a conqueror. its centre object was a dwelling-house, sufficiently substantial, all the window-glass of which had been long ago abolished by the surprising genius of mopes, and all the windows of which were barred across with rough-split logs of trees nailed over them on the outside. a rickyard, hip-high in vegetable rankness and ruin, contained outbuildings from which the thatch had lightly fluttered away, on all the winds of all the seasons of the year, and from which the planks and beams had heavily dropped and rotted. the frosts and damps of winter, and the heats of summer, had warped what wreck remained, so that not a post or a board retained the position it was meant to hold, but everything was twisted from its purpose, like its owner, and degraded and debased. in this homestead of the sluggard, behind the ruined hedge, and sinking away among the ruined grass and the nettles, were the last perishing fragments of certain ricks: which had gradually mildewed and collapsed, until they looked like mounds of rotten honeycomb, or dirty sponge. tom tiddler's ground could even show its ruined water; for, there was a slimy pond into which a tree or two had fallen--one soppy trunk and branches lay across it then--which in its accumulation of stagnant weed, and in its black decomposition, and in all its foulness and filth, was almost comforting, regarded as the only water that could have reflected the shameful place without seeming polluted by that low office. mr. traveller looked all around him on tom tiddler's ground, and his glance at last encountered a dusky tinker lying among the weeds and rank grass, in the shade of the dwelling-house. a rough walking-staff lay on the ground by his side, and his head rested on a small wallet. he met mr. traveller's eye without lifting up his head, merely depressing his chin a little (for he was lying on his back) to get a better view of him. "good day!" said mr. traveller. "same to you, if you like it," returned the tinker. "don't _you_ like it? it's a very fine day." "i ain't partickler in weather," returned the tinker, with a yawn. mr. traveller had walked up to where he lay, and was looking down at him. "this is a curious place," said mr. traveller. "ay, i suppose so!" returned the tinker. "tom tiddler's ground, they call this." "are you well acquainted with it?" "never saw it afore to-day," said the tinker, with another yawn, "and don't care if i never see it again. there was a man here just now, told me what it was called. if you want to see tom himself, you must go in at that gate." he faintly indicated with his chin a little mean ruin of a wooden gate at the side of the house. "have you seen tom?" "no, and i ain't partickler to see him. i can see a dirty man anywhere." "he does not live in the house, then?" said mr. traveller, casting his eyes upon the house anew. "the man said," returned the tinker, rather irritably,--"him as was here just now, 'this what you're a laying on, mate, is tom tiddler's ground. and if you want to see tom,' he says, 'you must go in at that gate.' the man come out at that gate himself, and he ought to know." "certainly," said mr. traveller. "though, perhaps," exclaimed the tinker, so struck by the brightness of his own idea, that it had the electric effect upon him of causing him to lift up his head an inch or so, "perhaps he was a liar! he told some rum 'uns--him as was here just now, did about this place of tom's. he says--him as was here just now--'when tom shut up the house, mate, to go to rack, the beds was left, all made, like as if somebody was a-going to sleep in every bed. and if you was to walk through the bedrooms now, you'd see the ragged mouldy bedclothes a heaving and a heaving like seas. and a heaving and a heaving with what?' he says. 'why, with the rats under 'em.'" "i wish i had seen that man," mr. traveller remarked. "you'd have been welcome to see him instead of me seeing him," growled the tinker; "for he was a long-winded one." not without a sense of injury in the remembrance, the tinker gloomily closed his eyes. mr. traveller, deeming the tinker a short-winded one, from whom no further breath of information was to be derived, betook himself to the gate. swung upon its rusty hinges, it admitted him into a yard in which there was nothing to be seen but an outhouse attached to the ruined building, with a barred window in it. as there were traces of many recent footsteps under this window, and as it was a low window, and unglazed, mr. traveller made bold to peep within the bars. and there to be sure he had a real live hermit before him, and could judge how the real dead hermits used to look. he was lying on a bank of soot and cinders, on the floor, in front of a rusty fireplace. there was nothing else in the dark little kitchen, or scullery, or whatever his den had been originally used as, but a table with a litter of old bottles on it. a rat made a clatter among these bottles, jumped down, and ran over the real live hermit on his way to his hole, or the man in _his_ hole would not have been so easily discernible. tickled in the face by the rat's tail, the owner of tom tiddler's ground opened his eyes, saw mr. traveller, started up, and sprang to the window. "humph!" thought mr. traveller, retiring a pace or two from the bars. "a compound of newgate, bedlam, a debtors' prison in the worst time, a chimney-sweep, a mudlark, and the noble savage! a nice old family, the hermit family. hah!" mr. traveller thought this, as he silently confronted the sooty object in the blanket and skewer (in sober truth it wore nothing else), with the matted hair and the staring eyes. further, mr. traveller thought, as the eye surveyed him with a very obvious curiosity in ascertaining the effect they produced, "vanity, vanity, vanity! verily, all is vanity!" "what is your name, sir, and where do you come from?" asked mr. mopes the hermit--with an air of authority, but in the ordinary human speech of one who has been to school. mr. traveller answered the inquiries. "did you come here, sir, to see _me_?" "i did. i heard of you, and i came to see you.--i know you like to be seen." mr. traveller coolly threw the last words in, as a matter of course, to forestall an affectation of resentment or objection that he saw rising beneath the grease and grime of the face. they had their effect. "so," said the hermit, after a momentary silence, unclasping the bars by which he had previously held, and seating himself behind them on the ledge of the window, with his bare legs and feet crouched up, "you know i like to be seen?" mr. traveller looked about him for something to sit on, and, observing a billet of wood in a corner, brought it near the window. deliberately seating himself upon it, he answered, "just so." each looked at the other, and each appeared to take some pains to get the measure of the other. "then you have come to ask me why i lead this life," said the hermit, frowning in a stormy manner. "i never tell that to any human being. i will not be asked that." "certainly you will not be asked that by me," said mr. traveller, "for i have not the slightest desire to know." "you are an uncouth man," said mr. mopes the hermit. "you are another," said mr. traveller. the hermit, who was plainly in the habit of overawing his visitors with the novelty of his filth and his blanket and skewer, glared at his present visitor in some discomfiture and surprise: as if he had taken aim at him with a sure gun, and his piece had missed fire. "why do you come here at all?" he asked, after a pause. "upon my life," said mr. traveller, "i was made to ask myself that very question only a few minutes ago--by a tinker too." as he glanced towards the gate in saying it, the hermit glanced in that direction likewise. "yes. he is lying on his back in the sunlight outside," said mr, traveller, as if he had been asked concerning the man, "and he won't come in; for he says--and really very reasonably--'what should i come in for? i can see a dirty man anywhere.'" "you are an insolent person. go away from my premises. go!" said the hermit, in an imperious and angry tone. "come, come!" returned mr. traveller, quite undisturbed. "this is a little too much. you are not going to call yourself clean? look at your legs. and as to these being your premises:--they are in far too disgraceful a condition to claim any privilege of ownership, or anything else." the hermit bounced down from his window-ledge, and cast himself on his bed of soot and cinders. "i am not going," said mr. traveller, glancing in after him; "you won't get rid of me in that way. you had better come and talk." "i won't talk," said the hermit, flouncing round to get his back towards the window. "then i will," said mr. traveller. "why should you take it ill that i have no curiosity to know why you live this highly absurd and highly indecent life? when i contemplate a man in a state of disease, surely there is no moral obligation on me to be anxious to know how he took it." after a short silence, the hermit bounced up again, and came back to the barred window. "what? you are not gone?" he said, affecting to have supposed that he was. "nor going," mr. traveller replied: "i design to pass this summer day here." "how dare you come, sir, upon my promises--" the hermit was returning, when his visitor interrupted him. "really, you know, you must _not_ talk about your premises. i cannot allow such a place as this to be dignified with the name of premises." "how dare you," said the hermit, shaking his bars, "come in at my gate, to taunt me with being in a diseased state?" "why, lord bless my soul," returned the other, very composedly, "you have not the face to say that you are in a wholesome state? do allow me again to call your attention to your legs. scrape yourself anywhere--with anything--and then tell me you are in a wholesome state. the fact is, mr. mopes, that you are not only a nuisance--" "a nuisance?" repeated the hermit, fiercely. "what is a place in this obscene state of dilapidation but a nuisance? what is a man in your obscene state of dilapidation but a nuisance? then, as you very well know, you cannot do without an audience, and your audience is a nuisance. you attract all the disreputable vagabonds and prowlers within ten miles around, by exhibiting yourself to them in that objectionable blanket, and by throwing copper money among them, and giving them drink out of those very dirty jars and bottles that i see in there (their stomachs need be strong!); and in short," said mr. traveller, summing up in a quietly and comfortably settled manner, "you are a nuisance, and this kennel is a nuisance, and the audience that you cannot possibly dispense with is a nuisance, and the nuisance is not merely a local nuisance, because it is a general nuisance to know that there _can be_ such a nuisance left in civilisation so very long after its time." "will you go away? i have a gun in here," said the hermit. "pooh!" "i _have_!" "now, i put it to you. did i say you had not? and as to going away, didn't i say i am not going away? you have made me forget where i was. i now remember that i was remarking on your conduct being a nuisance. moreover, it is in the last and lowest degree inconsequent foolishness and weakness." "weakness?" echoed the hermit. "weakness," said mr. traveller, with his former comfortably settled final air. "i weak, you fool?" cried the hermit, "i, who have held to my purpose, and my diet, and my only bed there, all these years?" "the more the years, the weaker you," returned mr. traveller. "though the years are not so many as folks say, and as you willingly take credit for. the crust upon your face is thick and dark, mr. mopes, but i can see enough of you through it, to see that you are still a young man." "inconsequent foolishness is lunacy, i suppose?" said the hermit. "i suppose it is very like it," answered mr. traveller. "do i converse like a lunatic?" "one of us two must have a strong presumption against him of being one, whether or no. either the clean and decorously clad man, or the dirty and indecorously clad man. i don't say which." "why, you self-sufficient bear," said the hermit, "not a day passes but i am justified in my purpose by the conversations i hold here; not a day passes but i am shown, by everything i hear and see here, how right and strong i am in holding my purpose." mr. traveller, lounging easily on his billet of wood, took out a pocket pipe and began to fill it. "now, that a man," he said, appealing to the summer sky as he did so, "that a man--even behind bars, in a blanket and skewer--should tell me that he can see, from day to day, any orders or conditions of men, women, or children, who can by any possibility teach him that it is anything but the miserablest drivelling for a human creature to quarrel with his social nature--not to go so far as to say, to renounce his common human decency, for that is an extreme case; or who can teach him that he can in any wise separate himself from his kind and the habits of his kind, without becoming a deteriorated spectacle calculated to give the devil (and perhaps the monkeys) pleasure,--is something wonderful! i repeat," said mr. traveller, beginning to smoke, "the unreasoning hardihood of it is something wonderful--even in a man with the dirt upon him an inch or two thick--behind bars--in a blanket and skewer!" the hermit looked at him irresolutely, and retired to his soot and cinders and lay down, and got up again and came to the bars, and again looked at him irresolutely, and finally said with sharpness: "i don't like tobacco." "i don't like dirt," rejoined mr. traveller; "tobacco is an excellent disinfectant. we shall both be the better for my pipe. it is my intention to sit here through this summer day, until that blessed summer sun sinks low in the west, and to show you what a poor creature you are, through the lips of every chance wayfarer who may come in at your gate." "what do you mean?" inquired the hermit, with a furious air. "i mean that yonder is your gate, and there are you, and here am i; i mean that i know it to be a moral impossibility that any person can stray in at that gate from any point of the compass, with any sort of experience, gained at first hand, or derived from another, that can confute me and justify you." "you are an arrogant and boastful hero," said the hermit. "you think yourself profoundly wise." "bah!" returned mr. traveller, quietly smoking. "there is little wisdom in knowing that every man must be up and doing, and that all mankind are made dependent on one another." "you have companions outside," said the hermit. "i am not to be imposed upon by your assumed confidence in the people who may enter." "a depraved distrust," returned the visitor, compassionately raising his eyebrows, "of course belongs to your state, i can't help that." "do you mean to tell me you have no confederates?" "i mean to tell you nothing but what i have told you. what i have told you is, that it is a moral impossibility that any son or daughter of adam can stand on this ground that i put my foot on, or on any ground that mortal treads, and gainsay the healthy tenure on which we hold our existence." "which is," sneered the hermit, "according to you--" "which is," returned the other, "according to eternal providence, that we must arise and wash our faces and do our gregarious work and act and re- act on one another, leaving only the idiot and the palsied to sit blinking in the corner. come!" apostrophising the gate. "open sesame! show his eyes and grieve his heart! i don't care who comes, for i know what must come of it!" with that, he faced round a little on his billet of wood towards the gate; and mr. mopes, the hermit, after two or three ridiculous bounces of indecision at his bed and back again, submitted to what he could not help himself against, and coiled himself on his window-ledge, holding to his bars and looking out rather anxiously. chapter vi--picking up miss kimmeens { } the day was by this time waning, when the gate again opened, and, with the brilliant golden light that streamed from the declining sun and touched the very bars of the sooty creature's den, there passed in a little child; a little girl with beautiful bright hair. she wore a plain straw hat, had a door-key in her hand, and tripped towards mr. traveller as if she were pleased to see him and were going to repose some childish confidence in him, when she caught sight of the figure behind the bars, and started back in terror. "don't be alarmed, darling!" said mr. traveller, taking her by the hand. "oh, but i don't like it!" urged the shrinking child; "it's dreadful." "well! i don't like it either," said mr. traveller. "who has put it there?" asked the little girl. "does it bite?" "no,--only barks. but can't you make up your mind to see it, my dear?" for she was covering her eyes. "o no no no!" returned the child. "i cannot bear to look at it!" mr. traveller turned his head towards his friend in there, as much as to ask him how he liked that instance of his success, and then took the child out at the still open gate, and stood talking to her for some half an hour in the mellow sunlight. at length he returned, encouraging her as she held his arm with both her hands; and laying his protecting hand upon her head and smoothing her pretty hair, he addressed his friend behind the bars as follows: * * * * * miss pupford's establishment for six young ladies of tender years, is an establishment of a compact nature, an establishment in miniature, quite a pocket establishment. miss pupford, miss pupford's assistant with the parisian accent, miss pupford's cook, and miss pupford's housemaid, complete what miss pupford calls the educational and domestic staff of her lilliputian college. miss pupford is one of the most amiable of her sex; it necessarily follows that she possesses a sweet temper, and would own to the possession of a great deal of sentiment if she considered it quite reconcilable with her duty to parents. deeming it not in the bond, miss pupford keeps it as far out of sight as she can--which (god bless her!) is not very far. miss pupford's assistant with the parisian accent, may be regarded as in some sort an inspired lady, for she never conversed with a parisian, and was never out of england--except once in the pleasure-boat lively, in the foreign waters that ebb and flow two miles off margate at high water. even under those geographically favourable circumstances for the acquisition of the french language in its utmost politeness and purity, miss pupford's assistant did not fully profit by the opportunity; for the pleasure-boat, lively, so strongly asserted its title to its name on that occasion, that she was reduced to the condition of lying in the bottom of the boat pickling in brine--as if she were being salted down for the use of the navy--undergoing at the same time great mental alarm, corporeal distress, and clear-starching derangement. when miss pupford and her assistant first foregathered, is not known to men, or pupils. but, it was long ago. a belief would have established itself among pupils that the two once went to school together, were it not for the difficulty and audacity of imagining miss pupford born without mittens, and without a front, and without a bit of gold wire among her front teeth, and without little dabs of powder on her neat little face and nose. indeed, whenever miss pupford gives a little lecture on the mythology of the misguided heathens (always carefully excluding cupid from recognition), and tells how minerva sprang, perfectly equipped, from the brain of jupiter, she is half supposed to hint, "so i myself came into the world, completely up in pinnock, mangnall, tables, and the use of the globes." howbeit, miss pupford and miss pupford's assistant are old old friends. and it is thought by pupils that, after pupils are gone to bed, they even call one another by their christian names in the quiet little parlour. for, once upon a time on a thunderous afternoon, when miss pupford fainted away without notice, miss pupford's assistant (never heard, before or since, to address her otherwise than as miss pupford) ran to her, crying out, "my dearest euphemia!" and euphemia is miss pupford's christian name on the sampler (date picked out) hanging up in the college- hall, where the two peacocks, terrified to death by some german text that is waddling down-hill after them out of a cottage, are scuttling away to hide their profiles in two immense bean-stalks growing out of flower-pots. also, there is a notion latent among pupils, that miss pupford was once in love, and that the beloved object still moves upon this ball. also, that he is a public character, and a personage of vast consequence. also, that miss pupford's assistant knows all about it. for, sometimes of an afternoon when miss pupford has been reading the paper through her little gold eye-glass (it is necessary to read it on the spot, as the boy calls for it, with ill-conditioned punctuality, in an hour), she has become agitated, and has said to her assistant "g!" then miss pupford's assistant has gone to miss pupford, and miss pupford has pointed out, with her eye-glass, g in the paper, and then miss pupford's assistant has read about g, and has shown sympathy. so stimulated has the pupil-mind been in its time to curiosity on the subject of g, that once, under temporary circumstances favourable to the bold sally, one fearless pupil did actually obtain possession of the paper, and range all over it in search of g, who had been discovered therein by miss pupford not ten minutes before. but no g could be identified, except one capital offender who had been executed in a state of great hardihood, and it was not to be supposed that miss pupford could ever have loved _him_. besides, he couldn't be always being executed. besides, he got into the paper again, alive, within a month. on the whole, it is suspected by the pupil-mind that g is a short chubby old gentleman, with little black sealing-wax boots up to his knees, whom a sharply observant pupil, miss linx, when she once went to tunbridge wells with miss pupford for the holidays, reported on her return (privately and confidentially) to have seen come capering up to miss pupford on the promenade, and to have detected in the act of squeezing miss pupford's hand, and to have heard pronounce the words, "cruel euphemia, ever thine!"--or something like that. miss linx hazarded a guess that he might be house of commons, or money market, or court circular, or fashionable movements; which would account for his getting into the paper so often. but, it was fatally objected by the pupil-mind, that none of those notabilities could possibly be spelt with a g. there are other occasions, closely watched and perfectly comprehended by the pupil-mind, when miss pupford imparts with mystery to her assistant that there is special excitement in the morning paper. these occasions are, when miss pupford finds an old pupil coming out under the head of births, or marriages. affectionate tears are invariably seen in miss pupford's meek little eyes when this is the case; and the pupil-mind, perceiving that its order has distinguished itself--though the fact is never mentioned by miss pupford--becomes elevated, and feels that it likewise is reserved for greatness. miss pupford's assistant with the parisian accent has a little more bone than miss pupford, but is of the same trim orderly diminutive cast, and, from long contemplation, admiration, and imitation of miss pupford, has grown like her. being entirely devoted to miss pupford, and having a pretty talent for pencil-drawing, she once made a portrait of that lady: which was so instantly identified and hailed by the pupils, that it was done on stone at five shillings. surely the softest and milkiest stone that ever was quarried, received that likeness of miss pupford! the lines of her placid little nose are so undecided in it that strangers to the work of art are observed to be exceedingly perplexed as to where the nose goes to, and involuntarily feel their own noses in a disconcerted manner. miss pupford being represented in a state of dejection at an open window, ruminating over a bowl of gold fish, the pupil-mind has settled that the bowl was presented by g, and that he wreathed the bowl with flowers of soul, and that miss pupford is depicted as waiting for him on a memorable occasion when he was behind his time. the approach of the last midsummer holidays had a particular interest for the pupil-mind, by reason of its knowing that miss pupford was bidden, on the second day of those holidays, to the nuptials of a former pupil. as it was impossible to conceal the fact--so extensive were the dress-making preparations--miss pupford openly announced it. but, she held it due to parents to make the announcement with an air of gentle melancholy, as if marriage were (as indeed it exceptionally has been) rather a calamity. with an air of softened resignation and pity, therefore, miss pupford went on with her preparations: and meanwhile no pupil ever went up-stairs, or came down, without peeping in at the door of miss pupford's bedroom (when miss pupford wasn't there), and bringing back some surprising intelligence concerning the bonnet. the extensive preparations being completed on the day before the holidays, an unanimous entreaty was preferred to miss pupford by the pupil-mind--finding expression through miss pupford's assistant--that she would deign to appear in all her splendour. miss pupford consenting, presented a lovely spectacle. and although the oldest pupil was barely thirteen, every one of the six became in two minutes perfect in the shape, cut, colour, price, and quality, of every article miss pupford wore. thus delightfully ushered in, the holidays began. five of the six pupils kissed little kitty kimmeens twenty times over (round total, one hundred times, for she was very popular), and so went home. miss kitty kimmeens remained behind, for her relations and friends were all in india, far away. a self-helpful steady little child is miss kitty kimmeens: a dimpled child too, and a loving. so, the great marriage-day came, and miss pupford, quite as much fluttered as any bride could be (g! thought miss kitty kimmeens), went away, splendid to behold, in the carriage that was sent for her. but not miss pupford only went away; for miss pupford's assistant went away with her, on a dutiful visit to an aged uncle--though surely the venerable gentleman couldn't live in the gallery of the church where the marriage was to be, thought miss kitty kimmeens--and yet miss pupford's assistant had let out that she was going there. where the cook was going, didn't appear, but she generally conveyed to miss kimmeens that she was bound, rather against her will, on a pilgrimage to perform some pious office that rendered new ribbons necessary to her best bonnet, and also sandals to her shoes. "so you see," said the housemaid, when they were all gone, "there's nobody left in the house but you and me, miss kimmeens." "nobody else," said miss kitty kimmeens, shaking her curls a little sadly. "nobody!" "and you wouldn't like your bella to go too; would you, miss kimmeens?" said the housemaid. (she being bella.) "n-no," answered little miss kimmeens. "your poor bella is forced to stay with you, whether she likes it or not; ain't she, miss kimmeens?" "_don't_ you like it?" inquired kitty. "why, you're such a darling, miss, that it would be unkind of your bella to make objections. yet my brother-in-law has been took unexpected bad by this morning's post. and your poor bella is much attached to him, letting alone her favourite sister, miss kimmeens." "is he very ill?" asked little kitty. "your poor bella has her fears so, miss kimmeens," returned the housemaid, with her apron at her eyes. "it was but his inside, it is true, but it might mount, and the doctor said that if it mounted he wouldn't answer." here the housemaid was so overcome that kitty administered the only comfort she had ready: which was a kiss. "if it hadn't been for disappointing cook, dear miss kimmeens," said the housemaid, "your bella would have asked her to stay with you. for cook is sweet company, miss kimmeens, much more so than your own poor bella." "but you are very nice, bella." "your bella could wish to be so, miss kimmeens," returned the housemaid, "but she knows full well that it do not lay in her power this day." with which despondent conviction, the housemaid drew a heavy sigh, and shook her head, and dropped it on one side. "if it had been anyways right to disappoint cook," she pursued, in a contemplative and abstracted manner, "it might have been so easy done! i could have got to my brother-in-law's, and had the best part of the day there, and got back, long before our ladies come home at night, and neither the one nor the other of them need never have known it. not that miss pupford would at all object, but that it might put her out, being tender-hearted. hows'ever, your own poor bella, miss kimmeens," said the housemaid, rousing herself, "is forced to stay with you, and you're a precious love, if not a liberty." "bella," said little kitty, after a short silence. "call your own poor bella, your bella, dear," the housemaid besought her. "my bella, then." "bless your considerate heart!" said the housemaid. "if you would not mind leaving me, i should not mind being left. i am not afraid to stay in the house alone. and you need not be uneasy on my account, for i would be very careful to do no harm." "o! as to harm, you more than sweetest, if not a liberty," exclaimed the housemaid, in a rapture, "your bella could trust you anywhere, being so steady, and so answerable. the oldest head in this house (me and cook says), but for its bright hair, is miss kimmeens. but no, i will not leave you; for you would think your bella unkind." "but if you are my bella, you _must_ go," returned the child. "must i?" said the housemaid, rising, on the whole with alacrity. "what must be, must be, miss kimmeens. your own poor bella acts according, though unwilling. but go or stay, your own poor bella loves you, miss kimmeens." it was certainly go, and not stay, for within five minutes miss kimmeens's own poor bella--so much improved in point of spirits as to have grown almost sanguine on the subject of her brother-in-law--went her way, in apparel that seemed to have been expressly prepared for some festive occasion. such are the changes of this fleeting world, and so short-sighted are we poor mortals! when the house door closed with a bang and a shake, it seemed to miss kimmeens to be a very heavy house door, shutting her up in a wilderness of a house. but, miss kimmeens being, as before stated, of a self-reliant and methodical character, presently began to parcel out the long summer-day before her. and first she thought she would go all over the house, to make quite sure that nobody with a great-coat on and a carving-knife in it, had got under one of the beds or into one of the cupboards. not that she had ever before been troubled by the image of anybody armed with a great-coat and a carving-knife, but that it seemed to have been shaken into existence by the shake and the bang of the great street-door, reverberating through the solitary house. so, little miss kimmeens looked under the five empty beds of the five departed pupils, and looked, under her own bed, and looked under miss pupford's bed, and looked under miss pupford's assistants bed. and when she had done this, and was making the tour of the cupboards, the disagreeable thought came into her young head, what a very alarming thing it would be to find somebody with a mask on, like guy fawkes, hiding bolt upright in a corner and pretending not to be alive! however, miss kimmeens having finished her inspection without making any such uncomfortable discovery, sat down in her tidy little manner to needlework, and began stitching away at a great rate. the silence all about her soon grew very oppressive, and the more so because of the odd inconsistency that the more silent it was, the more noises there were. the noise of her own needle and thread as she stitched, was infinitely louder in her ears than the stitching of all the six pupils, and of miss pupford, and of miss pupford's assistant, all stitching away at once on a highly emulative afternoon. then, the schoolroom clock conducted itself in a way in which it had never conducted itself before--fell lame, somehow, and yet persisted in running on as hard and as loud as it could: the consequence of which behaviour was, that it staggered among the minutes in a state of the greatest confusion, and knocked them about in all directions without appearing to get on with its regular work. perhaps this alarmed the stairs; but be that as it might, they began to creak in a most unusual manner, and then the furniture began to crack, and then poor little miss kimmeens, not liking the furtive aspect of things in general, began to sing as she stitched. but, it was not her own voice that she heard--it was somebody else making believe to be kitty, and singing excessively flat, without any heart--so as that would never mend matters, she left off again. by-and-by the stitching became so palpable a failure that miss kitty kimmeens folded her work neatly, and put it away in its box, and gave it up. then the question arose about reading. but no; the book that was so delightful when there was somebody she loved for her eyes to fall on when they rose from the page, had not more heart in it than her own singing now. the book went to its shelf as the needlework had gone to its box, and, since something _must_ be done--thought the child, "i'll go put my room to rights." she shared her room with her dearest little friend among the other five pupils, and why then should she now conceive a lurking dread of the little friend's bedstead? but she did. there was a stealthy air about its innocent white curtains, and there were even dark hints of a dead girl lying under the coverlet. the great want of human company, the great need of a human face, began now to express itself in the facility with which the furniture put on strange exaggerated resemblances to human looks. a chair with a menacing frown was horribly out of temper in a corner; a most vicious chest of drawers snarled at her from between the windows. it was no relief to escape from those monsters to the looking- glass, for the reflection said, "what? is that you all alone there? how you stare!" and the background was all a great void stare as well. the day dragged on, dragging kitty with it very slowly by the hair of her head, until it was time to eat. there were good provisions in the pantry, but their right flavour and relish had evaporated with the five pupils, and miss pupford, and miss pupford's assistant, and the cook and housemaid. where was the use of laying the cloth symmetrically for one small guest, who had gone on ever since the morning growing smaller and smaller, while the empty house had gone on swelling larger and larger? the very grace came out wrong, for who were "we" who were going to receive and be thankful? so, miss kimmeens was _not_ thankful, and found herself taking her dinner in very slovenly style--gobbling it up, in short, rather after the manner of the lower animals, not to particularise the pigs. but, this was by no means the worst of the change wrought out in the naturally loving and cheery little creature as the solitary day wore on. she began to brood and be suspicious. she discovered that she was full of wrongs and injuries. all the people she knew, got tainted by her lonely thoughts and turned bad. it was all very well for papa, a widower in india, to send her home to be educated, and to pay a handsome round sum every year for her to miss pupford, and to write charming letters to his darling little daughter; but what did he care for her being left by herself, when he was (as no doubt he always was) enjoying himself in company from morning till night? perhaps he only sent her here, after all, to get her out of the way. it looked like it--looked like it to-day, that is, for she had never dreamed of such a thing before. and this old pupil who was being married. it was unsupportably conceited and selfish in the old pupil to be married. she was very vain, and very glad to show off; but it was highly probable that she wasn't pretty; and even if she were pretty (which miss kimmeens now totally denied), she had no business to be married; and, even if marriage were conceded, she had no business to ask miss pupford to her wedding. as to miss pupford, she was too old to go to any wedding. she ought to know that. she had much better attend to her business. she had thought she looked nice in the morning, but she didn't look nice. she was a stupid old thing. g was another stupid old thing. miss pupford's assistant was another. they were all stupid old things together. more than that: it began to be obvious that this was a plot. they had said to one another, "never mind kitty; you get off, and i'll get off; and we'll leave kitty to look after herself. who cares for her?" to be sure they were right in that question; for who _did_ care for her, a poor little lonely thing against whom they all planned and plotted? nobody, nobody! here kitty sobbed. at all other times she was the pet of the whole house, and loved her five companions in return with a child's tenderest and most ingenuous attachment; but now, the five companions put on ugly colours, and appeared for the first time under a sullen cloud. there they were, all at their homes that day, being made much of, being taken out, being spoilt and made disagreeable, and caring nothing for her. it was like their artful selfishness always to tell her when they came back, under pretence of confidence and friendship, all those details about where they had been, and what they had done and seen, and how often they had said, "o! if we had only darling little kitty here!" here indeed! i dare say! when they came back after the holidays, they were used to being received by kitty, and to saying that coming to kitty was like coming to another home. very well then, why did they go away? if the meant it, why did they go away? let them answer that. but they didn't mean it, and couldn't answer that, and they didn't tell the truth, and people who didn't tell the truth were hateful. when they came back next time, they should be received in a new manner; they should be avoided and shunned. and there, the while she sat all alone revolving how ill she was used, and how much better she was than the people who were not alone, the wedding breakfast was going on: no question of it! with a nasty great bride-cake, and with those ridiculous orange-flowers, and with that conceited bride, and that hideous bridegroom, and those heartless bridesmaids, and miss pupford stuck up at the table! they thought they were enjoying themselves, but it would come home to them one day to have thought so. they would all be dead in a few years, let them enjoy themselves ever so much. it was a religious comfort to know that. it was such a comfort to know it, that little miss kitty kimmeens suddenly sprang from the chair in which she had been musing in a corner, and cried out, "o those envious thoughts are not mine, o this wicked creature isn't me! help me, somebody! i go wrong, alone by my weak self! help me, anybody!" * * * * * "--miss kimmeens is not a professed philosopher, sir," said mr. traveller, presenting her at the barred window, and smoothing her shining hair, "but i apprehend there was some tincture of philosophy in her words, and in the prompt action with which she followed them. that action was, to emerge from her unnatural solitude, and look abroad for wholesome sympathy, to bestow and to receive. her footsteps strayed to this gate, bringing her here by chance, as an apposite contrast to you. the child came out, sir. if you have the wisdom to learn from a child (but i doubt it, for that requires more wisdom than one in your condition would seem to possess), you cannot do better than imitate the child, and come out too--from that very demoralising hutch of yours." chapter vii--picking up the tinker it was now sunset. the hermit had betaken himself to his bed of cinders half an hour ago, and lying on it in his blanket and skewer with his back to the window, took not the smallest heed of the appeal addressed to him. all that had been said for the last two hours, had been said to a tinkling accompaniment performed by the tinker, who had got to work upon some villager's pot or kettle, and was working briskly outside. this music still continuing, seemed to put it into mr. traveller's mind to have another word or two with the tinker. so, holding miss kimmeens (with whom he was now on the most friendly terms) by the hand, he went out at the gate to where the tinker was seated at his work on the patch of grass on the opposite side of the road, with his wallet of tools open before him, and his little fire smoking. "i am glad to see you employed," said mr. traveller. "i am glad to _be_ employed," returned the tinker, looking up as he put the finishing touches to his job. "but why are you glad?" "i thought you were a lazy fellow when i saw you this morning." "i was only disgusted," said the tinker. "do you mean with the fine weather?" "with the fine weather?" repeated the tinker, staring. "you told me you were not particular as to weather, and i thought--" "ha, ha! how should such as me get on, if we _was_ particular as to weather? we must take it as it comes, and make the best of it. there's something good in all weathers. if it don't happen to be good for my work to-day, it's good for some other man's to-day, and will come round to me to-morrow. we must all live." "pray shake hands," said mr. traveller. "take care, sir," was the tinker's caution, as he reached up his hand in surprise; "the black comes off." "i am glad of it," said mr. traveller. "i have been for several hours among other black that does not come off." "you are speaking of tom in there?" "yes." "well now," said the tinker, blowing the dust off his job: which was finished. "ain't it enough to disgust a pig, if he could give his mind to it?" "if he could give his mind to it," returned the other, smiling, "the probability is that he wouldn't be a pig." "there you clench the nail," returned the tinker. "then what's to be said for tom?" "truly, very little." "truly nothing you mean, sir," said the tinker, as he put away his tools. "a better answer, and (i freely acknowledge) my meaning. i infer that he was the cause of your disgust?" "why, look'ee here, sir," said the tinker, rising to his feet, and wiping his face on the corner of his black apron energetically; "i leave you to judge!--i ask you!--last night i has a job that needs to be done in the night, and i works all night. well, there's nothing in that. but this morning i comes along this road here, looking for a sunny and soft spot to sleep in, and i sees this desolation and ruination. i've lived myself in desolation and ruination; i knows many a fellow-creetur that's forced to live life long in desolation and ruination; and i sits me down and takes pity on it, as i casts my eyes about. then comes up the long-winded one as i told you of, from that gate, and spins himself out like a silkworm concerning the donkey (if my donkey at home will excuse me) as has made it all--made it of his own choice! and tells me, if you please, of his likewise choosing to go ragged and naked, and grimy--maskerading, mountebanking, in what is the real hard lot of thousands and thousands! why, then i say it's a unbearable and nonsensical piece of inconsistency, and i'm disgusted. i'm ashamed and disgusted!" "i wish you would come and look at him," said mr. traveller, clapping the tinker on the shoulder. "not i, sir," he rejoined. "i ain't a going to flatter him up by looking at him!" "but he is asleep." "are you sure he is asleep?" asked the tinker, with an unwilling air, as he shouldered his wallet. "sure." "then i'll look at him for a quarter of a minute," said the tinker, "since you so much wish it; but not a moment longer." they all three went back across the road; and, through the barred window, by the dying glow of the sunset coming in at the gate--which the child held open for its admission--he could be pretty clearly discerned lying on his bed. "you see him?" asked mr. traveller. "yes," returned the tinker, "and he's worse than i thought him." mr. traveller then whispered in few words what he had done since morning; and asked the tinker what he thought of that? "i think," returned the tinker, as he turned from the window, "that you've wasted a day on him." "i think so too; though not, i hope, upon myself. do you happen to be going anywhere near the peal of bells?" "that's my direct way, sir," said the tinker. "i invite you to supper there. and as i learn from this young lady that she goes some three-quarters of a mile in the same direction, we will drop her on the road, and we will spare time to keep her company at her garden gate until her own bella comes home." so, mr. traveller, and the child, and the tinker, went along very amicably in the sweet-scented evening; and the moral with which the tinker dismissed the subject was, that he said in his trade that metal that rotted for want of use, had better be left to rot, and couldn't rot too soon, considering how much true metal rotted from over-use and hard service. footnotes { } dickens didn't write chapters to and they are omitted in this edition. transcribed from the chapman and hall edition of "christmas stories" by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk the wreck of the golden mary the wreck i was apprenticed to the sea when i was twelve years old, and i have encountered a great deal of rough weather, both literal and metaphorical. it has always been my opinion since i first possessed such a thing as an opinion, that the man who knows only one subject is next tiresome to the man who knows no subject. therefore, in the course of my life i have taught myself whatever i could, and although i am not an educated man, i am able, i am thankful to say, to have an intelligent interest in most things. a person might suppose, from reading the above, that i am in the habit of holding forth about number one. that is not the case. just as if i was to come into a room among strangers, and must either be introduced or introduce myself, so i have taken the liberty of passing these few remarks, simply and plainly that it may be known who and what i am. i will add no more of the sort than that my name is william george ravender, that i was born at penrith half a year after my own father was drowned, and that i am on the second day of this present blessed christmas week of one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, fifty-six years of age. when the rumour first went flying up and down that there was gold in california--which, as most people know, was before it was discovered in the british colony of australia--i was in the west indies, trading among the islands. being in command and likewise part-owner of a smart schooner, i had my work cut out for me, and i was doing it. consequently, gold in california was no business of mine. but, by the time when i came home to england again, the thing was as clear as your hand held up before you at noon-day. there was californian gold in the museums and in the goldsmiths' shops, and the very first time i went upon 'change, i met a friend of mine (a seafaring man like myself), with a californian nugget hanging to his watch-chain. i handled it. it was as like a peeled walnut with bits unevenly broken off here and there, and then electrotyped all over, as ever i saw anything in my life. i am a single man (she was too good for this world and for me, and she died six weeks before our marriage-day), so when i am ashore, i live in my house at poplar. my house at poplar is taken care of and kept ship- shape by an old lady who was my mother's maid before i was born. she is as handsome and as upright as any old lady in the world. she is as fond of me as if she had ever had an only son, and i was he. well do i know wherever i sail that she never lays down her head at night without having said, "merciful lord! bless and preserve william george ravender, and send him safe home, through christ our saviour!" i have thought of it in many a dangerous moment, when it has done me no harm, i am sure. in my house at poplar, along with this old lady, i lived quiet for best part of a year: having had a long spell of it among the islands, and having (which was very uncommon in me) taken the fever rather badly. at last, being strong and hearty, and having read every book i could lay hold of, right out, i was walking down leadenhall street in the city of london, thinking of turning-to again, when i met what i call smithick and watersby of liverpool. i chanced to lift up my eyes from looking in at a ship's chronometer in a window, and i saw him bearing down upon me, head on. it is, personally, neither smithick, nor watersby, that i here mention, nor was i ever acquainted with any man of either of those names, nor do i think that there has been any one of either of those names in that liverpool house for years back. but, it is in reality the house itself that i refer to; and a wiser merchant or a truer gentleman never stepped. "my dear captain ravender," says he. "of all the men on earth, i wanted to see you most. i was on my way to you." "well!" says i. "that looks as if you _were_ to see me, don't it?" with that i put my arm in his, and we walked on towards the royal exchange, and when we got there, walked up and down at the back of it where the clock-tower is. we walked an hour and more, for he had much to say to me. he had a scheme for chartering a new ship of their own to take out cargo to the diggers and emigrants in california, and to buy and bring back gold. into the particulars of that scheme i will not enter, and i have no right to enter. all i say of it is, that it was a very original one, a very fine one, a very sound one, and a very lucrative one beyond doubt. he imparted it to me as freely as if i had been a part of himself. after doing so, he made me the handsomest sharing offer that ever was made to me, boy or man--or i believe to any other captain in the merchant navy--and he took this round turn to finish with: "ravender, you are well aware that the lawlessness of that coast and country at present, is as special as the circumstances in which it is placed. crews of vessels outward-bound, desert as soon as they make the land; crews of vessels homeward-bound, ship at enormous wages, with the express intention of murdering the captain and seizing the gold freight; no man can trust another, and the devil seems let loose. now," says he, "you know my opinion of you, and you know i am only expressing it, and with no singularity, when i tell you that you are almost the only man on whose integrity, discretion, and energy--" &c., &c. for, i don't want to repeat what he said, though i was and am sensible of it. notwithstanding my being, as i have mentioned, quite ready for a voyage, still i had some doubts of this voyage. of course i knew, without being told, that there were peculiar difficulties and dangers in it, a long way over and above those which attend all voyages. it must not be supposed that i was afraid to face them; but, in my opinion a man has no manly motive or sustainment in his own breast for facing dangers, unless he has well considered what they are, and is able quietly to say to himself, "none of these perils can now take me by surprise; i shall know what to do for the best in any of them; all the rest lies in the higher and greater hands to which i humbly commit myself." on this principle i have so attentively considered (regarding it as my duty) all the hazards i have ever been able to think of, in the ordinary way of storm, shipwreck, and fire at sea, that i hope i should be prepared to do, in any of those cases, whatever could be done, to save the lives intrusted to my charge. as i was thoughtful, my good friend proposed that he should leave me to walk there as long as i liked, and that i should dine with him by-and-by at his club in pall mall. i accepted the invitation and i walked up and down there, quarter-deck fashion, a matter of a couple of hours; now and then looking up at the weathercock as i might have looked up aloft; and now and then taking a look into cornhill, as i might have taken a look over the side. all dinner-time, and all after dinner-time, we talked it over again. i gave him my views of his plan, and he very much approved of the same. i told him i had nearly decided, but not quite. "well, well," says he, "come down to liverpool to-morrow with me, and see the golden mary." i liked the name (her name was mary, and she was golden, if golden stands for good), so i began to feel that it was almost done when i said i would go to liverpool. on the next morning but one we were on board the golden mary. i might have known, from his asking me to come down and see her, what she was. i declare her to have been the completest and most exquisite beauty that ever i set my eyes upon. we had inspected every timber in her, and had come back to the gangway to go ashore from the dock-basin, when i put out my hand to my friend. "touch upon it," says i, "and touch heartily. i take command of this ship, and i am hers and yours, if i can get john steadiman for my chief mate." john steadiman had sailed with me four voyages. the first voyage john was third mate out to china, and came home second. the other three voyages he was my first officer. at this time of chartering the golden mary, he was aged thirty-two. a brisk, bright, blue-eyed fellow, a very neat figure and rather under the middle size, never out of the way and never in it, a face that pleased everybody and that all children took to, a habit of going about singing as cheerily as a blackbird, and a perfect sailor. we were in one of those liverpool hackney-coaches in less than a minute, and we cruised about in her upwards of three hours, looking for john. john had come home from van diemen's land barely a month before, and i had heard of him as taking a frisk in liverpool. we asked after him, among many other places, at the two boarding-houses he was fondest of, and we found he had had a week's spell at each of them; but, he had gone here and gone there, and had set off "to lay out on the main-to'-gallant- yard of the highest welsh mountain" (so he had told the people of the house), and where he might be then, or when he might come back, nobody could tell us. but it was surprising, to be sure, to see how every face brightened the moment there was mention made of the name of mr. steadiman. we were taken aback at meeting with no better luck, and we had wore ship and put her head for my friends, when as we were jogging through the streets, i clap my eyes on john himself coming out of a toyshop! he was carrying a little boy, and conducting two uncommon pretty women to their coach, and he told me afterwards that he had never in his life seen one of the three before, but that he was so taken with them on looking in at the toyshop while they were buying the child a cranky noah's ark, very much down by the head, that he had gone in and asked the ladies' permission to treat him to a tolerably correct cutter there was in the window, in order that such a handsome boy might not grow up with a lubberly idea of naval architecture. we stood off and on until the ladies' coachman began to give way, and then we hailed john. on his coming aboard of us, i told him, very gravely, what i had said to my friend. it struck him, as he said himself, amidships. he was quite shaken by it. "captain ravender," were john steadiman's words, "such an opinion from you is true commendation, and i'll sail round the world with you for twenty years if you hoist the signal, and stand by you for ever!" and now indeed i felt that it was done, and that the golden mary was afloat. grass never grew yet under the feet of smithick and watersby. the riggers were out of that ship in a fortnight's time, and we had begun taking in cargo. john was always aboard, seeing everything stowed with his own eyes; and whenever i went aboard myself early or late, whether he was below in the hold, or on deck at the hatchway, or overhauling his cabin, nailing up pictures in it of the blush roses of england, the blue belles of scotland, and the female shamrock of ireland: of a certainty i heard john singing like a blackbird. we had room for twenty passengers. our sailing advertisement was no sooner out, than we might have taken these twenty times over. in entering our men, i and john (both together) picked them, and we entered none but good hands--as good as were to be found in that port. and so, in a good ship of the best build, well owned, well arranged, well officered, well manned, well found in all respects, we parted with our pilot at a quarter past four o'clock in the afternoon of the seventh of march, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, and stood with a fair wind out to sea. it may be easily believed that up to that time i had had no leisure to be intimate with my passengers. the most of them were then in their berths sea-sick; however, in going among them, telling them what was good for them, persuading them not to be there, but to come up on deck and feel the breeze, and in rousing them with a joke, or a comfortable word, i made acquaintance with them, perhaps, in a more friendly and confidential way from the first, than i might have done at the cabin table. of my passengers, i need only particularise, just at present, a bright- eyed blooming young wife who was going out to join her husband in california, taking with her their only child, a little girl of three years old, whom he had never seen; a sedate young woman in black, some five years older (about thirty as i should say), who was going out to join a brother; and an old gentleman, a good deal like a hawk if his eyes had been better and not so red, who was always talking, morning, noon, and night, about the gold discovery. but, whether he was making the voyage, thinking his old arms could dig for gold, or whether his speculation was to buy it, or to barter for it, or to cheat for it, or to snatch it anyhow from other people, was his secret. he kept his secret. these three and the child were the soonest well. the child was a most engaging child, to be sure, and very fond of me: though i am bound to admit that john steadiman and i were borne on her pretty little books in reverse order, and that he was captain there, and i was mate. it was beautiful to watch her with john, and it was beautiful to watch john with her. few would have thought it possible, to see john playing at bo-peep round the mast, that he was the man who had caught up an iron bar and struck a malay and a maltese dead, as they were gliding with their knives down the cabin stair aboard the barque old england, when the captain lay ill in his cot, off saugar point. but he was; and give him his back against a bulwark, he would have done the same by half a dozen of them. the name of the young mother was mrs. atherfield, the name of the young lady in black was miss coleshaw, and the name of the old gentleman was mr. rarx. as the child had a quantity of shining fair hair, clustering in curls all about her face, and as her name was lucy, steadiman gave her the name of the golden lucy. so, we had the golden lucy and the golden mary; and john kept up the idea to that extent as he and the child went playing about the decks, that i believe she used to think the ship was alive somehow--a sister or companion, going to the same place as herself. she liked to be by the wheel, and in fine weather, i have often stood by the man whose trick it was at the wheel, only to hear her, sitting near my feet, talking to the ship. never had a child such a doll before, i suppose; but she made a doll of the golden mary, and used to dress her up by tying ribbons and little bits of finery to the belaying-pins; and nobody ever moved them, unless it was to save them from being blown away. of course i took charge of the two young women, and i called them "my dear," and they never minded, knowing that whatever i said was said in a fatherly and protecting spirit. i gave them their places on each side of me at dinner, mrs. atherfield on my right and miss coleshaw on my left; and i directed the unmarried lady to serve out the breakfast, and the married lady to serve out the tea. likewise i said to my black steward in their presence, "tom snow, these two ladies are equally the mistresses of this house, and do you obey their orders equally;" at which tom laughed, and they all laughed. old mr. rarx was not a pleasant man to look at, nor yet to talk to, or to be with, for no one could help seeing that he was a sordid and selfish character, and that he had warped further and further out of the straight with time. not but what he was on his best behaviour with us, as everybody was; for we had no bickering among us, for'ard or aft. i only mean to say, he was not the man one would have chosen for a messmate. if choice there had been, one might even have gone a few points out of one's course, to say, "no! not him!" but, there was one curious inconsistency in mr. rarx. that was, that he took an astonishing interest in the child. he looked, and i may add, he was, one of the last of men to care at all for a child, or to care much for any human creature. still, he went so far as to be habitually uneasy, if the child was long on deck, out of his sight. he was always afraid of her falling overboard, or falling down a hatchway, or of a block or what not coming down upon her from the rigging in the working of the ship, or of her getting some hurt or other. he used to look at her and touch her, as if she was something precious to him. he was always solicitous about her not injuring her health, and constantly entreated her mother to be careful of it. this was so much the more curious, because the child did not like him, but used to shrink away from him, and would not even put out her hand to him without coaxing from others. i believe that every soul on board frequently noticed this, and not one of us understood it. however, it was such a plain fact, that john steadiman said more than once when old mr. rarx was not within earshot, that if the golden mary felt a tenderness for the dear old gentleman she carried in her lap, she must be bitterly jealous of the golden lucy. before i go any further with this narrative, i will state that our ship was a barque of three hundred tons, carrying a crew of eighteen men, a second mate in addition to john, a carpenter, an armourer or smith, and two apprentices (one a scotch boy, poor little fellow). we had three boats; the long-boat, capable of carrying twenty-five men; the cutter, capable of carrying fifteen; and the surf-boat, capable of carrying ten. i put down the capacity of these boats according to the numbers they were really meant to hold. we had tastes of bad weather and head-winds, of course; but, on the whole we had as fine a run as any reasonable man could expect, for sixty days. i then began to enter two remarks in the ship's log and in my journal; first, that there was an unusual and amazing quantity of ice; second, that the nights were most wonderfully dark, in spite of the ice. for five days and a half, it seemed quite useless and hopeless to alter the ship's course so as to stand out of the way of this ice. i made what southing i could; but, all that time, we were beset by it. mrs. atherfield after standing by me on deck once, looking for some time in an awed manner at the great bergs that surrounded us, said in a whisper, "o! captain ravender, it looks as if the whole solid earth had changed into ice, and broken up!" i said to her, laughing, "i don't wonder that it does, to your inexperienced eyes, my dear." but i had never seen a twentieth part of the quantity, and, in reality, i was pretty much of her opinion. however, at two p.m. on the afternoon of the sixth day, that is to say, when we were sixty-six days out, john steadiman who had gone aloft, sang out from the top, that the sea was clear ahead. before four p.m. a strong breeze springing up right astern, we were in open water at sunset. the breeze then freshening into half a gale of wind, and the golden mary being a very fast sailer, we went before the wind merrily, all night. i had thought it impossible that it could be darker than it had been, until the sun, moon, and stars should fall out of the heavens, and time should be destroyed; but, it had been next to light, in comparison with what it was now. the darkness was so profound, that looking into it was painful and oppressive--like looking, without a ray of light, into a dense black bandage put as close before the eyes as it could be, without touching them. i doubled the look-out, and john and i stood in the bow side-by-side, never leaving it all night. yet i should no more have known that he was near me when he was silent, without putting out my arm and touching him, than i should if he had turned in and been fast asleep below. we were not so much looking out, all of us, as listening to the utmost, both with our eyes and ears. next day, i found that the mercury in the barometer, which had risen steadily since we cleared the ice, remained steady. i had had very good observations, with now and then the interruption of a day or so, since our departure. i got the sun at noon, and found that we were in lat. degrees s., long. degrees w., off new south shetland; in the neighbourhood of cape horn. we were sixty-seven days out, that day. the ship's reckoning was accurately worked and made up. the ship did her duty admirably, all on board were well, and all hands were as smart, efficient, and contented, as it was possible to be. when the night came on again as dark as before, it was the eighth night i had been on deck. nor had i taken more than a very little sleep in the day-time, my station being always near the helm, and often at it, while we were among the ice. few but those who have tried it can imagine the difficulty and pain of only keeping the eyes open--physically open--under such circumstances, in such darkness. they get struck by the darkness, and blinded by the darkness. they make patterns in it, and they flash in it, as if they had gone out of your head to look at you. on the turn of midnight, john steadiman, who was alert and fresh (for i had always made him turn in by day), said to me, "captain ravender, i entreat of you to go below. i am sure you can hardly stand, and your voice is getting weak, sir. go below, and take a little rest. i'll call you if a block chafes." i said to john in answer, "well, well, john! let us wait till the turn of one o'clock, before we talk about that." i had just had one of the ship's lanterns held up, that i might see how the night went by my watch, and it was then twenty minutes after twelve. at five minutes before one, john sang out to the boy to bring the lantern again, and when i told him once more what the time was, entreated and prayed of me to go below. "captain ravender," says he, "all's well; we can't afford to have you laid up for a single hour; and i respectfully and earnestly beg of you to go below." the end of it was, that i agreed to do so, on the understanding that if i failed to come up of my own accord within three hours, i was to be punctually called. having settled that, i left john in charge. but i called him to me once afterwards, to ask him a question. i had been to look at the barometer, and had seen the mercury still perfectly steady, and had come up the companion again to take a last look about me--if i can use such a word in reference to such darkness--when i thought that the waves, as the golden mary parted them and shook them off, had a hollow sound in them; something that i fancied was a rather unusual reverberation. i was standing by the quarter-deck rail on the starboard side, when i called john aft to me, and bade him listen. he did so with the greatest attention. turning to me he then said, "rely upon it, captain ravender, you have been without rest too long, and the novelty is only in the state of your sense of hearing." i thought so too by that time, and i think so now, though i can never know for absolute certain in this world, whether it was or not. when i left john steadiman in charge, the ship was still going at a great rate through the water. the wind still blew right astern. though she was making great way, she was under shortened sail, and had no more than she could easily carry. all was snug, and nothing complained. there was a pretty sea running, but not a very high sea neither, nor at all a confused one. i turned in, as we seamen say, all standing. the meaning of that is, i did not pull my clothes off--no, not even so much as my coat: though i did my shoes, for my feet were badly swelled with the deck. there was a little swing-lamp alight in my cabin. i thought, as i looked at it before shutting my eyes, that i was so tired of darkness, and troubled by darkness, that i could have gone to sleep best in the midst of a million of flaming gas-lights. that was the last thought i had before i went off, except the prevailing thought that i should not be able to get to sleep at all. i dreamed that i was back at penrith again, and was trying to get round the church, which had altered its shape very much since i last saw it, and was cloven all down the middle of the steeple in a most singular manner. why i wanted to get round the church i don't know; but i was as anxious to do it as if my life depended on it. indeed, i believe it did in the dream. for all that, i could not get round the church. i was still trying, when i came against it with a violent shock, and was flung out of my cot against the ship's side. shrieks and a terrific outcry struck me far harder than the bruising timbers, and amidst sounds of grinding and crashing, and a heavy rushing and breaking of water--sounds i understood too well--i made my way on deck. it was not an easy thing to do, for the ship heeled over frightfully, and was beating in a furious manner. i could not see the men as i went forward, but i could hear that they were hauling in sail, in disorder. i had my trumpet in my hand, and, after directing and encouraging them in this till it was done, i hailed first john steadiman, and then my second mate, mr. william rames. both answered clearly and steadily. now, i had practised them and all my crew, as i have ever made it a custom to practise all who sail with me, to take certain stations and wait my orders, in case of any unexpected crisis. when my voice was heard hailing, and their voices were heard answering, i was aware, through all the noises of the ship and sea, and all the crying of the passengers below, that there was a pause. "are you ready, rames?"--"ay, ay, sir!"--"then light up, for god's sake!" in a moment he and another were burning blue-lights, and the ship and all on board seemed to be enclosed in a mist of light, under a great black dome. the light shone up so high that i could see the huge iceberg upon which we had struck, cloven at the top and down the middle, exactly like penrith church in my dream. at the same moment i could see the watch last relieved, crowding up and down on deck; i could see mrs. atherfield and miss coleshaw thrown about on the top of the companion as they struggled to bring the child up from below; i could see that the masts were going with the shock and the beating of the ship; i could see the frightful breach stove in on the starboard side, half the length of the vessel, and the sheathing and timbers spirting up; i could see that the cutter was disabled, in a wreck of broken fragments; and i could see every eye turned upon me. it is my belief that if there had been ten thousand eyes there, i should have seen them all, with their different looks. and all this in a moment. but you must consider what a moment. i saw the men, as they looked at me, fall towards their appointed stations, like good men and true. if she had not righted, they could have done very little there or anywhere but die--not that it is little for a man to die at his post--i mean they could have done nothing to save the passengers and themselves. happily, however, the violence of the shock with which we had so determinedly borne down direct on that fatal iceberg, as if it had been our destination instead of our destruction, had so smashed and pounded the ship that she got off in this same instant and righted. i did not want the carpenter to tell me she was filling and going down; i could see and hear that. i gave rames the word to lower the long-boat and the surf-boat, and i myself told off the men for each duty. not one hung back, or came before the other. i now whispered to john steadiman, "john, i stand at the gangway here, to see every soul on board safe over the side. you shall have the next post of honour, and shall be the last but one to leave the ship. bring up the passengers, and range them behind me; and put what provision and water you can got at, in the boats. cast your eye for'ard, john, and you'll see you have not a moment to lose." my noble fellows got the boats over the side as orderly as i ever saw boats lowered with any sea running, and, when they were launched, two or three of the nearest men in them as they held on, rising and falling with the swell, called out, looking up at me, "captain ravender, if anything goes wrong with us, and you are saved, remember we stood by you!"--"we'll all stand by one another ashore, yet, please god, my lads!" says i. "hold on bravely, and be tender with the women." the women were an example to us. they trembled very much, but they were quiet and perfectly collected. "kiss me, captain ravender," says mrs. atherfield, "and god in heaven bless you, you good man!" "my dear," says i, "those words are better for me than a life-boat." i held her child in my arms till she was in the boat, and then kissed the child and handed her safe down. i now said to the people in her, "you have got your freight, my lads, all but me, and i am not coming yet awhile. pull away from the ship, and keep off!" that was the long-boat. old mr. rarx was one of her complement, and he was the only passenger who had greatly misbehaved since the ship struck. others had been a little wild, which was not to be wondered at, and not very blamable; but, he had made a lamentation and uproar which it was dangerous for the people to hear, as there is always contagion in weakness and selfishness. his incessant cry had been that he must not be separated from the child, that he couldn't see the child, and that he and the child must go together. he had even tried to wrest the child out of my arms, that he might keep her in his. "mr. rarx," said i to him when it came to that, "i have a loaded pistol in my pocket; and if you don't stand out of the gangway, and keep perfectly quiet, i shall shoot you through the heart, if you have got one." says he, "you won't do murder, captain ravender!" "no, sir," says i, "i won't murder forty-four people to humour you, but i'll shoot you to save them." after that he was quiet, and stood shivering a little way off, until i named him to go over the side. the long-boat being cast off, the surf-boat was soon filled. there only remained aboard the golden mary, john mullion the man who had kept on burning the blue-lights (and who had lighted every new one at every old one before it went out, as quietly as if he had been at an illumination); john steadiman; and myself. i hurried those two into the surf-boat, called to them to keep off, and waited with a grateful and relieved heart for the long-boat to come and take me in, if she could. i looked at my watch, and it showed me, by the blue-light, ten minutes past two. they lost no time. as soon as she was near enough, i swung myself into her, and called to the men, "with a will, lads! she's reeling!" we were not an inch too far out of the inner vortex of her going down, when, by the blue-light which john mullion still burnt in the bow of the surf-boat, we saw her lurch, and plunge to the bottom head-foremost. the child cried, weeping wildly, "o the dear golden mary! o look at her! save her! save the poor golden mary!" and then the light burnt out, and the black dome seemed to come down upon us. i suppose if we had all stood a-top of a mountain, and seen the whole remainder of the world sink away from under us, we could hardly have felt more shocked and solitary than we did when we knew we were alone on the wide ocean, and that the beautiful ship in which most of us had been securely asleep within half an hour was gone for ever. there was an awful silence in our boat, and such a kind of palsy on the rowers and the man at the rudder, that i felt they were scarcely keeping her before the sea. i spoke out then, and said, "let every one here thank the lord for our preservation!" all the voices answered (even the child's), "we thank the lord!" i then said the lord's prayer, and all hands said it after me with a solemn murmuring. then i gave the word "cheerily, o men, cheerily!" and i felt that they were handling the boat again as a boat ought to be handled. the surf-boat now burnt another blue-light to show us where they were, and we made for her, and laid ourselves as nearly alongside of her as we dared. i had always kept my boats with a coil or two of good stout stuff in each of them, so both boats had a rope at hand. we made a shift, with much labour and trouble, to get near enough to one another to divide the blue-lights (they were no use after that night, for the sea-water soon got at them), and to get a tow-rope out between us. all night long we kept together, sometimes obliged to cast off the rope, and sometimes getting it out again, and all of us wearying for the morning--which appeared so long in coming that old mr. rarx screamed out, in spite of his fears of me, "the world is drawing to an end, and the sun will never rise any more!" when the day broke, i found that we were all huddled together in a miserable manner. we were deep in the water; being, as i found on mustering, thirty-one in number, or at least six too many. in the surf- boat they were fourteen in number, being at least four too many. the first thing i did, was to get myself passed to the rudder--which i took from that time--and to get mrs. atherfield, her child, and miss coleshaw, passed on to sit next me. as to old mr. rarx, i put him in the bow, as far from us as i could. and i put some of the best men near us in order that if i should drop there might be a skilful hand ready to take the helm. the sea moderating as the sun came up, though the sky was cloudy and wild, we spoke the other boat, to know what stores they had, and to overhaul what we had. i had a compass in my pocket, a small telescope, a double-barrelled pistol, a knife, and a fire-box and matches. most of my men had knives, and some had a little tobacco: some, a pipe as well. we had a mug among us, and an iron spoon. as to provisions, there were in my boat two bags of biscuit, one piece of raw beef, one piece of raw pork, a bag of coffee, roasted but not ground (thrown in, i imagine, by mistake, for something else), two small casks of water, and about half-a- gallon of rum in a keg. the surf-boat, having rather more rum than we, and fewer to drink it, gave us, as i estimated, another quart into our keg. in return, we gave them three double handfuls of coffee, tied up in a piece of a handkerchief; they reported that they had aboard besides, a bag of biscuit, a piece of beef, a small cask of water, a small box of lemons, and a dutch cheese. it took a long time to make these exchanges, and they were not made without risk to both parties; the sea running quite high enough to make our approaching near to one another very hazardous. in the bundle with the coffee, i conveyed to john steadiman (who had a ship's compass with him), a paper written in pencil, and torn from my pocket-book, containing the course i meant to steer, in the hope of making land, or being picked up by some vessel--i say in the hope, though i had little hope of either deliverance. i then sang out to him, so as all might hear, that if we two boats could live or die together, we would; but, that if we should be parted by the weather, and join company no more, they should have our prayers and blessings, and we asked for theirs. we then gave them three cheers, which they returned, and i saw the men's heads droop in both boats as they fell to their oars again. these arrangements had occupied the general attention advantageously for all, though (as i expressed in the last sentence) they ended in a sorrowful feeling. i now said a few words to my fellow-voyagers on the subject of the small stock of food on which our lives depended if they were preserved from the great deep, and on the rigid necessity of our eking it out in the most frugal manner. one and all replied that whatever allowance i thought best to lay down should be strictly kept to. we made a pair of scales out of a thin scrap of iron-plating and some twine, and i got together for weights such of the heaviest buttons among us as i calculated made up some fraction over two ounces. this was the allowance of solid food served out once a-day to each, from that time to the end; with the addition of a coffee-berry, or sometimes half a one, when the weather was very fair, for breakfast. we had nothing else whatever, but half a pint of water each per day, and sometimes, when we were coldest and weakest, a teaspoonful of rum each, served out as a dram. i know how learnedly it can be shown that rum is poison, but i also know that in this case, as in all similar cases i have ever read of--which are numerous--no words can express the comfort and support derived from it. nor have i the least doubt that it saved the lives of far more than half our number. having mentioned half a pint of water as our daily allowance, i ought to observe that sometimes we had less, and sometimes we had more; for much rain fell, and we caught it in a canvas stretched for the purpose. thus, at that tempestuous time of the year, and in that tempestuous part of the world, we shipwrecked people rose and fell with the waves. it is not my intention to relate (if i can avoid it) such circumstances appertaining to our doleful condition as have been better told in many other narratives of the kind than i can be expected to tell them. i will only note, in so many passing words, that day after day and night after night, we received the sea upon our backs to prevent it from swamping the boat; that one party was always kept baling, and that every hat and cap among us soon got worn out, though patched up fifty times, as the only vessels we had for that service; that another party lay down in the bottom of the boat, while a third rowed; and that we were soon all in boils and blisters and rags. the other boat was a source of such anxious interest to all of us that i used to wonder whether, if we were saved, the time could ever come when the survivors in this boat of ours could be at all indifferent to the fortunes of the survivors in that. we got out a tow-rope whenever the weather permitted, but that did not often happen, and how we two parties kept within the same horizon, as we did, he, who mercifully permitted it to be so for our consolation, only knows. i never shall forget the looks with which, when the morning light came, we used to gaze about us over the stormy waters, for the other boat. we once parted company for seventy-two hours, and we believed them to have gone down, as they did us. the joy on both sides when we came within view of one another again, had something in a manner divine in it; each was so forgetful of individual suffering, in tears of delight and sympathy for the people in the other boat. i have been wanting to get round to the individual or personal part of my subject, as i call it, and the foregoing incident puts me in the right way. the patience and good disposition aboard of us, was wonderful. i was not surprised by it in the women; for all men born of women know what great qualities they will show when men will fail; but, i own i was a little surprised by it in some of the men. among one-and-thirty people assembled at the best of times, there will usually, i should say, be two or three uncertain tempers. i knew that i had more than one rough temper with me among my own people, for i had chosen those for the long-boat that i might have them under my eye. but, they softened under their misery, and were as considerate of the ladies, and as compassionate of the child, as the best among us, or among men--they could not have been more so. i heard scarcely any complaining. the party lying down would moan a good deal in their sleep, and i would often notice a man--not always the same man, it is to be understood, but nearly all of them at one time or other--sitting moaning at his oar, or in his place, as he looked mistily over the sea. when it happened to be long before i could catch his eye, he would go on moaning all the time in the dismallest manner; but, when our looks met, he would brighten and leave off. i almost always got the impression that he did not know what sound he had been making, but that he thought he had been humming a tune. our sufferings from cold and wet were far greater than our sufferings from hunger. we managed to keep the child warm; but, i doubt if any one else among us ever was warm for five minutes together; and the shivering, and the chattering of teeth, were sad to hear. the child cried a little at first for her lost playfellow, the golden mary; but hardly ever whimpered afterwards; and when the state of the weather made it possible, she used now and then to be held up in the arms of some of us, to look over the sea for john steadiman's boat. i see the golden hair and the innocent face now, between me and the driving clouds, like an angel going to fly away. it had happened on the second day, towards night, that mrs. atherfield, in getting little lucy to sleep, sang her a song. she had a soft, melodious voice, and, when she had finished it, our people up and begged for another. she sang them another, and after it had fallen dark ended with the evening hymn. from that time, whenever anything could be heard above the sea and wind, and while she had any voice left, nothing would serve the people but that she should sing at sunset. she always did, and always ended with the evening hymn. we mostly took up the last line, and shed tears when it was done, but not miserably. we had a prayer night and morning, also, when the weather allowed of it. twelve nights and eleven days we had been driving in the boat, when old mr. rarx began to be delirious, and to cry out to me to throw the gold overboard or it would sink us, and we should all be lost. for days past the child had been declining, and that was the great cause of his wildness. he had been over and over again shrieking out to me to give her all the remaining meat, to give her all the remaining rum, to save her at any cost, or we should all be ruined. at this time, she lay in her mother's arms at my feet. one of her little hands was almost always creeping about her mother's neck or chin. i had watched the wasting of the little hand, and i knew it was nearly over. the old man's cries were so discordant with the mother's love and submission, that i called out to him in an angry voice, unless he held his peace on the instant, i would order him to be knocked on the head and thrown overboard. he was mute then, until the child died, very peacefully, an hour afterwards: which was known to all in the boat by the mother's breaking out into lamentations for the first time since the wreck--for, she had great fortitude and constancy, though she was a little gentle woman. old mr. rarx then became quite ungovernable, tearing what rags he had on him, raging in imprecations, and calling to me that if i had thrown the gold overboard (always the gold with him!) i might have saved the child. "and now," says he, in a terrible voice, "we shall founder, and all go to the devil, for our sins will sink us, when we have no innocent child to bear us up!" we so discovered with amazement, that this old wretch had only cared for the life of the pretty little creature dear to all of us, because of the influence he superstitiously hoped she might have in preserving him! altogether it was too much for the smith or armourer, who was sitting next the old man, to bear. he took him by the throat and rolled him under the thwarts, where he lay still enough for hours afterwards. all that thirteenth night, miss coleshaw, lying across my knees as i kept the helm, comforted and supported the poor mother. her child, covered with a pea-jacket of mine, lay in her lap. it troubled me all night to think that there was no prayer-book among us, and that i could remember but very few of the exact words of the burial service. when i stood up at broad day, all knew what was going to be done, and i noticed that my poor fellows made the motion of uncovering their heads, though their heads had been stark bare to the sky and sea for many a weary hour. there was a long heavy swell on, but otherwise it was a fair morning, and there were broad fields of sunlight on the waves in the east. i said no more than this: "i am the resurrection and the life, saith the lord. he raised the daughter of jairus the ruler, and said she was not dead but slept. he raised the widow's son. he arose himself, and was seen of many. he loved little children, saying, suffer them to come unto me and rebuke them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. in his name, my friends, and committed to his merciful goodness!" with those words i laid my rough face softly on the placid little forehead, and buried the golden lucy in the grave of the golden mary. having had it on my mind to relate the end of this dear little child, i have omitted something from its exact place, which i will supply here. it will come quite as well here as anywhere else. foreseeing that if the boat lived through the stormy weather, the time must come, and soon come, when we should have absolutely no morsel to eat, i had one momentous point often in my thoughts. although i had, years before that, fully satisfied myself that the instances in which human beings in the last distress have fed upon each other, are exceedingly few, and have very seldom indeed (if ever) occurred when the people in distress, however dreadful their extremity, have been accustomed to moderate forbearance and restraint; i say, though i had long before quite satisfied my mind on this topic, i felt doubtful whether there might not have been in former cases some harm and danger from keeping it out of sight and pretending not to think of it. i felt doubtful whether some minds, growing weak with fasting and exposure and having such a terrific idea to dwell upon in secret, might not magnify it until it got to have an awful attraction about it. this was not a new thought of mine, for it had grown out of my reading. however, it came over me stronger than it had ever done before--as it had reason for doing--in the boat, and on the fourth day i decided that i would bring out into the light that unformed fear which must have been more or less darkly in every brain among us. therefore, as a means of beguiling the time and inspiring hope, i gave them the best summary in my power of bligh's voyage of more than three thousand miles, in an open boat, after the mutiny of the bounty, and of the wonderful preservation of that boat's crew. they listened throughout with great interest, and i concluded by telling them, that, in my opinion, the happiest circumstance in the whole narrative was, that bligh, who was no delicate man either, had solemnly placed it on record therein that he was sure and certain that under no conceivable circumstances whatever would that emaciated party, who had gone through all the pains of famine, have preyed on one another. i cannot describe the visible relief which this spread through the boat, and how the tears stood in every eye. from that time i was as well convinced as bligh himself that there was no danger, and that this phantom, at any rate, did not haunt us. now, it was a part of bligh's experience that when the people in his boat were most cast down, nothing did them so much good as hearing a story told by one of their number. when i mentioned that, i saw that it struck the general attention as much as it did my own, for i had not thought of it until i came to it in my summary. this was on the day after mrs. atherfield first sang to us. i proposed that, whenever the weather would permit, we should have a story two hours after dinner (i always issued the allowance i have mentioned at one o'clock, and called it by that name), as well as our song at sunset. the proposal was received with a cheerful satisfaction that warmed my heart within me; and i do not say too much when i say that those two periods in the four-and-twenty hours were expected with positive pleasure, and were really enjoyed by all hands. spectres as we soon were in our bodily wasting, our imaginations did not perish like the gross flesh upon our bones. music and adventure, two of the great gifts of providence to mankind, could charm us long after that was lost. the wind was almost always against us after the second day; and for many days together we could not nearly hold our own. we had all varieties of bad weather. we had rain, hail, snow, wind, mist, thunder and lightning. still the boats lived through the heavy seas, and still we perishing people rose and fell with the great waves. sixteen nights and fifteen days, twenty nights and nineteen days, twenty- four nights and twenty-three days. so the time went on. disheartening as i knew that our progress, or want of progress, must be, i never deceived them as to my calculations of it. in the first place, i felt that we were all too near eternity for deceit; in the second place, i knew that if i failed, or died, the man who followed me must have a knowledge of the true state of things to begin upon. when i told them at noon, what i reckoned we had made or lost, they generally received what i said in a tranquil and resigned manner, and always gratefully towards me. it was not unusual at any time of the day for some one to burst out weeping loudly without any new cause; and, when the burst was over, to calm down a little better than before. i had seen exactly the same thing in a house of mourning. during the whole of this time, old mr. rarx had had his fits of calling out to me to throw the gold (always the gold!) overboard, and of heaping violent reproaches upon me for not having saved the child; but now, the food being all gone, and i having nothing left to serve out but a bit of coffee-berry now and then, he began to be too weak to do this, and consequently fell silent. mrs. atherfield and miss coleshaw generally lay, each with an arm across one of my knees, and her head upon it. they never complained at all. up to the time of her child's death, mrs. atherfield had bound up her own beautiful hair every day; and i took particular notice that this was always before she sang her song at night, when everyone looked at her. but she never did it after the loss of her darling; and it would have been now all tangled with dirt and wet, but that miss coleshaw was careful of it long after she was herself, and would sometimes smooth it down with her weak thin hands. we were past mustering a story now; but one day, at about this period, i reverted to the superstition of old mr. rarx, concerning the golden lucy, and told them that nothing vanished from the eye of god, though much might pass away from the eyes of men. "we were all of us," says i, "children once; and our baby feet have strolled in green woods ashore; and our baby hands have gathered flowers in gardens, where the birds were singing. the children that we were, are not lost to the great knowledge of our creator. those innocent creatures will appear with us before him, and plead for us. what we were in the best time of our generous youth will arise and go with us too. the purest part of our lives will not desert us at the pass to which all of us here present are gliding. what we were then, will be as much in existence before him, as what we are now." they were no less comforted by this consideration, than i was myself; and miss coleshaw, drawing my ear nearer to her lips, said, "captain ravender, i was on my way to marry a disgraced and broken man, whom i dearly loved when he was honourable and good. your words seem to have come out of my own poor heart." she pressed my hand upon it, smiling. twenty-seven nights and twenty-six days. we were in no want of rain-water, but we had nothing else. and yet, even now, i never turned my eyes upon a waking face but it tried to brighten before mine. o, what a thing it is, in a time of danger and in the presence of death, the shining of a face upon a face! i have heard it broached that orders should be given in great new ships by electric telegraph. i admire machinery as much is any man, and am as thankful to it as any man can be for what it does for us. but it will never be a substitute for the face of a man, with his soul in it, encouraging another man to be brave and true. never try it for that. it will break down like a straw. i now began to remark certain changes in myself which i did not like. they caused me much disquiet. i often saw the golden lucy in the air above the boat. i often saw her i have spoken of before, sitting beside me. i saw the golden mary go down, as she really had gone down, twenty times in a day. and yet the sea was mostly, to my thinking, not sea neither, but moving country and extraordinary mountainous regions, the like of which have never been beheld. i felt it time to leave my last words regarding john steadiman, in case any lips should last out to repeat them to any living ears. i said that john had told me (as he had on deck) that he had sung out "breakers ahead!" the instant they were audible, and had tried to wear ship, but she struck before it could be done. (his cry, i dare say, had made my dream.) i said that the circumstances were altogether without warning, and out of any course that could have been guarded against; that the same loss would have happened if i had been in charge; and that john was not to blame, but from first to last had done his duty nobly, like the man he was. i tried to write it down in my pocket-book, but could make no words, though i knew what the words were that i wanted to make. when it had come to that, her hands--though she was dead so long--laid me down gently in the bottom of the boat, and she and the golden lucy swung me to sleep. * * * * * _all that follows, was written by john steadiman, chief mate_: on the twenty-sixth day after the foundering of the golden mary at sea, i, john steadiman, was sitting in my place in the stern-sheets of the surf-boat, with just sense enough left in me to steer--that is to say, with my eyes strained, wide-awake, over the bows of the boat, and my brains fast asleep and dreaming--when i was roused upon a sudden by our second mate, mr. william rames. "let me take a spell in your place," says he. "and look you out for the long-boat astern. the last time she rose on the crest of a wave, i thought i made out a signal flying aboard her." we shifted our places, clumsily and slowly enough, for we were both of us weak and dazed with wet, cold, and hunger. i waited some time, watching the heavy rollers astern, before the long-boat rose a-top of one of them at the same time with us. at last, she was heaved up for a moment well in view, and there, sure enough, was the signal flying aboard of her--a strip of rag of some sort, rigged to an oar, and hoisted in her bows. "what does it mean?" says rames to me in a quavering, trembling sort of voice. "do they signal a sail in sight?" "hush, for god's sake!" says i, clapping my hand over his mouth. "don't let the people hear you. they'll all go mad together if we mislead them about that signal. wait a bit, till i have another look at it." i held on by him, for he had set me all of a tremble with his notion of a sail in sight, and watched for the long-boat again. up she rose on the top of another roller. i made out the signal clearly, that second time, and saw that it was rigged half-mast high. "rames," says i, "it's a signal of distress. pass the word forward to keep her before the sea, and no more. we must get the long-boat within hailing distance of us, as soon as possible." i dropped down into my old place at the tiller without another word--for the thought went through me like a knife that something had happened to captain ravender. i should consider myself unworthy to write another line of this statement, if i had not made up my mind to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth--and i must, therefore, confess plainly that now, for the first time, my heart sank within me. this weakness on my part was produced in some degree, as i take it, by the exhausting effects of previous anxiety and grief. our provisions--if i may give that name to what we had left--were reduced to the rind of one lemon and about a couple of handsfull of coffee-berries. besides these great distresses, caused by the death, the danger, and the suffering among my crew and passengers, i had had a little distress of my own to shake me still more, in the death of the child whom i had got to be very fond of on the voyage out--so fond that i was secretly a little jealous of her being taken in the long-boat instead of mine when the ship foundered. it used to be a great comfort to me, and i think to those with me also, after we had seen the last of the golden mary, to see the golden lucy, held up by the men in the long-boat, when the weather allowed it, as the best and brightest sight they had to show. she looked, at the distance we saw her from, almost like a little white bird in the air. to miss her for the first time, when the weather lulled a little again, and we all looked out for our white bird and looked in vain, was a sore disappointment. to see the men's heads bowed down and the captain's hand pointing into the sea when we hailed the long- boat, a few days after, gave me as heavy a shock and as sharp a pang of heartache to bear as ever i remember suffering in all my life. i only mention these things to show that if i did give way a little at first, under the dread that our captain was lost to us, it was not without having been a good deal shaken beforehand by more trials of one sort or another than often fall to one man's share. i had got over the choking in my throat with the help of a drop of water, and had steadied my mind again so as to be prepared against the worst, when i heard the hail (lord help the poor fellows, how weak it sounded!)-- "surf-boat, ahoy!" i looked up, and there were our companions in misfortune tossing abreast of us; not so near that we could make out the features of any of them, but near enough, with some exertion for people in our condition, to make their voices heard in the intervals when the wind was weakest. i answered the hail, and waited a bit, and heard nothing, and then sung out the captain's name. the voice that replied did not sound like his; the words that reached us were: "chief-mate wanted on board!" every man of my crew knew what that meant as well as i did. as second officer in command, there could be but one reason for wanting me on board the long-boat. a groan went all round us, and my men looked darkly in each other's faces, and whispered under their breaths: "the captain is dead!" i commanded them to be silent, and not to make too sure of bad news, at such a pass as things had now come to with us. then, hailing the long- boat, i signified that i was ready to go on board when the weather would let me--stopped a bit to draw a good long breath--and then called out as loud as i could the dreadful question: "is the captain dead?" the black figures of three or four men in the after-part of the long-boat all stooped down together as my voice reached them. they were lost to view for about a minute; then appeared again--one man among them was held up on his feet by the rest, and he hailed back the blessed words (a very faint hope went a very long way with people in our desperate situation): "not yet!" the relief felt by me, and by all with me, when we knew that our captain, though unfitted for duty, was not lost to us, it is not in words--at least, not in such words as a man like me can command--to express. i did my best to cheer the men by telling them what a good sign it was that we were not as badly off yet as we had feared; and then communicated what instructions i had to give, to william rames, who was to be left in command in my place when i took charge of the long-boat. after that, there was nothing to be done, but to wait for the chance of the wind dropping at sunset, and the sea going down afterwards, so as to enable our weak crews to lay the two boats alongside of each other, without undue risk--or, to put it plainer, without saddling ourselves with the necessity for any extraordinary exertion of strength or skill. both the one and the other had now been starved out of us for days and days together. at sunset the wind suddenly dropped, but the sea, which had been running high for so long a time past, took hours after that before it showed any signs of getting to rest. the moon was shining, the sky was wonderfully clear, and it could not have been, according to my calculations, far off midnight, when the long, slow, regular swell of the calming ocean fairly set in, and i took the responsibility of lessening the distance between the long-boat and ourselves. it was, i dare say, a delusion of mine; but i thought i had never seen the moon shine so white and ghastly anywhere, either on sea or on land, as she shone that night while we were approaching our companions in misery. when there was not much more than a boat's length between us, and the white light streamed cold and clear over all our faces, both crews rested on their oars with one great shudder, and stared over the gunwale of either boat, panic-stricken at the first sight of each other. "any lives lost among you?" i asked, in the midst of that frightful silence. the men in the long-bout huddled together like sheep at the sound of my voice. "none yet, but the child, thanks be to god!" answered one among them. and at the sound of his voice, all my men shrank together like the men in the long-boat. i was afraid to let the horror produced by our first meeting at close quarters after the dreadful changes that wet, cold, and famine had produced, last one moment longer than could be helped; so, without giving time for any more questions and answers, i commanded the men to lay the two boats close alongside of each other. when i rose up and committed the tiller to the hands of rames, all my poor follows raised their white faces imploringly to mine. "don't leave us, sir," they said, "don't leave us." "i leave you," says i, "under the command and the guidance of mr. william rames, as good a sailor as i am, and as trusty and kind a man as ever stepped. do your duty by him, as you have done it by me; and remember to the last, that while there is life there is hope. god bless and help you all!" with those words i collected what strength i had left, and caught at two arms that were held out to me, and so got from the stern-sheets of one boat into the stern-sheets of the other. "mind where you step, sir," whispered one of the men who had helped me into the long-boat. i looked down as he spoke. three figures were huddled up below me, with the moonshine falling on them in ragged streaks through the gaps between the men standing or sitting above them. the first face i made out was the face of miss coleshaw, her eyes were wide open and fixed on me. she seemed still to keep her senses, and, by the alternate parting and closing of her lips, to be trying to speak, but i could not hear that she uttered a single word. on her shoulder rested the head of mrs. atherfield. the mother of our poor little golden lucy must, i think, have been dreaming of the child she had lost; for there was a faint smile just ruffling the white stillness of her face, when i first saw it turned upward, with peaceful closed eyes towards the heavens. from her, i looked down a little, and there, with his head on her lap, and with one of her hands resting tenderly on his cheek--there lay the captain, to whose help and guidance, up to this miserable time, we had never looked in vain,--there, worn out at last in our service, and for our sakes, lay the best and bravest man of all our company. i stole my hand in gently through his clothes and laid it on his heart, and felt a little feeble warmth over it, though my cold dulled touch could not detect even the faintest beating. the two men in the stern-sheets with me, noticing what i was doing--knowing i loved him like a brother--and seeing, i suppose, more distress in my face than i myself was conscious of its showing, lost command over themselves altogether, and burst into a piteous moaning, sobbing lamentation over him. one of the two drew aside a jacket from his feet, and showed me that they were bare, except where a wet, ragged strip of stocking still clung to one of them. when the ship struck the iceberg, he had run on deck leaving his shoes in his cabin. all through the voyage in the boat his feet had been unprotected; and not a soul had discovered it until he dropped! as long as he could keep his eyes open, the very look of them had cheered the men, and comforted and upheld the women. not one living creature in the boat, with any sense about him, but had felt the good influence of that brave man in one way or another. not one but had heard him, over and over again, give the credit to others which was due only to himself; praising this man for patience, and thanking that man for help, when the patience and the help had really and truly, as to the best part of both, come only from him. all this, and much more, i heard pouring confusedly from the men's lips while they crouched down, sobbing and crying over their commander, and wrapping the jacket as warmly and tenderly as they could over his cold feet. it went to my heart to check them; but i knew that if this lamenting spirit spread any further, all chance of keeping alight any last sparks of hope and resolution among the boat's company would be lost for ever. accordingly i sent them to their places, spoke a few encouraging words to the men forward, promising to serve out, when the morning came, as much as i dared, of any eatable thing left in the lockers; called to rames, in my old boat, to keep as near us as he safely could; drew the garments and coverings of the two poor suffering women more closely about them; and, with a secret prayer to be directed for the best in bearing the awful responsibility now laid on my shoulders, took my captain's vacant place at the helm of the long-boat. this, as well as i can tell it, is the full and true account of how i came to be placed in charge of the lost passengers and crew of the golden mary, on the morning of the twenty-seventh day after the ship struck the iceberg, and foundered at sea. [illustration: _frontispiece._ little nell and her grandfather.] charles dickens' children stories re-told by his granddaughter and others with twelve full-page illustrations philadelphia henry altemus company copyright, , by henry altemus company trotty veck and his daughter meg. "trotty" seems a strange name for an old man, but it was given to toby veck because of his always going at a trot to do his errands; for he was a porter, and carried letters and messages for people who were in too great a hurry to send them by the post. he did not earn very much, and had to be out in all weathers and all day long. but toby was of a cheerful disposition, and looked on the bright side of everything. his greatest joy was his dear daughter meg, who loved him dearly. one cold day toby had been trotting up and down in his usual place before the church, when the bells chimed twelve o'clock, which made toby think of dinner. "there's nothing," he remarked, "more regular in coming round than dinner-time, and nothing less regular in coming round than dinner. that's the great difference between 'em." he went on talking to himself never noticing who was coming near to him. "why, father, father," said a pleasant voice, and toby turned to find his daughter's sweet, bright eyes close to his. "why, pet," said he, kissing her, "what's-to-do? i didn't expect you to-day, meg." "neither did i expect to come, father," said meg, smiling. "but here i am! and not alone, not alone!" "why, you don't mean to say," observed trotty, looking curiously at the covered basket she carried, "that you?----" "smell it, father dear," said meg; "only smell it, and guess what it is." toby took the shortest possible sniff at the edge of the basket. "why, it's hot," he said. but to meg's great delight he could not guess what it was that smelt so good. at last he exclaimed in triumph, "why, what am i a-thinking of? it's tripe!" and it was. just as toby was about to sit down to his dinner on the doorsteps of a big house close by, the chimes rang out again, and toby took off his hat and said, "amen." "amen to the bells, father?" "they broke in like a grace, my dear," said trotty, "they'd say a good one if they could, i'm sure. many's the kind thing they say to me. how often have i heard them bells say, 'toby veck, toby veck, keep a good heart, toby!' a millions times? more!" "well, i never!" cried meg. while toby ate his unexpected dinner with immense relish, meg told him how her lover richard, a young blacksmith, had brought his dinner to share with her, and had begged her to marry him on new year's day, "the best and happiest day of the whole year." "so," went on meg, "i wanted to make this a sort of holiday to you, as well as a dear and happy day to me, father, and i made a little treat and brought it to surprise you." just then, richard himself came up to persuade toby to agree to their plan; and almost at the same moment, a footman came out of the house and ordered them all off the steps, and some gentleman came out who called up trotty, and gave him a letter to carry. toby trotted off to a very grand house, where he was told to take the letter in to the gentleman. while he was waiting, he heard the letter read. it was from alderman cute, to tell sir joseph bowley that one of his tenants named will fern who had come to london to try and get work, had been brought before him charged with sleeping in a shed, and asking if sir joseph wished him to be dealt leniently with or otherwise. to toby's great disappointment the answer was given that will fern might be sent to prison as a vagabond, though his only fault was poverty. on his way home, toby ran against a man dressed like a countryman, carrying a fair-haired little girl. the man asked him the way to alderman cute's house. "it's impossible," cried toby, "that your name is will fern?" "that's my name," said the man. thereupon toby told him what he had just heard, and said "don't go there." [illustration: trotty veck's dinner. toby took a sniff at the edge of the basket.] poor will told him how he could not make a living in the country, and had come to london with his orphan niece to try and find a friend of her mother's and to endeavor to get some work, and wishing toby a happy new year, was about to trudge wearily off again, when trotty caught his hand saying-- "stay! the new year never can be happy to me if i see the child and you go wandering away without a shelter for your heads. come home with me. i'm a poor man, living in a poor place, but i can give you lodging for one night and never miss it," and lifting up the pretty little one, he trotted towards home, and rushing in, he set the child down before his daughter. the little girl ran into her arms at once, while trotty ran round the room, saying, "here we are and here we go. here, uncle will, come to the fire. meg, my precious darling, where's the kettle? here it is and here it goes, and it'll bile in no time!" "why, father!" said meg, "you're crazy to-night, i think. poor little feet, how cold they are!" "oh, they're warmer now!" exclaimed the child. "they're quite warm now!" "no, no, no," said meg. "we haven't rubbed 'em half enough. and when they're done, we'll brush out the damp hair; and we'll bring some color to the poor pale face with fresh water; and then we'll be so gay and brisk and happy!" the child sobbing, clasped her round the neck, saying, "o meg, o dear meg!" "good gracious me!" said meg, presently, "father's crazy! he's put the dear child's bonnet on the kettle, and hung the lid behind the door!" trotty hastily repaired this mistake, and went off to find some tea and a rasher of bacon he fancied "he had seen lying somewhere on the stairs." he soon came back and made the tea, and before long they were all enjoying the meal. after tea meg took lilian to bed, and toby showed will fern where he was to sleep. then he went to sit by the fire and read his paper, and fell asleep, to have a wonderful dream so terrible and sad, that it was a great relief when he woke to find meg sitting near him, putting some ribbons on her simple gown for her wedding, and looking so happy and young and blooming, that he jumped up to clasp her in his arms. but somebody came rushing in between them, crying,--"no! not even you. the first kiss of meg in the new year is mine. meg, my precious prize, a happy year! a life of happy years, my darling wife!" then in came lilian and will fern, and a band of music with a flock of neighbors burst into the room, shouting, "a happy new year, meg." "a happy wedding!" "many of 'em," and the drum stepped forward and said-- "trotty veck, it's got about that your daughter is to be married to-morrow. and there ain't a soul that knows you both that don't wish you both all the happiness the new year can bring. and here we are, to play it in and dance it in accordingly." then mrs. chickenstalker came in (a good-humored, comely woman, who, to the delight of all, turned out to be the friend of lilian's mother for whom will fern had come to look), to wish meg joy, and then the music struck up, and trotty, making meg and richard second couple, led off mrs. chickenstalker down the dance, and danced it in a step unknown before or since, founded on his own peculiar trot. tiny tim. there was once a man who did not like christmas. his name was scrooge, and he was a hard sour-tempered man of business, intent only on saving and making money, and caring nothing for anyone. he paid the poor, hard-working clerk in his office as little as he could possibly get the work done for, and lived on as little as possible himself, alone, in two dismal rooms. he was never merry or comfortable, or happy, and he hated other people to be so, and that was the reason why he hated christmas, because people will be happy at christmas, you know, if they possibly can. well, it was christmas eve, a very cold and foggy one, and mr. scrooge, having given his poor clerk unwilling permission to spend christmas day at home, locked up his office and went home himself in a very bad temper. after having taken some gruel as he sat over a miserable fire in his dismal room, he got into bed, and had some wonderful and disagreeable dreams, to which we will leave him, whilst we see how tiny tim, the son of his poor clerk, spent christmas day. the name of this clerk was bob cratchet. he had a wife and five other children beside tim, who was a weak and delicate little cripple, gentle and patient and loving, with a sweet face of his own, which no one could help looking at. it was mr. cratchet's delight to carry his little boy out on his shoulder to see the shops and the people; and to-day he had taken him to church for the first time. "whatever has got your precious father, and your brother tiny tim!" exclaimed mrs. cratchet, "here's dinner all ready to be dished up. i've never known him so late on christmas day before." "here he is, mother!" cried belinda, and "here he is!" cried the other children, as mr. cratchet came in, his long comforter hanging three feet from under his threadbare coat; for cold as it was the poor clerk had no top-coat. tiny tim was perched on his father's shoulder. "and how did tim behave?" asked mrs. cratchet. "as good as gold and better," replied his father. "he told me, coming home, that he hoped the people in church, who saw he was a cripple, would be pleased to remember on christmas day who it was who made the lame to walk." "bless his sweet heart!" said the mother in a trembling voice. dinner was waiting to be dished up. mrs. cratchet proudly placed a goose upon the table. belinda brought in the apple sauce, and peter the mashed potatoes; the other children set chairs, tim's as usual close to his father's; and tim was so excited that he rapped the table with his knife, and carried "hurrah." after the goose came the pudding, all ablaze, with its sprig of holly in the middle, and was eaten to the last morsel; then apples and oranges were set upon the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire, and mr. cratchet served round some hot sweet stuff out of a jug as they closed round the fire, and said, "a merry christmas to us all, my dears, god bless us." "god bless us, every one," echoed tiny tim, and then they drank each other's health, and mr. scrooge's health, and told stories and sang songs. [illustration: tiny tim. tiny tim was perched on his father's shoulder.] now in one of mr. scrooge's dreams on christmas eve a christmas spirit showed him his clerk's home; he saw them all, heard them drink his health, and he took special note of tiny tim himself. how mr. scrooge spent christmas day we do not know; but on christmas night he had more dreams, and the spirit took him again to his clerk's poor home. upstairs, the father, with his face hidden in his hands, sat beside a little bed, on which lay a tiny figure, white and still. "tiny tim died because his father was too poor to give him what was necessary to make him well; _you_ kept him poor," said the dream-spirit to mr. scrooge. the father kissed the cold, little face on the bed, and went down-stairs, where the sprays of holly still remained about the humble room; and taking his hat, went out, with a wistful glance at the little crutch in the corner as he shut the door. mr. scrooge saw all this, but, wonderful to relate, he woke the next morning feeling as he had never felt in his life before. "why, i am as light as a feather, and as happy as an angel, and as merry as a schoolboy," he said to himself. "i hope everybody had a merry christmas, and here's a happy new year to all the world." poor bob cratchet crept into the office a few minutes late, expecting to be scolded for it, but his master was there with his back to a good fire, and actually smiling, and he shook hands with his clerk, telling him heartily he was going to raise his salary, and asking quite affectionately after tiny tim! "and mind you make up a good fire in your room before you set to work, bob," he said, as he closed his own door. bob could hardly believe his eyes and ears, but it was all true. such doings as they had on new year's day had never been seen before in the cratchet's home, nor such a turkey as mr. scrooge sent them for dinner. tiny tim had his share too, for tiny tim did not die, not a bit of it. mr. scrooge was a second father to him from that day, he wanted for nothing, and grew up strong and hearty. mr. scrooge loved him, and well he might, for was it not tiny tim who had unconsciously, through the christmas dream-spirit, touched his hard heart, and caused him to become a good and happy man? little dombey. little dombey was the son of a rich city merchant, a cold, stern, and pompous man, whose life and interests were entirely absorbed in his business. he was so desirous of having a son to associate with himself in the business, and make the house once more dombey & son in fact, as it was in name, that the little boy who was at last born to him was eagerly welcomed. there was a pretty little girl six years old, but her father had taken little notice of her. of what use was a girl to dombey & son? she could not go into the business. little dombey's mother died when he was born, but the event did not greatly disturb mr. dombey; and since his son lived, what did it matter to him that his little daughter florence was breaking her heart in loneliness for the mother who had loved and cherished her! during the first few months of his life, little dombey grew and flourished; and as soon as he was old enough to take notice, there was no one he loved so well as his sister florence. in due time the baby was taken to church, and baptized by the name of paul (his father's name). a grand and stately christening it was, followed by a grand and stately feast; and little paul was declared by his godmother to be "an angel, and the perfect picture of his own papa." but from that time paul seemed to waste and pine; his healthy and thriving babyhood had received a check, and as for illnesses, "there never was a blessed dear so put upon," his nurse said. by the time he was five years old, though he had the prettiest, sweetest little face in the world, there was always a patient, wistful look upon it, and he was thin and tiny and delicate. he soon got tired, and had such old-fashioned ways of speaking and doing things, that his nurse often shook her head sadly over him. when he sat in his little arm-chair with his father, after dinner, they were a strange pair,--so like, and so unlike each other. "what is money, papa?" asked paul on one of these occasions, crossing his tiny arms as well as he could--just as his father's were crossed. "why, gold, silver and copper; you know what it is well enough, paul," answered his father. "oh yes; i mean, what can money do?" "anything, everything--almost," replied mr. dombey, taking one of his son's wee hands. paul drew his hand gently away. "it didn't save me my mamma, and it can't make me strong and big," said he. "why, you _are_ strong and big, as big as such little people usually are," returned mr. dombey. "no," replied paul, sighing; "when florence was as little as me, she was strong and tall, and did not get tired of playing as i do. i am so tired sometimes, papa." mr. dombey's anxiety was aroused, and the doctor was sent for to examine paul. "the child is hardly so stout as we could wish," said the doctor; "his mind is too big for his body, he thinks too much--let him try sea air--sea air does wonders for children." so it was arranged that florence, paul, and nurse should go to brighton, and stay in the house of a lady named mrs. pipchin, who kept a very select boarding-house for children. there is no doubt that, apart from his importance to the house of dombey & son, little paul had crept into his father's heart, cold though it still was towards his daughter, colder than ever now, for there was in it a sort of unacknowledged jealousy of the warm love lavished on her by paul, which he himself was unable to win. mrs. pipchin was a marvellously ugly old lady, with a hook nose and stern cold eyes. "well, master paul, how do you think you will like me?" said mrs. pipchin, seeing the child intently regarding her. "i don't think i shall like you at all," replied paul, shaking his head. "i want to go away. i do not like your house." paul did not like mrs. pipchin, but he would sit in his arm-chair and look at her. her ugliness seemed to fascinate him. as the weeks went by little paul grew more healthy-looking, but he did not seem any stronger, and could not run about out of doors. a little carriage was therefore got for him, in which he could be wheeled down to the beach, where he would pass the greater part of the day. he took a great fancy to a queer crab-faced old man, smelling of sea-weed, who wheeled his carriage, and held long conversations with him; but florence was the only child companion whom he ever cared to have with him, though he liked to watch other children playing in the distance. "i love you, floy," he said one day to her. florence laid her head against his pillow, and whispered how much stronger he was growing. "oh, yes, i know, i am a great deal better," said paul, "a very great deal better. listen, floy; what is it the sea keeps saying?" "nothing, dear, it is only the rolling of the waves you hear." "yes, but they are always saying something, and always the same thing. what place is over there, floy?" she told him there was another country opposite, but paul said he did not mean that, he meant somewhere much farther away, oh, much farther away--and often he would break off in the midst of their talk to listen to the sea and gaze out towards that country "farther away." after having lived at brighton for a year, paul was certainly much stronger, though still thin and delicate. and on one of his weekly visits, mr. dombey explained to mrs. pipchin, with pompous condescension, that paul's weak health having kept him back in his studies, he had made arrangements to place him at the educational establishment of dr. blimber, which was close by. florence was, for the present, to remain under mrs. pipchin's care, and see her brother every week. dr. blimber's school was a great hot-house for the forcing of boy's brains; and dr. blimber promised speedily to make a man of paul. "shall you like to be made a man of, my son?" asked mr. dombey. "i'd rather be a child and stay with floy," answered paul. miss blimber, the doctor's daughter, a learned lady in spectacles, was his special tutor, and from morning till night his poor little brains were forced and crammed till his head was heavy and always had a dull ache in it, and his small legs grew weak again--every day he looked a little thinner and a little paler, and became more old-fashioned than ever in his looks and ways--"old-fashioned" was a distinguishing title which clung to him. he was gentle and polite to every one--always looking out for small kindnesses which he might do to any inmate of the house. "the oddest and most old-fashioned child in the world," dr. blimber would say to his daughter; "but bring him on, cornelia--bring him on." and cornelia did bring him on; and florence, seeing how pale and weary the little fellow looked when he came to her on saturdays, and how he could not rest from anxiety about his lessons, would lighten his labors a little, and ease his mind by helping him to prepare his week's work. but one day, when his lessons were over, little paul laid his weary and aching head against the knee of a schoolfellow of whom he was very fond; and the first thing he noticed when he opened his eyes was that the window was open, his face and hair were wet with water, and that dr. blimber and the usher were both standing looking at him. "ah, that's well," said dr. blimber, as paul opened his eyes, "and how is my little friend now?" "oh, quite well, thank you, sir," answered paul, but when he got up there seemed something the matter with the floor, and the walls were dancing about, and dr. blimber's head was twice its natural size. he was put to bed, and presently the doctor came and said he was not to do any more lessons for the present. in a few days paul was able to get up and creep about the house. he wondered sometimes why every one looked at and spoke so very kindly to him, and was more than ever careful to do any little kindnesses he could think of for them: even the rough, ugly dog diogenes, who lived in the yard, came in for a share of his attentions. there was a party at dr. blimber's on the evening before the boys went home. paul sat in a corner of the sofa all the evening, and every one was very kind to him indeed, it was quite extraordinary, paul thought, and he was very happy; he liked to see how pretty florence was, and how every one admired and wished to dance with her. after resting for a night at mrs. pipchin's house, little paul went home, and was carried straight upstairs to his bed. [illustration: little paul and florence. a little carriage was got for him.] he lay in his bed day after day quite happily and patiently, content to watch and talk to florence. he would tell her his dreams, and how he always saw the sunlit ripples of a river rolling, rolling fast in front of him; sometimes he seemed to be rocking in a little boat on the water, and its motion lulled him to rest, and then he would be floating away, away to that shore farther off, which he could not see. one day he told florence that the water was rippling brighter and faster than ever, and that he could not see anything else. "my own boy, cannot you see your poor father?" said mr. dombey, bending over him. "oh yes, but don't be so sorry, dear papa. i am so happy,--good-bye, dear papa." presently he opened his eyes again, and said, "floy, mamma is like you, i can see her. come close to me, floy, and tell them," whispered the dying boy, "that the face of the picture of christ on the staircase at school is not divine enough; the light from it is shining on me now, and the water is shining too, and rippling so fast, so fast." the evening light shone into the room, but little paul's spirit had gone out on the rippling water, and the divine face was shining on him from the farther shore. the runaway couple. "supposing a young gentleman not eight years old was to run away with a fine young woman of seven, would you consider that a queer start? that there is a start as i--the boots at the holly-tree inn--have seen with my own eyes; and i cleaned the shoes they ran away in, and they was so little that i couldn't get my hand into 'em. [illustration: the runaway couple.] "master harry walmers's father, he lived at the elms, away by shooter's hill, six or seven miles from london. he was uncommon proud of master harry, as was his only child; but he didn't spoil him neither. he was a gentleman that had a will of his own, and an eye of his own, and that would be minded. consequently, though he made quite a companion of the fine bright boy, still he kept the command over him, and the child _was_ a child. i was under gardener there at that time i and one morning master harry, he comes to me and says-- "'cobbs, how should you spell norah, if you were asked?' and he took out his little knife and began cutting that name in print all over the fence. the next day as it might be, he stops, along with miss norah, where i was hoeing weeds in the gravel, and says, speaking up-- "'cobbs, i like you! why do i like you do you think, cobbs? because norah likes you.' "'indeed, sir,' says i. 'that's very gratifying.' "'gratifying, cobbs?' says master harry. 'it's better than a million of the brightest diamonds, to be liked by norah. you're going away ain't you, cobbs? then you shall be our head gardener when we're married.' and he tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks away. "i was the boots at this identical holly-tree inn when one summer afternoon the coach drives up, and out of the coach gets these two children. the young gentleman gets out; hands his lady out; gives the guard something for himself; says to my governor, the landlord: 'we're to stop here to-night, please. sitting room and two bed-rooms will be required. mutton chops and cherry pudding for two!' and tucks her under his arm, and walks into the house, much bolder than brass. "i had seen 'em without their seeing me, and i gave the governor my views of the expedition they was upon. 'cobbs,' says the governor, 'if this is so, i must set off myself and quiet their friends' minds. in which case you must keep your eye upon 'em, and humor 'em, until i come back. but before i take these measures, cobbs, i should wish you to find out from themselves whether your opinion is correct.' "so i goes upstairs, and there i finds master harry on an e-nor-mous sofa a-drying the eyes of miss norah with his pocket handkercher. their little legs was entirely off the ground, of course, and it really is not possible to express how small them children looked. 'it's cobbs! it's cobbs!' cries master harry, and he comes a-runing to me, and catching hold of my hand. miss norah, she comes running to me on t'other side, and catching hold of my t'other hand, and they both jump for joy. and what i had took to be the case was the case. "'we're going to be married, cobbs, at gretna green,' says the boy. 'we've run away on purpose. norah has been in rather low spirits, cobbs; but she'll be happy now we have found you to be our friend.' "'i give you my word and honor upon it that, by way of luggage the lady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and a half of cold buttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a doll's hair-brush. the gentleman had got about a dozen yards of string, a knife, three or four sheets of writing-paper folded up surprisingly small, a orange, and a chaney mug with his name on it. "'what may be the exact nature of your plans, sir?' says i. "'to go on,' replies the boy, 'in the morning, and be married to-morrow.' "'just so, sir. well, sir, if you will excuse my having the freedom to give an opinion, what i should recommend would be this. i'm acquainted with a pony, sir, which would take you and mrs. harry walmers junior to the end of your journey in a very short space of time. i am not altogether sure, sir, that the pony will be at liberty to-morrow, but even if you had to wait for him it might be worth your while.' "they clapped their hands and jumped for joy, and called me 'good cobbs!' and 'dear cobbs!' and says i, 'is there anything you want at present, sir?' "'we should like some cakes after dinner,' answers mr. harry, 'and two apples--and jam. with dinner we should like to have toast and water. but norah has always been accustomed to half a glass of currant wine at dessert, and so have i.' "'they shall be ordered, sir,' i answered, and away i went; and the way in which all the women in the house went on about that boy and his bold spirit was a thing to see. they climbed up all sorts of places to get a look at him, and they peeped, seven deep, through the keyhole. "in the evening, after the governor had set off for the elms, i went into the room to see how the run-away couple was getting on. the gentleman was on the window seat, supporting the lady in his arms. she had tears upon her face, and was lying very tired and half asleep, with her head upon his shoulder. "'mrs. harry walmers junior fatigued, sir?' "'yes, she's tired, cobbs; she's been in low spirits again; she isn't used to being in a strange place, you see. could you bring a norfolk biffin, cobbs? i think that would do her good.' "well, i fetched the biffin, and master harry fed her with a spoon; but the lady being heavy with sleep and rather cross, i suggested bed, and called a chambermaid, but master harry must needs escort her himself, and carry the candle for her. after embracing her at her own door he retired to his room, where i softly locked him in. "they consulted me at breakfast (they had ordered sweet milk and water, and toast and currant jelly, over night) about the pony, and i told 'em that it did unfortunately happen that the pony was half clipped, but that he'd be finished clipping in the course of the day, and that to-morrow morning at eight o'clock he would be ready. my own opinion is that mrs. harry walmers junior was beginning to give in. she hadn't had her hair curled when she went to bed, and she didn't seem quite up to brushing it herself, and it getting into her eyes put her out. but nothing put out mr. harry. he sat behind his breakfast cup tearing away at the jelly, as if he'd been his own father. "in the course of the morning, master harry rung the bell,--it was surprising how that there boy did carry on,--and said in a sprightly way, 'cobbs, is there any good walks in the neighborhood?' "'yes, sir, there's love lane.' "'get out with you, cobbs!'--that was that there mite's expression--'you're joking.' "'begging your pardon, sir, there really is a love lane, and a pleasant walk it is; and proud shall i be to show it to yourself and mrs. harry walmers junior.' "well, i took him down love lane to the water meadows, and there master harry would have drowned himself in another minute a getting out a water-lily for her. but they was tired out. all being so new and strange to them, they were as tired as tired could be. and they laid down on a bank of daisies and fell asleep. "they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting pretty clear to me, namely, that mrs. harry walmers junior's temper was on the move. when master harry took her round the waist, she said he 'teased her so'; and when he says, 'norah, my young may moon, your harry tease you?' she tells him, 'yes, and i want to go home.' "a boiled fowl, and baked bread and butter pudding, brought mrs. walmers up a little; but i could have wished, i must privately own, to have seen her more sensible to the voice of love and less abandoning herself to the currants in the pudding. however, master harry, he kep' up, and his noble heart was as fond as ever. mrs. walmers turned very sleepy about dusk, and began to cry. therefore, mrs. walmers went off to bed as per yesterday; and master harry ditto repeated. "about eleven at night comes back the governor in a chaise, along of master harry's father and a elderly lady. and master harry's door being unlocked by me, master harry's father goes in, goes up to the bedside, bends gently down, and kisses the little sleeping face. then he stands looking at it for a moment, looking wonderfully like it; and then he gently shakes the little shoulder. 'harry, my dear boy! harry!' "master harry starts up and looks at his pa. such is the honor of that mite, that he looks at me, too, to see whether he has brought me into trouble. "'i am not angry, my child. i only want you to dress yourself and come home.' "'yes, pa.' master harry dresses himself quick. "'please may i--please, dear pa--may i--kiss norah before i go?' "master harry's father he takes master harry in his hand, and i leads the way with the candle to that other bedroom where the elderly lady is seated by the bed, and poor little mrs. harry walmers junior is fast asleep. there the father lifts the boy up to the pillow, and he lays his little face down for an instant by the little warm face of poor little mrs. harry walmers junior, and gently draws it to him. "and that's all about it. master harry's father drove away in the chaise having hold of master harry's hand. the elderly lady mrs. harry walmers junior that was never to be (she married a captain long after and went to india) went off next day." poor jo! jo was a crossing-sweeper; every day he swept up the mud, and begged for pennies from the people who passed. poor jo wasn't pretty and he wasn't clean. his clothes were only a few poor rags that hardly protected him from the cold and the rain. he had never been to school, and he could neither write nor read--could not even spell his own name. poor jo! he was ugly and dirty and ignorant; but he knew one thing, that it was wicked to tell a lie, and knowing this, he always told the truth. one other thing poor jo knew too well, and that was what being hungry means. for little jo was very poor. he lived in tom-all-alones, one of the most horrible places in all london. the people who live in this dreadful den are the poorest of london poor. all miserably clad, all dirty, all very hungry. they know and like jo, for he is always willing to go on errands for them, and does them many little acts of kindness. no one in tom-all-alones is spoken of by his name. thus it is that if you inquired there for a boy named jo, you would be asked whether you meant carrots, or the colonel, or gallows, or young chisel, or terrier tip, or lanky, or the brick. jo was generally called toughy, although a few superior persons who affected a dignified style of speaking called him "the tough subject." jo used to say he had never had but one friend. it was one cold winter night, when he was shivering in a door-way near his crossing, that a dark-haired, rough-bearded man turned to look at him, and then came back and began to talk to him. "have you a friend, boy?" he asked presently. "no, never 'ad none." "neither have i. not one. take this, and good-night," and so saying the man, who looked very poor and shabby, put into jo's hand the price of a supper and a night's lodging. often afterwards the stranger would stop to talk with jo, and give him money, jo firmly believed, whenever he had any to give. when he had none, he would merely say, "i am as poor as you are to-day, jo," and pass on. one day, jo was fetched away from his crossing to a public-house, where the coroner was holding an inquest--an "inkwich" jo called it. "did the boy know the deceased?" asked the coroner. indeed jo had known him; it was his only friend who was dead. "he was very good to me, he was," was all poor jo could say. the next day they buried the dead man in the churchyard hard by. but that night there came a slouching figure through the court to the iron gate. it stood looking in for a little while, then with an old broom it softly swept the step and made the archway clean. it was poor jo; and as he went away, he softly said to himself, "he was very good to me, he was." now, there happened to be at the inquest a kind-hearted little man named snagsby, and he pitied jo so much that he gave him half-a-crown. jo was very sad after the death of his one friend. the more so as his friend had died in great poverty and misery, with no one near him to care whether he lived or not. a few days after the funeral, while jo was still living on mr. snagsby's half-crown, he was standing at his crossing as the day closed in, when a lady, closely veiled and plainly dressed, came up to him. "are you the boy jo who was examined at the inquest?" she asked. "that's me," said jo. "come farther up the court, i want to speak to you." "wot, about him as was dead? did you know him?" "how dare you ask me if i knew him?" "no offence, my lady," said jo humbly. "listen and hold your tongue. show me the place where he lived, then where he died, then where they buried him. go in front of me, don't look back once, and i'll pay you well." [illustration: jo and the policeman. "i'm always a moving on."] jo takes her to each of the places she wants to see. then she draws off her glove, and jo sees that she has sparkling rings on her fingers. she drops a coin into his hand and is gone. jo holds the coin to the light and sees to his joy that it is a golden sovereign. but people in jo's position in life find it hard to change a sovereign, for who will believe that they can come by it honestly? so poor little jo didn't get much of the sovereign for himself, for, as he afterwards told mr. snagsby-- "i had to pay five bob down in tom-all-alones before they'd square it for to give me change, and then a young man he thieved another five while i was asleep, and a boy he thieved ninepence, and the landlord he stood drains round with a lot more of it." as time went on jo's troubles began in earnest. the police turned him away from his crossing, and wheresoever they met him ordered him "to move on." once a policeman, angry to find that jo hadn't moved on, seized him by the arm and dragged him down to mr. snagsby's. "what's the matter, constable?" asked mr. snagsby. "this boy's as obstinate a young gonoph as i know: although repeatedly told to, he won't move on." "i'm always amoving on," cried jo. "oh, my eye, where am i to move to?" "my instructions don't go to that," the constable answered; "my instructions are that you're to keep moving on. now the simple question is, sir," turning to mr. snagsby, "whether you know him. he says you do." "yes, i know him." "very well, i leave him here; but mind you keep moving on." the constable then moved on himself, leaving jo at mr. snagsby's. there was a little tea-party there that evening, and when jo was at last allowed to go, mr. snagsby followed him to the door and filled his hands with the remains of the little feast they had had upstairs. and now jo began to find life harder and rougher than ever. he lost his crossing altogether, and spent day after day in moving on. he remembered a poor woman he had once done a kindness to, who had told him she lived at st. albans, and that a lady there had been very good to her. "perhaps she'll be good to me," thought jo, and he started off to go to st. albans. one saturday night jo reached that town very tired and very ill. happily for him the woman met him and took him into her cottage. while he was resting there a lady came in and asked him very kindly what was the matter. "i'm abeing froze and then burnt up, and then froze and burnt up again, ever so many times over in an hour. and my head's all sleepy, and all agoing round like, and i'm so dry, and my bones is nothing half so much bones as pain." "where are you going?" "somewheres," replied jo, "i'm a-being moved on, i am." "well, to-night you must come with me, and i'll make you comfortable." so jo went with the lady to a great house not far off, and there they made a bed for him, and brought him tempting wholesome food. everyone was very kind to him, but something frightened jo, and he felt he could not stay there, and he ran out into the cold night air. where he went he could never remember, for when he next came to his senses he found himself in a hospital. he stayed there for some weeks, and was then discharged, though still weak and ill. he was very thin, and when he drew a breath his chest was very painful. "it draws," said jo, "as heavy as a cart." now, a certain young doctor who was very kind to poor people, was walking through tom-all-alones one morning, when he saw a ragged figure coming along, crouching close to the dirty wall. it was jo. the young doctor took pity on jo. "come with me," he said, "and i will find you a better place than this to stay in," for he saw that the lad was very, very ill. so jo was taken to a clean little room, and bathed, and had clean clothes, and good food, and kind people about him once more, but he was too ill now, far too ill, for anything to do him any good. "let me lie here quiet," said poor jo, "and be so kind anyone as is passin' nigh where i used to sweep, as to say to mr. snagsby as jo, wot he knew once, is amoving on." one day the young doctor was sitting by him, when suddenly jo made a strong effort to get out of bed. "stay, jo--where now?" "it's time for me to go to that there burying-ground." "what burying-ground, jo?" "where they laid him as was very good to me, very good to me indeed he was. it's time for me to go down to that there burying-ground, sir, and ask to be put along of him. i wants to go there and be buried. will you promise to have me took there and laid along with him?" "i will indeed." "thankee, sir. there's a step there as i used to sweep with my broom. it's turned very dark, sir, is there any light coming?" "it's coming fast, jo." then silence for a while. "jo, my poor fellow----!" "i can hear you, sir, in the dark." "jo, can you say what i say?" "i'll say anything you say, sir, for i knows it's good." "our father." "our father--yes, that's very good, sir." "which art in heaven." "art in heaven. is the light a-coming, sir?" "it's close at hand. hallowed be thy name." "hallowed be thy"-- the light had come. oh yes! the light had come, for jo was dead. the little kenwigs. mrs. kenwigs was the wife of an ivory turner, and though they only had a very humble home of two rooms in a dingy-looking house in a small street, they had great pretensions to being "genteel." the little miss kenwigs had their flaxen hair plaited into pig-tails and tied with blue ribbons, and wore little white trousers with frills round their ankles, the highest fashion of that day; besides being dressed with such elegance, the two eldest girls went twice a week to a dancing school. mrs. kenwigs, too, had an uncle who collected the water rate, and she was therefore considered a person of great distinction, with quite the manners of a lady. on the eighth anniversary of their wedding day, mr. and mrs. kenwigs invited a party of friends to supper to celebrate the occasion. the four eldest children were to be allowed to sit up to supper, and the uncle, mr. lillyvick, had promised to come. the baby was put to bed in a little room lent by one of the lady guests, and a little girl hired to watch him. all the company had assembled when a ring was heard, and morleena, whose name had been _invented by mrs. kenwigs_ specially for her, ran down to open the door and lead in her distinguished great-uncle, then the supper was brought in. the table was cleared; mr. lillyvick established in the arm-chair by the fireside; the four little girls arranged on a small form in front of the company with their flaxen tails towards them; mrs. kenwigs was suddenly dissolved in tears and sobbed out-- "they are so beautiful!" "oh, dear," said all the ladies, "so they are; it's very natural you should feel proud of that; but don't give way, don't." "i can--not help it, and it don't signify," sobbed mrs. kenwigs: "oh! they're too beautiful to live, much too beautiful." on hearing this dismal prophecy, all four little girls screamed until their light flaxen tails vibrated again, and rushed to bury their heads in their mother's lap. at length she was soothed, and the children calmed down; while the ladies and gentlemen all said they were sure they would live for many many years, and there was no occasion for their mother's distress: and as the children were not so remarkably lovely, this was quite true. then mr. lillyvick talked to the company about his niece's marriage, and said graciously that he had always found mr. kenwigs a very honest, well-behaved, upright, and respectable sort of man, and shook hands with him, and then morleena and her sisters kissed their uncle and most of the guests. then miss petowker, who could sing and recite in a way that brought tears to mrs. kenwigs' eyes, remarked-- "oh, dear mrs. kenwigs, while mr. noggs is making that punch to drink happy returns in, do let morleena go through that figure dance before mr. lillyvick." "well, i'll tell you what," said mrs. kenwigs. "morleena shall do the steps, if uncle can persuade miss petowker to recite us the 'blood-drinker's burial' afterwards." everyone clapped their hands and stamped their feet at this proposal, but miss petowker said, "you know i dislike doing anything professional at private parties." "oh, but not here!" said mrs. kenwigs. "you might as well be going through it in your own room: besides, the occasion." "i can't resist that," interrupted miss petowker, "anything in my humble power, i shall be delighted to do." in reality mrs. kenwigs and miss petowker had arranged all the entertainment between them beforehand, but had settled that a little pressing on each side would look more natural. then miss petowker hummed a tune, and morleena danced. it was a very beautiful figure, with a great deal of work for the arms, and gained much applause. then miss petowker was entreated to begin her recitation, so she let down her back hair, and went through the performance with great spirit, and died raving mad in the arms of a bachelor friend who was to rush out and catch her at the words "in death expire," to the great delight of the audience and the terror of the little kenwigses, who were nearly frightened into fits. just as the punch was ready, a knock at the door startled them all. but it was only a friend of mr. noggs, who lived upstairs, and who had come down to say that mr. noggs was wanted. mr. noggs hurried out, saying he would be back soon, and presently startled them all by rushing in, snatching up a candle and a tumbler of hot punch, and darting out again. now, it happened unfortunately that the tumbler of punch was the very one that mr. lillyvick was just going to lift to his lips, and the great man--the rich relation--who had it in his power to make morleena and her sisters heiresses--and whom everyone was most anxious to please--was offended. poor mr. kenwigs endeavored to soothe him, but only made matters worse. mr. lillyvick demanded his hat, and was only induced to remain by mrs. kenwigs' tears and the entreaties of the entire company. [illustration: the little kenwigs. "they are so beautiful."] "there, kenwigs," said mr. lillyvick, "and let me tell you, to show you how much out of temper i was, that if i had gone away without another word, it would have made no difference respecting that pound or two which i shall leave among your children when i die." "morleena kenwigs," cried her mother, "go down on your knees to your dear uncle, and beg him to love you all his life through; for he's more an angel than a man, and i've always said so." just as all were happy again, everyone was startled by a rapid succession of the loudest and shrillest shrieks, apparently coming from the room where the baby was asleep. "my baby, my blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed baby! my own darling, sweet, innocent lillyvick! let me go-o-o-o," screamed mrs. kenwigs. mr. kenwigs rushed out, and was met at the door of the bedroom by a young man with the baby (upside down) in his arms, who came out so quickly that he knocked mr. kenwigs down; handing the child to his mother, he said, "don't be alarmed, it's all out, it's all over--the little girl, being tired, i suppose, fell asleep and set her hair on fire. i heard her cries and ran up in time to prevent her setting fire to anything else. the child is not hurt: i took it off the bed myself and brought it here to convince you." after they had all talked over this last excitement, and discussed little lillyvick's deliverer, the collector pulled out his watch and announced that it was nearly two o'clock, and as the poor children had been for some time obliged to keep their little eyes open with their little forefingers, the company took leave, declaring they had never spent such a delightful evening, and that they wished mr. and mrs. kenwigs had a wedding-day once a week. little dorrit. many years ago, when people could be put in prison for debt, a poor gentleman, who was unfortunate enough to lose all his money, was brought to the marshalsea prison. as there seemed no prospect of being able to pay his debts, his wife and their two little children came to live there with him. the elder child was a boy of three; the younger a little girl of two years old, and not long afterwards another little girl was born. the three children played in the courtyard, and were happy, on the whole, for they were too young to remember a happier state of things. but the youngest child, who had never been outside the prison walls, was a thoughtful little creature, and wondered what the outside world could be like. her great friend, the turnkey, who was also her godfather, became very fond of her, and as soon as she could walk and talk, he bought a little arm-chair and stood it by his fire at the lodge, and coaxed her with cheap toys to come and sit with him. one day, she was sitting in the lodge gazing wistfully up at the sky through the barred window. the turnkey, after watching her some time, said:-- "thinking of the fields, ain't you?" "where are they?" she asked. "why, they're--over there, my dear," said the turnkey, waving his key vaguely, "just about there." "does anybody open them and shut them? are they locked?" "well," said the turnkey, discomfited, "not in general." "are they pretty, bob?" she called him bob, because he wished it. "lovely. full of flowers. there's buttercups, and there's daisies, and there's--" here he hesitated, not knowing the names of many flowers--"there's dandelions, and all manner of games." "is it very pleasant to be there, bob?" "prime," said the turnkey. "was father ever there?" "hem!" coughed the turnkey. "o yes, he was there, sometimes." "is he sorry not to be there now?" "n--not particular," said the turnkey. "nor any of the people?" she asked, glancing at the listless crowd within. "o are you quite sure and certain, bob?" at this point, bob gave in and changed the subject. but after this chat, the turnkey and little amy would go out on his free sunday afternoons to some meadows or green lanes, and she would pick grass and flowers to bring home, while he smoked his pipe. when amy was only eight years old, her mother died, and the poor father was more helpless and broken-down than ever, and as fanny was a careless child, and edward idle, the little one, who had the bravest and truest heart, was inspired by her love and unselfishness to be the little mother of the forlorn family, and struggled to get some little education for herself and her brother and sister. she went as often as she could to an evening school outside, and managed to get her brother and sister sent to a day-school at intervals, during three or four years. at thirteen, she could read and keep accounts. once, amongst the debtors, a dancing-master came in, and as fanny had a great desire to learn dancing, little amy went timidly to the new prisoner, and said, "if you please, i was born here, sir." "oh! you are the young lady, are you?" said he. "yes, sir." "and what can i do for you?" "nothing for me, sir, thank you; but if, while you stay here, you could be so kind as to teach my sister cheap." "my child, i'll teach her for nothing," said the dancing-master. fanny was a very apt pupil, and the good-natured dancing-master went on giving her lessons even after his release, and amy was so emboldened with the success of her attempt that, when a milliner came in, she went to her on her own behalf, and begged her to teach her. "i am afraid you are so weak, you see," the milliner objected. "i don't think i am weak, ma'am." "and you are so very, very little, you see," the milliner still objected. [illustration: the blind toy maker.] [illustration: little dorrit and maggie. "she has never grown older since."] "yes, i am afraid i am very little indeed," returned the child, and began to sob, so that the milliner was touched, and took her in hand and made her a clever workwoman. but the father could not bear the idea that his children should work for their living, so they had to keep it all secret. fanny became a dancer, and lived with a poor old uncle, who played the clarionet at the small theatre where fanny was engaged. amy, or little dorrit as she was generally called, her father's name being dorrit, earned small sums by going out to do needlework. she got edward into a great many situations, but he was an idle, careless fellow, and always came back to be a burden and care to his poor little sister. at last she saved up enough to send him out to canada. "god bless you, dear tip" (his name had been shortened to tip), "don't be too proud to come and see us when you have made your fortune," she said. but tip only went as far as liverpool, and appeared once more before his poor little second mother, in rags, and with no shoes. in the end, after another trial, tip returned telling amy, that this time he was "one of the regulars." "oh! don't say you are a prisoner, tip. don't, don't!" but he was--and amy nearly broke her heart. so with all these cares and worries struggling bravely on, little dorrit passed the first twenty-two years of her life. then the son of a lady, mrs. clennem, to whose house amy went to do needlework, was interested in the pale, patient little creature, and learning her history resolved to do his best to try and get her father released, and to help them all. one day when he was walking home with little dorrit a voice was heard calling, "little mother, little mother," and a strange figure came bouncing up to them and fell down, scattering her basketful of potatoes on the ground. "oh maggie," said little dorrit, "what a clumsy child you are!" she was about eight and twenty, with large bones, large features, large hands and feet, large eyes and no hair. little dorrit told mr. clennem that maggie was the grand-daughter of her old nurse, and that her grandmother had been very unkind to her and beat her. "when maggie was ten years old, she had a fever, and she has never grown older since." "ten years old," said maggie. "but what a nice hospital! so comfortable wasn't it? such a ev'nly place! such beds there is there! such lemonades! such oranges! such delicious broth and wine! such chicking! oh, ain't it a delightful place to stop at!" "then when she came out, her grandmother did not know what to do with her, and was very unkind. but after some time, maggie tried to improve, and was very attentive and industrious, and now she can earn her own living entirely, sir!" little dorrit did not say who had taken pains to teach and encourage the poor half-witted creature, but mr. clennem guessed from the name little mother, and the fondness of the poor creature for amy. thanks to mr. clennem, a great change took place in the fortunes of the family, and not long after this wretched night, it was discovered that mr. dorrit was owner of a large property, and they became very rich. when, in his turn, mr. clennem became a prisoner in the marshalsea little dorrit came to comfort and console him, and after many changes of fortune, she became his wife, and they lived happy ever after. the blind toy-maker. caleb plummer and his blind daughter lived alone in a little cracked nutshell of a house. they were toy-makers, and their house was stuck like a toadstool on to the premises of messrs. gruff & tackleton, the toy merchants for whom they worked,--the latter of whom was himself both gruff and tackleton in one. i am saying that caleb and his blind daughter lived here. i should say caleb did, his daughter lived in an enchanted palace, which her father's love had created for her. she did not know that the ceilings were cracked, the plaster tumbling down, and the wood work rotten; that everything was old and ugly and poverty-stricken about her and that her father was a grey-haired stooping old man, and the master for whom they worked a hard and brutal taskmaster;--oh, dear no, she fancied a pretty, cosy, compact little home full of tokens of a kind master's care, a smart, brisk, gallant-looking father, and a handsome and noble-looking toy merchant who was an angel of goodness. this was all caleb's doings. when his blind daughter was a baby he had determined in his great love and pity for her, that her deprivation should be turned into a blessing, and her life as happy as he could make it. and she was happy; everything about her she saw with her father's eyes, in the rainbow-coloured light with which it was his care and pleasure to invest it. bertha sat busily at work, making a doll's frock, whilst caleb bent over the opposite side of the table painting a doll's house. "you were out in the rain last night in your beautiful new great-coat," said bertha. "yes, in my beautiful new great-coat," answered caleb, glancing to where a roughly made garment of sack-cloth was hung up to dry. "how glad i am you bought it, father." "and of such a tailor! quite a fashionable tailor, a bright blue cloth, with bright buttons; it's a deal too good a coat for me." "too good!" cried the blind girl, stopping to laugh and clap her hands--"as if anything was too good for my handsome father, with his smiling face, and black hair, and his straight figure." caleb began to sing a rollicking song. "what, you are singing, are you?" growled a gruff voice, as mr. tackleton put his head in at the door. "_i_ can't afford to sing, i hope you can afford to work too. hardly time for both, i should say." "you don't see how the master is winking at me," whispered caleb in his daughter's ear--"such a joke, pretending to scold, you know." the blind girl laughed and nodded, and taking mr. tackleton's reluctant hand, kissed it gently. "what is the idiot doing?" grumbled the toy merchant, pulling his hand roughly away. "i am thanking you for the beautiful little tree," replied bertha, bringing forward a tiny rose-tree in blossom, which caleb had made her believe was her master's gift, though he himself had gone without a meal or two to buy it. "here's bedlam broke loose. what does the idiot mean?" snarled mr. tackleton; and giving caleb some rough orders, he departed without the politeness of a farewell. "if you could only have seen him winking at me all the time, pretending to be so rough to escape thanking," exclaimed caleb, when the door was shut. now a very sad and curious thing had happened. caleb, in his love for bertha, had so successfully deceived her as to the real character of mr. tackleton, that she had fallen in love, not with her master, but with what she imagined him to be, and was happy in an innocent belief in his affection for her; but one day she accidently heard he was going to be married, and could not hide from her father the pain and bewilderment she felt at the news. "bertha, my dear," said caleb at length, "i have a confession to make to you; hear me kindly though i have been cruel to you." "you cruel to me!" cried bertha, turning her sightless face towards him. "not meaning it, my child! and i never suspected it till the other day. i have concealed things from you which would have given pain, i have invented things to please you, and have surrounded you with fancies." "but living people are not fancies, father, you cannot change them." "i have done so, my child, god forgive me! bertha, the man who is married to-day is a hard master to us both, ugly in his looks and in his nature, and hard and heartless as he can be." "oh heavens! how blind i have been, how could you father, and i so helpless!" poor caleb hung his head. "answer me father," said bertha. "what is my home like?" "a poor place, bertha, a very poor and bare place! indeed as little able to keep out wind and weather as my sackcloth coat." "and the presents that i took such care of, that came at my wish, and were so dearly welcome?" caleb did not answer. "i see, i understand," said bertha, "and now i am looking at you, at my kind, loving compassionate father, tell me what is he like?" "an old man, my child, thin, bent, grey-haired, worn-out with hard work and sorrow, a weak, foolish, deceitful old man." the blind girl threw herself on her knees before him, and took his grey head in her arms. "it is my sight, it is my sight restored," she cried. "i have been blind, but now i see, i have never till now truly seen my father. father, there is not a grey hair on your head that shall be forgotten in my prayers and thanks to heaven." "my bertha!" sobbed caleb, "and the brisk smart father in the blue coat--he's gone, my child." "dearest father, no, he's not gone, nothing is gone. i have been happy and contented, but i shall be happier and more contented still, now that i know what you are. i am _not_ blind, father, any longer." little nell. the house was one of those receptacles for old and curious things, which seem to crouch in odd corners of the town; and in the old, dark, murky rooms, there lived alone together an old man and a child--his grandchild, little nell. solitary and monotonous as was her life, the innocent and cheerful spirit of the child found happiness in all things, and through the dim rooms of the old curiosity shop little nell went singing, moving with gay and lightsome step. but gradually over the old man, to whom she was so tenderly attached, there stole a sad change. he became thoughtful, dejected, and wretched. he had no sleep or rest but that which he took by day in his easy chair; for every night, and all night long, he was away from home. at last a raging fever seized him, and as he lay delirious or insensible through many weeks, nell learned that the house which sheltered them was theirs no longer; that in the future they would be very poor; that they would scarcely have bread to eat. at length the old man began to mend, but his mind was weakened. as the time drew near when they must leave the house, he made no reference to the necessity of finding other shelter. but a change came upon him one evening, as he and nell sat silently together. "let us speak softly, nell," he said. "hush! for if they knew our purpose they would say that i was mad, and take thee from me. we will not stop here another day. we will travel afoot through the fields and woods, and trust ourselves to god in the places where he dwells." the child's heart beat high with hope and confidence. to her it seemed that they might beg their way from door to door in happiness, so that they were together. when the day began to glimmer they stole out of the house, and passing into the street stood still. "which way?" asked the child. the old man looked irresolutely and helplessly at her, and shook his head. it was plain that she was thenceforth his guide and leader. the child felt it, but had no doubts or misgivings, and putting her hand in his, led him gently away. they passed through the long, deserted streets, until these streets dwindled away, and the open country was about them. they walked all day, and slept that night at a small cottage where beds were let to travellers. the sun was setting on the second day of their journey, when, following a path which led to the town where they were to spend the night, they fell in with two travelling showmen, bound for the races at a neighboring town. they made two long days' journey with their new companions. the men were rough and strange in their ways, but they were kindly, too; and in the bewildering noise and movement of the race-course, where she tried to sell some little nosegays, nell would have clung to them for protection, had she not learned that these men suspected that she and the old man had left their home secretly, and that they meant to take steps to have them sent back and taken care of. separation from her grandfather was the greatest evil nell could dread. she seized her opportunity to evade the watchfulness of the two men, and hand in hand she and the old man fled away together. that night they reached a little village in a woody hollow. the village schoolmaster, attracted by the child's sweetness and modesty, gave them a lodging for the night; nor would he let them leave him until two days more had passed. they journeyed on when the time came that they must wander forth again, by pleasant country lanes. the afternoon had worn away into a beautiful evening, when they came to a caravan drawn up by the road. it was a smart little house upon wheels, and at the door sat a stout and comfortable lady, taking tea. the tea-things were set out upon a drum, covered with a white napkin. and there, as if at the most convenient table in the world, sat this roving lady, taking her tea and enjoying the prospect. of this stout lady nell ventured to ask how far it was to the neighboring town. and the lady, noticing that the tired child could hardly repress a tear at hearing that eight weary miles lay still before them, not only gave them tea, but offered to take them on in the caravan. now this lady of the caravan was the owner of a wax-work show, and her name was mrs. jarley. she offered nell employment in pointing out the figures in the wax-work show to the visitors who came to see it, promising in return both board and lodging for the child and her grandfather, and some small sum of money. this offer nell was thankful to accept, and for some time her life and that of the poor, vacant, fond old man, passed quietly and almost happily. one night nell and her grandfather went out to walk. a terrible thunder-storm coming on, they were forced to take refuge in a small public-house where men played cards. the old man watched them with increasing interest and excitement, until his whole appearance underwent a complete change. his face was flushed and eager, his teeth set. he seized nell's little purse, and in spite of her entreaties joined in the game, gambling with such a savage thirst for gain that the distressed and frightened child could almost better have borne to see him dead. the night was far advanced before the play came to an end, and they were forced to remain where they were until the morning. and in the night the child was awakened from her troubled sleep to find a figure in the room. it was her grandfather himself, his white face pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his eyes unnaturally bright, counting the money of which his hands were robbing her. evening after evening, after that night, the old man would steal away, not to return until the night was far spent, demanding, wildly, money. and at last there came an hour when the child overheard him, tempted beyond his feeble powers of resistence, undertake to find more money to feed the desperate passion which had laid hold upon his weakness by robbing mrs. jarley. that night the child took her grandfather by the hand and led him forth; sustained by one idea--that they were flying from disgrace and crime, and that her grandfather's preservation must depend solely upon her firmness; the old man following as though she had been an angel messenger sent to lead him where she would. they slept in the open air that night, and on the following morning some men offered to take them a long distance on their barge. these men, though they were not unkindly, drank and quarrelled among themselves, to nell's inexpressible terror. it rained, too, heavily, and she was wet and cold. at last they reached the great city whither the barge was bound, and here they wandered up and down, being now penniless, and watched the faces of those who passed, to find among them a ray of encouragement or hope. they laid down that night, and the next night too, with nothing between them and the sky; a penny loaf was all they had had that day, and when the third morning came, it found the child much weaker, yet she made no complaint. faint and spiritless as they were, the streets were insupportable; and the child, throughout the remainder of that hard day, compelled herself to press on, that they might reach the country. evening was drawing on; they were dragging themselves through the last street. seeing a traveller on foot before them, she shot on before her grandfather and began in a few faint words to implore the stranger's help. he turned his head, the child uttered a wild shriek, and fell senseless at his feet. it was the village schoolmaster who had been so kind to them before. the good man took her in his arms and carried her quickly to a little inn hard by, where she was tenderly put to bed and where a doctor arrived with all speed. the schoolmaster, as it appeared, was on his way to a new home. and when the child had recovered somewhat from her exhaustion, it was arranged that she and her grandfather should accompany him to the village whither he was bound, and that he should endeavor to find them some humble occupation by which they could subsist. it was a secluded village, lying among the quiet country scenes nell loved. and here, her grandfather being tranquil and at rest, a great peace fell upon the spirit of the child. often she would steal into the church, and sit down among the quiet figures carved upon the tombs. what if the spot awakened thoughts of death? it would be no pain to sleep here. for the time was drawing nearer every day when nell was to rest indeed. she never murmured or complained, but faded like a light upon a summer's evening and died. day after day and all day long, the old man, broken-hearted and with no love or care for anything in life, would sit beside her grave with her straw hat and the little basket she had been used to carry, waiting till she should come to him again. at last they found him lying dead upon the stone. and in the church where they had often prayed and mused and lingered, hand in hand, the child and the old man slept together. little david copperfield. little david copperfield lived with his mother in a pretty house in the village of blunderstone in suffolk. his father died before david could remember anything and he had neither brothers nor sisters. he was fondly loved by his pretty young mother, and their kind, good servant peggotty, and david was a very happy little fellow. they had very few friends, and the only relation mrs. copperfield talked about was an aunt of david's father, a tall and rather terrible old lady, from all accounts. one visitor, a tall dark gentleman, david did not like at all, and he was rather inclined to be jealous that his mother should be friendly with the stranger. one day peggotty, the servant, asked david if he would like to go with her on a visit to her brother at yarmouth. "is your brother an agreeable man, peggotty?" he enquired. "oh, what an agreeable man he is!" cried peggotty. "then there's the sea, and the boats and ships, and the fishermen, and the beach. and 'am to play with." ham was her nephew. david was quite anxious to go when he heard of all these delights; but his mother, what would she do all alone? peggotty told him his mother was going to pay a visit to some friends, and would be sure to let him go. so all was arranged, and they were to start the next day in the carrier's cart. when they arrived at yarmouth, they found ham waiting to meet them. he was a great strong fellow, six feet high, and took david on his back and the box under his arm to carry both to the house. david was delighted to find that this house was made of a real big black boat, with a door and windows cut in the side, and an iron funnel sticking out of the roof for a chimney. inside, it was very cosy and clean, and david had a tiny bedroom in the stern. he was very much pleased to find a dear little girl, about his own age, to play with, and soon discovered that she and ham were orphans, children of mr. peggotty's brother and sister, whose fathers had been drowned at sea, so kind mr. peggotty had taken them to live with him. david was very happy in this queer house, playing on the beach with em'ly, as they called the little girl, and told her all about his happy home; and she told him how her father had been drowned at sea before she came to live with her uncle. david said he thought mr. peggotty must be a very good man. "good!" said em'ly. "if ever i was to be a lady, i'd give him a sky-blue coat with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a red velvet waistcoat, a cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver pipe, and a box of money!" david was quite sorry to leave these kind people and his dear little companion, but still he was glad to think he should get back to his own dear mamma. when he reached home, however, he found a great change. his mother was married to the dark man david did not like, whose name was mr. murdstone, and he was a stern, hard man, who had no love for little david, and did not allow his mother to pet and indulge him as she had done before. mr. murdstone's sister came to live with them, and as she was even more difficult to please than her brother, and disliked boys, david's life was no longer a happy one. he had always had lessons with his mother, and as she was patient and gentle, he had enjoyed learning to read, but now he had a great many very hard lessons to do, and was so frightened and shy when mr. and miss murdstone were in the room, that he did not get on at all well, and was continually in disgrace. his only pleasure was to go up into the little room at the top of the house where he had found a number of books that had belonged to his own father, and he would sit and read robinson crusoe, and many tales of travels and adventures. but one day he got into sad trouble over his lessons, and mr. murdstone was very angry, and took him away from his mother and beat him with a cane. david had never been beaten in his life before, and was so maddened by pain and rage that he bit mr. murdstone's hand! now, indeed, he had done something to deserve the punishment, and mr. murdstone in a fury, beat him savagely, and left him sobbing and crying on the floor. david was kept locked up in his room for some days, seeing no one but miss murdstone, who brought him his food. at last, one night, he heard his name whispered at the key hole. "is that you, peggotty?" he asked, groping his way to the door. "yes, my precious davy. be as soft as a mouse or the cat will hear us." david understood she meant miss murdstone, whose room was quite near. "how's mamma, peggotty dear? is she very angry with me?" he whispered. "no--not very," she said. "what is going to be done with me, dear peggotty, do you know?" asked poor david, who had been wondering all these long, lonely days. "school--near london--" "when, peggotty?" "to-morrow," answered peggotty. "shan't i see mamma?" "yes--morning," she said, and went on to promise david she would always love him, and take the greatest care of his dear mamma, and write him every week. the next morning david saw his mother, very pale and with red eyes. he ran to her arms and begged her to forgive him. "oh, davy," she said, "that you should hurt anyone i love! i forgive you, davy, but it grieves me so that you should have such bad passions in your heart. try to be better, pray to be better." david was very unhappy that his mother should think him so wicked, and though she kissed him, and said, "i forgive you, my dear boy, god bless you," he cried so bitterly when he was on his way in the carrier's cart, that his pocket handkerchief had to be spread out on the horse's back to dry. after they had gone a little way the cart stopped, and peggotty came running up, with a parcel of cakes and a purse for david. after giving him a good hug, she ran off. davy found three bright shillings in the purse, and two half-crowns wrapped in paper on which was written, in his mother's hand--"for davy. with my love." davy shared his cakes with the carrier, who asked if peggotty made them, and david told him yes, she did all their cooking. the carrier looked thoughtful, and then asked david if he would send a message to peggotty from him. david agreed, and the message was "barkis is willing." while david was waiting for the coach at yarmouth, he wrote to peggotty: my dear peggotty,--i have come here safe. barkis is willing. my love to mamma.--yours affectionately." "_p. s._--he says he particularly wanted you to know _barkis is willing_." at yarmouth he found dinner was ordered for him, and felt very shy at having a table all to himself, and very much alarmed when the waiter told him he had seen a gentleman fall down dead, after drinking some of their beer. david said he would have some water, and was quite grateful to the waiter for drinking the ale that had been ordered for him, for fear the people of the hotel should be offended. he also helped david to eat his dinner and accepted one of his bright shillings. when they got to salem house, as the school was called, david found that he had been sent before the holidays were over as a punishment, and was also to wear a placard on his back, on which was written--"take care of him. he bites." this made david miserable, and he dreaded the return of the boys. some of the boys teased david by pretending he was a dog, calling him towser, and patting and stroking him; but, on the whole, it was not so bad as david had expected. the head boy, steerforth, promised to take care of him, and david loved him dearly, and thought him a great hero. steerforth took a great fancy to the pretty bright-eyed little fellow, and david became a favorite with all the boys, by telling them all he could remember of the tales he had read. one day david had a visit from mr. peggotty and ham, who had brought two enormous lobsters, a huge crab, and a large canvas bag of shrimps, as they "remembered he was partial to a relish with his meals." david was proud to introduce his friend steerforth to these kind simple friends, and told them how good steerforth was to him, and the "relish" was much appreciated by the boys at supper that night. when he got home for the holidays david found he had a little baby brother, and his mother and peggotty were very much pleased to see him again. mr. and miss murdstone were out, and david sat with his mother and peggotty, and told them all about his school and steerforth, and took the little baby in his arms and nursed it lovingly. but when the murdstones came back they showed plainly they disliked him, and thought him in the way, and scolded him, and would not allow him to touch the baby, or even to sit with peggotty in the kitchen, so he was not sorry when the time came for him to go back to school, except for leaving his dear mamma and the baby. about two months after he had been back at school he was sent for one day and told that his dear mamma had died! the wife of the head-master was very kind and gentle to the desolate little boy, and the boys were very sorry for him. david went home the next day, and heard that the dear baby had died too. peggotty received him with great tenderness, and told him about his mother's illness and how she had sent a loving message. "tell my dearest boy that his mother, as she lay here, blessed him not once, but a thousand times," and she had prayed to god to protect and keep her fatherless boy. mr. murdstone did not take any notice of poor little david, nor had miss murdstone a word of kindness for the orphan. peggotty was to leave in a month, and, to their great joy, david was allowed to go with her on a visit to mr. peggotty. on their way david found out that the mysterious message he had given to peggotty meant that barkis wanted to marry her, and peggotty had consented. everyone in mr. peggotty's cottage was pleased to see david, and did their best to comfort him. little em'ly was at school when he arrived, and he went out to meet her, but when he saw her coming along, her blue eyes bluer, and her bright face prettier than ever, he pretended not to know her, and was passing by, when em'ly laughed and ran away, so of course he was obliged to run and catch her and try to kiss her, but she would not let him, saying she was not a baby now. but she was kind to him all the same, and when they spoke about the loss of his dear mother, david saw that her eyes were full of tears. during this visit peggotty was married to mr. barkis, and had a nice little house of her own, and davy spent the night before he was to return home in a little room in the roof. "young or old, davy dear, so long as i have this house over my head," said peggotty, "you shall find it as if i expected you here directly every minute. i shall keep it as i used to keep your old little room, my darling, and if you was to go to china, you might think of its being kept just the same all the time you were away." david felt how good and true a friend she was, and thanked her as well as he could, for they had brought him to the gate of his home, and peggotty had him clasped in her arms. how utterly wretched and forlorn he felt! he found he was not to go back to school any more, and wandered about sad and solitary, neglected and uncared for. peggotty's weekly visits were his only comfort. no one took any pains with him, and he had no friends near who could help him. at last one day, after some weary months had passed, mr. murdstone told him he was to go to london and earn his own living. there was a place for him at murdstone & grinby's, a firm in the wine trade. his lodging and clothes would be provided for him by his step-father, and he would earn enough for his food and pocket money. the next day david was sent up to london with the manager, dressed in a shabby little white hat with black crape round it for his mother, a black jacket, and hard, stiff corduroy trousers, a little fellow of ten years old to fight his own battles in the world! his place, he found, was one of the lowest, with boys of no education and in quite an inferior station to himself--his duties were to wash bottles, stick on labels, and so on. david was utterly miserable at being degraded in this way, and shed bitter tears, as he feared he would forget all he had learnt at school. his lodging, one bare little room, was in the house of some people named micawber, shiftless, careless, good-natured people, who were always in debt and difficulties. david felt great pity for their misfortunes and did what he could to help poor mrs. micawber to sell her books and other little things she could spare, to buy food for herself, her husband, and their four children. if he had not been a very innocent-minded, good little boy, he might easily have fallen into bad ways at this time. but god took care of the orphan boy and kept him from harm. the troubles of the micawbers increased more and more, until at last they were obliged to leave london. the last sunday the micawbers were in town david dined with them. after he had seen them off the next morning by the coach, he wrote to peggotty to ask her if she knew where his aunt, miss betsy trotwood, lived, and to borrow half a guinea; for he had resolved to run away from murdstone & grinby's, and go to his aunt and tell her his story. peggotty wrote, enclosing the half-guinea, and saying she only knew miss trotwood lived near dover, but whether in that place itself, or at folkestone, sandgate, or hythe, she could not tell. hearing that all these places were close together, david made up his mind to start. as he had received his week's wages in advance, he waited till the following saturday, thinking it would not be honest to go before. he went out to look for some one to carry his box to the coach office, and unfortunately employed a wicked young man who not only ran off with his box, but robbed him of his half-guinea, leaving poor david in dire distress. in despair, he started off to walk to dover, and was forced to sell his waistcoat to buy some bread. the first night he found his way to his old school at blackheath, and slept on a haystack close by, feeling some comfort in the thought of the boys being near. he knew steerforth had left, or he would have tried to see him. on he trudged the next day and sold his jacket for one shilling and fourpence. he was afraid to buy anything but bread or to spend any money on a bed or a shelter for the night. after six days, he arrived at dover, ragged, dusty, and half-dead with hunger and fatigue. but here, at first, he could get no tidings of his aunt, and, in despair, was going to try some of the other places peggotty had mentioned, when the driver of a fly dropped his horsecloth, and as david was handing it up to him, he saw something kind in the man's face that encouraged him to ask once more if he knew where miss trotwood lived. [illustration: little david copperfield.] the man directed him towards some houses on the heights, and thither david toiled; a forlorn little creature, without a jacket or waistcoat, his white hat crushed out of shape, his shoes worn out, his shirt and trousers torn and stained, his pretty curly hair tangled, his face and hands sunburnt, and covered with dust. lifting his big, wistful eyes to one of the windows above, he saw a pleasant faced gentleman with grey hair, who nodded at him several times, then shook his head and went away. david was just turning away to think what he should do, when a tall, erect, elderly lady, with a gardening apron on and a knife in her hand, came out of the house, and began to dig up a root in the garden. "go away," she cried. "go away. no boys here." but david felt desperate. going in softly, he stood beside her, and touched her with his finger, and said timidly, "if you please, ma'am--" and when she looked up, he went on-- "please, aunt, i am your nephew." "oh, lord!" she exclaimed in astonishment, and sat flat down on the path, staring at him, while he went on-- "i am david copperfield, of blunderstone, in suffolk, where you came the night i was born, and saw my dear mamma. i have been unhappy since she died. i have been slighted and taught nothing, and thrown upon myself, and put to work not fit for me. it made me run away to you. i was robbed at first starting out and have walked all the way, and have never slept in a bed since i began the journey." here he broke into a passion of crying, and his aunt jumped up and took him into the house, where she put him on the sofa and sent the servant to ask "mr. dick" to come down. the gentleman whom david had seen at the window came in and was told who the ragged little object on the sofa was. "now here you see young david copperfield, and the question is what shall i do with him?" "do with him?" answered mr. dick. then, after some consideration, and looking at david, he said, "well, if i was you, i would wash him!" david knelt down to say his prayers that night in a pleasant room facing the sea, and as he lay in the clean, snow-white bed, he prayed he might never be homeless again, and might never forget the homeless. the next morning his aunt told him she had written to mr. murdstone, and at last mr. and miss murdstone arrived. mr. murdstone told miss betsy that david was a very bad, stubborn, violent-tempered boy, whom he had tried to improve, but could not succeed. if miss trotwood chose to protect and encourage him now, she must do it always, for he had come to fetch him away. "are you ready to go, david?" asked his aunt. but david answered no, and begged and prayed her for his father's sake to befriend and protect him, for neither mr. nor miss murdstone had ever liked him or been kind to him. "mr. dick," said miss trotwood, "what shall i do with this child?" mr. dick considered. "have him measured for a suit of clothes directly." "mr. dick," said miss trotwood, "your common sense is invaluable." then she pulled david towards her, and said to mr. murdstone, "you can go when you like. i'll take my chance with the boy. if he's all you say he is i can at least do as much for him as you have done. but i don't believe a word of it." some clothes were bought for him that same day and marked "trotwood copperfield," for his aunt wished to call him by her name. now david felt his troubles were over, and he began quite a new life, well cared for and kindly treated. he was sent to a very nice school in canterbury, where his aunt left him with these words, which david never forgot. "trot, be a credit to yourself, to me, and mr. dick, and heaven be with you. never be mean in anything, never be false, never be cruel. avoid these three vices, trot, and i shall always be hopeful of you." david did his best to show his gratitude to his dear aunt by studying hard, and trying to be all she could wish. when you are older you can read how he grew up to be a good, clever man, and met again all his old friends, and made many new ones. jenny wren. one day, a great many years ago, a gentleman ran up the steps of a tall house in the neighborhood of st. mary axe. the gentleman knocked and rang several times before any one came, but at last an old man opened the door. "what were you up to that you did not hear me?" said mr. fledgeby irritably. "i was taking the air at the top of the house, sir," said the old man meekly, "it being a holiday. what might you please to want, sir?" "humph! holiday indeed," grumbled his master, who was a toy merchant amongst other things. he then seated himself and gave the old man--a jew and riah by name--directions about the dressing of some dolls, and, as he rose to go, exclaimed-- "by the bye, how _do_ you take the air? do you stick your head out of a chimney-pot?" "no, sir, i have made a little garden on the roof." "let's look at it," said mr. fledgeby. "sir, i have company there," returned riah hesitating, "but will you please come up and see them?" mr. fledgeby nodded, and the old man led the way up flight after flight of stairs, till they arrived at the house-top. seated on a carpet, and leaning against a chimney-stack, were two girls bending over books. some creepers were trained round the chimney-pots, and evergreens were placed round the roof, and a few more books, a basket of gaily colored scraps, and bits of tinsel, lay near. one of the girls rose on seeing that riah had brought a visitor, but the other remarked, "i'm the person of the house downstairs, but i can't get up, whoever you are, because my back is bad, and my legs are queer." "this is my master," said riah speaking to the two girls, "and this," he added, turning to mr. fledgeby, "is miss jenny wren; she lives in this house, and is a clever little dressmaker for little people. her friend lizzie," continued riah, introducing the second girl. "they are good girls, both, and as busy as they are good; in spare moments they come up here, and take to book learning." "humph!" said mr. fledgeby, looking round, "humph!" he was so much surprised that apparently he couldn't get beyond that word. lizzie, the elder of these two girls, was strong and handsome, but the little jenny wren, whom she so loved and protected, was small, and deformed, though she had a beautiful little face, and the longest and loveliest golden hair in the world, which fell about her like a cloak of shining curls, as though to hide the poor little misshapen figure. the jew riah, as well as lizzie, was always kind and gentle to jenny wren, who called him godfather. she had a father, who shared her poor little rooms, whom she called her child, for he was a bad, drunken, disreputable old man, and the poor girl had to care for him, and earn money to keep them both. sometimes the two girls, jenny helping herself along with a crutch, would go and walk about the fashionable streets. as they walked along, jenny would tell her friend of the fancies she had when sitting alone at her work. "i imagine birds till i can hear them sing," she said one day, "and flowers till i can smell them. and oh! the beautiful children that come to me, in the early mornings! they are quite different to other children, not like me, never cold, or anxious, or tired, or hungry, never any pain; they come in numbers, in long bright slanting rows, all dressed in white, with shiny heads. 'who is this in pain?' they say, and they sweep around and about me, take me up in their arms, and i feel so light, and all the pain goes. i know they are coming a long way off, by hearing them say, 'who is this in pain?' and i answer, 'oh my blessed children, it's poor me! have pity on me, and take me up and then the pain will go.'" [illustration: jennie wren. "the beautiful children that come to me."] lizzie sat stroking and brushing the beautiful hair, when they were at home again, and as she kissed her good-night, a miserable old man stumbled into the room. "how's my jenny wren, best of children?" he mumbled, as he shuffled unsteadily towards her, but jenny pointed her small finger towards him exclaiming--"go along with you, you bad, wicked, old child, you troublesome, wicked, old thing, _i_ know where you have been; ain't you ashamed of yourself, you disgraceful boy?" "yes; my dear, yes," stammered the tipsy old father, tumbling into a corner. one day when jenny was on her way home with riah, they came on a small crowd of people. a tipsy man had been knocked down and badly hurt--"let us see what it is!" said jennie. the next moment she exclaimed--"oh, gentlemen--gentlemen, he is my child, he belongs to me, my poor, bad, old child!" "your child--belongs to you--" repeated the man who was about to lift the helpless figure on to a stretcher. "aye, it's old dolls--tipsy old dolls--" cried some one in the crowd, for it was by this name that they knew the old man. "he's her father, sir," said riah in a low tone to the doctor who was now bending over the stretcher. "so much the worse," answered the doctor, "for the man is dead." yes, "mr. dolls" was dead, and many were the dresses which the weary fingers of the sorrowful little worker must make in order to pay for his humble funeral, and buy a black frock for herself. often the tears rolled down on to her work. "my poor child," she said to riah, "my poor old child, and to think i scolded him so." "you were always a good, brave, patient girl," returned riah, "always good and patient, however tired." and so the poor little "person of the house" was left alone but for the faithful affection of the kind jew, and her friend lizzie. her room grew pretty comfortable, for she was in great request in her "profession" as she called it, and there was now no one to spend and waste her earnings. but nothing could make her life otherwise than a suffering one till the happy morning, when her child-angels visited her for the last time and carried her away to the land where all such pain as hers is healed for evermore. pip's adventure. all that little philip pirrip, usually called pip, knew about his father and mother, and five little brothers, was from seeing their tombstones in the churchyard. he was taken care of by his sister, who was twenty years older than himself. she had married a blacksmith, named joe gargery, a kind, good man, while she, unfortunately, was a hard, stern woman, and treated her little brother and her amiable husband with great harshness. they lived in a marshy part of the country, about twenty miles from the sea. one cold raw day towards evening, when pip was about six years old, he wandered into the churchyard, and trying to make out what he could of the inscriptions on his family tombstones, and the darkness coming on, he felt very lonely and frightened, and began to cry. "hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, and a man started up from among the graves close to him. "keep still, you little imp, or i'll cut your throat!" he was a dreadful looking man, dressed in coarse grey cloth, with a great iron on his leg. wet, muddy and miserable, his teeth chattered in his head, as he seized pip by the chin. "oh! don't cut my throat, sir," cried pip, in terror. "tell us your name!" said the man. "quick!" "pip, sir." "once more," said the man, staring at him. "give it mouth." "pip. pip, sir." "show us where you live," said the man. "point out the place." pip showed him the village, about a mile or more from the church. the man looked at him for a moment, and then turned him upside down and emptied his pockets. he found nothing in them but a piece of bread, which he ate ravenously. "now lookee here," said the man. "where's your mother?" "there, sir," said pip. at this the man started to run away, but stopped and looked over his shoulder. "there, sir," explained pip, showing him the tombstone. "oh, and is that your father along of your mother?" "yes, sir," said pip. "ha!" muttered the man, "then who d'ye live with--supposin' you're kindly let to live, which i han't made up my mind about?" "my sister, sir, mrs. joe gargery, wife of joe gargery, the blacksmith, sir." "blacksmith, eh?" said the man, and looked down at his leg. then he seized the trembling little boy by both arms, and glaring down at him, he said,-- "now lookee here, the question being whether you're to be let to live--you know what a file is?" "yes, sir." "and you know what wittles is?" "yes, sir." "you get me a file, and you get me wittles--you bring 'em both to me." all this time he was tilting poor pip backwards till he was dreadfully frightened and giddy. "you bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles--you do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live." then he let him go, saying--"you remember what you've undertook, and you get home." pip ran home without stopping. joe was sitting in the chimney corner, and told him mrs. joe had been out to look for him, and taken tickler with her. tickler was a cane, and pip was rather depressed by this piece of news. mrs. joe came in almost directly, and after having given pip a taste of tickler, she sat down to prepare the tea, and cutting a huge slice of bread and butter, she gave half of it to joe and half to pip. pip managed, after some time, to slip his down the leg of his trousers, and joe, thinking he had swallowed it, was dreadfully alarmed and begged him not to bolt his food like that. "pip, old chap, you'll do yourself a mischief,--it'll stick somewhere, you can't have chewed it, pip. you know, pip, you and me is always friends, and i'd be the last to tell upon you at any time, but such a--such a most uncommon bolt as that." [illustration: pip and the convict. half dead with cold and hunger.] "been bolting his food, has he?" cried mrs. joe. "you know, old chap," said joe, "i bolted myself when i was your age--frequent--and as a boy i've been among many bolters; but i never see your bolting equal yet, pip, and it's a mercy you ain't bolted dead." poor pip passed a wretched night, thinking of the dreadful promise he had made, and as soon as it was beginning to get light outside he got up and crept downstairs. as quickly as he could he took some bread, some cheese, about half a jar of mince-meat he tied up in a handkerchief, with the slice of bread and butter, some brandy from a stone bottle, a meat bone with very little on it, and a pork pie, which he found on an upper shelf. then he got a file from among joe's tools, and ran for the marshes. pip found the man waiting for him, half dead with cold and hunger, and he ate the food in such a ravenous way that pip, in spite of his terror, was quite pitiful over him, and said, "i am glad you enjoy it." "thankee, my boy, i do." pip watched him trying to file the iron off his leg, and then, being afraid of stopping longer away from home, he ran off. pip passed a wretched morning expecting every moment that the disappearance of the pie would be found out. but mrs. joe was too much taken up with preparing the dinner, for they were expecting visitors. just at the end of the dinner pip thought his time had come to be found out, for his sister said graciously to her guests-- "you must taste a most delightful and delicious present i have had. it's a pie, a savory pork pie." pip could bear it no longer, and ran for the door, and there ran head foremost into a party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held out a pair of handcuffs to him saying--"here you are, look sharp, come on." but they had not come for him, they only wanted joe to mend the handcuffs, for they were on the search for two convicts who had escaped and were somewhere hid in the marshes. this turned the attention of mrs. joe from the disappearance of the pie without which she had come back, in great astonishment. when the handcuffs were mended the soldiers went off, accompanied by joe and one of the visitors, and joe took pip and carried him on his back. pip whispered, "i hope, joe, we shan't find them," and joe answered "i'd give a shilling if they had cut and run, pip." but the soldiers soon caught them, and one was pip's miserable acquaintance, and once when the man looked at pip, the child shook his head to try and let him know he had said nothing. but the convict, without looking at anyone, told the sergeant he wanted to say something to prevent other people being under suspicion, and said he had taken some "wittles" from the blacksmith's. "it was some broken wittles, that's what it was, and a dram of liquor, and a pie." "have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, blacksmith?" enquired the sergeant. "my wife did, at the very moment when you came in." "so," said the convict, looking at joe, "you're the blacksmith, are you? then i'm sorry to say, i've eat your pie." "god knows you're welcome to it," said joe. "we don't know what you have done, but we wouldn't have you starved to death for it, poor miserable fellow creature. would us, pip?" then the boat came, and the convicts were taken back to prison, and joe carried pip home. some years after, some mysterious friend sent money for pip to be educated and brought up as a gentleman, but it was only when pip was quite grown up that he discovered this mysterious friend was the wretched convict who had frightened him so dreadfully that cold, dark christmas eve. transcriber's notes: text in italics is indicated with underscores: _italics_. inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original. punctuation has been corrected without note. obvious typographical errors have been corrected as follows: page : fren changed to fern page : joe changed to jo page : dorritt changed to dorrit page : needlwork changed to needlework page : distresed changed to distressed page : grandfaather changed to grandfather page : hugh changed to huge the cricket on the hearth. [illustration] [illustration: the cricket on the hearth a fairy tale of home] london: bradbury & evans, , fleet street. & whitefriars. . the cricket on the hearth. a fairy tale of home. * * * * * by charles dickens. =eleventh edition.= =london:= printed and published for the author, by bradbury and evans, , fleet street, and whitefriars. * * * * * mdcccxlvi. london: bradbury and evans, printers, whitefriars. to lord jeffrey this little story is inscribed, with the affection and attachment of his friend, the author. _december_, . illustrations. _engraver._ _artist._ frontispiece _thompson._ d. maclise, r.a. title _g. dalziel._ d. maclise, r.a. chirp the first _g. dalziel._ r. doyle. the carrier's cart _t. williams._ c. stanfield, r.a. john's arrival _e. dalziel._ j. leech. john and dot _swain._ j. leech. chirp the second _e. dalziel._ r. doyle. caleb at work _g. dalziel._ j. leech. boxer _t. williams._ e. landseer, r.a. tilly slowboy _groves._ j. leech. mrs. fielding's lecture _e. dalziel._ j. leech. chirp the third _t. williams._ r. doyle. john's reverie _groves._ j. leech. the dance _swain._ j. leech. [illustration: chirp the first] the kettle began it! don't tell me what mrs. peerybingle said. i know better. mrs. peerybingle may leave it on record to the end of time that she couldn't say which of them began it; but i say the kettle did. i ought to know, i hope? the kettle began it, full five minutes by the little waxy-faced dutch clock in the corner before the cricket uttered a chirp. as if the clock hadn't finished striking, and the convulsive little haymaker at the top of it, jerking away right and left with a scythe in front of a moorish palace, hadn't mowed down half an acre of imaginary grass before the cricket joined in at all! why, i am not naturally positive. every one knows that. i wouldn't set my own opinion against the opinion of mrs. peerybingle, unless i were quite sure, on any account whatever. nothing should induce me. but this is a question of fact. and the fact is, that the kettle began it, at least five minutes before the cricket gave any sign of being in existence. contradict me: and i'll say ten. let me narrate exactly how it happened. i should have proceeded to do so, in my very first word, but for this plain consideration--if i am to tell a story i must begin at the beginning; and how is it possible to begin at the beginning, without beginning at the kettle? it appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of skill, you must understand, between the kettle and the cricket. and this is what led to it, and how it came about. mrs. peerybingle going out into the raw twilight, and clicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked innumerable rough impressions of the first proposition in euclid all about the yard--mrs. peerybingle filled the kettle at the water butt. presently returning, less the pattens: and a good deal less, for they were tall and mrs. peerybingle was but short: she set the kettle on the fire. in doing which she lost her temper, or mislaid it for an instant; for the water--being uncomfortably cold, and in that slippy, slushy, sleety sort of state wherein it seems to penetrate through every kind of substance, patten rings included--had laid hold of mrs. peerybingle's toes, and even splashed her legs. and when we rather plume ourselves (with reason too) upon our legs, and keep ourselves particularly neat in point of stockings, we find this, for the moment, hard to bear. besides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate. it wouldn't allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it wouldn't hear of accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it would lean forward with a drunken air, and dribble, a very idiot of a kettle, on the hearth. it was quarrelsome; and hissed and spluttered morosely at the fire. to sum up all, the lid, resisting mrs. peerybingle's fingers, first of all turned topsy-turvy, and then, with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a better cause, dived sideways in--down to the very bottom of the kettle. and the hull of the royal george has never made half the monstrous resistance to coming out of the water, which the lid of that kettle employed against mrs. peerybingle, before she got it up again. it looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then; carrying its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly and mockingly at mrs. peerybingle, as if it said, "i won't boil. nothing shall induce me!" but mrs. peerybingle, with restored good humour, dusted her chubby little hands against each other, and sat down before the kettle: laughing. meantime, the jolly blaze uprose and fell, flashing and gleaming on the little haymaker at the top of the dutch clock, until one might have thought he stood stock still before the moorish palace, and nothing was in motion but the flame. he was on the move, however; and had his spasms, two to the second, all right and regular. but his sufferings when the clock was going to strike, were frightful to behold; and when a cuckoo looked out of a trap-door in the palace, and gave note six times, it shook him, each time, like a spectral voice--or like a something wiry, plucking at his legs. it was not until a violent commotion and a whirring noise among the weights and ropes below him had quite subsided, that this terrified haymaker became himself again. nor was he startled without reason; for these rattling, bony skeletons of clocks are very disconcerting in their operation, and i wonder very much how any set of men, but most of all how dutchmen, can have had a liking to invent them. for there is a popular belief that dutchmen love broad cases and much clothing for their own lower selves; and they might know better than to leave their clocks so very lank and unprotected, surely. now it was, you observe, that the kettle began to spend the evening. now it was, that the kettle, growing mellow and musical, began to have irrepressible gurglings in its throat, and to indulge in short vocal snorts, which it checked in the bud, as if it hadn't quite made up its mind yet, to be good company. now it was, that after two or three such vain attempts to stifle its convivial sentiments, it threw off all moroseness, all reserve, and burst into a stream of song so cosy and hilarious, as never maudlin nightingale yet formed the least idea of. so plain, too! bless you, you might have understood it like a book--better than some books you and i could name, perhaps. with its warm breath gushing forth in a light cloud which merrily and gracefully ascended a few feet, then hung about the chimney-corner as its own domestic heaven, it trolled its song with that strong energy of cheerfulness, that its iron body hummed and stirred upon the fire; and the lid itself, the recently rebellious lid--such is the influence of a bright example--performed a sort of jig, and clattered like a deaf and dumb young cymbal that had never known the use of its twin brother. that this song of the kettle's, was a song of invitation and welcome to somebody out of doors; to somebody at that moment coming on, towards the snug small home and the crisp fire; there is no doubt whatever. mrs. peerybingle knew it, perfectly, as she sat musing, before the hearth. it's a dark night, sang the kettle, and the rotten leaves are lying by the way; and above, all is mist and darkness, and below, all is mire and clay; and there's only one relief in all the sad and murky air; and i don't know that it is one, for it's nothing but a glare, of deep and angry crimson, where the sun and wind together, set a brand upon the clouds for being guilty of such weather; and the widest open country is a long dull streak of black; and there's hoar-frost on the finger-post, and thaw upon the track; and the ice it isn't water, and the water isn't free; and you couldn't say that anything is what it ought to be; but he's coming, coming, coming!---- and here, if you like, the cricket did chime in! with a chirrup, chirrup, chirrup of such magnitude, by way of chorus; with a voice, so astoundingly disproportionate to its size, as compared with the kettle; (size! you couldn't see it!) that if it had then and there burst itself like an overcharged gun: if it had fallen a victim on the spot, and chirruped its little body into fifty pieces: it would have seemed a natural and inevitable consequence, for which it had expressly laboured. the kettle had had the last of its solo performance. it persevered with undiminished ardour; but the cricket took first fiddle and kept it. good heaven, how it chirped! its shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounded through the house, and seemed to twinkle in the outer darkness like a star. there was an indescribable little trill and tremble in it, at its loudest, which suggested its being carried off its legs, and made to leap again, by its own intense enthusiasm. yet they went very well together, the cricket and the kettle. the burden of the song was still the same; and louder, louder, louder still, they sang it in their emulation. the fair little listener; for fair she was, and young--though something of what is called the dumpling shape; but i don't myself object to that--lighted a candle; glanced at the haymaker on the top of the clock, who was getting in a pretty average crop of minutes; and looked out of the window, where she saw nothing, owing to the darkness, but her own face imaged in the glass. and my opinion is (and so would your's have been), that she might have looked a long way, and seen nothing half so agreeable. when she came back, and sat down in her former seat, the cricket and the kettle were still keeping it up, with a perfect fury of competition. the kettle's weak side clearly being that he didn't know when he was beat. there was all the excitement of a race about it. chirp, chirp, chirp! cricket a mile ahead. hum, hum, hum--m--m! kettle making play in the distance, like a great top. chirp, chirp, chirp! cricket round the corner. hum, hum, hum--m--m! kettle sticking to him in his own way; no idea of giving in. chirp, chirp, chirp! cricket fresher than ever. hum, hum, hum--m--m! kettle slow and steady. chirp, chirp, chirp! cricket going in to finish him. hum, hum, hum--m--m! kettle not to be finished. until at last, they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-skurry, helter-skelter, of the match, that whether the kettle chirped and the cricket hummed, or the cricket chirped and the kettle hummed, or they both chirped and both hummed, it would have taken a clearer head than your's or mine to have decided with anything like certainty. but of this, there is no doubt: that the kettle and the cricket, at one and the same moment, and by some power of amalgamation best known to themselves, sent, each, his fireside song of comfort streaming into a ray of the candle that shone out through the window; and a long way down the lane. and this light, bursting on a certain person who, on the instant, approached towards it through the gloom, expressed the whole thing to him, literally in a twinkling, and cried, "welcome home, old fellow! welcome home, my boy!" this end attained, the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, and was taken off the fire. mrs. peerybingle then went running to the door, where, what with the wheels of a cart, the tramp of a horse, the voice of a man, the tearing in and out of an excited dog, and the surprising and mysterious appearance of a baby, there was soon the very what's-his-name to pay. [illustration] where the baby came from, or how mrs. peerybingle got hold of it in that flash of time, _i_ don't know. but a live baby there was, in mrs. peerybingle's arms; and a pretty tolerable amount of pride she seemed to have in it, when she was drawn gently to the fire, by a sturdy figure of a man, much taller and much older than herself; who had to stoop a long way down, to kiss her. but she was worth the trouble. six foot six, with the lumbago, might have done it. "oh goodness, john!" said mrs. p. "what a state you're in with the weather!" he was something the worse for it, undeniably. the thick mist hung in clots upon his eyelashes like candied thaw; and between the fog and fire together, there were rainbows in his very whiskers. "why, you see, dot," john made answer, slowly, as he unrolled a shawl from about his throat; and warmed his hands; "it--it an't exactly summer weather. so, no wonder." "i wish you wouldn't call me dot, john. i don't like it," said mrs. peerybingle: pouting in a way that clearly showed she _did_ like it, very much. "why what else are you?" returned john, looking down upon her with a smile, and giving her waist as light a squeeze as his huge hand and arm could give. "a dot and"--here he glanced at the baby--"a dot and carry--i won't say it, for fear i should spoil it; but i was very near a joke. i don't know as ever i was nearer." he was often near to something or other very clever, by his own account: this lumbering, slow, honest john; this john so heavy but so light of spirit; so rough upon the surface, but so gentle at the core; so dull without, so quick within; so stolid, but so good! oh mother nature, give thy children the true poetry of heart that hid itself in this poor carrier's breast--he was but a carrier by the way--and we can bear to have them talking prose, and leading lives of prose; and bear to bless thee for their company! it was pleasant to see dot, with her little figure and her baby in her arms: a very doll of a baby: glancing with a coquettish thoughtfulness at the fire, and inclining her delicate little head just enough on one side to let it rest in an odd, half-natural, half-affected, wholly nestling and agreeable manner, on the great rugged figure of the carrier. it was pleasant to see him, with his tender awkwardness, endeavouring to adapt his rude support to her slight need, and make his burly middle-age a leaning-staff not inappropriate to her blooming youth. it was pleasant to observe how tilly slowboy, waiting in the background for the baby, took special cognizance (though in her earliest teens) of this grouping; and stood with her mouth and eyes wide open, and her head thrust forward, taking it in as if it were air. nor was it less agreeable to observe how john the carrier, reference being made by dot to the aforesaid baby, checked his hand when on the point of touching the infant, as if he thought he might crack it; and bending down, surveyed it from a safe distance, with a kind of puzzled pride: such as an amiable mastiff might be supposed to show, if he found himself, one day, the father of a young canary. "an't he beautiful, john? don't he look precious in his sleep?" "very precious," said john. "very much so. he generally _is_ asleep, an't he?" "lor john! good gracious no!" "oh," said john, pondering. "i thought his eyes was generally shut. halloa!" "goodness john, how you startle one!" "it an't right for him to turn 'em up in that way!" said the astonished carrier, "is it? see how he's winking with both of 'em at once! and look at his mouth! why he's gasping like a gold and silver fish!" "you don't deserve to be a father, you don't," said dot, with all the dignity of an experienced matron. "but how should you know what little complaints children are troubled with, john! you wouldn't so much as know their names, you stupid fellow." and when she had turned the baby over on her left arm, and had slapped its back as a restorative, she pinched her husband's ear, laughing. "no," said john, pulling off his outer coat. "it's very true, dot. i don't know much about it. i only know that i've been fighting pretty stiffly with the wind to-night. it's been blowing north-east, straight into the cart, the whole way home." "poor old man, so it has!" cried mrs. peerybingle, instantly becoming very active. "here! take the precious darling, tilly, while i make myself of some use. bless it, i could smother it with kissing it; i could! hie then, good dog! hie boxer, boy! only let me make the tea first, john; and then i'll help you with the parcels, like a busy bee. 'how doth the little'--and all the rest of it, you know john. did you ever learn 'how doth the little,' when you went to school, john?" "not to quite know it," john returned. "i was very near it once. but i should only have spoilt it, i dare say." "ha ha!" laughed dot. she had the blithest little laugh you ever heard. "what a dear old darling of a dunce you are, john, to be sure!" [illustration] not at all disputing this position, john went out to see that the boy with the lantern, which had been dancing to and fro before the door and window, like a will of the wisp, took due care of the horse; who was fatter than you would quite believe, if i gave you his measure, and so old that his birthday was lost in the mists of antiquity. boxer, feeling that his attentions were due to the family in general, and must be impartially distributed, dashed in and out with bewildering inconstancy: now describing a circle of short barks round the horse, where he was being rubbed down at the stable-door; now feigning to make savage rushes at his mistress, and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops; now eliciting a shriek from tilly slowboy, in the low nursing-chair near the fire, by the unexpected application of his moist nose to her countenance; now exhibiting an obtrusive interest in the baby; now going round and round upon the hearth, and lying down as if he had established himself for the night; now getting up again, and taking that nothing of a fag-end of a tail of his, out into the weather, as if he had just remembered an appointment, and was off, at a round trot, to keep it. "there! there's the teapot, ready on the hob!" said dot; as briskly busy as a child at play at keeping house. "and there's the cold knuckle of ham; and there's the butter; and there's the crusty loaf, and all! here's a clothes-basket for the small parcels, john, if you've got any there--where are you, john? don't let the dear child fall under the grate, tilly, whatever you do!" it may be noted of miss slowboy, in spite of her rejecting the caution with some vivacity, that she had a rare and surprising talent for getting this baby into difficulties: and had several times imperilled its short life, in a quiet way peculiarly her own. she was of a spare and straight shape, this young lady, insomuch that her garments appeared to be in constant danger of sliding off those sharp pegs, her shoulders, on which they were loosely hung. her costume was remarkable for the partial development on all possible occasions of some flannel vestment of a singular structure; also for affording glimpses, in the region of the back, of a corset, or pair of stays, in colour a dead-green. being always in a state of gaping admiration at everything, and absorbed, besides, in the perpetual contemplation of her mistress's perfections and the baby's, miss slowboy, in her little errors of judgment, may be said to have done equal honour to her head and to her heart; and though these did less honour to the baby's head, which they were the occasional means of bringing into contact with deal doors, dressers, stair-rails, bedposts, and other foreign substances, still they were the honest results of tilly slowboy's constant astonishment at finding herself so kindly treated, and installed in such a comfortable home. for the maternal and paternal slowboy were alike unknown to fame, and tilly had been bred by public charity, a foundling; which word, though only differing from fondling by one vowel's length, is very different in meaning, and expresses quite another thing. to have seen little mrs. peerybingle come back with her husband; tugging at the clothes-basket, and making the most strenuous exertions to do nothing at all (for he carried it); would have amused you, almost as much as it amused him. it may have entertained the cricket too, for anything i know; but, certainly, it now began to chirp again, vehemently. "heyday!" said john, in his slow way. "it's merrier than ever, to-night, i think." "and it's sure to bring us good fortune, john! it always has done so. to have a cricket on the hearth, is the luckiest thing in all the world!" john looked at her as if he had very nearly got the thought into his head, that she was his cricket in chief, and he quite agreed with her. but it was probably one of his narrow escapes, for he said nothing. "the first time i heard its cheerful little note, john, was on that night when you brought me home--when you brought me to my new home here; its little mistress. nearly a year ago. you recollect, john?" oh yes. john remembered. i should think so! "its chirp was such a welcome to me! it seemed so full of promise and encouragement. it seemed to say, you would be kind and gentle with me, and would not expect (i had a fear of that, john, then) to find an old head on the shoulders of your foolish little wife." john thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and then the head, as though he would have said no, no; he had had no such expectation; he had been quite content to take them as they were. and really he had reason. they were very comely. "it spoke the truth, john, when it seemed to say so: for you have ever been, i am sure, the best, the most considerate, the most affectionate of husbands to me. this has been a happy home, john; and i love the cricket for its sake!" "why so do i then," said the carrier. "so do i, dot." "i love it for the many times i have heard it, and the many thoughts its harmless music has given me. sometimes, in the twilight, when i have felt a little solitary and down-hearted, john--before baby was here, to keep me company and make the house gay; when i have thought how lonely you would be if i should die; how lonely i should be, if i could know that you had lost me, dear; its chirp, chirp, chirp upon the hearth, has seemed to tell me of another little voice, so sweet, so very dear to me, before whose coming sound, my trouble vanished like a dream. and when i used to fear--i did fear once, john; i was very young you know--that ours might prove to be an ill-assorted marriage: i being such a child, and you more like my guardian than my husband: and that you might not, however hard you tried, be able to learn to love me, as you hoped and prayed you might; its chirp, chirp, chirp, has cheered me up again, and filled me with new trust and confidence. i was thinking of these things to-night, dear, when i sat expecting you; and i love the cricket for their sake!" "and so do i," repeated john. "but dot? _i_ hope and pray that i might learn to love you? how you talk! i had learnt that, long before i brought you here, to be the cricket's little mistress, dot!" she laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked up at him with an agitated face, as if she would have told him something. next moment, she was down upon her knees before the basket; speaking in a sprightly voice, and busy with the parcels. "there are not many of them to-night, john, but i saw some goods behind the cart, just now; and though they give more trouble, perhaps, still they pay as well; so we have no reason to grumble, have we? besides, you have been delivering, i dare say, as you came along?" oh yes, john said. a good many. "why what's this round box? heart alive, john, it's a wedding-cake!" "leave a woman alone, to find out that," said john admiringly. "now a man would never have thought of it! whereas, it's my belief that if you was to pack a wedding-cake up in a tea-chest, or a turn-up bedstead, or a pickled salmon keg, or any unlikely thing, a woman would be sure to find it out directly. yes; i called for it at the pastry-cook's." "and it weighs i don't know what--whole hundredweights!" cried dot, making a great demonstration of trying to lift it. "whose is it, john? where is it going?" "read the writing on the other side," said john. "why, john! my goodness, john!" "ah! who'd have thought it!" john returned. "you never mean to say," pursued dot, sitting on the floor and shaking her head at him, "that it's gruff and tackleton the toymaker!" john nodded. mrs. peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least. not in assent: in dumb and pitying amazement; screwing up her lips, the while, with all their little force (they were never made for screwing up; i am clear of that), and looking the good carrier through and through, in her abstraction. miss slowboy, in the mean time, who had a mechanical power of reproducing scraps of current conversation for the delectation of the baby, with all the sense struck out of them, and all the nouns changed into the plural number, enquired aloud of that young creature, was it gruffs and tackletons the toymakers then, and would it call at pastry-cooks for wedding-cakes, and did its mothers know the boxes when its fathers brought them homes; and so on. "and that is really to come about!" said dot. "why, she and i were girls at school together, john." he might have been thinking of her: or nearly thinking of her, perhaps: as she was in that same school time. he looked upon her with a thoughtful pleasure, but he made no answer. "and he's as old! as unlike her!--why, how many years older than you, is gruff and tackleton john?" "how many more cups of tea shall i drink to-night at one sitting, than gruff and tackleton ever took in four, i wonder!" replied john, good-humouredly, as he drew a chair to the round table, and began at the cold ham. "as to eating, i eat but little; but that little i enjoy, dot." even this; his usual sentiment at meal times; one of his innocent delusions (for his appetite was always obstinate, and flatly contradicted him); awoke no smile in the face of his little wife, who stood among the parcels, pushing the cake-box slowly from her with her foot, and never once looked, though her eyes were cast down too, upon the dainty shoe she generally was so mindful of. absorbed in thought, she stood there, heedless alike of the tea and john (although he called to her, and rapped the table with his knife to startle her), until he rose and touched her on the arm; when she looked at him for a moment, and hurried to her place behind the teaboard, laughing at her negligence. but not as she had laughed before. the manner, and the music, were quite changed. the cricket, too, had stopped. somehow the room was not so cheerful as it had been. nothing like it. "so, these are all the parcels, are they, john?" she said: breaking a long silence, which the honest carrier had devoted to the practical illustration of one part of his favourite sentiment--certainly enjoying what he ate, if it couldn't be admitted that he ate but little. "so these are all the parcels; are they, john?" "that's all," said john. "why--no--i--" laying down his knife and fork, and taking a long breath. "i declare--i've clean forgotten the old gentleman!" "the old gentleman?" "in the cart," said john. "he was asleep, among the straw, the last time i saw him. i've very nearly remembered him, twice, since i came in; but he went out of my head again. halloa! yahip there! rouse up! that's my hearty!" john said these latter words, outside the door, whither he had hurried with the candle in his hand. miss slowboy, conscious of some mysterious reference to the old gentleman, and connecting in her mystified imagination certain associations of a religious nature with the phrase, was so disturbed, that hastily rising from the low chair by the fire to seek protection near the skirts of her mistress, and coming into contact as she crossed the doorway with an ancient stranger, she instinctively made a charge or butt at him with the only offensive instrument within her reach. this instrument happening to be the baby, great commotion and alarm ensued, which the sagacity of boxer rather tended to increase; for that good dog, more thoughtful than his master, had, it seemed, been watching the old gentleman in his sleep lest he should walk off with a few young poplar trees that were tied up behind the cart; and he still attended on him very closely; worrying his gaiters in fact, and making dead sets at the buttons. "you're such an undeniable good sleeper, sir," said john when tranquillity was restored; in the mean time the old gentleman had stood, bare-headed and motionless, in the centre of the room; "that i have half a mind to ask you where the other six are: only that would be a joke, and i know i should spoil it. very near though," murmured the carrier, with a chuckle; "very near!" the stranger, who had long white hair; good features, singularly bold and well defined for an old man; and dark, bright, penetrating eyes; looked round with a smile, and saluted the carrier's wife by gravely inclining his head. his garb was very quaint and odd--a long, long way behind the time. its hue was brown, all over. in his hand he held a great brown club or walking-stick; and striking this upon the floor, it fell asunder, and became a chair. on which he sat down, quite composedly. "there!" said the carrier, turning to his wife. "that's the way i found him, sitting by the roadside! upright as a milestone. and almost as deaf." "sitting in the open air, john!" "in the open air," replied the carrier, "just at dusk. 'carriage paid,' he said; and gave me eighteenpence. then he got in. and there he is." "he's going, john, i think!" not at all. he was only going to speak. "if you please, i was to be left till called for," said the stranger, mildly. "don't mind me." with that, he took a pair of spectacles from one of his large pockets, and a book from another; and leisurely began to read. making no more of boxer than if he had been a house lamb! the carrier and his wife exchanged a look of perplexity. the stranger raised his head; and glancing from the latter to the former, said: "your daughter, my good friend?" "wife," returned john. "niece?" said the stranger. "wife," roared john. "indeed?" observed the stranger. "surely? very young!" he quietly turned over, and resumed his reading. but, before he could have read two lines, he again interrupted himself, to say: "baby, yours?" john gave him a gigantic nod; equivalent to an answer in the affirmative, delivered through a speaking-trumpet. "girl?" "bo-o-oy!" roared john. "also very young, eh?" mrs. peerybingle instantly struck in. "two months and three da-ays! vaccinated just six weeks ago-o! took very fine-ly! considered, by the doctor, a remarkably beautiful chi-ild! equal to the general run of children at five months o-old! takes notice, in a way quite won-der-ful! may seem impossible to you, but feels his legs al-ready!" here the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking these short sentences into the old man's ear, until her pretty face was crimsoned, held up the baby before him as a stubborn and triumphant fact; while tilly slowboy, with a melodious cry of ketcher, ketcher--which sounded like some unknown words, adapted to a popular sneeze--performed some cow-like gambols round that all unconscious innocent. "hark! he's called for, sure enough," said john. "there's somebody at the door. open it, tilly." before she could reach it, however, it was opened from without; being a primitive sort of door, with a latch, that any one could lift if he chose--and a good many people did choose, i can tell you; for all kinds of neighbours liked to have a cheerful word or two with the carrier, though he was no great talker for the matter of that. being opened, it gave admission to a little, meagre, thoughtful, dingy-faced man, who seemed to have made himself a great-coat from the sack-cloth covering of some old box; for when he turned to shut the door, and keep the weather out, he disclosed upon the back of that garment, the inscription g & t in large black capitals. also the word glass in bold characters. "good evening john!" said the little man. "good evening mum. good evening tilly. good evening unbeknown! how's baby mum? boxer's pretty well i hope?" "all thriving, caleb," replied dot. "i am sure you need only look at the dear child, for one, to know that." "and i'm sure i need only look at you for another," said caleb. he didn't look at her though; for he had a wandering and thoughtful eye which seemed to be always projecting itself into some other time and place, no matter what he said; a description which will equally apply to his voice. "or at john for another," said caleb. "or at tilly, as far as that goes. or certainly at boxer." "busy just now, caleb?" asked the carrier. "why, pretty well john," he returned, with the distraught air of a man who was casting about for the philosopher's stone, at least. "pretty much so. there's rather a run on noah's arks at present. i could have wished to improve upon the family, but i don't see how it's to be done at the price. it would be a satisfaction to one's mind, to make it clearer which was shems and hams, and which was wives. flies an't on that scale neither, as compared with elephants you know! ah! well! have you got anything in the parcel line for me john?" the carrier put his hand into a pocket of the coat he had taken off; and brought out, carefully preserved in moss and paper, a tiny flower-pot. "there it is!" he said, adjusting it with great care. "not so much as a leaf damaged. full of buds!" caleb's dull eye brightened, as he took it, and thanked him. "dear, caleb," said the carrier. "very dear at this season." "never mind that. it would be cheap to me, whatever it cost," returned the little man. "anything else, john?" "a small box," replied the carrier. "here you are!" "'for caleb plummer,'" said the little man, spelling out the direction. "'with cash.' with cash john? i don't think it's for me." "with care," returned the carrier, looking over his shoulder. "where do you make out cash?" "oh! to be sure!" said caleb. "it's all right. with care! yes, yes; that's mine. it might have been with cash, indeed, if my dear boy in the golden south americas had lived, john. you loved him like a son; didn't you? you needn't say you did. _i_ know, of course. 'caleb plummer. with care.' yes, yes, it's all right. it's a box of dolls' eyes for my daughter's work. i wish it was her own sight in a box, john." "i wish it was, or could be!" cried the carrier. "thankee," said the little man. "you speak very hearty. to think that she should never see the dolls; and them a staring at her, so bold, all day long! that's where it cuts. what's the damage, john?" "i'll damage you," said john, "if you inquire. dot! very near?" "well! it's like you to say so," observed the little man. "it's your kind way. let me see. i think that's all." "i think not," said the carrier. "try again." "something for our governor, eh?" said caleb, after pondering a little while. "to be sure. that's what i came for; but my head's so running on them arks and things! he hasn't been here, has he?" "not he," returned the carrier. "he's too busy, courting." "he's coming round though," said caleb; "for he told me to keep on the near side of the road going home, and it was ten to one he'd take me up. i had better go, by the bye.--you couldn't have the goodness to let me pinch boxer's tail, mum, for half a moment, could you?" "why caleb! what a question!" "oh never mind, mum," said the little man. "he mightn't like it perhaps. there's a small order just come in, for barking dogs; and i should wish to go as close to natur' as i could, for sixpence. that's all. never mind mum." it happened opportunely, that boxer, without receiving the proposed stimulus, began to bark with great zeal. but as this implied the approach of some new visitor, caleb, postponing his study from the life to a more convenient season, shouldered the round box, and took a hurried leave. he might have spared himself the trouble, for he met the visitor upon the threshold. "oh! you are here, are you? wait a bit. i'll take you home. john peerybingle, my service to you. more of my service to your pretty wife. handsomer every day! better too, if possible! and younger," mused the speaker, in a low voice; "that's the devil of it." "i should be astonished at your paying compliments, mr. tackleton," said dot, not with the best grace in the world; "but for your condition." "you know all about it then?" "i have got myself to believe it, somehow," said dot. "after a hard struggle, i suppose?" "very." tackleton the toy merchant, pretty generally known as gruff and tackleton--for that was the firm, though gruff had been bought out long ago; only leaving his name, and as some said his nature, according to its dictionary meaning, in the business--tackleton the toy merchant, was a man whose vocation had been quite misunderstood by his parents and guardians. if they had made him a money-lender, or a sharp attorney, or a sheriff's officer, or a broker, he might have sown his discontented oats in his youth, and after having had the full-run of himself in ill-natured transactions, might have turned out amiable, at last, for the sake of a little freshness and novelty. but, cramped and chafing in the peaceable pursuit of toy-making, he was a domestic ogre, who had been living on children all his life, and was their implacable enemy. he despised all toys; wouldn't have bought one for the world; delighted, in his malice, to insinuate grim expressions into the faces of brown-paper farmers who drove pigs to market, bellmen who advertised lost lawyers' consciences, moveable old ladies who darned stockings or carved pies; and other like samples of his stock in trade. in appalling masks; hideous, hairy, red-eyed jacks in boxes; vampire kites; demoniacal tumblers who wouldn't lie down, and were perpetually flying forward, to stare infants out of countenance; his soul perfectly revelled. they were his only relief, and safety-valve. he was great in such inventions. anything suggestive of a pony-nightmare, was delicious to him. he had even lost money (and he took to that toy very kindly) by getting up goblin slides for magic lanterns, whereon the powers of darkness were depicted as a sort of supernatural shell-fish, with human faces. in intensifying the portraiture of giants, he had sunk quite a little capital; and, though no painter himself, he could indicate, for the instruction of his artists, with a piece of chalk, a certain furtive leer for the countenances of those monsters, that was safe to destroy the peace of mind of any young gentleman between the ages of six and eleven, for the whole christmas or midsummer vacation. what he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in all other things. you may easily suppose, therefore, that within the great green cape, which reached down to the calves of his legs, there was buttoned up to the chin an uncommonly pleasant fellow; and that he was about as choice a spirit and as agreeable a companion, as ever stood in a pair of bull-headed looking boots with mahogany-colored tops. still, tackleton, the toy merchant, was going to be married. in spite of all this, he was going to be married. and to a young wife too; a beautiful young wife. he didn't look much like a bridegroom, as he stood in the carrier's kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in his body, and his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands stuck down into the bottoms of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic ill-conditioned self peering out of one little corner of one little eye, like the concentrated essence of any number of ravens. but, a bridegroom he designed to be. "in three days' time. next thursday. the last day of the first month in the year. that's my wedding-day," said tackleton. did i mention that he had always one eye wide open, and one eye nearly shut; and that the one eye nearly shut, was always the expressive eye? i don't think i did. "that's my wedding-day!" said tackleton, rattling his money. "why, it's our wedding-day too," exclaimed the carrier. "ha ha!" laughed tackleton. "odd! you're just such another couple. just!" the indignation of dot at this presumptuous assertion is not to be described. what next? his imagination would compass the possibility of just such another baby, perhaps. the man was mad. "i say! a word with you," murmured tackleton, nudging the carrier with his elbow, and taking him a little apart. "you'll come to the wedding? we're in the same boat, you know." "how in the same boat?" inquired the carrier. "a little disparity, you know;" said tackleton, with another nudge. "come and spend an evening with us, beforehand." "why?" demanded john, astonished at this pressing hospitality. "why?" returned the other. "that's a new way of receiving an invitation. why, for pleasure; sociability, you know, and all that!" "i thought you were never sociable," said john, in his plain way. "tchah! it's of no use to be anything but free with you i see," said tackleton. "why, then, the truth is you have a--what tea-drinking people call a sort of a comfortable appearance together: you and your wife. we know better, you know, but--" "no, we don't know better," interposed john. "what are you talking about?" "well! we _don't_ know better then," said tackleton. "we'll agree that we don't. as you like; what does it matter? i was going to say, as you have that sort of appearance, your company will produce a favorable effect on mrs. tackleton that will be. and though i don't think your good lady's very friendly to me, in this matter, still she can't help herself from falling into my views, for there's a compactness and cosiness of appearance about her that always tells, even in an indifferent case. you'll say you'll come?" "we have arranged to keep our wedding-day (as far as that goes) at home," said john. "we have made the promise to ourselves these six months. we think, you see, that home--" "bah! what's home?" cried tackleton. "four walls and a ceiling! (why don't you kill that cricket; _i_ would! i always do. i hate their noise.) there are four walls and a ceiling at my house. come to me!" "you kill your crickets, eh?" said john. "scrunch 'em, sir," returned the other, setting his heel heavily on the floor. "you'll say you'll come? it's as much your interest as mine, you know, that the women should persuade each other that they're quiet and contented, and couldn't be better off. i know their way. whatever one woman says, another woman is determined to clinch, always. there's that spirit of emulation among 'em, sir, that if your wife says to my wife, 'i'm the happiest woman in the world, and mine's the best husband in the world, and i dote on him,' my wife will say the same to your's, or more, and half believe it." "do you mean to say she don't, then?" asked the carrier. "don't!" cried tackleton, with a short, sharp laugh. "don't what?" the carrier had had some faint idea of adding, "dote upon you." but happening to meet the half-closed eye, as it twinkled upon him over the turned-up collar of the cape, which was within an ace of poking it out, he felt it such an unlikely part and parcel of anything to be doted on, that he substituted, "that she don't believe it?" "ah you dog! you're joking," said tackleton. but the carrier, though slow to understand the full drift of his meaning, eyed him in such a serious manner, that he was obliged to be a little more explanatory. "i have the humour," said tackleton: holding up the fingers of his left hand, and tapping the forefinger, to imply 'there i am, tackleton to wit:' "i have the humour, sir, to marry a young wife and a pretty wife:" here he rapped his little finger, to express the bride; not sparingly, but sharply; with a sense of power. "i'm able to gratify that humour and i do. it's my whim. but--now look there." he pointed to where dot was sitting, thoughtfully, before the fire; leaning her dimpled chin upon her hand, and watching the bright blaze. the carrier looked at her, and then at him, and then at her, and then at him again. "she honors and obeys, no doubt, you know," said tackleton; "and that, as i am not a man of sentiment, is quite enough for _me_. but do you think there's anything more in it?" "i think," observed the carrier, "that i should chuck any man out of window, who said there wasn't." "exactly so," returned the other with an unusual alacrity of assent. "to be sure! doubtless you would. of course. i'm certain of it. good night. pleasant dreams!" the good carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable and uncertain, in spite of himself. he couldn't help showing it, in his manner. "good night, my dear friend!" said tackleton, compassionately. "i'm off. we're exactly alike, in reality, i see. you won't give us to-morrow evening? well! next day you go out visiting, i know. i'll meet you there, and bring my wife that is to be. it'll do her good. you're agreeable? thankee. what's that!" it was a loud cry from the carrier's wife; a loud, sharp, sudden cry, that made the room ring, like a glass vessel. she had risen from her seat, and stood like one transfixed by terror and surprise. the stranger had advanced towards the fire, to warm himself, and stood within a short stride of her chair. but quite still. "dot!" cried the carrier. "mary! darling! what's the matter?" they were all about her in a moment. caleb, who had been dozing on the cake-box, in the first imperfect recovery of his suspended presence of mind seized miss slowboy by the hair of her head; but immediately apologised. "mary!" exclaimed the carrier, supporting her in his arms. "are you ill! what is it? tell me dear!" she only answered by beating her hands together, and falling into a wild fit of laughter. then, sinking from his grasp upon the ground, she covered her face with her apron, and wept bitterly. and then, she laughed again; and then, she cried again; and then, she said how cold it was, and suffered him to lead her to the fire, where she sat down as before. the old man standing, as before; quite still. "i'm better, john," she said. "i'm quite well now--i--" john! but john was on the other side of her. why turn her face towards the strange old gentleman, as if addressing him! was her brain wandering? "only a fancy, john dear--a kind of shock--a something coming suddenly before my eyes--i don't know what it was. it's quite gone; quite gone." "i'm glad it's gone," muttered tackleton, turning the expressive eye all round the room. "i wonder where it's gone, and what it was. humph! caleb, come here! who's that with the grey hair?" "i don't know sir," returned caleb in a whisper. "never see him before, in all my life. a beautiful figure for a nut-cracker; quite a new model. with a screw-jaw opening down into his waistcoat, he'd be lovely." "not ugly enough," said tackleton. "or for a firebox, either," observed caleb, in deep contemplation, "what a model! unscrew his head to put the matches in; turn him heels up'ards for the light; and what a firebox for a gentleman's mantel-shelf, just as he stands!" "not half ugly enough," said tackleton. "nothing in him at all. come! bring that box! all right now, i hope?" "oh quite gone! quite gone!" said the little woman, waving him hurriedly away. "good night!" "good night," said tackleton. "good night, john peerybingle! take care how you carry that box, caleb. let it fall, and i'll murder you! dark as pitch, and weather worse than ever, eh? good night!" so, with another sharp look round the room, he went out at the door; followed by caleb with the wedding-cake on his head. the carrier had been so much astounded by his little wife, and so busily engaged in soothing and tending her, that he had scarcely been conscious of the stranger's presence, until now, when he again stood there, their only guest. "he don't belong to them, you see," said john. "i must give him a hint to go." "i beg your pardon, friend," said the old gentleman, advancing to him; "the more so, as i fear your wife has not been well; but the attendant whom my infirmity," he touched his ears and shook his head, "renders almost indispensable, not having arrived, i fear there must be some mistake. the bad night which made the shelter of your comfortable cart (may i never have a worse!) so acceptable, is still as bad as ever. would you, in your kindness, suffer me to rent a bed here?" "yes, yes," cried dot. "yes! certainly!" "oh!" said the carrier, surprised by the rapidity of this consent. "well! i don't object; but still i'm not quite sure that--" "hush!" she interrupted. "dear john!" "why, he's stone deaf," urged john. "i know he is, but--yes sir, certainly. yes! certainly! i'll make him up a bed, directly, john." as she hurried off to do it, the flutter of her spirits, and the agitation of her manner, were so strange, that the carrier stood looking after her, quite confounded. "did its mothers make it up a beds then!" cried miss slowboy to the baby; "and did its hair grow brown and curly, when its caps was lifted off, and frighten it, a precious pets, a sitting by the fires!" with that unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles, which is often incidental to a state of doubt and confusion, the carrier, as he walked slowly to and fro, found himself mentally repeating even these absurd words, many times. so many times that he got them by heart, and was still conning them over, and over, like a lesson, when tilly, after administering as much friction to the little bald head with her hand as she thought wholesome (according to the practice of nurses), had once more tied the baby's cap on. "and frighten it a precious pets, a sitting by the fire. what frightened dot, i wonder!" mused the carrier, pacing to and fro. he scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the toy merchant, and yet they filled him with a vague, indefinite uneasiness; for tackleton was quick and sly; and he had that painful sense, himself, of being a man of slow perception, that a broken hint was always worrying to him. he certainly had no intention in his mind of linking anything that tackleton had said, with the unusual conduct of his wife; but the two subjects of reflection came into his mind together, and he could not keep them asunder. the bed was soon made ready; and the visitor, declining all refreshment but a cup of tea, retired. then dot: quite well again, she said: quite well again: arranged the great chair in the chimney corner for her husband; filled his pipe and gave it him; and took her usual little stool beside him on the hearth. she always _would_ sit on that little stool; i think she must have had a kind of notion that it was a coaxing, wheedling, little stool. she was, out and out, the very best filler of a pipe, i should say, in the four quarters of the globe. to see her put that chubby little finger in the bowl, and then blow down the pipe to clear the tube; and when she had done so, affect to think that there was really something in the tube, and blow a dozen times, and hold it to her eye like a telescope, with a most provoking twist in her capital little face, as she looked down it; was quite a brilliant thing. as to the tobacco, she was perfect mistress of the subject; and her lighting of the pipe, with a wisp of paper, when the carrier had it in his mouth--going so very near his nose, and yet not scorching it--was art: high art, sir. and the cricket and the kettle, tuning up again, acknowledged it! the bright fire, blazing up again, acknowledged it! the little mower on the clock, in his unheeded work, acknowledged it! the carrier, in his smoothing forehead and expanding face, acknowledged it, the readiest of all. [illustration] and as he soberly and thoughtfully puffed at his old pipe; and as the dutch clock ticked; and as the red fire gleamed; and as the cricket chirped; that genius of his hearth and home (for such the cricket was) came out, in fairy shape, into the room, and summoned many forms of home about him. dots of all ages, and all sizes, filled the chamber. dots who were merry children, running on before him, gathering flowers, in the fields; coy dots, half shrinking from, half yielding to, the pleading of his own rough image; newly-married dots, alighting at the door, and taking wondering possession of the household keys; motherly little dots, attended by fictitious slowboys, bearing babies to be christened; matronly dots, still young and blooming, watching dots of daughters, as they danced at rustic balls; fat dots, encircled and beset by troops of rosy grand-children; withered dots, who leaned on sticks, and tottered as they crept along. old carriers too, appeared, with blind old boxers lying at their feet; and newer carts with younger drivers ("peerybingle brothers" on the tilt); and sick old carriers, tended by the gentlest hands; and graves of dead and gone old carriers, green in the churchyard. and as the cricket showed him all these things--he saw them plainly, though his eyes were fixed upon the fire--the carrier's heart grew light and happy, and he thanked his household gods with all his might, and cared no more for gruff and tackleton than you do. * * * * * but what was that young figure of a man, which the same fairy cricket set so near her stool, and which remained there, singly and alone? why did it linger still, so near her, with its arm upon the chimney-piece, ever repeating "married! and not to me!" oh dot! oh failing dot! there is no place for it in all your husband's visions; why has its shadow fallen on his hearth! [illustration: chirp the second] caleb plummer and his blind daughter lived all alone by themselves, as the story-books say--and my blessing, with yours to back it i hope, on the story-books, for saying anything in this workaday world!--caleb plummer and his blind daughter lived all alone by themselves, in a little cracked nutshell of a wooden house, which was, in truth, no better than a pimple on the prominent red-brick nose of gruff and tackleton. the premises of gruff and tackleton were the great feature of the street; but you might have knocked down caleb plummer's dwelling with a hammer or two, and carried off the pieces in a cart. if any one had done the dwelling-house of caleb plummer the honour to miss it after such an inroad, it would have been, no doubt, to commend its demolition as a vast improvement. it stuck to the premises of gruff and tackleton, like a barnacle to a ship's keel, or a snail to a door, or a little bunch of toadstools to the stem of a tree. but it was the germ from which the full-grown trunk of gruff and tackleton had sprung; and under its crazy roof, the gruff before last, had, in a small way, made toys for a generation of old boys and girls, who had played with them, and found them out, and broken them, and gone to sleep. i have said that caleb and his poor blind daughter lived here; but i should have said that caleb lived here, and his poor blind daughter somewhere else; in an enchanted home of caleb's furnishing, where scarcity and shabbiness were not, and trouble never entered. caleb was no sorcerer, but in the only magic art that still remains to us: the magic of devoted, deathless love: nature had been the mistress of his study; and from her teaching, all the wonder came. the blind girl never knew that ceilings were discoloured; walls blotched, and bare of plaster here and there; high crevices unstopped, and widening every day; beams mouldering and tending downward. the blind girl never knew that iron was rusting, wood rotting, paper peeling off; the very size, and shape, and true proportion of the dwelling, withering away. the blind girl never knew that ugly shapes of delf and earthenware were on the board; that sorrow and faint-heartedness were in the house; that caleb's scanty hairs were turning greyer and more grey before her sightless face. the blind girl never knew they had a master, cold, exacting and uninterested: never knew that tackleton was tackleton in short; but lived in the belief of an eccentric humourist who loved to have his jest with them; and while he was the guardian angel of their lives, disdained to hear one word of thankfulness. and all was caleb's doing; all the doing of her simple father! but he too had a cricket on his hearth; and listening sadly to its music when the motherless blind child was very young, that spirit had inspired him with the thought that even her great deprivation might be almost changed into a blessing, and the girl made happy by these little means. for all the cricket tribe are potent spirits, even though the people who hold converse with them do not know it (which is frequently the case); and there are not in the unseen world, voices more gentle and more true; that may be so implicitly relied on, or that are so certain to give none but tenderest counsel; as the voices in which the spirits of the fireside and the hearth, address themselves to human kind. caleb and his daughter were at work together in their usual working-room, which served them for their ordinary living room as well; and a strange place it was. there were houses in it, finished and unfinished, for dolls of all stations in life. suburban tenements for dolls of moderate means; kitchens and single apartments for dolls of the lower classes; capital town residences for dolls of high estate. some of these establishments were already furnished according to estimate, with a view to the convenience of dolls of limited income; others could be fitted on the most expensive scale, at a moment's notice, from whole shelves of chairs and tables, sofas, bedsteads, and upholstery. the nobility and gentry and public in general, for whose accommodation these tenements were designed, lay, here and there, in baskets, staring straight up at the ceiling; but in denoting their degrees in society, and confining them to their respective stations (which experience shows to be lamentably difficult in real life), the makers of these dolls had far improved on nature, who is often froward and perverse; for they, not resting on such arbitrary marks as satin, cotton-print, and bits of rag, had superadded striking personal differences which allowed of no mistake. thus, the doll-lady of distinction had wax limbs of perfect symmetry; but only she and her compeers; the next grade in the social scale being made of leather; and the next of coarse linen stuff. as to the common-people, they had just so many matches out of tinder-boxes for their arms and legs, and there they were--established in their sphere at once, beyond the possibility of getting out of it. there were various other samples of his handicraft besides dolls, in caleb plummer's room. there were noah's arks, in which the birds and beasts were an uncommonly tight fit, i assure you; though they could be crammed in, anyhow, at the roof, and rattled and shaken into the smallest compass. by a bold poetical license, most of these noah's arks had knockers on the doors; inconsistent appendages perhaps, as suggestive of morning callers and a postman, yet a pleasant finish to the outside of the building. there were scores of melancholy little carts which, when the wheels went round, performed most doleful music. many small fiddles, drums, and other instruments of torture; no end of cannon, shields, swords, spears, and guns. there were little tumblers in red breeches, incessantly swarming up high obstacles of red-tape, and coming down, head first, upon the other side; and there were innumerable old gentlemen of respectable, not to say venerable appearance, insanely flying over horizontal pegs, inserted, for the purpose, in their own street doors. there were beasts of all sorts; horses, in particular, of every breed; from the spotted barrel on four pegs, with a small tippet for a mane, to the thoroughbred rocker on his highest mettle. as it would have been hard to count the dozens upon dozens of grotesque figures that were ever ready to commit all sorts of absurdities, on the turning of a handle; so it would have been no easy task to mention any human folly, vice, or weakness, that had not its type, immediate or remote, in caleb plummer's room. and not in an exaggerated form; for very little handles will move men and women to as strange performances, as any toy was ever made to undertake. in the midst of all these objects, caleb and his daughter sat at work. the blind girl busy as a doll's dressmaker; and caleb painting and glazing the four-pair front of a desirable family mansion. [illustration] the care imprinted in the lines of caleb's face, and his absorbed and dreamy manner, which would have sat well on some alchemist or abstruse student, were at first sight an odd contrast to his occupation, and the trivialities about him. but trivial things, invented and pursued for bread, become very serious matters of fact; and, apart from this consideration, i am not at all prepared to say, myself, that if caleb had been a lord chamberlain, or a member of parliament, or a lawyer, or even a great speculator, he would have dealt in toys one whit less whimsical; while i have a very great doubt whether they would have been as harmless. "so you were out in the rain last night, father, in your beautiful, new, great-coat," said caleb's daughter. "in my beautiful new great-coat," answered caleb, glancing towards a clothes-line in the room, on which the sackcloth garment previously described, was carefully hung up to dry. "how glad i am you bought it, father!" "and of such a tailor, too," said caleb. "quite a fashionable tailor. it's too good for me." the blind girl rested from her work, and laughed with delight. "too good, father! what can be too good for you?" "i'm half-ashamed to wear it though," said caleb, watching the effect of what he said, upon her brightening face; "upon my word. when i hear the boys and people say behind me, 'hal-loa! here's a swell!' i don't know which way to look. and when the beggar wouldn't go away last night; and, when i said i was a very common man, said 'no, your honor! bless your honor don't say that!' i was quite ashamed. i really felt as if i hadn't a right to wear it." happy blind girl! how merry she was, in her exultation! "i see you, father," she said, clasping her hands, "as plainly, as if i had the eyes i never want when you are with me. a blue coat"-- "bright blue," said caleb. "yes, yes! bright blue!" exclaimed the girl, turning up her radiant face; "the colour i can just remember in the blessed sky! you told me it was blue before! a bright blue coat"-- "made loose to the figure," suggested caleb. "yes! loose to the figure!" cried the blind girl, laughing heartily; "and in it you, dear father, with your merry eye, your smiling face, your free step, and your dark hair: looking so young and handsome!" "halloa! halloa!" said caleb. "i shall be vain, presently." "_i_ think you are, already," cried the blind girl, pointing at him, in her glee. "i know you father! ha ha ha! i've found you out, you see!" how different the picture in her mind, from caleb, as he sat observing her! she had spoken of his free step. she was right in that. for years and years, he never once had crossed that threshold at his own slow pace, but with a footfall counterfeited for her ear; and never had he, when his heart was heaviest, forgotten the light tread that was to render hers so cheerful and courageous! heaven knows! but i think caleb's vague bewilderment of manner may have half originated in his having confused himself about himself and everything around him, for the love of his blind daughter. how could the little man be otherwise than bewildered, after labouring for so many years to destroy his own identity, and that of all the objects that had any bearing on it! "there we are," said caleb, falling back a pace or two to form the better judgment of his work; "as near the real thing as sixpenn'orth of halfpence is to sixpence. what a pity that the whole front of the house opens at once! if there was only a staircase in it now, and regular doors to the rooms to go in at! but that's the worst of my calling, i'm always deluding myself, and swindling myself." "you are speaking quite softly. you are not tired father?" "tired," echoed caleb, with a great burst of animation, "what should tire me, bertha? _i_ was never tired. what does it mean?" to give the greater force to his words, he checked himself in an involuntary imitation of two half length stretching and yawning figures on the mantel-shelf, who were represented as in one eternal state of weariness from the waist upwards; and hummed a fragment of a song. it was a bacchanalian song, something about a sparkling bowl; and he sang it with an assumption of a devil-may-care voice, that made his face a thousand times more meagre and more thoughtful than ever. "what! you're singing, are you?" said tackleton, putting his head in, at the door. "go it! _i_ can't sing." nobody would have suspected him of it. he hadn't what is generally termed a singing face, by any means. "i can't afford to sing," said tackleton. "i'm glad you can. i hope you can afford to work too. hardly time for both, i should think?" "if you could only see him, bertha, how he's winking at me!" whispered caleb. "such a man to joke! you'd think, if you didn't know him, he was in earnest--wouldn't you now?" the blind girl smiled, and nodded. "the bird that can sing and won't sing, must be made to sing, they say," grumbled tackleton. "what about the owl that can't sing, and oughtn't to sing, and will sing; is there anything that _he_ should be made to do?" "the extent to which he's winking at this moment!" whispered caleb to his daughter. "oh, my gracious!" "always merry and light-hearted with us!" cried the smiling bertha. "oh! you're there, are you?" answered tackleton. "poor idiot!" he really did believe she was an idiot; and he founded the belief, i can't say whether consciously or not, upon her being fond of him. "well! and being there,--how are you?" said tackleton; in his grudging way. "oh! well; quite well. and as happy as even you can wish me to be. as happy as you would make the whole world, if you could!" "poor idiot!" muttered tackleton. "no gleam of reason. not a gleam!" the blind girl took his hand and kissed it; held it for a moment in her own two hands; and laid her cheek against it tenderly, before releasing it. there was such unspeakable affection and such fervent gratitude in the act, that tackleton himself was moved to say, in a milder growl than usual: "what's the matter now?" "i stood it close beside my pillow when i went to sleep last night, and remembered it in my dreams. and when the day broke, and the glorious red sun--the _red_ sun, father?" "red in the mornings and the evenings, bertha," said poor caleb, with a woeful glance at his employer. "when it rose, and the bright light i almost fear to strike myself against in walking, came into the room, i turned the little tree towards it, and blessed heaven for making things so precious, and blessed you for sending them to cheer me!" "bedlam broke loose!" said tackleton under his breath. "we shall arrive at the strait-waistcoat and mufflers soon. we're getting on!" caleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other, stared vacantly before him while his daughter spoke, as if he really were uncertain (i believe he was) whether tackleton had done anything to deserve her thanks, or not. if he could have been a perfectly free agent, at that moment, required, on pain of death, to kick the toy merchant, or fall at his feet, according to his merits, i believe it would have been an even chance which course he would have taken. yet caleb knew that with his own hands he had brought the little rose tree home for her, so carefully; and that with his own lips he had forged the innocent deception which should help to keep her from suspecting how much, how very much, he every day denied himself, that she might be the happier. "bertha!" said tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a little cordiality. "come here." "oh! i can come straight to you! you needn't guide me!" she rejoined. "shall i tell you a secret, bertha?" "if you will!" she answered, eagerly. how bright the darkened face! how adorned with light, the listening head! "this is the day on which little what's-her-name; the spoilt child; peerybingle's wife; pays her regular visit to you--makes her fantastic pic-nic here; an't it?" said tackleton, with a strong expression of distaste for the whole concern. "yes," replied bertha. "this is the day." "i thought so!" said tackleton. "i should like to join the party." "do you hear that, father!" cried the blind girl in an ecstacy. "yes, yes, i hear it," murmured caleb, with the fixed look of a sleep-walker; "but i don't believe it. it's one of my lies, i've no doubt." "you see i--i want to bring the peerybingles a little more into company with may fielding," said tackleton. "i am going to be married to may." "married!" cried the blind girl, starting from him. "she's such a con-founded idiot," muttered tackleton, "that i was afraid she'd never comprehend me. ah, bertha! married! church, parson, clerk, beadle, glass-coach, bells, breakfast, bride-cake, favours, marrow-bones, cleavers, and all the rest of the tom-foolery. a wedding, you know; a wedding. don't you know what a wedding is?" "i know," replied the blind girl, in a gentle tone. "i understand!" "do you?" muttered tackleton. "it's more than i expected. well! on that account i want to join the party, and to bring may and her mother. i'll send in a little something or other, before the afternoon. a cold leg of mutton, or some comfortable trifle of that sort. you'll expect me?" "yes," she answered. she had drooped her head, and turned away; and so stood, with her hands crossed, musing. "i don't think you will," muttered tackleton, looking at her; "for you seem to have forgotten all about it, already. caleb!" "i may venture to say i'm here, i suppose," thought caleb. "sir!" "take care she don't forget what i've been saying to her." "_she_ never forgets," returned caleb. "it's one of the few things she an't clever in." "every man thinks his own geese, swans," observed the toy merchant, with a shrug. "poor devil!" having delivered himself of which remark, with infinite contempt, old gruff and tackleton withdrew. bertha remained where he had left her, lost in meditation. the gaiety had vanished from her downcast face, and it was very sad. three or four times, she shook her head, as if bewailing some remembrance or some loss; but her sorrowful reflections found no vent in words. it was not until caleb had been occupied, some time, in yoking a team of horses to a waggon by the summary process of nailing the harness to the vital parts of their bodies, that she drew near to his working-stool, and sitting down beside him, said: "father, i am lonely in the dark. i want my eyes: my patient, willing eyes." "here they are," said caleb. "always ready. they are more your's than mine, bertha, any hour in the four and twenty. what shall your eyes do for you, dear?" "look round the room, father." "all right," said caleb. "no sooner said than done, bertha." "tell me about it." "it's much the same as usual," said caleb. "homely, but very snug. the gay colors on the walls; the bright flowers on the plates and dishes; the shining wood, where there are beams or panels; the general cheerfulness and neatness of the building; make it very pretty." cheerful and neat it was, wherever bertha's hands could busy themselves. but nowhere else, were cheerfulness and neatness possible, in the old crazy shed which caleb's fancy so transformed. "you have your working dress on, and are not so gallant as when you wear the handsome coat?" said bertha, touching him. "not quite so gallant," answered caleb. "pretty brisk though." "father," said the blind girl, drawing close to his side, and stealing one arm round his neck "tell me something about may. she is very fair?" "she is indeed," said caleb. and she was indeed. it was quite a rare thing to caleb, not to have to draw on his invention. "her hair is dark," said bertha, pensively, "darker than mine. her voice is sweet and musical, i know. i have often loved to hear it. her shape--" "there's not a doll's in all the room to equal it," said caleb. "and her eyes!"-- he stopped; for bertha had drawn closer round his neck; and, from the arm that clung about him, came a warning pressure which he understood too well. he coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and then fell back upon the song about the sparkling bowl; his infallible resource in all such difficulties. "our friend, father; our benefactor. i am never tired you know of hearing about him.--now was i, ever?" she said, hastily. "of course not," answered caleb. "and with reason." "ah! with how much reason!" cried the blind girl. with such fervency, that caleb, though his motives were so pure, could not endure to meet her face; but dropped his eyes, as if she could have read in them his innocent deceit. "then, tell me again about him, dear father," said bertha. "many times again! his face is benevolent, kind, and tender. honest and true, i am sure it is. the manly heart that tries to cloak all favours with a show of roughness and unwillingness, beats in its every look and glance." "and makes it noble," added caleb in his quiet desperation. "and makes it noble!" cried the blind girl. "he is older than may, father." "ye-es," said caleb, reluctantly. "he's a little older than may. but that don't signify." "oh father, yes! to be his patient companion in infirmity and age; to be his gentle nurse in sickness, and his constant friend in suffering and sorrow; to know no weariness in working for his sake; to watch him, tend him; sit beside his bed, and talk to him, awake; and pray for him asleep; what privileges these would be! what opportunities for proving all her truth and her devotion to him! would she do all this, dear father?" "no doubt of it," said caleb. "i love her, father; i can love her from my soul!" exclaimed the blind girl. and saying so, she laid her poor blind face on caleb's shoulder, and so wept and wept, that he was almost sorry to have brought that tearful happiness upon her. in the mean time, there had been a pretty sharp commotion at john peerybingle's; for little mrs. peerybingle naturally couldn't think of going anywhere without the baby; and to get the baby under weigh, took time. not that there was much of the baby: speaking of it as a thing of weight and measure: but there was a vast deal to do about and about it, and it all had to be done by easy stages. for instance: when the baby was got, by hook and by crook, to a certain point of dressing, and you might have rationally supposed that another touch or two would finish him off, and turn him out a tip-top baby, challenging the world, he was unexpectedly extinguished in a flannel cap, and hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so to speak) between two blankets for the best part of an hour. from this state of inaction he was then recalled, shining very much and roaring violently, to partake of--well! i would rather say, if you'll permit me to speak generally--of a slight repast. after which, he went to sleep again. mrs. peerybingle took advantage of this interval, to make herself as smart in a small way as ever you saw anybody in all your life; and during the same short truce, miss slowboy insinuated herself into a spencer of a fashion so surprising and ingenious, that it had no connection with herself or anything else in the universe, but was a shrunken, dog's-eared, independent fact, pursuing its lonely course without the least regard to anybody. by this time, the baby, being all alive again, was invested, by the united efforts of mrs. peerybingle and miss slowboy, with a cream-coloured mantle for its body, and a sort of nankeen raised-pie for its head; and so in course of time they all three got down to the door, where the old horse had already taken more than the full value of his day's toll out of the turnpike trust, by tearing up the road with his impatient autographs--and whence boxer might be dimly seen in the remote perspective, standing looking back, and tempting him to come on without orders. as to a chair, or anything of that kind for helping mrs. peerybingle into the cart, you know very little of john, i flatter myself, if you think _that_ was necessary. before you could have seen him lift her from the ground, there she was in her place, fresh and rosy, saying, "john! how can you! think of tilly!" if i might be allowed to mention a young lady's legs, on any terms, i would observe of miss slowboy's that there was a fatality about them which rendered them singularly liable to be grazed; and that she never effected the smallest ascent or descent, without recording the circumstance upon them with a notch, as robinson crusoe marked the days upon his wooden calendar. but as this might be considered ungenteel, i'll think of it. "john? you've got the basket with the veal and ham-pie and things; and the bottles of beer?" said dot. "if you haven't, you must turn round again, this very minute." "you're a nice little article," returned the carrier, "to be talking about turning round, after keeping me a full quarter of an hour behind my time." "i am sorry for it, john," said dot in a great bustle, "but i really could not think of going to bertha's--i wouldn't do it, john, on any account--without the veal and ham-pie and things, and the bottles of beer. way!" this monosyllable was addressed to the horse, who didn't mind it at all. "oh _do_ way, john!" said mrs. peerybingle. "please!" "it'll be time enough to do that," returned john, "when i begin to leave things behind me. the basket's here, safe enough." "what a hard-hearted monster you must be, john, not to have said so, at once, and saved me such a turn! i declare i wouldn't go to bertha's without the veal and ham-pie and things, and the bottles of beer, for any money. regularly once a fortnight ever since we have been married, john, have we made our little pic-nic there. if anything was to go wrong with it, i should almost think we were never to be lucky again." "it was a kind thought in the first instance," said the carrier; "and i honour you for it, little woman." "my dear john," replied dot, turning very red. "don't talk about honouring _me_. good gracious!" "by the bye--" observed the carrier. "that old gentleman,"-- again so visibly, and instantly embarrassed. "he's an odd fish," said the carrier, looking straight along the road before them. "i can't make him out. i don't believe there's any harm in him." "none at all. i'm--i'm sure there's none at all." "yes?" said the carrier, with his eyes attracted to her face by the great earnestness of her manner. "i am glad you feel so certain of it, because it's a confirmation to me. it's curious that he should have taken it into his head to ask leave to go on lodging with us; an't it? things come about so strangely." "so very strangely," she rejoined in a low voice: scarcely audible. "however, he's a good-natured old gentleman," said john, "and pays as a gentleman, and i think his word is to be relied upon, like a gentleman's. i had quite a long talk with him this morning: he can hear me better already, he says, as he gets more used to my voice. he told me a great deal about himself, and i told him a good deal about myself, and a rare lot of questions he asked me. i gave him information about my having two beats, you know, in my business; one day to the right from our house and back again; another day to the left from our house and back again (for he's a stranger and don't know the names of places about here); and he seemed quite pleased. 'why, then i shall be returning home to-night your way,' he says, 'when i thought you'd be coming in an exactly opposite direction. that's capital. i may trouble you for another lift perhaps, but i'll engage not to fall so sound asleep again.' he _was_ sound asleep, sure-ly!--dot! what are you thinking of?" "thinking of, john? i--i was listening to you." "oh! that's all right!" said the honest carrier. "i was afraid, from the look of your face, that i had gone rambling on so long, as to set you thinking about something else. i was very near it, i'll be bound." dot making no reply, they jogged on, for some little time, in silence. but it was not easy to remain silent very long in john peerybingle's cart, for everybody on the road had something to say; and though it might only be "how are you!" and indeed it was very often nothing else, still, to give that back again in the right spirit of cordiality, required, not merely a nod and a smile, but as wholesome an action of the lungs withal, as a long-winded parliamentary speech. sometimes, passengers on foot, or horseback, plodded on a little way beside the cart, for the express purpose of having a chat; and then there was a great deal to be said, on both sides. then, boxer gave occasion to more good-natured recognitions of and by the carrier, than half a dozen christians could have done! everybody knew him, all along the road, especially the fowls and pigs, who when they saw him approaching, with his body all on one side, and his ears pricked up inquisitively, and that knob of a tail making the most of itself in the air, immediately withdrew into remote back settlements, without waiting for the honor of a nearer acquaintance. he had business everywhere; going down all the turnings, looking into all the wells, bolting in and out of all the cottages, dashing into the midst of all the dame-schools, fluttering all the pigeons, magnifying the tails of all the cats, and trotting into the public houses like a regular customer. wherever he went, somebody or other might have been heard to cry, "halloa! here's boxer!" [illustration] and out came that somebody forthwith, accompanied by at least two or three other somebodies, to give john peerybingle and his pretty wife, good day. the packages and parcels for the errand cart, were numerous; and there were many stoppages to take them in and give them out; which were not by any means the worst parts of the journey. some people were so full of expectation about their parcels, and other people were so full of wonder about their parcels, and other people were so full of inexhaustible directions about their parcels, and john had such a lively interest in all the parcels, that it was as good as a play. likewise, there were articles to carry, which required to be considered and discussed, and in reference to the adjustment and disposition of which, councils had to be holden by the carrier and the senders: at which boxer usually assisted, in short fits of the closest attention, and long fits of tearing round and round the assembled sages and barking himself hoarse. of all these little incidents, dot was the amused and open-eyed spectatress from her chair in the cart; and as she sat there, looking on: a charming little portrait framed to admiration by the tilt: there was no lack of nudgings and glancings and whisperings and envyings among the younger men, i promise you. and this delighted john the carrier, beyond measure; for he was proud to have his little wife admired; knowing that she didn't mind it--that, if anything, she rather liked it perhaps. the trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the january weather; and was raw and cold. but who cared for such trifles? not dot, decidedly. not tilly slowboy, for she deemed sitting in a cart, on any terms, to be the highest point of human joys; the crowning circumstance of earthly hopes. not the baby, i'll be sworn; for it's not in baby nature to be warmer or more sound asleep, though its capacity is great in both respects, than that blessed young peerybingle was, all the way. you couldn't see very far in the fog, of course; but you could see a great deal, oh a great deal! it's astonishing how much you may see, in a thicker fog than that, if you will only take the trouble to look for it. why, even to sit watching for the fairy-rings in the fields, and for the patches of hoar-frost still lingering in the shade, near hedges and by trees, was a pleasant occupation: to make no mention of the unexpected shapes in which the trees themselves came starting out of the mist, and glided into it again. the hedges were tangled and bare, and waved a multitude of blighted garlands in the wind; but there was no discouragement in this. it was agreeable to contemplate; for it made the fireside warmer in possession, and the summer greener in expectancy. the river looked chilly; but it was in motion, and moving at a good pace; which was a great point. the canal was rather slow and torpid; that must be admitted. never mind. it would freeze the sooner when the frost set fairly in, and then there would be skating, and sliding; and the heavy old barges, frozen up somewhere, near a wharf, would smoke their rusty iron chimney-pipes all day, and have a lazy time of it. in one place, there was a great mound of weeds or stubble burning; and they watched the fire, so white in the day time, flaring through the fog, with only here and there a dash of red in it, until, in consequence as she observed of the smoke "getting up her nose," miss slowboy choked--she could do anything of that sort, on the smallest provocation--and woke the baby, who wouldn't go to sleep again. but boxer, who was in advance some quarter of a mile or so, had already passed the outposts of the town, and gained the corner of the street where caleb and his daughter lived; and long before they reached the door, he and the blind girl were on the pavement waiting to receive them. boxer, by the way, made certain delicate distinctions of his own, in his communication with bertha, which persuade me fully that he knew her to be blind. he never sought to attract her attention by looking at her, as he often did with other people, but touched her, invariably. what experience he could ever have had of blind people or blind dogs, i don't know. he had never lived with a blind master; nor had mr. boxer the elder, nor mrs. boxer, nor any of his respectable family on either side, ever been visited with blindness, that i am aware of. he may have found it out for himself, perhaps, but he had got hold of it somehow; and therefore he had hold of bertha too, by the skirt, and kept hold, until mrs. peerybingle and the baby, and miss slowboy, and the basket, were all got safely within doors. may fielding was already come; and so was her mother--a little querulous chip of an old lady with a peevish face, who, in right of having preserved a waist like a bedpost, was supposed to be a most transcendant figure; and who, in consequence of having once been better off, or of labouring under an impression that she might have been, if something had happened which never did happen, and seemed to have never been particularly likely to come to pass--but it's all the same--was very genteel and patronising indeed. gruff and tackleton was also there, doing the agreeable; with the evident sensation of being as perfectly at home, and as unquestionably in his own element, as a fresh young salmon on the top of the great pyramid. "may! my dear old friend!" cried dot, running up to meet her. "what a happiness to see you!" her old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as glad as she; and it really was, if you'll believe me, quite a pleasant sight to see them embrace. tackleton was a man of taste, beyond all question. may was very pretty. you know sometimes, when you are used to a pretty face, how, when it comes into contact and comparison with another pretty face, it seems for the moment to be homely and faded, and hardly to deserve the high opinion you have had of it. now, this was not at all the case, either with dot or may; for may's face set off dot's, and dot's face set off may's, so naturally and agreeably, that, as john peerybingle was very near saying when he came into the room, they ought to have been born sisters: which was the only improvement you could have suggested. tackleton had brought his leg of mutton, and, wonderful to relate, a tart besides--but we don't mind a little dissipation when our brides are in the case; we don't get married every day--and in addition to these dainties, there were the veal and ham-pie, and "things," as mrs. peerybingle called them; which were chiefly nuts and oranges, and cakes, and such small deer. when the repast was set forth on the board, flanked by caleb's contribution, which was a great wooden bowl of smoking potatoes (he was prohibited, by solemn compact, from producing any other viands), tackleton led his intended mother-in-law to the post of honour. for the better gracing of this place at the high festival, the majestic old soul had adorned herself with a cap, calculated to inspire the thoughtless with sentiments of awe. she also wore her gloves. but let us be genteel, or die! caleb sat next his daughter; dot and her old schoolfellow were side by side; the good carrier took care of the bottom of the table. miss slowboy was isolated, for the time being, from every article of furniture but the chair she sat on, that she might have nothing else to knock the baby's head against. [illustration] as tilly stared about her at the dolls and toys, they stared at her and at the company. the venerable old gentlemen at the street doors (who were all in full action) showed especial interest in the party: pausing occasionally before leaping, as if they were listening to the conversation: and then plunging wildly over and over, a great many times, without halting for breath,--as in a frantic state of delight with the whole proceedings. certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to have a fiendish joy in the contemplation of tackleton's discomfiture, they had good reason to be satisfied. tackleton couldn't get on at all; and the more cheerful his intended bride became in dot's society, the less he liked it, though he had brought them together for that purpose. for he was a regular dog in the manger, was tackleton; and when they laughed, and he couldn't, he took it into his head, immediately, that they must be laughing at him. "ah may!" said dot. "dear dear, what changes! to talk of those merry school-days makes one young again." "why, you an't particularly old, at any time; are you?" said tackleton. "look at my sober, plodding husband there," returned dot. "he adds twenty years to my age at least. don't you john?" "forty," john replied. "how many _you_'ll add to may's, i am sure i don't know," said dot, laughing. "but she can't be much less than a hundred years of age on her next birthday." "ha ha!" laughed tackleton. hollow as a drum, that laugh though. and he looked as if he could have twisted dot's neck: comfortably. "dear dear!" said dot. "only to remember how we used to talk, at school, about the husbands we would choose. i don't know how young, and how handsome, and how gay, and how lively, mine was not to be! and as to may's!--ah dear! i don't know whether to laugh or cry, when i think what silly girls we were." may seemed to know which to do; for the color flashed into her face, and tears stood in her eyes. "even the very persons themselves--real live young men--we fixed on sometimes," said dot. "we little thought how things would come about. i never fixed on john i'm sure; i never so much as thought of him. and if i had told you, you were ever to be married to mr. tackleton, why you'd have slapped me. wouldn't you, may?" though may didn't say yes, she certainly didn't say no, or express no, by any means. tackleton laughed--quite shouted, he laughed so loud. john peerybingle laughed too, in his ordinary good-natured and contented manner; but his was a mere whisper of a laugh, to tackleton's. "you couldn't help yourselves, for all that. you couldn't resist us, you see," said tackleton. "here we are! here we are! where are your gay young bridegrooms now!" "some of them are dead," said dot; "and some of them forgotten. some of them, if they could stand among us at this moment, would not believe we were the same creatures; would not believe that what they saw and heard was real, and we _could_ forget them so. no! they would not believe one word of it!" "why, dot!" exclaimed the carrier. "little woman!" she had spoken with such earnestness and fire, that she stood in need of some recalling to herself, without doubt. her husband's check was very gentle, for he merely interfered, as he supposed, to shield old tackleton; but it proved effectual, for she stopped, and said no more. there was an uncommon agitation, even in her silence, which the wary tackleton, who had brought his half-shut eye to bear upon her, noted closely; and remembered to some purpose too, as you will see. may uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite still, with her eyes cast down; and made no sign of interest in what had passed. the good lady her mother now interposed: observing, in the first instance, that girls were girls, and byegones byegones, and that so long as young people were young and thoughtless, they would probably conduct themselves like young and thoughtless persons: with two or three other positions of a no less sound and incontrovertible character. she then remarked, in a devout spirit, that she thanked heaven she had always found in her daughter may, a dutiful and obedient child; for which she took no credit to herself, though she had every reason to believe it was entirely owing to herself. with regard to mr. tackleton she said, that he was in a moral point of view an undeniable individual; and that he was in an eligible point of view a son-in-law to be desired, no one in their senses could doubt. (she was very emphatic here). with regard to the family into which he was so soon about, after some solicitation, to be admitted, she believed mr. tackleton knew that, although reduced in purse, it had some pretensions to gentility; and that if certain circumstances, not wholly unconnected, she would go so far as to say, with the indigo trade, but to which she would not more particularly refer, had happened differently, it might perhaps have been in possession of wealth. she then remarked that she would not allude to the past, and would not mention that her daughter had for some time rejected the suit of mr. tackleton; and that she would not say a great many other things which she did say, at great length. finally, she delivered it as the general result of her observation and experience, that those marriages in which there was least of what was romantically and sillily called love, were always the happiest; and that she anticipated the greatest possible amount of bliss--not rapturous bliss; but the solid, steady-going article--from the approaching nuptials. she concluded by informing the company that to-morrow was the day she had lived for, expressly; and that when it was over, she would desire nothing better than to be packed up and disposed of, in any genteel place of burial. as these remarks were quite unanswerable: which is the happy property of all remarks that are sufficiently wide of the purpose: they changed the current of the conversation, and diverted the general attention to the veal and ham-pie, the cold mutton, the potatoes, and the tart. in order that the bottled beer might not be slighted, john peerybingle proposed to-morrow: the wedding-day: and called upon them to drink a bumper to it, before he proceeded on his journey. for you ought to know that he only rested there, and gave the old horse a bait. he had to go some four or five miles farther on; and when he returned in the evening, he called for dot, and took another rest on his way home. this was the order of the day on all the pic-nic occasions, and had been ever since their institution. there were two persons present, besides the bride and bridegroom elect, who did but indifferent honour to the toast. one of these was dot, too flushed and discomposed to adapt herself to any small occurrence of the moment; the other bertha, who rose up hurriedly, before the rest, and left the table. "good bye!" said stout john peerybingle, pulling on his dreadnought coat. "i shall be back at the old time. good bye all!" "good bye john," returned caleb. he seemed to say it by rote, and to wave his hand in the same unconscious manner; for he stood observing bertha with an anxious wondering face, that never altered its expression. "good bye young shaver!" said the jolly carrier, bending down to kiss the child; which tilly slowboy, now intent upon her knife and fork, had deposited asleep (and strange to say, without damage) in a little cot of bertha's furnishing; "good bye! time will come, i suppose, when _you_'ll turn out into the cold, my little friend, and leave your old father to enjoy his pipe and his rheumatics in the chimney-corner; eh? where's dot?" "i'm here john!" she said, starting. "come, come!" returned the carrier, clapping his sounding hands. "where's the pipe?" "i quite forgot the pipe, john." forgot the pipe! was such a wonder ever heard of! she! forgot the pipe! "i'll--i'll fill it directly. it's soon done." but it was not so soon done, either. it lay in the usual place; the carrier's dreadnought pocket; with the little pouch, her own work; from which she was used to fill it; but her hand shook so, that she entangled it (and yet her hand was small enough to have come out easily, i am sure), and bungled terribly. the filling of the pipe and lighting it; those little offices in which i have commended her discretion, if you recollect; were vilely done, from first to last. during the whole process, tackleton stood looking on maliciously with the half-closed eye; which, whenever it met her's--or caught it, for it can hardly be said to have ever met another eye: rather being a kind of trap to snatch it up--augmented her confusion in a most remarkable degree. "why, what a clumsy dot you are, this afternoon!" said john. "i could have done it better myself, i verily believe!" with these good-natured words, he strode away; and presently was heard, in company with boxer, and the old horse, and the cart, making lively music down the road. what time the dreamy caleb still stood, watching his blind daughter, with the same expression on his face. "bertha!" said caleb, softly. "what has happened? how changed you are, my darling, in a few hours--since this morning. _you_ silent and dull all day! what is it? tell me! "oh father, father!" cried the blind girl, bursting into tears. "oh my hard, hard fate!" caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered her. "but think how cheerful and how happy you have been, bertha! how good, and how much loved, by many people." "that strikes me to the heart, dear father! always so mindful of me! always so kind to me!" caleb was very much perplexed to understand her. "to be--to be blind, bertha, my poor dear," he faltered, "is a great affliction; but----" "i have never felt it!" cried the blind girl. "i have never felt it, in its fulness. never! i have sometimes wished that i could see you, or could see him; only once, dear father; only for one little minute; that i might know what it is i treasure up," she laid her hands upon her breast, "and hold here! that i might be sure i have it right! and sometimes (but then i was a child) i have wept, in my prayers at night, to think that when your images ascended from my heart to heaven, they might not be the true resemblance of yourselves. but i have never had these feelings long. they have passed away, and left me tranquil and contented." "and they will again," said caleb. "but father! oh my good, gentle father, bear with me, if i am wicked!" said the blind girl. "this is not the sorrow that so weighs me down!" her father could not choose but let his moist eyes overflow; she was so earnest and pathetic. but he did not understand her, yet. "bring her to me," said bertha. "i cannot hold it closed and shut within myself. bring her to me, father!" she knew he hesitated, and said, "may. bring may!" may heard the mention of her name, and coming quietly towards her, touched her on the arm. the blind girl turned immediately, and held her by both hands. "look into my face, dear heart, sweet heart!" said bertha. "read it with your beautiful eyes, and tell me if the truth is written on it." "dear bertha, yes!" the blind girl still, upturning the blank sightless face, down which the tears were coursing fast, addressed her in these words: "there is not, in my soul, a wish or thought that is not for your good, bright may! there is not, in my soul, a grateful recollection stronger than the deep remembrance which is stored there, of the many many times when, in the full pride of sight and beauty, you have had consideration for blind bertha, even when we two were children, or when bertha was as much a child as ever blindness can be! every blessing on your head! light upon your happy course! not the less, my dear may;" and she drew towards her, in a closer grasp; "not the less, my bird, because, to-day, the knowledge that you are to be his wife has wrung my heart almost to breaking! father, may, mary! oh forgive me that it is so, for the sake of all he has done to relieve the weariness of my dark life: and for the sake of the belief you have in me, when i call heaven to witness that i could not wish him married to a wife more worthy of his goodness!" while speaking, she had released may fielding's hands, and clasped her garments in an attitude of mingled supplication and love. sinking lower and lower down, as she proceeded in her strange confession, she dropped at last at the feet of her friend, and hid her blind face in the folds of her dress. "great power!" exclaimed her father, smitten at one blow with the truth, "have i deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart at last!" it was well for all of them that dot, that beaming, useful, busy little dot--for such she was, whatever faults she had; however you may learn to hate her, in good time--it was well for all of them, i say, that she was there: or where this would have ended, it were hard to tell. but dot, recovering her self-possession, interposed, before may could reply, or caleb say another word. "come come, dear bertha! come away with me! give her your arm, may. so! how composed she is, you see, already; and how good it is of her to mind us," said the cheery little woman, kissing her upon the forehead. "come away, dear bertha! come! and here's her good father will come with her; won't you, caleb? to--be--sure!" well, well! she was a noble little dot in such things, and it must have been an obdurate nature that could have withstood her influence. when she had got poor caleb and his bertha away, that they might comfort and console each other, as she knew they only could, she presently came bouncing back,--the saying is, as fresh as any daisy; _i_ say fresher--to mount guard over that bridling little piece of consequence in the cap and gloves, and prevent the dear old creature from making discoveries. "so bring me the precious baby, tilly," said she, drawing a chair to the fire; "and while i have it in my lap, here's mrs. fielding, tilly, will tell me all about the management of babies, and put me right in twenty points where i'm as wrong as can be. won't you, mrs. fielding?" [illustration] not even the welsh giant, who, according to the popular expression, was so "slow" as to perform a fatal surgical operation upon himself, in emulation of a juggling-trick achieved by his arch-enemy at breakfast-time; not even he fell half so readily into the snare prepared for him, as the old lady into this artful pitfall. the fact of tackleton having walked out; and furthermore, of two or three people having been talking together at a distance, for two minutes, leaving her to her own resources; was quite enough to have put her on her dignity, and the bewailment of that mysterious convulsion in the indigo trade, for four-and-twenty hours. but this becoming deference to her experience, on the part of the young mother, was so irresistible, that after a short affectation of humility, she began to enlighten her with the best grace in the world; and sitting bolt upright before the wicked dot, she did, in half an hour, deliver more infallible domestic recipes and precepts, than would (if acted on) have utterly destroyed and done up that young peerybingle, though he had been an infant samson. to change the theme, dot did a little needlework--she carried the contents of a whole workbox in her pocket; how ever she contrived it, _i_ don't know--then did a little nursing; then a little more needlework; then had a little whispering chat with may, while the old lady dozed; and so in little bits of bustle, which was quite her manner always, found it a very short afternoon. then, as it grew dark, and as it was a solemn part of this institution of the pic-nic that she should perform all bertha's household tasks, she trimmed the fire, and swept the hearth, and set the tea-board out, and drew the curtain, and lighted a candle. then, she played an air or two on a rude kind of harp, which caleb had contrived for bertha; and played them very well; for nature had made her delicate little ear as choice a one for music as it would have been for jewels, if she had had any to wear. by this time it was the established hour for having tea; and tackleton came back again, to share the meal, and spend the evening. caleb and bertha had returned some time before, and caleb had sat down to his afternoon's work. but he couldn't settle to it, poor fellow, being anxious and remorseful for his daughter. it was touching to see him sitting idle on his working-stool, regarding her so wistfully; and always saying in his face, "have i deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart!" when it was night, and tea was done, and dot had nothing more to do in washing up the cups and saucers; in a word--for i must come to it, and there is no use in putting it off--when the time drew nigh for expecting the carrier's return in every sound of distant wheels; her manner changed again; her colour came and went; and she was very restless. not as good wives are, when listening for their husbands. no, no, no. it was another sort of restlessness from that. wheels heard. a horse's feet. the barking of a dog. the gradual approach of all the sounds. the scratching paw of boxer at the door! "whose step is that!" cried bertha, starting up. "whose step?" returned the carrier, standing in the portal, with his brown face ruddy as a winter berry from the keen night air. "why, mine." "the other step," said bertha. "the man's tread behind you!" "she is not to be deceived," observed the carrier, laughing. "come along sir. you'll be welcome, never fear!" he spoke in a loud tone; and as he spoke, the deaf old gentleman entered. "he's not so much a stranger, that you haven't seen him once, caleb," said the carrier. "you'll give him house-room till we go?" "oh surely john; and take it as an honour." "he's the best company on earth, to talk secrets in," said john. "i have reasonable good lungs, but he tries 'em, i can tell you. sit down sir. all friends here, and glad to see you!" when he had imparted this assurance, in a voice that amply corroborated what he had said about his lungs, he added in his natural tone, "a chair in the chimney-corner, and leave to sit quite silent and look pleasantly about him, is all he cares for. he's easily pleased." bertha had been listening intently. she called caleb to her side, when he had set the chair, and asked him, in a low voice, to describe their visitor. when he had done so (truly now; with scrupulous fidelity), she moved, for the first time since he had come in; and sighed; and seemed to have no further interest concerning him. the carrier was in high spirits, good fellow that he was; and fonder of his little wife than ever. "a clumsy dot she was, this afternoon!" he said, encircling her with his rough arm, as she stood, removed from the rest; "and yet i like her somehow. see yonder, dot!" he pointed to the old man. she looked down. i think she trembled. "he's--ha ha ha!--he's full of admiration for you!" said the carrier. "talked of nothing else, the whole way here. why, he's a brave old boy. i like him for it!" "i wish he had had a better subject, john;" she said, with an uneasy glance about the room; at tackleton especially. "a better subject!" cried the jovial john. "there's no such thing. come! off with the great-coat, off with the thick shawl, off with the heavy wrappers! and a cosy half-hour by the fire! my humble service, mistress. a game at cribbage, you and i? that's hearty. the cards and board, dot. and a glass of beer here, if there's any left, small wife!" his challenge was addressed to the old lady, who accepting it with gracious readiness, they were soon engaged upon the game. at first, the carrier looked about him sometimes, with a smile, or now and then called dot to peep over his shoulder at his hand, and advise him on some knotty point. but his adversary being a rigid disciplinarian, and subject to an occasional weakness in respect of pegging more than she was entitled to, required such vigilance on his part, as left him neither eyes nor ears to spare. thus, his whole attention gradually became absorbed upon the cards; and he thought of nothing else, until a hand upon his shoulder restored him to a consciousness of tackleton. "i am sorry to disturb you--but a word, directly." "i'm going to deal," returned the carrier. "it's a crisis." "it is," said tackleton. "come here, man!" there was that in his pale face which made the other rise immediately, and ask him, in a hurry, what the matter was. "hush! john peerybingle," said tackleton. "i am sorry for this. i am indeed. i have been afraid of it. i have suspected it from the first." "what is it?" asked the carrier, with a frightened aspect. "hush! i'll show you, if you'll come with me." the carrier accompanied him, without another word. they went across a yard, where the stars were shining; and by a little side door, into tackleton's own counting-house, where there was a glass window, commanding the ware-room: which was closed for the night. there was no light in the counting-house itself, but there were lamps in the long narrow ware-room; and consequently the window was bright. "a moment!" said tackleton. "can you bear to look through that window, do you think?" "why not?" returned the carrier. "a moment more," said tackleton. "don't commit any violence. it's of no use. it's dangerous too. you're a strong-made man; and you might do murder before you know it." the carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled a step as if he had been struck. in one stride he was at the window, and he saw-- oh shadow on the hearth! oh truthful cricket! oh perfidious wife! he saw her, with the old man; old no longer, but erect and gallant: bearing in his hand the false white hair that had won his way into their desolate and miserable home. he saw her listening to him, as he bent his head to whisper in her ear; and suffering him to clasp her round the waist, as they moved slowly down the dim wooden gallery towards the door by which they had entered it. he saw them stop, and saw her turn----to have the face, the face he loved so, so presented to his view!----and saw her, with her own hands, adjust the lie upon his head, laughing, as she did it, at his unsuspicious nature! he clenched his strong right hand at first, as if it would have beaten down a lion. but opening it immediately again, he spread it out before the eyes of tackleton (for he was tender of her, even then), and so, as they passed out, fell down upon a desk, and was as weak as any infant. he was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with his horse and parcels, when she came into the room, prepared for going home. "now john, dear! good night may! good night bertha!" could she kiss them? could she be blithe and cheerful in her parting? could she venture to reveal her face to them without a blush? yes. tackleton observed her closely; and she did all this. tilly was hushing the baby; and she crossed and re-crossed tackleton, a dozen times, repeating drowsily: "did the knowledge that it was to be its wifes, then, wring its hearts almost to breaking; and did its fathers deceive it from its cradles but to break its hearts at last!" "now tilly, give me the baby. good night, mr. tackleton. where's john, for goodness' sake?" "he's going to walk, beside the horse's head," said tackleton; who helped her to her seat. "my dear john. walk? to-night?" the muffled figure of her husband made a hasty sign in the affirmative; and the false stranger and the little nurse being in their places, the old horse moved off. boxer, the unconscious boxer, running on before, running back, running round and round the cart, and barking as triumphantly and merrily as ever. when tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting may and her mother home, poor caleb sat down by the fire beside his daughter; anxious and remorseful at the core; and still saying in his wistful contemplation of her, "have i deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart at last!" the toys that had been set in motion for the baby, had all stopped and run down, long ago. in the faint light and silence, the imperturbably calm dolls; the agitated rocking-horses with distended eyes and nostrils; the old gentlemen at the street doors, standing, half doubled up, upon their failing knees and ankles; the wry-faced nutcrackers; the very beasts upon their way into the ark, in twos, like a boarding-school out walking; might have been imagined to be stricken motionless with fantastic wonder, at dot being false, or tackleton beloved, under any combination of circumstances. [illustration: chirp the third] the dutch clock in the corner struck ten, when the carrier sat down by his fireside. so troubled and grief-worn, that he seemed to scare the cuckoo, who, having cut his ten melodious announcements as short as possible, plunged back into the moorish palace again, and clapped his little door behind him, as if the unwonted spectacle were too much for his feelings. if the little haymaker had been armed with the sharpest of scythes, and had cut at every stroke into the carrier's heart, he never could have gashed and wounded it, as dot had done. it was a heart so full of love for her; so bound up and held together by innumerable threads of winning remembrance, spun from the daily working of her many qualities of endearment; it was a heart in which she had enshrined herself so gently and so closely; a heart so single and so earnest in its truth: so strong in right, so weak in wrong: that it could cherish neither passion nor revenge at first, and had only room to hold the broken image of its idol. but slowly, slowly; as the carrier sat brooding on his hearth, now cold and dark; other and fiercer thoughts began to rise within him, as an angry wind comes rising in the night. the stranger was beneath his outraged roof. three steps would take him to his chamber door. one blow would beat it in. "you might do murder before you know it," tackleton had said. how could it be murder, if he gave the villain time to grapple with him hand to hand! he was the younger man. it was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of his mind. it was an angry thought, goading him to some avenging act, that should change the cheerful house into a haunted place which lonely travellers would dread to pass by night; and where the timid would see shadows struggling in the ruined windows when the moon was dim, and hear wild noises in the stormy weather. he was the younger man! yes, yes; some lover who had won the heart that _he_ had never touched. some lover of her early choice: of whom she had thought and dreamed: for whom she had pined and pined: when he had fancied her so happy by his side. oh agony to think of it! she had been above stairs with the baby, getting it to bed. as he sat brooding on the hearth, she came close beside him, without his knowledge--in the turning of the rack of his great misery, he lost all other sounds--and put her little stool at his feet. he only knew it, when he felt her hand upon his own, and saw her looking up into his face. with wonder? no. it was his first impression, and he was fain to look at her again, to set it right. no, not with wonder. with an eager and enquiring look; but not with wonder. at first it was alarmed and serious; then it changed into a strange, wild, dreadful smile of recognition of his thoughts; then there was nothing but her clasped hands on her brow, and her bent head, and falling hair. though the power of omnipotence had been his to wield at that moment, he had too much of its diviner property of mercy in his breast, to have turned one feather's weight of it against her. but he could not bear to see her crouching down upon the little seat where he had often looked on her, with love and pride, so innocent and gay; and when she rose and left him, sobbing as she went, he felt it a relief to have the vacant place beside him rather than her so long cherished presence. this in itself was anguish keener than all: reminding him how desolate he was become, and how the great bond of his life was rent asunder. the more he felt this, and the more he knew he could have better borne to see her lying prematurely dead before him with their little child upon her breast, the higher and the stronger rose his wrath against his enemy. he looked about him for a weapon. there was a gun, hanging on the wall. he took it down, and moved a pace or two towards the door of the perfidious stranger's room. he knew the gun was loaded. some shadowy idea that it was just to shoot this man like a wild beast, seized him; and dilated in his mind until it grew into a monstrous demon in complete possession of him, casting out all milder thoughts and setting up its undivided empire. that phrase is wrong. not casting out his milder thoughts, but artfully transforming them. changing them into scourges to drive him on. turning water into blood, love into hate, gentleness into blind ferocity. her image, sorrowing, humbled, but still pleading to his tenderness and mercy with resistless power, never left his mind; but staying there, it urged him to the door; raised the weapon to his shoulder; fitted and nerved his finger to the trigger; and cried "kill him! in his bed!" he reversed the gun to beat the stock upon the door; he already held it lifted in the air; some indistinct design was in his thoughts of calling out to him to fly, for god's sake, by the window-- when, suddenly, the struggling fire illumined the whole chimney with a glow of light; and the cricket on the hearth began to chirp! no sound he could have heard; no human voice, not even her's; could so have moved and softened him. the artless words in which she had told him of her love for this same cricket, were once more freshly spoken; her trembling, earnest manner at the moment, was again before him; her pleasant voice--oh what a voice it was, for making household music at the fireside of an honest man!--thrilled through and through his better nature, and awoke it into life and action. he recoiled from the door, like a man walking in his sleep, awakened from a frightful dream; and put the gun aside. clasping his hands before his face, he then sat down again beside the fire, and found relief in tears. the cricket on the hearth came out into the room, and stood in fairy shape before him. [illustration] "'i love it,'" said the fairy voice, repeating what he well remembered, "'for the many times i have heard it, and the many thoughts its harmless music has given me.'" "she said so!" cried the carrier. "true!" "'this has been a happy home, john; and i love the cricket for its sake!'" "it has been, heaven knows," returned the carrier. "she made it happy, always,--until now." "so gracefully sweet-tempered; so domestic, joyful, busy, and light-hearted!" said the voice. "otherwise i never could have loved her as i did," returned the carrier. the voice, correcting him, said "do." the carrier repeated "as i did." but not firmly. his faltering tongue resisted his control, and would speak in its own way, for itself and him. the figure, in an attitude of invocation, raised its hand and said: "upon your own hearth"-- "the hearth she has blighted," interposed the carrier. "the hearth she has--how often!--blessed and brightened," said the cricket: "the hearth which, but for her, were only a few stones and bricks and rusty bars, but which has been, through her, the altar of your home; on which you have nightly sacrificed some petty passion, selfishness, or care, and offered up the homage of a tranquil mind, a trusting nature, and an overflowing heart; so that the smoke from this poor chimney has gone upward with a better fragrance than the richest incense that is burnt before the richest shrines in all the gaudy temples of this world!--upon your own hearth; in its quiet sanctuary; surrounded by its gentle influences and associations; hear her! hear me! hear everything that speaks the language of your hearth and home!" "and pleads for her?" enquired the carrier. "all things that speak the language of your hearth and home, _must_ plead for her!" returned the cricket. "for they speak the truth." and while the carrier, with his head upon his hands, continued to sit meditating in his chair, the presence stood beside him; suggesting his reflections by its power, and presenting them before him, as in a glass or picture. it was not a solitary presence. from the hearthstone, from the chimney; from the clock, the pipe, the kettle, and the cradle; from the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and the stairs; from the cart without, and the cupboard within, and the household implements; from every thing and every place with which she had ever been familiar, and with which she had ever entwined one recollection of herself in her unhappy husband's mind; fairies came trooping forth. not to stand beside him as the cricket did, but to busy and bestir themselves. to do all honor to her image. to pull him by the skirts, and point to it when it appeared. to cluster round it, and embrace it, and strew flowers for it to tread on. to try to crown its fair head with their tiny hands. to show that they were fond of it and loved it; and that there was not one ugly, wicked, or accusatory creature to claim knowledge of it--none but their playful and approving selves. his thoughts were constant to her image. it was always there. she sat plying her needle, before the fire, and singing to herself. such a blithe, thriving, steady little dot! the fairy figures turned upon him all at once, by one consent, with one prodigious concentrated stare; and seemed to say "is this the light wife you are mourning for!" there were sounds of gaiety outside: musical instruments, and noisy tongues, and laughter. a crowd of young merry-makers came pouring in; among whom were may fielding and a score of pretty girls. dot was the fairest of them all; as young as any of them too. they came to summon her to join their party. it was a dance. if ever little foot were made for dancing, hers was, surely. but she laughed, and shook her head, and pointed to her cookery on the fire, and her table ready spread: with an exulting defiance that rendered her more charming than she was before. and so she merrily dismissed them: nodding to her would-be partners, one by one, as they passed out, with a comical indifference, enough to make them go and drown themselves immediately if they were her admirers--and they must have been so, more or less; they couldn't help it. and yet indifference was not her character. oh no! for presently, there came a certain carrier to the door; and bless her what a welcome she bestowed upon him! again the staring figures turned upon him all at once, and seemed to say "is this the wife who has forsaken you!" a shadow fell upon the mirror or the picture: call it what you will. a great shadow of the stranger, as he first stood underneath their roof; covering its surface, and blotting out all other objects. but the nimble fairies worked like bees to clear it off again; and dot again was there. still bright and beautiful. rocking her little baby in its cradle; singing to it softly; and resting her head upon a shoulder which had its counterpart in the musing figure by which the fairy cricket stood. the night--i mean the real night: not going by fairy clocks--was wearing now; and in this stage of the carrier's thoughts, the moon burst out, and shone brightly in the sky. perhaps some calm and quiet light had risen also, in his mind; and he could think more soberly of what had happened. although the shadow of the stranger fell at intervals upon the glass--always distinct, and big, and thoroughly defined--it never fell so darkly as at first. whenever it appeared, the fairies uttered a general cry of consternation, and plied their little arms and legs, with inconceivable activity, to rub it out. and whenever they got at dot again, and showed her to him once more, bright and beautiful, they cheered in the most inspiring manner. they never showed her, otherwise than beautiful and bright, for they were household spirits to whom falsehood is annihilation; and being so, what dot was there for them, but the one active, beaming, pleasant little creature who had been the light and sun of the carrier's home! the fairies were prodigiously excited when they showed her, with the baby, gossiping among a knot of sage old matrons, and affecting to be wondrous old and matronly herself, and leaning in a staid, demure old way upon her husband's arm, attempting--she! such a bud of a little woman--to convey the idea of having abjured the vanities of the world in general, and of being the sort of person to whom it was no novelty at all to be a mother; yet in the same breath, they showed her, laughing at the carrier for being awkward, and pulling up his shirt-collar to make him smart, and mincing merrily about that very room to teach him how to dance! they turned, and stared immensely at him when they showed her with the blind girl; for though she carried cheerfulness and animation with her, wheresoever she went, she bore those influences into caleb plummer's home, heaped up and running over. the blind girl's love for her, and trust in her, and gratitude to her; her own good busy way of setting bertha's thanks aside; her dexterous little arts for filling up each moment of the visit in doing something useful to the house, and really working hard while feigning to make holiday; her bountiful provision of those standing delicacies, the veal and ham-pie and the bottles of beer; her radiant little face arriving at the door, and taking leave; the wonderful expression in her whole self, from her neat foot to the crown of her head, of being a part of the establishment--a something necessary to it, which it couldn't be without; all this the fairies revelled in, and loved her for. and once again they looked upon him all at once, appealingly; and seemed to say, while some among them nestled in her dress and fondled her, "is this the wife who has betrayed your confidence!" more than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thoughtful night, they showed her to him sitting on her favourite seat, with her bent head, her hands clasped on her brow, her falling hair. as he had seen her last. and when they found her thus, they neither turned nor looked upon him, but gathered close round her, and comforted and kissed her: and pressed on one another to show sympathy and kindness to her: and forgot him altogether. thus the night passed. the moon went down; the stars grew pale; the cold day broke; the sun rose. the carrier still sat, musing, in the chimney corner. he had sat there, with his head upon his hands, all night. all night the faithful cricket had been chirp, chirp, chirping on the hearth. all night he had listened to its voice. all night, the household fairies had been busy with him. all night, she had been amiable and blameless in the glass, except when that one shadow fell upon it. he rose up when it was broad day, and washed and dressed himself. he couldn't go about his customary cheerful avocations; he wanted spirit for them; but it mattered the less, that it was tackleton's wedding-day, and he had arranged to make his rounds by proxy. he had thought to have gone merrily to church with dot. but such plans were at an end. it was their own wedding-day too. ah! how little he had looked for such a close to such a year! the carrier expected that tackleton would pay him an early visit; and he was right. he had not walked to and fro before his own door, many minutes, when he saw the toy merchant coming in his chaise along the road. as the chaise drew nearer, he perceived that tackleton was dressed out sprucely, for his marriage: and had decorated his horse's head with flowers and favors. the horse looked much more like a bridegroom than tackleton: whose half-closed eye was more disagreeably expressive than ever. but the carrier took little heed of this. his thoughts had other occupation. "john peerybingle!" said tackleton, with an air of condolence. "my good fellow, how do you find yourself this morning?" "i have had but a poor night, master tackleton," returned the carrier shaking his head: "for i have been a good deal disturbed in my mind. but it's over now! can you spare me half an hour or so, for some private talk?" "i came on purpose," returned tackleton, alighting. "never mind the horse. he'll stand quiet enough, with the reins over this post, if you'll give him a mouthful of hay." the carrier having brought it from his stable and set it before him, they turned into the house. "you are not married before noon?" he said, "i think?" "no," answered tackleton. "plenty of time. plenty of time." when they entered the kitchen, tilly slowboy was rapping at the stranger's door; which was only removed from it by a few steps. one of her very red eyes (for tilly had been crying all night long, because her mistress cried) was at the keyhole; and she was knocking very loud; and seemed frightened. "if you please i can't make nobody hear," said tilly, looking round. "i hope nobody an't gone and been and died if you please!" this philanthropic wish, miss slowboy emphasised with various new raps and kicks at the door; which led to no result whatever. "shall i go?" said tackleton. "it's curious." the carrier who had turned his face from the door, signed to him to go if he would. so tackleton went to tilly slowboy's relief; and he too kicked and knocked; and he too failed to get the least reply. but he thought of trying the handle of the door; and as it opened easily, he peeped in, looked in, went in; and soon came running out again. "john peerybingle," said tackleton, in his ear. "i hope there has been nothing--nothing rash in the night." the carrier turned upon him quickly. "because he's gone!" said tackleton; "and the window's open. i don't see any marks--to be sure it's almost on a level with the garden: but i was afraid there might have been some--some scuffle. eh?" he nearly shut up the expressive eye, altogether; he looked at him so hard. and he gave his eye, and his face, and his whole person, a sharp twist. as if he would have screwed the truth out of him. "make yourself easy," said the carrier. "he went into that room last night, without harm in word or deed from me; and no one has entered it since. he is away of his own free will. i'd go out gladly at that door, and beg my bread from house to house, for life, if i could so change the past that he had never come. but he has come and gone. and i have done with him!" "oh!--well, i think he has got off pretty easily," said tackleton, taking a chair. the sneer was lost upon the carrier, who sat down too: and shaded his face with his hand, for some little time, before proceeding. "you showed me last night," he said at length, "my wife; my wife that i love; secretly--" "and tenderly," insinuated tackleton. "conniving at that man's disguise, and giving him opportunities of meeting her alone. i think there's no sight i wouldn't have rather seen than that. i think there's no man in the world i wouldn't have rather had to show it me." "i confess to having had my suspicions always," said tackleton. "and that has made me objectionable here, i know." "but as you did show it me," pursued the carrier, not minding him; "and as you saw her; my wife; my wife that i love"--his voice, and eye, and hand, grew steadier and firmer as he repeated these words: evidently in pursuance of a stedfast purpose--"as you saw her at this disadvantage, it is right and just that you should also see with my eyes, and look into my breast, and know what my mind is, upon the subject. for it's settled," said the carrier, regarding him attentively. "and nothing can shake it now." tackleton muttered a few general words of assent, about its being necessary to vindicate something or other; but he was overawed by the manner of his companion. plain and unpolished as it was, it had a something dignified and noble in it, which nothing but the soul of generous honor dwelling in the man, could have imparted. "i am a plain, rough man," pursued the carrier, "with very little to recommend me. i am not a clever man, as you very well know. i am not a young man. i loved my little dot, because i had seen her grow up, from a child, in her father's house; because i knew how precious she was; because she had been my life, for years and years. there's many men i can't compare with, who never could have loved my little dot like me, i think!" he paused, and softly beat the ground a short time with his foot, before resuming: "i often thought that though i wasn't good enough for her, i should make her a kind husband, and perhaps know her value better than another; and in this way i reconciled it to myself, and came to think it might be possible that we should be married. and in the end, it came about, and we _were_ married." "hah!" said tackleton, with a significant shake of his head. "i had studied myself; i had had experience of myself; i knew how much i loved her, and how happy i should be," pursued the carrier. "but i had not--i feel it now--sufficiently considered her." "to be sure," said tackleton. "giddiness, frivolity, fickleness, love of admiration! not considered! all left out of sight! hah!" "you had best not interrupt me," said the carrier, with some sternness, "till you understand me; and you're wide of doing so. if, yesterday, i'd have struck that man down at a blow, who dared to breathe a word against her; to-day i'd set my foot upon his face, if he was my brother!" the toy merchant gazed at him in astonishment. he went on in a softer tone: "did i consider," said the carrier, "that i took her; at her age, and with her beauty; from her young companions, and the many scenes of which she was the ornament; in which she was the brightest little star that ever shone; to shut her up from day to day in my dull house, and keep my tedious company? did i consider how little suited i was to her sprightly humour, and how wearisome a plodding man like me must be, to one of her quick spirit? did i consider that it was no merit in me, or claim in me, that i loved her, when everybody must who knew her? never. i took advantage of her hopeful nature and her cheerful disposition; and i married her. i wish i never had! for her sake; not for mine!" the toy merchant gazed at him, without winking. even the half-shut eye was open now. "heaven bless her!" said the carrier, "for the cheerful constancy with which she has tried to keep the knowledge of this from me! and heaven help me, that, in my slow mind, i have not found it out before! poor child! poor dot! _i_ not to find it out, who have seen her eyes fill with tears, when such a marriage as our own was spoken of! i, who have seen the secret trembling on her lips a hundred times, and never suspected it, till last night! poor girl! that i could ever hope she would be fond of me! that i could ever believe she was!" "she made a show of it," said tackleton. "she made such a show of it, that to tell you the truth it was the origin of my misgivings." and here he asserted the superiority of may fielding, who certainly made no sort of show of being fond of _him_. "she has tried," said the poor carrier, with greater emotion than he had exhibited yet; "i only now begin to know how hard she has tried; to be my dutiful and zealous wife. how good she has been; how much she has done; how brave and strong a heart she has; let the happiness i have known under this roof bear witness! it will be some help and comfort to me, when i am here alone." "here alone?" said tackleton. "oh! then you do mean to take some notice of this?" "i mean," returned the carrier, "to do her the greatest kindness, and make her the best reparation, in my power. i can release her from the daily pain of an unequal marriage, and the struggle to conceal it; she shall be as free as i can render her." "make _her_ reparation!" exclaimed tackleton, twisting and turning his great ears with his hands. "there must be something wrong here. you didn't say that, of course." the carrier set his grip upon the collar of the toy merchant, and shook him like a reed. "listen to me!" he said. "and take care that you hear me right. listen to me. do i speak plainly?" "very plainly indeed," answered tackleton. "as if i meant it?" "very much as if you meant it." "i sat upon that hearth, last night, all night," exclaimed the carrier. "on the spot where she has often sat beside me, with her sweet face looking into mine. i called up her whole life, day by day; i had her dear self, in its every passage, in review before me. and upon my soul she is innocent, if there is one to judge the innocent and guilty!" staunch cricket on the hearth! loyal household fairies! "passion and distrust have left me!" said the carrier; "and nothing but my grief remains. in an unhappy moment some old lover, better suited to her tastes and years than i; forsaken, perhaps, for me, against her will; returned. in an unhappy moment: taken by surprise, and wanting time to think of what she did: she made herself a party to his treachery, by concealing it. last night she saw him, in the interview we witnessed. it was wrong. but otherwise than this, she is innocent if there is truth on earth!" "if that is your opinion--" tackleton began. "so, let her go!" pursued the carrier. "go, with my blessing for the many happy hours she has given me, and my forgiveness for any pang she has caused me. let her go, and have the peace of mind i wish her! she'll never hate me. she'll learn to like me better, when i'm not a drag upon her, and she wears the chain i have rivetted, more lightly. this is the day on which i took her, with so little thought for her enjoyment, from her home. to-day she shall return to it; and i will trouble her no more. her father and mother will be here to-day--we had made a little plan for keeping it together--and they shall take her home. i can trust her, there, or anywhere. she leaves me without blame, and she will live so i am sure. if i should die--i may perhaps while she is still young; i have lost some courage in a few hours--she'll find that i remembered her, and loved her to the last! this is the end of what you showed me. now, it's over!" "oh no, john, not over. do not say it's over yet! not quite yet. i have heard your noble words. i could not steal away, pretending to be ignorant of what has affected me with such deep gratitude. do not say it's over, 'till the clock has struck again!" she had entered shortly after tackleton; and had remained there. she never looked at tackleton, but fixed her eyes upon her husband. but she kept away from him, setting as wide a space as possible between them; and though she spoke with most impassioned earnestness, she went no nearer to him even then. how different in this, from her old self! "no hand can make the clock which will strike again for me the hours that are gone," replied the carrier, with a faint smile. "but let it be so, if you will, my dear. it will strike soon. it's of little matter what we say. i'd try to please you in a harder case than that." "well!" muttered tackleton. "i must be off: for when the clock strikes again, it'll be necessary for me to be upon my way to church. good morning, john peerybingle. i'm sorry to be deprived of the pleasure of your company. sorry for the loss, and the occasion of it too!" "i have spoken plainly?" said the carrier, accompanying him to the door. "oh quite!" "and you'll remember what i have said?" "why, if you compel me to make the observation," said tackleton; previously taking the precaution of getting into his chaise; "i must say that it was so very unexpected, that i'm far from being likely to forget it." "the better for us both," returned the carrier. "good bye. i give you joy!" "i wish i could give it to _you_," said tackleton. "as i can't; thank'ee. between ourselves (as i told you before, eh?) i don't much think i shall have the less joy in my married life, because may hasn't been too officious about me, and too demonstrative. good bye! take care of yourself." the carrier stood looking after him until he was smaller in the distance than his horse's flowers and favours near at hand; and then, with a deep sigh, went strolling like a restless, broken man, among some neighbouring elms; unwilling to return until the clock was on the eve of striking. his little wife, being left alone, sobbed piteously; but often dried her eyes and checked herself, to say how good he was, how excellent he was! and once or twice she laughed; so heartily, triumphantly, and incoherently (still crying all the time), that tilly was quite horrified. "ow if you please don't!" said tilly. "it's enough to dead and bury the baby, so it is if you please." "will you bring him sometimes, to see his father, tilly," enquired her mistress; drying her eyes; "when i can't live here, and have gone to my old home?" "ow if you please don't!" cried tilly, throwing back her head, and bursting out into a howl; she looked at the moment uncommonly like boxer; "ow if you please don't! ow, what has everybody gone and been and done with everybody, making everybody else so wretched! ow-w-w-w!" the soft-hearted slowboy trailed off at this juncture, into such a deplorable howl: the more tremendous from its long suppression: that she must infallibly have awakened the baby, and frightened him into something serious (probably convulsions), if her eyes had not encountered caleb plummer, leading in his daughter. this spectacle restoring her to a sense of the proprieties, she stood for some few moments silent, with her mouth wide open: and then, posting off to the bed on which the baby lay asleep, danced in a weird, saint vitus manner on the floor, and at the same time rummaged with her face and head among the bedclothes: apparently deriving much relief from those extraordinary operations. "mary!" said bertha. "not at the marriage!" "i told her you would not be there mum," whispered caleb. "i heard as much last night. but bless you," said the little man, taking her tenderly by both hands, "_i_ don't care for what they say; _i_ don't believe them. there an't much of me, but that little should be torn to pieces sooner than i'd trust a word against you!" he put his arms about her neck and hugged her, as a child might have hugged one of his own dolls. "bertha couldn't stay at home this morning," said caleb. "she was afraid, i know, to hear the bells ring: and couldn't trust herself to be so near them on their wedding-day. so we started in good time, and came here. i have been thinking of what i have done," said caleb, after a moment's pause; "i have been blaming myself 'till i hardly knew what to do or where to turn, for the distress of mind i have caused her; and i've come to the conclusion that i'd better, if you'll stay with me, mum, the while, tell her the truth. you'll stay with me the while?" he enquired, trembling from head to foot. "i don't know what effect it may have upon her; i don't know what she'll think of me; i don't know that she'll ever care for her poor father afterwards. but it's best for her that she should be undeceived; and i must bear the consequences as i deserve!" "mary," said bertha, "where is your hand! ah! here it is; here it is!" pressing it to her lips, with a smile, and drawing it through her arm. "i heard them speaking softly among themselves, last night, of some blame against you. they were wrong." the carrier's wife was silent. caleb answered for her. "they were wrong," he said. "i knew it!" cried bertha, proudly. "i told them so. i scorned to hear a word! blame _her_ with justice!" she pressed the hand between her own, and the soft cheek against her face. "no! i am not so blind as that." her father went on one side of her, while dot remained upon the other: holding her hand. "i know you all," said bertha, "better than you think. but none so well as her. not even you, father. there is nothing half so real and so true about me, as she is. if i could be restored to sight this instant, and not a word were spoken, i could choose her from a crowd! my sister!" "bertha, my dear!" said caleb, "i have something on my mind i want to tell you, while we three are alone. hear me kindly! i have a confession to make to you, my darling." "a confession, father?" "i have wandered from the truth and lost myself, my child," said caleb, with a pitiable expression in his bewildered face. "i have wandered from the truth, intending to be kind to you; and have been cruel." she turned her wonder-stricken face towards him, and repeated "cruel!" "he accuses himself too strongly, bertha," said dot. "you'll say so, presently. you'll be the first to tell him so." "he cruel to me!" cried bertha, with a smile of incredulity. "not meaning it, my child," said caleb. "but i have been; though i never suspected it, 'till yesterday. my dear blind daughter, hear me and forgive me! the world you live in, heart of mine, doesn't exist as i have represented it. the eyes you have trusted in, have been false to you." she turned her wonder-stricken face towards him still; but drew back, and clung closer to her friend. "your road in life was rough, my poor one," said caleb, "and i meant to smooth it for you. i have altered objects, changed the characters of people, invented many things that never have been, to make you happier. i have had concealments from you, put deceptions on you, god forgive me! and surrounded you with fancies." "but living people are not fancies?" she said hurriedly, and turning very pale, and still retiring from him. "you can't change them." "i have done so, bertha," pleaded caleb. "there is one person that you know, my dove--" "oh father! why do you say, i know?" she answered, in a tone of keen reproach. "what and whom do _i_ know! i who have no leader! i so miserably blind!" in the anguish of her heart, she stretched out her hands, as if she were groping her way; then spread them, in a manner most forlorn and sad, upon her face. "the marriage that takes place to-day," said caleb, "is with a stern, sordid, grinding man. a hard master to you and me, my dear, for many years. ugly in his looks, and in his nature. cold and callous always. unlike what i have painted him to you in everything, my child. in everything." "oh why," cried the blind girl, tortured, as it seemed, almost beyond endurance, "why did you ever do this! why did you ever fill my heart so full, and then come in like death, and tear away the objects of my love! oh heaven, how blind i am! how helpless and alone!" her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no reply but in his penitence and sorrow. she had been but a short time in this passion of regret, when the cricket on the hearth, unheard by all but her, began to chirp. not merrily, but in a low, faint, sorrowing way. it was so mournful, that her tears began to flow; and when the presence which had been beside the carrier all night, appeared behind her, pointing to her father, they fell down like rain. she heard the cricket-voice more plainly soon; and was conscious, through her blindness, of the presence hovering about her father. "mary," said the blind girl, "tell me what my home is. what it truly is." "it is a poor place, bertha; very poor and bare indeed. the house will scarcely keep out wind and rain another winter. it is as roughly shielded from the weather, bertha," dot continued in a low, clear voice, "as your poor father in his sackcloth coat." the blind girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led the carrier's little wife aside. "those presents that i took such care of; that came almost at my wish, and were so dearly welcome to me," she said, trembling; "where did they come from? did you send them?" "no." "who then?" dot saw she knew, already; and was silent. the blind girl spread her hands before her face again. but in quite another manner now. "dear mary, a moment. one moment! more this way. speak softly to me. you are true, i know. you'd not deceive me now; would you?" "no, bertha, indeed!" "no, i am sure you would not. you have too much pity for me. mary, look across the room to where we were just now; to where my father is--my father, so compassionate and loving to me--and tell me what you see." "i see," said dot, who understood her well; "an old man sitting in a chair, and leaning sorrowfully on the back, with his face resting on his hand. as if his child should comfort him, bertha." "yes, yes. she will. go on." "he is an old man, worn with care and work. he is a spare, dejected, thoughtful, grey-haired man. i see him now, despondent and bowed down, and striving against nothing. but bertha, i have seen him many times before; and striving hard in many ways for one great sacred object. and i honor his grey head, and bless him!" the blind girl broke away from her; and throwing herself upon her knees before him, took the grey head to her breast. "it is my sight restored. it is my sight!" she cried. "i have been blind, and now my eyes are open. i never knew him! to think i might have died, and never truly seen the father, who has been so loving to me!" there were no words for caleb's emotion. "there is not a gallant figure on this earth," exclaimed the blind girl, holding him in her embrace, "that i would love so dearly, and would cherish so devotedly, as this! the greyer, and more worn, the dearer, father! never let them say i am blind again. there's not a furrow in his face, there's not a hair upon his head, that shall be forgotten in my prayers and thanks to heaven!" caleb managed to articulate "my bertha!" "and in my blindness, i believed him," said the girl, caressing him with tears of exquisite affection, "to be so different! and having him beside me, day by day, so mindful of me always, never dreamed of this!" "the fresh smart father in the blue coat, bertha," said poor caleb. "he's gone!" "nothing is gone," she answered. "dearest father, no! everything is here--in you. the father that i loved so well; the father that i never loved enough, and never knew; the benefactor whom i first began to reverence and love, because he had such sympathy for me; all are here in you. nothing is dead to me. the soul of all that was most dear to me is here--here, with the worn face, and the grey head. and i am not blind, father, any longer!" dot's whole attention had been concentrated, during this discourse, upon the father and daughter; but looking, now, towards the little haymaker in the moorish meadow, she saw that the clock was within a few minutes of striking; and fell, immediately, into a nervous and excited state. "father," said bertha, hesitating. "mary." "yes my dear," returned caleb. "here she is." "there is no change in _her_. you never told me anything of _her_ that was not true?" "i should have done it my dear, i am afraid," returned caleb, "if i could have made her better than she was. but i must have changed her for the worse, if i had changed her at all. nothing could improve her, bertha." confident as the blind girl had been when she asked the question, her delight and pride in the reply, and her renewed embrace of dot, were charming to behold. "more changes than you think for, may happen though, my dear," said dot. "changes for the better, i mean; changes for great joy to some of us. you mustn't let them startle you too much, if any such should ever happen, and affect you? are those wheels upon the road? you've a quick ear, bertha. are they wheels?" "yes. coming very fast." "i--i--i know you have a quick ear," said dot, placing her hand upon her heart, and evidently talking on, as fast as she could, to hide its palpitating state, "because i have noticed it often, and because you were so quick to find out that strange step last night. though why you should have said, as i very well recollect you did say, bertha, 'whose step is that!' and why you should have taken any greater observation of it than of any other step, i don't know. though as i said just now, there are great changes in the world: great changes: and we can't do better than prepare ourselves to be surprised at hardly anything." caleb wondered what this meant; perceiving that she spoke to him, no less than to his daughter. he saw her, with astonishment, so fluttered and distressed that she could scarcely breathe; and holding to a chair, to save herself from falling. "they are wheels indeed!" she panted, "coming nearer! nearer! very close! and now you hear them stopping at the garden gate! and now you hear a step outside the door--the same step bertha, is it not!--and now!"-- she uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight; and running up to caleb put her hands upon his eyes, as a young man rushed into the room, and flinging away his hat into the air, came sweeping down upon them. "is it over?" cried dot. "yes!" "happily over?" "yes!" "do you recollect the voice, dear caleb? did you ever hear the like of it before?" cried dot. "if my boy in the golden south americas was alive"--said caleb, trembling. "he is alive!" shrieked dot, removing her hands from his eyes, and clapping them in ecstacy; "look at him! see where he stands before you, healthy and strong! your own dear son! your own dear living, loving brother, bertha!" all honor to the little creature for her transports! all honor to her tears and laughter, when the three were locked in one another's arms! all honor to the heartiness with which she met the sunburnt sailor-fellow, with his dark streaming hair, half way, and never turned her rosy little mouth aside, but suffered him to kiss it, freely, and to press her to his bounding heart! and honor to the cuckoo too--why not!--for bursting out of the trap-door in the moorish palace like a housebreaker, and hiccoughing twelve times on the assembled company, as if he had got drunk for joy! the carrier, entering, started back: and well he might: to find himself in such good company. "look, john!" said caleb, exultingly, "look here! my own boy from the golden south americas! my own son! him that you fitted out, and sent away yourself; him that you were always such a friend to!" the carrier advanced to seize him by the hand; but recoiling, as some feature in his face awakened a remembrance of the deaf man in the cart, said: "edward! was it you?" "now tell him all!" cried dot. "tell him all, edward; and don't spare me, for nothing shall make me spare myself in his eyes, ever again." "i was the man," said edward. "and could you steal, disguised, into the house of your old friend?" rejoined the carrier. "there was a frank boy once--how many years is it, caleb, since we heard that he was dead, and had it proved, we thought?--who never would have done that." "there was a generous friend of mine, once: more a father to me than a friend:" said edward, "who never would have judged me, or any other man, unheard. you were he. so i am certain you will hear me now." the carrier, with a troubled glance at dot, who still kept far away from him, replied, "well! that's but fair. i will." "you must know that when i left here, a boy," said edward, "i was in love: and my love was returned. she was a very young girl, who perhaps (you may tell me) didn't know her own mind. but i knew mine; and i had a passion for her." "you had!" exclaimed the carrier. "you!" "indeed i had," returned the other. "and she returned it. i have ever since believed she did; and now i am sure she did." "heaven help me!" said the carrier. "this is worse than all." "constant to her," said edward, "and returning, full of hope, after many hardships and perils, to redeem my part of our old contract, i heard, twenty miles away, that she was false to me; that she had forgotten me; and had bestowed herself upon another and a richer man. i had no mind to reproach her; but i wished to see her, and to prove beyond dispute that this was true. i hoped she might have been forced into it, against her own desire and recollection. it would be small comfort, but it would be some, i thought: and on i came. that i might have the truth, the real truth; observing freely for myself, and judging for myself, without obstruction on the one hand, or presenting my own influence (if i had any) before her, on the other; i dressed myself unlike myself--you know how; and waited on the road--you know where. you had no suspicion of me; neither had--had she," pointing to dot, "until i whispered in her ear at that fireside, and she so nearly betrayed me." "but when she knew that edward was alive, and had come back," sobbed dot, now speaking for herself, as she had burned to do, all through this narrative; "and when she knew his purpose, she advised him by all means to keep his secret close; for his old friend john peerybingle was much too open in his nature, and too clumsy in all artifice--being a clumsy man in general," said dot, half laughing and half crying--"to keep it for him. and when she--that's me, john," sobbed the little woman--"told him all, and how his sweetheart had believed him to be dead; and how she had at last been over-persuaded by her mother into a marriage which the silly, dear old thing called advantageous; and when she--that's me again, john--told him they were not yet married (though close upon it), and that it would be nothing but a sacrifice if it went on, for there was no love on her side; and when he went nearly mad with joy to hear it; then she--that's me again--said she would go between them, as she had often done before in old times, john, and would sound his sweetheart and be sure that what she--me again, john--said and thought was right. and it was right, john! and they were brought together, john! and they were married, john, an hour ago! and here's the bride! and gruff and tackleton may die a bachelor! and i'm a happy little woman, may, god bless you!" she was an irresistible little woman, if that be anything to the purpose; and never so completely irresistible as in her present transports. there never were congratulations so endearing and delicious, as those she lavished on herself and on the bride. amid the tumult of emotions in his breast, the honest carrier had stood, confounded. flying, now, towards her, dot stretched out her hand to stop him, and retreated as before. "no john, no! hear all! don't love me any more john, 'till you've heard every word i have to say. it was wrong to have a secret from you, john. i'm very sorry. i didn't think it any harm, till i came and sat down by you on the little stool last night; but when i knew by what was written in your face, that you had seen me walking in the gallery with edward; and knew what you thought; i felt how giddy and how wrong it was. but oh, dear john, how could you, could you, think so!" little woman, how she sobbed again! john peerybingle would have caught her in his arms. but no; she wouldn't let him. "don't love me yet, please john! not for a long time yet! when i was sad about this intended marriage, dear, it was because i remembered may and edward such young lovers; and knew that her heart was far away from tackleton. you believe that, now. don't you john?" john was going to make another rush at this appeal; but she stopped him again. "no; keep there, please john! when i laugh at you, as i sometimes do, john; and call you clumsy, and a dear old goose, and names of that sort, it's because i love you john, so well; and take such pleasure in your ways; and wouldn't see you altered in the least respect to have you made a king to-morrow." "hooroar!" said caleb with unusual vigour. "my opinion!" "and when i speak of people being middle-aged, and steady, john, and pretend that we are a humdrum couple, going on in a jog-trot sort of way, it's only because i'm such a silly little thing, john, that i like, sometimes, to act a kind of play with baby, and all that: and make believe." she saw that he was coming; and stopped him again. but she was very nearly too late. "no, don't love me for another minute or two, if you please john! what i want most to tell you, i have kept to the last. my dear, good, generous john; when we were talking the other night about the cricket, i had it on my lips to say, that at first i did not love you quite so dearly as i do now; that when i first came home here, i was half afraid i mightn't learn to love you every bit as well as i hoped and prayed i might--being so very young, john. but, dear john, every day and hour, i loved you more and more. and if i could have loved you better than i do, the noble words i heard you say this morning, would have made me. but i can't. all the affection that i had (it was a great deal john) i gave you, as you well deserve, long, long, ago, and i have no more left to give. now, my dear husband, take me to your heart again! that's my home, john; and never, never think of sending me to any other!" you never will derive so much delight from seeing a glorious little woman in the arms of a third party, as you would have felt if you had seen dot run into the carrier's embrace. it was the most complete, unmitigated, soul-fraught little piece of earnestness that ever you beheld in all your days. you may be sure the carrier was in a state of perfect rapture; and you may be sure dot was likewise; and you may be sure they all were, inclusive of miss slowboy, who cried copiously for joy, and, wishing to include her young charge in the general interchange of congratulations, handed round the baby to everybody in succession, as if it were something to drink. but now the sound of wheels was heard again outside the door; and somebody exclaimed that gruff and tackleton was coming back. speedily that worthy gentleman appeared: looking warm and flustered. "why, what the devil's this, john peerybingle!" said tackleton. "there's some mistake. i appointed mrs. tackleton to meet me at the church; and i'll swear i passed her on the road, on her way here. oh! here she is! i beg your pardon sir; i haven't the pleasure of knowing you; but if you can do me the favour to spare this young lady, she has rather a particular engagement this morning." "but i can't spare her," returned edward. "i couldn't think of it." "what do you mean, you vagabond?" said tackleton. "i mean, that as i can make allowance for your being vexed," returned the other, with a smile, "i am as deaf to harsh discourse this morning, as i was to all discourse last night." the look that tackleton bestowed upon him, and the start he gave! "i am sorry sir," said edward, holding out may's left hand, and especially the third finger, "that the young lady can't accompany you to church; but as she has been there once, this morning, perhaps you'll excuse her." tackleton looked hard at the third finger; and took a little piece of silver-paper, apparently containing a ring, from his waistcoat pocket. "miss slowboy," said tackleton. "will you have the kindness to throw that in the fire? thank'ee." "it was a previous engagement: quite an old engagement: that prevented my wife from keeping her appointment with you, i assure you," said edward. "mr. tackleton will do me the justice to acknowledge that i revealed it to him faithfully; and that i told him, many times, i never could forget it," said may, blushing. "oh certainly!" said tackleton. "oh to be sure. oh it's all right. it's quite correct. mrs. edward plummer, i infer?" "that's the name," returned the bridegroom. "ah! i shouldn't have known you sir," said tackleton: scrutinizing his face narrowly, and making a low bow. "i give you joy sir!" "thank'ee." "mrs. peerybingle," said tackleton, turning suddenly to where she stood with her husband; "i am sorry. you haven't done me a very great kindness, but upon my life i am sorry. you are better than i thought you. john peerybingle, i am sorry. you understand me; that's enough. it's quite correct, ladies and gentlemen all, and perfectly satisfactory. good morning!" with these words he carried it off, and carried himself off too: merely stopping at the door, to take the flowers and favors from his horse's head, and to kick that animal once in the ribs, as a means of informing him that there was a screw loose in his arrangements. of course it became a serious duty now, to make such a day of it, as should mark these events for a high feast and festival in the peerybingle calendar for evermore. accordingly, dot went to work to produce such an entertainment, as should reflect undying honour on the house and every one concerned; and in a very short space of time, she was up to her dimpled elbows in flour, and whitening the carrier's coat, every time he came near her, by stopping him to give him a kiss. that good fellow washed the greens, and peeled the turnips, and broke the plates, and upset iron pots full of cold water on the fire, and made himself useful in all sorts of ways: while a couple of professional assistants, hastily called in from somewhere in the neighbourhood, as on a point of life or death, ran against each other in all the doorways and round all the corners; and everybody tumbled over tilly slowboy and the baby, everywhere. tilly never came out in such force before. her ubiquity was the theme of general admiration. she was a stumbling-block in the passage at five and twenty minutes past two; a man-trap in the kitchen at half-past two precisely; and a pitfall in the garret at five and twenty minutes to three. the baby's head was, as it were, a test and touchstone for every description of matter, animal, vegetable, and mineral. nothing was in use that day that didn't come, at some time or other, into close acquaintance with it. then, there was a great expedition set on foot to go and find out mrs. fielding; and to be dismally penitent to that excellent gentlewoman; and to bring her back, by force if needful, to be happy and forgiving. and when the expedition first discovered her, she would listen to no terms at all, but said, an unspeakable number of times, that ever she should have lived to see the day! and couldn't be got to say anything else, except "now carry me to the grave;" which seemed absurd, on account of her not being dead, or anything at all like it. after a time, she lapsed into a state of dreadful calmness, and observed, that when that unfortunate train of circumstances had occurred in the indigo trade, she had foreseen that she would be exposed, during her whole life, to every species of insult and contumely; and that she was glad to find it was the case; and begged they wouldn't trouble themselves about her,--for what was she? oh, dear! a nobody!--but would forget that such a being lived, and would take their course in life without her. from this bitterly sarcastic mood, she passed into an angry one, in which she gave vent to the remarkable expression that the worm would turn if trodden on; and after that, she yielded to a soft regret, and said, if they had only given her their confidence, what might she not have had it in her power to suggest! taking advantage of this crisis in her feelings, the expedition embraced her; and she very soon had her gloves on, and was on her way to john peerybingle's in a state of unimpeachable gentility; with a paper parcel at her side containing a cap of state, almost as tall, and quite as stiff, as a mitre. then, there were dot's father and mother to come, in another little chaise; and they were behind their time; and fears were entertained; and there was much looking out for them down the road; and mrs. fielding always would look in the wrong and morally impossible direction; and being apprised thereof, hoped she might take the liberty of looking where she pleased. at last they came: a chubby little couple, jogging along in a snug and comfortable little way that quite belonged to the dot family: and dot and her mother, side by side, were wonderful to see. they were so like each other. then, dot's mother had to renew her acquaintance with may's mother; and may's mother always stood on her gentility; and dot's mother never stood on anything but her active little feet. and old dot: so to call dot's father; i forgot it wasn't his right name, but never mind: took liberties, and shook hands at first sight, and seemed to think a cap but so much starch and muslin, and didn't defer himself at all to the indigo trade, but said there was no help for it now; and, in mrs. fielding's summing up, was a good-natured kind of man--but coarse, my dear. i wouldn't have missed dot, doing the honors in her wedding-gown: my benison on her bright face! for any money. no! nor the good carrier, so jovial and so ruddy, at the bottom of the table. nor the brown, fresh sailor-fellow, and his handsome wife. nor any one among them. to have missed the dinner would have been to miss as jolly and as stout a meal as man need eat; and to have missed the overflowing cups in which they drank the wedding day, would have been the greatest miss of all. after dinner, caleb sang the song about the sparkling bowl! as i'm a living man: hoping to keep so, for a year or two: he sang it through. and, by-the-by, a most unlooked-for incident occurred, just as he finished the last verse. there was a tap at the door; and a man came staggering in, without saying with your leave, or by your leave, with something heavy on his head. setting this down in the middle of the table, symmetrically in the centre of the nuts and apples, he said: "mr. tackleton's compliments, and as he hasn't got no use for the cake himself, p'raps you'll eat it." and with those words, he walked off. there was some surprise among the company, as you may imagine. mrs. fielding, being a lady of infinite discernment, suggested that the cake was poisoned; and related a narrative of a cake, which, within her knowledge, had turned a seminary for young ladies, blue. but she was overruled by acclamation; and the cake was cut by may, with much ceremony and rejoicing. i don't think any one had tasted it, when there came another tap at the door; and the same man appeared again, having under his arm a vast brown paper parcel. "mr. tackleton's compliments, and he's sent a few toys for the babby. they ain't ugly." after the delivery of which expressions, he retired again. the whole party would have experienced great difficulty in finding words for their astonishment, even if they had had ample time to seek them. but they had none at all; for the messenger had scarcely shut the door behind him, when there came another tap, and tackleton himself walked in. "mrs. peerybingle!" said the toy merchant, hat in hand. "i'm sorry. i'm more sorry than i was this morning. i have had time to think of it. john peerybingle! i'm sour by disposition; but i can't help being sweetened, more or less, by coming face to face with such a man as you. caleb! this unconscious little nurse gave me a broken hint last night, of which i have found the thread. i blush to think how easily i might have bound you and your daughter to me; and what a miserable idiot i was, when i took her for one! friends, one and all, my house is very lonely to-night. i have not so much as a cricket on my hearth. i have scared them all away. be gracious to me; let me join this happy party!" he was at home in five minutes. you never saw such a fellow. what _had_ he been doing with himself all his life, never to have known, before, his great capacity of being jovial! or what had the fairies been doing with him, to have effected such a change! "john! you won't send me home this evening; will you?" whispered dot. he had been very near it though! there wanted but one living creature to make the party complete; and, in the twinkling of an eye, there he was: very thirsty with hard running, and engaged in hopeless endeavours to squeeze his head into a narrow pitcher. he had gone with the cart to its journey's-end, very much disgusted with the absence of his master, and stupendously rebellious to the deputy. after lingering about the stable for some little time, vainly attempting to incite the old horse to the mutinous act of returning on his own account, he had walked into the tap-room and laid himself down before the fire. but suddenly yielding to the conviction that the deputy was a humbug, and must be abandoned, he had got up again, turned tail and come home. there was a dance in the evening. with which general mention of that recreation, i should have left it alone, if i had not some reason to suppose that it was quite an original dance, and one of a most uncommon figure. it was formed in an odd way; in this way. edward, that sailor-fellow--a good free dashing sort of fellow he was--had been telling them various marvels concerning parrots, and mines, and mexicans, and gold dust, when all at once he took it in his head to jump up from his seat and propose a dance; for bertha's harp was there, and she had such a hand upon it as you seldom hear. dot (sly little piece of affectation when she chose) said her dancing days were over; _i_ think because the carrier was smoking his pipe, and she liked sitting by him, best. mrs. fielding had no choice, of course, but to say her dancing days were over, after that; and everybody said the same, except may; may was ready. [illustration] so, may and edward get up, amid great applause, to dance alone; and bertha plays her liveliest tune. well! if you'll believe me, they have not been dancing five minutes, when suddenly the carrier flings his pipe away, takes dot round the waist, dashes out into the room, and starts off with her, toe and heel, quite wonderfully. tackleton no sooner sees this, than he skims across to mrs. fielding, takes her round the waist, and follows suit. old dot no sooner sees this, than up he is, all alive, whisks off mrs. dot into the middle of the dance, and is the foremost there. caleb no sooner sees this, than he clutches tilly slowboy by both hands and goes off at score; miss slowboy, firm in the belief that diving hotly in among the other couples, and effecting any number of concussions with them, is your only principle of footing it. hark! how the cricket joins the music with its chirp, chirp, chirp; and how the kettle hums! * * * * * but what is this! even as i listen to them, blithely, and turn towards dot, for one last glimpse of a little figure very pleasant to me, she and the rest have vanished into air, and i am left alone. a cricket sings upon the hearth; a broken child's-toy lies upon the ground; and nothing else remains. london: bradbury and evans printers, whitefriars. new edition of oliver twist. _on the first of january will be published, to be completed in ten monthly parts, price one shilling each, no. i. of_ oliver twist. a new edition, revised by the author, uniform with "the pickwick papers," with twenty-four illustrations by george cruikshank. * * * * * london: printed and published for the author, by bradbury and evans, , fleet street, and whitefriars. mr. dickens's works. martin chuzzlewit. with forty illustrations by "phiz." in one volume, price _s._ cloth boards. american notes. for general circulation. _fourth edition._ in two volumes, post vo, price _s._ cloth. barnaby rudge; a tale of the riots of eighty. with seventy eight illustrations by g. cattermole and h. k. browne. in one volume, price _s._ cloth. the old curiosity shop. with seventy five illustrations by g. cattermole and h. k. browne. in one volume, price _s._ cloth. sketches by "boz." _a new edition_, with forty illustrations by george cruikshank. in one volume, vo, price _s._ cloth. the pickwick papers. with forty three illustrations by "phiz." in one volume vo, price _s._ cloth. nicholas nickleby. with forty illustrations by "phiz." in one volume, vo, price _s._ cloth. the chimes. a goblin story of some bells that rang an old year out and a new year in. the illustrations by daniel maclise, r.a.; clarkson stanfield, r.a.; john leech; and richard doyle. _twelfth edition._ in foolscap vo, price _s._ a christmas carol. in prose. being a ghost story of christmas. with four coloured etchings, and woodcuts, by leech. _tenth edition._ in foolscap vo, price _s._ portrait of mr. dickens. engraved by finden, from a painting by daniel maclise, r.a. price--in quarto, plain paper, _s._; folio, india paper, _s._ * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation errors repaired. varied hyphenation was retained such as teaboard and tea-board. text uses both hers and her's and yours and your's. page , "care" changed to "care" (care.' yes, yes, it's) page , "controul" changed to "control" (resisted his control) page , "emphasied" changed to "emphasised" (miss slowboy emphasised) the battle of life. a love story. [illustration] [illustration: the battle of life a love story] the battle of life. a love story. by charles dickens. london: bradbury & evans, whitefriars. mdcccxlvi. london: bradbury and evans, printers, whitefriars. this christmas book is cordially inscribed to my english friends in switzerland illustrations. _title._ _artist._ _engraver._ frontispiece d. maclise, r.a. _thompson._ title d. maclise, r.a. _thompson._ part the first r. doyle. _dalziel._ war c. stanfield, r.a. _williams._ peace c. stanfield, r.a. _williams._ the parting breakfast j. leech. _dalziel._ part the second r. doyle. _green._ snitchey and craggs j. leech. _dalziel._ the secret interview d. maclise, r.a. _williams._ the night of the return j. leech. _dalziel._ part the third r. doyle. _dalziel._ the nutmeg grater c. stanfield, r.a. _williams._ the sisters d. maclise, r.a. _williams._ the battle of life. a love story. part the first. [illustration] part the first [illustration] once upon a time, it matters little when, and in stalwart england, it matters little where, a fierce battle was fought. it was fought upon a long summer day when the waving grass was green. many a wild flower formed by the almighty hand to be a perfumed goblet for the dew, felt its enamelled cup fill high with blood that day, and shrinking dropped. many an insect deriving its delicate color from harmless leaves and herbs, was stained anew that day by dying men, and marked its frightened way with an unnatural track. the painted butterfly took blood into the air upon the edges of its wings. the stream ran red. the trodden ground became a quagmire, whence, from sullen pools collected in the prints of human feet and horses' hoofs, the one prevailing hue still lowered and glimmered at the sun. [illustration] heaven keep us from a knowledge of the sights the moon beheld upon that field, when, coming up above the black line of distant rising-ground, softened and blurred at the edge by trees, she rose into the sky and looked upon the plain, strewn with upturned faces that had once at mothers' breasts sought mothers' eyes, or slumbered happily. heaven keep us from a knowledge of the secrets whispered afterwards upon the tainted wind that blew across the scene of that day's work and that night's death and suffering! many a lonely moon was bright upon the battle-ground, and many a star kept mournful watch upon it, and many a wind from every quarter of the earth blew over it, before the traces of the fight were worn away. they lurked and lingered for a long time, but survived in little things, for nature, far above the evil passions of men, soon recovered her serenity, and smiled upon the guilty battle-ground as she had done before, when it was innocent. the larks sang high above it, the swallows skimmed and dipped and flitted to and fro, the shadows of the flying clouds pursued each other swiftly, over grass and corn and turnip-field and wood, and over roof and church-spire in the nestling town among the trees, away into the bright distance on the borders of the sky and earth, where the red sunsets faded. crops were sown, and grew up, and were gathered in; the stream that had been crimsoned, turned a watermill; men whistled at the plough; gleaners and haymakers were seen in quiet groups at work; sheep and oxen pastured; boys whooped and called, in fields, to scare away the birds; smoke rose from cottage chimneys; sabbath bells rang peacefully; old people lived and died; the timid creatures of the field, and simple flowers of the bush and garden, grew and withered in their destined terms: and all upon the fierce and bloody battle-ground, where thousands upon thousands had been killed in the great fight. but there were deep green patches in the growing corn at first, that people looked at awfully. year after year they re-appeared; and it was known that underneath those fertile spots, heaps of men and horses lay buried, indiscriminately, enriching the ground. the husbandmen who ploughed those places, shrunk from the great worms abounding there; and the sheaves they yielded, were, for many a long year, called the battle sheaves, and set apart; and no one ever knew a battle sheaf to be among the last load at a harvest home. for a long time, every furrow that was turned, revealed some fragments of the fight. for a long time, there were wounded trees upon the battle-ground; and scraps of hacked and broken fence and wall, where deadly struggles had been made; and trampled parts where not a leaf or blade would grow. for a long time, no village-girl would dress her hair or bosom with the sweetest flower from that field of death: and after many a year had come and gone, the berries growing there, were still believed to leave too deep a stain upon the hand that plucked them. [illustration] the seasons in their course, however, though they passed as lightly as the summer clouds themselves, obliterated, in the lapse of time, even these remains of the old conflict; and wore away such legendary traces of it as the neighbouring people carried in their minds, until they dwindled into old wives' tales, dimly remembered round the winter fire, and waning every year. where the wild flowers and berries had so long remained upon the stem untouched, gardens arose, and houses were built, and children played at battles on the turf. the wounded trees had long ago made christmas logs, and blazed and roared away. the deep green patches were no greener now than the memory of those who lay in dust below. the ploughshare still turned up from time to time some rusty bits of metal, but it was hard to say what use they had ever served, and those who found them wondered and disputed. an old dinted corslet, and a helmet, had been hanging in the church so long, that the same weak half-blind old man who tried in vain to make them out above the whitewashed arch, had marvelled at them as a baby. if the host slain upon the field, could have been for a moment reanimated in the forms in which they fell, each upon the spot that was the bed of his untimely death, gashed and ghastly soldiers would have stared in, hundreds deep, at household door and window; and would have risen on the hearths of quiet homes; and would have been the garnered store of barns and granaries; and would have started up between the cradled infant and its nurse; and would have floated with the stream, and whirled round on the mill, and crowded the orchard, and burdened the meadow, and piled the rickyard high with dying men. so altered was the battle-ground, where thousands upon thousands had been killed in the great fight. nowhere more altered, perhaps, about a hundred years ago, than in one little orchard attached to an old stone house with a honeysuckle porch: where, on a bright autumn morning, there were sounds of music and laughter, and where two girls danced merrily together on the grass, while some half-dozen peasant women standing on ladders, gathering the apples from the trees, stopped in their work to look down, and share their enjoyment. it was a pleasant, lively, natural scene; a beautiful day, a retired spot; and the two girls, quite unconstrained and careless, danced in the very freedom and gaiety of their hearts. if there were no such thing as display in the world, my private opinion is, and i hope you agree with me, that we might get on a great deal better than we do, and might be infinitely more agreeable company than we are. it was charming to see how these girls danced. they had no spectators but the apple-pickers on the ladders. they were very glad to please them, but they danced to please themselves (or at least you would have supposed so); and you could no more help admiring, than they could help dancing. how they did dance! not like opera dancers. not at all. and not like madame anybody's finished pupils. not the least. it was not quadrille dancing, nor minuet dancing, nor even country-dance dancing. it was neither in the old style, nor the new style, nor the french style, nor the english style; though it may have been, by accident, a trifle in the spanish style, which is a free and joyous one, i am told, deriving a delightful air of off-hand inspiration, from the chirping little castanets. as they danced among the orchard trees, and down the groves of stems and back again, and twirled each other lightly round and round, the influence of their airy motion seemed to spread and spread, in the sun-lighted scene, like an expanding circle in the water. their streaming hair and fluttering skirts, the elastic grass beneath their feet, the boughs that rustled in the morning air--the flashing leaves, their speckled shadows on the soft green ground--the balmy wind that swept along the landscape, glad to turn the distant windmill, cheerily--everything between the two girls, and the man and team at plough upon the ridge of land, where they showed against the sky as if they were the last things in the world--seemed dancing too. at last the younger of the dancing sisters, out of breath, and laughing gaily, threw herself upon a bench to rest. the other leaned against a tree hard by. the music, a wandering harp and fiddle, left off with a flourish, as if it boasted of its freshness; though, the truth is, it had gone at such a pace, and worked itself to such a pitch of competition with the dancing, that it never could have held on half a minute longer. the apple-pickers on the ladders raised a hum and murmur of applause, and then, in keeping with the sound, bestirred themselves to work again, like bees. the more actively, perhaps, because an elderly gentleman, who was no other than doctor jeddler himself--it was doctor jeddler's house and orchard, you should know, and these were doctor jeddler's daughters--came bustling out to see what was the matter, and who the deuce played music on his property, before breakfast. for he was a great philosopher, doctor jeddler, and not very musical. "music and dancing _to-day_!" said the doctor, stopping short, and speaking to himself, "i thought they dreaded to-day. but it's a world of contradictions. why, grace; why, marion!" he added, aloud, "is the world more mad than usual this morning?" "make some allowance for it, father, if it be," replied his younger daughter, marion, going close to him, and looking into his face, "for it's somebody's birth-day." "somebody's birth-day, puss," replied the doctor. "don't you know it's always somebody's birth-day? did you never hear how many new performers enter on this--ha! ha! ha!--it's impossible to speak gravely of it--on this preposterous and ridiculous business called life, every minute?" "no, father!" "no, not you, of course; you're a woman--almost," said the doctor. "by the bye," and he looked into the pretty face, still close to his, "i suppose it's _your_ birth-day." "no! do you really, father?" cried his pet daughter, pursing up her red lips to be kissed. "there! take my love with it," said the doctor, imprinting his upon them; "and many happy returns of the--the idea!--of the day. the notion of wishing happy returns in such a farce as this," said the doctor to himself, "is good! ha! ha! ha!" doctor jeddler was, as i have said, a great philosopher; and the heart and mystery of his philosophy was, to look upon the world as a gigantic practical joke: as something too absurd to be considered seriously, by any rational man. his system of belief had been, in the beginning, part and parcel of the battle-ground on which he lived; as you shall presently understand. "well! but how did you get the music?" asked the doctor. "poultry-stealers, of course. where did the minstrels come from?" "alfred sent the music," said his daughter grace, adjusting a few simple flowers in her sister's hair, with which, in her admiration of that youthful beauty, she had herself adorned it half-an-hour before, and which the dancing had disarranged. "oh! alfred sent the music, did he?" returned the doctor. "yes. he met it coming out of the town as he was entering early. the men are travelling on foot, and rested there last night; and as it was marion's birth-day, and he thought it would please her, he sent them on, with a pencilled note to me, saying that if i thought so too, they had come to serenade her." "ay, ay," said the doctor, carelessly, "he always takes your opinion." "and my opinion being favorable," said grace, good-humouredly; and pausing for a moment to admire the pretty head she decorated, with her own thrown back; "and marion being in high spirits, and beginning to dance, i joined her: and so we danced to alfred's music till we were out of breath. and we thought the music all the gayer for being sent by alfred. didn't we, dear marion?" "oh, i don't know, grace. how you teaze me about alfred." "teaze you by mentioning your lover!" said her sister. "i am sure i don't much care to have him mentioned," said the wilful beauty, stripping the petals from some flowers she held, and scattering them on the ground. "i am almost tired of hearing of him; and as to his being my lover"---- "hush! don't speak lightly of a true heart, which is all your own, marion," cried her sister, "even in jest. there is not a truer heart than alfred's in the world!" "no--no," said marion, raising her eyebrows with a pleasant air of careless consideration, "perhaps not. but i don't know that there's any great merit in that. i--i don't want him to be so very true. i never asked him. if he expects that i----. but, dear grace, why need we talk of him at all, just now!" it was agreeable to see the graceful figures of the blooming sisters, twined together, lingering among the trees, conversing thus, with earnestness opposed to lightness, yet with love responding tenderly to love. and it was very curious indeed to see the younger sister's eyes suffused with tears; and something fervently and deeply felt, breaking through the wilfulness of what she said, and striving with it painfully. the difference between them, in respect of age, could not exceed four years at most: but grace, as often happens in such cases, when no mother watches over both (the doctor's wife was dead), seemed, in her gentle care of her young sister, and in the steadiness of her devotion to her, older than she was; and more removed, in course of nature, from all competition with her, or participation, otherwise than through her sympathy and true affection, in her wayward fancies, than their ages seemed to warrant. great character of mother, that, even in this shadow, and faint reflection of it, purifies the heart, and raises the exalted nature nearer to the angels! the doctor's reflections, as he looked after them, and heard the purport of their discourse, were limited, at first, to certain merry meditations on the folly of all loves and likings, and the idle imposition practised on themselves by young people, who believed, for a moment, that there could be anything serious in such bubbles, and were always undeceived--always! but the home-adorning, self-denying qualities of grace, and her sweet temper, so gentle and retiring, yet including so much constancy and bravery of spirit, seemed all expressed to him in the contrast between her quiet household figure and that of his younger and more beautiful child; and he was sorry for her sake--sorry for them both--that life should be such a very ridiculous business as it was. the doctor never dreamed of inquiring whether his children, or either of them, helped in any way to make the scheme a serious one. but then he was a philosopher. a kind and generous man by nature, he had stumbled, by chance, over that common philosopher's stone (much more easily discovered than the object of the alchemist's researches), which sometimes trips up kind and generous men, and has the fatal property of turning gold to dross, and every precious thing to poor account. "britain!" cried the doctor. "britain! halloa!" a small man, with an uncommonly sour and discontented face, emerged from the house, and returned to this call the unceremonious acknowledgment of "now then!" "where's the breakfast table?" said the doctor. "in the house," returned britain. "are you going to spread it out here, as you were told last night?" said the doctor. "don't you know that there are gentlemen coming? that there's business to be done this morning, before the coach comes by? that this is a very particular occasion?" "i couldn't do anything, doctor jeddler, till the women had done getting in the apples, could i?" said britain, his voice rising with his reasoning, so that it was very loud at last. "well, have they done now?" returned the doctor, looking at his watch, and clapping his hands. "come! make haste! where's clemency?" "here am i, mister," said a voice from one of the ladders, which a pair of clumsy feet descended briskly. "it's all done now. clear away, gals. everything shall be ready for you in half a minute, mister." with that she began to bustle about most vigorously; presenting, as she did so, an appearance sufficiently peculiar to justify a word of introduction. she was about thirty years old; and had a sufficiently plump and cheerful face, though it was twisted up into an odd expression of tightness that made it comical. but the extraordinary homeliness of her gait and manner, would have superseded any face in the world. to say that she had two left legs, and somebody else's arms; and that all four limbs seemed to be out of joint, and to start from perfectly wrong places when they were set in motion; is to offer the mildest outline of the reality. to say that she was perfectly content and satisfied with these arrangements, and regarded them as being no business of hers, and took her arms and legs as they came, and allowed them to dispose of themselves just as it happened, is to render faint justice to her equanimity. her dress was a prodigious pair of self-willed shoes, that never wanted to go where her feet went; blue stockings; a printed gown of many colours, and the most hideous pattern procurable for money; and a white apron. she always wore short sleeves, and always had, by some accident, grazed elbows, in which she took so lively an interest that she was continually trying to turn them round and get impossible views of them. in general, a little cap perched somewhere on her head; though it was rarely to be met with in the place usually occupied in other subjects, by that article of dress; but from head to foot she was scrupulously clean, and maintained a kind of dislocated tidiness. indeed her laudable anxiety to be tidy and compact in her own conscience as well as in the public eye, gave rise to one of her most startling evolutions, which was to grasp herself sometimes by a sort of wooden handle (part of her clothing, and familiarly called a busk), and wrestle as it were with her garments, until they fell into a symmetrical arrangement. such, in outward form and garb, was clemency newcome; who was supposed to have unconsciously originated a corruption of her own christian name, from clementina (but nobody knew, for the deaf old mother, a very phenomenon of age, whom she had supported almost from a child, was dead, and she had no other relation); who now busied herself in preparing the table; and who stood, at intervals, with her bare red arms crossed, rubbing her grazed elbows with opposite hands, and staring at it very composedly, until she suddenly remembered something else it wanted, and jogged off to fetch it. "here are them two lawyers a-coming, mister!" said clemency, in a tone of no very great good-will. "aha!" cried the doctor, advancing to the gate to meet them. "good morning, good morning! grace, my dear! marion! here are messrs. snitchey and craggs. where's alfred?" "he'll be back directly, father, no doubt," said grace. "he had so much to do this morning in his preparations for departure, that he was up and out by daybreak. good morning, gentlemen." "ladies!" said mr. snitchey, "for self and craggs," who bowed, "good morning. miss," to marion, "i kiss your hand." which he did. "and i wish you"--which he might or might not, for he didn't look, at first sight, like a gentleman troubled with many warm outpourings of soul, in behalf of other people, "a hundred happy returns of this auspicious day." "ha ha ha!" laughed the doctor thoughtfully, with his hands in his pockets. "the great farce in a hundred acts!" "you wouldn't, i am sure," said mr. snitchey, standing a small professional blue bag against one leg of the table, "cut the great farce short for this actress, at all events, doctor jeddler." "no," returned the doctor. "god forbid! may she live to laugh at it, as long as she _can_ laugh, and then say, with the french wit, 'the farce is ended; draw the curtain.'" "the french wit," said mr. snitchey, peeping sharply into his blue bag, "was wrong, doctor jeddler; and your philosophy is altogether wrong, depend upon it, as i have often told you. nothing serious in life! what do you call law?" "a joke," replied the doctor. "did you ever go to law?" asked mr. snitchey, looking out of the blue bag. "never," returned the doctor. "if you ever do," said mr. snitchey, "perhaps you'll alter that opinion." craggs, who seemed to be represented by snitchey, and to be conscious of little or no separate existence or personal individuality, offered a remark of his own in this place. it involved the only idea of which he did not stand seised and possessed in equal moieties with snitchey; but he had some partners in it among the wise men of the world. "it's made a great deal too easy," said mr. craggs. "law is?" asked the doctor. "yes," said mr. craggs, "everything is. everything appears to me to be made too easy, now-a-days. it's the vice of these times. if the world is a joke (i am not prepared to say it isn't), it ought to be made a very difficult joke to crack. it ought to be as hard a struggle, sir, as possible. that's the intention. but it's being made far too easy. we are oiling the gates of life. they ought to be rusty. we shall have them beginning to turn, soon, with a smooth sound. whereas they ought to grate upon their hinges, sir." mr. craggs seemed positively to grate upon his own hinges, as he delivered this opinion; to which he communicated immense effect--being a cold, hard, dry man, dressed in grey and white, like a flint; with small twinkles in his eyes, as if something struck sparks out of them. the three natural kingdoms, indeed, had each a fanciful representative among this brotherhood of disputants: for snitchey was like a magpie or a raven (only not so sleek), and the doctor had a streaked face like a winter-pippin, with here and there a dimple to express the peckings of the birds, and a very little bit of pigtail behind, that stood for the stalk. as the active figure of a handsome young man, dressed for a journey, and followed by a porter, bearing several packages and baskets, entered the orchard at a brisk pace, and with an air of gaiety and hope that accorded well with the morning,--these three drew together, like the brothers of the sister fates, or like the graces most effectually disguised, or like the three weird prophets on the heath, and greeted him. "happy returns, alf," said the doctor, lightly. "a hundred happy returns of this auspicious day, mr. heathfield," said snitchey, bowing low. "returns!" craggs murmured in a deep voice, all alone. "why, what a battery!" exclaimed alfred, stopping short, "and one--two--three--all foreboders of no good, in the great sea before me. i am glad you are not the first i have met this morning: i should have taken it for a bad omen. but grace was the first--sweet, pleasant grace--so i defy you all!" "if you please, mister, _i_ was the first you know," said clemency newcome. "she was a walking out here, before sunrise, you remember. i was in the house." "that's true! clemency was the first," said alfred. "so i defy you with clemency." "ha, ha, ha!--for self and craggs," said snitchey. "what a defiance!" "not so bad a one as it appears, may be," said alfred, shaking hands heartily with the doctor, and also with snitchey and craggs, and then looking round. "where are the--good heavens!" with a start, productive for the moment of a closer partnership between jonathan snitchey and thomas craggs than the subsisting articles of agreement in that wise contemplated, he hastily betook himself to where the sisters stood together, and--however, i needn't more particularly explain his manner of saluting marion first, and grace afterwards, than by hinting that mr. craggs may possibly have considered it "too easy." perhaps to change the subject, doctor jeddler made a hasty move towards the breakfast, and they all sat down at table. grace presided; but so discreetly stationed herself, as to cut off her sister and alfred from the rest of the company. snitchey and craggs sat at opposite corners, with the blue bag between them for safety; and the doctor took his usual position, opposite to grace. clemency hovered galvanically about the table, as waitress; and the melancholy britain, at another and a smaller board, acted as grand carver of a round of beef, and a ham. "meat?" said britain, approaching mr. snitchey, with the carving knife and fork in his hands, and throwing the question at him like a missile. "certainly," returned the lawyer. "do _you_ want any?" to craggs. "lean, and well done," replied that gentleman. [illustration] having executed these orders, and moderately supplied the doctor (he seemed to know that nobody else wanted anything to eat), he lingered as near the firm as he decently could, watching, with an austere eye, their disposition of the viands, and but once relaxing the severe expression of his face. this was on the occasion of mr. craggs, whose teeth were not of the best, partially choking, when he cried out with great animation, "i thought he was gone!" "now alfred," said the doctor, "for a word or two of business, while we are yet at breakfast." "while we are yet at breakfast," said snitchey and craggs, who seemed to have no present idea of leaving off. although alfred had not been breakfasting, and seemed to have quite enough business on his hands as it was, he respectfully answered: "if you please, sir." "if anything could be serious," the doctor began, "in such a--" "farce as this, sir," hinted alfred. "in such a farce as this," observed the doctor, "it might be this recurrence, on the eve of separation, of a double birth-day, which is connected with many associations pleasant to us four, and with the recollection of a long and amicable intercourse. that's not to the purpose." "ah! yes, yes, doctor jeddler," said the young man. "it is to the purpose. much to the purpose, as my heart bears witness this morning; and as yours does too, i know, if you would let it speak. i leave your house to-day; i cease to be your ward to-day; we part with tender relations stretching far behind us, that never can be exactly renewed, and with others dawning yet before us," he looked down at marion beside him, "fraught with such considerations as i must not trust myself to speak of now. come, come!" he added, rallying his spirits and the doctor at once, "there's a serious grain in this large foolish dust-heap, doctor. let us allow to-day, that there is one." "to-day!" cried the doctor. "hear him! ha, ha, ha! of all days in the foolish year. why on this day, the great battle was fought on this ground. on this ground where we now sit, where i saw my two girls dance this morning, where the fruit has just been gathered for our eating from these trees, the roots of which are struck in men, not earth,--so many lives were lost, that within my recollection, generations afterwards, a churchyard full of bones, and dust of bones, and chips of cloven skulls, has been dug up from underneath our feet here. yet not a hundred people in that battle, knew for what they fought, or why; not a hundred of the inconsiderate rejoicers in the victory, why they rejoiced. not half a hundred people were the better, for the gain or loss. not half-a-dozen men agree to this hour on the cause or merits; and nobody, in short, ever knew anything distinct about it, but the mourners of the slain. serious, too!" said the doctor, laughing. "such a system!" "but all this seems to me," said alfred, "to be very serious." "serious!" cried the doctor. "if you allowed such things to be serious, you must go mad, or die, or climb up to the top of a mountain, and turn hermit." "besides--so long ago," said alfred. "long ago!" returned the doctor. "do you know what the world has been doing, ever since? do you know what else it has been doing? _i_ don't!" "it has gone to law a little," observed mr. snitchey, stirring his tea. "although the way out has been always made too easy," said his partner. "and you'll excuse my saying, doctor," pursued mr. snitchey, "having been already put a thousand times in possession of my opinion, in the course of our discussions, that, in its having gone to law, and in its legal system altogether, i do observe a serious side--now, really, a something tangible, and with a purpose and intention in it--" clemency newcome made an angular tumble against the table, occasioning a sounding clatter among the cups and saucers. "heyday! what's the matter there?" exclaimed the doctor. "it's this evil-inclined blue bag," said clemency, "always tripping up somebody!" "with a purpose and intention in it, i was saying," resumed snitchey, "that commands respect. life a farce, doctor jeddler? with law in it?" the doctor laughed, and looked at alfred. "granted, if you please, that war is foolish," said snitchey. "there we agree. for example. here's a smiling country," pointing it out with his fork, "once overrun by soldiers--trespassers every man of 'em--and laid waste by fire and sword. he, he, he! the idea of any man exposing himself, voluntarily, to fire and sword! stupid, wasteful, positively ridiculous; you laugh at your fellow-creatures, you know, when you think of it! but take this smiling country as it stands. think of the laws appertaining to real property; to the bequest and devise of real property; to the mortgage and redemption of real property; to leasehold, freehold, and copyhold estate; think," said mr. snitchey, with such great emotion that he actually smacked his lips, "of the complicated laws relating to title and proof of title, with all the contradictory precedents and numerous acts of parliament connected with them; think of the infinite number of ingenious and interminable chancery suits, to which this pleasant prospect may give rise;--and acknowledge, doctor jeddler, that there is a green spot in the scheme about us! i believe," said mr. snitchey, looking at his partner, "that i speak for self and craggs?" mr. craggs having signified assent, mr. snitchey, somewhat freshened by his recent eloquence, observed that he would take a little more beef, and another cup of tea. "i don't stand up for life in general," he added, rubbing his hands and chuckling, "it's full of folly; full of something worse. professions of trust, and confidence, and unselfishness, and all that. bah, bah, bah! we see what they're worth. but you mustn't laugh at life; you've got a game to play; a very serious game indeed! everybody's playing against you, you know; and you're playing against them. oh! it's a very interesting thing. there are deep moves upon the board. you must only laugh, doctor jeddler, when you win; and then not much. he, he, he! and then not much," repeated snitchey, rolling his head and winking his eye; as if he would have added, 'you may do this instead!' "well, alfred!" cried the doctor, "what do you say now?" "i say, sir," replied alfred, "that the greatest favor you could do me, and yourself too i am inclined to think, would be to try sometimes to forget this battle-field, and others like it, in that broader battle-field of life, on which the sun looks every day." "really, i'm afraid that wouldn't soften his opinions, mr. alfred," said snitchey. "the combatants are very eager and very bitter in that same battle of life. there's a great deal of cutting and slashing, and firing into people's heads from behind; terrible treading down, and trampling on; it's rather a bad business." "i believe, mr. snitchey," said alfred, "there are quiet victories and struggles, great sacrifices of self, and noble acts of heroism, in it--even in many of its apparent lightnesses and contradictions--not the less difficult to achieve, because they have no earthly chronicle or audience; done every day in nooks and corners, and in little households, and in men's and women's hearts--any one of which might reconcile the sternest man to such a world, and fill him with belief and hope in it, though two-fourths of its people were at war, and another fourth at law; and that's a bold word." both the sisters listened keenly. "well, well!" said the doctor, "i am too old to be converted, even by my friend snitchey here, or my good spinster sister, martha jeddler; who had what she calls her domestic trials ages ago, and has led a sympathising life with all sorts of people ever since; and who is so much of your opinion (only she's less reasonable and more obstinate, being a woman), that we can't agree, and seldom meet. i was born upon this battle-field. i began, as a boy, to have my thoughts directed to the real history of a battle-field. sixty years have gone over my head; and i have never seen the christian world, including heaven knows how many loving mothers and good enough girls, like mine here, anything but mad for a battle-field. the same contradictions prevail in everything. one must either laugh or cry at such stupendous inconsistencies; and i prefer to laugh." britain, who had been paying the profoundest and most melancholy attention to each speaker in his turn, seemed suddenly to decide in favor of the same preference, if a deep sepulchral sound that escaped him might be construed into a demonstration of risibility. his face, however, was so perfectly unaffected by it, both before and afterwards, that although one or two of the breakfast party looked round as being startled by a mysterious noise, nobody connected the offender with it. except his partner in attendance, clemency newcome; who, rousing him with one of those favorite joints, her elbows, inquired, in a reproachful whisper, what he laughed at. "not you!" said britain. "who then?" "humanity," said britain. "that's the joke." "what between master and them lawyers, he's getting more and more addle-headed every day!" cried clemency, giving him a lunge with the other elbow, as a mental stimulant. "do you know where you are? do you want to get warning?" "i don't know anything," said britain, with a leaden eye and an immovable visage. "i don't care for anything. i don't make out anything. i don't believe anything. and i don't want anything." although this forlorn summary of his general condition, may have been overcharged in an access of despondency, benjamin britain--sometimes called little britain, to distinguish him from great; as we might say young england, to express old england with a difference--had defined his real state more accurately than might be supposed. for serving as a sort of man miles, to the doctor's friar bacon; and listening day after day to innumerable orations addressed by the doctor to various people, all tending to shew that his very existence was at best a mistake and an absurdity; this unfortunate servitor had fallen, by degrees, into such an abyss of confused and contradictory suggestions from within and without, that truth at the bottom of her well, was on the level surface as compared with britain in the depths of his mystification. the only point he clearly comprehended, was, that the new element usually brought into these discussions by snitchey and craggs, never served to make them clearer, and always seemed to give the doctor a species of advantage and confirmation. therefore he looked upon the firm as one of the proximate causes of his state of mind, and held them in abhorrence accordingly. "but this is not our business, alfred," said the doctor. "ceasing to be my ward (as you have said) to-day; and leaving us full to the brim of such learning as the grammar school down here was able to give you, and your studies in london could add to that, and such practical knowledge as a dull old country doctor like myself could graft upon both; you are away, now, into the world. the first term of probation appointed by your poor father, being over, away you go now, your own master, to fulfil his second desire: and long before your three years' tour among the foreign schools of medicine is finished, you'll have forgotten us. lord, you'll forget us easily in six months!" "if i do--but you know better; why should i speak to you!" said alfred, laughing. "i don't know anything of the sort," returned the doctor. "what do you say, marion?" marion, trifling with her teacup, seemed to say--but she didn't say it--that he was welcome to forget them, if he could. grace pressed the blooming face against her cheek, and smiled. "i haven't been, i hope, a very unjust steward in the execution of my trust," pursued the doctor; "but i am to be, at any rate, formally discharged, and released, and what not, this morning; and here are our good friends snitchey and craggs, with a bagful of papers, and accounts, and documents, for the transfer of the balance of the trust fund to you (i wish it was a more difficult one to dispose of, alfred, but you must get to be a great man and make it so), and other drolleries of that sort, which are to be signed, sealed, and delivered." "and duly witnessed, as by law required," said snitchey, pushing away his plate, and taking out the papers, which his partner proceeded to spread upon the table; "and self and craggs having been co-trustees with you, doctor, in so far as the fund was concerned, we shall want your two servants to attest the signatures--can you read, mrs. newcome?" "i a'n't married, mister," said clemency. "oh, i beg your pardon. i should think not," chuckled snitchey, casting his eyes over her extraordinary figure. "you _can_ read?" "a little," answered clemency. "the marriage service, night and morning, eh?" observed the lawyer, jocosely. "no," said clemency. "too hard. i only reads a thimble." "read a thimble!" echoed snitchey. "what are you talking about, young woman?" clemency nodded. "and a nutmeg-grater." "why, this is a lunatic! a subject for the lord high chancellor!" said snitchey, staring at her. "if possessed of any property," stipulated craggs. grace, however, interposing, explained that each of the articles in question bore an engraved motto, and so formed the pocket library of clemency newcome, who was not much given to the study of books. "oh, that's it, is it, miss grace!" said snitchey. "yes, yes. ha, ha, ha! i thought our friend was an idiot. she looks uncommonly like it," he muttered, with a supercilious glance. "and what does the thimble say, mrs. newcome?" "i a'n't married, mister," observed clemency. "well, newcome. will that do?" said the lawyer. "what does the thimble say, newcome?" how clemency, before replying to this question, held one pocket open, and looked down into its yawning depths for the thimble which wasn't there,--and how she then held an opposite pocket open, and seeming to descry it, like a pearl of great price, at the bottom, cleared away such intervening obstacles as a handkerchief, an end of wax candle, a flushed apple, an orange, a lucky penny, a cramp bone, a padlock, a pair of scissors in a sheath, more expressively describable as promising young shears, a handful or so of loose beads, several balls of cotton, a needle-case, a cabinet collection of curl-papers, and a biscuit, all of which articles she entrusted individually and severally to britain to hold,--is of no consequence. nor how, in her determination to grasp this pocket by the throat and keep it prisoner (for it had a tendency to swing and twist itself round the nearest corner), she assumed, and calmly maintained, an attitude apparently inconsistent with the human anatomy and the laws of gravity. it is enough that at last she triumphantly produced the thimble on her finger, and rattled the nutmeg-grater; the literature of both those trinkets being obviously in course of wearing out and wasting away, through excessive friction. "that's the thimble, is it, young woman?" said mr. snitchey, diverting himself at her expense. "and what does the thimble say?" "it says," replied clemency, reading slowly round it as if it were a tower, "for-get and for-give." snitchey and craggs laughed heartily. "so new!" said snitchey. "so easy!" said craggs. "such a knowledge of human nature in it," said snitchey. "so applicable to the affairs of life," said craggs. "and the nutmeg-grater?" inquired the head of the firm. "the grater says," returned clemency, "do as you--wold--be--done by." "'do, or you'll be done brown,' you mean," said mr. snitchey. "i don't understand," retorted clemency, shaking her head vaguely. "i a'n't no lawyer." "i am afraid that if she was, doctor," said mr. snitchey, turning to him suddenly, as if to anticipate any effect that might otherwise be consequent on this retort, "she'd find it to be the golden rule of half her clients. they are serious enough in that--whimsical as your world is--and lay the blame on us afterwards. we, in our profession, are little else than mirrors after all, mr. alfred; but we are generally consulted by angry and quarrelsome people, who are not in their best looks; and it's rather hard to quarrel with us if we reflect unpleasant aspects. i think," said mr. snitchey, "that i speak for self and craggs?" "decidedly," said craggs. "and so, if mr. britain will oblige us with a mouthful of ink," said mr. snitchey, returning to the papers, "we'll sign, seal, and deliver as soon as possible, or the coach will be coming past before we know where we are." if one might judge from his appearance, there was every probability of the coach coming past before mr. britain knew where _he_ was; for he stood in a state of abstraction, mentally balancing the doctor against the lawyers, and the lawyers against the doctor, and their clients against both; and engaged in feeble attempts to make the thimble and nutmeg-grater (a new idea to him) square with anybody's system of philosophy; and, in short, bewildering himself as much as ever his great namesake has done with theories and schools. but clemency, who was his good genius--though he had the meanest possible opinion of her understanding, by reason of her seldom troubling herself with abstract speculations, and being always at hand to do the right thing at the right time--having produced the ink in a twinkling, tendered him the further service of recalling him to himself by the application of her elbows; with which gentle flappers she so jogged his memory, in a more literal construction of that phrase than usual, that he soon became quite fresh and brisk. how he labored under an apprehension not uncommon to persons in his degree, to whom the use of pen and ink is an event, that he couldn't append his name to a document, not of his own writing, without committing himself in some shadowy manner, or somehow signing away vague and enormous sums of money; and how he approached the deeds under protest, and by dint of the doctor's coercion, and insisted on pausing to look at them before writing (the cramped hand, to say nothing of the phraseology, being so much chinese to him), and also on turning them round to see whether there was anything fraudulent, underneath; and how, having signed his name, he became desolate as one who had parted with his property and rights; i want the time to tell. also, how the blue bag containing his signature, afterwards had a mysterious interest for him, and he couldn't leave it; also, how clemency newcome, in an ecstasy of laughter at the idea of her own importance and dignity, brooded over the whole table with her two elbows like a spread eagle, and reposed her head upon her left arm as a preliminary to the formation of certain cabalistic characters, which required a deal of ink, and imaginary counterparts whereof she executed at the same time with her tongue. also how, having once tasted ink, she became thirsty in that regard, as tigers are said to be after tasting another sort of fluid, and wanted to sign everything, and put her name in all kinds of places. in brief, the doctor was discharged of his trust and all its responsibilities; and alfred, taking it on himself, was fairly started on the journey of life. "britain!" said the doctor. "run to the gate, and watch for the coach. time flies, alfred!" "yes, sir, yes," returned the young man, hurriedly. "dear grace! a moment! marion--so young and beautiful, so winning and so much admired, dear to my heart as nothing else in life is--remember! i leave marion to you!" "she has always been a sacred charge to me, alfred. she is doubly so now. i will be faithful to my trust, believe me." "i do believe it, grace. i know it well. who could look upon your face, and hear your earnest voice, and not know it! ah, good grace! if i had your well-governed heart, and tranquil mind, how bravely i would leave this place to-day!" "would you?" she answered, with a quiet smile. "and yet, grace--sister, seems the natural word." "use it!" she said quickly, "i am glad to hear it, call me nothing else." "and yet, sister, then," said alfred, "marion and i had better have your true and stedfast qualities serving us here, and making us both happier and better. i wouldn't carry them away, to sustain myself, if i could!" "coach upon the hill-top!" exclaimed britain. "time flies, alfred," said the doctor. marion had stood apart, with her eyes fixed upon the ground; but this warning being given, her young lover brought her tenderly to where her sister stood, and gave her into her embrace. "i have been telling grace, dear marion," he said, "that you are her charge; my precious trust at parting. and when i come back and reclaim you, dearest, and the bright prospect of our married life lies stretched before us, it shall be one of our chief pleasures to consult how we can make grace happy; how we can anticipate her wishes; how we can show our gratitude and love to her; how we can return her something of the debt she will have heaped upon us." the younger sister had one hand in his; the other rested on her sister's neck. she looked into that sister's eyes, so calm, serene, and cheerful, with a gaze in which affection, admiration, sorrow, wonder, almost veneration, were blended. she looked into that sister's face, as if it were the face of some bright angel. calm, serene, and cheerful, it looked back on her and on her lover. "and when the time comes, as it must one day," said alfred,--"i wonder it has never come yet: but grace knows best, for grace is always right,--when _she_ will want a friend to open her whole heart to, and to be to her something of what she has been to us,--then, marion, how faithful we will prove, and what delight to us to know that she, our dear good sister, loves and is loved again, as we would have her!" still the younger sister looked into her eyes, and turned not--even towards him. and still those honest eyes looked back, so calm, serene, and cheerful, on herself and on her lover. "and when all that is past, and we are old, and living (as we must!) together--close together; talking often of old times," said alfred--"these shall be our favorite times among them--this day most of all; and telling each other what we thought and felt, and hoped and feared, at parting; and how we couldn't bear to say good bye"---- "coach coming through the wood," cried britain. "yes! i am ready--and how we met again, so happily, in spite of all; we'll make this day the happiest in all the year, and keep it as a treble birth-day. shall we, dear?" "yes!" interposed the elder sister, eagerly, and with a radiant smile. "yes! alfred, don't linger. there's no time. say good bye to marion. and heaven be with you!" he pressed the younger sister to his heart. released from his embrace, she again clung to her sister; and her eyes, with the same blended look, again sought those so calm, serene, and cheerful. "farewell my boy!" said the doctor. "to talk about any serious correspondence or serious affections, and engagements, and so forth, in such a--ha ha ha!--you know what i mean--why that, of course, would be sheer nonsense. all i can say is, that if you and marion should continue in the same foolish minds, i shall not object to have you for a son-in-law one of these days." "over the bridge!" cried britain. "let it come!" said alfred, wringing the doctor's hand stoutly. "think of me sometimes, my old friend and guardian, as seriously as you can! adieu, mr. snitchey! farewell, mr. craggs!" "coming down the road!" cried britain. "a kiss of clemency newcome for long acquaintance' sake--shake hands, britain--marion, dearest heart, good bye! sister grace! remember!" the quiet household figure, and the face so beautiful in its serenity, were turned towards him in reply; but marion's look and attitude remained unchanged. the coach was at the gate. there was a bustle with the luggage. the coach drove away. marion never moved. "he waves his hat to you, my love," said grace. "your chosen husband, darling. look!" the younger sister raised her head, and, for a moment, turned it. then turning back again, and fully meeting, for the first time, those calm eyes, fell sobbing on her neck. "oh, grace. god bless you! but i cannot bear to see it, grace! it breaks my heart." part the second. [illustration] part the second. [illustration] snitchey and craggs had a snug little office on the old battle ground, where they drove a snug little business, and fought a great many small pitched battles for a great many contending parties. though it could hardly be said of these conflicts that they were running fights--for in truth they generally proceeded at a snail's pace--the part the firm had in them came so far within that general denomination, that now they took a shot at this plaintiff, and now aimed a chop at that defendant, now made a heavy charge at an estate in chancery, and now had some light skirmishing among an irregular body of small debtors, just as the occasion served, and the enemy happened to present himself. the gazette was an important and profitable feature in some of their fields, as well as in fields of greater renown; and in most of the actions wherein they shewed their generalship, it was afterwards observed by the combatants that they had had great difficulty in making each other out, or in knowing with any degree of distinctness what they were about, in consequence of the vast amount of smoke by which they were surrounded. the offices of messrs. snitchey and craggs stood convenient with an open door, down two smooth steps in the market-place: so that any angry farmer inclining towards hot water, might tumble into it at once. their special council-chamber and hall of conference was an old back room up stairs, with a low dark ceiling, which seemed to be knitting its brows gloomily in the consideration of tangled points of law. it was furnished with some high-backed leathern chairs, garnished with great goggle-eyed brass nails, of which, every here and there, two or three had fallen out; or had been picked out, perhaps, by the wandering thumbs and forefingers of bewildered clients. there was a framed print of a great judge in it, every curl in whose dreadful wig had made a man's hair stand on end. bales of papers filled the dusty closets, shelves, and tables; and round the wainscoat there were tiers of boxes, padlocked and fireproof, with people's names painted outside, which anxious visitors felt themselves, by a cruel enchantment, obliged to spell backwards and forwards, and to make anagrams of, while they sat, seeming to listen to snitchey and craggs, without comprehending one word of what they said. snitchey and craggs had each, in private life as in professional existence, a partner of his own. snitchey and craggs were the best friends in the world, and had a real confidence in one another; but mrs. snitchey, by a dispensation not uncommon in the affairs of life, was, on principle, suspicious of mr. craggs, and mrs. craggs was, on principle, suspicious of mr. snitchey. "your snitcheys indeed," the latter lady would observe, sometimes, to mr. craggs; using that imaginative plural as if in disparagement of an objectionable pair of pantaloons, or other articles not possessed of a singular number; "i don't see what you want with your snitcheys, for my part. you trust a great deal too much to your snitcheys, _i_ think, and i hope you may never find my words come true." while mrs. snitchey would observe to mr. snitchey, of craggs, "that if ever he was led away by man he was led away by that man; and that if ever she read a double purpose in a mortal eye, she read that purpose in craggs's eye." notwithstanding this, however, they were all very good friends in general: and mrs. snitchey and mrs. craggs maintained a close bond of alliance against "the office," which they both considered a blue chamber, and common enemy, full of dangerous (because unknown) machinations. in this office, nevertheless, snitchey and craggs made honey for their several hives. here sometimes they would linger, of a fine evening, at the window of their council-chamber, overlooking the old battle-ground, and wonder (but that was generally at assize time, when much business had made them sentimental) at the folly of mankind, who couldn't always be at peace with one another, and go to law comfortably. here days, and weeks, and months, and years, passed over them; their calendar, the gradually diminishing number of brass nails in the leathern chairs, and the increasing bulk of papers on the tables. here nearly three years' flight had thinned the one and swelled the other, since the breakfast in the orchard; when they sat together in consultation, at night. [illustration] not alone; but with a man of thirty, or about that time of life, negligently dressed, and somewhat haggard in the face, but well-made, well-attired, and well-looking, who sat in the arm-chair of state, with one hand in his breast, and the other in his dishevelled hair, pondering moodily. messrs. snitchey and craggs sat opposite each other at a neighbouring desk. one of the fire-proof boxes, unpadlocked and opened, was upon it; a part of its contents lay strewn upon the table, and the rest was then in course of passing through the hands of mr. snitchey, who brought it to the candle, document by document, looked at every paper singly, as he produced it, shook his head, and handed it to mr. craggs, who looked it over also, shook his head, and laid it down. sometimes they would stop, and shaking their heads in concert, look towards the abstracted client; and the name on the box being michael warden, esquire, we may conclude from these premises that the name and the box were both his, and that the affairs of michael warden, esquire, were in a bad way. "that's all," said mr. snitchey, turning up the last paper. "really there's no other resource. no other resource." "all lost, spent, wasted, pawned, borrowed and sold, eh?" said the client, looking up. "all," returned mr. snitchey. "nothing else to be done, you say?" "nothing at all." the client bit his nails, and pondered again. "and i am not even personally safe in england? you hold to that; do you?" "in no part of the united kingdom of great britain and ireland," replied mr. snitchey. "a mere prodigal son with no father to go back to, no swine to keep, and no husks to share with them? eh?" pursued the client, rocking one leg over the other, and searching the ground with his eyes. mr. snitchey coughed, as if to deprecate the being supposed to participate in any figurative illustration of a legal position. mr. craggs, as if to express that it was a partnership view of the subject, also coughed. "ruined at thirty!" said the client. "humph!" "not ruined, mr. warden," returned snitchey. "not so bad as that. you have done a good deal towards it, i must say, but you are not ruined. a little nursing--" "a little devil," said the client. "mr. craggs," said snitchey, "will you oblige me with a pinch of snuff? thank you, sir." as the imperturbable lawyer applied it to his nose, with great apparent relish and a perfect absorption of his attention in the proceeding, the client gradually broke into a smile, and, looking up, said: "you talk of nursing. how long nursing?" "how long nursing?" repeated snitchey, dusting the snuff from his fingers, and making a slow calculation in his mind. "for your involved estate, sir? in good hands? s. and c.'s, say? six or seven years." "to starve for six or seven years!" said the client with a fretful laugh, and an impatient change of his position. "to starve for six or seven years, mr. warden," said snitchey, "would be very uncommon indeed. you might get another estate by shewing yourself, the while. but we don't think you could do it--speaking for self and craggs--and consequently don't advise it." "what _do_ you advise?" "nursing, i say," repeated snitchey. "some few years of nursing by self and craggs would bring it round. but to enable us to make terms, and hold terms, and you to keep terms, you must go away, you must live abroad. as to starvation, we could ensure you some hundreds a year to starve upon, even in the beginning, i dare say, mr. warden." "hundreds," said the client. "and i have spent thousands!" "that," retorted mr. snitchey, putting the papers slowly back into the cast-iron box, "there is no doubt about. no doubt a--bout," he repeated to himself, as he thoughtfully pursued his occupation. the lawyer very likely knew his man; at any rate his dry, shrewd, whimsical manner, had a favourable influence upon the client's moody state, and disposed him to be more free and unreserved. or perhaps the client knew _his_ man; and had elicited such encouragement as he had received, to render some purpose he was about to disclose the more defensible in appearance. gradually raising his head, he sat looking at his immovable adviser with a smile, which presently broke into a laugh. "after all," he said, "my iron-headed friend--" mr. snitchey pointed out his partner. "self and--excuse me--craggs." "i beg mr. craggs's pardon," said the client. "after all, my iron-headed friends," he leaned forward in his chair, and dropped his voice a little, "you don't know half my ruin yet." mr. snitchey stopped and stared at him. mr. craggs also stared. "i am not only deep in debt," said the client "but i am deep in--" "not in love!" cried snitchey. "yes!" said the client, falling back in his chair, and surveying the firm with his hands in his pockets. "deep in love." "and not with an heiress, sir?" said snitchey. "not with an heiress." "nor a rich lady?" "nor a rich lady that i know of--except in beauty and merit." "a single lady, i trust?" said mr. snitchey, with great expression. "certainly." "it's not one of doctor jeddler's daughters?" said snitchey, suddenly squaring his elbows on his knees, and advancing his face at least a yard. "yes!" returned the client. "not his younger daughter?" said snitchey. "yes!" returned the client. "mr. craggs," said snitchey, much relieved, "will you oblige me with another pinch of snuff? thank you. i am happy to say it don't signify, mr. warden; she's engaged, sir, she's bespoke. my partner can corroborate me. we know the fact." "we know the fact," repeated craggs. "why, so do i perhaps," returned the client quietly. "what of that? are you men of the world, and did you never hear of a woman changing her mind?" "there certainly have been actions for breach," said mr. snitchey, "brought against both spinsters and widows, but in the majority of cases--" "cases!" interposed the client, impatiently. "don't talk to me of cases. the general precedent is in a much larger volume than any of your law books. besides, do you think i have lived six weeks in the doctor's house for nothing?" "i think, sir," observed mr. snitchey, gravely addressing himself to his partner, "that of all the scrapes mr. warden's horses have brought him into at one time and another--and they have been pretty numerous, and pretty expensive, as none know better than himself and you and i--the worst scrape may turn out to be, if he talks in this way, his having been ever left by one of them at the doctor's garden wall, with three broken ribs, a snapped collar-bone, and the lord knows how many bruises. we didn't think so much of it, at the time when we knew he was going on well under the doctor's hands and roof; but it looks bad now, sir. bad! it looks very bad. doctor jeddler too--our client, mr. craggs." "mr. alfred heathfield too--a sort of client, mr. snitchey," said craggs. "mr. michael warden too, a kind of client," said the careless visitor, "and no bad one either: having played the fool for ten or twelve years. however mr. michael warden has sown his wild oats now; there's their crop, in that box; and means to repent and be wise. and in proof of it, mr. michael warden means, if he can, to marry marion, the doctor's lovely daughter, and to carry her away with him." "really, mr. craggs," snitchey began. "really mr. snitchey, and mr. craggs, partners both," said the client, interrupting him; "you know your duty to your clients, and you know well enough, i am sure, that it is no part of it to interfere in a mere love affair, which i am obliged to confide to you. i am not going to carry the young lady off, without her own consent. there's nothing illegal in it. i never was mr. heathfield's bosom friend. i violate no confidence of his. i love where he loves, and i mean to win where he would win, if i can." "he can't, mr. craggs," said snitchey, evidently anxious and discomfited. "he can't do it, sir. she dotes on mr. alfred." "does she?" returned the client. "mr. craggs, she dotes on him, sir," persisted snitchey. "i didn't live six weeks, some few months ago, in the doctor's house for nothing; and i doubted that soon," observed the client. "she would have doted on him, if her sister could have brought it about; but i watched them. marion avoided his name, avoided the subject: shrunk from the least allusion to it, with evident distress." "why should she, mr. craggs, you know? why should she, sir?" inquired snitchey. "i don't know why she should, though there are many likely reasons," said the client, smiling at the attention and perplexity expressed in mr. snitchey's shining eye, and at his cautious way of carrying on the conversation, and making himself informed upon the subject; "but i know she does. she was very young when she made the engagement--if it may be called one, i am not even sure of that--and has repented of it, perhaps. perhaps--it seems a foppish thing to say, but upon my soul i don't mean it in that light--she may have fallen in love with me, as i have fallen in love with her." "he, he! mr. alfred, her old playfellow too, you remember, mr. craggs," said snitchey, with a disconcerted laugh; "knew her almost from a baby!" "which makes it the more probable that she may be tired of his idea," calmly pursued the client, "and not indisposed to exchange it for the newer one of another lover, who presents himself (or is presented by his horse) under romantic circumstances; has the not unfavorable reputation--with a country girl--of having lived thoughtlessly and gaily, without doing much harm to anybody; and who, for his youth and figure, and so forth--this may seem foppish again, but upon my soul i don't mean it in that light--might perhaps pass muster in a crowd with mr. alfred himself." there was no gainsaying the last clause, certainly; and mr. snitchey, glancing at him, thought so. there was something naturally graceful and pleasant in the very carelessness of his air. it seemed to suggest, of his comely face and well-knit figure, that they might be greatly better if he chose: and that, once roused and made earnest (but he never had been earnest yet), he could be full of fire and purpose. "a dangerous sort of libertine," thought the shrewd lawyer, "to seem to catch the spark he wants from a young lady's eyes." "now, observe, snitchey," he continued, rising and taking him by the button, "and craggs," taking him by the button also, and placing one partner on either side of him, so that neither might evade him. "i don't ask you for any advice. you are right to keep quite aloof from all parties in such a matter, which is not one in which grave men like you could interfere, on any side. i am briefly going to review in half-a-dozen words, my position and intention, and then i shall leave it to you to do the best for me, in money matters, that you can: seeing, that, if i run away with the doctor's beautiful daughter (as i hope to do, and to become another man under her bright influence), it will be, for the moment, more chargeable than running away alone. but i shall soon make all that up in an altered life." "i think it will be better not to hear this, mr. craggs?" said snitchey, looking at him across the client. "_i_ think not," said craggs.--both listening attentively. "well! you needn't hear it," replied their client. "i'll mention it, however. i don't mean to ask the doctor's consent, because he wouldn't give it me. but i mean to do the doctor no wrong or harm, because (besides there being nothing serious in such trifles, as he says) i hope to rescue his child, my marion, from what i see--i _know_--she dreads, and contemplates with misery: that is, the return of this old lover. if anything in the world is true, it is true that she dreads his return. nobody is injured so far. i am so harried and worried here just now, that i lead the life of a flying-fish; skulk about in the dark, am shut out of my own house, and warned off my own grounds: but that house, and those grounds, and many an acre besides, will come back to me one day, as you know and say; and marion will probably be richer--on your showing, who are never sanguine--ten years hence as my wife, than as the wife of alfred heathfield, whose return she dreads (remember that), and in whom or in any man, my passion is not surpassed. who is injured yet? it is a fair case throughout. my right is as good as his, if she decide in my favor; and i will try my right by her alone. you will like to know no more after this, and i will tell you no more. now you know my purpose, and wants. when must i leave here?" "in a week," said snitchey. "mr. craggs?--" "in something less, i should say," responded craggs. "in a month," said the client, after attentively watching the two faces. "this day month. to-day is thursday. succeed or fail, on this day month i go." "it's too long a delay," said snitchey; "much too long. but let it be so. i thought he'd have stipulated for three," he murmured to himself. "are you going? good night, sir." "good night!" returned the client, shaking hands with the firm. "you'll live to see me making a good use of riches yet. henceforth, the star of my destiny is, marion!" "take care of the stairs, sir," replied snitchey; "for she don't shine there. good night!" "good night!" so they both stood at the stair-head with a pair of office-candles, watching him down; and when he had gone away, stood looking at each other. "what do you think of all this, mr. craggs?" said snitchey. mr. craggs shook his head. "it was our opinion, on the day when that release was executed, that there was something curious in the parting of that pair, i recollect," said snitchey. "it was," said mr. craggs. "perhaps he deceives himself altogether," pursued mr. snitchey, locking up the fireproof box, and putting it away; "or if he don't, a little bit of fickleness and perfidy is not a miracle, mr. craggs. and yet i thought that pretty face was very true. i thought," said mr. snitchey, putting on his great coat, (for the weather was very cold), drawing on his gloves, and snuffing out one candle, "that i had even seen her character becoming stronger and more resolved of late. more like her sister's." "mrs. craggs was of the same opinion," returned craggs. "i'd really give a trifle to-night," observed mr. snitchey, who was a good-natured man, "if i could believe that mr. warden was reckoning without his host; but light-headed, capricious, and unballasted as he is, he knows something of the world and its people (he ought to, for he has bought what he does know, dear enough); and i can't quite think that. we had better not interfere: we can do nothing, mr. craggs, but keep quiet." "nothing," returned craggs. "our friend the doctor makes light of such things," said mr. snitchey, shaking his head. "i hope he mayn't stand in need of his philosophy. our friend alfred talks of the battle of life," he shook his head again, "i hope he mayn't be cut down early in the day. have you got your hat, mr. craggs? i am going to put the other candle out." mr craggs replying in the affirmative, mr. snitchey suited the action to the word, and they groped their way out of the council-chamber: now as dark as the subject, or the law in general. * * * * * my story passes to a quiet little study, where, on that same night, the sisters and the hale old doctor sat by a cheerful fire-side. grace was working at her needle. marion read aloud from a book before her. the doctor, in his dressing-gown and slippers, with his feet spread out upon the warm rug, leaned back in his easy chair, and listened to the book, and looked upon his daughters. they were very beautiful to look upon. two better faces for a fireside, never made a fireside bright and sacred. something of the difference between them had been softened down in three years' time; and enthroned upon the clear brow of the younger sister, looking through her eyes, and thrilling in her voice, was the same earnest nature that her own motherless youth had ripened in the elder sister long ago. but she still appeared at once the lovelier and weaker of the two; still seemed to rest her head upon her sister's breast, and put her trust in her, and look into her eyes for counsel and reliance. those loving eyes, so calm, serene, and cheerful, as of old. "'and being in her own home,'" read marion, from the book; "'her home made exquisitely dear by these remembrances, she now began to know that the great trial of her heart must soon come on, and could not be delayed. oh home, our comforter and friend when others fall away, to part with whom, at any step between the cradle and the grave--'" "marion, my love!" said grace. "why, puss!" exclaimed her father, "what's the matter?" she put her hand upon the hand her sister stretched towards her, and read on; her voice still faltering and trembling, though she made an effort to command it when thus interrupted. "'to part with whom, at any step between the cradle and the grave, is always sorrowful. oh home, so true to us, so often slighted in return, be lenient to them that turn away from thee, and do not haunt their erring footsteps too reproachfully! let no kind looks, no well-remembered smiles, be seen upon thy phantom face. let no ray of affection, welcome, gentleness, forbearance, cordiality, shine from thy white head. let no old loving word or tone rise up in judgment against thy deserter; but if thou canst look harshly and severely, do, in mercy to the penitent!'" "dear marion, read no more to-night," said grace--for she was weeping. "i cannot," she replied, and closed the book. "the words seem all on fire!" the doctor was amused at this; and laughed as he patted her on the head. "what! overcome by a story-book!" said doctor jeddler. "print and paper! well, well, it's all one. it's as rational to make a serious matter of print and paper as of anything else. but dry your eyes, love, dry your eyes. i dare say the heroine has got home again long ago, and made it up all round--and if she hasn't, a real home is only four walls; and a fictitious one, mere rags and ink. what's the matter now?" "it's only me, mister," said clemency, putting in her head at the door. "and what's the matter with _you_?" said the doctor. "oh, bless you, nothing an't the matter with me," returned clemency--and truly too, to judge from her well-soaped face, in which there gleamed as usual the very soul of good humour, which, ungainly as she was, made her quite engaging. abrasions on the elbows are not generally understood, it is true, to range within that class of personal charms called beauty-spots. but it is better, going through the world, to have the arms chafed in that narrow passage, than the temper: and clemency's was sound and whole as any beauty's in the land. "nothing an't the matter with me," said clemency, entering, "but--come a little closer, mister." the doctor, in some astonishment, complied with this invitation. "you said i wasn't to give you one before them, you know," said clemency. a novice in the family might have supposed, from her extraordinary ogling as she said it, as well as from a singular rapture or ecstasy which pervaded her elbows, as if she were embracing herself, that 'one,' in its most favorable interpretation, meant a chaste salute. indeed the doctor himself seemed alarmed, for the moment; but quickly regained his composure, as clemency, having had recourse to both her pockets--beginning with the right one, going away to the wrong one, and afterwards coming back to the right one again--produced a letter from the post-office. "britain was riding by on a errand," she chuckled, handing it to the doctor, "and see the mail come in, and waited for it. there's a. h. in the corner. mr. alfred's on his journey home, i bet. we shall have a wedding in the house--there was two spoons in my saucer this morning. oh luck, how slow he opens it!" all this she delivered, by way of soliloquy, gradually rising higher and higher on tiptoe, in her impatience to hear the news, and making a corkscrew of her apron, and a bottle of her mouth. at last, arriving at a climax of suspense, and seeing the doctor still engaged in the perusal of the letter, she came down flat upon the soles of her feet again, and cast her apron, as a veil, over her head, in a mute despair, and inability to bear it any longer. "here! girls!" cried the doctor. "i can't help it: i never could keep a secret in my life. there are not many secrets, indeed, worth being kept in such a--well! never mind that. alfred's coming home, my dears, directly." "directly!" exclaimed marion. "what! the story-book is soon forgotten!" said the doctor, pinching her cheek. "i thought the news would dry those tears. yes. 'let it be a surprise,' he says, here. but i can't let it be a surprise. he must have a welcome." "directly!" repeated marion. "why, perhaps not what your impatience calls 'directly,'" returned the doctor; "but pretty soon too. let us see. let us see. to-day is thursday, is it not? then he promises to be here, this day month." "this day month!" repeated marion, softly. "a gay day and a holiday for us," said the cheerful voice of her sister grace, kissing her in congratulation. "long looked forward to, dearest, and come at last." she answered with a smile; a mournful smile, but full of sisterly affection: and as she looked in her sister's face, and listened to the quiet music of her voice, picturing the happiness of this return, her own face glowed with hope and joy. and with a something else: a something shining more and more through all the rest of its expression: for which i have no name. it was not exultation, triumph, proud enthusiasm. they are not so calmly shown. it was not love and gratitude alone, though love and gratitude were part of it. it emanated from no sordid thought, for sordid thoughts do not light up the brow, and hover on the lips, and move the spirit, like a fluttered light, until the sympathetic figure trembles. doctor jeddler, in spite of his system of philosophy--which he was continually contradicting and denying in practice, but more famous philosophers have done that--could not help having as much interest in the return of his old ward and pupil, as if it had been a serious event. so he sat himself down in his easy chair again, stretched out his slippered feet once more upon the rug, read the letter over and over a great many times, and talked it over more times still. "ah! the day was," said the doctor, looking at the fire, "when you and he, grace, used to trot about arm-in-arm, in his holiday time, like a couple of walking dolls. you remember?" "i remember," she answered, with her pleasant laugh, and plying her needle busily. "this day month, indeed!" mused the doctor. "that hardly seems a twelve-month ago. and where was my little marion then!" "never far from her sister," said marion, cheerily, "however little. grace was everything to me, even when she was a young child herself." "true, puss, true," returned the doctor. "she was a staid little woman, was grace, and a wise housekeeper, and a busy, quiet, pleasant body; bearing with our humours and anticipating our wishes, and always ready to forget her own, even in those times. i never knew you positive or obstinate, grace, my darling, even then, on any subject but one." "i am afraid i have changed sadly for the worse, since," laughed grace, still busy at her work. "what was that one, father?" "alfred, of course," said the doctor. "nothing would serve you but you must be called alfred's wife; so we called you alfred's wife; and you liked it better, i believe (odd as it seems now), than being called a duchess, if we could have made you one." "indeed!" said grace, placidly. "why, don't you remember?" inquired the doctor. "i think i remember something of it," she returned, "but not much. it's so long ago." and as she sat at work, she hummed the burden of an old song, which the doctor liked. "alfred will find a real wife soon," she said, breaking off; "and that will be a happy time indeed for all of us. my three years' trust is nearly at an end, marion. it has been a very easy one. i shall tell alfred, when i give you back to him, that you have loved him dearly all the time, and that he has never once needed my good services. may i tell him so, love?" "tell him, dear grace," replied marion, "that there never was a trust so generously, nobly, stedfastly discharged; and that i have loved _you_, all the time, dearer and dearer every day; and oh! how dearly now!" "nay," said her cheerful sister, returning her embrace, "i can scarcely tell him that; we will leave my deserts to alfred's imagination. it will be liberal enough, dear marion; like your own." with that she resumed the work she had for a moment laid down, when her sister spoke so fervently: and with it the old song the doctor liked to hear. and the doctor, still reposing in his easy chair, with his slippered feet stretched out before him on the rug, listened to the tune, and beat time on his knee with alfred's letter, and looked at his two daughters, and thought that among the many trifles of the trifling world, these trifles were agreeable enough. clemency newcome in the mean time, having accomplished her mission and lingered in the room until she had made herself a party to the news, descended to the kitchen, where her coadjutor, mr. britain, was regaling after supper, surrounded by such a plentiful collection of bright pot-lids, well-scoured saucepans, burnished dinner-covers, gleaming kettles, and other tokens of her industrious habits, arranged upon the walls and shelves, that he sat as in the centre of a hall of mirrors. the majority did not give forth very flattering portraits of him, certainly; nor were they by any means unanimous in their reflections; as some made him very long-faced, others very broad-faced, some tolerably well-looking, others vastly ill-looking, according to their several manners of reflecting: which were as various, in respect of one fact, as those of so many kinds of men. but they all agreed that in the midst of them sat, quite at his ease, an individual with a pipe in his mouth, and a jug of beer at his elbow, who nodded condescendingly to clemency, when she stationed herself at the same table. "well, clemmy," said britain, "how are you by this time, and what's the news?" clemency told him the news, which he received very graciously. a gracious change had come over benjamin from head to foot. he was much broader, much redder, much more cheerful, and much jollier in all respects. it seemed as if his face had been tied up in a knot before, and was now untwisted and smoothed out. "there'll be another job for snitchey and craggs, i suppose," he observed, puffing slowly at his pipe. "more witnessing for you and me, perhaps, clemmy!" "lor!" replied his fair companion, with her favorite twist of her favorite joints. "i wish it was me, britain." "wish what was you?" "a going to be married," said clemency. benjamin took his pipe out of his mouth and laughed heartily. "yes! you're a likely subject for that!" he said. "poor clem!" clemency for her part laughed as heartily as he, and seemed as much amused by the idea. "yes," she assented, "i'm a likely subject for that; an't i?" "_you_'ll never be married, you know," said mr. britain, resuming his pipe. "don't you think i ever shall though?" said clemency, in perfect good faith. mr. britain shook his head. "not a chance of it!" "only think!" said clemency. "well!--i suppose you mean to, britain, one of these days; don't you?" a question so abrupt, upon a subject so momentous, required consideration. after blowing out a great cloud of smoke, and looking at it with his head now on this side and now on that, as if it were actually the question, and he were surveying it in various aspects, mr. britain replied that he wasn't altogether clear about it, but--ye-es--he thought he might come to that at last. "i wish her joy, whoever she may be!" cried clemency. "oh she'll have that," said benjamin; "safe enough." "but she wouldn't have led quite such a joyful life as she will lead, and wouldn't have had quite such a sociable sort of husband as she will have," said clemency, spreading herself half over the table, and staring retrospectively at the candle, "if it hadn't been for--not that i went to do it, for it was accidental, i am sure--if it hadn't been for me; now would she, britain?" "certainly not," returned mr. britain, by this time in that high state of appreciation of his pipe, when a man can open his mouth but a very little way for speaking purposes; and sitting luxuriously immovable in his chair, can afford to turn only his eyes towards a companion, and that very passively and gravely. "oh! i'm greatly beholden to you, you know, clem." "lor, how nice that is to think of!" said clemency. at the same time, bringing her thoughts as well as her sight to bear upon the candle-grease, and becoming abruptly reminiscent of its healing qualities as a balsam, she anointed her left elbow with a plentiful application of that remedy. "you see i've made a good many investigations of one sort and another in my time," pursued mr. britain, with the profundity of a sage; "having been always of an inquiring turn of mind; and i've read a good many books about the general rights of things and wrongs of things, for i went into the literary line myself, when i began life." "did you though!" cried the admiring clemency. "yes," said mr. britain; "i was hid for the best part of two years behind a bookstall, ready to fly out if anybody pocketed a volume; and after that i was light porter to a stay and mantua maker, in which capacity i was employed to carry about, in oilskin baskets, nothing but deceptions--which soured my spirits and disturbed my confidence in human nature; and after that, i heard a world of discussions in this house, which soured my spirits fresh; and my opinion after all is, that, as a safe and comfortable sweetener of the same, and as a pleasant guide through life, there's nothing like a nutmeg-grater." clemency was about to offer a suggestion, but he stopped her by anticipating it. "com-bined," he added gravely, "with a thimble." "do as you wold, you know, and cetrer, eh!" observed clemency, folding her arms comfortably in her delight at this avowal, and patting her elbows. "such a short cut, an't it?" "i'm not sure," said mr. britain, "that it's what would be considered good philosophy. i've my doubts about that: but it wears well, and saves a quantity of snarling, which the genuine article don't always." "see how you used to go on once, yourself, you know!" said clemency. "ah!" said mr. britain. "but the most extraordinary thing, clemmy, is that i should live to be brought round, through you. that's the strange part of it. through you! why, i suppose you haven't so much as half an idea in your head." clemency, without taking the least offence, shook it, and laughed, and hugged herself, and said, "no, she didn't suppose she had." "i'm pretty sure of it," said mr. britain. "oh! i dare say you're right," said clemency. "i don't pretend to none. i don't want any." benjamin took his pipe from his lips, and laughed till the tears ran down his face. "what a natural you are, clemmy!" he said, shaking his head, with an infinite relish of the joke, and wiping his eyes. clemency, without the smallest inclination to dispute it, did the like, and laughed as heartily as he. "but i can't help liking you," said mr. britain; "you're a regular good creature in your way; so shake hands, clem. whatever happens, i'll always take notice of you, and be a friend to you." "will you?" returned clemency. "well! that's very good of you." "yes, yes," said mr. britain, giving her his pipe to knock the ashes out of; "i'll stand by you. hark! that's a curious noise!" "noise!" repeated clemency. "a footstep outside. somebody dropping from the wall, it sounded like," said britain. "are they all abed up-stairs?" "yes, all abed by this time," she replied. "didn't you hear anything?" "no." they both listened, but heard nothing. "i tell you what," said benjamin, taking down a lantern. "i'll have a look round before i go to bed myself, for satisfaction's sake. undo the door while i light this, clemmy." clemency complied briskly; but observed as she did so, that he would only have his walk for his pains, that it was all his fancy, and so forth. mr. britain said 'very likely;' but sallied out, nevertheless, armed with the poker, and casting the light of the lantern far and near in all directions. "it's as quiet as a churchyard," said clemency, looking after him; "and almost as ghostly too!" glancing back into the kitchen, she cried fearfully, as a light figure stole into her view, "what's that!" "hush!" said marion, in an agitated whisper. "you have always loved me, have you not!" "loved you, child! you may be sure i have." "i am sure. and i may trust you, may i not? there is no one else just now, in whom i _can_ trust." "yes," said clemency, with all her heart. "there is some one out there," pointing to the door, "whom i must see, and speak with, to-night. michael warden, for god's sake retire! not now!" clemency started with surprise and trouble as, following the direction of the speaker's eyes, she saw a dark figure standing in the doorway. "in another moment you may be discovered," said marion. "not now! wait, if you can, in some concealment. i will come, presently." he waved his hand to her, and was gone. "don't go to bed. wait here for me!" said marion, hurriedly. "i have been seeking to speak to you for an hour past. oh, be true to me!" eagerly seizing her bewildered hand, and pressing it with both her own to her breast--an action more expressive, in its passion of entreaty, than the most eloquent appeal in words,--marion withdrew; as the light of the returning lantern flashed into the room. "all still and peaceable. nobody there. fancy, i suppose," said mr. britain, as he locked and barred the door. "one of the effects of having a lively imagination. halloa! why, what's the matter?" clemency, who could not conceal the effects of her surprise and concern, was sitting in a chair: pale, and trembling from head to foot. "matter!" she repeated, chafing her hands and elbows, nervously, and looking anywhere but at him. "that's good in you, britain, that is! after going and frightening one out of one's life with noises, and lanterns, and i don't know what all. matter! oh, yes." "if you're frightened out of your life by a lantern, clemmy," said mr. britain, composedly blowing it out and hanging it up again, "that apparition's very soon got rid of. but you're as bold as brass in general," he said, stopping to observe her; "and were, after the noise and the lantern too. what have you taken into your head? not an idea, eh?" but as clemency bade him good night very much after her usual fashion, and began to bustle about with a show of going to bed herself immediately, little britain, after giving utterance to the original remark that it was impossible to account for a woman's whims, bade her good night in return, and taking up his candle strolled drowsily away to bed. when all was quiet, marion returned. "open the door," she said; "and stand there close beside me, while i speak to him, outside." timid as her manner was, it still evinced a resolute and settled purpose, such as clemency could not resist. she softly unbarred the door: but before turning the key, looked round on the young creature waiting to issue forth when she should open it. the face was not averted or cast down, but looking full upon her, in its pride of youth and beauty. some simple sense of the slightness of the barrier that interposed itself between the happy home and honoured love of the fair girl, and what might be the desolation of that home, and shipwreck of its dearest treasure, smote so keenly on the tender heart of clemency, and so filled it to overflowing with sorrow and compassion, that, bursting into tears, she threw her arms round marion's neck. "it's little that i know, my dear," cried clemency, "very little; but i know that this should not be. think of what you do!" "i have thought of it many times," said marion, gently. "once more," urged clemency. "till to-morrow." marion shook her head. "for mr. alfred's sake," said clemency, with homely earnestness. "him that you used to love so dearly, once!" she hid her face, upon the instant, in her hands, repeating "once!" as if it rent her heart. "let me go out," said clemency, soothing her. "i'll tell him what you like. don't cross the door-step to-night. i'm sure no good will come of it. oh, it was an unhappy day when mr. warden was ever brought here! think of your good father, darling: of your sister." "i have," said marion, hastily raising her head. "you don't know what i do. you don't know what i do. i _must_ speak to him. you are the best and truest friend in all the world for what you have said to me, but i must take this step. will you go with me, clemency," she kissed her on her friendly face, "or shall i go alone?" [illustration] sorrowing and wondering, clemency turned the key, and opened the door. into the dark and doubtful night that lay beyond the threshhold, marion passed quickly, holding by her hand. in the dark night he joined her, and they spoke together earnestly and long: and the hand that held so fast by clemency's, now trembled, now turned deadly cold, now clasped and closed on hers, in the strong feeling of the speech it emphasized unconsciously. when they returned, he followed to the door; and pausing there a moment, seized the other hand, and pressed it to his lips. then stealthily withdrew. the door was barred and locked again, and once again she stood beneath her father's roof. not bowed down by the secret that she brought there, though so young; but with that same expression on her face, for which i had no name before, and shining through her tears. again she thanked and thanked her humble friend, and trusted to her, as she said, with confidence, implicitly. her chamber safely reached, she fell upon her knees; and with her secret weighing on her heart, could pray! could rise up from her prayers, so tranquil and serene, and bending over her fond sister in her slumber, look upon her face and smile: though sadly: murmuring as she kissed her forehead, how that grace had been a mother to her, ever, and she loved her as a child! could draw the passive arm about her neck when lying down to rest--it seemed to cling there, of its own will, protectingly and tenderly even in sleep--and breathe upon the parted lips, god bless her! could sink into a peaceful sleep, herself; but for one dream, in which she cried out, in her innocent and touching voice, that she was quite alone, and they had all forgotten her. * * * * * a month soon passes, even at its tardiest pace. the month appointed to elapse between that night and the return, was quick of foot, and went by, like a vapour. the day arrived. a raging winter day, that shook the old house, sometimes, as if it shivered in the blast. a day to make home doubly home. to give the chimney corner new delights. to shed a ruddier glow upon the faces gathered round the hearth; and draw each fireside group into a closer and more social league, against the roaring elements without. such a wild winter day as best prepares the way for shut-out night; for curtained rooms, and cheerful looks; for music, laughter, dancing, light, and jovial entertainment! all these the doctor had in store to welcome alfred back. they knew that he could not arrive till night; and they would make the night air ring, he said, as he approached. all his old friends should congregate about him. he should not miss a face that he had known and liked. no! they should every one be there! so, guests were bidden, and musicians were engaged, and tables spread, and floors prepared for active feet, and bountiful provision made, of every hospitable kind. because it was the christmas season, and his eyes were all unused to english holly, and its sturdy green, the dancing room was garlanded and hung with it; and the red berries gleamed an english welcome to him, peeping from among the leaves. it was a busy day for all of them: a busier day for none of them than grace, who noiselessly presided everywhere, and was the cheerful mind of all the preparations. many a time that day (as well as many a time within the fleeting month preceding it), did clemency glance anxiously, and almost fearfully, at marion. she saw her paler, perhaps, than usual; but there was a sweet composure on her face that made it lovelier than ever. at night when she was dressed, and wore upon her head a wreath that grace had proudly twined about it--its mimic flowers were alfred's favorites, as grace remembered when she chose them--that old expression, pensive, almost sorrowful, and yet so spiritual, high, and stirring, sat again upon her brow, enhanced a hundred fold. "the next wreath i adjust on this fair head, will be a marriage wreath," said grace; "or i am no true prophet, dear." her sister smiled, and held her in her arms. "a moment, grace. don't leave me yet. are you sure that i want nothing more?" her care was not for that. it was her sister's face she thought of, and her eyes were fixed upon it, tenderly. "my art," said grace, "can go no farther, dear girl; nor your beauty. i never saw you look so beautiful as now." "i never was so happy," she returned. "aye, but there is greater happiness in store. in such another home, as cheerful and as bright as this looks now," said grace, "alfred and his young wife will soon be living." she smiled again. "it is a happy home, grace, in your fancy. i can see it in your eyes. i know it _will_ be happy, dear. how glad i am to know it." "well," cried the doctor, bustling in. "here we are, all ready for alfred, eh? he can't be here until pretty late--an hour or so before midnight--so there'll be plenty of time for making merry before he comes. he'll not find us with the ice unbroken. pile up the fire here, britain! let it shine upon the holly till it winks again. it's a world of nonsense, puss; true lovers and all the rest of it--all nonsense; but we'll be nonsensical with the rest of 'em, and give our true lover a mad welcome. upon my word!" said the old doctor, looking at his daughters proudly, "i'm not clear to-night, among other absurdities, but that i'm the father of two handsome girls." "all that one of them has ever done, or may do--may do, dearest father--to cause you pain or grief, forgive her," said marion: "forgive her now, when her heart is full. say that you forgive her. that you will forgive her. that she shall always share your love, and--," and the rest was not said, for her face was hidden on the old man's shoulder. "tut, tut, tut," said the doctor, gently. "forgive! what have i to forgive? heyday, if our true lovers come back to flurry us like this, we must hold 'em at a distance; we must send expresses out to stop 'em short upon the road, and bring 'em on a mile or two a day, until we're properly prepared to meet 'em. kiss me, puss. forgive! why, what a silly child you are. if you had vexed and crossed me fifty times a day, instead of not at all, i'd forgive you everything, but such a supplication. kiss me again, puss. there! prospective and retrospective--a clear score between us. pile up the fire here! would you freeze the people on this bleak december night! let us be light, and warm, and merry, or i'll not forgive some of you!" so gaily the old doctor carried it! and the fire was piled up, and the lights were bright, and company arrived, and a murmuring of lively tongues began, and already there was a pleasant air of cheerful excitement stirring through all the house. more and more company came flocking in. bright eyes sparkled upon marion; smiling lips gave her joy of his return; sage mothers fanned themselves, and hoped she mightn't be too youthful and inconstant for the quiet round of home; impetuous fathers fell into disgrace, for too much exaltation of her beauty; daughters envied her; sons envied him; innumerable pairs of lovers profited by the occasion; all were interested, animated, and expectant. mr. and mrs. craggs came arm in arm, but mrs. snitchey came alone. "why, what's become of _him_?" inquired the doctor. the feather of a bird of paradise in mrs. snitchey's turban, trembled as if the bird of paradise were alive again, when she said that doubtless mr. craggs knew. _she_ was never told. "that nasty office," said mrs. craggs. "i wish it was burnt down," said mrs. snitchey. "he's--he's--there's a little matter of business that keeps my partner rather late," said mr. craggs, looking uneasily about him. "oh--h! business. don't tell me!" said mrs. snitchey. "_we_ know what business means," said mrs. craggs. but their not knowing what it meant, was perhaps the reason why mrs. snitchey's bird of paradise feather quivered so portentously, and all the pendant bits on mrs. craggs's ear-rings shook like little bells. "i wonder _you_ could come away, mr. craggs," said his wife. "mr. craggs is fortunate, i'm sure!" said mrs. snitchey. "that office so engrosses 'em," said mrs. craggs. "a person with an office has no business to be married at all," said mrs. snitchey. then mrs. snitchey said, within herself, that that look of hers had pierced to craggs's soul, and he knew it: and mrs. craggs observed, to craggs, that 'his snitcheys' were deceiving him behind his back, and he would find it out when it was too late. still, mr. craggs, without much heeding these remarks, looked uneasily about him until his eye rested on grace, to whom he immediately presented himself. "good evening, ma'am," said craggs. "you look charmingly. your--miss--your sister, miss marion, is she----" "oh she's quite well, mr. craggs." "yes--i--is she here?" asked craggs. "here! don't you see her yonder? going to dance?" said grace. mr. craggs put on his spectacles to see the better; looked at her through them, for some time; coughed; and put them, with an air of satisfaction, in their sheath again, and in his pocket. now the music struck up, and the dance commenced. the bright fire crackled and sparkled, rose and fell, as though it joined the dance itself, in right good fellowship. sometimes it roared as if it would make music too. sometimes it flashed and beamed as if it were the eye of the old room: it winked too, sometimes, like a knowing patriarch, upon the youthful whisperers in corners. sometimes it sported with the holly-boughs; and, shining on the leaves by fits and starts, made them look as if they were in the cold winter night again, and fluttering in the wind. sometimes its genial humour grew obstreperous, and passed all bounds; and then it cast into the room, among the twinkling feet, with a loud burst, a shower of harmless little sparks, and in its exultation leaped and bounded, like a mad thing, up the broad old chimney. another dance was near its close, when mr. snitchey touched his partner, who was looking on, upon the arm. mr. craggs started, as if his familiar had been a spectre. "is he gone?" he asked. "hush! he has been with me," said snitchey, "for three hours and more. he went over everything. he looked into all our arrangements for him, and was very particular indeed. he--humph!" the dance was finished. marion passed close before him, as he spoke. she did not observe him, or his partner; but looked over her shoulder towards her sister in the distance, as she slowly made her way into the crowd, and passed out of their view. "you see! all safe and well," said mr. craggs. "he didn't recur to that subject, i suppose?" "not a word." "and is he really gone? is he safe away?" "he keeps to his word. he drops down the river with the tide in that shell of a boat of his, and so goes out to sea on this dark night--a dare-devil he is--before the wind. there's no such lonely road anywhere else. that's one thing. the tide flows, he says, an hour before midnight about this time. i'm glad it's over." mr. snitchey wiped his forehead, which looked hot and anxious. "what do you think," said mr. craggs, "about--" "hush!" replied his cautious partner, looking straight before him. "i understand you. don't mention names, and don't let us seem to be talking secrets. i don't know what to think; and to tell you the truth, i don't care now. it's a great relief. his self-love deceived him, i suppose. perhaps the young lady coquetted a little. the evidence would seem to point that way. alfred not arrived?" "not yet," said mr. craggs. "expected every minute." "good." mr. snitchey wiped his forehead again. "it's a great relief. i haven't been so nervous since we've been in partnership. i intend to spend the evening now, mr. craggs." mrs. craggs and mrs. snitchey joined them as he announced this intention. the bird of paradise was in a state of extreme vibration; and the little bells were ringing quite audibly. "it has been the theme of general comment, mr. snitchey," said mrs. snitchey. "i hope the office is satisfied." "satisfied with what, my dear?" asked mr. snitchey. "with the exposure of a defenceless woman to ridicule and remark," returned his wife. "that is quite in the way of the office, _that_ is." "i really, myself," said mrs. craggs, "have been so long accustomed to connect the office with everything opposed to domesticity, that i am glad to know it as the avowed enemy of my peace. there is something honest in that, at all events." "my dear," urged mr. craggs, "your good opinion is invaluable, but _i_ never avowed that the office was the enemy of your peace." "no," said mrs. craggs, ringing a perfect peal upon the little bells. "not you, indeed. you wouldn't be worthy of the office, if you had the candor to." "as to my having been away to-night, my dear," said mr. snitchey, giving her his arm, "the deprivation has been mine, i'm sure; but, as mr. craggs knows--" mrs. snitchey cut this reference very short by hitching her husband to a distance, and asking him to look at that man. to do her the favor to look at him. "at which man, my dear?" said mr. snitchey. "your chosen companion; _i_'m no companion to you mr. snitchey." "yes, yes, you are, my dear," he interposed. "no no, i'm not," said mrs. snitchey with a majestic smile. "i know my station. will you look at your chosen companion, mr. snitchey; at your referee; at the keeper of your secrets; at the man you trust; at your other self, in short." the habitual association of self with craggs, occasioned mr. snitchey to look in that direction. "if you can look that man in the eye this night," said mrs. snitchey, "and not know that you are deluded, practised upon: made the victim of his arts, and bent down prostrate to his will, by some unaccountable fascination which it is impossible to explain, and against which no warning of mine is of the least avail: all i can say is--i pity you!" at the very same moment mrs. craggs was oracular on the cross subject. was it possible she said, that craggs could so blind himself to his snitcheys, as not to feel his true position. did he mean to say that he had seen his snitcheys come into that room, and didn't plainly see that there was reservation, cunning, treachery in the man? would he tell her that his very action, when he wiped his forehead and looked so stealthily about him, didn't show that there was something weighing on the conscience of his precious snitcheys (if he had a conscience), that wouldn't bear the light. did anybody but his snitcheys come to festive entertainments like a burglar?--which, by the way, was hardly a clear illustration of the case, as he had walked in very mildly at the door. and would he still assert to her at noon-day (it being nearly midnight), that his snitcheys were to be justified through thick and thin, against all facts, and reason, and experience? neither snitchey nor craggs openly attempted to stem the current which had thus set in, but both were content to be carried gently along it, until its force abated; which happened at about the same time as a general movement for a country dance; when mr. snitchey proposed himself as a partner to mrs. craggs, and mr. craggs gallantly offered himself to mrs. snitchey; and after some such slight evasions as "why don't you ask somebody else?" and "you'll be glad, i know, if i decline," and "i wonder you can dance out of the office" (but this jocosely now), each lady graciously accepted, and took her place. it was an old custom among them, indeed, to do so, and to pair off, in like manner, at dinners and suppers; for they were excellent friends, and on a footing of easy familiarity. perhaps the false craggs and the wicked snitchey were a recognised fiction with the two wives, as doe and roe, incessantly running up and down bailiwicks, were with the two husbands: or perhaps the ladies had instituted, and taken upon themselves, these two shares in the business, rather than be left out of it altogether. but certain it is, that each wife went as gravely and steadily to work in her vocation as her husband did in his: and would have considered it almost impossible for the firm to maintain a successful and respectable existence, without her laudable exertions. but now the bird of paradise was seen to flutter down the middle; and the little bells began to bounce and jingle in poussette; and the doctor's rosy face spun round and round, like an expressive pegtop highly varnished; and breathless mr. craggs began to doubt already, whether country dancing had been made "too easy," like the rest of life; and mr. snitchey, with his nimble cuts and capers, footed it for self, and craggs, and half a dozen more. now, too, the fire took fresh courage, favored by the lively wind the dance awakened, and burnt clear and high. it was the genius of the room, and present everywhere. it shone in people's eyes, it sparkled in the jewels on the snowy necks of girls, it twinkled at their ears as if it whispered to them slyly, it flashed about their waists, it flickered on the ground and made it rosy for their feet, it bloomed upon the ceiling that its glow might set off their bright faces, and it kindled up a general illumination in mrs. craggs's little belfry. now, too, the lively air that fanned it, grew less gentle as the music quickened and the dance proceeded with new spirit; and a breeze arose that made the leaves and berries dance upon the wall, as they had often done upon the trees; and rustled in the room as if an invisible company of fairies, treading in the footsteps of the good substantial revellers, were whirling after them. now, too, no feature of the doctor's face could be distinguished as he spun and spun; and now there seemed a dozen birds of paradise in fitful flight; and now there were a thousand little bells at work; and now a fleet of flying skirts was ruffled by a little tempest; when the music gave in, and the dance was over. [illustration] hot and breathless as the doctor was, it only made him the more impatient for alfred's coming. "anything been seen, britain? anything been heard?" "too dark to see far, sir. too much noise inside the house to hear." "that's right! the gayer welcome for him. how goes the time?" "just twelve, sir. he can't be long, sir." "stir up the fire, and throw another log upon it," said the doctor. "let him see his welcome blazing out upon the night--good boy!--as he comes along!" he saw it--yes! from the chaise he caught the light, as he turned the corner by the old church. he knew the room from which it shone. he saw the wintry branches of the old trees between the light and him. he knew that one of those trees rustled musically in the summer time at the window of marion's chamber. the tears were in his eyes. his heart throbbed so violently that he could hardly bear his happiness. how often he had thought of this time--pictured it under all circumstances--feared that it might never come--yearned, and wearied for it--far away! again the light! distinct and ruddy; kindled, he knew, to give him welcome, and to speed him home. he beckoned with his hand, and waved his hat, and cheered out, loud, as if the light were they, and they could see and hear him, as he dashed towards them through the mud and mire, triumphantly. "stop!" he knew the doctor, and understood what he had done. he would not let it be a surprise to them. but he could make it one, yet, by going forward on foot. if the orchard gate were open, he could enter there; if not, the wall was easily climbed, as he knew of old; and he would be among them in an instant. he dismounted from the chaise, and telling the driver--even that was not easy in his agitation--to remain behind for a few minutes, and then to follow slowly, ran on with exceeding swiftness, tried the gate, scaled the wall, jumped down on the other side, and stood panting in the old orchard. there was a frosty rime upon the trees, which, in the faint light of the clouded moon, hung upon the smaller branches like dead garlands. withered leaves crackled and snapped beneath his feet, as he crept softly on towards the house. the desolation of a winter night sat brooding on the earth, and in the sky. but the red light came cheerily towards him from the windows: figures passed and repassed there: and the hum and murmur of voices greeted his ear, sweetly. listening for hers: attempting, as he crept on, to detach it from the rest, and half-believing that he heard it: he had nearly reached the door, when it was abruptly opened, and a figure coming out encountered his. it instantly recoiled with a half-suppressed cry. "clemency," he said, "don't you know me?" "don't come in," she answered, pushing him back. "go away. don't ask me why. don't come in." "what is the matter?" he exclaimed. "i don't know. i--i am afraid to think. go back. hark!" there was a sudden tumult in the house. she put her hands upon her ears. a wild scream, such as no hands could shut out, was heard; and grace--distraction in her looks and manner--rushed out at the door. "grace!" he caught her in his arms. "what is it! is she dead!" she disengaged herself, as if to recognise his face, and fell down at his feet. a crowd of figures came about them from the house. among them was her father, with a paper in his hand. "what is it!" cried alfred, grasping his hair with his hands, and looking in an agony from face to face, as he bent upon his knee, beside the insensible girl. "will no one look at me? will no one speak to me? does no one know me? is there no voice among you all, to tell me what it is!" there was a murmur among them. "she is gone." "gone!" he echoed. "fled, my dear alfred!" said the doctor, in a broken voice, and with his hands before his face. "gone from her home and us. to-night! she writes that she has made her innocent and blameless choice--entreats that we will forgive her--prays that we will not forget her--and is gone." "with whom? where?" he started up as if to follow in pursuit, but when they gave way to let him pass, looked wildly round upon them, staggered back, and sunk down in his former attitude, clasping one of grace's cold hands in his own. there was a hurried running to and fro, confusion, noise, disorder, and no purpose. some proceeded to disperse themselves about the roads, and some took horse, and some got lights, and some conversed together, urging that there was no trace or track to follow. some approached him kindly, with the view of offering consolation; some admonished him that grace must be removed into the house, and he prevented it. he never heard them, and he never moved. the snow fell fast and thick. he looked up for a moment in the air, and thought that those white ashes strewn upon his hopes and misery, were suited to them well. he looked round on the whitening ground, and thought how marion's foot-prints would be hushed and covered up, as soon as made, and even that remembrance of her blotted out. but he never felt the weather, and he never stirred. part the third. [illustration] part the third [illustration] the world had grown six years older since that night of the return. it was a warm autumn afternoon, and there had been heavy rain. the sun burst suddenly from among the clouds: and the old battle-ground, sparkling brilliantly and cheerfully at sight of it in one green place, flashed a responsive welcome there, which spread along the country side as if a joyful beacon had been lighted up, and answered from a thousand stations. how beautiful the landscape kindling in the light, and that luxuriant influence passing on like a celestial presence, brightening everything! the wood, a sombre mass before, revealed its varied tints of yellow, green, brown, red; its different forms of trees, with raindrops glittering on their leaves and twinkling as they fell. the verdant meadow-land, bright and glowing, seemed as if it had been blind a minute since, and now had found a sense of sight wherewith to look up at the shining sky. corn-fields, hedge-rows, fences, homesteads, the clustered roofs, the steeple of the church, the stream, the watermill, all sprung out of the gloomy darkness, smiling. birds sang sweetly, flowers raised their drooping heads, fresh scents arose from the invigorated ground; the blue expanse above, extended and diffused itself; already the sun's slanting rays pierced mortally the sullen bank of cloud that lingered in its flight; and a rainbow, spirit of all the colors that adorned the earth and sky, spanned the whole arch with its triumphant glory. at such a time, one little roadside inn, snugly sheltered behind a great elm-tree with a rare seat for idlers encircling its capacious bole, addressed a cheerful front towards the traveller, as a house of entertainment ought, and tempted him with many mute but significant assurances of a comfortable welcome. the ruddy sign-board perched up in the tree, with its golden letters winking in the sun, ogled the passer-by from among the green leaves, like a jolly face, and promised good cheer. the horse-trough, full of clear fresh water, and the ground below it, sprinkled with droppings of fragrant hay, made every horse that passed prick up his ears. the crimson curtains in the lower rooms, and the pure white hangings in the little bed-chambers above, beckoned, come in! with every breath of air. upon the bright green shutters, there were golden legends about beer and ale, and neat wines, and good beds; and an affecting picture of a brown jug frothing over at the top. upon the window-sills were flowering plants in bright red pots, which made a lively show against the white front of the house; and in the darkness of the doorway there were streaks of light, which glanced off from the surfaces of bottles and tankards. on the door-step, appeared a proper figure of a landlord, too; for though he was a short man, he was round and broad; and stood with his hands in his pockets, and his legs just wide enough apart to express a mind at rest upon the subject of the cellar, and an easy confidence--too calm and virtuous to become a swagger--in the general resources of the inn. the superabundant moisture, trickling from everything after the late rain, set him off well. nothing near him was thirsty. certain top-heavy dahlias, looking over the palings of his neat well-ordered garden, had swilled as much as they could carry--perhaps a trifle more--and may have been the worse for liquor; but the sweetbriar, roses, wall-flowers, the plants at the windows, and the leaves on the old tree, were in the beaming state of moderate company that had taken no more than was wholesome for them, and had served to develope their best qualities. sprinkling dewy drops about them on the ground, they seemed profuse of innocent and sparkling mirth, that did good where it lighted, softening neglected corners which the steady rain could seldom reach, and hurting nothing. [illustration] this village inn had assumed, on being established, an uncommon sign. it was called the nutmeg grater. and underneath that household word, was inscribed, up in the tree, on the same flaming board, and in the like golden characters, by benjamin britain. at a second glance, and on a more minute examination of his face, you might have known that it was no other than benjamin britain himself who stood in the doorway--reasonably changed by time, but for the better; a very comfortable host indeed. "mrs. b.," said mr. britain, looking down the road, "is rather late. it's tea time." as there was no mrs. britain coming, he strolled leisurely out into the road and looked up at the house, very much to his satisfaction. "it's just the sort of house," said benjamin, "i should wish to stop at, if i didn't keep it." then he strolled towards the garden paling, and took a look at the dahlias. they looked over at him, with a helpless, drowsy hanging of their heads: which bobbed again, as the heavy drops of wet dripped off them. "you must be looked after," said benjamin. "memorandum, not to forget to tell her so. she's a long time coming!" mr. britain's better half seemed to be by so very much his better half, that his own moiety of himself was utterly cast away and helpless without her. "she hadn't much to do, i think," said ben. "there were a few little matters of business after market, but not many. oh! here we are at last!" a chaise-cart, driven by a boy, came clattering along the road: and seated in it, in a chair, with a large well-saturated umbrella spread out to dry behind her, was the plump figure of a matronly woman, with her bare arms folded across a basket which she carried on her knee, several other baskets and parcels lying crowded about her, and a certain bright good-nature in her face and contented awkwardness in her manner, as she jogged to and fro with the motion of her carriage, which smacked of old times, even in the distance. upon her nearer approach, this relish of bygone days was not diminished; and when the cart stopped at the nutmeg grater door, a pair of shoes, alighting from it, slipped nimbly through mr. britain's open arms, and came down with a substantial weight upon the pathway, which shoes could hardly have belonged to any one but clemency newcome. in fact they did belong to her, and she stood in them, and a rosy comfortable-looking soul she was: with as much soap on her glossy face as in times of yore, but with whole elbows now, that had grown quite dimpled in her improved condition. "you're late, clemmy!" said mr. britain. "why, you see, ben, i've had a deal to do!" she replied, looking busily after the safe removal into the house of all the packages and baskets; "eight, nine, ten--where's eleven? oh! my baskets, eleven! it's all right. put the horse up, harry, and if he coughs again give him a warm mash to-night. eight, nine, ten. why, where's eleven? oh i forgot, it's all right. how's the children, ben?" "hearty, clemmy, hearty." "bless their precious faces!" said mrs. britain, unbonneting her own round countenance (for she and her husband were by this time in the bar), and smoothing her hair with her open hands. "give us a kiss, old man." mr. britain promptly complied. "i think," said mrs. britain, applying herself to her pockets and drawing forth an immense bulk of thin books and crumpled papers, a very kennel of dogs' ears: "i've done everything. bills all settled--turnips sold--brewer's account looked into and paid--'bacco pipes ordered--seventeen pound four paid into the bank--doctor heathfield's charge for little clem--you'll guess what that is--doctor heathfield won't take nothing again, ben." "i thought he wouldn't," returned britain. "no. he says whatever family you was to have, ben, he'd never put you to the cost of a halfpenny. not if you was to have twenty." mr. britain's face assumed a serious expression, and he looked hard at the wall. "a'nt it kind of him?" said clemency. "very," returned mr. britain. "it's the sort of kindness that i wouldn't presume upon, on any account." "no," retorted clemency. "of course not. then there's the pony--he fetched eight pound two; and that a'nt bad, is it?" "it's very good," said ben. "i'm glad you're pleased!" exclaimed his wife. "i thought you would be; and i think that's all, and so no more at present from yours and cetrer, c. britain. ha ha ha! there! take all the papers, and lock 'em. oh! wait a minute. here's a printed bill to stick on the wall. wet from the printer's. how nice it smells!" "what's this?" said ben, looking over the document. "i don't know," replied his wife. "i haven't read a word of it." "'to be sold by auction,'" read the host of the nutmeg grater, "'unless previously disposed of by private contract.'" "they always put that," said clemency. "yes, but they don't always put this," he returned. "look here, 'mansion' &c.--'offices,' &c., 'shrubberies,' &c., 'ring fence,' &c. 'messrs. snitchey and craggs,' &c. 'ornamental portion of the unencumbered freehold property of michael warden, esquire, intending to continue to reside abroad'!" "intending to continue to reside abroad!" repeated clemency. "here it is," said mr. britain. "look!" "and it was only this very day that i heard it whispered at the old house, that better and plainer news had been half promised of her, soon!" said clemency, shaking her head sorrowfully, and patting her elbows as if the recollection of old times unconsciously awakened her old habits. "dear, dear, dear! there'll be heavy hearts, ben, yonder." mr. britain heaved a sigh, and shook his head, and said he couldn't make it out: he had left off trying long ago. with that remark, he applied himself to putting up the bill just inside the bar window: and clemency, after meditating in silence for a few moments, roused herself, cleared her thoughtful brow, and bustled off to look after the children. though the host of the nutmeg grater had a lively regard for his good-wife, it was of the old patronising kind; and she amused him mightily. nothing would have astonished him so much, as to have known for certain from any third party, that it was she who managed the whole house, and made him, by her plain straightforward thrift, good-humour, honesty, and industry, a thriving man. so easy it is, in any degree of life, (as the world very often finds it,) to take those cheerful natures that never assert their merit, at their own modest valuation; and to conceive a flippant liking of people for their outward oddities and eccentricities, whose innate worth, if we would look so far, might make us blush in the comparison! it was comfortable to mr. britain, to think of his own condescension in having married clemency. she was a perpetual testimony to him of the goodness of his heart, and the kindness of his disposition; and he felt that her being an excellent wife was an illustration of the old precept that virtue is its own reward. he had finished wafering up the bill, and had locked the vouchers for her day's proceedings in the cupboard--chuckling all the time, over her capacity for business--when, returning with the news that the two master britains were playing in the coach-house, under the superintendence of one betsey, and that little clem was sleeping "like a picture," she sat down to tea, which had awaited her arrival, on a little table. it was a very neat little bar, with the usual display of bottles and glasses; a sedate clock, right to the minute (it was half-past five); everything in its place, and everything furbished and polished up to the very utmost. "it's the first time i've sat down quietly to-day, i declare," said mrs. britain, taking a long breath, as if she had sat down for the night; but getting up again immediately to hand her husband his tea, and cut him his bread-and-butter; "how that bill does set me thinking of old times!" "ah!" said mr. britain, handling his saucer like an oyster, and disposing of its contents on the same principle. "that same mr. michael warden," said clemency, shaking her head at the notice of sale, "lost me my old place." "and got you your husband," said mr. britain. "well! so he did," retorted clemency, "and many thanks to him." "man's the creature of habit," said mr. britain, surveying her, over his saucer. "i had somehow got used to you, clem; and i found i shouldn't be able to get on without you. so we went and got made man and wife. ha, ha! we! who'd have thought it!" "who indeed!" cried clemency. "it was very good of you, ben." "no, no, no," replied mr. britain, with an air of self-denial. "nothing worth mentioning." "oh yes it was, ben," said his wife, with great simplicity; "i'm sure i think so; and am very much obliged to you. ah!" looking again at the bill; "when she was known to be gone, and out of reach, dear girl, i couldn't help telling--for her sake quite as much as theirs--what i knew, could i?" "you told it, any how," observed her husband. "and doctor jeddler," pursued clemency, putting down her tea-cup, and looking thoughtfully at the bill, "in his grief and passion, turned me out of house and home! i never have been so glad of anything in all my life, as that i didn't say an angry word to him, and hadn't an angry feeling towards him, even then; for he repented that truly, afterwards. how often he has sat in this room, and told me over and over again, he was sorry for it!--the last time, only yesterday, when you were out. how often he has sat in this room, and talked to me, hour after hour, about one thing and another, in which he made believe to be interested!--but only for the sake of the days that are gone away, and because he knows she used to like me, ben!" "why, how did you ever come to catch a glimpse of that, clem?" asked her husband: astonished that she should have a distinct perception of a truth which had only dimly suggested itself to his inquiring mind. "i don't know i'm sure," said clemency, blowing her tea, to cool it. "bless you, i couldn't tell you if you was to offer me a reward of a hundred pound." he might have pursued this metaphysical subject but for her catching a glimpse of a substantial fact behind him, in the shape of a gentleman attired in mourning, and cloaked and booted like a rider on horseback, who stood at the bar-door. he seemed attentive to their conversation, and not at all impatient to interrupt it. clemency hastily rose at this sight. mr. britain also rose and saluted the guest. "will you please to walk up stairs, sir. there's a very nice room up stairs, sir." "thank you," said the stranger, looking earnestly at mr. britain's wife. "may i come in here?" "oh, surely, if you like, sir," returned clemency, admitting him. "what would you please to want, sir?" the bill had caught his eye, and he was reading it. "excellent property that, sir," observed mr. britain. he made no answer; but turning round, when he had finished reading, looked at clemency with the same observant curiosity as before. "you were asking me," he said, still looking at her-- "what you would please to take, sir," answered clemency, stealing a glance at him in return. "if you will let me have a draught of ale," he said, moving to a table by the window, "and will let me have it here, without being any interruption to your meal, i shall be much obliged to you." he sat down as he spoke, without any further parley, and looked out at the prospect. he was an easy well-knit figure of a man in the prime of life. his face, much browned by the sun, was shaded by a quantity of dark hair; and he wore a moustache. his beer being set before him, he filled out a glass, and drank, good-humouredly, to the house; adding, as he put the tumbler down again: "it's a new house, is it not?" "not particularly new, sir," replied mr. britain. "between five and six years old," said clemency: speaking very distinctly. "i think i heard you mention doctor jeddler's name, as i came in," inquired the stranger. "that bill reminds me of him; for i happen to know something of that story, by hearsay, and through certain connexions of mine.--is the old man living?" "yes, he's living, sir," said clemency. "much changed?" "since when, sir?" returned clemency, with remarkable emphasis and expression. "since his daughter--went away." "yes! he's greatly changed since then," said clemency. "he's grey and old, and hasn't the same way with him at all; but i think he's happy now. he has taken on with his sister since then, and goes to see her very often. that did him good, directly. at first, he was sadly broken down; and it was enough to make one's heart bleed, to see him wandering about, railing at the world; but a great change for the better came over him after a year or two, and then he began to like to talk about his lost daughter, and to praise her, ay and the world too! and was never tired of saying, with the tears in his poor eyes, how beautiful and good she was. he had forgiven her then. that was about the same time as miss grace's marriage. britain, you remember?" mr. britain remembered very well. "the sister _is_ married then," returned the stranger. he paused for some time before he asked, "to whom?" clemency narrowly escaped oversetting the tea-board, in her emotion at this question. "did _you_ never hear?" she said. "i should like to hear," he replied, as he filled his glass again, and raised it to his lips. "ah! it would be a long story, if it was properly told," said clemency, resting her chin on the palm of her left hand, and supporting that elbow on her right hand, as she shook her head, and looked back through the intervening years, as if she were looking at a fire. "it would be a long story, i am sure." "but told as a short one," suggested the stranger. "told as a short one," repeated clemency in the same thoughtful tone, and without any apparent reference to him, or consciousness of having auditors, "what would there be to tell? that they grieved together, and remembered her together, like a person dead; that they were so tender of her, never would reproach her, called her back to one another as she used to be, and found excuses for her? every one knows that. i'm sure _i_ do. no one better," added clemency, wiping her eyes with her hand. "and so," suggested the stranger. "and so," said clemency, taking him up mechanically, and without any change in her attitude or manner, "they at last were married. they were married on her birth-day--it comes round again to-morrow--very quiet, very humble like, but very happy. mr. alfred said, one night when they were walking in the orchard, 'grace, shall our wedding-day be marion's birth-day?' and it was." "and they have lived happily together?" said the stranger. "ay," said clemency. "no two people ever more so. they have had no sorrow but this." she raised her head as with a sudden attention to the circumstances under which she was recalling these events, and looked quickly at the stranger. seeing that his face was turned towards the window, and that he seemed intent upon the prospect, she made some eager signs to her husband, and pointed to the bill, and moved her mouth as if she were repeating with great energy, one word or phrase to him over and over again. as she uttered no sound, and as her dumb motions like most of her gestures were of a very extraordinary kind, this unintelligible conduct reduced mr. britain to the confines of despair. he stared at the table, at the stranger, at the spoons, at his wife--followed her pantomime with looks of deep amazement and perplexity--asked in the same language, was it property in danger, was it he in danger, was it she--answered her signals with other signals expressive of the deepest distress and confusion--followed the motions of her lips--guessed half aloud "milk and water," "monthly warning," "mice and walnuts"--and couldn't approach her meaning. clemency gave it up at last, as a hopeless attempt; and moving her chair by very slow degrees a little nearer to the stranger, sat with her eyes apparently cast down but glancing sharply at him now and then, waiting until he should ask some other question. she had not to wait long; for he said, presently, "and what is the after history of the young lady who went away? they know it, i suppose?" clemency shook her head. "i've heard," she said, "that doctor jeddler is thought to know more of it than he tells. miss grace has had letters from her sister, saying that she was well and happy, and made much happier by her being married to mr. alfred: and has written letters back. but there's a mystery about her life and fortunes, altogether, which nothing has cleared up to this hour, and which--" she faltered here, and stopped. "and which--" repeated the stranger. "which only one other person, i believe, could explain," said clemency, drawing her breath quickly. "who may that be?" asked the stranger. "mr. michael warden!" answered clemency, almost in a shriek: at once conveying to her husband what she would have had him understand before, and letting michael warden know that he was recognised. "you remember me, sir," said clemency, trembling with emotion; "i saw just now you did! you remember me, that night in the garden. i was with her!" "yes. you were," he said. "yes, sir," returned clemency. "yes, to be sure. this is my husband, if you please. ben, my dear ben, run to miss grace--run to mr. alfred--run somewhere, ben! bring somebody here, directly!" "stay!" said michael warden, quietly interposing himself between the door and britain. "what would you do?" "let them know that you are here, sir," answered clemency, clapping her hands in sheer agitation. "let them know that they may hear of her, from your own lips; let them know that she is not quite lost to them, but that she will come home again yet, to bless her father and her loving sister--even her old servant, even me," she struck herself upon the breast with both hands, "with a sight of her sweet face. run, ben, run!" and still she pressed him on towards the door, and still mr. warden stood before it, with his hand stretched out, not angrily, but sorrowfully. "or perhaps," said clemency, running past her husband, and catching in her emotion at mr. warden's cloak, "perhaps she's here now; perhaps she's close by. i think from your manner she is. let me see her, sir, if you please. i waited on her when she was a little child. i saw her grow to be the pride of all this place. i knew her when she was mr. alfred's promised wife. i tried to warn her when you tempted her away. i know what her old home was when she was like the soul of it, and how it changed when she was gone and lost. let me speak to her, if you please!" he gazed at her with compassion, not unmixed with wonder: but he made no gesture of assent. "i don't think she _can_ know," pursued clemency, "how truly they forgive her; how they love her; what joy it would be to them, to see her once more. she may be timorous of going home. perhaps if she sees me, it may give her new heart. only tell me truly, mr. warden, is she with you?" "she is not," he answered, shaking his head. this answer, and his manner, and his black dress, and his coming back so quietly, and his announced intention of continuing to live abroad, explained it all. marion was dead. he didn't contradict her; yes, she was dead! clemency sat down, hid her face upon the table, and cried. at that moment, a grey-headed old gentleman came running in quite out of breath, and panting so much that his voice was scarcely to be recognised as the voice of mr. snitchey. "good heaven, mr. warden!" said the lawyer, taking him aside, "what wind has blown----" he was so blown himself, that he couldn't get on any further until after a pause, when he added, feebly, "you here?" "an ill wind, i am afraid," he answered. "if you could have heard what has just passed--how i have been besought and entreated to perform impossibilities--what confusion and affliction i carry with me!" "i can guess it all. but why did you ever come here, my good sir?" retorted snitchey. "come! how should i know who kept the house? when i sent my servant on to you, i strolled in here because the place was new to me; and i had a natural curiosity in everything new and old, in these old scenes; and it was outside the town. i wanted to communicate with you first, before appearing there. i wanted to know what people would say to me. i see by your manner that you can tell me. if it were not for your confounded caution, i should have been possessed of everything long ago." "our caution!" returned the lawyer. "speaking for self and craggs--deceased," here mr. snitchey, glancing at his hat-band, shook his head, "how can you reasonably blame us, mr. warden? it was understood between us that the subject was never to be renewed, and that it wasn't a subject on which grave and sober men like us (i made a note of your observations at the time) could interfere? our caution too! when mr. craggs, sir, went down to his respected grave in the full belief----" "i had given a solemn promise of silence until i should return, whenever that might be," interrupted mr. warden; "and i have kept it." "well, sir, and i repeat it," returned mr. snitchey, "we were bound to silence too. we were bound to silence in our duty towards ourselves, and in our duty towards a variety of clients, you among them, who were as close as wax. it was not our place to make inquiries of you on such a delicate subject. i had my suspicions, sir; but it is not six months since i have known the truth, and been assured that you lost her." "by whom?" inquired his client. "by doctor jeddler himself, sir, who at last reposed that confidence in me voluntarily. he, and only he, has known the whole truth, years and years." "and you know it?" said his client. "i do, sir!" replied snitchey; "and i have also reason to know that it will be broken to her sister to-morrow evening. they have given her that promise. in the meantime, perhaps you'll give me the honor of your company at my house; being unexpected at your own. but, not to run the chance of any more such difficulties as you have had here, in case you should be recognised--though you're a good deal changed--i think i might have passed you myself, mr. warden--we had better dine here, and walk on in the evening. it's a very good place to dine at, mr. warden: your own property, by the bye. self and craggs (deceased) took a chop here sometimes, and had it very comfortably served. mr. craggs, sir," said snitchey, shutting his eyes tight for an instant, and opening them again, "was struck off the roll of life too soon." "heaven forgive me for not condoling with you," returned michael warden, passing his hand across his forehead, "but i'm like a man in a dream at present. i seem to want my wits. mr. craggs--yes--i am very sorry we have lost mr. craggs." but he looked at clemency as he said it, and seemed to sympathise with ben, consoling her. "mr. craggs, sir," observed snitchey, "didn't find life, i regret to say, as easy to have and to hold as his theory made it out, or he would have been among us now. it's a great loss to me. he was my right arm, my right leg, my right ear, my right eye, was mr. craggs. i am paralytic without him. he bequeathed his share of the business to mrs. craggs, her executors, administrators, and assigns. his name remains in the firm to this hour. i try, in a childish sort of a way, to make believe, sometimes, that he's alive. you may observe that i speak for self and craggs--deceased sir--deceased," said the tender-hearted attorney, waving his pocket-handkerchief. michael warden, who had still been observant of clemency, turned to mr. snitchey, when he ceased to speak, and whispered in his ear. "ah, poor thing!" said snitchey, shaking his head. "yes. she was always very faithful to marion. she was always very fond of her. pretty marion! poor marion! cheer up, mistress--you _are_ married now, you know, clemency." clemency only sighed, and shook her head. "well, well! wait 'till to-morrow," said the lawyer, kindly. "to-morrow can't bring back the dead to life, mister," said clemency, sobbing. "no. it can't do that, or it would bring back mr. craggs, deceased," returned the lawyer. "but it may bring some soothing circumstances; it may bring some comfort. wait 'till to-morrow!" so clemency, shaking his proffered hand, said that she would; and britain, who had been terribly cast down at sight of his despondent wife (which was like the business hanging its head), said that was right; and mr. snitchey and michael warden went up stairs; and there they were soon engaged in a conversation so cautiously conducted, that no murmur of it was audible above the clatter of plates and dishes, the hissing of the frying-pan, the bubbling of saucepans, the low monotonous waltzing of the jack--with a dreadful click every now and then as if it had met with some mortal accident to its head, in a fit of giddiness--and all the other preparations in the kitchen, for their dinner. * * * * * to-morrow was a bright and peaceful day; and nowhere were the autumn tints more beautifully seen, than from the quiet orchard of the doctor's house. the snows of many winter nights had melted from that ground, the withered leaves of many summer times had rustled there, since she had fled. the honey-suckle porch was green again, the trees cast bountiful and changing shadows on the grass, the landscape was as tranquil and serene as it had ever been; but where was she! not there. not there. she would have been a stranger sight in her old home now, even than that home had been at first, without her. but a lady sat in the familiar place, from whose heart she had never passed away; in whose true memory she lived, unchanging, youthful, radiant with all promise and all hope; in whose affection--and it was a mother's now: there was a cherished little daughter playing by her side--she had no rival, no successor; upon whose gentle lips her name was trembling then. the spirit of the lost girl looked out of those eyes. those eyes of grace, her sister, sitting with her husband in the orchard, on their wedding-day, and his and marion's birth-day. he had not become a great man; he had not grown rich; he had not forgotten the scenes and friends of his youth: he had not fulfilled any one of the doctor's old predictions. but in his useful, patient, unknown visiting of poor men's homes; and in his watching of sick beds; and in his daily knowledge of the gentleness and goodness flowering the bye-paths of the world, not to be trodden down beneath the heavy foot of poverty, but springing up, elastic, in its track, and making its way beautiful; he had better learned and proved, in each succeeding year, the truth of his old faith. the manner of his life, though quiet and remote, had shown him how often men still entertained angels, unawares, as in the olden time; and how the most unlikely forms--even some that were mean and ugly to the view, and poorly clad--became irradiated by the couch of sorrow, want, and pain, and changed to ministering spirits with a glory round their heads. he lived to better purpose on the altered battle-ground perhaps, than if he had contended restlessly in more ambitious lists; and he was happy with his wife, dear grace. and marion. had _he_ forgotten her? "the time has flown, dear grace," he said, "since then;" they had been talking of that night; "and yet it seems a long long while ago. we count by changes and events within us. not by years." "yet we have years to count by, too, since marion was with us," returned grace. "six times, dear husband, counting to-night as one, we have sat here on her birth-day, and spoken together of that happy return, so eagerly expected and so long deferred. ah when will it be! when will it be!" her husband attentively observed her, as the tears collected in her eyes; and drawing nearer, said: "but marion told you, in that farewell letter which she left for you upon your table, love, and which you read so often, that years must pass away before it _could_ be. did she not?" she took a letter from her breast, and kissed it, and said "yes." "that through those intervening years, however happy she might be, she would look forward to the time when you would meet again, and all would be made clear: and prayed you, trustfully and hopefully to do the same. the letter runs so, does it not, my dear?" "yes, alfred." "and every other letter she has written since?" "except the last--some months ago--in which she spoke of you, and what you then knew, and what i was to learn to-night." he looked towards the sun, then fast declining, and said that the appointed time was sunset. "alfred!" said grace, laying her hand upon his shoulder earnestly, "there is something in this letter--this old letter, which you say i read so often--that i have never told you. but to-night, dear husband, with that sunset drawing near, and all our life seeming to soften and become hushed with the departing day, i cannot keep it secret." "what is it, love?" "when marion went away, she wrote me, here, that you had once left her a sacred trust to me, and that now she left you, alfred, such a trust in my hands: praying and beseeching me, as i loved her, and as i loved you, not to reject the affection she believed (she knew, she said) you would transfer to me when the new wound was healed, but to encourage and return it." "--and make me a proud, and happy man again, grace. did she say so?" "she meant, to make myself so blest and honored in your love," was his wife's answer, as he held her in his arms. "hear me, my dear!" he said.--"no. hear me so!"--and as he spoke, he gently laid the head she had raised, again upon his shoulder. "i know why i have never heard this passage in the letter, until now. i know why no trace of it ever shewed itself in any word or look of yours at that time. i know why grace, although so true a friend to me, was hard to win to be my wife. and knowing it, my own! i know the priceless value of the heart i gird within my arms, and thank god for the rich possession!" she wept, but not for sorrow, as he pressed her to his heart. after a brief space, he looked down at the child, who was sitting at their feet, playing with a little basket of flowers, and bade her look how golden and how red the sun was. "alfred," said grace, raising her head quickly at these words. "the sun is going down. you have not forgotten what i am to know before it sets." "you are to know the truth of marion's history, my love," he answered. "all the truth," she said, imploringly. "nothing veiled from me, any more. that was the promise. was it not?" "it was," he answered. "before the sun went down on marion's birth-day. and you see it, alfred? it is sinking fast." he put his arm about her waist; and, looking steadily into her eyes, rejoined, "that truth is not reserved so long for me to tell, dear grace. it is to come from other lips." "from other lips!" she faintly echoed. "yes. i know your constant heart, i know how brave you are, i know that to you a word of preparation is enough. you have said, truly, that the time is come. it is. tell me that you have present fortitude to bear a trial--a surprise--a shock: and the messenger is waiting at the gate." "what messenger?" she said. "and what intelligence does he bring?" "i am pledged," he answered her, preserving his steady look, "to say no more. do you think you understand me?" "i am afraid to think," she said. there was that emotion in his face, despite its steady gaze, which frightened her. again she hid her own face on his shoulder, trembling, and entreated him to pause--a moment. "courage, my wife! when you have firmness to receive the messenger, the messenger is waiting at the gate. the sun is setting on marion's birth-day. courage, courage, grace!" she raised her head, and, looking at him, told him she was ready. as she stood, and looked upon him going away, her face was so like marion's as it had been in her later days at home, that it was wonderful to see. he took the child with him. she called her back--she bore the lost girl's name--and pressed her to her bosom. the little creature, being released again, sped after him, and grace was left alone. she knew not what she dreaded, or what hoped; but remained there, motionless, looking at the porch by which they had disappeared. ah! what was that, emerging from its shadow; standing on its threshold! that figure, with its white garments rustling in the evening air; its head laid down upon her father's breast, and pressed against it to his loving heart! oh, god! was it a vision that came bursting from the old man's arms, and with a cry, and with a waving of its hands, and with a wild precipitation of itself upon her in its boundless love, sank down in her embrace! "oh, marion, marion! oh, my sister! oh, my heart's dear love! oh, joy and happiness unutterable, so to meet again!" it was no dream, no phantom conjured up by hope and fear, but marion, sweet marion! so beautiful, so happy, so unalloyed by care and trial, so elevated and exalted in her loveliness, that as the setting sun shone brightly on her upturned face, she might have been a spirit visiting the earth upon some healing mission. clinging to her sister, who had dropped upon a seat, and bent down over her: and smiling through her tears, and kneeling close before her, with both arms twining round her, and never turning for an instant from her face: and with the glory of the setting sun upon her brow, and with the soft tranquillity of evening gathering around them: marion at length broke silence; her voice, so calm, low, clear, and pleasant, well-tuned to the time. "when this was my dear home, grace, as it will be now, again--" "stay, my sweet love! a moment! oh marion, to hear you speak again." she could not bear the voice she loved so well, at first. "when this was my dear home, grace, as it will be now, again, i loved him from my soul. i loved him most devotedly. i would have died for him, though i was so young. i never slighted his affection in my secret breast, for one brief instant. it was far beyond all price to me. although it is so long ago, and past and gone, and everything is wholly changed, i could not bear to think that you, who love so well, should think i did not truly love him once. i never loved him better, grace, than when he left this very scene upon this very day. i never loved him better, dear one, than i did that night when _i_ left here." her sister, bending over her, could only look into her face, and hold her fast. "but he had gained, unconsciously," said marion, with a gentle smile, "another heart, before i knew that i had one to give him. that heart--yours, my sister--was so yielded up, in all its other tenderness, to me; was so devoted, and so noble; that it plucked its love away, and kept its secret from all eyes but mine--ah! what other eyes were quickened by such tenderness and gratitude!--and was content to sacrifice itself to me. but i knew something of its depths. i knew the struggle it had made. i knew its high, inestimable worth to him, and his appreciation of it, let him love me as he would. i knew the debt i owed it. i had its great example every day before me. what you had done for me, i knew that i could do, grace, if i would, for you. i never laid my head down on my pillow, but i prayed with tears to do it. i never laid my head down on my pillow, but i thought of alfred's own words, on the day of his departure, and how truly he had said (for i knew that, by you) that there were victories gained every day, in struggling hearts, to which these fields of battle were as nothing. thinking more and more upon the great endurance cheerfully sustained, and never known or cared for, that there must be every day and hour, in that great strife of which he spoke, my trial seemed to grow light and easy: and he who knows our hearts, my dearest, at this moment, and who knows there is no drop of bitterness or grief--of anything but unmixed happiness--in mine, enabled me to make the resolution that i never would be alfred's wife. that he should be my brother, and your husband, if the course i took could bring that happy end to pass; but that i never would (grace, i then loved him dearly, dearly!) be his wife!" "oh, marion! oh, marion!" "i had tried to seem indifferent to him;" and she pressed her sister's face against her own; "but that was hard, and you were always his true advocate. i had tried to tell you of my resolution, but you would never hear me; you would never understand me. the time was drawing near for his return. i felt that i must act, before the daily intercourse between us was renewed. i knew that one great pang, undergone at that time, would save a lengthened agony to all of us. i knew that if i went away then, that end must follow which _has_ followed, and which has made us both so happy, grace! i wrote to good aunt martha, for a refuge in her house: i did not then tell her all, but something of my story, and she freely promised it. while i was contesting that step with myself, and with my love of you, and home, mr. warden, brought here by an accident, became, for some time, our companion." "i have sometimes feared of late years, that this might have been," exclaimed her sister, and her countenance was ashy-pale. "you never loved him--and you married him in your self-sacrifice to me!" "he was then," said marion, drawing her sister closer to her, "on the eve of going secretly away for a long time. he wrote to me, after leaving here; told me what his condition and prospects really were; and offered me his hand. he told me he had seen i was not happy in the prospect of alfred's return. i believe he thought my heart had no part in that contract; perhaps thought i might have loved him once, and did not then; perhaps thought that when i tried to seem indifferent, i tried to hide indifference--i cannot tell. but i wished that you should feel me wholly lost to alfred--hopeless to him--dead. do you understand me, love?" her sister looked into her face, attentively. she seemed in doubt. "i saw mr. warden, and confided in his honor; charged him with my secret, on the eve of his and my departure. he kept it. do you understand me, dear?" grace looked confusedly upon her. she scarcely seemed to hear. "my love, my sister!" said marion, "recall your thoughts a moment: listen to me. do not look so strangely on me. there are countries, dearest, where those who would abjure a misplaced passion, or would strive against some cherished feeling of their hearts and conquer it, retire into a hopeless solitude, and close the world against themselves and worldly loves and hopes for ever. when women do so, they assume that name which is so dear to you and me, and call each other sisters. but there may be sisters, grace, who, in the broad world out of doors, and underneath its free sky, and in its crowded places and among its busy life, and trying to assist and cheer it and to do some good,--learn the same lesson; and, with hearts still fresh and young, and open to all happiness and means of happiness, can say the battle is long past, the victory long won. and such a one am i! you understand me now?" still she looked fixedly upon her, and made no reply. "oh grace, dear grace," said marion, clinging yet more tenderly and fondly to that breast from which she had been so long exiled, "if you were not a happy wife and mother--if i had no little namesake here--if alfred, my kind brother, were not your own fond husband--from whence could i derive the ecstasy i feel to-night! but as i left here, so i have returned. my heart has known no other love, my hand has never been bestowed apart from it, i am still your maiden sister: unmarried, unbetrothed: your own old loving marion, in whose affection you exist alone, and have no partner, grace!" she understood her now. her face relaxed; sobs came to her relief; and falling on her neck, she wept and wept, and fondled her as if she were a child again. when they were more composed, they found that the doctor, and his sister good aunt martha, were standing near at hand, with alfred. "this is a weary day for me," said good aunt martha, smiling through her tears, as she embraced her nieces; "for i lose my dear companion in making you all happy; and what can you give me in return for my marion?" "a converted brother," said the doctor. "that's something, to be sure," retorted aunt martha, "in such a farce as--" "no, pray don't," said the doctor, penitently. "well, i won't," replied aunt martha. "but i consider myself ill-used. i don't know what's to become of me without my marion, after we have lived together half-a-dozen years." "you must come and live here, i suppose," replied the doctor. "we sha'n't quarrel now, martha." "or get married, aunt," said alfred. "indeed," returned the old lady, "i think it might be a good speculation if i were to set my cap at michael warden, who, i hear, is come home much the better for his absence, in all respects. but as i knew him when he was a boy, and i was not a very young woman then, perhaps he mightn't respond. so i'll make up my mind to go and live with marion, when she marries, and until then (it will not be very long, i dare say) to live alone. what do _you_ say, brother?" "i've a great mind to say it's a ridiculous world altogether, and there's nothing serious in it," observed the poor old doctor. "you might take twenty affidavits of it if you chose, anthony," said his sister; "but nobody would believe you with such eyes as those." "it's a world full of hearts," said the doctor; hugging his younger daughter, and bending across her to hug grace--for he couldn't separate the sisters; "and a serious world, with all its folly--even with mine, which was enough to have swamped the whole globe; and a world on which the sun never rises, but it looks upon a thousand bloodless battles that are some set-off against the miseries and wickedness of battle-fields; and a world we need be careful how we libel, heaven forgive us, for it is a world of sacred mysteries, and its creator only knows what lies beneath the surface of his lightest image!" you would not be the better pleased with my rude pen, if it dissected and laid open to your view the transports of this family, long severed and now reunited. therefore, i will not follow the poor doctor through his humbled recollection of the sorrow he had had, when marion was lost to him; nor will i tell how serious he had found that world to be, in which some love deep-anchored, is the portion of all human creatures; nor how such a trifle as the absence of one little unit in the great absurd account, had stricken him to the ground. nor how, in compassion for his distress, his sister had, long ago, revealed the truth to him, by slow degrees; and brought him to the knowledge of the heart of his self-banished daughter, and to that daughter's side. nor how alfred heathfield had been told the truth, too, in the course of that then current year; and marion had seen him, and had promised him, as her brother, that on her birth-day, in the evening, grace should know it from her lips at last. "i beg your pardon, doctor," said mr. snitchey, looking into the orchard, "but have i liberty to come in?" without waiting for permission, he came straight to marion, and kissed her hand, quite joyfully. "if mr. craggs had been alive, my dear miss marion," said mr. snitchey, "he would have had great interest in this occasion. it might have suggested to him, mr. alfred, that our life is not too easy, perhaps; that, taken altogether, it will bear any little smoothing we can give it; but mr. craggs was a man who could endure to be convinced, sir. he was always open to conviction. if he were open to conviction now, i--this is weakness. mrs. snitchey, my dear,"--at his summons that lady appeared from behind the door, "you are among old friends." mrs. snitchey having delivered her congratulations, took her husband aside. "one moment, mr. snitchey," said that lady. "it is not in my nature to rake up the ashes of the departed." "no my dear," returned her husband. "mr. craggs is--" "yes, my dear, he is deceased," said mr. snitchey. "but i ask you if you recollect," pursued his wife, "that evening of the ball. i only ask you that. if you do; and if your memory has not entirely failed you, mr. snitchey; and if you are not absolutely in your dotage; i ask you to connect this time with that--to remember how i begged and prayed you, on my knees--" "upon your knees, my dear?" said mr. snitchey. "yes," said mrs. snitchey, confidently, "and you know it--to beware of that man--to observe his eye--and now to tell me whether i was right, and whether at that moment he knew secrets which he didn't choose to tell." "mrs. snitchey," returned her husband, in her ear, "madam. did you ever observe anything in _my_ eye?" "no," said mrs. snitchey, sharply. "don't flatter yourself." "because, ma'am, that night," he continued, twitching her by the sleeve, "it happens that we both knew secrets which we didn't choose to tell, and both knew just the same, professionally. and so the less you say about such things the better, mrs. snitchey; and take this as a warning to have wiser and more charitable eyes another time. miss marion, i brought a friend of yours along with me. here! mistress." poor clemency, with her apron to her eyes, came slowly in, escorted by her husband; the latter doleful with the presentiment, that if she abandoned herself to grief, the nutmeg grater was done for. "now, mistress," said the lawyer, checking marion as she ran towards her, and interposing himself between them, "what's the matter with _you_?" "the matter!" cried poor clemency. when, looking up in wonder, and in indignant remonstrance, and in the added emotion of a great roar from mr. britain, and seeing that sweet face so well-remembered close before her, she stared, sobbed, laughed, cried, screamed, embraced her, held her fast, released her, fell on mr. snitchey and embraced him (much to mrs. snitchey's indignation), fell on the doctor and embraced him, fell on mr. britain and embraced him, and concluded by embracing herself, throwing her apron over her head, and going into hysterics behind it. a stranger had come into the orchard, after mr. snitchey, and had remained apart, near the gate, without being observed by any of the group; for they had little spare attention to bestow, and that had been monopolised by the ecstasies of clemency. he did not appear to wish to be observed, but stood alone, with downcast eyes; and there was an air of dejection about him (though he was a gentleman of a gallant appearance) which the general happiness rendered more remarkable. none but the quick eyes of aunt martha, however, remarked him at all; but almost as soon as she espied him, she was in conversation with him. presently, going to where marion stood with grace and her little namesake, she whispered something in marion's ear, at which she started, and appeared surprised; but soon recovering from her confusion, she timidly approached the stranger, in aunt martha's company, and engaged in conversation with him too. "mr. britain," said the lawyer, putting his hand in his pocket, and bringing out a legal-looking document, while this was going on, "i congratulate you. you are now the whole and sole proprietor of that freehold tenement, at present occupied and held by yourself as a licensed tavern, or house of public entertainment, and commonly called or known by the sign of the nutmeg grater. your wife lost one house, through my client mr. michael warden; and now gains another. i shall have the pleasure of canvassing you for the county, one of these fine mornings." "would it make any difference in the vote if the sign was altered, sir?" asked britain. "not in the least," replied the lawyer. "then," said mr. britain, handing him back the conveyance, "just clap in the words, 'and thimble,' will you be so good; and i'll have the two mottoes painted up in the parlour, instead of my wife's portrait." [illustration] "and let me," said a voice behind them; it was the stranger's--michael warden's; "let me claim the benefit of those inscriptions. mr. heathfield and dr. jeddler, i might have deeply wronged you both. that i did not, is no virtue of my own. i will not say that i am six years wiser than i was, or better. but i have known, at any rate, that term of selfreproach. i can urge no reason why you should deal gently with me. i abused the hospitality of this house; and learnt my own demerits, with a shame i never have forgotten, yet with some profit too i would fain hope, from one," he glanced at marion, "to whom i made my humble supplication for forgiveness, when i knew her merit and my deep unworthiness. in a few days i shall quit this place for ever. i entreat your pardon. do as you would be done by! forget, and forgive!" time--from whom i had the latter portion of this story, and with whom i have the pleasure of a personal acquaintance of some five and thirty years' duration--informed me, leaning easily upon his scythe, that michael warden never went away again, and never sold his house, but opened it afresh, maintained a golden mean of hospitality, and had a wife, the pride and honor of that country-side, whose name was marion. but as i have observed that time confuses facts occasionally, i hardly know what weight to give to his authority. the end. london: bradbury and evans, printers, whitefriars. new work by boz. _now publishing in monthly parts, price s. each_, dealings with the firm of dombey and son, wholesale, retail, and for exportation. by charles dickens. with illustrations by hablot k. browne. now ready, in one handsome volume, vo, elegantly bound in cloth, price _s._ oliver twist. by charles dickens. with illustrations by george cruikshank, and the _latest corrections and alterations of the author_. mr dickens's works. martin chuzzlewit. with forty illustrations by "phiz." in one volume, price _s._ cloth boards. american notes. for general circulation. _fourth edition._ in two volumes, post vo, price _s._ cloth. barnaby rudge; a tale of the riots of 'eighty. with seventy eight illustrations by g. cattermole and h. k. browne. in one volume, price _s._ cloth. the old curiosity shop. with seventy five illustrations by g. cattermole and h. k. browne. in one volume, price _s._ cloth. sketches by "boz." _a new edition_, with forty illustrations by george cruikshank. in one volume, vo, price _s._ cloth. the pickwick papers. with forty three illustrations by "phiz." in one volume, vo, price _s._ cloth. nicholas nickleby. with forty illustrations by "phiz." in one volume, vo, price _s._ cloth. pictures from italy.--with vignette illustrations. contents:--paris to chalons.--lyons, the rhone, and the goblin of avignon.--avignon to genoa.--genoa and its neighbourhood.--parma, modena, and bologna.--ferrara.--verona, mantua, milan, and the simplon.--rome, naples, and florence. _second edition._ in foolscap vo, price _s._ a christmas carol. in prose. being a ghost story of christmas. with four coloured etchings, and woodcuts, by leech. _tenth edition._ in foolscap vo, price _s._ the chimes. a goblin story of some bells that rang an old year out and a new year in. the illustrations by daniel maclise, r.a.; clarkson stanfield, r.a.; john leech; and richard doyle. _twelfth edition._ in foolscap vo, price _s._ the cricket on the hearth. a fairy tale of home. the illustrations by daniel maclise, r.a.; clarkson stanfield, r.a.; edwin landseer, r.a.; john leech; and richard doyle. _twenty-second edition._ price _s._ portrait of mr. dickens. engraved by finden, from a painting by daniel maclise, r.a. price--in quarto, plain paper, _s._; folio, india paper, _s._ transcriber's note in this text-version italics have been surrounded with _underscores_ and small capitals have been changed to all capitals. the following corrections have been made, on page "heathfeld" changed to "heathfield" (mr. heathfield," said snitchey) " added (said the client, "but i am) " added (you know, clem.") , changed to . (go away. don't ask) " added (on any account.") and "tim" changed to "ben", (doctor heathfield won't take nothing again, ben."), (whatever family you was to have, ben) and ("what's this?" said ben) "faultered" changed to "faltered" (she faultered here, and stopped.) " added (it is sinking fast.") "recal" changed to "recall" (said marion, "recall your thoughts). otherwise the original has been preserved, including inconsistent spelling and hyphenation. transcribed from the chapman and hall "christmas stories" edition by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk doctor marigold i am a cheap jack, and my own father's name was willum marigold. it was in his lifetime supposed by some that his name was william, but my own father always consistently said, no, it was willum. on which point i content myself with looking at the argument this way: if a man is not allowed to know his own name in a free country, how much is he allowed to know in a land of slavery? as to looking at the argument through the medium of the register, willum marigold come into the world before registers come up much,--and went out of it too. they wouldn't have been greatly in his line neither, if they had chanced to come up before him. i was born on the queen's highway, but it was the king's at that time. a doctor was fetched to my own mother by my own father, when it took place on a common; and in consequence of his being a very kind gentleman, and accepting no fee but a tea-tray, i was named doctor, out of gratitude and compliment to him. there you have me. doctor marigold. i am at present a middle-aged man of a broadish build, in cords, leggings, and a sleeved waistcoat the strings of which is always gone behind. repair them how you will, they go like fiddle-strings. you have been to the theatre, and you have seen one of the wiolin-players screw up his wiolin, after listening to it as if it had been whispering the secret to him that it feared it was out of order, and then you have heard it snap. that's as exactly similar to my waistcoat as a waistcoat and a wiolin can be like one another. i am partial to a white hat, and i like a shawl round my neck wore loose and easy. sitting down is my favourite posture. if i have a taste in point of personal jewelry, it is mother-of-pearl buttons. there you have me again, as large as life. the doctor having accepted a tea-tray, you'll guess that my father was a cheap jack before me. you are right. he was. it was a pretty tray. it represented a large lady going along a serpentining up-hill gravel-walk, to attend a little church. two swans had likewise come astray with the same intentions. when i call her a large lady, i don't mean in point of breadth, for there she fell below my views, but she more than made it up in heighth; her heighth and slimness was--in short the heighth of both. i often saw that tray, after i was the innocently smiling cause (or more likely screeching one) of the doctor's standing it up on a table against the wall in his consulting-room. whenever my own father and mother were in that part of the country, i used to put my head (i have heard my own mother say it was flaxen curls at that time, though you wouldn't know an old hearth-broom from it now till you come to the handle, and found it wasn't me) in at the doctor's door, and the doctor was always glad to see me, and said, "aha, my brother practitioner! come in, little m.d. how are your inclinations as to sixpence?" you can't go on for ever, you'll find, nor yet could my father nor yet my mother. if you don't go off as a whole when you are about due, you're liable to go off in part, and two to one your head's the part. gradually my father went off his, and my mother went off hers. it was in a harmless way, but it put out the family where i boarded them. the old couple, though retired, got to be wholly and solely devoted to the cheap jack business, and were always selling the family off. whenever the cloth was laid for dinner, my father began rattling the plates and dishes, as we do in our line when we put up crockery for a bid, only he had lost the trick of it, and mostly let 'em drop and broke 'em. as the old lady had been used to sit in the cart, and hand the articles out one by one to the old gentleman on the footboard to sell, just in the same way she handed him every item of the family's property, and they disposed of it in their own imaginations from morning to night. at last the old gentleman, lying bedridden in the same room with the old lady, cries out in the old patter, fluent, after having been silent for two days and nights: "now here, my jolly companions every one,--which the nightingale club in a village was held, at the sign of the cabbage and shears, where the singers no doubt would have greatly excelled, but for want of taste, voices and ears,--now, here, my jolly companions, every one, is a working model of a used-up old cheap jack, without a tooth in his head, and with a pain in every bone: so like life that it would be just as good if it wasn't better, just as bad if it wasn't worse, and just as new if it wasn't worn out. bid for the working model of the old cheap jack, who has drunk more gunpowder-tea with the ladies in his time than would blow the lid off a washerwoman's copper, and carry it as many thousands of miles higher than the moon as naught nix naught, divided by the national debt, carry nothing to the poor-rates, three under, and two over. now, my hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say for the lot? two shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, fourpence. twopence? who said twopence? the gentleman in the scarecrow's hat? i am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow's hat. i really am ashamed of him for his want of public spirit. now i'll tell you what i'll do with you. come! i'll throw you in a working model of a old woman that was married to the old cheap jack so long ago that upon my word and honour it took place in noah's ark, before the unicorn could get in to forbid the banns by blowing a tune upon his horn. there now! come! what do you say for both? i'll tell you what i'll do with you. i don't bear you malice for being so backward. here! if you make me a bid that'll only reflect a little credit on your town, i'll throw you in a warming- pan for nothing, and lend you a toasting-fork for life. now come; what do you say after that splendid offer? say two pound, say thirty shillings, say a pound, say ten shillings, say five, say two and six. you don't say even two and six? you say two and three? no. you shan't have the lot for two and three. i'd sooner give it to you, if you was good- looking enough. here! missis! chuck the old man and woman into the cart, put the horse to, and drive 'em away and bury 'em!" such were the last words of willum marigold, my own father, and they were carried out, by him and by his wife, my own mother, on one and the same day, as i ought to know, having followed as mourner. my father had been a lovely one in his time at the cheap jack work, as his dying observations went to prove. but i top him. i don't say it because it's myself, but because it has been universally acknowledged by all that has had the means of comparison. i have worked at it. i have measured myself against other public speakers,--members of parliament, platforms, pulpits, counsel learned in the law,--and where i have found 'em good, i have took a bit of imagination from 'em, and where i have found 'em bad, i have let 'em alone. now i'll tell you what. i mean to go down into my grave declaring that of all the callings ill used in great britain, the cheap jack calling is the worst used. why ain't we a profession? why ain't we endowed with privileges? why are we forced to take out a hawker's license, when no such thing is expected of the political hawkers? where's the difference betwixt us? except that we are cheap jacks and they are dear jacks, _i_ don't see any difference but what's in our favour. for look here! say it's election time. i am on the footboard of my cart in the market-place, on a saturday night. i put up a general miscellaneous lot. i say: "now here, my free and independent woters, i'm a going to give you such a chance as you never had in all your born days, nor yet the days preceding. now i'll show you what i am a going to do with you. here's a pair of razors that'll shave you closer than the board of guardians; here's a flat-iron worth its weight in gold; here's a frying-pan artificially flavoured with essence of beefsteaks to that degree that you've only got for the rest of your lives to fry bread and dripping in it and there you are replete with animal food; here's a genuine chronometer watch in such a solid silver case that you may knock at the door with it when you come home late from a social meeting, and rouse your wife and family, and save up your knocker for the postman; and here's half-a-dozen dinner plates that you may play the cymbals with to charm baby when it's fractious. stop! i'll throw in another article, and i'll give you that, and it's a rolling-pin; and if the baby can only get it well into its mouth when its teeth is coming and rub the gums once with it, they'll come through double, in a fit of laughter equal to being tickled. stop again! i'll throw you in another article, because i don't like the looks of you, for you haven't the appearance of buyers unless i lose by you, and because i'd rather lose than not take money to-night, and that's a looking-glass in which you may see how ugly you look when you don't bid. what do you say now? come! do you say a pound? not you, for you haven't got it. do you say ten shillings? not you, for you owe more to the tallyman. well then, i'll tell you what i'll do with you. i'll heap 'em all on the footboard of the cart,--there they are! razors, flat watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and away for four shillings, and i'll give you sixpence for your trouble!" this is me, the cheap jack. but on the monday morning, in the same market-place, comes the dear jack on the hustings--_his_ cart--and, what does _he_ say? "now my free and independent woters, i am a going to give you such a chance" (he begins just like me) "as you never had in all your born days, and that's the chance of sending myself to parliament. now i'll tell you what i am a going to do for you. here's the interests of this magnificent town promoted above all the rest of the civilised and uncivilised earth. here's your railways carried, and your neighbours' railways jockeyed. here's all your sons in the post-office. here's britannia smiling on you. here's the eyes of europe on you. here's uniwersal prosperity for you, repletion of animal food, golden cornfields, gladsome homesteads, and rounds of applause from your own hearts, all in one lot, and that's myself. will you take me as i stand? you won't? well, then, i'll tell you what i'll do with you. come now! i'll throw you in anything you ask for. there! church-rates, abolition of more malt tax, no malt tax, universal education to the highest mark, or uniwersal ignorance to the lowest, total abolition of flogging in the army or a dozen for every private once a month all round, wrongs of men or rights of women--only say which it shall be, take 'em or leave 'em, and i'm of your opinion altogether, and the lot's your own on your own terms. there! you won't take it yet! well, then, i'll tell you what i'll do with you. come! you _are_ such free and independent woters, and i am so proud of you,--you _are_ such a noble and enlightened constituency, and i _am_ so ambitious of the honour and dignity of being your member, which is by far the highest level to which the wings of the human mind can soar,--that i'll tell you what i'll do with you. i'll throw you in all the public-houses in your magnificent town for nothing. will that content you? it won't? you won't take the lot yet? well, then, before i put the horse in and drive away, and make the offer to the next most magnificent town that can be discovered, i'll tell you what i'll do. take the lot, and i'll drop two thousand pound in the streets of your magnificent town for them to pick up that can. not enough? now look here. this is the very furthest that i'm a going to. i'll make it two thousand five hundred. and still you won't? here, missis! put the horse--no, stop half a moment, i shouldn't like to turn my back upon you neither for a trifle, i'll make it two thousand seven hundred and fifty pound. there! take the lot on your own terms, and i'll count out two thousand seven hundred and fifty pound on the footboard of the cart, to be dropped in the streets of your magnificent town for them to pick up that can. what do you say? come now! you won't do better, and you may do worse. you take it? hooray! sold again, and got the seat!" these dear jacks soap the people shameful, but we cheap jacks don't. we tell 'em the truth about themselves to their faces, and scorn to court 'em. as to wenturesomeness in the way of puffing up the lots, the dear jacks beat us hollow. it is considered in the cheap jack calling, that better patter can be made out of a gun than any article we put up from the cart, except a pair of spectacles. i often hold forth about a gun for a quarter of an hour, and feel as if i need never leave off. but when i tell 'em what the gun can do, and what the gun has brought down, i never go half so far as the dear jacks do when they make speeches in praise of _their_ guns--their great guns that set 'em on to do it. besides, i'm in business for myself: i ain't sent down into the market- place to order, as they are. besides, again, my guns don't know what i say in their laudation, and their guns do, and the whole concern of 'em have reason to be sick and ashamed all round. these are some of my arguments for declaring that the cheap jack calling is treated ill in great britain, and for turning warm when i think of the other jacks in question setting themselves up to pretend to look down upon it. i courted my wife from the footboard of the cart. i did indeed. she was a suffolk young woman, and it was in ipswich market-place right opposite the corn-chandler's shop. i had noticed her up at a window last saturday that was, appreciating highly. i had took to her, and i had said to myself, "if not already disposed of, i'll have that lot." next saturday that come, i pitched the cart on the same pitch, and i was in very high feather indeed, keeping 'em laughing the whole of the time, and getting off the goods briskly. at last i took out of my waistcoat-pocket a small lot wrapped in soft paper, and i put it this way (looking up at the window where she was). "now here, my blooming english maidens, is an article, the last article of the present evening's sale, which i offer to only you, the lovely suffolk dumplings biling over with beauty, and i won't take a bid of a thousand pounds for from any man alive. now what is it? why, i'll tell you what it is. it's made of fine gold, and it's not broke, though there's a hole in the middle of it, and it's stronger than any fetter that ever was forged, though it's smaller than any finger in my set of ten. why ten? because, when my parents made over my property to me, i tell you true, there was twelve sheets, twelve towels, twelve table-cloths, twelve knives, twelve forks, twelve tablespoons, and twelve teaspoons, but my set of fingers was two short of a dozen, and could never since be matched. now what else is it? come, i'll tell you. it's a hoop of solid gold, wrapped in a silver curl-paper, that i myself took off the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady in threadneedle street, london city; i wouldn't tell you so if i hadn't the paper to show, or you mightn't believe it even of me. now what else is it? it's a man-trap and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leg-lock, all in gold and all in one. now what else is it? it's a wedding-ring. now i'll tell you what i'm a going to do with it. i'm not a going to offer this lot for money; but i mean to give it to the next of you beauties that laughs, and i'll pay her a visit to-morrow morning at exactly half after nine o'clock as the chimes go, and i'll take her out for a walk to put up the banns." she laughed, and got the ring handed up to her. when i called in the morning, she says, "o dear! it's never you, and you never mean it?" "it's ever me," says i, "and i am ever yours, and i ever mean it." so we got married, after being put up three times--which, by the bye, is quite in the cheap jack way again, and shows once more how the cheap jack customs pervade society. she wasn't a bad wife, but she had a temper. if she could have parted with that one article at a sacrifice, i wouldn't have swopped her away in exchange for any other woman in england. not that i ever did swop her away, for we lived together till she died, and that was thirteen year. now, my lords and ladies and gentlefolks all, i'll let you into a secret, though you won't believe it. thirteen year of temper in a palace would try the worst of you, but thirteen year of temper in a cart would try the best of you. you are kept so very close to it in a cart, you see. there's thousands of couples among you getting on like sweet ile upon a whetstone in houses five and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to the divorce court in a cart. whether the jolting makes it worse, i don't undertake to decide; but in a cart it does come home to you, and stick to you. wiolence in a cart is _so_ wiolent, and aggrawation in a cart is _so_ aggrawating. we might have had such a pleasant life! a roomy cart, with the large goods hung outside, and the bed slung underneath it when on the road, an iron pot and a kettle, a fireplace for the cold weather, a chimney for the smoke, a hanging-shelf and a cupboard, a dog and a horse. what more do you want? you draw off upon a bit of turf in a green lane or by the roadside, you hobble your old horse and turn him grazing, you light your fire upon the ashes of the last visitors, you cook your stew, and you wouldn't call the emperor of france your father. but have a temper in the cart, flinging language and the hardest goods in stock at you, and where are you then? put a name to your feelings. my dog knew as well when she was on the turn as i did. before she broke out, he would give a howl, and bolt. how he knew it, was a mystery to me; but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake him up out of his soundest sleep, and he would give a howl, and bolt. at such times i wished i was him. the worst of it was, we had a daughter born to us, and i love children with all my heart. when she was in her furies she beat the child. this got to be so shocking, as the child got to be four or five year old, that i have many a time gone on with my whip over my shoulder, at the old horse's head, sobbing and crying worse than ever little sophy did. for how could i prevent it? such a thing is not to be tried with such a temper--in a cart--without coming to a fight. it's in the natural size and formation of a cart to bring it to a fight. and then the poor child got worse terrified than before, as well as worse hurt generally, and her mother made complaints to the next people we lighted on, and the word went round, "here's a wretch of a cheap jack been a beating his wife." little sophy was such a brave child! she grew to be quite devoted to her poor father, though he could do so little to help her. she had a wonderful quantity of shining dark hair, all curling natural about her. it is quite astonishing to me now, that i didn't go tearing mad when i used to see her run from her mother before the cart, and her mother catch her by this hair, and pull her down by it, and beat her. such a brave child i said she was! ah! with reason. "don't you mind next time, father dear," she would whisper to me, with her little face still flushed, and her bright eyes still wet; "if i don't cry out, you may know i am not much hurt. and even if i do cry out, it will only be to get mother to let go and leave off." what i have seen the little spirit bear--for me--without crying out! yet in other respects her mother took great care of her. her clothes were always clean and neat, and her mother was never tired of working at 'em. such is the inconsistency in things. our being down in the marsh country in unhealthy weather, i consider the cause of sophy's taking bad low fever; but however she took it, once she got it she turned away from her mother for evermore, and nothing would persuade her to be touched by her mother's hand. she would shiver and say, "no, no, no," when it was offered at, and would hide her face on my shoulder, and hold me tighter round the neck. the cheap jack business had been worse than ever i had known it, what with one thing and what with another (and not least with railroads, which will cut it all to pieces, i expect, at last), and i was run dry of money. for which reason, one night at that period of little sophy's being so bad, either we must have come to a dead-lock for victuals and drink, or i must have pitched the cart as i did. i couldn't get the dear child to lie down or leave go of me, and indeed i hadn't the heart to try, so i stepped out on the footboard with her holding round my neck. they all set up a laugh when they see us, and one chuckle-headed joskin (that i hated for it) made the bidding, "tuppence for her!" "now, you country boobies," says i, feeling as if my heart was a heavy weight at the end of a broken sashline, "i give you notice that i am a going to charm the money out of your pockets, and to give you so much more than your money's worth that you'll only persuade yourselves to draw your saturday night's wages ever again arterwards by the hopes of meeting me to lay 'em out with, which you never will, and why not? because i've made my fortunes by selling my goods on a large scale for seventy-five per cent. less than i give for 'em, and i am consequently to be elevated to the house of peers next week, by the title of the duke of cheap and markis jackaloorul. now let's know what you want to-night, and you shall have it. but first of all, shall i tell you why i have got this little girl round my neck? you don't want to know? then you shall. she belongs to the fairies. she's a fortune-teller. she can tell me all about you in a whisper, and can put me up to whether you're going to buy a lot or leave it. now do you want a saw? no, she says you don't, because you're too clumsy to use one. else here's a saw which would be a lifelong blessing to a handy man, at four shillings, at three and six, at three, at two and six, at two, at eighteen-pence. but none of you shall have it at any price, on account of your well-known awkwardness, which would make it manslaughter. the same objection applies to this set of three planes which i won't let you have neither, so don't bid for 'em. now i am a going to ask her what you do want." (then i whispered, "your head burns so, that i am afraid it hurts you bad, my pet," and she answered, without opening her heavy eyes, "just a little, father.") "o! this little fortune-teller says it's a memorandum-book you want. then why didn't you mention it? here it is. look at it. two hundred superfine hot-pressed wire-wove pages--if you don't believe me, count 'em--ready ruled for your expenses, an everlastingly pointed pencil to put 'em down with, a double-bladed penknife to scratch 'em out with, a book of printed tables to calculate your income with, and a camp-stool to sit down upon while you give your mind to it! stop! and an umbrella to keep the moon off when you give your mind to it on a pitch-dark night. now i won't ask you how much for the lot, but how little? how little are you thinking of? don't be ashamed to mention it, because my fortune-teller knows already." (then making believe to whisper, i kissed her,--and she kissed me.) "why, she says you are thinking of as little as three and threepence! i couldn't have believed it, even of you, unless she told me. three and threepence! and a set of printed tables in the lot that'll calculate your income up to forty thousand a year! with an income of forty thousand a year, you grudge three and sixpence. well then, i'll tell you my opinion. i so despise the threepence, that i'd sooner take three shillings. there. for three shillings, three shillings, three shillings! gone. hand 'em over to the lucky man." as there had been no bid at all, everybody looked about and grinned at everybody, while i touched little sophy's face and asked her if she felt faint, or giddy. "not very, father. it will soon be over." then turning from the pretty patient eyes, which were opened now, and seeing nothing but grins across my lighted grease-pot, i went on again in my cheap jack style. "where's the butcher?" (my sorrowful eye had just caught sight of a fat young butcher on the outside of the crowd.) "she says the good luck is the butcher's. where is he?" everybody handed on the blushing butcher to the front, and there was a roar, and the butcher felt himself obliged to put his hand in his pocket, and take the lot. the party so picked out, in general, does feel obliged to take the lot--good four times out of six. then we had another lot, the counterpart of that one, and sold it sixpence cheaper, which is always wery much enjoyed. then we had the spectacles. it ain't a special profitable lot, but i put 'em on, and i see what the chancellor of the exchequer is going to take off the taxes, and i see what the sweetheart of the young woman in the shawl is doing at home, and i see what the bishops has got for dinner, and a deal more that seldom fails to fetch 'em 'up in their spirits; and the better their spirits, the better their bids. then we had the ladies' lot--the teapot, tea-caddy, glass sugar-basin, half-a-dozen spoons, and caudle-cup--and all the time i was making similar excuses to give a look or two and say a word or two to my poor child. it was while the second ladies' lot was holding 'em enchained that i felt her lift herself a little on my shoulder, to look across the dark street. "what troubles you, darling?" "nothing troubles me, father. i am not at all troubled. but don't i see a pretty churchyard over there?" "yes, my dear." "kiss me twice, dear father, and lay me down to rest upon that churchyard grass so soft and green." i staggered back into the cart with her head dropped on my shoulder, and i says to her mother, "quick. shut the door! don't let those laughing people see!" "what's the matter?" she cries. "o woman, woman," i tells her, "you'll never catch my little sophy by her hair again, for she has flown away from you!" maybe those were harder words than i meant 'em; but from that time forth my wife took to brooding, and would sit in the cart or walk beside it, hours at a stretch, with her arms crossed, and her eyes looking on the ground. when her furies took her (which was rather seldomer than before) they took her in a new way, and she banged herself about to that extent that i was forced to hold her. she got none the better for a little drink now and then, and through some years i used to wonder, as i plodded along at the old horse's head, whether there was many carts upon the road that held so much dreariness as mine, for all my being looked up to as the king of the cheap jacks. so sad our lives went on till one summer evening, when, as we were coming into exeter, out of the farther west of england, we saw a woman beating a child in a cruel manner, who screamed, "don't beat me! o mother, mother, mother!" then my wife stopped her ears, and ran away like a wild thing, and next day she was found in the river. me and my dog were all the company left in the cart now; and the dog learned to give a short bark when they wouldn't bid, and to give another and a nod of his head when i asked him, "who said half a crown? are you the gentleman, sir, that offered half a crown?" he attained to an immense height of popularity, and i shall always believe taught himself entirely out of his own head to growl at any person in the crowd that bid as low as sixpence. but he got to be well on in years, and one night when i was conwulsing york with the spectacles, he took a conwulsion on his own account upon the very footboard by me, and it finished him. being naturally of a tender turn, i had dreadful lonely feelings on me arter this. i conquered 'em at selling times, having a reputation to keep (not to mention keeping myself), but they got me down in private, and rolled upon me. that's often the way with us public characters. see us on the footboard, and you'd give pretty well anything you possess to be us. see us off the footboard, and you'd add a trifle to be off your bargain. it was under those circumstances that i come acquainted with a giant. i might have been too high to fall into conversation with him, had it not been for my lonely feelings. for the general rule is, going round the country, to draw the line at dressing up. when a man can't trust his getting a living to his undisguised abilities, you consider him below your sort. and this giant when on view figured as a roman. he was a languid young man, which i attribute to the distance betwixt his extremities. he had a little head and less in it, he had weak eyes and weak knees, and altogether you couldn't look at him without feeling that there was greatly too much of him both for his joints and his mind. but he was an amiable though timid young man (his mother let him out, and spent the money), and we come acquainted when he was walking to ease the horse betwixt two fairs. he was called rinaldo di velasco, his name being pickleson. this giant, otherwise pickleson, mentioned to me under the seal of confidence that, beyond his being a burden to himself, his life was made a burden to him by the cruelty of his master towards a step-daughter who was deaf and dumb. her mother was dead, and she had no living soul to take her part, and was used most hard. she travelled with his master's caravan only because there was nowhere to leave her, and this giant, otherwise pickleson, did go so far as to believe that his master often tried to lose her. he was such a very languid young man, that i don't know how long it didn't take him to get this story out, but it passed through his defective circulation to his top extremity in course of time. when i heard this account from the giant, otherwise pickleson, and likewise that the poor girl had beautiful long dark hair, and was often pulled down by it and beaten, i couldn't see the giant through what stood in my eyes. having wiped 'em, i give him sixpence (for he was kept as short as he was long), and he laid it out in two three-penn'orths of gin- and-water, which so brisked him up, that he sang the favourite comic of shivery shakey, ain't it cold?--a popular effect which his master had tried every other means to get out of him as a roman wholly in vain. his master's name was mim, a wery hoarse man, and i knew him to speak to. i went to that fair as a mere civilian, leaving the cart outside the town, and i looked about the back of the vans while the performing was going on, and at last, sitting dozing against a muddy cart-wheel, i come upon the poor girl who was deaf and dumb. at the first look i might almost have judged that she had escaped from the wild beast show; but at the second i thought better of her, and thought that if she was more cared for and more kindly used she would be like my child. she was just the same age that my own daughter would have been, if her pretty head had not fell down upon my shoulder that unfortunate night. to cut it short, i spoke confidential to mim while he was beating the gong outside betwixt two lots of pickleson's publics, and i put it to him, "she lies heavy on your own hands; what'll you take for her?" mim was a most ferocious swearer. suppressing that part of his reply which was much the longest part, his reply was, "a pair of braces." "now i'll tell you," says i, "what i'm a going to do with you. i'm a going to fetch you half-a-dozen pair of the primest braces in the cart, and then to take her away with me." says mim (again ferocious), "i'll believe it when i've got the goods, and no sooner." i made all the haste i could, lest he should think twice of it, and the bargain was completed, which pickleson he was thereby so relieved in his mind that he come out at his little back door, longways like a serpent, and give us shivery shakey in a whisper among the wheels at parting. it was happy days for both of us when sophy and me began to travel in the cart. i at once give her the name of sophy, to put her ever towards me in the attitude of my own daughter. we soon made out to begin to understand one another, through the goodness of the heavens, when she knowed that i meant true and kind by her. in a very little time she was wonderful fond of me. you have no idea what it is to have anybody wonderful fond of you, unless you have been got down and rolled upon by the lonely feelings that i have mentioned as having once got the better of me. you'd have laughed--or the rewerse--it's according to your disposition--if you could have seen me trying to teach sophy. at first i was helped--you'd never guess by what--milestones. i got some large alphabets in a box, all the letters separate on bits of bone, and saying we was going to windsor, i give her those letters in that order, and then at every milestone i showed her those same letters in that same order again, and pointed towards the abode of royalty. another time i give her cart, and then chalked the same upon the cart. another time i give her doctor marigold, and hung a corresponding inscription outside my waistcoat. people that met us might stare a bit and laugh, but what did _i_ care, if she caught the idea? she caught it after long patience and trouble, and then we did begin to get on swimmingly, i believe you! at first she was a little given to consider me the cart, and the cart the abode of royalty, but that soon wore off. we had our signs, too, and they was hundreds in number. sometimes she would sit looking at me and considering hard how to communicate with me about something fresh,--how to ask me what she wanted explained,--and then she was (or i thought she was; what does it signify?) so like my child with those years added to her, that i half-believed it was herself, trying to tell me where she had been to up in the skies, and what she had seen since that unhappy night when she flied away. she had a pretty face, and now that there was no one to drag at her bright dark hair, and it was all in order, there was a something touching in her looks that made the cart most peaceful and most quiet, though not at all melancholy. [n.b. in the cheap jack patter, we generally sound it lemonjolly, and it gets a laugh.] the way she learnt to understand any look of mine was truly surprising. when i sold of a night, she would sit in the cart unseen by them outside, and would give a eager look into my eyes when i looked in, and would hand me straight the precise article or articles i wanted. and then she would clap her hands, and laugh for joy. and as for me, seeing her so bright, and remembering what she was when i first lighted on her, starved and beaten and ragged, leaning asleep against the muddy cart-wheel, it give me such heart that i gained a greater heighth of reputation than ever, and i put pickleson down (by the name of mim's travelling giant otherwise pickleson) for a fypunnote in my will. this happiness went on in the cart till she was sixteen year old. by which time i began to feel not satisfied that i had done my whole duty by her, and to consider that she ought to have better teaching than i could give her. it drew a many tears on both sides when i commenced explaining my views to her; but what's right is right, and you can't neither by tears nor laughter do away with its character. so i took her hand in mine, and i went with her one day to the deaf and dumb establishment in london, and when the gentleman come to speak to us, i says to him: "now i'll tell you what i'll do with you, sir. i am nothing but a cheap jack, but of late years i have laid by for a rainy day notwithstanding. this is my only daughter (adopted), and you can't produce a deafer nor a dumber. teach her the most that can be taught her in the shortest separation that can be named,--state the figure for it,--and i am game to put the money down. i won't bate you a single farthing, sir, but i'll put down the money here and now, and i'll thankfully throw you in a pound to take it. there!" the gentleman smiled, and then, "well, well," says he, "i must first know what she has learned already. how do you communicate with her?" then i showed him, and she wrote in printed writing many names of things and so forth; and we held some sprightly conversation, sophy and me, about a little story in a book which the gentleman showed her, and which she was able to read. "this is most extraordinary," says the gentleman; "is it possible that you have been her only teacher?" "i have been her only teacher, sir," i says, "besides herself." "then," says the gentleman, and more acceptable words was never spoke to me, "you're a clever fellow, and a good fellow." this he makes known to sophy, who kisses his hands, claps her own, and laughs and cries upon it. we saw the gentleman four times in all, and when he took down my name and asked how in the world it ever chanced to be doctor, it come out that he was own nephew by the sister's side, if you'll believe me, to the very doctor that i was called after. this made our footing still easier, and he says to me: "now, marigold, tell me what more do you want your adopted daughter to know?" "i want her, sir, to be cut off from the world as little as can be, considering her deprivations, and therefore to be able to read whatever is wrote with perfect ease and pleasure." "my good fellow," urges the gentleman, opening his eyes wide, "why _i_ can't do that myself!" i took his joke, and gave him a laugh (knowing by experience how flat you fall without it), and i mended my words accordingly. "what do you mean to do with her afterwards?" asks the gentleman, with a sort of a doubtful eye. "to take her about the country?" "in the cart, sir, but only in the cart. she will live a private life, you understand, in the cart. i should never think of bringing her infirmities before the public. i wouldn't make a show of her for any money." the gentleman nodded, and seemed to approve. "well," says he, "can you part with her for two years?" "to do her that good,--yes, sir." "there's another question," says the gentleman, looking towards her,--"can she part with you for two years?" i don't know that it was a harder matter of itself (for the other was hard enough to me), but it was harder to get over. however, she was pacified to it at last, and the separation betwixt us was settled. how it cut up both of us when it took place, and when i left her at the door in the dark of an evening, i don't tell. but i know this; remembering that night, i shall never pass that same establishment without a heartache and a swelling in the throat; and i couldn't put you up the best of lots in sight of it with my usual spirit,--no, not even the gun, nor the pair of spectacles,--for five hundred pound reward from the secretary of state for the home department, and throw in the honour of putting my legs under his mahogany arterwards. still, the loneliness that followed in the cart was not the old loneliness, because there was a term put to it, however long to look forward to; and because i could think, when i was anyways down, that she belonged to me and i belonged to her. always planning for her coming back, i bought in a few months' time another cart, and what do you think i planned to do with it? i'll tell you. i planned to fit it up with shelves and books for her reading, and to have a seat in it where i could sit and see her read, and think that i had been her first teacher. not hurrying over the job, i had the fittings knocked together in contriving ways under my own inspection, and here was her bed in a berth with curtains, and there was her reading-table, and here was her writing-desk, and elsewhere was her books in rows upon rows, picters and no picters, bindings and no bindings, gilt-edged and plain, just as i could pick 'em up for her in lots up and down the country, north and south and west and east, winds liked best and winds liked least, here and there and gone astray, over the hills and far away. and when i had got together pretty well as many books as the cart would neatly hold, a new scheme come into my head, which, as it turned out, kept my time and attention a good deal employed, and helped me over the two years' stile. without being of an awaricious temper, i like to be the owner of things. i shouldn't wish, for instance, to go partners with yourself in the cheap jack cart. it's not that i mistrust you, but that i'd rather know it was mine. similarly, very likely you'd rather know it was yours. well! a kind of a jealousy began to creep into my mind when i reflected that all those books would have been read by other people long before they was read by her. it seemed to take away from her being the owner of 'em like. in this way, the question got into my head: couldn't i have a book new-made express for her, which she should be the first to read? it pleased me, that thought did; and as i never was a man to let a thought sleep (you must wake up all the whole family of thoughts you've got and burn their nightcaps, or you won't do in the cheap jack line), i set to work at it. considering that i was in the habit of changing so much about the country, and that i should have to find out a literary character here to make a deal with, and another literary character there to make a deal with, as opportunities presented, i hit on the plan that this same book should be a general miscellaneous lot,--like the razors, flat-iron, chronometer watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and looking- glass,--and shouldn't be offered as a single indiwidual article, like the spectacles or the gun. when i had come to that conclusion, i come to another, which shall likewise be yours. often had i regretted that she never had heard me on the footboard, and that she never could hear me. it ain't that _i_ am vain, but that _you_ don't like to put your own light under a bushel. what's the worth of your reputation, if you can't convey the reason for it to the person you most wish to value it? now i'll put it to you. is it worth sixpence, fippence, fourpence, threepence, twopence, a penny, a halfpenny, a farthing? no, it ain't. not worth a farthing. very well, then. my conclusion was that i would begin her book with some account of myself. so that, through reading a specimen or two of me on the footboard, she might form an idea of my merits there. i was aware that i couldn't do myself justice. a man can't write his eye (at least _i_ don't know how to), nor yet can a man write his voice, nor the rate of his talk, nor the quickness of his action, nor his general spicy way. but he can write his turns of speech, when he is a public speaker,--and indeed i have heard that he very often does, before he speaks 'em. well! having formed that resolution, then come the question of a name. how did i hammer that hot iron into shape? this way. the most difficult explanation i had ever had with her was, how i come to be called doctor, and yet was no doctor. after all, i felt that i had failed of getting it correctly into her mind, with my utmost pains. but trusting to her improvement in the two years, i thought that i might trust to her understanding it when she should come to read it as put down by my own hand. then i thought i would try a joke with her and watch how it took, by which of itself i might fully judge of her understanding it. we had first discovered the mistake we had dropped into, through her having asked me to prescribe for her when she had supposed me to be a doctor in a medical point of view; so thinks i, "now, if i give this book the name of my prescriptions, and if she catches the idea that my only prescriptions are for her amusement and interest,--to make her laugh in a pleasant way, or to make her cry in a pleasant way,--it will be a delightful proof to both of us that we have got over our difficulty." it fell out to absolute perfection. for when she saw the book, as i had it got up,--the printed and pressed book,--lying on her desk in her cart, and saw the title, doctor marigold's prescriptions, she looked at me for a moment with astonishment, then fluttered the leaves, then broke out a laughing in the charmingest way, then felt her pulse and shook her head, then turned the pages pretending to read them most attentive, then kissed the book to me, and put it to her bosom with both her hands. i never was better pleased in all my life! but let me not anticipate. (i take that expression out of a lot of romances i bought for her. i never opened a single one of 'em--and i have opened many--but i found the romancer saying "let me not anticipate." which being so, i wonder why he did anticipate, or who asked him to it.) let me not, i say, anticipate. this same book took up all my spare time. it was no play to get the other articles together in the general miscellaneous lot, but when it come to my own article! there! i couldn't have believed the blotting, nor yet the buckling to at it, nor the patience over it. which again is like the footboard. the public have no idea. at last it was done, and the two years' time was gone after all the other time before it, and where it's all gone to, who knows? the new cart was finished,--yellow outside, relieved with wermilion and brass fittings,--the old horse was put in it, a new 'un and a boy being laid on for the cheap jack cart,--and i cleaned myself up to go and fetch her. bright cold weather it was, cart-chimneys smoking, carts pitched private on a piece of waste ground over at wandsworth, where you may see 'em from the sou'western railway when not upon the road. (look out of the right- hand window going down.) "marigold," says the gentleman, giving his hand hearty, "i am very glad to see you." "yet i have my doubts, sir," says i, "if you can be half as glad to see me as i am to see you." "the time has appeared so long,--has it, marigold?" "i won't say that, sir, considering its real length; but--" "what a start, my good fellow!" ah! i should think it was! grown such a woman, so pretty, so intelligent, so expressive! i knew then that she must be really like my child, or i could never have known her, standing quiet by the door. "you are affected," says the gentleman in a kindly manner. "i feel, sir," says i, "that i am but a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat." "i feel," says the gentleman, "that it was you who raised her from misery and degradation, and brought her into communication with her kind. but why do we converse alone together, when we can converse so well with her? address her in your own way." "i am such a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat, sir," says i, "and she is such a graceful woman, and she stands so quiet at the door!" "_try_ if she moves at the old sign," says the gentleman. they had got it up together o' purpose to please me! for when i give her the old sign, she rushed to my feet, and dropped upon her knees, holding up her hands to me with pouring tears of love and joy; and when i took her hands and lifted her, she clasped me round the neck, and lay there; and i don't know what a fool i didn't make of myself, until we all three settled down into talking without sound, as if there was a something soft and pleasant spread over the whole world for us. * * * * * [a portion is here omitted from the text, having reference to the sketches contributed by other writers; but the reader will be pleased to have what follows retained in a note: "now i'll tell you what i am a-going to do with you. i am a-going to offer you the general miscellaneous lot, her own book, never read by anybody else but me, added to and completed by me after her first reading of it, eight-and-forty printed pages, six-and-ninety columns, whiting's own work, beaufort house to wit, thrown off by the steam-ingine, best of paper, beautiful green wrapper, folded like clean linen come home from the clear-starcher's, and so exquisitely stitched that, regarded as a piece of needlework alone, it's better than the sampler of a seamstress undergoing a competitive examination for starvation before the civil service commissioners--and i offer the lot for what? for eight pound? not so much. for six pound? less. for four pound. why, i hardly expect you to believe me, but that's the sum. four pound! the stitching alone cost half as much again. here's forty-eight original pages, ninety- six original columns, for four pound. you want more for the money? take it. three whole pages of advertisements of thrilling interest thrown in for nothing. read 'em and believe 'em. more? my best of wishes for your merry christmases and your happy new years, your long lives and your true prosperities. worth twenty pound good if they are delivered as i send them. remember! here's a final prescription added, "to be taken for life," which will tell you how the cart broke down, and where the journey ended. you think four pound too much? and still you think so? come! i'll tell you what then. say four pence, and keep the secret."] * * * * * so every item of my plan was crowned with success. our reunited life was more than all that we had looked forward to. content and joy went with us as the wheels of the two carts went round, and the same stopped with us when the two carts stopped. i was as pleased and as proud as a pug- dog with his muzzle black-leaded for a evening party, and his tail extra curled by machinery. but i had left something out of my calculations. now, what had i left out? to help you to guess i'll say, a figure. come. make a guess and guess right. nought? no. nine? no. eight? no. seven? no. six? no. five? no. four? no. three? no. two? no. one? no. now i'll tell you what i'll do with you. i'll say it's another sort of figure altogether. there. why then, says you, it's a mortal figure. no, nor yet a mortal figure. by such means you got yourself penned into a corner, and you can't help guessing a _im_mortal figure. that's about it. why didn't you say so sooner? yes. it was a immortal figure that i had altogether left out of my calculations. neither man's, nor woman's, but a child's. girl's or boy's? boy's. "i, says the sparrow with my bow and arrow." now you have got it. we were down at lancaster, and i had done two nights more than fair average business (though i cannot in honour recommend them as a quick audience) in the open square there, near the end of the street where mr. sly's king's arms and royal hotel stands. mim's travelling giant, otherwise pickleson, happened at the self-same time to be trying it on in the town. the genteel lay was adopted with him. no hint of a van. green baize alcove leading up to pickleson in a auction room. printed poster, "free list suspended, with the exception of that proud boast of an enlightened country, a free press. schools admitted by private arrangement. nothing to raise a blush in the cheek of youth or shock the most fastidious." mim swearing most horrible and terrific, in a pink calico pay-place, at the slackness of the public. serious handbill in the shops, importing that it was all but impossible to come to a right understanding of the history of david without seeing pickleson. i went to the auction room in question, and i found it entirely empty of everything but echoes and mouldiness, with the single exception of pickleson on a piece of red drugget. this suited my purpose, as i wanted a private and confidential word with him, which was: "pickleson. owing much happiness to you, i put you in my will for a fypunnote; but, to save trouble, here's fourpunten down, which may equally suit your views, and let us so conclude the transaction." pickleson, who up to that remark had had the dejected appearance of a long roman rushlight that couldn't anyhow get lighted, brightened up at his top extremity, and made his acknowledgments in a way which (for him) was parliamentary eloquence. he likewise did add, that, having ceased to draw as a roman, mim had made proposals for his going in as a conwerted indian giant worked upon by the dairyman's daughter. this, pickleson, having no acquaintance with the tract named after that young woman, and not being willing to couple gag with his serious views, had declined to do, thereby leading to words and the total stoppage of the unfortunate young man's beer. all of which, during the whole of the interview, was confirmed by the ferocious growling of mim down below in the pay-place, which shook the giant like a leaf. but what was to the present point in the remarks of the travelling giant, otherwise pickleson, was this: "doctor marigold,"--i give his words without a hope of conweying their feebleness,--"who is the strange young man that hangs about your carts?"--"the strange young _man_?" i gives him back, thinking that he meant her, and his languid circulation had dropped a syllable. "doctor," he returns, with a pathos calculated to draw a tear from even a manly eye, "i am weak, but not so weak yet as that i don't know my words. i repeat them, doctor. the strange young man." it then appeared that pickleson, being forced to stretch his legs (not that they wanted it) only at times when he couldn't be seen for nothing, to wit in the dead of the night and towards daybreak, had twice seen hanging about my carts, in that same town of lancaster where i had been only two nights, this same unknown young man. it put me rather out of sorts. what it meant as to particulars i no more foreboded then than you forebode now, but it put me rather out of sorts. howsoever, i made light of it to pickleson, and i took leave of pickleson, advising him to spend his legacy in getting up his stamina, and to continue to stand by his religion. towards morning i kept a look out for the strange young man, and--what was more--i saw the strange young man. he was well dressed and well looking. he loitered very nigh my carts, watching them like as if he was taking care of them, and soon after daybreak turned and went away. i sent a hail after him, but he never started or looked round, or took the smallest notice. we left lancaster within an hour or two, on our way towards carlisle. next morning, at daybreak, i looked out again for the strange young man. i did not see him. but next morning i looked out again, and there he was once more. i sent another hail after him, but as before he gave not the slightest sign of being anyways disturbed. this put a thought into my head. acting on it i watched him in different manners and at different times not necessary to enter into, till i found that this strange young man was deaf and dumb. the discovery turned me over, because i knew that a part of that establishment where she had been was allotted to young men (some of them well off), and i thought to myself, "if she favours him, where am i? and where is all that i have worked and planned for?" hoping--i must confess to the selfishness--that she might _not_ favour him, i set myself to find out. at last i was by accident present at a meeting between them in the open air, looking on leaning behind a fir-tree without their knowing of it. it was a moving meeting for all the three parties concerned. i knew every syllable that passed between them as well as they did. i listened with my eyes, which had come to be as quick and true with deaf and dumb conversation as my ears with the talk of people that can speak. he was a- going out to china as clerk in a merchant's house, which his father had been before him. he was in circumstances to keep a wife, and he wanted her to marry him and go along with him. she persisted, no. he asked if she didn't love him. yes, she loved him dearly, dearly; but she could never disappoint her beloved, good, noble, generous, and i-don't-know- what-all father (meaning me, the cheap jack in the sleeved waistcoat) and she would stay with him, heaven bless him! though it was to break her heart. then she cried most bitterly, and that made up my mind. while my mind had been in an unsettled state about her favouring this young man, i had felt that unreasonable towards pickleson, that it was well for him he had got his legacy down. for i often thought, "if it hadn't been for this same weak-minded giant, i might never have come to trouble my head and wex my soul about the young man." but, once that i knew she loved him,--once that i had seen her weep for him,--it was a different thing. i made it right in my mind with pickleson on the spot, and i shook myself together to do what was right by all. she had left the young man by that time (for it took a few minutes to get me thoroughly well shook together), and the young man was leaning against another of the fir-trees,--of which there was a cluster,--with his face upon his arm. i touched him on the back. looking up and seeing me, he says, in our deaf-and-dumb talk, "do not be angry." "i am not angry, good boy. i am your friend. come with me." i left him at the foot of the steps of the library cart, and i went up alone. she was drying her eyes. "you have been crying, my dear." "yes, father." "why?" "a headache." "not a heartache?" "i said a headache, father." "doctor marigold must prescribe for that headache." she took up the book of my prescriptions, and held it up with a forced smile; but seeing me keep still and look earnest, she softly laid it down again, and her eyes were very attentive. "the prescription is not there, sophy." "where is it?" "here, my dear." i brought her young husband in, and i put her hand in his, and my only farther words to both of them were these: "doctor marigold's last prescription. to be taken for life." after which i bolted. when the wedding come off, i mounted a coat (blue, and bright buttons), for the first and last time in all my days, and i give sophy away with my own hand. there were only us three and the gentleman who had had charge of her for those two years. i give the wedding dinner of four in the library cart. pigeon-pie, a leg of pickled pork, a pair of fowls, and suitable garden stuff. the best of drinks. i give them a speech, and the gentleman give us a speech, and all our jokes told, and the whole went off like a sky-rocket. in the course of the entertainment i explained to sophy that i should keep the library cart as my living-cart when not upon the road, and that i should keep all her books for her just as they stood, till she come back to claim them. so she went to china with her young husband, and it was a parting sorrowful and heavy, and i got the boy i had another service; and so as of old, when my child and wife were gone, i went plodding along alone, with my whip over my shoulder, at the old horse's head. sophy wrote me many letters, and i wrote her many letters. about the end of the first year she sent me one in an unsteady hand: "dearest father, not a week ago i had a darling little daughter, but i am so well that they let me write these words to you. dearest and best father, i hope my child may not be deaf and dumb, but i do not yet know." when i wrote back, i hinted the question; but as sophy never answered that question, i felt it to be a sad one, and i never repeated it. for a long time our letters were regular, but then they got irregular, through sophy's husband being moved to another station, and through my being always on the move. but we were in one another's thoughts, i was equally sure, letters or no letters. five years, odd months, had gone since sophy went away. i was still the king of the cheap jacks, and at a greater height of popularity than ever. i had had a first-rate autumn of it, and on the twenty-third of december, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, i found myself at uxbridge, middlesex, clean sold out. so i jogged up to london with the old horse, light and easy, to have my christmas-eve and christmas-day alone by the fire in the library cart, and then to buy a regular new stock of goods all round, to sell 'em again and get the money. i am a neat hand at cookery, and i'll tell you what i knocked up for my christmas-eve dinner in the library cart. i knocked up a beefsteak-pudding for one, with two kidneys, a dozen oysters, and a couple of mushrooms thrown in. it's a pudding to put a man in good humour with everything, except the two bottom buttons of his waistcoat. having relished that pudding and cleared away, i turned the lamp low, and sat down by the light of the fire, watching it as it shone upon the backs of sophy's books. sophy's books so brought sophy's self, that i saw her touching face quite plainly, before i dropped off dozing by the fire. this may be a reason why sophy, with her deaf-and-dumb child in her arms, seemed to stand silent by me all through my nap. i was on the road, off the road, in all sorts of places, north and south and west and east, winds liked best and winds liked least, here and there and gone astray, over the hills and far away, and still she stood silent by me, with her silent child in her arms. even when i woke with a start, she seemed to vanish, as if she had stood by me in that very place only a single instant before. i had started at a real sound, and the sound was on the steps of the cart. it was the light hurried tread of a child, coming clambering up. that tread of a child had once been so familiar to me, that for half a moment i believed i was a-going to see a little ghost. but the touch of a real child was laid upon the outer handle of the door, and the handle turned, and the door opened a little way, and a real child peeped in. a bright little comely girl with large dark eyes. looking full at me, the tiny creature took off her mite of a straw hat, and a quantity of dark curls fell about her face. then she opened her lips, and said in a pretty voice, "grandfather!" "ah, my god!" i cries out. "she can speak!" "yes, dear grandfather. and i am to ask you whether there was ever any one that i remind you of?" in a moment sophy was round my neck, as well as the child, and her husband was a-wringing my hand with his face hid, and we all had to shake ourselves together before we could get over it. and when we did begin to get over it, and i saw the pretty child a-talking, pleased and quick and eager and busy, to her mother, in the signs that i had first taught her mother, the happy and yet pitying tears fell rolling down my face. https://archive.org/details/personalhistoryo dick transcriber's note: the errors detailed in the errata at the start of the print edition have been corrected. text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). oe-ligatures have been expanded. --> represents a hand pointing right. [illustration: frontispiece] [illustration: david copperfield. by charles dickens.] the personal history of david copperfield. by charles dickens. with illustrations by h. k. browne. london: bradbury & evans, , bouverie street. . london bradbury and evans, printers, whitefriars. affectionately inscribed to the hon. mr. and mrs. richard watson, of rockingham, northamptonshire. preface. i do not find it easy to get sufficiently far away from this book, in the first sensations of having finished it, to refer to it with the composure which this formal heading would seem to require. my interest in it, is so recent and strong; and my mind is so divided between pleasure and regret--pleasure in the achievement of a long design, regret in the separation from many companions--that i am in danger of wearying the reader whom i love, with personal confidences, and private emotions. besides which, all that i could say of the story, to any purpose, i have endeavoured to say in it. it would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know, how sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years' imaginative task; or how an author feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him for ever. yet, i have nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, i were to confess (which might be of less moment still) that no one can ever believe this narrative, in the reading, more than i have believed it in the writing. instead of looking back, therefore, i will look forward. i cannot close this volume more agreeably to myself, than with a hopeful glance towards the time when i shall again put forth my two green leaves once a month, and with a faithful remembrance of the genial sun and showers that have fallen on these leaves of david copperfield, and made me happy. london, _october_, . contents. page chapter i. i am born chap. ii. i observe chap. iii. i have a change chap. iv. i fall into disgrace chap. v. i am sent away from home chap. vi. i enlarge my circle of acquaintance chap. vii. my "first half" at salem house chap. viii. my holidays. especially one happy afternoon chap. ix. i have a memorable birthday chap. x. i become neglected, and am provided for chap. xi. i begin life on my own account, and don't like it chap. xii. liking life on my own account no better, i form a great resolution chap. xiii. the sequel of my resolution chap. xiv. my aunt makes up her mind about me chap. xv. i make another beginning chap. xvi. i am a new boy in more senses than one chap. xvii. somebody turns up chap. xviii. a retrospect chap. xix. i look about me, and make a discovery chap. xx. steerforth's home chap. xxi. little em'ly chap. xxii. some old scenes, and some new people chap. xxiii. i corroborate mr. dick, and choose a profession chap. xxiv. my first dissipation chap. xxv. good and bad angels chap. xxvi. i fall into captivity chap. xxvii. tommy traddles chap. xxviii. mr. micawber's gauntlet chap. xxix. i visit steerforth at his home, again chap. xxx. a loss chap. xxxi. a greater loss chap. xxxii. the beginning of a long journey chap. xxxiii. blissful chap. xxxiv. my aunt astonishes me chap. xxxv. depression chap. xxxvi. enthusiasm chap. xxxvii. a little cold water chap. xxxviii. a dissolution of partnership chap. xxxix. wickfield and heep chap. xl. the wanderer chap. xli. dora's aunts chap. xlii. mischief chap. xliii. another retrospect chap. xliv. our housekeeping chap. xlv. mr. dick fulfils my aunt's prediction chap. xlvi. intelligence chap. xlvii. martha chap. xlviii. domestic chap. xlix. i am involved in mystery chap. l. mr. peggotty's dream comes true chap. li. the beginning of a longer journey chap. lii. i assist at an explosion chap. liii. another retrospect chap. liv. mr. micawber's transactions chap. lv. tempest chap. lvi. the new wound, and the old chap. lvii. the emigrants chap. lviii. absence chap. lix. return chap. lx. agnes chap. lxi. i am shown two interesting penitents chap. lxii. a light shines on my way chap. lxiii. a visitor chap. lxiv. a last retrospect list of plates. page frontispiece. our pew at church i am hospitably received by mr. peggotty the friendly waiter and i my musical breakfast steerforth and mr. mell changes at home mrs. gummidge casts a damp on our departure my magnificent order at the public-house i make myself known to my aunt the momentous interview i return to the doctor's after the party somebody turns up my first fall in life we arrive unexpectedly at mr. peggotty's fireside i make the acquaintance of miss mowcher martha uriah persists in hovering near us, at the dinner party i fall into captivity we are disturbed in our cookery i find mr. barkis "going out with the tide" mr. peggotty and mrs. steerforth my aunt astonishes me mr. wickfield and his partner wait upon my aunt mr. micawber delivers some valedictory remarks traddles makes a figure in parliament, and i report him the wanderer traddles and i, in conference with the misses spenlow i am married our housekeeping mr. dick fulfils my aunt's prediction the river mr. peggotty's dream comes true restoration of mutual confidence between mr. and mrs. micawber my child-wife's old companion i am the bearer of evil tidings the emigrants i am shown two interesting penitents a stranger calls to see me errata. page , line from bottom of page, _for_ "bo'" _read_ "bor'." , " from bottom of page, make the same correction. , " from bottom of page, make the same correction. , " from top of page, make the same correction. , twenty lines in advance, make the same correction. , line from bottom of page, _for_ "norwich" _read_ "ipswich." the personal history and experience of david copperfield the younger. chapter i. i am born. whether i shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. to begin my life with the beginning of my life, i record that i was born (as i have been informed and believe) on a friday, at twelve o'clock at night. it was remarked that the clock began to strike, and i began to cry, simultaneously. in consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that i was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that i was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a friday night. i need say nothing here, on the first head, because nothing can show better than my history whether that prediction was verified or falsified by the result. on the second branch of the question, i will only remark, that unless i ran through that part of my inheritance while i was still a baby, i have not come into it yet. but i do not at all complain of having been kept out of this property; and if anybody else should be in the present enjoyment of it, he is heartily welcome to keep it. i was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas. whether sea-going people were short of money about that time, or were short of faith and preferred cork-jackets, i don't know; all i know is, that there was but one solitary bidding, and that was from an attorney connected with the bill-broking business, who offered two pounds in cash, and the balance in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from drowning on any higher bargain. consequently the advertisement was withdrawn at a dead loss--for as to sherry, my poor dear mother's own sherry was in the market then--and ten years afterwards the caul was put up in a raffle down in our part of the country, to fifty members at half-a-crown a head, the winner to spend five shillings. i was present myself, and i remember to have felt quite uncomfortable and confused, at a part of myself being disposed of in that way. the caul was won, i recollect, by an old lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced from it the stipulated five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopence halfpenny short--as it took an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic, to endeavour without any effect to prove to her. it is a fact which will be long remembered as remarkable down there, that she was never drowned, but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two. i have understood that it was, to the last, her proudest boast, that she never had been on the water in her life, except upon a bridge; and that over her tea (to which she was extremely partial) she, to the last, expressed her indignation at the impiety of mariners and others, who had the presumption to go "meandering" about the world. it was in vain to represent to her that some conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from this objectionable practice. she always returned, with greater emphasis and with an instinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection, "let us have no meandering." not to meander, myself, at present, i will go back to my birth. i was born at blunderstone, in suffolk, or "thereby," as they say in scotland. i was a posthumous child. my father's eyes had closed upon the light of this world six months, when mine opened on it. there is something strange to me, even now, in the reflection that he never saw me; and something stranger yet in the shadowy remembrance that i have of my first childish associations with his white grave-stone in the church-yard, and of the indefinable compassion i used to feel for it lying out alone there in the dark night, when our little parlor was warm and bright with fire and candle, and the doors of our house were--almost cruelly, it seemed to me sometimes--bolted and locked against it. an aunt of my father's, and consequently a great-aunt of mine, of whom i shall have more to relate by and by, was the principal magnate of our family. miss trotwood, or miss betsey, as my poor mother always called her, when she sufficiently overcame her dread of this formidable personage to mention her at all (which was seldom), had been married to a husband younger than herself, who was very handsome, except in the sense of the homely adage, "handsome is, that handsome does"--for he was strongly suspected of having beaten miss betsey, and even of having once, on a disputed question of supplies, made some hasty but determined arrangements to throw her out of a two pair of stairs' window. these evidences of an incompatibility of temper induced miss betsey to pay him off, and effect a separation by mutual consent. he went to india with his capital, and there, according to a wild legend in our family, he was once seen riding on an elephant, in company with a baboon; but i think it must have been a baboo--or a begum. any how, from india tidings of his death reached home, within ten years. how they affected my aunt, nobody knew; for immediately upon the separation, she took her maiden name again, bought a cottage in a hamlet on the sea-coast a long way off, established herself there as a single woman with one servant, and was understood to live secluded, ever afterwards, in an inflexible retirement. my father had once been a favorite of hers, i believe; but she was mortally affronted by his marriage, on the ground that my mother was "a wax doll." she had never seen my mother, but she knew her to be not yet twenty. my father and miss betsey never met again. he was double my mother's age when he married, and of but a delicate constitution. he died a year afterwards, and, as i have said, six months before i came into the world. this was the state of matters, on the afternoon of, what _i_ may be excused for calling, that eventful and important friday. i can make no claim therefore to have known, at that time, how matters stood; or to have any remembrance, founded on the evidence of my own senses, of what follows. my mother was sitting by the fire, but poorly in health, and very low in spirits, looking at it through her tears, and desponding heavily about herself and the fatherless little stranger, who was already welcomed by some grosses of prophetic pins, in a drawer up-stairs, to a world not at all excited on the subject of his arrival; my mother, i say, was sitting by the fire, that bright, windy march afternoon, very timid and sad, and very doubtful of ever coming alive out of the trial that was before her, when, lifting her eyes as she dried them, to the window opposite, she saw a strange lady coming up the garden. my mother had a sure foreboding at the second glance, that it was miss betsey. the setting sun was glowing on the strange lady, over the garden-fence, and she came walking up to the door with a fell rigidity of figure and composure of countenance that could have belonged to nobody else. when she reached the house, she gave another proof of her identity. my father had often hinted that she seldom conducted herself like any ordinary christian; and now, instead of ringing the bell, she came and looked in at that identical window, pressing the end of her nose against the glass to that extent, that my poor dear mother used to say it became perfectly flat and white in a moment. she gave my mother such a turn, that i have always been convinced i am indebted to miss betsey for having been born on a friday. my mother had left her chair in her agitation, and gone behind it in the corner. miss betsey, looking round the room, slowly and enquiringly, began on the other side, and carried her eyes on, like a saracen's head in a dutch clock, until they reached my mother. then she made a frown and a gesture to my mother, like one who was accustomed to be obeyed, to come and open the door. my mother went. "mrs. david copperfield, i _think_," said miss betsey; the emphasis referring, perhaps, to my mother's mourning weeds, and her condition. "yes," said my mother, faintly. "miss trotwood," said the visitor. "you have heard of her, i dare say?" my mother answered she had had that pleasure. and she had a disagreeable consciousness of not appearing to imply that it had been an overpowering pleasure. "now you see her," said miss betsey. my mother bent her head, and begged her to walk in. they went into the parlor my mother had come from, the fire in the best room on the other side of the passage not being lighted--not having been lighted, indeed, since my father's funeral; and when they were both seated, and miss betsey said nothing, my mother, after vainly trying to restrain herself, began to cry. "oh tut, tut, tut!" said miss betsey, in a hurry. "don't do that! come, come!" my mother couldn't help it notwithstanding, so she cried until she had had her cry out. "take off your cap, child," said miss betsey, "and let me see you." my mother was too much afraid of her to refuse compliance with this odd request, if she had any disposition to do so. therefore she did as she was told, and did it with such nervous hands that her hair (which was luxuriant and beautiful) fell all about her face. "why, bless my heart!" exclaimed miss betsey. "you are a very baby!" my mother was, no doubt, unusually youthful in appearance even for her years; she hung her head, as if it were her fault, poor thing, and said, sobbing, that indeed she was afraid she was but a childish widow, and would be but a childish mother if she lived. in a short pause which ensued, she had a fancy that she felt miss betsey touch her hair, and that with no ungentle hand; but, looking at her, in her timid hope, she found that lady sitting with the skirt of her dress tucked up, her hands folded on one knee, and her feet upon the fender, frowning at the fire. "in the name of heaven," said miss betsey, suddenly, "why rookery?" "do you mean the house, ma'am?" asked my mother. "why rookery?" said miss betsey. "cookery would have been more to the purpose, if you had had any practical ideas of life, either of you." "the name was mr. copperfield's choice," returned my mother. "when he bought the house, he liked to think that there were rooks about it." the evening wind made such a disturbance just now, among some tall old elm-trees at the bottom of the garden, that neither my mother nor miss betsey could forbear glancing that way. as the elms bent to one another, like giants who were whispering secrets, and after a few seconds of such repose, fell into a violent flurry, tossing their wild arms about, as if their late confidences were really too wicked for their peace of mind, some weather-beaten ragged old rooks'-nests, burdening their higher branches, swung like wrecks upon a stormy sea. "where are the birds?" asked miss betsey. "the ----?" my mother had been thinking of something else. "the rooks--what has become of them?" asked miss betsey. "there have not been any since we have lived here," said my mother. "we thought--mr. copperfield thought--it was quite a large rookery; but the nests were very old ones, and the birds have deserted them a long while." "david copperfield all over!" cried miss betsey. "david copperfield from head to foot! calls a house a rookery when there's not a rook near it, and takes the birds on trust, because he sees the nests!" "mr. copperfield," returned my mother, "is dead, and if you dare to speak unkindly of him to me----" my poor dear mother, i suppose, had some momentary intention of committing an assault and battery upon my aunt, who could easily have settled her with one hand, even if my mother had been in far better training for such an encounter than she was that evening. but it passed with the action of rising from her chair; and she sat down again very meekly, and fainted. when she came to herself, or when miss betsey had restored her, whichever it was, she found the latter standing at the window. the twilight was by this time shading down into darkness; and dimly as they saw each other, they could not have done that without the aid of the fire. "well?" said miss betsey, coming back to her chair, as if she had only been taking a casual look at the prospect; "and when do you expect----" "i am all in a tremble," faltered my mother. "i don't know what's the matter. i shall die, i am sure!" "no, no, no," said miss betsey. "have some tea." "oh dear me, dear me, do you think it will do me any good?" cried my mother in a helpless manner. "of course it will," said miss betsey. "it's nothing but fancy. what do you call your girl?" "i don't know that it will be a girl, yet, ma'am," said my mother innocently. "bless the baby!" exclaimed miss betsey, unconsciously quoting the second sentiment of the pincushion in the drawer up-stairs, but applying it to my mother instead of me, "i don't mean that. i mean your servant-girl." "peggotty," said my mother. "peggotty!" repeated miss betsey, with some indignation. "do you mean to say, child, that any human being has gone into a christian church, and got herself named peggotty?" "it's her surname," said my mother, faintly. "mr. copperfield called her by it, because her christian name was the same as mine." "here! peggotty!" cried miss betsey, opening the parlor-door. "tea. your mistress is a little unwell. don't dawdle." having issued this mandate with as much potentiality as if she had been a recognised authority in the house ever since it had been a house, and having looked out to confront the amazed peggotty coming along the passage with a candle at the sound of a strange voice, miss betsey shut the door again, and sat down as before: with her feet on the fender, the skirt of her dress tucked up, and her hands folded on one knee. "you were speaking about its being a girl," said miss betsey. "i have no doubt it will be a girl. i have a presentiment that it must be a girl. now child, from the moment of the birth of this girl--" "perhaps boy," my mother took the liberty of putting in. "i tell you i have a presentiment that it must be a girl," returned miss betsey. "don't contradict. from the moment of this girl's birth, child, i intend to be her friend. i intend to be her godmother, and i beg you'll call her betsey trotwood copperfield. there must be no mistakes in life with _this_ betsey trotwood. there must be no trifling with _her_ affections, poor dear. she must be well brought up, and well guarded from reposing any foolish confidences where they are not deserved. i must make that _my_ care." there was a twitch of miss betsey's head, after each of these sentences, as if her own old wrongs were working within her, and she repressed any plainer reference to them by strong constraint. so my mother suspected, at least, as she observed her by the low glimmer of the fire: too much scared by miss betsey, too uneasy in herself, and too subdued and bewildered altogether, to observe anything very clearly, or to know what to say. "and was david good to you, child?" asked miss betsey, when she had been silent for a little while, and these motions of her head had gradually ceased. "were you comfortable together?" "we were very happy," said my mother. "mr. copperfield was only too good to me." "what, he spoilt you, i suppose?" returned miss betsey. "for being quite alone and dependent on myself in this rough world again, yes, i fear he did indeed," sobbed my mother. "well! don't cry!" said miss betsey. "you were not equally matched, child--if any two people _can_ be equally matched--and so i asked the question. you were an orphan, weren't you?" "yes." "and a governess?" "i was nursery-governess in a family where mr. copperfield came to visit. mr. copperfield was very kind to me, and took a great deal of notice of me, and paid me a good deal of attention, and at last proposed to me. and i accepted him. and so we were married," said my mother simply. "ha! poor baby!" mused miss betsey, with her frown still bent upon the fire. "do you know anything?" "i beg your pardon, ma'am," faltered my mother. "about keeping house, for instance," said miss betsey. "not much, i fear," returned my mother. "not so much as i could wish. but mr. copperfield was teaching me--" ("much he knew about it himself!") said miss betsey in a parenthesis. --"and i hope i should have improved, being very anxious to learn, and he very patient to teach, if the great misfortune of his death"--my mother broke down again here, and could get no farther. "well, well!" said miss betsey. --"i kept my housekeeping-book regularly, and balanced it with mr. copperfield every night," cried my mother in another burst of distress, and breaking down again. "well, well!" said miss betsey. "don't cry any more." --"and i am sure we never had a word of difference respecting it, except when mr. copperfield objected to my threes and fives being too much like each other, or to my putting curly tails to my sevens and nines," resumed my mother in another burst, and breaking down again. "you'll make yourself ill," said miss betsey, "and you know that will not be good either for you or for my god-daughter. come! you mustn't do it!" this argument had some share in quieting my mother, though her increasing indisposition perhaps had a larger one. there was an interval of silence, only broken by miss betsey's occasionally ejaculating "ha!" as she sat with her feet upon the fender. "david had bought an annuity for himself with his money, i know," said she, by and by. "what did he do for you?" "mr. copperfield," said my mother, answering with some difficulty, "was so considerate and good as to secure the reversion of a part of it to me." "how much?" asked miss betsey. "a hundred and five pounds a year," said my mother. "he might have done worse," said my aunt. the word was appropriate to the moment. my mother was so much worse that peggotty, coming in with the teaboard and candles, and seeing at a glance how ill she was,--as miss betsey might have done sooner if there had been light enough,--conveyed her up-stairs to her own room with all speed; and immediately dispatched ham peggotty, her nephew, who had been for some days past secreted in the house, unknown to my mother, as a special messenger in case of emergency, to fetch the nurse and doctor. those allied powers were considerably astonished, when they arrived within a few minutes of each other, to find an unknown lady of portentous appearance, sitting before the fire, with her bonnet tied over her left arm, stopping her ears with jewellers' cotton. peggotty knowing nothing about her, and my mother saying nothing about her, she was quite a mystery in the parlor; and the fact of her having a magazine of jewellers' cotton in her pocket, and sticking the article in her ears in that way, did not detract from the solemnity of her presence. the doctor having been up-stairs and come down again, and having satisfied himself, i suppose, that there was a probability of this unknown lady and himself having to sit there, face to face, for some hours, laid himself out to be polite and social. he was the meekest of his sex, the mildest of little men. he sidled in and out of a room, to take up the less space. he walked as softly as the ghost in hamlet, and more slowly. he carried his head on one side, partly in modest depreciation of himself, partly in modest propitiation of everybody else. it is nothing to say that he hadn't a word to throw at a dog. he couldn't have _thrown_ a word at a mad dog. he might have offered him one gently, or half a one, or a fragment of one; for he spoke as slowly as he walked; but he wouldn't have been rude to him, and he couldn't have been quick with him, for any earthly consideration. mr. chillip, looking mildly at my aunt, with his head on one side, and making her a little bow, said, in allusion to the jewellers' cotton, as he softly touched his left ear: "some local irritation, ma'am?" "what!" replied my aunt, pulling the cotton out of one ear like a cork. mr. chillip was so alarmed by her abruptness--as he told my mother afterwards--that it was a mercy he didn't lose his presence of mind. but he repeated, sweetly: "some local irritation, ma'am?" "nonsense!" replied my aunt, and corked herself again, at one blow. mr. chillip could do nothing after this, but sit and look at her feebly, as she sat and looked at the fire, until he was called up-stairs again. after some quarter of an hour's absence, he returned. "well?" said my aunt, taking the cotton out of the ear nearest to him. "well, ma'am," returned mr. chillip, "we are--we are progressing slowly, ma'am." "ba--a--ah!" said my aunt, with a perfect shake on the contemptuous interjection. and corked herself, as before. really--really--as mr. chillip told my mother, he was almost shocked; speaking in a professional point of view alone, he was almost shocked. but he sat and looked at her, notwithstanding, for nearly two hours, as she sat looking at the fire, until he was again called out. after another absence, he again returned. "well?" said my aunt, taking out the cotton on that side again. "well, ma'am," returned mr. chillip, "we are--we are progressing slowly, ma'am." "ya--a--ah!" said my aunt. with such a snarl at him, that mr. chillip absolutely could not bear it. it was really calculated to break his spirit, he said afterwards. he preferred to go and sit upon the stairs, in the dark and a strong draught, until he was again sent for. ham peggotty, who went to the national school, and was a very dragon at his catechism, and who may therefore be regarded as a credible witness, reported next day, that happening to peep in at the parlor-door an hour after this, he was instantly descried by miss betsey, then walking to and fro in a state of agitation, and pounced upon before he could make his escape. that there were now occasional sounds of feet and voices overhead which he inferred the cotton did not exclude, from the circumstance of his evidently being clutched by the lady as a victim on whom to expend her superabundant agitation when the sounds were loudest. that, marching him constantly up and down by the collar (as if he had been taking too much laudanum), she, at those times, shook him, rumpled his hair, made light of his linen, stopped _his_ ears as if she confounded them with her own, and otherwise touzled and maltreated him. this was in part confirmed by his aunt, who saw him at half-past twelve o'clock, soon after his release, and affirmed that he was then as red as i was. the mild mr. chillip could not possibly bear malice at such a time, if at any time. he sidled into the parlor as soon as he was at liberty, and said to my aunt in his meekest manner: "well, ma'am, i am happy to congratulate you." "what upon?" said my aunt, sharply. mr. chillip was fluttered again, by the extreme severity of my aunt's manner; so he made her a little bow and gave her a little smile, to mollify her. "mercy on the man, what's he doing!" cried my aunt, impatiently. "can't he speak?" "be calm, my dear ma'am," said mr. chillip, in his softest accents. "there is no longer any occasion for uneasiness, ma'am. be calm." it has since been considered almost a miracle that my aunt didn't shake him, and shake what he had to say, out of him. she only shook her own head at him, but in a way that made him quail. "well, ma'am," resumed mr. chillip, as soon as he had courage, "i am happy to congratulate you. all is now over, ma'am, and well over." during the five minutes or so that mr. chillip devoted to the delivery of this oration, my aunt eyed him narrowly. "how is she?" said my aunt, folding her arms with her bonnet still tied on one of them. "well, ma'am, she will soon be quite comfortable, i hope," returned mr. chillip. "quite as comfortable as we can expect a young mother to be, under these melancholy domestic circumstances. there cannot be any objection to your seeing her presently, ma'am. it may do her good." "and _she_. how is _she_?" said my aunt, sharply. mr. chillip laid his head a little more on one side, and looked at my aunt like an amiable bird. "the baby," said my aunt. "how is she?" "ma'am," returned mr. chillip, "i apprehended you had known. it's a boy." my aunt said never a word, but took her bonnet by the strings, in the manner of a sling, aimed a blow at mr. chillip's head with it, put it on bent, walked out, and never came back. she vanished like a discontented fairy; or like one of those supernatural beings, whom it was popularly supposed i was entitled to see; and never came back any more. no. i lay in my basket, and my mother lay in her bed; but betsey trotwood copperfield was for ever in the land of dreams and shadows, the tremendous region whence i had so lately travelled; and the light upon the window of our room shone out upon the earthly bourne of all such travellers, and the mound above the ashes and the dust that once was he, without whom i had never been. chapter ii. i observe. the first objects that assume a distinct presence before me, as i look far back, into the blank of my infancy, are my mother with her pretty hair and youthful shape, and peggotty with no shape at all, and eyes so dark that they seemed to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, and cheeks and arms so hard and red that i wondered the birds didn't peck her in preference to apples. i believe i can remember these two at a little distance apart, dwarfed to my sight by stooping down or kneeling on the floor, and i going unsteadily from the one to the other. i have an impression on my mind which i cannot distinguish from actual remembrance, of the touch of peggotty's fore-finger as she used to hold it out to me, and of its being roughened by needlework, like a pocket nutmeg-grater. this may be fancy, though i think the memory of most of us can go farther back into such times than many of us suppose; just as i believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. indeed, i think that most grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater propriety be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it; the rather, as i generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood. i might have a misgiving that i am "meandering" in stopping to say this, but that it brings me to remark that i build these conclusions, in part upon my own experience of myself; and if it should appear from anything i may set down in this narrative that i was a child of close observation, or that as a man i have a strong memory of my childhood, i undoubtedly lay claim to both of these characteristics. looking back, as i was saying, into the blank of my infancy, the first objects i can remember as standing out by themselves from a confusion of things, are my mother and peggotty. what else do i remember? let me see. there comes out of the cloud, our house--not new to me, but quite familiar, in its earliest remembrance. on the ground-floor is peggotty's kitchen, opening into a back yard; with a pigeon-house on a pole, in the centre, without any pigeons in it; a great dog-kennel in a corner, without any dog; and a quantity of fowls that look terribly tall to me, walking about, in a menacing and ferocious manner. there is one cock who gets upon a post to crow, and seems to take particular notice of me as i look at him through the kitchen-window, who makes me shiver, he is so fierce. of the geese outside the side-gate who come waddling after me with their long necks stretched out when i go that way, i dream at night: as a man environed by wild beasts might dream of lions. here is a long passage--what an enormous perspective i make of it!--leading from peggotty's kitchen to the front-door. a dark store-room opens out of it, and that is a place to be run past at night; for i don't know what may be among those tubs and jars and old tea-chests, when there is nobody in there with a dimly-burning light, letting a mouldy air come out at the door, in which there is the smell of soap, pickles, pepper, candles, and coffee, all at one whiff. then there are the two parlors: the parlor in which we sit of an evening, my mother and i and peggotty--for peggotty is quite our companion, when her work is done and we are alone--and the best parlor where we sit on a sunday; grandly, but not so comfortably. there is something of a doleful air about that room to me, for peggotty has told me--i don't know when, but apparently ages ago--about my father's funeral, and the company having their black cloaks put on. one sunday night my mother reads to peggotty and me in there, how lazarus was raised up from the dead. and i am so frightened that they are afterwards obliged to take me out of bed, and shew me the quiet churchyard out of the bedroom window, with the dead all lying in their graves at rest, below the solemn moon. there is nothing half so green that i know anywhere, as the grass of that churchyard; nothing half so shady as its trees; nothing half so quiet as its tombstones. the sheep are feeding there, when i kneel up, early in the morning, in my little bed in a closet within my mother's room, to look out at it; and i see the red light shining on the sun-dial, and think within myself, "is the sun-dial glad, i wonder, that it can tell the time again?" [illustration: our pew at church.] here is our pew in the church. what a high-backed pew! with a window near it, out of which our house can be seen, and _is_ seen many times during the morning's service, by peggotty, who likes to make herself as sure as she can that it's not being robbed, or is not in flames. but though peggotty's eye wanders, she is much offended if mine does, and frowns to me, as i stand upon the seat, that i am to look at the clergyman. but i can't always look at him--i know him without that white thing on, and i am afraid of his wondering why i stare so, and perhaps stopping the service to enquire--and what am i to do? it's a dreadful thing to gape, but i must do something. i look at my mother, but _she_ pretends not to see me. i look at a boy in the aisle, and _he_ makes faces at me. i look at the sunlight coming in at the open door through the porch, and there i see a stray sheep--i don't mean a sinner, but mutton--half making up his mind to come into the church. i feel that if i looked at him any longer, i might be tempted to say something out loud; and what would become of me then! i look up at the monumental tablets on the wall, and try to think of mr. bodgers late of this parish, and what the feelings of mrs. bodgers must have been, when affliction sore, long time mr. bodgers bore, and physicians were in vain. i wonder whether they called in mr. chillip, and he was in vain; and if so, how he likes to be reminded of it once a week. i look from mr. chillip, in his sunday neckcloth, to the pulpit; and think what a good place it would be to play in, and what a castle it would make, with another boy coming up the stairs to attack it, and having the velvet cushion with the tassels thrown down on his head. in time my eyes gradually shut up; and, from seeming to hear the clergyman singing a drowsy song in the heat, i hear nothing, until i fall off the seat with a crash, and am taken out, more dead than alive, by peggotty. and now i see the outside of our house, with the latticed bedroom-windows standing open to let in the sweet-smelling air, and the ragged old rooks'-nests still dangling in the elm-trees at the bottom of the front garden. now i am in the garden at the back, beyond the yard where the empty pigeon-house and dog-kennel are--a very preserve of butterflies, as i remember it, with a high fence, and a gate and padlock; where the fruit clusters on the trees, riper and richer than fruit has ever been since, in any other garden, and where my mother gathers some in a basket, while i stand by, bolting furtive gooseberries, and trying to look unmoved. a great wind rises, and the summer is gone in a moment. we are playing in the winter twilight, dancing about the parlor. when my mother is out of breath and rests herself in an elbow-chair, i watch her winding her bright curls round her fingers, and straitening her waist, and nobody knows better than i do that she likes to look so well, and is proud of being so pretty. that is among my very earliest impressions. that, and a sense that we were both a little afraid of peggotty, and submitted ourselves in most things to her direction, were among the first opinions--if they may be so called--that i ever derived from what i saw. peggotty and i were sitting one night by the parlor fire, alone. i had been reading to peggotty about crocodiles. i must have read very perspicuously, or the poor soul must have been deeply interested, for i remember she had a cloudy impression, after i had done, that they were a sort of vegetable. i was tired of reading, and dead sleepy; but having leave, as a high treat, to sit up until my mother came home from spending the evening at a neighbour's, i would rather have died upon my post (of course) than have gone to bed. i had reached that stage of sleepiness when peggotty seemed to swell and grow immensely large. i propped my eyelids open with my two forefingers, and looked perseveringly at her as she sat at work; at the little bit of wax-candle she kept for her thread--how old it looked, being so wrinkled in all directions!--at the little house with a thatched roof, where the yard-measure lived; at her work-box with a sliding lid, with a view of saint paul's cathedral (with a pink dome) painted on the top; at the brass thimble on her finger; at herself, whom i thought lovely. i felt so sleepy, that i knew if i lost sight of anything, for a moment, i was gone. "peggotty," says i, suddenly, "were you ever married?" "lord, master davy," replied peggotty. "what's put marriage in your head!" she answered with such a start, that it quite awoke me. and then she stopped in her work, and looked at me, with her needle drawn out to its thread's length. "but _were_ you ever married, peggotty?" says i. "you are a very handsome woman, an't you?" i thought her in a different style from my mother, certainly; but of another school of beauty, i considered her a perfect example. there was a red velvet footstool in the best parlor, on which my mother had painted a nosegay. the ground-work of that stool, and peggotty's complexion, appeared to me to be one and the same thing. the stool was smooth, and peggotty was rough, but that made no difference. "me handsome, davy!" said peggotty. "lawk, no, my dear! but what put marriage in your head?" "i don't know!--you mustn't marry more than one person at a time, may you, peggotty?" "certainly not," says peggotty, with the promptest decision. "but if you marry a person, and the person dies, why then you may marry another person, mayn't you, peggotty?" "you may," says peggotty, "if you choose, my dear. that's a matter of opinion." "but what is your opinion, peggotty?" said i. i asked her, and looked curiously at her, because she looked so curiously at me. "my opinion is," said peggotty, taking her eyes from me, after a little indecision and going on with her work, "that i never was married myself, master davy, and that i don't expect to be. that's all i know about the subject." "you an't cross, i suppose, peggotty, are you?" said i, after sitting quiet for a minute. i really thought she was, she had been so short with me; but i was quite mistaken: for she laid aside her work, (which was a stocking of her own,) and opening her arms wide, took my curly head within them, and gave it a good squeeze. i know it was a good squeeze, because, being very plump, whenever she made any little exertion after she was dressed, some of the buttons on the back of her gown flew off. and i recollect two bursting to the opposite side of the parlor, while she was hugging me. "now let me hear some more about the crorkindills," said peggotty, who was not quite right in the name yet, "for i an't heard half enough." i couldn't quite understand why peggotty looked so queer, or why she was so ready to go back to the crocodiles. however, we returned to those monsters, with fresh wakefulness on my part, and we left their eggs in the sand for the sun to hatch; and we ran away from them, and baffled them by constantly turning, which they were unable to do quickly, on account of their unwieldy make; and we went into the water after them, as natives, and put sharp pieces of timber down their throats; and in short we ran the whole crocodile gauntlet. _i_ did at least; but i had my doubts of peggotty, who was thoughtfully sticking her needle into various parts of her face and arms, all the time. we had exhausted the crocodiles, and begun with the alligators, when the garden-bell rang. we went out to the door; and there was my mother, looking unusually pretty, i thought, and with her a gentleman with beautiful black hair and whiskers, who had walked home with us from church last sunday. as my mother stooped down on the threshhold to take me in her arms and kiss me, the gentleman said i was a more highly privileged little fellow than a monarch--or something like that; for my later understanding comes, i am sensible, to my aid here. "what does that mean?" i asked him, over her shoulder. he patted me on the head; but somehow, i didn't like him or his deep voice, and i was jealous that his hand should touch my mother's in touching me--which it did. i put it away, as well as i could. "oh davy!" remonstrated my mother. "dear boy!" said the gentleman. "i cannot wonder at his devotion!" i never saw such a beautiful color on my mother's face before. she gently chid me for being rude; and, keeping me close to her shawl, turned to thank the gentleman for taking so much trouble as to bring her home. she put out her hand to him as she spoke, and, as he met it with his own, she glanced, i thought, at me. "let us say 'good night,' my fine boy," said the gentleman, when he had bent his head--_i_ saw him!--over my mother's little glove. "good night!" said i. "come! let us be the best friends in the world!" said the gentleman, laughing. "shake hands!" my right hand was in my mother's left, so i gave him the other. "why that's the wrong hand, davy!" laughed the gentleman. my mother drew my right hand forward, but i was resolved, for my former reason, not to give it him, and i did not. i gave him the other, and he shook it heartily, and said i was a brave fellow, and went away. at this minute i see him turn round in the garden, and give us a last look with his ill-omened black eyes, before the door was shut. peggotty, who had not said a word or moved a finger, secured the fastenings instantly, and we all went into the parlor. my mother, contrary to her usual habit, instead of coming to the elbow-chair by the fire, remained at the other end of the room, and sat singing to herself. "--hope you have had a pleasant evening, ma'am," said peggotty, standing as stiff as a barrel in the centre of the room, with a candlestick in her hand. "much obliged to you, peggotty," returned my mother, in a cheerful voice, "i have had a _very_ pleasant evening." "a stranger or so makes an agreeable change," suggested peggotty. "a very agreeable change indeed," returned my mother. peggotty continuing to stand motionless in the middle of the room, and my mother resuming her singing, i fell asleep, though i was not so sound asleep but that i could hear voices, without hearing what they said. when i half awoke from this uncomfortable doze, i found peggotty and my mother both in tears, and both talking. "not such a one as this, mr. copperfield wouldn't have liked," said peggotty. "that i say, and that i swear!" "good heavens!" cried my mother. "you'll drive me mad! was ever any poor girl so ill-used by her servants as i am! why do i do myself the injustice of calling myself a girl? have i never been married, peggotty?" "god knows you have, ma'am," returned peggotty. "then how can you dare," said my mother--"you know i don't mean how can you dare, peggotty, but how can you have the heart--to make me so uncomfortable and say such bitter things to me, when you are well aware that i haven't, out of this place, a single friend to turn to!" "the more's the reason," returned peggotty, "for saying that it won't do. no! that it won't do. no! no price could make it do. no!"--i thought peggotty would have thrown the candlestick away, she was so emphatic with it. "how can you be so aggravating," said my mother, shedding more tears than before, "as to talk in such an unjust manner! how can you go on as if it was all settled and arranged, peggotty, when i tell you over and over again, you cruel thing, that beyond the commonest civilities nothing has passed! you talk of admiration. what am i to do? if people are so silly as to indulge the sentiment, is it my fault? what am i to do, i ask you? would you wish me to shave my head and black my face, or disfigure myself with a burn, or a scald, or something of that sort? i dare say you would, peggotty. i dare say you'd quite enjoy it." peggotty seemed to take this aspersion very much to heart, i thought. "and my dear boy," cried my mother, coming to the elbow-chair in which i was, and caressing me, "my own little davy! is it to be hinted to me that i am wanting in affection for my precious treasure, the dearest little fellow that ever was!" "nobody never went and hinted no such a thing," said peggotty. "you did, peggotty!" returned my mother. "you know you did. what else was it possible to infer from what you said, you unkind creature, when you know as well as i do, that on his account only last quarter i wouldn't buy myself a new parasol, though that old green one is frayed the whole way up, and the fringe is perfectly mangy. you know it is, peggotty. you can't deny it." then, turning affectionately to me, with her cheek against mine, "am i a naughty mama to you, davy? am i a nasty, cruel, selfish, bad mama? say i am, my child; say 'yes;' dear boy, and peggotty will love you, and peggotty's love is a great deal better than mine, davy. _i_ don't love you at all, do i?" at this, we all fell a-crying together. i think i was the loudest of the party, but i am sure we were all sincere about it. i was quite heartbroken myself, and am afraid that in the first transports of wounded tenderness i called peggotty a "beast." that honest creature was in deep affliction, i remember, and must have become quite buttonless on the occasion; for a little volley of those explosives went off, when, after having made it up with my mother, she kneeled down by the elbow-chair, and made it up with me. we went to bed greatly dejected. my sobs kept waking me, for a long time; and when one very strong sob quite hoisted me up in bed, i found my mother sitting on the coverlet, and leaning over me. i fell asleep in her arms, after that, and slept soundly. whether it was the following sunday when i saw the gentleman again, or whether there was any greater lapse of time before he reappeared, i cannot recal. i don't profess to be clear about dates. but there he was, in church, and he walked home with us afterwards. he came in, too, to look at a famous geranium we had, in the parlor-window. it did not appear to me that he took much notice of it, but before he went he asked my mother to give him a bit of the blossom. she begged him to choose it for himself, but he refused to do that--i could not understand why--so she plucked it for him, and gave it into his hand. he said he would never, never, part with it any more; and i thought he must be quite a fool not to know that it would fall to pieces in a day or two. peggotty began to be less with us, of an evening, than she had always been. my mother deferred to her very much--more than usual, it occurred to me--and we were all three excellent friends; still we were different from what we used to be, and were not so comfortable among ourselves. sometimes i fancied that peggotty perhaps objected to my mother's wearing all the pretty dresses she had in her drawers, or to her going so often to visit at that neighbour's; but i couldn't, to my satisfaction, make out how it was. gradually, i became used to seeing the gentleman with the black whiskers. i liked him no better than at first, and had the same uneasy jealousy of him; but if i had any reason for it beyond a child's instinctive dislike, and a general idea that peggotty and i could make much of my mother without any help, it certainly was not _the_ reason that i might have found if i had been older. no such thing came into my mind, or near it. i could observe, in little pieces, as it were; but as to making a net of a number of these pieces, and catching anybody in it, that was, as yet, beyond me. one autumn morning i was with my mother in the front garden, when mr. murdstone--i knew him by that name now--came by, on horseback. he reined up his horse to salute my mother, and said he was going to lowestoft to see some friends who were there with a yacht, and merrily proposed to take me on the saddle before him if i would like the ride. the air was so clear and pleasant, and the horse seemed to like the idea of the ride so much himself, as he stood snorting and pawing at the garden-gate, that i had a great desire to go. so i was sent up-stairs to peggotty to be made spruce; and in the meantime mr. murdstone dismounted, and, with his horse's bridle drawn over his arm, walked slowly up and down on the outer side of the sweetbriar fence, while my mother walked slowly up and down on the inner to keep him company. i recollect peggotty and i peeping out at them from my little window; i recollect how closely they appeared to be examining the sweetbriar between them, as they strolled along; and how, from being in a perfectly angelic temper, peggotty turned cross in a moment, and brushed my hair the wrong way, excessively hard. mr. murdstone and i were soon off, and trotting along on the green turf by the side of the road. he held me quite easily with one arm, and i don't think i was restless usually; but i could not make up my mind to sit in front of him without turning my head sometimes, and looking up in his face. he had that kind of shallow black eye--i want a better word to express an eye that has no depth in it to be looked into--which, when it is abstracted, seems from some peculiarity of light to be disfigured, for a moment at a time, by a cast. several times when i glanced at him, i observed that appearance with a sort of awe, and wondered what he was thinking about so closely. his hair and whiskers were blacker and thicker, looked at so near, than even i had given them credit for being. a squareness about the lower part of his face, and the dotted indication of the strong black beard he shaved close every day, reminded me of the wax-work that had travelled into our neighbourhood some half-a-year before. this, his regular eyebrows, and the rich white, and black, and brown, of his complexion--confound his complexion, and his memory!--made me think him, in spite of my misgivings, a very handsome man. i have no doubt that my poor dear mother thought him so too. we went to an hotel by the sea, where two gentlemen were smoking cigars in a room by themselves. each of them was lying on at least four chairs, and had a large rough jacket on. in a corner was a heap of coats and boat-cloaks, and a flag, all bundled up together. they both rolled on to their feet in an untidy sort of manner when we came in, and said "halloa, murdstone! we thought you were dead!" "not yet," said mr. murdstone. "and who's this shaver?" said one of the gentlemen, taking hold of me. "that's davy," returned mr. murdstone. "davy who?" said the gentleman. "jones?" "copperfield," said mr. murdstone. "what! bewitching mrs. copperfield's incumbrance?" cried the gentleman. "the pretty little widow?" "quinion," said mr. murdstone, "take care, if you please. somebody's sharp." "who is?" asked the gentleman, laughing. i looked up, quickly; being curious to know. "only brooks of sheffield," said mr. murdstone. i was quite relieved to find it was only brooks of sheffield; for, at first, i really thought it was i. there seemed to be something very comical in the reputation of mr. brooks of sheffield, for both the gentlemen laughed heartily when he was mentioned, and mr. murdstone was a good deal amused also. after some laughing, the gentleman whom he had called quinion, said: "and what is the opinion of brooks of sheffield, in reference to the projected business?" "why, i don't know that brooks understands much about it at present," replied mr. murdstone; "but he is not generally favourable, i believe." there was more laughter at this, and mr. quinion said he would ring the bell for some sherry in which to drink to brooks. this he did; and when the wine came, he made me have a little, with a biscuit, and, before i drank it, stand up and say "confusion to brooks of sheffield!" the toast was received with great applause, and such hearty laughter that it made me laugh too; at which they laughed the more. in short, we quite enjoyed ourselves. we walked about on the cliff after that, and sat on the grass, and looked at things through a telescope--i could make out nothing myself when it was put to my eye, but i pretended i could--and then we came back to the hotel to an early dinner. all the time we were out, the two gentlemen smoked incessantly--which, i thought, if i might judge from the smell of their rough coats, they must have been doing, ever since the coats had first come home from the tailor's. i must not forget that we went on board the yacht, where they all three descended into the cabin, and were busy with some papers. i saw them quite hard at work, when i looked down through the open skylight. they left me, during this time, with a very nice man with a very large head of red hair and a very small shiny hat upon it, who had got a cross-barred shirt or waistcoat on, with "skylark" in capital letters across the chest. i thought it was his name; and that as he lived on board ship and hadn't a street-door to put his name on, he put it there instead; but when i called him mr. skylark, he said it meant the vessel. i observed all day that mr. murdstone was graver and steadier than the two gentlemen. they were very gay and careless. they joked freely with one another, but seldom with him. it appeared to me that he was more clever and cold than they were, and that they regarded him with something of my own feeling. i remarked that once or twice when mr. quinion was talking, he looked at mr. murdstone sideways, as if to make sure of his not being displeased; and that once when mr. passnidge (the other gentleman) was in high spirits, he trod upon his foot, and gave him a secret caution with his eyes, to observe mr. murdstone, who was sitting stern and silent. nor do i recollect that mr. murdstone laughed at all that day, except at the sheffield joke--and that, by the by, was his own. we went home early in the evening. it was a very fine evening, and my mother and he had another stroll by the sweet-briar, while i was sent in to get my tea. when he was gone, my mother asked me all about the day i had had, and what they had said and done. i mentioned what they had said about her, and she laughed, and told me they were impudent fellows who talked nonsense--but i knew it pleased her. i knew it quite as well as i know it now. i took the opportunity of asking if she was at all acquainted with mr. brooks of sheffield, but she answered no, only she supposed he must be a manufacturer in the knife and fork way. can i say of her face--altered as i have reason to remember it, perished as i know it is--that it is gone, when here it comes before me at this instant, as distinct as any face that i may choose to look on in a crowded street? can i say of her innocent and girlish beauty, that it faded, and was no more, when its breath falls on my cheek now, as it fell that night? can i say she ever changed, when my remembrance brings her back to life, thus only; and, truer to its loving youth than i have been, or man ever is, still holds fast what it cherished then? i write of her just as she was when i had gone to bed after this talk, and she came to bid me good night. she kneeled down playfully by the side of the bed, and laying her chin upon her hands, and laughing, said: "what was it they said, davy? tell me again. i can't believe it." "'bewitching----'" i began. my mother put her hands upon her lips to stop me. "it was never bewitching," she said, laughing. "it never could have been bewitching, davy. now i know it wasn't!" "yes it was. 'bewitching mrs. copperfield,'" i repeated stoutly. "and 'pretty.'" "no no, it was never pretty. not pretty," interposed my mother, laying her fingers on my lips again. "yes it was. 'pretty little widow.'" "what foolish, impudent creatures!" cried my mother, laughing and covering her face. "what ridiculous men! an't they? davy dear----" "well, ma." "don't tell peggotty; she might be angry with them. i am dreadfully angry with them myself; but i would rather peggotty didn't know." i promised, of course; and we kissed one another over and over again, and i soon fell fast asleep. it seems to me, at this distance of time, as if it were the next day when peggotty broached the striking and adventurous proposition i am about to mention; but it was probably about two months afterwards. we were sitting as before, one evening (when my mother was out as before), in company with the stocking and the yard measure, and the bit of wax, and the box with saint paul's on the lid, and the crocodile book, when peggotty, after looking at me several times, and opening her mouth as if she were going to speak, without doing it--which i thought was merely gaping, or i should have been rather alarmed--said coaxingly: "master davy, how should you like to go along with me and spend a fortnight at my brother's at yarmouth? wouldn't _that_ be a treat?" "is your brother an agreeable man, peggotty?" i enquired, provisionally. "oh what an agreeable man he is!" cried peggotty, holding up her hands. "then there's the sea; and the boats and ships; and the fishermen; and the beach; and am to play with--" peggotty meant her nephew ham, mentioned in my first chapter; but she spoke of him as a morsel of english grammar. i was flushed by her summary of delights, and replied that it would indeed be a treat, but what would my mother say? "why then i'll as good as bet a guinea," said peggotty, intent upon my face, "that she'll let us go. i'll ask her, if you like, as soon as ever she comes home. there now!" "but what's she to do while we're away?" said i, putting my small elbows on the table to argue the point. "she can't live by herself." if peggotty were looking for a hole, all of a sudden, in the heel of that stocking, it must have been a very little one indeed, and not worth darning. "i say! peggotty! she can't live by herself, you know." "oh bless you!" said peggotty, looking at me again at last. "don't you know? she's going to stay for a fortnight with mrs. grayper. mrs. grayper's going to have a lot of company." oh! if that was it, i was quite ready to go. i waited, in the utmost impatience, until my mother came home from mrs. grayper's (for it was that identical neighbour), to ascertain if we could get leave to carry out this great idea. without being nearly so much surprised as i had expected, my mother entered into it readily; and it was all arranged that night, and my board and lodging during the visit were to be paid for. the day soon came for our going. it was such an early day that it came soon, even to me, who was in a fever of expectation, and half afraid that an earthquake or a fiery mountain, or some other great convulsion of nature, might interpose to stop the expedition. we were to go in a carrier's cart, which departed in the morning after breakfast. i would have given any money to have been allowed to wrap myself up over-night, and sleep in my hat and boots. it touches me nearly now, although i tell it lightly, to recollect how eager i was to leave my happy home; to think how little i suspected what i did leave for ever. i am glad to recollect that when the carrier's cart was at the gate, and my mother stood there kissing me, a grateful fondness for her and for the old place i had never turned my back upon before, made me cry. i am glad to know that my mother cried too, and that i felt her heart beat against mine. i am glad to recollect that when the carrier began to move, my mother ran out at the gate, and called to him to stop, that she might kiss me once more. i am glad to dwell upon the earnestness and love with which she lifted up her face to mine, and did so. as we left her standing in the road, mr. murdstone came up to where she was, and seemed to expostulate with her for being so moved. i was looking back round the awning of the cart, and wondered what business it was of his. peggotty, who was also looking back on the other side, seemed anything but satisfied; as the face she brought back into the cart denoted. i sat looking at peggotty for some time, in a reverie on this supposititious case: whether, if she were employed to lose me like the boy in the fairy tale, i should be able to track my way home again by the buttons she would shed. chapter iii. i have a change. the carrier's horse was the laziest horse in the world, i should hope, and shuffled along, with his head down, as if he liked to keep the people waiting to whom the packages were directed. i fancied, indeed, that he sometimes chuckled audibly over this reflection, but the carrier said he was only troubled with a cough. the carrier had a way of keeping his head down, like his horse, and of drooping sleepily forward as he drove, with one of his arms on each of his knees. i say "drove," but it struck me that the cart would have gone to yarmouth quite as well without him, for the horse did all that; and as to conversation, he had no idea of it but whistling. peggotty had a basket of refreshments on her knee, which would have lasted us out handsomely, if we had been going to london by the same conveyance. we ate a good deal, and slept a good deal. peggotty always went to sleep with her chin upon the handle of the basket, her hold of which never relaxed; and i could not have believed unless i had heard her do it, that one defenceless woman could have snored so much. we made so many deviations up and down lanes, and were such a long time delivering a bedstead at a public-house, and calling at other places, that i was quite tired, and very glad, when we saw yarmouth. it looked rather spongy and soppy, i thought, as i carried my eye over the great dull waste that lay across the river; and i could not help wondering, if the world were really as round as my geography-book said, how any part of it came to be so flat. but i reflected that yarmouth might be situated at one of the poles; which would account for it. as we drew a little nearer, and saw the whole adjacent prospect lying a straight low line under the sky, i hinted to peggotty that a mound or so might have improved it; and also that if the land had been a little more separated from the sea, and the town and the tide had not been quite so much mixed up, like toast and water, it would have been nicer. but peggotty said, with greater emphasis than usual, that we must take things as we found them, and that, for her part, she was proud to call herself a yarmouth bloater. when we got into the street (which was strange enough to me), and smelt the fish, and pitch, and oakum, and tar, and saw the sailors walking about, and the carts jingling up and down over the stones, i felt that i had done so busy a place an injustice; and said as much to peggotty, who heard my expressions of delight with great complacency, and told me it was well known (i suppose to those who had the good fortune to be born bloaters) that yarmouth was, upon the whole, the finest place in the universe. "here's my am!" screamed peggotty, "growed out of knowledge!" he was waiting for us, in fact, at the public-house; and asked me how i found myself, like an old acquaintance. i did not feel, at first, that i knew him as well as he knew me, because he had never come to our house since the night i was born, and naturally he had the advantage of me. but our intimacy was much advanced by his taking me on his back to carry me home. he was, now, a huge, strong fellow of six feet high, broad in proportion, and round-shouldered; but with a simpering boy's face and curly light hair that gave him quite a sheepish look. he was dressed in a canvas jacket, and a pair of such very stiff trousers that they would have stood quite as well alone, without any legs in them. and you couldn't so properly have said he wore a hat, as that he was covered in a-top, like an old building, with something pitchy. ham carrying me on his back and a small box of ours under his arm, and peggotty carrying another small box of ours, we turned down lanes bestrewn with bits of chips and little hillocks of sand, and went past gas-works, rope-walks, boat-builders' yards, ship-wrights' yards, ship-breakers' yards, caulkers' yards, riggers' lofts, smiths' forges, and a great litter of such places, until we came out upon the dull waste i had already seen at a distance; when ham said, "yon's our house, mas'r davy!" i looked in all directions, as far as i could stare over the wilderness, and away at the sea, and away at the river, but no house could _i_ make out. there was a black barge, or some other kind of superannuated boat, not far off, high and dry on the ground, with an iron funnel sticking out of it for a chimney and smoking very cosily; but nothing else in the way of a habitation that was visible to _me_. "that's not it?" said i. "that ship-looking thing?" "that's it, mas'r davy," returned ham. if it had been aladdin's palace, roc's egg and all, i suppose i could not have been more charmed with the romantic idea of living in it. there was a delightful door cut in the side, and it was roofed in, and there were little windows in it; but the wonderful charm of it was, that it was a real boat which had no doubt been upon the water hundreds of times, and which had never been intended to be lived in, on dry land. that was the captivation of it to me. if it had ever been meant to be lived in, i might have thought it small, or inconvenient, or lonely; but never having been designed for any such use, it became a perfect abode. it was beautifully clean inside, and as tidy as possible. there was a table, and a dutch clock, and a chest of drawers, and on the chest of drawers there was a tea-tray with a painting on it of a lady with a parasol, taking a walk with a military-looking child who was trundling a hoop. the tray was kept from tumbling down, by a bible; and the tray, if it had tumbled down, would have smashed a quantity of cups and saucers and a teapot that were grouped around the book. on the walls there were some common colored pictures, framed and glazed, of scripture subjects; such as i have never seen since in the hands of pedlars, without seeing the whole interior of peggotty's brother's house again, at one view. abraham in red going to sacrifice isaac in blue, and daniel in yellow cast into a den of green lions, were the most prominent of these. over the little mantel-shelf, was a picture of the sarah jane lugger, built at sunderland, with a real little wooden stern stuck on to it; a work of art, combining composition with carpentery, which i considered to be one of the most enviable possessions that the world could afford. there were some hooks in the beams of the ceiling, the use of which i did not divine then; and some lockers and boxes and conveniences of that sort, which served for seats and eked out the chairs. all this, i saw in the first glance after i crossed the threshold--childlike, according to my theory--and then peggotty opened a little door and showed me my bedroom. it was the completest and most desirable bedroom ever seen--in the stern of the vessel; with a little window, where the rudder used to go through; a little looking-glass, just the right height for me, nailed against the wall, and framed with oyster-shells; a little bed, which there was just room enough to get into; and a nosegay of seaweed in a blue mug on the table. the walls were whitewashed as white as milk, and the patchwork counterpane made my eyes quite ache with its brightness. one thing i particularly noticed in this delightful house, was the smell of fish; which was so searching, that when i took out my pocket-handkerchief to wipe my nose, i found it smelt exactly as if it had wrapped up a lobster. on my imparting this discovery in confidence to peggotty, she informed me that her brother dealt in lobsters, crabs, and crawfish; and i afterwards found that a heap of these creatures, in a state of wonderful conglomeration with one another, and never leaving off pinching whatever they laid hold of, were usually to be found in a little wooden outhouse where the pots and kettles were kept. we were welcomed by a very civil woman in a white apron, whom i had seen curtseying at the door when i was on ham's back, about a quarter of a mile off. likewise by a most beautiful little girl (or i thought her so) with a necklace of blue beads on, who wouldn't let me kiss her when i offered to, but ran away and hid herself. by and by, when we had dined in a sumptuous manner off boiled dabs, melted butter, and potatoes, with a chop for me, a hairy man with a very good-natured face came home. as he called peggotty "lass," and gave her a hearty smack on the cheek, i had no doubt, from the general propriety of her conduct, that he was her brother; and so he turned out--being presently introduced to me as mr. peggotty, the master of the house. "glad to see you, sir," said mr. peggotty. "you'll find us rough, sir, but you'll find us ready." [illustration: i am hospitably received by mr. peggotty.] i thanked him, and replied that i was sure i should be happy in such a delightful place. "how's your ma, sir," said mr. peggotty. "did you leave her pretty jolly?" i gave mr. peggotty to understand that she was as jolly as i could wish, and that she desired her compliments--which was a polite fiction on my part. "i'm much obleeged to her, i'm sure," said mr. peggotty. "well sir, if you can make out here, fur a fortnut, 'long wi' her," nodding at his sister, "and ham, and little em'ly, we shall be proud of your company." having done the honors of his house in this hospitable manner, mr. peggotty went out to wash himself in a kettleful of hot water, remarking that "cold would never get _his_ muck off." he soon returned, greatly improved in appearance; but so rubicund, that i couldn't help thinking his face had this in common with the lobsters, crabs, and crawfish,--that it went into the hot water very black, and came out very red. after tea, when the door was shut and all was made snug (the nights being cold and misty now), it seemed to me the most delicious retreat that the imagination of man could conceive. to hear the wind getting up out at sea, to know that the fog was creeping over the desolate flat outside, and to look at the fire, and think that there was no house near but this one, and this one a boat, was like enchantment. little em'ly had overcome her shyness, and was sitting by my side upon the lowest and least of the lockers, which was just large enough for us two, and just fitted into the chimney corner. mrs. peggotty with the white apron, was knitting on the opposite side of the fire. peggotty at her needle-work was as much at home with saint paul's and the bit of wax-candle, as if they had never known any other roof. ham, who had been giving me my first lesson in all-fours, was trying to recollect a scheme of telling fortunes with the dirty cards, and was printing off fishy impressions of his thumb on all the cards he turned. mr. peggotty was smoking his pipe. i felt it was a time for conversation and confidence. "mr. peggotty!" says i. "sir," says he. "did you give your son the name of ham, because you lived in a sort of ark?" mr. peggotty seemed to think it a deep idea, but answered: "no, sir. i never giv him no name." "who gave him that name, then?" said i, putting question number two of the catechism to mr. peggotty. "why, sir, his father giv it him," said mr. peggotty. "i thought you were his father!" "my brother joe was _his_ father," said mr. peggotty. "dead, mr. peggotty?" i hinted, after a respectful pause. "drowndead," said mr. peggotty. i was very much surprised that mr. peggotty was not ham's father, and began to wonder whether i was mistaken about his relationship to anybody else there. i was so curious to know, that i made up my mind to have it out with mr. peggotty. "little em'ly," i said, glancing at her. "she is your daughter, isn't she, mr. peggotty?" "no, sir. my brother in law, tom, was _her_ father." i couldn't help it. "--dead, mr. peggotty?" i hinted, after another respectful silence. "drowndead," said mr. peggotty. i felt the difficulty of resuming the subject, but had not got to the bottom of it yet, and must get to the bottom somehow. so i said: "haven't you _any_ children, mr. peggotty?" "no, master," he answered with a short laugh. "i'm a bacheldore." "a bachelor!" i said, astonished. "why, who's that, mr. peggotty?" pointing to the person in the apron who was knitting. "that's missis gummidge," said mr. peggotty. "gummidge, mr. peggotty?" but at this point peggotty--i mean my own peculiar peggotty--made such impressive motions to me not to ask any more questions, that i could only sit and look at all the silent company, until it was time to go to bed. then, in the privacy of my own little cabin, she informed me that ham and em'ly were an orphan nephew and niece, whom my host had at different times adopted in their childhood, when they were left destitute; and that mrs. gummidge was the widow of his partner in a boat, who had died very poor. he was but a poor man himself, said peggotty, but as good as gold and as true as steel--those were her similies. the only subject, she informed me, on which he ever showed a violent temper or swore an oath, was this generosity of his; and if it were ever referred to, by any one of them, he struck the table a heavy blow with his right hand (had split it on one such occasion), and swore a dreadful oath that he would be 'gormed' if he didn't cut and run for good, if it was ever mentioned again. it appeared, in answer to my inquiries, that nobody had the least idea of the etymology of this terrible verb passive to be gormed; but that they all regarded it as constituting a most solemn imprecation. i was very sensible of my entertainer's goodness, and listened to the women's going to bed in another little crib like mine at the opposite end of the boat, and to him and ham hanging up two hammocks for themselves on the hooks i had noticed in the roof, in a very luxurious state of mind, enhanced by my being sleepy. as slumber gradually stole upon me, i heard the wind howling out at sea and coming on across the flat so fiercely, that i had a lazy apprehension of the great deep rising in the night. but i bethought myself that i was in a boat, after all; and that a man like mr. peggotty was not a bad person to have on board if anything did happen. nothing happened, however, worse than morning. almost as soon as it shone upon the oyster-shell frame of my mirror i was out of bed, and out with little em'ly, picking up stones upon the beach. "you're quite a sailor, i suppose?" i said to em'ly. i don't know that i supposed any thing of the kind, but i felt it an act of gallantry to say something; and a shining sail close to us made such a pretty little image of itself, at the moment, in her bright eye, that it came into my head to say this. "no," replied em'ly, shaking her head, "i'm afraid of the sea." "afraid!" i said, with a becoming air of boldness, and looking very big at the mighty ocean. "_i_ a'nt!" "ah! but it's cruel," said em'ly. "i have seen it very cruel to some of our men. i have seen it tear a boat as big as our house, all to pieces." "i hope it wasn't the boat that----" "that father was drownded in?" said em'ly. "no. not that one, i never see that boat." "nor him?" i asked her. little em'ly shook her head. "not to remember!" here was a coincidence! i immediately went into an explanation how i had never seen my own father; and how my mother and i had always lived by ourselves in the happiest state imaginable, and lived so then, and always meant to live so; and how my father's grave was in the churchyard near our house, and shaded by a tree, beneath the boughs of which i had walked and heard the birds sing many a pleasant morning. but there were some differences between em'ly's orphanhood and mine, it appeared. she had lost her mother before her father; and where her father's grave was no one knew, except that it was somewhere in the depths of the sea. "besides," said em'ly, as she looked about for shells and pebbles, "your father was a gentleman and your mother is a lady; and my father was a fisherman and my mother was a fisherman's daughter, and my uncle dan is a fisherman." "dan is mr. peggotty, is he?" said i. "uncle dan--yonder," answered em'ly, nodding at the boat-house. "yes. i mean him. he must be very good, i should think?" "good?" said em'ly. "if i was ever to be a lady, i'd give him a sky-blue coat with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a red velvet waistcoat, a cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver pipe, and a box of money." i said i had no doubt that mr. peggotty well deserved these treasures. i must acknowledge that i felt it difficult to picture him quite at his ease in the raiment proposed for him by his grateful little niece, and that i was particularly doubtful of the policy of the cocked hat; but i kept these sentiments to myself. little em'ly had stopped and looked up at the sky in her enumeration of these articles, as if they were a glorious vision. we went on again, picking up shells and pebbles. "you would like to be a lady?" i said. emily looked at me, and laughed and nodded "yes." "i should like it very much. we would all be gentlefolks together, then. me, and uncle, and ham, and mrs. gummidge. we wouldn't mind then, when there come stormy weather.--not for our own sakes, i mean. we would for the poor fishermen's, to be sure, and we'd help 'em with money when they come to any hurt." this seemed to me to be a very satisfactory and therefore not at all improbable picture. i expressed my pleasure in the contemplation of it, and little em'ly was emboldened to say, shyly, "don't you think you are afraid of the sea, now?" it was quiet enough to reassure me, but i have no doubt if i had seen a moderately large wave come tumbling in, i should have taken to my heels, with an awful recollection of her drowned relations. however, i said "no," and i added, "you don't seem to be, either, though you say you are;"--for she was walking much too near the brink of a sort of old jetty or wooden causeway we had strolled upon, and i was afraid of her falling over. "i'm not afraid in this way," said little em'ly. "but i wake when it blows, and tremble to think of uncle dan and ham, and believe i hear 'em crying out for help. that's why i should like so much to be a lady. but i'm not afraid in this way. not a bit. look here!" she started from my side, and ran along a jagged timber which protruded from the place we stood upon, and overhung the deep water at some height, without the least defence. the incident is so impressed on my remembrance, that if i were a draughtsman i could draw its form here, i daresay, accurately as it was that day, and little em'ly springing forward to her destruction (as it appeared to me), with a look that i have never forgotten, directed far out to sea. the light, bold, fluttering little figure turned and came back safe to me, and i soon laughed at my fears, and at the cry i had uttered; fruitlessly in any case, for there was no one near. but there have been times since, in my manhood, many times there have been, when i have thought, is it possible, among the possibilities of hidden things, that in the sudden rashness of the child and her wild look so far off, there was any merciful attraction of her into danger, any tempting her towards him permitted on the part of her dead father, that her life might have a chance of ending that day. there has been a time since when i have wondered whether, if the life before her could have been revealed to me at a glance, and so revealed as that a child could fully comprehend it, and if her preservation could have depended on a motion of my hand, i ought to have held it up to save her. there has been a time since--i do not say it lasted long, but it has been--when i have asked myself the question, would it have been better for little em'ly to have had the waters close above her head that morning in my sight; and when i have answered yes, it would have been. this may be premature. i have set it down too soon, perhaps. but let it stand. we strolled a long way, and loaded ourselves with things that we thought curious, and put some stranded star-fish carefully back into the water--i hardly know enough of the race at this moment to be quite certain whether they had reason to feel obliged to us for doing so, or the reverse--and then made our way home to mr. peggotty's dwelling. we stopped under the lee of the lobster-outhouse to exchange an innocent kiss, and went in to breakfast glowing with health and pleasure. "like two young mavishes," mr. peggotty said. i knew this meant, in our local dialect, like two young thrushes, and received it as a compliment. of course i was in love with little em'ly. i am sure i loved that baby quite as truly, quite as tenderly, with greater purity, and more disinterestedness, than can enter into the best love of a later time of life, high and ennobling as it is. i am sure my fancy raised up something round that blue-eyed mite of a child, which etherealised, and made a very angel of her. if, any sunny forenoon, she had spread a little pair of wings and flown away before my eyes, i don't think i should have regarded it as much more than i had had reason to expect. we used to walk about that dim old flat at yarmouth in a loving manner, hours and hours. the days sported by us, as if time had not grown up himself yet, but were a child too, and always at play. i told em'ly i adored her, and that unless she confessed she adored me i should be reduced to the necessity of killing myself with a sword. she said she did, and i have no doubt she did. as to any sense of inequality, or youthfulness, or other difficulty in our way, little em'ly and i had no such trouble, because we had no future. we made no more provision for growing older, than we did for growing younger. we were the admiration of mrs. gummidge and peggotty, who used to whisper of an evening when we sat, lovingly, on our little locker side by side, "lor! wasn't it beautiful!" mr. peggotty smiled at us from behind his pipe, and ham grinned all the evening and did nothing else. they had something of the sort of pleasure in us, i suppose, that they might have had in a pretty toy, or a pocket model of the colosseum. i soon found out that mrs. gummidge did not always make herself so agreeable as she might have been expected to do, under the circumstances of her residence with mr. peggotty. mrs. gummidge's was rather a fretful disposition, and she whimpered more sometimes than was comfortable for other parties in so small an establishment. i was very sorry for her; but there were moments when it would have been more agreeable, i thought, if mrs. gummidge had had a convenient apartment of her own to retire to, and had stopped there until her spirits revived. mr. peggotty went occasionally to a public house called the willing mind. i discovered this, by his being out on the second or third evening of our visit, and by mrs. gummidge's looking up at the dutch clock, between eight and nine, and saying he was there, and that, what was more, she had known in the morning he would go there. mrs. gummidge had been in a low state all day, and had burst into tears in the forenoon, when the fire smoked. "i am a lone lorn creetur'," were mrs. gummidge's words, when that unpleasant occurrence took place, "and everythink goes contrairy with me." "oh, it'll soon leave off," said peggotty--i again mean our peggotty--"and besides, you know, it's not more disagreeable to you than to us." "i feel it more," said mrs. gummidge. it was a very cold day, with cutting blasts of wind. mrs. gummidge's peculiar corner of the fireside seemed to me to be the warmest and snuggest in the place, as her chair was certainly the easiest, but it didn't suit her that day at all. she was constantly complaining of the cold, and of its occasioning a visitation in her back which she called "the creeps." at last she shed tears on that subject, and said again that she was "a lone lorn creetur' and everythink went contrairy with her." "it is certainly very cold," said peggotty. "everybody must feel it so." "i feel it more than other people," said mrs. gummidge. so at dinner; when mrs. gummidge was always helped immediately after me, to whom the preference was given as a visitor of distinction. the fish were small and bony, and the potatoes were a little burnt. we all acknowledged that we felt this something of a disappointment; but mrs. gummidge said she felt it more than we did, and shed tears again, and made that former declaration with great bitterness. accordingly, when mr. peggotty came home about nine o'clock, this unfortunate mrs. gummidge was knitting in her corner in a very wretched and miserable condition. peggotty had been working cheerfully. ham had been patching up a great pair of water-boots; and i, with little em'ly by my side, had been reading to them. mrs. gummidge had never made any other remark than a forlorn sigh, and had never raised her eyes since tea. "well, mates," said mr. peggotty, taking his seat, "and how are you?" we all said something, or looked something, to welcome him, except mrs. gummidge, who only shook her head over her knitting. "what's amiss," said mr. peggotty, with a clap of his hands. "cheer up, old mawther!" (mr. peggotty meant old girl.) mrs. gummidge did not appear to be able to cheer up. she took out an old black silk handkerchief and wiped her eyes; but instead of putting it in her pocket, kept it out, and wiped them again, and still kept it out, ready for use. "what's amiss, dame!" said mr. peggotty. "nothing," returned mrs. gummidge. "you've come from the willing mind, dan'l?" "why yes, i've took a short spell at the willing mind to-night," said mr. peggotty. "i'm sorry i should drive you there," said mrs. gummidge. "drive! i don't want no driving," returned mr. peggotty with an honest laugh. "i only go too ready." "very ready," said mrs. gummidge, shaking her head, and wiping her eyes. "yes, yes, very ready. i am sorry it should be along of me that you're so ready." "along o' you? it an't along o' you!" said mr. peggotty. "don't ye believe a bit on it." "yes, yes, it is," cried mrs. gummidge. "i know what i am. i know that i'm a lone lorn creetur, and not only that everythink goes contrairy with me, but that i go contrairy with everybody. yes, yes. i feel more than other people do, and i show it more. it's my misfortun'." i really couldn't help thinking, as i sat taking in all this, that the misfortune extended to some other members of that family besides mrs. gummidge. but mr. peggotty made no such retort, only answering with another entreaty to mrs. gummidge to cheer up. "i an't what i could wish myself to be," said mrs. gummidge. "i am far from it. i know what i am. my troubles has made me contrairy. i feel my troubles, and they make me contrairy. i wish i didn't feel 'em, but i do. i wish i could be hardened to 'em, but i an't. i make the house uncomfortable. i don't wonder at it. i've made your sister so all day, and master davy." here i was suddenly melted, and roared out "no, you haven't, mrs. gummidge," in great mental distress. "it's far from right that i should do it," said mrs. gummidge. "it an't a fit return. i had better go into the house and die. i am a lone lorn creetur, and had much better not make myself contrairy here. if thinks must go contrairy with me, and i must go contrairy myself, let me go contrairy in my parish. dan'l, i'd better go into the house, and die and be a riddance!" mrs. gummidge retired with these words, and betook herself to bed. when she was gone, mr. peggotty, who had not exhibited a trace of any feeling but the profoundest sympathy, looked round upon us, and nodding his head with a lively expression of that sentiment still animating his face, said in a whisper: "she's been thinking of the old 'un!" i did not quite understand what old one mrs. gummidge was supposed to have fixed her mind upon, until peggotty, on seeing me to bed, explained that it was the late mr. gummidge; and that her brother always took that for a received truth on such occasions, and that it always had a moving effect upon him. some time after he was in his hammock that night, i heard him myself repeat to ham, "poor thing! she's been thinking of the old 'un!" and whenever mrs. gummidge was overcome in a similar manner during the remainder of our stay (which happened some few times), he always said the same thing in extenuation of the circumstance, and always with the tenderest commiseration. so the fortnight slipped away, varied by nothing but the variation of the tide, which altered mr. peggotty's times of going out and coming in, and altered ham's engagements also. when the latter was unemployed, he sometimes walked with us to show us the boats and ships, and once or twice he took us for a row. i don't know why one slight set of impressions should be more particularly associated with a place than another, though i believe this obtains with most people, in reference especially to the associations of their childhood. i never hear the name, or read the name, of yarmouth, but i am reminded of a certain sunday morning on the beach, the bells ringing for church, little em'ly leaning on my shoulder, ham lazily dropping stones into the water, and the sun, away at sea, just breaking through the heavy mist, and showing us the ships, like their own shadows. at last the day came for going home. i bore up against the separation from mr. peggotty and mrs. gummidge, but my agony of mind at leaving little em'ly was piercing. we went arm-in-arm to the public-house where the carrier put up, and i promised, on the road, to write to her. (i redeemed that promise afterwards, in characters larger than those in which apartments are usually announced in manuscript, as being to let). we were greatly overcome at parting; and if ever, in my life, i have had a void made in my heart, i had one made that day. now, all the time i had been on my visit, i had been ungrateful to my home again, and had thought little or nothing about it. but i was no sooner turned towards it, than my reproachful young conscience seemed to point that way with a steady finger; and i felt, all the more for the sinking of my spirits, that it was my nest, and that my mother was my comforter and friend. this gained upon me as we went along; so that the nearer we drew, and the more familiar the objects became that we passed, the more excited i was to get there, and to run into her arms. but peggotty, instead of sharing in these transports, tried to check them (though very kindly), and looked confused and out of sorts. blunderstone rookery would come, however, in spite of her, when the carrier's horse pleased--and did. how well i recollect it, on a cold grey afternoon, with a dull sky, threatening rain! the door opened, and i looked, half laughing and half crying in my pleasant agitation, for my mother. it was not she, but a strange servant. "why, peggotty!" i said, ruefully, "isn't she come home!" "yes, yes, master davy," said peggotty. "she's come home. wait a bit, master davy, and i'll--i'll tell you something." between her agitation, and her natural awkwardness in getting out of the cart, peggotty was making a most extraordinary festoon of herself, but i felt too blank and strange to tell her so. when she had got down, she took me by the hand; led me, wondering, into the kitchen; and shut the door. "peggotty!" said i, quite frightened. "what's the matter?" "nothing's the matter, bless you, master davy dear!" she answered, assuming an air of sprightliness. "something's the matter, i'm sure. where's mama?" "where's mama, master davy?" repeated peggotty. "yes. why hasn't she come out to the gate, and what have we come in here for? oh, peggotty!" my eyes were full, and i felt as if i were going to tumble down. "bless the precious boy!" cried peggotty, taking hold of me. "what is it? speak, my pet!" "not dead, too! oh, she's not dead, peggotty?" peggotty cried out no! with an astonishing volume of voice; and then sat down, and began to pant, and said i had given her a turn. i gave her a hug to take away the turn, or to give her another turn in the right direction, and then stood before her, looking at her in anxious inquiry. "you see, dear, i should have told you before now," said peggotty, "but i hadn't an opportunity. i ought to have made it, perhaps, but i couldn't azackly"--that was always the substitute for exactly, in peggotty's militia of words--"bring my mind to it." "go on, peggotty," said i, more frightened than before. "master davy," said peggotty, untying her bonnet with a shaking hand, and speaking in a breathless sort of way. "what do you think? you have got a pa!" i trembled, and turned white. something--i don't know what, or how--connected with the grave in the churchyard, and the raising of the dead, seemed to strike me like an unwholesome wind. "a new one," said peggotty. "a new one?" i repeated. peggotty gave a gasp, as if she were swallowing something that was very hard, and, putting out her hand, said: "come and see him." "i don't want to see him." --"and your mamma," said peggotty. i ceased to draw back, and we went straight to the best parlor, where she left me. on one side of the fire, sat my mother; on the other, mr. murdstone. my mother dropped her work, and arose hurriedly, but timidly i thought. "now, clara my dear," said mr. murdstone. "recollect! controul yourself, always controul yourself! davy boy, how do you do?" i gave him my hand. after a moment of suspense, i went and kissed my mother: she kissed me, patted me gently on the shoulder, and sat down again to her work. i could not look at her, i could not look at him, i knew quite well that he was looking at us both; and i turned to the window and looked out there, at some shrubs that were drooping their heads in the cold. as soon as i could creep away, i crept up-stairs. my old dear bedroom was changed, and i was to lie a long way off. i rambled down-stairs to find anything that was like itself, so altered it all seemed; and roamed into the yard. i very soon started back from there, for the empty dog-kennel was filled up with a great dog--deep mouthed and black-haired like him--and he was very angry at the sight of me, and sprung out to get at me. chapter iv. i fall into disgrace. if the room to which my bed was removed, were a sentient thing that could give evidence, i might appeal to it at this day--who sleeps there now, i wonder!--to bear witness for me what a heavy heart i carried to it. i went up there, hearing the dog in the yard bark after me all the way while i climbed the stairs; and, looking as blank and strange upon the room as the room looked upon me, sat down with my small hands crossed, and thought. i thought of the oddest things. of the shape of the room, of the cracks in the ceiling, of the paper on the wall, of the flaws in the window-glass making ripples and dimples on the prospect, of the washing-stand being ricketty on its three legs, and having a discontented something about it, which reminded me of mrs. gummidge under the influence of the old one. i was crying all the time, but, except that i was conscious of being cold and dejected, i am sure i never thought why i cried. at last in my desolation i began to consider that i was dreadfully in love with little em'ly, and had been torn away from her to come here where no one seemed to want me, or to care about me, half as much as she did. this made such a very miserable piece of business of it, that i rolled myself up in a corner of the counterpane, and cried myself to sleep. i was awoke by somebody saying "here he is!" and uncovering my hot head. my mother and peggotty had come to look for me, and it was one of them who had done it. "davy," said my mother. "what's the matter?" i thought it very strange that she should ask me, and answered, "nothing." i turned over on my face, i recollect, to hide my trembling lip, which answered her with greater truth. "davy," said my mother. "davy, my child!" i dare say no words she could have uttered, would have affected me so much, then, as her calling me her child. i hid my tears in the bedclothes, and pressed her from me with my hand, when she would have raised me up. "this is your doing, peggotty, you cruel thing!" said my mother. "i have no doubt at all about it. how can you reconcile it to your conscience, i wonder, to prejudice my own boy against me, or against anybody who is dear to me? what do you mean by it, peggotty?" poor peggotty lifted up her hands and eyes, and only answered, in a sort of paraphrase of the grace i usually repeated after dinner, "lord forgive you, mrs. copperfield, and for what you have said this minute, may you never be truly sorry!" "it's enough to distract me," cried my mother. "in my honeymoon, too, when my most inveterate enemy might relent, one would think, and not envy me a little peace of mind and happiness. davy, you naughty boy! peggotty, you savage creature! oh, dear me!" cried my mother, turning from one of us to the other, in her pettish wilful manner, "what a troublesome world this is, when one has the most right to expect it to be as agreeable as possible!" i felt the touch of a hand that i knew was neither her's nor peggotty's, and slipped to my feet at the bed-side. it was mr. murdstone's hand, and he kept it on my arm as he said: "what's this? clara, my love, have you forgotten?--firmness, my dear!" "i am very sorry, edward," said my mother. "i meant to be very good, but i am so uncomfortable." "indeed!" he answered. "that's a bad hearing, so soon, clara." "i say it's very hard i should be made so now," returned my mother, pouting; "and it is--very hard--isn't it?" he drew her to him, whispered in her ear, and kissed her. i knew as well, when i saw my mother's head lean down upon his shoulder, and her arm touch his neck--i knew as well that he could mould her pliant nature into any form he chose, as i know, now, that he did it. "go you below, my love," said mr. murdstone. "david and i will come down, together. my friend," turning a darkening face on peggotty, when he had watched my mother out, and dismissed her with a nod and a smile: "do you know your mistress's name?" "she has been my mistress a long time, sir," answered peggotty. "i ought to it." "that's true," he answered. "but i thought i heard you, as i came up-stairs, address her by a name that is not hers. she has taken mine, you know. will you remember that?" peggotty, with some uneasy glances at me, curtseyed herself out of the room without replying; seeing, i suppose, that she was expected to go, and had no excuse for remaining. when we two were left alone, he shut the door, and sitting on a chair, and holding me standing before him, looked steadily into my eyes. i felt my own attracted, no less steadily, to his. as i recall our being opposed thus, face to face, i seem again to hear my heart beat fast and high. "david," he said, making his lips thin, by pressing them together, "if i have an obstinate horse or dog to deal with, what do you think i do?" "i don't know." "i beat him." i had answered in a kind of breathless whisper, but i felt, in my silence, that my breath was shorter now. "i make him wince, and smart. i say to myself, 'i'll conquer that fellow;' and if it were to cost him all the blood he had, i should do it. what is that upon your face?" "dirt," i said. he knew it was the mark of tears as well as i. but if he had asked the question twenty times, each time with twenty blows, i believe my baby heart would have burst before i would have told him so. "you have a good deal of intelligence for a little fellow," he said, with a grave smile that belonged to him, "and you understood me very well, i see. wash that face, sir, and come down with me." he pointed to the washing-stand, which i had made out to be like mrs. gummidge, and motioned me with his head to obey him directly. i had little doubt then, and i have less doubt now, that he would have knocked me down without the least compunction, if i had hesitated. "clara, my dear," he said, when i had done his bidding, and he walked me into the parlor, with his hand still on my arm; "you will not be made uncomfortable any more, i hope. we shall soon improve our youthful humours." god help me, i might have been improved for my whole life, i might have been made another creature perhaps, for life, by a kind word at that season. a word of encouragement and explanation, of pity for my childish ignorance, of welcome home, of reassurance to me that it _was_ home, might have made me dutiful to him in my heart henceforth, instead of in my hypocritical outside, and might have made me respect instead of hate him. i thought my mother was sorry to see me standing in the room so scared and strange, and that, presently, when i stole to a chair, she followed me with her eyes more sorrowfully still--missing, perhaps, some freedom in my childish tread--but the word was not spoken, and the time for it was gone. we dined alone, we three together. he seemed to be very fond of my mother--i am afraid i liked him none the better for that--and she was very fond of him. i gathered from what they said, that an elder sister of his was coming to stay with them, and that she was expected that evening. i am not certain whether i found out then, or afterwards, that, without being actively concerned in any business, he had some share in, or some annual charge upon the profits of, a wine-merchant's house in london, with which his family had been connected from his great-grandfather's time, and in which his sister had a similar interest; but i may mention it in this place, whether or no. after dinner, when we were sitting by the fire, and i was meditating an escape to peggotty without having the hardihood to slip away, lest it should offend the master of the house, a coach drove up to the garden-gate, and he went out to receive the visitor. my mother followed him. i was timidly following her, when she turned round at the parlor-door, in the dusk, and taking me in her embrace as she had been used to do, whispered me to love my new father and be obedient to him. she did this hurriedly and secretly, as if it were wrong, but tenderly; and, putting out her hand behind her, held mine in it, until we came near to where he was standing in the garden, where she let mine go, and drew her's through his arm. it was miss murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady she was; dark, like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face and voice; and with very heavy eyebrows, nearly meeting over her large nose, as if, being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from wearing whiskers, she had carried them to that account. she brought with her, two uncompromising hard black boxes, with her initials on the lids in hard brass nails. when she paid the coachman she took her money out of a hard steel purse, and she kept the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung upon her arm by a heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. i had never, at that time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as miss murdstone was. she was brought into the parlor with many tokens of welcome, and there formally recognised my mother as a new and near relation. then she looked at me, and said: "is that your boy, sister-in-law?" my mother acknowledged me. "generally speaking," said miss murdstone, "i don't like boys. how d' ye do, boy?" under these encouraging circumstances, i replied that i was very well, and that i hoped she was the same; with such an indifferent grace, that miss murdstone disposed of me in two words: "wants manner!" having uttered which, with great distinctness, she begged the favor of being shewn to her room, which became to me from that time forth a place of awe and dread, wherein the two black boxes were never seen open or known to be left unlocked, and where (for i peeped in once or twice when she was out) numerous little steel fetters and rivets, with which miss murdstone embellished herself when she was dressed, generally hung upon the looking-glass in formidable array. as well as i could make out, she had come for good, and had no intention of ever going again. she began to "help" my mother next morning, and was in and out of the store-closet all day, putting things to rights, and making havoc in the old arrangements. almost the first remarkable thing i observed in miss murdstone was, her being constantly haunted by a suspicion that the servants had a man secreted somewhere on the premises. under the influence of this delusion, she dived into the coal-cellar at the most untimely hours, and scarcely ever opened the door of a dark cupboard without clapping it to again, in the belief that she had got him. though there was nothing very airy about miss murdstone, she was a perfect lark in point of getting up. she was up (and, as i believe to this hour, looking for that man) before anybody in the house was stirring. peggotty gave it as her opinion that she even slept with one eye open; but i could not concur in this idea; for i tried it myself after hearing the suggestion thrown out, and found it couldn't be done. on the very first morning after her arrival she was up and ringing her bell at cock-crow. when my mother came down to breakfast and was going to make the tea, miss murdstone gave her a kind of peck on the cheek, which was her nearest approach to a kiss, and said: "now, clara, my dear, i am come here, you know, to relieve you of all the trouble i can. you're much too pretty and thoughtless"--my mother blushed but laughed, and seemed not to dislike this character--"to have any duties imposed upon you that can be undertaken by me. if you'll be so good as give me your keys, my dear, i'll attend to all this sort of thing in future." from that time, miss murdstone kept the keys in her own little jail all day, and under her pillow all night, and my mother had no more to do with them than i had. my mother did not suffer her authority to pass from her without a shadow of protest. one night when miss murdstone had been developing certain household plans to her brother, of which he signified his approbation, my mother suddenly began to cry, and said she thought she might have been consulted. "clara!" said mr. murdstone sternly. "clara! i wonder at you." "oh, it's very well to say you wonder, edward!" cried my mother, "and it's very well for you to talk about firmness, but you wouldn't like it yourself." firmness, i may observe, was the grand quality on which both mr. and miss murdstone took their stand. however i might have expressed my comprehension of it at that time, if i had been called upon, i nevertheless did clearly comprehend in my own way, that it was another name for tyranny; and for a certain gloomy, arrogant, devil's humour, that was in them both. the creed, as i should state it now, was this. mr. murdstone was firm; nobody in his world was to be so firm as mr. murdstone; nobody else in his world was to be firm at all, for everybody was to be bent to his firmness. miss murdstone was an exception. she might be firm, but only by relationship, and in an inferior and tributary degree. my mother was another exception. she might be firm, and must be; but only in bearing their firmness, and firmly believing there was no other firmness upon earth. "it's very hard," said my mother, "that in my own house--" "_my_ own house?" repeated mr. murdstone. "clara!" "_our_ own house, i mean," faltered my mother, evidently frightened--"i hope you must know what i mean, edward--it's very hard that in _your_ own house i may not have a word to say about domestic matters. i am sure i managed very well before we were married. there's evidence," said my mother, sobbing; "ask peggotty if i didn't do very well when i wasn't interfered with!" "edward," said miss murdstone, "let there be an end of this. i go to-morrow." "jane murdstone," said her brother, "be silent! how dare you to insinuate that you don't know my character better than your words imply?" "i am sure," my poor mother went on, at a grievous disadvantage, and with many tears, "i don't want anybody to go. i should be very miserable and unhappy if anybody was to go. i don't ask much. i am not unreasonable. i only want to be consulted sometimes. i am very much obliged to anybody who assists me, and i only want to be consulted as a mere form, sometimes. i thought you were pleased, once, with my being a little inexperienced and girlish, edward--i am sure you said so--but you seem to hate me for it now, you are so severe." "edward," said miss murdstone, again, "let there be an end of this. i go to-morrow." "jane murdstone," thundered mr. murdstone. "will you be silent? how dare you?" miss murdstone made a jail-delivery of her pocket-handkerchief, and held it before her eyes. "clara," he continued, looking at my mother, "you surprise me! you astound me! yes, i had a satisfaction in the thought of marrying an inexperienced and artless person, and forming her character, and infusing into it some amount of that firmness and decision of which it stood in need. but when jane murdstone is kind enough to come to my assistance in this endeavour, and to assume, for my sake, a condition something like a housekeeper's, and when she meets with a base return--" "oh, pray, pray, edward," cried my mother, "don't accuse me of being ungrateful. i am sure i am not ungrateful. no one ever said i was, before. i have many faults, but not that. oh, don't, my dear!" "when jane murdstone meets, i say," he went on, after waiting until my mother was silent, "with a base return, that feeling of mine is chilled and altered." "don't, my love, say that!" implored my mother, very piteously. "oh, don't, edward! i can't bear to hear it. whatever i am, i am affectionate. i know i am affectionate. i wouldn't say it, if i wasn't certain that i am. ask peggotty. i am sure she'll tell you i'm affectionate." "there is no extent of mere weakness, clara," said mr. murdstone in reply, "that can have the least weight with me. you lose breath." "pray let us be friends," said my mother, "i couldn't live under coldness or unkindness. i am so sorry. i have a great many defects, i know, and it's very good of you, edward, with your strength of mind, to endeavour to correct them for me. jane, i don't object to anything. i should be quite broken-hearted if you thought of leaving--" my mother was too much overcome to go on. "jane murdstone," said mr. murdstone to his sister, "any harsh words between us are, i hope, uncommon. it is not my fault that so unusual an occurrence has taken place to-night. i was betrayed into it by another. nor is it your fault. you were betrayed into it by another. let us both try to forget it. and as this," he added, after these magnanimous words, "is not a fit scene for the boy--david, go to bed!" i could hardly find the door, through the tears that stood in my eyes. i was so sorry for my mother's distress; but i groped my way out, and groped my way up to my room in the dark, without even having the heart to say good night to peggotty, or to get a candle from her. when her coming up to look for me, an hour or so afterwards, awoke me, she said that my mother had gone to bed poorly, and that mr. and miss murdstone were sitting alone. going down next morning rather earlier than usual, i paused outside the parlor-door, on hearing my mother's voice. she was very earnestly and humbly entreating miss murdstone's pardon, which that lady granted, and a perfect reconciliation took place. i never knew my mother afterwards to give an opinion on any matter, without first appealing to miss murdstone, or without having first ascertained, by some sure means, what miss murdstone's opinion was; and i never saw miss murdstone, when out of temper (she was infirm that way), move her hand towards her bag as if she were going to take out the keys and offer to resign them to my mother, without seeing that my mother was in a terrible fright. the gloomy taint that was in the murdstone blood, darkened the murdstone religion, which was austere and wrathful. i have thought, since, that its assuming that character was a necessary consequence of mr. murdstone's firmness, which wouldn't allow him to let any body off from the utmost weight of the severest penalties he could find any excuse for. be this as it may, i well remember the tremendous visages with which we used to go to church, and the changed air of the place. again, the dreaded sunday comes round, and i file into the old pew first, like a guarded captive brought to a condemned service. again, miss murdstone, in a black velvet gown, that looks as if it had been made out of a pall, follows close upon me; then my mother; then her husband. there is no peggotty now, as in the old time. again, i listen to miss murdstone mumbling the responses, and emphasising all the dread words with a cruel relish. again, i see her dark eyes roll round the church when she says "miserable sinners," as if she were calling all the congregation names. again, i catch rare glimpses of my mother, moving her lips timidly between the two, with one of them muttering at each ear like low thunder. again, i wonder with a sudden fear whether it is likely that our good old clergyman can be wrong, and mr. and miss murdstone right, and that all the angels in heaven can be destroying angels. again, if i move a finger or relax a muscle of my face, miss murdstone pokes me with her prayer-book, and makes my side ache. yes, and again, as we walk home, i note some neighbours looking at my mother, and at me, and whispering. again, as the three go on arm-in-arm, and i linger behind alone, i follow some of those looks, and wonder if my mother's step be really not so light as i have seen it, and if the gaiety of her beauty be really almost worried away. again, i wonder whether any of the neighbours call to mind, as i do, how we used to walk home together, she and i; and i wonder stupidly about that, all the dreary dismal day. there had been some talk on occasions of my going to boarding-school. mr. and miss murdstone had originated it, and my mother had of course agreed with them. nothing, however, was concluded on the subject yet. in the meantime, i learnt lessons at home. shall i ever forget those lessons! they were presided over nominally by my mother, but really by mr. murdstone and his sister, who were always present, and found them a favourable occasion for giving my mother lessons in that miscalled firmness, which was the bane of both our lives. i believe i was kept at home, for that purpose. i had been apt enough to learn, and willing enough, when my mother and i had lived alone together. i can faintly remember learning the alphabet at her knee. to this day, when i look upon the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their shapes, and the easy good-nature of o and q and s, seem to present themselves again before me as they used to do. but they recall no feeling of disgust or reluctance. on the contrary, i seem to have walked along a path of flowers as far as the crocodile-book, and to have been cheered by the gentleness of my mother's voice and manner all the way. but these solemn lessons which succeeded those, i remember as the death-blow at my peace, and a grievous daily drudgery and misery. they were very long, very numerous, very hard--perfectly unintelligible, some of them, to me--and i was generally as much bewildered by them as i believe my poor mother was herself. let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back again. i come into the second-best parlor after breakfast, with my books, and an exercise-book, and a slate. my mother is ready for me at her writing-desk, but not half so ready as mr. murdstone in his easy-chair by the window (though he pretends to be reading a book), or as miss murdstone, sitting near my mother stringing steel beads. the very sight of these two has such an influence over me, that i begin to feel the words i have been at infinite pains to get into my head, all sliding away, and going i don't know where. i wonder where they _do_ go, by-the-by? i hand the first book to my mother. perhaps it is a grammar, perhaps a history, or geography. i take a last drowning look at the page as i give it into her hand, and start off aloud at a racing pace while i have got it fresh. i trip over a word. mr. murdstone looks up. i trip over another word. miss murdstone looks up. i redden, tumble over half-a-dozen words, and stop. i think my mother would show me the book if she dared, but she does not dare, and she says softly: "oh, davy, davy!" "now, clara," says mr. murdstone, "be firm with the boy. don't say 'oh, davy, davy!' that's childish. he knows his lesson, or he does not know it." "he does _not_ know it," miss murdstone interposes awfully. "i am really afraid he does not," says my mother. "then you see, clara," returns miss murdstone, "you should just give him the book back, and make him know it." "yes, certainly," says my mother; "that is what i intend to do, my dear jane. now, davy, try once more, and don't be stupid." i obey the first clause of the injunction by trying once more, but am not so successful with the second, for i am very stupid. i tumble down before i get to the old place, at a point where i was all right before, and stop to think. but i can't think about the lesson. i think of the number of yards of net in miss murdstone's cap, or of the price of mr. murdstone's dressing-gown, or any such ridiculous problem that i have no business with, and don't want to have anything at all to do with. mr. murdstone makes a movement of impatience which i have been expecting for a long time. miss murdstone does the same. my mother glances submissively at them, shuts the book, and lays it by as an arrear to be worked out when my other tasks are done. there is a pile of these arrears very soon, and it swells like a rolling snowball. the bigger it gets, the more stupid _i_ get. the case is so hopeless, and i feel that i am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense, that i give up all idea of getting out, and abandon myself to my fate. the despairing way in which my mother and i look at each other, as i blunder on, is truly melancholy. but the greatest effect in these miserable lessons is when my mother (thinking nobody is observing her) tries to give me the cue by the motion of her lips. at that instant, miss murdstone, who has been lying in wait for nothing else all along, says in a deep warning voice: "clara!" my mother starts, colors, and smiles faintly. mr. murdstone comes out of his chair, takes the book, throws it at me or boxes my ears with it, and turns me out of the room by the shoulders. even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to happen, in the shape of an appalling sum. this is invented for me, and delivered to me orally by mr. murdstone, and begins, "if i go into a cheesemonger's shop, and buy five thousand double-gloucester cheeses at fourpence-halfpenny each, present payment"--at which i see miss murdstone secretly overjoyed. i pore over these cheeses without any result or enlightenment until dinner-time; when, having made a mulatto of myself by getting the dirt of the slate into the pores of my skin, i have a slice of bread to help me out with the cheeses, and am considered in disgrace for the rest of the evening. it seems to me, at this distance of time, as if my unfortunate studies generally took this course. i could have done very well if i had been without the murdstones; but the influence of the murdstones upon me was like the fascination of two snakes on a wretched young bird. even when i did get through the morning with tolerable credit, there was not much gained but dinner; for miss murdstone never could endure to see me untasked, and if i rashly made any show of being unemployed, called her brother's attention to me by saying, "clara, my dear, there's nothing like work--give your boy an exercise;" which caused me to be clapped down to some new labor, there and then. as to any recreation with other children of my age, i had very little of that; for the gloomy theology of the murdstones made all children out to be a swarm of little vipers (though there _was_ a child once set in the midst of the disciples), and held that they contaminated one another. the natural result of this treatment, continued, i suppose, for some six months or more, was to make me sullen, dull, and dogged. i was not made the less so, by my sense of being daily more and more shut out and alienated from my mother. i believe i should have been almost stupified but for one circumstance. it was this. my father had left a small collection of books in a little room up-stairs, to which i had access (for it adjoined my own) and which nobody else in our house ever troubled. from that blessed little room, roderick random, peregrine pickle, humphrey clinker, tom jones, the vicar of wakefield, don quixote, gil blas, and robinson crusoe, came out, a glorious host, to keep me company. they kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time,--they, and the arabian nights, and the tales of the genii,--and did me no harm; for whatever harm was in some of them was not there for me; _i_ knew nothing of it. it is astonishing to me now, how i found time, in the midst of my porings and blunderings over heavier themes, to read those books as i did. it is curious to me how i could ever have consoled myself under my small troubles (which were great troubles to me), by impersonating my favorite characters in them--as i did--and by putting mr. and miss murdstone into all the bad ones--which i did too. i have been tom jones (a child's tom jones, a harmless creature) for a week together. i have sustained my own idea of roderick random for a month at a stretch, i verily believe. i had a greedy relish for a few volumes of voyages and travels--i forget what, now--that were on those shelves; and for days and days i can remember to have gone about my region of our house, armed with the centre-piece out of an old set of boot-trees--the perfect realisation of captain somebody, of the royal british navy, in danger of being beset by savages, and resolved to sell his life at a great price. the captain never lost dignity, from having his ears boxed with the latin grammar. i did; but the captain was a captain and a hero, in despite of all the grammars of all the languages in the world, dead or alive. this was my only and my constant comfort. when i think of it, the picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at play in the churchyard, and i sitting on my bed, reading as if for life. every barn in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church, and every foot of the churchyard, had some association of its own, in my mind, connected with these books, and stood for some locality made famous in them. i have seen tom pipes go climbing up the church-steeple; i have watched strap, with the knapsack on his back, stopping to rest himself upon the wicket-gate; and i _know_ that commodore trunnion held that club with mr. pickle, in the parlor of our little village alehouse. the reader now understands as well as i do, what i was when i came to that point of my youthful history to which i am now coming again. one morning when i went into the parlor with my books, i found my mother looking anxious, miss murdstone looking firm, and mr. murdstone binding something round the bottom of a cane--a lithe and limber cane, which he left off binding when i came in, and poised and switched in the air. "i tell you, clara," said mr. murdstone, "i have been often flogged myself." "to be sure; of course," said miss murdstone. "certainly, my dear jane," faltered my mother, meekly. "but--but do you think it did edward good?" "do you think it did edward harm, clara?" asked mr. murdstone, gravely. "that's the point!" said his sister. to this my mother returned, "certainly, my dear jane," and said no more. i felt apprehensive that i was personally interested in this dialogue, and sought mr. murdstone's eye as it lighted on mine. "now, david," he said--and i saw that cast again, as he said it--"you must be far more careful to-day than usual." he gave the cane another poise, and another switch; and having finished his preparation of it, laid it down beside him, with an expressive look, and took up his book. this was a good freshener to my presence of mind, as a beginning. i felt the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or line by line, but by the entire page. i tried to lay hold of them; but they seemed, if i may so express it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me with a smoothness there was no checking. we began badly, and went on worse. i had come in, with an idea of distinguishing myself rather, conceiving that i was very well prepared; but it turned out to be quite a mistake. book after book was added to the heap of failures, miss murdstone being firmly watchful of us all the time. and when we came at last to the five thousand cheeses (canes he made it that day, i remember), my mother burst out crying. "clara!" said miss murdstone, in her warning voice. "i am not quite well, my dear jane, i think," said my mother. i saw him wink, solemnly, at his sister, as he rose and said, taking up the cane: "why, jane, we can hardly expect clara to bear, with perfect firmness, the worry and torment that david has occasioned her to-day. that would be stoical. clara is greatly strengthened and improved, but we can hardly expect so much from her. david, you and i will go up-stairs, boy." as he took me out at the door, my mother ran towards us. miss murdstone said, "clara! are you a perfect fool?" and interfered. i saw my mother stop her ears then, and i heard her crying. he walked me up to my room slowly and gravely--i am certain he had a delight in that formal parade of executing justice--and when we got there, suddenly twisted my head under his arm. "mr. murdstone! sir!" i cried to him. "don't! pray don't beat me! i have tried to learn, sir, but i can't learn while you and miss murdstone are by. i can't indeed!" "can't you, indeed, david?" he said. "we'll try that." he had my head as in a vice, but i twined round him somehow, and stopped him for a moment, entreating him not to beat me. it was only for a moment that i stopped him, for he cut me heavily an instant afterwards, and in the same instant i caught the hand with which he held me in my mouth, between my teeth, and bit it through. it sets my teeth on edge to think of it. he beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to death. above all the noise we made, i heard them running up the stairs, and crying out--i heard my mother crying out--and peggotty. then he was gone; and the door was locked outside; and i was lying, fevered and hot, and torn, and sore, and raging in my puny way, upon the floor. how well i recollect, when i became quiet, what an unnatural stillness seemed to reign through the whole house! how well i remember, when my smart and passion began to cool, how wicked i began to feel! i sat listening for a long while, but there was not a sound. i crawled up from the floor, and saw my face in the glass, so swollen, red, and ugly, that it almost frightened me. my stripes were sore and stiff, and made me cry afresh, when i moved; but they were nothing to the guilt i felt. it lay heavier on my breast than if i had been a most atrocious criminal, i dare say. it had begun to grow dark, and i had shut the window (i had been lying, for the most part, with my head upon the sill, by turns crying, dozing, and looking listlessly out), when the key was turned, and miss murdstone came in with some bread and meat, and milk. these she put down upon the table without a word, glaring at me the while with exemplary firmness, and then retired, locking the door after her. long after it was dark i sat there, wondering whether anybody else would come. when this appeared improbable for that night, i undressed, and went to bed; and, there, i began to wonder fearfully what would be done to me. whether it was a criminal act that i had committed? whether i should be taken into custody, and sent to prison? whether i was at all in danger of being hanged? i never shall forget the waking, next morning; the being cheerful and fresh for the first moment, and then the being weighed down by the stale and dismal oppression of remembrance. miss murdstone reappeared before i was out of bed; told me, in so many words, that i was free to walk in the garden for half an hour and no longer; and retired, leaving the door open, that i might avail myself of that permission. i did so, and did so every morning of my imprisonment, which lasted five days. if i could have seen my mother alone, i should have gone down on my knees to her and besought her forgiveness; but i saw no one, miss murdstone excepted, during the whole time--except at evening prayers in the parlor; to which i was escorted by miss murdstone after everybody else was placed; where i was stationed, a young outlaw, all alone by myself near the door; and whence i was solemnly conducted by my jailer, before anyone arose from the devotional posture. i only observed that my mother was as far off from me as she could be, and kept her face another way so that i never saw it; and that mr. murdstone's hand was bound up in a large linen wrapper. the length of those five days i can convey no idea of to any one. they occupy the place of years in my remembrance. the way in which i listened to all the incidents of the house that made themselves audible to me; the ringing of bells, the opening and shutting of doors, the murmuring of voices, the footsteps on the stairs; to any laughing, whistling, or singing, outside, which seemed more dismal than anything else to me in my solitude and disgrace--the uncertain pace of the hours, especially at night, when i would wake thinking it was morning, and find that the family were not yet gone to bed, and that all the length of night had yet to come--the depressed dreams and nightmares i had--the return of day, noon, afternoon, evening, when the boys played in the churchyard, and i watched them from a distance within the room, being ashamed to show myself at the window lest they should know i was a prisoner--the strange sensation of never hearing myself speak--the fleeting intervals of something like cheerfulness, which came with eating and drinking, and went away with it--the setting in of rain one evening, with a fresh smell, and its coming down faster and faster between me and the church, until it and gathering night seemed to quench me in gloom, and fear, and remorse--all this appears to have gone round and round for years instead of days, it is so vividly and strongly stamped on my remembrance. on the last night of my restraint, i was awakened by hearing my own name spoken in a whisper. i started up in bed, and putting out my arms in the dark, said: "is that you, peggotty?" there was no immediate answer, but presently i heard my name again, in a tone so very mysterious and awful, that i think i should have gone into a fit, if it had not occurred to me that it must have come through the keyhole. i groped my way to the door, and putting my own lips to the keyhole, whispered: "is that you, peggotty, dear?" "yes, my own precious davy," she replied. "be as soft as a mouse, or the cat'll hear us." i understood this to mean miss murdstone, and was sensible of the urgency of the case; her room being close by. "how's mama, dear peggotty? is she very angry with me?" i could hear peggotty crying softly on her side of the keyhole, as i was doing on mine, before she answered. "no. not very." "what is going to be done with me, peggotty dear? do you know?" "school. near london," was peggotty's answer. i was obliged to get her to repeat it, for she spoke it the first time quite down my throat, in consequence of my having forgotten to take my mouth away from the keyhole and put my ear there; and though her words tickled me a good deal, i didn't hear them. "when, peggotty?" "to-morrow." "is that the reason why miss murdstone took the clothes out of my drawers?" which she had done, though i have forgotten to mention it. "yes," said peggotty. "box." "shan't i see mama?" "yes," said peggotty. "morning." then peggotty fitted her mouth close to the keyhole, and delivered these words through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a keyhole has ever been the medium of communicating, i will venture to assert: shooting in each broken little sentence in a convulsive little burst of its own. "davy, dear. if i ain't ben azackly as intimate with you. lately, as i used to be. it ain't because i don't love you. just as well and more, my pretty poppet. it's because i thought it better for you. and for some one else besides. davy, my darling, are you listening? can you hear?" "ye--ye--ye--yes, peggotty!" i sobbed. "my own!" said peggotty, with infinite compassion. "what i want to say, is. that you must never forget me. for i'll never forget you. and i'll take as much care of your mama, davy. as ever i took of you. and i won't leave her. the day may come when she'll be glad to lay her poor head. on her stupid, cross old peggotty's arm again. and i'll write to you, my dear. though i ain't no scholar. and i'll--i'll--" peggotty fell to kissing the keyhole, as she couldn't kiss me. "thank you, dear peggotty!" said i. "oh, thank you! thank you! will you promise me one thing, peggotty? will you write and tell mr. peggotty and little em'ly and mrs. gummidge and ham, that i am not so bad as they might suppose, and that i sent 'em all my love--especially to little em'ly? will you, if you please, peggotty?" the kind soul promised, and we both of us kissed the keyhole with the greatest affection--i patted it with my hand, i recollect, as if it had been her honest face--and parted. from that night there grew up in my breast, a feeling for peggotty, which i cannot very well define. she did not replace my mother; no one could do that; but she came into a vacancy in my heart, which closed upon her, and i felt towards her something i have never felt for any other human being. it was a sort of comical affection too; and yet if she had died, i cannot think what i should have done, or how i should have acted out the tragedy it would have been to me. in the morning miss murdstone appeared as usual, and told me i was going to school; which was not altogether such news to me as she supposed. she also informed me that when i was dressed, i was to come down-stairs into the parlor, and have my breakfast. there, i found my mother, very pale and with red eyes: into whose arms i ran, and begged her pardon from my suffering soul. "oh, davy!" she said. "that you could hurt any one i love! try to be better, pray to be better! i forgive you; but i am so grieved, davy, that you should have such bad passions in your heart." they had persuaded her that i was a wicked fellow, and she was more sorry for that, than for my going away. i felt it sorely. i tried to eat my parting breakfast, but my tears dropped upon my bread-and-butter, and trickled into my tea. i saw my mother look at me sometimes, and then glance at the watchful miss murdstone, and then look down, or look away. "master copperfield's box there!" said miss murdstone, when wheels were heard at the gate. i looked for peggotty, but it was not she; neither she nor mr. murdstone appeared. my former acquaintance, the carrier, was at the door; the box was taken out to his cart, and lifted in. "clara!" said miss murdstone, in her warning note. "ready, my dear jane," returned my mother. "good bye, davy. you are going for your own good. good bye, my child. you will come home in the holidays, and be a better boy." "clara!" miss murdstone repeated. "certainly, my dear jane," replied my mother, who was holding me. "i forgive you, my dear boy. god bless you!" "clara!" miss murdstone repeated. miss murdstone was good enough to take me out to the cart, and to say on the way that she hoped i would repent, before i came to a bad end; and then i got into the cart, and the lazy horse walked off with it. chapter v. i am sent away from home. we might have gone about half a mile, and my pocket-handkerchief was quite wet through, when the carrier stopped short. looking out to ascertain what for, i saw, to my amazement, peggotty burst from a hedge and climb into the cart. she took me in both her arms, and squeezed me to her stays until the pressure on my nose was extremely painful, though i never thought of that till afterwards when i found it very tender. not a single word did peggotty speak. releasing one of her arms, she put it down in her pocket to the elbow, and brought out some paper bags of cakes which she crammed into my pockets, and a purse which she put into my hand, but not one word did she say. after another and a final squeeze with both arms, she got down from the cart and ran away; and, my belief is, and has always been, without a solitary button on her gown. i picked up one, of several that were rolling about, and treasured it as a keepsake for a long time. the carrier looked at me, as if to enquire if she were coming back. i shook my head, and said i thought not. "then come up," said the carrier to the lazy horse; who came up accordingly. having by this time cried as much as i possibly could, i began to think it was of no use crying any more, especially as neither roderick random, nor that captain in the royal british navy, had ever cried, that i could remember, in trying situations. the carrier, seeing me in this resolution, proposed that my pocket-handkerchief should be spread upon the horse's back to dry. i thanked him, and assented; and particularly small it looked, under those circumstances. i had now leisure to examine the purse. it was a stiff leather purse, with a snap, and had three bright shillings in it, which peggotty had evidently polished up with whitening, for my greater delight. but its most precious contents were two half-crowns folded together in a bit of paper, on which was written, in my mother's hand, "for davy. with my love." i was so overcome by this, that i asked the carrier to be so good as reach me my pocket-handkerchief again; but he said he thought i had better do without it; and i thought i really had; so i wiped my eyes on my sleeve and stopped myself. for good, too; though, in consequence of my previous emotions, i was still occasionally seized with a stormy sob. after we had jogged on for some little time, i asked the carrier if he was going all the way. "all the way where?" enquired the carrier. "there," i said. "where's there?" enquired the carrier. "near london?" i said. "why that horse," said the carrier, jerking the rein to point him out, "would be deader than pork afore he got over half the ground." "are you only going to yarmouth then?" i asked. "that's about it," said the carrier. "and there i shall take you to the stage-cutch, and the stage-cutch that'll take you to--wherever it is." as this was a great deal for the carrier (whose name was mr. barkis) to say--he being, as i observed in a former chapter, of a phlegmatic temperament, and not at all conversational--i offered him a cake as a mark of attention, which he ate at one gulp, exactly like an elephant, and which made no more impression on his big face than it would have done on an elephant's. "did _she_ make 'em, now?" said mr. barkis, always leaning forward, in his slouching way, on the footboard of the cart with an arm on each knee. "peggotty, do you mean, sir?" "ah!" said mr. barkis. "her." "yes. she makes all our pastry, and does all our cooking." "do she though?" said mr. barkis. he made up his mouth as if to whistle, but he didn't whistle. he sat looking at the horse's ears, as if he saw something new there; and sat so, for a considerable time. by-and-by, he said: "no sweethearts, i b'lieve?" "sweetmeats did you say, mr. barkis?" for i thought he wanted something else to eat, and had pointedly alluded to that description of refreshment. "hearts," said mr. barkis. "sweet hearts; no person walks with her!" "with peggotty?" "ah!" he said. "her." "oh, no. she never had a sweetheart." "didn't she though!" said mr. barkis. again he made up his mouth to whistle, and again he didn't whistle, but sat looking at the horse's ears. "so she makes," said mr. barkis, after a long interval of reflection, "all the apple parsties, and doos all the cooking, do she?" i replied that such was the fact. "well. i'll tell you what," said mr. barkis. "p'raps you might be writin' to her?" "i shall certainly write to her," i rejoined. "ah!" he said, slowly turning his eyes towards me. "well! if you was writin' to her, p'raps you'd recollect to say that barkis was willin'; would you." "that barkis is willing," i repeated, innocently. "is that all the message?" "ye--es," he said, considering. "ye--es. barkis is willin'." "but you will be at blunderstone again to-morrow, mr. barkis," i said, faltering a little at the idea of my being far away from it then, "and could give your own message so much better." as he repudiated this suggestion, however, with a jerk of his head, and once more confirmed his previous request by saying, with profound gravity, "barkis is willin'. that's the message," i readily undertook its transmission. while i was waiting for the coach in the hotel at yarmouth that very afternoon, i procured a sheet of paper and an inkstand, and wrote a note to peggotty which ran thus: "my dear peggotty. i have come here safe. barkis is willing. my love to mama. yours affectionately. p. s. he says he particularly wants you to know--_barkis is willing_." when i had taken this commission on myself prospectively, mr. barkis relapsed into perfect silence; and i, feeling quite worn out by all that had happened lately, lay down on a sack in the cart and fell asleep. i slept soundly until we got to yarmouth; which was so entirely new and strange to me in the inn-yard to which we drove, that i at once abandoned a latent hope i had had of meeting with some of mr. peggotty's family there, perhaps even with little em'ly herself. the coach was in the yard, shining very much all over, but without any horses to it as yet; and it looked in that state as if nothing was more unlikely than its ever going to london. i was thinking this, and wondering what would ultimately become of my box, which mr. barkis had put down on the yard-pavement by the pole (he having driven up the yard to turn his cart), and also what would ultimately become of me, when a lady looked out of a bow-window where some fowls and joints of meat were hanging up, and said: "is that the little gentleman from blunderstone?" "yes, ma'am," i said. "what name?" enquired the lady. "copperfield, ma'am," i said. "that won't do," returned the lady. "nobody's dinner is paid for here, in that name." "is it murdstone, ma'am?" i said. "if you're master murdstone," said the lady, "why do you go and give another name, first?" i explained to the lady how it was, who then rang a bell, and called out, "william! show the coffee-room!" upon which a waiter came running out of a kitchen on the opposite side of the yard to show it, and seemed a good deal surprised when he found he was only to show it to me. it was a large long room with some large maps in it. i doubt if i could have felt much stranger if the maps had been real foreign countries, and i cast away in the middle of them. i felt it was taking a liberty to sit down, with my cap in my hand, on the corner of the chair nearest the door; and when the waiter laid a cloth on purpose for me, and put a set of castors on it, i think i must have turned red all over with modesty. he brought me some chops, and vegetables, and took the covers off in such a bouncing manner that i was afraid i must have given him some offence. but he greatly relieved my mind by putting a chair for me at the table, and saying, very affably, "now, six-foot! come on!" i thanked him, and took my seat at the board; but found it extremely difficult to handle my knife and fork with anything like dexterity, or to avoid splashing myself with the gravy, while he was standing opposite, staring so hard, and making me blush in the most dreadful manner every time i caught his eye. after watching me into the second chop, he said: "there's half a pint of ale for you. will you have it now?" i thanked him, and said "yes." upon which he poured it out of a jug into a large tumbler, and held it up against the light, and made it look beautiful. "my eye!" he said. "it seems a good deal, don't it?" "it does seem a good deal," i answered with a smile. for it was quite delightful to me, to find him so pleasant. he was a twinkling-eyed, pimple-faced man, with his hair standing upright all over his head; and as he stood with one arm a-kimbo, holding up the glass to the light with the other hand, he looked quite friendly. "there was a gentleman here, yesterday," he said--"a stout gentleman, by the name of topsawyer--perhaps you know him!" "no," i said, "i don't think----" "in breeches and gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, grey coat, speckled choaker," said the waiter. "no," i said bashfully, "i haven't the pleasure----" "he came in here," said the waiter, looking at the light through the tumbler, "ordered a glass of this ale--_would_ order it--i told him not--drank it, and fell dead. it was too old for him. it oughtn't to be drawn; that's the fact." i was very much shocked to hear of this melancholy accident, and said i thought i had better have some water. "why you see," said the waiter, still looking at the light through the tumbler, with one of his eyes shut up, "our people don't like things being ordered and left. it offends 'em. but _i_'ll drink it, if you like. i'm used to it, and use is everything. i don't think it'll hurt me, if i throw my head back, and take it off quick. shall i?" [illustration: the friendly waiter and i.] i replied that he would much oblige me by drinking it, if he thought he could do it safely, but by no means otherwise. when he did throw his head back, and take it off quick, i had a horrible fear, i confess, of seeing him meet the fate of the lamented mr. topsawyer, and fall lifeless on the carpet. but it didn't hurt him. on the contrary, i thought he seemed the fresher for it. "what have we got here?" he said, putting a fork into my dish. "not chops?" "chops," i said. "lord bless my soul!" he exclaimed, "i didn't know they were chops. why, a chop's the very thing to take off the bad effects of that beer! ain't it lucky?" so he took a chop by the bone in one hand, and a potato in the other, and ate away with a very good appetite, to my extreme satisfaction. he afterwards took another chop, and another potato; and after that, another chop and another potato. when we had done, he brought me a pudding, and having set it before me, seemed to ruminate, and to become absent in his mind for some moments. "how's the pie?" he said, rousing himself. "it's a pudding," i made answer. "pudding!" he exclaimed. "why, bless me, so it is! what!" looking at it nearer. "you don't mean to say it's a batter-pudding!" "yes, it is indeed." "why, a batter-pudding," he said, taking up a table-spoon, "is my favorite pudding! ain't that lucky? come on, little 'un, and let's see who'll get most." the waiter certainly got most. he entreated me more than once to come in and win, but what with his table-spoon to my tea-spoon, his dispatch to my dispatch, and his appetite to my appetite, i was left far behind at the first mouthful, and had no chance with him. i never saw any one enjoy a pudding so much, i think; and he laughed, when it was all gone, as if his enjoyment of it lasted still. finding him so very friendly and companionable, it was then that i asked for the pen and ink and paper, to write to peggotty. he not only brought it immediately, but was good enough to look over me while i wrote the letter. when i had finished it, he asked me where i was going to school. i said, "near london," which was all i knew. "oh, my eye!" he said, looking very low-spirited, "i am sorry for that." "why?" i asked him. "oh, lord!" he said, shaking his head, "that's the school where they broke the boy's ribs--two ribs--a little boy he was. i should say he was--let me see--how old are you, about?" i told him between eight and nine. "that's just his age," he said. "he was eight years and six months old when they broke his first rib; eight years and eight months old when they broke his second, and did for him." i could not disguise from myself, or from the waiter, that this was an uncomfortable coincidence, and enquired how it was done. his answer was not cheering to my spirits, for it consisted of two dismal words, "with whopping." the blowing of the coach-horn in the yard was a seasonable diversion, which made me get up and hesitatingly enquire, in the mingled pride and diffidence of having a purse (which i took out of my pocket), if there were anything to pay. "there's a sheet of letter-paper," he returned. "did you ever buy a sheet of letter-paper?" i could not remember that i ever had. "it's dear," he said, "on account of the duty. threepence. that's the way we're taxed in this country. there's nothing else, except the waiter. never mind the ink. _i_ lose by that." "what should you--what should i--how much ought i to--what would it be right to pay the waiter, if you please?" i stammered, blushing. "if i hadn't a family, and that family hadn't the cowpock," said the waiter, "i wouldn't take a sixpence. if i didn't support a aged pairint, and a lovely sister,"--here the waiter was greatly agitated--"i wouldn't take a farthing. if i had a good place, and was treated well here, i should beg acceptance of a trifle, instead of taking of it. but i live on broken wittles--and i sleep on the coals"--here the waiter burst into tears. i was very much concerned for his misfortunes, and felt that any recognition short of ninepence would be mere brutality and hardness of heart. therefore i gave him one of my three bright shillings, which he received with much humility and veneration, and spun up with his thumb, directly afterwards, to try the goodness of. it was a little disconcerting to me, to find, when i was being helped up behind the coach, that i was supposed to have eaten all the dinner without any assistance. i discovered this, from overhearing the lady in the bow-window, say to the guard, "take care of that child, george, or he'll burst!" and from observing that the women-servants who were about the place came out to look and giggle at me as a young phenomenon. my unfortunate friend the waiter, who had quite recovered his spirits, did not appear to be disturbed by this, but joined in the general admiration without being at all confused. if i had any doubt of him, i suppose this half-awakened it; but i am inclined to believe that with the simple confidence of a child, and the natural reliance of a child upon superior years (qualities i am very sorry any children should prematurely change for worldly wisdom), i had no serious mistrust of him on the whole, even then. i felt it rather hard, i must own, to be made, without deserving it, the subject of jokes between the coachman and guard as to the coach drawing heavy behind, on account of my sitting there, and as to the greater expediency of my travelling by waggon. the story of my supposed appetite getting wind among the outside passengers, they were merry upon it likewise; and asked me whether i was going to be paid for, at school, as two brothers or three, and whether i was contracted for, or went upon the regular terms; with other pleasant questions. but the worst of it was, that i knew i should be ashamed to eat anything, when an opportunity offered, and that, after a rather light dinner, i should remain hungry all night--for i had left my cakes behind, at the hotel, in my hurry. my apprehensions were realised. when we stopped for supper i couldn't muster courage to take any, though i should have liked it very much, but sat by the fire and said i didn't want anything. this did not save me from more jokes, either; for a husky-voiced gentleman with a rough face, who had been eating out of a sandwich-box nearly all the way, except when he had been drinking out of a bottle, said i was like a boa constrictor who took enough at one meal to last him a long time; after which, he actually brought a rash out upon himself with boiled beef. we had started from yarmouth at three o'clock in the afternoon, and we were due in london about eight next morning. it was midsummer weather, and the evening was very pleasant. when we passed through a village, i pictured to myself what the insides of the houses were like, and what the inhabitants were about; and when boys came running after us, and got up behind and swung there for a little way, i wondered whether their fathers were alive, and whether they were happy at home. i had plenty to think of, therefore, besides my mind running continually on the kind of place i was going to--which was an awful speculation. sometimes, i remember, i resigned myself to thoughts of home and peggotty; and to endeavouring, in a confused blind way, to recall how i had felt, and what sort of boy i used to be, before i bit mr. murdstone: which i couldn't satisfy myself about by any means, i seemed to have bitten him in such a remote antiquity. the night was not so pleasant as the evening, for it got chilly; and being put between two gentlemen (the rough-faced one and another) to prevent my tumbling off the coach, i was nearly smothered by their falling asleep, and completely blocking me up. they squeezed me so hard sometimes, that i could not help crying out, "oh! if you please!"--which they didn't like at all, because it woke them. opposite me was an elderly lady in a great fur cloak, who looked in the dark more like a haystack than a lady, she was wrapped up to such a degree. this lady had a basket with her, and she hadn't known what to do with it, for a long time, until she found that on account of my legs being short, it could go underneath me. it cramped and hurt me so, that it made me perfectly miserable; but if i moved in the least, and made a glass that was in the basket rattle against something else (as it was sure to do), she gave me the cruellest poke with her foot, and said, "come, don't _you_ fidget. _your_ bones are young enough, _i_'m sure!" at last the sun rose, and then my companions seemed to sleep easier. the difficulties under which they had laboured all night, and which had found utterance in the most terrific gasps and snorts, are not to be conceived. as the sun got higher, their sleep became lighter, and so they gradually one by one awoke. i recollect being very much surprised by the feint everybody made, then, of not having been to sleep at all, and by the uncommon indignation with which every one repelled the charge. i labor under the same kind of astonishment to this day, having invariably observed that of all human weaknesses, the one to which our common nature is the least disposed to confess (i cannot imagine why) is the weakness of having gone to sleep in a coach. what an amazing place london was to me when i saw it in the distance, and how i believed all the adventures of all my favorite heroes to be constantly enacting and re-enacting there, and how i vaguely made it out in my own mind to be fuller of wonders and wickedness than all the cities of the earth, i need not stop here to relate. we approached it by degrees, and got, in due time, to the inn in the whitechapel district, for which we were bound. i forget whether it was the blue bull, or the blue boar; but i know it was the blue something, and that its likeness was painted up on the back of the coach. the guard's eye lighted on me as he was getting down, and he said at the booking-office door: "is there anybody here for a yoongster booked in the name of murdstone, from bloonderstone, sooffolk, to be left till called for?" nobody answered. "try copperfield, if you please, sir," said i, looking helplessly down. "is there anybody here for a yoongster, booked in the name of murdstone, from bloonderstone, sooffolk, but owning to the name of copperfield, to be left till called for?" said the guard. "come! _is_ there anybody?" no. there was nobody. i looked anxiously around; but the enquiry made no impression on any of the bystanders, if i except a man in gaiters, with one eye, who suggested that they had better put a brass collar round my neck, and tie me up in the stable. a ladder was brought, and i got down after the lady, who was like a haystack: not daring to stir, until her basket was removed. the coach was clear of passengers by that time, the luggage was very soon cleared out, the horses had been taken out before the luggage, and now the coach itself was wheeled and backed off by some hostlers, out of the way. still, nobody appeared, to claim the dusty youngster from blunderstone, suffolk. more solitary than robinson crusoe, who had nobody to look at him and see that he was solitary, i went into the booking-office, and, by invitation of the clerk on duty, passed behind the counter, and sat down on the scale at which they weighed the luggage. here, as i sat looking at the parcels, packages, and books, and inhaling the smell of stables (ever since associated with that morning), a procession of most tremendous considerations began to march through my mind. supposing nobody should ever fetch me, how long would they consent to keep me there? would they keep me long enough to spend seven shillings? should i sleep at night in one of those wooden binns with the other luggage, and wash myself at the pump in the yard in the morning; or should i be turned out every night, and expected to come again to be left till called for, when the office opened next day? supposing there was no mistake in the case, and mr. murdstone had devised this plan to get rid of me, what should i do? if they allowed me to remain there until my seven shillings were spent, i couldn't hope to remain there when i began to starve. that would obviously be inconvenient and unpleasant to the customers, besides entailing on the blue whatever-it-was, the risk of funeral expenses. if i started off at once, and tried to walk back home, how could i ever find my way, how could i ever hope to walk so far, how could i make sure of any one but peggotty, even if i got back? if i found out the nearest proper authorities, and offered myself to go for a soldier, or a sailor, i was such a little fellow that it was most likely they wouldn't take me in. these thoughts, and a hundred other such thoughts, turned me burning hot, and made me giddy with apprehension and dismay. i was in the height of my fever when a man entered and whispered to the clerk, who presently slanted me off the scale, and pushed me over to him, as if i were weighed, bought, delivered, and paid for. as i went out of the office, hand in hand with this new acquaintance, i stole a look at him. he was a gaunt, sallow young man, with hollow cheeks, and a chin almost as black as mr. murdstone's; but there the likeness ended, for his whiskers were shaved off, and his hair, instead of being glossy, was rusty and dry. he was dressed in a suit of black clothes which were rather rusty and dry too, and rather short in the sleeves and legs; and he had a white neck-kerchief on that was not over-clean. i did not, and do not, suppose that this neck-kerchief was all the linen he wore, but it was all he showed or gave any hint of. "you're the new boy?" he said. "yes, sir," i said. i supposed i was. i didn't know. "i'm one of the masters at salem house," _he_ said. i made him a bow and felt very much overawed. i was so ashamed to allude to a common-place thing like my box, to a scholar and a master at salem house, that we had gone some little distance from the yard before i had the hardihood to mention it. we turned back, on my humbly insinuating that it might be useful to me hereafter; and he told the clerk that the carrier had instructions to call for it at noon. "if you please, sir," i said, when we had accomplished about the same distance as before, "is it far?" "it's down by blackheath," he said. "is _that_ far, sir?" i diffidently asked. "it's a good step," he said. "we shall go by the stage-coach. it's about six miles." i was so faint and tired, that the idea of holding out for six miles more, was too much for me. i took heart to tell him that i had had nothing all night, and that if he would allow me to buy something to eat, i should be very much obliged to him. he appeared surprised at this--i see him stop and look at me now--and after considering for a few moments, said he wanted to call on an old person who lived not far off, and that the best way would be for me to buy some bread, or whatever i liked best that was wholesome, and make my breakfast at her house, where we could get some milk. accordingly we looked in at a baker's window, and after i had made a series of proposals to buy everything that was bilious in the shop, and he had rejected them one by one, we decided in favour of a nice little loaf of brown bread, which cost me threepence. then, at a grocer's shop, we bought an egg and a slice of streaky bacon; which still left what i thought a good deal of change, out of the second of the bright shillings, and made me consider london a very cheap place. these provisions laid in, we went on through a great noise and uproar that confused my weary head beyond description, and over a bridge which, no doubt, was london bridge (indeed i think he told me so, but i was half asleep), until we came to the poor person's house, which was a part of some alms-houses, as i knew by their look, and by an inscription on a stone over the gate, which said they were established for twenty-five poor women. the master at salem house lifted the latch of one of a number of little black doors that were all alike, and had each a little diamond-paned window on one side, and another little diamond-paned window above; and we went into the little house of one of these poor old women, who was blowing a fire to make a little saucepan boil. on seeing the master enter, the old woman stopped with the bellows on her knee, and said something that i thought sounded like "my charley!" but on seeing me come in too, she got up, and rubbing her hands made a confused sort of half curtsey. "can you cook this young gentleman's breakfast for him, if you please?" said the master at salem house. "can i?" said the old woman. "yes can i, sure!" "how's mrs. fibbitson to-day?" said the master, looking at another old woman in a large chair by the fire, who was such a bundle of clothes that i feel grateful to this hour for not having sat upon her by mistake. "ah, she's poorly," said the first old woman. "it's one of her bad days. if the fire was to go out, through any accident, i verily believe she'd go out too, and never come to life again." as they looked at her, i looked at her also. although it was a warm day, she seemed to think of nothing but the fire. i fancied she was jealous even of the saucepan on it; and i have reason to know that she took its impressment into the service of boiling my egg and broiling my bacon, in dudgeon; for i saw her, with my own discomfited eyes, shake her fist at me once, when those culinary operations were going on, and no one else was looking. the sun streamed in at the little window, but she sat with her own back and the back of the large chair towards it, screening the fire as if she were sedulously keeping _it_ warm, instead of it keeping her warm, and watching it in a most distrustful manner. the completion of the preparations for my breakfast, by relieving the fire, gave her such extreme joy that she laughed aloud--and a very unmelodious laugh she had, i must say. i sat down to my brown loaf, my egg, and my rasher of bacon, with a bason of milk besides, and made a most delicious meal. while i was yet in the full enjoyment of it, the old woman of the house said to the master: "have you got your flute with you?" "yes," he returned. "have a blow at it," said the old woman, coaxingly. "do!" the master, upon this, put his hand underneath the skirts of his coat, and brought out his flute in three pieces, which he screwed together, and began immediately to play. my impression is, after many years of consideration, that there never can have been anybody in the world who played worse. he made the most dismal sounds i have ever heard produced by any means, natural or artificial. i don't know what the tunes were--if there were such things in the performance at all, which i doubt--but the influence of the strain upon me was, first, to make me think of all my sorrows until i could hardly keep my tears back; then to take away my appetite; and lastly to make me so sleepy that i couldn't keep my eyes open. they begin to close again, and i begin to nod, as the recollection rises fresh upon me. once more the little room with its open corner cupboard, and its square-backed chairs, and its angular little staircase leading to the room above, and its three peacock's feathers displayed over the mantelpiece--i remember wondering when i first went in, what that peacock would have thought if he had known what his finery was doomed to come to--fades from before me, and i nod, and sleep. the flute becomes inaudible, the wheels of the coach are heard instead, and i am on my journey. the coach jolts, i wake with a start, and the flute has come back again, and the master at salem house is sitting with his legs crossed, playing it dolefully, while the old woman of the house looks on delighted. she fades in her turn, and he fades, and all fades, and there is no flute, no master, no salem house, no david copperfield, no anything but heavy sleep. i dreamed, i thought, that once while he was blowing into this dismal flute, the old woman of the house, who had gone nearer and nearer to him in her ecstatic admiration, leaned over the back of his chair and gave him an affectionate squeeze round the neck, which stopped his playing for a moment. i was in the middle state between sleeping and waking, either then or immediately afterwards; for, as he resumed--it was a real fact that he had stopped playing--i saw and heard the same old woman ask mrs. fibbitson if it wasn't delicious (meaning the flute), to which mrs. fibbitson replied, "ay, ay! yes!" and nodded at the fire: to which, i am persuaded, she gave the credit of the whole performance. [illustration: my musical breakfast.] when i seemed to have been dozing a long while, the master at salem house unscrewed his flute into the three pieces, put them up as before, and took me away. we found the coach very near at hand, and got upon the roof; but i was so dead sleepy, that when we stopped on the road to take up somebody else, they put me inside where there were no passengers, and where i slept profoundly, until i found the coach going at a footpace up a steep hill among green leaves. presently, it stopped, and had come to its destination. a short walk brought us--i mean the master and me--to salem house, which was enclosed with a high brick wall, and looked very dull. over a door in this wall was a board with salem house upon it; and through a grating in this door we were surveyed when we rang the bell by a surly face, which i found, on the door being opened, belonged to a stout man with a bull-neck, a wooden leg, overhanging temples, and his hair cut close all round his head. "the new boy," said the master. the man with the wooden leg eyed me all over--it didn't take long, for there was not much of me--and locked the gate behind us, and took out the key. we were going up to the house, among some dark heavy trees, when he called after my conductor. "hallo!" we looked back, and he was standing at the door of a little lodge, where he lived, with a pair of boots in his hand. "here! the cobbler's been," he said, "since you've been out, mr. mell, and he says he can't mend 'em any more. he says there an't a bit of the original boot left, and he wonders you expect it." with these words he threw the boots towards mr. mell, who went back a few paces to pick them up, and looked at them (very disconsolately, i was afraid), as we went on together. i observed then, for the first time, that the boots he had on were a good deal the worse for wear, and that his stocking was just breaking out in one place, like a bud. salem house was a square brick building with wings; of a bare and unfurnished appearance. all about it was so very quiet, that i said to mr. mell i supposed the boys were out; but he seemed surprised at my not knowing that it was holiday-time. that all the boys were at their several homes. that mr. creakle, the proprietor, was down by the sea-side with mrs. and miss creakle; and that i was sent in holiday-time as a punishment for my misdoing, all of which he explained to me as we went along. i gazed upon the schoolroom into which he took me, as the most forlorn and desolate place i had ever seen. i see it now. a long room with three long rows of desks, and six of forms, and bristling all round with pegs for hats and slates. scraps of old copybooks and exercises, litter the dirty floor. some silkworms' houses, made of the same materials, are scattered over the desks. two miserable little white mice, left behind by their owner, are running up and down in a fusty castle made of pasteboard and wire, looking in all the corners with their red eyes for anything to eat. a bird, in a cage a very little bigger than himself, makes a mournful rattle now and then in hopping on his perch, two inches high, or dropping from it; but neither sings nor chirps. there is a strange unwholesome smell upon the room, like mildewed corduroys, sweet apples wanting air, and rotten books. there could not well be more ink splashed about it, if it had been roofless from its first construction, and the skies had rained, snowed, hailed, and blown ink through the varying seasons of the year. mr. mell having left me while he took his irreparable boots up-stairs, i went softly to the upper end of the room, observing all this as i crept along. suddenly i came upon a pasteboard placard, beautifully written, which was lying on the desk, and bore these words--"_take care of him. he bites._" i got upon the desk immediately, apprehensive of at least a great dog underneath. but, though i looked all round with anxious eyes, i could see nothing of him. i was still engaged in peering about, when mr. mell came back, and asked me what i did up there. "i beg your pardon, sir," says i, "if you please, i'm looking for the dog." "dog?" says he. "what dog?" "isn't it a dog, sir?" "isn't what a dog?" "that's to be taken care of, sir; that bites." "no, copperfield," says he gravely, "that's not a dog. that's a boy. my instructions are, copperfield, to put this placard on your back. i am sorry to make such a beginning with you, but i must do it." with that, he took me down, and tied the placard, which was neatly constructed for the purpose, on my shoulders like a knapsack; and wherever i went, afterwards, i had the consolation of carrying it. what i suffered from that placard, nobody can imagine. whether it was possible for people to see me or not, i always fancied that somebody was reading it. it was no relief to turn round and find nobody; for wherever my back was, there i imagined somebody always to be. that cruel man with the wooden leg, aggravated my sufferings. he was in authority; and if he ever saw me leaning against a tree, or a wall, or the house, he roared out from his lodge-door in a stupendous voice, "hallo, you sir! you copperfield! show that badge conspicuous, or i'll report you!" the playground was a bare gravelled yard, open to all the back of the house and the offices; and i knew that the servants read it, and the butcher read it, and the baker read it; that everybody, in a word, who came backwards and forwards to the house, of a morning when i was ordered to walk there, read that i was to be taken care of, for i bit. i recollect that i positively began to have a dread of myself, as a kind of wild boy who did bite. there was an old door in this playground, on which the boys had a custom of carving their names. it was completely covered with such inscriptions. in my dread of the end of the vacation and their coming back, i could not read a boy's name, without enquiring in what tone and with what emphasis _he_ would read, "take care of him. he bites." there was one boy--a certain j. steerforth--who cut his name very deep and very often, who, i conceived, would read it in a rather strong voice, and afterwards pull my hair. there was another boy, one tommy traddles, who i dreaded would make game of it, and pretend to be dreadfully frightened of me. there was a third, george demple, who i fancied would sing it. i have looked, a little shrinking creature, at that door, until the owners of all the names--there were five-and-forty of them in the school then, mr. mell said--seemed to send me to coventry by general acclamation, and to cry out, each in his own way, "take care of him. he bites!" it was the same with the places at the desks and forms. it was the same with the groves of deserted bedsteads i peeped at, on my way to, and when i was in, my own bed. i remember dreaming night after night, of being with my mother as she used to be, or of going to a party at mr. peggotty's, or of travelling outside the stage-coach, or of dining again with my unfortunate friend the waiter, and in all these circumstances making people scream and stare, by the unhappy disclosure that i had nothing on but my little night-shirt, and that placard. in the monotony of my life, and in my constant apprehension of the reopening of the school, it was such an insupportable affliction! i had long tasks every day to do with mr. mell; but i did them, there being no mr. and miss murdstone here, and got through them without disgrace. before, and after them, i walked about--supervised, as i have mentioned, by the man with the wooden leg. how vividly i call to mind the damp about the house, the green cracked flagstones in the court, an old leaky water-butt, and the discolored trunks of some of the grim trees, which seemed to have dripped more in the rain than other trees, and to have blown less in the sun! at one we dined, mr. mell and i, at the upper end of a long bare dining-room, full of deal tables, and smelling of fat. then, we had more tasks until tea, which mr. mell drank out of a blue teacup, and i out of a tin pot. all day long, and until seven or eight in the evening, mr. mell, at his own detached desk in the schoolroom, worked hard with pen, ink, ruler, books, and writing-paper, making out the bills (as i found) for last half-year. when he had put up his things for the night he took out his flute, and blew at it, until i almost thought he would gradually blow his whole being into the large hole at the top, and ooze away at the keys. i picture my small self in the dimly-lighted rooms, sitting with my head upon my hand, listening to the doleful performance of mr. mell, and conning to-morrow's lessons. i picture myself with my books shut up, still listening to the doleful performance of mr. mell, and listening through it to what used to be at home, and to the blowing of the wind on yarmouth flats, and feeling very sad and solitary. i picture myself going up to bed, among the unused rooms, and sitting on my bed-side crying for a comfortable word from peggotty. i picture myself coming down stairs in the morning, and looking through a long ghastly gash of a staircase-window, at the school-bell hanging on the top of an outhouse, with a weathercock above it; and dreading the time when it shall ring j. steerforth and the rest to work: which is only second, in my foreboding apprehensions, to the time when the man with the wooden leg shall unlock the rusty gate to give admission to the awful mr. creakle. i cannot think i was a very dangerous character in any of these aspects, but in all of them i carried the same warning on my back. mr. mell never said much to me, but he was never harsh to me. i suppose we were company to each other, without talking. i forgot to mention that he would talk to himself sometimes, and grin, and clench his fist, and grind his teeth, and pull his hair in an unaccountable manner. but he had these peculiarities: and at first they frightened me, though i soon got used to them. chapter vi. i enlarge my circle of acquaintance. i had led this life about a month, when the man with the wooden leg began to stump about with a mop and a bucket of water, from which i inferred that preparations were making to receive mr. creakle and the boys. i was not mistaken; for the mop came into the schoolroom before long, and turned out mr. mell and me, who lived where we could, and got on how we could, for some days, during which we were always in the way of two or three young women, who had rarely shown themselves before, and were so continually in the midst of dust that i sneezed almost as much as if salem house had been a great snuff-box. one day i was informed by mr. mell, that mr. creakle would be home that evening. in the evening, after tea, i heard that he was come. before bed-time, i was fetched by the man with the wooden leg to appear before him. mr. creakle's part of the house was a good deal more comfortable than ours, and he had a snug bit of garden that looked pleasant after the dusty playground, which was such a desert in miniature, that i thought no one but a camel, or a dromedary, could have felt at home in it. it seemed to me a bold thing even to take notice that the passage looked comfortable, as i went on my way, trembling, to mr. creakle's presence: which so abashed me, when i was ushered into it, that i hardly saw mrs. creakle or miss creakle (who were both there, in the parlor), or anything but mr. creakle, a stout gentleman with a bunch of watch-chain and seals, in an arm-chair, with a tumbler and bottle beside him. "so!" said mr. creakle. "this is the young gentleman whose teeth are to be filed! turn him round." the wooden-legged man turned me about so as to exhibit the placard; and having afforded time for a full survey of it, turned me about again, with my face to mr. creakle, and posted himself at mr. creakle's side. mr. creakle's face was fiery, and his eyes were small, and deep in his head; he had thick veins in his forehead, a little nose, and a large chin. he was bald on the top of his head; and had some thin wet-looking hair that was just turning grey, brushed across each temple, so that the two sides interlaced on his forehead. but the circumstance about him which impressed me most, was, that he had no voice, but spoke in a whisper. the exertion this cost him, or the consciousness of talking in that feeble way, made his angry face so much more angry, and his thick veins so much thicker, when he spoke, that i am not surprised, on looking back, at this peculiarity striking me as his chief one. "now," said mr. creakle. "what's the report of this boy?" "there's nothing against him yet," returned the man with the wooden leg. "there has been no opportunity." i thought mr. creakle was disappointed. i thought mrs. and miss creakle (at whom i now glanced for the first time, and who were, both, thin and quiet) were not disappointed. "come here, sir!" said mr. creakle, beckoning to me. "come here!" said the man with the wooden leg, repeating the gesture. "i have the happiness of knowing your father-in-law," whispered mr. creakle, taking me by the ear; "and a worthy man he is, and a man of a strong character. he knows me, and i know him. do _you_ know me? hey?" said mr. creakle, pinching my ear with ferocious playfulness. "not yet, sir," i said, flinching with the pain. "not yet? hey?" repeated mr. creakle. "but you will soon. hey?" "you will soon. hey?" repeated the man with the wooden leg. i afterwards found that he generally acted, with his strong voice, as mr. creakle's interpreter to the boys. i was very much frightened, and said, i hoped so, if he pleased. i felt, all this while, as if my ear were blazing; he pinched it so hard. "i'll tell you what i am," whispered mr. creakle, letting it go at last, with a screw at parting that brought the water into my eyes. "i'm a tartar." "a tartar," said the man with the wooden leg. "when i say i'll do a thing, i do it," said mr. creakle; "and when i say i will have a thing done, i will have it done." "--will have a thing done, i will have it done," repeated the man with the wooden leg. "i am a determined character," said mr. creakle. "that's what i am. i do my duty. that's what _i_ do. my flesh and blood"--he looked at mrs. creakle as he said this--"when it rises against me, is not my flesh and blood. i discard it. has that fellow," to the man with the wooden leg, "been here again?" "no," was the answer. "no," said mr. creakle. "he knows better. he knows me. let him keep away. i say let him keep away," said mr. creakle, striking his hand upon the table, and looking at mrs. creakle, "for he knows me. now you have begun to know me too, my young friend, and you may go. take him away." i was very glad to be ordered away, for mrs. and miss creakle were both wiping their eyes, and i felt as uncomfortable for them, as i did for myself. but i had a petition on my mind which concerned me so nearly, that i couldn't help saying, though i wondered at my own courage: "if you please, sir----" mr. creakle whispered, "hah? what's this?" and bent his eyes upon me, as if he would have burnt me up with them. "if you please, sir," i faltered, "if i might be allowed (i am very sorry indeed, sir, for what i did) to take this writing off, before the boys come back----" whether mr. creakle was in earnest, or whether he only did it to frighten me i don't know, but he made a burst out of his chair, before which i precipitately retreated, without waiting for the escort of the man with the wooden leg, and never once stopped until i reached my own bedroom, where, finding i was not pursued, i went to bed, as it was time, and lay quaking, for a couple of hours. next morning mr. sharp came back. mr. sharp was the first master, and superior to mr. mell. mr. mell took his meals with the boys, but mr. sharp dined and supped at mr. creakle's table. he was a limp, delicate-looking gentleman, i thought, with a good deal of nose, and a way of carrying his head on one side, as if it were a little too heavy for him. his hair was very smooth and wavy; but i was informed by the very first boy who came back that it was a wig (a second-hand one _he_ said), and that mr. sharp went out every saturday afternoon to get it curled. it was no other than tommy traddles who gave me this piece of intelligence. he was the first boy who returned. he introduced himself by informing me that i should find his name on the right-hand corner of the gate, over the top bolt; upon that i said, "traddles?" to which he replied, "the same," and then he asked me for a full account of myself and family. it was a happy circumstance for me that traddles came back first. he enjoyed my placard so much, that he saved me from the embarrassment of either disclosure or concealment, by presenting me to every other boy who came back, great or small, immediately on his arrival, in this form of introduction, "look here! here's a game!" happily, too, the greater part of the boys came back low-spirited, and were not so boisterous at my expense as i had expected. some of them certainly did dance about me like wild indians, and the greater part could not resist the temptation of pretending that i was a dog, and patting and smoothing me lest i should bite, and saying, "lie down, sir!" and calling me towzer. this was naturally confusing, among so many strangers, and cost me some tears, but on the whole it was much better than i had anticipated. i was not considered as being formally received into the school, however, until j. steerforth arrived. before this boy, who was reputed to be a great scholar, and was very good-looking, and at least half-a-dozen years my senior, i was carried as before a magistrate. he enquired, under a shed in the playground, into the particulars of my punishment, and was pleased to express his opinion that it was "a jolly shame;" for which i became bound to him ever afterwards. "what money have you got, copperfield?" he said, walking aside with me when he had disposed of my affair in these terms. i told him seven shillings. "you had better give it to me to take care of," he said. "at least, you can if you like. you needn't if you don't like." i hastened to comply with his friendly suggestion, and opening peggotty's purse, turned it upside down into his hand. "do you want to spend anything now?" he asked me. "no, thank you," i replied. "you can if you like, you know," said steerforth. "say the word." "no, thank you, sir," i repeated. "perhaps you'd like to spend a couple of shillings or so, in a bottle of currant wine by-and-by, up in the bedroom?" said steerforth. "you belong to my bedroom, i find." it certainly had not occurred to me before, but i said, yes, i should like that. "very good," said steerforth. "you'll be glad to spend another shilling or so, in almond cakes, i dare say?" i said, yes, i should like that, too. "and another shilling or so in biscuits, and another in fruit, eh?" said steerforth. "i say, young copperfield, you're going it!" i smiled because he smiled, but i was a little troubled in my mind, too. "well!" said steerforth. "we must make it stretch as far as we can; that's all. i'll do the best in my power for you. i can go out when i like, and i'll smuggle the prog in." with these words he put the money in his pocket, and kindly told me not to make myself uneasy; he would take care it should be all right. he was as good as his word, if that were all right which i had a secret misgiving was nearly all wrong--for i feared it was a waste of my mother's two half-crowns--though i had preserved the piece of paper they were wrapped in: which was a precious saving. when we went up-stairs to bed, he produced the whole seven shillings' worth, and laid it out on my bed in the moonlight, saying: "there you are, young copperfield, and a royal spread you've got!" i couldn't think of doing the honors of the feast, at my time of life, while he was by; my hand shook at the very thought of it. i begged him to do me the favor of presiding; and my request being seconded by the other boys who were in that room, he acceded to it, and sat upon my pillow, handing round the viands--with perfect fairness, i must say--and dispensing the currant wine in a little glass without a foot, which was his own property. as to me, i sat on his left hand, and the rest were grouped about us, on the nearest beds and on the floor. how well i recollect our sitting there, talking in whispers; or their talking, and my respectfully listening, i ought rather to say; the moonlight falling a little way into the room, through the window, painting a pale window on the floor, and the greater part of us in shadow, except when steerforth dipped a match into a phosphorous-box, when he wanted to look for anything on the board, and shed a blue glare over us that was gone directly! a certain mysterious feeling, consequent on the darkness, the secresy of the revel, and the whisper in which everything was said, steals over me again, and i listen to all they tell me with a vague feeling of solemnity and awe, which makes me glad that they are all so near, and frightens me (though i feign to laugh) when traddles pretends to see a ghost in the corner. i heard all kinds of things about the school and all belonging to it. i heard that mr. creakle had not preferred his claim to being a tartar without reason; that he was the sternest and most severe of masters; that he laid about him, right and left, every day of his life, charging in among the boys like a trooper, and slashing away, unmercifully. that he knew nothing himself, but the art of slashing, being more ignorant (j. steerforth said) than the lowest boy in the school; that he had been, a good many years ago, a small hop-dealer in the borough, and had taken to the schooling business after being bankrupt in hops, and making away with mrs. creakle's money. with a good deal more of that sort, which i wondered how they knew. i heard that the man with the wooden leg, whose name was tungay, was an obstinate barbarian who had formerly assisted in the hop business, but had come into the scholastic line with mr. creakle, in consequence, as was supposed among the boys, of his having broken his leg in mr. creakle's service, and having done a deal of dishonest work for him, and knowing his secrets. i heard that with the single exception of mr. creakle, tungay considered the whole establishment, masters and boys, as his natural enemies, and that the only delight of his life was to be sour and malicious. i heard that mr. creakle had a son, who had not been tungay's friend, and who, assisting in the school, had once held some remonstrance with his father on an occasion when its discipline was very cruelly exercised, and was supposed, besides, to have protested against his father's usage of his mother. i heard that mr. creakle had turned him out of doors, in consequence; and that mrs. and miss creakle had been in a sad way, ever since. but the greatest wonder that i heard of mr. creakle was, there being one boy in the school on whom he never ventured to lay a hand, and that boy being j. steerforth. steerforth himself confirmed this when it was stated, and said that he should like to begin to see him do it. on being asked by a mild boy (not me) how he would proceed if he did begin to see him do it, he dipped a match into his phosphorous-box on purpose to shed a glare over his reply, and said he would commence by knocking him down with a blow on the forehead from the seven-and-sixpenny ink-bottle that was always on the mantelpiece. we sat in the dark for some time, breathless. i heard that mr. sharp and mr. mell were both supposed to be wretchedly paid; and that when there was hot and cold meat for dinner at mr. creakle's table, mr. sharp was always expected to say he preferred cold; which was again corroborated by j. steerforth, the only parlor-boarder. i heard that mr. sharp's wig didn't fit him; and that he needn't be so "bounceable"--somebody else said "bumptious"--about it, because his own red hair was very plainly to be seen behind. i heard that one boy, who was a coal-merchant's son, came as a set-off against the coal-bill, and was called on that account "exchange or barter"--a name selected from the arithmetic-book as expressing this arrangement. i heard that the table-beer was a robbery of parents, and the pudding an imposition. i heard that miss creakle was regarded by the school in general as being in love with steerforth; and i am sure, as i sat in the dark, thinking of his nice voice, and his fine face, and his easy manner, and his curling hair, i thought it very likely. i heard that mr. mell was not a bad sort of fellow, but hadn't a sixpence to bless himself with; and that there was no doubt that old mrs. mell, his mother, was as poor as job. i thought of my breakfast then, and what had sounded like "my charley!" but i was, i am glad to remember, as mute as a mouse about it. the hearing of all this, and a good deal more, outlasted the banquet some time. the greater part of the guests had gone to bed as soon as the eating and drinking were over; and we, who had remained whispering and listening half undressed, at last betook ourselves to bed, too. "good night, young copperfield," said steerforth, "i'll take care of you." "you're very kind," i gratefully returned. "i am very much obliged to you." "you haven't got a sister, have you?" said steerforth, yawning. "no," i answered. "that's a pity," said steerforth. "if you had had one, i should think she would have been a pretty, timid, little, bright-eyed sort of girl. i should have liked to know her. good night, young copperfield." "good night, sir," i replied. i thought of him very much after i went to bed, and raised myself, i recollect, to look at him where he lay in the moonlight, with his handsome face turned up, and his head reclining easily on his arm. he was a person of great power in my eyes; that was of course the reason of my mind running on him. no veiled future dimly glanced upon him in the moonbeams. there was no shadowy picture of his footsteps, in the garden that i dreamed of walking in all night. chapter vii. my "first half" at salem house. school began in earnest next day. a profound impression was made upon me, i remember, by the roar of voices in the schoolroom suddenly becoming hushed as death when mr. creakle entered after breakfast, and stood in the doorway looking round upon us like a giant in a story-book surveying his captives. tungay stood at mr. creakle's elbow. he had no occasion, i thought, to cry out "silence!" so ferociously, for the boys were all struck speechless and motionless. mr. creakle was seen to speak, and tungay was heard, to this effect. "now, boys, this is a new half. take care what you're about, in this new half. come fresh up to the lessons, i advise you, for i come fresh up to the punishment. i won't flinch. it will be of no use your rubbing yourselves; you won't rub the marks out that i shall give you. now get to work, every boy!" when this dreadful exordium was over, and tungay had stumped out again, mr. creakle came to where i sat, and told me that if i were famous for biting, he was famous for biting, too. he then showed me the cane, and asked me what i thought of _that_, for a tooth? was it a sharp tooth, hey? was it a double tooth, hey? had it a deep prong, hey? did it bite, hey? did it bite? at every question he gave me a fleshy cut with it that made me writhe; so i was very soon made free of salem house (as steerforth said), and very soon in tears also. not that i mean to say these were special marks of distinction, which only i received. on the contrary, a large majority of the boys (especially the smaller ones) were visited with similar instances of notice, as mr. creakle made the round of the schoolroom. half the establishment was writhing and crying, before the day's work began; and how much of it had writhed and cried before the day's work was over, i am really afraid to recollect, lest i should seem to exaggerate. i should think there never can have been a man who enjoyed his profession more than mr. creakle did. he had a delight in cutting at the boys, which was like the satisfaction of a craving appetite. i am confident that he couldn't resist a chubby boy, especially; that there was a fascination in such a subject, which made him restless in his mind, until he had scored and marked him for the day. i was chubby myself, and ought to know. i am sure when i think of the fellow now, my blood rises against him with the disinterested indignation i should feel if i could have known all about him without having ever been in his power; but it rises hotly, because i know him to have been an incapable brute, who had no more right to be possessed of the great trust he held, than to be lord high admiral, or commander-in-chief: in either of which capacities, it is probable that he would have done infinitely less mischief. miserable little propitiators of a remorseless idol, how abject we were to him! what a launch in life i think it now, on looking back, to be so mean and servile to a man of such parts and pretensions! here i sit at the desk again, watching his eye--humbly watching his eye, as he rules a cyphering-book for another victim whose hands have just been flattened by that identical ruler, and who is trying to wipe the sting out with a pocket-handkerchief. i have plenty to do. i don't watch his eye in idleness, but because i am morbidly attracted to it, in a dread desire to know what he will do next, and whether it will be my turn to suffer, or somebody else's. a lane of small boys beyond me, with the same interest in his eye, watch it too. i think he knows it, though he pretends he don't. he makes dreadful mouths as he rules the cyphering-book; and now he throws his eye sideways down our lane, and we all droop over our books and tremble. a moment afterwards we are again eyeing him. an unhappy culprit, found guilty of imperfect exercise, approaches at his command. the culprit falters excuses, and professes a determination to do better to-morrow. mr. creakle cuts a joke before he beats him, and we laugh at it,--miserable little dogs, we laugh, with our visages as white as ashes, and our hearts sinking into our boots. here i sit at the desk again, on a drowsy summer afternoon. a buzz and hum go up around me, as if the boys were so many blue-bottles. a cloggy sensation of the lukewarm fat of meat is upon me (we dined an hour or two ago), and my head is as heavy as so much lead. i would give the world to go to sleep. i sit with my eye on mr. creakle, blinking at him like a young owl; when sleep overpowers me for a minute, he still looms through my slumber, ruling those cyphering-books; until he softly comes behind me and wakes me to plainer perception of him, with a red ridge across my back. here i am in the playground, with my eye still fascinated by him, though i can't see him. the window at a little distance from which i know he is having his dinner, stands for him, and i eye that instead. if he shows his face near it, mine assumes an imploring and submissive expression. if he looks out through the glass, the boldest boy (steerforth excepted) stops in the middle of a shout or yell, and becomes contemplative. one day, traddles (the most unfortunate boy in the world) breaks that window accidentally, with a ball. i shudder at this moment with the tremendous sensation of seeing it done, and feeling that the ball has bounded on to mr. creakle's sacred head. poor traddles! in a tight sky-blue suit that made his arms and legs like german sausages, or roly-poly puddings, he was the merriest and most miserable of all the boys. he was always being caned--i think he was caned every day that half-year, except one holiday monday when he was only ruler'd on both hands--and was always going to write to his uncle about it, and never did. after laying his head on the desk for a little while, he would cheer up, somehow, begin to laugh again, and draw skeletons all over his slate, before his eyes were dry. i used at first to wonder what comfort traddles found in drawing skeletons; and for some time looked upon him as a sort of hermit, who reminded himself by those symbols of mortality that caning couldn't last for ever. but i believe he only did it because they were easy, and didn't want any features. he was very honorable, traddles was; and held it as a solemn duty in the boys to stand by one another. he suffered for this on several occasions; and particularly once, when steerforth laughed in church, and the beadle thought it was traddles, and took him out. i see him now, going away in custody, despised by the congregation. he never said who was the real offender, though he smarted for it next day, and was imprisoned so many hours that he came forth with a whole churchyard-full of skeletons swarming all over his latin dictionary. but he had his reward. steerforth said there was nothing of the sneak in traddles, and we all felt that to be the highest praise. for my part, i could have gone through a good deal (though i was much less brave than traddles, and nothing like so old) to have won such a recompense. to see steerforth walk to church before us, arm-in-arm with miss creakle, was one of the great sights of my life. i didn't think miss creakle equal to little em'ly in point of beauty, and i didn't love her (i didn't dare); but i thought her a young lady of extraordinary attractions, and in point of gentility not to be surpassed. when steerforth, in white trousers, carried her parasol for her, i felt proud to know him; and believed that she could not choose but adore him with all her heart. mr. sharp and mr. mell were both notable personages in my eyes; but steerforth was to them what the sun was to two stars. [illustration: steerforth and mr. mell.] steerforth continued his protection of me, and proved a very useful friend; since nobody dared to annoy one whom he honored with his countenance. he couldn't--or at all events, he didn't--defend me from mr. creakle, who was very severe with me; but whenever i had been treated worse than usual, he always told me that i wanted a little of his pluck, and that he wouldn't have stood it himself; which i felt he intended for encouragement, and considered to be very kind of him. there was one advantage, and only one that i know of, in mr. creakle's severity. he found my placard in his way, when he came up or down behind the form on which i sat, and wanted to make a cut at me in passing; for this reason it was soon taken off, and i saw it no more. an accidental circumstance cemented the intimacy between steerforth and me, in a manner that inspired me with great pride and satisfaction, though it sometimes led to inconvenience. it happened on one occasion, when he was doing me the honor of talking to me in the playground, that i hazarded the observation that something or somebody--i forget what now--was like something or somebody in peregrine pickle. he said nothing at the time; but when i was going to bed at night, asked me if i had got that book. i told him no, and explained how it was that i had read it, and all those other books of which i have made mention. "and do you recollect them?" steerforth said. oh yes, i replied; i had a good memory, and i believed i recollected them very well. "then i tell you what, young copperfield," said steerforth, "you shall tell 'em to me. i can't get to sleep very early at night, and i generally wake rather early in the morning. we'll go over 'em one after another. we'll make some regular arabian nights of it." i felt extremely flattered by this arrangement, and we commenced carrying it into execution that very evening. what ravages i committed on my favorite authors in the course of my interpretation of them, i am not in a condition to say, and should be very unwilling to know; but i had a profound faith in them, and i had, to the best of my belief, a simple, earnest manner of narrating what i did narrate; and these qualities went a long way. the drawback was, that i was often sleepy at night, or out of spirits and indisposed to resume the story; and then it was rather hard work, and it must be done; for to disappoint or displease steerforth was of course out of the question. in the morning, too, when i felt weary and should have enjoyed another hour's repose very much, it was a tiresome thing to be roused, like the sultana scheherazade, and forced into a long story before the getting-up bell rang; but steerforth was resolute; and as he explained to me, in return, my sums and exercises, and anything in my tasks that was too hard for me, i was no loser by the transaction. let me do myself justice, however. i was moved by no interested or selfish motive, nor was i moved by fear of him. i admired and loved him, and his approval was return enough. it was so precious to me that i look back on these trifles, now, with an aching heart. steerforth was considerate, too; and showed his consideration, in one particular instance, in an unflinching manner that was a little tantalising, i suspect, to poor traddles and the rest. peggotty's promised letter--what a comfortable letter it was!--arrived before "the half" was many weeks old; and with it a cake in a perfect nest of oranges, and two bottles of cowslip wine. this treasure, as in duty bound, i laid at the feet of steerforth, and begged him to dispense. "now, i'll tell you what, young copperfield," said he: "the wine shall be kept to wet your whistle when you are story-telling." i blushed at the idea, and begged him, in my modesty, not to think of it. but he said he had observed i was sometimes hoarse--a little roopy was his exact expression--and it should be, every drop, devoted to the purpose he had mentioned. accordingly, it was locked up in his box, and drawn off by himself in a phial, and administered to me through a piece of quill in the cork, when i was supposed to be in want of a restorative. sometimes, to make it a more sovereign specific, he was so kind as to squeeze orange juice into it, or to stir it up with ginger, or dissolve a peppermint drop in it; and although i cannot assert that the flavour was improved by these experiments, or that it was exactly the compound one would have chosen for a stomachic, the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning, i drank it gratefully and was very sensible of his attention. we seem, to me, to have been months over peregrine, and months more over the other stories. the institution never flagged for want of a story, i am certain; and the wine lasted out almost as well as the matter. poor traddles--i never think of that boy but with a strange disposition to laugh, and with tears in my eyes--was a sort of chorus, in general; and affected to be convulsed with mirth at the comic parts, and to be overcome with fear when there was any passage of an alarming character in the narrative. this rather put me out, very often. it was a great jest of his, i recollect, to pretend that he couldn't keep his teeth from chattering, whenever mention was made of an alguazil in connexion with the adventures of gil blas; and i remember, when gil blas met the captain of the robbers in madrid, this unlucky joker counterfeited such an ague of terror, that he was overheard by mr. creakle, who was prowling about the passage, and handsomely flogged for disorderly conduct in the bedroom. whatever i had within me that was romantic and dreamy, was encouraged by so much story-telling in the dark; and in that respect the pursuit may not have been very profitable to me. but the being cherished as a kind of plaything in my room, and the consciousness that this accomplishment of mine was bruited about among the boys, and attracted a good deal of notice to me though i was the youngest there, stimulated me to exertion. in a school carried on by sheer cruelty, whether it is presided over by a dunce or not, there is not likely to be much learnt. i believe our boys were, generally, as ignorant a set as any schoolboys in existence; they were too much troubled and knocked about to learn; they could no more do that to advantage, than any one can do anything to advantage in a life of constant misfortune, torment, and worry. but my little vanity, and steerforth's help, urged me on somehow; and without saving me from much, if anything, in the way of punishment, made me, for the time i was there, an exception to the general body, insomuch that i did steadily pick up some crumbs of knowledge. in this i was much assisted by mr. mell, who had a liking for me that i am grateful to remember. it always gave me pain to observe that steerforth treated him with systematic disparagement, and seldom lost an occasion of wounding his feelings, or inducing others to do so. this troubled me the more for a long time, because i had soon told steerforth, from whom i could no more keep such a secret, than i could keep a cake or any other tangible possession, about the two old women mr. mell had taken me to see; and i was always afraid that steerforth would let it out, and twit him with it. we little thought any one of us, i dare say, when i ate my breakfast that first morning, and went to sleep under the shadow of the peacock's feathers to the sound of the flute, what consequences would come of the introduction into those alms-houses of my insignificant person. but the visit had its unforeseen consequences; and of a serious sort, too, in their way. one day when mr. creakle kept the house from indisposition, which naturally diffused a lively joy through the school, there was a good deal of noise in the course of the morning's work. the great relief and satisfaction experienced by the boys made them difficult to manage; and though the dreaded tungay brought his wooden leg in twice or thrice, and took notes of the principal offenders' names, no great impression was made by it, as they were pretty sure of getting into trouble to-morrow do what they would, and thought it wise, no doubt, to enjoy themselves to-day. it was, properly, a half-holiday; being saturday. but as the noise in the playground would have disturbed mr. creakle, and the weather was not favorable for going out walking, we were ordered into school in the afternoon, and set some lighter tasks than usual, which were made for the occasion. it was the day of the week on which mr. sharp went out to get his wig curled; so mr. mell, who always did the drudgery, whatever it was, kept school by himself. if i could associate the idea of a bull or a bear with any one so mild as mr. mell, i should think of him, in connexion with that afternoon when the uproar was at its height, as of one of those animals, baited by a thousand dogs. i recall him bending his aching head, supported on his bony hand, over the book on his desk, and wretchedly endeavouring to get on with his tiresome work, amidst an uproar that might have made the speaker of the house of commons giddy. boys started in and out of their places, playing at puss in the corner with other boys; there were laughing boys, singing boys, talking boys, dancing boys, howling boys; boys shuffled with their feet, boys whirled about him, grinning, making faces, mimicking him behind his back and before his eyes: mimicking his poverty, his boots, his coat, his mother, everything belonging to him that they should have had consideration for. "silence!" cried mr. mell, suddenly rising up, and striking his desk with the book. "what does this mean! it's impossible to bear it. it's maddening. how can you do it to me, boys?" it was my book that he struck his desk with; and as i stood beside him, following his eye as it glanced round the room, i saw the boys all stop, some suddenly surprised, some half afraid, and some sorry perhaps. steerforth's place was at the bottom of the school, at the opposite end of the long room. he was lounging with his back against the wall, and his hands in his pockets, and looked at mr. mell with his mouth shut up as if he were whistling, when mr. mell looked at him. "silence, mr. steerforth!" said mr. mell. "silence yourself," said steerforth, turning red. "whom are you talking to?" "sit down," said mr. mell. "sit down yourself," said steerforth, "and mind your business." there was a titter, and some applause; but mr. mell was so white, that silence immediately succeeded; and one boy, who had darted out behind him to imitate his mother again, changed his mind, and pretended to want a pen mended. "if you think, steerforth," said mr. mell, "that i am not acquainted with the power you can establish over any mind here"--he laid his hand, without considering what he did (as i supposed), upon my head--"or that i have not observed you, within a few minutes, urging your juniors on to every sort of outrage against me, you are mistaken." "i don't give myself the trouble of thinking at all about you," said steerforth, coolly; "so i'm not mistaken, as it happens." "and when you make use of your position of favoritism here, sir," pursued mr. mell, with his lip trembling very much, "to insult a gentleman--" "a what?--where is he?" said steerforth. here somebody cried out, "shame, j. steerforth! too bad!" it was traddles; whom mr. mell instantly discomfited by bidding him hold his tongue. --"to insult one who is not fortunate in life, sir, and who never gave you the least offence, and the many reasons for not insulting whom you are old enough and wise enough to understand," said mr. mell, with his lip trembling more and more, "you commit a mean and base action. you can sit down or stand up as you please, sir. copperfield, go on." "young copperfield," said steerforth, coming forward up the room, "stop a bit. i tell you what, mr. mell, once for all. when you take the liberty of calling me mean or base, or anything of that sort, you are an impudent beggar. you are always a beggar, you know; but when you do that, you are an impudent beggar." i am not clear whether he was going to strike mr. mell, or mr. mell was going to strike him, or there was any such intention on either side. i saw a rigidity come upon the whole school as if they had been turned into stone, and found mr. creakle in the midst of us, with tungay at his side, and mrs. and miss creakle looking in at the door as if they were frightened. mr. mell, with his elbows on his desk and his face in his hands, sat, for some moments, quite still. "mr. mell," said mr. creakle, shaking him by the arm; and his whisper was so audible now, that tungay felt it unnecessary to repeat his words; "you have not forgotten yourself, i hope?" "no, sir, no," returned the master, showing his face, and shaking his head, and rubbing his hands in great agitation. "no, sir. no. i have remembered myself, i--no, mr. creakle, i have not forgotten myself, i--i have remembered myself, sir. i--i--could wish you had remembered me a little sooner, mr. creakle. it--it--would have been more kind, sir, more just, sir. it would have saved me something, sir." mr. creakle, looking hard at mr. mell, put his hand on tungay's shoulder, and got his feet upon the form close by, and sat upon the desk. after still looking hard at mr. mell from this throne, as he shook his head, and rubbed his hands, and remained in the same state of agitation, mr. creakle turned to steerforth, and said: "now, sir, as he don't condescend to tell me, what _is_ this?" steerforth evaded the question for a little while; looking in scorn and anger on his opponent, and remaining silent. i could not help thinking even in that interval, i remember, what a noble fellow he was in appearance, and how homely and plain mr. mell looked opposed to him. "what did he mean by talking about favorites, then!" said steerforth at length. "favorites?" repeated mr. creakle, with the veins in his forehead swelling quickly. "who talked about favorites?" "he did," said steerforth. "and pray, what did you mean by that, sir?" demanded mr. creakle, turning angrily on his assistant. "i meant, mr. creakle," he returned in a low voice, "as i said; that no pupil had a right to avail himself of his position of favoritism to degrade me." "to degrade _you_?" said mr. creakle. "my stars! but give me leave to ask you, mr. what's-your-name;" and here mr. creakle folded his arms, cane and all, upon his chest, and made such a knot of his brows that his little eyes were hardly visible below them; "whether, when you talk about favorites, you showed proper respect to me? to me, sir," said mr. creakle, darting his head at him suddenly, and drawing it back again, "the principal of this establishment, and your employer." "it was not judicious, sir, i am willing to admit," said mr. mell. "i should not have done so, if i had been cool." here steerforth struck in. "then he said i was mean, and then he said i was base, and then i called him a beggar. if _i_ had been cool, perhaps i shouldn't have called him a beggar. but i did, and i am ready to take the consequences of it." without considering, perhaps, whether there were any consequences to be taken, i felt quite in a glow at this gallant speech. it made an impression on the boys too, for there was a low stir among them, though no one spoke a word. "i am surprised, steerforth--although your candor does you honor," said mr. creakle, "does you honor, certainly--i am surprised, steerforth, i must say, that you should attach such an epithet to any person employed and paid in salem house, sir." steerforth gave a short laugh. "that's not an answer, sir," said mr. creakle, "to my remark. i expect more than that, from you, steerforth." if mr. mell looked homely, in my eyes, before the handsome boy, it would be quite impossible to say how homely mr. creakle looked. "let him deny it," said steerforth. "deny that he is a beggar, steerforth?" cried mr. creakle. "why, where does he go a begging?" "if he is not a beggar himself, his near relation's one," said steerforth. "it's all the same." he glanced at me, and mr. mell's hand gently patted me upon the shoulder. i looked up, with a flush upon my face and remorse in my heart, but mr. mell's eyes were fixed on steerforth. he continued to pat me kindly on the shoulder, but he looked at him. "since you expect me, mr. creakle, to justify myself," said steerforth, "and to say what i mean,--what i have to say is, that his mother lives on charity in an alms-house." mr. mell still looked at him, and still patted me kindly on the shoulder, and said to himself, in a whisper, if i heard right: "yes, i thought so." mr. creakle turned to his assistant, with a severe frown and labored politeness. "now, you hear what this gentleman says, mr. mell. have the goodness, if you please, to set him right before the assembled school." "he is right, sir, without correction," returned mr. mell, in the midst of a dead silence; "what he has said, is true." "be so good then as declare publicly, will you," said mr. creakle, putting his head on one side, and rolling his eyes round the school, "whether it ever came to my knowledge until this moment?" "i believe not directly," he returned. "why, you know not," said mr. creakle. "don't you, man?" "i apprehend you never supposed my worldly circumstances to be very good," replied the assistant. "you know what my position is, and always has been, here." "i apprehend, if you come to that," said mr. creakle, with his veins swelling again bigger than ever, "that you've been in a wrong position altogether, and mistook this for a charity school. mr. mell, we'll part if you please. the sooner the better." "there is no time," answered mr. mell, rising, "like the present." "sir, to you!" said mr. creakle. "i take my leave of you, mr. creakle, and of all of you," said mr. mell, glancing round the room, and again patting me gently on the shoulder. "james steerforth, the best wish i can leave you is that you may come to be ashamed of what you have done to-day. at present i would prefer to see you anything rather than a friend, to me, or to any one in whom i feel an interest." once more he laid his hand upon my shoulder; and then taking his flute and a few books from his desk, and leaving the key in it for his successor, he went out of the school, with his property under his arm. mr. creakle then made a speech, through tungay, in which he thanked steerforth for asserting (though perhaps too warmly) the independence and respectability of salem house; and which he wound up by shaking hands with steerforth, while we gave three cheers--i did not quite know what for, but i supposed for steerforth, and so joined in them ardently, though i felt miserable. mr. creakle then caned tommy traddles for being discovered in tears, instead of cheers, on account of mr. mell's departure; and went back to his sofa, or his bed, or wherever he had come from. we were left to ourselves now, and looked very blank, i recollect, on one another. for myself, i felt so much self-reproach and contrition for my part in what had happened, that nothing would have enabled me to keep back my tears but the fear that steerforth, who often looked at me, i saw, might think it unfriendly--or, i should rather say, considering our relative ages, and the feeling with which i regarded him, undutiful--if i showed the emotion which distressed me. he was very angry with traddles, and said he was glad he had caught it. poor traddles, who had passed the stage of lying with his head upon the desk, and was relieving himself as usual with a burst of skeletons, said he didn't care. mr. mell was ill-used. "who has ill-used him, you girl?" said steerforth. "why, you have," returned traddles. "what have i done?" said steerforth. "what have you done?" retorted traddles. "hurt his feelings, and lost him his situation." "his feelings!" repeated steerforth disdainfully. "his feelings will soon get the better of it, i'll be bound. his feelings are not like yours, miss traddles. as to his situation--which was a precious one, wasn't it?--do you suppose i am not going to write home, and take care that he gets some money? polly?" we thought this intention very noble in steerforth, whose mother was a widow, and rich, and would do almost anything, it was said, that he asked her. we were all extremely glad to see traddles so put down, and exalted steerforth to the skies: especially when he told us, as he condescended to do, that what he had done had been done expressly for us, and for our cause; and that he had conferred a great boon upon us by unselfishly doing it. but i must say that when i was going on with a story in the dark that night, mr. mell's old flute seemed more than once to sound mournfully in my ears; and that when at last steerforth was tired, and i lay down in my bed, i fancied it playing so sorrowfully somewhere, that i was quite wretched. i soon forgot him in the contemplation of steerforth, who, in an easy amateur way, and without any book (he seemed to me to know everything by heart), took some of his classes until a new master was found. the new master came from a grammar-school; and before he entered on his duties, dined in the parlor one day to be introduced to steerforth. steerforth approved of him highly, and told us he was a brick. without exactly understanding what learned distinction was meant by this, i respected him greatly for it, and had no doubt whatever of his superior knowledge: though he never took the pains with me--not that _i_ was anybody--that mr. mell had taken. there was only one other event in this half-year, out of the daily school-life, that made an impression on me which still survives. it survives for many reasons. one afternoon, when we were all harassed into a state of dire confusion, and mr. creakle was laying about him dreadfully, tungay came in, and called out in his usual strong way: "visitors for copperfield!" a few words were interchanged between him and mr. creakle, as, who the visitors were, and what room they were to be shown into; and then i, who had, according to custom, stood up on the announcement being made, and felt quite faint with astonishment, was told to go by the back stairs and get a clean frill on, before i repaired to the dining-room. these orders i obeyed, in such a flutter and hurry of my young spirits as i had never known before; and when i got to the parlor-door, and the thought came into my head that it might be my mother--i had only thought of mr. or miss murdstone until then--i drew back my hand from the lock, and stopped to have a sob before i went in. at first i saw nobody; but feeling a pressure against the door, i looked round it, and there, to my amazement, were mr. peggotty and ham, ducking at me with their hats, and squeezing one another against the wall. i could not help laughing; but it was much more in the pleasure of seeing them, than at the appearance they made. we shook hands in a very cordial way; and i laughed and laughed, until i pulled out my pocket-handkerchief and wiped my eyes. mr. peggotty (who never shut his mouth once, i remember, during the visit) showed great concern when he saw me do this, and nudged ham to say something. "cheer up, mas'r davy bor'!" said ham, in his simpering way. "why, how you have growed!" "am i grown?" i said, drying my eyes. i was not crying at anything particular that i know of; but somehow it made me cry to see old friends. "growed, mas'r davy bor'? ain't he growed!" said ham. "ain't he growed!" said mr. peggotty. they made me laugh again by laughing at each other, and then we all three laughed until i was in danger of crying again. "do you know how mama is, mr. peggotty?" i said. "and how my dear, dear, old peggotty is?" "oncommon," said mr. peggotty. "and little em'ly, and mrs. gummidge?" "on--common," said mr. peggotty. there was a silence. mr. peggotty, to relieve it, took two prodigious lobsters, and an enormous crab, and a large canvas bag of shrimps, out of his pockets, and piled them up in ham's arms. "you see," said mr. peggotty, "knowing as you was partial to a little relish with your wittles when you was along with us, we took the liberty. the old mawther biled 'em, she did. mrs. gummidge biled 'em. yes," said mr. peggotty slowly, who i thought appeared to stick to the subject on account of having no other subject ready, "mrs. gummidge, i do assure you, she biled 'em." i expressed my thanks; and mr. peggotty, after looking at ham, who stood smiling sheepishly over the shell-fish, without making any attempt to help him, said: "we come, you see, the wind and tide making in our favor, in one of our yarmouth lugs to gravesen'. my sister she wrote to me the name of this here place, and wrote to me as if ever i chanced to come to gravesen', i was to come over and enquire for mas'r davy and give her dooty, humbly wishing him well and reporting of the fam'ly as they was oncommon toe-be-sure. little em'ly, you see, she'll write to my sister when i go back, as i see you and as you was similarly oncommon, and so we make it quite a merry-go-rounder." i was obliged to consider a little before i understood what mr. peggotty meant by this figure, expressive of a complete circle of intelligence. i then thanked him heartily; and said, with a consciousness of reddening, that i supposed little em'ly was altered too, since we used to pick up shells and pebbles on the beach? "she's getting to be a woman, that's wot she's getting to be," said mr. peggotty. "ask him." he meant ham, who beamed with delight and assent over the bag of shrimps. "her pretty face!" said mr. peggotty, with his own shining like a light. "her learning!" said ham. "her writing!" said mr. peggotty. "why, it's as black as jet! and so large it is, you might see it anywheres." it was perfectly delightful to behold with what enthusiasm mr. peggotty became inspired when he thought of his little favorite. he stands before me again, his bluff hairy face irradiating with a joyful love and pride, for which i can find no description. his honest eyes fire up, and sparkle, as if their depths were stirred by something bright. his broad chest heaves with pleasure. his strong loose hands clench themselves, in his earnestness; and he emphasises what he says with a right arm that shows, in my pigmy view, like a sledge hammer. ham was quite as earnest as he. i dare say they would have said much more about her, if they had not been abashed by the unexpected coming in of steerforth, who, seeing me in a corner speaking with two strangers, stopped in a song he was singing, and said: "i didn't know you were here, young copperfield!" (for it was not the usual visiting room), and crossed by us on his way out. i am not sure whether it was in the pride of having such a friend as steerforth, or in the desire to explain to him how i came to have such a friend as mr. peggotty, that i called to him as he was going away. but i said, modestly--good heaven, how it all comes back to me this long time afterwards!-- "don't go, steerforth, if you please. these are two yarmouth boatmen--very kind, good people--who are relations of my nurse, and have come from gravesend to see me." "aye, aye?" said steerforth, returning. "i am glad to see them. how are you both?" there was an ease in his manner--a gay and light manner it was, but not swaggering--which i still believe to have borne a kind of enchantment with it. i still believe him, in virtue of this carriage, his animal spirits, his delightful voice, his handsome face and figure, and, for aught i know, of some inborn power of attraction besides (which i think a few people possess), to have carried a spell with him to which it was a natural weakness to yield, and which not many persons could withstand. i could not but see how pleased they were with him, and how they seemed to open their hearts to him in a moment. "you must let them know at home, if you please, mr. peggotty," i said, "when that letter is sent, that mr. steerforth is very kind to me, and that i don't know what i should ever do here without him." "nonsense!" said steerforth, laughing. "you mustn't tell them anything of the sort." "and if mr. steerforth ever comes into norfolk or suffolk, mr. peggotty," i said, "while i am there, you may depend upon it i shall bring him to yarmouth, if he will let me, to see your house. you never saw such a good house, steerforth. it's made out of a boat!" "made out of a boat, is it?" said steerforth. "it's the right sort of house for such a thorough-built boatman." "so 'tis, sir, so 'tis, sir," said ham, grinning. "you're right, young gen'lm'n. mas'r davy bor', gen'lm'n 's right. a thorough-built boatman! hor, hor! that's what he is, too!" mr. peggotty was no less pleased than his nephew, though his modesty forbade him to claim a personal compliment so vociferously. "well, sir," he said, bowing and chuckling, and tucking in the ends of his neckerchief at his breast, "i thankee, sir, i thankee! i do my endeavours in my line of life, sir." "the best of men can do no more, mr. peggotty," said steerforth. he had got his name already. "i'll pound it, it's wot you do yourself, sir," said mr. peggotty, shaking his head, "and wot you do well--right well! i thankee, sir. i'm obleeged to you, sir, for your welcoming manner of me. i'm rough, sir, but i'm ready--least ways, i _hope_ i'm ready, you understand. my house ain't much for to see, sir, but it's hearty at your service if ever you should come along with mas'r davy to see it. i'm a reg'lar dodman, i am," said mr. peggotty; by which he meant snail, and this was in allusion to his being slow to go, for he had attempted to go after every sentence, and had somehow or other come back again; "but i wish you both well, and i wish you happy!" ham echoed this sentiment, and we parted with them in the heartiest manner. i was almost tempted that evening to tell steerforth about pretty little em'ly, but i was too timid of mentioning her name, and too much afraid of his laughing at me. i remember that i thought a good deal, and in an uneasy sort of way, about mr. peggotty having said that she was getting on to be a woman; but i decided that was nonsense. we transported the shell-fish, or the "relish" as mr. peggotty had modestly called it, up into our room unobserved, and made a great supper that evening. but traddles couldn't get happily out of it. he was too unfortunate even to come through a supper like anybody else. he was taken ill in the night--quite prostrate he was--in consequence of crab; and after being drugged with black draughts and blue pills, to an extent which demple (whose father was a doctor) said was enough to undermine a horse's constitution, received a caning and six chapters of greek testament for refusing to confess. the rest of the half-year is a jumble in my recollection of the daily strife and struggle of our lives; of the waning summer and the changing season; of the frosty mornings when we were rung out of bed, and the cold, cold smell of the dark nights when we were rung into bed again; of the evening schoolroom dimly lighted and indifferently warmed, and the morning schoolroom which was nothing but a great shivering-machine; of the alternation of boiled beef with roast beef, and boiled mutton with roast mutton; of clods of bread-and-butter, dog's-eared lesson-books, cracked slates, tear-blotted copy-books, canings, rulerings, hair-cuttings, rainy sundays, suet puddings, and a dirty atmosphere of ink surrounding all. i well remember though, how the distant idea of the holidays, after seeming for an immense time to be a stationary speck, began to come towards us, and to grow and grow. how, from counting months, we came to weeks, and then to days; and how i then began to be afraid that i should not be sent for, and, when i learnt from steerforth that i _had_ been sent for and was certainly to go home, had dim forebodings that i might break my leg first. how the breaking-up day changed its place fast, at last, from the week after next to next week, this week, the day after to-morrow, to-morrow, to-day, to-night--when i was inside the yarmouth mail, and going home. i had many a broken sleep inside the yarmouth mail, and many an incoherent dream of all these things. but when i awoke at intervals, the ground outside the window was not the playground of salem house, and the sound in my ears was not the sound of mr. creakle giving it to traddles, but the sound of the coachman touching up the horses. chapter viii. my holidays. especially one happy afternoon. when we arrived before day at the inn where the mail stopped, which was not the inn where my friend the waiter lived, i was shown up to a nice little bedroom, with dolphin painted on the door. very cold i was i know, notwithstanding the hot tea they had given me before a large fire down-stairs; and very glad i was to turn into the dolphin's bed, pull the dolphin's blankets round my head, and go to sleep. mr. barkis the carrier was to call for me in the morning at nine o'clock. i got up at eight, a little giddy from the shortness of my night's rest, and was ready for him before the appointed time. he received me exactly as if not five minutes had elapsed since we were last together, and i had only been into the hotel to get change for sixpence, or something of that sort. as soon as i and my box were in the cart, and the carrier seated, the lazy horse walked away with us all at his accustomed pace. "you look very well, mr. barkis," i said, thinking he would like to know it. mr. barkis rubbed his cheek with his cuff, and then looked at his cuff as if he expected to find some of the bloom upon it; but made no other acknowledgment of the compliment. "i gave your message, mr. barkis," i said; "i wrote to peggotty." "ah!" said mr. barkis. mr. barkis seemed gruff, and answered drily. "wasn't it right, mr. barkis?" i asked, after a little hesitation. "why, no," said mr. barkis. "not the message?" "the message was right enough, perhaps," said mr. barkis; "but it come to an end there." not understanding what he meant, i repeated inquisitively: "came to an end, mr. barkis?" "nothing come of it," he explained, looking at me sideways. "no answer." "there was an answer expected, was there, mr. barkis?" said i, opening my eyes. for this was a new light to me. "when a man says he's willin'," said mr. barkis, turning his glance slowly on me again, "it's as much as to say, that man's a waitin' for a answer." "well, mr. barkis?" "well," said mr. barkis, carrying his eyes back to his horse's ears; "that man's been a waitin' for a answer ever since." "have you told her so, mr. barkis?" "n--no," growled mr. barkis, reflecting about it. "i ain't got no call to go and tell her so. i never said six words to her myself. _i_ ain't a goin' to tell her so." "would you like me to do it, mr. barkis?" said i, doubtfully. "you might tell her, if you would," said mr. barkis, with another slow look at me, "that barkis was a waitin' for a answer. says you--what name is it?" "her name?" "ah!" said mr. barkis, with a nod of his head. "peggotty." "chrisen name? or nat'ral name?" said mr. barkis. "oh, it's not her christian name. her christian name is clara." "is it though!" said mr. barkis. he seemed to find an immense fund of reflection in this circumstance, and sat pondering and inwardly whistling for some time. "well!" he resumed at length. "says you, 'peggotty! barkis is a waitin' for a answer.' says she, perhaps, 'answer to what?' says you, 'to what i told you.' 'what is that?' says she. 'barkis is willin',' says you." this extremely artful suggestion, mr. barkis accompanied with a nudge of his elbow that gave me quite a stitch in my side. after that, he slouched over his horse in his usual manner; and made no other reference to the subject except, half an hour afterwards, taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, and writing up, inside the tilt of the cart, "clara peggotty"--apparently as a private memorandum. ah, what a strange feeling it was to be going home when it was not home, and to find that every object i looked at, reminded me of the happy old home, which was like a dream i could never dream again! the days when my mother and i and peggotty were all in all to one another, and there was no one to come between us, rose up before me so sorrowfully on the road, that i am not sure i was glad to be there--not sure but that i would rather have remained away, and forgotten it in steerforth's company. but there i was; and soon i was at our house, where the bare old elm trees wrung their many hands in the bleak wintry air, and shreds of the old rooks' nests drifted away upon the wind. the carrier put my box down at the garden gate, and left me. i walked along the path towards the house, glancing at the windows, and fearing at every step to see mr. murdstone or miss murdstone lowering out of one of them. no face appeared, however; and being come to the house, and knowing how to open the door, before dark, without knocking, i went in with a quiet, timid step. god knows how infantine the memory may have been, that was awakened within me by the sound of my mother's voice in the old parlor, when i set foot in the hall. she was singing in a low tone. i think i must have lain in her arms, and heard her singing so to me when i was but a baby. the strain was new to me, and yet it was so old that it filled my heart brim-full; like a friend come back from a long absence. i believed, from the solitary and thoughtful way in which my mother murmured her song, that she was alone. and i went softly into the room. she was sitting by the fire, suckling an infant, whose tiny hand she held against her neck. her eyes were looking down upon its face, and she sat singing to it. i was so far right, that she had no other companion. [illustration: changes at home.] i spoke to her, and she started, and cried out. but seeing me, she called me her dear davy, her own boy! and coming half across the room to meet me, kneeled down upon the ground and kissed me, and laid my head down on her bosom near the little creature that was nestling there, and put its hand up to my lips. i wish i had died. i wish i had died then, with that feeling in my heart! i should have been more fit for heaven than i ever have been since. "he is your brother," said my mother, fondling me. "davy, my pretty boy! my poor child!" then she kissed me more and more, and clasped me round the neck. this she was doing when peggotty came running in, and bounced down on the ground beside us, and went mad about us both for a quarter of an hour. it seemed that i had not been expected so soon, the carrier being much before his usual time. it seemed, too, that mr. and miss murdstone had gone out upon a visit in the neighbourhood, and would not return before night. i had never hoped for this. i had never thought it possible that we three could be together undisturbed, once more; and i felt, for the time, as if the old days were come back. we dined together by the fireside. peggotty was in attendance to wait upon us, but my mother wouldn't let her do it, and made her dine with us. i had my own old plate, with a brown view of a man-of-war in full sail upon it, which peggotty had hoarded somewhere all the time i had been away, and would not have had broken, she said, for a hundred pounds. i had my own old mug with david on it, and my own old little knife and fork that wouldn't cut. while we were at table, i thought it a favorable occasion to tell peggotty about mr. barkis, who, before i had finished what i had to tell her, began to laugh, and threw her apron over her face. "peggotty!" said my mother. "what's the matter?" peggotty only laughed the more, and held her apron tight over her face when my mother tried to pull it away, and sat as if her head were in a bag. "what are you doing, you stupid creature?" said my mother, laughing. "oh, drat the man!" cried peggotty. "he wants to marry me." "it would be a very good match for you; wouldn't it?" said my mother. "oh! i don't know," said peggotty. "don't ask me. i wouldn't have him if he was made of gold. nor i wouldn't have anybody." "then, why don't you tell him so, you ridiculous thing?" said my mother. "tell him so," retorted peggotty, looking out of her apron. "he has never said a word to me about it. he knows better. if he was to make so bold as say a word to me, i should slap his face." her own was as red as ever i saw it, or any other face, i think; but she only covered it again, for a few moments at a time, when she was taken with a violent fit of laughter; and after two or three of those attacks, went on with her dinner. i remarked that my mother, though she smiled when peggotty looked at her, became more serious and thoughtful. i had seen at first that she was changed. her face was very pretty still, but it looked careworn, and too delicate; and her hand was so thin and white that it seemed to me to be almost transparent. but the change to which i now refer was superadded to this: it was in her manner, which became anxious and fluttered. at last she said, putting out her hand, and laying it affectionately on the hand of her old servant, "peggotty, dear, you are not going to be married?" "me, ma'am?" returned peggotty, staring. "lord bless you, no!" "not just yet?" said my mother, tenderly. "never!" cried peggotty. my mother took her hand, and said: "don't leave me, peggotty. stay with me. it will not be for long, perhaps. what should i ever do without you!" "me leave you, my precious!" cried peggotty. "not for all the world and his wife. why, what's put that in your silly little head?"--for peggotty had been used of old to talk to my mother sometimes like a child. but my mother made no answer, except to thank her, and peggotty went running on in her own fashion. "me leave you? i think i see myself. peggotty go away from you? i should like to catch her at it! no, no, no," said peggotty, shaking her head, and folding her arms; "not she, my dear. it isn't that there ain't some cats that would be well enough pleased if she did, but they shan't be pleased. they shall be aggravated. i'll stay with you till i am a cross cranky old woman. and when i'm too deaf, and too lame, and too blind, and too mumbly for want of teeth, to be of any use at all, even to be found fault with, then i shall go to my davy, and ask him to take me in." "and, peggotty," says i, "i shall be glad to see you, and i'll make you as welcome as a queen." "bless your dear heart!" cried peggotty. "i know you will!" and she kissed me beforehand, in grateful acknowledgment of my hospitality. after that, she covered her head up with her apron again, and had another laugh about mr. barkis. after that, she took the baby out of its little cradle, and nursed it. after that, she cleared the dinner-table; after that, came in with another cap on, and her work-box, and the yard-measure, and the bit of wax candle, all just the same as ever. we sat round the fire, and talked delightfully. i told them what a hard master mr. creakle was, and they pitied me very much. i told them what a fine fellow steerforth was, and what a patron of mine, and peggotty said she would walk a score of miles to see him. i took the little baby in my arms when it was awake, and nursed it lovingly. when it was asleep again, i crept close to my mother's side according to my old custom, broken now a long time, and sat with my arms embracing her waist, and my little red cheek on her shoulder, and once more felt her beautiful hair drooping over me--like an angel's wing as i used to think, i recollect--and was very happy indeed. while i sat thus, looking at the fire, and seeing pictures in the red-hot coals, i almost believed that i had never been away; that mr. and miss murdstone were such pictures, and would vanish when the fire got low; and that there was nothing real in all that i remembered, save my mother, peggotty, and i. peggotty darned away at a stocking as long as she could see, and then sat with it drawn on her left hand like a glove, and her needle in her right, ready to take another stitch whenever there was a blaze. i cannot conceive whose stockings they can have been that peggotty was always darning, or where such an unfailing supply of stockings in want of darning can have come from. from my earliest infancy she seems to have been always employed in that class of needlework, and never by any chance in any other. "i wonder," said peggotty, who was sometimes seized with a fit of wondering on some most unexpected topic, "what's become of davy's great-aunt?" "lor, peggotty!" observed my mother, rousing herself from a reverie, "what nonsense you talk!" "well, but i really do wonder, ma'am," said peggotty. "what can have put such a person in your head?" inquired my mother. "is there nobody else in the world to come there?" "i don't know how it is," said peggotty, "unless it's on account of being stupid, but my head never can pick and choose its people. they come and they go, and they don't come and they don't go, just as they like. i wonder what's become of her?" "how absurd you are, peggotty," returned my mother. "one would suppose you wanted a second visit from her." "lord forbid!" cried peggotty. "well then, don't talk about such uncomfortable things, there's a good soul," said my mother. "miss betsey is shut up in her cottage by the sea, no doubt, and will remain there. at all events, she is not likely ever to trouble us again." "no!" mused peggotty. "no, that ain't likely at all.--i wonder, if she was to die, whether she'd leave davy anything?" "good gracious me, peggotty," returned my mother, "what a nonsensical woman you are! when you know that she took offence at the poor dear boy's ever being born at all!" "i suppose she wouldn't be inclined to forgive him now," hinted peggotty. "why should she be inclined to forgive him now?" said my mother, rather sharply. "now that he's got a brother, i mean," said peggotty. my mother immediately began to cry, and wondered how peggotty dared to say such a thing. "as if this poor little innocent in its cradle had ever done any harm to you or anybody else, you jealous thing!" said she. "you had much better go and marry mr. barkis, the carrier. why don't you?" "i should make miss murdstone happy, if i was to," said peggotty. "what a bad disposition you have, peggotty!" returned my mother. "you are as jealous of miss murdstone as it is possible for a ridiculous creature to be. you want to keep the keys yourself, and give out all the things, i suppose? i shouldn't be surprised if you did. when you know that she only does it out of kindness and the best intentions! you know she does, peggotty--you know it well." peggotty muttered something to the effect of "bother the best intentions!" and something else to the effect that there was a little too much of the best intentions going on. "i know what you mean, you cross thing," said my mother. "i understand you, peggotty, perfectly. you know i do, and i wonder you don't color up like fire. but one point at a time. miss murdstone is the point now, peggotty, and you sha'n't escape from it. haven't you heard her say, over and over again, that she thinks i am too thoughtless and too--a--a--" "pretty," suggested peggotty. "well," returned my mother, half laughing, "and if she is so silly as to say so, can i be blamed for it?" "no one says you can," said peggotty. "no, i should hope not, indeed!" returned my mother. "haven't you heard her say, over and over again, that on this account she wishes to spare me a great deal of trouble, which she thinks i am not suited for, and which i really don't know myself that i _am_ suited for; and isn't she up early and late, and going to and fro continually--and doesn't she do all sorts of things, and grope into all sorts of places, coal-holes and pantries and i don't know where, that can't be very agreeable--and do you mean to insinuate that there is not a sort of devotion in that?" "i don't insinuate at all," said peggotty. "you do, peggotty," returned my mother. "you never do anything else, except your work. you are always insinuating. you revel in it. and when you talk of mr. murdstone's good intentions--" "i never talked of 'em," said peggotty. "no, peggotty," returned my mother, "but you insinuated. that's what i told you just now. that's the worst of you. you _will_ insinuate. i said, at the moment, that i understood you, and you see i did. when you talk of mr. murdstone's good intentions, and pretend to slight them (for i don't believe you really do, in your heart, peggotty), you must be as well convinced as i am how good they are, and how they actuate him in everything. if he seems to have been at all stern with a certain person, peggotty--you understand, and so i am sure does davy, that i am not alluding to any body present--it is solely because he is satisfied that it is for a certain person's benefit. he naturally loves a certain person, on my account; and acts solely for a certain person's good. he is better able to judge of it than i am; for i very well know that i am a weak, light, girlish creature, and that he is a firm, grave, serious man. and he takes," said my mother, with the tears which were engendered in her affectionate nature, stealing down her face, "he takes great pains with me; and i ought to be very thankful to him, and very submissive to him even in my thoughts; and when i am not, peggotty, i worry and condemn myself, and feel doubtful of my own heart, and don't know what to do." peggotty sat with her chin on the foot of the stocking, looking silently at the fire. "there, peggotty," said my mother, changing her tone, "don't let us fall out with one another, for i couldn't bear it. you are my true friend, i know, if i have any in the world. when i call you a ridiculous creature, or a vexatious thing, or anything of that sort, peggotty, i only mean that you are my true friend, and always have been, ever since the night when mr. copperfield first brought me home here, and you came out to the gate to meet me." peggotty was not slow to respond, and ratified the treaty of friendship by giving me one of her best hugs. i think i had some glimpses of the real character of this conversation at the time; but i am sure, now, that the good creature originated it, and took her part in it, merely that my mother might comfort herself with the little contradictory summary in which she had indulged. the design was efficacious; for i remember that my mother seemed more at ease during the rest of the evening, and that peggotty observed her less. when we had had our tea, and the ashes were thrown up, and the candles snuffed, i read peggotty a chapter out of the crocodile book, in remembrance of old times--she took it out of her pocket: i don't know whether she had kept it there ever since--and then we talked about salem house, which brought me round again to steerforth, who was my great subject. we were very happy; and that evening, as the last of its race, and destined evermore to close that volume of my life, will never pass out of my memory. it was almost ten o'clock before we heard the sound of wheels. we all got up then; and my mother said hurriedly that, as it was so late, and mr. and miss murdstone approved of early hours for young people, perhaps i had better go to bed. i kissed her, and went up-stairs with my candle directly, before they came in. it appeared to my childish fancy, as i ascended to the bedroom where i had been imprisoned, that they brought a cold blast of air into the house which blew away the old familiar feeling like a feather. i felt uncomfortable about going down to breakfast in the morning, as i had never set eyes on mr. murdstone since the day when i committed my memorable offence. however, as it must be done, i went down, after two or three false starts half-way, and as many runs back on tiptoe to my own room, and presented myself in the parlor. he was standing before the fire with his back to it, while miss murdstone made the tea. he looked at me steadily as i entered, but made no sign of recognition whatever. i went up to him, after a moment of confusion, and said: "i beg your pardon, sir. i am very sorry for what i did, and i hope you will forgive me." "i am glad to hear you are sorry, david," he replied. the hand he gave me was the hand i had bitten. i could not restrain my eye from resting for an instant on a red spot upon it; but it was not so red as i turned, when i met that sinister expression in his face. "how do you do, ma'am," i said to miss murdstone. "ah, dear me!" sighed miss murdstone, giving me the tea-caddy scoop instead of her fingers. "how long are the holidays?" "a month, ma'am." "counting from when?" "from to-day, ma'am." "oh!" said miss murdstone. "then here's _one_ day off." she kept a calendar of the holidays in this way, and every morning checked a day off in exactly the same manner. she did it gloomily until she came to ten, but when she got into two figures she became more hopeful, and, as the time advanced, even jocular. it was on this very first day that i had the misfortune to throw her, though she was not subject to such weaknesses in general, into a state of violent consternation. i came into the room where she and my mother were sitting; and the baby (who was only a few weeks old) being on my mother's lap, i took it very carefully in my arms. suddenly miss murdstone gave such a scream that i all but dropped it. "my dear jane!" cried my mother. "good heavens, clara, do you see?" exclaimed miss murdstone. "see what, my dear jane?" said my mother; "where?" "he's got it!" cried miss murdstone. "the boy has got the baby!" she was limp with horror; but stiffened herself to make a dart at me, and take it out of my arms. then, she turned faint; and was so very ill, that they were obliged to give her cherry-brandy. i was solemnly interdicted by her, on her recovery, from touching my brother any more on any pretence whatever; and my poor mother, who, i could see, wished otherwise, meekly confirmed the interdict, by saying: "no doubt you are right, my dear jane." on another occasion, when we three were together, this same dear baby--it was truly dear to me, for our mother's sake--was the innocent occasion of miss murdstone's going into a passion. my mother, who had been looking at its eyes as it lay upon her lap, said: "davy! come here!" and looked at mine. i saw miss murdstone lay her beads down. "i declare," said my mother, gently, "they are exactly alike. i suppose they are mine. i think they are the color of mine. but they are wonderfully alike." "what are you talking about, clara?" said miss murdstone. "my dear jane," faltered my mother, a little abashed by the harsh tone of this inquiry, "i find that the baby's eyes and davy's are exactly alike." "clara!" said miss murdstone, rising angrily, "you are a positive fool sometimes." "my dear jane," remonstrated my mother. "a positive fool," said miss murdstone. "who else could compare my brother's baby with your boy? they are not at all alike. they are exactly unlike. they are utterly dissimilar in all respects. i hope they will ever remain so. i will not sit here, and hear such comparisons made." with that she stalked out, and made the door bang after her. in short, i was not a favorite with miss murdstone. in short, i was not a favorite there with anybody, not even with myself; for those who did like me could not show it, and those who did not, showed it so plainly that i had a sensitive consciousness of always appearing constrained, boorish, and dull. i felt that i made them as uncomfortable as they made me. if i came into the room where they were, and they were talking together and my mother seemed cheerful, an anxious cloud would steal over her face from the moment of my entrance. if mr. murdstone were in his best humor, i checked him. if miss murdstone were in her worst, i intensified it. i had perception enough to know that my mother was the victim always; that she was afraid to speak to me or be kind to me, lest she should give them some offence by her manner of doing so, and receive a lecture afterwards; that she was not only ceaselessly afraid of her own offending, but of my offending, and uneasily watched their looks if i only moved. therefore i resolved to keep myself as much out of their way as i could; and many a wintry hour did i hear the church-clock strike, when i was sitting in my cheerless bedroom, wrapped in my little great-coat, poring over a book. in the evening, sometimes, i went and sat with peggotty in the kitchen. there i was comfortable, and not afraid of being myself. but neither of these resources was approved of in the parlor. the tormenting humor which was dominant there stopped them both. i was still held to be necessary to my poor mother's training, and, as one of her trials, could not be suffered to absent myself. "david," said mr. murdstone, one day after dinner when i was going to leave the room as usual; "i am sorry to observe that you are of a sullen disposition." "as sulky as a bear!" said miss murdstone. i stood still, and hung my head. "now, david," said mr. murdstone, "a sullen obdurate disposition is, of all tempers, the worst." "and the boy's is, of all such dispositions that ever i have seen," remarked his sister, "the most confirmed and stubborn. i think, my dear clara, even you must observe it?" "i beg your pardon, my dear jane," said my mother, "but are you quite sure--i am certain you'll excuse me, my dear jane--that you understand davy?" "i should be somewhat ashamed of myself, clara," returned miss murdstone, "if i could not understand the boy, or any boy. i don't profess to be profound; but i do lay claim to common sense." "no doubt, my dear jane," returned my mother, "your understanding is very vigorous--" "oh dear, no! pray don't say that, clara," interposed miss murdstone, angrily. "but i am sure it is," resumed my mother; "and everybody knows it is. i profit so much by it myself, in many ways--at least i ought to--that no one can be more convinced of it than myself; and therefore i speak with great diffidence, my dear jane, i assure you." "we'll say i don't understand the boy, clara," returned miss murdstone, arranging the little fetters on her wrists. "we'll agree, if you please, that i don't understand him at all. he is much too deep for me. but perhaps my brother's penetration may enable him to have some insight into his character. and i believe my brother was speaking on the subject when we--not very decently--interrupted him." "i think, clara," said mr. murdstone, in a low, grave voice, "that there may be better and more dispassionate judges of such a question than you." "edward," replied my mother, timidly, "you are a far better judge of all questions than i pretend to be. both you and jane are. i only said--" "you only said something weak and inconsiderate," he replied. "try not to do it again, my dear clara, and keep a watch upon yourself." my mother's lips moved, as if she answered "yes, my dear edward," but she said nothing aloud. "i was sorry, david, i remarked," said mr. murdstone, turning his head and his eyes stiffly towards me, "to observe that you are of a sullen disposition. this is not a character that i can suffer to develop itself beneath my eyes without an effort at improvement. you must endeavour, sir, to change it. we must endeavour to change it for you." "i beg your pardon, sir," i faltered. "i have never meant to be sullen since i came back." "don't take refuge in a lie, sir!" he returned so fiercely, that i saw my mother involuntarily put out her trembling hand as if to interpose between us. "you have withdrawn yourself in your sullenness to your own room. you have kept your own room when you ought to have been here. you know now, once for all, that i require you to be here, and not there. further, that i require you to bring obedience here. you know me, david. i will have it done." miss murdstone gave a hoarse chuckle. "i will have a respectful, prompt, and ready bearing towards myself," he continued, "and towards jane murdstone, and towards your mother. i will not have this room shunned as if it were infected, at the pleasure of a child. sit down." he ordered me like a dog, and i obeyed like a dog. "one thing more," he said. "i observe that you have an attachment to low and common company. you are not to associate with servants. the kitchen will not improve you, in the many respects in which you need improvement. of the woman who abets you, i say nothing--since you, clara," addressing my mother in a lower voice, "from old associations and long-established fancies, have a weakness respecting her which is not yet overcome." "a most unaccountable delusion it is!" cried miss murdstone. "i only say," he resumed, addressing me, "that i disapprove of your preferring such company as mistress peggotty, and that it is to be abandoned. now, david, you understand me, and you know what will be the consequence if you fail to obey me to the letter." i knew well--better perhaps than he thought, as far as my poor mother was concerned--and i obeyed him to the letter. i retreated to my own room no more; i took refuge with peggotty no more; but sat wearily in the parlor day after day, looking forward to night, and bedtime. what irksome constraint i underwent, sitting in the same attitude hours upon hours, afraid to move an arm or a leg lest miss murdstone should complain (as she did on the least pretence) of my restlessness, and afraid to move an eye lest it should light on some look of dislike or scrutiny that would find new cause for complaint in mine! what intolerable dulness to sit listening to the ticking of the clock; and watching miss murdstone's little shiny steel beads as she strung them; and wondering whether she would ever be married, and if so, to what sort of unhappy man; and counting the divisions in the moulding on the chimney-piece; and wandering away, with my eyes, to the ceiling, among the curls and corkscrews in the paper on the wall! what walks i took alone, down muddy lanes, in the bad winter weather, carrying that parlor, and mr. and miss murdstone in it, everywhere: a monstrous load that i was obliged to bear, a daymare that there was no possibility of breaking in, a weight that brooded on my wits, and blunted them! what meals i had in silence and embarrassment, always feeling that there were a knife and fork too many, and that mine; an appetite too many, and that mine; a plate and chair too many, and those mine; a somebody too many, and that i! what evenings, when the candles came, and i was expected to employ myself, but, not daring to read an entertaining book, pored over some hard-headed, harder-hearted treatise on arithmetic; when the tables of weights and measures set themselves to tunes, as rule britannia, or away with melancholy; and wouldn't stand still to be learnt, but would go threading my grandmother's needle through my unfortunate head, in at one ear and out at the other! what yawns and dozes i lapsed into, in spite of all my care; what starts i came out of concealed sleeps with; what answers i never got, to little observations that i rarely made; what a blank space i seemed, which everybody overlooked, and yet was in everybody's way; what a heavy relief it was to hear miss murdstone hail the first stroke of nine at night, and order me to bed! thus the holidays lagged away, until the morning came when miss murdstone said: "here's the last day off!" and gave me the closing cup of tea of the vacation. i was not sorry to go. i had lapsed into a stupid state; but i was recovering a little and looking forward to steerforth, albeit mr. creakle loomed behind him. again mr. barkis appeared at the gate, and again miss murdstone in her warning voice said: "clara!" when my mother bent over me, to bid me farewell. i kissed her, and my baby brother, and was very sorry then; but not sorry to go away, for the gulf between us was there, and the parting was there, every day. and it is not so much the embrace she gave me, that lives in my mind, though it was as fervent as could be, as what followed the embrace. i was in the carrier's cart when i heard her calling to me. i looked out, and she stood at the garden-gate alone, holding her baby up in her arms for me to see. it was cold still weather; and not a hair of her head, or a fold of her dress, was stirred, as she looked intently at me, holding up her child. so i lost her. so i saw her afterwards, in my sleep at school--a silent presence near my bed--looking at me with the same intent face--holding up her baby in her arms. chapter ix. i have a memorable birthday. i pass over all that happened at school, until the anniversary of my birthday came round in march. except that steerforth was more to be admired than ever, i remember nothing. he was going away at the end of the half-year, if not sooner, and was more spirited and independent than before in my eyes, and therefore more engaging than before; but beyond this i remember nothing. the great remembrance by which that time is marked in my mind, seems to have swallowed up all lesser recollections, and to exist alone. it is even difficult for me to believe that there was a gap of full two months between my return to salem house and the arrival of that birthday. i can only understand that the fact was so, because i know it must have been so; otherwise i should feel convinced that there was no interval, and that the one occasion trod upon the other's heels. how well i recollect the kind of day it was! i smell the fog that hung about the place; i see the hoar frost, ghostly, through it; i feel my rimy hair fall clammy on my cheek; i look along the dim perspective of the schoolroom, with a sputtering candle here and there to light up the foggy morning, and the breath of the boys wreathing and smoking in the raw cold as they blow upon their fingers, and tap their feet upon the floor. it was after breakfast, and we had been summoned in from the playground, when mr. sharp entered and said: "david copperfield is to go into the parlor." i expected a hamper from peggotty, and brightened at the order. some of the boys about me put in their claim not to be forgotten in the distribution of the good things, as i got out of my seat with great alacrity. "don't hurry, david," said mr. sharp. "there's time enough, my boy, don't hurry." i might have been surprised by the feeling tone in which he spoke, if i had given it a thought; but i gave it none until afterwards. i hurried away to the parlor; and there i found mr. creakle sitting at his breakfast with the cane and a newspaper before him, and mrs. creakle with an opened letter in her hand. but no hamper. "david copperfield," said mrs. creakle, leading me to a sofa, and sitting down beside me. "i want to speak to you very particularly. i have something to tell you, my child." mr. creakle, at whom of course i looked, shook his head without looking at me, and stopped up a sigh with a very large piece of buttered toast. "you are too young to know how the world changes every day," said mrs. creakle, "and how the people in it pass away. but we all have to learn it, david; some of us when we are young, some of us when we are old, some of us at all times of our lives." i looked at her earnestly. "when you came away from home at the end of the vacation," said mrs. creakle, after a pause, "were they all well?" after another pause, "was your mama well?" i trembled without distinctly knowing why, and still looked at her earnestly, making no attempt to answer. "because," said she, "i grieve to tell you that i hear this morning your mama is very ill." a mist arose between mrs. creakle and me, and her figure seemed to move in it for an instant. then i felt the burning tears run down my face, and it was steady again. "she is very dangerously ill," she added. i knew all now. "she is dead." there was no need to tell me so. i had already broken out into a desolate cry, and felt an orphan in the wide world. she was very kind to me. she kept me there all day, and left me alone sometimes; and i cried, and wore myself to sleep, and awoke and cried again. when i could cry no more, i began to think; and then the oppression on my breast was heaviest, and my grief a dull pain that there was no ease for. and yet my thoughts were idle; not intent on the calamity that weighed upon my heart, but idly loitering near it. i thought of our house shut up and hushed. i thought of the little baby, who, mrs. creakle said, had been pining away for some time, and who, they believed, would die too. i thought of my father's grave in the churchyard, by our house, and of my mother lying there beneath the tree i knew so well. i stood upon a chair when i was left alone, and looked into the glass to see how red my eyes were, and how sorrowful my face. i considered, after some hours were gone, if my tears were really hard to flow now, as they seemed to be, what, in connexion with my loss, it would affect me most to think of when i drew near home--for i was going home to the funeral. i am sensible of having felt that a dignity attached to me among the rest of the boys, and that i was important in my affliction. if ever child were stricken with sincere grief, i was. but i remember that this importance was a kind of satisfaction to me, when i walked in the playground that afternoon while the boys were in school. when i saw them glancing at me out of the windows, as they went up to their classes, i felt distinguished, and looked more melancholy, and walked slower. when school was over, and they came out and spoke to me, i felt it rather good in myself not to be proud to any of them, and to take exactly the same notice of them all, as before. i was to go home next night; not by the mail, but by the heavy night-coach, which was called the farmer, and was principally used by country-people travelling short intermediate distances upon the road. we had no story-telling that evening, and traddles insisted on lending me his pillow. i don't know what good he thought it would do me, for i had one of my own: but it was all he had to lend, poor fellow, except a sheet of letter-paper full of skeletons; and that he gave me at parting, as a soother of my sorrows and a contribution to my peace of mind. i left salem house upon the morrow afternoon. i little thought then that i left it, never to return. we travelled very slowly all night, and did not get into yarmouth before nine or ten o'clock in the morning. i looked out for mr. barkis, but he was not there; and instead of him a fat, short-winded, merry-looking, little old man in black, with rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees of his breeches, black stockings, and a broad-brimmed hat, came puffing up to the coach window, and said: "master copperfield?" "yes, sir." "will you come with me, young sir, if you please," he said, opening the door, "and i shall have the pleasure of taking you home." i put my hand in his, wondering who he was, and we walked away to a shop in a narrow street, on which was written omer, draper, tailor, haberdasher, funeral furnisher, &c. it was a close and stifling little shop; full of all sorts of clothing, made and unmade, including one window full of beaver-hats and bonnets. we went into a little back-parlor behind the shop, where we found three young women at work on a quantity of black materials, which were heaped upon the table, and little bits and cuttings of which were littered all over the floor. there was a good fire in the room, and a breathless smell of warm black crape--i did not know what the smell was then, but i know now. the three young women, who appeared to be very industrious and comfortable, raised their heads to look at me, and then went on with their work. stitch, stitch, stitch. at the same time there came from a workshop across a little yard outside the window, a regular sound of hammering that kept a kind of tune: rat--tat-tat, rat--tat-tat, rat--tat-tat, without any variation. "well!" said my conductor to one of the three young women. "how do you get on, minnie?" "we shall be ready by the trying-on time," she replied gaily, without looking up. "don't you be afraid, father." mr. omer took off his broad-brimmed hat, and sat down and panted. he was so fat that he was obliged to pant some time before he could say: "that's right." "father!" said minnie, playfully. "what a porpoise you do grow!" "well, i don't know how it is, my dear," he replied, considering about it. "i _am_ rather so." "you are such a comfortable man, you see," said minnie. "you take things so easy." "no use taking 'em otherwise, my dear," said mr. omer. "no, indeed," returned his daughter. "we are all pretty gay here, thank heaven! ain't we, father?" "i hope so, my dear," said mr. omer. "as i have got my breath now, i think i'll measure this young scholar. would you walk into the shop, master copperfield?" i preceded mr. omer, in compliance with his request; and after showing me a roll of cloth which he said was extra super, and too good mourning for anything short of parents, he took my various dimensions, and put them down in a book. while he was recording them he called my attention to his stock in trade, and to certain fashions which he said had "just come up," and to certain other fashions which he said had "just gone out." "and by that sort of thing we very often lose a little mint of money," said mr. omer. "but fashions are like human beings. they come in, nobody knows when, why, or how; and they go out, nobody knows when, why, or how. everything is like life, in my opinion, if you look at it in that point of view." i was too sorrowful to discuss the question, which would possibly have been beyond me under any circumstances; and mr. omer took me back into the parlor, breathing with some difficulty on the way. he then called down a little break-neck range of steps behind a door: "bring up that tea and bread-and-butter!" which, after some time, during which i sat looking about me and thinking, and listening to the stitching in the room and the tune that was being hammered across the yard, appeared on a tray, and turned out to be for me. "i have been acquainted with you," said mr. omer, after watching me for some minutes, during which i had not made much impression on the breakfast, for the black things destroyed my appetite, "i have been acquainted with you a long time, my young friend." "have you, sir?" "all your life," said mr. omer. "i may say before it. i knew your father before you. he was five foot nine and a half, and he lays in five and twen-ty foot of ground." "rat--tat-tat, rat--tat-tat, rat--tat-tat," across the yard. "he lays in five and twen-ty foot of ground, if he lays in a fraction," said mr. omer, pleasantly. "it was either his request or her direction, i forget which." "do you know how my little brother is, sir?" i inquired. mr. omer shook his head. "rat--tat-tat, rat--tat-tat, rat--tat-tat." "he is in his mother's arms," said he. "oh, poor little fellow! is he dead?" "don't mind it more than you can help," said mr. omer. "yes. the baby's dead." my wounds broke out afresh at this intelligence. i left the scarcely-tasted breakfast, and went and rested my head on another table in a corner of the little room, which minnie hastily cleared, lest i should spot the mourning that was lying there with my tears. she was a pretty good-natured girl, and put my hair away from my eyes with a soft kind touch; but she was very cheerful at having nearly finished her work and being in good time, and was so different from me! presently the tune left off, and a good-looking young fellow came across the yard into the room. he had a hammer in his hand, and his mouth was full of little nails, which he was obliged to take out before he could speak. "well, joram!" said mr. omer. "how do _you_ get on?" "all right," said joram. "done, sir." minnie colored a little, and the other two girls smiled at one another. "what! you were at it by candle-light last night, when i was at the club, then? were you?" said mr. omer, shutting up one eye. "yes," said joram. "as you said we could make a little trip of it, and go over together, if it was done, minnie and me--and you." "oh! i thought you were going to leave me out altogether," said mr. omer, laughing till he coughed. "--as you was so good as to say that," resumed the young man, "why i turned to with a will, you see. will you give me your opinion of it?" "i will," said mr. omer, rising. "my dear;" and he stopped and turned to me; "would you like to see your----" "no, father," minnie interposed. "i thought it might be agreeable, my dear," said mr. omer. "but perhaps you're right." i can't say how i knew it was my dear, dear mother's coffin that they went to look at. i had never heard one making; i had never seen one that i know of: but it came into my mind what the noise was, while it was going on; and when the young man entered, i am sure i knew what he had been doing. the work being now finished, the two girls, whose names i had not heard, brushed the shreds and threads from their dresses, and went into the shop to put that to rights, and wait for customers. minnie stayed behind to fold up what they had made, and pack it in two baskets. this she did upon her knees, humming a lively little tune the while. joram, who i had no doubt was her lover, came in and stole a kiss from her while she was busy (he didn't appear to mind me, at all), and said her father was gone for the chaise, and he must make haste and get himself ready. then he went out again; and then she put her thimble and scissors in her pocket, and stuck a needle threaded with black thread neatly in the bosom of her gown, and put on her outer clothing smartly, at a little glass behind the door, in which i saw the reflection of her pleased face. all this i observed, sitting at the table in the corner with my head leaning on my hand, and my thoughts running on very different things. the chaise soon came round to the front of the shop, and the baskets being put in first, i was put in next, and those three followed. i remember it as a kind of half chaise-cart, half piano-forte van, painted of a sombre color, and drawn by a black horse with a long tail. there was plenty of room for us all. i do not think i have ever experienced so strange a feeling in my life (i am wiser now, perhaps) as that of being with them, remembering how they had been employed, and seeing them enjoy the ride. i was not angry with them; i was more afraid of them, as if i were cast away among creatures with whom i had no community of nature. they were very cheerful. the old man sat in front to drive, and the two young people sat behind him, and whenever he spoke to them leaned forward, the one on one side of his chubby face and the other on the other, and made a great deal of him. they would have talked to me too, but i held back, and moped in my corner; scared by their love-making and hilarity, though it was far from boisterous, and almost wondering that no judgment came upon them for their hardness of heart. so, when they stopped to bait the horse, and ate and drank and enjoyed themselves, i could touch nothing that they touched, but kept my fast unbroken. so, when we reached home, i dropped out of the chaise behind, as quickly as possible, that i might not be in their company before those solemn windows, looking blindly on me like closed eyes once bright. and oh, how little need i had had to think what would move me to tears when i came back--seeing the window of my mother's room, and next it that which, in the better time, was mine! i was in peggotty's arms before i got to the door, and she took me into the house. her grief burst out when she first saw me; but she controuled it soon, and spoke in whispers, and walked softly, as if the dead could be disturbed. she had not been in bed, i found, for a long time. she sat up at night still, and watched. as long as her poor dear pretty was above the ground, she said, she would never desert her. mr. murdstone took no heed of me when i went into the parlor where he was, but sat by the fireside, weeping silently, and pondering in his elbow-chair. miss murdstone, who was busy at her writing-desk, which was covered with letters and papers, gave me her cold finger-nails, and asked me, in an iron whisper, if i had been measured for my mourning. i said: "yes." "and your shirts," said miss murdstone; "have you brought 'em home?" "yes, ma'am. i have brought home all my clothes." this was all the consolation that her firmness administered to me. i do not doubt that she had a choice pleasure in exhibiting what she called her self-command, and her firmness, and her strength of mind, and her common sense, and the whole diabolical catalogue of her unamiable qualities, on such an occasion. she was particularly proud of her turn for business; and she showed it now in reducing everything to pen and ink, and being moved by nothing. all the rest of that day, and from morning to night afterwards, she sat at that desk; scratching composedly with a hard pen, speaking in the same imperturbable whisper to everybody; never relaxing a muscle of her face, or softening a tone of her voice, or appearing with an atom of her dress astray. her brother took a book sometimes, but never read it that i saw. he would open it and look at it as if he were reading, but would remain for a whole hour without turning the leaf, and then put it down and walk to and fro in the room. i used to sit with folded hands watching him, and counting his footsteps, hour after hour. he very seldom spoke to her, and never to me. he seemed to be the only restless thing, except the clocks, in the whole motionless house. in these days before the funeral, i saw but little of peggotty, except that, in passing up or down stairs, i always found her close to the room where my mother and her baby lay, and except that she came to me every night, and sat by my bed's head while i went to sleep. a day or two before the burial--i think it was a day or two before, but i am conscious of confusion in my mind about that heavy time, with nothing to mark its progress--she took me into the room. i only recollect that underneath some white covering on the bed, with a beautiful cleanliness and freshness all around it, there seemed to me to lie embodied the solemn stillness that was in the house; and that when she would have turned the cover gently back, i cried: "oh no! oh no!" and held her hand. if the funeral had been yesterday, i could not recollect it better. the very air of the best parlor, when i went in at the door, the bright condition of the fire, the shining of the wine in the decanters, the patterns of the glasses and plates, the faint sweet smell of cake, the odour of miss murdstone's dress, and our black clothes. mr. chillip is in the room, and comes to speak to me. "and how is master david?" he says, kindly. i cannot tell him very well. i give him my hand, which he holds in his. "dear me!" says mr. chillip, meekly smiling, with something shining in his eye. "our little friends grow up around us. they grow out of our knowledge, ma'am?" this is to miss murdstone, who makes no reply. "there is a great improvement here, ma'am?" says mr. chillip. miss murdstone merely answers with a frown and a formal bend; mr. chillip, discomfited, goes into a corner, keeping me with him, and opens his mouth no more. i remark this, because i remark everything that happens, not because i care about myself, or have done since i came home. and now the bell begins to sound, and mr. omer and another come to make us ready. as peggotty was wont to tell me, long ago, the followers of my father to the same grave were made ready in the same room. there are mr. murdstone, our neighbour mr. grayper, mr. chillip, and i. when we go out to the door, the bearers and their load are in the garden; and they move before us down the path, and past the elms, and through the gate, and into the church-yard where i have so often heard the birds sing on a summer morning. we stand around the grave. the day seems different to me from every other day, and the light not of the same color--of a sadder color. now there is a solemn hush, which we have brought from home with what is resting in the mould; and while we stand bare-headed, i hear the voice of the clergyman, sounding remote in the open air, and yet distinct and plain, saying: "i am the resurrection and the life, saith the lord!" then i hear sobs; and, standing apart among the lookers-on, i see that good and faithful servant, whom of all the people upon earth i love the best, and unto whom my childish heart is certain that the lord will one day say: "well done." there are many faces that i know, among the little crowd; faces that i knew in church, when mine was always wondering there; faces that first saw my mother, when she came to the village in her youthful bloom. i do not mind them--i mind nothing but my grief--and yet i see and know them all; and even in the background, far away, see minnie looking on, and her eye glancing on her sweetheart, who is near me. it is over, and the earth is filled in, and we turn to come away. before us stands our house, so pretty and unchanged, so linked in my mind with the young idea of what is gone, that all my sorrow has been nothing to the sorrow it calls forth. but they take me on; and mr. chillip talks to me; and when we get home, puts some water to my lips; and when i ask his leave to go up to my room, dismisses me with the gentleness of a woman. all this, i say, is yesterday's event. events of later date have floated from me to the shore where all forgotten things will reappear, but this stands like a high rock in the ocean. i knew that peggotty would come to me in my room. the sabbath stillness of the time (the day was so like sunday! i have forgotten that) was suited to us both. she sat down by my side upon my little bed; and holding my hand, and sometimes putting it to her lips, and sometimes smoothing it with hers, as she might have comforted my little brother, told me, in her way, all that she had to tell concerning what had happened. * * * "she was never well," said peggotty, "for a long time. she was uncertain in her mind, and not happy. when her baby was born, i thought at first she would get better, but she was more delicate, and sunk a little every day. she used to like to sit alone before her baby came, and then she cried; but afterwards she used to sing to it--so soft, that i once thought, when i heard her, it was like a voice up in the air, that was rising away. "i think she got to be more timid, and more frightened-like, of late; and that a hard word was like a blow to her. but she was always the same to me. she never changed to her foolish peggotty, didn't my sweet girl." here peggotty stopped, and softly beat upon my hand a little while. "the last time that i saw her like her own old self, was the night when you came home, my dear. the day you went away, she said to me, 'i never shall see my pretty darling again. something tells me so, that tells the truth, i know.' "she tried to hold up after that; and many a time, when they told her she was thoughtless and light-hearted, made believe to be so; but it was all a bygone then. she never told her husband what she had told me--she was afraid of saying it to anybody else--till one night, a little more than a week before it happened, when she said to him: 'my dear, i think i am dying.' "'it's off my mind now, peggotty,' she told me, when i laid her in her bed that night. 'he will believe it more and more, poor fellow, every day for a few days to come; and then it will be past. i am very tired. if this is sleep, sit by me while i sleep: don't leave me. god bless both my children! god protect and keep my fatherless boy!' "i never left her afterwards," said peggotty. "she often talked to them two down stairs--for she loved them; she couldn't bear not to love any one who was about her--but when they went away from her bedside, she always turned to me, as if there was rest where peggotty was, and never fell asleep in any other way. "on the last night, in the evening, she kissed me, and said: 'if my baby should die too, peggotty, please let them lay him in my arms, and bury us together.' (it was done; for the poor lamb lived but a day beyond her.) 'let my dearest boy go with us to our resting-place,' she said, 'and tell him that his mother, when she lay here, blessed him not once, but a thousand times.'" another silence followed this, and another gentle beating on my hand. "it was pretty far in the night," said peggotty, "when she asked me for some drink; and when she had taken it, gave me such a patient smile, the dear!--so beautiful!-- "daybreak had come, and the sun was rising, when she said to me, how kind and considerate mr. copperfield had always been to her, and how he had borne with her, and told her, when she doubted herself, that a loving heart was better and stronger than wisdom, and that he was a happy man in hers. 'peggotty, my dear,' she said then, 'put me nearer to you,' for she was very weak. 'lay your good arm underneath my neck,' she said, 'and turn me to you, for your face is going far off, and i want it to be near.' i put it as she asked; and oh davy! the time had come when my first parting words to you were true--when she was glad to lay her poor head on her stupid cross old peggotty's arm--and she died like a child that had gone to sleep!" * * * thus ended peggotty's narration. from the moment of my knowing of the death of my mother, the idea of her as she had been of late had vanished from me. i remembered her, from that instant, only as the young mother of my earliest impressions, who had been used to wind her bright curls round and round her finger, and to dance with me at twilight in the parlor. what peggotty had told me now, was so far from bringing me back to the later period, that it rooted the earlier image in my mind. it may be curious, but it is true. in her death she winged her way back to her calm untroubled youth, and cancelled all the rest. the mother who lay in the grave, was the mother of my infancy; the little creature in her arms, was myself, as i had once been, hushed for ever on her bosom. chapter x. i become neglected, and am provided for. the first act of business miss murdstone performed when the day of the solemnity was over, and light was freely admitted into the house, was to give peggotty a month's warning. much as peggotty would have disliked such a service, i believe she would have retained it, for my sake, in preference to the best upon earth. she told me we must part, and told me why; and we condoled with one another, in all sincerity. as to me or my future, not a word was said, or a step taken. happy they would have been, i dare say, if they could have dismissed me at a month's warning too. i mustered courage once, to ask miss murdstone when i was going back to school; and she answered dryly, she believed i was not going back at all. i was told nothing more. i was very anxious to know what was going to be done with me, and so was peggotty; but neither she nor i could pick up any information on the subject. there was one change in my condition, which, while it relieved me of a great deal of present uneasiness, might have made me, if i had been capable of considering it closely, yet more uncomfortable about the future. it was this. the constraint that had been put upon me, was quite abandoned. i was so far from being required to keep my dull post in the parlor, that on several occasions, when i took my seat there, miss murdstone frowned to me to go away. i was so far from being warned off from peggotty's society, that, provided i was not in mr. murdstone's, i was never sought out or inquired for. at first i was in daily dread of his taking my education in hand again, or of miss murdstone's devoting herself to it; but i soon began to think that such fears were groundless, and that all i had to anticipate was neglect. i do not conceive that this discovery gave me much pain then. i was still giddy with the shock of my mother's death, and in a kind of stunned state as to all tributary things. i can recollect, indeed, to have speculated, at odd times, on the possibility of my not being taught any more, or cared for any more; and growing up to be a shabby moody man, lounging an idle life away, about the village; as well as on the feasibility of my getting rid of this picture by going away somewhere, like the hero in a story, to seek my fortune: but these were transient visions, day dreams i sat looking at sometimes, as if they were faintly painted or written on the wall of my room, and which, as they melted away, left the wall blank again. "peggotty," i said in a thoughtful whisper, one evening, when i was warming my hands at the kitchen fire, "mr. murdstone likes me less than he used to. he never liked me much, peggotty; but he would rather not even see me now, if he can help it." "perhaps it's his sorrow," said peggotty, stroking my hair. "i am sure, peggotty, i am sorry too. if i believed it was his sorrow, i should not think of it at all. but it's not that; oh, no, it's not that." "how do you know it's not that?" said peggotty, after a silence. "oh, his sorrow is another and quite a different thing. he is sorry at this moment, sitting by the fireside with miss murdstone; but if i was to go in, peggotty, he would be something besides." "what would he be?" said peggotty. "angry," i answered, with an involuntary imitation of his dark frown. "if he was only sorry, he wouldn't look at me as he does. _i_ am only sorry, and it makes me feel kinder." peggotty said nothing for a little while; and i warmed my hands, as silent as she. "davy," she said at length. "yes, peggotty?" "i have tried, my dear, all ways i could think of--all the ways there are, and all the ways there ain't, in short--to get a suitable service here, in blunderstone; but there's no such a thing, my love." "and what do you mean to do, peggotty?" says i, wistfully. "do you mean to go and seek your fortune?" "i expect i shall be forced to go to yarmouth," replied peggotty, "and live there." "you might have gone farther off," i said, brightening a little, "and been as bad as lost. i shall see you sometimes, my dear old peggotty, there. you won't be quite at the other end of the world, will you?" "contrary ways, please god!" cried peggotty, with great animation. "as long as you are here, my pet, i shall come over every week of my life to see you. one day, every week of my life!" i felt a great weight taken off my mind by this promise; but even this was not all, for peggotty went on to say: "i'm a going, davy, you see, to my brother's, first, for another fortnight's visit--just till i have had time to look about me, and get to be something like myself again. now, i have been thinking, that perhaps, as they don't want you here at present, you might be let to go along with me." if anything, short of being in a different relation to every one about me, peggotty excepted, could have given me a sense of pleasure at that time, it would have been this project of all others. the idea of being again surrounded by those honest faces, shining welcome on me; of renewing the peacefulness of the sweet sunday morning, when the bells were ringing, the stones dropping in the water, and the shadowy ships breaking through the mist; of roaming up and down with little em'ly, telling her my troubles, and finding charms against them in the shells and pebbles on the beach; made a calm in my heart. it was ruffled next moment, to be sure, by a doubt of miss murdstone's giving her consent; but even that was set at rest soon, for she came out to take an evening grope in the store-closet while we were yet in conversation, and peggotty, with a boldness that amazed me, broached the topic on the spot. "the boy will be idle there," said miss murdstone, looking into a pickle-jar, "and idleness is the root of all evil. but, to be sure, he would be idle here--or anywhere, in my opinion." peggotty had an angry answer ready, i could see; but she swallowed it for my sake, and remained silent. "humph!" said miss murdstone, still keeping her eye on the pickles; "it is of more importance than anything else--it is of paramount importance--that my brother should not be disturbed or made uncomfortable. i suppose i had better say yes." i thanked her, without making any demonstration of joy, lest it should induce her to withdraw her assent. nor could i help thinking this a prudent course, when she looked at me out of the pickle-jar, with as great an access of sourness as if her black eyes had absorbed its contents. however, the permission was given, and was never retracted; for when the month was out, peggotty and i were ready to depart. mr. barkis came into the house for peggotty's boxes. i had never known him to pass the garden-gate before, but on this occasion he came into the house. and he gave me a look as he shouldered the largest box and went out, which i thought had meaning in it, if meaning could ever be said to find its way into mr. barkis's visage. peggotty was naturally in low spirits at leaving what had been her home so many years, and where the two strong attachments of her life--for my mother and myself--had been formed. she had been walking in the churchyard, too, very early; and she got into the cart, and sat in it with her handkerchief at her eyes. so long as she remained in this condition, mr. barkis gave no sign of life whatever. he sat in his usual place and attitude, like a great stuffed figure. but when she began to look about her, and to speak to me, he nodded his head and grinned several times. i have not the least notion at whom, or what he meant by it. "it's a beautiful day, mr. barkis!" i said, as an act of politeness. "it ain't bad," said mr. barkis, who generally qualified his speech, and rarely committed himself. "peggotty is quite comfortable now, mr. barkis," i remarked, for his satisfaction. "is she, though!" said mr. barkis. after reflecting about it, with a sagacious air, mr. barkis eyed her, and said: "_are_ you pretty comfortable?" peggotty laughed, and answered in the affirmative. "but really and truly, you know. are you?" growled mr. barkis, sliding nearer to her on the seat, and nudging her with his elbow. "are you? really and truly pretty comfortable? are you? eh?" at each of these inquiries mr. barkis shuffled nearer to her, and gave her another nudge; so that at last we were all crowded together in the left-hand corner of the cart, and i was so squeezed that i could hardly bear it. peggotty calling his attention to my sufferings, mr. barkis gave me a little more room at once, and got away by degrees. but i could not help observing that he seemed to think he had hit upon a wonderful expedient for expressing himself in a neat, agreeable, and pointed manner, without the inconvenience of inventing conversation. he manifestly chuckled over it for some time. by-and-by he turned to peggotty again, and repeating, "are you pretty comfortable though?" bore down upon us as before, until the breath was nearly wedged out of my body. by-and-by he made another descent upon us with the same inquiry, and the same result. at length, i got up whenever i saw him coming, and standing on the footboard, pretended to look at the prospect; after which i did very well. he was so polite as to stop at a public-house, expressly on our account, and entertain us with broiled mutton and beer. even when peggotty was in the act of drinking, he was seized with one of those approaches, and almost choked her. but as we drew nearer to the end of our journey, he had more to do and less time for gallantry; and when we got on yarmouth pavement, we were all too much shaken and jolted, i apprehend, to have any leisure for any thing else. mr. peggotty and ham waited for us at the old place. they received me and peggotty in an affectionate manner, and shook hands with mr. barkis, who, with his hat on the very back of his head, and a shame-faced leer upon his countenance, and pervading his very legs, presented but a vacant appearance, i thought. they each took one of peggotty's trunks, and we were going away, when mr. barkis solemnly made a sign to me with his forefinger to come under an archway. "i say," growled mr. barkis, "it was all right." i looked up into his face, and answered, with an attempt to be very profound: "oh!" "it didn't come to a end there," said mr. barkis, nodding confidentially. "it was all right." again i answered: "oh!" "you know who was willin'," said my friend. "it was barkis, and barkis only." i nodded assent. "it's all right," said mr. barkis, shaking hands; "i'm a friend of your'n. you made it all right, first. it's all right." in his attempts to be particularly lucid, mr. barkis was so extremely mysterious, that i might have stood looking in his face for an hour, and most assuredly should have got as much information out of it as out of the face of a clock that had stopped, but for peggotty's calling me away. as we were going along, she asked me what he had said; and i told her he had said it was all right. "like his impudence," said peggotty, "but i don't mind that! davy dear, what should you think if i was to think of being married?" "why--i suppose you would like me as much then, peggotty, as you do now?" i returned, after a little consideration. greatly to the astonishment of the passengers in the street, as well as of her relations going on before, the good soul was obliged to stop and embrace me on the spot, with many protestations of her unalterable love. "tell me what should you say, darling?" she asked again, when this was over, and we were walking on. "if you were thinking of being married--to mr. barkis, peggotty?" "yes," said peggotty. "i should think it would be a very good thing. for then you know, peggotty, you would always have the horse and cart to bring you over to see me, and could come for nothing, and be sure of coming." "the sense of the dear!" cried peggotty. "what i have been thinking of, this month back! yes, my precious; and i think i should be more independent altogether, you see; let alone my working with a better heart in my own house, than i could in anybody else's now. i don't know what i might be fit for, now, as a servant to a stranger. and i shall be always near my pretty's resting-place," said peggotty musing, "and able to see it when i like; and when _i_ lie down to rest, i may be laid not far off from my darling girl!" we neither of us said anything for a little while. "but i wouldn't so much as give it another thought," said peggotty, cheerily, "if my davy was anyways against it--not if i had been asked in church thirty times three times over, and was wearing out the ring in my pocket." "look at me, peggotty," i replied; "and see if i am not really glad, and don't truly wish it!" as indeed i did, with all my heart. "well, my life," said peggotty, giving me a squeeze, "i have thought of it night and day, every way i can, and i hope the right way; but i'll think of it again, and speak to my brother about it, and in the meantime we'll keep it to ourselves, davy, you and me. barkis is a good plain creetur'," said peggotty, "and if i tried to do my duty by him, i think it would be my fault if i wasn't--if i wasn't pretty comfortable," said peggotty, laughing heartily. this quotation from mr. barkis was so appropriate, and tickled us both so much, that we laughed again and again, and were quite in a pleasant humour when we came within view of mr. peggotty's cottage. it looked just the same, except that it may, perhaps, have shrunk a little in my eyes; and mrs. gummidge was waiting at the door as if she had stood there ever since. all within was the same, down to the seaweed in the blue mug in my bedroom. i went into the out-house to look about me; and the very same lobsters, crabs, and crawfish possessed by the same desire to pinch the world in general, appeared to be in the same state of conglomeration in the same old corner. but there was no little em'ly to be seen, so i asked mr. peggotty where she was. "she's at school, sir," said mr. peggotty, wiping the heat consequent on the porterage of peggotty's box from his forehead; "she'll be home," looking at the dutch clock, "in from twenty minutes to half-an-hour's time. we all on us feel the loss of her, bless ye!" mrs. gummidge moaned. "cheer up, mawther!" cried mr. peggotty. "i feel it more than anybody else," said mrs. gummidge; "i'm a lone lorn creetur', and she used to be a'most the only think that didn't go contrairy with me." mrs. gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head, applied herself to blowing the fire. mr. peggotty, looking round upon us while she was so engaged, said in a low voice, which he shaded with his hand: "the old 'un!" from this i rightly conjectured that no improvement had taken place since my last visit in the state of mrs. gummidge's spirits. now, the whole place was, or it should have been, quite as delightful a place as ever; and yet it did not impress me in the same way. i felt rather disappointed with it. perhaps it was because little em'ly was not at home. i knew the way by which she would come, and presently found myself strolling along the path to meet her. a figure appeared in the distance before long, and i soon knew it to be em'ly, who was a little creature still in stature, though she was grown. but when she drew nearer, and i saw her blue eyes looking bluer, and her dimpled face looking brighter, and her whole self prettier and gayer, a curious feeling came over me that made me pretend not to know her, and pass by as if i were looking at something a long way off. i have done such a thing since in later life, or i am mistaken. little em'ly didn't care a bit. she saw me well enough; but instead of turning round and calling after me, ran away laughing. this obliged me to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near the cottage before i caught her. "oh, it's you, is it?" said little em'ly. "why, you knew who it was, em'ly," said i. "and didn't _you_ know who it was?" said em'ly. i was going to kiss her, but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said she wasn't a baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into the house. she seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her i wondered at very much. the tea-table was ready, and our little locker was put out in its old place, but instead of coming to sit by me, she went and bestowed her company upon that grumbling mrs. gummidge: and on mr. peggotty's inquiring why, rumpled her hair all over her face to hide it, and would do nothing but laugh. "a little puss, it is!" said mr. peggotty, patting her with his great hand. "so sh' is! so sh' is!" cried ham. "mas'r davy bor', so sh'is!" and he sat and chuckled at her for some time, in a state of mingled admiration and delight, that made his face a burning red. little em'ly was spoiled by them all, in fact; and by no one more than mr. peggotty himself, whom she could have coaxed into anything, by only going and laying her cheek against his rough whisker. that was my opinion, at least, when i saw her do it; and i held mr. peggotty to be thoroughly in the right. but she was so affectionate and sweet-natured, and had such a pleasant manner of being both sly and shy at once, that she captivated me more than ever. she was tender-hearted, too; for when, as we sat round the fire after tea, an allusion was made by mr. peggotty over his pipe to the loss i had sustained, the tears stood in her eyes, and she looked at me so kindly across the table, that i felt quite thankful to her. "ah!" said mr. peggotty, taking up her curls, and running them over his hand like water, "here's another orphan, you see, sir. and here," said mr. peggotty, giving ham a back-handed knock in the chest, "is another of 'em, though he don't look much like it." "if i had you for my guardian, mr. peggotty," said i, shaking my head, "i don't think i should _feel_ much like it." "well said, mas'r davy bor'!" cried ham, in an ecstasy. "hoorah! well said! nor more you wouldn't! hor! hor!"--here he returned mr. peggotty's back-hander, and little em'ly got up and kissed mr. peggotty. "and how's your friend, sir?" said mr. peggotty to me. "steerforth?" said i. "that's the name!" cried mr. peggotty, turning to ham. "i knowed it was something in our way." "you said it was rudderford," observed ham, laughing. "well?" retorted mr. peggotty. "and ye steer with a rudder, don't ye? it ain't fur off. how is he, sir?" "he was very well indeed when i came away, mr. peggotty." "there's a friend!" said mr. peggotty, stretching out his pipe. "there's a friend, if you talk of friends! why, lord love my heart alive, if it ain't a treat to look at him!" "he is very handsome, is he not?" said i, my heart warming with this praise. "handsome!" cried mr. peggotty. "he stands up to you like--like a--why, i don't know what he _don't_ stand up to you like. he's so bold!" "yes! that's just his character," said i. "he's as brave as a lion, and you can't think how frank he is, mr. peggotty." "and i do suppose, now," said mr. peggotty, looking at me through the smoke of his pipe, "that in the way of book-learning he'd take the wind out of a'most anything." "yes," said i, delighted; "he knows everything. he is astonishingly clever." "there's a friend!" murmured mr. peggotty, with a grave toss of his head. "nothing seems to cost him any trouble," said i. "he knows a task if he only looks at it. he is the best cricketer you ever saw. he will give you almost as many men as you like at draughts, and beat you easily." mr. peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: "of course he will." "he is such a speaker," i pursued, "that he can win anybody over; and i don't know what you'd say if you were to hear him sing, mr. peggotty." mr. peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: "i have no doubt of it." "then, he's such a generous, fine, noble fellow," said i, quite carried away by my favorite theme, "that it's hardly possible to give him as much praise as he deserves. i am sure i can never feel thankful enough for the generosity with which he has protected me, so much younger and lower in the school than himself." i was running on, very fast indeed, when my eyes rested on little em'ly's face, which was bent forward over the table, listening with the deepest attention, her breath held, her blue eyes sparkling like jewels, and the color mantling in her cheeks. she looked so extraordinarily earnest and pretty, that i stopped in a sort of wonder; and they all observed her at the same time, for, as i stopped, they laughed and looked at her. "em'ly is like me," said peggotty, "and would like to see him." em'ly was confused by our all observing her, and hung down her head, and her face was covered with blushes. glancing up presently through her stray curls, and seeing that we were all looking at her still (i am sure, i, for one, could have looked at her for hours), she ran away, and kept away till it was nearly bedtime. i lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat, and the wind came moaning on across the flat as it had done before. but i could not help fancying, now, that it moaned of those who were gone; and instead of thinking that the sea might rise in the night and float the boat away, i thought of the sea that had risen, since i last heard those sounds, and drowned my happy home. i recollect, as the wind and water began to sound fainter in my ears, putting a short clause into my prayers, petitioning that i might grow up to marry little em'ly, and so dropping lovingly asleep. the days passed pretty much as they had passed before, except--it was a great exception--that little em'ly and i seldom wandered on the beach now. she had tasks to learn, and needle-work to do; and was absent during a great part of each day. but i felt that we should not have had those old wanderings, even if it had been otherwise. wild and full of childish whims as em'ly was, she was more of a little woman than i had supposed. she seemed to have got a great distance away from me, in little more than a year. she liked me, but she laughed at me, and tormented me; and when i went to meet her, stole home another way, and was laughing at the door when i came back, disappointed. the best times were when she sat quietly at work in the doorway, and i sat on the wooden step at her feet, reading to her. it seems to me, at this hour, that i have never seen such sunlight as on those bright april afternoons; that i have never seen such a sunny little figure as i used to see, sitting in the doorway of the old boat; that i have never beheld such sky, such water, such glorified ships sailing away into golden air. on the very first evening after our arrival, mr. barkis appeared in an exceedingly vacant and awkward condition, and with a bundle of oranges tied up in a handkerchief. as he made no allusion of any kind to this property, he was supposed to have left it behind him by accident when he went away; until ham, running after him to restore it, came back with the information that it was intended for peggotty. after that occasion he appeared every evening at exactly the same hour, and always with a little bundle, to which he never alluded, and which he regularly put behind the door, and left there. these offerings of affection were of a most various and eccentric description. among them i remember a double set of pig's trotters, a huge pin-cushion, half a bushel or so of apples, a pair of jet earrings, some spanish onions, a box of dominoes, a canary bird and cage, and a leg of pickled pork. mr. barkis's wooing, as i remember it, was altogether of a peculiar kind. he very seldom said anything; but would sit by the fire in much the same attitude as he sat in, in his cart, and stare heavily at peggotty, who was opposite. one night, being, as i suppose, inspired by love, he made a dart at the bit of wax-candle she kept for her thread, and put it in his waistcoat-pocket and carried it off. after that, his great delight was to produce it when it was wanted, sticking to the lining of his pocket, in a partially-melted state, and pocket it again when it was done with. he seemed to enjoy himself very much, and not to feel at all called upon to talk. even when he took peggotty out for a walk on the flats, he had no uneasiness on that head, i believe; contenting himself with now and then asking her if she was pretty comfortable; and i remember that sometimes, after he was gone, peggotty would throw her apron over her face, and laugh for half-an-hour. indeed, we were all more or less amused, except that miserable mrs. gummidge, whose courtship would appear to have been of an exactly parallel nature, she was so continually reminded by these transactions of the old one. at length, when the term of my visit was nearly expired, it was given out that peggotty and mr. barkis were going to make a day's holiday together, and that little em'ly and i were to accompany them. i had but a broken sleep the night before, in anticipation of the pleasure of a whole day with em'ly. we were all astir betimes in the morning; and while we were yet at breakfast, mr. barkis appeared in the distance, driving a chaise-cart towards the object of his affections. peggotty was drest as usual, in her neat and quiet mourning; but mr. barkis bloomed in a new blue coat, of which the tailor had given him such good measure, that the cuffs would have rendered gloves unnecessary in the coldest weather, while the collar was so high that it pushed his hair up on end on the top of his head. his bright buttons, too, were of the largest size. rendered complete by drab pantaloons and a buff waistcoat, i thought mr. barkis a phenomenon of respectability. when we were all in a bustle outside the door, i found that mr. peggotty was prepared with an old shoe, which was to be thrown after us for luck, and which he offered to mrs. gummidge for that purpose. "no. it had better be done by somebody else, dan'l," said mrs. gummidge. "i'm a lone lorn creetur' myself, and everythink that reminds me of creetur's that ain't lone and lorn, goes contrairy with me." "come, old gal!" cried mr. peggotty. "take and heave it!" "no, dan'l," returned mrs. gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head. "if i felt less, i could do more. you don't feel like me, dan'l; thinks don't go contrairy with you, nor you with them; you had better do it yourself." but here peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (em'ly and i on two little chairs, side by side), that mrs. gummidge must do it. so mrs. gummidge did it; and, i am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the house at once. which i really thought was a sensible idea, that ham might have acted on. [illustration: mrs. gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where mr. barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with peggotty, leaving little em'ly and me alone in the chaise. i took that occasion to put my arm round em'ly's waist, and propose that as i was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. little em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, i became desperate; informing her, i recollect, that i never could love another, and that i was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. how merry little em'ly made herself about it! with what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than i, the fairy little woman said i was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that i forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. mr. barkis and peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. as we were going along, mr. barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, i should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "what name was it as i wrote up in the cart?" "clara peggotty," i answered. "what name would it be as i should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "clara peggotty, again?" i suggested. "clara peggotty barkis!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. in a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. she was a little confused when mr. barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. we drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. if peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little em'ly and me before tea, while mr. barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, i suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. if so, it sharpened his appetite; for i distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. i have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! we got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. i was their chief exponent, and opened mr. barkis's mind to an amazing extent. i told him all i knew, but he would have believed anything i might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that i was "a young roeshus"--by which i think he meant, prodigy. when we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when i had exhausted the mental faculties of mr. barkis, little em'ly and i made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. ah, how i loved her! what happiness (i thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. i am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at peggotty's marriage as little em'ly's and mine. i am glad to think the loves and graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there mr. and mrs. barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. i felt then, for the first time, that i had lost peggotty. i should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little em'ly's head. mr. peggotty and ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as i did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. little em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. it was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, mr. peggotty and ham went out to fish. i felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of em'ly and mrs. gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that i might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. but as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on yarmouth flats that night, i provided the best substitute i could by dreaming of dragons until morning. with morning came peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if mr. barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. after breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. of all the moveables in it, i must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of fox's book of martyrs. this precious volume, of which i do not recollect one word, i immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and i never visited the house afterwards, but i kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. i was chiefly edified, i am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the martyrs and peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. i took leave of mr. peggotty, and ham, and mrs. gummidge, and little em'ly, that day; and passed the night at peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "young or old, davy dear, as long as i am alive and have this house over my head," said peggotty, "you shall find it as if i expected you here directly minute. i shall keep it every day, as i used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to china, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." i felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as i could. that was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and i was going home in the morning, and i went home in the morning, with herself and mr. barkis in the cart. they left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. and now i fell into a state of neglect, which i cannot look back upon without compassion. i fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as i write. what would i have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! no such hope dawned upon me. they disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. i think mr. murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. he could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as i believe, to put away the notion that i had any claim upon him--and succeeded. i was not actively ill-used. i was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. day after day, week after week, month after month, i was coldly neglected. i wonder sometimes, when i think of it, what they would have done if i had been taken with an illness; whether i should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. when mr. and miss murdstone were at home, i took my meals with them; in their absence, i ate and drank by myself. at all times i lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if i did, i might complain to some one. for this reason, though mr. chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom i can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that i enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. for the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, i was seldom allowed to visit peggotty. faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments i had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. some few times, however, at long intervals, i was allowed to go there; and then i found out that mr. barkis was something of a miser, or as peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. in this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very gunpowder plot, for every saturday's expenses. all this time i was so conscious of the waste of any promise i had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that i should have been perfectly miserable, i have no doubt, but for the old books. they were my only comfort; and i was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over i don't know how many times more. i now approach a period of my life, which i can never lose the remembrance of, while i remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. i had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, i came upon mr. murdstone walking with a gentleman. i was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "what! brooks!" "no, sir, david copperfield," i said. "don't tell me. you are brooks," said the gentleman. "you are brooks of sheffield. that's your name." at these words, i observed the gentleman more attentively. his laugh coming to my remembrance too, i knew him to be mr. quinion, whom i had gone over to lowestoft with mr. murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--i need not recall when. "and how do you get on, and where are you being educated, brooks?" said mr. quinion. he had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. i did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at mr. murdstone. "he is at home at present," said the latter. "he is not being educated anywhere. i don't know what to do with him. he is a difficult subject." that old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "humph!" said mr. quinion, looking at us both, i thought. "fine weather!" silence ensued, and i was considering how i could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "i suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? eh, brooks?" "aye! he is sharp enough," said mr. murdstone, impatiently. "you had better let him go. he will not thank you for troubling him." on this hint, mr. quinion released me, and i made the best of my way home. looking back as i turned into the front garden, i saw mr. murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and mr. quinion talking to him. they were both looking after me, and i felt that they were speaking of me. mr. quinion lay at our house that night. after breakfast, the next morning, i had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when mr. murdstone called me back. he then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. mr. quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and i stood looking at them all. "david," said mr. murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"as you do," added his sister. "jane murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. i say, david, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. it is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "for stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "what it wants, is, to be crushed. and crushed it must be. shall be, too!" he gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "i suppose you know, david, that i am not rich. at any rate, you know it now. you have received some considerable education already. education is costly; and even if it were not, and i could afford it, i am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. what is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." i think it occurred to me that i had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "you have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said mr. murdstone. "the counting-house, sir?" i repeated. "of murdstone and grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. i suppose i looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "you have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "i think i have heard the business mentioned, sir," i said, remembering what i vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "but i don't know when." "it does not matter when," he returned. "mr. quinion manages that business." i glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "mr. quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "he having," mr. quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, murdstone." mr. murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. your lodging (which i have arranged for) will be paid by me. so will your washing--" "--which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said mr. murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. so you are now going to london, david, with mr. quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "in short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." though i quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, i have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. my impression is, that i was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. nor had i much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as mr. quinion was to go upon the morrow. behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which miss murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as mrs. gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying mr. quinion to the london coach at yarmouth! see, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! chapter xi. i begin life on my own account, and don't like it. i know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that i can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. a child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. but none was made; and i became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of murdstone and grinby. murdstone and grinby's warehouse was at the water side. it was down in blackfriars. modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. it was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, i dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. they are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when i went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in mr. quinion's. murdstone and grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. i forget now where they chiefly went, but i think there were some among them that made voyages both to the east and west indies. i know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. when the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. all this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it i was one. there were three or four of us, counting me. my working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where mr. quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. his name was mick walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. he informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the lord mayor's show. he also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of mealy potatoes. i discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of mealy's--i think his little sister--did imps in the pantomimes. no words can express the secret agony of my soul as i sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with steerforth, traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. the deep remembrance of the sense i had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame i felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what i had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. as often as mick walker went away in the course of that forenoon, i mingled my tears with the water in which i was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. the counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when mr. quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. i went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. his clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. he carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, i afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "this," said mr. quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "this," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is master copperfield. i hope i see you well, sir?" i said i was very well, and hoped he was. i was sufficiently ill at ease, heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so i said i was very well, and hoped he was. "i am," said the stranger, "thank heaven, quite well. i have received a letter from mr. murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom i have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "this is mr. micawber," said mr. quinion to me. "ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "mr. micawber," said mr. quinion, "is known to mr. murdstone. he takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. he has been written to by mr. murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "my address," said mr. micawber, "is windsor terrace, city road. i--in short," said mr. micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"i live there." i made him a bow. "under the impression," said mr. micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the modern babylon in the direction of the city road--in short," said mr. micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--i shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." i thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "at what hour," said mr. micawber, "shall i--" "at about eight," said mr. quinion. "at about eight," said mr. micawber. "i beg to wish you good day, mr. quinion. i will intrude no longer." so he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. mr. quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as i could in the warehouse of murdstone and grinby, at a salary, i think, of six shillings a week. i am not clear whether it was six or seven. i am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. he paid me a week down (from his own pocket, i believe), and i gave mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to windsor terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. i paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. at the appointed time in the evening, mr. micawber reappeared. i washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as i suppose i must now call it, together; mr. micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that i might find my way back, easily, in the morning. arrived at his house in windsor terrace (which i noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to mrs. micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in the parlor (the first floor was altogether unfurnished, and the blinds were kept down to delude the neighbours), with a baby at her breast. this baby was one of twins; and i may remark here that i hardly ever, in all my experience of the family, saw both the twins detached from mrs. micawber at the same time. one of them was always taking refreshment. there were two other children; master micawber, aged about four, and miss micawber, aged about three. these, and a dark-complexioned young woman, with a habit of snorting, who was servant to the family, and informed me, before half-an-hour had expired, that she was "a orfling," and came from st. luke's workhouse, in the neighbourhood, completed the establishment. my room was at the top of the house, at the back: a close chamber; stencilled all over with an ornament which my young imagination represented as a blue muffin; and very scantily furnished. "i never thought," said mrs. micawber, when she came up, twin and all, to show me the apartment, and sat down to take breath, "before i was married, when i lived with papa and mama, that i should ever find it necessary to take a lodger. but mr. micawber being in difficulties, all considerations of private feeling must give way." i said: "yes, ma'am." "mr. micawber's difficulties are almost overwhelming just at present," said mrs. micawber; "and whether it is possible to bring him through them, i don't know. when i lived at home with papa and mama, i really should have hardly understood what the word meant, in the sense in which i now employ it, but experientia does it--as papa used to say." i cannot satisfy myself whether she told me that mr. micawber had been an officer in the marines, or whether i have imagined it. i only know that i believe to this hour that he _was_ in the marines once upon a time, without knowing why. he was a sort of town traveller for a number of miscellaneous houses, now; but made little or nothing of it, i am afraid. "if mr. micawber's creditors _will not_ give him time," said mrs. micawber, "they must take the consequences; and the sooner they bring it to an issue the better. blood cannot be obtained from a stone, neither can anything on account be obtained at present (not to mention law expenses) from mr. micawber." i never can quite understand whether my precocious self-dependence confused mrs. micawber in reference to my age, or whether she was so full of the subject that she would have talked about it to the very twins if there had been nobody else to communicate with, but this was the strain in which she began, and she went on accordingly all the time i knew her. poor mrs. micawber! she said she had tried to exert herself; and so, i have no doubt, she had. the centre of the street-door was perfectly covered with a great brass-plate, on which was engraved "mrs. micawber's boarding establishment for young ladies:" but i never found that any young lady had ever been to school there; or that any young lady ever came, or proposed to come; or that the least preparation was ever made to receive any young lady. the only visitors i ever saw or heard of, were creditors. _they_ used to come at all hours, and some of them were quite ferocious. one dirty-faced man, i think he was a bootmaker, used to edge himself into the passage as early as seven o'clock in the morning, and call up the stairs to mr. micawber--"come! you ain't out yet, you know. pay us, will you? don't hide, you know; that's mean. i wouldn't be mean if i was you. pay us, will you? you just pay us, d'ye hear? come!" receiving no answer to these taunts, he would mount in his wrath to the words "swindlers" and "robbers;" and these being ineffectual too, would sometimes go to the extremity of crossing the street, and roaring up at the windows of the second floor, where he knew mr. micawber was. at these times, mr. micawber would be transported with grief and mortification, even to the length (as i was once made aware by a scream from his wife) of making motions at himself with a razor; but within half an hour afterwards, he would polish up his shoes with extraordinary pains, and go out, humming a tune with a greater air of gentility than ever. mrs. micawber was quite as elastic. i have known her to be thrown into fainting fits by the king's taxes at three o'clock, and to eat lamb-chops, breaded, and drink warm ale (paid for with two tea-spoons that had gone to the pawnbroker's) at four. on one occasion, when an execution had just been put in, coming home through some chance as early as six o'clock, i saw her lying (of course with a twin) under the grate in a swoon, with her hair all torn about her face; but i never knew her more cheerful than she was, that very same night, over a veal-cutlet before the kitchen fire, telling me stories about her papa and mama, and the company they used to keep. in this house, and with this family, i passed my leisure time. my own exclusive breakfast of a penny loaf and a pennyworth of milk, i provided myself. i kept another small loaf, and a modicum of cheese, on a particular shelf of a particular cupboard, to make my supper on when i came back at night. this made a hole in the six or seven shillings, i know well; and i was out at the warehouse all day, and had to support myself on that money all the week. from monday morning until saturday night, i had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from any one, that i can call to mind, as i hope to go to heaven! i was so young and childish, and so little qualified--how could i be otherwise?--to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that often, in going to murdstone and grinby's, of a morning, i could not resist the stale pastry put out for sale at half-price at the pastrycook's doors, and spent in that, the money i should have kept for my dinner. then, i went without my dinner, or bought a roll or a slice of pudding. i remember two pudding-shops, between which i was divided, according to my finances. one was in a court close to st. martin's church--at the back of the church,--which is now removed altogether. the pudding at that shop was made of currants, and was rather a special pudding, but was dear, twopennyworth not being larger than a pennyworth of more ordinary pudding. a good shop for the latter was in the strand--somewhere in that part which has been rebuilt since. it was a stout pale pudding, heavy and flabby, and with great flat raisins in it, stuck in whole at wide distances apart. it came up hot at about my time every day, and many a day did i dine off it. when i dined regularly and handsomely, i had a saveloy and a penny-loaf, or a fourpenny plate of red beef from a cook's shop; or a plate of bread and cheese and a glass of beer, from a miserable old public-house opposite our place of business, called the lion, or the lion and something else that i have forgotten. once, i remember carrying my own bread (which i had brought from home in the morning) under my arm, wrapped in a piece of paper, like a book, and going to a famous alamode beef-house near drury lane, and ordering a "small plate" of that delicacy to eat with it. what the waiter thought of such a strange little apparition coming in all alone, i don't know; but i can see him now, staring at me as i ate my dinner, and bringing up the other waiter to look. i gave him a halfpenny for himself, and i wish he hadn't taken it. we had half-an-hour, i think, for tea. when i had money enough, i used to get half-a-pint of ready-made coffee and a slice of bread and butter. when i had none, i used to look at a venison-shop in fleet-street; or i have strolled, at such a time, as far as covent garden market, and stared at the pine-apples. i was fond of wandering about the adelphi, because it was a mysterious place, with those dark arches. i see myself emerging one evening from some of these arches, on a little public-house close to the river, with an open space before it, where some coal-heavers were dancing; to look at whom, i sat down upon a bench. i wonder what they thought of me! i was such a child, and so little, that frequently when i went into the bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter, to moisten what i had had for dinner, they were afraid to give it me. i remember one hot evening i went into the bar of a public-house, and said to the landlord: "what is your best--your _very best_--ale a glass?" for it was a special occasion. i don't know what. it may have been my birth-day. "twopence-halfpenny," says the landlord, "is the price of the genuine stunning ale." "then," says i, producing the money, "just draw me a glass of the genuine stunning, if you please, with a good head to it." [illustration: my magnificent order at the public-house.] the landlord looked at me in return over the bar, from head to foot, with a strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the beer, looked round the screen and said something to his wife. she came out from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me. here we stand, all three, before me now. the landlord in his shirt sleeves, leaning against the bar window-frame; his wife looking over the little half-door; and i, in some confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition. they asked me a good many questions; as, what my name was, how old i was, where i lived, how i was employed, and how i came there. to all of which, that i might commit nobody, i invented, i am afraid, appropriate answers. they served me with the ale, though i suspect it was not the genuine stunning; and the landlord's wife, opening the little half-door of the bar, and bending down, gave me my money back, and gave me a kiss that was half admiring and half compassionate, but all womanly and good, i am sure. i know i do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources or the difficulties of my life. i know that if a shilling were given me by mr. quinion at any time, i spent it in a dinner or a tea. i know that i worked, from morning until night, with common men and boys, a shabby child. i know that i lounged about the streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. i know that, but for the mercy of god, i might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a little vagabond. yet i held some station at murdstone and grinby's too. besides that mr. quinion did what a careless man so occupied, and dealing with a thing so anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a different footing from the rest, i never said, to man or boy, how it was that i came to be there, or gave the least indication of being sorry that i was there. that i suffered in secret, and that i suffered exquisitely, no one ever knew but i. how much i suffered, it is, as i have said already, utterly beyond my power to tell. but i kept my own counsel, and i did my work. i knew from the first, that, if i could not do my work as well as any of the rest, i could not hold myself above slight and contempt. i soon became at least as expeditious and as skilful as either of the other boys. though perfectly familiar with them, my conduct and manner were different enough from theirs to place a space between us. they and the men generally spoke of me as "the little gent," or "the young suffolker." a certain man named gregory, who was foreman of the packers, and another named tipp, who was the carman, and wore a red jacket, used to address me sometimes as "david:" but i think it was mostly when we were very confidential, and when i had made some efforts to entertain them, over our work, with some results of the old readings; which were fast perishing out of my remembrance. mealy potatoes uprose once, and rebelled against my being so distinguished; but mick walker settled him in no time. my rescue from this kind of existence i considered quite hopeless, and abandoned, as such, altogether. i am solemnly convinced that i never for one hour was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than miserably unhappy; but i bore it; and even to peggotty, partly for the love of her and partly for shame, never in any letter (though many passed between us) revealed the truth. mr. micawber's difficulties were an addition to the distressed state of my mind. in my forlorn state i became quite attached to the family, and used to walk about, busy with mrs. micawber's calculations of ways and means, and heavy with the weight of mr. micawber's debts. on a saturday night, which was my grand treat,--partly because it was a great thing to walk home with six or seven shillings in my pocket, looking into the shops and thinking what such a sum would buy, and partly because i went home early,--mrs. micawber would make the most heart-rending confidences to me; also on a sunday morning, when i mixed the portion of tea or coffee i had bought over-night, in a little shaving pot, and sat late at my breakfast. it was nothing at all unusual for mr. micawber to sob violently at the beginning of one of these saturday night conversations, and sing about jack's delight being his lovely nan, towards the end of it. i have known him come home to supper with a flood of tears, and a declaration that nothing was now left but a jail; and go to bed making a calculation of the expense of putting bow-windows to the house, "in case anything turned up," which was his favourite expression. and mrs. micawber was just the same. a curious equality of friendship, originating, i suppose, in our respective circumstances, sprung up between me and these people, notwithstanding the ludicrous disparity in our years. but i never allowed myself to be prevailed upon to accept any invitation to eat and drink with them out of their stock (knowing that they got on badly with the butcher and baker, and had often not too much for themselves), until mrs. micawber took me into her entire confidence. this she did one evening as follows: "master copperfield," said mrs. micawber, "i make no stranger of you, and therefore do not hesitate to say that mr. micawber's difficulties are coming to a crisis." it made me very miserable to hear it, and i looked at mrs. micawber's red eyes with the utmost sympathy. "with the exception of the heel of a dutch cheese--which is not adapted to the wants of a young family"--said mrs. micawber, "there is really not a scrap of anything in the larder. i was accustomed to speak of the larder when i lived with papa and mama, and i use the word almost unconsciously. what i mean to express, is, that there is nothing to eat in the house." "dear me!" i said, in great concern. i had two or three shillings of my week's money in my pocket--from which i presume that it must have been on a wednesday night when we held this conversation--and i hastily produced them, and with heartfelt emotion begged mrs. micawber to accept of them as a loan. but that lady, kissing me, and making me put them back in my pocket, replied that she couldn't think of it. "no, my dear master copperfield," said she, "far be it from my thoughts! but you have a discretion beyond your years, and can render me another kind of service, if you will; and a service i will thankfully accept of." i begged mrs. micawber to name it. "i have parted with the plate myself," said mrs. micawber. "six tea, two salt, and a pair of sugars, i have at different times borrowed money on, in secret, with my own hands. but the twins are a great tie; and to me, with my recollections of papa and mama, these transactions are very painful. there are still a few trifles that we could part with. mr. micawber's feelings would never allow _him_ to dispose of them; and clickett"--this was the girl from the workhouse--"being of a vulgar mind, would take painful liberties if so much confidence was reposed in her. master copperfield, if i might ask you"-- i understood mrs. micawber now, and begged her to make use of me to any extent. i began to dispose of the more portable articles of property that very evening; and went out on a similar expedition almost every morning, before i went to murdstone and grinby's. mr. micawber had a few books on a little chiffonier, which he called the library; and those went first. i carried them, one after another, to a bookstall in the city road--one part of which, near our house, was almost all bookstalls and bird-shops then--and sold them for whatever they would bring, the keeper of this bookstall, who lived in a little house behind it, used to get tipsy every night, and to be violently scolded by his wife every morning. more than once, when i went there early, i had audience of him in a turn-up bedstead, with a cut in his forehead or a black eye, bearing witness to his excesses over night (i am afraid he was quarrelsome in his drink), and he, with a shaking hand, endeavouring to find the needful shillings in one or other of the pockets of his clothes, which lay upon the floor, while his wife, with a baby in her arms and her shoes down at heel, never left off rating him. sometimes he had lost his money, and then he would ask me to call again; but his wife had always got some--had taken his, i dare say, while he was drunk--and secretly completed the bargain on the stairs, as we went down together. at the pawnbroker's shop, too, i began to be very well known. the principal gentleman who officiated behind the counter, took a good deal of notice of me; and often got me, i recollect, to decline a latin noun or adjective, or to conjugate a latin verb, in his ear, while he transacted my business. after all these occasions mrs. micawber made a little treat, which was generally a supper; and there was a peculiar relish in these meals which i well remember. at last mr. micawber's difficulties came to a crisis, and he was arrested early one morning, and carried over to the king's bench prison in the borough. he told me, as he went out of the house, that the god of day had now gone down upon him--and i really thought his heart was broken and mine too. but i heard, afterwards, that he was seen to play a lively game at skittles, before noon. on the first sunday after he was taken there, i was to go and see him, and have dinner with him. i was to ask my way to such a place, and just short of that place i should see such another place, and just short of that i should see a yard, which i was to cross, and keep straight on until i saw a turnkey. all this i did; and when at last i did see a turnkey (poor little fellow that i was!), and thought how, when roderick random was in a debtor's prison, there was a man there with nothing on him but an old rug, the turnkey swam before my dimmed eyes and my beating heart. mr. micawber was waiting for me within the gate, and we went up to his room (top story but one), and cried very much. he solemnly conjured me, i remember, to take warning by his fate; and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable. after which he borrowed a shilling of me for porter, gave me a written order on mrs. micawber for the amount, and put away his pocket-handkerchief, and cheered up. we sat before a little fire, with two bricks put within the rusted grate, one on each side, to prevent its burning too many coals; until another debtor, who shared the room with mr. micawber, came in from the bakehouse with the loin of mutton which was our joint-stock repast. then i was sent up to "captain hopkins" in the room overhead, with mr. micawber's compliments, and i was his young friend, and would captain hopkins lend me a knife and fork. captain hopkins lent me the knife and fork, with his compliments to mr. micawber. there was a very dirty lady in his little room, and two wan girls, his daughters, with shock heads of hair. i thought it was better to borrow captain hopkins's knife and fork, than captain hopkins's comb. the captain himself was in the last extremity of shabbiness, with large whiskers, and an old, old brown great-coat with no other coat below it. i saw his bed rolled up in a corner; and what plates and dishes and pots he had, on a shelf; and i divined (god knows how) that though the two girls with the shock heads of hair were captain hopkins's children, the dirty lady was not married to captain hopkins. my timid station on his threshhold was not occupied more than a couple of minutes at most; but i came down again with all this in my knowledge, as surely as the knife and fork were in my hand. there was something gipsy-like and agreeable in the dinner, after all. i took back captain hopkins's knife and fork early in the afternoon, and went home to comfort mrs. micawber with an account of my visit. she fainted when she saw me return, and made a little jug of egg-hot afterwards to console us while we talked it over. i don't know how the household furniture came to be sold for the family benefit, or who sold it, except that _i_ did not. sold it was, however, and carried away in a van; except the bed, a few chairs, and the kitchen-table. with these possessions we encamped, as it were, in the two parlors of the emptied house in windsor terrace; mrs. micawber, the children, the orfling, and myself; and lived in those rooms night and day. i have no idea for how long, though it seems to me for a long time. at last mrs. micawber resolved to move into the prison, where mr. micawber had now secured a room to himself. so i took the key of the house to the landlord, who was very glad to get it; and the beds were sent over to the king's bench, except mine, for which a little room was hired outside the walls in the neighbourhood of that institution, very much to my satisfaction, since the micawbers and i had become too used to one another, in our troubles, to part. the orfling was likewise accommodated with an inexpensive lodging in the same neighbourhood. mine was a quiet back-garret with a sloping roof, commanding a pleasant prospect of a timber-yard; and when i took possession of it, with the reflection that mr. micawber's troubles had come to a crisis at last, i thought it quite a paradise. all this time i was working at murdstone and grinby's in the same common way, and with the same common companions, and with the same sense of unmerited degradation as at first. but i never, happily for me no doubt, made a single acquaintance, or spoke to any of the many boys whom i saw daily in going to the warehouse, in coming from it, and in prowling about the streets at meal-times. i led the same secretly unhappy life; but i led it in the same lonely, self-reliant manner. the only changes i am conscious of are, firstly, that i had grown more shabby, and secondly, that i was now relieved of much of the weight of mr. and mrs. micawber's cares; for some relatives or friends had engaged to help them at their present pass, and they lived more comfortably in the prison than they had lived for a long while out of it. i used to breakfast with them now, in virtue of some arrangement, of which i have forgotten the details. i forget, too, at what hour the gates were opened in the morning, admitting of my going in; but i know that i was often up at six o'clock, and that my favorite lounging-place in the interval was old london bridge, where i was wont to sit in one of the stone recesses, watching the people going by, or to look over the balustrades at the sun shining in the water, and lighting up the golden flame on the top of the monument. the orfling met me here sometimes, to be told some astonishing fictions respecting the wharves and the tower; of which i can say no more than that i hope i believed them myself. in the evening i used to go back to the prison, and walk up and down the parade with mr. micawber; or play casino with mrs. micawber, and hear reminiscences of her papa and mama. whether mr. murdstone knew where i was, i am unable to say. i never told them at murdstone and grinby's. mr. micawber's affairs, although past their crisis, were very much involved by reason of a certain "deed," of which i used to hear a great deal, and which i suppose, now, to have been some former composition with his creditors, though i was so far from being clear about it then, that i am conscious of having confounded it with those demoniacal parchments which are held to have, once upon a time, obtained to a great extent in germany. at last this document appeared to be got out of the way, somehow; at all events it ceased to be the rock-ahead it had been; and mrs. micawber informed me that "her family" had decided that mr. micawber should apply for his release under the insolvent debtors act, which would set him free, she expected, in about six weeks. "and then," said mr. micawber, who was present, "i have no doubt i shall, please heaven, begin to be beforehand with the world, and to live in a perfectly new manner, if--in short, if anything turns up." by way of going in for anything that might be on the cards, i call to mind that mr. micawber, about this time, composed a petition to the house of commons, praying for an alteration in the law of imprisonment for debt. i set down this remembrance here, because it is an instance to myself of the manner in which i fitted my old books to my altered life, and made stories for myself, out of the streets, and out of men and women; and how some main points in the character i shall unconsciously develope, i suppose, in writing my life, were gradually forming all this while. there was a club in the prison, in which mr. micawber, as a gentleman, was a great authority. mr. micawber had stated his idea of this petition to the club, and the club had strongly approved of the same. wherefore mr. micawber (who was a thoroughly good-natured man, and as active a creature about everything but his own affairs as ever existed, and never so happy as when he was busy about something that could never be of any profit to him) set to work at the petition, invented it, engrossed it on an immense sheet of paper, spread it out on a table, and appointed a time for all the club, and all within the walls if they chose, to come up to his room and sign it. when i heard of this approaching ceremony, i was so anxious to see them all come in, one after another, though i knew the greater part of them already, and they me, that i got an hour's leave of absence from murdstone and grinby's, and established myself in a corner for that purpose. as many of the principal members of the club as could be got into the small room without filling it, supported mr. micawber in front of the petition, while my old friend captain hopkins (who had washed himself, to do honor to so solemn an occasion) stationed himself close to it, to read it to all who were unacquainted with its contents. the door was then thrown open, and the general population began to come in, in a long file: several waiting outside, while one entered, affixed his signature, and went out. to everybody in succession, captain hopkins said: "have you read it?"--"no."--"would you like to hear it read?" if he weakly showed the least disposition to hear it, captain hopkins, in a loud sonorous voice, gave him every word of it. the captain would have read it twenty thousand times, if twenty thousand people would have heard him, one by one. i remember a certain luscious roll he gave to such phrases as "the people's representatives in parliament assembled," "your petitioners therefore humbly approach your honorable house," "his gracious majesty's unfortunate subjects," as if the words were something real in his mouth, and delicious to taste; mr. micawber, meanwhile, listening with a little of an author's vanity, and contemplating (not severely) the spikes on the opposite wall. as i walked to and fro daily between southwark and blackfriars, and lounged about at meal-times in obscure streets, the stones of which may, for anything i know, be worn at this moment by my childish feet, i wonder how many of these people were wanting in the crowd that used to come filing before me in review again, to the echo of captain hopkins's voice! when my thoughts go back, now, to that slow agony of my youth, i wonder how much of the histories i invented for such people hangs like a mist of fancy over well-remembered facts! when i tread the old ground, i do not wonder that i seem to see and pity, going on before me, an innocent romantic boy, making his imaginative world out of such strange experiences and sordid things! chapter xii. liking life on my own account no better, i form a great resolution. in due time, mr. micawber's petition was ripe for hearing; and that gentleman was ordered to be discharged under the act, to my great joy. his creditors were not implacable; and mrs. micawber informed me that even the revengeful bootmaker had declared in open court that he bore him no malice, but that when money was owing to him he liked to be paid. he said he thought it was human nature. mr. micawber returned to the king's bench when his case was over, as some fees were to be settled, and some formalities observed, before he could be actually released. the club received him with transport, and held an harmonic meeting that evening in his honor; while mrs. micawber and i had a lamb's fry in private, surrounded by the sleeping family. "on such an occasion i will give you, master copperfield," said mrs. micawber, "in a little more flip," for we had been having some already, "the memory of my papa and mama." "are they dead, ma'am?" i enquired, after drinking the toast in a wine-glass. "my mama departed this life," said mrs. micawber, "before mr. micawber's difficulties commenced, or at least before they became pressing. my papa lived to bail mr. micawber several times, and then expired, regretted by a numerous circle." mrs. micawber shook her head, and dropped a pious tear upon the twin who happened to be in hand. as i could hardly hope for a more favourable opportunity of putting a question in which i had a near interest, i said to mrs. micawber: "may i ask, ma'am, what you and mr. micawber intend to do, now that mr. micawber is out of his difficulties, and at liberty? have you settled yet?" "my family," said mrs. micawber, who always said those two words with an air, though i never could discover who came under the denomination, "my family are of opinion that mr. micawber should quit london, and exert his talents in the country. mr. micawber is a man of great talent, master copperfield." i said i was sure of that. "of great talent," repeated mrs. micawber. "my family are of opinion, that, with a little interest, something might be done for a man of his ability in the custom house. the influence of my family being local, it is their wish that mr. micawber should go down to plymouth. they think it indispensable that he should be upon the spot." "that he may be ready?" i suggested. "exactly," returned mrs. micawber. "that he may be ready--in case of anything turning up." "and do you go too, ma'am?" the events of the day, in combination with the twins, if not with the flip, had made mrs. micawber hysterical, and she shed tears as she replied: "i never will desert mr. micawber. mr. micawber may have concealed his difficulties from me in the first instance, but his sanguine temper may have led him to expect that he would overcome them. the pearl necklace and bracelets which i inherited from mama, have been disposed of for less than half their value; and the set of coral, which was the wedding gift of my papa, has been actually thrown away for nothing. but i never will desert mr. micawber. no!" cried mrs. micawber, more affected than before, "i never will do it! it's of no use asking me!" i felt quite uncomfortable--as if mrs. micawber supposed i had asked her to do anything of the sort!--and sat looking at her in alarm. "mr. micawber has his faults. i do not deny that he is improvident. i do not deny that he has kept me in the dark as to his resources and his liabilities, both," she went on, looking at the wall; "but i never will desert mr. micawber!" mrs. micawber having now raised her voice into a perfect scream, i was so frightened that i ran off to the club-room, and disturbed mr. micawber in the act of presiding at a long table, and leading the chorus of gee up, dobbin, gee ho, dobbin, gee up, dobbin, gee up, and gee ho--o--o! --with the tidings that mrs. micawber was in an alarming state, upon which he immediately burst into tears, and came away with me with his waistcoat full of the heads and tails of shrimps, of which he had been partaking. "emma, my angel!" cried mr. micawber, running into the room; "what is the matter?" "i never will desert you, micawber!" she exclaimed. "my life!" said mr. micawber, taking her in his arms. "i am perfectly aware of it." "he is the parent of my children! he is the father of my twins! he is the husband of my affections," cried mrs. micawber, struggling; "and i ne--ver--will--desert mr. micawber!" mr. micawber was so deeply affected by this proof of her devotion (as to me, i was dissolved in tears), that he hung over her in a passionate manner, imploring her to look up, and to be calm. but the more he asked mrs. micawber to look up, the more she fixed her eyes on nothing; and the more he asked her to compose herself, the more she wouldn't. consequently mr. micawber was soon so overcome, that he mingled his tears with hers and mine; until he begged me to do him the favor of taking a chair on the staircase, while he got her into bed. i would have taken my leave for the night, but he would not hear of my doing that until the strangers' bell should ring. so i sat at the staircase window, until he came out with another chair and joined me. "how is mrs. micawber now, sir?" i said. "very low," said mr. micawber, shaking his head; "re-action. ah, this has been a dreadful day! we stand alone now--everything is gone from us!" mr. micawber pressed my hand, and groaned, and afterwards shed tears. i was greatly touched, and disappointed too, for i had expected that we should be quite gay on this happy and long-looked for occasion. but mr. and mrs. micawber were so used to their old difficulties, i think, that they felt quite shipwrecked when they came to consider that they were released from them. all their elasticity was departed, and i never saw them half so wretched as on this night; insomuch that when the bell rang, and mr. micawber walked with me to the lodge, and parted from me there with a blessing, i felt quite afraid to leave him by himself, he was so profoundly miserable. but through all the confusion and lowness of spirits in which we had been, so unexpectedly to me, involved, i plainly discerned that mr. and mrs. micawber and their family were going away from london, and that a parting between us was near at hand. it was in my walk home that night, and in the sleepless hours which followed when i lay in bed, that the thought first occurred to me--though i don't know how it came into my head--which afterwards shaped itself into a settled resolution. i had grown to be so accustomed to the micawbers, and had been so intimate with them in their distresses, and was so utterly friendless without them, that the prospect of being thrown upon some new shift for a lodging, and going once more among unknown people, was like being that moment turned adrift into my present life, with such a knowledge of it ready made, as experience had given me. all the sensitive feelings it wounded so cruelly, all the shame and misery it kept alive within my breast, became more poignant as i thought of this; and i determined that the life was unendurable. that there was no hope of escape from it, unless the escape was my own act, i knew quite well. i rarely heard from miss murdstone, and never from mr. murdstone: but two or three parcels of made or mended clothes had come up for me, consigned to mr. quinion, and in each there was a scrap of paper to the effect that j. m. trusted d. c. was applying himself to business, and devoting himself wholly to his duties--not the least hint of my ever being any thing else than the common drudge into which i was fast settling down. the very next day showed me, while my mind was in the first agitation of what it had conceived, that mrs. micawber had not spoken of their going away without warrant. they took a lodging in the house where i lived, for a week; at the expiration of which time they were to start for plymouth. mr. micawber himself came down to the counting-house, in the afternoon, to tell mr. quinion that he must relinquish me on the day of his departure, and to give me a high character, which i am sure i deserved. and mr. quinion, calling in tipp the carman, who was a married man, and had a room to let, quartered me prospectively on him--by our mutual consent, as he had every reason to think; for i said nothing, though my resolution was now taken. i passed my evenings with mr. and mrs. micawber, during the remaining term of our residence under the same roof; and i think we became fonder of one another as the time went on. on the last sunday, they invited me to dinner; and we had a loin of pork and apple sauce, and a pudding. i had bought a spotted wooden horse over-night as a parting gift to little wilkins micawber--that was the boy--and a doll for little emma. i had also bestowed a shilling on the orfling, who was about to be disbanded. we had a very pleasant day, though we were all in a tender state about our approaching separation. "i shall never, master copperfield," said mrs. micawber, "revert to the period when mr. micawber was in difficulties, without thinking of you. your conduct has always been of the most delicate and obliging description. you have never been a lodger. you have been a friend." "my dear," said mr. micawber; "copperfield," for so he had been accustomed to call me, of late, "has a heart to feel for the distresses of his fellow creatures when they are behind a cloud, and a head to plan, and a hand to----in short, a general ability to dispose of such available property as could be made away with." i expressed my sense of this commendation, and said i was very sorry we were going to lose one another. "my dear young friend," said mr. micawber, "i am older than you; a man of some experience in life, and--and of some experience, in short, in difficulties, generally speaking. at present, and until something turns up (which i am, i may say, hourly expecting), i have nothing to bestow but advice. still my advice is so far worth taking, that--in short, that i have never taken it myself, and am the"--here mr. micawber, who had been beaming and smiling, all over his head and face, up to the present moment, checked himself and frowned--"the miserable wretch you behold." "my dear micawber!" urged his wife. "i say," returned mr. micawber, quite forgetting himself, and smiling again, "the miserable wretch you behold. my advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do to-day. procrastination is the thief of time. collar him!" "my poor papa's maxim," mrs. micawber observed. "my dear," said mr. micawber, "your papa was very well in his way, and heaven forbid that i should disparage him. take him for all in all, we ne'er shall--in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of anybody else possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able to read the same description of print, without spectacles. but he applied that maxim to our marriage, my dear; and that was so far prematurely entered into, in consequence, that i never recovered the expence." mr. micawber looked aside at mrs. micawber, and added: "not that i am sorry for it. quite the contrary, my love." after which, he was grave for a minute or so. "my other piece of advice, copperfield," said mr. micawber, "you know. annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. the blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and--and in short you are for ever floored. as i am!" to make his example the more impressive, mr. micawber drank a glass of punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and whistled the college hornpipe. i did not fail to assure him that i would store these precepts in my mind, though indeed i had no need to do so, for, at the time, they affected me visibly. next morning i met the whole family at the coach-office, and saw them, with a desolate heart, take their places outside, at the back. "master copperfield," said mrs. micawber, "god bless you! i never can forget all that, you know, and i never would if i could." "copperfield," said mr. micawber, "farewell! every happiness and prosperity! if, in the progress of revolving years, i could persuade myself that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you, i should feel that i had not occupied another man's place in existence altogether in vain. in case of anything turning up (of which i am rather confident), i shall be extremely happy if it should be in my power to improve your prospects." i think, as mrs. micawber sat at the back of the coach, with the children, and i stood in the road looking wistfully at them, a mist cleared from her eyes, and she saw what a little creature i really was. i think so, because she beckoned to me to climb up, with quite a new and motherly expression in her face, and put her arm round my neck, and gave me just such a kiss as she might have given to her own boy. i had barely time to get down again before the coach started, and i could hardly see the family for the handkerchiefs they waved. it was gone in a minute. the orfling and i stood looking vacantly at each other in the middle of the road, and then shook hands and said good bye; she going back, i suppose, to saint luke's workhouse, as i went to begin my weary day at murdstone and grinby's. but with no intention of passing many more weary days there. no. i had resolved to run away.--to go, by some means or other, down into the country, to the only relation i had in the world, and tell my story to my aunt, miss betsey. i have already observed that i don't know how this desperate idea came into my brain. but, once there, it remained there; and hardened into a purpose than which i have never entertained a more determined purpose in my life. i am far from sure that i believed there was anything hopeful in it, but my mind was thoroughly made up that it must be carried into execution. again, and again, and a hundred times again, since the night when the thought had first occurred to me and banished sleep, i had gone over that old story of my poor mother's about my birth, which it had been one of my great delights in the old time to hear her tell, and which i knew by heart. my aunt walked into that story, and walked out of it, a dread and awful personage; but there was one little trait in her behaviour which i liked to dwell on, and which gave me some faint shadow of encouragement. i could not forget how my mother had thought that she felt her touch her pretty hair with no ungentle hand; and though it might have been altogether my mother's fancy, and might have had no foundation whatever in fact, i made a little picture, out of it, of my terrible aunt relenting towards the girlish beauty that i recollected so well and loved so much, which softened the whole narrative. it is very possible that it had been in my mind a long time, and had gradually engendered my determination. as i did not even know where miss betsey lived, i wrote a long letter to peggotty, and asked her, incidentally, if she remembered; pretending that i had heard of such a lady living at a certain place i named at random, and had a curiosity to know if it were the same. in the course of that letter, i told peggotty that i had a particular occasion for half a guinea; and that if she could lend me that sum until i could repay it, i should be very much obliged to her, and would tell her afterwards what i had wanted it for. peggotty's answer soon arrived, and was, as usual, full of affectionate devotion. she enclosed the half guinea (i was afraid she must have had a world of trouble to get it out of mr. barkis's box), and told me that miss betsey lived near dover, but whether at dover itself, at hythe, sandgate, or folkstone, she could not say. one of our men, however, informing me on my asking him about these places, that they were all close together, i deemed this enough for my object, and resolved to set out at the end of that week. being a very honest little creature, and unwilling to disgrace the memory i was going to leave behind me at murdstone and grinby's, i considered myself bound to remain until saturday night; and, as i had been paid a week's wages in advance when i first came there, not to present myself in the counting-house at the usual hour, to receive my stipend. for this express reason, i had borrowed the half-guinea, that i might not be without a fund for my travelling-expenses. accordingly, when the saturday night came, and we were all waiting in the warehouse to be paid, and tipp the carman, who always took precedence, went in first to draw his money, i shook mick walker by the hand; asked him when it came to his turn to be paid, to say to mr. quinion that i had gone to move my box to tipp's; and, bidding a last good night to mealy potatoes, ran away. my box was at my old lodging, over the water, and i had written a direction for it on the back of one of our address cards that we nailed on the casks: "master david, to be left till called for, at the coach office, dover." this i had in my pocket ready to put on the box, after i should have got it out of the house; and as i went towards my lodging, i looked about me for some one who would help me to carry it to the booking-office. there was a long-legged young man with a very little empty donkey-cart, standing near the obelisk, in the blackfriars road, whose eye i caught as i was going by, and who, addressing me as "sixpenn'orth of bad ha'pence," hoped "i should know him agin to swear to"--in allusion, i have no doubt, to my staring at him. i stopped to assure him that i had not done so in bad manners, but uncertain whether he might or might not like a job. "wot job?" said the long-legged young man. "to move a box," i answered. "wot box?" said the long-legged young man. i told him mine, which was down that street there, and which i wanted him to take to the dover coach-office for sixpence. "done with you for a tanner!" said the long-legged young man, and directly got upon his cart, which was nothing but a large wooden-tray on wheels, and rattled away at such a rate, that it was as much as i could do to keep pace with the donkey. there was a defiant manner about this young man, and particularly about the way in which he chewed straw as he spoke to me, that i did not much like; as the bargain was made, however, i took him up-stairs to the room i was leaving, and we brought the box down, and put it on his cart. now, i was unwilling to put the direction-card on there, lest any of my landlord's family should fathom what i was doing, and detain me; so i said to the young man that i would be glad if he would stop for a minute, when he came to the dead-wall of the king's bench prison. the words were no sooner out of my mouth, than he rattled away as if he, my box, the cart, and the donkey, were all equally mad; and i was quite out of breath with running and calling after him, when i caught him at the place appointed. being much flushed and excited, i tumbled my half-guinea out of my pocket in pulling the card out. i put it in my mouth for safety, and though my hands trembled a good deal, had just tied the card on very much to my satisfaction, when i felt myself violently chucked under the chin by the long-legged young man, and saw my half-guinea fly out of my mouth into his hand. "wot!" said the young man, seizing me by my jacket collar, with a frightful grin. "this is a pollis case, is it? you're a going to bolt, are you? come to the pollis, you young warmin, come to the pollis!" "you give me my money back, if you please," said i, very much frightened; "and leave me alone." "come to the pollis!" said the young man. "you shall prove it yourn to the pollis." "give me my box and money, will you," i cried, bursting into tears. the young man still replied: "come to the pollis!" and was dragging me against the donkey in a violent manner, as if there were any affinity between that animal and a magistrate, when he changed his mind, jumped into the cart, sat upon my box, and, exclaiming that he would drive to the pollis straight, rattled away harder than ever. i ran after him as fast as i could, but i had no breath to call out with, and should not have dared to call out, now, if i had. i narrowly escaped being run over, twenty times at least, in half a mile. now i lost him, now i saw him, now i lost him, now i was cut at with a whip, now shouted at, now down in the mud, now up again, now running into somebody's arms, now running headlong at a post. at length, confused by fright and heat, and doubting whether half london might not by this time be turning out for my apprehension, i left the young man to go where he would with my box and money; and, panting and crying, but never stopping, faced about for greenwich, which i had understood was on the dover road: taking very little more out of the world, towards the retreat of my aunt, miss betsey, than i had brought into it, on the night when my arrival gave her so much umbrage. chapter xiii. the sequel of my resolution. for anything i know, i may have had some wild idea of running all the way to dover, when i gave up the pursuit of the young man with the donkey cart, and started for greenwich. my scattered senses were soon collected as to that point, if i had; for i came to a stop in the kent road, at a terrace with a piece of water before it, and a great foolish image in the middle, blowing a dry shell. here i sat down on a door-step, quite spent and exhausted with the efforts i had already made, and with hardly breath enough to cry for the loss of my box and half-guinea. it was by this time dark; i heard the clocks strike ten, as i sat resting. but it was a summer night, fortunately, and fine weather. when i had recovered my breath, and had got rid of a stifling sensation in my throat, i rose up and went on. in the midst of my distress, i had no notion of going back. i doubt if i should have had any, though there had been a swiss snow-drift in the kent road. but my standing possessed of only three-halfpence in the world (and i am sure i wonder how _they_ came to be left in my pocket on a saturday night!) troubled me none the less because i went on. i began to picture to myself, as a scrap of newspaper intelligence, my being found dead in a day or two, under some hedge; and i trudged on miserably, though as fast as i could, until i happened to pass a little shop, where it was written up that ladies' and gentlemen's wardrobes were bought, and that the best price was given for rags, bones, and kitchen-stuff. the master of this shop was sitting at the door in his shirt sleeves, smoking; and as there were a great many coats and pairs of trowsers dangling from the low ceiling, and only two feeble candles burning inside to show what they were, i fancied that he looked like a man of a revengeful disposition, who had hung all his enemies, and was enjoying himself. my late experiences with mr. and mrs. micawber suggested to me that here might be a means of keeping off the wolf for a little while. i went up the next bye-street, took off my waistcoat, rolled it neatly under my arm, and came back to the shop-door. "if you please, sir," i said, "i am to sell this for a fair price." mr. dolloby--dolloby was the name over the shop-door, at least--took the waistcoat, stood his pipe on its head against the door-post, went into the shop, followed by me, snuffed the two candles with his fingers, spread the waistcoat on the counter, and looked at it there, held it up against the light, and looked at it there, and ultimately said: "what do you call a price, now, for this here little weskit?" "oh! you know best, sir," i returned, modestly. "i can't be buyer and seller too," said mr. dolloby. "put a price on this here little weskit." "would eighteenpence be"--i hinted, after some hesitation. mr. dolloby rolled it up again, and gave it me back. "i should rob my family," he said, "if i was to offer ninepence for it." this was a disagreeable way of putting the business; because it imposed upon me, a perfect stranger, the unpleasantness of asking mr. dolloby to rob his family on my account. my circumstances being so very pressing, however, i said i would take ninepence for it, if he pleased. mr. dolloby, not without some grumbling, gave ninepence. i wished him good night, and walked out of the shop, the richer by that sum, and the poorer by a waistcoat. but when i buttoned my jacket, that was not much. indeed, i foresaw pretty clearly that my jacket would go next, and that i should have to make the best of my way to dover in a shirt and a pair of trowsers, and might deem myself lucky if i got there even in that trim. but my mind did not run so much on this as might be supposed. beyond a general impression of the distance before me, and of the young man with the donkey-cart having used me cruelly, i think i had no very urgent sense of my difficulties when i once again set off with my ninepence in my pocket. a plan had occurred to me for passing the night, which i was going to carry into execution. this was, to lie behind the wall at the back of my old school, in a corner where there used to be a haystack. i imagined it would be a kind of company to have the boys, and the bed-room where i used to tell the stories, so near me: although the boys would know nothing of my being there, and the bed-room would yield me no shelter. i had had a hard day's work, and was pretty well jaded when i came climbing out, at last, upon the level of blackheath. it cost me some trouble to find out salem house; but i found it, and i found a haystack in the corner, and i lay down by it; having first walked round the wall, and looked up at the windows, and seen that all was dark and silent within. never shall i forget the lonely sensation of first lying down, without a roof above my head! sleep came upon me as it came on many other outcasts, against whom house-doors were locked, and house-dogs barked, that night--and i dreamed of lying on my old school-bed, talking to the boys in my room; and found myself sitting upright, with steerforth's name upon my lips, looking wildly at the stars that were glistening and glimmering above me. when i remembered where i was at that untimely hour, a feeling stole upon me that made me get up, afraid of i don't know what, and walk about. but the fainter glimmering of the stars, and the pale light in the sky where the day was coming, reassured me: and my eyes being very heavy, i lay down again, and slept--though with a knowledge in my sleep that it was cold--until the warm beams of the sun, and the ringing of the getting-up bell at salem house, awoke me. if i could have hoped that steerforth was there, i would have lurked about until he came out alone; but i knew he must have left long since. traddles still remained, perhaps, but it was very doubtful; and i had not sufficient confidence in his discretion or good luck, however strong my reliance was on his good-nature, to wish to trust him with my situation. so i crept away from the wall as mr. creakle's boys were getting up, and struck into the long dusty track which i had first known to be the dover road when i was one of them, and when i little expected that any eyes would ever see me the wayfarer i was now, upon it. what a different sunday morning from the old sunday morning at yarmouth! in due time i heard the church-bells ringing, as i plodded on; and i met people who were going to church; and i passed a church or two where the congregation were inside, and the sound of singing came out into the sun-shine, while the beadle sat and cooled himself in the shade of the porch, or stood beneath the yew-tree, with his hand to his forehead, glowering at me going by. but the peace and rest of the old sunday morning were on everything, except me. that was the difference. i felt quite wicked in my dirt and dust, and with my tangled hair. but for the quiet picture i had conjured up, of my mother in her youth and beauty, weeping by the fire, and my aunt relenting to her, i hardly think i should have had courage to go on until next day. but it always went before me, and i followed. i got, that sunday, through three-and-twenty miles on the straight road, though not very easily, for i was new to that kind of toil. i see myself, as evening closes in, coming over the bridge at rochester, footsore and tired, and eating bread that i had bought for supper. one or two little houses, with the notice, "lodgings for travellers," hanging out, had tempted me; but i was afraid of spending the few pence i had, and was even more afraid of the vicious looks of the trampers i had met or overtaken. i sought no shelter, therefore, but the sky; and toiling into chatham,--which, in that night's aspect, is a mere dream of chalk, and drawbridges, and mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed like noah's arks,--crept, at last, upon a sort of grass-grown battery overhanging a lane, where a sentry was walking to and fro. here i lay down, near a cannon; and, happy in the society of the sentry's footsteps, though he knew no more of my being above him than the boys at salem house had known of my lying by the wall, slept soundly until morning. very stiff and sore of foot i was in the morning, and quite dazed by the beating of drums and marching of troops, which seemed to hem me in on every side when i went down towards the long narrow street. feeling that i could go but a very little way that day, if i were to reserve any strength for getting to my journey's end, i resolved to make the sale of my jacket its principal business. accordingly, i took the jacket off, that i might learn to do without it; and carrying it under my arm, began a tour of inspection of the various slop-shops. it was a likely place to sell a jacket in; for the dealers in second-hand clothes were numerous, and were, generally speaking, on the look-out for customers at their shop-doors. but as most of them had, hanging up among their stock, an officer's coat or two, epaulettes and all, i was rendered timid by the costly nature of their dealings, and walked about for a long time without offering my merchandize to any one. this modesty of mine directed my attention to the marine-store shops, and such shops as mr. dolloby's, in preference to the regular dealers. at last i found one that i thought looked promising, at the corner of a dirty lane, ending in an inclosure full of stinging nettles, against the palings of which some second-hand sailors' clothes, that seemed to have overflowed the shop, were fluttering among some cots, and rusty guns, and oilskin hats, and certain trays full of so many old rusty keys of so many sizes that they seemed various enough to open all the doors in the world. into this shop, which was low and small, and which was darkened rather than lighted by a little window, overhung with clothes, and was descended into by some steps, i went with a palpitating heart; which was not relieved when an ugly old man, with the lower part of his face all covered with a stubbly grey beard, rushed out of a dirty den behind it, and seized me by the hair of my head. he was a dreadful old man to look at, in a filthy flannel waistcoat, and smelling terribly of rum. his bedstead, covered with a tumbled and ragged piece of patchwork, was in the den he had come from, where another little window showed a prospect of more stinging nettles, and a lame donkey. "oh, what do you want?" grinned this old man, in a fierce, monotonous whine. "oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? oh, my lungs, and liver, what do you want? oh, goroo, goroo!" i was so much dismayed by these words, and particularly by the repetition of the last unknown one, which was a kind of rattle in his throat, that i could make no answer; hereupon the old man, still holding me by the hair, repeated: "oh, what do you want? oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? oh, my lungs and liver, what do you want! oh, goroo!"--which he screwed out of himself, with an energy that made his eyes start in his head. "i wanted to know," i said, trembling, "if you would buy a jacket." "oh, let's see the jacket!" cried the old man. "oh, my heart on fire, show the jacket to us! oh, my eyes and limbs, bring the jacket out!" with that he took his trembling hands, which were like the claws of a great bird, out of my hair; and put on a pair of spectacles, not at all ornamental to his inflamed eyes. "oh, how much for the jacket?" cried the old man, after examining it. "oh--goroo!--how much for the jacket?" "half-a-crown," i answered, recovering myself. "oh, my lungs and liver," cried the old man, "no! oh, my eyes, no! oh, my limbs, no! eighteenpence. goroo!" every time he uttered this ejaculation, his eyes seemed to be in danger of starting out; and every sentence he spoke, he delivered in a sort of tune, always exactly the same, and more like a gust of wind, which begins low, mounts up high, and falls again, than any other comparison i can find for it. "well," said i, glad to have closed the bargain, "i'll take eighteenpence." "oh, my liver!" cried the old man, throwing the jacket on a shelf. "get out of the shop! oh, my lungs, get out of the shop! oh, my eyes and limbs--goroo!--don't ask for money; make it an exchange." i never was so frightened in my life, before or since; but i told him humbly that i wanted money, and that nothing else was of any use to me, but that i would wait for it, as he desired, outside, and had no wish to hurry him. so i went outside, and sat down in the shade in a corner. and i sat there so many hours, that the shade became sunlight, and the sunlight became shade again, and still i sat there waiting for the money. there never was such another drunken madman in that line of business, i hope. that he was well known in the neighbourhood, and enjoyed the reputation of having sold himself to the devil, i soon understood from the visits he received from the boys, who continually came skirmishing about the shop, shouting that legend, and calling to him to bring out his gold. "you ain't poor, you know, charley, as you pretend. bring out your gold. bring out some of the gold you sold yourself to the devil for. come! it's in the lining of the mattress, charley. rip it open and let's have some!" this, and many offers to lend him a knife for the purpose, exasperated him to such a degree, that the whole day was a succession of rushes on his part, and flights on the part of the boys. sometimes in his rage he would take me for one of them, and come at me, mouthing as if he were going to tear me in pieces; then, remembering me, just in time, would dive into the shop, and lie upon his bed, as i thought from the sound of his voice, yelling in a frantic way, to his own windy tune, the death of nelson; with an oh! before every line, and innumerable goroos interspersed. as if this were not bad enough for me, the boys, connecting me with the establishment, on account of the patience and perseverance with which i sat outside, half-dressed, pelted me, and used me very ill all day. he made many attempts to induce me to consent to an exchange; at one time coming out with a fishing-rod, at another with a fiddle, at another with a cocked hat, at another with a flute. but i resisted all these overtures, and sat there in desperation; each time asking him, with tears in my eyes, for my money or my jacket. at last he began to pay me in halfpence at a time; and was full two hours getting by easy stages to a shilling. "oh, my eyes and limbs!" he then cried, peeping hideously out of the shop, after a long pause, "will you go for twopence more?" "i can't," i said; "i shall be starved." "oh, my lungs and liver, will you go for threepence?" "i would go for nothing, if i could," i said, "but i want the money badly." "oh, go--roo!" (it is really impossible to express how he twisted this ejaculation out of himself, as he peeped round the doorpost at me, showing nothing but his crafty old head); "will you go for fourpence?" i was so faint and weary that i closed with this offer; and taking the money out of his claw, not without trembling, went away more hungry and thirsty than i had ever been, a little before sunset. but at an expense of threepence i soon refreshed myself completely; and, being in better spirits then, limped seven miles upon my road. my bed at night was under another haystack, where i rested comfortably, after having washed my blistered feet in a stream, and dressed them as well as i was able, with some cool leaves. when i took the road again next morning, i found that it lay through a succession of hop-grounds and orchards. it was sufficiently late in the year for the orchards to be ruddy with ripe apples; and in a few places the hop-pickers were already at work. i thought it all extremely beautiful, and made up my mind to sleep among the hops that night: imagining some cheerful companionship in the long perspectives of poles, with the graceful leaves twining round them. the trampers were worse than ever that day, and inspired me with a dread that is yet quite fresh in my mind. some of them were most ferocious-looking ruffians, who stared at me as i went by; and stopped, perhaps, and called after me to come back and speak to them; and when i took to my heels, stoned me. i recollect one young fellow--a tinker, i suppose, from his wallet and brazier--who had a woman with him, and who faced about and stared at me thus; and then roared to me in such a tremendous voice to come back, that i halted and looked round. "come here, when you're called," said the tinker, "or i'll rip your young body open." i thought it best to go back. as i drew nearer to them, trying to propitiate the tinker by my looks, i observed that the woman had a black eye. "where are you going?" said the tinker, griping the bosom of my shirt with his blackened hand. "i am going to dover," i said. "where do you come from?" asked the tinker, giving his hand another turn in my shirt, to hold me more securely. "i come from london," i said. "what lay are you upon?" asked the tinker. "are you a prig?" "n--no," i said. "ain't you, by g--? if you make a brag of your honesty to me," said the tinker, "i'll knock your brains out." with his disengaged hand he made a menace of striking me, and then looked at me from head to foot. "have you got the price of a pint of beer about you?" said the tinker. "if you have, out with it, afore i take it away!" i should certainly have produced it, but that i met the woman's look, and saw her very slightly shake her head, and form "no!" with her lips. "i am very poor," i said, attempting to smile, "and have got no money." "why, what do you mean?" said the tinker, looking so sternly at me, that i almost feared he saw the money in my pocket. "sir!" i stammered. "what do you mean," said the tinker, "by wearing my brother's silk hankercher? give it over here!" and he had mine off my neck in a moment, and tossed it to the woman. the woman burst into a fit of laughter, as if she thought this a joke, and tossing it back to me, nodded once, as slightly as before, and made the word "go!" with her lips. before i could obey, however, the tinker seized the handkerchief out of my hand with a roughness that threw me away like a feather, and putting it loosely round his own neck, turned upon the woman with an oath, and knocked her down. i never shall forget seeing her fall backward on the hard road, and lie there with her bonnet tumbled off, and her hair all whitened in the dust; nor, when i looked back from a distance, seeing her sitting on the pathway, which was a bank by the roadside, wiping the blood from her face with a corner of her shawl, while he went on ahead. this adventure frightened me so, that, afterwards, when i saw any of these people coming, i turned back until i could find a hiding-place, where i remained until they had gone out of sight; which happened so often, that i was very seriously delayed. but under this difficulty, as under all the other difficulties of my journey, i seemed to be sustained and led on by my fanciful picture of my mother in her youth, before i came into the world. it always kept me company. it was there, among the hops, when i lay down to sleep; it was with me on my waking in the morning; it went before me all day. i have associated it, ever since, with the sunny street of canterbury, dozing as it were in the hot light; and with the sight of its old houses and gateways, and the stately, grey cathedral, with the rooks sailing round the towers. when i came, at last, upon the bare, wide downs near dover, it relieved the solitary aspect of the scene with hope; and not until i reached that first great aim of my journey, and actually set foot in the town itself, on the sixth day of my flight, did it desert me. but then, strange to say, when i stood with my ragged shoes, and my dusty, sunburnt, half-clothed figure, in the place so long desired, it seemed to vanish like a dream, and to leave me helpless and dispirited. i inquired about my aunt among the boatmen first, and received various answers. one said she lived in the south foreland light, and had singed her whiskers by doing so; another, that she was made fast to the great buoy outside the harbor, and could only be visited at half-tide; a third, that she was locked up in maidstone jail for child-stealing; a fourth, that she was seen to mount a broom in the last high wind, and make direct for calais. the fly-drivers, among whom i inquired next, were equally jocose and equally disrespectful; and the shopkeepers, not liking my appearance, generally replied, without hearing what i had to say, that they had got nothing for me. i felt more miserable and destitute than i had done at any period of my running away. my money was all gone, i had nothing left to dispose of; i was hungry, thirsty, and worn out; and seemed as distant from my end as if i had remained in london. the morning had worn away in these inquiries, and i was sitting on the step of an empty shop at a street corner, near the market-place, deliberating upon wandering towards those other places which had been mentioned, when a fly-driver, coming by with his carriage, dropped a horsecloth. something good-natured in the man's face, as i handed it up, encouraged me to ask him if he could tell me where miss trotwood lived; though i had asked the question so often, that it almost died upon my lips. "trotwood," said he. "let me see. i know the name, too. old lady?" "yes," i said, "rather." "pretty stiff in the back?" said he, making himself upright. "yes," i said. "i should think it very likely." "carries a bag?" said he--"bag with a good deal of room in it--is gruffish, and comes down upon you, sharp?" my heart sank within me as i acknowledged the undoubted accuracy of this description. "why then, i tell you what," said he. "if you go up there," pointing with his whip towards the heights, "and keep right on till you come to some houses facing the sea, i think you'll hear of her. my opinion is she won't stand anything, so here's a penny for you." i accepted the gift thankfully, and bought a loaf with it. dispatching this refreshment by the way, i went in the direction my friend had indicated, and walked on a good distance without coming to the houses he had mentioned. at length i saw some before me; and approaching them, went into a little shop (it was what we used to call a general shop, at home), and inquired if they could have the goodness to tell me where miss trotwood lived. i addressed myself to a man behind the counter, who was weighing some rice for a young woman; but the latter, taking the inquiry to herself, turned round quickly. "my mistress?" she said. "what do you want with her, boy?" "i want," i replied, "to speak to her, if you please." "to beg of her, you mean," retorted the damsel. "no," i said, "indeed." but suddenly remembering that in truth i came for no other purpose, i held my peace in confusion, and felt my face burn. my aunt's handmaid, as i supposed she was from what she had said, put her rice in a little basket and walked out of the shop; telling me that i could follow her, if i wanted to know where miss trotwood lived. i needed no second permission; though i was by this time in such a state of consternation and agitation, that my legs shook under me. i followed the young woman, and we soon came to a very neat little cottage with cheerful bow-windows: in front of it, a small square gravelled court or garden full of flowers, carefully tended, and smelling deliciously. "this is miss trotwood's," said the young woman. "now you know; and that's all i have got to say." with which words she hurried into the house, as if to shake off the responsibility of my appearance; and left me standing at the garden-gate, looking disconsolately over the top of it towards the parlor-window, where a muslin curtain partly undrawn in the middle, a large round green screen or fan fastened on to the window-sill, a small table, and a great chair, suggested to me that my aunt might be at that moment seated in awful state. my shoes were by this time in a woeful condition. the soles had shed themselves bit by bit, and the upper leathers had broken and burst until the very shape and form of shoes had departed from them. my hat (which had served me for a night-cap, too) was so crushed and bent, that no old battered handle-less saucepan on a dunghill need have been ashamed to vie with it. my shirt and trowsers, stained with heat, dew, grass, and the kentish soil on which i had slept--and torn besides--might have frightened the birds from my aunt's garden, as i stood at the gate. my hair had known no comb or brush since i left london. my face, neck, and hands, from unaccustomed exposure to the air and sun, were burnt to a berry-brown. from head to foot i was powdered almost as white with chalk and dust, as if i had come out of a lime-kiln. in this plight, and with a strong consciousness of it, i waited to introduce myself to, and make my first impression on, my formidable aunt. the unbroken stillness of the parlor-window leading me to infer, after a-while, that she was not there, i lifted up my eyes to the window above it, where i saw a florid, pleasant-looking gentleman, with a grey head, who shut up one eye in a grotesque manner, nodded his head at me several times, shook it at me as often, laughed, and went away. i had been discomposed enough before; but i was so much the more discomposed by this unexpected behaviour, that i was on the point of slinking off, to think how i had best proceed, when there came out of the house a lady with a handkerchief tied over her cap, and a pair of gardening gloves on her hands, wearing a gardening pocket like a tollman's apron, and carrying a great knife. i knew her immediately to be miss betsey, for she came stalking out of the house exactly as my poor mother had so often described her stalking up our garden at blunderstone rookery. "go away!" said miss betsey, shaking her head, and making a distant chop in the air with her knife. "go along! no boys here!" i watched her, with my heart at my lips, as she marched to a corner of her garden, and stooped to dig up some little root there. then, without a scrap of courage, but with a great deal of desperation, i went softly in and stood beside her, touching her with my finger. "if you please, ma'am," i began. she started, and looked up. "if you please, aunt." "eh?" exclaimed miss betsey, in a tone of amazement i have never heard approached. "if you please, aunt, i am your nephew." [illustration: i make myself known to my aunt.] "oh, lord!" said my aunt. and sat flat down in the garden-path. "i am david copperfield, of blunderstone, in suffolk--where you came, on the night when i was born, and saw my dear mama. i have been very unhappy since she died. i have been slighted, and taught nothing, and thrown upon myself, and put to work not fit for me. it made me run away to you. i was robbed at first setting out, and have walked all the way, and have never slept in a bed since i began the journey." here my self-support gave way all at once; and with a movement of my hands, intended to show her my ragged state, and call it to witness that i had suffered something, i broke into a passion of crying, which i suppose had been pent up within me all the week. my aunt, with every sort of expression but wonder discharged from her countenance, sat on the gravel, staring at me, until i began to cry; when she got up in a great hurry, collared me, and took me into the parlor. her first proceeding there was to unlock a tall press, bring out several bottles, and pour some of the contents of each into my mouth. i think they must have been taken out at random, for i am sure i tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, and salad dressing. when she had administered these restoratives, as i was still quite hysterical, and unable to controul my sobs, she put me on the sofa, with a shawl under my head, and the handkerchief from her own head under my feet, lest i should sully the cover; and then, sitting herself down behind the green fan or screen i have already mentioned, so that i could not see her face, ejaculated at intervals, "mercy on us!" letting those exclamations off like minute guns. after a time she rang the bell. "janet," said my aunt, when her servant came in. "go up stairs, give my compliments to mr. dick, and say i wish to speak to him." janet looked a little surprised to see me lying stiffly on the sofa (i was afraid to move lest it should be displeasing to my aunt), but went on her errand. my aunt, with her hands behind her, walked up and down the room, until the gentleman who had squinted at me from the upper window came in laughing. "mr. dick," said my aunt, "don't be a fool, because nobody can be more discreet than you can, when you choose. we all know that. so don't be a fool, whatever you are." the gentleman was serious immediately, and looked at me, i thought, as if he would entreat me to say nothing about the window. "mr. dick," said my aunt, "you have heard me mention david copperfield? now don't pretend not to have a memory, because you and i know better." "david copperfield?" said mr. dick, who did not appear to me to remember much about it. "_david_ copperfield? oh yes, to be sure. david, certainly." "well," said my aunt, "this is his boy--his son. he would be as like his father as it's possible to be, if he was not so like his mother, too." "his son?" said mr. dick. "david's son? indeed!" "yes," pursued my aunt, "and he has done a pretty piece of business. he has run away. ah! his sister, betsey trotwood, never would have run away." my aunt shook her head firmly, confident in the character and behaviour of the girl who never was born. "oh! you think she wouldn't have run away?" said mr. dick. "bless and save the man," exclaimed my aunt, sharply, "how he talks! don't i know she wouldn't? she would have lived with her god-mother, and we should have been devoted to one another. where, in the name of wonder, should his sister, betsey trotwood, have run from, or to?" "nowhere," said mr. dick. "well then," returned my aunt, softened by the reply, "how can you pretend to be wool-gathering, dick, when you are as sharp as a surgeon's lancet? now, here you see young david copperfield, and the question i put to you is, what shall i do with him?" "what shall you do with him?" said mr. dick, feebly, scratching his head. "oh! do with him?" "yes," said my aunt, with a grave look and her forefinger held up. "come! i want some very sound advice." "why, if i was you," said mr. dick, considering, and looking vacantly at me, "i should--" the contemplation of me seemed to inspire him with a sudden idea, and he added, briskly, "i should wash him!" "janet," said my aunt, turning round with a quiet triumph, which i did not then understand, "mr. dick sets us all right. heat the bath!" although i was deeply interested in this dialogue, i could not help observing my aunt, mr. dick, and janet, while it was in progress, and completing a survey i had already been engaged in making of the room. my aunt was a tall, hard-featured lady, but by no means ill-looking. there was an inflexibility in her face, in her voice, in her gait and carriage, amply sufficient to account for the effect she had made upon a gentle creature like my mother; but her features were rather handsome than otherwise, though unbending and austere. i particularly noticed that she had a very quick, bright eye. her hair, which was grey, was arranged in two plain divisions, under what i believe would be called a mob-cap: i mean a cap, much more common then than now, with side-pieces fastening under the chin. her dress was of a lavender color, and perfectly neat; but scantily made, as if she desired to be as little encumbered as possible. i remember that i thought it, in form, more like a riding-habit with the superfluous skirt cut off, than anything else. she wore at her side a gentleman's gold watch, if i might judge from its size and make, with an appropriate chain and seals; she had some linen at her throat not unlike a shirt-collar, and things at her wrists like little shirt-wristbands. mr. dick, as i have already said, was grey-headed, and florid: i should have said all about him, in saying so, had not his head been curiously bowed--not by age; it reminded me of one of mr. creakle's boys' heads after a beating--and his grey eyes prominent and large, with a strange kind of watery brightness in them that made me, in combination with his vacant manner, his submission to my aunt, and his childish delight when she praised him, suspect him of being a little mad; though, if he were mad, how he came to be there puzzled me extremely. he was dressed like any other ordinary gentleman, in a loose grey morning coat and waistcoat, and white trowsers; and had his watch in his fob, and his money in his pockets: which he rattled as if he were very proud of it. janet was a pretty blooming girl, of about nineteen or twenty, and a perfect picture of neatness. though i made no further observation of her at the moment, i may mention here what i did not discover until afterwards, namely, that she was one of a series of protégées whom my aunt had taken into her service expressly to educate in a renouncement of mankind, and who had generally completed their abjuration by marrying the baker. the room was as neat as janet or my aunt. as i laid down my pen, a moment since, to think of it, the air from the sea came blowing in again, mixed with the perfume of the flowers; and i saw the old-fashioned furniture brightly rubbed and polished, my aunt's inviolable chair and table by the round green fan in the bow-window, the drugget-covered carpet, the cat, the kettle-holder, the two canaries, the old china, the punch-bowl full of dried rose leaves, the tall press guarding all sorts of bottles and pots, and, wonderfully out of keeping with the rest, my dusty self upon the sofa, taking note of everything. janet had gone away to get the bath ready, when my aunt, to my great alarm, became in one moment rigid with indignation, and had hardly voice to cry out, "janet! donkies!" upon which, janet came running up the stairs as if the house were in flames, darted out on a little piece of green in front, and warned off two saddle-donkeys, lady-ridden, that had presumed to set hoof upon it; while my aunt, rushing out of the house, seized the bridle of a third animal laden with a bestriding child, turned him, led him forth from those sacred precincts, and boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin in attendance who had dared to profane that hallowed ground. to this hour i don't know whether my aunt had any lawful right of way over that patch of green; but she had settled it in her own mind that she had, and it was all the same to her. the one great outrage of her life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey over that immaculate spot. in whatever occupation she was engaged, however interesting to her the conversation in which she was taking part, a donkey turned the current of her ideas in a moment, and she was upon him straight. jugs of water, and watering pots, were kept in secret places ready to be discharged on the offending boys; sticks were laid in ambush behind the door; sallies were made at all hours; and incessant war prevailed. perhaps this was an agreeable excitement to the donkey-boys; or perhaps the more sagacious of the donkeys, understanding how the case stood, delighted with constitutional obstinacy in coming that way. i only know that there were three alarms before the bath was ready; and that on the occasion of the last and most desperate of all, i saw my aunt engage, single-handed, with a sandy-headed lad of fifteen, and bump his sandy head against her own gate, before he seemed to comprehend what was the matter. these interruptions were the more ridiculous to me, because she was giving me broth out of a table-spoon at the time (having firmly persuaded herself that i was actually starving, and must receive nourishment at first in very small quantities), and, while my mouth was yet open to receive the spoon, she would put it back into the basin, cry "janet! donkies!" and go out to the assault. the bath was a great comfort. for i began to be sensible of acute pains in my limbs from lying out in the fields, and was now so tired and low that i could hardly keep myself awake for five minutes together. when i had bathed, they (i mean my aunt and janet) enrobed me in a shirt and a pair of trowsers belonging to mr. dick, and tied me up in two or three great shawls. what sort of bundle i looked like, i don't know, but i felt a very hot one. feeling also very faint and drowsy, i soon lay down on the sofa again and fell asleep. it might have been a dream, originating in the fancy which had occupied my mind so long, but i awoke with the impression that my aunt had come and bent over me, and had put my hair away from my face, and laid my head more comfortably, and had then stood looking at me. the words, "pretty fellow," or "poor fellow," seemed to be in my ears, too; but certainly there was nothing else, when i awoke, to lead me to believe that they had been uttered by my aunt, who sat in the bow-window gazing at the sea from behind the green fan, which was mounted on a kind of swivel, and turned any way. we dined soon after i awoke, off a roast fowl and a pudding; i sitting at table, not unlike a trussed bird myself, and moving my arms with considerable difficulty. but as my aunt had swathed me up, i made no complaint of being inconvenienced. all this time, i was deeply anxious to know what she was going to do with me; but she took her dinner in profound silence, except when she occasionally fixed her eyes on me sitting opposite, and said, "mercy upon us!" which did not by any means relieve my anxiety. the cloth being drawn, and some sherry put upon the table (of which i had a glass), my aunt sent up for mr. dick again, who joined us, and looked as wise as he could when she requested him to attend to my story, which she elicited from me, gradually, by a course of questions. during my recital, she kept her eyes on mr. dick, who i thought would have gone to sleep but for that, and who, whensoever he lapsed into a smile, was checked by a frown from my aunt. "whatever possessed that poor unfortunate baby, that she must go and be married again," said my aunt, when i had finished, "_i_ can't conceive." "perhaps she fell in love with her second husband," mr. dick suggested. "fell in love!" repeated my aunt, "what do you mean? what business had she to do it?" "perhaps," mr. dick simpered, after thinking a little, "she did it for pleasure." "pleasure, indeed!" replied my aunt. "a mighty pleasure for the poor baby to fix her simple faith upon any dog of a fellow, certain to ill-use her in some way or other. what did she propose to herself, i should like to know! she had had one husband. she had seen david copperfield out of the world, who was always running after wax dolls from his cradle. she had got a baby--oh, there were a pair of babies when she gave birth to this child sitting here, that friday night!--and what more did she want?" mr. dick secretly shook his head at me, as if he thought there was no getting over this. "she couldn't even have a baby like anybody else," said my aunt, "where was this child's sister, betsey trotwood! not forthcoming. don't tell me!" mr. dick seemed quite frightened. "that little man of a doctor, with his head on one side," said my aunt, "jellips, or whatever his name was, what was _he_ about? all he could do, was to say to me, like a robin redbreast--as he _is_--'it's a boy.' a boy! yah, the imbecility of the whole set of 'em!" the heartiness of the ejaculation startled mr. dick exceedingly; and me, too, if i am to tell the truth. "and then, as if this was not enough, and she had not stood sufficiently in the light of this child's sister, betsey trotwood," said my aunt, "she marries a second time--goes and marries a murderer--or a man with a name like it--and stands in _this_ child's light! and the natural consequence is, as anybody but a baby might have foreseen, that he prowls and wanders. he's as like cain before he was grown up, as he can be." mr. dick looked hard at me, as if to identify me in this character. "and then there's that woman with the pagan name," said my aunt, "that peggotty, _she_ goes and gets married next. because she has not seen enough of the evil attending such things, _she_ goes and gets married next, as the child relates. i only hope," said my aunt, shaking her head, "that her husband is one of those poker husbands who abound in the newspapers, and will beat her well with one." i could not bear to hear my old nurse so decried, and made the subject of such a wish. i told my aunt that indeed she was mistaken. that peggotty was the best, the truest, the most faithful, most devoted, and most self-denying friend and servant in the world; who had ever loved me dearly, who had ever loved my mother dearly; who had held my mother's dying head upon her arm, on whose face my mother had imprinted her last grateful kiss. and my remembrance of them both, choking me, i broke down as i was trying to say that her home was my home, and that all she had was mine, and that i would have gone to her for shelter, but for her humble station, which made me fear that i might bring some trouble on her--i broke down, i say, as i was trying to say so, and laid my face in my hands upon the table. "well, well!" said my aunt, "the child is right to stand by those who have stood by him--janet! donkies!" i thoroughly believe that but for those unfortunate donkies, we should have come to a good understanding; for my aunt had laid her hand on my shoulder, and the impulse was upon me, thus emboldened, to embrace her and beseech her protection. but the interruption, and the disorder she was thrown into by the struggle outside, put an end to all softer ideas for the present; and kept my aunt indignantly declaiming to mr. dick about her determination to appeal for redress to the laws of her country, and to bring actions for trespass against the whole donkey proprietorship of dover, until tea-time. after tea, we sat at the window--on the look-out, as i imagined, from my aunt's sharp expression of face, for more invaders--until dusk, when janet set candles, and a backgammon-board, on the table, and pulled down the blinds. "now, mr. dick," said my aunt, with her grave look, and her forefinger up as before, "i am going to ask you another question. look at this child." "david's son?" said mr. dick, with an attentive, puzzled face. "exactly so," returned my aunt. "what would you do with him, now?" "do with david's son?" said mr. dick. "ay," replied my aunt, "with david's son." "oh!" said mr. dick. "yes. do with--i should put him to bed." "janet!" cried my aunt, with the same complacent triumph that i had remarked before. "mr. dick sets us all right. if the bed is ready, we'll take him up to it." janet reporting it to be quite ready, i was taken up to it; kindly, but in some sort like a prisoner; my aunt going in front and janet bringing up the rear. the only circumstance which gave me any new hope, was my aunt's stopping on the stairs to inquire about a smell of fire that was prevalent there; and janet's replying that she had been making tinder down in the kitchen, of my old shirt. but there were no other clothes in my room than the odd heap of things i wore; and when i was left there, with a little taper which my aunt forewarned me would burn exactly five minutes, i heard them lock my door on the outside. turning these things over in my mind, i deemed it possible that my aunt, who could know nothing of me, might suspect i had a habit of running away, and took precautions, on that account, to have me in safe keeping. the room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, overlooking the sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly. after i had said my prayers, and the candle had burnt out, i remember how i still sat looking at the moonlight on the water, as if i could hope to read my fortune in it, as in a bright book; or to see my mother with her child, coming from heaven, along that shining path, to look upon me as she had looked when i last saw her sweet face. i remember how the solemn feeling with which at length i turned my eyes away, yielded to the sensation of gratitude and rest which the sight of the white-curtained bed--and how much more the lying softly down upon it, nestling in the snow-white sheets!--inspired. i remember how i thought of all the solitary places under the night sky where i had slept, and how i prayed that i never might be houseless any more, and never might forget the houseless. i remember how i seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of that track upon the sea, away into the world of dreams. chapter xiv. my aunt makes up her mind about me. on going down in the morning, i found my aunt musing so profoundly over the breakfast-table, with her elbow on the tray, that the contents of the urn had overflowed the teapot and were laying the whole table-cloth under water, when my entrance put her meditations to flight. i felt sure that i had been the subject of her reflections, and was more than ever anxious to know her intentions towards me. yet i dared not express my anxiety, lest it should give her offence. my eyes, however, not being so much under controul as my tongue, were attracted towards my aunt very often during breakfast. i never could look at her for a few moments together but i found her looking at me--in an odd thoughtful manner, as if i were an immense way off, instead of being on the other side of the small round table. when she had finished her breakfast, my aunt very deliberately leaned back in her chair, knitted her brows, folded her arms, and contemplated me at her leisure, with such a fixedness of attention that i was quite overpowered by embarrassment. not having as yet finished my own breakfast, i attempted to hide my confusion by proceeding with it; but my knife tumbled over my fork, my fork tripped up my knife, i chipped bits of bacon a surprising height into the air instead of cutting them for my own eating, and choked myself with my tea which persisted in going the wrong way instead of the right one, until i gave in altogether, and sat blushing under my aunt's close scrutiny. "hallo!" said my aunt, after a long time. i looked up, and met her sharp bright glance respectfully. "i have written to him," said my aunt. "to--?" "to your father-in-law," said my aunt. "i have sent him a letter that i'll trouble him to attend to, or he and i will fall out, i can tell him!" "does he know where i am, aunt?" i inquired, alarmed. "i have told him," said my aunt, with a nod. "shall i--be--given up to him?" i faltered. "i don't know," said my aunt. "we shall see." "oh! i can't think what i shall do," i exclaimed, "if i have to go back to mr. murdstone!" "i don't know anything about it," said my aunt, shaking her head. "i can't say, i am sure. we shall see." my spirits sank under these words, and i became very downcast and heavy of heart. my aunt, without appearing to take much heed of me, put on a coarse apron with a bib, which she took out of the press; washed up the teacups with her own hands; and, when everything was washed and set in the tray again, and the cloth folded and put on the top of the whole, rang for janet to remove it. she next swept up the crumbs with a little broom (putting on a pair of gloves first), until there did not appear to be one microscopic speck left on the carpet; next dusted and arranged the room, which was dusted and arranged to a hair's breadth already. when all these tasks were performed to her satisfaction, she took off the gloves and apron, folded them up, put them in the particular corner of the press from which they had been taken, brought out her work-box to her own table in the open window, and sat down, with the green fan between her and the light, to work. "i wish you'd go up stairs," said my aunt, as she threaded her needle, "and give my compliments to mr. dick, and i'll be glad to know how he gets on with his memorial." i rose with all alacrity, to acquit myself of this commission. "i suppose," said my aunt, eyeing me as narrowly as she had eyed the needle in threading it, "you think mr. dick a short name, eh?" "i thought it was rather a short name, yesterday," i confessed. "you are not to suppose that he hasn't got a longer name, if he chose to use it," said my aunt, with a loftier air. "babley--mr. richard babley--that's the gentleman's true name." i was going to suggest, with a modest sense of my youth and the familiarity i had been already guilty of, that i had better give him the full benefit of that name, when my aunt went on to say: "but don't you call him by it, whatever you do. he can't bear his name. that's a peculiarity of his. though i don't know that it's much of a peculiarity, either; for he has been ill-used enough, by some that bear it, to have a mortal antipathy for it, heaven knows. mr. dick is his name here, and everywhere else, now--if he ever went anywhere else, which he don't. so take care, child, you don't call him anything _but_ mr. dick." i promised to obey, and went up-stairs with my message; thinking, as i went, that if mr. dick had been working at his memorial long, at the same rate as i had seen him working at it, through the open door, when i came down, he was probably getting on very well indeed. i found him still driving at it with a long pen, and his head almost laid upon the paper. he was so intent upon it, that i had ample leisure to observe the large paper kite in a corner, the confusion of bundles of manuscript, the number of pens, and, above all, the quantity of ink (which he seemed to have in, in half-gallon jars by the dozen), before he observed my being present. "ha! phoebus!" said mr. dick, laying down his pen. "how does the world go! i'll tell you what," he added, in a lower tone, "i shouldn't wish it to be mentioned, but it's a--" here he beckoned to me, and put his lips close to my ear--"it's a mad world. mad as bedlam, boy!" said mr. dick, taking snuff from a round box on the table, and laughing heartily. without presuming to give my opinion on this question, i delivered my message. "well," said mr. dick, in answer, "my compliments to her, and i--i believe i have made a start. i think i have made a start," said mr. dick, passing his hand among his grey hair, and casting anything but a confident look at his manuscript. "you have been to school?" "yes, sir," i answered; "for a short time." "do you recollect the date," said mr. dick, looking earnestly at me, and taking up his pen to note it down, "when king charles the first had his head cut off?" i said i believed it happened in the year sixteen hundred and forty-nine. "well," returned mr. dick, scratching his ear with his pen, and looking dubiously at me. "so the books say; but i don't see how that can be. because, if it was so long ago, how could the people about him have made that mistake of putting some of the trouble out of _his_ head, after it was taken off, into _mine_?" i was very much surprised by the inquiry; but could give no information on this point. "it's very strange," said mr. dick, with a despondent look upon his papers, and with his hand among his hair again, "that i never can get that quite right. i never can make that perfectly clear. but no matter, no matter!" he said cheerfully, and rousing himself, "there's time enough! my compliments to miss trotwood, i am getting on very well indeed." i was going away, when he directed my attention to the kite. "what do you think of that for a kite?" he said. i answered that it was a beautiful one. i should think it must have been as much as seven feet high. "i made it. we'll go and fly it, you and i," said mr. dick. "do you see this?" he showed me that it was covered with manuscript, very closely and laboriously written; but so plainly, that as i looked along the lines, i thought i saw some allusion to king charles the first's head again, in one or two places. "there's plenty of string," said mr. dick, "and when it flies high, it takes the facts a long way. that's my manner of diffusing 'em. i don't know where they may come down. it's according to circumstances, and the wind, and so forth; but i take my chance of that." his face was so very mild and pleasant, and had something so reverend in it, though it was hale and hearty, that i was not sure but that he was having a good-humoured jest with me. so i laughed, and he laughed, and we parted the best friends possible. "well, child," said my aunt, when i went down stairs. "and what of mr. dick, this morning?" i informed her that he sent his compliments, and was getting on very well indeed. "what do you think of him?" said my aunt. i had some shadowy idea of endeavouring to evade the question, by replying that i thought him a very nice gentleman; but my aunt was not to be so put off, for she laid her work down in her lap, and said, folding her hands upon it: "come! your sister betsey trotwood would have told me what she thought of any one, directly. be as like your sister as you can, and speak out!" "is he--is mr. dick--i ask because i don't know, aunt--is he at all out of his mind, then?" i stammered; for i felt i was on dangerous ground. "not a morsel," said my aunt. "oh, indeed!" i observed faintly. "if there is anything in the world," said my aunt, with great decision and force of manner, "that mr. dick is not, it's that." i had nothing better to offer, than another timid "oh, indeed!" "he has been _called_ mad," said my aunt. "i have a selfish pleasure in saying he has been called mad, or i should not have had the benefit of his society and advice for these last ten years and upwards--in fact, ever since your sister, betsey trotwood, disappointed me." "so long as that?" i said. "and nice people they were, who had the audacity to call him mad," pursued my aunt. "mr. dick is a sort of distant connexion of mine--it doesn't matter how; i needn't enter into that. if it hadn't been for me, his own brother would have shut him up for life. that's all." i am afraid it was hypocritical in me, but seeing that my aunt felt strongly on the subject, i tried to look as if i felt strongly too. "a proud fool!" said my aunt. "because his brother was a little eccentric--though he is not half so eccentric as a good many people--he didn't like to have him visible about his house, and sent him away to some private asylum-place; though he had been left to his particular care by their deceased father, who thought him almost a natural. and a wise man _he_ must have been to think so! mad himself, no doubt." again, as my aunt looked quite convinced, i endeavoured to look quite convinced also. "so i stepped in," said my aunt, "and made him an offer. i said, your brother's sane--a great deal more sane than you are, or ever will be, it is to be hoped. let him have his little income, and come and live with me. _i_ am not afraid of him, _i_ am not proud, _i_ am ready to take care of him, and shall not ill-treat him as some people (besides the asylum folks) have done. after a good deal of squabbling," said my aunt, "i got him; and he has been here ever since. he is the most friendly and amenable creature in existence; and as for advice!--but nobody knows what that man's mind is, except myself." my aunt smoothed her dress and shook her head, as if she smoothed defiance of the whole world out of the one, and shook it out of the other. "he had a favorite sister," said my aunt, "a good creature, and very kind to him. but she did what they all do--took a husband. and _he_ did what they all do--made her wretched. it had such an effect upon the mind of mr. dick (_that's_ not madness i hope!) that, combined with his fear of his brother, and his sense of his unkindness, it threw him into a fever. that was before he came to me, but the recollection of it is oppressive to him even now. did he say anything to you about king charles the first, child?" "yes, aunt." "ah!" said my aunt, rubbing her nose as if she were a little vexed. "that's his allegorical way of expressing it. he connects his illness with great disturbance and agitation, naturally, and that's the figure, or the simile, or whatever it's called, which he chooses to use. and why shouldn't he, if he thinks proper!" i said: "certainly, aunt." "it's not a business-like way of speaking," said my aunt, "nor a worldly way. i am aware of that; and that's the reason why i insist upon it, that there shan't be a word about it in his memorial." "is it a memorial about his own history that he is writing, aunt?" "yes, child," said my aunt, rubbing her nose again. "he is memorialising the lord chancellor, or the lord somebody or other--one of those people, at all events, who are paid to _be_ memorialised--about his affairs. i suppose it will go in, one of these days. he hasn't been able to draw it up yet, without introducing that mode of expressing himself; but it don't signify; it keeps him employed." in fact, i found out afterwards that mr. dick had been for upwards of ten years endeavouring to keep king charles the first out of the memorial; but he had been constantly getting into it, and was there now. "i say again," said my aunt, "nobody knows what that man's mind is except myself; and he's the most amenable and friendly creature in existence. if he likes to fly a kite sometimes, what of that! franklin used to fly a kite. he was a quaker, or something of that sort, if i am not mistaken. and a quaker flying a kite is a much more ridiculous object than anybody else." if i could have supposed that my aunt had recounted these particulars for my especial behoof, and as a piece of confidence in me, i should have felt very much distinguished, and should have augured favourably from such a mark of her good opinion. but i could hardly help observing that she had launched into them, chiefly because the question was raised in her own mind, and with very little reference to me, though she had addressed herself to me in the absence of anybody else. at the same time, i must say that the generosity of her championship of poor harmless mr. dick, not only inspired my young breast with some selfish hope for myself, but warmed it unselfishly towards her. i believe that i began to know that there was something about my aunt, notwithstanding her many eccentricities and odd humours, to be honored and trusted in. though she was just as sharp that day, as on the day before, and was in and out about the donkeys just as often, and was thrown into a tremendous state of indignation, when a young man, going by, ogled janet at a window (which was one of the gravest misdemeanors that could be committed against my aunt's dignity), she seemed to me to command more of my respect, if not less of my fear. the anxiety i underwent, in the interval which necessarily elapsed before a reply could be received to her letter to mr. murdstone, was extreme; but i made an endeavour to suppress it, and to be as agreeable as i could in a quiet way, both to my aunt and mr. dick. the latter and i would have gone out to fly the great kite; but that i had still no other clothes than the anything but ornamental garments with which i had been decorated on the first day, and which confined me to the house, except for an hour after dark, when my aunt, for my health's sake, paraded me up and down on the cliff outside, before going to bed. at length the reply from mr. murdstone came, and my aunt informed me, to my infinite terror, that he was coming to speak to her himself on the next day. on the next day, still bundled up in my curious habiliments, i sat counting the time, flushed and heated by the conflict of sinking hopes and rising fears within me; and waiting to be startled by the sight of the gloomy face, whose non-arrival startled me every minute. my aunt was a little more imperious and stern than usual, but i observed no other token of her preparing herself to receive the visitor so much dreaded by me. she sat at work in the window, and i sat by, with my thoughts running astray on all possible and impossible results of mr. murdstone's visit, until pretty late in the afternoon. our dinner had been indefinitely postponed; but it was growing so late, that my aunt had ordered it to be got ready, when she gave a sudden alarm of donkeys, and to my consternation and amazement, i beheld miss murdstone, on a side-saddle, ride deliberately over the sacred piece of green, and stop in front of the house, looking about her. "go along with you!" cried my aunt, shaking her head and her fist at the window. "you have no business there. how dare you trespass? go along! oh, you bold-faced thing!" my aunt was so exasperated by the coolness with which miss murdstone looked about her, that i really believe she was motionless, and unable for the moment to dart out according to custom. i seized the opportunity to inform her who it was; and that the gentleman now coming near the offender (for the way up was very steep, and he had dropped behind), was mr. murdstone himself. "i don't care who it is!" cried my aunt, still shaking her head, and gesticulating anything but welcome from the bow-window. "i won't be trespassed upon. i won't allow it. go away! janet, turn him round. lead him off!" and i saw, from behind my aunt, a sort of hurried battle-piece, in which the donkey stood resisting everybody, with all his four legs planted different ways, while janet tried to pull him round by the bridle, mr. murdstone tried to lead him on, miss murdstone struck at janet with a parasol, and several boys, who had come to see the engagement, shouted vigorously. but my aunt, suddenly descrying among them the young malefactor who was the donkey's guardian, and who was one of the most inveterate offenders against her, though hardly in his teens, rushed out to the scene of action, pounced upon him, captured him, dragged him, with his jacket over his head, and his heels grinding the ground, into the garden, and, calling upon janet to fetch the constables and justices that he might be taken, tried, and executed on the spot, held him at bay there. this part of the business, however, did not last long; for the young rascal, being expert at a variety of feints and dodges, of which my aunt had no conception, soon went whooping away, leaving some deep impressions of his nailed boots in the flower-beds, and taking his donkey in triumph with him. miss murdstone, during the latter portion of the contest, had dismounted, and was now waiting with her brother at the bottom of the steps, until my aunt should be at leisure to receive them. my aunt, a little ruffled by the combat, marched past them into the house, with great dignity, and took no notice of their presence, until they were announced by janet. "shall i go away, aunt?" i asked, trembling. "no, sir," said my aunt. "certainly not!" with which she pushed me into a corner near her, and fenced me in with a chair, as if it were a prison or a bar of justice. this position i continued to occupy during the whole interview, and from it i now saw mr. and miss murdstone enter the room. [illustration: the momentous interview.] "oh!" said my aunt, "i was not aware at first to whom i had the pleasure of objecting. but i don't allow anybody to ride over that turf. i make no exceptions. i don't allow anybody to do it." "your regulation is rather awkward to strangers," said miss murdstone. "is it!" said my aunt. mr. murdstone seemed afraid of a renewal of hostilities, and interposing began: "miss trotwood!" "i beg your pardon," observed my aunt with a keen look. "you are the mr. murdstone who married the widow of my late nephew, david copperfield, of blunderstone rookery?--though why rookery, _i_ don't know!" "i am," said mr. murdstone. "you'll excuse my saying, sir," returned my aunt, "that i think it would have been a much better and happier thing if you had left that poor child alone." "i so far agree with what miss trotwood has remarked," observed miss murdstone, bridling, "that i consider our lamented clara to have been, in all essential respects, a mere child." "it is a comfort to you and me, ma'am," said my aunt, "who are getting on in life, and are not likely to be made unhappy by our personal attractions, that nobody can say the same of us." "no doubt!" returned miss murdstone, though, i thought, not with a very ready or gracious assent. "and it certainly might have been, as you say, a better and happier thing for my brother if he had never entered into such a marriage. i have always been of that opinion." "i have no doubt you have," said my aunt. "janet," ringing the bell, "my compliments to mr. dick, and beg him to come down." until he came, my aunt sat perfectly upright and stiff, frowning at the wall. when he came, my aunt performed the ceremony of introduction. "mr. dick. an old and intimate friend. on whose judgment," said my aunt, with emphasis, as an admonition to mr. dick, who was biting his forefinger and looking rather foolish, "i rely." mr. dick took his finger out of his mouth, on this hint, and stood among the group, with a grave and attentive expression of face. my aunt inclined her head to mr. murdstone, who went on: "miss trotwood: on the receipt of your letter, i considered it an act of greater justice to myself, and perhaps of more respect to you--" "thank you," said my aunt, still eyeing him keenly. "you needn't mind me." "to answer it in person, however inconvenient the journey," pursued mr. murdstone, "rather than by letter. this unhappy boy who has run away from his friends and his occupation--" "and whose appearance," interposed his sister, directing general attention to me in my indefinable costume, "is perfectly scandalous and disgraceful." "jane murdstone," said her brother, "have the goodness not to interrupt me. this unhappy boy, miss trotwood, has been the occasion of much domestic trouble and uneasiness; both during the lifetime of my late dear wife, and since. he has a sullen, rebellious spirit; a violent temper; and an untoward, intractable disposition. both my sister and myself have endeavoured to correct his vices, but ineffectually. and i have felt--we both have felt, i may say; my sister being fully in my confidence--that it is right you should receive this grave and dispassionate assurance from our lips." "it can hardly be necessary for me to confirm anything stated by my brother," said miss murdstone; "but i beg to observe, that, of all the boys in the world, i believe this is the worst boy." "strong!" said my aunt, shortly. "but not at all too strong for the facts," returned miss murdstone. "ha!" said my aunt. "well, sir?" "i have my own opinions," resumed mr. murdstone, whose face darkened more and more, the more he and my aunt observed each other, which they did very narrowly, "as to the best mode of bringing him up; they are founded, in part, on my knowledge of him, and in part on my knowledge of my own means and resources. i am responsible for them to myself, i act upon them, and i say no more about them. it is enough that i place this boy under the eye of a friend of my own, in a respectable business; that it does not please him; that he runs away from it; makes himself a common vagabond about the country; and comes here, in rags, to appeal to you, miss trotwood. i wish to set before you, honorably, the exact consequences--so far as they are within my knowledge--of your abetting him in this appeal." "but about the respectable business first," said my aunt. "if he had been your own boy, you would have put him to it, just the same, i suppose?" "if he had been my brother's own boy," returned miss murdstone, striking in, "his character, i trust, would have been altogether different." "or if the poor child, his mother, had been alive, he would still have gone into the respectable business, would he?" said my aunt. "i believe," said mr. murdstone, with an inclination of his head, "that clara would have disputed nothing, which myself and my sister jane murdstone were agreed was for the best." miss murdstone confirmed this, with an audible murmur. "humph!" said my aunt. "unfortunate baby!" mr. dick, who had been rattling his money all this time, was rattling it so loudly now, that my aunt felt it necessary to check him with a look, before saying: "the poor child's annuity died with her?" "died with her," replied mr. murdstone. "and there was no settlement of the little property--the house and garden--the what's-its-name rookery without any rooks in it--upon her boy?" "it had been left to her, unconditionally, by her first husband," mr. murdstone began, when my aunt caught him up with the greatest irascibility and impatience. "good lord, man, there's no occasion to say that. left to her unconditionally! i think i see david copperfield looking forward to any condition of any sort or kind, though it stared him point-blank in the face! of course it was left to her unconditionally. but when she married again--when she took that most disastrous step of marrying you, in short," said my aunt, "to be plain--did no one put in a word for the boy at that time?" "my late wife loved her second husband, madam," said mr. murdstone, "and trusted implicitly in him." "your late wife, sir, was a most unworldly, most unhappy, most unfortunate baby," returned my aunt, shaking her head at him. "that's what _she_ was. and now, what have you got to say next?" "merely this, miss trotwood," he returned. "i am here to take david back--to take him back unconditionally, to dispose of him as i think proper, and to deal with him as i think right. i am not here to make any promise, or give any pledge to anybody. you may possibly have some idea, miss trotwood, of abetting him in his running away, and in his complaints to you. your manner, which i must say does not seem intended to propitiate, induces me to think it possible. now i must caution you that if you abet him once, you abet him for good and all; if you step in between him and me, now, you must step in, miss trotwood, for ever. i cannot trifle, or be trifled with. i am here, for the first and last time, to take him away. is he ready to go? if he is not--and you tell me he is not; on any pretence; it is indifferent to me what--my doors are shut against him henceforth, and yours, i take it for granted, are open to him." to this address, my aunt had listened with the closest attention, sitting perfectly upright, with her hands folded on one knee, and looking grimly on the speaker. when he had finished, she turned her eyes so as to command miss murdstone, without otherwise disturbing her attitude, and said: "well, ma'am, have _you_ got anything to remark?" "indeed, miss trotwood," said miss murdstone, "all that i could say has been so well said by my brother, and all that i know to be the fact has been so plainly stated by him, that i have nothing to add except my thanks for your politeness. for your very great politeness, i am sure," said miss murdstone; with an irony which no more affected my aunt, than it discomposed the cannon i had slept by at chatham. "and what does the boy say?" said my aunt. "are you ready to go, david?" i answered no, and entreated her not to let me go. i said that neither mr. nor miss murdstone had ever liked me, or had ever been kind to me. that they had made my mama, who always loved me dearly, unhappy about me, and that i knew it well, and that peggotty knew it. i said that i had been more miserable than i thought anybody could believe, who only knew how young i was. and i begged and prayed my aunt--i forget in what terms now, but i remember that they affected me very much then--to befriend and protect me, for my father's sake. "mr. dick," said my aunt, "what shall i do with this child?" mr. dick considered, hesitated, brightened, and rejoined, "have him measured for a suit of clothes directly." "mr. dick," said my aunt, triumphantly, "give me your hand, for your common sense is invaluable." having shaken it with great cordiality, she pulled me towards her, and said to mr. murdstone: "you can go when you like; i'll take my chance with the boy. if he's all you say he is, at least i can do as much for him then, as you have done. but i don't believe a word of it." "miss trotwood," rejoined mr. murdstone, shrugging his shoulders, as he rose, "if you were a gentleman----" "bah! stuff and nonsense!" said my aunt. "don't talk to me!" "how exquisitely polite!" exclaimed miss murdstone, rising. "overpowering, really!" "do you think i don't know," said my aunt, turning a deaf ear to the sister, and continuing to address the brother, and to shake her head at him with infinite expression, "what kind of life you must have led that poor, unhappy, misdirected baby? do you think i don't know what a woeful day it was for the soft little creature, when _you_ first came in her way--smirking and making great eyes at her, i'll be bound, as if you couldn't say boh! to a goose!" "i never heard anything so elegant!" said miss murdstone. "do you think i can't understand you as well as if i had seen you," pursued my aunt, "now that i _do_ see and hear you--which, i tell you candidly, is anything but a pleasure to me? oh yes, bless us! who so smooth and silky as mr. murdstone at first! the poor, benighted innocent had never seen such a man. he was made of sweetness. he worshipped her. he doted on her boy--tenderly doted on him! he was to be another father to him, and they were all to live together in a garden of roses, weren't they? ugh! get along with you, do!" said my aunt. "i never heard anything like this person in my life!" exclaimed miss murdstone. "and when you had made sure of the poor little fool," said my aunt--"god forgive me that i should call her so, and she gone where _you_ won't go in a hurry--because you had not done wrong enough to her and hers, you must begin to train her, must you? begin to break her, like a poor caged bird, and wear her deluded life away, in teaching her to sing _your_ notes?" "this is either insanity or intoxication," said miss murdstone, in a perfect agony at not being able to turn the current of my aunt's address towards herself; "and my suspicion is, that it's intoxication." miss betsey, without taking the least notice of the interruption, continued to address herself to mr. murdstone as if there had been no such thing. "mr. murdstone," she said, shaking her finger at him, "you were a tyrant to the simple baby, and you broke her heart. she was a loving baby--i know that; i knew it, years before _you_ ever saw her--and through the best part of her weakness, you gave her the wounds she died of. there is the truth for your comfort, however you like it. and you and your instruments may make the most of it." "allow me to inquire, miss trotwood," interposed miss murdstone, "whom you are pleased to call, in a choice of words in which i am not experienced, my brother's instruments?" still stone-deaf to the voice, and utterly unmoved by it, miss betsey pursued her discourse. "it was clear enough, as i have told you, years before _you_ ever saw her--and why, in the mysterious dispensations of providence, you ever did see her, is more than humanity can comprehend--it was clear enough that the poor soft little thing would marry somebody, at some time or other; but i did hope it wouldn't have been as bad as it has turned out. that was the time, mr. murdstone, when she gave birth to her boy here," said my aunt; "to the poor child you sometimes tormented her through afterwards, which is a disagreeable remembrance, and makes the sight of him odious now. aye, aye! you needn't wince!" said my aunt, "i know it's true without that." he had stood by the door, all this while, observant of her with a smile upon his face, though his black eyebrows were heavily contracted. i remarked now, that, though the smile was on his face still, his colour had gone in a moment, and he seemed to breathe as if he had been running. "good day, sir!" said my aunt, "and good bye! good day to you too, ma'am," said my aunt, turning suddenly upon his sister. "let me see you ride a donkey over _my_ green again, and as sure as you have a head upon your shoulders, i'll knock your bonnet off, and tread upon it!" it would require a painter, and no common painter too, to depict my aunt's face as she delivered herself of this very unexpected sentiment, and miss murdstone's face as she heard it. but the manner of the speech, no less than the matter, was so fiery, that miss murdstone, without a word in answer, discreetly put her arm through her brother's, and walked haughtily out of the cottage; my aunt remaining in the window looking after them; prepared, i have no doubt, in case of the donkey's reappearance, to carry her threat into instant execution. no attempt at defiance being made, however, her face gradually relaxed, and became so pleasant, that i was emboldened to kiss and thank her; which i did with great heartiness, and with both my arms clasped round her neck. i then shook hands with mr. dick, who shook hands with me a great many times, and hailed this happy close of the proceedings with repeated bursts of laughter. "you'll consider yourself guardian, jointly with me, of this child, mr. dick," said my aunt. "i shall be delighted," said mr. dick, "to be the guardian of david's son." "very good," returned my aunt, "_that's_ settled. i have been thinking, do you know, mr. dick, that i might call him trotwood?" "certainly, certainly. call him trotwood, certainly," said mr. dick. "david's son's trotwood." "trotwood copperfield, you mean," returned my aunt. "yes, to be sure. yes. trotwood copperfield," said mr. dick, a little abashed. my aunt took so kindly to the notion, that some ready-made clothes, which were purchased for me that afternoon, were marked "trotwood copperfield," in her own handwriting, and in indelible marking-ink, before i put them on; and it was settled that all the other clothes which were ordered to be made for me (a complete outfit was bespoke that afternoon) should be marked in the same way. thus i began my new life, in a new name, and with everything new about me. now that the state of doubt was over, i felt, for many days, like one in a dream. i never thought that i had a curious couple of guardians, in my aunt and mr. dick. i never thought of anything about myself, distinctly. the two things clearest in my mind were, that a remoteness had come upon the old blunderstone life--which seemed to lie in the haze of an immeasurable distance; and that a curtain had for ever fallen on my life at murdstone and grinby's. no one has ever raised that curtain since. i have lifted it for a moment, even in this narrative, with a reluctant hand, and dropped it gladly. the remembrance of that life is fraught with so much pain to me, with so much mental suffering and want of hope, that i have never had the courage even to examine how long i was doomed to lead it. whether it lasted for a year, or more, or less, i do not know. i only know that it was, and ceased to be; and that i have written, and there i leave it. chapter xv. i make another beginning. mr. dick and i soon became the best of friends, and very often, when his day's work was done, went out together to fly the great kite. every day of his life he had a long sitting at the memorial, which never made the least progress, however hard he labored, for king charles the first always strayed into it, sooner or later, and then it was thrown aside, and another one begun. the patience and hope with which he bore these perpetual disappointments, the mild perception he had that there was something wrong about king charles the first, the feeble efforts he made to keep him out, and the certainty with which he came in, and tumbled the memorial out of all shape, made a deep impression on me. what mr. dick supposed would come of the memorial, if it were completed; where he thought it was to go, or what he thought it was to do; he knew no more than anybody else, i believe. nor was it at all necessary that he should trouble himself with such questions, for if anything were certain under the sun, it was certain that the memorial never would be finished. it was quite an affecting sight, i used to think, to see him with the kite when it was up a great height in the air. what he had told me, in his room, about his belief in its disseminating the statements pasted on it, which were nothing but old leaves of abortive memorials, might have been a fancy with him sometimes; but not when he was out, looking up at the kite in the sky, and feeling it pull and tug at his hand. he never looked so serene as he did then. i used to fancy, as i sat by him of an evening, on a green slope, and saw him watch the kite high in the quiet air, that it lifted his mind out of its confusion, and bore it (such was my boyish thought) into the skies. as he wound the string in, and it came lower and lower down out of the beautiful light, until it fluttered to the ground, and lay there like a dead thing, he seemed to wake gradually out of a dream; and i remember to have seen him take it up, and look about him in a lost way, as if they had both come down together, so that i pitied him with all my heart. while i advanced in friendship and intimacy with mr. dick, i did not go backward in the favor of his staunch friend, my aunt. she took so kindly to me, that, in the course of a few weeks, she shortened my adopted name of trotwood into trot; and even encouraged me to hope that if i went on as i had begun, i might take equal rank in her affections with my sister betsey trotwood. "trot," said my aunt one evening, when the backgammon-board was placed as usual for herself and mr. dick, "we must not forget your education." this was my only subject of anxiety, and i felt quite delighted by her referring to it. "should you like to go to school at canterbury?" said my aunt. i replied that i should like it very much, as it was so near her. "good," said my aunt. "should you like to go to-morrow?" being already no stranger to the general rapidity of my aunt's evolutions, i was not surprised by the suddenness of the proposal, and said: "yes." "good," said my aunt again. "janet, hire the grey pony and chaise to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, and pack up master trotwood's clothes to-night." i was greatly elated by these orders; but my heart smote me for my selfishness, when i witnessed their effect on mr. dick, who was so low-spirited at the prospect of our separation, and played so ill in consequence, that my aunt, after giving him several admonitory raps on the knuckles with her dice-box, shut up the board, and declined to play with him any more. but, on hearing from my aunt that i should sometimes come over on a saturday, and that he could sometimes come and see me on a wednesday, he revived; and vowed to make another kite for those occasions, of proportions greatly surpassing the present one. in the morning he was downhearted again, and would have sustained himself by giving me all the money he had in his possession, gold and silver too, if my aunt had not interposed, and limited the gift to five shillings, which, at his earnest petition, were afterwards increased to ten. we parted at the garden-gate in a most affectionate manner, and mr. dick did not go into the house until my aunt had driven me out of sight of it. my aunt, who was perfectly indifferent to public opinion, drove the grey pony through dover in a masterly manner; sitting high and stiff like a state coachman, keeping a steady eye upon him wherever he went, and making a point of not letting him have his own way in any respect. when we came into the country road, she permitted him to relax a little, however; and looking at me down in a valley of cushion by her side, asked me whether i was happy. "very happy indeed, thank you, aunt," i said. she was much gratified; and both her hands being occupied, patted me on the head with her whip. "is it a large school, aunt?" i asked. "why, i don't know," said my aunt. "we are going to mr. wickfield's first." "does _he_ keep a school?" i asked. "no, trot," said my aunt. "he keeps an office." i asked for no more information about mr. wickfield, as she offered none, and we conversed on other subjects until we came to canterbury, where, as it was market-day, my aunt had a great opportunity of insinuating the grey pony among carts, baskets, vegetables, and huckster's goods. the hair-breadth turns and twists we made, drew down upon us a variety of speeches from the people standing about, which were not always complimentary; but my aunt drove on with perfect indifference, and i dare say would have taken her own way with as much coolness through an enemy's country. at length we stopped before a very old house bulging out over the road; a house with long low lattice-windows bulging out still farther, and beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, so that i fancied the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below. it was quite spotless in its cleanliness. the old-fashioned brass knocker on the low arched door, ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled like a star; the two stone steps descending to the door were as white as if they had been covered with fair linen; and all the angles and corners, and carvings and mouldings, and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little windows, though as old as the hills, were as pure as any snow that ever fell upon the hills. when the pony-chaise stopped at the door, and my eyes were intent upon the house, i saw a cadaverous face appear at a small window on the ground floor (in a little round tower that formed one side of the house), and quickly disappear. the low arched door then opened, and the face came out. it was quite as cadaverous as it had looked in the window, though in the grain of it there was that tinge of red which is sometimes to be observed in the skins of red-haired people. it belonged to a red-haired person--a youth of fifteen, as i take it now, but looking much older--whose hair was cropped as close as the closest stubble; who had hardly any eyebrows, and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red-brown; so unsheltered and unshaded, that i remember wondering how he went to sleep. he was high-shouldered and bony; dressed in decent black, with a white wisp of a neckcloth; buttoned up to the throat; and had a long, lank, skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention, as he stood at the pony's head, rubbing his chin with it, and looking up at us in the chaise. "is mr. wickfield at home, uriah heep?" said my aunt. "mr. wickfield's at home, ma'am," said uriah heep, "if you'll please to walk in there"--pointing with his long hand to the room he meant. we got out; and leaving him to hold the pony, went into a long low parlor looking towards the street, from the window of which i caught a glimpse, as i went in, of uriah heep breathing into the pony's nostrils, and immediately covering them with his hand, as if he were putting some spell upon him. opposite to the tall old chimney-piece, were two portraits: one of a gentleman with grey hair (though not by any means an old man) and black eyebrows, who was looking over some papers tied together with red tape; the other, of a lady, with a very placid and sweet expression of face, who was looking at me. i believe i was turning about in search of uriah's picture, when, a door at the farther end of the room opening, a gentleman entered, at sight of whom i turned to the first-mentioned portrait again, to make quite sure that it had not come out of its frame. but it was stationary; and as the gentleman advanced into the light, i saw that he was some years older than when he had had his picture painted. "miss betsey trotwood," said the gentleman, "pray walk in. i was engaged for the moment, but you'll excuse my being busy. you know my motive. i have but one in life." miss betsey thanked him, and we went into his room, which was furnished as an office, with books, papers, tin boxes, and so forth. it looked into a garden, and had an iron safe let into the wall; so immediately over the mantel-shelf, that i wondered, as i sat down, how the sweeps got round it when they swept the chimney. "well, miss trotwood," said mr. wickfield; for i soon found that it was he, and that he was a lawyer, and steward of the estates of a rich gentleman of the county; "what wind blows you here? not an ill wind, i hope?" "no," replied my aunt, "i have not come for any law." "that's right, ma'am," said mr. wickfield. "you had better come for anything else." his hair was quite white now, though his eyebrows were still black. he had a very agreeable face, and, i thought, was handsome. there was a certain richness in his complexion, which i had been long accustomed, under peggotty's tuition, to connect with port wine; and i fancied it was in his voice too, and referred his growing corpulency to the same cause. he was very cleanly dressed, in a blue coat, striped waistcoat, and nankeen trowsers; and his fine frilled shirt and cambric neckcloth looked unusually soft and white, reminding my strolling fancy (i call to mind) of the plumage on the breast of a swan. "this is my nephew," said my aunt. "wasn't aware you had one, miss trotwood," said mr. wickfield. "my grand-nephew, that is to say," observed my aunt. "wasn't aware you had a grand-nephew, i give you my word," said mr. wickfield. "i have adopted him," said my aunt, with a wave of her hand, importing that his knowledge and his ignorance were all one to her, "and i have brought him here, to put him to a school where he may be thoroughly well taught, and well treated. now tell me where that school is, and what it is, and all about it." "before i can advise you properly," said mr. wickfield,--"the old question, you know. what's your motive in this?" "deuce take the man!" exclaimed my aunt. "always fishing for motives, when they're on the surface! why, to make the child happy and useful." "it must be a mixed motive, i think," said mr. wickfield, shaking his head and smiling incredulously. "a mixed fiddlestick!" returned my aunt. "you claim to have one plain motive in all you do yourself. you don't suppose, i hope, that you are the only plain dealer in the world?" "ay, but i have only one motive in life, miss trotwood," he rejoined, smiling. "other people have dozens, scores, hundreds. i have only one. there's the difference. however, that's beside the question. the best school? whatever the motive, you want the best?" my aunt nodded assent. "at the best we have," said mr. wickfield, considering, "your nephew couldn't board just now." "but he could board somewhere else, i suppose?" suggested my aunt. mr. wickfield thought i could. after a little discussion, he proposed to take my aunt to the school, that she might see it and judge for herself; also, to take her, with the same object, to two or three houses where he thought i could be boarded. my aunt embracing the proposal, we were all three going out together, when he stopped and said: "our little friend here might have some motive, perhaps, for objecting to the arrangements. i think we had better leave him behind?" my aunt seemed disposed to contest the point; but to facilitate matters i said i would gladly remain behind, if they pleased; and returned into mr. wickfield's office, where i sat down again, in the chair i had first occupied, to await their return. it so happened that this chair was opposite a narrow passage, which ended in the little circular room where i had seen uriah heep's pale face looking out of window. uriah, having taken the pony to a neighbouring stable, was at work at a desk in this room, which had a brass frame on the top to hang papers upon, and on which the writing he was making a copy of was then hanging. though his face was towards me, i thought, for some time, the writing being between us, that he could not see me; but looking that way more attentively, it made me uncomfortable to observe that, every now and then, his sleepless eyes would come below the writing, like two red suns, and stealthily stare at me for i dare say a whole minute at a time, during which his pen went, or pretended to go, as cleverly as ever. i made several attempts to get out of their way--such as standing on a chair to look at a map on the other side of the room, and poring over the columns of a kentish newspaper--but they always attracted me back again; and whenever i looked towards those two red suns, i was sure to find them, either just rising or just setting. at length, much to my relief, my aunt and mr. wickfield came back, after a pretty long absence. they were not so successful as i could have wished; for though the advantages of the school were undeniable, my aunt had not approved of any of the boarding-houses proposed for me. "it's very unfortunate," said my aunt. "i don't know what to do, trot." "it _does_ happen unfortunately," said mr. wickfield. "but i'll tell you what you can do, miss trotwood." "what's that?" inquired my aunt. "leave your nephew here, for the present. he's a quiet fellow. he won't disturb me at all. it's a capital house for study. as quiet as a monastery, and almost as roomy. leave him here." my aunt evidently liked the offer, though she was delicate of accepting it. so did i. "come, miss trotwood," said mr. wickfield. "this is the way out of the difficulty. it's only a temporary arrangement, you know. if it don't act well, or don't quite accord with our mutual convenience, he can easily go to the right about. there will be time to find some better place for him in the meanwhile. you had better determine to leave him here for the present!" "i am very much obliged to you," said my aunt; "and so is he, i see; but--" "come! i know what you mean," cried mr. wickfield. "you shall not be oppressed by the receipt of favors, miss trotwood. you may pay for him if you like. we won't be hard about terms, but you shall pay if you will." "on that understanding," said my aunt, "though it doesn't lessen the real obligation, i shall be very glad to leave him." "then come and see my little housekeeper," said mr. wickfield. we accordingly went up a wonderful old staircase; with a balustrade so broad that we might have gone up that, almost as easily; and into a shady old drawing-room, lighted by some three or four of the quaint windows i had looked up at from the street: which had old oak seats in them, that seemed to have come of the same trees as the shining oak floor, and the great beams in the ceiling. it was a prettily furnished room, with a piano and some lively furniture in red and green, and some flowers. it seemed to be all old nooks and corners; and in every nook and corner there was some queer little table, or cupboard, or bookcase, or seat, or something or other, that made me think there was not such another good corner in the room; until i looked at the next one, and found it equal to it, if not better. on everything there was the same air of retirement and cleanliness that marked the house outside. mr. wickfield tapped at a door in a corner of the panneled wall, and a girl of about my own age came quickly out and kissed him. on her face, i saw immediately the placid and sweet expression of the lady whose picture had looked at me down-stairs. it seemed to my imagination as if the portrait had grown womanly, and the original remained a child. although her face was quite bright and happy, there was a tranquillity about it, and about her--a quiet, good, calm spirit--that i never have forgotten; that i never shall forget. this was his little housekeeper, his daughter agnes, mr. wickfield said. when i heard how he said it, and saw how he held her hand, i guessed what the one motive of his life was. she had a little basket-trifle hanging at her side, with keys in it; and looked as staid and as discreet a housekeeper as the old house could have. she listened to her father as he told her about me, with a pleasant face; and when he had concluded, proposed to my aunt that we should go up-stairs and see my room. we all went together; she before us: and a glorious old room it was, with more oak beams, and diamond panes; and the broad balustrade going all the way up to it. i cannot call to mind where or when, in my childhood, i had seen a stained glass window in a church. nor do i recollect its subject. but i know that when i saw her turn round, in the grave light of the old staircase, and wait for us, above, i thought of that window; and that i associated something of its tranquil brightness with agnes wickfield ever afterwards. my aunt was as happy as i was, in the arrangement made for me; and we went down to the drawing-room again, well pleased and gratified. as she would not hear of staying to dinner, lest she should by any chance fail to arrive at home with the grey pony before dark; and as i apprehend mr. wickfield knew her too well, to argue any point with her; some lunch was provided for her there, and agnes went back to her governess, and mr. wickfield to his office. so we were left to take leave of one another without any restraint. she told me that everything would be arranged for me by mr. wickfield, and that i should want for nothing, and gave me the kindest words and the best advice. "trot," said my aunt in conclusion, "be a credit to yourself, to me, and mr. dick, and heaven be with you!" i was greatly overcome, and could only thank her, again and again, and send my love to mr. dick. "never," said my aunt, "be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. avoid those three vices, trot, and i can always be hopeful of you." i promised, as well as i could, that i would not abuse her kindness or forget her admonition. "the pony's at the door," said my aunt, "and i am off! stay here." with these words she embraced me hastily, and went out of the room, shutting the door after her. at first i was startled by so abrupt a departure, and almost feared i had displeased her; but when i looked into the street, and saw how dejectedly she got into the chaise, and drove away without looking up, i understood her better, and did not do her that injustice. by five o'clock, which was mr. wickfield's dinner hour, i had mustered up my spirits again, and was ready for my knife and fork. the cloth was only laid for us two; but agnes was waiting in the drawing-room before dinner, went down with her father, and sat opposite to him at table. i doubted whether he could have dined without her. we did not stay there, after dinner, but came up-stairs into the drawing-room again: in one snug corner of which, agnes set glasses for her father, and a decanter of port wine. i thought he would have missed its usual flavor, if it had been put there for him by any other hands. there he sat, taking his wine, and taking a good deal of it, for two hours; while agnes played on the piano, worked, and talked to him and me. he was, for the most part, gay and cheerful with us; but sometimes his eyes rested on her, and he fell into a brooding state, and was silent. she always observed this quickly, as i thought, and always roused him with a question or caress. then he came out of his meditation, and drank more wine. agnes made the tea, and presided over it; and the time passed away after it, as after dinner, until she went to bed; when her father took her in his arms and kissed her, and, she being gone, ordered candles in his office. then i went to bed too. but in the course of the evening i had rambled down to the door, and a little way along the street, that i might have another peep at the old houses, and the grey cathedral; and might think of my coming through that old city on my journey, and of my passing the very house i lived in, without knowing it. as i came back, i saw uriah heep shutting up the office; and feeling friendly towards everybody, went in and spoke to him, and at parting, gave him my hand. but oh, what a clammy hand his was! as ghostly to the touch as to the sight! i rubbed mine afterwards, to warm it, _and to rub his off_. it was such an uncomfortable hand, that, when i went to my room, it was still cold and wet upon my memory. leaning out of window, and seeing one of the faces on the beam-ends looking at me sideways, i fancied it was uriah heep got up there somehow, and shut him out in a hurry. chapter xvi. i am a new boy in more senses than one. next morning, after breakfast, i entered on school life again. i went, accompanied by mr. wickfield, to the scene of my future studies--a grave building in a court-yard, with a learned air about it that seemed very well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the cathedral towers to walk with a clerkly bearing on the grass-plot--and was introduced to my new master, doctor strong. doctor strong looked almost as rusty, to my thinking, as the tall iron rails and gates outside the house; and almost as stiff and heavy as the great stone urns that flanked them, and were set up, on the top of the red-brick wall, at regular distances all round the court, like sublimated skittles, for time to play at. he was in his library (i mean doctor strong was), with his clothes not particularly well brushed, and his hair not particularly well combed; his knee-smalls unbraced; his long black gaiters unbuttoned; and his shoes yawning like two caverns on the hearth-rug. turning upon me a lustreless eye, that reminded me of a long-forgotten blind old horse who once used to crop the grass, and tumble over the graves, in blunderstone churchyard, he said he was glad to see me: and then he gave me his hand; which i didn't know what to do with, as it did nothing for itself. but, sitting at work, not far off from doctor strong, was a very pretty young lady--whom he called annie, and who was his daughter, i supposed--who got me out of my difficulty by kneeling down to put doctor strong's shoes on, and button his gaiters, which she did with great cheerfulness and quickness. when she had finished, and we were going out to the school-room, i was much surprised to hear mr. wickfield, in bidding her good morning, address her as "mrs. strong;" and i was wondering could she be doctor strong's son's wife, or could she be mrs. doctor strong, when doctor strong himself unconsciously enlightened me. "by the bye, wickfield," he said, stopping in a passage with his hand on my shoulder; "you have not found any suitable provision for my wife's cousin yet?" "no," said mr. wickfield. "no. not yet." "i could wish it done as soon as it _can_ be done, wickfield," said doctor strong, "for jack maldon is needy, and idle; and of those two bad things, worse things sometimes come. what does doctor watts say," he added, looking at me, and moving his head to the time of his quotation, "'satan finds some mischief still, for idle hands to do.'" "egad, doctor," returned mr. wickfield, "if doctor watts knew mankind, he might have written, with as much truth, 'satan finds some mischief still, for busy hands to do.' the busy people achieve their full share of mischief in the world, you may rely upon it. what have the people been about, who have been the busiest in getting money, and in getting power, this century or two? no mischief?" "jack maldon will never be very busy in getting either, i expect," said doctor strong, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "perhaps not," said mr. wickfield; "and you bring me back to the question, with an apology for digressing. no, i have not been able to dispose of mr. jack maldon yet. i believe," he said this with some hesitation, "i penetrate your motive, and it makes the thing more difficult." "my motive," returned dr. strong, "is to make some suitable provision for a cousin, and an old playfellow, of annie's." "yes, i know," said mr. wickfield; "at home or abroad." "aye!" replied the doctor, apparently wondering why he emphasised those words so much. "at home or abroad." "your own expression, you know," said mr. wickfield. "or abroad." "surely," the doctor answered. "surely. one or other." "one or other? have you no choice?" asked mr. wickfield. "no," returned the doctor. "no?" with astonishment. "not the least." "no motive," said mr. wickfield, "for meaning abroad, and not at home?" "no," returned the doctor. "i am bound to believe you, and of course i do believe you," said mr. wickfield. "it might have simplified my office very much, if i had known it before. but i confess i entertained another impression." doctor strong regarded him with a puzzled and doubting look, which almost immediately subsided into a smile that gave me great encouragement; for it was full of amiability and sweetness, and there was a simplicity in it, and indeed in his whole manner, when the studious, pondering frost upon it was got through, very attractive and hopeful to a young scholar like me. repeating "no," and "not the least," and other short assurances to the same purport, doctor strong jogged on before us, at a queer, uneven pace; and we followed: mr. wickfield looking grave, i observed, and shaking his head to himself, without knowing that i saw him. the school-room was a pretty large hall, on the quietest side of the house, confronted by the stately stare of some half-dozen of the great urns, and commanding a peep of an old secluded garden belonging to the doctor, where the peaches were ripening on the sunny south wall. there were two great aloes, in tubs, on the turf outside the windows; the broad hard leaves of which plant (looking as if they were made of painted tin) have ever since, by association, been symbolical to me of silence and retirement. about five-and-twenty boys were studiously engaged at their books when we went in, but they rose to give the doctor good morning, and remained standing when they saw mr. wickfield and me. "a new boy, young gentlemen," said the doctor; "trotwood copperfield." one adams, who was the head-boy, then stepped out of his place and welcomed me. he looked like a young clergyman, in his white cravat, but he was very affable and good-humored; and he showed me my place, and presented me to the masters, in a gentlemanly way that would have put me at my ease, if anything could. it seemed to me so long, however, since i had been among such boys, or among any companions of my own age, except mick walker and mealey potatoes, that i felt as strange as ever i have done in all my life. i was so conscious of having passed through scenes of which they could have no knowledge, and of having acquired experiences foreign to my age, appearance, and condition, as one of them, that i half believed it was an imposture to come there as an ordinary little schoolboy. i had become, in the murdstone and grinby time, however short or long it may have been, so unused to the sports and games of boys, that i knew i was awkward and inexperienced in the commonest things belonging to them. whatever i had learnt, had so slipped away from me in the sordid cares of my life from day to night, that now, when i was examined about what i knew, i knew nothing, and was put into the lowest form of the school. but, troubled as i was, by my want of boyish skill, and of book-learning too, i was made infinitely more uncomfortable by the consideration, that, in what i did know, i was much farther removed from my companions than in what i did not. my mind ran upon what they would think, if they knew of my familiar acquaintance with the king's bench prison? was there anything about me which would reveal my proceedings in connexion with the micawber family--all those pawnings, and sellings, and suppers--in spite of myself? suppose some of the boys had seen me coming through canterbury, wayworn and ragged, and should find me out? what would they say, who made so light of money, if they could know how i had scraped my halfpence together, for the purchase of my daily saveloy and beer, or my slices of pudding? how would it affect them, who were so innocent of london life, and london streets, to discover how knowing i was (and was ashamed to be) in some of the meanest phases of both? all this ran in my head so much, on that first day at doctor strong's, that i felt distrustful of my slightest look and gesture; shrunk within myself whensoever i was approached by one of my new schoolfellows; and hurried off the minute school was over, afraid of committing myself in my response to any friendly notice or advance. but there was such an influence in mr. wickfield's old house, that when i knocked at it, with my new school-books under my arm, i began to feel my uneasiness softening away. as i went up to my airy old room, the grave shadow of the staircase seemed to fall upon my doubts and fears, and to make the past more indistinct. i sat there, sturdily conning my books, until dinner time (we were out of school for good at three); and went down, hopeful of becoming a passable sort of boy yet. agnes was in the drawing-room, waiting for her father, who was detained by some one in his office. she met me with her pleasant smile, and asked me how i liked the school. i told her i should like it very much, i hoped; but i was a little strange to it at first. "_you_ have never been to school," i said, "have you?" "oh, yes! every day." "ah, but you mean here, at your own home?" "papa couldn't spare me to go anywhere else," she answered, smiling and shaking her head. "his housekeeper must be in his house, you know." "he is very fond of you, i am sure," i said. she nodded "yes," and went to the door to listen for his coming up, that she might meet him on the stairs. but, as he was not there, she came back again. "mama has been dead ever since i was born," she said, in her quiet way. "i only know her picture, down stairs. i saw you looking at it yesterday. did you think whose it was?" i told her yes, because it was so like herself. "papa says so, too," said agnes, pleased. "hark! that's papa now!" her bright calm face lighted up with pleasure as she went to meet him, and as they came in, hand in hand. he greeted me cordially; and told me i should certainly be happy under doctor strong, who was one of the gentlest of men. "there may be some, perhaps--i don't know that there are--who abuse his kindness," said mr. wickfield. "never be one of those, trotwood, in anything. he is the least suspicious of mankind; and whether that's a merit, or whether it's a blemish, it deserves consideration in all dealings with the doctor, great or small." he spoke, i thought, as if he were weary, or dissatisfied with something; but i did not pursue the question in my mind, for dinner was just then announced, and we went down and took the same seats as before. we had scarcely done so, when uriah heep put in his red head and his lank hand at the door, and said: "here's mr. maldon begs the favor of a word, sir." "i am but this moment quit of mr. maldon," said his master. "yes, sir," returned uriah; "but mr. maldon has come back, and he begs the favor of a word." as he held the door open with his hand, uriah looked at me, and looked at agnes, and looked at the dishes, and looked at the plates, and looked at every object in the room, i thought,--yet seemed to look at nothing; he made such an appearance all the while of keeping his red eyes dutifully on his master. "i beg your pardon. it's only to say, on reflection," observed a voice behind uriah, as uriah's head was pushed away, and the speaker's substituted--"pray excuse me for this intrusion--that as it seems i have no choice in the matter, the sooner i go abroad, the better. my cousin annie did say, when we talked of it, that she liked to have her friends within reach rather than to have them banished, and the old doctor--" "doctor strong, was that?" mr. wickfield interposed, gravely. "doctor strong of course," returned the other; "i call him the old doctor--it's all the same, you know." "i _don't_ know," returned mr. wickfield. "well, doctor strong," said the other--"doctor strong was of the same mind, i believed. but as it appears from the course you take with me that he has changed his mind, why there's no more to be said, except that the sooner i am off, the better. therefore, i thought i'd come back and say, that the sooner i am off, the better. when a plunge is to be made into the water, it's of no use lingering on the bank." "there shall be as little lingering as possible, in your case, mr. maldon, you may depend upon it," said mr. wickfield. "thank'ee," said the other. "much obliged. i don't want to look a gift-horse in the mouth, which is not a gracious thing to do; otherwise, i dare say, my cousin annie could easily arrange it in her own way. i suppose annie would only have to say to the old doctor--" "meaning that mrs. strong would only have to say to her husband--do i follow you?" said mr. wickfield. "quite so," returned the other, "--would only have to say, that she wanted such and such a thing to be so and so; and it would be so and so, as a matter of course." "and why as a matter of course, mr. maldon?" asked mr. wickfield, sedately eating his dinner. "why, because annie's a charming young girl, and the old doctor--doctor strong, i mean--is not quite a charming young boy," said mr. jack maldon, laughing. "no offence to anybody, mr. wickfield. i only mean that i suppose some compensation is fair and reasonable, in that sort of marriage." "compensation to the lady, sir?" asked mr. wickfield gravely. "to the lady, sir," mr. jack maldon answered, laughing. but appearing to remark that mr. wickfield went on with his dinner in the same sedate, immoveable manner, and that there was no hope of making him relax a muscle of his face, he added: "however, i have said what i came back to say, and, with another apology for this intrusion, i may take myself off. of course i shall observe your directions, in considering the matter as one to be arranged between you and me solely, and not to be referred to, up at the doctor's." "have you dined?" asked mr. wickfield, with a motion of his hand towards the table. "thank'ee. i am going to dine," said mr. maldon, "with my cousin annie. good bye!" mr. wickfield, without rising, looked after him thoughtfully as he went out. he was rather a shallow sort of young gentleman, i thought, with a handsome face, a rapid utterance, and a confident, bold air. and this was the first i ever saw of mr. jack maldon; whom i had not expected to see so soon, when i heard the doctor speak of him that morning. when we had dined, we went up-stairs again, where everything went on exactly as on the previous day. agnes set the glasses and decanters in the same corner, and mr. wickfield sat down to drink, and drank a good deal. agnes played the piano to him, sat by him, and worked and talked, and played some games at dominoes with me. in good time she made tea; and afterwards, when i brought down my books, looked into them, and showed me what she knew of them (which was no slight matter, though she said it was), and what was the best way to learn and understand them. i see her, with her modest, orderly, placid manner, and i hear her beautiful calm voice, as i write these words. the influence for all good, which she came to exercise over me at a later time, begins already to descend upon my breast. i love little em'ly, and i don't love agnes--no, not at all in that way--but i feel that there are goodness, peace, and truth, wherever agnes is; and that the soft light of the colored window in the church, seen long ago, falls on her always, and on me when i am near her, and on every thing around. the time having come for her withdrawal for the night, and she having left us, i gave mr. wickfield my hand, preparatory to going away myself. but he checked me and said: "should you like to stay with us, trotwood, or to go elsewhere?" "to stay" i answered, quickly. "you are sure?" "if you please. if i may!" "why, it's but a dull life that we lead here, boy, i am afraid," he said. "not more dull for me than agnes, sir. not dull at all!" "than agnes," he repeated, walking slowly to the great chimney-piece, and leaning against it. "than agnes!" he had drank wine that evening (or i fancied it), until his eyes were bloodshot. not that i could see them now, for they were cast down, and shaded by his hand; but i had noticed them a little while before. "now i wonder," he muttered, "whether my agnes tires of me. when should i ever tire of her! but that's different--that's quite different." he was musing--not speaking to me; so i remained quiet. "a dull old house," he said, "and a monotonous life; but i must have her near me. i must keep her near me. if the thought that i may die and leave my darling, or that my darling may die and leave me, comes, like a spectre, to distress my happiest hours, and is only to be drowned in----" he did not supply the word; but pacing slowly to the place where he had sat, and mechanically going through the action of pouring wine from the empty decanter, set it down and paced back again. "if it is miserable to bear, when she is here," he said, "what would it be, and she away? no, no, no. i cannot try that." he leaned against the chimney-piece, brooding so long that i could not decide whether to run the risk of disturbing him by going, or to remain quietly where i was, until he should come out of his reverie. at length he aroused himself, and looked about the room until his eyes encountered mine. "stay with us, trotwood, eh?" he said, in his usual manner, and as if he were answering something i had just said. "i am glad of it. you are company to us both. it is wholesome to have you here. wholesome for me, wholesome for agnes, wholesome perhaps for all of us." "i am sure it is for me, sir," i said. "i am so glad to be here." "that's a fine fellow!" said mr. wickfield. "as long as you are glad to be here, you shall stay here." he shook hands with me upon it, and clapped me on the back; and told me that when i had anything to do at night after agnes had left us, or when i wished to read for my own pleasure, i was free to come down to his room, if he were there and if i desired it for company's sake, and to sit with him. i thanked him for his consideration; and, as he went down soon afterwards, and i was not tired, went down too, with a book in my hand, to avail myself, for half-an-hour, of his permission. but, seeing a light in the little round office, and immediately feeling myself attracted towards uriah heep, who had a sort of fascination for me, i went in there instead. i found uriah reading a great fat book, with such demonstrative attention, that his lank fore-finger followed up every line as he read, and made clammy tracks along the page (or so i fully believed) like a snail. "you are working late to-night, uriah," says i. "yes, master copperfield," says uriah. as i was getting on the stool opposite, to talk to him more conveniently, i observed that he had not such a thing as a smile about him, and that he could only widen his mouth and make two hard creases down his cheeks, one on each side, to stand for one. "i am not doing office-work, master copperfield," said uriah. "what work, then?" i asked. "i am improving my legal knowledge, master copperfield," said uriah. "i am going through tidd's practice. oh, what a writer mr. tidd is, master copperfield!" my stool was such a tower of observation, that as i watched him reading on again, after this rapturous exclamation, and following up the lines with his fore-finger, i observed that his nostrils, which were thin and pointed, with sharp dints in them, had a singular and most uncomfortable way of expanding and contracting themselves--that they seemed to twinkle, instead of his eyes, which hardly ever twinkled at all. "i suppose you are quite a great lawyer?" i said, after looking at him for some time. "me, master copperfield?" said uriah. "oh, no! i'm a very umble person." it was no fancy of mine about his hands, i observed; for he frequently ground the palms against each other as if to squeeze them dry and warm, besides often wiping them, in a stealthy way, on his pocket-handkerchief. "i am well aware that i am the umblest person going," said uriah heep, modestly; "let the other be where he may. my mother is likewise a very umble person. we live in a numble abode, master copperfield, but have much to be thankful for. my father's former calling was umble. he was a sexton." "what is he now?" i asked. "he is a partaker of glory at present, master copperfield," said uriah heep. "but we have much to be thankful for. how much have i to be thankful for, in living with mr. wickfield!" i asked uriah if he had been with mr. wickfield long? "i have been with him, going on four year, master copperfield," said uriah; shutting up his book, after carefully marking the place where he had left off. "since a year after my father's death. how much have i to be thankful for, in that! how much have i to be thankful for, in mr. wickfield's kind intention to give me my articles, which would otherwise not lay within the umble means of mother and self!" "then, when your articled time is over, you'll be a regular lawyer, i suppose?" said i. "with the blessing of providence, master copperfield," returned uriah. "perhaps you'll be a partner in mr. wickfield's business, one of these days," i said, to make myself agreeable; "and it will be wickfield and heep, or heep late wickfield." "oh, no, master copperfield," returned uriah, shaking his head, "i am much too umble for that!" he certainly did look uncommonly like the carved face on the beam outside my window, as he sat, in his humility, eyeing me sideways, with his mouth widened, and the creases in his cheeks. "mr. wickfield is a most excellent man, master copperfield," said uriah. "if you have known him long, you know it, i am sure, much better than i can inform you." i replied that i was certain he was; but that i had not known him long myself, though he was a friend of my aunt's. "oh, indeed, master copperfield," said uriah. "your aunt is a sweet lady, master copperfield!" he had a way of writhing when he wanted to express enthusiasm, which was very ugly; and which diverted my attention from the compliment he had paid my relation, to the snaky twistings of his throat and body. "a sweet lady, master copperfield!" said uriah heep. "she has a great admiration for miss agnes, master copperfield, i believe?" i said "yes," boldly; not that i knew anything about it, heaven forgive me! "i hope you have, too, master copperfield," said uriah. "but i am sure you must have." "everybody must have," i returned. "oh, thank you, master copperfield," said uriah heep, "for that remark! it is so true! umble as i am, i know it is _so_ true! oh, thank you, master copperfield!" he writhed himself quite off his stool in the excitement of his feelings, and, being off, began to make arrangements for going home. "mother will be expecting me," he said, referring to a pale, inexpressive-faced watch in his pocket, "and getting uneasy; for though we are very umble, master copperfield, we are much attached to one another. if you would come and see us, any afternoon, and take a cup of tea at our lowly dwelling, mother would be as proud of your company as i should be." i said i should be glad to come. "thank you, master copperfield," returned uriah, putting his book away upon a shelf.--"i suppose you stop here, some time, master copperfield?" i said i was going to be brought up there, i believed, as long as i remained at school. "oh, indeed!" exclaimed uriah. "i should think _you_ would come into the business at last, master copperfield!" i protested that i had no views of that sort, and that no such scheme was entertained in my behalf by anybody; but uriah insisted on blandly replying to all my assurances, "oh, yes, master copperfield, i should think you would, indeed!" and, "oh, indeed, master copperfield, i should think you would, certainly!" over and over again. being, at last, ready to leave the office for the night, he asked me if it would suit my convenience to have the light put out; and on my answering "yes," instantly extinguished it. after shaking hands with me--his hand felt like a fish, in the dark--he opened the door into the street a very little, and crept out, and shut it, leaving me to grope my way back into the house: which cost me some trouble and a fall over his stool. this was the proximate cause, i suppose, of my dreaming about him, for what appeared to me to be half the night; and dreaming, among other things, that he had launched mr. peggotty's house on a piratical expedition, with a black flag at the mast-head, bearing the inscription "tidd's practice," under which diabolical ensign he was carrying me and little em'ly to the spanish main, to be drowned. i got a little the better of my uneasiness when i went to school next day, and a good deal the better next day, and so shook it off by degrees that in less than a fortnight i was quite at home, and happy, among my new companions. i was awkward enough in their games, and backward enough in their studies; but custom would improve me in the first respect, i hoped, and hard work in the second. accordingly, i went to work very hard, both in play and in earnest, and gained great commendation. and, in a very little while, the murdstone and grinby life became so strange to me that i hardly believed in it, while my present life grew so familiar, that i seemed to have been leading it a long time. doctor strong's was an excellent school; as different from mr. creakle's as good is from evil. it was very gravely and decorously ordered, and on a sound system; with an appeal, in everything, to the honour and good faith of the boys, and an avowed intention to rely on their possession of those qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy of it, which worked wonders. we all felt that we had a part in the management of the place, and in sustaining its character and dignity. hence, we soon became warmly attached to it--i am sure i did for one, and i never knew, in all my time, of any other boy being otherwise--and learnt with a good will, desiring to do it credit. we had noble games out of hours, and plenty of liberty; but even then, as i remember, we were well spoken of in the town, and rarely did any disgrace, by our appearance or manner, to the reputation of doctor strong and doctor strong's boys. some of the higher scholars boarded in the doctor's house, and through them i learnt, at second hand, some particulars of the doctor's history--as how he had not yet been married twelve months to the beautiful young lady i had seen in the study, whom he had married for love; as she had not a sixpence, and had a world of poor relations (so our fellows said) ready to swarm the doctor out of house and home. also, how the doctor's cogitating manner was attributable to his being always engaged in looking out for greek roots; which, in my innocence and ignorance, i supposed to be a botanical furor on the doctor's part, especially as he always looked at the ground when he walked about--until i understood that they were roots of words, with a view to a new dictionary, which he had in contemplation. adams, our head-boy, who had a turn for mathematics, had made a calculation, i was informed, of the time this dictionary would take in completing, on the doctor's plan, and at the doctor's rate of going. he considered that it might be done in one thousand six hundred and forty-nine years, counting from the doctor's last, or sixty-second, birthday. but the doctor himself was the idol of the whole school: and it must have been a badly composed school if he had been anything else, for he was the kindest of men; with a simple faith in him that might have touched the stone hearts of the very urns upon the wall. as he walked up and down that part of the court-yard which was at the side of the house, with the stray rooks and jackdaws looking after him with their heads cocked slyly, as if they knew how much more knowing they were in worldly affairs than he, if any sort of vagabond could only get near enough to his creaking shoes to attract his attention to one sentence of a tale of distress, that vagabond was made for the next two days. it was so notorious in the house, that the masters and head-boys took pains to cut these marauders off at angles, and to get out of windows, and turn them out of the court-yard, before they could make the doctor aware of their presence; which was sometimes happily effected within a few yards of him, without his knowing anything of the matter, as he jogged to and fro. outside his own domain, and unprotected, he was a very sheep for the shearers. he would have taken his gaiters off his legs, to give away. in fact, there was a story current among us (i have no idea, and never had, on what authority, but i have believed it for so many years that i feel quite certain it is true), that on a frosty day, one winter time, he actually did bestow his gaiters on a beggar-woman, who occasioned some scandal in the neighbourhood by exhibiting a fine infant from door to door, wrapped in those garments, which were universally recognised, being as well known in the vicinity as the cathedral. the legend added that the only person who did not identify them was the doctor himself, who, when they were shortly afterwards displayed at the door of a little second-hand shop of no very good repute, where such things were taken in exchange for gin, was more than once observed to handle them approvingly, as if admiring some curious novelty in the pattern, and considering them an improvement on his own. it was very pleasant to see the doctor with his pretty young wife. he had a fatherly, benignant way of showing his fondness for her, which seemed in itself to express a good man. i often saw them walking in the garden where the peaches were, and i sometimes had a nearer observation of them in the study or the parlor. she appeared to me to take great care of the doctor, and to like him very much, though i never thought her vitally interested in the dictionary: some cumbrous fragments of which work the doctor always carried in his pockets, and in the lining of his hat, and generally seemed to be expounding to her as they walked about. i saw a good deal of mrs. strong, both because she had taken a liking for me on the morning of my introduction to the doctor, and was always afterwards kind to me, and interested in me; and because she was very fond of agnes, and was often backwards and forwards at our house. there was a curious constraint between her and mr. wickfield, i thought (of whom she seemed to be afraid), that never wore off. when she came there of an evening, she always shrunk from accepting his escort home, and ran away with me instead. and sometimes, as we were running gaily across the cathedral yard together, expecting to meet nobody, we would meet mr. jack maldon, who was always surprised to see us. mrs. strong's mama was a lady i took great delight in. her name was mrs. markleham; but our boys used to call her the old soldier, on account of her generalship, and the skill with which she marshalled great forces of relations against the doctor. she was a little, sharp-eyed woman, who used to wear, when she was dressed, one unchangeable cap, ornamented with some artificial flowers, and two artificial butterflies supposed to be hovering above the flowers. there was a superstition among us that this cap had come from france, and could only originate in the workmanship of that ingenious nation: but all i certainly know about it, is, that it always made its appearance of an evening, wheresoever mrs. markleham made _her_ appearance; that it was carried about to friendly meetings in a hindoo basket; that the butterflies had the gift of trembling constantly; and that they improved the shining hours at doctor strong's expense, like busy bees. i observed the old soldier--not to adopt the name disrespectfully--to pretty good advantage, on a night which is made memorable to me by something else i shall relate. it was the night of a little party at the doctor's, which was given on the occasion of mr. jack maldon's departure for india, whither he was going as a cadet, or something of that kind: mr. wickfield having at length arranged the business. it happened to be the doctor's birthday, too. we had had a holiday, had made presents to him in the morning, had made a speech to him through the head-boy, and had cheered him until we were hoarse, and until he had shed tears. and now, in the evening, mr. wickfield, agnes, and i, went to have tea with him in his private capacity. mr. jack maldon was there, before us. mrs. strong, dressed in white, with cherry-colored ribbons, was playing the piano, when we went in; and he was leaning over her to turn the leaves. the clear red and white of her complexion was not so blooming and flower-like as usual, i thought, when she turned round; but she looked very pretty, wonderfully pretty. "i have forgotten, doctor," said mrs. strong's mama, when we were seated, "to pay you the compliments of the day--though they are, as you may suppose, very far from being mere compliments in my case. allow me to wish you many happy returns." "i thank you, ma'am," replied the doctor. "many, many, many, happy returns," said the old soldier. "not only for your own sake, but for annie's, and john maldon's, and many other peoples'. it seems but yesterday to me, john, when you were a little creature, a head shorter than master copperfield, making baby love to annie behind the gooseberry bushes in the back-garden." "my dear mama," said mrs. strong, "never mind that now." "annie, don't be absurd," returned her mother. "if you are to blush to hear of such things, now you are an old married woman, when are you not to blush to hear of them?" "old?" exclaimed mr. jack maldon. "annie? come!" "yes, john," returned the soldier. "virtually, an old married woman. although not old by years--for when did you ever hear me say, or who has ever heard me say, that a girl of twenty was old by years!--your cousin is the wife of the doctor, and, as such, what i have described her. it is well for you, john, that your cousin is the wife of the doctor. you have found in him an influential and kind friend, who will be kinder yet, i venture to predict, if you deserve it. i have no false pride. i never hesitate to admit, frankly, that there are some members of our family who want a friend. you were one yourself, before your cousin's influence raised up one for you." the doctor, in the goodness of his heart, waved his hand as if to make light of it, and save mr. jack maldon from any further reminder. but mrs. markleham changed her chair for one next the doctor's, and putting her fan on his coat-sleeve, said: "no, really, my dear doctor, you must excuse me if i appear to dwell on this rather, because i feel so very strongly. i call it quite my monomania, it is such a subject of mine. you are a blessing to us. you really are a boon, you know." "nonsense, nonsense," said the doctor. "no, no, i beg your pardon," retorted the old soldier. "with nobody present, but our dear and confidential friend mr. wickfield, i cannot consent to be put down. i shall begin to assert the privileges of a mother-in-law, if you go on like that, and scold you. i am perfectly honest and outspoken. what i am saying, is what i said when you first overpowered me with surprise--you remember how surprised i was?--by proposing for annie. not that there was anything so very much out of the way, in the mere act of the proposal--it would be ridiculous to say that!--but because, you having known her poor father, and having known her from a baby six months old, i hadn't thought of you in such a light at all, or indeed as a marrying man in any way,--simply that, you know." "aye, aye," returned the doctor, good-humoredly. "never mind." "but i _do_ mind," said the old soldier, laying her fan upon his lips. "i mind very much. i recal these things that i may be contradicted if i am wrong. well! then i spoke to annie, and i told her what had happened. i said, 'my dear, here's doctor strong has positively been and made you the subject of a handsome declaration and an offer.' did i press it in the least? no. i said, 'now, annie, tell me the truth this moment; is your heart free?' 'mama,' she said, crying, 'i am extremely young'--which was perfectly true--'and i hardly know if i have a heart at all.' 'then, my dear,' i said, 'you may rely upon it, it's free. at all events, my love,' said i, 'doctor strong is in an agitated state of mind, and must be answered. he cannot be kept in his present state of suspense.' 'mama,' said annie, still crying, 'would he be unhappy without me? if he would, i honor and respect him so much, that i think i will have him.' so it was settled. and then, and not till then, i said to annie, 'annie, doctor strong will not only be your husband, but he will represent your late father: he will represent the head of our family, he will represent the wisdom and station, and i may say the means, of our family; and will be, in short, a boon to it.' i used the word at the time, and i have used it again, to-day. if i have any merit, it is consistency." the daughter had sat quite silent and still during this speech, with her eyes fixed on the ground; her cousin standing near her, and looking on the ground too. she now said very softly, in a trembling voice: "mama, i hope you have finished?" "no, my dear annie," returned the soldier, "i have not quite finished. since you ask me, my love, i reply that i have _not_. i complain that you really are a little unnatural towards your own family; and, as it is of no use complaining to you, i mean to complain to your husband. now, my dear doctor, do look at that silly wife of yours." as the doctor turned his kind face, with its smile of simplicity and gentleness, towards her, she drooped her head more. i noticed that mr. wickfield looked at her steadily. "when i happened to say to that naughty thing, the other day," pursued her mother, shaking her head and her fan at her, playfully, "that there was a family circumstance she might mention to you--indeed, i think, was bound to mention--she said, that to mention it was to ask a favor; and that, as you were too generous, and as for her to ask was always to have, she wouldn't." "annie, my dear," said the doctor. "that was wrong. it robbed me of a pleasure." "almost the very words i said to her!" exclaimed her mother. "now really, another time, when i know what she would tell you but for this reason, and won't, i have a great mind, my dear doctor, to tell you myself." "i shall be glad if you will," returned the doctor. "shall i?" "certainly." "well, then, i will!" said the old soldier. "that's a bargain." and having, i suppose, carried her point, she tapped the doctor's hand several times with her fan (which she kissed first), and returned triumphantly to her former station. some more company coming in, among whom were the two masters and adams, the talk became general; and it naturally turned on mr. jack maldon, and his voyage, and the country he was going to, and his various plans and prospects. he was to leave that night, after supper, in a postchaise, for gravesend; where the ship, in which he was to make the voyage, lay; and was to be gone--unless he came home on leave, or for his health--i don't know how many years. i recollect it was settled by general consent that india was quite a misrepresented country, and had nothing objectionable in it, but a tiger or two, and a little heat in the warm part of the day. for my own part, i looked on mr. jack maldon as a modern sinbad, and pictured him the bosom friend of all the rajahs in the east, sitting under canopies, smoking curly golden pipes--a mile long, if they could be straightened out. mrs. strong was a very pretty singer: as i knew, who often heard her singing by herself. but, whether she was afraid of singing before people, or was out of voice that evening, it was certain that she couldn't sing at all. she tried a duet, once, with her cousin maldon, but could not so much as begin; and afterwards, when she tried to sing by herself, although she began sweetly, her voice died away on a sudden, and left her quite distressed, with her head hanging down over the keys. the good doctor said she was nervous, and, to relieve her, proposed a round game at cards; of which he knew as much as of the art of playing the trombone. but i remarked that the old soldier took him into custody directly, for her partner; and instructed him, as the first preliminary of initiation, to give her all the silver he had in his pocket. we had a merry game, not made the less merry by the doctor's mistakes, of which he committed an innumerable quantity, in spite of the watchfulness of the butterflies, and to their great aggravation. mrs. strong had declined to play, on the ground of not feeling very well; and her cousin maldon had excused himself because he had some packing to do. when he had done it, however, he returned, and they sat together, talking, on the sofa. from time to time she came and looked over the doctor's hand, and told him what to play. she was very pale, as she bent over him, and i thought her finger trembled as she pointed out the cards; but the doctor was quite happy in her attention, and took no notice of this, if it were so. at supper, we were hardly so gay. every one appeared to feel that a parting of that sort was an awkward thing, and that the nearer it approached, the more awkward it was. mr. jack maldon tried to be very talkative, but was not at his ease, and made matters worse. and they were not improved, as it appeared to me, by the old soldier: who continually recalled passages of mr. jack maldon's youth. the doctor, however, who felt, i am sure, that he was making everybody happy, was well pleased, and had no suspicion, but that we were all at the utmost height of enjoyment. "annie, my dear," said he, looking at his watch, and filling his glass, "it is past your cousin jack's time, and we must not detain him, since time and tide--both concerned in this case--wait for no man. mr. jack maldon, you have a long voyage, and a strange country, before you; but many men have had both, and many men will have both, to the end of time. the winds you are going to tempt, have wafted thousands upon thousands to fortune, and brought thousands upon thousands happily back." "it's an affecting thing," said mrs. markleham--"however it's viewed, it's affecting--to see a fine young man one has known from an infant, going away to the other end of the world, leaving all he knows behind, and not knowing what's before him. a young man really well deserves constant support and patronage," looking at the doctor, "who makes such sacrifices." "time will go fast with you, mr. jack maldon," pursued the doctor, "and fast with all of us. some of us can hardly expect, perhaps, in the natural course of things, to greet you on your return. the next best thing is to hope to do it, and that's my case. i shall not weary you with good advice. you have long had a good model before you, in your cousin annie. imitate her virtues as nearly as you can." mrs. markleham fanned herself, and shook her head. "farewell, mr. jack," said the doctor, standing up; on which we all stood up. "a prosperous voyage out, a thriving career abroad, and a happy return home!" we all drank the toast, and all shook hands with mr. jack maldon; after which he hastily took leave of the ladies who were there, and hurried to the door, where he was received, as he got into the chaise, with a tremendous broadside of cheers discharged by our boys, who had assembled on the lawn for the purpose. running in among them to swell the ranks, i was very near the chaise when it rolled away; and i had a lively impression made upon me, in the midst of the noise and dust, of having seen mr. jack maldon rattle past with an agitated face, and something cherry-colored in his hand. after another broadside for the doctor, and another for the doctor's wife, the boys dispersed, and i went back into the house, where i found the guests all standing in a group about the doctor, discussing how mr. jack maldon had gone away, and how he had borne it, and how he had felt it, and all the rest of it. in the midst of these remarks, mrs. markleham cried: "where's annie!" no annie was there; and when they called to her, no annie replied. but all pressing out of the room, in a crowd, to see what was the matter, we found her lying on the hall floor. there was great alarm at first, until it was found that she was in a swoon, and that the swoon was yielding to the usual means of recovery; when the doctor, who had lifted her head upon his knee, put her curls aside with his hand, and said, looking around: "poor annie! she's so faithful and tender-hearted! it's the parting from her old playfellow and friend--her favorite cousin--that has done this. ah! it's a pity! i am very sorry!" when she opened her eyes, and saw where she was, and that we were all standing about her, she arose with assistance: turning her head, as she did so, to lay it on the doctor's shoulder--or to hide it, i don't know which. we went into the drawing-room, to leave her with the doctor and her mother; but she said, it seemed, that she was better than she had been since morning, and that she would rather be brought among us; so they brought her in, looking very white and weak, i thought, and sat her on a sofa. "annie, my dear," said her mother, doing something to her dress. "see here! you have lost a bow. will anybody be so good as find a ribbon; a cherry-colored ribbon?" it was the one she had worn at her bosom. we all looked for it--i myself looked everywhere, i am certain--but nobody could find it. "do you recollect where you had it last, annie?" said her mother. i wondered how i could have thought she looked white, or anything but burning red, when she answered that she had had it safe, a little while ago, she thought, but it was not worth looking for. nevertheless, it was looked for again, and still not found. she entreated that there might be no more searching; but it was still sought for, in a desultory way, until she was quite well, and the company took their departure. we walked very slowly home, mr. wickfield, agnes, and i--agnes and i admiring the moonlight, and mr. wickfield scarcely raising his eyes from the ground. when we, at last, reached our own door, agnes discovered that she had left her little reticule behind. delighted to be of any service to her, i ran back to fetch it. i went into the supper-room where it had been left, which was deserted and dark. but a door of communication between that and the doctor's study, where there was a light, being open, i passed on there, to say what i wanted, and to get a candle. the doctor was sitting in his easy chair by the fireside, and his young wife was on a stool at his feet. the doctor, with a complacent smile, was reading aloud some manuscript explanation or statement of a theory out of that interminable dictionary, and she was looking up at him. but, with such a face as i never saw. it was so beautiful in its form, it was so ashy pale, it was so fixed in its abstraction, it was so full of a wild, sleep-walking, dreamy horror of i don't know what. the eyes were wide open, and her brown hair fell in two rich clusters on her shoulders, and on her white dress, disordered by the want of the lost ribbon. distinctly as i recollect her look, i cannot say of what it was expressive. i cannot even say of what it is expressive to me now, rising again before my older judgment. penitence, humiliation, shame, pride, love, and trustfulness--i see them all; and in them all, i see that horror of i don't know what. [illustration: i return to the doctor's after the party.] my entrance, and my saying what i wanted, roused her. it disturbed the doctor too, for when i went back to replace the candle i had taken from the table, he was patting her head, in his fatherly way, and saying he was a merciless drone to let her tempt him into reading on; and he would have her go to bed. but she asked him, in a rapid, urgent manner, to let her stay--to let her feel assured (i heard her murmur some broken words to this effect) that she was in his confidence that night. and, as she turned again towards him, after glancing at me as i left the room and went out at the door, i saw her cross her hands upon his knee, and look up at him with the same face, something quieted, as he resumed his reading. it made a great impression on me, and i remembered it a long time afterwards; as i shall have occasion to narrate when the time comes. chapter xvii. somebody turns up. it has not occurred to me to mention peggotty since i ran away; but, of course, i wrote her a letter almost as soon as i was housed at dover, and another, and a longer letter, containing all particulars fully related, when my aunt took me formally under her protection. on my being settled at doctor strong's i wrote to her again, detailing my happy condition and prospects. i never could have derived anything like the pleasure from spending the money mr. dick had given me, that i felt in sending a gold half-guinea to peggotty, per post, inclosed in this last letter, to discharge the sum i had borrowed of her: in which epistle, not before, i mentioned about the young man with the donkey-cart. to these communications peggotty replied as promptly, if not as concisely, as a merchant's clerk. her utmost powers of expression (which were certainly not great in ink) were exhausted in the attempt to write what she felt on the subject of my journey. four sides of incoherent and interjectional beginnings of sentences, that had no end, except blots, were inadequate to afford her any relief. but the blots were more expressive to me than the best composition; for they showed me that peggotty had been crying all over the paper, and what could i have desired more? i made out, without much difficulty, that she could not take quite kindly to my aunt yet. the notice was too short after so long a prepossession the other way. we never knew a person, she wrote; but to think that miss betsey should seem to be so different from what she had been thought to be, was a moral!--that was her word. she was evidently still afraid of miss betsey, for she sent her grateful duty to her but timidly; and she was evidently afraid of me, too, and entertained the probability of my running away again soon: if i might judge from the repeated hints she threw out, that the coach-fare to yarmouth was always to be had of her for the asking. she gave me one piece of intelligence which affected me very much, namely, that there had been a sale of the furniture at our old home, and that mr. and miss murdstone were gone away, and the house was shut up, to be let or sold. god knows i had had no part in it while they remained there, but it pained me to think of the dear old place as altogether abandoned; of the weeds growing tall in the garden, and the fallen leaves lying thick and wet upon the paths. i imagined how the winds of winter would howl round it, how the cold rain would beat upon the window-glass, how the moon would make ghosts on the walls of the empty rooms, watching their solitude all night. i thought afresh of the grave in the churchyard, underneath the tree: and it seemed as if the house were dead too, now, and all connected with my father and mother were faded away. there was no other news in peggotty's letters. mr. barkis was an excellent husband, she said, though still a little near; but we all had our faults, and she had plenty (though i am sure i don't know what they were); and he sent his duty, and my little bedroom was always ready for me. mr. peggotty was well, and ham was well, and mrs. gummidge was but poorly, and little em'ly wouldn't send her love, but said that peggotty might send it, if she liked. all this intelligence i dutifully imparted to my aunt, only reserving to myself the mention of little em'ly, to whom i instinctively felt that she would not very tenderly incline. while i was yet new at doctor strong's, she made several excursions over to canterbury to see me, and always at unseasonable hours: with the view, i suppose, of taking me by surprise. but, finding me well employed, and bearing a good character, and hearing on all hands that i rose fast in the school, she soon discontinued these visits. i saw her on a saturday, every third or fourth week, when i went over to dover for a treat; and i saw mr. dick every alternate wednesday, when he arrived by stage-coach at noon, to stay until next morning. on these occasions mr. dick never travelled without a leathern writing-desk, containing a supply of stationery and the memorial; in relation to which document he had a notion that time was beginning to press now, and that it really must be got out of hand. mr. dick was very partial to gingerbread. to render his visits the more agreeable, my aunt had instructed me to open a credit for him at a cake-shop, which was hampered with the stipulation that he should not be served with more than one shilling's-worth in the course of any one day. this, and the reference of all his little bills at the county inn where he slept, to my aunt, before they were paid, induced me to suspect that he was only allowed to rattle his money, and not to spend it. i found on further investigation that this was so, or at least there was an agreement between him and my aunt that he should account to her for all his disbursements. as he had no idea of deceiving her, and always desired to please her, he was thus made chary of launching into expense. on this point, as well as on all other possible points, mr. dick was convinced that my aunt was the wisest and most wonderful of women; as he repeatedly told me with infinite secresy, and always in a whisper. "trotwood," said mr. dick, with an air of mystery, after imparting this confidence to me, one wednesday; "who's the man that hides near our house and frightens her." "frightens my aunt, sir?" mr. dick nodded. "i thought nothing would have frightened her," he said, "for she's--" here he whispered softly, "don't mention it--the wisest and most wonderful of women." having said which, he drew back, to observe the effect which this description of her made upon me. "the first time he came," said mr. dick, "was--let me see--sixteen hundred and forty-nine was the date of king charles's execution. i think you said sixteen hundred and forty-nine?" "yes, sir." "i don't know how it can be," said mr. dick, sorely puzzled and shaking his head. "i don't think i am as old as that." "was it in that year that the man appeared, sir?" i asked. "why, really," said mr. dick, "i don't see how it can have been in that year, trotwood. did you get that date out of history?" "yes, sir." "i suppose history never lies, does it?" said mr. dick, with a gleam of hope. "oh dear, no, sir!" i replied, most decisively. i was ingenuous and young, and i thought so. "i can't make it out," said mr. dick, shaking his head. "there's something wrong, somewhere. however, it was very soon after the mistake was made of putting some of the trouble out of king charles's head into my head, that the man first came. i was walking out with miss trotwood after tea, just at dark, and there he was, close to our house." "walking about?" i inquired. "walking about?" repeated mr. dick. "let me see. i must recollect a bit. n--no, no; he was not walking about." i asked, as the shortest way to get at it, what he _was_ doing. "well, he wasn't there at all," said mr. dick, "until he came up behind her, and whispered. then she turned round and fainted, and i stood still and looked at him, and he walked away; but that he should have been hiding ever since (in the ground or somewhere), is the most extraordinary thing!" "_has_ he been hiding ever since?" i asked. "to be sure he has," retorted mr. dick, nodding his head gravely. "never came out, till last night! we were walking last night, and he came up behind her again, and i knew him again." "and did he frighten my aunt again?" "all of a shiver," said mr. dick, counterfeiting that affection and making his teeth chatter. "held by the palings. cried. but trotwood, come here," getting me close to him, that he might whisper very softly; "why did she give him money, boy, in the moonlight?" "he was a beggar, perhaps." mr. dick shook his head, as utterly renouncing the suggestion; and having replied a great many times, and with great confidence, "no beggar, no beggar, no beggar, sir!" went on to say, that from his window he had afterwards, and late at night, seen my aunt give this person money outside the garden rails in the moonlight, who then slunk away--into the ground again, as he thought probable--and was seen no more: while my aunt came hurriedly and secretly back into the house, and had, even that morning, been quite different from her usual self; which preyed on mr. dick's mind. i had not the least belief, in the outset of this story, that the unknown was anything but a delusion of mr. dick's, and one of the line of that ill-fated prince who occasioned him so much difficulty; but after some reflection i began to entertain the question whether an attempt, or threat of an attempt, might have been twice made to take poor mr. dick himself from under my aunt's protection, and whether my aunt, the strength of whose kind feeling towards him i knew from herself, might have been induced to pay a price for his peace and quiet. as i was already much attached to mr. dick, and very solicitous for his welfare, my fears favored this supposition; and for a long time his wednesday hardly ever came round, without my entertaining a misgiving that he would not be on the coach-box as usual. there he always appeared, however, grey-headed, laughing, and happy; and he never had anything more to tell of the man who could frighten my aunt. these wednesdays were the happiest days of mr. dick's life; they were far from being the least happy of mine. he soon became known to every boy in the school; and though he never took an active part in any game but kite-flying, was as deeply interested in all our sports as any one among us. how often have i seen him, intent upon a match at marbles or pegtop, looking on with a face of unutterable interest, and hardly breathing at the critical times! how often, at hare and hounds, have i seen him mounted on a little knoll, cheering the whole field on to action, and waving his hat above his grey head, oblivious of king charles the martyr's head, and all belonging to it! how many a summer-hour have i known to be but blissful minutes to him in the cricket-field! how many winter days have i seen him, standing blue-nosed in the snow and east wind, looking at the boys going down the long slide, and clapping his worsted gloves in rapture! he was an universal favorite, and his ingenuity in little things was transcendant. he could cut oranges into such devices as none of us had an idea of. he could make a boat out of anything, from a skewer upwards. he could turn crampbones into chessmen; fashion roman chariots from old court cards; make spoked wheels out of cotton reels, and birdcages of old wire. but he was greatest of all, perhaps, in the articles of string and straw; with which we were all persuaded he could do anything that could be done by hands. mr. dick's renown was not long confined to us. after a few wednesdays, doctor strong himself made some inquiries of me about him, and i told him all my aunt had told me; which interested the doctor so much that he requested, on the occasion of his next visit, to be presented to him. this ceremony i performed; and the doctor begging mr. dick, whensoever he should not find me at the coach-office, to come on there, and rest himself until our morning's work was over, it soon passed into a custom for mr. dick to come on as a matter of course, and, if we were a little late, as often happened on a wednesday, to walk about the courtyard, waiting for me. here he made the acquaintance of the doctor's beautiful young wife (paler than formerly, all this time; more rarely seen by me or any one, i think; and not so gay, but not less beautiful), and so became more and more familiar by degrees, until, at last, he would come into the school and wait. he always sat in a particular corner, on a particular stool, which was called "dick," after him; here he would sit, with his grey head bent forward, attentively listening to whatever might be going on, with a profound veneration for the learning he had never been able to acquire. this veneration mr. dick extended to the doctor, whom he thought the most subtle and accomplished philosopher of any age. it was long before mr. dick ever spoke to him otherwise than bare-headed; and even when he and the doctor had struck up quite a friendship, and would walk together by the hour, on that side of the courtyard which was known among us as the doctor's walk, mr. dick would pull off his hat at intervals to show his respect for wisdom and knowledge. how it ever came about, that the doctor began to read out scraps of the famous dictionary, in these walks, i never knew; perhaps he felt it all the same, at first, as reading to himself. however, it passed into a custom too; and mr. dick, listening with a face shining with pride and pleasure, in his heart of hearts believed the dictionary to be the most delightful book in the world. as i think of them going up and down before those school-room windows--the doctor reading with his complacent smile, an occasional flourish of the manuscript, or grave motion of his head; and mr. dick listening, enchained by interest, with his poor wits calmly wandering god knows where, upon the wings of hard words--i think of it as one of the pleasantest things, in a quiet way, that i have ever seen. i feel as if they might go walking to and fro for ever, and the world might somehow be the better for it--as if a thousand things it makes a noise about, were not one-half so good for it, or me. agnes was one of mr. dick's friends, very soon; and in often coming to the house, he made acquaintance with uriah. the friendship between himself and me increased continually, and it was maintained on this odd footing: that, while mr. dick came professedly to look after me as my guardian, he always consulted me in any little matter of doubt that arose, and invariably guided himself by my advice; not only having a high respect for my native sagacity, but considering that i inherited a good deal from my aunt. one thursday morning, when i was about to walk with mr. dick from the hotel to the coach-office before going back to school (for we had an hour's school before breakfast), i met uriah in the street, who reminded me of the promise i had made to take tea with himself and his mother: adding, with a writhe, "but i didn't expect you to keep it, master copperfield, we're so very umble." i really had not yet been able to make up my mind whether i liked uriah or detested him; and i was very doubtful about it still, as i stood looking him in the face in the street. but i felt it quite an affront to be supposed proud, and said i only wanted to be asked. "oh, if that's all, master copperfield," said uriah, "and it really isn't our umbleness that prevents you, will you come this evening? but if it is our umbleness, i hope you won't mind owning to it, master copperfield; for we are well aware of our condition." i said i would mention it to mr. wickfield, and if he approved, as i had no doubt he would, i would come with pleasure. so, at six o'clock that evening, which was one of the early office evenings, i announced myself as ready, to uriah. "mother will be proud indeed," he said, as we walked away together. "or she would be proud, if it wasn't sinful, master copperfield." "yet you didn't mind supposing _i_ was proud this morning," i returned. "oh dear no, master copperfield!" returned uriah. "oh, believe me, no! such a thought never came into my head! i shouldn't have deemed it at all proud if you had thought _us_ too umble for you. because we are so very umble." "have you been studying much law lately?" i asked, to change the subject. "oh, master copperfield," he said, with an air of self-denial, "my reading is hardly to be called study. i have passed an hour or two in the evening, sometimes, with mr. tidd." "rather hard, i suppose?" said i. "he is hard to _me_ sometimes," returned uriah. "but i don't know what he might be, to a gifted person." after beating a little tune on his chin as we walked on, with the two fore-fingers of his skeleton right hand, he added: "there are expressions, you see, master copperfield--latin words and terms--in mr. tidd, that are trying to a reader of my umble attainments." "would you like to be taught latin?" i said, briskly. "i will teach it you with pleasure, as i learn it." "oh, thank you, master copperfield," he answered, shaking his head. "i am sure it's very kind of you to make the offer, but i am much too umble to accept it." "what nonsense, uriah!" "oh, indeed you must excuse me, master copperfield! i am greatly obliged, and i should like it of all things, i assure you; but i am far too umble. there are people enough to tread upon me in my lowly state, without my doing outrage to their feelings by possessing learning. learning ain't for me. a person like myself had better not aspire. if he is to get on in life, he must get on umbly, master copperfield." i never saw his mouth so wide, or the creases in his cheeks so deep, as when he delivered himself of these sentiments: shaking his head all the time, and writhing modestly. "i think you are wrong, uriah," i said. "i dare say there are several things that i could teach you, if you would like to learn them." "oh, i don't doubt that, master copperfield," he answered; "not in the least. but not being umble yourself, you don't judge well, perhaps, for them that are. i won't provoke my betters with knowledge, thank you. i'm much too umble. here is my umble dwelling, master copperfield!" we entered a low, old-fashioned room, walked straight into from the street, and found there, mrs. heep, who was the dead image of uriah, only short. she received me with the utmost humility, and apologised to me for giving her son a kiss, observing that, lowly as they were, they had their natural affections, which they hoped would give no offence to any one. it was a perfectly decent room, half parlor and half kitchen, but not at all a snug room. the tea-things were set upon the table, and the kettle was boiling on the hob. there was a chest of drawers with an escrutoire top, for uriah to read or write at of an evening; there was uriah's blue bag lying down and vomiting papers; there was a company of uriah's books, commanded by mr. tidd; there was a corner cupboard; and there were the usual articles of furniture. i don't remember that any individual object had a bare, pinched, spare look; but i do remember that the whole place had. it was perhaps a part of mrs. heep's humility, that she still wore weeds. notwithstanding the lapse of time that had occurred since mr. heep's decease, she still wore weeds. i think there was some compromise in the cap; but otherwise she was as weedy as in the early days of her mourning. "this is a day to be remembered, my uriah, i am sure," said mrs. heep, making the tea, "when master copperfield pays us a visit." "i said you'd think so, mother," said uriah. "if i could have wished father to remain among us for any reason," said mrs. heep, "it would have been, that he might have known his company this afternoon." i felt embarrassed by these compliments; but i was sensible, too, of being entertained as an honored guest, and i thought mrs. heep an agreeable woman. "my uriah," said mrs. heep, "has looked forward to this, sir, a long while. he had his fears that our umbleness stood in the way, and i joined in them myself. umble we are, umble we have been, umble we shall ever be," said mrs. heep. "i am sure you have no occasion to be so, ma'am," i said, "unless you like." "thank you, sir," retorted mrs. heep. "we know our station and are thankful in it." i found that mrs. heep gradually got nearer to me, and that uriah gradually got opposite to me, and that they respectfully plied me with the choicest of the eatables on the table. there was nothing particularly choice there, to be sure; but i took the will for the deed, and felt that they were very attentive. presently they began to talk about aunts, and then i told them about mine; and about fathers and mothers, and then i told them about mine; and then mrs. heep began to talk about fathers-in-law, and then i began to tell her about mine--but stopped, because my aunt had advised me to observe a silence on that subject. a tender young cork, however, would have had no more chance against a pair of corkscrews, or a tender young tooth against a pair of dentists, or a little shuttlecock against two battledores, than i had against uriah and mrs. heep. they did just what they liked with me; and wormed things out of me that i had no desire to tell, with a certainty i blush to think of: the more especially as, in my juvenile frankness, i took some credit to myself for being so confidential, and felt that i was quite the patron of my two respectful entertainers. they were very fond of one another: that was certain. i take it that had its effect upon me, as a touch of nature; but the skill with which the one followed up whatever the other said, was a touch of art which i was still less proof against. when there was nothing more to be got out of me about myself (for on the murdstone and grinby life, and on my journey, i was dumb), they began about mr. wickfield and agnes. uriah threw the ball to mrs. heep, mrs. heep caught it and threw it back to uriah, uriah kept it up a little while, then sent it back to mrs. heep, and so they went on tossing it about until i had no idea who had got it, and was quite bewildered. the ball itself was always changing too. now it was mr. wickfield, now agnes, now the excellence of mr. wickfield, now my admiration of agnes; now the extent of mr. wickfield's business and resources, now our domestic life after dinner; now, the wine that mr. wickfield took, the reason why he took it, and the pity that it was he took so much; now one thing, now another, then everything at once; and all the time, without appearing to speak very often, or to do anything but sometimes encourage them a little, for fear they should be overcome by their humility and the honor of my company, i found myself perpetually letting out something or other that i had no business to let out, and seeing the effect of it in the twinkling of uriah's dinted nostrils. i had begun to be a little uncomfortable, and to wish myself well out of the visit, when a figure coming down the street passed the door--it stood open to air the room, which was warm, the weather being close for the time of year--came back again, looked in, and walked in, exclaiming loudly, "copperfield! is it possible!" [illustration: somebody turns up.] it was mr. micawber! it was mr. micawber, with his eye-glass, and his walking-stick, and his shirt-collar, and his genteel air, and the condescending roll in his voice, all complete! "my dear copperfield," said mr. micawber, putting out his hand, "this is indeed a meeting which is calculated to impress the mind with a sense of the instability and uncertainty of all human--in short, it is a most extraordinary meeting. walking along the street, reflecting upon the probability of something turning up (of which i am at present rather sanguine), i find a young, but valued friend turn up, who is connected with the most eventful period of my life; i may say, with the turning point of my existence. copperfield, my dear fellow, how do you do?" i cannot say--i really can_not_ say--that i was glad to see mr. micawber there; but i was glad to see him too, and shook hands with him heartily, inquiring how mrs. micawber was. "thank you," said mr. micawber, waving his hand as of old, and settling his chin in his shirt-collar. "she is tolerably convalescent. the twins no longer derive their sustenance from nature's founts--in short," said mr. micawber, in one of his bursts of confidence, "they are weaned--and mrs. micawber is, at present, my travelling companion. she will be rejoiced, copperfield, to renew her acquaintance with one who has proved himself in all respects a worthy minister at the sacred altar of friendship." i said i should be delighted to see her. "you are very good," said mr. micawber. mr. micawber then smiled, settled his chin again, and looked about him. "i have discovered my friend copperfield," said mr. micawber genteelly, and without addressing himself particularly to any one, "not in solitude, but partaking of a social meal in company with a widow lady, and one who is apparently her offspring--in short," said mr. micawber, in another of his bursts of confidence, "her son. i shall esteem it an honor to be presented." i could do no less, under these circumstances, than make mr. micawber known to uriah heep and his mother; which i accordingly did. as they abased themselves before him, mr. micawber took a seat, and waved his hand in his most courtly manner. "any friend of my friend copperfield's," said mr. micawber, "has a personal claim upon myself." "we are too umble, sir," said mrs. heep, "my son and me, to be the friends of master copperfield. he has been so good as take his tea with us, and we are thankful to him for his company; also to you, sir, for your notice." "ma'am," returned mr. micawber, with a bow, "you are very obliging: and what are you doing, copperfield? still in the wine trade?" i was excessively anxious to get mr. micawber away; and replied, with my hat in my hand, and a very red face i have no doubt, that i was a pupil at doctor strong's. "a pupil?" said mr. micawber, raising his eyebrows. "i am extremely happy to hear it. although a mind like my friend copperfield's"--to uriah and mrs. heep--"does not require that cultivation which, without his knowledge of men and things, it would require, still it is a rich soil teeming with latent vegetation--in short," said mr. micawber, smiling, in another burst of confidence, "it is an intellect capable of getting up the classics to any extent." uriah, with his long hands slowly twining over one another, made a ghastly writhe from the waist upwards, to express his concurrence in this estimation of me. "shall we go and see mrs. micawber, sir?" i said, to get mr. micawber away. "if you will do her that favor, copperfield," replied mr. micawber, rising. "i have no scruple in saying, in the presence of our friends here, that i am a man who has, for some years, contended against the pressure of pecuniary difficulties," i knew he was certain to say something of this kind; he always would be so boastful about his difficulties. "sometimes i have risen superior to my difficulties. sometimes my difficulties have--in short, have floored me. there have been times when i have administered a succession of facers to them; there have been times when they have been too many for me, and i have given in, and said to mrs. micawber in the words of cato, 'plato, thou reasonest well. it's all up now. i can show fight no more.' but at no time of my life," said mr. micawber, "have i enjoyed a higher degree of satisfaction than in pouring my griefs (if i may describe difficulties, chiefly arising out of warrants of attorney and promissory notes at two and four months, by that word) into the bosom of my friend copperfield." mr. micawber closed this handsome tribute by saying, "mr. heep! good evening. mrs. heep! your servant," and then walking out with me in his most fashionable manner, making a good deal of noise on the pavement with his shoes, and humming a tune as we went. it was a little inn where mr. micawber put up, and he occupied a little room in it, partitioned off from the commercial room, and strongly flavored with tobacco smoke. i think it was over the kitchen, because a warm greasy smell appeared to come up through the chinks in the floor, and there was a flabby perspiration on the walls. i know it was near the bar, on account of the smell of spirits and gingling of glasses. here, recumbent on a small sofa, underneath a picture of a race-horse, with her head close to the fire, and her feet pushing the mustard off the dumb-waiter at the other end of the room, was mrs. micawber, to whom mr. micawber entered first, saying, "my dear, allow me to introduce to you a pupil of doctor strong's." i noticed, by-the-by, that although mr. micawber was just as much confused as ever about my age and standing, he always remembered, as a genteel thing, that i was a pupil of doctor strong's. mrs. micawber was amazed, but very glad to see me. i was very glad to see her too, and after an affectionate greeting on both sides, sat down on the small sofa near her. "my dear," said mr. micawber, "if you will mention to copperfield what our present position is, which i have no doubt he will like to know, i will go and look at the paper the while, and see whether any thing turns up among the advertisements." "i thought you were at plymouth, ma'am," i said to mrs. micawber, as he went out. "my dear master copperfield," she replied, "we went to plymouth." "to be on the spot," i hinted. "just so," said mrs. micawber. "to be on the spot. but, the truth is, talent is not wanted in the custom house. the local influence of my family was quite unavailing to obtain any employment in that department, for a man of mr. micawber's abilities. they would rather _not_ have a man of mr. micawber's abilities. he would only show the deficiency of the others. apart from which," said mrs. micawber, "i will not disguise from you, my dear master copperfield, that when that branch of my family which is settled in plymouth became aware that mr. micawber was accompanied by myself, and by little wilkins and his sister, and by the twins, they did not receive him with that ardor which he might have expected, being so newly released from captivity. in fact," said mrs. micawber, lowering her voice,--"this is between ourselves--our reception was cool." "dear me!" i said. "yes," said mrs. micawber. "it is truly painful to contemplate mankind in such an aspect, master copperfield, but our reception was, decidedly, cool. there is no doubt about it. in fact, that branch of my family which is settled in plymouth became quite personal to mr. micawber, before we had been there a week." i said, and thought, that they ought to be ashamed of themselves. "still, so it was," continued mrs. micawber. "under such circumstances, what could a man of mr. micawber's spirit do? but one obvious course was left. to borrow, of that branch of my family, the money to return to london, and to return at any sacrifice." "then you all came back again, ma'am?" i said. "we all came back again," replied mrs. micawber. "since then, i have consulted other branches of my family on the course which it is most expedient for mr. micawber to take--for i maintain that he must take some course, master copperfield," said mrs. micawber, argumentatively. "it is clear that a family of six, not including a domestic, cannot live upon air." "certainly, ma'am," said i. "the opinion of those other branches of my family," pursued mrs. micawber, "is, that mr. micawber should immediately turn his attention to coals." "to what, ma'am?" "to coals," said mrs. micawber. "to the coal trade. mr. micawber was induced to think, on inquiry, that there might be an opening for a man of his talent in the medway coal trade. then, as mr. micawber very properly said, the first step to be taken clearly was, to come and _see_ the medway. which we came and saw. i say 'we,' master copperfield; for i never will," said mrs. micawber with emotion, "i never will desert mr. micawber." i murmured my admiration and approbation. "we came," repeated mrs. micawber, "and saw the medway. my opinion of the coal trade on that river, is, that it may require talent, but that it certainly requires capital. talent, mr. micawber has; capital, mr. micawber has not. we saw, i think, the greater part of the medway; and that is my individual conclusion. being so near here, mr. micawber was of opinion that it would be rash not to come on, and see the cathedral. firstly, on account of its being so well worth seeing, and our never having seen it; and secondly, on account of the great probability of something turning up in a cathedral town. we have been here," said mrs. micawber, "three days. nothing has, as yet, turned up; and it may not surprise you, my dear master copperfield, so much as it would a stranger, to know that we are at present waiting for a remittance from london, to discharge our pecuniary obligations at this hotel. until the arrival of that remittance," said mrs. micawber, with much feeling, "i am cut off from my home (i allude to lodgings in pentonville), from my boy and girl, and from my twins." i felt the utmost sympathy for mr. and mrs. micawber in this anxious extremity, and said as much to mr. micawber, who now returned: adding that i only wished i had money enough, to lend them the amount they needed. mr. micawber's answer expressed the disturbance of his mind. he said, shaking hands with me, "copperfield, you are a true friend; but when the worst comes to the worst, no man is without a friend who is possessed of shaving materials." at this dreadful hint mrs. micawber threw her arms round mr. micawber's neck and entreated him to be calm. he wept; but so far recovered, almost immediately, as to ring the bell for the waiter, and bespeak a hot kidney pudding and a plate of shrimps for breakfast in the morning. when i took my leave of them, they both pressed me so much to come and dine before they went away, that i could not refuse. but, as i knew i could not come next day, when i should have a good deal to prepare in the evening, mr. micawber arranged that he would call at doctor strong's in the course of the morning (having a presentiment that the remittance would arrive by that post), and propose the day after, if it would suit me better. accordingly i was called out of school next forenoon, and found mr. micawber in the parlor; who had called to say that the dinner would take place as proposed. when i asked him if the remittance had come, he pressed my hand and departed. as i was looking out of window that same evening, it surprised me, and made me rather uneasy, to see mr. micawber and uriah heep walk past, arm in arm: uriah humbly sensible of the honor that was done him, and mr. micawber taking a bland delight in extending his patronage to uriah. but i was still more surprised, when i went to the little hotel next day at the appointed dinner hour, which was four o'clock, to find, from what mr. micawber said, that he had gone home with uriah, and had drunk brandy-and-water at mrs. heep's. "and i'll tell you what, my dear copperfield," said mr. micawber, "your friend heep is a young fellow who might be attorney-general. if i had known that young man, at the period when my difficulties came to a crisis, all i can say is, that i believe my creditors would have been a great deal better managed than they were." i hardly understood how this could have been, seeing that mr. micawber had paid them nothing at all as it was; but i did not like to ask. neither did i like to say, that i hoped he had not been too communicative to uriah; or to inquire if they had talked much about me. i was afraid of hurting mr. micawber's feelings, or, at all events, mrs. micawber's, she being very sensitive; but i was uncomfortable about it, too, and often thought about it afterwards. we had a beautiful little dinner. quite an elegant dish of fish; the kidney-end of a loin of veal, roasted; fried sausage-meat; a partridge, and a pudding. there was wine, and there was strong ale; and after dinner mrs. micawber made us a bowl of hot punch with her own hands. mr. micawber was uncommonly convivial. i never saw him such good company. he made his face shine with the punch, so that it looked as if it had been varnished all over. he got cheerfully sentimental about the town, and proposed success to it; observing, that mrs. micawber and himself had been made extremely snug and comfortable there, and that he never should forget the agreeable hours they had passed in canterbury. he proposed me afterwards; and he, and mrs. micawber, and i, took a review of our past acquaintance, in the course of which we sold the property all over again. then i proposed mrs. micawber; or, at least, said, modestly, "if you'll allow me, mrs. micawber, i shall now have the pleasure of drinking _your_ health, ma'am." on which mr. micawber delivered an eulogium on mrs. micawber's character, and said she had ever been his guide, philosopher, and friend, and that he would recommend me, when i came to a marrying time of life, to marry such another woman, if such another woman could be found. as the punch disappeared, mr. micawber became still more friendly and convivial. mrs. micawber's spirits becoming elevated, too, we sang "auld lang syne." when we came to "here's a hand, my trusty frere," we all joined hands round the table; and when we declared we would "take a right gude willie waught," and hadn't the least idea what it meant, we were really affected. in a word, i never saw any body so thoroughly jovial as mr. micawber was, down to the very last moment of the evening, when i took a hearty farewell of himself and his amiable wife. consequently, i was not prepared, at seven o'clock next morning, to receive the following communication, dated half-past nine in the evening; a quarter of an hour after i had left him. "my dear young friend, "the die is cast--all is over. hiding the ravages of care with a sickly mask of mirth, i have not informed you, this evening, that there is no hope of the remittance! under these circumstances, alike humiliating to endure, humiliating to contemplate, and humiliating to relate, i have discharged the pecuniary liability contracted at this establishment, by giving a note of hand, made payable fourteen days after date, at my residence, pentonville, london. when it becomes due, it will not be taken up. the result is destruction. the bolt is impending, and the tree must fall. "let the wretched man who now addresses you, my dear copperfield, be a beacon to you through life. he writes with that intention, and in that hope. if he could think himself of so much use, one gleam of day might, by possibility, penetrate into the cheerless dungeon of his remaining existence--though his longevity is, at present (to say the least of it), extremely problematical. "this is the last communication, my dear copperfield, you will ever receive "from "the "beggared outcast, "wilkins micawber." i was so shocked by the contents of this heart-rending letter, that i ran off directly towards the little hotel with the intention of taking it on my way to doctor strong's, and trying to soothe mr. micawber with a word of comfort. but, half-way there, i met the london coach with mr. and mrs. micawber up behind; mr. micawber, the very picture of tranquil enjoyment, smiling at mrs. micawber's conversation, eating walnuts out of a paper bag, with a bottle sticking out of his breast pocket. as they did not see me, i thought it best, all things considered, not to see them. so, with a great weight taken off my mind, i turned into a by-street that was the nearest way to school, and felt, upon the whole, relieved that they were gone; though i still liked them very much, nevertheless. chapter xviii. a retrospect. my school-days! the silent gliding on of my existence--the unseen, unfelt progress of my life--from childhood up to youth! let me think, as i look back upon that flowing water, now a dry channel overgrown with leaves, whether there are any marks along its course, by which i can remember how it ran. a moment, and i occupy my place in the cathedral, where we all went together, every sunday morning, assembling first at school for that purpose. the earthy smell, the sunless air, the sensation of the world being shut out, the resounding of the organ through the black and white arched galleries and aisles, are wings that take me back, and hold me hovering above those days, in a half-sleeping and half-waking dream. i am not the last boy in the school. i have risen, in a few months, over several heads. but the first boy seems to me a mighty creature, dwelling afar off, whose giddy height is unattainable. agnes says "no," but i say "yes," and tell her that she little thinks what stores of knowledge have been mastered by the wonderful being, at whose place she thinks i, even i, weak aspirant, may arrive in time. he is not my private friend and public patron, as steerforth was, but i hold him in a reverential respect. i chiefly wonder what he'll be, when he leaves doctor strong's, and what mankind will do to maintain any place against him. but who is this that breaks upon me? this is miss shepherd, whom i love. miss shepherd is a boarder at the misses nettingalls' establishment. i adore miss shepherd. she is a little girl, in a spencer, with a round face and curly flaxen hair. the misses nettingalls' young ladies come to the cathedral too. i cannot look upon my book, for i must look upon miss shepherd. when the choristers chaunt, i hear miss shepherd. in the service i mentally insert miss shepherd's name--i put her in among the royal family. at home, in my own room, i am sometimes moved to cry out, "oh, miss shepherd!" in a transport of love. for some time, i am doubtful of miss shepherd's feelings, but, at length, fate being propitious, we meet at the dancing-school. i have miss shepherd for my partner. i touch miss shepherd's glove, and feel a thrill go up the right arm of my jacket, and come out at my hair. i say nothing tender to miss shepherd, but we understand each other. miss shepherd and myself live but to be united. why do i secretly give miss shepherd twelve brazil nuts for a present, i wonder? they are not expressive of affection, they are difficult to pack into a parcel of any regular shape, they are hard to crack, even in room doors, and they are oily when cracked; yet i feel that they are appropriate to miss shepherd. soft, seedy biscuits, also, i bestow upon miss shepherd; and oranges innumerable. once, i kiss miss shepherd in the cloak room. ecstacy! what are my agony and indignation next day, when i hear a flying rumour that the misses nettingall have stood miss shepherd in the stocks for turning in her toes! miss shepherd being the one pervading theme and vision of my life, how do i ever come to break with her? i can't conceive. and yet a coolness grows between miss shepherd and myself. whispers reach me of miss shepherd having said she wished i wouldn't stare so, and having avowed a preference for master jones--for jones! a boy of no merit whatever! the gulf between me and miss shepherd widens. at last, one day, i meet the misses nettingalls' establishment out walking. miss shepherd makes a face as she goes by, and laughs to her companion. all is over. the devotion of a life--it seems a life, it is all the same--is at an end; miss shepherd comes out of the morning service, and the royal family know her no more. i am higher in the school, and no one breaks my peace. i am not at all polite, now, to the misses nettingalls' young ladies, and shouldn't dote on any of them, if they were twice as many and twenty times as beautiful. i think the dancing-school a tiresome affair, and wonder why the girls can't dance by themselves and leave us alone. i am growing great in latin verses, and neglect the laces of my boots. doctor strong refers to me in public as a promising young scholar. mr. dick is wild with joy, and my aunt remits me a guinea by the next post. the shade of a young butcher rises, like the apparition of an armed head in macbeth. who is this young butcher? he is the terror of the youth of canterbury. there is a vague belief abroad, that the beef suet with which he anoints his hair gives him unnatural strength, and that he is a match for a man. he is a broad-faced, bull-necked young butcher, with rough red cheeks, an ill-conditioned mind, and an injurious tongue. his main use of this tongue, is, to disparage doctor strong's young gentlemen. he says, publicly, that if they want anything he'll give it 'em. he names individuals among them (myself included), whom he could undertake to settle with one hand, and the other tied behind him. he waylays the smaller boys to punch their unprotected heads, and calls challenges after me in the open streets. for these sufficient reasons i resolve to fight the butcher. it is a summer evening, down in a green hollow, at the corner of a wall. i meet the butcher by appointment. i am attended by a select body of our boys; the butcher, by two other butchers, a young publican, and a sweep. the preliminaries are adjusted, and the butcher and myself stand face to face. in a moment the butcher lights ten thousand candles out of my left eyebrow. in another moment, i don't know where the wall is, or where i am, or where anybody is. i hardly know which is myself and which the butcher, we are always in such a tangle and tustle, knocking about upon the trodden grass. sometimes i see the butcher, bloody but confident; sometimes i see nothing, and sit gasping on my second's knee; sometimes i go in at the butcher madly, and cut my knuckles open against his face, without appearing to discompose him at all. at last i awake, very queer about the head, as from a giddy sleep, and see the butcher walking off, congratulated by the two other butchers and the sweep and publican, and putting on his coat as he goes; from which i augur, justly, that the victory is his. i am taken home in a sad plight, and i have beef-steaks put to my eyes, and am rubbed with vinegar and brandy, and find a great white puffy place bursting out on my upper lip, which swells immoderately. for three or four days i remain at home, a very ill-looking subject, with a green shade over my eyes; and i should be very dull, but that agnes is a sister to me, and condoles with me, and reads to me, and makes the time light and happy. agnes has my confidence completely, always; i tell her all about the butcher, and the wrongs he has heaped upon me; and she thinks i couldn't have done otherwise than fight the butcher, while she shrinks and trembles at my having fought him. time has stolen on unobserved, for adams is not the head-boy in the days that are come now, nor has he been this many and many a day. adams has left the school so long, that when he comes back, on a visit to doctor strong, there are not many there, besides myself, who know him. adams is going to be called to the bar almost directly, and is to be an advocate, and to wear a wig. i am surprised to find him a meeker man than i had thought, and less imposing in appearance. he has not staggered the world yet, either; for it goes on (as well as i can make out) pretty much the same as if he had never joined it. a blank, through which the warriors of poetry and history march on in stately hosts that seem to have no end--and what comes next! _i_ am the head boy, now; and look down on the line of boys below me, with a condescending interest in such of them as bring to my mind the boy i was myself, when i first came there. that little fellow seems to be no part of me; i remember him as something left behind upon the road of life--as something i have passed, rather than have actually been--and almost think of him as of some one else. and the little girl i saw on that first day at mr. wickfield's, where is she? gone also. in her stead, the perfect likeness of the picture, a child likeness no more, moves about the house; and agnes--my sweet sister, as i call her in my thoughts, my counsellor and friend, the better angel of the lives of all who come within her calm, good, self-denying influence--is quite a woman. what other changes have come upon me, besides the changes in my growth and looks, and in the knowledge i have garnered all this while? i wear a gold watch and chain, a ring upon my little finger, and a long-tailed coat; and i use a great deal of bear's grease--which, taken in conjunction with the ring, looks bad. am i in love again? i am. i worship the eldest miss larkins. the eldest miss larkins is not a little girl. she is a tall, dark, black-eyed, fine figure of a woman. the eldest miss larkins is not a chicken; for the youngest miss larkins is not that, and the eldest must be three or four years older. perhaps the eldest miss larkins may be about thirty. my passion for her is beyond all bounds. the eldest miss larkins knows officers. it is an awful thing to bear. i see them speaking to her in the street. i see them cross the way to meet her, when her bonnet (she has a bright taste in bonnets) is seen coming down the pavement, accompanied by her sister's bonnet. she laughs and talks, and seems to like it. i spend a good deal of my own spare time in walking up and down to meet her. if i can bow to her once in the day (i know her to bow to, knowing mr. larkins), i am happier. i deserve a bow now and then. the raging agonies i suffer on the night of the race ball, where i know the eldest miss larkins will be dancing with the military, ought to have some compensation, if there be even-handed justice in the world. my passion takes away my appetite, and makes me wear my newest silk neck-kerchief continually. i have no relief but in putting on my best clothes, and having my boots cleaned over and over again. i seem, then, to be worthier of the eldest miss larkins. everything that belongs to her, or is connected with her, is precious to me. mr. larkins (a gruff old gentleman with a double chin, and one of his eyes immoveable in his head) is fraught with interest to me. when i can't meet his daughter, i go where i am likely to meet him. to say "how do you do, mr. larkins? are the young ladies and all the family quite well?" seems so pointed, that i blush. i think continually about my age. say i am seventeen, and say that seventeen is young for the eldest miss larkins, what of that? besides, i shall be one-and-twenty in no time almost. i regularly take walks outside mr. larkins's house in the evening, though it cuts me to the heart to see the officers go in, or to hear them up in the drawing-room, where the eldest miss larkins plays the harp. i even walk, on two or three occasions, in a sickly, spoony manner, round and round the house after the family are gone to bed, wondering which is the eldest miss larkins's chamber (and pitching, i dare say now, on mr. larkins's instead); wishing that a fire would burst out; that the assembled crowd would stand appalled; that i, dashing through them with a ladder, might rear it against her window, save her in my arms, go back for something she had left behind, and perish in the flames. for i am generally disinterested in my love, and think i could be content to make a figure before miss larkins, and expire. --generally, but not always. sometimes brighter visions rise before me. when i dress (the occupation of two hours), for a great ball given at the larkins's (the anticipation of three weeks), i indulge my fancy with pleasing images. i picture myself taking courage to make a declaration to miss larkins. i picture miss larkins sinking her head upon my shoulder, and saying, "oh, mr. copperfield, can i believe my ears!" i picture mr. larkins waiting on me next morning, and saying, "my dear copperfield, my daughter has told me all. youth is no objection. here are twenty thousand pounds. be happy!" i picture my aunt relenting, and blessing us; and mr. dick and doctor strong being present at the marriage ceremony. i am a sensible fellow, i believe--i believe, on looking back, i mean--and modest i am sure; but all this goes on notwithstanding. i repair to the enchanted house, where there are lights, chattering, music, flowers, officers (i am sorry to see), and the eldest miss larkins, a blaze of beauty. she is dressed in blue, with blue flowers in her hair--forget-me-nots--as if _she_ had any need to wear forget-me-nots! it is the first really grown-up party that i have ever been invited to, and i am a little uncomfortable; for i appear not to belong to anybody, and nobody appears to have anything to say to me, except mr. larkins, who asks me how my schoolfellows are, which he needn't do, as i have not come there to be insulted. but after i have stood in the doorway for some time, and feasted my eyes upon the goddess of my heart, she approaches me--she, the eldest miss larkins!--and asks me, pleasantly, if i dance. i stammer, with a bow, "with you, miss larkins." "with no one else?" enquires miss larkins. "i should have no pleasure in dancing with any one else." miss larkins laughs and blushes (or i think she blushes), and says, "next time but one, i shall be very glad." the time arrives. "it is a waltz, i think," miss larkins doubtfully observes, when i present myself. "do you waltz? if not, captain bailey--" but i do waltz (pretty well, too, as it happens), and i take miss larkins out. i take her sternly from the side of captain bailey. he is wretched, i have no doubt; but he is nothing to me. i have been wretched, too. i waltz with the eldest miss larkins! i don't know where, among whom, or how long. i only know that i swim about in space, with a blue angel, in a state of blissful delirium, until i find myself alone with her in a little room, resting on a sofa. she admires a flower (pink camelia japonica, price half-a-crown), in my button hole. i give it her, and say: "i ask an inestimable price for it, miss larkins." "indeed! what is that?" returns miss larkins. "a flower of yours, that i may treasure it as a miser does gold." "you're a bold boy," says miss larkins. "there." she gives it me, not displeased; and i put it to my lips, and then into my breast. miss larkins, laughing, draws her hand through my arm, and says, "now take me back to captain bailey." i am lost in the recollection of this delicious interview, and the waltz, when she comes to me again, with a plain elderly gentleman, who has been playing whist all night, upon her arm, and says: "oh! here is my bold friend! mr. chestle wants to know you, mr. copperfield." i feel at once that he is a friend of the family, and am much gratified. "i admire your taste, sir," says mr. chestle. "it does you credit. i suppose you don't take much interest in hops; but i am a pretty large grower myself; and if you ever like to come over to our neighbourhood--neighbourhood of ashford--and take a run about our place, we shall be glad for you to stop as long as you like." i thank mr. chestle warmly, and shake hands. i think i am in a happy dream. i waltz with the eldest miss larkins once again--she says i waltz so well! i go home in a state of unspeakable bliss, and waltz in imagination, all night long, with my arm round the blue waist of my dear divinity. for some days afterwards, i am lost in rapturous reflections; but i neither see her in the street, nor when i call. i am imperfectly consoled for this disappointment by the sacred pledge, the perished flower. "trotwood," says agnes, one day after dinner. "who do you think is going to be married to-morrow? some one you admire." "not you, i suppose, agnes?" "not me!" raising her cheerful face from the music she is copying. "do you hear him, papa?--the eldest miss larkins." "to--to captain bailey?" i have just power enough to ask. "no; to no captain. to mr. chestle, a hop-grower." i am terribly dejected for about a week or two. i take off my ring, i wear my worst clothes, i use no bear's grease, and i frequently lament over the late miss larkins's faded flower. being, by that time, rather tired of this kind of life, and having received new provocation from the butcher, i throw the flower away, go out with the butcher, and gloriously defeat him. this, and the resumption of my ring, as well as of the bear's grease in moderation, are the last marks i can discern, now, in my progress to seventeen. chapter xix. i look about me, and make a discovery. i am doubtful whether i was at heart glad or sorry, when my school-days drew to an end, and the time came for my leaving doctor strong's. i had been very happy there, i had a great attachment for the doctor, and i was eminent and distinguished in that little world. for these reasons i was sorry to go; but for other reasons, unsubstantial enough, i was glad. misty ideas of being a young man at my own disposal, of the importance attaching to a young man at his own disposal, of the wonderful things to be seen and done by that magnificent animal, and the wonderful effects he could not fail to make upon society, lured me away. so powerful were these visionary considerations in my boyish mind, that i seem, according to my present way of thinking, to have left school without natural regret. the separation has not made the impression on me, that other separations have. i try in vain to recal how i felt about it, and what its circumstances were; but it is not momentous in my recollection. i suppose the opening prospect confused me. i know that my juvenile experiences went for little or nothing then; and that life was more like a great fairy story, which i was just about to begin to read, than anything else. my aunt and i had held many grave deliberations on the calling to which i should be devoted. for a year or more i had endeavoured to find a satisfactory answer to her often-repeated question, "what i would like to be?" but i had no particular liking, that i could discover, for anything. if i could have been inspired with a knowledge of the science of navigation, taken the command of a fast-sailing expedition, and gone round the world on a triumphant voyage of discovery, i think i might have considered myself completely suited. but, in the absence of any such miraculous provision, my desire was to apply myself to some pursuit that would not lie too heavily upon her purse; and to do my duty in it, whatever it might be. mr. dick had regularly assisted at our councils, with a meditative and sage demeanour. he never made a suggestion but once; and on that occasion (i don't know what put it in his head), he suddenly proposed that i should be "a brazier." my aunt received this proposal so very ungraciously, that he never ventured on a second; but ever afterwards confined himself to looking watchfully at her for her suggestions, and rattling his money. "trot, i tell you what, my dear," said my aunt, one morning in the christmas season when i left school; "as this knotty point is still unsettled, and as we must not make a mistake in our decision if we can help it, i think we had better take a little breathing-time. in the meanwhile, you must try to look at it from a new point of view, and not as a schoolboy." "i will, aunt." "it has occurred to me," pursued my aunt, "that a little change, and a glimpse of life out of doors, may be useful, in helping you to know your own mind, and form a cooler judgment. suppose you were to take a little journey now. suppose you were to go down into the old part of the country again, for instance, and see that--that out-of-the-way woman with the savagest of names," said my aunt, rubbing her nose, for she could never thoroughly forgive peggotty for being so called. "of all things in the world, aunt, i should like it best!" "well," said my aunt, "that's lucky, for i should like it too. but it's natural and rational that you should like it. and i am very well persuaded that whatever you do, trot, will always be natural and rational." "i hope so, aunt." "your sister, betsey trotwood," said my aunt, "would have been as natural and rational a girl as ever breathed. you'll be worthy of her, won't you?" "i hope i shall be worthy of _you_, aunt. that will be enough for me." "it's a mercy that poor dear baby of a mother of yours didn't live," said my aunt, looking at me approvingly, "or she'd have been so vain of her boy by this time, that her soft little head would have been completely turned, if there was anything of it left to turn." (my aunt always excused any weakness of her own in my behalf, by transferring it in this way to my poor mother.) "bless me, trotwood, how you do remind me of her!" "pleasantly, i hope, aunt?" said i. "he's as like her, dick," said my aunt, emphatically, "he's as like her, as she was that afternoon, before she began to fret--bless my heart, he's as like her, as he can look at me out of his two eyes!" "is he indeed?" said mr. dick. "and he's like david, too," said my aunt, decisively. "he is very like david!" said mr. dick. "but what i want you to be, trot," resumed my aunt "--i don't mean physically, but morally; you are very well physically--is, a firm fellow. a fine firm fellow, with a will of your own. with resolution," said my aunt, shaking her cap at me, and clenching her hand. "with determination. with character, trot--with strength of character that is not to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody, or by anything. that's what i want you to be. that's what your father and mother might both have been, heaven knows, and been the better for it." i intimated that i hoped i should be what she described. "that you may begin, in a small way, to have a reliance upon yourself, and to act for yourself," said my aunt, "i shall send you upon your trip, alone. i did think, once, of mr. dick's going with you; but, on second thoughts, i shall keep him to take care of me." mr. dick, for a moment, looked a little disappointed; until the honor and dignity of having to take care of the most wonderful woman in the world, restored the sunshine to his face. "besides," said my aunt, "there's the memorial--" "oh, certainly," said mr. dick, in a hurry, "i intend, trotwood, to get that done immediately--it really must be done immediately! and then it will go in, you know--and then--," said mr. dick, after checking himself, and pausing a long time, "there'll be a pretty kettle of fish!" in pursuance of my aunt's kind scheme, i was shortly afterwards fitted out with a handsome purse of money, and a portmanteau, and tenderly dismissed upon my expedition. at parting, my aunt gave me some good advice, and a good many kisses; and said that as her object was that i should look about me, and should think a little, she would recommend me to stay a few days in london, if i liked it, either on my way down into suffolk, or in coming back. in a word, i was at liberty to do what i would, for three weeks or a month; and no other conditions were imposed upon my freedom than the before-mentioned thinking and looking about me, and a pledge to write three times a week and faithfully report myself. i went to canterbury first, that i might take leave of agnes and mr. wickfield (my old room in whose house i had not yet relinquished), and also of the good doctor. agnes was very glad to see me, and told me that the house had not been like itself since i had left it. "i am sure i am not like myself when i am away," said i. "i seem to want my right hand, when i miss you. though that's not saying much; for there's no head in my right hand, and no heart. every one who knows you, consults with you, and is guided by you, agnes." "every one who knows me, spoils me, i believe," she answered, smiling. "no. it's because you are like no one else. you are so good, and so sweet-tempered. you have such a gentle nature, and you are always right." "you talk," said agnes, breaking into a pleasant laugh, as she sat at work, "as if i were the late miss larkins." "come! it's not fair to abuse my confidence," i answered, reddening at the recollection of my blue enslaver. "but i shall confide in you, just the same, agnes. i can never grow out of that. whenever i fall into trouble, or fall in love, i shall always tell you, if you'll let me--even when i come to fall in love in earnest." "why, you have always been in earnest!" said agnes, laughing again. "oh! that was as a child, or a school-boy," said i, laughing in my turn, not without being a little shame-faced. "times are altering now, and i suppose i shall be in a terrible state of earnestness one day or other. my wonder is, that you are not in earnest yourself, by this time, agnes." agnes laughed again, and shook her head. "oh, i know you are not!" said i, "because if you had been, you would have told me. or at least"--for i saw a faint blush in her face, "you would have let me find it out for myself. but there is no one that i know of, who deserves to love _you_, agnes. some one of a nobler character, and more worthy altogether than any one i have ever seen here, must rise up, before i give _my_ consent. in the time to come, i shall have a wary eye on all admirers; and shall exact a great deal from the successful one, i assure you." we had gone on, so far, in a mixture of confidential jest and earnest, that had long grown naturally out of our familiar relations, begun as mere children. but agnes, now suddenly lifting up her eyes to mine, and speaking in a different manner, said: "trotwood, there is something that i want to ask you, and that i may not have another opportunity of asking for a long time, perhaps--something i would ask, i think, of no one else. have you observed any gradual alteration in papa?" i had observed it, and had often wondered whether she had too. i must have shown as much, now, in my face; for her eyes were in a moment cast down, and i saw tears in them. "tell me what it is," she said, in a low voice. "i think--shall i be quite plain, agnes, liking him so much?" "yes," she said. "i think he does himself no good by the habit that has increased upon him since i first came here. he is often very nervous--or i fancy so." "it is not fancy," said agnes, shaking her head. "his hand trembles, his speech is not plain, and his eyes look wild. i have remarked that at those times, and when he is least like himself, he is most certain to be wanted on some business." "by uriah," said agnes. "yes; and the sense of being unfit for it, or of not having understood it, or of having shown his condition in spite of himself, seems to make him so uneasy, that next day he is worse, and next day worse, and so he becomes jaded and haggard. do not be alarmed by what i say, agnes, but in this state i saw him, only the other evening, lay down his head upon his desk, and shed tears like a child." her hand passed softly before my lips while i was yet speaking, and in a moment she had met her father at the door of the room, and was hanging on his shoulder. the expression of her face, as they both looked towards me, i felt to be very touching. there was such deep fondness for him, and gratitude to him for all his love and care, in her beautiful look; and there was such a fervent appeal to me to deal tenderly by him, even in my inmost thoughts, and to let no harsh construction find any place against him; she was, at once, so proud of him and devoted to him, yet so compassionate and sorry, and so reliant upon me to be so, too; that nothing she could have said would have expressed more to me, or moved me more. we were to drink tea at the doctor's. we went there at the usual hour; and round the study-fireside found the doctor, and his young wife, and her mother. the doctor, who made as much of my going away as if i were going to china, received me as an honored guest; and called for a log of wood to be thrown on the fire, that he might see the face of his old pupil reddening in the blaze. "i shall not see many more new faces in trotwood's stead, wickfield," said the doctor, warming his hands; "i am getting lazy, and want ease. i shall relinquish all my young people in another six months, and lead a quieter life." "you have said so, any time these ten years, doctor," mr. wickfield answered. "but now i mean to do it," returned the doctor. "my first master will succeed me--i am in earnest at last--so you'll soon have to arrange our contracts, and to bind us firmly to them, like a couple of knaves." "and to take care," said mr. wickfield, "that you're not imposed on, eh?--as you certainly would be, in any contract you should make for yourself. well! i am ready. there are worse tasks than that, in my calling." "i shall have nothing to think of then," said the doctor, with a smile, "but my dictionary; and this other contract-bargain--annie." as mr. wickfield glanced towards her, sitting at the tea-table by agnes, she seemed to me to avoid his look with such unwonted hesitation and timidity, that his attention became fixed upon her, as if something were suggested to his thoughts. "there is a post come in from india, i observe," he said, after a short silence. "by-the-by! and letters from mr. jack maldon!" said the doctor. "indeed?" "poor dear jack!" said mrs. markleham, shaking her head. "that trying climate!--like living, they tell me, on a sand-heap, underneath a burning-glass! he looked strong, but he wasn't. my dear doctor, it was his spirit, not his constitution, that he ventured on so boldly. annie, my dear, i am sure you must perfectly recollect that your cousin never was strong--not what can be called _robust_, you know," said mrs. markleham, with emphasis, and looking round upon us generally "--from the time when my daughter and himself were children together, and walking about, arm in arm, the livelong day." annie, thus addressed, made no reply. "do i gather from what you say, ma'am, that mr. maldon is ill?" asked mr. wickfield. "ill!" replied the old soldier. "my dear sir, he is all sorts of things." "except well?" said mr. wickfield. "except well, indeed!" said the old soldier. "he has had dreadful strokes of the sun, no doubt, and jungle fevers and agues, and every kind of thing you can mention. as to his liver," said the old soldier resignedly, "that, of course, he gave up altogether, when he first went out!" "does he say all this?" asked mr. wickfield. "say? my dear sir," returned mrs. markleham, shaking her head and her fan, "you little know my poor jack maldon when you ask that question. say? not he. you might drag him at the heels of four wild horses first." "mama!" said mrs. strong. "annie, my dear," returned her mother, "once for all, i must really beg that you will not interfere with me, unless it is to confirm what i say. you know as well as i do, that your cousin maldon would be dragged at the heels of any number of wild horses--why should i confine myself to four! i _won't_ confine myself to four--eight, sixteen, two-and-thirty, rather than say anything calculated to overturn the doctor's plans." "wickfield's plans," said the doctor, stroking his face, and looking penitently at his adviser. "that is to say, our joint plans for him. i said myself, abroad or at home." "and i said," added mr. wickfield gravely, "abroad. i was the means of sending him abroad. it's my responsibility." "oh! responsibility!" said the old soldier. "every thing was done for the best, my dear mr. wickfield; every thing was done for the kindest and best, we know. but if the dear fellow can't live there, he can't live there. and if he can't live there, he'll die there, sooner than he'll overturn the doctor's plans. i know him," said the old soldier, fanning herself, in a sort of calm prophetic agony, "and i know he'll die there, sooner than he'll overturn the doctor's plans." "well, well, ma'am," said the doctor, cheerfully, "i am not bigoted to my plans, and i can overturn them myself. i can substitute some other plans. if mr. jack maldon comes home on account of ill health, he must not be allowed to go back, and we must endeavour to make some more suitable and fortunate provision for him in this country." mrs. markleham was so overcome by this generous speech--which, i need not say, she had not at all expected or led up to--that she could only tell the doctor it was like himself, and go several times through that operation of kissing the sticks of her fan, and then tapping his hand with it. after which she gently chid her daughter annie, for not being more demonstrative when such kindnesses were showered, for her sake, on her old playfellow; and entertained us with some particulars concerning other deserving members of her family, whom it was desirable to set on their deserving legs. all this time, her daughter annie never once spoke, or lifted up her eyes. all this time, mr. wickfield had his glance upon her as she sat by his own daughter's side. it appeared to me that he never thought of being observed by any one; but was so intent upon her, and upon his own thoughts in connexion with her, as to be quite absorbed. he now asked what mr. jack maldon had actually written in reference to himself, and to whom he had written it? "why, here," said mrs. markleham, taking a letter from the chimney-piece above the doctor's head, "the dear fellow says to the doctor himself--where is it? oh!--'i am sorry to inform you that my health is suffering severely, and that i fear i may be reduced to the necessity of returning home for a time, as the only hope of restoration.' that's pretty plain, poor fellow! his only hope of restoration! but annie's letter is plainer still. annie, show me that letter again." "not now, mama," she pleaded in a low tone. "my dear, you absolutely are, on some subjects, one of the most ridiculous persons in the world," returned her mother, "and perhaps the most unnatural to the claims of your own family. we never should have heard of the letter at all, i believe, unless i had asked for it myself. do you call that confidence, my love, towards doctor strong? i am surprised. you ought to know better." the letter was reluctantly produced; and as i handed it to the old lady, i saw how the unwilling hand from which i took it, trembled. "now let us see," said mrs. markleham, putting her glass to her eye, "where the passage is. 'the remembrance of old times, my dearest annie'--and so forth--it's not there. 'the amiable old proctor'--who's he? dear me, annie, how illegibly your cousin maldon writes, and how stupid i am! 'doctor,' of course. ah! amiable indeed!" here she left off, to kiss her fan again, and shake it at the doctor, who was looking at us in a state of placid satisfaction. "now i have found it. '_you_ may not be surprised to hear, annie'--no, to be sure, knowing that he never was really strong; what did i say just now?--'that i have undergone so much in this distant place, as to have decided to leave it at all hazards; on sick leave, if i can; on total resignation, if that is not to be obtained. what i have endured, and do endure here, is insupportable.' and but for the promptitude of that best of creatures," said mrs. markleham, telegraphing the doctor as before, and refolding the letter, "it would be insupportable to me to think of." mr. wickfield said not one word, though the old lady looked to him as if for his commentary on this intelligence; but sat severely silent, with his eyes fixed on the ground. long after the subject was dismissed, and other topics occupied us, he remained so; seldom raising his eyes, unless to rest them for a moment, with a thoughtful frown, upon the doctor, or his wife, or both. the doctor was very fond of music. agnes sang with great sweetness and expression, and so did mrs. strong. they sang together, and played duets together, and we had quite a little concert. but i remarked two things: first, that though annie soon recovered her composure, and was quite herself, there was a blank between her and mr. wickfield which separated them wholly from each other; secondly, that mr. wickfield seemed to dislike the intimacy between her and agnes, and to watch it with uneasiness. and now, i must confess, the recollection of what i had seen on that night when mr. maldon went away, first began to return upon me with a meaning it had never had, and to trouble me. the innocent beauty of her face was not as innocent to me as it had been; i mistrusted the natural grace and charm of her manner; and when i looked at agnes by her side, and thought how good and true agnes was, suspicions arose within me that it was an ill-assorted friendship. she was so happy in it herself, however, and the other was so happy too, that they made the evening fly away as if it were but an hour. it closed in an incident which i well remember. they were taking leave of each other, and agnes was going to embrace her and kiss her, when mr. wickfield stepped between them, as if by accident, and drew agnes quickly away. then i saw, as though all the intervening time had been cancelled, and i were still standing in the doorway on the night of the departure, the expression of that night in the face of mrs. strong, as it confronted his. i cannot say what an impression this made upon me, or how impossible i found it, when i thought of her afterwards, to separate her from this look, and remember her face in its innocent loveliness again. it haunted me when i got home. i seemed to have left the doctor's roof with a dark cloud lowering on it. the reverence that i had for his grey head, was mingled with commiseration for his faith in those who were treacherous to him, and with resentment against those who injured him. the impending shadow of a great affliction, and a great disgrace that had no distinct form in it yet, fell like a stain upon the quiet place where i had worked and played as a boy, and did it a cruel wrong. i had no pleasure in thinking, any more, of the grave old broad-leaved aloe-trees which remained shut up in themselves a hundred years together, and of the trim smooth grass-plot, and the stone urns, and the doctor's walk, and the congenial sound of the cathedral bell hovering above them all. it was as if the tranquil sanctuary of my boyhood had been sacked before my face, and its peace and honor given to the winds. but morning brought with it my parting from the old house, which agnes had filled with her influence; and that occupied my mind sufficiently. i should be there again soon, no doubt; i might sleep again--perhaps often--in my old room; but the days of my inhabiting there were gone, and the old time was past. i was heavier at heart when i packed up such of my books and clothes as still remained there to be sent to dover, than i cared to show to uriah heep: who was so officious to help me, that i uncharitably thought him mighty glad that i was going. i got away from agnes and her father, somehow, with an indifferent show of being very manly, and took my seat upon the box of the london coach. i was so softened and forgiving, going through the town, that i had half a mind to nod to my old enemy the butcher, and throw him five shillings to drink. but he looked such a very obdurate butcher as he stood scraping the great block in the shop, and moreover, his appearance was so little improved by the loss of a front tooth which i had knocked out, that i thought it best to make no advances. the main object on my mind, i remember, when we got fairly on the road, was to appear as old as possible to the coachman, and to speak extremely gruff. the latter point i achieved at great personal inconvenience; but i stuck to it, because i felt it was a grown-up sort of thing. "you are going through, sir?" said the coachman. "yes, william," i said, condescendingly (i knew him); "i am going to london. i shall go down into suffolk afterwards." "shooting, sir?" said the coachman. he knew as well as i did that it was just as likely, at that time of year, i was going down there whaling; but i felt complimented, too. "i don't know," i said, pretending to be undecided, "whether i shall take a shot or not." "birds is got wery shy, i'm told," said william. "so i understand," said i. "is suffolk your county, sir?" asked william. "yes," i said, with some importance, "suffolk's my county." "i'm told the dumplings is uncommon fine down there," said william. i was not aware of it myself, but i felt it necessary to uphold the institutions of my county, and to evince a familiarity with them; so i shook my head, as much as to say "i believe you!" "and the punches," said william. "there's cattle! a suffolk punch, when he's a good un, is worth his weight in gold. did you ever breed any suffolk punches yourself, sir?" "n--no," i said, "not exactly." "here's a gen'lm'n behind me, i'll pound it," said william, "as has bred 'em by wholesale." the gentleman spoken of was a gentleman with a very unpromising squint, and a prominent chin, who had a tall white hat on with a narrow flat brim, and whose close-fitting drab trousers seemed to button all the way up outside his legs from his boots to his hips. his chin was cocked over the coachman's shoulder, so near to me, that his breath quite tickled the back of my head; and as i looked round at him, he leered at the leaders with the eye with which he didn't squint, in a very knowing manner. "ain't you?" said william. "ain't i what?" asked the gentleman behind. "bred them suffolk punches by wholesale?" "i should think so," said the gentleman. "there ain't no sort of orse that i ain't bred, and no sort of dorg. orses and dorgs is some men's fancy. they're wittles and drink to me--lodging, wife, and children--reading, writing, and 'rithmetic--snuff, tobacker, and sleep." "that ain't a sort of man to see sitting behind a coach-box, is it though?" said william in my ear, as he handled the reins. i construed this remark into an indication of a wish that he should have my place, so i blushingly offered to resign it. "well, if you don't mind, sir," said william, "i think it _would_ be more correct." i have always considered this as the first fall i had in life. when i booked my place at the coach-office, i had had "box seat" written against the entry, and had given the book-keeper half-a-crown. i was got up in a special great coat and shawl, expressly to do honor to that distinguished eminence; had glorified myself upon it a good deal; and had felt that i was a credit to the coach. and here, in the very first stage, i was supplanted by a shabby man with a squint, who had no other merit than smelling like a livery-stables, and being able to walk across me, more like a fly than a human being, while the horses were at a canter! [illustration: my first fall in life.] a distrust of myself, which has often beset me in life on small occasions, when it would have been better away, was assuredly not stopped in its growth by this little incident outside the canterbury coach. it was in vain to take refuge in gruffness of speech. i spoke from the pit of my stomach for the rest of the journey, but i felt completely extinguished, and dreadfully young. it was curious and interesting, nevertheless, to be sitting up there, behind four horses: well educated, well dressed, and with plenty of money in my pocket: and to look out for the places where i had slept on my weary journey. i had abundant occupation for my thoughts, in every conspicuous landmark on the road. when i looked down at the trampers whom we passed, and saw that well-remembered style of face turned up, i felt as if the tinker's blackened hand were in the bosom of my shirt again. when we clattered through the narrow street of chatham, and i caught a glimpse, in passing, of the lane where the old monster lived who had bought my jacket, i stretched my neck eagerly to look for the place where i had sat, in the sun and in the shade, waiting for my money. when we came, at last, within a stage of london, and passed the veritable salem house where mr. creakle had laid about him with a heavy hand, i would have given all i had, for lawful permission to get down and thrash him, and let all the boys out like so many caged sparrows. we went to the golden cross at charing cross, then a mouldy sort of establishment in a close neighbourhood. a waiter showed me into the coffee-room; and a chambermaid introduced me to my small bedchamber, which smelt like a hackney-coach, and was shut up like a family vault. i was still painfully conscious of my youth, for nobody stood in any awe of me at all: the chambermaid being utterly indifferent to my opinions on any subject, and the waiter being familiar with me, and offering advice to my inexperience. "well now," said the waiter, in a tone of confidence, "what would you like for dinner? young gentlemen likes poultry in general, have a fowl!" i told him, as majestically as i could, that i wasn't in the humour for a fowl. "ain't you!" said the waiter. "young gentlemen is generally tired of beef and mutton, have a weal cutlet!" i assented to this proposal, in default of being able to suggest anything else. "do you care for taters?" said the waiter, with an insinuating smile, and his head on one side. "young gentlemen generally has been overdosed with taters." i commanded him, in my deepest voice, to order a veal cutlet and potatoes, and all things fitting; and to inquire at the bar if there were any letters for trotwood copperfield, esquire--which i knew there were not, and couldn't be, but thought it manly to appear to expect. he soon came back to say that there were none (at which i was much surprised), and began to lay the cloth for my dinner in a box by the fire. while he was so engaged, he asked me what i would take with it; and on my replying "half a pint of sherry," thought it a favourable opportunity, i am afraid, to extract that measure of wine from the stale leavings at the bottoms of several small decanters. i am of this opinion, because, while i was reading the newspaper, i observed him behind a low wooden partition, which was his private apartment, very busy pouring out of a number of those vessels into one, like a chemist and druggist making up a prescription. when the wine came, too, i thought it flat; and it certainly had more english crumbs in it, than were to be expected in a foreign wine in anything like a pure state; but i was bashful enough to drink it, and say nothing. being, then, in a pleasant frame of mind (from which i infer that poisoning is not always disagreeable in some stages of the process), i resolved to go to the play. it was covent garden theatre that i chose; and there, from the back of a centre box, i saw julius cæsar and the new pantomime. to have all those noble romans alive before me, and walking in and out for my entertainment, instead of being the stern taskmasters they had been at school, was a most novel and delightful effect. but the mingled reality and mystery of the whole show, the influence upon me of the poetry, the lights, the music, the company, the smooth stupendous changes of glittering and brilliant scenery, were so dazzling, and opened up such illimitable regions of delight, that when i came out into the rainy street, at twelve o'clock at night, i felt as if i had come from the clouds, where i had been leading a romantic life for ages, to a bawling, splashing, link-lighted, umbrella-struggling, hackney-coach-jostling, patten-clinking, muddy, miserable world. i had emerged by another door, and stood in the street for a little while, as if i really were a stranger upon earth: but the unceremonious pushing and hustling that i received, soon recalled me to myself, and put me in the road back to the hotel; whither i went, revolving the glorious vision all the way; and where, after some porter and oysters, i sat revolving it still, at past one o'clock, with my eyes on the coffee-room fire. i was so filled with the play, and with the past--for it was, in a manner, like a shining transparency, through which i saw my earlier life moving along--that i don't know when the figure of a handsome well-formed young man, dressed with a tasteful easy negligence which i have reason to remember very well, became a real presence to me. but i recollect being conscious of his company without having noticed his coming in--and my still sitting, musing, over the coffee-room fire. at last i rose to go to bed, much to the relief of the sleepy waiter, who had got the fidgets in his legs, and was twisting them, and hitting them, and putting them through all kinds of contortions in his small pantry. in going towards the door, i passed the person who had come in, and saw him plainly. i turned directly, came back, and looked again. he did not know me, but i knew him in a moment. at another time i might have wanted the confidence or the decision to speak to him, and might have put it off until next day, and might have lost him. but, in the then condition of my mind, where the play was still running high, his former protection of me appeared so deserving of my gratitude, and my old love for him overflowed my breast so freshly and spontaneously, that i went up to him at once, with a fast-beating heart, and said: "steerforth! won't you speak to me?" he looked at me--just as he used to look, sometimes--but i saw no recognition in his face. "you don't remember me, i am afraid," said i. "my god!" he suddenly exclaimed. "it's little copperfield!" i grasped him by both hands, and could not let them go. but for very shame, and the fear that it might displease him, i could have held him round the neck and cried. "i never, never, never was so glad! my dear steerforth, i am so overjoyed to see you!" "and i am rejoiced to see you, too!" he said, shaking my hands heartily. "why, copperfield, old boy, don't be overpowered!" and yet he was glad, too, i thought, to see how the delight i had in meeting him affected me. i brushed away the tears that my utmost resolution had not been able to keep back, and i made a clumsy laugh of it, and we sat down together, side by side. "why, how do you come to be here?" said steerforth, clapping me on the shoulder. "i came here by the canterbury coach, to-day. i have been adopted by an aunt down in that part of the country, and have just finished my education there. how do _you_ come to be here, steerforth?" "well, i am what they call an oxford man," he returned; "that is to say, i get bored to death down there, periodically--and i am on my way now to my mother's. you're a devilish amiable-looking fellow, copperfield. just what you used to be, now i look at you! not altered in the least!" "i knew _you_ immediately," i said; "but you are more easily remembered." he laughed as he ran his hand through the clustering curls of his hair, and said gaily: "yes, i am on an expedition of duty. my mother lives a little way out of town; and the roads being in a beastly condition, and our house tedious enough, i remained here to-night instead of going on. i have not been in town half-a-dozen hours, and those i have been dozing and grumbling away at the play." "i have been at the play, too," said i. "at covent garden. what a delightful and magnificent entertainment, steerforth!" steerforth laughed heartily. --"my dear young davy," he said, clapping me on the shoulder again, "you are a very daisy. the daisy of the field, at sunrise, is not fresher than you are! i have been at covent garden, too, and there never was a more miserable business.--holloa, you sir!" this was addressed to the waiter, who had been very attentive to our recognition, at a distance, and now came forward deferentially. "where have you put my friend, mr. copperfield?" said steerforth. "beg your pardon, sir?" "where does he sleep? what's his number? you know what i mean," said steerforth. "well, sir," said the waiter, with an apologetic air. "mr. copperfield is at present in forty-four, sir." "and what the devil do you mean," retorted steerforth, "by putting mr. copperfield into a little loft over a stable?" "why, you see we wasn't aware, sir," returned the waiter, still apologetically, "as mr. copperfield was anyways particular. we can give mr. copperfield seventy-two, sir, if it would be preferred. next you, sir." "of course it would be preferred," said steerforth. "and do it at once." the waiter immediately withdrew to make the exchange. steerforth, very much amused at my having been put into forty-four, laughed again, and clapped me on the shoulder again, and invited me to breakfast with him next morning at ten o'clock--an invitation i was only too proud and happy to accept. it being now pretty late, we took our candles and went up-stairs, where we parted with friendly heartiness at his door, and where i found my new room a great improvement on my old one, it not being at all musty, and having an immense four-post bedstead in it, which was quite a little landed estate. here, among pillows enough for six, i soon fell asleep in a blissful condition, and dreamed of ancient rome, steerforth, and friendship, until the early morning coaches, rumbling out of the archway underneath, made me dream of thunder and the gods. chapter xx. steerforth's home. when the chambermaid tapped at my door at eight o'clock, and informed me that my shaving-water was outside, i felt severely the having no occasion for it, and blushed in my bed. the suspicion that she laughed too, when she said it, preyed upon my mind all the time i was dressing; and gave me, i was conscious, a sneaking and guilty air when i passed her on the staircase, as i was going down to breakfast. i was so sensitively aware, indeed, of being younger than i could have wished, that for some time i could not make up my mind to pass her at all, under the ignoble circumstances of the case; but, hearing her there with a broom, stood peeping out of window at king charles on horseback, surrounded by a maze of hackney-coaches and looking anything but regal in a drizzling rain and a dark-brown fog, until i was admonished by the waiter that the gentleman was waiting for me. it was not in the coffee-room that i found steerforth expecting me, but in a snug private apartment, red-curtained and turkey-carpeted, where the fire burnt bright, and a fine hot breakfast was set forth on a table covered with a clean cloth; and a cheerful miniature of the room, the fire, the breakfast, steerforth, and all, was shining in the little round mirror over the sideboard. i was rather bashful at first, steerforth being so self-possessed, and elegant, and superior to me in all respects (age included); but his easy patronage soon put that to rights, and made me quite at home. i could not enough admire the change he had wrought in the golden cross; or compare the dull forlorn state i had held yesterday, with this morning's comfort and this morning's entertainment. as to the waiter's familiarity, it was quenched as if it had never been. he attended on us, as i may say, in sackcloth and ashes. "now, copperfield," said steerforth, when we were alone, "i should like to hear what you are doing, and where you are going, and all about you. i feel as if you were my property." glowing with pleasure to find that he had still this interest in me, i told him how my aunt had proposed the little expedition that i had before me, and whither it tended. "as you are in no hurry, then," said steerforth, "come home with me to highgate, and stay a day or two. you will be pleased with my mother--she is a little vain and prosy about me, but that you can forgive her--and she will be pleased with you." "i should like to be as sure of that, as you are kind enough to say you are," i answered, smiling. "oh!" said steerforth, "every one who likes me, has a claim on her that is sure to be acknowledged." "then i think i shall be a favorite," said i. "good!" said steerforth. "come and prove it. we will go and see the lions for an hour or two--it's something to have a fresh fellow like you to show them to, copperfield--and then we'll journey out to highgate by the coach." i could hardly believe but that i was in a dream, and that i should wake presently in number forty-four, to the solitary box in the coffee-room and the familiar waiter again. after i had written to my aunt and told her of my fortunate meeting with my admired old schoolfellow, and my acceptance of his invitation, we went out in a hackney-chariot, and saw a panorama and some other sights, and took a walk through the museum, where i could not help observing how much steerforth knew, on an infinite variety of subjects, and of how little account he seemed to make his knowledge. "you'll take a high degree at college, steerforth," said i, "if you have not done so already; and they will have good reason to be proud of you." "_i_ take a degree!" cried steerforth. "not i! my dear daisy--will you mind my calling you daisy?" "not at all!" said i. "that's a good fellow! my dear daisy," said steerforth, laughing, "i have not the least desire or intention to distinguish myself in that way. i have done quite sufficient for my purpose. i find that i am heavy company enough for myself, as i am." "but the fame----" i was beginning. "you romantic daisy!" said steerforth, laughing still more heartily; "why should i trouble myself, that a parcel of heavy-headed fellows may gape and hold up their hands? let them do it at some other man. there's fame for him, and he's welcome to it." i was abashed at having made so great a mistake, and was glad to change the subject. fortunately it was not difficult to do, for steerforth could always pass from one subject to another with a carelessness and lightness that were his own. lunch succeeded to our sight-seeing, and the short winter day wore away so fast, that it was dusk when the stage-coach stopped with us at an old brick house at highgate on the summit of the hill. an elderly lady, though not very far advanced in years, with a proud carriage and a handsome face, was in the doorway as we alighted; and greeting steerforth as "my dearest james," folded him in her arms. to this lady he presented me as his mother, and she gave me a stately welcome. it was a genteel old-fashioned house, very quiet and orderly. from the windows of my room i saw all london lying in the distance like a great vapour, with here and there some lights twinkling through it. i had only time, in dressing, to glance at the solid furniture, the framed pieces of work (done, i supposed, by steerforth's mother when she was a girl), and some pictures in crayons of ladies with powdered hair and boddices, coming and going on the walls, as the newly-kindled fire crackled and sputtered, when i was called to dinner. there was a second lady in the dining-room, of a slight short figure, dark, and not agreeable to look at, but with some appearance of good looks too, who attracted my attention: perhaps because i had not expected to see her; perhaps because i found myself sitting opposite to her; perhaps because of something really remarkable in her. she had black hair and eager black eyes, and was thin, and had a scar upon her lip. it was an old scar--i should rather call it, seam, for it was not discolored, and had healed years ago--which had once cut through her mouth, downward towards the chin, but was now barely visible across the table, except above and on her upper lip, the shape of which it had altered. i concluded in my own mind that she was about thirty years of age, and that she wished to be married. she was a little dilapidated--like a house--with having been so long to let; yet had, as i have said, an appearance of good looks. her thinness seemed to be the effect of some wasting fire within her, which found a vent in her gaunt eyes. she was introduced as miss dartle, and both steerforth and his mother called her rosa. i found that she lived there, and had been for a long time mrs. steerforth's companion. it appeared to me that she never said anything she wanted to say, outright; but hinted it, and made a great deal more of it by this practice. for example, when mrs. steerforth observed, more in jest than earnest, that she feared her son led but a wild life at college, miss dartle put in thus: "oh, really? you know how ignorant i am, and that i only ask for information, but isn't it always so? i thought that kind of life was on all hands understood to be--eh?" "it is education for a very grave profession, if you mean that, rosa," mrs. steerforth answered with some coldness. "oh! yes! that's very true," returned miss dartle. "but isn't it, though?--i want to be put right if i am wrong--isn't it really?" "really what?" said mrs. steerforth. "oh! you mean it's _not_!" returned miss dartle. "well, i'm very glad to hear it! now, i know what to do. that's the advantage of asking. i shall never allow people to talk before me about wastefulness and profligacy, and so forth, in connection with that life, any more." "and you will be right," said mrs. steerforth. "my son's tutor is a conscientious gentleman; and if i had not implicit reliance on my son, i should have reliance on him." "should you?" said miss dartle. "dear me! conscientious, is he? really conscientious, now?" "yes, i am convinced of it," said mrs. steerforth. "how very nice!" exclaimed miss dartle. "what a comfort! really conscientious? then he's not--but of course he can't be, if he's really conscientious. well, i shall be quite happy in my opinion of him, from this time. you can't think how it elevates him in my opinion, to know for certain that he's really conscientious!" her own views of every question, and her correction of everything that was said to which she was opposed, miss dartle insinuated in the same way: sometimes, i could not conceal from myself, with great power, though in contradiction even of steerforth. an instance happened before dinner was done. mrs. steerforth speaking to me about my intention of going down into suffolk, i said at hazard how glad i should be, if steerforth would only go there with me; and explaining to him that i was going to see my old nurse, and mr. peggotty's family, i reminded him of the boatman whom he had seen at school. "oh! that bluff fellow!" said steerforth. "he had a son with him, hadn't he?" "no. that was his nephew," i replied; "whom he adopted, though, as a son. he has a very pretty little niece too, whom he adopted as a daughter. in short, his house (or rather his boat, for he lives in one, on dry land) is full of people who are objects of his generosity and kindness. you would be delighted to see that household." "should i?" said steerforth. "well, i think i should. i must see what can be done. it would be worth a journey--not to mention the pleasure of a journey with you, daisy,--to see that sort of people together, and to make one of 'em." my heart leaped with a new hope of pleasure. but it was in reference to the tone in which he had spoken of "that sort of people," that miss dartle, whose sparkling eyes had been watchful of us, now broke in again. "oh, but, really? do tell me. are they, though?" she said. "are they what? and are who what?" said steerforth. "that sort of people.--are they really animals and clods, and beings of another order? i want to know _so_ much." "why, there's a pretty wide separation between them and us," said steerforth, with indifference. "they are not to be expected to be as sensitive as we are. their delicacy is not to be shocked, or hurt very easily. they are wonderfully virtuous, i dare say--some people contend for that, at least; and i am sure i don't want to contradict them--but they have not very fine natures, and they may be thankful that, like their coarse rough skins, they are not easily wounded." "really!" said miss dartle. "well, i don't know, now, when i have been better pleased than to hear that. it's so consoling! it's such a delight to know that, when they suffer, they don't feel! sometimes i have been quite uneasy for that sort of people; but now i shall just dismiss the idea of them, altogether. live and learn. i had my doubts, i confess, but now they're cleared up. i didn't know, and now i do know; and that shows the advantage of asking--don't it?" i believed that steerforth had said what he had, in jest, or to draw miss dartle out; and i expected him to say as much when she was gone, and we two were sitting before the fire. but he merely asked me what i thought of her. "she is very clever, is she not?" i asked. "clever! she brings everything to a grindstone," said steerforth, "and sharpens it, as she has sharpened her own face and figure these years past. she has worn herself away by constant sharpening. she is all edge." "what a remarkable scar that is upon her lip!" i said. steerforth's face fell, and he paused a moment. "why, the fact is," he returned, "--_i_ did that." "by an unfortunate accident!" "no. i was a young boy, and she exasperated me, and i threw a hammer at her. a promising young angel i must have been!" i was deeply sorry to have touched on such a painful theme, but that was useless now. "she has borne the mark ever since, as you see," said steerforth; "and she'll bear it to her grave, if she ever rests in one--though i can hardly believe she will ever rest anywhere. she was the motherless child of a sort of cousin of my father's. he died one day. my mother, who was then a widow, brought her here to be company to her. she has a couple of thousand pounds of her own, and saves the interest of it every year, to add to the principal. there's the history of miss rosa dartle for you." "and i have no doubt she loves you like a brother?" said i. "humph!" retorted steerforth, looking at the fire. "some brothers are not loved over much; and some love--but help yourself, copperfield! we'll drink the daisies of the field, in compliment to you; and the lilies of the valley that toil not, neither do they spin, in compliment to me--the more shame for me!" a moody smile that had overspread his features cleared off as he said this merrily, and he was his own frank, winning self again. i could not help glancing at the scar with a painful interest when we went in to tea. it was not long before i observed that it was the most susceptible part of her face, and that, when she turned pale, that mark altered first, and became a dull, lead-colored streak, lengthening out to its full extent, like a mark in invisible ink brought to the fire. there was a little altercation between her and steerforth about a cast of the dice at backgammon--when i thought her, for one moment, in a storm of rage; and then i saw it start forth like the old writing on the wall. it was no matter of wonder to me to find mrs. steerforth devoted to her son. she seemed to be able to speak or think about nothing else. she showed me his picture as an infant, in a locket, with some of his baby-hair in it; she showed me his picture as he had been when i first knew him; and she wore at her breast his picture as he was now. all the letters he had ever written to her, she kept in a cabinet near her own chair by the fire; and she would have read me some of them, and i should have been very glad to hear them too, if he had not interposed, and coaxed her out of the design. "it was at mr. creakle's, my son tells me, that you first became acquainted," said mrs. steerforth, as she and i were talking at one table, while they played backgammon at another. "indeed, i recollect his speaking, at that time, of a pupil younger than himself who had taken his fancy there; but your name, as you may suppose, has not lived in my memory." "he was very generous and noble to me in those days, i assure you, ma'am," said i, "and i stood in need of such a friend. i should have been quite crushed without him." "he is always generous and noble," said mrs. steerforth, proudly. i subscribed to this with all my heart, god knows. she knew i did; for the stateliness of her manner already abated towards me, except when she spoke in praise of him, and then her air was always lofty. "it was not a fit school generally for my son," said she; "far from it; but there were particular circumstances to be considered at the time, of more importance even than that selection. my son's high spirit made it desirable that he should be placed with some man who felt its superiority, and would be content to bow himself before it; and we found such a man there." i knew that, knowing the fellow. and yet i did not despise him the more for it, but thought it a redeeming quality in him--if he could be allowed any grace for not resisting one so irresistible as steerforth. "my son's great capacity was tempted on, there, by a feeling of voluntary emulation and conscious pride," the fond lady went on to say. "he would have risen against all constraint; but he found himself the monarch of the place, and he haughtily determined to be worthy of his station. it was like himself." i echoed, with all my heart and soul, that it was like himself. "so my son took, of his own will, and on no compulsion, to the course in which he can always, when it is his pleasure, outstrip every competitor," she pursued. "my son informs me, mr. copperfield, that you were quite devoted to him, and that when you met yesterday you made yourself known to him with tears of joy. i should be an affected woman if i made any pretence of being surprised by my son's inspiring such emotions; but i cannot be indifferent to any one who is so sensible of his merit, and i am very glad to see you here, and can assure you that he feels an unusual friendship for you, and that you may rely on his protection." miss dartle played backgammon as eagerly as she did everything else. if i had seen her, first, at the board, i should have fancied that her figure had got thin, and her eyes had got large, over that pursuit, and no other in the world. but i am very much mistaken if she missed a word of this, or lost a look of mine as i received it with the utmost pleasure, and, honored by mrs. steerforth's confidence, felt older than i had done since i left canterbury. when the evening was pretty far spent, and a tray of glasses and decanters came in, steerforth promised, over the fire, that he would seriously think of going down into the country with me. there was no hurry, he said; a week hence would do; and his mother hospitably said the same. while we were talking, he more than once called me daisy; which brought miss dartle out again. "but really, mr. copperfield," she asked, "is it a nick-name? and why does he give it you? is it--eh?--because he thinks you young and innocent? i am so stupid in these things." i colored in replying that i believed it was. "oh!" said miss dartle. "now i am glad to know that! i ask for information, and i am glad to know it. he thinks you young and innocent; and so you are his friend. well, that's quite delightful!" she went to bed soon after this, and mrs. steerforth retired too. steerforth and i, after lingering for half an hour over the fire, talking about traddles and all the rest of them at old salem house, went up-stairs together. steerforth's room was next to mine, and i went in to look at it. it was a picture of comfort, full of easy chairs, cushions and footstools, worked by his mother's hand, and with no sort of thing omitted that could help to render it complete. finally, her handsome features looked down on her darling from a portrait on the wall, as if it were even something to her that her likeness should watch him while he slept. i found the fire burning clear enough in my room by this time, and the curtains drawn before the windows and round the bed, giving it a very snug appearance. i sat down in a great chair upon the hearth to meditate on my happiness; and had enjoyed the contemplation of it for some time, when i found a likeness of miss dartle looking eagerly at me from above the chimney-piece. it was a startling likeness, and necessarily had a startling look. the painter hadn't made the scar, but _i_ made it; and there it was, coming and going: now confined to the upper lip as i had seen it at dinner, and now showing the whole extent of the wound inflicted by the hammer, as i had seen it when she was passionate. i wondered peevishly why they couldn't put her anywhere else instead of quartering her on me. to get rid of her, i undressed quickly, extinguished my light, and went to bed. but, as i fell asleep, i could not forget that she was still there looking, "is it really, though? i want to know;" and when i awoke in the night, i found that i was uneasily asking all sorts of people in my dreams whether it really was or not--without knowing what i meant. chapter xxi. little em'ly. there was a servant in that house, a man who, i understood, was usually with steerforth, and had come into his service at the university, who was in appearance a pattern of respectability. i believe there never existed in his station a more respectable-looking man. he was taciturn, soft-footed, very quiet in his manner, deferential, observant, always at hand when wanted, and never near when not wanted; but his great claim to consideration was his respectability. he had not a pliant face, he had rather a stiff neck, rather a tight smooth head with short hair clinging to it at the sides, a soft way of speaking, with a peculiar habit of whispering the letter s so distinctly, that he seemed to use it oftener than any other man; but every peculiarity that he had he made respectable. if his nose had been upside-down, he would have made that respectable. he surrounded himself with an atmosphere of respectability, and walked secure in it. it would have been next to impossible to suspect him of anything wrong, he was so thoroughly respectable. nobody could have thought of putting him in a livery, he was so highly respectable. to have imposed any derogatory work upon him, would have been to inflict a wanton insult on the feelings of a most respectable man. and of this, i noticed the women-servants in the household were so intuitively conscious, that they always did such work themselves, and generally while he read the paper by the pantry fire. such a self-contained man i never saw. but in that quality, as in every other he possessed, he only seemed to be the more respectable. even the fact that no one knew his christian name, seemed to form a part of his respectability. nothing could be objected against his surname littimer, by which he was known. peter might have been hanged, or tom transported; but littimer was perfectly respectable. it was occasioned, i suppose, by the reverend nature of respectability in the abstract, but i felt particularly young in this man's presence. how old he was himself i could not guess--and that again went to his credit on the same score; for in the calmness of respectability he might have numbered fifty years as well as thirty. littimer was in my room in the morning before i was up, to bring me that reproachful shaving-water, and to put out my clothes. when i undrew the curtains and looked out of bed, i saw him, in an equable temperature of respectability, unaffected by the east wind of january, and not even breathing frostily, standing my boots right and left in the first dancing position, and blowing specks of dust off my coat as he laid it down like a baby. i gave him good morning, and asked him what o'clock it was. he took out of his pocket the most respectable hunting-watch i ever saw, and preventing the spring with his thumb from opening far, looked in at the face as if he were consulting an oracular oyster, shut it up again, and said, if i pleased, it was halfpast eight. "mr. steerforth will be glad to hear how you have rested, sir." "thank you," said i, "very well indeed. is mr. steerforth quite well?" "thank you, sir, mr. steerforth is tolerably well." another of his characteristics,--no use of superlatives. a cool calm medium always. "is there anything more i can have the honor of doing for you, sir? the warning-bell will ring at nine; the family take breakfast at halfpast nine." "nothing, i thank you." "i thank _you_, sir, if you please;" and with that, and with a little inclination of his head when he passed the bedside, as an apology for correcting me, he went out, shutting the door as delicately as if i had just fallen into a sweet sleep on which my life depended. every morning we held exactly this conversation: never any more, and never any less: and yet, invariably, however far i might have been lifted out of myself over-night, and advanced towards maturer years, by steerforth's companionship, or mrs. steerforth's confidence, or miss dartle's conversation, in the presence of this most respectable man i became, as our smaller poets sing, "a boy again." he got horses for us; and steerforth, who knew every thing, gave me lessons in riding. he provided foils for us, and steerforth gave me lessons in fencing--gloves, and i began, of the same master, to improve in boxing. it gave me no manner of concern that steerforth should find me a novice in these sciences, but i never could bear to show my want of skill before the respectable littimer. i had no reason to believe that littimer understood such arts himself; he never led me to suppose anything of the kind, by so much as the vibration of one of his respectable eyelashes; yet whenever he was by, while we were practising, i felt myself the greenest and most inexperienced of mortals. i am particular about this man, because he made a particular effect on me at that time, and because of what took place thereafter. the week passed away in a most delightful manner. it passed rapidly, as may be supposed, to one entranced as i was; and yet it gave me so many occasions for knowing steerforth better, and admiring him more in a thousand respects, that at its close i seemed to have been with him for a much longer time. a dashing way he had of treating me like a plaything, was more agreeable to me than any behaviour he could have adopted. it reminded me of our old acquaintance; it seemed the natural sequel of it; it showed me that he was unchanged; it relieved me of any uneasiness i might have felt, in comparing my merits with his, and measuring my claims upon his friendship by any equal standard; above all, it was a familiar, unrestrained, affectionate demeanor that he used towards no one else. as he had treated me at school differently from all the rest, i joyfully believed that he treated me in life unlike any other friend he had. i believed that i was nearer to his heart than any other friend, and my own heart warmed with attachment to him. he made up his mind to go with me into the country, and the day arrived for our departure. he had been doubtful at first whether to take littimer or not, but decided to leave him at home. the respectable creature, satisfied with his lot whatever it was, arranged our portmanteaus on the little carriage that was to take us into london, as if they were intended to defy the shocks of ages; and received my modestly proffered donation with perfect tranquillity. we bade adieu to mrs. steerforth and miss dartle, with many thanks on my part, and much kindness on the devoted mother's. the last thing i saw was littimer's unruffled eye; fraught, as i fancied, with the silent conviction that i was very young indeed. what i felt, in returning so auspiciously to the old familiar places, i shall not endeavour to describe. we went down by the mail. i was so concerned, i recollect, even for the honor of yarmouth, that when steerforth said, as we drove through its dark streets to the inn, that, as well as he could make out, it was a good, queer, out-of-the-way kind of hole, i was highly pleased. we went to bed on our arrival (i observed a pair of dirty shoes and gaiters in connexion with my old friend the dolphin as we passed that door), and breakfasted late in the morning. steerforth, who was in great spirits, had been strolling about the beach before i was up, and had made acquaintance, he said, with half the boatmen in the place. moreover he had seen, in the distance, what he was sure must be the identical house of mr. peggotty, with smoke coming out of the chimney; and had had a great mind, he told me, to walk in and swear he was myself grown out of knowledge. "when do you propose to introduce me there, daisy?" he said. "i am at your disposal. make your own arrangements." "why, i was thinking that this evening would be a good time, steerforth, when they are all sitting round the fire. i should like you to see it when it's snug, it's such a curious place." "so be it!" returned steerforth. "this evening." "i shall not give them any notice that we are here, you know," said i, delighted. "we must take them by surprise." "oh, of course! it's no fun," said steerforth, "unless we take them by surprise. let us see the natives in their aboriginal condition." "though they _are_ that sort of people that you mentioned," i returned. "aha! what! you recollect my skirmishes with rosa, do you?" he exclaimed with a quick look. "confound the girl, i am half afraid of her. she's like a goblin to me. but never mind her. now what are you going to do? you are going to see your nurse, i suppose?" "why, yes," i said, "i must see peggotty first of all." "well," replied steerforth, looking at his watch. "suppose i deliver you up to be cried over for a couple of hours. is that long enough?" i answered, laughing, that i thought we might get through it in that time, but that he must come also; for he would find that his renown had preceded him, and that he was almost as great a personage as i was. "i'll come anywhere you like," said steerforth, "or do anything you like. tell me where to come to; and in two hours i'll produce myself in any state you please, sentimental or comical." i gave him minute directions for finding the residence of mr. barkis, carrier to blunderstone and elsewhere, and, on this understanding, went out alone. there was a sharp bracing air; the ground was dry; the sea was crisp and clear; the sun was diffusing abundance of light, if not much warmth; and everything was fresh and lively. i was so fresh and lively myself, in the pleasure of being there, that i could have stopped the people in the streets and shaken hands with them. the streets looked small, of course. the streets that we have only seen as children, always do, i believe, when we go back to them. but i had forgotten nothing in them, and found nothing changed, until i came to mr. omer's shop. omer and joram was now written up, where omer used to be; but the inscription, draper, tailor, haberdasher, funeral furnisher, &c., remained as it was. my footsteps seemed to tend so naturally to the shop-door, after i had read these words from over the way, that i went across the road and looked in. there was a pretty woman at the back of the shop, dancing a little child in her arms, while another little fellow clung to her apron. i had no difficulty in recognising either minnie or minnie's children. the glass-door of the parlor was not open; but in the workshop across the yard i could faintly hear the old tune playing, as if it had never left off. "is mr. omer at home?" said i, entering. "i should like to see him, for a moment, if he is." "oh yes, sir, he is at home," said minnie; "this weather don't suit his asthma out of doors. joe, call your grandfather!" the little fellow, who was holding her apron, gave such a lusty shout, that the sound of it made him bashful, and he buried his face in her skirts, to her great admiration. i heard a heavy puffing and blowing coming towards us, and soon mr. omer, shorter-winded than of yore, but not much older-looking, stood before me. "servant, sir," said mr. omer. "what can i do for you, sir?" "you can shake hands with me, mr. omer, if you please," said i, putting out my own. "you were very good-natured to me once, when i am afraid i didn't show that i thought so." "was i though?" returned the old man. "i'm glad to hear it, but i don't remember when. are you sure it was me?" "quite." "i think my memory has got as short as my breath," said mr. omer, looking at me and shaking his head; "for i don't remember you." "don't you remember your coming to the coach to meet me, and my having breakfast here, and our riding out to blunderstone together: you, and i, and mrs. joram, and mr. joram too--who wasn't her husband then?" "why, lord bless my soul!" exclaimed mr. omer, after being thrown by his surprise into a fit of coughing, "you don't say so! minnie, my dear, you recollect? dear me, yes--the party was a lady, i think?" "my mother," i rejoined. "to--be--sure," said mr. omer, touching my waistcoat with his forefinger, "and there was a little child too! there was two parties. the little party was laid along with the other party. over at blunderstone it was, of course. dear me! and how have you been since?" very well, i thanked him, as i hoped he had been too. "oh! nothing to grumble at, you know," said mr. omer. "i find my breath gets short, but it seldom gets longer as a man gets older. i take it as it comes, and make the most of it. that's the best way, ain't it?" mr. omer coughed again, in consequence of laughing, and was assisted out of his fit by his daughter, who now stood close beside us, dancing her smallest child on the counter. "dear me!" said mr. omer. "yes, to be sure. two parties! why, in that very ride, if you'll believe me, the day was named for my minnie to marry joram. 'do name it, sir,' says joram. 'yes, do, father,' says minnie. and now he's come into the business. and look here! the youngest!" minnie laughed, and stroked her banded hair upon her temples, as her father put one of his fat fingers into the hand of the child she was dancing on the counter. "two parties, of course!" said mr. omer, nodding his head retrospectively. "ex-actly so! and joram's at work, at this minute, on a grey one with silver nails, not this measurement"--the measurement of the dancing child upon the counter--"by a good two inches.--will you take something?" i thanked him, but declined. "let me see," said mr. omer. "barkis's the carrier's wife--peggotty's the boatman's sister--she had something to do with your family? she was in service there, sure?" my answering in the affirmative gave him great satisfaction. "i believe my breath will get long next, my memory's getting so much so," said mr. omer. "well, sir, we've got a young relation of hers here, under articles to us, that has as elegant a taste in the dressmaking business--i assure you i don't believe there's a duchess in england can touch her." "not little em'ly?" said i, involuntarily. "em'ly's her name," said mr. omer, "and she's little too. but if you'll believe me, she has such a face of her own that half the women in this town are mad against her." "nonsense, father!" cried minnie. "my dear," said mr. omer, "i don't say it's the case with you," winking at me, "but i say that half the women in yarmouth--ah! and in five mile round--are mad against that girl." "then she should have kept to her own station in life, father," said minnie, "and not have given them any hold to talk about her, and then they couldn't have done it." "couldn't have done it, my dear!" retorted mr. omer. "couldn't have done it! is that _your_ knowledge of life? what is there that any woman couldn't do, that she shouldn't do--especially on the subject of another woman's good looks?" i really thought it was all over with mr. omer, after he had uttered this libellous pleasantry. he coughed to that extent, and his breath eluded all his attempts to recover it with that obstinacy, that i fully expected to see his head go down behind the counter, and his little black breeches, with the rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees, come quivering up in a last ineffectual struggle. at length, however, he got better, though he still panted hard, and was so exhausted that he was obliged to sit on the stool of the shop-desk. "you see," he said, wiping his head, and breathing with difficulty, "she hasn't taken much to any companions here; she hasn't taken kindly to any particular acquaintances and friends, not to mention sweethearts. in consequence, an ill-natured story got about, that em'ly wanted to be a lady. now my opinion is, that it came into circulation principally on account of her sometimes saying, at the school, that if she was a lady she would like to do so and so for her uncle--don't you see?--and buy him such and such fine things." "i assure you, mr. omer, she has said so to me," i returned eagerly, "when we were both children." mr. omer nodded his head and rubbed his chin. "just so. then out of a very little, she could dress herself, you see, better than most others could out of a deal, and _that_ made things unpleasant. moreover, she was rather what might be called wayward--i'll go so far as to say what i should call wayward myself," said mr. omer, "--didn't know her own mind quite--a little spoiled--and couldn't, at first, exactly bind herself down. no more than that was ever said against her, minnie?" "no, father," said mrs. joram. "that's the worst, i believe." "so when she got a situation," said mr. omer, "to keep a fractious old lady company, they didn't very well agree, and she didn't stop. at last she came here, apprenticed for three years. nearly two of 'em are over, and she has been as good a girl as ever was. worth any six! minnie, is she worth any six, now?" "yes, father," replied minnie. "never say _i_ detracted from her!" "very good," said mr. omer. "that's right. and so, young gentleman," he added, after a few moments' further rubbing of his chin, "that you may not consider me long-winded as well as short-breathed, i believe that's all about it." as they had spoken in a subdued tone, while speaking of em'ly, i had no doubt that she was near. on my asking now, if that were not so, mr. omer nodded yes, and nodded towards the door of the parlor. my hurried inquiry if i might peep in, was answered with a free permission; and, looking through the glass, i saw her sitting at her work. i saw her, a most beautiful little creature, with the cloudless blue eyes, that had looked into my childish heart, turned laughingly upon another child of minnie's who was playing near her; with enough of wilfulness in her bright face to justify what i had heard; with much of the old capricious coyness lurking in it; but with nothing in her pretty looks, i am sure, but what was meant for goodness and for happiness, and what was on a good and happy course. the tune across the yard that seemed as if it never had left off--alas! it was the tune that never _does_ leave off--was beating, softly, all the while. "wouldn't you like to step in," said mr. omer, "and speak to her? walk in and speak to her, sir! make yourself at home!" i was too bashful to do so then--i was afraid of confusing her, and i was no less afraid of confusing myself: but i informed myself of the hour at which she left of an evening, in order that our visit might be timed accordingly; and taking leave of mr. omer, and his pretty daughter, and her little children, went away to my dear old peggotty's. here she was, in the tiled kitchen, cooking dinner! the moment i knocked at the door she opened it, and asked me what i pleased to want. i looked at her with a smile, but she gave me no smile in return. i had never ceased to write to her, but it must have been seven years since we had met. "is mr. barkis at home, ma'am?" i said, feigning to speak roughly to her. "he's at home, sir," returned peggotty, "but he's bad abed with the rheumatics." "don't he go over to blunderstone now?" i asked. "when he's well, he do," she answered. "do _you_ ever go there, mrs. barkis?" she looked at me more attentively, and i noticed a quick movement of her hands towards each other. "because i want to ask a question about a house there, that they call the--what is it?--the rookery," said i. she took a step backward, and put out her hands in an undecided frightened way, as if to keep me off. "peggotty!" i cried to her. she cried, "my darling boy!" and we both burst into tears, and were locked in one another's arms. what extravagancies she committed; what laughing and crying over me; what pride she showed, what joy, what sorrow that she whose pride and joy i might have been, could never hold me in a fond embrace; i have not the heart to tell. i was troubled with no misgiving that it was young in me to respond to her emotions. i had never laughed and cried in all my life, i dare say--not even to her--more freely than i did that morning. "barkis will be so glad," said peggotty, wiping her eyes with her apron, "that it'll do him more good than pints of liniment. may i go and tell him you are here? will you come up and see him, my dear?" of course i would. but peggotty could not get out of the room as easily as she meant to, for as often as she got to the door and looked round at me, she came back again to have another laugh and another cry upon my shoulder. at last, to make the matter easier, i went up-stairs with her; and having waited outside for a minute, while she said a word of preparation to mr. barkis, presented myself before that invalid. he received me with absolute enthusiasm. he was too rheumatic to be shaken hands with, but he begged me to shake the tassel on the top of his nightcap, which i did most cordially. when i sat down by the side of the bed, he said that it did him a world of good to feel as if he was driving me on the blunderstone road again. as he lay in bed, face upward, and so covered, with that exception, that he seemed to be nothing but a face--like a conventional cherubim,--he looked the queerest object i ever beheld. "what name was it, as i wrote up, in the cart, sir?" said mr. barkis, with a slow rheumatic smile. "ah! mr. barkis, we had some grave talks about that matter, hadn't we?" "i was willin' a long time, sir?" said mr. barkis. "a long time," said i. "and i don't regret it," said mr. barkis. "do you remember what you told me once, about her making all the apple parsties and doing all the cooking?" "yes, very well," i returned. "it was as true," said mr. barkis, "as turnips is. it was as true," said mr. barkis, nodding his nightcap, which was his only means of emphasis, "as taxes is. and nothing's truer than them." mr. barkis turned his eyes upon me, as if for my assent to this result of his reflections in bed; and i gave it. "nothing's truer than them," repeated mr. barkis; "a man as poor as i am finds that out in his mind when he's laid up. i'm a very poor man, sir." "i am sorry to hear it, mr. barkis." "a very poor man, indeed i am," said mr. barkis. here his right hand came slowly and feebly from under the bedclothes, and with a purposeless uncertain grasp took hold of a stick which was loosely tied to the side of the bed. after some poking about with this instrument, in the course of which his face assumed a variety of distracted expressions, mr. barkis poked it against a box, an end of which had been visible to me all the time. then his face became composed. "old clothes," said mr. barkis. "oh!" said i. "i wish it was money, sir," said mr. barkis. "i wish it was, indeed," said i. "but it ain't," said mr. barkis, opening both his eyes as wide as he possibly could. i expressed myself quite sure of that, and mr. barkis, turning his eyes more gently to his wife, said: "she's the usefullest and best of women, c. p. barkis. all the praise that any one can give to c. p. barkis, she deserves, and more! my dear, you'll get a dinner to-day, for company; something good to eat and drink, will you?" i should have protested against this unnecessary demonstration in my honor, but that i saw peggotty, on the opposite side of the bed, extremely anxious i should not. so i held my peace. "i have got a trifle of money somewhere about me, my dear," said mr. barkis, "but i'm a little tired. if you and mr. david will leave me for a short nap, i'll try and find it when i wake." we left the room, in compliance with this request. when we got outside the door, peggotty informed me that mr. barkis, being now "a little nearer" than he used to be, always resorted to this same device before producing a single coin from his store; and that he endured unheard-of agonies in crawling out of bed alone, and taking it from that unlucky box. in effect, we presently heard him uttering suppressed groans of the most dismal nature, as this magpie proceeding racked him in every joint; but while peggotty's eyes were full of compassion for him, she said his generous impulse would do him good, and it was better not to check it. so he groaned on, until he had got into bed again, suffering, i have no doubt, a martyrdom; and then called us in, pretending to have just woke up from a refreshing sleep, and to produce a guinea from under his pillow. his satisfaction in which happy imposition on us, and in having preserved the impenetrable secret of the box, appeared to be a sufficient compensation to him for all his tortures. i prepared peggotty for steerforth's arrival, and it was not long before he came. i am persuaded she knew no difference between his having been a personal benefactor of hers, and a kind friend to me, and that she would have received him with the utmost gratitude and devotion in any case. but his easy, spirited, good humour; his genial manner, his handsome looks, his natural gift of adapting himself to whomsoever he pleased, and making direct, when he cared to do it, to the main point of interest in anybody's heart; bound her to him wholly in five minutes. his manner to me, alone, would have won her. but, through all these causes combined, i sincerely believe she had a kind of adoration for him before he left the house that night. he stayed there with me to dinner--if i were to say willingly, i should not half express how readily and gaily. he went into mr. barkis's room like light and air, brightening and refreshing it as if he were healthy weather. there was no noise, no effort, no consciousness, in anything he did; but in everything an indescribable lightness, a seeming impossibility of doing anything else, or doing anything better, which was so graceful, so natural, and agreeable, that it overcomes me, even now, in the remembrance. we made merry in the little parlor, where the book of martyrs, unthumbed since my time, was laid out upon the desk as of old, and where i now turned over its terrific pictures, remembering the old sensations they had awakened, but not feeling them. when peggotty spoke of what she called my room, and of its being ready for me at night, and of her hoping i would occupy it, before i could so much as look at steerforth, hesitating, he was possessed of the whole case. "of course," he said. "you'll sleep here, while we stay, and i shall sleep at the hotel." "but to bring you so far," i returned, "and to separate, seems bad companionship, steerforth." "why, in the name of heaven, where do you naturally belong!" he said. "what is 'seems,' compared to that!" it was settled at once. he maintained all his delightful qualities to the last, until we started forth, at eight o'clock, for mr. peggotty's boat. indeed, they were more and more brightly exhibited as the hours went on; for i thought even then, and i have no doubt now, that the consciousness of success in his determination to please, inspired him with a new delicacy of perception, and made it, subtle as it was, more easy to him. if any one had told me, then, that all this was a brilliant game, played for the excitement of the moment, for the employment of high spirits, in the thoughtless love of superiority, in a mere wasteful careless course of winning what was worthless to him, and next minute thrown away--i say, if any one had told me such a lie that night, i wonder in what manner of receiving it my indignation would have found a vent! probably only in an increase, had that been possible, of the romantic feelings of fidelity and friendship with which i walked beside him, over the dark wintry sands, towards the old boat; the wind sighing around us even more mournfully, than it had sighed and moaned upon the night when i first darkened mr. peggotty's door. "this is a wild kind of place, steerforth, is it not?" "dismal enough in the dark," he said; "and the sea roars as if it were hungry for us. is that the boat, where i see a light yonder?" "that's the boat," said i. "and it's the same i saw this morning," he returned. "i came straight to it, by instinct, i suppose." we said no more as we approached the light, but made softly for the door. i laid my hand upon the latch; and whispering steerforth to keep close to me, went in. a murmur of voices had been audible on the outside, and, at the moment of our entrance, a clapping of hands: which latter noise, i was surprised to see, proceeded from the generally disconsolate mrs. gummidge. but mrs. gummidge was not the only person there, who was unusually excited. mr. peggotty, his face lighted up with uncommon satisfaction, and laughing with all his might, held his rough arms wide open, as if for little em'ly to run into them; ham, with a mixed expression in his face of admiration, exultation, and a lumbering sort of bashfulness that sat upon him very well, held little em'ly by the hand, as if he were presenting her to mr. peggotty; little em'ly herself, blushing and shy, but delighted with mr. peggotty's delight, as her joyous eyes expressed, was stopped by our entrance (for she saw us first) in the very act of springing from ham to nestle in mr. peggotty's embrace. in the first glimpse we had of them all, and at the moment of our passing from the dark cold night into the warm light room, this was the way in which they were all employed: mrs. gummidge in the back ground, clapping her hands like a madwoman. [illustration: we arrive unexpectedly at mr. peggotty's fireside.] the little picture was so instantaneously dissolved by our going in, that one might have doubted whether it had ever been. i was in the midst of the astonished family, face to face with mr. peggotty, and holding out my hand to him, when ham shouted: "mas'r davy! it's mas'r davy!" in a moment we were all shaking hands with one another, and asking one another how we did, and telling one another how glad we were to meet, and all talking at once. mr. peggotty was so proud and overjoyed to see us, that he did not know what to say or do, but kept over and over again shaking hands with me, and then with steerforth, and then with me, and then ruffling his shaggy hair all over his head, and laughing with such glee and triumph, that it was a treat to see him. "why, that you two gent'lmen--gent'lmen growed--should come to this here roof to-night, of all nights in my life," said mr. peggotty, "is such a thing as never happened afore, i do rightly believe! em'ly, my darling, come here! come here, my little witch! there's mas'r davy's friend, my dear! there's the gent'lman as you've heerd on, em'ly. he comes to see you, along with mas'r davy, on the brightest night of your uncle's life as ever was or will be, gorm the t'other one, and horroar for it!" after delivering this speech all in a breath, and with extraordinary animation and pleasure, mr. peggotty put one of his large hands rapturously on each side of his niece's face, and kissing it a dozen times, laid it with a gentle pride and love upon his broad chest, and patted it as if his hand had been a lady's. then he let her go; and as she ran into the little chamber where i used to sleep, looked round upon us, quite hot and out of breath with his uncommon satisfaction. "if you two gent'lmen--gent'lmen growed now, and such gent'lmen--" said mr. peggotty. "so th'are, so th'are!" cried ham. "well said! so th'are. mas'r davy bor--gent'lmen growed--so th'are!" "if you two gent'lmen, gent'lmen growed," said mr. peggotty, "don't excuse me for being in a state of mind, when you understand matters, i'll arks your pardon. em'ly, my dear!--she knows i'm a going to tell," here his delight broke out again, "and has made off. would you be so good as look arter her, mawther, for a minute?" mrs. gummidge nodded and disappeared. "if this ain't," said mr. peggotty, sitting down among us by the fire, "the brightest night o' my life, i'm a shellfish--biled too--and more i can't say. this here little em'ly, sir," in a low voice to steerforth, "--her as you see a blushing here just now--" steerforth only nodded; but with such a pleased expression of interest, and of participation in mr. peggotty's feelings, that the latter answered him as if he had spoken. "to be sure," said mr. peggotty. "that's her, and so she is. thankee, sir." ham nodded to me several times, as if he would have said so too. "this here little em'ly of ours," said mr. peggotty, "has been, in our house, what i suppose (i'm a ignorant man, but that's my belief) no one but a little bright-eyed creetur _can_ be in a house. she ain't my child; i never had one; but i couldn't love her more. you understand! i couldn't do it!" "i quite understand," said steerforth. "i know you do, sir," returned mr. peggotty, "and thankee again. mas'r davy, he can remember what she was; you may judge for your own self what she is; but neither of you can't fully know what she has been, is, and will be, to my loving art. i am rough, sir," said mr. peggotty, "i am as rough as a sea porkypine; but no one, unless, mayhap, it is a woman, can know, i think, what our little em'ly is to me. and betwixt ourselves," sinking his voice lower yet, "_that_ woman's name ain't missis gummidge neither, though she has a world of merits." mr. peggotty ruffled his hair again with both hands, as a further preparation for what he was going to say, and went on with a hand upon each of his knees. "there was a certain person as had know'd our em'ly, from the time when her father was drownded; as had seen her constant; when a babby, when a young gal, when a woman. not much of a person to look at, he warn't," said mr. peggotty, "something o' my own build--rough--a good deal o' the sou'-wester in him--wery salt--but, on the whole, a honest sort of a chap, with his art in the right place." i thought i had never seen ham grin to anything like the extent to which he sat grinning at us now. "what does this here blessed tarpaulin go and do," said mr. peggotty, with his face one high noon of enjoyment, "but he loses that there art of his to our little em'ly. he follers her about, he makes hisself a sort o' servant to her, he loses in a great measure his relish for his wittles, and in the long run he makes it clear to me wot's amiss. now i could wish myself, you see, that our little em'ly was in a fair way of being married. i could wish to see her, at all ewents, under articles to a honest man as had a right to defend her. i don't know how long i may live, or how soon i may die; but i know that if i was capsized, any night, in a gale of wind in yarmouth roads here, and was to see the town-lights shining for the last time over the rollers as i couldn't make no head against, i could go down quieter for thinking 'there's a man ashore there, iron-true to my little em'ly, god bless her, and no wrong can touch my em'ly while so be as that man lives!'" mr. peggotty, in simple earnestness, waved his right arm, as if he were waving it at the town-lights for the last time, and then, exchanging a nod with ham, whose eye he caught, proceeded as before. "well! i counsels him to speak to em'ly. he's big enough, but he's bashfuller than a little un, and he don't like. so _i_ speak. 'what! _him!_' says em'ly. '_him_ that i've know'd so intimate so many years, and like so much! oh, uncle! i never can have _him_. he's such a good fellow!' i gives her a kiss, and i says no more to her than 'my dear, you're right to speak out, you're to choose for yourself, you're as free as a little bird.' then i aways to him, and i says, 'i wish it could have been so, but it can't. but you can both be as you was, and wot i say to you is, be as you was with her, like a man.' he says to me, a shaking of my hand, 'i will!' he says. and he was--honorable and manful--for two year going on, and we was just the same at home here as afore." mr. peggotty's face, which had varied in its expression with the various stages of his narrative, now resumed all its former triumphant delight, as he laid a hand upon my knee and a hand upon steerforth's (previously wetting them both, for the greater emphasis of the action), and divided the following speech between us: "all of a sudden, one evening--as it might be to-night--comes little em'ly from her work, and him with her! there ain't so much in _that_, you'll say. no, because he takes care on her, like a brother, arter dark, and indeed afore dark, and at all times. but this tarpaulin chap, he takes hold of her hand, and he cries out to me, joyful, 'look here! this is to be my little wife!' and she says, half bold and half shy, and half a laughing and half a crying, 'yes, uncle! if you please.'--if i please!" cried mr. peggotty, rolling his head in an ecstacy at the idea; "lord, as if i should do anythink else!--'if you please, i am steadier now, and i have thought better of it, and i'll be as good a little wife as i can to him, for he's a dear, good fellow!' then missis gummidge, she claps her hands like a play, and you come in. there! the murder's out!" said mr. peggotty--"you come in! it took place this here present hour; and here's the man that'll marry her, the minute she's out of her time." ham staggered, as well he might, under the blow mr. peggotty dealt him in his unbounded joy, as a mark of confidence and friendship; but feeling called upon to say something to us, he said, with much faltering and great difficulty: "she warn't no higher than you was, mas'r davy--when you first come--when i thought what she'd grow up to be. i see her grow up--gent'lmen--like a flower. i'd lay down my life for her--mas'r davy--oh! most content and cheerful! she's more to me--gent'lmen--than--she's all to me that ever i can want, and more than ever i--than ever i could say. i--i love her true. there ain't a gent'lman in all the land--nor yet sailing upon all the sea--that can love his lady more than i love her, though there's many a common man--would say better--what he meant." i thought it affecting to see such a sturdy fellow as ham was now, trembling in the strength of what he felt for the pretty little creature who had won his heart. i thought the simple confidence reposed in us by mr. peggotty and by himself, was, in itself, affecting. i was affected by the story altogether. how far my emotions were influenced by the recollections of my childhood, i don't know. whether i had come there with any lingering fancy that i was still to love little em'ly, i don't know. i know that i was filled with pleasure by all this; but, at first, with an indescribably sensitive pleasure, that a very little would have changed to pain. therefore, if it had depended upon me to touch the prevailing chord among them with any skill, i should have made a poor hand of it. but it depended upon steerforth; and he did it with such address, that in a few minutes we were all as easy and as happy as it was possible to be. "mr. peggotty," he said, "you are a thoroughly good fellow, and deserve to be as happy as you are to-night. my hand upon it! ham, i give you joy, my boy. my hand upon that, too! daisy, stir the fire, and make it a brisk one! and mr. peggotty, unless you can induce your gentle niece to come back (for whom i vacate this seat in the corner), i shall go. any gap at your fireside on such a night--such a gap least of all--i wouldn't make, for the wealth of the indies!" so mr. peggotty went into my old room to fetch little em'ly. at first little em'ly didn't like to come, and then ham went. presently they brought her to the fireside, very much confused, and very shy,--but she soon became more assured when she found how gently and respectfully steerforth spoke to her; how skilfully he avoided anything that would embarrass her; how he talked to mr. peggotty of boats, and ships, and tides, and fish; how he referred to me about the time when he had seen mr. peggotty at salem house; how delighted he was with the boat and all belonging to it; how lightly and easily he carried on, until he brought us, by degrees, into a charmed circle, and we were all talking away without any reserve. em'ly, indeed, said little all the evening; but she looked, and listened, and her face got animated, and she was charming. steerforth told a story of a dismal shipwreck (which arose out of his talk with mr. peggotty), as if he saw it all before him--and little em'ly's eyes were fastened on him all the time, as if she saw it too. he told us a merry adventure of his own, as a relief to that, with as much gaiety as if the narrative were as fresh to him as it was to us--and little em'ly laughed until the boat rang with the musical sounds, and we all laughed (steerforth too), in irresistible sympathy with what was so pleasant and light-hearted. he got mr. peggotty to sing, or rather to roar, "when the stormy winds do blow, do blow, do blow;" and he sang a sailor's song himself, so pathetically and beautifully, that i could have almost fancied that the real wind creeping sorrowfully round the house, and murmuring low through our unbroken silence, was there to listen. as to mrs. gummidge, he roused that victim of despondency with a success never attained by any one else (so mr. peggotty informed me) since the decease of the old one. he left her so little leisure for being miserable that she said next day she thought she must have been bewitched. but he set up no monopoly of the general attention, or the conversation. when little em'ly grew more courageous, and talked (but still bashfully) across the fire to me, of our old wanderings upon the beach, to pick up shells and pebbles; and when i asked her if she recollected how i used to be devoted to her; and when we both laughed and reddened, casting these looks back on the pleasant old times, so unreal to look at now; he was silent and attentive, and observed us thoughtfully. she sat, at this time, and all the evening, on the old locker in her old little corner by the fire--ham beside her, where i used to sit. i could not satisfy myself whether it was in her own little tormenting way, or in a maidenly reserve before us, that she kept quite close to the wall, and away from him; but i observed that she did so, all the evening. as i remember, it was almost midnight when we took our leave. we had had some biscuit and dried fish for supper, and steerforth had produced from his pocket a full flask of hollands, which we men (i may say we men, now, without a blush) had emptied. we parted merrily; and as they all stood crowded round the door to light us as far as they could upon our road, i saw the sweet blue eyes of little em'ly peeping after us, from behind ham, and heard her soft voice calling to us to be careful how we went. "a most engaging little beauty!" said steerforth, taking my arm. "well! it's a quaint place, and they are quaint company, and it's quite a new sensation to mix with them." "how fortunate we are, too," i returned, "to have arrived to witness their happiness in that intended marriage! i never saw people so happy. how delightful to see it, and to be made the sharers in their honest joy, as we have been!" "that's rather a chuckle-headed fellow for the girl; isn't he?" said steerforth. he had been so hearty with him, and with them all, that i felt a shock in this unexpected and cold reply. but turning quickly upon him, and seeing a laugh in his eyes, i answered, much relieved: "ah, steerforth! it's well for you to joke about the poor! you may skirmish with miss dartle, or try to hide your sympathies in jest from me, but i know better. when i see how perfectly you understand them, how exquisitely you can enter into happiness like this plain fisherman's, or humour a love like my old nurse's, i know that there is not a joy or sorrow, not an emotion, of such people, that can be indifferent to you. and i admire and love you for it, steerforth, twenty times the more!" he stopped, and, looking in my face, said, "daisy, i believe you are in earnest, and are good. i wish we all were!" next moment he was gaily singing mr. peggotty's song, as we walked at a round pace back to yarmouth. chapter xxii. some old scenes, and some new people. steerforth and i stayed for more than a fortnight in that part of the country. we were very much together, i need not say; but occasionally we were asunder for some hours at a time. he was a good sailor, and i was but an indifferent one; and when he went out boating with mr. peggotty, which was a favorite amusement of his, i generally remained ashore. my occupation of peggotty's spare-room put a constraint upon me, from which he was free: for, knowing how assiduously she attended on mr. barkis all day, i did not like to remain out late at night; whereas steerforth, lying at the inn, had nothing to consult but his own humour. thus it came about, that i heard of his making little treats for the fishermen at mr. peggotty's house of call, "the willing mind," after i was in bed, and of his being afloat, wrapped in fisherman's clothes, whole moonlight nights, and coming back when the morning tide was at flood. by this time, however, i knew that his restless nature and bold spirits delighted to find a vent in rough toil and hard weather, as in any other means of excitement that presented itself freshly to him; so none of his proceedings surprised me. another cause of our being sometimes apart, was, that i had naturally an interest in going over to blunderstone, and revisiting the old familiar scenes of my childhood; while steerforth, after being there once, had naturally no great interest in going there again. hence, on three or four days that i can at once recal, we went our several ways after an early breakfast, and met again at a late dinner. i had no idea how he employed his time in the interval, beyond a general knowledge that he was very popular in the place, and had twenty means of actively diverting himself where another man might not have found one. for my own part, my occupation in my solitary pilgrimages was to recal every yard of the old road as i went along it, and to haunt the old spots, of which i never tired. i haunted them, as my memory had often done, and lingered among them as my younger thoughts had lingered when i was far away. the grave beneath the tree, where both my parents lay--on which i had looked out, when it was my father's only, with such curious feelings of compassion, and by which i had stood, so desolate, when it was opened to receive my pretty mother and her baby--the grave which peggotty's own faithful care had ever since kept neat, and made a garden of, i walked near, by the hour. it lay a little off the church-yard path, in a quiet corner, not so far removed but i could read the names upon the stone as i walked to and fro, startled by the sound of the church-bell when it struck the hour, for it was like a departed voice to me. my reflections at these times were always associated with the figure i was to make in life, and the distinguished things i was to do. my echoing footsteps went to no other tune, but were as constant to that as if i had come home to build my castles in the air at a living mother's side. there were great changes in my old home. the ragged nests, so long deserted by the rooks, were gone; and the trees were lopped and topped out of their remembered shapes. the garden had run wild, and half the windows of the house were shut up. it was occupied, but only by a poor lunatic gentleman, and the people who took care of him. he was always sitting at my little window, looking out into the church-yard; and i wondered whether his rambling thoughts ever went upon any of the fancies that used to occupy mine, on the rosy mornings when i peeped out of that same little window in my night-clothes, and saw the sheep quietly feeding in the light of the rising sun. our old neighbours, mr. and mrs. grayper, were gone to south america, and the rain had made its way through the roof of their empty house, and stained the outer walls. mr. chillip was married again to a tall, raw-boned, high-nosed wife; and they had a weazen little baby, with a heavy head that it couldn't hold up, and two weak staring eyes, with which it seemed to be always wondering why it had ever been born. it was with a singular jumble of sadness and pleasure that i used to linger about my native place, until the reddening winter sun admonished me that it was time to start on my returning walk. but, when the place was left behind, and especially when steerforth and i were happily seated over our dinner by a blazing fire, it was delicious to think of having been there. so it was, though in a softened degree, when i went to my neat room at night; and, turning over the leaves of the crocodile-book (which was always there, upon a little table), remembered with a grateful heart how blest i was in having such a friend as steerforth, such a friend as peggotty, and such a substitute for what i had lost as my excellent and generous aunt. my nearest way to yarmouth, in coming back from these long walks, was by a ferry. it landed me on the flat between the town and the sea, which i could make straight across, and so save myself a considerable circuit by the high road. mr. peggotty's house being on that waste-place, and not a hundred yards out of my track, i always looked in as i went by. steerforth was pretty sure to be there expecting me, and we went on together through the frosty air and gathering fog towards the twinkling lights of the town. one dark evening, when i was later than usual--for i had, that day, been making my parting visit to blunderstone, as we were now about to return home--i found him alone in mr. peggotty's house, sitting thoughtfully before the fire. he was so intent upon his own reflections that he was quite unconscious of my approach. this, indeed, he might easily have been if he had been less absorbed, for footsteps fell noiselessly on the sandy ground outside; but even my entrance failed to rouse him. i was standing close to him, looking at him; and still, with a heavy brow, he was lost in his meditations. he gave such a start when i put my hand upon his shoulder, that he made me start too. "you come upon me," he said, almost angrily, "like a reproachful ghost!" "i was obliged to announce myself somehow," i replied. "have i called you down from the stars?" "no," he answered. "no." "up from anywhere, then?" said i, taking my seat near him. "i was looking at the pictures in the fire," he returned. "but you are spoiling them for me," said i, as he stirred it quickly with a piece of burning wood, striking out of it a train of red-hot sparks that went careering up the little chimney, and roaring out into the air. "you would not have seen them," he returned. "i detest this mongrel time, neither day nor night. how late you are! where have you been?" "i have been taking leave of my usual walk," said i. "and i have been sitting here," said steerforth, glancing round the room, "thinking that all the people we found so glad on the night of our coming down, might--to judge from the present wasted air of the place--be dispersed, or dead, or come to i don't know what harm. david, i wish to god i had had a judicious father these last twenty years!" "my dear steerforth, what is the matter?" "i wish with all my soul i had been better guided!" he exclaimed. "i wish with all my soul i could guide myself better!" there was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed me. he was more unlike himself than i could have supposed possible. "it would be better to be this poor peggotty, or his lout of a nephew," he said, getting up and leaning moodily against the chimney-piece, with his face towards the fire, "than to be myself, twenty times richer and twenty times wiser, and be the torment to myself that i have been, in this devil's bark of a boat, within the last half-hour!" i was so confounded by the alteration in him, that at first i could only observe him in silence, as he stood leaning his head upon his hand, and looking gloomily down at the fire. at length i begged him, with all the earnestness i felt, to tell me what had occurred to cross him so unusually, and to let me sympathise with him, if i could not hope to advise him. before i had well concluded, he began to laugh--fretfully at first, but soon with returning gaiety. "tut, it's nothing, daisy! nothing!" he replied. "i told you, at the inn in london, i am heavy company for myself, sometimes. i have been a nightmare to myself, just now--must have had one, i think. at odd dull times, nursery tales come up into the memory, unrecognised for what they are. i believe i have been confounding myself with the bad boy who 'didn't care,' and became food for lions--a grander kind of going to the dogs, i suppose. what old women call the horrors, have been creeping over me from head to foot. i have been afraid of myself." "you are afraid of nothing else, i think," said i. "perhaps not, and yet may have enough to be afraid of too," he answered. "well! so it goes by! i am not about to be hipped again, david; but i tell you, my good fellow, once more, that it would have been well for me (and for more than me) if i had had a steadfast and judicious father!" his face was always full of expression, but i never saw it express such a dark kind of earnestness as when he said these words, with his glance bent on the fire. "so much for that!" he said, making as if he tossed something light into the air, with his hand. "'why, being gone, i am a man again,' like macbeth. and now for dinner! if i have not (macbeth-like) broken up the feast with most admired disorder, daisy." "but where are they all, i wonder!" said i. "god knows," said steerforth. "after strolling to the ferry looking for you, i strolled in here and found the place deserted. that set me thinking, and you found me thinking." the advent of mrs. gummidge with a basket, explained how the house had happened to be empty. she had hurried out to buy something that was needed, against mr. peggotty's return with the tide; and had left the door open in the meanwhile, lest ham and little em'ly, with whom it was an early night, should come home while she was gone. steerforth, after very much improving mrs. gummidge's spirits by a cheerful salutation, and a jocose embrace, took my arm, and hurried me away. he had improved his own spirits, no less than mrs. gummidge's, for they were again at their usual flow, and he was full of vivacious conversation as we went along. "and so," he said, gaily, "we abandon this buccaneer life to-morrow, do we?" "so we agreed," i returned. "and our places by the coach are taken, you know." "ay! there's no help for it, i suppose," said steerforth. "i have almost forgotten that there is anything to do in the world but to go out tossing on the sea here. i wish there was not." "as long as the novelty should last," said i, laughing. "like enough," he returned; "though there's a sarcastic meaning in that observation for an amiable piece of innocence like my young friend. well! i dare say i am a capricious fellow, david. i know i am; but while the iron is hot, i can strike it vigorously too. i could pass a reasonably good examination already, as a pilot in these waters, i think." "mr. peggotty says you are a wonder," i returned. "a nautical phenomenon, eh?" laughed steerforth. "indeed he does, and you know how truly; knowing how ardent you are in any pursuit you follow, and how easily you can master it. and that amazes me most in you, steerforth--that you should be contented with such fitful uses of your powers." "contented?" he answered, merrily. "i am never contented, except with your freshness, my gentle daisy. as to fitfulness, i have never learnt the art of binding myself to any of the wheels on which the ixions of these days are turning round and round. i missed it somehow in a bad apprenticeship, and now don't care about it.--you know i have bought a boat down here?" "what an extraordinary fellow you are, steerforth!" i exclaimed, stopping--for this was the first i had heard of it. "when you may never care to come near the place again!" "i don't know that," he returned. "i have taken a fancy to the place. at all events," walking me briskly on, "i have bought a boat that was for sale--a clipper, mr. peggotty says; and so she is--and mr. peggotty will be master of her in my absence." "now i understand you, steerforth!" said i, exultingly. "you pretend to have bought it for yourself, but you have really done so to confer a benefit on him. i might have known as much at first, knowing you. my dear kind steerforth, how can i tell you what i think of your generosity?" "tush!" he answered, turning red. "the less said, the better." "didn't i know?" cried i, "didn't i say that there was not a joy, or sorrow, or any emotion of such honest hearts that was indifferent to you?" "aye, aye," he answered, "you told me all that. there let it rest. we have said enough!" afraid of offending him by pursuing the subject when he made so light of it, i only pursued it in my thoughts as we went on at even a quicker pace than before. "she must be newly rigged," said steerforth, "and i shall leave littimer behind to see it done, that i may know she is quite complete. did i tell you littimer had come down?" "no." "oh, yes! came down this morning, with a letter from my mother." as our looks met, i observed that he was pale even to his lips, though he looked very steadily at me. i feared that some difference between him and his mother might have led to his being in the frame of mind in which i had found him at the solitary fireside. i hinted so. "oh no!" he said, shaking his head, and giving a slight laugh. "nothing of the sort! yes. he is come down, that man of mine." "the same as ever?" said i. "the same as ever," said steerforth. "distant and quiet as the north pole. he shall see to the boat being fresh named. she's the stormy petrel now. what does mr. peggotty care for stormy petrels! i'll have her christened again." "by what name?" i asked. "the little em'ly." as he had continued to look steadily at me, i took it as a reminder that he objected to being extolled for his consideration. i could not help showing in my face how much it pleased me, but i said little, and he resumed his usual smile, and seemed relieved. "but see here," he said, looking before us, "where the original little em'ly comes! and that fellow with her, eh? upon my soul, he's a true knight. he never leaves her!" ham was a boat-builder in these days, having improved a natural ingenuity in that handicraft, until he had become a skilled workman. he was in his working-dress, and looked rugged enough, but manly withal, and a very fit protector for the blooming little creature at his side. indeed, there was a frankness in his face, an honesty, and an undisguised show of his pride in her, and his love for her, which were, to me, the best of good looks. i thought, as they came towards us, that they were well matched even in that particular. she withdrew her hand timidly from his arm as we stopped to speak to them, and blushed as she gave it to steerforth and to me. when they passed on, after we had exchanged a few words, she did not like to replace that hand, but, still appearing timid and constrained, walked by herself. i thought all this very pretty and engaging, and steerforth seemed to think so too, as we looked after them fading away in the light of a young moon. suddenly there passed us--evidently following them--a young woman whose approach we had not observed, but whose face i saw as she went by, and thought i had a faint remembrance of. she was lightly dressed; looked bold, and haggard, and flaunting, and poor; but seemed, for the time, to have given all that to the wind which was blowing, and to have nothing in her mind but going after them. as the dark distant level, absorbing their figures into itself, left but itself visible between us and the sea and clouds, her figure disappeared in like manner, still no nearer to them than before. "that is a black shadow to be following the girl," said steerforth, standing still; "what does it mean?" he spoke in a low voice that sounded almost strange to me. "she must have it in her mind to beg of them, i think," said i. "a beggar would be no novelty," said steerforth, "but it is a strange thing that the beggar should take that shape to-night." "why?" i asked him. "for no better reason, truly, than because i was thinking," he said, after a pause, "of something like it, when it came by. where the devil did it come from, i wonder!" "from the shadow of this wall, i think," said i, as we emerged upon a road on which a wall abutted. "it's gone!" he returned, looking over his shoulder. "and all ill go with it. now for our dinner!" but, he looked again over his shoulder towards the sea-line glimmering afar off; and yet again. and he wondered about it, in some broken expressions, several times, in the short remainder of our walk; and only seemed to forget it when the light of fire and candle shone upon us, seated warm and merry, at table. littimer was there, and had his usual effect upon me. when i said to him that i hoped mrs. steerforth and miss dartle were well, he answered respectfully (and of course respectably), that they were tolerably well, he thanked me, and had sent their compliments. this was all, and yet he seemed to me to say as plainly as a man could say: "you are very young, sir; you are exceedingly young." we had almost finished dinner, when taking a step or two towards the table, from the corner where he kept watch upon us, or rather upon me, as i felt, he said to his master: "i beg your pardon, sir. miss mowcher is down here." "who?" cried steerforth, much astonished. "miss mowcher, sir." "why, what on earth does _she_ do here?" said steerforth. "it appears to be her native part of the country, sir. she informs me that she makes one of her professional visits here, every year, sir. i met her in the street this afternoon, and she wished to know if she might have the honor of waiting on you after dinner, sir." "do you know the giantess in question, daisy?" inquired steerforth. i was obliged to confess--i felt ashamed, even of being at this disadvantage before littimer--that miss mowcher and i were wholly unacquainted. "then you shall know her," said steerforth, "for she is one of the seven wonders of the world. when miss mowcher comes, show her in." i felt some curiosity and excitement about this lady, especially as steerforth burst into a fit of laughing when i referred to her, and positively refused to answer any question of which i made her the subject. i remained, therefore, in a state of considerable expectation until the cloth had been removed some half an hour, and we were sitting over our decanter of wine before the fire, when the door opened, and littimer, with his habitual serenity quite undisturbed, announced: "miss mowcher!" i looked at the doorway and saw nothing. i was still looking at the doorway, thinking that miss mowcher was a long while making her appearance, when, to my infinite astonishment, there came waddling round a sofa which stood between me and it, a pursy dwarf, of about forty or forty-five, with a very large head and face, a pair of roguish grey eyes, and such extremely little arms, that, to enable herself to lay a finger archly against her snub nose, as she ogled steerforth, she was obliged to meet the finger half-way, and lay her nose against it. her chin, which was what is called a double-chin, was so fat that it entirely swallowed up the strings of her bonnet, bow and all. throat she had none; waist she had none; legs she had none, worth mentioning; for though she was more than full-sized down to where her waist would have been, if she had had any, and though she terminated, as human beings generally do, in a pair of feet, she was so short that she stood at a common-sized chair as at a table, resting a bag she carried on the seat. this lady; dressed in an off-hand, easy style; bringing her nose and her forefinger together, with the difficulty i have described; standing with her head necessarily on one side, and, with one of her sharp eyes shut up, making an uncommonly knowing face; after ogling steerforth for a few moments, broke into a torrent of words. "what! my flower!" she pleasantly began, shaking her large head at him. "you're there, are you! oh, you naughty boy, fie for shame, what do you do so far away from home? up to mischief, i'll be bound. oh, you're a downy fellow, steerforth, so you are, and i'm another, ain't i? ha, ha, ha! you'd have betted a hundred pound to five, now, that you wouldn't have seen me here, wouldn't you? bless you, man alive, i'm everywhere. i'm here and there, and where not, like the conjuror's half-crown in the lady's handkercher. talking of hankerchers--_and_ talking of ladies--what a comfort you are to your blessed mother, ain't you, my dear boy, over one of my shoulders, and i don't say which!" miss mowcher untied her bonnet, at this passage of her discourse, threw back the strings, and sat down, panting, on a footstool in front of the fire--making a kind of arbor of the dining-table, which spread its mahogany shelter above her head. "oh my stars and what's-their-names!" she went on, clapping a hand on each of her little knees, and glancing shrewdly at me, "i'm of too full a habit, that's the fact, steerforth. after a flight of stairs, it gives me as much trouble to draw every breath i want, as if it was a bucket of water. if you saw me looking out of an upper window, you'd think i was a fine woman, wouldn't you?" "i should think that, wherever i saw you," replied steerforth. "go along, you dog, do!" cried the little creature, making a whisk at him with the handkerchief with which she was wiping her face, "and don't be impudent! but i give you my word and honor i was at lady mithers's last week--_there's_ a woman! how _she_ wears!--and mithers himself came into the room where i was waiting for her--_there's_ a man! how _he_ wears! and his wig too, for he's had it these ten years--and he went on at that rate in the complimentary line, that i began to think i should be obliged to ring the bell. ha! ha! ha! he's a pleasant wretch, but he wants principle." "what were you doing for lady mithers?" asked steerforth. "that's tellings, my blessed infant," she retorted, tapping her nose again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an imp of supernatural intelligence. "never _you_ mind! you'd like to know whether i stop her hair from falling off, or dye it, or touch up her complexion, or improve her eyebrows, wouldn't you? and so you shall, my darling--when i tell you! do you know what my great grandfather's name was?" "no," said steerforth. "it was walker, my sweet pet," replied miss mowcher, "and he came of a long line of walkers, that i inherit all the hookey estates from." i never beheld anything approaching to miss mowcher's wink, except miss mowcher's self-possession. she had a wonderful way too, when listening to what was said to her, or when waiting for an answer to what she had said herself, of pausing with her head cunningly on one side, and one eye turned up like a magpie's. altogether i was lost in amazement, and sat staring at her, quite oblivious, i am afraid, of the laws of politeness. she had by this time drawn the chair to her side, and was busily engaged in producing from the bag (plunging in her short arm to the shoulder, at every dive) a number of small bottles, sponges, combs, brushes, bits of flannel, little pairs of curling irons, and other instruments, which she tumbled in a heap upon the chair. from this employment she suddenly desisted, and said to steerforth, much to my confusion: "who's your friend?" "mr. copperfield," said steerforth; "he wants to know you." "well, then, he shall! i thought he looked as if he did!" returned miss mowcher, waddling up to me, bag in hand, and laughing on me as she came. "face like a peach!" standing on tiptoe to pinch my cheek as i sat. "quite tempting! i'm very fond of peaches. happy to make your acquaintance, mr. copperfield, i'm sure." i said that i congratulated myself on having the honor to make hers, and that the happiness was mutual. [illustration: i make the acquaintance of miss mowcher.] "oh my goodness, how polite we are!" exclaimed miss mowcher, making a preposterous attempt to cover her large face with her morsel of a hand. "what a world of gammon and spinnage it is, though, ain't it!" this was addressed confidentially to both of us, as the morsel of a hand came away from the face, and buried itself, arm and all, in the bag again. "what do you mean, miss mowcher?" said steerforth. "ha! ha! ha! what a refreshing set of humbugs we are, to be sure, ain't we, my sweet child?" replied that morsel of a woman, feeling in the bag with her head on one side, and her eye in the air. "look here!" taking something out. "scraps of the russian prince's nails! prince alphabet turned topsy-turvy, _i_ call him, for his name's got all the letters in it, higgledy-piggledy." "the russian prince is a client of yours, is he?" said steerforth. "i believe you, my pet," replied miss mowcher. "i keep his nails in order for him. twice a week! fingers _and_ toes!" "he pays well, i hope?" said steerforth. "pays as he speaks, my dear child--through the nose," replied miss mowcher. "none of your close shavers the prince ain't. you'd say so, if you saw his moustachios. red by nature, black by art." "by your art, of course," said steerforth. miss mowcher winked assent. "forced to send for me. couldn't help it. the climate affected _his_ dye; it did very well in russia, but it was no go here. you never saw such a rusty prince in all your born days as he was. like old iron!" "is that why you called him a humbug, just now?" inquired steerforth. "oh, you're a broth of a boy, ain't you?" returned miss mowcher, shaking her head violently. "i said, what a set of humbugs we were in general, and i showed you the scraps of the prince's nails to prove it. the prince's nails do more for me, in private families of the genteel sort, than all my talents put together. i always carry 'em about. they're the best introduction. if miss mowcher cuts the prince's nails, she _must_ be all right. i give 'em away to the young ladies. they put 'em in albums, i believe. ha! ha! ha! upon my life, 'the whole social system' (as the men call it when they make speeches in parliament) is a system of prince's nails!" said this least of women, trying to fold her short arms, and nodding her large head. steerforth laughed heartily, and i laughed too. miss mowcher continuing all the time to shake her head (which was very much on one side), and to look into the air with one eye, and to wink with the other. "well, well!" she said, smiting her small knees, and rising, "this is not business. come, steerforth, let's explore the polar regions, and have it over." she then selected two or three of the little instruments, and a little bottle, and asked (to my surprise) if the table would bear. on steerforth's replying in the affirmative, she pushed a chair against it, and begging the assistance of my hand, mounted up, pretty nimbly, to the top, as if it were a stage. "if either of you saw my ankles," she said, when she was safely elevated, "say so, and i'll go home and destroy myself." "_i_ did not," said steerforth. "_i_ did not," said i. "well, then," cried miss mowcher, "i'll consent to live. now, ducky, ducky, ducky, come to mrs. bond and be killed!" this was an invocation to steerforth to place himself under her hands; who, accordingly, sat himself down, with his back to the table, and his laughing face towards me, and submitted his head to her inspection, evidently for no other purpose than our entertainment. to see miss mowcher standing over him, looking at his rich profusion of brown hair through a large round magnifying glass, which she took out of her pocket, was a most amazing spectacle. "_you're_ a pretty fellow!" said miss mowcher, after a brief inspection. "you'd be as bald as a friar on the top of your head in twelve months, but for me. just half-a-minute, my young friend, and we'll give you a polishing that shall keep your curls on for the next ten years!" with this, she tilted some of the contents of the little bottle on to one of the little bits of flannel, and, again imparting some of the virtues of that preparation to one of the little brushes, began rubbing and scraping away with both on the crown of steerforth's head in the busiest manner i ever witnessed, talking all the time. "there's charley pyegrave, the duke's son," she said. "you know charley?" peeping round into his face. "a little," said steerforth. "what a man _he_ is! _there's_ a whisker! as to charley's legs, if they were only a pair (which they ain't), they'd defy competition. would you believe he tried to do without me--in the life-guards, too?" "mad!" said steerforth. "it looks like it. however, mad or sane, he tried," returned miss mowcher. "what does he do, but, lo and behold you, he goes into a perfumer's shop, and wants to buy a bottle of the madagascar liquid." "charley does?" said steerforth. "charley does. but they haven't got any of the madagascar liquid." "what is it? something to drink?" asked steerforth. "to drink?" returned miss mowcher, stopping to slap his cheek. "to doctor his own moustachios with, you _know_. there was a woman in the shop--elderly female--quite a griffin--who had never even heard of it by name. 'begging pardon, sir,' said the griffin to charley, 'it's not--not--not rouge, is it?' 'rouge,' said charley to the griffin. 'what the unmentionable to ears polite, do you think i want with rouge?' 'no offence, sir,' said the griffin; 'we have it asked for by so many names, i thought it might be.' now that, my child," continued miss mowcher, rubbing all the time as busily as ever, "is another instance of the refreshing humbug i was speaking of. _i_ do something in that way myself--perhaps a good deal--perhaps a little--sharp's the word, my dear boy--never mind!" "in what way do you mean? in the rouge way?" said steerforth. "put this and that together, my tender pupil," returned the wary mowcher, touching her nose, "work it by the rule of secrets in all trades, and the product will give you the desired result. i say _i_ do a little in that way myself. one dowager, _she_ calls it lip-salve. another, _she_ calls it gloves. another, _she_ calls it tucker-edging. another, _she_ calls it a fan. _i_ call it whatever _they_ call it. i supply it for 'em, but we keep up the trick so, to one another, and make believe with such a face, that they'd as soon think of laying it on, before a whole drawing-room, as before me. and when i wait upon 'em, they'll say to me sometimes--_with it on_--thick, and no mistake--'how am i looking, mowcher? am i pale?' ha! ha! ha! ha! isn't _that_ refreshing, my young friend!" i never did in my days behold anything like mowcher as she stood upon the dining-table, intensely enjoying this refreshment, rubbing busily at steerforth's head, and winking at me over it. "ah!" she said. "such things are not much in demand hereabouts. that sets me off again! i haven't seen a pretty woman since i've been here, jemmy." "no?" said steerforth. "not the ghost of one," replied miss mowcher. "we could show her the substance of one, i think?" said steerforth, addressing his eyes to mine. "eh, daisy?" "yes, indeed," said i. "aha?" cried the little creature, glancing sharply at my face, and then peeping round at steerforth's. "umph?" the first exclamation sounded like a question put to both of us, and the second like a question put to steerforth only. she seemed to have found no answer to either, but continued to rub, with her head on one side and her eye turned up, as if she were looking for an answer in the air, and were confident of its appearing presently. "a sister of yours, mr. copperfield?" she cried, after a pause, and still keeping the same look out. "aye, aye?" "no," said steerforth, before i could reply. "nothing of the sort. on the contrary, mr. copperfield used--or i am much mistaken--to have a great admiration for her." "why, hasn't he now?" returned miss mowcher. "is he fickle? oh, for shame! did he sip every flower, and change every hour, until polly his passion requited?--is her name polly?" the elfin suddenness with which she pounced upon me with this question, and a searching look, quite disconcerted me for a moment. "no, miss mowcher," i replied. "her name is emily." "aha?" she cried exactly as before. "umph? what a rattle i am! mr. copperfield, ain't i volatile?" her tone and look implied something that was not agreeable to me in connexion with the subject. so i said, in a graver manner than any of us had yet assumed: "she is as virtuous as she is pretty. she is engaged to be married to a most worthy and deserving man in her own station of life. i esteem her for her good sense, as much as i admire her for her good looks." "well said!" cried steerforth. "hear, hear, hear! now, i'll quench the curiosity of this little fatima, my dear daisy, by leaving her nothing to guess at. she is at present apprenticed, miss mowcher, or articled, or whatever it may be, to omer and joram, haberdashers, milliners, and so forth, in this town. do you observe? omer and joram. the promise of which my friend has spoken, is made and entered into with her cousin; christian name, ham; surname, peggotty; occupation, boat-builder; also of this town. she lives with a relative; christian name, unknown; surname, peggotty; occupation, seafaring; also of this town. she is the prettiest and most engaging little fairy in the world. i admire her--as my friend does--exceedingly. if it were not that i might appear to disparage her intended, which i know my friend would not like, i would add, that to _me_ she seems to be throwing herself away; that i am sure she might do better; and that i swear she was born to be a lady." miss mowcher listened to these words, which were very slowly and distinctly spoken, with her head on one side, and her eye in the air as if she were still looking for that answer. when he ceased, she became brisk again in an instant, and rattled away with surprising volubility. "oh! and that's all about it, is it?" she exclaimed, trimming his whiskers with a little restless pair of scissors, that went glancing round his head in all directions. "very well: _very_ well! quite a long story. ought to end, 'and they lived happy ever afterwards;' oughtn't it? ah! what's that game at forfeits? i love my love with an e, because she's enticing; i hate her with an e, because she's engaged. i took her to the sign of the exquisite, and treated her with an elopement, her name's emily, and she lives in the east? ha! ha! ha! mr. copperfield, ain't i volatile?" merely looking at me with extravagant slyness, and not waiting for any reply, she continued, without drawing breath: "there! if ever any scapegrace was trimmed and touched up to perfection, you are, steerforth. if i understand any noddle in the world, i understand yours. do you hear me when i tell you that, my darling? i understand yours," peeping down into his face. "now you may mizzle, jemmy (as we say at court), and if mr. copperfield will take the chair i'll operate on him." "what do you say, daisy?" inquired steerforth, laughing, and resigning his seat. "will you be improved?" "thank you, miss mowcher, not this evening." "don't say no," returned the little woman, looking at me with the aspect of a connoisseur; "a little bit more eyebrow?" "thank you," i returned, "some other time." "have it carried half a quarter of an inch towards the temple," said miss mowcher. "we can do it in a fortnight." "no, i thank you. not at present." "go in for a tip," she urged. "no? let's get the scaffolding up, then, for a pair of whiskers. come!" i could not help blushing as i declined, for i felt we were on my weak point, now. but miss mowcher, finding that i was not at present disposed for any decoration within the range of her art, and that i was, for the time being, proof against the blandishments of the small bottle which she held up before one eye to enforce her persuasions, said we would make a beginning on an early day, and requested the aid of my hand to descend from her elevated station. thus assisted, she skipped down with much agility, and began to tie her double chin into her bonnet. "the fee," said steerforth, "is----" "five bob," replied miss mowcher, "and dirt-cheap, my chicken. ain't i volatile, mr. copperfield?" i replied politely: "not at all." but i thought she was rather so, when she tossed up his two half-crowns like a goblin pieman, caught them, dropped them in her pocket, and gave it a loud slap. "that's the till!" observed miss mowcher, standing at the chair again, and replacing in the bag the miscellaneous collection of little objects she had emptied out of it. "have i got all my traps? it seems so. it won't do to be like long ned beadwood, when they took him to church 'to marry him to somebody,' as he says, and left the bride behind. ha! ha! ha! a wicked rascal, ned, but droll! now, i know i'm going to break your hearts, but i am forced to leave you. you must call up all your fortitude, and try to bear it. good bye, mr. copperfield! take care of yourself, jockey of norfolk! how i _have_ been rattling on! it's all the fault of you two wretches. _i_ forgive you! 'bob swore!'--as the englishman said for 'good night,' when he first learnt french, and thought it so like english. 'bob swore,' my ducks!" with the bag slung over her arm, and rattling as she waddled away, she waddled to the door; where she stopped to inquire if she should leave us a lock of her hair. "ain't i volatile?" she added, as a commentary on this offer, and, with her finger on her nose, departed. steerforth laughed to that degree, that it was impossible for me to help laughing too; though i am not sure i should have done so, but for this inducement. when we had had our laugh quite out, which was after some time, he told me that miss mowcher had quite an extensive connexion, and made herself useful to a variety of people in a variety of ways. some people trifled with her as a mere oddity, he said; but she was as shrewdly and sharply observant as any one he knew, and as long-headed as she was short-armed. he told me that what she had said of being here, and there, and everywhere, was true enough; for she made little darts into the provinces, and seemed to pick up customers everywhere, and to know everybody. i asked him what her disposition was: whether it was at all mischievous, and if her sympathies were generally on the right side of things: but, not succeeding in attracting his attention to these questions after two or three attempts, i forbore or forgot to repeat them. he told me instead, with much rapidity, a good deal about her skill, and her profits; and about her being a scientific cupper, if i should ever have occasion for her services in that capacity. she was the principal theme of our conversation during the evening: and when we parted for the night steerforth called after me over the bannisters, "bob swore!" as i went down stairs. i was surprised, when i came to mr. barkis's house to find ham walking up and down in front of it, and still more surprised to learn from him that little em'ly was inside. i naturally inquired why he was not there too, instead of pacing the street by himself? "why, you see, mas'r davy," he rejoined, in a hesitating manner, "em'ly, she's talking to some 'un in here." "i should have thought," said i, smiling, "that that was a reason for your being in here too, ham." "well, mas'r davy, in a general way, so 't would be," he returned; "but look'ee here, mas'r davy," lowering his voice, and speaking very gravely. "it's a young woman, sir--a young woman, that em'ly knowed once, and doen't ought to know no more." when i heard these words, a light began to fall upon the figure i had seen following them, some hours ago. "it's a poor wurem, mas'r davy," said ham, "as is trod under foot by all the town. up street and down street. the mowld o' the churchyard don't hold any that the folk shrink away from, more." "did i see her to-night, ham, on the sands, after we met you?" "keeping us in sight?" said ham. "it's like you did, mas'r davy. not that i know'd, then, she was theer, sir, but along of her creeping soon arterwards under em'ly's little winder, when she see the light come, and whisp'ring 'em'ly, em'ly, for christ's sake have a woman's heart towards me. i was once like you!' those was solemn words, mas'r davy, fur to hear!" "they were indeed, ham. what did em'ly do?" "says em'ly, 'martha, is it you? oh, martha, can it be you!'--for they had sat at work together, many a day, at mr. omer's." "i recollect her now!" cried i, recalling one of the two girls i had seen when i first went there. "i recollect her quite well!" "martha endell," said ham. "two or three year older than em'ly, but was at the school with her." "i never heard her name," said i. "i didn't mean to interrupt you." "for the matter o' that, mas'r davy," replied ham, "all's told a'most in them words, 'em'ly, em'ly, for christ's sake have a woman's heart towards me. i was once like you!' she wanted to speak to em'ly. em'ly couldn't speak to her theer, for her loving uncle was come home, and he wouldn't--no, mas'r davy," said ham, with great earnestness, "he couldn't, kind-natur'd, tender-hearted as he is, see them two together, side by side, for all the treasures that's wrecked in the sea." i felt how true this was. i knew it, on the instant, quite as well as ham. "so em'ly writes in pencil on a bit of paper," he pursued, "and gives it to her out o' winder to bring here. 'show that,' she says, 'to my aunt, mrs. barkis, and she'll set you down by her fire, for the love of me, till uncle is gone out, and i can come.' by-and-by she tells me what i tell you, mas'r davy, and asks me to bring her. what can i do? she doen't ought to know any such, but i can't deny her, when the tears is on her face." he put his hand into the breast of his shaggy jacket, and took out with great care a pretty little purse. "and if i could deny her when the tears was on her face, mas'r davy," said ham, tenderly adjusting it on the rough palm of his hand, "how could i deny her when she give me this to carry for her--knowing what she brought it for? such a toy as it is!" said ham, thoughtfully looking on it. "with such a little money in it, em'ly my dear!" i shook him warmly by the hand when he had put it away again--for that was more satisfactory to me than saying anything--and we walked up and down, for a minute or two, in silence. the door opened then, and peggotty appeared, beckoning to ham to come in. i would have kept away, but she came after me, entreating me to come in too. even then, i would have avoided the room where they all were, but for its being the neat-tiled kitchen i have mentioned more than once. the door opening immediately into it, i found myself among them, before i considered whither i was going. the girl--the same i had seen upon the sands--was near the fire. she was sitting on the ground, with her head and one arm lying on a chair. i fancied, from the disposition of her figure, that em'ly had but newly risen from the chair, and that the forlorn head might perhaps have been lying on her lap. i saw but little of the girl's face, over which her hair fell loose and scattered, as if she had been disordering it with her own hands; but i saw that she was young, and of a fair complexion. peggotty had been crying. so had little em'ly. not a word was spoken when we first went in; and the dutch clock by the dresser seemed, in the silence, to tick twice as loud as usual. em'ly spoke first. "martha wants," she said to ham, "to go to london." "why to london?" returned ham. he stood between them, looking on the prostrate girl with a mixture of compassion for her, and of jealousy of her holding any companionship with her whom he loved so well, which i have always remembered distinctly. they both spoke as if she were ill; in a soft, suppressed tone that was plainly heard, although it hardly rose above a whisper. [illustration: martha.] "better there than here," said a third voice aloud--martha's, though she did not move. "no one knows me there. everybody knows me here." "what will she do there?" inquired ham. she lifted up her head, and looked darkly round at him for a moment; then laid it down again, and curved her right arm about her neck, as a woman in a fever, or in an agony of pain from a shot, might twist herself. "she will try to do well," said little em'ly. "you don't know what she has said to us. does he--do they--aunt?" peggotty shook her head compassionately. "i'll try," said martha, "if you'll help me away. i never can do worse than i have done here. i may do better. oh!" with a dreadful shiver, "take me out of these streets, where the whole town knows me from a child!" as em'ly held out her hand to ham, i saw him put in it a little canvas bag. she took it, as if she thought it were her purse, and made a step or two forward; but finding her mistake, came back to where he had retired near me, and showed it to him. "it's all yourn, em'ly," i could hear him say. "i haven't nowt in all the wureld that ain't yourn, my dear. it ain't of no delight to me, except for you!" the tears rose freshly in her eyes, but she turned away, and went to martha. what she gave her, i don't know. i saw her stooping over her, and putting money in her bosom. she whispered something, and asked was that enough? "more than enough," the other said, and took her hand and kissed it. then martha arose, and gathering her shawl about her, covering her face with it, and weeping aloud, went slowly to the door. she stopped a moment before going out, as if she would have uttered something or turned back; but no word passed her lips. making the same low, dreary, wretched moaning in her shawl, she went away. as the door closed, little em'ly looked at us three in a hurried manner, and then hid her face in her hands, and fell to sobbing. "doen't, em'ly!" said ham, tapping her gently on the shoulder. "doen't, my dear! you doen't ought to cry so, pretty!" "oh, ham!" she exclaimed, still weeping pitifully, "i am not as good a girl as i ought to be! i know i have not the thankful heart, sometimes, i ought to have!" "yes, yes, you have, i'm sure," said ham. "no! no! no!" cried little em'ly, sobbing, and shaking her head. "i am not as good a girl as i ought to be. not near! not near!" and still she cried, as if her heart would break. "i try your love too much. i know i do!" she sobbed. "i'm often cross to you, and changeable with you, when i ought to be far different. you are never so to me. why am i ever so to you, when i should think of nothing but how to be grateful, and to make you happy!" "you always make me so," said ham, "my dear! i am happy in the sight of you. i am happy, all day long, in the thoughts of you." "ah! that's not enough!" she cried. "that is because you are good; not because i am! oh, my dear, it might have been a better fortune for you, if you had been fond of some one else--of some one steadier and much worthier than me, who was all bound up in you, and never vain and changeable like me!" "poor little tender-heart," said ham, in a low voice. "martha has overset her, altogether." "please, aunt," sobbed em'ly, "come here, and let me lay my head upon you. oh, i am very miserable to-night, aunt! oh, i am not as good a girl as i ought to be. i am not, i know!" peggotty had hastened to the chair before the fire. em'ly, with her arms around her neck, kneeled by her, looking up most earnestly into her face. "oh, pray, aunt, try to help me! ham, dear, try to help me! mr. david, for the sake of old times, do, please, try to help me! i want to be a better girl than i am. i want to feel a hundred times more thankful than i do. i want to feel more, what a blessed thing it is to be the wife of a good man, and to lead a peaceful life. oh me, oh me! oh, my heart, my heart!" she dropped her face on my old nurse's breast, and, ceasing this supplication, which in its agony and grief was half a woman's, half a child's, as all her manner was (being, in that, more natural, and better suited to her beauty, as i thought, than any other manner could have been), wept silently, while my old nurse hushed her like an infant. she got calmer by degrees, and then we soothed her; now talking encouragingly, and now jesting a little with her, until she began to raise her head and speak to us. so we got on, until she was able to smile, and then to laugh, and then to sit up, half ashamed; while peggotty recalled her stray ringlets, dried her eyes, and made her neat again, lest her uncle should wonder, when she got home, why his darling had been crying. i saw her do, that night, what i had never seen her do before. i saw her innocently kiss her chosen husband on the cheek, and creep close to his bluff form as if it were her best support. when they went away together, in the waning moonlight, and i looked after them, comparing their departure in my mind with martha's, i saw that she held his arm with both her hands, and still kept close to him. chapter xxiii. i corroborate mr. dick, and choose a profession. when i awoke in the morning i thought very much of little em'ly, and her emotion last night, after martha had left. i felt as if i had come into the knowledge of those domestic weaknesses and tendernesses in a sacred confidence, and that to disclose them, even to steerforth, would be wrong. i had no gentler feeling towards any one than towards the pretty creature who had been my playmate, and whom i have always been persuaded, and shall always be persuaded, to my dying day, i then devotedly loved. the repetition to any ears--even to steerforth's--of what she had been unable to repress when her heart lay open to me by an accident, i felt would be a rough deed, unworthy of myself, unworthy of the light of our pure childhood, which i always saw encircling her head. i made a resolution, therefore, to keep it in my own breast; and there it gave her image a new grace. while we were at breakfast, a letter was delivered to me from my aunt. as it contained matter on which i thought steerforth could advise me as well as any one, and on which i knew i should be delighted to consult him, i resolved to make it a subject of discussion on our journey home. for the present we had enough to do, in taking leave of all our friends. mr. barkis was far from being the last among them, in his regret at our departure; and i believe would even have opened the box again, and sacrificed another guinea, if it would have kept us eight-and-forty hours in yarmouth. peggotty, and all her family, were full of grief at our going. the whole house of omer and joram turned out to bid us good bye; and there were so many seafaring volunteers in attendance on steerforth, when our portmanteaus went to the coach, that if we had had the baggage of a regiment with us, we should hardly have wanted porters to carry it. in a word, we departed to the regret and admiration of all concerned, and left a great many people very sorry behind us. "do you stay long here, littimer?" said i, as he stood waiting to see the coach start. "no, sir," he replied; "probably not very long, sir." "he can hardly say just now," observed steerforth, carelessly. "he knows what he has to do, and he'll do it." "that i am sure he will," said i. littimer touched his hat in acknowledgment of my good opinion, and i felt about eight years old. he touched it once more, wishing us a good journey; and we left him standing on the pavement, as respectable a mystery as any pyramid in egypt. for some little time we held no conversation, steerforth being unusually silent, and i being sufficiently engaged in wondering, within myself, when i should see the old places again, and what new changes might happen to me or them in the meanwhile. at length steerforth, becoming gay and talkative in a moment, as he could become anything he liked at any moment, pulled me by the arm: "find a voice, david. what about the letter you were speaking of at breakfast?" "oh!" said i, taking it out of my pocket. "it's from my aunt." "and what does she say, requiring consideration!" "why, she reminds me, steerforth," said i, "that i came out on this expedition to look about me, and to think a little." "which, of course, you have done?" "indeed i can't say i have, particularly. to tell you the truth, i am afraid i had forgotten it." "well! look about you now, and make up for your negligence," said steerforth. "look to the right, and you'll see a flat country, with a good deal of marsh in it; look to the left, and you'll see the same. look to the front, and you'll find no difference; look to the rear, and there it is still." i laughed, and replied that i saw no suitable profession in the whole prospect; which was perhaps to be attributed to its flatness. "what says our aunt on the subject?" inquired steerforth, glancing at the letter in my hand. "does she suggest anything?" "why, yes," said i. "she asks me, here, if i think i should like to be a proctor? what do you think of it?" "well, i don't know," replied steerforth, coolly. "you may as well do that as anything else, i suppose." i could not help laughing again, at his balancing all callings and professions so equally; and i told him so. "what _is_ a proctor, steerforth?" said i. "why, he is a sort of monkish attorney," replied steerforth. "he is, to some faded courts held in doctors' commons--a lazy old nook near st. paul's churchyard--what solicitors are to the courts of law and equity. he is a functionary whose existence, in the natural course of things, would have terminated about two hundred years ago. i can tell you best what he is, by telling you what doctors' commons is. it's a little out-of-the-way place, where they administer what is called ecclesiastical law, and play all kinds of tricks with obsolete old monsters of acts of parliament, which three-fourths of the world know nothing about, and the other fourth supposes to have been dug up, in a fossil state, in the days of the edwards. it's a place that has an ancient monopoly in suits about people's wills and people's marriages, and disputes among ships and boats." "nonsense, steerforth!" i exclaimed. "you don't mean to say that there is any affinity between nautical matters and ecclesiastical matters?" "i don't, indeed, my dear boy," he returned; "but i mean to say that they are managed and decided by the same set of people, down in that same doctors' commons. you shall go there one day, and find them blundering through half the nautical terms in young's dictionary, apropos of the 'nancy' having run down the 'sarah jane,' or mr. peggotty and the yarmouth boatmen having put off in a gale of wind with an anchor and cable to the 'nelson' indiaman in distress; and you shall go there another day, and find them deep in the evidence, pro and con, respecting a clergyman who has misbehaved himself; and you shall find the judge in the nautical case, the advocate in the clergyman case, or contrariwise. they are like actors: now a man's a judge, and now he is not a judge; now he's one thing, now he's another; now he's something else, change and change about; but it's always a very pleasant profitable little affair of private theatricals, presented to an uncommonly select audience." "but advocates and proctors are not one and the same?" said i, a little puzzled. "are they?" "no," returned steerforth, "the advocates are civilians--men who have taken a doctor's degree at college--which is the first reason of my knowing anything about it. the proctors employ the advocates. both get very comfortable fees, and altogether they make a mighty snug little party. on the whole, i would recommend you to take to doctors' commons kindly, david. they plume themselves on their gentility there, i can tell you, if that's any satisfaction." i made allowance for steerforth's light way of treating the subject, and, considering it with reference to the staid air of gravity and antiquity which i associated with that "lazy old nook near st. paul's churchyard," did not feel indisposed towards my aunt's suggestion; which she left to my free decision, making no scruple of telling me that it had occurred to her, on her lately visiting her own proctor in doctors' commons for the purpose of settling her will in my favor. "that's a laudable proceeding on the part of our aunt, at all events," said steerforth, when i mentioned it; "and one deserving of all encouragement. daisy, my advice is that you take kindly to doctors' commons." i quite made up my mind to do so. i then told steerforth that my aunt was in town awaiting me (as i found from her letter), and that she had taken lodgings for a week at a kind of private hotel in lincoln's inn fields, where there was a stone staircase, and a convenient door in the roof; my aunt being firmly persuaded that every house in london was going to be burnt down every night. we achieved the rest of our journey pleasantly, sometimes recurring to doctors' commons, and anticipating the distant days when i should be a proctor there, which steerforth pictured in a variety of humorous and whimsical lights, that made us both merry. when we came to our journey's end, he went home, engaging to call upon me next day but one; and i drove to lincoln's inn fields, where i found my aunt up, and waiting supper. if i had been round the world since we parted, we could hardly have been better pleased to meet again. my aunt cried outright as she embraced me; and said, pretending to laugh, that if my poor mother had been alive, that silly little creature would have shed tears, she had no doubt. "so you have left mr. dick behind, aunt?" said i. "i am sorry for that. ah, janet, how do you do?" as janet curtsied, hoping i was well, i observed my aunt's visage lengthen very much. "i am sorry for it, too," said my aunt, rubbing her nose. "i have had no peace of mind, trot, since i have been here." before i could ask why, she told me. "i am convinced," said my aunt; laying her hand with melancholy firmness on the table, "that dick's character is not a character to keep the donkies off. i am confident he wants strength of purpose. i ought to have left janet at home, instead, and then my mind might perhaps have been at ease. if ever there was a donkey trespassing on my green," said my aunt, with emphasis, "there was one this afternoon at four o'clock. a cold feeling came over me from head to foot, and i _know_ it was a donkey!" i tried to comfort her on this point, but she rejected consolation. "it was a donkey," said my aunt; "and it was the one with the stumpy tail which that murdering sister of a woman rode, when she came to my house." this had been, ever since, the only name my aunt knew for miss murdstone. "if there is any donkey in dover, whose audacity it is harder to me to bear than another's, that," said my aunt, striking the table, "is the animal!" janet ventured to suggest that my aunt might be disturbing herself unnecessarily, and that she believed the donkey in question was then engaged in the sand and gravel line of business, and was not available for purposes of trespass. but my aunt wouldn't hear of it. supper was comfortably served and hot, though my aunt's rooms were very high up--whether that she might have more stone stairs for her money, or might be nearer to the door in the roof, i don't know--and consisted of a roast fowl, a steak, and some vegetables, to all of which i did ample justice, and which were all excellent. but my aunt had her own ideas concerning london provision, and ate but little. "i suppose this unfortunate fowl was born and brought up in a cellar," said my aunt, "and never took the air except on a hackney coach-stand. i _hope_ the steak may be beef, but i don't believe it. nothing's genuine in the place, in my opinion, but the dirt." "don't you think the fowl may have come out of the country, aunt?" i hinted. "certainly not," returned my aunt. "it would be no pleasure to a london tradesman to sell anything which was what he pretended it was." i did not venture to controvert this opinion, but i made a good supper, which it greatly satisfied her to see me do. when the table was cleared, janet assisted her to arrange her hair, to put on her nightcap, which was of a smarter construction than usual ("in case of fire," my aunt said), and to fold her gown back over her knees, these being her usual preparations for warming herself before going to bed. i then made her, according to certain established regulations from which no deviation, however slight, could ever be permitted, a glass of hot white wine and water, and a slice of toast cut into long thin strips. with these accompaniments we were left alone to finish the evening, my aunt sitting opposite to me drinking her wine and water; soaking her strips of toast in it, one by one, before eating them; and looking benignantly on me, from among the borders of her nightcap. "well, trot," she began, "what do you think of the proctor plan? or have you not begun to think about it yet?" "i have thought a good deal about it, my dear aunt, and i have talked a good deal about it with steerforth. i like it very much indeed. i like it exceedingly." "come!" said my aunt. "that's cheering!" "i have only one difficulty, aunt." "say what it is, trot," she returned. "why, i want to ask, aunt, as this seems, from what i understand, to be a limited profession, whether my entrance into it would not be very expensive?" "it will cost," returned my aunt, "to article you, just a thousand pounds." "now, my dear aunt," said i, drawing my chair nearer, "i am uneasy in my mind about that. it's a large sum of money. you have expended a great deal on my education, and have always been as liberal to me in all things, as it was possible to be. you have been the soul of generosity. surely there are some ways in which i might begin life with hardly any outlay, and yet begin with a good hope of getting on by resolution and exertion. are you sure that it would not be better to try that course? are you certain that you can afford to part with so much money, and that it is right it should be so expended? i only ask you, my second mother, to consider. are you certain?" my aunt finished eating the piece of toast on which she was then engaged, looking me full in the face all the while; and then setting her glass on the chimney-piece, and folding her hands upon her folded skirts, replied as follows: "trot, my child, if i have any object in life, it is to provide for your being a good, a sensible, and a happy man. i am bent upon it--so is dick. i should like some people that i know to hear dick's conversation on the subject. its sagacity is wonderful. but no one knows the resources of that man's intellect, except myself!" she stopped for a moment to take my hand between hers, and went on: "it's in vain, trot, to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present. perhaps i might have been better friends with your poor father. perhaps i might have been better friends with that poor child your mother, even after your sister betsey trotwood disappointed me. when you came to me, a little runaway boy, all dusty and wayworn, perhaps i thought so. from that time until now, trot, you have ever been a credit to me and a pride and pleasure. i have no other claim upon my means; at least"--here to my surprise she hesitated, and was confused--"no, i have _no_ other claim upon my means--and you are my adopted child. only be a loving child to me in my age, and bear with my whims and fancies; and you will do more for an old woman whose prime of life was not so happy or conciliating as it might have been, than ever that old woman did for you." it was the first time i had heard my aunt refer to her past history. there was a magnanimity in her quiet way of doing so, and of dismissing it, which would have exalted her in my respect and affection, if any thing could. "all is agreed and understood between us now, trot," said my aunt, "and we need talk of this no more. give me a kiss, and we'll go to the commons after breakfast to-morrow." we had a long chat by the fire before we went to bed. i slept in a room on the same floor with my aunt's, and was a little disturbed in the course of the night by her knocking at my door, as often as she was agitated by a distant sound of hackney-coaches or market-carts, and inquiring "if i heard the engines?" but towards morning she slept better, and suffered me to do so too. at about mid-day, we set out for the offices of messrs. spenlow and jorkins in doctors' commons. my aunt, who had this other general opinion in reference to london, that every man she saw was a pickpocket, gave me her purse to carry for her, which had ten guineas in it and some silver. we made a pause at the toy-shop in fleet-street, to see the giants of saint dunstan's strike upon the bells--we had timed our going, so as to catch them at it, at twelve o'clock--and then went on towards ludgate hill, and st. paul's churchyard. we were crossing to the former place, when i found that my aunt greatly accelerated her speed, and looked frightened. i observed, at the same time, that a lowering ill-dressed man who had stopped and stared at us in passing, a little before, was coming so close after us, as to brush against her. "trot! my dear trot!" cried my aunt, in a terrified whisper, and pressing my arm. "i don't know what i am to do." "don't be alarmed," said i. "there's nothing to be afraid of. step into a shop, and i'll soon get rid of this fellow." "no, no, child!" she returned. "don't speak to him for the world. i entreat, i order you!" "good heaven, aunt!" said i. "he is nothing but a sturdy beggar." "you don't know what he is!" replied my aunt. "you don't know who he is! you don't know what you say!" we had stopped in an empty doorway, while this was passing, and he had stopped too. "don't look at him!" said my aunt, as i turned my head indignantly, "but get me a coach, my dear, and wait for me in st. paul's churchyard." "wait for you?" i repeated. "yes," rejoined my aunt, "i must go alone. i must go with him." "with him, aunt? this man?" "i am in my senses," she replied, "and i tell you i _must_. get me a coach!" however much astonished i might be, i was sensible that i had no right to refuse compliance with such a peremptory command. i hurried away a few paces, and called a hackney chariot which was passing empty. almost before i could let down the steps, my aunt sprang in, i don't know how, and the man followed. she waved her hand to me to go away, so earnestly, that, all confounded as i was, i turned from them at once. in doing so i heard her say to the coachman, "drive anywhere! drive straight on!" and presently the chariot passed me, going up the hill. what mr. dick had told me, and what i had supposed to be a delusion of his, now came into my mind. i could not doubt that this person was the person of whom he had made such mysterious mention, though what the nature of his hold upon my aunt could possibly be, i was quite unable to imagine. after half an hour's cooling in the churchyard, i saw the chariot coming back. the driver stopped beside me, and my aunt was sitting in it alone. she had not yet sufficiently recovered from her agitation to be quite prepared for the visit we had to make. she desired me to get into the chariot, and to tell the coachman to drive slowly up and down a little while. she said no more, except, "my dear child, never ask me what it was, and don't refer to it," until she had perfectly regained her composure, when she told me she was quite herself now, and we might get out. on her giving me her purse, to pay the driver, i found that all the guineas were gone, and only the loose silver remained. doctors' commons was approached by a little low archway. before we had taken many paces down the street beyond it, the noise of the city seemed to melt, as if by magic, into a softened distance. a few dull courts, and narrow ways, brought us to the sky-lighted offices of spenlow and jorkins; in the vestibule of which temple, accessible to pilgrims without the ceremony of knocking, three or four clerks were at work as copyists. one of these, a little dry man, sitting by himself, who wore a stiff brown wig that looked as if it were made of gingerbread, rose to receive my aunt, and show us into mr. spenlow's room. "mr. spenlow's in court, ma'am," said the dry man; "it's an arches day; but it's close by, and i'll send for him directly." as we were left to look about us while mr. spenlow was fetched, i availed myself of the opportunity. the furniture of the room was old-fashioned and dusty; and the green baize on the top of the writing-table had lost all its color, and was as withered and pale as an old pauper. there were a great many bundles of papers on it, some indorsed as allegations, and some (to my surprise) as libels, and some as being in the consistory court, and some in the arches court, and some in the prerogative court, and some in the admiralty court, and some in the delegates' court; giving me occasion to wonder much, how many courts there might be in the gross, and how long it would take to understand them all. besides these, there were sundry immense manuscript books of evidence taken on affidavit, strongly bound, and tied together in massive sets, a set to each cause, as if every cause were a history in ten or twenty volumes. all this looked tolerably expensive, i thought, and gave me an agreeable notion of a proctor's business. i was casting my eyes with increasing complacency over these and many similar objects, when hasty footsteps were heard in the room outside, and mr. spenlow, in a black gown trimmed with white fur, came hurrying in, taking off his hat as he came. he was a little light-haired gentleman, with undeniable boots, and the stiffest of white cravats and shirt-collars. he was buttoned up, mighty trim and tight, and must have taken a great deal of pains with his whiskers, which were accurately curled. his gold watch-chain was so massive, that a fancy came across me, that he ought to have a sinewy golden arm, to draw it out with, like those which are put up over the gold-beaters' shops. he was got up with such care, and was so stiff, that he could hardly bend himself; being obliged, when he glanced at some papers on his desk, after sitting down in his chair, to move his whole body, from the bottom of his spine, like punch. i had previously been presented by my aunt, and had been courteously received. he now said: "and so, mr. copperfield, you think of entering into our profession? i casually mentioned to miss trotwood, when i had the pleasure of an interview with her the other day,"--with another inclination of his body--punch again--"that there was a vacancy here. miss trotwood was good enough to mention that she had a nephew who was her peculiar care, and for whom she was seeking to provide genteelly in life. that nephew, i believe, i have now the pleasure of"--punch again. i bowed my acknowledgments, and said, my aunt had mentioned to me that there was that opening, and that i believed i should like it very much. that i was strongly inclined to like it, and had taken immediately to the proposal. that i could not absolutely pledge myself to like it, until i knew something more about it. that although it was little else than a matter of form, i presumed i should have an opportunity of trying how i liked it, before i bound myself to it irrevocably. "oh surely! surely!" said mr. spenlow. "we always, in this house, propose a month--an initiatory month. i should be happy, myself, to propose two months--three--an indefinite period, in fact--but i have a partner. mr. jorkins." "and the premium, sir," i returned, "is a thousand pounds?" "and the premium, stamp included, is a thousand pounds," said mr. spenlow. "as i have mentioned to miss trotwood, i am actuated by no mercenary considerations; few men are less so, i believe; but mr. jorkins has his opinions on these subjects, and i am bound to respect mr. jorkins's opinions. mr. jorkins thinks a thousand pounds too little, in short." "i suppose, sir," said i, still desiring to spare my aunt, "that it is not the custom here, if an articled clerk were particularly useful, and made himself a perfect master of his profession--" i could not help blushing, this looked so like praising myself--"i suppose it is not the custom, in the later years of his time, to allow him any--" mr. spenlow, by a great effort, just lifted his head far enough out of his cravat to shake it, and answered, anticipating the word "salary:" "no. i will not say what consideration i might give to that point myself, mr. copperfield, if i were unfettered. mr. jorkins is immovable." i was quite dismayed by the idea of this terrible jorkins. but i found out afterwards that he was a mild man, of a heavy temperament, whose place in the business was to keep himself in the back-ground, and be constantly exhibited by name as the most obdurate and ruthless of men. if a clerk wanted his salary raised, mr. jorkins wouldn't listen to such a proposition. if a client were slow to settle his bill of costs, mr. jorkins was resolved to have it paid; and however painful these things might be (and always were) to the feelings of mr. spenlow, mr. jorkins would have his bond. the heart and hand of the good angel spenlow would have been always open, but for the restraining demon jorkins. as i have grown older, i think i have had experience of some other houses doing business on the principle of spenlow and jorkins! it was settled that i should begin my month's probation as soon as i pleased, and that my aunt need neither remain in town nor return at its expiration, as the articles of agreement, of which i was to be the subject, could easily be sent to her at home for her signature. when we had got so far, mr. spenlow offered to take me into court then and there, and show me what sort of place it was. as i was willing enough to know, we went out with this object, leaving my aunt behind; who would trust herself, she said, in no such place, and who, i think, regarded all courts of law as a sort of powder-mills that might blow up at any time. mr. spenlow conducted me through a paved courtyard formed of grave brick houses, which i inferred, from the doctors' names upon the doors, to be the official abiding-places of the learned advocates of whom steerforth had told me; and into a large dull room, not unlike a chapel to my thinking, on the left hand. the upper part of this room was fenced off from the rest; and there, on the two sides of a raised platform of the horse-shoe form, sitting on easy old-fashioned dining-room chairs, were sundry gentlemen in red gowns and grey wigs, whom i found to be the doctors aforesaid. blinking over a little desk like a pulpit-desk, in the curve of the horse-shoe, was an old gentleman, whom, if i had seen him in an aviary, i should certainly have taken for an owl, but who i learned was the presiding judge. in the space within the horse-shoe, lower than these, that is to say, on about the level of the floor, were sundry other gentlemen, of mr. spenlow's rank, and dressed like him in black gowns with white fur upon them, sitting at a long green table. their cravats were in general stiff, i thought, and their looks haughty; but in this last respect i presently conceived i had done them an injustice, for when two or three of them had to rise and answer a question of the presiding dignitary, i never saw anything more sheepish. the public, represented by a boy with a comforter, and a shabby-genteel man secretly eating crumbs out of his coat pockets, was warming itself at a stove in the centre of the court. the languid stillness of the place was only broken by the chirping of this fire and by the voice of one of the doctors, who was wandering slowly through a perfect library of evidence, and stopping to put up, from time to time, at little roadside inns of argument on the journey. altogether, i have never, on any occasion, made one at such a cosey, dosey, old-fashioned, time-forgotten, sleepy-headed little family-party in all my life; and i felt it would be quite a soothing opiate to belong to it in any character--except perhaps as a suitor. very well satisfied with the dreamy nature of this retreat, i informed mr. spenlow that i had seen enough for that time, and we rejoined my aunt; in company with whom i presently departed from the commons, feeling very young when i went out of spenlow and jorkins's, on account of the clerks poking one another with their pens to point me out. we arrived at lincoln's inn fields without any new adventures, except encountering an unlucky donkey in a costermonger's cart, who suggested painful associations to my aunt. we had another long talk about my plans, when we were safely housed; and as i knew she was anxious to get home, and, between fire, food, and pickpockets, could never be considered at her ease for half-an-hour in london, i urged her not to be uncomfortable on my account, but to leave me to take care of myself. "i have not been here a week to-morrow, without considering that too, my dear," she returned. "there is a furnished little set of chambers to be let in the adelphi, trot, which ought to suit you to a marvel." with this brief introduction, she produced from her pocket an advertisement, carefully cut out of a newspaper, setting forth that in buckingham street in the adelphi there was to be let, furnished, with a view of the river, a singularly desirable, and compact set of chambers, forming a genteel residence for a young gentleman, a member of one of the inns of court, or otherwise, with immediate possession. terms moderate, and could be taken for a month only if required. "why, this is the very thing, aunt!" said i, flushed with the possible dignity of living in chambers. "then come," replied my aunt, immediately resuming the bonnet she had a minute before laid aside. "we'll go and look at 'em." away we went. the advertisement directed us to apply to mrs. crupp on the premises, and we rung the area bell, which we supposed to communicate with mrs. crupp. it was not until we had rung three or four times that we could prevail on mrs. crupp to communicate with us, but at last she appeared, being a stout lady with a flounce of flannel petticoat below a nankeen gown. "let us see these chambers of yours, if you please, ma'am," said my aunt. "for this gentleman?" said mrs. crupp, feeling in her pocket for her keys. "yes, for my nephew," said my aunt. "and a sweet set they is for sich!" said mrs. crupp. so we went up-stairs. they were on the top of the house--a great point with my aunt, being near the fire-escape--and consisted of a little half-blind entry where you could see hardly anything, a little stone-blind pantry where you could see nothing at all, a sitting-room, and a bed-room. the furniture was rather faded, but quite good enough for me; and, sure enough, the river was outside the windows. as i was delighted with the place, my aunt and mrs. crupp withdrew into the pantry to discuss the terms, while i remained on the sitting-room sofa, hardly daring to think it possible that i could be destined to live in such a noble residence. after a single combat of some duration they returned, and i saw, to my joy, both in mrs. crupp's countenance and in my aunt's, that the deed was done. "is it the last occupant's furniture?" inquired my aunt. "yes it is, ma'am," said mrs. crupp. "what's become of him?" asked my aunt. mrs. crupp was taken with a troublesome cough, in the midst of which she articulated with much difficulty. "he was took ill here, ma'am, and--ugh! ugh! ugh! dear me!--and he died." "hey! what did he die of?" asked my aunt. "well, ma'am, he died of drink," said mrs. crupp in confidence. "and smoke." "smoke? you don't mean chimneys?" said my aunt. "no, ma'am," returned mrs. crupp. "cigars and pipes." "_that's_ not catching, trot, at any rate," remarked my aunt, turning to me. "no, indeed," said i. in short, my aunt, seeing how enraptured i was with the premises, took them for a month, with leave to remain for twelve months when that time was out. mrs. crupp was to find linen, and to cook; every other necessary was already provided; and mrs. crupp expressly intimated that she should always yearn towards me as a son. i was to take possession the day after to-morrow, and mrs. crupp said thank heaven she had now found summun she could care for! on our way back, my aunt informed me how she confidently trusted that the life i was now to lead would make me firm and self-reliant, which was all i wanted. she repeated this several times next day, in the intervals of our arranging for the transmission of my clothes and books from mr. wickfield's; relative to which, and to all my late holiday, i wrote a long letter to agnes, of which my aunt took charge, as she was to leave on the succeeding day. not to lengthen these particulars, i need only add, that she made a handsome provision for all my possible wants during my month of trial; that steerforth, to my great disappointment and hers too, did not make his appearance before she went away; that i saw her safely seated in the dover coach, exulting in the coming discomfiture of the vagrant donkeys, with janet at her side; and that when the coach was gone, i turned my face to the adelphi, pondering on the old days when i used to roam about its subterranean arches, and on the happy changes which had brought me to the surface. chapter xxiv. my first dissipation. it was a wonderfully fine thing to have that lofty castle to myself, and to feel, when i shut my outer door, like robinson crusoe, when he had got into his fortification, and pulled his ladder up after him. it was a wonderfully fine thing to walk about town with the key of my house in my pocket, and to know that i could ask any fellow to come home, and make quite sure of its being inconvenient to nobody, if it were not so to me. it was a wonderfully fine thing to let myself in and out, and to come and go without a word to any one, and to ring mrs. crupp up, gasping, from the depths of the earth, when i wanted her--and when she was disposed to come. all this, i say, was wonderfully fine; but i must say, too, that there were times when it was very dreary. it was fine in the morning, particularly in the fine mornings. it looked a very fresh, free life, by daylight: still fresher, and more free, by sunlight. but as the day declined, the life seemed to go down too. i don't know how it was; it seldom looked well by candle-light. i wanted somebody to talk to, then. i missed agnes. i found a tremendous blank, in the place of that smiling repository of my confidence. mrs. crupp appeared to be a long way off. i thought about my predecessor, who had died of drink and smoke; and i could have wished he had been so good as to live, and not bother me with his decease. after two days and nights, i felt as if i had lived there for a year, and yet i was not an hour older, but was quite as much tormented by my own youthfulness as ever. steerforth not yet appearing, which induced me to apprehend that he must be ill, i left the commons early on the third day, and walked out to highgate. mrs. steerforth was very glad to see me, and said that he had gone away with one of his oxford friends to see another who lived near st. albans, but that she expected him to return to-morrow. i was so fond of him, that i felt quite jealous of his oxford friends. as she pressed me to stay to dinner, i remained, and i believe we talked about nothing but him all day. i told her how much the people liked him at yarmouth, and what a delightful companion he had been. miss dartle was full of hints and mysterious questions, but took a great interest in all our proceedings there, and said, "was it really, though?" and so forth, so often, that she got everything out of me she wanted to know. her appearance was exactly what i have described it, when i first saw her; but the society of the two ladies was so agreeable, and came so natural to me, that i felt myself falling a little in love with her. i could not help thinking, several times in the course of the evening, and particularly when i walked home at night, what delightful company she would be in buckingham street. i was taking my coffee and roll in the morning, before going to the commons--and i may observe in this place that it is surprising how much coffee mrs. crupp used, and how weak it was, considering--when steerforth himself walked in, to my unbounded joy. "my dear steerforth," cried i, "i began to think i should never see you again!" "i was carried off, by force of arms," said steerforth, "the very next morning after i got home. why, daisy, what a rare old bachelor you are here!" i showed him over the establishment, not omitting the pantry, with no little pride, and he commended it highly. "i tell you what, old boy," he added, "i shall make quite a town-house of this place, unless you give me notice to quit." this was a delightful hearing. i told him if he waited for that, he would have to wait till doomsday. "but you shall have some breakfast!" said i, with my hand on the bell-rope, "and mrs. crupp shall make you some fresh coffee, and i'll toast you some bacon in a bachelor's dutch-oven that i have got here." "no, no!" said steerforth. "don't ring! i can't! i am going to breakfast with one of these fellows who is at the piazza hotel, in covent garden." "but you'll come back to dinner?" said i. "i can't, upon my life. there's nothing i should like better, but i _must_ remain with these two fellows. we are all three off together to-morrow morning." "then bring them here to dinner," i returned. "do you think they would come?" "oh! they would come fast enough," said steerforth; "but we should inconvenience you. you had better come and dine with us somewhere." i would not by any means consent to this, for it occurred to me that i really ought to have a little housewarming, and that there never could be a better opportunity. i had a new pride in my rooms after his approval of them, and burned with a desire to develop their utmost resources. i therefore made him promise positively in the names of his two friends, and we appointed six o'clock as the dinner-hour. when he was gone, i rang for mrs. crupp, and acquainted her with my desperate design. mrs. crupp said, in the first place, of course it was well known she couldn't be expected to wait, but she knew a handy young man, who she thought could be prevailed upon to do it, and whose terms would be five shillings, and what i pleased. i said, certainly we would have him. next, mrs. crupp said it was clear she couldn't be in two places at once (which i felt to be reasonable), and that "a young gal" stationed in the pantry with a bed-room candle, there never to desist from washing plates, would be indispensable. i said, what would be the expense of this young female, and mrs. crupp said she supposed eighteen-pence would neither make me nor break me. i said i supposed not; and _that_ was settled. then mrs. crupp said, now about the dinner. it was a remarkable instance of want of forethought on the part of the ironmonger who had made mrs. crupp's kitchen fire-place, that it was capable of cooking nothing but chops and mashed potatoes. as to a fish-kittle, mrs. crupp said, well! would i only come and look at the range. she couldn't say fairer than that. would i come and look at it? as i should not have been much the wiser if i _had_ looked at it, i declined, and said, "never mind fish." but mrs. crupp said, don't say that; oysters was in, and why not them? so _that_ was settled. mrs. crupp then said what she would recommend would be this. a pair of hot roast fowls--from the pastry-cook's; a dish of stewed beef, with vegetables--from the pastry-cook's; two little corner things, as a raised pie and a dish of kidneys--from the pastry-cook's; a tart, and (if i liked) a shape of jelly--from the pastry-cook's. this, mrs. crupp said, would leave her at full liberty to concentrate her mind on the potatoes, and to serve up the cheese and celery as she could wish to see it done. i acted on mrs. crupp's opinion, and gave the order at the pastry-cook's myself. walking along the strand, afterwards, and observing a hard mottled substance in the window of a ham and beef shop, which resembled marble, but was labelled "mock turtle," i went in and bought a slab of it, which i have since seen reason to believe would have sufficed for fifteen people. this preparation, mrs. crupp, after some difficulty, consented to warm up; and it shrunk so much in a liquid state, that we found it what steerforth called "rather a tight fit" for four. these preparations happily completed, i bought a little dessert in covent garden market, and gave a rather extensive order at a retail wine-merchant's in that vicinity. when i came home in the afternoon, and saw the bottles drawn up in a square on the pantry-floor, they looked so numerous (though there were two missing, which made mrs. crupp very uncomfortable), that i was absolutely frightened at them. one of steerforth's friends was named grainger, and the other markham. they were both very gay and lively fellows; grainger, something older than steerforth; markham, youthful-looking, and i should say not more than twenty. i observed that the latter always spoke of himself indefinitely, as "a man," and seldom or never in the first person singular. "a man might get on very well here, mr. copperfield," said markham--meaning himself. "it's not a bad situation," said i, "and the rooms are really commodious." "i hope you have both brought appetites with you?" said steerforth. "upon my honour," returned markham, "town seems to sharpen a man's appetite. a man is hungry all day long. a man is perpetually eating." being a little embarrassed at first, and feeling much too young to preside, i made steerforth take the head of the table when dinner was announced, and seated myself opposite to him. everything was very good; we did not spare the wine; and he exerted himself so brilliantly to make the thing pass off well, that there was no pause in our festivity. i was not quite such good company during dinner, as i could have wished to be, for my chair was opposite the door, and my attention was distracted by observing that the handy young man went out of the room very often, and that his shadow always presented itself, immediately afterwards, on the wall of the entry, with a bottle at its mouth. the "young gal" likewise occasioned me some uneasiness: not so much by neglecting to wash the plates, as by breaking them. for being of an inquisitive disposition, and unable to confine herself (as her positive instructions were) to the pantry, she was constantly peering in at us, and constantly imagining herself detected; in which belief, she several times retired upon the plates (with which she had carefully paved the floor), and did a great deal of destruction. these, however, were small drawbacks, and easily forgotten when the cloth was cleared, and the dessert put on the table; at which period of the entertainment the handy young man was discovered to be speechless. giving him private directions to seek the society of mrs. crupp, and to remove the "young gal" to the basement also, i abandoned myself to enjoyment. i began, by being singularly cheerful and light-hearted; all sorts of half-forgotten things to talk about, came rushing into my mind, and made me hold forth in a most unwonted manner. i laughed heartily at my own jokes, and everybody else's; called steerforth to order for not passing the wine; made several engagements to go to oxford; announced that i meant to have a dinner party exactly like that, once a week until further notice; and madly took so much snuff out of grainger's box, that i was obliged to go into the pantry, and have a private fit of sneezing ten minutes long. i went on, by passing the wine faster and faster yet, and continually starting up with a corkscrew to open more wine, long before any was needed. i proposed steerforth's health. i said he was my dearest friend, the protector of my boyhood, and the companion of my prime. i said i was delighted to propose his health. i said i owed him more obligations than i could ever repay, and held him in a higher admiration than i could ever express. i finished by saying, "i'll give you steerforth! god bless him! hurrah!" we gave him three times three, and another, and a good one to finish with. i broke my glass in going round the table to shake hands with him, and i said (in two words) "steerforthyou'retheguidingstarofmyexist ence." i went on, by finding suddenly that somebody was in the middle of a song. markham was the singer, and he sang "when the heart of a man is depressed with care." he said, when he had sung it, he would give us "woman!" i took objection to that, and i couldn't allow it. i said it was not a respectful way of proposing the toast, and i would never permit that toast to be drunk in my house otherwise than as "the ladies!" i was very high with him, mainly i think because i saw steerforth and grainger laughing at me--or at him--or at both of us. he said a man was not to be dictated to. i said a man _was_. he said a man was not to be insulted, then. i said he was right there--never under my roof, where the lares were sacred, and the laws of hospitality paramount. he said it was no derogation from a man's dignity to confess that i was a devilish good fellow. i instantly proposed his health. somebody was smoking. we were all smoking. _i_ was smoking, and trying to suppress a rising tendency to shudder. steerforth had made a speech about me, in the course of which i had been affected almost to tears. i returned thanks, and hoped the present company would dine with me to-morrow, and the day after--each day at five o'clock, that we might enjoy the pleasures of conversation and society through a long evening. i felt called upon to propose an individual. i would give them my aunt. miss betsey trotwood, the best of her sex! somebody was leaning out of my bed-room window, refreshing his forehead against the cool stone of the parapet, and feeling the air upon his face. it was myself. i was addressing myself as "copperfield," and saying, "why did you try to smoke? you might have known you couldn't do it." now, somebody was unsteadily contemplating his features in the looking-glass. that was i too. i was very pale in the looking-glass; my eyes had a vacant appearance; and my hair--only my hair, nothing else--looked drunk. somebody said to me, "let us go to the theatre, copperfield!" there was no bed-room before me, but again the jingling table covered with glasses; the lamp; grainger on my right hand, markham on my left, and steerforth opposite--all sitting in a mist, and a long way off. the theatre? to be sure. the very thing. come along! but they must excuse me if i saw everybody out first, and turned the lamp off--in case of fire. owing to some confusion in the dark, the door was gone. i was feeling for it in the window-curtains, when steerforth, laughing, took me by the arm and led me out. we went down-stairs, one behind another. near the bottom, somebody fell, and rolled down. somebody else said it was copperfield. i was angry at that false report, until, finding myself on my back in the passage, i began to think there might be some foundation for it. a very foggy night, with great rings round the lamps in the streets! there was an indistinct talk of its being wet. _i_ considered it frosty. steerforth dusted me under a lamp-post, and put my hat into shape, which somebody produced from somewhere in a most extraordinary manner, for i hadn't had it on before. steerforth then said, "you are all right, copperfield, are you not?" and i told him, "neverberrer." a man, sitting in a pigeon-hole-place, looked out of the fog, and took money from somebody, inquiring if i was one of the gentlemen paid for, and appearing rather doubtful (as i remember in the glimpse i had of him) whether to take the money for me or not. shortly afterwards, we were very high up in a very hot theatre, looking down into a large pit, that seemed to me to smoke; the people with whom it was crammed were so indistinct. there was a great stage, too, looking very clean and smooth after the streets; and there were people upon it, talking about something or other, but not at all intelligibly. there was an abundance of bright lights, and there was music, and there were ladies down in the boxes, and i don't know what more. the whole building looked to me, as if it were learning to swim; it conducted itself in such an unaccountable manner, when i tried to steady it. on somebody's motion, we resolved to go down-stairs to the dress-boxes, where the ladies were. a gentleman lounging, full dressed, on a sofa, with an opera-glass in his hand, passed before my view, and also my own figure at full length in a glass. then i was being ushered into one of these boxes, and found myself saying something as i sat down, and people about me crying "silence!" to somebody, and ladies casting indignant glances at me, and--what! yes!--agnes, sitting on the seat before me, in the same box, with a lady and gentleman beside her, whom i didn't know. i see her face now, better than i did then i dare say, with its indelible look of regret and wonder turned upon me. "agnes!" i said, thickly, "lorblessmer! agnes!" "hush! pray!" she answered, i could not conceive why. "you disturb the company. look at the stage!" i tried, on her injunction, to fix it, and to hear something of what was going on there, but quite in vain. i looked at her again by-and-by, and saw her shrink into her corner, and put her gloved hand to her forehead. "agnes!" i said. "i'mafraidyou'renorwell." "yes, yes. do not mind me, trotwood," she returned. "listen! are you going away soon?" "amigoarawaysoo?" i repeated. "yes." i had a stupid intention of replying that i was going to wait, to hand her down-stairs. i suppose i expressed it, somehow; for after she had looked at me attentively for a little while, she appeared to understand, and replied in a low tone: "i know you will do as i ask you, if i tell you i am very earnest in it. go away now, trotwood, for my sake, and ask your friends to take you home." she had so far improved me, for the time, that though i was angry with her, i felt ashamed, and with a short "goori!" (which i intended for "good night!") got up and went away. they followed, and i stepped at once out of the box-door into my bedroom, where only steerforth was with me, helping me to undress, and where i was by turns telling him that agnes was my sister, and adjuring him to bring the corkscrew, that i might open another bottle of wine. how somebody, lying in my bed, lay saying and doing all this over again, at cross purposes, in a feverish dream all night--the bed a rocking sea that was never still! how, as that somebody slowly settled down into myself, did i begin to parch, and feel as if my outer covering of skin were a hard board; my tongue the bottom of an empty kettle, furred with long service, and burning up over a slow fire; the palms of my hands, hot plates of metal which no ice could cool! but the agony of mind, the remorse, and shame i felt, when i became conscious next day! my horror of having committed a thousand offences i had forgotten, and which nothing could ever expiate--my recollection of that indelible look which agnes had given me--the torturing impossibility of communicating with her, not knowing, beast that i was, how she came to be in london, or where she stayed--my disgust of the very sight of the room where the revel had been held--my racking head--the smell of smoke, the sight of glasses, the impossibility of going out, or even getting up! oh, what a day it was! oh, what an evening, when i sat down by my fire to a basin of mutton broth, dimpled all over with fat, and thought i was going the way of my predecessor, and should succeed to his dismal story as well as to his chambers, and had half a mind to rush express to dover and reveal all! what an evening, when mrs. crupp, coming in to take away the broth-basin, produced one kidney on a cheese-plate as the entire remains of yesterday's feast, and i was really inclined to fall upon her nankeen breast, and say, in heartfelt penitence, "oh, mrs. crupp, mrs. crupp, never mind the broken meats! i am very miserable!"--only that i doubted, even at that pass, if mrs. crupp were quite the sort of woman to confide in! chapter xxv. good and bad angels. i was going out at my door on the morning after that deplorable day of headache, sickness, and repentance, with an odd confusion in my mind relative to the date of my dinner-party, as if a body of titans had taken an enormous lever and pushed the day before yesterday some months back, when i saw a ticket-porter coming up-stairs, with a letter in his hand. he was taking his time about his errand, then; but when he saw me on the top of the staircase, looking at him over the bannisters, he swung into a trot, and came up panting as if he had run himself into a state of exhaustion. "t. copperfield, esquire," said the ticket-porter, touching his hat with his little cane. i could scarcely lay claim to the name: i was so disturbed by the conviction that the letter came from agnes. however, i told him i was t. copperfield, esquire, and he believed it, and gave me the letter, which he said required an answer. i shut him out on the landing to wait for the answer, and went into my chambers again, in such a nervous state that i was fain to lay the letter down on my breakfast-table, and familiarise myself with the outside of it a little, before i could resolve to break the seal. i found, when i did open it, that it was a very kind note, containing no reference to my condition at the theatre. all it said, was, "my dear trotwood. i am staying at the house of papa's agent, mr. waterbrook, in ely-place, holborn. will you come and see me to-day, at any time you like to appoint? ever yours affectionately, agnes." it took me such a long time to write an answer at all to my satisfaction, that i don't know what the ticket-porter can have thought, unless he thought i was learning to write. i must have written half a dozen answers at least. i began one, "how can i ever hope, my dear agnes, to efface from your remembrance the disgusting impression"--there i didn't like it, and then i tore it up. i began another, "shakspeare has observed, my dear agnes, how strange it is that a man should put an enemy into his mouth"--that reminded me of markham, and it got no farther. i even tried poetry. i began one note, in a six-syllable line, "oh do not remember"--but that associated itself with the fifth of november, and became an absurdity. after many attempts, i wrote, "my dear agnes. your letter is like you, and what could i say of it that would be higher praise than that? i will come at four o'clock. affectionately and sorrowfully, t. c." with this missive (which i was in twenty minds at once about recalling, as soon as it was out of my hands), the ticket-porter at last departed. if the day were half as tremendous to any other professional gentleman in doctors' commons as it was to me, i sincerely believe he made some expiation for his share in that rotten old ecclesiastical cheese. although i left the office at half-past three, and was prowling about the place of appointment within a few minutes afterwards, the appointed time was exceeded by a full quarter of an hour, according to the clock of st. andrew's, holborn, before i could muster up sufficient desperation to pull the private bell-handle let into the left-hand door-post of mr. waterbrook's house. the professional business of mr. waterbrook's establishment was done on the ground-floor, and the genteel business (of which there was a good deal) in the upper part of the building. i was shown into a pretty but rather close drawing-room, and there sat agnes, netting a purse. she looked so quiet and good, and reminded me so strongly of my airy fresh school days at canterbury, and the sodden, smoky, stupid wretch i had been the other night, that, nobody being by, i yielded to my self-reproach and shame, and--in short, made a fool of myself. i cannot deny that i shed tears. to this hour i am undecided whether it was upon the whole the wisest thing i could have done, or the most ridiculous. "if it had been any one but you, agnes," said i, turning away my head, "i should not have minded it half so much. but that it should have been you who saw me! i almost wish i had been dead, first." she put her hand--its touch was like no other hand--upon my arm for a moment; and i felt so befriended and comforted, that i could not help moving it to my lips, and gratefully kissing it. "sit down," said agnes, cheerfully. "don't be unhappy, trotwood. if you cannot confidently trust me, whom will you trust?" "ah, agnes!" i returned. "you are my good angel!" she smiled rather sadly, i thought, and shook her head. "yes, agnes, my good angel! always my good angel!" "if i were, indeed, trotwood," she returned, "there is one thing that i should set my heart on very much." i looked at her inquiringly; but already with a foreknowledge of her meaning. "on warning you," said agnes, with a steady glance, "against your bad angel." "my dear agnes," i began, "if you mean steerforth--" "i do, trotwood," she returned. "then, agnes, you wrong him very much. he my bad angel, or anyone's! he, anything but a guide, a support, and a friend to me! my dear agnes! now, is it not unjust, and unlike you, to judge him from what you saw of me the other night?" "i do not judge him from what i saw of you the other night," she quietly replied. "from what, then?" "from many things--trifles in themselves, but they do not seem to me to be so, when they are put together. i judge him, partly from your account of him, trotwood, and your character, and the influence he has over you." there was always something in her modest voice that seemed to touch a chord within me, answering to that sound alone. it was always earnest; but when it was very earnest, as it was now, there was a thrill in it that quite subdued me. i sat looking at her as she cast her eyes down on her work; i sat seeming still to listen to her; and steerforth, in spite of all my attachment to him, darkened in that tone. "it is very bold in me," said agnes, looking up again, "who have lived in such seclusion, and can know so little of the world, to give you my advice so confidently, or even to have this strong opinion. but i know in what it is engendered, trotwood,--in how true a remembrance of our having grown up together, and in how true an interest in all relating to you. it is that which makes me bold. i am certain that what i say is right. i am quite sure it is. i feel as if it were some one else speaking to you, and not i, when i caution you that you have made a dangerous friend." again i looked at her, again i listened to her after she was silent, and again his image, though it was still fixed in my heart, darkened. "i am not so unreasonable as to expect," said agnes, resuming her usual tone, after a little while, "that you will, or that you can, at once, change any sentiment that has become a conviction to you; least of all a sentiment that is rooted in your trusting disposition. you ought not hastily to do that. i only ask you, trotwood, if you ever think of me--i mean" with a quiet smile, for i was going to interrupt her, and she knew why "as often as you think of me--to think of what i have said. do you forgive me for all this?" "i will forgive you, agnes," i replied, "when you come to do steerforth justice, and to like him as well as i do." "not until then?" said agnes. i saw a passing shadow on her face when i made this mention of him, but she returned my smile, and we were again as unreserved in our mutual confidence as of old. "and when, agnes," said i, "will you forgive me the other night?" "when i recall it," said agnes. she would have dismissed the subject so, but i was too full of it to allow that, and insisted on telling her how it happened that i had disgraced myself, and what chain of accidental circumstances had had the theatre for its final link. it was a great relief to me to do this, and to enlarge on the obligation that i owed to steerforth for his care of me when i was unable to take care of myself. "you must not forget," said agnes, calmly changing the conversation as soon as i had concluded, "that you are always to tell me, not only when you fall into trouble, but when you fall in love. who has succeeded to miss larkins, trotwood?" "no one, agnes." "some one, trotwood," said agnes, laughing, and holding up her finger. "no, agnes, upon my word! there is a lady, certainly, at mrs. steerforth's house, who is very clever, and whom i like to talk to--miss dartle--but i don't adore her." agnes laughed again at her own penetration, and told me that if i were faithful to her in my confidence she thought she should keep a little register of my violent attachments, with the date, duration, and termination of each, like the table of the reigns of the kings and queens, in the history of england. then she asked me if i had seen uriah. "uriah heep?" said i. "no. is he in london?" "he comes to the office down-stairs, every day," returned agnes. "he was in london a week before me. i am afraid on disagreeable business, trotwood." "on some business that makes you uneasy, agnes, i see," said i. "what can that be?" agnes laid aside her work, and replied, folding her hands upon one another, and looking pensively at me out of those beautiful soft eyes of hers: "i believe he is going to enter into partnership with papa." "what? uriah? that mean, fawning fellow, worm himself into such promotion?" i cried, indignantly. "have you made no remonstrance about it, agnes? consider what a connexion it is likely to be. you must speak out. you must not allow your father to take such a mad step. you must prevent it, agnes, while there's time." still looking at me, agnes shook her head while i was speaking, with a faint smile at my warmth: and then replied: "you remember our last conversation about papa? it was not long after that--not more than two or three days--when he gave me the first intimation of what i tell you. it was sad to see him struggling between his desire to represent it to me as a matter of choice on his part, and his inability to conceal that it was forced upon him. i felt very sorry." "forced upon him, agnes! who forces it upon him?" "uriah," she replied, after a moment's hesitation, "has made himself indispensable to papa. he is subtle and watchful. he has mastered papa's weaknesses, fostered them, and taken advantage of them, until--to say all that i mean in a word, trotwood, until papa is afraid of him." there was more that she might have said; more that she knew, or that she suspected; i clearly saw. i could not give her pain by asking what it was, for i knew that she withheld it from me, to spare her father. it had long been going on to this, i was sensible: yes, i could not but feel, on the least reflection, that it had been going on to this for a long time. i remained silent. "his ascendancy over papa," said agnes, "is very great. he professes humility and gratitude--with truth, perhaps: i hope so--but his position is really one of power, and i fear he makes a hard use of his power." i said he was a hound, which, at the moment, was a great satisfaction to me. "at the time i speak of, as the time when papa spoke to me," pursued agnes, "he had told papa that he was going away; that he was very sorry, and unwilling to leave, but that he had better prospects. papa was very much depressed then, and more bowed down by care than ever you or i have seen him; but he seemed relieved by this expedient of the partnership, though at the same time he seemed hurt by it and ashamed of it." "and how did you receive it, agnes?" "i did, trotwood," she replied, "what i hope was right. feeling sure that it was necessary for papa's peace that the sacrifice should be made, i entreated him to make it. i said it would lighten the load of his life--i hope it will!--and that it would give me increased opportunities of being his companion. oh, trotwood!" cried agnes, putting her hands before her face, as her tears started on it, "i almost feel as if i had been papa's enemy, instead of his loving child. for i know how he has altered, in his devotion to me. i know how he has narrowed the circle of his sympathies and duties, in the concentration of his whole mind upon me. i know what a multitude of things he has shut out for my sake, and how his anxious thoughts of me have shadowed his life, and weakened his strength and energy, by turning them always upon one idea. if i could ever set this right! if i could ever work out his restoration, as i have so innocently been the cause of his decline!" i had never before seen agnes cry. i had seen tears in her eyes when i had brought new honours home from school, and i had seen them there when we last spoke about her father, and i had seen her turn her gentle head aside when we took leave of one another; but i had never seen her grieve like this. it made me so sorry that i could only say, in a foolish, helpless manner, "pray, agnes, don't! don't, my dear sister!" but agnes was too superior to me in character and purpose, as i know well now, whatever i might know or not know then, to be long in need of my entreaties. the beautiful, calm manner, which makes her so different in my remembrance from everybody else, came back again, as if a cloud had passed from a serene sky. "we are not likely to remain alone much longer," said agnes, "and while i have an opportunity, let me earnestly entreat you, trotwood, to be friendly to uriah. don't repel him. don't resent (as i think you have a general disposition to do) what may be uncongenial to you in him. he may not deserve it, for we know no certain ill of him. in any case, think first of papa and me!" agnes had no time to say more, for the room-door opened, and mrs. waterbrook, who was a large lady--or who wore a large dress: i don't exactly know which, for i don't know which was dress and which was lady--came sailing in. i had a dim recollection of having seen her at the theatre, as if i had seen her in a pale magic lantern; but she appeared to remember me perfectly, and still to suspect me of being in a state of intoxication. finding by degrees, however, that i was sober, and (i hope) that i was a modest young gentleman, mrs. waterbrook softened towards me considerably, and inquired, firstly, if i went much into the parks, and secondly, if i went much into society. on my replying to both these questions in the negative, it occurred to me that i fell again in her good opinion; but she concealed the fact gracefully, and invited me to dinner next day. i accepted the invitation, and took my leave; making a call on uriah in the office as i went out, and leaving a card for him in his absence. when i went to dinner next day, and, on the street-door being opened, plunged into a vapour-bath of haunch of mutton, i divined that i was not the only guest; for i immediately identified the ticket-porter in disguise, assisting the family servant, and waiting at the foot of the stairs to carry up my name. he looked, to the best of his ability, when he asked me for it confidentially, as if he had never seen me before; but well did i know him, and well did he know me. conscience made cowards of us both. i found mr. waterbrook to be a middle-aged gentleman, with a short throat, and a good deal of shirt-collar, who only wanted a black nose to be the portrait of a pug-dog. he told me he was happy to have the honour of making my acquaintance; and when i had paid my homage to mrs. waterbrook, presented me, with much ceremony, to a very awful lady in a black velvet dress, and a great black velvet hat, whom i remember as looking like a near relation of hamlet's--say his aunt. mrs. henry spiker was this lady's name; and her husband was there too: so cold a man, that his head, instead of being grey, seemed to be sprinkled with hoar-frost. immense deference was shown to the henry spikers, male and female; which agnes told me was on account of mr. henry spiker being solicitor to something or to somebody, i forget what or which, remotely connected with the treasury. i found uriah heep among the company, in a suit of black, and in deep humility. he told me, when i shook hands with him, that he was proud to be noticed by me, and that he really felt obliged to me for my condescension. i could have wished he had been less obliged to me, for he hovered about me in his gratitude all the rest of the evening; and whenever i said a word to agnes, was sure, with his shadowless eyes and cadaverous face, to be looking gauntly down upon us from behind. [illustration: uriah persists in hovering near us, at the dinner party.] there were other guests--all iced for the occasion, as it struck me, like the wine. but, there was one who attracted my attention before he came in, on account of my hearing him announced as mr. traddles! my mind flew back to salem house; and could it be tommy, i thought, who used to draw the skeletons! i looked for mr. traddles with unusual interest. he was a sober, steady-looking young man of retiring manners, with a comic head of hair, and eyes that were rather wide open; and he got into an obscure corner so soon, that i had some difficulty in making him out. at length i had a good view of him, and either my vision deceived me, or it was the old unfortunate tommy. i made my way to mr. waterbrook, and said, that i believed i had the pleasure of seeing an old schoolfellow there. "indeed?" said mr. waterbrook, surprised. "you are too young to have been at school with mr. henry spiker?" "oh, i don't mean him!" i returned. "i mean the gentleman named traddles." "oh! aye, aye! indeed!" said my host, with much diminished interest. "possibly." "if it's really the same person," said i, glancing towards him, "it was at a place called salem house where we were together, and he was an excellent fellow." "oh yes. traddles is a good fellow," returned my host, nodding his head with an air of toleration. "traddles is quite a good fellow." "it's a curious coincidence," said i. "it is really," returned my host, "quite a coincidence, that traddles should be here at all: as traddles was only invited this morning, when the place at table, intended to be occupied by mrs. henry spiker's brother, became vacant, in consequence of his indisposition. a very gentlemanly man, mrs. henry spiker's brother, mr. copperfield." i murmured an assent, which was full of feeling, considering that i knew nothing at all about him; and i inquired what mr. traddles was by profession. "traddles," returned mr. waterbrook, "is a young man reading for the bar. yes. he is quite a good fellow--nobody's enemy but his own." "is he his own enemy?" said i, sorry to hear this. "well," returned mr. waterbrook, pursing up his mouth, and playing with his watch-chain, in a comfortable, prosperous sort of way. "i should say he was one of those men who stand in their own light. yes, i should say he would never, for example, be worth five hundred pound. traddles was recommended to me, by a professional friend. oh yes. yes. he has a kind of talent, for drawing briefs, and stating a case in writing, plainly. i am able to throw something in traddles's way, in the course of the year; something--for him--considerable. oh yes. yes." i was much impressed by the extremely comfortable and satisfied manner, in which mr. waterbrook delivered himself of this little word "yes," every now and then. there was wonderful expression in it. it completely conveyed the idea of a man who had been born, not to say with a silver spoon, but with a scaling-ladder, and had gone on mounting all the heights of life one after another, until now he looked, from the top of the fortifications, with the eye of a philosopher and a patron, on the people down in the trenches. my reflections on this theme were still in progress when dinner was announced. mr. waterbrook went down with hamlet's aunt. mr. henry spiker took mrs. waterbrook. agnes, whom i should have liked to take myself, was given to a simpering fellow with weak legs. uriah, traddles, and i, as the junior part of the company, went down last, how we could. i was not so vexed at losing agnes as i might have been since it gave me an opportunity of making myself known to traddles on the stairs, who greeted me with great fervor: while uriah writhed with such obtrusive satisfaction and self-abasement, that i could gladly have pitched him over the bannisters. traddles and i were separated at table, being billeted in two remote corners: he in the glare of a red velvet lady; i, in the gloom of hamlet's aunt. the dinner was very long, and the conversation was about the aristocracy--and blood. mrs. waterbrook repeatedly told us, that if she had a weakness, it was blood. it occurred to me several times that we should have got on better, if we had not been quite so genteel. we were so exceedingly genteel, that our scope was very limited. a mr. and mrs. gulpidge were of the party, who had something to do at second-hand (at least, mr. gulpidge had) with the law business of the bank; and what with the bank, and what with the treasury, we were as exclusive as the court circular. to mend the matter, hamlet's aunt had the family failing of indulging in soliloquy, and held forth in a desultory manner, by herself, on every topic that was introduced. these were few enough, to be sure; but as we always fell back upon blood, she had as wide a field for abstract speculation as her nephew himself. we might have been a party of ogres, the conversation assumed such a sanguine complexion. "i confess i am of mrs. waterbrook's opinion," said mr. waterbrook, with his wine-glass at his eye. "other things are all very well in their way, but give me blood!" "oh! there is nothing," observed hamlet's aunt, "so satisfactory to one! there is nothing that is so much one's _beau-ideal_ of--of all that sort of thing, speaking generally. there are some low minds (not many, i am happy to believe, but there are _some_) that would prefer to do what _i_ should call bow down before idols. positively idols! before services, intellect, and so on. but these are intangible points. blood is not so. we see blood in a nose, and we know it. we meet with it in a chin, and we say, 'there it is! that's blood!' it is an actual matter of fact. we point it out. it admits of no doubt." the simpering fellow with the weak legs, who had taken agnes down, stated the question more decisively yet, i thought. "oh, you know, deuce take it," said this gentleman, looking round the board with an imbecile smile, "we can't forego blood, you know. we must have blood, you know. some young fellows, you know, may be a little behind their station, perhaps, in point of education and behaviour, and may go a little wrong, you know, and get themselves and other people into a variety of fixes--and all that--but deuce take it, it's delightful to reflect that they've got blood in 'em! myself, i'd rather at any time be knocked down by a man who had got blood in him, than i'd be picked up by a man who hadn't!" this sentiment, as compressing the general question into a nutshell, gave the utmost satisfaction, and brought the gentleman into great notice until the ladies retired. after that, i observed that mr. gulpidge and mr. henry spiker, who had hitherto been very distant, entered into a defensive alliance against us, the common enemy, and exchanged a mysterious dialogue across the table for our defeat and overthrow. "that affair of the first bond for four thousand five hundred pounds has not taken the course that was expected, gulpidge," said mr. henry spiker. "do you mean the d. of a.'s?" said mr. spiker. "the c. of b.'s?" said mr. gulpidge. mr. spiker raised his eye-brows, and looked much concerned. "when the question was referred to lord--i needn't name him," said mr. gulpidge, checking himself-- "i understand," said mr. spiker, "n." mr. gulpidge darkly nodded--"was referred to him, his answer was, 'money, or no release.'" "lord bless my soul!" cried mr. spiker. "'money, or no release,'" repeated mr. gulpidge firmly. "the next in reversion--you understand me?" "k." said mr. spiker, with an ominous look. "--k. then positively refused to sign. he was attended at newmarket for that purpose, and he point-blank refused to do it." mr. spiker was so interested, that he became quite stony. "so the matter rests at this hour," said mr. gulpidge, throwing himself back in his chair. "our friend waterbrook will excuse me if i forbear to explain myself generally, on account of the magnitude of the interests involved." mr. waterbrook was only too happy, as it appeared to me, to have such interests, and such names, even hinted at, across his table. he assumed an expression of gloomy intelligence (though i am persuaded he knew no more about the discussion than i did), and highly approved of the discretion that had been observed. mr. spiker, after the receipt of such a confidence, naturally desired to favor his friend with a confidence of his own; therefore the foregoing dialogue was succeeded by another, in which it was mr. gulpidge's turn to be surprised, and that by another in which the surprise came round to mr. spiker's turn again, and so on, turn and turn about. all this time we, the outsiders, remained oppressed by the tremendous interests involved in the conversation; and our host regarded us with pride, as the victims of a salutary awe and astonishment. i was very glad indeed to get up-stairs to agnes, and to talk with her in a corner, and to introduce traddles to her, who was shy, but agreeable, and the same good-natured creature still. as he was obliged to leave early, on account of going away next morning for a month, i had not nearly so much conversation with him as i could have wished; but we exchanged addresses, and promised ourselves the pleasure of another meeting when he should come back to town. he was greatly interested to hear that i knew steerforth, and spoke of him with such warmth that i made him tell agnes what he thought of him. but agnes only looked at me the while, and very slightly shook her head when only i observed her. as she was not among people with whom i believed she could be very much at home, i was almost glad to hear that she was going away within a few days, though i was sorry at the prospect of parting from her again so soon. this caused me to remain until all the company were gone. conversing with her, and hearing her sing, was such a delightful reminder to me of my happy life in the grave old house she had made so beautiful, that i could have remained there half the night; but, having no excuse for staying any longer, when the lights of mr. waterbrook's society were all snuffed out, i took my leave very much against my inclination. i felt then, more than ever, that she was my better angel; and if i thought of her sweet face and placid smile, as though they had shone on me from some removed being, like an angel, i hope i thought no harm. i have said that the company were all gone; but i ought to have excepted uriah, whom i don't include in that denomination, and who had never ceased to hover near us. he was close behind me when i went down-stairs. he was close beside me, when i walked away from the house, slowly fitting his long skeleton fingers into the still longer fingers of a great guy fawkes pair of gloves. it was in no disposition for uriah's company, but in remembrance of the entreaty agnes had made to me, that i asked him if he would come home to my rooms, and have some coffee. "oh, really, master copperfield," he rejoined,--"i beg your pardon, mister copperfield, but the other comes so natural,--i don't like that you should put a constraint upon yourself to ask a numble person like me to your ouse." "there is no constraint in the case," said i. "will you come?" "i should like to, very much," replied uriah, with a writhe. "well, then, come along!" said i. i could not help being rather short with him, but he appeared not to mind it. we went the nearest way, without conversing much upon the road; and he was so humble in respect of those scarecrow gloves, that he was still putting them on, and seemed to have made no advance in that labour, when we got to my place. i led him up the dark stairs, to prevent his knocking his head against anything, and really his damp cold hand felt so like a frog in mine, that i was tempted to drop it and run away. agnes and hospitality prevailed, however, and i conducted him to my fireside. when i lighted my candles, he fell into meek transports with the room that was revealed to him; and when i heated the coffee in an unassuming block-tin vessel, in which mrs. crupp delighted to prepare it (chiefly, i believe, because it was not intended for the purpose, being a shaving-pot, and because there was a patent invention of great price mouldering away in the pantry), he professed so much emotion, that i could joyfully have scalded him. "oh, really, master copperfield,--i mean mister copperfield," said uriah, "to see you waiting upon me is what i never could have expected! but, one way and another, so many things happen to me which i never could have expected, i am sure, in my umble station, that it seems to rain blessings on my ed. you have heard something, i des-say, of a change in my expectations, master copperfield,--_i_ should say, mister copperfield?" as he sat on my sofa, with his long knees drawn up under his coffee-cup, his hat and gloves upon the ground close to him, his spoon going softly round and round, his shadowless red eyes, which looked as if they had scorched their lashes off, turned towards me without looking at me, the disagreeable dints i have formerly described in his nostrils coming and going with his breath, and a snaky undulation pervading his frame from his chin to his boots, i decided in my own mind that i disliked him intensely. it made me very uncomfortable to have him for a guest, for i was young then, and unused to disguise what i so strongly felt. "you have heard something, i des-say, of a change in my expectations, master copperfield,--i should say, mister copperfield?" observed uriah. "yes," said i, "something." "ah! i thought miss agnes would know of it!" he quietly returned. "i'm glad to find miss agnes knows of it. oh, thank you, master--mister copperfield!" i could have thrown my bootjack at him (it lay ready on the rug), for having entrapped me into the disclosure of anything concerning agnes, however immaterial. but i only drank my coffee. "what a prophet you have shown yourself, mister copperfield!" pursued uriah. "dear me, what a prophet you have proved yourself to be! don't you remember saying to me once, that perhaps i should be a partner in mr. wickfield's business, and perhaps it might be wickfield and heep! _you_ may not recollect it; but when a person is umble, master copperfield, a person treasures such things up!" "i recollect talking about it," said i, "though i certainly did not think it very likely then." "oh! who _would_ have thought it likely, mister copperfield!" returned uriah, enthusiastically, "i am sure i didn't myself. i recollect saying with my own lips that i was much too umble. so i considered myself really and truly." he sat, with that carved grin on his face, looking at the fire, as i looked at him. "but the umblest persons, master copperfield," he presently resumed, "may be the instruments of good. i am glad to think i have been the instrument of good to mr. wickfield, and that i may be more so. oh what a worthy man he is, mister copperfield, but how imprudent he has been!" "i am sorry to hear it," said i. i could not help adding, rather pointedly, "on all accounts." "decidedly so, mister copperfield," replied uriah. "on all accounts. miss agnes's above all! you don't remember your own eloquent expressions, master copperfield; but _i_ remember how you said one day that everybody must admire her, and how i thanked you for it! you have forgot that, i have no doubt, master copperfield?" "no," said i, drily. "oh how glad i am, you have not!" exclaimed uriah. "to think that you should be the first to kindle the sparks of ambition in my umble breast, and that you've not forgot it! oh!--would you excuse me asking for a cup more coffee?" something in the emphasis he laid upon the kindling of those sparks, and something in the glance he directed at me as he said it, had made me start as if i had seen him illuminated by a blaze of light. recalled by his request, preferred in quite another tone of voice, i did the honors of the shaving-pot; but i did them with an unsteadiness of hand, a sudden sense of being no match for him, and a perplexed suspicious anxiety as to what he might be going to say next, which i felt could not escape his observation. he said nothing at all. he stirred his coffee round and round, he sipped it, he felt his chin softly with his grisly hand, he looked at the fire, he looked about the room, he gasped rather than smiled at me, he writhed and undulated about, in his deferential servility, he stirred and sipped again, but he left the renewal of the conversation to me. "so, mr. wickfield," said i, at last, "who is worth five hundred of you--or me;" for my life, i think i could not have helped dividing that part of the sentence with an awkward jerk; "has been imprudent, has he, mr. heep?" "oh very imprudent indeed, master copperfield," returned uriah, sighing modestly. "oh very much so! but i wish you'd call me uriah, if you please. it's like old times." "well! uriah," said i, bolting it out with some difficulty. "thank you!" he returned, with fervor. "thank you, master copperfield! it's like the blowing of old breezes or the ringing of old bellses to hear _you_ say uriah. i beg your pardon. was i making any observation?" "about mr. wickfield," i suggested. "oh! yes, truly," said uriah. "ah! great imprudence, master copperfield. it's a topic that i wouldn't touch upon, to any soul but you. even to you i can only touch upon it, and no more. if any one else had been in my place during the last few years, by this time he would have had mr. wickfield (oh, what a worthy man he is, master copperfield, too!) under his thumb. un--der--his thumb," said uriah, very slowly, as he stretched out his cruel-looking hand above my table, and pressed his own thumb down upon it, until it shook, and shook the room. if i had been obliged to look at him with his splay foot on mr. wickfield's head, i think i could scarcely have hated him more. "oh dear, yes, master copperfield," he proceeded, in a soft voice, most remarkably contrasting with the action of his thumb, which did not diminish its hard pressure in the least degree, "there's no doubt of it. there would have been loss, disgrace, i don't know what all. mr. wickfield knows it. i am the umble instrument of umbly serving him, and he puts me on an eminence i hardly could have hoped to reach. how thankful should i be!" with his face turned towards me, as he finished, but without looking at me, he took his crooked thumb off the spot where he had planted it, and slowly and thoughtfully scraped his lank jaw with it, as if he were shaving himself. i recollect well how indignantly my heart beat, as i saw his crafty face, with the appropriately red light of the fire upon it, preparing for something else. "master copperfield," he began--"but am i keeping you up?" "you are not keeping me up. i generally go to bed late." "thank you, master copperfield! i have risen from my umble station since first you used to address me, it is true; but i am umble still. i hope i never shall be otherwise than umble. you will not think the worse of my umbleness, if i make a little confidence to you, master copperfield? will you?" "oh, no," said i, with an effort. "thank you!" he took out his pocket-handkerchief, and began wiping the palms of his hands. "miss agnes, master copperfield--" "well, uriah?" "oh, how pleasant to be called uriah, spontaneously!" he cried; and gave himself a jerk, like a convulsive fish. "you thought her looking very beautiful to-night, master copperfield?" "i thought her looking as she always does: superior, in all respects, to every one around her," i returned. "oh, thank you! it's so true!" he cried. "oh, thank you very much for that!" "not at all," i said, loftily. "there is no reason why you should thank me." "why that, master copperfield," said uriah, "is, in fact, the confidence that i am going to take the liberty of reposing. umble as i am," he wiped his hands harder, and looked at them and at the fire by turns, "umble as my mother is, and lowly as our poor but honest roof has ever been, the image of miss agnes (i don't mind trusting you with my secret, master copperfield, for i have always overflowed towards you since the first moment i had the pleasure of beholding you in a poney-shay) has been in my breast for years. oh, master copperfield, with what a pure affection do i love the ground my agnes walks on!" i believe i had a delirious idea of seizing the red-hot poker out of the fire, and running him through with it. it went from me with a shock, like a ball fired from a rifle: but the image of agnes, outraged by so much as a thought of this red-headed animal's, remained in my mind when i looked at him, sitting all awry as if his mean soul griped his body, and made me giddy. he seemed to swell and grow before my eyes; the room seemed full of the echoes of his voice; and the strange feeling (to which, perhaps, no one is quite a stranger) that all this had occurred before, at some indefinite time, and that i knew what he was going to say next, took possession of me. a timely observation of the sense of power that there was in his face, did more to bring back to my remembrance the entreaty of agnes, in its full force, than any effort i could have made. i asked him, with a better appearance of composure than i could have thought possible a minute before, whether he had made his feelings known to agnes. "oh, no, master copperfield!" he returned; "oh dear, no! not to any one but you. you see i am only just emerging from my lowly station. i rest a good deal of hope on her observing how useful i am to her father (for i trust to be very useful to him, indeed, master copperfield), and how i smooth the way for him, and keep him straight. she's so much attached to her father, master copperfield (oh what a lovely thing it is in a daughter!), that i think she may come, on his account, to be kind to me." i fathomed the depth of the rascal's whole scheme, and understood why he laid it bare. "if you'll have the goodness to keep my secret, master copperfield," he pursued, "and not, in general, to go against me, i shall take it as a particular favor. you wouldn't wish to make unpleasantness. i know what a friendly heart you've got; but having only known me on my umble footing (on my umblest, i should say, for i am very umble still), you might, unbeknown, go against me rather, with my agnes. i call her mine, you see, master copperfield. there's a song that says, 'i'd crowns resign, to call her mine!' i hope to do it, one of these days." dear agnes! so much too loving and too good for any one that i could think of, was it possible that she was reserved to be the wife of such a wretch as this! "there's no hurry at present, you know, master copperfield," uriah proceeded, in his slimy way, as i sat gazing at him, with this thought in my mind. "my agnes is very young still; and mother and me will have to work our way upards, and make a good many new arrangements, before it would be quite convenient. so i shall have time gradually to make her familiar with my hopes, as opportunities offer. oh, i'm so much obliged to you for this confidence! oh, it's such a relief, you can't think, to know that you understand our situation, and are certain (as you wouldn't wish to make unpleasantness in the family) not to go against me!" he took the hand which i dared not withhold, and having given it a damp squeeze, referred to his pale-faced watch. "dear me!" he said, "it's past one. the moments slip away so, in the confidence of old times, master copperfield, that it's almost half-past one!" i answered that i had thought it was later. not that i had really thought so, but because my conversational powers were effectually scattered. "dear me!" he said, considering. "the ouse that i am stopping at--a sort of a private hotel and boarding ouse, master copperfield, near the new river ed--will have gone to bed these two hours." "i am sorry," i returned, "that there is only one bed here, and that i--" "oh, don't think of mentioning beds, master copperfield!" he rejoined ecstatically, drawing up one leg. "but _would_ you have any objections to my laying down before the fire?" "if it comes to that," i said, "pray take my bed, and i'll lie down before the fire." his repudiation of this offer was almost shrill enough, in the excess of its surprise and humility, to have penetrated to the ears of mrs. crupp, then sleeping, i suppose, in a distant chamber, situated at about the level of low water mark, soothed in her slumbers by the ticking of an incorrigible clock, to which she always referred me when we had any little difference on the score of punctuality, and which was never less than three quarters of an hour too slow, and had always been put right in the morning by the best authorities. as no arguments i could urge, in my bewildered condition, had the least effect upon his modesty in inducing him to accept my bed-room, i was obliged to make the best arrangements i could, for his repose before the fire. the mattress of the sofa (which was a great deal too short for his lank figure), the sofa pillows, a blanket, the table-cover, a clean breakfast-cloth, and a great coat, made him a bed and covering, for which he was more than thankful. having lent him a nightcap, which he put on at once, and in which he made such an awful figure that i have never worn one since, i left him to his rest. i never shall forget that night. i never shall forget how i turned and tumbled; how i wearied myself with thinking about agnes and this creature; how i considered what could i do, and what ought i to do; how i could come to no other conclusion than that the best course for her peace, was to do nothing, and to keep to myself what i had heard. if i went to sleep for a few moments, the image of agnes with her tender eyes, and of her father looking fondly on her, as i had so often seen him look, arose before me with appealing faces, and filled me with vague terrors. when i awoke, the recollection that uriah was lying in the next room sat heavy on me like a waking night-mare; and oppressed me with a leaden dread, as if i had had some meaner quality of devil for a lodger. the poker got into my dozing thoughts besides, and wouldn't come out. i thought, between sleeping and waking, that it was still red hot, and i had snatched it out of the fire, and run him through the body. i was so haunted at last by the idea, though i knew there was nothing in it, that i stole into the next room to look at him. there i saw him, lying on his back, with his legs extending to i don't know where, gurglings taking place in his throat, stoppages in his nose, and his mouth open like a post-office. he was so much worse in reality than in my distempered fancy, that afterwards i was attracted to him in very repulsion, and could not help wandering in and out every half hour or so, and taking another look at him. still, the long, long night seemed heavy and hopeless as ever, and no promise of day was in the murky sky. when i saw him going down stairs early in the morning (for, thank heaven! he would not stay to breakfast), it appeared to me as if the night was going away in his person. when i went out to the commons, i charged mrs. crupp with particular directions to leave the windows open, that my sitting-room might be aired, and purged of his presence. chapter xxvi. i fall into captivity. i saw no more of uriah heep, until the day when agnes left town. i was at the coach-office to take leave of her and see her go; and there was he, returning to canterbury by the same conveyance. it was some small satisfaction to me to observe his spare, short-waisted, high-shouldered, mulberry-coloured great-coat perched up, in company with an umbrella like a small tent, on the edge of the back seat on the roof, while agnes was, of course, inside; but what i underwent in my efforts to be friendly with him, while agnes looked on, perhaps deserved that little recompense. at the coach-window, as at the dinner-party, he hovered about us without a moment's intermission, like a great vulture: gorging himself on every syllable that i said to agnes, or agnes said to me. in the state of trouble into which his disclosure by my fire had thrown me, i had thought very much of the words agnes had used in reference to the partnership. "i did what i hope was right. feeling sure that it was necessary for papa's peace that the sacrifice should be made, i entreated him to make it." a miserable foreboding that she would yield to, and sustain herself by, the same feeling in reference to any sacrifice for his sake, had oppressed me ever since. i knew how she loved him. i knew what the devotion of her nature was. i knew from her own lips that she regarded herself as the innocent cause of his errors, and as owing him a great debt she ardently desired to pay. i had no consolation in seeing how different she was from this detestable rufus with the mulberry-coloured great-coat, for i felt that in the very difference between them, in the self-denial of her pure soul and the sordid baseness of his, the greatest danger lay. all this, doubtless, he knew thoroughly, and had, in his cunning, considered well. yet, i was so certain that the prospect of such a sacrifice afar off, must destroy the happiness of agnes; and i was so sure, from her manner, of its being unseen by her then, and having cast no shadow on her yet; that i could as soon have injured her, as given her any warning of what impended. thus it was that we parted without explanation: she waving her hand and smiling farewell from the coach-window; her evil genius writhing on the roof, as if he had her in his clutches and triumphed. i could not get over this farewell glimpse of them for a long time. when agnes wrote to tell me of her safe arrival, i was as miserable as when i saw her going away. whenever i fell into a thoughtful state, this subject was sure to present itself, and all my uneasiness was sure to be redoubled. hardly a night passed without my dreaming of it. it became a part of my life, and as inseparable from my life as my own head. i had ample leisure to refine upon my uneasiness: for steerforth was at oxford, as he wrote to me, and when i was not at the commons, i was very much alone. i believe i had at this time some lurking distrust of steerforth. i wrote to him most affectionately in reply to his, but i think i was glad, upon the whole, that he could not come to london just then. i suspect the truth to be, that the influence of agnes was upon me, undisturbed by the sight of him; and that it was the more powerful with me, because she had so large a share in my thoughts and interest. in the meantime, days and weeks slipped away. i was articled to spenlow and jorkins. i had ninety pounds a year (exclusive of my house-rent and sundry collateral matters) from my aunt. my rooms were engaged for twelve months certain: and though i still found them dreary of an evening, and the evenings long, i could settle down into a state of equable low spirits, and resign myself to coffee; which i seem, on looking back, to have taken by the gallon at about this period of my existence. at about this time, too, i made three discoveries: first, that mrs. crupp was a martyr to a curious disorder called "the spazzums," which was generally accompanied with inflammation of the nose, and required to be constantly treated with peppermint; secondly, that something peculiar in the temperature of my pantry, made the brandy-bottles burst; thirdly, that i was alone in the world, and much given to record that circumstance in fragments of english versification. on the day when i was articled, no festivity took place, beyond my having sandwiches and sherry into the office for the clerks, and going alone to the theatre at night. i went to see "the stranger" as a doctors' commons sort of play, and was so dreadfully cut up, that i hardly knew myself in my own glass when i got home. mr. spenlow remarked, on this occasion, when we concluded our business, that he should have been happy to have seen me at his house at norwood to celebrate our becoming connected, but for his domestic arrangements being in some disorder, on account of the expected return of his daughter from finishing her education at paris. but, he intimated that when she came home he should hope to have the pleasure of entertaining me. i knew that he was a widower with one daughter, and expressed my acknowledgments. mr. spenlow was as good as his word. in a week or two, he referred to this engagement, and said, that if i would do him the favor to come down next saturday, and stay till monday, he would be extremely happy. of course i said i _would_ do him the favor; and he was to drive me down in his phaeton, and to bring me back. when the day arrived, my very carpet-bag was an object of veneration to the stipendiary clerks, to whom the house at norwood was a sacred mystery. one of them informed me that he had heard that mr. spenlow ate entirely off plate and china; and another hinted at champagne being constantly on draught, after the usual custom of table beer. the old clerk with the wig, whose name was mr. tiffey, had been down on business several times in the course of his career, and had on each occasion penetrated to the breakfast-parlor. he described it as an apartment of the most sumptuous nature, and said that he had drunk brown east india sherry there, of a quality so precious as to make a man wink. we had an adjourned cause in the consistory that day--about excommunicating a baker who had been objecting in a vestry to a paving-rate--and as the evidence was just twice the length of robinson crusoe, according to a calculation i made, it was rather late in the day before we finished. however, we got him excommunicated for six weeks, and sentenced in no end of costs; and then the baker's proctor, and the judge, and the advocates on both sides (who were all nearly related), went out of town together, and mr. spenlow and i drove away in the phaeton. the phaeton was a very handsome affair; the horses arched their necks and lifted up their legs as if they knew they belonged to doctors' commons. there was a good deal of competition in the commons on all points of display, and it turned out some very choice equipages then; though i always have considered, and always shall consider, that in my time the great article of competition there was starch: which i think was worn among the proctors to as great an extent as it is in the nature of man to bear. we were very pleasant, going down, and mr. spenlow gave me some hints in reference to my profession. he said it was the genteelest profession in the world, and must on no account be confounded with the profession of a solicitor: being quite another sort of thing, infinitely more exclusive, less mechanical, and more profitable. we took things much more easily in the commons than they could be taken anywhere else, he observed, and that set us, as a privileged class, apart. he said it was impossible to conceal the disagreeable fact, that we were chiefly employed by solicitors; but he gave me to understand that they were an inferior race of men, universally looked down upon by all proctors of any pretensions. i asked mr. spenlow what he considered the best sort of professional business? he replied, that a good case of a disputed will, where there was a neat little estate of thirty or forty thousand pounds, was, perhaps, the best of all. in such a case, he said, not only were there very pretty pickings in the way of arguments at every stage of the proceedings, and mountains upon mountains of evidence on interrogatory and counter-interrogatory (to say nothing of an appeal lying, first to the delegates, and then to the lords); but, the costs being pretty sure to come out of the estate at last, both sides went at it in a lively and spirited manner, and expense was no consideration. then, he launched into a general eulogium on the commons. what was to be particularly admired (he said) in the commons, was its compactness. it was the most conveniently organised place in the world. it was the complete idea of snugness. it lay in a nut-shell. for example: you brought a divorce case, or a restitution case, into the consistory. very good. you tried it in the consistory. you made a quiet little round game of it, among a family group, and you played it out at leisure. suppose you were not satisfied with the consistory, what did you do then? why, you went into the arches. what was the arches? the same court, in the same room, with the same bar, and the same practitioners, but another judge, for there the consistory judge could plead any court-day as an advocate. well, you played your round game out again. still you were not satisfied. very good. what did you do then? why, you went to the delegates. who were the delegates? why, the ecclesiastical delegates were the advocates without any business, who had looked on at the round game when it was playing in both courts, and had seen the cards shuffled, and cut, and played, and had talked to all the players about it, and now came fresh, as judges, to settle the matter to the satisfaction of everybody! discontented people might talk of corruption in the commons, closeness in the commons, and the necessity of reforming the commons, said mr. spenlow solemnly, in conclusion; but when the price of wheat per bushel had been highest, the commons had been busiest; and a man might lay his hand upon his heart, and say this to the whole world,--"touch the commons, and down comes the country!" i listened to all this with attention; and though, i must say, i had my doubts whether the country was quite as much obliged to the commons as mr. spenlow made out, i respectfully deferred to his opinion. that about the price of wheat per bushel, i modestly felt was too much for my strength, and quite settled the question. i have never, to this hour, got the better of that bushel of wheat. it has re-appeared to annihilate me, all through my life, in connexion with all kinds of subjects. i don't know now, exactly, what it has to do with me, or what right it has to crush me, on an infinite variety of occasions; but whenever i see my old friend the bushel brought in by the head and shoulders (as he always is, i observe), i give up a subject for lost. this is a digression. _i_ was not the man to touch the commons, and bring down the country. i submissively expressed, by my silence, my acquiescence in all i had heard from my superior in years and knowledge; and we talked about "the stranger" and the drama, and the pair of horses, until we came to mr. spenlow's gate. there was a lovely garden to mr. spenlow's house; and though that was not the best time of the year for seeing a garden, it was so beautifully kept, that i was quite enchanted. there was a charming lawn, there were clusters of trees, and there were perspective walks that i could just distinguish in the dark, arched over with trellis-work, on which shrubs and flowers grew in the growing season. "here miss spenlow walks by herself," i thought. "dear me!" we went into the house, which was cheerfully lighted up, and into a hall where there were all sorts of hats, caps, great-coats, plaids, gloves, whips, and walking-sticks. "where is miss dora?" said mr. spenlow to the servant. "dora!" i thought. "what a beautiful name!" we turned into a room near at hand (i think it was the identical breakfast-room, made memorable by the brown east indian sherry), and i heard a voice say, "mr. copperfield, my daughter dora, and my daughter dora's confidential friend!" it was, no doubt, mr. spenlow's voice, but i didn't know it, and i didn't care whose it was. all was over in a moment. i had fulfilled my destiny. i was a captive and a slave. i loved dora spenlow to distraction! [illustration: i fall into captivity.] she was more than human to me. she was a fairy, a sylph, i don't know what she was--any thing that no one ever saw, and every thing that every body ever wanted. i was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant. there was no pausing on the brink; no looking down, or looking back; i was gone, headlong, before i had sense to say a word to her. "_i_," observed a well-remembered voice, when i had bowed and murmured something, "have seen mr. copperfield before." the speaker was not dora. no; the confidential friend. miss murdstone! i don't think i was much astonished. to the best of my judgment, no capacity of astonishment was left in me. there was nothing worth mentioning in the material world, but dora spenlow, to be astonished about. i said, "how do you do, miss murdstone? i hope you are well." she answered, "very well." i said, "how is mr. murdstone?" she replied, "my brother is robust, i am obliged to you." mr. spenlow, who, i suppose, had been surprised to see us recognise each other, then put in his word. "i am glad to find," he said, "copperfield, that you and miss murdstone are already acquainted." "mr. copperfield and myself," said miss murdstone, with severe composure, "are connexions. we were once slightly acquainted. it was in his childish days. circumstances have separated us since. i should not have known him." i replied that i should have known her, any where. which was true enough. "miss murdstone has had the goodness," said mr. spenlow to me, "to accept the office--if i may so describe it--of my daughter dora's confidential friend. my daughter dora having, unhappily, no mother, miss murdstone is obliging enough to become her companion and protector." a passing thought occurred to me that miss murdstone, like the pocket instrument called a life-preserver, was not so much designed for purposes of protection as of assault. but as i had none but passing thoughts for any subject save dora, i glanced at her, directly afterwards, and was thinking that i saw, in her prettily pettish manner, that she was not very much inclined to be particularly confidential to her companion and protector, when a bell rang, which mr. spenlow said was the first dinner-bell, and so carried me off to dress. the idea of dressing one's self, or doing any thing in the way of action, in that state of love, was a little too ridiculous. i could only sit down before my fire, biting the key of my carpet-bag, and think of the captivating, girlish, bright-eyed lovely dora. what a form she had, what a face she had, what a graceful, variable, enchanting manner! the bell rang again so soon that i made a mere scramble of my dressing, instead of the careful operation i could have wished under the circumstances, and went down-stairs. there was some company. dora was talking to an old gentleman with a grey head. grey as he was--and a great-grandfather into the bargain, for he said so--i was madly jealous of him. what a state of mind i was in! i was jealous of everybody. i couldn't bear the idea of anybody knowing mr. spenlow better than i did. it was torturing to me to hear them talk of occurrences in which i had had no share. when a most amiable person, with a highly polished bald head, asked me across the dinner-table, if that were the first occasion of my seeing the grounds, i could have done anything to him that was savage and revengeful. i don't remember who was there, except dora. i have not the least idea what we had for dinner, besides dora. my impression is, that i dined off dora, entirely, and sent away half-a-dozen plates untouched. i sat next to her. i talked to her. she had the most delightful little voice, the gayest little laugh, the pleasantest and most fascinating little ways, that ever led a lost youth into hopeless slavery. she was rather diminutive altogether. so much the more precious, i thought. when she went out of the room with miss murdstone (no other ladies were of the party), i fell into a reverie, only disturbed by the cruel apprehension that miss murdstone would disparage me to her. the amiable creature with the polished head told me a long story, which i think was about gardening. i think i heard him say, "my gardener," several times. i seemed to pay the deepest attention to him, but i was wandering in a garden of eden all the while, with dora. my apprehensions of being disparaged to the object of my engrossing affection were revived when we went into the drawing-room, by the grim and distant aspect of miss murdstone. but i was relieved of them in an unexpected manner. "david copperfield," said miss murdstone, beckoning me aside into a window. "a word." i confronted miss murdstone alone. "david copperfield," said miss murdstone, "i need not enlarge upon family circumstances. they are not a tempting subject." "far from it, ma'am," i returned. "far from it," assented miss murdstone. "i do not wish to revive the memory of past differences, or of past outrages. i have received outrages from a person--a female i am sorry to say, for the credit of my sex--who is not to be mentioned without scorn and disgust; and therefore i would rather not mention her." i felt very fiery on my aunt's account; but i said it would certainly be better, if miss murdstone pleased, _not_ to mention her. i could not hear her disrespectfully mentioned, i added, without expressing my opinion in a decided tone. miss murdstone shut her eyes, and disdainfully inclined her head; then, slowly opening her eyes, resumed: "david copperfield, i shall not attempt to disguise the fact, that i formed an unfavorable opinion of you in your childhood. it may have been a mistaken one, or you may have ceased to justify it. that is not in question between us now. i belong to a family remarkable, i believe, for some firmness; and i am not the creature of circumstance or change. i may have my opinion of you. you may have your opinion of me." i inclined my head, in my turn. "but it is not necessary," said miss murdstone, "that these opinions should come into collision here. under existing circumstances, it is as well on all accounts that they should not. as the chances of life have brought us together again, and may bring us together on other occasions, i would say let us meet here as distant acquaintances. family circumstances are a sufficient reason for our only meeting on that footing, and it is quite unnecessary that either of us should make the other the subject of remark. do you approve of this?" "miss murdstone," i returned, "i think you and mr. murdstone used me very cruelly, and treated my mother with great unkindness. i shall always think so, as long as i live. but i quite agree in what you propose." miss murdstone shut her eyes again, and bent her head. then, just touching the back of my hand with the tips of her cold, stiff fingers, she walked away, arranging the little fetters on her wrists and round her neck: which seemed to be the same set, in exactly the same state, as when i had seen her last. these reminded me, in reference to miss murdstone's nature, of the fetters over a jail-door; suggesting on the outside, to all beholders, what was to be expected within. all i know of the rest of the evening is, that i heard the empress of my heart sing enchanted ballads in the french language, generally to the effect that, whatever was the matter, we ought always to dance, ta ra la, ta ra la! accompanying herself on a glorified instrument, resembling a guitar. that i was lost in blissful delirium. that i refused refreshment. that my soul recoiled from punch particularly. that when miss murdstone took her into custody and led her away, she smiled and gave me her delicious hand. that i caught a view of myself in a mirror, looking perfectly imbecile and idiotic. that i retired to bed in a most maudlin state of mind, and got up in a crisis of feeble infatuation. it was a fine morning, and early, and i thought i would go and take a stroll down one of those wire-arched walks, and indulge my passion by dwelling on her image. on my way through the hall, i encountered her little dog, who was called jip--short for gipsy. i approached him tenderly, for i loved even him; but he showed his whole set of teeth, got under a chair expressly to snarl, and wouldn't hear of the least familiarity. the garden was cool and solitary. i walked about, wondering what my feelings of happiness would be, if i could ever become engaged to this dear wonder. as to marriage, and fortune, and all that, i believe i was almost as innocently undesigning then, as when i loved little em'ly. to be allowed to call her "dora," to write to her, to dote upon and worship her, to have reason to think that when she was with other people she was yet mindful of me, seemed to me the summit of human ambition--i am sure it was the summit of mine. there is no doubt whatever that i was a lackadaisical young spooney; but there was a purity of heart in all this still, that prevents my having quite a contemptuous recollection of it, let me laugh as i may. i had not been walking long, when i turned a corner, and met her. i tingle again from head to foot as my recollection turns that corner, and my pen shakes in my hand. "you--are--out early, miss spenlow," said i. "it's so stupid at home," she replied, "and miss murdstone is so absurd! she talks such nonsense about its being necessary for the day to be aired, before i come out. aired!" (she laughed, here, in the most melodious manner). "on a sunday morning, when i don't practise, i must do something. so i told papa last night i _must_ come out. besides, it's the brightest time of the whole day. don't you think so?" i hazarded a bold flight, and said (not without stammering) that it was very bright to me then, though it had been very dark to me a minute before. "do you mean a compliment?" said dora, "or that the weather has really changed?" i stammered worse than before, in replying that i meant no compliment, but the plain truth; though i was not aware of any change having taken place in the weather. it was in the state of my own feelings, i added bashfully: to clench the explanation. i never saw such curls--how could i, for there never were such curls!--as those she shook out to hide her blushes. as to the straw hat and blue ribbons which was on the top of the curls, if i could only have hung it up in my room in buckingham street, what a priceless possession it would have been! "you have just come home from paris," said i. "yes," said she. "have you ever been there?" "no." "oh! i hope you'll go soon. you would like it so much!" traces of deep-seated anguish appeared in my countenance. that she should hope i would go, that she should think it possible i _could_ go, was insupportable. i depreciated paris; i depreciated france. i said i wouldn't leave england, under existing circumstances, for any earthly consideration. nothing should induce me. in short, she was shaking the curls again, when the little dog came running along the walk to our relief. he was mortally jealous of me, and persisted in barking at me. she took him up in her arms--oh my goodness!--and caressed him, but he insisted upon barking still. he wouldn't let me touch him, when i tried; and then she beat him. it increased my sufferings greatly to see the pats she gave him for punishment on the bridge of his blunt nose, while he winked his eyes, and licked her hand, and still growled within himself like a little double-bass. at length he was quiet--well he might be with her dimpled chin upon his head!--and we walked away to look at a greenhouse. "you are not very intimate with miss murdstone, are you?" said dora.--"my pet!" (the two last words were to the dog. oh if they had only been to me!) "no," i replied. "not at all so." "she is a tiresome creature," said dora pouting. "i can't think what papa can have been about, when he chose such a vexatious thing to be my companion. who wants a protector! i am sure _i_ don't want a protector. jip can protect me a great deal better than miss murdstone,--can't you, jip dear?" he only winked lazily, when she kissed his ball of a head. "papa calls her my confidential friend, but i am sure she is no such thing--is she, jip? we are not going to confide in any such cross people, jip and i. we mean to bestow our confidence where we like, and to find out our own friends, instead of having them found out for us--don't we, jip?" jip made a comfortable noise, in answer, a little like a tea-kettle when it sings. as for me, every word was a new heap of fetters, rivetted above the last. "it is very hard, because we have not a kind mama, that we are to have, instead, a sulky, gloomy old thing like miss murdstone, always following us about--isn't it, jip? never mind, jip. we won't be confidential, and we'll make ourselves as happy as we can in spite of her, and we'll teaze her, and not please her,--won't we, jip?" if it had lasted any longer, i think i must have gone down on my knees on the gravel, with the probability before me of grazing them, and of being presently ejected from the premises besides. but, by good fortune the greenhouse was not far off, and these words brought us to it. it contained quite a show of beautiful geraniums. we loitered along in front of them, and dora often stopped to admire this one or that one, and i stopped to admire the same one, and dora, laughing, held the dog up childishly, to smell the flowers; and if we were not all three in fairyland, certainly _i_ was. the scent of a geranium leaf, at this day, strikes me with a half comical half serious wonder as to what change has come over me in a moment; and then i see a straw hat and blue ribbons, and a quantity of curls, and a little black dog being held up, in two slender arms, against a bank of blossoms and bright leaves. miss murdstone had been looking for us. she found us here; and presented her uncongenial cheek, the little wrinkles in it filled with hair-powder, to dora to be kissed. then she took dora's arm in hers, and marched us in to breakfast as if it were a soldier's funeral. how many cups of tea i drank, because dora made it, i don't know. but, i perfectly remember that i sat swilling tea until my whole nervous system, if i had had any in those days, must have gone by the board. by-and-by we went to church. miss murdstone was between dora and me in the pew; but i heard her sing, and the congregation vanished. a sermon was delivered--about dora, of course--and i am afraid that is all i know of the service. we had a quiet day. no company, a walk, a family dinner of four, and an evening of looking over books and pictures; miss murdstone with a homily before her, and her eye upon us, keeping guard vigilantly. ah! little did mr. spenlow imagine, when he sat opposite to me after dinner that day, with his pocket-handkerchief over his head, how fervently i was embracing him, in my fancy, as his son-in-law! little did he think, when i took leave of him at night, that he had just given his full consent to my being engaged to dora, and that i was invoking blessings on his head! we departed early in the morning, for we had a salvage case coming on in the admiralty court, requiring a rather accurate knowledge of the whole science of navigation, in which (as we couldn't be expected to know much about those matters in the commons) the judge had entreated two old trinity masters, for charity's sake, to come and help him out. dora was at the breakfast-table to make the tea again, however; and i had the melancholy pleasure of taking off my hat to her in the phaeton, as she stood on the door-step with jip in her arms. what the admiralty was to me that day; what nonsense i made of our case in my mind, as i listened to it; how i saw "dora" engraved upon the blade of the silver oar which they lay upon the table, as the emblem of that high jurisdiction; and how i felt, when mr. spenlow went home without me (i had had an insane hope that he might take me back again), as if i were a mariner myself, and the ship to which i belonged had sailed away and left me on a desert island; i shall make no fruitless effort to describe. if that sleepy old court could rouse itself, and present in any visible form the day dreams i have had in it about dora, it would reveal my truth. i don't mean the dreams that i dreamed on that day alone, but day after day, from week to week, and term to term. i went there, not to attend to what was going on, but to think about dora. if i ever bestowed a thought upon the cases, as they dragged their slow length before me, it was only to wonder, in the matrimonial cases (remembering dora), how it was that married people could ever be otherwise than happy; and, in the prerogative cases, to consider, if the money in question had been left to me, what were the foremost steps i should immediately have taken in regard to dora. within the first week of my passion, i bought four sumptuous waistcoats--not for myself; _i_ had no pride in them; for dora--and took to wearing straw-colored kid gloves in the streets, and laid the foundations of all the corns i have ever had. if the boots i wore at that period could only be produced and compared with the natural size of my feet, they would show what the state of my heart was, in a most affecting manner. and yet, wretched cripple as i made myself by this act of homage to dora, i walked miles upon miles daily in the hope of seeing her. not only was i soon as well known on the norwood road as the postmen on that beat, but i pervaded london likewise. i walked about the streets where the best shops for ladies were, i haunted the bazaar like an unquiet spirit, i fagged through the park again and again, long after i was quite knocked up. sometimes, at long intervals and on rare occasions, i saw her. perhaps i saw her glove waved in a carriage window; perhaps i met her, walked with her and miss murdstone a little way, and spoke to her. in the latter case i was always very miserable afterwards, to think that i had said nothing to the purpose; or that she had no idea of the extent of my devotion, or that she cared nothing about me. i was always looking out, as may be supposed, for another invitation to mr. spenlow's house. i was always being disappointed, for i got none. mrs. crupp must have been a woman of penetration; for when this attachment was but a few weeks old, and i had not had the courage to write more explicitly even to agnes, than that i had been to mr. spenlow's house, "whose family," i added, "consists of one daughter;"--i say mrs. crupp must have been a woman of penetration, for, even in that early stage, she found it out. she came up to me one evening, when i was very low, to ask (she being then afflicted with the disorder i have mentioned) if i could oblige her with a little tincture of cardamums mixed with rhubarb, and flavored with seven drops of the essence of cloves, which was the best remedy for her complaint;--or, if i had not such a thing by me, with a little brandy, which was the next best. it was not, she remarked, so palatable to her, but it was the next best. as i had never even heard of the first remedy, and always had the second in the closet, i gave mrs. crupp a glass of the second, which (that i might have no suspicion of its being devoted to any improper use) she began to take in my presence. "cheer up, sir," said mrs. crupp, "i can't abear to see you so, sir, i'm a mother myself." i did not quite perceive the application of this fact to _my_self, but i smiled on mrs. crupp, as benignly as was in my power. "come, sir," said mrs. crupp. "excuse me. i know what it is, sir. there's a young lady in the case." "mrs. crupp?" i returned, reddening. "oh, bless you! keep a good heart, sir!" said mrs. crupp, nodding encouragement. "never say die, sir! if she don't smile upon you, there's a many as will. you're a young gentleman to _be_ smiled on, mr. copperfull, and you must learn your walue, sir." mrs. crupp always called me mr. copperfull: firstly, no doubt, because it was not my name; and secondly, i am inclined to think, in some indistinct association with a washing-day. "what makes you suppose there is any young lady in the case, mrs. crupp?" said i. "mr. copperfull," said mrs. crupp, with a great deal of feeling, "i'm a mother myself." for some time mrs. crupp could only lay her hand upon her nankeen bosom, and fortify herself against returning pain with sips of her medicine. at length she spoke again. "when the present set were took for you by your dear aunt, mr. copperfull," said mrs. crupp, "my remark were, i had now found summun i could care for. 'thank ev'in!' were the expression, 'i have now found summun i can care for!'--you don't eat enough, sir, nor yet drink." "is that what you found your supposition on, mrs. crupp?" said i. "sir," said mrs. crupp, in a tone approaching to severity, "i've laundressed other young gentlemen besides yourself. a young gentleman may be over-careful of himself, or he may be under-careful of himself. he may brush his hair too regular, or too unregular. he may wear his boots much too large for him, or much too small. that is according as the young gentleman has his original character formed. but let him go to which extreme he may, sir, there's a young lady in both of 'em." mrs. crupp shook her head in such a determined manner, that i had not an inch of 'vantage ground left. "it was but the gentleman which died here before yourself," said mrs. crupp, "that fell in love--with a barmaid--and had his waistcoats took in directly, though much swelled by drinking." "mrs. crupp," said i, "i must beg you not to connect the young lady in my case with a barmaid, or anything of that sort, if you please." "mr. copperfull," returned mrs. crupp, "i'm a mother myself, and not likely. i ask your pardon, sir, if i intrude. i should never wish to intrude where i were not welcome. but you are a young gentleman, mr. copperfull, and my adwice to you is, to cheer up, sir, to keep a good heart, and to know your own walue. if you was to take to something, sir," said mrs. crupp, "if you was to take to skittles, now, which is healthy, you might find it divert your mind, and do you good." with these words, mrs. crupp, affecting to be very careful of the brandy--which it was all gone--thanked me with a majestic curtsey, and retired. as her figure disappeared into the gloom of the entry, this counsel certainly presented itself to my mind in the light of a slight liberty on mrs. crupp's part; but, at the same time, i was content to receive it, in another point of view, as a word to the wise, and a warning in future to keep my secret better. chapter xxvii. tommy traddles. it may have been in consequence of mrs. crupp's advice, and, perhaps, for no better reason than because there was a certain similarity in the sound of the words skittles and traddles, that it came into my head, next day, to go and look after traddles. the time he had mentioned was more than out, and he lived in a little street near the veterinary college at camden town, which was principally tenanted, as one of our clerks who lived in that direction informed me, by gentlemen students, who bought live donkeys, and made experiments on those quadrupeds in their private apartments. having obtained from this clerk a direction to the academic grove in question, i set out, the same afternoon, to visit my old schoolfellow. i found that the street was not as desirable a one as i could have wished it to be, for the sake of traddles. the inhabitants appeared to have a propensity to throw any little trifles they were not in want of, into the road: which not only made it rank and sloppy, but untidy too, on account of the cabbage-leaves. the refuse was not wholly vegetable either, for i myself saw a shoe, a doubled-up saucepan, a black bonnet, and an umbrella, in various stages of decomposition, as i was looking out for the number i wanted. the general air of the place reminded me forcibly of the days when i lived with mr. and mrs. micawber. an indescribable character of faded gentility that attached to the house i sought, and made it unlike all the other houses in the street--though they were all built on one monotonous pattern, and looked like the early copies of a blundering boy who was learning to make houses, and had not yet got out of his cramped brick and mortar pothooks--reminded me still more of mr. and mrs. micawber. happening to arrive at the door as it was opened to the afternoon milkman, i was reminded of mr. and mrs. micawber more forcibly yet. "now," said the milkman to a very youthful servant girl. "has that there little bill of mine been heerd on?" "oh master says he'll attend to it immediate," was the reply. "because," said the milkman, going on as if he had received no answer, and speaking, as i judged from his tone, rather for the edification of somebody within the house, than of the youthful servant--an impression which was strengthened by his manner of glaring down the passage--"because that there little bill has been running so long, that i begin to believe it's run away altogether, and never won't be heerd of. now, i'm not a going to stand it, you know!" said the milkman, still throwing his voice into the house, and glaring down the passage. as to his dealing in the mild article of milk, by-the-by, there never was a greater anomaly. his deportment would have been fierce in a butcher or a brandy merchant. the voice of the youthful servant became faint, but she seemed to me, from the action of her lips, again to murmur that it would be attended to immediate. "i tell you what," said the milkman, looking hard at her for the first time, and taking her by the chin, "are you fond of milk?" "yes, i likes it," she replied. "good," said the milkman. "then you won't have none to-morrow. d'ye hear? not a fragment of milk you won't have to-morrow." i thought she seemed, upon the whole, relieved, by the prospect of having any to-day. the milkman, after shaking his head at her, darkly, released her chin, and with any thing rather than good will opened his can, and deposited the usual quantity in the family jug. this done, he went away, muttering, and uttered the cry of his trade next door, in a vindictive shriek. "does mr. traddles live here?" i then enquired. a mysterious voice from the end of the passage replied "yes." upon which the youthful servant replied "yes." "is he at home?" said i. again the mysterious voice replied in the affirmative, and again the servant echoed it. upon this, i walked in, and in pursuance of the servant's directions walked up-stairs; conscious, as i passed the back parlor-door, that i was surveyed by a mysterious eye, probably belonging to the mysterious voice. when i got to the top of the stairs--the house was only a story high above the ground floor--traddles was on the landing to meet me. he was delighted to see me, and gave me welcome, with great heartiness, to his little room. it was in the front of the house, and extremely neat, though sparely furnished. it was his only room, i saw; for there was a sofa-bedstead in it, and his blacking-brushes and blacking were among his books--on the top shelf, behind a dictionary. his table was covered with papers, and he was hard at work in an old coat. i looked at nothing, that i know of, but i saw everything, even to the prospect of a church upon his china inkstand, as i sat down--and this, too, was a faculty confirmed in me in the old micawber times. various ingenious arrangements he had made, for the disguise of his chest of drawers, and the accommodation of his boots, his shaving-glass, and so forth, particularly impressed themselves upon me, as evidences of the same traddles who used to make models of elephant's dens in writing paper to put flies in; and to comfort himself, under ill usage, with the memorable works of art i have so often mentioned. in a corner of the room was something neatly covered up with a large white cloth. i could not make out what that was. "traddles," said i, shaking hands with him again, after i had sat down. "i am delighted to see you." "i am delighted to see _you_, copperfield," he returned. "i am very glad indeed to see you. it was because i was thoroughly glad to see you when we met in ely place, and was sure you were thoroughly glad to see me, that i gave you this address instead of my address at chambers." "oh! you have chambers?" said i. "why, i have the fourth of a room and a passage, and the fourth of a clerk," returned traddles. "three others and myself unite to have a set of chambers--to look business-like--and we quarter the clerk too. half-a-crown a week he costs me." his old simple character and good temper, and something of his old unlucky fortune also, i thought, smiled at me in the smile with which he made this explanation. "it's not because i have the least pride, copperfield, you understand," said traddles, "that i don't usually give my address here. it's only on account of those who come to me, who might not like to come here. for myself, i am fighting my way on in the world against difficulties, and it would be ridiculous if i made a pretence of doing any thing else." "you are reading for the bar, mr. waterbrook informed me?" said i. "why, yes," said traddles, rubbing his hands, slowly over one another, "i am reading for the bar. the fact is, i have just begun to keep my terms, after rather a long delay. it's some time since i was articled, but the payment of that hundred pounds was a great pull. a great pull!" said traddles, with a wince, as if he had had a tooth out. "do you know what i can't help thinking of, traddles, as i sit here looking at you?" i asked him. "no," said he. "that sky-blue suit you used to wear." "lord, to be sure!" cried traddles, laughing. "tight in the arms and legs, you know? dear me! well! those were happy times, weren't they?" "i think our schoolmaster might have made them happier, without doing any harm to any of us, i acknowledge," i returned. "perhaps he might," said traddles. "but dear me, there was a good deal of fun going on. do you remember the nights in the bed-room? when we used to have the suppers? and when you used to tell the stories? ha, ha, ha! and do you remember when i got caned for crying about mr. mell? old creakle! i should like to see him again, too!" "he was a brute to you, traddles," said i, indignantly; for his good humour made me feel as if i had seen him beaten but yesterday. "do you think so?" returned traddles. "really? perhaps he was, rather. but it's all over, a long while. old creakle!" "you were brought up by an uncle, then?" said i. "of course i was!" said traddles. "the one i was always going to write to. and always didn't, eh! ha, ha, ha! yes, i had an uncle then. he died soon after i left school." "indeed!" "yes. he was a retired--what do you call it!--draper--cloth-merchant--and had made me his heir. but he didn't like me when i grew up." "do you really mean that?" said i. he was so composed, that i fancied he must have some other meaning. "o dear yes, copperfield! i mean it," replied traddles. "it was an unfortunate thing, but he didn't like me at all. he said i wasn't at all what he expected, and so he married his housekeeper." "and what did you do?" i asked. "i didn't do anything in particular," said traddles. "i lived with them, waiting to be put out in the world, until his gout unfortunately flew to his stomach--and so he died, and so she married a young man, and so i wasn't provided for." "did you get nothing, traddles, after all?" "oh dear yes!" said traddles. "i got fifty pounds. i had never been brought up to any profession, and at first i was at a loss what to do for myself. however, i began, with the assistance of the son of a professional man, who had been to salem house--yawler, with his nose on one side. do you recollect him?" no. he had not been there with me; all the noses were straight, in my day. "it don't matter," said traddles. "i began, by means of his assistance, to copy law writings. that didn't answer very well; and then i began to state cases for them, and make abstracts, and do that sort of work. for i am a plodding kind of fellow, copperfield, and had learnt the way of doing such things pithily. well! that put it in my head to enter myself as a law student; and that ran away with all that was left of the fifty pounds. yawler recommended me to one or two other offices, however--mr. waterbrook's for one--and i got a good many jobs. i was fortunate enough, too, to become acquainted with a person in the publishing way, who was getting up an encyclopædia, and he set me to work; and, indeed" (glancing at his table), "i am at work for him at this minute. i am not a bad compiler, copperfield," said traddles, preserving the same air of cheerful confidence in all he said, "but i have no invention at all; not a particle. i suppose there never was a young man with less originality than i have." as traddles seemed to expect that i should assent to this as a matter of course, i nodded; and he went on, with the same sprightly patience--i can find no better expression--as before. "so, by little and little, and not living high, i managed to scrape up the hundred pounds at last," said traddles; "and thank heaven that's paid--though it was--though it certainly was," said traddles, wincing again as if he had had another tooth out, "a pull. i am living by the sort of work i have mentioned, still, and i hope, one of these days, to get connected with some newspaper: which would almost be the making of my fortune. now, copperfield, you are so exactly what you used to be, with that agreeable face, and it's so pleasant to see you, that i sha'n't conceal anything. therefore you must know that i am engaged." engaged! oh dora! "she is a curate's daughter," said traddles; "one of ten, down in devonshire. yes!" for he saw me glance, involuntarily, at the prospect on the inkstand. "that's the church! you come round here, to the left, out of this gate," tracing his finger along the inkstand, "and exactly where i hold this pen, there stands the house--facing, you understand, towards the church." the delight with which he entered into these particulars, did not fully present itself to me until afterwards; for my selfish thoughts were making a ground-plan of mr. spenlow's house and garden at the same moment. "she is such a dear girl!" said traddles; "a little older than me, but the dearest girl! i told you i was going out of town? i have been down there. i walked there, and i walked back, and i had the most delightful time! i dare say ours is likely to be a rather long engagement, but our motto is 'wait and hope!' we always say that. 'wait and hope,' we always say. and she would wait, copperfield, till she was sixty--any age you can mention--for me!" traddles rose from his chair, and, with a triumphant smile, put his hand upon the white cloth i had observed. "however," he said, "it's not that we haven't made a beginning towards housekeeping. no, no; we have begun. we must get on by degrees, but we have begun. here," drawing the cloth off with great pride and care, "are two pieces of furniture to commence with. this flower-pot and stand, she bought herself. you put that in a parlor-window," said traddles, falling a little back from it to survey it with the greater admiration, "with a plant in it, and--and there you are! this little round table with the marble top (it's two feet ten in circumference), _i_ bought. you want to lay a book down, you know, or somebody comes to see you or your wife, and wants a place to stand a cup of tea upon, and--and there you are again!" said traddles. "it's an admirable piece of workmanship--firm as a rock!" i praised them both, highly, and traddles replaced the covering as carefully as he had removed it. "it's not a great deal towards the furnishing," said traddles, "but it's something. the table-cloths and pillow-cases, and articles of that kind, are what discourage me most, copperfield. so does the ironmongery--candle-boxes, and gridirons, and that sort of necessaries--because those things tell, and mount up. however, 'wait and hope!' and i assure you she's the dearest girl!" "i am quite certain of it," said i. "in the mean time," said traddles, coming back to his chair; "and this is the end of my prosing about myself, i get on as well as i can. i don't make much, but i don't spend much. in general, i board with the people down-stairs, who are very agreeable people indeed. both mr. and mrs. micawber have seen a good deal of life, and are excellent company." "my dear traddles!" i quickly exclaimed. "what are you talking about!" traddles looked at me, as if he wondered what _i_ was talking about. "mr. and mrs. micawber!" i repeated. "why, i am intimately acquainted with them!" an opportune double knock at the door, which i knew well from old experience in windsor terrace, and which nobody but mr. micawber could ever have knocked at that door, resolved any doubt in my mind as to their being my old friends. i begged traddles to ask his landlord to walk up. traddles accordingly did so, over the bannister; and mr. micawber, not a bit changed--his tights, his stick, his shirt-collar, and his eye-glass, all the same as ever--came into the room with a genteel and youthful air. "i beg your pardon, mr. traddles," said mr. micawber, with the old roll in his voice, as he checked himself in humming a soft tune. "i was not aware that there was any individual, alien to this tenement, in your sanctum." mr. micawber slightly bowed to me, and pulled up his shirt-collar. "how do you do, mr. micawber?" said i. "sir," said mr. micawber, "you are exceedingly obliging. i am _in statu quo_." "and mrs. micawber?" i pursued. "sir," said mr. micawber, "she is also, thank god, _in statu quo_." "and the children, mr. micawber?" "sir," said mr. micawber, "i rejoice to reply that they are, likewise, in the enjoyment of salubrity." all this time, mr. micawber had not known me in the least, though he had stood face to face with me. but, now, seeing me smile, he examined my features with more attention, fell back, cried, "is it possible! have i the pleasure of again beholding copperfield!" and shook me by both hands with the utmost fervor. "good heaven, mr. traddles!" said mr. micawber, "to think that i should find you acquainted with the friend of my youth, the companion of earlier days! my dear!" calling over the bannisters to mrs. micawber, while traddles looked (with reason) not a little amazed at this description of me. "here is a gentleman in mr. traddles's apartment, whom he wishes to have the pleasure of presenting to you, my love!" mr. micawber immediately reappeared, and shook hands with me again. "and how is our good friend the doctor, copperfield?" said mr. micawber, "and all the circle at canterbury?" "i have none but good accounts of them," said i. "i am most delighted to hear it," said mr. micawber. "it was at canterbury where we last met. within the shadow, i may figuratively say, of that religious edifice, immortalized by chaucer, which was anciently the resort of pilgrims from the remotest corners of--in short," said mr. micawber, "in the immediate neighbourhood of the cathedral." i replied that it was. mr. micawber continued talking as volubly as he could; but not, i thought, without showing, by some marks of concern in his countenance, that he was sensible of sounds in the next room, as of mrs. micawber washing her hands, and hurriedly opening and shutting drawers that were uneasy in their action. "you find us, copperfield," said mr. micawber, with one eye on traddles, "at present established, on what may be designated as a small and unassuming scale; but, you are aware that i have, in the course of my career, surmounted difficulties, and conquered obstacles. you are no stranger to the fact, that there have been periods of my life, when it has been requisite that i should pause, until certain expected events should turn up; when it has been necessary that i should fall back, before making what i trust i shall not be accused of presumption in terming--a spring. the present is one of those momentous stages in the life of man. you find me, fallen back, _for_ a spring; and i have every reason to believe that a vigorous leap will shortly be the result." i was expressing my satisfaction, when mrs. micawber came in; a little more slatternly than she used to be, or so she seemed now, to my unaccustomed eyes, but still with some preparation of herself for company, and with a pair of brown gloves on. "my dear," said mr. micawber, leading her towards me. "here is a gentleman of the name of copperfield, who wishes to renew his acquaintance with you." it would have been better, as it turned out, to have led gently up to his announcement, for mrs. micawber, being in a delicate state of health, was overcome by it, and was taken so unwell, that mr. micawber was obliged, in great trepidation, to run down to the water-butt in the back yard, and draw a basinful to lave her brow with. she presently revived, however, and was really pleased to see me. we had half-an-hour's talk, all together; and i asked her about the twins, who, she said, were "grown great creatures;" and after master and miss micawber, whom she described as "absolute giants," but they were not produced on that occasion. mr. micawber was very anxious that i should stay to dinner. i should not have been averse to do so, but that i imagined i detected trouble, and calculation relative to the extent of the cold meat, in mrs. micawber's eye. i therefore pleaded another engagement; and observing that mrs. micawber's spirits were immediately lightened, i resisted all persuasion to forego it. but i told traddles, and mr. and mrs. micawber, that before i could think of leaving, they must appoint a day when they would come and dine with me. the occupations to which traddles stood pledged, rendered it necessary to fix a somewhat distant one; but an appointment was made for the purpose, that suited us all, and then i took my leave. mr. micawber, under pretence of showing me a nearer way than that by which i had come, accompanied me to the corner of the street; being anxious (he explained to me) to say a few words to an old friend, in confidence. "my dear copperfield," said mr. micawber, "i need hardly tell you that to have beneath our roof, under existing circumstances, a mind like that which gleams--if i may be allowed the expression--which gleams--in your friend traddles, is an unspeakable comfort. with a washerwoman, who exposes hard-bake for sale in her parlor-window, dwelling next door, and a bow-street officer residing over the way, you may imagine that his society is a source of consolation to myself and to mrs. micawber. i am at present, my dear copperfield, engaged in the sale of corn upon commission. it is not an avocation of a remunerative description--in other words it does _not_ pay--and some temporary embarrassments of a pecuniary nature have been the consequence. i am, however, delighted to add that i have now an immediate prospect of something turning up (i am not at liberty to say in what direction), which i trust will enable me to provide, permanently, both for myself and for your friend traddles, in whom i have an unaffected interest. you may, perhaps, be prepared to hear that mrs. micawber is in a state of health which renders it not wholly improbable that an addition may be ultimately made to those pledges of affection which--in short, to the infantine group. mrs. micawber's family have been so good as to express their dissatisfaction with this state of things. i have merely to observe, that i am not aware it is any business of theirs, and that i repel that exhibition of feeling with scorn, and with defiance!" mr. micawber then shook hands with me again, and left me. chapter xxviii. mr. micawber's gauntlet. until the day arrived on which i was to entertain my newly-found old friends, i lived principally on dora and coffee. in my love-lorn condition, my appetite languished; and i was glad of it, for i felt as though it would have been an act of perfidy towards dora to have a natural relish for my dinner. the quantity of walking exercise i took, was not in this respect attended with its usual consequence, as the disappointment counteracted the fresh air. i have my doubts, too, founded on the acute experience acquired at this period of my life, whether a sound enjoyment of animal food can develop itself freely in any human subject who is always in torment from tight boots. i think the extremities require to be at peace before the stomach will conduct itself with vigour. on the occasion of this domestic little party, i did not repeat my former extensive preparations. i merely provided a pair of soles, a small leg of mutton, and a pigeon-pie. mrs. crupp broke out into rebellion on my first bashful hint in reference to the cooking of the fish and joint, and said, with a dignified sense of injury, "no! no, sir! you will not ask me sich a thing, for you are better acquainted with me than to suppose me capable of doing what i cannot do with ampial satisfaction to my own feelings!" but, in the end, a compromise was effected; and mrs. crupp consented to achieve this feat, on condition that i dined from home for a fortnight afterwards. and here i may remark, that what i underwent from mrs. crupp, in consequence of the tyranny she established over me, was dreadful. i never was so much afraid of any one. we made a compromise of everything. if i hesitated, she was taken with that wonderful disorder which was always lying in ambush in her system, ready, at the shortest notice, to prey upon her vitals. if i rang the bell impatiently, after half-a-dozen unavailing modest pulls, and she appeared at last--which was not by any means to be relied upon--she would appear with a reproachful aspect, sink breathless on a chair near the door, lay her hand upon her nankeen bosom, and become so ill, that i was glad, at any sacrifice of brandy or anything else, to get rid of her. if i objected to having my bed made at five o'clock in the afternoon--which i _do_ still think an uncomfortable arrangement--one motion of her hand towards the same nankeen region of wounded sensibility was enough to make me falter an apology. in short, i would have done anything in an honorable way rather than give mrs. crupp offence; and she was the terror of my life. i bought a second-hand dumb-waiter for this dinner-party, in preference to re-engaging the handy young man; against whom i had conceived a prejudice, in consequence of meeting him in the strand, one sunday morning, in a waistcoat remarkably like one of mine, which had been missing since the former occasion. the "young gal" was re-engaged; but on the stipulation that she should only bring in the dishes, and then withdraw to the landing-place, beyond the outer door; where a habit of sniffing she had contracted would be lost upon the guests, and where her retiring on the plates would be a physical impossibility. having laid in the materials for a bowl of punch, to be compounded by mr. micawber; having provided a bottle of lavender-water, two wax candles, a paper of mixed pins, and a pincushion, to assist mrs. micawber in her toilette, at my dressing-table; having also caused the fire in my bed-room to be lighted for mrs. micawber's convenience; and having laid the cloth with my own hands, i awaited the result with composure. at the appointed time, my three visitors arrived together. mr. micawber with more shirt-collar than usual, and a new ribbon to his eye-glass; mrs. micawber with her cap in a whitey-brown paper parcel; traddles carrying the parcel, and supporting mrs. micawber on his arm. they were all delighted with my residence. when i conducted mrs. micawber to my dressing-table, and she saw the scale on which it was prepared for her, she was in such raptures, that she called mr. micawber to come in and look. "my dear copperfield," said mr. micawber, "this is luxurious. this is a way of life which reminds me of the period when i was myself in a state of celibacy, and mrs. micawber had not yet been solicited to plight her faith at the hymeneal altar." "he means, solicited by him, mr. copperfield," said mrs. micawber archly. "he cannot answer for others." "my dear," returned mr. micawber with sudden seriousness, "i have no desire to answer for others. i am too well aware that when, in the inscrutable decrees of fate, you were reserved for me, it is possible you may have been reserved for one, destined, after a protracted struggle, at length to fall a victim to pecuniary involvements of a complicated nature. i understand your allusion, my love. i regret it, but i can bear it." "micawber!" exclaimed mrs. micawber, in tears. "have i deserved this! i, who never have deserted you; who never _will_ desert you, micawber!" "my love," said mr. micawber, much affected, "you will forgive, and our old and tried friend copperfield will, i am sure, forgive, the momentary laceration of a wounded spirit, made sensitive by a recent collision with the minion of power--in other words, with a ribald turncock attached to the water-works--and will pity, not condemn, its excesses." mr. micawber then embraced mrs. micawber, and pressed my hand; leaving me to infer from this broken allusion that his domestic supply of water had been cut off that afternoon, in consequence of default in the payment of the company's rates. to divert his thoughts from this melancholy subject, i informed mr. micawber that i relied upon him for a bowl of punch, and led him to the lemons. his recent despondency, not to say despair, was gone in a moment. i never saw a man so thoroughly enjoy himself amid the fragrance of lemon-peel and sugar, the odor of burning rum, and the steam of boiling water, as mr. micawber did that afternoon. it was wonderful to see his face shining at us out of a thin cloud of these delicate fumes, as he stirred, and mixed, and tasted, and looked as if he were making, instead of punch, a fortune for his family down to the latest posterity. as to mrs. micawber, i don't know whether it was the effect of the cap, or the lavender-water, or the pins, or the fire, or the wax candles, but she came out of my room, comparatively speaking, lovely. and the lark was never gayer than that excellent woman. i suppose--i never ventured to inquire, but i suppose--that mrs. crupp, after frying the soles, was taken ill. because we broke down at that point. the leg of mutton came up very red within, and very pale without: besides having a foreign substance of a gritty nature sprinkled over it, as if it had had a fall into the ashes of that remarkable kitchen fire-place. but we were not in a condition to judge of this fact from the appearance of the gravy, forasmuch as the "young gal" had dropped it all upon the stairs--where it remained, by-the-by, in a long train, until it was worn out. the pigeon-pie was not bad, but it was a delusive pie: the crust being like a disappointing head, phrenologically speaking: full of lumps and bumps, with nothing particular underneath. in short, the banquet was such a failure that i should have been quite unhappy--about the failure, i mean, for i was always unhappy about dora--if i had not been relieved by the great good-humour of my company, and by a bright suggestion from mr. micawber. "my dear friend copperfield," said mr. micawber, "accidents will occur in the best regulated families; and in families not regulated by that pervading influence which sanctifies while it enhances the--a--i would say, in short, by the influence of woman, in the lofty character of wife, they may be expected with confidence, and must be borne with philosophy. if you will allow me to take the liberty of remarking that there are few comestibles better, in their way, than a devil, and that i believe, with a little division of labor, we could accomplish a good one if the young person in attendance could produce a gridiron, i would put it to you, that this little misfortune may be easily repaired." there was a gridiron in the pantry, on which my morning rasher of bacon was cooked. we had it in, in a twinkling, and immediately applied ourselves to carrying mr. micawber's idea into effect. the division of labor to which he had referred was this:--traddles cut the mutton into slices; mr. micawber (who could do anything of this sort to perfection) covered them with pepper, mustard, salt, and cayenne; i put them on the gridiron, turned them with a fork, and took them off, under mr. micawber's directions; and mrs. micawber heated, and continually stirred, some mushroom ketchup in a little saucepan. when we had slices enough done to begin upon, we fell-to, with our sleeves still tucked up at the wrists, more slices sputtering and blazing on the fire, and our attention divided between the mutton on our plates, and the mutton then preparing. what with the novelty of this cookery, the excellence of it, the bustle of it, the frequent starting up to look after it, the frequent sitting down to dispose of it as the crisp slices came off the gridiron hot and hot, the being so busy, so flushed with the fire, so amused, and in the midst of such a tempting noise and savor, we reduced the leg of mutton to the bone. my own appetite came back miraculously. i am ashamed to record it, but i really believe i forgot dora for a little while. i am satisfied that mr. and mrs. micawber could not have enjoyed the feast more if they had sold a bed to provide it. traddles laughed as heartily, almost the whole time, as he ate and worked. indeed we all did, all at once; and i dare say there never was a greater success. we were at the height of our enjoyment, and were all busily engaged, in our several departments, endeavouring to bring the last batch of slices to a state of perfection that should crown the feast, when i was aware of a strange presence in the room, and my eyes encountered those of the staid littimer, standing hat in hand before me. [illustration: we are disturbed in our cookery.] "what's the matter!" i involuntarily asked. "i beg your pardon, sir, i was directed to come in. is my master not here, sir?" "no." "have you not seen him, sir?" "no; don't you come from him?" "not immediately so, sir." "did he tell you you would find him here?" "not exactly so, sir. but i should think he might be here to-morrow, as he has not been here to-day." "is he coming up from oxford?" "i beg, sir," he returned respectfully, "that you will be seated, and allow me to do this." with which he took the fork from my unresisting hand, and bent over the gridiron, as if his whole attention were concentrated on it. we should not have been much discomposed, i dare say, by the appearance of steerforth himself, but we became in a moment the meekest of the meek before his respectable serving-man. mr. micawber, humming a tune, to show that he was quite at ease, subsided into his chair, with the handle of a hastily-concealed fork sticking out of the bosom of his coat, as if he had stabbed himself. mrs. micawber put on her brown gloves, and assumed a genteel languor. traddles ran his greasy hands through his hair, and stood it bolt upright, and stared in confusion at the table-cloth. as for me, i was a mere infant at the head of my own table; and hardly ventured to glance at the respectable phenomenon, who had come from heaven knows where, to put my establishment to rights. meanwhile he took the mutton off the gridiron, and gravely handed it round. we all took some, but our appreciation of it was gone, and we merely made a show of eating it. as we severally pushed away our plates, he noiselessly removed them, and set on the cheese. he took that off, too, when it was done with; cleared the table; piled everything on the dumb-waiter; gave us our wine-glasses; and, of his own accord, wheeled the dumb-waiter into the pantry. all this was done in a perfect manner, and he never raised his eyes from what he was about. yet, his very elbows, when he had his back towards me, seemed to teem with the expression of his fixed opinion that i was extremely young. "can i do anything more, sir?" i thanked him and said, no; but would he take no dinner himself? "none, i am obliged to you, sir." "is mr. steerforth coming from oxford?" "i beg your pardon, sir?" "is mr. steerforth coming from oxford?" "i should imagine that he might be here to-morrow, sir. i rather thought he might have been here to-day, sir. the mistake is mine, no doubt, sir." "if you should see him first--" said i. "if you'll excuse me, sir, i don't think i shall see him first." "in case you do," said i, "pray say that i am sorry he was not here to-day, as an old schoolfellow of his was here." "indeed, sir!" and he divided a bow between me and traddles, with a glance at the latter. he was moving softly to the door, when, in a forlorn hope of saying something naturally--which i never could, to this man--i said: "oh! littimer!" "sir!" "did you remain long at yarmouth, that time?" "not particularly so, sir." "you saw the boat completed?" "yes, sir. i remained behind on purpose to see the boat completed." "i know!" he raised his eyes to mine respectfully. "mr. steerforth has not seen it yet, i suppose?" "i really can't say, sir. i think--but i really can't say, sir. i wish you good night, sir." he comprehended everybody present, in the respectful bow with which he followed these words, and disappeared. my visitors seemed to breathe more freely when he was gone; but my own relief was very great, for besides the constraint, arising from that extraordinary sense of being at a disadvantage which i always had in this man's presence, my conscience had embarrassed me with whispers that i had mistrusted his master, and i could not repress a vague uneasy dread that he might find it out. how was it, having so little in reality to conceal, that i always _did_ feel as if this man were finding me out? mr. micawber roused me from this reflection, which was blended with a certain remorseful apprehension of seeing steerforth himself, by bestowing many encomiums on the absent littimer as a most respectable fellow, and a thoroughly admirable servant. mr. micawber, i may remark, had taken his full share of the general bow, and had received it with infinite condescension. "but punch, my dear copperfield," said mr. micawber, tasting it, "like time and tide, waits for no man. ah! it is at the present moment in high flavor. my love, will you give me your opinion?" mrs. micawber pronounced it excellent. "then i will drink," said mr. micawber, "if my friend copperfield will permit me to take that social liberty, to the days when my friend copperfield and myself were younger, and fought our way in the world side by side. i may say, of myself and copperfield, in words we have sung together before now, that we twa' hae run about the braes and pu'd the gowans fine --in a figurative point of view--on several occasions. i am not exactly aware," said mr. micawber, with the old roll in his voice, and the old indescribable air of saying something genteel, "what gowans may be, but i have no doubt that copperfield and myself would frequently have taken a pull at them, if it had been feasible." mr. micawber, at the then present moment, took a pull at his punch. so we all did: traddles evidently lost in wondering at what distant time mr. micawber and i could possibly have been comrades in the battle of the world. "ahem!" said mr. micawber, clearing his throat, and warming with the punch and with the fire. "my dear, another glass?" mrs. micawber said it must be very little, but we couldn't allow that, so it was a glassful. "as we are quite confidential here, mr. copperfield," said mrs. micawber, sipping her punch, "mr. traddles being a part of our domesticity, i should much like to have your opinion on mr. micawber's prospects. for corn," said mrs. micawber argumentatively, "as i have repeatedly said to mr. micawber, may be gentlemanly, but it is not remunerative. commission to the extent of two and ninepence in a fortnight cannot, however limited our ideas, be considered remunerative." we were all agreed upon that. "then," said mrs. micawber, who prided herself on taking a clear view of things, and keeping mr. micawber straight by her woman's wisdom, when he might otherwise go a little crooked, "then i ask myself this question. if corn is not to be relied upon, what is? are coals to be relied upon? not at all. we have turned our attention to that experiment, on the suggestion of my family, and we find it fallacious." mr. micawber, leaning back in his chair with his hands in his pockets, eyed us aside, and nodded his head, as much as to say that the case was very clearly put. "the articles of corn and coals," said mrs. micawber, still more argumentatively, "being equally out of the question, mr. copperfield, i naturally look round the world, and say, 'what is there in which a person of mr. micawber's talent is likely to succeed?' and i exclude the doing anything on commission, because commission is not a certainty. what is best suited to a person of mr. micawber's peculiar temperament, is, i am convinced, a certainty." traddles and i both expressed, by a feeling murmur, that this great discovery was no doubt true of mr. micawber, and that it did him much credit. "i will not conceal from you, my dear mr. copperfield," said mrs. micawber, "that _i_ have long felt the brewing business to be particularly adapted to mr. micawber. look at barclay and perkins! look at truman, hanbury, and buxton! it is on that extensive footing that mr. micawber, i know from my own knowledge of him, is calculated to shine; and the profits, i am told, are e-nor--mous! but if mr. micawber cannot get into those firms--which decline to answer his letters, when he offers his services even in an inferior capacity--what is the use of dwelling upon that idea? none. i may have a conviction that mr. micawber's manners"-- "hem! really, my dear," interposed mr. micawber. "my love, be silent," said mrs. micawber, laying her brown glove on his hand. "i may have a conviction, mr. copperfield, that mr. micawber's manners peculiarly qualify him for the banking business. i may argue within myself, that if _i_ had a deposit at a banking-house, the manners of mr. micawber, as representing that banking-house, would inspire confidence, and must extend the connexion. but if the various banking-houses refuse to avail themselves of mr. micawber's abilities, or receive the offer of them with contumely, what is the use of dwelling upon _that_ idea? none. as to originating a banking-business, i may know that there are members of my family who, if they chose to place their money in mr. micawber's hands, might found an establishment of that description. but if they do _not_ choose to place their money in mr. micawber's hands--which they don't--what is the use of that? again i contend that we are no farther advanced than we were before." i shook my head, and said, "not a bit." traddles also shook his head, and said, "not a bit." "what do i deduce from this?" mrs. micawber went on to say, still with the same air of putting a case lucidly. "what is the conclusion, my dear mr. copperfield, to which i am irresistibly brought? am i wrong in saying, it is clear that we must live?" i answered, "not at all!" and traddles answered, "not at all!" and i found myself afterwards sagely adding, alone, that a person must either live or die. "just so," returned mrs. micawber. "it is precisely that. and the fact is, my dear mr. copperfield, that we can _not_ live without something widely different from existing circumstances shortly turning up. now i am convinced, myself, and this i have pointed out to mr. micawber several times of late, that things cannot be expected to turn up of themselves. we must, in a measure, assist to turn them up. i may be wrong, but i have formed that opinion." both traddles and i applauded it highly. "very well," said mrs. micawber. "then what do i recommend? here is mr. micawber, with a variety of qualifications--with great talent--" "really, my love," said mr. micawber. "pray, my dear, allow me to conclude. here is mr. micawber, with a variety of qualifications, with great talent--_i_ should say, with genius, but that may be the partiality of a wife--" traddles and i both murmured "no." "and here is mr. micawber without any suitable position or employment. where does that responsibility rest? clearly on society. then i would make a fact so disgraceful known, and boldly challenge society to set it right. it appears to me, my dear mr. copperfield," said mrs. micawber, forcibly, "that what mr. micawber has to do, is to throw down the gauntlet to society, and say, in effect, 'show me who will take that up. let the party immediately step forward.'" i ventured to ask mrs. micawber how this was to be done. "by advertising," said mrs. micawber--"in all the papers. it appears to me, that what mr. micawber has to do, in justice to himself, in justice to his family, and i will even go so far as to say in justice to society, by which he has been hitherto overlooked, is to advertise in all the papers; to describe himself plainly as so and so, with such and such qualifications, and to put it thus: '_now_ employ me, on remunerative terms, and address, post-paid, to _w. m._, post office, camden town.'" "this idea of mrs. micawber's, my dear copperfield," said mr. micawber, making his shirt-collar meet in front of his chin, and glancing at me sideways, "is, in fact, the leap to which i alluded, when i last had the pleasure of seeing you." "advertising is rather expensive," i remarked, dubiously. "exactly so!" said mrs. micawber, preserving the same logical air. "quite true, my dear mr. copperfield! i have made the identical observation to mr. micawber. it is for that reason especially, that i think mr. micawber ought (as i have already said, in justice to himself, in justice to his family, and in justice to society) to raise a certain sum of money--on a bill." mr. micawber, leaning back in his chair, trifled with his eye-glass, and cast his eyes up at the ceiling; but i thought him observant of traddles too, who was looking at the fire. "if no member of my family," said mrs. micawber, "is possessed of sufficient natural feeling to negotiate that bill--i believe there is a better business-term to express what i mean--" mr. micawber, with his eyes still cast up at the ceiling, suggested "discount." "to discount that bill," said mrs. micawber, "then my opinion is, that mr. micawber should go into the city, should take that bill into the money market, and should dispose of it for what he can get. if the individuals in the money market oblige mr. micawber to sustain a great sacrifice, that is between themselves and their consciences. i view it, steadily, as an investment. i recommend mr. micawber, my dear mr. copperfield, to do the same; to regard it as an investment which is sure of return, and to make up his mind to _any_ sacrifice." i felt, but i am sure i don't know why, that this was self-denying and devoted in mrs. micawber, and i uttered a murmur to that effect. traddles, who took his tone from me, did likewise, still looking at the fire. "i will not," said mrs. micawber, finishing her punch, and gathering her scarf about her shoulders, preparatory to her withdrawal to my bedroom: "i will not protract these remarks on the subject of mr. micawber's pecuniary affairs. at your fireside, my dear mr. copperfield, and in the presence of mr. traddles, who, though not so old a friend, is quite one of ourselves, i could not refrain from making you acquainted with the course _i_ advise mr. micawber to take. i feel that the time is arrived when mr. micawber should exert himself and--i will add--assert himself, and it appears to me that these are the means. i am aware that i am merely a female, and that a masculine judgment is usually considered more competent to the discussion of such questions; still i must not forget that, when i lived at home with my papa and mama, my papa was in the habit of saying, 'emma's form is fragile, but her grasp of a subject is inferior to none.' that my papa was too partial, i well know; but that he was an observer of character in some degree, my duty and my reason equally forbid me to doubt." with these words, and resisting our entreaties that she would grace the remaining circulation of the punch with her presence, mrs. micawber retired to my bed-room. and really i felt that she was a noble woman--the sort of woman who might have been a roman matron, and done all manner of heroic things, in times of public trouble. in the fervor of this impression, i congratulated mr. micawber on the treasure he possessed. so did traddles. mr. micawber extended his hand to each of us in succession, and then covered his face with his pocket-handkerchief, which i think had more snuff upon it than he was aware of. he then returned to the punch, in the highest state of exhilaration. he was full of eloquence. he gave us to understand that in our children we lived again, and that, under the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, any accession to their number was doubly welcome. he said that mrs. micawber had latterly had her doubts on this point, but that he had dispelled them, and reassured her. as to her family, they were totally unworthy of her, and their sentiments were utterly indifferent to him, and they might--i quote his own expression--go to the devil. mr. micawber then delivered a warm eulogy on traddles. he said traddles's was a character, to the steady virtues of which he (mr. micawber) could lay no claim, but which, he thanked heaven, he could admire. he feelingly alluded to the young lady, unknown, whom traddles had honored with his affection, and who had reciprocated that affection by honoring and blessing traddles with _her_ affection. mr. micawber pledged her. so did i. traddles thanked us both, by saying, with a simplicity and honesty i had sense enough to be quite charmed with, "i am very much obliged to you indeed. and i do assure you, she's the dearest girl!--" mr. micawber took an early opportunity, after that, of hinting, with the utmost delicacy and ceremony, at the state of _my_ affections. nothing but the serious assurance of his friend copperfield to the contrary, he observed, could deprive him of the impression that his friend copperfield loved and was beloved. after feeling very hot and uncomfortable for some time, and after a good deal of blushing, stammering, and denying, i said, having my glass in my hand, "well! i would give them d.!" which so excited and gratified mr. micawber, that he ran with a glass of punch into my bed-room, in order that mrs. micawber might drink d., who drank it with enthusiasm, crying from within, in a shrill voice, "hear, hear! my dear mr. copperfield, i am delighted. hear!" and tapping at the wall, by way of applause. our conversation, afterwards, took a more worldly turn; mr. micawber telling us that he found camden town inconvenient, and that the first thing he contemplated doing, when the advertisement should have been the cause of something satisfactory turning up, was to move. he mentioned a terrace at the western end of oxford street, fronting hyde park, on which he had always had his eye, but which he did not expect to attain immediately, as it would require a large establishment. there would probably be an interval, he explained, in which he should content himself with the upper part of a house, over some respectable place of business,--say in piccadilly,--which would be a cheerful situation for mrs. micawber; and where, by throwing out a bow window, or carrying up the roof another story, or making some little alteration of that sort, they might live, comfortably and reputably, for a few years. whatever was reserved for him, he expressly said, or wherever his abode might be, we might rely on this--there would always be a room for traddles, and a knife and fork for me. we acknowledged his kindness; and he begged us to forgive his having launched into these practical and business-like details, and to excuse it as natural in one who was making entirely new arrangements in life. mrs. micawber, tapping at the wall again, to know if tea were ready, broke up this particular phase of our friendly conversation. she made tea for us in a most agreeable manner; and, whenever i went near her, in handing about the tea-cups and bread-and-butter, asked me, in a whisper, whether d. was fair, or dark, or whether she was short, or tall: or something of that kind; which i think i liked. after tea, we discussed a variety of topics before the fire; and mrs. micawber was good enough to sing us (in a small, thin, flat voice, which i remember to have considered, when i first knew her, the very table-beer of acoustics) the favorite ballads of "the dashing white serjeant," and "little tafflin." for both of these songs mrs. micawber had been famous when she lived at home with her papa and mama. mr. micawber told us, that when he heard her sing the first one, on the first occasion of his seeing her beneath the parental roof, she had attracted his attention in an extraordinary degree; but that when it came to little tafflin, he had resolved to win that woman or perish in the attempt. it was between ten and eleven o'clock when mrs. micawber rose to replace her cap in the whitey-brown paper parcel, and to put on her bonnet. mr. micawber took the opportunity of traddles putting on his great coat, to slip a letter into my hand, with a whispered request that i would read it at my leisure. i also took the opportunity of my holding a candle over the bannisters to light them down, when mr. micawber was going first, leading mrs. micawber, and traddles was following with the cap, to detain traddles for a moment on the top of the stairs. "traddles," said i, "mr. micawber don't mean any harm, poor fellow; but, if i were you, i wouldn't lend him anything." "my dear copperfield," returned traddles, smiling, "i haven't got anything to lend." "you have got a name, you know," said i. "oh! you call _that_ something to lend?" returned traddles, with a thoughtful look. "certainly." "oh!" said traddles. "yes, to be sure! i am very much obliged to you, copperfield; but--i am afraid i have lent him that already." "for the bill that is to be a certain investment?" i inquired. "no," said traddles. "not for that one. this is the first i have heard of that one. i have been thinking that he will most likely propose that one, on the way home. mine's another." "i hope there will be nothing wrong about it," said i. "i hope not," said traddles. "i should think not, though, because he told me, only the other day, that it was provided for. that was mr. micawber's expression. 'provided for.'" mr. micawber looking up at this juncture to where we were standing, i had only time to repeat my caution. traddles thanked me, and descended. but i was much afraid, when i observed the good-natured manner in which he went down with the cap in his hand, and gave mrs. micawber his arm, that he would be carried into the money market neck and heels. i returned to my fireside, and was musing, half gravely and half laughing, on the character of mr. micawber and the old relations between us, when i heard a quick step ascending the stairs. at first, i thought it was traddles coming back for something mrs. micawber had left behind; but as the step approached, i knew it, and felt my heart beat high, and the blood rush to my face, for it was steerforth's. i was never unmindful of agnes, and she never left that sanctuary in my thoughts--if i may call it so--where i had placed her from the first. but when he entered, and stood before me with his hand out, the darkness that had fallen on him changed to light, and i felt confounded and ashamed of having doubted one i loved so heartily. i loved her none the less; i thought of her as the same benignant, gentle angel in my life; i reproached myself, not her, with having done him an injury; and i would have made him any atonement if i had known what to make, and how to make it. "why, daisy, old boy, dumb-foundered!" laughed steerforth, shaking my hand heartily, and throwing it gaily away. "have i detected you in another feast, you sybarite! these doctors' commons fellows are the gayest men in town, i believe, and beat us sober oxford people all to nothing!" his bright glance went merrily round the room, as he took the seat on the sofa opposite to me, which mrs. micawber had recently vacated, and stirred the fire into a blaze. "i was so surprised at first," said i, giving him welcome with all the cordiality i felt, "that i had hardly breath to greet you with, steerforth." "well, the sight of me _is_ good for sore eyes, as the scotch say," replied steerforth, "and so is the sight of you, daisy, in full bloom. how are you, my bacchanal?" "i am very well," said i; "and not at all bacchanalian to-night, though i confess to another party of three." "all of whom i met in the street, talking loud in your praise," returned steerforth. "who's our friend in the tights?" i gave him the best idea i could, in a few words, of mr. micawber. he laughed heartily at my feeble portrait of that gentleman, and said he was a man to know, and he must know him. "but who do you suppose our other friend is?" said i, in my turn. "heaven knows," said steerforth. "not a bore, i hope? i thought he looked a little like one." "traddles!" i replied, triumphantly. "who's he?" asked steerforth, in his careless way. "don't you remember traddles? traddles in our room at salem house?" "oh! that fellow!" said steerforth, beating a lump of coal on the top of the fire, with the poker. "is he as soft as ever? and where the deuce did you pick _him_ up?" i extolled traddles in reply, as highly as i could; for i felt that steerforth rather slighted him. steerforth, dismissing the subject with a light nod, and a smile, and the remark that he would be glad to see the old fellow too, for he had always been an odd fish, inquired if i could give him anything to eat? during most of this short dialogue, when he had not been speaking in a wild vivacious manner, he had sat idly beating on the lump of coal with the poker. i observed that he did the same thing while i was getting out the remains of the pigeon-pie, and so forth. "why, daisy, here's a supper for a king!" he exclaimed, starting out of his silence with a burst, and taking his seat at the table. "i shall do it justice, for i have come from yarmouth." "i thought you came from oxford?" i returned. "not i," said steerforth. "i have been seafaring--better employed." "littimer was here to-day, to inquire for you," i remarked, "and i understood him that you were at oxford; though, now i think of it, he certainly did not say so." "littimer is a greater fool than i thought him, to have been inquiring for me at all," said steerforth, jovially pouring out a glass of wine, and drinking to me. "as to understanding him, you are a cleverer fellow than most of us, daisy, if you can do that." "that's true, indeed," said i, moving my chair to the table. "so you have been at yarmouth, steerforth!" interested to know all about it. "have you been there long?" "no," he returned. "an _escapade_ of a week or so." "and how are they all? of course, little emily is not married yet?" "not yet. going to be, i believe--in so many weeks, or months, or something or other. i have not seen much of 'em. by-the-by;" he laid down his knife and fork, which he had been using with great diligence, and began feeling in his pockets; "i have a letter for you." "from whom?" "why, from your old nurse," he returned, taking some papers out of his breast pocket. "'j. steerforth, esquire, debtor, to the willing mind;' that's not it. patience, and we'll find it presently. old what's-his-name's in a bad way, and it's about that, i believe." "barkis, do you mean?" "yes!" still feeling in his pockets, and looking over their contents: "it's all over with poor barkis, i am afraid. i saw a little apothecary there--surgeon, or whatever he is--who brought your worship into the world. he was mighty learned about the case, to me; but the upshot of his opinion was, that the carrier was making his last journey rather fast.--put your hand into the breast pocket of my great coat on the chair yonder, and i think you'll find the letter. is it there?" "here it is!" said i. "that's right!" it was from peggotty; something less legible than usual, and brief. it informed me of her husband's hopeless state, and hinted at his being "a little nearer" than heretofore, and consequently more difficult to manage for his own comfort. it said nothing of her weariness and watching, and praised him highly. it was written with a plain, unaffected, homely piety that i knew to be genuine, and ended with "my duty to my ever darling"--meaning myself. while i deciphered it, steerforth continued to eat and drink. "it's a bad job," he said, when i had done; "but the sun sets every day, and people die every minute, and we mustn't be scared by the common lot. if we failed to hold our own, because that equal foot at all men's doors was heard knocking somewhere, every object in this world would slip from us. no! ride on! rough-shod if need be, smooth-shod if that will do, but ride on! ride over all obstacles, and win the race!" "and win what race?" said i. "the race that one has started in," said he. "ride on!" i noticed, i remember, as he paused, looking at me with his handsome head a little thrown back, and his glass raised in his hand, that, though the freshness of the sea-wind was on his face, and it was ruddy, there were traces in it, made since i last saw it, as if he had applied himself to some habitual strain of the fervent energy which, when roused, was so passionately roused within him. i had it in my thoughts to remonstrate with him upon his desperate way of pursuing any fancy that he took--such as this buffetting of rough seas, and braving of hard weather, for example--when my mind glanced off to the immediate subject of our conversation again, and pursued that instead. "i tell you what, steerforth," said i, "if your high spirits will listen to me"-- "they are potent spirits, and will do whatever you like," he answered, moving from the table to the fireside again. "then i tell you what, steerforth. i think i will go down and see my old nurse. it is not that i can do her any good, or render her any real service; but she is so attached to me that my visit will have as much effect on her, as if i could do both. she will take it so kindly that it will be a comfort and support to her. it is no great effort to make, i am sure, for such a friend as she has been to me. wouldn't you go a day's journey, if you were in my place?" his face was thoughtful, and he sat considering a little before he answered, in a low voice, "well! go. you can do no harm." "you have just come back," said i, "and it would be in vain to ask you to go with me?" "quite," he returned. "i am for highgate to-night. i have not seen my mother this long time, and it lies upon my conscience, for it's something to be loved as she loves her prodigal son.--bah! nonsense!--you mean to go to-morrow, i suppose?" he said, holding me out at arm's length, with a hand on each of my shoulders. "yes, i think so." "well, then, don't go till next day. i wanted you to come and stay a few days with us. here i am, on purpose to bid you, and you fly off to yarmouth!" "you are a nice fellow to talk of flying off, steerforth, who are always running wild on some unknown expedition or other!" he looked at me for a moment without speaking, and then rejoined, still holding me as before, and giving me a shake: "come! say the next day, and pass as much of to-morrow as you can with us! who knows when we may meet again, else? come! say the next day! i want you to stand between rosa dartle and me, and keep us asunder." "would you love each other too much, without me?" "yes; or hate," laughed steerforth; "no matter which. come! say the next day!" i said the next day; and he put on his great-coat, and lighted his cigar, and set off to walk home. finding him in this intention, i put on my own great-coat (but did not light my own cigar, having had enough of that for one while) and walked with him as far as the open road: a dull road, then, at night. he was in great spirits all the way; and when we parted, and i looked after him going so gallantly and airily homeward, i thought of his saying, "ride on over all obstacles, and win the race!" and wished, for the first time, that he had some worthy race to run. i was undressing in my own room, when mr. micawber's letter tumbled on the floor. thus reminded of it, i broke the seal and read as follows. it was dated an hour and a half before dinner. i am not sure whether i have mentioned that, when mr. micawber was at any particularly desperate crisis, he used a sort of legal phraseology: which he seemed to think equivalent to winding up his affairs. "sir--for i dare not say, my dear copperfield, "it is expedient that i should inform you that the undersigned is crushed. some flickering efforts to spare you the premature knowledge of his calamitous position, you may observe in him this day; but hope has sunk beneath the horizon, and the undersigned is crushed. "the present communication is penned within the personal range (i cannot call it the society) of an individual, in a state closely bordering on intoxication, employed by a broker. that individual is in legal possession of the premises, under a distress for rent. his inventory includes, not only the chattels and effects of every description belonging to the undersigned, as yearly tenant of this habitation, but also those appertaining to mr. thomas traddles, lodger, a member of the honourable society of the inner temple. "if any drop of gloom were wanting in the overflowing cup, which is now 'commended' (in the language of an immortal writer) to the lips of the undersigned, it would be found in the fact, that a friendly acceptance granted to the undersigned, by the before-mentioned mr. thomas traddles, for the sum of £ _s._ ½_d._ is over due, and is not provided for. also, in the fact, that the living responsibilities clinging to the undersigned, will, in the course of nature, be increased by the sum of one more helpless victim; whose miserable appearance may be looked for--in round numbers--at the expiration of a period not exceeding six lunar months from the present date. "after premising thus much, it would be a work of supererogation to add, that dust and ashes are for ever scattered "on "the "head "of "wilkins micawber." poor traddles! i knew enough of mr. micawber by this time, to foresee that _he_ might be expected to recover the blow; but my night's rest was sorely distressed by thoughts of traddles, and of the curate's daughter, who was one of ten, down in devonshire, and who was such a dear girl, and who would wait for traddles (ominous praise!) until she was sixty, or any age that could be mentioned. chapter xxix. i visit steerforth at his home, again. i mentioned to mr. spenlow in the morning, that i wanted leave of absence for a short time; and as i was not in the receipt of any salary, and consequently was not obnoxious to the implacable jorkins, there was no difficulty about it. i took that opportunity, with my voice sticking in my throat, and my sight failing as i uttered the words, to express my hope that miss spenlow was quite well; to which mr. spenlow replied, with no more emotion than if he had been speaking of an ordinary human being, that he was much obliged to me, and she was very well. we articled clerks, as germs of the patrician order of proctors, were treated with so much consideration, that i was almost my own master at all times. as i did not care, however, to get to highgate before one or two o'clock in the day, and as we had another little excommunication case in court that morning, which was called the office of the judge promoted by tipkins against bullock for his soul's correction, i passed an hour or two in attendance on it with mr. spenlow very agreeably. it arose out of a scuffle between two churchwardens, one of whom was alleged to have pushed the other against a pump; the handle of which pump projecting into a school-house, which school-house was under a gable of the church-roof, made the push an ecclesiastical offence. it was an amusing case; and sent me up to highgate, on the box of the stage-coach, thinking about the commons, and what mr. spenlow had said about touching the commons and bringing down the country. mrs. steerforth was pleased to see me, and so was rosa dartle. i was agreeably surprised to find that littimer was not there, and that we were attended by a modest little parlor-maid, with blue ribbons in her cap, whose eye it was much more pleasant, and much less disconcerting, to catch by accident, than the eye of that respectable man. but what i particularly observed, before i had been half-an-hour in the house, was the close and attentive watch miss dartle kept upon me; and the lurking manner in which she seemed to compare my face with steerforth's, and steerforth's with mine, and to lie in wait for something to come out between the two. so surely as i looked towards her, did i see that eager visage, with its gaunt black eyes and searching brow, intent on mine; or passing suddenly from mine to steerforth's; or comprehending both of us at once. in this lynx-like scrutiny she was so far from faltering when she saw i observed it, that at such a time she only fixed her piercing look upon me with a more intent expression still. blameless as i was, and knew that i was, in reference to any wrong she could possibly suspect me of, i shrunk before her strange eyes, quite unable to endure their hungry lustre. all day, she seemed to pervade the whole house. if i talked to steerforth in his room, i heard her dress rustle in the little gallery outside. when he and i engaged in some of our old exercises on the lawn behind the house, i saw her face pass from window to window, like a wandering light, until it fixed itself in one, and watched us. when we all four went out walking in the afternoon, she closed her thin hand on my arm like a spring, to keep me back, while steerforth and his mother went on out of hearing: and then spoke to me. "you have been a long time," she said, "without coming here. is your profession really so engaging and interesting as to absorb your whole attention? i ask because i always want to be informed, when i am ignorant. is it really, though?" i replied that i liked it well enough, but that i certainly could not claim so much for it. "oh! i am glad to know that, because i always like to be put right when i am wrong," said rosa dartle. "you mean it is a little dry, perhaps?" well, i replied; perhaps it _was_ a little dry. "oh! and that's a reason why you want relief and change--excitement, and all that?" said she. "ah! very true! but isn't it a little----eh?--for him; i don't mean you?" a quick glance of her eye towards the spot where steerforth was walking, with his mother leaning on his arm, showed me whom she meant; but beyond that, i was quite lost. and i looked so, i have no doubt. "don't it--i don't say that it _does_, mind i want to know--don't it rather engross him? don't it make him, perhaps, a little more remiss than usual in his visits to his blindly doting--eh?" with another quick glance at them, and such a glance at me as seemed to look into my innermost thoughts. "miss dartle," i returned, "pray do not think--" "i don't!" she said. "oh, dear me, don't suppose that i think anything! i am not suspicious. i only ask a question. i don't state any opinion. i want to found an opinion on what you tell me. then, it's not so? well! i am very glad to know it." "it certainly is not the fact," said i, perplexed, "that i am accountable for steerforth's having been away from home longer than usual--if he has been: which i really don't know at this moment, unless i understand it from you. i have not seen him this long while, until last night." "no?" "indeed, miss dartle, no!" as she looked full at me, i saw her face grow sharper and paler, and the marks of the old wound lengthen out until it cut through the disfigured lip, and deep into the nether lip, and slanted down the face. there was something positively awful to me in this, and in the brightness of her eyes, as she said, looking fixedly at me: "what is he doing?" i repeated the words, more to myself than her, being so amazed. "what is he doing?" she said, with an eagerness that seemed enough to consume her like a fire. "in what is that man assisting him, who never looks at me without an inscrutable falsehood in his eyes? if you are honorable and faithful, i don't ask you to betray your friend. i ask you only to tell me, is it anger, is it hatred, is it pride, is it restlessness, is it some wild fancy, is it love, _what is it_, that is leading him?" "miss dartle," i returned, "how shall i tell you, so that you will believe me, that i know of nothing in steerforth different from what there was when i first came here. i can think of nothing. i firmly believe there is nothing. i hardly understand, even, what you mean." as she still looked fixedly at me, a twitching or throbbing, from which i could not dissociate the idea of pain, came into that cruel mark; and lifted up the corner of her lip as if with scorn, or with a pity that despised its object. she put her hand upon it hurriedly--a hand so thin and delicate, that when i had seen her hold it up before the fire to shade her face, i had compared it in my thoughts to fine porcelain--and saying, in a quick, fierce, passionate way, "i swear you to secresy about this!" said not a word more. mrs. steerforth was particularly happy in her son's society, and steerforth was, on this occasion, particularly attentive and respectful to her. it was very interesting to me to see them together, not only on account of their mutual affection, but because of the strong personal resemblance between them, and the manner in which what was haughty or impetuous in him was softened by age and sex, in her, to a gracious dignity. i thought, more than once, that it was well no serious cause of division had ever come between them; or two such natures--i ought rather to express it, two such shades of the same nature--might have been harder to reconcile than the two extremest opposites in creation. the idea did not originate in my own discernment, i am bound to confess, but in a speech of rosa dartle's. she said at dinner: "oh, but do tell me, though, somebody, because i have been thinking about it all day, and i want to know." "you want to know what, rosa?" returned mrs. steerforth. "pray, pray, rosa, do not be mysterious." "mysterious!" she cried. "oh! really? do you consider me so?" "do i constantly entreat you," said mrs. steerforth, "to speak plainly, in your own natural manner?" "oh! then, this is _not_ my natural manner?" she rejoined. "now you must really bear with me, because i ask for information. we never know ourselves." "it has become a second nature," said mrs. steerforth, without any displeasure; "but i remember,--and so must you, i think,--when your manner was different, rosa; when it was not so guarded, and was more trustful." "i am sure you are right," she returned; "and so it is that bad habits grow upon one! really? less guarded and more trustful? how _can_ i, imperceptibly, have changed, i wonder! well, that's very odd! i must study to regain my former self." "i wish you would," said mrs. steerforth, with a smile. "oh! i really will, you know!" she answered. "i will learn frankness from--let me see--from james." "you cannot learn frankness, rosa," said mrs. steerforth, quickly--for there was always some effect of sarcasm in what rosa dartle said, though it was said, as this was, in the most unconscious manner in the world--"in a better school." "that i am sure of," she answered, with uncommon fervour. "if i am sure of anything, of course, you know, i am sure of that." mrs. steerforth appeared to me to regret having been a little nettled; for she presently said, in a kind tone: "well, my dear rosa, we have not heard what it is that you want to be satisfied about?" "that i want to be satisfied about?" she replied, with provoking coldness. "oh! it was only whether people, who are like each other in their moral constitution--is that the phrase?" "it's as good a phrase as another," said steerforth. "thank you:--whether people, who are like each other in their moral constitution, are in greater danger than people not so circumstanced, supposing any serious cause of variance to arise between them, of being divided angrily and deeply?" "i should say yes," said steerforth. "should you?" she retorted. "dear me! supposing then, for instance,--any unlikely thing will do for a supposition--that you and your mother were to have a serious quarrel." "my dear rosa," interposed mrs. steerforth, laughing good-naturedly, "suggest some other supposition! james and i know our duty to each other better, i pray heaven!" "oh!" said miss dartle, nodding her head thoughtfully. "to be sure. _that_ would prevent it? why, of course it would. ex-actly. now, i am glad i have been so foolish as to put the case, for it is so very good to know that your duty to each other would prevent it! thank you very much." one other little circumstance connected with miss dartle i must not omit; for i had reason to remember it thereafter, when all the irremediable past was rendered plain. during the whole of this day, but especially from this period of it, steerforth exerted himself with his utmost skill, and that was with his utmost ease, to charm this singular creature into a pleasant and pleased companion. that he should succeed, was no matter of surprise to me. that she should struggle against the fascinating influence of his delightful art--delightful nature i thought it then--did not surprise me either; for i knew that she was sometimes jaundiced and perverse. i saw her features and her manner slowly change; i saw her look at him with growing admiration; i saw her try, more and more faintly, but always angrily, as if she condemned a weakness in herself, to resist the captivating power that he possessed; and finally i saw her sharp glance soften, and her smile become quite gentle, and i ceased to be afraid of her as i had really been all day, and we all sat about the fire, talking and laughing together, with as little reserve as if we had been children. whether it was because we had sat there so long, or because steerforth was resolved not to lose the advantage he had gained, i do not know; but we did not remain in the dining-room more than five minutes after her departure. "she is playing her harp," said steerforth, softly, at the drawing-room door, "and nobody but my mother has heard her do that, i believe, these three years." he said it with a curious smile, which was gone directly; and we went into the room and found her alone. "don't get up!" said steerforth (which she had already done); "my dear rosa, don't! be kind for once, and sing us an irish song." "what do you care for an irish song?" she returned. "much!" said steerforth. "much more than for any other. here is daisy, too, loves music from his soul. sing us an irish song, rosa! and let me sit and listen as i used to do." he did not touch her, or the chair from which she had risen, but sat himself near the harp. she stood beside it for some little while, in a curious way, going through the motion of playing it with her right hand, but not sounding it. at length she sat down, and drew it to her with one sudden action, and played and sang. i don't know what it was, in her touch or voice, that made that song the most unearthly i have ever heard in my life, or can imagine. there was something fearful in the reality of it. it was as if it had never been written, or set to music, but sprung out of the passion within her; which found imperfect utterance in the low sounds of her voice, and crouched again when all was still. i was dumb when she leaned beside the harp again, playing it, but not sounding it, with her right hand. a minute more, and this had roused me from my trance:--steerforth had left his seat, and gone to her, and had put his arm laughingly about her, and had said, "come, rosa, for the future we will love each other very much!" and she had struck him, and had thrown him off with the fury of a wild cat, and had burst out of the room. "what is the matter with rosa?" said mrs. steerforth, coming in. "she has been an angel, mother," returned steerforth, "for a little while; and has run into the opposite extreme, since, by way of compensation." "you should be careful not to irritate her, james. her temper has been soured, remember, and ought not to be tried." rosa did not come back; and no other mention was made of her, until i went with steerforth into his room to say good night. then he laughed about her, and asked me if i had ever seen such a fierce little piece of incomprehensibility. i expressed as much of my astonishment as was then capable of expression, and asked if he could guess what it was that she had taken so much amiss, so suddenly. "oh, heaven knows," said steerforth. "any thing you like--or nothing! i told you she took every thing, herself included, to a grindstone, and sharpened it. she is an edge-tool, and requires great care in dealing with. she is always dangerous. good night!" "good night!" said i, "my dear steerforth! i shall be gone before you wake in the morning. good night!" he was unwilling to let me go; and stood, holding me out, with a hand on each of my shoulders, as he had done in my own room. "daisy," he said, with a smile--"for though that's not the name your godfathers and godmothers gave you, it's the name i like best to call you by--and i wish, i wish, i wish, you could give it to me!" "why so i can, if i choose," said i. "daisy, if anything should ever separate us, you must think of me at my best, old boy. come! let us make that bargain. think of me at my best, if circumstances should ever part us!" "you have no best to me, steerforth," said i, "and no worst. you are always equally loved, and cherished in my heart." so much compunction for having ever wronged him, even by a shapeless thought, did i feel within me, that the confession of having done so was rising to my lips. but for the reluctance i had, to betray the confidence of agnes, but for my uncertainty how to approach the subject with no risk of doing so, it would have reached them before he said, "god bless you, daisy, and good night!" in my doubt, it did _not_ reach them; and we shook hands, and we parted. i was up with the dull dawn, and, having dressed as quietly as i could, looked into his room. he was fast asleep; lying, easily, with his head upon his arm, as i had often seen him lie at school. the time came in its season, and that was very soon, when i almost wondered that nothing troubled his repose, as i looked at him. but he slept--let me think of him so again--as i had often seen him sleep at school; and thus, in this silent hour, i left him. --never more, oh god forgive you, steerforth! to touch that passive hand in love and friendship. never, never, more! chapter xxx. a loss. i got down to yarmouth in the evening, and went to the inn. i knew that peggotty's spare room--my room--was likely to have occupation enough in a little while, if that great visitor, before whose presence all the living must give place, were not already in the house; so i betook myself to the inn, and dined there, and engaged my bed. it was ten o'clock when i went out. many of the shops were shut, and the town was dull. when i came to omer and joram's, i found the shutters up, but the shop door standing open. as i could obtain a perspective view of mr. omer inside, smoking his pipe by the parlor-door, i entered, and asked him how he was. "why, bless my life and soul!" said mr. omer, "how do you find yourself? take a seat.--smoke not disagreeable, i hope?" "by no means," said i. "i like it--in somebody else's pipe." "what, not in your own, eh?" mr. omer returned, laughing. "all the better, sir. bad habit for a young man. take a seat. i smoke, myself, for the asthma." mr. omer had made room for me, and placed a chair. he now sat down again, very much out of breath, gasping at his pipe as if it contained a supply of that necessary, without which he must perish. "i am sorry to have heard bad news of mr. barkis," said i. mr. omer looked at me, with a steady countenance, and shook his head. "do you know how he is to-night?" i asked. "the very question i should have put to you, sir," returned mr. omer, "but on account of delicacy. it's one of the drawbacks of our line of business. when a party's ill, we _can't_ ask how the party is." the difficulty had not occurred to me; though i had had my apprehensions too, when i went in, of hearing the old tune. on its being mentioned, i recognised it, however, and said as much. "yes, yes, you understand," said mr. omer, nodding his head. "we durstn't do it. bless you, it would be a shock that the generality of parties mightn't recover, to say 'omer and jorams's compliments, and how do you find yourself this morning'--or this afternoon--as it may be." mr. omer and i nodded at each other, and mr. omer recruited his wind by the aid of his pipe. "it's one of the things that cut the trade off from attentions they could often wish to show," said mr. omer. "take myself. if i have known barkis a year, to move to as he went by, i have known him forty year. but _i_ can't go and say 'how is he?'" i felt it was rather hard on mr. omer, and i told him so. "i'm not more self-interested, i hope, than another man," said mr. omer. "look at me! my wind may fail me at any moment, and it ain't likely that, to my own knowledge, i'd be self-interested under such circumstances. i say it ain't likely, in a man who knows his wind will go, when it _does_ go, as if a pair of bellows was cut open; and that man a grandfather," said mr. omer. i said, "not at all." "it ain't that i complain of my line of business," said mr. omer. "it ain't that. some good and some bad goes, no doubt, to all callings. what i wish, is, that parties were brought up stronger-minded." mr. omer, with a very complacent and amiable face, took several puffs in silence; and then said, resuming his first point. "accordingly we're obleeged, in ascertaining how barkis goes on, to limit ourselves to em'ly. she knows what our real objects are, and she don't have any more alarms or suspicions about us, than if we was so many lambs. minnie and joram have just stepped down to the house, in fact (she's there, after hours, helping her aunt a bit), to ask her how he is to-night; and if you was to please to wait till they come back, they'd give you full partic'lers. will you take something? a glass of srub and water, now? i smoke on srub and water, myself," said mr. omer, taking up his glass, "because it's considered softening to the passages, by which this troublesome breath of mine gets into action. but, lord bless you," said mr. omer, huskily, "it ain't the passages that's out of order! 'give me breath enough,' says i to my daughter minnie, 'and _i_'ll find passages, my dear.'" he really had no breath to spare, and it was very alarming to see him laugh. when he was again in a condition to be talked to, i thanked him for the proffered refreshment, which i declined, as i had just had dinner; and, observing that i would wait, since he was so good as to invite me, until his daughter and his son-in-law came back, i inquired how little emily was? "well, sir," said mr. omer, removing his pipe, that he might rub his chin; "i tell you truly, i shall be glad when her marriage has taken place." "why so?" i inquired. "well, she's unsettled at present," said mr. omer. "it ain't that she's not as pretty as ever, for she's prettier--i do assure you, she is prettier. it ain't that she don't work as well as ever, for she does. she _was_ worth any six, and she _is_ worth any six. but somehow she wants heart. if you understand," said mr. omer, after rubbing his chin again, and smoking a little, "what i mean in a general way by the expression, 'a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull altogether, my hearties, hurrah!' i should say to you, that _that_ was--in a general way--what i miss in em'ly." mr. omer's face and manner went for so much, that i could conscientiously nod my head, as divining his meaning. my quickness of apprehension seemed to please him, and he went on: "now, i consider this is principally on account of her being in an unsettled state, you see. we have talked it over a good deal, her uncle and myself, and her sweetheart and myself, after business; and i consider it is principally on account of her being unsettled. you must always recollect of em'ly," said mr. omer, shaking his head gently, "that she's a most extraordinary affectionate little thing. the proverb says, 'you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.' well, i don't know about that. i rather think you may, if you begin early in life. she has made a home out of that old boat, sir, that stone and marble couldn't beat." "i am sure she has!" said i. "to see the clinging of that pretty little thing to her uncle," said mr. omer; "to see the way she holds on to him, tighter and tighter, and closer and closer, every day, is to see a sight. now, you know, there's a struggle going on when that's the case. why should it be made a longer one than is needful?" i listened attentively to the good old fellow, and acquiesced, with all my heart, in what he said. "therefore, i mentioned to them," said mr. omer, in a comfortable, easy-going tone, "this. i said, 'now, don't consider em'ly nailed down in point of time, at all. make it your own time. her services have been more valuable than was supposed; her learning has been quicker than was supposed; omer and joram can run their pen through what remains; and she's free when you wish. if she likes to make any little arrangement, afterwards, in the way of doing any little thing for us at home, very well. if she don't, very well still. we're no losers, anyhow.' for--don't you see," said mr. omer, touching me with his pipe, "it ain't likely that a man so short of breath as myself, and a grandfather too, would go and strain points with a little bit of a blue-eyed blossom, like _her_?" "not at all, i am certain," said i. "not at all! you're right!" said mr. omer. "well, sir, her cousin--you know it's a cousin she's going to be married to?" "oh yes," i replied. "i know him well." "of course you do," said mr. omer. "well, sir! her cousin being, as it appears, in good work, and well to do, thanked me in a very manly sort of manner for this (conducting himself altogether, i must say, in a way that gives me a high opinion of him), and went and took as comfortable a little house as you or i could wish to clap eyes on. that little house is now furnished, right through, as neat and complete as a doll's parlor; and but for barkis's illness having taken this bad turn, poor fellow, they would have been man and wife--i dare say, by this time. as it is, there's a postponement." "and emily, mr. omer?" i inquired. "has she become more settled?" "why that, you know," he returned, rubbing his double chin again, "can't naturally be expected. the prospect of the change and separation, and all that, is, as one may say, close to her and far away from her, both at once. barkis's death needn't put it off much, but his lingering might. anyway, it's an uncertain state of matters, you see." "i see," said i. "consequently," pursued mr. omer, "em'ly's still a little down, and a little fluttered; perhaps, upon the whole, she's more so than she was. every day she seems to get fonder and fonder of her uncle, and more loth to part from all of us. a kind word from me brings the tears into her eyes; and if you was to see her with my daughter minnie's little girl, you'd never forget it. bless my heart alive!" said mr. omer, pondering, "how she loves that child!" having so favourable an opportunity, it occurred to me to ask mr. omer, before our conversation should be interrupted by the return of his daughter and her husband, whether he knew anything of martha. "ah!" he rejoined, shaking his head, and looking very much dejected. "no good. a sad story, sir, however you come to know it. i never thought there was harm in the girl. i wouldn't wish to mention it before my daughter minnie--for she'd take me up directly--but i never did. none of us ever did." mr. omer, hearing his daughter's footstep before i heard it, touched me with his pipe, and shut up one eye, as a caution. she and her husband came in immediately afterwards. their report was, that mr. barkis was "as bad as bad could be;" that he was quite unconscious; and that mr. chillip had mournfully said in the kitchen, on going away just now, that the college of physicians, the college of surgeons, and apothecaries' hall, if they were all called in together, couldn't help him. he was past both colleges, mr. chillip said, and the hall could only poison him. hearing this, and learning that mr. peggotty was there, i determined to go to the house at once. i bade good night to mr. omer, and to mr. and mrs. joram; and directed my steps thither, with a solemn feeling, which made mr. barkis quite a new and different creature. my low tap at the door was answered by mr. peggotty. he was not so much surprised to see me as i had expected. i remarked this in peggotty, too, when she came down; and i have seen it since; and i think, in the expectation of that dread surprise, all other changes and surprises dwindle into nothing. i shook hands with mr. peggotty, and passed into the kitchen, while he softly closed the door. little emily was sitting by the fire, with her hands before her face. ham was standing near her. we spoke in whispers; listening, between whiles, for any sound in the room above. i had not thought of it on the occasion of my last visit, but how strange it was to me now, to miss mr. barkis out of the kitchen! "this is very kind of you, mas'r davy," said mr. peggotty. "it is oncommon kind," said ham. "em'ly, my dear," cried mr. peggotty. "see here! here's mas'r davy come! what, cheer up, pretty! not a wured to mas'r davy?" there was a trembling upon her, that i can see now. the coldness of her hand when i touched it, i can feel yet. its only sign of animation was to shrink from mine; and then she glided from the chair, and, creeping to the other side of her uncle, bowed herself, silently and trembling still, upon his breast. "it's such a loving art," said mr. peggotty, smoothing her rich hair with his great hard hand, "that it can't abear the sorrer of this. it's nat'ral in young folk, mas'r davy, when they're new to these here trials, and timid, like my little bird,--it's nat'ral." she clung the closer to him, but neither lifted up her face, nor spoke a word. "it's getting late, my dear," said mr. peggotty, "and here's ham come fur to take you home. theer! go along with t'other loving art! what, em'ly? eh, my pretty?" the sound of her voice had not reached me, but he bent his head as if he listened to her, and then said: "let you stay with your uncle? why, you doen't mean to ask me that! stay with your uncle, moppet? when your husband that'll be so soon, is here fur to take you home? now a person wouldn't think it, fur to see this little thing alongside a rough-weather chap like me," said mr. peggotty, looking round at both of us, with infinite pride; "but the sea ain't more salt in it than she has fondness in her for her uncle--a foolish little em'ly!" "em'ly's in the right in that, mas'r davy!" said ham. "lookee here! as em'ly wishes of it, and as she's hurried and frightened, like, besides, i'll leave her till morning. let me stay too!" "no, no," said mr. peggotty. "you doen't ought--a married man like you--or what's as good--to take and hull away a day's work. and you doen't ought to watch and work both. that won't do. you go home and turn in. you ain't afeerd of em'ly not being took good care on, _i_ know." ham yielded to this persuasion, and took his hat to go. even when he kissed her,--and i never saw him approach her, but i felt that nature had given him the soul of a gentleman,--she seemed to cling closer to her uncle, even to the avoidance of her chosen husband. i shut the door after him, that it might cause no disturbance of the quiet that prevailed; and when i turned back, i found mr. peggotty still talking to her. "now, i'm a going up-stairs to tell your aunt as mas'r davy's here, and that'll cheer her up a bit," he said. "sit ye down by the fire, the while, my dear, and warm these mortal cold hands. you doen't need to be so fearsome, and take on so much. what? you'll go along with me?--well! come along with me--come! if her uncle was turned out of house and home, and forced to lay down in a dyke, mas'r davy," said mr. peggotty, with no less pride than before, "it's my belief she'd go along with him, now! but there'll be some one else, soon,--some one else, soon, em'ly!" afterwards, when i went up-stairs, as i passed the door of my little chamber, which was dark, i had an indistinct impression of her being within it, cast down upon the floor. but, whether it was really she, or whether it was a confusion of the shadows in the room, i don't know now. i had leisure to think, before the kitchen-fire, of pretty little em'ly's dread of death--which, added to what mr. omer had told me, i took to be the cause of her being so unlike herself--and i had leisure, before peggotty came down, even to think more leniently of the weakness of it: as i sat counting the ticking of the clock, and deepening my sense of the solemn hush around me. peggotty took me in her arms, and blessed and thanked me over and over again for being such a comfort to her (that was what she said) in her distress. she then entreated me to come up-stairs, sobbing that mr. barkis had always liked me and admired me; that he had often talked of me, before he fell into a stupor; and that she believed, in case of his coming to himself again, he would brighten up at sight of me, if he could brighten up at any earthly thing. the probability of his ever doing so, appeared to me, when i saw him, to be very small. he was lying with his head and shoulders out of bed, in an uncomfortable attitude, half resting on the box which had cost him so much pain and trouble. i learned, that, when he was past creeping out of bed to open it, and past assuring himself of its safety by means of the divining rod i had seen him use, he had required to have it placed on the chair at the bed-side, where he had ever since embraced it, night and day. his arm lay on it now. time and the world were slipping from beneath him, but the box was there; and the last words he had uttered were (in an explanatory tone) "old clothes!" "barkis, my dear!" said peggotty, almost cheerfully: bending over him, while her brother and i stood at the bed's foot. "here's my dear boy--my dear boy, master davy, who brought us together, barkis! that you sent messages by, you know! won't you speak to master davy?" he was as mute and senseless as the box, from which his form derived the only expression it had. "he's a going out with the tide," said mr. peggotty to me, behind his hand. my eyes were dim, and so were mr. peggotty's; but i repeated in a whisper, "with the tide?" [illustration: i find mr. barkis "going out with the tide."] "people can't die, along the coast," said mr. peggotty, "except when the tide's pretty nigh out. they can't be born, unless it's pretty nigh in--not properly born, till flood. he's a going out with the tide. it's ebb at half arter three, slack water half-an-hour. if he lives 'till it turns, he'll hold his own till past the flood, and go out with the next tide." we remained there, watching him, a long time--hours. what mysterious influence my presence had upon him in that state of his senses, i shall not pretend to say; but when he at last began to wander feebly, it is certain he was muttering about driving me to school. "he's coming to himself," said peggotty. mr. peggotty touched me, and whispered with much awe and reverence, "they are both a going out fast." "barkis, my dear!" said peggotty. "c. p. barkis," he cried, faintly. "no better woman anywhere!" "look! here's master davy!" said peggotty. for he now opened his eyes. i was on the point of asking him if he knew me, when he tried to stretch out his arm, and said to me, distinctly, with a pleasant smile: "barkis is willin'!" and, it being low water, he went out with the tide. chapter xxxi. a greater loss. it was not difficult for me, on peggotty's solicitation, to resolve to stay where i was, until after the remains of the poor carrier should have made their last journey to blunderstone. she had long ago bought, out of her own savings, a little piece of ground in our old churchyard near the grave "of her sweet girl," as she always called my mother; and there they were to rest. in keeping peggotty company, and doing all i could for her (little enough at the utmost), i was as grateful, i rejoice to think, as even now i could wish myself to have been. but i am afraid i had a supreme satisfaction, of a personal and professional nature, in taking charge of mr. barkis's will, and expounding its contents. i may claim the merit of having originated the suggestion that the will should be looked for in the box. after some search, it was found in the box, at the bottom of a horse's nose-bag; wherein (besides hay) there was discovered an old gold watch, with chain and seals, which mr. barkis had worn on his wedding-day, and which had never been seen before or since; a silver tobacco-stopper, in the form of a leg; an imitation lemon, full of minute cups and saucers, which i have some idea mr. barkis must have purchased to present to me when i was a child, and afterwards found himself unable to part with; eighty-seven guineas and a half, in guineas and half guineas; two hundred and ten pounds, in perfectly clean bank notes; certain receipts for bank of england stock; an old horse-shoe, a bad shilling, a piece of camphor, and an oyster-shell. from the circumstance of the latter article having been much polished, and displaying prismatic colours on the inside, i conclude that mr. barkis had some general ideas about pearls, which never resolved themselves into anything definite. for years and years, mr. barkis had carried this box, on all his journeys, every day. that it might the better escape notice, he had invented a fiction that it belonged to "mr. blackboy," and was "to be left with barkis till called for;" a fable he had elaborately written on the lid, in characters now scarcely legible. he had hoarded, all these years, i found, to good purpose. his property in money amounted to nearly three thousand pounds. of this he bequeathed the interest of one thousand to mr. peggotty for his life; on his decease, the principal to be equally divided between peggotty, little emily, and me, or the survivor or survivors of us, share and share alike. all the rest he died possessed of, he bequeathed to peggotty; whom he left residuary legatee, and sole executrix of that his last will and testament. i felt myself quite a proctor when i read this document aloud with all possible ceremony, and set forth its provisions, any number of times, to those whom they concerned. i began to think there was more in the commons than i had supposed. i examined the will with the deepest attention, pronounced it perfectly formal in all respects, made a pencil-mark or so in the margin, and thought it rather extraordinary that i knew so much. in this abstruse pursuit; in making an account for, peggotty, of all the property into which she had come; in arranging all the affairs in an orderly manner; and in being her referee and adviser on every point, to our joint delight; i passed the week before the funeral. i did not see little emily in that interval, but they told me she was to be quietly married in a fortnight. i did not attend the funeral in character, if i may venture to say so. i mean i was not dressed up in a black cloak and a streamer, to frighten the birds; but i walked over to blunderstone early in the morning, and was in the churchyard when it came, attended only by peggotty and her brother. the mad gentleman looked on, out of my little window; mr. chillip's baby wagged its heavy head, and rolled its goggle eyes, at the clergyman, over its nurse's shoulder; mr. omer breathed short in the background; no one else was there; and it was very quiet. we walked about the churchyard for an hour, after all was over; and pulled some young leaves from the tree above my mother's grave. a dread falls on me here. a cloud is lowering on the distant town, towards which i retraced my solitary steps. i fear to approach it. i cannot bear to think of what did come, upon that memorable night; of what must come again, if i go on. it is no worse, because i write of it. it would be no better, if i stopped my most unwilling hand. it is done. nothing can undo it; nothing can make it otherwise than as it was. my old nurse was to go to london with me next day, on the business of the will. little emily was passing that day at mr. omer's. we were all to meet in the old boathouse that night. ham would bring emily at the usual hour. i would walk back at my leisure. the brother and sister would return as they had come, and be expecting us, when the day closed in, at the fireside. i parted from them at the wicket-gate, where visionary straps had rested with roderick random's knapsack in the days of yore; and, instead of going straight back, walked a little distance on the road to lowestoft. then i turned, and walked back towards yarmouth. i stayed to dine at a decent alehouse, some mile or two from the ferry i have mentioned before; and thus the day wore away, and it was evening when i reached it. rain was falling heavily by that time, and it was a wild night; but there was a moon behind the clouds, and it was not dark. i was soon within sight of mr. peggotty's house, and of the light within it shining through the window. a little floundering across the sand, which was heavy, brought me to the door, and i went in. it looked very comfortable, indeed. mr. peggotty had smoked his evening pipe, and there were preparations for some supper by-and-by. the fire was bright, the ashes were thrown up, the locker was ready for little emily in her old place. in her own old place sat peggotty, once more, looking (but for her dress) as if she had never left it. she had fallen back, already, on the society of the work-box with saint paul's upon the lid, the yard-measure in the cottage, and the bit of wax candle: and there they all were, just as if they had never been disturbed. mrs. gummidge appeared to be fretting a little, in her old corner; and consequently looked quite natural, too. "you're first of the lot, mas'r davy!" said mr. peggotty, with a happy face. "doen't keep in that coat, sir, if it's wet." "thank you, mr. peggotty," said i, giving him my outer coat to hang up. "it's quite dry." "so 'tis!" said mr. peggotty, feeling my shoulders. "as a chip! sit ye down, sir. it ain't o' no use saying welcome to you, but you're welcome, kind and hearty." "thank you, mr. peggotty, i am sure of that. well, peggotty!" said i, giving her a kiss. "and how are you, old woman?" "ha, ha!" laughed mr. peggotty, sitting down beside us, and rubbing his hands in his sense of relief from recent trouble, and in the genuine heartiness of his nature; "there's not a woman in the wureld, sir--as i tell her--that need to feel more easy in her mind than her! she done her dooty by the departed, and the departed know'd it; and the departed done what was right by her, as she done what was right by the departed; and--and--and it's _all_ right!" mrs. gummidge groaned. "cheer up, my pretty mawther!" said mr. peggotty. (but he shook his head aside at us, evidently sensible of the tendency of the late occurrences to recal the memory of the old one.) "doen't be down! cheer up, for your own self, on'y a little bit, and see if a good deal more doen't come nat'ral!" "not to me, dan'l," returned mrs. gummidge. "nothink's nat'ral to me but to be lone and lorn." "no, no," said mr. peggotty, soothing her sorrows. "yes, yes, dan'l!" said mrs. gummidge. "i ain't a person to live with them as has had money left. thinks go too contrairy with me. i had better be a riddance." "why, how should i ever spend it without you?" said mr. peggotty, with an air of serious remonstrance. "what are you a talking on? doen't i want you more now, than ever i did?" "i know'd i was never wanted before!" cried mrs. gummidge, with a pitiable whimper, "and now i'm told so! how could i expect to be wanted, being so lone and lorn, and so contrairy!" mr. peggotty seemed very much shocked at himself for having made a speech capable of this unfeeling construction, but was prevented from replying, by peggotty's pulling his sleeve, and shaking her head. after looking at mrs. gummidge for some moments, in sore distress of mind, he glanced at the dutch clock, rose, snuffed the candle, and put it in the window. "theer!" said mr. peggotty, cheerily. "theer we are, missis gummidge!" mrs. gummidge slightly groaned. "lighted up, accordin' to custom! you're a wonderin' what that's fur, sir! well, it's fur our little em'ly. you see, the path ain't over light or cheerful arter dark; and when i'm here at the hour as she's a comin' home, i puts the light in the winder. that, you see," said mr. peggotty, bending over me with great glee, "meets two objects. she says, says em'ly, 'theer's home!' she says. and likewise, says em'ly, 'my uncle's theer!' fur if i ain't theer, i never have no light showed." "you're a baby!" said peggotty; very fond of him for it, if she thought so. "well," returned mr. peggotty, standing with his legs pretty wide apart, and rubbing his hands up and down them in his comfortable satisfaction, as he looked alternately at us and at the fire, "i doen't know but i am. not, you see, to look at." "not azackly," observed peggotty. "no," laughed mr. peggotty, "not to look at, but to--to consider on, you know. _i_ doen't care, bless you! now i tell you. when i go a looking and looking about that theer pritty house of our em'ly's, i'm--i'm gormed," said mr. peggotty, with sudden emphasis--"theer! i can't say more--if i doen't feel as if the littlest things was her, a'most. i takes 'em up and i puts 'em down, and i touches of 'em as delicate as if they was our em'ly. so 'tis with her little bonnets and that. i couldn't see one on 'em rough used a purpose--not fur the whole wureld. there's a babby fur you, in the form of a great sea porkypine!" said mr. peggotty, relieving his earnestness with a roar of laughter. peggotty and i both laughed, but not so loud. "it's my opinion, you see," said mr. peggotty, with a delighted face, after some further rubbing of his legs, "as this is along of my havin' played with her so much, and made believe as we was turks, and french, and sharks, and every wariety of forinners--bless you, yes; and lions and whales, and i don't know what all!--when she warn't no higher than my knee. i've got into the way on it, you know. why, this here candle, now!" said mr. peggotty, gleefully holding out his hand towards it, "_i_ know wery well that arter she's married and gone, i shall put that candle theer, just the same as now. i know wery well that when i'm here o' nights (and where else should _i_ live, bless your arts, whatever fortun' i come into!) and she ain't here, or i ain't theer, i shall put the candle in the winder, and sit afore the fire, pretending i'm expecting of her, like i'm a doing now. _there's_ a babby for you," said mr. peggotty, with another roar, "in the form of a sea porkypine! why, at the present minute, when i see the candle sparkle up, i says to myself, 'she's a looking at it! em'ly's a coming!' _there's_ a babby for you, in the form of a sea porkypine! right for all that," said mr. peggotty, stopping in his roar, and smiting his hands together; "fur here she is!" it was only ham. the night should have turned more wet since i came in, for he had a large sou'wester hat on, slouched over his face. "where's em'ly?" said mr. peggotty. ham made a motion with his head, as if she were outside. mr. peggotty took the light from the window, trimmed it, put it on the table, and was busily stirring the fire, when ham, who had not moved, said: "mas'r davy, will you come out a minute, and see what em'ly and me has got to show you?" we went out. as i passed him at the door, i saw, to my astonishment and fright, that he was deadly pale. he pushed me hastily into the open air, and closed the door upon us. only upon us two. "ham! what's the matter!" "mas'r davy!--" oh, for his broken heart, how dreadfully he wept! i was paralyzed by the sight of such grief. i don't know what i thought, or what i dreaded. i could only look at him. "ham! poor good fellow! for heaven's sake tell me what's the matter!" "my love, mas'r davy--the pride and hope of my art--her that i'd have died for, and would die for now--she's gone!" "gone?" "em'ly's run away! oh, mas'r davy, think _how_ she's run away, when i pray my good and gracious god to kill her (her that is so dear above all things) sooner than let her come to ruin and disgrace!" the face he turned up to the troubled sky, the quivering of his clasped hands, the agony of his figure, remain associated with that lonely waste, in my remembrance, to this hour. it is always night there, and he is the only object in the scene. "you're a scholar," he said, hurriedly, "and know what's right and best. what am i to say, in-doors? how am i ever to break it to him, mas'r davy?" i saw the door move, and instinctively tried to hold the latch on the outside, to gain a moment's time. it was too late. mr. peggotty thrust forth his face; and never could i forget the change that came upon it when he saw us, if i were to live five hundred years. i remember a great wail and cry, and the women hanging about him, and we all standing in the room; i with a paper in my hand, which ham had given me; mr. peggotty, with his vest torn open, his hair wild, his face and lips quite white, and blood trickling down his bosom (it had sprung from his mouth, i think), looking fixedly at me. "read it, sir," he said, in a low shivering voice. "slow, please. i doen't know as i can understand." in the midst of the silence of death, i read thus, from a blotted letter. "'when you, who love me so much better than i ever have deserved, even when my mind was innocent, see this, i shall be far away.'" "i shall be fur away," he repeated slowly. "stop! em'ly fur away. well!" 'when i leave my dear home--my dear home--oh, my dear home!--in the morning,' the letter bore date on the previous night: '--it will be never to come back, unless he brings me back a lady. this will be found at night, many hours after, instead of me. oh, if you knew how my heart is torn. if even you, that i have wronged so much, that never can forgive me, could only know what i suffer! i am too wicked to write about myself. oh, take comfort in thinking that i am so bad. oh, for mercy's sake, tell uncle that i never loved him half so dear as now. oh, don't remember how affectionate and kind you have all been to me--don't remember we were ever to be married--but try to think as if i died when i was little, and was buried somewhere. pray heaven that i am going away from, have compassion on my uncle! tell him that i never loved him half so dear. be his comfort. love some good girl, that will be what i was once to uncle, and be true to you, and worthy of you, and know no shame but me. god bless all! i'll pray for all, often, on my knees. if he don't bring me back a lady, and i don't pray for my own self, i'll pray for all. my parting love to uncle. my last tears, and my last thanks, for uncle!'" that was all. he stood, long after i had ceased to read, still looking at me. at length i ventured to take his hand, and to entreat him, as well as i could, to endeavour to get some command of himself. he replied, "i thankee, sir, i thankee!" without moving. ham spoke to him. mr. peggotty was so far sensible of _his_ affliction, that he wrung his hand; but, otherwise, he remained in the same state, and no one dared to disturb him. slowly, at last, he moved his eyes from my face, as if he were waking from a vision, and cast them round the room. then he said, in a low voice: "who's the man? i want to know his name." ham glanced at me, and suddenly i felt a shock that struck me back. "there's a man suspected," said mr. peggotty. "who is it?" "mas'r davy!" implored ham. "go out a bit, and let me tell him what i must. you doen't ought to hear it, sir." i felt the shock again. i sank down in a chair, and tried to utter some reply; but my tongue was fettered, and my sight was weak. "i want to know his name!" i heard said, once more. "for some time past," ham faltered, "there's been a servant about here, at odd times. there's been a gen'lm'n too. both of 'em belonged to one another." mr. peggotty stood fixed as before, but now looking at him. "the servant," pursued ham, "was seen along with--our poor girl--last night. he's been in hiding about here, this week or over. he was thought to have gone, but he was hiding. doen't stay, mas'r davy, doen't!" i felt peggotty's arm round my neck, but i could not have moved if the house had been about to fall upon me. "a strange chay and horses was outside town, this morning, on the norwich road, a'most afore the day broke," ham went on. "the servant went to it, and come from it, and went to it again. when he went to it again, em'ly was nigh him. the t'other was inside. he's the man." "for the lord's love," said mr. peggotty, falling back, and putting out his hand, as if to keep off what he dreaded. "doen't tell me his name's steerforth!" "mas'r davy," exclaimed ham, in a broken voice, "it ain't no fault of yourn--and i am far from laying of it to you--but his name is steerforth, and he's a damned villain!" mr. peggotty uttered no cry, and shed no tear, and moved no more, until he seemed to wake again, all at once, and pulled down his rough coat from its peg in a corner. "bear a hand with this! i'm struck of a heap, and can't do it," he said, impatiently. "bear a hand, and help me. well!" when somebody had done so. "now give me that theer hat!" ham asked him whither he was going. "i'm a going to seek my niece. i'm a going to seek my em'ly. i'm a going, first, to stave in that theer boat, and sink it where i would have drownded _him_, as i'm a livin' soul, if i had had one thought of what was in him! as he sat afore me," he said, wildly, holding out his clenched right hand, "as he sat afore me, face to face, strike me down dead, but i'd have drownded him, and thought it right!--i'm a going to seek my niece." "where?" cried ham, interposing himself before the door. "anywhere! i'm a going to seek my niece through the wureld. i'm a going to find my poor niece in her shame, and bring her back. no one stop me! i tell you i'm a going to seek my niece!" "no, no!" cried mrs. gummidge, coming between them, in a fit of crying. "no, no, dan'l, not as you are now. seek her in a little while, my lone lorn dan'l, and that'll be but right; but not as you are now. sit ye down, and give me your forgiveness for having ever been a worrit to you, dan'l--what have _my_ contrairies ever been to this!--and let us speak a word about them times when she was first an orphan, and when ham was too, and when i was a poor widder woman, and you took me in. it'll soften your poor heart, dan'l," laying her head upon his shoulder, "and you'll bear your sorrow better; for you know the promise, dan'l, 'as you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me'; and that can never fail under this roof, that's been our shelter for so many, many year!" he was quite passive now; and when i heard him crying, the impulse that had been upon me to go down upon my knees, and ask their pardon for the desolation i had caused, and curse steerforth, yielded to a better feeling. my overcharged heart found the same relief, and i cried too. chapter xxxii. the beginning of a long journey. what is natural in me, is natural in many other men, i infer, and so i am not afraid to write that i never had loved steerforth better than when the ties that bound me to him were broken. in the keen distress of the discovery of his unworthiness, i thought more of all that was brilliant in him, i softened more towards all that was good in him, i did more justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a noble nature and a great name, than ever i had done in the height of my devotion to him. deeply as i felt my own unconscious part in his pollution of an honest home, i believe that if i had been brought face to face with him, i could not have uttered one reproach. i should have loved him so well still--though he fascinated me no longer--i should have held in so much tenderness the memory of my affection for him, that i think i should have been as weak as a spirit-wounded child, in all but the entertainment of a thought that we could ever be re-united. that thought i never had. i felt, as he had felt, that all was at an end between us. what his remembrances of me were, i have never known--they were light enough, perhaps, and easily dismissed--but mine of him were as the remembrances of a cherished friend, who was dead. yes, steerforth, long removed from the scenes of this poor history! my sorrow may bear involuntary witness against you at the judgment throne; but my angry thoughts or my reproaches never will, i know! the news of what had happened soon spread through the town; insomuch that as i passed along the streets next morning, i overheard the people speaking of it at their doors. many were hard upon her, some few were hard upon him, but towards her second father and her lover there was but one sentiment. among all kinds of people a respect for them in their distress prevailed, which was full of gentleness and delicacy. the seafaring men kept apart, when those two were seen early, walking with slow steps on the beach; and stood in knots, talking compassionately among themselves. it was on the beach, close down by the sea, that i found them. it would have been easy to perceive that they had not slept all last night, even if peggotty had failed to tell me of their still sitting just as i left them, when it was broad day. they looked worn; and i thought mr. peggotty's head was bowed in one night more than in all the years i had known him. but they were both as grave and steady as the sea itself: then lying beneath a dark sky, waveless--yet with a heavy roll upon it, as if it breathed in its rest--and touched, on the horizon, with a strip of silvery light from the unseen sun. "we have had a mort of talk, sir," said mr. peggotty to me, when we had all three walked a little while in silence, "of what we ought and doen't ought to do. but we see our course now." i happened to glance at ham, then looking out to sea upon the distant light, and a frightful thought came into my mind--not that his face was angry, for it was not; i recal nothing but an expression of stern determination in it--that if ever he encountered steerforth, he would kill him. "my dooty here, sir," said mr. peggotty, "is done. i'm a going to seek my--" he stopped, and went on in a firmer voice: "i'm a going to seek her. that's my dooty evermore." he shook his head when i asked him where he would seek her, and inquired if i were going to london to-morrow? i told him i had not gone to-day, fearing to lose the chance of being of any service to him; but that i was ready to go when he would. "i'll go along with you, sir," he rejoined, "if you're agreeable, to-morrow." we walked again, for a while, in silence. "ham," he presently resumed, "he'll hold to his present work, and go and live along with my sister. the old boat yonder--" "will you desert the old boat, mr. peggotty?" i gently interposed. "my station, mas'r davy," he returned, "ain't there no longer; and if ever a boat foundered, since there was darkness on the face of the deep, that one's gone down. but no, sir, no; i doen't mean as it should be deserted. fur from that." we walked again for a while, as before, until he explained: "my wishes is, sir, as it shall look, day and night, winter and summer, as it has always looked, since she first know'd it. if ever she should come a wandering back, i wouldn't have the old place seem to cast her off, you understand, but seem to tempt her to draw nigher to 't, and to peep in, maybe, like a ghost, out of the wind and rain, through the old winder, at the old seat by the fire. then, maybe, mas'r davy, seein' none but missis gummidge there, she might take heart to creep in, trembling; and might come to be laid down in her old bed, and rest her weary head where it was once so gay." i could not speak to him in reply, though i tried. "every night," said mr. peggotty, "as reg'lar as the night comes, the candle must be stood in its old pane of glass, that if ever she should see it, it may seem to say 'come back, my child, come back!' if ever there's a knock, ham (partic'ler a soft knock), arter dark, at your aunt's door, doen't you go nigh it. let it be her--not you--that sees my fallen child!" he walked a little in front of us, and kept before us for some minutes. during this interval, i glanced at ham again, and observing the same expression on his face, and his eyes still directed to the distant light, i touched his arm. twice i called him by his name, in the tone in which i might have tried to rouse a sleeper, before he heeded me. when i at last inquired on what his thoughts were so bent, he replied: "on what's afore me, mas'r davy; and over yon." "on the life before you, do you mean?" he had pointed confusedly out to sea. "ay, mas'r davy. i doen't rightly know how 'tis, but from over yon there seemed to me to come--the end of it like;" looking at me as if he were waking, but with the same determined face. "what end?" i asked, possessed by my former fear. "i doen't know," he said thoughtfully; "i was calling to mind that the beginning of it all did take place here--and then the end come. but it's gone! mas'r davy," he added; answering, as i think, my look; "you han't no call to be afeerd of me: but i'm kiender muddled; i doen't fare to feel no matters,"--which was as much as to say that he was not himself, and quite confounded. mr. peggotty stopping for us to join him: we did so, and said no more. the remembrance of this, in connexion with my former thought, however, haunted me at intervals, even until the inexorable end came at its appointed time. we insensibly approached the old boat, and entered. mrs. gummidge, no longer moping in her especial corner, was busy preparing breakfast. she took mr. peggotty's hat, and placed his seat for him, and spoke so comfortably and softly, that i hardly knew her. "dan'l, my good man," said she, "you must eat and drink, and keep up your strength, for without it you'll do nowt. try, that's a dear soul! and if i disturb you with my clicketten," she meant her chattering, "tell me so, dan'l, and i won't." when she had served us all, she withdrew to the window, where she sedulously employed herself in repairing some shirts and other clothes belonging to mr. peggotty, and neatly folding and packing them in an old oilskin bag, such as sailors carry. meanwhile, she continued talking, in the same quiet manner: "all times and seasons, you know, dan'l," said mrs. gummidge, "i shall be allus here, and every think will look accordin' to your wishes. i'm a poor scholar, but i shall write to you, odd times, when you're away, and send my letters to mas'r davy. maybe you'll write to me too, dan'l, odd times, and tell me how you fare to feel upon your lone lorn journies." "you'll be a solitary woman heer, i'm afeerd!" said mr. peggotty. "no, no, dan'l," she returned, "i shan't be that. doen't you mind me. i shall have enough to do to keep a beein for you" (mrs. gummidge meant a home), "again you come back--to keep a beein here for any that may hap to come back, dan'l. in the fine time, i shall set outside the door as i used to do. if any _should_ come nigh, they shall see the old widder woman true to 'em, a long way off." what a change in mrs. gummidge in a little time! she was another woman. she was so devoted, she had such a quick perception of what it would be well to say, and what it would be well to leave unsaid, she was so forgetful of herself, and so regardful of the sorrow about her, that i held her in a sort of veneration. the work she did that day! there were many things to be brought up from the beach and stored in the outhouse--as oars, nets, sails, cordage, spars, lobster-pots, bags of ballast, and the like; and though there was abundance of assistance rendered, there being not a pair of working hands on all that shore but would have labored hard for mr. peggotty, and been well paid in being asked to do it, yet she persisted, all day long, in toiling under weights that she was quite unequal to, and fagging to and fro on all sorts of unnecessary errands. as to deploring her misfortunes, she appeared to have entirely lost the recollection of ever having had any. she preserved an equable cheerfulness in the midst of her sympathy, which was not the least astonishing part of the change that had come over her. querulousness was out of the question. i did not even observe her voice to falter, or a tear to escape from her eyes, the whole day through, until twilight; when she and i and mr. peggotty being alone together, and he having fallen asleep in perfect exhaustion, she broke into a half-suppressed fit of sobbing and crying, and taking me to the door, said, "ever bless you, mas'r davy, be a friend to him, poor dear!" then, she immediately ran out of the house to wash her face, in order that she might sit quietly beside him, and be found at work there, when he should awake. in short i left her, when i went away at night, the prop and staff of mr. peggotty's affliction; and i could not meditate enough upon the lesson that i read in mrs. gummidge, and the new experience she unfolded to me. it was between nine and ten o'clock when, strolling in a melancholy manner through the town, i stopped at mr. omer's door. mr. omer had taken it so much to heart, his daughter told me, that he had been very low and poorly all day, and had gone to bed without his pipe. "a deceitful, bad-hearted girl," said mrs. joram. "there was no good in her, ever!" "don't say so," i returned. "you don't think so." "yes, i do!" cried mrs. joram, angrily. "no, no," said i. mrs. joram tossed her head, endeavouring to be very stern and cross; but she could not command her softer self, and began to cry. i was young, to be sure; but i thought much the better of her for this sympathy, and fancied it became her, as a virtuous wife and mother, very well indeed. "what will she ever do!" sobbed minnie. "where will she go! what will become of her! oh, how could she be so cruel, to herself and him!" i remembered the time when minnie was a young and pretty girl; and i was glad that she remembered it too, so feelingly. "my little minnie," said mrs. joram, "has only just now been got to sleep. even in her sleep she is sobbing for em'ly. all day long, little minnie has cried for her, and asked me, over and over again, whether em'ly was wicked? what can i say to her, when em'ly tied a ribbon off her own neck round little minnie's the last night she was here, and laid her head down on the pillow beside her till she was fast asleep! the ribbon's round my little minnie's neck now. it ought not to be, perhaps, but what can i do? em'ly is very bad, but they were fond of one another. and the child knows nothing!" mrs. joram was so unhappy, that her husband came out to take care of her. leaving them together, i went home to peggotty's; more melancholy myself, if possible, than i had been yet. that good creature--i mean peggotty--all untired by her late anxieties and sleepless nights, was at her brother's, where she meant to stay till morning. an old woman, who had been employed about the house for some weeks past, while peggotty had been unable to attend to it, was the house's only other occupant besides myself. as i had no occasion for her services, i sent her to bed, by no means against her will; and sat down before the kitchen fire a little while, to think about all this. i was blending it with the deathbed of the late mr. barkis, and was driving out with the tide towards the distance at which ham had looked so singularly in the morning, when i was recalled from my wanderings by a knock at the door. there was a knocker upon the door, but it was not that which made the sound. the tap was from a hand, and low down upon the door, as if it were given by a child. it made me start as much as if it had been the knock of a footman to a person of distinction. i opened the door; and at first looked down, to my amazement, on nothing but a great umbrella that appeared to be walking about of itself. but presently i discovered underneath it, miss mowcher. i might not have been prepared to give the little creature a very kind reception, if, on her removing the umbrella, which her utmost efforts were unable to shut up, she had shown me the "volatile" expression of face which had made so great an impression on me at our first and last meeting. but her face, as she turned it up to mine, was so earnest; and when i relieved her of the umbrella (which would have been an inconvenient one for the irish giant), she wrung her little hands in such an afflicted manner; that i rather inclined towards her. "miss mowcher!" said i, after glancing up and down the empty street, without distinctly knowing what i expected to see besides; "how do you come here? what is the matter?" she motioned to me, with her short right arm, to shut the umbrella for her; and passing me hurriedly, went into the kitchen. when i had closed the door, and followed, with the umbrella in my hand, i found her sitting on the corner of the fender--it was a low iron one, with two flat bars at top to stand plates upon--in the shadow of the boiler, swaying herself backwards and forwards, and chafing her hands upon her knees like a person in pain. quite alarmed at being the only recipient of this untimely visit, and the only spectator of this portentous behaviour, i exclaimed again: "pray tell me, miss mowcher, what is the matter! are you ill?" "my dear young soul," returned miss mowcher, squeezing her hands upon her heart one over the other. "i am ill here, i am very ill. to think that it should come to this, when i might have known it and perhaps prevented it, if i hadn't been a thoughtless fool!" again her large bonnet (very disproportionate to her figure) went backwards and forwards, in her swaying of her little body to and fro; while a most gigantic bonnet rocked, in unison with it, upon the wall. "i am surprised," i began, "to see you so distressed and serious"--when she interrupted me. "yes, it's always so!" she said. "they are all surprised, these inconsiderate young people, fairly and full grown, to see any natural feeling in a little thing like me! they make a plaything of me, use me for their amusement, throw me away when they are tired, and wonder that i feel more than a toy horse or a wooden soldier! yes, yes, that's the way. the old way!" "it may be, with others," i returned, "but i do assure you it is not with me. perhaps i ought not to be at all surprised to see you as you are now: i know so little of you. i said, without consideration, what i thought." "what can i do?" returned the little woman, standing up, and holding out her arms to show herself. "see! what i am, my father was; and my sister is; and my brother is. i have worked for sister and brother these many years--hard, mr. copperfield--all day. i must live. i do no harm. if there are people so unreflecting or so cruel, as to make a jest of me, what is left for me to do but to make a jest of myself, them, and every thing? if i do so, for the time, whose fault is that? mine?" no. not miss mowcher's, i perceived. "if i had shown myself a sensitive dwarf to your false friend," pursued the little woman, shaking her head at me, with reproachful earnestness, "how much of his help or good will do you think _i_ should ever have had? if little mowcher (who had no hand, young gentleman, in the making of herself) addressed herself to him, or the like of him, because of her misfortunes, when do you suppose her small voice would have been heard? little mowcher would have as much need to live, if she was the bitterest and dullest of pigmies; but she couldn't do it. no. she might whistle for her bread and butter till she died of air!" miss mowcher sat down on the fender again, and took out her handkerchief, and wiped her eyes. "be thankful for me, if you have a kind heart as i think you have," she said, "that while i know well what i am, i can be cheerful and endure it all. i am thankful for myself, at any rate, that i can find my tiny way through the world, without being beholden to any one; and that in return for all that is thrown at me, in folly or vanity, as i go along, i can throw bubbles back. if i don't brood over all i want, it is the better for me, and not the worse for any one. if i am a plaything for you giants, be gentle with me." miss mowcher replaced her handkerchief in her pocket, looking at me with very intent expression all the while, and pursued: "i saw you in the street just now. you may suppose i am not able to walk as fast as you, with my short legs and short breath, and i couldn't overtake you; but i guessed where you came, and came after you. i have been here before, to-day, but the good woman wasn't at home." "do you know her?" i demanded. "i know _of_ her, and about her," she replied, "from omer and joram. i was there at seven o'clock this morning. do you remember what steerforth said to me about this unfortunate girl, that time when i saw you both at the inn?" the great bonnet on miss mowcher's head, and the greater bonnet on the wall, began to go backwards and forwards again when she asked this question. i remembered very well what she referred to, having had it in my thoughts many times that day. i told her so. "may the father of all evil confound him," said the little woman, holding up her forefinger between me and her sparkling eyes, "and ten times more confound that wicked servant; but i believed it was _you_ who had a boyish passion for her!" "i?" i repeated. "child, child! in the name of blind ill-fortune," cried miss mowcher, wringing her hands impatiently, as she went to and fro again upon the fender, "why did you praise her so, and blush, and look disturbed?" i could not conceal from myself that i had done this, though for a reason very different from her supposition. "what did i know?" said miss mowcher, taking out her handkerchief again, and giving one little stamp on the ground whenever, at short intervals, she applied it to her eyes with both hands at once. "he was crossing you and wheedling you, i saw; and you were soft wax in his hands, i saw. had i left the room a minute, when his man told me that 'young innocence' (so he called you, and you may call him 'old guilt' all the days of your life) had set his heart upon her, and she was giddy and liked him, but his master was resolved that no harm should come of it--more for your sake than for hers--and that that was their business here? how could i _but_ believe him? i saw steerforth soothe and please you by his praise of her! you were the first to mention her name. you owned to an old admiration of her. you were hot and cold, and red and white, all at once when i spoke to you of her. what could i think--what _did_ i think--but that you were a young libertine in everything but experience, and had fallen into hands that had experience enough, and could manage you (having the fancy) for your own good? oh! oh! oh! they were afraid of my finding out the truth," exclaimed miss mowcher, getting off the fender, and trotting up and down the kitchen with her two short arms distressfully lifted up, "because i am a sharp little thing--i need be, to get through the world at all!--and they deceived me altogether, and i gave the poor unfortunate girl a letter, which i fully believe was the beginning of her ever speaking to littimer, who was left behind on purpose!" i stood amazed at the revelation of all this perfidy, looking at miss mowcher as she walked up and down the kitchen until she was out of breath: when she sat upon the fender again, and, drying her face with her handkerchief, shook her head for a long time, without otherwise moving, and without breaking silence. "my country rounds," she added at length, "brought me to norwich, mr. copperfield, the night before last. what i happened to find out there, about their secret way of coming and going, without you--which was strange--led to my suspecting something wrong. i got into the coach from london last night, as it came through norwich, and was here this morning. oh, oh, oh! too late!" poor little mowcher turned so chilly after all her crying and fretting, that she turned round on the fender, putting her poor little wet feet in among the ashes to warm them, and sat looking at the fire, like a large doll. i sat in a chair on the other side of the hearth, lost in unhappy reflections, and looking at the fire too, and sometimes at her. "i must go," she said at last, rising as she spoke. "it's late. you don't mistrust me?" meeting her sharp glance, which was as sharp as ever when she asked me, i could not on that short challenge answer no, quite frankly. "come!" said she, accepting the offer of my hand to help her over the fender, and looking wistfully up into my face, "you know you wouldn't mistrust me, if i was a full-sized woman!" i felt that there was much truth in this; and i felt rather ashamed of myself. "you are a young man," she said, nodding. "take a word of advice, even from three foot nothing. try not to associate bodily defects with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason." she had got over the fender now, and i had got over my suspicion. i told her that i believed she had given me a faithful account of herself, and that we had both been hapless instruments in designing hands. she thanked me, and said i was a good fellow. "now, mind!" she exclaimed, turning back on her way to the door, and looking shrewdly at me, with her forefinger up again. "i have some reason to suspect, from what i have heard--my ears are always open; i can't afford to spare what powers i have--that they are gone abroad. but if ever they return, if ever any one of them returns, while i am alive, i am more likely than another, going about as i do, to find it out soon. whatever i know, you shall know. if ever i can do anything to serve the poor betrayed girl, i will do it faithfully, please heaven! and littimer had better have a bloodhound at his back, than little mowcher!" i placed implicit faith in this last statement, when i marked the look with which it was accompanied. "trust me no more, but trust me no less, than you would trust a full-sized woman," said the little creature, touching me appealingly on the wrist. "if ever you see me again, unlike what i am now, and like what i was when you first saw me, observe what company i am in. call to mind that i am a very helpless and defenceless little thing. think of me at home with my brother like myself and sister like myself, when my day's work is done. perhaps you won't, then, be very hard upon me, or surprised if i can be distressed and serious. good night!" i gave miss mowcher my hand, with a very different opinion of her from that which i had hitherto entertained, and opened the door to let her out. it was not a trifling business to get the great umbrella up, and properly balanced in her grasp; but at last i successfully accomplished this, and saw it go bobbing down the street through the rain, without the least appearance of having anybody underneath it, except when a heavier fall than usual from some overcharged water-spout sent it toppling over, on one side, and discovered miss mowcher struggling violently to get it right. after making one or two sallies to her relief, which were rendered futile by the umbrella's hopping on again, like an immense bird, before i could reach it, i came in, went to bed, and slept till morning. in the morning i was joined by mr. peggotty and by my old nurse, and we went at an early hour to the coach office, where mrs. gummidge and ham were waiting to take leave of us. "mas'r davy," ham whispered, drawing me aside, while mr. peggotty was stowing his bag among the luggage, "his life is quite broke up. he doen't know wheer he's going; he doen't know what's afore him; he's bound upon a voyage that'll last, on and off, all the rest of his days, take my wured for't, unless he finds what he's a seeking of. i am sure you'll be a friend to him, mas'r davy?" "trust me, i will indeed," said i, shaking hands with ham earnestly. "thankee. thankee, very kind, sir. one thing furder. i'm in good employ, you know, mas'r davy, and i han't no way now of spending what i gets. money's of no use to me no more, except to live. if you can lay it out for him, i shall do my work with a better art. though as to that, sir," and he spoke very steadily and mildly, "you're not to think but i shall work at all times, like a man, and act the best that lays in my power!" i told him i was well convinced of it; and i hinted that i hoped the time might even come, when he would cease to lead the lonely life he naturally contemplated now. "no sir," he said, shaking his head, "all that's past and over with me, sir. no one can never fill the place that's empty. but you'll bear in mind about the money, as theer's at all times some laying by for him?" reminding him of the fact, that mr. peggotty derived a steady, though certainly a very moderate income from the bequest of his late brother-in-law, i promised to do so. we then took leave of each other. i cannot leave him, even now, without remembering with a pang, at once his modest fortitude and his great sorrow. as to mrs. gummidge, if i were to endeavour to describe how she ran down the street by the side of the coach, seeing nothing but mr. peggotty on the roof, through the tears she tried to repress, and dashing herself against the people who were coming in the opposite direction, i should enter on a task of some difficulty. therefore i had better leave her sitting on a baker's door-step, out of breath, with no shape at all remaining in her bonnet, and one of her shoes off, lying on the pavement at a considerable distance. when we got to our journey's end, our first pursuit was to look about for a little lodging for peggotty, where her brother could have a bed. we were so fortunate as to find one, of a very clean and cheap description, over a chandler's shop, only two streets removed from me. when we had engaged this domicile, i bought some cold meat at an eating-house, and took my fellow-travellers home to tea; a proceeding, i regret to state, which did not meet with mrs. crupp's approval, but quite the contrary. i ought to observe, however, in explanation of that lady's state of mind, that she was much offended by peggotty's tucking up her widow's gown before she had been ten minutes in the place, and setting to work to dust my bed-room. this mrs. crupp regarded in the light of a liberty, and a liberty, she said, was a thing she never allowed. mr. peggotty had made a communication to me on the way to london, for which i was not unprepared. it was, that he purposed first seeing mrs. steerforth. as i felt bound to assist him in this, and also to mediate between them; with the view of sparing the mother's feelings as much as possible, i wrote to her that night. i told her as mildly as i could what his wrong was, and what my own share in his injury. i said he was a man in very common life, but of a most gentle and upright character; and that i ventured to express a hope that she would not refuse to see him in his heavy trouble. i mentioned two o'clock in the afternoon as the hour of our coming, and i sent the letter myself by the first coach in the morning. at the appointed time, we stood at the door--the door of that house where i had been, a few days since, so happy: where my youthful confidence and warmth of heart had been yielded up so freely: which was closed against me henceforth: which was now a waste, a ruin. no littimer appeared. the pleasanter face which had replaced his, on the occasion of my last visit, answered to our summons, and went before us to the drawing-room. mrs. steerforth was sitting there. rosa dartle glided, as we went in, from another part of the room, and stood behind her chair. [illustration: mr. peggotty and mrs. steerforth.] i saw, directly, in his mother's face, that she knew from himself what he had done. it was very pale; and bore the traces of deeper emotion than my letter alone, weakened by the doubts her fondness would have raised upon it, would have been likely to create. i thought her more like him than ever i had thought her; and i felt, rather than saw, that the resemblance was not lost on my companion. she sat upright in her arm-chair, with a stately, immoveable, passionless air, that it seemed as if nothing could disturb. she looked very stedfastly at mr. peggotty when he stood before her; and he looked, quite as stedfastly, at her. rosa dartle's keen glance comprehended all of us. for some moments not a word was spoken. she motioned to mr. peggotty to be seated. he said, in a low voice, "i shouldn't feel it nat'ral, ma'am, to sit down in this house. i'd sooner stand." and this was succeeded by another silence, which she broke thus: "i know, with deep regret, what has brought you here. what do you want of me? what do you ask me to do?" he put his hat under his arm, and feeling in his breast for emily's letter, took it out, unfolded it, and gave it to her. "please to read that, ma'am. that's my niece's hand!" she read it, in the same stately and impassive way,--untouched by its contents, as far as i could see,--and returned it to him. "'unless he brings me back a lady,'" said mr. peggotty, tracing out that part with his finger. "i come to know, ma'am, whether he will keep his wured?" "no," she returned. "why not?" said mr. peggotty. "it is impossible. he would disgrace himself. you cannot fail to know that she is far below him." "raise her up!" said mr. peggotty. "she is uneducated and ignorant." "maybe she's not; maybe she is," said mr. peggotty. "_i_ think not, ma'am; but i'm no judge of them things. teach her better!" "since you oblige me to speak more plainly, which i am very unwilling to do, her humble connexions would render such a thing impossible, if nothing else did." "hark to this, ma'am," he returned, slowly and quietly. "you know what it is to love your child. so do i. if she was a hundred times my child, i couldn't love her more. you doen't know what it is to lose your child. i do. all the heaps of riches in the wureld would be nowt to me (if they was mine) to buy her back! but, save her from this disgrace, and she shall never be disgraced by us. not one of us that she's growed up among, not one of us that's lived along with her, and had her for their all in all, these many year, will ever look upon her pritty face again. we'll be content to let her be; we'll be content to think of her, far off, as if she was underneath another sun and sky; we'll be content to trust her to her husband,--to her little children p'raps,--and bide the time when all of us shall be alike in quality afore our god!" the rugged eloquence with which he spoke, was not devoid of all effect. she still preserved her proud manner, but there was a touch of softness in her voice, as she answered: "i justify nothing. i make no counter-accusations. but i am sorry to repeat, it is impossible. such a marriage would irretrievably blight my son's career, and ruin his prospects. nothing is more certain than that it never can take place, and never will. if there is any other compensation--" "i am looking at the likeness of the face," interrupted mr. peggotty, with a steady but a kindling eye, "that has looked at me, in my home, at my fireside, in my boat--wheer not?--smiling and friendly, when it was so treacherous, that i go half wild when i think of it. if the likeness of that face don't turn to burning fire, at the thought of offering money to me for my child's blight and ruin, it's as bad. i doen't know, being a lady's, but what it's worse." she changed now, in a moment. an angry flush overspread her features; and she said, in an intolerant manner, grasping the arm-chair tightly with her hands: "what compensation can you make to _me_ for opening such a pit between me and my son? what is your love to mine? what is your separation to ours?" miss dartle softly touched her, and bent down her head to whisper, but she would not hear a word. "no, rosa, not a word! let the man listen to what i say! my son, who has been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has been devoted, whom i have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom i have had no separate existence since his birth,--to take up in a moment with a miserable girl, and avoid me! to repay my confidence with systematic deception, for her sake, and quit me for her! to set this wretched fancy, against his mother's claims upon his duty, love, respect, gratitude--claims that every day and hour of his life should have strengthened into ties that nothing could be proof against! is this no injury?" again rosa dartle tried to soothe her; again ineffectually. "i say, rosa, not a word! if he can stake his all upon the lightest object, i can stake my all upon a greater purpose. let him go where he will, with the means that my love has secured to him! does he think to reduce me by long absence? he knows his mother very little if he does. let him put away his whim now, and he is welcome back. let him not put her away now, and he never shall come near me, living or dying, while i can raise my hand to make a sign against it, unless, being rid of her for ever, he comes humbly to me and begs for my forgiveness. this is my right. this is the acknowledgment i _will have_. this is the separation that there is between us! and is this," she added, looking at her visitor with the proud intolerant air with which she had begun, "no injury?" while i heard and saw the mother as she said these words, i seemed to hear and see the son, defying them. all that i had ever seen in him of an unyielding, wilful spirit, i saw in her. all the understanding that i had now of his misdirected energy, became an understanding of her character too, and a perception that it was, in its strongest springs, the same. she now observed to me, aloud, resuming her former restraint, that it was useless to hear more, or to say more, and that she begged to put an end to the interview. she rose with an air of dignity to leave the room, when mr. peggotty signified that it was needless. "doen't fear me being any hindrance to you, i have no more to say, ma'am," he remarked, as he moved towards the door. "i come heer with no hope, and i take away no hope. i have done what i thowt should be done, but i never looked fur any good to come of my stan'ning where i do. this has been too evil a house fur me and mine, fur me to be in my right senses and expect it." with this, we departed; leaving her standing by her elbow chair, a picture of a noble presence and a handsome face. we had, on our way out, to cross a paved hall, with glass sides and roof, over which a vine was trained. its leaves and shoots were green then, and the day being sunny, a pair of glass doors leading to the garden were thrown open. rosa dartle, entering this way with a noiseless step, when we were close to them, addressed herself to me: "you do well," she said, "indeed, to bring this fellow here!" such a concentration of rage and scorn as darkened her face, and flashed in her jet-black eyes, i could not have thought compressible even into that face. the scar made by the hammer was, as usual in this excited state of her features, strongly marked. when the throbbing i had seen before, came into it as i looked at her, she absolutely lifted up her hand, and struck it. "this is a fellow," she said, "to champion and bring here, is he not? you are a true man!" "miss dartle," i returned, "you are surely not so unjust as to condemn _me_!" "why do you bring division between these two mad creatures?" she returned. "don't you know that they are both mad with their own self-will and pride?" "is it my doing?" i returned. "is it your doing!" she retorted. "why do you bring this man here?" "he is a deeply-injured man, miss dartle," i replied. "you may not know it." "i know that james steerforth," she said, with her hand on her bosom, as if to prevent the storm that was raging there, from being loud, "has a false, corrupt heart, and is a traitor. but what need i know or care about this fellow, and his common niece?" "miss dartle," i returned, "you deepen the injury. it is sufficient already. i will only say, at parting, that you do him a great wrong." "i do him no wrong," she returned. "they are a depraved worthless set. i would have her whipped!" mr. peggotty passed on, without a word, and went out at the door. "oh, shame, miss dartle! shame!" i said indignantly. "how can you bear to trample on his undeserved affliction!" "i would trample on them all," she answered. "i would have his house pulled down. i would have her branded on the face, drest in rags, and cast out in the streets to starve. if i had the power to sit in judgment on her, i would see it done. see it done? i would do it! i detest her. if i ever could reproach her with her infamous condition, i would go anywhere to do so. if i could hunt her to her grave, i would. if there was any word of comfort that would be a solace to her in her dying hour, and only i possessed it, i wouldn't part with it for life itself." the mere vehemence of her words can convey, i am sensible, but a weak impression of the passion by which she was possessed, and which made itself articulate in her whole figure, though her voice, instead of being raised, was lower than usual. no description i could give of her would do justice to my recollection of her, or to her entire deliverance of herself to her anger. i have seen passion in many forms, but i have never seen it in such a form as that. when i joined mr. peggotty, he was walking slowly and thoughtfully down the hill. he told me, as soon as i came up with him, that having now discharged his mind of what he had purposed doing in london, he meant "to set out on his travels," that night. i asked him where he meant to go? he only answered, "i'm a going, sir, to seek my niece." we went back to the little lodging over the chandler's shop, and there i found an opportunity of repeating to peggotty what he had said to me. she informed me, in return, that he had said the same to her that morning. she knew no more than i did, where he was going, but she thought he had some project shaped out in his mind. i did not like to leave him, under such circumstances, and we all three dined together off a beefsteak pie--which was one of the many good things for which peggotty was famous--and which was curiously flavoured on this occasion, i recollect well, by a miscellaneous taste of tea, coffee, butter, bacon, cheese, new loaves, firewood, candles, and walnut ketchup, continually ascending from the shop. after dinner we sat for an hour or so near the window, without talking much; and then mr. peggotty got up, and brought his oilskin bag and his stout stick, and laid them on the table. he accepted, from his sister's stock of ready money, a small sum on account of his legacy; barely enough, i should have thought, to keep him for a month. he promised to communicate with me, when anything befel him; and he slung his bag about him, took his hat and stick, and bade us both "good bye!" "all good attend you, dear old woman," he said, embracing peggotty, "and you too, mas'r davy!" shaking hands with me. "i'm a going to seek her, fur and wide. if she should come home while i'm away,--but ah, that ain't like to be!--or if i should bring her back, my meaning is, that she and me shall live and die where no one can't reproach her. if any hurt should come to me, remember that the last words i left for her was, 'my unchanged love is with my darling child, and i forgive her!'" he said this solemnly, bare-headed; then, putting on his hat, he went down the stairs, and away. we followed to the door. it was a warm, dusty evening, just the time when, in the great main thoroughfare out of which that bye-way turned, there was a temporary lull in the eternal tread of feet upon the pavement, and a strong red sunshine. he turned, alone, at the corner of our shady street, into a glow of light, in which we lost him. rarely did that hour of the evening come, rarely did i wake at night, rarely did i look up at the moon, or stars, or watch the falling rain, or hear the wind, but i thought of his solitary figure toiling on, poor pilgrim, and recalled the words: "i'm a going to seek her, fur and wide. if any hurt should come to me, remember that the last words i left for her was, 'my unchanged love is with my darling child, and i forgive her!'" chapter xxxiii. blissful. all this time, i had gone on loving dora, harder than ever. her idea was my refuge in disappointment and distress, and made some amends to me, even for the loss of my friend. the more i pitied myself, or pitied others, the more i sought for consolation in the image of dora. the greater the accumulation of deceit and trouble in the world, the brighter and the purer shone the star of dora high above the world. i don't think i had any definite idea where dora came from, or in what degree she was related to a higher order of beings; but i am quite sure i should have scouted the notion of her being simply human, like any other young lady, with indignation and contempt. if i may so express it, i was steeped in dora. i was not merely over head and ears in love with her, but i was saturated through and through. enough love might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking, to drown anybody in; and yet there would have remained enough within me, and all over me, to pervade my entire existence. the first thing i did, on my own account, when i came back, was to take a night-walk to norwood, and, like the subject of a venerable riddle of my childhood to go "round and round the house, without ever touching the house," thinking about dora. i believe the theme of this incomprehensible conundrum was the moon. no matter what it was, i, the moon-struck slave of dora, perambulated round and round the house and garden for two hours, looking through crevices in the palings, getting my chin by dint of violent exertion above the rusty nails on the top, blowing kisses at the lights in the windows, and romantically calling on the night, at intervals, to shield my dora--i don't exactly know what from, i suppose from fire. perhaps from mice, to which she had a great objection. my love was so much on my mind, and it was so natural to me to confide in peggotty, when i found her again by my side of an evening with the old set of industrial implements, busily making the tour of my wardrobe, that i imparted to her, in a sufficiently roundabout way, my great secret. peggotty was strongly interested, but i could not get her into my view of the case at all. she was audaciously prejudiced in my favour, and quite unable to understand why i should have any misgivings, or be low-spirited about it. 'the young lady might think herself well off,' she observed, 'to have such a beau. and as to her pa,' she said, 'what _did_ the gentleman expect, for gracious sake!' i observed, however, that mr. spenlow's proctorial gown and stiff cravat took peggotty down a little, and inspired her with a greater reverence for the man who was gradually becoming more and more etherealized in my eyes every day, and about whom a reflected radiance seemed to me to beam when he sat erect in court among his papers, like a little light-house in a sea of stationery. and by-the-by, it used to be uncommonly strange to me to consider, i remember, as i sat in court too, how those dim old judges and doctors wouldn't have cared for dora, if they had known her; how they wouldn't have gone out of their senses with rapture, if marriage with dora had been proposed to them; how dora might have sung, and played upon that glorified guitar, until she led _me_ to the verge of madness, yet not have tempted one of those slow-goers an inch out of his road! i despised them, to a man. frozen-out old gardeners in the flower-beds of the heart, i took a personal offence against them all. the bench was nothing to me but an insensible blunderer. the bar had no more tenderness or poetry in it, than the bar of a public-house. taking the management of peggotty's affairs into my own hands, with no little pride, i proved the will, and came to a settlement with the legacy duty-office, and took her to the bank, and soon got everything into an orderly train. we varied the legal character of these proceedings by going to see some perspiring wax-work, in fleet street (melted, i should hope, these twenty years); and by visiting miss linwood's exhibition, which i remember as a mausoleum of needlework, favorable to self-examination and repentance; and by inspecting the tower of london; and going to the top of st. paul's. all these wonders afforded peggotty as much pleasure as she was able to enjoy, under existing circumstances: except, i think, st. paul's, which, from her long attachment to her workbox, became a rival of the picture on the lid, and was, in some particulars, vanquished, she considered, by that work of art. peggotty's business, which was what we used to call "common form business" in the commons (and very light and lucrative the common-form business was), being settled, i took her down to the office one morning to pay her bill. mr. spenlow had stepped out, old tiffey said, to get a gentleman sworn for a marriage license; but as i knew he would be back directly, our place lying close to the surrogate's, and to the vicar-general's office too, i told peggotty to wait. we were a little like undertakers, in the commons, as regarded probate transactions; generally making it a rule to look more or less cut up, when we had to deal with clients in mourning. in a similar feeling of delicacy, we were always blithe and light-hearted with the license clients. therefore i hinted to peggotty that she would find mr. spenlow much recovered from the shock of mr. barkis's decease; and indeed he came in like a bridegroom. but neither peggotty nor i had eyes for him, when we saw, in company with him, mr. murdstone. he was very little changed. his hair looked as thick, and was certainly as black, as ever; and his glance was as little to be trusted as of old. "ah, copperfield?" said mr. spenlow. "you know this gentleman, i believe?" i made my gentleman a distant bow, and peggotty barely recognised him. he was, at first, somewhat disconcerted to meet us two together; but quickly decided what to do, and came up to me. "i hope," he said, "that you are doing well?" "it can hardly be interesting to you," said i. "yes, if you wish to know." we looked at each other, and he addressed himself to peggotty. "and you," said he. "i am sorry to observe that you have lost your husband." "it's not the first loss i have had in my life, mr. murdstone," replied peggotty, trembling from head to foot. "i am glad to hope that there is nobody to blame for this one,--nobody to answer for it." "ha!" said he; "that's a comfortable reflection. you have done your duty?" "i have not worn any body's life away," said peggotty, "i am thankful to think! no, mr. murdstone, i have not worrited and frightened any sweet creetur to an early grave!" he eyed her gloomily--remorsefully i thought--for an instant; and said, turning his head towards me, but looking at my feet instead of my face: "we are not likely to encounter soon again;--a source of satisfaction to us both, no doubt, for such meetings as this can never be agreeable. i do not expect that you, who always rebelled against my just authority, exerted for your benefit and reformation, should owe me any good will now. there is an antipathy between us----" "an old one, i believe?" said i, interrupting him. he smiled, and shot as evil a glance at me as could come from his dark eyes. "it rankled in your baby breast," he said. "it embittered the life of your poor mother. you are right. i hope you may do better, yet; i hope you may correct yourself." here he ended the dialogue, which had been carried on in a low voice, in a corner of the outer office, by passing into mr. spenlow's room, and saying aloud, in his smoothest manner: "gentlemen of mr. spenlow's profession are accustomed to family differences, and know how complicated and difficult they always are!" with that, he paid the money for his license; and, receiving it neatly folded from mr. spenlow, together with a shake of the hand, and a polite wish for his happiness and the lady's, went out of the office. i might have had more difficulty in constraining myself to be silent under his words, if i had had less difficulty in impressing upon peggotty (who was only angry on my account, good creature!) that we were not in a place for recrimination, and that i besought her to hold her peace. she was so unusually roused, that i was glad to compound for an affectionate hug, elicited by this revival in her mind of our old injuries, and to make the best i could of it, before mr. spenlow and the clerks. mr. spenlow did not appear to know what the connexion between mr. murdstone and myself was; which i was glad of, for i could not bear to acknowledge him, even in my own breast, remembering what i did of the history of my poor mother. mr. spenlow seemed to think, if he thought anything about the matter, that my aunt was the leader of the state party in our family, and that there was a rebel party commanded by somebody else--so i gathered at least from what he said, while we were waiting for mr. tiffey to make out peggotty's bill of costs. "miss trotwood," he remarked, "is very firm, no doubt, and not likely to give way to opposition. i have an admiration for her character, and i may congratulate you, copperfield, on being on the right side. differences between relations are much to be deplored--but they are extremely general--and the great thing is, to be on the right side:" meaning, i take it, on the side of the moneyed interest. "rather a good marriage this, i believe?" said mr. spenlow. i explained that i knew nothing about it. "indeed!" he said. "speaking from the few words mr. murdstone dropped--as a man frequently does on these occasions--and from what miss murdstone let fall, i should say it was rather a good marriage." "do you mean that there is money, sir?" i asked. "yes," said mr. spenlow, "i understand there's money. beauty too, i am told." "indeed? is his new wife young?" "just of age," said mr. spenlow. "so lately, that i should think they had been waiting for that." "lord deliver her!" said peggotty. so very emphatically and unexpectedly, that we were all three discomposed; until tiffey came in with the bill. old tiffey soon appeared, however, and handed it to mr. spenlow, to look over. mr. spenlow, settling his chin in his cravat and rubbing it softly, went over the items with a deprecatory air--as if it were all jorkins's doing--and handed it back to tiffey with a bland sigh. "yes," he said. "that's right. quite right. i should have been extremely happy, copperfield, to have limited these charges to the actual expenditure out of pocket; but it is an irksome incident in my professional life, that i am not at liberty to consult my own wishes. i have a partner--mr. jorkins." as he said this with a gentle melancholy, which was the next thing to making no charge at all, i expressed my acknowledgments on peggotty's behalf, and paid tiffey in bank notes. peggotty then retired to her lodging, and mr. spenlow and i went into court, where we had a divorce-suit coming on, under an ingenious little statute (repealed now, i believe, but in virtue of which i have seen several marriages annulled), of which the merits were these. the husband, whose name was thomas benjamin, had taken out his marriage license as thomas only; suppressing the benjamin, in case he should not find himself as comfortable as he expected. _not_ finding himself as comfortable as he expected, or being a little fatigued with his wife, poor fellow, he now came forward by a friend, after being married a year or two, and declared that his name was thomas benjamin, and therefore he was not married at all. which the court confirmed, to his great satisfaction. i must say that i had my doubts about the strict justice of this, and was not even frightened out of them by the bushel of wheat which reconciles all anomalies. but mr. spenlow argued the matter with me. he said, look at the world, there was good and evil in that; look at the ecclesiastical law, there was good and evil in _that_. it was all part of a system. very good. there you were! i had not the hardihood to suggest to dora's father that possibly we might even improve the world a little, if we got up early in the morning, and took off our coats to the work; but i confessed that i thought we might improve the commons. mr. spenlow replied that he would particularly advise me to dismiss that idea from my mind, as not being worthy of my gentlemanly character; but that he would be glad to hear from me of what improvement i thought the commons susceptible? taking that part of the commons which happened to be nearest to us--for our man was unmarried by this time, and we were out of court, and strolling past the prerogative office--i submitted that i thought the prerogative office rather a queerly managed institution. mr. spenlow inquired in what respect? i replied, with all due deference to his experience (but with more deference, i am afraid, to his being dora's father), that perhaps it was a little nonsensical that the registry of that court, containing the original wills of all persons leaving effects within the immense province of canterbury, for three whole centuries, should be an accidental building, never designed for the purpose, leased by the registrars for their own private emolument, unsafe, not even ascertained to be fire-proof, choked with the important documents it held, and positively, from the roof to the basement, a mercenary speculation of the registrars, who took great fees from the public, and crammed the public's wills away anyhow and anywhere, having no other object than to get rid of them cheaply. that, perhaps, it was a little unreasonable that these registrars in the receipt of profits amounting to eight or nine thousand pounds a year (to say nothing of the profits of the deputy registrars, and clerks of seats), should not be obliged to spend a little of that money, in finding a reasonably safe place for the important documents which all classes of people were compelled to hand over to them, whether they would or no. that, perhaps, it was a little unjust that all the great offices in this great office, should be magnificent sinecures, while the unfortunate working-clerks in the cold dark room up-stairs were the worst rewarded, and the least considered men, doing important services, in london. that perhaps it was a little indecent that the principal registrar of all, whose duty it was to find the public, constantly resorting to this place, all needful accommodation, should be an enormous sinecurist in virtue of that post (and might be, besides, a clergyman, a pluralist, the holder of a stall in a cathedral, and what not),--while the public was put to the inconvenience of which we had a specimen every afternoon when the office was busy, and which we knew to be quite monstrous. that, perhaps, in short, this prerogative office of the diocese of canterbury was altogether such a pestilent job, and such a pernicious absurdity, that but for its being squeezed away, in a corner of saint paul's churchyard, which few people knew, it must have been turned completely inside out, and upside down, long ago. mr. spenlow smiled as i became modestly warm on the subject, and then argued this question with me as he had argued the other. he said, what was it after all? it was a question of feeling. if the public felt that their wills were in safe keeping, and took it for granted that the office was not to be made better, who was the worse for it? nobody? who was the better for it? all the sinecurists. very well. then the good predominated. it might not be a perfect system; nothing _was_ perfect; but what he objected to, was, the insertion of the wedge. under the prerogative office, the country had been glorious. insert the wedge into the prerogative office, and the country would cease to be glorious. he considered it the principle of a gentleman to take things as he found them; and he had no doubt the prerogative office would last our time. i deferred to his opinion, though i had great doubts of it myself. i find he was right, however; for it has not only lasted to the present moment, but has done so in the teeth of a great parliamentary report made (not too willingly) eighteen years ago, when all these objections of mine were set forth in detail, and when the existing stowage for wills was described as equal to the accumulation of only two years and a half more. what they have done with them since; whether they have lost many, or whether they sell any, now and then, to the butter shops; i don't know. i am glad mine is not there, and i hope it may not go there, yet awhile. i have set all this down, in my present blissful chapter, because here it comes into its natural place. mr. spenlow and i falling into this conversation, prolonged it and our saunter to and fro, until we diverged into general topics. and so it came about, in the end, that mr. spenlow told me this day week was dora's birthday, and he would be glad if i would come down and join a little pic-nic on the occasion. i went out of my senses immediately; became a mere driveller next day, on receipt of a little lace-edged sheet of note paper, "favoured by papa. to remind;" and passed the intervening period in a state of dotage. i think i committed every possible absurdity, in the way of preparation for this blessed event. i turn hot when i remember the cravat i bought. my boots might be placed in any collection of instruments of torture. i provided, and sent down by the norwood coach the night before, a delicate little hamper, amounting in itself, i thought, almost to a declaration. there were crackers in it with the tenderest mottos that could be got for money. at six in the morning, i was in covent garden market, buying a bouquet for dora. at ten i was on horseback (i hired a gallant grey, for the occasion), with the bouquet in my hat, to keep it fresh, trotting down to norwood. i suppose that when i saw dora in the garden and pretended not to see her, and rode past the house pretending to be anxiously looking for it, i committed two small fooleries which other young gentlemen in my circumstances might have committed--because they came so very natural to me. but oh! when i _did_ find the house, and _did_ dismount at the garden gate, and drag those stoney-hearted boots across the lawn to dora sitting on a garden seat under a lilac tree, what a spectacle she was, upon that beautiful morning, among the butterflies, in a white chip bonnet and a dress of celestial blue! there was a young lady with her--comparatively stricken in years--almost twenty, i should say. her name was miss mills, and dora called her julia. she was the bosom friend of dora. happy miss mills! jip was there, and jip _would_ bark at me again. when i presented my bouquet, he gnashed his teeth with jealousy. well he might. if he had the least idea how i adored his mistress, well he might! "oh, thank you, mr. copperfield! what dear flowers!" said dora. i had had an intention of saying (and had been studying the best form of words for three miles) that i thought them beautiful before i saw them so near _her_. but i couldn't manage it. she was too bewildering. to see her lay the flowers against her little dimpled chin, was to lose all presence of mind and power of language in a feeble ecstacy. i wonder i didn't say, "kill me, if you have a heart, miss mills. let me die here!" then dora held my flowers to jip to smell. then jip growled, and wouldn't smell them. then dora laughed, and held them a little closer to jip, to make him. then jip laid hold of a bit of geranium with his teeth, and worried imaginary cats in it. then dora beat him, and pouted, and said, "my poor beautiful flowers!" as compassionately, i thought, as if jip had laid hold of me. i wished he had! "you'll be so glad to hear, mr. copperfield," said dora, "that that cross miss murdstone is not here. she has gone to her brother's marriage, and will be away at least three weeks. isn't that delightful?" i said i was sure it must be delightful to her, and all that was delightful to her was delightful to me. miss mills, with an air of superior wisdom and benevolence, smiled upon us. "she is the most disagreeable thing i ever saw," said dora. "you can't believe how ill-tempered and shocking she is, julia." "yes, i can, my dear!" said julia. "_you_ can, perhaps, love," returned dora, with her hand on julia's. "forgive my not excepting you, my dear, at first." i learnt, from this, that miss mills had had her trials in the course of a chequered existence; and that to these, perhaps, i might refer that wise benignity of manner which i had already noticed. i found, in the course of the day, that this was the case: miss mills having been unhappy in a misplaced affection, and being understood to have retired from the world on her awful stock of experience, but still to take a calm interest in the unblighted hopes and loves of youth. but now mr. spenlow came out of the house, and dora went to him, saying, "look, papa, what beautiful flowers!" and miss mills smiled thoughtfully, as who should say, "ye may-flies, enjoy your brief existence in the bright morning of life!" and we all walked from the lawn towards the carriage, which was getting ready. i shall never have such a ride again. i have never had such another. there were only those three, their hamper, my hamper, and the guitar-case, in the phaeton; and, of course, the phaeton was open; and i rode behind it, and dora sat with her back to the horses, looking towards me. she kept the bouquet close to her on the cushion, and wouldn't allow jip to sit on that side of her at all, for fear he should crush it. she often carried it in her hand, often refreshed herself with its fragrance. our eyes at those times often met; and my great astonishment is that i didn't go over the head of my gallant grey into the carriage. there was dust, i believe. there was a good deal of dust, i believe. i have a faint impression that mr. spenlow remonstrated with me for riding in it; but i knew of none. i was sensible of a mist of love and beauty about dora, but of nothing else. he stood up sometimes, and asked me what i thought of the prospect. i said it was delightful, and i daresay it was; but it was all dora to me. the sun shone dora, and the birds sang dora. the south wind blew dora, and the wild flowers in the hedges were all doras, to a bud. my comfort is, miss mills understood me. miss mills alone could enter into my feelings thoroughly. i don't know how long we were going, and to this hour i know as little where we went. perhaps it was near guildford. perhaps some arabian-night magician, opened up the place for the day, and shut it for ever when we came away. it was a green spot, on a hill, carpeted with soft turf. there were shady trees, and heather, and, as far as the eye could see, a rich landscape. it was a trying thing to find people here, waiting for us; and my jealousy, even of the ladies, knew no bounds. but all of my own sex--especially one impostor, three or four years my elder, with a red whisker, on which he established an amount of presumption not be endured--were my mortal foes. we all unpacked our baskets, and employed ourselves in getting dinner ready. red whisker pretended he could make a salad (which i don't believe), and obtruded himself on public notice. some of the young ladies washed the lettuces for him, and sliced them under his directions. dora was among these. i felt that fate had pitted me against this man, and one of us must fall. red whisker made his salad (i wondered how they could eat it. nothing should have induced _me_ to touch it!) and voted himself into the charge of the wine-cellar, which he constructed, being an ingenious beast, in the hollow trunk of a tree. by-and-by i saw him, with the majority of a lobster on his plate, eating his dinner at the feet of dora! i have but an indistinct idea of what happened for some time after this baleful object presented itself to my view. i was very merry, i know; but it was hollow merriment. i attached myself to a young creature in pink, with little eyes, and flirted with her desperately. she received my attentions with favour; but whether on my account solely, or because she had any designs on red whisker, i can't say. dora's health was drunk. when i drank it, i affected to interrupt my conversation for that purpose, and to resume it immediately afterwards. i caught dora's eye as i bowed to her, and i thought it looked appealing. but it looked at me over the head of red whisker, and i was adamant. the young creature in pink had a mother in green; and i rather think the latter separated us from motives of policy. howbeit, there was a general breaking up of the party, while the remnants of the dinner were being put away; and i strolled off by myself among the trees, in a raging and remorseful state. i was debating whether i should pretend that i was not well, and fly--i don't know where--upon my gallant grey, when dora and miss mills met me. "mr. copperfield," said miss mills, "you are dull." i begged her pardon. not at all. "and, dora," said miss mills, "_you_ are dull." oh dear no! not in the least. "mr. copperfield and dora," said miss mills, with an almost venerable air. "enough of this. do not allow a trivial misunderstanding to wither the blossoms of spring, which, once put forth and blighted, can not be renewed. i speak," said miss mills, "from experience of the past--the remote irrevocable past. the gushing fountains which sparkle in the sun, must not be stopped in mere caprice; the oasis in the desert of sahara, must not be plucked up idly." i hardly knew what i did, i was burning all over to that extraordinary extent; but i took dora's little hand and kissed it--and she let me! i kissed miss mills's hand; and we all seemed, to my thinking, to go straight up to the seventh heaven. we did not come down again. we stayed up there all the evening. at first we strayed to and fro among the trees: i with dora's shy arm drawn through mine: and heaven knows, folly as it all was, it would have been a happy fate to have been struck immortal with those foolish feelings, and have strayed among the trees for ever! but, much too soon, we heard the others laughing and talking, and calling "where's dora!" so we went back, and they wanted dora to sing. red whisker would have got the guitar-case out of the carriage, but dora told him nobody knew where it was, but i. so red whisker was done for in a moment; and _i_ got it, and _i_ unlocked it, and _i_ took the guitar out, and _i_ sat by her, and _i_ held her handkerchief and gloves, and _i_ drank in every note of her dear voice, and she sang to _me_ who loved her, and all the others might applaud as much as they liked, but they had nothing to do with it! i was intoxicated with joy. i was afraid it was too happy to be real, and that i should wake in buckingham street presently, and hear mrs. crupp clinking the teacups in getting breakfast ready. but dora sang, and others sang, and miss mills sang--about the slumbering echoes in the caverns of memory; as if she were a hundred years old--and the evening came on; and we had tea, with a kettle boiling gipsy-fashion; and i was still as happy as ever. i was happier than ever when the party broke up, and the other people, defeated red whisker and all, went their several ways, and we went ours through the still evening and the dying light, with sweet scents rising up around us. mr. spenlow being a little drowsy after the champagne--honour to the soil that grew the grape, to the grape that made the wine, to the sun that ripened it, and to the merchant who adulterated it!--and being fast asleep in a corner of the carriage, i rode by the side, and talked to dora. she admired my horse and patted him--oh, what a dear little hand it looked upon a horse!--and her shawl would not keep right, and now and then i drew it round her with my arm; and i even fancied that jip began to see how it was, and to understand that he must make up his mind to be friends with me. that sagacious miss mills, too; that amiable, though quite used up, recluse; that little patriarch of something less than twenty, who had done with the world, and mustn't on any account have the slumbering echoes in the caverns of memory awakened; what a kind thing she did! "mr. copperfield," said miss mills, "come to this side of the carriage a moment--if you can spare a moment. i want to speak to you." behold me, on my gallant grey, bending at the side of miss mills, with my hand upon the carriage-door! "dora is coming to stay with me. she is coming home with me the day after to-morrow. if you would like to call, i am sure papa would be happy to see you." what could i do but invoke a silent blessing on miss mills's head, and store miss mills's address in the securest corner of my memory! what could i do but tell miss mills, with grateful looks and fervent words, how much i appreciated her good offices, and what an inestimable value i set upon her friendship! then miss mills benignantly dismissed me, saying, "go back to dora!" and i went; and dora leaned out of the carriage to talk to me, and we talked all the rest of the way; and i rode my gallant grey so close to the wheel that i grazed his near fore leg against it, and "took the bark off," as his owner told me, "to the tune of three pun' sivin"--which i paid, and thought extremely cheap for so much joy. what time miss mills sat looking at the moon, murmuring verses and recalling, i suppose, the ancient days when she and earth had anything in common. norwood was many miles too near, and we reached it many hours too soon; but mr. spenlow came to himself a little short of it, and said, "you must come in, copperfield, and rest!" and i consenting, we had sandwiches and wine-and-water. in the light room, dora blushing looked so lovely, that i could not tear myself away, but sat there staring, in a dream, until the snoring of mr. spenlow inspired me with sufficient consciousness to take my leave. so we parted; i riding all the way to london with the farewell touch of dora's hand still light on mine, recalling every incident and word ten thousand times; lying down in my own bed at last, as enraptured a young noodle as ever was carried out of his five wits by love. when i awoke next morning, i was resolute to declare my passion to dora, and know my fate. happiness or misery was now the question. there was no other question that i knew of in the world, and only dora could give the answer to it. i passed three days in a luxury of wretchedness, torturing myself by putting every conceivable variety of discouraging construction on all that ever had taken place between dora and me. at last, arrayed for the purpose at a vast expense, i went to miss mills's, fraught with a declaration. how many times i went up and down the street, and round the square--painfully aware of being a much better answer to the old riddle than the original one--before i could persuade myself to go up the steps and knock, is no matter now. even when, at last, i had knocked, and was waiting at the door, i had some flurried thought of asking if that were mr. blackboy's (in imitation of poor barkis), begging pardon, and retreating. but i kept my ground. mr. mills was not at home. i did not expect he would be. nobody wanted _him_. miss mills was at home. miss mills would do. i was shown into a room upstairs, where miss mills and dora were. jip was there. miss mills was copying music (i recollect, it was a new song, called affection's dirge), and dora was painting flowers. what were my feelings, when i recognised my own flowers; the identical covent garden market purchase! i cannot say that they were very like, or that they particularly resembled any flowers that have ever come under my observation; but i knew from the paper round them, which was accurately copied, what the composition was. miss mills was very glad to see me, and very sorry her papa was not at home: though i thought we all bore that with fortitude. miss mills was conversational for a few minutes, and then, laying down her pen upon affection's dirge, got up, and left the room. i began to think i would put it off till to-morrow. "i hope your poor horse was not tired, when he got home at night," said dora, lifting up her beautiful eyes. "it was a long way for him." i began to think i would do it to-day. "it was a long way for _him_," said i, "for _he_ had nothing to uphold him on the journey." "wasn't he fed, poor thing?" asked dora. i began to think i would put it off till to-morrow. "ye--yes," i said, "he was well taken care of. i mean he had not the unutterable happiness that i had in being so near you." dora bent her head over her drawing, and said, after a little while--i had sat, in the interval, in a burning fever, and with my legs in a very rigid state-- "you didn't seem to be sensible of that happiness yourself, at one time of the day." i saw now that i was in for it, and it must be done on the spot. "you didn't care for that happiness in the least," said dora, slightly raising her eyebrows, and shaking her head, "when you were sitting by miss kitt." kitt, i should observe, was the name of the creature in pink, with the little eyes. "though certainly i don't know why you should," said dora, "or why you should call it a happiness at all. but of course you don't mean what you say. and i am sure no one doubts your being at liberty to do what-ever you like. jip, you naughty boy, come here!" i don't know how i did it. i did it in a moment. i intercepted jip. i had dora in my arms. i was full of eloquence. i never stopped for a word. i told her how i loved her. i told her i should die without her. i told her that i idolised and worshipped her. jip barked madly all the time. when dora hung her head and cried, and trembled, my eloquence increased so much the more. if she would like me to die for her, she had but to say the word, and i was ready. life without dora's love was not a thing to have on any terms. i couldn't bear it, and i wouldn't. i had loved her every minute, day and night, since i first saw her. i loved her at that minute to distraction. i should always love her, every minute, to distraction. lovers had loved before, and lovers would love again; but no lover had ever loved, might, could, would, or should ever love, as i loved dora. the more i raved, the more jip barked. each of us, in his own way, got more mad every moment. well, well! dora and i were sitting on the sofa by-and-by, quiet enough, and jip was lying in her lap, winking peacefully at me. it was off my mind. i was in a state of perfect rapture. dora and i were engaged. i suppose we had some notion that this was to end in marriage. we must have had some, because dora stipulated that we were never to be married without her papa's consent. but, in our youthful ecstacy, i don't think that we really looked before us or behind us; or had any aspiration beyond the ignorant present. we were to keep our secret from mr. spenlow; but i am sure the idea never entered my head, then, that there was anything dishonorable in that. miss mills was more than usually pensive when dora, going to find her, brought her back;--i apprehend, because there was a tendency in what had passed to awaken the slumbering echoes in the caverns of memory. but she gave us her blessing, and the assurance of her lasting friendship, and spoke to us, generally, as became a voice from the cloister. what an idle time it was! what an unsubstantial, happy, foolish time it was! when i measured dora's finger for a ring that was to be made of forget-me-nots, and when the jeweller, to whom i took the measure, found me out, and laughed over his order book, and charged me anything he liked, for the pretty little toy, with its blue stones--so associated in my remembrance with dora's hand, that yesterday, when i saw such another, by chance, on the finger of my own daughter, there was a momentary stirring in my heart, like pain! when i walked about, exalted with my secret, and full of my own interest, and felt the dignity of loving dora, and of being beloved, so much, that if i had walked the air, i could not have been more above the people not so situated, who were creeping on the earth! when we had those meetings in the garden of the square, and sat within the dingy summer-house, so happy, that i love the london sparrows to this hour, for nothing else, and see the plumage of the tropics in their smoky feathers! when we had our first great quarrel (within a week of our betrothal), and when dora sent me back the ring, enclosed in a despairing cocked-hat note, wherein she used the terrible expression that "our love had begun in folly, and ended in madness!" which dreadful words occasioned me to tear my hair, and cry that all was over! when, under cover of the night, i flew to miss mills, whom i saw by stealth in a back kitchen where there was a mangle, and implored miss mills to interpose between us and avert insanity. when miss mills undertook the office and returned with dora, exhorting us, from the pulpit of her own bitter youth, to mutual concession, and the avoidance of the desert of sahara! when we cried, and made it up, and were so blest again, that the back-kitchen, mangle and all, changed to love's own temple, where we arranged a plan of correspondence through miss mills, always to comprehend at least one letter on each side every day! what an idle time! what an unsubstantial, happy, foolish time! of all the times of mine that time has in his grip, there is none that in one retrospection i can smile at half so much, and think of half so tenderly. chapter xxxiv. my aunt astonishes me. i wrote to agnes as soon as dora and i were engaged. i wrote her a long letter, in which i tried to make her comprehend how blest i was, and what a darling dora was. i entreated agnes not to regard this as a thoughtless passion which could ever yield to any other, or had the least resemblance to the boyish fancies that we used to joke about. i assured her that its profundity was quite unfathomable, and expressed my belief that nothing like it had ever been known. somehow, as i wrote to agnes on a fine evening by my open window, and the remembrance of her clear calm eyes and gentle face came stealing over me, it shed such a peaceful influence upon the hurry and agitation in which i had been living lately, and of which my very happiness partook in some degree, that it soothed me into tears. i remember that i sat resting my head upon my hand, when the letter was half done, cherishing a general fancy as if agnes were one of the elements of my natural home. as if, in the retirement of the house made almost sacred to me by her presence, dora and i must be happier than anywhere. as if, in love, joy, sorrow, hope, or disappointment; in all emotions; my heart turned naturally there, and found its refuge and best friend. of steerforth, i said nothing. i only told her there had been sad grief at yarmouth, on account of emily's flight; and that on me it made a double wound, by reason of the circumstances attending it. i knew how quick she always was to divine the truth, and that she would never be the first to breathe his name. to this letter, i received an answer by return of post. as i read it, i seemed to hear agnes speaking to me. it was like her cordial voice in my ears. what can i say more! while i had been away from home lately, traddles had called twice or thrice. finding peggotty within, and being informed by peggotty (who always volunteered that information to whomsoever would receive it), that she was my old nurse, he had established a good-humoured acquaintance with her, and had stayed to have a little chat with her about me. so peggotty said; but i am afraid the chat was all on her own side, and of immoderate length, as she was very difficult indeed to stop, god bless her! when she had me for her theme. this reminds me, not only that i expected traddles on a certain afternoon of his own appointing, which was now come, but that mrs. crupp had resigned everything appertaining to her office (the salary excepted) until peggotty should cease to present herself. mrs. crupp, after holding divers conversations respecting peggotty, in a very high pitched voice, on the staircase--with some invisible familiar it would appear, for corporeally speaking she was quite alone at those times--addressed a letter to me, developing her views. beginning it with that statement of universal application, which fitted every occurrence of her life, namely, that she was a mother herself, she went on to inform me that she had once seen very different days, but that at all periods of her existence she had had a constitutional objection to spies, intruders, and informers. she named no names, she said; let them the cap fitted, wear it; but spies, intruders, and informers, especially in widders' weeds (this clause was underlined), she had ever accustomed herself to look down upon. if a gentleman was the victim of spies, intruders, and informers (but still naming no names), that was his own pleasure. he had a right to please himself; so let him do. all that she, mrs. crupp, stipulated for, was, that she should not be "brought in contract" with such persons. therefore she begged to be excused from any further attendance on the top set, until things was as they formerly was, and as they could be wished to be; and further mentioned that her little book would be found upon the breakfast-table every saturday morning, when she requested an immediate settlement of the same, with the benevolent view of saving trouble, "and an ill-conwenience" to all parties. after this, mrs. crupp confined herself to making pitfalls on the stairs, principally with pitchers, and endeavouring to delude peggotty into breaking her legs. i found it rather harassing to live in this state of siege, but was too much afraid of mrs. crupp to see any way out of it. "my dear copperfield," cried traddles, punctually appearing at my door, in spite of all these obstacles, "how do you do?" "my dear traddles," said i, "i am delighted to see you at last, and very sorry i have not been at home before. but i have been so much engaged----" "yes, yes, i know," said traddles, "of course. yours lives in london, i think." "what did you say?" "she--excuse me--miss d., you know," said traddles, colouring in his great delicacy, "lives in london, i believe?" "oh yes. near london." "mine, perhaps you recollect," said traddles, with a serious look, "lives down in devonshire--one of ten. consequently, i am not so much engaged as you--in that sense." "i wonder you can bear," i returned, "to see her so seldom." "hah!" said traddles, thoughtfully. "it does seem a wonder. i suppose it is, copperfield, because there's no help for it?" "i suppose so," i replied, with a smile, and not without a blush. "and because you have so much constancy and patience, traddles." "dear me!" said traddles, considering about it, "do i strike you in that way, copperfield? really i didn't know that i had. but she is such an extraordinarily dear girl herself, that it's possible she may have imparted something of those virtues to me. now you mention it, copperfield, i shouldn't wonder at all. i assure you she is always forgetting herself, and taking care of the other nine." "is she the eldest?" i inquired. "oh dear, no," said traddles. "the eldest is a beauty." he saw, i suppose, that i could not help smiling at the simplicity of this reply; and added, with a smile upon his own ingenuous face: "not, of course, but that my sophy--pretty name, copperfield, i always think?" "very pretty!" said i. "not, of course, but that sophy is beautiful too, in my eyes, and would be one of the dearest girls that ever was, in anybody's eyes (i should think). but when i say the eldest is a beauty, i mean she really is a--" he seemed to be describing clouds about himself, with both hands: "splendid, you know," said traddles, energetically. "indeed!" said i. "oh, i assure you," said traddles, "something very uncommon, indeed! then, you know, being formed for society and admiration, and not being able to enjoy much of it, in consequence of their limited means, she naturally gets a little irritable and exacting, sometimes. sophy puts her in good humour!" "is sophy the youngest?" i hazarded. "oh dear, no!" said traddles, stroking his chin. "the two youngest are only nine and ten. sophy educates 'em." "the second daughter, perhaps?" i hazarded. "no," said traddles. "sarah's the second. sarah has something the matter with her spine, poor girl. the malady will wear out by-and-by, the doctors say, but in the meantime she has to lie down for a twelvemonth. sophy nurses her. sophy's the fourth." "is the mother living?" i inquired. "oh yes," said traddles, "she is alive. she is a very superior woman, indeed, but the damp country is not adapted to her constitution, and--in fact, she has lost the use of her limbs." "dear me!" said i. "very sad, is it not?" returned traddles. "but in a merely domestic view it is not so bad as it might be, because sophy takes her place. she is quite as much a mother _to_ her mother, as she is to the other nine." i felt the greatest admiration for the virtues of this young lady; and, honestly with the view of doing my best to prevent the good-nature of traddles from being imposed upon, to the detriment of their joint prospects in life, inquired how mr. micawber was? "he is quite well, copperfield, thank you," said traddles. "i am not living with him at present." "no?" "no. you see the truth is," said traddles, in a whisper, "he has changed his name to mortimer, in consequence of his temporary embarrassments; and he don't come out till after dark--and then in spectacles. there was an execution put into our house, for rent. mrs. micawber was in such a dreadful state that i really couldn't resist giving my name to that second bill we spoke of here. you may imagine how delightful it was to my feelings, copperfield, to see the matter settled with it, and mrs. micawber recover her spirits." "hum!" said i. "not that her happiness was of long duration," pursued traddles, "for, unfortunately, within a week another execution came in. it broke up the establishment. i have been living in a furnished apartment since then, and the mortimers have been very private indeed. i hope you won't think it selfish, copperfield, if i mention that the broker carried off my little round table with the marble top, and sophy's flower-pot and stand?" "what a hard thing!" i exclaimed indignantly. "it was a----it was a pull," said traddles, with his usual wince at that expression. "i don't mention it reproachfully, however, but with a motive. the fact is, copperfield, i was unable to repurchase them at the time of their seizure; in the first place, because the broker, having an idea that i wanted them, ran the price up to an extravagant extent; and, in the second place, because i--hadn't any money. now, i have kept my eye since, upon the broker's shop," said traddles, with a great enjoyment of his mystery, "which is up at the top of tottenham court road, and, at last, to-day i find them put out for sale. i have only noticed them from over the way, because if the broker saw _me_, bless you, he'd ask any price for them! what has occurred to me, having now the money, is, that perhaps you wouldn't object to ask that good nurse of yours to come with me to the shop--i can show it her from round the corner of the next street--and make the best bargain for them, as if they were for herself, that she can!" the delight with which traddles propounded this plan to me, and the sense he had of its uncommon artfulness, are among the freshest things in my remembrance. i told him that my old nurse would be delighted to assist him, and that we would all three take the field together, but on one condition. that condition was, that he should make a solemn resolution to grant no more loans of his name, or anything else, to mr. micawber. "my dear copperfield," said traddles, "i have already done so, because i begin to feel that i have not only been inconsiderate, but that i have been positively unjust to sophy. my word being passed to myself, there is no longer any apprehension; but i pledge it to you, too, with the greatest readiness. that first unlucky obligation, i have paid. i have no doubt mr. micawber would have paid it if he could, but he could not. one thing i ought to mention, which i like very much in mr. micawber, copperfield. it refers to the second obligation, which is not yet due. he don't tell me that it _is_ provided for, but he says it _will be_. now, i think there is something very fair and honest about that!" i was unwilling to damp my good friend's confidence, and therefore assented. after a little further conversation, we went round to the chandler's shop, to enlist peggotty; traddles declining to pass the evening with me, both because he endured the liveliest apprehensions that his property would be bought by somebody else before he could re-purchase it, and because it was the evening he always devoted to writing to the dearest girl in the world. i never shall forget him peeping round the corner of the street in tottenham court road, while peggotty was bargaining for the precious articles; or his agitation when she came slowly towards us after vainly offering a price, and was hailed by the relenting broker, and went back again. the end of the negotiation was, that she bought the property on tolerably easy terms, and traddles was transported with pleasure. "i am very much obliged to you, indeed," said traddles, on hearing it was to be sent to where he lived, that night. "if i might ask one other favor, i hope you wouldn't think it absurd, copperfield?" i said beforehand, certainly not. "then if you _would_ be good enough," said traddles to peggotty, "to get the flower-pot now, i think i should like (it being sophy's, copperfield) to carry it home myself!" peggotty was glad to get it for him, and he overwhelmed her with thanks, and went his way up tottenham court road, carrying the flower-pot affectionately in his arms, with one of the most delighted expressions of countenance i ever saw. we then turned back towards my chambers. as the shops had charms for peggotty which i never knew them possess in the same degree for anybody else, i sauntered easily along, amused by her staring in at the windows, and waiting for her as often as she chose. we were thus a good while in getting to the adelphi. on our way upstairs, i called her attention to the sudden disappearance of mrs. crupp's pitfalls, and also to the prints of recent footsteps. we were both very much surprised, coming higher up, to find my outer door standing open (which i had shut), and to hear voices inside. we looked at one another, without knowing what to make of this, and went into the sitting-room. what was my amazement to find, of all people upon earth, my aunt there, and mr. dick! my aunt sitting on a quantity of luggage, with her two birds before her, and her cat on her knee, like a female robinson crusoe, drinking tea. mr. dick leaning thoughtfully on a great kite, such as we had often been out together to fly, with more luggage piled about him! [illustration: my aunt astonishes me.] "my dear aunt!" cried i. "why, what an unexpected pleasure!" we cordially embraced; and mr. dick and i cordially shook hands; and mrs. crupp, who was busy making tea, and could not be too attentive, cordially said she had knowed well as mr. copperfull would have his heart in his mouth, when he see his dear relations. "halloa!" said my aunt to peggotty, who quailed before her awful presence. "how are _you_?" "you remember my aunt, peggotty?" said i. "for the love of goodness, child," exclaimed my aunt, "don't call the woman by that south sea island name! if she married and got rid of it, which was the best thing she could do, why don't you give her the benefit of the change? what's your name now,--p?" said my aunt, as a compromise for the obnoxious appellation. "barkis, ma'am," said peggotty, with a curtsey. "well! that's human," said my aunt. "it sounds less as if you wanted a missionary. how d' ye do, barkis? i hope you're well?" encouraged by these gracious words, and by my aunt's extending her hand, barkis came forward, and took the hand, and curtseyed her acknowledgments. "we are older than we were, i see," said my aunt. "we have only met each other once before, you know. a nice business we made of it then! trot, my dear, another cup." i handed it dutifully to my aunt, who was in her usual inflexible state of figure; and ventured a remonstrance with her on the subject of her sitting on a box. "let me draw the sofa here, or the easy chair, aunt," said i. "why should you be so uncomfortable?" "thank you, trot," replied my aunt, "i prefer to sit upon my property." here my aunt looked hard at mrs. crupp, and observed, "we needn't trouble you to wait, ma'am." "shall i put a little more tea in the pot afore i go, ma'am?" said mrs. crupp. "no, i thank you, ma'am," replied my aunt. "would you let me fetch another pat of butter, ma'am?" said mrs. crupp. "or would you be persuaded to try a new-laid hegg? or should i brile a rasher? ain't there nothing i could do for your dear aunt, mr. copperfull?" "nothing, ma'am," returned my aunt. "i shall do very well, i thank you." mrs. crupp, who had been incessantly smiling to express sweet temper, and incessantly holding her head on one side, to express a general feebleness of constitution, and incessantly rubbing her hands, to express a desire to be of service to all deserving objects, gradually smiled herself, one-sided herself, and rubbed herself, out of the room. "dick!" said my aunt. "you know what i told you about time-servers and wealth-worshippers?" mr. dick--with rather a scared look, as if he had forgotten it--returned a hasty answer in the affirmative. "mrs. crupp is one of them," said my aunt. "barkis, i'll trouble you to look after the tea, and let me have another cup, for i don't fancy that woman's pouring-out!" i knew my aunt sufficiently well to know that she had something of importance on her mind, and that there was far more matter in this arrival than a stranger might have supposed. i noticed how her eye lighted on me, when she thought my attention otherwise occupied; and what a curious process of hesitation appeared to be going on within her, while she preserved her outward stiffness and composure. i began to reflect whether i had done anything to offend her; and my conscience whispered me that i had not yet told her about dora. could it by any means be that, i wondered! as i knew she would only speak in her own good time, i sat down near her, and spoke to the birds, and played with the cat, and was as easy as i could be. but i was very far from being really easy; and i should still have been so, even if mr. dick, leaning over the great kite behind my aunt, had not taken every secret opportunity of shaking his head darkly at me, and pointing at her. "trot," said my aunt at last, when she had finished her tea, and carefully smoothed down her dress, and wiped her lips--"you needn't go, barkis!--trot, have you got to be firm, and self-reliant?" "i hope so, aunt." "what do you think?" inquired miss betsey. "i think so, aunt." "then why, my love," said my aunt, looking earnestly at me, "why do you think i prefer to sit upon this property of mine to-night?" i shook my head, unable to guess. "because," said my aunt, "it's all i have. because i'm ruined, my dear!" if the house, and every one of us, had tumbled out into the river together, i could hardly have received a greater shock. "dick knows it," said my aunt, laying her hand calmly on my shoulder. "i am ruined, my dear trot! all i have in the world is in this room, except the cottage; and that i have left janet to let. barkis, i want to get a bed for this gentleman to-night. to save expense, perhaps you can make up something here for myself. anything will do. it's only for to-night. we'll talk about this, more, to-morrow." i was roused from my amazement, and concern for her--i am sure, for her--by her falling on my neck, for a moment, and crying that she only grieved for me. in another moment, she suppressed this emotion; and said with an aspect more triumphant than dejected: "we must meet reverses boldly, and not suffer them to frighten us, my dear. we must learn to act the play out. we must live misfortune down, trot!" chapter xxxv. depression. as soon as i could recover my presence of mind, which quite deserted me in the first overpowering shock of my aunt's intelligence, i proposed to mr. dick to come round to the chandler's shop, and take possession of the bed which mr. peggotty had lately vacated. the chandler's shop being in hungerford market, and hungerford market being a very different place in those days, there was a low wooden colonnade before the door (not very unlike that before the house where the little man and woman used to live, in the old weather-glass), which pleased mr. dick mightily. the glory of lodging over this structure would have compensated him, i dare say, for many inconveniences; but, as there were really few to bear, beyond the compound of flavors i have already mentioned, and perhaps the want of a little more elbow-room, he was perfectly charmed with his accommodation. mrs. crupp had indignantly assured him that there wasn't room to swing a cat there; but, as mr. dick justly observed to me, sitting down on the foot of the bed, nursing his leg, "you know, trotwood, i don't want to swing a cat. i never do swing a cat. therefore, what does that signify to _me_!" i tried to ascertain whether mr. dick had any understanding of the causes of this sudden and great change in my aunt's affairs. as i might have expected, he had none at all. the only account he could give of it, was, that my aunt had said to him, the day before yesterday, "now, dick, are you really and truly the philosopher i take you for?" that then he had said, yes, he hoped so. that then my aunt had said, "dick, i am ruined." that then he had said "oh, indeed!" that then my aunt had praised him highly, which he was very glad of. and that then they had come to me, and had had bottled porter and sandwiches on the road. mr. dick was so very complacent, sitting on the foot of the bed, nursing his leg, and telling me this, with his eyes wide open and a surprised smile, that i am sorry to say i was provoked into explaining to him that ruin meant distress, want, and starvation; but, i was soon bitterly reproved for this harshness, by seeing his face turn pale, and tears course down his lengthened cheeks, while he fixed upon me a look of such unutterable woe, that it might have softened a far harder heart than mine. i took infinitely greater pains to cheer him up again than i had taken to depress him; and i soon understood (as i ought to have known at first) that he had been so confident, merely because of his faith in the wisest and most wonderful of women, and his unbounded reliance on my intellectual resources. the latter, i believe, he considered a match for any kind of disaster not absolutely mortal. "what can we do, trotwood?" said mr. dick. "there's the memorial--" "to be sure there is," said i. "but all we can do just now, mr. dick, is to keep a cheerful countenance, and not let my aunt see that we are thinking about it." he assented to this in the most earnest manner; and implored me, if i should see him wandering an inch out of the right course, to recal him by some of those superior methods which were always at my command. but i regret to state that the fright i had given him proved too much for his best attempts at concealment. all the evening his eyes wandered to my aunt's face, with an expression of the most dismal apprehension, as if he saw her growing thin on the spot. he was conscious of this, and put a constraint upon his head; but his keeping that immovable, and sitting rolling his eyes like a piece of machinery, did not mend the matter at all. i saw him look at the loaf at supper (which happened to be a small one), as if nothing else stood between us and famine; and when my aunt insisted on his making his customary repast, i detected him in the act of pocketing fragments of his bread and cheese; i have no doubt for the purpose of reviving us with those savings, when we should have reached an advanced stage of attenuation. my aunt, on the other hand, was in a composed frame of mind, which was a lesson to all of us--to me, i am sure. she was extremely gracious to peggotty, except when i inadvertently called her by that name; and, strange as i knew she felt in london, appeared quite at home. she was to have my bed, and i was to lie in the sitting-room, to keep guard over her. she made a great point of being so near the river, in case of a conflagration; and i suppose really did find some satisfaction in that circumstance. "trot, my dear," said my aunt, when she saw me making preparations for compounding her usual night-draught, "no!" "nothing, aunt?" "not wine, my dear. ale." "but there is wine here, aunt. and you always have it made of wine." "keep that, in case of sickness," said my aunt. "we mustn't use it carelessly, trot. ale for me. half a pint." i thought mr. dick would have fallen, insensible. my aunt being resolute, i went out and got the ale myself. as it was growing late, peggotty and mr. dick took that opportunity of repairing to the chandler's shop together. i parted from him, poor fellow, at the corner of the street, with his great kite at his back, a very monument of human misery. my aunt was walking up and down the room when i returned, crimping the borders of her nightcap with her fingers. i warmed the ale and made the toast on the usual infallible principles. when it was ready for her, she was ready for it, with her nightcap on, and the skirt of her gown turned back on her knees. "my dear," said my aunt, after taking a spoonful of it; "it's a great deal better than wine. not half so bilious." i suppose i looked doubtful, for she added: "tut, tut, child. if nothing worse than ale happens to us, we are well off." "i should think so myself, aunt, i am sure," said i. "well, then, why _don't_ you think so?" said my aunt. "because you and i are very different people," i returned. "stuff and nonsense, trot!" replied my aunt. my aunt went on with a quiet enjoyment, in which there was very little affectation, if any; drinking the warm ale with a teaspoon, and soaking her strips of toast in it. "trot," said she, "i don't care for strange faces in general, but i rather like that barkis of yours, do you know!" "it's better than a hundred pounds to hear you say so!" said i. "it's a most extraordinary world," observed my aunt, rubbing her nose; "how that woman ever got into it with that name, is unaccountable to me. it would be much more easy to be born a jackson, or something of that sort, one would think." "perhaps she thinks so, too; it's not her fault," said i. "i suppose not," returned my aunt, rather grudging the admission; "but it's very aggravating. however, she's barkis _now_. that's some comfort. barkis is uncommonly fond of you, trot." "there is nothing she would leave undone to prove it," said i. "nothing, i believe," returned my aunt. "here, the poor fool has been begging and praying about handing over some of her money--because she has got too much of it! a simpleton!" my aunt's tears of pleasure were positively trickling down into the warm ale. "she's the most ridiculous creature that ever was born," said my aunt. "i knew, from the first moment when i saw her with that poor dear blessed baby of a mother of yours, that she was the most ridiculous of mortals. but there are good points in barkis!" affecting to laugh, she got an opportunity of putting her hand to her eyes. having availed herself of it, she resumed her toast and her discourse together. "ah! mercy upon us!" sighed my aunt. "i know all about it, trot! barkis and myself had quite a gossip while you were out with dick. i know all about it. i don't know where these wretched girls expect to go to, for my part. i wonder they don't knock out their brains against--against mantelpieces," said my aunt; an idea which was probably suggested to her by her contemplation of mine. "poor emily!" said i. "oh, don't talk to me about poor," returned my aunt. "she should have thought of that, before she caused so much misery! give me a kiss, trot. i am sorry for your early experience." as i bent forward, she put her tumbler on my knee to detain me, and said: "oh, trot, trot! and so you fancy yourself in love! do you?" "fancy, aunt!" i exclaimed, as red as i could be. "i adore her with my whole soul!" "dora, indeed!" returned my aunt. "and you mean to say the little thing is very fascinating, i suppose?" "my dear aunt," i replied, "no one can form the least idea what she is!" "ah! and not silly?" said my aunt. "silly, aunt!" i seriously believe it had never once entered my head for a single moment, to consider whether she was or not. i resented the idea, of course; but i was in a manner struck by it, as a new one altogether. "not light-headed?" said my aunt. "light-headed, aunt!" i could only repeat this daring speculation with the same kind of feeling with which i had repeated the preceding question. "well, well!" said my aunt. "i only ask. i don't depreciate her. poor little couple! and so you think you were formed for one another, and are to go through a party-supper-table kind of life, like two pretty pieces of confectionary, do you, trot?" she asked me this so kindly, and with such a gentle air, half playful and half sorrowful, that i was quite touched. "we are young and inexperienced, aunt, i know," i replied; "and i dare say we say and think a good deal that is rather foolish. but we love one another truly, i am sure. if i thought dora could ever love anybody else, or cease to love me; or that i could ever love anybody else, or cease to love her; i don't know what i should do--go out of my mind, i think!" "ah, trot!" said my aunt, shaking her head, and smiling gravely; "blind, blind, blind!" "some one that i know, trot," my aunt pursued, after a pause, "though of a very pliant disposition, has an earnestness of affection in him that reminds me of poor baby. earnestness is what that somebody must look for, to sustain him and improve him, trot. deep, downright, faithful earnestness." "if you only knew the earnestness of dora, aunt!" i cried. "oh, trot!" she said again; "blind, blind!" and without knowing why, i felt a vague unhappy loss or want of something overshadow me like a cloud. "however," said my aunt, "i don't want to put two young creatures out of conceit with themselves, or to make them unhappy; so, though it is a girl and boy attachment, and girl and boy attachments very often--mind! i don't say always!--come to nothing, still we'll be serious about it, and hope for a prosperous issue one of these days. there's time enough for it to come to anything!" this was not upon the whole very comforting to a rapturous lover; but i was glad to have my aunt in my confidence, and i was mindful of her being fatigued. so i thanked her ardently for this mark of her affection, and for all her other kindnesses towards me; and after a tender good night, she took her nightcap into my bedroom. how miserable i was, when i lay down! how i thought and thought about my being poor, in mr. spenlow's eyes; about my not being what i thought i was, when i proposed to dora; about the chivalrous necessity of telling dora what my worldly condition was, and releasing her from her engagement if she thought fit; about how i should contrive to live, during the long term of my articles, when i was earning nothing; about doing something to assist my aunt, and seeing no way of doing anything; about coming down to have no money in my pocket, and to wear a shabby coat, and to be able to carry dora no little presents, and to ride no gallant greys, and to show myself in no agreeable light! sordid and selfish as i knew it was, and as i tortured myself by knowing that it was, to let my mind run on my own distress so much, i was so devoted to dora that i could not help it. i knew that it was base in me not to think more of my aunt, and less of myself; but, so far, selfishness was inseparable from dora, and i could not put dora on one side for any mortal creature. how exceedingly miserable i was, that night! as to sleep, i had dreams of poverty in all sorts of shapes, but i seemed to dream without the previous ceremony of going to sleep. now i was ragged, wanting to sell dora matches, six bundles for a halfpenny; now i was at the office in a nightgown and boots, remonstrated with by mr. spenlow on appearing before the clients in that airy attire; now i was hungrily picking up the crumbs that fell from old tiffey's daily biscuit, regularly eaten when saint paul's struck one; now i was hopelessly endeavouring to get a license to marry dora, having nothing but one of uriah heep's gloves to offer in exchange, which the whole commons rejected; and still, more or less conscious of my own room, i was always tossing about like a distressed ship in a sea of bed-clothes. my aunt was restless, too, for i frequently heard her walking to and fro. two or three times in the course of the night, attired in a long flannel wrapper in which she looked seven feet high, she appeared, like a disturbed ghost, in my room, and came to the side of the sofa on which i lay. on the first occasion i started up in alarm, to learn that she inferred from a particular light in the sky, that westminster abbey was on fire; and to be consulted in reference to the probability of its igniting buckingham street, in case the wind changed. lying still, after that, i found that she sat down near me, whispering to herself "poor boy!" and then it made me twenty times more wretched, to know how unselfishly mindful she was of me, and how selfishly mindful i was of myself. it was difficult to believe that a night so long to me, could be short to anybody else. this consideration set me thinking and thinking of an imaginary party where people were dancing the hours away, until that became a dream too, and i heard the music incessantly playing one tune, and saw dora incessantly dancing one dance, without taking the least notice of me. the man who had been playing the harp all night, was trying in vain to cover it with an ordinary sized nightcap, when i awoke; or i should rather say, when i left off trying to go to sleep, and saw the sun shining in through the window at last. there was an old roman bath in those days at the bottom of one of the streets out of the strand--it may be there still--in which i have had many a cold plunge. dressing myself as quietly as i could, and leaving peggotty to look after my aunt, i tumbled head foremost into it, and then went for a walk to hampstead. i had a hope that this brisk treatment might freshen my wits a little; and i think it did them good, for i soon came to the conclusion that the first step i ought to take was, to try if my articles could be cancelled and the premium recovered. i got some breakfast on the heath, and walked back to doctors' commons, along the watered roads and through a pleasant smell of summer flowers, growing in gardens and carried into town on hucksters' heads, intent on this first effort to meet our altered circumstances. i arrived at the office so soon, after all, that i had half an hour's loitering about the commons, before old tiffey, who was always first, appeared with his key. then i sat down in my shady corner, looking up at the sunlight on the opposite chimney-pots, and thinking about dora; until mr. spenlow came in, crisp and curly. "how are you, copperfield?" said he. "fine morning!" "beautiful morning, sir," said i. "could i say a word to you before you go into court?" "by all means," said he. "come into my room." i followed him into his room, and he began putting on his gown, and touching himself up before a little glass he had, hanging inside a closet door. "i am sorry to say," said i, "that i have some rather disheartening intelligence from my aunt." "no!" said he. "dear me! not paralysis, i hope?" "it has no reference to her health, sir," i replied. "she has met with some large losses. in fact, she has very little left, indeed." "you as-tound me, copperfield!" cried mr. spenlow. i shook my head. "indeed, sir," said i, "her affairs are so changed, that i wished to ask you whether it would be possible--at a sacrifice on our part of some portion of the premium, of course," i put in this, on the spur of the moment, warned by the blank expression of his face--"to cancel my articles?" what it cost me to make this proposal, nobody knows. it was like asking, as a favor, to be sentenced to transportation from dora. "to cancel your articles, copperfield? cancel?" i explained with tolerable firmness, that i really did not know where my means of subsistence were to come from, unless i could earn them for myself. i had no fear for the future, i said--and i laid great emphasis on that, as if to imply that i should still be decidedly eligible for a son-in-law one of these days--but, for the present, i was thrown upon my own resources. "i am extremely sorry to hear this, copperfield," said mr. spenlow. "extremely sorry. it is not usual to cancel articles for any such reason. it is not a professional course of proceeding. it is not a convenient precedent at all. far from it. at the same time"-- "you are very good, sir," i murmured, anticipating a concession. "not at all. don't mention it," said mr. spenlow. "at the same time, i was going to say, if it had been my lot to have my hands unfettered--if i had not a partner--mr. jorkins"-- my hopes were dashed in a moment, but i made another effort. "do you think, sir," said i, "if i were to mention it to mr. jorkins--" mr. spenlow shook his head discouragingly. "heaven forbid, copperfield," he replied, "that i should do any man an injustice; still less, mr. jorkins. but i know my partner, copperfield. mr. jorkins is _not_ a man to respond to a proposition of this peculiar nature. mr. jorkins is very difficult to move from the beaten track. you know what he is!" i am sure i knew nothing about him, except that he had originally been alone in the business, and now lived by himself in a house near montagu square, which was fearfully in want of painting; that he came very late of a day, and went away very early; that he never appeared to be consulted about anything; and that he had a dingy little black-hole of his own up-stairs, where no business was ever done, and where there was a yellow old cartridge-paper pad upon his desk, unsoiled by ink, and reported to be twenty years of age. "would you object to my mentioning it to him, sir?" i asked. "by no means," said mr. spenlow. "but i have some experience of mr. jorkins, copperfield. i wish it were otherwise, for i should be happy to meet your views in any respect. i cannot have the least objection to your mentioning it to mr. jorkins, copperfield, if you think it worth while." availing myself of this permission, which was given with a warm shake of the hand, i sat thinking about dora, and looking at the sunlight stealing from the chimney-pots down the wall of the opposite house, until mr. jorkins came. i then went up to mr. jorkins's room, and evidently astonished mr. jorkins very much by making my appearance there. "come in, mr. copperfield," said mr. jorkins. "come in!" i went in, and sat down; and stated my case to mr. jorkins pretty much as i had stated it to mr. spenlow. mr. jorkins was not by any means the awful creature one might have expected, but a large, mild, smooth-faced man of sixty, who took so much snuff that there was a tradition in the commons that he lived principally on that stimulant, having little room in his system for any other article of diet. "you have mentioned this to mr. spenlow, i suppose?" said mr. jorkins; when he had heard me, very restlessly, to an end. i answered yes, and told him that mr. spenlow had introduced his name. "he said i should object?" asked mr. jorkins. i was obliged to admit that mr. spenlow had considered it probable. "i am sorry to say, mr. copperfield, i can't advance your object," said mr. jorkins, nervously. "the fact is--but i have an appointment at the bank, if you'll have the goodness to excuse me." with that he rose in a great hurry, and was going out of the room, when i made bold to say that i feared, then, there was no way of arranging the matter? "no!" said mr. jorkins, stopping at the door to shake his head. "oh, no! i object, you know," which he said very rapidly, and went out. "you must be aware, mr. copperfield," he added, looking restlessly in at the door again, "if mr. spenlow objects----" "personally, he does not object, sir," said i. "oh! personally!" repeated mr. jorkins, in an impatient manner. "i assure you there's an objection, mr. copperfield. hopeless! what you wish to be done, can't be done. i--i really have got an appointment at the bank." with that he fairly ran away; and to the best of my knowledge, it was three days before he showed himself in the commons again. being very anxious to leave no stone unturned, i waited until mr. spenlow came in, and then described what had passed; giving him to understand that i was not hopeless of his being able to soften the adamantine jorkins, if he would undertake that task. "copperfield," returned mr. spenlow, with a sagacious smile, "you have not known my partner, mr. jorkins, as long as i have. nothing is farther from my thoughts than to attribute any degree of artifice to mr. jorkins. but mr. jorkins has a way of stating his objections which often deceives people. no, copperfield!" shaking his head. "mr. jorkins is not to be moved, believe me!" i was completely bewildered between mr. spenlow and mr. jorkins, as to which of them really was the objecting partner; but i saw with sufficient clearness that there was obduracy somewhere in the firm, and that the recovery of my aunt's thousand pounds was out of the question. in a state of despondency, which i remember with anything but satisfaction, for i know it still had too much reference to myself (though always in connexion with dora), i left the office, and went homeward. i was trying to familiarise my mind with the worst, and to present to myself the arrangements we should have to make for the future in their sternest aspect, when a hackney chariot coming after me, and stopping at my very feet, occasioned me to look up. a fair hand was stretched forth to me from the window; and the face i had never seen without a feeling of serenity and happiness, from the moment when it first turned back on the old oak staircase with the great broad balustrade, and when i associated its softened beauty with the stained glass window in the church, was smiling on me. "agnes!" i joyfully exclaimed. "oh, my dear agnes, of all people in the world, what a pleasure to see you!" "is it, indeed?" she said, in her cordial voice. "i want to talk to you so much!" said i. "it's such a lightening of my heart, only to look at you! if i had had a conjuror's cap, there is no one i should have wished for but you!" "what?" returned agnes. "well! perhaps dora, first," i admitted, with a blush. "certainly, dora first, i hope," said agnes, laughing. "but you next!" said i. "where are you going?" she was going to my rooms to see my aunt. the day being very fine, she was glad to come out of the chariot, which smelt (i had my head in it all this time) like a stable put under a cucumber-frame. i dismissed the coachman, and she took my arm, and we walked on together. she was like hope embodied, to me. how different i felt in one short minute, having agnes at my side! my aunt had written her one of the odd, abrupt notes--very little longer than a bank note--to which her epistolary efforts were usually limited. she had stated therein that she had fallen into adversity, and was leaving dover for good, but had quite made up her mind to it, and was so well that nobody need be uncomfortable about her. agnes had come to london to see my aunt, between whom and herself there had been a mutual liking these many years: indeed, it dated from the time of my taking up my residence in mr. wickfield's house. she was not alone, she said. her papa was with her--and uriah heep. "and now they are partners," said i. "confound him!" "yes," said agnes. "they have some business here; and i took advantage of their coming, to come too. you must not think my visit all friendly and disinterested, trotwood, for--i am afraid i may be cruelly prejudiced--i do not like to let papa go away alone, with him." "does he exercise the same influence over mr. wickfield still, agnes?" agnes shook her head. "there is such a change at home," said she, "that you would scarcely know the dear old house. they live with us now." "they?" said i. "mr. heep and his mother. he sleeps in your old room," said agnes, looking up into my face. "i wish i had the ordering of his dreams," said i. "he wouldn't sleep there long." "i keep my own little room," said agnes, "where i used to learn my lessons. how the time goes! you remember? the little panelled room that opens from the drawing-room?" "remember, agnes? when i saw you, for the first time, coming out at the door, with your quaint little basket of keys hanging at your side?" "it is just the same," said agnes, smiling. "i am glad you think of it so pleasantly. we were very happy." "we were, indeed," said i. "i keep that room to myself still; but i cannot always desert mrs. heep, you know. and so," said agnes quietly, "i feel obliged to bear her company, when i might prefer to be alone. but i have no other reason to complain of her. if she tires me, sometimes, by her praises of her son, it is only natural in a mother. he is a very good son to her." i looked at agnes when she said these words, without detecting in her any consciousness of uriah's design. her mild but earnest eyes met mine with their own beautiful frankness, and there was no change in her gentle face. "the chief evil of their presence in the house," said agnes, "is that i cannot be as near papa as i could wish--uriah heep being so much between us--and cannot watch over him, if that is not too bold a thing to say, as closely as i would. but, if any fraud or treachery is practising against him, i hope that simple love and truth will be stronger, in the end. i hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world." a certain bright smile which i never saw on any other face, died away, even while i thought how good it was, and how familiar it had once been to me; and she asked me, with a quick change of expression (we were drawing very near my street), if i knew how the reverse in my aunt's circumstances had been brought about. on my replying no, she had not told me yet, agnes became thoughtful, and i fancied i felt her arm tremble in mine. we found my aunt alone, in a state of some excitement. a difference of opinion had arisen between herself and mrs. crupp, on an abstract question (the propriety of chambers being inhabited by the gentler sex); and my aunt, utterly indifferent to spasms on the part of mrs. crupp, had cut the dispute short, by informing that lady that she smelt of my brandy, and that she would trouble her to walk out. both of these expressions mrs. crupp considered actionable, and had expressed her intention of bringing before a "british judy"--meaning, it was supposed, the bulwark of our national liberties. my aunt, however, having had time to cool, while peggotty was out showing mr. dick the soldiers at the horse guards--and being, besides, greatly pleased to see agnes--rather plumed herself on the affair than otherwise, and received us with unimpaired good humour. when agnes laid her bonnet on the table, and sat down beside her, i could not but think, looking on her mild eyes and her radiant forehead, how natural it seemed to have her there; how trustfully, although she was so young and inexperienced, my aunt confided in her; how strong she was, indeed, in simple love and truth. we began to talk about my aunt's losses, and i told them what i had tried to do that morning. "which was injudicious, trot," said my aunt, "but well meant. you are a generous boy--i suppose i must say, young man, now--and i am proud of you, my dear. so far, so good. now, trot and agnes, let us look the case of betsey trotwood in the face, and see how it stands." i observed agnes turn pale, as she looked very attentively at my aunt. my aunt, patting her cat, looked very attentively at agnes. "betsey trotwood," said my aunt, who had always kept her money matters to herself: "--i don't mean your sister, trot, my dear, but myself--had a certain property. it don't matter how much; enough to live on. more; for she had saved a little, and added to it. betsey funded her property for some time, and then, by the advice of her man of business, laid it out on landed security. that did very well, and returned very good interest, till betsey was paid off. i am talking of betsey as if she was a man-of-war. well! then, betsey had to look about her, for a new investment. she thought she was wiser, now, than her man of business, who was not such a good man of business by this time, as he used to be--i am alluding to your father, agnes--and she took it into her head to lay it out for herself. so she took her pigs," said my aunt, "to a foreign market; and a very bad market it turned out to be. first, she lost in the mining way, and then she lost in the diving way--fishing up treasure, or some such tom tidler nonsense," explained my aunt, rubbing her nose; "and then she lost in the mining way again, and, last of all, to set the thing entirely to rights, she lost in the banking way. i don't know what the bank shares were worth for a little while," said my aunt; "cent per cent was the lowest of it, i believe; but the bank was at the other end of the world, and tumbled into space, for what i know; anyhow, it fell to pieces, and never will and never can pay sixpence; and betsey's sixpences were all there, and there's an end of them. least said, soonest mended!" my aunt concluded this philosophical summary, by fixing her eyes with a kind of triumph on agnes, whose color was gradually returning. "dear miss trotwood, is that all the history?" said agnes. "i hope it's enough, child," said my aunt. "if there had been more money to lose, it wouldn't have been all, i dare say. betsey would have contrived to throw that after the rest, and make another chapter, i have little doubt. but, there was no more money, and there's no more story." agnes had listened at first with suspended breath. her color still came and went, but she breathed more freely. i thought i knew why. i thought she had had some fear that her unhappy father might be in some way to blame for what had happened. my aunt took her hand in hers, and laughed. "is that all?" repeated my aunt. "why, yes, that's all, except, 'and she lived happy ever afterwards.' perhaps i may add that of betsey yet, one of these days. now, agnes, you have a wise head. so have you, trot, in some things, though i can't compliment you always;" and here my aunt shook her own at me, with an energy peculiar to herself. "what's to be done? here's the cottage, taking one time with another, will produce, say seventy pounds a-year. i think we may safely put it down at that. well!--that's all we've got," said my aunt; with whom it was an idiosyncrasy, as it is with some horses, to stop very short when she appeared to be in a fair way of going on for a long while. "then," said my aunt, after a rest, "there's dick. he's good for a hundred a-year, but of course that must be expended on himself. i would sooner send him away, though i know i am the only person who appreciates him, than have him, and not spend his money on himself. how can trot and i do best, upon our means? what do you say, agnes?" "_i_ say, aunt," i interposed, "that i must do something!" "go for a soldier, do you mean?" returned my aunt, alarmed; "or go to sea? i won't hear of it. you are to be a proctor. we're not going to have any knockings on the head in _this_ family, if you please, sir." i was about to explain that i was not desirous of introducing that mode of provision into the family, when agnes inquired if my rooms were held for any long term? "you come to the point, my dear," said my aunt. "they are not to be got rid of, for six months at least, unless they could be underlet, and that i don't believe. the last man died here. five people out of six _would_ die--of course--of that woman in nankeen with the flannel petticoat. i have a little ready money; and i agree with you, the best thing we can do, is, to live the term out here, and get dick a bed-room hard by." i thought it my duty to hint at the discomfort my aunt would sustain, from living in a continual state of guerilla warfare with mrs. crupp; but she disposed of that objection summarily by declaring, that, on the first demonstration of hostilities, she was prepared to astonish mrs. crupp for the whole remainder of her natural life. "i have been thinking, trotwood," said agnes, diffidently, "that if you had time--" "i have a good deal of time, agnes. i am always disengaged after four or five o'clock, and i have time early in the morning. in one way and another," said i, conscious of reddening a little as i thought of the hours and hours i had devoted to fagging about town, and to and fro upon the norwood road, "i have abundance of time." "i know you would not mind," said agnes, coming to me, and speaking in a low voice, so full of sweet and hopeful consideration that i hear it now, "the duties of a secretary." "mind, my dear agnes?" "because," continued agnes, "doctor strong has acted on his intention of retiring, and has come to live in london; and he asked papa, i know, if he could recommend him one. don't you think he would rather have his favorite old pupil near him, than anybody else?" "dear agnes!" said i. "what should i do without you! you are always my good angel. i told you so. i never think of you in any other light." agnes answered with her pleasant laugh, that one good angel (meaning dora) was enough; and went on to remind me that the doctor had been used to occupy himself in his study, early in the morning, and in the evening--and that probably my leisure would suit his requirements very well. i was scarcely more delighted with the prospect of earning my own bread, than with the hope of earning it under my old master; in short, acting on the advice of agnes, i sat down and wrote a letter to the doctor, stating my object, and appointing to call on him next day at ten in the forenoon. this i addressed to highgate--for in that place, so memorable to me, he lived--and went out and posted, myself, without losing a minute. wherever agnes was, some agreeable token of her noiseless presence seemed inseparable from the place. when i came back, i found my aunt's birds hanging, just as they had hung so long in the parlor window of the cottage; and my easy chair imitating my aunt's much easier chair in its position at the open window; and even the round green fan, which my aunt had brought away with her, screwed on to the window-sill. i knew who had done all this, by its seeming to have quietly done itself; and i should have known in a moment who had arranged my neglected books in the old order of my school days, even if i had supposed agnes to be miles away, instead of seeing her busy with them, and smiling at the disorder into which they had fallen. my aunt was quite gracious on the subject of the thames (it really did look very well with the sun upon it, though not like the sea before the cottage), but she could not relent towards the london smoke, which, she said, "peppered everything." a complete revolution, in which peggotty bore a prominent part, was being effected in every corner of my rooms, in regard of this pepper; and i was looking on, thinking how little even peggotty seemed to do with a good deal of bustle, and how much agnes did without any bustle at all, when a knock came at the door. "i think," said agnes, turning pale, "it's papa. he promised me that he would come." i opened the door, and admitted, not only mr. wickfield, but uriah heep. i had not seen mr. wickfield for some time. i was prepared for a great change in him, after what i had heard from agnes, but his appearance shocked me. [illustration: mr. wickfield and his partner wait upon my aunt.] it was not that he looked many years older, though still dressed with the old scrupulous cleanliness; or that there was an unwholesome ruddiness upon his face; or that his eyes were full and bloodshot; or that there was a nervous trembling in his hand, the cause of which i knew, and had for some years seen at work. it was not that he had lost his good looks, or his old bearing of a gentleman--for that he had not--but the thing that struck me most, was, that with the evidences of his native superiority still upon him, he should submit himself to that crawling impersonation of meanness, uriah heep. the reversal of the two natures, in their relative positions, uriah's of power and mr. wickfield's of dependence, was a sight more painful to me than i can express. if i had seen an ape taking command of a man, i should hardly have thought it a more degrading spectacle. he appeared to be only too conscious of it himself. when he came in, he stood still; and with his head bowed, as if he felt it. this was only for a moment; for agnes softly said to him, "papa! here is miss trotwood--and trotwood, whom you have not seen for a long while!" and then he approached, and constrainedly gave my aunt his hand, and shook hands more cordially with me. in the moment's pause i speak of, i saw uriah's countenance form itself into a most ill-favored smile. agnes saw it too, i think, for she shrank from him. what my aunt saw, or did not see, i defy the science of physiognomy to have made out, without her own consent. i believe there never was anybody with such an imperturbable countenance when she chose. her face might have been a dead wall on the occasion in question, for any light it threw upon her thoughts; until she broke silence with her usual abruptness. "well, wickfield!" said my aunt; and he looked up at her for the first time. "i have been telling your daughter how well i have been disposing of my money for myself, because i couldn't trust it to you, as you were growing rusty in business matters. we have been taking counsel together, and getting on very well, all things considered. agnes is worth the whole firm, in my opinion." "if i may umbly make the remark," said uriah heep, with a writhe, "i fully agree with miss betsey trotwood, and should be only too appy if miss agnes was a partner." "you're a partner yourself, you know," returned my aunt, "and that's about enough for you, i expect. how do you find yourself, sir?" in acknowledgment of this question, addressed to him with extraordinary curtness, mr. heep, uncomfortably clutching the blue bag he carried, replied that he was pretty well, he thanked my aunt, and hoped she was the same. "and you, master--i should say, mister copperfield," pursued uriah. "i hope i see you well! i am rejoiced to see you, mister copperfield, even under present circumstances." i believed that; for he seemed to relish them very much. "present circumstances is not what your friends would wish for you, mister copperfield, but it isn't money makes the man: it's--i am really unequal with my umble powers to express what it is," said uriah, with a fawning jerk, "but it isn't money!" here he shook hands with me: not in the common way, but standing at a good distance from me, and lifting my hand up and down like a pump handle, that he was a little afraid of. "and how do you think we are looking, master copperfield,--i should say, mister?" fawned uriah. "don't you find mr. wickfield blooming, sir? years don't tell much in our firm, master copperfield, except in raising up the umble, namely, mother and self--and in developing," he added as an after-thought, "the beautiful, namely miss agnes." he jerked himself about, after this compliment, in such an intolerable manner, that my aunt, who had sat looking straight at him, lost all patience. "deuce take the man!" said my aunt, sternly, "what's he about? don't be galvanic, sir!" "i ask your pardon, miss trotwood," returned uriah; "i'm aware you're nervous." "go along with you, sir!" said my aunt, anything but appeased. "don't presume to say so! i am nothing of the sort. if you're an eel, sir, conduct yourself like one. if you're a man, control your limbs, sir! good god!" said my aunt, with great indignation, "i am not going to be serpentined and corkscrewed out of my senses!" mr. heep was rather abashed, as most people might have been, by this explosion; which derived great additional force from the indignant manner in which my aunt afterwards moved in her chair, and shook her head as if she were making snaps or bounces at him. but, he said to me aside in a meek voice: "i am well aware, master copperfield, that miss trotwood, though an excellent lady, has a quick temper (indeed i think i had the pleasure of knowing her, when i was a numble clerk, before you did, master copperfield), and it's only natural, i am sure, that it should be made quicker by present circumstances. the wonder is, that it isn't much worse! i only called to say that if there was anything we could do, in present circumstances, mother or self, or wickfield and heep, we should be really glad. i may go so far?" said uriah, with a sickly smile at his partner. "uriah heep," said mr. wickfield, in a monotonous forced way, "is active in the business, trotwood. what he says, i quite concur in. you know i had an old interest in you. apart from that, what uriah says i quite concur in!" "oh, what a reward it is," said uriah, drawing up one leg, at the risk of bringing down upon himself another visitation from my aunt, "to be so trusted in! but i hope i am able to do something to relieve him from the fatigues of business, master copperfield!" "uriah heep is a great relief to me," said mr. wickfield, in the same dull voice. "it's a load off my mind, trotwood, to have such a partner." the red fox made him say all this, i knew, to exhibit him to me in the light he had indicated on the night when he poisoned my rest. i saw the same ill-favored smile upon his face again, and saw how he watched me. "you are not going, papa?" said agnes, anxiously. "will you not walk back with trotwood and me?" he would have looked to uriah, i believe, before replying, if that worthy had not anticipated him. "i am bespoke myself," said uriah, "on business; otherwise i should have been appy to have kept with my friends. but i leave my partner to represent the firm. miss agnes, ever yours! i wish you good-day, master copperfield, and leave my umble respects for miss betsey trotwood." with those words, he retired, kissing his great hand, and leering at us like a mask. we sat there, talking about our pleasant old canterbury days, an hour or two. mr. wickfield, left to agnes, soon became more like his former self; though there was a settled depression upon him, which he never shook off. for all that, he brightened; and had an evident pleasure in hearing us recall the little incidents of our old life, many of which he remembered very well. he said it was like those times, to be alone with agnes and me again; and he wished to heaven they had never changed. i am sure there was an influence in the placid face of agnes, and in the very touch of her hand upon his arm, that did wonders for him. my aunt (who was busy nearly all this while with peggotty, in the inner room) would not accompany us to the place where they were staying, but insisted on my going; and i went. we dined together. after dinner, agnes sat beside him, as of old, and poured out his wine. he took what she gave him, and no more--like a child--and we all three sat together at a window as the evening gathered in. when it was almost dark, he lay down on a sofa, agnes pillowing his head and bending over him a little while; and when she came back to the window, it was not so dark but i could see tears glittering in her eyes. i pray heaven that i never may forget the dear girl in her love and truth, at that time of my life; for if i should, i must be drawing near the end, and then i would desire to remember her best! she filled my heart with such good resolutions, strengthened my weakness so, by her example, so directed--i know not how, she was too modest and gentle to advise me in many words--the wandering ardor and unsettled purpose within me, that all the little good i have done, and all the harm i have forborne, i solemnly believe i may refer to her. and how she spoke to me of dora, sitting at the window in the dark; listened to my praises of her; praised again; and round the little fairy-figure shed some glimpses of her own pure light, that made it yet more precious and more innocent to me! oh, agnes, sister of my boyhood, if i had known then, what i knew long afterwards!-- there was a beggar in the street, when i went down; and as i turned my head towards the window, thinking of her calm, seraphic eyes, he made me start by muttering, as if he were an echo of the morning: "blind! blind! blind!" chapter xxxvi. enthusiasm. i began the next day with another dive into the roman bath, and then started for highgate. i was not dispirited now. i was not afraid of the shabby coat, and had no yearnings after gallant greys. my whole manner of thinking of our late misfortune was changed. what i had to do, was, to show my aunt that her past goodness to me had not been thrown away on an insensible, ungrateful object. what i had to do, was, to turn the painful discipline of my younger days to account, by going to work with a resolute and steady heart. what i had to do, was, to take my woodman's axe in my hand, and clear my own way through the forest of difficulty, by cutting down the trees until i came to dora. and i went on at a mighty rate, as if it could be done by walking. when i found myself on the familiar highgate road, pursuing such a different errand from that old one of pleasure, with which it was associated, it seemed as if a complete change had come on my whole life. but that did not discourage me. with the new life, came new purpose, new intention. great was the labor; priceless the reward. dora was the reward, and dora must be won. i got into such a transport, that i felt quite sorry my coat was not a little shabby already. i wanted to be cutting at those trees in the forest of difficulty, under circumstances that should prove my strength. i had a good mind to ask an old man, in wire spectacles, who was breaking stones upon the road, to lend me his hammer for a little while, and let me begin to beat a path to dora out of granite. i stimulated myself into such a heat, and got so out of breath, that i felt as if i had been earning i don't know how much. in this state, i went into a cottage that i saw was to let, and examined it narrowly,--for i felt it necessary to be practical. it would do for me and dora admirably: with a little front garden for jip to run about in, and bark at the tradespeople through the railings, and a capital room up-stairs for my aunt. i came out again, hotter and faster than ever, and dashed up to highgate, at such a rate that i was there an hour too early; and, though i had not been, should have been obliged to stroll about to cool myself, before i was at all presentable. my first care, after putting myself under this necessary course of preparation, was to find the doctor's house. it was not in that part of highgate where mrs. steerforth lived, but quite on the opposite side of the little town. when i had made this discovery, i went back, in an attraction i could not resist, to a lane by mrs. steerforth's, and looked over the corner of the garden wall. his room was shut up close. the conservatory doors were standing open, and rosa dartle was walking, bareheaded, with a quick, impetuous step, up and down a gravel walk on one side of the lawn. she gave me the idea of some fierce thing, that was dragging the length of its chain to and fro upon a beaten track, and wearing its heart out. i came softly away from my place of observation, and avoiding that part of the neighbourhood, and wishing i had not gone near it, strolled about until it was ten o'clock. the church with the slender spire, that stands on the top of the hill now, was not there then to tell me the time. an old red-brick mansion, used as a school, was in its place; and a fine old house it must have been to go to school at, as i recollect it. when i approached the doctor's cottage--a pretty old place, on which he seemed to have expended some money, if i might judge from the embellishments and repairs that had the look of being just completed--i saw him walking in the garden at the side, gaiters and all, as if he had never left off walking since the days of my pupilage. he had his old companions about him, too; for there were plenty of high trees in the neighbourhood, and two or three rooks were on the grass, looking after him, as if they had been written to about him by the canterbury rooks, and were observing him closely in consequence. knowing the utter hopelessness of attracting his attention from that distance, i made bold to open the gate, and walk after him, so as to meet him when he should turn round. when he did, and came towards me, he looked at me thoughtfully for a few moments, evidently without thinking about me at all; and then his benevolent face expressed extraordinary pleasure, and he took me by both hands. "why, my dear copperfield," said the doctor; "you are a man! how do you do? i am delighted to see you. my dear copperfield, how very much you have improved! you are quite--yes--dear me!" i hoped he was well, and mrs. strong too. "oh dear, yes!" said the doctor; "annie's quite well, and she'll be delighted to see you. you were always her favorite. she said so, last night, when i showed her your letter. and--yes to be sure--you recollect mr. jack maldon, copperfield?" "perfectly, sir." "of course," said the doctor. "to be sure. _he's_ pretty well, too." "has he come home, sir?" i inquired. "from india?" said the doctor. "yes. mr. jack maldon couldn't bear the climate, my dear. mrs. markleham--you have not forgotten mrs. markleham?" forgotten the old soldier! and in that short time! "mrs. markleham," said the doctor, "was quite vexed about him, poor thing; so we have got him at home again; and we have bought him a little patent place, which agrees with him much better." i knew enough of mr. jack maldon to suspect from this account that it was a place where there was not much to do, and which was pretty well paid. the doctor, walking up and down with his hand on my shoulder, and his kind face turned encouragingly to mine, went on: "now, my dear copperfield, in reference to this proposal of yours. it's very gratifying and agreeable to me, i am sure; but don't you think you could do better? you achieved distinction, you know, when you were with us. you are qualified for many good things. you have laid a foundation that any edifice may be raised upon; and is it not a pity that you should devote the spring-time of your life to such a poor pursuit as i can offer?" i became very glowing again, and, expressing myself in a rhapsodical style, i am afraid, urged my request strongly; reminding the doctor that i had already a profession. "well, well," returned the doctor, "that's true. certainly, your having a profession, and being actually engaged in studying it, makes a difference. but, my good young friend, what's seventy pounds a-year?" "it doubles our income, doctor strong," said i. "dear me!" replied the doctor. "to think of that! not that i mean to say it's rigidly limited to seventy pounds a-year, because i have always contemplated making any young friend i might thus employ, a present too. undoubtedly," said the doctor, still walking me up and down with his hand on my shoulder, "i have always taken an annual present into account." "my dear tutor," said i (now, really, without any nonsense), "to whom i owe more obligations already than i ever can acknowledge--" "no, no," interposed the doctor. "pardon me!" "if you will take such time as i have, and that is my mornings and evenings, and can think it worth seventy pounds a-year, you will do me such a service as i cannot express." "dear me!" said the doctor, innocently. "to think that so little should go for so much! dear, dear! and when you can do better, you will? on your word, now?" said the doctor,--which he had always made a very grave appeal to the honor of us boys. "on my word, sir!" i returned, answering in our old school manner. "then be it so!" said the doctor, clapping me on the shoulder, and still keeping his hand there, as we still walked up and down. "and i shall be twenty times happier, sir," said i, with a little--i hope innocent--flattery, "if my employment is to be on the dictionary." the doctor stopped, smilingly clapped me on the shoulder again, and exclaimed, with a triumph most delightful to behold, as if i had penetrated to the profoundest depths of mortal sagacity, "my dear young friend, you have hit it. it is the dictionary!" how could it be anything else! his pockets were as full of it as his head. it was sticking out of him in all directions. he told me that since his retirement from scholastic life, he had been advancing with it wonderfully; and that nothing could suit him better than the proposed arrangements for morning and evening work, as it was his custom to walk about in the day-time with his considering cap on. his papers were in a little confusion, in consequence of mr. jack maldon having lately proffered his occasional services as an amanuensis, and not being accustomed to that occupation; but we should soon put right what was amiss, and go on swimmingly. afterwards, when we were fairly at our work, i found mr. jack maldon's efforts more troublesome to me than i had expected, as he had not confined himself to making numerous mistakes, but had sketched so many soldiers, and ladies' heads, over the doctor's manuscript, that i often became involved in labyrinths of obscurity. the doctor was quite happy in the prospect of our going to work together on that wonderful performance, and we settled to begin next morning at seven o'clock. we were to work two hours every morning, and two or three hours every night, except on saturdays, when i was to rest. on sundays, of course, i was to rest also, and i considered these very easy terms. our plans being thus arranged to our mutual satisfaction, the doctor took me into the house to present me to mrs. strong, whom we found in the doctor's new study, dusting his books,--a freedom which he never permitted anybody else to take with those sacred favorites. they had postponed their breakfast on my account, and we sat down to table together. we had not been seated long, when i saw an approaching arrival in mrs. strong's face, before i heard any sound of it. a gentleman on horseback came to the gate, and, leading his horse into the little court, with the bridle over his arm, as if he were quite at home, tied him to a ring in the empty coach-house wall, and came into the breakfast parlor, whip in hand. it was mr. jack maldon; and mr. jack maldon was not at all improved by india, i thought. i was in a state of ferocious virtue, however, as to young men who were not cutting down the trees in the forest of difficulty; and my impression must be received with due allowance. "mr. jack!" said the doctor, "copperfield!" mr. jack maldon shook hands with me; but not very warmly, i believed; and with an air of languid patronage, at which i secretly took great umbrage. but his languor altogether was quite a wonderful sight; except when he addressed himself to his cousin annie. "have you breakfasted this morning, mr. jack?" said the doctor. "i hardly ever take breakfast, sir," he replied, with his head thrown back in an easy chair. "i find it bores me." "is there any news to-day?" inquired the doctor. "nothing at all, sir," replied mr. maldon. "there's an account about the people being hungry and discontented down in the north, but they are always being hungry and discontented somewhere." the doctor looked grave, and said, as though he wished to change the subject, "then there's no news at all; and no news, they say, is good news." "there's a long statement in the papers, sir, about a murder," observed mr. maldon. "but somebody is always being murdered, and i didn't read it." a display of indifference to all the actions and passions of mankind was not supposed to be such a distinguished quality at that time, i think, as i have observed it to be considered since. i have known it very fashionable indeed. i have seen it displayed with such success, that i have encountered some fine ladies and gentlemen who might as well have been born caterpillars. perhaps it impressed me the more then, because it was new to me, but it certainly did not tend to exalt my opinion of, or to strengthen my confidence in, mr. jack maldon. "i came out to inquire whether annie would like to go to the opera to-night," said mr. maldon, turning to her. "it's the last good night there will be, this season; and there's a singer there, whom she really ought to hear. she is perfectly exquisite. besides which, she is so charmingly ugly," relapsing into languor. the doctor, ever pleased with what was likely to please his young wife, turned to her and said: "you must go, annie. you must go." "i would rather not," she said to the doctor. "i prefer to remain at home. i would much rather remain at home." without looking at her cousin, she then addressed me, and asked me about agnes, and whether she should see her, and whether she was not likely to come that day; and was so much disturbed, that i wondered how even the doctor, buttering his toast, could be blind to what was so obvious. but he saw nothing. he told her, good-naturedly, that she was young and ought to be amused and entertained, and must not allow herself to be made dull by a dull old fellow. moreover, he said, he wanted to hear her sing all the new singer's songs to him; and how could she do that well, unless she went? so the doctor persisted in making the engagement for her, and mr. jack maldon was to come back to dinner. this concluded, he went to his patent place, i suppose; but at all events went away on his horse, looking very idle. i was curious to find out next morning, whether she had been. she had not, but had sent into london to put her cousin off; and had gone out in the afternoon to see agnes, and had prevailed upon the doctor to go with her; and they had walked home by the fields, the doctor told me, the evening being delightful. i wondered then, whether she would have gone if agnes had not been in town, and whether agnes had some good influence over her too! she did not look very happy, i thought; but it was a good face, or a very false one. i often glanced at it, for she sat in the window all the time we were at work; and made our breakfast, which we took by snatches as we were employed. when i left, at nine o'clock, she was kneeling on the ground at the doctor's feet, putting on his shoes and gaiters for him. there was a softened shade upon her face, thrown from some green leaves overhanging the open window of the low room; and i thought all the way to doctors' commons, of the night when i had seen it looking at him as he read. i was pretty busy now; up at five in the morning, and home at nine or ten at night. but i had infinite satisfaction in being so closely engaged, and never walked slowly on any account, and felt enthusiastically that the more i tired myself, the more i was doing to deserve dora. i had not revealed myself in my altered character to dora yet, because she was coming to see miss mills in a few days, and i deferred all i had to tell her until then; merely informing her in my letters (all our communications were secretly forwarded through miss mills), that i had much to tell her. in the meantime, i put myself on a short allowance of bear's grease, wholly abandoned scented soap and lavender water, and sold off three waistcoats at a prodigious sacrifice, as being too luxurious for my stern career. not satisfied with all these proceedings, but burning with impatience to do something more, i went to see traddles, now lodging up behind the parapet of a house in castle street, holborn. mr. dick, who had been with me to highgate twice already, and had resumed his companionship with the doctor, i took with me. i took mr. dick with me, because, acutely sensitive to my aunt's reverses, and sincerely believing that no galley-slave or convict worked as i did, he had begun to fret and worry himself out of spirits and appetite, as having nothing useful to do. in this condition, he felt more incapable of finishing the memorial than ever; and the harder he worked at it, the oftener that unlucky head of king charles the first got into it. seriously apprehending that his malady would increase, unless we put some innocent deception upon him and caused him to believe that he was useful, or unless we could put him in the way of being really useful (which would be better), i made up my mind to try if traddles could help us. before we went, i wrote traddles a full statement of all that had happened, and traddles wrote me back a capital answer, expressive of his sympathy and friendship. we found him hard at work with his inkstand and papers, refreshed by the sight of the flowerpot-stand and the little round table in a corner of the small apartment. he received us cordially, and made friends with mr. dick in a moment. mr. dick professed an absolute certainty of having seen him before, and we both said, "very likely." the first subject on which i had to consult traddles was this.--i had heard that many men distinguished in various pursuits had begun life by reporting the debates in parliament. traddles having mentioned newspapers to me, as one of his hopes, i had put the two things together, and told traddles in my letter that i wished to know how i could qualify myself for this pursuit. traddles now informed me, as the result of his inquiries, that the mere mechanical acquisition necessary, except in rare cases, for thorough excellence in it, that is to say, a perfect and entire command of the mystery of short-hand writing and reading, was about equal in difficulty to the mastery of six languages; and that it might perhaps be attained, by dint of perseverance, in the course of a few years. traddles reasonably supposed that this would settle the business; but i, only feeling that here indeed were a few tall trees to be hewn down, immediately resolved to work my way on to dora through this thicket, axe in hand. "i am very much obliged to you, my dear traddles!" said i. "i'll begin to-morrow." traddles looked astonished, as he well might; but he had no notion as yet of my rapturous condition. "i'll buy a book," said i, "with a good scheme of this art in it; i'll work at it at the commons, where i haven't half enough to do; i'll take down the speeches in our court for practice--traddles, my dear fellow, i'll master it!" "dear me," said traddles, opening his eyes, "i had no idea you were such a determined character, copperfield!" i don't know how he should have had, for it was new enough to me. i passed that off, and brought mr. dick on the carpet. "you see," said mr. dick, wistfully, "if i could exert myself, mr. traddles--if i could beat a drum--or blow anything!" poor fellow! i have little doubt he would have preferred such an employment in his heart to all others. traddles, who would not have smiled for the world, replied composedly: "but you are a very good penman, sir. you told me so, copperfield?" "excellent!" said i. and indeed he was. he wrote with extraordinary neatness. "don't you think," said traddles, "you could copy writings, sir, if i got them for you?" mr. dick looked doubtfully at me. "eh, trotwood?" i shook my head. mr. dick shook his, and sighed. "tell him about the memorial," said mr. dick. i explained to traddles that there was a difficulty in keeping king charles the first out of mr. dick's manuscripts; mr. dick in the meanwhile looking very deferentially and seriously at traddles, and sucking his thumb. "but these writings, you know, that i speak of, are already drawn up and finished," said traddles after a little consideration. "mr. dick has nothing to do with them. wouldn't that make a difference, copperfield? at all events wouldn't it be well to try?" this gave us new hope. traddles and i laying our heads together apart, while mr. dick anxiously watched us from his chair, we concocted a scheme in virtue of which we got him to work next day, with triumphant success. on a table by the window in buckingham street, we set out the work traddles procured for him--which was to make, i forget how many copies of a legal document about some right of way--and on another table we spread the last unfinished original of the great memorial. our instructions to mr. dick were that he should copy exactly what he had before him, without the least departure from the original; and that when he felt it necessary to make the slightest allusion to king charles the first, he should fly to the memorial. we exhorted him to be resolute in this, and left my aunt to observe him. my aunt reported to us, afterwards, that, at first, he was like a man playing the kettle-drums, and constantly divided his attentions between the two; but that, finding this confuse and fatigue him, and having his copy there, plainly before his eyes, he soon sat at it in an orderly business-like manner, and postponed the memorial to a more convenient time. in a word, although we took great care that he should have no more to do than was good for him, and although he did not begin with the beginning of a week, he earned by the following saturday night ten shillings and nine pence; and never, while i live, shall i forget his going about to all the shops in the neighbourhood to change this treasure into sixpences, or his bringing them to my aunt arranged in the form of a heart upon a waiter, with tears of joy and pride in his eyes. he was like one under the propitious influence of a charm, from the moment of his being usefully employed; and if there were a happy man in the world, that saturday night, it was the grateful creature who thought my aunt the most wonderful woman in existence, and me the most wonderful young man. "no starving now, trotwood," said mr. dick, shaking hands with me in a corner. "i'll provide for her, sir!" and he flourished his ten fingers in the air, as if they were ten banks. i hardly know which was the better pleased, traddles or i. "it really," said traddles, suddenly, taking a letter out of his pocket, and giving it to me, "put mr. micawber quite out of my head!" the letter (mr. micawber never missed any possible opportunity of writing a letter) was addressed to me, "by the kindness of t. traddles, esquire, of the inner temple." it ran thus:-- "my dear copperfield, "you may possibly not be unprepared to receive the intimation that something has turned up. i may have mentioned to you on a former occasion that i was in expectation of such an event. "i am about to establish myself in one of the provincial towns of our favored island, (where the society may be described as a happy admixture of the agricultural and the clerical), in immediate connexion with one of the learned professions. mrs. micawber and our offspring will accompany me. our ashes, at a future period, will probably be found commingled in the cemetery attached to a venerable pile, for which the spot to which i refer, has acquired a reputation, shall i say from china to peru? "in bidding adieu to the modern babylon, where we have undergone many vicissitudes, i trust not ignobly, mrs. micawber and myself cannot disguise from our minds that we part, it may be for years and it may be for ever, with an individual linked by strong associations to the altar of our domestic life. if, on the eve of such a departure, you will accompany our mutual friend, mr. thomas traddles, to our present abode, and there reciprocate the wishes natural to the occasion, you will confer a boon "on "one "who "is "ever yours, "wilkins micawber." i was glad to find that mr. micawber had got rid of his dust and ashes, and that something really had turned up at last. learning from traddles that the invitation referred to the evening then wearing away, i expressed my readiness to do honor to it; and we went off together to the lodging which mr. micawber occupied as mr. mortimer, and which was situated near the top of the gray's inn road. the resources of this lodging were so limited, that we found the twins, now some eight or nine years old, reposing in a turn-up bedstead in the family sitting-room, where mr. micawber had prepared, in a wash-hand-stand jug, what he called "a brew" of the agreeable beverage for which he was famous. i had the pleasure, on this occasion, of renewing the acquaintance of master micawber, whom i found a promising boy of about twelve or thirteen, very subject to that restlessness of limb which is not an unfrequent phenomenon in youths of his age. i also became once more known to his sister, miss micawber, in whom, as mr. micawber told us, "her mother renewed her youth, like the phoenix." "my dear copperfield," said mr. micawber, "yourself and mr. traddles find us on the brink of migration, and will excuse any little discomforts incidental to that position." glancing round as i made a suitable reply, i observed that the family effects were already packed, and that the amount of luggage was by no means overwhelming. i congratulated mrs. micawber on the approaching change. "my dear mr. copperfield," said mrs. micawber, "of your friendly interest in all our affairs, i am well assured. my family may consider it banishment, if they please; but i am a wife and mother, and i never will desert mr. micawber." traddles, appealed to, by mrs. micawber's eye, feelingly acquiesced. "that," said mrs. micawber, "that, at least, is my view, my dear mr. copperfield and mr. traddles, of the obligation which i took upon myself when i repeated the irrevocable words, 'i, emma, take thee, wilkins.' i read the service over with a flat-candle on the previous night, and the conclusion i derived from it was, that i never could desert mr. micawber. and," said mrs. micawber, "though it is possible i may be mistaken in my view of the ceremony, i never will!" "my dear," said mr. micawber, a little impatiently, "i am not conscious that you are expected to do any thing of the sort." "i am aware, my dear mr. copperfield," pursued mrs. micawber, "that i am now about to cast my lot among strangers; and i am also aware that the various members of my family, to whom mr. micawber has written in the most gentlemanly terms, announcing that fact, have not taken the least notice of mr. micawber's communication. indeed i may be superstitious," said mrs. micawber, "but it appears to me that mr. micawber is destined never to receive any answers whatever to the great majority of the communications he writes. i may augur, from the silence of my family, that they object to the resolution i have taken; but i should not allow myself to be swerved from the path of duty, mr. copperfield, even by my papa and mama, were they still living." i expressed my opinion that this was going in the right direction. "it may be a sacrifice," said mrs. micawber, "to immure one's-self in a cathedral town; but surely, mr. copperfield, if it is a sacrifice in me, it is much more a sacrifice in a man of mr. micawber's abilities." "oh! you are going to a cathedral town?" said i. mr. micawber, who had been helping us all, out of the wash-hand-stand jug, replied: "to canterbury. in fact, my dear copperfield, i have entered into arrangements, by virtue of which i stand pledged and contracted to our friend heep, to assist and serve him in the capacity of--and to be--his confidential clerk." i stared at mr. micawber, who greatly enjoyed my surprise. "i am bound to state to you," he said, with an official air, "that the business habits, and the prudent suggestions, of mrs. micawber, have in a great measure conduced to this result. the gauntlet, to which mrs. micawber referred upon a former occasion, being thrown down in the form of an advertisement, was taken up by my friend heep, and led to a mutual recognition. of my friend heep," said mr. micawber, "who is a man of remarkable shrewdness, i desire to speak with all possible respect. my friend heep has not fixed the positive remuneration at too high a figure, but he has made a great deal, in the way of extrication from the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, contingent on the value of my services; and on the value of those services i pin my faith. such address and intelligence as i chance to possess," said mr. micawber, boastfully disparaging himself, with the old genteel air, "will be devoted to my friend heep's service. i have already some acquaintance with the law--as a defendant on civil process--and i shall immediately apply myself to the commentaries of one of the most eminent and remarkable of our english jurists. i believe it is unnecessary to add that i allude to mr. justice blackstone." these observations, and indeed the greater part of the observations made that evening, were interrupted by mrs. micawber's discovering that master micawber was sitting on his boots, or holding his head on with both arms as if he felt it loose, or accidentally kicking traddles under the table, or shuffling his feet over one another, or producing them at distances from himself apparently outrageous to nature, or lying sideways with his hair among the wine-glasses, or developing his restlessness of limb in some other form incompatible with the general interests of society; and by master micawber's receiving those discoveries in a resentful spirit. i sat all the while, amazed by mr. micawber's disclosure, and wondering what it meant; until mrs. micawber resumed the thread of the discourse, and claimed my attention. "what i particularly request mr. micawber to be careful of, is," said mrs. micawber, "that he does not, my dear mr. copperfield, in applying himself to this subordinate branch of the law, place it out of his power to rise, ultimately, to the top of the tree. i am convinced that mr. micawber, giving his mind to a profession so adapted to his fertile resources, and his flow of language, _must_ distinguish himself. now, for example, mr. traddles," said mrs. micawber, assuming a profound air, "a judge, or even say a chancellor. does an individual place himself beyond the pale of those preferments by entering on such an office as mr. micawber has accepted?" "my dear," observed mr. micawber--but glancing inquisitively at traddles, too; "we have time enough before us, for the consideration of those questions." "micawber," she returned, "no! your mistake in life is, that you do not look forward far enough. you are bound, in justice to your family, if not to yourself, to take in at a comprehensive glance the extremest point in the horizon to which your abilities may lead you." mr. micawber coughed, and drank his punch with an air of exceeding satisfaction--still glancing at traddles, as if he desired to have his opinion. "why, the plain state of the case, mrs. micawber," said traddles, mildly breaking the truth to her, "i mean the real prosaic fact, you know--" "just so," said mrs. micawber, "my dear mr. traddles, i wish to be as prosaic and literal as possible on a subject of so much importance." "--is," said traddles, "that this branch of the law, even if mr. micawber were a regular solicitor--" "exactly so," returned mrs. micawber. ("wilkins, you are squinting, and will not be able to get your eyes back.") "--has nothing," pursued traddles, "to do with that. only a barrister is eligible for such preferments; and mr. micawber could not be a barrister, without being entered at an inn of court as a student, for five years." "do i follow you?" said mrs. micawber, with her most affable air of business. "do i understand, my dear mr. traddles, that, at the expiration of that period, mr. micawber would be eligible as a judge or chancellor?" "he would be _eligible_," returned traddles, with a strong emphasis on that word. "thank you," said mrs. micawber. "that is quite sufficient. if such is the case, and mr. micawber forfeits no privilege by entering on these duties, my anxiety is set at rest. i speak," said mrs. micawber, "as a female, necessarily; but i have always been of opinion that mr. micawber possesses what i have heard my papa call, when i lived at home, the judicial mind; and i hope mr. micawber is now entering on a field where that mind will develope itself, and take a commanding station." i quite believe that mr. micawber saw himself, in his judicial mind's eye, on the woolsack. he passed his hand complacently over his bald head, and said with ostentatious resignation: "my dear, we will not anticipate the decrees of fortune. if i am reserved to wear a wig, i am at least prepared, externally," in allusion to his baldness, "for that distinction. i do not," said mr. micawber, "regret my hair, and i may have been deprived of it for a specific purpose. i cannot say. it is my intention, my dear copperfield, to educate my son for the church; i will not deny that i should be happy, on his account, to attain to eminence." "for the church?" said i, still pondering, betweenwhiles, on uriah heep. "yes," said mr. micawber. "he has a remarkable head-voice, and will commence as a chorister. our residence at canterbury, and our local connexion, will, no doubt, enable him to take advantage of any vacancy that may arise in the cathedral corps." on looking at master micawber again, i saw that he had a certain expression of face, as if his voice were behind his eyebrows; where it presently appeared to be, on his singing us (as an alternative between that and bed) "the wood-pecker tapping." after many compliments on this performance, we fell into some general conversation; and as i was too full of my desperate intentions to keep my altered circumstances to myself, i made them known to mr. and mrs. micawber. i cannot express how extremely delighted they both were, by the idea of my aunt's being in difficulties; and how comfortable and friendly it made them. when we were nearly come to the last round of the punch, i addressed myself to traddles, and reminded him that we must not separate, without wishing our friends health, happiness, and success in their new career. i begged mr. micawber to fill us bumpers, and proposed the toast in due form: shaking hands with him across the table, and kissing mrs. micawber, to commemorate that eventful occasion. traddles imitated me in the first particular, but did not consider himself a sufficiently old friend to venture on the second. "my dear copperfield," said mr. micawber, rising with one of his thumbs in each of his waistcoat pockets, "the companion of my youth: if i may be allowed the expression--and my esteemed friend traddles: if i may be permitted to call him so--will allow me, on the part of mrs. micawber, myself, and our offspring, to thank them in the warmest and most uncompromising terms for their good wishes. it may be expected that on the eve of a migration which will consign us to a perfectly new existence," mr. micawber spoke as if they were going five hundred thousand miles, "i should offer a few valedictory remarks to two such friends as i see before me. but all that i have to say in this way, i have said. whatever station in society i may attain, through the medium of the learned profession of which i am about to become an unworthy member, i shall endeavour not to disgrace, and mrs. micawber will be safe to adorn. under the temporary pressure of pecuniary liabilities, contracted with a view to their immediate liquidation, but remaining unliquidated through a combination of circumstances, i have been under the necessity of assuming a garb from which my natural instincts recoil--i allude to spectacles--and possessing myself of a cognomen, to which i can establish no legitimate pretensions. all i have to say on that score is, that the cloud has passed from the dreary scene, and the god of day is once more high upon the mountain tops. on monday next, on the arrival of the four o'clock afternoon coach at canterbury, my foot will be on my native heath--my name, micawber!" [illustration: mr. micawber delivers some valedictory remarks.] mr. micawber resumed his seat on the close of these remarks, and drank two glasses of punch in grave succession. he then said with much solemnity: "one thing more i have to do, before this separation is complete, and that is to perform an act of justice. my friend mr. thomas traddles has, on two several occasions, 'put his name,' if i may use a common expression, to bills of exchange for my accommodation. on the first occasion mr. thomas traddles was left--let me say, in short, in the lurch. the fulfilment of the second has not yet arrived. the amount of the first obligation," here mr. micawber carefully referred to papers, "was, i believe, twenty-three, four, nine and a half; of the second, according to my entry of that transaction, eighteen, six, two. these sums, united, make a total, if my calculation is correct, amounting to forty-one, ten, eleven and a half. my friend copperfield will perhaps do me the favor to check that total?" i did so and found it correct. "to leave this metropolis," said mr. micawber, "and my friend mr. thomas traddles, without acquitting myself of the pecuniary part of this obligation, would weigh upon my mind to an insupportable extent. i have, therefore, prepared for my friend mr. thomas traddles, and i now hold in my hand, a document, which accomplishes the desired object. i beg to hand to my friend mr. thomas traddles my i. o. u. for forty-one, ten, eleven and a half; and i am happy to recover my moral dignity, and to know that i can once more walk erect before my fellow man!" with this introduction (which greatly affected him), mr. micawber placed his i. o. u. in the hands of traddles, and said he wished him well in every relation of life. i am persuaded, not only that this was quite the same to mr. micawber as paying the money, but that traddles himself hardly knew the difference until he had had time to think about it. mr. micawber walked so erect before his fellow man, on the strength of this virtuous action, that his chest looked half as broad again when he lighted us down stairs. we parted with great heartiness on both sides; and when i had seen traddles to his own door, and was going home alone, i thought, among the other odd and contradictory things i mused upon, that, slippery as mr. micawber was, i was probably indebted to some compassionate recollection he retained of me as his boy-lodger, for never having been asked by him for money. i certainly should not have had the moral courage to refuse it; and i have no doubt he knew that (to his credit be it written), quite as well as i did. chapter xxxvii. a little cold water. my new life had lasted for more than a week, and i was stronger than ever in those tremendous practical resolutions that i felt the crisis required. i continued to walk extremely fast, and to have a general idea that i was getting on. i made it a rule to take as much out of myself as i possibly could, in my way of doing everything to which i applied my energies. i made a perfect victim of myself. i even entertained some idea of putting myself on a vegetable diet, vaguely conceiving that, in becoming a graminivorous animal, i should sacrifice to dora. as yet, little dora was quite unconscious of my desperate firmness, otherwise than as my letters darkly shadowed it forth. but, another saturday came, and on that saturday evening she was to be at miss mills's; and when mr. mills had gone to his whist-club (telegraphed to me in the street, by a bird-cage in the drawing-room middle window), i was to go there to tea. by this time, we were quite settled down in buckingham street, where mr. dick continued his copying in a state of absolute felicity. my aunt had obtained a signal victory over mrs. crupp, by paying her off, throwing the first pitcher she planted on the stairs out of window, and protecting in person, up and down the staircase, a supernumerary whom she engaged from the outer world. these vigorous measures struck such terror to the breast of mrs. crupp, that she subsided into her own kitchen, under the impression that my aunt was mad. my aunt being supremely indifferent to mrs. crupp's opinion and everybody else's, and rather favoring than discouraging the idea, mrs. crupp, of late the bold, became within a few days so faint-hearted, that rather than encounter my aunt upon the staircase, she would endeavour to hide her portly form behind doors--leaving visible, however, a wide margin of flannel petticoat--or would shrink into dark corners. this gave my aunt such unspeakable satisfaction, that i believe she took a delight in prowling up and down, with her bonnet insanely perched on the top of her head, at times when mrs. crupp was likely to be in the way. my aunt, being uncommonly neat and ingenious, made so many little improvements in our domestic arrangements, that i seemed to be richer instead of poorer. among the rest, she converted the pantry into a dressing-room for me; and purchased and embellished a bedstead for my occupation, which looked as like a bookcase in the daytime, as a bedstead could. i was the object of her constant solicitude; and my poor mother herself could not have loved me better, or studied more how to make me happy. peggotty had considered herself highly privileged in being allowed to participate in these labors; and, although she still retained something of her old sentiment of awe in reference to my aunt, had received so many marks of encouragement and confidence, that they were the best friends possible. but the time had now come (i am speaking of the saturday when i was to take tea at miss mills's) when it was necessary for her to return home, and enter on the discharge of the duties she had undertaken in behalf of ham. "so good bye, barkis," said my aunt, "and take care of yourself! i am sure i never thought i could be sorry to lose you!" i took peggotty to the coach-office, and saw her off. she cried at parting, and confided her brother to my friendship as ham had done. we had heard nothing of him since he went away, that sunny afternoon. "and now, my own dear davy," said peggotty, "if, while you're a prentice, you should want any money to spend; or if, when you're out of your time, my dear, you should want any to set you up (and you must do one or other, or both, my darling); who has such a good right to ask leave to lend it you, as my sweet girl's own old stupid me!" i was not so savagely independent as to say anything in reply, but that if ever i borrowed money of anyone, i would borrow it of her. next to accepting a large sum on the spot, i believe this gave peggotty more comfort than anything i could have done. "and, my dear!" whispered peggotty, "tell the pretty little angel that i should so have liked to see her, only for a minute! and tell her that before she marries my boy, i'll come and make your house so beautiful for you, if you'll let me!" i declared that nobody else should touch it; and this gave peggotty such delight that she went away in good spirits. i fatigued myself as much as i possibly could in the commons all day, by a variety of devices, and at the appointed time in the evening repaired to mr. mills's street. mr. mills, who was a terrible fellow to fall asleep after dinner, had not yet gone out, and there was no birdcage in the middle window. he kept me waiting so long, that i fervently hoped the club would fine him for being late. at last he came out; and then i saw my own dora hang up the birdcage, and peep into the balcony to look for me, and run in again when she saw i was there, while jip remained behind, to bark injuriously at an immense butcher's dog in the street, who could have taken him like a pill. dora came to the drawing-room door to meet me; and jip came scrambling out, tumbling over his own growls, under the impression that i was a bandit; and we all three went in, as happy and loving as could be. i soon carried desolation into the bosom of our joys--not that i meant to do it, but that i was so full of the subject--by asking dora, without the smallest preparation, if she could love a beggar? my pretty, little, startled dora! her only association with the word was a yellow face and a nightcap, or a pair of crutches, or a wooden leg, or a dog with a decanter-stand in his mouth, or something of that kind; and she stared at me with the most delightful wonder. "how can you ask me anything so foolish!" pouted dora. "love a beggar!" "dora, my own dearest!" said i. "_i_ am a beggar!" "how can you be such a silly thing," replied dora, slapping my hand, "as to sit there, telling such stories? i'll make jip bite you!" her childish way was the most delicious way in the world to me, but it was necessary to be explicit, and i solemnly repeated: "dora, my own life, i am your ruined david!" "i declare i'll make jip bite you!" said dora, shaking her curls, "if you are so ridiculous." but i looked so serious, that dora left off shaking her curls, and laid her trembling little hand upon my shoulder, and first looked scared and anxious, then began to cry. that was dreadful. i fell upon my knees before the sofa, caressing her, and imploring her not to rend my heart; but, for some time, poor little dora did nothing but exclaim oh dear! oh dear! and oh, she was so frightened! and where was julia mills! and oh, take her to julia mills, and go away, please! until i was almost beside myself. at last, after an agony of supplication and protestation, i got dora to look at me, with a horrified expression of face, which i gradually soothed until it was only loving, and her soft, pretty cheek was lying against mine. then i told her, with my arms clasped round her, how i loved her, so dearly, and so dearly; how i felt it right to offer to release her from her engagement, because now i was poor; how i never could bear it, or recover it, if i lost her; how i had no fears of poverty, if she had none, my arm being nerved and my heart inspired by her; how i was already working with a courage such as none but lovers knew; how i had begun to be practical, and to look into the future; how a crust well earned was sweeter far than a feast inherited; and much more to the same purpose, which i delivered in a burst of passionate eloquence quite surprising to myself, though i had been thinking about it, day and night, ever since my aunt had astonished me. "is your heart mine still, dear dora?" said i, rapturously, for i knew by her clinging to me that it was. "oh, yes!" cried dora. "oh, yes, it's all yours. oh, don't be dreadful!" _i_ dreadful! to dora! "don't talk about being poor, and working hard!" said dora, nestling closer to me. "oh, don't, don't!" "my dearest love," said i, "the crust well-earned--" "oh, yes; but i don't want to hear any more about crusts!" said dora. "and jip must have a mutton-chop every-day at twelve, or he'll die!" i was charmed with her childish, winning way. i fondly explained to dora that jip should have his mutton-chop with his accustomed regularity. i drew a picture of our frugal home, made independent by my labor--sketching-in the little house i had seen at highgate, and my aunt in her room up-stairs. "i am not dreadful now, dora?" said i, tenderly. "oh, no, no!" cried dora. "but i hope your aunt will keep in her own room a good deal! and i hope she's not a scolding old thing!" if it were possible for me to love dora more than ever, i am sure i did. but i felt she was a little impracticable. it damped my new-born ardor, to find that ardor so difficult of communication to her. i made another trial. when she was quite herself again, and was curling jip's ears, as he lay upon her lap, i became grave, and said: "my own! may i mention something?" "oh, please don't be practical!" said dora, coaxingly. "because it frightens me so!" "sweet heart!" i returned; "there is nothing to alarm you in all this. i want you to think of it quite differently. i want to make it nerve you, and inspire you, dora!" "oh, but that's so shocking!" cried dora. "my love, no. perseverance and strength of character will enable us to bear much worse things." "but i haven't got any strength at all," said dora, shaking her curls. "have i, jip? oh, do kiss jip, and be agreeable!" it was impossible to resist kissing jip, when she held him up to me for that purpose, putting her own bright, rosy little mouth into kissing form, as she directed the operation, which she insisted should be performed symmetrically, on the centre of his nose. i did as she bade me--rewarding myself afterwards for my obedience--and she charmed me out of my graver character for i don't know how long. "but, dora, my beloved!" said i, at last resuming it; "i was going to mention something." the judge of the prerogative court might have fallen in love with her, to see her fold her little hands and hold them up, begging and praying me not to be dreadful any more. "indeed i am not going to be, my darling!" i assured her. "but, dora, my love, if you will sometimes think,--not despondingly, you know; far from that!--but if you will sometimes think--just to encourage yourself--that you are engaged to a poor man--" "don't, don't! pray don't!" cried dora. "it's so very dreadful!" "my soul, not at all!" said i, cheerfully. "if you will sometimes think of that, and look about now and then at your papa's housekeeping, and endeavour to acquire a little habit--of accounts, for instance--" poor little dora received this suggestion with something that was half a sob and half a scream. "--it will be so useful to us afterwards," i went on. "and if you would promise me to read a little--a little cookery book that i would send you, it would be so excellent for both of us. for our path in life, my dora," said i, warming with the subject, "is stony and rugged now, and it rests with us to smooth it. we must fight our way onward. we must be brave. there are obstacles to be met, and we must meet, and crush them!" i was going on at a great rate, with a clenched hand, and a most enthusiastic countenance; but it was quite unnecessary to proceed. i had said enough. i had done it again. oh, she was so frightened! oh, where was julia mills! oh, take her to julia mills, and go away, please! so that, in short, i was quite distracted, and raved about the drawing-room. i thought i had killed her, this time. i sprinkled water on her face. i went down on my knees. i plucked at my hair. i denounced myself as a remorseless brute and a ruthless beast. i implored her forgiveness. i besought her to look up. i ravaged miss mills's work-box for a smelling-bottle, and in my agony of mind applied an ivory needle-case instead, and dropped all the needles over dora. i shook my fists at jip, who was as frantic as myself. i did every wild extravagance that could be done, and was a long way beyond the end of my wits when miss mills came into the room. "who has done this!" exclaimed miss mills, succouring her friend. i replied, "_i_, miss mills! _i_ have done it! behold the destroyer!"--or words to that effect--and hid my face from the light, in the sofa cushion. at first miss mills thought it was a quarrel, and that we were verging on the desert of sahara; but she soon found out how matters stood, for my dear affectionate little dora, embracing her, began exclaiming that i was "a poor laborer;" and then cried for me, and embraced me, and asked me would i let her give me all her money to keep, and then fell on miss mills's neck, sobbing as if her tender heart were broken. miss mills must have been born to be a blessing to us. she ascertained from me in a few words what it was all about, comforted dora, and gradually convinced her that i was not a laborer--from my manner of stating the case i believe dora concluded that i was a navigator, and went balancing myself up and down a plank all day with a wheelbarrow--and so brought us together in peace. when we were quite composed, and dora had gone up-stairs to put some rose-water to her eyes, miss mills rang for tea. in the ensuing interval, i told miss mills that she was evermore my friend, and that my heart must cease to vibrate ere i could forget her sympathy. i then expounded to miss mills what i had endeavoured, so very unsuccessfully, to expound to dora. miss mills replied, on general principles, that the cottage of content was better than the palace of cold splendour, and that where love was, all was. i said to miss mills that this was very true, and who should know it better than i, who loved dora with a love that never mortal had experienced yet. but on miss mills observing, with despondency, that it were well indeed for some hearts if this were so, i explained that i begged leave to restrict the observation to mortals of the masculine gender. i then put it to miss mills, to say whether she considered that there was or was not any practical merit in the suggestion i had been anxious to make, concerning the accounts, the housekeeping, and the cookery book? miss mills, after some consideration, thus replied: "mr. copperfield, i will be plain with you. mental suffering and trial supply, in some natures, the place of years, and i will be as plain with you as if i were a lady abbess. no. the suggestion is not appropriate to our dora. our dearest dora is a favorite child of nature. she is a thing of light, and airiness, and joy. i am free to confess that if it could be done, it might be well, but--" and miss mills shook her head. i was encouraged by this closing admission on the part of miss mills to ask her, whether, for dora's sake, if she had any opportunity of luring her attention to such preparations for an earnest life, she would avail herself of it? miss mills replied in the affirmative so readily, that i further asked her if she would take charge of the cookery book; and, if she ever could insinuate it upon dora's acceptance, without frightening her, undertake to do me that crowning service. miss mills accepted this trust, too; but was not sanguine. and dora returned, looking such a lovely little creature, that i really doubted whether she ought to be troubled with anything so ordinary. and she loved me so much, and was so captivating (particularly when she made jip stand on his hind legs for toast, and when she pretended to hold that nose of his against the hot tea-pot for punishment because he wouldn't), that i felt like a sort of monster who had got into a fairy's bower, when i thought of having frightened her, and made her cry. after tea we had the guitar; and dora sang those same dear old french songs about the impossibility of ever on any account leaving off dancing, la ra la, la ra la, until i felt a much greater monster than before. we had only one check to our pleasure, and that happened a little while before i took my leave, when, miss mills chancing to make some allusion to to-morrow morning, i unluckily let out that being obliged to exert myself now, i got up at five o'clock. whether dora had any idea that i was a private watchman, i am unable to say; but it made a great impression on her, and she neither played nor sang any more. it was still on her mind when i bade her adieu; and she said to me, in her pretty coaxing way--as if i were a doll, i used to think! "now don't get up at five o'clock, you naughty boy. it's so nonsensical!" "my love," said i, "i have work to do." "but don't do it!" returned dora. "why should you?" it was impossible to say to that sweet little surprised face, otherwise than lightly and playfully, that we must work, to live. "oh! how ridiculous!" cried dora. "how shall we live without, dora?" said i. "how? any how!" said dora. she seemed to think she had quite settled the question, and gave me such a triumphant little kiss, direct from her innocent heart, that i would hardly have put her out of conceit with her answer, for a fortune. well! i loved her, and i went on loving her, most absorbingly, entirely, and completely. but going on, too, working pretty hard, and busily keeping red-hot all the irons i now had in the fire, i would sit sometimes of a night, opposite my aunt, thinking how i had frightened dora that time, and how i could best make my way with a guitar-case through the forest of difficulty, until i used to fancy that my head was turning quite grey. chapter xxxviii. a dissolution of partnership. i did not allow my resolution, with respect to the parliamentary debates, to cool. it was one of the irons i began to heat immediately, and one of the irons i kept hot, and hammered at, with a perseverance i may honestly admire. i bought an approved scheme of the noble art and mystery of stenography (which cost me ten and sixpence); and plunged into a sea of perplexity that brought me, in a few weeks, to the confines of distraction. the changes that were rung upon dots, which in such a position meant such a thing, and in such another position something else, entirely different; the wonderful vagaries that were played by circles; the unaccountable consequences that resulted from marks like flies' legs; the tremendous effects of a curve in a wrong place; not only troubled my waking hours, but reappeared before me in my sleep. when i had groped my way, blindly, through these difficulties, and had mastered the alphabet, which was an egyptian temple in itself, there then appeared a procession of new horrors, called arbitrary characters; the most despotic characters i have ever known; who insisted, for instance, that a thing like the beginning of a cobweb, meant expectation, and that a pen and ink sky-rocket stood for disadvantageous. when i had fixed these wretches in my mind, i found that they had driven everything else out of it; then, beginning again, i forgot them; while i was picking them up, i dropped the other fragments of the system; in short, it was almost heart-breaking. it might have been quite heart-breaking, but for dora, who was the stay and anchor of my tempest-driven bark. every scratch in the scheme was a gnarled oak in the forest of difficulty, and i went on cutting them down, one after another, with such vigour, that in three or four months i was in a condition to make an experiment on one of our crack speakers in the commons. shall i ever forget how the crack speaker walked off from me before i began, and left my imbecile pencil staggering about the paper as if it were in a fit! this would not do, it was quite clear. i was flying too high, and should never get on, so. i resorted to traddles for advice; who suggested that he should dictate speeches to me, at a pace, and with occasional stoppages, adapted to my weakness. very grateful for this friendly aid, i accepted the proposal; and night after night, almost every night, for a long time, we had a sort of private parliament in buckingham street, after i came home from the doctor's. i should like to see such a parliament anywhere else! my aunt and mr. dick represented the government or the opposition (as the case might be), and traddles, with the assistance of enfield's speaker or a volume of parliamentary orations, thundered astonishing invectives against them. standing by the table, with his finger in the page to keep the place, and his right arm flourishing above his head, traddles, as mr. pitt, mr. fox, mr. sheridan, mr. burke, lord castlereagh, viscount sidmouth, or mr. canning, would work himself into the most violent heats, and deliver the most withering denunciations of the profligacy and corruption of my aunt and mr. dick; while i used to sit, at a little distance, with my note-book on my knee, fagging after him with all my might and main. the inconsistency and recklessness of traddles were not to be exceeded by any real politician. he was for any description of policy, in the compass of a week; and nailed all sorts of colours to every denomination of mast. my aunt, looking very like an immoveable chancellor of the exchequer, would occasionally throw in an interruption or two, as "hear!" or "no!" or "oh!" when the text seemed to require it: which was always a signal to mr. dick (a perfect country gentleman) to follow lustily with the same cry. but mr. dick got taxed with such things in the course of his parliamentary career, and was made responsible for such awful consequences, that he became uncomfortable in his mind sometimes. i believe he actually began to be afraid he really had been doing something, tending to the annihilation of the british constitution, and the ruin of the country. [illustration: traddles makes a figure in parliament, and i report him.] often and often we pursued these debates until the clock pointed to midnight, and the candles were burning down. the result of so much good practice was, that by-and-by i began to keep pace with traddles pretty well, and should have been quite triumphant if i had had the least idea what my notes were about. but, as to reading them after i had got them, i might as well have copied the chinese inscriptions on an immense collection of tea-chests, or the golden characters on all the great red and green bottles in the chemists' shops! there was nothing for it, but to turn back and begin all over again. it was very hard, but i turned back, though with a heavy heart, and began laboriously and methodically to plod over the same tedious ground at a snail's pace; stopping to examine minutely every speck in the way, on all sides, and making the most desperate efforts to know these elusive characters by sight wherever i met them. i was always punctual at the office; at the doctor's too: and i really did work, as the common expression is, like a cart-horse. one day, when i went to the commons as usual, i found mr. spenlow in the doorway looking extremely grave, and talking to himself. as he was in the habit of complaining of pains in his head--he had naturally a short throat, and i do seriously believe he overstarched himself--i was at first alarmed by the idea that he was not quite right in that direction; but he soon relieved my uneasiness. instead of returning my "good morning" with his usual affability, he looked at me in a distant, ceremonious manner, and coldly requested me to accompany him to a certain coffee-house, which, in those days, had a door opening into the commons, just within the little archway in st. paul's churchyard. i complied, in a very uncomfortable state, and with a warm shooting all over me, as if my apprehensions were breaking out into buds. when i allowed him to go on a little before, on account of the narrowness of the way, i observed that he carried his head with a lofty air that was particularly unpromising; and my mind misgave me that he had found out about my darling dora. if i had not guessed this, on the way to the coffee-house, i could hardly have failed to know what was the matter when i followed him into an up-stairs room, and found miss murdstone there, supported by a background of sideboard, on which were several inverted tumblers sustaining lemons, and two of those extraordinary boxes, all corners and flutings, for sticking knives and forks in, which, happily for mankind, are now obsolete. miss murdstone gave me her chilly finger-nails, and sat severely rigid. mr. spenlow shut the door, motioned me to a chair, and stood on the hearth-rug in front of the fireplace. "have the goodness to show mr. copperfield," said mr. spenlow, "what you have in your reticule, miss murdstone." i believe it was the old identical steel-clasped reticule of my childhood, that shut up like a bite. compressing her lips, in sympathy with the snap, miss murdstone opened it--opening her mouth a little at the same time--and produced my last letter to dora, teeming with expressions of devoted affection. "i believe that is your writing, mr. copperfield?" said mr. spenlow. i was very hot, and the voice i heard was very unlike mine, when i said, "it is sir!" "if i am not mistaken," said mr. spenlow, as miss murdstone brought a parcel of letters out of her reticule, tied round with the dearest bit of blue ribbon, "those are also from your pen, mr. copperfield?" i took them from her with a most desolate sensation; and, glancing at such phrases at the top, as "my ever dearest and own dora," "my best beloved angel," "my blessed one for ever," and the like, blushed deeply, and inclined my head. "no, thank you!" said mr. spenlow coldly, as i mechanically offered them back to him. "i will not deprive you of them. miss murdstone, be so good as to proceed!" that gentle creature, after a moment's thoughtful survey of the carpet, delivered herself with much dry unction as follows. "i must confess to having entertained my suspicions of miss spenlow, in reference to david copperfield, for some time. i observed miss spenlow and david copperfield, when they first met; and the impression made upon me then was not agreeable. the depravity of the human heart is such----" "you will oblige me, ma'am," interrupted mr. spenlow, "by confining yourself to facts." miss murdstone cast down her eyes, shook her head as if protesting against this unseemly interruption, and with frowning dignity resumed: "since i am to confine myself to facts, i will state them as dryly as i can. perhaps that will be considered an acceptable course of proceeding. i have already said, sir, that i have had my suspicions of miss spenlow, in reference to david copperfield, for some time. i have frequently endeavoured to find decisive corroboration of those suspicions, but without effect. i have therefore forborne to mention them to miss spenlow's father;" looking severely at him; "knowing how little disposition there usually is in such cases, to acknowledge the conscientious discharge of duty." mr. spenlow seemed quite cowed by the gentlemanly sternness of miss murdstone's manner, and deprecated her severity with a conciliatory little wave of his hand. "on my return to norwood, after the period of absence occasioned by my brother's marriage," pursued miss murdstone in a disdainful voice, "and on the return of miss spenlow from her visit to her friend miss mills, i imagined that the manner of miss spenlow gave me greater occasion for suspicion than before. therefore i watched miss spenlow closely." dear, tender little dora, so unconscious of this dragon's eye! "still," resumed miss murdstone, "i found no proof until last night. it appeared to me that miss spenlow received too many letters from her friend miss mills; but miss mills being her friend with her father's full concurrence," another telling blow at mr. spenlow, "it was not for me to interfere. if i may not be permitted to allude to the natural depravity of the human heart, at least i may--i must--be permitted, so far to refer to misplaced confidence." mr. spenlow apologetically murmured his assent. "last evening after tea," pursued miss murdstone, "i observed the little dog starting, rolling, and growling about the drawing-room, worrying something. i said to miss spenlow, 'dora, what is that the dog has in his mouth? it's paper.' miss spenlow immediately put her hand to her frock, gave a sudden cry, and ran to the dog. i interposed, and said 'dora my love, you must permit me.'" oh jip, miserable spaniel, this wretchedness, then, was your work! "miss spenlow endeavoured" said miss murdstone "to bribe me with kisses, work-boxes, and small articles of jewellery--that, of course, i pass over. the little dog retreated under the sofa on my approaching him, and was with great difficulty dislodged by the fire-irons. even when dislodged, he still kept the letter in his mouth; and on my endeavouring to take it from him, at the imminent risk of being bitten, he kept it between his teeth so pertinaciously as to suffer himself to be held suspended in the air by means of the document. at length i obtained possession of it. after perusing it, i taxed miss spenlow with having many such letters in her possession; and ultimately obtained from her, the packet which is now in david copperfield's hand." here she ceased; and snapping her reticule again, and shutting her mouth, looked as if she might be broken, but could never be bent. "you have heard miss murdstone," said mr. spenlow, turning to me. "i beg to ask, mr. copperfield, if you have anything to say in reply?" the picture i had before me, of the beautiful little treasure of my heart, sobbing and crying all night--of her being alone, frightened, and wretched, then--of her having so piteously begged and prayed that stony-hearted woman to forgive her--of her having vainly offered her those kisses, work-boxes, and trinkets--of her being in such grievous distress, and all for me--very much impaired the little dignity i had been able to muster. i am afraid i was in a tremulous state for a minute or so, though i did my best to disguise it. "there is nothing i can say, sir," i returned, "except that all the blame is mine. dora--" "miss spenlow, if you please," said her father, majestically. "--was induced and persuaded by me," i went on, swallowing that colder designation, "to consent to this concealment, and i bitterly regret it." "you are very much to blame, sir," said mr. spenlow, walking to and fro upon the hearth-rug, and emphasizing what he said with his whole body instead of his head, on account of the stiffness of his cravat and spine. "you have done a stealthy and unbecoming action, mr. copperfield. when i take a gentleman to my house, no matter whether he is nineteen, twenty-nine, or ninety, i take him there in a spirit of confidence. if he abuses my confidence, he commits a dishonourable action, mr. copperfield." "i feel it, sir, i assure you," i returned. "but i never thought so, before. sincerely, honestly, indeed, mr. spenlow, i never thought so, before. i love miss spenlow to that extent--" "pooh! nonsense!" said mr. spenlow, reddening. "pray don't tell me to my face that you love my daughter, mr. copperfield!" "could i defend my conduct if i did not, sir?" i returned, with all humility. "can you defend your conduct if you do, sir?" said mr. spenlow, stopping short upon the hearth-rug. "have you considered your years, and my daughter's years, mr. copperfield? have you considered what it is to undermine the confidence that should subsist between my daughter and myself? have you considered my daughter's station in life, the projects i may contemplate for her advancement, the testamentary intentions i may have with reference to her? have you considered anything, mr. copperfield?" "very little, sir, i am afraid;" i answered, speaking to him as respectfully and sorrowfully as i felt; "but pray believe me, i have considered my own worldly position. when i explained it to you, we were already engaged--" "i beg," said mr. spenlow, more like punch than i had ever seen him, as he energetically struck one hand upon the other--i could not help noticing that even in my despair; "that you will not talk to me of engagements, mr. copperfield!" the otherwise immoveable miss murdstone laughed contemptuously in one short syllable. "when i explained my altered position to you, sir," i began again, substituting a new form of expression for what was so unpalatable to him, "this concealment, into which i am so unhappy as to have led miss spenlow, had begun. since i have been in that altered position, i have strained every nerve, i have exerted every energy, to improve it. i am sure i shall improve it in time. will you grant me time--any length of time? we are both so young, sir,--" "you are right," interrupted mr. spenlow, nodding his head a great many times, and frowning very much, "you are both very young. it's all nonsense. let there be an end of the nonsense. take away those letters, and throw them in the fire. give me miss spenlow's letters to throw in the fire; and although our future intercourse must, you are aware, be restricted to the commons here, we will agree to make no further mention of the past. come, mr. copperfield, you don't want sense; and this is the sensible course." no. i couldn't think of agreeing to it. i was very sorry, but there was a higher consideration than sense. love was above all earthly considerations, and i loved dora to idolatry, and dora loved me. i didn't exactly say so; i softened it down as much as i could; but i implied it, and i was resolute upon it. i don't think i made myself very ridiculous, but i know i was resolute. "very well, mr. copperfield," said mr. spenlow, "i must try my influence with my daughter." miss murdstone, by an expressive sound, a long drawn respiration, which was neither a sigh nor a moan, but was like both, gave it as her opinion that he should have done this at first. "i must try," said mr. spenlow, confirmed by this support, "my influence with my daughter. do you decline to take those letters, mr. copperfield?" for i had laid them on the table. yes. i told him i hoped he would not think it wrong, but i couldn't possibly take them from miss murdstone. "nor from me?" said mr. spenlow. no, i replied with the profoundest respect; nor from him. "very well!" said mr. spenlow. a silence succeeding, i was undecided whether to go or stay. at length i was moving quietly towards the door, with the intention of saying that perhaps i should consult his feelings best by withdrawing: when he said, with his hands in his coat pockets, into which it was as much as he could do to get them; and with what i should call, upon the whole, a decidedly pious air: "you are probably aware, mr. copperfield, that i am not altogether destitute of worldly possessions, and that my daughter is my nearest and dearest relative?" i hurriedly made him a reply to the effect, that i hoped the error into which i had been betrayed by the desperate nature of my love, did not induce him to think me mercenary too? "i don't allude to the matter in that light," said mr. spenlow. "it would be better for yourself, and all of us, if you _were_ mercenary, mr. copperfield--i mean, if you were more discreet and less influenced by all this youthful nonsense. no. i merely say, with quite another view, you are probably aware i have some property to bequeath to my child?" i certainly supposed so. "and you can hardly think," said mr. spenlow, "having experience of what we see, in the commons here, every day, of the various unaccountable and negligent proceedings of men, in respect of their testamentary arrangements--of all subjects, the one on which perhaps the strangest revelations of human inconsistency are to be met with--but that mine are made?" i inclined my head in acquiescence. "i should not allow," said mr. spenlow, with an evident increase of pious sentiment, and slowly shaking his head as he poised himself upon his toes and heels alternately, "my suitable provision for my child to be influenced by a piece of youthful folly like the present. it is mere folly. mere nonsense. in a little while, it will weigh lighter than any feather. but i might--i might--if this silly business were not completely relinquished altogether, be induced in some anxious moment to guard her from, and surround her with protections against, the consequences of, any foolish step in the way of marriage. now, mr. copperfield, i hope that you will not render it necessary for me to open, even for a quarter of an hour, that closed page in the book of life, and unsettle, even for a quarter of an hour, grave affairs long since composed." there was a serenity, a tranquillity, a calm-sunset air about him, which quite affected me. he was so peaceful and resigned--clearly had his affairs in such perfect train, and so systematically wound up--that he was a man to feel touched in the contemplation of. i really think i saw tears rise to his eyes, from the depth of his own feeling of all this. but what could i do? i could not deny dora and my own heart. when he told me i had better take a week to consider of what he had said, how could i say i wouldn't take a week, yet how could i fail to know that no amount of weeks could influence such love as mine? "in the meantime, confer with miss trotwood, or with any person with any knowledge of life," said mr. spenlow, adjusting his cravat with both hands. "take a week, mr. copperfield." i submitted; and, with a countenance as expressive as i was able to make it of dejected and despairing constancy, came out of the room. miss murdstone's heavy eyebrows followed me to the door--i say her eyebrows rather than her eyes, because they were much more important in her face--and she looked so exactly as she used to look, at about that hour of the morning, in our parlour at blunderstone, that i could have fancied i had been breaking down in my lessons again, and that the dead weight on my mind was that horrible old spelling-book, with oval woodcuts, shaped, to my youthful fancy, like the glasses out of spectacles. when i got to the office, and, shutting out old tiffey and the rest of them with my hands, sat at my desk, in my own particular nook, thinking of this earthquake that had taken place so unexpectedly, and in the bitterness of my spirit cursing jip, i fell into such a state of torment about dora, that i wonder i did not take up my hat and rush insanely to norwood. the idea of their frightening her, and making her cry, and of my not being there to comfort her, was so excruciating, that it impelled me to write a wild letter to mr. spenlow, beseeching him not to visit upon her the consequences of my awful destiny. i implored him to spare her gentle nature--not to crush a fragile flower--and addressed him generally, to the best of my remembrance, as if, instead of being her father, he had been an ogre, or the dragon of wantley. this letter i sealed and laid upon his desk before he returned; and when he came in, i saw him, through the half-opened door of his room, take it up and read it. he said nothing about it all the morning; but before he went away in the afternoon he called me in, and told me that i need not make myself at all uneasy about his daughter's happiness. he had assured her, he said, that it was all nonsense; and he had nothing more to say to her. he believed he was an indulgent father (as indeed he was), and i might spare myself any solicitude on her account. "you may make it necessary, if you are foolish or obstinate, mr. copperfield," he observed, "for me to send my daughter abroad again, for a term; but i have a better opinion of you. i hope you will be wiser than that, in a few days. as to miss murdstone," for i had alluded to her in the letter, "i respect that lady's vigilance, and feel obliged to her; but she has strict charge to avoid the subject. all i desire, mr. copperfield, is, that it should be forgotten. all you have got to do, mr. copperfield, is, to forget it." all! in the note i wrote to miss mills, i bitterly quoted this sentiment. all i had to do, i said, with gloomy sarcasm, was to forget dora. that was all, and what was that! i entreated miss mills to see me, that evening. if it could not be done with mr. mills's sanction and concurrence, i besought a clandestine interview in the back kitchen where the mangle was. i informed her that my reason was tottering on its throne, and only she, miss mills, could prevent its being deposed. i signed myself, hers distractedly; and i couldn't help feeling, when i read this composition over, before sending it by a porter, that it was something in the style of mr. micawber. however, i sent it. at night i repaired to miss mills's street, and walked up and down, until i was stealthily fetched in by miss mills's maid, and taken the area way to the back kitchen. i have since seen reason to believe that there was nothing on earth to prevent my going in at the front door, and being shown up into the drawing-room, except miss mills's love of the romantic and mysterious. in the back kitchen, i raved as became me. i went there, i suppose, to make a fool of myself, and i am quite sure i did it. miss mills had received a hasty note from dora, telling her that all was discovered, and saying, "oh pray come to me, julia, do, do!" but miss mills, mistrusting the acceptability of her presence to the higher powers, had not yet gone; and we were all benighted in the desert of sahara. miss mills had a wonderful flow of words, and liked to pour them out. i could not help feeling, though she mingled her tears with mine, that she had a dreadful luxury in our afflictions. she petted them, as i may say, and made the most of them. a deep gulf, she observed, had opened between dora and me, and love could only span it with its rainbow. love must suffer in this stern world; it ever had been so, it ever would be so. no matter, miss mills remarked. hearts confined by cobwebs would burst at last, and then love was avenged. this was small consolation, but miss mills wouldn't encourage fallacious hopes. she made me much more wretched than i was before, and i felt (and told her with the deepest gratitude) that she was indeed a friend. we resolved that she should go to dora the first thing in the morning, and find some means of assuring her, either by looks or words, of my devotion and misery. we parted, overwhelmed with grief; and i think miss mills enjoyed herself completely. i confided all to my aunt when i got home; and in spite of all she could say to me, went to bed despairing. i got up despairing, and went out despairing. it was saturday morning, and i went straight to the commons. i was surprised, when i came within sight of our office-door, to see the ticket-porters standing outside talking together, and some half dozen stragglers gazing at the windows which were shut up. i quickened my pace, and, passing among them, wondering at their looks, went hurriedly in. the clerks were there, but nobody was doing anything. old tiffey, for the first time in his life i should think, was sitting on somebody else's stool, and had not hung up his hat. "this is a dreadful calamity, mr. copperfield," said he, as i entered. "what is?" i exclaimed. "what's the matter?" "don't you know?" cried tiffey, and all the rest of them, coming round me. "no!" said i, looking from face to face. "mr. spenlow," said tiffey. "what about him!" "dead!" i thought it was the office reeling, and not i, as one of the clerks caught hold of me. they sat me down in a chair, untied my neckcloth, and brought me some water. i have no idea whether this took any time. "dead?" said i. "he dined in town yesterday, and drove down in the phaeton by himself," said tiffey, "having sent his own groom home by the coach, as he sometimes did, you know----" "well?" "the phaeton went home without him. the horses stopped at the stable gate. the man went out with a lantern. nobody in the carriage." "had they run away?" "they were not hot," said tiffey, putting on his glasses; "no hotter, i understand, than they would have been, going down at the usual pace. the reins were broken, but they had been dragging on the ground. the house was roused up directly, and three of them went out along the road. they found him a mile off." "more than a mile off, mr. tiffey," interposed a junior. "was it? i believe you are right," said tiffey,--"_more_ than a mile off--not far from the church--lying partly on the road-side, and partly on the path, upon his face. whether he fell out in a fit, or got out, feeling ill before the fit came on--or even whether he was quite dead then, though there is no doubt he was quite insensible--no one appears to know. if he breathed, certainly he never spoke. medical assistance was got as soon as possible, but it was quite useless." i cannot describe the state of mind into which i was thrown by this intelligence. the shock of such an event happening so suddenly, and happening to one with whom i had been in any respect at variance--the appalling vacancy in the room he had occupied so lately, where his chair and table seemed to wait for him, and his handwriting of yesterday was like a ghost--the indefinable impossibility of separating him from the place, and feeling, when the door opened, as if he might come in--the lazy hush and rest there was in the office, and the insatiable relish with which our people talked about it, and other people came in and out all day, and gorged themselves with the subject--this is easily intelligible to any one. what i cannot describe is, how, in the innermost recesses of my own heart, i had a lurking jealousy even of death. how i felt as if its might would push me from my ground in dora's thoughts. how i was, in a grudging way i have no words for, envious of her grief. how it made me restless to think of her weeping to others, or being consoled by others. how i had a grasping, avaricious wish to shut out everybody from her but myself, and to be all in all to her, at that unseasonable time of all times. in the trouble of this state of mind--not exclusively my own, i hope, but known to others--i went down to norwood that night; and finding from one of the servants, when i made my inquiries at the door, that miss mills was there, got my aunt to direct a letter to her, which i wrote. i deplored the untimely death of mr. spenlow most sincerely, and shed tears in doing so. i entreated her to tell dora, if dora were in a state to hear it, that he had spoken to me with the utmost kindness and consideration; and had coupled nothing but tenderness, not a single or reproachful word, with her name. i know i did this selfishly, to have my name brought before her; but i tried to believe it was an act of justice to his memory. perhaps i did believe it. my aunt received a few lines next day in reply; addressed, outside, to her; within, to me. dora was overcome by grief; and when her friend had asked her should she send her love to me, had only cried, as she was always crying, "oh, dear papa! oh, poor papa!" but she had not said no, and that i made the most of. mr. jorkins, who had been at norwood since the occurrence, came to the office a few days afterwards. he and tiffey were closeted together for some few moments, and then tiffey looked out at the door and beckoned me in. "oh!" said mr. jorkins. "mr. tiffey and myself, mr. copperfield, are about to examine the desk, the drawers, and other such repositories of the deceased, with the view of sealing up his private papers, and searching for a will. there is no trace of any, elsewhere. it may be as well for you to assist us, if you please." i had been in agony to obtain some knowledge of the circumstances in which my dora would be placed--as, in whose guardianship, and so forth--and this was something towards it. we began the search at once; mr. jorkins unlocking the drawers and desks, and we all taking out the papers. the office-papers we placed on one side, and the private papers (which were not numerous) on the other. we were very grave; and when we came to a stray seal, or pencil-case, or ring, or any little article of that kind which we associated personally with him, we spoke very low. we had sealed up several packets; and were still going on dustily and quietly, when mr. jorkins said to us, applying exactly the same words to his late partner as his late partner had applied to him: "mr. spenlow was very difficult to move from the beaten track. you know what he was! i am disposed to think he had made no will." "oh, i know he had!" said i. they both stopped and looked at me. "on the very day when i last saw him," said i, "he told me that he had, and that his affairs were long since settled." mr. jorkins and old tiffey shook their heads with one accord. "that looks unpromising," said tiffey. "very unpromising," said mr. jorkins. "surely you don't doubt--" i began. "my good mr. copperfield!" said tiffey, laying his hand upon my arm, and shutting up both his eyes as he shook his head: "if you had been in the commons as long as i have, you would know that there is no subject on which men are so inconsistent, and so little to be trusted." "why, bless my soul, he made that very remark!" i replied persistently. "i should call that almost final," observed tiffey. "my opinion is--no will." it appeared a wonderful thing to me, but it turned out that there _was_ no will. he had never so much as thought of making one, so far as his papers afforded any evidence; for there was no kind of hint, sketch, or memorandum, of any testamentary intention whatever. what was scarcely less astonishing to me, was, that his affairs were in a most disordered state. it was extremely difficult, i heard, to make out what he owed, or what he had paid, or of what he died possessed. it was considered likely that for years he could have had no clear opinion on these subjects himself. by little and little it came out, that, in the competition on all points of appearance and gentility then running high in the commons, he had spent more than his professional income, which was not a very large one, and had reduced his private means, if they ever had been great (which was exceedingly doubtful), to a very low ebb indeed. there was a sale of the furniture and lease, at norwood; and tiffey told me, little thinking how interested i was in the story, that, paying all the just debts of the deceased, and deducting his share of outstanding bad and doubtful debts due to the firm, he wouldn't give a thousand pounds for all the assets remaining. this was at the expiration of about six weeks. i had suffered tortures all the time; and thought i really must have laid violent hands upon myself, when miss mills still reported to me, that my broken-hearted little dora would say nothing, when i was mentioned, but "oh, poor papa! oh, dear papa!" also, that she had no other relations than two aunts, maiden sisters of mr. spenlow, who lived at putney, and who had not held any other than chance communication with their brother for many years. not that they had ever quarrelled (miss mills informed me); but that having been, on the occasion of dora's christening, invited to tea, when they considered themselves privileged to be invited to dinner, they had expressed their opinion in writing, that it was "better for the happiness of all parties" that they should stay away. since which they had gone their road, and their brother had gone his. these two ladies now emerged from their retirement, and proposed to take dora to live at putney. dora, clinging to them both, and weeping, exclaimed, "o yes, aunts! please take julia mills and me and jip to putney!" so they went, very soon after the funeral. how i found time to haunt putney, i am sure i don't know; but i contrived, by some means or other, to prowl about the neighbourhood pretty often. miss mills, for the more exact discharge of the duties of friendship, kept a journal; and she used to meet me sometimes, on the common, and read it, or (if she had not time to do that) lend it to me. how i treasured up the entries, of which i subjoin a sample! "monday. my sweet d. still much depressed. headache. called attention to j. as being beautifully sleek. d. fondled j. associations thus awakened, opened floodgates of sorrow. rush of grief admitted. (are tears the dewdrops of the heart? j. m.) "tuesday. d. weak and nervous. beautiful in pallor. (do we not remark this in moon likewise? j. m.) d. j. m. and j. took airing in carriage. j. looking out of window, and barking violently at dustman, occasioned smile to overspread features of d. (of such slight links is chain of life composed! j. m.) "wednesday. d. comparatively cheerful. sang to her, as congenial melody, evening bells. effect not soothing, but reverse. d. inexpressibly affected. found sobbing afterwards, in own room. quoted verses respecting self and young gazelle. ineffectually. also referred to patience on monument. (qy. why on monument? j. m.) "thursday. d. certainly improved. better night. slight tinge of damask revisiting cheek. resolved to mention name of d. c. introduced same, cautiously, in course of airing. d. immediately overcome. 'oh, dear, dear julia! oh, i have been a naughty and undutiful child!' soothed and caressed. drew ideal picture of d. c. on verge of tomb. d. again overcome. 'oh, what shall i do, what shall i do? oh, take me somewhere!' much alarmed. fainting of d. and glass of water from public-house. (poetical affinity. chequered sign on door-post; chequered human life. alas! j. m.) "friday. day of incident. man appears in kitchen, with blue bag, 'for lady's boots left out to heel.' cook replies, 'no such orders.' man argues point. cook withdraws to inquire, leaving man alone with j. on cook's return, man still argues point, but ultimately goes. j. missing. d. distracted. information sent to police. man to be identified by broad nose, and legs like balustrades of bridge. search made in every direction. no j. d. weeping bitterly, and inconsolable. renewed reference to young gazelle. appropriate, but unavailing. towards evening, strange boy calls. brought into parlour. broad nose, but no balustrades. says he wants a pound, and knows a dog. declines to explain further, though much pressed. pound being produced by d. takes cook to little house, where j. alone tied up to leg of table. joy of d. who dances round j. while he eats his supper. emboldened by this happy change, mention d. c. upstairs. d. weeps afresh, cries piteously. 'oh, don't, don't, don't. it is so wicked to think of anything but poor papa!'--embraces j. and sobs herself to sleep. (must not d. c. confide himself to the broad pinions of time? j. m.)" miss mills and her journal were my sole consolation at this period. to see her, who had seen dora but a little while before--to trace the initial letter of dora's name through her sympathetic pages--to be made more and more miserable by her--were my only comforts. i felt as if i had been living in a palace of cards, which had tumbled down, leaving only miss mills and me among the ruins; as if some grim enchanter had drawn a magic circle round the innocent goddess of my heart, which nothing indeed but those same strong pinions, capable of carrying so many people over so much, would enable me to enter! chapter xxxix. wickfield and heep. my aunt, beginning, i imagine, to be made seriously uncomfortable by my prolonged dejection, made a pretence of being anxious that i should go to dover, to see that all was working well at the cottage, which was let; and to conclude an agreement, with the same tenant, for a longer term of occupation. janet was drafted into the service of mrs. strong, where i saw her every day. she had been undecided, on leaving dover, whether or no to give the finishing touch to that renunciation of mankind in which she had been educated, by marrying a pilot; but she decided against that venture. not so much for the sake of principle, i believe, as because she happened not to like him. although it required an effort to leave miss mills, i fell rather willingly into my aunt's pretence, as a means of enabling me to pass a few tranquil hours with agnes. i consulted the good doctor relative to an absence of three days; and the doctor wishing me to take that relaxation,--he wished me to take more; but my energy could not bear that,--i made up my mind to go. as to the commons, i had no great occasion to be particular about my duties in that quarter. to say the truth, we were getting in no very good odour among the tip-top proctors, and were rapidly sliding down to but a doubtful position. the business had been indifferent under mr. jorkins, before mr. spenlow's time; and although it had been quickened by the infusion of new blood, and by the display which mr. spenlow made, still it was not established on a sufficiently strong basis to bear, without being shaken, such a blow as the sudden loss of its active manager. it fell off very much. mr. jorkins, notwithstanding his reputation in the firm, was an easy-going, incapable, sort of man, whose reputation out of doors was not calculated to back it up. i was turned over to him now, and when i saw him take his snuff and let the business go, i regretted my aunt's thousand pounds more than ever. but this was not the worst of it. there were a number of hangers-on and outsiders about the commons, who, without being proctors themselves, dabbled in common-form business, and got it done by real proctors, who lent their names in consideration of a share in the spoil;--and there were a good many of these too. as our house now wanted business on any terms, we joined this noble band; and threw out lures to the hangers-on and outsiders, to bring their business to us. marriage licenses and small probates were what we all looked for, and what paid us best; and the competition for these, ran very high indeed. kidnappers and inveiglers were planted in all the avenues of entrance to the commons, with instructions to do their utmost to cut off all persons in mourning, and all gentlemen with anything bashful in their appearance, and entice them to the offices in which their respective employers were interested; which instructions were so well observed, that i myself, before i was known by sight, was twice hustled into the premises of our principal opponent. the conflicting interests of these touting gentlemen being of a nature to irritate their feelings, personal collisions took place; and the commons was even scandalised by our principal inveigler (who had formerly been in the wine trade, and afterwards in the sworn brokery line) walking about for some days with a black eye. any one of these scouts used to think nothing of politely assisting an old lady in black out of a vehicle, killing any proctor whom she inquired for, representing his employer as the lawful successor and representative of that proctor, and bearing the old lady off (sometimes greatly affected) to his employer's office. many captives were brought to me in this way. as to marriage licenses, the competition rose to such a pitch, that a shy gentleman in want of one, had nothing to do but submit himself to the first inveigler, or be fought for, and become the prey of the strongest. one of our clerks, who was an outsider, used, in the height of this contest, to sit with his hat on, that he might be ready to rush out and swear before a surrogate any victim who was brought in. the system of inveigling continues, i believe, to this day. the last time i was in the commons, a civil able-bodied person in a white apron pounced out upon me from a doorway, and whispering the word "marriage-license" in my ear, was with great difficulty prevented from taking me up in his arms and lifting me into a proctor's. from this digression, let me proceed to dover. i found everything in a satisfactory state at the cottage; and was enabled to gratify my aunt exceedingly by reporting that the tenant inherited her feud, and waged incessant war against donkies. having settled the little business i had to transact there, and slept there one night, i walked on to canterbury early in the morning. it was now winter again; and the fresh, cold windy day, and the sweeping downland, brightened up my hopes a little. coming into canterbury, i loitered through the old streets with a sober pleasure that calmed my spirits, and eased my heart. there were the old signs, the old names over the shops, the old people serving in them. it appeared so long, since i had been a schoolboy there, that i wondered the place was so little changed, until i reflected how little i was changed myself. strange to say, that quiet influence which was inseparable in my mind from agnes, seemed to pervade even the city where she dwelt. the venerable cathedral towers, and the old jackdaws and rooks whose airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence would have done; the battered gateways, once stuck full with statues, long thrown down, and crumbled away, like the reverential pilgrims who had gazed upon them; the still nooks, where the ivied growth of centuries crept over gabled ends and ruined walls; the ancient houses, the pastoral landscape of field, orchard, and garden; everywhere--on everything--i felt the same serener air, the same calm, thoughtful, softening spirit. arrived at mr. wickfield's house, i found, in the little lower-room on the ground floor, where uriah heep had been of old accustomed to sit, mr. micawber plying his pen with great assiduity. he was dressed in a legal-looking suit of black, and loomed, burly and large, in that small office. mr. micawber was extremely glad to see me, but a little confused too. he would have conducted me immediately into the presence of uriah, but i declined. "i know the house of old, you recollect," said i, "and will find my way up stairs. how do you like the law, mr. micawber?" "my dear copperfield," he replied. "to a man possessed of the higher imaginative powers, the objection to legal studies is the amount of detail which they involve. even in our professional correspondence," said mr. micawber, glancing at some letters he was writing, "the mind is not at liberty to soar to any exalted form of expression. still, it is a great pursuit. a great pursuit!" he then told me that he had become the tenant of uriah heep's old house; and that mrs. micawber would be delighted to receive me, once more, under her own roof. "it is humble," said mr. micawber, "--to quote a favourite expression of my friend heep; but it may prove the stepping-stone to more ambitious domiciliary accommodation." i asked him whether he had reason, so far, to be satisfied with his friend heep's treatment of him? he got up to ascertain if the door were close shut, before he replied, in a lower voice: "my dear copperfield, a man who labours under the pressure of pecuniary embarrassments, is, with the generality of people, at a disadvantage. that disadvantage is not diminished, when that pressure necessitates the drawing of stipendiary emoluments, before those emoluments are strictly due and payable. all i can say is, that my friend heep has responded to appeals to which i need not more particularly refer, in a manner calculated to redound equally to the honour of his head, and of his heart." "i should not have supposed him to be very free with his money either," i observed. "pardon me!" said mr. micawber, with an air of constraint, "i speak of my friend heep as i have experience." "i am glad your experience is so favourable," i returned. "you are very obliging, my dear copperfield," said mr. micawber; and hummed a tune. "do you see much of mr. wickfield?" i asked, to change the subject. "not much," said mr. micawber, slightingly. "mr. wickfield is, i dare say, a man of very excellent intentions; but he is--in short, he is obsolete." "i am afraid his partner seeks to make him so," said i. "my dear copperfield!" returned mr. micawber, after some uneasy evolutions on his stool, "allow me to offer a remark! i am here, in a capacity of confidence. i am here, in a position of trust. the discussion of some topics, even with mrs. micawber herself (so long the partner of my various vicissitudes, and a woman of a remarkable lucidity of intellect), is, i am led to consider, incompatible with the functions now devolving on me. i would therefore take the liberty of suggesting that in our friendly intercourse--which i trust will never be disturbed!--we draw a line. on one side of this line," said mr. micawber, representing it on the desk with the office ruler, "is the whole range of the human intellect, with a trifling exception; on the other, _is_ that exception; that is to say, the affairs of messrs. wickfield and heep, with all belonging and appertaining thereunto. i trust i give no offence to the companion of my youth, in submitting this proposition to his cooler judgment?" though i saw an uneasy change in mr. micawber, which sat tightly on him, as if his new duties were a misfit, i felt i had no right to be offended. my telling him so, appeared to relieve him; and he shook hands with me. "i am charmed, copperfield," said mr. micawber, "let me assure you, with miss wickfield. she is a very superior young lady, of very remarkable attractions, graces, and virtues. upon my honour," said mr. micawber, indefinitely kissing his hand and bowing with his genteelest air, "i do homage to miss wickfield! hem!" "i am glad of that, at least," said i. "if you had not assured us, my dear copperfield, on the occasion of that agreeable afternoon we had the happiness of passing with you, that d was your favourite letter," said mr. micawber, "i should unquestionably have supposed that a had been so." we have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time--of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances--of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remembered it! i never had this mysterious impression more strongly in my life, than before he uttered those words. i took my leave of mr. micawber, for the time, charging him with my best remembrances to all at home. as i left him, resuming his stool and his pen, and rolling his head in his stock, to get it into easier writing order, i clearly perceived that there was something interposed between him and me, since he had come into his new functions which prevented our getting at each other as we used to do, and quite altered the character of our intercourse. there was no one in the quaint old drawing-room, though it presented tokens of mrs. heep's whereabout. i looked into the room still belonging to agnes, and saw her sitting by the fire, at a pretty old fashioned desk she had, writing. my darkening the light made her look up. what a pleasure to be the cause of that bright change in her attentive face, and the object of that sweet regard and welcome! "ah, agnes!" said i, when we were sitting together, side by side; "i have missed you so much, lately!" "indeed?" she replied. "again! and so soon?" i shook my head. "i don't know how it is, agnes; i seem to want some faculty of mind that i ought to have. you were so much in the habit of thinking for me, in the happy old days here, and i came so naturally to you for counsel and support, that i really think i have missed acquiring it?" "and what is it?" said agnes, cheerfully. "i don't know what to call it," i replied. "i think i am earnest and persevering?" "i am sure of it," said agnes. "and patient, agnes?" i enquired, with a little hesitation. "yes," returned agnes, laughing. "pretty well." "and yet," said i, "i get so miserable and worried, and am so unsteady and irresolute in my power of assuring myself, that i know i must want--shall i call it--reliance, of some kind?" "call it so, if you will," said agnes. "well!" i returned. "see here! you come to london, i rely on you, and i have an object and a course at once. i am driven out of it, i come here, and in a moment i feel an altered person. the circumstances that distressed me are not changed, since i came into this room; but an influence comes over me in that short interval that alters me, oh, how much for the better! what is it? what is your secret, agnes?" her head was bent down, looking at the fire. "it's the old story," said i. "don't laugh, when i say it was always the same in little things as it is in greater ones. my old troubles were nonsense, and now they are serious; but whenever i have gone away from my adopted sister--" agnes looked up--with such a heavenly face!--and gave me her hand, which i kissed. "whenever i have not had you, agnes, to advise and approve in the beginning, i have seemed to go wild, and to get into all sorts of difficulty. when i have come to you, at last (as i have always done), i have come to peace and happiness. i come home, now, like a tired traveller, and find such a blessed sense of rest!" i felt so deeply what i said, it affected me so sincerely, that my voice failed, and i covered my face with my hand, and broke into tears. i write the truth. whatever contradictions and inconsistencies there were within me, as there are within so many of us; whatever might have been so different, and so much better; whatever i had done, in which i had perversely wandered away from the voice of my own heart; i knew nothing of. i only knew that i was fervently in earnest, when i felt the rest and peace of having agnes near me. in her placid sisterly manner; with her beaming eyes; with her tender voice; and with that sweet composure, which had long ago made the house that held her quite a sacred place to me; she soon won me from this weakness, and led me on to tell all that had happened since our last meeting. "and there is not another word to tell, agnes," said i, when i had made an end of my confidence. "now, my reliance is on you." "but it must not be on me, trotwood," returned agnes, with a pleasant smile. "it must be on some one else." "on dora?" said i. "assuredly." "why, i have not mentioned, agnes," said i, a little embarrassed, "that dora is rather difficult to--i would not, for the world, say, to rely upon, because she is the soul of purity and truth--but rather difficult to--i hardly know how to express it, really, agnes. she is a timid little thing, and easily disturbed and frightened. some time ago, before her father's death, when i thought it right to mention to her--but i'll tell you, if you will bear with me, how it was." accordingly, i told agnes about my declaration of poverty, about the cookery-book, the housekeeping accounts, and all the rest of it. "oh, trotwood!" she remonstrated, with a smile. "just your old headlong way! you might have been in earnest in striving to get on in the world, without being so very sudden with a timid, loving, inexperienced girl. poor dora!" i never heard such sweet forbearing kindness expressed in a voice, as she expressed in making this reply. it was as if i had seen her admiringly and tenderly embracing dora, and tacitly reproving me, by her considerate protection, for my hot haste in fluttering that little heart. it was as if i had seen dora, in all her fascinating artlessness, caressing agnes, and thanking her, and coaxingly appealing against me, and loving me with all her childish innocence. i felt so grateful to agnes, and admired her so! i saw those two together, in a bright perspective, such well-associated friends, each adorning the other so much! "what ought i to do then, agnes?" i inquired, after looking at the fire a little while. "what would it be right to do?" "i think," said agnes, "that the honourable course to take, would be to write to those two ladies. don't you think that any secret course is an unworthy one?" "yes. if _you_ think so," said i. "i am poorly qualified to judge of such matters," replied agnes, with a modest hesitation, "but i certainly feel--in short, i feel that your being secret and clandestine, is not being like yourself." "like myself, in the too high opinion you have of me, agnes, i am afraid," said i. "like yourself in the candour of your nature," she returned; "and therefore i would write to those two ladies. i would relate, as plainly and as openly as possible, all that has taken place; and i would ask their permission to visit sometimes, at their house. considering that you are young, and striving for a place in life, i think it would be well to say that you would readily abide by any conditions they might impose upon you. i would entreat them not to dismiss your request, without a reference to dora; and to discuss it with her when they should think the time suitable. i would not be too vehement," said agnes, gently, "or propose too much. i would trust to my fidelity and perseverance--and to dora." "but if they were to frighten dora again, agnes, by speaking to her," said i. "and if dora were to cry, and say nothing about me!" "is that likely?" inquired agnes, with the same sweet consideration in her face. "god bless her, she is as easily scared as a bird," said i. "it might be! or if the two miss spenlows (elderly ladies of that sort are odd characters sometimes) should not be likely persons to address in that way!" "i don't think, trotwood," returned agnes, raising her soft eyes to mine, "i would consider that. perhaps it would be better only to consider whether it is right to do this; and, if it is, to do it." i had no longer any doubt on the subject. with a lightened heart, though with a profound sense of the weighty importance of my task, i devoted the whole afternoon to the composition of the draft of this letter; for which great purpose, agnes relinquished her desk to me. but first i went down stairs to see mr. wickfield and uriah heep. i found uriah in possession of a new, plaster-smelling office, built out in the garden; looking extraordinarily mean, in the midst of a quantity of books and papers. he received me in his usual fawning way, and pretended not to have heard of my arrival from mr. micawber; a pretence i took the liberty of disbelieving. he accompanied me into mr. wickfield's room, which was the shadow of its former self--having been divested of a variety of conveniences, for the accommodation of the new partner--and stood before the fire, warming his back, and shaving his chin with his bony hand, while mr. wickfield and i exchanged greetings. "you stay with us, trotwood, while you remain in canterbury?" said mr. wickfield, not without a glance at uriah for his approval. "is there room for me?" said i. "i am sure, master copperfield--i should say mister, but the other comes so natural," said uriah,--"i would turn out of your old room with pleasure, if it would be agreeable." "no, no," said mr. wickfield. "why should _you_ be inconvenienced? there's another room. there's another room." "oh, but you know," returned uriah, with a grin, "i should really be delighted!" to cut the matter short, i said i would have the other room or none at all; so it was settled that i should have the other room: and, taking my leave of the firm until dinner, i went up stairs again. i had hoped, to have no other companion than agnes. but mrs. heep had asked permission to bring herself and her knitting near the fire, in that room; on pretence of its having an aspect more favourable for her rheumatics, as the wind then was, than the drawing-room or dining-parlour. though i could almost have consigned her to the mercies of the wind on the topmost pinnacle of the cathedral, without remorse, i made a virtue of necessity, and gave her a friendly salutation. "i'm umbly thankful to you, sir," said mrs. heep, in acknowledgment of my inquiries concerning her health, "but i'm only pretty well. i haven't much to boast of. if i could see my uriah well settled in life, i couldn't expect much more i think. how do you think my ury looking, sir?" i thought him looking as villanous as ever, and i replied that i saw no change in him. "oh, don't you think he's changed?" said mrs. heep. "there i must umbly beg leave to differ from you. don't you see a thinness in him?" "not more than usual," i replied. "_don't_ you though!" said mrs. heep. "but you don't take notice of him with a mother's eye!" his mother's eye was an evil eye to the rest of the world, i thought as it met mine, howsoever affectionate to him; and i believe she and her son were devoted to one another. it passed me, and went on to agnes. "don't _you_ see a wasting and a wearing in him, miss wickfield?" inquired mrs. heep. "no," said agnes, quietly pursuing the work on which she was engaged. "you are too solicitous about him. he is very well." mrs. heep, with a prodigious sniff, resumed her knitting. she never left off, or left us for a moment. i had arrived early in the day, and we had still three or four hours before dinner; but she sat there, plying her knitting-needles as monotonously as an hour-glass might have poured out its sands. she sat on one side of the fire; i sat at the desk in front of it; a little beyond me, on the other side, sat agnes. whensoever, slowly pondering over my letter, i lifted up my eyes, and meeting the thoughtful face of agnes, saw it clear, and beam encouragement upon me, with its own angelic expression, i was conscious presently of the evil eye passing me, and going on to her, and coming back to me again, and dropping furtively upon the knitting. what the knitting was, i don't know, not being learned in that art; but it looked like a net; and as she worked away with those chinese chopsticks of knitting-needles, she showed in the firelight like an ill-looking enchantress, baulked as yet by the radiant goodness opposite, but getting ready for a cast of her net by-and-by. at dinner she maintained her watch, with the same unwinking eyes. after dinner, her son took his turn; and when mr. wickfield, himself, and i were left alone together, leered at me, and writhed until i could hardly bear it. in the drawing-room, there was the mother knitting and watching again. all the time that agnes sang and played, the mother sat at the piano. once she asked for a particular ballad, which she said her ury (who was yawning in a great chair) doted on; and at intervals she looked round at him, and reported to agnes that he was in raptures with the music. but she hardly ever spoke--i question if she ever did--without making some mention of him. it was evident to me that this was the duty assigned to her. this lasted until bedtime. to have seen the mother and son, like two great bats hanging over the whole house, and darkening it with their ugly forms, made me so uncomfortable, that i would rather have remained down stairs, knitting and all, than gone to bed. i hardly got any sleep. next day the knitting and watching began again, and lasted all day. i had not an opportunity of speaking to agnes, for ten minutes. i could barely show her my letter. i proposed to her to walk out with me; but mrs. heep repeatedly complaining that she was worse, agnes charitably remained within, to bear her company. towards the twilight i went out by myself, musing on what i ought to do, and whether i was justified in withholding from agnes, any longer, what uriah heep had told me in london; for that began to trouble me again, very much. i had not walked out far enough to be quite clear of the town, upon the ramsgate road, where there was a good path, when i was hailed, through the dusk, by somebody behind me. the shambling figure, and the scanty great coat, were not to be mistaken. i stopped, and uriah heep came up. "well?" said i. "how fast you walk!" said he. "my legs are pretty long, but you've given 'em quite a job." "where are you going?" said i. "i am coming with you, master copperfield, if you'll allow me the pleasure of a walk with an old acquaintance." saying this, with a jerk of his body, which might have been either propitiatory or derisive, he fell into step beside me. "uriah!" said i, as civilly as i could, after a silence. "master copperfield!" said uriah. "to tell you the truth (at which you will not be offended), i came out to walk alone, because i have had so much company." he looked at me sideways, and said with his hardest grin, "you mean mother?" "why yes, i do," said i. "ah! but you know we're so very umble," he returned. "and having such a knowledge of our own umbleness, we must really take care that we're not pushed to the wall by them as isn't umble. all stratagems are fair in love, sir." raising his great hands until they touched his chin, he rubbed them softly, and softly chuckled; looking as like a malevolent baboon, i thought, as anything human could look. "you see," he said, still hugging himself in that unpleasant way, and shaking his head at me, "you're quite a dangerous rival, master copperfield. you always was, you know." "do you set a watch upon miss wickfield, and make her home no home, because of me?" said i. "oh! master copperfield! those are very arsh words," he replied. "put my meaning into any words you like," said i. "you know what it is, uriah, as well as i do." "oh no! you must put it into words," he said. "oh, really! i couldn't myself." "do you suppose," said i, constraining myself to be very temperate and quiet with him, on account of agnes, "that i regard miss wickfield otherwise than as a very dear sister?" "well, master copperfield," he replied, "you perceive i am not bound to answer that question. you may not, you know. but then, you see, you may!" anything to equal the low cunning of his visage, and of his shadowless eyes without the ghost of an eyelash, i never saw. "come, then!" said i. "for the sake of miss wickfield----" "my agnes!" he exclaimed, with a sickly, angular contortion of himself. "would you be so good as call her agnes, master copperfield!" "for the sake of agnes wickfield--heaven bless her!" "thank you for that blessing, master copperfield!" he interposed. "i will tell you what i should, under any other circumstances, as soon have thought of telling to--jack ketch." "to who, sir?" said uriah, stretching out his neck, and shading his ear with his hand. "to the hangman," i returned. "the most unlikely person i could think of,"--though his own face had suggested the allusion quite as a natural sequence. "i am engaged to another young lady. i hope that contents you." "upon your soul?" said uriah. i was about indignantly to give my assertion the confirmation he required, when he caught hold of my hand, and gave it a squeeze. "oh, master copperfield!" he said. "if you had only had the condescension to return my confidence when i poured out the fulness of my art, the night i put you so much out of the way by sleeping before your sitting-room fire, i never should have doubted you. as it is, i'm sure i'll take off mother directly, and only too appy. i know you'll excuse the precautions of affection, won't you? what a pity, master copperfield, that you didn't condescend to return my confidence! i'm sure i gave you every opportunity. but you never have condescended to me, as much as i could have wished. i know you have never liked me, as i have liked you!" all this time he was squeezing my hand with his damp fishey fingers, while i made every effort i decently could to get it away. but i was quite unsuccessful. he drew it under the sleeve of his mulberry-colored great coat, and i walked on, almost upon compulsion, arm in arm with him. "shall we turn?" said uriah, by-and-by wheeling me face about towards the town, on which the early moon was now shining, silvering the distant windows. "before we leave the subject, you ought to understand," said i, breaking a pretty long silence, "that i believe agnes wickfield to be as far above _you_, and as far removed from all _your_ aspirations, as that moon herself!" "peaceful! ain't she!" said uriah. "very! now confess, master copperfield, that you haven't liked me quite as i have liked you. all along you've thought me too umble now, i shouldn't wonder?" "i am not fond of professions of humility," i returned, "or professions of anything else." "there now!" said uriah, looking flabby and lead-coloured in the moonlight. "didn't i know it! but how little you think of the rightful umbleness of a person in my station, master copperfield! father and me was both brought up at a foundation school for boys; and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of charitable, establishment. they taught us all a deal of umbleness--not much else that i know of, from morning to night. we was to be umble to this person, and umble to that; and to pull off our caps here, and to make bows there; and always to know our place, and abase ourselves before our betters. and we had such a lot of betters! father got the monitor-medal by being umble. so did i. father got made a sexton by being umble. he had the character, among the gentlefolks, of being such a well-behaved man, that they were determined to bring him in. 'be umble, uriah,' says father to me, 'and you'll get on. it was what was always being dinned into you and me at school; it's what goes down best. be umble,' says father, 'and you'll do!' and really it ain't done bad!" it was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the heep family. i had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the seed. "when i was quite a young boy," said uriah, "i got to know what umbleness did, and i took to it. i ate umble pie with an appetite. i stopped at the umble point of my learning, and says i, 'hold hard!' when you offered to teach me latin, i knew better. 'people like to be above you,' says father, 'keep yourself down.' i am very umble to the present moment, master copperfield, but i've got a little power!" and he said all this--i knew, as i saw his face in the moonlight--that i might understand he was resolved to recompense himself by using his power. i had never doubted his meanness, his craft and malice; but i fully comprehended now, for the first time, what a base, unrelenting, and revengeful spirit, must have been engendered by this early, and this long, suppression. his account of himself was so far attended with an agreeable result, that it led to his withdrawing his hand in order that he might have another hug of himself under the chin. once apart from him, i was determined to keep apart; and we walked back, side by side, saying very little more by the way. whether his spirits were elevated by the communication i had made to him, or by his having indulged in this retrospect, i don't know; but they were raised by some influence. he talked more at dinner than was usual with him; asked his mother (off duty, from the moment of our re-entering the house), whether he was not growing too old for a bachelor; and once looked at agnes so, that i would have given all i had, for leave to knock him down. when we three males were left alone after dinner, he got into a more adventurous state. he had taken little or no wine; and i presume it was the mere insolence of triumph that was upon him, flushed perhaps by the temptation my presence furnished to its exhibition. i had observed yesterday, that he tried to entice mr. wickfield to drink; and, interpreting the look which agnes had given me as she went out, had limited myself to one glass, and then proposed that we should follow her. i would have done so again to-day; but uriah was too quick for me. "we seldom see our present visitor, sir," he said, addressing mr. wickfield, sitting, such a contrast to him, at the end of the table, "and i should propose to give him welcome in another glass or two of wine, if you have no objections. mr. copperfield, your elth and appiness!" i was obliged to make a show of taking the hand he stretched across to me; and then, with very different emotions, i took the hand of the broken gentleman, his partner. "come, fellow partner," said uriah, "if i may take the liberty,--now, suppose you give us something or another appropriate to copperfield!" i pass over mr. wickfield's proposing my aunt, his proposing mr. dick, his proposing doctor's commons, his proposing uriah, his drinking everything twice; his consciousness of his own weakness, the ineffectual effort that he made against it; the struggle between his shame in uriah's deportment, and his desire to conciliate him; the manifest exultation with which uriah twisted and turned, and held him up before me. it made me sick at heart to see, and my hand recoils from writing it. "come, fellow partner!" said uriah, at last, "_i_'ll give you another one, and i umbly ask for bumpers, seeing i intend to make it the divinest of her sex." her father had his empty glass in his hand. i saw him set it down, look at the picture she was so like, put his hand to his forehead, and shrink back in his elbow chair. "i'm an umble individual to give you her elth," proceeded uriah, "but i admire--adore her." no physical pain that her father's grey head could have borne, i think could have been more terrible to me, than the mental endurance i saw compressed now within both his hands. "agnes," said uriah, either not regarding him, or not knowing what the nature of his action was, "agnes wickfield is, i am safe to say, the divinest of her sex. may i speak out, among friends? to be her father is a proud distinction, but to be her usband--" spare me from ever again hearing such a cry, as that with which her father rose up from the table! "what's the matter?" said uriah, turning of a deadly colour. "you are not gone mad, after all, mr. wickfield, i hope? if i say, i've an ambition to make your agnes my agnes, i have as good a right to it as another man. i have a better right to it than any other man!" i had my arms round mr. wickfield, imploring him by everything that i could think of, oftenest of all by his love for agnes, to calm himself a little. he was mad for the moment; tearing out his hair, beating his head, trying to force me from him and to force himself from me, not answering a word, not looking at or seeing any one; blindly striving for he knew not what, his face all staring and distorted--a frightful spectacle. i conjured him, incoherently, but in the most impassioned manner, not to abandon himself to this wildness, but to hear me. i besought him to think of agnes, to connect me with agnes, to recollect how agnes and i had grown up together, how i honored her and loved her, how she was his pride and joy. i tried to bring her idea before him in any form; i even reproached him with not having firmness to spare her the knowledge of such a scene as this. i may have effected something, or his wildness may have spent itself; but by degrees he struggled less, and began to look at me--strangely at first, then with recognition in his eyes. at length he said, "i know, trotwood! my darling child and you--i know! but look at him!" he pointed to uriah, pale and glowering in a corner, evidently very much out in his calculations, and taken by surprise. "look at my torturer," he replied. "before him i have step by step abandoned name and reputation, peace and quiet, house and home." "i have kept your name and reputation for you, and your peace and quiet, and your house and home too," said uriah, with a sulky, hurried, defeated air of compromise. "don't be foolish, mr. wickfield. if i have gone a little beyond what you were prepared for, i can go back i suppose? there's no harm done." "i looked for single motives in every one," said mr. wickfield, "and i was satisfied i had bound him to me by motives of interest. but see what he is--oh, see what he is!" "you had better stop him, copperfield, if you can," cried uriah, with his long fore-finger pointing towards me. "he'll say something presently--mind you!--he'll be sorry to have said afterwards, and you'll be sorry to have heard!" "i'll say anything!" cried mr. wickfield, with a desperate air. "why should i not be in all the world's power if i am in yours!" "mind! i tell you!" said uriah, continuing to warn me. "if you don't stop his mouth, you're not his friend! why shouldn't you be in all the world's power, mr. wickfield? because you have got a daughter. you and me know what we know, don't we? let sleeping dogs lie--who wants to rouse 'em? i don't. can't you see i am as umble as i can be? i tell you, if i've gone too far, i'm sorry. what would you have, sir?" "oh, trotwood, trotwood!" exclaimed mr. wickfield, wringing his hands. "what i have come down to be, since i first saw you in this house! i was on my downward way then, but the dreary, dreary, road i have traversed since! weak indulgence has ruined me. indulgence in remembrance, and indulgence in forgetfulness. my natural grief for my child's mother turned to disease; my natural love for my child turned to disease. i have infected everything i touched. i have brought misery on what i dearly love, i know--_you_ know! i thought it possible that i could truly love one creature in the world, and not love the rest; i thought it possible that i could truly mourn for one creature gone out of the world, and not have some part in the grief of all who mourned. thus the lessons of my life have been perverted! i have preyed on my own morbid coward heart, and it has preyed on me. sordid in my grief, sordid in my love, sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both, oh see the ruin i am, and hate me, shun me!" he dropped into a chair, and weakly sobbed. the excitement into which he had been roused was leaving him. uriah came out of his corner. "i don't know all i have done, in my fatuity," said mr. wickfield, putting out his hands, as if to deprecate my condemnation. "_he_ knows best," meaning uriah heep, "for he has always been at my elbow, whispering me. you see the millstone that he is about my neck. you find him in my house, you find him in my business. you heard him, but a little time ago. what need have i to say more!" "you haven't need to say so much, nor half so much, nor anything at all," observed uriah, half defiant, and half fawning. "you wouldn't have took it up so, if it hadn't been for the wine. you'll think better of it to-morrow, sir. if i have said too much, or more than i meant, what of it? i haven't stood by it!" the door opened, and agnes, gliding in, without a vestige of colour in her face, put her arm round his neck, and steadily said, "papa, you are not well. come with me!" he laid his head upon her shoulder, as if he were oppressed with heavy shame, and went out with her. her eyes met mine for but an instant, yet i saw how much she knew of what had passed. "i didn't expect he'd cut up so rough, master copperfield," said uriah. "but it's nothing. i'll be friends with him to-morrow. it's for his good. i'm umbly anxious for his good." i gave him no answer, and went upstairs into the quiet room where agnes had so often sat beside me at my books. nobody came near me until late at night. i took up a book, and tried to read. i heard the clocks strike twelve, and was still reading, without knowing what i read, when agnes touched me. "you will be going early in the morning, trotwood. let us say good bye, now!" she had been weeping, but her face then was so calm and beautiful! "heaven bless you!" she said, giving me her hand. "dearest agnes!" i returned, "i see you ask me not to speak of to-night--but is there nothing to be done?" "there is god to trust in!" she replied. "can _i_ do nothing--_i_, who come to you with _my_ poor sorrows?" "and make mine so much lighter," she replied. "dear trotwood, no!" "dear agnes," i said, "it is presumptuous for me, who am so poor in all in which you are so rich--goodness, resolution, all noble qualities--to doubt or direct you; but you know how much i love you, and how much i owe you. you will never sacrifice yourself to a mistaken sense of duty, agnes?" more agitated for a moment than i had ever seen her, she took her hand from me, and moved a step back. "say you have no such thought, dear agnes! much more than sister! think of the priceless gift of such a heart as yours, of such a love as yours!" oh! long, long afterwards, i saw that face rise up before me, with its momentary look, not wondering, not accusing, not regretting. oh, long, long afterwards, i saw that look subside, as it did now, into the lovely smile, with which she told me she had no fear for herself--i need have none for her--and parted from me by the name of brother, and was gone! it was dark in the morning, when i got upon the coach at the inn door. the day was just breaking when we were about to start, and then, as i sat thinking of her, came struggling up the coach side, through the mingled day and night, uriah's head. "copperfield!" said he, in a croaking whisper, as he hung by the iron on the roof, "i thought you'd be glad to hear before you went off, that there are no squares broke between us. i've been into his room already, and we've made it all smooth. why, though i'm umble, i'm useful to him, you know; and he understands his interest when he isn't in liquor! what an agreeable man he is, after all, master copperfield!" i obliged myself to say that i was glad he had made his apology. "oh, to be sure!" said uriah. "when a person's umble, you know, what's an apology? so easy! i say! i suppose," with a jerk, "you have sometimes plucked a pear before it was ripe, master copperfield?" "i suppose i have," i replied. "_i_ did that last night," said uriah; "but it'll ripen yet! it only wants attending to. i can wait!" profuse in his farewells, he got down again as the coachman got up. for anything i know, he was eating something to keep the raw morning air out; but, he made motions with his mouth as if the pear were ripe already, and he were smacking his lips over it. chapter xl. the wanderer. we had a very serious conversation in buckingham street that night, about the domestic occurrences i have detailed in the last chapter. my aunt was deeply interested in them, and walked up and down the room with her arms folded, for more than two hours afterwards. whenever she was particularly discomposed, she always performed one of these pedestrian feats; and the amount of her discomposure might always be estimated by the duration of her walk. on this occasion she was so much disturbed in mind as to find it necessary to open the bed-room door, and make a course for herself, comprising the full extent of the bed-rooms from wall to wall; and while mr. dick and i sat quietly by the fire, she kept passing in and out, along this measured track, at an unchanging pace, with the regularity of a clock-pendulum. when my aunt and i were left to ourselves by mr. dick's going out to bed, i sat down to write my letter to the two old ladies. by that time she was tired of walking, and sat by the fire with her dress tucked up as usual. but instead of sitting in her usual manner, holding her glass upon her knee, she suffered it to stand neglected on the chimney-piece; and, resting her left elbow on her right arm, and her chin on her left hand, looked thoughtfully at me. as often as i raised my eyes from what i was about, i met hers. "i am in the lovingest of tempers, my dear," she would assure me with a nod, "but i am fidgetted and sorry!" i had been too busy to observe, until after she was gone to bed, that she had left her night-mixture, as she always called it, untasted on the chimney-piece. she came to her door, with even more than her usual affection of manner, when i knocked to acquaint her with this discovery; but only said, "i have not the heart to take it, trot, to-night," and shook her head, and went in again. she read my letter to the two old ladies, in the morning, and approved of it. i posted it, and had nothing to do then, but wait, as patiently as i could, for the reply. i was still in this state of expectation, and had been, for nearly a week; when i left the doctor's one snowy night, to walk home. it had been a bitter day, and a cutting north-east wind had blown for some time. the wind had gone down with the light, and so the snow had come on. it was a heavy, settled fall, i recollect, in great flakes; and it lay thick. the noise of wheels and tread of people were as hushed, as if the streets had been strewn that depth with feathers. my shortest way home,--and i naturally took the shortest way on such a night--was through saint martin's lane. now, the church which gives its name to the lane, stood in a less free situation at that time; there being no open space before it, and the lane winding down to the strand. as i passed the steps of the portico, i encountered, at the corner, a woman's face. it looked in mine, passed across the narrow lane, and disappeared. i knew it. i had seen it somewhere. but i could not remember where. i had some association with it, that struck upon my heart directly; but i was thinking of anything else when it came upon me, and was confused. on the steps of the church, there was the stooping figure of a man, who had put down some burden on the smooth snow, to adjust it; my seeing the face, and my seeing him, were simultaneous. i don't think i had stopped in my surprise; but, in any case, as i went on, he rose, turned, and came down towards me. i stood face to face with mr. peggotty! then i remembered the woman. it was martha, to whom emily had given the money that night in the kitchen. martha endell--side by side with whom, he would not have seen his dear niece, ham had told me, for all the treasures wrecked in the sea. we shook hands heartily. at first neither of us could speak a word. "mas'r davy!" he said, griping me tight, "it do my art good to see you, sir. well met, well met!" "well met, my dear old friend!" said i. "i had my thowts o' coming to make inquiration for you, sir, to-night," he said, "but knowing as your aunt was living along wi' you--for i've been down yonder--yarmouth way--i was afeerd it was too late. i should have come early in the morning, sir, afore going away." "again?" said i. "yes, sir," he replied, patiently shaking his head, "i'm away to-morrow." "where were you going now?" i asked. "well!" he replied, shaking the snow out of his long hair, "i was a going to turn in somewheers." in those days there was a side-entrance to the stable-yard of the golden cross, the inn so memorable to me in connexion with his misfortune, nearly opposite to where we stood. i pointed out the gateway, put my arm through his, and we went across. two or three public-rooms opened out of the stable-yard; and looking into one of them, and finding it empty, and a good fire burning, i took him in there. when i saw him in the light, i observed, not only that his hair was long and ragged, but that his face was burnt dark by the sun. he was greyer, the lines in his face and forehead were deeper, and he had every appearance of having toiled and wandered through all varieties of weather; but he looked very strong, and like a man upheld by stedfastness of purpose, whom nothing could tire out. he shook the snow from his hat and clothes, and brushed it away from his face, while i was inwardly making these remarks. as he sate down opposite to me at a table, with his back to the door by which we had entered, he put out his rough hand again, and grasped mine warmly. [illustration: the wanderer.] "i'll tell you, mas'r davy," he said,--"wheer all i've been, and what-all we've heerd. i've been fur, and we've heerd little; but i'll tell you!" i rang the bell for something hot to drink. he would have nothing younger than ale; and while it was being brought, and being warmed at the fire, he sat thinking. there was a fine, massive gravity in his face, i did not venture to disturb. "when she was a child," he said, lifting up his head soon after we were left alone, "she used to talk to me a deal about the sea, and about them coasts where the sea got to be dark blue, and to lay a shining and a shining in the sun. i thowt, odd times, as her father being drownded made her think on it so much. i doen't know, you see, but maybe she believed--or hoped--he had drifted out to them parts, where the flowers is always a blowing, and the country bright." "it is likely to have been a childish fancy," i replied. "when she was--lost," said mr. peggotty, "i know'd in my mind, as he would take her to them countries. i know'd in my mind, as he'd have told her wonders of 'em, and how she was to be a lady theer, and how he got her listen to him first, along o'sech like. when we see his mother, i know'd quite well as i was right. i went across-channel to france, and landed theer, as if i'd fell down from the sky." i saw the door move, and the snow drift in. i saw it move a little more, and a hand softly interpose to keep it open. "i found out a english gentleman as was in authority," said mr. peggotty, "and told him i was a going to seek my niece. he got me them papers as i wanted fur to carry me through--i doen't rightly know how they're called--and he would have give me money, but that i was thankful to have no need on. i thank him kind, for all he done, i'm sure! 'i've wrote afore you,' he says to me, 'and i shall speak to many as will come that way, and many will know you, fur distant from here, when you're a travelling alone.' i told him, best as i was able, what my gratitoode was, and went away through france." "alone, and on foot?" said i. "mostly a-foot," he rejoined; "sometimes in carts along with people going to market; sometimes in empty coaches. many mile a day a-foot, and often with some poor soldier or another, travelling to see his friends. i couldn't talk to him," said mr. peggotty, "nor he to me; but we was company for one another, too, along the dusty roads." i should have known that by his friendly tone. "when i come to any town," he pursued, "i found the inn, and waited about the yard till some one turned up (some one mostly did) as know'd english. then i told how that i was on my way to seek my niece, and they told me what manner of gentlefolks was in the house, and i waited to see any as seemed like her, going in or out. when it warn't em'ly, i went on agen. by little and little, when i come to a new village or that, among the poor people, i found they know'd about me. they would set me down at their cottage doors, and give me what-not fur to eat and drink, and show me where to sleep; and many a woman, mas'r davy, as has had a daughter of about em'ly's age, i've found a-waiting for me, at our saviour's cross outside the village, fur to do me sim'lar kindnesses. some has had daughters as was dead. and god only knows how good them mothers was to me!" it was martha at the door. i saw her haggard, listening face distinctly. my dread was lest he should turn his head, and see her too. "they would often put their children--partic'lar their little girls," said mr. peggotty, "upon my knee; and many a time you might have seen me sitting at their doors, when night was coming on, a'most as if they'd been my darling's children. oh, my darling!" overpowered by sudden grief, he sobbed aloud. i laid my trembling hand upon the hand he put before his face. "thankee, sir," he said, "don't take no notice." in a very little while he took his hand away and put it in his breast, and went on with his story. "they often walked with me," he said, "in the morning, maybe a mile or two upon my road; and when we parted, and i said, 'i'm very thankful to you! god bless you!' they always seemed to understand, and answered pleasant. at last i come to the sea. it warn't hard, you may suppose, for a seafaring man like me to work his way over to italy. when i got theer, i wandered on as i had done afore. the people was just as good to me, and i should have gone from town to town, maybe the country through, but that i got news of her being seen among them swiss mountains yonder. one as know'd his servant see 'em there, all three, and told me how they travelled, and where they was. i made for them mountains, mas'r davy, day and night. ever so fur as i went, ever so fur the mountains seemed to shift away from me. but i come up with 'em, and i crossed 'em. when i got nigh the place as i had been told of, i began to think within my own self, 'what shall i do when i see her?'" the listening face, insensible to the inclement night, still drooped at the door, and the hands begged me--prayed me--not to cast it forth. "i never doubted her," said mr. peggotty. "no! not a bit! on'y let her see my face--on'y let her heer my voice--on'y let my stanning still afore her bring to her thoughts the home she had fled away from, and the child she had been--and if she had growed to be a royal lady, she'd have fell down at my feet! i know'd it well! many a time in my sleep had i heerd her cry out, 'uncle!' and seen her fall like death afore me. many a time in my sleep had i raised her up, and whispered to her, 'em'ly my dear, i am come fur to bring forgiveness, and to take you home!'" he stopped and shook his head, and went on with a sigh. "_he_ was nowt to me now. em'ly was all. i bought a country dress to put upon her; and i know'd that, once found, she would walk beside me over them stony roads, go where i would, and never, never, leave me more. to put that dress upon her, and to cast off what she wore--to take her on my arm again, and wander towards home--to stop sometimes upon the road, and heal her bruised feet and her worse-bruised heart--was all that i thowt of now. i doen't believe i should have done so much as look at him. but, mas'r davy, it warn't to be--not yet! i was too late, and they was gone. wheer, i couldn't learn. some said heer, some said theer. i travelled heer, and i travelled theer, but i found no em'ly, and i travelled home." "how long ago?" i asked. "a matter o' fower days," said mr. peggotty. "i sighted the old boat arter dark, and the light a shining in the winder. when i come nigh and looked in through the glass, i see the faithful creetur missis gummidge sittin' by the fire, as we had fixed upon, alone. i called out, 'doen't be afeerd! it's dan'l!' and i went in. i never could have thowt the old boat would have been so strange!" from some pocket in his breast, he took out, with a very careful hand, a small paper bundle containing two or three letters or little packets, which he laid upon the table. "this first one come," he said, selecting it from the rest, "afore i had been gone a week. a fifty pound bank note, in a sheet of paper, directed to me, and put underneath the door in the night. she tried to hide her writing, but she couldn't hide it from me!" he folded up the note again, with great patience and care, in exactly the same form, and laid it on one side. "this come to missis gummidge," he said, opening another, "two or three months ago." after looking at it for some moments, he gave it to me, and added in a low voice, "be so good as read it, sir." i read as follows: "oh what will you feel when you see this writing, and know it comes from my wicked hand! but try, try--not for my sake, but for uncle's goodness, try to let your heart soften to me, only for a little little time! try, pray do, to relent towards a miserable girl, and write down on a bit of paper whether he is well, and what he said about me before you left off ever naming me among yourselves--and whether, of a night, when it is my old time of coming home, you ever see him look as if he thought of one he used to love so dear. oh, my heart is breaking when i think about it! i am kneeling down to you, begging and praying you not to be as hard with me as i deserve--as i well, well, know i deserve--but to be so gentle and so good, as to write down something of him, and to send it to me. you need not call me little, you need not call me by the name i have disgraced; but oh, listen to my agony, and have mercy on me so far as to write me some word of uncle, never, never to be seen in this world by my eyes again! "dear, if your heart is hard towards me--justly hard, i know--but, listen, if it is hard, dear, ask him i have wronged the most--him whose wife i was to have been--before you quite decide against my poor poor prayer! if he should be so compassionate as to say that you might write something for me to read--i think he would, oh, i think he would, if you would only ask him, for he always was so brave and so forgiving--tell him then (but not else), that when i hear the wind blowing at night, i feel as if it was passing angrily from seeing him and uncle, and was going up to god against me. tell him that if i was to die to-morrow (and oh, if i was fit, i would be so glad to die!) i would bless him and uncle with my last words, and pray for his happy home with my last breath!" some money was inclosed in this letter also. five pounds. it was untouched like the previous sum, and he refolded it in the same way. detailed instructions were added relative to the address of a reply, which, although they betrayed the intervention of several hands, and made it difficult to arrive at any very probable conclusion in reference to her place of concealment, made it at least not unlikely that she had written from that spot where she was stated to have been seen. "what answer was sent?" i inquired of mr. peggotty. "missis gummidge," he returned, "not being a good scholar, sir, ham kindly drawed it out, and she made a copy on it. they told her i was gone to seek her, and what my parting words was." "is that another letter in your hand?" said i. "it's money, sir," said mr. peggotty, unfolding it a little way. "ten pound, you see. and wrote inside, 'from a true friend,' like the first. but the first was put underneath the door, and this come by the post, day afore yesterday. i'm a going to seek her at the post-mark." he showed it to me. it was a town on the upper rhine. he had found out, at yarmouth, some foreign dealers who knew that country, and they had drawn him a rude map on paper, which he could very well understand. he laid it between us on the table; and, with his chin resting on one hand, tracked his course upon it with the other. i asked him how ham was? he shook his head. "he works," he said, "as bold as a man can. his name's as good, in all that part, as any man's is, anywheres in the wureld. anyone's hand is ready to help him, you understand, and his is ready to help them. he's never been heerd fur to complain. but my sister's belief is ('twixt ourselves) as it has cut him deep." "poor fellow, i can believe it!" "he ain't no care, mas'r davy," said mr. peggotty in a solemn whisper--"keinder no care no-how for his life. when a man's wanted for rough service in rough weather, he's theer. when there's hard duty to be done with danger in it, he steps forward afore all his mates. and yet he's as gentle as any child. there ain't a child in yarmouth that doen't know him." he gathered up the letters thoughtfully, smoothing them with his hand; put them into their little bundle; and placed it tenderly in his breast again. the face was gone from the door. i still saw the snow drifting in; but nothing else was there. "well!" he said, looking to his bag, "having seen you to-night, mas'r davy (and that doos me good!) i shall away betimes to-morrow morning. you have seen what i've got heer;" putting his hand on where the little packet lay; "all that troubles me is, to think that any harm might come to me, afore that money was give back. if i was to die, and it was lost, or stole, or elseways made away with, and it was never knowed by him but what i'd took it, i believe the t'other wureld wouldn't hold me! i believe i must come back!" he rose, and i rose too; we grasped each other by the hand again, before going out. "i'd go ten thousand mile," he said, "i'd go till i dropped dead, to lay that money down afore him. if i do that, and find my em'ly, i'm content. if i doen't find her, maybe she'll come to hear, sometime, as her loving uncle only ended his search for her when he ended his life; and if i know her, even that will turn her home at last!" as we went out into the rigorous night, i saw the lonely figure flit away before us. i turned him hastily on some pretence, and held him in conversation until it was gone. he spoke of a traveller's house on the dover road, where he knew he could find a clean, plain lodging for the night. i went with him over westminster bridge, and parted from him on the surrey shore. everything seemed, to my imagination, to be hushed in reverence for him, as he resumed his solitary journey through the snow. i returned to the inn yard, and, impressed by my remembrance of the face, looked awfully around for it. it was not there. the snow had covered our late footprints; my new track was the only one to be seen; and even that began to die away (it snowed so fast) as i looked back over my shoulder. chapter xli. dora's aunts. at last, an answer came from the two old ladies. they presented their compliments to mr. copperfield, and informed him that they had given his letter their best consideration, "with a view to the happiness of both parties"--which i thought rather an alarming expression, not only because of the use they had made of it in relation to the family difference before-mentioned, but because i had (and have all my life) observed that conventional phrases are a sort of fireworks, easily let off, and liable to take a great variety of shapes and colors not at all suggested by their original form. the misses spenlow added that they begged to forbear expressing, "through the medium of correspondence," an opinion on the subject of mr. copperfield's communication; but that if mr. copperfield would do them the favor to call, upon a certain day, (accompanied, if he thought proper, by a confidential friend), they would be happy to hold some conversation on the subject. to this favor, mr. copperfield immediately replied, with his respectful compliments, that he would have the honor of waiting on the misses spenlow, at the time appointed; accompanied, in accordance with their kind permission, by his friend mr. thomas traddles of the inner temple. having dispatched which missive, mr. copperfield fell into a condition of strong nervous agitation; and so remained until the day arrived. it was a great augmentation of my uneasiness to be bereaved, at this eventful crisis, of the inestimable services of miss mills. but mr. mills, who was always doing something or other to annoy me--or i felt as if he were, which was the same thing--had brought his conduct to a climax, by taking it into his head that he would go to india. why should he go to india, except to harass me? to be sure he had nothing to do with any other part of the world, and had a good deal to do with that part; being entirely in the india trade, whatever that was (i had floating dreams myself concerning golden shawls and elephant's teeth); having been at calcutta in his youth; and designing now to go out there again, in the capacity of resident partner. but this was nothing to me. however, it was so much to him that for india he was bound, and julia with him; and julia went into the country to take leave of her relations; and the house was put into a perfect suit of bills, announcing that it was to be let or sold, and that the furniture (mangle and all) was to be taken at a valuation. so, here was another earthquake of which i became the sport, before i had recovered from the shock of its predecessor! i was in several minds how to dress myself on the important day; being divided between my desire to appear to advantage, and my apprehensions of putting on anything that might impair my severely practical character in the eyes of the misses spenlow. i endeavoured to hit a happy medium between these two extremes; my aunt approved the result; and mr. dick threw one of his shoes after traddles and me, for luck, as we went down-stairs. excellent fellow as i knew traddles to be, and warmly attached to him as i was, i could not help wishing, on that delicate occasion, that he had never contracted the habit of brushing his hair so very upright. it gave him a surprised look--not to say a hearth-broomy kind of expression--which, my apprehensions whispered, might be fatal to us. i took the liberty of mentioning it to traddles, as we were walking to putney; and saying that if he _would_ smooth it down a little-- "my dear copperfield," said traddles, lifting off his hat, and rubbing his hair all kinds of ways, "nothing would give me greater pleasure. but it won't." "won't be smoothed down?" said i. "no," said traddles. "nothing will induce it. if i was to carry a half-hundred-weight upon it, all the way to putney, it would be up again the moment the weight was taken off. you have no idea what obstinate hair mine is, copperfield. i am quite a fretful porcupine." i was a little disappointed, i must confess, but thoroughly charmed by his good-nature too. i told him how i esteemed his good-nature; and said that his hair must have taken all the obstinacy out of his character, for _he_ had none. "oh!" returned traddles, laughing, "i assure you, it's quite an old story, my unfortunate hair. my uncle's wife couldn't bear it. she said it exasperated her. it stood very much in my way, too, when i first fell in love with sophy. very much!" "did she object to it?" "_she_ didn't," rejoined traddles; "but her eldest sister--the one that's the beauty--quite made game of it, i understand. in fact, all the sisters laugh at it." "agreeable!" said i. "yes," returned traddles with perfect innocence, "it's a joke for us. they pretend that sophy has a lock of it in her desk, and is obliged to shut it in a clasped book, to keep it down. we laugh about it." "by-the-bye, my dear traddles," said i, "your experience may suggest something to me. when you became engaged to the young lady whom you have just mentioned, did you make a regular proposal to her family? was there anything like--what we are going through to-day, for instance?" i added, nervously. "why," replied traddles, on whose attentive face a thoughtful shade had stolen, "it was rather a painful transaction, copperfield, in my case. you see, sophy being of so much use in the family, none of them could endure the thought of her ever being married. indeed, they had quite settled among themselves that she never was to be married, and they called her the old maid. accordingly, when i mentioned it, with the greatest precaution, to mrs. crewler--" "the mamma?" said i. "the mamma," said traddles--"reverend horace crewler--when i mentioned it with every possible precaution to mrs. crewler, the effect upon her was such that she gave a scream and became insensible. i couldn't approach the subject again, for months." "you did at last?" said i. "well, the reverend horace did," said traddles. "he is an excellent man, most exemplary in every way; and he pointed out to her that she ought, as a christian, to reconcile herself to the sacrifice (especially as it was so uncertain), and to bear no uncharitable feeling towards me. as to myself, copperfield, i give you my word, i felt a perfect bird of prey towards the family." "the sisters took your part, i hope, traddles?" "why, i can't say they did," he returned. "when we had comparatively reconciled mrs. crewler to it, we had to break it to sarah. you recollect my mentioning sarah, as the one that has something the matter with her spine?" "perfectly!" "she clenched both her hands," said traddles, looking at me in dismay; "shut her eyes; turned lead-color; became perfectly stiff; and took nothing for two days, but toast-and-water administered with a teaspoon." "what a very unpleasant girl, traddles!" i remarked. "oh, i beg your pardon, copperfield!" said traddles. "she is a very charming girl, but she has a great deal of feeling. in fact, they all have. sophy told me afterwards, that the self-reproach she underwent while she was in attendance upon sarah, no words could describe. i know it must have been severe, by my own feelings, copperfield; which were like a criminal's. after sarah was restored, we still had to break it to the other eight; and it produced various effects upon them of a most pathetic nature. the two little ones, whom sophy educates, have only just left off de-testing me." "at any rate, they are all reconciled to it now, i hope?" said i. "ye--yes, i should say they were, on the whole, resigned to it," said traddles, doubtfully. "the fact is, we avoid mentioning the subject; and my unsettled prospects and indifferent circumstances are a great consolation to them. there will be a deplorable scene, whenever we are married. it will be much more like a funeral, than a wedding. and they'll all hate me for taking her away!" his honest face, as he looked at me with a serio-comic shake of his head, impresses me more in the remembrance than it did in the reality, for i was by this time in a state of such excessive trepidation and wandering of mind, as to be quite unable to fix my attention on anything. on our approaching the house where the misses spenlow lived, i was at such a discount in respect of my personal looks and presence of mind, that traddles proposed a gentle stimulant in the form of a glass of ale. this having been administered at a neighbouring public-house, he conducted me, with tottering steps, to the misses spenlow's door. i had a vague sensation of being, as it were, on view, when the maid opened it; and of wavering, somehow, across a hall with a weather-glass in it, into a quiet little drawing-room on the ground-floor, commanding a neat garden. also of sitting down here, on a sofa, and seeing traddles's hair start up, now his hat was removed, like one of those obtrusive little figures made of springs, that fly out of fictitious snuff-boxes when the lid is taken off. also of hearing an old-fashioned clock ticking away on the chimney-piece, and trying to make it keep time to the jerking of my heart,--which it wouldn't. also of looking round the room for any sign of dora, and seeing none. also of thinking that jip once barked in the distance, and was instantly choked by somebody. ultimately i found myself backing traddles into the fire-place, and bowing in great confusion to two dry little elderly ladies, dressed in black, and each looking wonderfully like a preparation in chip or tan of the late mr. spenlow. "pray," said one of the two little ladies, "be seated." when i had done tumbling over traddles, and had sat upon something which was not a cat--my first seat was--i so far recovered my sight, as to perceive that mr. spenlow had evidently been the youngest of the family; that there was a disparity of six or eight years between the two sisters; and that the younger appeared to be the manager of the conference, inasmuch as she had my letter in her hand--so familiar as it looked to me, and yet so odd!--and was referring to it through an eye-glass. they were dressed alike, but this sister wore her dress with a more youthful air than the other; and perhaps had a trifle more frill, or tucker, or brooch, or bracelet, or some little thing of that kind, which made her look more lively. they were both upright in their carriage, formal, precise, composed, and quiet. the sister who had not my letter, had her arms crossed on her breast, and resting on each other, like an idol. [illustration: traddles and i, in conference with the misses spenlow.] "mr. copperfield, i believe," said the sister who had got my letter, addressing herself to traddles. this was a frightful beginning. traddles had to indicate that i was mr. copperfield, and i had to lay claim to myself, and they had to divest themselves of a preconceived opinion that traddles was mr. copperfield, and altogether we were in a nice condition. to improve it, we all distinctly heard jip give two short barks, and receive another choke. "mr. copperfield!" said the sister with the letter. i did something--bowed, i suppose--and was all attention, when the other sister struck in. "my sister lavinia," said she, "being conversant with matters of this nature, will state what we consider most calculated to promote the happiness of both parties." i discovered afterwards that miss lavinia was an authority in affairs of the heart, by reason of there having anciently existed a certain mr. pidger, who played short whist, and was supposed to have been enamoured of her. my private opinion is, that this was entirely a gratuitous assumption, and that pidger was altogether innocent of any such sentiments--to which he had never given any sort of expression that i could ever hear of. both miss lavinia and miss clarissa had a superstition, however, that he would have declared his passion, if he had not been cut short in his youth (at about sixty) by over-drinking his constitution, and overdoing an attempt to set it right again by swilling bath water. they had a lurking suspicion even, that he died of secret love; though i must say there was a picture of him in the house with a damask nose, which concealment did not appear to have ever preyed upon. "we will not," said miss lavinia, "enter on the past history of this matter. our poor brother francis's death has cancelled that." "we had not," said miss clarissa, "been in the habit of frequent association with our brother francis; but there was no decided division or disunion between us. francis took his road; we took ours. we considered it conducive to the happiness of all parties that it should be so. and it was so." each of the sisters leaned a little forward to speak, shook her head after speaking, and became upright again when silent. miss clarissa never moved her arms. she sometimes played tunes upon them with her fingers--minuets and marches i should think--but never moved them. "our niece's position, or supposed position, is much changed by our brother francis's death," said miss lavinia; "and therefore we consider our brother's opinions as regarded her position as being changed too. we have no reason to doubt, mr. copperfield, that you are a young gentleman possessed of good qualities and honorable character; or that you have an affection--or are fully persuaded that you have an affection--for our niece." i replied, as i usually did whenever i had a chance, that nobody had ever loved anybody else as i loved dora. traddles came to my assistance with a confirmatory murmur. miss lavinia was going on to make some rejoinder, when miss clarissa, who appeared to be incessantly beset by a desire to refer to her brother francis, struck in again: "if dora's mamma," she said, "when she married our brother francis, had at once said that there was not room for the family at the dinner-table, it would have been better for the happiness of all parties." "sister clarissa," said miss lavinia. "perhaps we needn't mind that now." "sister lavinia," said miss clarissa, "it belongs to the subject. with your branch of the subject, on which alone you are competent to speak, i should not think of interfering. on this branch of the subject i have a voice and an opinion. it would have been better for the happiness of all parties, if dora's mamma, when she married our brother francis, had mentioned plainly what her intentions were. we should then have known what we had to expect. we should have said 'pray do not invite us, at any time;' and all possibility of misunderstanding would have been avoided." when miss clarissa had shaken her head, miss lavinia resumed: again referring to my letter through her eye-glass. they both had little bright round twinkling eyes, by the way, which were like birds' eyes. they were not unlike birds, altogether; having a sharp, brisk, sudden manner, and a little short, spruce way of adjusting themselves, like canaries. miss lavinia, as i have said, resumed: "you ask permission of my sister clarissa and myself, mr. copperfield, to visit here, as the accepted suitor of our niece." "if our brother francis," said miss clarissa, breaking out again, if i may call anything so calm a breaking out, "wished to surround himself with an atmosphere of doctors' commons, and of doctors' commons only, what right or desire had we to object? none, i am sure. we have ever been far from wishing to obtrude ourselves on any one. but why not say so? let our brother francis and his wife have their society. let my sister lavinia and myself have our society. we can find it for ourselves, i hope!" as this appeared to be addressed to traddles and me, both traddles and i made some sort of reply. traddles was inaudible. i think i observed, myself, that it was highly creditable to all concerned. i don't in the least know what i meant. "sister lavinia," said miss clarissa, having now relieved her mind, "you can go on, my dear." miss lavinia proceeded: "mr. copperfield, my sister clarissa and i have been very careful indeed in considering this letter; and we have not considered it without finally showing it to our niece, and discussing it with our niece. we have no doubt that you think you like her very much." "think, ma'am," i rapturously began, "oh!----" but miss clarissa giving me a look (just like a sharp canary), as requesting that i would not interrupt the oracle, i begged pardon. "affection," said miss lavinia, glancing at her sister for corroboration, which she gave in the form of a little nod to every clause, "mature affection, homage, devotion, does not easily express itself. its voice is low. it is modest and retiring, it lies in ambush, waits and waits. such is the mature fruit. sometimes a life glides away, and finds it still ripening in the shade." of course i did not understand then that this was an allusion to her supposed experience of the stricken pidger; but i saw, from the gravity with which miss clarissa nodded her head, that great weight was attached to these words. "the light--for i call them, in comparison with such sentiments, the light--inclinations of very young people," pursued miss lavinia, "are dust, compared to rocks. it is owing to the difficulty of knowing whether they are likely to endure or have any real foundation, that my sister clarissa and myself have been very undecided how to act, mr. copperfield, and mr.----" "traddles," said my friend, finding himself looked at. "i beg pardon. of the inner temple, i believe?" said miss clarissa, again glancing at my letter. traddles said, "exactly so," and became pretty red in the face. now, although i had not received any express encouragement as yet, i fancied that i saw in the two little sisters, and particularly in miss lavinia, an intensified enjoyment of this new and fruitful subject of domestic interest, a settling down to make the most of it, a disposition to pet it, in which there was a good bright ray of hope. i thought i perceived that miss lavinia would have uncommon satisfaction in superintending two young lovers, like dora and me; and that miss clarissa would have hardly less satisfaction in seeing her superintend us, and in chiming in with her own particular department of the subject whenever that impulse was strong upon her. this gave me courage to protest most vehemently that i loved dora better than i could tell, or any one believe; that all my friends knew how i loved her; that my aunt, agnes, traddles, every one who knew me, knew how i loved her, and how earnest my love had made me. for the truth of this, i appealed to traddles. and traddles, firing up as if he were plunging into a parliamentary debate, really did come out nobly: confirming me in good round terms, and in a plain sensible practical manner, that evidently made a favorable impression. "i speak, if i may presume to say so, as one who has some little experience of such things," said traddles, "being myself engaged to a young lady--one of ten, down in devonshire--and seeing no probability, at present, of our engagement coming to a termination." "you may be able to confirm what i have said, mr. traddles," observed miss lavinia, evidently taking a new interest in him, "of the affection that is modest and retiring; that waits and waits?" "entirely, ma'am," said traddles. miss clarissa looked at miss lavinia, and shook her head gravely. miss lavinia looked consciously at miss clarissa, and heaved a little sigh. "sister lavinia," said miss clarissa, "take my smelling-bottle." miss lavinia revived herself with a few whiffs of aromatic vinegar--traddles and i looking on with great solicitude the while; and then went on to say, rather faintly: "my sister and myself have been in great doubt, mr. traddles, what course we ought to take in reference to the likings, or imaginary likings, of such very young people as your friend mr. copperfield, and our niece." "our brother francis's child," remarked miss clarissa. "if our brother francis's wife had found it convenient in her life-time (though she had an unquestionable right to act as she thought best) to invite the family to her dinner-table, we might have known our brother francis's child better at the present moment. sister lavinia, proceed." miss lavinia turned my letter, so as to bring the superscription towards herself, and referred through her eye-glass to some orderly-looking notes she had made on that part of it. "it seems to us," said she, "prudent, mr. traddles, to bring these feelings to the test of our own observation. at present we know nothing of them, and are not in a situation to judge how much reality there may be in them. therefore we are inclined so far to accede to mr. copperfield's proposal, as to admit his visits here." "i shall never, dear ladies," i exclaimed, relieved of an immense load of apprehension, "forget your kindness!" "but," pursued miss lavinia,--"but, we would prefer to regard those visits, mr. traddles, as made, at present, to us. we must guard ourselves from recognising any positive engagement between mr. copperfield and our niece, until we have had an opportunity--" "until _you_ have had an opportunity, sister lavinia," said miss clarissa. "be it so," assented miss lavinia, with a sigh,--"until i have had an opportunity of observing them." "copperfield," said traddles, turning to me, "you feel, i am sure, that nothing could be more reasonable or considerate." "nothing!" cried i. "i am deeply sensible of it." "in this position of affairs," said miss lavinia, again referring to her notes, "and admitting his visits on this understanding only, we must require from mr. copperfield a distinct assurance, on his word of honor, that no communication of any kind shall take place between him and our niece without our knowledge. that no project whatever shall be entertained with regard to our niece, without being first submitted to us--" "to you, sister lavinia," miss clarissa interposed. "be it so, clarissa!" assented miss lavinia resignedly--"to me--and receiving our concurrence. we must make this a most express and serious stipulation, not to be broken on any account. we wished mr. copperfield to be accompanied by some confidential friend to-day," with an inclination of her head towards traddles, who bowed, "in order that there might be no doubt or misconception on this subject. if mr. copperfield, or if you, mr. traddles, feel the least scruple, in giving this promise, i beg you to take time to consider it." i exclaimed, in a state of high ecstatic fervor, that not a moment's consideration could be necessary. i bound myself by the required promise, in a most impassioned manner; called upon traddles to witness it; and denounced myself as the most atrocious of characters if i ever swerved from it in the least degree. "stay!" said miss lavinia, holding up her hand; "we resolved, before we had the pleasure of receiving you two gentlemen, to leave you alone for a quarter of an hour, to consider this point. you will allow us to retire." it was in vain for me to say that no consideration was necessary. they persisted in withdrawing for the specified time. accordingly, these little birds hopped out with great dignity; leaving me to receive the congratulations of traddles, and to feel as if i were translated to regions of exquisite happiness. exactly at the expiration of the quarter of an hour, they reappeared with no less dignity than they had disappeared. they had gone rustling away as if their little dresses were made of autumn-leaves: and they came rustling back, in like manner. i then bound myself once more to the prescribed conditions. "sister clarissa," said miss lavinia, "the rest is with you." miss clarissa, unfolding her arms for the first time, took the notes and glanced at them. "we shall be happy," said miss clarissa, "to see mr. copperfield to dinner, every sunday, if it should suit his convenience. our hour is three." i bowed. "in the course of the week," said miss clarissa, "we shall be happy to see mr. copperfield to tea. our hour is half-past six." i bowed again. "twice in the week," said miss clarissa, "but, as a rule, not oftener." i bowed again. "miss trotwood," said miss clarissa, "mentioned in mr. copperfield's letter, will perhaps call upon us. when visiting is better for the happiness of all parties, we are glad to receive visits, and return them. when it is better for the happiness of all parties that no visiting should take place, (as in the case of our brother francis, and his establishment) that is quite different." i intimated that my aunt would be proud and delighted to make their acquaintance; though i must say i was not quite sure of their getting on very satisfactorily together. the conditions being now closed, i expressed my acknowledgments in the warmest manner; and, taking the hand, first of miss clarissa, and then of miss lavinia, pressed it, in each case, to my lips. miss lavinia then arose, and begging mr. traddles to excuse us for a minute, requested me to follow her. i obeyed, all in a tremble, and was conducted into another room. there, i found my blessed darling stopping her ears behind the door, with her dear little face against the wall; and jip in the plate-warmer with his head tied up in a towel. oh! how beautiful she was in her black frock, and how she sobbed and cried at first, and wouldn't come out from behind the door! how fond we were of one another, when she did come out at last; and what a state of bliss i was in, when we took jip out of the plate-warmer, and restored him to the light, sneezing very much, and were all three reunited! "my dearest dora! now, indeed, my own for ever!" "oh don't!" pleaded dora. "please!" "are you not my own for ever, dora?" "oh yes, of course i am!" cried dora, "but i am so frightened!" "frightened, my own?" "oh yes! i don't like him," said dora. "why don't he go?" "who, my life?" "your friend," said dora. "it isn't any business of his. what a stupid he must be!" "my love!" (there never was anything so coaxing as her childish ways.) "he is the best creature!" "oh, but we don't want any best creatures!" pouted dora. "my dear," i argued, "you will soon know him well, and like him of all things. and here is my aunt coming soon; and you'll like her of all things too, when you know her." "no, please don't bring her!" said dora, giving me a horrified little kiss, and folding her hands. "don't. i know she's a naughty, mischief-making old thing! don't let her come here, doady!" which was a corruption of david. remonstrance was of no use, then; so i laughed, and admired, and was very much in love and very happy; and she showed me jip's new trick of standing on his hind legs in a corner--which he did for about the space of a flash of lightning, and then fell down--and i don't know how long i should have stayed there, oblivious of traddles, if miss lavinia had not come in to take me away. miss lavinia was very fond of dora (she told me dora was exactly like what she had been herself at her age--she must have altered a good deal), and she treated dora just as if she had been a toy. i wanted to persuade dora to come and see traddles, but on my proposing it she ran off to her own room and locked herself in; so i went to traddles without her, and walked away with him on air. "nothing could be more satisfactory," said traddles; "and they are very agreeable old ladies, i am sure. i shouldn't be at all surprised if you were to be married years before me, copperfield." "does your sophy play on any instrument, traddles?" i enquired, in the pride of my heart. "she knows enough of the piano to teach it to her little sisters," said traddles. "does she sing at all?" i asked. "why, she sings ballads, sometimes, to freshen up the others a little when they're out of spirits," said traddles. "nothing scientific." "she doesn't sing to the guitar?" said i. "oh dear no!" said traddles. "paint at all?" "not at all," said traddles. i promised traddles that he should hear dora sing, and see some of her flower-painting. he said he should like it very much, and we went home arm in arm in great good humour and delight. i encouraged him to talk about sophy, on the way; which he did with a loving reliance on her that i very much admired. i compared her in my mind with dora, with considerable inward satisfaction; but i candidly admitted to myself that she seemed to be an excellent kind of girl for traddles, too. of course my aunt was immediately made acquainted with the successful issue of the conference, and with all that had been said and done in the course of it. she was happy to see me so happy, and promised to call on dora's aunts without loss of time. but she took such a long walk up and down our rooms that night, while i was writing to agnes, that i began to think she meant to walk till morning. my letter to agnes was a fervent and grateful one, narrating all the good effects that had resulted from my following her advice. she wrote, by return of post, to me. her letter was hopeful, earnest, and cheerful. she was always cheerful from that time. i had my hands more full than ever, now. my daily journies to highgate considered, putney was a long way off; and i naturally wanted to go there as often as i could. the proposed tea-drinkings being quite impracticable, i compounded with miss lavinia for permission to visit every saturday afternoon, without detriment to my privileged sundays. so, the close of every week was a delicious time for me; and i got through the rest of the week by looking forward to it. i was wonderfully relieved to find that my aunt and dora's aunts rubbed on, all things considered, much more smoothly than i could have expected. my aunt made her promised visit within a few days of the conference; and within a few more days, dora's aunts called upon her, in due state and form. similar but more friendly exchanges took place afterwards, usually at intervals of three or four weeks. i know that my aunt distressed dora's aunts very much, by utterly setting at naught the dignity of fly-conveyance, and walking out to putney at extraordinary times, as shortly after breakfast or just before tea; likewise by wearing her bonnet in any manner that happened to be comfortable to her head, without at all deferring to the prejudices of civilisation on that subject. but dora's aunts soon agreed to regard my aunt as an eccentric and somewhat masculine lady, with a strong understanding; and although my aunt occasionally ruffled the feathers of dora's aunts, by expressing heretical opinions on various points of ceremony, she loved me too well not to sacrifice some of her little peculiarities to the general harmony. the only member of our small society, who positively refused to adapt himself to circumstances, was jip. he never saw my aunt without immediately displaying every tooth in his head, retiring under a chair, and growling incessantly: with now and then a doleful howl, as if she really were too much for his feelings. all kinds of treatment were tried with him, coaxing, scolding, slapping, bringing him to buckingham street (where he instantly dashed at the two cats, to the terror of all beholders); but he never could prevail upon himself to bear my aunt's society. he would sometimes think he had got the better of his objection, and be amiable for a few minutes; and then would put up his snub nose, and howl to that extent, that there was nothing for it but to blind him and put him in the plate-warmer. at length, dora regularly muffled him in a towel and shut him up there, whenever my aunt was reported at the door. one thing troubled me much, after we had fallen into this quiet train. it was, that dora seemed by one consent to be regarded like a pretty toy or plaything. my aunt, with whom she gradually became familiar, always called her little blossom; and the pleasure of miss lavinia's life was to wait upon her, curl her hair, make ornaments for her, and treat her like a pet child. what miss lavinia did, her sister did as a matter of course. it was very odd to me; but they all seemed to treat dora, in her degree, much as dora treated jip in his. i made up my mind to speak to dora about this; and one day when we were out walking (for we were licensed by miss lavinia, after a while, to go out walking by ourselves), i said to her that i wished she could get them to behave towards her differently. "because you know, my darling," i remonstrated, "you are not a child." "there!" said dora. "now you're going to be cross!" "cross, my love?" "i am sure they're very kind to me," said dora, "and i am very happy." "well! but my dearest life!" said i, "you might be very happy, and yet be treated rationally." dora gave me a reproachful look--the prettiest look!--and then began to sob, saying if i didn't like her, why had i ever wanted so much to be engaged to her? and why didn't i go away, now, if i couldn't bear her? what could i do, but kiss away her tears, and tell her how i doted on her, after that! "i am sure i am very affectionate," said dora; "you oughtn't to be cruel to me, doady!" "cruel, my precious love! as if i would--or could--be cruel to you, for the world!" "then don't find fault with me," said dora, making a rosebud of her mouth; "and i'll be good." i was charmed by her presently asking me, of her own accord, to give her that cookery-book i had once spoken of, and to show her how to keep accounts as i had once promised i would. i brought the volume with me on my next visit (i got it prettily bound, first, to make it look less dry and more inviting); and as we strolled about the common, i showed her an old housekeeping-book of my aunt's, and gave her a set of tablets, and a pretty little pencil case and box of leads, to practise housekeeping with. but the cookery-book made dora's head ache, and the figures made her cry. they wouldn't add up, she said. so she rubbed them out, and drew little nosegays, and likenesses of me and jip, all over the tablets. then i playfully tried verbal instruction in domestic matters, as we walked about on a saturday afternoon. sometimes, for example, when we passed a butcher's shop, i would say: "now suppose, my pet, that we were married, and you were going to buy a shoulder of mutton for dinner, would you know how to buy it?" my pretty little dora's face would fall, and she would make her mouth into a bud again, as if she would very much prefer to shut mine with a kiss. "would you know how to buy it, my darling?" i would repeat, perhaps, if i were very inflexible. dora would think a little, and then reply, perhaps, with great triumph: "why, the butcher would know how to sell it, and what need _i_ know? oh, you silly boy!" so, when i once asked dora, with an eye to the cookery-book, what she would do, if we were married, and i were to say i should like a nice irish stew, she replied that she would tell the servant to make it; and then clapped her little hands together across my arm, and laughed in such a charming manner that she was more delightful than ever. consequently, the principal use to which the cookery-book was devoted, was being put down in the corner for jip to stand upon. but dora was so pleased, when she had trained him to stand upon it without offering to come off, and at the same time to hold the pencil case in his mouth, that i was very glad i had bought it. and we fell back on the guitar-case, and the flower-painting, and the songs about never leaving off dancing, ta ra la! and were as happy as the week was long. i occasionally wished i could venture to hint to miss lavinia, that she treated the darling of my heart a little too much like a plaything; and i sometimes awoke, as it were, wondering to find that i had fallen into the general fault, and treated her like a plaything too--but not often. chapter xlii. mischief. i feel as if it were not for me to record, even though this manuscript is intended for no eyes but mine, how hard i worked at that tremendous short-hand, and all improvement appertaining to it, in my sense of responsibility to dora and her aunts. i will only add, to what i have already written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of a patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured within me, and which i know to be the strong part of my character, if it have any strength at all, that there, on looking back, i find the source of my success. i have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but i never could have done what i have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels, which i then formed. heaven knows i write this, in no spirit of self-laudation. the man who reviews his own life, as i do mine, in going on here, from page to page, had need to have been a good man indeed, if he would be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents neglected, many opportunities wasted, many erratic and perverted feelings constantly at war within his breast, and defeating him. i do not hold one natural gift, i dare say, that i have not abused. my meaning simply is, that whatever i have tried to do in life, i have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever i have devoted myself to, i have devoted myself to completely; that, in great aims and in small, i have always been thoroughly in earnest. i have never believed it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from the companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and hope to gain its end. there is no such thing as such fulfilment on this earth. some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness. never to put one hand to anything, on which i could throw my whole self; and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was; i find, now, to have been my golden rules. how much of the practice i have just reduced to precept, i owe to agnes, i will not repeat here. my narrative proceeds to agnes, with a thankful love. she came on a visit of a fortnight to the doctor's. mr. wickfield was the doctor's old friend, and the doctor wished to talk with him, and do him good. it had been matter of conversation with agnes when she was last in town, and this visit was the result. she and her father came together. i was not much surprised to hear from her that she had engaged to find a lodging in the neighbourhood for mrs. heep, whose rheumatic complaint required change of air, and who would be charmed to have it in such company. neither was i surprised when, on the very next day, uriah, like a dutiful son, brought his worthy mother to take possession. "you see, master copperfield," said he, as he forced himself upon my company for a turn in the doctor's garden, "where a person loves, a person is a little jealous--leastways, anxious to keep an eye on the beloved one." "of whom are you jealous, now?" said i. "thanks to you, master copperfield," he returned, "of no one in particular just at present--no male person, at least." "do you mean that you are jealous of a female person?" he gave me a sidelong glance out of his sinister red eyes, and laughed. "really, master copperfield," he said, "--i should say mister, but i know you'll excuse the abit i've got into--you're so insinuating, that you draw me like a corkscrew! well, i don't mind telling you," putting his fish-like hand on mine, "i'm not a lady's man in general, sir, and i never was, with mrs. strong." his eyes looked green now, as they watched mine with a rascally cunning. "what do you mean?" said i. "why, though i am a lawyer, master copperfield," he replied, with a dry grin, "i mean, just at present, what i say." "and what do you mean by your look?" i retorted, quietly. "by my look? dear me, copperfield, that's sharp practice! what do i mean by my look?" "yes," said i. "by your look." he seemed very much amused, and laughed as heartily as it was in his nature to laugh. after some scraping of his chin with his hand, he went on to say, with his eyes cast downward--still scraping, very slowly: "when i was but a numble clerk, she always looked down upon me. she was for ever having my agnes backwards and forwards at her ouse, and she was for ever being a friend to you, master copperfield; but i was too far beneath her, myself, to be noticed." "well?" said i; "suppose you were!" "--and beneath him, too," pursued uriah, very distinctly, and in a meditative tone of voice, as he continued to scrape his chin. "don't you know the doctor better," said i, "than to suppose him conscious of your existence, when you were not before him?" he directed his eyes at me in that sidelong glance again, and he made his face very lantern-jawed, for the greater convenience of scraping, as he answered: "oh dear, i am not referring to the doctor! oh no, poor man! i mean mr. maldon!" my heart quite died within me. all my old doubts and apprehensions on that subject, all the doctor's happiness and peace, all the mingled possibilities of innocence and compromise, that i could not unravel, i saw, in a moment, at the mercy of this fellow's twisting. "he never could come into the office, without ordering and shoving me about," said uriah. "one of your fine gentlemen he was! i was very meek and umble--and i am. but i didn't like that sort of thing--and i don't!" he left off scraping his chin, and sucked in his cheeks until they seemed to meet inside; keeping his sidelong glance upon me all the while. "she is one of your lovely women, she is," he pursued, when he had slowly restored his face to its natural form; "and ready to be no friend to such as me, _i_ know. she's just the person as would put my agnes up to higher sort of game. now, i ain't one of your lady's men, master copperfield; but i've had eyes in my ed, a pretty long time back. we umble ones have got eyes, mostly speaking--and we look out of 'em." i endeavoured to appear unconscious and not disquieted, but, i saw in his face, with poor success. "now, i'm not a going to let myself be run down, copperfield," he continued, raising that part of his countenance where his red eyebrows would have been if he had had any, with malignant triumph, "and i shall do what i can to put a stop to this friendship. i don't approve of it. i don't mind acknowledging to you that i've got rather a grudging disposition, and want to keep off all intruders. i ain't a going, if i know it, to run the risk of being plotted against." "you are always plotting, and delude yourself into the belief that everybody else is doing the like, i think," said i. "perhaps so, master copperfield," he replied. "but i've got a motive, as my fellow-partner used to say; and i go at it tooth and nail. i mustn't be put upon, as a numble person, too much. i can't allow people in my way. really they must come out of the cart, master copperfield!" "i don't understand you," said i. "don't you, though?" he returned, with one of his jerks. "i'm astonished at that, master copperfield, you being usually so quick! i'll try to be plainer, another time.--is that mr. maldon a-norseback, ringing at the gate, sir?" "it looks like him," i replied, as carelessly as i could. uriah stopped short, put his hands between his great knobs of knees, and doubled himself up with laughter. with perfectly silent laughter. not a sound escaped from him. i was so repelled by his odious behaviour, particularly by this concluding instance, that i turned away without any ceremony; and left him doubled up in the middle of the garden, like a scarecrow in want of support. it was not on that evening; but, as i well remember, on the next evening but one, which was a saturday; that i took agnes to see dora. i had arranged the visit, beforehand, with miss lavinia; and agnes was expected to tea. i was in a flutter of pride and anxiety; pride in my dear little betrothed, and anxiety that agnes should like her. all the way to putney, agnes being inside the stage-coach, and i outside, i pictured dora to myself in every one of the pretty looks i knew so well; now making up my mind that i should like her to look exactly as she looked at such a time, and then doubting whether i should not prefer her looking as she looked at such another time; and almost worrying myself into a fever about it. i was troubled by no doubt of her being very pretty, in any case; but it fell out that i had never seen her look so well. she was not in the drawing-room when i presented agnes to her little aunts, but was shyly keeping out of the way. i knew where to look for her, now; and sure enough i found her stopping her ears again, behind the same dull old door. at first she wouldn't come at all; and then she pleaded for five minutes by my watch. when at length she put her arm through mine, to be taken to the drawing-room, her charming little face was flushed, and had never been so pretty. but, when we went into the room, and it turned pale, she was ten thousand times prettier yet. dora was afraid of agnes. she had told me that she knew agnes was "too clever." but when she saw her looking at once so cheerful and so earnest, and so thoughtful, and so good, she gave a faint little cry of pleased surprise, and just put her affectionate arms round agnes's neck, and laid her innocent cheek against her face. i never was so happy. i never was so pleased as when i saw those two sit down together, side by side. as when i saw my little darling looking up so naturally to those cordial eyes. as when i saw the tender, beautiful regard which agnes cast upon her. miss lavinia and miss clarissa partook, in their way, of my joy. it was the pleasantest tea-table in the world. miss clarissa presided. i cut and handed the sweet seed-cake--the little sisters had a bird-like fondness for picking up seeds and pecking at sugar; miss lavinia looked on with benignant patronage, as if our happy love were all her work; and we were perfectly contented with ourselves and one another. the gentle cheerfulness of agnes went to all their hearts. her quiet interest in everything that interested dora; her manner of making acquaintance with jip (who responded instantly); her pleasant way, when dora was ashamed to come over to her usual seat by me; her modest grace and ease, eliciting a crowd of blushing little marks of confidence from dora; seemed to make our circle quite complete. "i am so glad," said dora, after tea, "that you like me. i didn't think you would; and i want, more than ever, to be liked, now julia mills is gone." i have omitted to mention it, by-the-bye. miss mills had sailed, and dora and i had gone aboard a great east indiaman at gravesend to see her; and we had had preserved ginger, and guava, and other delicacies of that sort for lunch; and we had left miss mills weeping on a camp-stool on the quarter-deck, with a large new diary under her arm, in which the original reflections awakened by the contemplation of ocean were to be recorded under lock and key. agnes said, she was afraid i must have given her an unpromising character; but dora corrected that directly. "oh no!" she said, shaking her curls at me; "it was all praise. he thinks so much of your opinion, that i was quite afraid of it." "my good opinion cannot strengthen his attachment to some people whom he knows," said agnes, with a smile; "it is not worth their having." "but please let me have it," said dora, in her coaxing way, "if you can!" we made merry about dora's wanting to be liked, and dora said i was a goose, and she didn't like me at any rate, and the short evening flew away on gossamer-wings. the time was at hand when the coach was to call for us. i was standing alone before the fire, when dora came stealing softly in, to give me that usual precious little kiss before i went. "don't you think, if i had had her for a friend a long time ago, doady," said dora, her bright eyes shining very brightly, and her little right hand idly busying itself with one of the buttons of my coat, "i might have been more clever perhaps?" "my love!" said i, "what nonsense!" "do you think it is nonsense?" returned dora, without looking at me. "are you sure it is?" "of course i am!" "i have forgotten," said dora, still turning the button round and round, "what relation agnes is to you, you dear bad boy." "no blood-relation," i replied; "but we were brought up together, like brother and sister." "i wonder why you ever fell in love with me?" said dora, beginning on another button of my coat. "perhaps because i couldn't see you, and not love you, dora!" "suppose you had never seen me at all," said dora, going to another button. "suppose we had never been born!" said i, gaily. i wondered what she was thinking about, as i glanced in admiring silence at the little soft hand travelling up the row of buttons on my coat, and at the clustering hair that lay against my breast, and at the lashes of her downcast eyes, slightly rising as they followed her idle fingers. at length her eyes were lifted up to mine, and she stood on tiptoe to give me, more thoughtfully than usual, that precious little kiss--once, twice, three times--and went out of the room. they all came back together within five minutes afterwards, and dora's unusual thoughtfulness was quite gone then. she was laughingly resolved to put jip through the whole of his performances, before the coach came. they took some time (not so much on account of their variety, as jip's reluctance), and were still unfinished when it was heard at the door. there was a hurried but affectionate parting between agnes and herself; and dora was to write to agnes (who was not to mind her letters being foolish, she said), and agnes was to write to dora; and they had a second parting at the coach-door, and a third when dora, in spite of the remonstrances of miss lavinia, would come running out once more to remind agnes at the coach-window about writing, and to shake her curls at me on the box. the stage-coach was to put us down near covent garden, where we were to take another stage-coach for highgate. i was impatient for the short walk in the interval, that agnes might praise dora to me. ah! what praise it was! how lovingly and fervently did it commend the pretty creature i had won, with all her artless graces best displayed, to my most gentle care! how thoughtfully remind me, yet with no pretence of doing so, of the trust in which i held the orphan child! never, never, had i loved dora so deeply and truly, as i loved her that night. when we had again alighted, and were walking in the starlight along the quiet road that led to the doctor's house, i told agnes it was her doing. "when you were sitting by her," said i, "you seemed to be no less _her_ guardian angel than mine; and you seem so now, agnes." "a poor angel," she returned, "but faithful." the clear tone of her voice, going straight to my heart, made it natural to me to say: "the cheerfulness that belongs to you, agnes (and to no one else that ever i have seen), is so restored, i have observed to-day, that i have begun to hope you are happier at home?" "i am happier in myself," she said; "i am quite cheerful and light-hearted." i glanced at the serene face looking upward, and thought it was the stars that made it seem so noble. "there has been no change at home," said agnes, after a few moments. "no fresh reference," said i, "to--i wouldn't distress you, agnes, but i cannot help asking--to what we spoke of, when we parted last?" "no, none," she answered. "i have thought so much about it." "you must think less about it. remember that i confide in simple love and truth at last. have no apprehensions for me, trotwood," she added, after a moment; "the step you dread my taking, i shall never take." although i think i had never really feared it, in any season of cool reflection, it was an unspeakable relief to me to have this assurance from her own truthful lips. i told her so, earnestly. "and when this visit is over," said i,--"for we may not be alone another time,--how long is it likely to be, my dear agnes, before you come to london again?" "probably a long time," she replied; "i think it will be best--for papa's sake--to remain at home. we are not likely to meet often, for some time to come; but i shall be a good correspondent of dora's, and we shall frequently hear of one another that way." we were now within the little court-yard of the doctor's cottage. it was growing late. there was a light in the window of mrs. strong's chamber, and agnes, pointing to it, bade me good night. "do not be troubled," she said, giving me her hand, "by our misfortunes and anxieties. i can be happier in nothing than in your happiness. if you can ever give me help, rely upon it i will ask you for it. god bless you always!" in her beaming smile, and in these last tones of her cheerful voice, i seemed again to see and hear my little dora in her company. i stood awhile, looking through the porch at the stars, with a heart full of love and gratitude, and then walked slowly forth. i had engaged a bed at a decent alehouse close by, and was going out at the gate, when, happening to turn my head, i saw a light in the doctor's study. a half-reproachful fancy came into my mind, that he had been working at the dictionary without my help. with the view of seeing if this were so, and, in any case, of bidding him good night, if he were yet sitting among his books, i turned back, and going softly across the hall, and gently opening the door, looked in. the first person whom i saw, to my surprise, by the sober light of the shaded lamp, was uriah. he was standing close beside it, with one of his skeleton hands over his mouth, and the other resting on the doctor's table. the doctor sat in his study chair, covering his face with his hands. mr. wickfield, sorely troubled and distressed, was leaning forward, irresolutely touching the doctor's arm. for an instant, i supposed that the doctor was ill. i hastily advanced a step under that impression, when i met uriah's eye, and saw what was the matter. i would have withdrawn, but the doctor made a gesture to detain me, and i remained. "at any rate," observed uriah, with a writhe of his ungainly person, "we may keep the door shut. we needn't make it known to all the town." saying which, he went on his toes to the door, which i had left open, and carefully closed it. he then came back, and took up his former position. there was an obtrusive show of compassionate zeal in his voice and manner, more intolerable--at least to me--than any demeanour he could have assumed. "i have felt it incumbent upon me, master copperfield," said uriah, "to point out to doctor strong what you and me have already talked about. you didn't exactly understand me, though?" i gave him a look, but no other answer; and, going to my good old master, said a few words that i meant to be words of comfort and encouragement. he put his hand upon my shoulder, as it had been his custom to do when i was quite a little fellow, but did not lift his grey head. "as you didn't understand me, master copperfield," resumed uriah in the same officious manner, "i may take the liberty of umbly mentioning, being among friends, that i have called doctor strong's attention to the goings-on of mrs. strong. it's much against the grain with me, i assure you, copperfield, to be concerned in anything so unpleasant; but really, as it is, we're all mixing ourselves up with what oughtn't to be. that was what my meaning was, sir, when you didn't understand me." i wonder now, when i recall his leer, that i did not collar him, and try to shake the breath out of his body. "i dare say i didn't make myself very clear," he went on, "nor you neither. naturally, we was both of us inclined to give such a subject a wide berth. hows'ever, at last i have made up my mind to speak plain; and i have mentioned to doctor strong that--did you speak, sir?" this was to the doctor, who had moaned. the sound might have touched any heart, i thought, but it had no effect upon uriah's. "--mentioned to doctor strong," he proceeded, "that any one may see that mr. maldon, and the lovely and agreeable lady as is doctor strong's wife, are too sweet on one another. really the time is come (we being at present all mixing ourselves up with what oughtn't to be), when doctor strong must be told that this was full as plain to everybody as the sun, before mr. maldon went to india; that mr. maldon made excuses to come back, for nothing else; and that he's always here, for nothing else. when you come in, sir, i was just putting it to my fellow-partner," towards whom he turned, "to say to doctor strong upon his word and honor, whether he'd ever been of this opinion long ago, or not. come, mr. wickfield, sir! would you be so good as tell us? yes or no, sir? come, partner!" "for god's sake, my dear doctor," said mr. wickfield, again laying his irresolute hand upon the doctor's arm, "don't attach too much weight to any suspicions i may have entertained." "there!" cried uriah, shaking his head. "what a melancholy confirmation: ain't it? him! such an old friend! bless your soul, when i was nothing but a clerk in his office, copperfield, i've seen him twenty times, if i've seen him once, quite in a taking about it--quite put out, you know (and very proper in him as a father; i'm sure _i_ can't blame him), to think that miss agnes was mixing herself up with what oughtn't to be." "my dear strong," said mr. wickfield in a tremulous voice, "my good friend, i needn't tell you that it has been my vice to look for some one master motive in everybody, and to try all actions by one narrow test. i may have fallen into such doubts as i have had, through this mistake." "you have had doubts, wickfield," said the doctor, without lifting up his head. "you have had doubts." "speak up, fellow-partner," urged uriah. "i had, at one time, certainly," said mr. wickfield. "i--god forgive me--i thought _you_ had." "no, no, no!" returned the doctor, in a tone of most pathetic grief. "i thought, at one time," said mr. wickfield, "that you wished to send maldon abroad to effect a desirable separation." "no, no, no!" returned the doctor. "to give annie pleasure, by making some provision for the companion of her childhood. nothing else." "so i found," said mr. wickfield. "i couldn't doubt it, when you told me so. but i thought--i implore you to remember the narrow construction which has been my besetting sin--that, in a case where there was so much disparity in point of years--" "that's the way to put it, you see, master copperfield!" observed uriah, with fawning and offensive pity. "--a lady of such youth, and such attractions, however real her respect for you, might have been influenced in marrying, by worldly considerations only. i made no allowance for innumerable feelings and circumstances that may have all tended to good. for heaven's sake remember that!" "how kind he puts it!" said uriah, shaking his head. "always observing her from one point of view," said mr. wickfield; "but by all that is dear to you, my old friend, i entreat you to consider what it was; i am forced to confess now, having no escape--" "no! there's no way out of it, mr. wickfield, sir," observed uriah, "when it's got to this." "--that i did," said mr. wickfield, glancing helplessly and distractedly at his partner, "that i did doubt her, and think her wanting in her duty to you; and that i did sometimes, if i must say all, feel averse to agnes being in such a familiar relation towards her, as to see what i saw, or in my diseased theory fancied that i saw. i never mentioned this to any one. i never meant it to be known to any one. and though it is terrible to you to hear," said mr. wickfield, quite subdued, "if you knew how terrible it is to me to tell, you would feel compassion for me!" the doctor, in the perfect goodness of his nature, put out his hand. mr. wickfield held it for a little while in his, with his head bowed down. "i am sure," said uriah, writhing himself into the silence like a conger-eel, "that this is a subject full of unpleasantness to everybody. but since we have got so far, i ought to take the liberty of mentioning that copperfield has noticed it too." i turned upon him, and asked him how he dared refer to me! "oh! it's very kind of you, copperfield," returned uriah, undulating all over, "and we all know what an amiable character yours is; but you know that the moment i spoke to you the other night, you knew what i meant. you know you knew what i meant, copperfield. don't deny it! you deny it with the best intentions; but don't do it, copperfield!" i saw the mild eye of the good old doctor turned upon me for a moment, and i felt that the confession of my old misgivings and remembrances was too plainly written in my face to be overlooked. it was of no use raging. i could not undo that. say what i would, i could not unsay it. we were silent again, and remained so, until the doctor rose and walked twice or thrice across the room. presently he returned to where his chair stood; and, leaning on the back of it, and occasionally putting his handkerchief to his eyes, with a simple honesty that did him more honor, to my thinking, than any disguise he could have affected, said: "i have been much to blame. i believe i have been very much to blame. i have exposed one whom i hold in my heart, to trials and aspersions--i call them aspersions, even to have been conceived in anybody's inmost mind--of which she never, but for me, could have been the object." uriah heep gave a kind of snivel. i think to express sympathy. "of which my annie," said the doctor, "never, but for me, could have been the object. gentlemen, i am old now, as you know; i do not feel, to-night, that i have much to live for. but my life--my life--upon the truth and honor of the dear lady who has been the subject of this conversation!" i do not think that the best embodiment of chivalry, the realisation of the handsomest and most romantic figure ever imagined by painter, could have said this, with a more impressive and affecting dignity than the plain old doctor did. "but i am not prepared," he went on, "to deny--perhaps i may have been, without knowing it, in some degree prepared to admit--that i may have unwittingly ensnared that lady into an unhappy marriage. i am a man quite unaccustomed to observe; and i cannot but believe that the observation of several people, of different ages and positions, all too plainly tending in one direction (and that so natural), is better than mine." i had often admired, as i have elsewhere described, his benignant manner towards his youthful wife; but the respectful tenderness he manifested in every reference to her on this occasion, and the almost reverential manner in which he put away from him the lightest doubt of her integrity, exalted him, in my eyes, beyond description. "i married that lady," said the doctor, "when she was extremely young. i took her to myself when her character was scarcely formed. so far as it was developed, it had been my happiness to form it. i knew her father well. i knew her well. i had taught her what i could, for the love of all her beautiful and virtuous qualities. if i did her wrong; as i fear i did, in taking advantage (but i never meant it) of her gratitude and her affection; i ask pardon of that lady, in my heart!" he walked across the room, and came back to the same place; holding the chair with a grasp that trembled, like his subdued voice, in its earnestness. "i regarded myself as a refuge, for her, from the dangers and vicissitudes of life. i persuaded myself that, unequal though we were in years, she would live tranquilly and contentedly with me. i did not shut out of my consideration the time when i should leave her free, and still young and still beautiful, but with her judgment more matured--no, gentlemen--upon my truth!" his homely figure seemed to be lightened up by his fidelity and generosity. every word he uttered had a force that no other grace could have imparted to it. "my life with this lady has been very happy. until to-night, i have had uninterrupted occasion to bless the day on which i did her great injustice." his voice, more and more faltering in the utterance of these words, stopped for a few moments; then he went on: "once awakened from my dream--i have been a poor dreamer, in one way or other, all my life--i see how natural it is that she should have some regretful feeling towards her old companion and her equal. that she does regard him with some innocent regret, with some blameless thoughts of what might have been, but for me, is, i fear, too true. much that i have seen, but not noted, has come back upon me with new meaning, during this last trying hour. but, beyond this, gentlemen, the dear lady's name never must be coupled with a word, a breath, of doubt." for a little while, his eye kindled and his voice was firm; for a little while he was again silent. presently, he proceeded as before: "it only remains for me, to bear the knowledge of the unhappiness i have occasioned, as submissively as i can. it is she who should reproach; not i. to save her from misconstruction, cruel misconstruction, that even my friends have not been able to avoid, becomes my duty. the more retired we live, the better i shall discharge it. and when the time comes--may it come soon, if it be his merciful pleasure!--when my death shall release her from constraint, i shall close my eyes upon her honored face, with unbounded confidence and love; and leave her, with no sorrow then, to happier and brighter days." i could not see him for the tears which his earnestness and goodness, so adorned by, and so adorning, the perfect simplicity of his manner, brought into my eyes. he had moved to the door, when he added: "gentlemen, i have shown you my heart. i am sure you will respect it. what we have said to-night is never to be said more. wickfield, give me an old friend's arm up-stairs!" mr. wickfield hastened to him. without interchanging a word they went slowly out of the room together, uriah looking after them. "well, master copperfield!" said uriah, meekly turning to me. "the thing hasn't took quite the turn that might have been expected, for the old scholar--what an excellent man!--is as blind as a brickbat; but _this_ family's out of the cart, i think!" i needed but the sound of his voice to be so madly enraged as i never was before, and never have been since. "you villain," said i, "what do you mean by entrapping me into your schemes? how dare you appeal to me just now, you false rascal, as if we had been in discussion together?" as we stood, front to front, i saw so plainly, in the stealthy exultation of his face, what i already so plainly knew; i mean that he forced his confidence upon me, expressly to make me miserable, and had set a deliberate trap for me in this very matter; that i couldn't bear it. the whole of his lank cheek was invitingly before me, and i struck it with my open hand with that force that my fingers tingled as if i had burnt them. he caught the hand in his, and we stood, in that connexion, looking at each other. we stood so, a long time; long enough for me to see the white marks of my fingers die out of the deep red of his cheek, and leave it a deeper red. "copperfield," he said at length, in a breathless voice, "have you taken leave of your senses?" "i have taken leave of you," said i, wresting my hand away. "you dog, i'll know no more of you." "won't you?" said he, constrained by the pain of his cheek to put his hand there. "perhaps you won't be able to help it. isn't this ungrateful of you, now?" "i have shown you often enough," said i, "that i despise you. i have shown you now, more plainly, that i do. why should i dread your doing your worst to all about you? what else do you ever do?" he perfectly understood this allusion to the considerations that had hitherto restrained me in my communications with him. i rather think that neither the blow, nor the allusion, would have escaped me, but for the assurance i had had from agnes that night. it is no matter. there was another long pause. his eyes, as he looked at me, seemed to take every shade of color that could make eyes ugly. "copperfield," he said, removing his hand from his cheek, "you have always gone against me. i know you always used to be against me at mr. wickfield's." "you may think what you like," said i, still in a towering rage. "if it is not true, so much the worthier you." "and yet i always liked you, copperfield!" he rejoined. i deigned to make him no reply; and, taking up my hat, was going out to bed, when he came between me and the door. "copperfield," he said, "there must be two parties to a quarrel. i won't be one." "you may go to the devil!" said i. "don't say that!" he replied. "i know you'll be sorry afterwards. how can you make yourself so inferior to me, as to show such a bad spirit? but i forgive you." "you forgive me!" i repeated disdainfully. "i do, and you can't help yourself," replied uriah. "to think of your going and attacking _me_, that have always been a friend to you! but there can't be a quarrel without two parties, and i won't be one. i will be a friend to you, in spite of you. so now you know what you've got to expect." the necessity of carrying on this dialogue (his part in which was very slow; mine very quick) in a low tone, that the house might not be disturbed at an unseasonable hour, did not improve my temper; though my passion was cooling down. merely telling him that i should expect from him what i always had expected, and had never yet been disappointed in, i opened the door upon him, as if he had been a great walnut put there to be cracked, and went out of the house. but he slept out of the house too, at his mother's lodging; and before i had gone many hundred yards, came up with me. "you know, copperfield," he said, in my ear (i did not turn my head), "you're in quite a wrong position;" which i felt to be true, and that made me chafe the more; "you can't make this a brave thing, and you can't help being forgiven. i don't intend to mention it to mother, nor to any living soul. i'm determined to forgive you. but i do wonder that you should lift your hand against a person that you knew to be so umble!" i felt only less mean than he. he knew me better than i knew myself. if he had retorted, or openly exasperated me, it would have been a relief and a justification; but he had put me on a slow fire, on which i lay tormented half the night. in the morning, when i came out, the early church bell was ringing, and he was walking up and down with his mother. he addressed me as if nothing had happened, and i could do no less than reply. i had struck him hard enough to give him the toothache, i suppose. at all events his face was tied up in a black silk handkerchief, which, with his hat perched on the top of it, was far from improving his appearance. i heard that he went to a dentist's in london on the monday morning, and had a tooth out. i hope it was a double one. the doctor gave out that he was not quite well; and remained alone, for a considerable part of every day, during the remainder of the visit. agnes and her father had been gone a week, before we resumed our usual work. on the day preceding its resumption, the doctor gave me with his own hands a folded note not sealed. it was addressed to myself; and laid an injunction on me, in a few affectionate words, never to refer to the subject of that evening. i had confided it to my aunt, but to no one else. it was not a subject i could discuss with agnes, and agnes certainly had not the least suspicion of what had passed. neither, i felt convinced, had mrs. strong then. several weeks elapsed before i saw the least change in her. it came on slowly, like a cloud when there is no wind. at first, she seemed to wonder at the gentle compassion with which the doctor spoke to her, and at his wish that she should have her mother with her, to relieve the dull monotony of her life. often, when we were at work, and she was sitting by, i would see her pausing and looking at him with that memorable face. afterwards, i sometimes observed her rise, with her eyes full of tears, and go out of the room. gradually, an unhappy shadow fell upon her beauty, and deepened every day. mrs. markleham was a regular inmate of the cottage then; but she talked and talked, and saw nothing. as this change stole on annie, once like sunshine in the doctor's house, the doctor became older in appearance, and more grave; but the sweetness of his temper, the placid kindness of his manner, and his benevolent solicitude for her, if they were capable of any increase, were increased. i saw him once, early on the morning of her birthday, when she came to sit in the window while we were at work (which she had always done, but now began to do with a timid and uncertain air that i thought very touching), take her forehead between his hands, kiss it, and go hurriedly away, too much moved to remain. i saw her stand where he had left her, like a statue; and then bend down her head, and clasp her hands, and weep, i cannot say how sorrowfully. sometimes, after that, i fancied that she tried to speak even to me, in intervals when we were left alone. but she never uttered word. the doctor always had some new project for her participating in amusements away from home, with her mother; and mrs. markleham, who was very fond of amusements, and very easily dissatisfied with anything else, entered into them with great good will, and was loud in her commendations. but annie, in a spiritless unhappy way, only went whither she was led, and seemed to have no care for anything. i did not know what to think. neither did my aunt; who must have walked, at various times, a hundred miles in her uncertainty. what was strangest of all was, that the only real relief which seemed to make its way into the secret region of this domestic unhappiness, made its way there in the person of mr. dick. what his thoughts were on the subject, or what his observation was, i am as unable to explain, as i dare say he would have been to assist me in the task. but, as i have recorded in the narrative of my school days, his veneration for the doctor was unbounded; and there is a subtlety of perception in real attachment, even when it is borne towards man by one of the lower animals, which leaves the highest intellect behind. to this mind of the heart, if i may call it so, in mr. dick, some bright ray of the truth shot straight. he had proudly resumed his privilege, in many of his spare hours, of walking up and down the garden with the doctor; as he had been accustomed to pace up and down the doctor's walk at canterbury. but matters were no sooner in this state, than he devoted all his spare time (and got up earlier to make it more) to these perambulations. if he had never been so happy as when the doctor read that marvellous performance, the dictionary, to him; he was now quite miserable unless the doctor pulled it out of his pocket, and began. when the doctor and i were engaged, he now fell into the custom of walking up and down with mrs. strong, and helping her to trim her favorite flowers, or weed the beds. i dare say he rarely spoke a dozen words in an hour: but his quiet interest, and his wistful face, found immediate response in both their breasts; each knew that the other liked him, and that he loved both; and he became what no one else could be--a link between them. when i think of him, with his impenetrably wise face, walking up and down with the doctor, delighted to be battered by the hard words in the dictionary; when i think of him carrying huge watering-pots after annie; kneeling down, in very paws of gloves, at patient microscopic work among the little leaves; expressing as no philosopher could have expressed, in every thing he did, a delicate desire to be her friend; showering sympathy, trustfulness, and affection, out of every hole in the watering-pot; when i think of him never wandering in that better mind of his to which unhappiness addressed itself, never bringing the unfortunate king charles into the garden, never wavering in his grateful service, never diverted from his knowledge that there was something wrong, or from his wish to set it right--i really feel almost ashamed of having known that he was not quite in his wits, taking account of the utmost i have done with mine. "nobody but myself, trot, knows what that man is!" my aunt would proudly remark, when we conversed about it. "dick will distinguish himself yet!" i must refer to one other topic before i close this chapter. while the visit at the doctor's was still in progress, i observed that the postman brought two or three letters every morning for uriah heep, who remained at highgate until the rest went back, it being a leisure time; and that these were always directed in a business-like manner by mr. micawber, who now assumed a round legal hand. i was glad to infer, from these slight premises, that mr. micawber was doing well; and consequently was much surprised to receive, about this time, the following letter from his amiable wife. "canterbury, _monday evening_. "you will doubtless be surprised, my dear mr. copperfield, to receive this communication. still more so, by its contents. still more so, by the stipulation of implicit confidence which i beg to impose. but my feelings as a wife and mother require relief; and as i do not wish to consult my family (already obnoxious to the feelings of mr. micawber), i know no one of whom i can better ask advice than my friend and former lodger. "you may be aware, my dear mr. copperfield, that between myself and mr. micawber (whom i will never desert), there has always been preserved a spirit of mutual confidence. mr. micawber may have occasionally given a bill without consulting me, or he may have misled me as to the period when that obligation would become due. this has actually happened. but, in general, mr. micawber has had no secrets from the bosom of affection--i allude to his wife--and has invariably, on our retirement to rest, recalled the events of the day. "you will picture to yourself, my dear mr. copperfield, what the poignancy of my feelings must be, when i inform you that mr. micawber is entirely changed. he is reserved. he is secret. his life is a mystery to the partner of his joys and sorrows--i again allude to his wife--and if i should assure you that beyond knowing that it is passed from morning to night at the office, i now know less of it than i do of the man in the south, connected with whose mouth the thoughtless children repeat an idle tale respecting cold plum porridge, i should adopt a popular fallacy to express an actual fact. "but this is not all. mr. micawber is morose. he is severe. he is estranged from our eldest son and daughter, he has no pride in his twins, he looks with an eye of coldness even on the unoffending stranger who last became a member of our circle. the pecuniary means of meeting our expenses, kept down to the utmost farthing, are obtained from him with great difficulty, and even under fearful threats that he will settle himself (the exact expression); and he inexorably refuses to give any explanation whatever of this distracting policy. "this is hard to bear. this is heart-breaking. if you will advise me, knowing my feeble powers such as they are, how you think it will be best to exert them in a dilemma so unwonted, you will add another friendly obligation to the many you have already rendered me. with loves from the children, and a smile from the happily-unconscious stranger, i remain, dear mr. copperfield, "your afflicted "emma micawber." i did not feel justified in giving a wife of mrs. micawber's experience any other recommendation, than that she should try to reclaim mr. micawber by patience and kindness (as i knew she would in any case); but the letter set me thinking about him very much. chapter xliii. another retrospect. once again, let me pause upon a memorable period of my life. let me stand aside, to see the phantoms of those days go by me, accompanying the shadow of myself, in dim procession. weeks, months, seasons, pass along. they seem little more than a summer day and a winter evening. now, the common where i walk with dora is all in bloom, a field of bright gold; and now the unseen heather lies in mounds and bunches underneath a covering of snow. in a breath, the river that flows through our sunday walks is sparkling in the summer sun, is ruffled by the winter wind, or thickened with drifting heaps of ice. faster than ever river ran towards the sea, it flashes, darkens, and rolls away. not a thread changes, in the house of the two little bird-like ladies. the clock ticks over the fire-place, the weather-glass hangs in the hall. neither clock nor weather-glass is ever right; but we believe in both, devoutly. i have come legally to man's estate. i have attained the dignity of twenty-one. but this is a sort of dignity that may be thrust upon one. let me think what i have achieved. i have tamed that savage stenographic mystery. i make a respectable income by it. i am in high repute for my accomplishment in all pertaining to the art, and am joined with eleven others in reporting the debates in parliament for a morning newspaper. night after night, i record predictions that never come to pass, professions that are never fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify. i wallow in words. britannia, that unfortunate female, is always before me, like a trussed fowl: skewered through and through with office-pens, and bound hand and foot with red tape. i am sufficiently behind the scenes to know the worth of political life. i am quite an infidel about it, and shall never be converted. my dear old traddles has tried his hand at the same pursuit, but it is not in traddles's way. he is perfectly good-humoured respecting his failure, and reminds me that he always did consider himself slow. he has occasional employment on the same newspaper, in getting up the facts of dry subjects, to be written about and embellished by more fertile minds. he is called to the bar; and with admirable industry and self-denial has scraped another hundred pounds together, to fee a conveyancer whose chambers he attends. a great deal of very hot port wine was consumed at his call; and, considering the figure, i should think the inner temple must have made a profit by it. i have come out in another way. i have taken with fear and trembling to authorship. i wrote a little something, in secret, and sent it to a magazine, and it was published in the magazine. since then, i have taken heart to write a good many trifling pieces. now, i am regularly paid for them. altogether, i am well off; when i tell my income on the fingers of my left hand, i pass the third finger and take in the fourth to the middle joint. we have removed, from buckingham street, to a pleasant little cottage very near the one i looked at, when my enthusiasm first came on. my aunt, however (who has sold the house at dover, to good advantage), is not going to remain here, but intends removing herself to a still more tiny cottage close at hand. what does this portend? my marriage? yes! yes! i am going to be married to dora! miss lavinia and miss clarissa have given their consent; and if ever canary birds were in a flutter, they are. miss lavinia, self-charged with the superintendence of my darling's wardrobe, is constantly cutting out brown-paper cuirasses, and differing in opinion from a highly respectable young man, with a long bundle, and a yard measure under his arm. a dressmaker, always stabbed in the breast with a needle and thread, boards and lodges in the house; and seems to me, eating, drinking, or sleeping, never to take her thimble off. they make a lay-figure of my dear. they are always sending for her to come and try something on. we can't be happy together for five minutes in the evening, but some intrusive female knocks at the door, and says, "oh, if you please, miss dora, would you step up-stairs!" miss clarissa and my aunt roam all over london, to find out articles of furniture for dora and me to look at. it would be better for them to buy the goods at once, without this ceremony of inspection; for, when we go to see a kitchen fender and meat-screen, dora sees a chinese house for jip, with little bells on the top, and prefers that. and it takes a long time to accustom jip to his new residence, after we have bought it; whenever he goes in or out, he makes all the little bells ring, and is horribly frightened. peggotty comes up to make herself useful, and falls to work immediately. her department appears to be, to clean everything over and over again. she rubs everything that can be rubbed, until it shines, like her own honest forehead, with perpetual friction. and now it is, that i begin to see her solitary brother passing through the dark streets at night, and looking, as he goes, among the wandering faces. i never speak to him at such an hour. i know too well, as his grave figure passes onward, what he seeks, and what he dreads. why does traddles look so important when he calls upon me this afternoon in the commons--where i still occasionally attend, for form's sake, when i have time? the realisation of my boyish day-dreams is at hand. i am going to take out the license. it is a little document to do so much; and traddles contemplates it, as it lies upon my desk, half in admiration, half in awe. there are the names, in the sweet old visionary connexion, david copperfield and dora spenlow; and there, in the corner, is that parental institution, the stamp office, which is so benignantly interested in the various transactions of human life, looking down upon our union; and there is the archbishop of canterbury invoking a blessing on us in print, and doing it as cheap as could possibly be expected. nevertheless, i am in a dream, a flustered, happy, hurried dream. i can't believe that it is going to be; and yet i can't believe but that everyone i pass in the street, must have some kind of perception, that i am to be married the day after to-morrow. the surrogate knows me, when i go down to be sworn; and disposes of me easily, as if there were a masonic understanding between us. traddles is not at all wanted, but is in attendance as my general backer. "i hope the next time you come here, my dear fellow," i say to traddles, "it will be on the same errand for yourself. and i hope it will be soon." "thank you for your good wishes, my dear copperfield," he replies. "i hope so too. it's a satisfaction to know that she'll wait for me any length of time, and that she really is the dearest girl--" "when are you to meet her at the coach?" i ask. "at seven," says traddles, looking at his plain old silver watch--the very watch he once took a wheel out of, at school, to make a water-mill. "that is about miss wickfield's time, is it not?" "a little earlier. her time is half-past eight." "i assure you, my dear boy," says traddles, "i am almost as pleased as if i were going to be married myself, to think that this event is coming to such a happy termination. and really the great friendship and consideration of personally associating sophy with the joyful occasion, and inviting her to be a bridesmaid in conjunction with miss wickfield, demands my warmest thanks. i am extremely sensible of it." i hear him, and shake hands with him; and we talk, and walk, and dine, and so on; but i don't believe it. nothing is real. sophy arrives at the house of dora's aunts, in due course. she has the most agreeable of faces,--not absolutely beautiful, but extraordinarily pleasant,--and is one of the most genial, unaffected, frank, engaging creatures i have ever seen. traddles presents her to us with great pride; and rubs his hands for ten minutes by the clock, with every individual hair upon his head standing on tiptoe, when i congratulate him in a corner on his choice. i have brought agnes from the canterbury coach, and her cheerful and beautiful face is among us for the second time. agnes has a great liking for traddles, and it is capital to see them meet, and to observe the glory of traddles as he commends the dearest girl in the world to her acquaintance. still i don't believe it. we have a delightful evening, and are supremely happy; but i don't believe it yet. i can't collect myself. i can't check off my happiness as it takes place. i feel in a misty and unsettled kind of state; as if i had got up very early in the morning a week or two ago, and had never been to bed since. i can't make out when yesterday was. i seem to have been carrying the licence about, in my pocket, many months. next day, too, when we all go in a flock to see the house--our house--dora's and mine--i am quite unable to regard myself as its master. i seem to be there, by permission of somebody else. i half expect the real master to come home presently, and say he is glad to see me. such a beautiful little house as it is, with everything so bright and new; with the flowers on the carpets looking as if freshly gathered, and the green leaves on the paper as if they had just come out; with the spotless muslin curtains, and the blushing rose-coloured furniture, and dora's garden hat with the blue ribbon--do i remember, now, how i loved her in such another hat when i first knew her!--already hanging on its little peg; the guitar-case quite at home on its heels in a corner; and everybody tumbling over jip's pagoda, which is much too big for the establishment. another happy evening, quite as unreal as all the rest of it, and i steal into the usual room before going away. dora is not there. i suppose they have not done trying on yet. miss lavinia peeps in, and tells me mysteriously that she will not be long. she is rather long, notwithstanding; but by-and-by i hear a rustling at the door, and some one taps. i say, "come in!" but some one taps again. i go to the door, wondering who it is; there, i meet a pair of bright eyes, and a blushing face; they are dora's eyes and face, and miss lavinia has dressed her in to-morrow's dress, bonnet and all, for me to see. i take my little wife to my heart; and miss lavinia gives a little scream because i tumble the bonnet, and dora laughs and cries at once, because i am so pleased; and i believe it less than ever. "do you think it pretty, doady?" says dora. pretty! i should rather think i did. "and are you sure you like me very much?" says dora. the topic is fraught with such danger to the bonnet, that miss lavinia gives another little scream, and begs me to understand that dora is only to be looked at, and on no account to be touched. so dora stands in a delightful state of confusion for a minute or two, to be admired; and then takes off her bonnet--looking so natural without it!--and runs away with it in her hand; and comes dancing down again in her own familiar dress, and asks jip if i have got a beautiful little wife, and whether he'll forgive her for being married, and kneels down to make him stand upon the cookery-book, for the last time in her single life. i go home, more incredulous than ever, to a lodging that i have hard by; and get up very early in the morning, to ride to the highgate road and fetch my aunt. i have never seen my aunt in such state. she is dressed in lavender-colored silk, and has a white bonnet on, and is amazing. janet has dressed her, and is there to look at me. peggotty is ready to go to church, intending to behold the ceremony from the gallery. mr. dick, who is to give my darling to me at the altar, has had his hair curled. traddles, whom i have taken up by appointment at the turnpike, presents a dazzling combination of cream color and light blue; and both he and mr. dick have a general effect about them of being all gloves. no doubt i see this, because i know it is so; but i am astray, and seem to see nothing. nor do i believe anything whatever. still, as we drive along in an open carriage, this fairy marriage is real enough to fill me with a sort of wondering pity for the unfortunate people who have no part in it, but are sweeping out the shops, and going to their daily occupations. my aunt sits with my hand in hers all the way. when we stop a little way short of the church, to put down peggotty, whom we have brought on the box, she gives it a squeeze, and me a kiss. "god bless you, trot! my own boy never could be dearer. i think of poor dear baby this morning." "so do i. and of all i owe to you, dear aunt." "tut, child!" says my aunt; and gives her hand in overflowing cordiality to traddles, who then gives his to mr. dick, who then gives his to me, who then gives mine to traddles, and then we come to the church door. the church is calm enough, i am sure; but it might be a steam-power loom in full action, for any sedative effect it has on me. i am too far gone for that. the rest is all a more or less incoherent dream. a dream of their coming in with dora; of the pew-opener arranging us, like a drill-serjeant, before the altar rails; of my wondering, even then, why pew-openers must always be the most disagreeable females procurable, and whether there is any religious dread of a disastrous infection of good-humour which renders it indispensable to set those vessels of vinegar upon the road to heaven. of the clergyman and clerk appearing; of a few boatmen and some other people strolling in; of an ancient mariner behind me, strongly flavoring the church with rum; of the service beginning in a deep voice, and our all being very attentive. of miss lavinia, who acts as a semi-auxiliary bridesmaid, being the first to cry, and of her doing homage (as i take it) to the memory of pidger, in sobs; of miss clarissa applying a smelling-bottle; of agnes taking care of dora; of my aunt endeavouring to represent herself as a model of sternness, with tears rolling down her face; of little dora trembling very much, and making her responses in faint whispers. of our kneeling down together, side by side; of dora's trembling less and less, but always clasping agnes by the hand; of the service being got through, quietly and gravely; of our all looking at each other in an april state of smiles and tears, when it is over; of my young wife being hysterical in the vestry, and crying for her poor papa, her dear papa. of her soon cheering up again, and our signing the register all round. of my going into the gallery for peggotty to bring _her_ to sign it; of peggotty's hugging me in a corner, and telling me she saw my own dear mother married; of its being over, and our going away. of my walking so proudly and lovingly down the aisle with my sweet wife upon my arm, through a mist of half-seen people, pulpits, monuments, pews, fonts, organs, and church windows, in which there flutter faint airs of association with my childish church at home, so long ago. [illustration: i am married.] of their whispering, as we pass, what a youthful couple we are, and what a pretty little wife she is. of our all being so merry and talkative in the carriage going back. of sophy telling us that when she saw traddles (whom i had entrusted with the licence) asked for it, she almost fainted, having been convinced that he would contrive to lose it, or to have his pocket picked. of agnes laughing gaily; and of dora being so fond of agnes that she will not be separated from her, but still keeps her hand. of there being a breakfast, with abundance of things, pretty and substantial, to eat and drink, whereof i partake, as i should do in any other dream, without the least perception of their flavor; eating and drinking, as i may say, nothing but love and marriage, and no more believing in the viands than in anything else. of my making a speech in the same dreamy fashion, without having an idea of what i want to say, beyond such as may be comprehended in the full conviction that i haven't said it. of our being very sociably and simply happy (always in a dream though); and of jip's having wedding cake, and its not agreeing with him afterwards. of the pair of hired post-horses being ready, and of dora's going away to change her dress. of my aunt and miss clarissa remaining with us; and our walking in the garden; and my aunt, who has made quite a speech at breakfast touching dora's aunts, being mightily amused with herself, but a little proud of it too. of dora's being ready, and of miss lavinia's hovering about her, loth to lose the pretty toy that has given her so much pleasant occupation. of dora's making a long series of surprised discoveries that she has forgotten all sorts of little things; and of everybody's running everywhere to fetch them. of their all closing about dora, when at last she begins to say good-bye, looking, with their bright colors and ribbons, like a bed of flowers. of my darling being almost smothered among the flowers, and coming out, laughing and crying both together, to my jealous arms. of my wanting to carry jip (who is to go along with us), and dora's saying no, that she must carry him, or else he'll think she don't like him any more, now she is married, and will break his heart. of our going, arm in arm, and dora stopping and looking back, and saying, "if i have ever been cross or ungrateful to anybody, don't remember it!" and bursting into tears. of her waving her little hand, and our going away once more. of her once more stopping, and looking back, and hurrying to agnes, and giving agnes, above all the others, her last kisses and farewells. we drive away together, and i awake from the dream. i believe it at last. it is my dear, dear, little wife beside me, whom i love so well! "are you happy now, you foolish boy?" says dora, "and sure you don't repent?" * * * i have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. they are gone, and i resume the journey of my story. chapter xliv. our housekeeping. it was a strange condition of things, the honey-moon being over, and the bridesmaids gone home, when i found myself sitting down in my own small house with dora; quite thrown out of employment, as i may say, in respect of the delicious old occupation of making love. it seemed such an extraordinary thing to have dora always there. it was so unaccountable not to be obliged to go out to see her, not to have any occasion to be tormenting myself about her, not to have to write to her, not to be scheming and devising opportunities of being alone with her. sometimes of an evening, when i looked up from my writing, and saw her seated opposite, i would lean back in my chair, and think how queer it was that there we were, alone together as a matter of course--nobody's business any more--all the romance of our engagement put away upon a shelf, to rust--no one to please but one another--one another to please, for life. when there was a debate, and i was kept out very late, it seemed so strange to me, as i was walking home, to think that dora was at home! it was such a wonderful thing, at first, to have her coming softly down to talk to me as i ate my supper. it was such a stupendous thing to know for certain that she put her hair in papers. it was altogether such an astonishing event to see her do it! i doubt whether two young birds could have known less about keeping house, than i and my pretty dora did. we had a servant, of course. she kept house for us. i have still a latent belief that she must have been mrs. crupp's daughter in disguise, we had such an awful time of it with mary anne. her name was paragon. her nature was represented to us, when we engaged her, as being feebly expressed in her name. she had a written character, as large as a proclamation; and, according to this document, could do everything of a domestic nature that ever i heard of, and a great many things that i never did hear of. she was a woman in the prime of life; of a severe countenance; and subject (particularly in the arms) to a sort of perpetual measles or fiery rash. she had a cousin in the life guards, with such long legs that he looked like the afternoon shadow of somebody else. his shell-jacket was as much too little for him as he was too big for the premises. he made the cottage smaller than it need have been, by being so very much out of proportion to it. besides which, the walls were not thick, and whenever he passed the evening at our house, we always knew of it by hearing one continual growl in the kitchen. our treasure was warranted sober and honest. i am therefore willing to believe that she was in a fit when we found her under the boiler; and that the deficient teaspoons were attributable to the dustman. but she preyed upon our minds dreadfully. we felt our inexperience, and were unable to help ourselves. we should have been at her mercy, if she had had any; but she was a remorseless woman, and had none. she was the cause of our first little quarrel. "my dearest life," i said one day to dora, "do you think mary anne has any idea of time?" "why, doady?" inquired dora, looking up, innocently, from her drawing. "my love, because it's five, and we were to have dined at four." dora glanced wistfully at the clock, and hinted that she thought it was too fast. "on the contrary, my love," said i, referring to my watch, "it's a few minutes too slow." my little wife came and sat upon my knee, to coax me to be quiet, and drew a line with her pencil down the middle of my nose; but i couldn't dine off that, though it was very agreeable. "don't you think, my dear," said i, "it would be better for you to remonstrate with mary anne?" "oh no, please! i couldn't, doady!" said dora. "why not, my love?" i gently asked. "oh, because i am such a little goose," said dora, "and she knows i am!" i thought this sentiment so incompatible with the establishment of any system of check on mary anne, that i frowned a little. "oh, what ugly wrinkles in my bad boy's forehead!" said dora, and still being on my knee, she traced them with her pencil; putting it to her rosy lips to make it mark blacker, and working at my forehead with a quaint little mockery of being industrious, that quite delighted me in spite of myself. "there's a good child," said dora, "it makes its face so much prettier to laugh." "but, my love," said i. "no, no! please!" cried dora, with a kiss, "don't be a naughty blue beard! don't be serious!" "my precious wife," said i, "we must be serious sometimes. come! sit down on this chair, close beside me! give me the pencil! there! now let us talk sensibly. you know, dear;" what a little hand it was to hold, and what a tiny wedding-ring it was to see! "you know, my love, it is not exactly comfortable to have to go out without one's dinner. now, is it?" "n--n--no!" replied dora, faintly. "my love, how you tremble!" "because i know you're going to scold me," exclaimed dora, in a piteous voice. "my sweet, i am only going to reason." "oh, but reasoning is worse than scolding!" exclaimed dora, in despair. "i didn't marry to be reasoned with. if you meant to reason with such a poor little thing as i am, you ought to have told me so, you cruel boy!" i tried to pacify dora, but she turned away her face, and shook her curls from side to side, and said "you cruel, cruel boy!" so many times, that i really did not exactly know what to do: so i took a few turns up and down the room in my uncertainty, and came back again. "dora, my darling!" "no, i am not your darling. because you _must_ be sorry that you married me, or else you wouldn't reason with me!" returned dora. i felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this charge, that it gave me courage to be grave. "now, my own dora," said i, "you are very childish, and are talking nonsense. you must remember, i am sure, that i was obliged to go out yesterday when dinner was half over; and that, the day before, i was made quite unwell by being obliged to eat underdone veal in a hurry; to-day, i don't dine at all--and i am afraid to say how long we waited for breakfast--and _then_ the water didn't boil. i don't mean to reproach you, my dear, but this is not comfortable." "oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say i am a disagreeable wife!" cried dora. "now, my dear dora, you must know that i never said that!" "you said i wasn't comfortable!" said dora. "i said the housekeeping was not comfortable." "it's exactly the same thing!" cried dora. and she evidently thought so, for she wept most grievously. i took another turn across the room, full of love for my pretty wife, and distracted by self-accusatory inclinations to knock my head against the door. i sat down again, and said: "i am not blaming you, dora. we have both a great deal to learn. i am only trying to show you, my dear, that you must--you really must" (i was resolved not to give this up)--"accustom yourself to look after mary anne. likewise to act a little for yourself, and me." "i wonder, i do, at your making such ungrateful speeches," sobbed dora. "when you know that the other day, when you said you would like a little bit of fish, i went out myself, miles and miles, and ordered it, to surprise you." "and it was very kind of you, my own darling," said i. "i felt it so much that i wouldn't on any account have even mentioned that you bought a salmon--which was too much for two. or that it cost one pound six--which was more than we can afford." "you enjoyed it very much," sobbed dora. "and you said i was a mouse." "and i'll say so again, my love," i returned, "a thousand times!" but i had wounded dora's soft little heart, and she was not to be comforted. she was so pathetic in her sobbing and bewailing, that i felt as if i had said i don't know what to hurt her. i was obliged to hurry away; i was kept out late; and i felt all night such pangs of remorse as made me miserable. i had the conscience of an assassin, and was haunted by a vague sense of enormous wickedness. it was two or three hours past midnight when i got home. i found my aunt, in our house, sitting up for me. "is anything the matter, aunt?" said i, alarmed. "nothing, trot," she replied. "sit down, sit down. little blossom has been rather out of spirits, and i have been keeping her company. that's all." i leaned my head upon my hand; and felt more sorry and downcast, as i sat looking at the fire, than i could have supposed possible so soon after the fulfilment of my brightest hopes. as i sat thinking, i happened to meet my aunt's eyes, which were resting on my face. there was an anxious expression in them, but it cleared directly. "i assure you, aunt," said i, "i have been quite unhappy myself all night, to think of dora's being so. but i had no other intention than to speak to her tenderly and lovingly about our home-affairs." my aunt nodded encouragement. "you must have patience, trot," said she. "of course. heaven knows i don't mean to be unreasonable, aunt!" "no, no," said my aunt. "but little blossom is a very tender little blossom, and the wind must be gentle with her." i thanked my good aunt, in my heart, for her tenderness towards my wife; and i was sure that she knew i did. "don't you think, aunt," said i, after some further contemplation of the fire, "that you could advise and counsel dora a little, for our mutual advantage, now and then?" "trot," returned my aunt, with some emotion, "no! don't ask me such a thing!" her tone was so very earnest that i raised my eyes in surprise. "i look back on my life, child," said my aunt, "and i think of some who are in their graves, with whom i might have been on kinder terms. if i judged harshly of other people's mistakes in marriage, it may have been because i had bitter reason to judge harshly of my own. let that pass. i have been a grumpy, frumpy, wayward sort of a woman, a good many years. i am still, and i always shall be. but you and i have done one another some good, trot,--at all events, you have done me good, my dear; and division must not come between us, at this time of day." "division between _us_!" cried i. "child, child!" said my aunt, smoothing her dress, "how soon it might come between us, or how unhappy i might make our little blossom, if i meddled in anything, a prophet couldn't say. i want our pet to like me, and be as gay as a butterfly. remember your own home, in that second marriage; and never do both me and her the injury you have hinted at!" i comprehended, at once, that my aunt was right; and i comprehended the full extent of her generous feeling towards my dear wife. "these are early days, trot," she pursued, "and rome was not built in a day, nor in a year. you have chosen freely for yourself;" a cloud passed over her face for a moment, i thought; "and you have chosen a very pretty and a very affectionate creature. it will be your duty, and it will be your pleasure too--of course i know that; i am not delivering a lecture--to estimate her (as you chose her) by the qualities she has, and not by the qualities she may not have. the latter you must develop in her, if you can. and if you cannot, child," here my aunt rubbed her nose, "you must just accustom yourself to do without 'em. but remember, my dear, your future is between you two. no one can assist you; you are to work it out for yourselves. this is marriage, trot; and heaven bless you both, in it, for a pair of babes in the wood as you are!" my aunt said this in a sprightly way, and gave me a kiss to ratify the blessing. "now," said she, "light my little lantern, and see me into my band-box by the garden path;" for there was a communication between our cottages in that direction. "give betsey trotwood's love to blossom, when you come back; and whatever you do, trot, never dream of setting betsey up as a scarecrow, for if _i_ ever saw her in the glass, she's quite grim enough and gaunt enough in her private capacity!" with this my aunt tied her head up in a handkerchief, with which she was accustomed to make a bundle of it on such occasions; and i escorted her home. as she stood in her garden, holding up her little lantern to light me back, i thought her observation of me had an anxious air again; but i was too much occupied in pondering on what she had said, and too much impressed--for the first time, in reality--by the conviction that dora and i had indeed to work out our future for ourselves, and that no one could assist us, to take much notice of it. dora came stealing down in her little slippers, to meet me, now that i was alone; and cried upon my shoulder, and said i had been hard-hearted and she had been naughty; and i said much the same thing in effect, i believe; and we made it up, and agreed that our first little difference was to be our last, and that we were never to have another if we lived a hundred years. the next domestic trial we went through, was the ordeal of servants. mary anne's cousin deserted into our coal-hole, and was brought out, to our great amazement, by a piquet of his companions in arms, who took him away handcuffed in a procession that covered our front-garden with ignominy. this nerved me to get rid of mary anne, who went so mildly, on receipt of wages, that i was surprised, until i found out about the tea-spoons, and also about the little sums she had borrowed in my name of the tradespeople without authority. after an interval of mrs. kidgerbury--the oldest inhabitant of kentish town, i believe, who went out charing, but was too feeble to execute her conceptions of that art--we found another treasure, who was one of the most amiable of women, but who generally made a point of falling either up or down the kitchen stairs with the tray, and almost always plunged into the parlor, as into a bath, with the tea-things. the ravages committed by this unfortunate, rendering her dismissal necessary, she was succeeded (with intervals of mrs. kidgerbury) by a long line of incapables; terminating in a young person of genteel appearance, who went to greenwich fair in dora's bonnet. after whom i remember nothing but an average equality of failure. everybody we had anything to do with seemed to cheat us. our appearance in a shop was a signal for the damaged goods to be brought out immediately. if we bought a lobster, it was full of water. all our meat turned out to be tough, and there was hardly any crust to our loaves. in search of the principle on which joints ought to be roasted, to be roasted enough, and not too much, i myself referred to the cookery book, and found it there established as the allowance of a quarter of an hour to every pound, and say a quarter over. but the principle always failed us by some curious fatality, and we never could hit any medium between redness and cinders. i had reason to believe that in accomplishing these failures we incurred a far greater expense than if we had achieved a series of triumphs. it appeared to me, on looking over the tradesmen's books, as if we might have kept the basement story paved with butter, such was the extensive scale of our consumption of that article. i don't know whether the excise returns of the period may have exhibited any increase in the demand for pepper; but if our performances did not affect the market, i should say several families must have left off using it. and the most wonderful fact of all was, that we never had anything in the house. as to the washerwoman pawning the clothes, and coming in a state of penitent intoxication to apologise, i suppose that might have happened several times to anybody. also the chimney on fire, the parish engine, and perjury on the part of the beadle. but i apprehend that we were personally unfortunate in engaging a servant with a taste for cordials, who swelled our running account for porter at the public-house by such inexplicable items as "quartern rum shrub (mrs. c.)" "half-quartern gin and cloves (mrs. c.)" "glass rum and peppermint (mrs. c.)"--the parenthesis always referring to dora, who was supposed, it appeared on explanation, to have imbibed the whole of these refreshments. one of our first feats in the housekeeping way was a little dinner to traddles. i met him in town, and asked him to walk out with me that afternoon. he readily consenting, i wrote to dora, saying i would bring him home. it was pleasant weather, and on the road we made my domestic happiness the theme of conversation. traddles was very full of it; and said, that, picturing himself with such a home, and sophy waiting and preparing for him, he could think of nothing wanting to complete his bliss. i could not have wished for a prettier little wife at the opposite end of the table, but i certainly could have wished, when we sate down, for a little more room. i did not know how it was, but though there were only two of us, we were at once always cramped for room, and yet had always room enough to lose everything in. i suspect it may have been because nothing had a place of its own, except jip's pagoda, which invariably blocked up the main thoroughfare. on the present occasion, traddles was so hemmed in by the pagoda and the guitar-case, and dora's flower-painting, and my writing-table, that i had serious doubts of the possibility of his using his knife and fork; but he protested, with his own good-humour, "oceans of room, copperfield! i assure you, oceans!" [illustration: our housekeeping.] there was another thing i could have wished, namely, that jip had never been encouraged to walk about the table-cloth during dinner. i began to think there was something disorderly in his being there at all, even if he had not been in the habit of putting his foot in the salt or the melted butter. on this occasion he seemed to think he was introduced expressly to keep traddles at bay; and he barked at my old friend, and made short runs at his plate, with such undaunted pertinacity, that he may be said to have engrossed the conversation. however, as i knew how tender-hearted my dear dora was, and how sensitive she would be to any slight upon her favorite, i hinted no objection. for similar reasons i made no allusion to the skirmishing plates upon the floor; or to the disreputable appearance of the castors, which were all at sixes and sevens, and looked drunk; or to the further blockade of traddles by wandering vegetable dishes and jugs. i could not help wondering in my own mind, as i contemplated the boiled leg of mutton before me, previous to carving it, how it came to pass that our joints of meat were of such extraordinary shapes--and whether our butcher contracted for all the deformed sheep that came into the world; but i kept my reflections to myself. "my love," said i to dora, "what have you got in that dish?" i could not imagine why dora had been making tempting little faces at me, as if she wanted to kiss me. "oysters, dear," said dora, timidly. "was that _your_ thought?" said i, delighted. "ye-yes, doady," said dora. "there never was a happier one!" i exclaimed, laying down the carving-knife and fork. "there is nothing traddles likes so much!" "ye-yes, doady," said dora, "and so i bought a beautiful little barrel of them, and the man said they were very good. but i--i am afraid there's something the matter with them. they don't seem right." here dora shook her head, and diamonds twinkled in her eyes. "they are only opened in both shells," said i. "take the top one off, my love." "but it won't come off," said dora, trying very hard, and looking very much distressed. "do you know, copperfield," said traddles, cheerfully examining the dish, "i think it is in consequence--they are capital oysters, but i _think_ it is in consequence--of their never having been opened." they never had been opened; and we had no oyster-knives--and couldn't have used them if we had; so we looked at the oysters and ate the mutton. at least we ate as much of it as was done, and made up with capers. if i had permitted him, i am satisfied that traddles would have made a perfect savage of himself, and eaten a plateful of raw meat, to express enjoyment of the repast; but i would hear of no such immolation on the altar of friendship, and we had a course of bacon instead; there happening, by good fortune, to be cold bacon in the larder. my poor little wife was in such affliction when she thought i should be annoyed, and in such a state of joy when she found i was not, that the discomfiture i had subdued, very soon vanished, and we passed a happy evening; dora sitting with her arm on my chair while traddles and i discussed a glass of wine, and taking every opportunity of whispering in my ear that it was so good of me not to be a cruel, cross old boy. by and bye she made tea for us; which it was so pretty to see her do, as if she were busying herself with a set of doll's tea-things, that i was not particular about the quality of the beverage. then traddles and i played a game or two at cribbage; and dora singing to the guitar the while, it seemed to me as if our courtship and marriage were a tender dream of mine, and the night when i first listened to her voice were not yet over. when traddles went away, and i came back into the parlor from seeing him out, my wife planted her chair close to mine, and sat down by my side. "i am very sorry," she said. "will you try to teach me, doady?" "i must teach myself first, dora," said i. "i am as bad as you, love." "ah! but you can learn," she returned; "and you are a clever, clever man!" "nonsense, mouse!" said i. "i wish," resumed my wife, after a long silence, "that i could have gone down into the country for a whole year, and lived with agnes!" her hands were clasped upon my shoulder, and her chin rested on them, and her blue eyes looked quietly into mine. "why so?" i asked. "i think she might have improved me, and i think i might have learnt from _her_," said dora. "all in good time, my love. agnes has had her father to take care of for these many years, you should remember. even when she was quite a child, she was the agnes whom we know," said i. "will you call me a name i want you to call me?" inquired dora, without moving. "what is it?" i asked with a smile. "it's a stupid name," she said, shaking her curls for a moment. "child-wife." i laughingly asked my child-wife what her fancy was in desiring to be so called? she answered without moving, otherwise than as the arm i twined about her may have brought her blue eyes nearer to me: "i don't mean, you silly fellow, that you should use the name, instead of dora. i only mean that you should think of me that way. when you are going to be angry with me, say to yourself, 'it's only my child-wife!' when i am very disappointing, say, 'i knew, a long time ago, that she would make but a child-wife!' when you miss what i should like to be, and i think can never be, say, 'still my foolish child-wife loves me!' for indeed i do." i had not been serious with her; having no idea, until now, that she was serious herself. but her affectionate nature was so happy in what i now said to her with my whole heart, that her face became a laughing one before her glittering eyes were dry. she was soon my child-wife indeed; sitting down on the floor outside the chinese house, ringing all the little bells one after another, to punish jip for his recent bad behaviour; while jip lay blinking in the doorway with his head out, even too lazy to be teased. this appeal of dora's made a strong impression on me. i look back on the time i write of; i invoke the innocent figure that i dearly loved, to come out from the mists and shadows of the past, and turn its gentle head towards me once again; and i can still declare that this one little speech was constantly in my memory. i may not have used it to the best account; i was young and inexperienced; but i never turned a deaf ear to its artless pleading. dora told me, shortly afterwards, that she was going to be a wonderful housekeeper. accordingly, she polished the tablets, pointed the pencil, bought an immense account-book, carefully stitched up with a needle and thread all the leaves of the cookery-book which jip had torn, and made quite a desperate little attempt "to be good," as she called it. but the figures had the old obstinate propensity--they _would not_ add up. when she had entered two or three laborious items in the account-book, jip would walk over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out. her own little right-hand middle finger got steeped to the very bone in ink; and i think that was the only decided result attained. sometimes, of an evening, when i was at home and at work--for i wrote a good deal now, and was beginning in a small way to be known as a writer--i would lay down my pen, and watch my child-wife trying to be good. first of all, she would bring out the immense account-book, and lay it down upon the table, with a deep sigh. then she would open it at the place where jip had made it illegible last night, and call jip up, to look at his misdeeds. this would occasion a diversion in jip's favour, and some inking of his nose, perhaps, as a penalty. then she would tell jip to lie down on the table instantly, "like a lion"--which was one of his tricks, though i cannot say the likeness was striking--and, if he were in an obedient humor, he would obey. then she would take up a pen, and begin to write, and find a hair in it. then she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and find that it spluttered. then she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and say in a low voice, "oh, it's a talking pen, and will disturb doady!" and then she would give it up as a bad job, and put the account-book away, after pretending to crush the lion with it. or, if she were in a very sedate and serious state of mind, she would sit down with the tablets, and a little basket of bills and other documents, which looked more like curl-papers than anything else, and endeavour to get some result out of them. after severely comparing one with another, and making entries on the tablets, and blotting them out, and counting all the fingers of her left hand over and over again, backwards and forwards, she would be so vexed and discouraged, and would look so unhappy, that it gave me pain to see her bright face clouded--and for me!--and i would go softly to her, and say: "what's the matter, dora?" dora would look up hopelessly, and reply, "they won't come right. they make my head ache so. and they won't do anything i want!" then i would say, "now let us try together. let me show you, dora." then i would commence a practical demonstration, to which dora would pay profound attention, perhaps for five minutes; when she would begin to be dreadfully tired, and would lighten the subject by curling my hair, or trying the effect of my face with my shirt collar turned down. if i tacitly checked this playfulness, and persisted, she would look so scared and disconsolate, as she became more and more bewildered, that the remembrance of her natural gaiety when i first strayed into her path, and of her being my child-wife, would come reproachfully upon me; and i would lay the pencil down, and call for the guitar. i had a great deal of work to do, and had many anxieties, but the same considerations made me keep them to myself. i am far from sure, now, that it was right to do this, but i did it for my child-wife's sake. i search my breast, and i commit its secrets, if i know them, without any reservation to this paper. the old unhappy loss or want of something had, i am conscious, some place in my heart; but not to the embitterment of my life. when i walked alone in the fine weather, and thought of the summer days when all the air had been filled with my boyish enchantment, i did miss something of the realisation of my dreams; but i thought it was a softened glory of the past, which nothing could have thrown upon the present time. i did feel, sometimes, for a little while, that i could have wished my wife had been my counsellor; had had more character and purpose, to sustain me and improve me by; had been endowed with power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be about me; but i felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of my happiness, that never had been meant to be, and never could have been. i was a boyish husband as to years. i had known the softening influence of no other sorrows or experiences than those recorded in these leaves. if i did any wrong, as i may have done much, i did it in mistaken love, and in my want of wisdom. i write the exact truth. it would avail me nothing to extenuate it now. thus it was that i took upon myself the toils and cares of our life, and had no partner in them. we lived much as before, in reference to our scrambling household arrangements; but i had got used to those, and dora i was pleased to see was seldom vexed now. she was bright and cheerful in the old childish way, loved me dearly, and was happy with her old trifles. when the debates were heavy--i mean as to length, not quality, for in the last respect they were not often otherwise--and i went home late, dora would never rest when she heard my footsteps, but would always come down stairs to meet me. when my evenings were unoccupied by the pursuit for which i had qualified myself with so much pains, and i was engaged in writing at home, she would sit quietly near me, however late the hour, and be so mute, that i would often think she had dropped asleep. but generally, when i raised my head, i saw her blue eyes looking at me with the quiet attention of which i have already spoken. "oh, what a weary boy!" said dora one night, when i met her eyes as i was shutting up my desk. "what a weary girl!" said i. "that's more to the purpose. you must go to bed another time, my love. it's far too late for you." "no, don't send me to bed!" pleaded dora, coming to my side. "pray don't do that!" "dora!" to my amazement she was sobbing on my neck. "not well, my dear! not happy!" "yes! quite well, and very happy!" said dora. "but say you'll let me stop, and see you write." "why, what a sight for such bright eyes at midnight!" i replied. "are they bright, though?" returned dora, laughing. "i'm so glad they're bright." "little vanity!" said i. but it was not vanity; it was only harmless delight in my admiration. i knew that very well, before she told me so. "if you think them pretty, say i may always stop, and see you write!" said dora. "_do_ you think them pretty?" "very pretty." "then let me always stop and see you write." "i am afraid that won't improve their brightness, dora." "yes it will! because, you clever boy, you'll not forget me then, while you are full of silent fancies. will you mind it, if i say something very, very silly?--more than usual?" inquired dora, peeping over my shoulder into my face. "what wonderful thing is that?" said i. "please let me hold the pens," said dora. "i want to have something to do with all those many hours when you are so industrious. may i hold the pens?" the remembrance of her pretty joy when i said yes, brings tears into my eyes. the next time i sat down to write, and regularly afterwards, she sat in her old place with a spare bundle of pens at her side. her triumph in this connexion with my work, and her delight when i wanted a new pen--which i very often feigned to do--suggested to me a new way of pleasing my child-wife. i occasionally made a pretence of wanting a page or two of manuscript copied. then dora was in her glory. the preparations she made for this great work, the aprons she put on, the bibs she borrowed from the kitchen to keep off the ink, the time she took, the innumerable stoppages she made to have a laugh with jip as if he understood it all, her conviction that her work was incomplete unless she signed her name at the end, and the way in which she would bring it to me, like a school-copy, and then, when i praised it, clasp me round the neck, are touching recollections to me, simple as they might appear to other men. she took possession of the keys soon after this, and went jingling about the house with the whole bunch in a little basket, tied to her slender waist. i seldom found that the places to which they belonged were locked, or that they were of any use except as a plaything for jip--but dora was pleased, and that pleased me. she was quite satisfied that a good deal was effected by this make-belief of housekeeping; and was as merry as if we had been keeping a baby-house, for a joke. so we went on. dora was hardly less affectionate to my aunt than to me, and often told her of the time when she was afraid she was "a cross old thing." i never saw my aunt unbend more systematically to anyone. she courted jip, though jip never responded; listened, day after day, to the guitar, though i am afraid she had no taste for music; never attacked the incapables, though the temptation must have been severe; went wonderful distances on foot to purchase, as surprises, any trifles that she found out dora wanted; and never came in by the garden, and missed her from the room, but she would call out, at the foot of the stairs, in a voice that sounded cheerfully all over the house: "where's little blossom!" chapter xlv. mr. dick fulfils my aunt's prediction. it was some time now, since i had left the doctor. living in his neighbourhood, i saw him frequently; and we all went to his house on two or three occasions to dinner or tea. the old soldier was in permanent quarters under the doctor's roof. she was exactly the same as ever, and the same immortal butterflies hovered over her cap. like some other mothers, whom i have known in the course of my life, mrs. markleham was far more fond of pleasure than her daughter was. she required a great deal of amusement, and, like a deep old soldier, pretended, in consulting her own inclinations, to be devoting herself to her child. the doctor's desire that annie should be entertained, was therefore particularly acceptable to this excellent parent; who expressed unqualified approval of his discretion. i have no doubt, indeed, that she probed the doctor's wound without knowing it. meaning nothing but a certain matured frivolity and selfishness, not always inseparable from full-blown years, i think she confirmed him in his fear that he was a constraint upon his young wife, and that there was no congeniality of feeling between them, by so strongly commending his design of lightening the load of her life. "my dear soul," she said to him one day when i was present, "you know there is no doubt it would be a little pokey for annie to be always shut up here." the doctor nodded his benevolent head. "when she comes to her mother's age," said mrs. markleham, with a flourish of her fan, "then, it'll be another thing. you might put me into a jail, with genteel society and a rubber, and i should never care to come out. but i am not annie, you know; and annie is not her mother." "surely, surely," said the doctor. "you are the best of creatures--no, i beg your pardon!" for the doctor made a gesture of depreciation, "i must say before your face, as i always say behind your back, you are the best of creatures; but of course you don't--now do you?--enter into the same pursuits and fancies as annie?" "no," said the doctor, in a sorrowful tone. "no, of course not," retorted the old soldier. "take your dictionary for example. what a useful work a dictionary is! what a necessary work! the meanings of words! without doctor johnson, or somebody of that sort, we might have been at this present moment calling an italian-iron a bedstead. but we can't expect a dictionary--especially when it's making--to interest annie, can we?" the doctor shook his head. "and that's why i so much approve," said mrs. markleham, tapping him on the shoulder with her shut-up fan, "of your thoughtfulness. it shows that you don't expect, as many elderly people do expect, old heads on young shoulders. you have studied annie's character, and you understand it. _that's_ what i find so charming!" even the calm and patient face of doctor strong expressed some little sense of pain, i thought, under the infliction of these compliments. "therefore, my dear doctor," said the soldier, giving him several affectionate taps, "you may command me, at all times and seasons. now, do understand that i am entirely at your service. i am ready to go with annie to operas, concerts, exhibitions, all kinds of places; and you shall never find that i am tired. duty, my dear doctor, before every consideration in the universe!" she was as good as her word. she was one of those people who can bear a great deal of pleasure, and she never flinched in her perseverance in the cause. she seldom got hold of the newspaper (which she settled herself down in the softest chair in the house to read through an eye-glass, every day, for two hours), but she found out something that she was certain annie would like to see. it was in vain for annie to protest that she was weary of such things. her mother's remonstrance always was, "now, my dear annie, i am sure you know better; and i must tell you, my love, that you are not making a proper return for the kindness of doctor strong." this was usually said in the doctor's presence, and appeared to me to constitute annie's principal inducement for withdrawing her objections when she made any. but in general she resigned herself to her mother, and went where the old soldier would. it rarely happened now that mr. maldon accompanied them. sometimes my aunt and dora were invited to do so, and accepted the invitation. sometimes dora only was asked. the time had been, when i should have been uneasy in her going; but reflection on what had passed that former night in the doctor's study, had made a change in my mistrust. i believed that the doctor was right, and i had no worse suspicions. my aunt rubbed her nose sometimes when she happened to be alone with me, and said she couldn't make it out; she wished they were happier; she didn't think our military friend (so she always called the old soldier) mended the matter at all. my aunt further expressed her opinion "that if our military friend would cut off those butterflies, and give 'em to the chimney-sweepers for may-day, it would look like the beginning of something sensible on her part." but her abiding reliance was on mr. dick. that man had evidently an idea in his head, she said; and if he could only once pen it up into a corner, which was his great difficulty, he would distinguish himself in some extraordinary manner. unconscious of this prediction, mr. dick continued to occupy precisely the same ground in reference to the doctor and to mrs. strong. he seemed neither to advance nor to recede. he appeared to have settled into his original foundation, like a building; and i must confess that my faith in his ever moving, was not much greater than if he had been a building. but one night, when i had been married some months, mr. dick put his head into the parlor, where i was writing alone (dora having gone out with my aunt to take tea with the two little birds), and said, with a significant cough: "you couldn't speak to me without inconveniencing yourself, trotwood, i am afraid?" "certainly, mr. dick," said i; "come in!" "trotwood," said mr. dick, laying his finger on the side of his nose, after he had shaken hands with me. "before i sit down, i wish to make an observation. you know your aunt?" "a little," i replied. "she is the most wonderful woman in the world, sir!" after the delivery of this communication, which he shot out of himself as if he were loaded with it, mr. dick sat down with greater gravity than usual, and looked at me. "now, boy," said mr. dick, "i am going to put a question to you." "as many as you please," said i. "what do you consider me, sir?" asked mr. dick, folding his arms. "a dear old friend," said i. "thank you, trotwood," returned mr. dick, laughing, and reaching across in high glee to shake hands with me. "but i mean, boy," resuming his gravity, "what do you consider me in this respect?" touching his forehead. i was puzzled how to answer, but he helped me with a word. "weak?" said mr. dick. "well," i replied, dubiously. "rather so." "exactly!" cried mr. dick, who seemed quite enchanted by my reply. "that is, trotwood, when they took some of the trouble out of you-know-who's head, and put it you know where, there was a----" mr. dick made his two hands revolve very fast about each other a great number of times, and then brought them into collision, and rolled them over and over one another, to express confusion. "there was that sort of thing done to me somehow? eh?" i nodded at him, and he nodded back again. "in short, boy," said mr. dick, dropping his voice to a whisper, "i am simple." i would have qualified that conclusion, but he stopped me. "yes, i am! she pretends i am not. she won't hear of it; but i am. i know i am. if she hadn't stood my friend, sir, i should have been shut up, to lead a dismal life these many years. but i'll provide for her! i never spend the copying money. i put it in a box. i have made a will. i'll leave it all to her. she shall be rich--noble!" mr. dick took out his pocket-handkerchief, and wiped his eyes. he then folded it up with great care, pressed it smooth between his two hands, put it in his pocket, and seemed to put my aunt away with it. "now you are a scholar, trotwood," said mr. dick. "you are a fine scholar. you know what a learned man, what a great man, the doctor is. you know what honor he has always done me. not proud in his wisdom. humble, humble--condescending even to poor dick, who is simple and knows nothing. i have sent his name up, on a scrap of paper, to the kite, along the string, when it has been in the sky, among the larks. the kite has been glad to receive it, sir, and the sky has been brighter with it." i delighted him by saying, most heartily, that the doctor was deserving of our best respect and highest esteem. "and his beautiful wife is a star," said mr. dick. "a shining star. i have seen her shine, sir. but," bringing his chair nearer, and laying one hand upon my knee--"clouds, sir--clouds." i answered the solicitude which his face expressed, by conveying the same expression into my own, and shaking my head. "what clouds?" said mr. dick. he looked so wistfully into my face, and was so anxious to understand, that i took great pains to answer him slowly and distinctly, as i might have entered on an explanation to a child. "there is some unfortunate division between them," i replied. "some unhappy cause of separation. a secret. it may be inseparable from the discrepancy in their years. it may have grown up out of almost nothing." mr. dick, who told off every sentence with a thoughtful nod, paused when i had done, and sat considering, with his eyes upon my face, and his hand upon my knee. "doctor not angry with her, trotwood?" he said, after some time. "no. devoted to her." "then, i have got it, boy!" said mr. dick. the sudden exultation with which he slapped me on the knee, and leaned back in his chair, with his eyebrows lifted up as high as he could possibly lift them, made me think him farther out of his wits than ever. he became as suddenly grave again, and leaning forward as before, said--first respectfully taking out his pocket-handkerchief, as if it really did represent my aunt: "most wonderful woman in the world, trotwood. why has _she_ done nothing to set things right?" "too delicate and difficult a subject for such interference," i replied. "fine scholar," said mr. dick, touching me with his finger. "why has _he_ done nothing." "for the same reason," i returned. "then, i have got it, boy!" said mr. dick. and he stood up before me, more exultingly than before, nodding his head, and striking himself repeatedly upon the breast, until one might have supposed that he had nearly nodded and struck all the breath out of his body. "a poor fellow with a craze, sir," said mr. dick, "a simpleton, a weak-minded person--present company, you know!" striking himself again, "may do what wonderful people may not do. i'll bring them together, boy. i'll try. they'll not blame _me_. they'll not object to _me_. they'll not mind what _i_ do, if it's wrong. i'm only mr. dick. and who minds dick? dick's nobody! whoo!" he blew a slight, contemptuous breath, as if he blew himself away. it was fortunate he had proceeded so far with his mystery, for we heard the coach stop at the little garden gate, which brought my aunt and dora home. "not a word, boy!" he pursued in a whisper; "leave all the blame with dick--simple dick--mad dick. i have been thinking, sir, for some time that i was getting it, and now i have got it. after what you have said to me, i am sure i have got it. all right!" not another word did mr. dick utter on the subject; but he made a very telegraph of himself for the next half-hour (to the great disturbance of my aunt's mind), to enjoin inviolable secresy on me. to my surprise i heard no more about it for some two or three weeks, though i was sufficiently interested in the result of his endeavours; descrying a strange gleam of good sense--i say nothing of good feeling, for that he always exhibited--in the conclusion to which he had come. at last i began to believe, that, in the flighty and unsettled state of his mind, he had either forgotten his intention or abandoned it. one fair evening, when dora was not inclined to go out, my aunt and i strolled up to the doctor's cottage. it was autumn, when there were no debates to vex the evening air; and i remember how the leaves smelt like our garden at blunderstone as we trod them under foot, and how the old, unhappy feeling, seemed to go by, on the sighing wind. it was twilight when we reached the cottage. mrs. strong was just coming out of the garden, where mr. dick yet lingered, busy with his knife, helping the gardener to point some stakes. the doctor was engaged with some one in his study; but the visitor would be gone directly, mrs. strong said, and begged us to remain and see him. we went into the drawing-room with her, and sat down by the darkening window. there was never any ceremony about the visits of such old friends and neighbours as we were. we had not sat here many minutes, when mrs. markleham, who usually contrived to be in a fuss about something, came bustling in, with her newspaper in her hand, and said, out of breath, "my goodness gracious, annie, why didn't you tell me there was some one in the study!" "my dear mama," she quietly returned, "how could i know that you desired the information!" "desired the information!" said mrs. markleham, sinking on the sofa. "i never had such a turn in all my life!" "have you been to the study then, mama?" asked annie. "_been_ to the study, my dear!" she returned emphatically. "indeed i have! i came upon the amiable creature--if you'll imagine my feelings, miss trotwood and david--in the act of making his will." her daughter looked round from the window quickly. "in the act, my dear annie," repeated mrs. markleham, spreading the newspaper on her lap like a table-cloth, and patting her hands upon it, "of making his last will and testament. the foresight and affection of the dear! i must tell you how it was. i really must, in justice to the darling--for he is nothing less!--tell you how it was. perhaps you know, miss trotwood, that there is never a candle lighted in this house, until one's eyes are literally falling out of one's head with being stretched to read the paper. and that there is not a chair in this house, in which a paper can be what _i_ call, read, except one in the study. this took me to the study, where i saw a light. i opened the door. in company with the dear doctor were two professional people, evidently connected with the law, and they were all three standing at the table: the darling doctor pen in hand. 'this simply expresses then,' said the doctor--annie, my love, attend to the very words--'this simply expresses then, gentlemen, the confidence i have in mrs. strong, and gives her all unconditionally?' one of the professional people replied, 'and gives her all unconditionally.' upon that, with the natural feelings of a mother, i said, 'good god, i beg your pardon!' fell over the door-step, and came away through the little back passage where the pantry is." mrs. strong opened the window, and went out into the verandah, where she stood leaning against a pillar. "but now isn't it, miss trotwood, isn't it, david, invigorating," said mrs. markleham, mechanically following her with her eyes, "to find a man at doctor strong's time of life, with the strength of mind to do this kind of thing? it only shows how right i was. i said to annie, when doctor strong paid a very flattering visit to myself, and made her the subject of a declaration and an offer, i said, 'my dear, there is no doubt whatever, in my opinion, with reference to a suitable provision for you, that doctor strong will do more than he binds himself to do.'" here the bell rang, and we heard the sound of the visitors' feet as they went out. "it's all over, no doubt," said the old soldier, after listening; "the dear creature has signed, sealed, and delivered, and his mind's at rest. well it may be! what a mind! annie, my love, i am going to the study with my paper, for i am a poor creature without news. miss trotwood, david, pray come and see the doctor." i was conscious of mr. dick's standing in the shadow of the room, shutting up his knife, when we accompanied her to the study; and of my aunt's rubbing her nose violently, by the way, as a mild vent for her intolerance of our military friend; but who got first into the study, or how mrs. markleham settled herself in a moment in her easy chair, or how my aunt and i came to be left together near the door (unless her eyes were quicker than mine, and she held me back), i have forgotten, if i ever knew. but this i know,--that we saw the doctor before he saw us, sitting at his table, among the folio volumes in which he delighted, resting his head calmly on his hand. that, in the same moment, we saw mrs. strong glide in, pale and trembling. that mr. dick supported her on his arm. that he laid his other hand upon the doctor's arm, causing him to look up with an abstracted air. that, as the doctor moved his head, his wife dropped down on one knee at his feet, and, with her hands imploringly lifted, fixed upon his face the memorable look i had never forgotten. that at this sight mrs. markleham dropped the newspaper, and stared more like a figure-head intended for a ship to be called the astonishment, than anything else i can think of. [illustration: mr. dick fulfils my aunt's prediction.] the gentleness of the doctor's manner and surprise, the dignity that mingled with the supplicating attitude of his wife, the amiable concern of mr. dick, and the earnestness with which my aunt said to herself, "_that_ man mad!" (triumphantly expressive of the misery from which she had saved him), i see and hear, rather than remember, as i write about it. "doctor!" said mr. dick. "what is it that's amiss? look here!" "annie!" cried the doctor. "not at my feet, my dear!" "yes!" she said. "i beg and pray that no one will leave the room! oh, my husband and father, break this long silence. let us both know what it is that has come between us!" mrs. markleham, by this time recovering the power of speech, and seeming to swell with family pride and motherly indignation, here exclaimed, "annie, get up immediately, and don't disgrace everybody belonging to you by humbling yourself like that, unless you wish to see me go out of my mind on the spot!" "mama!" returned annie. "waste no words on me, for my appeal is to my husband, and even you are nothing here." "nothing!" exclaimed mrs. markleham. "me, nothing! the child has taken leave of her senses. please to get me a glass of water!" i was too attentive to the doctor and his wife, to give any heed to this request; and it made no impression on anybody else; so mrs. markleham panted, stared, and fanned herself. "annie!" said the doctor, tenderly taking her in his hands. "my dear! if any unavoidable change has come, in the sequence of time, upon our married life, you are not to blame. the fault is mine, and only mine. there is no change in my affection, admiration, and respect. i wish to make you happy. i truly love and honor you. rise, annie, pray!" but she did not rise. after looking at him for a little while, she sank down closer to him, laid her arm across his knee, and dropping her head upon it, said: "if i have any friend here, who can speak one word for me, or for my husband, in this matter; if i have any friend here, who can give a voice to any suspicion that my heart has sometimes whispered to me; if i have any friend here, who honors my husband, or has ever cared for me, and has anything within his knowledge, no matter what it is, that may help to mediate between us, i implore that friend to speak!" there was a profound silence. after a few moments of painful hesitation, i broke the silence. "mrs. strong," i said, "there is something within my knowledge, which i have been earnestly entreated by doctor strong to conceal, and have concealed until to-night. but, i believe the time has come when it would be mistaken faith and delicacy to conceal it any longer, and when your appeal absolves me from his injunction." she turned her face towards me for a moment, and i knew that i was right. i could not have resisted its entreaty, if the assurance that it gave me had been less convincing. "our future peace," she said, "may be in your hands. i trust it confidently to your not suppressing anything. i know beforehand that nothing you, or any one, can tell me, will show my husband's noble heart in any other light than one. howsoever it may seem to you to touch me, disregard that. i will speak for myself, before him, and before god afterwards." thus earnestly besought, i made no reference to the doctor for his permission, but, without any other compromise of the truth than a little softening of the coarseness of uriah heep, related plainly what had passed in that same room that night. the staring of mrs. markleham during the whole narration, and the shrill, sharp interjections with which she occasionally interrupted it, defy description. when i had finished, annie remained, for some few moments, silent, with her head bent down, as i have described. then, she took the doctor's hand (he was sitting in the same attitude as when we had entered the room), and pressed it to her breast, and kissed it. mr. dick softly raised her; and she stood, when she began to speak, leaning on him, and looking down upon her husband--from whom she never turned her eyes. "all that has ever been in my mind, since i was married," she said in a low, submissive, tender voice, "i will lay bare before you. i could not live and have one reservation, knowing what i know now." "nay, annie," said the doctor, mildly, "i have never doubted you, my child. there is no need; indeed there is no need, my dear." "there is great need," she answered, in the same way, "that i should open my whole heart before the soul of generosity and truth, whom, year by year, and day by day, i have loved and venerated more and more, as heaven knows!" "really," interrupted mrs. markleham, "if i have any discretion at all--" ("which you haven't, you marplot," observed my aunt, in an indignant whisper.) --"i must be permitted to observe that it cannot be requisite to enter into these details." "no one but my husband can judge of that, mama," said annie, without removing her eyes from his face, "and he will hear me. if i say anything to give you pain, mama, forgive me. i have borne pain first, often and long, myself." "upon my word!" gasped mrs. markleham. "when i was very young," said annie, "quite a little child, my first associations with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a patient friend and teacher--the friend of my dead father--who was always dear to me. i can remember nothing that i know, without remembering him. he stored my mind with its first treasures, and stamped his character upon them all. they never could have been, i think, as good as they have been to me, if i had taken them from any other hands." "makes her mother nothing!" exclaimed mrs. markleham. "not so, mama," said annie; "but i make him what he was. i must do that. as i grew up, he occupied the same place still. i was proud of his interest: deeply, fondly, gratefully attached to him. i looked up to him i can hardly describe how--as a father, as a guide, as one whose praise was different from all other praise, as one in whom i could have trusted and confided, if i had doubted all the world. you know, mama, how young and inexperienced i was, when you presented him before me, of a sudden, as a lover." "i have mentioned the fact, fifty times at least, to everybody here!" said mrs. markleham. ("then hold your tongue, for the lord's sake, and don't mention it any more!" muttered my aunt). "it was so great a change: so great a loss, i felt it, at first," said annie, still preserving the same look and tone, "that i was agitated and distressed. i was but a girl; and when so great a change came in the character in which i had so long looked up to him, i think i was sorry. but nothing could have made him what he used to be again; and i was proud that he should think me so worthy, and we were married." "--at saint alphage, canterbury," observed mrs. markleham. ("confound the woman!" said my aunt, "she _won't_ be quiet!") "i never thought," proceeded annie, with a heightened color, "of any worldly gain that my husband would bring to me. my young heart had no room in its homage for any such poor reference. mama, forgive me when i say that it was _you_ who first presented to my mind the thought that any one could wrong me, and wrong him, by such a cruel suspicion." "me!" cried mrs. markleham. ("ah! you, to be sure!" observed my aunt, "and you can't fan it away, my military friend!") "it was the first unhappiness of my new life," said annie. "it was the first occasion of every unhappy moment i have known. those moments have been more, of late, than i can count; but not--my generous husband!--not for the reason you suppose; for in my heart there is not a thought, a recollection, or a hope, that any power could separate from you!" she raised her eyes, and clasped her hands, and looked as beautiful and true, i thought, as any spirit. the doctor looked on her, henceforth, as stedfastly as she on him. "mama is blameless," she went on, "of having ever urged you for herself, and she is blameless in intention everyway, i am sure,--but when i saw how many importunate claims that were no claims were pressed upon you in my name; how you were traded on in my name; how generous you were, and how mr. wickfield, who had your welfare very much at heart, resented it; the first sense of my exposure to the mean suspicion that my tenderness was bought--and sold to you, of all men, on earth--fell upon me, like unmerited disgrace, in which i forced you to participate. i cannot tell you what it was--mama cannot imagine what it was--to have this dread and trouble always on my mind, yet know in my own soul that on my marriage-day i crowned the love and honor of my life!" "a specimen of the thanks one gets," cried mrs. markleham, in tears, "for taking care of one's family! i wish i was a turk!" ("i wish you were, with all my heart--and in your native country!" said my aunt). "it was at that time that mama was most solicitous about my cousin maldon. i had liked him:" she spoke softly, but without any hesitation: "very much. we had been little lovers once. if circumstances had not happened otherwise, i might have come to persuade myself that i really loved him, and might have married him, and been most wretched. there can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose." i pondered on those words, even while i was studiously attending to what followed, as if they had some particular interest, or some strange application that i could not divine. "there can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose"--"no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose." "there is nothing," said annie, "that we have in common. i have long found that there is nothing. if i were thankful to my husband for no more, instead of for so much, i should be thankful to him for having saved me from the first mistaken impulse of my undisciplined heart." she stood quite still, before the doctor, and spoke with an earnestness that thrilled me. yet her voice was just as quiet as before. "when he was waiting to be the object of your munificence, so freely bestowed for my sake, and when i was unhappy in the mercenary shape i was made to wear, i thought it would have become him better to have worked his own way on. i thought that if i had been he, i would have tried to do it, at the cost of almost any hardship. but i thought no worse of him, until the night of his departure for india. that night i knew he had a false and thankless heart. i saw a double meaning, then, in mr. wickfield's scrutiny of me. i perceived, for the first time, the dark suspicion that shadowed my life." "suspicion, annie!" said the doctor. "no, no, no!" "in your mind there was none, i know, my husband!" she returned. "and when i came to you, that night, to lay down all my load of shame and grief, and knew that i had to tell, that, underneath your roof, one of my own kindred, to whom you had been a benefactor, for the love of me, had spoken to me words that should have found no utterance, even if i had been the weak and mercenary wretch he thought me--my mind revolted from the taint the very tale conveyed. it died upon my lips, and from that hour till now has never passed them." mrs. markleham, with a short groan, leaned back in her easy chair; and retired behind her fan, as if she were never coming out any more. "i have never, but in your presence, interchanged a word with him from that time; then, only when it has been necessary for the avoidance of this explanation. years have passed since he knew, from me, what his situation here was. the kindnesses you have secretly done for his advancement, and then disclosed to me, for my surprise and pleasure, have been, you will believe, but aggravations of the unhappiness and burden of my secret." she sunk down gently at the doctor's feet, though he did his utmost to prevent her; and said, looking up, tearfully, into his face: "do not speak to me yet! let me say a little more! right or wrong, if this were to be done again, i think i should do just the same. you never can know what it was to be devoted to you, with those old associations; to find that any one could be so hard as to suppose that the truth of my heart was bartered away, and to be surrounded by appearances confirming that belief. i was very young, and had no adviser. between mama and me, in all relating to you, there was a wide division. if i shrunk into myself, hiding the disrespect i had undergone, it was because i honored you so much, and so much wished that you should honor me!" "annie, my pure heart!" said the doctor, "my dear girl!" "a little more! a very few words more! i used to think there were so many whom you might have married, who would not have brought such charge and trouble on you, and who would have made your home a worthier home. i used to be afraid that i had better have remained your pupil, and almost your child. i used to fear that i was so unsuited to your learning and wisdom. if all this made me shrink within myself (as indeed it did), when i had that to tell, it was still because i honored you so much, and hoped that you might one day honor me." "that day has shone this long time, annie," said the doctor, "and can have but one long night, my dear." "another word! i afterwards meant--stedfastly meant, and purposed to myself--to bear the whole weight of knowing the unworthiness of one to whom you had been so good. and now a last word, dearest and best of friends! the cause of the late change in you, which i have seen with so much pain and sorrow, and have sometimes referred to my old apprehension--at other times to lingering suppositions nearer to the truth--has been made clear to-night; and by an accident i have also come to know, to-night, the full measure of your noble trust in me, even under that mistake. i do not hope that any love and duty i may render in return, will ever make me worthy of your priceless confidence; but with all this knowledge fresh upon me, i can lift my eyes to this dear face, revered as a father's, loved as a husband's, sacred to me in my childhood as a friend's, and solemnly declare that in my lightest thought i have never wronged you; never wavered in the love and the fidelity i owe you!" she had her arms around the doctor's neck, and he leant his head down over her, mingling his grey hair with her dark brown tresses. "oh, hold me to your heart, my husband! never cast me out! do not think or speak of disparity between us, for there is none, except in all my many imperfections. every succeeding year i have known this better, as i have esteemed you more and more. oh, take me to your heart, my husband, for my love was founded on a rock, and it endures!" in the silence that ensued, my aunt walked gravely up to mr. dick, without at all hurrying herself, and gave him a hug and a sounding kiss. and it was very fortunate, with a view to his credit, that she did so; for i am confident that i detected him at that moment in the act of making preparations to stand on one leg, as an appropriate expression of delight. "you are a very remarkable man, dick!" said my aunt, with an air of unqualified approbation; "and never pretend to be anything else, for i know better!" with that, my aunt pulled him by the sleeve, and nodded to me; and we three stole quietly out of the room, and came away. "that's a settler for our military friend, at any rate," said my aunt, on the way home. "i should sleep the better for that, if there was nothing else to be glad of!" "she was quite overcome, i am afraid," said mr. dick, with great commiseration. "what! did you ever see a crocodile overcome?" inquired my aunt. "i don't think i ever saw a crocodile," returned mr. dick, mildly. "there never would have been anything the matter, if it hadn't been for that old animal," said my aunt, with strong emphasis. "it's very much to be wished that some mothers would leave their daughters alone after marriage, and not be so violently affectionate. they seem to think the only return that can be made them for bringing an unfortunate young woman into the world--god bless my soul, as if she asked to be brought, or wanted to come!--is full liberty to worry her out of it again. what are you thinking of, trot?" i was thinking of all that had been said. my mind was still running on some of the expressions used. "there can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose." "the first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart." "my love was founded on a rock." but we were at home; and the trodden leaves were lying under-foot, and the autumn wind was blowing. chapter xlvi. intelligence. i must have been married, if i may trust to my imperfect memory for dates, about a year or so, when one evening, as i was returning from a solitary walk, thinking of the book i was then writing--for my success had steadily increased with my steady application, and i was engaged at that time upon my first work of fiction--i came past mrs. steerforth's house. i had often passed it before, during my residence in that neighbourhood, though never when i could choose another road. howbeit, it did sometimes happen that it was not easy to find another, without making a long circuit; and so i had passed that way, upon the whole, pretty often. i had never done more than glance at the house, as i went by with a quickened step. it had been uniformly gloomy and dull. none of the best rooms abutted on the road; and the narrow, heavily-framed old-fashioned windows, never cheerful under any circumstances, looked very dismal, close shut, and with their blinds always drawn down. there was a covered way across a little paved court, to an entrance that was never used; and there was one round staircase window, at odds with all the rest, and the only one unshaded by a blind, which had the same unoccupied blank look. i do not remember that i ever saw a light in all the house. if i had been a casual passer-by, i should have probably supposed that some childless person lay dead in it. if i had happily possessed no knowledge of the place, and had seen it often in that changeless state, i should have pleased my fancy with many ingenious speculations, i dare say. as it was, i thought as little of it as i might. but my mind could not go by it and leave it, as my body did; and it usually awakened a long train of meditations. coming before me, on this particular evening that i mention, mingled with the childish recollections and later fancies, the ghosts of half-formed hopes, the broken shadows of disappointments dimly seen and understood, the blending of experience and imagination, incidental to the occupation with which my thoughts had been busy, it was more than commonly suggestive. i fell into a brown study as i walked on, and a voice at my side made me start. it was a woman's voice, too. i was not long in recollecting mrs. steerforth's little parlor-maid, who had formerly worn blue ribbons in her cap. she had taken them out now, to adapt herself, i suppose, to the altered character of the house; and wore but one or two disconsolate bows of sober brown. "if you please, sir, would you have the goodness to walk in, and speak to miss dartle?" "has miss dartle sent you for me?" i inquired. "not to-night, sir, but it's just the same. miss dartle saw you pass a night or two ago; and i was to sit at work on the staircase, and when i saw you pass again, to ask you to step in and speak to her." i turned back, and inquired of my conductor, as we went along, how mrs. steerforth was. she said her lady was but poorly, and kept her own room a good deal. when we arrived at the house, i was directed to miss dartle in the garden, and left to make my presence known to her myself. she was sitting on a seat at one end of a kind of terrace, overlooking the great city. it was a sombre evening, with a lurid light in the sky; and as i saw the prospect scowling in the distance, with here and there some larger object starting up into the sullen glare, i fancied it was no inapt companion to the memory of this fierce woman. she saw me as i advanced, and rose for a moment to receive me. i thought her, then, still more colorless and thin than when i had seen her last; the flashing eyes still brighter, and the scar still plainer. our meeting was not cordial. we had parted angrily on the last occasion; and there was an air of disdain about her, which she took no pains to conceal. "i am told you wish to speak to me, miss dartle;" said i, standing near her, with my hand upon the back of the seat, and declining her gesture of invitation to sit down. "if you please," said she. "pray has this girl been found?" "no." "and yet she has run away!" i saw her thin lips working while she looked at me, as if they were eager to load her with reproaches. "run away?" i repeated. "yes! from him," she said with a laugh. "if she is not found, perhaps she never will be found. she may be dead!" the vaunting cruelty with which she met my glance, i never saw expressed in any other face that ever i have seen. "to wish her dead," said i, "may be the kindest wish that one of her own sex could bestow upon her. i am glad that time has softened you so much, miss dartle." she condescended to make no reply, but, turning on me with another scornful laugh, said: "the friends of this excellent and much-injured young lady are friends of yours. you are their champion, and assert their rights. do you wish to know what is known of her?" "yes," said i. she rose with an ill-favored smile, and, taking a few steps towards a wall of holly that was near at hand, dividing the lawn from a kitchen-garden, said, in a louder voice, "come here!"--as if she were calling to some unclean beast. "you will restrain any demonstrative championship or vengeance in this place, of course, mr. copperfield?" said she, looking over her shoulder at me with the same expression. i inclined my head, without knowing what she meant; and she said, "come here!" again; and returned, followed by the respectable mr. littimer, who, with undiminished respectability, made me a bow, and took up his position behind her. the air of wicked grace: of triumph, in which, strange to say, there was yet something feminine and alluring: with which she reclined upon the seat between us, and looked at me, was worthy of a cruel princess in a legend. "now," said she, imperiously, without glancing at him, and touching the old wound as it throbbed: perhaps, in this instance, with pleasure rather than pain. "tell mr. copperfield about the flight." "mr. james and myself, ma'am----" "don't address yourself to me!" she interrupted, with a frown. "mr. james and myself, sir----" "nor to me, if you please," said i. mr. littimer, without being at all discomposed, signified by a slight obeisance, that anything that was most agreeable to us was most agreeable to him; and began again: "mr. james and myself have been abroad with the young woman, ever since she left yarmouth under mr. james's protection. we have been in a variety of places, and seen a deal of foreign country. we have been in france, switzerland, italy, in fact, almost all parts." he looked at the back of the seat, as if he were addressing himself to that; and softly played upon it with his hands, as if he were striking chords upon a dumb piano. "mr. james took quite uncommonly to the young woman; and was more settled, for a length of time, than i have known him to be since i have been in his service. the young woman was very improvable, and spoke the languages; and wouldn't have been known for the same country-person. i noticed that she was much admired wherever we went." miss dartle put her hand upon her side. i saw him steal a glance at her, and slightly smile to himself. "very much admired, indeed, the young woman was. what with her dress; what with the air and sun; what with being made so much of; what with this, that, and the other; her merits really attracted general notice." he made a short pause. her eyes wandered restlessly over the distant prospect, and she bit her nether lip to stop that busy mouth. taking his hands from the seat, and placing one of them within the other, as he settled himself on one leg, mr. littimer proceeded, with his eyes cast down, and his respectable head a little advanced, and a little on one side: "the young woman went on in this manner for some time, being occasionally low in her spirits, until i think she began to weary mr. james by giving way to her low spirits and tempers of that kind; and things were not so comfortable. mr. james he began to be restless again. the more restless he got, the worse she got; and i must say, for myself, that i had a very difficult time of it indeed between the two. still matters were patched up here, and made good there, over and over again; and altogether lasted, i am sure, for a longer time than anybody could have expected." recalling her eyes from the distance, she looked at me again now, with her former air. mr. littimer, clearing his throat behind his hand with a respectable short-cough, changed legs, and went on: "at last, when there had been, upon the whole, a good many words and reproaches, mr. james he set off one morning, from the neighbourhood of naples, where we had a villa (the young woman being very partial to the sea), and, under pretence of coming back in a day or so, left it in charge with me to break it out, that, for the general happiness of all concerned, he was"--here an interruption of the short cough--"gone. but mr. james, i must say, certainly did behave extremely honorable; for he proposed that the young woman should marry a very respectable person, who was fully prepared to overlook the past, and who was, at least, as good as anybody the young woman could have aspired to in a regular way: her connexions being very common." he changed legs again, and wetted his lips. i was convinced that the scoundrel spoke of himself, and i saw my conviction reflected in miss dartle's face. "this i also had it in charge to communicate. i was willing to do anything to relieve mr. james from his difficulty, and to restore harmony between himself and an affectionate parent, who has undergone so much on his account. therefore i undertook the commission. the young woman's violence when she came to, after i broke the fact of his departure, was beyond all expectations. she was quite mad, and had to be held by force; or, if she couldn't have got to a knife, or got to the sea, she'd have beaten her head against the marble floor." miss dartle, leaning back upon the seat, with a light of exultation in her face, seemed almost to caress the sounds this fellow had uttered. "but when i came to the second part of what had been entrusted to me," said mr. littimer, rubbing his hands, uneasily, "which anybody might have supposed would have been, at all events, appreciated as a kind intention, then the young woman came out in her true colors. a more outrageous person i never did see. her conduct was surprisingly bad. she had no more gratitude, no more feeling, no more patience, no more reason in her, than a stock or a stone. if i hadn't been upon my guard, i am convinced she would have had my blood." "i think the better of her for it," said i, indignantly. mr. littimer bent his head, as much as to say, "indeed, sir? but you're young!" and resumed his narrative. "it was necessary, in short, for a time, to take away everything nigh her, that she could do herself, or anybody else, an injury with, and to shut her up close. notwithstanding which, she got out in the night; forced the lattice of a window, that i had nailed up myself; dropped on a vine that was trailed below; and never has been seen or heard of, to my knowledge, since." "she is dead, perhaps," said miss dartle, with a smile, as if she could have spurned the body of the ruined girl. "she may have drownded herself, miss," returned mr. littimer, catching at an excuse for addressing himself to somebody. "it's very possible. or, she may have had assistance from the boatmen, and the boatmen's wives and children. being given to low company, she was very much in the habit of talking to them on the beach, miss dartle, and sitting by their boats. i have known her do it, when mr. james has been away, whole days. mr. james was far from pleased to find out, once, that she had told the children she was a boatman's daughter, and that in her own country, long ago, she had roamed about the beach, like them." oh, emily! unhappy beauty! what a picture rose before me of her sitting on the far-off shore, among the children like herself when she was innocent, listening to little voices such as might have called her mother had she been a poor man's wife; and to the great voice of the sea, with its eternal "never more!" "when it was clear that nothing could be done, miss dartle--" "did i tell you not to speak to me?" she said, with stern contempt. "you spoke to me, miss," he replied. "i beg your pardon. but it's my service to obey." "do your service," she returned. "finish your story, and go!" "when it was clear," he said, with infinite respectability, and an obedient bow, "that she was not to be found, i went to mr. james, at the place where it had been agreed that i should write to him, and informed him of what had occurred. words passed between us in consequence, and i felt it due to my character to leave him. i could bear, and i have borne, a great deal from mr. james; but he insulted me too far. he hurt me. knowing the unfortunate difference between himself and his mother, and what her anxiety of mind was likely to be, i took the liberty of coming home to england, and relating--" "for money which i paid him," said miss dartle to me. "just so, ma'am--and relating what i knew. i am not aware," said mr. littimer, after a moment's reflection, "that there is anything else. i am at present out of employment, and should be happy to meet with a respectable situation." miss dartle glanced at me, as though she would inquire if there were anything that i desired to ask. as there was something which had occurred to my mind, i said in reply: "i could wish to know from this--creature," i could not bring myself to utter any more conciliatory word, "whether they intercepted a letter that was written to her from home, or whether he supposes that she received it." he remained calm and silent, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and the tip of every finger of his right hand delicately poised against the tip of every finger of his left. miss dartle turned her head disdainfully towards him. "i beg your pardon, miss," he said, awakening from his abstraction, "but, however submissive to you, i have my position, though a servant. mr. copperfield and you, miss, are different people. if mr. copperfield wishes to know anything from me, i take the liberty of reminding mr. copperfield that he can put a question to me. i have a character to maintain." after a momentary struggle with myself, i turned my eyes upon him, and said, "you have heard my question. consider it addressed to yourself, if you choose. what answer do you make?" "sir," he rejoined, with an occasional separation and reunion of those delicate tips, "my answer must be qualified; because, to betray mr. james's confidence to his mother, and to betray it to you, are two different actions. it is not probable, i consider, that mr. james would encourage the receipt of letters likely to increase low spirits and unpleasantness; but further than that, sir, i should wish to avoid going." "is that all?" enquired miss dartle of me. i indicated that i had nothing more to say. "except," i added, as i saw him moving off, "that i understand this fellow's part in the wicked story, and that, as i shall make it known to the honest man who has been her father from her childhood, i would recommend him to avoid going too much into public." he had stopped the moment i began, and had listened with his usual repose of manner. "thank you, sir. but you'll excuse me if i say, sir, that there are neither slaves nor slave-drivers in this country, and that people are not allowed to take the law into their own hands. if they do, it is more to their own peril, i believe, than to other people's. consequently speaking, i am not at all afraid of going wherever i may wish, sir." with that, he made me a polite bow; and, with another to miss dartle, went away through the arch in the wall of holly by which he had come. miss dartle and i regarded each other for a little while in silence; her manner being exactly what it was, when she had produced the man. "he says besides," she observed, with a slow curling of her lip, "that his master, as he hears, is coasting spain; and this done, is away to gratify his seafaring tastes till he is weary. but that is of no interest to you. between these two proud persons, mother and son, there is a wider breach than before, and little hope of its healing, for they are one at heart, and time makes each more obstinate and imperious. neither is this of any interest to you; but it introduces what i wish to say. this devil whom you make an angel of, i mean this low girl whom he picked out of the tide-mud," with her black eyes full upon me, and her passionate finger up, "may be alive,--for i believe some common things are hard to die. if she is, you will desire to have a pearl of such price found and taken care of. we desire that, too; that he may not by any chance be made her prey again. so far, we are united in one interest; and that is why i, who would do her any mischief that so coarse a wretch is capable of feeling, have sent for you to hear what you have heard." i saw, by the change in her face, that some one was advancing behind me. it was mrs. steerforth, who gave me her hand more coldly than of yore, and with an augmentation of her former stateliness of manner; but still, i perceived--and i was touched by it--with an ineffaceable remembrance of my old love for her son. she was greatly altered. her fine figure was far less upright, her handsome face was deeply marked, and her hair was almost white. but when she sat down on the seat, she was a handsome lady still; and well i knew the bright eye with its lofty look, that had been a light in my very dreams at school. "is mr. copperfield informed of everything, rosa?" "yes." "and has he heard littimer himself?" "yes; i have told him why you wished it." "you are a good girl. i have had some slight correspondence with your former friend, sir," addressing me, "but it has not restored his sense of duty or natural obligation. therefore i have no other object in this, than what rosa has mentioned. if, by the course which may relieve the mind of the decent man you brought here (for whom i am sorry--i can say no more), my son may be saved from again falling into the snares of a designing enemy, well!" she drew herself up, and sat looking straight before her, far away. "madam," i said respectfully, "i understand. i assure you i am in no danger of putting any strained construction on your motives. but i must say, even to you, having known this injured family from childhood, that if you suppose the girl, so deeply wronged, has not been cruelly deluded, and would not rather die a hundred deaths than take a cup of water from your son's hand now, you cherish a terrible mistake." "well, rosa, well!" said mrs. steerforth, as the other was about to interpose, "it is no matter. let it be. you are married, sir, i am told?" i answered that i had been some time married. "and are doing well? i hear little in the quiet life i lead, but i understand you are beginning to be famous." "i have been very fortunate," i said, "and find my name connected with some praise." "you have no mother?"--in a softened voice. "no." "it is a pity," she returned. "she would have been proud of you. good night!" i took the hand she held out with a dignified, unbending air, and it was as calm in mine as if her breast had been at peace. her pride could still its very pulses it appeared, and draw the placid veil before her face, through which she sat looking straight before her on the far distance. as i moved away from them along the terrace, i could not help observing how steadily they both sat gazing on the prospect, and how it thickened and closed around them. here and there, some early lamps were seen to twinkle in the distant city; and in the eastern quarter of the sky the lurid light still hovered. but, from the greater part of the broad valley interposed, a mist was rising like a sea, which, mingling with the darkness, made it seem as if the gathering waters would encompass them. i have reason to remember this, and think of it with awe; for before i looked upon those two again, a stormy sea had risen to their feet. reflecting on what had been thus told me, i felt it right that it should be communicated to mr. peggotty. on the following evening i went into london in quest of him. he was always wandering about from place to place, with his one object of recovering his niece before him; but was more in london than elsewhere. often and often, now, had i seen him in the dead of night passing along the streets, searching, among the few who loitered out of doors at those untimely hours, for what he dreaded to find. he kept a lodging over the little chandler's shop in hungerford market, which i have had occasion to mention more than once, and from which he first went forth upon his errand of mercy. hither i directed my walk. on making inquiry for him, i learned from the people of the house that he had not gone out yet, and i should find him in his room up-stairs. he was sitting reading by a window in which he kept a few plants. the room was very neat and orderly. i saw in a moment that it was always kept prepared for her reception, and that he never went out but he thought it possible he might bring her home. he had not heard my tap at the door, and only raised his eyes when i laid my hand upon his shoulder. "mas'r davy! thankee, sir! thankee hearty, for this visit! sit ye down. you're kindly welcome, sir!" "mr. peggotty," said i, taking the chair he handed me, "don't expect much! i have heard some news." "of em'ly!" he put his hand, in a nervous manner, on his mouth, and turned pale, as he fixed his eyes on mine. "it gives no clue to where she is; but she is not with him." he sat down, looking intently at me, and listened in profound silence to all i had to tell. i well remember the sense of dignity, beauty even, with which the patient gravity of his face impressed me, when, having gradually removed his eyes from mine, he sat looking downward, leaning his forehead on his hand. he offered no interruption, but remained throughout perfectly still. he seemed to pursue her figure through the narrative, and to let every other shape go by him, as if it were nothing. when i had done, he shaded his face, and continued silent. i looked out of the window for a little while, and occupied myself with the plants. "how do you fare to feel about it, mas'r davy?" he inquired at length. "i think that she is living," i replied. "i doen't know. maybe the first shock was too rough, and in the wildness of her art----! that there blue water as she used to speak on. could she have thowt o' that so many year, because it was to be her grave!" he said this, musing, in a low, frightened voice; and walked across the little room. "and yet," he added, "mas'r davy, i have felt so sure as she was living--i have know'd, awake and sleeping, as it was so trew that i should find her--i have been so led on by it, and held up by it--that i doen't believe i can have been deceived. no! em'ly's alive!" he put his hand down firmly on the table, and set his sunburnt face into a resolute expression. "my niece, em'ly, is alive, sir!" he said, stedfastly. "i doen't know wheer it comes from, or how 'tis, but _i am told_ as she's alive!" he looked almost like a man inspired, as he said it. i waited for a few moments, until he could give me his undivided attention; and then proceeded to explain the precaution, that, it had occurred to me last night, it would be wise to take. "now, my dear friend--" i began. "thankee, thankee, kind sir," he said, grasping my hand in both of his. "if she should make her way to london, which is likely--for where could she lose herself so readily as in this vast city; and what would she wish to do, but lose and hide herself, if she does not go home?--" "and she won't go home," he interposed, shaking his head mournfully. "if she had left of her own accord, she might; not as 'twas, sir." "if she should come here," said i, "i believe there is one person, here, more likely to discover her than any other in the world. do you remember--hear what i say, with fortitude--think of your great object!--do you remember martha?" "of our town?" i needed no other answer than his face. "do you know that she is in london?" "i have seen her in the streets," he answered, with a shiver. "but you don't know," said i, "that emily was charitable to her, with ham's help, long before she fled from home. nor, that, when we met one night, and spoke together in the room yonder, over the way, she listened at the door." "mas'r davy?" he replied in astonishment. "that night when it snew so hard?" "that night. i have never seen her since. i went back, after parting from you, to speak to her, but she was gone. i was unwilling to mention her to you then, and i am now; but she is the person of whom i speak, and with whom i think we should communicate. do you understand?" "too well, sir," he replied. we had sunk our voices, almost to a whisper, and continued to speak in that tone. "you say you have seen her. do you think that you could find her? i could only hope to do so by chance." "i think, mas'r davy, i know wheer to look." "it is dark. being together, shall we go out now, and try to find her to-night?" he assented, and prepared to accompany me. without appearing to observe what he was doing, i saw how carefully he adjusted the little room, put a candle ready and the means of lighting it, arranged the bed, and finally took out of a drawer one of her dresses (i remembered to have seen her wear it), neatly folded with some other garments, and a bonnet, which he placed upon a chair. he made no allusion to these clothes, neither did i. there they had been waiting for her, many and many a night, no doubt. "the time was, mas'r davy," he said, as we came down stairs, "when i thowt this girl, martha, a'most like the dirt underneath my em'ly's feet. god forgive me, there's a difference now!" as we went along, partly to hold him in conversation, and partly to satisfy myself, i asked him about ham. he said, almost in the same words as formerly, that ham was just the same, "wearing away his life with kiender no care nohow for't; but never murmuring, and liked by all." i asked him what he thought ham's state of mind was, in reference to the cause of their misfortunes? whether he believed it was dangerous? what he supposed, for example, ham would do, if he and steerforth ever should encounter? "i doen't know, sir," he replied. "i have thowt of it oftentimes, but i can't arrize myself of it, no matters." i recalled to his remembrance the morning after her departure, when we were all three on the beach. "do you recollect," said i, "a certain wild way in which he looked out to sea, and spoke about 'the end of it.'" "sure i do!" said he. "what do you suppose he meant?" "mas'r davy," he replied, "i've put the question to myself a mort o' times, and never found no answer. and theer's one curous thing--that, though he is so pleasant, i wouldn't fare to feel comfortable to try and get his mind upon 't. he never said a wured to me as warn't as dootiful as dootiful could be, and it ain't likely as he'd begin to speak any other ways now; but it's fur from being fleet water in his mind, where them thowts lays. it's deep, sir, and i can't see down." "you are right," said i, "and that has sometimes made me anxious." "and me too, mas'r davy," he rejoined. "even more so, i do assure you, than his ventersome ways, though both belongs to the alteration in him. i doen't know as he'd do violence under any circumstarnces, but i hope as them two may be kep asunders." we had come, through temple bar, into the city. conversing no more now, and walking at my side, he yielded himself up to the one aim of his devoted life, and went on, with that hushed concentration of his faculties which would have made his figure solitary in a multitude. we were not far from blackfriars bridge, when he turned his head and pointed to a solitary female figure flitting along the opposite side of the street. i knew it, readily, to be the figure that we sought. we crossed the road, and were pressing on towards her, when it occurred to me that she might be more disposed to feel a woman's interest in the lost girl, if we spoke to her in a quieter place, aloof from the crowd, and where we should be less observed. i advised my companion, therefore, that we should not address her yet, but follow her; consulting in this, likewise, an indistinct desire i had, to know where she went. he acquiescing, we followed at a distance: never losing sight of her, but never caring to come very near, as she frequently looked about. once, she stopped to listen to a band of music; and then we stopped too. she went on a long way. still we went on. it was evident, from the manner in which she held her course, that she was going to some fixed destination; and this, and her keeping in the busy streets, and, i suppose the strange fascination in the secresy and mystery of so following any one, made me adhere to my first purpose. at length she turned into a dull, dark street, where the noise and crowd were lost; and i said, "we may speak to her now;" and, mending our pace, we went after her. chapter xlvii. martha. we were now down in westminster. we had turned back to follow her, having encountered her coming towards us; and westminster abbey was the point at which she passed from the lights and noise of the leading streets. she proceeded so quickly, when she got free of the two currents of passengers setting towards and from the bridge, that, between this and the advance she had of us when she struck off, we were in the narrow water-side street by millbank before we came up with her. at that moment she crossed the road, as if to avoid the footsteps that she heard so close behind; and, without looking back, passed on even more rapidly. a glimpse of the river through a dull gateway, where some waggons were housed for the night, seemed to arrest my feet. i touched my companion without speaking, and we both forbore to cross after her, and both followed on that opposite side of the way; keeping as quietly as we could in the shadow of the houses, but keeping very near her. there was, and is when i write, at the end of that low-lying street, a dilapidated little wooden building, probably an obsolete old ferry-house. its position is just at that point where the street ceases, and the road begins to lie between a row of houses and the river. as soon as she came here, and saw the water, she stopped as if she had come to her destination; and presently went slowly along by the brink of the river, looking intently at it. all the way here, i had supposed that she was going to some house; indeed, i had vaguely entertained the hope that the house might be in some way associated with the lost girl. but, that one dark glimpse of the river, through the gateway, had instinctively prepared me for her going no farther. the neighbourhood was a dreary one at that time; as oppressive, sad, and solitary by night, as any about london. there were neither wharves nor houses on the melancholy waste of road near the great blank prison. a sluggish ditch deposited its mud at the prison walls. coarse grass and rank weeds straggled over all the marshy land in the vicinity. in one part, carcases of houses, inauspiciously begun and never finished, rotted away. in another, the ground was cumbered with rusty iron monsters of steam-boilers, wheels, cranks, pipes, furnaces, paddles, anchors, diving-bells, windmill-sails, and i know not what strange objects, accumulated by some speculator, and grovelling in the dust, underneath which--having sunk into the soil of their own weight in wet weather--they had the appearance of vainly trying to hide themselves. the clash and glare of sundry fiery works upon the river side, arose by night to disturb everything except the heavy and unbroken smoke that poured out of their chimneys. slimy gaps and causeways, winding among old wooden piles, with a sickly substance clinging to the latter, like green hair, and the rags of last year's handbills offering rewards for drowned men fluttering above high-water mark, led down through the ooze and slush to the ebb tide. there was a story that one of the pits dug for the dead in the time of the great plague was hereabout; and a blighting influence seemed to have proceeded from it over the whole place. or else it looked as if it had gradually decomposed into that nightmare condition, out of the overflowings of the polluted stream. as if she were a part of the refuse it had cast out, and left to corruption and decay, the girl we had followed strayed down to the river's brink, and stood in the midst of this night-picture, lonely and still, looking at the water. [illustration: the river.] there were some boats and barges astrand in the mud, and these enabled us to come within a few yards of her without being seen. i then signed to mr. peggotty to remain where he was, and emerged from their shade to speak to her. i did not approach her solitary figure without trembling; for this gloomy end to her determined walk, and the way in which she stood, almost within the cavernous shadow of the iron bridge, looking at the lights crookedly reflected in the strong tide, inspired a dread within me. i think she was talking to herself. i am sure, although absorbed in gazing at the water, that her shawl was off her shoulders, and that she was muffling her hands in it, in an unsettled and bewildered way, more like the action of a sleep-walker than a waking person. i know, and never can forget, that there was that in her wild manner which gave me no assurance but that she would sink before my eyes, until i had her arm within my grasp. at the same moment i said "martha!" she uttered a terrified scream, and struggled with me with such strength that i doubt if i could have held her alone. but a stronger hand than mine was laid upon her; and when she raised her frightened eyes and saw whose it was, she made but one more effort, and dropped down between us. we carried her away from the water to where there were some dry stones, and there laid her down, crying and moaning. in a little while she sat among the stones, holding her wretched head with both her hands. "oh, the river!" she cried passionately. "oh, the river!" "hush, hush!" said i. "calm yourself." but she still repeated the same words, continually exclaiming, "oh, the river!" over and over again. "i know it's like me!" she exclaimed. "i know that i belong to it. i know that it's the natural company of such as i am! it comes from country places, where there was once no harm in it--and it creeps through the dismal streets, defiled and miserable--and it goes away, like my life, to a great sea, that is always troubled--and i feel that i must go with it!" i have never known what despair was, except in the tone of those words. "i can't keep away from it. i can't forget it. it haunts me day and night. it's the only thing in all the world that i am fit for, or that's fit for me. oh, the dreadful river!" the thought passed through my mind that in the face of my companion, as he looked upon her without speech or motion, i might have read his niece's history, if i had known nothing of it. i never saw, in any painting or reality, horror and compassion so impressively blended. he shook as if he would have fallen; and his hand--i touched it with my own, for his appearance alarmed me--was deadly cold. "she is in a state of frenzy," i whispered to him. "she will speak differently in a little time." i don't know what he would have said in answer. he made some motion with his mouth, and seemed to think he had spoken; but he had only pointed to her with his outstretched hand. a new burst of crying came upon her now, in which she once more hid her face among the stones, and lay before us, a prostrate image of humiliation and ruin. knowing that this state must pass, before we could speak to her with any hope, i ventured to restrain him when he would have raised her, and we stood by in silence until she became more tranquil. "martha," said i then, leaning down, and helping her to rise--she seemed to want to rise as if with the intention of going away, but she was weak, and leaned against a boat. "do you know who this is, who is with me?" she said faintly, "yes." "do you know that we have followed you a long way to-night?" she shook her head. she looked neither at him nor at me, but stood in a humbled attitude, holding her bonnet and shawl in one hand, without appearing conscious of them, and pressing the other, clenched, against her forehead. "are you composed enough," said i, "to speak on the subject which so interested you--i hope heaven may remember it!--that snowy night?" her sobs broke out afresh, and she murmured some inarticulate thanks to me for not having driven her away from the door. "i want to say nothing for myself," she said, after a few moments. "i am bad, i am lost. i have no hope at all. but tell him, sir," she had shrunk away from him, "if you don't feel too hard to me to do it, that i never was in any way the cause of his misfortune." "it has never been attributed to you," i returned, earnestly responding to her earnestness. "it was you, if i don't deceive myself," she said, in a broken voice, "that came into the kitchen, the night she took such pity on me; was so gentle to me; didn't shrink away from me like all the rest, and gave me such kind help! was it you, sir?" "it was," said i. "i should have been in the river long ago," she said, glancing at it with a terrible expression, "if any wrong to her had been upon my mind. i never could have kept out of it a single winter's night, if i had not been free of any share in that!" "the cause of her flight is too well understood," i said. "you are innocent of any part in it, we thoroughly believe,--we know." "oh i might have been much the better for her, if i had had a better heart!" exclaimed the girl, with most forlorn regret; "for she was always good to me! she never spoke a word to me but what was pleasant and right. is it likely i would try to make her what i am myself, knowing what i am myself, so well! when i lost everything that makes life dear, the worst of all my thoughts was that i was parted for ever from her!" mr. peggotty, standing with one hand on the gunwale of the boat, and his eyes cast down, put his disengaged hand before his face. "and when i heard what had happened before that snowy night, from some belonging to our town," cried martha, "the bitterest thought in all my mind was, that the people would remember she once kept company with me, and would say i had corrupted her! when, heaven knows, i would have died to have brought back her good name!" long unused to any self-control, the piercing agony of her remorse and grief was terrible. "to have died, would not have been much--what can i say?--i would have lived!" she cried. "i would have lived to be old, in the wretched streets--and to wander about, avoided, in the dark--and to see the day break on the ghastly lines of houses, and remember how the same sun used to shine into my room, and wake me once--i would have done even that, to save her!" sinking on the stones, she took some in each hand, and clenched them up, as if she would have ground them. she writhed into some new posture constantly: stiffening her arms, twisting them before her face, as though to shut out from her eyes the little light there was, and drooping her head, as if it were heavy with insupportable recollections. "what shall i ever do!" she said, fighting thus with her despair. "how can i go on as i am, a solitary curse to myself, a living disgrace to every one i come near!" suddenly she turned to my companion. "stamp upon me, kill me! when she was your pride, you would have thought i had done her harm if i had brushed against her in the street. you can't believe--why should you?--a syllable that comes out of my lips. it would be a burning shame upon you, even now, if she and i exchanged a word. i don't complain. i don't say she and i are alike--i know there is a long, long way between us. i only say, with all my guilt and wretchedness upon my head, that i am grateful to her from my soul, and love her. oh don't think that all the power i had of loving anything, is quite worn out! throw me away, as all the world does. kill me for being what i am, and having ever known her; but don't think that of me!" he looked upon her, while she made this supplication, in a wild distracted manner; and, when she was silent, gently raised her. "martha," said mr. peggotty, "god forbid as i should judge you. forbid as i, of all men, should do that, my girl! you doen't know half the change that's come, in course of time, upon me, when you think it likely. well!" he paused a moment, then went on. "you doen't understand how 'tis that this here gentleman and me has wished to speak to you. you doen't understand what 'tis we has afore us. listen now!" his influence upon her was complete. she stood, shrinkingly, before him, as if she were afraid to meet his eyes; but her passionate sorrow was quite hushed and mute. "if you heerd," said mr. peggotty, "owt of what passed between mas'r davy and me, th' night when it snew so hard, you know as i have been--wheer not--fur to seek my dear niece. my dear niece," he repeated steadily. "fur she's more dear to me now, martha, than ever she was dear afore." she put her hands before her face; but otherwise remained quiet. "i have heerd her tell," said mr. peggotty, "as you was early left fatherless and motherless, with no friend fur to take, in a rough seafaring-way, their place. maybe you can guess that if you'd had such a friend, you'd have got into a way of being fond of him in course of time, and that my niece was kiender daughter-like to me." as she was silently trembling, he put her shawl carefully about her, taking it up from the ground for that purpose. "whereby," said he, "i know, both as she would go to the wureld's furdest end with me, if she could once see me again; and that she would fly to the wureld's furdest end to keep off seeing me. for though she ain't no call to doubt my love, and doen't--and doen't," he repeated, with a quiet assurance of the truth of what he said, "there's shame steps in, and keeps betwixt us." i read, in every word of his plain impressive way of delivering himself, new evidence of his having thought of this one topic, in every feature it presented. "according to our reckoning," he proceeded, "mas'r davy's here, and mine, she is like, one day, to make her own poor solitary course to london. we believe--mas'r davy, me, and all of us--that you are as innocent of everything that has befel her, as the unborn child. you've spoke of her being pleasant, kind, and gentle to you. bless her, i knew she was! i knew she always was, to all. you're thankful to her, and you love her. help us all you can to find her, and may heaven reward you!" she looked at him hastily, and for the first time, as if she were doubtful of what he had said. "will you trust me?" she asked, in a low voice of astonishment. "full and free!" said mr. peggotty. "to speak to her, if i should ever find her; shelter her, if i have any shelter to divide with her; and then, without her knowledge, come to you, and bring you to her?" she asked hurriedly. we both replied together, "yes!" she lifted up her eyes, and solemnly declared that she would devote herself to this task, fervently and faithfully. that she would never waver in it, never be diverted from it, never relinquish it, while there was any chance of hope. if she were not true to it, might the object she now had in life, which bound her to something devoid of evil, in its passing away from her, leave her more forlorn and more despairing, if that were possible, than she had been upon the river's brink that night; and then might all help, human and divine, renounce her evermore! she did not raise her voice above her breath, or address us, but said this to the night sky; then stood profoundly quiet, looking at the gloomy water. we judged it expedient, now, to tell her all we knew; which i recounted at length. she listened with great attention, and with a face that often changed, but had the same purpose in all its varying expressions. her eyes occasionally filled with tears, but those she repressed. it seemed as if her spirit were quite altered, and she could not be too quiet. she asked, when all was told, where we were to be communicated with, if occasion should arise. under a dull lamp in the road, i wrote our two addresses on a leaf of my pocket-book, which i tore out and gave to her, and which she put in her poor bosom. i asked her where she lived herself. she said, after a pause, in no place long. it were better not to know. mr. peggotty suggesting to me, in a whisper, what had already occurred to myself, i took out my purse; but i could not prevail upon her to accept any money, nor could i exact any promise from her that she would do so at another time. i represented to her that mr. peggotty could not be called, for one in his condition, poor; and that the idea of her engaging in this search, while depending on her own resources, shocked us both. she continued steadfast. in this particular, his influence upon her was equally powerless with mine. she gratefully thanked him, but remained inexorable. "there may be work to be got," she said. "i'll try." "at least take some assistance," i returned, "until you have tried." "i could not do what i have promised, for money," she replied. "i could not take it, if i was starving. to give me money would be to take away your trust, to take away the object that you have given me, to take away the only certain thing that saves me from the river." "in the name of the great judge," said i, "before whom you and all of us must stand at his dread time, dismiss that terrible idea! we can all do some good, if we will." she trembled, and her lip shook, and her face was paler, as she answered: "it has been put in your hearts, perhaps, to save a wretched creature for repentance. i am afraid to think so; it seems too bold. if any good should come of me, i might begin to hope; for nothing but harm has ever come of my deeds yet. i am to be trusted, for the first time in a long while, with my miserable life, on account of what you have given me to try for. i know no more, and i can say no more." again she repressed the tears that had begun to flow; and, putting out her trembling hand, and touching mr. peggotty, as if there were some healing virtue in him, went away along the desolate road. she had been ill, probably for a long time. i observed, upon that closer opportunity of observation, that she was worn and haggard, and that her sunken eyes expressed privation and endurance. we followed her at a short distance, our way lying in the same direction, until we came back into the lighted and populous streets. i had such implicit confidence in her declaration, that i then put it to mr. peggotty, whether it would not seem, in the onset, like distrusting her, to follow her any further. he being of the same mind, and equally reliant on her, we suffered her to take her own road, and took ours, which was towards highgate. he accompanied me a good part of the way; and when we parted, with a prayer for the success of this fresh effort, there was a new and thoughtful compassion in him that i was at no loss to interpret. it was midnight when i arrived at home. i had reached my own gate, and was standing listening for the deep bell of saint paul's, the sound of which i thought had been borne towards me among the multitude of striking clocks, when i was rather surprised to see that the door of my aunt's cottage was open, and that a faint light in the entry was shining out across the road. thinking that my aunt might have relapsed into one of her old alarms, and might be watching the progress of some imaginary conflagration in the distance, i went to speak to her. it was with very great surprise that i saw a man standing in her little garden. he had a glass and bottle in his hand, and was in the act of drinking. i stopped short, among the thick foliage outside, for the moon was up now, though obscured; and i recognised the man whom i had once supposed to be a delusion of mr. dick's, and had once encountered with my aunt in the streets of the city. he was eating as well as drinking, and seemed to eat with a hungry appetite. he seemed curious regarding the cottage, too, as if it were the first time he had seen it. after stooping to put the bottle on the ground, he looked up at the windows, and looked about; though with a covert and impatient air, as if he was anxious to be gone. the light in the passage was obscured for a moment, and my aunt came out. she was agitated, and told some money into his hand. i heard it chink. "what's the use of this?" he demanded. "i can spare no more," returned my aunt. "then i can't go," said he. "here! you may take it back!" "you bad man," returned my aunt, with great emotion; "how can you use me so? but why do i ask? it is because you know how weak i am! what have i to do, to free myself for ever of your visits, but to abandon you to your deserts?" "and why don't you abandon me to my deserts?" said he. "_you_ ask me why!" returned my aunt. "what a heart you must have!" he stood moodily rattling the money, and shaking his head, until at length he said: "is this all you mean to give me, then?" "it is all i _can_ give you," said my aunt. "you know i have had losses, and am poorer than i used to be. i have told you so. having got it, why do you give me the pain of looking at you for another moment, and seeing what you have become?" "i have become shabby enough, if you mean that," he said. "i lead the life of an owl." "you stripped me of the greater part of all i ever had," said my aunt. "you closed my heart against the whole world, years and years. you treated me falsely, ungratefully, and cruelly. go, and repent of it. don't add new injuries to the long, long list of injuries you have done me!" "aye!" he returned. "it's all very fine!--well! i must do the best i can, for the present, i suppose." in spite of himself, he appeared abashed by my aunt's indignant tears, and came slouching out of the garden. taking two or three quick steps, as if i had just come up, i met him at the gate, and went in as he came out. we eyed one another narrowly in passing, and with no favour. "aunt," said i, hurriedly. "this man alarming you again! let me speak to him. who is he?" "child," returned my aunt, taking my arm, "come in, and don't speak to me for ten minutes." we sat down in her little parlor. my aunt retired behind the round green fan of former days, which was screwed on the back of a chair, and occasionally wiped her eyes, for about a quarter of an hour. then she came out, and took a seat beside me. "trot," said my aunt, calmly, "it's my husband." "your husband, aunt? i thought he had been dead!" "dead to me," returned my aunt, "but living." i sat in silent amazement. "betsey trotwood don't look a likely subject for the tender passion," said my aunt, composedly, "but the time was, trot, when she believed in that man most entirely. when she loved him, trot, right well. when there was no proof of attachment and affection that she would not have given him. he repaid her by breaking her fortune, and nearly breaking her heart. so she put all that sort of sentiment, once and for ever in a grave, and filled it up, and flattened it down." "my dear, good aunt!" "i left him," my aunt proceeded, laying her hand as usual on the back of mine, "generously. i may say at this distance of time, trot, that i left him generously. he had been so cruel to me, that i might have effected a separation on easy terms for myself; but i did not. he soon made ducks and drakes of what i gave him, sank lower and lower, married another woman, i believe, became an adventurer, a gambler, and a cheat. what he is now, you see. but he was a fine-looking man when i married him," said my aunt, with an echo of her old pride and admiration in her tone; "and i believed him--i was a fool!--to be the soul of honor!" she gave my hand a squeeze, and shook her head. "he is nothing to me now, trot,--less than nothing. but, sooner than have him punished for his offences (as he would be if he prowled about in this country), i give him more money than i can afford, at intervals when he reappears, to go away. i was a fool when i married him; and i am so far an incurable fool on that subject, that, for the sake of what i once believed him to be, i wouldn't have even this shadow of my idle fancy hardly dealt with. for i was in earnest, trot, if ever a woman was." my aunt dismissed the matter with a heavy sigh, and smoothed her dress. "there, my dear!" she said. "now, you know the beginning, middle, and end, and all about it. we won't mention the subject to one another any more; neither, of course, will you mention it to anybody else. this is my grumpy, frumpy story, and we'll keep it to ourselves, trot!" chapter xlviii. domestic. i labored hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the punctual discharge of my newspaper duties; and it came out and was very successful. i was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears, notwithstanding that i was keenly alive to it, and thought better of my own performance, i have little doubt, than anybody else did. it has always been in my observation of human nature, that a man who has any good reason to believe in himself never flourishes himself before the faces of other people in order that they may believe in him. for this reason, i retained my modesty in very self-respect; and the more praise i got, the more i tried to deserve. it is not my purpose, in this record, though in all other essentials it is my written memory, to pursue the history of my own fictions. they express themselves, and i leave them to themselves. when i refer to them, incidentally, it is only as a part of my progress. having some foundation for believing, by this time, that nature and accident had made me an author, i pursued my vocation with confidence. without such assurance i should certainly have left it alone, and bestowed my energy on some other endeavour. i should have tried to find out what nature and accident really had made me, and to be that, and nothing else. i had been writing, in the newspaper and elsewhere, so prosperously, that when my new success was achieved, i considered myself reasonably entitled to escape from the dreary debates. one joyful night, therefore, i noted down the music of the parliamentary bagpipes for the last time, and i have never heard it since; though i still recognise the old drone in the newspapers, without any substantial variation (except, perhaps, that there is more of it), all the livelong session. i now write of the time when i had been married, i suppose, about a year and a half. after several varieties of experiment, we had given up the housekeeping as a bad job. the house kept itself, and we kept a page. the principal function of this retainer was to quarrel with the cook; in which respect he was a perfect whittington, without his cat, or the remotest chance of being made lord mayor. he appears to me to have lived in a hail of saucepan-lids. his whole existence was a scuffle. he would shriek for help on the most improper occasions,--as, when we had a little dinner party, or a few friends in the evening,--and would come tumbling out of the kitchen, with iron missiles flying after him. we wanted to get rid of him, but he was very much attached to us, and wouldn't go. he was a tearful boy, and broke into such deplorable lamentations, when a cessation of our connexion was hinted at, that we were obliged to keep him. he had no mother--no anything in the way of a relative, that i could discover, except a sister, who fled to america the moment we had taken him off her hands; and he became quartered on us like a horrible young changeling. he had a lively perception of his own unfortunate state, and was always rubbing his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket, or stooping to blow his nose on the extreme corner of a little pocket-handkerchief, which he never _would_ take completely out of his pocket, but always economised and secreted. this unlucky page, engaged in an evil hour at six pounds ten per annum, was a source of continual trouble to me. i watched him as he grew--and he grew like scarlet beans--with painful apprehensions of the time when he would begin to shave; even of the days when he would be bald or grey. i saw no prospect of ever getting rid of him; and, projecting myself into the future, used to think what an inconvenience he would be when he was an old man. i never expected anything less, than this unfortunate's manner of getting me out of my difficulty. he stole dora's watch, which, like everything else belonging to us, had no particular place of its own; and, converting it into money, spent the produce (he was always a weak-minded boy) in incessantly riding up and down between london and uxbridge outside the coach. he was taken to bow street, as well as i remember, on the completion of his fifteenth journey; when four-and-sixpence, and a second-hand fife which he couldn't play, were found upon his person. the surprise and its consequences would have been much less disagreeable to me if he had not been penitent. but he was very penitent indeed, and in a peculiar way--not in the lump, but by instalments. for example; the day after that on which i was obliged to appear against him, he made certain revelations touching a hamper in the cellar, which we believed to be full of wine, but which had nothing in it except bottles and corks. we supposed he had now eased his mind, and told the worst he knew of the cook; but, a day or two afterwards, his conscience sustained a new twinge, and he disclosed how she had a little girl, who, early every morning, took away our bread; and also how he himself had been suborned to maintain the milkman in coals. in two or three days more, i was informed by the authorities of his having led to the discovery of sirloins of beef among the kitchen-stuff, and sheets in the rag-bag. a little while afterwards, he broke out in an entirely new direction, and confessed to a knowledge of burglarious intentions as to our premises, on the part of the pot-boy, who was immediately taken up. i got to be so ashamed of being such a victim, that i would have given him any money to hold his tongue, or would have offered a round bribe for his being permitted to run away. it was an aggravating circumstance in the case that he had no idea of this, but conceived that he was making me amends in every new discovery: not to say, heaping obligations on my head. at last i ran away myself, whenever i saw an emissary of the police approaching with some new intelligence; and lived a stealthy life until he was tried and ordered to be transported. even then he couldn't be quiet, but was always writing us letters; and wanted so much to see dora before he went away, that dora went to visit him, and fainted when she found herself inside the iron bars. in short i had no peace of my life until he was expatriated, and made (as i afterwards heard) a shepherd of, "up the country" somewhere; i have no geographical idea where. all this led me into some serious reflections, and presented our mistakes in a new aspect; as i could not help communicating to dora one evening, in spite of my tenderness for her. "my love," said i, "it is very painful to me to think that our want of system and management, involves not only ourselves (which we have got used to), but other people." "you have been silent for a long time, and now you are going to be cross!" said dora. "no, my dear, indeed! let me explain to you what i mean." "i think i don't want to know," said dora. "but i want you to know, my love. put jip down." dora put his nose to mine, and said "boh!" to drive my seriousness away; but, not succeeding, ordered him into his pagoda, and sat looking at me, with her hands folded, and a most resigned little expression of countenance. "the fact is, my dear," i began, "there is contagion in us. we infect everyone about us." i might have gone on in this figurative manner, if dora's face had not admonished me that she was wondering with all her might whether i was going to propose any new kind of vaccination, or other medical remedy, for this unwholesome state of ours. therefore i checked myself, and made my meaning plainer. "it is not merely, my pet," said i, "that we lose money and comfort, and even temper sometimes, by not learning to be more careful; but that we incur the serious responsibility of spoiling everyone who comes into our service, or has any dealings with us. i begin to be afraid that the fault is not entirely on one side, but that these people all turn out ill because we don't turn out very well ourselves." "oh, what an accusation," exclaimed dora, opening her eyes wide; "to say that you ever saw me take gold watches! oh!" "my dearest," i remonstrated, "don't talk preposterous nonsense! who has made the least allusion to gold watches?" "you did," returned dora. "you know you did. you said i hadn't turned out well, and compared me to him." "to whom?" i asked. "to the page," sobbed dora. "oh, you cruel fellow, to compare your affectionate wife to a transported page! why didn't you tell me your opinion of me before we were married? why didn't you say, you hard-hearted thing, that you were convinced i was worse than a transported page? oh, what a dreadful opinion to have of me! oh, my goodness!" "now, dora, my love," i returned, gently trying to remove the handkerchief she pressed to her eyes, "this is not only very ridiculous of you, but very wrong. in the first place, it's not true." "you always said he was a story-teller," sobbed dora. "and now you say the same of me! oh, what shall i do! what shall i do!" "my darling girl," i retorted, "i really must entreat you to be reasonable, and listen to what i did say, and do say. my dear dora, unless we learn to do our duty to those whom we employ, they will never learn to do their duty to us. i am afraid we present opportunities to people to do wrong, that never ought to be presented. even if we were as lax as we are, in all our arrangements, by choice--which we are not--even if we liked it, and found it agreeable to be so--which we don't--i am persuaded we should have no right to go on in this way. we are positively corrupting people. we are bound to think of that. i can't help thinking of it, dora. it is a reflection i am unable to dismiss, and it sometimes makes me very uneasy. there, dear, that's all. come now! don't be foolish!" dora would not allow me, for a long time, to remove the handkerchief. she sat sobbing and murmuring behind it, that, if i was uneasy, why had i ever been married? why hadn't i said, even the day before we went to church, that i knew i should be uneasy, and i would rather not? if i couldn't bear her, why didn't i send her away to her aunts at putney, or to julia mills in india? julia would be glad to see her, and would not call her a transported page; julia never had called her anything of the sort. in short, dora was so afflicted, and so afflicted me by being in that condition, that i felt it was of no use repeating this kind of effort, though never so mildly, and i must take some other course. what other course was left to take! to "form her mind?" this was a common phrase of words which had a fair and promising sound, and i resolved to form dora's mind. i began immediately. when dora was very childish, and i would have infinitely preferred to humour her, i tried to be grave--and disconcerted her, and myself too. i talked to her on the subjects which occupied my thoughts; and i read shakespeare to her--and fatigued her to the last degree. i accustomed myself to giving her, as it were quite casually, little scraps of useful information, or sound opinion--and she started from them when i let them off, as if they had been crackers. no matter how incidentally or naturally i endeavoured to form my little wife's mind, i could not help seeing that she always had an instinctive perception of what i was about, and became a prey to the keenest apprehensions. in particular, it was clear to me, that she thought shakespeare a terrible fellow. the formation went on very slowly. i pressed traddles into the service without his knowledge; and whenever he came to see us, exploded my mines upon him for the edification of dora at second hand. the amount of practical wisdom i bestowed upon traddles in this manner was immense, and of the best quality; but it had no other effect upon dora than to depress her spirits, and make her always nervous with the dread that it would be her turn next. i found myself in the condition of a schoolmaster, a trap, a pitfall; of always playing spider to dora's fly, and always pouncing out of my hole to her infinite disturbance. still, looking forward through this intermediate stage, to the time when there should be a perfect sympathy between dora and me, and when i should have "formed her mind" to my entire satisfaction, i persevered, even for months. finding at last, however, that, although i had been all this time a very porcupine or hedgehog, bristling all over with determination, i had effected nothing, it began to occur to me that perhaps dora's mind was already formed. on farther consideration this appeared so likely, that i abandoned my scheme, which had had a more promising appearance in words than in action; resolving henceforth to be satisfied with my child-wife, and to try to change her into nothing else by any process. i was heartily tired of being sagacious and prudent by myself, and of seeing my darling under restraint; so, i bought a pretty pair of ear-rings for her, and a collar for jip, and went home one day to make myself agreeable. dora was delighted with the little presents, and kissed me joyfully; but, there was a shadow between us, however slight, and i had made up my mind that it should not be there. if there must be such a shadow anywhere, i would keep it for the future in my own breast. i sat down by my wife on the sofa, and put the ear-rings in her ears; and then i told her that i feared we had not been quite as good company lately, as we used to be, and that the fault was mine. which i sincerely felt, and which indeed it was. "the truth is, dora, my life," i said; "i have been trying to be wise." "and to make me wise too," said dora, timidly. "haven't you, doady?" i nodded assent to the pretty inquiry of the raised eyebrows, and kissed the parted lips. "it's of not a bit of use," said dora, shaking her head, until the ear-rings rang again. "you know what a little thing i am, and what i wanted you to call me from the first. if you can't do so, i am afraid you'll never like me. are you sure you don't think, sometimes, it would have been better to have--" "done what, my dear?" for she made no effort to proceed. "nothing!" said dora. "nothing?" i repeated. she put her arms round my neck, and laughed, and called herself by her favorite name of a goose, and hid her face on my shoulder in such a profusion of curls that it was quite a task to clear them away and see it. "don't i think it would have been better to have done nothing, than to have tried to form my little wife's mind?" said i, laughing at myself. "is that the question? yes, indeed, i do." "is that what you have been trying?" cried dora. "oh what a shocking boy!" "but i shall never try any more," said i. "for i love her dearly as she is." "without a story--really?" inquired dora, creeping closer to me. "why should i seek to change," said i, "what has been so precious to me for so long! you never can show better than as your own natural self, my sweet dora; and we'll try no conceited experiments, but go back to our old way, and be happy." "and be happy!" returned dora. "yes! all day! and you won't mind things going a tiny morsel wrong, sometimes?" "no, no," said i. "we must do the best we can." "and you won't tell me, any more, that we make other people bad," coaxed dora; "will you? because you know it's so dreadfully cross." "no no," said i. "it's better for me to be stupid than uncomfortable, isn't it?" said dora. "better to be naturally dora than anything else in the world." "in the world! ah doady, it's a large place!" she shook her head, turned her delighted bright eyes up to mine, kissed me, broke into a merry laugh, and sprang away to put on jip's new collar. so ended my last attempt to make any change in dora. i had been unhappy in trying it; i could not endure my own solitary wisdom; i could not reconcile it with her former appeal to me as my child-wife. i resolved to do what i could, in a quiet way, to improve our proceedings myself; but, i foresaw that my utmost would be very little, or i must degenerate into the spider again, and be for ever lying in wait. and the shadow i have mentioned, that was not to be between us any more, but was to rest wholly on my own heart? how did that fall? the old unhappy feeling pervaded my life. it was deepened, if it were changed at all; but it was as undefined as ever, and addressed me like a strain of sorrowful music faintly heard in the night. i loved my wife dearly, and i was happy; but the happiness i had vaguely anticipated, once, was not the happiness i enjoyed, and there was always something wanting. in fulfilment of the compact i have made with myself, to reflect my mind on this paper, i again examine it, closely, and bring its secrets to the light. what i missed, i still regarded--i always regarded--as something that had been a dream of my youthful fancy; that was incapable of realisation; that i was now discovering to be so, with some natural pain, as all men did. but, that it would have been better for me if my wife could have helped me more, and shared the many thoughts in which i had no partner; and that this might have been; i knew. between these two irreconcileable conclusions: the one, that what i felt, was general and unavoidable; the other, that it was particular to me, and might have been different: i balanced curiously, with no distinct sense of their opposition to each other. when i thought of the airy dreams of youth that are incapable of realisation, i thought of the better state preceding manhood that i had outgrown; and then the contented days with agnes, in the dear old house, arose before me, like spectres of the dead, that might have some renewal in another world, but never never more could be reanimated here. sometimes, the speculation came into my thoughts, what might have happened, or what would have happened, if dora and i had never known each other? but, she was so incorporated with my existence, that it was the idlest of all fancies, and would soon rise out of my reach and sight, like gossamer floating in the air. i always loved her. what i am describing, slumbered, and half awoke, and slept again, in the innermost recesses of my mind. there was no evidence of it in me; i know of no influence it had in anything i said or did. i bore the weight of all our little cares, and all my projects; dora held the pens; and we both felt that our shares were adjusted as the case required. she was truly fond of me, and proud of me; and when agnes wrote a few earnest words in her letters to dora, of the pride and interest with which my old friends heard of my growing reputation, and read my book as if they heard me speaking its contents, dora read them out to me with tears of joy in her bright eyes, and said i was a dear old clever, famous boy. "the first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart." those words of mrs. strong's were constantly recurring to me, at this time; were almost always present to my mind. i awoke with them, often, in the night; i remember to have even read them, in dreams, inscribed upon the walls of houses. for i knew, now, that my own heart was undisciplined when it first loved dora; and that if it had been disciplined, it never could have felt, when we were married, what it had felt in its secret experience. "there can be no disparity in marriage, like unsuitability of mind and purpose." those words i remembered too. i had endeavoured to adapt dora to myself, and found it impracticable. it remained for me to adapt myself to dora; to share with her what i could, and be happy; to bear on my own shoulders what i must, and be happy still. this was the discipline to which i tried to bring my heart, when i began to think. it made my second year much happier than my first; and, what was better still, made dora's life all sunshine. but, as that year wore on, dora was not strong. i had hoped that lighter hands than mine would help to mould her character, and that a baby-smile upon her breast might change my child-wife to a woman. it was not to be. the spirit fluttered for a moment on the threshold of its little prison, and, unconscious of captivity, took wing. "when i can run about again, as i used to do, aunt," said dora, "i shall make jip race. he is getting quite slow and lazy." "i suspect, my dear," said my aunt, quietly working by her side, "he has a worse disorder than that. age, dora." "do you think he is old?" said dora, astonished. "oh, how strange it seems that jip should be old!" "it's a complaint we are all liable to, little one, as we get on in life," said my aunt, cheerfully; "i don't feel more free from it than i used to be, i assure you." "but jip," said dora, looking at him with compassion, "even little jip! oh, poor fellow!" "i dare say he'll last a long time yet, blossom," said my aunt, patting dora on the cheek, as she leaned out of her couch to look at jip, who responded by standing on his hind legs, and baulking himself in various asthmatic attempts to scramble up by the head and shoulders. "he must have a piece of flannel in his house this winter, and i shouldn't wonder if he came out quite fresh again, with the flowers, in the spring. bless the little dog!" exclaimed my aunt, "if he had as many lives as a cat, and was on the point of losing 'em all, he'd bark at me with his last breath, i believe!" dora had helped him up on the sofa; where he really was defying my aunt to such a furious extent, that he couldn't keep straight, but barked himself sideways. the more my aunt looked at him, the more he reproached her; for, she had lately taken to spectacles, and for some inscrutable reason he considered the glasses personal. dora made him lie down by her, with a good deal of persuasion; and when he was quiet, drew one of his long ears through and through her hand, repeating, thoughtfully, "even little jip! oh, poor fellow!" "his lungs are good enough," said my aunt, gaily, "and his dislikes are not at all feeble. he has a good many years before him, no doubt. but if you want a dog to race with, little blossom, he has lived too well for that, and i'll give you one." "thank you, aunt," said dora, faintly. "but, don't, please!" "no?" said my aunt, taking off her spectacles. "i couldn't have any other dog but jip," said dora. "it would be so unkind to jip! besides, i couldn't be such friends with any other dog but jip; because he wouldn't have known me before i was married, and wouldn't have barked at doady when he first came to our house. i couldn't care for any other dog but jip, i am afraid, aunt." "to be sure!" said my aunt, patting her cheek again. "you are right." "you are not offended," said dora. "are you?" "why, what a sensitive pet it is!" cried my aunt, bending over her affectionately. "to think that i could be offended!" "no, no, i didn't really think so," returned dora; "but i am a little tired, and it made me silly for a moment--i am always a silly little thing, you know, but it made me more silly--to talk about jip. he has known me in all that has happened to me, haven't you, jip? and i couldn't bear to slight him, because he was a little altered--could i, jip?" jip nestled closer to his mistress, and lazily licked her hand. "you are not so old, jip, are you, that you'll leave your mistress yet," said dora. "we may keep one another company, a little longer!" my pretty dora! when she came down to dinner on the ensuing sunday, and was so glad to see old traddles (who always dined with us on sunday), we thought she would be "running about as she used to do," in a few days. but they said, wait a few days more; and then, wait a few days more; and still she neither ran nor walked. she looked very pretty, and was very merry; but the little feet that used to be so nimble when they danced round jip, were dull and motionless. i began to carry her down stairs every morning, and upstairs every night. she would clasp me round the neck and laugh, the while, as if i did it for a wager. jip would bark and caper round us, and go on before, and look back on the landing, breathing short, to see that we were coming. my aunt, the best and most cheerful of nurses, would trudge after us, a moving mass of shawls and pillows. mr. dick would not have relinquished his post of candle-bearer to any one alive. traddles would be often at the bottom of the staircase, looking on, and taking charge of sportive messages from dora to the dearest girl in the world. we made quite a gay procession of it, and my child-wife was the gayest there. but, sometimes, when i took her up, and felt that she was lighter in my arms, a dead blank feeling came upon me, as if i were approaching to some frozen region yet unseen, that numbed my life. i avoided the recognition of this feeling by any name, or by any communing with myself; until one night, when it was very strong upon me, and my aunt had left her with a parting cry of "good night, little blossom," i sat down at my desk alone, and cried to think, o what a fatal name it was, and how the blossom withered in its bloom upon the tree! chapter xlix. i am involved in mystery. i received one morning by the post, the following letter, dated canterbury, and addressed to me at doctors' commons; which i read with some surprise: "my dear sir, "circumstances beyond my individual control have, for a considerable lapse of time, effected a severance of that intimacy which, in the limited opportunities conceded to me in the midst of my professional duties, of contemplating the scenes and events of the past, tinged by the prismatic hues of memory, has ever afforded me, as it ever must continue to afford, gratifying emotions of no common description. this fact, my dear sir, combined with the distinguished elevation to which your talents have raised you, deters me from presuming to aspire to the liberty of addressing the companion of my youth, by the familiar appellation of copperfield! it is sufficient to know that the name to which i do myself the honor to refer, will ever be treasured among the muniments of our house (i allude to the archives connected with our former lodgers, preserved by mrs. micawber), with sentiments of personal esteem amounting to affection. "it is not for one, situated, through his original errors and a fortuitous combination of unpropitious events, as is the foundered bark (if he may be allowed to assume so maritime a denomination), who now takes up the pen to address you--it is not, i repeat, for one so circumstanced, to adopt the language of compliment, or of congratulation. that, he leaves to abler and to purer hands. "if your more important avocations should admit of your ever tracing these imperfect characters thus far--which may be, or may not be, as circumstances arise--you will naturally inquire by what object am i influenced, then, in inditing the present missive? allow me to say that i fully defer to the reasonable character of that inquiry, and proceed to develope it; premising that it is _not_ an object of a pecuniary nature. "without more directly referring to any latent ability that may possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, i may be permitted to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are for ever dispelled--that my peace is shattered and my power of enjoyment destroyed--that my heart is no longer in the right place--and that i no more walk erect before my fellow man. the canker is in the flower. the cup is bitter to the brim. the worm is at his work, and will soon dispose of his victim. the sooner the better. but i will not digress. "placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the assuaging reach even of mrs. micawber's influence, though exercised in the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my intention to fly from myself for a short period, and devote a respite of eight-and-forty hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past enjoyment. among other havens of domestic tranquillity and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards the king's bench prison. in stating that i shall be (d. v.) on the outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil process, the day after to-morrow, at seven in the evening, precisely, my object in this epistolary communication is accomplished. "i do not feel warranted in soliciting my former friend mr. copperfield, or my former friend mr. thomas traddles of the inner temple, if that gentleman is still existent and forthcoming, to condescend to meet me, and renew (so far as may be) our past relations of the olden time. i confine myself to throwing out the observation, that, at the hour and place i have indicated, may be found such ruined vestiges as yet "remain, "of "a "fallen tower, "wilkins micawber. "p.s. it may be advisable to superadd to the above, the statement that mrs. micawber is _not_ in confidential possession of my intentions." i read the letter over, several times. making due allowance for mr. micawber's lofty style of composition, and for the extraordinary relish with which he sat down and wrote long letters on all possible and impossible occasions, i still believed that something important lay hidden at the bottom of this roundabout communication. i put it down, to think about it; and took it up again, to read it once more; and was still pursuing it, when traddles found me in the height of my perplexity. "my dear fellow," said i, "i never was better pleased to see you. you come to give me the benefit of your sober judgment at a most opportune time. i have received a very singular letter, traddles, from mr. micawber." "no?" cried traddles. "you don't say so? and i have received one from mrs. micawber!" with that, traddles, who was flushed with walking, and whose hair, under the combined effects of exercise and excitement, stood on end as if he saw a cheerful ghost, produced his letter and made an exchange with me. i watched him into the heart of mr. micawber's letter, and returned the elevation of eyebrows with which he said "'wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame!' bless me, copperfield!"--and then entered on the perusal of mrs. micawber's epistle. it ran thus: "my best regards to mr. thomas traddles, and if he should still remember one who formerly had the happiness of being well acquainted with him, may i beg a few moments of his leisure time? i assure mr. t. t. that i would not intrude upon his kindness, were i in any other position than on the confines of distraction. "though harrowing to myself to mention, the alienation of mr. micawber (formerly so domesticated) from his wife and family, is the cause of my addressing my unhappy appeal to mr. traddles, and soliciting his best indulgence. mr. t. can form no adequate idea of the change in mr. micawber's conduct, of his wildness, of his violence. it has gradually augmented, until it assumes the appearance of aberration of intellect. scarcely a day passes, i assure mr. traddles, on which some paroxysm does not take place. mr. t. will not require me to depict my feelings, when i inform him that i have become accustomed to hear mr. micawber assert that he has sold himself to the d. mystery and secresy have long been his principal characteristic, have long replaced unlimited confidence. the slightest provocation, even being asked if there is anything he would prefer for dinner, causes him to express a wish for a separation. last night, on being childishly solicited for twopence, to buy 'lemon-stunners'--a local sweetmeat--he presented an oyster-knife at the twins! "i entreat mr. traddles to bear with me in entering into these details. without them, mr. t. would indeed find it difficult to form the faintest conception of my heart-rending situation. "may i now venture to confide to mr. t. the purport of my letter? will he now allow me to throw myself on his friendly consideration? oh yes, for i know his heart! "the quick eye of affection is not easily blinded, when of the female sex. mr. micawber is going to london. though he studiously concealed his hand, this morning before breakfast, in writing the direction-card which he attached to the little brown valise of happier days, the eagle-glance of matrimonial anxiety detected d,o,n, distinctly traced. the west-end destination of the coach, is the golden cross. dare i fervently implore mr. t. to see my misguided husband, and to reason with him? dare i ask mr. t. to endeavour to step in between mr. micawber and his agonised family? oh no, for that would be too much! "if mr. copperfield should yet remember one unknown to fame, will mr. t. take charge of my unalterable regards and similar entreaties? in any case, he will have the benevolence _to consider this communication strictly private, and on no account whatever to be alluded to, however distantly, in the presence of mr. micawber_. if mr. t. should ever reply to it (which i cannot but feel to be _most_ improbable), a letter addressed to m. e., post office, canterbury, will be fraught with less painful consequences than any addressed immediately to one, who subscribes herself, in extreme distress, "mr. thomas traddles's respectful friend and suppliant, "emma micawber." "what do you think of that letter?" said traddles, casting his eyes upon me, when i had read it twice. "what do you think of the other?" said i. for he was still reading it with knitted brows. "i think that the two together, copperfield," replied traddles, "mean more than mr. and mrs. micawber usually mean in their correspondence--but i don't know what. they are both written in good faith, i have no doubt, and without any collusion. poor thing!" he was now alluding to mrs. micawber's letter, and we were standing side by side comparing the two; "it will be a charity to write to her, at all events, and tell her that we will not fail to see mr. micawber." i acceded to this, the more readily, because i now reproached myself with having treated her former letter rather lightly. it had set me thinking a good deal at the time, as i have mentioned in its place; but my absorption in my own affairs, my experience of the family, and my hearing nothing more, had gradually ended in my dismissing the subject. i had often thought of the micawbers, but chiefly to wonder what "pecuniary liabilities" they were establishing in canterbury, and to recall how shy mr. micawber was of me when he became clerk to uriah heep. however, i now wrote a comforting letter to mrs. micawber, in our joint names, and we both signed it. as we walked into town to post it, traddles and i held a long conference, and launched into a number of speculations, which i need not repeat. we took my aunt into our counsels in the afternoon; but our only decided conclusion was, that we would be very punctual in keeping mr. micawber's appointment. although we appeared at the stipulated place a quarter of an hour before the time, we found mr. micawber already there. he was standing with his arms folded, over against the wall, looking at the spikes on the top, with a sentimental expression, as if they were the interlacing boughs of trees that had shaded him in his youth. when we accosted him, his manner was something more confused, and something less genteel, than of yore. he had relinquished his legal suit of black for the purposes of this excursion, and wore the old surtout and tights, but not quite with the old air. he gradually picked up more and more of it as we conversed with him; but, his very eye-glass seemed to hang less easily, and his shirt collar, though still of the old formidable dimensions, rather drooped. "gentlemen!" said mr. micawber, after the first salutations, "you are friends in need, and friends indeed. allow me to offer my inquiries with reference to the physical welfare of mrs. copperfield _in esse_, and mrs. traddles _in posse_,--presuming, that is to say, that my friend mr. traddles is not yet united to the object of his affections, for weal and for woe." we acknowledged his politeness, and made suitable replies. he then directed our attention to the wall, and was beginning "i assure you, gentlemen," when i ventured to object to that ceremonious form of address, and to beg that he would speak to us in the old way. "my dear copperfield," he returned, pressing my hand, "your cordiality overpowers me. this reception of a shattered fragment of the temple once called man--if i may be permitted so to express myself--bespeaks a heart that is an honor to our common nature. i was about to observe that i again behold the serene spot where some of the happiest hours of my existence fleeted by." "made so, i am sure, by mrs. micawber," said i. "i hope she is well?" "thank you," returned mr. micawber, whose face clouded at this reference, "she is but so-so. and this," said mr. micawber, nodding his head sorrowfully, "is the bench! where, for the first time in many revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of pecuniary liabilities was not proclaimed, from day to day, by importunate voices declining to vacate the passage; where there was no knocker on the door for any creditor to appeal to; where personal service of process was not required, and detainers were merely lodged at the gate! gentlemen," said mr. micawber, "when the shadow of that iron-work on the summit of the brick structure has been reflected on the gravel of the parade, i have seen my children thread the mazes of the intricate pattern, avoiding the dark marks. i have been familiar with every stone in the place. if i betray weakness, you will know how to excuse me." "we have all got on in life since then, mr. micawber," said i. "mr. copperfield," returned mr. micawber, bitterly, "when i was an inmate of that retreat i could look my fellow-man in the face, and punch his head if he offended me. my fellow-man and myself are no longer on those glorious terms!" turning from the building in a downcast manner, mr. micawber accepted my proffered arm on one side, and the proffered arm of traddles on the other, and walked away between us. "there are some landmarks," observed mr. micawber, looking fondly back over his shoulder, "on the road to the tomb, which, but for the impiety of the aspiration, a man would wish never to have passed. such is the bench in my chequered career." "oh, you are in low spirits, mr. micawber," said traddles. "i am, sir," interposed mr. micawber. "i hope," said traddles, "it is not because you have conceived a dislike to the law--for i am a lawyer myself, you know." mr. micawber answered not a word. "how is our friend heep, mr. micawber?" said i, after a silence. "my dear copperfield," returned mr. micawber, bursting into a state of much excitement, and turning pale, "if you ask after my employer as _your_ friend, i am sorry for it; if you ask after him as _my_ friend, i sardonically smile at it. in whatever capacity you ask after my employer, i beg, without offence to you, to limit my reply to this--that whatever his state of health may be, his appearance is foxy: not to say diabolical. you will allow me, as a private individual, to decline pursuing a subject which has lashed me to the utmost verge of desperation in my professional capacity." i expressed my regret for having innocently touched upon a theme that roused him so much. "may i ask," said i, "without any hazard of repeating the mistake, how my old friends mr. and miss wickfield are?" "miss wickfield," said mr. micawber, now turning red, "is, as she always is, a pattern, and a bright example. my dear copperfield, she is the only starry spot in a miserable existence. my respect for that young lady, my admiration of her character, my devotion to her for her love and truth, and goodness!--take me," said mr. micawber, "down a turning, for, upon my soul, in my present state of mind i am not equal to this!" we wheeled him off into a narrow street, where he took out his pocket-handkerchief, and stood with his back to a wall. if i looked as gravely at him as traddles did, he must have found our company by no means inspiriting. "it is my fate," said mr. micawber, unfeignedly sobbing, but doing even that, with a shadow of the old expression of doing something genteel; "it is my fate, gentlemen, that the finer feelings of our nature have become reproaches to me. my homage to miss wickfield, is a flight of arrows in my bosom. you had better leave me, if you please, to walk the earth as a vagabond. the worm will settle _my_ business in double-quick time." without attending to this invocation, we stood by, until he put up his pocket-handkerchief, pulled up his shirt-collar, and, to delude any person in the neighbourhood who might have been observing him, hummed a tune with his hat very much on one side. i then mentioned--not knowing what might be lost, if we lost sight of him yet--that it would give me great pleasure to introduce him to my aunt, if he would ride out to highgate, where a bed was at his service. "you shall make us a glass of your own punch, mr. micawber," said i, "and forget whatever you have on your mind, in pleasanter reminiscences." "or, if confiding anything to friends will be more likely to relieve you, you shall impart it to us, mr. micawber," said traddles, prudently. "gentlemen," returned mr. micawber, "do with me as you will! i am a straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all directions by the elephants--i beg your pardon; i should have said the elements." we walked on, arm-in-arm, again; found the coach in the act of starting; and arrived at highgate without encountering any difficulties by the way. i was very uneasy and very uncertain in my mind what to say or do for the best--so was traddles, evidently. mr. micawber was for the most part plunged into deep gloom. he occasionally made an attempt to smarten himself, and hum the fag-end of a tune; but his relapses into profound melancholy were only made the more impressive by the mockery of a hat exceedingly on one side, and a shirt-collar pulled up to his eyes. we went to my aunt's house rather than to mine, because of dora's not being well. my aunt presented herself on being sent for, and welcomed mr. micawber with gracious cordiality. mr. micawber kissed her hand, retired to the window, and pulling out his pocket-handkerchief, had a mental wrestle with himself. mr. dick was at home. he was by nature so exceedingly compassionate of anyone who seemed to be ill at ease, and was so quick to find any such person out, that he shook hands with mr. micawber, at least half-a-dozen times in five minutes. to mr. micawber, in his trouble, this warmth, on the part of a stranger, was so extremely touching, that he could only say, on the occasion of each successive shake, "my dear sir, you overpower me!" which gratified mr. dick so much, that he went at it again with greater vigor than before. "the friendliness of this gentleman," said mr. micawber to my aunt, "if you will allow me, ma'am, to cull a figure of speech from the vocabulary of our coarser national sports--floors me. to a man who is struggling with a complicated burden of perplexity and disquiet, such a reception is trying, i assure you." "my friend mr. dick," replied my aunt, proudly, "is not a common man." "that i am convinced of," said mr. micawber. "my dear sir!" for mr. dick was shaking hands with him again; "i am deeply sensible of your cordiality!" "how do you find yourself?" said mr. dick, with an anxious look. "indifferent, my dear sir," returned mr. micawber, sighing. "you must keep up your spirits," said mr. dick, "and make yourself as comfortable as possible." mr. micawber was quite overcome by these friendly words, and by finding mr. dick's hand again within his own. "it has been my lot," he observed, "to meet, in the diversified panorama of human existence, with an occasional oasis, but never with one so green, so gushing, as the present!" at another time i should have been amused by this; but i felt that we were all constrained and uneasy, and i watched mr. micawber so anxiously, in his vacillations between an evident disposition to reveal something, and a counter-disposition to reveal nothing, that i was in a perfect fever. traddles, sitting on the edge of his chair, with his eyes wide open, and his hair more emphatically erect than ever, stared by turns at the ground and at mr. micawber, without so much as attempting to put in a word. my aunt, though i saw that her shrewdest observation was concentrated on her new guest, had more useful possession of her wits than either of us; for she held him in conversation, and made it necessary for him to talk, whether he liked it or not. "you are a very old friend of my nephew's, mr. micawber," said my aunt. "i wish i had had the pleasure of seeing you before." "madam," returned mr. micawber, "i wish i had had the honor of knowing you at an earlier period. i was not always the wreck you at present behold." "i hope mrs. micawber and your family are well, sir," said my aunt. mr. micawber inclined his head. "they are as well, ma'am," he desperately observed after a pause, "as aliens and outcasts can ever hope to be." "lord bless you, sir!" exclaimed my aunt, in her abrupt way. "what are you talking about?" "the subsistence of my family, ma'am," returned mr. micawber, "trembles in the balance. my employer----" here mr. micawber provokingly left off; and began to peel the lemons that had been under my directions set before him, together with all the other appliances he used in making punch. "your employer, you know," said mr. dick, jogging his arm as a gentle reminder. "my good sir," returned mr. micawber, "you recall me. i am obliged to you." they shook hands again. "my employer, ma'am--mr. heep--once did me the favor to observe to me, that if i were not in the receipt of the stipendiary emoluments appertaining to my engagement with him, i should probably be a mountebank about the country swallowing a sword-blade, and eating the devouring element. for anything that i can perceive to the contrary, it is still probable that my children may be reduced to seek a livelihood by personal contortion, while mrs. micawber abets their unnatural feats, by playing the barrel-organ." mr. micawber, with a random but expressive flourish of his knife, signified that these performances might be expected to take place after he was no more; then resumed his peeling with a desperate air. my aunt leaned her elbow on the little round table that she usually kept beside her, and eyed him attentively. notwithstanding the aversion with which i regarded the idea of entrapping him into any disclosure he was not prepared to make voluntarily, i should have taken him up at this point, but for the strange proceedings in which i saw him engaged; whereof his putting the lemon-peel into the kettle, the sugar into the snuffer-tray, the spirit into the empty jug, and confidently attempting to pour boiling water out of a candlestick, were among the most remarkable. i saw that a crisis was at hand, and it came. he clattered all his means and implements together, rose from his chair, pulled out his pocket-handkerchief, and burst into tears. "my dear copperfield," said mr. micawber, behind his handkerchief, "this is an occupation, of all others, requiring an untroubled mind, and self-respect. i cannot perform it. it is out of the question." "mr. micawber," said i, "what is the matter? pray speak out. you are among friends." "among friends, sir!" repeated mr. micawber; and all he had reserved came breaking out of him. "good heavens, it is principally because i _am_ among friends that my state of mind is what it is. what is the matter, gentlemen? what is _not_ the matter? villany is the matter; baseness is the matter; deception, fraud, conspiracy, are the matter; and the name of the whole atrocious mass is--heep!" my aunt clapped her hands, and we all started up as if we were possessed. "the struggle is over!" said mr. micawber, violently gesticulating with his pocket-handkerchief, and fairly striking out from time to time with both arms, as if he were swimming under superhuman difficulties. "i will lead this life no longer. i am a wretched being, cut off from everything that makes life tolerable. i have been under a taboo in that infernal scoundrel's service. give me back my wife, give me back my family, substitute micawber for the petty wretch who walks about in the boots at present on my feet, and call upon me to swallow a sword to-morrow, and i'll do it. with an appetite!" i never saw a man so hot in my life. i tried to calm him, that we might come to something rational; but he got hotter and hotter, and wouldn't hear a word. "i'll put my hand in no man's hand," said mr. micawber, gasping, puffing, and sobbing, to that degree that he was like a man fighting with cold water, "until i have--blown to fragments--the--a--detestable--serpent--heep! i'll partake of no one's hospitality, until i have--a--moved mount vesuvius--to eruption--on--a--the abandoned rascal--heep! refreshment--a--underneath this roof--particularly punch--would--a--choak me--unless--i had--previously--choaked the eyes--out of the head--a--of--interminable cheat, and liar--heep! i--a--i'll know nobody--and--a--say nothing--and--a--live nowhere--until i have crushed--to--a--undiscoverable atoms--the--transcendent and immortal hypocrite and perjurer--heep!" i really had some fear of mr. micawber's dying on the spot. the manner in which he struggled through these inarticulate sentences, and, whenever he found himself getting near the name of heep, fought his way on to it, dashed at it in a fainting state, and brought it out with a vehemence little less than marvellous, was frightful; but now, when he sank into a chair, steaming, and looked at us, with every possible color in his face that had no business there, and an endless procession of lumps following one another in hot haste up his throat, whence they seemed to shoot into his forehead, he had the appearance of being in the last extremity. i would have gone to his assistance, but he waved me off, and wouldn't hear a word. "no, copperfield!--no communication--a--until--miss wickfield--a--redress from wrongs inflicted by consummate scoundrel--heep!" (i am quite convinced he could not have uttered three words, but for the amazing energy with which this word inspired him when he felt it coming.) "inviolable secret--a--from the whole world--a--no exceptions--this day week--a--at breakfast time--a--everybody present--including aunt--a--and extremely friendly gentleman--to be at the hotel at canterbury--a--where--mrs. micawber and myself--auld lang syne in chorus--and--a--will expose intolerable ruffian--heep! no more to say--a--or listen to persuasion--go immediately--not capable--a--bear society--upon the track of devoted and doomed traitor--heep!" with this last repetition of the magic word that had kept him going at all, and in which he surpassed all his previous efforts, mr. micawber rushed out of the house; leaving us in a state of excitement, hope, and wonder, that reduced us to a condition little better than his own. but even then his passion for writing letters was too strong to be resisted; for while we were yet in the height of our excitement, hope, and wonder, the following pastoral note was brought to me from a neighbouring tavern, at which he had called to write it:-- "most secret and confidential. "my dear sir, "i beg to be allowed to convey, through you, my apologies to your excellent aunt for my late excitement. an explosion of a smouldering volcano long suppressed, was the result of an internal contest more easily conceived than described. "i trust i rendered tolerably intelligible my appointment for the morning of this day week, at the house of public entertainment at canterbury, where mrs. micawber and myself had once the honor of uniting our voices to yours, in the well-known strain of the immortal exciseman nurtured beyond the tweed. "the duty done, and act of reparation performed, which can alone enable me to contemplate my fellow mortal, i shall be known no more. i shall simply require to be deposited in that place of universal resort, where "'each in his narrow cell for ever laid, the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,' "--with the plain inscription, "wilkins micawber." chapter l. mr. peggotty's dream comes true. by this time, some months had passed, since our interview on the bank of the river with martha. i had never seen her since, but she had communicated with mr. peggotty on several occasions. nothing had come of her zealous intervention; nor could i infer, from what he told me, that any clue had ever been obtained, for a moment, to emily's fate. i confess that i began to despair of her recovery, and gradually to sink deeper and deeper into the belief that she was dead. his conviction remained unchanged. so far as i know--and i believe his honest heart was transparent to me--he never wavered again, in his solemn certainty of finding her. his patience never tired. and, although i trembled for the agony it might one day be to him to have his strong assurance shivered at a blow, there was something so religious in it, so affectingly expressive of its anchor being in the purest depths of his fine nature, that the respect and honor in which i held him were exalted every day. his was not a lazy trustfulness that hoped, and did no more. he had been a man of sturdy action all his life, and he knew that in all things wherein he wanted help he must do his own part faithfully, and help himself. i have known him set out in the night, on a misgiving that the light might not be, by some accident, in the window of the old boat, and walk to yarmouth. i have known him, on reading something in the newspaper that might apply to her, take up his stick, and go forth on a journey of three or four score miles. he made his way by sea to naples, and back, after hearing the narrative to which miss dartle had assisted me. all his journeys were ruggedly performed; for he was always steadfast in a purpose of saving money for emily's sake, when she should be found. in all this long pursuit, i never heard him repine; i never heard him say he was fatigued, or out of heart. dora had often seen him since our marriage, and was quite fond of him. i fancy his figure before me now, standing near her sofa, with his rough cap in his hand, and the blue eyes of my child-wife raised, with a timid wonder, to his face. sometimes of an evening, about twilight, when he came to talk with me, i would induce him to smoke his pipe in the garden, as we slowly paced to and fro together; and then, the picture of his deserted home, and the comfortable air it used to have in my childish eyes of an evening when the fire was burning, and the wind moaning round it, came most vividly into my mind. one evening, at this hour, he told me that he had found martha waiting near his lodging on the preceding night when he came out, and that she had asked him not to leave london on any account, until he should have seen her again. "did she tell you why?" i inquired. "i asked her, mas'r davy," he replied, "but it is but few words as she ever says, and she on'y got my promise and so went away." "did she say when you might expect to see her again?" i demanded. "no, mas'r davy," he returned, drawing his hand thoughtfully down his face. "i asked that too; but it was more (she said) than she could tell." as i had long forborne to encourage him with hopes that hung on threads, i made no other comment on this information than that i supposed he would see her soon. such speculations as it engendered within me i kept to myself, and those were faint enough. i was walking alone in the garden, one evening, about a fortnight afterwards. i remember that evening well. it was the second in mr. micawber's week of suspense. there had been rain all day, and there was a damp feeling in the air. the leaves were thick upon the trees, and heavy with wet; but the rain had ceased, though the sky was still dark; and the hopeful birds were singing cheerfully. as i walked to and fro in the garden, and the twilight began to close around me, their little voices were hushed; and that peculiar silence which belongs to such an evening in the country when the lightest trees are quite still, save for the occasional droppings from their boughs, prevailed. there was a little green perspective of trellis-work and ivy at the side of our cottage, through which i could see, from the garden where i was walking, into the road before the house. i happened to turn my eyes towards this place, as i was thinking of many things; and i saw a figure beyond, dressed in a plain cloak. it was bending eagerly towards me, and beckoning. "martha!" said i, going to it. "can you come with me?" she inquired, in an agitated whisper. "i have been to him, and he is not at home. i wrote down where he was to come, and left it on his table with my own hand. they said he would not be out long. i have tidings for him. can you come directly?" my answer was, to pass out at the gate immediately. she made a hasty gesture with her hand, as if to entreat my patience and my silence, and turned towards london, whence, as her dress betokened, she had come expeditiously on foot. i asked her if that were not our destination? on her motioning yes, with the same hasty gesture as before, i stopped an empty coach that was coming by, and we got into it. when i asked her where the coachman was to drive, she answered "anywhere near golden square! and quick!"--then shrunk into a corner, with one trembling hand before her face, and the other making the former gesture, as if she could not bear a voice. now much disturbed, and dazzled with conflicting gleams of hope and dread, i looked at her for some explanation. but, seeing how strongly she desired to remain quiet, and feeling that it was my own natural inclination too, at such a time, i did not attempt to break the silence. we proceeded without a word being spoken. sometimes she glanced out of the window, as though she thought we were going slowly, though indeed we were going fast; but otherwise remained exactly as at first. we alighted at one of the entrances to the square she had mentioned, where i directed the coach to wait, not knowing but that we might have some occasion for it. she laid her hand on my arm, and hurried me on to one of the sombre streets, of which there are several in that part, where the houses were once fair dwellings in the occupation of single families, but have, and had, long degenerated into poor lodgings let off in rooms. entering at the open door of one of these, and releasing my arm, she beckoned me to follow her up the common staircase, which was like a tributary channel to the street. the house swarmed with inmates. as we went up, doors of rooms were opened and people's heads put out; and we passed other people on the stairs, who were coming down. in glancing up from the outside, before we entered, i had seen women and children lolling at the windows over flower-pots; and we seemed to have attracted their curiosity, for these were principally the observers who looked out of their doors. it was a broad panelled staircase, with massive balustrades of some dark wood; cornices above the doors, ornamented with carved fruit and flowers; and broad seats in the windows. but all these tokens of past grandeur were miserably decayed and dirty; rot, damp, and age, had weakened the flooring, which in many places was unsound and even unsafe. some attempts had been made, i noticed, to infuse new blood into this dwindling frame, by repairing the costly old wood-work here and there with common deal; but it was like the marriage of a reduced old noble to a plebeian pauper, and each party to the ill-assorted union shrunk away from the other. several of the back windows on the staircase had been darkened or wholly blocked up. in those that remained, there was scarcely any glass; and, through the crumbling frames by which the bad air seemed always to come in, and never to go out, i saw, through other glassless windows, into other houses in a similar condition, and looked giddily down into a wretched yard which was the common dust-heap of the mansion. we proceeded to the top-story of the house. two or three times, by the way, i thought i observed in the indistinct light the skirts of a female figure going up before us. as we turned to ascend the last flight of stairs between us and the roof, we caught a full view of this figure pausing for a moment, at a door. then it turned the handle and went in. "what's this!" said martha, in a whisper. "she has gone into my room. i don't know her!" _i_ knew her. i had recognised her with amazement, for miss dartle. i said something to the effect that it was a lady whom i had seen before, in a few words, to my conductress; and had scarcely done so, when we heard her voice in the room, though not, from where we stood, what she was saying. martha, with an astonished look, repeated her former action, and softly led me up the stairs; and then, by a little back door which seemed to have no lock, and which she pushed open with a touch, into a small empty garret with a low sloping roof: little better than a cupboard. between this, and the room she had called hers, there was a small door of communication, standing partly open. here we stopped, breathless with our ascent, and she placed her hand lightly on my lips. i could only see, of the room beyond, that it was pretty large; that there was a bed in it; and that there were some common pictures of ships upon the walls. i could not see miss dartle, or the person whom we had heard her address. certainly, my companion could not, for my position was the best. a dead silence prevailed for some moments. martha kept one hand on my lips, and raised the other in a listening attitude. "it matters little to me her not being at home," said rosa dartle, haughtily, "i know nothing of her. it is you i come to see." "me?" replied a soft voice. at the sound of it, a thrill went through my frame. for it was emily's! "yes," returned miss dartle, "i have come to look at you. what? you are not ashamed of the face that has done so much?" the resolute and unrelenting hatred of her tone, its cold stern sharpness, and its mastered rage, presented her before me, as if i had seen her standing in the light. i saw the flashing black eyes, and the passion-wasted figure; and i saw the scar, with its white track cutting through her lips, quivering and throbbing as she spoke. "i have come to see," she said, "james steerforth's fancy; the girl who ran away with him, and is the town-talk of the commonest people of her native place; the bold, flaunting, practised companion of persons like james steerforth. i want to know what such a thing is like." there was a rustle, as if the unhappy girl, on whom she heaped these taunts, ran towards the door, and the speaker swiftly interposed herself before it. it was succeeded by a moment's pause. when miss dartle spoke again, it was through her set teeth, and with a stamp upon the ground. "stay there!" she said, "or i'll proclaim you to the house, and the whole street! if you try to evade _me_, i'll stop you, if it's by the hair, and raise the very stones against you!" a frightened murmur was the only reply that reached my ears. a silence succeeded. i did not know what to do. much as i desired to put an end to the interview, i felt that i had no right to present myself; that it was for mr. peggotty alone to see her and recover her. would he never come? i thought impatiently. "so!" said rosa dartle, with a contemptuous laugh, "i see her at last! why, he was a poor creature to be taken by that delicate mock-modesty, and that hanging head!" "oh, for heaven's sake, spare me!" exclaimed emily. "whoever you are, you know my pitiable story, and for heaven's sake spare me, if you would be spared yourself!" "if _i_ would be spared!" returned the other fiercely; "what is there in common between _us_, do you think?" "nothing but our sex," said emily, with a burst of tears. "and that," said rosa dartle, "is so strong a claim, preferred by one so infamous, that if i had any feeling in my breast but scorn and abhorrence of you, it would freeze it up. our sex! you are an honour to our sex!" "i have deserved this," cried emily, "but it's dreadful! dear, dear lady, think what i have suffered, and how i am fallen! oh, martha, come back! oh, home, home!" miss dartle placed herself in a chair, within view of the door, and looked downward, as if emily were crouching on the floor before her. being now between me and the light, i could see her curled lip, and her cruel eyes intently fixed on one place, with a greedy triumph. "listen to what i say!" she said; "and reserve your false arts for your dupes. do you hope to move _me_ by your tears? no more than you could charm me by your smiles, you purchased slave." "oh, have some mercy on me!" cried emily. "show me some compassion, or i shall die mad!" "it would be no great penance," said rosa dartle, "for your crimes. do you know what you have done? do you ever think of the home you have laid waste?" "oh, is there ever night or day, when i don't think of it!" cried emily; and now i could just see her, on her knees, with her head thrown back, her pale face looking upward, her hands wildly clasped and held out, and her hair streaming about her. "has there ever been a single minute, waking or sleeping, when it hasn't been before me, just as it used to be in the lost days when i turned my back upon it for ever and for ever! oh, home, home! oh dear, dear uncle, if you ever could have known the agony your love would cause me when i fell away from good, you never would have shown it to me so constant, much as you felt it; but would have been angry to me, at least once in my life, that i might have had some comfort! i have none, none, no comfort upon earth, for all of them were always fond of me!" she dropped on her face, before the imperious figure in the chair, with an imploring effort to clasp the skirt of her dress. rosa dartle sat looking down upon her, as inflexible as a figure of brass. her lips were tightly compressed, as if she knew that she must keep a strong constraint upon herself--i write what i sincerely believe--or she would be tempted to strike the beautiful form with her foot. i saw her, distinctly, and the whole power of her face and character seemed forced into that expression.--would he never come? "the miserable vanity of these earth-worms!" she said, when she had so far controlled the angry heavings of her breast, that she could trust herself to speak. "_your_ home! do you imagine that i bestow a thought on it, or suppose you could do any harm to that low place, which money would not pay for, and handsomely? _your_ home! you were a part of the trade of your home, and were bought and sold like any other vendible thing your people dealt in." "oh not that!" cried emily. "say anything of me; but don't visit my disgrace and shame, more than i have done, on folks who are as honorable as you! have some respect for them, as you are a lady, if you have no mercy for me." "i speak," she said, not deigning to take any heed of this appeal, and drawing away her dress from the contamination of emily's touch, "i speak of _his_ home--where i live. here," she said, stretching out her hand with her contemptuous laugh, and looking down upon the prostrate girl, "is a worthy cause of division between lady-mother and gentleman-son; of grief in a house where she wouldn't have been admitted as a kitchen-girl; of anger, and repining, and reproach. this piece of pollution, picked up from the water-side, to be made much of for an hour, and then tossed back to her original place!" "no! no!" cried emily, clasping her hands together. "when he first came into my way--that the day had never dawned upon me, and he had met me being carried to my grave!--i had been brought up as virtuous as you or any lady, and was going to be the wife of as good a man as you or any lady in the world can ever marry. if you live in his home and know him, you know, perhaps, what his power with a weak, vain girl might be. i don't defend myself, but i know well, and he knows well, or he will know when he comes to die, and his mind is troubled with it, that he used all his power to deceive me, and that i believed him, trusted him, and loved him!" rosa dartle sprang up from her seat; recoiled; and in recoiling struck at her, with a face of such malignity, so darkened and disfigured by passion, that i had almost thrown myself between them. the blow, which had no aim, fell upon the air. as she now stood panting, looking at her with the utmost detestation that she was capable of expressing, and trembling from head to foot with rage and scorn, i thought i had never seen such a sight, and never could see such another. "_you_ love him? _you?_" she cried, with her clenched hand, quivering as if it only wanted a weapon to stab the object of her wrath. emily had shrunk out of my view. there was no reply. "and tell that to _me_," she added, "with your shameful lips? why don't they whip these creatures! if i could order it to be done, i would have this girl whipped to death." and so she would, i have no doubt. i would not have trusted her with the rack itself, while that furious look lasted. she slowly, very slowly, broke into a laugh, and pointed at emily with her hand, as if she were a sight of shame for gods and men. "_she_ love!" she said. "that carrion! and he ever cared for her, she'd tell me? ha, ha! the liars that these traders are!" her mockery was worse than her undisguised rage. of the two, i would have much preferred to be the object of the latter. but, when she suffered it to break loose, it was only for a moment. she had chained it up again, and however it might tear her within, she subdued it to herself. "i came here, you pure fountain of love," she said, "to see--as i began by telling you--what such a thing as you was like. i was curious. i am satisfied. also to tell you, that you had best seek that home of yours, with all speed, and hide your head among those excellent people who are expecting you, and whom your money will console. when it's all gone, you can believe, and trust, and love again, you know! i thought you a broken toy that had lasted its time; a worthless spangle that was tarnished, and thrown away. but, finding you true gold, a very lady, and an ill-used innocent, with a fresh heart full of love and trustfulness--which you look like, and is quite consistent with your story!--i have something more to say. attend to it; for what i say i'll do. do you hear me, you fairy spirit? what i say, i mean to do!" her rage got the better of her again, for a moment; but it passed over her face like a spasm, and left her smiling. "hide yourself," she pursued, "if not at home, somewhere. let it be somewhere beyond reach; in some obscure life--or, better still, in some obscure death. i wonder, if your loving heart will not break, you have found no way of helping it to be still! i have heard of such means sometimes. i believe they may be easily found." a low crying, on the part of emily, interrupted her here. she stopped, and listened to it as if it were music. "i am of a strange nature, perhaps," rosa dartle went on; "but i can't breathe freely in the air you breathe. i find it sickly. therefore, i will have it cleared; i will have it purified of you. if you live here to-morrow, i'll have your story and your character proclaimed on the common stair. there are decent women in the house, i am told; and it is a pity such a light as you should be among them, and concealed. if, leaving here, you seek any refuge in this town in any character but your true one (which you are welcome to bear, without molestation from me), the same service shall be done you, if i hear of your retreat. being assisted by a gentleman who not long ago aspired to the favor of your hand, i am sanguine as to that." would he never, never come? how long was i to bear this? how long could i bear it? "oh me, oh me!" exclaimed the wretched emily, in a tone that might have touched the hardest heart, i should have thought; but there was no relenting in rosa dartle's smile. "what, what, shall i do!" "do?" returned the other. "live happy in your own reflections! consecrate your existence to the recollection of james steerforth's tenderness--he would have made you his serving-man's wife, would he not?--or to feeling grateful to the upright and deserving creature who would have taken you as his gift. or, if those proud remembrances, and the consciousness of your own virtues, and the honorable position to which they have raised you in the eyes of everything that wears the human shape, will not sustain you, marry that good man, and be happy in his condescension. if this will not do either, die! there are doorways and dust-heaps for such deaths, and such despair--find one, and take your flight to heaven!" i heard a distant foot upon the stairs. i knew it, i was certain. it was his, thank god! she moved slowly from before the door when she said this, and passed out of my sight. "but mark!" she added, slowly and sternly, opening the other door to go away, "i am resolved, for reasons that i have and hatreds that i entertain, to cast you out, unless you withdraw from my reach altogether, or drop your pretty mask. this is what i had to say; and what i say, i mean to do!" the foot upon the stairs came nearer--nearer--passed her as she went down--rushed into the room! "uncle!" a fearful cry followed the word. i paused a moment, and looking in, saw him supporting her insensible figure in his arms. he gazed for a few seconds in the face; then stooped to kiss it--oh, how tenderly!--and drew a handkerchief before it. [illustration: mr. peggotty's dream comes true.] "mas'r davy," he said, in a low tremulous voice, when it was covered, "i thank my heav'nly father as my dream's come true! i thank him hearty for having guided of me, in his own ways, to my darling!" with those words he took her up in his arms; and, with the veiled face lying on his bosom, and addressed towards his own, carried her, motionless and unconscious, down the stairs. chapter li. the beginning of a longer journey. it was yet early in the morning of the following day, when, as i was walking in my garden with my aunt (who took little other exercise now, being so much in attendance on my dear dora), i was told that mr. peggotty desired to speak with me. he came into the garden to meet me half-way, on my going towards the gate; and bared his head, as it was always his custom to do when he saw my aunt, for whom he had a high respect. i had been telling her all that had happened over-night. without saying a word, she walked up with a cordial face, shook hands with him, and patted him on the arm. it was so expressively done, that she had no need to say a word. mr. peggotty understood her quite as well as if she had said a thousand. "i'll go in now, trot," said my aunt, "and look after little blossom, who will be getting up presently." "not along of my being heer, ma'am, i hope?" said mr. peggotty. "unless my wits is gone a bahd's neezing"--by which mr. peggotty meant to say, bird's-nesting--"this morning, 'tis along of me as you're a going to quit us?" "you have something to say, my good friend," returned my aunt, "and will do better without me." "by your leave, ma'am," returned mr. peggotty, "i should take it kind, pervising you doen't mind my clicketten, if you'd bide heer." "would you?" said my aunt, with short good-nature. "then i am sure i will!" so, she drew her arm through mr. peggotty's, and walked with him to a leafy little summer-house there was at the bottom of the garden, where she sat down on a bench, and i beside her. there was a seat for mr. peggotty too, but he preferred to stand, leaning his hand on the small rustic table. as he stood, looking at his cap for a little while before beginning to speak, i could not help observing what power and force of character his sinewy hand expressed, and what a good and trusty companion it was to his honest brow and iron-grey hair. "i took my dear child away last night," mr. peggotty began, as he raised his eyes to ours, "to my lodging, wheer i have a long time been expecting of her and preparing fur her. it was hours afore she knowed me right; and when she did, she kneeled down at my feet, and kiender said to me, as if it was her prayers, how it all come to be. you may believe me, when i heerd her voice, as i had heerd at home so playful--and see her humbled, as it might be in the dust our saviour wrote in with his blessed hand--i felt a wownd go to my 'art, in the midst of all its thankfulness." he drew his sleeve across his face, without any pretence of concealing why; and then cleared his voice. "it warn't for long as i felt that; for she was found. i had on'y to think as she was found, and it was gone. i doen't know why i do so much as mention of it now, i'm sure. i didn't have it in my mind a minute ago, to say a word about myself; but it come up so nat'ral, that i yielded to it afore i was aweer." "you are a self-denying soul," said my aunt, "and will have your reward." mr. peggotty, with the shadows of the leaves playing athwart his face, made a surprised inclination of the head towards my aunt, as an acknowledgment of her good opinion; then, took up the thread he had relinquished. "when my em'ly took flight," he said, in stern wrath for the moment, "from the house wheer she was made a pris'ner by that theer spotted snake as mas'r davy see,--and his story's trew, and may god confound him!--she took flight in the night. it was a dark night, with a many stars a shining. she was wild. she ran along the sea beach, believing the old boat was theer; and calling out to us to turn away our faces, for she was a coming by. she heerd herself a crying out, like as if it was another person; and cut herself on them sharp-pinted stones and rocks, and felt it no more than if she had been rock herself. ever so fur she run, and there was fire afore her eyes, and roarings in her ears. of a sudden--or so she thowt, you unnerstand--the day broke, wet and windy, and she was lying b'low a heap of stone upon the shore, and a woman was a speaking to her, saying, in the language of that country, what was it as had gone so much amiss?" he saw everything he related. it passed before him, as he spoke, so vividly, that, in the intensity of his earnestness, he presented what he described, to me, with greater distinctness than i can express. i can hardly believe, writing now long afterwards, but that i was actually present in these scenes; they are impressed upon me with such an astonishing air of fidelity. "as em'ly's eyes--which was heavy--see this woman better," mr. peggotty went on, "she know'd as she was one of them as she had often talked to on the beach. fur, though she had run (as i have said) ever so fur in the night, she had oftentimes wandered long ways, partly afoot, partly in boats and carriages, and know'd all that country, 'long the coast, miles and miles. she hadn't no children of her own, this woman, being a young wife; but she was a looking to have one afore long. and may my prayers go up to heaven that 'twill be a happ'ness to her, and a comfort, and a honor, all her life! may it love her and be dootiful to her, in her old age; helpful of her at the last; a angel to her heer, and heerafter!" "amen!" said my aunt. "she had been summat timorous and down," said mr. peggotty, "and had sat, at first, a little way off, at her spinning, or such work as it was, when em'ly talked to the children. but em'ly had took notice of her, and had gone and spoke to her; and as the young woman was partial to the children herself, they had soon made friends. sermuchser, that when em'ly went that way, she always giv em'ly flowers. this was her as now asked what it was that had gone so much amiss. em'ly told her, and she--took her home. she did indeed. she took her home," said mr. peggotty, covering his face. he was more affected by this act of kindness, than i had ever seen him affected by anything since the night she went away. my aunt and i did not attempt to disturb him. "it was a little cottage, you may suppose," he said, presently, "but she found space for em'ly in it,--her husband was away at sea,--and she kep it secret, and prevailed upon such neighbours as she had (they was not many near) to keep it secret too. em'ly was took bad with fever, and, what is very strange to me is,--maybe 'tis not so strange to scholars,--the language of that country went out of her head, and she could only speak her own, that no one unnerstood. she recollects, as if she had dreamed it, that she lay there, always a talking her own tongue, always believing as the old boat was round the next pint in the bay, and begging and imploring of 'em to send theer and tell how she was dying, and bring back a message of forgiveness, if it was on'y a wured. a'most the whole time, she thowt,--now, that him as i made mention on just now was lurking for her unnerneath the winder: now that him as had brought her to this was in the room,--and cried to the good young woman not to give her up, and know'd, at the same time, that she couldn't unnerstand, and dreaded that she must be took away. likewise the fire was afore her eyes, and the roarings in her ears; and there was no to-day, nor yesterday, nor yet to-morrow; but everything in her life as ever had been, or as ever could be, and everything as never had been, and as never could be, was a crowding on her all at once, and nothing clear nor welcome, and yet she sang and laughed about it! how long this lasted, i doen't know; but then there come a sleep; and in that sleep, from being a many times stronger than her own self, she fell into the weakness of the littlest child." here he stopped, as if for relief from the terrors of his own description. after being silent for a few moments, he pursued his story. "it was a pleasant arternoon when she awoke; and so quiet, that there warn't a sound but the rippling of that blue sea without a tide, upon the shore. it was her belief, at first, that she was at home upon a sunday morning; but, the vine leaves as she see at the winder, and the hills beyond, warn't home, and contradicted of her. then, come in her friend to watch alongside of her bed; and then she know'd as the old boat warn't round that next pint in the bay no more, but was fur off; and know'd where she was, and why; and broke out a crying on that good young woman's bosom, wheer i hope her baby is a lying now, a cheering of her with its pretty eyes!" he could not speak of this good friend of emily's without a flow of tears. it was in vain to try. he broke down again, endeavouring to bless her! "that done my em'ly good," he resumed, after such emotion as i could not behold without sharing in; and as to my aunt, she wept with all her heart; "that done em'ly good, and she begun to mend. but, the language of that country was quite gone from her, and she was forced to make signs. so she went on, getting better from day to day, slow, but sure, and trying to learn the names of common things--names as she seemed never to have heerd in all her life--till one evening come, when she was a setting at her window, looking at a little girl at play upon the beach. and of a sudden this child held out her hand, and said, what would be in english, 'fisherman's daughter, here's a shell!'--for you are to unnerstand that they used at first to call her 'pretty lady,' as the general way in that country is, and that she had taught 'em to call her 'fisherman's daughter' instead. the child says of a sudden, 'fisherman's daughter, here's a shell!' then em'ly unnerstands her; and she answers, bursting out a crying; and it all comes back! "when em'ly got strong again," said mr. peggotty, after another short interval of silence, "she cast about to leave that good young creetur, and get to her own country. the husband was come home, then; and the two together put her aboard a small trader bound to leghorn, and from that to france. she had a little money, but it was less than little as they would take for all they done. i'm a'most glad on it, though they was so poor! what they done, is laid up wheer neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and wheer thieves do not break through nor steal. mas'r davy, it'll outlast all the treasure in the wureld. "em'ly got to france, and took service to wait on travelling ladies at a inn in the port. theer, theer come, one day, that snake.--let him never come nigh me. i doen't know what hurt i might do him!--soon as she see him, without him seeing her, all her fear and wildness returned upon her, and she fled afore the very breath he draw'd. she come to england, and was set ashore at dover. "i doen't know," said mr. peggotty, "for sure, when her 'art begun to fail her; but all the way to england she had thowt to come to her dear home. soon as she got to england she turned her face tow'rds it. but, fear of not being forgiv, fear of being pinted at, fear of some of us being dead along of her, fear of many things, turned her from it, kiender by force, upon the road: 'uncle, uncle,' she says to me, 'the fear of not being worthy to do, what my torn and bleeding breast so longed to do, was the most fright'ning fear of all! i turned back, when my 'art was full of prayers that i might crawl to the old doorstep, in the night, kiss it, lay my wicked face upon it, and theer be found dead in the morning.' "she come," said mr. peggotty, dropping his voice to an awe-stricken whisper, "to london. she--as had never seen it in her life--alone--without a penny--young--so pretty--come to london. a'most the moment as she lighted heer, all so desolate, she found (as she believed) a friend; a decent woman as spoke to her about the needle-work as she had been brought up to do, about finding plenty of it fur her, about a lodging for the night, and making secret inquiration concerning of me and all at home, to-morrow. when my child," he said aloud, and with an energy of gratitude that shook him from head to foot, "stood upon the brink of more than i can say or think on--martha, trew to her promise, saved her!" i could not repress a cry of joy. "mas'r davy!" he said, griping my hand in that strong hand of his, "it was you as first made mention of her to me. i thankee, sir! she was arnest. she had know'd of her bitter knowledge wheer to watch and what to do. she had done it. and the lord was above all! she come, white and hurried, upon em'ly in her sleep. she says to her, 'rise up from worse than death, and come with me!' them belonging to the house would have stopped her, but they might as soon have stopped the sea. 'stand away from me,' she says, 'i am a ghost that calls her from beside her open grave!' she told em'ly she had seen me, and know'd i loved her, and forgiv her. she wrapped her, hasty, in her clothes. she took her, faint and trembling, on her arm. she heeded no more what they said, than if she had had no ears. she walked among 'em with my child, minding only her; and brought her safe out, in the dead of the night, from that black pit of ruin! "she attended on em'ly," said mr. peggotty, who had released my hand, and put his own hand on his heaving chest; "she attended to my em'ly, lying wearied out, and wandering betwixt whiles, till late next day. then she went in search of me; then in search of you, mas'r davy. she didn't tell em'ly what she come out fur, lest her 'art should fail, and she should think of hiding of herself. how the cruel lady know'd of her being theer, i can't say. whether him as i have spoke so much of, chanced to see 'em going theer, or whether (which is most like, to my thinking) he had heerd it from the woman, i doen't greatly ask myself. my niece is found. "all night long," said mr. peggotty, "we have been together, em'ly and me. 'tis little (considering the time) as she has said, in wureds, through them broken-hearted tears; 'tis less as i have seen of her dear face, as grow'd into a woman's at my hearth. but, all night long, her arms has been about my neck; and her head has laid heer; and we knows full well, as we can put our trust in one another, ever more." he ceased to speak, and his hand upon the table rested there in perfect repose, with a resolution in it that might have conquered lions. "it was a gleam of light upon me, trot," said my aunt, drying her eyes, "when i formed the resolution of being godmother to your sister betsey trotwood, who disappointed me; but, next to that, hardly anything would have given me greater pleasure, than to be godmother to that good young creature's baby!" mr. peggotty nodded his understanding of my aunt's feelings, but could not trust himself with any verbal reference to the subject of her commendation. we all remained silent, and occupied with our own reflections (my aunt drying her eyes, and now sobbing convulsively, and now laughing and calling herself a fool); until i spoke. "you have quite made up your mind," said i to mr. peggotty, "as to the future, good friend? i need scarcely ask you." "quite, mas'r davy," he returned; "and told em'ly, theer's mighty countries, fur from heer. our future life lays over the sea." "they will emigrate together, aunt," said i. "yes!" said mr. peggotty, with a hopeful smile. "no one can't reproach my darling in australia. we will begin a new life over theer!" i asked him if he yet proposed to himself any time for going away. "i was down at the docks early this morning, sir," he returned, "to get information concerning of them ships. in about six weeks or two months from now, there'll be one sailing--i see her this morning--went aboard-- and we shall take our passage in her." "quite alone?" i asked. "aye, mas'r davy!" he returned. "my sister, you see, she's that fond of you and yourn, and that accustomed to think on'y of her own country, that it wouldn't be hardly fair to let her go. besides which, theer's one she has in charge, mas'r davy, as doen't ought to be forgot." "poor ham!" said i. "my good sister takes care of his house, you see, ma'am, and he takes kindly to her," mr. peggotty explained for my aunt's better information. "he'll set and talk to her, with a calm spirit, wen it's like he couldn't bring himself to open his lips to another. poor fellow!" said mr. peggotty, shaking his head, "theer's not so much left him, that he could spare the little as he has!" "and mrs. gummidge?" said i. "well, i've had a mort of con-sideration, i do tell you," returned mr. peggotty, with a perplexed look which gradually cleared as he went on, "concerning of missis gummidge. you see, wen missis gummidge falls a thinking of the old 'un, she an't what you may call good company. betwixt you and me, mas'r davy--and you, ma'am--wen mrs. gummidge takes to wimicking,"--our old county word for crying,--"she's liable to be considered to be, by them as didn't know the old 'un, peevish-like. now i _did_ know the old 'un," said mr. peggotty, "and i know'd his merits, so i unnerstan' her; but 'tan't entirely so, you see, with others--nat'rally can't be!" my aunt and i both acquiesced. "wheerby," said mr. peggotty, "my sister might--i doen't say she would, but might--find missis gummidge give her a leetle trouble now-and-again. theerfur 'tan't my intentions to moor missis gummidge 'long with them, but to find a beein' fur her wheer she can fisherate fur herself." (a beein' signifies, in that dialect, a home, and to fisherate is to provide.) "fur which purpose," said mr. peggotty, "i means to make her a 'lowance afore i go, as'll leave her pretty comfort'ble. she's the faithfullest of creeturs. 'tan't to be expected, of course, at her time of life, and being lone and lorn, as the good old mawther is to be knocked about aboardship, and in the woods and wilds of a new and fur-away country. so that's what i'm a going to do with _her_." he forgot nobody. he thought of everybody's claims and strivings, but his own. "em'ly," he continued, "will keep along with me--poor child, she's sore in need of peace and rest!--until such time as we goes upon our voyage. she'll work at them clothes, as must be made; and i hope her troubles will begin to seem longer ago than they was, wen she finds herself once more by her rough but loving uncle." my aunt nodded confirmation of this hope, and imparted great satisfaction to mr. peggotty. "theer's one thing furder, mas'r davy," said he, putting his hand in his breast-pocket, and gravely taking out the little paper bundle i had seen before, which he unrolled on the table. "theer's these here bank-notes--fifty pound, and ten. to them i wish to add the money as she come away with. i've asked her about that (but not saying why), and have added of it up. i an't a scholar. would you be so kind as see how 'tis?" he handed me, apologetically for his scholarship, a piece of paper, and observed me while i looked it over. it was quite right. "thankee, sir," he said, taking it back. "this money, if you doen't see objections, mas'r davy, i shall put up jest afore i go, in a cover d'rected to him; and put that up in another, d'rected to his mother. i shall tell her, in no more wureds than i speak to you, what it's the price on; and that i'm gone, and past receiving of it back." i told him that i thought it would be right to do so--that i was thoroughly convinced it would be, since he felt it to be right. "i said that theer was on'y one thing furder," he proceeded with a grave smile, when he had made up his little bundle again, and put it in his pocket; "but theer was two. i warn't sure in my mind, wen i come out this morning, as i could go and break to ham, of my own self, what had so thankfully happened. so i writ a letter while i was out, and put it in the post-office, telling of 'em how all was as 'tis; and that i should come down to-morrow to unload my mind of what little needs a doing of down theer, and, most-like, take my farewell leave of yarmouth." "and do you wish me to go with you?" said i, seeing that he left something unsaid. "if you could do me that kind favor, mas'r davy," he replied, "i know the sight on you would cheer 'em up a bit." my little dora being in good spirits, and very desirous that i should go--as i found on talking it over with her--i readily pledged myself to accompany him in accordance with his wish. next morning, consequently, we were on the yarmouth coach, and again travelling over the old ground. as we passed along the familiar street at night--mr. peggotty, in despite of all my remonstrances, carrying my bag--i glanced into omer and joram's shop, and saw my old friend mr. omer there, smoking his pipe. i felt reluctant to be present, when mr. peggotty first met his sister and ham; and made mr. omer my excuse for lingering behind. "how is mr. omer, after this long time?" said i, going in. he fanned away the smoke of his pipe, that he might get a better view of me, and soon recognised me with great delight. "i should get up, sir, to acknowledge such an honor as this visit," said he, "only my limbs are rather out of sorts, and i am wheeled about. with the exception of my limbs and my breath, hows'ever, i am as hearty as a man can be, i'm thankful to say." i congratulated him on his contented looks and his good spirits, and saw, now, that his easy chair went on wheels. "it's an ingenious thing, ain't it?" he inquired, following the direction of my glance, and polishing the elbow with his arm. "it runs as light as a feather, and tracks as true as a mail-coach. bless you, my little minnie--my grand-daughter you know, minnie's child--puts her little strength against the back, gives it a shove, and away we go, as clever and merry as ever you see anything! and i tell you what--it's a most uncommon chair to smoke a pipe in." i never saw such a good old fellow to make the best of a thing, and find out the enjoyment of it, as mr. omer. he was as radiant, as if his chair, his asthma, and the failure of his limbs, were the various branches of a great invention for enhancing the luxury of a pipe. "i see more of the world, i can assure you," said mr. omer, "in this chair, than ever i see out of it. you'd be surprised at the number of people that looks in of a day to have a chat. you really would! there's twice as much in the newspaper, since i've taken to this chair, as there used to be. as to general reading, dear me, what a lot of it i do get through! that's what i feel so strong, you know! if it had been my eyes, what should i have done? if it had been my ears, what should i have done? being my limbs, what does it signify? why, my limbs only made my breath shorter when i used 'em. and now, if i want to go out into the street or down to the sands, i've only got to call dick, joram's youngest 'prentice, and away i go in my own carriage, like the lord mayor of london." he half suffocated himself with laughing here. "lord bless you!" said mr. omer, resuming his pipe, "a man must take the fat with the lean; that's what he must make up his mind to, in this life. joram does a fine business. ex-cellent business!" "i am very glad to hear it," said i. "i knew you would be," said mr. omer. "and joram and minnie are like valentines. what more can a man expect? what's his limbs to _that_!" his supreme contempt for his own limbs, as he sat smoking, was one of the pleasantest oddities i have ever encountered. "and since i've took to general reading, you've took to general writing, eh, sir?" said mr. omer, surveying me admiringly. "what a lovely work that was of yours! what expressions in it! i read it every word--every word. and as to feeling sleepy! not at all!" i laughingly expressed my satisfaction, but i must confess that i thought this association of ideas significant. "i give you my word and honor, sir," said mr. omer, "that when i lay that book upon the table, and look at it outside; compact in three separate and indiwidual wollumes--one, two, three; i am as proud as punch to think that i once had the honor of being connected with your family. and dear me, it's a long time ago, now, an't it? over at blunderstone. with a pretty little party laid along with the other party. and you quite a small party then, yourself. dear, dear!" i changed the subject by referring to emily. after assuring him that i did not forget how interested he had always been in her, and how kindly he had always treated her, i gave him a general account of her restoration to her uncle by the aid of martha; which i knew would please the old man. he listened with the utmost attention, and said, feelingly, when i had done: "i am rejoiced at it, sir! it's the best news i have heard for many a day. dear, dear, dear! and what's going to be undertook for that unfortunate young woman, martha, now?" "you touch a point that my thoughts have been dwelling on since yesterday," said i, "but on which i can give you no information yet, mr. omer. mr. peggotty has not alluded to it, and i have a delicacy in doing so. i am sure he has not forgotten it. he forgets nothing that is disinterested and good." "because you know," said mr. omer, taking himself up, where he had left off, "whatever _is_ done, i should wish to be a member of. put me down for anything you may consider right, and let me know. i never could think the girl all bad, and i am glad to find she's not. so will my daughter minnie be. young women are contradictory creatures in some things--her mother was just the same as her--but their hearts are soft and kind. it's all show with minnie, about martha. why she should consider it necessary to make any show, i don't undertake to tell you. but it's all show, bless you. she'd do her any kindness in private. so, put me down for whatever you may consider right, will you be so good? and drop me a line where to forward it. dear me!" said mr. omer, "when a man is drawing on to a time of life, where the two ends of life meet; when he finds himself, however hearty he is, being wheeled about for the second time, in a speeches of go-cart; he should be over-rejoiced to do a kindness if he can. he wants plenty. and i don't speak of myself, particular," said mr. omer, "because, sir, the way i look at it is, that we are all drawing on to the bottom of the hill, whatever age we are, on account of time never standing still for a single moment. so let us always do a kindness, and be over-rejoiced. to be sure!" he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and put it on a ledge in the back of his chair, expressly made for its reception. "there's em'ly's cousin, him that she was to have been married to," said mr. omer, rubbing his hands feebly, "as fine a fellow as there is in yarmouth! he'll come and talk or read to me, in the evening, for an hour together sometimes. that's a kindness, i should call it! all his life's a kindness." "i am going to see him now," said i. "are you?" said mr. omer. "tell him i was hearty, and sent my respects. minnie and joram's at a ball. they would be as proud to see you as i am, if they was at home. minnie won't hardly go out at all, you see, 'on account of father,' as she says. so i swore to-night, that if she didn't go, i'd go to bed at six. in consequence of which," mr. omer shook himself and his chair, with laughter at the success of his device, "she and joram's at a ball." i shook hands with him, and wished him good night. "half a minute, sir," said mr. omer. "if you was to go without seeing my little elephant, you'd lose the best of sights. you never see such a sight! minnie!" a musical little voice answered, from somewhere upstairs, "i am coming, grandfather!" and a pretty little girl with long, flaxen, curling hair, soon came running into the shop. "this is my little elephant, sir," said mr. omer, fondling the child. "siamese breed, sir. now, little elephant!" the little elephant set the door of the parlor open, enabling me to see that, in these latter days, it was converted into a bedroom for mr. omer, who could not be easily conveyed upstairs; and then hid her pretty forehead, and tumbled her long hair, against the back of mr. omer's chair. "the elephant butts, you know, sir," said mr. omer, winking, "when he goes at a object. once, elephant. twice. three times!" at this signal, the little elephant, with a dexterity that was next to marvellous in so small an animal, whisked the chair round with mr. omer in it, and rattled it off, pell-mell, into the parlor, without touching the doorpost: mr. omer indescribably enjoying the performance, and looking back at me on the road as if it were the triumphant issue of his life's exertions. after a stroll about the town, i went to ham's house. peggotty had now removed here for good; and had let her own house to the successor of mr. barkis in the carrying business, who had paid her very well for the good-will, cart, and horse. i believe the very same slow horse that mr. barkis drove, was still at work. i found them in the neat kitchen, accompanied by mrs. gummidge, who had been fetched from the old boat by mr. peggotty himself. i doubt if she could have been induced to desert her post, by any one else. he had evidently told them all. both peggotty and mrs. gummidge had their aprons to their eyes, and ham had just stepped out "to take a turn on the beach." he presently came home, very glad to see me; and i hope they were all the better for my being there. we spoke, with some approach to cheerfulness, of mr. peggotty's growing rich in a new country, and of the wonders he would describe in his letters. we said nothing of emily by name, but distantly referred to her more than once. ham was the serenest of the party. but, peggotty told me, when she lighted me to a little chamber where the crocodile book was lying ready for me on the table, that he always was the same. she believed (she told me, crying) that he was broken-hearted; though he was as full of courage as of sweetness, and worked harder and better than any boat-builder in any yard in all that part. there were times, she said, of an evening, when he talked of their old life in the boat-house; and then he mentioned emily as a child. but, he never mentioned her as a woman. i thought i had read in his face that he would like to speak to me alone. i therefore resolved to put myself in his way next evening, as he came home from his work. having settled this with myself, i fell asleep. that night, for the first time in all those many nights, the candle was taken out of the window, mr. peggotty swung in his old hammock in the old boat, and the wind murmured with the old sound round his head. all next day, he was occupied in disposing of his fishing-boat and tackle; in packing up, and sending to london by waggon, such of his little domestic possessions as he thought would be useful to him; and in parting with the rest, or bestowing them on mrs. gummidge. she was with him all day. as i had a sorrowful wish to see the old place once more, before it was locked up, i engaged to meet them there in the evening. but i so arranged it, as that i should meet ham first. it was easy to come in his way, as i knew where he worked. i met him at a retired part of the sands, which i knew he would cross, and turned back with him, that he might have leisure to speak to me if he really wished. i had not mistaken the expression of his face. we had walked but a little way together, when he said, without looking at me: "mas'r davy, have you seen her?" "only for a moment, when she was in a swoon," i softly answered. we walked a little farther, and he said: "mas'r davy, shall you see her, d' ye think?" "it would be too painful to her, perhaps," said i. "i have thowt of that," he replied. "so 'twould, sir, so 'twould." "but, ham," said i, gently, "if there is anything that i could write to her, for you, in case i could not tell it; if there is anything you would wish to make known to her through me; i should consider it a sacred trust." "i am sure on't. i thankee, sir, most kind! i think theer is something i could wish said or wrote." "what is it?" we walked a little farther in silence, and then he spoke. "'tan't that i forgive her. 'tan't that so much. 'tis more as i beg of her to forgive me, for having pressed my affections upon her. odd times, i think that if i hadn't had her promise fur to marry me, sir, she was that trustful of me, in a friendly way, that she'd have told me what was struggling in her mind, and would have counselled with me, and i might have saved her." i pressed his hand. "is that all?" "theer's yet a something else," he returned, "if i can say it, mas'r davy." we walked on, farther than we had walked yet, before he spoke again. he was not crying when he made the pauses i shall express by lines. he was merely collecting himself to speak very plainly. "i loved her--and i love the mem'ry of her--too deep--to be able to lead her to believe of my own self as i'm a happy man. i could only be happy--by forgetting of her--and i'm afeerd i couldn't hardly bear as she should be told i done that. but if you, being so full of learning, mas'r davy, could think of anything to say as might bring her to believe i wasn't greatly hurt: still loving of her, and mourning for her: anything as might bring her to believe as i was not tired of my life, and yet was hoping fur to see her without blame, wheer the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest--anything as would ease her sorrowful mind, and yet not make her think as i could ever marry, or as 'twas possible that any one could ever be to me what she was--i should ask of you to say that--with my prayers for her--that was so dear." i pressed his manly hand again, and told him i would charge myself to do this as well as i could. "i thankee, sir," he answered. "'twas kind of you to meet me. 'twas kind of you to bear him company down. mas'r davy, i unnerstan' very well, though my aunt will come to lon'on afore they sail, and they'll unite once more, that i am not like to see him agen. i fare to feel sure on't. we doen't say so, but so 'twill be, and better so. the last you see on him--the very last--will you give him the lovingest duty and thanks of the orphan, as he was ever more than a father to?" this i also promised, faithfully. "i thankee again, sir," he said, heartily shaking hands. "i know wheer you're a going. good bye!" with a slight wave of his hand, as though to explain to me that he could not enter the old place, he turned away. as i looked after his figure, crossing the waste in the moonlight, i saw him turn his face towards a strip of silvery light upon the sea, and pass on, looking at it, until he was a shadow in the distance. the door of the boat-house stood open when i approached; and, on entering, i found it emptied of all its furniture, saving one of the old lockers, on which mrs. gummidge, with a basket on her knee, was seated, looking at mr. peggotty. he leaned his elbow on the rough chimney-piece, and gazed upon a few expiring embers in the grate; but he raised his head, hopefully, on my coming in, and spoke in a cheery manner. "come, according to promise, to bid farewell to 't, eh, mas'r davy!" he said, taking up the candle. "bare enough now, an't it?" "indeed you have made good use of the time," said i. "why we have not been idle, sir. missis gummidge has worked like a--i doen't know what missis gummidge ain't worked like," said mr. peggotty, looking at her, at a loss for a sufficiently-approving simile. mrs. gummidge, leaning on her basket, made no observation. "theer's the very locker that you used to sit on, 'long with em'ly!" said mr. peggotty, in a whisper. "i'm a going to carry it away with me, last of all. and heer's your old little bedroom, see, mas'r davy! a'most as bleak to-night, as 'art could wish!" in truth, the wind, though it was low, had a solemn sound, and crept around the deserted house with a whispered wailing that was very mournful. everything was gone, down to the little mirror with the oyster-shell frame. i thought of myself, lying here, when that first great change was being wrought at home. i thought of the blue-eyed child who had enchanted me. i thought of steerforth: and a foolish, fearful fancy came upon me of his being near at hand, and liable to be met at any turn. "'tis like to be long," said mr. peggotty, in a low voice, "afore the boat finds new tenants. they look upon 't, down heer, as being unfort'nate now!" "does it belong to anybody in the neighbourhood?" i asked. "to a mast-maker up town," said mr. peggotty. "i'm a going to give the key to him to-night." we looked into the other little room, and came back to mrs. gummidge, sitting on the locker, whom mr. peggotty, putting the light on the chimney-piece, requested to rise, that he might carry it outside the door before extinguishing the candle. "dan'l," said mrs. gummidge, suddenly deserting her basket, and clinging to his arm, "my dear dan'l, the parting words i speak in this house is, i mustn't be left behind. doen't ye think of leaving me behind, dan'l! oh, doen't ye ever do it!" mr. peggotty, taken aback, looked from mrs. gummidge to me, and from me to mrs. gummidge, as if he had been awakened from a sleep. "doen't ye, dearest dan'l, doen't ye!" cried mrs. gummidge, fervently. "take me 'long with you, dan'l, take me 'long with you and em'ly! i'll be your servant, constant and trew. if there's slaves in them parts where you're a going, i'll be bound to you for one, and happy, but doen't ye leave me behind, dan'l, that's a deary dear!" "my good soul," said mr. peggotty, shaking his head, "you doen't know what a long voyage, and what a hard life 'tis!" "yes i do, dan'l! i can guess!" cried mrs. gummidge. "but my parting words under this roof is, i shall go into the house and die, if i am not took. i can dig, dan'l. i can work. i can live hard. i can be loving and patient now--more than you think, dan'l, if you'll on'y try me. i wouldn't touch the 'lowance, not if i was dying of want, dan'l peggotty; but i'll go with you and em'ly, if you'll on'y let me, to the world's end! i know how 'tis; i know you think that i am lone and lorn; but, deary love, 'tan't so no more! i an't sat here, so long, a watching, and a thinking of your trials, without some good being done me. mas'r davy, speak to him for me! i knows his ways, and em'ly's, and i knows their sorrows, and can be a comfort to 'em, some odd times, and labor for 'em allus! dan'l, deary dan'l, let me go 'long with you!" and mrs. gummidge took his hand, and kissed it with a homely pathos and affection, in a homely rapture of devotion and gratitude, that he well deserved. we brought the locker out, extinguished the candle, fastened the door on the outside, and left the old boat close shut up, a dark speck in the cloudy night. next day, when we were returning to london outside the coach, mrs. gummidge and her basket were on the seat behind, and mrs. gummidge was happy. chapter lii. i assist at an explosion. when the time mr. micawber had appointed so mysteriously, was within four-and-twenty hours of being come, my aunt and i consulted how we should proceed; for my aunt was very unwilling to leave dora. ah! how easily i carried dora up and down stairs, now! we were disposed, notwithstanding mr. micawber's stipulation for my aunt's attendance, to arrange that she should stay at home, and be represented by mr. dick and me. in short, we had resolved to take this course, when dora again unsettled us by declaring that she never would forgive herself, and never would forgive her bad boy, if my aunt remained behind, on any pretence. "i won't speak to you," said dora, shaking her curls at my aunt. "i'll be disagreeable! i'll make jip bark at you all day. i shall be sure that you really are a cross old thing, if you don't go!" "tut, blossom!" laughed my aunt. "you know you can't do without me!" "yes, i can," said dora. "you are no use to me at all. you never run up and down stairs for me, all day long. you never sit and tell me stories about doady, when his shoes were worn out, and he was covered with dust--oh, what a poor little mite of a fellow! you never do anything at all to please me, do you, dear?" dora made haste to kiss my aunt, and say, "yes, you do! i'm only joking!"--lest my aunt should think she really meant it. "but, aunt," said dora, coaxingly, "now listen. you must go. i shall tease you, 'till you let me have my own way about it. i shall lead my naughty boy _such_ a life, if he don't make you go. i shall make myself _so_ disagreeable--and so will jip! you'll wish you had gone, like a good thing, for ever and ever so long, if you don't go. besides," said dora, putting back her hair, and looking wonderingly at my aunt and me, "why shouldn't you both go? i am not very ill indeed. am i?" "why, what a question!" cried my aunt. "what a fancy!" said i. "yes! i know i am a silly little thing!" said dora, slowly looking from one of us to the other, and then putting up her pretty lips to kiss us as she lay upon her couch. "well, then, you must both go, or i shall not believe you; and then i shall cry!" i saw, in my aunt's face, that she began to give way now, and dora brightened again, as she saw it too. "you'll come back with so much to tell me, that it'll take at least a week to make me understand!" said dora. "because i _know_ i sha'n't understand, for a length of time, if there's any business in it. and there's sure to be some business in it! if there's any thing to add up, besides, i don't know when i shall make it out; and my bad boy will look _so_ miserable all the time. there! now you'll go, won't you? you'll only be gone one night, and jip will take care of me while you are gone. doady will carry me up stairs before you go, and i won't come down again till you come back; and you shall take agnes a dreadfully scolding letter from me, because she has never been to see us!" we agreed, without any more consultation, that we would both go, and that dora was a little impostor, who feigned to be rather unwell, because she liked to be petted. she was greatly pleased, and very merry; and we four, that is to say, my aunt, mr. dick, traddles, and i, went down to canterbury by the dover mail that night. at the hotel where mr. micawber had requested us to await him, which we got into, with some trouble, in the middle of the night, i found a letter, importing that he would appear in the morning punctually at half-past nine. after which, we went shivering, at that uncomfortable hour, to our respective beds, through various close passages; which smelt as if they had been steeped, for ages, in a solution of soup and stables. early in the morning, i sauntered through the dear old tranquil streets, and again mingled with the shadows of the venerable gateways and churches. the rooks were sailing about the cathedral towers; and the towers themselves, overlooking many a long unaltered mile of the rich country and its pleasant streams, were cutting the bright morning air, as if there were no such thing as change on earth. yet the bells, when they sounded, told me sorrowfully of change in everything; told me of their own age, and my pretty dora's youth; and of the many, never old, who had lived and loved and died, while the reverberations of the bells had hummed through the rusty armour of the black prince hanging up within, and, motes upon the deep of time, had lost themselves in air, as circles do in water. i looked at the old house from the corner of the street, but did not go nearer to it, lest, being observed, i might unwittingly do any harm to the design i had come to aid. the early sun was striking edgewise on its gables and lattice-windows, touching them with gold; and some beams of its old peace seemed to touch my heart. i strolled into the country for an hour or so, and then returned by the main street, which in the interval had shaken off its last night's sleep. among those who were stirring in the shops, i saw my ancient enemy the butcher, now advanced to top-boots and a baby, and in business for himself. he was nursing the baby, and appeared to be a benignant member of society. we all became very anxious and impatient, when we sat down to breakfast. as it approached nearer and nearer to half-past nine o'clock, our restless expectation of mr. micawber increased. at last we made no more pretence of attending to the meal, which, except with mr. dick, had been a mere form from the first; but my aunt walked up and down the room, traddles sat upon the sofa affecting to read the paper with his eyes on the ceiling; and i looked out of the window to give early notice of mr. micawber's coming. nor had i long to watch, for, at the first chime of the half hour, he appeared in the street. "here he is," said i, "and not in his legal attire!" my aunt tied the strings of her bonnet (she had come down to breakfast in it), and put on her shawl, as if she were ready for anything that was resolute and uncompromising. traddles buttoned his coat with a determined air. mr. dick, disturbed by these formidable appearances, but feeling it necessary to imitate them, pulled his hat, with both hands, as firmly over his ears as he possibly could; and instantly took it off again, to welcome mr. micawber. "gentlemen, and madam," said mr. micawber, "good morning! my dear sir," to mr. dick, who shook hands with him violently, "you are extremely good." "have you breakfasted?" said mr. dick. "have a chop!" "not for the world, my good sir!" cried mr. micawber, stopping him on his way to the bell; "appetite and myself, mr. dixon, have long been strangers." mr. dixon was so pleased with his new name, and appeared to think it so very obliging in mr. micawber to confer it upon him, that he shook hands with him again, and laughed rather childishly. "dick," said my aunt, "attention!" mr. dick recovered himself, with a blush. "now, sir," said my aunt to mr. micawber, as she put on her gloves, "we are ready for mount vesuvius, or anything else, as soon as _you_ please." "madam," returned mr. micawber, "i trust you will shortly witness an eruption. mr. traddles, i have your permission, i believe, to mention here that we have been in communication together?" "it is undoubtedly the fact, copperfield," said traddles, to whom i looked in surprise. "mr. micawber has consulted me, in reference to what he has in contemplation; and i have advised him to the best of my judgment." "unless i deceive myself, mr. traddles," pursued mr. micawber, "what i contemplate is a disclosure of an important nature." "highly so," said traddles. "perhaps, under such circumstances, madam and gentlemen," said mr. micawber, "you will do me the favor to submit yourselves, for the moment, to the direction of one, who, however unworthy to be regarded in any other light but as a waif and stray upon the shore of human nature, is still your fellow man, though crushed out of his original form by individual errors, and the accumulative force of a combination of circumstances?" "we have perfect confidence in you, mr. micawber," said i, "and will do what you please." "mr. copperfield," returned mr. micawber, "your confidence is not, at the existing juncture, ill-bestowed. i would beg to be allowed a start of five minutes by the clock; and then to receive the present company, inquiring for miss wickfield, at the office of wickfield and heep, whose stipendiary i am." my aunt and i looked at traddles, who nodded his approval. "i have no more," observed mr. micawber, "to say at present." with which, to my infinite surprise, he included us all in a comprehensive bow, and disappeared; his manner being extremely distant, and his face extremely pale. traddles only smiled, and shook his head (with his hair standing upright on the top of it), when i looked to him for an explanation; so i took out my watch, and, as a last resource, counted off the five minutes. my aunt, with her own watch in her hand, did the like. when the time was expired, traddles gave her his arm; and we all went out together to the old house, without saying one word on the way. we found mr. micawber at his desk, in the turret office on the ground floor, either writing, or pretending to write, hard. the large office-ruler was stuck into his waistcoat, and was not so well concealed but that a foot or more of that instrument protruded from his bosom, like a new kind of shirt-frill. as it appeared to me that i was expected to speak, i said aloud: "how do you do, mr. micawber?" "mr. copperfield," said mr. micawber, gravely, "i hope i see you well?" "is miss wickfield at home?" said i. "mr. wickfield is unwell in bed, sir, of a rheumatic fever," he returned; "but miss wickfield, i have no doubt, will be happy to see old friends. will you walk in, sir?" he preceded us to the dining-room--the first room i had entered in that house--and flinging open the door of mr. wickfield's former office, said, in a sonorous voice: "miss trotwood, mr. david copperfield, mr. thomas traddles, and mr. dixon!" i had not seen uriah heep since the time of the blow. our visit astonished him, evidently; not the less, i dare say, because it astonished ourselves. he did not gather his eyebrows together, for he had none worth mentioning; but he frowned to that degree that he almost closed his small eyes, while the hurried raising of his grisly hand to his chin betrayed some trepidation or surprise. this was only when we were in the act of entering his room, and when i caught a glance at him over my aunt's shoulder. a moment afterwards, he was as fawning and as humble as ever. "well, i am sure," he said. "this is indeed an unexpected pleasure! to have, as i may say, all friends round saint paul's, at once, is a treat unlooked for! mr. copperfield, i hope i see you well, and--if i may umbly express self so--friendly towards them as is ever your friends, whether or not. mrs. copperfield, sir, i hope she's getting on. we have been made quite uneasy by the poor accounts we have had of her state, lately, i do assure you." i felt ashamed to let him take my hand, but i did not know yet what else to do. "things are changed in this office, miss trotwood, since i was a numble clerk, and held your pony; ain't they?" said uriah, with his sickliest smile. "but _i_ am not changed, miss trotwood." "well, sir," returned my aunt, "to tell you the truth, i think you are pretty constant to the promise of your youth; if that's any satisfaction to you." "thank you, miss trotwood," said uriah, writhing in his ungainly manner, "for your good opinion! micawber, tell 'em to let miss agnes know--and mother. mother will be quite in a state, when she sees the present company!" said uriah, setting chairs. "you are not busy, mr. heep?" said traddles, whose eye the cunning red eye accidentally caught, as it at once scrutinised and evaded us. "no, mr. traddles," replied uriah, resuming his official seat, and squeezing his bony hands, laid palm to palm, between his bony knees. "not so much so, as i could wish. but lawyers, sharks, and leeches, are not easily satisfied, you know! not but what myself and micawber have our hands pretty full, in general, on account of mr. wickfield's being hardly fit for any occupation, sir. but it's a pleasure as well as a duty, i am sure, to work for _him_. you've not been intimate with mr. wickfield, i think, mr. traddles? i believe i've only had the honor of seeing you once myself?" "no, i have not been intimate with mr. wickfield," returned traddles; "or i might perhaps have waited on you long ago, mr. heep." there was something in the tone of this reply, which made uriah look at the speaker again, with a very sinister and suspicious expression. but, seeing only traddles with his good-natured face, simple manner, and hair on end, he dismissed it as he replied, with a jerk of his whole body, but especially his throat: "i am sorry for that, mr. traddles. you would have admired him as much as we all do. his little failings would only have endeared him to you the more. but if you would like to hear my fellow-partner eloquently spoken of, i should refer you to copperfield. the family is a subject he's very strong upon, if you never heard him." i was prevented from disclaiming the compliment (if i should have done so, in any case), by the entrance of agnes, now ushered in by mr. micawber. she was not quite so self-possessed as usual, i thought; and had evidently undergone anxiety and fatigue. but her earnest cordiality, and her quiet beauty, shone with the gentler lustre for it. i saw uriah watch her while she greeted us; and he reminded me of an ugly and rebellious genie watching a good spirit. in the meanwhile, some slight sign passed between mr. micawber and traddles; and traddles, unobserved except by me, went out. "don't wait, micawber," said uriah. mr. micawber, with his hand upon the ruler in his breast, stood erect before the door, most unmistakeably contemplating one of his fellow-men, and that man his employer. "what are you waiting for?" said uriah. "micawber! did you hear me tell you not to wait?" "yes!" replied the immovable mr. micawber. "then why _do_ you wait?" said uriah. "because i--in short choose," replied mr. micawber, with a burst. uriah's cheeks lost colour, and an unwholesome paleness, still faintly tinged by his pervading red, overspread them. he looked at mr. micawber attentively, with his whole face breathing short and quick in every feature. "you are a dissipated fellow, as all the world knows," he said, with an effort at a smile, "and i am afraid you'll oblige me to get rid of you. go along! i'll talk to you presently." "if there is a scoundrel on this earth," said mr. micawber, suddenly breaking out again with the utmost vehemence, "with whom i have already talked too much, that scoundrel's name is--heep!" uriah fell back, as if he had been struck or stung. looking slowly round upon us with the darkest and wickedest expression that his face could wear, he said, in a lower voice: "oho! this is a conspiracy! you have met here, by appointment! you are playing booty with my clerk, are you, copperfield? now, take care. you'll make nothing of this. we understand each other, you and me. there's no love between us. you were always a puppy with a proud stomach, from your first coming here; and you envy me my rise, do you? none of your plots against me; i'll counterplot you! micawber, you be off. i'll talk to you presently." "mr. micawber," said i, "there is a sudden change in this fellow, in more respects than the extraordinary one of his speaking the truth in one particular, which assures me that he is brought to bay. deal with him as he deserves!" "you are a precious set of people, ain't you?" said uriah, in the same low voice, and breaking out into a clammy heat, which he wiped from his forehead, with his long lean hand, "to buy over my clerk, who is the very scum of society,--as you yourself were, copperfield, you know it, before anyone had charity on you,--to defame me with his lies? miss trotwood, you had better stop this; or i'll stop your husband shorter than will be pleasant to you. i won't know your story professionally, for nothing, old lady! miss wickfield, if you have any love for your father, you had better not join that gang. i'll ruin him, if you do. now, come! i have got some of you under the harrow. think twice, before it goes over you. think twice, you, micawber, if you don't want to be crushed. i recommend you to take yourself off, and be talked to presently, you fool! while there's time to retreat. where's mother!" he said, suddenly appearing to notice, with alarm, the absence of traddles, and pulling down the bell-rope. "fine doings in a person's own house!" "mrs. heep is here, sir," said traddles, returning with that worthy mother of a worthy son. "i have taken the liberty of making myself known to her." "who are you to make yourself known?" retorted uriah. "and what do you want here?" "i am the agent and friend of mr. wickfield, sir," said traddles, in a composed business-like way. "and i have a power of attorney from him in my pocket, to act for him in all matters." "the old ass has drunk himself into a state of dotage," said uriah, turning uglier than before, "and it has been got from him by fraud!" "something has been got from him by fraud, i know," returned traddles quietly; "and so do you, mr. heep. we will refer that question, if you please, to mr. micawber." "ury--!" mrs. heep began, with an anxious gesture. "you hold your tongue, mother," he returned; "least said, soonest mended." "but my ury--." "will you hold your tongue, mother, and leave it to me?" though i had long known that his servility was false, and all his pretences knavish and hollow, i had had no adequate conception of the extent of his hypocrisy, until i now saw him with his mask off. the suddenness with which he dropped it, when he perceived that it was useless to him; the malice, insolence, and hatred, he revealed; the leer with which he exulted, even at this moment, in the evil he had done--all this time being desperate too, and at his wits' end for the means of getting the better of us--though perfectly consistent with the experience i had of him, at first took even me by surprise, who had known him so long, and disliked him so heartily. i say nothing of the look he conferred on me, as he stood eyeing us, one after another; for i had always understood that he hated me, and i remembered the marks of my hand upon his cheek. but when his eyes passed on to agnes, and i saw the rage with which he felt his power over her slipping away, and the exhibition, in their disappointment, of the odious passions that had led him to aspire to one whose virtues he could never appreciate or care for, i was shocked by the mere thought of her having lived, an hour, within sight of such a man. after some rubbing of the lower part of his face, and some looking at us with those bad eyes, over his grisly fingers, he made one more address to me, half whining, and half abusive. "you think it justifiable, do you, copperfield, you who pride yourself so much on your honor and all the rest of it, to sneak about my place, eaves-dropping with my clerk? if it had been _me_, i shouldn't have wondered; for i don't make myself out a gentleman (though i never was in the streets either, as you were, according to micawber), but being _you_!--and you're not afraid of doing this, either? you don't think at all of what i shall do, in return; or of getting yourself into trouble for conspiracy and so forth? very well. we shall see! mr. what's-your-name, you were going to refer some question to micawber. there's your referee. why don't you make him speak? he has learnt his lesson, i see." seeing that what he said had no effect on me or any of us, he sat on the edge of his table with his hands in his pockets, and one of his splay feet twisted round the other leg, waiting doggedly for what might follow. mr. micawber, whose impetuosity i had restrained thus far with the greatest difficulty, and who had repeatedly interposed with the first syllable of scoun-drel! without getting to the second, now burst forward, drew the ruler from his breast (apparently as a defensive weapon), and produced from his pocket a foolscap document, folded in the form of a large letter. opening this packet, with his old flourish, and glancing at the contents, as if he cherished an artistic admiration of their style of composition, he began to read as follows: "'dear miss trotwood and gentlemen----'" "bless and save the man!" exclaimed my aunt in a low voice. "he'd write letters by the ream, if it was a capital offence!" mr. micawber, without hearing her, went on. "'in appearing before you to denounce probably the most consummate villain that has ever existed,'" mr. micawber, without looking off the letter, pointed the ruler, like a ghostly truncheon, at uriah heep, "'i ask no consideration for myself. the victim, from my cradle, of pecuniary liabilities to which i have been unable to respond, i have ever been the sport and toy of debasing circumstances. ignominy, want, despair, and madness, have, collectively or separately, been the attendants of my career.'" the relish with which mr. micawber described himself, as a prey to these dismal calamities, was only to be equalled by the emphasis with which he read his letter; and the kind of homage he rendered to it with a roll of his head, when he thought he had hit a sentence very hard indeed. "'in an accumulation of ignominy, want, despair, and madness, i entered the office--or, as our lively neighbour the gaul would term it, the bureau--of the firm, nominally conducted under the appellation of wickfield and--heep, but, in reality, wielded by--heep alone. heep, and only heep, is the mainspring of that machine. heep, and only heep, is the forger and the cheat.'" uriah, more blue than white at these words, made a dart at the letter, as if to tear it in pieces. mr. micawber, with a perfect miracle of dexterity or luck, caught his advancing knuckles with the ruler, and disabled his right hand. it dropped at the wrist, as if it were broken. the blow sounded as if it had fallen on wood. "the devil take you!" said uriah, writhing in a new way with pain. "i'll be even with you." "approach me again, you--you--you heep of infamy," gasped mr. micawber, "and if your head is human, i'll break it. come on, come on!" i think i never saw anything more ridiculous--i was sensible of it, even at the time--than mr. micawber making broad-sword guards with the ruler, and crying "come on!" while traddles and i pushed him back into a corner, from which, as often as we got him into it, he persisted in emerging again. his enemy, muttering to himself, after wringing his wounded hand for some time, slowly drew off his neck-kerchief and bound it up; then, held it in his other hand, and sat upon his table with his sullen face looking down. mr. micawber, when he was sufficiently cool, proceeded with his letter. "'the stipendiary emoluments in consideration of which i entered into the service of--heep,'" always pausing before that word, and uttering it with astonishing vigor, "'were not defined, beyond the pittance of twenty-two shillings and six per week. the rest was left contingent on the value of my professional exertions; in other and more expressive words, on the baseness of my nature, the cupidity of my motives, the poverty of my family, the general moral (or rather immoral) resemblance between myself and--heep. need i say, that it soon became necessary for me to solicit from--heep--pecuniary advances towards the support of mrs. micawber, and our blighted but rising family! need i say that this necessity had been foreseen by--heep? that those advances were secured by i. o. u.'s and other similar acknowledgments, known to the legal institutions of this country. and that i thus became immeshed in the web he had spun for my reception?'" mr. micawber's enjoyment of his epistolary powers, in describing this unfortunate state of things, really seemed to outweigh any pain or anxiety that the reality could have caused him. he read on: "'then it was that--heep--began to favor me with just so much of his confidence, as was necessary to the discharge of his infernal business. then it was that i began, if i may so shakespearianly express myself, to dwindle, peak, and pine. i found that my services were constantly called into requisition for the falsification of business, and the mystification of an individual whom i will designate as mr. w. that mr. w. was imposed upon, kept in ignorance, and deluded, in every possible way; yet, that all this while, the ruffian--heep--was professing unbounded gratitude to, and unbounded friendship for, that much abused gentleman. this was bad enough; but, as the philosophic dane observes, with that universal applicability which distinguishes the illustrious ornament of the elizabethian era, worse remains behind!'" mr. micawber was so very much struck by this happy rounding off with a quotation, that he indulged himself, and us, with a second reading of the sentence, under pretence of having lost his place. "'it is not my intention,'" he continued, reading on, "'to enter on a detailed list, within the compass of the present epistle (though it is ready elsewhere), of the various malpractices of a minor nature, affecting the individual whom i have denominated mr. w., to which i have been a tacitly consenting party. my object, when the contest within myself between stipend and no stipend, baker and no baker, existence and non-existence, ceased, was to take advantage of my opportunities to discover and expose the major malpractices committed, to that gentleman's grievous wrong and injury, by--heep. stimulated by the silent monitor within, and by a no less touching and appealing monitor without--to whom i will briefly refer as miss w.--i entered on a not unlaborious task of clandestine investigation, protracted now, to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief, over a period exceeding twelve calendar months.'" he read this passage, as if it were from an act of parliament; and appeared majestically refreshed by the sound of the words. "'my charges against--heep,'" he read on, glancing at him, and drawing the ruler into a convenient position under his left arm, in case of need, "'are as follows.'" we all held our breath, i think. i am sure uriah held his. "'first,'" said mr. micawber. "'when mr. w.'s faculties and memory for business became, through causes into which it is not necessary or expedient for me to enter, weakened and confused,--heep--designedly perplexed and complicated the whole of the official transactions. when mr. w. was least fit to enter on business,--heep--was always at hand to force him to enter on it. he obtained mr. w.'s signature under such circumstances to documents of importance, representing them to be other documents of no importance. he induced mr. w. to empower him to draw out, thus, one particular sum of trust-money, amounting to twelve six fourteen, two, and nine, and employed it to meet pretended business charges and deficiencies which were either already provided for, or had never really existed. he gave this proceeding, throughout, the appearance of having originated in mr. w.'s own dishonest intention, and of having been accomplished by mr. w.'s own dishonest act; and has used it, ever since, to torture and constrain him.'" "you shall prove this, you copperfield!" said uriah, with a threatening shake of the head. "all in good time!" "ask--heep--mr. traddles, who lived in his house after him," said mr. micawber, breaking off from the letter; "will you?" "the fool himself--and lives there now," said uriah, disdainfully. "ask--heep--if he ever kept a pocket-book in that house," said mr. micawber; "will you?" i saw uriah's lank hand stop, involuntarily, in the scraping of his chin. "or ask him," said mr. micawber, "if he ever burnt one there. if he says yes, and asks you where the ashes are, refer him to wilkins micawber, and he will hear of something not at all to his advantage!" the triumphant flourish with which mr. micawber delivered himself of these words, had a powerful effect in alarming the mother; who cried out, in much agitation: "ury, ury! be umble, and make terms, my dear!" "mother!" he retorted, "will you keep quiet? you're in a fright, and don't know what you say or mean. umble!" he repeated, looking at me, with a snarl; "i've umbled some of 'em for a pretty long time back, umble as i was!" mr. micawber, genteelly adjusting his chin in his cravat, presently proceeded with his composition. "'second. heep has, on several occasions, to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief'"-- "but _that_ won't do," muttered uriah, relieved. "mother, you keep quiet." "we will endeavour to provide something that will do, and do for you finally, sir, very shortly," replied mr. micawber. "'second. heep has, on several occasions, to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief, systematically forged, to various entries, books, and documents, the signature of mr. w.; and has distinctly done so in one instance, capable of proof by me. to wit, in manner following, that is to say:'" again, mr. micawber had a relish in this formal piling up of words, which, however ludicrously displayed in his case, was, i must say, not at all peculiar to him. i have observed it, in the course of my life, in numbers of men. it seems to me to be a general rule. in the taking of legal oaths, for instance, deponents seem to enjoy themselves mightily when they come to several good words in succession, for the expression of one idea; as, that they utterly detest, abominate, and abjure, or so forth; and the old anathemas were made relishing on the same principle. we talk about the tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannise over them too; we are fond of having a large superfluous establishment of words to wait upon us on great occasions; we think it looks important, and sounds well. as we are not particular about the meaning of our liveries on state occasions, if they be but fine and numerous enough, so, the meaning or necessity of our words is a secondary consideration, if there be but a great parade of them. and as individuals get into trouble by making too great a show of liveries, or as slaves when they are too numerous rise against their masters, so i think i could mention a nation that has got into many great difficulties, and will get into many greater, from maintaining too large a retinue of words. mr. micawber read on, almost smacking his lips: "'to wit, in manner following, that is to say. mr. w. being infirm, and it being within the bounds of probability that his decease might lead to some discoveries, and to the downfall of--heep's--power over the w. family,--as i, wilkins micawber, the undersigned, assume--unless the filial affection of his daughter could be secretly influenced from allowing any investigation of the partnership affairs to be ever made, the said--heep--deemed it expedient to have a bond ready by him, as from mr. w., for the before-mentioned sum of twelve six fourteen, two and nine, with interest, stated therein to have been advanced by--heep--to mr. w. to save mr. w. from dishonor; though really the sum was never advanced by him, and has long been replaced. the signatures to this instrument, purporting to be executed by mr. w. and attested by wilkins micawber, are forgeries by--heep. i have, in my possession, in his hand and pocket-book, several similar imitations of mr. w.'s signature, here and there defaced by fire, but legible to any one. i never attested any such document. and i have the document itself, in my possession.'" uriah heep, with a start, took out of his pocket a bunch of keys, and opened a certain drawer; then, suddenly bethought himself of what he was about, and turned again towards us, without looking in it. "'and i have the document,'" mr. micawber read again, looking about as if it were the text of a sermon, "'in my possession,'--that is to say, i had, early this morning, when this was written, but have since relinquished it to mr. traddles." "it is quite true," assented traddles. "ury, ury!" cried the mother, "be umble and make terms. i know my son will be umble, gentlemen, if you'll give him time to think. mr. copperfield, i'm sure you know that he was always very umble, sir!" it was singular to see how the mother still held to the old trick, when the son had abandoned it as useless. "mother," he said, with an impatient bite at the handkerchief in which his hand was wrapped, "you had better take and fire a loaded gun at me." "but i love you, ury," cried mrs. heep. and i have no doubt she did; or that he loved her, however strange it may appear; though, to be sure, they were a congenial couple. "and i can't bear to hear you provoking the gentlemen, and endangering of yourself more. i told the gentleman at first, when he told me up-stairs it was come to light, that i would answer for your being umble, and making amends. oh, see how umble _i_ am, gentlemen, and don't mind him!" "why, there's copperfield, mother," he angrily retorted, pointing his lean finger at me, against whom all his animosity was levelled, as the prime mover in the discovery; and i did not undeceive him; "there's copperfield, would have given you a hundred pound to say less than you've blurted out!" "i can't help it, ury," cried his mother. "i can't see you running into danger, through carrying your head so high. better be umble, as you always was." he remained for a little, biting the handkerchief, and then said to me with a scowl: "what more have you got to bring forward? if anything, go on with it. what do you look at me for?" mr. micawber promptly resumed his letter, only too glad to revert to a performance with which he was so highly satisfied. "'third. and last. i am now in a condition to show, by--heep's--false books, and--heep's--real memoranda, beginning with the partially destroyed pocket-book (which i was unable to comprehend, at the time of its accidental discovery by mrs. micawber, on our taking possession of our present abode, in the locker or binn devoted to the reception of the ashes calcined on our domestic hearth), that the weaknesses, the faults, the very virtues, the parental affections, and the sense of honor, of the unhappy mr. w. have been for years acted on by, and warped to the base purposes of--heep. that mr. w. has been for years deluded and plundered, in every conceivable manner, to the pecuniary aggrandisement of the avaricious, false, and grasping--heep. that the engrossing object of--heep--was, next to gain, to subdue mr. and miss w. (of his ulterior views in reference to the latter i say nothing) entirely to himself. that his last act, completed but a few months since, was to induce mr. w. to execute a relinquishment of his share in the partnership, and even a bill of sale on the very furniture of his house, in consideration of a certain annuity, to be well and truly paid by--heep--on the four common quarter-days in each and every year. that these meshes; beginning with alarming and falsified accounts of the estate of which mr. w. is the receiver, at a period when mr. w. had launched into imprudent and ill-judged speculations, and may not have had the money, for which he was morally and legally responsible, in hand; going on with pretended borrowings of money at enormous interest, really coming from--heep--and by--heep--fraudulently obtained or withheld from mr. w. himself, on pretence of such speculations or otherwise; perpetuated by a miscellaneous catalogue of unscrupulous chicaneries--gradually thickened, until the unhappy mr. w. could see no world beyond. bankrupt, as he believed, alike in circumstances, in all other hope, and in honor, his sole reliance was upon the monster in the garb of man,'"--mr. micawber made a good deal of this, as a new turn of expression,--"'who, by making himself necessary to him, had achieved his destruction. all this i undertake to show. probably much more!'" i whispered a few words to agnes, who was weeping, half joyfully, half-sorrowfully, at my side; and there was a movement among us, as if mr. micawber had finished. he said, with exceeding gravity, "pardon me," and proceeded, with a mixture of the lowest spirits and the most intense enjoyment, to the peroration of his letter. "'i have now concluded. it merely remains for me to substantiate these accusations; and then, with my ill-starred family, to disappear from the landscape on which we appear to be an incumbrance. that is soon done. it may be reasonably inferred that our baby will first expire of inanition, as being the frailest member of our circle; and that our twins will follow next in order. so be it! for myself, my canterbury pilgrimage has done much; imprisonment on civil process, and want, will soon do more. i trust that the labor and hazard of an investigation--of which the smallest results have been slowly pieced together, in the pressure of arduous avocations, under grinding penurious apprehensions, at rise of morn, at dewy eve, in the shadows of night, under the watchful eye of one whom it were superfluous to call demon--combined with the struggle of parental poverty to turn it, when completed, to the right account, may be as the sprinkling of a few drops of sweet water on my funereal pyre. i ask no more. let it be, in justice, merely said of me, as of a gallant and eminent naval hero, with whom i have no pretensions to cope, that what i have done, i did, in despite of mercenary and selfish objects, for england, home, and beauty. "'remaining always, &c. &c., wilkins micawber.'" * * * much affected, but still intensely enjoying himself, mr. micawber folded up his letter, and handed it with a bow to my aunt, as something she might like to keep. there was, as i had noticed on my first visit long ago, an iron safe in the room. the key was in it. a hasty suspicion seemed to strike uriah; and, with a glance at mr. micawber, he went to it, and threw the doors clanking open. it was empty. "where are the books!" he cried, with a frightful face. "some thief has stolen the books!" mr. micawber tapped himself with the ruler. "_i_ did, when i got the key from you as usual--but a little earlier--and opened it this morning." "don't be uneasy," said traddles. "they have come into my possession. i will take care of them, under the authority i mentioned." "you receive stolen goods, do you?" cried uriah. "under such circumstances," answered traddles, "yes." what was my astonishment when i beheld my aunt, who had been profoundly quiet and attentive, make a dart at uriah heep, and seize him by the collar with both hands! "you know what _i_ want?" said my aunt. "a strait-waistcoat," said he. "no. my property!" returned my aunt. "agnes, my dear, as long as i believed it had been really made away with by your father, i wouldn't--and, my dear, i didn't, even to trot, as he knows--breathe a syllable of its having been placed here for investment. but, now i know this fellow's answerable for it, and i'll have it! trot, come and take it away from him!" whether my aunt supposed, for the moment, that he kept her property in his neck-kerchief, i am sure i don't know; but she certainly pulled at it as if she thought so. i hastened to put myself between them, and to assure her that we would all take care that he should make the utmost restitution of everything he had wrongly got. this, and a few moments' reflection, pacified her; but she was not at all disconcerted by what she had done (though i cannot say as much for her bonnet) and resumed her seat composedly. during the last few minutes, mrs. heep had been clamoring to her son to be "umble;" and had been going down on her knees to all of us in succession, and making the wildest promises. her son sat her down in his chair; and, standing sulkily by her, holding her arm with his hand, but not rudely, said to me, with a ferocious look: "what do you want done?" "i will tell you what must be done," said traddles. "has that copperfield no tongue?" muttered uriah. "i would do a good deal for you if you could tell me, without lying, that somebody had cut it out." "my uriah means to be umble!" cried his mother. "don't mind what he says, good gentlemen!" "what must be done," said traddles, "is this. first, the deed of relinquishment, that we have heard of, must be given over to me now--here." "suppose i haven't got it," he interrupted. "but you have," said traddles; "therefore, you know, we won't suppose so." and i cannot help avowing that this was the first occasion on which i really did justice to the clear head, and the plain, patient, practical good sense, of my old schoolfellow. "then," said traddles, "you must prepare to disgorge all that your rapacity has become possessed of, and to make restoration to the last farthing. all the partnership books and papers must remain in our possession; all your books and papers; all money accounts and securities, of both kinds. in short, everything here." "must it? i don't know that," said uriah. "i must have time to think about that." "certainly," replied traddles; "but, in the meanwhile, and until everything is done to our satisfaction, we shall maintain possession of these things; and beg you--in short, compel you--to keep your own room, and hold no communication with any one." "i won't do it!" said uriah, with an oath. "maidstone jail is a safer place of detention," observed traddles; "and though the law may be longer in righting us, and may not be able to right us so completely as you can, there is no doubt of its punishing _you_. dear me, you know that quite as well as i! copperfield, will you go round to the guildhall, and bring a couple of officers?" here, mrs. heep broke out again, crying on her knees to agnes to interfere in their behalf, exclaiming that he was very humble, and it was all true, and if he didn't do what we wanted, she would, and much more to the same purpose; being half frantic with fears for her darling. to inquire what he might have done, if he had had any boldness, would be like inquiring what a mongrel cur might do, if it had the spirit of a tiger. he was a coward, from head to foot; and showed his dastardly nature through his sullenness and mortification, as much as at any time of his mean life. "stop!" he growled to me; and wiped his hot face with his hand. "mother, hold your noise. well! let'em have that deed. go and fetch it!" "do you help her, mr. dick," said traddles, "if you please." proud of his commission, and understanding it, mr. dick accompanied her as a shepherd's dog might accompany a sheep. but, mrs. heep gave him little trouble; for she not only returned with the deed, but with the box in which it was, where we found a banker's book and some other papers that were afterwards serviceable. "good!" said traddles, when this was brought. "now, mr. heep, you can retire to think: particularly observing, if you please, that i declare to you, on the part of all present, that there is only one thing to be done; that it is what i have explained; and that it must be done without delay." uriah, without lifting his eyes from the ground, shuffled across the room with his hand to his chin, and pausing at the door, said: "copperfield, i have always hated you. you've always been an upstart, and you've always been against me." "as i think i told you once before," said i, "it is you who have been, in your greed and cunning, against all the world. it may be profitable to you to reflect, in future, that there never were greed and cunning in the world yet, that did not do too much, and over-reach themselves. it is as certain as death." "or as certain as they used to teach at school (the same school where i picked up so much umbleness), from nine o'clock to eleven, that labor was a curse; and from eleven o'clock to one, that it was a blessing and a cheerfulness, and a dignity, and i don't know what all, eh?" said he with a sneer. "you preach, about as consistent as they did. won't umbleness go down? i shouldn't have got round my gentleman fellow-partner without it, i think.--micawber, you old bully, i'll pay _you_!" mr. micawber, supremely defiant of him and his extended finger, and making a great deal of his chest until he had slunk out at the door, then addressed himself to me, and proffered me the satisfaction of "witnessing the re-establishment of mutual confidence between himself and mrs. micawber." after which, he invited the company generally to the contemplation of that affecting spectacle. [illustration: restoration of mutual confidence between mr. and mrs. micawber.] "the veil that has long been interposed between mrs. micawber and myself, is now withdrawn," said mr. micawber; "and my children and the author of their being can once more come in contact on equal terms." as we were all very grateful to him, and all desirous to show that we were, as well as the hurry and disorder of our spirits would permit, i dare say we should all have gone, but that it was necessary for agnes to return to her father, as yet unable to bear more than the dawn of hope; and for some one else to hold uriah in safe keeping. so, traddles remained for the latter purpose, to be presently relieved by mr. dick; and mr. dick, my aunt, and i, went home with mr. micawber. as i parted hurriedly from the dear girl to whom i owed so much, and thought from what she had been saved, perhaps, that morning--her better resolution notwithstanding--i felt devoutly thankful for the miseries of my younger days which had brought me to the knowledge of mr. micawber. his house was not far off; and as the street-door opened into the sitting room, and he bolted in with a precipitation quite his own, we found ourselves at once in the bosom of the family. mr. micawber exclaiming, "emma! my life!" rushed into mrs. micawber's arms. mrs. micawber shrieked, and folded mr. micawber in her embrace. miss micawber, nursing the unconscious stranger of mrs. micawber's last letter to me, was sensibly affected. the stranger leaped. the twins testified their joy by several inconvenient but innocent demonstrations. master micawber, whose disposition appeared to have been soured by early disappointment, and whose aspect had become morose, yielded to his better feelings, and blubbered. "emma!" said mr. micawber. "the cloud is past from my mind. mutual confidence, so long preserved between us once, is restored, to know no farther interruption. now, welcome poverty!" cried mr. micawber, shedding tears. "welcome misery, welcome houselessness, welcome hunger, rags, tempest, and beggary! mutual confidence will sustain us to the end!" with these expressions, mr. micawber placed mrs. micawber in a chair, and embraced the family all round; welcoming a variety of bleak prospects, which appeared, to the best of my judgment, to be anything but welcome to them; and calling upon them to come out into canterbury and sing a chorus, as nothing else was left for their support. but mrs. micawber having, in the strength of her emotions, fainted away, the first thing to be done, even before the chorus could be considered complete, was to recover her. this, my aunt and mr. micawber did; and then my aunt was introduced, and mrs. micawber recognised me. "excuse me, dear mr. copperfield," said the poor lady, giving me her hand, "but i am not strong; and the removal of the late misunderstanding between mr. micawber and myself was at first too much for me." "is this all your family, ma'am?" said my aunt. "there are no more at present," returned mrs. micawber. "good gracious, i didn't mean that, ma'am," said my aunt. "i mean are all these yours?" "madam," replied mr. micawber, "it is a true bill." "and that eldest young gentleman, now," said my aunt, musing. "what has _he_ been brought up to?" "it was my hope when i came here," said mr. micawber, "to have got wilkins into the church: or perhaps i shall express my meaning more strictly, if i say the choir. but there was no vacancy for a tenor in the venerable pile for which this city is so justly eminent; and he has--in short, he has contracted a habit of singing in public-houses, rather than in sacred edifices." "but he means well," said mrs. micawber, tenderly. "i dare say, my love," rejoined mr. micawber, "that he means particularly well; but i have not yet found that he carries out his meaning, in any given direction whatsoever." master micawber's moroseness of aspect returned upon him again, and he demanded, with some temper, what he was to do? whether he had been born a carpenter, or a coach painter, any more than he had been born a bird? whether he could go into the next street, and open a chemist's shop? whether he could rush to the next assizes, and proclaim himself a lawyer? whether he could come out by force at the opera, and succeed by violence? whether he could do anything, without being brought up to something? my aunt mused a little while, and then said: "mr. micawber, i wonder you have never turned your thoughts to emigration." "madam," returned mr. micawber, "it was the dream of my youth, and the fallacious aspiration of my riper years." i am thoroughly persuaded, by the bye, that he had never thought of it in his life. "aye?" said my aunt, with a glance at me. "why, what a thing it would be for yourselves and your family, mr. and mrs. micawber, if you were to emigrate now." "capital, madam, capital," urged mr. micawber, gloomily. "that is the principal, i may say the only difficulty, my dear mr. copperfield," assented his wife. "capital?" cried my aunt. "but you are doing us a great service--have done us a great service, i may say, for surely much will come out of the fire--and what could we do for you, that would be half so good as to find the capital?" "i could not receive it as a gift," said mr. micawber, full of fire and animation, "but if a sufficient sum could be advanced, say at five per cent. interest, per annum, upon my personal liability--say my notes of hand, at twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four months, respectively, to allow time for something to turn up----" "could be? can be, and shall be, on your own terms," returned my aunt, "if you say the word. think of this now, both of you. here are some people david knows, going out to australia shortly. if you decide to go, why shouldn't you go in the same ship? you may help each other. think of this now, mr. and mrs. micawber. take your time, and weigh it well." "there is but one question, my dear ma'am, i could wish to ask," said mrs. micawber. "the climate, i believe, is healthy." "finest in the world!" said my aunt. "just so," returned mrs. micawber. "then my question arises. now, _are_ the circumstances of the country such, that a man of mr. micawber's abilities would have a fair chance of rising in the social scale? i will not say, at present, might he aspire to be governor, or anything of that sort; but would there be a reasonable opening for his talents to develop themselves--that, would be amply sufficient--and find their own expansion?" "no better opening anywhere," said my aunt, "for a man who conducts himself well, and is industrious." "for a man who conducts himself well," repeated mrs. micawber, with her clearest business manner, "and is industrious. precisely. it is evident to me that australia is the legitimate sphere of action for mr. micawber!" "i entertain the conviction, my dear madam," said mr. micawber, "that it is, under existing circumstances, the land, the only land, for myself and family; and that something of an extraordinary nature will turn up on that shore. it is no distance--comparatively speaking; and though consideration is due to the kindness of your proposal, i assure you that is a mere matter of form." shall i ever forget how, in a moment, he was the most sanguine of men, looking on to fortune; or how mrs. micawber presently discoursed about the habits of the kangaroo! shall i ever recall that street of canterbury on a market day, without recalling him, as he walked back with us; expressing, in the hardy roving manner he assumed, the unsettled habits of a temporary sojourner in the land; and looking at the bullocks, as they came by, with the eye of an australian farmer! chapter liii. another retrospect. i must pause yet once again. o, my child-wife, there is a figure in the moving crowd before my memory, quiet and still, saying in its innocent love and childish beauty, stop to think of me--turn to look upon the little blossom, as it flutters to the ground! i do. all else grows dim, and fades away. i am again with dora, in our cottage. i do not know how long she has been ill. i am so used to it in feeling, that i cannot count the time. it is not really long, in weeks or months; but, in my usage and experience, it is a weary, weary while. they have left off telling me to "wait a few days more." i have begun to fear, remotely, that the day may never shine, when i shall see my child-wife running in the sunlight with her old friend jip. he is, as it were suddenly, grown very old. it may be, that he misses in his mistress, something that enlivened him and made him younger; but he mopes, and his sight is weak, and his limbs are feeble, and my aunt is sorry that he objects to her no more, but creeps near her as he lies on dora's bed--she sitting at the bedside--and mildly licks her hand. dora lies smiling on us, and is beautiful, and utters no hasty or complaining word. she says that we are very good to her; that her dear old careful boy is tiring himself out, she knows; that my aunt has no sleep, yet is always wakeful, active, and kind. sometimes, the little bird-like ladies come to see her; and then we talk about our wedding-day, and all that happy time. what a strange rest and pause in my life there seems to be--and in all life, within doors and without--when i sit in the quiet, shaded, orderly, room, with the blue eyes of my child-wife turned towards me, and her little fingers twining round my hand! many and many an hour i sit thus; but, of all those times, three times come the freshest on my mind. * * * it is morning; and dora, made so trim by my aunt's hands, shews me how her pretty hair _will_ curl upon the pillow yet, and how long and bright it is, and how she likes to have it loosely gathered in that net she wears. "not that i am vain of it, now, you mocking boy," she says, when i smile; "but because you used to say you thought it so beautiful; and because, when i first began to think about you, i used to peep in the glass, and wonder whether you would like very much to have a lock of it. oh what a foolish fellow you were, doady, when i gave you one!" "that was on the day when you were painting the flowers i had given you, dora, and when i told you how much in love i was." "ah! but i didn't like to tell _you_," says dora, "_then_, how i had cried over them, because i believed you really liked me! when i can run about again as i used to do, doady, let us go and see those places where we were such a silly couple, shall we? and take some of the old walks? and not forget poor papa?" "yes, we will, and have some happy days. so you must make haste to get well, my dear." "oh, i shall soon do that! i am so much better, you don't know!" * * * it is evening; and i sit in the same chair, by the same bed, with the same face turned towards me. we have been silent, and there is a smile upon her face. i have ceased to carry my light burden up and down stairs now. she lies here all the day. "doady!" "my dear dora!" "you won't think what i am going to say, unreasonable, after what you told me, such a little while ago, of mr. wickfield's not being well? i want to see agnes. very much i want to see her." "i will write to her, my dear." "will you?" "directly." "what a good, kind boy! doady, take me on your arm. indeed, my dear, it's not a whim. it's not a foolish fancy. i want, very much indeed, to see her!" "i am certain of it. i have only to tell her so, and she is sure to come." "you are very lonely when you go down stairs, now?" dora whispers, with her arm about my neck. "how can i be otherwise, my own love, when i see your empty chair?" "my empty chair!" she clings to me for a little while, in silence. "and you really miss me, doady?" looking up, and brightly smiling. "even poor, giddy, stupid me?" "my heart, who is there upon earth that i could miss so much?" "oh, husband! i am so glad, yet so sorry!" creeping closer to me, and folding me in both her arms. she laughs, and sobs, and then is quiet, and quite happy. "quite!" she says. "only give agnes my dear love, and tell her that i want very, very, much to see her; and i have nothing left to wish for." "except to get well again, dora." "ah, doady! sometimes i think--you know i always was a silly little thing!--that that will never be!" "don't say so, dora! dearest love, don't think so!" "i won't, if i can help it, doady. but i am very happy; though my dear boy is so lonely by himself, before his child-wife's empty chair!" * * * it is night; and i am with her still. agnes has arrived; has been among us, for a whole day and an evening. she, my aunt, and i, have sat with dora since the morning, all together. we have not talked much, but dora has been perfectly contented and cheerful. we are now alone. do i know, now, that my child-wife will soon leave me? they have told me so; they have told me nothing new to my thoughts; but i am far from sure that i have taken that truth to heart. i cannot master it. i have withdrawn by myself, many times to-day, to weep. i have remembered who wept for a parting between the living and the dead. i have bethought me of all that gracious and compassionate history. i have tried to resign myself, and to console myself; and that, i hope, i may have done imperfectly; but what i cannot firmly settle in my mind is, that the end will absolutely come. i hold her hand in mine, i hold her heart in mine, i see her love for me, alive in all its strength. i cannot shut out a pale lingering shadow of belief that she will be spared. "i am going to speak to you, doady. i am going to say something i have often thought of saying, lately. you won't mind?" with a gentle look. "mind, my darling?" "because i don't know what you will think, or what you may have thought sometimes. perhaps you have often thought the same. doady, dear, i am afraid i was too young." i lay my face upon the pillow by her, and she looks into my eyes, and speaks very softly. gradually, as she goes on, i feel, with a stricken heart, that she is speaking of herself as past. "i am afraid, dear, i was too young. i don't mean in years only, but in experience, and thoughts, and everything. i was such a silly little creature! i am afraid it would have been better, if we had only loved each other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it. i have begun to think i was not fit to be a wife." i try to stay my tears, and to reply, "oh, dora, love, as fit as i to be a husband!" "i don't know," with the old shake of her curls. "perhaps! but, if i had been more fit to be married, i might have made you more so, too. besides, you are very clever, and i never was." "we have been very happy, my sweet dora." "i was very happy, very. but, as years went on, my dear boy would have wearied of his child-wife. she would have been less and less a companion for him. he would have been more and more sensible of what was wanting in his home. she wouldn't have improved. it is better as it is." "oh, dora, dearest, dearest, do not speak to me so. every word seems a reproach!" "no, not a syllable!" she answers, kissing me. "oh, my dear, you never deserved it, and i loved you far too well, to say a reproachful word to you, in earnest--it was all the merit i had, except being pretty--or you thought me so. is it lonely down-stairs, doady?" "very! very!" "don't cry! is my chair there?" "in its old place." "oh, how my poor boy cries! hush, hush! now, make me one promise. i want to speak to agnes. when you go down-stairs, tell agnes so, and send her up to me; and while i speak to her, let no one come--not even aunt. i want to speak to agnes by herself. i want to speak to agnes, quite alone." i promise that she shall, immediately; but i cannot leave her, for my grief. "i said that it was better as it is!" she whispers, as she holds me in her arms. "oh, doady, after more years, you never could have loved your child-wife better than you do; and, after more years, she would so have tried and disappointed you, that you might not have been able to love her half so well! i know i was too young and foolish. it is much better as it is!" * * * agnes is down-stairs, when i go into the parlor; and i give her the message. she disappears, leaving me alone with jip. his chinese house is by the fire; and he lies within it, on his bed of flannel, querulously trying to sleep. the bright moon is high and clear. as i look out on the night, my tears fall fast, and my undisciplined heart is chastened heavily--heavily. i sit down by the fire, thinking with a blind remorse of all those secret feelings i have nourished since my marriage. i think of every little trifle between me and dora, and feel the truth, that trifles make the sum of life. ever rising from the sea of my remembrance, is the image of the dear child as i knew her first, graced by my young love, and by her own, with every fascination wherein such love is rich. would it, indeed, have been better if we had loved each other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it? undisciplined heart, reply! how the time wears, i know not; until i am recalled by my child-wife's old companion. more restless than he was, he crawls out of his house, and looks at me, and wanders to the door, and whines to go up-stairs. "not to-night, jip! not to-night!" he comes very slowly back to me, licks my hand, and lifts his dim eyes to my face. "o, jip! it may be, never again!" he lies down at my feet, stretches himself out as if to sleep, and with a plaintive cry, is dead. [illustration: my child-wife's old companion.] "o agnes! look, look, here!" --that face, so full of pity and of grief, that rain of tears, that awful mute appeal to me, that solemn hand upraised towards heaven! "agnes?" it is over. darkness comes before my eyes; and, for a time, all things are blotted out of my remembrance. chapter liv. mr. micawber's transactions. this is not the time at which i am to enter on the state of my mind beneath its load of sorrow. i came to think that the future was walled up before me, that the energy and action of my life were at an end, that i never could find any refuge but in the grave. i came to think so, i say, but not in the first shock of my grief. it slowly grew to that. if the events i go on to relate, had not thickened around me, in the beginning to confuse, and in the end to augment, my affliction, it is possible, (though i think not probable), that i might have fallen at once into this condition. as it was, an interval occurred before i fully knew my own distress; an interval, in which i even supposed that its sharpest pangs were past; and when my mind could soothe itself by resting on all that was most innocent and beautiful, in the tender story that was closed for ever. when it was first proposed that i should go abroad, or how it came to be agreed among us that i was to seek the restoration of my peace in change and travel, i do not, even now, distinctly know. the spirit of agnes so pervaded all we thought, and said, and did, in that time of sorrow, that i assume i may refer the project to her influence. but her influence was so quiet that i know no more. and now, indeed, i began to think that in my old association of her with the stained-glass window in the church, a prophetic foreshadowing of what she would be to me, in the calamity that was to happen in the fullness of time, had found a way into my mind. in all that sorrow, from the moment, never to be forgotten, when she stood before me with her upraised hand, she was like a sacred presence in my lonely house. when the angel of death alighted there, my child-wife fell asleep--they told me so when i could bear to hear it--on her bosom, with a smile. from my swoon, i first awoke to a consciousness of her compassionate tears, her words of hope and peace, her gentle face bending down as from a purer region nearer heaven, over my undisciplined heart, and softening its pain. let me go on. i was to go abroad. that seemed to have been determined among us from the first. the ground now covering all that could perish of my departed wife, i waited only for what mr. micawber called the "final pulverisation of heep," and for the departure of the emigrants. at the request of traddles, most affectionate and devoted of friends in my trouble, we returned to canterbury: i mean my aunt, agnes, and i. we proceeded by appointment straight to mr. micawber's house; where, and at mr. wickfield's, my friend had been labouring ever since our explosive meeting. when poor mrs. micawber saw me come in, in my black clothes, she was sensibly affected. there was a great deal of good in mrs. micawber's heart, which had not been dunned out of it in all those many years. "well, mr. and mrs. micawber," was my aunt's first salutation after we were seated. "pray, have you thought about that emigration proposal of mine?" "my dear madam," returned mr. micawber, "perhaps i cannot better express the conclusion at which mrs. micawber, your humble servant, and i may add our children, have jointly and severally arrived, than by borrowing the language of an illustrious poet, to reply that our boat is on the shore, and our bark is on the sea." "that's right," said my aunt. "i augur all sorts of good from your sensible decision." "madam, you do us a great deal of honor," he rejoined. he then referred to a memorandum. "with respect to the pecuniary assistance enabling us to launch our frail canoe on the ocean of enterprise, i have reconsidered that important business-point; and would beg to propose my notes of hand--drawn, it is needless to stipulate, on stamps of the amounts respectively required by the various acts of parliament applying to such securities--at eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty months. the proposition i originally submitted, was twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four; but i am apprehensive that such an arrangement might not allow sufficient time for the requisite amount of--something--to turn up. we might not," said mr. micawber, looking round the room as if it represented several hundred acres of highly-cultivated land, "on the first responsibility becoming due, have been successful in our harvest, or we might not have got our harvest in. labor, i believe, is sometimes difficult to obtain in that portion of our colonial possessions where it will be our lot to combat with the teeming soil." "arrange it in any way you please, sir," said my aunt. "madam," he replied, "mrs. micawber and myself are deeply sensible of the very considerate kindness of our friends and patrons. what i wish is, to be perfectly business-like, and perfectly punctual. turning over, as we are about to turn over, an entirely new leaf; and falling back, as we are now in the act of falling back, for a spring of no common magnitude; it is important to my sense of self-respect, besides being an example to my son, that these arrangements should be concluded as between man and man." i don't know that mr. micawber attached any meaning to this last phrase; i don't know that anybody ever does, or did; but he appeared to relish it uncommonly, and repeated, with an impressive cough, "as between man and man." "i propose," said mr. micawber, "bills--a convenience to the mercantile world, for which, i believe, we are originally indebted to the jews, who appear to me to have had a devilish deal too much to do with them ever since--because they are negotiable. but if a bond, or any other description of security, would be preferred, i should be happy to execute any such instrument. as between man and man." my aunt observed, that in a case where both parties were willing to agree to anything, she took it for granted there would be no difficulty in settling this point. mr. micawber was of her opinion. "in reference to our domestic preparations, madam," said mr. micawber, with some pride, "for meeting the destiny to which we are now understood to be self-devoted, i beg to report them. my eldest daughter attends at five every morning in a neighbouring establishment, to acquire the process--if process it may be called--of milking cows. my younger children are instructed to observe, as closely as circumstances will permit, the habits of the pigs and poultry maintained in the poorer parts of this city: a pursuit from which they have, on two occasions, been brought home, within an inch of being run over. i have myself directed some attention, during the past week, to the art of baking; and my son wilkins has issued forth with a walking-stick and driven cattle, when permitted, by the rugged hirelings who had them in charge, to render any voluntary service in that direction--which i regret to say, for the credit of our nature, was not often; he being generally warned, with imprecations, to desist." "all very right indeed," said my aunt, encouragingly. "mrs. micawber has been busy, too, i have no doubt." "my dear madam," returned mrs. micawber, with her business-like air, "i am free to confess, that i have not been actively engaged in pursuits immediately connected with cultivation or with stock, though well aware that both will claim my attention on a foreign shore. such opportunities as i have been enabled to alienate from my domestic duties, i have devoted to corresponding at some length with my family. for i own it seems to me, my dear mr. copperfield," said mrs. micawber, who always fell back on me, i suppose from old habit, to whomsoever else she might address her discourse at starting, "that the time is come when the past should be buried in oblivion; when my family should take mr. micawber by the hand, and mr. micawber should take my family by the hand; when the lion should lie down with the lamb, and my family be on terms with mr. micawber." i said i thought so too. "this, at least, is the light, my dear mr. copperfield," pursued mrs. micawber, "in which _i_ view the subject. when i lived at home with my papa and mama, my papa was accustomed to ask, when any point was under discussion in our limited circle, 'in what light does my emma view the subject?' that my papa was too partial, i know; still, on such a point as the frigid coldness which has ever subsisted between mr. micawber and my family, i necessarily have formed an opinion, delusive though it may be." "no doubt. of course you have, ma'am," said my aunt. "precisely so," assented mrs. micawber. "now, i may be wrong in my conclusions; it is very likely that i am; but my individual impression is, that the gulf between my family and mr. micawber may be traced to an apprehension, on the part of my family, that mr. micawber would require pecuniary accommodation. i cannot help thinking," said mrs. micawber, with an air of deep sagacity, "that there are members of my family who have been apprehensive that mr. micawber would solicit them for their names.--i do not mean to be conferred in baptism upon our children, but to be inscribed on bills of exchange, and negotiated in the money market." the look of penetration with which mrs. micawber announced this discovery, as if no one had ever thought of it before, seemed rather to astonish my aunt; who abruptly replied, "well, ma'am, upon the whole, i shouldn't wonder if you were right!" "mr. micawber being now on the eve of casting off the pecuniary shackles that have so long enthralled him," said mrs. micawber, "and of commencing a new career in a country where there is sufficient range for his abilities,--which, in my opinion, is exceedingly important; mr. micawber's abilities peculiarly requiring space,--it seems to me that my family should signalise the occasion by coming forward. what i could wish to see, would be a meeting between mr. micawber and my family at a festive entertainment, to be given at my family's expence; where mr. micawber's health and prosperity being proposed, by some leading member of my family, mr. micawber might have an opportunity of developing his views." "my dear," said mr. micawber, with some heat, "it may be better for me to state distinctly, at once, that if i were to develop my views to that assembled group, they would possibly be found of an offensive nature: my impression being that your family are, in the aggregate, impertinent snobs; and, in detail, unmitigated ruffians." "micawber," said mrs. micawber, shaking her head, "no! you have never understood them, and they have never understood you." mr. micawber coughed. "they have never understood you, micawber," said his wife. "they may be incapable of it. if so, that is their misfortune. i can pity their misfortune." "i am extremely sorry, my dear emma," said mr. micawber, relenting, "to have been betrayed into any expressions that might, even remotely, have the appearance of being strong expressions. all i would say, is, that i can go abroad without your family coming forward to favor me,--in short, with a parting shove of their cold shoulders; and that, upon the whole, i would rather leave england with such impetus as i possess, than derive any acceleration of it from that quarter. at the same time, my dear, if they should condescend to reply to your communications--which our joint experience renders most improbable--far be it from me to be a barrier to your wishes." the matter being thus amicably settled, mr. micawber gave mrs. micawber his arm, and, glancing at the heap of books and papers lying before traddles on the table, said they would leave us to ourselves; which they ceremoniously did. "my dear copperfield," said traddles, leaning back in his chair when they were gone, and looking at me with an affection that made his eyes red, and his hair all kinds of shapes, "i don't make any excuse for troubling you with business, because i know you are deeply interested in it, and it may divert your thoughts. my dear boy, i hope you are not worn out?" "i am quite myself," said i, after a pause. "we have more cause to think of my aunt than of any one. you know how much she has done." "surely, surely," answered traddles. "who can forget it!" "but even that is not all," said i. "during the last fortnight, some new trouble has vexed her; and she has been in and out of london every day. several times she has gone out early, and been absent until evening. last night, traddles, with this journey before her, it was almost midnight before she came home. you know what her consideration for others is. she will not tell me what has happened to distress her." my aunt, very pale, and with deep lines in her face, sat immovable until i had finished; when some stray tears found their way to her cheeks, and she put her hand on mine. "it's nothing, trot; it's nothing. there will be no more of it. you shall know by and by. now agnes, my dear, let us attend to these affairs." "i must do mr. micawber the justice to say," traddles began, "that although he would appear not to have worked to any good account for himself, he is a most untiring man when he works for other people. i never saw such a fellow. if he always goes on in the same way, he must be, virtually, about two hundred years old, at present. the heat into which he has been continually putting himself; and the distracted and impetuous manner in which he has been diving, day and night, among papers and books; to say nothing of the immense number of letters he has written me between this house and mr. wickfield's, and often across the table when he has been sitting opposite, and might much more easily have spoken; is quite extraordinary." "letters!" cried my aunt. "i believe he dreams in letters!" "there's mr. dick, too," said traddles, "has been doing wonders! as soon as he was released from overlooking uriah heep, whom he kept in such charge as _i_ never saw exceeded, he began to devote himself to mr. wickfield. and really his anxiety to be of use in the investigations we have been making, and his real usefulness in extracting, and copying, and fetching, and carrying, have been quite stimulating to us." "dick is a very remarkable man," exclaimed my aunt; "and i always said he was. trot, you know it!" "i am happy to say, miss wickfield," pursued traddles, at once with great delicacy and with great earnestness, "that in your absence mr. wickfield has considerably improved. relieved of the incubus that had fastened upon him for so long a time, and of the dreadful apprehensions under which he had lived, he is hardly the same person. at times, even his impaired power of concentrating his memory and attention on particular points of business, has recovered itself very much; and he has been able to assist us in making some things clear, that we should have found very difficult indeed, if not hopeless, without him. but, what i have to do is to come to results; which are short enough; not to gossip on all the hopeful circumstances i have observed, or i shall never have done." his natural manner and agreeable simplicity made it transparent that he said this to put us in good heart, and to enable agnes to hear her father mentioned with greater confidence; but it was not the less pleasant for that. "now, let me see," said traddles, looking among the papers on the table. "having counted our funds, and reduced to order a great mass of unintentional confusion in the first place, and of wilful confusion and falsification in the second, we take it to be clear that mr. wickfield might now wind up his business, and his agency-trust, and exhibit no deficiency or defalcation whatever." "oh, thank heaven!" cried agnes, fervently. "but," said traddles, "the surplus that would be left as his means of support--and i suppose the house to be sold, even in saying this--would be so small, not exceeding in all probability some hundreds of pounds, that perhaps, miss wickfield, it would be best to consider whether he might not retain his agency of the estate to which he has so long been receiver. his friends might advise him, you know; now he is free. you yourself, miss wickfield--copperfield--i--" "i have considered it, trotwood," said agnes, looking to me, "and i feel that it ought not to be, and must not be; even on the recommendation of a friend to whom i am so grateful, and owe so much." "i will not say that i recommend it," observed traddles. "i think it right to suggest it. no more." "i am happy to hear you say so," answered agnes, steadily, "for it gives me hope, almost assurance, that we think alike. dear mr. traddles and dear trotwood, papa once free with honor, what could i wish for! i have always aspired, if i could have released him from the toils in which he was held, to render back some little portion of the love and care i owe him, and to devote my life to him. it has been, for years, the utmost height of my hopes. to take our future on myself, will be the next great happiness--the next to his release from all trust and responsibility--that i can know." "have you thought how, agnes?" "often! i am not afraid, dear trotwood. i am certain of success. so many people know me here, and think kindly of me, that i am certain. don't mistrust me. our wants are not many. if i rent the dear old house, and keep a school, i shall be useful and happy." the calm fervor of her cheerful voice brought back so vividly, first the dear old house itself, and then my solitary home, that my heart was too full for speech. traddles pretended for a little while to be busily looking among the papers. "next, miss trotwood," said traddles, "that property of yours." "well, sir," sighed my aunt. "all i have got to say about it, is, that if it's gone, i can bear it; and if it's not gone, i shall be glad to get it back." "it was originally, i think, eight thousand pounds, consols?" said traddles. "right!" replied my aunt. "i can't account for more than five," said traddles, with an air of perplexity. "--thousand, do you mean?" inquired my aunt, with uncommon composure, "or pounds?" "five thousand pounds," said traddles. "it was all there was," returned my aunt. "i sold three, myself. one, i paid for your articles, trot, my dear; and the other two i have by me. when i lost the rest, i thought it wise to say nothing about that sum, but to keep it secretly for a rainy day. i wanted to see how you would come out of the trial, trot; and you came out nobly--persevering, self-reliant, self-denying! so did dick. don't speak to me, for i find my nerves a little shaken!" nobody would have thought so, to see her sitting upright, with her arms folded; but she had wonderful self-command. "then i am delighted to say," cried traddles, beaming with joy, "that we have recovered the whole money!" "don't congratulate me, anybody!" exclaimed my aunt. "how so, sir?" "you believed it had been misappropriated by mr. wickfield?" said traddles. "of course i did," said my aunt, "and was therefore easily silenced. agnes, not a word!" "and indeed," said traddles, "it was sold, by virtue of the power of management he held from you; but i needn't say by whom sold, or on whose actual signature. it was afterwards pretended to mr. wickfield, by that rascal,--and proved, too, by figures,--that he had possessed himself of the money (on general instructions, _he_ said) to keep other deficiencies and difficulties from the light. mr. wickfield, being so weak and helpless in his hands as to pay you, afterwards, several sums of interest on a pretended principal which he knew did not exist, made himself, unhappily, a party to the fraud." "and at last took the blame upon himself," added my aunt; "and wrote me a mad letter, charging himself with robbery, and wrong unheard of. upon which i paid him a visit early one morning, called for a candle, burnt the letter, and told him if he ever could right me and himself, to do it; and if he couldn't, to keep his own counsel for his daughter's sake.--if anybody speaks to me, i'll leave the house!" we all remained quiet; agnes covering her face. "well, my dear friend," said my aunt, after a pause, "and you have really extorted the money back from him?" "why, the fact is," returned traddles, "mr. micawber had so completely hemmed him in, and was always ready with so many new points if an old one failed, that he could not escape from us. a most remarkable circumstance is, that i really don't think he grasped this sum even so much for the gratification of his avarice, which was inordinate, as in the hatred he felt for copperfield. he said so to me, plainly. he said he would even have spent as much, to baulk or injure copperfield." "ha!" said my aunt, knitting her brows thoughtfully, and glancing at agnes. "and what's become of him?" "i don't know. he left here," said traddles, "with his mother, who had been clamouring, and beseeching, and disclosing, the whole time. they went away by one of the london night coaches, and i know no more about him; except that his malevolence to me at parting was audacious. he seemed to consider himself hardly less indebted to me, than to mr. micawber; which i consider (as i told him) quite a compliment." "do you suppose he has any money, traddles?" i asked. "oh dear, yes, i should think so," he replied, shaking his head, seriously. "i should say he must have pocketed a good deal, in one way or other. but, i think you would find, copperfield, if you had an opportunity of observing his course, that money would never keep that man out of mischief. he is such an incarnate hypocrite, that whatever object he pursues, he must pursue crookedly. it's his only compensation for the outward restraints he puts upon himself. always creeping along the ground to some small end or other, he will always magnify every object in the way; and consequently will hate and suspect every body that comes, in the most innocent manner, between him and it. so, the crooked courses will become crookeder, at any moment, for the least reason, or for none. it's only necessary to consider his history here," said traddles, "to know that." "he's a monster of meanness!" said my aunt. "really i don't know about that," observed traddles thoughtfully. "many people can be very mean, when they give their minds to it." "and now, touching mr. micawber," said my aunt. "well, really," said traddles, cheerfully, "i must, once more, give mr. micawber high praise. but for his having been so patient and persevering for so long a time, we never could have hoped to do anything worth speaking of. and i think we ought to consider that mr. micawber did right, for right's sake, when we reflect what terms he might have made with uriah heep himself, for his silence." "i think so too," said i. "now, what would you give him?" inquired my aunt. "oh! before you come to that," said traddles, a little disconcerted, "i am afraid i thought it discreet to omit (not being able to carry everything before me) two points, in making this lawless adjustment--for it's perfectly lawless from beginning to end--of a difficult affair. those i. o. u.'s, and so forth, which mr. micawber gave him for the advances he had--" "well! they must be paid," said my aunt. "yes, but i don't know when they may be proceeded on, or where they are," rejoined traddles, opening his eyes; "and i anticipate, that, between this time and his departure, mr. micawber will be constantly arrested, or taken in execution." "then he must be constantly set free again, and taken out of execution," said my aunt. "what's the amount altogether?" "why, mr. micawber has entered the transactions--he calls them transactions--with great form, in a book," rejoined traddles, smiling; "and he makes the amount a hundred and three pounds, five." "now, what shall we give him, that sum included?" said my aunt. "agnes, my dear, you and i can talk about division of it afterwards. what should it be? five hundred pounds?" upon this, traddles and i both struck in at once. we both recommended a small sum in money, and the payment, without stipulation to mr. micawber, of the uriah claims as they came in. we proposed that the family should have their passage and their outfit, and a hundred pounds; and that mr. micawber's arrangement for the repayment of the advances should be gravely entered into, as it might be wholesome for him to suppose himself under that responsibility. to this, i added the suggestion, that i should give some explanation of his character and history to mr. peggotty, who i knew could be relied on; and that to mr. peggotty should be quietly entrusted the discretion of advancing another hundred. i further proposed to interest mr. micawber in mr. peggotty, by confiding so much of mr. peggotty's story to him as i might feel justified in relating, or might think expedient; and to endeavour to bring each of them to bear upon the other, for the common advantage. we all entered warmly into these views; and i may mention at once, that the principals themselves did so, shortly afterwards, with perfect good will and harmony. seeing that traddles now glanced anxiously at my aunt again, i reminded him of the second and last point to which he had adverted. "you and your aunt will excuse me, copperfield, if i touch upon a painful theme, as i greatly fear i shall," said traddles, hesitating; "but i think it necessary to bring it to your recollection. on the day of mr. micawber's memorable denunciation, a threatening allusion was made by uriah heep to your aunt's--husband." my aunt, retaining her stiff position, and apparent composure, assented with a nod. "perhaps," observed traddles, "it was mere purposeless impertinence?" "no," returned my aunt. "there was--pardon me--really such a person, and at all in his power?" hinted traddles. "yes, my good friend," said my aunt. traddles, with a perceptible lengthening of his face, explained that he had not been able to approach this subject; that it had shared the fate of mr. micawber's liabilities, in not being comprehended in the terms he had made; that we were no longer of any authority with uriah heep; and that if he could do us, or any of us, any injury or annoyance, no doubt he would. my aunt remained quiet; until again some stray tears found their way to her cheeks. "you are quite right," she said. "it was very thoughtful to mention it." "can i--or copperfield--do anything?" asked traddles, gently. "nothing," said my aunt. "i thank you many times. trot, my dear, a vain threat! let us have mr. and mrs. micawber back. and don't any of you speak to me!" with that, she smoothed her dress, and sat, with her upright carriage, looking at the door. "well, mr. and mrs. micawber!" said my aunt, when they entered. "we have been discussing your emigration, with many apologies to you for keeping you out of the room so long; and i'll tell you what arrangements we propose." these she explained, to the unbounded satisfaction of the family,--children and all being then present,--and so much to the awakening of mr. micawber's punctual habits in the opening stage of all bill transactions, that he could not be dissuaded from immediately rushing out, in the highest spirits, to buy the stamps for his notes of hand. but, his joy received a sudden check; for within five minutes, he returned in the custody of a sheriff's officer, informing us, in a flood of tears, that all was lost. we, being quite prepared for this event, which was of course a proceeding of uriah heep's, soon paid the money; and in five minutes more mr. micawber was seated at the table, filling up the stamps with an expression of perfect joy, which only that congenial employment, or the making of punch, could impart in full completeness to his shining face. to see him at work on the stamps, with the relish of an artist, touching them like pictures, looking at them sideways, taking weighty notes of dates and amounts in his pocket-book, and contemplating them when finished, with a high sense of their precious value, was a sight indeed. "now, the best thing you can do, sir, if you'll allow me to advise you," said my aunt, after silently observing him, "is to abjure that occupation for evermore." "madam," replied mr. micawber, "it is my intention to register such a vow on the virgin page of the future. mrs. micawber will attest it. i trust," said mr. micawber, solemnly, "that my son wilkins will ever bear in mind, that he had infinitely better put his fist in the fire, than use it to handle the serpents that have poisoned the life-blood of his unhappy parent!" deeply affected, and changed in a moment to the image of despair, mr. micawber regarded the serpents with a look of gloomy abhorrence (in which his late admiration of them was not quite subdued), folded them up, and put them in his pocket. this closed the proceedings of the evening. we were weary with sorrow and fatigue, and my aunt and i were to return to london on the morrow. it was arranged that the micawbers should follow us, after effecting a sale of their goods to a broker; that mr. wickfield's affairs should be brought to a settlement, with all convenient speed, under the direction of traddles; and that agnes should also come to london, pending those arrangements. we passed the night at the old house, which, freed from the presence of the heeps, seemed purged of a disease; and i lay in my old room, like a shipwrecked wanderer come home. we went back next day to my aunt's house--not to mine; and when she and i sat alone, as of old, before going to bed, she said: "trot, do you really wish to know what i have had upon my mind lately?" "indeed i do, aunt. if there ever was a time when i felt unwilling that you should have a sorrow or anxiety which i could not share, it is now." "you have had sorrow enough, child," said my aunt, affectionately, "without the addition of _my_ little miseries. i could have no other motive, trot, in keeping anything from you." "i know that well," said i. "but tell me now." "would you ride with me a little way to-morrow morning?" asked my aunt. "of course." "at nine," said she. "i'll tell you then, my dear." at nine, accordingly, we went out in a little chariot, and drove to london. we drove a long way through the streets, until we came to one of the large hospitals. standing hard by the building was a plain hearse. the driver recognised my aunt, and, in obedience to a motion of her hand at the window, drove slowly off; we following. "you understand it now, trot," said my aunt. "he is gone!" "did he die in the hospital?" "yes." she sat immovable beside me; but, again i saw the stray tears on her face. "he was there once before," said my aunt presently. "he was ailing a long time--a shattered, broken man, these many years. when he knew his state in this last illness, he asked them to send for me. he was sorry then. very sorry." "you went, i know, aunt." "i went. i was with him a good deal afterwards." "he died the night before we went to canterbury?" said i. my aunt nodded. "no one can harm him now," she said. "it was a vain threat." we drove away, out of town, to the churchyard at hornsey. "better here than in the streets," said my aunt. "he was born here." we alighted; and followed the plain coffin to a corner i remember well, where the service was read consigning it to the dust. "six-and-thirty years ago, this day, my dear," said my aunt, as we walked back to the chariot, "i was married. god forgive us all!" we took our seats in silence; and so she sat beside me for a long time, holding my hand. at length she suddenly burst into tears, and said: "he was a fine-looking man when i married him, trot--and he was sadly changed!" it did not last long. after the relief of tears, she soon became composed, and even cheerful. her nerves were a little shaken, she said, or she would not have given way to it. god forgive us all! so we rode back to her little cottage at highgate, where we found the following short note, which had arrived by that morning's post from mr. micawber: "canterbury, "friday. "my dear madam, and copperfield, "the fair land of promise lately looming on the horizon is again enveloped in impenetrable mists, and for ever withdrawn from the eyes of a drifting wretch whose doom is sealed! "another writ has been issued (in his majesty's high court of king's bench at westminster), in another cause of heep _v._ micawber, and the defendant in that cause is the prey of the sheriff having legal jurisdiction in this bailiwick. 'now's the day, and now's the hour, see the front of battle lower, see approach proud edward's power-- chains and slavery!' "consigned to which, and to a speedy end (for mental torture is not supportable beyond a certain point, and that point i feel i have attained), my course is run. bless you, bless you! some future traveller, visiting, from motives of curiosity, not unmingled, let us hope, with sympathy, the place of confinement allotted to debtors in this city, may, and i trust will, ponder, as he traces on its wall, inscribed with a rusty nail, "the obscure initials "w. m. "p.s. i re-open this to say that our common friend, mr. thomas traddles (who has not yet left us, and is looking extremely well), has paid the debt and costs, in the noble name of miss trotwood; and that myself and family are at the height of earthly bliss." chapter lv. tempest. i now approach an event in my life, so indelible, so awful, so bound by an infinite variety of ties to all that has preceded it, in these pages, that, from the beginning of my narrative, i have seen it growing larger and larger as i advanced, like a great tower in a plain, and throwing its fore-cast shadow even on the incidents of my childish days. for years after it occurred, i dreamed of it often. i have started up so vividly impressed by it, that its fury has yet seemed raging in my quiet room, in the still night. i dream of it sometimes, though at lengthened and uncertain intervals, to this hour. i have an association between it and a stormy wind, or the lightest mention of a sea-shore, as strong as any of which my mind is conscious. as plainly as i behold what happened, i will try to write it down. i do not recal it, but see it done; for it happens again before me. the time drawing on rapidly for the sailing of the emigrant-ship, my good old nurse (almost broken-hearted for me, when we first met) came up to london. i was constantly with her, and her brother, and the micawbers (they being very much together); but emily i never saw. one evening when the time was close at hand, i was alone with peggotty and her brother. our conversation turned on ham. she described to us how tenderly he had taken leave of her, and how manfully and quietly he had borne himself. most of all, of late, when she believed he was most tried. it was a subject of which the affectionate creature never tired; and our interest in hearing the many examples which she, who was so much with him, had to relate, was equal to hers in relating them. my aunt and i were at that time vacating the two cottages at highgate; i intending to go abroad, and she to return to her house at dover. we had a temporary lodging in covent garden. as i walked home to it, after this evening's conversation, reflecting on what had passed between ham and myself when i was last at yarmouth, i wavered in the original purpose i had formed, of leaving a letter for emily when i should take leave of her uncle on board the ship, and thought it would be better to write to her now. she might desire, i thought, after receiving my communication, to send some parting word by me to her unhappy lover. i ought to give her the opportunity. i therefore sat down in my room, before going to bed, and wrote to her. i told her that i had seen him, and that he had requested me to tell her what i have already written in its place in these sheets. i faithfully repeated it. i had no need to enlarge upon it, if i had had the right. its deep fidelity and goodness were not to be adorned by me or any man. i left it out, to be sent round in the morning; with a line to mr. peggotty, requesting him to give it to her; and went to bed at daybreak. i was weaker than i knew then; and, not falling asleep until the sun was up, lay late, and unrefreshed, next day. i was roused by the silent presence of my aunt at my bedside. i felt it in my sleep, as i suppose we all do feel such things. "trot, my dear," she said, when i opened my eyes, "i couldn't make up my mind to disturb you. mr. peggotty is here; shall he come up?" i replied yes, and he soon appeared. "mas'r davy," he said, when we had shaken hands, "i giv em'ly your letter, sir, and she writ this heer; and begged of me fur to ask you to read it, and if you see no hurt in't, to be so kind as take charge on't." "have you read it?" said i. he nodded sorrowfully. i opened it, and read as follows: "i have got your message. oh, what can i write, to thank you for your good and blessed kindness to me! "i have put the words close to my heart. i shall keep them till i die. they are sharp thorns, but they are such comfort. i have prayed over them, oh, i have prayed so much. when i find what you are, and what uncle is, i think what god must be, and can cry to him. "good bye for ever. now, my dear, my friend, good bye for ever in this world. in another world, if i am forgiven, i may wake a child and come to you. all thanks and blessings. farewell, evermore!" this, blotted with tears, was the letter. "may i tell her as you doen't see no hurt in't, and as you'll be so kind as take charge on't, mas'r davy?" said mr. peggotty, when i had read it. "unquestionably," said i--"but i am thinking--" "yes, mas'r davy?" "i am thinking," said i, "that i'll go down again to yarmouth. there's time, and to spare, for me to go and come back before the ship sails. my mind is constantly running on him, in his solitude; to put this letter of her writing in his hand at this time, and to enable you to tell her, in the moment of parting, that he has got it, will be a kindness to both of them. i solemnly accepted his commission, dear good fellow, and cannot discharge it too completely. the journey is nothing to me. i am restless, and shall be better in motion. i'll go down to-night." though he anxiously endeavoured to dissuade me, i saw that he was of my mind; and this, if i had required to be confirmed in my intention, would have had the effect. he went round to the coach-office, at my request, and took the box-seat for me on the mail. in the evening i started, by that conveyance, down the road i had traversed under so many vicissitudes. "don't you think that," i asked the coachman, in the first stage out of london, "a very remarkable sky? i don't remember to have seen one like it." "nor i--not equal to it," he replied. "that's wind, sir. there'll be mischief done at sea, i expect, before long." it was a murky confusion--here and there blotted with a colour like the colour of the smoke from damp fuel--of flying clouds, tossed up into most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than there were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as if, in a dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her way and were frightened. there had been a wind all day; and it was rising then, with an extraordinary great sound. in another hour it had much increased, and the sky was more overcast, and it blew hard. but, as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and densely overspreading the whole sky, then very dark, it came on to blow, harder and harder. it still increased, until our horses could scarcely face the wind. many times, in the dark part of the night (it was then late in september, when the nights were not short), the leaders turned about, or came to a dead stop; and we were often in serious apprehension that the coach would be blown over. sweeping gusts of rain came up before this storm, like showers of steel; and, at those times, when there was any shelter of trees or lee walls to be got, we were fain to stop, in a sheer impossibility of continuing the struggle. when the day broke, it blew harder and harder. i had been in yarmouth when the seamen said it blew great guns, but i had never known the like of this, or anything approaching to it. we came to ipswich--very late, having had to fight every inch of ground since we were ten miles out of london; and found a cluster of people in the market-place, who had risen from their beds in the night, fearful of falling chimneys. some of these, congregating about the inn-yard while we changed horses, told us of great sheets of lead having been ripped off a high church-tower, and flung into a bye street, which they then blocked up. others had to tell of country people, coming in from neighbouring villages, who had seen great trees lying torn out of the earth, and whole ricks scattered about the roads and fields. still, there was no abatement in the storm, but it blew harder. as we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from which this mighty wind was blowing dead on shore, its force became more and more terrific. long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips, and showered salt rain upon us. the water was out, over miles and miles of the flat country adjacent to yarmouth; and every sheet and puddle lashed its banks, and had its stress of little breakers setting heavily towards us. when we came within sight of the sea, the waves on the horizon, caught at intervals above the rolling abyss, were like glimpses of another shore with towers and buildings. when at last we got into the town, the people came out to their doors, all aslant, and with streaming hair, making a wonder of the mail that had come through such a night. i put up at the old inn, and went down to look at the sea; staggering along the street, which was strewn with sand and seaweed, and with flying blotches of sea-foam; afraid of falling slates and tiles; and holding by people i met, at angry corners. coming near the beach, i saw, not only the boatmen, but half the people of the town, lurking behind buildings; some, now and then braving the fury of the storm to look away to sea, and blown sheer out of their course in trying to get zigzag back. joining these groups, i found bewailing women whose husbands were away in herring or oyster boats, which there was too much reason to think might have foundered before they could run in anywhere for safety. grizzled old sailors were among the people, shaking their heads, as they looked from water to sky, and muttering to one another; ship-owners, excited and uneasy; children, huddling together, and peering into older faces; even stout mariners, disturbed and anxious, levelling their glasses at the sea from behind places of shelter, as if they were surveying an enemy. the tremendous sea itself, when i could find sufficient pause to look at it, in the agitation of the blinding wind, the flying stones and sand, and the awful noise, confounded me. as the high watery walls came rolling in, and, at their highest, tumbled into surf, they looked as if the least would engulf the town. as the receding wave swept back with a hoarse roar, it seemed to scoop out deep caves in the beach, as if its purpose were to undermine the earth. when some white-headed billows thundered on, and dashed themselves to pieces before they reached the land, every fragment of the late whole seemed possessed by the full might of its wrath, rushing to be gathered to the composition of another monster. undulating hills were changed to valleys, undulating valleys (with a solitary storm-bird sometimes skimming through them) were lifted up to hills; masses of water shivered and shook the beach with a booming sound; every shape tumultuously rolled on, as soon as made, to change its shape and place, and beat another shape and place away; the ideal shore on the horizon, with its towers and buildings, rose and fell; the clouds flew fast and thick; i seemed to see a rending and upheaving of all nature. not finding ham among the people whom this memorable wind--for it is still remembered down there, as the greatest ever known to blow upon that coast--had brought together, i made my way to his house. it was shut; and as no one answered to my knocking, i went, by back ways and bye-lanes, to the yard where he worked. i learned, there, that he had gone to lowestoft, to meet some sudden exigency of ship-repairing in which his skill was required; but that he would be back to-morrow morning, in good time. i went back to the inn; and when i had washed and dressed, and tried to sleep, but in vain, it was five o'clock in the afternoon. i had not sat five minutes by the coffee-room fire, when the waiter, coming to stir it, as an excuse for talking, told me that two colliers had gone down, with all hands, a few miles away; and that some other ships had been seen laboring hard in the roads, and trying, in great distress, to keep off-shore. mercy on them, and on all poor sailors, said he, if we had another night like the last! i was very much depressed in spirits; very solitary; and felt an uneasiness in ham's not being there, disproportionate to the occasion. i was seriously affected, without knowing how much, by late events; and my long exposure to the fierce wind had confused me. there was that jumble in my thoughts and recollections, that i had lost the clear arrangement of time and distance. thus, if i had gone out into the town, i should not have been surprised, i think, to encounter some one who i knew must be then in london. so to speak, there was in these respects a curious inattention in my mind. yet it was busy, too, with all the remembrances the place naturally awakened; and they were particularly distinct and vivid. in this state, the waiter's dismal intelligence about the ships immediately connected itself, without any effort of my volition, with my uneasiness about ham. i was persuaded that i had an apprehension of his returning from lowestoft by sea, and being lost. this grew so strong with me, that i resolved to go back to the yard before i took my dinner, and ask the boat-builder if he thought his attempting to return by sea at all likely? if he gave me the least reason to think so, i would go over to lowestoft and prevent it by bringing him with me. i hastily ordered my dinner, and went back to the yard. i was none too soon; for the boat-builder, with a lantern in his hand, was locking the yard-gate. he quite laughed, when i asked him the question, and said there was no fear; no man in his senses, or out of them, would put off in such a gale of wind, least of all ham peggotty, who had been born to seafaring. so sensible of this, beforehand, that i had really felt ashamed of doing what i was nevertheless impelled to do, i went back to the inn. if such a wind could rise, i think it was rising. the howl and roar, the rattling of the doors and windows, the rumbling in the chimneys, the apparent rocking of the very house that sheltered me, and the prodigious tumult of the sea, were more fearful than in the morning. but there was now a great darkness besides; and that invested the storm with new terrors, real and fanciful. i could not eat, i could not sit still, i could not continue stedfast to anything. something within me, faintly answering to the storm without, tossed up the depths of my memory, and made a tumult in them. yet, in all the hurry of my thoughts, wild running with the thundering sea,--the storm, and my uneasiness regarding ham, were always in the fore-ground. my dinner went away almost untasted, and i tried to refresh myself with a glass or two of wine. in vain. i fell into a dull slumber before the fire, without losing my consciousness, either of the uproar out of doors, or of the place in which i was. both became overshadowed by a new and indefinable horror; and when i awoke--or rather when i shook off the lethargy that bound me in my chair--my whole frame thrilled with objectless and unintelligible fear. i walked to and fro, tried to read an old gazetteer, listened to the awful noises: looked at faces, scenes, and figures in the fire. at length, the steady ticking of the undisturbed clock on the wall, tormented me to that degree that i resolved to go to bed. it was re-assuring, on such a night, to be told that some of the inn-servants had agreed together to sit up until morning. i went to bed, exceedingly weary and heavy; but, on my lying down, all such sensations vanished, as if by magic, and i was broad awake, with every sense refined. for hours i lay there, listening to the wind and water; imagining, now, that i heard shrieks out at sea; now, that i distinctly heard the firing of signal guns; and now, the fall of houses in the town. i got up, several times, and looked out; but could see nothing, except the reflection in the window-panes of the faint candle i had left burning, and of my own haggard face looking in at me from the black void. at length, my restlessness attained to such a pitch, that i hurried on my clothes, and went down stairs. in the large kitchen, where i dimly saw bacon and ropes of onions hanging from the beams, the watchers were clustered together, in various attitudes, about a table, purposely moved away from the great chimney, and brought near the door. a pretty girl, who had her ears stopped with her apron, and her eyes upon the door, screamed when i appeared, supposing me to be a spirit; but the others had more presence of mind, and were glad of an addition to their company. one man, referring to the topic they had been discussing, asked me whether i thought the souls of the collier-crews who had gone down, were out in the storm? i remained there, i dare say, two hours. once, i opened the yard-gate, and looked into the empty street. the sand, the sea-weed, and the flakes of foam, were driving by; and i was obliged to call for assistance before i could shut the gate again, and make it fast against the wind. there was a dark gloom in my solitary chamber, when i at length returned to it; but i was tired now, and, getting into bed again, fell--off a tower and down a precipice--into the depths of sleep. i have an impression that for a long time, though i dreamed of being elsewhere and in a variety of scenes, it was always blowing in my dream. at length, i lost that feeble hold upon reality, and was engaged with two dear friends, but who they were i don't know, at the siege of some town in a roar of cannonading. the thunder of the cannon was so loud and incessant, that i could not hear something i much desired to hear, until i made a great exertion and awoke. it was broad day--eight or nine o'clock; the storm raging, in lieu of the batteries; and some one knocking and calling at my door. "what is the matter?" i cried. "a wreck! close by!" i sprung out of bed, and asked what wreck? "a schooner, from spain or portugal, laden with fruit and wine. make haste, sir, if you want to see her! it's thought, down on the beach, she'll go to pieces every moment." the excited voice went clamouring along the staircase; and i wrapped myself in my clothes as quickly as i could, and ran into the street. numbers of people were there before me, all running in one direction, to the beach. i ran the same way, outstripping a good many, and soon came facing the wild sea. the wind might by this time have lulled a little, though not more sensibly than if the cannonading i had dreamed of, had been diminished by the silencing of half-a-dozen guns out of hundreds. but, the sea, having upon it the additional agitation of the whole night, was infinitely more terrific than when i had seen it last. every appearance it had then presented, bore the expression of being _swelled_; and the height to which the breakers rose, and, looking over one another, bore one another down, and rolled in, in interminable hosts, was most appalling. in the difficulty of hearing anything but wind and waves, and in the crowd, and the unspeakable confusion, and my first breathless efforts to stand against the weather, i was so confused that i looked out to sea for the wreck, and saw nothing but the foaming heads of the great waves. a half-dressed boatman, standing next me, pointed with his bare arm (a tattoo'd arrow on it, pointing in the same direction) to the left. then, o great heaven, i saw it, close in upon us! one mast was broken short off, six or eight feet from the deck, and lay over the side, entangled in a maze of sail and rigging; and all that ruin, as the ship rolled and beat--which she did without a moment's pause, and with a violence quite inconceivable--beat the side as if it would stave it in. some efforts were even then being made, to cut this portion of the wreck away; for, as the ship, which was broadside on, turned towards us in her rolling, i plainly descried her people at work with axes, especially one active figure with long curling hair, conspicuous among the rest. but, a great cry, which was audible even above the wind and water, rose from the shore at this moment; the sea, sweeping over the rolling wreck made a clean breach, and carried men, spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, heaps of such toys, into the boiling surge. the second mast was yet standing, with the rags of a rent sail, and a wild confusion of broken cordage flapping to and fro. the ship had struck once, the same boatman hoarsely said in my ear, and then lifted in and struck again. i understood him to add that she was parting amidships, and i could readily suppose so, for the rolling and beating were too tremendous for any human work to suffer long. as he spoke, there was another great cry of pity from the beach; four men arose with the wreck out of the deep, clinging to the rigging of the remaining mast; uppermost, the active figure with the curling hair. there was a bell on board; and as the ship rolled and dashed, like a desperate creature driven mad, now showing us the whole sweep of her deck, as she turned on her beam-ends towards the shore, now nothing but her keel, as she sprung wildly over and turned towards the sea, the bell rang; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was borne towards us on the wind. again we lost her, and again she rose. two men were gone. the agony on shore increased. men groaned, and clasped their hands; women shrieked, and turned away their faces. some ran wildly up and down along the beach, crying for help where no help could be. i found myself one of these, frantically imploring a knot of sailors whom i knew, not to let those two lost creatures perish before our eyes. they were making out to me, in an agitated way--i don't know how, for the little i could hear i was scarcely composed enough to understand--that the life-boat had been bravely manned an hour ago, and could do nothing; and that as no man would be so desperate as to attempt to wade off with a rope, and establish a communication with the shore, there was nothing left to try; when i noticed that some new sensation moved the people on the beach, and saw them part, and ham come breaking through them to the front. i ran to him--as well as i know, to repeat my appeal for help. but, distracted though i was, by a sight so new to me and terrible, the determination in his face, and his look, out to sea--exactly the same look as i remembered in connexion with the morning after emily's flight--awoke me to a knowledge of his danger. i held him back with both arms; and implored the men with whom i had been speaking, not to listen to him, not to do murder, not to let him stir from off that sand! another cry arose on shore; and looking to the wreck, we saw the cruel sail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men, and fly up in triumph round the active figure left alone upon the mast. against such a sight, and against such determination as that of the calmly desperate man who was already accustomed to lead half the people present, i might as hopefully have entreated the wind. "mas'r davy," he said, cheerily grasping me by both hands, "if my time is come, 'tis come. if 'tan't, i'll bide it. lord above bless you, and bless all! mates, make me ready! i'm a going off!" i was swept away, but not unkindly, to some distance, where the people around me made me stay; urging, as i confusedly perceived, that he was bent on going, with help or without, and that i should endanger the precautions for his safety by troubling those with whom they rested. i don't know what i answered, or what they rejoined; but, i saw hurry on the beach, and men running with ropes from a capstan that was there, and penetrating into a circle of figures that hid him from me. then, i saw him standing alone, in a seaman's frock and trowsers: a rope in his hand, or slung to his wrist: another round his body: and several of the best men holding, at a little distance, to the latter, which he laid out himself, slack upon the shore, at his feet. the wreck, even to my unpractised eye, was breaking up. i saw that she was parting in the middle, and that the life of the solitary man upon the mast hung by a thread. still, he clung to it. he had a singular red cap on,--not like a sailor's cap, but of a finer color; and as the few yielding planks between him and destruction rolled and bulged, and his anticipative death-knell rung, he was seen by all of us to wave it. i saw him do it now, and thought i was going distracted, when his action brought an old remembrance to my mind of a once dear friend. ham watched the sea, standing alone, with the silence of suspended breath behind him, and the storm before, until there was a great retiring wave, when, with a backward glance at those who held the rope which was made fast round his body, he dashed in after it, and in a moment was buffetting with the water; rising with the hills, falling with the valleys, lost beneath the foam; then drawn again to land. they hauled in hastily. he was hurt. i saw blood on his face, from where i stood; but he took no thought of that. he seemed hurriedly to give them some directions for leaving him more free--or so i judged from the motion of his arm--and was gone as before. and now he made for the wreck, rising with the hills, falling with the valleys, lost beneath the rugged foam, borne in towards the shore, borne on towards the ship, striving hard and valiantly. the distance was nothing, but the power of the sea and wind made the strife deadly. at length he neared the wreck. he was so near, that with one more of his vigorous strokes he would be clinging to it,--when, a high, green, vast hill-side of water, moving on shoreward, from beyond the ship, he seemed to leap up into it with a mighty bound, and the ship was gone! some eddying fragments i saw in the sea, as if a mere cask had been broken, in running to the spot where they were hauling in. consternation was in every face. they drew him to my very feet--insensible--dead. he was carried to the nearest house; and, no one preventing me now, i remained near him, busy, while every means of restoration were tried; but he had been beaten to death by the great wave, and his generous heart was stilled for ever. as i sat beside the bed, when hope was abandoned and all was done, a fisherman, who had known me when emily and i were children, and ever since, whispered my name at the door. "sir," said he, with tears starting to his weather-beaten face, which, with his trembling lips, was ashy pale, "will you come over yonder?" the old remembrance that had been recalled to me, was in his look. i asked him, terror-stricken, leaning on the arm he held out to support me: "has a body come ashore?" he said, "yes." "do i know it?" i asked then. he answered nothing. but, he led me to the shore. and on that part of it where she and i had looked for shells, two children--on that part of it where some lighter fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, had been scattered by the wind--among the ruins of the home he had wronged--i saw him lying with his head upon his arm, as i had often seen him lie at school. chapter lvi. the new wound, and the old. no need, o steerforth, to have said, when we last spoke together, in that hour which i so little deemed to be our parting-hour--no need to have said, "think of me at my best!" i had done that ever; and could i change now, looking on this sight! they brought a hand-bier, and laid him on it, and covered him with a flag, and took him up and bore him on towards the houses. all the men who carried him had known him, and gone sailing with him, and seen him merry and bold. they carried him through the wild roar, a hush in the midst of all the tumult; and took him to the cottage where death was already. but, when they set the bier down on the threshold, they looked at one another, and at me, and whispered. i knew why. they felt as if it were not right to lay him down in the same quiet room. we went into the town, and took our burden to the inn. so soon as i could at all collect my thoughts, i sent for joram, and begged him to provide me a conveyance in which it could be got to london in the night. i knew that the care of it, and the hard duty of preparing his mother to receive it, could only rest with me; and i was anxious to discharge that duty as faithfully as i could. i chose the night for the journey, that there might be less curiosity when i left the town. but, although it was nearly midnight when i came out of the yard in a chaise, followed by what i had in charge, there were many people waiting. at intervals, along the town, and even a little way out upon the road, i saw more; but at length only the bleak night and the open country were around me, and the ashes of my youthful friendship. upon a mellow autumn day, about noon, when the ground was perfumed by fallen leaves, and many more, in beautiful tints of yellow, red, and brown, yet hung upon the trees, through which the sun was shining, i arrived at highgate. i walked the last mile, thinking as i went along of what i had to do; and left the carriage that had followed me all through the night, awaiting orders to advance. the house, when i came up to it, looked just the same. not a blind was raised; no sign of life was in the dull paved court, with its covered way leading to the disused door. the wind had quite gone down, and nothing moved. i had not, at first, the courage to ring at the gate; and when i did ring, my errand seemed to me to be expressed in the very sound of the bell. the little parlour-maid came out, with the key in her hand; and looking earnestly at me as she unlocked the gate, said: "i beg your pardon, sir. are you ill?" "i have been much agitated, and am fatigued." "is anything the matter, sir?--mr. james?----" "hush!" said i. "yes, something has happened, that i have to break to mrs. steerforth. she is at home?" the girl anxiously replied that her mistress was very seldom out now, even in a carriage; that she kept her room; that she saw no company, but would see me. her mistress was up, she said, and miss dartle was with her. what message should she take up stairs? giving her a strict charge to be careful of her manner, and only to carry in my card and say i waited, i sat down in the drawing-room (which we had now reached) until she should come back. its former pleasant air of occupation was gone, and the shutters were half closed. the harp had not been used for many and many a day. his picture, as a boy, was there. the cabinet in which his mother had kept his letters was there. i wondered if she ever read them now; if she would ever read them more! the house was so still, that i heard the girl's light step up stairs. on her return, she brought a message, to the effect that mrs. steerforth was an invalid and could not come down; but, that if i would excuse her being in her chamber, she would be glad to see me. in a few moments i stood before her. she was in his room; not in her own. i felt, of course, that she had taken to occupy it, in remembrance of him; and that the many tokens of his old sports and accomplishments, by which she was surrounded, remained there, just as he had left them, for the same reason. she murmured, however, even in her reception of me, that she was out of her own chamber because its aspect was unsuited to her infirmity; and with her stately look repelled the least suspicion of the truth. at her chair, as usual, was rosa dartle. from the first moment of her dark eyes resting on me, i saw she knew i was the bearer of evil tidings. the scar sprung into view that instant. she withdrew herself a step behind the chair, to keep her own face out of mrs. steerforth's observation; and scrutinised me with a piercing gaze that never faltered, never shrunk. [illustration: i am the bearer of evil tidings.] "i am sorry to observe you are in mourning, sir," said mrs. steerforth. "i am unhappily a widower," said i. "you are very young to know so great a loss," she returned. "i am grieved to hear it. i am grieved to hear it. i hope time will be good to you." "i hope time," said i, looking at her, "will be good to all of us. dear mrs. steerforth, we must all trust to that, in our heaviest misfortunes." the earnestness of my manner, and the tears in my eyes, alarmed her. the whole course of her thoughts appeared to stop, and change. i tried to command my voice in gently saying his name, but it trembled. she repeated it to herself, two or three times, in a low tone. then, addressing me, she said, with enforced calmness: "my son is ill." "very ill." "you have seen him?" "i have." "are you reconciled?" i could not say yes, i could not say no. she slightly turned her head towards the spot where rosa dartle had been standing at her elbow, and in that moment i said, by the motion of my lips, to rosa "dead!" that mrs. steerforth might not be induced to look behind her, and read, plainly written, what she was not yet prepared to know, i met her look quickly; but i had seen rosa dartle throw her hands up in the air with vehemence of despair and horror, and then clasp them on her face. the handsome lady--so like, o so like!--regarded me with a fixed look, and put her hand to her forehead. i besought her to be calm, and prepare herself to bear what i had to tell; but i should rather have entreated her to weep, for she sat like a stone figure. "when i was last here," i faltered, "miss dartle told me he was sailing here and there. the night before last was a dreadful one at sea. if he were at sea that night, and near a dangerous coast, as it is said he was; and if the vessel that was seen should really be the ship which----" "rosa!" said mrs. steerforth, "come to me!" she came, but with no sympathy or gentleness. her eyes gleamed like fire as she confronted his mother, and broke into a frightful laugh. "now," she said, "is your pride appeased, you madwoman? _now_ has he made atonement to you----with his life! do you hear?--his life!" mrs. steerforth, fallen back stiffly in her chair, and making no sound but a moan, cast her eyes upon her with a wide stare. "aye!" cried rosa, smiting herself passionately on the breast, "look at me! moan, and groan, and look at me! look here!" striking the scar, "at your dead child's handy work!" the moan the mother uttered, from time to time, went to my heart. always the same. always inarticulate and stifled. always accompanied with an incapable motion of the head, but with no change of face. always proceeding from a rigid mouth and closed teeth, as if the jaw were locked and the face frozen up in pain. "do you remember when he did this?" she proceeded. "do you remember when, in his inheritance of your nature, and in your pampering of his pride and passion, he did this, and disfigured me for life? look at me, marked until i die with his high displeasure; and moan and groan for what you made him!" "miss dartle," i entreated her. "for heaven's sake----" "i _will_ speak!" she said, turning on me with her lightning eyes. "be silent, you! look at me, i say, proud mother of a proud false son! moan for your nurture of him, moan for your corruption of him, moan for your loss of him, moan for mine!" she clenched her hand, and trembled through her spare, worn figure, as if her passion were killing her by inches. "you, resent his selfwill!" she exclaimed. "you, injured by his haughty temper! you, who opposed to both, when your hair was grey, the qualities which made both when you gave him birth! you, who from his cradle reared him to be what he was, and stunted what he should have been! are you rewarded, _now_, for your years of trouble?" "o miss dartle, shame! o cruel!" "i tell you," she returned, "i _will_ speak to her. no power on earth should stop me, while i was standing here! have i been silent all these years, and shall i not speak now? i loved him better than you ever loved him!" turning on her fiercely. "i could have loved him, and asked no return. if i had been his wife, i could have been the slave of his caprices for a word of love a-year. i should have been. who knows it better than i? you were exacting, proud, punctilious, selfish. my love would have been devoted--would have trod your paltry whimpering under foot!" with flashing eyes, she stamped upon the ground as if she actually did it. "look here!" she said, striking the scar again, with a relentless hand. "when he grew into the better understanding of what he had done, he saw it, and repented of it! i could sing to him, and talk to him, and show the ardor that i felt in all he did, and attain with labor to such knowledge as most interested him; and i attracted him. when he was freshest and truest, he loved _me_. yes, he did! many a time, when you were put off with a slight word, he has taken me to his heart!" she said it with a taunting pride in the midst of her frenzy--for it was little less--yet with an eager remembrance of it, in which the smouldering embers of a gentler feeling kindled for the moment. "i descended--as i might have known i should, but that he fascinated me with his boyish courtship--into a doll, a trifle for the occupation of an idle hour, to be dropped, and taken up, and trifled with, as the inconstant humour took him. when he grew weary, i grew weary. as his fancy died out, i would no more have tried to strengthen any power i had, than i would have married him on his being forced to take me for his wife. we fell away from one another without a word. perhaps you saw it, and were not sorry. since then, i have been a mere disfigured piece of furniture between you both; having no eyes, no ears, no feelings, no remembrances. moan? moan for what you made him; not for your love. i tell you that the time was, when i loved him better than you ever did!" she stood with her bright angry eyes confronting the wide stare, and the set face; and softened no more, when the moaning was repeated, than if the face had been a picture. "miss dartle," said i, "if you can be so obdurate as not to feel for this afflicted mother----" "who feels for me?" she sharply retorted. "she has sown this. let her moan for the harvest that she reaps to-day!" "and if his faults----" i began. "faults!" she cried, bursting into passionate tears. "who dares malign him? he had a soul worth millions of the friends to whom he stooped!" "no one can have loved him better, no one can hold him in dearer remembrance, than i," i replied. "i meant to say, if you have no compassion for his mother; or if his faults--you have been bitter on them----" "it's false," she cried, tearing her black hair; "i loved him!" "--cannot," i went on, "be banished from your remembrance, in such an hour; look at that figure, even as one you have never seen before, and render it some help!" all this time, the figure was unchanged, and looked unchangeable. motionless, rigid, staring; moaning in the same dumb way from time to time, with the same helpless motion of the head; but giving no other sign of life. miss dartle suddenly kneeled down before it, and began to loosen the dress. "a curse upon you!" she said, looking round at me, with a mingled expression of rage and grief. "it was in an evil hour that you ever came here! a curse upon you! go!" after passing out of the room, i hurried back to ring the bell, the sooner to alarm the servants. she had then taken the impassive figure in her arms, and, still upon her knees, was weeping over it, kissing it, calling to it, rocking it to and fro upon her bosom like a child, and trying every tender means to rouse the dormant senses. no longer afraid of leaving her, i noiselessly turned back again; and alarmed the house as i went out. later in the day, i returned, and we laid him in his mother's room. she was just the same, they told me; miss dartle never left her; doctors were in attendance, many things had been tried; but she lay like a statue, except for the low sound now and then. i went through the dreary house, and darkened the windows. the windows of the chamber where he lay, i darkened last. i lifted up the leaden hand, and held it to my heart; and all the world seemed death and silence, broken only by his mother's moaning. chapter lvii. the emigrants. one thing more, i had to do, before yielding myself to the shock of these emotions. it was, to conceal what had occurred, from those who were going away; and to dismiss them on their voyage in happy ignorance. in this, no time was to be lost. i took mr. micawber aside that same night, and confided to him the task of standing between mr. peggotty and intelligence of the late catastrophe. he zealously undertook to do so, and to intercept any newspaper through which it might, without such precautions, reach him. "if it penetrates to him, sir," said mr. micawber, striking himself on the breast, "it shall first pass through this body!" mr. micawber, i must observe, in his adaptation of himself to a new state of society, had acquired a bold buccaneering air, not absolutely lawless, but defensive and prompt. one might have supposed him a child of the wilderness, long accustomed to live out of the confines of civilisation, and about to return to his native wilds. he had provided himself, among other things, with a complete suit of oil-skin, and a straw-hat with a very low crown, pitched or caulked on the outside. in this rough clothing, with a common mariner's telescope under his arm, and a shrewd trick of casting up his eye at the sky as looking out for dirty weather, he was far more nautical, after his manner, than mr. peggotty. his whole family, if i may so express it, were cleared for action. i found mrs. micawber in the closest and most uncompromising of bonnets, made fast under the chin; and in a shawl which tied her up (as i had been tied up, when my aunt first received me) like a bundle, and was secured behind at the waist, in a strong knot. miss micawber i found made snug for stormy weather, in the same manner; with nothing superfluous about her. master micawber was hardly visible in a guernsey shirt, and the shaggiest suit of slops i ever saw; and the children were done up, like preserved meats, in impervious cases. both mr. micawber and his eldest son wore their sleeves loosely turned back at the wrists, as being ready to lend a hand in any direction, and to "tumble up," or sing out, "yeo--heave--yeo!" on the shortest notice. thus traddles and i found them at nightfall, assembled on the wooden steps, at that time known as hungerford stairs, watching the departure of a boat with some of their property on board. i had told traddles of the terrible event, and it had greatly shocked him; but there could be no doubt of the kindness of keeping it a secret, and he had come to help me in this last service. it was here that i took mr. micawber aside, and received his promise. the micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty, tumble-down public-house, which in those days was close to the stairs, and whose protruding wooden rooms overhung the river. the family, as emigrants, being objects of some interest in and about hungerford, attracted so many beholders, that we were glad to take refuge in their room. it was one of the wooden chambers up-stairs, with the tide flowing underneath. my aunt and agnes were there, busily making some little extra comforts, in the way of dress, for the children. peggotty was quietly assisting, with the old insensible work-box, yard measure, and bit of wax-candle before her, that had now outlived so much. it was not easy to answer her inquiries; still less to whisper mr. peggotty, when mr. micawber brought him in, that i had given the letter, and all was well. but i did both, and made them happy. if i showed any trace of what i felt, my own sorrows were sufficient to account for it. "and when does the ship sail, mr. micawber?" asked my aunt. mr. micawber considered it necessary to prepare either my aunt or his wife, by degrees, and said, sooner than he had expected yesterday. "the boat brought you word, i suppose?" said my aunt. "it did, ma'am," he returned. "well?" said my aunt. "and she sails--" "madam," he replied, "i am informed that we must positively be on board before seven to-morrow morning." "heyday!" said my aunt, "that's soon. is it a sea-going fact, mr. peggotty?" "'tis so, ma'am. she'll drop down the river with that theer tide. if mas'r davy and my sister comes aboard at gravesen', arternoon o' next day, they'll see the last on us." "and that we shall do," said i, "be sure!" "until then, and until we are at sea," observed mr. micawber, with a glance of intelligence at me, "mr. peggotty and myself will constantly keep a double look-out together, on our goods and chattels. emma, my love," said mr. micawber, clearing his throat in his magnificent way, "my friend mr. thomas traddles is so obliging as to solicit, in my ear, that he should have the privilege of ordering the ingredients necessary to the composition of a moderate portion of that beverage which is peculiarly associated, in our minds, with the roast beef of old england. i allude to--in short, punch. under ordinary circumstances, i should scruple to entreat the indulgence of miss trotwood and miss wickfield, but----" "i can only say for myself," said my aunt, "that i will drink all happiness and success to you, mr. micawber, with the utmost pleasure." "and i too!" said agnes, with a smile. mr. micawber immediately descended to the bar, where he appeared to be quite at home; and in due time returned with a steaming jug. i could not but observe that he had been peeling the lemons with his own clasp-knife, which, as became the knife of a practical settler, was about a foot long; and which he wiped, not wholly without ostentation, on the sleeve of his coat. mrs. micawber and the two elder members of the family i now found to be provided with similar formidable instruments, while every child had its own wooden spoon attached to its body by a strong line. in a similar anticipation of life afloat, and in the bush, mr. micawber, instead of helping mrs. micawber and his eldest son and daughter to punch, in wine-glasses, which he might easily have done, for there was a shelf-full in the room, served it out to them in a series of villainous little tin pots; and i never saw him enjoy anything so much as drinking out of his own particular pint pot, and putting it in his pocket at the close of the evening. "the luxuries of the old country," said mr. micawber, with an intense satisfaction in their renouncement, "we abandon. the denizens of the forest cannot, of course, expect to participate in the refinements of the land of the free." here, a boy came in to say that mr. micawber was wanted down-stairs. "i have a presentiment," said mrs. micawber, setting down her tin pot, "that it is a member of my family!" "if so, my dear," observed mr. micawber, with his usual suddenness of warmth on that subject, "as the member of your family--whoever he, she, or it, may be--has kept _us_ waiting for a considerable period, perhaps the member may now wait _my_ convenience." "micawber," said his wife, in a low tone, "at such a time as this--" "'it is not meet,'" said mr. micawber, rising, "'that every nice offence should bear its comment!' emma, i stand reproved." "the loss, micawber," observed his wife, "has been my family's, not yours. if my family are at length sensible of the deprivation to which their own conduct has, in the past, exposed them, and now desire to extend the hand of fellowship, let it not be repulsed." "my dear," he returned, "so be it!" "if not for their sakes; for mine, micawber," said his wife. "emma," he returned, "that view of the question is, at such a moment, irresistible. i cannot, even now, distinctly pledge myself to fall upon your family's neck; but the member of your family, who is now in attendance, shall have no genial warmth frozen by me." mr. micawber withdrew, and was absent some little time; in the course of which mrs. micawber was not wholly free from an apprehension that words might have arisen between him and the member. at length the same boy re-appeared, and presented me with a note written in pencil, and headed, in a legal manner, "heep v. micawber." from this document, i learned that mr. micawber, being again arrested, was in a final paroxysm of despair; and that he begged me to send him his knife and pint pot, by bearer, as they might prove serviceable during the brief remainder of his existence, in jail. he also requested, as a last act of friendship, that i would see his family to the parish workhouse, and forget that such a being ever lived. of course i answered this note by going down with the boy to pay the money, where i found mr. micawber sitting in a corner, looking darkly at the sheriff's officer who had effected the capture. on his release, he embraced me with the utmost fervor; and made an entry of the transaction in his pocket-book--being very particular, i recollect, about a halfpenny i inadvertently omitted from my statement of the total. this momentous pocket-book was a timely reminder to him of another transaction. on our return to the room upstairs (where he accounted for his absence by saying that it had been occasioned by circumstances over which he had no control), he took out of it a large sheet of paper, folded small, and quite covered with long sums, carefully worked. from the glimpse i had of them, i should say that i never saw such sums out of a school cyphering-book. these, it seemed, were calculations of compound interest on what he called "the principal amount of forty-one, ten, eleven and a half," for various periods. after a careful consideration of these, and an elaborate estimate of his resources, he had come to the conclusion to select that sum which represented the amount with compound interest to two years, fifteen calendar months, and fourteen days, from that date. for this he had drawn a note of-hand with great neatness, which he handed over to traddles on the spot, a discharge of his debt in full (as between man and man), with many acknowledgments. "i have still a presentiment," said mrs. micawber, pensively shaking her head, "that my family will appear on board, before we finally depart." mr. micawber evidently had his presentiment on the subject too, but he put it in his tin pot and swallowed it. "if you have any opportunity of sending letters home, on your passage, mrs. micawber," said my aunt, "you must let us hear from you, you know." "my dear miss trotwood," she replied, "i shall only be too happy to think that anyone expects to hear from us. i shall not fail to correspond. mr. copperfield, i trust, as an old and familiar friend, will not object to receive occasional intelligence, himself, from one who knew him when the twins were yet unconscious?" i said that i should hope to hear, whenever she had an opportunity of writing. "please heaven, there will be many such opportunities," said mr. micawber. "the ocean, in these times, is a perfect fleet of ships; and we can hardly fail to encounter many, in running over. it is merely crossing," said mr. micawber, trifling with his eye-glass, "merely crossing. the distance is quite imaginary." i think, now, how odd it was, but how wonderfully like mr. micawber, that, when he went from london to canterbury, he should have talked as if he were going to the farthest limits of the earth; and, when he went from england to australia, as if he were going for a little trip across the channel. "on the voyage, i shall endeavour," said mr. micawber, "occasionally to spin them a yarn; and the melody of my son wilkins will, i trust, be acceptable at the galley-fire. when mrs. micawber has her sea-legs on--an expression in which i hope there is no conventional impropriety--she will give them, i dare say, little tafflin. porpoises and dolphins, i believe, will be frequently observed athwart our bows; and, either on the starboard or the larboard quarter, objects of interest will be continually descried. in short," said mr. micawber, with the old genteel air, "the probability is, all will be found so exciting, alow and aloft, that when the look-out, stationed in the main-top, cries land-ho! we shall be very considerably astonished!" with that he flourished off the contents of his little tin pot, as if he had made the voyage, and had passed a first-class examination before the highest naval authorities. "what _i_ chiefly hope, my dear mr. copperfield," said mrs. micawber, "is, that in some branches of our family we may live again in the old country. do not frown, micawber! i do not now refer to my own family, but to our children's children. however vigorous the sapling," said mrs. micawber, shaking her head, "i cannot forget the parent-tree; and when our race attains to eminence and fortune, i own i should wish that fortune to flow into the coffers of britannia." "my dear," said mr. micawber, "britannia must take her chance. i am bound to say that she has never done much for me, and that i have no particular wish upon the subject." "micawber," returned mrs. micawber, "there, you are wrong. you are going out, micawber, to this distant clime, to strengthen, not to weaken, the connexion between yourself and albion." "the connexion in question, my love," rejoined mr. micawber, "has not laid me, i repeat, under that load of personal obligation, that i am at all sensitive as to the formation of another connexion." "micawber," returned mrs. micawber. "there, i again say, you are wrong. you do not know your power, micawber. it is that which will strengthen, even in this step you are about to take, the connexion between yourself and albion." mr. micawber sat in his elbow-chair, with his eyebrows raised; half receiving and half repudiating mrs. micawber's views as they were stated, but very sensible of their foresight. "my dear mr. copperfield," said mrs. micawber, "i wish mr. micawber to feel his position. it appears to me highly important that mr. micawber should, from the hour of his embarkation, feel his position. your old knowledge of me, my dear mr. copperfield, will have told you that i have not the sanguine disposition of mr. micawber. my disposition is, if i may say so, eminently practical. i know that this is a long voyage. i know that it will involve many privations and inconveniences. i cannot shut my eyes to those facts. but, i also know what mr. micawber is. i know the latent power of mr. micawber. and therefore i consider it vitally important that mr. micawber should feel his position." "my love," he observed, "perhaps you will allow me to remark that it is barely possible that i _do_ feel my position at the present moment." "i think not, micawber," she rejoined. "not fully. my dear mr. copperfield, mr. micawber's is not a common case. mr. micawber is going to a distant country, expressly in order that he may be fully understood and appreciated for the first time. i wish mr. micawber to take his stand upon that vessel's prow, and firmly say 'this country i am come to conquer! have you honours? have you riches? have you posts of profitable pecuniary emolument? let them be brought forward. they are mine!'" mr. micawber, glancing at us all, seemed to think there was a good deal in this idea. "i wish mr. micawber, if i make myself understood," said mrs. micawber, in her argumentative tone, "to be the cæsar of his own fortunes. that, my dear mr. copperfield, appears to me to be his true position. from the first moment of this voyage, i wish mr. micawber to stand upon that vessel's prow and say, 'enough of delay: enough of disappointment: enough of limited means. that was in the old country. this is the new. produce your reparation. bring it forward!'" mr. micawber folded his arms, in a resolute manner, as if he were then stationed on the figure-head. "and doing that," said mrs. micawber, "--feeling his position--am i not right in saying that mr. micawber will strengthen, and not weaken, his connexion with britain? an important public character arising in that hemisphere, shall i be told that its influence will not be felt at home? can i be so weak as to imagine that mr. micawber, wielding the rod of talent and of power in australia, will be nothing in england? i am but a woman; but i should be unworthy of myself, and of my papa, if i were guilty of such absurd weakness." mrs. micawber's conviction that her arguments were unanswerable, gave a moral elevation to her tone which i think i had never heard in it before. "and therefore it is," said mrs. micawber, "that i the more wish, that, at a future period, we may live again on the parent soil. mr. micawber may be--i cannot disguise from myself that the probability is, mr. micawber will be--a page of history; and he ought then to be represented in the country which gave him birth, and did _not_ give him employment!" "my love," observed mr. micawber, "it is impossible for me not to be touched by your affection. i am always willing to defer to your good sense. what will be--will be. heaven forbid that i should grudge my native country any portion of the wealth that may be accumulated by our descendants!" "that's well," said my aunt, nodding towards mr. peggotty, "and i drink my love to you all, and every blessing and success attend you!" mr. peggotty put down the two children he had been nursing, one on each knee, to join mr. and mrs. micawber in drinking to all of us in return; and when he and the micawbers cordially shook hands as comrades, and his brown face brightened with a smile, i felt that he would make his way, establish a good name, and be beloved, go where he would. even the children were instructed, each to dip a wooden spoon into mr. micawber's pot, and pledge us in its contents. when this was done, my aunt and agnes rose, and parted from the emigrants. it was a sorrowful farewell. they were all crying; the children hung about agnes to the last; and we left poor mrs. micawber in a very distressed condition, sobbing and weeping by a dim candle, that must have made the room look, from the river, like a miserable light-house. i went down again next morning to see that they were away. they had departed, in a boat, as early as five o'clock. it was a wonderful instance to me of the gap such partings make, that although my association of them with the tumble-down public-house and the wooden stairs dated only from last night, both seemed dreary and deserted, now that they were gone. in the afternoon of the next day, my old nurse and i went down to gravesend. we found the ship in the river, surrounded by a crowd of boats; a favourable wind blowing; the signal for sailing at her mast head. i hired a boat directly, and we put off to her; and getting through the little vortex of confusion of which she was the centre, went on board. mr. peggotty was waiting for us on deck. he told me that mr. micawber had just now been arrested again (and for the last time) at the suit of heep, and that, in compliance with a request i had made to him, he had paid the money: which i repaid him. he then took us down between decks; and there, any lingering fears i had of his having heard any rumours of what had happened, were dispelled by mr. micawber's coming out of the gloom, taking his arm with an air of friendship and protection, and telling me that they had scarcely been asunder for a moment, since the night before last. it was such a strange scene to me, and so confined and dark, that, at first, i could make out hardly anything; but, by degrees, it cleared, as my eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, and i seemed to stand in a picture by ostade. among the great beams, bulks, and ringbolts of the ship, and the emigrant-berths, and chests, and bundles, and barrels, and heaps of miscellaneous baggage--lighted up, here and there, by dangling lanterns; and elsewhere by the yellow day-light straying down a windsail or a hatchway--were crowded groups of people, making new friendships, taking leave of one another, talking, laughing, crying, eating and drinking; some, already settled down into the possession of their few feet of space, with their little households arranged, and tiny children established on stools, or in dwarf elbow-chairs; others, despairing of a resting-place, and wandering disconsolately. from babies who had but a week or two of life behind them, to crooked old men and women who seemed to have but a week or two of life before them; and from ploughmen bodily carrying out soil of england on their boots, to smiths taking away samples of its soot and smoke upon their skins; every age and occupation appeared to be crammed into the narrow compass of the 'tween decks. [illustration: the emigrants.] as my eye glanced round this place, i thought i saw sitting, by an open port, with one of the micawber children near her, a figure like emily's; it first attracted my attention, by another figure parting from it with a kiss; and as it glided calmly away through the disorder, reminding me of--agnes! but in the rapid motion and confusion, and in the unsettlement of my own thoughts, i lost it again; and only knew that the time was come when all visitors were being warned to leave the ship; that my nurse was crying on a chest beside me; and that mrs. gummidge, assisted by some younger stooping woman in black, was busily arranging mr. peggotty's goods. "is there any last wured, mas'r davy?" said he. "is there any one forgotten thing afore we parts?" "one thing!" said i. "martha!" he touched the younger woman i have mentioned on the shoulder, and martha stood before me. "heaven bless you, you good man!" cried i. "you take her with you!" she answered for him, with a burst of tears. i could speak no more, at that time, but i wrung his hand; and if ever i have loved and honored any man, i loved and honored that man in my soul. the ship was clearing fast of strangers. the greatest trial that i had, remained. i told him what the noble spirit that was gone, had given me in charge to say at parting. it moved him deeply. but when he charged me, in return, with many messages of affection and regret for those deaf ears, he moved me more. the time was come. i embraced him, took my weeping nurse upon my arm, and hurried away. on deck, i took leave of poor mrs. micawber. she was looking distractedly about for her family, even then; and her last words to me were, that she never would desert mr. micawber. we went over the side into our boat, and lay at a little distance to see the ship wafted on her course. it was then calm, radiant sunset. she lay between us, and the red light; and every taper line and spar was visible against the glow. a sight at once so beautiful, so mournful, and so hopeful, as the glorious ship, lying, still, on the flushed water, with all the life on board her crowded at the bulwarks, and there clustering, for a moment, bare-headed and silent, i never saw. silent, only for a moment. as the sails rose to the wind, and the ship began to move, there broke from all the boats three resounding cheers, which those on board took up, and echoed back, and which were echoed and re-echoed. my heart burst out when i heard the sound, and beheld the waving of the hats and handkerchiefs--and then i saw her! then, i saw her, at her uncle's side, and trembling on his shoulder. he pointed to us with an eager hand; and she saw us, and waved her last good-bye to me. aye, emily, beautiful and drooping, cling to him with the utmost trust of thy bruised heart; for he has clung to thee, with all the might of his great love! surrounded by the rosy light, and standing high upon the deck, apart together, she clinging to him, and he holding her, they solemnly passed away. the night had fallen on the kentish hills when we were rowed ashore--and fallen darkly upon me. chapter lviii. absence. it was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me, haunted by the ghosts of many hopes, of many dear remembrances, many errors, many unavailing sorrows and regrets. i went away from england; not knowing, even then, how great the shock was, that i had to bear. i left all who were dear to me, and went away; and believed that i had borne it, and it was past. as a man upon a field of battle will receive a mortal hurt, and scarcely know that he is struck, so i, when i was left alone with my undisciplined heart, had no conception of the wound with which it had to strive. the knowledge came upon me, not quickly, but little by little, and grain by grain. the desolate feeling with which i went abroad, deepened and widened hourly. at first it was a heavy sense of loss and sorrow, wherein i could distinguish little else. by imperceptible degrees, it became a hopeless consciousness of all that i had lost--love, friendship, interest; of all that had been shattered--my first trust, my first affection, the whole airy castle of my life; of all that remained--a ruined blank and waste, lying wide around me, unbroken, to the dark horizon. if my grief were selfish, i did not know it to be so. i mourned for my child-wife, taken from her blooming world, so young. i mourned for him who might have won the love and admiration of thousands, as he had won mine long ago. i mourned for the broken heart that had found rest in the stormy sea; and for the wandering remnants of the simple home, where i had heard the night-wind blowing, when i was a child. from the accumulated sadness into which i fell, i had at length no hope of ever issuing again. i roamed from place to place, carrying my burden with me everywhere. i felt its whole weight now; and i drooped beneath it, and i said in my heart that it could never be lightened. when this despondency was at its worst, i believed that i should die. sometimes, i thought that i would like to die at home; and actually turned back on my road, that i might get there soon. at other times, i passed on farther away, from city to city, seeking i know not what, and trying to leave i know not what behind. it is not in my power to retrace, one by one, all the weary phases of distress of mind through which i passed. there are some dreams that can only be imperfectly and vaguely described; and when i oblige myself to look back on this time of my life, i seem to be recalling such a dream. i see myself passing on among the novelties of foreign towns, palaces, cathedrals, temples, pictures, castles, tombs, fantastic streets--the old abiding places of history and fancy--as a dreamer might; bearing my painful load through all, and hardly conscious of the objects as they fade before me. listlessness to everything, but brooding sorrow, was the night that fell on my undisciplined heart. let me look up from it--as at last i did, thank heaven!--and from its long, sad, wretched dream, to dawn. for many months i travelled with this ever-darkening cloud upon my mind. some blind reasons that i had for not returning home--reasons then struggling within me, vainly, for more distinct expression--kept me on my pilgrimage. sometimes, i had proceeded restlessly from place to place, stopping nowhere; sometimes, i had lingered long in one spot. i had had no purpose, no sustaining soul within me, anywhere. i was in switzerland. i had come out of italy, over one of the great passes of the alps, and had since wandered with a guide among the bye-ways of the mountains. if those awful solitudes had spoken to my heart, i did not know it. i had found sublimity and wonder in the dread heights and precipices, in the roaring torrents, and the wastes of ice and snow; but as yet, they had taught me nothing else. i came, one evening before sunset, down into a valley, where i was to rest. in the course of my descent to it, by the winding track along the mountain-side, from which i saw it shining far below, i think some long-unwonted sense of beauty and tranquillity, some softening influence awakened by its peace, moved faintly in my breast. i remember pausing once, with a kind of sorrow that was not all oppressive, not quite despairing. i remember almost hoping that some better change was possible within me. i came into the valley, as the evening sun was shining on the remote heights of snow, that closed it in, like eternal clouds. the bases of the mountains forming the gorge in which the little village lay, were richly green; and high above this gentler vegetation, grew forests of dark fir, cleaving the wintry snow-drift, wedge-like, and stemming the avalanche. above these, were range upon range of craggy steeps, grey rock, bright ice, and smooth verdure-specks of pasture, all gradually blending with the crowning snow. dotted here and there on the mountain's-side, each tiny dot a home, were lonely wooden cottages, so dwarfed by the towering heights that they appeared too small for toys. so did even the clustered village in the valley, with its wooden bridge across the stream, where the stream tumbled over broken rocks, and roared away among the trees. in the quiet air, there was a sound of distant singing--shepherd voices; but, as one bright evening cloud floated midway along the mountain's-side, i could almost have believed it came from there, and was not earthly music. all at once, in this serenity, great nature spoke to me; and soothed me to lay down my weary head upon the grass, and weep as i had not wept yet, since dora died! i had found a packet of letters awaiting me but a few minutes before, and had strolled out of the village to read them while my supper was making ready. other packets had missed me, and i had received none for a long time. beyond a line or two, to say that i was well, and had arrived at such a place, i had not had fortitude or constancy to write a letter since i left home. the packet was in my hand. i opened it, and read the writing of agnes. she was happy and useful, was prospering as she had hoped. that was all she told me of herself. the rest referred to me. she gave me no advice; she urged no duty on me; she only told me, in her own fervent manner, what her trust in me was. she knew (she said) how such a nature as mine would turn affliction to good. she knew how trial and emotion would exalt and strengthen it. she was sure that in my every purpose i should gain a firmer and a higher tendency, through the grief i had undergone. she, who so gloried in my fame, and so looked forward to its augmentation, well knew that i would labor on. she knew that in me, sorrow could not be weakness, but must be strength. as the endurance of my childish days had done its part to make me what i was, so greater calamities would nerve me on, to be yet better than i was; and so, as they had taught me, would i teach others. she commended me to god, who had taken my innocent darling to his rest; and in her sisterly affection cherished me always, and was always at my side go where i would; proud of what i had done, but infinitely prouder yet of what i was reserved to do. i put the letter in my breast, and thought what had i been an hour ago! when i heard the voices die away, and saw the quiet evening cloud grow dim, and all the colors in the valley fade, and the golden snow upon the mountain tops become a remote part of the pale night sky, yet felt that the night was passing from my mind, and all its shadows clearing, there was no name for the love i bore her, dearer to me, henceforward, than ever until then. i read her letter, many times. i wrote to her before i slept. i told her that i had been in sore need of her help; that without her i was not, and i never had been, what she thought me; but, that she inspired me to be that, and i would try. i did try. in three months more, a year would have passed since the beginning of my sorrow. i determined to make no resolutions until the expiration of those three months, but to try. i lived in that valley, and its neighbourhood, all the time. the three months gone, i resolved to remain away from home for some time longer; to settle myself for the present in switzerland, which was growing dear to me in the remembrance of that evening; to resume my pen; to work. i resorted humbly whither agnes had commended me; i sought out nature, never sought in vain; and i admitted to my breast the human interest i had lately shrunk from. it was not long, before i had almost as many friends in the valley as in yarmouth; and when i left it, before the winter set in, for geneva, and came back in the spring, their cordial greetings had a homely sound to me, although they were not conveyed in english words. i worked early and late, patiently and hard. i wrote a story, with a purpose growing, not remotely, out of my experience, and sent it to traddles, and he arranged for its publication very advantageously for me; and the tidings of my growing reputation began to reach me from travellers whom i encountered by chance. after some rest and change, i fell to work, in my old ardent way, on a new fancy, which took strong possession of me. as i advanced in the execution of this task, i felt it more and more, and roused my utmost energies to do it well. this was my third work of fiction. it was not half written, when, in an interval of rest, i thought of returning home. for a long time, though studying and working patiently, i had accustomed myself to robust exercise. my health, severely impaired when i left england, was quite restored. i had seen much. i had been in many countries, and i hope i had improved my store of knowledge. i have now recalled all that i think it needful to recal here, of this term of absence--with one reservation. i have made it, thus far, with no purpose of suppressing any of my thoughts; for, as i have elsewhere said, this narrative is my written memory. i have desired to keep the most secret current of my mind apart, and to the last. i enter on it now. i cannot so completely penetrate the mystery of my own heart, as to know when i began to think that i might have set its earliest and brightest hopes on agnes. i cannot say at what stage of my grief it first became associated with the reflection, that, in my wayward boyhood, i had thrown away the treasure of her love. i believe i may have heard some whisper of that distant thought, in the old unhappy loss or want of something never to be realised, of which i had been sensible. but the thought came into my mind as a new reproach and new regret, when i was left so sad and lonely in the world. if, at that time, i had been much with her, i should, in the weakness of my desolation, have betrayed this. it was what i remotely dreaded when i was first impelled to stay away from england. i could not have borne to lose the smallest portion of her sisterly affection; yet, in that betrayal, i should have set a constraint between us hitherto unknown. i could not forget that the feeling with which she now regarded me had grown up in my own free choice and course. that if she had ever loved me with another love--and i sometimes thought the time was when she might have done so--i had cast it away. it was nothing, now, that i had accustomed myself to think of her, when we were both mere children, as one who was far removed from my wild fancies. i had bestowed my passionate tenderness upon another object; and what i might have done, i had not done; and what agnes was to me, i and her own noble heart had made her. in the beginning of the change that gradually worked in me, when i tried to get a better understanding of myself and be a better man, i did glance, through some indefinite probation, to a period when i might possibly hope to cancel the mistaken past, and to be so blessed as to marry her. but, as time wore on, this shadowy prospect faded, and departed from me. if she had ever loved me, then, i should hold her the more sacred; remembering the confidences i had reposed in her, her knowledge of my errant heart, the sacrifice she must have made to be my friend and sister, and the victory she had won. if she had never loved me, could i believe that she would love me now? i had always felt my weakness, in comparison with her constancy and fortitude; and now i felt it more and more. whatever i might have been to her, or she to me, if i had been more worthy of her long ago, i was not now, and she was not. the time was past. i had let it go by, and had deservedly lost her. that i suffered much in these contentions, that they filled me with unhappiness and remorse, and yet that i had a sustaining sense that it was required of me, in right and honor, to keep away from myself, with shame, the thought of turning to the dear girl in the withering of my hopes, from whom i had frivolously turned when they were bright and fresh--which consideration was at the root of every thought i had concerning her--is all equally true. i made no effort to conceal from myself, now, that i loved her, that i was devoted to her; but i brought the assurance home to myself, that it was now too late, and that our long-subsisting relation must be undisturbed. i had thought, much and often, of my dora's shadowing out to me what might have happened, in those years that were destined not to try us; i had considered how the things that never happen, are often as much realities to us, in their effects, as those that are accomplished. the very years she spoke of, were realities now, for my correction; and would have been, one day, a little later perhaps, though we had parted in our earliest folly. i endeavoured to convert what might have been between myself and agnes, into a means of making me more self-denying, more resolved, more conscious of myself, and my defects and errors. thus, through the reflection that it might have been, i arrived at the conviction that it could never be. these, with their perplexities and inconsistencies, were the shifting quicksands of my mind, from the time of my departure to the time of my return home, three years afterwards. three years had elapsed since the sailing of the emigrant ship; when, at that same hour of sunset, and in the same place, i stood on the deck of the packet vessel that brought me home, looking on the rosy water where i had seen the image of that ship reflected. three years. long in the aggregate, though short as they went by. and home was very dear to me, and agnes too--but she was not mine--she was never to be mine. she might have been, but that was past! chapter lix. return. i landed in london on a wintry autumn evening. it was dark and raining, and i saw more fog and mud in a minute than i had seen in a year. i walked from the custom house to the monument before i found a coach; and although the very house-fronts, looking on the swollen gutters, were like old friends to me, i could not but admit that they were very dingy friends. i have often remarked--i suppose everybody has--that one's going away from a familiar place, would seem to be the signal for change in it. as i looked out of the coach-window, and observed that an old house on fish-street hill, which had stood untouched by painter, carpenter, or bricklayer, for a century, had been pulled down in my absence; and that a neighbouring street, of time-honored insalubrity and inconvenience, was being drained and widened; i half expected to find st. paul's cathedral looking older. for some changes in the fortunes of my friends, i was prepared. my aunt had long been re-established at dover, and traddles had begun to get into some little practice at the bar, in the very first term after my departure. he had chambers in gray's inn, now; and had told me, in his last letters, that he was not without hopes of being soon united to the dearest girl in the world. they expected me home before christmas; but had no idea of my returning so soon. i had purposely misled them, that i might have the pleasure of taking them by surprise. and yet, i was perverse enough to feel a chill and disappointment in receiving no welcome, and rattling, alone and silent, through the misty streets. the well-known shops, however, with their cheerful lights, did something for me; and when i alighted at the door of the gray's inn coffee-house, i had recovered my spirits. it recalled, at first, that so-different time when i had put up at the golden cross, and reminded me of the changes that had come to pass since then; but that was natural. "do you know where mr. traddles lives in the inn?" i asked the waiter, as i warmed myself by the coffee-room fire. "holborn court, sir. number two." "mr. traddles has a rising reputation among the lawyers, i believe?" said i. "well, sir," returned the waiter, "probably he has, sir; but i am not aware of it myself." this waiter, who was middle-aged and spare, looked for help to a waiter of more authority--a stout, potential old man, with a double-chin, in black breeches and stockings, who came out of a place like a churchwarden's pew, at the end of the coffee-room, where he kept company with a cash-box, a directory, a law-list, and other books and papers. "mr. traddles," said the spare waiter. "number two in the court." the potential waiter waved him away, and turned, gravely, to me. "i was inquiring," said i, "whether mr. traddles at number two in the court, has not a rising reputation among the lawyers?" "never heard his name," said the waiter, in a rich husky voice. i felt quite apologetic for traddles. "he's a young man, sure?" said the portentous waiter, fixing his eyes severely on me. "how long has he been in the inn?" "not above three years," said i. the waiter, who i supposed had lived in his churchwarden's pew for forty years, could not pursue such an insignificant subject. he asked me what i would have for dinner? i felt i was in england again, and really was quite cast down on traddles's account. there seemed to be no hope for him. i meekly ordered a bit of fish and a steak, and stood before the fire musing on his obscurity. as i followed the chief waiter with my eyes, i could not help thinking that the garden in which he had gradually blown to be the flower he was, was an arduous place to rise in. it had such a prescriptive, stiff-necked, long-established, solemn, elderly air. i glanced about the room, which had had its sanded floor sanded, no doubt, in exactly the same manner when the chief waiter was a boy--if he ever was a boy, which appeared improbable; and at the shining tables, where i saw myself reflected, in unruffled depths of old mahogany; and at the lamps, without a flaw in their trimming or cleaning; and at the comfortable green curtains, with their pure brass rods, snugly enclosing the boxes; and at the two large coal fires, brightly burning; and at the rows of decanters, burly as if with the consciousness of pipes of expensive old port wine below; and both england, and the law, appeared to me to be very difficult indeed to be taken by storm. i went up to my bed-room to change my wet clothes; and the vast extent of that old wainscotted apartment (which was over the archway leading to the inn, i remember), and the sedate immensity of the four-post bedstead, and the indomitable gravity of the chests of drawers, all seemed to unite in sternly frowning on the fortunes of traddles, or on any such daring youth. i came down again to my dinner; and even the slow comfort of the meal, and the orderly silence of the place--which was bare of guests, the long vacation not yet being over--were eloquent on the audacity of traddles, and his small hopes of a livelihood for twenty years to come. i had seen nothing like this since i went away, and it quite dashed my hopes for my friend. the chief waiter had had enough of me. he came near me no more; but devoted himself to an old gentleman in long gaiters, to meet whom a pint of special port seemed to come out of the cellar of its own accord, for he gave no order. the second waiter informed me, in a whisper, that this old gentleman was a retired conveyancer living in the square, and worth a mint of money, which it was expected he would leave to his laundress's daughter; likewise that it was rumoured that he had a service of plate in a bureau, all tarnished with lying by, though more than one spoon and a fork had never yet been beheld in his chambers by mortal vision. by this time, i quite gave traddles up for lost; and settled in my own mind that there was no hope for him. being very anxious to see the dear old fellow, nevertheless, i despatched my dinner; in a manner not at all calculated to raise me in the opinion of the chief waiter, and hurried out by the back way. number two in the court was soon reached; and an inscription on the door-post informing me that mr. traddles occupied a set of chambers on the top story, i ascended the staircase. a crazy old staircase i found it to be, feebly lighted on each landing by a club-headed little oil wick, dying away in a little dungeon of dirty glass. in the course of my stumbling up stairs, i fancied i heard a pleasant sound of laughter; and not the laughter of an attorney or barrister, or attorney's clerk or barrister's clerk, but of two or three merry girls. happening, however, as i stopped to listen, to put my foot in a hole where the honorable society of gray's inn had left a plank deficient, i fell down with some noise, and when i recovered my footing all was silent. groping my way more carefully, for the rest of the journey, my heart beat high when i found the outer door, which had mr. traddles painted on it, open. i knocked. a considerable scuffling within ensued, but nothing else. i therefore knocked again. a small sharp-looking lad, half-footboy and half-clerk, who was very much out of breath, but who looked at me as if he defied me to prove it legally, presented himself. "is mr. traddles within?" said i. "yes, sir, but he's engaged." "i want to see him." after a moment's survey of me, the sharp-looking lad decided to let me in; and opening the door wider for that purpose, admitted me, first, into a little closet of a hall, and next into a little sitting-room; where i came into the presence of my old friend (also out of breath), seated at a table, and bending over papers. "good god!" cried traddles, looking up. "it's copperfield!" and rushed into my arms, where i held him tight. "all well, my dear traddles?" "all well, my dear, dear copperfield, and nothing but good news!" we cried with pleasure, both of us. "my dear fellow," said traddles, rumpling his hair in his excitement, which was a most unnecessary operation, "my dearest copperfield, my long-lost and most welcome friend, how glad i am to see you! how brown you are! how glad i am! upon my life and honor, i never was so rejoiced, my beloved copperfield, never!" i was equally at a loss to express my emotions. i was quite unable to speak, at first. "my dear fellow!" said traddles. "and grown so famous! my glorious copperfield! good gracious me, _when_ did you come, _where_ have you come from, _what_ have you been doing?" never pausing for an answer to anything he said, traddles, who had clapped me into an easy chair by the fire, all this time impetuously stirred the fire with one hand, and pulled at my neck-kerchief with the other, under some wild delusion that it was a great coat. without putting down the poker, he now hugged me again; and i hugged him; and, both laughing, and both wiping our eyes, we both sat down, and shook hands across the hearth. "to think," said traddles, "that you should have been so nearly coming home as you must have been, my dear old boy, and not at the ceremony!" "what ceremony, my dear traddles?" "good gracious me!" cried traddles, opening his eyes in his old way. "didn't you get my last letter?" "certainly not, if it referred to any ceremony." "why, my dear copperfield," said traddles, sticking his hair upright with both hands, and then putting his hands on my knees, "i am married!" "married!" i cried, joyfully! "lord bless me, yes!" said traddles--"by the reverend horace--to sophy--down in devonshire. why, my dear boy, she's behind the window curtain! look here!" to my amazement, the dearest girl in the world came at that same instant, laughing and blushing, from her place of concealment. and a more cheerful, amiable, honest, happy, bright-looking bride, i believe (as i could not help saying on the spot) the world never saw. i kissed her as an old acquaintance should, and wished them joy with all my might of heart. "dear me," said traddles, "what a delightful re-union this is! you are so extremely brown, my dear copperfield! god bless my soul, how happy i am!" "and so am i," said i. "and i am sure i am!" said the blushing and laughing sophy. "we are all as happy as possible!" said traddles. "even the girls are happy. dear me, i declare i forgot them!" "forgot?" said i. "the girls," said traddles. "sophy's sisters. they are staying with us. they have come to have a peep at london. the fact is, when--was it you that tumbled up stairs, copperfield?" "it was," said i, laughing. "well then, when you tumbled up stairs," said traddles, "i was romping with the girls. in point of fact, we were playing at puss in the corner. but as that wouldn't do in westminster hall, and as it wouldn't look quite professional if they were seen by a client, they decamped. and they are now--listening, i have no doubt," said traddles, glancing at the door of another room. "i am sorry," said i, laughing afresh, "to have occasioned such a dispersion." "upon my word," rejoined traddles, greatly delighted, "if you had seen them running away, and running back again, after you had knocked, to pick up the combs they had dropped out of their hair, and going on in the maddest manner, you wouldn't have said so. my love, will you fetch the girls?" sophy tripped away, and we heard her received in the adjoining room with a peal of laughter. "really musical, isn't it, my dear copperfield?" said traddles. "it's very agreeable to hear. it quite lights up these old rooms. to an unfortunate bachelor of a fellow who has lived alone all his life, you know, it's positively delicious. it's charming. poor things, they have had a great loss in sophy--who, i do assure you, copperfield, is, and ever was, the dearest girl!--and it gratifies me beyond expression to find them in such good spirits. the society of girls is a very delightful thing, copperfield. it's not professional, but it's very delightful." observing that he slightly faltered, and comprehending that in the goodness of his heart he was fearful of giving me some pain by what he had said, i expressed my concurrence with a heartiness that evidently relieved and pleased him greatly. "but then," said traddles, "our domestic arrangements are, to say the truth, quite unprofessional altogether, my dear copperfield. even sophy's being here, is unprofessional. and we have no other place of abode. we have put to sea in a cockboat, but we are quite prepared to rough it. and sophy's an extraordinary manager! you'll be surprised how those girls are stowed away. i am sure i hardly know how it's done." "are many of the young ladies with you?" i inquired. "the eldest, the beauty is here," said traddles, in a low confidential voice, "caroline. and sarah's here--the one i mentioned to you as having something the matter with her spine, you know. immensely better! and the two youngest that sophy educated are with us. and louisa's here." "indeed!" cried i. "yes," said traddles. "now the whole set--i mean the chambers--is only three rooms; but sophy arranges for the girls in the most wonderful way, and they sleep as comfortably as possible. three in that room," said traddles, pointing. "two in that." i could not help glancing round, in search of the accommodation remaining for mr. and mrs. traddles. traddles understood me. "well!" said traddles, "we are prepared to rough it, as i said just now; and we _did_ improvise a bed last week, upon the floor here. but there's a little room in the roof--a very nice room, when you're up there--which sophy papered herself, to surprise me; and that's our room at present. it's a capital little gipsey sort of place. there's quite a view from it." "and you are happily married at last, my dear traddles!" said i. "how rejoiced i am!" "thank you, my dear copperfield," said traddles, as we shook hands once more. "yes, i am as happy as it's possible to be. there's your old friend, you see," said traddles, nodding triumphantly at the flower-pot and stand; "and there's the table with the marble top! all the other furniture is plain and serviceable, you perceive. and as to plate, lord bless you, we haven't so much as a tea-spoon." "all to be earned?" said i, cheerfully. "exactly so," replied traddles, "all to be earned. of course we have something in the shape of tea-spoons, because we stir our tea. but they're britannia metal." "the silver will be the brighter when it comes," said i. "the very thing we say!" cried traddles. "you see, my dear copperfield," falling again into the low confidential tone, "after i had delivered my argument in doe _dem_ jipes _versus_ wigzell, which did me great service with the profession, i went down into devonshire, and had some serious conversation in private with the reverend horace. i dwelt upon the fact that sophy--who i do assure you, copperfield, is the dearest girl!----" "i am certain she is!" said i. "she is, indeed!" rejoined traddles. "but i am afraid i am wandering from the subject. did i mention the reverend horace?" "you said that you dwelt upon the fact----" "true! upon the fact that sophy and i had been engaged for a long period, and that sophy, with the permission of her parents, was more than content to take me--in short," said traddles, with his old frank smile, "on our present britannia-metal footing. very well. i then proposed to the reverend horace--who is a most excellent clergyman, copperfield, and ought to be a bishop; or at least ought to have enough to live upon, without pinching himself--that if i could turn the corner, say of two hundred and fifty pounds, in one year; and could see my way pretty clearly to that, or something better, next year; and could plainly furnish a little place like this, besides; then, and in that case, sophy and i should be united. i took the liberty of representing that we had been patient for a good many years; and that the circumstance of sophy's being extraordinarily useful at home, ought not to operate, with her affectionate parents, against her establishment in life--don't you see?" "certainly it ought not," said i. "i am glad you think so, copperfield," rejoined traddles, "because, without any imputation on the reverend horace, i do think parents, and brothers, and so forth, are sometimes rather selfish in such cases. well! i also pointed out, that my most earnest desire was, to be useful to the family; and that if i got on in the world, and anything should happen to him--i refer to the reverend horace--" "i understand," said i. "--or to mrs. crewler--it would be the utmost gratification of my wishes, to be a parent to the girls. he replied in a most admirable manner, exceedingly flattering to my feelings, and undertook to obtain the consent of mrs. crewler to this arrangement. they had a dreadful time of it with her. it mounted from her legs into her chest, and then into her head--" "what mounted?" i asked. "her grief," replied traddles, with a serious look. "her feelings generally. as i mentioned on a former occasion, she is a very superior woman, but has lost the use of her limbs. whatever occurs to harass her, usually settles in her legs; but on this occasion it mounted to the chest, and then to the head, and, in short, pervaded the whole system in a most alarming manner. however, they brought her through it by unremitting and affectionate attention; and we were married yesterday six weeks. you have no idea what a monster i felt, copperfield, when i saw the whole family crying and fainting away in every direction! mrs. crewler couldn't see me before we left--couldn't forgive me, then, for depriving her of her child--but she is a good creature, and has done so since. i had a delightful letter from her, only this morning." "and in short, my dear friend," said i, "you feel as blest as you deserve to feel!" "oh! that's your partiality!" laughed traddles. "but, indeed, i am in a most enviable state. i work hard, and read law insatiably. i get up at five every morning, and don't mind it at all. i hide the girls in the day-time, and make merry with them in the evening. and i assure you i am quite sorry that they are going home on tuesday, which is the day before the first day of michaelmas term. but here," said traddles, breaking off in his confidence, and speaking aloud, "_are_ the girls! mr. copperfield, miss crewler--miss sarah--miss louisa--margaret and lucy!" they were a perfect nest of roses; they looked so wholesome and fresh. they were all pretty, and miss caroline was very handsome; but there was a loving, cheerful, fireside quality in sophy's bright looks, which was better than that, and which assured me that my friend had chosen well. we all sat round the fire; while the sharp boy, who i now divined had lost his breath in putting the papers out, cleared them away again, and produced the tea-things. after that, he retired for the night, shutting the outer-door upon us with a bang. mrs. traddles, with perfect pleasure and composure beaming from her household eyes, having made the tea, then quietly made the toast as she sat in a corner by the fire. she had seen agnes, she told me while she was toasting. "tom" had taken her down into kent for a wedding trip, and there she had seen my aunt, too; and both my aunt and agnes were well, and they had all talked of nothing but me. "tom" had never had me out of his thoughts, she really believed, all the time i had been away. "tom" was the authority for everything. "tom" was evidently the idol of her life; never to be shaken on his pedestal by any commotion; always to be believed in, and done homage to with the whole faith of her heart, come what might. the deference which both she and traddles showed towards the beauty, pleased me very much. i don't know that i thought it very reasonable; but i thought it very delightful, and essentially a part of their character. if traddles ever for an instant missed the teaspoons that were still to be won, i have no doubt it was when he handed the beauty her tea. if his sweet-tempered wife could have got up any self-assertion against any one, i am satisfied it could only have been because she was the beauty's sister. a few slight indications of a rather petted and capricious manner, which i observed in the beauty, were manifestly considered, by traddles and his wife, as her birthright and natural endowment. if she had been born a queen bee, and they laboring bees, they could not have been more satisfied of that. but their self-forgetfulness charmed me. their pride in these girls, and their submission of themselves to all their whims, was the pleasantest little testimony to their own worth i could have desired to see. if traddles were addressed as "a darling," once in the course of that evening; and besought to bring something here, or carry something there, or take something up, or put something down, or find something, or fetch something; he was so addressed, by one or other of his sisters-in-law, at least twelve times in an hour. neither could they do anything without sophy. somebody's hair fell down, and nobody but sophy could put it up. somebody forgot how a particular tune went, and nobody but sophy could hum that tune right. somebody wanted to recal the name of a place in devonshire, and only sophy knew it. something was wanted to be written home, and sophy alone could be trusted to write before breakfast in the morning. somebody broke down in a piece of knitting, and no one but sophy was able to put the defaulter in the right direction. they were entire mistresses of the place, and sophy and traddles waited on them. how many children sophy could have taken care of in her time, i can't imagine; but she seemed to be famous for knowing every sort of song that ever was addressed to a child in the english tongue; and she sang dozens to order with the clearest little voice in the world, one after another (every sister issuing directions for a different tune, and the beauty generally striking in last), so that i was quite fascinated. the best of all was, that, in the midst of their exactions, all the sisters had a great tenderness and respect both for sophy and traddles. i am sure, when i took my leave, and traddles was coming out to walk with me to the coffee-house, i thought i had never seen an obstinate head of hair, or any other head of hair, rolling about in such a shower of kisses. altogether, it was a scene i could not help dwelling on with pleasure, for a long time after i got back and had wished traddles good night. if i had beheld a thousand roses blowing in a top set of chambers, in that withered gray's inn, they could not have brightened it half so much. the idea of those devonshire girls, among the dry law-stationers and the attornies' offices; and of the tea and toast, and children's songs, in that grim atmosphere of pounce and parchment, red-tape, dusty wafers, ink-jars, brief and draft paper, law reports, writs, declarations, and bills of costs; seemed almost as pleasantly fanciful as if i had dreamed that the sultan's famous family had been admitted on the roll of attorneys, and had brought the talking bird, the singing tree, and the golden water into gray's inn hall. somehow, i found that i had taken leave of traddles for the night, and come back to the coffee-house, with a great change in my despondency about him. i began to think he would get on, in spite of all the many orders of chief waiters in england. drawing a chair before one of the coffee-room fires to think about him at my leisure, i gradually fell from the consideration of his happiness to tracing prospects in the live-coals, and to thinking, as they broke and changed, of the principal vicissitudes and separations that had marked my life. i had not seen a coal fire, since i had left england three years ago: though many a wood fire had i watched, as it crumbled into hoary ashes, and mingled with the feathery heap upon the hearth, which not inaptly figured to me, in my despondency, my own dead hopes. i could think of the past now, gravely, but not bitterly; and could contemplate the future in a brave spirit. home, in its best sense, was for me no more. she in whom i might have inspired a dearer love, i had taught to be my sister. she would marry, and would have new claimants on her tenderness; and in doing it, would never know the love for her that had grown up in my heart. it was right that i should pay the forfeit of my headlong passion. what i reaped, i had sown. i was thinking, and had i truly disciplined my heart to this, and could i resolutely bear it, and calmly hold the place in her home which she had calmly held in mine,--when i found my eyes resting on a countenance that might have arisen out of the fire, in its association with my early remembrances. little mr. chillip the doctor, to whose good offices i was indebted in the very first chapter of this history, sat reading a newspaper in the shadow of an opposite corner. he was tolerably stricken in years by this time; but, being a mild, meek, calm little man, had worn so easily, that i thought he looked at that moment just as he might have looked when he sat in our parlor, waiting for me to be born. mr. chillip had left blunderstone six or seven years ago, and i had never seen him since. he sat placidly perusing the newspaper, with his little head on one side, and a glass of warm sherry negus at his elbow. he was so extremely conciliatory in his manner that he seemed to apologise to the very newspaper for taking the liberty of reading it. i walked up to where he was sitting, and said, "how do you do, mr. chillip?" he was greatly fluttered by this unexpected address from a stranger, and replied, in his slow way, "i thank you, sir, you are very good. thank you, sir. i hope _you_ are well." "you don't remember me?" said i. "well, sir," returned mr. chillip, smiling very meekly, and shaking his head as he surveyed me, "i have a kind of an impression that something in your countenance is familiar to me, sir; but i couldn't lay my hand upon your name, really." "and yet you knew it, long before i knew it myself," i returned. "did i indeed, sir?" said mr. chillip. "is it possible that i had the honor, sir, of officiating when----?" "yes," said i. "dear me!" cried mr. chillip. "but no doubt you are a good deal changed since then, sir?" "probably," said i. "well, sir," observed mr. chillip, "i hope you'll excuse me, if i am compelled to ask the favor of your name?" on my telling him my name, he was really moved. he quite shook hands with me--which was a violent proceeding for him, his usual course being to slide a tepid little fish-slice, an inch or two in advance of his hip, and evince the greatest discomposure when anybody grappled with it. even now, he put his hand in his coat pocket as soon as he could disengage it, and seemed relieved when he had got it safe back. "dear me, sir!" said mr. chillip, surveying me with his head on one side. "and it's mr. copperfield, is it? well, sir, i think i should have known you, if i had taken the liberty of looking more closely at you. there's a strong resemblance between you and your poor father, sir." "i never had the happiness of seeing my father," i observed. "very true, sir," said mr. chillip, in a soothing tone. "and very much to be deplored it was, on all accounts! we are not ignorant, sir," said mr. chillip, slowly shaking his little head again, "down in our part of the country, of your fame. there must be great excitement here, sir," said mr. chillip, tapping himself on the forehead with his forefinger. "you must find it a trying occupation, sir!" "what is your part of the country now?" i asked, seating myself near him. "i am established within a few miles of bury st. edmunds, sir," said mr. chillip. "mrs. chillip, coming into a little property in that neighbourhood, under her father's will, i bought a practice down there, in which you will be glad to hear i am doing well. my daughter is growing quite a tall lass now, sir," said mr. chillip, giving his little head another little shake. "her mother let down two tucks in her frocks only last week. such is time, you see, sir!" as the little man put his now empty glass to his lips, when he made this reflection, i proposed to him to have it refilled, and i would keep him company with another. "well, sir," he returned in his slow way, "it's more than i am accustomed to; but i can't deny myself the pleasure of your conversation. it seems but yesterday that i had the honor of attending you in the measles. you came through them charmingly, sir!" i acknowledged this compliment, and ordered the negus, which was soon produced. "quite an uncommon dissipation!" said mr. chillip, stirring it, "but i can't resist so extraordinary an occasion. you have no family, sir?" i shook my head. "i was aware that you sustained a bereavement, sir, some time ago," said mr. chillip. "i heard it from your father-in-law's sister. very decided character there, sir?" "why, yes," said i, "decided enough. where did you see her, mr. chillip?" "are you not aware, sir," returned mr. chillip, with his placidest smile, "that your father-in-law is again a neighbour of mine?" "no," said i. "he is indeed, sir!" said mr. chillip. "married a young lady of that part, with a very good little property, poor thing.--and this action of the brain now, sir? don't you find it fatigue you?" said mr. chillip, looking at me like an admiring robin. i waived that question, and returned to the murdstones. "i was aware of his being married again. do you attend the family?" i asked. "not regularly. i have been called in," he replied. "strong phrenological development of the organ of firmness, in mr. murdstone and his sister, sir." i replied with such an expressive look, that mr. chillip was emboldened by that, and the negus together, to give his head several short shakes, and thoughtfully exclaim, "ah, dear me! we remember old times, mr. copperfield!" "and the brother and sister are pursuing their old course, are they?" said i. "well, sir," replied mr. chillip, "a medical man, being so much in families, ought to have neither eyes nor ears for anything but his profession. still, i must say, they are very severe, sir: both as to this life and the next." "the next will be regulated without much reference to them, i dare say," i returned: "what are they doing as to this?" mr. chillip shook his head, stirred his negus, and sipped it. "she was a charming woman, sir!" he observed in a plaintive manner. "the present mrs. murdstone?" "a charming woman indeed, sir," said mr. chillip; "as amiable, i am sure, as it was possible to be! mrs. chillip's opinion is, that her spirit has been entirely broken since her marriage, and that she is all but melancholy mad. and the ladies," observed mr. chillip, timorously, "are great observers, sir." "i suppose she was to be subdued and broken to their detestable mould, heaven help her!" said i. "and she has been." "well, sir, there were violent quarrels at first, i assure you," said mr. chillip; "but she is quite a shadow now. would it be considered forward if i was to say to you, sir, in confidence, that since the sister came to help, the brother and sister between them have nearly reduced her to a state of imbecility." i told him i could easily believe it. "i have no hesitation in saying," said mr. chillip, fortifying himself with another sip of negus, "between you and me, sir, that her mother died of it--or that tyranny, gloom, and worry, have made mrs. murdstone nearly imbecile. she was a lively young woman, sir, before marriage, and their gloom and austerity destroyed her. they go about with her, now, more like her keepers than her husband and sister-in-law. that was mrs. chillip's remark to me, only last week. and i assure you, sir, the ladies are great observers. mrs. chillip herself is a _great_ observer!" "does he gloomily profess to be (i am ashamed to use the word in such association) religious still?" i inquired. "you anticipate, sir," said mr. chillip, his eyelids getting quite red with the unwonted stimulus in which he was indulging. "one of mrs. chillip's most impressive remarks. mrs. chillip," he proceeded, in the calmest and slowest manner, "quite electrified me, by pointing out that mr. murdstone sets up an image of himself, and calls it the divine nature. you might have knocked me down on the flat of my back, sir, with the feather of a pen, i assure you, when mrs. chillip said so. the ladies are great observers, sir?" "intuitively," said i, to his extreme delight. "i am very happy to receive such support in my opinion, sir," he rejoined. "it is not often that i venture to give a non-medical opinion, i assure you. mr. murdstone delivers public addresses sometimes, and it is said,--in short, sir, it is said by mrs. chillip,--that the darker tyrant he has lately been, the more ferocious is his doctrine." "i believe mrs. chillip to be perfectly right," said i. "mrs. chillip does go so far as to say," pursued the meekest of little men, much encouraged, "that what such people miscall their religion, is a vent for their bad-humors and arrogance. and do you know i must say, sir," he continued, mildly laying his head on one side, "that i _don't_ find authority for mr. and miss murdstone in the new testament?" "i never found it either," said i. "in the meantime, sir," said mr. chillip, "they are much disliked; and as they are very free in consigning everybody who dislikes them to perdition, we really have a good deal of perdition going on in our neighbourhood! however, as mrs. chillip says, sir, they undergo a continual punishment; for they are turned inward, to feed upon their own hearts, and their own hearts are very bad feeding. now, sir, about that brain of yours, if you'll excuse my returning to it. don't you expose it to a good deal of excitement, sir?" i found it not difficult, in the excitement of mr. chillip's own brain, under his potations of negus, to divert his attention from this topic to his own affairs, on which, for the next half hour, he was quite loquacious; giving me to understand, among other pieces of information, that he was then at the gray's inn coffee-house to lay his professional evidence before a commission of lunacy, touching the state of mind of a patient who had become deranged from excessive drinking. "and i assure you, sir," he said, "i am extremely nervous on such occasions. i could not support being what is called bullied, sir. it would quite unman me. do you know it was some time before i recovered the conduct of that alarming lady, on the night of your birth, mr. copperfield?" i told him that i was going down to my aunt, the dragon of that night, early in the morning; and that she was one of the most tender-hearted and excellent of women, as he would know full well if he knew her better. the mere notion of the possibility of his ever seeing her again, appeared to terrify him. he replied, with a small pale smile, "is she so, indeed, sir? really?" and almost immediately called for a candle, and went to bed, as if he were not quite safe anywhere else. he did not actually stagger under the negus; but i should think his placid little pulse must have made two or three more beats in a minute, than it had done since the great night of my aunt's disappointment, when she struck at him with her bonnet. thoroughly tired, i went to bed too, at midnight; passed the next day on the dover coach; burst safe and sound into my aunt's old parlor while she was at tea (she wore spectacles now); and was received by her, and mr. dick, and dear old peggotty, who acted as housekeeper, with open arms and tears of joy. my aunt was mightily amused, when we began to talk composedly, by my account of my meeting with mr. chillip, and of his holding her in such dread remembrance; and both she and peggotty had a great deal to say about my poor mother's second husband, and "that murdering woman of a sister,"--on whom i think no pain or penalty would have induced my aunt to bestow any christian or proper name, or any other designation. chapter lx. agnes. my aunt and i, when we were left alone, talked far into the night. how the emigrants never wrote home, otherwise than cheerfully and hopefully; how mr. micawber had actually remitted divers small sums of money, on account of those "pecuniary liabilities," in reference to which he had been so business-like as between man and man; how janet, returning into my aunt's service when she came back to dover, had finally carried out her renunciation of mankind by entering into wedlock with a thriving tavern-keeper; and how my aunt had finally set _her_ seal on the same great principle, by aiding and abetting the bride, and crowning the marriage-ceremony with her presence; were among our topics--already more or less familiar to me through the letters i had had. mr. dick, as usual, was not forgotten. my aunt informed me how he incessantly occupied himself in copying everything he could lay his hands on, and kept king charles the first at a respectful distance by that semblance of employment; how it was one of the main joys and rewards of her life that he was free and happy, instead of pining in monotonous restraint; and how (as a novel general conclusion) nobody but she could ever fully know what he was. "and when, trot," said my aunt, patting the back of my hand, as we sat in our old way before the fire, "when are you going over to canterbury?" "i shall get a horse, and ride over to-morrow morning, aunt, unless you will go with me?" "no!" said my aunt, in her short abrupt way. "i mean to stay where i am." then, i should ride, i said. i could not have come through canterbury to-day without stopping, if i had been coming to anyone but her. she was pleased, but answered, "tut, trot; _my_ old bones would have kept till to-morrow!" and softly patted my hand again, as i sat looking thoughtfully at the fire. thoughtfully, for i could not be here once more, and so near agnes, without the revival of those regrets with which i had so long been occupied. softened regrets they might be, teaching me what i had failed to learn when my younger life was all before me, but not the less regrets. "oh, trot," i seemed to hear my aunt say once more; and i understood her better now--"blind, blind, blind!" we both kept silence for some minutes. when i raised my eyes, i found that she was steadily observant of me. perhaps she had followed the current of my mind; for it seemed to me an easy one to track now, wilful as it had been once. "you will find her father a white-haired old man," said my aunt, "though a better man in all other respects--a reclaimed man. neither will you find him measuring all human interests, and joys, and sorrows, with his one poor little inch-rule now. trust me, child, such things must shrink very much, before they can be measured off in _that_ way." "indeed they must," said i. "you will find her," pursued my aunt, "as good, as beautiful, as earnest, as disinterested, as she has always been. if i knew higher praise, trot, i would bestow it on her." there was no higher praise for her; no higher reproach for me. o, how had i strayed so far away! "if she trains the young girls whom she has about her, to be like herself," said my aunt, earnest even to the filling of her eyes with tears, "heaven knows, her life will be well employed! useful and happy, as she said that day! how could she be otherwise than useful and happy!" "has agnes any--" i was thinking aloud, rather than speaking. "well? hey? any what?" said my aunt, sharply. "any lover," said i. "a score," cried my aunt, with a kind of indignant pride. "she might have married twenty times, my dear, since you have been gone!" "no doubt," said i. "no doubt. but has she any lover who is worthy of her? agnes could care for no other." my aunt sat musing for a little while, with her chin upon her hand. slowly raising her eyes to mine, she said: "i suspect she has an attachment, trot." "a prosperous one?" said i. "trot," returned my aunt gravely, "i can't say. i have no right to tell you even so much. she has never confided it to me, but i suspect it." she looked so attentively and anxiously at me (i even saw her tremble), that i felt now, more than ever, that she had followed my late thoughts. i summoned all the resolutions i had made, in all those many days and nights, and all those many conflicts of my heart. "if it should be so," i began, "and i hope it is--" "i don't know that it is," said my aunt curtly. "you must not be ruled by my suspicions. you must keep them secret. they are very slight, perhaps. i have no right to speak." "if it should be so," i repeated, "agnes will tell me at her own good time. a sister to whom i have confided so much, aunt, will not be reluctant to confide in me." my aunt withdrew her eyes from mine, as slowly as she had turned them upon me; and covered them thoughtfully with her hand. by and by she put her other hand on my shoulder; and so we both sat, looking into the past, without saying another word, until we parted for the night. i rode away, early in the morning, for the scene of my old school days. i cannot say that i was yet quite happy, in the hope that i was gaining a victory over myself; even in the prospect of so soon looking on her face again. the well-remembered ground was soon traversed, and i came into the quiet streets, where every stone was a boy's book to me. i went on foot to the old house, and went away with a heart too full to enter. i returned; and looking, as i passed, through the low window of the turret-room where first uriah heep, and afterwards mr. micawber, had been wont to sit, saw that it was a little parlor now, and that there was no office. otherwise the staid old house was, as to its cleanliness and order, still just as it had been when i first saw it. i requested the new maid who admitted me, to tell miss wickfield that a gentleman who waited on her from a friend abroad, was there; and i was shown up the grave old staircase (cautioned of the steps i knew so well), into the unchanged drawing-room. the books that agnes and i had read together, were on their shelves; and the desk where i had labored at my lessons, many a night, stood yet at the same old corner of the table. all the little changes that had crept in when the heeps were there, were changed again. everything was as it used to be, in the happy time. i stood in a window, and looked across the ancient street at the opposite houses, recalling how i had watched them on wet afternoons, when i first came there; and how i had used to speculate about the people who appeared at any of the windows, and had followed them with my eyes up and down stairs, while women went clicking along the pavement in pattens, and the dull rain fell in slanting lines, and poured out of the waterspout yonder, and flowed into the road. the feeling with which i used to watch the tramps, as they came into the town on those wet evenings, at dusk, and limped past, with their bundles drooping over their shoulders at the ends of sticks, came freshly back to me; fraught, as then, with the smell of damp earth, and wet leaves and briar, and the sensation of the very airs that blew upon me in my own toilsome journey. the opening of the little door in the panneled wall made me start and turn. her beautiful serene eyes met mine as she came towards me. she stopped and laid her hand upon her bosom, and i caught her in my arms. "agnes! my dear girl! i have come too suddenly upon you." "no, no! i am so rejoiced to see you, trotwood!" "dear agnes, the happiness it is to me, to see you once again!" i folded her to my heart, and, for a little while, we were both silent. presently we sat down, side by side; and her angel-face was turned upon me with the welcome i had dreamed of, waking and sleeping, for whole years. she was so true, she was so beautiful, she was so good,--i owed her so much gratitude, she was so dear to me, that i could find no utterance for what i felt. i tried to bless her, tried to thank her, tried to tell her (as i had often done in letters) what an influence she had upon me; but all my efforts were in vain. my love and joy were dumb. with her own sweet tranquillity, she calmed my agitation; led me back to the time of our parting; spoke to me of emily, whom she had visited, in secret, many times; spoke to me tenderly of dora's grave. with the unerring instinct of her noble heart, she touched the chords of my memory so softly and harmoniously, that not one jarred within me; i could listen to the sorrowful, distant music, and desire to shrink from nothing it awoke. how could i, when, blended with it all, was her dear self, the better angel of my life? "and you, agnes," i said, by and by. "tell me of yourself. you have hardly ever told me of your own life, in all this lapse of time!" "what should i tell?" she answered, with her radiant smile. "papa is well. you see us here, quiet in our own home; our anxieties set at rest, our home restored to us; and knowing that, dear trotwood, you know all." "all, agnes?" said i. she looked at me, with some fluttering wonder in her face. "is there nothing else, sister?" i said. her color, which had just now faded, returned, and faded again. she smiled; with a quiet sadness, i thought; and shook her head. i had sought to lead her to what my aunt had hinted at; for, sharply painful to me as it must be to receive that confidence, i was to discipline my heart, and do my duty to her. i saw, however, that she was uneasy, and i let it pass. "you have much to do, dear agnes?" "with my school?" said she, looking up again, in all her bright composure. "yes. it is laborious, is it not?" "the labor is so pleasant," she returned, "that it is scarcely grateful in me to call it by that name." "nothing good is difficult to you," said i. her color came and went once more; and once more, as she bent her head, i saw the same sad smile. "you will wait and see papa," said agnes, cheerfully, "and pass the day with us? perhaps you will sleep in your own room? we always call it yours." i could not do that, having promised to ride back to my aunt's, at night; but i would pass the day there, joyfully. "i must be a prisoner for a little while," said agnes, "but here are the old books, trotwood, and the old music." "even the old flowers are here," said i, looking round; "or the old kinds." "i have found a pleasure," returned agnes, smiling, "while you have been absent, in keeping every thing as it used to be when we were children. for we were very happy then, i think." "heaven knows we were!" said i. "and every little thing that has reminded me of my brother," said agnes, with her cordial eyes turned cheerfully upon me, "has been a welcome companion. even this," showing me the basket-trifle, full of keys, still hanging at her side, "seems to jingle a kind of old tune!" she smiled again, and went out at the door by which she had come. it was for me to guard this sisterly affection with religious care. it was all that i had left myself, and it was a treasure. if i once shook the foundations of the sacred confidence and usage, in virtue of which it was given to me, it was lost, and could never be recovered. i set this steadily before myself. the better i loved her, the more it behoved me never to forget it. i walked through the streets; and, once more seeing my old adversary the butcher--now a constable, with his staff hanging up in the shop--went down to look at the place where i had fought him; and there meditated on miss shepherd and the eldest miss larkins, and all the idle loves and likings, and dislikings, of that time. nothing seemed to have survived that time but agnes; and she, ever a star above me, was brighter and higher. when i returned, mr. wickfield had come home, from a garden he had, a couple of miles or so out of the town, where he now employed himself almost every day. i found him as my aunt had described him. we sat down to dinner, with some half-dozen little girls; and he seemed but the shadow of his handsome picture on the wall. the tranquillity and peace belonging, of old, to that quiet ground in my memory, pervaded it again. when dinner was done, mr. wickfield taking no wine, and i desiring none, we went up stairs; where agnes and her little charges sang and played, and worked. after tea the children left us; and we three sat together, talking of the by-gone days. "my part in them," said mr. wickfield, shaking his white head, "has much matter for regret--for deep regret, and deep contrition, trotwood, you well know. but i would not cancel it, if it were in my power." i could readily believe that, looking at the face beside him. "i should cancel with it," he pursued, "such patience and devotion, such fidelity, such a child's love, as i must not forget, no! even to forget myself." "i understand you, sir," i softly said. "i hold it--i have always held it--in veneration." "but no one knows, not even you," he returned, "how much she has done, how much she has undergone, how hard she has striven. dear agnes!" she had put her hand entreatingly on his arm, to stop him; and was very, very, pale. "well, well!" he said with a sigh, dismissing, as i then saw, some trial she had borne, or was yet to bear, in connexion with what my aunt had told me. "well! i have never told you, trotwood, of her mother. has any one?" "never, sir." "it's not much--though it was much to suffer. she married me in opposition to her father's wish, and he renounced her. she prayed him to forgive her, before my agnes came into this world. he was a very hard man, and her mother had long been dead. he repulsed her. he broke her heart." agnes leaned upon his shoulder, and stole her arm about his neck. "she had an affectionate and gentle heart," he said; "and it was broken. i knew its tender nature very well. no one could, if i did not. she loved me dearly, but was never happy. she was always laboring, in secret, under this distress; and being delicate and downcast at the time of his last repulse--for it was not the first, by many--pined away and died. she left me agnes, two weeks old; and the grey hair that you recollect me with, when you first came." he kissed agnes on her cheek. "my love for my dear child was a diseased love, but my mind was all unhealthy then. i say no more of that. i am not speaking of myself, trotwood, but of her mother, and of her. if i give you any clue to what i am, or to what i have been, you will unravel it, i know. what agnes is, i need not say. i have always read something of her poor mother's story, in her character; and so i tell it you to-night, when we three are again together, after such great changes. i have told it all." his bowed head, and her angel face and filial duty, derived a more pathetic meaning from it than they had had before. if i had wanted anything by which to mark this night of our reunion, i should have found it in this. agnes rose up from her father's side, before long; and going softly to her piano, played some of the old airs to which we had often listened in that place. "have you any intention of going away again?" agnes asked me, as i was standing by. "what does my sister say to that?" "i hope not." "then i have no such intention, agnes." "i think you ought not, trotwood, since you ask me," she said, mildly. "your growing reputation and success enlarge your power of doing good; and if _i_ could spare my brother," with her eyes upon me, "perhaps the time could not." "what i am, you have made me, agnes. you should know best." "_i_ made you, trotwood?" "yes! agnes, my dear girl!" i said, bending over her. "i tried to tell you, when we met to-day, something that has been in my thoughts since dora died. you remember, when you came down to me in our little room--pointing upward, agnes?" "oh, trotwood!" she returned, her eyes filled with tears. "so loving, so confiding, and so young! can i ever forget?" "as you were then, my sister, i have often thought since, you have ever been to me. ever pointing upward, agnes; ever leading me to something better; ever directing me to higher things!" she only shook her head; through her tears i saw the same sad quiet smile. "and i am so grateful to you for it, agnes, so bound to you, that there is no name for the affection of my heart. i want you to know, yet don't know how to tell you, that all my life long i shall look up to you, and be guided by you, as i have been through the darkness that is past. whatever betides, whatever new ties you may form, whatever changes may come between us, i shall always look to you, and love you, as i do now, and have always done. you will always be my solace and resource, as you have always been. until i die, my dearest sister, i shall see you always before me, pointing upward!" she put her hand in mine, and told me she was proud of me, and of what i said; although i praised her very far beyond her worth. then, she went on softly playing, but without removing her eyes from me. "do you know, what i have heard to-night, agnes," said i, "strangely seems to be a part of the feeling with which i regarded you when i saw you first--with which i sat beside you in my rough school-days?" "you knew i had no mother," she replied with a smile, "and felt kindly towards me." "more than that, agnes. i knew, almost as if i had known this story, that there was something inexplicably gentle and softened, surrounding you; something that might have been sorrowful in some one else (as i can now understand it was), but was not so in you." she softly played on, looking at me still. "will you laugh at my cherishing such fancies, agnes?" "no!" "or at my saying that i really believe i felt, even then, that you could be faithfully affectionate against all discouragement, and never cease to be so, until you ceased to live?--will you laugh at such a dream?" "oh, no! oh, no!" for an instant, a distressful shadow crossed her face; but, even in the start it gave me, it was gone; and she was playing on, and looking at me with her own calm smile. as i rode back in the lonely night, the wind going by me like a restless memory, i thought of this, and feared she was not happy. _i_ was not happy; but, thus far, i had faithfully set the seal upon the past, and, thinking of her, pointing upward, thought of her as pointing to that sky above me, where, in the mystery to come, i might yet love her with a love unknown on earth, and tell her what the strife had been within me when i loved her here. chapter lxi. i am shown two interesting penitents. for a time--at all events until my book should be completed, which would be the work of several months--i took up my abode in my aunt's house at dover; and there, sitting in the window from which i had looked out at the moon upon the sea, when that roof first gave me shelter, i quietly pursued my task. in pursuance of my intention of referring to my own fictions only when their course should incidentally connect itself with the progress of my story, i do not enter on the aspirations, the delights, anxieties, and triumphs, of my art. that i truly devoted myself to it with my strongest earnestness, and bestowed upon it every energy of my soul, i have already said. if the books i have written be of any worth, they will supply the rest. i shall otherwise have written to poor purpose, and the rest will be of interest to no one. occasionally, i went to london; to lose myself in the swarm of life there, or to consult with traddles on some business point. he had managed for me, in my absence, with the soundest judgment; and my worldly affairs were prospering. as my notoriety began to bring upon me an enormous quantity of letters from people of whom i had no knowledge--chiefly about nothing, and extremely difficult to answer--i agreed with traddles to have my name painted up on his door. there, the devoted postmen on that beat delivered bushels of letters for me; and there, at intervals, i labored through them, like a home secretary of state without the salary. among this correspondence, there dropped in, every now and then, an obliging proposal from one of the numerous outsiders always lurking about the commons, to practise under cover of my name (if i would take the necessary steps remaining to make a proctor of myself), and pay me a percentage on the profits. but i declined these offers; being already aware that there were plenty of such covert practitioners in existence, and considering the commons quite bad enough, without my doing anything to make it worse. the girls had gone home, when my name burst into bloom on traddles's door; and the sharp boy looked, all day, as if he had never heard of sophy, shut up in a back room, glancing down from her work into a sooty little strip of garden with a pump in it. but, there i always found her, the same bright housewife; often humming her devonshire ballads when no strange foot was coming up the stairs, and blunting the sharp boy in his official closet with melody. i wondered, at first, why i so often found sophy writing in a copy-book; and why she always shut it up when i appeared, and hurried it into the table-drawer. but the secret soon came out. one day, traddles (who had just come home through the drizzling sleet from court) took a paper out of his desk, and asked me what i thought of that handwriting? "oh, _don't_, tom!" cried sophy, who was warming his slippers before the fire. "my dear," returned tom, in a delighted state, "why not? what do you say to that writing, copperfield?" "it's extraordinarily legal and formal," said i. "i don't think i ever saw such a stiff hand." "not like a lady's hand, is it?" said traddles. "a lady's!" i repeated. "bricks and mortar are more like a lady's hand!" traddles broke into a rapturous laugh, and informed me that it was sophy's writing; that sophy had vowed and declared he would need a copying-clerk soon, and she would be that clerk; that she had acquired this hand from a pattern; and that she could throw off--i forget how many folios an hour. sophy was very much confused by my being told all this, and said that when "tom" was made a judge he wouldn't be so ready to proclaim it. which "tom" denied; averring that he should always be equally proud of it, under all circumstances. "what a thoroughly good and charming wife she is, my dear traddles!" said i, when she had gone away, laughing. "my dear copperfield," returned traddles, "she is, without any exception, the dearest girl! the way she manages this place; her punctuality, domestic knowledge, economy, and order; her cheerfulness, copperfield!" "indeed, you have reason to commend her!" i returned. "you are a happy fellow. i believe you make yourselves, and each other, two of the happiest people in the world." "i am sure we _are_ two of the happiest people," returned traddles. "i admit that, at all events. bless my soul, when i see her getting up by candle-light on these dark mornings, busying herself in the day's arrangements, going out to market before the clerks come into the inn, caring for no weather, devising the most capital little dinners out of the plainest materials, making puddings and pies, keeping everything in its right place, always so neat and ornamental herself, sitting up at night with me if it's ever so late, sweet-tempered and encouraging always, and all for me, i positively sometimes can't believe it, copperfield!" he was tender of the very slippers she had been warming, as he put them on, and stretched his feet enjoyingly upon the fender. "i positively sometimes can't believe it," said traddles. "then, our pleasures! dear me, they are inexpensive, but they are quite wonderful! when we are at home here, of an evening, and shut the outer door, and draw those curtains--which she made--where could we be more snug? when it's fine, and we go out for a walk in the evening, the streets abound in enjoyment for us. we look into the glittering windows of the jewellers' shops; and i show sophy which of the diamond-eyed serpents, coiled up on white satin rising grounds, i would give her if i could afford it; and sophy shows me which of the gold watches that are capped and jewelled and engine-turned, and possessed of the horizontal lever-escape-movement, and all sorts of things, she would buy for me if _she_ could afford it; and we pick out the spoons and forks, fish-slices, butter-knives, and sugar-tongs, we should both prefer if we could both afford it; and really we go away as if we had got them! then, when we stroll into the squares, and great streets, and see a house to let, sometimes we look up at it, and say, how would _that_ do, if i was made a judge? and we parcel it out--such a room for us, such rooms for the girls, and so forth; until we settle to our satisfaction that it would do, or it wouldn't do, as the case may be. sometimes, we go at half-price to the pit of the theatre--the very smell of which is cheap, in my opinion, at the money--and there we thoroughly enjoy the play: which sophy believes every word of, and so do i. in walking home, perhaps we buy a little bit of something at a cook's-shop, or a little lobster at the fishmonger's, and bring it here, and make a splendid supper, chatting about what we have seen. now, you know, copperfield, if i was lord chancellor, we couldn't do this!" "you would do something, whatever you were, my dear traddles," thought i, "that would be pleasant and amiable! and by the way," i said aloud, "i suppose you never draw any skeletons now?" "really," replied traddles, laughing, and reddening, "i can't wholly deny that i do, my dear copperfield. for, being in one of the back rows of the king's bench the other day, with a pen in my hand, the fancy came into my head to try how i had preserved that accomplishment. and i am afraid there's a skeleton--in a wig--on the ledge of the desk." after we had both laughed heartily, traddles wound up by looking with a smile at the fire, and saying, in his forgiving way, "old creakle!" "i have a letter from that old--rascal here," said i. for i never was less disposed to forgive him the way he used to batter traddles, than when i saw traddles so ready to forgive him himself. "from creakle the schoolmaster?" exclaimed traddles. "no!" "among the persons who are attracted to me in my rising fame and fortune," said i, looking over my letters, "and who discover that they were always much attached to me, is the self-same creakle. he is not a schoolmaster now, traddles. he is retired. he is a middlesex magistrate." i thought traddles might be surprised to hear it, but he was not so at all. "how do you suppose he comes to be a middlesex magistrate?" said i. "oh dear me!" replied traddles, "it would be very difficult to answer that question. perhaps he voted for somebody, or lent money to somebody, or bought something of somebody, or otherwise obliged somebody, or jobbed for somebody, who knew somebody who got the lieutenant of the county to nominate him for the commission." "on the commission he is, at any rate," said i. "and he writes to me here, that he will be glad to show me, in operation, the only true system of prison discipline; the only unchallengeable way of making sincere and lasting converts and penitents--which, you know, is by solitary confinement. what do you say?" "to the system?" inquired traddles, looking grave. "no. to my accepting the offer, and your going with me?" "i don't object," said traddles. "then i'll write to say so. you remember (to say nothing of our treatment) this same creakle turning his son out of doors, i suppose, and the life he used to lead his wife and daughter?" "perfectly," said traddles. "yet, if you'll read his letter, you'll find he is the tenderest of men to prisoners convicted of the whole calendar of felonies," said i; "though i can't find that his tenderness extends to any other class of created beings." traddles shrugged his shoulders, and was not at all surprised. i had not expected him to be, and was not surprised myself; or my observation of similar practical satires would have been but scanty. we arranged the time of our visit, and i wrote accordingly to mr. creakle that evening. on the appointed day--i think it was the next day, but no matter--traddles and i repaired to the prison where mr. creakle was powerful. it was an immense and solid building, erected at a vast expense. i could not help thinking, as we approached the gate, what an uproar would have been made in the country, if any deluded man had proposed to spend one half the money it had cost, on the erection of an industrial school for the young, or a house of refuge for the deserving old. in an office that might have been on the ground-floor of the tower of babel, it was so massively constructed, we were presented to our old schoolmaster; who was one of a group, composed of two or three of the busier sort of magistrates, and some visitors they had brought. he received me, like a man who had formed my mind in bygone years, and had always loved me tenderly. on my introducing traddles, mr. creakle expressed, in like manner, but in an inferior degree, that he had always been traddles's guide, philosopher, and friend. our venerable instructor was a great deal older, and not improved in appearance. his face was as fiery as ever; his eyes were as small, and rather deeper set. the scanty, wet-looking grey hair, by which i remembered him, was almost gone; and the thick veins in his bald head were none the more agreeable to look at. after some conversation among these gentlemen, from which i might have supposed that there was nothing in the world to be legitimately taken into account but the supreme comfort of prisoners, at any expense, and nothing on the wide earth to be done outside prison-doors, we began our inspection. it being then just dinner-time, we went, first into the great kitchen, where every prisoner's dinner was in course of being set out separately (to be handed to him in his cell), with the regularity and precision of clock-work. i said aside, to traddles, that i wondered whether it occurred to anybody, that there was a striking contrast between these plentiful repasts of choice quality, and the dinners, not to say of paupers, but of soldiers, sailors, laborers, the great bulk of the honest, working community; of whom not one man in five hundred ever dined half so well. but i learned that the "system" required high living; and, in short, to dispose of the system, once for all, i found that on that head and on all others, "the system" put an end to all doubts, and disposed of all anomalies. nobody appeared to have the least idea that there was any other system, but _the_ system, to be considered. as we were going through some of the magnificent passages, i inquired of mr. creakle and his friends what were supposed to be the main advantages of this all-governing and universally over-riding system? i found them to be the perfect isolation of prisoners--so that no one man in confinement there, knew anything about another; and the reduction of prisoners to a wholesome state of mind, leading to sincere contrition and repentance. now, it struck me, when we began to visit individuals in their cells, and to traverse the passages in which those cells were, and to have the manner of the going to chapel and so forth, explained to us, that there was a strong probability of the prisoners knowing a good deal about each other, and of their carrying on a pretty complete system of intercourse. this, at the time i write, has been proved, i believe, to be the case; but, as it would have been flat blasphemy against the system to have hinted such a doubt then, i looked out for the penitence as diligently as i could. and here again, i had great misgivings. i found as prevalent a fashion in the form of the penitence, as i had left outside in the forms of the coats and waistcoats in the windows of the tailors' shops. i found a vast amount of profession, varying very little in character: varying very little (which i thought exceedingly suspicious), even in words. i found a great many foxes, disparaging whole vineyards of inaccessible grapes; but i found very few foxes whom i would have trusted within reach of a bunch. above all, i found that the most professing men were the greatest objects of interest; and that their conceit, their vanity, their want of excitement, and their love of deception (which many of them possessed to an almost incredible extent, as their histories showed), all prompted to these professions, and were all gratified by them. however, i heard so repeatedly, in the course of our goings to and fro, of a certain number twenty seven, who was the favorite, and who really appeared to be a model prisoner, that i resolved to suspend my judgment until i should see twenty seven. twenty eight, i understood, was also a bright particular star; but it was his misfortune to have his glory a little dimmed by the extraordinary lustre of twenty seven. i heard so much of twenty seven, of his pious admonitions to everybody around him, and of the beautiful letters he constantly wrote to his mother (whom he seemed to consider in a very bad way), that i became quite impatient to see him. i had to restrain my impatience for some time, on account of twenty seven being reserved for a concluding effect. but, at last, we came to the door of his cell; and mr. creakle, looking through a little hole in it, reported to us, in a state of the greatest admiration, that he was reading a hymn book. there was such a rush of heads immediately, to see number twenty seven reading his hymn book, that the little hole was blocked up, six or seven heads deep. to remedy this inconvenience, and give us an opportunity of conversing with twenty seven in all his purity, mr. creakle directed the door of the cell to be unlocked, and twenty seven to be invited out into the passage. this was done; and whom should traddles and i then behold, to our amazement, in this converted number twenty seven, but uriah heep! he knew us directly; and said, as he came out--with the old writhe,-- "how do you do, mr. copperfield? how do you do, mr. traddles?" this recognition caused a general admiration in the party. i rather thought that everyone was struck by his not being proud, and taking notice of us. "well, twenty seven," said mr. creakle, mournfully admiring him. "how do you find yourself to-day?" "i am very umble, sir!" replied uriah heep. "you are always so, twenty seven," said mr. creakle. here, another gentleman asked, with extreme anxiety: "are you quite comfortable?" "yes, i thank you, sir!" said uriah heep, looking in that direction. "far more comfortable here, than ever i was outside. i see my follies now, sir. that's what makes me comfortable." several gentlemen were much affected; and a third questioner, forcing himself to the front, inquired with extreme feeling: "how do you find the beef?" "thank you, sir," replied uriah, glancing in the new direction of this voice, "it was tougher yesterday than i could wish; but it's my duty to bear. i have committed follies, gentlemen," said uriah, looking round with a meek smile, "and i ought to bear the consequences without repining." a murmur, partly of gratification at twenty seven's celestial state of mind, and partly of indignation against the contractor who had given him any cause of complaint (a note of which was immediately made by mr. creakle), having subsided, twenty seven stood in the midst of us, as if he felt himself the principal object of merit in a highly meritorious museum. that we, the neophytes, might have an excess of light shining upon us all at once, orders were given to let out twenty eight. i had been so much astonished already, that i only felt a kind of resigned wonder when mr. littimer walked forth, reading a good book! [illustration: i am shown two interesting penitents.] "twenty eight," said a gentleman in spectacles, who had not yet spoken, "you complained last week, my good fellow, of the cocoa. how has it been since?" "i thank you, sir," said mr. littimer, "it has been better made. if i might take the liberty of saying so, sir, i don't think the milk which is boiled with it is quite genuine; but i am aware, sir, that there is great adulteration of milk, in london, and that the article in a pure state is difficult to be obtained." it appeared to me that the gentleman in spectacles backed his twenty eight against mr. creakle's twenty seven, for each of them took his own man in hand. "what is your state of mind, twenty eight?" said the questioner in spectacles. "i thank you, sir," returned mr. littimer; "i see my follies now, sir. i am a good deal troubled when i think of the sins of my former companions, sir; but i trust they may find forgiveness." "you are quite happy yourself?" said the questioner, nodding encouragement. "i am much obliged to you, sir," returned mr. littimer. "perfectly so." "is there anything at all on your mind, now?" said the questioner. "if so, mention it, twenty eight." "sir," said mr. littimer, without looking up, "if my eyes have not deceived me, there is a gentleman present who was acquainted with me in my former life. it may be profitable to that gentleman to know, sir, that i attribute my past follies, entirely to having lived a thoughtless life in the service of young men; and to having allowed myself to be led by them into weaknesses, which i had not the strength to resist. i hope that gentleman will take warning, sir, and will not be offended at my freedom. it is for his good. i am conscious of my own past follies. i hope he may repent of all the wickedness and sin, to which he has been a party." i observed that several gentlemen were shading their eyes, each, with one hand, as if they had just come into church. "this does you credit, twenty eight," returned the questioner. "i should have expected it of you. is there anything else?" "sir," returned mr. littimer, slightly lifting up his eyebrows, but not his eyes, "there was a young woman who fell into dissolute courses, that i endeavoured to save, sir, but could not rescue. i beg that gentleman, if he has it in his power, to inform that young woman from me that i forgive her her bad conduct towards myself; and that i call her to repentance--if he will be so good." "i have no doubt, twenty eight," returned the questioner, "that the gentleman you refer to feels very strongly--as we all must--what you have so properly said. we will not detain you." "i thank you, sir," said mr. littimer. "gentlemen, i wish you a good day, and hoping you and your families will also see your wickedness, and amend!" with this, number twenty eight retired, after a glance between him and uriah; as if they were not altogether unknown to each other, through some medium of communication; and a murmur went round the group, as his door shut upon him, that he was a most respectable man, and a beautiful case. "now, twenty seven," said mr. creakle, entering on a clear stage with _his_ man, "is there anything that any one can do for you? if so, mention it." "i would umbly ask, sir," returned uriah, with a jerk of his malevolent head, "for leave to write again to mother." "it shall certainly be granted," said mr. creakle. "thank you, sir! i am anxious about mother. i am afraid she ain't safe." somebody incautiously asked, what from? but there was a scandalised whisper of "hush!" "immortally safe, sir," returned uriah, writhing in the direction of the voice. "i should wish mother to be got into my state. i never should have been got into my present state if i hadn't come here. i wish mother had come here. it would be better for everybody, if they got took up, and was brought here." this sentiment gave unbounded satisfaction--greater satisfaction, i think, than anything that had passed yet. "before i come here," said uriah, stealing a look at us, as if he would have blighted the outer world to which we belonged, if he could, "i was given to follies; but now i am sensible of my follies. there's a deal of sin outside. there's a deal of sin in mother. there's nothing but sin everywhere--except here." "you are quite changed?" said mr. creakle. "oh dear, yes, sir!" cried this hopeful penitent. "you wouldn't relapse, if you were going out?" asked somebody else. "oh de-ar no, sir!" "well!" said mr. creakle, "this is very gratifying. you have addressed mr. copperfield, twenty seven. do you wish to say anything further to him?" "you knew me, a long time before i came here and was changed, mr. copperfield," said uriah, looking at me; and a more villainous look i never saw, even on his visage. "you knew me when, in spite of my follies, i was umble among them that was proud, and meek among them that was violent--you was violent to me yourself, mr. copperfield. once, you struck me a blow in the face, you know." general commiseration. several indignant glances directed at me. "but i forgive you, mr. copperfield," said uriah, making his forgiving nature the subject of a most impious and awful parallel, which i shall not record. "i forgive everybody. it would ill become me to bear malice. i freely forgive you, and i hope you'll curb your passions in future. i hope mr. w. will repent, and miss w., and all of that sinful lot. you've been visited with affliction, and i hope it may do you good; but you'd better have come here. mr. w. had better have come here, and miss w. too. the best wish i could give you, mr. copperfield, and give all of you gentlemen, is, that you could be took up and brought here. when i think of my past follies, and my present state, i am sure it would be best for you. i pity all who ain't brought here!" he sneaked back into his cell, amidst a little chorus of approbation; and both traddles and i experienced a great relief when he was locked in. it was a characteristic feature in this repentance, that i was fain to ask what these two men had done, to be there at all. that appeared to be the last thing about which they had anything to say. i addressed myself to one of the two warders, who, i suspected, from certain latent indications in their faces, knew pretty well what all this stir was worth. "do you know," said i, as we walked along the passage, "what felony was number twenty seven's last 'folly?'" the answer was, that it was a bank case. "a fraud on the bank of england?" i asked. "yes, sir. fraud, forgery, and conspiracy. he and some others. he set the others on. it was a deep plot for a large sum. sentence, transportation for life. twenty seven was the knowingest bird of the lot, and had very nearly kept himself safe; but not quite. the bank was just able to put salt upon his tail--and only just." "do you know twenty eight's offence?" "twenty eight," returned my informant, speaking throughout in a low tone, and looking over his shoulder as we walked along the passage, to guard himself from being overheard, in such an unlawful reference to these immaculates, by creakle and the rest; "twenty eight (also transportation) got a place, and robbed a young master of a matter of two hundred and fifty pounds in money and valuables, the night before they were going abroad. i particularly recollect his case, from his being took by a dwarf." "a what?" "a little woman. i have forgot her name." "not mowcher?" "that's it! he had eluded pursuit, and was going to america in a flaxen wig, and whiskers, and such a complete disguise as never you see in all your born days; when the little woman, being in southampton, met him walking along the street--picked him out with her sharp eye in a moment--ran betwixt his legs to upset him--and held on to him like grim death." "excellent miss mowcher!" cried i. "you'd have said so, if you had seen her, standing on a chair in the witness-box at his trial, as i did," said my friend. "he cut her face right open, and pounded her in the most brutal manner, when she took him; but she never loosed her hold till he was locked up. she held so tight to him, in fact, that the officers were obliged to take 'em both together. she gave her evidence in the gamest way, and was highly complimented by the bench, and cheered right home to her lodgings. she said in court that she'd have took him single-handed (on account of what she knew concerning him), if he had been samson. and it's my belief she would!" it was mine too, and i highly respected miss mowcher for it. we had now seen all there was to see. it would have been in vain to represent to such a man as the worshipful mr. creakle, that twenty seven and twenty eight were perfectly consistent and unchanged; that exactly what they were then, they had always been; that the hypocritical knaves were just the subjects to make that sort of profession in such a place; that they knew its market-value at least as well as we did, in the immediate service it would do them when they were expatriated; in a word, that it was a rotten, hollow, painfully-suggestive piece of business altogether. we left them to their system and themselves, and went home wondering. "perhaps it's a good thing, traddles," said i, "to have an unsound hobby ridden hard; for it's the sooner ridden to death." "i hope so," replied traddles. chapter lxii. a light shines on my way. the year came round to christmas-time, and i had been at home above two months. i had seen agnes frequently. however loud the general voice might be in giving me encouragement, and however fervent the emotions and endeavours to which it roused me, i heard her lightest word of praise as i heard nothing else. at least once a week, and sometimes oftener, i rode over there, and passed the evening. i usually rode back at night; for the old unhappy sense was always hovering about me now--most sorrowfully when i left her--and i was glad to be up and out, rather than wandering over the past in weary wakefulness or miserable dreams. i wore away the longest part of many wild sad nights, in those rides; reviving, as i went, the thoughts that had occupied me in my long absence. or, if i were to say rather that i listened to the echoes of those thoughts, i should better express the truth. they spoke to me from afar off. i had put them at a distance, and accepted my inevitable place. when i read to agnes what i wrote; when i saw her listening face; moved her to smiles or tears; and heard her cordial voice so earnest on the shadowy events of that imaginative world in which i lived; i thought what a fate mine might have been--but only thought so, as i had thought after i was married to dora, what i could have wished my wife to be. my duty to agnes, who loved me with a love, which, if i disquieted, i wronged most selfishly and poorly, and could never restore; my matured assurance that i, who had worked out my own destiny, and won what i had impetuously set my heart on, had no right to murmur, and must bear; comprised what i felt and what i had learned. but i loved her: and now it even became some consolation to me, vaguely to conceive a distant day when i might blamelessly avow it; when all this should be over; when i could say "agnes, so it was when i came home; and now i am old, and i never have loved since!" she did not once show me any change in herself. what she always had been to me, she still was; wholly unaltered. between my aunt and me there had been something, in this connexion, since the night of my return, which i cannot call a restraint, or an avoidance of the subject, so much as an implied understanding that we thought of it together, but did not shape our thoughts into words. when, according to our old custom, we sat before the fire at night, we often fell into this train; as naturally, and as consciously to each other, as if we had unreservedly said so. but we preserved an unbroken silence. i believed that she had read, or partly read, my thoughts that night; and that she fully comprehended why i gave mine no more distinct expression. this christmas-time being come, and agnes having reposed no new confidence in me, a doubt that had several times arisen in my mind--whether she could have that perception of the true state of my breast, which restrained her with the apprehension of giving me pain--began to oppress me heavily. if that were so, my sacrifice was nothing; my plainest obligation to her unfulfilled; and every poor action i had shrunk from, i was hourly doing. i resolved to set this right beyond all doubt;--if such a barrier were between us, to break it down at once with a determined hand. it was--what lasting reason have i to remember it!--a cold, harsh, winter day. there had been snow, some hours before; and it lay, not deep, but hard-frozen on the ground. out at sea, beyond my window, the wind blew ruggedly from the north. i had been thinking of it, sweeping over those mountain wastes of snow in switzerland, then inaccessible to any human foot; and had been speculating which was the lonelier, those solitary regions, or a deserted ocean. "riding to-day, trot?" said my aunt, putting her head in at the door. "yes," said i, "i am going over to canterbury. it's a good day for a ride." "i hope your horse may think so too," said my aunt; "but at present he is holding down his head and his ears, standing before the door there, as if he thought his stable preferable." my aunt, i may observe, allowed my horse on the forbidden ground, but had not at all relented toward the donkeys. "he will be fresh enough, presently!" said i. "the ride will do his master good, at all events," observed my aunt, glancing at the papers on my table. "ah, child, you pass a good many hours here! i never thought, when i used to read books, what work it was to write them." "it's work enough to read them, sometimes," i returned. "as to the writing, it has its own charms, aunt." "ah! i see!" said my aunt. "ambition, love of approbation, sympathy, and much more, i suppose? well: go along with you!" "do you know anything more," said i, standing composedly before her--she had patted me on the shoulder, and sat down in my chair, "of that attachment of agnes?" she looked up in my face a little while, before replying: "i think i do, trot." "are you confirmed in your impression?" i inquired. "i think i am, trot." she looked so steadfastly at me: with a kind of doubt, or pity, or suspense in her affection: that i summoned the stronger determination to show her a perfectly cheerful face. "and what is more, trot--" said my aunt. "yes!" "i think agnes is going to be married." "god bless her!" said i, cheerfully. "god bless her!" said my aunt, "and her husband too!" i echoed it, parted from my aunt, went lightly down stairs, mounted, and rode away. there was greater reason than before to do what i had resolved to do. how well i recollect the wintry ride! the frozen particles of ice, brushed from the blades of grass by the wind, and borne across my face; the hard clatter of the horse's hoofs, beating a tune upon the ground; the stiff-tilled soil; the snow-drift, lightly eddying in the chalk-pit as the breeze ruffled it; the smoking team with the waggon of old hay, stopping to breathe on the hill-top, and shaking their bells musically; the whitened slopes and sweeps of down-land lying against the dark sky, as if they were drawn on a huge slate! i found agnes alone. the little girls had gone to their own homes now, and she was alone by the fire, reading. she put down her book on seeing me come in; and having welcomed me as usual, took her work-basket and sat in one of the old-fashioned windows. i sat beside her on the window-seat, and we talked of what i was doing, and when it would be done, and of the progress i had made since my last visit. agnes was very cheerful; and laughingly predicted that i should soon become too famous to be talked to, on such subjects. "so i make the most of the present time, you see," said agnes, "and talk to you while i may." as i looked at her beautiful face, observant of her work, she raised her mild clear eyes, and saw that i was looking at her. "you are thoughtful to-day, trotwood!" "agnes, shall i tell you what about? i came to tell you." she put aside her work, as she was used to do when we were seriously discussing anything; and gave me her whole attention. "my dear agnes, do you doubt my being true to you?" "no!" she answered, with a look of astonishment. "do you doubt my being what i always have been to you?" "no!" she answered, as before. "do you remember that i tried to tell you, when i came home, what a debt of gratitude i owed you, dearest agnes, and how fervently i felt towards you?" "i remember it," she said, gently, "very well." "you have a secret," said i. "let me share it, agnes." she cast down her eyes, and trembled. "i could hardly fail to know, even if i had not heard--but from other lips than yours, agnes, which seems strange--that there is some one upon whom you have bestowed the treasure of your love. do not shut me out of what concerns your happiness so nearly! if you can trust me, as you say you can, and as i know you may, let me be your friend, your brother, in this matter, of all others!" with an appealing, almost a reproachful, glance, she rose from the window; and hurrying across the room as if without knowing where, put her hands before her face, and burst into such tears as smote me to the heart. and yet they awakened something in me, bringing promise to my heart. without my knowing why, these tears allied themselves with the quietly sad smile which was so fixed in my remembrance, and shook me more with hope than fear or sorrow. "agnes! sister! dearest! what have i done!" "let me go away, trotwood. i am not well. i am not myself. i will speak to you by and by--another time. i will write to you. don't speak to me now. don't! don't!" i sought to recollect what she had said, when i had spoken to her on that former night, of her affection needing no return. it seemed a very world that i must search through in a moment. "agnes, i cannot bear to see you so, and think that i have been the cause. my dearest girl, dearer to me than anything in life, if you are unhappy, let me share your unhappiness. if you are in need of help or counsel, let me try to give it to you. if you have indeed a burden on your heart, let me try to lighten it. for whom do i live now, agnes, if it is not for you!" "oh, spare me! i am not myself! another time!" was all i could distinguish. was it a selfish error that was leading me away? or, having once a clue to hope, was there something opening to me that i had not dared to think of? "i must say more. i cannot let you leave me so! for heaven's sake, agnes, let us not mistake each other after all these years, and all that has come and gone with them! i must speak plainly. if you have any lingering thought that i could envy the happiness you will confer; that i could not resign you to a dearer protector, of your own choosing; that i could not, from my removed place, be a contented witness of your joy; dismiss it, for i don't deserve it! i have not suffered quite in vain. you have not taught me quite in vain. there is no alloy of self in what i feel for you." she was quiet now. in a little time, she turned her pale face towards me, and said in a low voice, broken here and there, but very clear, "i owe it to your pure friendship for me, trotwood--which, indeed, i do not doubt--to tell you, you are mistaken. i can do no more. if i have sometimes, in the course of years, wanted help and counsel, they have come to me. if i have sometimes been unhappy, the feeling has passed away. if i have ever had a burden on my heart, it has been lightened for me. if i have any secret, it is--no new one; and is--not what you suppose. i cannot reveal it, or divide it. it has long been mine, and must remain mine." "agnes! stay! a moment!" she was going away, but i detained her. i clasped my arm about her waist. "in the course of years!" "it is not a new one!" new thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colors of my life were changing. "dearest agnes! whom i so respect and honor--whom i so devotedly love! when i came here to-day, i thought that nothing could have wrested this confession from me. i thought i could have kept it in my bosom all our lives, till we were old. but, agnes, if i have indeed any new-born hope that i may ever call you something more than sister, widely different from sister!----" her tears fell fast; but they were not like those she had lately shed, and i saw my hope brighten in them. "agnes! ever my guide, and best support! if you had been more mindful of yourself, and less of me, when we grew up here together, i think my heedless fancy never would have wandered from you. but you were so much better than i, so necessary to me in every boyish hope and disappointment, that to have you to confide in, and rely upon in everything, became a second nature, supplanting for the time the first and greater one of loving you as i do!" still weeping, but not sadly--joyfully! and clasped in my arms as she had never been, as i had thought she never was to be! "when i loved dora--fondly, agnes, as you know"---- "yes!" she cried, earnestly. "i am glad to know it!" "when i loved her--even then, my love would have been incomplete, without your sympathy. i had it, and it was perfected. and when i lost her, agnes, what should i have been without you, still!" closer in my arms, nearer to my heart, her trembling hand upon my shoulder, her sweet eyes shining through her tears, on mine! "i went away, dear agnes, loving you. i stayed away, loving you. i returned home, loving you!" and now, i tried to tell her of the struggle i had had, and the conclusion i had come to. i tried to lay my mind before her, truly, and entirely. i tried to show her, how i had hoped i had come into the better knowledge of myself and of her; how i had resigned myself to what that better knowledge brought; and how i had come there, even that day, in my fidelity to this. if she did so love me (i said) that she could take me for her husband, she could do so, on no deserving of mine, except upon the truth of my love for her, and the trouble in which it had ripened to be what it was; and hence it was that i revealed it. and o, agnes, even out of thy true eyes, in that same time, the spirit of my child-wife looked upon me, saying it was well; and winning me, through thee, to tenderest recollections of the blossom that had withered in its bloom! * * * "i am so blest, trotwood--my heart is so overcharged--but there is one thing i must say." "dearest, what?" she laid her gentle hands upon my shoulders, and looked calmly in my face. "do you know, yet, what it is?" "i am afraid to speculate on what it is. tell me, my dear." "i have loved you all my life!" * * * o, we were happy, we were happy! our tears were not for the trials (hers so much the greater), through which we had come to be thus, but for the rapture of being thus, never to be divided more! we walked, that winter evening, in the fields together; and the blessed calm within us seemed to be partaken by the frosty air. the early stars began to shine while we were lingering on, and looking up to them we thanked our god for having guided us to this tranquillity. we stood together in the same old-fashioned window at night, when the moon was shining; agnes with her quiet eyes raised up to it; i following her glance. long miles of road then opened out before my mind; and, toiling on, i saw a ragged way-worn boy, forsaken and neglected, who should come to call even the heart now beating against mine, his own. * * * it was nearly dinner-time next day when we appeared before my aunt. she was up in my study, peggotty said: which it was her pride to keep in readiness and order for me. we found her, in her spectacles, sitting by the fire. "goodness me!" said my aunt, peering through the dusk, "who's this you're bringing home?" "agnes," said i. as we had arranged to say nothing at first, my aunt was not a little discomfited. she darted a hopeful glance at me, when i said "agnes;" but seeing that i looked as usual, she took off her spectacles in despair, and rubbed her nose with them. she greeted agnes heartily, nevertheless; and we were soon in the lighted parlor down stairs, at dinner. my aunt put on her spectacles twice or thrice, to take another look at me, but as often took them off again, disappointed, and rubbed her nose with them. much to the discomfiture of mr. dick, who knew this to be a bad symptom. "by the by, aunt," said i, after dinner; "i have been speaking to agnes about what you told me." "then, trot," said my aunt, turning scarlet, "you did wrong, and broke your promise." "you are not angry, aunt, i trust? i am sure you won't be, when you learn that agnes is not unhappy in any attachment." "stuff and nonsense!" said my aunt. as my aunt appeared to be annoyed, i thought the best way was to cut her annoyance short. i took agnes in my arm to the back of her chair, and we both leaned over her. my aunt, with one clap of her hands, and one look through her spectacles, immediately went into hysterics, for the first and only time in all my knowledge of her. the hysterics called up peggotty. the moment my aunt was restored, she flew at peggotty, and calling her a silly old creature, hugged her with all her might. after that, she hugged mr. dick (who was highly honored, but a good deal surprised); and after that, told them why. then, we were all happy together. i could not discover whether my aunt, in her last short conversation with me, had fallen on a pious fraud, or had really mistaken the state of my mind. it was quite enough, she said, that she had told me agnes was going to be married; and that i now knew better than any one how true it was. * * * we were married within a fortnight. traddles and sophy, and doctor and mrs. strong, were the only guests at our quiet wedding. we left them full of joy; and drove away together. clasped in my embrace, i held the source of every worthy aspiration i had ever had; the centre of myself, the circle of my life, my own, my wife; my love of whom was founded on a rock! "dearest husband!" said agnes. "now that i may call you by that name, i have one thing more to tell you." "let me hear it, love." "it grows out of the night when dora died. she sent you for me." "she did." "she told me that she left me something. can you think what it was?" i believed i could. i drew the wife who had so long loved me, closer to my side. "she told me that she made a last request to me, and left me a last charge." "and it was----" "that only i would occupy this vacant place." and agnes laid her head upon my breast, and wept; and i wept with her, though we were so happy. chapter lxiii. a visitor. what i have purposed to record is nearly finished; but there is yet an incident conspicuous in my memory, on which it often rests with delight, and without which one thread in the web i have spun, would have a ravelled end. i had advanced in fame and fortune, my domestic joy was perfect, i had been married ten happy years. agnes and i were sitting by the fire, in our house in london, one night in spring, and three of our children were playing in the room, when i was told that a stranger wished to see me. [illustration: a stranger calls to see me.] he had been asked if he came on business, and had answered no; he had come for the pleasure of seeing me, and had come a long way. he was an old man, my servant said, and looked like a farmer. as this sounded mysterious to the children, and moreover was like the beginning of a favorite story agnes used to tell them, introductory to the arrival of a wicked old fairy in a cloak who hated every body, it produced some commotion. one of our boys laid his head in his mother's lap to be out of harm's way, and little agnes (our eldest child) left her doll in a chair to represent her, and thrust out her little heap of golden curls from between the window-curtains, to see what happened next. "let him come in here!" said i. there soon appeared, pausing in the dark doorway as he entered, a hale, grey-haired old man. little agnes, attracted by his looks, had run to bring him in, and i had not yet clearly seen his face, when my wife, starting up, cried out to me, in a pleased and agitated voice, that it was mr. peggotty! it _was_ mr. peggotty. an old man now, but in a ruddy, hearty, strong old age. when our first emotion was over, and he sat before the fire with the children on his knees, and the blaze shining on his face, he looked, to me, as vigorous and robust, withal as handsome, an old man, as ever i had seen. "mas'r davy," said he. and the old name in the old tone fell so naturally on my ear! "mas'r davy, 'tis a joyful hour as i see you, once more, 'long with your own trew wife!" "a joyful hour indeed, old friend!" cried i. "and these heer pretty ones," said mr. peggotty. "to look at these heer flowers! why, mas'r davy, you was but the heighth of the littlest of these, when i first see you! when em'ly warn't no bigger, and our poor lad were _but_ a lad!" "time has changed me more than it has changed you since then," said i. "but, let these dear rogues go to bed; and as no house in england but this must hold you, tell me where to send for your luggage (is the old black bag among it, that went so far, i wonder!), and then, over a glass of yarmouth grog, we will have the tidings of ten years!" "are you alone?" asked agnes. "yes, ma'am," he said, kissing her hand, "quite alone." we sat him between us, not knowing how to give him welcome enough; and as i began to listen to his old familiar voice, i could have fancied he was still pursuing his long journey in search of his darling niece. "it's a mort of water," said mr. peggotty, "fur to come across, and on'y stay a matter of fower weeks. but water ('specially when 'tis salt) comes nat'ral to me; and friends is dear, and i am heer.--which is verse," said mr. peggotty, surprised to find it out, "though i hadn't such intentions." "are you going back those many thousand miles, so soon?" asked agnes. "yes, ma'am," he returned. "i giv the promise to em'ly, afore i come away. you see, i doen't grow younger as the years comes round, and if i hadn't sailed as 'twas, most like i shouldn't never have done 't. and it's allus been on my mind, as i _must_ come and see mas'r davy and your own sweet blooming self, in your wedded happiness, afore i got to be too old." he looked at us, as if he could never feast his eyes on us sufficiently. agnes laughingly put back some scattered locks of his grey hair, that he might see us better. "and now tell us," said i, "everything relating to your fortunes." "our fortuns, mas'r davy," he rejoined, "is soon told. we haven't fared nohows, but fared to thrive. we've allus thrived. we've worked as we ought to 't, and maybe we lived a leetle hard at first or so, but we have allus thrived. what with sheep-farming, and what with stock-farming, and what with one thing and what with t'other, we are as well to do, as well could be. theer's been kiender a blessing fell upon us," said mr. peggotty, reverentially inclining his head, "and we've done nowt but prosper. that is, in the long run. if not yesterday, why then to-day. if not to-day, why then to-morrow." "and emily?" said agnes and i, both together. "em'ly," said he, "arter you left her, ma'am--and i never heerd her saying of her prayers at night, t'other side the canvas screen, when we was settled in the bush, but what i heerd your name--and arter she and me lost sight of mas'r davy, that theer shining sundown--was that low, at first, that, if she had know'd then what mas'r davy kep from us so kind and thowtful, 'tis my opinion she'd have drooped away. but theer was some poor folks aboard as had illness among 'em, and she took care of _them_; and theer was the children in our company, and she took care of _them_; and so she got to be busy, and to be doing good, and that helped her." "when did she first hear of it?" i asked. "i kep it from her arter i heerd on't," said mr. peggotty, "going on nigh a year. we was living then in a solitary place, but among the beautifullest trees, and with the roses a covering our beein to the roof. theer come along one day, when i was out a working on the land, a traveller from our own norfolk or suffolk in england (i doen't rightly mind which), and of course we took him in, and giv him to eat and drink, and made him welcome. we all do that, all the colony over. he'd got an old newspaper with him, and some other account in print of the storm. that's how she know'd it. when i come home at night, i found she know'd it." he dropped his voice as he said these words, and the gravity i so well remembered overspread his face. "did it change her much?" we asked. "aye, for a good long time," he said, shaking his head; "if not to this present hour. but i think the solitoode done her good. and she had a deal to mind in the way of poultry and the like, and minded of it, and come through. i wonder," he said thoughtfully, "if you could see my em'ly now, mas'r davy, whether you'd know her!" "is she so altered?" i inquired. "i doen't know. i see her ev'ry day, and doen't know; but, odd-times, i have thowt so. a slight figure," said mr. peggotty, looking at the fire, "kiender worn; soft, sorrowful, blue eyes; a delicate face; a pritty head, leaning a little down; a quiet voice and way--timid a'most. that's em'ly!" we silently observed him as he sat, still looking at the fire. "some thinks," he said, "as her affection was ill-bestowed; some, as her marriage was broke off by death. no one knows how 'tis. she might have married well, a mort of times, 'but, uncle,' she says to me, 'that's gone for ever.' cheerful along with me; retired when others is by; fond of going any distance fur to teach a child, or fur to tend a sick person, or fur to do some kindness tow'rds a young girl's wedding (and she's done a many, but has never seen one); fondly loving of her uncle; patient; liked by young and old; sowt out by all that has any trouble. that's em'ly!" he drew his hand across his face, and with a half-suppressed sigh looked up from the fire. "is martha with you yet?" i asked. "martha," he replied "got married, mas'r davy, in the second year. a young man, a farm-laborer, as come by us on his way to market with his mas'r's drays--a journey of over five hundred mile, theer and back--made offers fur to take her fur his wife (wives is very scarce theer), and then to set up fur their two selves in the bush. she spoke to me fur to tell him her trew story. i did. they was married, and they live fower hundred mile away from any voices but their own and the singing birds." "mrs. gummidge?" i suggested. it was a pleasant key to touch, for mr. peggotty suddenly burst into a roar of laughter, and rubbed his hands up and down his legs, as he had been accustomed to do when he enjoyed himself in the long-shipwrecked boat. "would you believe it!" he said. "why, someun even made offers fur to marry _her_! if a ship's cook that was turning settler, mas'r davy, didn't make offers fur to marry missis gummidge, i'm gormed--and i can't say no fairer than that!" i never saw agnes laugh so. this sudden ecstacy on the part of mr. peggotty was so delightful to her, that she could not leave off laughing; and the more she laughed the more she made me laugh, and the greater mr. peggotty's ecstacy became, and the more he rubbed his legs. "and what did mrs. gummidge say?" i asked, when i was grave enough. "if you'll believe me," returned mr. peggotty, "missis gummidge, 'stead of saying 'thank you, i'm much obleeged to you, i ain't a going fur to change my condition at my time of life,' up'd with a bucket as was standing by, and laid it over that theer ship's cook's head 'till he sung out for help, and i went in and reskied of him." mr. peggotty burst into a great roar of laughter, and agnes and i both kept him company. "but i must say this, for the good creetur," he resumed, wiping his face when we were quite exhausted; "she has been all she said she'd be to us, and more. she's the willingest, the trewest, the honestest-helping woman, mas'r davy, as ever draw'd the breath of life. i have never know'd her to be lone and lorn, for a single minute, not even when the colony was all afore us, and we was new to it. and thinking of the old 'un is a thing she never done, i do assure you, since she left england!" "now, last, not least, mr. micawber," said i. "he has paid off every obligation he incurred here--even to traddles's bill, you remember, my dear agnes--and therefore we may take it for granted that he is doing well. but what is the latest news of him?" mr. peggotty, with a smile, put his hand in his breast-pocket, and produced a flat-folded, paper parcel, from which he took out, with much care, a little odd-looking newspaper. "you are to unnerstan', mas'r davy," said he, "as we have left the bush now, being so well to do; and have gone right away round to port middlebay harbor, wheer theer's what _we_ call a town." "mr. micawber was in the bush near you?" said i. "bless you, yes," said mr. peggotty, "and turned to with a will. i never wish to meet a better gen'lman for turning to, with a will. i've seen that theer bald head of his, a perspiring in the sun, mas'r davy, 'till i a'most thowt it would have melted away. and now he's a magistrate." "a magistrate, eh?" said i. mr. peggotty pointed to a certain paragraph in the newspaper, where i read aloud as follows, from the "port middlebay times:" "-->the public dinner to our distinguished fellow-colonist and townsman, wilkins micawber, esquire, port middlebay district magistrate, came off yesterday in the large room of the hotel, which was crowded to suffocation. it is estimated that not fewer than forty-seven persons must have been accommodated with dinner at one time, exclusive of the company in the passage and on the stairs. the beauty, fashion, and exclusiveness of port middlebay, flocked to do honor to one so deservedly esteemed, so highly talented, and so widely popular. doctor mell (of colonial salem-house grammar school, port middlebay) presided, and on his right sat the distinguished guest. after the removal of the cloth, and the singing of non nobis (beautifully executed, and in which we were at no loss to distinguish the bell-like notes of that gifted amateur, wilkins micawber, esquire, junior), the usual loyal and patriotic toasts were severally given and rapturously received. doctor mell, in a speech replete with feeling, then proposed 'our distinguished guest, the ornament of our town. may he never leave us but to better himself, and may his success among us be such as to render his bettering himself impossible!' the cheering with which the toast was received defies description. again and again it rose and fell, like the waves of ocean. at length all was hushed, and wilkins micawber, esquire, presented himself to return thanks. far be it from us, in the present comparatively imperfect state of the resources of our establishment, to endeavour to follow our distinguished townsman through the smoothly-flowing periods of his polished and highly-ornate address! suffice it to observe, that it was a masterpiece of eloquence; and that those passages in which he more particularly traced his own successful career to its source, and warned the younger portion of his auditory from the shoals of ever incurring pecuniary liabilities which they were unable to liquidate, brought a tear into the manliest eye present. the remaining toasts were doctor mell; mrs. micawber (who gracefully bowed her acknowledgments from the side-door, where a galaxy of beauty was elevated on chairs, at once to witness and adorn the gratifying scene); mrs. ridger begs (late miss micawber); mrs. mell; wilkins micawber, esquire, junior (who convulsed the assembly by humorously remarking that he found himself unable to return thanks in a speech, but would do so, with their permission, in a song); mrs. micawber's family (well-known, it is needless to remark, in the mother-country), &c. &c. &c. at the conclusion of the proceedings the tables were cleared as if by art-magic for dancing. among the votaries of terpsichore, who disported themselves until sol gave warning for departure, wilkins micawber, esquire, junior, and the lovely and accomplished miss helena, fourth daughter of doctor mell, were particularly remarkable." i was looking back to the name of doctor mell, pleased to have discovered, in these happier circumstances, mr. mell, formerly poor pinched usher to my middlesex magistrate, when mr. peggotty pointing to another part of the paper, my eyes rested on my own name, and i read thus: "to david copperfield, esquire, "the eminent author. "my dear sir, "years have elapsed, since i had an opportunity of ocularly perusing the lineaments, now familiar to the imaginations of a considerable portion of the civilised world. "but, my dear sir, though estranged (by the force of circumstances over which i have had no controul) from the personal society of the friend and companion of my youth, i have not been unmindful of his soaring flight. nor have i been debarred, though seas between us braid ha' roared, (burns) from participating in the intellectual feasts he has spread before us. "i cannot, therefore, allow of the departure from this place of an individual whom we mutually respect and esteem, without, my dear sir, taking this public opportunity of thanking you, on my own behalf, and, i may undertake to add, on that of the whole of the inhabitants of port middlebay, for the gratification of which you are the ministering agent. "go on, my dear sir! you are not unknown here, you are not unappreciated. though 'remote,' we are neither 'unfriended,' 'melancholy,' nor (i may add) 'slow.' go on, my dear sir, in your eagle course! the inhabitants of port middlebay may at least aspire to watch it, with delight, with entertainment, with instruction! "among the eyes elevated towards you from this portion of the globe, will ever be found, while it has light and life, "the "eye "appertaining to "wilkins micawber, "magistrate." i found, on glancing at the remaining contents of the newspaper, that mr. micawber was a diligent and esteemed correspondent of that journal. there was another letter from him in the same paper, touching a bridge; there was an advertisement of a collection of similar letters by him, to be shortly republished, in a neat volume, "with considerable additions;" and, unless i am very much mistaken, the leading article was his also. we talked much of mr. micawber, on many other evenings while mr. peggotty remained with us. he lived with us during the whole term of his stay,--which, i think, was something less than a month,--and his sister and my aunt came to london to see him. agnes and i parted from him aboardship, when he sailed; and we shall never part from him more, on earth. but before he left, he went with me to yarmouth, to see a little tablet i had put up in the churchyard to the memory of ham. while i was copying the plain inscription for him at his request, i saw him stoop, and gather a tuft of grass from the grave, and a little earth. "for em'ly," he said, as he put it in his breast. "i promised, mas'r davy." chapter lxiv. a last retrospect. and now my written story ends. i look back, once more--for the last time--before i close these leaves. i see myself, with agnes at my side, journeying along the road of life. i see our children and our friends around us; and i hear the roar of many voices, not indifferent to me as i travel on. what faces are the most distinct to me in the fleeting crowd? lo, these; all turning to me as i ask my thoughts the question! here is my aunt, in stronger spectacles, an old woman of fourscore years and more, but upright yet, and a steady walker of six miles at a stretch in winter weather. always with her, here comes peggotty, my good old nurse, likewise in spectacles, accustomed to do needlework at night very close to the lamp, but never sitting down to it without a bit of wax candle, a yard measure in a little house, and a work-box with a picture of st. paul's upon the lid. the cheeks and arms of peggotty, so hard and red in my childish days, when i wondered why the birds didn't peck her in preference to apples, are shrivelled now; and her eyes, that used to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, are fainter (though they glitter still); but her rough forefinger, which i once associated with a pocket nutmeg grater, is just the same, and when i see my least child catching at it as it totters from my aunt to her, i think of our little parlor at home, when i could scarcely walk. my aunt's old disappointment is set right, now. she is godmother to a real living betsey trotwood; and dora (the next in order) says she spoils her. there is something bulky in peggotty's pocket. it is nothing smaller than the crocodile-book, which is in rather a dilapidated condition by this time, with divers of the leaves torn and stitched across, but which peggotty exhibits to the children as a precious relic. i find it very curious to see my own infant face, looking up at me from the crocodile stories; and to be reminded by it of my old acquaintance brooks of sheffield. among my boys, this summer holiday time, i see an old man making giant kites, and gazing at them in the air, with a delight for which there are no words. he greets me rapturously, and whispers, with many nods and winks, "trotwood, you will be glad to hear that i shall finish the memorial when i have nothing else to do, and that your aunt's the most extraordinary woman in the world, sir!" who is this bent lady, supporting herself by a stick, and showing me a countenance in which there are some traces of old pride and beauty, feebly contending with a querulous, imbecile, fretful wandering of the mind? she is in a garden; and near her stands a sharp, dark, withered woman, with a white scar on her lip. let me hear what they say. "rosa, i have forgotten this gentleman's name." rosa bends over her, and calls to her, "mr. copperfield." "i am glad to see you, sir. i am sorry to observe you are in mourning. i hope time will be good to you!" her impatient attendant scolds her, tells her i am not in mourning, bids her look again, tries to rouse her. "you have seen my son, sir," says the elder lady. "are you reconciled?" looking fixedly at me, she puts her hand to her forehead, and moans. suddenly, she cries, in a terrible voice, "rosa, come to me. he is dead!" rosa, kneeling at her feet, by turns caresses her, and quarrels with her; now fiercely telling her, "i loved him better than you ever did!"--now soothing her to sleep on her breast, like a sick child. thus i leave them; thus i always find them; thus they wear their time away, from year to year. what ship comes sailing home from india, and what english lady is this, married to a growling old scotch croesus with great flaps of ears. can this be julia mills? indeed it is julia mills, peevish and fine, with a black man to carry cards and letters to her on a golden salver, and a copper-colored woman in linen, with a bright handkerchief round her head, to serve her tiffin in her dressing-room. but julia keeps no diary in these days; never sings affection's dirge; eternally quarrels with the old scotch croesus, who is a sort of yellow bear with a tanned hide. julia is steeped in money to the throat, and talks and thinks of nothing else. i liked her better in the desert of sahara. or perhaps this _is_ the desert of sahara! for, though julia has a stately house, and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every day, i see no green growth near her; nothing that can ever come to fruit or flower. what julia calls "society," i see; among it mr. jack maldon, from his patent place, sneering at the hand that gave it him, and speaking to me, of the doctor, as "so charmingly antique." but when society is the name for such hollow gentlemen and ladies, julia, and when its breeding is professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retard mankind, i think we must have lost ourselves in that same desert of sahara, and had better find the way out. and lo, the doctor, always our good friend, laboring at his dictionary (somewhere about the letter d), and happy in his home and wife. also the old soldier, on a considerably reduced footing, and by no means so influential as in days of yore! working at his chambers in the temple, with a busy aspect, and his hair (where he is not bald) made more rebellious than ever by the constant friction of his lawyer's-wig, i come, in a later time, upon my dear old traddles. his table is covered with thick piles of papers; and i say, as i look around me: "if sophy were your clerk, now, traddles, she would have enough to do!" "you may say that, my dear copperfield! but those were capital days, too, in holborn court! were they not?" "when she told you you would be a judge? but it was not the town talk _then_!" "at all events," says traddles, "if i ever am one----" "why, you know you will be." "well, my dear copperfield, _when_ i am one, i shall tell the story, as i said i would." we walk away, arm in arm. i am going to have a family dinner with traddles. it is sophy's birthday; and, on our road, traddles discourses to me of the good fortune he has enjoyed. "i really have been able, my dear copperfield, to do all that i had most at heart. there's the reverend horace promoted to that living at four hundred and fifty pounds a year; there are our two boys receiving the very best education, and distinguishing themselves as steady scholars and good fellows; there are three of the girls married very comfortably; there are three more living with us; there are three more keeping house for the reverend horace since mrs. crewler's decease; and all of them happy." "except--" i suggest. "except the beauty," says traddles. "yes. it was very unfortunate that she should marry such a vagabond. but there was a certain dash and glare about him that caught her. however, now we have got her safe at our house, and got rid of him, we must cheer her up again." traddles's house is one of the very houses--or it easily may have been--which he and sophy used to parcel out, in their evening walks. it is a large house; but traddles keeps his papers in his dressing-room, and his boots with his papers; and he and sophy squeeze themselves into upper rooms, reserving the best bed-rooms for the beauty and the girls. there is no room to spare in the house; for more of "the girls" are here, and always are here, by some accident or other, than i know how to count. here, when we go in, is a crowd of them, running down to the door, and handing traddles about to be kissed, until he is out of breath. here, established in perpetuity, is the poor beauty, a widow with a little girl; here, at dinner on sophy's birthday, are the three married girls with their three husbands, and one of the husband's brothers, and another husband's cousin, and another husband's sister, who appears to me to be engaged to the cousin. traddles, exactly the same simple, unaffected fellow as he ever was, sits at the foot of the large table like a patriarch; and sophy beams upon him, from the head, across a cheerful space that is certainly not glittering with britannia metal. and now, as i close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet, these faces fade away. but, one face, shining on me like a heavenly light by which i see all other objects, is above them and beyond them all. and that remains. i turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me. my lamp burns low, and i have written far into the night; but the dear presence, without which i were nothing, bears me company. o agnes, o my soul, so may thy face be by me when i close my life indeed; so may i, when realities are melting from me like the shadows which i now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward! * * * * * * transcriber's note: this ebook is derived from a digitisation of a signed first edition published by bradbury & evans in . hyphenation in this book is occasionally inconsistent. unless clearly incorrect, hyphenation been left as found in the print edition. the book contains significant amounts of archaic and dialect spelling. unless clearly incorrect, spelling has been left as found in the print edition. the following list details correction of typographical errors: chapter ii. -"go" changed to "ago" -"dose" changed to "doze" -"dont" changed to "don't" -"ut" changed to "but" chapter iii. -"spongey" changed to "spongy" -"air" changed to "hair" -"canvass" changed to "canvas" -"a-top" is correct -"havn't" changed to "haven't" -"pointing" changed to "pointing" -"similies" is correct -"wasnt" changed to "wasn't" -closing quote added -"did'nt" changed to "didn't" -"have'nt" changed to "haven't -"mrs" changed to "mrs." -"old'un" changed to "old 'un" chapter iv. -"stupified" is correct -"becase" changed to "because" chapter vi. -"mr" changed to "mr." chapter vii. -"what" changed to "what" -"to day" changed to "to-day" chapter viii. -misplaced quote removed chapter ix. -"controuled" is correct -single quote changed to double chapter x. -"sh'is" used (could be "sh' is") chapter xvi. -comma replaced with period -"can not" changed to "cannot" -closing quote added chapter xvii. -"escrutoire" is correct chapter xx. -"plyed" changed to "played" chapter xxi. -"ewents" is correct (dialect) chapter xxii. -closing quote added -"havn't" changed to "haven't" -"kind-naturd" changed to "kind-natur'd" chapter xxv. -single quote changed to double -"ouse" is correct (dialect) -"ed" is correct (dialect) chapter xxvi. -"yo" changed to "you," chapter xxix. -closing quote added -correct quoting is unclear; left as text chapter xxxii. -closing quote added -closing quote added -"wont" changed to "won't" chapter xxxiv. -"your's" changed to "yours" -"aud" changed to "and" chapter xxxv. -extra opening quote removed chapter xxxvi. -"too" changed to "two" -single quote changed to double -closing quote added -erroneous double quote removed -closing quote added chapter xxxvii. -erroneous comma removed chapter xxxviii. -"coroboration" changed to "corroboration" -"d.j.m." should possibly be "d., j.m."; text from printed edition retained chapter xxxix. -comma after "incapable" questionable; text from printed edition retained -"havn't" changed to "haven't" chapter xl. -"peggoty" changed to "peggotty" chapter xlii. -closing quote added -closing quote added -"mavellous" changed to "marvellous" chapter xliii. -"give" changed to "gives" chapter xliv. -comma questionable but left as text chapter xlvi. -closing quote added -"boatmens'" changed to "boatmen's" -"to night" changed to "to-night" chapter xlviii. -capitalisation of "what" questionable; left as text -"could'nt" changed to "couldn't" chapter xlix. -"waived" changed to "waved" chapter lii. -comma changed to period -"mr" changed to "mr." -"i o u's" changed to "i. o. u.'s" chapter liv. -"earnestnesss" changed to "earnestness" chapter lvii. -"aud" changed to "and" chapter lix. -"n" changed to "in" -"mr dick" changed to "mr. dick" chapter lxi. -closing quote added chapter lxiii. -closing quote moved -"old'un" changed to "old 'un" images generously made available by internet archive (http://www.archive.org) note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) images of the original pages are available through internet archive. see http://www.archive.org/details/dickensstoriesab dick dickens' stories about children every child can read edited by rev. jesse lyman hurlbut, d.d. [illustration: charles dickens.] illustrated [illustration: every child's library] the john c. winston co. philadelphia copyright, , by the john c. winston co. preface. to the young reader: charles dickens was one of the greatest among the many story-writers of "the victorian age;" that is, the middle and latter part of the nineteenth century, when victoria was queen of great britain. perhaps he was the greatest of them all for now, a generation after he passed away, more people read the stories of dickens than those by any other author of that period. in those wonderful writings are found many pictures of child-life connected with the plan of the novels or stories. these child-stories have been taken out of their connections and are told by themselves in this volume. by and by you will read for yourselves, "the christmas carol," "the chimes," "david copperfield," "the old curiosity shop," and the other great books by that fascinating writer, who saw people whom nobody else ever saw, and made them real. when you read those books you will meet again these charming children, and will remember them as the friends of your childhood. jesse l. hurlbut. contents. page trotty veck and meg. _from "the chimes"_ tiny tim. _from "christmas carol"_ the runaway couple. _from "the holly-tree inn"_ little dorrit. _from "little dorrit"_ the toy-maker and his blind daughter. _from "cricket on the hearth"_ little nell. _from "the old curiosity shop"_ little david copperfield. _from "david copperfield"_ jenny wren. _from "our mutual friend"_ pip's adventure. _from "great expectations"_ todgers' dick swiveller and the marchioness mr. wardle's servant joe the brave and honest boy, oliver twist illustrations. charles dickens _frontispiece_ page "they broke in like a grace, my dear." "mr. clennam followed her home." little nell and her grandfather david copperfield and little em'ly seated on the crystal carpet were two girls "keep still, you little imp, or i'll cut your throat." "mr. tupman, we are observed!" i. trotty veck and his daughter meg. "trotty" seems a strange name for an old man, but it was given to toby veck because of his always going at a trot to do his errands; for he was a ticket porter or messenger and his office was to take letters and messages for people who were in too great a hurry to send them by post, which in those days was neither so cheap nor so quick as it is now. he did not earn very much, and had to be out in all weathers and all day long. but toby was of a cheerful disposition, and looked on the bright side of everything, and was grateful for any small mercies that came in his way; and so was happier than many people who never knew what it is to be hungry or in want of comforts. his greatest joy was his dear, bright, pretty daughter meg, who loved him dearly. one cold day, near the end of the year, toby had been waiting a long time for a job, trotting up and down in his usual place before the church, and trying hard to keep himself warm, when the bells chimed twelve o'clock, which made toby think of dinner. "there's nothing," he remarked, carefully feeling his nose to make sure it was still there, "more regular in coming round than dinner-time, and nothing less regular in coming round than dinner. that's the great difference between 'em." he went on talking to himself, trotting up and down, and never noticing who was coming near to him. "why, father, father," said a pleasant voice, and toby turned to find his daughter's sweet, bright eyes close to his. "why, pet," said he, kissing her and squeezing her blooming face between his hands, "what's to-do? i didn't expect you to-day, meg." "neither did i expect to come, father," said meg, nodding and smiling. "but here i am! and not alone, not alone!" "why you don't mean to say," observed trotty, looking curiously at the covered basket she carried, "that you----" "smell it, father dear," said meg. "only smell it!" trotty was going to lift up the cover at once, in a great hurry, when she gaily interposed her hand. "no, no, no," said meg, with the glee of a child. "lengthen it out a little. let me just lift up the corner; just a lit-tle, ti-ny cor-ner, you know," said meg, suiting the action to the word with the utmost gentleness, and speaking very softly, as if she were afraid of being overheard by something inside the basket. "there, now; what's that?" toby took the shortest possible sniff at the edge of the basket, and cried out in rapture: "why, it's hot," he said. but to meg's great delight he could not guess what it was that smelt so good. "polonies? trotters? liver? pigs' feet? sausages?" he tried one after the other. at last he exclaimed in triumph. "why, what am i a-thinking of? it's tripe." and it was. "and so," said meg, "i'll lay the cloth at once, father; for i have brought the tripe in a basin, and tied the basin up in a pocket-handkerchief; and if i like to be proud for once, and spread that for a cloth, and call it a cloth, there's nobody to prevent me, is there father?" "not that i know of, my dear," said toby; "but they're always a-bringing up some new law or other." "and according to what i was reading you in the paper the other day, father, what the judge said, you know, we poor people are supposed to know them all. ha, ha! what a mistake! my goodness me, how clever they think us!" "yes, my dear," cried trotty; "and they'd be very fond of any one of us that _did_ know 'em all. he'd grow fat upon the work he'd get, that man, and be popular with the gentlefolks in his neighborhood. very much so!" "he'd eat his dinner with an appetite, whoever he was, if it smelt like this," said meg cheerfully. "make haste, for there's a hot potato besides, and half a pint of fresh-drawn beer in a bottle. where will you dine, father--on the post or on the steps? dear, dear, how grand we are! two places to choose from!" "the steps to-day, my pet," said trotty. "steps in dry weather, post in wet. there's greater conveniency in the steps at all times, because of the sitting down; but they're rheumatic in the damp." "then, here," said meg, clapping her hands after a moment's bustle; "here it is all ready! and beautiful it looks! come, father. come!" [illustration: "they broke in like a grace, my dear." page ] and just as toby was about to sit down to his dinner on the door-steps of a big house close by, the chimes rang out again, and toby took off his hat and said, "amen." "amen to the bells, father?" "they broke in like a grace, my dear," said trotty; "they'd say a good one if they could, i'm sure. many's the kind thing they say to me. how often have i heard them bells say, 'toby veck, keep a good heart, toby!' a million times? more!" "well, i never!" cried meg. "when things is very bad, then it's 'toby veck, toby veck, job coming soon, toby!'" "and it comes--at last, father," said meg, with a touch of sadness in her pleasant voice. "always," answered toby. "never fails." while this discourse was holding, trotty made no pause in his attack upon the savory meat before him, but cut and ate, and cut and drank, and cut and chewed, and dodged about from tripe to hot potato, and from hot potato back again to tripe, with an unfailing relish. but happening now to look all round the street--in case anybody should be beckoning from any door or window for a porter--his eyes, in coming back again, saw meg sitting opposite him, with her arms folded, and only busy in watching his dinner with a smile of happiness. "why, lord forgive me!" said trotty, dropping his knife and fork. "my dove! meg! why didn't you tell me what a beast i was?" "father!" "sitting here," said trotty, in a sorrowful manner, "cramming, and stuffing, and gorging myself, and you before me there, never so much as breaking your precious fast, nor wanting to, when----" "but i have broken it, father," interposed his daughter, laughing, "all to bits. i have had my dinner." "nonsense," said trotty. "two dinners in one day! it ain't possible! you might as well tell me that two new year's days will come together, or that i have had a gold head all my life, and never changed it." "i have had my dinner, father, for all that," said meg, coming nearer to him. "and if you will go on with yours, i'll tell you how and where, and how your dinner came to be brought and--and something else besides." toby still appeared not to believe her; but she looked into his face with her clear eyes, and, laying her hand upon his shoulder, motioned him to go on while the meat was hot. so trotty took up his knife and fork again and went to work, but much more slowly than before, and shaking his head, as if he were not at all pleased with himself. "i had my dinner, father," said meg, after a little hesitation, "with--with richard. his dinner-time was early; and as he brought his dinner with him when he came to see me, we--we had it together, father." trotty took a little beer and smacked his lips. then he said "oh!" because she waited. "and richard says, father--" meg resumed, then stopped. "what does richard say, meg?" asked toby. "richard says, father--" another stoppage. "richard's a long time saying it," said toby. "he says, then, father," meg continued, lifting up her eyes at last, and speaking in a tremble, but quite plainly, "another year is nearly gone, and where is the use of waiting on from year to year, when it is so unlikely we shall ever be better off than we are now? he says we are poor now, father, and we shall be poor then; but we are young now, and years will make us old before we know it. he says that if we wait, people as poor as we are, until we see our way quite clearly, the way will be a narrow one indeed--the common way--the grave, father." a bolder man than trotty veck must needs have drawn upon his boldness largely to deny it. trotty held his peace. "and how hard, father, to grow old and die, and think we might have cheered and helped each other! how hard in all our lives to love each other, and to grieve, apart, to see each other working, changing, growing old and gray. even if i got the better of it, and forgot him (which i never could), oh, father, dear, how hard to have a heart so full as mine is now, and live to have it slowly drained out every drop, without remembering one happy moment of a woman's life to stay behind and comfort me and make me better!" trotty sat quite still. meg dried her eyes, and said more gaily--that is to say, with here a laugh and there a sob, and here a laugh and sob together: "so richard says, father, as his work was yesterday made certain for some time to come, and as i love him and have loved him full three years--ah, longer than that, if he knew it!--will i marry him on new year's day?" just then richard himself came up to persuade toby to agree to their plan; and, almost at the same moment, a footman came out of the house and ordered them all off the steps, and some gentlemen came out who called up trotty, and asked a great many questions, and found a good deal of fault, telling richard he was very foolish to want to get married, which made toby feel very unhappy, and richard very angry. so the lovers went off together sadly; richard looking gloomy and downcast, and meg in tears. toby, who had a letter given him to carry, and a sixpence, trotted off in rather low spirits to a very grand house, where he was told to take the letter in to the gentleman. while he was waiting, he heard the letter read. it was from alderman cute, to tell sir joseph bowley that one of his tenants named will fern, who had come to london to try to get work, and been brought before him charged with sleeping in a shed, and asking if sir joseph wished him to be dealt kindly with or otherwise. to toby's great disappointment, for sir joseph had talked a great deal about being a friend to the poor, the answer was given that will fern might be sent to prison as a vagabond, and made an example of, though his only fault was that he was poor. on his way home, toby, thinking sadly, with his hat pulled down low on his head, ran against a man dressed like a country-man, carrying a fair-haired little girl. toby enquired anxiously if he had hurt either of them. the man answered no, and seeing toby had a kind face, he asked him the way to alderman cute's house. "it's impossible," cried toby, "that your name is will fern?" "that's my name," said the man. thereupon toby told him what he had just heard, and said, "don't go there." poor will told him how he could not make a living in the country, and had come to london with his orphan niece to try to find a friend of her mother's and to endeavor to get some work, and, wishing toby a happy new year, was about to trudge wearily off again, when trotty caught his hand, saying-- "stay! the new year never can be happy to me if i see the child and you go wandering away without a shelter for your heads. come home with me. i'm a poor man, living in a poor place; but i can give you lodging for one night, and never miss it. come home with me! here! i'll take her!" cried trotty, lifting up the child. "a pretty one! i'd carry twenty times her weight and never know i'd got it. tell me if i go too quick for you. i'm very fast. i always was!" trotty said this, taking about six of his trotting paces to one stride of his tired companion, and with his thin legs quivering again beneath the load he bore. "why, she's as light," said trotty, trotting in his speech as well as in his gait--for he couldn't bear to be thanked, and dreaded a moment's pause--"as light as a feather. lighter than a peacock's feather--a great deal lighter. here we are and here we go!" and, rushing in, he set the child down before his daughter. the little girl gave one look at meg's sweet face and ran into her arms at once, while trotty ran round the room, saying, "here we are and here we go. here, uncle will, come to the fire. meg, my precious darling, where's the kettle? here it is and here it goes, and it'll bile in no time!" "why, father!" said meg, as she knelt before the child and pulled off her wet shoes, "you're crazy to-night, i think. i don't know what the bells would say to that. poor little feet, how cold they are!" "oh, they're warmer now!" exclaimed the child. "they're quite warm now!" "no, no, no," said meg. "we haven't rubbed 'em half enough. we're so busy. and when they're done, we'll brush out the damp hair; and when that's done, we'll bring some color to the poor pale face with fresh water; and when that's done, we'll be so gay and brisk and happy!" the child, sobbing, clasped her round the neck, saying, "o meg, o dear meg!" "good gracious me!" said meg presently, "father's crazy. he's put the dear child's bonnet on the kettle, and hung the lid behind the door!" trotty hastily repaired this mistake, and went off to find some tea and a rasher of bacon he fancied "he had seen lying somewhere on the stairs." he soon came back and made the tea, and before long they were all enjoying the meal. trotty and meg only took a morsel for form's sake (for they had only a very little, not enough for all), but their delight was in seeing their visitors eat, and very happy they were--though trotty had noticed that meg was sitting by the fire in tears when they had come in, and he feared her marriage had been broken off. after tea meg took lilian to bed, and toby showed will fern where he was to sleep. as he came back past meg's door he heard the child saying her prayers, remembering meg's name and asking for his. then he went to sit by the fire and read his paper, and fell asleep to have a wonderful dream, so terrible and sad, that it was a great relief when he woke. "and whatever you do, father," said meg, "don't eat tripe again without asking some doctor whether it's likely to agree with you; for how you _have_ been going on! good gracious!" she was working with her needle at the little table by the fire, dressing her simple gown with ribbons for her wedding--so quietly happy, so blooming and youthful, so full of beautiful promise that he uttered a great cry as if it were an angel in his house, then flew to clasp her in his arms. but he caught his feet in the newspaper, which had fallen on the hearth, and somebody came rushing in between them. "no!" cried the voice of this same somebody. a generous and jolly voice it was! "not even you; not even you. the first kiss of meg in the new year is mine--mine! i have been waiting outside the house this hour to hear the bells and claim it. meg, my precious prize, a happy year! a life of happy years, my darling wife!" and richard smothered her with kisses. you never in all your life saw anything like trotty after this, i don't care where you have lived or what you have seen; you never in your life saw anything at all approaching him! he kept running up to meg, and squeezing her fresh face between his hands and kissing it, going from her backwards not to lose sight of it, and running up again like a figure in a magic lantern; and whatever he did, he was constantly sitting himself down in his chair, and never stopping in it for one single moment, being--that's the truth--beside himself with joy. "and to-morrow's your wedding-day, my pet!" cried trotty. "your real, happy wedding-day!" "to-day!" cried richard, shaking hands with him. "to-day. the chimes are ringing in the new year. hear them!" they _were_ ringing! bless their sturdy hearts, they _were_ ringing! great bells as they were--melodious, deep-mouthed, noble bells, cast in no common metal, made by no common founder--when had they ever chimed like that before? trotty was backing off to that wonderful chair again, when the child, who had been awakened by the noise, came running in half-dressed. "why, here she is!" cried trotty, catching her up. "here's little lilian! ha, ha, ha! here we are and here we go. oh, here we are and here we go again! and here we are and here we go! and uncle will, too!" before will fern could make the least reply, a band of music burst into the room, attended by a flock of neighbors, screaming, "a happy new year, meg!" "a happy wedding!" "many of 'em!" and other fragmentary good-wishes of that sort. the drum (who was a private friend of trotty's) then stepped forward and said: "trotty veck, my boy, it's got about that your daughter is going to be married to-morrow. there ain't a soul that knows you that don't wish you well, or that knows her and don't wish her well. or that knows you both, and don't wish you both all the happiness the new year can bring. and here we are to play it in and dance it in accordingly." then mrs. chickenstalker came in (a good-humored, nice-looking woman who, to the delight of all, turned out to be the friend of lilian's mother, for whom will fern had come to look), with a stone pitcher full of "flip," to wish meg joy, and then the music struck up, and trotty, making meg and richard second couple, led off mrs. chickenstalker down the dance, and danced it in a step unknown before or since, founded on his own peculiar trot. ii. tiny tim. it will surprise you all very much to hear that there was once a man who did not like christmas. in fact, he had been heard on several occasions to use the word _humbug_ with regard to it. his name was scrooge, and he was a hard, sour-tempered man of business, intent only on saving and making money, and caring nothing for anyone. he paid the poor, hard-working clerk in his office as little as he could possibly get the work done for, and lived on as little as possible himself, alone, in two dismal rooms. he was never merry or comfortable or happy, and he hated other people to be so, and that was the reason why he hated christmas, because people _will_ be happy at christmas, you know, if they possibly can, and like to have a little money to make themselves and others comfortable. well, it was christmas eve, a very cold and foggy one, and mr. scrooge, having given his poor clerk permission very unwillingly to spend christmas day at home, locked up his office and went home himself in a very bad temper, and with a cold in his head. after having taken some gruel as he sat over a miserable fire in his dismal room, he got into bed, and had some wonderful and disagreeable dreams, to which we will leave him, whilst we see how tiny tim, the son of his poor clerk, spent christmas day. the name of this clerk was bob cratchit. he had a wife and five other children besides tim, who was a weak and delicate little cripple, and for this reason was dearly loved by his father and the rest of the family; not but what he was a dear little boy, too, gentle and patient and loving, with a sweet face of his own, which no one could help looking at. whenever he could spare the time, it was mr. cratchit's delight to carry his little boy out on his shoulder to see the shops and the people; and to-day he had taken him to church for the first time. "whatever has got your precious father and your brother tiny tim!" exclaimed mrs. cratchit, "here's dinner all ready to be dished up. i've never known him so late on christmas day before." "here he is, mother!" cried belinda, and "here he is!" cried the other children. in came little bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look just as well as possible; and tiny tim upon his shoulder. alas for tiny tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame! "why, where's our martha?" cried bob cratchit, looking round. "not coming," said mrs. cratchit. "not coming!" said bob, with a sudden dropping in his high spirits; for he had been tim's blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. "not coming upon christmas day!" martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out sooner than had been agreed upon from behind the closet-door, and ran into his arms, while the two young cratchits hustled tiny tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper kettle. "and how did tim behave?" asked mrs. cratchit. "as good as gold and better," replied his father. "i think, wife, the child gets thoughtful, sitting at home so much. he told me, coming home, that he hoped the people in church who saw he was a cripple, would be pleased to remember on christmas day who it was who made the lame to walk." "bless his sweet heart!" said the mother in a trembling voice, and the father's voice trembled, too, as he remarked that "tiny tim was growing strong and hearty at last." his active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came tiny tim before another word was spoken, led by his brother and sister to his stool beside the fire; while bob, master peter, and the two young cratchits (who seemed to be everywhere at once) went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession. such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a perfect marvel, to which a black swan was a matter of course--and in truth it was something very like it in that house. mrs. cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; master peter mashed the potatoes with tremendous vigor; miss belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; martha dusted the hot plates; bob took tiny tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and, mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. at last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. it was succeeded by a breathless pause, as mrs. cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even tiny tim, excited by the two young cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried hurrah! there never was such a goose. bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. its tenderness and flavor, size, and cheapness were the themes of universal admiration. eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as mrs. cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at that! yet everyone had had enough, and the youngest cratchits, in particular, were steeped in sage and onions to the eyebrows! but now, the plates being changed by miss belinda, mrs. cratchit left the room alone--too nervous to bear witnesses--to take up the pudding and bring it in. suppose it should not be done enough! suppose it should break in turning out! suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back yard and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose--a supposition at which the two young cratchits became livid! all sorts of horrors were supposed. halloo! a great deal of steam! the pudding was out of the copper. a smell like a washing-day! that was the cloth. a smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress' next door to that! that was the pudding! in half a minute mrs. cratchit entered--flushed, but smiling proudly--with the pudding like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of lighted brandy, and decorated with christmas holly stuck into the top. oh, a wonderful pudding! bob cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by mrs. cratchit since their marriage. mrs. cratchit said that, now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of flour. everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was a small pudding for a large family. it would have been really wicked to do so. any cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing. at last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. the hot stuff in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel full of chestnuts on the fire. then all the cratchit family drew round the hearth in what bob cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at bob cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle. these held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. then bob proposed: "a merry christmas to us all, my dears. god bless us!" which all the family re-echoed. "god bless us everyone!" said tiny tim, the last of all. now i told you that mr. scrooge had some disagreeable and wonderful dreams on christmas eve, and so he had; and in one of them he dreamt that a christmas spirit showed him his clerk's home; he saw them all gathered round the fire, and heard them drink his health, and tiny tim's song, and he took special note of tiny tim himself. how mr. scrooge spent christmas day we do not know. he may have remained in bed, having a cold, but on christmas night he had more dreams, and in one of his dreams the spirit took him again to his clerk's poor home. the mother was doing some needlework, seated by the table, a tear dropped on it now and then, and she said, poor thing, that the work, which was black, hurt her eyes. the children sat, sad and silent, about the room, except tiny tim, who was not there. upstairs the father, with his face hidden in his hands, sat beside a little bed, on which lay a tiny figure, white and still. "my little child, my pretty little child," he sobbed, as the tears fell through his fingers on to the floor. "tiny tim died because his father was too poor to give him what was necessary to make him well; _you_ kept him poor;" said the dream-spirit to mr. scrooge. the father kissed the cold, little face on the bed, and went downstairs, where the sprays of holly still remained about the humble room; and taking his hat, went out, with a wistful glance at the little crutch in the corner as he shut the door. mr. scrooge saw all this, and many more things as strange and sad, the spirit took care of that; but, wonderful to relate, he woke the next morning feeling a different man--feeling as he had never felt in his life before. for after all, you know that what he had seen was no more than a dream; he knew that tiny tim was not dead, and scrooge was resolved that tiny tim should not die if he could help it. "why, i am as light as a feather, and as happy as an angel, and as merry as a schoolboy," scrooge said to himself as he skipped into the next room to breakfast and threw on all the coals at once, and put two lumps of sugar in his tea. "i hope everybody had a merry christmas, and here's a happy new year to all the world." on that morning, the day after christmas poor bob cratchit crept into the office a few minutes late, expecting to be roundly abused and scolded for it, but no such thing; his master was there with his back to a good fire, and actually smiling, and he shook hands with his clerk, telling him heartily he was going to raise his salary and asking quite affectionately after tiny tim! "and mind you make up a good fire in your room before you set to work, bob," he said, as he closed his own door. bob could hardly believe his eyes and ears, but it was all true. such doings as they had on new year's day had never been seen before in the cratchits' home, nor such a turkey as mr. scrooge sent them for dinner. tiny tim had his share too, for tiny tim did not die, not a bit of it. mr. scrooge was a second father to him from that day, he wanted for nothing, and grew up strong and hearty. mr. scrooge loved him, and well he might, for was it not tiny tim who had without knowing it, through the christmas dream-spirit, touched his hard heart and caused him to become a good and happy man? iii. the runaway couple. the boots at the holly tree inn was the young man named cobbs, who blacked the shoes, and ran errands, and waited on the people at the inn; and this is the story that he told, one day. "supposing a young gentleman not eight years old was to run away with a fine young woman of seven, would you consider that a queer start? that there is a start as i--the boots at the holly tree inn--have seen with my own eyes; and i cleaned the shoes they ran away in, and they was so little that i couldn't get my hand into 'em. "master harry walmers' father, he lived at the elms, away by shooter's hill, six or seven miles from london. he was uncommon proud of master harry, as he was his only child; but he didn't spoil him neither. he was a gentleman that had a will of his own, and an eye of his own, and that would be minded. consequently, though he made quite a companion of the fine bright boy, still he kept the command over him, and the child _was_ a child. i was under-gardener there at that time; and one morning master harry, he comes to me and says-- "'cobbs, how should you spell norah, if you was asked?' and then begun cutting it in print, all over the fence. "he couldn't say he had taken particular notice of children before that; but really it was pretty to see them two mites a-going about the place together, deep in love. and the courage of the boy! bless your soul, he'd have throwed off his little hat, and tucked up his little sleeves, and gone in at a lion, he would, if they had happened to meet one and she had been frightened of him. one day he stops along, with her, where boots was hoeing weeds in the gravel, and says--speaking up, 'cobbs,' he says, 'i like you.' 'do you, sir? i'm proud to hear it.' 'yes, i do, cobbs. why do i like you, do you think, cobbs?' 'don't know, master harry, i am sure.' 'because norah likes you, cobbs.' 'indeed, sir? that's very gratifying.' 'gratifying, cobbs? it's better than millions of the brightest diamonds to be liked by norah.' 'certainly, sir.' 'you're going away, ain't you, cobbs?' 'yes, sir.' 'would you like another situation, cobbs?' 'well, sir, i shouldn't object, if it was a good 'un.' 'then, cobbs,' says he, 'you shall be our head-gardener when we are married.' and he tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks away. "it was better than a picter, and equal to a play, to see them babies with their long, bright, curling hair, their sparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread, a-rambling about the garden, deep in love. boots was of opinion that the birds believed they was birds, and kept up with 'em, singing to please 'em. sometimes, they would creep under the tulip tree, and would sit there with their arms round one another's necks, and their soft cheeks touching, a-reading about the prince and the dragon, and the good and bad enchanters, and the king's fair daughter. sometimes he would hear them planning about having a house in a forest, keeping bees and a cow, and living entirely on milk and honey. once he came upon them by the pond, and heard master harry say, 'adorable norah, kiss me, and say you love me to distraction, or i'll jump in headforemost.' and boots made no question he would have done it, if she hadn't done as he asked her. "'cobbs,' says master harry, one evening, when cobbs was watering the flowers, 'i am going on a visit, this present mid-summer, to my grandmamma's at york.' "'are you, indeed, sir? i hope you'll have a pleasant time. i am going into yorkshire myself when i leave here.' "'are you going to your grandmamma's, cobbs?' "'no, sir. i haven't got such a thing.' "'not as a grandmamma, cobbs?' "'no, sir.' "the boy looked on at the watering of the flowers for a little while and then said, 'i shall be very glad, indeed, to go, cobbs--norah's going.' "'you'll be all right then, sir,' says cobbs, 'with your beautiful sweetheart by your side.' "'cobbs,' returned the boy, flushing, 'i never let anybody joke about it when i can prevent them.' "'it wasn't a joke, sir,' says cobbs, with humility--'wasn't so meant.' "'i am glad of that, cobbs, because i like you! you know, and you're going to live with us, cobbs. "'sir.' "'what do you think my grandmamma gives me, when i go down there?' "'i couldn't so much as make a guess, sir.' "'a bank of england five-pound note, cobbs.'[a] "'whew!' says cobbs, 'that's a spanking sum of money, master harry.' "'a person could do a great deal with such a sum of money as that. couldn't a person, cobbs?' "'i believe you, sir!' "'cobbs,' said the boy, 'i'll tell you a secret. at norah's house they have been joking her about me, and pretending to laugh at our being engaged. pretending to make game of it, cobbs!' "'such, sir,' says cobbs, 'is the wickedness of human natur'.' "the boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few minutes with his glowing face towards the sunset, and then departed with, 'good night, cobbs. i'm going in.' "i was the boots at the holly tree inn when one summer afternoon the coach drives up, and out of the coach gets these two children. "the guard says to our governor, the inn-keeper, 'i don't quite make out these little passengers, but the young gentleman's words was, that they were to be brought here.' the young gentleman gets out; hands his lady out; gives the driver something for himself; says to our governor, 'we're to stop here to-night, please. sitting-room and two bedrooms will be required. chops and cherry-pudding for two!' and tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks into the house much bolder than brass. "boots leaves me to judge what the amazement of that establishment was when those two tiny creatures, all alone by themselves, was marched into the parlor--much more so when he, who had seen them without their seeing him, gave the governor his views of the errand they was upon. 'cobbs,' says the governor, 'if this is so, i must set off myself to york and quiet their friends' minds. in which case you must keep your eye upon 'em, and humor 'em, till i come back. but, before i take these measures, cobbs, i should wish you to find out from themselves whether your opinions is correct.' 'sir, to you,' says cobbs, 'that shall be done directly.' "so boots goes up stairs to the parlor, and there he finds master harry on an enormous sofa a-drying the eyes of miss norah with his pocket-hankecher. their little legs were entirely off the ground of course, and it really is not possible for boots to express to me how small them children looked. "'it's cobbs! it's cobbs!' cries master harry, and comes running to him, and catching hold of his hand. miss norah comes running to him on t'other side, and catching hold of his t'other hand, and they both jump for joy. "'i see you a-getting out, sir,' says cobbs. 'i thought it was you. i thought i couldn't be mistaken in your height and figure. what's the object of your journey, sir? are you going to be married?' "'we are going to be married, cobbs, at gretna green,' returned the boy. 'we have run away on purpose. norah has been in rather low spirits, cobbs; but she'll be happy, now we have found you to be our friend.' "'thank you, sir, and thank _you_, miss,' says cobbs, 'for your good opinion. did you bring any luggage with you, sir?' "if i will believe boots when he gives me his word and honor upon it, the lady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and a half of cold buttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a hair-brush--seemingly a doll's. the gentleman had got about half a dozen yards of string, a knife, three or four sheets of writing-paper folded up surprisingly small, an orange, and a china mug with his name upon it. "'what may be the exact natur' of your plans, sir?' says cobbs. "'to go on,' replied the boy--which the courage of that boy was something wonderful!--'in the morning, and be married to-morrow.' "'just so, sir,' says cobbs. 'would it meet your views, sir, if i was to go with you?' "when cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried out, 'oh, yes, yes, cobbs! yes!' "'well, sir,' says cobbs. 'if you will excuse my having the freedom to give an opinion, what i should recommend would be this. i'm acquainted with a pony, sir, which, put in a phaeton that i could borrow, would take you and mrs. harry walmers, jr. (myself driving, if you agree), to the end of your journey in a very short space of time. i am not altogether sure, sir, that this pony will be at liberty to-morrow, but even if you had to wait over to-morrow for him, it might be worth your while. as to the small account for your board here, sir, in case you was to find yourself running at all short, that don't signify, because i'm a part proprietor of this inn, and it could stand over.' "boots tells me that when they clapped their hands and jumped for joy again, and called him, 'good cobbs!' and 'dear cobbs!' and bent across him to kiss one another in the delight of their trusting hearts, he felt himself the meanest rascal for deceiving 'em that ever was born. "'is there anything you want just at present, sir?' says cobbs, mortally ashamed of himself. "'we would like some cakes after dinner,' answered master harry, folding his arms, putting out one leg, and looking straight at him, 'and two apples--and jam. with dinner, we should like to have toast and water. but norah has always been accustomed to half a glass of currant wine at dessert. and so have i.' "'it shall be ordered at the bar, sir,' says cobbs, and away he went. "'the way in which the women of that house--without exception--everyone of 'em--married and single, took to that boy when they heard the story, boots considers surprising. it was as much as he could do to keep 'em from dashing into the room and kissing him. they climbed up all sorts of places, at the risk of their lives, to look at him through a pane of glass. they were seven deep at the key-hole. they were out of their minds about him and his bold spirit. "in the evening boots went into the room, to see how the runaway couple was getting on. the gentleman was on the window-seat, supporting the lady in his arms. she had tears upon her face, and was lying, very tired and half-asleep, with her head upon his shoulder. "'mrs. harry walmers, jr., tired, sir?' says cobbs. "'yes, she is tired, cobbs; but she is not used to be away from home, and she has been in low spirits again. cobbs, do you think you could bring a biffin, please?' "'i ask your pardon, sir,' says cobbs. 'what was it you--' "'i think a norfolk biffin[b] would rouse her, cobbs. she is very fond of them.' "boots withdrew in search of the required restorative, and, when he brought it in, the gentleman handed it to the lady, and fed her with a spoon, and took a little himself. the lady being heavy with sleep, and rather cross. 'what should you think, sir,' says cobbs, 'of a chamber candlestick?' the gentleman approved; the chambermaid went first, up the great staircase; the lady, in her sky-blue mantle, followed, gallantly led by the gentleman; the gentleman kissed her at the door, and retired to his own room, where boots softly locked him up. "boots couldn't but feel what a base deceiver he was when they asked him at breakfast (they had ordered sweet milk-and-water, and toast and currant jelly, overnight) about the pony. it really was as much as he could do, he don't mind confessing to me, to look them two young things in the face, and think how wicked he had grown up to be. howsomever, he went on a-lying like a trojan, about the pony. he told 'em it did so unfortunately happen that the pony was half-clipped, you see, and that he couldn't be taken out in that state for fear that it should strike to his inside. but that he'd be finished clipping in the course of the day, and that to-morrow morning at eight o'clock the phaeton would be ready. boots' view of the whole case, looking back upon it in my room, is, that mrs. harry walmers, jr., was beginning to give in. she hadn't had her hair curled when she went to bed, and she didn't seem quite up to brushing it herself, and it's getting in her eyes put her out. but nothing put out master harry. he sat behind his breakfast cup, a-tearing away at the jelly, as if he had been his own father. "after breakfast boots is inclined to think that they drawed soldiers--at least, he knows that many such was found in the fireplace, all on horseback. in the course of the morning master harry rang the bell--it was surprising how that there boy did carry on--and said in a sprightly way, 'cobbs, is there any good walks in this neighborhood?' "'yes, sir,' says cobbs. 'there's love lane.' "'get out with you, cobbs!'--that was that there boy's expression--'you're joking.' "'begging your pardon, sir,' says cobbs, 'there really is love lane. and a pleasant walk it is, and proud i shall be to show it to yourself and mrs. harry walmers, jr.' "'norah, dear,' said master harry, 'this is curious. we really ought to see love lane. put on your bonnet, my sweetest darling, and we will go there with cobbs.' "boots leaves me to judge what a beast he felt himself to be, when that young pair told him, as they all three jogged along together, that they had made up their minds to give him two thousand guineas a year as head-gardener, on account of his being so true a friend to 'em. boots could have wished at the moment that the earth would have opened and swallowed him up; he felt so mean with their beaming eyes a-looking at him, and believing him. well, sir, he turned the conversation as well as he could, and he took 'em down love lane to the water-meadows, and there master harry would have drowned himself in half a moment more, a-getting out a water-lily for her--but nothing frightened that boy. well, sir, they was tired out. all being so new and strange to 'em, they was tired as tired could be. and they laid down on a bank of daisies, like the children in the wood, leastways meadows, and fell asleep. "well, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting pretty clear to boots, namely, that mrs. harry walmers', jr., temper was on the move. when master harry took her round the waist she said he 'teased her so,' and when he says, 'norah, my young may moon, your harry tease you?' she tells him, 'yes; and i want to go home!' "however, master harry he kept up, and his noble heart was as fond as ever. mrs. walmers turned very sleepy about dusk and began to cry. therefore, mrs. walmers went off to bed as per yesterday; and master harry ditto repeated. "about eleven or twelve at night comes back the inn-keeper in a chaise, along with mr. walmers and an elderly lady. mr. walmers looks amused and very serious, both at once, and says to our missis, 'we are very much indebted to you, ma'am, for your kind care of our little children, which we can never sufficiently acknowledge. pray, ma'am where is my boy?' our missis says, 'cobbs has the dear children in charge, sir. cobbs, show forty!' then he says to cobbs, 'ah, cobbs! i am glad to see _you_. i understand you was here!' and cobbs says, 'yes, sir. your most obedient, sir.' "i may be surprised to hear boots say it, perhaps, but boots assures me that his heart beat like a hammer, going up-stairs. 'i beg your pardon, sir,' says he, while unlocking the door; 'i hope you are not angry with master harry. for master harry is a fine boy, sir, and will do you credit and honor.' and boots signifies to me that if the fine boy's father had contradicted him in the daring state of mind in which he then was, he thinks he should have 'fetched him a crack,' and taken the consequences. "but mr. walmers only says, 'no, cobbs. no, my good fellow. thank you!' and the door being open, goes in. "boots goes in too, holding the light, and he sees mr. walmers go up to the bedside, bend gently down, and kiss the little sleeping face. then he stands looking at it for a minute, looking wonderfully like it; and then he gently shakes the little shoulder. "'harry, my dear boy! harry!' "master harry starts up and looks at him. looks at cobbs, too. such is the honor of that mite that he looks at cobbs to see whether he has brought him into trouble. "'i am not angry, my child. i only want you to dress yourself and come home.' "'yes, pa.' "master harry dresses himself quickly. his breast begins to swell when he has nearly finished, and it swells more and more as he stands a-looking at his father; his father standing a-looking at him, the quiet image of him. "'please may i'--the spirit of that little creatur', and the way he kept his rising tears down!--'please, dear pa--may i--kiss norah before i go?' "'you may, my child.' "so he takes master harry in his hand, and boots leads the way with the candle, and they come to that other bedroom; where the elderly lady is seated by the bed, and poor little mrs. harry walmers, jr., is fast asleep. there the father lifts the child up to the pillow, and he lays his little face down for an instant by the little warm face of poor unconscious little mrs. harry walmers, jr., and gently draws it to him--a sight so touching to the chambermaids who are peeping through the door that one of them calls out, 'it's a shame to part 'em!' but this chambermaid was always, as boots informs me, a soft-hearted one. not that there was any harm in that girl. far from it." footnotes: [a] for the benefit of some of our young readers, it may be well to explain that this is about the same as a bill of twenty-five dollars would be in america. [b] a biffin is a red apple, growing near norfolk, and generally eaten after having been baked. iv. little dorrit. many years ago, when people could be put in prison for debt, a poor gentleman, who was unfortunate enough to lose all his money, was brought to the marshalsea prison, which was the prison where debtors were kept. as there seemed no prospect of being able to pay his debts, his wife and their two little children came to live there with him. the elder child was a boy of three; the younger a little girl of two years old, and not long afterwards another little girl was born. the three children played in the courtyard, and on the whole were happy, for they were too young to remember a happier state of things. but the youngest child, who had never been outside the prison walls, was a thoughtful little creature, and wondered what the outside world could be like. her great friend, the turnkey, who was also her godfather, became very fond of her, and as soon as she could walk and talk he brought a little arm-chair and stood it by his fire at the lodge, and coaxed her with cheap toys to come and sit with him. in return the child loved him dearly, and would often bring her doll to dress and undress as she sat in the little arm-chair. she was still a very tiny creature when she began to understand that everyone did not live locked up inside high walls with spikes at the top, and though she and the rest of the family might pass through the door that the great key opened, her father could not; and she would look at him with a wondering pity in her tender little heart. one day, she was sitting in the lodge gazing wistfully up at the sky through the barred window. the turnkey, after watching her some time, said: "thinking of the fields, ain't you?" "where are they?" she asked. "why, they're--over there, my dear," said the turnkey, waving his key vaguely, "just about there." "does anybody open them and shut them? are they locked?" "well," said the turnkey, not knowing what to say, "not in general." "are they pretty, bob?" she called him bob, because he wished it. "lovely. full of flowers. there's buttercups, and there's daisies, and there's--" here he hesitated not knowing the names of many flowers--"there's dandelions, and all manner of games." "is it very pleasant to be there, bob?" "prime," said the turnkey. "was father ever there?" "hem!" coughed the turnkey. "o yes, he was there, sometimes." "is he sorry not to be there now?" "n--not particular," said the turnkey. "nor any of the people?" she asked, glancing at the listless crowd within. "o are you quite sure and certain, bob?" at this point, bob gave in and changed the subject to candy. but after this chat, the turnkey and little amy would go out on his free sunday afternoons to some meadows or green lanes, and she would pick grass and flowers to bring home, while he smoked his pipe; and then they would go to some tea-gardens for shrimps and tea and other delicacies, and would come back hand in hand, unless she was very tired and had fallen asleep on his shoulder. when amy was only eight years old, her mother died; and the poor father was more helpless and broken-down than ever, and as fanny was a careless child and edward idle, the little one, who had the bravest and truest heart, was led by her love and unselfishness to be the little mother of the forlorn family, and struggled to get some little education for herself and her brother and sister. at first, such a baby could do little more than sit with her father, deserting her livelier place by the high fender, and quietly watching him. but this made her so far necessary to him that he became accustomed to her, and began to be sensible of missing her when she was not there. through this little gate, she passed out of her childhood into the care-laden world. what her pitiful look saw, at that early time, in her father, in her sister, in her brother, in the jail; how much or how little of the wretched truth it pleased god to make plain to her, lies hidden with many mysteries. it is enough that she was inspired to be something which was not what the rest were, and to be that something, different and laborious, for the sake of the rest. inspired? yes. shall we speak of a poet or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by love and self-devotion to the lowliest work in the lowliest way of life? the family stayed so long in the prison that the old man came to be known as "the father of the marshalsea;" and little amy, who had never known any other home, as "the child of the marshalsea." at thirteen she could read and keep accounts--that is, could put down in words and figures how much the bare necessaries that they wanted would cost, and how much less they had to buy them with. she had been, by snatches of a few weeks at a time, to an evening school outside, and got her sister and brother sent to day-schools from time to time during three or four years. there was no teaching for any of them at home; but she knew well--no one better--that a man so broken as to be the father of the marshalsea, could be no father to his own children. to these scanty means of improvement, she added another of her own contriving. once among the crowd of prisoners there appeared a dancing-master. her sister had a great desire to learn the dancing-master's art, and seemed to have a taste that way. at thirteen years old, the child of the marshalsea presented herself to the dancing-master, with a little bag in her hand, and offered her humble petition. "if you please, i was born here, sir." "oh! you are the young lady, are you?" said the dancing-master, surveying the small figure and uplifted face. "yes, sir." "and what can i do for you?" said the dancing-master. "nothing for me, sir, thank you," anxiously undrawing the strings of the little bag; "but if, while you stay here, you could be so kind as to teach my sister cheap--" "my child, i'll teach her for nothing," said the dancing-master, shutting up the bag. he was as good-natured a dancing-master as ever danced to the insolvent court, and he kept his word. the sister was so apt a pupil, and the dancing-master had such abundant time to give her, that wonderful progress was made. indeed, the dancing-master was so proud of it, and so wishful to show it before he left, to a few select friends among the collegians (the debtors in the prison were called "collegians"), that at six o'clock on a certain fine morning, an exhibition was held in the yard--the college-rooms being of too small size for the purpose--in which so much ground was covered, and the steps were so well executed, that the dancing-master, having to play his fiddle besides, was thoroughly tired out. the success of this beginning, which led to the dancing-master's continuing his teaching after his release, led the poor child to try again. she watched and waited months for a seamstress. in the fullness of time a milliner came in, sent there like all the rest for a debt which she could not pay; and to her she went to ask a favor for herself. "i beg your pardon, ma'am," she said, looking timidly round the door of the milliner, whom she found in tears and in bed: "but i was born here." everybody seemed to hear of her as soon as they arrived; for the milliner sat up in bed, drying her eyes, and said, just as the dancing-master had said: "oh! _you_ are the child, are you?" "yes, ma'am." "i am sorry i haven't got anything for you," said the milliner, shaking her head. "it's not that, ma'am. if you please, i want to learn needlework." "why should you do that," returned the milliner, "with me before you? it has not done me much good." "nothing--whatever it is--seems to have done anybody much good who comes here," she returned in her simple way; "but i want to learn, just the same." "i am afraid you are so weak, you see," the milliner objected. "i don't think i am weak, ma'am." "and you are so very, very little, you see," the milliner objected. "yes, i am afraid i am very little indeed," returned the child of the marshalsea; and so began to sob over that unfortunate smallness of hers, which came so often in her way. the milliner--who was not unkind or hardhearted, only badly in debt--was touched, took her in hand with good-will, found her the most patient and earnest of pupils, and made her a good workwoman. in course of time, the father of the marshalsea gradually developed a new trait of character. he was very greatly ashamed of having his two daughters work for their living; and tried to make it appear that they were only doing work for pleasure, not for pay. but at the same time he would take money from any one who would give it to him, without any sense of shame. with the same hand that had pocketed a fellow-prisoner's half-crown half an hour ago, he would wipe away the tears that streamed over his cheeks if anything was spoken of his daughters' earning their bread. so, over and above her other daily cares, the child of the marshalsea had always upon her the care of keeping up the make-believe that they were all idle beggars together. the sister became a dancer. there was a ruined uncle in the family group--ruined by his brother, the father of the marshalsea, and knowing no more how, than his ruiner did, but taking the fact as something that could not be helped. naturally a retired and simple man, he had shown no particular sense of being ruined, at the time when that calamity fell upon him, further than he left off washing himself when the shock was announced, and never took to washing his face and hands any more. he had been a rather poor musician in his better days; and when he fell with his brother, supported himself in a poor way by playing a clarionet as dirty as himself in a small theatre band. it was the theatre in which his niece became a dancer; he had been a fixture there a long time when she took her poor station in it; and he accepted the task of serving as her guardian, just as he would have accepted an illness, a legacy, a feast, starvation--anything but soap. to enable this girl to earn her few weekly shillings, it was necessary for the child of the marshalsea to go through a careful form with her father. "fanny is not going to live with us, just now, father. she will be here a good deal in the day, but she is going to live outside with uncle." "you surprise me. why?" "i think uncle wants a companion, father. he should be attended to and looked after." "a companion? he passes much of his time here. and you attend and look after him, amy, a great deal more than ever your sister will. you all go out so much; you all go out so much." this was to keep up the form and pretense of his having no idea that amy herself went out by the day to work. "but we are always very glad to come home father; now, are we not? and as to fanny, perhaps besides keeping uncle company and taking care of him, it may be as well for her not quite to live here always. she was not born here as i was you know, father." "well, amy, well. i don't quite follow you, but it's natural i suppose that fanny should prefer to be outside, and even that you often should, too. so, you and fanny and your uncle, my dear, shall have your own way. good, good. i'll not meddle; don't mind me." to get her brother out of the prison; out of the low work of running errands for the prisoners outside, and out of the bad company into which he had fallen, was her hardest task. at eighteen years of age her brother edward would have dragged on from hand to mouth, from hour to hour, from penny to penny, until eighty. nobody got into the prison from whom he gained anything useful or good, and she could find no patron for him but her old friend and godfather, the turnkey. "dear bob," said she, "what is to become of poor tip?" his name was edward, and ted had been changed into tip, within the walls. the turnkey had strong opinions of his own as to what would become of poor tip, and had even gone so far with the view of preventing their fulfilment, as to talk to tip in urging him to run away and serve his country as a soldier. but tip had thanked him, and said he didn't seem to care for his country. "well, my dear," said the turnkey, "something ought to be done with him. suppose i try and get him into the law?" "that would be so good of you, bob!" the turnkey now began to speak to the lawyers as they passed in and out of the prison. he spoke so perseveringly that a stool and twelve shillings a week were at last found for tip in the office of a lawyer at clifford's inn, in the palace court. tip idled in clifford's inn for six months, and at the end of that term sauntered back one evening with his hands in his pockets, and remarked to his sister that he was not going back again. "not going back again?" said the poor little anxious child of the marshalsea, always calculating and planning for tip, in the front rank of her charges. "i am so tired of it," said tip, "that i have cut it." tip tired of everything. with intervals of marshalsea lounging, and errand-running, his small second mother, aided by her trusty friend, got him into a warehouse, into a market garden, into the hop trade, into the law again, into an auctioneer's, into a brewery, into a stockbroker's, into the law again, into a coach office, into a wagon office, into the law again, into a general dealer's, into a distillery, into the law again, into a wool house, into a dry goods house, into the fish-market, into the foreign fruit trade, and into the docks. but whatever tip went into he came out of tired, announcing that he had cut it. wherever he went, this useless tip appeared to take the prison walls with him, and to set them up in such trade or calling; and to prowl about within their narrow limits in the old slipshod, purposeless, down-at-heel way; until the real immovable marshalsea walls asserted their power over him and brought him back. nevertheless, the brave little creature did so fix her heart on her brother's rescue that, while he was ringing out these doleful changes, she pinched and scraped enough together to ship him for canada. when he was tired of nothing to do, and disposed in its turn to cut even that, he graciously consented to go to canada. and there was grief in her bosom over parting with him, and joy in the hope of his being put in a straight course at last. "god bless you, dear tip. don't be too proud to come and see us, when you have made your fortune." "all right!" said tip, and went. but not all the way to canada; in fact, not further than liverpool. after making the voyage to that port from london, he found himself so strongly impelled to cut the vessel, that he resolved to walk back again. carrying out which intention, he presented himself before her at the expiration of a month, in rags, without shoes, and much more tired than ever. at length, after another period of running errands, he found a pursuit for himself, and announced it. "amy, i have got a situation." "have you really and truly, tip?" "all right. i shall do now. you needn't look anxious about me any more, old girl." "what is it, tip?" "why, you know slingo by sight?" "not the man they call the dealer?" "that's the chap. he'll be out on monday, and he's going to give me a berth." "what is he a dealer in, tip?" "horses. all right! i shall do now, amy." she lost sight of him for months afterwards, and only heard from him once. a whisper passed among the elder prisoners that he had been seen at a mock auction in moorfields, pretending to buy plated articles for real silver, and paying for them with the greatest liberality in bank-notes; but it never reached her ears. one evening she was alone at work--standing up at the window, to save the twilight lingering above the wall--when he opened the door and walked in. she kissed and welcomed him; but was afraid to ask him any question. he saw how anxious and timid she was, and appeared sorry. "i am afraid, amy, you'll be vexed this time. upon my life i am!" "i am very sorry to hear you say so, tip. have you come back?" "why--yes." "not expecting this time that what you had found would answer very well, i am less surprised and sorry than i might have been, tip." "ah! but that's not the worst of it." "not the worst of it?" "don't look so startled. no, amy, not the worst of it. i have come back, you see; but--_don't_ look so startled--i have come back in what i may call a new way. i am off the volunteer list altogether. i am in now, as one of the regulars. i'm here in prison for debt, like everybody else." "oh! don't say that you are a prisoner, tip! don't, don't!" "well, i don't want to say it," he returned in unwilling tone; "but if you can't understand me without my saying it, what am i to do? i am in for forty pound odd." for the first time in all those years, she sunk under her cares. she cried, with her clasped hands lifted above her head, that it would kill their father if he ever knew it; and fell down at tip's worthless feet. it was easier for tip to bring her to her senses than for her to bring _him_ to understand that the father of the marshalsea would be beside himself if he knew the truth. tip thought that there was nothing strange in being there a prisoner, but he agreed that his father should not be told about it. there were plenty of reasons that could be given for his return; it was accounted for to the father in the usual way; and the collegians, with a better understanding of the kind fraud than tip, stood by it faithfully. this was the life, and this the history, of the child of the marshalsea, at twenty-two. with a still abiding interest in the one miserable yard and block of houses as her birthplace and home, she passed to and fro in it shrinking now, with a womanly consciousness that she was pointed out to everyone. since she had begun to work beyond the walls, she had found it necessary to hide where she lived, and to come and go secretly as she could, between the free city and the iron gates, outside of which she had never slept in her life. her original timidity had grown with this concealment, and her light step and her little figure shunned the thronged streets while they passed along them. worldly wise in hard and poor necessities, she was innocent in all things else. innocent, in the mist through which she saw her father, and the prison, and the dark living river that flowed through it and flowed on. [illustration: "mr. clennam followed her home." page ] this was the life, and this the history, of little dorrit, until the son of a lady, mrs. clennam, to whose house amy went to do needlework, became interested in the pale, patient little creature. he followed her to her home one day and when he found that it was the debtor's prison, he walked in. learning her sad history from her father, arthur clennam resolved to do his best to try to get him released and to help them all. one day when he was walking home with amy to try to find out the names of some of the people her father owed money to, a voice was heard calling, "little mother, little mother," and a strange figure came bouncing up to them and fell down, scattering her basketful of potatoes on the ground. "oh maggie," said amy, "what a clumsy child you are!" she was about eight and twenty, with large bones, large features, large hands and feet, large eyes, and no hair. amy told mr. clennam that maggie was the granddaughter of her old nurse, who had been dead a long time, and that her grandmother had been very unkind to her and beat her. "when maggie was ten years old she had a fever, and she has never grown older since." "ten years old," said maggie. "but what a nice hospital! so comfortable, wasn't it? such a 'e'v'nly place! such beds there is there! such lemonades! such oranges! such delicious broth and wine! such chicking! oh, ain't it a delightful place to stop at!" "poor maggie thought that a hospital was the nicest place in all the world, because she had never seen another home as good. for years and years she looked back to the hospital as a sort of heaven on earth." "then when she came out, her grandmother did not know what to do with her, and was very unkind. but after some time maggie tried to improve, and was very attentive and industrious and now she can earn her own living entirely, sir!" amy did not say who had taken pains to teach and encourage the poor half-witted creature, but mr. clennam guessed from the name "little mother" and the fondness of the poor creature for amy. one cold, wet evening, amy and maggie went to mr. clennam's house to thank him for having freed edward from the prison, and on coming out found it was too late to get home, as the gate was locked. they tried to get in at maggie's lodgings, but, though they knocked twice, the people were asleep. as amy did not wish to disturb them, they wandered about all night, sometimes sitting at the gate of the prison, maggie shivering and whimpering. "it will soon be over, dear," said patient amy. "oh, it's all very well for you, mother," said maggie, "but i'm a poor thing, only ten years old." thanks to mr. clennam, a great change took place in the fortunes of the family, and not long after this wretched night it was discovered that mr. dorrit was owner of a large property, and they became very rich. but little dorrit never forgot, as, sad to say, the rest of the family did, the friends who had been kind to them in their poverty; and when, in his turn, mr. clennam became a prisoner in the marshalsea, little dorrit came to comfort and console him, and after many changes of fortune she became his wife, and they lived happy ever after. v. the toy-maker and his blind daughter. caleb plummer and his blind daughter lived alone in a little cracked nutshell of a house. they were toy-makers, and their house, which was so small that it might have been knocked to pieces with a hammer, and carried away in a cart, was stuck like a toadstool on to the premises of messrs. gruff & tackleton, the toy merchants for whom they worked--the latter of whom was himself both gruff and tackleton in one. i am saying that caleb and his blind daughter lived here. i should say caleb did, while his daughter lived in an enchanted palace, which her father's love had created for her. she did not know that the ceilings were cracked, the plaster tumbling down, and the woodwork rotten; that everything was old and ugly and poverty-stricken about her, and that her father was a gray-haired, stooping old man, and the master for whom they worked a hard and brutal taskmaster; oh, dear no, she fancied a pretty, cosy, compact little home full of tokens of a kind master's care, a smart, brisk, gallant-looking father, and a handsome and noble-looking toy merchant who was an angel of goodness. this was all caleb's doing. when his blind daughter was a baby he had determined, in his great love and pity for her, that her loss of sight should be turned into a blessing, and her life as happy as he could make it. and she was happy; everything about her she saw with her father's eyes, in the rainbow-colored light with which it was his care and pleasure to invest it. caleb and his daughter were at work together in their usual working-room, which served them for their ordinary living-room as well; and a strange place it was. there were houses in it, finished and unfinished, for dolls of all stations in life. tenement houses for dolls of moderate means; kitchens and single apartments for dolls of the lower classes; capital town residences for dolls of high estate. some of these establishments were already furnished with a view to the needs of dolls of little money; others could be fitted on the most expensive scale, at a moment's notice, from whole shelves of chairs and tables, sofas, bedsteads, and upholstery. the nobility and gentry and public in general, for whose use these doll-houses were planned, lay, here and there, in baskets, staring straight up at the ceiling; but in showing their degrees in society, and keeping them in their own stations (which is found to be exceedingly difficult in real life), the makers of these dolls had far improved on nature, for they, not resting on such marks as satin, cotton-print, and bits of rag, had made differences which allowed of no mistake. thus, the doll-lady of high rank had wax limbs of perfect shape; but only she and those of her grade; the next grade in the social scale being made of leather; and the next coarse linen stuff. as to the common-people, they had just so many matches out of tinder-boxes for their arms and legs, and there they were--established in their place at once, beyond the possibility of getting out of it. there were various other samples of his handicraft besides dolls in caleb plummer's room. there were noah's arks, in which the birds and beasts were an uncommonly tight fit, i assure you; though they could be crammed in, anyhow, at the roof, and rattled and shaken into the smallest compass. most of these noah's arks had knockers on the doors; perhaps not exactly suitable to an ark as suggestive of morning callers and a postman, yet a pleasant finish to the outside of the building. there were scores of melancholy little carts, which, when the wheels went round, performed most doleful music. many small fiddles, drums, and other instruments of torture; no end of cannon, shields, swords, spears, and guns. there were little tumblers in red breeches, incessantly swarming up high obstacles of red-tape, and coming down, head first, upon the other side; and there were innumerable old gentlemen of respectable, even venerable, appearance, flying like crazy people over pegs, inserted, for the purpose, in their own street-doors. there were beasts of all sorts, horses, in particular, of every breed, from the spotted barrel on four pegs, with a small tippet for a mane, to the fine rocking horse on his highest mettle. "you were out in the rain last night in your beautiful new overcoat," said bertha. "yes, in my beautiful new overcoat," answered caleb, glancing to where a roughly-made garment of sackcloth was hung up to dry. "how glad i am you bought it, father." "and of such a tailor! quite a fashionable tailor; a bright blue cloth, with bright buttons; it's a deal too good a coat for me." "too good!" cried the blind girl, stopping to laugh and clap her hands--"as if anything was too good for my handsome father, with his smiling face, and black hair, and his straight figure, as if _any_ thing could be too good for my handsome father!" "i'm half ashamed to wear it, though," said caleb, watching the effect of what he said upon her brightening face; "upon my word. when i hear the boys and people say behind me: 'halloa! here's a swell!' i don't know which way to look. and when the beggar wouldn't go away last night; and, when i said i was a very common man, said 'no, your honor! bless your honor, don't say that!' i was quite ashamed. i really felt as if i hadn't a right to wear it." happy blind girl! how merry she was in her joy! "i see you, father," she said, clasping her hands, "as plainly as if i had the eyes i never want when you are with me. a blue coat!"---- "bright blue," said caleb. "yes, yes! bright blue!" exclaimed the girl, turning up her radiant face; "the color i can just remember in the blessed sky! you told me it was blue before! a bright blue coat----" "made loose to the figure," suggested caleb. "yes! loose to the figure!" cried the blind girl, laughing heartily; "and in it you, dear father, with your merry eye, your smiling face, your free step, and your dark hair; looking so young and handsome!" "halloa! halloa!" said caleb. "i shall be vain presently." "i think you are already," cried the blind girl, pointing at him, in her glee. "i know you, father! ha, ha, ha! i've found you out, you see!" how different the picture in her mind from caleb, as he sat observing her! she had spoken of his free step. she was right in that. for years and years he never once had crossed that threshold at his own slow pace, but with a footfall made ready for her ear, and never had he, when his heart was heaviest, forgotten the light tread that was to render hers so cheerful and courageous. "there we are," said caleb, falling back a pace or two to form the better judgment of his work; "as near the real thing as sixpen'orth of halfpence is to sixpence. what a pity that the whole front of the house opens at once! if there was only a staircase in it now, and regular doors to the rooms to go in at! but that's the worst of my calling. i'm always fooling myself, and cheating myself." "you are speaking quite softly. you are not tired, father?" "tired," echoed caleb, with a great burst in his manner, "what should tire me, bertha? _i_ was never tired. what does it mean?" to give the greater force to his words, he stopped himself in an imitation of two small stretching and yawning figures on the mantel-shelf, who were shown as in one eternal state of weariness from the waist upwards; and hummed a bit of a song. it was a drinking song, something about a sparkling bowl; and he sang it with an air of a devil-may-care voice, that made his face a thousand times more meager and more thoughtful than ever. "what! you're singing, are you?" said tackleton, the toy-seller for whom he worked, putting his head in at the door. "go it! _i_ can't sing." nobody would have thought that tackleton _could_ sing. he hadn't what is generally termed a singing face, by any means. "i can't afford to sing," said tackleton. "i'm glad you can. i hope you can afford to work, too. hardly time for both, i should think?" "if you could only see him, bertha, how he's winking at me!" whispered caleb. "such a man to joke! you'd think, if you didn't know him, he was in earnest, wouldn't you, now?" the blind girl smiled and nodded. "i am thanking you for the little tree, the beautiful little tree," replied bertha, bringing forward a tiny rose-tree in blossom, which, by an innocent story, caleb had made her believe was her master's gift, though he himself had gone without a meal or two to buy it. "the bird that can sing and won't sing must be made to sing, they say," grumbled tackleton. "what about the owl that can't sing, and oughtn't to sing, and will sing; is there anything that he should be made to do?" "the extent to which he's winking at this moment!" whispered caleb to his daughter. "oh, my gracious!" "always merry and light-hearted with us!" cried the smiling bertha. "oh! you're there, are you?" answered tackleton. "poor idiot!" he really did believe she was an idiot; and he founded the belief, i can't say whether consciously or not, upon her being fond of him. "well! and being there--how are you?" said tackleton, in his cross way. "oh! well; quite well. and as happy as even you can wish me to be. as happy as you would make the whole world, if you could!" "poor idiot!" muttered tackleton. "no gleam of reason! not a gleam!" the blind girl took his hand and kissed it; held it for a moment in her own two hands; and laid her cheek against it tenderly, before releasing it. there was such unspeakable affection and such fervent gratitude in the act, that tackleton himself was moved to say, in a milder growl than usual: "what's the matter now?" "bertha!" said tackleton, assuming, for once, a little cordiality. "come here." "oh! i can come straight to you. you needn't guide me," she rejoined. "shall i tell you a secret, bertha?" "if you will!" she answered, eagerly. how bright the darkened face! how adorned with light the listening head! "this is the day on which little what's-her-name, the spoilt child, peerybingle's wife, pays her regular visit to you--makes her ridiculous picnic here; ain't it?" said tackleton, with a strong expression of distaste for the whole concern. "yes," replied bertha. "this is the day." "i thought so!" said tackleton. "i should like to join the party." "do you hear that, father!" cried the blind girl in delight. "yes, yes, i hear it," murmured caleb, with the fixed look of a sleep-walker "but i do not believe it. it's one of my lies, i've no doubt." "you see i--i want to bring the peerybingles a little more into company with may fielding," said tackleton. "i am going to be married to may." "married!" cried the blind girl, starting from him. "she's such a confounded idiot," muttered tackleton, "that i was afraid she'd never understand me. yes, bertha! married! church, parson, clerk, glass-coach, bells, breakfast, bride-cake, favors, marrow-bones, cleavers, and all the rest of the tomfoolery. a wedding, you know; a wedding. don't you know what a wedding is?" "i know," replied the blind girl, in a gentle tone. "i understand!" "do you?" muttered tackleton. "it's more than i expected. well, on that account i want you to join the party, and to bring may and her mother. i'll send a little something or other, before the afternoon. a cold leg of mutton, or some comfortable trifle of that sort. you'll expect me?" "yes," she answered. she had drooped her head, and turned away; and so stood, with her hands crossed, musing. "i don't think you will," muttered tackleton, looking at her; "for you seem to have forgotten all about it already. caleb!" "i may venture to say, i'm here, i suppose," thought caleb. "sir!" "take care she don't forget what i've been saying to her." "_she_ never forgets," returned caleb. "it's one of the few things she ain't clever in." "every man thinks his own geese swans," observed the toy merchant, with a shrug. "poor devil!" having delivered himself of which remark with infinite contempt, old gruff & tackleton withdrew. bertha remained where he had left her, lost in meditation. the gaiety had vanished from her downcast face, and it was very sad. three or four times she shook her head, as if bewailing some remembrance or some loss; but her sorrowful reflections found no vent in words. "father, i am lonely in the dark. i want my eyes; my patient, willing eyes." "here they are," said caleb. "always ready. they are more yours than mine, bertha, any hour in the four-and-twenty. what shall your eyes do for you, dear?" "look round the room, father." "all right," said caleb. "no sooner said than done, bertha." "tell me about it." "it's much the same as usual," said caleb. "homely, but very snug. the gay colors on the walls; the bright flowers on the plates and dishes; the shining wood, where there are beams or panels; the general cheerfulness and neatness of the building, make it very pretty." cheerful and neat it was, wherever bertha's hands could busy themselves. but nowhere else were cheerfulness and neatness possible, in the crazy shed which caleb's fancy so transformed. "you have your working dress on, and are not so gay as when you wear the handsome coat?" said bertha, touching him. "not quite so gay," answered caleb. "pretty brisk though." "father," said the blind girl, drawing close to his side and stealing one arm round his neck, "tell me something about may. she is very fair." "she is, indeed," said caleb. and she was indeed. it was quite a rare thing to caleb not to have to draw on his invention. "her hair is dark," said bertha, pensively, "darker than mine. her voice is sweet and musical i know. i have often loved to hear it. her shape--" "there's not a doll's in all the room to equal it," said caleb. "and her eyes--" he stopped; for bertha had drawn closer round his neck; and, from the arm that clung about him, came a warning pressure which he understood too well. he coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and then fell back upon the song about the sparkling bowl; the song which helped him through all such difficulties. "our friend, father; the one who has helped us so many times, mr. tackleton. i am never tired you know, of hearing about him. now was i, ever?" she said, hastily. "of course not," answered caleb. "and with reason." "ah! with how much reason?" cried the blind girl, with such fervency that caleb, though his motives were pure, could not endure to meet her face, but dropped his eyes, as if she could have read in them his innocent deceit. "then tell me again about him, dear father," said bertha. "many times again! his face is good, kind, and tender. honest and true, i am sure it is. the manly heart that tries to cloak all favors with a show of roughness and unwillingness beats in its every look and glance." "and makes it noble," added caleb in his quiet desperation. "and makes it noble!" cried the blind girl. "he is older than may, father?" "ye-es," said caleb, reluctantly. "he's a little older than may, but that don't signify." "bertha," said caleb softly, "what has happened? how changed you are, my darling, in a few hours--since this morning. _you_ silent and dull all day! what is it? tell me!" "oh father, father!" cried the blind girl, bursting into tears. "oh, my hard, hard fate!" caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered her. "but think how cheerful and how happy you have been, bertha! how good, and how much loved, by many people." "that strikes me to the heart, dear father! always so mindful of me! always so kind to me!" caleb was very much perplexed to understand her. "to be--to be blind, bertha, my poor dear," he faltered, "is a great affliction; but----" "i have never felt it!" cried the blind girl. "i have never felt it in its fullness. never! i have sometimes wished that i could see you, or could see him; only once, dear father; only for one little minute. but, father! oh, my good, gentle father, bear with me, if i am wicked!" said the blind girl. "this is not the sorrow that so weighs me down!" "bertha, my dear!" said caleb, "i have something on my mind i want to tell you, while we are alone. hear me kindly! i have a confession to make to you, my darling." "a confession, father?" "i have wandered from the truth and lost myself, my child," said caleb, with a pitiable look on his bewildered face. "i have wandered from the truth, intending to be kind to you; and have been cruel." she turned her wonder-stricken face towards him, and repeated, "cruel! he cruel to me!" cried bertha, with a smile of incredulity. "not meaning it, my child," said caleb. "but i have been; though i never suspected it till yesterday. my dear blind daughter, hear me and forgive me! the world you live in, heart of mine, doesn't exist as i have represented it. the eyes you have trusted in have been false to you." she turned her wonder-stricken face towards him still. "your road in life was rough, my poor one," said caleb, "and i meant to smooth it for you. i have altered objects, invented many things that never have been, to make you happier. i have had concealments from you, put deceptions on you, god forgive me! and surrounded you with fancies." "but living people are not fancies?" she said hurriedly, and turning very pale, and still retiring from him. "you can't change them." "i have done so, bertha," pleaded caleb. "there is one person that you know, my dove--" "oh, father! why do you say i know?" she answered in a tone of keen reproach. "what and whom do i know! i, who have no leader! i, so miserably blind!" in the anguish of her heart she stretched out her hands, as if she were groping her way; then spread them, in a manner most forlorn and sad, upon her face. "the marriage that takes place to-day," said caleb, "is with a stern, sordid, grinding man. a hard master to you and me, my dear, for many years. ugly in his looks and in his nature. cold and callous always. unlike what i have painted him to you in everything, my child. in everything." "oh, why," cried the blind girl, tortured, as it seemed, almost beyond endurance, "why did you ever do this? why did you ever fill my heart so full, and then come in, like death, and tear away the objects of my love? oh, heaven, how blind i am! how helpless and alone!" her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no reply but in his grief. "tell me what my home is. what it truly is." "it is a poor place, bertha; very poor and bare indeed. the house will scarcely keep out wind and rain another winter. it is as roughly shielded from the weather, bertha, as your poor father in his sackcloth coat." "those presents that i took such care of, that came almost at my wish, and were so dearly welcome to me," she said, trembling; "where did they come from?" caleb did not answer. she knew already, and was silent. "i see, i understand," said bertha, "and now i am looking at you, at my kind, loving compassionate father, tell me what is he like?" "an old man, my child; thin, bent, gray-haired, worn-out with hard work and sorrow; a weak, foolish, deceitful old man." the blind girl threw herself on her knees before him, and took his gray head in her arms. "it is my sight, it is my sight restored," she cried. "i have been blind, but now i see; i have never till now truly seen my father. does he think that there is a gay, handsome father in this earth that i could love so dearly, cherish so devotedly, as this worn and gray-headed old man? father there is not a gray hair on your head that shall be forgotten in my prayers and thanks to heaven." "my bertha!" sobbed caleb, "and the brisk smart father in the blue coat--he's gone, my child." "dearest father, no, he's not gone, nothing is gone, everything i loved and believed in is here in this worn, old father of mine, and more--oh, so much more, too! i have been happy and contented, but i shall be happier and more contented still, now that i know what you are. i am _not_ blind, father, any longer." vi. little nell. the house where little nell and her grandfather lived was one of those places where old and curious things were kept, one of those old houses which seem to crouch in odd corners of the town, and to hide their musty treasures from the public eye in jealousy and distrust. there were suits of mail standing like ghosts in armor, here and there; curious carvings brought from monkish cloisters; rusty weapons of various kinds; distorted figures in china, and wood, and iron, and ivory; tapestry, and strange furniture that might have been designed in dreams; and in the old, dark, dismal rooms there lived alone together the man and a child--his grandchild, little nell. solitary and dull as was her life, the innocent and cheerful spirit of the child found happiness in all things, and through the dim rooms of the old curiosity shop little nell went singing, moving with gay and lightsome step. [illustration: little nell and her grandfather. page ] but gradually over the old man, whom she so tenderly loved, there stole a sad change. he became thoughtful, sad and wretched. he had no sleep or rest but that which he took by day in his easy-chair; for every night, and all night long, he was away from home. to the child it seemed that her grandfather's love for her increased, even with the hidden grief by which she saw him struck down. and to see him sorrowful, and not to know the cause of his sorrow; to see him growing pale and weak under his trouble of mind, so weighed upon her gentle spirit that at times she felt as though her heart must break. at last the time came when the old man's feeble frame could bear up no longer against his hidden care. a raging fever seized him, and, as he lay delirious or insensible through many weeks, nell learned that the house which sheltered them was theirs no longer; that in the future they would be very poor; that they would scarcely have bread to eat. at length the old man began to mend, but his mind was weakened. he would sit for hours together, with nell's small hand in his, playing with the fingers, and sometimes stopping to smooth her hair or kiss her brow; and when he saw that tears were glistening in her eyes he would look amazed. as the time drew near when they must leave the house, he made no reference to the necessity of finding other shelter. an indistinct idea he had that the child was desolate and in need of help; though he seemed unable to understand their real position more distinctly. but a change came upon him one evening, as he and nell sat silently together. "let us speak softly, nell," he said. "hush! for if they knew our purpose they would say that i was mad, and take thee from me. we will not stop here another day. we will travel afoot through the fields and woods, and trust ourselves to god in the places where he dwells. to-morrow morning, dear, we'll turn our faces from this scene of sorrow, and be as free and happy as the birds." the child's heart beat high with hope and confidence. she had no thought of hunger, or cold, or thirst, or suffering. to her it seemed that they might beg their way from door to door in happiness, so that they were together. when the day began to glimmer they stole out of the house, and, passing into the street, stood still. "which way?" asked the child. the old man looked doubtfully and helplessly at her, and shook his head. it was plain that she was thenceforth his guide and leader. the child felt it, but had no doubts or misgivings, and, putting her hand in his, led him gently away. forth from the city, while it yet was asleep went the two poor wanderers, going, they knew not whither. they passed through the long, deserted streets, in the glad light of early morning, until these streets dwindled away, and the open country was about them. they walked all day, and slept that night at a small cottage where beds were let to travelers. the sun was setting on the second day of their journey, and they were jaded and worn out with walking, when, following a path which led through a churchyard to the town where they were to spend the night, they fell in with two traveling showmen, the exhibitors or keepers of a punch and judy show. these two men raised their eyes when the old man and his young companion were close upon them. one of them, the real exhibitor, no doubt, was a little, merry-faced man with a twinkling eye and a red nose, who seemed to be something like old punch himself. the other--that was he who took the money--had rather a careful and cautious look, which perhaps came from his business also. the merry man was the first to greet the strangers with a nod; and following the old man's eyes, he observed that perhaps that was the first time he had ever seen a punch off the stage. "why do you come here to do this?" said the old man sitting down beside them, and looking at the figures with extreme delight. "why, you see," rejoined the little man, "we're putting up for to-night at the public house yonder, and it wouldn't do to let 'em see the present company undergoing repair." "no!" cried the old man, making signs to nell to listen, "why not, eh? why not?" "because it would destroy all the reality of the show and take away all the interest, wouldn't it?" replied the little man. "would you care a ha'penny for the lord chancellor if you know'd him in private and without his wig?--certainly not."[c] "good!" said the old man, venturing to touch one of the puppets, and drawing away his hand with a shrill laugh. "are you going to show 'em to-night? are you?" "that is the purpose, governor," replied the other, "and unless i'm much mistaken, tommy codlin is a-calculating at this minute what we've lost through your coming upon us. cheer up, tommy, it can't be much." the little man accompanied these latter words with a wink, expressive of the estimate he had formed of the travelers' pocketbook. to this mr. codlin, who had a surly, grumbling manner, replied, as he twitched punch off the tombstone and flung him into the box: "i don't care if we haven't lost a farden, but you're too free. if you stood in front of the curtain and see the public's faces as i do, you'd know human natur' better." turning over the figures in the box like one who knew and despised them, mr. codlin drew one forth and held it up for the inspection of his friend: "look here; here's all this judy's clothes falling to pieces again. you haven't got a needle and thread, i suppose?" the little man shook his head and scratched it sadly, as he contemplated this condition of a principal performer in his show. seeing that they were at a loss, the child said, timidly: "i have a needle, sir, in my basket, and thread too. will you let me try to mend it for you? i think i could do it neater than you could." even mr. codlin had nothing to urge against a proposal so seasonable. nell, kneeling down beside the box, was soon busily engaged in her task, and finished it in a wonderful way. while she was thus at work, the merry little man looked at her with an interest which did not appear to be any less when he glanced at her helpless companion. when she had finished her work he thanked her, and asked to what place they were traveling. "n--no farther to-night, i think," said the child, looking toward her grandfather. "if you're wanting a place to stop at," the man remarked. "i should advise you to take up at the same house with us. that's it. the long low, white house there. it's very cheap." they went to the little inn, and when they had been refreshed, the whole house hurried away into an empty stable where the show stood, and where, by the light of a few flaring candles stuck round a hoop which hung by a line from the ceiling, it was to be forthwith shown. and now mr. thomas codlin, after blowing away at the pan's pipes, took his station on one side of the curtain which concealed the mover of the figures, and, putting his hands in his pockets, prepared to reply to all questions and remarks of punch, and to make a pretence of being his most intimate private friend, of believing in him to the fullest and most unlimited extent, of knowing that mr. punch enjoyed day and night a merry and glorious life in that temple, and that he was at all times and under every circumstance the same wise and joyful person that all present then beheld him. the whole performance was applauded until the old stable rang, and gifts were showered in with a liberality which testified yet more strongly to the general delight. among the laughter none was more loud and frequent than the old man's. nell's was unheard, for she, poor child, with her head drooping on his shoulder, had fallen asleep, and slept too soundly to be roused by any of his efforts to awaken her to a part in his glee. the supper was very good, but she was too tired to eat, and yet would not leave the old man until she had kissed him in his bed. he, happily insensible to every care and anxiety, sat listening with a vacant smile and admiring face to all that his new friends said; and it was not until they retired yawning to their room that he followed the child up-stairs. she had a little money, but it was very little; and when that was gone they must begin to beg. there was one piece of gold among it, and a need might come when its worth to them would be increased a hundred times. it would be best to hide this coin, and never show it unless their case was entirely desperate, and nothing else was left them. her resolution taken, she sewed the piece of gold into her dress, and going to bed with a lighter heart sunk into a deep slumber. "and where are you going to-day?" said the little man the following morning, addressing himself to nell. "indeed i hardly know--we have not made up our minds yet," replied the child. "we're going on to the races," said the little man. "if that's your way and you like to have us for company, let us travel together. if you prefer going alone, only say the word and you'll find that we sha'n't trouble you." "we'll go with you," said the old man. "nell--with them, with them." the child thought for a moment, and knowing that she must shortly beg, and could scarcely hope to do so at a better place than where crowds of rich ladies and gentlemen were met together for enjoyment, determined to go with these men so far. she therefore thanked the little man for his offer, and said, glancing timidly toward his friend, that they would if there was no objection to their staying with them as far as the race-town. and with these men they traveled forward on the following day. they made two long days' journey with their new companions, passing through villages and towns, and meeting upon one occasion with two young people walking upon stilts, who were also going to the races. and now they had come to the time when they must beg their bread. soon after sunrise the second morning, she stole out, and, rambling into some fields at a short distance, plucked a few wild roses and such humble flowers, purposing to make them into little nosegays and offer them to the ladies in the carriages when the company arrived. her thoughts were not idle while she was thus busy; when she returned and was seated beside the old man, tying her flowers together, while the two men lay dozing in the corner, she plucked him by the sleeve, and, slightly glancing toward them, said in a low voice: "grandfather, don't look at those i talk of, and don't seem as if i spoke of anything but what i am about. what was that you told me before we left the old house? that if they knew what we were going to do, they would say that you were mad, and part us?" the old man turned to her with a look of wild terror; but she checked him by a look, and bidding him hold some flowers while she tied them up, and so bringing her lips closer to his ear, said: "i know that was what you told me. you needn't speak, dear. i recollect it very well. it was not likely that i should forget it. grandfather, i have heard these men say they think that we have secretly left our friends, and mean to carry us before some gentleman and have us taken care of and sent back. if you let your hand tremble so, we can never get away from them, but if you're only quiet now, we shall do so easily." "how?" muttered the old man. "dear nell, how? they will shut me up in a stone-room, dark and cold, and chain me up to the wall, nell--flog me with whips, and never let me see thee more!" "you're trembling again," said the child. "keep close to me all day. never mind them, don't look at them, but me. i shall find a time when we can steal away. when i do, mind you come with me, and do not stop or speak a word. hush! that's all." "halloo! what are you up to, my dear?" said mr. codlin, raising his head, and yawning. "making some nosegays," the child replied; "i am going to try to sell some, these three days of the races. will you have one--as a present, i mean?" mr. codlin would have risen to receive it, but the child hurried toward him and placed it in his hand, and he stuck it in his button-hole. as the morning wore on, the tents at the race-course assumed a gayer and more brilliant appearance, and long lines of carriages came rolling softly on the turf. black-eyed gipsy girls, their heads covered with showy handkerchiefs, came out to tell fortunes, and pale, slender women with wasted faces followed the footsteps of conjurers, and counted the sixpences with anxious eyes long before they were gained. as many of the children as could be kept within bounds were stowed away, with all the other signs of dirt and poverty, among the donkeys, carts, and horses; and as many as could not be thus disposed of ran in and out in all directions, crept between people's legs and carriage wheels, and came forth unharmed from under horses' hoofs. the dancing-dogs, the stilts, the little lady and the tall man, and all the other attractions, with organs out of number and bands innumerable, came out from the holes and corners in which they had passed the night, and flourished boldly in the sun. along the uncleared course, short led his party, sounding the brazen trumpet and speaking in the voice of punch; and at his heels went thomas codlin, bearing the show as usual, and keeping his eye on nell and her grandfather, as they rather lingered in the rear. the child bore upon her arm the little basket with her flowers, and sometimes stopped, with timid and modest looks, to offer them at some gay carriage; but alas! there were many bolder beggars there, gipsies who promised husbands, and others skillful in their trade; and although some ladies smiled gently as they shook their heads, and others cried to the gentlemen beside them, "see what a pretty face!" they let the pretty face pass on, and never thought that it looked tired or hungry. there was but one lady who seemed to understand the child, and she was one who sat alone in a handsome carriage, while two young men in dashing clothes, who had just stepped out from it, talked and laughed loudly at a little distance, appearing to forget her, quite. there were many ladies all around, but they turned their backs, or looked another way, or at the two young men (not unfavorably at _them_), and left her to herself. the lady motioned away a gipsy woman, eager to tell her fortune, saying that it was told already and had been for some years, but called the child toward her, and, taking her flowers, put money into her trembling hand, and bade her go home and keep at home. many a time they went up and down those long, long lines, seeing everything but the horses and the race; when the bell rung to clear the course, going back to rest among the carts and donkeys, and not coming out again until the heat was over. many a time, too, was punch displayed in the full glory of his humor; but all this while the eye of thomas codlin was upon them, and to escape without notice was almost impossible. at length, late in the day, mr. codlin pitched the show in a spot right in the middle of the crowd, and the punch and judy were surrounded by people who were watching the performance. short was moving the images, and knocking them in the fury of the combat against the sides of the show, the people were looking on with laughing faces, and mr. codlin's face showed a grim smile as his roving eye detected the hands of thieves in the crowd going into waistcoat pockets. if nell and her grandfather were ever to get away unseen, that was the very moment. they seized it, and fled. they made a path through booths and carriages and throngs of people, and never once stopped to look behind. the bell was ringing, and the course was cleared by the time they reached the ropes, but they dashed across it, paying no attention to the shouts and screeching that assailed them for breaking in it, and, creeping under the brow of the hill at a quick pace, made for the open fields. at last they were free from codlin and short. that night they reached a little village in a woody hollow. the village schoolmaster, a good and gentle man, pitying their weariness, and attracted by the child's sweetness and modesty, gave them a lodging for the night; nor would he let them leave him until two days more had passed. they journeyed on, when the time came that they must wander forth again, by pleasant country lanes; and as they passed, watching the birds that perched and twittered in the branches overhead, or listening to the songs that broke the happy silence, their hearts were peaceful and free from care. but by-and-by they came to a long winding road which lengthened out far into the distance, and though they still kept on, it was at a much slower pace, for they were now very weary. the afternoon had worn away into a beautiful evening, when they arrived at a point where the road made a sharp turn and struck across a common. on the border of this common, and close to the hedge which divided it from the cultivated fields, a caravan was drawn up to rest; upon which they came so suddenly that they could not have avoided it if they would. do you know what a "caravan" is? it is a sort of gipsy house on wheels in which people live, while the house moves from place to place. it was not a shabby, dingy, dusty cart, but a smart little house with white dimity curtains hung over the windows, and window-shutters of green picked out with panels of a staring red, in which happily-contrasted colors the whole house shone brilliant. neither was it a poor caravan drawn by a single donkey or feeble old horse, for a pair of horses in pretty good condition were released from the shafts and grazing on the frouzy grass. neither was it a gipsy caravan, for at the open door (graced with a bright brass knocker) sat a christian lady, stout and comfortable to look upon, who wore a large bonnet trembling with bows. and that it was not a caravan of poor people was clear from what this lady was doing; for she was taking her tea. the tea-things, including a bottle of rather suspicious looks and a cold knuckle of ham, were set forth upon a drum, covered with a white napkin; and there, as if at the most convenient round-table in all the world, sat this roving lady, taking her tea and enjoying the prospect. it happened at that moment that the lady of the caravan had her cup (which, that everything about her might be of a stout and comfortable kind, was a breakfast cup) to her lips, and that having her eyes lifted to the sky in her enjoyment of the full flavor of her tea, it happened that, being thus agreeably engaged, she did not see the travelers when they first came up. it was not until she was in the act of setting down the cup, and drawing a long breath after the exertion of swallowing its contents, that the lady of the caravan beheld an old man and a young child walking slowly by, and glancing at her proceedings with eyes of modest, but hungry admiration. "hey!" cried the lady of the caravan, scooping the crumbs out of her lap and swallowing the same before wiping her lips. "yes, to be sure------who won the helter-skelter plate, child?" "won what, ma'am?" asked nell. "the helter-skelter plate at the races, child--the plate that was run for on the second day." "on the second day, ma'am?" "second day! yes, second day," repeated the lady, with an air of impatience. "can't you say who won the helter-skelter plate when you're asked the question civilly?" "i don't know, ma'am." "don't know!" repeated the lady of the caravan; "why, you were there. i saw you with my own eyes." nell was not a little alarmed to hear this, supposing that the lady might be intimately acquainted with the firm of short and codlin; but what followed tended to put her at her ease. "and very sorry i was," said the lady of the caravan, "to see you in company with a punch--a low, common, vulgar wretch, that people should scorn to look at." "i was not there by choice," returned the child; "we didn't know our way, and the two men were very kind to us, and let us travel with them. do you--do you know them, ma'am?" "know 'em, child?" cried the lady of the caravan, in a sort of shriek. "know _them_! but you're young and ignorant, and that's your excuse for asking sich a question. do i look as if i know'd 'em? does the caravan look as if _it_ know'd 'em?" "no, ma'am, no," said the child, fearing she had committed some grievous fault. "i beg your pardon." the lady of the caravan was in the act of gathering her tea things together preparing to clear the table, but noting the child's anxious manner, she hesitated and stopped. the child courtesied, and, giving her hand to the old man, had already got some fifty yards or so away, when the lady of the caravan called to her to return. "come nearer, nearer still," said she, beckoning to her to ascend the steps. "are you hungry, child?" "not very, but we are tired, and it's--it _is_ a long way------" "well, hungry or not, you had better have some tea," rejoined her new acquaintance. "i suppose you are agreeable to that old gentleman?" the grandfather humbly pulled off his hat and thanked her. the lady of the caravan then bade him come up the steps likewise, but the drum proving an inconvenient table for two, they went down again, and sat upon the grass, where she handed down to them the tea-tray, the bread and butter, and the knuckle of ham. "set 'em out near the hind wheels child, that's the best place," said their friend, superintending the arrangement from above. "now hand up the tea-pot for a little more hot water and a pinch of fresh tea, and then both of you eat and drink as much as you can, and don't spare anything; that's all i ask of you." the mistress of the caravan, saying the girl and her grandfather could not be very heavy, invited them to go along with them for a while, for which nell thanked her with all her heart. when they had traveled slowly forward for some short distance, nell ventured to steal a look round the caravan and observe it more closely. one-half of it--that part in which the comfortable proprietress was then seated--was carpeted, and so divided the farther end as to form a sleeping-place, made after the fashion of a berth on board ship, which was shaded, like the little windows, with fair white curtains, and looked comfortable enough, though by what kind of gymnastic exercise the lady of the caravan ever contrived to get into it was a mystery. the other half served for a kitchen, and was fitted up with a stove whose small chimney passed through the roof. the mistress sat looking at the child for a long time in silence, and then, getting up, brought out from a corner a large roll of canvas about a yard in width, which she laid upon the floor and spread open with her foot until it nearly reached from one end of the caravan to the other. "there, child," she said, "read that." nell walked down it, and read aloud, in enormous black letters, the inscription, "jarley's wax-work." "read it again," said the lady, complacently. "jarley's wax-work," repeated nell. "that's me," said the lady. "i am mrs. jarley." giving the child an encouraging look, the lady of the caravan unfolded another scroll, whereon was the inscription, "one hundred figures the full size of life;" and then another scroll, on which was written, "the only stupendous collection of real wax-work in the world;" and then several smaller scrolls, with such inscriptions as "now exhibiting within"--"the genuine and only jarley"--"jarley's unrivaled collection"--"jarley is the delight of the nobility and gentry"--"the royal family are the patrons of jarley." when she had exhibited these large painted signs to the astonished child, she brought forth specimens of the lesser notices in the shape of hand-bills, some of which were printed in the form of verses on popular times, as "believe me if all jarley's wax-work so rare"--"i saw thy show in youthful prime"--"over the water to jarley;" while, to satisfy all tastes, others were composed with a view to the lighter and merrier spirits, as a verse on the favorite air of "if i had a donkey," beginning if i know'd a donkey wot wouldn't go to see mrs. jarley's wax-work show, do you think i'd own him? oh no, no! then run to jarley's------ besides several compositions in prose, pretending to be dialogues between the emperor of china and an oyster. "i never saw any wax-work, ma'am," said nell. "is it funnier than punch?" "funnier!" said mrs. jarley in a shrill voice. "it is not funny at all." "oh!" said nell, with all possible humility. "it isn't funny at all," repeated mrs. jarley. "it's calm and--what's that word again--critical?--no--classical, that's it--it's calm and classical. no low beatings and knockings about, no jokings and squeakings like your precious punches, but always the same, with a constantly unchanging air of coldness and dignity; and so like life that, if wax-work only spoke and walked about you'd hardly know the difference. i won't go so far as to say that, as it is, i've seen wax-work quite like life, but i've certainly seen some life that was exactly like wax-work." this conference at length concluded, she beckoned nell to sit down. "and the old gentleman, too," said mrs. jarley; "for i want to have a word with him. do you want a good place for your granddaughter, master? if you do, i can put her in the way of getting one. what do you say?" "i can't leave her," answered the old man. "we can't separate. what would become of me without her?" "if you're really ready to employ yourself," said mrs. jarley, "there would be plenty for you to do in the way of helping to dust the figures, and take the checks, and so forth. what i want your granddaughter for is to point 'em out to the company; they would be soon learned and she has a way with her that people wouldn't think unpleasant, though she _does_ come after me; for i've been always accustomed to go round with visitors myself, which i should keep on doing now, only that my spirits make a little rest absolutely necessary. it's not a common offer, bear in mind," said the lady, rising into the tone and manner in which she was accustomed to address her audiences; "it's jarley's wax-work, remember. the duty's very light and genteel, the company particularly select, the exhibition takes place in assembly-rooms, town-halls, large rooms at inns, or auction galleries. there is none of your open-air wondering at jarley's, recollect; there is no tarpaulin and sawdust at jarley's, remember. every promise made in the hand-bills is kept to the utmost, and the whole forms an effect of splendor hitherto unknown in this kingdom. remember that the price of admission is only sixpence, and that this is an opportunity which may never occur again!" "we are very much obliged to you, ma'am," said nell, "and thankfully accept your offer." "and you'll never be sorry for it," returned mrs. jarley. "i'm pretty sure of that. so as that's all settled, let us have a bit of supper." rumbling along with most unwonted noise, the caravan stopped at last at the place of exhibition, where nell came down from the wagon among an admiring group of children, who evidently supposed her to be an important part of the curiosities, and were almost ready to believe that her grandfather was a cunning device in wax. the chests were taken out of the van for the figures with all haste, and taken in to be unlocked by mrs. jarley, who, attended by george and the driver, arranged their contents (consisting of red festoons and other ornamental work) to make the best show in the decoration of the room. when the festoons were all put up as tastily as they might be, the wonderful collection was uncovered; and there were shown, on a raised platform some two feet from the floor, running round the room and parted from the rude public by a crimson rope, breast high, a large number of sprightly waxen images of famous people, singly and in groups, clad in glittering dresses of various climes and times, and standing more or less unsteadily upon their legs, with their eyes very wide open, and their nostrils very much inflated, and the muscles of their legs, and arms very strongly developed, and all their faces expressing great surprise. all the gentlemen were very narrow in the breast, and very blue about the beards; and all the ladies were wonderful figures; and all the ladies and all the gentlemen were looking intensely nowhere, and staring with tremendous earnestness at nothing. when nell had shown her first wonder at this glorious sight, mrs. jarley ordered the room to be cleared of all but herself and the child, and, sitting herself down in an arm-chair in the center, presented nell with a willow wand, long used by herself for pointing out the characters, and was at great pains to instruct her in her duty. "that," said mrs. jarley, in her exhibition tone, as nell touched a figure at the beginning of the platform, "is an unfortunate maid of honor in the time of queen elizabeth, who died from pricking her finger in consequence of working upon a sunday. observe the blood which is trickling from her finger; also the gold-eyed needle of the period, with which she is at work." all this nell repeated twice or thrice--pointing to the finger and the needle at the right times; and then passed on to the next. "that, ladies and gentlemen," said mrs. jarley, "is jasper packlemerton, of terrible memory, who courted and married fourteen wives, and destroyed them all, by tickling the soles of their feet when they were sleeping in the consciousness of innocence and virtue. on being brought to the scaffold and asked if he was sorry for what he had done, he replied yes, he was sorry for having let 'em off so easy, and hoped all christian husbands would pardon him the offense. let this be a warning to all young ladies to be particular in the character of the gentlemen of their choice. observe that his fingers are curled as if in the act of tickling, and that his face is represented with a wink, as he appeared when committing his barbarous murders." when nell knew all about mr. packlemerton, and could say it without faltering, mrs. jarley passed on to the fat man, and then to the thin man, the tall man, the short man, the old lady who died of dancing at a hundred and thirty-two, the wild boy of the woods, the woman who poisoned fourteen families with pickled walnuts, and other historical characters and interesting but misguided individuals. and so well did nell profit by her instructions, and so apt was she to remember them, that by the time they had been shut up together for a couple of hours, she was in full possession of the history of the whole establishment, and perfectly able to tell the stories of the wax-work to visitors. for some time her life and the life of the poor vacant old man passed quietly and happily. they traveled from place to place with mrs. jarley; nell spoke her piece, with the wand in her hand, before the waxen images; and her grandfather in a dull way dusted the images when he was told to do so. but heavier sorrow was yet to come. one night, a holiday night for them, neil and her grandfather went out to walk. a terrible thunderstorm coming on, they were forced to take refuge in a small public house; and here they saw some shabbily dressed and wicked looking men were playing cards. the old man watched them with increasing interest and excitement, until his whole appearance underwent a complete change. his face was flushed and eager, his teeth set. with a hand that trembled violently he seized nell's little purse, and in spite of her pleadings joined in the game, gambling with such a savage thirst for gain that the distressed and frightened child could almost better have borne to see him dead. it was long after midnight when the play came to an end; and they were forced to remain where they were until the morning. and in the night the child was wakened from her troubled sleep to find a figure in the room--a figure busying its hands about her garments, while its face was turned to her, listening and looking lest she should awake. it was her grandfather himself, his white face pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his eyes unnaturally bright, counting the money of which his hands were robbing her. evening after evening, after that night, the old man would steal away, not to return until the night was far spent, demanding, wildly, money. and at last there came an hour when the child overheard him, tempted beyond his feeble powers of resistance, undertake to find more money to feed the desperate passion which had laid its hold upon his weakness by robbing the kind mrs. jarley, who had done so much for them. the poor old man had become so weak in his mind, that he did not understand how wicked was his act. that night the child took her grandfather by the hand and led him forth. through the strait streets and narrow outskirts of the town their trembling feet passed quickly; the child sustained by one idea--that they were flying from wickedness and disgrace, and that she could save her grandfather only by her firmness unaided by one word of advice or any helping hand; the old man following her as though she had been an angel messenger sent to lead him where she would. the hardest part of all their wanderings was now before them. they slept in the open air that night, and on the following morning some men offered to take them a long distance on their barge on the river. these men, though they were not unkindly, were very rugged, noisy fellows, and they drank and quarreled fearfully among themselves, to nell's inexpressible terror. it rained, too, heavily, and she was wet and cold. at last they reached the great city whither the barge was bound, and here they wandered up and down, being now penniless, and watched the faces of those who passed, to find among them a ray of encouragement or hope. ill in body, and sick to death at heart, the child needed her utmost courage and will even to creep along. they lay down that night, and the next night too, with nothing between them and the sky; a penny loaf was all they had had that day, and when the third morning came, it found the child much weaker, yet she made no complaint. the great city with its many factories hemmed them in on every side, and seemed to shut out hope. faint and spiritless as they were, its streets were terrible to them. after humbly asking for relief at some few doors, and being driven away, they agreed to make their way out of it as speedily as they could, and try if the people living in some lone house beyond would have more pity on their worn out state. they were dragging themselves along through the last street, and the child felt that the time was close at hand when her enfeebled powers would bear no more. there appeared before them, at this moment, going in the same direction as themselves, a traveler on foot, who, with a bundle of clothing strapped to his back, leaned upon a stout stick as he walked, and read from a book which he held in his other hand. it was not an easy matter to come up with him and ask his aid, for he walked fast, and was a little distance in advance. at length he stopped, to look more attentively at some passage in his book. encouraged by a ray of hope, the child shot on before her grandfather, and, going close to the stranger without rousing him by the sound of her footsteps, began, in a few faint words, to beg his help. he turned his head. the child clapped her hands together, uttered a wild shriek, and fell senseless at his feet. it was the poor schoolmaster. no other than the poor schoolmaster. scarcely less moved and surprised by the sight of the child than she had been on recognizing him, he stood, for a moment, silent, without even the presence of mind to raise her from the ground. but, quickly recovering himself, he threw down his stick and book, and, dropping on one knee beside her, tried simple means as came to his mind, to restore her to herself; while her grandfather, standing idly by, wrung his hands, and begged her, with many words of love, to speak to him, were it only a whisper. "she appears to be quite worn out," said the schoolmaster, glancing upward into his face. "you have used up all her strength, friend." "she is dying of want," answered the old man. "i never thought how weak and ill she was till now." casting a look upon him, half-angry and half-pitiful, the schoolmaster took the child in his arms, and, bidding the old man gather up her little basket and follow him directly, bore her away at his utmost speed. there was a small inn within sight, to which, it would seem, he had been walking when so unexpectedly overtaken. toward this place he hurried with his unconscious burden, and rushing into the kitchen, and calling upon the company there assembled to make way for god's sake, laid it down on a chair before the fire. the company, who rose in confusion on the schoolmaster's entrance, did as people usually do under such circumstances. everybody called for his or her favorite remedy, which nobody brought; each cried for more air, at the same time carefully shutting out what air there was, by closing round the object of sympathy; and all wondered why somebody else didn't do what it never appeared to occur to them might be done by themselves. the landlady, however, who had more readiness and activity than any of them, and who seemed to understand the case more quickly, soon came running in, with a little hot medicine, followed by her servant-girl, carrying vinegar, hartshorn, smelling-salts, and such other restoratives; which, being duly given, helped the child so far as to enable her to thank them in a faint voice, and to hold out her hand to the poor schoolmaster, who stood, with an anxious face, near her side. without suffering her to speak another word, or so much as to stir a finger any more, the women straightway carried her off to bed; and, having covered her up warm, bathed her cold feet, and wrapped them in flannel, they sent a messenger for the doctor. the doctor, who was a red-nosed gentleman with a great bunch of seals dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin, arrived with all speed, and taking his seat by the bedside of poor nell, drew out his watch, and felt her pulse. then he looked at her tongue, then he felt her pulse again, and while he did so, he eyed the half-emptied wine-glass as if in profound abstraction. "i should give her," said the doctor at length, "a teaspoonful, every now and then, of hot medicine." "why, that's exactly what we've done, sir!" said the delighted landlady. "i should also," observed the doctor, who had passed the foot-bath on the stairs, "i should also," said the doctor, in a very wise tone of voice, "put her feet in hot water and wrap them up in flannel. i should likewise," said the doctor, with increased solemnity, "give her something light for supper--the wing of a roasted chicken now------" "why, goodness gracious me, sir, it's cooking at the kitchen fire this instant!" cried the landlady. and so indeed it was, for the schoolmaster had ordered it to be put down, and it was getting on so well that the doctor might have smelled it if he had tried; perhaps he did. "you may then," said the doctor, rising gravely, "give her a glass of hot mulled port-wine, if she likes wine------" "and a piece of toast, sir?" suggested the landlady. "ay," said the doctor, in a very dignified tone, "and a toast--of bread. but be very particular to make it of bread, if you please, ma'am." with which parting advice, slowly and solemnly given, the doctor departed, leaving the whole house in admiration of that wisdom which agreed so closely with their own. everybody said he was a very shrewd doctor indeed, and knew perfectly what people's bodies needed; which there appears some reason to suppose he did. while her supper was preparing, the child fell into a refreshing sleep, from which they were obliged to rouse her when it was ready. as she showed extraordinary uneasiness on learning that her grandfather was below stairs, and as she was greatly troubled at the thought of their being apart, he took his supper with her. finding her still very anxious for the old man, they made him up a bed in an inner room, to which he soon went. the key of this room happened by good-fortune to be on that side of the door which was in nell's room; she turned it on him when the landlady had withdrawn, and crept to bed again with a thankful heart. the schoolmaster sat for a long time smoking his pipe by the kitchen fire, which was now deserted, thinking, with a very happy face, on the fortunate chance which had brought him at just the right moment to the child's assistance. the schoolmaster, as it appeared, was on his way to a new home. and when the child had recovered somewhat from her hunger and weariness, it was arranged that she and her grandfather should go with him to the village whither he was bound, and that he should endeavor to find them some work by which they could get their living. it was a lonely little village, lying among the quiet country scenes nell loved. and here, her grandfather being peaceful and at rest, a great calm fell upon the spirit of the child. often she would steal into the church, and, sitting down among the quiet figures carved upon the tombs, would think of the summer days and the bright spring-time that would come; of the rays of sun that would fall in, aslant those sleeping forms; of the songs of birds, and the sweet air that would steal in. what if the spot awakened thoughts of death! it would be no pain to sleep amid such sights and sounds as these. for the time was drawing nearer every day when nell was to rest indeed. she never murmured or complained, but faded like a light upon a summer's evening and died. day after day and all day long, the old man, broken-hearted and with no love or care for anything in life, would sit beside her grave with her straw hat and the little basket she had been used to carry, waiting till she should come to him again. at last they found him lying dead upon the stone. and in the church where they had often prayed and mused and lingered, hand in hand, the child and the old man slept together. footnote: [c] the lord chancellor, it may be explained, is the highest judge in the courts of england; and when in court always wears a great wig and a robe. vii. little david copperfield. i, little david copperfield, lived with my mother in a pretty house in the village of blunderstone in suffolk. i had never known my father, who died before i could remember anything, and i had neither brothers nor sisters. i was fondly loved by my pretty young mother, and our kind, good servant, peggotty, and was a very happy little fellow. we had very few friends, and the only relation my mother talked about was an aunt of my father's, a tall and rather terrible old lady, from all accounts, who had once been to see us when i was quite a tiny baby, and had been so angry to find i was not a little girl that she had left the house quite offended, and had never been heard of since. one visitor, a tall dark gentleman, i did not like at all, and was rather inclined to be jealous that my mother should be so friendly with the stranger. peggotty and i were sitting one night by the parlor fire, alone. i had been reading to peggotty about crocodiles. i was tired of reading, and dead sleepy; but having leave, as a high treat, to sit up until my mother came home from spending the evening at a neighbor's, i would rather have died upon my post (of course) than have gone to bed. i had reached that stage of sleepiness when peggotty seemed to swell and grow immensely large. i propped my eyelids open with my two forefingers, and looked perseveringly at her as she sat at work; at the little house with a thatched roof, where she kept her yard-measure; at her work-box with a sliding-lid, with a view of st. paul's cathedral (with a pink dome) painted on the top; at the brass thimble on her finger; at herself, whom i thought lovely. i felt so sleepy that i knew if i lost sight of anything, for a moment, i was gone. "peggotty," says i, suddenly, "were you ever married?" "lord, master davy!" replied peggotty. "what's put marriage in your head?" she answered with such a start that it quite awoke me. and then she stopped in her work and looked at me, with her needle drawn out to its thread's length. "but _were_ you ever married, peggotty?" says i. "you are a very handsome woman, ain't you?" "me handsome, davy!" said peggotty. "lawk, no, my dear! but what put marriage in your head?" "i don't know! you mustn't marry more than one person at a time, may you, peggotty?" "certainly not," says peggotty, with the promptest decision. "but if you marry a person, and the person dies, why then you may marry another person, mayn't you, peggotty?" "you may," says peggotty, "if you choose, my dear. that's a matter of opinion." "but what is your opinion, peggotty?" said i. i asked her and looked curiously at her, because she looked so curiously at me. "my opinion is," said peggotty, taking her eyes from me, after waiting a little, and going on with her work, "that i never was married myself, master davy, and that i don't expect to be. that's all i know about the subject." "you ain't cross, i suppose, peggotty, are you?" said i, after sitting quiet for a minute. i really thought she was, she had been so short with me; but i was quite mistaken; for she laid aside her work (which was a stocking of her own) and opening her arms wide, took my curly head within them, and gave it a good squeeze. i know it was a good squeeze, because, being very plump, whenever she made any little exertion after she was dressed, some of the buttons on the back of her flew off. and i recollect two bursting to the opposite side of the parlor while she was hugging me. one day peggotty asked me if i would like to go with her on a visit to her brother at yarmouth. "is your brother an agreeable man, peggotty?" i inquired. "oh, what an agreeable man he is!" cried peggotty. "then there's the sea, and the boats and ships, and the fishermen, and the beach. and 'am to play with." ham was her nephew. i was quite anxious to go when i heard of all these delights; but my mother, what would she do all alone? peggotty told me my mother was going to pay a visit to some friends, and would be sure to let me go. so all was arranged, and we were to start the next day in the carrier's cart. i was so eager that i wanted to put my hat and coat on the night before! but when the time came to say good-by to my dear mamma, i cried a little, for i had never left her before. it was rather a slow way of traveling, and i was very tired and sleepy when i arrived at yarmouth, and found ham waiting to meet me. he was a great strong fellow, six feet high, and took me on his back and the box under his arm to carry both to the house. i was delighted to find that this house was made of a real big black boat, with a door and windows cut in the side, and an iron funnel sticking out of the roof for a chimney. inside, it was very cozy and clean, and i had a tiny bedroom in the stern. i was very much pleased to find a dear little girl, about my own age, to play with, and after tea i said: "mr. peggotty." "sir," says he. "did you give your son the name of ham because you lived in a sort of ark?" mr. peggotty seemed to think it a deep idea, but answered: "no, sir. i never giv' him no name." "who gave him that name, then?" said i, putting question number two of the catechism to mr. peggotty. "why, sir, his father giv' it him," said mr. peggotty. "i thought you were his father!" "my brother joe was _his_ father," said mr. peggotty. "dead, mr. peggotty?" i hinted, after a respectful pause. "drowndead," said mr. peggotty. i was very much surprised that mr. peggotty was not ham's father, and began to wonder whether i was mistaken about his relationship to anybody else there. i was so curious to know that i made up my mind to have it out with mr. peggotty. "little em'ly," i said, glancing at her. "she is your daughter, isn't she, mr. peggotty?" "no, sir. my brother-in-law, tom, was _her_ father." i couldn't help it. "----dead, mr. peggotty?" i hinted, after another respectful silence. "drowndead," said mr. peggotty. i felt the difficulty of resuming the subject, but had not got to the bottom of it yet, and must get to the bottom somehow. so i said: "haven't you _any_ children, mr. peggotty?" "no, master," he answered, with a short laugh. "i'm a bacheldore." "a bachelor!" i said, astonished. "why, who's that, mr. peggotty?" pointing to the person in the apron who was knitting. "that's missis gummidge," said mr. peggotty. "gummidge, mr. peggotty?" but at this point peggotty--i mean my own peggotty--made such impressive motions to me not to ask any more questions, that i could only sit and look at all the company, until it was time to go to bed. mrs. gummidge lived with them too, and did the cooking and cleaning, for she was a poor widow and had no home of her own. i thought mr. peggotty was very good to take all these people to live with him, and i was quite right, for mr. peggotty was only a poor man himself and had to work hard to get a living. almost as soon as morning shone upon the oyster-shell frame of my mirror i was out of bed, and out with tittle em'ly, picking up stones upon the beach. "you're quite a sailor i suppose?" i said to em'ly. i don't know that i supposed anything of the kind, but i felt it proper to say something; and a shining sail close to us made such a pretty little image of itself, at the moment, in her bright eye, that it came into my head to say this. "no," replied em'ly, shaking her head, "i'm afraid of the sea." "afraid!" i said, with a becoming air of boldness, and looking very big at the mighty ocean. "i ain't." "ah! but it's cruel," said em'ly. "i have seen it very cruel to some of our men. i have seen it tear a boat as big as our house all to pieces." "i hope it wasn't the boat that--" "that father was drowned in?" said em'ly. "no. not that one, i never see that boat." "nor him?" i asked her. little em'ly shook her head. "not to remember!" here was something remarkable. i immediately went into an explanation how i had never seen my own father; and how my mother and i had always lived by ourselves in the happiest state imaginable, and lived so then, and always meant to live so; and how my father's grave was in the churchyard near our house, and shaded by a tree, beneath the boughs of which i had walked and heard the birds sing many a pleasant morning. but there were some differences between em'ly's orphanhood and mine, it appeared. she had lost her mother before her father, and where her father's grave was no one knew, except that it was somewhere in the depths of the sea. "besides," said em'ly, as she looked about for shells and pebbles, "your father was a gentleman and your mother is a lady; and my father was a fisherman and my mother was a fisherman's daughter, and my uncle dan is a fisherman." "dan is mr. peggotty, is he?" said i. [illustration: david copperfield and little em'ly. page ] "uncle--yonder," answered em'ly, nodding at the boat-house. "yes. i mean him. he must be very good, i should think." "good?" said em'ly. "if i was ever to be a lady, i'd give him a sky-blue coat with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a red velvet waistcoat, a cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver pipe, and a box of money." i said i had no doubt that mr. peggotty well deserved these treasures. little em'ly had stopped and looked up at the sky while she named these articles, as if they were a glorious vision. we went on again picking up shells and pebbles. "you would like to be a lady?" i said. em'ly looked at me, and laughed and nodded "yes." "i should like it very much. we would all be gentlefolks together, then. me, and uncle, and ham, and mrs. gummidge. we wouldn't mind then, when there come stormy weather. not for our own sakes, i mean. we would for the poor fishermen's, to be sure, and we'd help 'em with money when they come to any hurt." i was quite sorry to leave these kind people and my dear little companion, but i was glad to think i should get back to my own dear mamma. when i reached home, however, i found a great change. my mother was married to the dark man i did not like, whose name was mr. murdstone, and he was a stern, hard man, who had no love for me, and did not allow my mother to pet and indulge me as she had done before. mr. murdstone's sister came to live with us, and as she was even more difficult to please than her brother, and disliked boys, my life was no longer a happy one. i tried to be good and obedient, for i knew it made my mother very unhappy to see me punished and found fault with. i had always had lessons with my mother, and as she was patient and gentle, i had enjoyed learning to read, but now i had a great many very hard lessons to do, and was so frightened and shy when mr. and miss murdstone were in the room, that i did not get on at all well, and was continually in disgrace. let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back again. i come into the second-best parlor after breakfast, with my books, and an exercise-book and a slate. my mother is ready for me at her writing-desk, but not half so ready as mr. murdstone in his easy-chair by the window (though he pretends to be reading a book), or as miss murdstone, sitting near my mother stringing steel beads. the very sight of these two has such an influence over me that i begin to feel the words i have been at infinite pains to get into my head all sliding away, and going i don't know where. i wonder where they _do_ go, by-the-by? i hand the first book to my mother. perhaps it is a grammar, perhaps a history, or geography. i take a last drowning look at the page as i give it into her hand, and start off aloud at a racing pace while i have got it fresh. i trip over a word. mr. murdstone looks up. i trip over another word. miss murdstone looks up. i redden, tumble over half a dozen words and stop. i think my mother would show me the book if she dared, but she does not dare, and she says softly: "oh, davy, davy!" "now, clara," says mr. murdstone, "be firm with the boy. don't say, 'oh, davy, davy!' that's childish. he knows his lesson, or he does not know it." "he does _not_ know it," miss murdstone interposes awfully. "i am really afraid he does not," says my mother. "then you see, clara," returns miss murdstone, "you should just give him the book back, and make him know it." "yes, certainly," says my mother; "that is what i intend to do, my dear jane. now, davy, try once more, and don't be stupid." i obey the first clause of my mother's words by trying once more, but am not so successful with the second, for i am very stupid. i tumble down before i get to the old place, at a point where i was all right before, and stop to think. but i can't think about the lesson. i think of the number of yards of net in miss murdstone's cap, or of the price of mr. murdstone's dressing-gown, or any such ridiculous matter that i have no business with, and don't want to have anything at all to do with. mr. murdstone makes a movement of impatience which i have been expecting for a long time. miss murdstone does the same. my mother glances submissively at them, shuts the book, and lays it by, to be worked out when my other tasks are done. there is a pile of these tasks very soon, and it swells like a rolling snowball. the bigger it gets, the more stupid _i_ get. the case is so hopeless, and i feel that i am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense, that i give up all idea of getting out, and abandon myself to my fate. the despairing way in which my mother and i look at each other, as i blunder on, is truly melancholy. but the greatest effect in these miserable lessons is when my mother (thinking nobody is observing her) tries to give me the cue by the motion of her lips. at that instant, miss murdstone, who has been lying in wait for nothing else all along says in a deep warning voice: "clara!" my mother starts, colors, and smiles faintly. mr. murdstone comes out of his chair, takes the book, throws it at me, or boxes my ears with it, and turns me out of the room by the shoulders. my only pleasure was to go up into a little room at the top of the house where i had found a number of books that had belonged to my own father, and i would sit and read robinson crusoe, and many tales of travels and adventures, and i imagined myself to be sometimes one and sometimes another hero, and went about for days with the centre-piece out of an old set of boot-trees, pretending to be a captain in the british royal navy. one morning when i went into the parlor with my books, i found my mother looking anxious, miss murdstone looking firm, and mr. murdstone binding something round the bottom of a cane--a lithe and limber cane, which he left off binding when i came in, and poised and switched in the air. "i tell you, clara," said mr. murdstone, "i have often been flogged myself." "to be sure; of course," said miss murdstone. "certainly, my dear jane," faltered my mother, meekly. "but--but do you think it did edward good?" "do you think it did edward harm, clara?" asked mr. murdstone, gravely. "that's the point!" said his sister. to this my mother returned, "certainly, my dear jane," and said no more. i felt afraid that all this had something to do with myself, and sought mr. murdstone's eye as it lighted on mine. "now, david," he said--and i saw that cast again, as he said it--"you must be far more careful to-day than usual." he gave the cane another poise and another switch; and having finished his preparation of it, laid it down beside him, with an expressive look, and took up his book. this was a good freshener to my memory, as a beginning. i felt the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or line by line, but by the entire page. i tried to lay hold of them; but they seemed, if i may so express it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me with a smoothness there was no checking. we began badly, and went on worse. i had come in with an idea of doing better than usual, thinking that i was very well prepared; but it turned out to be quite a mistake. book after book was added to the heap of failures, miss murdstone being firmly watchful of us all the time. and when we came at last to a question about five thousand cheeses (canes he made it that day, i remember), my mother burst out crying. "clara!" said miss murdstone, in her warning voice. "i am not quite well, my dear jane, i think," said my mother. i saw him wink, solemnly, at his sister, as he rose and said, taking up the cane: "why, jane, we can hardly expect clara to bear, with perfect firmness, the worry and torment that david has caused her to-day. clara is greatly strengthened and improved; but we can hardly expect so much from her. david, you and i will go up-stairs, boy." as he took me out at the door, my mother ran towards us. miss murdstone said, "clara! are you a perfect fool?" and interfered. i saw my mother stop her ears then, and i heard her crying. he walked me up to my room slowly and gravely--i am certain he had a delight in that formal show of doing justice--and when we got there, suddenly twisted my head under his arm. "mr. murdstone! sir!" i cried to him. "don't! pray don't beat me! i have tried to learn, sir, but i can't learn while you and miss murdstone are by. i can't indeed!" "can't you, indeed, david?" he said. "we'll try that." he had my head as in a vise, but i twined round him somehow, and stopped him for a moment, entreating him not to beat me. it was only for a moment that i stopped him, for he cut me heavily an instant afterwards, and in the same instant i caught the hand with which he held me in my mouth, between my teeth, and bit it through. it sets my teeth on edge to think of it. he beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to death. above all the noise we made, i heard them running up the stairs, and crying out--i heard my mother crying out--and peggotty. then he was gone; and the door was locked outside; and i was lying, fevered, and hot, and torn, and raging in my puny way, upon the floor. how well i recollect, when i became quiet, what an unnatural stillness seemed to reign through the whole house! how well i remember, when my smart and passion began to cool, how wicked i began to feel! i sat listening for a long while, but there was not a sound. i crawled up from the floor, and saw my face in the glass, so swollen, red, and ugly that it almost frightened me. my stripes were sore and stiff, and made me cry afresh, when i moved; but they were nothing to the guilt i felt. it lay heavier on my breast than if i had been a most terrible criminal, i dare say, and the longer i thought of it the greater the offense seemed. it had begun to grow dark, and i had shut the window (i had been lying, for the most part, with my head upon the sill, by turns crying, dozing, and looking listlessly out), when the key was turned, and miss murdstone came in with some bread and meat and milk. these she put down upon the table without a word, glaring at me the while and then retired, locking the door after her. i never shall forget the waking next morning; the being cheerful and fresh for the first moment, and then the being weighed down by the stale and dismal oppression of remembrance. miss murdstone came again before i was out of bed; told me, in so many words, that i was free to walk in the garden for half an hour and no longer; retired, leaving the door open, that i might avail myself of that permission. i did so, and did so every morning of my imprisonment, which lasted five days. if i could have seen my mother alone, i should have gone down on my knees to her and besought her forgiveness; but i saw no one, miss murdstone excepted, during the whole time. the length of those five days i can convey no idea of to anyone. they occupy the place of years in my remembrance. on the last night of my restraint, i was awakened by hearing my own name spoken in a whisper. i started up in bed, and, putting out my arms in the dark, said: "is that you, peggotty?" there was no immediate answer, but presently i heard my name again, in a tone so very mysterious and awful, that i think i should have gone into a fit, if it had not occurred to me that it must have come through the keyhole. i groped my way to the door, and, putting my own lips to the keyhole, whispered: "is that you, peggotty, dear?" "yes, my own precious davy," she replied. "be as soft as a mouse, or the cat'll hear us." i understood this to mean miss murdstone, and knew that we must be careful and quiet; her room being close by. "how's mamma, dear peggotty? is she very angry with me?" i could hear peggotty crying softly on her side of the keyhole, as i was doing on mine, before she answered. "no. not very." "what is going to be done with me, peggotty, dear? do you know?" "school. near london," was peggotty's answer. i was obliged to get her to repeat it, for she spoke it the first time quite down my throat in consequence of my having forgotten to take my mouth away from the keyhole and put my ear there; and, though her words tickled me a good deal, i didn't hear them. "when, peggotty?" "to-morrow." "is that the reason why miss murdstone took the clothes out of my drawers?" which she had done, though i have forgotten to mention it. "yes," said peggotty. "box." "shan't i see mamma?" "yes," said peggotty. "morning." then peggotty fitted her mouth close to the keyhole, and spoke these words through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a keyhole has ever been the means of communicating, i will venture to say, shooting in each broken little sentence in a convulsive little burst of its own. "davy, dear. if i ain't been azackly as intimate with you. lately, as i used to be. it ain't because i don't love you. just as well and more, my pretty poppet. it's because i thought it better for you. and for someone else besides. davy, my darling, are you listening? can you hear?" "ye--ye--ye--yes, peggotty!" i sobbed. "my own!" said peggotty, with infinite compassion. "what i want to say, is. that you must never forget me. for i'll never forget you. and i'll take as much care of your mamma, davy. as i ever took of you. and i won't leave her. the day may come when she'll be glad to lay her poor head. on her stupid, cross old peggotty's arm again. and i'll write to you, my dear. though i ain't no scholar. and i'll--i'll--" peggotty fell to kissing the keyhole, as she couldn't kiss me. "thank you, dear peggotty!" said i. "oh, thank you! thank you! will you promise me one thing, peggotty? will you write and tell mr. peggotty and little em'ly and mrs. gummidge and ham that i am not so bad as they might suppose, and that i sent 'em all my love--especially to little em'ly? will you, if you please, peggotty?" the kind soul promised, and we both of us kissed the keyhole with the greatest affection--i patted it with my hand, i recollect, as if it had been her honest face--and parted. in the morning miss murdstone appeared as usual, and told me i was going to school; which was not altogether such news to me as she supposed. she also informed me that when i was dressed, i was to come down-stairs into the parlor and have my breakfast. there i found my mother, very pale and with red eyes; into whose arms i ran, and begged her pardon from my suffering soul. "oh, davy!" she said. "that you could hurt anyone i love! try to be better, pray to be better! i forgive you; but i am so grieved, davy, that you should have such bad passions in your heart." miss murdstone was good enough to take me out to the cart, and to say on the way that she hoped i would repent, before i came to a bad end; and then i got into the cart, and the lazy horse walked off with it. we might have gone about half a mile, and my pocket handkerchief was quite wet through, when the carrier stopped short. looking out to ascertain for what, i saw, to my amazement, peggotty burst from a hedge and climb into the cart. she took me in both her arms and squeezed me until the pressure on my nose was extremely painful, though i never thought of that till afterwards, when i found it very tender. not a single word did peggotty speak, releasing one of her arms, she put it down in her pocket to the elbow, and brought out some paper-bags of cakes, which she crammed into my pockets, and a purse which she put into my hand, but not one word did she say. after another and a final squeeze with both arms, she got down from the cart and ran away; and my belief is, and has always been, without a solitary button on her gown. i picked up one, of several that was rolling about, and treasured it as a keepsake for a long time. the carrier looked at me, as if to inquire if she were coming back. i shook my head, and said i thought not. "then come up!" said the carrier to the lazy horse, who came up accordingly. having by this time cried as much as i possibly could, i began to think it was of no use crying any more. the carrier seeing me in this resolution, proposed that my pocket handkerchief should be spread upon the horse's back to dry. i thanked him and agreed; and particularly small it looked under those circumstances. i had now time to examine the purse. it was a stiff leather purse, with a snap, and had three bright shillings in it, which peggotty had evidently polished up with whitening, for my greater delight. but its precious contents were two half-crowns folded together in a bit of paper, on which was written, in my mother's hand, "for davy. with my love." i was so overcome by this, that i asked the carrier to be so good as reach me my pocket handkerchief again, but he said he thought i had better do without it; and i thought i really had; so i wiped my eyes on my sleeve and stopped myself. for good, too; though, in consequence of my previous feelings, i was still occasionally seized with a stormy sob. after we had jogged on for some little time, i asked the carrier if he was going all the way. "all the way where?" inquired the carrier. "there," i said. "where's there?" inquired the carrier. "near london," i said. "why, that horse," said the carrier, jerking the rein to point him out, "would be deader than pork afore he got over half the ground." "are you only going to yarmouth then?" i asked. "that's about it," said the carrier. "and there i shall take you to the stage-cutch, and the stage-cutch that'll take you to--wherever it is." i shared my cakes with the carrier, who asked if peggotty made them, and told him yes, she did all our cooking. the carrier looked thoughtful, and then asked if i would send a message to peggotty from him. i agreed, and the message was "barkis is willing." while i was waiting for the coach at yarmouth, i wrote to peggotty: "my dear peggotty:--i have come here safe. barkis is willing. my love to mamma. yours affectionately. "_p.s._--he says he particularly wanted you to know _barkis is willing_." at yarmouth i found dinner was ordered for me, and felt very shy at having a table all to myself, and very much alarmed when the waiter told me he had seen a gentleman fall down dead after drinking some of their beer. i said i would have some water, and was quite grateful to the waiter for drinking the ale that had been ordered for me, for fear the people of the hotel should be offended. he also helped me to eat my dinner, and accepted one of my bright shillings. after a long, tiring journey by the coach, for there were no trains in those days, i arrived in london and was taken to the school at blackheath, by one of the masters, mr. mell. i gazed upon the schoolroom into which he took me, as the most forlorn and desolate place i had ever seen. i see it now. a long room, with three long rows of desks, and six of long seats, bristling all round with pegs for hats and slates. scraps of old copy-books and exercises litter the dirty floor. mr. mell having left me for a few moments, i went softly to the upper end of the room, observing all this as i crept along. suddenly i came upon a pasteboard placard, beautifully written which was lying on the desk, and bore these words--"_take care of him._ _he bites._" i got upon the desk immediately, afraid of at least a great dog underneath. but, though i looked all round with anxious eyes, i could see nothing of him. i was still engaged in peering about when mr. mell came back, and asked me what i did up there. "i beg your pardon, sir," says i, "if you please, i'm looking for the dog." "dog?" says he. "what dog?" "isn't it a dog, sir?" "isn't what a dog?" "that's to be taken care of, sir; that bites." "no, copperfield," says he, gravely, "that's not a dog. that's a boy. my instructions are, copperfield, to put this placard on your back. i am sorry to make such a beginning with you, but i must do it." with that, he took me down, and tied the placard, which was neatly constructed for the purpose, on my shoulders like a knapsack; and wherever i went, afterwards, i had the consolation of carrying it. what i suffered from that placard, nobody can imagine. whether it was possible for people to see me or not, i always fancied that somebody was reading it. it was no relief to turn round and find nobody; for wherever my back was, there i imagined somebody always to be. there was an old door in this playground, on which the boys had a custom of carving their names. it was completely covered with such inscriptions. in my dread of the end of the vacation and their coming back, i could not read one boy's name, without inquiring in what tone and with what emphasis _he_ would read, "take care of him. he bites." there was one boy--a certain j. steerforth--who cut his name very deep and very often, who, i conceived, would read it in a rather strong voice, and afterwards pull my hair. there was another boy, one tommy traddles, who i dreaded would make game of it, and pretend to be dreadfully frightened of me. there was a third, george demple, who i fancied would sing it. i have looked, a little shrinking creature, at that door, until the owners of all the names--there were five-and-forty of them in the school then, mr. mell said--seemed to cry out, each in his own way, "take care of him. he bites!" tommy traddles was the first boy who returned. he introduced himself by informing me that i should find his name on the right-hand corner of the gate, over the top bolt; upon that i said, "traddles?" to which he replied, "the same," and then he asked me for a full account of myself and family. it was fortunate for me that traddles came back first. he enjoyed my placard so much that he saved me from the embarrassment of either telling about it or trying to hide it by presenting me to every other boy who came back, great or small, immediately on his arrival, in this form of introduction, "look here! here's a game!" happily, too, the greater part of the boys came back low-spirited, and were not so boisterous at my expense as i had expected. some of them certainly could not resist the temptation of pretending that i was a dog, and patting and smoothing me lest i should bite, and saying, "lie down, sir!" and calling me towzer. this was naturally confusing, among so many strangers, and cost some tears, but on the whole it was much better than i had anticipated. i was not considered as being formally received into the school, however, until j. steerforth arrived. before this boy, who was reputed to be a great scholar, and was very good-looking, and at least half-a-dozen years older than i, i was carried as before a judge. he inquired, under a shed in the playground, into the particulars of my punishment, and was pleased to express his opinion that it was a "jolly shame;" for which i became bound to him ever afterwards. "what money have you got, copperfield?" he said, walking aside with me when he had disposed of my affair in these terms. i told him seven shillings. "you had better give it to me to take care of," he said. "at least, you can, if you like. you needn't if you don't like." i hastened to comply with his friendly suggestion, and, opening peggotty's purse, turned it upside down into his hand. "do you want to spend anything now?" he asked me. "no, thank you," i replied. "you can, if you like, you know," said steerforth. "say the word." "no, thank you, sir," i repeated. "perhaps you'd like to spend a couple of shillings or so in a bottle of currant wine by-and-by, up in the bedroom?" said steerforth. "you belong to my bedroom, i find." it certainly had not occurred to me before, but i said, yes, i should like that. "very good," said steerforth. "you'll be glad to spend another shilling or so in almond cakes, i dare say?" i said, "yes, i should like that, too." "and another shilling or so in biscuits, and another in fruit, eh?" said steerforth. "i say, young copperfield, you're going it!" i smiled because he smiled, but i was a little troubled in my mind, too. "well!" said steerforth. "we must make it stretch as far as we can; that's all. i'll do the best in my power for you. i can go out when i like, and i'll smuggle the prog in." with these words he put the money in his pocket, and kindly told me not to make myself uneasy; he would take care it should be all right. he was as good as his word, if that were all right which i had a secret misgiving was nearly all wrong--for i feared it was a waste of my mother's two half-crowns--though i had preserved the piece of paper they were wrapped in; which was a precious saving. when we went up-stairs to bed, he produced the whole seven shillings worth, and laid it out on my bed in the moonlight, saying: "there you are, young copperfield, and a royal spread you've got!" i couldn't think of doing the honors of the feast at my time of life, while he was by; my hand shook at the very thought of it. i begged him to do me the favor of taking charge of the treat; and my request being seconded by the other boys who were in that room, he agreed to it, and sat upon my pillow, handing round the food--with perfect fairness, i must say--and giving out the currant wine in a little glass without a foot, which was his own property. as to me, i sat on his left hand, and the rest were grouped about us, on the nearest beds and on the floor. how well i recollect our sitting there, talking in whispers; or their talking, and my respectfully listening, i ought rather to say; the moonlight falling a little way into the room, through the window, painting a pale window on the floor, and the greater part of us in shadow, except when steerforth scratched a match, when he wanted to look for anything on the board, and shed a blue glare over us that was gone directly! a certain mysterious feeling, consequent on the darkness, the secrecy of the revel, and the whisper in which everything was said, steals over me again, and i listen to all they tell me, with a vague feeling of solemnity and awe, which makes me glad they are all so near, and frightens me (though i feign to laugh) when traddles pretends to see a ghost in the corner. i heard all kinds of things about the school and all belonging to it. i heard that mr. creakle was the sternest and most severe of masters; that he laid about him, right and left, every day of his life, charging in among the boys like a trooper, and slashing away, unmercifully. i heard that the man with the wooden leg, whose name was tungay, was an obstinate fellow who had formerly been in the hop business, but had come into the line with mr. creakle, in consequence, as was supposed among the boys, of his having broken his leg in mr. creakle's service, and having done a deal of dishonest work for him, and knowing his secrets. but the greatest wonder that i heard of mr. creakle was, there being one boy in the school on whom he never ventured to lay a hand, and that that boy being j. steerforth. steerforth himself confirmed this when it was stated, and said that he should like to begin to see him do it. on being asked by a mild boy (not me) how he would proceed if he did begin to see him do it, he scratched a match on purpose to shed a glare over his reply, and said he would commence with knocking him down with a blow on the forehead from the seven-and-six-penny ink-bottle that was always on the mantelpiece. we sat in the dark for some time, breathless. i heard that miss creakle was regarded by the school in general as being in love with steerforth; and i am sure, as i sat in the dark, thinking of his nice voice, and his fine face, and his easy manner, and his curling hair, i thought it very likely. i heard that mr. mell was not a bad sort of fellow, but hadn't a sixpence to bless himself with; and that there was no doubt that old mrs. mell, his mother, was as poor as job. one day, traddles (the most unfortunate boy in the world) breaks a window accidentally with a ball. i shudder at this moment with the tremendous sensation of seeing it done, and feeling that the ball has bounded on to mr. creakle's sacred head. poor traddles! in a tight sky-blue suit that made his arms and legs like german sausages, or roly-poly puddings, he was the merriest and most miserable of all the boys. he was always being caned--i think he was caned every day that half-year, except one holiday monday, when he was only rulered on both hands--and was always going to write to his uncle about it, and never did. after laying his head on the desk for a little while, he would cheer up somehow, begin to laugh again, and draw skeletons all over his slate before his eyes were dry. i used at first to wonder what comfort traddles found in drawing skeletons. but i believe he only did it because they were easy, and didn't want any features. he was very honorable, traddles was; and held it as a solemn duty in the boys to stand by one another. he suffered for this on several occasions; and particularly once, when steerforth laughed in church, and the beadle thought it was traddles, and took him out. i see him now, going away under guard, despised by the congregation. he never said who was the real offender, though he smarted for it next day, and was imprisoned so many hours that he came forth with a whole churchyard full of skeletons swarming all over his latin dictionary. but he had his reward. steerforth said there was nothing of the sneak in traddles, and we all felt that to be the highest praise. for my part, i could have gone through a great deal (though i was much less brave than traddles, and nothing like so old) to have won such a reward, as praise from j. steerforth. to see steerforth walk to church before us, arm-in-arm with miss creakle, was one of the great sights of my life. i didn't think miss creakle equal to little em'ly in point of beauty, and i didn't love her (i didn't dare); but i thought her a young lady of extraordinary attractions, and in point of gentility not to be surpassed. when steerforth, in white trousers, carried her parasol for her, i felt proud to know him; and believed that she could not choose but adore him with all her heart. mr. sharp and mr. mell were both great personages in my eyes; but steerforth was to them what the sun was to two stars. an accidental matter strengthened the friendship between steerforth and me, in a manner that inspired me with great pride and satisfaction, though it sometimes led to inconvenience. it happened on one occasion, when he was doing me the honor of talking to me in the playground that i remarked that something or somebody--i forget what now--was like something or somebody in the story of peregrine pickle. he said nothing at the time; but when i was going to bed at night, asked me if i had got that book. i told him no, and explained how it was that i had read it, and all those other books of which i had made mention. "and do you recollect them?" steerforth said. "oh yes," i replied; i had a good memory, and i believed i recollected them very well. "then i tell you what, young copperfield," said steerforth, "you shall tell 'em to me. i can't get to sleep very early at night, and i generally wake rather early in the morning. we'll go over 'em one after another. we'll make some regular arabian nights of it." i felt extremely flattered by this arrangement, and we commenced carrying out the plan that very evening. steerforth showed his thought for me in one particular instance, in an unflinching manner that was a little troublesome, to poor traddles and the rest. peggotty's promised letter--what a comfortable letter it was!--arrived before "the half" of the school-term was many weeks old; and with it a cake in a perfect nest of oranges, and two bottles of cowslip wine. this treasure, as in duty bound, i laid at the feet of steerforth, and begged him to divide it among the boys. "now, i'll tell you what, young copperfield," said he, "the wine shall be kept to wet your whistle when you are story-telling." i blushed at the idea, and begged him, in my modesty, not to think of it. but he said he had observed i was sometimes hoarse--a little roopy was his exact expression--and it should be, every drop, set apart to the purpose he had mentioned. accordingly, it was locked up in his box, and drawn off by himself in a phial, and administered to me through a piece of quill in the cork, when i was supposed to be in want of something to restore my voice. sometimes, to make it more powerful, he was so kind as to squeeze orange juice into it, or to stir it up with ginger, or dissolve a peppermint drop in it. we seem to me to have been months over peregrine, and months more over the other stories. the school never flagged for want of a story, i am certain; and the wine lasted out almost as well as the matter. poor traddles--i never think of that boy but with a strange disposition to laugh, and with tears in my eyes--was a sort of echo to the story; and pretended to be overcome with laughing at the funny parts, and to be overcome with fear when there was any passage of an alarming character in the story. this rather put me out very often. it was a great jest of his, i recollect, to pretend that he couldn't keep his teeth from chattering, whenever mention was made of an alguazil in connection with the adventures of gil blas; and i remember when gil blas met the captain of the robbers in madrid, this unlucky joker acted such a shudder of terror that he was overheard by mr. creakle, who was prowling about the passage, and handsomely flogged for disorderly conduct in the bedroom. one day i had a visit from mr. peggotty and ham, who had brought two enormous lobsters, a huge crab, and a large canvas bag of shrimps, as they "remembered i was partial to a relish with my meals." i was proud to introduce my friend steerforth to these kind, simple friends, and told them how good steerforth was to me, and how he helped me with my work and took care of me, and steerforth delighted the fishermen with his friendly, pleasant manners. the "relish" was greatly enjoyed by the boys at supper that night. only poor traddles became very ill from eating crab so late. at last the holidays came, and i went home. the carrier, barkis, met me at yarmouth, and was rather gruff, which i soon found out was because he had not had any answer to his message. i promised to ask peggotty for one. ah, what a strange feeling it was to be going home when it was not home, and to find that every object i looked at reminded me of the happy old home, which was like a dream i could never dream again! god knows how like a child the memory may have been that was awakened within me by the sound of my mother's voice in the old parlor, when i set foot in the hall. i believed, from the solitary and thoughtful way in which my mother murmured her song, that she was alone. and i went softly into the room. she was sitting by the fire, nursing an infant, whose tiny hand she held against her neck. her eyes were looking down upon its face, and she sat singing to it. i was so far right, that she had no other companion. i spoke to her, and she started, and cried out. but seeing me, she called me her dear davy, her own boy; and, coming half across the room to meet me, kneeled down upon the ground and kissed me, and laid my head down on her bosom near the little creature that was nestling there, and put its hand up to my lips. i wish i had died. i wish i had died then, with that feeling in my heart! i should have been more fit for heaven than i ever have been since. "he is your brother," said my mother, fondling me. "davy, my pretty boy: my poor child!" then she kissed me more and more, and clasped me round the neck. this she was doing when peggotty came running in, and bounced down on the ground beside us and went mad about us both for a quarter of an hour. we had a very happy afternoon the day i came. mr. and miss murdstone were out, and i sat with my mother and peggotty, and told them all about my school and steerforth, and took the little baby in my arms and nursed it lovingly. but when the murdstones came back i was more unhappy than ever. i felt uncomfortable about going down to breakfast in the morning, as i had never set eyes on mr. murdstone since the day when i committed my memorable offense. however, as it must be done, i went down, after two or three false starts halfway, and as many runs back on tiptoe to my own room, and presented myself in the parlor. he was standing before the fire with his back to it, while miss murdstone made the tea. he looked at me steadily as i entered, but made no sign of recognition whatever. i went up to him, after a moment of confusion, and said, "i beg your pardon, sir. i am very sorry for what i did, and i hope you will forgive me." "i am glad to hear you are sorry, david," he replied. "how do you do, ma'am?" i said to miss murdstone. "ah, dear me!" sighed miss murdstone, giving me the tea-caddy scoop instead of her finger. "how long are the holidays?" "a month, ma'am." "counting from when?" "from to-day, ma'am." "oh!" said miss murdstone. "then here's _one_ day off." she kept a calendar of the holidays in this way, and every morning checked a day off in exactly the same manner. she did it gloomily until she came to ten, but when she got into two figures she became more hopeful, and, as the time advanced, even jocular. thus the holidays lagged away, until the morning came when miss murdstone said: "here's the last day off!" and gave me the closing cup of tea of the vacation. i was not sorry to go. again mr. barkis appeared at the gate, and again miss murdstone in her warning voice said: "clara!" when my mother bent over me, to bid me farewell. i kissed her and my baby brother; it is not so much the embrace she gave me that lives in my mind, though it was as fervent as could be, as what followed the embrace. i was in the carrier's cart when i heard her calling to me. i looked out, and she stood at the garden gate alone, holding her baby up in her arms for me to see. it was cold, still weather; and not a hair of her head, or fold of her dress, was stirred, as she looked intently at me, holding up her child. so i lost her. so i saw her afterwards in my sleep at school--a silent presence near my bed--looking at me with the same intent face--holding up her baby in her arms. about two months after i had been back at school i was sent for one day to go into the parlor. i hurried in joyfully, for it was my birthday, and i thought it might be a box from peggotty--but, alas! no; it was very sad news mrs. creakle had to give me--my dear mamma had died! mrs. creakle was very kind and gentle to me, and the boys, especially traddles, were very sorry for me. i went home the next day, and heard that the dear baby had died too. peggotty received me with great tenderness, and told me about my mother's illness and how she had sent a loving message to me. "tell my dearest boy that his mother, as she lay here, blessed him not once, but a thousand times," and she had prayed to god to protect and keep her fatherless boy. mr. murdstone did not take any notice of me, nor had miss murdstone a word of kindness for me. peggotty was to leave in a month, and, to my great joy, i was allowed to go with her on a visit to mr. peggotty. on our way i found out that the mysterious message i had given to peggotty meant that barkis wanted to marry her, and peggotty had consented. everyone in mr. peggotty's cottage was pleased to see me, and did their best to comfort me. little em'ly was at school when i arrived, and i went out to meet her. i knew the way by which she would come, and presently found myself strolling along the path to meet her. a figure appeared in the distance before long, and i soon knew it to be em'ly, who was a little creature still in stature, though she was grown. but when she drew nearer, and i saw her blue eyes looking bluer, and her dimpled face looking brighter, and her own self prettier and gayer, a curious feeling came over me that made me pretend not to know her, and pass by as if i were looking at something a long way off. i have done such a thing since in later life, or i am mistaken. little em'ly didn't care a bit. she saw me well enough; but instead of turning round and calling after me, ran away laughing. this obliged me to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near the cottage before i caught her. "oh, it's you, is it?" said little em'ly. "why, you knew who it was, em'ly," said i. "and didn't _you_ know who it was?" said em'ly. i was going to kiss her, but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said she wasn't a baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into the house. she seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her i wondered at very much. the tea-table was ready, and our little locker was put out in its old place, but instead of coming to sit by me, she went and bestowed her company upon that grumbling mrs. gummidge; and on mr. peggotty's inquiring why, rumpled her hair all over her face to hide it, and would do nothing but laugh. "a little puss it is!" said mr. peggotty, patting her with his great hand. "ah," said peggotty, running his fingers through her bright curls, "here's another orphan, you see, sir, and here," giving ham a backhanded knock in the chest, "is another of 'em, though he don't look much like it." "if i had _you_ for a guardian, mr. peggotty," said i, "i don't think i should _feel_ much like it." em'ly was confused by our all observing her, and hung down her head, and her face was covered with blushes. glancing up presently through her stray curls, and seeing that we were all looking at her still (i am sure i, for one, could have looked at her for hours), she ran away, and kept away till it was nearly bedtime. i lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat, and the wind came moaning on across the flat as it had done before. but i could not help fancying, now that it moaned, of those who were gone; and instead of thinking that the sea might rise in the night and float the boat away, i thought of the sea that had risen, since i last heard those sounds, and drowned my happy home, i recollect, as the wind and water began to sound fainter in my ears, putting a short clause into my prayers, petitioning that i might grow up to marry little em'ly, and so dropping lovingly asleep. during this visit peggotty was married to mr. barkis, and had a nice little house of her own, and i spent the night before i was to return home in a little room in the roof. "young or old, davy dear, so long as i have this house over my head," said peggotty, "you shall find it as if i expected you here directly every minute. i shall keep it as i used to keep your old little room, my darling, and if you was to go to china, you might think of its being kept just the same all the time you were away." i felt how good and true a friend she was, and thanked her as well as i could, for they had brought me to the gate of my home, and peggotty had me clasped in her arms. i was poor and lonely at home, with no one near to speak a loving word, or a face to look on with love or liking, only the two persons who had broken my mother's heart. how utterly wretched and forlorn i felt! i found i was not to go back to school any more, and wandered about sad and solitary, neglected and uncared for. peggotty's weekly visits were my only comfort. i longed to go to school, however hard an one, to be taught something anyhow, anywhere--but no one took any pains with me, and i had no friends near who could help me. at last one day, after some weary months had passed, mr. murdstone told me i was to go to london and earn my own living. there was a place for me at murdstone & grinby's, a firm in the wine trade. my lodging and clothes would be provided for me by my step-father, and i would earn enough for my food and pocket money. the next day, i was sent up to london with the manager, dressed in a shabby little white hat with black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and hard, stiff corduroy trousers, a little fellow of ten years old, to fight my own battles with the world! my place, i found, was one of the lowest in the firm of murdstone & grinby, with boys of no education and in quite an inferior station to myself--my duties were to wash the bottles, stick on labels, and so on. i was utterly miserable at being degraded in this way, when i thought of my former companions, steerforth and traddles, and my hopes of becoming a learned and famous man, and shed bitter tears, as i feared i would forget all i had learnt at school. my lodging, one bare little room, was in the house of some people named micawber, shiftless, careless, good-natured people, who were always in debt and difficulties. i felt great pity for their misfortunes and did what i could to help poor mrs. micawber to sell her books and other little things she could spare, to buy food for herself, her husband, and their four children. i was too young and childish to know how to provide properly for myself, and often found i was obliged to live on bread and slices of cold pudding at the end of the week. if i had not been a very innocent-minded, good little boy, i might easily have fallen into bad ways at this time. but god took care of me and kept me from harm. i would not even tell peggotty how miserable i was, for fear of distressing her. the troubles of the micawbers increased more and more, until at last they were obliged to leave london. i was very sad at this, for i had been with them so long that i felt they were my friends, and the prospect of being once more utterly alone and having to find a lodging with strangers, made me so unhappy that i determined to endure this sort of life no longer. the last sunday the micawbers were in town i dined with them. i had bought a spotted horse for their little boy and a doll for the little girl, and had saved up a shilling for the poor servant-girl. after i had seen them off the next morning by the coach, i wrote to peggotty to ask her if she knew where my aunt, miss betsy trotwood, lived, and to borrow half-a-guinea; for i had resolved to run away from murdstone & grinby's, and go to this aunt and tell her my story. i remembered my mother telling me of her visit when i was a baby, and that she fancied miss betsy had stroked her hair gently, and this gave me courage to appeal to her. peggotty wrote, enclosing the half-guinea, and saying she only knew miss trotwood lived near dover, but whether in that place itself, or at folkestone, sandgate, or hythe, she could not tell. hearing that all these places were close together, i made up my mind to start. as i had received my week's wages in advance, i waited till the following saturday, thinking it would not be honest to go before. i went out to look for someone to carry my box to the coach office, and unfortunately hired a wicked young man who not only ran off with the box, but robbed me of my half-guinea, leaving me in dire distress. in despair, i started off to walk to dover, and was forced to sell my waistcoat to buy some bread. the first night i found my way to my old school at blackheath, and slept on a haystack close by, feeling some comfort in the thought of the boys being near. i knew steerforth had left, or i would have tried to see him. on i trudged the next day and sold my jacket at chatham to a dreadful old man, who kept me waiting all day for the money, which was only one shilling and fourpence. i was afraid to buy anything but bread or to spend any money on a bed or a shelter for the night, and was terribly frightened by some rough tramps, who threw stones at me when i did not answer to their calls. after six days, i arrived at dover, ragged, dusty, and half-dead with hunger and fatigue. but here, at first, i could get no tidings of my aunt, and, in despair, was going to try some of the other places peggotty had mentioned, when the driver of a fly dropped his horsecloth, and as i was handing it up to him, i saw something kind in the man's face that encouraged me to ask once more if he knew where miss trotwood lived. the man directed me towards some houses on the heights, and thither i toiled. going into a little shop, i by chance met with miss trotwood's maid, who showed me the house, and went in leaving me standing at the gate, a forlorn little creature, without a jacket or waistcoat, my white hat crushed out of shape, my shoes worn out, my shirt and trousers torn and stained, my pretty curly hair tangled, my face and hands sunburnt and covered with dust. lifting my eyes to one of the windows above, i saw a pleasant-faced gentleman with gray hair, who nodded at me several times, then shook his head and went away. i was just turning away to think what i should do, when a tall, erect elderly lady, with a gardening apron on and a knife in her hand, came out of the house, and began to dig up a root in the garden. "go away," she said. "go away. no boys here." but i felt desperate. going in softly, i stood beside her, and touched her with my finger, and said timidly, "if you please, ma'am--" and when she looked up, i went on-- "please, aunt, i am your nephew." "oh, lord!" she exclaimed in astonishment, and sat flat down on the path, staring at me, while i went on-- "i am david copperfield of blunderstone, in suffolk, where you came the night i was born, and saw my dear mamma. i have been very unhappy since she died. i have been neglected and taught nothing, and thrown upon myself, and put to work not fit for me. it made me run away to you. i was robbed at first starting out and have walked all the way, and have never slept in a bed since i began the journey." here i broke into a passion of crying, and my aunt jumped up and took me into the house, where she opened a cupboard and took out some bottles, pouring some of the contents of each into my mouth, not noticing in her agitation what they were, for i fancied i tasted anise-seed water, anchovy sauce, and salad dressing! then she put me on the sofa and sent the servant to ask "mr. dick" to come down. the gentleman whom i had seen at the window came in and was told by miss trotwood who the ragged little object on the sofa was, and she finished by saying-- "now here you see young david copperfield, and the question is what shall i do with him?" "do with him?" answered mr. dick. then, after some consideration, and looking at me, he said, "well, if i was you, i should wash him!" miss trotwood was quite pleased at this, and a warm bath was got ready at once, after which i was dressed in a shirt and trousers belonging to mr. dick (for janet had burnt my rags), rolled up in several shawls, and put on the sofa till dinner-time, where i slept, and woke with the impression that my aunt had come and put my hair off my face, and murmured, "pretty fellow, poor fellow." after dinner i had to tell my story all over again to my aunt and mr. dick. miss trotwood again asked mr. dick's advice, and was delighted when that gentleman suggested i should be put to bed. i knelt down to say my prayers that night in a pleasant room facing the sea, and as i lay in the clean, snow-white bed, i felt so grateful and comforted that i prayed earnestly i might never be homeless again, and might never forget the homeless. the next morning my aunt told me she had written to mr. murdstone. i was alarmed to think that my step-father knew where i was, and exclaimed-- "oh, i don't know what i shall do if i have to go back to mr. murdstone!" but my aunt said nothing of her intentions, and i was uncertain what was to become of me. i hoped she might befriend me. at last mr. and miss murdstone arrived. to miss betsy's great indignation, miss murdstone rode a donkey across the green in front of the house, and stopped at the gate. nothing made miss trotwood so angry as to see donkeys on that green, and i had already seen several battles between my aunt or janet and the donkey boys. after driving away the donkey and the boy who had dared to bring it there, miss trotwood received her visitors. she kept me near her, fenced in with a chair. mr. murdstone told miss betsy that i was a very bad, stubborn, violent-tempered boy, whom he had tried to improve, but could not succeed; that he had put me in a respectable business from which i had run away. if miss trotwood chose to protect and encourage me now, she must do it always, for he had come to fetch me away from there and then, and if i was ready to come, and miss trotwood did not wish to give me up to be dealt with exactly as mr. murdstone liked, he would cast me off for always, and have no more to do with me. "are you ready to go, david?" asked my aunt. but i answered no, and begged and prayed her for my father's sake to befriend and protect me, for neither mr. nor miss murdstone had ever liked me or been kind to me and had made my mamma, who always loved me dearly, very unhappy about me, and i had been very miserable. "mr. dick," said miss trotwood, "what shall i do with this child?" mr. dick considered. "have him measured for a suit of clothes directly." "mr. dick," said miss trotwood, "your common sense is invaluable." then she pulled me towards her, and said to mr. murdstone, "you can go when you like. i'll take my chance with the boy. if he's all you say he is i can at least do as much for him as you have done. but i don't believe a word of it." then she told mr. murdstone what she thought of the way he had treated me and my mother, which did not make that gentleman feel very comfortable, and finished by turning to miss murdstone and saying-- "good-day to you, too, ma'am, and if i ever see you ride a donkey across my green again, as sure as you have a head upon your shoulders, i'll knock your bonnet off and tread upon it!" this startled miss murdstone so much that she went off quite quietly with her brother, while i, overjoyed, threw my arms round my aunt's neck, and kissed and thanked her with great heartiness. some clothes were bought for me that same day and marked "trotwood copperfield," for my aunt wished to call me by her name. now i felt my troubles were over, and i began quite a new life, well cared for and kindly treated. i was sent to a very nice school in canterbury, where my aunt left me with these words, which i never forgot: "trot, be a credit to yourself, to me, and mr. dick, and heaven be with you. never be mean in anything, never be false, never be cruel. avoid these three vices, trot, and i shall always be hopeful of you?" i did my best to show my gratitude to my dear aunt by studying hard, and trying to be all she could wish. when you are older you can read how little david copperfield grew up to be a good, clever man, and met again all his old friends, and made many new ones. also, what became of steerforth, traddles, the peggottys, little em'ly, and the micawbers. viii. jenny wren. walking into the city one holiday, a great many years ago, a gentleman ran up the steps of a tall house in the neighborhood of st. mary axe. the lower windows were those of a counting-house but the blinds, like those of the entire front of the house, were drawn down. the gentleman knocked and rang several times before any one came, but at last an old man opened the door. "what were you up to that you did not hear me?" said mr. fledgeby irritably. "i was taking the air at the top of the house, sir," said the old man meekly, "it being a holiday. what might you please to want, sir?" "humph! holiday indeed," grumbled his master, who was a toy merchant amongst other things. he then seated himself in the counting-house and gave the old man--a jew and riah by name--directions about the dressing of some dolls about which he had come to speak, and, as he rose to go, exclaimed-- [illustration: "seated on the crystal carpet were two girls." page ] "by-the-by, how _do_ you take the air? do you stick your head out of a chimney-pot?" "no, sir, i have made a little garden on the leads." "let's look it at," said mr. fledgeby. "sir, i have company there," returned riah hesitating, "but will you please come up and see them?" mr. fledgeby nodded, and, passing his master with a bow, the old man led the way up flight after flight of stairs, till they arrived at the house-top. seated on a carpet, and leaning against a chimney-stack, were two girls bending over books. some humble creepers were trained round the chimney-pots, and evergreens were placed round the roof, and a few more books, a basket of gaily colored scraps, and bits of tinsel, and another of common print stuff lay near. one of the girls rose on seeing that riah had brought a visitor, but the other remarked, "i'm the person of the house down-stairs, but i can't get up, whoever you are, because my back is bad and my legs are queer." "this is my master," said riah, speaking to the two girls, "and this," he added, turning to mr. fledgeby, "is miss jenny wren; she lives in this house, and is a clever little dressmaker for little people. her friend lizzie," continued riah, introducing the second girl. "they are good girls, both, and as busy as they are good; in spare moments they come up here and take to book learning." "we are glad to come up here for rest, sir," said lizzie, with a grateful look at the old jew. "no one can tell the rest what this place is to us." "humph!" said mr. fledgeby, looking round, "humph!" he was so much surprised that apparently he couldn't get beyond that word, and as he went down again the old chimney-pots in their black cowls seemed to turn round and look after him as if they were saying "humph" too. lizzie, the elder of these two girls, was strong and handsome, but little jenny wren, whom she so loved and protected, was small and deformed, though she had a beautiful little face, and the longest and loveliest golden hair in the world, which fell about her like a cloak of shining curls, as though to hide the poor little mis-shapen figure. the jew riah, as well as lizzie, was always kind and gentle to jenny wren, who called him her godfather. she had a father, who shared her poor little rooms, whom she called her child; for he was a bad, drunken, worthless old man, and the poor girl had to care for him, and earn money to keep them both. she suffered a great deal, for the poor little bent back always ached sadly, and was often weary from constant work but it was only on rare occasions, when alone or with her friend lizzie, who often brought her work and sat in jenny's room, that the brave child ever complained of her hard lot. sometimes the two girls jenny helping herself along with a crutch, would go and walk about the fashionable streets, in order to note how the grand folks were dressed. as they walked along, jenny would tell her friend of the fancies she had when sitting alone at her work. "i imagine birds till i can hear them sing," she said one day, "and flowers till i can smell them. and oh! the beautiful children that come to me in the early mornings! they are quite different to other children, not like me, never cold, or anxious, or tired, or hungry, never any pain; they come in numbers, in long bright slanting rows, all dressed in white, and with shiny heads. 'who is this in pain?' they say, and they sweep around and about me, take me up in their arms, and i feel so light, and all the pain goes. i know when they are coming a long way off, by hearing them say, 'who is this in pain?' and i answer, 'oh my blessed children, it's poor me! have pity on me, and take me up and then the pain will go." lizzie sat stroking and brushing the beautiful hair, whilst the tired little dressmaker leant against her when they were at home again, and as she kissed her good-night, a miserable old man stumbled into the room. "how's my jenny wren, best of children?" he mumbled, as he shuffled unsteadily towards her, but jenny pointed her small finger towards him, exclaiming--"go along with you, you bad, wicked old child, you troublesome, wicked old thing, _i_ know where you have been, _i_ know your tricks and your manners." the wretched man began to whimper like a scolded child. "slave, slave, slave, from morning to night," went on jenny, still shaking her finger at him, "and all for this; ain't you ashamed of yourself, you disgraceful boy?" "yes; my dear, yes," stammered the tipsy old father, tumbling into a corner. thus was the poor little dolls' dressmaker dragged down day by day by the very hands that should have cared for and held her up; poor, poor little dolls' dressmaker! one day when jenny was on her way home with riah, who had accompanied her on one of her walks to the west end, they came on a small crowd of people. a tipsy man had been knocked down and badly hurt. "let us see what it is!" said jenny, coming swiftly forward on her crutches. the next moment she exclaimed--"oh, gentlemen--gentlemen, he is my child, he belongs to me, my poor, bad old child!" "your child--belongs to you," repeated the man who was about to lift the helpless figure on to a stretcher, which had been brought for the purpose. "aye, it's old dolls--tipsy old dolls," cried someone in the crowd, for it was by this name that they knew the old man. "he's her father, sir," said riah in a low tone to the doctor who was now bending over the stretcher. "so much the worse," answered the doctor, "for the man is dead." yes, "mr. dolls" was dead, and many were the dresses which the weary fingers of the sorrowful little worker must make in order to pay for his humble funeral and buy a black frock for herself. riah sat by her in her poor room, saying a word of comfort now and then, and lizzie came and went, and did all manner of little things to help her; but often the tears rolled down on to her work. "my poor child," she said to riah, "my poor old child, and to think i scolded him so." "you were always a good, brave, patient girl," returned riah, smiling a little over her quaint fancy about her _child_, "always good and patient, however tired." and so the poor little "person of the house" was left alone but for the faithful affection of the kind jew and her friend lizzie. her room grew pretty and comfortable, for she was in great request in her "profession," as she called it, and there were now no one to spend and waste her earnings. but nothing could make her life otherwise than a suffering one till the happy morning when her child-angels visited her for the last time and carried her away to the land where all such pain as hers is healed for evermore. [illustration: "keep still, you little imp, or i'll cut your throat." page ] ix. pip's adventure all that little philip pirrip, usually called pip, knew about his father and mother, and his five little brothers, was from seeing their tombstones in the churchyard. he was cared for by his sister, who was twenty years older than himself. she had married a blacksmith, named joe gargery, a kind, good man, while she, unfortunately, was a hard, stern woman, and treated her little brother and her amiable husband with great harshness. they lived in a marshy part of the country, about twenty miles from the sea. one cold, raw day towards evening, when pip was about six years old, he had wandered into the churchyard, and was trying to make out what he could of the inscriptions on his family tombstones. the darkness was coming on, and feeling very lonely and frightened, he began to cry. "hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice; and a man started up from among the graves close to him. "keep still, you little imp, or i'll cut your throat!" he was a dreadful looking man, dressed in coarse gray cloth, with a great iron on his leg. wet, muddy, and miserable, he limped and shivered, and glared and growled; his teeth chattered in his head, as he seized pip, by the chin. "oh! don't cut my throat, sir," cried pip, in terror. "pray don't do it, sir." "tell us your name!" said the man. "quick!" "pip, sir." "once more," said the man, staring at him, "give it mouth." "pip. pip, sir." "show us where you live," said the man. "point out the place." pip showed him the village, about a mile or more from the church. the man looked at him for a moment, and then turned him upside down and emptied his pockets. he found nothing in them but a piece of bread, which he ate ravenously. "you young dog," said the man, licking his lips, "what fat cheeks you ha' got.... darn me if i couldn't eat 'em, and if i han't half a mind to!" pip said earnestly that he hoped he would not. "now lookee here," said the man. "where's your mother?" "there sir," said pip. at this the man started and seemed about to run away, but stopped and looked over his shoulder. "there, sir," explained pip, showing him the tombstone. "oh, and is that your father along of your mother?" "yes, sir," said pip. "ha!" muttered the man, "then who d'ye live with--supposin' you're kindly let to live, which i han't made up my mind about?" "my sister, sir, mrs. joe gargery, wife of joe gargery, the blacksmith, sir." "blacksmith, eh?" said the man, and looked down at his leg. then he seized the trembling little boy by both arms, and glaring down at him, he said-- "now lookee here, the question being whether you're to be let to live. you know what a file is?" "yes, sir." "and you know what wittles is. something to eat?" "yes, sir." "you get me a file, and you get me wittles--you bring 'em both to me." all this time he was tilting poor pip backwards till he was so dreadfully frightened and giddy that he clung to the man with both hands. "you bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. you do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live." then he threatened all sorts of dreadful and terrible things to poor pip if he failed to do all he had commanded, and made him solemnly promise to bring him what he wanted, and to keep the secret. then he let him go, saying, "you remember what you've undertook, and you get home." "goo--good-night, sir," faltered pip. "much of that!" said he, glancing over the cold wet flat. "i wish i was a frog or a eel!" pip ran home without stopping. joe was sitting in the chimney-corner, and told him mrs. joe had been out to look for him, and taken tickler with her. tickler was a cane, and pip was rather downhearted by this piece of news. mrs. joe came in almost directly, and, after having given pip a taste of tickler, she sat down to prepare the tea, and, cutting a huge slice of bread and butter, she gave half of it to joe and half to pip. pip managed, after some time, to slip his down the leg of his trousers, and joe, thinking he had swallowed it, was dreadfully alarmed and begged him not to bolt his food like that. "pip, old chap, you'll do yourself a mischief--it'll stick somewhere, you can't have chewed it, pip. you know, pip, you and me is always friends and i'd be the last one to tell upon you any time, but such a--such a most uncommon bolt as that." "been bolting his food, has he?" cried mrs. joe. "you know, old chap," said joe. "i bolted myself when i was your age--frequent--and as a boy i've been among a many bolters; but i never see your bolting equal yet, pip, and it's a mercy you ain't bolted dead." mrs. joe made a dive at pip, fished him up by the hair, saying, "you come along and be dosed." it was christmas eve, and pip had to stir the pudding from seven to eight, and found the bread and butter dreadfully in his way. at last he slipped out and put it away in his little bedroom. poor pip passed a wretched night, thinking of the dreadful promise he had made, and as soon as it was beginning to get light outside he got up and crept down-stairs, fancying that every board creaked out "stop thief!" and "get up, mrs. joe!" as quickly as he could, he took some bread, some rind of cheese, about half a jar of mince-meat, which he tied up in a handkerchief, with the slice of bread and butter, some brandy from a stone bottle, a meat-bone with very little on it, and a pork-pipe, which he found on an upper shelf. then he got a file from among joe's tools, and ran for the marshes. it was a very misty morning, and pip imagined that all the cattle stared at him, as if to say, "halloa, young thief!" and one black ox with a white cravat on, that made pip think of a clergyman, looked so accusingly at him, that pip blubbered out, "i couldn't help it, sir! it wasn't for myself i took it." upon which the ox put down his head, blew a cloud of smoke out of his nose, and vanished with a kick-up of his hind legs and a flourish of his tail. pip was soon at the place of meeting after that, and there was the man--hugging himself and limping to and fro, as if he had never all night left off hugging and limping. he was awfully cold, to be sure. pip half expected to see him drop down before his face and die of cold. his eyes looked so awfully hungry, too, that when pip handed him the file it occurred to him he would have tried to eat it, if he had not seen the bundle. he did not turn pip upside down, this time, to get at what he had, but left him right side upward while he opened the bundle and emptied his pockets. "what's in the bottle, boy?" said he. "brandy," said pip. he was already handing mince-pie down his throat in the most curious manner, more like a man who was putting it away somewhere in a violent hurry than a man who was eating it--but he left off to take some of the liquor, shivering all the while so violently that it was quite as much as he could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his teeth. "i think you have got the chills," said pip. "i'm much of your opinion, boy," said he. "it's bad about here. you've been lying out on the marshes, and they're dreadful for the chills. rheumatic, too." "i'll eat my breakfast before they're the death of me," said he. "i'd do that, if i was going to be strung up to that there gallows as there is over there directly arterward. i'll beat the shivers so far, i'll bet you a guinea." he was gobbling mince-meat, meat-bone, bread, cheese, and pork-pie all at once, staring distrustfully while he did so at the mist all round, and often stopping--even stopping his jaws--to listen. some real or fancied sound, some clink upon the river or breathing of beasts upon the marsh, now gave him a start, and he said, suddenly: "you're not a false imp? you brought no one with you?" "no, sir! no!" "nor told nobody to follow you?" "no!" "well," said he, "i believe you. you'd be but a fierce young hound indeed, if at your time of life you should help to hunt a wretched warmint, hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched warmint is!" something clicked in his throat, as if he had works in him like a clock, and was going to strike. and he smeared his ragged, rough sleeve over his eyes. pitying his desolation, and watching him as he gradually settled down upon the pie, pip made bold to say, "i am glad you enjoy it." "did you speak?" "i said i was glad you enjoyed it." "thankee, my boy--. i do." pip had often watched a large dog eating his food; and he now noticed a decided similarity between the dog's way of eating and the man's. the man took strong, sharp, sudden bites, just like the dog. he swallowed, or rather snapped up, every mouthful too soon and too fast; and he looked sideways here and there while he ate, as if he thought there was danger of somebody's coming to take the pie away. he was altogether too unsettled in his mind over it to enjoy it comfortably, pip thought, or to have anybody to dine with him, without making a chop with his jaws at the visitor. in all of which particulars he was very like the dog. pip watched him trying to file the iron off his leg, and then being afraid of stopping longer away from home, he ran off. pip passed a wretched morning, expecting every moment that the disappearance of the pie would be found out. but mrs. joe was too much taken up with preparing the dinner, for they were expecting visitors, and were to have a superb dinner, consisting of a leg of pickled pork and greens, and a pair of roast stuffed fowls, a mince-pie, and a pudding. just at the end of the dinner pip thought his time had come to be found out, for his sister said graciously to her guests-- "you must taste a most delightful and delicious present i have had. it's a pie, a savory pork-pie." pip could bear it no longer, and ran for the door, and there ran head foremost into a party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held out a pair of handcuffs to him, saying, "here you are, look sharp, come on." but they had not come for him, they only wanted joe to mend the handcuffs, for they were on the search for two convicts who had escaped and were somewhere hid in the marshes. this turned the attention of mrs. joe from the disappearance of the pie, without which she had come back, in great astonishment. when the handcuffs were mended the soldiers went off, accompanied by joe and one of the visitors, and joe took pip and carried him on his back. pip whispered, "i hope, joe, we shan't find them," and joe answered, "i'd give a shilling if they had cut and run, pip." but the soldiers soon caught them, and one was the wretched man who had talked with pip; and once when he looked at pip, the child shook his head to try and let him know he had said nothing. but the convict, without looking at anyone, told the sergeant he wanted to say something to prevent other people being under suspicion, and said he had taken some "wittles" from the blacksmith's. "it was some broken wittles, that's what it was, and a dram of liquor, and a pie." "have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, blacksmith?" inquired the sergeant. "my wife did, at the very moment when you came in. don't you know, pip?" "so," said the convict, looking at joe, "you're the blacksmith, are you? then, i'm sorry to say, i've eat your pie." "god knows you're welcome to it," said joe. "we don't know what you have done, but we wouldn't have you starved to death for it, poor miserable fellow-creature. would us, pip?" then the boat came, and the convicts were taken back to their prison, and joe carried pip home. * * * * * some years after, some mysterious friend sent money for pip to be educated and brought up as a gentleman; but it was only when pip was quite grown up that he discovered this mysterious friend was the wretched convict who had frightened him so dreadfully that cold, dark christmas eve. he had been sent to a far away land, and there had grown rich; but he never forgot the little boy who had been kind to him. x. todgers'. this is the story of a visit made by mr. pecksniff, a very pompous man, and his two daughters miss mercy and miss charity, to the boarding-house kept by mrs. todgers, in london; and a call while there on miss pinch, a governess or young lady teaching in a rich family. mr. pecksniff with his two beautiful young daughters looked about him for a moment, and then knocked at the door of a very dingy building, even among the choice collection of dingy houses around, on the front of which was a little oval board, like a tea-tray, with this inscription--"commercial boarding-house: m. todgers." it seemed that m. todgers was not up yet, for mr. pecksniff knocked twice and rang three times without making any impression on anything but a dog over the way. at last a chain and some bolts were withdrawn with a rusty noise, and a small boy with a large red head, and no nose to speak of, and a very dirty boot on his left arm, appeared; who (being surprised) rubbed the nose just mentioned with the back of a shoe-brush, and said nothing. "still abed, my man?" asked mr. pecksniff. "still abed!" replied the boy. "i wish they was still abed. they're very noisy abed; all calling for their boots at once. i thought you was the paper, and wondered why you didn't shove yourself through the grating as usual. what do you want?" considering his years, which were tender, the youth may be said to have asked this question sternly, and in something of a defiant manner. but mr. pecksniff, without taking offense at his bearing, put a card in his hand, and bade him take that up-stairs, and show them in the meanwhile into a room where there was a fire. surely there never was, in any other borough, city, or hamlet, in the world, such a singular sort of a place as todgers'. and surely london, to judge from that part of it which hemmed todgers' round, and hustled it, and crushed it, and stuck its brick-and-mortar elbows into it, and kept the air from it, and stood perpetually between it and the light, was worthy of todgers'. there were more trucks near todgers' than you would suppose a whole city could ever need; not trucks at work but a vagabond race, forever lounging in the narrow lanes before their masters' doors and stopping up the pass; so that when a stray hackney-coach or lumbering wagon came that way, they were the cause of such an uproar as enlivened the whole neighborhood, and made the very bells in the next church-tower ring again. in the narrow dark streets near todgers', wine-merchants and wholesale dealers in grocery-ware had perfect little towns of their own; and, deep among the very foundations of these buildings, the ground was undermined and burrowed out into stables, where cart-horses, troubled by rats, might be heard on a quiet sunday, rattling their halters, as disturbed spirits in tales of haunted houses are said to clank their chains. to tell of half the queer old taverns that had a drowsy and secret existence near todgers' would fill a goodly book; while a second volume no less in size might be given to an account of the quaint old guests who frequented their dimly-lighted parlors. the top of the house was worthy of notice. there was a sort of terrace on the roof, with posts and fragments of rotten lines, once intended to dry clothes upon; and there were two or three tea-chests out there, full of earth, with forgotten plants in them, like old walking-sticks. whoever climbed to this observatory was stunned at first from having knocked his head against the little door in coming out; and, after that, was for the moment choked from having looked, perforce, straight down the kitchen chimney; but these two stages over, there were things to gaze at from the top of todgers', well worth your seeing, too. for, first and foremost, if the day were bright, you observed upon the house-tops, stretching far away, a long dark path--the shadow of the tall monument which stands in memory of the great fire in london many years before: and turning round, the monument itself was close beside you, with every hair erect upon his golden head, as if the doings of the city frightened him. then there were steeples, towers, belfries, shining vanes and masts of ships, a very forest. gables, house-tops, garret-windows, wilderness upon wilderness. smoke and noise enough for all the world at once. after the first glance, there were slight features in the midst of this crowd of objects, which sprung out from the mass without any reason, as it were, and took hold of the attention whether the spectator would or no. thus, the revolving chimney-pots on one great stack of buildings seemed to be turning gravely to each other every now and then, and whispering the result of their separate observation of what was going on below. others, of a crooked-back shape, appeared to be maliciously holding themselves askew, that they might shut the prospect out and baffle todgers'. the man who was mending a pen at an upper window over the way became of vast importance in the scene, and made a blank in it, ridiculously large in its size, when he went away. the fluttering of a piece of cloth upon the dyer's pole had far more interest for the moment than all the changing motion of the crowd. yet even while the looker-on felt angry with himself for this, and wondered how it was the tumult swelled into a roar; the hosts of objects seemed to thicken and expand a hundredfold; and after gazing round him, quite scared, he turned into todgers' again, much more rapidly than he came out; and ten to one he told m. todgers afterwards that if he hadn't done so, he would certainly have come into the street by the shortest cut: that is to say, head-foremost. so said the two miss pecksniffs, when they came down with mrs. todgers from the roof of the house; leaving the youthful porter to close the door and follow them down-stairs: who being of a playful temperament, and contemplating with a delight peculiar to his sex and time of life any chance of dashing himself into small fragments, lingered behind to walk upon the wall around the roof. it was the second day of their stay in london, and by this time the misses pecksniff and mrs. todgers were becoming very friendly, insomuch that the last-named lady had already told the story of three early disappointments in love; and had furthermore given her young friends a general account of the life, conduct, and character of mr. todgers: who, it seemed, had cut his life as a husband rather short, by unlawfully running away from his happiness, and staying for a time in foreign countries as a bachelor. "your pa was once a little particular in his attentions, my dears," said mrs. todgers, "but to be your ma was too much happiness denied me. you'd hardly know who this was done for, perhaps?" she called their attention to an oval miniature, like a little blister, which was tacked up over the kettle-holder, and in which there was a dreamy shadowing forth of her own visage. "it's a speaking likeness!" cried the two misses pecksniff. "it was considered so once," said mrs. todgers, warming herself in a gentlemanly manner at the fire: "but i hardly thought you would have known it, my loves." they would have known it anywhere. if they could have met with it in the street or seen it in a shop-window, they would have cried, "good gracious! mrs. todgers!" "being in charge of a boarding-house like this makes sad havoc with the features, my dear misses pecksniff," said mrs. todgers. "the gravy alone is enough to add twenty years to one's age, i do assure you." "lor!" cried the two misses pecksniff. "the anxiety of that one thing, my dears," said mrs. todgers, "keeps the mind continually upon the stretch. there is no such passion in human nature as the passion for gravy among business men. it's nothing to say a joint won't yield--a whole animal wouldn't yield--the amount of gravy they expect each day at dinner. and what i have undergone in consequence," cried mrs. todgers, raising her eyes and shaking her head, "no one would believe!" "just like mr. pinch, mercy!" said charity. "we have always noticed it in him, you remember?" "yes, my dear," giggled mercy, "but we have never given it him, you know." mr. pecksniff kept what was called a school for architects, and tom pinch was one of his students. "you, my dears, having to deal with your pa's pupils who can't help themselves, are able to take your own way," said mrs. todgers, "but in a boarding-house, where any gentleman may say, any saturday evening, 'mrs. todgers, this day week we part, in consequence of the cheese,' it is not so easy to preserve a pleasant understanding. your pa was kind enough," added the good lady, "to invite me to take a ride with you to-day; and i think he mentioned that you were going to call upon miss pinch. any relation to the gentleman you were speaking of just now, miss pecksniff?" "for goodness' sake, mrs. todgers," interposed the lively mercy, "don't call him a gentleman. my dear cherry, pinch a gentleman! the idea!" "what a wicked girl you are!" cried mrs. todgers, embracing her with great affection. "you are quite a joker, i do declare! my dear miss pecksniff, what a happiness your sister's spirits must be to your pa and self!" "that pinch is the most hideous, goggle-eyed creature, mrs. todgers, in existence," resumed mercy: "quite an ogre. the ugliest, awkwardest, frightfullest being, you can imagine. this is his sister, so i leave you to suppose what _she_ is. i shall be obliged to laugh outright, i know i shall!" cried the charming girl. "i never shall be able to keep my face straight. the notion of a miss pinch really living at all is sufficient to kill one, but to see her--oh my stars!" mrs. todgers laughed immensely at the dear love's humor, and declared she was quite afraid of her, that she was. she was so very severe. "who is severe?" cried a voice at the door. "there is no such thing as severity in our family, i hope!" and then mr. pecksniff peeped smilingly into the room, and said, "may i come in, mrs. todgers?" mrs. todgers almost screamed, for the little door between that room and the inner one being wide open, there was a full showing of the sofa-bedstead open as a bed, and not closed as a sofa. but she had the presence of mind to close it in the twinkling of an eye; and having done so, said, though not without confusion, "oh yes, mr. pecksniff, you can come in if you please." "how are we to-day," said mr. pecksniff, jocosely; "and what are our plans? are we ready to go and see tom pinch's sister? ha, ha, ha! poor thomas pinch!" "are we ready," returned mrs. todgers, nodding her head in a mysterious manner, "to send a favorable reply to mr. jinkins' round-robin?[d] that's the first question, mr. pecksniff." "why mr. jinkins' robin, my dear madam?" asked mr. pecksniff, putting one arm round mercy and the other round mrs. todgers, whom he seemed for the moment, to mistake for charity. "why mr. jinkins'?" "because he began to get it up, and indeed always takes the lead in the house," said mrs. todgers, playfully. "that's why, sir." "jinkins is a man of superior talents," observed mr. pecksniff. "i have formed a great regard for jinkins. i take jinkins' desire to pay polite attention to my daughters as an additional proof of the friendly feelings of jinkins, mrs. todgers." "well now," returned the lady, "having said so much, you must say the rest, mr. pecksniff: so tell the dear young ladies all about it." with these words, she gently drew away from mr. pecksniff's grasp, and took miss charity into her own embrace; though whether she was led to this act solely by the affection she had conceived for that young lady, or whether it had any reference to a lowering, not to say distinctly spiteful expression which had been visible in her face for some moments, has never been exactly ascertained. be this as it may, mr. pecksniff went on to inform his daughters of the purpose and history of the round-robin aforesaid, which was, in brief, that the young men who helped to make up the sum and substance of that company, called todgers', desired the honor of their presence at the general table so long as they remained in the house, and besought that they would grace the board at dinner-time next day, the same being sunday. he further said that, mrs. todgers having consented to this invitation, he was willing, for his part, to accept it; and so left them that he might write his gracious answer, the while they armed themselves with their best bonnets for the utter defeat and overthrow of miss pinch. tom pinch's sister was governess in a family, a lofty family; perhaps the wealthiest brass and copper founder's family known to mankind. they lived at camberwell; in a house so big and fierce that its mere outside, like the outside of a giant's castle, struck terror into vulgar minds and made bold persons quail. there was a great front gate, with a great bell, whose handle was in itself a note of admiration; and a great lodge, which, being close to the house, rather spoiled the look-out certainly, but made the look-in tremendous. at this entry, a great porter kept constant watch and ward; and when he gave the visitor high leave to pass, he rang a second great bell, answering to whose notes a great footman appeared in due time at the great hall-door with such great tags upon his liveried shoulders that he was perpetually entangling and hooking himself among the chairs and tables and led a life of torment which could scarcely have been surpassed if he had been a blue-bottle in a world of cobwebs. to this mansion, mr. pecksniff, accompanied by his daughters and mrs. todgers, drove gallantly in a one-horse fly. the foregoing ceremonies having been all performed, they were ushered into the house, and so, by degrees, they got at last into a small room with books in it, where mr. pinch's sister was at that moment instructing her eldest pupil: to wit, a little woman thirteen years old, who had already arrived at such a pitch of whalebone and education that she had nothing girlish about her; which was a source of great rejoicing to all her relations and friends. "visitors for miss pinch!" said the footman. he must have been an ingenious young man, for he said it very cleverly; with a nice distinction in his manner between the cold respect with which he would have announced visitors to the family and the warm personal interest with which he would have announced visitors to the cook. "visitors for miss pinch!" miss pinch rose hastily with such tokens of agitation as plainly declared that her list of callers was not numerous. at the same time, the little pupil became alarmingly upright, and prepared herself to take notice of all that might be said and done. for the lady of the establishment was curious in the natural history and habits of the animal called governess, and encouraged her daughters to report thereon whenever occasion served; which was, in reference to all parties concerned, very proper, improving, and pleasant. it is a melancholy fact, but it must be related, that mr. pinch's sister was not at all ugly. on the contrary, she had a good face--a very mild and friendly face; and a pretty little figure--slight and short, but remarkable for its neatness. there was something of her brother, much of him indeed, in a certain gentleness of manner, and in her look of timid truthfulness; but she was so far from being a fright, or a dowdy, or a horror, or anything else predicted by the two misses pecksniff, that those young ladies naturally regarded her with great indignation, feeling that this was by no means what they had come to see. miss mercy, as having the larger share of gayety, bore up the best against this disappointment, and carried it off, in outward show at least, with a titter; but her sister, not caring to hide her disdain, expressed it pretty openly in her looks. as to mrs. todgers, she leaned on mr. pecksniff's arm and preserved a kind of genteel grimness, suitable to any state of mind, and involving any shade of opinion. "don't be alarmed, miss pinch," said mr. pecksniff, taking her hand condescendingly in one of his, and patting it with the other. "i have called to see you, in pursuance of a promise given to your brother, thomas pinch. my name--compose yourself, miss pinch--is pecksniff." the good man spoke these words as though he would have said, "you see in me, young person, the friend of your race; the patron of your house; the preserver of your brother, who is fed with manna daily from my table; and in right of whom there is a considerable balance in my favor at present standing in the books beyond the sky. but i have no pride, for i can afford to do without it!" the poor girl felt it all as if it had been gospel truth. her brother, writing in the fullness of his simple heart, had often told her so, and how much more! as mr. pecksniff ceased to speak, she hung her head, and dropped a tear upon his hand. "oh, very well, miss pinch!" thought the sharp pupil, "crying before strangers as if you didn't like the situation!" "thomas is well," said mr. pecksniff; "and sends his love and this letter. i cannot say, poor fellow, that he will ever become great in our profession; but he has the will to do well, which is the next thing to having the power; and, therefore, we must bear with him. eh?" "i know he has the will, sir," said tom pinch's sister, "and i know how kindly and thoughtfully you cherish it, for which neither he nor i can ever be grateful enough, as we often say in writing to each other. the young ladies, too," she added, glancing gratefully at his two daughters. "i know how much we owe to them." "my dears," said mr. pecksniff, turning to them with a smile: "thomas' sister is saying something you will be glad to hear, i think." "we can't take any merit to ourselves, papa!" cried cherry, as they both showed tom pinch's sister, with a courtesy, that they would feel obliged if she would keep her distance. "mr. pinch's being so well provided for is owing to you alone, and we can only say how glad we are to hear that he is as grateful as he ought to be." "oh, very well, miss pinch!" thought the pupil again. "got a grateful brother, living on other people's kindness!" "it was very kind of you," said tom pinch's sister, with tom's own simplicity and tom's own smile, "to come here--very kind indeed: though how great a kindness you have done me in gratifying my wish to see you, and to thank you with my own lips, you, who make so light of benefits conferred, can scarcely think." "very grateful; very pleasant; very proper;" murmured mr. pecksniff. "it makes me happy too," said ruth pinch, who, now that her first surprise was over, had a chatty, cheerful way with her, and a single-hearted desire to look upon the best side of everything, which was the very moral and image of tom; "very happy to think that you will be able to tell him how more than comfortably i am situated here, and how unnecessary it is that he should ever waste a regret on my being cast upon my own resources. dear me! so long as i heard that he was happy and he heard that i was," said tom's sister, "we could both bear, without one impatient or complaining thought, a great deal more than ever we have had to endure, i am certain." and if ever the plain truth were spoken on this occasionally false earth, tom's sister spoke it when she said that. "ah!" cried mr. pecksniff, whose eyes had in the meantime wandered to the pupil; "certainly. and how do _you_ do, my very interesting child?" "quite well, i thank you, sir," replied that frosty innocent. "a sweet face this, my dears," said mr. pecksniff, turning to his daughters. "a charming manner!" both young ladies had been in delight with the child of a wealthy house (through whom the nearest road and shortest cut to her parents might be supposed to lie) from the first. mrs. todgers vowed that anything one-quarter so angelic she had never seen. "she wanted but a pair of wings, a dear," said that good woman, "to be a young syrup"--meaning, possibly, young sylph or seraph. "if you will give that to your distinguished parents, my amiable little friend," said mr. pecksniff, producing one of his professional cards, "and will say that i and my daughters----" "and mrs. todgers, pa," said mercy. "and mrs. todgers, of london," added mr. pecksniff, "that i, and my daughters, and mrs. todgers, of london, did not intrude upon them, as our object simply was to take some notice of miss pinch, whose brother is a young man in my employment; but that i could not leave this very noble mansion without adding my humble tribute, as an architect, to the correctness and elegance of the owner's taste, and to his just appreciation of that beautiful art, to the cultivation of which i have devoted a life, and to the promotion of whose glory and advancement i have sacrificed a--a fortune--i shall be very much obliged to you." "missis' compliments to miss pinch," said the footman, suddenly appearing and speaking in exactly the same key as before, "and begs to know wot my young lady is a-learning of just now." "oh!" said mr. pecksniff, "here is the young man. _he_ will take the card. with my compliments, if you please, young man. my dears, we are interrupting the studies. let us go." one evening, following the visit to miss pinch, there was a great bustle at todgers', partly owing to some additional domestic preparations for the morrow and partly to the excitement always arising in that house from saturday night, when every gentleman's linen arrived at a different hour in his own little bundle, with his private account pinned on the outside. shrill quarrels from time to time arose between mrs. todgers and the girls in remote back kitchens; and sounds were occasionally heard, indicative of small articles of ironmongery and hardware being thrown at the boy. it was the custom of that youth on saturdays to roll up his shirt sleeves to his shoulders, and pervade all parts of the house in an apron of coarse green baize; moreover, he was more strongly tempted on saturdays than on other days (it being a busy time) to make bolts into the neighboring alleys when he answered the door, and there to play at leap-frog and other sports with vagrant lads, until pursued and brought back by the hair of his head or the lobe of his ear; thus, he was quite a conspicuous feature among the peculiar incidents of the last day in the week at todgers'. he was especially so on this particular saturday evening, and honored the misses pecksniff with a deal of notice; seldom passing the door of mrs. todgers' private room, where they sat alone before the fire, without putting in his head and greeting them with some such compliments as, "there you are again!" "ain't it nice?"--and similar humorous attentions. "i say," he whispered, stopping in one of his journeys to and fro, "young ladies, there's soup to-morrow. she's a-making it now. ain't she a-putting in the water? oh! not at all neither!" in the course of answering another knock, he thrust in his head again: "i say--there's fowls to-morrow. not skinny ones. oh no!" presently he called through the keyhole: "there's a fish to-morrow--just come. don't eat none of him!" and with this spectral warning vanished again. by-and-by, he returned to lay the cloth for supper. he entertained them on this occasion by thrusting the lighted candle into his mouth, after the performance of which feat, he went on with his professional duties; brightening every knife as he laid it on the table, by breathing on the blade and afterwards polishing the same on the apron already mentioned. when he had completed his preparations, he grinned at the sisters, and expressed his belief that the approaching meal would be of "rather a spicy sort." "will it be long before it's ready, bailey?" asked mercy. "no," said bailey, "it _is_ cooked. when i come up she was dodging among the tender pieces with a fork, and eating of 'em." but he had scarcely achieved the utterance of these words, when he received a sudden blow on the head, which sent him staggering against the wall; and mrs. todgers, dish in hand, stood indignantly before him. "oh you little villain!" said that lady. "oh you bad, false boy!" "no worse than yerself," retorted bailey, guarding his head with his arm. "ah! come now! do that agin, will yer!" "he's the most dreadful child," said mrs. todgers, setting down the dish, "i ever had to deal with. the gentlemen spoil him to that extent, and teach him such things, that i'm afraid nothing but hanging will ever do him any good." "won't it!" cried bailey. "oh! yes! wot do you go a-lowerin' the table-beer for, then, and destroying my constitooshun?" "go down-stairs, you vicious boy!" said mrs. todgers, holding the door open. "do you hear me? go along!" after two or three skilful dodges he went, and was seen no more that night, save once, when he brought up some tumblers and hot water, and much disturbed the two misses pecksniff by squinting hideously behind the back of the unconscious mrs. todgers. having done this justice to his wounded feelings, he retired under-ground; where, in company with a swarm of black beetles and a kitchen candle, he employed himself in cleaning boots and brushing clothes until the night was far advanced. benjamin was supposed to be the real name of this young servant, but he was known by a great variety of names. benjamin, for instance, had been converted into uncle ben, and that again had been corrupted into uncle. the gentlemen at todgers' had a merry habit, too, of bestowing upon him, for the time being, the name of any notorious criminal or minister; and sometimes, when current events were flat, they even sought the pages of history for these distinctions; as mr. pitt, young brownrigg, and the like. at the period of which we write, he was generally known among the gentlemen as bailey junior; a name bestowed upon him in contradistinction, perhaps, to the old bailey prison; and possibly as involving the recollection of an unfortunate lady of the same name, who perished by her own hand early in life, and has been made famous in a song. the usual sunday dinner-hour at todgers' was two o'clock--a suitable time, it was considered, for all parties; convenient to mrs. todgers, on account of the baker's; and convenient to the gentlemen, with reference to their afternoon engagements. but on the sunday which was to introduce the two misses pecksniff to a full knowledge of todgers' and its society, the dinner was postponed until five, in order that everything might be as genteel as the occasion demanded. when the hour drew nigh, bailey junior, testifying great excitement, appeared in a complete suit of cast-off clothes several sizes too large for him, and, in particular, mounted a clean shirt of such extraordinary magnitude that one of the gentlemen (remarkable for his ready wit) called him "collars" on the spot. at about a quarter before five a deputation, consisting of mr. jinkins and another gentleman whose name was gander, knocked at the door of mrs. todgers' room, and, being formally introduced to the two misses pecksniff by their parent, who was in waiting, besought the honor of showing them up-stairs. here the gentlemen were all assembled. there was a general cry of "hear, hear!" and "bravo, jink!" when mr. jinkins appeared with charity on his arm: which became quite rapturous as mr. gander followed, escorting mercy, and mr. pecksniff brought up the rear with mrs. todgers. "the wittles is up!" footnote: [d] a "round-robin" is a letter signed by all the people of a company, with the names written in a circle around the letter so that no name will be first or last. xi. dick swiveller and the marchioness. richard swiveller, a good-hearted, though somewhat queer young man, the clerk of sampson brass, a scheming lawyer, often found time hanging heavily on his hands; and for the better preservation of his cheerfulness therefore, and to prevent his faculties from rusting, he provided himself with a cribbage-board and pack of cards, and accustomed himself to play at cribbage with a dummy, for twenty, thirty, or sometimes even fifty thousand pounds a side, besides many hazardous bets to a considerable amount. as these games were very silently conducted, notwithstanding the greatness of the interests involved, mr. swiveller, began to think that on those evenings when mr. and miss brass were out (and they often went out now) he heard a kind of snorting or hard-breathing sound in the direction of the door, which it occurred to him, after some thought, must proceed from the small servant, who always had a cold from damp living. looking intently that way one night, he plainly distinguished an eye gleaming and glistening at the keyhole; and having now no doubt that his suspicions were correct, he stole softly to the door and pounced upon her before she was aware of his approach. "oh! i didn't mean any harm indeed. upon my word i didn't," cried the small servant, struggling like a much larger one. "it's so very dull down-stairs. please don't you tell upon me; please don't." "tell upon you!" said dick. "do you mean to say you were looking through the keyhole for company?" "yes, upon my word i was," replied the small servant. "how long have you been cooling your eye there?" said dick. "oh, ever since you first began to play them cards, and long before." vague recollections of several fantastic exercises such as dancing around the room, and bowing to imaginary people with which he had refreshed himself after the fatigues of business; all of which, no doubt, the small servant had seen through the keyhole, made mr. swiveller feel rather awkward; but he was not very sensitive on such points, and recovered himself speedily. "well--come in," he said, after a little thought. "here--sit down, and i'll teach you how to play." "oh! i durstn't do it," rejoined the small servant. "miss sally 'ud kill me, if she know'd i came up here." "have you got a fire down-stairs?" said dick. "a very little one," replied the small servant. "miss sally couldn't kill me if she know'd i went down there, so i'll come," said richard, putting the cards into his pocket. "why, how thin you are! what do you mean by it?" "it ain't my fault." "could you eat any bread and meat?" said dick, taking down his hat. "yes? ah! i thought so. did you ever taste beer?" "i had a sip of it once," said the small servant. "here's a state of things!" cried mr. swiveller, raising his eyes to the ceiling. "she _never_ tasted it--it can't be tasted in a sip! why, how old are you?" "i don't know." mr. swiveller opened his eyes very wide and appeared thoughtful for a moment; then, bidding the child mind the door until he came back, vanished straightway. presently he returned, followed by the boy from the public house, who bore in one hand a plate of bread and beef and in the other a great pot, filled with some very fragrant compound, which sent forth a grateful steam, and was indeed choice purl made after a particular rule which mr. swiveller had given to the landlord at a period when he was deep in his books and desirous to win his friendship. relieving the boy of his burden at the door, and charging his little companion to fasten it to prevent surprise, mr. swiveller followed her into the kitchen. "there!" said richard, putting the plate before her. "first of all, clear that off, and then you'll see what's next." the small servant needed no second bidding, and the plate was soon empty. "next," said dick, handing the purl, "take a pull at that; but moderate your delight, you know, for you're not used to it. well, is it good?" "oh! isn't it?" said the small servant. mr. swiveller appeared gratified beyond all expression by this reply, and took a long draught himself, steadfastly regarding his companion while he did so. these matters disposed of, he applied himself to teaching her the game, which she soon learnt tolerably well, being both sharp-witted and cunning. "now," said mr. swiveller, putting two sixpences into a saucer, and trimming the wretched candle, when the cards had been cut and dealt, "those are the stakes. if you win, you get 'em all. if i win, i get 'em. to make it seem more real and pleasant, i shall call you the marchioness, do you hear?" the small servant nodded. "marchioness," as the reader knows, is a title to a lady of very high rank, and such mr. swiveller chose to imagine this small servant to be. "then, marchioness," said mr. swiveller, "fire away!" the marchioness, holding her cards very tight in both hands, considered which to play, and mr. swiveller, assuming the gay and fashionable air which such society required, took another pull at the jug and waited for her to lead in the game. mr. swiveller and his partner played several rubbers with varying success, until the loss of three sixpences, the gradual sinking of the purl, and the striking of ten o'clock, combined to render that gentleman mindful of the flight of time, and the wisdom of withdrawing before mr. sampson and miss sally brass returned. "with which object in view, marchioness," said mr. swiveller gravely, "i shall ask your ladyship's permission to put the board in my pocket, and to retire from the presence when i have finished this glass; merely observing, marchioness, that since life like a river is flowing, i care not how fast it rolls on, ma'am, on, while such purl on the bank still is growing, and such eyes light the waves as they run. marchioness, your health! you will excuse my wearing my hat but the palace is damp, and the marble floor is--if i may be allowed the expression--sloppy." as a protection against this latter inconvenience mr. swiveller had been sitting for some time with his feet on the hob, in which attitude he now gave utterance to these apologetic observations, and slowly sipped the last choice drops of nectar. "the baron sampsono brasso and his fair sister are (you tell me) at the play?" said mr. swiveller, leaning his left arm heavily upon the table, and raising his voice and his right leg after the manner of a bandit in the theater. the marchioness nodded. "ha!" said mr. swiveller with a portentous frown. "'tis well, marchioness!--but no matter. some wine there. ho!" he illustrated these melodramatic morsels by handing the glass to himself with great humility, receiving it haughtily, drinking from it thirstily, and smacking his lips fiercely. the small servant, who was not so well acquainted with theatrical customs as mr. swiveller (having indeed never seen a play or heard one spoken of, except by some chance through chinks of doors and in other forbidden places), was rather alarmed by demonstrations so strange in their nature, and showed her concern so plainly in her looks that mr. swiveller felt it necessary to change his brigand manner for one more suitable to private life, as he asked: "do they often go where glory waits 'em, and leave you here?" "oh, yes; i believe they do," returned the small servant. "miss sally's such a one-er for that, she is." "such a what?" said dick. "such a one-er," returned the marchioness. after a moment's reflection, mr. swiveller determined to forego his responsible duty of setting her right and to suffer her to talk on, as it was evident that her tongue was loosened by the purl and her opportunities for conversation were not so frequent as to render a momentary check of little consequence. "they sometimes go to see mr. quilp," said the small servant with a shrewd look; "they go to a good many places, bless you." "is mr. brass a wunner?" said dick. "not half what miss sally is, he isn't," replied the small servant, shaking her head. "bless you, he'd never do anything without her." "oh! he wouldn't, wouldn't he?" said dick. "miss sally keeps him in such order," said the small servant; "he always asks her advice, he does; and he catches it sometimes. bless you, you wouldn't believe how much he catches it." "i suppose," said dick, "that they consult together a good deal, and talk about a great many people--about me, for instance sometimes, eh, marchioness?" the marchioness nodded amazingly. "do they speak of me in a friendly manner?" said mr. swiveller. the marchioness changed the motion of her head, which had not yet left off nodding, and suddenly began to shake it from side to side so hard as to threaten breaking her neck. "humph!" dick muttered. "would it be any breach of confidence, marchioness, to relate what they say of the humble individual who has now the honor to----?" "miss sally says you're a funny chap," replied his friend. "well, marchioness," said mr. swiveller, "that's not uncomplimentary. merriment, marchioness, is not a bad or degrading quality. old king cole was himself a merry old soul, if we may put any faith in the pages of history." "but she says," pursued his companion, "that you ain't to be trusted." "why, really, marchioness," said mr. swiveller thoughtfully; "several ladies and gentlemen--not exactly professional persons, but tradespeople, ma'am, tradespeople--have made the same remark. the person who keeps the hotel over the way inclined strongly to that opinion to-night when i ordered him to prepare the banquet. it's a popular prejudice, marchioness; and yet i am sure i don't know why, for i have been trusted in my time to a considerable amount, and i can safely say that i never forsook my trust until it deserted me--never. mr. brass is of the same opinion, i suppose?" his friend nodded again, with a cunning look which seemed to hint that mr. brass held stronger opinions on the subject than his sister; and seeming to recollect herself, added imploringly, "but don't you ever tell upon me, or i shall be beat to death." "marchioness," said mr. swiveller, rising, "the word of a gentleman is as good as his bond--sometimes better; as in the present case, where his bond might prove but a doubtful sort of security. i am your friend, and i hope we shall play many more rubbers together in the same saloon. but, marchioness," added richard, stopping on his way to the door, and wheeling slowly round upon the small servant, who was following with the candle, "it occurs to me that you must be in the constant habit of airing your eye at keyholes, to know all this." "i only wanted," replied the trembling marchioness, "to know where the key of the safe was hid; that was all; and i wouldn't have taken much, if i had found it--only enough to squench my hunger." "you didn't find it, then?" said dick. "but of course you didn't, or you'd be plumper. good-night, marchioness. fare thee well, and if forever, then forever fare thee well--and put up the chain, marchioness, in case of accidents." with this parting word, mr. swiveller came out from the house; and feeling that he had by this time taken quite as much to drink as promised to be good for his constitution (purl being a rather strong and heady compound), wisely resolved to betake himself to his lodgings, and to bed at once. homeward he went therefore; and his apartments (for he still spoke of his one little room as "apartments") being at no great distance from the office, he was soon seated in his own bed-chamber, where, having pulled off one boot and forgotten the other, he fell into deep thought. "this marchioness," said mr. swiveller, folding his arms, "is a very extraordinary person--surrounded by mysteries, ignorant of the taste of beer, unacquainted with her own name (which is less remarkable), and taking a limited view of society through the keyholes of doors--can these things be her destiny, or has some unknown person started an opposition to the decrees of fate? it is a most amazing staggerer!" when his meditations had attained this satisfactory point, he became aware of his remaining boot, of which, with great solemnity, he proceeded to divest himself; shaking his head with exceeding gravity all the time, and sighing deeply. "these rubbers," said mr. swiveller, putting on his nightcap in exactly the same style as he wore his hat, "remind me of the matrimonial fireside. my old girl, chegg's wife, plays cribbage; all-fours alike. she rings the changes on 'em now. from sport to sport they hurry her, to banish her regrets, and when they win a smile from her, they think that she forgets--but she don't. by this time, i should say," added richard, getting his left cheek into profile, and looking complacently at the reflection of a very little scrap of whisker in the looking-glass; "by this time, i should say, the iron has entered into her soul. it serves her right." mr. swiveller, it must be said had been at one time somewhat in love with a young lady: but she had left his love and married a mr. cheggs. melting from this stern and harsh into the tender and pathetic mood, mr. swiveller groaned a little, walked wildly up and down, and even made a show of tearing his hair, which, however, he thought better of, and wrenched the tassel from his nightcap instead. at last, undressing himself with a gloomy resolution, he got into bed. some men, in his blighted position, would have taken to drinking; but as mr. swiveller had taken to that before, he only took, on receiving the news that this girl was lost to him forever, to playing the flute; thinking, after mature consideration, that it was a good, sound, dismal occupation, not only in unison with his own sad thoughts, but tending to awaken a fellow-feeling in the bosom, of his neighbors. following out this resolution, he now drew a little table to his bedside, and, arranging the light and a small oblong music-book to the best advantage, took his flute from its box and began to play most mournfully. the air was "away with melancholy"--a composition, which, when it is played very slowly on the flute in bed, with the farther disadvantage of being performed by a gentleman not fully acquainted with the instrument, who repeats one note a great many times before he can find the next, has not a lively effect. yet for half the night, or more, mr. swiveller, lying sometimes on his back with his eyes upon the ceiling and sometimes half out of bed to correct himself by the book, played this unhappy tune over and over again; never leaving off, save for a minute or two at a time to take breath and talk to himself about the marchioness and then beginning again with renewed vigor. it was not until he had quite exhausted his several subjects of meditation, and had breathed into the flute the whole sentiment of the purl down to its very dregs, and had nearly maddened the people of the house, and at both the next doors, and over the way--that he shut up the music-book, extinguished the candle, and, finding himself greatly lightened and relieved in his mind, turned round and fell asleep. dick continued his friendly relations towards the marchioness, and when he fell ill with typhoid fever his little friend nursed him back to health. just after this illness an aunt of his died and left him quite a large sum of money, a portion of which he used to educate the marchioness, whom he afterwards married. xii. mr. wardle's servant joe. an old country gentleman named wardle had a servant of whom he was very proud, not because of the latter's diligence, but because joe, commonly called the "fat boy," was a character which could not be matched anywhere in the world. at the time when our story opens, mr. pickwick of london, and three others of his literary club, were traveling in search of adventure. with mr. pickwick, the founder and head of the pickwick club, were mr. tupman, whose great weakness for the ladies brought him frequent troubles, mr. winkle, whose desire to appear as a sport brought much ridicule upon himself, and mr. snodgrass, whose poetic nature induced him to write many romantic verses which amused his friends and all who read them. these four pickwickians were introduced one day to mr. wardle, his aged sister miss rachel wardle, and his two daughters, emily and isabella, as they were looking at some army reviews from their coach. mr. wardle hospitably asked mr. pickwick and his friends to join them in the coach. "come up here! mr. pickwick," said mr. wardle, "come along sir. joe! drat that boy! he's gone to sleep again. joe, let down the steps and open the carriage door. come ahead, room for two of you inside and one outside. joe, make room for one. put this gentleman on the box!" mr. wardle mounted with a little help and the fat boy, where he was, fell fast asleep. one rank of soldiers after another passed, firing over the heads of another rank, and when the cannon went off the air resounded with the screams of ladies. mr. snodgrass actually found it necessary to support one of the misses wardle with his arm. their maidenly aunt was in such a dreadful state of nervous alarm that mr. tupman found that _he_ was obliged to put his arm about _her_ waist to keep her up at all. everyone was excited with the exception of the fat boy, and he slept as soundly as if the roaring of cannon were his ordinary lullaby. "joe! joe!" called mr. wardle. "drat that boy! he's gone asleep again. pinch him in the leg, if you please. nothing else wakens him. thank you. get out the lunch, joe." the fat boy, who had been effectually aroused by mr. winkle, proceeded to unpack the hamper with more quickness than could have been expected from his previous inactivity. "now joe, knives and forks." the knives and forks were handed in and each one was furnished with these useful implements. "now joe, the fowls. drat that boy! he's gone asleep again. joe! joe!" numerous taps on the head with a stick and the fat boy with some difficulty was awakened. "go hand in the eatables." there was something in the sound of the last word which aroused him. he jumped up with reddened eyes which twinkled behind his mountainous cheeks, and feasted upon the food as he unpacked it from the basket. "now make haste," said mr. wardle, for the fat boy was hanging fondly over a chicken which he seemed wholly unable to part with. the boy sighed deeply and casting an ardent gaze upon its plumpness, unwillingly handed it to his master. "a very extraordinary boy, that," said mr. pickwick. "does he always sleep in this way?" "sleep!" said the old gentleman. "he's always sleeping. goes on errands fast asleep and snores as he waits at table." "how very odd," said mr. pickwick. "ah! odd indeed," returned the old gentleman. "i'm proud of that boy. wouldn't part with him on any account. he's a natural curiosity. here, joe, take these things away and open another bottle. do you hear?" the fat boy aroused, opened his eyes, started and finished the piece of pie he was in the act of eating when he fell fast asleep, and slowly obeyed his master's orders, looking intently upon the remains of the feast as he removed the plates and stowed them in the hamper. at last mr. wardle and his party mounted the coach and prepared to drive off. "now mind," he said, as he shook hands with mr. pickwick, "we expect to see you all to-morrow. you have the address?" "manor farm, dingley dell," said mr. pickwick, consulting his pocket-book. "that's it," said the old gentleman. "you must come for at least a week. if you are traveling to get country life, come to me and i will give you plenty of it. joe! drat that boy, he's gone to sleep again. help put in the horses." the horses were put in and the driver mounted and the boy clambered up by his side. the farewells were exchanged and the carriage rolled off. as the pickwickians turned around to take a last glimpse of it the setting sun cast a red gold upon the faces of their entertainers, and fell upon the form of the fat boy. his head was sunk upon his bosom, and he slumbered again. after some amusing difficulties, which we have not space to describe here, mr. pickwick and his friends arrived safely at the country home of mr. wardle. the time passed very pleasantly. one day some of the men decided upon a shooting trip, and mr. winkle, to maintain his reputation as a sport, did not admit that he knew nothing about guns. mr. pickwick, early in the morning, seeing mr. wardle carrying a gun, asked what they were going to do. "why, your friend and i are going out rook shooting. he's a very good shot, isn't he?" said mr. wardle. "i have heard him say he's a capital one," replied mr. pickwick, "but i never saw him aim at anything." "well," said the host, "i wish mr. tupman would join us. joe! joe!" the fat boy who, under the exciting influences of the morning, did not appear to be more than three parts and a fraction asleep, emerged from the house. "go up and call mr. tupman, and tell him he will find us waiting." at last the party started, mr. tupman having joined them. some boys, who were with them, discovered a tree with a nest in one of the branches, and when all was ready mr. wardle was persuaded to shoot first. the boys shouted, and shook a branch with a nest on it, and a half-a-dozen young rooks, in violent conversation, flew out to ask what the matter was. mr. wardle leveled his gun and fired; down fell one and off flew the others. "pick him up, joe," said the old gentleman. there was a smile upon the youth's face as he advanced, for an indistinct vision of rook pie floated through his imagination. he laughed as he retired with the bird. it was a plump one. "now, mr. winkle," said the host, reloading his own gun, "fire away." mr. winkle advanced and raised his gun. mr. pickwick and his friends crouched involuntarily to escape damage from the heavy fall of birds which they felt quite certain would be caused by their friend's skill. there was a solemn pause, a shout, a flapping of wings. mr. winkle closed his eyes and fired; there was a scream from an individual, not a rook. mr. tupman had saved the lives of innumerable birds by receiving a portion of the charge in his left arm. though it was a very slight wound, mr. tupman made a great fuss about it and everyone was horror-stricken. he was partly carried to the house. the unmarried aunt uttered a piercing scream, burst into an hysterical laugh and fell backwards into the arms of her nieces. she recovered, screamed again, laughed again and fainted again. "calm yourself," said mr. tupman, affected almost to tears by this expression of sympathy. "dear, dear madam, calm yourself." "you are not dead?" exclaimed the hysterical lady. "say you are not dead!" "don't be a fool, rachel," said mr. winkle. "what the mischief is the use of his saying he isn't dead?" "no! no! i am not," said mr. tupman. "i require no assistance but yours. let me lean on your arm," he added in a whisper. miss rachel advanced and offered her arm. they turned into the breakfast parlor. mr. tupman gently pressed her hands to his lips and sunk upon the sofa. presently the others left him to her tender mercies. that afternoon mr. tupman, much affected by the extreme tenderness of miss rachel, suggested that as he was feeling much better they take a short stroll in the garden. there was a bower at the farther end, all honeysuckles and creeping plants, and somehow they unconsciously wandered in its direction and sat down on a bench within. "miss wardle," said mr. tupman, "you are an angel." miss rachel blushed very becomingly. much more conversation of this nature followed until finally mr. tupman proceeded to do what his enthusiastic emotions prompted and what were, (for all we know, for we are but little acquainted with such matters) what people in such circumstances always do. she started, and he, throwing his arms around her neck imprinted upon her lips numerous kisses, which, after a proper show of struggling and resistance, she received so passively that there is no telling how many more mr. tupman might have bestowed if the lady had not given a very unaffected start and exclaimed: "mr. tupman, we are observed! we are discovered!" mr. tupman looked around. there was the fat boy perfectly motionless, with his large, circular eyes staring into the arbor, but without the slightest expression on his face. mr. tupman gazed at the fat boy and the fat boy stared at him, but the longer mr. tupman observed the utter vacancy of the fat boy's face, the more convinced he became that he either did not know or did not understand anything that had been happening. under this impression he said with great fierceness: "what do you want here?" [illustration: "mr. tupman, we are observed!" page ] "supper is ready, sir," was the prompt reply. "have you just come here?" inquired mr. tupman, with a piercing look. "just," replied the fat boy. mr. tupman looked at him very hard again but there was not a wink of his eye or a movement in his face. mr. tupman took the arm of the spinster aunt and walked toward the house. the fat boy followed behind. "he knows nothing of what has happened," he whispered. "nothing," said the spinster aunt. there was a sound behind them as of an imperfectly suppressed chuckle. mr. tupman turned sharply around. no, it could not have been the fat boy. there was not a gleam of mirth or anything but feeding in his whole visage. "he must have been fast asleep," whispered mr. tupman. "i have not the least doubt of it," replied miss rachel, and they both laughed heartily. mr. tupman was wrong. the fat boy for once had not been fast asleep. he was awake, wide awake to everything that had happened. the day following, joe saw his mistress, mr. wardle's aged mother, sitting in the arbor. without saying a word he walked up to her, stood perfectly still and said nothing. the old lady was easily frightened; most old ladies are, and her first impression was that joe was about to do her some bodily harm with a view of stealing what money she might have with her. she therefore watched his motions, or rather lack of motions, with feelings of intense terror, which were in no degree lessened by his finally coming close to her and shouting in her ear, for she was very deaf, "missus!" "well, joe," said the trembling old lady, "i am sure i have been a good mistress to you." he nodded. "you have always been treated very kindly?" he nodded. "you have never had too much to do?" he nodded. "you have always had enough to eat?" this last was an appeal to the fat boy's most sensitive feelings. he seemed touched as he replied, "i know i has." "then what do you want to do now?" "i wants to make yo' flesh creep," replied the boy. this sounded like a very blood-thirsty method of showing one's gratitude and so the old lady was as much frightened as before. "what do you think i saw in this very arbor last night?" inquired the boy. "mercies, what?" screamed the old lady, alarmed at the mysterious manner of the corpulent youth. "a strange gentleman as had his arm around her, a kissin' and huggin'." "who, joe, who? none of the servants, i hope?" "worser than that," roared the fat boy in the old lady's ear. "none of my granddaughters." "worser than that," said joe. "worse than that?" said the old lady, who had thought this the extreme limit. "who was it, joe? i insist upon knowing!" the fat boy looked cautiously about and having finished his survey shouted in the old lady's ear, "miss rachel!" "what?" said the old lady in a shrill tone, "speak louder!" "miss rachel," roared the fat boy. "my daughter?" the succession of nods which the fat boy gave by way of assent could not be doubted. "and she allowed him?" exclaimed the old lady. a grin stole over the fat boy's features as he said, "i see her a kissin' of him agin!" joe's voice of necessity had been so loud that another party in the garden could not help hearing the entire conversation. if they could have seen the expression of the old lady's face at this time it is probable that a sudden burst of laughter would have betrayed them. fragments of angry sentences drifted to them through the leaves, such as "without my permission!" "at her time of life!" "might have waited until i was dead," etc. then they heard the heels of the fat boy's foot crunching the gravel as he retired and left the old lady alone. mr. tupman would probably have found himself in considerable trouble if one of his friends, who had overheard the conversation had not told mrs. wardle that perhaps joe had dreamed the entire incident, which did not seem altogether improbable. she watched mr. tupman at supper that evening, but this gentleman, having been warned, paid no attention whatever to miss rachel, and the old lady was finally persuaded that it was all a mistake. finally the visit of mr. pickwick and his friends came to an end, and it was several months before they again partook of mr. wardle's hospitality. the pickwickians had arrived at the inn near mr. wardle's place for dinner before completing the rest of their journey to dingley dell. mr. pickwick had brought with him several barrels of oysters and some special wine as a gift to his host, and he stood examining his packages to see that they had all arrived when he felt himself gently pulled by the skirts of his coat. looking around he discovered that the individual who used this means of drawing his attention was no other than mr. wardle's favorite page, the fat boy. "aha!" said mr. pickwick. "ah!" said the fat boy, and as he said it he glanced from the wine to the oysters and chuckled joyously. he was fatter than ever. "well, you look rosy enough my young friend," said mr. pickwick. "i have been sitting in front of the fire," replied the fat boy, who had indeed heated himself to the color of a new chimney pot in the course of an hour's nap. "master sent me over with the cart to carry your luggage over to the house." mr. pickwick called his man, sam weller, to him and said, "help mr. wardle's servant to put the packages into the cart and then ride on with him. we prefer to walk." having given this direction mr. pickwick and his three friends walked briskly away, leaving mr. weller and the fat boy face to face for the first time. sam looked at the fat boy with great astonishment but without saying a word, and began to put the things rapidly upon the cart while joe stood calmly by and seemed to think it a very interesting sort of thing to see mr. weller working by himself. "there," said sam, "everything packed at last. there they are." "yes," said the fat boy in a very satisfied tone, "there they are." "well, young twenty stone," said sam. "you're a nice specimen, you are." "thankee," said the fat boy. "you ain't got nothing on your mind as makes you fret yourself, have you?" inquired sam. "not as i knows of," replied the boy. "i should rather have thought, to look at you, that you was a laborin' under a disappointed love affair with some young woman," said sam. "vell, young boa-constrictor," said sam, "i'm glad to hear it. do you ever drink anythin'?" "i likes eatin' better," replied the boy. "ah!" said sam. "i should ha' 'sposed that, but i 'spose you were never cold with all them elastic fixtures?" "was sometimes," replied the boy, "and i likes a drop of something that's good." "ah! you do, do you," said sam, "come this way." then after a short interruption they got into the cart. "you can drive, can you?" said the fat boy. "i should rather think so," replied sam. "well then," said the fat boy, putting the reins in his hands and pointing up a lane, "it's as straight as you can drive. you can't miss it." with these words the fat boy laid himself affectionately down by the side of the provisions and placing an oyster barrel under his head for a pillow, fell asleep instantly. "vell," said sam, "of all the boys ever i set my eyes on--wake up young dropsy." but as young dropsy could not be awakened, sam weller set himself down in front of the cart, started the old horse with a jerk of the rein, and jogged steadily on toward manor farm. xiii. a brave and honest boy, oliver twist. little oliver twist was an orphan. he never saw his mother or his father. he was born at the workhouse, the home for paupers, where his poor heart-broken mother had been taken just a short time before baby oliver came; and, the very night he was born, she was so sick and weak she said: "let me see my child and then i will die." the old nurse said: "nonsense, my dear, you must not think of dying, you have something now to live for." the good kind doctor said she must be very brave and she might get well. they brought her little baby boy to her, and she hugged him in her weak arms and she kissed him on the brow many times and cuddled him up as close as her feeble arms could hold him; and then she looked at him long and steadily, and a sweet smile came over her face and a bright light came into her eyes, and before the smile could pass from her lips she died. the old nurse wept as she took the little baby from its dead mother's arms; and the good doctor had to wipe the tears from his eyes, it was so very, very sad. after wrapping the baby in a blanket and laying him in a warm place, the old nurse straightened out the limbs of the young mother and folded her hands on her breast; and, spreading a white sheet over her still form, she called the doctor to look at her--for the nurse and the doctor were all who were there. the same sweet smile was on her face, and the doctor said as he looked upon her: "poor, poor girl, she is so beautiful and so young! what strange fate has brought her to this poor place? nurse, take good care of the baby, for his mother must have been, at one time, a kind and gentle woman." the next day they took the unknown woman out to the potter's field and buried her; and, for nine months, the old nurse at the workhouse took care of the baby; though, it is sad to say, this old woman, kind-hearted though she was, was at the same time so fond of gin that she often took the money, which ought to have bought milk for the baby, to buy drink for herself. nobody knew what the young mother's name was, and so this baby had no name, until, at last, mr. bumble, who was one of the parish officers who looked after the paupers, came and named him _oliver twist_. when little oliver was nine months old they took him away from the workhouse and carried him to the "poor farm," where there were twenty-five or thirty other poor children who had no parents. a woman by the name of mrs. mann had charge of this cottage. the parish gave her an allowance of enough money to keep the children in plenty of food and clothing; but she starved the little ones to keep the money for herself, so that many of them died and others came to take their places. but young oliver was a tough little fellow, and, while he looked very pale and thin, he was, otherwise, healthy and hung on to his life. mrs. mann was also very cruel to the children. she would scold and beat them and shut them up in the cellar and treat them meanly in many ways when no visitors were there. but, when any of the men who had control or visitors came around, she would smile and call the children "dear," and all sorts of pet names. she told them if any of them should tell on her she would beat them; and, furthermore, that they should tell visitors that she was very kind and good to them and that they loved her very much. mr. bumble was a very mean man, too, as we shall see. they called him the _beadle_, which means he was a sort of sheriff or policeman; and he was supposed to look after the people at the workhouse and at the poor farm and to wait on the directors who had charge of these places. he had the right to punish the boys if they did not mind, and they were all afraid of him. oliver remained at the cottage on the poor farm until he was nine years old, though he was a pale little fellow and did not look to be over seven. on the morning of his birthday, mrs. mann had given oliver and two other boys a bad whipping and put them down in a dark coal-cellar. presently she saw mr. bumble coming and she told her servant to take the boys out and wash them quick, for she did not let mr. bumble know she ever punished them, and was fearful he might hear them crying in the dark, damp place. mrs. mann talked very nicely to mr. bumble and made him a "toddy" (a glass of strong liquor) and kept him busy with her flattering and kindness until she knew the boys were washed. mr. bumble told her oliver twist was nine years old that day, and the board (which meant the men in charge) had decided they must take him away from the farm and carry him back to the workhouse. mrs. mann pretended to be very sorry, and she went out and brought oliver in, telling him on the way that he must appear very sorry to leave her, otherwise she would beat him. so when oliver was asked if he wanted to go, he said he was sorry to leave there. this was not a falsehood, for, miserable as the place was, he dearly loved his little companions. they were all the people he knew; and he did feel sad, and really wept with sorrow as he told them good-by and was led by mr. bumble back to the workhouse, where he was born and where his mother died nine years ago that very day. when he got back there he found the old nurse who remembered his mother, and she told him she was a beautiful sweet woman and how she had kissed him and held him in her arms when she died. night after night little oliver dreamed about his beautiful mother, and she seemed sometimes to stand by his bed and to look down upon him with the same beautiful eyes and the same sweet smile of which the nurse told him. every time he had the chance he asked questions about her, but the nurse could not tell him anything more. she did not even know her name. oliver had been at the workhouse only a very short time when mr. bumble came in and told him he must appear before the board at once. now oliver was puzzled at this. he thought a board was a piece of flat wood, and he could not imagine why he was to appear before that. but he was too much afraid of mr. bumble to ask any questions. this gentleman had treated him roughly in bringing him to the workhouse; and, now, when he looked a little puzzled--for his expressive face always told what was in his honest little heart--mr. bumble gave him a sharp crack on the head with his cane and another rap over the back and told him to wake up and not look so sleepy, and to mind to be polite when he went before the board. oliver could not help tears coming into his eyes as he was pushed along, and mr. bumble gave him another sharp rap, telling him to hush, and ushered him into a room where several stern-looking gentlemen sat at a long table. one of them, in a white waistcoat, was particularly hard-looking. "bow to the board," said mr. bumble to oliver. oliver looked about for a board, and, seeing none, he bowed to the table, because it looked more like a board than anything else. the men laughed, and the man in the white waistcoat said: "the boy is a fool. i thought he was." after other ugly remarks, they told oliver he was an orphan and they had supported him all his life. he ought to be very thankful. (and he was, when he remembered how many had been starved to death.) "now," they said, "you are nine years old, and we must put you out to learn a trade." they told him he should begin the next morning at six o'clock to pick oakum, and work at that until they could get him a place. oliver was faithful at his work, in which several other boys assisted, but oh! so hungry they got, for they were given but one little bowl of gruel at a meal--hardly enough for a kitten. so one day the boys said they must ask for more; and they "drew straws" to see who should venture to do so. it fell to oliver's lot to do it, and the next meal, when they had emptied their bowls, oliver walked up to the man who helped them and said very politely, "please, sir, may i not have some more? i am very hungry." this made the man so angry that he hit oliver over the head with his ladle and called for mr. bumble. he came, and when told that oliver had "asked for more," he grabbed him by the collar and took him before the board and made the complaint that he had been very naughty and rebellious, telling the circumstance in an unfair and untruthful way. the board was angry at oliver, and the man in the white waistcoat told them again as he had said before. "this boy will be hung sometime. we must get rid of him at once." so they offered five pounds, or twenty-five dollars to anyone who would take him. the first man who came was a very mean chimney-sweeper, who had almost killed other boys with his vile treatment. the board agreed to let him have oliver; but, when they took him before the magistrates, oliver fell on his knees and begged them not to let that man have him, and they would not. so oliver was taken back to the workhouse. the next man who came was mr. sowerberry, an undertaker. he was a very good man, and the magistrates let him take oliver along. but he had a very cross, stingy wife, and a mean servant-girl by the name of charlotte, and a big overbearing boy by the name of noah claypole, whom he had taken to raise. oliver thought he would like mr. sowerberry well enough, but his heart fell when "the mrs." met him and called him "boy" and a "measly-looking little pauper," and gave him for supper the scraps she had put for the dog. but this was so much better than he got at the workhouse, he would not complain about the food; and he hoped, by faithful work, to win kind treatment. they made him sleep by himself in the shop among the coffins, and he was very much frightened; but he would rather sleep there than with the terrible boy, noah. the first night he dreamed of his beautiful mother, and thought again he could see her sitting among those black, fearful coffins, with the same sweet smile upon her face. he was awakened the next morning by noah, who told him he had to obey him, and he'd better lookout or he'd wear the life out of him. noah kicked and cuffed oliver several times, but the poor boy was too much used to that to resent it, and determined to do his work well. mr. sowerberry found oliver so good, sensible, and polite that he made him his assistant and took him to all the funerals, and occasionally gave him a penny. oliver went into fine houses and saw people and sights he had never dreamed of before. mr. sowerberry had told him he might some day be an undertaker himself; and oliver worked hard to please his master, though noah and mrs. sowerberry and charlotte grew more unkind to him all the time, because "he was put forward," they said, "and noah was kept back." this, of course, made noah meaner than ever to oliver--determined to endure it all rather than complain, and try to win them over after while by being kind. he could have borne any insult to himself, but noah tried the little fellow too far when he attacked the name of oliver's mother, and it brought serious trouble, as we shall see. one day, oliver and noah had descended into the kitchen at the usual dinner-hour, when, charlotte being called out of the way, there came a few minutes of time, which noah claypole, being hungry and vicious, considered he could not possibly devote to a worthier purpose than aggravating and tantalizing young oliver twist. intent upon this innocent amusement, noah put his feet on the tablecloth; and pulled oliver's hair; and twitched his ears; and expressed his opinion that he was a "sneak;" and furthermore announced his intention of coming to see him hanged, whenever that desirable event should take place; and entered upon various other topics of petty annoyance, like a malicious and ill-conditioned charity-boy as he was. but, none of these taunts producing the desired effect of making oliver cry, noah began to talk about his mother. "work'us," said noah, "how's your mother?" noah had given oliver this name because he had come from the workhouse. "she's dead," replied oliver; "don't you say anything about her to me!" oliver's color rose as he said this; he breathed quickly; and there was a curious working of the mouth and nostrils, which noah thought must be the immediate precursor of a violent fit of crying. under this impression he returned to the charge. "what did she die of, work'us?" said noah. "of a broken-heart, some of our old nurses told me," replied oliver: more as if he were talking to himself than answering noah. "i think i know what it must be to die of that!" "tol de rol lol lol, right fol lairy, work'us," said noah, as a tear rolled down oliver's check. "what's set you a sniveling now?" "not _you_," replied oliver, hastily brushing the tear away. "don't think it." "oh, not me, eh?" sneered noah. "no, not you," replied oliver, sharply. "there, that's enough. don't say anything more to me about her; you'd better not!" "better not!" exclaimed noah. "well! better not! work'us, don't be impudent. _your_ mother, too! she was a nice 'un, she was. oh, lor'!" and here noah nodded his head expressively and curled his small red nose. "yer know, work'us," continued noah, emboldened by oliver's silence, and speaking in a jeering tone of affected pity. "yer know, work'us, it can't be helped now; and of course yer couldn't help it then. but yer must know, work'us, yer mother was a regular-down bad 'un." "what did you say?" inquired oliver, looking up very quickly. "a regular right-down bad'un, work'us," replied noah, coolly. "and it's a great deal better, work'us, that she died when she did, or else she'd have been hard laboring in the jail, or sent out of the country, or hung; which is more likely than either, isn't it?" crimson with fury, oliver started up; overthrew the chair and table; seized noah by the throat; shook him, in the violence of his rage, till his teeth chattered in his head; and, collecting his whole force into one heavy blow, felled him to the ground. a minute ago, the boy had looked the quiet, mild, dejected creature that harsh treatment had made him. but his spirit was roused at last; the cruel insult to his dead mother had set his blood on fire. his breast heaved; his form was erect; his eye bright and vivid; his whole person changed, as he stood glaring over the cowardly tormentor who now lay crouching at his feet; and defied him with an energy he had never known before. "he'll murder me!" blubbered noah. "charlotte! missis! here's the new boy a-murdering of me! help! help! oliver's gone mad! char--lotte!" noah's shouts were responded to by a loud scream from charlotte and a louder from mrs. sowerberry; the former of whom rushed into the kitchen by a side-door, while the latter paused on the staircase till she was quite certain that it was safe to come farther down. "oh, you little wretch!" screamed charlotte, seizing oliver with her utmost force, which was about equal to that of a moderately strong man in particularly good training. "oh, you little un-grate-ful, mur-de-rous, hor-rid villain!" and between every syllable charlotte gave oliver a blow with all her might. charlotte's fist was by no means a light one; and mrs. sowerberry plunged into the kitchen and assisted to hold him with one hand, while she scratched his face with the other. in this favorable position of affairs, noah rose from the ground and pommeled him behind. when they were all wearied out, and could tear and beat no longer, they dragged oliver, struggling and shouting, but nothing daunted, into the dust-cellar, and there locked him up. this being done, mrs. sowerberry sunk into a chair and burst into tears. "oh! charlotte," said mrs. sowerberry. "oh! charlotte, what a mercy we have not all been murdered in our beds!" "ah! mercy indeed, ma'am," was the reply. "i only hope this'll teach master not to have any more of these dreadful creatures, that are born to be murderers and robbers from their very cradle. poor noah! he was all but killed, ma'am, when i come in." "poor fellow!" said mrs. sowerberry, looking piteously on the charity-boy. "what's to be done!" exclaimed mrs. sowerberry. "your master's not at home; there's not a man in the house, and he'll kick that door down in ten minutes." oliver's vigorous plunges against the door did seem as if he would break it. "dear, dear! i don't know, ma'am," said charlotte, "unless we send for the police officers." "or the millingtary," suggested noah. "no, no," said mrs. sowerberry: bethinking herself of oliver's old friend. "run to mr. bumble, noah, and tell him to come here directly, and not to lose a minute; never mind your cap! make haste!" noah set off with all his might, and paused not once for breath until he reached the workhouse gate. "why, what's the matter with the boy!" said the people as noah rushed up. "mr. bumble! mr. bumble!" cried noah, with well-pretended alarm. "oh, mr. bumble, sir! oliver, sir--oliver has--" "what? what?" interposed mr. bumble, with a gleam of pleasure in his steel-like eyes. "not run away; he hasn't run away, has he, noah?" "no, sir, no! not run away, sir, but he's turned wicious," replied noah. "he tried to murder me, sir; and then he tried to murder charlotte; and then missis. oh! what dreadful pain it is! such agony, please, sir!" and here noah writhed and twisted his body into an extensive variety of eel-like positions, by which the gentleman's notice was very soon attracted; for he had not walked three paces, when he turned angrily round and inquired what that young cur was howling for. "it's a poor boy from the free-school, sir," replied mr. bumble, "who has been nearly murdered--all but murdered, sir--by young twist." "by jove!" exclaimed the gentleman in the white waistcoat, stopping short. "i knew it! i felt from the very first that that terrible young savage would come to be hung!" "he has likewise attempted, sir, to murder the female servant," said mr. bumble, with a face of ashy paleness. "and his missis," interposed noah. "and his master, too. i think you said, noah?" added mr. bumble. "no! he's out, or he would have murdered him," replied noah. "he said he wanted to." "ah! said he wanted to, did he, my boy?" inquired the gentleman in the white waistcoat. "yes, sir. and please, sir," replied noah, "missis wants to know whether mr. bumble can spare time to step up there, directly, and flog him--'cause master's out." "certainly, my boy; certainly," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, smiling benignly and patting noah's head, which was about three inches higher than his own. "you're a good boy--a very good boy. here's a penny for you. bumble just step up to sowerberry's with your cane, and see what's to be done. don't spare him, bumble." "no, i will not, sir," replied the beadle as he hurried away. meantime, oliver continued to kick, with undiminished vigor, at the cellar-door. the accounts of his ferocity, as related by mrs. sowerberry and charlotte, were of so startling a nature that mr. bumble judged it prudent to parley before opening the door. with this view he gave a kick at the outside, by way of prelude; and then, putting his mouth to the keyhole, said, in a deep and impressive tone: "oliver!" "come, you let me out!" replied oliver, from the inside. "do you know this here voice, oliver?" said mr. bumble. "yes," replied oliver. "ain't you afraid of it, sir? ain't you a-trembling while i speak, sir?" said mr. bumble. "no!" replied oliver, boldly. an answer so different from the one he had expected to hear, and was in the habit of receiving, staggered mr. bumble not a little. "oh, you know, mr. bumble, he must be mad," said mrs. sowerberry. "no boy in half his senses could venture to speak so to you." "it's not madness, ma'am," replied mr. bumble, after a few moments of deep meditation. "it's meat." "what?" exclaimed mrs. sowerberry. "meat, ma'am, meat," replied bumble, with stern emphasis. "you've overfed him, ma'am." "dear, dear!" ejaculated mrs. sowerberry, piously raising her eyes to the kitchen ceiling; "this comes of being liberal!" the liberality of mrs. sowerberry to oliver had consisted in a bestowal upon him of all the dirty odds and ends which nobody else would eat. "ah!" said mr. bumble, when the lady brought her eyes down to earth again; "the only thing that can be done now, that i know of, is to leave him in the cellar for a day or so, till he's a little starved down; and then to take him out, and keep him on gruel all through his apprenticeship. he comes of a bad family. excitable natures, mrs. sowerberry! both the nurse and doctor said that that mother of his made her way here, against difficulties and pain that would have killed any well-disposed woman, weeks before." at this point of mr. bumble's discourse, oliver, just hearing enough to know that some new allusion was being made to his mother, recommenced kicking, with a violence that rendered every other sound inaudible. sowerberry returned at this moment. oliver's offense having been explained to him, with such exaggerations as the ladies thought best calculated to rouse his ire, he unlocked the cellar-door in a twinkling, and dragged his rebellious apprentice out by the collar. oliver's clothes had been torn in the beating he had received; his face was bruised and scratched; and his hair scattered over his forehead. the angry flush had not disappeared, however; and when he was pulled out of his prison, he scowled boldly on noah, and looked quite undismayed. "now, you are a nice young fellow, ain't you?" said sowerberry, giving oliver a shake and a box on the ear. "he called my mother names," replied oliver. "well, and what if he did, you little ungrateful wretch?" said mrs. sowerberry. "she deserved what he said, and worse." "she didn't," said oliver. "she did," said mrs. sowerberry. "it's a lie!" said oliver. mrs. sowerberry burst into a flood of tears. this flood of tears left mr. sowerberry nothing else to do; so he at once gave oliver a drubbing, which satisfied even mrs. sowerberry herself. for the rest of the day he was shut up in the backs kitchen, in company with a pump and a slice of bread; and, at night, mrs. sowerberry, after making various remarks outside the door, by no means kind to the memory of his mother, looked into the room, and, amidst the jeers and pointings of noah and charlotte, ordered him up-stairs to his dismal bed. it was not until he was left alone in the silence and stillness of the gloomy workshop of the undertaker that oliver gave way to the feelings which the day's treatment may be supposed likely to have awakened in a mere child. he had listened to their taunts with a look of contempt; he had borne the lash without a cry; for he felt that pride swelling in his heart which would have kept down a shriek to the last, though they had roasted him alive. but now, when there was none to see or hear him, he fell upon his knees on the floor; and, hiding his face in his hands, wept bitter tears and prayed in his bleeding heart that god would help him to get away from these cruel people. there, upon his knees, oliver determined to run away, and, rising, tied up a few clothes in a handkerchief and went to bed. with the first ray of light that struggled through the crevices in the shutters, oliver arose and unbarred the door. one timid look around--one moment's pause of hesitation--he had closed it behind him, and was in the open street. he looked to the right and to the left, uncertain which way to fly. he remembered to have seen the wagons, as they went out, toiling up the hill. he took the same route; and arriving at a foot-path across the fields, which he knew, after some distance, led out again into the road, struck into it, and walked quickly on. along this same foot-path, oliver well remembered he had trotted beside mr. bumble when he first carried him to the workhouse from the farm. his heart beat quickly when he bethought himself of this, and he half resolved to turn back. he had come a long way though, and should lose a great deal of time by doing so. besides, it was so early that there was very little fear of his being seen; so he walked on. he reached the house. there was no appearance of the people inside stirring at that early hour. oliver stopped, and peeped into the garden. a child was weeding one of the little beds; as he stopped, he raised his pale face and disclosed the features of one of his former companions. oliver felt glad to see him before he went; for, though younger than himself, he had been his little friend and playmate. they had been beaten, and starved, and shut up together many and many a time. "hush, dick!" said oliver, as the boy ran to the gate, and thrust his thin arm between the rails to greet him. "is anyone up?" "nobody but me," replied the child. "you mustn't say you saw me, dick," said oliver. "i am running away. they beat and ill-use me, dick; and i am going to seek my fortune some long way off. i don't know where. how pale you are!" "i heard the doctor tell them i was dying," replied the child, with a faint smile. "i am very glad to see you, dear; but don't stop, don't stop!" "yes, yes, i will to say good-by to you," replied oliver. "i shall see you again, dick. i know i shall. you will be well and happy!" "i hope so," replied the child. "after i am dead, but not before. i know the doctor must be right, oliver, because i dream so much of heaven and angels, and kind faces that i never see when i am awake. kiss me," said the child, climbing up the low gate, and flinging his little arms around oliver's neck: "good-by, dear! god bless you!" the blessing was from a young child's lips, but it was the first that oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and through the struggles and sufferings, and troubles and changes of his after-life, he never once forgot it. oliver soon got into the high-road. it was eight o'clock now. though he was nearly five miles away from the town, he ran, and hid behind the hedges, by turns, till noon, fearing that he might be pursued and overtaken. then he sat down to rest by the side of the mile-stone. the stone by which he was seated had a sign on it which said that it was just seventy miles from that spot to london. the name awakened a new train of ideas in the boy's mind, london!--that great large place!--nobody--not even mr. bumble--could ever find him there! he had often heard the old men in the workhouse, too, say that no lad of spirit need want in london; and that there were ways of living in that vast city which those who had been bred in the country parts had no idea of. it was the very place for a homeless boy, who must die in the streets unless some-one helped him. as these things passed through his thoughts, he jumped upon his feet and again walked forward. he had made the distance between himself and london less by full four miles more, before he thought how much he must undergo ere he could hope to reach the place toward which he was going. as this consideration forced itself upon him, he slackened his pace a little, and meditated upon his means of getting there. he had a crust of bread, a coarse shirt, and two pairs of stockings in his bundle. he had a penny too--a gift of sowerberry's after some funeral in which he had acquitted himself more than ordinarily well--in his pocket. "a clean shirt," thought oliver, "is a very comfortable thing; and so are two pairs of darned stockings; and so is a penny; but they are small helps to a sixty-five miles' walk in winter-time." thus day after day the weary but plucky little boy walked on, and early on the seventh morning after he had left his native place, oliver limped slowly into the little town of barnet, and sat down on a doorstep to rest. some few stopped to gaze at oliver for a moment or two, or turned round to stare at him as they hurried by; but none helped him, or troubled themselves to inquire how he came there. he had no heart to beg. and there he sat for some time when he was roused by observing that a boy was watching him most earnestly from the opposite side of the way. he took little heed of this at first; but the boy remained in the same attitude so long that oliver raised his head and returned his steady look. upon this, the boy crossed over, and, walking close up to oliver, said: "hullo, my covey! what's the row?" the boy who had spoken to the young wayfarer was about his own age: but one of the queerest-looking boys that oliver had ever seen. he was a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy enough; and as dirty a youth as one would wish to see; but he had about him all the airs and manners of a man. he was short for his age; with rather bow-legs, and little, sharp, ugly eyes. his hat was stuck on the top of his head so lightly that it threatened to fall off every moment. he wore a man's coat, which reached nearly to his heels. "hullo, my covey! what's the row?" said the stranger. "i am very hungry and tired," replied oliver: the tears standing in his eyes as he spoke. "i have walked a long way. i have been walking these seven days." "walking for sivin days!" said the young gentleman. "oh, i see. beak's order, eh? but," he added, noticing oliver's look of surprise, "i suppose you don't know what a beak is, my flash com-pan-i-on." oliver mildly replied that he had always heard a bird's mouth described by the word beak. "my eyes, how green!" exclaimed the young gentleman. "why, a beak's a madgst'rate; and when you walk by a beak's order, it's not straight forerd. "but come," said the young gentleman; "you want grub, and you shall have it. up with you on your pins. there! now then!" assisting oliver to rise, the young gentleman took him to a near by grocery store, where he bought a supply of ready-dressed ham and a half-quartern loaf, or, as he himself expressed it, "a fourpenny bran!" taking the bread under his arm, the young gentleman turned into a small public-house, and led the way to a tap-room in the rear of the premises. here a pot of beer was brought in by direction of the mysterious youth; and oliver, falling to at his new friend's bidding, made a long and hearty meal, during which the strange boy eyed him from time to time with great attention. "going to london?" said the strange boy, when oliver had at length concluded. "yes." "got any lodgings?" "no." "money?" "no." the strange boy whistled, and put his arms into his pockets as far as the big coat-sleeves would let them go. "do you live in london?" inquired oliver. "yes, i do, when i'm at home," replied the boy. "i suppose you want some place to sleep in to-night, don't you?" "i do, indeed," answered oliver. "i have not slept under a roof since i left the country." "don't fret your eyelids on that score," said the young gentleman. "i've got to be in london to-night; and i know a 'spectable old genelman as lives there, wot'll give you lodgings for nothink, and never ask for the change--that is, if any genelman he knows interduces you. and don't he know me? oh, no! not in the least! by no means. certainly not!" which was his queer way of saying he and the old gentleman were good friends. this unexpected offer of shelter was too tempting to be resisted, especially as it was immediately followed up by the assurance that the old gentleman referred to would doubtless provide oliver with a comfortable place, without loss of time. this led to a more friendly and free talk, from which oliver learned that his friend's name was jack dawkins--among his intimate friends better known as the "artful dodger"--and that he was a peculiar pet of the elderly gentleman before mentioned. as john dawkins objected to their entering london before nightfall, it was nearly eleven o'clock when they reached the small city street, along which the dodger scudded at a rapid pace, directing oliver to follow close at his heels. although oliver had enough to occupy his attention in keeping sight of his leader, he could not help bestowing a few hasty glances on either side of the way as he passed along. a dirtier or more wretched place he had never seen. oliver was just considering whether he hadn't better run away, when they reached the bottom of the hill. his conductor, catching him by the arm, pushed open the door of a house, and, drawing him into the passage, closed it behind them. "now, then!" cried a voice from below, in reply to a whistle from the dodger. "plummy and slam!" was the reply. this seemed to be some watchword or signal that all was right; for the light of a feeble candle gleamed on the wall at the remote end of the passage, and a man's face peeped out from where a balustrade of the old kitchen staircase had been broken away. "there's two of you," said the man, thrusting the candle farther out, and shading his eyes with his hand. "who's the t'other one?" "a new pal," replied jack dawkins, pulling oliver forward. "where did he come from?" "greenland. is fagin up-stairs?" "yes; he's a sortin' the wipes. up with you!" the candle was drawn back, and the face disappeared. oliver, groping his way with one hand, and having the other firmly grasped by his companion, ascended with much difficulty the dark and broken stairs; which his conductor mounted with an ease and expedition that showed he was well acquainted with them. he threw open the door of a back-room, and drew oliver in after him. the walls and ceiling of the room were perfectly black with age and dirt. there was a deal table before the fire, upon which were a candle stuck in a ginger-beer bottle, two or three pewter-pots, a loaf and butter, and a plate. seated round the table were four or five boys, none older than the dodger, smoking clay pipes and drinking spirits, with the air of middle-aged men. these all crowded about their friend as he whispered a few words to the jewish proprietor; and then turned round and grinned at oliver. so did the jew himself, toasting-fork in hand. "this is him, fagin," said jack dawkins; "my friend, oliver twist." the jew grinned, and, making a low bow to oliver, took him by the hand, and hoped he should have the honor of a closer acquaintance. upon this, the young gentlemen with the pipes came round him and shook both his hands very hard. "we are very glad to see you. oliver, very," said the jew. "dodger, take off the sausages, and draw a tub near the fire for oliver. ah! you're a-staring at the pocket-handkerchiefs! eh, my dear! there are a good many of 'em, ain't there? we've just looked 'em out, ready for the wash: that's all, oliver--that's all. ha! ha! ha!" the latter part of this speech was hailed by a noisy shout from all the pupils of the merry old gentleman; in the midst of which they went to supper. oliver ate his share, and the jew then mixed him a glass of hot gin and water, telling him he must drink it off directly, because another gentleman wanted the tumbler. oliver did as he was desired. immediately afterward he felt himself gently lifted on to one of the sacks; and then he sunk into a deep sleep. it was late next morning when oliver awoke from a sound, long sleep. there was no other person in the room but the old jew, who was boiling some coffee in a saucepan for breakfast, and whistling softly to himself as he stirred it round and round with an iron spoon. he would stop every now and then to listen when there was the least noise below; and when he had satisfied himself, he would go on, whistling and stirring again, as before. although oliver had roused himself from sleep, he was not thoroughly awake. oliver was precisely in this condition. he saw the jew with his half-closed eyes; heard his low whistling; and recognized the sound of the spoon grating against the saucepan's sides. when the coffee was done, the jew drew the saucepan to the hob, looked at oliver, and called him by his name. he did not answer, and was to all appearance asleep. after satisfying himself upon this head, the jew stepped gently to the door, which he fastened. he then drew forth, as it seemed to oliver, from some trap in the floor, a small box, which he placed carefully on the table. his eyes glistened as he raised the lid and looked in. dragging an old chair to the table, he sat down; and took from it a magnificent gold watch, sparkling with jewels. "aha!" said the jew, shrugging up his shoulders and distorting every feature with a hideous grin. "clever dogs! clever dogs! stanch to the last! never told the old parson where they were. never peached upon old fagin! and why should they? it wouldn't have loosened the knot, or kept the drop up, a minute longer. no, no, no! fine fellows! fine fellows!" with these and other muttered remarks of the like nature, the jew once more laid the watch in its place of safety. at least half a dozen more were severally drawn forth from the same box, and looked at with equal pleasure; besides rings, bracelets, and other articles of jewelry, of such magnificent materials, and costly workmanship, that oliver had no idea even of their names. as the jew looked up, his bright dark eyes, which had been staring at the jewelry, fell on oliver's face; the boy's eyes were fixed on his in mute curiosity; and although the recognition was only for an instant, it was enough to show the old man that he had been observed. he closed the lid of the box with a loud crash; and, laying his hand on a bread-knife which was on the table, started furiously up. "what's that?" said the jew. "what do you watch me for? why are you awake? what have you seen? speak out boy! quick--quick! for your life!" "i wasn't able to sleep any longer, sir," replied oliver, meekly. "i am very sorry if i have disturbed you, sir." "you were not awake an hour ago?" said the jew, scowling fiercely. "no! no, indeed!" replied oliver. "are you sure?" cried the jew, with a still fiercer look than before, and a threatening attitude. "upon my word i was not, sir," replied oliver, earnestly. "tush, tush, my dear!" said the jew, abruptly resuming his old manner, and playing with the knife a little, before he laid it down; to make oliver think that he had caught it up in mere sport. "of course i know that, my dear. i only tried to frighten you. you're a brave boy. ha! ha! you're a brave boy, oliver!" the jew rubbed his hands with a chuckle, but glanced uneasily at the box, notwithstanding. "did you see any of these pretty things, my dear?" said the jew, laying his hand upon it after a short pause. "yes, sir," replied oliver. "ah!" said the jew, turning rather pale. "they--they're mine, oliver: my little property. all i have to live upon in my old age. the folks call me a miser, my dear. only a miser; that's all." oliver thought the old gentleman must be a decided miser to live in such a dirty place, with so many watches; but, thinking that perhaps his fondness for the dodger and the other boys cost him a good deal of money, he only looked kindly at the jew, and asked if he might get up. "certainly, my dear, certainly," replied the old gentleman. "there's a pitcher of water in the corner by the door. bring it here, and i'll give you a basin to wash in, my dear." oliver got up, walked across the room, and stooped for an instant to raise the pitcher. when he turned his head the box was gone. he had scarcely washed himself, and made everything tidy by emptying the basin out of the window, agreeably to the jew's directions, when the dodger returned, accompanied by a very sprightly young friend, whom oliver had seen smoking on the previous night, and who was now formally introduced to him as charley bates. the four sat down to breakfast on the coffee and some hot rolls and ham which the dodger had brought home in the crown of his hat. "well," said the jew, glancing slyly at oliver, and addressing himself to the dodger, "i hope you've been at work this morning, my dears?" "hard," replied the dodger. "as nails," added charley bates. "good boys, good boys!" said the jew. "what have _you_, dodger?" "a couple of pocket-books," replied that young gentleman. "lined?" inquired the jew, with eagerness. "pretty well," replied the dodger, producing two pocket-books. "not so heavy as they might be," said the jew, after looking at the insides carefully; "but very neat and nicely made. a good workman, ain't he, oliver?" "very, indeed, sir," said oliver. at which mr. charles bates laughed uproariously, very much to the amazement of oliver, who saw nothing to laugh at in anything that had passed. "and what have you got, my dear?" said fagin to charley bates. "wipes," replied master bates; at the same time producing four pocket-handkerchiefs. "well," said the jew, inspecting them closely; "they're very good ones, very. you haven't marked them well, though, charley; so the marks shall be picked out with a needle, and we'll teach oliver how to do it. shall us, oliver, eh? ha! ha! ha!" "if you please, sir," said oliver. "you'd like to be able to make pocket-handkerchiefs as easy as charley bates, wouldn't you, my dear?" said the jew. "very much, indeed, if you'll teach me, sir," replied oliver. master bates burst into another laugh. "he is so jolly green!" said charley when he recovered, as an apology to the company for his impolite behavior. the dodger said nothing, but he smoothed oliver's hair over his eyes, and said he'd know better by-and-by. when the breakfast was cleared away, the merry old gentleman and the two boys played at a very curious and uncommon game, which was performed in this way: the merry old gentleman, placing a snuff-box in one pocket of his trousers, a note-case in the other, and a watch in his waistcoat pocket, with a guard-chain round his neck, and sticking a mock-diamond pin in his shirt, buttoned his coat tight around him, and putting his spectacle-case and handkerchief in his pockets, trotted up and down the room with a stick, in imitation of the manner in which old gentlemen walk about the streets any hour in the day. now during all this time the two boys followed him closely about, getting out of his sight, so nimbly, every time he turned round that it was impossible to follow their motions. at last the dodger trod upon his toes or ran upon his boot accidentally, while charley bates stumbled up against him behind; and in that one moment they took from him, with the most extraordinary rapidity, snuff-box, note-case, watch-guard, chain, shirt-pin, pocket handkerchief, even the spectacle-case. if the old gentleman felt a hand in any one of his pockets, he cried out where it was, and then the game began all over again. when this game had been played a great many times, charley bates expressed his opinion that it was time to pad the hoof. this, it occurred to oliver, must be french for going out; for, directly afterward, the dodger and charley went away together, having been kindly furnished by the amiable old jew with money to spend. "there, my dear," said fagin. "that's a pleasant life, isn't it? they have gone out for the day." "have they done work, sir?" inquired oliver. "yes," said the jew; "that is, unless they should unexpectedly come across any when they are out; and they won't neglect it, if they do, my dear, depend upon it. make 'em your models, my dear. make 'em your models," tapping the fire-shovel on the hearth to add force to his words; "do everything they bid you, and take their advice in all matters--especially the dodger's my dear. he'll be a great man himself, and will make you one too, if you take pattern by him. is my handkerchief hanging out of my pocket, my dear?" said the jew, stopping short. "yes, sir," said oliver. "see if you can take it out, without my feeling it, as you saw them do when we were at play this morning." oliver held up the bottom of the pocket with one hand, as he had seen the dodger hold it, and drew the handkerchief lightly out with the other. "is it gone?" cried the jew. "here it is, sir," said oliver, showing it in his hand. "you're a clever boy, my dear," said the playful old gentleman, patting oliver on the head approvingly. "i never saw a sharper lad. here's a shilling for you. if you go on in this way, you'll be the greatest man of the time. and now come here, and i'll show you how to take the marks out of the handkerchief." oliver wondered what picking the old gentleman's pocket in play had to do with his chances of being a great man. but, thinking that the jew, being so much older must know best, he followed him quietly to the table, and was soon deeply at work in his new study. for many days oliver remained in the jew's room, picking the marks out of the pocket-handkerchiefs (of which a great number were brought home), and sometimes taking part in the game already described, which the two boys and the jew played, regularly, every morning. at length, one morning, oliver obtained the permission to go out with the boys. there had been no handkerchiefs to work upon for two or three days, and the dinners had been rather meager. perhaps these were reasons for the old gentleman giving his assent; but, whether they were or no, he told oliver he might go, and placed him under the joint care of charley bates and his friend, the dodger. the three boys started out; the dodger with his coat-sleeves tucked up and his hat cocked, as usual; master bates sauntering along with his hands in his pockets; and oliver between them, wondering where they were going, and what they would teach him to make first. they were just coming from a narrow court not far from an open square, which is yet called "the green," when the dodger made a sudden stop, and, laying his finger on his lip, drew his companions back again, with the greatest caution. "what's the matter?" demanded oliver. "hush!" replied the dodger. "do you see that old cove at the book-stall?" "the old gentleman over the way?" said oliver. "yes, i see him." "he'll do," said the dodger. "a prime plant," observed master charley bates. oliver looked from one to the other with the greatest surprise, but he was not permitted to make any inquiries; for the two boys walked stealthily across the road and slunk close behind the old gentleman. oliver walked a few paces after them, and, not knowing whether to advance or retire, stood looking on in silent amazement. the old gentleman was a very respectable-looking personage, with a powdered head and gold spectacles, as he stood reading a book; and what was oliver's horror and alarm as he stood a few paces off, looking on with his eyelids as wide open as they would possibly go, to see the dodger plunge his hand into the old gentleman's pocket and draw from thence a handkerchief! to see him hand the same to charley bates; and finally to behold them both running away round the corner. in an instant the whole mystery of the handkerchiefs, and the watches, and the jewels, and the jew, rushed upon the boy's mind. he stood, for a moment, with the blood so tingling through all his veins from terror that he felt as if he were in a burning fire; then, confused and frightened, he took to his heels, and, not knowing what he did, made off as fast as he could lay his feet to the ground. this was all done in a minute's space. in the very instant when oliver began to run, the old gentleman, putting his hand to his pocket, and missing his handkerchief, turned sharp round. seeing the boy scudding away at such a rapid pace, he very naturally concluded him to be the thief; and, shouting "stop thief!" with all his might, made off after him, book in hand. but the old gentleman was not the only person who raised the hue-and-cry. the dodger and master bates, unwilling to attract public attention by running down the open street, had merely retired into the very first doorway round the corner. they no sooner heard the cry, and saw oliver running, than, guessing exactly how the matter stood, they issued forth with great quickness; and shouting "stop thief!" too, joined in the pursuit like good citizens. away they ran, pell-mell, helter-skelter, slap-dash; tearing, yelling, screaming, knocking down the passengers as they turn the corners, rousing up the dogs, and astonishing the fowls; and making streets, squares, and courts re-echo with the sound. at last a burly fellow struck oliver a terrible blow and he went down upon the pavement; and the crowd eagerly gathered round him, each newcomer jostling and struggling with the others to catch a glimpse. "stand aside!" "give him a little air!" "nonsense! he don't deserve it!" "where's the gentleman?" "here he is, coming down the street." "make room there for the gentleman!" "is this the boy, sir?" oliver lay covered with mud and dust, and bleeding from the mouth, looking wildly round upon the heap of faces that surrounded him, when the old gentleman was officiously dragged and pushed into the circle by the foremost of the pursuers. "yes," said the gentleman, "i am afraid it is the boy." "afraid!" murmured the crowd. "that's a good 'un!" "poor fellow!" said the gentleman, "he has hurt himself." "i did that, sir," said a great lubberly fellow, stepping forward; "and preciously i cut my knuckle agin his mouth. i stopped him, sir." the fellow touched his hat with a grin, expecting something for his pains; but the old gentleman, eyeing him with an expression of dislike, looked anxiously round, as if he contemplated running away himself; which it is very possible he might have attempted to do, and thus have afforded another chase, had not a police officer (who is generally the last person to arrive in such cases) at that moment made his way through the crowd, and seized oliver by the collar. "come, get up," said the man, roughly. "it wasn't me, indeed, sir. indeed, indeed, it was two other boys," said oliver, clasping his hands passionately and looking round. "they are here somewhere." "oh no, they ain't," said the officer. he meant this to be ironical, but it was true besides; for the dodger and charley bates had filed off down the first convenient court they came to. "come, get up!" "don't hurt him," said the old gentleman, compassionately. "oh no, i won't hurt him," replied the officer, tearing his jacket half off his back, in proof thereof. "come, i know you; it won't do. will you stand upon your legs, you young devil?" oliver, who could hardly stand, made a shift to raise himself on his feet, and was at once lugged along the streets by the jacket-collar at a rapid pace. the gentleman walked on with them by the officer's side. at last they came to a place called mutton hill. here he was led beneath a low archway, and up a dirty court, where they saw a stout man with a bunch of whiskers on his face and a bunch of keys in his hand. "what's the matter now?" said the man carelessly. "a young fogle-hunter," replied the officer who had oliver in charge. "are you the party that's been robbed, sir?" inquired the man with the keys. "yes, i am," replied the old gentleman; "but i am not sure that this boy actually took the handkerchief. i would rather not press the case." "must go before the magistrate now, sir," replied the man. "his worship will be disengaged in half a minute. now, young gallows!" this was an invitation for oliver to enter through a door which he unlocked as he spoke, and which led into a stone cell. here he was searched, and, nothing being found upon him, locked up. the old gentleman looked almost as unhappy as oliver when the key grated in the lock. at last this gentleman, mr. brownlow, was summoned before the magistrate--a very mean man, whose name was fang. oliver was brought in, and the magistrate, after using very abusive language to mr. brownlow, had him sworn, but would not let him tell his story. he flew into a rage and told the policeman to tell what happened. the policeman, with becoming humility, related how he had taken the boy; how he had searched oliver, and found nothing on his person; and how that was all he knew about it. "are there any witnesses?" inquired mr. fang. "none, your worship," replied the policeman. mr. fang sat silent for some minutes, and then, turning round to mr. brownlow, said in a towering passion: "do you mean to state what your complaint against this boy is, man, or do you not? you have been sworn. now, if you stand there, refusing to give evidence, i'll punish you for disrespect to the bench." with many interruptions, and repeated insults, mr. brownlow contrived to state his case; observing that, in the surprise of the moment, he had run after the boy because he saw him running away. "he has been hurt already," said the old gentleman, in conclusion. "and i fear," he added, with great energy, looking toward the bar, "i really fear that he is ill." "oh! yes, i dare say!" said mr. fang, with a sneer. "come, none of your tricks here, you young vagabond; they won't do. what's your name?" oliver tried to reply, but his tongue failed him. he was deadly pale; and the whole place seemed turning round and round. "what's your name, you hardened scoundrel?" demanded mr. fang. at this point of the inquiry, oliver raised his head, and, looking round with imploring eyes, asked feebly for a drink of water. "stuff and nonsense!" said fang; "don't try to make a fool of me." "i think he really is ill, your worship," said the officer. "i know better," said mr. fang. "take care of him, officer," said the old gentleman, raising his hands instinctively; "he'll fall down." "stand away, officer," cried fang; "let him, if he likes." oliver availed himself of the kind permission, and fell to the floor in a fainting fit. the men in the office looked at each other, but no one dared to stir. "i knew he was shamming," said fang, as if this were enough proof of the fact. "let him lie there; he'll soon be tired of that." "how do you propose to deal with the case, sir?" inquired the clerk in a low voice. "summarily," replied mr. fang. "he stands committed for three months--hard labor, of course. clear the office." the door was opened for this purpose, and a couple of men were preparing to carry the insensible boy to his cell, when an elderly man of decent but poor appearance, clad in an old suit of black, rushed in. "stop! stop! don't take him away! for heaven's sake stop a moment!" cried the newcomer, breathless with haste. "what is this? who is this? turn this man out. clear the office," cried mr. fang. "i _will_ speak," cried the man; "i will not be turned out. i saw it all. i keep the book-stall. i demand to be sworn. i will not be put down. mr. fang, you must hear me. you must not refuse, sir." the man was right. his manner was determined; and the matter was growing rather too serious to be hushed up. "swear the man," growled mr. fang, with a very ill grace. "now, man, what have you to say?" "this," said the man: "i saw three boys--two two others and the prisoner here--loitering on the opposite side of the way, when this gentleman was reading. the robbery was committed by another boy. i saw it done; and i saw this boy was perfectly amazed and stupefied by it." "why didn't you come here before?" said fang, after a pause. "i hadn't a soul to mind the shop," replied the man. "everybody who could have helped me had joined in the pursuit. i could get nobody till five minutes ago; and i have run here all the way to speak the truth." "the boy is discharged. clear the office!" shouted the angry magistrate. the command was obeyed; and as oliver was taken out he fainted away again in the yard, and lay with his face a deadly white and a cold tremble convulsing his frame. "poor boy! poor boy!" said mr. brownlow, bending over him. "call a coach, somebody, pray. directly!" a coach was obtained, and oliver, having been carefully laid on one seat, the old gentleman got in and sat himself on the other. "may i go with you?" said the book-stall keeper, looking in. "bless me, yes, my dear sir," said mr. brownlow quickly. "i forgot you. dear, dear! i have this unhappy book still! jump in. poor fellow! no time to lose." the book-stall keeper got into the coach, and it rattled away. it stopped at length before a neat house, in a quiet shady street. here a bed was prepared, without loss of time, in which mr. brownlow saw his young charge carefully and comfortably laid; and here he was tended with a kindness and solicitude that knew no bounds. at last the sick boy began to recover, and one day mr. brownlow came to see him. you may imagine how happy oliver was to see his good friend; but he was no more delighted than was mr. brownlow. the old gentleman came to spend a short time with him every day; and, when he grew stronger, oliver went up to the learned gentleman's study and talked with him by the hour and was astonished at the books he saw, and which mr. brownlow told him to look at and read as much as he liked. oliver was soon well, and no thought was in mr. brownlow's mind but that he should keep him, and raise him and educate him to be a splendid man; for no father loves his own son better than mr. brownlow had come to love oliver. now, i know, you want to ask me what became of oliver twist. but i cannot tell you here. let us leave him in this beautiful home of good mr. brownlow; and, if you want to read the rest of his wonderful story, get dickens' big book called _oliver twist_, and read it there. there were many surprises and much trouble yet in store for oliver, but he was always noble, honest, and brave. ------the------ famous standard juveniles * * * * * published by the john c. winston co. philadelphia * * * * * edward s. ellis edward s. ellis, the popular writer of boys' books, is a native of ohio, where he was born somewhat more than a half-century ago. his father was a famous hunter and rifle shot, and it was doubtless his exploits and those of his associates, with their tales of adventure which gave the son his taste for the breezy backwoods and for depicting the stirring life of the early settlers on the frontier. mr. ellis began writing at an early age and his work was acceptable from the first. his parents removed to new jersey while he was a boy and he was graduated from the state normal school and became a member of the faculty while still in his teens. he was afterward principal of the trenton high school, a trustee and then superintendent of schools. by that time his services as a writer had become so pronounced that he gave his entire attention to literature. he was an exceptionally successful teacher and wrote a number of text-books for schools, all of which met with high favor. for these and his historical productions, princeton college conferred upon him the degree of master of arts. the high moral character, the clean, manly tendencies and the admirable literary style of mr. ellis' stories have made him as popular on the other side of the atlantic as in this country. a leading paper remarked some time since, that no mother need hesitate to place in the hands of her boy any book written by mr. ellis. they are found in the leading sunday-school libraries, where, as may well be believed, they are in wide demand and do much good by their sound, wholesome lessons which render them as acceptable to parents as to their children. nearly all of the ellis books published by the john c. winston company are reissued in london, and many have been translated into other languages. mr. ellis is a writer of varied accomplishments, and, in addition to his stories, is the author of historical works, of a number of pieces of popular music, and has made several valuable inventions. mr. ellis is in the prime of his mental and physical powers, and great as have been the merits of his past achievements, there is reason to look for more brilliant productions from his pen in the near future. * * * * * deerfoot series vols. by edward s. ellis $ . hunters of the ozark the last war trail camp in the mountains log cabin series vols. by edward s. ellis $ . lost trail footprints in the forest camp-fire and wigwam boy pioneer series vols. by edward s. ellis $ . ned in the block-house ned on the river ned in the woods the northwest series vols. by edward s. ellis $ . two boys in wyoming cowmen and rustlers a strange craft and its wonderful voyage boone and kenton series vols. by edward s. ellis $ . shod with silence in the days of the pioneers phantom of the river war chief series vols. by edward s. ellis $ . red eagle blazing arrow iron heart, war chief of the iroquois the new deerfoot series vols. by edward s. ellis $ . deerfoot in the forest deerfoot on the prairie deerfoot in the mountains true grit series vols. by edward s. ellis $ . jim and joe dorsey, the young inventor secret of coffin island great american series vols. by edward s. ellis $ . teddy and towser; or, early days in california up the forked river colonial series vols. by edward s. ellis $ . an american king the cromwell of virginia the last emperor of the old dominion foreign adventure series vols. by edward s. ellis $ . lost in the forbidden land river and jungle the hunt of the white elephant paddle your own canoe series vols. by edward s. ellis $ . the forest messengers the mountain star queen of the clouds the arizona series vols. by edward s. ellis $ . off the reservation trailing geronimo the round up overland series vols. by edward s. ellis $ . alden, the pony express rider alden among the indians the catamount camp series vols. by edward s. ellis $ . captain of the camp catamount camp the flying boys series vols. by edward s. ellis $ . the flying boys in the sky the flying boys to the rescue * * * * * sent postpaid on receipt of price * * * * * the john c. winston co., _publishers_ winston building philadelphia every child's library books "that every child can read" for four reasons: because the subjects have all proved their lasting popularity. because of the simple language in which they are written. because they have been carefully edited, and anything that might prove objectionable for children's reading has been eliminated. because of their accuracy of statement. this series of books comprises subjects that appeal to all young people. besides the historical subjects that are necessary to the education of children, it also contains standard books written in language that children can read and understand. carefully edited. each work is carefully edited by rev. jesse lyman hurlbut, d.d., to make sure that the style is simple and suitable for young readers, and to eliminate anything which might be objectionable. dr. hurlbut's large and varied experience in the instruction of young people, and in the preparation of literature in language that is easily understood, makes this series of books a welcome addition to libraries, reading circles, schools and home. issued in uniform style of binding. cloth, mo. illustrated. price, cents * * * * * list of titles dickens' stories about children. every child can read lives of our presidents. every child can read leather stocking tales. every child can read pilgrim's progress. every child can read stories about children of all nations. every child can read stories of great americans. every child can read stories of our naval heroes. every child can read story of jesus, the. every child can read story of our country, the. every child can read (others in preparation) catalogue mailed on application * * * * * the john c. winston co., _publishers_ winston building philadelphia hurlbut's story of the bible ***from genesis to revelation by rev. jesse lyman hurlbut, d.d. * * * * * a book for old and young told in language that interests both old and young. "supersedes all other books of the kind." recommended by all denominations for its freshness and accuracy; for its freedom from doctrinal discussion; for its simplicity of language; for its numerous and appropriate illustrations; as the best work on the subject. the greatest aid to parents, teachers and all who wish the bible story in a simplified form. separate stories, each complete in itself, yet forming a continuous narrative of the bible. pages, nearly half-tone illustrations, in colors. octavo. the flexible morocco style "hurlbut's story of the bible" can be obtained in flexible morocco binding with red under gold edges. this new binding will give the work a wider use, for in this convenient form the objection to carrying the ordinary bound book is entirely overcome. this convenient style also contains "hurlbut's bible lessons for boys and girls," a system of questions and answers, based on the stories in the book, by which the old testament story can be taught in a year, and the new testament story can be taught in a year. this edition also contains maps printed in colors, covering the geography of the old testament and of the new testament. those additional features are not included in the cloth bound book, but are only to be obtained in the new flexible morocco style. cloth, extra price, $ . flexible morocco style. bound in french seal, round corners, red under gold edges, extra grained lining, specially sewed to produce absolute flexibility and great durability. each book packed in neat and substantial box price $ . * * * * * the john c. winston co., _publishers_ winston building philadelphia critics uniformly agree that parents can safely place in the hands of boys and girls any book written by edward s. ellis the "flying boys" series by edward s. ellis author of the renowned "deerfoot" books, and other famous volumes for young people during his trip abroad last summer, mr. ellis became intensely interested in æroplane and airship flying in france, and this new series from his pen is the visible result of what he would call a "vacation." he has made a study of the science and art of æronautics, and these books will give boys just the information they want about this marvelous triumph of man. first volume: the flying boys in the sky second volume: the flying boys to the rescue the stories are timely and full of interest and stirring events. handsomely illustrated and with appropriate cover design. price per volume, cents. postpaid * * * * * this series will appeal to up-to-date american girls. the subsequent volumes will carry the ranch girls through numerous ups and downs of fortune and adventures in america and europe the "ranch girls" series is a new line of books for girls ----the---- ranch girls at rainbow lodge by margaret vandercook this first volume of the new ranch girls series, will stir up the envy of all girl readers to a life of healthy exercise and honest helpfulness. the ranch girls undertake the management of a large ranch in a western state, and after many difficulties make it pay and give them a good living. they are jolly, healthy, attractive girls, who have the best kind of a time, and the young readers will enjoy the book as much as any of them. the first volume of the ranch girls series will be followed by other titles carrying the ranch girls through numerous ups and downs of fortune and adventures in america and europe. attractive cover design. excellent paper. illustrated. mo. cloth. price, per volume, cents. postpaid * * * * * the john c. winston co., _publishers_ winston building philadelphia new edition of alger's greatest set of books ----the---- famous ragged dick series new type-set plates made in in response to a demand for a popular-priced edition of this series of books--the most famous set ever written by horatio alger, jr.--this edition has been prepared. each volume is set in large, new type, printed on an excellent quality of paper, and bound in uniform style, having an entirely new and appropriate cover design, with heavy gold stamp. as is well known, the books in this series are copyrighted, and consequently none of them will be found in any other publisher's list. ragged dick series. by horatio alger, jr. vols. ragged dick fame and fortune mark, the match boy rough and ready ben, the luggage boy rufus and rose each set is packed in a handsome box mo. cloth sold only in sets. price per set, $ . . postpaid * * * * * recommended by rear admiral melville, who commanded three expeditions to the arctic regions ----the---- new popular science series by prof. edwin j. houston the north pole series. by prof. edwin j. houston. this is an entirely new series, which opens a new field in juvenile literature. dr. houston has spent a lifetime in teaching boys the principles of physical and scientific phenomena and knows how to talk and write for them in a way that is most attractive. in the reading of these stories the most accurate scientific information will be absorbed. the search for the north pole the discovery of the north pole cast away at the north pole handsomely bound. the volumes, mo. in size, are bound in extra english cloth, and are attractively stamped in colors and full gold titles. sold separately or in sets, boxed. price $ . per volume. postpaid * * * * * the john c. winston co., _publishers_ winston building philadelphia * * * * * transcriber's note: obvious punctuation errors were corrected. page , repeated word "were" removed (were both great personages) page , "though" changed to "through" (yourself through the grating) page , "wardle" changed to "winkle" (winkle, to maintain his) page , "x.iii" changed to "xiii." page , "on" changed to "of" (there's two of you) the posthumous papers of the pickwick club [illustration: _the pickwick club_] the posthumous papers of the pickwick club by charles dickens illustrated by cecil aldin volume the first [illustration] new york e. p. dutton & company west twenty-third street contents chapter i page +the pickwickians+ chapter ii +the first day's journey, and the first evening's adventures; with their consequences+ chapter iii +a new acquaintance. the stroller's tale. a disagreeable interruption, and an unpleasant encounter+ chapter iv +a field-day and bivouac. more new friends. an invitation to the country+ chapter v +a short one. showing, among other matters, how mr. pickwick undertook to drive, and mr. winkle to ride; and how they both did it+ chapter vi +an old-fashioned card-party. the clergyman's verses. the story of the convict's return+ chapter vii +how mr. winkle, instead of shooting at the pigeon and killing the crow, shot at the crow and wounded the pigeon; how the dingley dell cricket club played all-muggleton, and how all-muggleton dined at the dingley dell expense: with other interesting and instructive matters+ chapter viii +strongly illustrative of the position, that the course of true love is not a railway+ chapter ix +a discovery and a chase+ chapter x +clearing up all doubts (if any existed) of the disinterestedness of mr. jingle's character+ chapter xi +involving another journey, and an antiquarian discovery. recording mr. pickwick's determination to be present at an election; and containing a manuscript of the old clergyman's+ chapter xii +descriptive of a very important proceeding on the part of mr. pickwick; no less an epoch in his life, than in this history+ chapter xiii +some account of eatanswill; of the state of parties therein; and of the election of a member to serve in parliament for that ancient, loyal, and patriotic borough+ chapter xiv +comprising a brief description of the company at the peacock assembled; and a tale told by a bagman+ chapter xv +in which is given a faithful portraiture of two distinguished persons; and an accurate description of a public breakfast in their house and grounds: which public breakfast leads to the recognition of an old acquaintance, and the commencement of another chapter+ chapter xvi +too full of adventure to be briefly described+ chapter xvii +showing that an attack of rheumatism in some cases, acts as a quickener to inventive genius+ chapter xviii +briefly illustrative of two points;--first, the power of hysterics, and, secondly, the force of circumstances+ chapter xix +a pleasant day, with an unpleasant termination+ chapter xx +showing how dodson and fogg were men of business, and their clerks men of pleasure; and how an affecting interview took place between mr. weller and his long-lost parent; showing also what choice spirits assembled at the magpie and stump, and what a capital chapter the next one will be+ chapter xxi +in which the old man launches forth into his favourite theme, and relates a story about a queer client+ chapter xxii +mr. pickwick journeys to ipswich, and meets with a romantic adventure with a middle-aged lady in yellow curl-papers+ chapter xxiii +in which mr. samuel weller begins to devote his energies to the return match between himself and mr. trotter+ chapter xxiv +wherein mr. peter magnus grows jealous, and the middle-aged lady apprehensive, which brings the pickwickians within the grasp of the law+ chapter xxv +showing, among a variety of pleasant matters, how majestic and impartial mr. nupkins was, and how mr. weller returned mr. job trotter's shuttlecock as heavily as it came. with another matter, which will be found in its place+ chapter xxvi +which contains a brief account of the progress of the action of bardell against pickwick+ chapter xxvii +samuel weller makes a pilgrimage to dorking, and beholds his mother-in-law+ chapter xxviii +a good-humoured christmas chapter, containing an account of a wedding, and some other sports beside: which although in their way even as good customs as marriage itself, are not quite so religiously kept up, in these degenerate times+ illustrations in colour _the pickwick club_ _frontispiece_ _"wo--o!" cried mr. pickwick. "wo--o!" echoed mr. tupman and mr. snodgrass from the bin_ _facing page_ _mr. pickwick ran to his assistance_ " _"bless my soul!" said mr. winkle, "i declare i forgot the cap"_ " _"love to tuppy--won't you get up behind?--drive on, boys," replied jingle_ " _sam at the white hart_ " _at the table sat mr. tupman, looking as unlike a man who had taken his leave of this world as possible_ " _"she looked up in tom's face and smiled through her tears"_ " _"i won't suffer this barrow to be moved another step unless winkle carries that gun of his in a different manner"_ " _"take example of your father, my boy, and be very careful o' widders all your life"_ " _"i trust, ma'am," resumed mr. pickwick, "that my unblemished character and the devoted respect i entertain for your sex----"_ " _"mother-in-law," said sam, "how are you?"_ " _a distant response is heard from the yard, and mr. pickwick and mr. tupman come running down it_ " in text page _heading to chapter i_ _heading to chapter ii_ _"weeks!" said mr. pickwick in astonishment--and out came the note-book again_ _"what's the fun?" said a rather tall thin young man_ _"my name is winkle, sir"_ _heading to chapter iii_ _heading to chapter iv_ _"damn that boy, he's gone to sleep again"_ _heading to chapter v_ _"t'other side, sir, if you please"_ _heading to chapter vi_ _heading to chapter vii_ _heading to chapter viii_ _"he must have been fast asleep," whispered mr. tupman_ _heading to chapter ix_ _"here i am; but i han't a willin"_ _heading to chapter x_ _sam weller at the keyhole_ _heading to chapter xi_ _"there is an inscription here," said mr. pickwick_ _heading to chapter xii_ _"oh, you kind, good, playful dear"_ _heading to chapter xiii_ _"he has patted the babies on the head"_ _heading to chapter xiv_ _"no other than tom smart"_ _heading to chapter xv_ _mr. pickwick, with the brigand on one arm, and the troubadour on the other_ _heading to chapter xvi_ _"looks as convivial as a live trout in a lime-basket"_ _"who's there?" screamed a numerous chorus of treble voices_ _heading to chapter xvii_ _"open it flew, disclosing nathaniel pipkin"_ _heading to chapter xviii_ _heading to chapter xix_ _"who are you, you rascal?"_ _heading to chapter xx_ _heading to chapter xxi_ _heading to chapter xxii_ _"sam," said mr. pickwick, "where's my bedroom?"_ _heading to chapter xxiii_ _heading to chapter xxiv_ _heading to chapter xxv_ _"you don't mean to say you did that on purpose?"_ _heading to chapter xxvi_ _mrs. bardell and her two friends were getting on very well_ _heading to chapter xxvii_ _heading to chapter xxviii_ _"aha!" said the fat boy_ [illustration: posthumous papers of the pickwick club] chapter i the pickwickians the first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the transactions of the pickwick club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which his search among the multifarious documents confided to him has been conducted. "may , . joseph smiggers, esq., p.v.p.m.p.c.,[ ] presiding. the following resolutions unanimously agreed to:-- [ ] perpetual vice-president--member pickwick club. "that this association has heard read, with feelings of unmingled satisfaction, and unqualified approval, the paper communicated by samuel pickwick, esq., g.c.m.p.c.,[ ] entitled 'speculations on the source of the hampstead ponds, with some observations on the theory of tittlebats'; and that this association does hereby return its warmest thanks to the said samuel pickwick, esq., g.c.m.p.c., for the same. [ ] general chairman--member pickwick club. "that while this association is deeply sensible of the advantages which must accrue to the cause of science from the production to which they have just adverted,--no less than from the unwearied researches of samuel pickwick, esq., g.c.m.p.c., in hornsey, highgate, brixton, and camberwell,--they cannot but entertain a lively sense of the inestimable benefits which must inevitably result from carrying the speculations of that learned man into a wider field, from extending his travels, and consequently enlarging his sphere of observation, to the advancement of knowledge, and the diffusion of learning. "that, with the view just mentioned, this association has taken into its serious consideration a proposal, emanating from the aforesaid samuel pickwick, esq., g.c.m.p.c., and three other pickwickians hereinafter named, for forming a new branch of united pickwickians, under the title of the corresponding society of the pickwick club. "that the said proposal has received the sanction and approval of this association. "that the corresponding society of the pickwick club is therefore hereby constituted; and that samuel pickwick, esq., g.c.m.p.c., tracy tupman, esq., m.p.c., augustus snodgrass, esq., m.p.c., and nathaniel winkle, esq., m.p.c., are hereby nominated and appointed members of the same; and that they be requested to forward, from time to time, authenticated accounts of their journeys and investigations, of their observations of character and manners, and of the whole of their adventures, together with all tales and papers to which local scenery or associations may give rise, to the pickwick club, stationed in london. "that this association cordially recognises the principle of every member of the corresponding society defraying his own travelling expenses; and that it sees no objection whatever to the members of the said society pursuing their inquiries for any length of time they please, upon the same terms. "that the members of the aforesaid corresponding society be, and are, hereby informed, that their proposal to pay the postage of their letters, and the carriage of their parcels, has been deliberated upon by this association: that this association considers such proposal worthy of the great minds from which it emanated, and that it hereby signifies its perfect acquiescence therein." a casual observer, adds the secretary, to whose notes we are indebted for the following account--a casual observer might possibly have remarked nothing extraordinary in the bald head, and circular spectacles, which were intently turned towards his (the secretary's) face, during the reading of the above resolutions: to those who knew that the gigantic brain of pickwick was working beneath that forehead, and that the beaming eyes of pickwick were twinkling behind those glasses, the sight was indeed an interesting one. there sat the man who had traced to their source the mighty ponds of hampstead, and agitated the scientific world with his theory of tittlebats, as calm and unmoved as the deep waters of the one on a frosty day, or as a solitary specimen of the other in the inmost recesses of an earthen jar. and how much more interesting did the spectacle become, when, starting into full life and animation, as a simultaneous call for "pickwick" burst from his followers, that illustrious man slowly mounted into the windsor chair, on which he had been previously seated, and addressed the club himself had founded. what a study for an artist did that exciting scene present! the eloquent pickwick, with one hand gracefully concealed behind his coat tails, and the other waving in air, to assist his glowing declamation; his elevated position revealing those tights and gaiters, which, had they clothed an ordinary man, might have passed without observation, but which, when pickwick clothed them--if we may use the expression--inspired involuntary awe and respect; surrounded by the men who had volunteered to share the perils of his travels, and who were destined to participate in the glories of his discoveries. on his right hand sat mr. tracy tupman--the too susceptible tupman, who to the wisdom and experience of maturer years superadded the enthusiasm and ardour of a boy, in the most interesting and pardonable of human weaknesses--love. time and feeding had expanded that once romantic form; the black silk waistcoat had become more and more developed; inch by inch had the gold watch-chain beneath it disappeared from within the range of tupman's vision; and gradually had the capacious chin encroached upon the borders of the white cravat: but the soul of tupman had known no change--admiration of the fair sex was still its ruling passion. on the left of his great leader sat the poetic snodgrass, and near him again the sporting winkle, the former poetically enveloped in a mysterious blue cloak with a canine-skin collar, and the latter communicating additional lustre to a new green shooting coat, plaid neckerchief, and closely-fitted drabs. mr. pickwick's oration upon this occasion, together with the debate thereon, is entered on the transactions of the club. both bear a strong affinity to the discussions of other celebrated bodies; and, as it is always interesting to trace a resemblance between the proceedings of great men, we transfer the entry to these pages. "mr. pickwick observed (says the secretary) that fame was dear to the heart of every man. poetic fame was dear to the heart of his friend snodgrass; the fame of conquest was equally dear to his friend tupman; and the desire of earning fame in the sports of the field, the air, and the water, was uppermost in the breast of his friend winkle. he (mr. pickwick) would not deny that he was influenced by human passions, and human feelings (cheers)--possibly by human weaknesses--(loud cries of 'no'); but this he would say, that if ever the fire of self-importance broke out in his bosom, the desire to benefit the human race in preference effectually quenched it. the praise of mankind was his swing; philanthropy was his insurance office. (vehement cheering.) he had felt some pride--he acknowledged it freely, and let his enemies make the most of it--he had felt some pride when he presented his tittlebatian theory to the world; it might be celebrated or it might not. (a cry of 'it is,' and great cheering.) he would take the assertion of that honourable pickwickian whose voice he had just heard--it was celebrated; but if the fame of that treatise were to extend to the furthest confines of the known world, the pride with which he should reflect on the authorship of that production would be as nothing compared with the pride with which he looked around him, on this, the proudest moment of his existence. (cheers.) he was a humble individual. ('no, no.') still he could not but feel that they had selected him for a service of great honour, and of some danger. travelling was in a troubled state, and the minds of coachmen were unsettled. let them look abroad, and contemplate the scenes which were enacting around them. stage coaches were upsetting in all directions, horses were bolting, boats were overturning, and boilers were bursting. (cheers--a voice 'no.') no! (cheers.) let that honourable pickwickian who cried 'no' so loudly come forward and deny it, if he could. (cheers.) who was it that cried 'no'? (enthusiastic cheering.) was it some vain and disappointed man--he would not say haberdasher--(loud cheers)--who, jealous of the praise which had been--perhaps undeservedly--bestowed on his (mr. pickwick's) researches, and smarting under the censure which had been heaped upon his own feeble attempts at rivalry, now took this vile and calumnious mode of---- "mr. +blotton+ (of aldgate) rose to order. did the honourable pickwickian allude to him? (cries of 'order,' 'chair,' 'yes,' 'no,' 'go on,' 'leave off,' &c.) "mr. +pickwick+ would not put up to be put down by clamour. he _had_ alluded to the honourable gentleman. (great excitement.) "mr. +blotton+ would only say then, that he repelled the hon. gent.'s false and scurrilous accusation, with profound contempt. (great cheering.) the hon. gent. was a humbug. (immense confusion, and loud cries of 'chair' and 'order.') "mr. +a. snodgrass+ rose to order. he threw himself upon the chair. (hear.) he wished to know whether this disgraceful contest between two members of that club should be allowed to continue. (hear, hear.) "the +chairman+ was quite sure the hon. pickwickian would withdraw the expression he had just made use of. "mr. +blotton+, with all possible respect for the chair, was quite sure he would not. "the +chairman+ felt it his imperative duty to demand of the honourable gentleman, whether he had used the expression which had just escaped him in a common sense. "mr. +blotton+ had no hesitation in saying that he had not--he had used the word in its pickwickian sense. (hear, hear.) he was bound to acknowledge that, personally, he entertained the highest regard and esteem for the honourable gentleman; he had merely considered him a humbug in a pickwickian point of view. (hear, hear.) "mr. +pickwick+ felt much gratified by the fair, candid, and full explanation of his honourable friend. he begged it to be at once understood, that his own observations had been merely intended to bear a pickwickian construction. (cheers.)" here the entry terminates, as we have no doubt the debate did also, after arriving at such a highly satisfactory and intelligible point. we have no official statement of the facts which the reader will find recorded in the next chapter, but they have been carefully collated from letters and other ms. authorities, so unquestionably genuine as to justify their narration in a connected form. chapter ii [illustration] _the first day's journey, and the first evening's adventures; with their consequences_ that punctual servant of all work, the sun, had just risen, and begun to strike a light on the morning of the thirteenth of may, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, when mr. samuel pickwick burst like another sun from his slumbers, threw open his chamber window, and looked out upon the world beneath. goswell street was at his feet, goswell street was on his right hand--as far as the eye could reach, goswell street extended on his left; and the opposite side of goswell street was over the way. "such," thought mr. pickwick, "are the narrow views of those philosophers who, content with examining the things that lie before them, look not to the truths which are hidden beyond. as well might i be content to gaze on goswell street for ever, without one effort to penetrate to the hidden countries which on every side surround it." and having given vent to this beautiful reflection, mr. pickwick proceeded to put himself into his clothes, and his clothes into his portmanteau. great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire; the operation of shaving, dressing, and coffee-imbibing was soon performed: and in another hour, mr. pickwick, with his portmanteau in his hand, his telescope in his great-coat pocket, and his note-book in his waistcoat, ready for the reception of any discoveries worthy of being noted down, had arrived at the coach-stand in st. martin's-le-grand. "cab!" said mr. pickwick. "here you are, sir," shouted a strange specimen of the human race, in a sackcloth coat, and apron of the same, who with a brass label and number round his neck, looked as if he were catalogued in some collection of rarities. this was the waterman. "here you are, sir. now, then, fust cab!" and the first cab having been fetched from the public-house, where he had been smoking his first pipe, mr. pickwick and his portmanteau were thrown into the vehicle. "golden cross," said mr. pickwick. "only a bob's vorth, tommy," cried the driver, sulkily, for the information of his friend the waterman, as the cab drove off. "how old is that horse, my friend?" inquired mr. pickwick, rubbing his nose with the shilling he had reserved for the fare. "forty-two," replied the driver, eyeing him askant. "what!" ejaculated mr. pickwick, laying his hand upon his note-book. the driver reiterated his former statement. mr. pickwick looked very hard at the man's face, but his features were immovable, so he noted down the fact forthwith. "and how long do you keep him out at a time?" inquired mr. pickwick, searching for further information. "two or three veeks," replied the man. "weeks!" said mr. pickwick in astonishment--and out came the note-book again. "he lives at pentonwil when he's at home," observed the driver coolly, "but we seldom takes him home, on account of his veakness." "on account of his weakness!" reiterated the perplexed mr. pickwick. "he always falls down when he's took out o' the cab," continued the driver, "but when he's in it, we bears him up wery tight, and takes him in wery short, so as he can't wery well fall down; and we've got a pair o' precious large wheels on, so ven he _does_ move, they run after him, and he must go on--he can't help it." mr. pickwick entered every word of this statement in his note-book, with the view of communicating it to the club, as a singular instance of the tenacity of life in horses, under trying circumstances. the entry was scarcely completed when they reached the golden cross. down jumped the driver, and out got mr. pickwick. mr. tupman, mr. snodgrass, and mr. winkle, who had been anxiously waiting the arrival of their illustrious leader, crowded to welcome him. [illustration: _"weeks!" said mr. pickwick in astonishment--and out came the note-book again_] "here's your fare," said mr. pickwick, holding out the shilling to the driver. what was the learned man's astonishment, when that unaccountable person flung the money on the pavement, and requested in figurative terms to be allowed the pleasure of fighting him (mr. pickwick) for the amount! "you are mad," said mr. snodgrass. "or drunk," said mr. winkle. "or both," said mr. tupman. "come on!" said the cab-driver, sparring away like clock-work. "come on--all four on you." "here's a lark!" shouted half-a-dozen hackney coachmen. "go to vork, sam,"--and they crowded with great glee round the party. "what's the row, sam?" inquired one gentleman in black calico sleeves. "row!" replied the cabman, "what did he want my number for?" "i didn't want your number," said the astonished mr. pickwick. "what did you take it for, then?" inquired the cabman. "i didn't take it," said mr. pickwick, indignantly. "would anybody believe," continued the cab-driver, appealing to the crowd, "would anybody believe as an informer 'ud go about in a man's cab, not only takin' down his number, but ev'ry word he says into the bargain" (a light flashed upon mr. pickwick--it was the note-book). "did he though?" inquired another cabman. "yes, did he," replied the first; "and then arter aggerawatin' me to assault him, gets three witnesses here to prove it. but i'll give it him, if i've six months for it. come on!" and the cabman dashed his hat upon the ground, with a reckless disregard of his own private property, and knocked mr. pickwick's spectacles off, and followed up the attack with a blow on mr. pickwick's nose, and another on mr. pickwick's chest, and a third in mr. snodgrass's eye, and a fourth, by way of variety, in mr. tupman's waistcoat, and then danced into the road, and then back again to the pavement, and finally dashed the whole temporary supply of breath out of mr. winkle's body; and all in half-a-dozen seconds. "where's an officer?" said mr. snodgrass. "put 'em under the pump," suggested a hot-pieman. "you shall smart for this," gasped mr. pickwick. "informers!" shouted the crowd. "come on," cried the cabman, who had been sparring without cessation the whole time. the mob had hitherto been passive spectators of the scene, but as the intelligence of the pickwickians being informers was spread among them, they began to canvass with considerable vivacity the propriety of enforcing the heated pastry-vendor's proposition; and there is no saying what acts of personal aggression they might have committed had not the affray been unexpectedly terminated by the interposition of a new comer. [illustration: _"what's the fun?" said a rather tall thin young man_] "what's the fun?" said a rather tall thin young man, in a green coat, emerging suddenly from the coach-yard. "informers!" shouted the crowd again. "we are not," roared mr. pickwick, in a tone which, to any dispassionate listener, carried conviction with it. "ain't you, though,--ain't you?" said the young man, appealing to mr. pickwick, and making his way through the crowd by the infallible process of elbowing the countenances of its component members. that learned man in a few hurried words explained the real state of the case. "come along, then," said he of the green coat, lugging mr. pickwick after him by main force, and talking the whole way. "here, no. , take your fare, and take yourself off--respectable gentleman--know him well--none of your nonsense--this way, sir,--where's your friends?--all a mistake, i see--never mind--accidents will happen--best regulated families--never say die--down upon your luck--pull him up--put that in his pipe--like the flavour--damned rascals." and with a lengthened string of similar broken sentences, delivered with extraordinary volubility, the stranger led the way to the travellers' waiting-room, whither he was closely followed by mr. pickwick and his disciples. "here, waiter!" shouted the stranger, ringing the bell with tremendous violence, "glasses round,--brandy and water, hot and strong, and sweet, and plenty,--eye damaged, sir? waiter! raw beef-steak for the gentleman's eye,--nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir; cold lamp-post very good, but lamp-post inconvenient--damned odd standing in the open street half-an-hour, with your eye against a lamp-post--eh,--very good,--ha! ha!" and the stranger, without stopping to take breath, swallowed at a draught full half-a-pint of the reeking brandy and water, and flung himself into a chair with as much ease as if nothing uncommon had occurred. while his three companions were busily engaged in proffering their thanks to their new acquaintance, mr. pickwick had leisure to examine his costume and appearance. he was about the middle height, but the thinness of his body, and the length of his legs, gave him the appearance of being much taller. the green coat had been a smart dress garment in the days of swallow-tails, but had evidently in those times adorned a much shorter man than the stranger, for the soiled and faded sleeves scarcely reached to his wrists. it was buttoned closely up to his chin, at the imminent hazard of splitting the back; and an old stock, without a vestige of shirt collar, ornamented his neck. his scanty black trousers displayed here and there those shiny patches which bespeak long service, and were strapped very tightly over a pair of patched and mended shoes, as if to conceal the dirty white stockings, which were nevertheless distinctly visible. his long black hair escaped in negligent waves from beneath each side of his old pinched-up hat; and glimpses of his bare wrists might be observed between the tops of his gloves and the cuffs of his coat sleeves. his face was thin and haggard; but an indescribable air of jaunty impudence and perfect self-possession pervaded the whole man. such was the individual on whom mr. pickwick gazed through his spectacles (which he had fortunately recovered), and to whom he proceeded, when his friends had exhausted themselves, to return in chosen terms his warmest thanks for his recent assistance. "never mind," said the stranger, cutting the address very short, "said enough,--no more; smart chap that cabman--handled his fives well; but if i'd been your friend in the green jemmy--damn me--punch his head,--'cod i would,--pig's whisper--pieman too,--no gammon." this coherent speech was interrupted by the entrance of the rochester coachman, to announce that "the commodore" was on the point of starting. "commodore!" said the stranger, starting up, "my coach,--place booked,--one outside--leave you to pay for the brandy and water,--want change for a five,--bad silver--brummagem buttons--won't do--no go--eh?" and he shook his head most knowingly. now it so happened that mr. pickwick and his three companions had resolved to make rochester their first halting-place too; and having intimated to their new-found acquaintance that they were journeying to the same city, they agreed to occupy the seat at the back of the coach, where they could all sit together. "up with you," said the stranger, assisting mr. pickwick on to the roof with so much precipitation as to impair the gravity of that gentleman's deportment very materially. "any luggage, sir?" inquired the coachman. "who--i? brown paper parcel here, that's all,--other luggage gone by water,--packing cases, nailed up--big as houses--heavy, heavy, damned heavy," replied the stranger, as he forced into his pocket as much as he could of the brown paper parcel, which presented most suspicious indications of containing one shirt and a handkerchief. "heads, heads--take care of your heads!" cried the loquacious stranger, as they came out under the low archway, which in those days formed the entrance to the coach-yard. "terrible place--dangerous work--other day--five children--mother--tall lady eating sandwiches--forgot the arch--crash--knock--children look round--mother's head off--sandwich in her hand--no mouth to put it in--head of a family off, shocking, shocking! looking at whitehall, sir?--fine place--little window--somebody else's head off there, eh, sir?--he didn't keep a sharp look-out enough either--eh, sir, eh?" "i am ruminating," said mr. pickwick, "on the strange mutability of human affairs." "ah! i see--in at the palace door one day, out at the window the next. philosopher, sir?" "an observer of human nature, sir," said mr. pickwick. "ah, so am i. most people are when they've little to do and less to get. poet, sir?" "my friend mr. snodgrass has a strong poetic turn," said mr. pickwick. "so have i," said the stranger. "epic poem,--ten thousand lines--revolution of july--composed it on the spot--mars by day, apollo by night,--bang the field-piece, twang the lyre." "you were present at that glorious scene, sir?" said mr. snodgrass. "present! think i was;[ ] fired a musket,--fired with an idea,--rushed into wine shop--wrote it down--back again--whiz, bang--another idea--wine shop again--pen and ink--back again--cut and slash--noble time, sir. sportsman, sir?" abruptly turning to mr. winkle. [ ] a remarkable instance of the prophetic force of mr. jingle's imagination, this dialogue occurring in the year , and the revolution in . "a little, sir," replied that gentleman. "fine pursuit, sir,--fine pursuit.--dogs, sir?" "not just now," said mr. winkle. "ah! you should keep dogs--fine animals--sagacious creatures--dog of my own once--pointer--surprising instinct--out shooting one day--entering enclosure--whistled--dog stopped--whistled again--ponto--no go; stock still--called him--ponto, ponto--wouldn't move--dog transfixed--staring at a board--looked up, saw an inscription--'gamekeeper has orders to shoot all dogs found in this enclosure'--wouldn't pass it--wonderful dog--valuable dog that--very." "singular circumstance that," said mr. pickwick. "will you allow me to make a note of it?" "certainly, sir, certainly--hundred more anecdotes of the same animal.--fine girl, sir" (to mr. tracy tupman, who had been bestowing sundry anti-pickwickian glances on a young lady by the roadside). "very!" said mr. tupman. "english girls not so fine as spanish--noble creatures--jet hair--black eyes--lovely forms--sweet creatures--beautiful." "you have been in spain, sir?" said mr. tracy tupman. "lived there--ages." "many conquests, sir?" inquired mr. tupman. "conquests! thousands. don bolaro fizzgig--grandee--only daughter--donna christina--splendid creature--loved me to distraction--jealous father--high-souled daughter--handsome englishman--donna christina in despair--prussic acid--stomach pump in my portmanteau--operation performed--old bolaro in ecstasies--consent to our union--join hands and floods of tears--romantic story--very." "is the lady in england now, sir?" inquired mr. tupman, on whom the description of her charms had produced a powerful impression. "dead, sir--dead," said the stranger, applying to his right eye the brief remnant of a very old cambric handkerchief. "never recovered the stomach pump--undermined constitution--fell a victim." "and her father?" inquired the poetic snodgrass. "remorse and misery," replied the stranger. "sudden disappearance--talk of the whole city--search made everywhere--without success--public fountain in the great square suddenly ceased playing--weeks elapsed--still a stoppage--workman employed to clean it--water drawn off--father-in-law discovered sticking head first in the main pipe, with a full confession in his right boot--took him out, and the fountain played away again, as well as ever." "will you allow me to note that little romance down, sir?" said mr. snodgrass, deeply affected. "certainly, sir, certainly,--fifty more if you like to hear 'em--strange life mine--rather curious history--not extraordinary, but singular." in this strain, with an occasional glass of ale, by way of parenthesis, when the coach changed horses, did the stranger proceed, until they reached rochester bridge, by which time the note-books, both of mr. pickwick and mr. snodgrass, were completely filled with selections from his adventures. "magnificent ruin!" said mr. augustus snodgrass, with all the poetic fervour that distinguished him, when they came in sight of the fine old castle. "what a study for an antiquarian!" were the very words which fell from mr. pickwick's mouth, as he applied his telescope to his eye. "ah! fine place," said the stranger, "glorious pile--frowning walls--tottering arches--dark nooks--crumbling staircases--old cathedral too--earthy smell--pilgrims' feet worn away the old steps--little saxon doors--confessionals like money-takers' boxes at theatres--queer customers those monks--popes, and lord treasurers, and all sorts of old fellows, with great red faces, and broken noses, turning up every day--buff jerkins too--matchlocks--sarcophagus--fine place--old legends too--strange stories: capital;" and the stranger continued to soliloquise until they reached the bull inn, in the high street, where the coach stopped. "do you remain here, sir?" inquired mr. nathaniel winkle. "here--not i--but you'd better--good house--nice beds--wright's next house, dear--very dear--half-a-crown in the bill if you look at the waiter--charge you more if you dine at a friend's than they would if you dined in the coffee-room--rum fellows--very." mr. winkle turned to mr. pickwick, and murmured a few words; a whisper passed from mr. pickwick to mr. snodgrass, from mr. snodgrass to mr. tupman, and nods of assent were exchanged. mr. pickwick addressed the stranger. "you rendered us a very important service this morning, sir," said he, "will you allow us to offer a slight mark of our gratitude by begging the favour of your company at dinner?" "great pleasure--not presume to dictate, but broiled fowl and mushrooms--capital thing! what time?" "let me see," replied mr. pickwick, referring to his watch, "it is now nearly three. shall we say five?" "suit me excellently," said the stranger, "five precisely--till then--care of yourselves;" and lifting the pinched-up hat a few inches from his head, and carelessly replacing it very much on one side, the stranger, with half the brown paper parcel sticking out of his pocket, walked briskly up the yard, and turned into the high street. "evidently a traveller in many countries, and a close observer of men and things," said mr. pickwick. "i should like to see his poem," said mr. snodgrass. "i should like to have seen that dog," said mr. winkle. mr. tupman said nothing; but he thought of donna christina, the stomach pump, and the fountain; and his eyes filled with tears. a private sitting-room having been engaged, bed-rooms inspected, and dinner ordered, the party walked out to view the city and adjoining neighbourhood. we do not find, from a careful perusal of mr. pickwick's notes on the four towns, stroud, rochester, chatham, and brompton, that his impressions of their appearance differ in any material point from those of other travellers who have gone over the same ground. his general description is easily abridged. "the principal productions of these towns," says mr. pickwick, "appear to be soldiers, sailors, jews, chalk, shrimps, officers, and dockyard men. the commodities chiefly exposed for sale in the public streets are marine stores, hard-bake, apples, flat-fish, and oysters. the streets present a lively and animated appearance, occasioned chiefly by the conviviality of the military. it is truly delightful to a philanthropic mind, to see these gallant men staggering along under the influence of an overflow, both of animal and ardent spirits; more especially when we remember that the following them about, and jesting with them, affords a cheap and innocent amusement for the boy population. nothing (adds mr. pickwick) can exceed their good humour. it was but the day before my arrival that one of them had been most grossly insulted in the house of a publican. the bar-maid had positively refused to draw him any more liquor; in return for which he had (merely in playfulness) drawn his bayonet, and wounded the girl in the shoulder. and yet this fine fellow was the very first to go down to the house next morning, and express his readiness to overlook the matter, and forget what had occurred. "the consumption of tobacco in these towns (continues mr. pickwick) must be very great: and the smell which pervades the streets must be exceedingly delicious to those who are extremely fond of smoking. a superficial traveller might object to the dirt, which is their leading characteristic; but to those who view it as an indication of traffic and commercial prosperity, it is truly gratifying." punctual to five o'clock came the stranger, and shortly afterwards the dinner. he had divested himself of his brown paper parcel, but had made no alteration in his attire, and was, if possible, more loquacious than ever. "what's that?" he inquired, as the waiter removed one of the covers. "soles, sir." "soles--ah!--capital fish--all come from london--stage-coach proprietors get up political dinners--carriage of soles--dozens of baskets--cunning fellows. glass of wine, sir?" "with pleasure," said mr. pickwick, and the stranger took wine, first with him, and then with mr. snodgrass, and then with mr. tupman, and then with mr. winkle, and then with the whole party together, almost as rapidly as he talked. "devil of a mess on the staircase, waiter," said the stranger. "forms going up--carpenters coming down--lamps, glasses, harps. what's going forward?" "ball, sir," said the waiter. "assembly, eh?" "no, sir, not assembly, sir. ball for the benefit of a charity, sir." "many fine women in this town, do you know, sir?" inquired mr. tupman, with great interest. "splendid--capital. kent, sir--everybody knows kent--apples, cherries, hops, and women. glass of wine, sir?" "with great pleasure," replied mr. tupman. the stranger filled, and emptied. "i should very much like to go," said mr. tupman, resuming the subject of the ball, "very much." "tickets at the bar, sir," interposed the waiter; "half a guinea each, sir." mr. tupman again expressed an earnest wish to be present at the festivity, but meeting with no response in the darkened eye of mr. snodgrass, or the abstracted gaze of mr. pickwick, he applied himself with great interest to the port wine and dessert, which had just been placed on the table. the waiter withdrew, and the party were left to enjoy the cosy couple of hours succeeding dinner. "beg your pardon, sir," said the stranger, "bottle stands--pass it round--way of the sun--through the button-hole--no heeltaps," and he emptied his glass, which he had filled about two minutes before, and poured out another, with the air of a man who was used to it. the wine was passed, and a fresh supply ordered. the visitor talked, the pickwickians listened. mr. tupman felt every moment more disposed for the ball. mr. pickwick's countenance glowed with an expression of universal philanthropy, and mr. winkle and mr. snodgrass fell fast asleep. "they're beginning up-stairs," said the stranger--"hear the company--fiddles tuning--now the harp--there they go." the various sounds which found their way down-stairs announced the commencement of the first quadrille. "how i should like to go," said mr. tupman again. "so should i," said the stranger,--"confounded luggage--heavy smacks--nothing to go in--odd, an't it?" now general benevolence was one of the leading features of the pickwickian theory, and no one was more remarkable for the zealous manner in which he observed so noble a principle than mr. tracy tupman. the number of instances recorded on the transactions of the society, in which that excellent man referred objects of charity to the houses of other members for left-off garments, or pecuniary relief, is almost incredible. "i should be very happy to lend you a change of apparel for the purpose," said mr. tracy tupman, "but you are rather slim, and i am----" "rather fat--grown up bacchus--cut the leaves--dismounted from the tub, and adopted kersey, eh?--not double distilled, but double milled--ha! ha! pass the wine." whether mr. tupman was somewhat indignant at the peremptory tone in which he was desired to pass the wine which the stranger passed so quickly away, or whether he felt very properly scandalised at an influential member of the pickwick club being ignominiously compared to a dismounted bacchus, is a fact not yet completely ascertained. he passed the wine, coughed twice, and looked at the stranger for several seconds with a stern intensity; as that individual, however, appeared perfectly collected, and quite calm under his searching glance, he gradually relaxed, and reverted to the subject of the ball. "i was about to observe, sir," he said, "that though my apparel would be too large, a suit of my friend mr. winkle's would perhaps fit you better." the stranger took mr. winkle's measure with his eye, and that feature glistened with satisfaction as he said--"just the thing." mr. tupman looked round him. the wine, which had exerted its somniferous influence over mr. snodgrass and mr. winkle, had stolen upon the senses of mr. pickwick. that gentleman had gradually passed through the various stages which precede the lethargy produced by dinner, and its consequences. he had undergone the ordinary transitions from the height of conviviality to the depth of misery, and from the depth of misery to the height of conviviality. like a gas lamp in the street, with the wind in the pipe, he had exhibited for a moment an unnatural brilliancy: then sunk so low as to be scarcely discernible: after a short interval he had burst out again, to enlighten for a moment, then flickered with an uncertain, staggering sort of light, and then gone out altogether. his head was sunk upon his bosom, and perpetual snoring, with a partial choke occasionally, were the only audible indications of the great man's presence. the temptation to be present at the ball, and to form his first impressions of the beauty of the kentish ladies, was strong upon mr. tupman. the temptation to take the stranger with him was equally great. he was wholly unacquainted with the place and its inhabitants, and the stranger seemed to possess as great a knowledge of both as if he had lived there from his infancy. mr. winkle was asleep, and mr. tupman had had sufficient experience in such matters to know that the moment he awoke he would, in the ordinary course of nature, roll heavily to bed. he was undecided. "fill your glass, and pass the wine," said the indefatigable visitor. mr. tupman did as he was requested, and the additional stimulus of the last glass settled his determination. "winkle's bedroom is inside mine," said mr. tupman; "i couldn't make him understand what i wanted if i woke him now, but i know he has a dress suit in a carpet bag, and supposing you wore it to the ball, and took it off when we returned, i could replace it without troubling him at all about the matter." "capital," said the stranger, "famous plan--damned odd situation--fourteen coats in the packing cases, and obliged to wear another man's--very good notion, that--very." "we must purchase our tickets," said mr. tupman. "not worth while splitting a guinea," said the stranger, "toss who shall pay for both--i call; you spin--first time--woman--woman--bewitching woman," and down came the sovereign, with the dragon (called by courtesy a woman) uppermost. mr. tupman rang the bell, purchased the tickets, and ordered chamber candlesticks. in another quarter of an hour the stranger was completely arrayed in a full suit of mr. nathaniel winkle's. "it's a new coat," said mr. tupman, as the stranger surveyed himself with great complacency in a cheval glass, "the first that's been made with our club button," and he called his companion's attention to the large gilt button which displayed a bust of mr. pickwick in the centre, and the letters "p. c." on either side. "p. c.," said the stranger--"queer set out--old fellow's likeness, and 'p. c.'--what does 'p. c.' stand for--peculiar coat, eh?" mr. tupman, with rising indignation and great importance, explained the mystic device. "rather short in the waist, an't it," said the stranger, screwing himself round to catch a glimpse in the glass of the waist buttons, which were half way up his back. "like a general postman's coat--queer coats those--made by contract--no measuring--mysterious dispensations of providence--all the short men get long coats--all the long men short ones." running on in this way, mr. tupman's new companion adjusted his dress, or rather the dress of mr. winkle; and, accompanied by mr. tupman, ascended the staircase leading to the ball-room. "what names, sir?" said the man at the door. mr. tracy tupman was stepping forward to announce his own titles, when the stranger prevented him. "no names at all;" and then he whispered mr. tupman, "names won't do--not known--very good names in their way, but not great ones--capital names for a small party, but won't make an impression in public assemblies--_incog._ the thing--gentlemen from london--distinguished foreigners--anything." the door was thrown open; and mr. tracy tupman and the stranger entered the ball-room. it was a long room, with crimson-covered benches, and wax candles in glass chandeliers. the musicians were securely confined in an elevated den, and quadrilles were being systematically got through by two or three sets of dancers. two card-tables were made up in the adjoining card-room, and two pair of old ladies, and a corresponding number of stout gentlemen, were executing whist therein. the finale concluded, the dancers promenaded the room, and mr. tupman and his companion stationed themselves in a corner to observe the company. "charming women," said mr. tupman. "wait a minute," said the stranger, "fun presently--nobs not come yet--queer place--dock-yard people of upper rank don't know dock-yard people of lower rank--dock-yard people of lower rank don't know small gentry--small gentry don't know tradespeople--commissioner don't know anybody." "who's that little boy with the light hair and pink eyes, in a fancy dress?" inquired mr. tupman. "hush, pray--pink eyes--fancy dress--little boy--nonsense--ensign th--honourable wilmot snipe--great family--snipes--very." "sir thomas clubber, lady clubber, and the miss clubbers!" shouted the man at the door in a stentorian voice. a great sensation was created throughout the room by the entrance of a tall gentleman in a blue coat and bright buttons, a large lady in blue satin, and two young ladies, on a similar scale, in fashionably-made dresses of the same hue. "commissioner--head of the yard--great man--remarkably great man," whispered the stranger in mr. tupman's ear, as the charitable committee ushered sir thomas clubber and family to the top of the room. the honourable wilmot snipe and other distinguished gentlemen crowded to render homage to the miss clubbers; and sir thomas clubber stood bolt upright, and looked majestically over his black neckerchief at the assembled company. "mr. smithie, mrs. smithie, and the misses smithie," was the next announcement. "what's mr. smithie?" inquired mr. tracy tupman. "something in the yard," replied the stranger. mr. smithie bowed deferentially to sir thomas clubber, and sir thomas clubber acknowledged the salute with conscious condescension. lady clubber took a telescopic view of mrs. smithie and family through her eye-glass, and mrs. smithie stared in her turn at mrs. somebody else, whose husband was not in the dock-yard at all. "colonel bulder, mrs. colonel bulder, and miss bulder," were the next arrivals. "head of the garrison," said the stranger, in reply to mr. tupman's inquiring look. miss bulder was warmly welcomed by the miss clubbers; the greeting between mrs. colonel bulder and lady clubber was of the most affectionate description; colonel bulder and sir thomas clubber exchanged snuff-boxes, and looked very much like a pair of alexander selkirks--"monarchs of all they surveyed." while the aristocracy of the place--the bulders, and clubbers, and snipes--were thus preserving their dignity at the upper end of the room, the other classes of society were imitating their example in other parts of it. the less aristocratic officers of the th devoted themselves to the families of the less important functionaries from the dock-yard. the solicitors' wives and the wine-merchant's wife headed another grade (the brewer's wife visited the bulders); and mrs. tomlinson, the post-office keeper, seemed by mutual consent to have been chosen the leader of the trade party. one of the most popular personages in his own circle present was a little fat man, with a ring of upright black hair round his head, and an extensive bald plain on the top of it--doctor slammer, surgeon to the th. the doctor took snuff with everybody, chatted with everybody, laughed, danced, made jokes, played whist, did everything, and was everywhere. to these pursuits, multifarious as they were, the little doctor added a more important one than any--he was indefatigable in paying the most unremitting and devoted attention to a little old widow, whose rich dress and profusion of ornament bespoke her a most desirable addition to a limited income. upon the doctor, and the widow, the eyes of both mr. tupman and his companion had been fixed for some time, when the stranger broke silence. "lots of money--old girl--pompous doctor--not a bad idea--good fun," were the intelligible sentences which issued from his lips. mr. tupman looked inquisitively in his face. "i'll dance with the widow," said the stranger. "who is she?" inquired mr. tupman. "don't know--never saw her in all my life--cut out the doctor--here goes." and the stranger forthwith crossed the room; and, leaning against a mantelpiece, commenced gazing with an air of respectful and melancholy admiration on the fat countenance of the little old lady. mr. tupman looked on, in mute astonishment. the stranger progressed rapidly; the little doctor danced with another lady; the widow dropped her fan, the stranger picked it up, and presented it,--a smile--a bow--a curtsey--a few words of conversation. the stranger walked boldly up to, and returned with, the master of ceremonies; a little introductory pantomime; and the stranger and mrs. budger took their places in a quadrille. the surprise of mr. tupman at this summary proceeding, great as it was, was immeasurably exceeded by the astonishment of the doctor. the stranger was young, and the widow was flattered. the doctor's attentions were unheeded by the widow; and the doctor's indignation was wholly lost on his imperturbable rival. doctor slammer was paralysed. he, doctor slammer, of the th, to be extinguished in a moment, by a man whom nobody had ever seen before, and whom nobody knew even now! doctor slammer--doctor slammer of the th rejected! impossible! it could not be! yes, it was; there they were. what! introducing his friend! could he believe his eyes! he looked again, and was under the painful necessity of admitting the veracity of his optics; mrs. budger was dancing with mr. tracy tupman, there was no mistaking the fact. there was the widow before him, bouncing bodily, here and there, with unwonted vigour; and mr. tracy tupman hopping about, with a face expressive of the most intense solemnity, dancing (as a good many people do) as if a quadrille were not a thing to be laughed at, but a severe trial to the feelings, which it requires inflexible resolution to encounter. silently and patiently did the doctor bear all this, and all the handings of negus, and watching for glasses, and darting for biscuits, and coquetting, that ensued; but, a few seconds after the stranger had disappeared to lead mrs. budger to her carriage, he darted swiftly from the room with every particle of his hitherto-bottled-up indignation effervescing, from all parts of his countenance, in a perspiration of passion. the stranger was returning, and mr. tupman was beside him. he spoke in a low tone and laughed. the little doctor thirsted for his life. he was exulting. he had triumphed. "sir!" said the doctor, in an awful voice, producing a card, and retiring into an angle of the passage, "my name is slammer, doctor slammer, sir-- th regiment--chatham barracks--my card, sir, my card." he would have added more, but his indignation choked him. "ah!" replied the stranger, coolly, "slammer--much obliged--polite attention--not ill now, slammer--but when i am--knock you up." "you--you're a shuffler! sir," gasped the furious doctor, "a poltroon--a coward--a liar--a--a--will nothing induce you to give me your card, sir!" "oh! i see," said the stranger, half aside, "negus too strong here--liberal landlord--very foolish--very--lemonade much better--hot rooms--elderly gentlemen--suffer for it in the morning--cruel--cruel;" and he moved on a step or two. "you are stopping in this house, sir," said the indignant little man; "you are intoxicated now, sir; you shall hear from me in the morning, sir. i shall find you out, sir; i shall find you out." "rather you found me out than found me at home," replied the unmoved stranger. doctor slammer looked unutterable ferocity, as he fixed his hat on his head with an indignant knock; and the stranger and mr. tupman ascended to the bed-room of the latter to restore the borrowed plumage to the unconscious winkle. that gentleman was fast asleep; the restoration was soon made. the stranger was extremely jocose; and mr. tracy tupman, being quite bewildered with wine, negus, lights, and ladies, thought the whole affair an exquisite joke. his new friend departed; and, after experiencing some slight difficulty in finding the orifice in his night-cap, originally intended for the reception of his head, and finally overturning his candlestick in his struggles to put it on, mr. tracy tupman managed to get into bed by a series of complicated evolutions, and shortly afterwards sank into repose. seven o'clock had hardly ceased striking on the following morning when mr. pickwick's comprehensive mind was aroused from the state of unconsciousness in which slumber had plunged it, by a loud knocking at his chamber door. "who's there?" said mr. pickwick, starting up in bed. "boots, sir." "what do you want?" "please, sir, can you tell me which gentleman of your party wears a bright blue dress coat, with a gilt button with p. c. on it?" "it's been given out to brush," thought mr. pickwick, "and the man has forgotten whom it belongs to. mr. winkle," he called out, "next room but two, on the right hand." "thank'ee, sir," said the boots, and away he went. "what's the matter?" cried mr. tupman, as a loud knocking at _his_ door aroused _him_ from his oblivious repose. "can i speak to mr. winkle, sir?" replied the boots from the outside. "winkle--winkle!" shouted mr. tupman, calling into the inner room. "hallo!" replied a faint voice from within the bed-clothes. "you're wanted--some one at the door--" and having exerted himself to articulate thus much, mr. tracy tupman turned round and fell fast asleep again. "wanted!" said mr. winkle, hastily jumping out of bed, and putting on a few articles of clothing; "wanted! at this distance from town--who on earth can want me?" "gentleman in the coffee-room, sir," replied the boots, as mr. winkle opened the door and confronted him; "gentleman says he'll not detain you a moment, sir, but he can take no denial." "very odd!" said mr. winkle; "i'll be down directly." he hurriedly wrapped himself in a travelling-shawl and dressing-gown, and proceeded down-stairs. an old woman and a couple of waiters were cleaning the coffee-room, and an officer in undress uniform was looking out of the window. he turned round as mr. winkle entered, and made a stiff inclination of the head. having ordered the attendants to retire, and closed the door very carefully, he said, "mr. winkle, i presume?" "my name _is_ winkle, sir." [illustration: "_my name is winkle, sir_"] "you will not be surprised, sir, when i inform you that i have called here this morning on behalf of my friend, dr. slammer, of the ninety-seventh." "doctor slammer!" said mr. winkle. "dr. slammer. he begged me to express his opinion that your conduct of last evening was of a description which no gentleman could endure: and (he added) which no one gentleman would pursue towards another." mr. winkle's astonishment was too real, and too evident, to escape the observation of dr. slammer's friend; he therefore proceeded--"my friend, doctor slammer, requested me to add, that he was firmly persuaded you were intoxicated during a portion of the evening, and possibly unconscious of the extent of the insult you were guilty of. he commissioned me to say, that should this be pleaded as an excuse for your behaviour, he will consent to accept a written apology, to be penned by you, from my dictation." "a written apology!" repeated mr. winkle, in the most emphatic tone of amazement possible. "of course you know the alternative," replied the visitor coolly. "were you entrusted with this message to me by name?" inquired mr. winkle, whose intellects were hopelessly confused by this extraordinary conversation. "i was not present myself," replied the visitor, "and in consequence of your firm refusal to give your card to doctor slammer, i was desired by that gentleman to identify the wearer of a very uncommon coat--a bright blue dress coat, with a gilt button displaying a bust, and the letters 'p. c.'" mr. winkle actually staggered with astonishment as he heard his own costume thus minutely described. doctor slammer's friend proceeded--"from the inquiries i made at the bar, just now, i was convinced that the owner of the coat in question arrived here, with three gentlemen, yesterday afternoon. i immediately sent up to the gentleman who was described as appearing the head of the party, and he at once referred me to you." if the principal tower of rochester castle had suddenly walked from its foundation, and stationed itself opposite the coffee-room window, mr. winkle's surprise would have been as nothing compared with the profound astonishment with which he had heard this address. his first impression was, that his coat had been stolen. "will you allow me to detain you one moment?" said he. "certainly," replied the unwelcome visitor. mr. winkle ran hastily up-stairs, and with a trembling hand opened the bag. there was the coat in its usual place, but exhibiting, on a close inspection, evident tokens of having been worn on the preceding night. "it must be so," said mr. winkle, letting the coat fall from his hands. "i took too much wine after dinner, and have a very vague recollection of walking about the streets and smoking a cigar afterwards. the fact is, i was very drunk;--i must have changed my coat--gone somewhere--and insulted somebody--i have no doubt of it; and this message is the terrible consequence." saying which, mr. winkle retraced his steps in the direction of the coffee-room, with the gloomy and dreadful resolve of accepting the challenge of the warlike dr. slammer, and abiding by the worst consequences that might ensue. to this determination mr. winkle was urged by a variety of considerations, the first of which was, his reputation with the club. he had always been looked up to as a high authority on all matters of amusement and dexterity, whether offensive, defensive, or inoffensive; and if, on this very first occasion of being put to the test, he shrunk back from the trial, beneath his leader's eye, his name and standing were lost for ever. besides, he remembered to have heard it frequently surmised by the uninitiated in such matters that by an understood arrangement between the seconds, the pistols were seldom loaded with ball; and, furthermore, he reflected that if he applied to mr. snodgrass to act as his second, and depicted the danger in glowing terms, that gentleman might possibly communicate the intelligence to mr. pickwick, who would certainly lose no time in transmitting it to the local authorities, and thus prevent the killing or maiming of his follower. such were his thoughts when he returned to the coffee-room, and intimated his intention of accepting the doctor's challenge. "will you refer me to a friend, to arrange the time and place of meeting?" said the officer. "quite unnecessary," replied mr. winkle; "name them to me, and i can procure the attendance of a friend afterwards." "shall we say--sunset this evening?" inquired the officer, in a careless tone. "very good," replied mr. winkle, thinking in his heart it was very bad. "you know fort pitt?" "yes; i saw it yesterday." "if you will take the trouble to turn into the field which borders the trench, take the foot-path to the left when you arrive at an angle of the fortification, and keep straight on, till you see me, i will precede you to a secluded place, where the affair can be conducted without fear of interruption." "_fear_ of interruption!" thought mr. winkle. "nothing more to arrange, i think," said the officer. "i am not aware of anything more," replied mr. winkle. "good morning." "good morning:" and the officer whistled a lively air as he strode away. that morning's breakfast passed heavily off. mr. tupman was not in a condition to rise, after the unwonted dissipation of the previous night; mr. snodgrass appeared to labour under a poetical depression of spirits; and even mr. pickwick evinced an unusual attachment to silence and soda-water. mr. winkle eagerly watched his opportunity; it was not long wanting. mr. snodgrass proposed a visit to the castle, and as mr. winkle was the only other member of the party disposed to walk, they went out together. "snodgrass," said mr. winkle, when they had turned out of the public street, "snodgrass, my dear fellow, can i rely upon your secrecy?" as he said this, he most devoutly and earnestly hoped he could not. "you can," replied mr. snodgrass. "hear me swear----" "no, no," interrupted winkle, terrified at the idea of his companion's unconsciously pledging himself not to give information; "don't swear, don't swear; it's quite unnecessary." mr. snodgrass dropped the hand which he had, in the spirit of poesy, raised towards the clouds as he made the above appeal, and assumed an attitude of attention. "i want your assistance, my dear fellow, in an affair of honour," said mr. winkle. "you shall have it," replied mr. snodgrass, clasping his friend's hand. "with a doctor--doctor slammer, of the ninety-seventh," said mr. winkle, wishing to make the matter appear as solemn as possible; "an affair with an officer, seconded by another officer, at sunset this evening, in a lonely field beyond fort pitt." "i will attend you," said mr. snodgrass. he was astonished, but by no means dismayed. it is extraordinary how cool any party but the principal can be in such cases. mr. winkle had forgotten this. he had judged of his friend's feelings by his own. "the consequences may be dreadful," said mr. winkle. "i hope not," said mr. snodgrass. "the doctor, i believe, is a very good shot," said mr. winkle. "most of these military men are," observed mr. snodgrass, calmly; "but so are you, an't you?" mr. winkle replied in the affirmative; and perceiving that he had not alarmed his companion sufficiently, changed his ground. "snodgrass," he said, in a voice tremulous with emotion, "if i fall, you will find in a packet which i shall place in your hands a note for my--for my father." this attack was a failure also. mr. snodgrass was affected, but he undertook the delivery of the note as readily as if he had been a twopenny postman. "if i fall," said mr. winkle, "or if the doctor falls, you, my dear friend, will be tried as an accessory before the fact. shall i involve my friend in transportation--possibly for life!" mr. snodgrass winced a little at this, but his heroism was invincible. "in the cause of friendship," he fervently exclaimed, "i would brave all dangers." how mr. winkle cursed his companion's devoted friendship internally, as they walked silently along, side by side, for some minutes, each immersed in his own meditations! the morning was wearing away; he grew desperate. "snodgrass," he said, stopping suddenly, "do _not_ let me be baulked in this matter--do _not_ give information to the local authorities--do _not_ obtain the assistance of several peace officers, to take either me or doctor slammer, of the ninety-seventh regiment, at present quartered in chatham barracks, into custody, and thus prevent this duel;--i say, do _not_." mr. snodgrass seized his friend's hand warmly, as he enthusiastically replied, "not for worlds!" a thrill passed over mr. winkle's frame as the conviction that he had nothing to hope from his friend's fears, and that he was destined to become an animated target, rushed forcibly upon him. the state of the case having been formally explained to mr. snodgrass, and a case of satisfaction pistols, with the satisfactory accompaniments of powder, ball, and caps, having been hired from a manufacturer in rochester, the two friends returned to their inn; mr. winkle to ruminate on the approaching struggle, and mr. snodgrass to arrange the weapons of war, and put them into proper order for immediate use. it was a dull and heavy evening when they again sallied forth on their awkward errand. mr. winkle was muffled up in a huge cloak to escape observation, and mr. snodgrass bore under his the instruments of destruction. "have you got everything?" said mr. winkle, in an agitated tone. "everything," replied mr. snodgrass; "plenty of ammunition, in case the shots don't take effect. there's a quarter of a pound of powder in the case, and i have got two newspapers in my pocket for the loadings." these were instances of friendship for which any man might reasonably feel most grateful. the presumption is, that the gratitude of mr. winkle was too powerful for utterance, as he said nothing, but continued to walk on--rather slowly. "we are in excellent time," said mr. snodgrass, as they climbed the fence of the first field; "the sun is just going down." mr. winkle looked up at the declining orb and painfully thought of the probability of his "going down" himself, before long. "there's the officer," exclaimed mr. winkle, after a few minutes' walking. "where?" said mr. snodgrass. "there;--the gentleman in the blue cloak." mr. snodgrass looked in the direction indicated by the forefinger of his friend, and observed a figure, muffled up, as he had described. the officer evinced his consciousness of their presence by slightly beckoning with his hand; and the two friends followed him at a little distance, as he walked away. the evening grew more dull every moment, and a melancholy wind sounded through the deserted fields, like a distant giant whistling for his house-dog. the sadness of the scene imparted a sombre tinge to the feelings of mr. winkle. he started as they passed the angle of the trench--it looked like a colossal grave. the officer turned suddenly from the path, and after climbing a paling, and scaling a hedge, entered a secluded field. two gentlemen were waiting in it; one was a little fat man, with black hair; and the other--a portly personage in a braided surtout--was sitting with perfect equanimity on a camp-stool. "the other party, and a surgeon, i suppose," said mr. snodgrass; "take a drop of brandy." mr. winkle seized the wicker bottle which his friend proffered, and took a lengthened pull at the exhilarating liquid. "my friend, sir, mr. snodgrass," said mr. winkle, as the officer approached. doctor slammer's friend bowed, and produced a case similar to that which mr. snodgrass carried. "we have nothing farther to say, sir, i think," he coldly remarked, as he opened the case; "an apology has been resolutely declined." "nothing, sir," said mr. snodgrass, who began to feel rather uncomfortable himself. "will you step forward?" said the officer. "certainly," replied mr. snodgrass. the ground was measured, and preliminaries arranged. "you will find these better than your own," said the opposite second, producing his pistols. "you saw me load them. do you object to use them?" "certainly not," replied mr. snodgrass. the offer relieved him from considerable embarrassment, for his previous notions of loading a pistol were rather vague and undefined. "we may place our men, then, i think," observed the officer, with as much indifference as if the principals were chess-men, and the seconds players. "i think we may," replied mr. snodgrass; who would have assented to any proposition, because he knew nothing about the matter. the officer crossed to doctor slammer, and mr. snodgrass went up to mr. winkle. "it's all ready," he said, offering the pistol. "give me your cloak." "you have got the packet, my dear fellow," said poor winkle. "all right," said mr. snodgrass. "be steady, and wing him." it occurred to mr. winkle that this advice was very like that which bystanders invariably give to the smallest boy in a street fight, namely, "go in, and win:"--an admirable thing to recommend, if you only know how to do it. he took off his cloak, however, in silence--it always took a long time to undo that cloak--and accepted the pistol. the seconds retired, the gentleman on the camp-stool did the same, and the belligerents approached each other. mr. winkle was always remarkable for extreme humanity. it is conjectured that his unwillingness to hurt a fellow-creature intentionally was the cause of his shutting his eyes when he arrived at the fatal spot; and that the circumstance of his eyes being closed, prevented his observing the very extraordinary and unaccountable demeanour of doctor slammer. that gentleman started, stared, retreated, rubbed his eyes, stared again; and finally shouted "stop, stop!" "what's all this?" said doctor slammer, as his friend and mr. snodgrass came running up. "that's not the man." "not the man!" said dr. slammer's second. "not the man!" said mr. snodgrass. "not the man!" said the gentleman with the camp-stool in his hand. "certainly not," replied the little doctor. "that's not the person who insulted me last night." "very extraordinary!" exclaimed the officer. "very," said the gentleman with the camp-stool. "the only question is, whether the gentleman, being on the ground, must not be considered, as a matter of form, to be the individual who insulted our friend, dr. slammer, yesterday evening, whether he is really that individual or not:" and having delivered this suggestion, with a very sage and mysterious air, the man with the camp-stool took a large pinch of snuff, and looked profoundly round, with the air of an authority in such matters. now mr. winkle had opened his eyes, and his ears too, when he heard his adversary call out for a cessation of hostilities; and perceiving by what he had afterwards said, that there was, beyond all question, some mistake in the matter, he at once foresaw the increase of reputation he should inevitably acquire by concealing the real motive of his coming out: he therefore stepped boldly forward, and said-- "i am not the person. i know it." "then, that," said the man with the camp-stool, "is an affront to dr. slammer, and a sufficient reason for proceeding immediately." "pray be quiet, payne," said the doctor's second. "why did you not communicate this fact to me this morning, sir?" "to be sure--to be sure," said the man with the camp-stool, indignantly. "i entreat you to be quiet, payne," said the other. "may i repeat my question, sir?" "because, sir," replied mr. winkle, who had had time to deliberate upon his answer, "because, sir, you described an intoxicated and ungentlemanly person as wearing a coat which i have the honour, not only to wear, but to have invented--the proposed uniform, sir, of the pickwick club in london. the honour of that uniform i feel bound to maintain, and i therefore, without inquiry, accepted the challenge which you offered me." "my dear sir," said the good-humoured little doctor, advancing with extended hand, "i honour your gallantry. permit me to say, sir, that i highly admire your conduct, and extremely regret having caused you the inconvenience of this meeting, to no purpose." "i beg you won't mention it, sir," said mr. winkle. "i shall feel proud of your acquaintance, sir," said the little doctor. "it will afford me the greatest pleasure to know you, sir," replied mr. winkle. thereupon the doctor and mr. winkle shook hands, and then mr. winkle and lieutenant tappleton (the doctor's second), and then mr. winkle and the man with the camp-stool, and finally, mr. winkle and mr. snodgrass--the last-named gentleman in an excess of admiration at the noble conduct of his heroic friend. "i think we may adjourn," said lieutenant tappleton. "certainly," added the doctor. "unless," interposed the man with the camp-stool, "unless mr. winkle feels himself aggrieved by the challenge; in which case, i submit, he has a right to satisfaction." mr. winkle, with great self-denial, expressed himself quite satisfied already. "or possibly," said the man with the camp-stool, "the gentleman's second may feel himself affronted with some observations which fell from me at an early period of this meeting: if so, i shall be happy to give _him_ satisfaction immediately." mr. snodgrass hastily professed himself very much obliged with the handsome offer of the gentleman who had spoken last, which he was only induced to decline by his entire contentment with the whole proceedings. the two seconds adjusted the cases, and the whole party left the ground in a much more lively manner than they had proceeded to it. "do you remain long here?" inquired dr. slammer of mr. winkle, as they walked on most amicably together. "i think we shall leave here the day after to-morrow," was the reply. "i trust i shall have the pleasure of seeing you and your friend at my rooms, and of spending a pleasant evening with you after this awkward mistake," said the little doctor; "are you disengaged this evening?" "we have some friends here," replied mr. winkle, "and i should not like to leave them to-night. perhaps you and your friend will join us at the bull?" "with great pleasure," said the little doctor; "will ten o'clock be too late to look in for half an hour?" "oh dear no," said mr. winkle. "i shall be most happy to introduce you to my friends, mr. pickwick and mr. tupman." "it will give me great pleasure, i am sure," replied dr. slammer, little suspecting who mr. tupman was. "you will be sure to come?" said mr. snodgrass. "oh, certainly." by this time they had reached the road. cordial farewells were exchanged, and the party separated. doctor slammer and his friends repaired to the barracks, and mr. winkle, accompanied by mr. snodgrass, returned to their inn. chapter iii [illustration] _a new acquaintance. the stroller's tale. a disagreeable interruption, and an unpleasant encounter_ mr. pickwick had felt some apprehensions in consequence of the unusual absence of his two friends, which their mysterious behaviour during the whole morning had by no means tended to diminish. it was, therefore, with more than ordinary pleasure that he rose to greet them when they again entered; and with more than ordinary interest that he inquired what had occurred to detain them from his society. in reply to his questions on this point, mr. snodgrass was about to offer an historical account of the circumstances just now detailed, when he was suddenly checked by observing that there were present, not only mr. tupman and their stage-coach companion of the preceding day, but another stranger of equally singular appearance. it was a care-worn looking man, whose sallow face, and deeply sunken eyes, were rendered still more striking than nature had made them, by the straight black hair which hung in matted disorder half way down his face. his eyes were almost unnaturally bright and piercing; his cheek-bones were high and prominent; and his jaws were so long and lank, that an observer would have supposed that he was drawing the flesh of his face in, for a moment, by some contraction of the muscles, if his half-opened mouth and immovable expression had not announced that it was his ordinary appearance. round his neck he wore a green shawl, with the large ends straggling over his chest, and making their appearance occasionally beneath the worn buttonholes of his old waistcoat. his upper garment was a long black surtout; and below it he wore wide drab trousers, and large boots, running rapidly to seed. it was on this uncouth-looking person that mr. winkle's eye rested, and it was towards him that mr. pickwick extended his hand, when he said, "a friend of our friend's here. we discovered this morning that our friend was connected with the theatre in this place, though he is not desirous to have it generally known, and this gentleman is a member of the same profession. he was about to favour us with a little anecdote connected with it when you entered." "lots of anecdote," said the green-coated stranger of the day before, advancing to mr. winkle and speaking in a low and confidential tone. "rum fellow--does the heavy business--no actor--strange man--all sorts of miseries--dismal jemmy we call him on the circuit." mr. winkle and mr. snodgrass politely welcomed the gentleman, elegantly designated as "dismal jemmy!" and calling for brandy and water, in imitation of the remainder of the company, seated themselves at the table. "now, sir," said mr. pickwick, "will you oblige us by proceeding with what you were going to relate?" the dismal individual took a dirty roll of paper from his pocket, and turning to mr. snodgrass, who had just taken out his note-book, said in a hollow voice, perfectly in keeping with his outward man--"are you the poet?" "i--i do a little in that way," replied mr. snodgrass, rather taken aback by the abruptness of the question. "ah! poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage--strip the one of its false embellishments, and the other of its illusions, and what is there real in either to live or care for?" "very true, sir," replied mr. snodgrass. "to be before the footlights," continued the dismal man, "is like sitting at a grand court show, and admiring the silken dresses of the gaudy throng--to be behind them is to be the people who make that finery, uncared for and unknown, and left to sink or swim, to starve or live, as fortune wills it." "certainly," said mr. snodgrass: for the sunken eye of the dismal man rested on him, and he felt it necessary to say something. "go on, jemmy," said the spanish traveller, "like black-eyed susan--all in the downs--no croaking--speak out--look lively." "will you make another glass before you begin, sir?" said mr. pickwick. the dismal man took the hint, and having mixed a glass of brandy and water, and slowly swallowed half of it, opened the roll of paper, and proceeded, partly to read, and partly to relate, the following incident, which we find recorded on the transactions of the club as "the stroller's tale." the stroller's tale "there is nothing of the marvellous in what i am going to relate," said the dismal man; "there is nothing even uncommon in it. want and sickness are too common in many stations of life, to deserve more notice than is usually bestowed on the most ordinary vicissitudes of human nature. i have thrown these few notes together, because the subject of them was well known to me for many years. i traced his progress downwards, step by step, until at last he reached that excess of destitution from which he never rose again. "the man of whom i speak was a low pantomime actor; and like many people of his class, an habitual drunkard. in his better days, before he had become enfeebled by dissipation and emaciated by disease, he had been in the receipt of a good salary, which, if he had been careful and prudent, he might have continued to receive for some years--not many; because these men either die early, or, by unnaturally taxing their bodily energies, lose, prematurely, those physical powers on which alone they can depend for subsistence. his besetting sin gained so fast upon him, however, that it was found impossible to employ him in the situations in which he really was useful to the theatre. the public-house had a fascination for him which he could not resist. neglected disease and hopeless poverty were as certain to be his portion as death itself, if he persevered in the same course; yet he _did_ persevere, and the result may be guessed. he could obtain no engagement, and he wanted bread. "everybody who is at all acquainted with theatrical matters knows what a host of shabby, poverty-stricken men hang about the stage of a large establishment--not regularly engaged actors, but ballet people, procession men, tumblers, and so forth, who are taken on during the run of a pantomime, or an easter piece, and are then discharged, until the production of some heavy spectacle occasions a new demand for their services. to this mode of life the man was compelled to resort; and taking the chair every night at some low theatrical house, at once put him in possession of a few more shillings weekly, and enabled him to gratify his old propensity. even this resource shortly failed him; his irregularities were too great to admit of his earning the wretched pittance he might thus have procured, and he was actually reduced to a state bordering on starvation, only procuring a trifle occasionally by borrowing it of some old companion, or by obtaining an appearance at one or other of the commonest of the minor theatres; and when he did earn anything it was spent in the old way. "about this time, and when he had been existing for upwards of a year no one knew how, i had a short engagement at one of the theatres on the surrey side of the water, and here i saw this man whom i had lost sight of for some time; for i had been travelling in the provinces, and he had been skulking in the lanes and alleys of london. i was dressed to leave the house, and was crossing the stage on my way out, when he tapped me on the shoulder. never shall i forget the repulsive sight that met my eye when i turned round. he was dressed for the pantomime, in all the absurdity of a clown's costume. the spectral figures in the dance of death, the most frightful shapes that the ablest painter ever portrayed on canvas, never presented an appearance half so ghastly. his bloated body and shrunken legs--their deformity enhanced a hundred fold by the fantastic dress--the glassy eyes, contrasting fearfully with the thick white paint with which the face was besmeared; the grotesquely ornamented head, trembling with paralysis, and the long skinny hands, rubbed with white chalk--all gave him a hideous and unnatural appearance, of which no description could convey an adequate idea, and which, to this day, i shudder to think of. his voice was hollow and tremulous, as he took me aside, and in broken words recounted a long catalogue of sickness and privations, terminating as usual with an urgent request for the loan of a trifling sum of money. i put a few shillings in his hand, and as i turned away i heard the roar of laughter which followed his first tumble on the stage. "a few nights afterwards, a boy put a dirty scrap of paper in my hand, on which were scrawled a few words in pencil, intimating that the man was dangerously ill, and begging me, after the performance, to see him at his lodging in some street--i forget the name of it now--at no great distance from the theatre. i promised to comply, as soon as i could get away; and, after the curtain fell, sallied forth on my melancholy errand. "it was late, for i had been playing in the last piece; and as it was a benefit night, the performances had been protracted to an unusual length. it was a dark cold night, with a chill damp wind, which blew the rain heavily against the windows and house fronts. pools of water had collected in the narrow and little-frequented streets, and as many of the thinly-scattered oil-lamps had been blown out by the violence of the wind, the walk was not only a comfortless, but most uncertain one. i had fortunately taken the right course, however, and succeeded, after a little difficulty, in finding the house to which i had been directed--a coal-shed, with one storey above it, in the back room of which lay the object of my search. "a wretched-looking woman, the man's wife, met me on the stairs, and, telling me that he had just fallen into a kind of doze, led me softly in, and placed a chair for me at the bedside. the sick man was lying with his face turned towards the wall; and as he took no heed of my presence, i had leisure to observe the place in which i found myself. "he was lying on an old bedstead, which turned up during the day. the tattered remains of a checked curtain were drawn round the bed's head, to exclude the wind, which however made its way into the comfortless room through the numerous chinks in the door, and blew it to and fro every instant. there was a low cinder fire in a rusty unfixed grate; and an old three-cornered stained table, with some medicine bottles, a broken glass, and a few other domestic articles, was drawn out before it. a little child was sleeping on a temporary bed which had been made for it on the floor, and the woman sat on a chair by its side. there were a couple of shelves, with a few plates and cups and saucers: and a pair of stage shoes and a couple of foils hung beneath them. with the exception of little heaps of rags and bundles which had been carelessly thrown into the corners of the room, these were the only things in the apartment. "i had had time to note these little particulars, and to mark the heavy breathing and feverish startings of the sick man, before he was aware of my presence. in the restless attempts to procure some easy resting-place for his head, he tossed his hand out of the bed, and it fell on mine. he started up, and stared eagerly in my face. "'mr. hutley, john,' said his wife; 'mr. hutley, that you sent for to-night, you know.' "'ah!' said the invalid, passing his hand across his forehead; 'hutley--hutley--let me see.' he seemed endeavouring to collect his thoughts for a few seconds, and then grasping me tightly by the wrist said, 'don't leave me--don't leave me, old fellow. she'll murder me; i know she will.' "'has he been long so?' said i, addressing his weeping wife. "'since yesterday night,' she replied. 'john, john, don't you know me?' "'don't let her come near me,' said the man, with a shudder, as she stooped over him. 'drive her away; i can't bear her near me.' he stared wildly at her with a look of deadly apprehension, and then whispered in my ear, 'i beat her, jem; i beat her yesterday, and many times before. i have starved her and the boy too; and now i am weak and helpless, jem, she'll murder me for it; i know she will. if you'd seen her cry, as i have, you'd know it too. keep her off.' he relaxed his grasp, and sank back exhausted on the pillow. "i knew but too well what all this meant. if i could have entertained any doubt of it, for an instant, one glance at the woman's pale face and wasted form would have sufficiently explained the real state of the case. 'you had better stand aside,' said i to the poor creature. 'you can do him no good. perhaps he will be calmer, if he does not see you.' she retired out of the man's sight. he opened his eyes after a few seconds, and looked anxiously round. "'is she gone?' he eagerly inquired. "'yes--yes,' said i; 'she shall not hurt you.' "'i'll tell you what, jem,' said the man, in a low voice, 'she _does_ hurt me. there's something in her eyes wakes such a dreadful fear in my heart that it drives me mad. all last night her large staring eyes and pale face were close to mine; wherever i turned, they turned: and whenever i started up from my sleep, she was at the bedside looking at me.' he drew me closer to him, as he said in a deep, alarmed whisper--'jem, she must be an evil spirit--a devil! hush! i know she is. if she had been a woman she would have died long ago. no woman could have borne what she has.' "i sickened at the thought of the long course of cruelty and neglect which must have occurred to produce such an impression on such a man. i could say nothing in reply; for who could offer hope, or consolation, to the abject being before me? "i sat there for upwards of two hours, during which he tossed about, murmuring exclamations of pain or impatience, restlessly throwing his arms here and there, and turning constantly from side to side. at length he fell into that state of partial unconsciousness, in which the mind wanders uneasily from scene to scene, and from place to place, without the control of reason, but still without being able to divest itself of an indescribable sense of present suffering. finding from his incoherent wanderings that this was the case, and knowing that in all probability the fever would not grow immediately worse, i left him, promising his miserable wife that i would repeat my visit next evening, and, if necessary, sit up with the patient during the night. "i kept my promise. the last four-and-twenty hours had produced a frightful alteration. the eyes, though deeply sunk and heavy, shone with a lustre frightful to behold. the lips were parched, and cracked in many places: the hard dry skin glowed with a burning heat, and there was an almost unearthly air of wild anxiety in the man's face, indicating even more strongly the ravages of the disease. the fever was at its height. "i took the seat i had occupied the night before, and there i sat for hours, listening to sounds which must strike deep to the heart of the most callous among human beings--the awful ravings of a dying man. from what i had heard of the medical attendant's opinion, i knew there was no hope for him: i was sitting by his death-bed. i saw the wasted limbs, which a few hours before had been distorted for the amusement of a boisterous gallery, writhing under the tortures of a burning fever--i heard the clown's shrill laugh, blending with the low murmurings of the dying man. "it is a touching thing to hear the mind reverting to the ordinary occupations and pursuits of health, when the body lies before you weak and helpless; but when those occupations are of a character the most strongly opposed to anything we associate with grave and solemn ideas, the impression produced is infinitely more powerful. the theatre and the public-house were the chief themes of the wretched man's wanderings. it was evening, he fancied; he had a part to play that night; it was late, and he must leave home instantly. why did they hold him, and prevent his going?--he should lose the money--he must go. no! they would not let him. he hid his face in his burning hands, and feebly bemoaned his own weakness, and the cruelty of his persecutors. a short pause, and he shouted out a few doggrel rhymes--the last he had ever learnt. he rose in bed, drew up his withered limbs, and rolled about in uncouth positions; he was acting--he was at the theatre. a minute's silence, and he murmured the burden of some roaring song. he had reached the old house at last: how hot the room was. he had been ill, very ill, but he was well now, and happy. fill up his glass. who was that, that dashed it from his lips? it was the same persecutor that had followed him before. he fell back upon his pillow and moaned aloud. a short period of oblivion, and he was wandering through a tedious maze of low-arched rooms--so low sometimes, that he must creep upon his hands and knees to make his way along; it was so close and dark, and every way he turned, some obstacle impeded his progress. there were insects too, hideous crawling things with eyes that stared upon him, and filled the very air around; glistening horribly amidst the thick darkness of the place. the walls and ceiling were alive with reptiles--the vault expanded to an enormous size--frightful figures flitted to and fro--and the faces of men he knew, rendered hideous by gibing and mouthing, peered out from among them; they were searing him with heated irons, and binding his head with cords till the blood started; and he struggled madly for life. "at the close of one of these paroxysms, when i had with great difficulty held him down in his bed, he sank into what appeared to be a slumber. overpowered with watching and exertion, i had closed my eyes for a few minutes, when i felt a violent clutch on my shoulder. i awoke instantly. he had raised himself up, so as to seat himself in bed--a dreadful change had come over his face, but consciousness had returned, for he evidently knew me. the child who had been long since disturbed by his ravings, rose from its little bed, and ran towards its father, screaming with fright--the mother hastily caught it in her arms, lest he should injure it in the violence of his insanity; but terrified by the alteration of his features, stood transfixed by the bedside. he grasped my shoulder convulsively, and striking his breast with the other hand, made a desperate attempt to articulate. it was unavailing--he extended his arm towards them, and made another violent effort. there was a rattling noise in the throat--a glare of the eye--a short stifled groan--and he fell back--dead!" * * * * * it would afford us the highest gratification to be enabled to record mr. pickwick's opinion of the foregoing anecdote. we have little doubt that we should have been enabled to present it to our readers, but for a most unfortunate occurrence. mr. pickwick had replaced on the table the glass which, during the last few sentences of the tale, he had retained in his hand; and had just made up his mind to speak--indeed, we have the authority of mr. snodgrass's note-book for stating, that he had actually opened his mouth--when the waiter entered the room, and said-- "some gentlemen, sir." it has been conjectured that mr. pickwick was on the point of delivering some remarks which would have enlightened the world, if not the thames, when he was thus interrupted; for he gazed sternly on the waiter's countenance, and then looked round on the company generally, as if seeking for information relative to the new comers. "oh!" said mr. winkle, rising, "some friends of mine--show them in. very pleasant fellows," added mr. winkle, after the waiter had retired--"officers of the th, whose acquaintance i made rather oddly this morning. you will like them very much." mr. pickwick's equanimity was at once restored. the waiter returned, and ushered three gentlemen into the room. "lieutenant tappleton," said mr. winkle, "lieutenant tappleton, mr. pickwick--doctor payne, mr. pickwick--mr. snodgrass, you have seen before; my friend mr. tupman, doctor payne--dr. slammer, mr. pickwick--mr. tupman, doctor slam--" here mr. winkle suddenly paused; for strong emotion was visible on the countenance of mr. tupman and the doctor. "i have met _this_ gentleman before," said the doctor, with marked emphasis. "indeed!" said mr. winkle. "and--and that person too, if i am not mistaken," said the doctor, bestowing a scrutinising glance on the green-coated stranger. "i think i gave that person a very pressing invitation last night, which he thought proper to decline." saying which the doctor scowled magnanimously on the stranger, and whispered his friend lieutenant tappleton. "you don't say so," said that gentleman, at the conclusion of the whisper. "i do, indeed," replied dr. slammer. "you are bound to kick him on the spot," murmured the owner of the camp-stool with great importance. "_do_ be quiet, payne," interposed the lieutenant. "will you allow me to ask you, sir," he said, addressing mr. pickwick, who was considerably mystified by this very unpolite by-play, "will you allow me to ask you, sir, whether that person belongs to your party?" "no, sir," replied mr. pickwick, "he is a guest of ours." "he is a member of your club, or i am mistaken?" said the lieutenant, inquiringly. "certainly not," responded mr. pickwick. "and never wears your club-button?" said the lieutenant. "no--never!" replied the astonished mr. pickwick. lieutenant tappleton turned round to his friend dr. slammer, with a scarcely perceptible shrug of the shoulder, as if implying some doubt of the accuracy of his recollection. the little doctor looked wrathful, but confounded; and mr. payne gazed with a ferocious aspect on the beaming countenance of the unconscious pickwick. "sir," said the doctor, suddenly addressing mr. tupman, in a tone which made that gentleman start as perceptibly as if a pin had been cunningly inserted in the calf of his leg, "you were at the ball here last night!" mr. tupman gasped a faint affirmative, looking very hard at mr. pickwick all the while. "that person was your companion," said the doctor, pointing to the still unmoved stranger. mr. tupman admitted the fact. "now, sir," said the doctor to the stranger, "i ask you once again, in the presence of these gentlemen, whether you choose to give me your card, and to receive the treatment of a gentleman; or whether you impose upon me the necessity of personally chastising you on the spot?" "stay, sir," said mr. pickwick, "i really cannot allow this matter to go any further without some explanation. tupman, recount the circumstances." mr. tupman, thus solemnly adjured, stated the case in a few words; touched slightly on the borrowing of the coat; expatiated largely on its having been done "after dinner;" wound up with a little penitence on his own account; and left the stranger to clear himself as best he could. he was apparently about to proceed to do so, when lieutenant tappleton, who had been eyeing him with great curiosity, said with considerable scorn--"haven't i seen you at the theatre, sir?" "certainly," replied the unabashed stranger. "he is a strolling actor!" said the lieutenant, contemptuously; turning to dr. slammer--"he acts in the piece that the officers of the nd get up at the rochester theatre to-morrow night. you cannot proceed in this affair, slammer--impossible!" "sorry to have placed you in this disagreeable situation," said lieutenant tappleton, addressing mr. pickwick; "allow me to suggest, that the best way of avoiding a recurrence of such scenes in future, will be to be more select in the choice of your companions. good evening, sir!" and the lieutenant bounced out of the room. "and allow _me_ to say, sir," said the irascible doctor payne, "that if i had been tappleton, or if i had been slammer, i would have pulled your nose, sir, and the nose of every man in this company. i would, sir, every man. payne is my name, sir--doctor payne of the rd. good evening, sir." having concluded this speech, and uttered the three last words in a loud key, he stalked majestically after his friend, closely followed by doctor slammer, who said nothing, but contented himself by withering the company with a look. rising rage and extreme bewilderment had swelled the noble breast of mr. pickwick, almost to the bursting of his waistcoat, during the delivery of the above defiance. he stood transfixed to the spot, gazing on vacancy. the closing of the door recalled him to himself. he rushed forward with fury in his looks, and fire in his eye. his hand was upon the lock of the door; in another instant it would have been on the throat of doctor payne of the rd, had not mr. snodgrass seized his revered leader by the coat-tail, and dragged him backwards. "restrain him," cried mr. snodgrass. "winkle, tupman--he must not peril his distinguished life in such a cause as this." "let me go," said mr. pickwick. "hold him tight," shouted mr. snodgrass; and by the united efforts of the whole company, mr. pickwick was forced into an arm-chair. "leave him alone," said the green-coated stranger--"brandy and water--jolly old gentleman--lots of pluck--swallow this--ah!--capital stuff." having previously tested the virtues of a bumper, which had been mixed by the dismal man, the stranger applied the glass to mr. pickwick's mouth; and the remainder of its contents rapidly disappeared. there was a short pause; the brandy and water had done its work; the amiable countenance of mr. pickwick was fast recovering its customary expression. "they are not worth your notice," said the dismal man. "you are right, sir," replied mr. pickwick, "they are not. i am ashamed to have been betrayed into this warmth of feeling. draw your chair up to the table, sir." the dismal man readily complied: a circle was again formed round the table, and harmony once more prevailed. some lingering irritability appeared to find a resting-place in mr. winkle's bosom, occasioned possibly by the temporary abstraction of his coat--though it is scarcely reasonable to suppose that so slight a circumstance can have excited even a passing feeling of anger in a pickwickian breast. with this exception, their good humour was completely restored; and the evening concluded with the conviviality with which it had begun. chapter iv [illustration] _a field-day and bivouac. more new friends. an invitation to the country_ many authors entertain not only a foolish, but a really dishonest objection to acknowledge the sources from whence they derive much valuable information. we have no such feeling. we are merely endeavouring to discharge, in an upright manner, the responsible duties of our editorial functions; and whatever ambition we might have felt under other circumstances to lay claim to the authorship of these adventures, a regard for truth forbids us to do more than claim the merit of their judicious arrangement and impartial narration. the pickwick papers are our new river head; and we may be compared to the new river company. the labours of others have raised for us an immense reservoir of important facts. we merely lay them on, and communicate them, in a clear and gentle stream, through the medium of these numbers, to a world thirsting for pickwickian knowledge. acting in this spirit, and resolutely proceeding on our determination to avow our obligations to the authorities we have consulted, we frankly say, that to the note-book of mr. snodgrass are we indebted for the particulars recorded in this, and the succeeding chapter--particulars which, now that we have disburdened our conscience, we shall proceed to detail without further comment. the whole population of rochester and the adjoining towns rose from their beds at an early hour of the following morning, in a state of the utmost bustle and excitement. a grand review was to take place upon the lines. the manoeuvres of half a dozen regiments were to be inspected by the eagle eye of the commander-in-chief; temporary fortifications had been erected, the citadel was to be attacked and taken, and a mine was to be sprung. mr. pickwick was, as our readers may have gathered from the slight extract we gave from his description of chatham, an enthusiastic admirer of the army. nothing could have been more delightful to him--nothing could have harmonised so well with the peculiar feeling of each of his companions--as this sight. accordingly they were soon a-foot, and walking in the direction of the scene of action, towards which crowds of people were already pouring from a variety of quarters. the appearance of everything on the lines denoted that the approaching ceremony was one of the utmost grandeur and importance. there were sentries posted to keep the ground for the troops, and servants on the batteries keeping places for the ladies, and sergeants running to and fro, with vellum-covered books under their arms, and colonel bulder, in full military uniform, on horseback, galloping first to one place and then to another, and backing his horse among the people, and prancing, and curvetting, and shouting in a most alarming manner, and making himself very hoarse in the voice, and very red in the face, without any assignable cause or reason whatever. officers were running backwards and forwards, first communicating with colonel bulder, and then ordering the sergeants, and then running away altogether; and even the very privates themselves looked from behind their glazed stocks with an air of mysterious solemnity, which sufficiently bespoke the special nature of the occasion. mr. pickwick and his three companions stationed themselves in the front rank of the crowd, and patiently awaited the commencement of the proceedings. the throng was increasing every moment; and the efforts they were compelled to make, to retain the position they had gained, sufficiently occupied their attention during the two hours that ensued. at one time there was a sudden pressure from behind; and then mr. pickwick was jerked forward for several yards, with a degree of speed and elasticity highly inconsistent with the general gravity of his demeanour; at another moment there was a request to "keep back" from the front, and then the butt-end of a musket was either dropped upon mr. pickwick's toe, to remind him of the demand, or thrust into his chest, to ensure its being complied with. then some facetious gentlemen on the left, after pressing sideways in a body, and squeezing mr. snodgrass into the very last extreme of human torture, would request to know "vere he vos a shovin' to;" and when mr. winkle had done expressing his excessive indignation at witnessing this unprovoked assault, some person behind would knock his hat over his eyes, and beg the favour of his putting his head in his pocket. these, and other practical witticisms, coupled with the unaccountable absence of mr. tupman (who had suddenly disappeared, and was nowhere to be found), rendered their situation upon the whole rather more uncomfortable than pleasing or desirable. at length that low roar of many voices ran through the crowd, which usually announces the arrival of whatever they have been waiting for. all eyes were turned in the direction of the sally-port. a few moments of eager expectation, and colours were seen fluttering gaily in the air, arms glistened brightly in the sun, column after column poured on to the plain. the troops halted and formed; the word of command rung through the line, there was a general clash of muskets as arms were presented; and the commander-in-chief, attended by colonel bulder and numerous officers, cantered to the front. the military bands struck up all together; the horses stood upon two legs each, cantered backwards, and whisked their tails about in all directions; the dogs barked, the mob screamed, the troops recovered, and nothing was to be seen on either side, as far as the eye could reach, but a long perspective of red coats and white trousers, fixed and motionless. mr. pickwick had been so fully occupied in falling about, and disentangling himself, miraculously, from between the legs of horses, that he had not enjoyed sufficient leisure to observe the scene before him, until it assumed the appearance we have just described. when he was at last enabled to stand firmly on his legs, his gratification and delight were unbounded. "can anything be finer or more delightful?" he inquired of mr. winkle. "nothing," replied that gentleman, who had had a short man standing on each of his feet for the quarter of an hour immediately preceding. "it is indeed a noble and a brilliant sight," said mr. snodgrass, in whose bosom a blaze of poetry was rapidly bursting forth, "to see the gallant defenders of their country drawn up in brilliant array before its peaceful citizens; their faces beaming--not with warlike ferocity, but with civilised gentleness; their eyes flashing--not with the rude fire of rapine or revenge, but with the soft light of humanity and intelligence." mr. pickwick fully entered into the spirit of this eulogium, but he could not exactly re-echo its terms; for the soft light of intelligence burnt rather feebly in the eyes of the warriors, inasmuch as the command "eyes front" had been given, and all the spectator saw before him was several thousand pair of optics staring straight forward, wholly divested of any expression whatever. "we are in a capital situation now," said mr. pickwick, looking round him. the crowd had gradually dispersed in their immediate vicinity, and they were nearly alone. "capital!" echoed both mr. snodgrass and mr. winkle. "what are they doing now?" inquired mr. pickwick, adjusting his spectacles. "i--i--rather think," said mr. winkle, changing colour--"i rather think they're going to fire." "nonsense," said mr. pickwick hastily. "i--i--really think they are," urged mr. snodgrass, somewhat alarmed. "impossible," replied mr. pickwick. he had hardly uttered the word, when the whole half-dozen regiments levelled their muskets as if they had but one common object, and that object the pickwickians, and burst forth with the most awful and tremendous discharge that ever shook the earth to its centre, or an elderly gentleman off his. it was in this trying situation, exposed to a galling fire of blank cartridges, and harassed by the operations of the military, a fresh body of whom had begun to fall in on the opposite side, that mr. pickwick displayed that perfect coolness and self-possession, which are the indispensable accompaniments of a great mind. he seized mr. winkle by the arm, and placing himself between that gentleman and mr. snodgrass, earnestly besought them to remember that beyond the possibility of being rendered deaf by the noise, there was no immediate danger to be apprehended from the firing. "but--but--suppose some of the men should happen to have ball cartridges by mistake," remonstrated mr. winkle, pallid at the supposition he was himself conjuring up. "i heard something whistle through the air just now--so sharp; close to my ear." "we had better throw ourselves on our faces, hadn't we?" said mr. snodgrass. "no, no--it's over now," said mr. pickwick. his lip might quiver, and his cheek might blanch, but no expression of fear or concern escaped the lips of that immortal man. mr. pickwick was right: the firing ceased; but he had scarcely time to congratulate himself on the accuracy of his opinion, when a quick movement was visible in the line: the hoarse shout of the word of command ran along it, and before either of the party could form a guess at the meaning of this new manoeuvre, the whole of the half-dozen regiments, with fixed bayonets, charged at double quick time down upon the very spot on which mr. pickwick and his friends were stationed. man is but mortal: and there is a point beyond which human courage cannot extend. mr. pickwick gazed through his spectacles for an instant on the advancing mass, and then fairly turned his back and--we will not say fled; firstly, because it is an ignoble term, and, secondly, because mr. pickwick's figure was by no means adapted for that mode of retreat--he trotted away, at as quick a rate as his legs would convey him; so quickly, indeed, that he did not perceive the awkwardness of his situation, to the full extent, until too late. the opposite troops, whose falling-in had perplexed mr. pickwick a few seconds before, were drawn up to repel the mimic attack of the sham besiegers of the citadel; and the consequence was that mr. pickwick and his two companions found themselves suddenly inclosed between two lines of great length, the one advancing at a rapid pace, and the other firmly waiting the collision in hostile array. "hoi!" shouted the officers of the advancing line. "get out of the way," cried the officers of the stationary one. "where are we to go to?" screamed the agitated pickwickians. "hoi--hoi--hoi!" was the only reply. there was a moment of intense bewilderment, a heavy tramp of footsteps, a violent concussion, a smothered laugh; the half-dozen regiments were half a thousand yards off, and the soles of mr. pickwick's boots were elevated in air. mr. snodgrass and mr. winkle had each performed a compulsory somerset with remarkable agility, when the first object that met the eyes of the latter as he sat on the ground, staunching with a yellow silk handkerchief the stream of life which issued from his nose, was his venerated leader at some distance off, running after his own hat, which was gamboling playfully away in perspective. there are very few moments in a man's existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat. a vast deal of coolness, and a peculiar degree of judgment, are requisite in catching a hat. a man must not be precipitate, or he runs over it; he must not rush into the opposite extreme, or he loses it altogether. the best way is, to keep gently up with the object of pursuit, to be wary and cautious, to watch your opportunity well, get gradually before it, then make a rapid dive, seize it by the crown, and stick it firmly on your head: smiling pleasantly all the time, as if you thought it as good a joke as anybody else. there was a fine gentle wind, and mr. pickwick's hat rolled sportively before it. the wind puffed, and mr. pickwick puffed, and the hat rolled over and over as merrily as a lively porpoise in a strong tide; and on it might have rolled, far beyond mr. pickwick's reach, had not its course been providentially stopped, just as that gentleman was on the point of resigning it to its fate. mr. pickwick, we say, was completely exhausted, and about to give up the chase, when the hat was blown with some violence against the wheel of a carriage, which was drawn up in a line with half-a-dozen other vehicles on the spot to which his steps had been directed. mr. pickwick, perceiving his advantage, darted briskly forward, secured his property, planted it on his head, and paused to take breath. he had not been stationary half a minute, when he heard his own name eagerly pronounced by a voice, which he at once recognised as mr. tupman's, and, looking upwards, he beheld a sight which filled him with surprise and pleasure. in an open barouche, the horses of which had been taken out, the better to accommodate it to the crowded place, stood a stout old gentleman, in a blue coat and bright buttons, corduroy breeches and top boots, two young ladies in scarfs and feathers, a young gentleman apparently enamoured of one of the young ladies in scarfs and feathers, a lady of doubtful age, probably the aunt of the aforesaid, and mr. tupman, as easy and unconcerned as if he had belonged to the family from the first moments of his infancy. fastened up behind the barouche was a hamper of spacious dimensions--one of those hampers which always awakens in a contemplative mind associations connected with cold fowls, tongues, and bottles of wine--and on the box sat a fat and red-faced boy, in a state of somnolency, whom no speculative observer could have regarded for an instant without setting down as the official dispenser of the contents of the before-mentioned hamper, when the proper time for their consumption should arrive. mr. pickwick had bestowed a hasty glance on these interesting objects, when he was again greeted by his faithful disciple. "pickwick--pickwick," said mr. tupman: "come up here. make haste." "come along, sir. pray, come up," said the stout gentleman. "joe!--damn that boy, he's gone to sleep again.--joe, let down the steps." the fat boy rolled slowly off the box, let down the steps, and held the carriage door invitingly open. mr. snodgrass and mr. winkle came up at the moment. "room for you all, gentlemen," said the stout man. "two inside, and one out. joe, make room for one of these gentlemen on the box. now, sir, come along;" and the stout gentleman extended his arm, and pulled first mr. pickwick, and then mr. snodgrass, into the barouche by main force. mr. winkle mounted to the box, the fat boy waddled to the same perch, and fell fast asleep instantly. [illustration: "_damn that boy, he's gone to sleep again_"] "well, gentlemen," said the stout man, "very glad to see you. know you very well, gentlemen, though you mayn't remember me. i spent some ev'nins at your club last winter--picked up my friend mr. tupman here this morning, and very glad i was to see him. well, sir, and how are you? you do look uncommon well, to be sure." mr. pickwick acknowledged the compliment, and cordially shook hands with the stout gentleman in the top boots. "well, and how are you, sir?" said the stout gentleman, addressing mr. snodgrass with paternal anxiety. "charming, eh? well, that's right--that's right. and how are you, sir (to mr. winkle)? well, i am glad to hear you say you are well; very glad i am, to be sure. my daughters, gentlemen--my gals these are; and that's my sister, miss rachael wardle. she's a miss, she is; and yet she an't a miss--eh, sir, eh?" and the stout gentleman playfully inserted his elbow between the ribs of mr. pickwick, and laughed very heartily. "lor, brother!" said miss wardle, with a deprecating smile. "true, true," said the stout gentleman; "no one can deny it. gentlemen, i beg your pardon; this is my friend mr. trundle. and now you all know each other, let's be comfortable and happy, and see what's going forward; that's what i say." so the stout gentleman put on his spectacles, and mr. pickwick pulled out his glass, and everybody stood up in the carriage, and looked over somebody else's shoulder at the evolutions of the military. astounding evolutions they were, one rank firing over the heads of another rank, and then running away; and then the other rank firing over the heads of another rank, and running away in their turn; and then forming squares, with officers in the centre; and then descending the trench on one side with scaling-ladders, and ascending it on the other again by the same means; and knocking down barricades of baskets, and behaving in the most gallant manner possible. then there was such a ramming down of the contents of enormous guns on the battery, with instruments like magnified mops; such a preparation before they were let off, and such an awful noise when they did go, that the air resounded with the screams of ladies. the young miss wardles were so frightened, that mr. trundle was actually obliged to hold one of them up in the carriage, while mr. snodgrass supported the other, and mr. wardle's sister suffered under such a dreadful state of nervous alarm, that mr. tupman found it indispensably necessary to put his arm round her waist, to keep her up at all. everybody was excited, except the fat boy, and he slept as soundly as if the roaring of cannon were his ordinary lullaby. "joe, joe!" said the stout gentleman, when the citadel was taken, and the besiegers and besieged sat down to dinner. "damn that boy, he's gone to sleep again. be good enough to pinch him, sir--in the leg, if you please; nothing else wakes him--thank you. undo the hamper, joe." the fat boy, who had been effectually roused by the compression of a portion of his leg between the finger and thumb of mr. winkle, rolled off the box once again, and proceeded to unpack the hamper, with more expedition than could have been expected from his previous inactivity. "now we must sit close," said the stout gentleman. after a great many jokes about squeezing the ladies' sleeves, and a vast quantity of blushing at sundry jocose proposals, that the ladies should sit in the gentlemen's laps, the whole party were stowed down in the barouche; and the stout gentleman proceeded to hand the things from the fat boy (who had mounted up behind for the purpose) into the carriage. "now, joe, knives and forks." the knives and forks were handed in, and the ladies and gentlemen inside, and mr. winkle on the box, were each furnished with those useful instruments. "plates, joe, plates." a similar process employed in the distribution of the crockery. "now, joe, the fowls. damn that boy; he's gone to sleep again. joe! joe!" (sundry taps on the head with a stick, and the fat boy, with some difficulty, roused from his lethargy.) "come, hand in the eatables." there was something in the sound of the last word which roused the unctuous boy. he jumped up, and the leaden eyes which twinkled behind his mountainous cheeks leered horribly upon the food as he unpacked it from the basket. "now make haste," said mr. wardle; for the fat boy was hanging fondly over a capon, which he seemed wholly unable to part with. the boy sighed deeply, and, bestowing an ardent gaze upon its plumpness, unwillingly consigned it to his master. "that's right--look sharp. now the tongue--now the pigeon-pie. take care of that veal and ham--mind the lobsters--take the salad out of the cloth--give me the dressing." such were the hurried orders which issued from the lips of mr. wardle, as he handed in the different articles described, and placed dishes in everybody's hands, and on everybody's knees, in endless number. "now, an't this capital?" inquired that jolly personage, when the work of destruction had commenced. "capital!" said mr. winkle, who was carving a fowl on the box. "glass of wine?" "with the greatest pleasure." "you'd better have a bottle to yourself up there, hadn't you?" "you're very good." "joe!" "yes, sir." (he wasn't asleep this time, having just succeeded in abstracting a veal patty.) "bottle of wine to the gentleman on the box. glad to see you, sir." "thankee." mr. winkle emptied his glass, and placed the bottle on the coach-box by his side. "will you permit me to have the pleasure, sir?" said mr. trundle to mr. winkle. "with great pleasure," replied mr. winkle to mr. trundle, and then the two gentlemen took wine, after which they took a glass of wine round, ladies and all. "how dear emily is flirting with the strange gentleman," whispered the spinster aunt, with true spinster-aunt-like envy, to her brother mr. wardle. "oh! i don't know," said the jolly old gentleman; "all very natural, i dare say--nothing unusual. mr. pickwick, some wine, sir?" mr. pickwick, who had been deeply investigating the interior of the pigeon-pie, readily assented. "emily, my dear," said the spinster aunt, with a patronising air, "don't talk so loud, love." "lor, aunt!" "aunt and the little old gentleman want to have it all to themselves, i think," whispered miss isabella wardle to her sister emily. the young ladies laughed very heartily, and the old one tried to look amiable, but couldn't manage it. "young girls have _such_ spirits," said miss wardle to mr. tupman, with an air of gentle commiseration, as if animal spirits were contraband, and their possession without a permit, a high crime and misdemeanour. "oh, they have," replied mr. tupman, not exactly making the sort of reply that was expected from him. "it's quite delightful." "hem!" said miss wardle, rather dubiously. "will you permit me," said mr. tupman, in his blandest manner, touching the enchanting rachael's wrist with one hand, and gently elevating the bottle with the other. "will you permit me?" "oh, sir!" mr. tupman looked most impressive; and rachael expressed her fear that more guns were going off, in which case, of course, she would have required support again. "do you think my dear nieces pretty?" whispered their affectionate aunt to mr. tupman. "i should if their aunt wasn't here," replied the ready pickwickian, with a passionate glance. "oh, you naughty man--but really, if their complexions were a _little_ better, don't you think they would be nice-looking girls--by candle-light?" "yes; i think they would," said mr. tupman, with an air of indifference. "oh, you quiz--i know what you were going to say." "what?" inquired mr. tupman, who had not precisely made up his mind to say anything at all. "you were going to say that isabel stoops--i know you were--you men are such observers. well, so she does; it can't be denied; and, certainly, if there is one thing more than another that makes a girl look ugly, it is stooping. i often tell her that when she gets a little older she'll be quite frightful. well, you _are_ a quiz." mr. tupman had no objection to earning the reputation at so cheap a rate, so he looked very knowing, and smiled mysteriously. "what a sarcastic smile," said the admiring rachael; "i declare i'm quite afraid of you." "afraid of me!" "oh, you can't disguise anything from me--i know what that smile means very well." "what?" said mr. tupman, who had not the slightest notion himself. "you mean," said the amiable aunt, sinking her voice still lower--"you mean, that you don't think isabella's stooping is as bad as emily's boldness. well, she _is_ bold! you cannot think how wretched it makes me sometimes--i'm sure i cry about it for hours together--my dear brother is _so_ good, and _so_ unsuspicious, that he never sees it; if he did, i'm quite certain it would break his heart. i wish i could think it was only manner--i hope it may be--" (here the affectionate relative heaved a deep sigh, and shook her head despondingly). "i'm sure aunt's talking about us," whispered miss emily wardle to her sister--"i'm quite certain of it--she looks so malicious." "is she?" replied isabella--"hem! aunt dear!" "yes, my dear love!" "i'm _so_ afraid you'll catch cold, aunt--have a silk handkerchief to tie round your dear old head--you really should take care of yourself--consider your age!" however well deserved this piece of retaliation might have been, it was as vindictive a one as could well have been resorted to. there is no guessing in what form of reply the aunt's indignation would have vented itself, had not mr. wardle unconsciously changed the subject, by calling emphatically for joe. "damn that boy," said the old gentleman, "he's gone to sleep again." "very extraordinary boy that," said mr. pickwick; "does he always sleep in this way?" "sleep!" said the old gentleman, "he's always asleep. goes on errands fast asleep, and snores as he waits at table." "how very odd!" said mr. pickwick. "ah! odd indeed," returned the old gentleman; "i'm proud of that boy--wouldn't part with him on any account--he's a natural curiosity! here, joe--joe--take these things away, and open another bottle--d'ye hear?" the fat boy rose, opened his eyes, swallowed the huge piece of pie he had been in the act of masticating when he last fell asleep, and slowly obeyed his master's orders--gloating languidly over the remains of the feast, as he removed the plates, and deposited them in the hamper. the fresh bottle was produced, and speedily emptied: the hamper was made fast in its old place--the fat boy once more mounted the box--the spectacles and pocket-glass were again adjusted--and the evolutions of the military recommenced. there was a great fizzing and banging of guns, and starting of ladies--and then a mine was sprung, to the gratification of everybody--and when the mine had gone off, the military and the company followed its example, and went off too. "now, mind," said the old gentleman, as he shook hands with mr. pickwick at the conclusion of a conversation which had been carried on at intervals, during the conclusion of the proceedings--"we shall see you all to-morrow." "most certainly," replied mr. pickwick. "you have got the address." "manor farm, dingley dell," said mr. pickwick, consulting his pocket-book. "that's it," said the old gentleman. "i don't let you off, mind, under a week; and undertake that you shall see everything worth seeing. if you've come down for a country life, come to me, and i'll give you plenty of it. joe--damn that boy, he's gone to sleep again--joe, help tom put in the horses." the horses were put in--the driver mounted--the fat boy clambered up by his side--farewells were exchanged--and the carriage rattled off. as the pickwickians turned round to take a last glimpse of it, the setting sun cast a rich glow on the faces of their entertainers, and fell upon the form of the fat boy. his head was sunk upon his bosom; and he slumbered again. chapter v [illustration] _a short one. showing, among other matters, how mr. pickwick undertook to drive, and mr. winkle to ride; and how they both did it_ bright and pleasant was the sky, balmy the air, and beautiful the appearance of every object around, as mr. pickwick leant over the balustrades of rochester bridge, contemplating nature, and waiting for breakfast. the scene was indeed one which might well have charmed a far less reflective mind, than that to which it was presented. on the left of the spectator lay the ruined wall, broken in many places, and in some, overhanging the narrow beach below in rude and heavy masses. huge knots of sea-weed hung upon the jagged and pointed stones, trembling in every breath of wind; and the green ivy clung mournfully round the dark and ruined battlements. behind it rose the ancient castle, its towers roofless, and its massive walls crumbling away, but telling us proudly of its own might and strength, as when, seven hundred years ago, it rang with the clash of arms, or resounded with the noise of feasting and revelry. on either side, the banks of the medway, covered with corn-fields and pastures, with here and there a windmill, or a distant church, stretched away as far as the eye could see, presenting a rich and varied landscape, rendered more beautiful by the changing shadows which passed swiftly across it, as the thin and half-formed clouds skimmed away in the light of the morning sun. the river, reflecting the clear blue of the sky, glistened and sparkled as it flowed noiselessly on; and the oars of the fishermen dipped into the water with a clear and liquid sound, as the heavy but picturesque boats glided slowly down the stream. mr. pickwick was roused from the agreeable reverie into which he had been led by the objects before him, by a deep sigh, and a touch on his shoulder. he turned round: and the dismal man was at his side. "contemplating the scene?" inquired the dismal man. "i was," said mr. pickwick. "and congratulating yourself on being up so soon?" mr. pickwick nodded assent. "ah! people need to rise early, to see the sun in all his splendour, for his brightness seldom lasts the day through. the morning of day and the morning of life are but too much alike." "you speak truly, sir," said mr. pickwick. "how common the saying," continued the dismal man, "'the morning's too fine to last.' how well might it be applied to our every-day existence. god! what would i forfeit to have the days of my childhood restored, or to be able to forget them for ever!" "you have seen much trouble, sir," said mr. pickwick, compassionately. "i have," said the dismal man, hurriedly; "i have. more than those who see me now would believe possible." he paused for an instant, and then said abruptly-- "did it ever strike you, on such a morning as this, that drowning would be happiness and peace?" "god bless me, no!" replied mr. pickwick, edging a little from the balustrade, as the possibility of the dismal man's tipping him over, by way of experiment, occurred to him rather forcibly. "_i_ have thought so, often," said the dismal man, without noticing the action. "the calm, cool water seems to me to murmur an invitation to repose and rest. a bound, a splash, a brief struggle; there is an eddy for an instant, it gradually subsides into a gentle ripple; the waters have closed above your head, and the world has closed upon your miseries and misfortunes for ever." the sunken eye of the dismal man flashed brightly as he spoke, but the momentary excitement quickly subsided: and he turned calmly away, as he said-- "there--enough of that. i wish to see you on another subject. you invited me to read that paper, the night before last, and listened attentively while i did so." "i did," replied mr. pickwick; "and i certainly thought----" "i asked for no opinion," said the dismal man, interrupting him, "and i want none. you are travelling for amusement and instruction. suppose i forwarded you a curious manuscript--observe, not curious because wild or improbable, but curious as a leaf from the romance of real life. would you communicate it to the club, of which you have spoken so frequently?" "certainly," replied mr. pickwick, "if you wished it; and it would be entered on their transactions." "you shall have it," replied the dismal man. "your address;" and mr. pickwick, having communicated their probable route, the dismal man carefully noted it down in a greasy pocket-book, and, resisting mr. pickwick's pressing invitation to breakfast, left that gentleman at his inn, and walked slowly away. mr. pickwick found that his three companions had risen, and were waiting his arrival to commence breakfast, which was ready laid in tempting display. they sat down to the meal; and broiled ham, eggs, tea, coffee and sundries, began to disappear with a rapidity which at once bore testimony to the excellence of the fare, and the appetites of its consumers. "now, about manor farm," said mr. pickwick. "how shall we go?" "we had better consult the waiter, perhaps," said mr. tupman, and the waiter was summoned accordingly. "dingley dell, gentlemen--fifteen miles, gentlemen--cross-road--post-chaise, sir?" "post-chaise won't hold more than two," said mr. pickwick. "true, sir--beg your pardon, sir--very nice four-wheeled chaise, sir--seat for two behind--one in front for the gentleman that drives--oh! beg your pardon, sir--that'll only hold three." "what's to be done?" said mr. snodgrass. "perhaps one of the gentlemen would like to ride, sir?" suggested the waiter, looking towards mr. winkle; "very good saddle horses, sir--any of mr. wardle's men coming to rochester bring 'em back, sir." "the very thing," said mr. pickwick. "winkle, will you go on horseback?" mr. winkle did entertain considerable misgivings in the very lowest recesses of his own heart, relative to his equestrian skill; but, as he would not have them even suspected on any account, he at once replied with great hardihood, "certainly. i should enjoy it of all things." mr. winkle had rushed upon his fate; there was no resource. "let them be at the door by eleven," said mr. pickwick. "very well, sir," replied the waiter. the waiter retired; the breakfast concluded; and the travellers ascended to their respective bedrooms, to prepare a change of clothing, to take with them on their approaching expedition. mr. pickwick had made his preliminary arrangements, and was looking over the coffee-room blinds at the passengers in the street, when the waiter entered and announced that the chaise was ready--an announcement which the vehicle itself confirmed, by forthwith appearing before the coffee-room blinds aforesaid. it was a curious little green box on four wheels, with a low place like a wine-bin for two behind, and an elevated perch for one in front, drawn by an immense brown horse, displaying great symmetry of bone. an hostler stood near, holding by the bridle another immense horse--apparently a near relative to the animal in the chaise--ready saddled for mr. winkle. "bless my soul!" said mr. pickwick, as they stood upon the pavement while the coats were being put in. "bless my soul! who's to drive? i never thought of that." "oh! you, of course," said mr. tupman. "of course," said mr. snodgrass. "i!" exclaimed mr. pickwick. "not the slightest fear, sir," interposed the hostler. "warrant him quiet, sir; a hinfant in arms might drive him." "he don't shy, does he?" inquired mr. pickwick. "shy, sir?--he wouldn't shy if he was to meet a vaggin-load of monkeys with their tails burnt off." the last recommendation was indisputable. mr. tupman and mr. snodgrass got into the bin; mr. pickwick ascended to his perch, and deposited his feet on a floor-clothed shelf, erected beneath it for that purpose. "now, shiny villiam," said the hostler to the deputy hostler, "give the gen'lm'n the ribbins." "shiny villiam"--so called, probably, from his sleek hair and oily countenance--placed the reins in mr. pickwick's left hand; and the upper hostler thrust a whip into his right. "wo--o!" cried mr. pickwick, as the tall quadruped evinced a decided inclination to back into the coffee-room window. "wo--o!" echoed mr. tupman and mr. snodgrass, from the bin. "only his playfulness, gen'lm'n," said the head hostler encouragingly; "jist kitch hold on him, villiam." the deputy restrained the animal's impetuosity, and the principal ran to assist mr. winkle in mounting. "t'other side, sir, if you please." "blowed if the gen'lm'n worn't gettin' up on the wrong side," whispered a grinning post-boy to the inexpressibly gratified waiter. mr. winkle, thus instructed, climbed into his saddle, with about as much difficulty as he would have experienced in getting up the side of a first-rate man-of-war. "all right?" inquired mr. pickwick, with an inward presentiment that it was all wrong. "all right," replied mr. winkle faintly. "let 'em go," cried the hostler,--"hold him in, sir," and away went the chaise, and the saddle-horse, with mr. pickwick on the box of the one, and mr. winkle on the back of the other, to the delight and gratification of the whole inn-yard. "what makes him go sideways?" said mr. snodgrass in the bin, to mr. winkle in the saddle. "i can't imagine," replied mr. winkle. his horse was drifting up the street in the most mysterious manner--side first, with his head toward one side of the way, and his tail towards the other. [illustration: _"wo--o!" cried mr. pickwick._ _"wo--o!" echoed mr. tupman and mr. snodgrass from the bin._] mr. pickwick had no leisure to observe either this or any other particular, the whole of his faculties being concentrated in the management of the animal attached to the chaise, who displayed various peculiarities, highly interesting to a bystander, but by no means equally amusing to any one seated behind him. besides constantly jerking his head up, in a very unpleasant and uncomfortable manner, and tugging at the reins to an extent which rendered it a matter of great difficulty for mr. pickwick to hold them, he had a singular propensity for darting suddenly every now and then to the side of the road, then stopping short, and then rushing forward for some minutes, at a speed which it was wholly impossible to control. [illustration: "_t'other side, sir, if you please_"] "what _can_ he mean by this?" said mr. snodgrass, when the horse had executed this manoeuvre for the twentieth time. "i don't know," replied mr. tupman; "it _looks_ very like shying, don't it?" mr. snodgrass was about to reply, when he was interrupted by a shout from mr. pickwick. "wo--o!" said that gentleman; "i have dropped my whip." "winkle," said mr. snodgrass as the equestrian came trotting up on the tall horse, with his hat over his ears, and shaking all over, as if he would shake to pieces, with the violence of the exercise, "pick up the whip, there's a good fellow." mr. winkle pulled at the bridle of the tall horse till he was black in the face; and having at length succeeded in stopping him, dismounted, handed the whip to mr. pickwick, and grasping the reins, prepared to remount. now whether the tall horse, in the natural playfulness of his disposition, was desirous of having a little innocent recreation with mr. winkle, or whether it occurred to him that he could perform the journey as much to his own satisfaction without a rider as with one, are points upon which, of course, we can arrive at no definite and distinct conclusion. by whatever motives the animal was actuated, certain it is that mr. winkle had no sooner touched the reins, than he slipped them over his head, and darted backwards to their full length. "poor fellow," said mr. winkle, soothingly,--"poor fellow--good old horse." the "poor fellow" was proof against flattery: the more mr. winkle tried to get nearer him, the more he sidled away; and, notwithstanding all kinds of coaxing and wheedling, there were mr. winkle and the horse going round and round each other for ten minutes, at the end of which time each was at precisely the same distance from the other as when they first commenced--an unsatisfactory sort of thing under any circumstances, but particularly so in a lonely road, where no assistance can be procured. "what am i to do?" shouted mr. winkle, after the dodging had been prolonged for a considerable time. "what am i to do? i can't get on him." [illustration: _mr. pickwick ran to his assistance._] "you had better lead him till we come to a turnpike," replied mr. pickwick from the chaise. "but he won't come!" roared mr. winkle. "do come and hold him." mr. pickwick was the very personation of kindness and humanity: he threw the reins on the horse's back, and having descended from his seat, carefully drew the chaise into the hedge, lest anything should come along the road, and stepped back to the assistance of his distressed companion, leaving mr. tupman and mr. snodgrass in the vehicle. the horse no sooner beheld mr. pickwick advancing towards him with the chaise whip in his hand, than he exchanged the rotatory motion in which he had previously indulged, for a retrograde movement of so very determined a character, that it at once drew mr. winkle, who was still at the end of the bridle, at a rather quicker rate than fast walking, in the direction from which they had just come. mr. pickwick ran to his assistance, but the faster mr. pickwick ran forward, the faster the horse ran backward. there was a great scraping of feet, and kicking up of the dust; and at last mr. winkle, his arms being nearly pulled out of their sockets, fairly let go his hold. the horse paused, stared, shook his head, turned round, and quietly trotted home to rochester, leaving mr. winkle and mr. pickwick gazing on each other with countenances of blank dismay. a rattling noise at a little distance attracted their attention. they looked up. "bless my soul!" exclaimed the agonised mr. pickwick, "there's the other horse running away!" it was but too true. the animal was startled by the noise, and the reins were on his back. the result may be guessed. he tore off with the four-wheeled chaise behind him, and mr. tupman and mr. snodgrass in the four-wheeled chaise. the heat was a short one. mr. tupman threw himself into the hedge, mr. snodgrass followed his example, the horse dashed the four-wheeled chaise against a wooden bridge, separated the wheels from the body, and the bin from the perch; and finally stood stock still to gaze upon the ruin he had made. the first care of the two unspilt friends was to extricate their unfortunate companions from their bed of quickset--a process which gave them the unspeakable satisfaction of discovering that they had sustained no injury, beyond sundry rents in their garments, and various lacerations from the brambles. the next thing to be done was, to unharness the horse. this complicated process having been effected, the party walked slowly forward, leading the horse among them, and abandoning the chaise to its fate. an hour's walking brought the travellers to a little road-side public-house, with two elm trees, a horse trough, and a sign-post, in front; one or two deformed hay-ricks behind, a kitchen garden at the side, and rotten sheds and mouldering out-houses jumbled in strange confusion all about it. a red-headed man was working in the garden; and to him mr. pickwick called lustily--"hallo there!" the red-headed man raised his body, shaded his eyes with his hand, and stared, long and coolly, at mr. pickwick and his companions. "hallo there!" repeated mr. pickwick. "hallo!" was the red-headed man's reply. "how far is it to dingley dell?" "better er seven mile." "is it a good road?" "no, 'tan't." having uttered this brief reply, and apparently satisfied himself with another scrutiny, the red-headed man resumed his work. "we want to put this horse up here," said mr. pickwick; "i suppose we can, can't we?" "want to put that ere horse up, do ee?" repeated the red-headed man, leaning on his spade. "of course," replied mr. pickwick, who had by this time advanced, horse in hand, to the garden rails. "missus"--roared the man with the red head, emerging from the garden, and looking very hard at the horse--"missus!" a tall bony woman--straight all the way down--in a coarse blue pelisse, with the waist an inch or two below her armpits, responded to the call. "can we put this horse up here, my good woman?" said mr. tupman, advancing, and speaking in his most seductive tones. the woman looked very hard at the whole party, and the red-headed man whispered something in her ear. "no," replied the woman, after a little consideration, "i'm afeered on it." "afraid!" exclaimed mr. pickwick, "what's the woman afraid of?" "it got us into trouble last time," said the woman, turning into the house; "i woant have nothin' to say to 'un." "most extraordinary thing i ever met with in my life," said the astonished mr. pickwick. "i--i--really believe," whispered mr. winkle, as his friends gathered round him, "that they think we have come by this horse in some dishonest manner." "what!" exclaimed mr. pickwick, in a storm of indignation. mr. winkle modestly repeated his suggestion. "hallo, you fellow!" said the angry mr. pickwick, "do you think we stole this horse?" "i'm sure ye did," replied the red-headed man, with a grin which agitated his countenance from one auricular organ to the other. saying which he turned into the house, and banged the door after him. "it's like a dream," ejaculated mr. pickwick, "a hideous dream. the idea of a man's walking about, all day, with a dreadful horse that he can't get rid of!" the depressed pickwickians turned moodily away, with a tall quadruped, for which they all felt the most unmitigated disgust, following slowly at their heels. it was late in the afternoon when the four friends and their four-footed companion turned into the lane leading to manor farm: and even when they were so near their place of destination, the pleasure they would have otherwise experienced was materially damped as they reflected on the singularity of their appearance, and the absurdity of their situation. torn clothes, lacerated faces, dusty shoes, exhausted looks, and, above all, the horse. oh, how mr. pickwick cursed that horse: he had eyed the noble animal from time to time with looks expressive of hatred and revenge; more than once he had calculated the probable amount of the expense he would incur by cutting his throat; and now the temptation to destroy him, or to cast him loose upon the world, rushed upon his mind with tenfold force. he was roused from a meditation on these dire imaginings, by the sudden appearance of two figures at a turn of the lane. it was mr. wardle, and his faithful attendant, the fat boy. "why, where _have_ you been?" said the hospitable old gentleman; "i've been waiting for you all day. well, you _do_ look tired. what! scratches! not hurt, i hope--eh? well, i _am_ glad to hear that--very. so you've been spilt, eh? never mind. common accident in these parts. joe--he's asleep again!--joe, take that horse from the gentleman, and lead it into the stable." the fat boy sauntered heavily behind them with the animal; and the old gentleman, condoling with his guests in homely phrase on so much of the day's adventures as they thought proper to communicate, led the way to the kitchen. "we'll have you put to rights here," said the old gentleman, "and then i'll introduce you to the people in the parlour. emma, bring out the cherry brandy; now, jane, a needle and thread here; towels and water, mary. come, girls, bustle about." three or four buxom girls speedily dispersed in search of the different articles in requisition, while a couple of large-headed, circular-visaged males rose from their seats in the chimney-corner (for although it was a may evening, their attachment to the wood fire appeared as cordial as if it were christmas), and dived into some obscure recesses, from which they speedily produced a bottle of blacking, and some half-dozen brushes. "bustle!" said the old gentleman again, but the admonition was quite unnecessary, for one of the girls poured out the cherry brandy, and another brought in the towels, and one of the men suddenly seizing mr. pickwick by the leg, at imminent hazard of throwing him off his balance, brushed away at his foot, till his corns were red-hot; while the other shampoo'd mr. winkle with a heavy clothes-brush, indulging, during the operation, in that hissing sound which hostlers are wont to produce when engaged in rubbing down a horse. mr. snodgrass, having concluded his ablutions, took a survey of the room, while standing with his back to the fire, sipping his cherry brandy with heartfelt satisfaction. he describes it as a large apartment, with a red brick floor and a capacious chimney; the ceiling garnished with hams, sides of bacon, and ropes of onions. the walls were decorated with several hunting-whips, two or three bridles, a saddle, and an old rusty blunderbuss, with an inscription below it, intimating that it was "loaded"--as it had been, on the same authority, for half a century at least. an old eight-day clock, of solemn and sedate demeanour, ticked gravely in one corner; and a silver watch, of equal antiquity, dangled from one of the many hooks which ornamented the dresser. "ready?" said the old gentleman, inquiringly, when his guests had been washed, mended, brushed, and brandied. "quite," replied mr. pickwick. "come along, then," and the party having traversed several dark passages, and being joined by mr. tupman, who had lingered behind to snatch a kiss from emma, for which he had been duly rewarded with sundry pushings and scratchings, arrived at the parlour door. "welcome," said their hospitable host, throwing it open and stepping forward to announce them, "welcome, gentlemen, to manor farm." chapter vi [illustration] _an old-fashioned card-party. the clergyman's verses. the story of the convict's return_ several guests who were assembled in the old parlour rose to greet mr. pickwick and his friends upon their entrance; and during the performance of the ceremony of introduction, with all due formalities, mr. pickwick had leisure to observe the appearance, and speculate upon the characters and pursuits, of the persons by whom he was surrounded--a habit in which he, in common with many other great men, delighted to indulge. a very old lady, in a lofty cap and faded silk gown--no less a personage than mr. wardle's mother--occupied the post of honour on the right-hand corner of the chimney-piece; and various certificates of her having been brought up in the way she should go when young, and of her not having departed from it when old, ornamented the walls, in the form of samplers of ancient date, worsted landscapes of equal antiquity, and crimson silk tea-kettle holders of a more modern period. the aunt, the two young ladies, and mr. wardle, each vying with the other in paying zealous and unremitting attentions to the old lady, crowded round her easy-chair, one holding her ear-trumpet, another an orange, and a third a smelling-bottle, while a fourth was busily engaged in patting and punching the pillows which were arranged for her support. on the opposite side sat a bald-headed old gentleman, with a good-humoured benevolent face--the clergyman of dingley dell; and next him sat his wife, a stout blooming old lady, who looked as if she were well skilled, not only in the art and mystery of manufacturing home-made cordials greatly to other people's satisfaction, but of tasting them occasionally very much to her own. a little, hard-headed, ribston-pippin-faced man, was conversing with a fat old gentleman in one corner; and two or three more old gentlemen, and two or three more old ladies, sat bolt upright and motionless on their chairs, staring very hard at mr. pickwick and his fellow-voyagers. "mr. pickwick, mother," said mr. wardle, at the very top of his voice. "ah!" said the old lady, shaking her head, "i can't hear you." "mr. pickwick, grandma!" screamed both the young ladies together. "ah!" exclaimed the old lady. "well; it don't much matter. he don't care for an old 'ooman like me, i dare say." "i assure you, ma'am," said mr. pickwick, grasping the old lady's hand, and speaking so loud that the exertion imparted a crimson hue to his benevolent countenance, "i assure you, ma'am, that nothing delights me more than to see a lady of your time of life heading so fine a family, and looking so young and well." "ah!" said the old lady, after a short pause. "it's all very fine, i dare say; but i can't hear him." "grandma's rather put out now," said miss isabella wardle, in a low tone; "but she'll talk to you presently." mr. pickwick nodded his readiness to humour the infirmities of age, and entered into a general conversation with the other members of the circle. "delightful situation this," said mr. pickwick. "delightful!" echoed messrs. snodgrass, tupman, and winkle. "well, i think it is," said mr. wardle. "there an't a better spot o' ground in all kent, sir," said the hard-headed man with the pippin-face; "there an't indeed, sir--i'm sure there an't, sir." the hard-headed man looked triumphantly round, as if he had been very much contradicted by somebody, but had got the better of him at last. "there an't a better spot o' ground in all kent," said the hard-headed man again, after a pause. "'cept mullins's meadows," observed the fat man solemnly. "mullins's meadows!" ejaculated the other, with profound contempt. "ah, mullins's meadows," repeated the fat man. "reg'lar good land that," interposed another fat man. "and so it is, sure-ly," said a third fat man. "everybody knows that," said the corpulent host. the hard-headed man looked dubiously round, but finding himself in the minority, assumed a compassionate air and said no more. "what are they talking about?" inquired the old lady of one of her granddaughters, in a very audible voice; for, like many deaf people, she never seemed to calculate on the possibility of other persons hearing what she said herself. "about the land, grandma." "what about the land?--nothing the matter, is there?" "no, no. mr. miller was saying our land was better than mullins's meadows." "how should he know anything about it?" inquired the old lady indignantly. "miller's a conceited coxcomb, and you may tell him i said so." saying which, the old lady, quite unconscious that she had spoken above a whisper, drew herself up, and looked carving-knives at the hard-headed delinquent. "come, come," said the bustling host, with a natural anxiety to change the conversation,--"what say you to a rubber, mr. pickwick?" "i should like it of all things," replied that gentleman; "but pray don't make up one on my account." "oh, i assure you, mother's very fond of a rubber," said mr. wardle; "an't you, mother?" the old lady, who was much less deaf on this subject than on any other, replied in the affirmative. "joe, joe!" said the old gentleman; "joe--damn that--oh, here he is; put out the card-tables." the lethargic youth contrived without any additional rousing to set out two card-tables; the one for pope joan, and the other for whist. the whist-players were mr. pickwick and the old lady; mr. miller and the fat gentleman. the round game comprised the rest of the company. the rubber was conducted with all that gravity of deportment and sedateness of demeanour which befit the pursuit entitled "whist"--a solemn observance, to which, as it appears to us, the title of "game" has been very irreverently and ignominiously applied. the round-game table, on the other hand, was so boisterously merry as materially to interrupt the contemplations of mr. miller, who, not being quite so much absorbed as he ought to have been, contrived to commit various high crimes and misdemeanours, which excited the wrath of the fat gentleman to a very great extent, and called forth the good-humour of the old lady in a proportionate degree. "there!" said the criminal miller, triumphantly, as he took up the odd trick at the conclusion of a hand; "that could not have been played better, i flatter myself;--impossible to have made another trick." "miller ought to have trumped the diamond, oughtn't he, sir?" said the old lady. mr. pickwick nodded assent. "ought i, though?" said the unfortunate, with a doubtful appeal to his partner. "you ought, sir," said the fat gentleman, in an awful voice. "very sorry," said the crestfallen miller. "much use that," growled the fat gentleman. "two by honours makes us eight," said mr. pickwick. another hand. "can you one?" inquired the old lady. "i can," replied mr. pickwick. "double, single, and the rub." "never was such luck," said mr. miller. "never was such cards," said the fat gentleman. a solemn silence: mr. pickwick humorous, the old lady serious, the fat gentleman captious, and mr. miller timorous. "another double," said the old lady: triumphantly making a memorandum of the circumstance, by placing one sixpence and a battered halfpenny under the candlestick. "a double, sir," said mr. pickwick. "quite aware of the fact, sir," replied the fat gentleman, sharply. another game, with a similar result, was followed by a revoke from the unlucky miller; on which the fat gentleman burst into a state of high personal excitement which lasted until the conclusion of the game, when he retired into a corner, and remained perfectly mute for one hour and twenty-seven minutes; at the end of which time he emerged from his retirement, and offered mr. pickwick a pinch of snuff with the air of a man who had made up his mind to a christian forgiveness of injuries sustained. the old lady's hearing decidedly improved, and the unlucky miller felt as much out of his element as a dolphin in a sentry-box. meanwhile the round game proceeded right merrily. isabella wardle and mr. trundle "went partners," and emily wardle and mr. snodgrass did the same; and even mr. tupman and the spinster aunt established a joint-stock company of fish and flattery. old mr. wardle was in the very height of his jollity; and he was _so_ funny in his management of the board, and the old ladies were _so_ sharp after their winnings, that the whole table was in a perpetual roar of merriment and laughter. there was one old lady who always had about half-a-dozen cards to pay for, at which everybody laughed, regularly every round; and when the old lady looked cross at having to pay, they laughed louder than ever; on which the old lady's face gradually brightened up, till at last she laughed louder than any of them. then, when the spinster aunt got "matrimony," the young ladies laughed afresh, and the spinster aunt seemed disposed to be pettish; till, feeling mr. tupman squeezing her hand under the table, _she_ brightened up too, and looked rather knowing, as if matrimony in reality were not quite so far off as some people thought for; whereupon everybody laughed again, and especially old mr. wardle, who enjoyed a joke as much as the youngest. as to mr. snodgrass, he did nothing but whisper poetical sentiments into his partner's ear, which made one old gentleman facetiously sly, about partnerships at cards and partnerships for life, and caused the aforesaid old gentleman to make some remarks thereupon, accompanied with divers winks and chuckles, which made the company very merry and the old gentleman's wife especially so. and mr. winkle came out with jokes which are very well known in town, but are not at all known in the country: and as everybody laughed at them very heartily, and said they were very capital, mr. winkle was in a state of great honour and glory. and the benevolent clergyman looked pleasantly on; for the happy faces which surrounded the table made the good old man feel happy too; and though the merriment was rather boisterous, still it came from the heart and not from the lips: and this is the right sort of merriment after all. the evening glided swiftly away, in these cheerful recreations; and when the substantial though homely supper had been despatched, and the little party formed a social circle round the fire, mr. pickwick thought he had never felt so happy in his life, and at no time so much disposed to enjoy, and make the most of, the passing moment. "now this," said the hospitable host, who was sitting in great state next the old lady's arm-chair, with her hand fast clasped in his--"this is just what i like--the happiest moments of my life have been passed at this old fire-side: and i am so attached to it, that i keep up a blazing fire here every evening, until it actually grows too hot to bear it. why, my poor old mother, here, used to sit before this fire-place upon that little stool when she was a girl; didn't you, mother?" the tear which starts unbidden to the eye when the recollection of old times and the happiness of many years ago is suddenly recalled, stole down the old lady's face as she shook her head with a melancholy smile. "you must excuse my talking about this old place, mr. pickwick," resumed the host, after a short pause, "for i love it dearly, and know no other--the old houses and fields seem like living friends to me; and so does our little church with the ivy--about which, by the by, our excellent friend there made a song when he first came amongst us. mr. snodgrass, have you anything in your glass?" "plenty, thank you," replied that gentleman, whose poetic curiosity had been greatly excited by the last observations of his entertainer. "i beg your pardon, but you were talking about the song of the ivy." "you must ask our friend opposite about that," said the host, knowingly: indicating the clergyman by a nod of his head. "may i say that i should like to hear you repeat it, sir?" said mr. snodgrass. "why really," replied the clergyman, "it's a very slight affair; and the only excuse i have for having ever perpetrated it is, that i was a young man at the time. such as it is, however, you shall hear it if you wish." a murmur of curiosity was of course the reply; and the old gentleman proceeded to recite, with the aid of sundry promptings from his wife, the lines in question. "i call them," said he, the ivy green oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green, that creepeth o'er ruins old! of right choice food are his meals, i ween, in his cell so lone and cold. the wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed, to pleasure his dainty whim: and the mouldering dust that years have made is a merry meal for him. creeping where no life is seen, a rare old plant is the ivy green. fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings, and a staunch old heart has he. how closely he twineth, how tight he clings to his friend the huge oak tree! and slyly he traileth along the ground, and his leaves he gently waves, and he joyously hugs and crawleth round the rich mould of dead men's graves. creeping where grim death has been, a rare old plant is the ivy green. whole ages have fled and their works decayed, and nations have scattered been; but the stout old ivy shall never fade, from its hale and hearty green. the brave old plant in its lonely days, shall fatten upon the past: for the stateliest building man can raise, is the ivy's food at last. creeping on, where time has been, a rare old plant is the ivy green. while the old gentleman repeated these lines a second time, to enable mr. snodgrass to note them down, mr. pickwick perused the lineaments of his face with an expression of great interest. the old gentleman having concluded his dictation, and mr. snodgrass having returned his note-book to his pocket, mr. pickwick said-- "excuse me, sir, for making the remark on so short an acquaintance; but a gentleman like yourself cannot fail, i should think, to have observed many scenes and incidents worth recording, in the course of your experience as a minister of the gospel." "i have witnessed some, certainly," replied the old gentleman; "but the incidents and characters have been of a homely and ordinary nature, my sphere of action being so very limited." "you _did_ make some notes, i think, about john edmunds, did you not?" inquired mr. wardle, who appeared very desirous to draw his friend out, for the edification of his new visitors. the old gentleman slightly nodded his head in token of assent, and was proceeding to change the subject, when mr. pickwick said-- "i beg your pardon, sir; but pray, if i may venture to inquire, who was john edmunds?" "the very thing i was about to ask," said mr. snodgrass, eagerly. "you are fairly in for it," said the jolly host. "you must satisfy the curiosity of these gentlemen, sooner or later; so you had better take advantage of this favourable opportunity, and do so at once." the old gentleman smiled good-humouredly as he drew his chair forward;--the remainder of the party drew their chairs closer together, especially mr. tupman and the spinster aunt, who were possibly rather hard of hearing; and the old lady's ear trumpet having been duly adjusted, and mr. miller (who had fallen asleep during the recital of the verses) roused from his slumbers by an admonitory pinch, administered beneath the table by his ex-partner the solemn fat man, the old gentleman, without farther preface, commenced the following tale, to which we have taken the liberty of prefixing the title of the convict's return "when i first settled in this village," said the old gentleman, "which is now just five-and-twenty years ago, the most notorious person among my parishioners was a man of the name of edmunds, who leased a small farm near this spot. he was a morose, savage-hearted, bad man; idle and dissolute in his habits; cruel and ferocious in his disposition. beyond the few lazy and reckless vagabonds with whom he sauntered away his time in the fields, or sotted in the ale-house, he had not a single friend or acquaintance; no one cared to speak to the man whom many feared, and every one detested--and edmunds was shunned by all. "this man had a wife and one son, who, when i first came here, was about twelve years old. of the acuteness of that woman's sufferings, of the gentle and enduring manner in which she bore them, of the agony of solicitude with which she reared that boy, no one can form an adequate conception. heaven forgive me the supposition, if it be an uncharitable one, but i do firmly and in my soul believe, that the man systematically tried for many years to break her heart; but she bore it all for her child's sake, and, however strange it may seem to many, for his father's too; for brute as he was, and cruelly as he had treated her, she had loved him once; and the recollection of what he had been to her, awakened feelings of forbearance and meekness under suffering in her bosom, to which all god's creatures, but women, are strangers. "they were poor--they could not be otherwise when the man pursued such courses; but the woman's unceasing and unwearied exertions, early and late, morning, noon, and night, kept them above actual want. those exertions were but ill repaid. people who passed the spot in the evening--sometimes at a late hour of the night--reported that they had heard the moans and sobs of a woman in distress, and the sound of blows: and more than once, when it was past midnight, the boy knocked softly at the door of a neighbour's house, whither he had been sent, to escape the drunken fury of his unnatural father. "during the whole of this time, and when the poor creature often bore about her marks of ill-usage and violence which she could not wholly conceal, she was a constant attendant at our little church. regularly every sunday, morning and afternoon, she occupied the same seat with the boy at her side; and though they were both poorly dressed--much more so than many of their neighbours who were in a lower station--they were always neat and clean. every one had a friendly nod and a kind word for 'poor mrs. edmunds'; and sometimes, when she stopped to exchange a few words with a neighbour at the conclusion of the service in the little row of elm trees which leads to the church porch, or lingered behind to gaze with a mother's pride and fondness upon her healthy boy, as he sported before her with some little companions, her care-worn face would lighten up with an expression of heartfelt gratitude; and she would look, if not cheerful and happy, at least tranquil and contented. "five or six years passed away; the boy had become a robust and well-grown youth. the time that had strengthened the child's slight frame and knit his weak limbs into the strength of manhood had bowed his mother's form, and enfeebled her steps; but the arm that should have supported her was no longer locked in hers; the face that should have cheered her, no more looked upon her own. she occupied her old seat, but there was a vacant one beside her. the bible was kept as carefully as ever, the places were found and folded down as they used to be: but there was no one to read it with her; and the tears fell thick and fast upon the book, and blotted the words from her eyes. neighbours were as kind as they were wont to be of old, but she shunned their greetings with averted head. there was no lingering among the old elm trees now--no cheering anticipations of happiness yet in store. the desolate woman drew her bonnet closer over her face, and walked hurriedly away. "shall i tell you, that the young man, who, looking back to the earliest of his childhood's days to which memory and consciousness extended, and carrying his recollection down to that moment, could remember nothing which was not in some way connected with a long series of voluntary privations suffered by his mother for his sake, with ill-usage, and insult, and violence, and all endured for him;--shall i tell you, that he, with a reckless disregard for her breaking heart, and a sullen wilful forgetfulness of all she had done and borne for him, had linked himself with depraved and abandoned men, and was madly pursuing a headlong career, which must bring death to him, and shame to her? alas for human nature! you have anticipated it long since. "the measure of the unhappy woman's misery and misfortune was about to be completed. numerous offences had been committed in the neighbourhood; the perpetrators remained undiscovered, and their boldness increased. a robbery of a daring and aggravated nature occasioned a vigilance of pursuit, and a strictness of search, they had not calculated on. young edmunds was suspected, with three companions. he was apprehended--committed--tried--condemned--to die. "the wild and piercing shriek from a woman's voice, which resounded through the court when the solemn sentence was pronounced, rings in my ears at this moment. that cry struck a terror to the culprit's heart, which trial, condemnation--the approach of death itself, had failed to awaken. the lips which had been compressed in dogged sullenness throughout, quivered and parted involuntarily; the face turned ashy pale as the cold perspiration broke forth from every pore; the sturdy limbs of the felon trembled, and he staggered in the dock. "in the first transports of her mental anguish, the suffering mother threw herself upon her knees at my feet, and fervently besought the almighty being who had hitherto supported her in all her troubles, to release her from a world of woe and misery, and to spare the life of her only child. a burst of grief, and a violent struggle, such as i hope i may never have to witness again, succeeded. i knew that her heart was breaking from that hour; but i never once heard complaint or murmur escape her lips. "it was a piteous spectacle to see that woman in the prison yard from day to day, eagerly and fervently attempting, by affection and entreaty, to soften the hard heart of her obdurate son. it was in vain. he remained moody, obstinate, and unmoved. not even the unlooked-for commutation of his sentence to transportation for fourteen years, softened for an instant the sullen hardihood of his demeanour. "but the spirit of resignation and endurance that had so long upheld her, was unable to contend against bodily weakness and infirmity. she fell sick. she dragged her tottering limbs from the bed to visit her son once more, but her strength failed her, and she sunk powerless on the ground. "and now the boasted coldness and indifference of the young man were tested indeed; and the retribution that fell heavily upon him, nearly drove him mad. a day passed away and his mother was not there; another flew by, and she came not near him; a third evening arrived, and yet he had not seen her; and in four-and-twenty hours he was to be separated from her--perhaps for ever. oh! how the long-forgotten thoughts of former days rushed upon his mind, as he almost ran up and down the narrow yard--as if intelligence would arrive the sooner for _his_ hurrying--and how bitterly a sense of his helplessness and desolation rushed upon him, when he heard the truth! his mother, the only parent he had ever known, lay ill--it might be, dying--within one mile of the ground he stood on; were he free and unfettered, a few minutes would place him by her side. he rushed to the gate, and grasping the iron rail with the energy of desperation, shook it till it rang again, and threw himself against the thick wall as if to force a passage through the stone; but the strong building mocked his feeble efforts, and he beat his hands together and wept like a child. "i bore the mother's forgiveness and blessing to her son in prison; and i carried his solemn assurance of repentance, and his fervent supplication for pardon, to her sick bed. i heard, with pity and compassion, the repentant man devise a thousand little plans for her comfort and support when he returned; but i knew that many months before he could reach his place of destination, his mother would be no longer of this world. "he was removed by night. a few weeks afterwards the poor woman's soul took its flight, i confidently hope, and solemnly believe, to a place of eternal happiness and rest. i performed the burial service over her remains. she lies in our little churchyard. there is no stone at her grave's head. her sorrows were known to man; her virtues to god. "it had been arranged previously to the convict's departure, that he should write to his mother as soon as he could obtain permission, and that the letter should be addressed to me. the father had positively refused to see his son from the moment of his apprehension; and it was a matter of indifference to him whether he lived or died. many years passed over without any intelligence of him; and when more than half his term of transportation had expired, and i had received no letter, i concluded him to be dead, as, indeed, i almost hoped he might be. "edmunds, however, had been sent a considerable distance up the country on his arrival at the settlement; and to this circumstance, perhaps, may be attributed the fact, that though several letters were despatched, none of them ever reached my hands. he remained in the same place during the whole fourteen years. at the expiration of the term, steadily adhering to his old resolution and the pledge he gave his mother, he made his way back to england amidst innumerable difficulties, and returned, on foot, to his native place. "on a fine sunday evening, in the month of august, john edmunds set foot in the village he had left with shame and disgrace seventeen years before. his nearest way lay through the churchyard. the man's heart swelled as he crossed the stile. the tall old elms, through whose branches the declining sun cast here and there a rich ray of light upon the shady path, awakened the associations of his earliest days. he pictured himself as he was then, clinging to his mother's hand, and walking peacefully to church. he remembered how he used to look up into her pale face; and how her eyes would sometimes fill with tears as she gazed upon his features--tears which fell hot upon his forehead as she stooped to kiss him, and made him weep too, although he little knew then what bitter tears hers were. he thought how often he had run merrily down that path with some childish playfellow, looking back, ever and again, to catch his mother's smile, or hear her gentle voice; and then a veil seemed lifted from his memory, and words of kindness unrequited, and warnings despised, and promises broken, thronged upon his recollection till his heart failed him, and he could bear it no longer. "he entered the church. the evening service was concluded and the congregation had dispersed, but it was not yet closed. his steps echoed through the low building with a hollow sound, and he almost feared to be alone, it was so still and quiet. he looked round him. nothing was changed. the place seemed smaller than it used to be, but there were the old monuments, on which he had gazed with childish awe a thousand times; the little pulpit with its faded cushion; the communion-table before which he had so often repeated the commandments he had reverenced as a child, and forgotten as a man. he approached the old seat; it looked cold and desolate. the cushion had been removed, and the bible was not there. perhaps his mother now occupied a poorer seat, or possibly she had grown infirm and could not reach the church alone. he dared not think of what he feared. a cold feeling crept over him, and he trembled violently as he turned away. "an old man entered the porch just as he reached it. edmunds started back, for he knew him well; many a time he had watched him digging graves in the churchyard. what would _he_ say to the returned convict? "the old man raised his eyes to the stranger's face, bid him 'good evening,' and walked slowly on. he had forgotten him. "he walked down the hill, and through the village. the weather was warm, and the people were sitting at their doors, or strolling in their little gardens as he passed, enjoying the serenity of the evening, and their rest from labour. many a look was turned towards him, and many a doubtful glance he cast on either side to see whether any knew and shunned him. there were strange faces in almost every house; in some he recognised the burly form of some old schoolfellow--a boy when he last saw him--surrounded by a troop of merry children; in others he saw, seated in an easy chair at a cottage door, a feeble and infirm old man, whom he only remembered as a hale and hearty labourer; but they had all forgotten him, and he passed on unknown. "the last soft light of the setting sun had fallen on the earth, casting a rich glow on the yellow corn sheaves, and lengthening the shadows of the orchard trees, as he stood before the old house--the home of his infancy--to which his heart had yearned with an intensity of affection not to be described, through long and weary years of captivity and sorrow. the paling was low, though he well remembered the time when it had seemed a high wall to him: and he looked over into the old garden. there were more seeds and gayer flowers than there used to be, but there were the old trees still--the very tree, under which he had lain a thousand times when tired of playing in the sun, and felt the soft mild sleep of happy boyhood steal gently upon him. there were voices within the house. he listened, but they fell strangely upon his ear; he knew them not. they were merry too; and he well knew that his poor old mother could not be cheerful, and he away. the door opened, and a group of little children bounded out, shouting and romping. the father, with a little boy in his arms, appeared at the door, and they crowded round him, clapping their tiny hands, and dragging him out, to join their joyous sports. the convict thought on the many times he had shrunk from his father's sight in that very place. he remembered how often he had buried his trembling head beneath the bed-clothes, and heard the harsh word, and the hard stripe, and his mother's wailing; and though the man sobbed aloud with agony of mind as he left the spot, his fist was clenched, and his teeth were set, in fierce and deadly passion. "and such was the return to which he had looked through the weary perspective of many years, and for which he had undergone so much suffering! no face of welcome, no look of forgiveness, no house to receive, no hand to help him--and this too in the old village. what was his loneliness in the wild thick woods, where man was never seen, to this! "he felt that in the distant land of his bondage and infamy, he had thought of his native place as it was when he left it; not as it would be when he returned. the sad reality struck coldly at his heart, and his spirit sank within him. he had not courage to make inquiries, or to present himself to the only person who was likely to receive him with kindness and compassion. he walked slowly on; and shunning the road-side like a guilty man, turned into a meadow he well remembered; and covering his face with his hands, threw himself upon the grass. "he had not observed that a man was lying on the bank beside him; his garments rustled as he turned round to steal a look at the new-comer: and edmunds raised his head. "the man had moved into a sitting posture. his body was much bent, and his face was wrinkled and yellow. his dress denoted him an inmate of the workhouse: he had the appearance of being very old, but it looked more the effect of dissipation or disease, than length of years. he was staring hard at the stranger, and though his eyes were lustreless and heavy at first, they appeared to glow with an unnatural and alarmed expression after they had been fixed upon him for a short time, until they seemed to be staring from their sockets. edmunds gradually raised himself to his knees, and looked more and more earnestly upon the old man's face. they gazed upon each other in silence. "the old man was ghastly pale. he shuddered and tottered to his feet. edmunds sprang to his. he stepped back a pace or two. edmunds advanced. "'let me hear you speak,' said the convict in a thick broken voice. "'stand off!' cried the old man, with a dreadful oath. the convict drew closer to him. "'stand off!' shrieked the old man. furious with terror, he raised his stick and struck edmunds a heavy blow across the face. "'father--devil!' murmured the convict, between his set teeth. he rushed wildly forward, and clenched the old man by the throat--but he was his father; and his arm fell powerless by his side. "the old man uttered a loud yell which rang through the lonely fields like the howl of an evil spirit. his face turned black: the gore rushed from his mouth and nose, and dyed the grass a deep dark red, as he staggered and fell. he had ruptured a blood-vessel: and he was a dead man before his son could raise him. * * * * * "in that corner of the churchyard," said the old gentleman, after a silence of a few moments, "in that corner of the churchyard of which i have spoken before, there lies buried a man, who was in my employment for three years after this event: and who was truly contrite, penitent, and humbled, if ever man was. no one save myself knew in that man's lifetime who he was, or whence he came:--it was john edmunds, the returned convict." chapter vii [illustration] _how mr. winkle, instead of shooting at the pigeon and killing the crow, shot at the crow and wounded the pigeon; how the dingley dell cricket club played all-muggleton, and how all-muggleton dined at the dingley dell expense: with other interesting and instructive matters._ the fatiguing adventures of the day or the somniferous influence of the clergyman's tale operated so strongly on the drowsy tendencies of mr. pickwick, that in less than five minutes after he had been shown to his comfortable bedroom, he fell into a sound and dreamless sleep, from which he was only awakened by the morning sun darting his bright beams reproachfully into the apartment. mr. pickwick was no sluggard; and he sprang like an ardent warrior from his tent--bedstead. "pleasant, pleasant country," sighed the enthusiastic gentleman, as he opened his lattice window. "who could live to gaze from day to day on bricks and slates, who had once felt the influence of a scene like this? who could continue to exist, where there are no cows but the cows on the chimney-pots; nothing redolent of pan but pan-tiles; no crop but stone-crop? who could bear to drag out a life in such a spot? who, i ask, could endure it?" and, having cross-examined solitude after the most approved precedents, at considerable length, mr. pickwick thrust his head out of the lattice, and looked around him. the rich, sweet smell of the hay-ricks rose to his chamber window; the hundred perfumes of the little flower-garden beneath scented the air around; the deep-green meadows shone in the morning dew that glistened on every leaf as it trembled in the gentle air; and the birds sang as if every sparkling drop were a fountain of inspiration to them. mr. pickwick fell into an enchanting and delicious reverie. "hallo!" was the sound that roused him. he looked to the right, but he saw nobody; his eyes wandered to the left, and pierced the prospect; he stared into the sky, but he wasn't wanted there; and then he did what a common mind would have done at once--looked into the garden, and there saw mr. wardle. "how are you?" said that good-humoured individual, out of breath with his own anticipations of pleasure. "beautiful morning, an't it? glad to see you up so early. make haste down and come out. i'll wait for you here." mr. pickwick needed no second invitation. ten minutes sufficed for the completion of his toilet, and at the expiration of that time he was by the old gentleman's side. "hallo!" said mr. pickwick in his turn: seeing that his companion was armed with a gun, and that another lay ready on the grass. "what's going forward?" "why, your friend and i," replied the host, "are going out rook-shooting before breakfast. he's a very good shot, an't he?" "i've heard him say he's a capital one," replied mr. pickwick; "but i never saw him aim at anything." "well," said the host, "i wish he'd come. joe--joe!" the fat boy, who under the exciting influence of the morning did not appear to be more than three parts and a fraction asleep, emerged from the house. "go up, and call the gentleman, and tell him he'll find me and mr. pickwick in the rookery. show the gentleman the way there; d'ye hear?" the boy departed to execute his commission; and the host, carrying both guns like a second robinson crusoe, led the way from the garden. "this is the place," said the old gentleman, pausing after a few minutes' walking, in an avenue of trees. the information was unnecessary; for the incessant cawing of the unconscious rooks sufficiently indicated their whereabout. the old gentleman laid one gun on the ground, and loaded the other. "here they are," said mr. pickwick; and as he spoke, the forms of mr. tupman, mr. snodgrass, and mr. winkle appeared in the distance. the fat boy, not being quite certain which gentleman he was directed to call, had with peculiar sagacity, and to prevent the possibility of any mistake, called them all. "come along," shouted the old gentleman, addressing mr. winkle; "a keen hand like you ought to have been up long ago, even to such poor work as this." mr. winkle responded with a forced smile, and took up the spare gun with an expression of countenance which a metaphysical rook, impressed with a foreboding of his approaching death by violence, may be supposed to assume. it might have been keenness, but it looked remarkably like misery. the old gentleman nodded; and two ragged boys who had been marshalled to the spot under the direction of the infant lambert, forthwith commenced climbing up two of the trees. "what are those lads for?" inquired mr. pickwick, abruptly. he was rather alarmed; for he was not quite certain but that the distress of the agricultural interest, about which he had often heard a great deal, might have compelled the small boys attached to the soil to earn a precarious and hazardous subsistence by making marks of themselves for inexperienced sportsmen. "only to start the game," replied mr. wardle, laughing. "to what?" inquired mr. pickwick. "why, in plain english, to frighten the rooks." "oh! is that all?" "you are satisfied?" "quite." "very well. shall i begin?" "if you please," said mr. winkle, glad of any respite. "stand aside, then. now for it." the boy shouted, and shook a branch with a nest on it. half a dozen young rooks in violent conversation, flew out to ask what the matter was. the old gentleman fired by way of reply. down fell one bird, and off flew the others. "take him up, joe," said the old gentleman. there was a smile upon the youth's face as he advanced. indistinct visions of rook-pie floated through his imagination. he laughed as he retired with the bird--it was a plump one. "now, mr. winkle," said the host, reloading his own gun. "fire away." mr. winkle advanced, and levelled his gun. mr. pickwick and his friends cowered involuntarily to escape damage from the heavy fall of rooks, which they felt quite certain would be occasioned by the devastating barrel of their friend. there was a solemn pause--a shout--a flapping of wings--a faint click. "hallo!" said the old gentleman. "won't it go?" inquired mr. pickwick. "missed fire," said mr. winkle, who was very pale: probably from disappointment. "odd," said the old gentleman, taking the gun. "never knew one of them miss fire before. why, i don't see anything of the cap." "bless my soul," said mr. winkle. "i declare i forgot the cap!" the slight omission was rectified. mr. pickwick crouched again. mr. winkle stepped forward with an air of determination and resolution; and mr. tupman looked out from behind a tree. the boy shouted; four birds flew out. mr. winkle fired. there was a scream as of an individual--not a rook--in corporeal anguish. mr. tupman had saved the lives of innumerable unoffending birds by receiving a portion of the charge in his left arm. to describe the confusion that ensued would be impossible. to tell how mr. pickwick in the first transports of his emotion called mr. winkle "wretch!" how mr. tupman lay prostrate on the ground, and how mr. winkle knelt horror-stricken beside him; how mr. tupman called distractedly upon some feminine christian name, and then opened first one eye, and then the other, and then fell back and shut them both;--all this would be as difficult to describe in detail, as it would be to depict the gradual recovering of the unfortunate individual, the binding up of his arm with pocket-handkerchiefs, and the conveying him back by slow degrees supported by the arms of his anxious friends. [illustration: _"bless my soul!" said mr. winkle, "i declare i forgot the cap."_] they drew near the house. the ladies were at the garden-gate, waiting for their arrival and their breakfast. the spinster aunt appeared; she smiled, and beckoned them to walk quicker. 'twas evident she knew not of the disaster. poor thing! there are times when ignorance is bliss indeed. they approached nearer. "why, what _is_ the matter with the little old gentleman?" said isabella wardle. the spinster aunt heeded not the remark; she thought it applied to mr. pickwick. in her eyes tracy tupman was a youth; she viewed his years through a diminishing glass. "don't be frightened," called out the old host, fearful of alarming his daughters. the little party had crowded so completely round mr. tupman, that they could not yet clearly discern the nature of the accident. "don't be frightened," said the host. "what's the matter?" screamed the ladies. "mr. tupman has met with a little accident, that's all." the spinster aunt uttered a piercing scream, burst into an hysteric laugh, and fell backwards in the arms of her nieces. "throw some cold water over her," said the old gentleman. "no, no," murmured the spinster aunt; "i am better now. bella, emily--a surgeon! is he wounded?--is he dead?--is he----ha, ha, ha!" here the spinster aunt burst into fit number two, of hysteric laughter interspersed with screams. "calm yourself," said mr. tupman, affected almost to tears by this expression of sympathy with his sufferings. "dear, dear madam, calm yourself." "it is his voice!" exclaimed the spinster aunt; and strong symptoms of fit number three developed themselves forthwith. "do not agitate yourself, i entreat you, dearest madam," said mr. tupman, soothingly. "i am very little hurt, i assure you." "then you are not dead!" ejaculated the hysterical lady. "oh, say you are not dead!" "don't be a fool, rachael," interposed mr. wardle, rather more roughly than was quite consistent with the poetic nature of the scene. "what the devil's the use of his _saying_ he isn't dead?" "no, no, i am not," said mr. tupman. "i require no assistance but yours. let me lean on your arm." he added in a whisper, "oh, miss rachael!" the agitated female advanced, and offered her arm. they turned into the breakfast parlour. mr. tracy tupman pressed her hand to his lips, and sank upon the sofa. "are you faint?" inquired the anxious rachael. "no," said mr. tupman. "it is nothing. i shall be better presently." he closed his eyes. "he sleeps," murmured the spinster aunt. (his organs of vision had been closed nearly twenty seconds.) "dear--dear--mr. tupman!" mr. tupman jumped up--"oh, say those words again!" he exclaimed. the lady started. "surely you did not hear them!" she said, bashfully. "oh yes, i did!" replied mr. tupman; "repeat them. if you would have me recover, repeat them." "hush!" said the lady. "my brother." mr. tracy tupman resumed his former position; and mr. wardle, accompanied by a surgeon, entered the room. the arm was examined, the wound dressed, and pronounced to be a very slight one; and the minds of the company having been thus satisfied, they proceeded to satisfy their appetites with countenances to which an expression of cheerfulness was again restored. mr. pickwick alone was silent and reserved. doubt and distrust were exhibited in his countenance. his confidence in mr. winkle had been shaken--greatly shaken--by the proceedings of the morning. "are you a cricketer?" inquired mr. wardle of the marksman. at any other time, mr. winkle would have replied in the affirmative. he felt the delicacy of the situation, and modestly replied "no." "are you, sir?" inquired mr. snodgrass. "i was once upon a time," replied the host; "but i have given it up now. i subscribe to the club here, but i don't play." "the grand match is played to-day, i believe?" said mr. pickwick. "it is," replied the host. "of course you would like to see it?" "i, sir," replied mr. pickwick, "am delighted to view any sport which may be safely indulged in, and in which the impotent effects of unskilful people do not endanger human life." mr. pickwick paused, and looked steadily on mr. winkle, who quailed beneath his leader's searching glance. the great man withdrew his eyes after a few minutes, and added; "shall we be justified in leaving our wounded friend to the care of the ladies?" "you cannot leave me in better hands," said mr. tupman. "quite impossible," said mr. snodgrass. it was therefore settled that mr. tupman should be left at home in charge of the females; and that the remainder of the guests, under the guidance of mr. wardle, should proceed to the spot where was to be held that trial of skill, which had roused all muggleton from its torpor, and inoculated dingley dell with a fever of excitement. as their walk, which was not above two miles long, lay through shady lanes, and sequestered footpaths, and as their conversation turned upon the delightful scenery by which they were on every side surrounded, mr. pickwick was almost inclined to regret the expedition they had used, when he found himself in the main street of the town of muggleton. everybody whose genius has a topographical bent knows perfectly well that muggleton is a corporate town, with a mayor, burgesses, and freemen; and anybody who has consulted the addresses of the mayor to the freemen, or the freemen to the mayor, or both to the corporation, or all three to parliament, will learn from thence what they ought to have known before, that muggleton is an ancient and loyal borough, mingling a zealous advocacy of christian principles with a devoted attachment to commercial rights; in demonstration whereof, the mayor, corporation, and other inhabitants, have presented at divers times, no fewer than one thousand four hundred and twenty petitions against the continuance of negro slavery abroad, and an equal number against any interference with the factory system at home; sixty-eight in favour of the sale of livings in the church, and eighty-six for abolishing sunday trading in the street. mr. pickwick stood in the principal street of this illustrious town, and gazed with an air of curiosity, not unmixed with interest, on the objects around him. there was an open square for the market-place; and in the centre of it, a large inn with a sign-post in front, displaying an object very common in art, but rarely met with in nature--to wit, a blue lion, with three bow legs in the air, balancing himself on the extreme point of the centre claw of his fourth foot. there were, within sight, an auctioneer's and fire-agency office, a corn-factor's, a linen-draper's, a saddler's, a distiller's, a grocer's, and a shoe-shop--the last-mentioned warehouse being also appropriated to the diffusion of hats, bonnets, wearing apparel, cotton umbrellas, and useful knowledge. there was a red brick house with a small paved court-yard in front, which anybody might have known belonged to the attorney; and there was, moreover, another red brick house with venetian blinds, and a large brass door-plate, with a very legible announcement that it belonged to the surgeon. a few boys were making their way to the cricket-field; and two or three shop-keepers who were standing at their doors looked as if they should like to be making their way to the same spot, as indeed to all appearance they might have done, without losing any great amount of custom thereby. mr. pickwick having paused to make these observations, to be noted down at a more convenient period, hastened to rejoin his friends, who had turned out of the main street, and were already within sight of the field of battle. the wickets were pitched, and so were a couple of marquees for the rest and refreshment of the contending parties. the game had not yet commenced. two or three dingley dellers, and all-muggletonians, were amusing themselves with a majestic air by throwing the ball carelessly from hand to hand; and several other gentlemen dressed like them, in straw hats, flannel jackets, and white trousers--a costume in which they looked very much like amateur stone-masons--were sprinkled about the tents, towards one of which mr. wardle conducted the party. several dozen of "how-are-you's?" hailed the old gentleman's arrival; and a general raising of the straw hats, and bending forward of the flannel jackets, followed his introduction of his guests as gentlemen from london, who were extremely anxious to witness the proceedings of the day, with which, he had no doubt, they would be greatly delighted. "you had better step into the marquee, i think, sir," said one very stout gentleman, whose body and legs looked like half a gigantic roll of flannel, elevated on a couple of inflated pillow-cases. "you'll find it much pleasanter, sir," urged another stout gentleman, who strongly resembled the other half of the roll of flannel aforesaid. "you're very good," said mr. pickwick. "this way," said the first speaker; "they notch in here--it's the best place in the whole field;" and the cricketer, panting on before, preceded them to the tent. "capital game--smart sport--fine exercise--very," were the words which fell upon mr. pickwick's ear as he entered the tent; and the first object that met his eyes was his green-coated friend of the rochester coach, holding forth, to the no small delight and edification of a select circle of the chosen of all-muggleton. his dress was slightly improved, and he wore boots; but there was no mistaking him. the stranger recognised his friends immediately: and, darting forward and seizing mr. pickwick by the hand, dragged him to a seat with his usual impetuosity, talking all the while as if the whole of the arrangements were under his especial patronage and direction. "this way--this way--capital fun--lots of beer--hogsheads; rounds of beef--bullocks; mustard--cart-loads; glorious day--down with you--make yourself at home--glad to see you--very." mr. pickwick sat down as he was bid, and mr. winkle and mr. snodgrass also complied with the directions of their mysterious friend. mr. wardle looked on, in silent wonder. "mr. wardle--a friend of mine," said mr. pickwick. "friend of yours!--my dear sir, how are you?--friend of _my_ friend's--give me your hand, sir"--and the stranger grasped mr. wardle's hand with all the fervour of a close intimacy of many years, and then stepped back a pace or two as if to take a full survey of his face and figure, and then shook hands with him again, if possible, more warmly than before. "well; and how came you here?" said mr. pickwick, with a smile in which benevolence struggled with surprise. "come," replied the stranger--"stopping at the crown--crown at muggleton--met a party--flannel jackets--white trousers--anchovy sandwiches--devilled kidneys--splendid fellows--glorious." mr. pickwick was sufficiently versed in the stranger's system of stenography to infer from this rapid and disjointed communication that he had, somehow or other, contracted an acquaintance with the all-muggletons, which he had converted, by a process peculiar to himself, into that extent of good fellowship on which a general invitation may be easily founded. his curiosity was therefore satisfied, and putting on his spectacles he prepared himself to watch the play which was just commencing. all-muggleton had the first innings; and the interest became intense when mr. dumkins and mr. podder, two of the most renowned members of that most distinguished club, walked, bat in hand, to their respective wickets. mr. luffey, the highest ornament of dingley dell, was pitched to bowl against the redoubtable dumkins, and mr. struggles was selected to do the same kind office for the hitherto unconquered podder. several players were stationed, to "look out," in different parts of the field, and each fixed himself into the proper attitude by placing one hand on each knee, and stooping very much as if he were "making a back" for some beginner at leap-frog. all the regular players do this sort of thing;--indeed it's generally supposed that it is quite impossible to look out properly in any other position. the umpires were stationed behind the wickets; the scorers were prepared to notch the runs; a breathless silence ensued. mr. luffey retired a few paces behind the wicket of the passive podder, and applied the ball to his right eye for several seconds. dumkins confidently awaited its coming with his eyes fixed on the motions of luffey. "play!" suddenly cried the bowler. the ball flew from his hand straight and swift towards the centre stump of the wicket. the wary dumkins was on the alert; it fell upon the tip of the bat, and bounded far away over the heads of the scouts, who had just stooped low enough to let it fly over them. "run--run--another.--now, then, throw her up--up with her--stop there--another--no--yes--no--throw her up, throw her up!"--such were the shouts which followed the stroke; and, at the conclusion of which all-muggleton had scored two. nor was podder behindhand in earning laurels wherewith to garnish himself and muggleton. he blocked the doubtful balls, missed the bad ones, took the good ones, and sent them flying to all parts of the field. the scouts were hot and tired; the bowlers were changed and bowled till their arms ached; but dumkins and podder remained unconquered. did an elderly gentleman essay to stop the progress of the ball, it rolled between his legs or slipped between his fingers. did a slim gentleman try to catch it, it struck him on the nose, and bounded pleasantly off with redoubled violence, while the slim gentleman's eyes filled with water, and his form writhed with anguish. was it thrown straight up to the wicket, dumkins had reached it before the ball. in short, when dumkins was caught out, and podder stumped out, all-muggleton had notched some fifty-four, while the score of the dingley dellers was as blank as their faces. the advantage was too great to be recovered. in vain did the eager luffey, and the enthusiastic struggles, do all that skill and experience could suggest, to regain the ground dingley dell had lost in the contest;--it was of no avail; and in an early period of the winning game dingley dell gave in, and allowed the superior prowess of all-muggleton. the stranger, meanwhile, had been eating, drinking, and talking, without cessation. at every good stroke he expressed his satisfaction and approval of the player in a most condescending and patronising manner, which could not fail to have been highly gratifying to the party concerned; while at every bad attempt at a catch, and every failure to stop the ball, he launched his personal displeasure at the head of the devoted individual in such denunciations as "ah, ah!--stupid"--"now, butter-fingers"--"muff"--"humbug"--and so forth--ejaculations which seemed to establish him in the opinion of all around, as a most excellent and undeniable judge of the whole art and mystery of the noble game of cricket. "capital game--well played--some strokes admirable," said the stranger, as both sides crowded into the tent, at the conclusion of the game. "you have played it, sir?" inquired mr. wardle, who had been much amused by his loquacity. "played it! think i have--thousands of times--not here--west indies--exciting thing--hot work--very." "it must be rather a warm pursuit in such a climate," observed mr. pickwick. "warm!--red hot--scorching--glowing. played a match once--single wicket--friend the colonel--sir thomas blazo--who should get the greatest number of runs.--won the toss--first innings--seven o'clock +a.m.+--six natives to look out--went in; kept in--heat intense--natives all fainted--taken away--fresh half-dozen ordered--fainted also--blazo bowling--supported by two natives--couldn't bowl me out--fainted too--cleared away the colonel--wouldn't give in--faithful attendant--quanko samba--last man left--sun so hot, bat in blisters, ball scorched brown--five hundred and seventy runs--rather exhausted--quanko mustered up last remaining strength--bowled me out--had a bath, and went out to dinner." "and what became of what's-his-name, sir?" inquired an old gentleman. "blazo?" "no--the other gentleman." "quanko samba?" "yes, sir." "poor quanko--never recovered it--bowled on, on my account--bowled off, on his own--died, sir." here the stranger buried his countenance in a brown jug, but whether to hide his emotion or imbibe its contents, we cannot distinctly affirm. we only know that he paused suddenly, drew a long and deep breath, and looked anxiously on, as two of the principal members of the dingley dell club approached mr. pickwick, and said-- "we are about to partake of a plain dinner at the blue lion, sir; we hope you and your friends will join us." "of course," said mr. wardle, "among our friends we include mr. ----;" and he looked towards the stranger. "jingle," said that versatile gentleman, taking the hint at once. "jingle--alfred jingle, esq., of no hall, nowhere." "i shall be very happy, i am sure," said mr. pickwick. "so shall i," said mr. alfred jingle, drawing one arm through mr. pickwick's, and another through mr. wardle's, as he whispered confidentially in the ear of the former gentleman-- "devilish good dinner--cold, but capital--peeped into the room this morning--fowls and pies, and all that sort of thing--pleasant fellows these--well behaved, too--very." there being no further preliminaries to arrange, the company straggled into the town in little knots of twos and threes; and within a quarter of an hour were all seated in the great room of the blue lion inn, muggleton--mr. dumkins acting as chairman, and mr. luffey officiating as vice. there was a vast deal of talking and rattling of knives and forks and plates: a great running about of three ponderous-headed waiters, and a rapid disappearance of the substantial viands on the table; to each and every of which item of confusion, the facetious mr. jingle lent the aid of half-a-dozen ordinary men at least. when everybody had eaten as much as possible, the cloth was removed, bottles, glasses, and dessert were placed on the table; and the waiters withdrew to "clear away," or in other words, to appropriate to their own private use and emolument whatever remnants of the eatables and drinkables they could contrive to lay their hands on. amidst the general hum of mirth and conversation that ensued, there was a little man with a puffy say-nothing-to-me,-or-i'll-contradict-you sort of countenance, who remained very quiet; occasionally looking round him when the conversation slackened, as if he contemplated putting in something very weighty; and now and then bursting into a short cough of inexpressible grandeur. at length, during a moment of comparative silence, the little man called out in a very loud, solemn voice-- "mr. luffey!" everybody was hushed into a profound stillness as the individual addressed, replied-- "sir!" "i wish to address a few words to you, sir, if you will entreat the gentlemen to fill their glasses." mr. jingle uttering a patronising "hear, hear," which was responded to by the remainder of the company: and the glasses having been filled the vice-president assumed an air of wisdom in a state of profound attention; and said-- "mr. staple." "sir," said the little man, rising, "i wish to address what i have to say to _you_ and not to our worthy chairman, because our worthy chairman is in some measure--i may say in a great degree--the subject of what i have to say, or i may say to--to----" "state," suggested mr. jingle. --"yes, to state," said the little man, "i thank my honourable friend, if he will allow me to call him so--(four hears, and one certainly from mr. jingle)--for the suggestion. sir, i am a deller--a dingley deller (cheers). i cannot lay claim to the honour of forming an item in the population of muggleton; nor, sir, i will frankly admit, do i covet that honour: and i will tell you why, sir--(hear); to muggleton i will readily concede all those honours and distinctions to which it can fairly lay claim--they are too numerous and too well-known to require aid or recapitulation from me. but, sir, while we remember that muggleton has given birth to a dumkins and a podder, let us never forget that dingley dell can boast a luffey and a struggles. (vociferous cheering.) let me not be considered as wishing to detract from the merits of the former gentlemen. sir, i envy them the luxury of their own feelings on this occasion. (cheers.) every gentleman who hears me, is probably acquainted with the reply made by an individual, who--to use an ordinary figure of speech--'hung out' in a tub, to the emperor alexander:--'if i were not diogenes,' said he, 'i would be alexander.' i can well imagine these gentlemen to say, 'if i were not dumkins i would be luffey; if i were not podder i would be struggles.' (enthusiasm.) but, gentlemen of muggleton, is it in cricket alone that your fellow-townsmen stand pre-eminent? have you never heard of dumkins and determination? have you never been taught to associate podder with property? (great applause.) have you never, when struggling for your rights, your liberties, and your privileges, been reduced, if only for an instant, to misgiving and despair? and when you have been thus depressed, has not the name of dumkins laid afresh within your breast the fire which had just gone out; and has not a word from that man, lighted it again as brightly as if it had never expired? (great cheering.) gentlemen, i beg to surround with a rich halo of enthusiastic cheering the united names of 'dumkins and podder.'" here the little man ceased, and here the company commenced a raising of voices, and thumping of tables, which lasted with little intermission during the remainder of the evening. other toasts were drunk. mr. luffey and mr. struggles, mr. pickwick and mr. jingle, were, each in his turn, the subject of unqualified eulogium; and each in due course returned thanks for the honour. enthusiastic as we are in the noble cause to which we have devoted ourselves, we should have felt a sensation of pride which we cannot express, and a consciousness of having done something to merit immortality of which we are now deprived, could we have laid the faintest outline of these addresses before our ardent readers. mr. snodgrass, as usual, took a great mass of notes, which would no doubt have afforded most valuable and useful information, had not the burning eloquence of the words or the feverish influence of the wine made that gentleman's hand so extremely unsteady, as to render his writing nearly unintelligible, and his style wholly so. by dint of patient investigation, we have been enabled to trace some characters bearing a faint resemblance to the names of the speakers; and we can also discern an entry of a song (supposed to have been sung by mr. jingle), in which the words "bowl" "sparkling" "ruby" "bright" and "wine" are frequently repeated at short intervals. we fancy too, that we can discern at the very end of the notes, some indistinct reference to "broiled bones;" and then the words "cold" "without" occur: but as any hypothesis we could found upon them must necessarily rest upon mere conjecture, we are not disposed to indulge in any of the speculations to which they may give rise. we will therefore return to mr. tupman; merely adding that within some few minutes before twelve o'clock that night, the convocation of worthies of dingley dell and muggleton were heard to sing, with great feeling and emphasis, the beautiful and pathetic national air of we won't go home 'till morning, we won't go home 'till morning, we won't go home 'till morning, 'till daylight doth appear. chapter viii [illustration] _strongly illustrative of the position, that the course of true love is not a railway_ the quiet seclusion of dingley dell, the presence of so many of the gentler sex, and the solicitude and anxiety they evinced in his behalf, were all favourable to the growth and development of those softer feelings which nature had implanted deep in the bosom of mr. tracy tupman, and which now appeared destined to centre in one lovely object. the young ladies were pretty, their manners winning, their dispositions unexceptionable; but there was a dignity in the air, a touch-me-not-ishness in the walk, a majesty in the eye of the spinster aunt, to which, at their time of life, they could lay no claim, which distinguished her from any female on whom mr. tupman had ever gazed. that there was something kindred in their nature, something congenial in their souls, something mysteriously sympathetic in their bosoms, was evident. her name was the first that rose to mr. tupman's lips as he lay wounded on the grass; and her hysteric laughter was the first sound that fell upon his ear when he was supported to the house. but had her agitation arisen from an amiable and feminine sensibility which would have been equally irrepressible in any case; or had it been called forth by a more ardent and passionate feeling, which he, of all men living, could alone awaken? these were the doubts which racked his brain as he lay extended on the sofa: these were the doubts which he determined should be at once and for ever resolved. it was evening. isabella and emily had strolled out with mr. trundle; the deaf old lady had fallen asleep in her chair; the snoring of the fat boy penetrated in a low and monotonous sound from the distant kitchen; the buxom servants were lounging at the side-door, enjoying the pleasantness of the hour, and the delights of a flirtation, on first principles, with certain unwieldy animals attached to the farm; and there sat the interesting pair, uncared for by all, caring for none, and dreaming only of themselves; there they sat, in short, like a pair of carefully-folded kid-gloves--bound up in each other. "i have forgotten my flowers," said the spinster aunt. "water them now," said mr. tupman in accents of persuasion. "you will take cold in the evening air," urged the spinster aunt, affectionately. "no, no," said mr. tupman, rising; "it will do me good. let me accompany you." the lady paused to adjust the sling in which the left arm of the youth was placed, and taking his right arm led him to the garden. there was a bower at the further end, with honeysuckle, jessamine, and creeping plants--one of those sweet retreats which humane men erect for the accommodation of spiders. the spinster aunt took up a large watering-pot which lay in one corner, and was about to leave the arbour. mr. tupman detained her, and drew her to a seat beside him. "miss wardle!" said he. the spinster aunt trembled, till some pebbles which had accidentally found their way into the large watering-pot shook like an infant's rattle. "miss wardle," said mr. tupman, "you are an angel." "mr. tupman!" exclaimed rachael, blushing as red as the watering-pot itself. "nay," said the eloquent pickwickian, "i know it but too well." "all women are angels, they say," murmured the lady, playfully. "then what can _you_ be; or to what, without presumption, can i compare you?" replied mr. tupman. "where was the woman ever seen who resembled you? where else could i hope to find so rare a combination of excellence and beauty? where else could i seek to----oh!" here mr. tupman paused, and pressed the hand which clasped the handle of the happy watering-pot. the lady turned aside her head. "men are such deceivers," she softly whispered. "they are, they are," ejaculated mr. tupman; "but not all men. there lives at least one being who can never change--one being who would be content to devote his whole existence to your happiness--who lives but in your eyes--who breathes but in your smiles--who bears the heavy burden of life itself only for you." "could such an individual be found?" said the lady. "but he _can_ be found," said the ardent mr. tupman, interposing. "he _is_ found. he is here, miss wardle." and ere the lady was aware of his intention, mr. tupman had sunk upon his knees at her feet. "mr. tupman, rise," said rachael. "never!" was the valorous reply. "oh, rachael!"--he seized her passive hand, and the watering-pot fell to the ground as he pressed it to his lips. "oh, rachael! say you love me." "mr. tupman," said the spinster aunt, with averted head--"i can hardly speak the words; but--but--you are not wholly indifferent to me." mr. tupman no sooner heard this avowal, than he proceeded to do what his enthusiastic emotions prompted, and what, for aught we know (for we are but little acquainted with such matters) people so circumstanced always do. he jumped up, and, throwing his arm round the neck of the spinster aunt, imprinted upon her lips numerous kisses, which after a due show of struggling and resistance, she received so passively, that there is no telling how many more mr. tupman might have bestowed, if the lady had not given a very unaffected start and exclaimed in an affrighted tone-- "mr. tupman, we are observed!--we are discovered!" mr. tupman looked round. there was the fat boy, perfectly motionless, with his large circular eyes staring into the arbour, but without the slightest expression on his face that the most expert physiognomist could have referred to astonishment, curiosity, or any other known passion that agitates the human breast. mr. tupman gazed on the fat boy, and the fat boy stared at him; and the longer mr. tupman observed the utter vacancy of the fat boy's countenance, the more convinced he became that he either did not know or did not understand anything that had been going forward. under this impression, he said with great firmness-- "what do you want here, sir?" "supper's ready, sir," was the prompt reply. "have you just come here, sir?" inquired mr. tupman with a piercing look. "just," replied the fat boy. mr. tupman looked at him very hard again; but there was not a wink in his eye, or a curve in his face. mr. tupman took the arm of the spinster aunt, and walked towards the house; the fat boy followed behind. "he knows nothing of what has happened," he whispered. "nothing," said the spinster aunt. there was a sound behind them, as of an imperfectly suppressed chuckle. mr. tupman turned sharply round. no; it could not have been the fat boy; there was not a gleam of mirth, or anything but feeding, in his whole visage. "he must have been fast asleep," whispered mr. tupman. "i have not the least doubt of it," replied the spinster aunt. they both laughed heartily. mr. tupman was wrong. the fat boy, for once, had not been fast asleep. he was awake--wide awake--to what had been going forward. the supper passed off without any attempt at a general conversation. the old lady had gone to bed; isabella wardle devoted herself exclusively to mr. trundle; the spinster's attentions were reserved for mr. tupman; and emily's thoughts appeared to be engrossed by some distant object--possibly they were with the absent snodgrass. [illustration: _"he must have been fast asleep," whispered mr. tupman_] eleven--twelve--one o'clock had struck, and the gentlemen had not arrived. consternation sat on every face. could they have been waylaid and robbed? should they send men and lanterns in every direction by which they could be supposed likely to have travelled home? or should they----hark! there they were. what could have made them so late? a strange voice too! to whom could it belong? they rushed into the kitchen whither the truants had repaired, and at once obtained rather more than a glimmering of the real state of the case. mr. pickwick, with his hands in his pockets and his hat cocked completely over his left eye, was leaning against the dresser, shaking his head from side to side, and producing a constant succession of the blandest and most benevolent smiles without being moved thereunto by any discernible cause or pretence whatsoever; old mr. wardle, with a highly-inflamed countenance, was grasping the hand of a strange gentleman, muttering protestations of eternal friendship; mr. winkle, supporting himself by the eight-day clock, was feebly invoking destruction upon the head of any member of the family who should suggest the propriety of his retiring for the night; and mr. snodgrass had sunk into a chair, with an expression of the most abject and hopeless misery that the human mind can imagine, portrayed in every lineament of his expressive face. "is anything the matter?" inquired the three ladies. "nothing the matter," replied mr. pickwick. "we--we're--all right--i say, wardle, we're all right, an't we?" "i should think so," replied the jolly host.--"my dears, here's my friend, mr. jingle.--mr. pickwick's friend, mr. jingle, come 'pon--little visit." "is anything the matter with mr. snodgrass, sir?" inquired emily, with great anxiety. "nothing the matter, ma'am," replied the stranger. "cricket dinner--glorious party--capital songs--old port--claret--good--very good--wine, ma'am--wine." "it wasn't the wine," murmured mr. snodgrass, in a broken voice. "it was the salmon." (somehow or other, it never _is_ the wine, in these cases.) "hadn't they better go to bed, ma'am?" inquired emma. "two of the boys will carry the gentlemen up stairs." "i won't go to bed," said mr. winkle, firmly. "no living boy shall carry me," said mr. pickwick, stoutly;--and he went on smiling as before. "hurrah!" gasped mr. winkle, faintly. "hurrah!" echoed mr. pickwick, taking off his hat and dashing it on the floor, and insanely casting his spectacles into the middle of the kitchen.--at this humorous feat he laughed outright. "let's--have--'nother--bottle," cried mr. winkle, commencing in a very loud key, and ending in a very faint one. his head dropped upon his breast; and, muttering his invincible determination not to go to his bed, and a sanguinary regret that he had not "done for old tupman" in the morning, he fell fast asleep; in which condition he was borne to his apartment by two young giants under the personal superintendence of the fat boy, to whose protecting care mr. snodgrass shortly afterwards confided his own person. mr. pickwick accepted the proffered arm of mr. tupman and quietly disappeared, smiling more than ever; and mr. wardle, after taking as affectionate a leave of the whole family as if he were ordered for immediate execution, consigned to mr. trundle the honour of conveying him up-stairs, and retired, with a very futile attempt to look impressively solemn and dignified. "what a shocking scene!" said the spinster aunt. "dis--gusting!" ejaculated both the young ladies. "dreadful--dreadful!" said jingle, looking very grave; he was about a bottle and a half ahead of any of his companions. "horrid spectacle--very!" "what a nice man!" whispered the spinster aunt to mr. tupman. "good-looking, too!" whispered emily wardle. "oh, decidedly," observed the spinster aunt. mr. tupman thought of the widow at rochester: and his mind was troubled. the succeeding half-hour's conversation was not of a nature to calm his perturbed spirit. the new visitor was very talkative, and the number of his anecdotes was only to be exceeded by the extent of his politeness. mr. tupman felt that as jingle's popularity increased, he (tupman) retired further into the shade. his laughter was forced--his merriment feigned; and when at last he laid his aching temples between the sheets, he thought, with horrid delight, on the satisfaction it would afford him to have jingle's head at that moment between the feather-bed and the mattress. the indefatigable stranger rose betimes next morning, and, although his companions remained in bed overpowered with the dissipation of the previous night, exerted himself most successfully to promote the hilarity of the breakfast-table. so successful were his efforts, that even the deaf old lady insisted on having one or two of his best jokes retailed through the trumpet; and even she condescended to observe to the spinster aunt that "he" (meaning jingle) "was an impudent young fellow"; a sentiment in which all her relations then and there present thoroughly coincided. it was the old lady's habit on the fine summer mornings to repair to the arbour in which mr. tupman had already signalised himself, in form and manner following: first, the fat boy fetched from a peg behind the old lady's bed-room door, a close black satin bonnet, a warm cotton shawl, and a thick stick with a capacious handle; and the old lady having put on the bonnet and shawl at her leisure, would lean one hand on the stick and the other on the fat boy's shoulder, and walk leisurely to the arbour, where the fat boy would leave her to enjoy the fresh air for the space of half-an-hour; at the expiration of which time he would return and reconduct her to the house. the old lady was very precise and very particular; and as this ceremony had been observed for three successive summers without the slightest deviation from the accustomed form, she was not a little surprised on this particular morning, to see the fat boy, instead of leaving the arbour, walk a few paces out of it, look carefully round him in every direction, and return towards her with great stealth and an air of the most profound mystery. the old lady was timorous--most old ladies are--and her first impression was that the bloated lad was about to do her some grievous bodily harm with the view of possessing himself of her loose coin. she would have cried for assistance, but age and infirmity had long ago deprived her of the power of screaming; she, therefore, watched his motions with feelings of intense terror, which were in no degree diminished by his coming close up to her, and shouting in her ear in an agitated, and as it seemed to her, a threatening tone-- "missus!" now it so happened that mr. jingle was walking in the garden close to the arbour at this moment. he too heard the shout of "missus," and stopped to hear more. there were three reasons for his doing so. in the first place, he was idle and curious; secondly, he was by no means scrupulous; thirdly, and lastly, he was concealed from view by some flowering shrubs. so there he stood, and there he listened. "missus!" shouted the fat boy. "well, joe," said the trembling old lady. "i'm sure i have been a good mistress to you, joe. you have invariably been treated very kindly. you have never had too much to do; and you have always had enough to eat." this last was an appeal to the fat boy's most sensitive feelings. he seemed touched, as he replied, emphatically-- "i knows i has." "then what can you want to do now?" said the old lady, gaining courage. "i wants to make your flesh creep," replied the boy. this sounded like a very bloodthirsty mode of showing one's gratitude; and as the old lady did not precisely understand the process by which such a result was to be attained, all her former horrors returned. "what do you think i see in this very arbour last night?" inquired the boy. "bless us! what?" exclaimed the old lady, alarmed at the solemn manner of the corpulent youth. "the strange gentleman--him as had his arm hurt--a kissin' and huggin'----" "who, joe? none of the servants, i hope?" "worser than that," roared the fat boy, in the old lady's ear. "not one of my grand-da'aters?" "worser than that." "worse than _that_, joe!" said the old lady, who had thought this the extreme limit of human atrocity. "who was it, joe? i insist upon knowing." the fat boy looked cautiously round, and having concluded his survey, shouted in the old lady's ear: "miss rachael." "what!" said the old lady, in a shrill tone. "speak louder." "miss rachael," roared the fat boy. "my da'ater!" the train of nods which the fat boy gave by way of assent, communicated a _blanc-mange_-like motion to his fat cheeks. "and she suffered him!" exclaimed the old lady. a grin stole over the fat boy's features as he said: "i see her a kissin' of him agin." if mr. jingle, from his place of concealment, could have beheld the expression which the old lady's face assumed at this communication, the probability is that a sudden burst of laughter would have betrayed his close vicinity to the summer-house. he listened attentively. fragments of angry sentences such as, "without my permission!"--"at her time of life"--"miserable old 'ooman like me"--"might have waited till i was dead," and so forth reached his ears; and then he heard the heels of the fat boy's boots crunching the gravel, as he retired and left the old lady alone. it was a remarkable coincidence perhaps, but it was nevertheless a fact, that mr. jingle within five minutes after his arrival at manor farm on the preceding night, had inwardly resolved to lay siege to the heart of the spinster aunt, without delay. he had observation enough to see, that his off-hand manner was by no means disagreeable to the fair object of his attack; and he had more than a strong suspicion that she possessed that most desirable of all requisites, a small independence. the imperative necessity of ousting his rival by some means or other, flashed quickly upon him, and he immediately resolved to adopt certain proceedings tending to that end and object, without a moment's delay. fielding tells us that man is fire, and woman tow, and the prince of darkness sets a light to 'em. mr. jingle knew that young men, to spinster aunts, are as lighted gas to gunpowder, and he determined to essay the effect of an explosion without loss of time. full of reflections upon this important decision, he crept from his place of concealment, and, under cover of the shrubs before mentioned, approached the house. fortune seemed determined to favour his design. mr. tupman and the rest of the gentlemen left the garden by the side gate just as he obtained a view of it; and the young ladies, he knew, had walked out alone, soon after breakfast. the coast was clear. the breakfast-parlour door was partially open. he peeped in. the spinster aunt was knitting. he coughed; she looked up and smiled. hesitation formed no part of mr. alfred jingle's character. he laid his finger on his lips mysteriously, walked in, and closed the door. "miss wardle," said mr. jingle, with affected earnestness, "forgive intrusion--short acquaintance--no time for ceremony--all discovered." "sir!" said the spinster aunt, rather astonished by the unexpected apparition and somewhat doubtful of mr. jingle's sanity. "hush!" said mr. jingle, in a stage whisper;--"large boy--dumpling face--round eyes--rascal!" here he shook his head expressively, and the spinster aunt trembled with agitation. "i presume you allude to joseph, sir?" said the lady, making an effort to appear composed. "yes, ma'am--damn that joe!--treacherous dog, joe--told the old lady--old lady furious--wild--raving--arbour--tupman--kissing and hugging--all that sort of thing--eh, ma'am--eh?" "mr. jingle," said the spinster aunt, "if you come here, sir, to insult me----" "not at all--by no means," replied the unabashed mr. jingle;--"overheard the tale--came to warn you of your danger--tender my services--prevent the hubbub. never mind--think it an insult--leave the room"--and he turned as if to carry the threat into execution. "what _shall_ i do?" said the poor spinster, bursting into tears. "my brother will be furious." "of course he will," said mr. jingle, pausing--"outrageous." "oh, mr. jingle, what _can_ i say?" exclaimed the spinster aunt, in another flood of despair. "say he dreamt it," replied mr. jingle, coolly. a ray of comfort darted across the mind of the spinster aunt at this suggestion. mr. jingle perceived it, and followed up his advantage. "pooh, pooh! nothing more easy--blackguard boy--lovely woman--fat boy horsewhipped--you believed--end of the matter--all comfortable." whether the probability of escaping from the consequences of this ill-timed discovery was delightful to the spinster's feelings, or whether the hearing herself described as a "lovely woman" softened the asperity of her grief, we know not. she blushed slightly, and cast a grateful look on mr. jingle. that insinuating gentleman sighed deeply, fixed his eyes on the spinster aunt's face for a couple of minutes, started melodramatically, and suddenly withdrew them. "you seem unhappy, mr. jingle," said the lady, in a plaintive voice. "may i show my gratitude for your kind interference by inquiring into the cause, with a view, if possible, to its removal?" "ha!" exclaimed mr. jingle, with another start--"removal! remove _my_ unhappiness, and your love bestowed upon a man who is insensible to the blessing--who even now contemplates a design upon the affections of the niece of the creature who--but no; he is my friend; i will not expose his vices. miss wardle--farewell!" at the conclusion of this address, the most consecutive he was ever known to utter, mr. jingle applied to his eyes the remnant of a handkerchief before noticed, and turned towards the door. "stay, mr. jingle," said the spinster aunt, emphatically. "you have made an allusion to mr. tupman--explain it." "never!" exclaimed jingle, with a professional (_i.e._ theatrical) air. "never!" and, by way of showing that he had no desire to be questioned further, he drew a chair close to that of the spinster aunt and sat down. "mr. jingle," said the aunt, "i entreat--i implore you, if there is any dreadful mystery connected with mr. tupman, reveal it." "can i," said mr. jingle, fixing his eyes on the aunt's face--"can i see--lovely creature--sacrificed at the shrine--heartless avarice!" he appeared to be struggling with various conflicting emotions for a few seconds, and then said in a low deep voice-- "tupman only wants your money." "the wretch!" exclaimed the spinster, with energetic indignation. (mr. jingle's doubts were resolved. she _had_ money.) "more than that," said jingle--"loves another." "another!" ejaculated the spinster. "who?" "short girl--black eyes--niece emily." there was a pause. now, if there were one individual in the whole world, of whom the spinster aunt entertained a mortal and deeply-rooted jealousy, it was this identical niece. the colour rushed over her face and neck, and she tossed her head in silence with an air of ineffable contempt. at last, biting her thin lips, and bridling up, she said-- "it can't be. i won't believe it." "watch 'em," said jingle. "i will," said the aunt. "watch his looks." "i will." "his whispers." "i will." "he'll sit next her at table." "let him." "he'll flatter her." "let him." "he'll pay her every possible attention." "let him." "and he'll cut you." "cut _me_!" screamed the spinster aunt. "_he_ cut _me_;--_will_ he!" and she trembled with rage and disappointment. "you will convince yourself?" said jingle. "i will." "you'll show your spirit?" "i will." "you'll not have him afterwards?" "never." "you'll take somebody else?" "yes." "you shall." mr. jingle fell on his knees, remained thereupon for five minutes thereafter: and rose the accepted lover of the spinster aunt: conditionally upon mr. tupman's perjury being made clear and manifest. the burden of proof lay with mr. alfred jingle; and he produced his evidence that very day at dinner. the spinster aunt could hardly believe her eyes. mr. tracy tupman was established at emily's side, ogling, whispering, and smiling, in opposition to mr. snodgrass. not a word, not a look, not a glance, did he bestow upon his heart's pride of the evening before. "damn that boy!" thought old mr. wardle to himself.--he had heard the story from his mother. "damn that boy! he _must_ have been asleep. it's all imagination." "traitor!" thought the spinster aunt. "dear mr. jingle was not deceiving me. ugh! how i hate the wretch!" the following conversation may serve to explain to our readers this apparently unaccountable alteration of deportment on the part of mr. tracy tupman. the time was evening; the scene the garden. there were two figures walking in the side path; one was rather short and stout; the other rather tall and slim. they were mr. tupman and mr. jingle. the stout figure commenced the dialogue. "how did i do it?" he inquired. "splendid--capital--couldn't act better myself--you must repeat the part to-morrow--every evening, till further notice." "does rachael still wish it?" "of course--she don't like it--but must be done--avert suspicion--afraid of her brother--says there's no help for it--only a few days more--when old folks blinded--crown your happiness." "any message?" "love--best love--kindest regards--unalterable affection. can i say anything for you?" "my dear fellow," replied the unsuspicious mr. tupman, fervently grasping his "friend's" hand--"carry my best love--say how hard i find it to dissemble--say anything that's kind: but add how sensible i am of the necessity of the suggestion she made to me, through you, this morning. say i applaud her wisdom and admire her discretion." "i will. anything more?" "nothing; only add how ardently i long for the time when i may call her mine, and all dissimulation may be unnecessary." "certainly, certainly. anything more?" "oh, my friend!" said poor mr. tupman, again grasping the hand of his companion, "receive my warmest thanks for your disinterested kindness; and forgive me if i have ever, even in thought, done you the injustice of supposing that you _could_ stand in my way. my dear friend, can i ever repay you?" "don't talk of it," replied mr. jingle. he stopped short, as if suddenly recollecting something, and said--"by-the-bye--can't spare ten pounds, can you?--very particular purpose--pay you in three days." "i dare say i can," replied mr. tupman, in the fulness of his heart. "three days, you say?" "only three days--all over then--no more difficulties." mr. tupman counted the money into his companion's hand, and he dropped it piece by piece into his pocket, as they walked towards the house. "be careful," said mr. jingle--"not a look." "not a wink," said mr. tupman. "not a syllable." "not a whisper." "all your attentions to the niece--rather rude, than otherwise, to the aunt--only way of deceiving the old ones." "i'll take care," said mr. tupman, aloud. "and _i_'ll take care," said mr. jingle, internally; and they entered the house. the scene of that afternoon was repeated that evening, and on the three afternoons and evenings next ensuing. on the fourth, the host was in high spirits, for he had satisfied himself that there was no ground for the charge against mr. tupman. so was mr. tupman, for mr. jingle had told him that his affair would soon be brought to a crisis. so was mr. pickwick, for he was seldom otherwise. so was not mr. snodgrass, for he had grown jealous of mr. tupman. so was the old lady, for she had been winning at whist. so were mr. jingle and miss wardle, for reasons of sufficient importance in this eventful history to be narrated in another chapter. chapter ix [illustration] _a discovery and a chase_ the supper was ready laid, the chairs were drawn round the table, bottles, jugs, and glasses were arranged upon the sideboard, and everything betokened the approach of the most convivial period in the whole four-and-twenty hours. "where's rachael?" said mr. wardle. "ay, and jingle?" added mr. pickwick. "dear me," said the host, "i wonder i haven't missed him before. why, i don't think i have heard his voice for two hours at least. emily, my dear, ring the bell." the bell was rung, and the fat boy appeared. "where's miss rachael?" he couldn't say. "where's mr. jingle, then?" he didn't know. everybody looked surprised. it was late--past eleven o'clock. mr. tupman laughed in his sleeve. they were loitering somewhere, talking about _him_. ha, ha! capital notion that--funny. "never mind," said wardle, after a short pause, "they'll turn up presently, i dare say. i never wait supper for anybody." "excellent rule that," said mr. pickwick, "admirable." "pray, sit down," said the host. "certainly," said mr. pickwick: and down they sat. there was a gigantic round of cold beef on the table, and mr. pickwick was supplied with a plentiful portion of it. he had raised his fork to his lips, and was on the very point of opening his mouth for the reception of a piece of beef, when the hum of many voices suddenly arose in the kitchen. he paused, and laid down his fork. mr. wardle paused too, and insensibly released his hold of the carving-knife, which remained inserted in the beef. he looked at mr. pickwick. mr. pickwick looked at him. heavy footsteps were heard in the passage; the parlour door was suddenly burst open; and the man who had cleaned mr. pickwick's boots on his first arrival, rushed into the room, followed by the fat boy, and all the domestics. "what the devil's the meaning of all this?" exclaimed the host. "the kitchen chimney a'n't a-fire, is it, emma?" inquired the old lady. "lor, grandma! no," screamed both the young ladies. "what's the matter?" roared the master of the house. the man gasped for breath, and faintly ejaculated-- "they ha' gone, mas'r!--gone right clean off, sir!" (at this juncture mr. tupman was observed to lay down his knife and fork, and to turn very pale.) [illustration: "_here i am; but i han't a willin_"] "who's gone?" said mr. wardle, fiercely. "mus'r jingle and miss rachael, in a po'-chay, from blue lion, muggleton. i was there; but i couldn't stop 'em; so i run off to tell'ee." "i paid his expenses!" said mr. tupman, jumping up frantically. "he's got ten pounds of mine!--stop him!--he's swindled me!--i won't bear it!--i'll have justice, pickwick!--i won't stand it!" and with sundry incoherent exclamations of the like nature, the unhappy gentleman spun round and round the apartment, in a transport of frenzy. "lord preserve us!" ejaculated mr. pickwick, eyeing the extraordinary gestures of his friend with terrified surprise. "he's gone mad! what shall we do!" "do!" said the stout old host, who regarded only the last words of the sentence. "put the horse in the gig! i'll get a chaise at the lion, and follow 'em instantly. where"--he exclaimed, as the man ran out to execute the commission--"where's that villain joe?" "here i am; but i han't a willin," replied a voice. it was the fat boy's. "let me get at him, pickwick," cried wardle, as he rushed at the ill-starred youth. "he was bribed by that scoundrel, jingle, to put me on a wrong scent, by telling a cock-and-a-bull story of my sister and your friend tupman!" (here mr. tupman sunk into a chair.) "let me get at him!" "don't let him!" screamed all the women, above whose exclamations the blubbering of the fat boy was distinctly audible. "i won't be held!" cried the old man. "mr. winkle, take your hands off. mr. pickwick, let me go, sir!" it was a beautiful sight, in that moment of turmoil and confusion, to behold the placid and philosophical expression of mr. pickwick's face, albeit somewhat flushed with exertion, as he stood with his arms firmly clasped round the extensive waist of their corpulent host, thus restraining the impetuosity of his passion, while the fat boy was scratched, and pulled, and pushed from the room by all the females congregated therein. he had no sooner released his hold, than the man entered to announce that the gig was ready. "don't let him go alone!" screamed the females. "he'll kill somebody!" "i'll go with him," said mr. pickwick. "you're a good fellow, pickwick," said the host, grasping his hand. "emma, give mr. pickwick a shawl to tie round his neck--make haste. look after your grandmother, girls; she has fainted away. now then, are you ready?" mr. pickwick's mouth and chin having been hastily enveloped in a large shawl: his hat having been put on his head, and his great coat thrown over his arm, he replied in the affirmative. they jumped into the gig. "give her her head, tom," cried the host; and away they went, down the narrow lanes; jolting in and out of the cart-ruts, and bumping up against the hedges on either side, as if they would go to pieces every moment. "how much are they ahead?" shouted wardle, as they drove up to the door of the blue lion, round which a little crowd had collected, late as it was. "not above three-quarters of an hour," was everybody's reply. "chaise and four directly!--out with 'em! put up the gig afterwards." "now, boys!" cried the landlord--"chaise and four out--make haste--look alive there!" away ran the hostlers, and the boys. the lanterns glimmered, as the men ran to and fro; the horses' hoofs clattered on the uneven paving of the yard; the chaise rumbled as it was drawn out of the coach-house; and all was noise and bustle. "now then!--is that chaise coming out to-night?" cried wardle. "coming down the yard now, sir," replied the hostler. out came the chaise--in went the horses--on sprung the boys--in got the travellers. "mind--the seven-mile stage in less than half-an-hour!" shouted wardle. "off with you!" the boys applied whip and spur, the waiter shouted, the hostlers cheered, and away they went, fast and furious. "pretty situation," thought mr. pickwick, when he had had a moment's time for reflection. "pretty situation for the general chairman of the pickwick club. damp chaise--strange horses--fifteen miles an hour--and twelve o'clock at night!" for the first three or four miles not a word was spoken by either of the gentlemen, each being too much immersed in his own reflections to address any observations to his companion. when they had gone over that much ground, however, and the horses getting thoroughly warmed began to do their work in really good style, mr. pickwick became too much exhilarated with the rapidity of the motion, to remain any longer perfectly mute. "we're sure to catch them, i think," said he. "hope so," replied his companion. "fine night," said mr. pickwick, looking up at the moon, which was shining brightly. "so much the worse," returned wardle; "for they'll have had all the advantage of the moonlight to get the start of us, and we shall lose it. it will have gone down in another hour." "it will be rather unpleasant going at this rate in the dark, won't it?" inquired mr. pickwick. "i daresay it will," replied his friend, drily. mr. pickwick's temporary excitement began to sober down a little, as he reflected upon the inconveniences and dangers of the expedition in which he had so thoughtlessly embarked. he was roused by a loud shouting of the post-boy on the leader. "yo--yo--yo--yo--yoe!" went the first boy. "yo--yo--yo--yoe!" went the second. "yo--yo--yo--yoe!" chimed in old wardle himself, most lustily, with his head and half his body out of the coach window. "yo--yo--yo--yoe!" shouted mr. pickwick, taking up the burden of the cry, though he had not the slightest notion of its meaning or object. and amidst the yo--yoing of the whole four, the chaise stopped. "what's the matter?" inquired mr. pickwick. "there's a gate here," replied old wardle. "we shall hear something of the fugitives." after a lapse of five minutes, consumed in incessant knocking and shouting, an old man in his shirt and trousers emerged from the turnpike-house, and opened the gate. "how long is it since a post-chaise went through here?" inquired mr. wardle. "how long?" "ah!" "why, i don't rightly know. it worn't a long time ago, nor it worn't a short time ago--just between the two, perhaps." "has any chaise been by at all?" "oh yes, there's been a shay by." "how long ago, my friend," interposed mr. pickwick, "an hour?" "ah, i daresay it might be," replied the man. "or two hours?" inquired the post-boy on the wheeler. "well, i shouldn't wonder if it was," returned the old man, doubtfully. "drive on, boys," cried the testy old gentleman: "don't waste any more time with that old idiot!" "idiot!" exclaimed the old man with a grin, as he stood in the middle of the road with the gate half-closed, watching the chaise which rapidly diminished in the increasing distance. "no--not much o' that either; you've lost ten minutes here, and gone away as wise as you came, arter all. if every man on the line as has a guinea give him, earns it half as well, you won't catch t'other shay this side mich'lmas, old short-and-fat." and with another prolonged grin, the old man closed the gate, re-entered his house, and bolted the door after him. meanwhile the chaise proceeded, without any slackening of pace, towards the conclusion of the stage. the moon, as wardle had foretold, was rapidly on the wane; large tiers of dark heavy clouds, which had been gradually overspreading the sky for some time past, now formed one black mass over head; and large drops of rain which pattered every now and then against the windows of the chaise, seemed to warn the travellers of the rapid approach of a stormy night. the wind, too, which was directly against them, swept in furious gusts down the narrow road, and howled dismally through the trees which skirted the pathway. mr. pickwick drew his coat closer about him, coiled himself more snugly up into the corner of the chaise, and fell into a sound sleep, from which he was only awakened by the stopping of the vehicle, the sound of the hostler's bell, and a loud cry of "horses on directly!" but here another delay occurred. the boys were sleeping with such mysterious soundness, that it took five minutes apiece to wake them. the hostler had somehow or other mislaid the key of the stable, and even when that was found, two sleepy helpers put the wrong harness on the wrong horses, and the whole process of harnessing had to be gone through afresh. had mr. pickwick been alone, these multiplied obstacles would have completely put an end to the pursuit at once, but old wardle was not to be so easily daunted; and he laid about him with such hearty good-will, cuffing this man, and pushing that; strapping a buckle here, and taking in a link there, that the chaise was ready in a much shorter time than could reasonably have been expected under so many difficulties. they resumed their journey; and certainly the prospect before them was by no means encouraging. the stage was fifteen miles long, the night was dark, the wind high, and the rain pouring in torrents. it was impossible to make any great way against such obstacles united; it was hard upon one o'clock already; and nearly two hours were consumed in getting to the end of the stage. here, however, an object presented itself, which rekindled their hopes, and reanimated their drooping spirits. "when did this chaise come in?" cried old wardle, leaping out of his own vehicle, and pointing to one covered with wet mud, which was standing in the yard. "not a quarter of an hour ago, sir," replied the hostler, to whom the question was addressed. "lady and gentleman?" inquired wardle, almost breathless with impatience. "yes, sir." "tall gentleman--dress coat--long legs--thin body?" "yes, sir." "elderly lady--thin face--rather skinny--eh?" "yes, sir." "by heavens! it's the couple, pickwick," exclaimed the old gentleman. "would have been here before," said the hostler, "but they broke a trace." "it is!" said wardle, "it is, by jove! chaise and four instantly! we shall catch them yet, before they reach the next stage. a guinea a-piece, boys--be alive there--bustle about--there's good fellows." and with such admonitions as these, the old gentleman ran up and down the yard, and bustled to and fro, in a state of excitement which communicated itself to mr. pickwick also; and under the influence of which, that gentleman got himself into complicated entanglements with harness, and mixed up with horses and wheels of chaises, in the most surprising manner, firmly believing that by so doing he was materially forwarding the preparations for their resuming their journey. "jump in--jump in!" cried old wardle, climbing into the chaise, pulling up the steps, and slamming the door after him. "come along! make haste!" and before mr. pickwick knew precisely what he was about, he felt himself forced in at the other door, by one pull from the old gentleman, and one push from the hostler; and off they were again. "ah! we _are_ moving now," said the old gentleman exultingly. they were indeed, as was sufficiently testified to mr. pickwick, by his constant collisions either with the hard woodwork of the chaise, or the body of his companion. "hold up!" said the stout old mr. wardle, as mr. pickwick dived head foremost into his capacious waistcoat. "i never did feel such a jolting in my life," said mr. pickwick. "never mind," replied his companion, "it will soon be over. steady, steady." mr. pickwick planted himself into his own corner, as firmly as he could; and on whirled the chaise faster than ever. they had travelled in this way about three miles, when mr. wardle, who had been looking out of the window for two or three minutes, suddenly drew in his face, covered with splashes, and exclaimed in breathless eagerness-- "here they are!" mr. pickwick thrust his head out of his window. yes: there was a chaise and four, a short distance before them, dashing along at full gallop. "go on, go on," almost shrieked the old gentleman. "two guineas a-piece, boys--don't let 'em gain on us--keep it up--keep it up." the horses in the first chaise started on at their utmost speed; and those in mr. wardle's galloped furiously behind them. "i see his head," exclaimed the choleric old man, "damme, i see his head." "so do i," said mr. pickwick, "that's he." mr. pickwick was not mistaken. the countenance of mr. jingle, completely coated with the mud thrown up by the wheels, was plainly discernible at the window of his chaise; and the motion of his arm, which he was waving violently towards the postilions, denoted that he was encouraging them to increased exertion. the interest was intense. fields, trees, and hedges seemed to rush past them with the velocity of a whirlwind, so rapid was the pace at which they tore along. they were close by the side of the first chaise. jingle's voice could be plainly heard, even above the din of the wheels, urging on the boys. old mr. wardle foamed with rage and excitement. he roared out scoundrels and villains by the dozen, clenched his fist and shook it expressively at the object of his indignation; but mr. jingle only answered with a contemptuous smile, and replied to his menaces by a shout of triumph, as his horses, answering the increased application of whip and spur, broke into a faster gallop, and left the pursuers behind. mr. pickwick had just drawn in his head, and mr. wardle, exhausted with shouting, had done the same, when a tremendous jolt threw them forward against the front of the vehicle. there was a sudden bump--a loud crash--away rolled a wheel, and over went the chaise. after a few seconds of bewilderment and confusion, in which nothing but the plunging of horses, and breaking of glass, could be made out, mr. pickwick felt himself violently pulled out from among the ruins of the chaise; and as soon as he had gained his feet, extricated his head from the skirts of his great-coat, which materially impeded the usefulness of his spectacles, the full disaster of the case met his view. old mr. wardle without a hat, and his clothes torn in several places, stood by his side, and the fragments of the chaise lay scattered at their feet. the post-boys, who had succeeded in cutting the traces, were standing, disfigured with mud and disordered by hard riding, by the horses' heads. about a hundred yards in advance was the other chaise, which had pulled up on hearing the crash. the postilions, each with a broad grin convulsing his countenance, were viewing the adverse party from their saddles, and mr. jingle was contemplating the wreck from the coach-window with evident satisfaction. the day was just breaking, and the whole scene was rendered perfectly visible by the grey light of the morning. "hallo!" shouted the shameless jingle, "anybody damaged?--elderly gentlemen--no light weights--dangerous work--very." [illustration: _"love to tuppy--won't you get up behind?--drive on, boys," replied jingle._] "you're a rascal!" roared wardle. "ha! ha!" replied jingle; and then he added, with a knowing wink, and a jerk of the thumb towards the interior of the chaise--"i say--she's very well--desires her compliments--begs you won't trouble yourself--love to _tuppy_--won't you get up behind?--drive on, boys." the postilions resumed their proper attitudes, and away rattled the chaise, mr. jingle fluttering in derision a white handkerchief from the coach-window. nothing in the whole adventure, not even the upset, had disturbed the calm and equable current of mr. pickwick's temper. the villainy, however, which could first borrow money of his faithful follower, and then abbreviate his name to "tuppy," was more than he could patiently bear. he drew his breath hard, and coloured up to the very tips of his spectacles, as he said, slowly and emphatically-- "if ever i meet that man again, i'll----" "yes, yes," interrupted wardle, "that's all very well: but while we stand talking here, they'll get their licence, and be married in london." mr. pickwick paused, bottled up his vengeance, and corked it down. "how far is it to the next stage?" inquired mr. wardle of one of the boys. "six mile, an't it, tom?" "rayther better." "rayther better nor six mile, sir." "can't be helped," said wardle, "we must walk it, pickwick." "no help for it," replied that truly great man. so sending forward one of the boys on horseback to procure a fresh chaise and horses, and leaving the other behind to take care of the broken one, mr. pickwick and mr. wardle set manfully forward on the walk, first tying their shawls round their necks, and slouching down their hats to escape as much as possible from the deluge of rain, which after a slight cessation had again begun to pour heavily down. chapter x [illustration] _clearing up all doubts (if any existed) of the disinterestedness of mr. jingle's character_ there are in london several old inns, once the headquarters of celebrated coaches in the days when coaches performed their journeys in a graver and more solemn manner than they do in these times; but which have now degenerated into little more than the abiding and booking places of country waggons. the reader would look in vain for any of these ancient hostelries, among the golden crosses and bull and mouths, which rear their stately fronts in the improved streets of london. if he would light upon any of these old places, he must direct his steps to the obscurer quarters of the town; and there in some secluded nooks he will find several, still standing with a kind of gloomy sturdiness, amidst the modern innovations which surround them. in the borough especially, there still remain some half-dozen old inns, which have preserved their external features unchanged, and which have escaped alike the rage for public improvement, and the encroachments of private speculation. great, rambling, queer old places they are, with galleries, and passages, and staircases wide enough and antiquated enough to furnish materials for a hundred ghost stories, supposing we should ever be reduced to the lamentable necessity of inventing any, and that the world should exist long enough to exhaust the innumerable veracious legends connected with old london bridge, and its adjacent neighbourhood on the surrey side. it was in the yard of one of these inns--of no less celebrated a one than the white hart--that a man was busily employed in brushing the dirt off a pair of boots, early on the morning succeeding the events narrated in the last chapter. he was habited in a coarse-striped waistcoat, with black calico sleeves, and blue glass buttons; drab breeches and leggings. a bright red handkerchief was wound in a very loose and unstudied style round his neck, and an old white hat was carelessly thrown on one side of his head. there were two rows of boots before him, one cleaned and the other dirty, and at every addition he made to the clean row, he paused from his work and contemplated its results with evident satisfaction. the yard presented none of that bustle and activity which are the usual characteristics of a large coach inn. three or four lumbering waggons, each with a pile of goods beneath its ample canopy, about the height of the second-floor window of an ordinary house, were stowed away beneath a lofty roof which extended over one end of the yard; and another, which was probably to commence its journey that morning, was drawn out into the open space. a double tier of bed-room galleries, with old clumsy balustrades, ran round two sides of the straggling area, and a double row of bells to correspond, sheltered from the weather by a little sloping roof, hung over the door leading to the bar and coffee-room. two or three gigs and chaise-carts were wheeled up under different little sheds and pent-houses; and the occasional heavy tread of a cart-horse, or rattling of a chain at the further end of the yard, announced to anybody who cared about the matter, that the stable lay in that direction. when we add that a few boys in smock frocks were lying asleep on heavy packages, woolpacks, and other articles that were scattered about on heaps of straw, we have described as fully as need be the general appearance of the yard of the white hart inn, high street, borough, on the particular morning in question. a loud ringing of one of the bells, was followed by the appearance of a smart chambermaid in the upper sleeping gallery, who, after tapping at one of the doors, and receiving a request from within, called over the balustrades-- "sam!" "hallo," replied the man with the white hat. "number twenty-two wants his boots." "ask number twenty-two, vether he'll have 'em now, or wait till he gets 'em," was the reply. "come, don't be a fool, sam," said the girl, coaxingly, "the gentleman wants his boots directly." "well, you _are_ a nice young 'ooman for a musical party, you are," said the boot-cleaner. "look at these here boots--eleven pair o' boots; and one shoe as b'longs to number six, with the wooden leg. the eleven boots is to be called at half-past eight and the shoe at nine. who's number twenty-two, that's to put all the others out? no, no; reg'lar rotation, as jack ketch said, ven he tied the men up. sorry to keep you a waitin', sir, but i'll attend to you directly." saying which, the man in the white hat set to work upon a top-boot with increased assiduity. there was another loud ring; and the bustling old landlady of the white hart made her appearance in the opposite gallery. "sam," cried the landlady--"where's that lazy, idle--why, sam--oh, there you are; why don't you answer?" "wouldn't be gen-teel to answer, 'till you'd done talking," replied sam, gruffly. "here, clean them shoes for number seventeen directly, and take 'em to private sitting-room, number five, first floor." the landlady flung a pair of lady's shoes into the yard, and bustled away. "number five," said sam, as he picked up the shoes, and taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, made a memorandum of their destination on the soles--"lady's shoes and private sittin' room. i suppose _she_ didn't come in the vaggin." "she came in early this morning," cried the girl, who was still leaning over the railing of the gallery, "with a gentleman in a hackney coach, and it's him as wants his boots, and you'd better do 'em, that's all about it." "vy didn't you say so before," said sam, with great indignation, singling out the boots in question from the heap before him. "for all i know'd he vas one o' the regular threepennies. private room! and a lady too! if he's anything of a gen'lm'n, he's vorth a shillin' a day, let alone the arrands." stimulated by this inspiring reflection, mr. samuel brushed away with such hearty good will, that in a few minutes the boots and shoes, with a polish which would have struck envy to the soul of the amiable mr. warren (for they used day and martin at the white hart), had arrived at the door of number five. "come in," said a man's voice, in reply to sam's rap at the door. sam made his best bow, and stepped into the presence of a lady and gentleman seated at breakfast. having officiously deposited the gentleman's boots right and left at his feet, and the lady's shoes right and left at hers, he backed towards the door. "boots," said the gentleman. "sir," said sam, closing the door, and keeping his hand on the knob of the lock. "do you know--what's-a-name--doctors' commons?" "yes, sir." "where is it?" "paul's churchyard, sir; low archway on the carriage-side, bookseller's at one corner, hot-el on the other, and two porters in the middle as touts for licences." "touts for licences!" said the gentleman. "touts for licences," replied sam. "two coves in vhite aprons--touches their hats ven you walk in--'licence, sir, licence?' queer sort, them, and their mas'rs too, sir--old bailey proctors--and no mistake." "what do they do?" inquired the gentleman. "do! _you_, sir! that an't the wost on it, neither. they puts things into old gen'lm'n's heads as they never dreamed of. my father, sir, vos a coachman. a widower he vos, and fat enough for anything--uncommon fat, to be sure. his missis dies and leaves him four hundred pound. down he goes to the commons, to see the lawyer and draw the blunt--very smart--top-boots on--nosegay in his button-hole--broad-brimmed tile--green shawl--quite the gen'lm'n. goes through the archvay, thinking how he should inwest the money--up comes the touter, touches his hat--'licence, sir, licence?'--'what's that?' says my father.--'licence, sir,' says he.--'what licence?' says my father.--'marriage licence,' says the touter.--'dash my veskit,' says my father, 'i never thought o' that.'--'i think you wants one, sir?' says the touter. my father pulls up, and thinks a bit--'no,' says he, 'damme, i'm too old, b'sides i'm a many sizes too large,' says he.--'not a bit on it, sir,' says the touter.--'think not?' says my father.--'i'm sure not,' says he; 'we married a gen'lm'n twice your size, last monday.'--'did you, though?' said my father.--'to be sure we did,' says the touter, 'you're a babby to him--this vay, sir--this vay!'--and sure enough my father walks arter him, like a tame monkey behind a horgan, into a little back office, vere a feller sat among dirty papers and tin boxes, making believe he was busy. 'pray take a seat, vile i makes out the affidavit, sir,' says the lawyer.--'thankee, sir,' says my father, and down he sat, and stared with all his eyes, and his mouth vide open, at the names on the boxes. 'what's your name, sir?' says the lawyer.--'tony weller,' says my father.--'parish?' says the lawyer.--'belle savage,' says my father; for he stopped there wen he drove up, and he know'd nothing about parishes, _he_ didn't.--'and what's the lady's name?' says the lawyer. my father was struck all of a heap. 'blessed if i know,' says he.--'not know!' says the lawyer.--'no more nor you do,' says my father; 'can't i put that in arterwards?'--'impossible!' says the lawyer.--'wery well,' says my father, after he'd thought a moment, 'put down mrs. clarke.'--'what clarke?' says the lawyer, dipping his pen in the ink.--'susan clarke, markis o' granby, dorking,' says my father; 'she'll have me, if i ask, i des-say--i never said nothing to her, but she'll have me, i know.' the licence was made out, and she _did_ have him, and what's more she's got him now; and _i_ never had any of the four hundred pound, worse luck. beg your pardon, sir," said sam, when he had concluded, "but wen i gets on this here grievance, i runs on like a new barrow vith the vheel greased." having said which, and having paused for an instant to see whether he was wanted for anything more, sam left the room. "half-past nine--just the time--off at once;" said the gentleman, whom we need hardly introduce as mr. jingle. "time--for what?" said the spinster aunt, coquettishly. "licence, dearest of angels--give notice at the church--call you mine, to-morrow"--said mr. jingle, and he squeezed the spinster aunt's hand. "the licence!" said rachael, blushing. "the licence," repeated mr. jingle-- "'in hurry, post-haste for a licence, in hurry, ding dong i come back.'" "how you run on," said rachael. "run on--nothing to the hours, days, weeks, months, years, when we're united--_run_ on--they'll fly on--bolt--mizzle--steam-engine--thousand-horse power--nothing to it." "can't--can't we be married before to-morrow morning?" inquired rachael. "impossible--can't be--notice at the church--leave the licence to-day--ceremony come off to-morrow." "i am so terrified, lest my brother should discover us!" said rachael. "discover--nonsense--too much shaken by the break down--besides--extreme caution--gave up the post-chaise--walked on--took a hackney coach--came to the borough--last place in the world that he'd look in--ha! ha! capital notion that--very." "don't be long," said the spinster, affectionately, as mr. jingle stuck the pinched-up hat on his head. "long away from _you_?--cruel charmer," and mr. jingle skipped playfully up to the spinster aunt, imprinted a chaste kiss upon her lips, and danced out of the room. "dear man!" said the spinster as the door closed after him. "rum old girl," said mr. jingle, as he walked down the passage. it is painful to reflect upon the perfidy of our species; and we will not, therefore, pursue the thread of mr. jingle's meditations, as he wended his way to doctors' commons. it will be sufficient for our purpose to relate, that escaping the snares of the dragons in white aprons, who guard the entrance to that enchanted region, he reached the vicar-general's office in safety, and having procured a highly flattering address on parchment, from the archbishop of canterbury, to his "trusty and well-beloved alfred jingle and rachael wardle, greeting," he carefully deposited the mystic document in his pocket, and retraced his steps in triumph to the borough. he was yet on his way to the white hart, when two plump gentlemen and one thin one entered the yard, and looked round in search of some authorised person of whom they could make a few inquiries. mr. samuel weller happened to be at that moment engaged in burnishing a pair of painted tops, the personal property of a farmer who was refreshing himself with a slight lunch of two or three pounds of cold beef and a pot or two of porter, after the fatigues of the borough market; and to him the thin gentleman straightway advanced. "my friend," said the thin gentleman. "you're one o' the adwice gratis order," thought sam, "or you wouldn't be so werry fond o' me all at once." but he only said--"well, sir?" "my friend," said the thin gentleman, with a conciliatory hem--"have you got many people stopping here, now? pretty busy, eh?" sam stole a look at the inquirer. he was a little high-dried man, with a dark squeezed-up face, and small restless black eyes, that kept winking and twinkling on each side of his little inquisitive nose, as if they were playing a perpetual game of peep-bo with that feature. he was dressed all in black, with boots as shiny as his eyes, a low white neckcloth, and a clean shirt with a frill to it. a gold watch-chain, and seals, depended from his fob. he carried his black kid gloves _in_ his hands, not _on_ them; and as he spoke, thrust his wrists beneath his coat-tails, with the air of a man who was in the habit of propounding some regular posers. "pretty busy, eh?" said the little man. [illustration: _sam at the white hart._] "oh, werry well, sir," replied sam, "we shan't be bankrupts, and we shan't make our fort'ns. we eats our biled mutton without capers, and don't care for horse-radish ven ve can get beef." "ah," said the little man, "you're a wag, an't you?" "my eldest brother was troubled with that complaint," said sam; "it may be catching--i used to sleep with him." "this is a curious old house of yours," said the little man, looking around him. "if you'd sent word you was coming, we'd ha' had it repaired," replied the imperturbable sam. the little man seemed rather baffled by these several repulses, and a short consultation took place between him and the two plump gentlemen. at its conclusion, the little man took a pinch of snuff from an oblong silver box, and was apparently on the point of renewing the conversation, when one of the plump gentlemen, who in addition to a benevolent countenance, possessed a pair of spectacles, and a pair of black gaiters, interfered-- "the fact of the matter is," said the benevolent gentleman, "that my friend here (pointing to the other plump gentleman) will give you half a guinea, if you'll answer one or two----" "now, my dear sir--my dear sir," said the little man, "pray, allow me--my dear sir, the very first principle to be observed in these cases, is this: if you place a matter in the hands of a professional man, you must in no way interfere in the progress of the business; you must repose implicit confidence in him. really, mr. (he turned to the other plump gentleman, and said)--i forget your friend's name." "pickwick," said mr. wardle, for it was no other than that jolly personage. "ah, pickwick--really, mr. pickwick, my dear sir, excuse me--i shall be happy to receive any private suggestions of yours, as _amicus curiæ_, but you must see the impropriety of your interfering with my conduct in this case, with such an _ad captandum_ argument as the offer of half a guinea. really, my dear sir, really;" and the little man took an argumentative pinch of snuff, and looked very profound. "my only wish, sir," said mr. pickwick, "was to bring this very unpleasant matter to as speedy a close as possible." "quite right--quite right," said the little man. "with which view," continued mr. pickwick, "i made use of the argument which my experience of men has taught me is the most likely to succeed in any case." "ay, ay," said the little man, "very good, very good, indeed; but you should have suggested it to _me_. my dear sir, i'm quite certain you cannot be ignorant of the extent of confidence which must be placed in professional men. if any authority can be necessary on such a point, my dear sir, let me refer you to the well-known case in barnwell and----" "never mind george barnwell," interrupted sam, who had remained a wondering listener during this short colloquy: "everybody knows vhat sort of a case his was, tho' it's always been my opinion, mind you, that the young 'ooman deserved scragging a precious sight more than he did. hows'ever, that's neither here nor there. you want me to except of half a guinea. werry well, i'm agreeable: i can't say no fairer than that, can i, sir? (mr. pickwick smiled.) then the next question is, what the devil do you want with me, as the man said ven he see the ghost?" "we want to know--" said mr. wardle. "now, my dear sir--my dear sir," interposed the busy little man. mr. wardle shrugged his shoulders and was silent. "we want to know," said the little man, solemnly; "and we ask the question of you, in order that we may not awaken apprehensions inside--we want to know who you've got in this house, at present?" "who there is in the house!" said sam, in whose mind the inmates were always represented by that particular article of their costume which came under his immediate superintendence. "there's a vooden leg in number six; there's a pair of hessians in thirteen; there's two pair of halves in the commercial; there's these here painted tops in the snuggery inside the bar; and five more tops in the coffee-room." "nothing more?" said the little man. "stop a bit," replied sam, suddenly recollecting himself. "yes; there's a pair of vellingtons a good deal worn, and a pair o' lady's shoes, in number five." "what sort of shoes?" hastily inquired wardle, who, together with mr. pickwick, had been lost in bewilderment at the singular catalogue of visitors. "country make," replied sam. "any maker's name?" "brown." "where of?" "muggleton." "it _is_ them!" exclaimed wardle. "by heavens, we've found them!" "hush!" said sam. "the vellingtons has gone to doctors' commons." "no?" said the little man. "yes, for a licence." "we're in time," exclaimed wardle. "show us the room; not a moment is to be lost." "pray, my dear sir--pray," said the little man; "caution, caution." he drew from his pocket a red silk purse, and looked very hard at sam as he drew out a sovereign. sam grinned expressively. "show us into the room at once, without announcing us," said the little man, "and it's yours." sam threw the painted tops into a corner, and led the way through a dark passage, and up a wide staircase. he paused at the end of a second passage, and held out his hand. "here it is," whispered the attorney, as he deposited the money in the hand of their guide. the man stepped forward for a few paces, followed by the two friends and their legal adviser. he stopped at a door. "is this the room?" murmured the little gentleman. sam nodded assent. old wardle opened the door; and the whole three walked into the room just as mr. jingle, who had that moment returned, had produced the licence to the spinster aunt. the spinster uttered a loud shriek, and, throwing herself in a chair, covered her face with her hands. mr. jingle crumpled up the licence, and thrust it into his coat-pocket. the unwelcome visitors advanced into the middle of the room. "you--you are a nice rascal, aren't you?" exclaimed wardle, breathless with passion. "my dear sir, my dear sir," said the little man, laying his hat on the table. "pray, consider--pray. defamation of character: action for damages. calm yourself, my dear sir, pray----" "how dare you drag my sister from my house?" said the old man. "ay--ay--very good," said the little gentleman, "you may ask that. how dare you, sir?--eh, sir?" "who the devil are you?" inquired mr. jingle, in so fierce a tone, that the little gentleman involuntarily fell back a step or two. "who is he, you scoundrel?" interposed wardle. "he's my lawyer, mr. perker, of gray's inn. perker, i'll have this fellow prosecuted--indicted--i'll--i'll--i'll ruin him. and you," continued mr. wardle, turning abruptly round to his sister, "you, rachael, at a time of life when you ought to know better, what do _you_ mean by running away with a vagabond, disgracing your family, and making yourself miserable? get on your bonnet, and come back. call a hackney-coach there, directly, and bring this lady's bill, d'ye hear--d'ye hear?" "cert'nly, sir," replied sam, who had answered wardle's violent ringing of the bell with a degree of celerity which must have appeared marvellous to anybody who didn't know that his eye had been applied to the outside of the keyhole during the whole interview. [illustration] "get on your bonnet," repeated wardle. "do nothing of the kind," said jingle. "leave the room, sir--no business here--lady's free to act as she pleases--more than one-and-twenty." "more than one-and-twenty!" ejaculated wardle, contemptuously. "more than one-and-forty!" "i an't," said the spinster aunt, her indignation getting the better of her determination to faint. "you are," replied wardle, "you're fifty if you're an hour." here the spinster aunt uttered a loud shriek, and became senseless. "a _glass_ of water," said the humane mr. pickwick, summoning the landlady. "a glass of water!" said the passionate wardle. "bring a bucket and throw it over her; it'll do her good, and she richly deserves it." "ugh, you brute!" ejaculated the kind-hearted landlady. "poor dear." and with sundry ejaculations, of "come now, there's a dear--drink a little of this--it'll do you good--don't give way so--there's a love," &c. &c., the landlady, assisted by a chambermaid, proceeded to vinegar the forehead, beat the hands, titillate the nose, and unlace the stays of the spinster aunt, and to administer such other restoratives as are usually applied by compassionate females to ladies who are endeavouring to ferment themselves into hysterics. "coach is ready, sir," said sam, appearing at the door. "come along," cried wardle. "i'll carry her downstairs." at this proposition, the hysterics came on with redoubled violence. the landlady was about to enter a very violent protest against this proceeding, and had already given vent to an indignant inquiry whether mr. wardle considered himself a lord of the creation, when mr. jingle interposed-- "boots," said he, "get me an officer." "stay, stay," said little mr. perker. "consider, sir, consider." "i'll _not_ consider," replied jingle. "she's her own mistress--see who dares to take her away--unless she wishes it." "i _won't_ be taken away," murmured the spinster aunt. "i _don't_ wish it." (here there was a frightful relapse.) "my dear sir," said the little man, in a low tone, taking mr. wardle and mr. pickwick apart: "my dear sir, we're in a very awkward situation. it's a distressing case--very; i never knew one more so; but really, my dear sir, really we have no power to control this lady's actions. i warned you before we came, my dear sir, that there was nothing to look to but a compromise." there was a short pause. "what kind of compromise would you recommend?" inquired mr. pickwick. "why, my dear sir, our friend's in an unpleasant position--very much so. we must be content to suffer some pecuniary loss." "i'll suffer any, rather than submit to this disgrace, and let her, fool as she is, be made miserable for life," said wardle. "i rather think it can be done," said the bustling little man. "mr. jingle, will you step with us into the next room for a moment?" mr. jingle assented, and the quartette walked into an empty apartment. "now, sir," said the little man, as he carefully closed the door, "is there no way of accommodating this matter?--step this way, sir, for a moment--into this window, sir, where we can be alone--there sir, there, pray sit down, sir. now, my dear sir, between you and i, we know very well, my dear sir, that you have run off with this lady for the sake of her money. don't frown, sir, don't frown; i say, between you and i, _we_ know it. we are both men of the world, and _we_ know very well that our friends here, are not--eh?" mr. jingle's face gradually relaxed; and something distantly resembling a wink quivered for an instant in his left eye. "very good, very good," said the little man, observing the impression he had made. "now, the fact is, that beyond a few hundreds, the lady has little or nothing till the death of her mother--fine old lady, my dear sir." "_old_," said mr. jingle, briefly but emphatically. "why, yes," said the attorney, with a slight cough. "you are right, my dear sir, she is _rather_ old. she comes of an old family though, my dear sir; old in every sense of the word. the founder of that family came into kent, when julius cæsar invaded britain;--only one member of it, since, who hasn't lived to eighty-five, and _he_ was beheaded by one of the henrys. the old lady is not seventy-three now, my dear sir." the little man paused, and took a pinch of snuff. "well?" cried mr. jingle. "well, my dear sir--you don't take snuff?--ah! so much the better--expensive habit--well, my dear sir, you're a fine young man, man of the world--able to push your fortune, if you had capital, eh?" "well?" said mr. jingle again. "do you comprehend me?" "not quite." "don't you think--now, my dear sir, i put it to you, _don't_ you think--that fifty pounds and liberty, would be better than miss wardle and expectation?" "won't do--not half enough!" said mr. jingle, rising. "nay, nay, my dear sir," remonstrated the little attorney, seizing him by the button. "good round sum--a man like you could treble it in no time--great deal to be done with fifty pounds, my dear sir." "more to be done with a hundred and fifty," replied mr. jingle, coolly. "well, my dear sir, we won't waste time in splitting straws," resumed the little man, "say--say--seventy." "won't do," said mr. jingle. "don't go away, my dear sir--pray don't hurry," said the little man. "eighty; come: i'll write you a cheque at once." "won't do," said mr. jingle. "well, my dear sir, well," said the little man, still detaining him; "just tell me what _will_ do." "expensive affair," said mr. jingle. "money out of pocket--posting, nine pounds; licence, three--that's twelve--compensation, a hundred--hundred and twelve--breach of honour--and loss of the lady----" "yes, my dear sir, yes," said the little man, with a knowing look, "never mind the last two items. that's a hundred and twelve--say a hundred--come." "and twenty," said mr. jingle. "come, come, i'll write you a cheque," said the little man; and down he sat at the table for that purpose. "i'll make it payable the day after to-morrow," said the little man, with a look towards mr. wardle, "and we can get the lady away, meanwhile." mr. wardle sullenly nodded assent. "a hundred," said the little man. "and twenty," said mr. jingle. "my dear sir," remonstrated the little man. "give it him," interposed mr. wardle, "and let him go." the cheque was written by the little gentleman, and pocketed by mr. jingle. "now, leave this house instantly!" said wardle, starting up. "my dear sir," urged the little man. "and mind," said mr. wardle, "that nothing should have induced me to make this compromise--not even a regard for my family--if i had not known that the moment you got any money in that pocket of yours, you'd go to the devil faster, if possible, than you would without it----" "my dear sir," urged the little man again. "be quiet, perker," resumed wardle. "leave the room, sir." "off directly," said the unabashed jingle. "bye-bye, pickwick." if any dispassionate spectator could have beheld the countenance of the illustrious man, whose name forms the leading feature of the title of this work, during the latter part of this conversation, he would have been almost induced to wonder that the indignant fire which flashed from his eyes, did not melt the glasses of his spectacles--so majestic was his wrath. his nostrils dilated, and his fists clenched involuntarily, as he heard himself addressed by the villain. but he restrained himself again--he did _not_ pulverise him. "here," continued the hardened traitor, tossing the licence at mr. pickwick's feet; "get the name altered--take home the lady--do for tuppy." mr. pickwick was a philosopher, but philosophers are only men in armour, after all. the shaft had reached him, penetrated through his philosophical harness, to his very heart. in the frenzy of his rage, he hurled the inkstand madly forward, and followed it up himself. but mr. jingle had disappeared, and he found himself caught in the arms of sam. "hallo," said that eccentric functionary, "furniter's cheap vere you come from, sir. self-acting ink, that 'ere; it's wrote your mark upon the wall, old gen'lm'n. hold still, sir: wot's the use o' runnin' arter a man as has made his lucky, and got to t'other end of the borough by this time?" mr. pickwick's mind, like those of all truly great men, was open to conviction. he was a quick and powerful reasoner; and a moment's reflection sufficed to remind him of the impotency of his rage. it subsided as quickly as it had been roused. he panted for breath, and looked benignantly round upon his friends. shall we tell the lamentations that ensued, when miss wardle found herself deserted by the faithless jingle? shall we extract mr. pickwick's masterly description of that heart-rending scene? his note-book, blotted with the tears of sympathising humanity, lies open before us; one word, and it is in the printer's hands. but, no! we will be resolute! we will not wring the public bosom with the delineation of such suffering! slowly and sadly did the two friends and the deserted lady return next day in the muggleton heavy coach. dimly and darkly had the sombre shadows of a summer's night fallen upon all around, when they again reached dingley dell, and stood within the entrance to manor farm. chapter xi [illustration] _involving another journey and an antiquarian discovery. recording mr. pickwick's determination to be present at an election; and containing a manuscript of the old clergyman's._ a night of quiet and repose in the profound silence of dingley dell, and an hour's breathing of its fresh and fragrant air on the ensuing morning, completely recovered mr. pickwick from the effects of his late fatigue of body and anxiety of mind. that illustrious man had been separated from his friends and followers, for two whole days; and it was with a degree of pleasure and delight, which no common imagination can adequately conceive, that he stepped forward to greet mr. winkle and mr. snodgrass, as he encountered those gentlemen on his return from his early walk. the pleasure was mutual; for who could ever gaze on mr. pickwick's beaming face without experiencing the sensation? but still a cloud seemed to hang over his companions which that great man could not but be sensible of, and was wholly at a loss to account for. there was a mysterious air about them both, as unusual as it was alarming. "and how," said mr. pickwick, when he had grasped his followers by the hand, and exchanged warm salutations of welcome; "how is tupman?" mr. winkle, to whom the question was more peculiarly addressed, made no reply. he turned away his head, and appeared absorbed in melancholy reflection. "snodgrass," said mr. pickwick earnestly, "how is our friend--he is not ill?" "no," replied mr. snodgrass; and a tear trembled on his sentimental eyelid, like a rain-drop on a window-frame. "no; he is not ill." mr. pickwick stopped, and gazed on each of his friends in turn. "winkle--snodgrass," said mr. pickwick: "what does this mean? where is our friend? what has happened? speak--i conjure, i entreat--nay, i command you, speak." there was a solemnity--a dignity--in mr. pickwick's manner, not to be withstood. "he is gone," said mr. snodgrass. "gone!" exclaimed mr. pickwick. "gone!" "gone," repeated mr. snodgrass. "where?" ejaculated mr. pickwick. "we can only guess, from that communication," replied mr. snodgrass, taking a letter from his pocket, and placing it in his friend's hand. "yesterday morning, when a letter was received from mr. wardle, stating that you would be home with his sister at night, the melancholy, which had hung over our friend during the whole of the previous day, was observed to increase. he shortly afterwards disappeared: he was missing during the whole day, and in the evening this letter was brought by the hostler from the crown, at muggleton. it had been left in his charge in the morning, with a strict injunction that it should not be delivered until night." mr. pickwick opened the epistle. it was in his friend's hand-writing, and these were its contents:-- "+my dear pickwick+,--you, my dear friend, are placed far beyond the reach of many mortal frailties and weaknesses which ordinary people cannot overcome. you do not know what it is, at one blow, to be deserted by a lovely and fascinating creature, and to fall a victim to the artifices of a villain, who hid the grin of cunning beneath the mask of friendship. i hope you never may. "any letter, addressed to me at the leather bottle, cobham, kent, will be forwarded--supposing i still exist. i hasten from the sight of that world, which has become odious to me. should i hasten from it altogether, pity--forgive me. life, my dear pickwick, has become insupportable to me. the spirit which burns within us, is a porter's knot, on which to rest the heavy load of worldly cares and troubles; and when that spirit fails us, the burden is too heavy to be borne. we sink beneath it. you may tell rachael!--ah, that name!-- +tracy tupman.+" "we must leave this place, directly," said mr. pickwick, as he refolded the note. "it would not have been decent for us to remain here, under any circumstances, after what has happened; and now we are bound to follow in search of our friend." and so saying, he led the way to the house. his intention was rapidly communicated. the entreaties to remain were pressing, but mr. pickwick was inflexible. business, he said, required his immediate attendance. the old clergyman was present. "you are not really going?" said he, taking mr. pickwick aside. mr. pickwick reiterated his former determination. "then here," said the old gentleman, "is a little manuscript, which i had hoped to have the pleasure of reading to you myself. i found it on the death of a friend of mine--a medical man, engaged in our county lunatic asylum--among a variety of papers, which i had the option of destroying or preserving, as i thought proper. i can hardly believe that the manuscript is genuine, though it certainly is not in my friend's hand. however, whether it be the genuine production of a maniac, or founded upon the ravings of some unhappy being (which i think more probable), read it, and judge for yourself." mr. pickwick received the manuscript, and parted from the benevolent old gentleman with many expressions of good-will and esteem. it was a more difficult task to take leave of the inmates of manor farm, from which they had received so much hospitality and kindness. mr. pickwick kissed the young ladies--we were going to say, as if they were his own daughters, only as he might possibly have infused a little more warmth into the salutation, the comparison would not be quite appropriate--hugged the old lady with filial cordiality: and patted the rosy cheeks of the female servants in a most patriarchal manner, as he slipped into the hands of each some more substantial expression of his approval. the exchange of cordialities with their fine old host and mr. trundle, was even more hearty and prolonged; and it was not until mr. snodgrass had been several times called for, and at last emerged from a dark passage followed soon after by emily (whose bright eyes looked unusually dim), that the three friends were enabled to tear themselves from their friendly entertainers. many a backward look they gave at the farm, as they walked slowly away; and many a kiss did mr. snodgrass waft in the air, in acknowledgment of something very like a lady's handkerchief, which was waved from one of the upper windows, until a turn in the lane hid the old house from their sight. at muggleton they procured a conveyance to rochester. by the time they reached the last-named place, the violence of their grief had sufficiently abated to admit of their making a very excellent early dinner; and having procured the necessary information relative to the road, the three friends set forward again in the afternoon to walk to cobham. a delightful walk it was: for it was a pleasant afternoon in june, and their way lay through a deep and shady wood, cooled by the light wind which gently rustled the thick foliage, and enlivened by the songs of the birds that perched upon the boughs. the ivy and the moss crept in thick clusters over the old trees, and the soft green turf overspread the ground like a silken mat. they emerged upon an open park, with an ancient hall, displaying the quaint and picturesque architecture of elizabeth's time. long vistas of stately oaks and elm trees appeared on every side: large herds of deer were cropping the fresh grass; and occasionally a startled hare scoured along the ground, with the speed of the shadows thrown by the light clouds which swept across a sunny landscape like a passing breath of summer. "if this," said mr. pickwick, looking about him, "if this were the place to which all who are troubled with our friend's complaint came, i fancy their old attachment to this world would very soon return." "i think so too," said mr. winkle. "and really," added mr. pickwick, after half an hour's walking had brought them to the village, "really, for a misanthrope's choice, this is one of the prettiest and most desirable places of residence i ever met with." in this opinion also, both mr. winkle and mr. snodgrass expressed their concurrence; and having been directed to the leather bottle, a clean and commodious village ale-house, the three travellers entered, and at once inquired for a gentleman of the name of tupman. "show the gentlemen into the parlour, tom," said the landlady. a stout country lad opened a door at the end of the passage, and the three friends entered a long, low-roofed room, furnished with a large number of high-backed leather-cushioned chairs, of fantastic shapes, and embellished with a great variety of old portraits and roughly-coloured prints of some antiquity. at the upper end of the room was a table, with a white cloth upon it, well covered with a roast fowl, bacon, ale, and et ceteras: and at the table sat mr. tupman, looking as unlike a man who had taken his leave of the world, as possible. on the entrance of his friends, that gentleman laid down his knife and fork, and with a mournful air advanced to meet them. "i did not expect to see you here," he said, as he grasped mr. pickwick's hand. "it's very kind." "ah!" said mr. pickwick, sitting down, and wiping from his forehead the perspiration which the walk had engendered. "finish your dinner, and walk out with me. i wish to speak to you alone." mr. tupman did as he was desired; and mr. pickwick having refreshed himself with a copious draught of ale, waited his friend's leisure. the dinner was quickly despatched, and they walked out together. [illustration: _at the table sat mr. tupman, looking as unlike a man who had taken his leave of this world as possible._] for half an hour, their forms might have been seen pacing the churchyard to and fro, while mr. pickwick was engaged in combating his companion's resolution. any repetition of his arguments would be useless; for what language could convey to them that energy and force which their great originator's manner communicated? whether mr. tupman was already tired of retirement, or whether he was wholly unable to resist the eloquent appeal which was made to him, matters not, he did _not_ resist it at last. "it mattered little to him," he said, "where he dragged out the miserable remainder of his days: and since his friend laid so much stress upon his humble companionship, he was willing to share his adventures." mr. pickwick smiled; they shook hands; and walked back to rejoin their companions. it was at this moment that mr. pickwick made that immortal discovery, which has been the pride and boast of his friends, and the envy of every antiquarian in this or any other country. they had passed the door of their inn, and walked a little way down the village, before they recollected the precise spot in which it stood. as they turned back, mr. pickwick's eye fell upon a small broken stone, partially buried in the ground, in front of a cottage door. he paused. "this is very strange," said mr. pickwick. "what is strange?" inquired mr. tupman, staring eagerly at every object near him, but the right one. "god bless me, what's the matter?" this last was an ejaculation of irrepressible astonishment, occasioned by seeing mr. pickwick, in his enthusiasm for discovery, fall on his knees before the little stone and commence wiping the dust off it with his pocket-handkerchief. "there is an inscription here," said mr. pickwick. "is it possible?" said mr. tupman. "i can discern," continued mr. pickwick, rubbing away with all his might, and gazing intently through his spectacles: "i can discern a cross, and a b, and then a t. this is important," continued mr. pickwick, starting up. "this is some very old inscription, existing perhaps long before the ancient almshouses in this place. it must not be lost." he tapped at the cottage door. a labouring man opened it. "do you know how this stone came here, my friend?" inquired the benevolent mr. pickwick. "no, i doan't, sir," replied the man civilly. "it was here long afor i war born, or any on us." mr. pickwick glanced triumphantly at his companion. "you--you are not particularly attached to it, i dare say," said mr. pickwick, trembling with anxiety. "you wouldn't mind selling it, now?" [illustration: _"there is an inscription here," said mr. pickwick_] "ah! but who'd buy it?" inquired the man, with an expression of face which he probably meant to be very cunning. "i'll give you ten shillings for it at once," said mr. pickwick, "if you would take it up for me." the astonishment of the village may be easily imagined, when (the little stone having been raised with one wrench of a spade) mr. pickwick, by dint of great personal exertion, bore it with his own hands to the inn, and after having carefully washed it, deposited it on the table. the exultation and joy of the pickwickians knew no bounds, when their patience and assiduity, their washing and scraping, were crowned with success. the stone was uneven and broken, and the letters were straggling and irregular, but the following fragment of an inscription was clearly to be deciphered: + =b i l s t u m p s h i s. m. a r k= mr. pickwick's eyes sparkled with delight, as he sat and gloated over the treasure he had discovered. he had attained one of the greatest objects of his ambition. in a county known to abound in remains of the early ages; in a village in which there still existed some memorials of the olden time, he--he, the chairman of the pickwick club--had discovered a strange and curious inscription of unquestionable antiquity, which had wholly escaped the observation of the many learned men who had preceded him. he could hardly trust the evidence of his senses. "this--this," said he, "determines me. we return to town, to-morrow." "to-morrow!" exclaimed his admiring followers. "to-morrow," said mr. pickwick. "this treasure must be at once deposited where it can be thoroughly investigated, and properly understood. i have another reason for this step. in a few days, an election is to take place for the borough of eatanswill, at which mr. perker, a gentleman whom i lately met, is the agent of one of the candidates. we will behold, and minutely examine, a scene so interesting to every englishman." "we will," was the animated cry of three voices. mr. pickwick looked round him. the attachment and fervour of his followers, lighted up a glow of enthusiasm within him. he was their leader, and he felt it. "let us celebrate this happy meeting with a convivial glass," said he. this proposition, like the other, was received with unanimous applause. having himself deposited the important stone in a small deal box, purchased from the landlady for the purpose, he placed himself in an arm-chair at the head of the table; and the evening was devoted to festivity and conversation. it was past eleven o'clock--a late hour for the little village of cobham--when mr. pickwick retired to the bed-room which had been prepared for his reception. he threw open the lattice-window, and setting his light upon the table, fell into a train of meditation on the hurried events of the two preceding days. the hour and the place were both favourable to contemplation; mr. pickwick was roused by the church-clock striking twelve. the first stroke of the hour sounded solemnly in his ear, but when the bell ceased the stillness seemed insupportable;--he almost felt as if he had lost a companion. he was nervous and excited; and hastily undressing himself and placing his light in the chimney, got into bed. every one has experienced that disagreeable state of mind, in which a sensation of bodily weariness in vain contends against an inability to sleep. it was mr. pickwick's condition at this moment: he tossed first on one side and then on the other; and perseveringly closed his eyes as if to coax himself to slumber. it was of no use. whether it was the unwonted exertion he had undergone, or the heat, or the brandy and water, or the strange bed--whatever it was, his thoughts kept reverting very uncomfortably to the grim pictures downstairs, and the old stories to which they had given rise in the course of the evening. after half an hour's tumbling about, he came to the unsatisfactory conclusion, that it was of no use trying to sleep; so he got up and partially dressed himself. anything, he thought, was better than lying there fancying all kinds of horrors. he looked out of the window--it was very dark. he walked about the room--it was very lonely. he had taken a few turns from the door to the window, and from the window to the door, when the clergyman's manuscript for the first time entered his head. it was a good thought. if it failed to interest him, it might send him to sleep. he took it from his coat-pocket, and drawing a small table towards his bedside, trimmed the light, put on his spectacles, and composed himself to read. it was a strange hand-writing, and the paper was much soiled and blotted. the title gave him a sudden start, too; and he could not avoid casting a wistful glance round the room. reflecting on the absurdity of giving way to such feelings, however, he trimmed the light again, and read as follows: a madman's manuscript "yes!--a madman's! how that word would have struck to my heart, many years ago! how it would have roused the terror that used to come upon me sometimes; sending the blood hissing and tingling through my veins, till the cold dew of fear stood in large drops upon my skin, and my knees knocked together with fright! i like it now though. it's a fine name. show me the monarch whose angry frown was ever feared like the glare of a madman's eye--whose cord and axe were ever half so sure as a madman's grip. ho! ho! it's a grand thing to be mad! to be peeped at like a wild lion through the iron bars--to gnash one's teeth and howl, through the long still night, to the merry ring of a heavy chain--and to roll and twine among the straw, transported with such brave music. hurrah for the madhouse! oh, it's a rare place! "i remember days when i was _afraid_ of being mad; when i used to start from my sleep, and fall upon my knees, and pray to be spared from the curse of my race; when i rushed from the sight of merriment or happiness, to hide myself in some lonely place, and spend the weary hours in watching the progress of the fever that was to consume my brain. i knew that madness was mixed up with my very blood, and the marrow of my bones; that one generation had passed away without the pestilence appearing among them, and that i was the first in whom it would revive. i knew it _must_ be so: that so it always had been, and so it ever would be: and when i cowered in some obscure corner of a crowded room, and saw men whisper, and point, and turn their eyes towards me, i knew they were telling each other of the doomed madman; and i slunk away again to mope in solitude. "i did this for years; long, long years they were. the nights here are long sometimes--very long! but they are nothing to the restless nights and dreadful dreams i had at that time. it makes me cold to remember them. large dusky forms with sly and jeering faces crouched in the corners of the room, and bent over my bed at night, tempting me to madness. they told me in low whispers, that the floor of the old house in which my father's father died, was stained with his own blood, shed by his own hand in raging madness. i drove my fingers into my ears, but they screamed into my head till the room rang with it, that in one generation before him the madness slumbered, but that his grandfather had lived for years with his hands fettered to the ground, to prevent his tearing himself to pieces. i knew they told the truth--i knew it well. i had found it out years before, though they had tried to keep it from me. ha! ha! i was too cunning for them, madman as they thought me. "at last it came upon me, and i wondered how i could ever have feared it. i could go into the world now, and laugh and shout with the best among them. i knew i was mad, but they did not even suspect it. how i used to hug myself with delight, when i thought of the fine trick i was playing them after their old pointing and leering, when i was not mad, but only dreading that i might one day become so! and how i used to laugh for joy, when i was alone, and thought how well i kept my secret, and how quickly my kind friends would have fallen from me, if they had known the truth. i could have screamed with ecstasy when i dined alone with some fine roaring fellow, to think how pale he would have turned, and how fast he would have run, if he had known that the dear friend who sat close to him, sharpening a bright glittering knife, was a madman with all the power, and half the will, to plunge it in his heart. oh, it was a merry life! "riches became mine, wealth poured in upon me, and i rioted in pleasures enhanced a thousand-fold to me by the consciousness of my well-kept secret. i inherited an estate. the law--the eagle-eyed law itself--had been deceived, and had handed over disputed thousands to a madman's hands. where was the wit of the sharp-sighted men of sound mind? where the dexterity of the lawyers, eager to discover a flaw? the madman's cunning had over-reached them all. "i had money. how i was courted! i spent it profusely. how i was praised! how those three proud overbearing brothers humbled themselves before me! the old white-headed father, too--such deference--such respect--such devoted friendship--he worshipped me! the old man had a daughter, and the young men a sister; and all the five were poor. i was rich; and when i married the girl, i saw a smile of triumph play upon the faces of her needy relatives, as they thought of their well-planned scheme, and their fine prize. it was for me to smile. to smile! to laugh outright, and tear my hair, and roll upon the ground with shrieks of merriment. they little thought they had married her to a madman. "stay. if they had known it, would they have saved her? a sister's happiness against her husband's gold. the lightest feather i blow into the air, against the gay chain that ornaments my body! "in one thing i was deceived with all my cunning. if i had not been mad--for though we madmen are sharp-witted enough, we get bewildered sometimes--i should have known that the girl would rather have been placed, stiff and cold, in a dull leaden coffin, than borne an envied bride to my rich, glittering house. i should have known that her heart was with the dark-eyed boy whose name i once heard her breathe in her troubled sleep; and that she had been sacrificed to me, to relieve the poverty of the old white-headed man, and the haughty brothers. "i don't remember forms or faces now, but i know the girl was beautiful. i _know_ she was; for in the bright moonlight nights, when i start up from my sleep, and all is quiet about me, i see, standing still and motionless in one corner of this cell, a slight and wasted figure with long black hair, which streaming down her back, stirs with no earthly wind, and eyes that fix their gaze on me, and never wink or close. hush! the blood chills at my heart as i write it down--that form is _hers_; the face is very pale, and the eyes are glassy bright; but i know them well. that figure never moves; it never frowns and mouths as others do, that fill this place sometimes; but it is much more dreadful to me, even than the spirits that tempted me many years ago--it comes fresh from the grave; and is so very death-like. "for nearly a year i saw that face grow paler; for nearly a year i saw the tears steal down the mournful cheeks, and never knew the cause. i found it out at last, though. they could not keep it from me long. she had never liked me; i had never thought she did: she despised my wealth, and hated the splendour in which she lived;--i had not expected that. she loved another. this i had never thought of. strange feelings came over me, and thoughts, forced upon me by some secret power, whirled round and round my brain. i did not hate her, though i hated the boy she still wept for. i pitied--yes, i pitied--the wretched life to which her cold and selfish relations had doomed her. i knew that she could not live long, but the thought that before her death she might give birth to some ill-fated being, destined to hand down madness to its offspring, determined me. i resolved to kill her. "for many weeks i thought of poison, and then of drowning, and then of fire. a fine sight the grand house in flames, and the madman's wife smouldering away to cinders. think of the jest of a large reward, too, and of some sane man swinging in the wind for a deed he never did, and all through a madman's cunning! i thought often of this, but i gave it up at last. oh! the pleasure of stropping the razor day after day, feeling the sharp edge, and thinking of the gash one stroke of its thin bright edge would make! "at last the old spirits who had been with me so often before whispered in my ear that the time was come, and thrust the open razor into my hand. i grasped it firmly, rose softly from the bed and leaned over my sleeping wife. her face was buried in her hands. i withdrew them softly, and they fell listlessly on her bosom. she had been weeping; for the traces of the tears were still wet upon her cheek. her face was calm and placid; and even as i looked upon it, a tranquil smile lighted up her pale features. i laid my hand softly on her shoulder. she started--it was only a passing dream. i leant forward again. she screamed and woke. "one motion of my hand, and she would never again have uttered cry or sound. but i was startled and drew back. her eyes were fixed on mine. i know not how it was, but they cowed and frightened me; and i quailed beneath them. she rose from the bed, still gazing fixedly and steadily on me. i trembled; the razor was in my hand, but i could not move. she made towards the door. as she neared it, she turned, and withdrew her eyes from my face. the spell was broken. i bounded forward, and clutched her by the arm. uttering shriek upon shriek, she sunk upon the ground. "now i could have killed her without a struggle; but the house was alarmed. i heard the tread of footsteps on the stairs. i replaced the razor in its usual drawer, unfastened the door, and called loudly for assistance. "they came, and raised her, and placed her on the bed. she lay bereft of animation for hours; and when life, look, and speech returned, her senses had deserted her, and she raved wildly and furiously. "doctors were called in--great men who rolled up to my door in easy carriages, with fine horses and gaudy servants. they were at her bedside for weeks. they had a great meeting, and consulted together in low and solemn voices in another room. one, the cleverest and most celebrated among them, took me aside, and bidding me prepare for the worst, told me--me, the madman!--that my wife was mad. he stood close beside me at an open window, his eyes looking in my face, and his hand laid upon my arm. with one effort i could have hurled him into the street beneath. it would have been rare sport to have done it; but my secret was at stake, and i let him go. a few days after, they told me i must place her under some restraint; i must provide a keeper for her. _i!_ i went into the open fields where none could hear me, and laughed till the air resounded with my shouts! "she died next day. the white-headed old man followed her to the grave, and the proud brothers dropped a tear over the insensible corpse of her whose sufferings they had regarded in her lifetime with muscles of iron. all this was food for my secret mirth, and i laughed behind the white handkerchief which i held up to my face, as we rode home, till the tears came into my eyes. "but though i had carried my object and killed her, i was restless and disturbed, and i felt that before long my secret must be known. i could not hide the wild mirth and joy which boiled within me, and made me, when i was alone, at home, jump up and beat my hands together, and dance round and round, and roar aloud. when i went out, and saw the busy crowd hurrying about the streets; or to the theatre, and heard the sound of music, and beheld the people dancing, i felt such glee, that i could have rushed among them, and torn them to pieces limb from limb, and howled in transport. but i ground my teeth, and struck my feet upon the floor, and drove my sharp nails into my hands. i kept it down; and no one knew i was a madman yet. "i remember--though it's one of the last things i _can_ remember; for now i mix up realities with my dreams, and having so much to do, and being always hurried here, have no time to separate the two, from some strange confusion in which they get involved--i remember how i let it out at last. ha! ha! i think i see their frightened looks now, and feel the ease with which i flung them from me, and dashed my clenched fist into their white faces, and then flew like the wind, and left them screaming and shouting far behind. the strength of a giant comes upon me when i think of it. there--see how this iron bar bends beneath my furious wrench. i could snap it like a twig, only there are long galleries here with many doors--i don't think i could find my way along them; and even if i could, i know there are iron gates below which they keep locked and barred. they know what a clever madman i have been, and they are proud to have me here, to show. "let me see;--yes, i had been out. it was late at night when i reached home, and found the proudest of the three proud brothers waiting to see me--urgent business, he said: i recollect it well. i hated that man with all a madman's hate. many and many a time had my fingers longed to tear him. they told me he was there. i ran swiftly up-stairs. he had a word to say to me. i dismissed the servants. it was late, and we were alone together--_for the first time_. "i kept my eyes carefully from him at first, for i knew what he little thought--and i gloried in the knowledge--that the light of madness gleamed from them like fire. we sat in silence for a few minutes. he spoke at last. my recent dissipation, and strange remarks, made so soon after his sister's death, were an insult to her memory. coupling together many circumstances which had at first escaped his observation, he thought i had not treated her well. he wished to know whether he was right in inferring that i meant to cast a reproach upon her memory, and a disrespect upon her family. it was due to the uniform he wore to demand this explanation. "this man had a commission in the army--a commission, purchased with my money, and his sister's misery! this was the man who had been foremost in the plot to ensnare me, and grasp my wealth. this was the man who had been the main instrument in forcing his sister to wed me; well knowing that her heart was given to that puling boy. due to _his_ uniform! the livery of his degradation! i turned my eyes upon him--i could not help it--but i spoke not a word. "i saw the sudden change that came upon him beneath my gaze. he was a bold man, but the colour faded from his face, and he drew back his chair. i dragged mine nearer to him; and as i laughed--i was very merry then--i saw him shudder. i felt the madness rising within me. he was afraid of me. "'you were very fond of your sister when she was alive'--i said--'very.' "he looked uneasily round him, and i saw his hand grasp the back of his chair: but he said nothing. "'you villain,' said i, 'i found you out; i discovered your hellish plots against me; i know her heart was fixed on some one else before you compelled her to marry me. i know it--i know it.' "he jumped suddenly from his chair, brandished it aloft, and bid me stand back--for i took care to be getting closer to him all the time i spoke. "i screamed rather than talked, for i felt tumultuous passions eddying through my veins, and the old spirits whispering and taunting me to tear his heart out. "'damn you,' said i, starting up, and rushing upon him; 'i killed her. i am a madman. down with you. blood, blood! i will have it!' "i turned aside with one blow the chair he hurled at me in his terror, and closed with him; and with a heavy crash we rolled upon the floor together. "it was a fine struggle that; for he was a tall strong man, fighting for his life; and i, a powerful madman, thirsting to destroy him. i knew no strength could equal mine, and i was right. right again, though a madman! his struggles grew fainter. i knelt upon his chest, and clasped his brawny throat firmly with both hands. his face grew purple; his eyes were starting from his head, and with protruded tongue he seemed to mock me. i squeezed the tighter. "the door was suddenly burst open with a loud noise, and a crowd of people rushed forward, crying aloud to each other to secure the madman. "my secret was out; and my only struggle now was for liberty and freedom. i gained my feet before a hand was on me, threw myself among my assailants, and cleared my way with my strong arm, as if i bore a hatchet in my hand, and hewed them down before me. i gained the door, dropped over the banisters, and in an instant was in the street. "straight and swift i ran, and no one dared to stop me. i heard the noise of feet behind, and redoubled my speed. it grew fainter and fainter in the distance, and at length died away altogether: but on i bounded, through marsh and rivulet, over fence and wall, with a wild shout which was taken up by the strange beings that flocked around me on every side, and swelled the sound, till it pierced the air. i was borne upon the arms of demons, who swept along upon the wind, and bore down bank and hedge before them, and spun me round and round with a rustle and speed that made my head swim, until at last they threw me from them with a violent shock, and i fell heavily upon the earth. when i woke i found myself here--here in this gay cell where the sunlight seldom comes, and the moon steals in, in rays which only serve to show the dark shadows about me, and that silent figure in its old corner. when i lie awake, i can sometimes hear strange shrieks and cries from distant parts of this large place. what they are, i know not; but they neither come from that pale form, nor does it regard them. for from the first shades of dusk till the earliest light of morning, it still stands motionless in the same place, listening to the music of my iron chain, and watching my gambols on my straw bed." at the end of the manuscript was written, in another hand, this note: [the unhappy man whose ravings are recorded above, was a melancholy instance of the baneful results of energies misdirected in early life, and excesses prolonged until their consequences could never be repaired. the thoughtless riot, dissipation, and debauchery of his younger days, produced fever and delirium. the first effects of the latter was the strange delusion, founded upon a well-known medical theory, strongly contended for by some, and as strongly contested by others, that an hereditary madness existed in his family. this produced a settled gloom, which in time developed a morbid insanity, and finally terminated in raving madness. there is every reason to believe that the events he detailed, though distorted in the description by his diseased imagination, really happened. it is only matter of wonder to those who were acquainted with the vices of his early career, that his passions, when no longer controlled by reason, did not lead him to the commission of still more frightful deeds.] * * * * * mr. pickwick's candle was just expiring in the socket, as he concluded the perusal of the old clergyman's manuscript; and when the light went suddenly out, without any previous flicker by way of warning, it communicated a very considerable start to his excited frame. hastily throwing off such articles of clothing as he had put on when he rose from his uneasy bed, and casting a fearful glance around, he once more scrambled hastily between the sheets, and soon fell fast asleep. the sun was shining brilliantly into his chamber when he awoke, and the morning was far advanced. the gloom which had oppressed him on the previous night, had disappeared with the dark shadows which shrouded the landscape, and his thoughts and feelings were as light and gay as the morning itself. after a hearty breakfast, the four gentlemen sallied forth to walk to gravesend, followed by a man bearing the stone in its deal box. they reached that town about one o'clock (their luggage they had directed to be forwarded to the city, from rochester) and being fortunate enough to secure places on the outside of a coach, arrived in london in sound health and spirits, on that same afternoon. the next three or four days were occupied with the preparations which were necessary for their journey to the borough of eatanswill. as any reference to that most important undertaking demands a separate chapter, we may devote the few lines which remain at the close of this, to narrate, with great brevity, the history of the antiquarian discovery. it appears from the transactions of the club, then, that mr. pickwick lectured upon the discovery at the general club meeting, convened on the night succeeding their return, and entered into a variety of ingenious and erudite speculations on the meaning of the inscription. it also appears that a skilful artist executed a faithful delineation of the curiosity, which was engraved on the stone, and presented to the royal antiquarian society, and other learned bodies--that heart-burnings and jealousies without number, were created by rival controversies which were penned upon the subject--and that mr. pickwick himself wrote a pamphlet, containing ninety-six pages of very small print, and twenty-seven different readings of the inscription. that three old gentlemen cut off their eldest sons with a shilling a-piece for presuming to doubt the antiquity of the fragment--and that one enthusiastic individual cut himself off prematurely, in despair at being unable to fathom its meaning. that mr. pickwick was elected an honorary member of seventeen native and foreign societies, for making the discovery; that none of the seventeen could make anything of it; but that all the seventeen agreed it was very extraordinary. mr. blotton, indeed--and the name will be doomed to the undying contempt of those who cultivate the mysterious and the sublime--mr. blotton, we say, with the doubt and cavilling peculiar to vulgar minds, presumed to state a view of the case, as degrading as ridiculous. mr. blotton, with a mean desire to tarnish the lustre of the immortal name of pickwick, actually undertook a journey to cobham in person, and on his return, sarcastically observed in an oration at the club, that he had seen the man from whom the stone was purchased; that the man presumed the stone to be ancient, but solemnly denied the antiquity of the inscription--inasmuch as he represented it to have been rudely carved by himself in an idle mood, and to display letters intended to bear neither more nor less than the simple construction of--"bill stumps, his mark;" and that mr. stumps, being little in the habit of original composition, and more accustomed to be guided by the sound of words than by the strict rules of orthography, had omitted the concluding "l" of his christian name. the pickwick club (as might have been expected from so enlightened an institution) received this statement with the contempt it deserved, expelled the presumptuous and ill-conditioned blotton, and voted mr. pickwick a pair of gold spectacles, in token of their confidence and approbation; in return for which, mr. pickwick caused a portrait of himself to be painted, and hung up in the club-room. mr. blotton though ejected was not conquered. he also wrote a pamphlet, addressed to the seventeen learned societies, native and foreign, containing a repetition of the statement he had already made, and rather more than half intimating his opinion that the seventeen learned societies were so many "humbugs." hereupon the virtuous indignation of the seventeen learned societies, native and foreign, being roused, several fresh pamphlets appeared; the foreign learned societies corresponded with the native learned societies; the native learned societies translated the pamphlets of the foreign learned societies into english; the foreign learned societies translated the pamphlets of the native learned societies into all sorts of languages; and thus commenced that celebrated scientific discussion so well known to all men as the pickwick controversy. but this base attempt to injure mr. pickwick, recoiled upon the head of its calumnious author. the seventeen learned societies unanimously voted the presumptuous blotton an ignorant meddler, and forthwith set to work upon more treatises than ever. and to this day the stone remains, an illegible monument of mr. pickwick's greatness, and a lasting trophy of the littleness of his enemies. chapter xii [illustration] _descriptive of a very important proceeding on the part of mr. pickwick; no less an epoch in his life, than in this history_ mr. pickwick's apartments in goswell street, although on a limited scale, were not only of a very neat and comfortable description, but peculiarly adapted for the residence of a man of his genius and observation. his sitting-room was the first floor front, his bed-room the second floor front; and thus, whether he were sitting at his desk in his parlour, or standing before the dressing-glass in his dormitory, he had an equal opportunity of contemplating human nature in all the numerous phases it exhibits, in that not more populous than popular thoroughfare. his landlady mrs. bardell--the relict and sole executrix of a deceased custom-house officer--was a comely woman of bustling manners and agreeable appearance, with a natural genius for cooking, improved by study and long practice, into an exquisite talent. there were no children, no servants, no fowls. the only other inmates of the house were a large man and a small boy; the first a lodger, the second a production of mrs. bardell's. the large man was always home precisely at ten o'clock at night, at which hour he regularly condensed himself into the limits of a dwarfish french bedstead in the back parlour; and the infantine sports and gymnastic exercises of master bardell were exclusively confined to the neighbouring pavements and gutters. cleanliness and quiet reigned throughout the house; and in it mr. pickwick's will was law. to any one acquainted with these points of the domestic economy of the establishment, and conversant with the admirable regulation of mr. pickwick's mind, his appearance and behaviour on the morning previous to that which had been fixed upon for the journey to eatanswill, would have been most mysterious and unaccountable. he paced the room to and fro with hurried steps, popped his head out of the window at intervals of about three minutes each, constantly referred to his watch, and exhibited many other manifestations of impatience very unusual with him. it was evident that something of great importance was in contemplation, but what that something was, not even mrs. bardell herself had been enabled to discover. "mrs. bardell," said mr. pickwick, at last, as that amiable female approached the termination of a prolonged dusting of the apartment-- "sir?" said mrs. bardell. "your little boy is a very long time gone." "why, it's a good long way to the borough, sir," remonstrated mrs. bardell. "ah," said mr. pickwick, "very true; so it is." mr. pickwick relapsed into silence, and mrs. bardell resumed her dusting. "mrs. bardell," said mr. pickwick, at the expiration of a few minutes. "sir?" said mrs. bardell again. "do you think it a much greater expense to keep two people, than to keep one?" "la, mr. pickwick," said mrs. bardell, colouring up to the very border of her cap, as she fancied she observed a species of matrimonial twinkle in the eyes of her lodger; "la, mr. pickwick, what a question!" "well, but _do_ you?" inquired mr. pickwick. "that depends--" said mrs. bardell, approaching the duster very near to mr. pickwick's elbow, which was planted on the table--"that depends a good deal upon the person, you know, mr. pickwick; and whether it's a saving and careful person, sir." "that's very true," said mr. pickwick, "but the person i have in my eye (here he looked very hard at mrs. bardell) i think possesses these qualities; and has, moreover, a considerable knowledge of the world, and a great deal of sharpness, mrs. bardell; which may be of material use to me." "la, mr. pickwick," said mrs. bardell; the crimson rising to her cap-border again. "i do," said mr. pickwick, growing energetic, as was his wont in speaking of a subject which interested him, "i do, indeed; and to tell you the truth, mrs. bardell, i have made up my mind." "dear me, sir," exclaimed mrs. bardell. "you'll think it very strange now," said the amiable mr. pickwick, with a good-humoured glance at his companion, "that i never consulted you about this matter, and never even mentioned it, till i sent your little boy out this morning--eh?" mrs. bardell could only reply by a look. she had long worshipped mr. pickwick at a distance, but here she was, all at once raised to a pinnacle to which her wildest and most extravagant hopes had never dared to aspire. mr. pickwick was going to propose--a deliberate plan, too--sent her little boy to the borough, to get him out of the way--how thoughtful--how considerate! "well," said mr. pickwick, "what do you think?" "oh, mr. pickwick," said mrs. bardell, trembling with agitation, "you are very kind, sir." "it'll save you a good deal of trouble, won't it?" said mr. pickwick. "oh, i never thought anything of the trouble, sir," replied mrs. bardell; "and, of course, i should take more trouble to please you then, than ever; but it is so kind of you, mr. pickwick, to have so much consideration for my loneliness." "ah, to be sure," said mr. pickwick; "i never thought of that. when i am in town, you'll always have somebody to sit with you. to be sure, so you will." "i'm sure i ought to be a very happy woman," said mrs. bardell. "and your little boy--" said mr. pickwick. "bless his heart!" interposed mrs. bardell, with a maternal sob. "he, too, will have a companion," resumed mr. pickwick, "a lively one, who'll teach him, i'll be bound, more tricks in a week than he would ever learn in a year." and mr. pickwick smiled placidly. "oh you dear--" said mrs. bardell. mr. pickwick started. [illustration: "_oh you kind, good, playful dear_"] "oh you kind, good, playful dear," said mrs. bardell; and without more ado, she rose from her chair, and flung her arms round mr. pickwick's neck, with a cataract of tears and a chorus of sobs. "bless my soul!" cried the astonished mr. pickwick;--"mrs. bardell, my good woman--dear me, what a situation--pray consider.--mrs. bardell, don't--if anybody should come----" "oh, let them come," exclaimed mrs. bardell, frantically; "i'll never leave you--dear, kind, good soul;" and, with these words, mrs. bardell clung the tighter. "mercy upon me," said mr. pickwick, struggling violently, "i hear somebody coming up the stairs. don't, don't, there's a good creature, don't." but entreaty and remonstrance were alike unavailing: for mrs. bardell had fainted in mr. pickwick's arms; and before he could gain time to deposit her on a chair, master bardell entered the room, ushering in mr. tupman, mr. winkle, and mr. snodgrass. mr. pickwick was struck motionless and speechless. he stood with his lovely burden in his arms, gazing vacantly on the countenances of his friends, without the slightest attempt at recognition or explanation. they, in their turn, stared at him; and master bardell, in his turn, stared at everybody. the astonishment of the pickwickians was so absorbing, and the perplexity of mr. pickwick was so extreme, that they might have remained in exactly the same relative situations until the suspended animation of the lady was restored, had it not been for a most beautiful and touching expression of filial affection on the part of her youthful son. clad in a tight suit of corduroy, spangled with brass buttons of a very considerable size, he at first stood at the door astounded and uncertain; but by degrees, the impression that his mother must have suffered some personal damage, pervaded his partially developed mind, and considering mr. pickwick as the aggressor, he set up an appalling and semi-earthly kind of howling, and butting forward with his head, commenced assailing that immortal gentleman about the back and legs, with such blows and pinches as the strength of his arm, and the violence of his excitement, allowed. "take this little villain away," said the agonised mr. pickwick, "he's mad." "what _is_ the matter?" said the three tongue-tied pickwickians. "i don't know," replied mr. pickwick, pettishly. "take away the boy" (here mr. winkle carried the interesting boy, screaming and struggling, to the further end of the apartment). "now, help me, lead this woman downstairs." "oh, i am better now," said mrs. bardell, faintly. "let me lead you downstairs," said the ever gallant mr. tupman. "thank you, sir--thank you;" exclaimed mrs. bardell, hysterically. and downstairs she was led accordingly, accompanied by her affectionate son. "i cannot conceive--" said mr. pickwick, when his friend returned--"i cannot conceive what has been the matter with that woman. i had merely announced to her my intention of keeping a man servant, when she fell into the extraordinary paroxysm in which you found her. very extraordinary thing." "very," said his three friends. "placed me in such an extremely awkward situation," continued mr. pickwick. "very," was the reply of his followers, as they coughed slightly, and looked dubiously at each other. this behaviour was not lost upon mr. pickwick. he remarked their incredulity. they evidently suspected him. "there is a man in the passage now," said mr. tupman. "it's the man i spoke to you about," said mr. pickwick, "i sent for him to the borough this morning. have the goodness to call him up, snodgrass." mr. snodgrass did as he was desired; and mr. samuel weller forthwith presented himself. "oh--you remember me, i suppose?" said mr. pickwick. "i should think so," replied sam, with a patronising wink. "queer start that 'ere, but he was one too many for you, warn't he? up to snuff and a pinch or two over--eh?" "never mind that matter now," said mr. pickwick, hastily, "i want to speak to you about something else. sit down." "thank'ee, sir," said sam. and down he sat without farther bidding, having previously deposited his old white hat on the landing outside the door. "'tan't a wery good 'un to look at," said sam, "but it's an astonishin' 'un to wear; and afore the brim went, it was a wery handsome tile. hows'ever it's lighter without it, that's one thing, and every hole lets in some air, that's another--wentilation gossamer i calls it." on the delivery of this sentiment, mr. weller smiled agreeably upon the assembled pickwickians. "now with regard to the matter on which i, with the concurrence of these gentlemen, sent for you," said mr. pickwick. "that's the pint, sir," interposed sam; "out vith it, as the father said to the child, ven he swallowed a farden." "we want to know, in the first place," said mr. pickwick, "whether you have any reason to be discontented with your present situation." "afore i answers that 'ere question, gen'lm'n," replied mr. weller, "_i_ should like to know, in the first place, whether you're a goin' to purwide me with a better." a sunbeam of placid benevolence played on mr. pickwick's features as he said, "i have half made up my mind to engage you myself." "have you though?" said sam. mr. pickwick nodded in the affirmative. "wages?" inquired sam. "twelve pounds a year," replied mr. pickwick. "clothes?" "two suits." "work?" "to attend upon me; and travel about with me and these gentlemen here." "take the bill down," said sam, emphatically "i'm let to a single gentleman, and the terms is agreed upon." "you accept the situation?" inquired mr. pickwick. "cert'nly," replied sam. "if the clothes fits me half as well as the place, they'll do." "you can get a character, of course?" said mr. pickwick. "ask the landlady o' the white hart about that, sir," replied sam. "can you come this evening?" "i'll get into the clothes this minute, if they're here," said sam with great alacrity. "call at eight this evening," said mr. pickwick; "and if the inquiries are satisfactory, they shall be provided." with the single exception of one amiable indiscretion, in which an assistant housemaid had equally participated, the history of mr. weller's conduct was so very blameless, that mr. pickwick felt fully justified in closing the engagement that very evening. with the promptness and energy which characterised not only the public proceedings, but all the private actions of this extraordinary man, he at once led his new attendant to one of those convenient emporiums where gentlemen's new and second-hand clothes are provided, and the troublesome and inconvenient formality of measurement dispensed with; and before night had closed in, mr. weller was furnished with a grey coat with the p. c. button, a black hat with a cockade to it, a pink striped waistcoat, light breeches and gaiters, and a variety of other necessaries, too numerous to recapitulate. "well," said that suddenly transformed individual, as he took his seat on the outside of the eatanswill coach next morning; "i wonder whether i'm meant to be a footman, or a groom, or a gamekeeper, or a seedsman. i looks like a sort of compo of every one on 'em. never mind; there's change of air, plenty to see, and little to do; and all this suits my complaint uncommon; so long life to the pickvicks, says i!" chapter xiii [illustration] _some account of eatanswill; of the state of parties therein; and of the election of a member to serve in parliament for that ancient, loyal, and patriotic borough_ we will frankly acknowledge, that up to the period of our being first immersed in the voluminous papers of the pickwick club, we had never heard of eatanswill; we will with equal candour admit, that we have in vain searched for proof of the actual existence of such a place at the present day. knowing the deep reliance to be placed on every note and statement of mr. pickwick's, and not presuming to set up our recollection against the recorded declarations of that great man, we have consulted every authority, bearing upon the subject, to which we could possible refer. we have traced every name in schedules a and b, without meeting with that of eatanswill; we have minutely examined every corner of the pocket county maps issued for the benefit of society by our distinguished publishers, and the same result has attended our investigation. we are therefore led to believe, that mr. pickwick, with that anxious desire to abstain from giving offence to any, and with those delicate feelings for which all who knew him well know he was so eminently remarkable, purposely substituted a fictitious designation, for the real name of the place in which his observations were made. we are confirmed in this belief by a little circumstance, apparently slight and trivial in itself, but when considered in this point of view, not undeserving of notice. in mr. pickwick's note-book, we can just trace an entry of the fact, that the places of himself and followers were booked by the norwich coach; but this entry was afterwards lined through, as if for the purpose of concealing even the direction in which the borough is situated. we will not, therefore, hazard a guess upon the subject, but will at once proceed with this history; content with the materials which its characters have provided for us. it appears, then, that the eatanswill people, like the people of many other small towns, considered themselves of the utmost and most mighty importance, and that every man in eatanswill, conscious of the weight that attached to his example, felt himself bound to unite, heart and soul, with one of the two great parties that divided the town--the blues and the buffs. now the blues lost no opportunity of opposing the buffs, and the buffs lost no opportunity of opposing the blues; and the consequence was, that whenever the buffs and blues met together at public meeting, town-hall, fair, or market, disputes and high words arose between them. with these dissensions it is almost superfluous to say that everything in eatanswill was made a party question. if the buffs proposed to new skylight the market-place, the blues got up public meetings, and denounced the proceeding; if the blues proposed the erection of an additional pump in the high street, the buffs rose as one man and stood aghast at the enormity. there were blue shops and buff shops, blue inns and buff inns; there was a blue aisle and a buff aisle, in the very church itself. of course it was essentially and indispensably necessary that each of these powerful parties should have its chosen organ and representative: and, accordingly, there were two newspapers in the town--the _eatanswill gazette_, and the _eatanswill independent_; the former advocating blue principles, and the latter conducted on grounds decidedly buff. fine newspapers they were. such leading articles, and such spirited attacks!--"our worthless contemporary, the _gazette_"--"that disgraceful and dastardly journal, the _independent_"--"that false and scurrilous print, the _independent_"--"that vile and slanderous calumniator, the _gazette_;" these and other spirit-stirring denunciations were strewn plentifully over the columns of each, in every number, and excited feelings of the most intense delight and indignation in the bosoms of the townspeople. mr. pickwick, with his usual foresight and sagacity, had chosen a peculiarly desirable moment for his visit to the borough. never was such a contest known. the honourable samuel slumkey, of slumkey hall, was the blue candidate; and horatio fizkin, esq., of fizkin lodge, near eatanswill, had been prevailed upon by his friends to stand forward in the buff interest. the _gazette_ warned the electors of eatanswill that the eyes not only of england, but of the whole civilised world, were upon them; and the _independent_ imperatively demanded to know, whether the constituency of eatanswill were the grand fellows they had always taken them for, or base and servile tools, undeserving alike of the name of englishmen and the blessings of freedom. never had such a commotion agitated the town before. it was late in the evening, when mr. pickwick and his companions, assisted by sam, dismounted from the roof of the eatanswill coach. large blue silk flags were flying from the windows of the town arms inn, and bills were posted in every sash, intimating, in gigantic letters, that the honourable samuel slumkey's committee sat there daily. a crowd of idlers were assembled in the road, looking at a hoarse man in the balcony, who was apparently talking himself very red in the face in mr. slumkey's behalf; but the force and point of whose arguments were somewhat impaired by the perpetual beating of four large drums which mr. fizkin's committee had stationed at the street corner. there was a busy little man beside him, though, who took off his hat at intervals and motioned to the people to cheer, which they regularly did, most enthusiastically; and as the red-faced gentleman went on talking till he was redder in the face than ever, it seemed to answer his purpose quite as well as if anybody had heard him. the pickwickians had no sooner dismounted, than they were surrounded by a branch mob of the honest and independent, who forthwith set up three deafening cheers, which being responded to by the main body (for it's not at all necessary for a crowd to know what they are cheering about), swelled into a tremendous roar of triumph, which stopped even the red-faced man in the balcony. "hurrah!" shouted the mob in conclusion. "one cheer more," screamed the little fugleman in the balcony, and out shouted the mob again, as if lungs were cast iron, with steel works. "slumkey for ever!" roared the honest and independent. "slumkey for ever!" echoed mr. pickwick, taking off his hat. "no fizkin!" roared the crowd. "certainly not!" shouted mr. pickwick. "hurrah!" and then there was another roaring, like that of a whole menagerie when the elephant has rung the bell for the cold meat. "who is slumkey?" whispered mr. tupman. "i don't know," replied mr. pickwick in the same tone, "hush. don't ask any questions. it's always best on these occasions to do what the mob do." "but suppose there are two mobs?" suggested mr. snodgrass. "shout with the largest," replied mr. pickwick. volumes could not have said more. they entered the house, the crowd opening right and left to let them pass, and cheering vociferously. the first object of consideration was to secure quarters for the night. "can we have beds here?" inquired mr. pickwick, summoning the waiter. "don't know, sir," replied the man; "afraid we're full, sir--i'll inquire, sir." away he went for that purpose, and presently returned, to ask whether the gentlemen were "blue." as neither mr. pickwick nor his companions took any vital interest in the cause of either candidate, the question was rather a difficult one to answer. in this dilemma mr. pickwick bethought himself of his new friend, mr. perker. "do you know a gentleman of the name of mr. perker?" inquired mr. pickwick. "certainly, sir; honourable mr. samuel slumkey's agent." "he is blue, i think?" "oh yes, sir." "then _we_ are blue," said mr. pickwick; but observing that the man looked rather doubtful at this accommodating announcement, he gave him his card, and desired him to present it to mr. perker forthwith, if he should happen to be in the house. the waiter retired; and reappearing almost immediately with a request that mr. pickwick would follow him, led the way to a large room on the first floor, where, seated at a long table covered with books and papers, was mr. perker. "ah--ah, my dear sir," said the little man, advancing to meet him; "very happy to see you, my dear sir, very. pray sit down. so you have carried your intention into effect. you have come down here to see an election--eh?" mr. pickwick replied in the affirmative. "spirited contest, my dear sir," said the little man. "i am delighted to hear it," said mr. pickwick, rubbing his hands. "i like to see sturdy patriotism, on whatever side it is called forth;--and so it's a spirited contest?" "oh yes," said the little man, "very much so indeed. we have opened all the public-houses in the place, and left our adversary nothing but the beer-shops--masterly stroke of policy that, my dear sir, eh?"--the little man smiled complacently, and took a large pinch of snuff. "and what are the probabilities as to the result of the contest?" inquired mr. pickwick. "why, doubtful, my dear sir; rather doubtful as yet," replied the little man. "fizkin's people have got three-and-thirty voters in the lock-up coach-house at the white hart." "in the coach-house!" said mr. pickwick, considerably astonished by this second stroke of policy. "they keep 'em locked up there till they want 'em," resumed the little man. "the effect of that is, you see, to prevent our getting at them; and even if we could, it would be of no use, for they keep them very drunk on purpose. smart fellow fizkin's agent--very smart fellow indeed." mr. pickwick stared, but said nothing. "we are pretty confident, though," said mr. perker, sinking his voice almost to a whisper. "we had a little tea-party here last night--five-and-forty women, my dear sir--and gave every one of 'em a green parasol when she went away." "a parasol!" said mr. pickwick. "fact, my dear sir, fact. five-and-forty green parasols at seven and sixpence a-piece. all women like finery,--extraordinary the effect of those parasols. secured all their husbands, and half their brothers--beats stockings and flannel, and all that sort of thing hollow. my idea, my dear sir, entirely. hail, rain, or sunshine, you can't walk half a dozen yards up the street, without encountering half a dozen green parasols." here the little man indulged in a convulsion of mirth, which was only checked by the entrance of a third party. this was a tall, thin man, with a sandy-coloured head inclined to baldness, and a face in which solemn importance was blended with a look of unfathomable profundity. he was dressed in a long brown surtout, with a black cloth waistcoat, and drab trousers. a double eye-glass dangled at his waistcoat: and on his head he wore a very low-crowned hat with a broad brim. the new-comer was introduced to mr. pickwick as mr. pott, the editor of the _eatanswill gazette_. after a few preliminary remarks, mr. pott turned round to mr. pickwick, and said with solemnity-- "this contest excites great interest in the metropolis, sir?" "i believe it does," said mr. pickwick. "to which i have reason to know," said pott, looking towards mr. perker for information,--"to which i have reason to know that my article of last saturday in some degree contributed." "not the least doubt of it," said the little man. "the press is a mighty engine, sir," said pott. mr. pickwick yielded his fullest assent to the proposition. "but i trust, sir," said pott, "that i have never abused the enormous power i wield. i trust, sir, that i have never pointed the noble instrument which is placed in my hands, against the sacred bosom of private life, or the tender breast of individual reputation;--i trust, sir, that i have devoted my energies to--to endeavours--humble they may be, humble i know they are--to instil those principles of--which--are--" here the editor of the _eatanswill gazette_ appearing to ramble, mr. pickwick came to his relief, and said-- "certainly." "and what, sir,"--said pott--"what, sir, let me ask you as an impartial man, is the state of the public mind in london with reference to my contest with the _independent_?" "greatly excited, no doubt," interposed mr. perker, with a look of slyness which was very likely accidental. "the contest," said pott, "shall be prolonged so long as i have health and strength, and that portion of talent with which i am gifted. from that contest, sir, although it may unsettle men's minds and excite their feelings, and render them incapable for the discharge of the every-day duties of ordinary life; from that contest, sir, i will never shrink, till i have set my heel upon the _eatanswill independent_. i wish the people of london and the people of this country to know, sir, that they may rely upon me;--that i will not desert them, that i am resolved to stand by them, sir, to the last." "your conduct is most noble, sir," said mr. pickwick; and he grasped the hand of the magnanimous pott. "you are, sir, i perceive, a man of sense and talent," said mr. pott, almost breathless with the vehemence of his patriotic declaration. "i am most happy, sir, to make the acquaintance of such a man." "and i," said mr. pickwick, "feel deeply honoured by this expression of your opinion. allow me, sir, to introduce you to my fellow-travellers, the other corresponding members of the club i am proud to have founded." "i shall be delighted," said mr. pott. mr. pickwick withdrew, and returning with his friends, presented them in due form to the editor of the _eatanswill gazette_. "now, my dear pott," said little mr. perker, "the question is, what are we to do with our friends here?" "we can stop in this house, i suppose," said mr. pickwick. "not a spare bed in the house, my dear sir--not a single bed." "extremely awkward," said mr. pickwick. "very," said his fellow-voyagers. "i have an idea upon this subject," said mr. pott, "which i think may be very successfully adopted. they have two beds at the peacock, and i can boldly say, on behalf of mrs. pott, that she will be delighted to accommodate mr. pickwick and any of his friends, if the other two gentlemen and their servant do not object to shifting, as they best can, at the peacock." after repeated pressings on the part of mr. pott, and repeated protestations on that of mr. pickwick that he could not think of incommoding or troubling his amiable wife, it was decided that it was the only feasible arrangement that could be made. so it _was_ made; and after dining together at the town arms, the friends separated, mr. tupman and mr. snodgrass repairing to the peacock, and mr. pickwick and mr. winkle proceeding to the mansion of mr. pott; it having been previously arranged that they should all reassemble at the town arms in the morning, and accompany the honourable samuel slumkey's procession to the place of nomination. mr. pott's domestic circle was limited to himself and his wife. all men whom mighty genius has raised to a proud eminence in the world, have usually some little weakness which appears the more conspicuous from the contrast it presents to their general character. if mr. pott had a weakness, it was, perhaps, that he was _rather_ too submissive to the somewhat contemptuous control and sway of his wife. we do not feel justified in laying any particular stress upon the fact, because on the present occasion all mrs. pott's most winning ways were brought into requisition to receive the two gentlemen. "my dear," said mr. pott, "mr. pickwick--mr. pickwick of london." mrs. pott received mr. pickwick's paternal grasp of the hand with enchanting sweetness; and mr. winkle, who had not been announced at all, slided and bowed, unnoticed, in an obscure corner. "p. my dear--" said mrs. pott. "my life," said mr. pott. "pray introduce the other gentleman." "i beg a thousand pardons," said mr. pott. "permit me. mrs. pott, mr. ----" "winkle," said mr. pickwick. "winkle," echoed mr. pott; and the ceremony of introduction was complete. "we owe you many apologies, ma'am," said mr. pickwick, "for disturbing your domestic arrangements at so short a notice." "i beg you won't mention it, sir," replied the feminine pott, with vivacity. "it is a high treat to me, i assure you, to see any new faces; living as i do, from day to day, and week to week, in this dull place, and seeing nobody." "nobody, my dear!" exclaimed mr. pott, archly. "nobody but _you_," retorted mrs. pott, with asperity. "you see, mr. pickwick," said the host in explanation of his wife's lament, "that we are in some measure cut off from many enjoyments and pleasures of which we might otherwise partake. my public station, as editor of the _eatanswill gazette_, the position which that paper holds in the country, my constant immersion in the vortex of politics----" "p. my dear--" interposed mrs. pott. "my life--" said the editor. "i wish, my dear, you would endeavour to find some topic of conversation in which these gentlemen might take some rational interest." "but, my love," said mr. pott, with great humility, "mr. pickwick does take an interest in it." "it's well for him if he can," said mrs. pott, emphatically; "i am wearied out of my life with your politics, and quarrels with the _independent_, and nonsense. i am quite astonished, p., at your making such an exhibition of your absurdity." "but, my dear--" said mr. pott. "oh, nonsense, don't talk to me;" said mrs. pott. "do you play _écarté_, sir?" "i shall be very happy to learn under your tuition," replied mr. winkle. "well, then, draw that little table into this window, and let me get out of hearing of those prosy politics." "jane," said mr. pott, to the servant who brought in candles, "go down into the office, and bring me up the file of the _gazette_ for eighteen hundred and twenty eight. i'll read you--" added the editor, turning to mr. pickwick, "i'll just read you a few of the leaders i wrote at that time upon the buff job of appointing a new tollman to the turnpike here; i rather think they'll amuse you." "i should like to hear them very much indeed," said mr. pickwick. up came the file, and down sat the editor, with mr. pickwick at his side. we have in vain pored over the leaves of mr. pickwick's note-book, in the hope of meeting with a general summary of these beautiful compositions. we have every reason to believe that he was perfectly enraptured with the vigour and freshness of the style; indeed mr. winkle has recorded the fact that his eyes were closed, as if with excess of pleasure, during the whole time of their perusal. the announcement of supper put a stop both to the game at _écarté_, and the recapitulation of the beauties of the _eatanswill gazette_. mrs. pott was in the highest spirits and the most agreeable humour. mr. winkle had already made considerable progress in her good opinion, and she did not hesitate to inform him, confidentially, that mr. pickwick was "a delightful old dear." these terms convey a familiarity of expression, in which few of those who were intimately acquainted with that colossal-minded man would have presumed to indulge. we have preserved them, nevertheless, as affording at once a touching and convincing proof of the estimation in which he was held by every class of society, and the ease with which he made his way to their hearts and feelings. it was a late hour of the night--long after mr. tupman and mr. snodgrass had fallen asleep in the inmost recesses of the peacock--when the two friends retired to rest. slumber soon fell upon the senses of mr. winkle, but his feelings had been excited, and his admiration roused; and for many hours after sleep had rendered him insensible to earthly objects, the face and figure of the agreeable mrs. pott presented themselves again and again to his wandering imagination. the noise and bustle which ushered in the morning, were sufficient to dispel from the mind of the most romantic visionary in existence, any associations but those which were immediately connected with the rapidly-approaching election. the beating of drums, the blowing of horns and trumpets, the shouting of men, and tramping of horses, echoed and re-echoed through the streets from the earliest dawn of day; and an occasional fight between the light skirmishers of either party at once enlivened the preparations and agreeably diversified their character. "well, sam," said mr. pickwick, as his valet appeared at his bed-room door, just as he was concluding his toilet; "all alive to-day, i suppose?" "reg'lar game, sir," replied mr. weller; "our people's a col-lecting down at the town arms, and they're a hollering themselves hoarse already." "ah," said mr. pickwick, "do they seem devoted to their party, sam?" "never see such dewotion in my life, sir." "energetic, eh?" said mr. pickwick. "uncommon," replied sam; "i never see men eat and drink so much afore. i wonder they an't afeer'd o' bustin'." "that's the mistaken kindness of the gentry here," said mr. pickwick. "wery likely," replied sam, briefly. "fine, fresh, hearty fellows they seem," said mr. pickwick, glancing from the window. "wery fresh," replied sam: "me, and the two waiters at the peacock, has been a pumpin' over the independent woters as supped there last night." "pumping over independent voters!" exclaimed mr. pickwick. "yes," said his attendant, "every man slept vere he fell down; we dragged 'em out, one by one, this mornin', and put 'em under the pump, and they're in reg'lar fine order, now. shillin' a head the committee paid for that 'ere job." "can such things be!" exclaimed the astonished mr. pickwick. "lord bless your heart, sir," said sam, "why, where was you half baptized?--that's nothin', that an't." "nothing?" said mr. pickwick. "nothin' at all, sir," replied his attendant. "the night afore the last day o' the last election here, the opposite party bribed the barmaid at the town arms, to hocus the brandy and water of fourteen unpolled electors as was a stoppin' in the house." "what do you mean by 'hocussing' brandy and water?" inquired mr. pickwick. "puttin' laud'num in it," replied sam. "blessed if she didn't send 'em all to sleep till twelve hours arter the election was over. they took one man up to the booth, in a truck, fast asleep, by way of experiment, but it was no go--they wouldn't poll him; so they brought him back, and put him to bed again." "strange practices, these," said mr. pickwick; half speaking to himself and half addressing sam. "not half so strange as a miraculous circumstance as happened to my own father, at an election time, in this wery place, sir," replied sam. "what was that?" inquired mr. pickwick. "why he drove a coach down here once," said sam; "'lection time came on, and he was engaged by vun party to bring down woters from london. night afore he was a going to drive up, committee on t'other side sends for him quietly, and away he goes vith the messenger, who shows him in;--large room--lots of gen'l'm'n--heaps of paper, pens and ink, and all that 'ere. 'ah, mr. weller,' says the gen'l'm'n in the chair, 'glad to see you, sir; how are you?'--'wery well, thank'ee, sir,' says my father; 'i hope _you're_ pretty middlin,' says he.--'pretty well, thank'ee, sir,' says the gen'l'm'n; 'sit down, mr. weller--pray sit down, sir.' so my father sits down, and he and the gen'l'm'n looks wery hard at each other. 'you don't remember me?' says the gen'l'm'n.--'can't say i do,' says my father.--'oh, i know you,' says the gen'l'm'n; 'know'd you when you was a boy,' says he.--'well, i don't remember you,' says my father--'that's wery odd,' says the gen'l'm'n--'wery,' says my father--'you must have a bad mem'ry, mr. weller,' says the gen'l'm'n--'well, it is a wery bad 'un,' says my father.--'i thought so,' says the gen'l'm'n. so then they pours him out a glass of wine, and gammons him about his driving, and gets him into a reg'lar good humour, and at last shoves a twenty-pound note in his hand. 'it's a wery bad road between this and london,' says the gen'l'm'n.--'here and there it _is_ a heavy road,' says my father.--' 'specially near the canal, i think,' says the gen'l'm'n.--'nasty bit that 'ere,' says my father.--'well, mr. weller,' says the gen'l'm'n, 'you're a wery good whip, and can do what you like with your horses, we know. we're all wery fond o' you, mr. weller, so in case you _should_ have an accident when you're a bringing these here woters down, and _should_ tip 'em over into the canal vithout hurtin' of 'em, this is for yourself,' says he.--'gen'l'm'n, you're wery kind,' says my father, 'and i'll drink your health in another glass of wine,' says he; wich he did, and then buttons up the money, and bows himself out. you wouldn't believe, sir," continued sam, with a look of inexpressible impudence at his master, "that on the wery day as he came down with them woters, his coach _was_ upset on that 'ere wery spot, and ev'ry man on 'em was turned into the canal." "and got out again?" inquired mr. pickwick, hastily. "why," replied sam, very slowly, "i rather think one old gen'l'm'n was missin'; i know his hat was found, but i an't quite certain whether his head was in it or not. but what i look at, is the hex-traordinary, and wonderful coincidence, that arter what that gen'l'm'n said, my father's coach should be upset in that wery place, and on that wery day!" "it is, no doubt, a very extraordinary circumstance indeed," said mr. pickwick. "but brush my hat, sam, for i hear mr. winkle calling me to breakfast." with these words mr. pickwick descended to the parlour, where he found breakfast laid, and the family already assembled. the meal was hastily despatched; each of the gentlemen's hats was decorated with an enormous blue favour, made up by the fair hands of mrs. pott herself; and as mr. winkle had undertaken to escort that lady to a house-top, in the immediate vicinity of the hustings, mr. pickwick and mr. pott repaired alone to the town arms, from the back window of which, one of mr. slumkey's committee was addressing six small boys, and one girl, whom he dignified, at every second sentence, with the imposing title of "men of eatanswill," whereat the six small boys aforesaid cheered prodigiously. the stable-yard exhibited unequivocal symptoms of the glory and strength of the eatanswill blues. there was a regular army of blue flags, some with one handle, and some with two, exhibiting appropriate devices, in golden characters, four feet high, and stout in proportion. there was a grand band of trumpets, bassoons, and drums, marshalled four abreast, and earning their money, if ever men did, especially the drum-beaters, who were very muscular. there were bodies of constables with blue staves, twenty committee-men with blue scarfs, and a mob of voters with blue cockades. there were electors on horseback, and electors a-foot. there was an open carriage and four, for the honourable samuel slumkey; and there were four carriages and pairs, for his friends and supporters; and the flags were rustling, and the band was playing, and the constables were swearing, and the twenty committee-men were squabbling, and the mob was shouting, and the horses were backing, and the post-boys perspiring; and everybody, and everything, then and there assembled, was for the special use, behoof, honour, and renown, of the honourable samuel slumkey, of slumkey hall, one of the candidates for the representation of the borough of eatanswill, in the commons house of parliament of the united kingdom. loud and long were the cheers, and mighty was the rustling of one of the blue flags, with "liberty of the press" inscribed thereon, when the sandy head of mr. pott was discerned in one of the windows, by the mob beneath; and tremendous was the enthusiasm when the honourable samuel slumkey himself, in top-boots, and a blue neckerchief, advanced and seized the hand of the said pott, and melodramatically testified by gestures to the crowd, his ineffaceable obligations to the _eatanswill gazette_. "is everything ready?" said the honourable samuel slumkey to mr. perker. "everything, my dear sir," was the little man's reply. "nothing has been omitted, i hope?" said the honourable samuel slumkey. "nothing has been left undone, my dear sir--nothing whatever. there are twenty washed men at the street door for you to shake hands with; and six children in arms that you're to pat on the head, and inquire the age of; be particular about the children, my dear sir,--it has always a great effect, that sort of thing." "i'll take care," said the honourable samuel slumkey. "and, perhaps, my dear sir--" said the cautious little man, "perhaps if you _could_--i don't mean to say it's indispensable--but if you _could_ manage to kiss one of 'em, it would produce a very great impression on the crowd." "wouldn't it have as good an effect if the proposer or seconder did that?" said the honourable samuel slumkey. "why, i am afraid it wouldn't," replied the agent; "if it were done by yourself, my dear sir, i think it would make you very popular." "very well," said the honourable samuel slumkey, with a resigned air, "then it must be done. that's all." "arrange the procession," cried the twenty committee-men. amidst the cheers of the assembled throng, the band, and the constables, and the committee-men, and the voters, and the horse-men, and the carriages, took their places--each of the two-horse vehicles being closely packed with as many gentlemen as could manage to stand upright in it; and that assigned to mr. perker, containing mr. pickwick, mr. tupman, mr. snodgrass, and about half a dozen of the committee beside. there was a moment of awful suspense as the procession waited for the honourable samuel slumkey to step into his carriage. suddenly the crowd set up a great cheering. "he has come out," said little mr. perker, greatly excited; the more so as their position did not enable them to see what was going forward. another cheer, much louder. "he has shaken hands with the men," cried the little agent. another cheer, far more vehement. "he has patted the babies on the head," said mr. perker, trembling with anxiety. a roar of applause that rent the air. "he has kissed one of 'em!" exclaimed the delighted little man. a second roar. "he has kissed another," gasped the excited manager. a third roar. "he's kissing 'em all!" screamed the enthusiastic little gentleman. and hailed by the deafening shouts of the multitude, the procession moved on. [illustration: _"he has patted the babies on the head"_] how or by what means it became mixed up with the other procession, and how it was ever extricated from the confusion consequent thereupon, is more than we can undertake to describe, inasmuch as mr. pickwick's hat was knocked over his eyes, nose, and mouth, by one poke of a buff flag-staff, very early in the proceedings. he describes himself as being surrounded on every side, when he could catch a glimpse of the scene, by angry and ferocious countenances, by a vast cloud of dust, and by a dense crowd of combatants. he represents himself as being forced from the carriage by some unseen power, and being personally engaged in a pugilistic encounter; but with whom, or how, or why, he is wholly unable to state. he then felt himself forced up some wooden steps by the persons from behind: and on removing his hat found himself surrounded by his friends, in the very front of the left-hand side of the hustings. the right was reserved for the buff party, and the centre for the mayor and his officers; one of whom--the fat crier of eatanswill--was ringing an enormous bell, by way of commanding silence, while mr. horatio fizkin, and the honourable samuel slumkey, with their hands upon their hearts, were bowing with the utmost affability to the troubled sea of heads that inundated the open space in front; and from whence arose a storm of groans, and shouts, and yells, and hootings, that would have done honour to an earthquake. "there's winkle," said mr. tupman, pulling his friend by the sleeve. "where?" said mr. pickwick, putting on his spectacles, which he had fortunately kept in his pocket hitherto. "there," said mr. tupman, "on the top of that house." and there, sure enough, in the leaden gutter of a tiled roof, were mr. winkle and mrs. pott, comfortably seated in a couple of chairs, waving their handkerchiefs in token of recognition--a compliment which mr. pickwick returned by kissing his hand to the lady. the proceedings had not yet commenced; and as an inactive crowd is generally disposed to be jocose, this very innocent action was sufficient to awaken their facetiousness. "oh you wicked old rascal!" cried one voice, "looking arter the girls, are you?" "oh you wenerable sinner!" cried another. "putting on his spectacles to look at a married 'ooman!" said a third. "i see him a winkin' at her, with his wicked old eye," shouted a fourth. "look arter your wife, pott," bellowed a fifth;--and then there was a roar of laughter. as these taunts were accompanied with invidious comparisons between mr. pickwick and an aged ram, and several witticisms of the like nature; and as they moreover rather tended to convey reflections upon the honour of an innocent lady, mr. pickwick's indignation was excessive; but as silence was proclaimed at the moment, he contented himself by scorching the mob with a look of pity for their misguided minds, at which they laughed more boisterously than ever. "silence!" roared the mayor's attendants. "whiffin, proclaim silence," said the mayor, with an air of pomp befitting his lofty station. in obedience to this command the crier performed another concerto on the bell, whereupon a gentleman in the crowd called out "muffins;" which occasioned another laugh. "gentlemen," said the mayor, at as loud a pitch as he could possibly force his voice to. "gentlemen. brother electors of the borough of eatanswill. we are met here to-day for the purpose of choosing a representative in the room of our late----" here the mayor was interrupted by a voice in the crowd. "suc-cess to the mayor!" cried the voice, "and may he never desert the nail and sarspan business, as he got his money by." this allusion to the professional pursuits of the orator was received with a storm of delight, which, with a bell accompaniment, rendered the remainder of his speech inaudible, with the exception of the concluding sentence, in which he thanked the meeting for the patient attention with which they had heard him throughout,--an expression of gratitude which elicited another burst of mirth, of about a quarter of an hour's duration. next, a tall thin gentleman, in a very stiff white neckerchief, after being repeatedly desired by the crowd to "send a boy home, to ask whether he hadn't left his voice under the pillow," begged to nominate a fit and proper person to represent them in parliament. and when he said it was horatio fizkin, esquire, of fizkin lodge, near eatanswill, the fizkinites applauded, and the slumkeyites groaned, so long, and so loudly, that both he and the seconder might have sung comic songs in lieu of speaking, without anybody's being a bit the wiser. the friends of horatio fizkin, esquire, having had their innings, a little, choleric, pink-faced man stood forward to propose another fit and proper person to represent the electors of eatanswill in parliament; and very swimmingly the pink-faced gentleman would have got on, if he had not been rather too choleric to entertain a sufficient perception of the fun of the crowd. but after a very few sentences of figurative eloquence, the pink-faced gentleman got from denouncing those who interrupted him in the mob, to exchanging defiances with the gentlemen on the hustings; whereupon arose an uproar which reduced him to the necessity of expressing his feelings by serious pantomime, which he did, and then left the stage to his seconder, who delivered a written speech of half an hour's length, and wouldn't be stopped, because he had sent it all to the _eatanswill gazette_, and the _eatanswill gazette_ had already printed it, every word. then horatio fizkin, esquire, of fizkin lodge, near eatanswill, presented himself for the purpose of addressing the electors; which he no sooner did, than the band employed by the honourable samuel slumkey, commenced performing with a power to which their strength in the morning was a trifle; in return for which, the buff crowd belaboured the heads and shoulders of the blue crowd; on which the blue crowd endeavoured to dispossess themselves of their very unpleasant neighbours the buff crowd; and a scene of struggling, and pushing, and fighting, succeeded, to which we can no more do justice than the mayor could, although he issued imperative orders to twelve constables to seize the ringleaders, who might amount in number to two hundred and fifty, or thereabouts. at all these encounters, horatio fizkin, esquire, of fizkin lodge, and his friends, waxed fierce and furious; until at last horatio fizkin, esquire, of fizkin lodge, begged to ask his opponent the honourable samuel slumkey, of slumkey hall, whether that band played by his consent; which question the honourable samuel slumkey declining to answer, horatio fizkin, esquire, of fizkin lodge, shook his fist in the countenance of the honourable samuel slumkey, of slumkey hall; upon which the honourable samuel slumkey, his blood being up, defied horatio fizkin, esquire, to mortal combat. at this violation of all known rules and precedents of order, the mayor commanded another fantasia on the bell, and declared that he would bring before himself, both horatio fizkin, esquire, of fizkin lodge, and the honourable samuel slumkey, of slumkey hall, and bind them over to keep the peace. upon this terrific denunciation, the supporters of the two candidates interfered, and after the friends of each party had quarrelled in pairs, for three-quarters of an hour, horatio fizkin, esquire, touched his hat to the honourable samuel slumkey: the honourable samuel slumkey touched his to horatio fizkin, esquire: the band was stopped: the crowd were partially quieted: and horatio fizkin, esquire, was permitted to proceed. the speeches of the two candidates, though differing in every other respect, afforded a beautiful tribute to the merit and high worth of the electors of eatanswill. both expressed their opinion that a more independent, a more enlightened, a more public-spirited, a more noble-minded, a more disinterested set of men than those who had promised to vote for him, never existed on earth; each darkly hinted his suspicions that the electors in the opposite interest had certain swinish and besotted infirmities which rendered them unfit for the exercise of the important duties they were called upon to discharge. fizkin expressed his readiness to do anything he was wanted; slumkey, his determination to do nothing that was asked of him. both said that the trade, the manufactures, the commerce, the prosperity of eatanswill, would ever be dearer to their hearts than any earthly object; and each had it in his power to state, with the utmost confidence, that he was the man who would eventually be returned. there was a show of hands; the mayor decided in favour of the honourable samuel slumkey, of slumkey hall. horatio fizkin, esquire, of fizkin lodge, demanded a poll, and a poll was fixed accordingly. then a vote of thanks was moved to the mayor for his able conduct in the chair; and the mayor, devoutly wishing that he had had a chair to display his able conduct in (for he had been standing during the whole proceedings), returned thanks. the processions re-formed, the carriages rolled slowly through the crowd, and its members screeched and shouted after them as their feelings or caprice dictated. during the whole time of the polling, the town was in a perpetual fever of excitement. everything was conducted on the most liberal and delightful scale. excisable articles were remarkably cheap at all the public-houses; and spring vans paraded the streets for the accommodation of voters who were seized with any temporary dizziness in the head--an epidemic which prevailed among the electors, during the contest, to a most alarming extent, and under the influence of which they might frequently be seen lying on the pavements in a state of utter insensibility. a small body of electors remained unpolled on the very last day. they were calculating and reflecting persons, who had not yet been convinced by the arguments of either party, although they had had frequent conferences with each. one hour before the close of the poll, mr. perker solicited the honour of a private interview with these intelligent, these noble, these patriotic men. it was granted. his arguments were brief, but satisfactory. they went in a body to the poll: and when they returned, the honourable samuel slumkey, of slumkey hall, was returned also. chapter xiv [illustration] _comprising a brief description of the company at the peacock assembled; and a tale told by a bagman_ it is pleasant to turn from contemplating the strife and turmoil of political existence, to the peaceful repose of private life. although in reality no great partisan of either side, mr. pickwick was sufficiently fired with mr. pott's enthusiasm, to apply his whole time and attention to the proceedings, of which the last chapter affords a description compiled from his own memoranda. nor while he was thus occupied was mr. winkle idle, his whole time being devoted to pleasant walks and short country excursions with mrs. pott, who never failed, when such an opportunity presented itself, to seek some relief from the tedious monotony she so constantly complained of. the two gentlemen being thus completely domesticated in the editor's house, mr. tupman and mr. snodgrass were in a great measure cast upon their own resources. taking but little interest in public affairs, they beguiled their time chiefly with such amusements as the peacock afforded, which were limited to a bagatelle-board in the first floor, and a sequestered skittle-ground in the back yard. in the science and nicety of both these recreations, which are far more abstruse than ordinary men suppose, they were gradually initiated by mr. weller, who possessed a perfect knowledge of such pastimes. thus, notwithstanding that they were in a great measure deprived of the comfort and advantage of mr. pickwick's society, they were still enabled to beguile the time and to prevent its hanging heavily on their hands. it was in the evening, however, that the peacock presented attractions which enabled the two friends to resist even the invitations of the gifted, though prosy, pott. it was in the evening that the "commercial room" was filled with a social circle, whose characters and manners it was the delight of mr. tupman to observe; whose sayings and doings it was the habit of mr. snodgrass to note down. most people know what sort of places commercial rooms usually are. that of the peacock differed in no material respect from the generality of such apartments; that is to say, it was a large bare-looking room, the furniture of which had no doubt been better when it was newer, with a spacious table in the centre, and a variety of smaller dittos in the corners: an extensive assortment of variously shaped chairs, and an old turkey carpet, bearing about the same relative proportion to the size of the room, as a lady's pocket-handkerchief might to the floor of a watch-box. the walls were garnished with one or two large maps; and several weather-beaten rough great-coats, with complicated capes, dangled from a long row of pegs in one corner. the mantelshelf was ornamented with a wooden inkstand, containing one stump of a pen and half a wafer: a road-book and directory: a county history minus the cover; and the mortal remains of a trout in a glass coffin. the atmosphere was redolent of tobacco-smoke, the fumes of which had communicated a rather dingy hue to the whole room, and more especially to the dusty red curtains which shaded the windows. on the sideboard a variety of miscellaneous articles were huddled together, the most conspicuous of which were some very cloudy fish-sauce cruets, a couple of driving-boxes, two or three whips and as many travelling shawls, a tray of knives and forks, and the mustard. here it was that mr. tupman and mr. snodgrass were seated on the evening after the conclusion of the election, with several other temporary inmates of the house, smoking and drinking. "well, gents," said a stout, hale personage of about forty, with only one eye--a very bright black eye, which twinkled with a roguish expression of fun and good humour, "our noble selves, gents. i always propose that toast to the company, and drink mary to myself. eh, mary!" "get along with you, you wretch," said the handmaiden, obviously not ill pleased with the compliment, however. "don't go away, mary," said the black-eyed man. "let me alone, imperence," said the young lady. "never mind," said the one-eyed man, calling after the girl as she left the room. "i'll step out by-and-by, mary. keep your spirits up, dear." here he went through the not very difficult process of winking upon the company with his solitary eye, to the enthusiastic delight of an elderly personage with a dirty face and a clay pipe. "rum creeters is women," said the dirty-faced man after a pause. "ah! no mistake about that," said a very red-faced man, behind a cigar. after this little bit of philosophy there was another pause. "there's rummer things than women in this world though, mind you," said the man with the black eye, slowly filling a large dutch pipe, with a most capacious bowl. "are you married?" inquired the dirty-faced man. "can't say i am." "i thought not." here the dirty-faced man fell into fits of mirth at his own retort, in which he was joined by a man of bland voice and placid countenance, who always made it a point to agree with everybody. "women, after all, gentlemen," said the enthusiastic mr. snodgrass, "are the great props and comforts of our existence." "so they are," said the placid gentleman. "when they're in a good humour," interposed the dirty-faced man. "and that's very true," said the placid one. "i repudiate that qualification," said mr. snodgrass, whose thoughts were fast reverting to emily wardle, "i repudiate it with disdain--with indignation. show me the man who says anything against women, as women, and i boldly declare he is not a man." and mr. snodgrass took his cigar from his mouth and struck the table violently with his clenched fist. "that's good sound argument," said the placid man. "containing a position which i deny," interrupted he of the dirty countenance. "and there's certainly a very great deal of truth in what you observe too, sir," said the placid gentleman. "your health, sir," said the bagman with the lonely eye, bestowing an approving nod on mr. snodgrass. mr. snodgrass acknowledged the compliment. "i always like to hear a good argument," continued the bagman, "a sharp one, like this; it's very improving; but this little argument about women brought to my mind a story i have heard an old uncle of mine tell, the recollection of which, just now, made me say there were rummer things than women to be met with, sometimes." "i should like to hear that same story," said the red-faced man with the cigar. "should you?" was the only reply of the bagman, who continued to smoke with great vehemence. "so should i," said mr. tupman, speaking for the first time. he was always anxious to increase his stock of experience. "should _you_? well then, i'll tell it. no i won't. i know you won't believe it," said the man with the roguish eye, making that organ look more roguish than ever. "if you say it's true, of course i shall," said mr. tupman. "well, upon that understanding i'll tell you," replied the traveller. "did you ever hear of the great commercial house of bilson and slum? but it doesn't matter though, whether you did or not, because they retired from business long since. it's eighty years ago since the circumstance happened to a traveller for that house, but he was a particular friend of my uncle's; and my uncle told the story to me. it's a queer name; but he used to call it the bagman's story and he used to tell it, something in this way. "one winter's evening, about five o'clock, just as it began to grow dusk, a man in a gig might have been seen urging his tired horse along the road which leads across marlborough downs, in the direction of bristol. i say he might have been seen, and i have no doubt he would have been, if anybody but a blind man had happened to pass that way; but the weather was so bad, and the night so cold and wet, that nothing was out but the water, and so the traveller jogged along in the middle of the road, lonesome and dreary enough. if any bagman of that day could have caught sight of the little neck-or-nothing sort of gig, with a clay-coloured body and red wheels, and the vixenish, ill-tempered, fast-going bay mare, that looked like a cross between a butcher's horse and a two-penny post-office pony, he would have known at once, that this traveller could have been no other than tom smart, of the great house of bilson and slum, cateaton street, city. however, as there was no bagman to look on, nobody knew anything at all about the matter; and so tom smart and his clay-coloured gig with the red wheels, and the vixenish mare with the fast pace, went on together, keeping the secret among them: and nobody was a bit the wiser. "there are many pleasanter places even in this dreary world, than marlborough downs when it blows hard; and if you throw in beside, a gloomy winter's evening, a miry and sloppy road, and a pelting fall of heavy rain, and try the effect, by way of experiment, in your own proper person, you will experience the full force of this observation. "the wind blew--not up the road or down it, though that's bad enough, but sheer across it, sending the rain slanting down like the lines they used to rule in the copybooks at school, to make the boys slope well. for a moment it would die away, and the traveller would begin to delude himself into the belief that, exhausted with its previous fury, it had quietly lain itself down to rest, when, whoo! he would hear it growling and whistling in the distance, and on it would come rushing over the hill-tops, and sweeping along the plain, gathering sound and strength as it drew nearer, until it dashed with a heavy gust against horse and man, driving the sharp rain into their ears, and its cold damp breath into their very bones; and past them it would scour, far, far away, with a stunning roar, as if in ridicule of their weakness, and triumphant in the consciousness of its own strength and power. [illustration: "_no other than tom smart_"] "the bay mare splashed away, through the mud and water, with drooping ears; now and then tossing her head as if to express her disgust at this very ungentlemanly behaviour of the elements, but keeping a good pace notwithstanding, until a gust of wind, more furious than any that had yet assailed them, caused her to stop suddenly and plant her four feet firmly against the ground, to prevent her being blown over. it's a special mercy that she did this, for if she _had_ been blown over, the vixenish mare was so light, and the gig was so light, and tom smart such a light weight into the bargain, that they must infallibly have all gone rolling over and over together, until they reached the confines of earth, or until the wind fell; and in either case the probability is, that neither the vixenish mare, nor the clay-coloured gig with the red wheels, nor tom smart, would ever have been fit for service again. "'well, damn my straps and whiskers,' says tom smart (tom sometimes had an unpleasant knack of swearing), 'damn my straps and whiskers,' says tom, 'if this an't pleasant, blow me!' "you'll very likely ask me why, as tom smart had been pretty well blown already, he expressed this wish to be submitted to the same process again. i can't say,--all i know is, that tom smart said so--or at least he always told my uncle he said so, and it's just the same thing. "'blow me,' says tom smart; and the mare neighed as if she were precisely of the same opinion. "'cheer up, old girl,' said tom, patting the bay mare on the neck with the end of his whip. 'it won't do pushing on, such a night as this; the first house we come to we'll put up at, so the faster you go the sooner it's over. soho, old girl--gently--gently.' "whether the vixenish mare was sufficiently well acquainted with the tones of tom's voice to comprehend his meaning, or whether she found it colder standing still than moving on, of course i can't say. but i can say that tom had no sooner finished speaking, than she pricked up her ears, and started forward at a speed which made the clay-coloured gig rattle till you would have supposed every one of the red spokes was going to fly out on the turf of marlborough downs; and even tom, whip as he was, couldn't stop or check her pace, until she drew up, of her own accord, before a roadside inn on the right-hand side of the way, about half a quarter of a mile from the end of the downs. "tom cast a hasty glance at the upper part of the house as he threw the reins to the hostler, and stuck the whip in the box. it was a strange old place, built of a kind of shingle, inlaid, as it were, with cross-beams, with gable-topped windows projecting completely over the pathway, and a low door with a dark porch, and a couple of steep steps leading down into the house, instead of the modern fashion of half a dozen shallow ones leading up to it. it was a comfortable-looking place though, for there was a strong cheerful light in the bar-window, which shed a bright ray across the road, and even lighted up the hedge on the other side; and there was a red flickering light in the opposite window, one moment but faintly discernible, and the next gleaming strongly through the drawn curtains, which intimated that a rousing fire was blazing within. marking these little evidences with the eye of an experienced traveller, tom dismounted with as much agility as his half-frozen limbs would permit, and entered the house. "in less than five minutes' time, tom was ensconced in the room opposite the bar--the very room where he had imagined the fire blazing--before a substantial matter-of-fact roaring fire, composed of something short of a bushel of coals, and wood enough to make half a dozen decent gooseberry bushes, piled half-way up the chimney, and roaring and crackling with a sound that of itself would have warmed the heart of any reasonable man. this was comfortable, but this was not all, for a smartly dressed girl, with a bright eye and a neat ankle, was laying a very clean white cloth on the table; and as tom sat with his slippered feet on the fender, and his back to the open door, he saw a charming prospect of the bar reflected in the glass over the chimney-piece, with delightful rows of green bottles and gold labels, together with jars of pickles and preserves, and cheeses and boiled hams, and rounds of beef, arranged on shelves in the most tempting and delicious array. well, this was comfortable too; but even this was not all--for in the bar, seated at tea at the nicest possible little table, drawn close up before the brightest possible little fire, was a buxom widow of somewhere about eight-and-forty or thereabouts, with a face as comfortable as the bar, who was evidently the landlady of the house, and the supreme ruler over all these agreeable possessions. there was only one drawback to the beauty of the whole picture, and that was a tall man--a very tall man--in a brown coat and bright basket buttons, and black whiskers, and wavy black hair, who was seated at tea with the widow, and who it required no great penetration to discover was in a fair way of persuading her to be a widow no longer, but to confer upon him the privilege of sitting down in that bar, for and during the whole remainder of the term of his natural life. "tom smart was by no means of an irritable or envious disposition, but somehow or other the tall man with the brown coat and the bright basket buttons did rouse what little gall he had in his composition, and did make him feel extremely indignant: the more especially as he could now and then observe, from his seat before the glass, certain little affectionate familiarities passing between the tall man and the widow, which sufficiently denoted that the tall man was as high in favour as he was in size. tom was fond of hot punch--i may venture to say he was _very_ fond of hot punch--and after he had seen the vixenish mare well fed and well littered down, and had eaten every bit of the nice little hot dinner which the widow tossed up for him with her own hands, he just ordered a tumbler of it, by way of experiment. now, if there was one thing in the whole range of domestic art, which the widow could manufacture better than another, it was this identical article; and the first tumbler was adapted to tom smart's taste with such peculiar nicety, that he ordered a second with the least possible delay. hot punch is a pleasant thing, gentlemen--an extremely pleasant thing under any circumstances--but in that snug old parlour, before the roaring fire, with the wind blowing outside till every timber in the old house creaked again, tom smart found it perfectly delightful. he ordered another tumbler, and then another--i am not quite certain whether he didn't order another after that--but the more he drank of the hot punch, the more he thought of the tall man. "'confound his impudence!' said tom to himself, 'what business has he in that snug bar? such an ugly villain too!' said tom. 'if the widow had any taste, she might surely pick up some better fellow than that.' here tom's eyes wandered from the glass on the chimney-piece, to the glass on the table; and as he felt himself becoming gradually sentimental, he emptied the fourth tumbler of punch and ordered a fifth. "tom smart, gentlemen, had always been very much attached to the public line. it had long been his ambition to stand in a bar of his own, in a green coat, knee-cords and tops. he had a great notion of taking the chair at convivial dinners, and he had often thought how well he could preside in a room of his own in the talking way, and what a capital example he could set to his customers in the drinking department. all these things passed rapidly through tom's mind as he sat drinking the hot punch by the roaring fire, and he felt very justly and properly indignant that the tall man should be in a fair way of keeping such an excellent house, while he, tom smart, was as far off from it as ever. so, after deliberating over the two last tumblers, whether he hadn't a perfect right to pick a quarrel with the tall man for having contrived to get into the good graces of the buxom widow, tom smart at last arrived at the satisfactory conclusion that he was a very ill-used and persecuted individual, and had better go to bed. "up a wide and ancient staircase the smart girl preceded tom, shading the chamber candle with her hand, to protect it from the currents of air which in such a rambling old place might have found plenty of room to disport themselves in, without blowing the candle out, but which did blow it out nevertheless; thus affording tom's enemies an opportunity of asserting that it was he, and not the wind, who extinguished the candle, and that while he pretended to be blowing it alight again, he was in fact kissing the girl. be this as it may, another light was obtained, and tom was conducted through a maze of rooms, and a labyrinth of passages, to the apartment which had been prepared for his reception, where the girl bade him good night, and left him alone. "it was a good large room with big closets, and a bed which might have served for a whole boarding-school, to say nothing of a couple of oaken presses that would have held the baggage of a small army; but what struck tom's fancy most was a strange, grim-looking, high-backed chair, carved in the most fantastic manner, with a flowered damask cushion, and the round knobs at the bottom of the legs carefully tied up in red cloth, as if it had got the gout in its toes. of any other queer chair, tom would only have thought it _was_ a queer chair, and there would have been an end of the matter; but there was something about this particular chair, and yet he couldn't tell what it was, so odd and so unlike any other piece of furniture he had ever seen, that it seemed to fascinate him. he sat down before the fire, and stared at the old chair for half an hour;--deuce take the chair, it was such a strange old thing, he couldn't take his eyes off it. "'well,' said tom, slowly undressing himself, and staring at the old chair all the while, which stood with a mysterious aspect by the bedside, 'i never saw such a rum concern as that in my days. very odd,' said tom, who had got rather sage with the hot punch, 'very odd.' tom shook his head with an air of profound wisdom, and looked at the chair again. he couldn't make anything of it though, so he got into bed, covered himself up warm, and fell asleep. "in about half an hour, tom woke up, with a start, from a confused dream of tall men and tumblers of punch: and the first object that presented itself to his waking imagination was the queer chair. "'i won't look at it any more,' said tom to himself, and he squeezed his eyelids together, and tried to persuade himself he was going to sleep again. no use; nothing but queer chairs danced before his eyes, kicking up their legs, jumping over each other's backs, and playing all kinds of antics. "'i may as well see one real chair, as two or three complete sets of false ones,' said tom, bringing out his head from under the bed-clothes. there it was, plainly discernible by the light of the fire, looking as provoking as ever. "tom gazed at the chair; and, suddenly as he looked at it, a most extraordinary change seemed to come over it. the carving of the back gradually assumed the lineaments and expression of an old shrivelled human face; the damask cushion became an antique, flapped waistcoat; the round knobs grew into a couple of feet, encased in red cloth slippers; and the old chair looked like a very ugly old man, of the previous century, with his arms a-kimbo. tom sat up in bed, and rubbed his eyes to dispel the illusion. no. the chair was an ugly old gentleman; and what was more, he was winking at tom smart. "tom was naturally a headlong, careless sort of dog, and he had had five tumblers of hot punch into the bargain; so, although he was a little startled at first, he began to grow rather indignant when he saw the old gentleman winking and leering at him with such an impudent air. at length he resolved that he wouldn't stand it; and as the old face still kept winking away as fast as ever, tom said, in a very angry tone: "'what the devil are you winking at me for?' "'because i like it, tom smart,' said the chair; or the old gentleman, whichever you like to call him. he stopped winking though, when tom spoke, and began grinning like a superannuated monkey. "'how do you know my name, old nut-cracker face?' inquired tom smart, rather staggered;--though he pretended to carry it off so well. "'come, come, tom,' said the old gentleman, 'that's not the way to address solid spanish mahogany. damme, you couldn't treat me with less respect if i was veneered.' when the old gentleman said this, he looked so fierce that tom began to grow frightened. "'i didn't mean to treat you with any disrespect, sir,' said tom; in a much humbler tone than he had spoken in at first. "'well, well,' said the old fellow, 'perhaps not--perhaps not. tom----' "'sir----' "'i know everything about you, tom; everything. you're very poor, tom.' "'i certainly am,' said tom smart. 'but how came you to know that?' "'never mind that,' said the old gentleman; 'you're much too fond of punch, tom.' "tom smart was just on the point of protesting that he hadn't tasted a drop since his last birthday, but when his eye encountered that of the old gentleman, he looked so knowing that tom blushed, and was silent. "'tom,' said the old gentleman, 'the widow's a fine woman--remarkably fine woman--eh, tom?' here the old fellow screwed up his eyes, cocked up one of his wasted little legs, and looked altogether so unpleasantly amorous, that tom was quite disgusted with the levity of his behaviour;--at his time of life, too! "'i am her guardian, tom,' said the old gentleman. "'are you?' inquired tom smart. "'i knew her mother, tom,' said the old fellow; 'and her grandmother. she was very fond of me--made me this waistcoat, tom.' "'did she?' said tom smart. "'and these shoes,' said the old fellow lifting up one of the red-cloth mufflers; 'but don't mention it, tom. i shouldn't like to have it known that she was so much attached to me. it might occasion some unpleasantness in the family.' when the old rascal said this, he looked so extremely impertinent, that, as tom smart afterwards declared, he could have sat upon him without remorse. "'i have been a great favourite among the women in my time, tom,' said the profligate old debauchee; 'hundreds of fine women have sat in my lap for hours together. what do you think of that, you dog, eh?' the old gentleman was proceeding to recount some other exploits of his youth, when he was seized with such a violent fit of creaking that he was unable to proceed. "'just serves you right, old boy,' thought tom smart; but he didn't say anything. "'ah!' said the old fellow, 'i am a good deal troubled with this now. i am getting old, tom, and have lost nearly all my rails. i have had an operation performed, too--a small piece let into my back--and i found it a severe trial, tom.' "'i dare say you did, sir,' said tom smart. "'however,' said the old gentleman, 'that's not the point. tom! i want you to marry the widow.' "'me, sir!' said tom. "'you,' said the old gentleman. "'bless your reverend locks,' said tom--(he had a few scattered horse-hairs left)--'bless your reverend locks, she wouldn't have me.' and tom sighed involuntarily, as he thought of the bar. "'wouldn't she?' said the old gentleman, firmly. "'no, no,' said tom; 'there's somebody else in the wind. a tall man--a confoundedly tall man--with black whiskers.' "'tom,' said the old gentleman; 'she will never have him.' "'won't she?' said tom. 'if you stood in the bar, old gentleman, you'd tell another story.' "'pooh, pooh,' said the old gentleman. 'i know all about that.' "'about what?' said tom. "'the kissing behind the door, and all that sort of thing, tom,' said the old gentleman. and here he gave another impudent look, which made tom very wroth, because, as you all know, gentlemen, to hear an old fellow, who ought to know better, talking about these things, is very unpleasant--nothing more so. "'i know all about that, tom,' said the old gentleman. 'i have seen it done very often in my time, tom, between more people than i should like to mention to you; but it never came to anything after all.' "'you must have seen some queer things,' said tom, with an inquisitive look. "'you may say that, tom,' replied the old fellow, with a very complicated wink. 'i am the last of my family, tom,' said the old gentleman, with a melancholy sigh. "'was it a large one?' inquired tom smart. "'there were twelve of us, tom,' said the old gentleman; 'fine, straight-backed, handsome fellows as you'd wish to see. none of your modern abortions--all with arms, and with a degree of polish, though i say it that should not, which would have done your heart good to behold.' "'and what's become of the others, sir?' asked tom smart. "the old gentleman applied his elbow to his eye as he replied, 'gone, tom, gone. we had hard service, tom, and they hadn't all my constitution. they got rheumatic about the legs and arms, and went into kitchens and other hospitals; and one of 'em, with long service and hard usage, positively lost his senses:--he got so crazy that he was obliged to be burnt. shocking thing that, tom.' "'dreadful!' said tom smart. "the old fellow paused for a few minutes, apparently struggling with his feelings of emotion, and then said: "'however, tom, i am wandering from the point. this tall man, tom, is a rascally adventurer. the moment he married the widow, he would sell off all the furniture, and run away. what would be the consequence? she would be deserted and reduced to ruin, and i should catch my death of cold in some broker's shop.' "'yes, but----' "'don't interrupt me,' said the old gentleman. 'of you, tom, i entertain a very different opinion; for i well know that if you once settled yourself in a public-house, you would never leave it as long as there was anything to drink within its walls.' "'i am very much obliged to you for your good opinion, sir,' said tom smart. "'therefore,' resumed the old gentleman, in a dictatorial tone; 'you shall have her, and he shall not.' "'what is to prevent it?' said tom smart, eagerly. "'this disclosure,' replied the old gentleman; 'he is already married.' "'how can i prove it?' said tom, starting half out of bed. "the old gentleman untucked his arm from his side, and having pointed to one of the oaken presses, immediately replaced it in its old position. "'he little thinks,' said the old gentleman, 'that in the right-hand pocket of a pair of trousers in that press, he has left a letter, entreating him to return to his disconsolate wife, with six--mark me, tom--six babes, and all of them small ones.' "as the old gentleman solemnly uttered these words, his features grew less and less distinct, and his figure more shadowy. a film came over tom smart's eyes. the old man seemed gradually blending into the chair, the damask waistcoat to resolve into a cushion, the red slippers to shrink into little red cloth bags. the light faded gently away, and tom smart fell back on his pillow and dropped asleep. "morning aroused tom from the lethargic slumber into which he had fallen on the disappearance of the old man. he sat up in bed, and for some minutes vainly endeavoured to recall the events of the preceding night. suddenly they rushed upon him. he looked at the chair; it was a fantastic and grim-looking piece of furniture, certainly, but it must have been a remarkably ingenious and lively imagination, that could have discovered any resemblance between it and an old man. "'how are you, old boy?' said tom. he was bolder in the daylight--most men are. "the chair remained motionless, and spoke not a word. "'miserable morning,' said tom. no. the chair would not be drawn into conversation. "'which press did you point to?--you can tell me that,' said tom. devil a word, gentlemen, the chair would say. "'it's not much trouble to open it, anyhow,' said tom, getting out of bed very deliberately. he walked up to one of the presses. the key was in the lock; he turned it, and opened the door. there _was_ a pair of trousers there. he put his hand into the pocket, and drew forth the identical letter the old gentleman had described! "'queer sort of thing, this,' said tom smart; looking first at the chair and then at the press, and then at the letter, and then at the chair again. 'very queer,' said tom. but, as there was nothing in either to lessen the queerness, he thought he might as well dress himself and settle the tall man's business at once--just to put him out of his misery. "tom surveyed the rooms he passed through, on his way down-stairs, with the scrutinising eye of a landlord; thinking it not impossible that, before long, they and their contents would be his property. the tall man was standing in the snug little bar, with his hands behind him, quite at home. he grinned vacantly at tom. a casual observer might have supposed he did it, only to show his white teeth; but tom smart thought that a consciousness of triumph was passing through the place where the tall man's mind would have been, if he had had any. tom laughed in his face; and summoned the landlady. "'good morning, ma'am,' said tom smart, closing the door of the little parlour as the widow entered. "'good morning, sir,' said the widow. 'what will you take for breakfast, sir?' "tom was thinking how he should open the case, so he made no answer. "'there's a very nice ham,' said the widow, 'and a beautiful cold larded fowl. shall i send 'em in, sir?' "these words roused tom from his reflections. his admiration of the widow increased as she spoke. thoughtful creature! comfortable provider! "'who is that gentleman in the bar, ma'am?' inquired tom. "'his name is jinkins, sir,' replied the widow, slightly blushing. "'he's a tall man,' said tom. "'he is a very fine man, sir,' replied the widow, 'and a very nice gentleman.' "'ah!' said tom. "'is there anything more you want, sir?' inquired the widow, rather puzzled by tom's manner. "'why, yes,' said tom. 'my dear ma'am, will you have the kindness to sit down for one moment?' "the widow looked much amazed but she sat down, and tom sat down too, close beside her. i don't know how it happened, gentlemen--indeed my uncle used to tell me that tom smart said _he_ didn't know how it happened either--but somehow or other the palm of tom's hand fell upon the back of the widow's hand, and remained there while he spoke. "'my dear ma'am,' said tom smart--he had always a great notion of committing the amiable--'my dear ma'am, you deserve a very excellent husband;--you do indeed.' "'lor, sir!' said the widow--as well she might; tom's mode of commencing the conversation being rather unusual, not to say startling; the fact of his never having set eyes upon her before the previous night, being taken into consideration. 'lor, sir!' "'i scorn to flatter, my dear ma'am,' said tom smart. 'you deserve a very admirable husband, and whoever he is, he'll be a very lucky man.' as tom said this his eye involuntarily wandered from the widow's face, to the comforts around him. "the widow looked more puzzled than ever, and made an effort to rise. tom gently pressed her hand, as if to detain her, and she kept her seat. widows, gentlemen, are not usually timorous, as my uncle used to say. "'i am sure i am very much obliged to you, sir, for your good opinion,' said the buxom landlady, half laughing; 'and if ever i marry again----' "'_if_,' said tom smart, looking very shrewdly out of the right-hand corner of his left eye. '_if_----' "'well,' said the widow, laughing outright this time. '_when_ i do, i hope i shall have as good a husband as you describe.' "'jinkins to wit,' said tom. "'lor, sir!' exclaimed the widow. "'oh, don't tell me,' said tom, 'i know him.' "'i am sure nobody who knows him, knows anything bad of him,' said the widow, bridling up at the mysterious air with which tom had spoken. "'hem!' said tom smart. "the widow began to think it was high time to cry, so she took out her handkerchief, and inquired whether tom wished to insult her; whether he thought it like a gentleman to take away the character of another gentleman behind his back; why, if he had got anything to say, he didn't say it to the man, like a man, instead of terrifying a poor weak woman in that way; and so forth. "'i'll say it to him fast enough,' said tom, 'only i want you to hear it first.' "'what is it?' inquired the widow, looking intently in tom's countenance. "'i'll astonish you,' said tom, putting his hand in his pocket. "'if it is, that he wants money,' said the widow, 'i know that already, and you needn't trouble yourself.' "'pooh, nonsense, that's nothing,' said tom smart, '_i_ want money. 'tan't that.' "'oh dear, what can it be?' exclaimed the poor widow. "'don't be frightened,' said tom smart. he slowly drew forth the letter, and unfolded it. 'you won't scream?' said tom, doubtfully. "'no, no,' replied the widow; 'let me see it.' "'you won't go fainting away, or any of that nonsense?' said tom. "'no, no,' returned the widow, hastily. "'and don't run out, and blow him up,' said tom, 'because i'll do all that for you; you had better not exert yourself.' "'well, well,' said the widow, 'let me see it.' "'i will,' replied tom smart; and, with these words, he placed the letter in the widow's hand. "gentlemen, i have heard my uncle say, that tom smart said, the widow's lamentations when she heard the disclosure would have pierced a heart of stone. tom was certainly very tender-hearted, but they pierced his to the very core. the widow rocked herself to and fro, and wrung her hands. "'oh, the deception and villainy of man!' said the widow. "'frightful, my dear ma'am; but compose yourself,' said tom smart. "'oh, i can't compose myself,' shrieked the widow. 'i shall never find any one else i can love so much!' "'oh yes, you will, my dear soul,' said tom smart, letting fall a shower of the largest sized tears, in pity for the widow's misfortunes. tom smart, in the energy of his compassion, had put his arm round the widow's waist; and the widow, in a passion of grief, had clasped tom's hand. she looked up in tom's face, and smiled through her tears. tom looked down in hers, and smiled through his. "i never could find out, gentlemen, whether tom did or did not kiss the widow at that particular moment. he used to tell my uncle he didn't, but i have my doubts about it. between ourselves, gentlemen, i rather think he did. "at all events, tom kicked the very tall man out at the front door half an hour after, and married the widow a month after. and he used to drive about the country, with the clay-coloured gig with red wheels, and the vixenish mare with the fast pace, till he gave up business many years afterwards, and went to france with his wife; and then the old house was pulled down." * * * * * "will you allow me to ask you," said the inquisitive old gentleman, "what became of the chair?" "why," replied the one-eyed bagman, "it was observed to creak very much on the day of the wedding; but tom smart couldn't say for certain whether it was with pleasure or bodily infirmity. he rather thought it was the latter, though, for it never spoke afterwards." [illustration: _"she looked up in tom's face and smiled through her tears."_] "everybody believed the story, didn't they?" said the dirty-faced man, refilling his pipe. "except tom's enemies," replied the bagman. "some of 'em said tom invented it altogether; and others said he was drunk, and fancied it, and got hold of the wrong trousers by mistake before he went to bed. but nobody ever minded what _they_ said." "tom said it was all true?" "every word." "and your uncle?" "every letter." "they must have been very nice men, both of 'em," said the dirty-faced man. "yes, they were," replied the bagman; "very nice men indeed." chapter xv [illustration] _in which is given a faithful portraiture of two distinguished persons; and an accurate description of a public breakfast in their house and grounds: which public breakfast leads to the recognition of an old acquaintance, and the commencement of another chapter_ mr. pickwick's conscience had been somewhat reproaching him for his recent neglect of his friends at the peacock; and he was just on the point of walking forth in quest of them, on the third morning after the election had terminated, when his faithful valet put into his hand a card, on which was engraved the following inscription:-- *mrs. leo hunter.* _the den. eatanswill._ "person's a waitin'," said sam, epigrammatically. "does the person want me, sam?" inquired mr. pickwick. "he wants you particklar; and no one else'll do, as the devil's private secretary said ven he fetched avay doctor faustus," replied mr. weller. "_he._ is it a gentleman?" said mr. pickwick. "a wery good imitation o' one, if it an't," replied mr. weller. "but this is a lady's card," said mr. pickwick. "given me by a gen'lm'n, hows'ever," replied sam, "and he's a waitin' in the drawing-room--said he'd rather wait all day, than not see you." mr. pickwick, on hearing this determination, descended to the drawing-room, where sat a grave man, who started up on his entrance, and said, with an air of profound respect: "mr. pickwick, i presume?" "the same." "allow me, sir, the honour of grasping your hand. permit me, sir, to shake it," said the grave man. "certainly," said mr. pickwick. the stranger shook the extended hand, and then continued. "we have heard of your fame, sir. the noise of your antiquarian discussion has reached the ears of mrs. leo hunter--my wife, sir; _i_ am _mr._ leo hunter"--the stranger paused, as if he expected that mr. pickwick would be overcome by the disclosure; but seeing that he remained perfectly calm, proceeded. "my wife, sir--mrs. leo hunter--is proud to number among her acquaintance all those who have rendered themselves celebrated by their works and talents. permit me, sir, to place in a conspicuous part of the list the name of mr. pickwick, and his brother members of the club that derives its name from him." "i shall be extremely happy to make the acquaintance of such a lady, sir," replied mr. pickwick. "you _shall_ make it, sir," said the grave man. "to-morrow morning, sir, we give a public breakfast--a _fête champêtre_--to a great number of those who have rendered themselves celebrated by their works and talents. permit mrs. leo hunter, sir, to have the gratification of seeing you at the den." "with great pleasure," replied mr. pickwick. "mrs. leo hunter has many of these breakfasts, sir," resumed the new acquaintance--"'feasts of reason, sir, and flows of soul,' as somebody who wrote a sonnet to mrs. leo hunter on her breakfasts, feelingly and originally observed." "was _he_ celebrated for his works and talents?" inquired mr. pickwick. "he was, sir," replied the grave man, "all mrs. leo hunter's acquaintance are; it is her ambition, sir, to have no other acquaintance." "it is a very noble ambition," said mr. pickwick. "when i inform mrs. leo hunter, that that remark fell from _your_ lips, sir, she will indeed be proud," said the grave man. "you have a gentleman in your train, who has produced some beautiful little poems, i think, sir?" "my friend mr. snodgrass has a great taste for poetry," replied mr. pickwick. "so has mrs. leo hunter, sir. she dotes on poetry, sir. she adores it; i may say that her whole soul and mind are wound up, and entwined with it. she has produced some delightful pieces, herself, sir. you may have met with her 'ode to an expiring frog,' sir?" "i don't think i have," said mr. pickwick. "you astonish me, sir," said mr. leo hunter. "it created an immense sensation. it was signed with an 'l' and eight stars, and appeared originally in a lady's magazine. it commenced: 'can i view thee panting, lying on thy stomach, without sighing! can i unmoved see thee dying on a log, expiring frog!'" "beautiful!" said mr. pickwick. "fine," said mr. leo hunter; "so simple." "very," said mr. pickwick. "the next verse is still more touching. shall i repeat it?" "if you please," said mr. pickwick. "it runs thus," said the grave man, still more gravely: "'say, have fiends in shape of boys, with wild halloo and brutal noise, hunted thee from marshy joys, with a dog, expiring frog?'" "finely expressed," said mr. pickwick. "all point, sir," said mr. leo hunter, "but you shall hear mrs. leo hunter repeat it. _she_ can do justice to it, sir. she will repeat it, in character, sir, to-morrow morning." "in character!" "as minerva. but i forgot--it's a fancy-dress breakfast." "dear me," said mr. pickwick, glancing at his own figure--"i can't possibly----" "can't sir; can't!" exclaimed mr. leo hunter. "solomon lucas, the jew in the high street, has thousands of fancy dresses. consider, sir, how many appropriate characters are open for your selection. plato, zeno, epicurus, pythagoras--all founders of clubs." "i know that," said mr. pickwick, "but as i cannot put myself in competition with those great men, i cannot presume to wear their dresses." the grave man considered deeply, for a few seconds, and then said: "on reflection, sir, i don't know whether it would not afford mrs. leo hunter greater pleasure, if her guests saw a gentleman of your celebrity in his own costume, rather than in an assumed one. i may venture to promise an exception in your case, sir--yes, i am quite certain that on behalf of mrs. leo hunter, i may venture to do so." "in that case," said mr. pickwick, "i shall have great pleasure in coming." "but i waste your time, sir," said the grave man, as if suddenly recollecting himself. "i know its value, sir. i will not detain you. i may tell mrs. leo hunter, then, that she may confidently expect you and your distinguished friends? good morning, sir, i am proud to have beheld so eminent a personage--not a step, sir; not a word." and without giving mr. pickwick time to offer remonstrance or denial, mr. leo hunter stalked gravely away. mr. pickwick took up his hat, and repaired to the peacock, but mr. winkle had conveyed the intelligence of the fancy ball there, before him. "mrs. pott's going," were the first words with which he saluted his leader. "is she?" said mr. pickwick. "as apollo," replied mr. winkle. "only pott objects to the tunic." "he is right. he is quite right," said mr. pickwick, emphatically. "yes;--so she's going to wear a white satin gown with gold spangles." "they'll hardly know what she's meant for; will they?" inquired mr. snodgrass. "of course they will," replied mr. winkle, indignantly. "they'll see her lyre, won't they?" "true; i forgot that," said mr. snodgrass. "i shall go as a bandit," interposed mr. tupman. "what!" said mr. pickwick, with a sudden start. "as a bandit," repeated mr. tupman, mildly. "you don't mean to say," said mr. pickwick, gazing with solemn sternness at his friend--"you don't mean to say, mr. tupman, that it is your intention to put yourself into a green velvet jacket, with a two-inch tail?" "such _is_ my intention, sir," replied mr. tupman, warmly. "and why not, sir?" "because, sir," said mr. pickwick, considerably excited, "because you are too old, sir." "too old!" exclaimed mr. tupman. "and if any further ground of objection be wanting," continued mr. pickwick, "you are too fat, sir." "sir," said mr. tupman, his face suffused with a crimson glow, "this is an insult." "sir," replied mr. pickwick, in the same tone, "it is not half the insult to you, that your appearance in my presence in a green velvet jacket, with a two-inch tail, would be to me." "sir," said mr. tupman, "you're a fellow!" "sir," said mr. pickwick, "you're another!" mr. tupman advanced a step or two, and glared at mr. pickwick. mr. pickwick returned the glare, concentrated into a focus by means of his spectacles, and breathed a bold defiance. mr. snodgrass and mr. winkle looked on, petrified at beholding such a scene between two such men. "sir," said mr. tupman, after a short pause, speaking in a low, deep voice, "you have called me old." "i have," said mr. pickwick. "and fat." "i reiterate the charge." "and a fellow." "so you are!" there was a fearful pause. "my attachment to your person, sir," said mr. tupman, speaking in a voice tremulous with emotion, and tucking up his wristbands meanwhile, "is great--very great--but upon that person, i must take summary vengeance." "come on, sir!" replied mr. pickwick. stimulated by the exciting nature of the dialogue, the heroic man actually threw himself into a paralytic attitude, confidently supposed by the two by-standers to have been intended as a posture of defence. "what!" exclaimed mr. snodgrass, suddenly recovering the power of speech, of which intense astonishment had previously bereft him, and rushing between the two, at the imminent hazard of receiving an application on the temple from each. "what! mr. pickwick, with the eyes of the world upon you! mr. tupman! who, in common with us all, derives a lustre from his undying name! for shame, gentlemen; for shame." the unwonted lines which momentary passion had ruled in mr. pickwick's clear and open brow, gradually melted away, as his young friend spoke, like the marks of a black-lead pencil beneath the softening influence of india rubber. his countenance had resumed its usual benign expression, ere he concluded. "i have been hasty," said mr. pickwick, "very hasty. tupman; your hand." the dark shadow passed from mr. tupman's face, as he warmly grasped the hand of his friend. "i have been hasty, too," said he. "no, no," interrupted mr. pickwick, "the fault was mine. you will wear the green velvet jacket?" "no, no," replied mr. tupman. "to oblige me, you will?" resumed mr. pickwick. "very well, i will," said mr. tupman. it was accordingly settled that mr. tupman, mr. winkle, and mr. snodgrass, should all wear fancy dresses. thus mr. pickwick was led by the very warmth of his good feelings to give his consent to a proceeding from which his better judgment would have recoiled--a more striking illustration of his amiable character could hardly have been conceived, even if the events recorded in these pages had been wholly imaginary. mr. leo hunter had not exaggerated the resources of mr. solomon lucas. his wardrobe was extensive--very extensive--not strictly classical perhaps, nor quite new, nor did it contain any one garment made precisely after the fashion of any age or time, but everything was more or less spangled; and what _can_ be prettier than spangles! it may be objected that they are not adapted to the daylight, but everybody knows that they would glitter if there were lamps; and nothing can be clearer than that if people give fancy balls in the day-time, and the dresses do not show quite as well as they would by night, the fault lies solely with the people who give the fancy balls, and is in no wise chargeable on the spangles. such was the convincing reasoning of mr. solomon lucas; and influenced by such arguments did mr. tupman, mr. winkle, and mr. snodgrass, engage to array themselves in costumes, which his taste and experience induced him to recommend as admirably suited to the occasion. a carriage was hired from the town arms, for the accommodation of the pickwickians, and a chariot was ordered from the same repository, for the purpose of conveying mr. and mrs. pott to mrs. leo hunter's grounds, which mr. pott, as a delicate acknowledgment of having received an invitation, had already confidently predicted in the _eatanswill gazette_ "would present a scene of varied and delicious enchantment--a bewildering coruscation of beauty and talent--a lavish and prodigal display of hospitality--above all, a degree of splendour softened by the most exquisite taste; and adornment refined with perfect harmony and the chastest good keeping--compared with which, the fabled gorgeousness of eastern fairy-land itself, would appear to be clothed in as many dark and murky colours, as must be the mind of the splenetic and unmanly being who could presume to taint with the venom of his envy, the preparations making by the virtuous and highly distinguished lady, at whose shrine this humble tribute of admiration was offered." this last was a piece of biting sarcasm against the _independent_, who in consequence of not having been invited at all, had been through four numbers affecting to sneer at the whole affair, in his very largest type, with all the adjectives in capital letters. the morning came: it was a pleasant sight to behold mr. tupman in full brigand's costume, with a very tight jacket, sitting like a pincushion over his back and shoulders: the upper portion of his legs encased in the velvet shorts, and the lower part thereof swathed in the complicated bandages to which all brigands are peculiarly attached. it was pleasing to see his open and ingenuous countenance, well mustachioed and corked, looking out from an open shirt-collar; and to contemplate the sugar-loaf hat, decorated with ribbons of all colours, which he was compelled to carry on his knee, inasmuch as no known conveyance with a top to it, would admit of any man's carrying it between his head and the roof. equally humorous and agreeable was the appearance of mr. snodgrass in blue satin trunks and cloak, white silk tights and shoes, and grecian helmet: which everybody knows (and if they do not, mr. solomon lucas did) to have been the regular, authentic, every-day costume of a troubadour, from the earliest ages down to the time of their final disappearance from the face of the earth. all this was pleasant, but this was nothing compared with the shouting of the populace when the carriage drew up, behind mr. pott's chariot, which chariot itself drew up at mr. pott's door, which door itself opened, and displayed the great pott accoutred as a russian officer of justice, with a tremendous knout in his hand--tastefully typical of the stern and mighty power of the _eatanswill gazette_, and the fearful lashings it bestowed on public offenders. "bravo!" shouted mr. tupman and mr. snodgrass from the passage, when they beheld the walking allegory. "hoo--roar, pott!" shouted the populace. amid these salutations, mr. pott, smiling with that kind of bland dignity which sufficiently testified that he felt his power, and knew how to exert it, got into the chariot. then there emerged from the house, mrs. pott, who would have looked very like apollo if she hadn't had a gown on: conducted by mr. winkle, who in his light-red coat, could not possibly have been mistaken for anything but a sportsman, if he had not borne an equal resemblance to a general postman. last of all came mr. pickwick, whom the boys applauded as loud as anybody, probably under the impression that his tights and gaiters were some remnants of the dark ages; and then the two vehicles proceeded towards mrs. leo hunter's: mr. weller (who was to assist in waiting) being stationed on the box of that in which his master was seated. [illustration: _mr. pickwick, with the brigand on one arm, and the troubadour on the other_] every one of the men, women, boys, girls, and babies, who were assembled to see the visitors in their fancy dresses, screamed with delight and ecstasy, when mr. pickwick, with the brigand on one arm, and the troubadour on the other, walked solemnly up the entrance. never were such shouts heard, as those which greeted mr. tupman's efforts to fix the sugar-loaf hat on his head, by way of entering the garden in style. the preparations were on the most delightful scale; fully realising the prophetic pott's anticipations about the gorgeousness of eastern fairyland, and at once affording a sufficient contradiction to the malignant statements of the reptile _independent_. the grounds were more than an acre and a quarter in extent, and they were filled with people! never was such a blaze of beauty, and fashion, and literature. there was the young lady who "did" the poetry in the _eatanswill gazette_, in the garb of a sultana, leaning upon the arm of the young gentleman who "did" the review department, and who was appropriately habited in a field-marshal's uniform--the boots excepted. there were hosts of these geniuses, and any reasonable person would have thought it honour enough to meet them. but more than these, there were half a dozen lions from london--authors, real authors, who had written whole books, and printed them afterwards--and here you might see 'em, walking about, like ordinary men, smiling, and talking--aye, and talking pretty considerable nonsense too, no doubt with the benign intention of rendering themselves intelligible to the common people about them. moreover, there was a band of music in pasteboard caps; four something-ean singers in the costume of their country, and a dozen hired waiters in the costume of _their_ country--and very dirty costume too. and above all, there was mrs. leo hunter in the character of minerva, receiving the company, and overflowing with pride and gratification at the notion of having called such distinguished individuals together. "mr. pickwick, ma'am," said a servant, as that gentleman approached the presiding goddess, with his hat in his hand, and the brigand and troubadour on either arm. "what! where!" exclaimed mrs. leo hunter, starting up, in an affected rapture of surprise. "here," said mr. pickwick. "is it possible that i have really the gratification of beholding mr. pickwick himself!" ejaculated mrs. leo hunter. "no other, ma'am," replied mr. pickwick, bowing very low. "permit me to introduce my friends--mr. tupman--mr. winkle--mr. snodgrass--to the authoress of 'the expiring frog.'" very few people but those who have tried it, know what a difficult process it is, to bow in green velvet smalls, and a tight jacket, and high-crowned hat: or in blue satin trunks and white silks: or knee-cords and top-boots that were never made for the wearer, and have been fixed upon him without the remotest reference to the comparative dimensions of himself and the suit. never were such distortions as mr. tupman's frame underwent in his efforts to appear easy and graceful--never was such ingenious posturing, as his fancy-dressed friends exhibited. "mr. pickwick," said mrs. leo hunter, "i must make you promise not to stir from my side the whole day. there are hundreds of people here, that i must positively introduce you to." "you are very kind, ma'am," said mr. pickwick. "in the first place, here are my little girls; i had almost forgotten them," said minerva, carelessly pointing towards a couple of full-grown young ladies, of whom one might be about twenty, and the other a year or two older, and who were dressed in very juvenile costumes--whether to make them look young, or their mamma younger, mr. pickwick does not distinctly inform us. "they are very beautiful," said mr. pickwick, as the juveniles turned away, after being presented. "they are very like their mamma, sir," said mr. pott, majestically. "oh you naughty man!" exclaimed mrs. leo hunter, playfully tapping the editor's arm with her fan (minerva with a fan!). "why now, my dear mrs. hunter," said mr. pott, who was trumpeter in ordinary at the den, "you _know_ that when your picture was in the exhibition at the royal academy, last year, everybody inquired whether it was intended for you, or your youngest daughter; for you were so much alike that there was no telling the difference between you." "well, and if they did, why need you repeat it, before strangers?" said mrs. leo hunter, bestowing another tap on the slumbering lion of the _eatanswill gazette_. "count, count!" screamed mrs. leo hunter to a well-whiskered individual in a foreign uniform, who was passing by. "ah! you want me?" said the count, turning back. "i want to introduce two very clever people to each other," said mrs. leo hunter. "mr. pickwick, i have great pleasure in introducing you to count smorltork." she added in a hurried whisper to mr. pickwick--"the famous foreigner--gathering materials for his great work on england--hem!--count smorltork, mr. pickwick." mr. pickwick saluted the count with all the reverence due to so great a man, and the count drew forth a set of tablets. "what you say, mrs. hunt?" inquired the count, smiling graciously on the gratified mrs. leo hunter, "pig vig or big vig--what you call--lawyer--eh? i see--that is it. big vig"--and the count was proceeding to enter mr. pickwick in his tablets, as a gentleman of the long robe, who derived his name from the profession to which he belonged, when mrs. leo hunter interposed. "no, no, count," said the lady, "pick-wick." "ah, ah, i see," replied the count. "peek--christian name; weeks--surname; good, ver good. peek weeks. how you do, weeks?" "quite well, i thank you," replied mr. pickwick, with all his usual affability. "have you been long in england?" "long--ver long time--fortnight--more." "do you stay here long?" "one week." "you will have enough to do," said mr. pickwick, smiling, "to gather all the materials you want, in that time." "eh, they are gathered," said the count. "indeed!" said mr. pickwick. "they are here," added the count, tapping his forehead significantly. "large book at home--full of notes--music, picture, science, potry, poltic; all tings." "the word politics, sir," said mr. pickwick, "comprises, in itself, a difficult study of no inconsiderable magnitude." "ah!" said the count, drawing out the tablets again, "ver good--fine words to begin a chapter. chapter forty-seven. poltics. the word poltic surprises by himself--" and down went mr. pickwick's remark, in count smorltork's tablets, with such variations and additions as the count's exuberant fancy suggested, or his imperfect knowledge of the language occasioned. "count," said mrs. leo hunter. "mrs. hunt," replied the count. "this is mr. snodgrass, a friend of mr. pickwick's, and a poet." "stop!" exclaimed the count, bringing out the tablets once more. "head, potry--chapter, literary friends--name, snowgrass; ver good. introduced to snowgrass--great poet, friend of peek weeks--by mrs. hunt, which wrote other sweet poem--what is that name?--frog--perspiring fog--ver good--ver good indeed." and the count put up his tablets, and with sundry bows and acknowledgments walked away, thoroughly satisfied that he had made the most important and valuable additions to his stock of information. "wonderful man, count smorltork," said mrs. leo hunter. "sound philosopher," said mr. pott. "clear-headed, strong-minded person," added mr. snodgrass. a chorus of bystanders took up the shout of count smorltork's praise, shook their heads sagely, and unanimously cried "very!" as the enthusiasm in count smorltork's favour ran very high, his praises might have been sung until the end of the festivities, if the four something-ean singers had not ranged themselves in front of a small apple-tree, to look picturesque, and commenced singing their national songs, which appeared by no means difficult of execution, inasmuch as the grand secret seemed to be, that three of the something-ean singers should grunt, while the fourth howled. this interesting performance having concluded amidst the loud plaudits of the whole company, a boy forthwith proceeded to entangle himself with the rails of a chair, and to jump over it, and crawl under it, and fall down with it, and do everything but sit upon it, and then to make a cravat of his legs, and tie them round his neck, and then to illustrate the ease with which a human being can be made to look like a magnified toad--all which feats yielded high delight and satisfaction to the assembled spectators. after which the voice of mrs. pott was heard to chirp faintly forth, something which courtesy interpreted into a song, which was all very classical, and strictly in character, because apollo was himself a composer, and composers can very seldom sing their own music, or anybody else's, either. this was succeeded by mrs. leo hunter's recitation of her far-famed ode to an expiring frog, which was encored once, and would have been encored twice, if the major part of the guests, who thought it was high time to get something to eat, had not said that it was perfectly shameful to take advantage of mrs. hunter's good nature. so although mrs. leo hunter professed her perfect willingness to recite the ode again, her kind and considerate friends wouldn't hear of it on any account; and the refreshment room being thrown open, all the people who had ever been there before, scrambled in with all possible despatch: mrs. leo hunter's usual course of proceeding being, to issue cards for a hundred, and breakfast for fifty, or in other words to feed only the very particular lions, and let the smaller animals take care of themselves. "where is mr. pott?" said mrs. leo hunter, as she placed the aforesaid lions around her. "here i am," said the editor, from the remotest end of the room; far beyond all hope of food, unless something was done for him by the hostess. "won't you come up here?" "oh pray don't mind him," said mrs. pott, in the most obliging voice--"you give yourself a great deal of unnecessary trouble, mrs. hunter. you'll do very well there, won't you--dear?" "certainly--love," replied the unhappy pott, with a grim smile. alas for the knout! the nervous arm that wielded it, with such gigantic force, on public characters, was paralysed beneath the glance of the imperious mrs. pott. mrs. leo hunter looked round her in triumph. count smorltork was busily engaged in taking notes of the contents of the dishes; mr. tupman was doing the honours of the lobster salad to several lionesses, with a degree of grace which no brigand ever exhibited before; mr. snodgrass having cut out the young gentleman who cut up the books for the _eatanswill gazette_, was engaged in an impassioned argument with the young lady who did the poetry; and mr. pickwick was making himself universally agreeable. nothing seemed wanting to render the select circle complete, when mr. leo hunter--whose department on these occasions, was to stand about in doorways, and talk to the less important people--suddenly called out-- "my dear; here's mr. charles fitz-marshall." "oh dear," said mrs. leo hunter, "how anxiously i have been expecting him. pray make room, to let mr. fitz-marshall pass. tell mr. fitz-marshall, my dear, to come up to me directly, to be scolded for coming so late." "coming, my dear ma'am," cried a voice, "as quick as i can--crowds of people--full room--hard work--very." mr. pickwick's knife and fork fell from his hand. he stared across the table at mr. tupman, who had dropped _his_ knife and fork, and was looking as if he were about to sink into the ground without further notice. "ah!" cried the voice, as its owner pushed his way among the last five and twenty turks, officers, cavaliers, and charles the seconds, that remained between him and the table, "regular mangle--baker's patent--not a crease in my coat, after all this squeezing--might have 'got up my linen' as i came along--ha! ha! not a bad idea, that--queer thing to have it mangled when it's upon one, though--trying process--very." with these broken words, a young man dressed as a naval officer made his way up to the table and presented to the astonished pickwickians, the identical form and features of mr. alfred jingle. the offender had barely time to take mrs. leo hunter's proffered hand, when his eyes encountered the indignant orbs of mr. pickwick. "hallo!" said jingle. "quite forgot--no directions to postilion--give 'em at once--back in a minute." "the servant, or mr. hunter, will do it in a moment, mr. fitz-marshall," said mrs. leo hunter. "no, no--i'll do it--shan't be long--back in no time," replied jingle. with these words he disappeared among the crowd. "will you allow me to ask you, ma'am," said the excited mr. pickwick, rising from his seat, "who that young man is, and where he resides?" "he is a gentleman of fortune, mr. pickwick," said mrs. leo hunter, "to whom i very much want to introduce you. the count will be delighted with him." "yes, yes," said mr. pickwick, hastily. "his residence----" "is at present at the angel at bury." "at bury?" "at bury st. edmunds, not many miles from here. but dear me, mr. pickwick, you are not going to leave us: surely, mr. pickwick, you cannot think of going so soon." but long before mrs. leo hunter had finished speaking, mr. pickwick had plunged through the throng, and reached the garden, whither he was shortly afterwards joined by mr. tupman, who had followed his friend closely. "it's of no use," said mr. tupman. "he has gone." "i know it," said mr. pickwick, "and i will follow him." "follow him! where?" inquired mr. tupman. "to the angel at bury," replied mr. pickwick, speaking very quickly. "how do we know whom he is deceiving there? he deceived a worthy man once, and we were the innocent cause. he shall not do it again, if i can help it; i'll expose him! where's my servant?" "here you are, sir," said mr. weller, emerging from a sequestered spot, where he had been engaged in discussing a bottle of madeira, which he had abstracted from the breakfast-table, an hour or two before. "here's your servant, sir. proud o' the title, as the living skellinton said, ven they show'd him." "follow me instantly," said mr. pickwick. "tupman, if i stay at bury, you can join me there, when i write. till then, good-bye!" remonstrances were useless. mr. pickwick was roused, and his mind was made up. mr. tupman returned to his companions; and in another hour had drowned all present recollection of mr. alfred jingle, or mr. charles fitz-marshall, in an exhilarating quadrille and a bottle of champagne. by that time, mr. pickwick and sam weller, perched on the outside of a stage coach, were every succeeding minute placing a less and less distance between themselves and the good old town of bury st. edmunds. chapter xvi [illustration] _too full of adventure to be briefly described_ there is no month in the whole year, in which nature wears a more beautiful appearance than in the month of august. spring has many beauties, and may is a fresh and blooming month, but the charms of this time of the year are enhanced by their contrast with the winter season. august has no such advantage. it comes when we remember nothing but clear skies, green fields, and sweet-smelling flowers--when the recollection of snow, and ice, and bleak winds, has faded from our minds as completely as they have disappeared from the earth,--and yet what a pleasant time it is! orchards and corn-fields ring with the hum of labour; trees bend beneath the thick clusters of rich fruit which bow their branches to the ground; and the corn, piled in graceful sheaves, or waving in every light breath that sweeps above it, as if it wooed the sickle, tinges the landscape with a golden hue. a mellow softness appears to hang over the whole earth; the influence of the season seems to extend itself to the very waggon, whose slow motion across the well-reaped field, is perceptible only to the eye, but strikes with no harsh sound upon the ear. as the coach rolls swiftly past the fields and orchards which skirt the road, groups of women and children, piling the fruit in sieves, or gathering the scattered ears of corn, pause for an instant from their labour, and shading the sun-burnt face with a still browner hand, gaze upon the passengers with curious eyes, while some stout urchin, too small to work, but too mischievous to be left at home, scrambles over the side of the basket in which he has been deposited for security, and kicks and screams with delight. the reaper stops in his work, and stands with folded arms, looking at the vehicle as it whirls past; and the rough cart-horses bestow a sleepy glance upon the smart coach team, which says, as plainly as a horse's glance can, "it's all very fine to look at, but slow going, over a heavy field, is better than warm work like that, upon a dusty road, after all." you cast a look behind you, as you turn a corner of the road. the women and children have resumed their labour: the reaper once more stoops to his work: the cart-horses have moved on: and all are again in motion. the influence of a scene like this, was not lost upon the well-regulated mind of mr. pickwick. intent upon the resolution he had formed, of exposing the real character of the nefarious jingle, in any quarter in which he might be pursuing his fraudulent designs, he sat at first taciturn and contemplative, brooding over the means by which his purpose could be best attained. by degrees his attention grew more and more attracted by the objects around him; and at last he derived as much enjoyment from the ride, as if it had been undertaken for the pleasantest reason in the world. "delightful prospect, sam," said mr. pickwick. "beats the chimbley pots, sir," replied mr. weller, touching his hat. "i suppose you have hardly seen anything but chimney-pots and bricks and mortar all your life, sam?" said mr. pickwick, smiling. "i worn't always a boots, sir," said mr. weller, with a shake of the head. "i wos a vagginer's boy, once." "when was that?" inquired mr. pickwick. "when i wos first pitched neck and crop into the world, to play at leap-frog with its troubles," replied sam. "i wos a carrier's boy at startin': then a vagginer's, then a helper, then a boots. now i'm a gen'l'm'n's servant. i shall be a gen'l'm'n myself one of these days, perhaps, with a pipe in my mouth, and a summer-house in the back garden. who knows? _i_ shouldn't be surprised, for one." "you are quite a philosopher, sam," said mr. pickwick. "it runs in the family, i b'lieve, sir," replied mr. weller. "my father's wery much in that line now. if my mother-in-law blows him up, he whistles. she flies in a passion, and breaks his pipe; he steps out, and gets another. then she screams wery loud, and falls into 'sterics; and he smokes very comfortably 'till she comes to agin. that's philosophy, sir, an't it?" "a very good substitute for it, at all events," replied mr. pickwick, laughing. "it must have been of great service to you, in the course of your rambling life, sam." "service, sir," exclaimed sam. "you may say that. arter i run away from the carrier, and afore i took up with the vagginer, i had unfurnished lodgings for a fortnight." "unfurnished lodgings?" said mr. pickwick. "yes--the dry arches of waterloo bridge. fine sleeping-place--within ten minutes' walk of all the public offices--only if there is any objection to it, it is that the sitivation's _rayther_ too airy. i see some queer sights there." "ah, i suppose you did," said mr. pickwick, with an air of considerable interest. "sights, sir," resumed mr. weller, "as 'ud penetrate your benevolent heart, and come out on the other side. you don't see the reg'lar wagrants there; trust 'em, they knows better than that. young beggars, male and female, as hasn't made a rise in their profession, takes up their quarters there sometimes; but it's generally the worn-out, starving, houseless creeturs as rolls themselves in the dark corners o' them lonesome places--poor creeturs as ain't up to the twopenny rope." "and pray, sam, what is the twopenny rope?" inquired mr. pickwick. "the twopenny rope, sir," replied mr. weller, "is just a cheap lodgin' house, where the beds is twopence a night." "what do they call a bed a rope for?" said mr. pickwick. "bless your innocence, sir, that an't it," replied sam. "wen the lady and gen'l'm'n as keeps the hot-el first begun business they used to make the beds on the floor; but this wouldn't do at no price, 'cos instead o' taking a moderate two-penn'orth o' sleep, the lodgers used to lie there half the day. so now they has two ropes, 'bout six foot apart, and three from the floor, which goes right down the room; and the beds are made of slips of coarse sacking, stretched across 'em." "well?" said mr. pickwick. "well," said mr. weller, "the adwantage o' the plan's hobvious. at six o'clock every mornin' they lets go the ropes at one end, and down falls all the lodgers. 'consequence is, that being thoroughly waked, they get up wery quietly, and walk away! beg your pardon, sir," said sam, suddenly breaking off in his loquacious discourse. "is this bury st. edmunds?" "it is," replied mr. pickwick. the coach rattled through the well-paved streets of a handsome little town, of thriving and cleanly appearance, and stopped before a large inn situated in a wide open street, nearly facing the old abbey. "and this," said mr. pickwick, looking up, "is the angel! we alight here, sam. but some caution is necessary. order a private room, and do not mention my name. you understand?" "right as a trivet, sir," replied mr. weller, with a wink of intelligence; and having dragged mr. pickwick's portmanteau from the hind boot, into which it had been hastily thrown when they joined the coach at eatanswill, mr. weller disappeared on his errand. a private room was speedily engaged; and into it mr. pickwick was ushered without delay. "now, sam," said mr. pickwick, "the first thing to be done is to----" "order dinner, sir," interposed mr. weller. "it's very late, sir." "ah, so it is," said mr. pickwick, looking at his watch. "you are right, sam." "and if i might adwise, sir," added mr. weller, "i'd just have a good night's rest arterwards, and not begin inquiring arter this here deep 'un 'till the mornin'. there's nothin' so refreshin' as sleep, sir, as the servant-girl said afore she drank the egg-cupful o' laudanum." "i think you are right, sam," said mr. pickwick. "but i must first ascertain that he is in the house, and not likely to go away." "leave that to me, sir," said sam. "let me order you a snug little dinner, and make my inquiries below while it's a getting ready; i could worm ev'ry secret out o' the boots's heart, in five minutes, sir." "do so," said mr. pickwick: and mr. weller at once retired. in half an hour, mr. pickwick was seated at a very satisfactory dinner; and in three-quarters mr. weller returned with the intelligence that mr. charles fitz-marshall had ordered his private room to be retained for him, until further notice. he was going to spend the evening at some private house in the neighbourhood, had ordered the boots to sit up until his return, and had taken his servant with him. "now, sir," argued mr. weller, when he had concluded his report, "if i can get a talk with this here servant in the mornin', he'll tell me all his master's concerns." "how do you know that?" interposed mr. pickwick. "bless your heart, sir, servants always do," replied mr. weller. "oh, ah, i forgot that," said mr. pickwick. "well?" "then you can arrange what's best to be done, sir, and we can act according." as it appeared that this was the best arrangement that could be made, it was finally agreed upon. mr. weller, by his master's permission, retired to spend the evening in his own way; and was shortly afterwards elected, by the unanimous voice of the assembled company, into the tap-room chair, in which honourable post he acquitted himself so much to the satisfaction of the gentlemen-frequenters, that their roars of laughter and approbation penetrated to mr. pickwick's bed-room, and shortened the term of his natural rest by at least three hours. early on the ensuing morning, mr. weller was dispelling all the feverish remains of the previous evening's conviviality, through the instrumentality of a halfpenny shower-bath (having induced a young gentleman attached to the stable-department, by the offer of that coin, to pump over his head and face, until he was perfectly restored), when he was attracted by the appearance of a young fellow in mulberry-coloured livery, who was sitting on a bench in the yard, reading what appeared to be a hymn-book, with an air of deep abstraction, but who occasionally stole a glance at the individual under the pump, as if he took some interest in his proceedings, nevertheless. "you're a rum 'un to look at, you are!" thought mr. weller, the first time his eyes encountered the glance of the stranger in the mulberry suit: who had a large, sallow, ugly face, very sunken eyes, and a gigantic head, from which depended a quantity of lank black hair. "you're a rum 'un!" thought mr. weller; and thinking this, he went on washing himself, and thought no more about him. still the man kept glancing from his hymn-book to sam, and from sam to his hymn-book, as if he wanted to open a conversation. so at last, sam, by way of giving him an opportunity, said with a familiar nod-- "how are you, governor?" "i am happy to say i am pretty well, sir," said the man, speaking with great deliberation, and closing the book. "i hope you are the same, sir?" "why, if i felt less like a walking brandy-bottle, i shouldn't be quite so staggery this mornin'," replied sam. "are you stoppin' in this house, old 'un?" the mulberry man replied in the affirmative. "how was it you worn't one of us, last night?" inquired sam, scrubbing his face with the towel. "you seem one of the jolly sort--looks as conwivial as a live trout in a lime-basket," added mr. weller, in an under-tone. "i was out last night, with my master," replied the stranger. "what's his name?" inquired mr. weller, colouring up very red with sudden excitement, and the friction of the towel combined. "fitz-marshall," said the mulberry man. "give us your hand," said mr. weller, advancing; "i should like to know you. i like your appearance, old fellow." "well, that is very strange," said the mulberry man, with great simplicity of manner. "i like yours so much, that i wanted to speak to you, from the very first moment i saw you under the pump." "did you though?" "upon my word. now, isn't that curious?" [illustration: "_looks as conwivial as a live trout in a lime-basket_"] "wery sing'ler," said sam, inwardly congratulating himself upon the softness of the stranger. "what's your name, my patriarch?" "job." "and a wery good name it is--only one i know, that an't got a nickname to it. what's the other name?" "trotter," said the stranger. "what is yours?" sam bore in mind his master's caution, and replied-- "my name's walker: my master's name's wilkins. will you take a drop o' somethin' this mornin', mr. trotter?" mr. trotter acquiesced in this agreeable proposal; and having deposited his book in his coat-pocket, accompanied mr. weller to the tap, where they were soon occupied in discussing an exhilarating compound, formed by mixing together, in a pewter vessel, certain quantities of british hollands, and the fragrant essence of the clove. "and what sort of a place have you got?" inquired sam, as he filled his companion's glass, for the second time. "bad," said job, smacking his lips, "very bad." "you don't mean that?" said sam. "i do, indeed. worse than that, my master's going to be married." "no." "yes; and worse than that, too, he's going to run away with an immense rich heiress, from boarding-school." "what a dragon!" said sam, refilling his companion's glass. "it's some boarding-school in this town, i suppose, an't it?" now, although this question was put in the most careless tone imaginable, mr. job trotter plainly showed by gestures, that he perceived his new friend's anxiety to draw forth an answer to it. he emptied his glass, looked mysteriously at his companion, winked both of his small eyes, one after the other, and finally made a motion with his arm, as if he were working an imaginary pump-handle: thereby intimating that he (mr. trotter) considered himself as undergoing the process of being pumped by mr. samuel weller. "no, no," said mr. trotter, in conclusion, "that's not to be told to everybody. that is a secret--a great secret, mr. walker." as the mulberry man said this, he turned his glass upside down, as a means of reminding his companion that he had nothing left wherewith to slake his thirst. sam observed the hint; and feeling the delicate manner in which it was conveyed, ordered the pewter vessel to be refilled, whereat the small eyes of the mulberry man glistened. "and so it's a secret?" said sam. "i should rather suspect it was," said the mulberry man, sipping his liquor, with a complacent face. "i suppose your mas'r's wery rich?" said sam. mr. trotter smiled, and holding his glass in his left hand, gave four distinct slaps on the pocket of his mulberry indescribables with his right, as if to intimate that his master might have done the same without alarming anybody much by the chinking of coin. "ah," said sam, "that's the game, is it?" the mulberry man nodded significantly. "well, and don't you think, old feller," remonstrated mr. weller, "that if you let your master take in this here young lady, you're a precious rascal?" "i know that," said job trotter, turning upon his companion a countenance of deep contrition, and groaning slightly. "i know that, and that's what it is that preys upon my mind. but what am i to do?" "do!" said sam; "di-wulge to the missis, and give up your master." "who'd believe me?" replied job trotter. "the young lady's considered the very picture of innocence and discretion. she'd deny it, and so would my master. who'd believe me? i should lose my place, and get indicted for a conspiracy, or some such thing; that's all i should take by my motion." "there's somethin' in that," said sam, ruminating; "there's somethin' in that." "if i knew any respectable gentleman who would take the matter up," continued mr. trotter, "i might have some hope of preventing the elopement; but there's the same difficulty, mr. walker, just the same. i know no gentleman in this strange place, and ten to one if i did, whether he would believe my story." "come this way," said sam, suddenly jumping up, and grasping the mulberry man by the arm. "my mas'r's the man you want, i see." and after a slight resistance on the part of job trotter, sam led his newly-found friend to the apartment of mr. pickwick, to whom he presented him, together with a brief summary of the dialogue we have just repeated. "i am very sorry to betray my master, sir," said job trotter, applying to his eyes a pink checked pocket-handkerchief about six inches square. "the feeling does you a great deal of honour," replied mr. pickwick; "but it is your duty, nevertheless." "i know it is my duty, sir," replied job, with great emotion. "we should all try to discharge our duty, sir, and i humbly endeavour to discharge mine, sir; but it is a hard trial to betray a master, sir, whose clothes you wear, and whose bread you eat, even though he is a scoundrel, sir." "you are a very good fellow," said mr. pickwick, much affected, "an honest fellow." "come, come," interposed sam, who had witnessed mr. trotter's tears with considerable impatience, "blow this here water-cart bis'ness. it won't do no good, this won't." "sam," said mr. pickwick, reproachfully, "i am sorry to find that you have so little respect for this young man's feelings." "his feelin's is all wery well, sir," replied mr. weller; "and as they're so wery fine, and it's a pity he should lose 'em, i think he'd better keep 'em in his own buzzum, than let 'em ewaporate in hot water, 'specially as they do no good. tears never yet wound up a clock, or worked a steam ingen'. the next time you go out to a smoking party, young fellow, fill your pipe with that 'ere reflection; and for the present just put that bit of pink gingham into your pocket. 'tain't so handsome that you need keep waving it about, as if you was a tight-rope dancer." "my man is in the right," said mr. pickwick, accosting job, "although his mode of expressing his opinion is somewhat homely, and occasionally incomprehensible." "he is, sir, very right," said mr. trotter, "and i will give way no longer." "very well," said mr. pickwick. "now, where is this boarding-school?" "it is a large, old, red-brick house, just outside the town, sir," replied job trotter. "and when," said mr. pickwick, "when is this villainous design to be carried into execution--when is this elopement to take place?" "to-night, sir," replied job. "to-night!" exclaimed mr. pickwick. "this very night, sir," replied job trotter. "that is what alarms me so much." "instant measures must be taken," said mr. pickwick. "i will see the lady who keeps the establishment immediately." "i beg your pardon, sir," said job, "but that course of proceeding will never do." "why not?" inquired mr. pickwick. "my master, sir, is a very artful man." "i know he is," said mr. pickwick. "and he has so wound himself round the old lady's heart, sir," resumed job, "that she would believe nothing to his prejudice, if you went down on your bare knees, and swore it; especially as you have no proof but the word of a servant, who, for anything she knows (and my master would be sure to say so), was discharged for some fault, and does this in revenge." "what had better be done, then?" said mr. pickwick. "nothing but taking him in the very fact of eloping, will convince the old lady, sir," replied job. "all them old cats _will_ run their heads agin mile-stones," observed mr. weller in a parenthesis. "but this taking him in the very act of elopement, would be a very difficult thing to accomplish, i fear," said mr. pickwick. "i don't know, sir," said mr. trotter, after a few moments' reflection. "i think it might be very easily done." "how?" was mr. pickwick's inquiry. "why," replied mr. trotter, "my master and i, being in the confidence of the two servants, will be secreted in the kitchen at ten o'clock. when the family have retired to rest, we shall come out of the kitchen, and the young lady out of her bedroom. a post-chaise will be waiting, and away we go." "well?" said mr. pickwick. "well, sir, i have been thinking that if you were in waiting in the garden behind, alone----" "alone," said mr. pickwick. "why alone?" "i thought it very natural," replied job, "that the old lady wouldn't like such an unpleasant discovery to be made before more persons than can possibly be helped. the young lady, too, sir--consider her feelings." "you are very right," said mr. pickwick. "the consideration evinces your delicacy of feeling. go on; you are very right." "well, sir, i have been thinking that if you were waiting in the back garden alone, and i was to let you in, at the door which opens into it, from the end of the passage, at exactly half-past eleven o'clock, you would be just in the very moment of time to assist me in frustrating the designs of this bad man, by whom i have been unfortunately ensnared." here mr. trotter sighed deeply. "don't distress yourself on that account," said mr. pickwick; "if he had one grain of the delicacy of feeling, which distinguishes you, humble as your station is, i should have some hopes of him." job trotter bowed low; and in spite of mr. weller's previous remonstrance, the tears again rose to his eyes. "i never see such a feller," said sam. "blessed if i don't think he's got a main in his head as is always turned on." "sam," said mr. pickwick, with great severity. "hold your tongue." "wery well, sir," replied mr. weller. "i don't like this plan," said mr. pickwick, after deep meditation. "why cannot i communicate with the young lady's friends?" "because they live one hundred miles from here, sir," responded job trotter. "that's a clincher," said mr. weller, aside. "then this garden," resumed mr. pickwick. "how am i to get into it?" "the wall is very low, sir, and your servant will give you a leg up." "my servant will give me a leg up," repeated mr. pickwick, mechanically. "you will be sure to be near this door that you speak of?" "you cannot mistake it, sir; it's the only one that opens into the garden. tap at it when you hear the clock strike, and i will open it instantly." "i don't like the plan," said mr. pickwick; "but as i see no other, and as the happiness of this young lady's whole life is at stake, i adopt it. i shall be sure to be there." thus, for the second time, did mr. pickwick's innate good-feeling involve him in an enterprise from which he would most willingly have stood aloof. "what is the name of the house?" inquired mr. pickwick. "westgate house, sir. you turn a little to the right when you get to the end of the town; it stands by itself, some little distance off the high road, with the name on a brass plate on the gate." "i know it," said mr. pickwick. "i observed it once before, when i was in this town. you may depend upon me." mr. trotter made another bow, and turned to depart, when mr. pickwick thrust a guinea into his hand. "you're a fine fellow," said mr. pickwick, "and i admire your goodness of heart. no thanks. remember--eleven o'clock." "there is no fear of my forgetting it, sir," replied job trotter. with these words he left the room, followed by sam. "i say," said the latter, "not a bad notion that 'ere crying. i'd cry like a rainwater spout in a shower on such good terms. how do you do it?" "it comes from the heart, mr. walker," replied job, solemnly. "good morning, sir." "you're a soft customer, you are;--we've got it all out o' you, anyhow," thought mr. weller, as job walked away. we cannot state the precise nature of the thoughts which passed through mr. trotter's mind, because we don't know what they were. the day wore on, evening came, and a little before ten o'clock sam weller reported that mr. jingle and job had gone out together, that their luggage was packed up, and that they had ordered a chaise. the plot was evidently in execution, as mr. trotter had foretold. half-past ten o'clock arrived, and it was time for mr. pickwick to issue forth on his delicate errand. resisting sam's tender of his great-coat, in order that he might have no incumbrance in scaling the wall, he set forth, followed by his attendant. there was a bright moon, but it was behind the clouds. it was a fine dry night, but it was most uncommonly dark. paths, hedges, fields, houses and trees, were enveloped in one deep shade. the atmosphere was hot and sultry, the summer lightning quivered faintly on the verge of the horizon, and was the only sight that varied the dull gloom in which everything was wrapped--sound there was none, except the distant barking of some restless house-dog. they found the house, read the brass plate, walked round the wall, and stopped at that portion of it which divided them from the bottom of the garden. "you will return to the inn, sam, when you have assisted me over," said mr. pickwick. "wery well, sir." "and you will sit up, till i return." "cert'nly, sir." "take hold of my leg; and when i say 'over,' raise me gently." "all right, sir." having settled these preliminaries, mr. pickwick grasped the top of the wall, and gave the word "over," which was very literally obeyed. whether his body partook in some degree of the elasticity of his mind, or whether mr. weller's notions of a gentle push were of a somewhat rougher description than mr. pickwick's, the immediate effect of his assistance was to jerk that immortal gentleman completely over the wall on to the bed beneath, where, after crushing three gooseberry-bushes and a rose-tree, he finally alighted at full length. "you ha'n't hurt yourself, i hope, sir?" said sam, in a loud whisper, as soon as he recovered from the surprise consequent upon the mysterious disappearance of his master. "i have not hurt _myself_, sam, certainly," replied mr. pickwick, from the other side of the wall, "but i rather think that _you_ have hurt me." "i hope not, sir," said sam. "never mind," said mr. pickwick, rising, "it's nothing but a few scratches. go away, or we shall be overheard." "good-bye, sir." "good-bye." with stealthy step, sam weller departed, leaving mr. pickwick alone in the garden. lights occasionally appeared in the different windows of the house, or glanced from the staircases, as if the inmates were retiring to rest. not caring to go too near the door, until the appointed time, mr. pickwick crouched into an angle of the wall, and awaited its arrival. it was a situation which might well have depressed the spirits of many a man. mr. pickwick, however, felt neither depression nor misgiving. he knew that his purpose was in the main a good one, and he placed implicit reliance on the high-minded job. it was dull, certainly; not to say dreary; but a contemplative man can always employ himself in meditation. mr. pickwick had meditated himself into a doze, when he was roused by the chimes of the neighbouring church ringing out the hour--half-past eleven. "that is the time," thought mr. pickwick, getting cautiously on his feet. he looked up at the house. the lights had disappeared, and the shutters were closed--all in bed, no doubt. he walked on tip-toe to the door, and gave a gentle tap. two or three minutes passing without any reply, he gave another tap rather louder, and then another rather louder than that. at length the sound of feet was audible upon the stairs, and then the light of a candle shone through the key-hole of the door. there was a good deal of unchaining and unbolting, and the door was slowly opened. now the door opened outwards: and as the door opened wider and wider, mr. pickwick receded behind it, more and more. what was his astonishment when he just peeped out, by way of caution, to see that the person who had opened it was--not job trotter, but a servant-girl with a candle in her hand! mr. pickwick drew in his head again, with the swiftness displayed by that admirable melodramatic performer, punch, when he lies in wait for the flat-headed comedian with the tin box of music. "it must have been the cat, sarah," said the girl, addressing herself to some one in the house. "puss, puss, puss,--tit, tit, tit." but no animal being decoyed by these blandishments, the girl slowly closed the door, and re-fastened it; leaving mr. pickwick drawn up straight against the wall. "this is very curious," thought mr. pickwick. "they are sitting up beyond their usual hour, i suppose. extremely unfortunate, that they should have chosen this night, of all others, for such a purpose--exceedingly." and with these thoughts, mr. pickwick cautiously retired to the angle of the wall in which he had been before ensconced; waiting until such time as he might deem it safe to repeat the signal. he had not been here five minutes, when a vivid flash of lightning was followed by a loud peal of thunder that crashed and rolled away in the distance with a terrific noise--then came another flash of lightning, brighter than the other, and a second peal of thunder, louder than the first; and then down came the rain, with a force and fury that swept everything before it. mr. pickwick was perfectly aware that a tree is a very dangerous neighbour in a thunderstorm. he had a tree on his right, a tree on his left, a third before him, and a fourth behind. if he remained where he was, he might fall the victim of an accident; if he showed himself in the centre of the garden, he might be consigned to a constable;--once or twice he tried to scale the wall, but having no other legs this time, than those with which nature had furnished him, the only effect of his struggles was to inflict a variety of very unpleasant gratings on his knees and shins, and to throw him into a state of the most profuse perspiration. "what a dreadful situation!" said mr. pickwick, pausing to wipe his brow after this exercise. he looked up at the house--all was dark. they must be gone to bed now. he would try the signal again. he walked on tip-toe across the moist gravel, and tapped at the door. he held his breath, and listened at the key-hole. no reply: very odd. another knock. he listened again. there was a low whispering inside, and then a voice cried-- "who's there?" "that's not job," thought mr. pickwick, hastily drawing himself straight up against the wall again. "it's a woman." he had scarcely had time to form this conclusion when a window above stairs was thrown up, and three or four female voices repeated the query--"who's there?" [illustration: "_who's there?_" _screamed a numerous chorus of treble voices_] mr. pickwick dared not move hand or foot. it was clear that the whole establishment was roused. he made up his mind to remain where he was, until the alarm had subsided: and then by a supernatural effort, to get over the wall, or perish in the attempt. like all mr. pickwick's determinations, this was the best that could be made under the circumstances; but, unfortunately, it was founded upon the assumption that they would not venture to open the door again. what was his discomfiture, when he heard the chain and bolts withdrawn, and saw the door slowly opening, wider and wider! he retreated into the corner, step by step; but do what he would, the interposition of his own person prevented its being opened to its utmost width. "who's there?" screamed a numerous chorus of treble voices from the staircase inside, consisting of the spinster lady of the establishment, three teachers, five female servants, and thirty boarders, all half-dressed, and in a forest of curl-papers. of course mr. pickwick didn't say who _was_ there: and then the burden of the chorus changed into--"lor'! i am so frightened." "cook," said the lady abbess, who took care to be on the top stair, the very last of the group--"cook, why don't you go a little way into the garden?" "please, ma'am, i don't like," responded the cook. "lor', what a stupid thing that cook is!" said the thirty boarders. "cook," said the lady abbess, with great dignity; "don't answer me, if you please. i insist upon your looking into the garden immediately." here the cook began to cry, and the housemaid said it was "a shame!" for which partisanship she received a month's warning on the spot. "do you hear, cook?" said the lady abbess, stamping her foot impatiently. "don't you hear your missis, cook?" said the three teachers. "what an impudent thing that cook is!" said the thirty boarders. the unfortunate cook, thus strongly urged, advanced a step or two, and holding her candle just where it prevented her from seeing anything at all, declared there was nothing there, and it must have been the wind. the door was just going to be closed in consequence when an inquisitive boarder, who had been peeping between the hinges, set up a fearful screaming, which called back the cook and the housemaid, and all the more adventurous, in no time. "what is the matter with miss smithers?" said the lady abbess, as the aforesaid miss smithers proceeded to go into hysterics of four young lady power. "lor', miss smithers dear," said the other nine-and-twenty boarders. "oh, the man--the man--behind the door!" screamed miss smithers. the lady abbess no sooner heard this appalling cry, than she retreated to her own bed-room, double-locked the door, and fainted away comfortably. the boarders, and the teachers, and the servants, fell back upon the stairs, and upon each other; and never was such a screaming, and fainting, and struggling beheld. in the midst of the tumult, mr. pickwick emerged from his concealment, and presented himself amongst them. "ladies--dear ladies," said mr. pickwick. "oh, he says we're dear," cried the oldest and ugliest teacher. "oh the wretch!" "ladies!" roared mr. pickwick, rendered desperate by the danger of his situation. "hear me. i am no robber. i want the lady of the house." "oh, what a ferocious monster," screamed another teacher. "he wants miss tomkins." here there was a general scream. "ring the alarm bell, somebody!" cried a dozen voices. "don't--don't!" shouted mr. pickwick. "look at me. do i look like a robber? my dear ladies--you may bind me hand and leg, or lock me up in a closet, if you like. only hear what i have got to say--only hear me." "how did you come in our garden?" faltered the housemaid. "call the lady of the house, and i'll tell her everything--everything:" said mr. pickwick, exerting his lungs to the utmost pitch. "call her--only be quiet, and call her, and you shall hear everything." it might have been mr. pickwick's appearance, or it might have been his manner, or it might have been the temptation--irresistible to a female mind--of hearing something at present enveloped in mystery, that reduced the more reasonable portion of the establishment (some four individuals) to a state of comparative quiet. by them it was proposed, as a test of mr. pickwick's sincerity, that he should immediately submit to personal restraint; and that gentleman having consented to hold a conference with miss tomkins, from the interior of a closet in which the day boarders hung their bonnets and sandwich-bags, he at once stepped into it, of his own accord, and was securely locked in. this revived the others; and miss tomkins having been brought to, and brought down, the conference began. "what did you do in my garden, man?" said miss tomkins, in a faint voice. "i came to warn you, that one of your young ladies was going to elope to-night," replied mr. pickwick, from the interior of the closet. "elope!" exclaimed miss tomkins, the three teachers, the thirty boarders, and the five servants. "who with?" "your friend, mr. charles fitz-marshall." "_my_ friend! i don't know any such person." "well! mr. jingle, then." "i never heard the name in my life." "then, i have been deceived, and deluded," said mr. pickwick. "i have been the victim of a conspiracy--a foul and base conspiracy. send to the angel, my dear ma'am, if you don't believe me. send to the angel for mr. pickwick's man-servant, i implore you, ma'am." "he must be respectable--he keeps a man-servant," said miss tomkins to the writing and ciphering governess. "it is my opinion, miss tomkins," said the writing and ciphering governess, "that his man-servant keeps him. _i_ think he's a madman, miss tomkins, and the other's his keeper." "i think you are very right, miss gwynn," responded miss tomkins. "let two of the servants repair to the angel, and let the others remain here to protect us." so two of the servants were despatched to the angel in search of mr. samuel weller: and the remaining three stopped behind to protect miss tomkins, and the three teachers, and the thirty boarders. and mr. pickwick sat down in the closet, beneath a grove of sandwich bags, and awaited the return of the messengers, with all the philosophy and fortitude he could summon to his aid. an hour and a half elapsed before they came back, and when they did come, mr. pickwick recognised, in addition to the voice of mr. samuel weller, two other voices, the tones of which struck familiarly on his ear; but whose they were, he could not for the life of him call to mind. a very brief conversation ensued. the door was unlocked. mr. pickwick stepped out of the closet, and found himself in the presence of the whole establishment of westgate house, mr. samuel weller, and--old wardle, and his destined son-in-law, mr. trundle! "my dear friend," said mr. pickwick, running forward and grasping wardle's hand, "my dear friend, pray, for heaven's sake, explain to this lady the unfortunate and dreadful situation in which i am placed. you must have heard it from my servant; say at all events, my dear fellow, that i am neither a robber nor a madman." "i have said so, my dear friend. i have said so already," replied mr. wardle, shaking the right hand of his friend, while mr. trundle shook the left. "and whoever says, or has said, he is," interposed mr. weller, stepping forward, "says that which is not the truth, but so far from it, on the contrary, quite the rewerse. and if there's any number o' men on these here premises as has said so, i shall be wery happy to give 'em all a wery convincing proof o' their being mistaken, in this here wery room, if these wery respectable ladies 'll have the goodness to retire, and order 'em up, one at a time." having delivered this defiance with great volubility, mr. weller struck his open palm emphatically with his clenched fist, and winked pleasantly on miss tomkins: the intensity of whose horror at his supposing it within the bounds of possibility that there could be any men on the premises of westgate house establishment for young ladies, it is impossible to describe. mr. pickwick's explanation having already been partially made, was soon concluded. but neither in the course of his walk home with his friends, nor afterwards when seated before a blazing fire at the supper he so much needed, could a single observation be drawn from him. he seemed bewildered and amazed. once, and only once, he turned round to mr. wardle and said-- "how did you come here?" "trundle and i came down here, for some good shooting on the first," replied wardle. "we arrived to-night, and were astonished to hear from your servant that you were here too. but i am glad you are," said the old fellow, slapping him on the back. "i am glad you are. we shall have a jovial party on the first, and we'll give winkle another chance--eh, old boy?" mr. pickwick made no reply; he did not even ask after his friends at dingley dell, and shortly afterwards retired for the night, desiring sam to fetch his candle when he rung. the bell did ring in due course, and mr. weller presented himself. "sam," said mr. pickwick, looking out from under the bed-clothes. "sir?" said mr. weller. mr. pickwick paused, and mr. weller snuffed the candle. "sam," said mr. pickwick again, as with a desperate effort. "sir?" said mr. weller, once more. "where is that trotter?" "job, sir?" "yes." "gone, sir." "with his master, i suppose?" "friend or master, or whatever he is, he's gone with him," replied mr. weller. "there's a pair on 'em, sir." "jingle suspected my design, and set that fellow on you, with this story, i suppose?" said mr. pickwick, half choking. "just that, sir," replied mr. weller. "it was all false, of course?" "all, sir," replied mr. weller. "reg'lar do, sir; artful dodge." "i don't think he'll escape us quite so easily the next time, sam?" said mr. pickwick. "i don't think he will, sir." "whenever i meet that jingle again, wherever it is," said mr. pickwick, raising himself in bed, and indenting his pillow with a tremendous blow, "i'll inflict personal chastisement on him, in addition to the exposure he so richly merits. i will, or my name is not pickwick." "and venever i catches hold o' that there melan-cholly chap with the black hair," said sam, "if i don't bring some real water into his eyes, for once in a way, my name an't veller. good night, sir!" chapter xvii [illustration] _showing that an attack of rheumatism, in some cases, acts as a quickener to inventive genius_ the constitution of mr. pickwick, though able to sustain a very considerable amount of exertion and fatigue, was not proof against such a combination of attacks as he had undergone on the memorable night, recorded in the last chapter. the process of being washed in the night air, and rough-dried in a closet, is as dangerous as it is peculiar. mr. pickwick was laid up with an attack of rheumatism. but although the bodily powers of the great man were thus impaired, his mental energies retained their pristine vigour. his spirits were elastic; his good humour was restored. even the vexation consequent upon his recent adventure had vanished from his mind; and he could join in the hearty laughter which any allusion to it excited in mr. wardle, without anger and without embarrassment. nay, more. during the two days mr. pickwick was confined to his bed, sam was his constant attendant. on the first, he endeavoured to amuse his master by anecdote and conversation; on the second, mr. pickwick demanded his writing-desk, and pen and ink, and was deeply engaged during the whole day. on the third, being able to sit up in his bed-chamber, he despatched his valet with a message to mr. wardle and mr. trundle, intimating that if they would take their wine there, that evening, they would greatly oblige him. the invitation was most willingly accepted; and when they were seated over their wine, mr. pickwick, with sundry blushes, produced the following little tale, as having been "edited" by himself, during his recent indisposition, from his notes of mr. weller's unsophisticated recital. the parish clerk a tale of true love "once upon a time, in a very small country town, at a considerable distance from london, there lived a little man named nathaniel pipkin, who was the parish clerk of the little town, and lived in a little house in the little high street, within ten minutes' walk of the little church; and who was to be found every day from nine till four, teaching a little learning to the little boys. nathaniel pipkin was a harmless, inoffensive, good-natured being, with a turned-up nose, and rather turned-in legs: a cast in his eye, and a halt in his gait; and he divided his time between the church and his school, verily believing that there existed not, on the face of the earth, so clever a man as the curate, so imposing an apartment as the vestry-room, or so well-ordered a seminary as his own. once, and only once, in his life, nathaniel pipkin had seen a bishop--a real bishop, with his arms in lawn sleeves, and his head in a wig. he had seen him walk, and heard him talk, at a confirmation, on which momentous occasion nathaniel pipkin was so overcome with reverence and awe, when the aforesaid bishop laid his hand on his head, that he fainted right clean away, and was borne out of church in the arms of the beadle. "this was a great event, a tremendous era, in nathaniel pipkin's life, and it was the only one that had ever occurred to ruffle the smooth current of his quiet existence, when happening one fine afternoon, in a fit of mental abstraction, to raise his eyes from the slate on which he was devising some tremendous problem in compound addition for an offending urchin to solve, they suddenly rested on the blooming countenance of maria lobbs, the only daughter of old lobbs, the great saddler over the way. now, the eyes of mr. pipkin had rested on the pretty face of maria lobbs many a time and oft before, at church and elsewhere; but the eyes of maria lobbs had never looked so bright, the cheeks of maria lobbs had never looked so ruddy, as upon this particular occasion. no wonder then, that nathaniel pipkin was unable to take his eyes from the countenance of miss lobbs; no wonder that miss lobbs, finding herself stared at by a young man, withdrew her head from the window out of which she had been peeping, and shut the casement and pulled down the blind; no wonder that nathaniel pipkin, immediately thereafter, fell upon the young urchin who had previously offended, and cuffed and knocked him about, to his heart's content. all this was very natural, and there's nothing at all to wonder at about it. "it _is_ matter of wonder, though, that any one of mr. nathaniel pipkin's retiring disposition, nervous temperament, and most particularly diminutive income, should from this day forth, have dared to aspire to the hand and heart of the only daughter of the fiery old lobbs--of old lobbs the great saddler, who could have bought up the whole village at one stroke of his pen, and never felt the outlay--old lobbs, who was well known to have heaps of money, invested in the bank at the nearest market town--old lobbs, who was reported to have countless and inexhaustible treasures, hoarded up in the little iron safe with the big key-hole, over the chimney-piece in the back parlour--old lobbs, who, it was well known, on festive occasions garnished his board with a real silver tea-pot, cream-ewer, and sugar-basin, which he was wont, in the pride of his heart, to boast should be his daughter's property when she found a man to her mind. i repeat it, to be matter of profound astonishment and intense wonder, that nathaniel pipkin should have had the temerity to cast his eyes in this direction. but love is blind: and nathaniel had a cast in his eye: and perhaps these two circumstances, taken together, prevented his seeing the matter in its proper light. "now, if old lobbs had entertained the most remote or distant idea of the state of the affections of nathaniel pipkin, he would just have razed the school-room to the ground, or exterminated its master from the surface of the earth, or committed some other outrage and atrocity of an equally ferocious and violent description; for he was a terrible old fellow, was lobbs, when his pride was injured, or his blood was up. swear! such trains of oaths would come rolling and pealing over the way, sometimes, when he was denouncing the idleness of the bony apprentice with the thin legs, that nathaniel pipkin would shake in his shoes with horror, and the hair of the pupils' heads would stand on end with fright. "well! day after day, when school was over, and the pupils gone, did nathaniel pipkin sit himself down at the front window, and while he feigned to be reading a book, throw sidelong glances over the way in search of the bright eyes of maria lobbs; and he hadn't sat there many days, before the bright eyes appeared at an upper window, apparently deeply engaged in reading too. this was delightful, and gladdening to the heart of nathaniel pipkin. it was something to sit there for hours together, and look upon that pretty face when the eyes were cast down; but when maria lobbs began to raise her eyes from her book, and dart their rays in the direction of nathaniel pipkin, his delight and admiration were perfectly boundless. at last, one day, when he knew old lobbs was out, nathaniel pipkin had the temerity to kiss his hand to maria lobbs; and maria lobbs, instead of shutting the window, and pulling down the blind, kissed _hers_ to him, and smiled. upon which, nathaniel pipkin determined that, come what might, he would develop the state of his feelings, without further delay. "a prettier foot, a gayer heart, a more dimpled face, or a smarter form, never bounded so lightly over the earth they graced, as did those of maria lobbs, the old saddler's daughter. there was a roguish twinkle in her sparkling eyes, that would have made its way to far less susceptible bosoms than that of nathaniel pipkin; and there was such a joyous sound in her merry laugh, that the sternest misanthrope must have smiled to hear it. even old lobbs himself, in the very height of his ferocity, couldn't resist the coaxing of his pretty daughter; and when she, and her cousin kate--an arch, impudent-looking, bewitching little person--made a dead set upon the old man together, as, to say the truth, they very often did, he could have refused them nothing, even had they asked for a portion of the countless and inexhaustible treasures which were hidden from the light in the iron safe. "nathaniel pipkin's heart beat high within him, when he saw this enticing little couple some hundred yards before him one summer's evening, in the very field in which he had many a time strolled about till night-time, and pondered on the beauty of maria lobbs. but though he had often thought then, how briskly he would walk up to maria lobbs and tell her of his passion if he could only meet her, he felt, now that she was unexpectedly before him, all the blood in his body mounting to his face, manifestly to the great detriment of his legs, which, deprived of their usual portion, trembled beneath him. when they stopped to gather a hedge-flower, or listen to a bird, nathaniel pipkin stopped too, and pretended to be absorbed in meditation, as indeed he really was; for he was thinking what on earth he should ever do, when they turned back, as they inevitably must in time, and meet him face to face. but though he was afraid to make up to them, he couldn't bear to lose sight of them; so when they walked faster he walked faster, when they lingered he lingered, and when they stopped he stopped; and so they might have gone on, until the darkness prevented them, if kate had not looked slyly back, and encouragingly beckoned nathaniel to advance. there was something in kate's manner that was not to be resisted, and so nathaniel pipkin complied with the invitation; and after a great deal of blushing on his part, and immoderate laughter on that of the wicked little cousin, nathaniel pipkin went down on his knees on the dewy grass, and declared his resolution to remain there for ever, unless he were permitted to rise the accepted lover of maria lobbs. upon this, the merry laughter of maria lobbs rang through the calm evening air--without seeming to disturb it, though; it had such a pleasant sound--and the wicked little cousin laughed more immoderately than before, and nathaniel pipkin blushed deeper than ever. at length, maria lobbs being more strenuously urged by the love-worn little man, turned away her head, and whispered her cousin to say, or at all events kate _did_ say, that she felt much honoured by mr. pipkin's addresses; that her hand and heart were at her father's disposal; but that nobody could be insensible to mr. pipkin's merits. as all this was said with much gravity, and as nathaniel pipkin walked home with maria lobbs, and struggled for a kiss at parting, he went to bed a happy man, and dreamed all night long, of softening old lobbs, opening the strong box, and marrying maria. "the next day, nathaniel pipkin saw old lobbs go out upon his old grey pony, and after a great many signs at the window from the wicked little cousin, the object and meaning of which he could by no means understand, the bony apprentice with the thin legs came over to say that his master wasn't coming home all night, and that the ladies expected mr. pipkin to tea, at six o'clock precisely. how the lessons were got through that day, neither nathaniel pipkin nor his pupils knew any more than you do; but they were got through somehow, and, after the boys had gone, nathaniel pipkin took till full six o'clock to dress himself to his satisfaction. not that it took long to select the garments he should wear, inasmuch as he had no choice about the matter; but the putting of them on to the best advantage, and the touching of them up previously, was a task of no inconsiderable difficulty or importance. "there was a very snug little party, consisting of maria lobbs and her cousin kate, and three or four romping, good-humoured, rosy-cheeked girls. nathaniel pipkin had ocular demonstration of the fact, that the rumours of old lobbs's treasures were not exaggerated. there were the real solid silver tea-pot, cream-ewer, and sugar-basin, on the table, and real silver spoons to stir the tea with, and real china cups to drink it out of, and plates of the same, to hold the cakes and toast in. the only eyesore in the whole place was another cousin of maria lobbs's, and a brother of kate, whom maria lobbs called 'henry,' and who seemed to keep maria lobbs all to himself, up in one corner of the table. it's a delightful thing to see affection in families, but it may be carried rather too far, and nathaniel pipkin could not help thinking that maria lobbs must be very particularly fond of her relations, if she paid as much attention to all of them as to this individual cousin. after tea, too, when the wicked little cousin proposed a game at blindman's buff, it somehow or other happened that nathaniel pipkin was nearly always blind, and whenever he laid his hand upon the male cousin, he was sure to find that maria lobbs was not far off. and though the wicked little cousin and the other girls pinched him, and pulled his hair, and pushed chairs in his way, and all sorts of things, maria lobbs never seemed to come near him at all; and once--once--nathaniel pipkin could have sworn he heard the sound of a kiss, followed by a faint remonstrance from maria lobbs, and a half-suppressed laugh from her female friends. all this was odd--very odd--and there is no saying what nathaniel pipkin might or might not have done, in consequence, if his thoughts had not been suddenly directed into a new channel. "the circumstance which directed his thoughts into a new channel was a loud knocking at the street door, and the person who made this loud knocking at the street door, was no other than old lobbs himself, who had unexpectedly returned, and was hammering away like a coffin-maker; for he wanted his supper. the alarming intelligence was no sooner communicated by the bony apprentice with the thin legs, than the girls tripped upstairs to maria lobbs's bed-room, and the male cousin and nathaniel pipkin were thrust into a couple of closets in the sitting-room, for want of any better places of concealment; and when maria lobbs and the wicked little cousin had stowed them away, and put the room to rights, they opened the street door to old lobbs, who had never left off knocking since he first began. "now it did unfortunately happen that old lobbs, being very hungry, was monstrous cross. nathaniel pipkin could hear him growling away like an old mastiff with a sore throat; and whenever the unfortunate apprentice with the thin legs came into the room, so surely did old lobbs commence swearing at him in a most saracenic and ferocious manner, though apparently with no other end or object than that of easing his bosom by the discharge of a few superfluous oaths. at length some supper, which had been warming up, was placed on the table, and then old lobbs fell to, in regular style; and having made clear work of it in no time, kissed his daughter, and demanded his pipe. "nature had placed nathaniel pipkin's knees in very close juxtaposition, but when he heard old lobbs demand his pipe, they knocked together, as if they were going to reduce each other to powder; for, depending from a couple of hooks, in the very closet in which he stood, was a large brown-stemmed, silver-bowled pipe, which pipe he himself had seen in the mouth of old lobbs, regularly every afternoon and evening, for the last five years. the two girls went downstairs for the pipe, and upstairs for the pipe, and everywhere but where they knew the pipe was, and old lobbs stormed away meanwhile, in the most wonderful manner. at last he thought of the closet, and walked up to it. it was of no use a little man like nathaniel pipkin pulling the door inwards, when a great strong fellow like old lobbs was pulling it outwards. old lobbs gave it one tug, and open it flew, disclosing nathaniel pipkin standing bolt upright inside, and shaking with apprehension from head to foot. bless us! what an appalling look old lobbs gave him, as he dragged him out by the collar, and held him at arm's length. [illustration: "_open it flew, disclosing nathaniel pipkin_"] "'why, what the devil do you want here?' said old lobbs, in a fearful voice. "nathaniel pipkin could make no reply, so old lobbs shook him backwards and forwards, for two or three minutes, by way of arranging his ideas for him. "'what do you want here?' roared lobbs. 'i suppose _you_ have come after my daughter, now?' "old lobbs merely said this as a sneer: for he did not believe that mortal presumption could have carried nathaniel pipkin so far. what was his indignation when that poor man replied: "'yes, i did, mr. lobbs. i did come after your daughter. i love her, mr. lobbs.' "'why, you snivelling, wry-faced, puny villain,' gasped old lobbs, paralysed by the atrocious confession; 'what do you mean by that? say this to my face! damme, i'll throttle you!' "it is by no means improbable that old lobbs would have carried this threat into execution, in the excess of his rage, if his arm had not been stayed by a very unexpected apparition, to wit, the male cousin, who, stepping out of his closet, and walking up to old lobbs, said: "'i cannot allow this harmless person, sir, who has been asked here, in some girlish frolic, to take upon himself, in a very noble manner, the fault (if fault it is) which i am guilty of, and am ready to avow. _i_ love your daughter, sir; and _i_ am here for the purpose of meeting her.' "old lobbs opened his eyes very wide at this, but not wider than nathaniel pipkin. "'you did?' said lobbs: at last finding breath to speak. "'i did.' "'and i forbade you this house, long ago.' "'you did, or i should not have been here, clandestinely, to-night.' "i am sorry to record it of old lobbs, but i think he would have struck the cousin, if his pretty daughter, with her bright eyes swimming in tears, had not clung to his arm. "'don't stop him, maria,' said the young man: 'if he has the will to strike me, let him. i would not hurt a hair of his grey head, for the riches of the world.' "the old man cast down his eyes at this reproof, and they met those of his daughter. i have hinted once or twice before, that they were very bright eyes, and, though they were tearful now, their influence was by no means lessened. old lobbs turned his head away, as if to avoid being persuaded by them, when, as fortune would have it, he encountered the face of the wicked little cousin, who, half afraid for her brother, and half laughing at nathaniel pipkin, presented as bewitching an expression of countenance, with a touch of shyness in it too, as any man, old or young, need look upon. she drew her arm coaxingly through the old man's, and whispered something in his ear; and do what he would, old lobbs couldn't help breaking out into a smile, while a tear stole down his cheek at the same time. "five minutes after this, the girls were brought down from the bed-room with a great deal of giggling and modesty; and while the young people were making themselves perfectly happy, old lobbs got down the pipe, and smoked it: and it was a remarkable circumstance about that particular pipe of tobacco, that it was the most soothing and delightful one he ever smoked. "nathaniel pipkin thought it best to keep his own counsel, and by so doing gradually rose into high favour with old lobbs, who taught him to smoke in time; and they used to sit out in the garden on the fine evenings, for many years afterwards, smoking and drinking in great state. he soon recovered the effects of his attachment, for we find his name in the parish register, as a witness to the marriage of maria lobbs to her cousin; and it also appears, by reference to other documents, that on the night of the wedding he was incarcerated in the village cage, for having, in a state of extreme intoxication, committed sundry excesses in the streets, in all of which he was aided and abetted by the bony apprentice with the thin legs." chapter xviii [illustration] _briefly illustrative of two points;--first, the power of hysterics, and, secondly, the force of circumstances_ for two days after the breakfast at mrs. hunter's the pickwickians remained at eatanswill, anxiously awaiting the arrival of some intelligence from their revered leader. mr. tupman and mr. snodgrass were once again left to their own means of amusement; for mr. winkle, in compliance with a most pressing invitation, continued to reside at mr. pott's house, and to devote his time to the companionship of his amiable lady. nor was the occasional society of mr. pott himself wanting to complete their felicity. deeply immersed in the intensity of his speculations for the public weal and the destruction of the _independent_, it was not the habit of that great man to descend from his mental pinnacle to the humble level of ordinary minds. on this occasion, however, and as if expressly in compliment to any follower of mr. pickwick's, he unbent, relaxed, stepped down from his pedestal, and walked upon the ground; benignly adapting his remarks to the comprehension of the herd, and seeming in outward form, if not in spirit, to be one of them. such having been the demeanour of this celebrated public character towards mr. winkle, it will be readily imagined that considerable surprise was depicted on the countenance of the latter gentleman, when, as he was sitting alone in the breakfast-room, the door was hastily thrown open, and as hastily closed, on the entrance of mr. pott, who, stalking majestically towards him, and thrusting aside his proffered hand, ground his teeth, as if to put a sharper edge on what he was about to utter, and exclaimed, in a saw-like voice,-- "serpent!" "sir!" exclaimed mr. winkle, starting from his chair. "serpent, sir!" repeated mr. pott, raising his voice, and then suddenly depressing it; "i said, serpent, sir--make the most of it." when you have parted with a man, at two o'clock in the morning, on terms of the utmost good-fellowship, and he meets you again, at half-past nine, and greets you as a serpent, it is not unreasonable to conclude that something of an unpleasant nature has occurred meanwhile. so mr. winkle thought. he returned mr. pott's gaze of stone, and in compliance with that gentleman's request, proceeded to make the most he could of the "serpent." the most, however, was nothing at all; so, after a profound silence of some minutes' duration, he said-- "serpent, sir! serpent, mr. pott! what can you mean, sir?--this is pleasantry." "pleasantry, sir!" exclaimed pott, with a motion of the hand, indicative of a strong desire to hurl the britannia metal teapot at the head of his visitor. "pleasantry, sir!--but no, i will be calm, i will be calm, sir;" in proof of his calmness, mr. pott flung himself into a chair, and foamed at the mouth. "my dear sir," interposed mr. winkle. "_dear_ sir!" replied pott. "how dare you address me as dear sir, sir? how dare you look me in the face and do it, sir?" "well, sir, if you come to that," responded mr. winkle, "how dare you look _me_ in the face, and call me a serpent, sir?" "because you are one," replied mr. pott. "prove it, sir," said mr. winkle, warmly. "prove it." a malignant scowl passed over the profound face of the editor, as he drew from his pocket the _independent_ of that morning; and laying his finger on a particular paragraph, threw the journal across the table to mr. winkle. that gentleman took it up, and read as follows:-- "our obscure and filthy contemporary, in some disgusting observations on the recent election for this borough, has presumed to violate the hallowed sanctity of private life, and to refer, in a manner not to be misunderstood, to the personal affairs of our late candidate--ay, and notwithstanding his base defeat, we will add, our future member, mr. fizkin. what does our dastardly contemporary mean? what would the ruffian say, if we, setting at naught, like him, the decencies of social intercourse, were to raise the curtain which happily conceals +his+ private life from general ridicule, not to say from general execration? what, if we were even to point out, and comment on, facts and circumstances, which are publicly notorious, and beheld by every one but our mole-eyed contemporary--what if we were to print the following effusion, which we received while we were writing the commencement of this article, from a talented fellow-townsman and correspondent! 'lines to a brass pot 'oh pott! if you'd known how false she'd have grown when you heard the marriage bells tinkle; you'd have done then, i vow, what you cannot help now, and handed her over to w*****'" "what," said mr. pott, solemnly; "what rhymes to 'tinkle,' villain?" "what rhymes to 'tinkle'?" said mrs. pott, whose entrance at the moment forestalled the reply. "what rhymes to 'tinkle'? why 'winkle,' i should conceive:" saying this, mrs. pott smiled sweetly on the disturbed pickwickian, and extended her hand towards him. the agitated young man would have accepted it, in his confusion, had not pott indignantly interposed. "back, ma'am--back!" said the editor. "take his hand before my very face!" "mr. p.!" said his astonished lady. "wretched woman, look here," exclaimed the husband. "look here, ma'am--'lines to a brass pot.' 'brass pot;'--that's me, ma'am. 'false _she_'d have grown;'--that's you, ma'am--you." with this ebullition of rage, which was not unaccompanied with something like a tremble, at the expression of his wife's face, mr. pott dashed the current number of the _eatanswill independent_ at her feet. "upon my word, sir!" said the astonished mrs. pott, stooping to pick up the paper. "upon my word, sir!" mr. pott winced beneath the contemptuous gaze of his wife. he had made a desperate struggle to screw up his courage, but it was fast coming unscrewed again. there appears nothing very tremendous in this little sentence, "upon my word, sir!" when it comes to be read; but the tone of voice in which it was delivered, and the look that accompanied it, both seeming to bear reference to some revenge to be thereafter visited upon the head of pott, produced their full effect upon him. the most unskilful observer could have detected in his troubled countenance, a readiness to resign his wellington boots to any efficient substitute who would have consented to stand in them at that moment. mrs. pott read the paragraph, uttered a loud shriek, and threw herself at full length on the hearth-rug, screaming, and tapping it with the heels of her shoes, in a manner which could leave no doubt of the propriety of her feelings on the occasion. "my dear," said the petrified pott,--"i didn't say i believed it;--i--" but the unfortunate man's voice was drowned in the screaming of his partner. "mrs. pott, let me entreat you, my dear ma'am, to compose yourself," said mr. winkle; but the shrieks and tappings were louder and more frequent than ever. "my dear," said mr. pott, "i'm very sorry. if you won't consider your own health, consider me, my dear. we shall have a crowd round the house." but the more strenuously mr. pott entreated, the more vehemently the screams poured forth. very fortunately, however, attached to mrs. pott's person was a body-guard of one, a young lady whose ostensible employment was to preside over her toilet, but who rendered herself useful in a variety of ways, and in none more so than in the particular department of constantly aiding and abetting her mistress in every wish and inclination opposed to the desires of the unhappy pott. the screams reached this young lady's ears in due course, and brought her into the room with a speed which threatened to derange, materially, the very exquisite arrangement of her cap and ringlets. "oh, my dear, dear mistress!" exclaimed the body-guard, kneeling frantically by the side of the prostrate mrs. pott. "oh, my dear mistress, what is the matter?" "your master--your brutal master," murmured the patient. pott was evidently giving way. "it's a shame," said the body-guard, reproachfully. "i know he'll be the death of you, ma'am. poor dear thing!" he gave way more. the opposite party followed up the attack. "oh, don't leave me--don't leave me, goodwin," murmured mrs. pott, clutching at the wrist of the said goodwin with an hysteric jerk. "you're the only person that's kind to me, goodwin." at this affecting appeal, goodwin got up a little domestic tragedy of her own, and shed tears copiously. "never, ma'am--never," said goodwin. "oh, sir, you should be careful--you should indeed; you don't know what harm you may do missis; you'll be sorry for it one day, i know--i've always said so." the unlucky pott looked timidly on, but said nothing. "goodwin," said mrs. pott, in a soft voice. "ma'am," said goodwin. "if you only knew how i have loved that man----" "don't distress yourself by recollecting it, ma'am," said the body-guard. pott looked very frightened. it was time to finish him. "and now," sobbed mrs. pott, "now, after all, to be treated in this way; to be reproached and insulted in the presence of a third party, and that party almost a stranger. but i will not submit to it! goodwin," continued mrs. pott, raising herself in the arms of her attendant, "my brother, the lieutenant, shall interfere. i'll be separated, goodwin!" "it would certainly serve him right, ma'am," said goodwin. whatever thoughts the threat of a separation might have awakened in mr. pott's mind, he forebore to give utterance to them, and contented himself by saying, with great humility: "my dear, will you hear me?" a fresh train of sobs was the only reply, as mrs. pott grew more hysterical, requested to be informed why she was ever born, and required sundry other pieces of information of a similar description. "my dear," remonstrated mr. pott, "do not give way to these sensitive feelings. i never believed that the paragraph had any foundation, my dear--impossible. i was only angry, my dear--i may say outrageous--with the _independent_ people for daring to insert it; that's all:" mr. pott cast an imploring look at the innocent cause of the mischief, as if to entreat him to say nothing about the serpent. "and what steps, sir, do you mean to take to obtain redress?" inquired mr. winkle, gaining courage as he saw pott losing it. "oh, goodwin," observed mrs. pott, "does he mean to horsewhip the editor of the _independent_--does he, goodwin?" "hush, hush, ma'am; pray keep yourself quiet," replied the body-guard. "i dare say he will, if you wish it, ma'am." "certainly," said pott, as his wife evinced decided symptoms of going off again. "of course i shall." "when, goodwin--when?" said mrs. pott, still undecided about the going off. "immediately, of course," said mr. pott; "before the day is out." "oh, goodwin," resumed mrs. pott; "it's the only way of meeting the slander, and setting me right with the world." "certainly, ma'am," replied goodwin. "no man as is a man, ma'am, could refuse to do it." so, as the hysterics were still hovering about, mr. pott said once more that he would do it; but mrs. pott was so overcome at the bare idea of having ever been suspected, that she was half a dozen times on the very verge of a relapse, and most unquestionably would have gone off, had it not been for the indefatigable efforts of the assiduous goodwin, and repeated entreaties for pardon from the conquered pott; and finally, when that unhappy individual had been frightened and snubbed down to his proper level, mrs. pott recovered, and they went to breakfast. "you will not allow this base newspaper slander to shorten your stay here, mr. winkle?" said mrs. pott, smiling through the traces of her tears. "i hope not," said mr. pott, actuated, as he spoke, by a wish that his visitor would choke himself with the morsel of dry toast which he was raising to his lips at the moment: and so terminate his stay effectually. "i hope not." "you are very good," said mr. winkle; "but a letter has been received from mr. pickwick--so i learn by a note from mr. tupman, which was brought up to my bed-room door, this morning--in which he requests us to join him at bury to-day; and we are to leave by the coach at noon." "but you will come back?" said mrs. pott. "oh, certainly," replied mr. winkle. "you are quite sure?" said mrs. pott, stealing a tender look at her visitor. "quite," responded mr. winkle. the breakfast passed off in silence, for each member of the party was brooding over his, or her, own personal grievances. mrs. pott was regretting the loss of a beau; mr. pott his rash pledge to horsewhip the _independent_; mr. winkle his having innocently placed himself in so awkward a situation. noon approached, and after many adieux and promises to return, he tore himself away. "if he ever comes back, i'll poison him," thought mr. pott, as he turned into the little back office where he prepared his thunderbolts. "if ever i do come back, and mix myself up with these people again," thought mr. winkle, as he wended his way to the peacock, "i shall deserve to be horsewhipped myself--that's all." his friends were ready, the coach was nearly so, and in half an hour they were proceeding on their journey, along the road over which mr. pickwick and sam had so recently travelled, and of which, as we have already said something, we do not feel called upon to extract mr. snodgrass's poetical and beautiful description. mr. weller was standing at the door of the angel, ready to receive them, and by that gentleman they were ushered to the apartment of mr. pickwick, where, to the no small surprise of mr. winkle and mr. snodgrass, and the no small embarrassment of mr. tupman, they found old wardle and trundle. "how are you?" said the old man, grasping mr. tupman's hand. "don't hang back, or look sentimental about it; it can't be helped, old fellow. for her sake, i wish you'd had her; for your own, i'm very glad you have not. a young fellow like you will do better one of these days--eh?" with this consolation, wardle slapped mr. tupman on the back, and laughed heartily. "well, and how are you, my fine fellows?" said the old gentleman, shaking hands with mr. winkle and mr. snodgrass at the same time. "i have just been telling pickwick that we must have you all down at christmas. we're going to have a wedding--a real wedding this time." "a wedding!" exclaimed mr. snodgrass, turning very pale. "yes, a wedding. but don't be frightened," said the good-humoured old man; "it's only trundle there, and bella." "oh, is that all!" said mr. snodgrass, relieved from a painful doubt which had fallen heavily on his breast. "give you joy, sir. how is joe?" "very well," replied the old gentleman. "sleepy as ever." "and your mother, and the clergyman, and all of 'em?" "quite well." "where," said mr. tupman, with an effort--"where is--_she_, sir?" and he turned away his head, and covered his eyes with his hand. "_she!_" said the old gentleman, with a knowing shake of the head. "do you mean my single relative--eh?" mr. tupman, by a nod, intimated that his question applied to the disappointed rachael. "oh, she's gone away," said the old gentleman. "she's living at a relation's, far enough off. she couldn't bear to see the girls, so i let her go. but come! here's the dinner. you must be hungry after your ride. _i_ am, without any ride at all; so let us fall to." ample justice was done to the meal; and when they were seated round the table, after it had been disposed of, mr. pickwick, to the intense horror and indignation of his followers, related the adventure he had undergone, and the success which had attended the base artifices of the diabolical jingle. "and the attack of rheumatism which i caught in that garden," said mr. pickwick in conclusion, "renders me lame at this moment." "i, too, have had something of an adventure," said mr. winkle, with a smile; and at the request of mr. pickwick he detailed the malicious libel of the _eatanswill independent_, and the consequent excitement of their friend, the editor. mr. pickwick's brow darkened during the recital. his friends observed it, and, when mr. winkle had concluded, maintained a profound silence. mr. pickwick struck the table emphatically with his clenched fist, and spoke as follows: "is it not a wonderful circumstance," said mr. pickwick, "that we seem destined to enter no man's house without involving him in some degree of trouble? does, it not, i ask, bespeak the indiscretion, or, worse than that, the blackness of heart--that i should say so!--of my followers, that, beneath whatever roof they locate, they disturb the peace of mind and happiness of some confiding female? is it not, i say----" mr. pickwick would in all probability have gone on for some time, had not the entrance of sam, with a letter, caused him to break off in his eloquent discourse. he passed the handkerchief across his forehead, took off his spectacles, wiped them, and put them on again; and his voice had recovered its wonted softness of tone when he said: "what have you there, sam?" "called at the post-office just now, and found this here letter, as has laid there for two days," replied mr. weller. "it's sealed with a vafer, and directed in round hand." "i don't know this hand," said mr. pickwick, opening the letter. "mercy on us! what's this? it must be a jest; it--it--can't be true." "what's the matter?" was the general inquiry. "nobody dead, is there?" said wardle, alarmed at the horror in mr. pickwick's countenance. mr. pickwick made no reply, but, pushing the letter across the table, and desiring mr. tupman to read it aloud, fell back in his chair with a look of vacant astonishment quite alarming to behold. mr. tupman, with a trembling voice, read the letter, of which the following is a copy:-- _freeman's court, cornhill, august th, ._ _bardell against pickwick._ _sir_, _having been instructed by mrs. martha bardell to commence an action against you for a breach of promise of marriage, for which the plaintiff lays her damages at fifteen hundred pounds, we beg to inform you that a writ has been issued against you in this suit in the court of common pleas; and request to know, by return of post, the name of your attorney in london, who will accept service thereof._ _we are, sir, your obedient servants, dodson and fogg._ _mr. samuel pickwick._ there was something so impressive in the mute astonishment with which each man regarded his neighbour, and every man regarded mr. pickwick, that all seemed afraid to speak. the silence was at length broken by mr. tupman. "dodson and fogg," he repeated, mechanically. "bardell and pickwick," said mr. snodgrass, musing. "peace of mind and happiness of confiding females," murmured mr. winkle, with an air of abstraction. "it's a conspiracy," said mr. pickwick, at length recovering the power of speech; "a base conspiracy between these two grasping attorneys, dodson and fogg. mrs. bardell would never do it;--she hasn't the heart to do it;--she hasn't the case to do it. ridiculous--ridiculous." "of her heart," said wardle, with a smile, "you should certainly be the best judge. i don't wish to discourage you, but i should certainly say that, of her case, dodson and fogg are far better judges than any of us can be." "it's a vile attempt to extort money," said mr. pickwick. "i hope it is," said wardle, with a short, dry cough. "who ever heard me address her in any way but that in which a lodger would address his landlady?" continued mr. pickwick, with great vehemence. "who ever saw me with her? not even my friends here----" "except on one occasion," said mr. tupman. mr. pickwick changed colour. "ah," said mr. wardle. "well, that's important. there was nothing suspicious then, i suppose?" mr. tupman glanced timidly at his leader. "why," said he, "there was nothing suspicious; but--i don't know how it happened, mind--she certainly was reclining in his arms." "gracious powers!" ejaculated mr. pickwick, as the recollection of the scene in question struck forcibly upon him; "what a dreadful instance of the force of circumstances! so she was--so she was." "and our friend was soothing her anguish," said mr. winkle, rather maliciously. "so i was," said mr. pickwick. "i won't deny it. so i was." "hallo!" said wardle; "for a case in which there's nothing suspicious, this looks rather queer--eh, pickwick? ah, sly dog--sly dog!" and he laughed till the glasses on the sideboard rang again. "what a dreadful conjunction of appearances!" exclaimed mr. pickwick, resting his chin upon his hands. "winkle--tupman--i beg your pardon for the observations i made just now. we are all the victims of circumstances, and i the greatest." with this apology mr. pickwick buried his head in his hands, and ruminated; while wardle measured out a regular circle of nods and winks, addressed to the other members of the company. "i'll have it explained, though," said mr. pickwick, raising his head and hammering the table. "i'll see this dodson and fogg! i'll go to london to-morrow." "not to-morrow," said wardle; "you're too lame." "well, then, next day." "next day is the first of september, and you're pledged to ride out with us, as far as sir geoffrey manning's grounds, at all events, and to meet us at lunch, if you don't take the field." "well, then, the day after," said mr. pickwick; "thursday--sam!" "sir?" replied mr. weller. "take two places outside to london, on thursday morning, for yourself and me." "wery well, sir." mr. weller left the room, and departed slowly on his errand, with his hands in his pocket, and his eyes fixed on the ground. "rum feller, the hemperor," said mr. weller, as he walked slowly up the street. "think o' his making up to that 'ere mrs. bardell--vith a little boy, too! always the vay with these here old 'uns hows'ever, as is such steady goers to look at. i didn't think he'd ha' done it, though--i didn't think he'd ha' done it!" moralising in this strain, mr. samuel weller bent his steps towards the booking-office. chapter xix [illustration] _a pleasant day, with an unpleasant termination_ the birds, who, happily for their own peace of mind and personal comfort, were in blissful ignorance of the preparations which had been making to astonish them, on the first of september, hailed it, no doubt, as one of the pleasantest mornings they had seen that season. many a young partridge who strutted complacently among the stubble, with all the finicking coxcombry of youth, and many an older one who watched his levity out of his little round eye, with the contemptuous air of a bird of wisdom and experience, alike unconscious of their approaching doom, basked in the fresh morning air with lively and blithesome feelings, and a few hours afterwards were laid low upon the earth. but we grow affecting; let us proceed. in plain commonplace matter-of-fact, then, it was a fine morning--so fine that you would scarcely have believed that the few months of an english summer had yet flown by. hedges, fields, and trees, hill and moorland, presented to the eye their ever-varying shades of deep rich green; scarce a leaf had fallen, scarce a sprinkle of yellow mingled with the hues of summer, warned you that autumn had begun. the sky was cloudless; the sun shone out bright and warm; the songs of birds, and hum of myriads of summer insects, filled the air; and the cottage gardens, crowded with flowers of every rich and beautiful tint, sparkled in the heavy dew, like beds of glittering jewels. everything bore the stamp of summer, and none of its beautiful colours had yet faded from the dye. such was the morning, when an open carriage, in which were three pickwickians (mr. snodgrass having preferred to remain at home), mr. wardle, and mr. trundle, with sam weller on the box beside the driver, pulled up by a gate at the roadside, before which stood a tall, raw-boned gamekeeper, and a half-booted, leather-legginged boy: each bearing a bag of capacious dimensions, and accompanied by a brace of pointers. "i say," whispered mr. winkle to wardle, as the man let down the steps, "they don't suppose we're going to kill game enough to fill those bags, do they?" "fill them!" exclaimed old wardle. "bless you, yes! you shall fill one, and i the other; and when we've done with them, the pockets of our shooting-jackets will hold as much more." mr. winkle dismounted without saying anything in reply to this observation; but he thought within himself, that if the party remained in the open air, until he had filled one of the bags, they stood a considerable chance of catching colds in their heads. "hi, juno, lass--hi, old girl; down, daph, down," said wardle, caressing the dogs. "sir geoffrey still in scotland, of course, martin?" the tall gamekeeper replied in the affirmative, and looked with some surprise from mr. winkle, who was holding his gun as if he wished his coat pocket to save him the trouble of pulling the trigger, to mr. tupman, who was holding his as if he were afraid of it--as there is no earthly reason to doubt he really was. "my friends are not much in the way of this sort of thing yet, martin," said wardle, noticing the look. "live and learn, you know. they'll be good shots one of these days. i beg my friend winkle's pardon, though; he has had some practice." mr. winkle smiled feebly over his blue neckerchief in acknowledgment of the compliment, and got himself so mysteriously entangled with his gun, in his modest confusion, that if the piece had been loaded, he must inevitably have shot himself dead upon the spot. "you mustn't handle your piece in that 'ere way, when you come to have the charge in it, sir," said the tall gamekeeper, gruffly, "or i'm damned if you won't make cold meat of some of us." mr. winkle, thus admonished, abruptly altered its position, and in so doing, contrived to bring the barrel into pretty sharp contact with mr. weller's head. "hallo!" said sam, picking up his hat, which had been knocked off, and rubbing his temple. "hallo, sir! if you comes it this vay, you'll fill one o' them bags, and something to spare, at one fire." here the leather-legginged boy laughed very heartily, and then tried to look as if it was somebody else, whereat mr. winkle frowned majestically. "where did you tell the boy to meet us with the snack, martin?" inquired wardle. "side of one-tree hill, at twelve o'clock, sir." "that's not sir geoffrey's land, is it?" "no, sir; but it's close by it. it's captain boldwig's land; but there'll be nobody to interrupt us, and there's a fine bit of turf there." "very well," said old wardle. "now the sooner we're off the better. will you join us at twelve, then, pickwick?" mr. pickwick was particularly desirous to view the sport, the more especially as he was rather anxious in respect of mr. winkle's life and limbs. on so inviting a morning, too, it was very tantalising to turn back, and leave his friends to enjoy themselves. it was, therefore, with a very rueful air that he replied-- "why, i suppose i must." "an't the gentleman a shot, sir?" inquired the long gamekeeper. "no," replied wardle; "and he's lame besides." "i should very much like to go," said mr. pickwick, "very much." there was a short pause of commiseration. "there's a barrow t'other side the hedge," said the boy. "if the gentleman's servant would wheel along the paths, he could keep nigh us, and we could lift it over the stiles, and that." "the wery thing," said mr. weller, who was a party interested, inasmuch as he ardently longed to see the sport. "the wery thing. well said, smallcheck; i'll have it out in a minute." but here a difficulty arose. the long gamekeeper resolutely protested against the introduction into a shooting party, of a gentleman in a barrow, as a gross violation of all established rules and precedents. it was a great objection, but not an insurmountable one. the gamekeeper having been coaxed and fee'd, and having, moreover, eased his mind by "punching" the head of the inventive youth who had first suggested the use of the machine, mr. pickwick was placed in it, and off the party set; wardle and the long gamekeeper leading the way, and mr. pickwick in the barrow, propelled by sam, bringing up the rear. "stop, sam," said mr. pickwick, when they had got half across the first field. "what's the matter now?" said wardle. "i won't suffer this barrow to be moved another step," said mr. pickwick, resolutely, "unless winkle carries that gun of his in a different manner." "how _am_ i to carry it?" said the wretched winkle. "carry it with the muzzle to the ground," replied mr. pickwick. "it's so unsportsman-like," reasoned winkle. "i don't care whether it's unsportsman-like or not," replied mr. pickwick; "i am not going to be shot in a wheelbarrow, for the sake of appearances, to please anybody." "i know the gentleman 'll put that 'ere charge into somebody afore he's done," growled the long man. "well, well--i don't mind," said poor winkle, turning his gun-stock uppermost;--"there." "anythin' for a quiet life," said mr. weller; and on they went again. "stop!" said mr. pickwick, after they had gone a few yards further. "what now?" said wardle. "that gun of tupman's is not safe: i know it isn't," said mr. pickwick. [illustration: "_i won't suffer this barrow to be moved another step unless winkle carries that gun of his in a different manner._"] "eh? what! not safe?" said mr. tupman, in a tone of great alarm. "not as you are carrying it," said mr. pickwick. "i am very sorry to make any further objection, but i cannot consent to go on, unless you carry it as winkle does his." "i think you had better, sir," said the long gamekeeper, "or you're quite as likely to lodge the charge in yourself as in anything else." mr. tupman, with the most obliging haste, placed his piece in the position required, and the party moved on again; the two amateurs marching with reversed arms, like a couple of privates at a royal funeral. the dogs suddenly came to a dead stop, and the party advancing stealthily a single pace, stopped too. "what's the matter with the dogs' legs?" whispered mr. winkle. "how queer they're standing." "hush, can't you?" replied wardle, softly. "don't you see, they're making a point?" "making a point!" said mr. winkle, staring about him, as if he expected to discover some particular beauty in the landscape, which the sagacious animals were calling special attention to. "making a point! what are they pointing at?" "keep your eyes open," said wardle, not heeding the question in the excitement of the moment. "now then." there was a sharp whirring noise, that made mr. winkle start back as if he had been shot himself. bang, bang, went a couple of guns;--the smoke swept quickly away over the field, and curled into the air. "where are they?" said mr. winkle, in a state of the highest excitement, turning round and round in all directions. "where are they? tell me when to fire. where are they--where are they?" "where are they?" said wardle, taking up a brace of birds which the dogs had deposited at his feet. "why, here they are." "no, no; i mean the others," said the bewildered winkle. "far enough off, by this time," replied wardle, coolly re-loading his gun. "we shall very likely be up with another covey in five minutes," said the long gamekeeper. "if the gentleman begins to fire now, perhaps he'll just get the shot out of the barrel by the time they rise." "ha! ha! ha!" roared mr. weller. "sam," said mr. pickwick, compassionating his follower's confusion and embarrassment. "sir?" "don't laugh." "certainly not, sir." so, by way of indemnification, mr. weller contorted his features from behind the wheelbarrow, for the exclusive amusement of the boy with the leggings, who thereupon burst into a boisterous laugh, and was summarily cuffed by the long gamekeeper, who wanted a pretext for turning round, to hide his own merriment. "bravo, old fellow!" said wardle to mr. tupman; "you fired that time, at all events." "oh yes," replied mr. tupman, with conscious pride. "i let it off." "well done. you'll hit something next time, if you look sharp. very easy, an't it?" "yes, it's very easy," said mr. tupman. "how it hurts one's shoulder, though. it nearly knocked me backwards. i had no idea that these small fire-arms kicked so." "ah," said the old gentleman, smiling; "you'll get used to it in time. now then--all ready--all right with the barrow there?" "all right, sir," replied mr. weller. "come along then." "hold hard, sir," said sam, raising the barrow. "ay, ay," replied mr. pickwick; and on they went, as briskly as need be. "keep that barrow back now," cried wardle when it had been hoisted over a stile into another field, and mr. pickwick had been deposited in it once more. "all right, sir," replied mr. weller, pausing. "now, winkle," said the old gentleman, "follow me softly, and don't be too late this time." "never fear," said mr. winkle. "are they pointing?" "no, no; not now. quietly now, quietly." on they crept, and very quietly they would have advanced, if mr. winkle, in the performance of some very intricate evolutions with his gun, had not accidentally fired, at the most critical moment, over the boy's head, exactly in the very spot where the tall man's brain would have been, had he been there instead. "why, what on earth did you do that for?" said old wardle, as the birds flew unharmed away. "i never saw such a gun in my life," replied poor mr. winkle, looking at the lock, as if that would do any good. "it goes off of its own accord. it _will_ do it." "will do it!" echoed wardle, with something of irritation in his manner. "i wish it would kill something of its own accord." "it'll do that afore long, sir," observed the tall man, in a low, prophetic voice. "what do you mean by that observation, sir?" inquired mr. winkle, angrily. "never mind, sir, never mind," replied the long gamekeeper; "i've no family myself, sir; and this here boy's mother will get something handsome from sir geoffrey, if he's killed on his land. load again, sir, load again." "take away his gun," cried mr. pickwick from the barrow, horror-stricken at the long man's dark insinuations. "take away his gun, do you hear, somebody?" nobody, however, volunteered to obey the command; and mr. winkle, after darting a rebellious glance at mr. pickwick, reloaded his gun, and proceeded onwards with the rest. we are bound, on the authority of mr. pickwick, to state that mr. tupman's mode of proceeding evinced far more of prudence and deliberation, than that adopted by mr. winkle. still, this by no means detracts from the great authority of the latter gentleman, on all matters connected with the field; because, as mr. pickwick beautifully observes, it has somehow or other happened, from time immemorial, that many of the best and ablest philosophers, who have been perfect lights of science in matters of theory, have been wholly unable to reduce them to practice. mr. tupman's process, like many of our most sublime discoveries, was extremely simple. with the quickness and penetration of a man of genius, he had once observed that the two great points to be obtained were--first, to discharge his piece without injury to himself, and, secondly, to do so without danger to the by-standers;--obviously, the best thing to do, after surmounting the difficulty of firing at all, was to shut his eyes firmly, and fire into the air. on one occasion, after performing this feat, mr. tupman, on opening his eyes, beheld a plump partridge in the act of falling wounded to the ground. he was on the point of congratulating mr. wardle on his invariable success, when that gentleman advanced towards him, and grasped him warmly by the hand. "tupman," said the old gentleman, "you singled out that particular bird?" "no," said mr. tupman--"no." "you did," said wardle. "i saw you do it--i observed you pick him out--i noticed you, as you raised your piece to take aim; and i will say this, that the best shot in existence could not have done it more beautifully. you are an older hand at this, than i thought you, tupman; you have been out before." it was in vain for mr. tupman to protest, with a smile of self-denial, that he never had. the very smile was taken as evidence to the contrary; and from that time forth, his reputation was established. it is not the only reputation that has been acquired as easily, nor are such fortunate circumstances confined to partridge-shooting. meanwhile, mr. winkle flashed, and blazed, and smoked away, without producing any material results worthy of being noted down; sometimes expending his charge in mid-air, and at others sending it skimming along so near the surface of the ground as to place the lives of the two dogs on a rather uncertain and precarious tenure. as a display of fancy shooting, it was extremely varied and curious; as an exhibition of firing with any precise object, it was, upon the whole, perhaps a failure. it is an established axiom, that "every bullet has its billet." if it apply in an equal degree to shot, those of mr. winkle were unfortunate foundlings, deprived of their natural rights, cast loose upon the world, and billeted nowhere. "well," said wardle, walking up to the side of the barrow, and wiping the streams of perspiration from his jolly red face; "smoking day, isn't it?" "it is, indeed," replied mr. pickwick. "the sun is tremendously hot, even to me. i don't know how you must feel it." "why," said the old gentleman, "pretty hot. it's past twelve, though. you see that green hill there?" "certainly." "that's the place where we are to lunch; and, by jove, there's the boy with the basket, punctual as clockwork!" "so he is," said mr. pickwick, brightening up. "good boy, that. i'll give him a shilling presently. now, then, sam, wheel away." "hold on, sir," said mr. weller, invigorated with the prospect of refreshments. "out of the way, young leathers. if you walley my precious life don't upset me, as the gen'l'm'n said to the driver when they was a carryin' him to tyburn." and quickening his pace to a sharp run, mr. weller wheeled his master nimbly to the green hill, shot him dexterously out by the very side of the basket, and proceeded to unpack it with the utmost despatch. "weal pie," said mr. weller, soliloquising, as he arranged the eatables on the grass. "wery good thing is weal pie, when you know the lady as made it, and is quite sure it an't kittens; and arter all though, where's the odds, when they're so like weal that the wery piemen themselves don't know the difference?" "don't they, sam?" said mr. pickwick. "not they, sir," replied mr. weller, touching his hat. "i lodged in the same house vith a pieman once, sir, and a wery nice man he was--reg'lar clever chap, too--make pies out o' anything, he could. 'what a number o' cats you keep, mr. brooks,' says i, when i'd got intimate with him. 'ah,' says he, 'i do--a good many,' says he. 'you must be wery fond o' cats,' says i. 'other people is,' says he, a vinkin' at me; 'they an't in season till the winter though,' says he. 'not in season!' says i. 'no,' says he, 'fruits is in, cats is out.' 'why, what do you mean?' says i. 'mean?' says he. 'that i'll never be a party to the combination o' the butchers, to keep up the prices o' meat,' says he. 'mr. weller,' says he, a squeezing my hand wery hard, and vispering in my ear--'don't mention this here agin--but it's the seasonin' as does it. they're all made o' them noble animals,' says he, a pointin' to a wery nice little tabby kitten, 'and i seasons 'em for beef-steak, weal, or kidney, 'cordin' to the demand. and more than that,' says he, 'i can make a weal a beef-steak, or a beef-steak a kidney, or any one on 'em a mutton, at a minute's notice, just as the market changes, and appetites wary!'" "he must have been a very ingenious young man, that, sam," said mr. pickwick, with a slight shudder. "just was, sir," replied mr. weller, continuing his occupation of emptying the basket, "and the pies was beautiful. tongue; well that's a wery good thing when it an't a woman's. bread--knuckle o' ham, reg'lar picter--cold beef in slices, wery good. what's in them stone jars, young touch-and-go?" "beer in this one," replied the boy, taking from his shoulder a couple of large stone bottles, fastened together by a leathern strap--"cold punch in t'other." "and a wery good notion of a lunch it is, take it altogether," said mr. weller, surveying his arrangement of the repast with great satisfaction. "now, gen'l'm'n, 'fall on,' as the english said to the french when they fixed bagginets." it needed no second invitation to induce the party to yield full justice to the meal; and as little pressing did it require to induce mr. weller, the long gamekeeper, and the two boys to station themselves on the grass at a little distance, and do good execution upon a decent proportion of the viands. an old oak afforded a pleasant shelter to the group, and a rich prospect of arable and meadow land, intersected with luxuriant hedges, and richly ornamented with wood, lay spread out below them. "this is delightful--thoroughly delightful!" said mr. pickwick, the skin of whose expressive countenance was rapidly peeling off, with exposure to the sun. "so it is: so it is, old fellow," replied wardle. "come; a glass of punch?" "with great pleasure," said mr. pickwick; the satisfaction of whose countenance, after drinking it, bore testimony to the sincerity of the reply. "good," said mr. pickwick, smacking his lips. "very good. i'll take another. cool; very cool. come, gentlemen," continued mr. pickwick, still retaining his hold upon the jar, "a toast. our friends at dingley dell." the toast was drunk with loud acclamations. "i'll tell you what i shall do, to get up my shooting again," said mr. winkle, who was eating bread and ham with a pocket-knife. "i'll put a stuffed partridge on the top of a post, and practise at it, beginning at a short distance, and lengthening it by degrees. i understand it's capital practice." "i know a gen'l'man, sir," said mr. weller, "as did that, and begun at two yards; but he never tried it on agin; for he blowed the bird right clean away at the first fire, and nobody ever seed a feather on him arterwards." "sam," said mr. pickwick. "sir?" replied mr. weller. "have the goodness to reserve your anecdotes till they are called for." "cert'nly, sir." here mr. weller winked the eye which was not concealed by the beer-can he was raising to his lips with such exquisiteness, that the two boys went into spontaneous convulsions, and even the long man condescended to smile. "well, that certainly is most capital cold punch," said mr. pickwick, looking earnestly at the stone bottle; "and the day is extremely warm, and--tupman, my dear friend, a glass of punch?" "with the greatest delight," replied mr. tupman; and having drank that glass, mr. pickwick took another, just to see whether there was any orange peel in the punch, because orange peel always disagreed with him; and finding that there was not, mr. pickwick took another glass to the health of their absent friend, and then felt himself imperatively called upon to propose another in honour of the punch-compounder, unknown. this constant succession of glasses produced considerable effect upon mr. pickwick; his countenance beamed with the most sunny smiles, laughter played around his lips, and good-humoured merriment twinkled in his eye. yielding by degrees to the influence of the exciting liquid, rendered more so by the heat, mr. pickwick expressed a strong desire to recollect a song which he had heard in his infancy, and the attempt proving abortive, sought to stimulate his memory with more glasses of punch, which appeared to have quite a contrary effect; for, from forgetting the words of the song, he began to forget how to articulate any words at all; and finally, after rising to his legs to address the company in an eloquent speech, he fell into the barrow, and fast asleep, simultaneously. the basket having been repacked, and it being found perfectly impossible to awaken mr. pickwick from his torpor, some discussion took place whether it would be better for mr. weller to wheel his master back again, or to leave him where he was until they should all be ready to return. the latter course was at length decided on; and as the further expedition was not to exceed an hour's duration, and as mr. weller begged very hard to be one of the party, it was determined to leave mr. pickwick asleep in the barrow, and to call for him on their return. so away they went, leaving mr. pickwick snoring most comfortably in the shade. that mr. pickwick would have continued to snore in the shade until his friends came back, or, in default thereof, until the shades of evening had fallen on the landscape, there appears no reasonable cause to doubt; always supposing that he had been suffered to remain there in peace. but he was not suffered to remain there in peace. and this was what prevented him. captain boldwig was a little fierce man in a stiff black neckerchief and blue surtout, who, when he did condescend to walk about his property, did it in company with a thick rattan stick with a brass ferule, and a gardener and sub-gardener, with meek faces, to whom (the gardeners, not the stick) captain boldwig gave his orders with all due grandeur and ferocity; for captain boldwig's wife's sister had married a marquis, and the captain's house was a villa, and his land "grounds," and it was all very high, and mighty, and great. mr. pickwick had not been asleep half an hour when little boldwig, followed by the two gardeners, came striding along as fast as his size and importance would let him; and when he came near the oak tree, captain boldwig paused, and drew a long breath, and looked at the prospect as if he thought the prospect ought to be highly gratified at having him to take notice of it; and then he struck the ground emphatically with his stick, and summoned the head-gardener. "hunt," said captain boldwig. "yes, sir," said the gardener. "roll this place to-morrow morning--do you hear, hunt?" "yes, sir." "and take care that you keep me this place in good order--do you hear, hunt?" "yes, sir." "and remind me to have a board done about trespassers, and spring guns, and all that sort of thing, to keep the common people out. do you hear, hunt; do you hear?" "i'll not forget it, sir." "i beg your pardon, sir," said the other man, advancing with his hand to his hat. "well, wilkins, what's the matter with _you_?" said captain boldwig. "i beg your pardon, sir--but i think there have been trespassers here to-day." "ha!" said the captain, scowling around him. "yes, sir--they have been dining here, i think, sir." "why, confound their audacity, so they have," said captain boldwig, as the crumbs and fragments that were strewn upon the grass met his eye. "they have actually been devouring their food here. i wish i had the vagabonds here!" said the captain, clenching the thick stick. "i wish i had the vagabonds here," said the captain, wrathfully. "beg your pardon, sir," said wilkins, "but----" "but what? eh?" roared the captain; and following the timid glance of wilkins, his eyes encountered the wheelbarrow and mr. pickwick. [illustration: "_who are you, you rascal?_"] "who are you, you rascal?" said the captain, administering several pokes to mr. pickwick's body with the thick stick. "what's your name?" "cold punch," murmured mr. pickwick, as he sunk to sleep again. "what?" demanded captain boldwig. no reply. "what did he say his name was?" asked the captain. "punch, i think, sir," replied wilkins. "that's his impudence, that's his confounded impudence," said captain boldwig. "he's only feigning to be asleep now," said the captain, in a high passion. "he's drunk; he's a drunken plebeian. wheel him away, wilkins, wheel him away directly." "where shall i wheel him to, sir?" inquired wilkins, with great timidity. "wheel him to the devil," replied captain boldwig. "very well, sir," said wilkins. "stay," said the captain. wilkins stopped accordingly. "wheel him," said the captain, "wheel him to the pound; and let us see whether he calls himself punch when he comes to himself. he shall not bully me, he shall not bully me. wheel him away." away mr. pickwick was wheeled in compliance with this imperious mandate; and the great captain boldwig, swelling with indignation, proceeded on his walk. inexpressible was the astonishment of the little party when they returned, to find that mr. pickwick had disappeared, and taken the wheelbarrow with him. it was the most mysterious and unaccountable thing that was ever heard of. for a lame man to have got upon his legs without any previous notice, and walked off, would have been most extraordinary; but when it came to his wheeling a heavy barrow before him, by way of amusement, it grew positively miraculous. they searched every nook and corner round, together and separately; they shouted, whistled, laughed, called--and all with the same result. mr. pickwick was not to be found. after some hours of fruitless search, they arrived at the unwelcome conclusion that they must go home without him. meanwhile mr. pickwick had been wheeled to the pound, and safely deposited therein, fast asleep in the wheelbarrow, to the immeasurable delight and satisfaction, not only of all the boys in the village, but three-fourths of the whole population, who had gathered round, in expectation of his waking. if their most intense gratification had been excited by seeing him wheeled in, how many hundredfold was their joy increased when, after a few indistinct cries of "sam!" he sat up in the barrow, and gazed with indescribable astonishment on the faces before him. a general shout was of course the signal of his having woke up; and his involuntary inquiry of "what's the matter?" occasioned another, louder than the first, if possible. "here's a game!" roared the populace. "where am i?" exclaimed mr. pickwick. "in the pound," replied the mob. "how came i here? what was i doing? where was i brought from?" "boldwig! captain boldwig!" was the only reply. "let me out!" cried mr. pickwick. "where's my servant? where are my friends?" "you an't got no friends. hurrah!" then there came a turnip, then a potato, and then an egg; with a few other little tokens of the playful disposition of the many-headed. how long this scene might have lasted, or how much mr. pickwick might have suffered, no one can tell, had not a carriage, which was driving swiftly by, suddenly pulled up, from whence there descended old wardle and sam weller, the former of whom, in far less time than it takes to write it, if not to read it, had made his way to mr. pickwick's side, and placed him in the vehicle, just as the latter had concluded the third and last round of a single combat with the town-beadle. "run to the justice's!" cried a dozen voices. "ah, run avay," said mr. weller, jumping upon the box. "give my compliments--mr. veller's compliments--to the justice, and tell him i've spiled his beadle, and that, if he'll swear in a new 'un, i'll come back agin to-morrow and spile him. drive on, old feller." "i'll give directions for the commencement of an action for false imprisonment against this captain boldwig, directly i get to london," said mr. pickwick, as soon as the carriage turned out of the town. "we were trespassing, it seems," said wardle. "i don't care," said mr. pickwick, "i'll bring the action." "no, you won't," said wardle. "i will, by--" but as there was a humorous expression in wardle's face, mr. pickwick checked himself, and said: "why not?" "because," said old wardle, half-bursting with laughter, "because they might turn round on some of us, and say we had taken too much cold punch." do what he would, a smile would come into mr. pickwick's face; the smile extended into a laugh; the laugh into a roar; the roar became general. so to keep up their good humour, they stopped at the first roadside tavern they came to, and ordered a glass of brandy and water all round, with a magnum of extra strength for mr. samuel weller. chapter xx [illustration] _showing how dodson and fogg were men of business, and their clerks men of pleasure; and how an affecting interview took place between mr. weller and his long-lost parent; showing also what choice spirits assembled at the magpie and stump, and what a capital chapter the next one will be_ in the ground-floor front of a dingy house, at the very farthest end of freeman's court, cornhill, sat the four clerks of messrs. dodson and fogg, two of his majesty's attorneys of the courts of king's bench and common pleas at westminster, and solicitors of the high court of chancery; the aforesaid clerks catching as favourable glimpses of heaven's light and heaven's sun, in the course of their daily labours, as a man might hope to do, were he placed at the bottom of a reasonably deep well; and without the opportunity of perceiving the stars in the day-time, which the latter secluded situation affords. the clerks' office of messrs. dodson and fogg was a dark, mouldy, earthy-smelling room, with a high wainscoted partition to screen the clerks from the vulgar gaze: a couple of old wooden chairs: a very loud-ticking clock: an almanack, an umbrella-stand, a row of hat-pegs, and a few shelves, on which were deposited several ticketed bundles of dirty papers, some old deal boxes with paper labels, and sundry decayed stone ink bottles of various shapes and sizes. there was a glass door leading into the passage which formed the entrance to the court, and on the outer side of this glass door, mr. pickwick, closely followed by sam weller, presented himself on the friday morning succeeding the occurrence, of which a faithful narration is given in the last chapter. "come in, can't you!" cried a voice from behind the partition, in reply to mr. pickwick's gentle tap at the door. and mr. pickwick and sam entered accordingly. "mr. dodson or mr. fogg at home, sir?" inquired mr. pickwick, gently, advancing, hat in hand, towards the partition. "mr. dodson ain't at home, and mr. fogg's particularly engaged," replied the voice; and at the same time the head to which the voice belonged, with a pen behind its ear, looked over the partition, and at mr. pickwick. it was a ragged head, the sandy hair of which, scrupulously parted on one side, and flattened down with pomatum, was twisted into little semi-circular tails round a flat face ornamented with a pair of small eyes, and garnished with a very dirty shirt collar and a rusty black stock. "mr. dodson ain't at home, and mr. fogg's particularly engaged," said the man to whom the head belonged. "when will mr. dodson be back, sir?" inquired mr. pickwick. "can't say." "will it be long before mr. fogg is disengaged, sir?" "don't know." here the man proceeded to mend his pen with great deliberation, while another clerk, who was mixing a seidlitz powder, under cover of the lid of his desk, laughed approvingly. "i think i'll wait," said mr. pickwick. there was no reply; so mr. pickwick sat down unbidden, and listened to the loud ticking of the clock and the murmured conversation of the clerks. "that was a game, wasn't it?" said one of the gentlemen in a brown coat and brass buttons, inky drabs, and bluchers, at the conclusion of some inaudible relation of his previous evening's adventures. "devilish good--devilish good," said the seidlitz-powder man. "tom cummins was in the chair," said the man with the brown coat. "it was half-past four when i got to somers town, and then i was so uncommon lushy, that i couldn't find the place where the latch-key went in, and was obliged to knock up the old 'ooman. i say, i wonder what old fogg 'ud say, if he knew it. i should get the sack, i s'pose--eh?" at this humorous notion, all the clerks laughed in concert. "there was such a game with fogg here, this mornin'," said the man in the brown coat, "while jack was up-stairs sorting the papers, and you two were gone to the stamp-office. fogg was down here, opening the letters, when that chap as we issued the writ against at camberwell, you know, came in--what's his name again?" "ramsey," said the clerk who had spoken to mr. pickwick. "ah, ramsey--a precious seedy-looking customer. 'well, sir,' says old fogg, looking at him very fierce--you know his way--'well, sir, have you come to settle?' 'yes, i have, sir,' said ramsey, putting his hand in his pocket, and bringing out the money, 'the debt's two pound ten, and the costs three pound five, and here it is, sir;' and he sighed like bricks, as he lugged out the money, done up in a bit of blotting-paper. old fogg looked first at the money, and then at him, and then he coughed in his rum way, so that i knew something was coming. 'you don't know there's a declaration filed, which increases the costs materially, i suppose?' said fogg. 'you don't say that, sir,' said ramsey, starting back; 'the time was only out last night, sir.' 'i do say it, though,' said fogg, 'my clerk's just gone to file it. hasn't mr. jackson gone to file that declaration in bullman and ramsey, mr. wicks?' of course i said yes, and then fogg coughed again, and looked at ramsey. 'my god!' said ramsey; 'and here have i nearly driven myself mad, scraping this money together, and all to no purpose.' 'none at all,' said fogg, coolly; 'so you had better go back and scrape some more together, and bring it here in time.' 'i can't get it, by god!' said ramsey, striking the desk with his fist. 'don't bully me, sir,' said fogg, getting into a passion on purpose. 'i am not bullying you, sir,' said ramsey. 'you are,' said fogg; 'get out, sir; get out of this office, sir, and come back, sir, when you know how to behave yourself.' well, ramsey tried to speak, but fogg wouldn't let him, so he put the money in his pocket, and sneaked out. the door was scarcely shut, when old fogg turned round to me, with a sweet smile on his face, and drew the declaration out of his coat pocket. 'here, wicks,' says fogg, 'take a cab, and go down to the temple as quick as you can, and file that. the costs are quite safe, for he's a steady man with a large family, at a salary of five-and-twenty shillings a week, and if he gives us a warrant of attorney, as he must in the end, i know his employers will see it paid; so we may as well get all we can out of him, mr. wicks; it's a christian act to do it, mr. wicks, for with his large family and small income, he'll be all the better for a good lesson against getting into debt,--won't he, mr. wicks, won't he?'--and he smiled so good-naturedly as he went away, that it was delightful to see him. he is a capital man of business," said wicks, in a tone of the deepest admiration, "capital, isn't he?" the other three cordially subscribed to this opinion, and the anecdote afforded the most unlimited satisfaction. "nice men these here, sir," whispered mr. weller to his master; "wery nice notion of fun they has, sir." mr. pickwick nodded assent, and coughed to attract the attention of the young gentlemen behind the partition, who, having now relaxed their minds by a little conversation among themselves, condescended to take some notice of the stranger. "i wonder whether fogg's disengaged now?" said jackson. "i'll see," said wicks, dismounting leisurely from his stool. "what name shall i tell mr. fogg?" "pickwick," replied the illustrious subject of these memoirs. mr. jackson departed up-stairs on his errand, and immediately returned with a message that mr. fogg would see mr. pickwick in five minutes; and having delivered it, returned again to his desk. "what did he say his name was?" whispered wicks. "pickwick," replied jackson; "it's the defendant in bardell and pickwick." a sudden scraping of feet, mingled with the sound of suppressed laughter, was heard from behind the partition. "they're a twiggin' of you, sir," whispered mr. weller. "twigging of me, sam!" replied mr. pickwick; "what do you mean by twigging me?" mr. weller replied by pointing with his thumb over his shoulder, and mr. pickwick, on looking up, became sensible of the pleasing fact, that all the four clerks, with countenances expressive of the utmost amusement, and with their heads thrust over the wooden screen, were minutely inspecting the figure and general appearance of the supposed trifler with female hearts, and disturber of female happiness. on his looking up, the row of heads suddenly disappeared, and the sound of pens travelling at a furious rate over paper, immediately succeeded. a sudden ring at the bell which hung in the office, summoned mr. jackson to the apartment of fogg, from whence he came back to say that he (fogg) was ready to see mr. pickwick if he would step up-stairs. up-stairs mr. pickwick did step accordingly, leaving sam weller below. the room door of the one-pair back, bore inscribed in legible characters the imposing words "mr. fogg;" and, having tapped thereat, and been desired to come in, jackson ushered mr. pickwick into the presence. "is mr. dodson in?" inquired mr. fogg. "just come in, sir," replied jackson. "ask him to step here." "yes, sir." exit jackson. "take a seat, sir," said fogg; "there is the paper, sir; my partner will be here directly, and we can converse about this matter, sir." mr. pickwick took a seat and the paper, but, instead of reading the latter, peeped over the top of it, and took a survey of the man of business, who was an elderly, pimply-faced, vegetable-diet sort of man, in a black coat, dark mixture trousers, and small black gaiters: a kind of being who seemed to be an essential part of the desk at which he was writing, and to have as much thought or sentiment. after a few minutes' silence, mr. dodson, a plump, portly, stern-looking man, with a loud voice, appeared; and the conversation commenced. "this is mr. pickwick," said fogg. "ah! you are the defendant, sir, in bardell and pickwick?" said dodson. "i am, sir," replied mr. pickwick. "well, sir," said dodson, "and what do you propose?" "ah!" said fogg, thrusting his hands into his trousers pockets and throwing himself back in his chair, "what do you propose, mr. pickwick?" "hush, fogg," said dodson, "let me hear what mr. pickwick has to say." "i came, gentlemen," said mr. pickwick, gazing placidly on the two partners, "i came here, gentlemen, to express the surprise with which i received your letter of the other day, and to inquire what grounds of action you can have against me." "grounds of--" fogg had ejaculated thus much, when he was stopped by dodson. "mr. fogg," said dodson, "i am going to speak." "i beg your pardon, mr. dodson," said fogg. "for the grounds of action, sir," continued dodson, with moral elevation in his air, "you will consult your own conscience and your own feelings. we, sir, we, are guided entirely by the statement of our client. that statement, sir, may be true, or it may be false; it may be credible, or it may be incredible; but, if it be true, and if it be credible, i do not hesitate to say, sir, that our grounds of action, sir, are strong, and not to be shaken. you may be an unfortunate man, sir, or you may be a designing one; but if i were called upon, as a juryman upon my oath, sir, to express my opinion of your conduct, sir, i do not hesitate to assert that i should have but one opinion about it." here dodson drew himself up, with an air of offended virtue, and looked at fogg, who thrust his hands further in his pockets, and, nodding his head sagely, said, in a tone of the fullest concurrence, "most certainly." "well, sir," said mr. pickwick, with considerable pain depicted in his countenance, "you will permit me to assure you, that i am a most unfortunate man, so far as this case is concerned." "i hope you are, sir," replied dodson; "i trust you may be, sir. if you are really innocent of what is laid to your charge, you are more unfortunate than i had believed any man could possibly be. what do _you_ say, mr. fogg?" "i say precisely what you say," replied fogg, with a smile of incredulity. "the writ, sir, which commences the action," continued dodson, "was issued regularly. mr. fogg, where is the _præcipe_ book?" "here it is," said fogg, handing over a square book, with a parchment cover. "here is the entry," resumed dodson. "'middlesex, capias _martha bardell, widow, v. samuel pickwick_. damages, £ . dodson and fogg for the plaintiff, aug. , .' all regular, sir; perfectly." dodson coughed and looked at fogg, who said "perfectly," also. and then they both looked at mr. pickwick. "i am to understand, then," said mr. pickwick, "that it really is your intention to proceed with this action?" "understand, sir? that you certainly may," replied dodson, with something as near a smile as his importance would allow. "and that the damages are actually laid at fifteen hundred pounds?" said mr. pickwick. "to which understanding you may add my assurance, that if we could have prevailed upon our client, they would have been laid at treble the amount, sir," replied dodson. "i believe mrs. bardell specially said, however," observed fogg, glancing at dodson, "that she would not compromise for a farthing less." "unquestionably," replied dodson, sternly. "for the action was only just begun; and it wouldn't have done to let mr. pickwick compromise it then, even if he had been so disposed." "as you offer no terms, sir," said dodson, displaying a slip of parchment in his right hand, and affectionately pressing a paper copy of it on mr. pickwick with his left, "i had better serve you with a copy of this writ, sir. here is the original, sir." "very well, gentlemen, very well," said mr. pickwick, rising in person and wrath at the same time; "you shall hear from my solicitor, gentlemen." "we shall be very happy to do so," said fogg, rubbing his hands. "very," said dodson, opening the door. "and before i go, gentlemen," said the excited mr. pickwick, turning round on the landing, "permit me to say, that of all the disgraceful and rascally proceedings----" "stay, sir, stay," interposed dodson, with great politeness. "mr. jackson! mr. wicks!" "sir," said the two clerks, appearing at the bottom of the stairs. "i merely want you to hear what this gentleman says," replied dodson. "pray go on, sir--disgraceful and rascally proceedings, i think you said?" "i did," said mr. pickwick, thoroughly roused. "i said, sir, that of all the disgraceful and rascally proceedings that ever were attempted, this is the most so. i repeat it, sir." "you hear that, mr. wicks?" said dodson. "you won't forget these expressions, mr. jackson?" said fogg. "perhaps you would like to call us swindlers, sir," said dodson. "pray do, sir, if you feel disposed; now pray do, sir." "i do," said mr. pickwick. "you _are_ swindlers." "very good," said dodson. "you can hear down there, i hope, mr. wicks?" "oh yes, sir," said wicks. "you had better come up a step or two higher, if you can't," added mr. fogg. "go on, sir; do go on. you had better call us thieves, sir; or perhaps you would like to assault one of us. pray do it, sir, if you would; we will not make the smallest resistance. pray do it, sir." as fogg put himself very temptingly within the reach of mr. pickwick's clenched fist, there is little doubt that that gentleman would have complied with his earnest entreaty, but for the interposition of sam, who, hearing the dispute, emerged from the office, mounted the stairs, and seized his master by the arm. "you just come avay," said mr. weller. "battledore and shuttlecock's a wery good game, ven you an't the shuttlecock and two lawyers the battledores, in which case it gets too excitin' to be pleasant. come away, sir. if you want to ease your mind by blowing up somebody, come out into the court and blow up me; but it's rayther too expensive work to be carried on here." and without the slightest ceremony, mr. weller hauled his master down the stairs, and down the court, and having safely deposited him in cornhill, fell behind, prepared to follow whither-soever he should lead. mr. pickwick walked on abstractedly, crossed opposite the mansion house, and bent his steps up cheapside. sam began to wonder where they were going, when his master turned round, and said: "sam, i will go immediately to mr. perker's." "that's just exactly the wery place vere you ought to have gone last night, sir," replied mr. weller. "i think it is, sam," said mr. pickwick. "i _know_ it is," said mr. weller. "well, well, sam," replied mr. pickwick, "we will go there at once, but first, as i have been rather ruffled, i should like a glass of brandy and water warm, sam. where can i have it, sam?" mr. weller's knowledge of london was extensive and peculiar. he replied without the slightest consideration: "second court on the right-hand side--last house but vun on the same side the vay--take the box as stands in the first fireplace, 'cos there an't no leg in the middle o' the table, wich all the others has, and its wery inconwenient." mr. pickwick observed his valet's directions implicitly, and bidding sam follow him, entered the tavern he had pointed out, where the hot brandy and water was speedily placed before him; while mr. weller, seated at a respectful distance, though at the same table with his master, was accommodated with a pint of porter. the room was one of a very homely description, and was apparently under the especial patronage of stage coachmen: for several gentlemen, who had all the appearance of belonging to that learned profession, were drinking and smoking in the different boxes. among the number was one stout, red-faced, elderly man in particular, seated in an opposite box, who attracted mr. pickwick's attention. the stout man was smoking with great vehemence, but between every half-dozen puffs, he took his pipe from his mouth, and looked first at mr. weller and then at mr. pickwick. then, he would bury in a quart pot as much of his countenance as the dimensions of the quart pot admitted of its receiving, and take another look at sam and mr. pickwick. then he would take another half-dozen puffs with an air of profound meditation and look at them again. at last the stout man, putting up his legs on the seat, and leaning his back against the wall, began to puff at his pipe without leaving off at all, and to stare through the smoke at the new-comers, as if he had made up his mind to see the most he could of them. at first the evolutions of the stout man had escaped mr. weller's observation, but by degrees, as he saw mr. pickwick's eyes every now and then turning towards him, he began to gaze in the same direction, at the same time shading his eyes with his hand, as if he partially recognised the object before him, and wished to make quite sure of its identity. his doubts were speedily dispelled, however; for the stout man having blown a thick cloud from his pipe, a hoarse voice, like some strange effort of ventriloquism, emerged from beneath the capacious shawls which muffled his throat and chest, and slowly uttered these sounds--"wy, sammy!" "who's that, sam?" inquired mr. pickwick. "why, i wouldn't ha' believed it, sir," replied mr. weller with astonished eyes. "it's the old 'un." "old one," said mr. pickwick. "what old one?" "my father, sir," replied mr. weller. "how are you, my ancient?" with which beautiful ebullition of filial affection, mr. weller made room on the seat beside him, for the stout man, who advanced pipe in mouth and pot in hand, to greet him. "wy, sammy," said the father, "i ha'n't seen you, for two years and better." "nor more you have, old codger," replied the son. "how's mother-in-law?" "wy, i'll tell you what, sammy," said mr. weller senior, with much solemnity in his manner; "there never was a nicer woman as a widder, than that 'ere second wentur o' mine--a sweet creetur she was, sammy; all i can say on her now, is, that as she was such an uncommon pleasant widder, it's a great pity she ever changed her con-dition. she don't act as a vife, sammy." "don't she though?" inquired mr. weller junior. the elder mr. weller shook his head, as he replied with a sigh, "i've done it once too often, sammy; i've done it once too often. take example by your father, my boy, and be wery careful o' widders all your life, specially if they've kept a public-house, sammy." having delivered this parental advice with great pathos, mr. weller senior re-filled his pipe from a tin box he carried in his pocket, and, lighting his fresh pipe from the ashes of the old one, commenced smoking at a great rate. "beg your pardon, sir," he said, renewing the subject, and addressing mr. pickwick, after a considerable pause, "nothin' personal, i hope, sir; i hope you ha'n't got a widder, sir." "not i," replied mr. pickwick, laughing; and while mr. pickwick laughed, sam weller informed his parent in a whisper, of the relation in which he stood towards that gentleman. "beg your pardon, sir," said mr. weller senior, taking off his hat, "i hope you've no fault to find vith sammy, sir?" "none whatever," said mr. pickwick. "wery glad to hear it, sir," replied the old man; "i took a good deal o' pains with his eddication, sir; let him run in the streets when he was wery young, and shift for his-self. it's the only way to make a boy sharp, sir." "rather a dangerous process, i should imagine," said mr. pickwick, with a smile. "and not a very sure one, either," added mr. weller; "i got reg'larly done the other day." "no!" said his father. [illustration: "_take example of your father, my boy, and be wery careful o' widders all your life._"] "i did," said the son; and he proceeded to relate, in as few words as possible, how he had fallen a ready dupe to the stratagems of job trotter. mr. weller senior listened to the tale with the most profound attention, and at its termination said: "worn't one of these chaps slim and tall, with long hair, and the gift o' the gab wery gallopin'?" mr. pickwick did not quite understand the last item of description, but, comprehending the first, said "yes" at a venture. "t'other's a black-haired chap in mulberry livery, with a wery large head?" "yes, yes, he is," said mr. pickwick and sam, with great earnestness. "then i know where they are, and that's all about it," said mr. weller; "they're at ipswich, safe enough, them two." "no!" said mr. pickwick. "fact," said mr. weller, "and i'll tell you how i know it. i work an ipswich coach now and then for a friend o' mine. i worked down the wery day arter the night as you caught the rheumatiz, and at the black boy at chelmsford--the very place they'd come to--i took 'em up, right through to ipswich, where the man servant--him in the mulberries--told me they was a goin' to put up for a long time." "i'll follow him," said mr. pickwick; "we may as well see ipswich as any other place. i'll follow him." "you're quite certain it was them, governor?" inquired mr. weller junior. "quite, sammy, quite," replied his father, "for their appearance is wery sing'ler; besides that 'ere, i wondered to see the gen'l'm'n so familiar with his servant; and, more than that, as they sat in front, right behind the box, i heerd 'em laughing, and saying how they'd done old fireworks." "old who?" said mr. pickwick. "old fireworks, sir; by which, i've no doubt, they meant you, sir." there is nothing positively vile or atrocious in the appellation of "old fireworks," but still it is by no means a respectful or flattering designation. the recollection of all the wrongs he had sustained at jingle's hands had crowded on mr. pickwick's mind, the moment mr. weller began to speak: it wanted but a feather to turn the scale, and "old fireworks" did it. "i'll follow him," said mr. pickwick, with an emphatic blow on the table. "i shall work down to ipswich the day arter to-morrow, sir," said mr. weller the elder, "from the bull in whitechapel; and if you really mean to go, you'd better go with me." "so we had," said mr. pickwick; "very true; i can write to bury, and tell them to meet me at ipswich. we will go with you. but don't hurry away, mr. weller; won't you take anything?" "you're wery good, sir," replied mr. weller, stopping short; "perhaps a small glass of brandy to drink your health, and success to sammy, sir, wouldn't be amiss." "certainly not," replied mr. pickwick. "a glass of brandy here!" the brandy was brought: and mr. weller, after pulling his hair to mr. pickwick, and nodding to sam, jerked it down his capacious throat as if it had been a small thimbleful. "well done, father!" said sam; "take care, old fellow, or you'll have a touch of your old complaint, the gout." "i've found a sov'rin cure for that, sammy," said mr. weller, setting down the glass. "a sovereign cure for the gout," said mr. pickwick, hastily producing his note-book--"what is it?" "the gout, sir," replied mr. weller, "the gout is a complaint as arises from too much ease and comfort. if ever you're attacked with the gout, sir, jist you marry a widder as has got a good loud woice, with a decent notion of usin' it, and you'll never have the gout again. it's a capital prescription, sir. i takes it reg'lar, and i can warrant it to drive away any illness as is caused by too much jollity." having imparted this valuable secret, mr. weller drained his glass once more, produced a laboured wink, sighed deeply, and slowly retired. "well, what do you think of what your father says, sam?" inquired mr. pickwick, with a smile. "think, sir!" replied mr. weller; "why, i think he's the wictim o' connubiality, as blue beard's domestic chaplain said, with a tear of pity, ven he buried him." there was no replying to this very apposite conclusion, and, therefore, mr. pickwick, after settling the reckoning, resumed his walk to gray's inn. by the time he reached its secluded groves, however, eight o'clock had struck, and the unbroken stream of gentlemen in muddy high-lows, soiled white hats, and rusty apparel, who were pouring towards the different avenues of egress, warned him that the majority of the offices had closed for that day. after climbing two pairs of steep and dirty stairs, he found his anticipations were realised. mr. perker's "outer door" was closed; and the dead silence which followed mr. weller's repeated kicks thereat, announced that the officials had retired from business for the night. "this is pleasant, sam," said mr. pickwick; "i shouldn't lose an hour in seeing him; i shall not be able to get one wink of sleep to-night, i know, unless i have the satisfaction of reflecting that i have confided this matter to a professional man." "here's an old 'ooman comin' up-stairs, sir," replied mr. weller; "p'raps she knows where we can find somebody. hallo, old lady, vere's mr. perker's people?" "mr. perker's people," said a thin, miserable-looking old woman, stopping to recover breath after the ascent of the staircase, "mr. perker's people's gone, and i'm a goin' to do the office out." "are you mr. perker's servant?" inquired mr. pickwick. "i am mr. perker's laundress," replied the old woman. "ah," said mr. pickwick, half aside to sam, "it's a curious circumstance, sam, that they call the old women in these inns, laundresses. i wonder what that's for?" "'cos they has a mortal awersion to washing anythin', i suppose, sir," replied mr. weller. "i shouldn't wonder," said mr. pickwick, looking at the old woman, whose appearance, as well as the condition of the office, which she had by this time opened, indicated a rooted antipathy to the application of soap and water; "do you know where i can find mr. perker, my good woman?" "no, i don't," replied the old woman, gruffly; "he's out o' town now." "that's unfortunate," said mr. pickwick; "where's his clerk? do you know?" "yes, i know where he is, but he won't thank me for telling you," replied the laundress. "i have very particular business with him," said mr. pickwick. "won't it do in the morning?" said the woman. "not so well," replied mr. pickwick. "well," said the old woman, "if it was anything very particular, i was to say where he was, so i suppose there's no harm in telling. if you just go to the magpie and stump, and ask at the bar for mr. lowten, they'll show you in to him, and he's mr. perker's clerk." with this direction, and having been furthermore informed that the hostelry in question was situated in a court, happy in the double advantage of being in the vicinity of clare market, and closely approximating to the back of new inn, mr. pickwick and sam descended the rickety staircase in safety, and issued forth in quest of the magpie and stump. this favoured tavern, sacred to the evening orgies of mr. lowten and his companions, was what ordinary people would designate a public-house. that the landlord was a man of a money-making turn, was sufficiently testified by the fact of a small bulkhead beneath the tap-room window, in size and shape not unlike a sedan-chair, being underlet to a mender of shoes: and that he was a being of a philanthropic mind, was evident from the protection he afforded to a pie-man, who vended his delicacies without fear of interruption on the very door-step. in the lower windows, which were decorated with curtains of a saffron hue, dangled two or three printed cards, bearing reference to devonshire cider and dantzig spruce, while a large black board, announcing in white letters to an enlightened public that there were , barrels of double stout in the cellars of the establishment, left the mind in a state of not unpleasing doubt and uncertainty as to the precise direction in the bowels of the earth, in which this mighty cavern might be supposed to extend. when we add, that the weather-beaten signboard bore the half-obliterated semblance of a magpie intently eyeing a crooked streak of brown paint, which the neighbours had been taught from infancy to consider as the "stump," we have said all that need be said of the exterior of the edifice. on mr. pickwick's presenting himself at the bar, an elderly female emerged from behind a screen therein, and presented herself before him. "is mr. lowten here, ma'am?" inquired mr. pickwick. "yes, he is, sir," replied the landlady. "here, charley, show the gentleman in to mr. lowten." "the gen'lm'n can't go in just now," said a shambling pot-boy, with a red head, "'cos mr. lowten's a singin' a comic song, and he'll put him out. he'll be done d'rectly, sir." the red-headed pot-boy had scarcely finished speaking, when a most unanimous hammering of tables, and jingling of glasses announced that the song had that instant terminated; and mr. pickwick, after desiring sam to solace himself in the tap, suffered himself to be conducted into the presence of mr. lowten. at the announcement of "gentleman to speak to you, sir," a puffy-faced young man, who filled the chair at the head of the table, looked with some surprise in the direction from whence the voice proceeded: and the surprise seemed to be by no means diminished, when his eyes rested on an individual whom he had never seen before. "i beg your pardon, sir," said mr. pickwick, "and i am very sorry to disturb the other gentlemen, too, but i come on very particular business; and if you will suffer me to detain you at this end of the room for five minutes, i shall be very much obliged to you." the puffy-faced young man rose, and drawing a chair close to mr. pickwick in an obscure corner of the room, listened attentively to his tale of woe. "ah," he said, when mr. pickwick had concluded, "dodson and fogg--sharp practice theirs--capital men of business, dodson and fogg, sir." mr. pickwick admitted the sharp practice of dodson and fogg, and lowten resumed. "perker ain't in town, and he won't be, neither, before the end of next week; but if you want the action defended, and will leave the copy with me, i can do all that's needful till he comes back." "that's exactly what i came here for," said mr. pickwick, handing over the document. "if anything particular occurs, you can write to me at the post-office, ipswich." "that's all right," replied mr. perker's clerk; and then seeing mr. pickwick's eye wandering curiously towards the table, he added, "will you join us, for half an hour or so? we are capital company here to-night. there's samkin and green's managing-clerk, and smithers and price's chancery, and pimkin and thomas's out o' door--sings a capital song, he does--and jack bamber, and ever so many more. you're come out of the country, i suppose. would you like to join us?" mr. pickwick could not resist so tempting an opportunity of studying human nature. he suffered himself to be led to the table, where, after having been introduced to the company in due form, he was accommodated with a seat near the chairman, and called for a glass of his favourite beverage. a profound silence, quite contrary to mr. pickwick's expectation, succeeded. "you don't find this sort of thing disagreeable, i hope, sir?" said his right-hand neighbour, a gentleman in a checked shirt, and mosaic studs, with a cigar in his mouth. "not in the least," replied mr. pickwick, "i like it very much, although i am no smoker myself." "i should be very sorry to say i wasn't," interposed another gentleman on the opposite side of the table. "it's board and lodging to me, is smoke." mr. pickwick glanced at the speaker, and thought that if it were washing too, it would be all the better. here there was another pause. mr. pickwick was a stranger, and his coming had evidently cast a damp upon the party. "mr. grundy's going to oblige the company with a song," said the chairman. "no he ain't," said mr. grundy. "why not?" said the chairman. "because he can't," said mr. grundy. "you had better say he won't," replied the chairman. "well, then, he won't," retorted mr. grundy. mr. grundy's positive refusal to gratify the company occasioned another silence. "won't anybody enliven us?" said the chairman, despondingly. "why don't you enliven us yourself, mr. chairman?" said a young man with a whisker, a squint, and an open shirt-collar (dirty), from the bottom of the table. "hear! hear!" said the smoking gentleman in the mosaic jewellery. "because i only know one song, and i have sung it already, and it's a fine of 'glasses round' to sing the same song twice in a night," replied the chairman. this was an unanswerable reply, and silence prevailed again. "i have been to-night, gentlemen," said mr. pickwick, hoping to start a subject which all the company could take a part in discussing, "i have been to-night in a place which you all know very well, doubtless, but which i have not been in before for some years, and know very little of; i mean gray's inn, gentlemen. curious little nooks in a great place, like london, these old inns are." "by jove," said the chairman, whispering across the table to mr. pickwick, "you have hit upon something that one of us, at least, would talk upon for ever. you'll draw old jack bamber out; he was never heard to talk about anything else but the inns, and he has lived alone in them till he's half crazy." the individual to whom lowten alluded was a little yellow high-shouldered man, whose countenance, from his habit of stooping forward when silent, mr. pickwick had not observed before. he wondered though, when the old man raised his shrivelled face, and bent his grey eye upon him, with a keen inquiring look, that such remarkable features could have escaped his attention for a moment. there was a fixed grim smile perpetually on his countenance; he leant his chin on a long skinny hand, with nails of extraordinary length; and as he inclined his head to one side, and looked keenly out from beneath his ragged grey eyebrows, there was a strange, wild slyness in his leer, quite repulsive to behold. this was the figure that now started forward, and burst into an animated torrent of words. as this chapter has been a long one, however, and as the old man was a remarkable personage, it will be more respectful to him, and more convenient to us, to let him speak for himself in a fresh one. chapter xxi [illustration] _in which the old man launches forth into his favourite theme, and relates a story about a queer client_ "aha!" said the old man, a brief description of whose manner and appearance concluded the last chapter, "aha! who was talking about the inns?" "i was, sir," replied mr. pickwick; "i was observing what singular old places they are." "_you!_" said the old man, contemptuously, "what do _you_ know of the time when young men shut themselves up in those lonely rooms, and read and read, hour after hour, and night after night, till their reason wandered beneath their midnight studies; till their mental powers were exhausted; till morning's light brought no freshness or health to them; and they sank beneath the unnatural devotion of their youthful energies to their dry old books? coming down to a later time, and a very different day, what do _you_ know of the gradual sinking beneath consumption, or the quick wasting of fever--the grand results of 'life' and dissipation--which men have undergone in these same rooms? how many vain pleaders for mercy, do you think, have turned away heart-sick from the lawyer's office, to find a resting-place in the thames, or a refuge in the gaol? they are no ordinary houses, those. there is not a panel in the old wainscoting, but what, if it were endowed with the powers of speech and memory, could start from the wall, and tell its tale of horror--the romance of life, sir, the romance of life! commonplace as they may seem now, i tell you they are strange old places, and i would rather hear many a legend with a terrific sounding name, than the true history of one old set of chambers." there was something so odd in the old man's sudden energy, and the subject which had called it forth, that mr. pickwick was prepared with no observation in reply; and the old man, checking his impetuosity, and resuming the leer, which had disappeared during his previous excitement, said: "look at them in another light: their most commonplace and least romantic. what fine places of slow torture they are! think of the needy man who has spent his all, beggared himself, and pinched his friends, to enter the profession, which will never yield him a morsel of bread. the waiting--the hope--the disappointment--the fear--the misery--the poverty--the blight on his hopes, and end to his career--the suicide perhaps, or the shabby, slipshod drunkard. am i not right about them?" and the old man rubbed his hands, and leered as if in delight at having found another point of view in which to place his favourite subject. mr. pickwick eyed the old man with great curiosity, and the remainder of the company smiled, and looked on in silence. "talk of your german universities," said the little old man. "pooh, pooh! there's romance enough at home without going half a mile for it; only people never think of it." "i never thought of the romance of this particular subject before, certainly," said mr. pickwick, laughing. "to be sure you didn't," said the little old man, "of course not. as a friend of mine used to say to me, 'what is there in chambers, in particular?' 'queer old places,' said i. 'not at all,' said he. 'lonely,' said i. 'not a bit of it,' said he. he died one morning of apoplexy, as he was going to open his outer door. fell with his head in his own letter-box, and there he lay for eighteen months. everybody thought he'd gone out of town." "and how was he found at last?" inquired mr. pickwick. "the benchers determined to have his door broken open, as he hadn't paid any rent for two years. so they did. forced the lock; and a very dusty skeleton in a blue coat, black knee-shorts, and silks, fell forward in the arms of the porter who opened the door. queer, that. rather, perhaps?" the little old man put his head more on one side, and rubbed his hands with unspeakable glee. "i know another case," said the little old man, when his chuckles had in some degree subsided. "it occurred in clifford's inn. tenant of a top set--bad character--shut himself up in his bed-room closet, and took a dose of arsenic. the steward thought he had run away; opened the door, and put a bill up. another man came, took the chambers, furnished them, and went to live there. somehow or other he couldn't sleep--always restless and uncomfortable. 'odd,' says he. 'i'll make the other room my bed-chamber, and this my sitting-room.' he made the change, and slept very well at night, but suddenly found that, somehow, he couldn't read in the evening: he got nervous and uncomfortable, and used to be always snuffing his candles and staring about him. 'i can't make this out,' said he, when he came home from the play one night, and was drinking a glass of cold grog, with his back to the wall, in order that he mightn't be able to fancy there was any one behind him--'i can't make it out,' said he; and just then his eyes rested on the little closet that had been always locked up, and a shudder ran through his whole frame from top to toe. 'i have felt this strange feeling before,' said he, 'i cannot help thinking there's something wrong about that closet.' he made a strong effort, plucked up his courage, shivered the lock with a blow or two of the poker, opened the door, and there, sure enough, standing bolt upright in the corner, was the last tenant, with a little bottle clasped firmly in his hand, and his face--well!" as the little old man concluded, he looked round on the attentive faces of his wondering auditory with a smile of grim delight. "what strange things these are you tell us of, sir," said mr. pickwick, minutely scanning the old man's countenance, by the aid of his glasses. "strange!" said the little old man. "nonsense; you think them strange, because you know nothing about it. they are funny, but not uncommon." "funny!" exclaimed mr. pickwick, involuntarily. "yes, funny, are they not?" replied the little old man, with a diabolical leer; and then, without pausing for an answer, he continued: "i knew another man--let me see--forty years ago now--who took an old, damp, rotten set of chambers, in one of the most ancient inns, that had been shut up and empty for years and years before. there were lots of old women's stories about the place, and it certainly was very far from being a cheerful one; but he was poor and the rooms were cheap, and that would have been quite a sufficient reason for him, if they had been ten times worse than they really were. he was obliged to take some mouldering fixtures that were on the place, and, among the rest, was a great lumbering wooden press for papers, with large glass doors, and a green curtain inside; a pretty useless thing for him, for he had no papers to put in it; and as to his clothes, he carried them about with him, and that wasn't very hard work, either. well, he had moved in all his furniture--it wasn't quite a truck-full--and had sprinkled it about the room, so as to make the four chairs look as much like a dozen as possible, and was sitting down before the fire at night drinking the first glass of two gallons of whisky he had ordered on credit, wondering whether it would ever be paid for, and if so, in how many years' time, when his eyes encountered the glass doors of the wooden press. 'ah,' says he, 'if i hadn't been obliged to take that ugly article at the old broker's valuation, i might have got something comfortable for the money. i'll tell you what it is, old fellow,' he said, speaking aloud to the press, having nothing else to speak to: 'if it wouldn't cost more to break up your old carcase, than it would ever be worth afterwards, i'd have a fire out of you in less than no time.' he had hardly spoken the words, when a sound resembling a faint groan, appeared to issue from the interior of the case. it startled him at first, but thinking, on a moment's reflection, that it must be some young fellow in the next chamber, who had been dining out, he put his feet on the fender, and raised the poker to stir the fire. at that moment, the sound was repeated; and one of the glass doors slowly opening, disclosed a pale and emaciated figure in soiled and worn apparel, standing erect in the press. the figure was tall and thin, and the countenance expressive of care and anxiety; but there was something in the hue of the skin, and gaunt and unearthly appearance of the whole form, which no being of this world was ever seen to wear. 'who are you?' said the new tenant, turning very pale: poising the poker in his hand, however, and taking a very decent aim at the countenance of the figure. 'who are you?' 'don't throw that poker at me,' replied the form; 'if you hurled it with ever so sure an aim, it would pass through me, without resistance, and expend its force on the wood behind. i am a spirit.' 'and, pray, what do you want here?' faltered the tenant. 'in this room,' replied the apparition, 'my worldly ruin was worked, and i and my children beggared. in this press, the papers in a long, long suit, which accumulated for years, were deposited. in this room, when i had died of grief and long deferred hope, two wily harpies divided the wealth for which i had contested during a wretched existence, and of which, at last, not one farthing was left for my unhappy descendants. i terrified them from the spot, and since that day have prowled by night--the only period at which i can revisit the earth--about the scenes of my long-protracted misery. this apartment is mine: leave it to me.' 'if you insist upon making your appearance here,' said the tenant, who had had time to collect his presence of mind during this prosy statement of the ghost's, 'i shall give up possession with the greatest pleasure; but i should like to ask you one question, if you will allow me.' 'say on,' said the apparition, sternly. 'well,' said the tenant, 'i don't apply the observation personally to you, because it is equally applicable to most of the ghosts i ever heard of; but it does appear to me somewhat inconsistent, that when you have an opportunity of visiting the fairest spots of earth--for i suppose space is nothing to you--you should always return exactly to the very places where you have been most miserable.' 'egad, that's very true; i never thought of that before,' said the ghost. 'you see, sir,' pursued the tenant, 'this is a very uncomfortable room. from the appearance of that press, i should be disposed to say that it is not wholly free from bugs; and i really think you might find much more comfortable quarters: to say nothing of the climate of london, which is extremely disagreeable.' 'you are very right, sir,' said the ghost, politely, 'it never struck me till now; i'll try change of air directly.' in fact, he began to vanish as he spoke: his legs, indeed, had quite disappeared. 'and if, sir,' said the tenant, calling after him, 'if you _would_ have the goodness to suggest to the other ladies and gentlemen who are now engaged in haunting old empty houses, that they might be much more comfortable elsewhere, you will confer a very great benefit on society.' 'i will,' replied the ghost; 'we must be dull fellows, very dull fellows, indeed; i can't imagine how we can have been so stupid.' with these words, the spirit disappeared; and what is rather remarkable," added the old man, with a shrewd look round the table, "he never came back again." "that ain't bad, if it's true," said the man in the mosaic studs, lighting a fresh cigar. "_if!_" exclaimed the old man, with a look of excessive contempt. "i suppose," he added, turning to lowten, "he'll say next, that my story about the queer client we had, when i was in an attorney's office, is not true, either--i shouldn't wonder." "i shan't venture to say anything at all about it, seeing that i never heard the story," observed the owner of the mosaic decorations. "i wish you would repeat it, sir," said mr. pickwick. "ah, do," said lowten; "nobody has heard it but me, and i have nearly forgotten it." the old man looked round the table, and leered more horribly than ever, as if in triumph, at the attention which was depicted in every face. then rubbing his chin with his hand, and looking up to the ceiling as if to recall the circumstances to his memory, he began as follows: the old man's tale about the queer client "it matters little," said the old man, "where, or how, i picked up this brief history. if i were to relate it in the order in which it reached me, i should commence in the middle, and when i had arrived at the conclusion, go back for a beginning. it is enough for me to say that some of the circumstances passed before my own eyes. for the remainder i know them to have happened, and there are some persons yet living, who will remember them but too well. "in the borough high street, near st. george's church, and on the same side of the way, stands, as most people know, the smallest of our debtors' prisons, the marshalsea. although in later times it has been a very different place from the sink of filth and dirt it once was, even its improved condition holds out but little temptation to the extravagant, or consolation to the improvident. the condemned felon has as good a yard for air and exercise in newgate, as the insolvent debtor in the marshalsea prison.[ ] [ ] better. but this is past, in a better age, and the prison exists no longer. "it may be my fancy, or it may be that i cannot separate the place from the old recollections associated with it, but this part of london i cannot bear. the street is broad, the shops are spacious, the noise of passing vehicles, the footsteps of a perpetual stream of people--all the busy sounds of traffic, resound in it from morn to midnight, but the streets around are mean and close; poverty and debauchery lie festering in the crowded alleys; want and misfortune are pent up in the narrow prison; an air of gloom and dreariness seems, in my eyes at least, to hang about the scene, and to impart to it a squalid and sickly hue. "many eyes, that have long since been closed in the grave, have looked round upon that scene lightly enough, when entering the gate of the old marshalsea prison for the first time: for despair seldom comes with the first severe shock of misfortune. a man has confidence in untried friends, he remembers the many offers of service so freely made by his boon companions when he wanted them not; he has hope--the hope of happy inexperience--and however he may bend beneath the first shock, it springs up in his bosom, and flourishes there for a brief space, until it droops beneath the blight of disappointment and neglect. how soon have those same eyes, deeply sunken in the head, glared from faces wasted with famine, and sallow from confinement, in days when it was no figure of speech to say that debtors rotted in prison, with no hope of release, and no prospect of liberty! the atrocity in its full extent no longer exists, but there is enough of it left to give rise to occurrences that make the heart bleed. "twenty years ago, that pavement was worn with the footsteps of a mother and child, who, day by day, so surely as the morning came, presented themselves at the prison gate; often after a night of restless misery and anxious thoughts, were they there, a full hour too soon, and then the young mother, turning meekly away, would lead the child to the old bridge, and raising him in her arms to show him the glistening water, tinted with the light of the morning's sun, and stirring with all the bustling preparations for business and pleasure that the river presented at that early hour, endeavour to interest his thoughts in the objects before him. but she would quickly set him down, and hiding her face in her shawl, give vent to the tears that blinded her; for no expression of interest or amusement lighted up his thin and sickly face. his recollections were few enough, but they were all of one kind: all connected with the poverty and misery of his parents. hour after hour had he sat on his mother's knee, and with childish sympathy watched the tears that stole down her face, and then crept quietly away into some dark corner, and sobbed himself to sleep. the hard realities of the world, with many of its worst privations--hunger and thirst, and cold and want--had all come home to him, from the first dawnings of reason; and though the form of childhood was there, its light heart, its merry laugh, and sparkling eyes, were wanting. "the father and mother looked on upon this, and upon each other, with thoughts of agony they dared not breathe in words. the healthy, strong-made man, who could have borne almost any fatigue of active exertion, was wasting beneath the close confinement and unhealthy atmosphere of a crowded prison. the slight and delicate woman was sinking beneath the combined effects of bodily and mental illness. the child's young heart was breaking. "winter came, and with it weeks of cold and heavy rain. the poor girl had removed to a wretched apartment close to the spot of her husband's imprisonment; and though the change had been rendered necessary by their increasing poverty, she was happier now, for she was nearer him. for two months, she and her little companion watched the opening of the gate as usual. one day she failed to come, for the first time. another morning arrived, and she came alone. the child was dead. "they little know, who coldly talk of the poor man's bereavements, as a happy release from pain to the departed, and a merciful relief from expense to the survivor--they little know, i say, what the agony of those bereavements is. a silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away--the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us--is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow. the child had sat at his parents' feet for hours together, with his little hands patiently folded in each other, and his thin wan face raised towards them. they had seen him pine away, from day to day; and though his brief existence had been a joyless one, and he was now removed to that peace and rest which, child as he was, he had never known in this world, they were his parents, and his loss sunk deep into their souls. "it was plain to those who looked upon the mother's altered face, that death must soon close the scene of her adversity and trial. her husband's fellow-prisoners shrunk from obtruding on his grief and misery, and left to himself alone, the small room he had previously occupied in common with two companions. she shared it with him: and lingering on without pain, but without hope, her life ebbed slowly away. "she had fainted one evening in her husband's arms, and he had borne her to the open window, to revive her with the air, when the light of the moon falling full upon her face, showed him a change upon her features, which made him stagger beneath her weight, like a helpless infant. "'set me down, george,' she said, faintly. he did so, and seating himself beside her, covered his face with his hands, and burst into tears. "'it is very hard to leave you, george,' she said, 'but it is god's will, and you must bear it for my sake. oh! how i thank him for having taken our boy! he is happy, and in heaven now. what would he have done here, without his mother!' "'you shall not die, mary, you shall not die!' said the husband, starting up. he paced hurriedly to and fro, striking his head with his clenched fists; then reseating himself beside her, and supporting her in his arms, added more calmly, 'rouse yourself, my dear girl. pray, pray do. you will revive yet.' "'never again, george; never again,' said the dying woman. 'let them lay me by my poor boy now, but promise me, that if ever you leave this dreadful place, and should grow rich, you will have us removed to some quiet country churchyard, a long, long way off--very far from here--where we can rest in peace. dear george, promise me you will.' "'i do, i do,' said the man, throwing himself passionately on his knees before her. 'speak to me, mary, another word; one look--but one!' "he ceased to speak: for the arm that clasped his neck grew stiff and heavy. a deep sigh escaped from the wasted form before him; the lips moved and a smile played upon the face; but the lips were pallid, and the smile faded into a rigid and ghastly stare. he was alone in the world. "that night, in the silence and desolation of his miserable room, the wretched man knelt down by the dead body of his wife, and called on god to witness a terrible oath, that from that hour, he devoted himself to revenge her death and that of his child; that thenceforth, to the last moment of his life, his whole energies should be directed to this one object; that his revenge should be protracted and terrible; that his hatred should be undying and inextinguishable; and should hunt its object through the world. "the deepest despair, and passion scarcely human, had made such fierce ravages on his face and form, in that one night, that his companions in misfortune shrunk affrighted from him as he passed by. his eyes were bloodshot and heavy, his face a deadly white, and his body bent as if with age. he had bitten his under lip nearly through in the violence of his mental suffering, and the blood which had flowed from the wound had trickled down his chin, and stained his shirt and neckerchief. no tear or sound of complaint escaped him: but the unsettled look, and disordered haste with which he paced up and down the yard, denoted the fever which was burning within. "it was necessary that his wife's body should be removed from the prison, without delay. he received the communication with perfect calmness, and acquiesced in its propriety. nearly all the inmates of the prison had assembled to witness its removal; they fell back on either side when the widower appeared; he walked hurriedly forward, and stationed himself, alone, in a little railed area close to the lodge gate, from whence the crowd, with an instinctive feeling of delicacy, had retired. the rude coffin was borne slowly forward on men's shoulders. a dead silence pervaded the throng, broken only by the audible lamentations of the women, and the shuffling steps of the bearers on the stone pavement. they reached the spot where the bereaved husband stood: and stopped. he laid his hand upon the coffin, and mechanically adjusting the pall with which it was covered, motioned them onward. the turnkeys in the prison lobby took off their hats as it passed through, and in another moment the heavy gate closed behind it. he looked vacantly upon the crowd, and fell heavily to the ground. "although for many weeks after this, he was watched, night and day, in the wildest ravings of fever, neither the consciousness of his loss, nor the recollection of the vow he had made, ever left him for a moment. scenes changed before his eyes, place succeeded place, and event followed event, in all the hurry of delirium; but they were all connected in some way with the great object of his mind. he was sailing over a boundless expanse of sea, with a blood-red sky above, and the angry waters, lashed into fury beneath, boiled and eddied up, on every side. there was another vessel before them, toiling and labouring in the howling storm: her canvas fluttering in ribbons from the mast, and her deck thronged with figures who were lashed to the sides, over which huge waves every instant burst, sweeping away some devoted creatures into the foaming sea. onward they bore, amidst the roaring mass of water, with a speed and force which nothing could resist; and striking the stern of the foremost vessel, crushed her beneath their keel. from the huge whirlpool which the sinking wreck occasioned, arose a shriek so loud and shrill--the death-cry of a hundred drowning creatures, blended into one fierce yell--that it rung far above the war-cry of the elements, and echoed and re-echoed till it seemed to pierce air, sky and ocean. but what was that--that old grey-head that rose above the water's surface, and with looks of agony, and screams for aid, buffeted with the waves! one look, and he had sprung from the vessel's side, and with vigorous strokes was swimming towards it. he reached it; he was close upon it. they were _his_ features. the old man saw him coming, and vainly strove to elude his grasp. but he clasped him tight, and dragged him beneath the water. down, down with him, fifty fathoms down; his struggles grew fainter and fainter, until they wholly ceased. he was dead; he had killed him, and had kept his oath. "he was traversing the scorching sands of a mighty desert, barefoot and alone. the sand choked and blinded him; its fine thin grains entered the very pores of his skin, and irritated him almost to madness. gigantic masses of the same material, carried forward by the wind, and shone through by the burning sun, stalked in the distance like pillars of living fire. the bones of men, who had perished in the dreary waste, lay scattered at his feet; a fearful light fell on everything around; so far as the eye could reach, nothing but objects of dread and horror presented themselves. vainly striving to utter a cry of terror, with his tongue cleaving to his mouth, he rushed madly forward. armed with supernatural strength, he waded through the sand, until exhausted with fatigue and thirst, he fell senseless on the earth. what fragrant coolness revived him; what gushing sound was that? water! it was indeed a well; and the clear fresh stream was running at his feet. he drank deeply of it, and throwing his aching limbs upon the bank, sunk into a delicious trance. the sound of approaching footsteps roused him. an old grey-headed man tottered forward to slake his burning thirst. it was _he_ again! he wound his arms round the old man's body and held him back. he struggled, and shrieked for water, for but one drop of water to save his life! but he held the old man firmly, and watched his agonies with greedy eyes; and when his lifeless head fell forward on his bosom, he rolled the corpse from him with his feet. "when the fever had left him, and consciousness returned, he awoke to find himself rich and free: to hear that the parent who would have let him die in gaol--_would!_ who _had_ let those who were far dearer to him than his own existence, die of want and sickness of heart that medicine cannot cure--had been found dead on his bed of down. he had had all the heart to leave his son a beggar, but proud even of his health and strength, had put off the act till it was too late, and now might gnash his teeth in the other world, at the thought of the wealth his remissness had left him. he awoke to this, and he awoke to more. to recollect the purpose for which he lived, and to remember that his enemy was his wife's own father--the man who had cast him into prison, and who, when his daughter and her child sued at his feet for mercy, had spurned them from his door. oh, how he cursed the weakness that prevented him from being up, and active, in his scheme of vengeance! "he caused himself to be carried from the scene of his loss and misery, and conveyed to a quiet residence on the sea-coast; not in the hope of recovering his peace of mind or happiness, for both were fled for ever; but to restore his prostrate energies, and meditate on his darling object. and here, some evil spirit cast in his way the opportunity for his first most horrible revenge. "it was summer time; and wrapped in his gloomy thoughts, he would issue from his solitary lodgings early in the evening, and wandering along a narrow path beneath the cliffs, to a wild and lonely spot that had struck his fancy in his ramblings, seat himself on some fallen fragment of the rock, and burying his face in his hands, remain there for hours--sometimes until night had completely closed in, and the long shadows of the frowning cliffs above his head, cast a thick black darkness on every object near him. "he was seated here one calm evening, in his old position, now and then raising his head to watch the flight of a sea-gull, or carry his eye along the glorious crimson path, which, commencing in the middle of the ocean, seemed to lead to its very verge where the sun was setting, when the profound stillness of the spot was broken by a loud cry for help; he listened, doubtful of his having heard aright, when the cry was repeated with even greater vehemence than before, and starting to his feet, he hastened in the direction whence it proceeded. "the tale told itself at once: some scattered garments lay on the beach; a human head was just visible above the waves at a little distance from the shore; and an old man, wringing his hands in agony, was running to and fro, shrieking for assistance. the invalid, whose strength was now sufficiently restored, threw off his coat, and rushed towards the sea, with the intention of plunging in, and dragging the drowning man ashore. "'hasten here, sir, in god's name! help, help, sir, for the love of heaven! he is my son, sir, my only son!' said the old man, frantically, as he advanced to meet him. 'my only son, sir, and he is dying before his father's eyes!' "at the first word the old man uttered, the stranger checked himself in his career, and, folding his arms, stood perfectly motionless. "'great god!' exclaimed the old man, recoiling. 'heyling!' "the stranger smiled, and was silent. "'heyling!' said the old man, wildly. 'my boy, heyling, my dear boy, look, look!' gasping for breath, the miserable father pointed to the spot where the young man was struggling for life. "'hark!' said the old man. 'he cries once more. he is alive yet. heyling, save him, save him!' "the stranger smiled again, and remained immovable as a statue. "'i have wronged you,' shrieked the old man, falling on his knees, and clasping his hands together. 'be revenged; take my all, my life; cast me into the water at your feet, and, if human nature can repress a struggle, i will die, without stirring hand or foot. do it, heyling, do it, but save my boy, he is so young, heyling, so young to die!' "'listen,' said the stranger, grasping the old man fiercely by the wrist: 'i will have life for life, and here is +one+. _my_ child died, before his father's eyes, a far more agonising and painful death than that young slanderer of his sister's worth is meeting while i speak. you laughed--laughed in your daughter's face, where death had already set his hand--at our sufferings, then. what think you of them now? see there, see there!' "as the stranger spoke he pointed to the sea. a faint cry died away upon its surface: the last powerful struggle of the dying man agitated the rippling waves for a few seconds: and the spot where he had gone down into his early grave, was undistinguishable from the surrounding water. * * * * * "three years had elapsed, when a gentleman alighted from a private carriage at the door of a london attorney, then well known as a man of no great nicety in his professional dealings: and requested a private interview on business of importance. although evidently not past the prime of life, his face was pale, haggard, and dejected; and it did not require the acute perception of the man of business, to discern at a glance, that disease or suffering had done more to work a change in his appearance, than the mere hand of time could have accomplished in twice the period of his whole life. "'i wish you to undertake some legal business for me,' said the stranger. "the attorney bowed obsequiously, and glanced at a large packet which the gentleman carried in his hand. his visitor observed the look, and proceeded. "'it is no common business,' said he; 'nor have these papers reached my hands without long trouble and great expense.' "the attorney cast a still more anxious look at the packet; and his visitor, untying the string that bound it, disclosed a quantity of promissory notes, with copies of deeds, and other documents. "'upon these papers,' said the client, 'the man whose name they bear, has raised, as you will see, large sums of money, for some years past. there was a tacit understanding between him and the men into whose hands they originally went--and from whom i have by degrees purchased the whole, for treble and quadruple their nominal value--that these loans should be from time to time renewed, until a given period had elapsed. such an understanding is nowhere expressed. he has sustained many losses of late; and these obligations accumulating upon him at once, would crush him to the earth.' "'the whole amount is many thousands of pounds,' said the attorney, looking over the papers. "'it is,' said the client. "'what are we to do?' inquired the man of business. "'do!' replied the client, with sudden vehemence. 'put every engine of the law in force, every trick that ingenuity can devise and rascality execute; fair means and foul; the open oppression of the law, aided by all the craft of its most ingenious practitioners. i would have him die a harassing and lingering death. ruin him, seize and sell his lands and goods, drive him from house and home, and drag him forth a beggar in his old age, to die in a common gaol.' "'but the costs, my dear sir, the costs of all this,' reasoned the attorney, when he had recovered from his momentary surprise. 'if the defendant be a man of straw, who is to pay the costs, sir?' "'name any sum,' said the stranger, his hand trembling so violently with excitement, that he could scarcely hold the pen he seized as he spoke; 'any sum, and it is yours. don't be afraid to name it, man. i shall not think it dear, if you gain my object.' "the attorney named a large sum, at hazard, as the advance he should require to secure himself against the possibility of loss; but more with the view of ascertaining how far his client was really disposed to go, than with any idea that he would comply with the demand. the stranger wrote a cheque upon his banker, for the whole amount, and left him. "the draft was duly honoured, and the attorney, finding that his strange client might be safely relied upon, commenced his work in earnest. for more than two years afterwards, mr. heyling would sit whole days together, in the office, poring over the papers as they accumulated, and reading again and again, his eyes gleaming with joy, the letters of remonstrance, the prayers for a little delay, the representations of the certain ruin in which the opposite party must be involved, which poured in, as suit after suit, and process after process, was commenced. to all applications for a brief indulgence, there was but one reply--the money must be paid. land, house, furniture, each in its turn, was taken under some one of the numerous executions which were issued; and the old man himself would have been immured in prison had he not escaped the vigilance of the officers, and fled. "the implacable animosity of heyling, so far from being satiated by the success of his persecution, increased a hundredfold with the ruin he inflicted. on being informed of the old man's flight, his fury was unbounded. he gnashed his teeth with rage, tore the hair from his head, and assailed with horrid imprecations the men who had been entrusted with the writ. he was only restored to comparative calmness by repeated assurances of the certainty of discovering the fugitive. agents were sent in quest of him, in all directions; every stratagem that could be invented was resorted to, for the purpose of discovering his place of retreat; but it was all in vain. half a year had passed over, and he was still undiscovered. "at length, late one night, heyling, of whom nothing had been seen for many weeks before, appeared at his attorney's private residence, and sent up word that a gentleman wished to see him instantly. before the attorney, who had recognised his voice from above stairs, could order the servant to admit him, he had rushed up the staircase, and entered the drawing-room pale and breathless. having closed the door, to prevent being overheard, he sunk into a chair, and said, in a low voice: "'hush! i have found him at last.' "'no!' said the attorney. 'well done, my dear sir; well done.' "'he lies concealed in a wretched lodging in camden town,' said heyling. 'perhaps it is as well we _did_ lose sight of him, for he has been living alone there, in the most abject misery, all the time, and he is poor--very poor.' "'very good,' said the attorney. 'you will have the caption made to-morrow, of course?' "'yes,' replied heyling. 'stay! no! the next day. you are surprised at my wishing to postpone it,' he added, with a ghastly smile; 'but i had forgotten. the next day is an anniversary in his life: let it be done then.' "'very good,' said the attorney. 'will you write down instructions for the officer?' "'no; let him meet me here, at eight in the evening, and i will accompany him, myself.' "they met on the appointed night, and, hiring a hackney coach, directed the driver to stop at that corner of the old pancras road, at which stands the parish workhouse. by the time they alighted there, it was quite dark; and, proceeding by the dead wall in front of the veterinary hospital, they entered a small by-street, which is, or was at that time, called little college street, and which, whatever it may be now, was in those days a desolate place enough, surrounded by little else than fields and ditches. "having drawn the travelling cap he had on half over his face, and muffled himself in his cloak, heyling stopped before the meanest-looking house in the street, and knocked gently at the door. it was opened at once by a woman, who dropped a curtsey of recognition, and heyling, whispering the officer to remain below, crept gently up-stairs, and, opening the door of the front room, entered at once. "the object of his search and his unrelenting animosity, now a decrepid old man, was seated at a bare deal table, on which stood a miserable candle. he started on the entrance of the stranger, and rose feebly to his feet. "'what now, what now?' said the old man. 'what fresh misery is this? what do you want here?' "'a word with _you_,' replied heyling. as he spoke, he seated himself at the other end of the table, and, throwing off his cloak and cap, disclosed his features. "the old man seemed instantly deprived of the power of speech. he fell backward in his chair, and, clasping his hands together, gazed on the apparition with a mingled look of abhorrence and fear. "'this day six years,' said heyling, 'i claimed the life you owed me for my child's. beside the lifeless form of your daughter, old man, i swore to live a life of revenge. i have never swerved from my purpose for a moment's space; but if i had, one thought of her uncomplaining, suffering look, as she drooped away, or of the starving face of our innocent child, would have nerved me to my task. my first act of requital you well remember: this is my last.' "the old man shivered, and his hands dropped powerless by his side. "'i leave england to-morrow,' said heyling, after a moment's pause. 'to-night i consign you to the living death to which you devoted her--a hopeless prison----' "he raised his eyes to the old man's countenance, and paused. he lifted the light to his face, set it gently down, and left the apartment. "'you had better see to the old man,' he said to the woman, as he opened the door, and motioned the officer to follow him into the street. 'i think he is ill.' the woman closed the door, ran hastily upstairs, and found him lifeless. * * * * * "beneath a plain grave-stone, in one of the most peaceful and secluded churchyards in kent, where wild flowers mingle with the grass, and the soft landscape around forms the fairest spot in the garden of england, lie the bones of the young mother and her gentle child. but the ashes of the father do not mingle with theirs; nor, from that night forward, did the attorney ever gain the remotest clue to the subsequent history of his queer client." * * * * * as the old man concluded his tale, he advanced to a peg in one corner, and taking down his hat and coat, put them on with great deliberation; and, without saying another word, walked slowly away. as the gentleman with the mosaic studs had fallen asleep, and the major part of the company were deeply occupied in the humorous process of dropping melted tallow-grease into his brandy and water, mr. pickwick departed unnoticed, and having settled his own score, and that of mr. weller, issued forth, in company with that gentleman, from beneath the portal of the magpie and stump. chapter xxii [illustration] _mr. pickwick journeys to ipswich, and meets with a romantic adventure with a middle-aged lady in yellow curl-papers_ "that 'ere your governor's luggage, sammy?" inquired mr. weller of his affectionate son, as he entered the yard of the bull inn, whitechapel, with a travelling bag and a small portmanteau. "you might ha' made a worser guess than that, old feller," replied mr. weller the younger, setting down his burden in the yard, and sitting himself down upon it afterwards. "the governor hisself 'll be down here presently." "he's a cabbin' it, i suppose?" said the father. "yes, he's a havin' two mile o' danger at eightpence," responded the son. "how's mother-in-law this mornin'?" "queer, sammy, queer," replied the elder mr. weller, with impressive gravity. "she's been gettin' rayther in the methodistical order lately, sammy; and she is uncommon pious, to be sure. she's too good a creetur for me, sammy. i feel i don't deserve her." "ah," said mr. samuel, "that's wery self-denyin' o' you." "wery," replied his parent, with a sigh. "she's got hold o' some inwention for grown-up people being born again, sammy; the new birth, i thinks they calls it. i should wery much like to see that system in haction, sammy. i should wery much like to see your mother-in-law born again. wouldn't i put her out to nurse!" "what do you think them women does t'other day," continued mr. weller, after a short pause, during which he had significantly struck the side of his nose with his fore-finger some half-dozen times. "what do you think they does, t'other day, sammy?" "don't know," replied sam; "what?" "goes and gets up a grand tea-drinkin' for a feller they calls their shepherd," said mr. weller. "i was a standing starin' in at the pictur shop down at our place, when i sees a little bill about it; 'tickets half-a-crown. all applications to be made to the committee. secretary, mrs. weller;' and when i got home there was the committee a sittin' in our back parlour. fourteen women; i wish you could ha' heard 'em, sammy. there they was, a passin' resolutions, and wotin' supplies, and all sorts o' games. well, what with your mother-in-law a worrying me to go, and what with my looking for'ard to seein' some queer starts if i did, i put my name down for a ticket; at six o'clock on the friday evenin' i dresses myself out wery smart, and off i goes with the old 'ooman, and up we walks into a fust floor where there was tea things for thirty, and a whole lot o' women as begins whisperin' to one another, and lookin' at me, as if they'd never seen a rayther stout gen'lm'n of eight-and-fifty afore. by-and-bye, there comes a great bustle down-stairs, and a lanky chap with a red nose and a white neckcloth rushes up, and sings out, 'here's the shepherd a coming to wisit his faithful flock;' and in comes a fat chap in black, vith a great white face, a smilin' avay like clockwork. such goin's on, sammy! 'the kiss of peace,' says the shepherd; and then he kissed the women all round, and ven he'd done, the man vith the red nose began. i was just a thinkin' whether i hadn't better begin too--'specially as there was a wery nice lady a sittin' next me--ven in comes the tea, and your mother-in-law, as had been makin' the kettle bile down-stairs. at it they went, tooth and nail. such a precious loud hymn, sammy, while the tea was a brewing; such a grace, such eatin' and drinkin'! i wish you could ha' seen the shepherd walkin' into the ham and muffins. i never see such a chap to eat and drink; never. the red-nosed man warn't by no means the sort of person you'd like to grub by contract, but he was nothin' to the shepherd. well; arter the tea was over, they sang another hymn, and then the shepherd began to preach: and wery well he did it, considerin' how heavy them muffins must have lied on his chest. presently he pulls up, all of a sudden, and hollers out, 'where is the sinner? where is the mis'rable sinner?' upon which, all the women looked at me, and began to groan as if they was a dying. i thought it was rather sing'ler, but hows'ever, i says nothing. presently he pulls up again, and lookin' wery hard at me, says, 'where is the sinner? where is the mis'rable sinner?' and all the women groans again, ten times louder than afore. i got rather wild at this, so i takes a step or two for'ard and says, 'my friend,' says i, 'did you apply that 'ere obserwation to me?' 'stead of begging my pardon as any gent'lm'n would ha' done, he got more abusive than ever: called me a wessel, sammy--a wessel of wrath--and all sorts o' names. so my blood being reg'larly up, i first give him two or three for himself, and then two or three more to hand over to the man with the red nose, and walked off. i wish you could ha' heard how the women screamed, sammy, ven they picked up the shepherd from under the table--hallo! here's the governor, the size of life." as mr. weller spoke, mr. pickwick dismounted from a cab, and entered the yard. "fine mornin', sir," said mr. weller senior. "beautiful indeed," replied mr. pickwick. "beautiful indeed," echoed a red-haired man with an inquisitive nose and blue spectacles, who had unpacked himself from a cab at the same moment as mr. pickwick. "going to ipswich, sir?" "i am," replied mr. pickwick. "extraordinary coincidence. so am i." mr. pickwick bowed. "going outside?" said the red-haired man. mr. pickwick bowed again. "bless my soul, how remarkable--i am going outside, too," said the red-haired man: "we are positively going together." and the red-haired man, who was an important-looking, sharp-nosed, mysterious-spoken personage, with a bird-like habit of giving his head a jerk every time he said anything, smiled as if he had made one of the strangest discoveries that ever fell to the lot of human wisdom. "i am happy in the prospect of your company, sir," said mr. pickwick. "ah," said the new-comer, "it's a good thing for both of us, isn't it? company, you see--company is--is--it's a very different thing from solitude--ain't it?" "there's no denying that 'ere," said mr. weller, joining in the conversation, with an affable smile. "that's what i call a self-evident proposition, as the dog's-meat man said, when the housemaid told him he warn't a gentleman." "ah," said the red-haired man, surveying mr. weller from head to foot with a supercilious look. "friend of yours, sir?" "not exactly a friend," replied mr. pickwick in a low tone. "the fact is, he is my servant, but i allow him to take a good many liberties; for, between ourselves, i flatter myself he is an original, and i am rather proud of him." "ah," said the red-haired man, "that, you see, is a matter of taste. i am not fond of anything original; i don't like it; don't see the necessity for it. what's your name, sir?" "here is my card, sir," replied mr. pickwick, much amused by the abruptness of the question, and the singular manner of the stranger. "ah," said the red-haired man, placing the card in his pocket-book, "pickwick; very good. i like to know a man's name, it saves so much trouble. that's my card, sir, magnus, you will perceive, sir--magnus is my name. it's rather a good name, i think, sir?" "a very good name, indeed," said mr. pickwick, wholly unable to repress a smile. "yes, i think it is," resumed mr. magnus. "there's a good name before it, too, you will observe. permit me, sir--if you hold the card a little slanting, this way, you catch the light upon the up-stroke. there--peter magnus--sounds well, i think, sir?" "very," said mr. pickwick. "curious circumstance about those initials, sir," said mr. magnus. "you will observe--p.m.--post meridian. in hasty notes to intimate acquaintance, i sometimes sign myself 'afternoon.' it amuses my friends very much, mr. pickwick." "it is calculated to afford them the highest gratification, i should conceive," said mr. pickwick, rather envying the ease with which mr. magnus's friends were entertained. "now, gen'lm'n," said the hostler, "coach is ready, if you please." "is all my luggage in?" inquired mr. magnus. "all right, sir." "is the red bag in?" "all right, sir." "and the striped bag?" "fore boot, sir." "and the brown-paper parcel?" "under the seat, sir." "and the leather hat-box?" "they're all in, sir." "now, will you get up?" said mr. pickwick. "excuse me," replied magnus, standing on the wheel. "excuse me, mr. pickwick. i cannot consent to get up, in this state of uncertainty. i am quite satisfied from that man's manner, that that leather hat-box is _not_ in." the solemn protestations of the hostler being wholly unavailing, the leather hat-box was obliged to be raked up from the lowest depth of the boot, to satisfy him that it had been safely packed; and after he had been assured on this head, he felt a solemn presentiment, first, that the red bag was mislaid, and next that the striped bag had been stolen, and then that the brown-paper parcel "had come untied." at length, when he had received ocular demonstration of the groundless nature of each and every of these suspicions, he consented to climb up to the roof of the coach, observing that now he had taken everything off his mind, he felt quite comfortable and happy. "you're given to nervousness, ain't you, sir?" inquired mr. weller senior, eyeing the stranger askance, as he mounted to his place. "yes; i always am rather, about these little matters," said the stranger, "but i am all right now--quite right." "well, that's a blessin'," said mr. weller. "sammy, help your master up to the box: t'other leg, sir, that's it; give us your hand, sir. up with you. you was a lighter weight when you was a boy, sir." "true enough, that, mr. weller," said the breathless mr. pickwick, good-humouredly, as he took his seat on the box beside him. "jump up in front, sammy," said mr. weller. "now villam, run 'em out. take care o' the archvay, gen'lm'n. 'heads,' as the pieman says. that'll do, villam. let 'em alone." and away went the coach up whitechapel, to the admiration of the whole population of that pretty-densely populated quarter. "not a wery nice neighbourhood this, sir," said sam, with a touch of the hat, which always preceded his entering into conversation with his master. "it is not, indeed, sam," replied mr. pickwick, surveying the crowded and filthy street through which they were passing. "it's a wery remarkable circumstance, sir," said sam, "that poverty and oysters always seems to go together." "i don't understand you, sam," said mr. pickwick. "what i mean, sir," said sam, "is, that the poorer a place is, the greater call there seems to be for oysters. look here, sir; here's a oyster stall to every half-dozen houses. the street's lined vith 'em. blessed if i don't think that ven a man's wery poor, he rushes out of his lodgings, and eats oysters in reg'lar desperation." "to be sure he does," said mr. weller senior; "and it's just the same vith pickled salmon!" "those are two very remarkable facts, which never occurred to me before," said mr. pickwick. "the very first place we stop at, i'll make a note of them." by this time they had reached the turnpike at mile end; a profound silence prevailed until they had got two or three miles further on, when mr. weller senior, turning suddenly to mr. pickwick, said: "wery queer life is a pike-keeper's, sir." "a what?" said mr. pickwick. "a pike-keeper." "what do you mean by a pike-keeper?" inquired mr. peter magnus. "the old 'un means a turnpike keeper, gen'lm'n," observed mr. samuel weller, in explanation. "oh," said mr. pickwick, "i see. yes; very curious life. very uncomfortable." "they're all on 'em men as has met vith some disappointment in life," said mr. weller senior. "ay, ay?" said mr. pickwick. "yes. consequence of vich, they retires from the world, and shuts themselves up in pikes; partly vith the view of being solitary, and partly to rewenge themselves on mankind, by takin' tolls." "dear me," said mr. pickwick, "i never knew that before." "fact, sir," said mr. weller; "if they was gen'lm'n you'd call 'em misanthropes, but as it is, they only takes to pike-keepin'." with such conversation, possessing the inestimable charm of blending amusement with instruction, did mr. weller beguile the tediousness of the journey, during the greater part of the day. topics of conversation were never wanting, for even when any pause occurred in mr. weller's loquacity, it was abundantly supplied by the desire evinced by mr. magnus to make himself acquainted with the whole of the personal history of his fellow-travellers, and his loudly-expressed anxiety at every stage, respecting the safety and well-being of the two bags, the leather hat-box, and the brown-paper parcel. in the main street of ipswich, on the left-hand side of the way, a short distance after you have passed through the open space fronting the town hall, stands an inn known far and wide by the appellation of the great white horse, rendered the more conspicuous by a stone statue of some rampacious animal with flowing mane and tail, distantly resembling an insane cart-horse, which is elevated above the principal door. the great white horse is famous in the neighbourhood, in the same degree as a prize ox, or county-paper-chronicled turnip, or unwieldy pig--for its enormous size. never were such labyrinths of uncarpeted passages, such clusters of mouldy, ill-lighted rooms, such huge numbers of small dens for eating or sleeping in, beneath any one roof, as are collected together between the four walls of the great white horse at ipswich. it was at the door of this overgrown tavern that the london coach stopped, at the same hour every evening; and it was from this same london coach, that mr. pickwick, sam weller, and mr. peter magnus dismounted, on the particular evening to which this chapter of our history bears reference. "do you stop here, sir?" inquired mr. peter magnus, when the striped bag, and the red bag, and the brown-paper parcel, and the leather hat-box, had all been deposited in the passage. "do you stop here, sir?" "i do," said mr. pickwick. "dear me," said mr. magnus, "i never knew anything like these extraordinary coincidences. why, i stop here too. i hope we dine together?" "with pleasure," replied mr. pickwick. "i am not quite certain whether i have any friends here or not, though. is there any gentleman of the name of tupman here, waiter?" a corpulent man, with a fortnight's napkin under his arm, and coeval stockings on his legs, slowly desisted from his occupation of staring down the street, on this question being put to him by mr. pickwick; and, after minutely inspecting that gentleman's appearance, from the crown of his hat to the lowest button of his gaiters, replied emphatically: "no." "nor any gentleman of the name of snodgrass?" inquired mr. pickwick. "no." "nor winkle?" "no." "my friends have not arrived to-day, sir," said mr. pickwick. "we will dine alone, then. show us a private room, waiter." on this request being preferred, the corpulent man condescended to order the boots to bring in the gentlemen's luggage; and preceding them down a long dark passage, ushered them into a large, badly-furnished apartment, with a dirty grate, in which a small fire was making a wretched attempt to be cheerful, but was fast sinking beneath the dispiriting influence of the place. after the lapse of an hour, a bit of fish and a steak were served up to the travellers, and when the dinner was cleared away, mr. pickwick and mr. peter magnus drew their chairs up to the fire, and having ordered a bottle of the worst possible port wine, at the highest possible price, for the good of the house, drank brandy and water for their own. mr. peter magnus was naturally of a very communicative disposition, and the brandy and water operated with wonderful effect in warming into life the deepest hidden secrets of his bosom. after sundry accounts of himself, his family, his connexions, his friends, his jokes, his business, and his brothers (most talkative men have a great deal to say about their brothers), mr. peter magnus took a blue view of mr. pickwick through his coloured spectacles for several minutes, and then said, with an air of modesty: "and what do you think--what _do_ you think, mr. pickwick--i have come down here for?" "upon my word," said mr. pickwick, "it is wholly impossible for me to guess; on business, perhaps?" "partly right, sir," replied mr. peter magnus, "but partly wrong, at the same time: try again, mr. pickwick." "really," said mr. pickwick, "i must throw myself on your mercy, to tell me or not, as you may think best; for i should never guess, if i were to try all night." "why, then, he--he--he!" said mr. peter magnus, with a bashful titter, "what should you think, mr. pickwick, if i had come down here, to make a proposal, sir, eh? he--he--he!" "think! that you are very likely to succeed," replied mr. pickwick, with one of his beaming smiles. "ah!" said mr. magnus. "but do you really think so, mr. pickwick? do you, though?" "certainly," said mr. pickwick. "no; but you're joking, though?" "i am not, indeed." "why, then," said mr. magnus, "to let you into a little secret, _i_ think so too. i don't mind telling you, mr. pickwick, although i'm dreadful jealous by nature--horrid--that the lady is in this house." here mr. magnus took off his spectacles, on purpose to wink, and then put them on again. "that's what you were running out of the room for, before dinner, then, so often?" said mr. pickwick, archly. "hush! yes, you're right, that was it; not such a fool as to see her, though." "no!" "no; wouldn't do, you know, after having just come off a journey. wait till to-morrow, sir; double the chance then. mr. pickwick, sir, there is a suit of clothes in that bag, and a hat in that box, which i expect, in the effect they will produce, will be invaluable to me, sir." "indeed!" said mr. pickwick. "yes; you must have observed my anxiety about them to-day. i do not believe that such another suit of clothes, and such a hat, could be bought for money, mr. pickwick." mr. pickwick congratulated the fortunate owner of the irresistible garments, on their acquisition; and mr. peter magnus remained for a few moments apparently absorbed in contemplation. "she's a fine creature," said mr. magnus. "is she?" said mr. pickwick. "very," said mr. magnus, "very. she lives about twenty miles from here, mr. pickwick. i heard she would be here to-night and all to-morrow forenoon, and came down to seize the opportunity. i think an inn is a good sort of a place to propose to a single woman in, mr. pickwick. she is more likely to feel the loneliness of her situation in travelling, perhaps, than she would be at home. what do you think, mr. pickwick?" "i think it very probable," replied that gentleman. "i beg your pardon, mr. pickwick," said mr. peter magnus, "but i am naturally rather curious; what may _you_ have come down here for?" "on a far less pleasant errand, sir," replied mr. pickwick, the colour mounting to his face at the recollection. "i have come down here, sir, to expose the treachery and falsehood of an individual, upon whose truth and honour i placed implicit reliance." "dear me," said mr. peter magnus, "that's very unpleasant. it is a lady, i presume? eh? ah! sly, mr. pickwick, sly. well, mr. pickwick, sir, i wouldn't probe your feelings for the world. painful subjects, these, sir, very painful. don't mind me, mr. pickwick, if you wish to give vent to your feelings. i know what it is to be jilted, sir; i have endured that sort of thing three or four times." "i am much obliged to you, for your condolence on what you presume to be my melancholy case," said mr. pickwick, winding up his watch, and laying it on the table, "but----" "no, no," said mr. peter magnus, "not a word more: it's a painful subject. i see, i see. what's the time, mr. pickwick?" "past twelve." "dear me, it's time to go to bed. it will never do, sitting here. i shall be pale to-morrow, mr. pickwick." at the bare notion of such a calamity, mr. peter magnus rang the bell for the chamber-maid; and the striped bag, the red bag, the leathern hat-box, and the brown-paper parcel, having been conveyed to his bed-room, he retired in company with a japanned candlestick, to one side of the house, while mr. pickwick, and another japanned candlestick, were conducted, through a multitude of tortuous windings, to another. "this is your room, sir," said the chamber-maid. "very well," replied mr. pickwick, looking round him. it was a tolerably large double-bedded room, with a fire; upon the whole, a more comfortable-looking apartment than mr. pickwick's short experience of the accommodations of the great white horse had led him to expect. "nobody sleeps in the other bed, of course?" said mr. pickwick. "oh no, sir." "very good. tell my servant to bring me up some hot water at half-past eight in the morning, and that i shall not want him any more to-night." "yes, sir." and bidding mr. pickwick good-night, the chamber-maid retired, and left him alone. mr. pickwick sat himself down in a chair before the fire, and fell into a train of rambling meditations. first he thought of his friends, and wondered when they would join him; then his mind reverted to mrs. martha bardell; and from that lady it wandered, by a natural process, to the dingy counting-house of dodson and fogg. from dodson and fogg's it flew off at a tangent, to the very centre of the history of the queer client; and then it came back to the great white horse at ipswich, with sufficient clearness to convince mr. pickwick that he was falling asleep. so he roused himself, and began to undress, when he recollected he had left his watch on the table down-stairs. now, this watch was a special favourite with mr. pickwick, having been carried about beneath the shadow of his waistcoat, for a greater number of years than we feel called upon to state at present. the possibility of going to sleep, unless it were ticking gently beneath his pillow, or in the watch-pocket over his head, had never entered mr. pickwick's brain. so as it was pretty late now, and he was unwilling to ring his bell at that hour of the night, he slipped on his coat, of which he had just divested himself, and taking the japanned candlestick in his hand, walked quietly down-stairs. the more stairs mr. pickwick went down, the more stairs there seemed to be to descend, and again and again, when mr. pickwick got into some narrow passage, and began to congratulate himself on having gained the ground-floor, did another flight of stairs appear before his astonished eyes. at last he reached a stone hall, which he remembered to have seen when he entered the house. passage after passage did he explore; room after room did he peep into; at length, as he was on the point of giving up the search in despair, he opened the door of the identical room in which he had spent the evening, and beheld his missing property on the table. mr. pickwick seized the watch in triumph, and proceeded to retrace his steps to his bed-chamber. if his progress downward had been attended with difficulties and uncertainty, his journey back was infinitely more perplexing. rows of doors, garnished with boots of every shape, make, and size, branched off in every possible direction. a dozen times did he softly turn the handle of some bed-room door which resembled his own, when a gruff cry from within of "who the devil's that?" or "what do you want here?" caused him to steal away, on tiptoe, with a perfectly marvellous celerity. he was reduced to the verge of despair, when an open door attracted his attention. he peeped in. right at last! there were the two beds, whose situation he perfectly remembered, and the fire still burning. his candle, not a long one when he first received it, had flickered away in the drafts of air through which he had passed, and sank into the socket as he closed the door after him. "no matter," said mr. pickwick, "i can undress myself just as well by the light of the fire." the bedsteads stood one on each side of the door; and on the inner side of each was a little path, terminating in a rush-bottomed chair, just wide enough to admit of a person's getting into or out of bed, on that side, if he or she thought proper. having carefully drawn the curtains of his bed on the outside, mr. pickwick sat down on the rush-bottomed chair, and leisurely divested himself of his shoes and gaiters. he then took off and folded up his coat, waistcoat, and neckcloth, and slowly drawing on his tasselled night-cap, secured it firmly on his head, by tying beneath his chin the strings which he always had attached to that article of dress. it was at this moment that the absurdity of his recent bewilderment struck upon his mind. throwing himself back in the rush-bottomed chair, mr. pickwick laughed to himself so heartily, that it would have been quite delightful to any man of well-constituted mind to have watched the smiles that expanded his amiable features as they shone forth from beneath the night-cap. "it is the best idea," said mr. pickwick to himself, smiling till he almost cracked the night-cap strings: "it is the best idea, my losing myself in this place, and wandering about those staircases, that i ever heard of. droll, droll, very droll." here mr. pickwick smiled again, a broader smile than before, and was about to continue the process of undressing, in the best possible humour, when he was suddenly stopped by a most unexpected interruption; to wit, the entrance into the room of some person with a candle, who, after locking the door, advanced to the dressing-table, and set down the light upon it. the smile that played on mr. pickwick's features was instantaneously lost in a look of the most unbounded and wonder-stricken surprise. the person, whoever it was, had come in so suddenly and with so little noise, that mr. pickwick had had no time to call out, or oppose their entrance. who could it be? a robber? some evil-minded person who had seen him come up-stairs with a handsome watch in his hand, perhaps. what was he to do? the only way in which mr. pickwick could catch a glimpse of his mysterious visitor with the least danger of being seen himself, was by creeping on to the bed, and peeping out from between the curtains on the opposite side. to this manoeuvre he accordingly resorted. keeping the curtains carefully closed with his hand, so that nothing more of him could be seen than his face and night-cap, and putting on his spectacles, he mustered up courage, and looked out. mr. pickwick almost fainted with horror and dismay. standing before a dressing-glass was a middle-aged lady, in yellow curl-papers, busily engaged in brushing what ladies call their "back-hair." however the unconscious middle-aged lady came into that room, it was quite clear that she contemplated remaining there for the night; for she had brought a rushlight and shade with her, which, with praiseworthy precaution against fire, she had stationed in a basin on the floor, where it was glimmering away, like a gigantic light-house in a particularly small piece of water. "bless my soul," thought mr. pickwick, "what a dreadful thing!" "hem!" said the lady; and in went mr. pickwick's head with automaton-like rapidity. "i never met with anything so awful as this," thought poor mr. pickwick, the cold perspiration starting in drops upon his night-cap. "never. this is fearful." it was quite impossible to resist the urgent desire to see what was going forward. so out went mr. pickwick's head again. the prospect was worse than before. the middle-aged lady had finished arranging her hair; had carefully enveloped it in a muslin night-cap with a small plaited border; and was gazing pensively on the fire. "this matter is growing alarming," reasoned mr. pickwick with himself. "i can't allow things to go on in this way. by the self-possession of that lady it is clear to me that i must have come into the wrong room. if i call out she'll alarm the house; but if i remain here the consequences will be still more frightful." mr. pickwick, it is quite unnecessary to say, was one of the most modest and delicate-minded of mortals. the very idea of exhibiting his night-cap to a lady overpowered him, but he had tied those confounded strings in a knot, and, do what he would, he couldn't get it off. the disclosure must be made. there was only one other way of doing it. he shrunk behind the curtains, and called out very loudly: "ha-hum!" that the lady started at this unexpected sound was evident, by her falling up against the rushlight shade; that she persuaded herself it must have been the effect of imagination was equally clear, for when mr. pickwick, under the impression that she had fainted away stone-dead from fright, ventured to peep out again, she was gazing pensively on the fire as before. "most extraordinary female this," thought mr. pickwick, popping in again. "ha--hum!" these last sounds, so like those in which, as legends inform us, the ferocious giant blunderbore was in the habit of expressing his opinion that it was time to lay the cloth, were too distinctly audible to be again mistaken for the workings of fancy. "gracious heaven!" said the middle-aged lady, "what's that?" "it's--it's--only a gentleman, ma'am," said mr. pickwick, from behind the curtains. "a gentleman!" said the lady with a terrific scream. "it's all over!" thought mr. pickwick. "a strange man!" shrieked the lady. another instant and the house would be alarmed. her garments rustled as she rushed towards the door. "ma'am," said mr. pickwick, thrusting out his head, in the extremity of his desperation, "ma'am!" now, although mr. pickwick was not actuated by any definite object in putting out his head, it was instantaneously productive of a good effect. the lady, as we have already stated, was near the door. she must pass it, to reach the staircase, and she would most undoubtedly have done so by this time, had not the sudden apparition of mr. pickwick's night-cap driven her back into the remotest corner of the apartment, where she stood staring wildly at mr. pickwick, while mr. pickwick in his turn stared wildly at her. "wretch!" said the lady, covering her eyes with her hands, "what do you want here?" "nothing, ma'am; nothing whatever, ma'am;" said mr. pickwick, earnestly. "nothing!" said the lady, looking up. "nothing, ma'am, upon my honour," said mr. pickwick, nodding his head so energetically that the tassel of his night-cap danced again. "i am almost ready to sink, ma'am, beneath the confusion of addressing a lady in my night-cap" (here the lady hastily snatched off hers), "but i can't get it off, ma'am" (here mr. pickwick gave it a tremendous tug, in proof of the statement). "it is evident to me, ma'am, now, that i have mistaken this bed-room for my own. i had not been here five minutes, ma'am, when you suddenly entered it." "if this improbable story be really true, sir," said the lady, sobbing violently, "you will leave it instantly." "i will, ma'am, with the greatest pleasure," replied mr. pickwick. "instantly, sir," said the lady. "certainly, ma'am," interposed mr. pickwick very quickly. "certainly, ma'am. i--i--am very sorry, ma'am," said mr. pickwick, making his appearance at the bottom of the bed, "to have been the innocent occasion of this alarm and emotion; deeply sorry, ma'am." the lady pointed to the door. one excellent quality of mr. pickwick's character was beautifully displayed at this moment, under the most trying circumstances. although he had hastily put on his hat over his night-cap, after the manner of the old patrol; although he carried his shoes and gaiters in his hand, and his coat and waistcoat over his arm; nothing could subdue his native politeness. "i am exceedingly sorry, ma'am," said mr. pickwick, bowing very low. "if you are, sir, you will at once leave the room," said the lady. "immediately, ma'am; this instant, ma'am," said mr. pickwick, opening the door, and dropping both his shoes with a crash in so doing. "i trust, ma'am," resumed mr. pickwick, gathering up his shoes, and turning round to bow again: "i trust, ma'am, that my unblemished character, and the devoted respect i entertain for your sex, will plead as some slight excuse for this"--but before mr. pickwick could conclude the sentence the lady had thrust him into the passage, and locked and bolted the door behind him. [illustration: "_i trust, ma'am," resumed mr. pickwick, "that my unblemished character and the devoted respect i entertain for your sex----_"] whatever grounds of self-congratulation mr. pickwick might have for having escaped so quietly from his late awkward situation, his present position was by no means enviable. he was alone, in an open passage, in a strange house, in the middle of the night, half dressed; it was not to be supposed that he could find his way in perfect darkness to a room which he had been wholly unable to discover with a light, and if he made the slightest noise in his fruitless attempts to do so, he stood every chance of being shot at, and perhaps killed, by some wakeful traveller. he had no resource but to remain where he was until daylight appeared. so after groping his way a few paces down the passage, and, to his infinite alarm, stumbling over several pairs of boots in so doing, mr. pickwick crouched into a little recess in the wall, to wait for morning as philosophically as he might. he was not destined, however, to undergo this additional trial of patience: for he had not long been ensconced in his present concealment when, to his unspeakable horror, a man, bearing a light, appeared at the end of the passage. his horror was suddenly converted into joy, however, when he recognised the form of his faithful attendant. it was indeed mr. samuel weller, who, after sitting up thus late in conversation with the boots, who was sitting up for the mail, was now about to retire to rest. "sam," said mr. pickwick, suddenly appearing before him, "where's my bedroom?" [illustration: "_sam," said mr. pickwick, "where's my bedroom?_"] mr. weller stared at his master with the most emphatic surprise; and it was not until the question had been repeated three several times, that he turned round and led the way to the long-sought apartment. "sam," said mr. pickwick, as he got into bed, "i have made one of the most extraordinary mistakes to-night, that ever were heard of." "wery likely, sir," replied mr. weller, dryly. "but of this i am determined, sam," said mr. pickwick; "that if i were to stop in this house for six months, i would never trust myself about it, alone, again." "that's the wery prudentest resolution as you could come to, sir," replied mr. weller. "you rayther want somebody to look arter you, sir, ven your judgment goes out a wisitin'." "what do you mean by that, sam?" said mr. pickwick. he raised himself in bed, and extended his hand, as if he were about to say something more; but suddenly checking himself, turned round, and bade his valet "good night." "good night, sir," replied mr. weller. he paused when he got outside the door--shook his head--walked on--stopped--snuffed the candle--shook his head again--and finally proceeded slowly to his chamber, apparently buried in the profoundest meditation. chapter xxiii [illustration] _in which mr. samuel weller begins to devote his energies to the return match between himself and mr. trotter_ in a small room in the vicinity of the stable-yard, betimes in the morning, which was ushered in by mr. pickwick's adventure with the middle-aged lady in the yellow curl-papers, sat mr. weller senior, preparing himself for his journey to london. he was sitting in an excellent attitude for having his portrait taken. it is very possible that at some earlier period of his career, mr. weller's profile might have presented a bold and determined outline. his face, however, had expanded under the influence of good living, and a disposition remarkable for resignation; and its bold, fleshy curves had so far extended beyond the limits originally assigned them, that unless you took a full view of his countenance in front, it was difficult to distinguish more than the extreme tip of a very rubicund nose. his chin, from the same cause, had acquired the grave and imposing form which is generally described by prefixing the word "double" to that expressive feature; and his complexion exhibited that peculiarly mottled combination of colours which is only to be seen in gentlemen of his profession, and in under-done roast beef. round his neck he wore a crimson travelling shawl, which merged into his chin by such imperceptible gradations, that it was difficult to distinguish the folds of the one from the folds of the other. over this, he mounted a long waistcoat of a broad pink-striped pattern, and over that again, a wide-skirted green coat, ornamented with large brass buttons, whereof the two which garnished the waist, were so far apart, that no man had ever beheld them both, at the same time. his hair, which was short, sleek, and black, was just visible beneath the capacious brim of a low-crowned brown hat. his legs were encased in knee-cord breeches and painted top-boots; and a copper watch-chain, terminating in one seal, and a key of the same material, dangled loosely from his capacious waistband. we have said that mr. weller was engaged in preparing for his journey to london--he was taking sustenance, in fact. on the table before him, stood a pot of ale, a cold round of beef, and a very respectable-looking loaf, to each of which he distributed his favours in turn, with the most rigid impartiality. he had just cut a mighty slice from the latter, when the footsteps of somebody entering the room, caused him to raise his head; and he beheld his son. "mornin', sammy!" said the father. the son walked up to the pot of ale, and nodding significantly to his parent, took a long draught by way of reply. "wery good power o' suction, sammy," said mr. weller the elder, looking into the pot, when his first-born had set it down half empty. "you'd ha' made an uncommon fine oyster, sammy, if you'd been born in that station o' life." "yes, i des-say i should ha' managed to pick up a respectable livin'," replied sam, applying himself to the cold beef, with considerable vigour. "i'm wery sorry, sammy," said the elder mr. weller, shaking up the ale, by describing small circles with the pot, preparatory to drinking. "i'm wery sorry, sammy, to hear from your lips, as you let yourself be gammoned by that 'ere mulberry man. i always thought, up to three days ago, that the names of veller and gammon could never come into contact, sammy, never." "always exceptin' the case of a widder, of course," said sam. "widders, sammy," replied mr. weller, slightly changing colour, "widders are 'ceptions to ev'ry rule. i _have_ heerd how many ord'nary women one widder's equal to, in pint o' comin' over you. i think it's five-and-twenty, but i don't rightly know vether it ain't more." "well; that's pretty well," said sam. "besides," continued mr. weller, not noticing the interruption, "that's a wery different thing. you know what the counsel said, sammy, as defended the gen'l'm'n as beat his wife with the poker, venever he got jolly. 'and arter all, my lord,' says he, 'it's a amiable weakness.' so i says respectin' widders, sammy, and so you'll say, ven you gets as old as me." "i ought to ha' know'd better, i know," said sam. "ought to ha' know'd better!" repeated mr. weller, striking the table with his fist. "ought to ha' know'd better! why, i know a young 'un as hasn't had half nor quarter your eddication--as hasn't slept about the markets, no, not six months--who'd ha' scorned to be let in, in such a vay; scorned it, sammy." in the excitement of feeling produced by this agonising reflection, mr. weller rang the bell, and ordered an additional pint of ale. "well, it's no use talking about it now," said sam. "it's over, and can't be helped, and that's one consolation, as they always says in turkey, ven they cuts the wrong man's head off. it's my innings now, gov'rnor, and as soon as i catches hold o' this 'ere trotter, i'll have a good 'un." "i hope you will, sammy. i hope you will," returned mr. weller. "here's your health, sammy, and may you speedily vipe off the disgrace as you've inflicted on the family name." in honour of this toast mr. weller imbibed at a draught, at least two-thirds of the newly-arrived pint, and handed it over to his son, to dispose of the remainder, which he instantaneously did. "and now, sammy," said mr. weller, consulting the large double-faced silver watch that hung at the end of the copper chain. "now it's time i was up at the office to get my vay-bill, and see the coach loaded; for coaches, sammy, is like guns--they requires to be loaded with wery great care, afore they go off." at this parental and professional joke, mr. weller junior smiled a filial smile. his revered parent continued in a solemn tone: "i'm a goin' to leave you, samivel, my boy, and there's no telling ven i shall see you again. your mother-in-law may ha' been too much for me, or a thousand things may have happened by the time you next hears any news o' the celebrated mr. veller o' the bell savage. the family name depends wery much upon you, samivel, and i hope you'll do wot's right by it. upon all little pints o' breedin', i know i may trust you as vell as if it was my own self. so i've only this here one little bit of adwice to give you. if ever you gets to up'ards o' fifty, and feels disposed to go a marryin' anybody--no matter who--just you shut yourself up in your own room, if you've got one, and pison yourself off hand. hangin's wulgar, so don't you have nothin' to say to that. pison yourself, samivel, my boy, pison yourself, and you'll be glad on it arterwards." with these affecting words, mr. weller looked steadfastly on his son, and turning slowly upon his heel, disappeared from his sight. in the contemplative mood which these words had awakened, mr. samuel weller walked forth from the great white horse when his father had left him; and bending his steps towards st. clement's church, endeavoured to dissipate his melancholy by strolling among its ancient precincts. he had loitered about for some time, when he found himself in a retired spot--a kind of court-yard of venerable appearance--which he discovered had no other outlet than the turning by which he had entered. he was about retracing his steps, when he was suddenly transfixed to the spot by a sudden appearance; and the mode and manner of this appearance, we now proceed to relate. mr. samuel weller had been staring up at the old brick houses now and then, in his deep abstraction, bestowing a wink upon some healthy-looking servant girl as she drew up a blind or threw open a bed-room window, when the green gate of a garden at the bottom of the yard opened, and a man having emerged therefrom, closed the green gate very carefully after him, and walked briskly towards the very spot where mr. weller was standing. now, taking this, as an isolated fact, unaccompanied by any attendant circumstances, there was nothing very extraordinary in it; because in many parts of the world, men do come out of gardens, close green gates after them, and even walk briskly away, without attracting any particular share of public observation. it is clear, therefore, that there must have been something in the man, or in his manner, or both, to attract mr. weller's particular notice. whether there was, or not, we must leave the reader to determine, when we have faithfully recorded the behaviour of the individual in question. when the man had shut the green gate after him, he walked, as we have said twice already, with a brisk pace up the court-yard; but he no sooner caught sight of mr. weller, than he faltered, and stopped, as if uncertain, for the moment, what course to adopt. as the green gate was closed behind him, and there was no other outlet but the one in front, however, he was not long in perceiving that he must pass mr. samuel weller to get away. he therefore resumed his brisk pace, and advanced, staring straight before him. the most extraordinary thing about the man was, that he was contorting his face into the most fearful and astonishing grimaces that ever were beheld. nature's handiwork never was disguised with such extraordinary artificial carving, as the man had overlaid his countenance with in one moment. "well!" said mr. weller to himself, as the man approached. "this is wery odd. i could ha' swore it was him." up came the man, and his face became more frightfully distorted than ever, as he drew nearer. "i could take my oath to that 'ere black hair and mulberry suit," said mr. weller; "only i never see such a face as that, afore." as mr. weller said this, the man's features assumed an unearthly twinge, perfectly hideous. he was obliged to pass very near sam, however, and the scrutinising glance of that gentleman enabled him to detect, under all these appalling twists of feature, something too like the small eyes of mr. job trotter, to be easily mistaken. "hallo, you sir!" shouted sam, fiercely. the stranger stopped. "hallo!" repeated sam, still more gruffly. the man with the horrible face looked with the greatest surprise, up the court, and down the court, and in at the windows of the houses--everywhere but at sam weller--and took another step forward, when he was brought to again, by another shout. "hallo, you sir!" said sam, for the third time. there was no pretending to mistake where the voice came from now, so the stranger, having no other resource, at last looked sam weller full in the face. "it won't do, job trotter," said sam. "come! none o' that 'ere nonsense. you ain't so wery 'andsome that you can afford to throw avay many o' your good looks. bring them 'ere eyes o' your'n back into their proper places, or i'll knock 'em out of your head. d'ye hear?" as mr. weller appeared fully disposed to act up to the spirit of this address, mr. trotter gradually allowed his face to resume its natural expression; and then giving a start of joy, exclaimed, "what do i see? mr. walker!" "ah," replied sam. "you're wery glad to see me, ain't you?" "glad!" exclaimed job trotter; "oh, mr. walker, if you had but known how i have looked forward to this meeting! it is too much, mr. walker; i cannot bear it, indeed i cannot." and with these words, mr. trotter burst into a regular inundation of tears, and, flinging his arms around those of mr. weller, embraced him closely, in an ecstasy of joy. "get off!" cried sam, indignant at this process, and vainly endeavouring to extricate himself from the grasp of his enthusiastic acquaintance. "get off, i tell you. what are you crying over me for, you portable ingine?" "because i am so glad to see you," replied job trotter, gradually releasing mr. weller, as the first symptoms of his pugnacity disappeared. "oh, mr. walker, this is too much!" "too much!" echoed sam, "i think it is too much--rayther! now what have you got to say to me, eh?" mr. trotter made no reply; for the little pink pocket-handkerchief was in full force. "what have you got to say to me, afore i knock your head off?" repeated mr. weller, in a threatening manner. "eh!" said mr. trotter, with a look of virtuous surprise. "what have you got to say to me?" "i, mr. walker?" "don't call me valker; my name's veller; you know that vell enough. what have you got to say to me?" "bless you, mr. walker--weller i mean--a great many things, if you will come away somewhere, where we can talk comfortably. if you knew how i have looked for you, mr. weller----" "wery hard, indeed, i s'pose?" said sam, dryly. "very, very, sir," replied mr. trotter, without moving a muscle of his face. "but shake hands, mr. weller." sam eyed his companion for a few seconds, and then, as if actuated by a sudden impulse, complied with his request. "how," said job trotter, as they walked away, "how is your dear, good master? oh, he is a worthy gentleman, mr. weller! i hope he didn't catch cold, that dreadful night, sir?" there was a momentary look of deep slyness in job trotter's eye as he said this, which ran a thrill through mr. weller's clenched fist as he burnt with a desire to make a demonstration on his ribs. sam constrained himself, however, and replied that his master was extremely well. "oh, i am so glad," replied mr. trotter. "is he here?" "is your'n?" asked sam, by way of reply. "oh yes, he is here, and i grieve to say, mr. weller, he is going on worse than ever." "ah, ah?" said sam. "oh, shocking--terrible!" "at a boarding-school?" said sam. "no, not at a boarding-school," replied job trotter, with the same sly look which sam had noticed before; "not at a boarding-school." "at the house with the green gate?" said sam, eyeing his companion closely. "no, no--oh, not there," replied job, with a quickness very unusual to him, "not there." "what was _you_ a doin' there?" asked sam, with a sharp glance. "got inside the gate by accident, perhaps?" "why, mr. weller," replied job, "i don't mind telling you my little secrets, because, you know, we took such a fancy for each other when we first met. you recollect how pleasant we were that morning?" "oh yes," said sam, impatiently, "i remember. well?" "well," replied job, speaking with great precision, and in the low tone of a man who communicates an important secret, "in that house with the green gate, mr. weller, they keep a good many servants." "so i should think, from the look on it," interposed sam. "yes," continued mr. trotter, "and one of them is a cook, who has saved up a little money, mr. weller, and is desirous, if she can establish herself in life, to open a little shop in the chandlery way, you see." "yes." "yes, mr. weller. well, sir, i met her at a chapel that i go to: a very neat little chapel in this town, mr. weller, where they sing the number four collection of hymns, which i generally carry about with me, in a little book, which you may perhaps have seen in my hand--and i got a little intimate with her, mr. weller, and from that, an acquaintance sprung up between us, and i may venture to say, mr. weller, that i am to be the chandler." "ah, and a wery amiable chandler you'll make," replied sam, eyeing job with a side look of intense dislike. "the great advantage of this, mr. weller," continued job, his eyes filling with tears as he spoke, "will be, that i shall be able to leave my present disgraceful service with that bad man, and to devote myself to a better and more virtuous life; more like the way in which i was brought up, mr. weller." "you must ha' been wery nicely brought up?" said sam. "oh, very, mr. weller, very," replied job. at the recollection of the purity of his youthful days, mr. trotter pulled forth the pink handkerchief, and wept copiously. "you must ha' been an uncommon nice boy to go to school vith," said sam. "i was, sir," replied job, heaving a deep sigh. "i was the idol of the place." "ah," said sam, "i don't wonder at it. what a comfort you must ha' been to your blessed mother." at these words, mr. job trotter inserted an end of the pink handkerchief into the corner of each eye, one after the other, and began to weep copiously. "wot's the matter vith the man," said sam, indignantly. "chelsea water-works is nothin' to you. what are you melting vith now? the consciousness o' willany?" "i cannot keep my feelings down, mr. weller," said job, after a short pause. "to think that my master should have suspected the conversation i had with yours, and so dragged me away in a post-chaise, and after persuading the sweet young lady to say she knew nothing of him, and bribing the school-mistress to do the same, deserted her for a better speculation! oh! mr. weller, it makes me shudder." "oh, that was the vay, was it?" said mr. weller. "to be sure it was," replied job. "vell," said sam, as they had now arrived near the hotel, "i vant to have a little bit o' talk with you, job; so if you're not partickler engaged, i should like to see you at the great white horse to-night, somewheres about eight o'clock." "i shall be sure to come," said job. "yes, you'd better," replied sam, with a very meaning look, "or else i shall perhaps be asking arter you, at the other side of the green gate, and then i might cut you out, you know." "i shall be sure to be with you, sir," said mr. trotter; and wringing sam's hand with the utmost fervour, he walked away. "take care, job trotter, take care," said sam, looking after him, "or i shall be one too many for you this time. i shall indeed." having uttered this soliloquy, and looked after job till he was to be seen no more, mr. weller made the best of his way to his master's bed-room. "it's all in training, sir," said sam. "what's in training, sam?" inquired mr. pickwick. "i've found 'em out, sir," said sam. "found out whom?" "that 'ere queer customer, and the melan-cholly chap with the black hair." "impossible, sam!" said mr. pickwick, with the greatest energy. "where are they, sam; where are they?" "hush, hush!" replied mr. weller; and as he assisted mr. pickwick to dress, he detailed the plan of action on which he proposed to enter. "but when is this to be done, sam?" inquired mr. pickwick. "all in good time, sir," replied sam. whether it was done in good time, or not, will be seen hereafter. chapter xxiv [illustration] _wherein mr. peter magnus grows jealous, and the middle-aged lady apprehensive, which brings the pickwickians within the grasp of the law_ when mr. pickwick descended to the room in which he and mr. peter magnus had spent the preceding evening, he found that gentleman with the major part of the contents of the two bags, the leathern hat-box, and the brown-paper parcel, displayed to all possible advantage on his person, while he himself was pacing up and down the room in a state of the utmost excitement and agitation. "good morning, sir," said mr. peter magnus. "what do you think of this, sir?" "very effective indeed," replied mr. pickwick, surveying the garments of mr. peter magnus with a good-natured smile. "yes, i think it'll do," said mr. magnus. "mr. pickwick, sir, i have sent up my card." "have you?" said mr. pickwick. "and the waiter brought back word that she would see me at eleven--at eleven, sir; it only wants a quarter now." "very near the time," said mr. pickwick. "yes, it is rather near," replied mr. magnus, "rather too near to be pleasant--eh! mr. pickwick, sir?" "confidence is a great thing in these cases," observed mr. pickwick. "i believe it is, sir," said mr. peter magnus. "i am very confident, sir. really, mr. pickwick, i do not see why a man should feel any fear in such a case as this, sir. what is it, sir? there's nothing to be ashamed of; it's a matter of mutual accommodation, nothing more. husband on one side, wife on the other. that's my view of the matter, mr. pickwick." "it is a very philosophical one," replied mr. pickwick. "but breakfast is waiting, mr. magnus. come." down they sat to breakfast, but it was evident, notwithstanding the boasting of mr. peter magnus, that he laboured under a very considerable degree of nervousness, of which loss of appetite, a propensity to upset the tea-things, a spectral attempt at drollery, and an irresistible inclination to look at the clock, every other second, were among the principal symptoms. "he--he--he," tittered mr. magnus, affecting cheerfulness, and gasping with agitation. "it only wants two minutes, mr. pickwick. am i pale, sir?" "not very," replied mr. pickwick. there was a brief pause. "i beg your pardon, mr. pickwick; but have you ever done this sort of thing in your time?" said mr. magnus. "you mean proposing?" said mr. pickwick. "yes." "never," said mr. pickwick, with great energy, "never." "you have no idea, then, how it's best to begin?" said mr. magnus. "why," said mr. pickwick, "i may have formed some ideas upon the subject, but, as i have never submitted them to the test of experience, i should be sorry if you were induced to regulate your proceedings by them." "i should feel very much obliged to you for any advice, sir," said mr. magnus, taking another look at the clock: the hand of which was verging on the five minutes past. "well, sir," said mr. pickwick, with the profound solemnity with which that great man could, when he pleased, render his remarks so deeply impressive: "i should commence, sir, with a tribute to the lady's beauty and excellent qualities; from them, sir, i should diverge to my own unworthiness." "very good," said mr. magnus. "unworthiness for _her_ only, mind, sir," resumed mr. pickwick; "for to show that i was not wholly unworthy, sir, i should take a brief review of my past life, and present condition. i should argue, by analogy, that to anybody else, i must be a very desirable object. i should then expatiate on the warmth of my love, and the depth of my devotion. perhaps i might then be tempted to seize her hand." "yes, i see," said mr. magnus; "that would be a very great point." "i should then, sir," continued mr. pickwick, growing warmer as the subject presented itself in more glowing colours before him: "i should then, sir, come to the plain and simple question, 'will you have me?' i think i am justified in assuming, that upon this she would turn away her head." "you think that may be taken for granted?" said mr. magnus; "because if she did not do that at the right place, it would be embarrassing." "i think she would," said mr. pickwick. "upon this, sir, i should squeeze her hand, and i think--i _think_, mr. magnus--that after i had done that, supposing there was no refusal, i should gently draw away the handkerchief, which my slight knowledge of human nature leads me to suppose the lady would be applying to her eyes at the moment, and steal a respectful kiss. i think i should kiss her, mr. magnus; and at this particular point, i am decidedly of opinion that if the lady were going to take me at all, she would murmur into my ears a bashful acceptance." mr. magnus started; gazed on mr. pickwick's intelligent face for a short time in silence; and then (the dial pointing to the ten minutes past) shook him warmly by the hand, and rushed desperately from the room. mr. pickwick had taken a few strides to and fro; and the small hand of the clock following the latter part of his example, had arrived at the figure which indicates the half-hour, when the door suddenly opened. he turned round to meet mr. peter magnus, and encountered in his stead, the joyous face of mr. tupman, the serene countenance of mr. winkle, and the intellectual lineaments of mr. snodgrass. as mr. pickwick greeted them, mr. peter magnus tripped into the room. "my friends, the gentleman i was speaking of--mr. magnus," said mr. pickwick. "your servant, gentlemen," said mr. magnus, evidently in a high state of excitement; "mr. pickwick, allow me to speak to you one moment, sir." as he said this, mr. magnus harnessed his forefinger to mr. pickwick's button-hole, and, drawing him to a window recess, said: "congratulate me, mr. pickwick; i followed your advice to the very letter." "and it was all correct, was it?" inquired mr. pickwick. "it was, sir. could not possibly have been better," replied mr. magnus. "mr. pickwick, she is mine." "i congratulate you with all my heart," replied mr. pickwick, warmly shaking his new friend by the hand. "you must see her, sir," said mr. magnus; "this way if you please. excuse us for one instant, gentlemen." hurrying on in this way, mr. peter magnus drew mr. pickwick from the room. he paused at the next door in the passage, and tapped gently thereat. "come in," said a female voice. and in they went. "miss witherfield," said mr. magnus, "allow me to introduce my very particular friend, mr. pickwick. mr. pickwick, i beg to make you known to miss witherfield." the lady was at the upper end of the room. as mr. pickwick bowed, he took his spectacles from his waistcoat pocket and put them on; a process which he had no sooner gone through, than, uttering an exclamation of surprise, mr. pickwick retreated several paces, and the lady, with a half-suppressed scream, hid her face in her hands, and dropped into a chair; whereupon mr. peter magnus was stricken motionless on the spot, and gazed from one to the other, with a countenance expressive of the extremities of horror and surprise. this certainly was, to all appearance, very unaccountable behaviour; but the fact is, that mr. pickwick no sooner put on his spectacles, than he at once recognised in the future mrs. magnus the lady into whose room he had so unwarrantably intruded on the previous night; and the spectacles had no sooner crossed mr. pickwick's nose, than the lady at once identified the countenance which she had seen surrounded by all the horrors of a night-cap. so the lady screamed and mr. pickwick started. "mr. pickwick!" exclaimed mr. magnus, lost in astonishment, "what is the meaning of this, sir? what is the meaning of it, sir?" added mr. magnus, in a threatening and a louder tone. "sir," said mr. pickwick, somewhat indignant at the very sudden manner in which mr. peter magnus had conjugated himself into the imperative mood, "i decline answering that question." "you decline it, sir?" said mr. magnus. "i do, sir," replied mr. pickwick: "i object to saying anything which may compromise that lady, or awaken unpleasant recollections in her breast, without her consent and permission." "miss witherfield," said mr. peter magnus, "do you know this person?" "know him!" repeated the middle-aged lady, hesitating. "yes, know him, ma'am. i said know him," replied mr. magnus, with ferocity. "i have seen him," replied the middle-aged lady. "where," inquired mr. magnus, "where?" "that," said the middle-aged lady, rising from her seat, and averting her head, "that i would not reveal for worlds." "i understand you, ma'am," said mr. pickwick, "and respect your delicacy; it shall never be revealed by _me_, depend upon it." "upon my word, ma'am," said mr. magnus, "considering the situation in which i am placed with regard to yourself, you carry this matter off with tolerable coolness--tolerable coolness, ma'am." "cruel mr. magnus!" said the middle-aged lady; here she wept very copiously indeed. "address your observations to me, sir," interposed mr. pickwick; "i alone am to blame, if anybody be." "oh! you alone are to blame, are you, sir?" said mr. magnus. "i--i--see through this, sir. you repent of your determination now, do you?" "my determination!" said mr. pickwick. "your determination, sir. oh! don't stare at me, sir," said mr. magnus; "i recollect your words last night, sir. you came down here, sir, to expose the treachery and falsehood of an individual on whose truth and honour you had placed implicit reliance--eh?" here mr. peter magnus indulged in a prolonged sneer; and taking off his green spectacles--which he probably found superfluous in his fit of jealousy--rolled his little eyes about, in a manner frightful to behold. "eh?" said mr. magnus; and then he repeated the sneer with increased effect. "but you shall answer it, sir." "answer what?" said mr. pickwick. "never mind, sir," replied mr. magnus, striding up and down the room. "never mind." there must be something very comprehensive in this phrase of "never mind," for we do not recollect to have ever witnessed a quarrel in the street, at a theatre, public room, or elsewhere, in which it has not been the standard reply to all belligerent inquiries. "do you call yourself a gentleman, sir?"--"never mind, sir." "did i offer to say anything to the young woman, sir?"--"never mind, sir."--"do you want your head knocked up against that wall, sir?"--"never mind, sir." it is observable, too, that there would appear to be some hidden taunt in this universal "never mind," which rouses more indignation in the bosom of the individual addressed, than the most lavish abuse could possibly awaken. we do not mean to assert that the application of this brevity to himself, struck exactly that indignation to mr. pickwick's soul, which it would infallibly have roused in a vulgar breast. we merely record the fact that mr. pickwick opened the room door, and abruptly called out, "tupman, come here!" mr. tupman immediately presented himself, with a look of very considerable surprise. "tupman," said mr. pickwick, "a secret of some delicacy, in which that lady is concerned, is the cause of a difference which has just arisen between this gentleman and myself. when i assure him, in your presence, that it has no relation to himself, and is not in any way connected with his affairs, i need hardly beg you to take notice that if he continue to dispute it, he expresses a doubt of my veracity, which i shall consider extremely insulting." as mr. pickwick said this, he looked encyclopædias at mr. peter magnus. mr. pickwick's upright and honourable bearing, coupled with that force and energy of speech which so eminently distinguished him, would have carried conviction to any reasonable mind; but unfortunately, at that particular moment, the mind of mr. peter magnus was in anything but reasonable order. consequently, instead of receiving mr. pickwick's explanation as he ought to have done, he forthwith proceeded to work himself into a red-hot, scorching, consuming passion, and to talk about what was due to his own feelings, and all that sort of thing: adding force to his declamation by striding to and fro, and pulling his hair--amusements which he would vary occasionally by shaking his fist in mr. pickwick's philanthropic countenance. mr. pickwick, in his turn, conscious of his own innocence and rectitude, and irritated by having unfortunately involved the middle-aged lady in such an unpleasant affair, was not so quietly disposed as was his wont. the consequence was, that words ran high, and voices higher; and at length mr. magnus told mr. pickwick he should hear from him; to which mr. pickwick replied, with laudable politeness, that the sooner he heard from him the better; whereupon the middle-aged lady rushed in terror from the room, out of which mr. tupman dragged mr. pickwick, leaving mr. peter magnus to himself and meditation. if the middle-aged lady had mingled much with the busy world, or had profited at all by the manners and customs of those who make the laws and set the fashions, she would have known that this sort of ferocity is the most harmless thing in nature; but as she had lived for the most part in the country, and never read the parliamentary debates, she was little versed in these particular refinements of civilised life. accordingly, when she had gained her bed-chamber, bolted herself in, and begun to meditate on the scene she had just witnessed, the most terrific pictures of slaughter and destruction presented themselves to her imagination; among which, a full-length portrait of mr. peter magnus borne home by four men, with the embellishment of a whole barrel-full of bullets in his left side, was among the very least. the more the middle-aged lady meditated, the more terrified she became; and at length she determined to repair to the house of the principal magistrate of the town, and request him to secure the persons of mr. pickwick and mr. tupman without delay. to this decision the middle-aged lady was impelled by a variety of considerations, the chief of which, was the incontestable proof it would afford of her devotion to mr. peter magnus, and her anxiety for his safety. she was too well acquainted with his jealous temperament to venture the slightest allusion to the real cause of her agitation on beholding mr. pickwick; and she trusted to her own influence and power of persuasion with the little man, to quell his boisterous jealousy, supposing that mr. pickwick were removed, and no fresh quarrel could arise. filled with these reflections, the middle-aged lady arrayed herself in her bonnet and shawl, and repaired to the mayor's dwelling straightway. now george nupkins, esquire, the principal magistrate aforesaid, was as grand a personage as the fastest walker would find out, between sunrise and sunset, on the twenty-first of june, which being, according to the almanacs, the longest day in the whole year, would naturally afford him the longest period for his search. on this particular morning, mr. nupkins was in a state of the utmost excitement and irritation, for there had been a rebellion in the town; all the day-scholars at the largest day-school had conspired to break the windows of an obnoxious apple-seller, and had hooted the beadle, and pelted the constabulary--an elderly gentleman in top-boots, who had been called out to repress the tumult, and who had been a peace-officer, man and boy, for half a century at least. and mr. nupkins was sitting in his easy chair, frowning with majesty, and boiling with rage, when a lady was announced on pressing, private, and particular business. mr. nupkins looked calmly terrible, and commanded that the lady should be shown in: which command, like all the mandates of emperors, and magistrates, and other great potentates of the earth, was forthwith obeyed; and miss witherfield, interestingly agitated, was ushered in accordingly. "muzzle!" said the magistrate. muzzle was an undersized footman, with a long body and short legs. "muzzle!" "yes, your worship." "place a chair, and leave the room." "yes, your worship." "now, ma'am, will you state your business?" said the magistrate. "it is of a very painful kind, sir," said miss witherfield. "very likely, ma'am," said the magistrate. "compose your feelings, ma'am." here mr. nupkins looked benignant. "and then tell me what legal business brings you here, ma'am." here the magistrate triumphed over the man; and he looked stern again. "it is very distressing to me, sir, to give this information," said miss witherfield, "but i fear a duel is going to be fought here." "here, ma'am?" said the magistrate. "where, ma'am?" "in ipswich." "in ipswich, ma'am! a duel in ipswich!" said the magistrate, perfectly aghast at the notion. "impossible, ma'am; nothing of the kind can be contemplated in this town, i am persuaded. bless my soul, ma'am, are you aware of the activity of our local magistracy? do you happen to have heard, ma'am, that i rushed into a prize-ring on the fourth of may last, attended by only sixty special constables; and, at the hazard of falling a sacrifice to the angry passions of an infuriated multitude, prohibited a pugilistic contest between the middlesex dumpling and the suffolk bantam? a duel in ipswich, ma'am! i don't think--i do _not_ think," said the magistrate, reasoning with himself, "that any two men can have had the hardihood to plan such a breach of the peace, in this town." "my information is unfortunately but too correct," said the middle-aged lady, "i was present at the quarrel." "it's a most extraordinary thing," said the astounded magistrate. "muzzle!" "yes, your worship." "send mr. jinks here, directly! instantly." "yes, your worship." muzzle retired; and a pale, sharp-nosed, half-fed, shabbily-clad clerk, of middle age, entered the room. "mr. jinks," said the magistrate. "mr. jinks." "sir?" said mr. jinks. "this lady, mr. jinks, has come here, to give information of an intended duel in this town." mr. jinks, not knowing exactly what to do, smiled a dependent's smile. "what are you laughing at, mr. jinks?" said the magistrate. mr. jinks looked serious, instantly. "mr. jinks," said the magistrate, "you're a fool." mr. jinks looked humbly at the great man, and bit the top of his pen. "you may see something very comical in this information, sir; but i can tell you this, mr. jinks; that you have very little to laugh at," said the magistrate. the hungry-looking jinks sighed, as if he were quite aware of the fact of his having very little indeed, to be merry about; and, being ordered to take the lady's information, shambled to a seat, and proceeded to write it down. "this man, pickwick, is the principal, i understand?" said the magistrate, when the statement was finished. "he is," said the middle-aged lady. "and the other rioter--what's his name, mr. jinks?" "tupman, sir." "tupman is the second?" "yes." "the other principal, you say, has absconded, ma'am?" "yes," replied miss witherfield, with a short cough. "very well," said the magistrate. "these are two cut-throats from london, who have come down here to destroy his majesty's population; thinking that at this distance from the capital, the arm of the law is weak and paralysed. they shall be made an example of. draw up the warrants, mr. jinks. muzzle!" "yes, your worship." "is grummer down-stairs?" "yes, your worship." "send him up." the obsequious muzzle retired, and presently returned, introducing the elderly gentleman in the top-boots, who was chiefly remarkable for a bottle-nose, a hoarse voice, a snuff-coloured surtout, and a wandering eye. "grummer," said the magistrate. "your wash-up." "is the town quiet now?" "pretty well, your wash-up," replied grummer. "pop'lar feeling has in a measure subsided, consekens o' the boys having dispersed to cricket." "nothing but vigorous measures will do in these times, grummer," said the magistrate, in a determined manner. "if the authority of the king's officers is set at nought, we must have the riot act read. if the civil power cannot protect these windows, grummer, the military must protect the civil power, and the windows too. i believe that is a maxim of the constitution, mr. jinks?" "certainly, sir," said jinks. "very good," said the magistrate, signing the warrants. "grummer, you will bring these persons before me, this afternoon. you will find them at the great white horse. you recollect the case of the middlesex dumpling and the suffolk bantam, grummer?" mr. grummer intimated, by a retrospective shake of the head, that he should never forget it--as indeed it was not likely he would, so long as it continued to be cited daily. "this is even more unconstitutional," said the magistrate; "this is even a greater breach of the peace, and a grosser infringement of his majesty's prerogative. i believe duelling is one of his majesty's most undoubted prerogatives, mr. jinks?" "expressly stipulated in magna charta, sir," said mr. jinks. "one of the brightest jewels in the british crown, wrung from his majesty by the barons, i believe, mr. jinks?" said the magistrate. "just so, sir," replied mr. jinks. "very well," said the magistrate, drawing himself up proudly, "it shall not be violated in this portion of his dominions. grummer, procure assistance, and execute these warrants with as little delay as possible. muzzle!" "yes, your worship." "show the lady out." miss witherfield retired, deeply impressed with the magistrates' learning and research; mr. nupkins retired to lunch; mr. jinks retired within himself--that being the only retirement he had, except the sofa-bedstead in the small parlour which was occupied by his landlady's family in the daytime--and mr. grummer retired, to wipe out, by his mode of discharging his present commission, the insult which had been fastened upon himself, and the other representative of his majesty--the beadle--in the course of the morning. while these resolute and determined preparations for the conservation of the king's peace were pending, mr. pickwick and his friends, wholly unconscious of the mighty events in progress, had sat quietly down to dinner; and very talkative and companionable they all were. mr. pickwick was in the very act of relating his adventure of the preceding night, to the great amusement of his followers, mr. tupman especially, when the door opened and a somewhat forbidding countenance peeped into the room. the eyes in the forbidding countenance looked very earnestly at mr. pickwick, for several seconds, and were to all appearance satisfied with their investigation; for the body to which the forbidding countenance belonged, slowly brought itself into the apartment, and presented the form of an elderly individual in top-boots--not to keep the reader any longer in suspense, in short, the eyes were the wandering eyes of mr. grummer, and the body was the body of the same gentleman. mr. grummer's mode of proceeding was professional, but peculiar. his first act was to bolt the door on the inside; his second, to polish his head and countenance very carefully with a cotton handkerchief; his third, to place his hat, with the cotton handkerchief in it, on the nearest chair; and his fourth, to produce from the breast-pocket of his coat a short truncheon, surmounted by a brazen crown, with which he beckoned to mr. pickwick with a grave and ghost-like air. mr. snodgrass was the first to break the astonished silence. he looked steadily at mr. grummer for a brief space, and then said emphatically: "this is a private room, sir. a private room." mr. grummer shook his head, and replied, "no room's private to his majesty when the street door's once passed. that's law. some people maintains that an englishman's house is his castle. that's gammon." the pickwickians gazed on each other with wondering eyes. "which is mr. tupman?" inquired mr. grummer. he had an intuitive perception of mr. pickwick; he knew _him_ at once. "my name's tupman," said that gentleman. "my name's law," said mr. grummer. "what?" said mr. tupman. "law," replied mr. grummer, "law, civil power, and exekative; them's my titles; here's my authority. blank tupman, blank pickvick--against the peace of our sufferin lord the king--stattit in that case made and purwided--and all regular. i apprehend you pickvick! tupman--the aforesaid." "what do you mean by this insolence?" said mr. tupman, starting up. "leave the room!" "halloo," said mr. grummer, retreating very expeditiously to the door, and opening it an inch or two, "dubbley." "well," said a deep voice from the passage. "come for'ard, dubbley." at the word of command, a dirty-faced man, something over six feet high, and stout in proportion, squeezed himself through the half-open door (making his face very red in the process), and entered the room. "is the other specials outside, dubbley?" inquired mr. grummer. mr. dubbley, who was a man of few words, nodded assent. "order in the diwision under your charge, dubbley," said mr. grummer. mr. dubbley did as he was desired; and half a dozen men, each with a short truncheon and a brass crown, flocked into the room. mr. grummer pocketed his staff and looked at mr. dubbley; mr. dubbley pocketed _his_ staff and looked at the division; the division pocketed _their_ staffs and looked at messrs. tupman and pickwick. mr. pickwick and his followers rose as one man. "what is the meaning of this atrocious intrusion upon my privacy?" said mr. pickwick. "who dares apprehend me?" said mr. tupman. "what do you want here, scoundrels?" said mr. snodgrass. mr. winkle said nothing, but he fixed his eyes on grummer, and bestowed a look upon him, which, if he had had any feeling, must have pierced his brain. as it was, however, it had no visible effect upon him whatever. when the executive perceived that mr. pickwick and his friends were disposed to resist the authority of the law, they very significantly turned up their coat sleeves, as if knocking them down in the first instance, and taking them up afterwards, were a mere professional act which had only to be thought of, to be done, as a matter of course. this demonstration was not lost upon mr. pickwick. he conferred a few moments with mr. tupman apart, and then signified his readiness to proceed to the mayor's residence, merely begging the parties then and there assembled, to take notice, that it was his firm intention to resent this monstrous invasion of his privileges as an englishman, the instant he was at liberty; whereat the parties then and there assembled laughed very heartily, with the single exception of mr. grummer, who seemed to consider that any slight cast upon the divine right of magistrates, was a species of blasphemy, not to be tolerated. but when mr. pickwick had signified his readiness to bow to the laws of his country; and just when the waiters and hostlers, and chamber-maids, and post-boys, who had anticipated a delightful commotion from his threatened obstinacy, began to turn away, disappointed and disgusted, a difficulty arose which had not been foreseen. with every sentiment of veneration for the constituted authorities, mr. pickwick resolutely protested against making his appearance in the public streets, surrounded and guarded by the officers of justice, like a common criminal. mr. grummer, in the then disturbed state of public feeling (for it was half-holiday, and the boys had not yet gone home), as resolutely protested against walking on the opposite side of the way, and taking mr. pickwick's parole that he would go straight to the magistrate's; and both mr. pickwick and mr. tupman as strenuously objected to the expense of a post-coach, which was the only respectable conveyance that could be obtained. the dispute ran high, and the dilemma lasted long; and just as the executive were on the point of overcoming mr. pickwick's objection to walking to the magistrate's, by the trite expedient of carrying him thither, it was recollected that there stood in the inn-yard, an old sedan-chair, which having been originally built for a gouty gentleman with funded property, would hold mr. pickwick and mr. tupman, at least as conveniently as a modern post-chaise. the chair was hired, and brought into the hall; mr. pickwick and mr. tupman squeezed themselves inside, and pulled down the blinds; a couple of chairmen were speedily found; and the procession started in grand order. the specials surrounded the body of the vehicle; mr. grummer and mr. dubbley marched triumphantly in front; mr. snodgrass and mr. winkle walked arm in arm behind; and the unsoaped of ipswich brought up the rear. the shopkeepers of the town, although they had a very indistinct notion of the nature of the offence, could not but be much edified and gratified by this spectacle. here was the strong arm of the law, coming down with twenty gold-beater force, upon two offenders from the metropolis itself; the mighty engine was directed by their own magistrate, and worked by their own officers; and both the criminals, by their united efforts, were securely shut up in the narrow compass of one sedan-chair. many were the expressions of approval and admiration which greeted mr. grummer, as he headed the cavalcade, staff in hand; loud and long were the shouts raised by the unsoaped; and amidst these united testimonials of public approbation, the procession moved slowly and majestically along. mr. weller, habited in his morning jacket with the black calico sleeves, was returning in a rather desponding state from an unsuccessful survey of the mysterious house with the green gate, when raising his eyes, he beheld a crowd pouring down the street, surrounding an object which had very much the appearance of a sedan-chair. willing to divert his thoughts from the failure of his enterprise, he stepped aside to see the crowd pass; and finding that they were cheering away, very much to their own satisfaction, forthwith began (by way of raising his spirits) to cheer too, with all his might and main. mr. grummer passed, and mr. dubbley passed, and the sedan passed, and the body-guard of specials passed, and sam was still responding to the enthusiastic cheers of the mob, and waving his hat about as if he were in the very last extreme of the wildest joy (though, of course, he had not the faintest idea of the matter in hand), when he was suddenly stopped by the unexpected appearance of mr. winkle and mr. snodgrass. "what's the row, gen'l'm'n?" cried sam. "who have they got in this here watch-box in mournin'?" both gentlemen replied together, but their words were lost in the tumult. "who?" cried sam again. once more was a joint reply returned; and, though the words were inaudible, sam saw by the motion of the two pairs of lips that they had uttered the magic word "pickwick." this was enough. in another minute mr. weller had made his way through the crowd, stopped the chairmen, and confronted the portly grummer. "hallo, old gen'l'm'n!" said sam. "who have you got in this here conwayance?" "stand back," said mr. grummer, whose dignity, like the dignity of a great many other men, had been wondrously augmented by a little popularity. "knock him down, if he don't," said mr. dubbley. "i'm wery much obliged to you, old gen'l'm'n!" replied sam, "for consulting my conwenience, and i'm still more obliged to the other gen'l'm'n, who looks as if he'd just escaped from a giant's carrywan, for his wery 'ansome suggestion; but i should perfer your givin' me a answer to my question, if it's all the same to you.--how are you, sir?" this last observation was addressed with a patronising air to mr. pickwick, who was peeping through the front window. mr. grummer, perfectly speechless with indignation, dragged the truncheon with the brass crown from its particular pocket, and flourished it before sam's eyes. "ah," said sam, "it's wery pretty, 'specially the crown, which is uncommon like the real one." "stand back!" said the outraged mr. grummer. by way of adding force to the command, he thrust the brass emblem of royalty into sam's neckcloth with one hand, and seized sam's collar with the other: a compliment which mr. weller returned by knocking him down out of hand: having previously, with the utmost consideration, knocked down a chairman for him to lie upon. whether mr. winkle was seized with a temporary attack of that species of insanity which originates in a sense of injury, or animated by this display of mr. weller's valour, is uncertain; but certain it is, that he no sooner saw mr. grummer fall than he made a terrific onslaught on a small boy who stood next to him; whereupon mr. snodgrass, in a truly christian spirit, and in order that he might take no one unawares, announced in a very loud tone that he was going to begin, and proceeded to take off his coat with the utmost deliberation. he was immediately surrounded and secured; and it is but common justice both to him and mr. winkle to say, that they did not make the slightest attempt to rescue either themselves or mr. weller: who, after a most vigorous resistance, was overpowered by numbers and taken prisoner. the procession then re-formed; the chairmen resumed their stations; and the march was re-commenced. mr. pickwick's indignation during the whole of this proceeding was beyond all bounds. he could just see sam upsetting the specials, and flying about in every direction; and that was all he could see, for the sedan doors wouldn't open, and the blinds wouldn't pull up. at length, with the assistance of mr. tupman, he managed to push open the roof; and mounting on the seat, and steadying himself as well as he could, by placing his hand on that gentleman's shoulder, mr. pickwick proceeded to address the multitude; to dwell upon the unjustifiable manner in which he had been treated; and to call upon them to take notice that his servant had been first assaulted. in this order they reached the magistrate's house; the chairmen trotting, the prisoners following, mr. pickwick oratorising, and the crowd shouting. chapter xxv [illustration] _showing, among a variety of pleasant matters, how majestic and impartial mr. nupkins was, and how mr. weller returned mr. job trotter's shuttlecock as heavily as it came. with another matter, which will be found in its place_ violent was mr. weller's indignation as he was borne along; numerous were the allusions to the personal appearance and demeanour of mr. grummer and his companion; and valorous were the defiances to any six of the gentlemen present; in which he vented his dissatisfaction. mr. snodgrass and mr. winkle listened with gloomy respect to the torrent of eloquence which their leader poured forth from the sedan-chair, and the rapid course of which not all mr. tupman's earnest entreaties to have the lid of the vehicle closed, were able to check for an instant. but mr. weller's anger quickly gave way to curiosity when the procession turned down the identical court-yard in which he had met with the runaway job trotter: and curiosity was exchanged for a feeling of the most gleeful astonishment, when the all-important mr. grummer, commanding the sedan-bearers to halt, advanced with dignified and portentous steps to the very green gate from which job trotter had emerged, and gave a mighty pull at the bell-handle which hung at the side thereof. the ring was answered by a very smart and pretty-faced servant-girl, who, after holding up her hands in astonishment at the rebellious appearance of the prisoners, and the impassioned language of mr. pickwick, summoned mr. muzzle. mr. muzzle opened one half of the carriage gate, to admit the sedan, the captured ones, and the specials; and immediately slammed it in the faces of the mob, who, indignant at being excluded, and anxious to see what followed, relieved their feelings by kicking at the gate and ringing the bell, for an hour or two afterwards. in this amusement they all took part by turns, except three or four fortunate individuals, who, having discovered a grating in the gate which commanded a view of nothing, stared through it with the indefatigable perseverance with which people will flatten their noses against the front windows of a chemist's shop, when a drunken man, who has been run over by a dog-cart in the street, is undergoing a surgical inspection in the back-parlour. at the foot of a flight of steps, leading to the house door, which was guarded on either side by an american aloe in a green tub, the sedan-chair stopped. mr. pickwick and his friends were conducted into the hall, whence, having been previously announced by muzzle, and ordered in by mr. nupkins, they were ushered into the worshipful presence of that public-spirited officer. the scene was an impressive one, well calculated to strike terror to the hearts of culprits, and to impress them with an adequate idea of the stern majesty of the law. in front of a big book-case, in a big chair, behind a big table, and before a big volume, sat mr. nupkins, looking a full size larger than any one of them, big as they were. the table was adorned with piles of papers: and above the further end of it, appeared the head and shoulders of mr. jinks, who was busily engaged in looking as busy as possible. the party having all entered, muzzle carefully closed the door, and placed himself behind his master's chair to await his orders. mr. nupkins threw himself back, with thrilling solemnity, and scrutinised the faces of his unwilling visitors. "now, grummer, who is that person?" said mr. nupkins, pointing to mr. pickwick, who, as the spokesman of his friends, stood hat in hand, bowing with the utmost politeness and respect. "this here's pickvick, your wash-up," said grummer. "come, none o' that 'ere, old strike-a-light," interposed mr. weller, elbowing himself into the front rank. "beg your pardon, sir, but this here officer o' yourn in the gambooge tops, 'ull never earn a decent livin' as a master o' the ceremonies any vere. this here, sir," continued mr. weller, thrusting grummer aside, and addressing the magistrate with pleasant familiarity, "this here is s. pickvick, esquire; this here's mr. tupman; that 'ere's mr. snodgrass; and furder on, next him on the t'other side, mr. winkle--all wery nice gen'l'm'n, sir, as you'll be wery happy to have the acquaintance on; so the sooner you commits these here officers o' yourn to the tread-mill for a month or two, the sooner we shall begin to be on a pleasant understanding. business first, pleasure afterwards, as king richard the third said wen he stabbed the t'other king in the tower, afore he smothered the babbies." at the conclusion of this address, mr. weller brushed his hat with his right elbow, and nodded benignly to jinks, who had heard him throughout, with unspeakable awe. "who is this man, grummer?" said the magistrate. "wery desp'rate ch'racter, your wash-up," replied grummer. "he attempted to rescue the prisoners, and assaulted the officers; so we took him into custody, and brought him here." "you did quite right," replied the magistrate. "he is evidently a desperate ruffian." "he is my servant, sir," said mr. pickwick, angrily. "oh! he is your servant, is he?" said mr. nupkins. "a conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice, and murder its officers. pickwick's servant. put that down, mr. jinks." mr. jinks did so. "what's your name, fellow?" thundered mr. nupkins. "veller," replied sam. "a very good name for the newgate calendar," said mr. nupkins. this was a joke; so jinks, grummer, dubbley, all the specials, and muzzle, went into fits of laughter of five minutes' duration. "put down his name, mr. jinks," said the magistrate. "two l's, old feller," said sam. here an unfortunate special laughed again, whereupon the magistrate threatened to commit him, instantly. it is a dangerous thing to laugh at the wrong man, in these cases. "where do you live?" said the magistrate. "vare-ever i can," replied sam. "put down that, mr. jinks," said the magistrate, who was fast rising into a rage. "score it under," said sam. "he is a vagabond, mr. jinks," said the magistrate. "he is a vagabond on his own statement; is he not, mr. jinks?" "certainly, sir." "then i'll commit him. i'll commit him as such," said mr. nupkins. "this is a wery impartial country for justice," said sam. "there ain't a magistrate goin' as don't commit himself, twice as often as he commits other people." at this sally another special laughed, and then tried to look so supernaturally solemn, that the magistrate detected him immediately. "grummer," said mr. nupkins, reddening with passion, "how dare you select such an inefficient and disreputable person for a special constable, as that man? how dare you do it, sir?" "i am very sorry, your wash-up," stammered grummer. "very sorry!" said the furious magistrate. "you shall repent of this neglect of duty, mr. grummer; you shall be made an example of. take that fellow's staff away. he's drunk. you're drunk, fellow." "i am not drunk, your worship," said the man. "you _are_ drunk," returned the magistrate. "how dare you say you are not drunk, sir, when i say you are? doesn't he smell of spirits, grummer?" "horrid, your wash-up," replied grummer, who had a vague impression that there was a smell of rum somewhere. "i knew he did," said mr. nupkins. "i saw he was drunk when he first came into the room, by his excited eye. did you observe his excited eye, mr. jinks?" "certainly, sir." "i haven't touched a drop of spirits this morning," said the man, who was as sober a fellow as need be. "how dare you tell me a falsehood?" said mr. nupkins. "isn't he drunk at this moment, mr. jinks?" "certainly, sir," replied jinks. "mr. jinks," said the magistrate, "i shall commit that man, for contempt. make out his committal, mr. jinks." and committed the special would have been, only jinks, who was the magistrate's adviser (having had a legal education of three years in a country attorney's office), whispered the magistrate that he thought it wouldn't do; so the magistrate made a speech, and said, that in consideration of the special's family, he would merely reprimand and discharge him. accordingly, the special was abused vehemently, for a quarter of an hour, and sent about his business; and grummer, dubbley, muzzle, and all the other specials murmured their admiration of the magnanimity of mr. nupkins. "now, mr. jinks," said the magistrate, "swear grummer." grummer was sworn directly; but as grummer wandered, and mr. nupkin's dinner was nearly ready, mr. nupkins cut the matter short, by putting leading questions to grummer, which grummer answered as nearly in the affirmative as he could. so the examination went off, all very smooth and comfortable, and two assaults were proved against mr. weller, and a threat against mr. winkle, and a push against mr. snodgrass. when all this was done to the magistrate's satisfaction, the magistrate and mr. jinks consulted in whispers. the consultation having lasted about ten minutes, mr. jinks retired to his end of the table; and the magistrate, with a preparatory cough, drew himself up in his chair, and was proceeding to commence his address, when mr. pickwick interposed. "i beg your pardon, sir, for interrupting you," said mr. pickwick, "but before you proceed to express, and act upon, any opinion you may have formed on the statements which have been made here, i must claim my right to be heard so far as i am personally concerned." "hold your tongue, sir," said the magistrate, peremptorily. "i must submit to you, sir," said mr. pickwick. "hold your tongue, sir," interposed the magistrate, "or i shall order an officer to remove you." "you may order your officers to do whatever you please, sir," said mr. pickwick; "and i have no doubt, from the specimen i have had of the subordination preserved amongst them, that whatever you order, they will execute, sir; but i shall take the liberty, sir, of claiming my right to be heard, until i am removed by force." "pickvick and principle!" exclaimed mr. weller, in a very audible voice. "sam, be quiet," said mr. pickwick. "dumb as a drum with a hole in it, sir," replied sam. mr. nupkins looked at mr. pickwick with a gaze of intense astonishment, at his displaying such unwonted temerity; and was apparently about to return a very angry reply, when mr. jinks pulled him by the sleeve, and whispered something in his ear. to this, the magistrate returned a half-audible answer, and then the whispering was renewed. jinks was evidently remonstrating. at length the magistrate, gulping down, with a very bad grace, his disinclination to hear anything more, turned to mr. pickwick, and said sharply: "what do you want to say?" "first," said mr. pickwick, sending a look through his spectacles, under which even nupkins quailed. "first, i wish to know what i and my friend have been brought here for?" "must i tell him?" whispered the magistrate to jinks. "i think you had better, sir," whispered jinks to the magistrate. "an information has been sworn before me," said the magistrate, "that it is apprehended you are going to fight a duel, and that the other man, tupman, is your aider and abettor in it. therefore--eh, mr. jinks?" "certainly, sir." "therefore, i call upon you both, to--i think that's the course, mr. jinks?" "certainly, sir." "to--to--what, mr. jinks?" said the magistrate, pettishly. "to find bail, sir." "yes. therefore, i call upon you both--as i was about to say, when i was interrupted by my clerk--to find bail." "good bail," whispered mr. jinks. "i shall require good bail," said the magistrate. "town's-people," whispered jinks. "they must be town's-people," said the magistrate. "fifty pounds each," whispered jinks, "and householders, of course." "i shall require two sureties of fifty pounds each," said the magistrate aloud, with great dignity, "and they must be householders, of course." "but, bless my heart, sir," said mr. pickwick, who, together with mr. tupman, was all amazement and indignation; "we are perfect strangers in the town. i have as little knowledge of any householders here, as i have intention of fighting a duel with anybody." "i dare say," replied the magistrate, "i dare say--don't you, mr. jinks?" "certainly, sir." "have you anything more to say?" inquired the magistrate. mr. pickwick _had_ a great deal more to say, which he would no doubt have said, very little to his own advantage, or the magistrate's satisfaction, if he had not, the moment he ceased speaking, been pulled by the sleeve by mr. weller, with whom he was immediately engaged in so earnest a conversation, that he suffered the magistrate's inquiry to pass wholly unnoticed. mr. nupkins was not the man to ask a question of the kind twice over; and so, with another preparatory cough, he proceeded, amidst the reverential and admiring silence of the constables, to pronounce his decision. he should fine weller two pounds for the first assault, and three pounds for the second. he should fine winkle two pounds, and snodgrass one pound, besides requiring them to enter into their own recognisances to keep the peace towards all his majesty's subjects, and especially towards his liege servant, daniel grummer. pickwick and tupman he had already held to bail. immediately on the magistrate ceasing to speak, mr. pickwick, with a smile mantling on his again good-humoured countenance, stepped forward, and said: "i beg the magistrate's pardon, but may i request a few minutes' private conversation with him, on a matter of deep importance to himself?" "what?" said the magistrate. mr. pickwick repeated his request. "this is a most extraordinary request," said the magistrate. "a private interview?" "a private interview," replied mr. pickwick, firmly; "only, as a part of the information which i wish to communicate is derived from my servant, i should wish him to be present." the magistrate looked at mr. jinks; mr. jinks looked at the magistrate; the officers looked at each other in amazement. mr. nupkins turned suddenly pale. could the man weller, in a moment of remorse, have divulged some secret conspiracy for his assassination? it was a dreadful thought. he was a public man: and he turned paler, as he thought of julius cæsar and mr. perceval. the magistrate looked at mr. pickwick again, and beckoned mr. jinks. "what do you think of this request, mr. jinks?" murmured mr. nupkins. mr. jinks, who didn't exactly know what to think of it, and was afraid he might offend, smiled feebly, after a dubious fashion, and, screwing up the corners of his mouth, shook his head slowly from side to side. "mr. jinks," said the magistrate, gravely, "you are an ass." at this little expression of opinion mr. jinks smiled again--rather more feebly than before--and edged himself, by degrees, back into his own corner. mr. nupkins debated the matter within himself for a few seconds, and then, rising from his chair, and requesting mr. pickwick and sam to follow him, led the way into a small room which opened into the justice parlour. desiring mr. pickwick to walk to the upper end of the little apartment, and holding his hand upon the half-closed door, that he might be able to effect an immediate escape in case there was the least tendency to a display of hostilities, mr. nupkins expressed his readiness to hear the communication, whatever it might be. "i will come to the point at once, sir," said mr. pickwick; "it affects yourself, and your credit, materially. i have every reason to believe, sir, that you are harbouring in your house a gross impostor!" "two," interrupted sam, "mulberry agin all natur, for tears and willainy!" "sam," said mr. pickwick, "if i am to render myself intelligible to this gentleman, i must beg you to control your feelings." "wery sorry, sir," replied mr. weller; "but when i think o' that 'ere job, i can't help opening the walve a inch or two." "in one word, sir," said mr. pickwick, "is my servant right in suspecting that a certain captain fitz-marshall is in the habit of visiting here? because," added mr. pickwick, as he saw that mr. nupkins was about to offer a very indignant interruption, "because, if he be, i know that person to be a----" "hush, hush!" said mr. nupkins, closing the door. "know him to be what, sir?" "an unprincipled adventurer--a dishonourable character--a man who preys upon society, and makes easily-deceived people his dupes, sir; his absurd, his foolish, his wretched dupes, sir," said the excited mr. pickwick. "dear me," said mr. nupkins, turning very red, and altering his whole manner directly. "dear me, mr. ----" "pickvick," said sam. "pickwick," said the magistrate, "dear me, mr. pickwick--pray take a seat--you cannot mean this? captain fitz-marshall?" "don't call him a cap'en," said sam, "nor fitz-marshall neither; he ain't neither one nor t'other. he's a strolling actor, he is, and his name's jingle; and if ever there was a wolf in a mulberry suit, that ere job trotter's him." "it is very true, sir," said mr. pickwick, replying to the magistrate's look of amazement; "my only business in this town, is to expose the person of whom we now speak." mr. pickwick proceeded to pour into the horror-stricken ear of mr. nupkins, an abridged account of mr. jingle's atrocities. he related how he had first met him; how he had eloped with miss wardle; how he had cheerfully resigned the lady for a pecuniary consideration; how he had entrapped himself into a lady's boarding-school at midnight; and how he (mr. pickwick) now felt it his duty to expose his assumption of his present name and rank. as the narrative proceeded, all the warm blood in the body of mr. nupkins tingled up into the very tips of his ears. he had picked up the captain at a neighbouring race-course. charmed with his long list of aristocratic acquaintance, his extensive travel, and his fashionable demeanour, mrs. nupkins and miss nupkins had exhibited captain fitz-marshall, and quoted captain fitz-marshall, and hurled captain fitz-marshall at the devoted heads of their select circle of acquaintance, until their bosom friends, mrs. porkenham and the miss porkenhams, and mr. sidney porkenham, were ready to burst with jealousy and despair. and now, to hear, after all, that he was a needy adventurer, a strolling player, and if not a swindler, something so very like it, that it was hard to tell the difference! heavens! what would the porkenhams say! what would be the triumph of mr. sidney porkenham when he found that his addresses had been slighted for such a rival! how should he, nupkins, meet the eye of old porkenham at the next quarter sessions! and what a handle would it be for the opposition magisterial party, if the story got abroad! "but after all," said mr. nupkins, brightening for a moment, after a long pause; "after all, this is a mere statement. captain fitz-marshall is a man of very engaging manners, and, i dare say, has many enemies. what proof have you of the truth of these representations?" "confront me with him," said mr. pickwick, "that is all i ask, and all i require. confront him with me and my friends here; you will want no further proof." "why," said mr. nupkins, "that might be very easily done, for he will be here to-night, and then there would be no occasion to make the matter public, just--just--for the young man's own sake, you know. i--i--should like to consult mrs. nupkins on the propriety of the step, in the first instance, though. at all events, mr. pickwick, we must despatch this legal business before we can do anything else. pray step back into the next room." into the next room they went. "grummer," said the magistrate, in an awful voice. "your wash-up," replied grummer, with the smile of a favourite. "come, come, sir," said the magistrate, sternly, "don't let me see any of this levity here. it is very unbecoming, and i can assure you that you have very little to smile at. was the account you gave me just now strictly true? now be careful, sir!" "your wash-up," stammered grummer, "i----" "oh, you are confused, are you?" said the magistrate. "mr. jinks, you observe this confusion?" "certainly, sir," replied jinks. "now," said the magistrate, "repeat your statement, grummer, and again i warn you to be careful. mr. jinks, take his words down." the unfortunate grummer proceeded to re-state his complaint, but, what between mr. jinks taking down his words, and the magistrate's taking them up; his natural tendency to rambling, and his extreme confusion; he managed to get involved, in something under three minutes, in such a mass of entanglement and contradiction, that mr. nupkins at once declared he didn't believe him. so the fines were remitted, and mr. jinks found a couple of bail in no time. and all these solemn proceedings having been satisfactorily concluded, mr. grummer was ignominiously ordered out--an awful instance of the instability of human greatness, and the uncertain tenure of great men's favour. mrs. nupkins was a majestic female in a pink gauze turban and a light brown wig. miss nupkins possessed all her mamma's haughtiness without the turban, and all her ill-nature without the wig; and whenever the exercise of these two amiable qualities involved mother and daughter in some unpleasant dilemma, as they not unfrequently did, they both concurred in laying the blame on the shoulders of mr. nupkins. accordingly, when mr. nupkins sought mrs. nupkins, and detailed the communication which had been made by mr. pickwick, mrs. nupkins suddenly recollected that she had always expected something of the kind; that she had always said it would be so; that her advice was never taken; that she really did not know what mr. nupkins supposed she was; and so forth. "the idea!" said miss nupkins, forcing a tear of very scanty proportions into the corner of each eye; "the idea of my being made such a fool of!" "ah! you may thank your papa, my dear," said mrs. nupkins; "how have i implored and begged that man to inquire into the captain's family connections; how have i urged and entreated him to take some decisive step! i am quite certain nobody would believe it--quite." "but, my dear," said mr. nupkins. "don't talk to me, you aggravating thing, don't!" said mrs. nupkins. "my love," said mr. nupkins, "you professed yourself very fond of captain fitz-marshall. you have constantly asked him here, my dear, and you have lost no opportunity of introducing him elsewhere." "didn't i say so, henrietta?" cried mrs. nupkins, appealing to her daughter, with the air of a much-injured female. "didn't i say that your papa would turn round and lay all this at my door? didn't i say so?" here mrs. nupkins sobbed. "oh pa!" remonstrated miss nupkins. and here she sobbed too. "isn't it too much, when he has brought all this disgrace and ridicule upon us, to taunt _me_ with being the cause of it?" exclaimed mrs. nupkins. "how can we ever show ourselves in society!" said miss nupkins. "how can we face the porkenhams!" cried mrs. nupkins. "or the griggs's!" cried miss nupkins. "or the slummintowkens!" cried mrs. nupkins. "but what does your papa care! what is it to _him_!" at this dreadful reflection, mrs. nupkins wept with mental anguish, and miss nupkins followed on the same side. mrs. nupkins's tears continued to gush forth, with great velocity, until she had gained a little time to think the matter over: when she decided, in her own mind, that the best thing to do would be to ask mr. pickwick and his friends to remain until the captain's arrival, and then to give mr. pickwick the opportunity he sought. if it appeared that he had spoken truly, the captain could be turned out of the house without noising the matter abroad, and they could easily account to the porkenhams for his disappearance, by saying that he had been appointed, through the court influence of his family, to the governor-generalship of sierra leone, or saugur point, or any other of those salubrious climates which enchant europeans so much that when they once get there, they can hardly ever prevail upon themselves to come back again. when mrs. nupkins dried up her tears, miss nupkins dried up _hers_, and mr. nupkins was very glad to settle the matter as mrs. nupkins had proposed. so mr. pickwick and his friends, having washed off all marks of their late encounter, were introduced to the ladies, and soon afterwards to their dinner; and mr. weller, whom the magistrate with his peculiar sagacity had discovered in half an hour to be one of the finest fellows alive, was consigned to the care and guardianship of mr. muzzle, who was specially enjoined to take him below, and make much of him. "how de do, sir?" said mr. muzzle, as he conducted mr. weller down the kitchen stairs. "why, no con-siderable change has taken place in the state of my system, since i see you cocked up behind your governor's chair in the parlour, a little vile ago," replied sam. "you will excuse my not taking more notice of you then," said mr. muzzle. "you see, master hadn't introduced us, then. lord, how fond he is of you, mr. weller, to be sure!" "ah," said sam, "what a pleasant chap he is!" "ain't he?" replied mr. muzzle. "so much humour," said sam. "and such a man to speak," said mr. muzzle. "how his ideas flow, don't they?" "wonderful," replied sam; "they comes a pouring out, knocking each other's heads so fast, that they seems to stun one another; you hardly know what he's arter, do you?" "that's the great merit of his style of speaking," rejoined mr. muzzle. "take care of the last step, mr. weller. would you like to wash your hands, sir, before we join the ladies? here's a sink, with the water laid on, sir, and a clean jack-towel behind the door." "ah! perhaps i may as well have a rinse," replied mr. weller, applying plenty of yellow soap to the towel, and rubbing away, till his face shone again. "how many ladies are there?" "only two in our kitchen," said mr. muzzle, "cook and 'ousemaid. we keep a boy to do the dirty work, and a gal besides, but they dine in the washus." "oh, they dines in the washus, do they?" said mr. weller. "yes," replied mr. muzzle; "we tried 'em at our table when they first come, but we couldn't keep 'em. the gal's manners is dreadful vulgar; and the boy breathes so very hard while he's eating, that we found it impossible to sit at table with him." "young grampus!" said mr. weller. "oh, dreadful," rejoined mr. muzzle; "but that is the worst of country service, mr. weller; the juniors is always so very savage. this way, sir, if you please; this way." preceding mr. weller, with the utmost politeness, mr. muzzle conducted him into the kitchen. "mary," said mr. muzzle to the pretty servant-girl, "this is mr. weller: a gentleman as master has sent down, to be made as comfortable as possible." "and your master's a knowin' hand, and has just sent me to the right place," said mr. weller, with a glance of admiration at mary. "if i wos master o' this here house, i should alvays find the materials for comfort vere mary wos." "lor, mr. weller!" said mary, blushing. "well, i never!" ejaculated the cook. "bless me, cook, i forgot you," said mr. muzzle. "mr. weller, let me introduce you." "how are you, ma'am?" said mr. weller. "wery glad to see you, indeed, and hope our acquaintance may be a long 'un, as the gen'lm'n said to the fi'-pun' note." when this ceremony of introduction had been gone through, the cook and mary retired into the back kitchen to titter, for ten minutes; then returning, all giggles and blushes, they sat down to dinner. mr. weller's easy manners and conversational powers had such irresistible influence with his new friends, that before the dinner was half over they were on a footing of perfect intimacy and in possession of a full account of the delinquency of job trotter. "i never could a-bear that job," said mary. "no more you never ought to, my dear," replied mr. weller. "why not?" inquired mary. "cos ugliness and svindlin' never ought to be formiliar vith elegance and wirtew," replied mr. weller. "ought they, mr. muzzle?" "not by no means," replied that gentleman. here mary laughed, and said the cook had made her; and the cook laughed, and said she hadn't. "i han't got a glass," said mary. "drink with me, my dear," said mr. weller. "put your lips to this here tumbler, and then i can kiss you by deputy." "for shame, mr. weller!" said mary. "what's a shame, my dear?" "talkin' in that way." "nonsense; it ain't no harm. it's natur; ain't it, cook?" "don't ask me, imperence," replied the cook, in a high state of delight: and hereupon the cook and mary laughed again, till what between the beer, and the cold meat, and the laughter combined, the latter young lady was brought to the verge of choking--an alarming crisis from which she was only recovered by sundry pats on the back, and other necessary attentions, most delicately administered by mr. samuel weller. in the midst of all this jollity and conviviality, a loud ring was heard at the garden-gate: to which the young gentleman who took his meals in the wash-house immediately responded. mr. weller was in the height of his attentions to the pretty housemaid; mr. muzzle was busy doing the honours of the table; and the cook had just paused to laugh, in the very act of raising a huge morsel to her lips; when the kitchen-door opened, and in walked mr. job trotter. we have said in walked mr. job trotter, but the statement is not distinguished by our usual scrupulous adherence to facts. the door opened and mr. trotter appeared. he _would_ have walked in, and was in the very act of doing so, indeed, when catching sight of mr. weller, he involuntarily shrank back a pace or two, and stood gazing on the unexpected scene before him, perfectly motionless with amazement and terror. "here he is!" said sam, rising with great glee. "why, we were that wery moment a speaking o' you. how are you? where _have_ you been? come in." laying his hand on the mulberry collar of the unresisting job, mr. weller dragged him into the kitchen; and locking the door, handed the key to mr. muzzle, who very coolly buttoned it up in a side-pocket. "well, here's a game!" cried sam. "only think o' my master havin' the pleasure o' meeting your'n, up-stairs, and me havin' the joy o' meetin' you down here. how _are_ you gettin' on, and how _is_ the chandlery bis'ness likely to do? well, i am so glad to see you. how happy you look. it's quite a treat to see you; ain't it, mr. muzzle?" "quite," said mr. muzzle. "so cheerful he is!" said sam. "in such good spirits!" said muzzle. "and so glad to see _us_--that makes it so much more comfortable," said sam. "sit down; sit down." mr. trotter suffered himself to be forced into a chair by the fireside. he cast his small eyes, first on mr. weller, and then on mr. muzzle, but said nothing. "well, now," said sam, "afore these here ladies, i should jest like to ask you, as a sort of curiosity, wether you don't con-sider yourself as nice and well-behaved a young gen'l'm'n, as ever used a pink check pocket-handkerchief, and the number four collection?" "and as was ever a-going to be married to a cook," said that lady indignantly, "the willin!" "and leave off his evil ways, and set up in the chandlery line, arterwards," said the housemaid. "now, i'll tell you what it is, young man," said mr. muzzle, solemnly, enraged at the last two allusions, "this here lady (pointing to the cook) keeps company with me; and when you presume, sir, to talk of keeping chandlers' shops with her, you injure me in one of the most delicatest points in which one man can injure another. do you understand me, sir?" here mr. muzzle, who had a great notion of his eloquence, in which he imitated his master, paused for a reply. but mr. trotter made no reply. so mr. muzzle proceeded in a solemn manner: "it's very probable, sir, that you won't be wanted up-stairs for several minutes, sir, because _my_ master is at this moment particularly engaged in settling the hash of _your_ master, sir; and therefore you'll have leisure, sir, for a little private talk with me, sir. do you understand me, sir?" mr. muzzle again paused for a reply; and again mr. trotter disappointed him. "well, then," said mr. muzzle, "i'm very sorry to have to explain myself before ladies, but the urgency of the case will be my excuse. the back kitchen's empty, sir. if you will step in there, sir, mr. weller will see fair, and we can have mutual satisfaction till the bell rings. follow me, sir!" as mr. muzzle uttered these words, he took a step or two towards the door: and by way of saving time, began to pull off his coat as he walked along. now, the cook no sooner heard the concluding words of this desperate challenge, and saw mr. muzzle about to put it into execution, than she uttered a loud and piercing shriek, and rushing on mr. job trotter, who rose from his chair on the instant, tore and buffeted his large flat face, with an energy peculiar to excited females, and twining her hands in his long black hair, tore therefrom about enough to make five or six dozen of the very largest-sized mourning-rings. having accomplished this feat with all the ardour which her devoted love for mr. muzzle inspired, she staggered back; and being a lady of very excitable and delicate feelings, she instantly fell under the dresser, and fainted away. at this moment, the bell rang. "that's for you, job trotter," said sam; and before mr. trotter could offer remonstrance or reply--even before he had time to staunch the wounds inflicted by the insensible lady--sam seized one arm and mr. muzzle the other; and one pulling before, and the other pushing behind, they conveyed him up-stairs, and into the parlour. it was an impressive tableau. alfred jingle, esquire, _alias_ captain fitz-marshall, was standing near the door with his hat in his hand, and a smile on his face, wholly unmoved by his very unpleasant situation. confronting him, stood mr. pickwick, who had evidently been inculcating some high moral lesson; for his left hand was beneath his coat tail, and his right extended in air, as was his wont when delivering himself of an impressive address. at a little distance stood mr. tupman with indignant countenance, carefully held back by his two younger friends; at the further end of the room were mr. nupkins, mrs. nupkins, and miss nupkins, gloomily grand, and savagely vexed. "what prevents me," said mr. nupkins, with magisterial dignity, as job was brought in: "what prevents me from detaining these men as rogues and impostors? it is a foolish mercy. what prevents me?" "pride, old fellow, pride," replied jingle, quite at his ease. "wouldn't do--no go--caught a captain, eh?--ha! ha! very good--husband for daughter--biter bit--make it public--not for worlds--look stupid--very!" "wretch," said mrs. nupkins, "we scorn your base insinuations." "i always hated him," added henrietta. "oh, of course," said jingle. "tall young man--old lover--sidney porkenham--rich--fine fellow--not so rich as captain, though?--turn him away--off with him--anything for captain--nothing like captain anywhere--all the girls--raving mad--eh, job?" here mr. jingle laughed very heartily; and job, rubbing his hands with delight, uttered the first sound he had given vent to since he entered the house--a low noiseless chuckle, which seemed to intimate that he enjoyed his laugh too much, to let any of it escape in sound. "mr. nupkins," said the elder lady, "this is not a fit conversation for the servants to overhear. let these wretches be removed." "certainly, my dear," said mr. nupkins. "muzzle!" "your worship." "open the front door." "yes, your worship." "leave the house!" said mr. nupkins, waving his hand emphatically. jingle smiled, and moved towards the door. "stay!" said mr. pickwick. jingle stopped. "i might," said mr. pickwick, "have taken a much greater revenge for the treatment i have experienced at your hands, and that of your hypocritical friend there." job trotter bowed with great politeness, and laid his hand upon his heart. "i say," said mr. pickwick, growing gradually angry, "that i might have taken a greater revenge, but i content myself with exposing you, which i consider a duty i owe to society. this is a leniency, sir, which i hope you will remember." when mr. pickwick arrived at this point, job trotter, with facetious gravity, applied his hand to his ear, as if not desirous to lose a syllable he uttered. "and i have only to add, sir," said mr. pickwick, now thoroughly angry, "that i consider you a rascal, and a--a ruffian--and--and worse than any man i ever saw, or heard of, except that pious and sanctified vagabond in the mulberry livery." "ha! ha!" said jingle, "good fellow, pickwick--fine heart--stout old boy--but must not be passionate--bad thing, very--bye-bye--see you again some day--keep up your spirits--now, job--trot!" with these words, mr. jingle stuck on his hat in the old fashion, and strode out of the room. job trotter paused, looked round, smiled, and then with a bow of mock solemnity to mr. pickwick, and a wink to mr. weller, the audacious slyness of which baffles all description, followed the footsteps of his hopeful master. "sam," said mr. pickwick, as mr. weller was following. "sir?" "stay here." mr. weller seemed uncertain. "stay here," repeated mr. pickwick. "mayn't i polish that ere job off, in the front garden?" said mr. weller. "certainly not," replied mr. pickwick. "mayn't i kick him out of the gate, sir?" said mr. weller. "not on any account," replied his master. for the first time since his engagement, mr. weller looked, for a moment, discontented and unhappy. but his countenance immediately cleared up; for the wily mr. muzzle, by concealing himself behind the street door, and rushing violently out, at the right instant, contrived with great dexterity to overturn both mr. jingle and his attendant, down the flight of steps, into the american aloe tubs that stood beneath. "having discharged my duty, sir," said mr. pickwick to mr. nupkins, "i will, with my friends, bid you farewell. while we thank you for such hospitality as we have received, permit me to assure you in our joint names, that we should not have accepted it, or have consented to extricate ourselves in this way, from our previous dilemma, had we not been impelled by a strong sense of duty. we return to london to-morrow. your secret is safe with us." having thus entered his protest against their treatment of the morning, mr. pickwick bowed low to the ladies, and notwithstanding the solicitations of the family, left the room with his friends. "get your hat, sam," said mr. pickwick. "it's below stairs, sir," said sam, and he ran down after it. now, there was nobody in the kitchen but the pretty housemaid; and as sam's hat was mislaid, he had to look for it; and the pretty housemaid lighted him. they had to look all over the place for the hat. the pretty housemaid, in her anxiety to find it, went down on her knees, and turned over all the things that were heaped together in a little corner by the door. it was an awkward corner. you couldn't get at it without shutting the door first. "here it is," said the pretty housemaid. "this is it, ain't it?" "let me look," said sam. [illustration: "_you don't mean to say you did that on purpose?_"] the pretty housemaid had stood the candle on the floor; as it gave a very dim light, sam was obliged to go down on _his_ knees before he could see whether it really was his own hat or not. it was a remarkably small corner, and so--it was nobody's fault but the man's who built the house--sam and the pretty housemaid were necessarily very close together. "yes, this is it," said sam. "good-bye!" "good-bye!" said the pretty housemaid. "good-bye!" said sam; and as he said it, he dropped the hat that had cost so much trouble in looking for. "how awkward you are," said the pretty housemaid. "you'll lose it again, if you don't take care." so, just to prevent his losing it again, she put it on for him. whether it was that the pretty housemaid's face looked prettier still, when it was raised towards sam's, or whether it was the accidental consequence of their being so near to each other, is matter of uncertainty to this day; but sam kissed her. "you don't mean to say you did that on purpose?" said the pretty housemaid, blushing. "no, i didn't then," said sam; "but i will now." so he kissed her again. "sam!" said mr. pickwick, calling over the banisters. "coming, sir," replied sam, running up stairs. "how long you have been!" said mr. pickwick. "there was something behind the door, sir, which perwented our getting it open, for ever so long, sir," replied sam. and this was the first passage of mr. weller's first love. chapter xxvi [illustration] _which contains a brief account of the progress of the action of bardell against pickwick_ having accomplished the main end and object of his journey, the exposure of jingle, mr. pickwick resolved on immediately returning to london, with a view of becoming acquainted with the proceedings which had been taken against him, in the meantime, by messrs. dodson and fogg. acting upon this resolution with all the energy and decision of his character, he mounted to the back seat of the first coach which left ipswich on the morning after the memorable occurrences detailed at length in the two preceding chapters; and accompanied by his three friends, and mr. samuel weller, arrived in the metropolis, in perfect health and safety, the same evening. here, the friends, for a short time, separated. messrs. tupman, winkle, and snodgrass repaired to their several homes to make such preparations as might be requisite for their forthcoming visit to dingley dell; and mr. pickwick and sam took up their present abode in very good, old-fashioned, and comfortable quarters: to wit, the george and vulture tavern and hotel, george yard, lombard street. mr. pickwick had dined, finished his second pint of particular port, pulled his silk handkerchief over his head, put his feet on the fender, and thrown himself back in an easy chair, when the entrance of mr. weller with his carpet bag aroused him from his tranquil meditations. "sam," said mr. pickwick. "sir?" said mr. weller. "i have just been thinking, sam," said mr. pickwick, "that having left a good many things at mrs. bardell's, in goswell street, i ought to arrange for taking them away, before i leave town again." "wery good, sir," replied mr. weller. "i could send them to tupman's, for the present, sam," continued mr. pickwick, "but before we take them away, it is necessary that they should be looked up, and put together. i wish you would step up to goswell street, sam, and arrange about it." "at once, sir?" inquired mr. weller. "at once," replied mr. pickwick. "and stay, sam," added mr. pickwick, pulling out his purse, "there is some rent to pay. the quarter is not due till christmas, but you may pay it, and have done with it. a month's notice terminates my tenancy. here it is, written out. give it, and tell mrs. bardell she may put a bill up, as soon as she likes." "wery good, sir," replied mr. weller; "anythin' more, sir?" "nothing more, sam." mr. weller stepped slowly to the door, as if he expected something more; slowly opened it, slowly stepped out, and had slowly closed it within a couple of inches, when mr. pickwick called out-- "sam." "sir?" said mr. weller, stepping quickly back, and closing the door behind him. "i have no objection, sam, to your endeavouring to ascertain how mrs. bardell herself seems disposed towards me, and whether it is really probable that this vile and groundless action is to be carried to extremity. i say i do not object to your doing this, if you wish it, sam," said mr. pickwick. sam gave a short nod of intelligence, and left the room. mr. pickwick drew the silk handkerchief once more over his head, and composed himself to a nap. mr. weller promptly walked forth, to execute his commission. it was nearly nine o'clock when he reached goswell street. a couple of candles were burning in the little front parlour, and a couple of caps were reflected on the window-blind. mrs. bardell had got company. mr. weller knocked at the door, and after a pretty long interval--occupied by the party without, in whistling a tune, and by the party within, in persuading a refractory flat candle to allow itself to be lighted--a pair of small boots pattered over the floor-cloth, and master bardell presented himself. "well, young townskip," said sam, "how's mother?" "she's pretty well," replied master bardell, "so am i." "well, that's a mercy," said sam; "tell her i want to speak to her, will you, my hinfant fernomenon?" master bardell, thus adjured, placed the refractory flat candle on the bottom stair, and vanished into the front parlour with his message. the two caps, reflected on the window-blind, were the respective head-dresses of a couple of mrs. bardell's most particular acquaintance, who had just stepped in, to have a quiet cup of tea, and a little warm supper of a couple of sets of pettitoes and some toasted cheese. the cheese was simmering and browning away, most delightfully, in a little dutch oven before the fire; the pettitoes were getting on deliciously in a little tin saucepan on the hob; and mrs. bardell and her two friends were getting on very well, also, in a little quiet conversation about and concerning all their particular friends and acquaintance; when master bardell came back from answering the door, and delivered the message entrusted to him by mr. samuel weller. "mr. pickwick's servant!" said mrs. bardell, turning pale. "bless my soul!" said mrs. cluppins. "well, i raly would _not_ ha' believed it, unless i had ha' happened to ha' been here!" said mrs. sanders. mrs. cluppins was a little brisk, busy-looking woman; mrs. sanders was a big, fat, heavy-faced personage; and the two were the company. mrs. bardell felt it proper to be agitated; and as none of the three exactly knew whether, under existing circumstances, any communication, otherwise than through dodson and fogg, ought to be held with mr. pickwick's servant, they were all rather taken by surprise. in this state of indecision, obviously the first thing to be done was to thump the boy for finding mr. weller at the door. so his mother thumped him, and he cried melodiously. [illustration: _mrs. bardell and her two friends were getting on very well_] "hold your noise--do--you naughty creetur!" said mrs. bardell. "yes; don't worrit your poor mother," said mrs. sanders. "she's quite enough to worrit her, as it is, without you, tommy," said mrs. cluppins, with sympathising resignation. "ah! worse luck, poor lamb!" said mrs. sanders. at all which moral reflections, master bardell howled the louder. "now, what _shall_ i do?" said mrs. bardell to mrs. cluppins. "_i_ think you ought to see him," replied mrs. cluppins. "but on no account without a witness." "_i_ think two witnesses would be more lawful," said mrs. sanders, who, like the other friend, was bursting with curiosity. "perhaps he'd better come in here?" said mrs. bardell. "to be sure," replied mrs. cluppins, eagerly catching at the idea. "walk in, young man; and shut the street door first, please." mr. weller immediately took the hint; and presenting himself in the parlour, explained his business to mrs. bardell thus: "wery sorry to 'casion any personal inconwenience, ma'am, as the housebreaker said to the old lady when he put her on the fire; but as me and my governor's jest come to town, and is jest going away again, it can't be helped, you see." "of course the young man can't help the faults of his master," said mrs. cluppins, much struck by mr. weller's appearance and conversation. "certainly not," chimed in mrs. sanders, who, from certain wistful glances at the little tin saucepan, seemed to be engaged in a mental calculation of the probable extent of the pettitoes, in the event of sam's being asked to stop to supper. "so all i've come about, is jest this here," said sam, disregarding the interruption: "first, to give my governor's notice--there it is. secondly, to pay the rent--here it is. thirdly, to say as all his things is to be put together, and give to anybody as we sends for 'em. fourthly, that you may let the place as soon as you like--and that's all." "whatever has happened," said mrs. bardell, "i always have said, and always will say, that in every respect but one, mr. pickwick has always behaved himself like a perfect gentleman. his money always was as good as the bank: always." as mrs. bardell said this, she applied her handkerchief to her eyes, and went out of the room to get the receipt. sam well knew that he had only to remain quiet, and the women were sure to talk; so he looked alternately at the tin saucepan, the toasted cheese, the wall, and the ceiling, in profound silence. "poor dear!" said mrs. cluppins. "ah, poor thing!" replied mrs. sanders. sam said nothing. he saw they were coming to the subject. "i raly cannot contain myself," said mrs. cluppins, "when i think of such perjury. i don't wish to say anything to make you uncomfortable, young man, but your master's an old brute, and i wish i had him here to tell him so." "i wish you had," said sam. "to see how dreadful she takes on, going moping about, and taking no pleasure in nothing, except when her friends comes in, out of charity, to sit with her, and make her comfortable," resumed mrs. cluppins, glancing at the tin saucepan and the dutch oven, "its shocking!" "barbareous," said mrs. sanders. "and your master, young man! a gentleman with money, as could never feel the expense of a wife, no more than nothing," continued mrs. cluppins, with great volubility; "why there ain't the faintest shade of an excuse for his behaviour! why don't he marry her?" "ah," said sam, "to be sure; that's the question." "question, indeed," retorted mrs. cluppins; "she'd question him, if she'd my spirit. hows'ever, there _is_ law for us women, mis'rable creeturs as they'd make us, if they could! and that your master will find out, young man, to his cost, afore he's six months older." at this consolatory reflection, mrs. cluppins bridled up, and smiled at mrs. sanders, who smiled back again. "the action's going on, and no mistake," thought sam, as mrs. bardell re-entered with the receipt. "here's the receipt, mr. weller," said mrs. bardell, "and here's the change, and i hope you'll take a little drop of something to keep the cold out, if it's only for old acquaintance' sake, mr. weller." sam saw the advantage he should gain, and at once acquiesced; whereupon mrs. bardell produced, from a small closet, a black bottle and a wineglass; and so great was her abstraction, in her deep mental affliction, that, after filling mr. weller's glass, she brought out three more wineglasses, and filled them too. "lauk, mrs. bardell," said mrs. cluppins, "see what you've been and done!" "well, that is a good one!" ejaculated mrs. sanders. "ah, my poor head!" said mrs. bardell, with a faint smile. sam understood all this, of course, so he said at once, that he never could drink before supper, unless a lady drank with him. a great deal of laughing ensued, and mrs. sanders volunteered to humour him, so she took a slight sip out of her glass. then, sam said it must go all round, so they all took a slight sip. then, little mrs. cluppins proposed a toast, "success to bardell agin pickwick"; and then the ladies emptied their glasses in honour of the sentiment and got very talkative directly. "i suppose you've heard what's going forward, mr. weller?" said mrs. bardell. "i've heerd somethin' on it," replied sam. "it's a terrible thing to be dragged before the public, in that way, mr. weller," said mrs. bardell; "but i see now, that it's the only thing i ought to do, and my lawyers, mr. dodson and fogg, tell me, that with the evidence as we shall call, we must succeed. i don't know what i should do, mr. weller, if i didn't." the mere idea of mrs. bardell's failing in her action, affected mrs. sanders so deeply, that she was under the necessity of re-filling and re-emptying her glass immediately; feeling, as she said afterwards, that if she hadn't had the presence of mind to do so, she must have dropped. "ven is it expected to come on?" inquired sam. "either in february or march," replied mrs. bardell. "what a number of witnesses there'll be, won't there?" said mrs. cluppins. "ah, won't there!" replied mrs. sanders. "and won't mr. dodson and fogg be wild if the plaintiff shouldn't get it?" added mrs. cluppins, "when they do it all on speculation!" "ah! won't they!" said mrs. sanders. "but the plaintiff must get it," resumed mrs. cluppins. "i hope so," said mrs. bardell. "oh, there can't be any doubt about it," rejoined mrs. sanders. "vell," said sam, rising and setting down his glass, "all i can say is, that i wish you _may_ get it." "thank'ee, mr. weller," said mrs. bardell fervently. "and of them dodson and foggs, as does these sort o' things on spec," continued mr. weller, "as well as for the other kind and gen'rous people o' the same purfession, as sets people by the ears, free gratis for nothing, and sets their clerks to work to find out little disputes among their neighbours and acquaintances as vants settlin' by means o' law-suits--all i can say o' them is, that i vish they had the reward i'd give 'em." "ah, i wish they had the reward that every kind and generous heart would be inclined to bestow upon them!" said the gratified mrs. bardell. "amen to that," replied sam, "and a fat and happy livin' they'd get out of it! wish you good night, ladies." to the great relief of mrs. sanders, sam was allowed to depart without any reference, on the part of the hostess, to the pettitoes and toasted cheese: to which the ladies, with such juvenile assistance as master bardell could afford, soon afterwards rendered the amplest justice--indeed they wholly vanished before their strenuous exertions. mr. weller went his way back to the george and vulture, and faithfully recounted to his master, such indications of the sharp practice of dodson and fogg, as he had contrived to pick up in his visit to mrs. bardell's. an interview with mr. perker, next day, more than confirmed mr. weller's statement; and mr. pickwick was fain to prepare for his christmas visit to dingley dell, with the pleasant anticipation that some two or three months afterwards, an action brought against him for damages sustained by reason of a breach of promise of marriage, would be publicly tried in the court of common pleas: the plaintiff having all the advantages derivable, not only from the force of circumstances, but from the sharp practice of dodson and fogg to boot. chapter xxvii [illustration] _samuel weller makes a pilgrimage to dorking, and beholds his mother-in-law_ there still remaining an interval of two days before the time agreed upon for the departure of the pickwickians to dingley dell, mr. weller sat himself down in a back room at the george and vulture, after eating an early dinner, to muse on the best way of disposing of his time. it was a remarkably fine day; and he had not turned the matter over in his mind ten minutes, when he was suddenly stricken filial and affectionate; and it occurred to him so strongly that he ought to go down and see his father, and pay his duty to his mother-in-law, that he was lost in astonishment at his own remissness in never thinking of this moral obligation before. anxious to atone for his past neglect without another hour's delay, he straightway walked up the stairs to mr. pickwick, and requested leave of absence for this laudable purpose. "certainly, sam, certainly," said mr. pickwick, his eyes glistening with delight at this manifestation of filial feeling on the part of his attendant; "certainly, sam." mr. weller made a grateful bow. "i am very glad to see that you have so high a sense of your duties as a son, sam," said mr. pickwick. "i always had, sir," replied mr. weller. "that's a very gratifying reflection, sam," said mr. pickwick, approvingly. "wery, sir," replied mr. weller; "if ever i wanted anythin' o' my father, i always asked for it in a very 'spectful and obligin' manner. if he didn't give it me, i took it, for fear i should be led to do anythin' wrong, through not havin' it. i saved him a world o' trouble in this vay, sir." "that's not precisely what i meant, sam," said mr. pickwick, shaking his head, with a slight smile. "all good feeling, sir--the wery best intentions, as the gen'lm'n said ven he run away from his wife 'cos she seemed unhappy with him," replied mr. weller. "you may go, sam," said mr. pickwick. "thank'ee, sir," replied mr. weller; and having made his best bow, and put on his best clothes, sam planted himself on the top of the arundel coach, and journeyed on to dorking. the marquis of granby in mrs. weller's time was quite a model of a roadside public-house of the better class--just large enough to be convenient, and small enough to be snug. on the opposite side of the road was a large sign-board on a high post, representing the head and shoulders of a gentleman with an apoplectic countenance, in a red coat with deep blue facings, and a touch of the same blue over his three-cornered hat, for a sky. over that again were a pair of flags; beneath the last button of his coat were a couple of cannon; and the whole formed an expressive and undoubted likeness of the marquis of granby of glorious memory. the bar window displayed a choice collection of geranium plants, and a well-dusted row of spirit phials. the open shutters bore a variety of golden inscriptions, eulogistic of good beds and neat wines; and the choice group of countrymen and hostlers lounging about the stable-door and horse-trough, afforded presumptive proof of the excellent quality of the ale and spirits which were sold within. sam weller paused, when he dismounted from the coach, to note all these little indications of a thriving business, with the eye of an experienced traveller; and having done so, stepped in at once, highly satisfied with everything he had observed. "now, then!" said a shrill female voice the instant sam thrust his head in at the door, "what do you want, young man?" sam looked round in the direction whence the voice proceeded. it came from a rather stout lady of comfortable appearance, who was seated beside the fire-place, in the bar, blowing the fire to make the kettle boil for tea. she was not alone; for on the other side of the fire-place, sitting bolt upright in a high-backed chair, was a man in threadbare black clothes, with a back almost as long and stiff as that of the chair itself, who caught sam's most particular and especial attention at once. he was a prim-faced, red-nosed man, with a long, thin countenance, and a semi-rattlesnake sort of eye--rather sharp, but decidedly bad. he wore very short trousers, and black cotton stockings, which, like the rest of his apparel, were particularly rusty. his looks were starched, but his white neckerchief was not, and its long limp ends straggled over his closely-buttoned waistcoat in a very uncouth and unpicturesque fashion. a pair of old, worn beaver gloves, a broad-brimmed hat, and a faded green umbrella, with plenty of whalebone sticking through the bottom, as if to counter-balance the want of a handle at the top, lay on a chair beside him, and, being disposed in a very tidy and careful manner, seemed to imply that the red-nosed man, whoever he was, had no intention of going away in a hurry. to do the red-nosed man justice, he would have been very far from wise if he had entertained any such intention; for, to judge from all appearances, he must have been possessed of a most desirable circle of acquaintance, if he could have reasonably expected to be more comfortable anywhere else. the fire was blazing brightly under the influence of the bellows, and the kettle was singing gaily under the influence of both. a small tray of tea-things was arranged on the table, a plate of hot buttered toast was gently simmering before the fire, and the red-nosed man himself was busily engaged in converting a large slice of bread into the same agreeable edible, through the instrumentality of a long brass toasting-fork. beside him stood a glass of reeking hot pine-apple rum and water, with a slice of lemon in it; and every time the red-nosed man stopped to bring the round of toast to his eye, with the view of ascertaining how it got on, he imbibed a drop or two of the hot pine-apple rum and water, and smiled upon the rather stout lady, as she blew the fire. sam was so lost in the contemplation of this comfortable scene, that he suffered the first inquiry of the rather stout lady to pass unheeded. it was not until it had been twice repeated, each time in a shriller tone, that he became conscious of the impropriety of his behaviour. "governor in?" inquired sam, in reply to the question. "no, he isn't," replied mrs. weller; for the rather stout lady was no other than the quondam relict and sole executrix of the dead-and-gone mr. clarke. "no, he isn't, and i don't expect him, either." "i suppose he's a drivin' up to-day?" said sam. "he may be, or he may not," replied mrs. weller, buttering the round of toast which the red-nosed man had just finished. "i don't know, and, what's more, i don't care. ask a blessin', mr. stiggins." the red-nosed man did as he was desired, and instantly commenced on the toast with fierce voracity. the appearance of the red-nosed man had induced sam, at first sight, to more than half suspect that he was the deputy shepherd of whom his estimable parent had spoken. the moment he saw him eat, all doubt on the subject was removed, and he perceived at once, that if he purposed to take up his temporary quarters where he was, he must make his footing good without delay. he therefore commenced proceedings by putting his arm over the half-door of the bar, coolly unbolting it, and leisurely walking in. "mother-in-law," said sam, "how are you?" "why, i do believe he is a weller!" said mrs. w., raising her eyes to sam's face, with no very gratified expression of countenance. "i rayther think he is," said the imperturbable sam; "and i hope this here reverend gen'lm'n 'll excuse me saying that i wish i was _the_ weller as owns you, mother-in-law." [illustration: "_mother-in-law," said sam, "how are you?_"] this was a double-barrelled compliment. it implied that mrs. weller was a most agreeable female, and also that mr. stiggins had a clerical appearance. it made a visible impression at once; and sam followed up his advantage by kissing his mother-in-law. "get along with you!" said mrs. weller, pushing him away. "for shame, young man!" said the gentleman with the red nose. "no offence, sir, no offence," replied sam; "you're wery right, though; it ain't the right sort o' thing, when mothers-in-law is young and good-looking, is it, sir?" "it's all vanity," said mr. stiggins. "ah, so it is," said mrs. weller, setting her cap to rights. sam thought it was, too, but he held his peace. the deputy shepherd seemed by no means best pleased with sam's arrival; and when the first effervescence of the compliment had subsided, even mrs. weller looked as if she could have spared him without the smallest inconvenience. however, there he was; and as he couldn't be decently turned out, they all three sat down to tea. "and how's father?" said sam. at this inquiry mrs. weller raised her hands, and turned up her eyes, as if the subject were too painful to be alluded to. mr. stiggins groaned. "what's the matter with that 'ere gen'lm'n?" inquired sam. "he's shocked at the way your father goes on in," replied mrs. weller. "oh, he is, is he?" said sam. "and with too good reason," added mrs. weller, gravely. mr. stiggins took up a fresh piece of toast, and groaned heavily. "he is a dreadful reprobate," said mrs. weller. "a man of wrath!" exclaimed mr. stiggins. he took a large semi-circular bite of the toast, and groaned aloud. sam felt very strongly disposed to give the reverend mr. stiggins something to groan for, but he repressed his inclination, and merely asked, "what's the old 'un up to, now?" "up to, indeed!" said mrs. weller. "oh, he has a hard heart. night after night does this excellent man--don't frown, mr. stiggins: i _will_ say you are an excellent man--come and sit here, for hours together, and it has not the least effect upon him." "well, that is odd," said sam; "it 'ud have a wery considerable effect upon me, if i wos in his place; i know that." "the fact is, my young friend," said mr. stiggins, solemnly, "he has an obderrate bosom. oh, my young friend, who else could have resisted the pleading of sixteen of our fairest sisters, and withstood their exhortations to subscribe to our noble society for providing the infant negroes in the west indies with flannel waistcoats and moral pocket-handkerchiefs?" "what's a moral pocket ankercher?" said sam; "i never see one o' them articles o' furniter." "those which combine amusement with instruction, my young friend," replied mr. stiggins: "blending select tales with wood-cuts." "oh, i know," said sam; "them as hangs up in the linen-drapers' shops, with beggars' petitions and all that 'ere upon 'em?" mr. stiggins began a third round of toast, and nodded assent. "and he wouldn't be persuaded by the ladies, wouldn't he?" said sam. "sat and smoked his pipe, and said the infant negroes were--what did he say the infant negroes were?" said mrs. weller. "little humbugs," replied mr. stiggins, deeply affected. "said the infant negroes were little humbugs," repeated mrs. weller. and they both groaned at the atrocious conduct of the old gentleman. a great many more inquiries of a similar nature might have been disclosed, only the toast being all eaten, the tea having got very weak, and sam holding out no indications of meaning to go, mr. stiggins suddenly recollected that he had a most pressing appointment with the shepherd, and took himself off accordingly. the tea-things had scarcely been put away, and the hearth swept up, when the london coach deposited mr. weller senior at the door; his legs deposited him in the bar; and his eyes showed him his son. "what, sammy!" exclaimed the father. "what, old nobs!" ejaculated the son. and they shook hands heartily. "wery glad to see you, sammy," said the elder mr. weller, "though how you've managed to get over your mother-in-law, is a mystery to me. i only vish you'd write me out the receipt, that's all." "hush!" said sam, "she's at home, old feller." "she ain't vithin hearin'," replied mr. weller; "she always goes and blows up, down-stairs, for a couple of hours arter tea; so we'll just give ourselves a damp, sammy." saying this, mr. weller mixed two glasses of spirits and water, and produced a couple of pipes. the father and son sitting down opposite each other: sam on one side of the fire, in the high-backed chair, and mr. weller senior on the other, in an easy ditto: they proceeded to enjoy themselves with all due gravity. "anybody been here, sammy?" asked mr. weller senior, drily, after a long silence. sam nodded an expressive assent. "red-nosed chap?" inquired mr. weller. sam nodded again. "amiable man that 'ere, sammy," said mr. weller, smoking violently. "seems so," observed sam. "good hand at accounts," said mr. weller. "is he?" said sam. "borrows eighteenpence on monday, and comes on tuesday for a shillin' to make it up half a crown; calls again on vensday for another half crown to make it five shillin's; and goes on, doubling, till he gets it up to a five-pund note in no time, like them sums in the 'rithmetic book 'bout the nails in the horse's shoes, sammy." sam intimated by a nod that he recollected the problem alluded to by his parent. "so you vouldn't subscribe to the flannel veskits?" said sam, after another interval of smoking. "cert'nly not," replied mr. weller; "what's the good o' flannel veskits to the young niggers abroad? but i'll tell you what it is, sammy," said mr. weller, lowering his voice, and bending across the fire-place; "i'd come down wery handsome towards strait veskits for some people at home." as mr. weller said this, he slowly recovered his former position, and winked at his first-born, in a profound manner. "it cert'nly seems a queer start to send out pocket ankerchers to people as don't know the use on 'em," observed sam. "they're alvays a doin' some gammon of that sort, sammy," replied his father. "t'other sunday i wos walkin' up the road, ven who should i see, a standin' at a chapel-door, with a blue soup-plate in her hand, but your mother-in-law! i werily believe there was change for a couple o' suvrins in it, then, sammy, all in ha'pence: and as the people came out, they rattled the pennies in it, till you'd ha' thought that no mortal plate as ever was baked could ha' stood the wear and tear. what d'ye think it was all for?" "for another tea-drinkin', perhaps," said sam. "not a bit on it," replied the father; "for the shepherd's water-rate, sammy." "the shepherd's water-rate!" said sam. "ay," replied mr. weller, "there was three quarters owin' and the shepherd hadn't paid a farden, not he--perhaps it might be on account that the water warn't o' much use to him, for it's wery little o' that tap he drinks, sammy, wery; he knows a trick worth a good half-dozen of that, he does. hows'ever, it warn't paid, and so they cuts the water off. down goes the shepherd to chapel, gives out as he's a persecuted saint, and says he hopes the heart of the turncock as cut the water off, 'll be softened, and turned in the right vay: but he rayther thinks he's booked for somethin' uncomfortable. upon this, the women calls a meetin', sings a hymn, wotes your mother-in-law into the chair, wolunteers a collection next sunday, and hands it all over to the shepherd. and if he ain't got enough out on 'em, sammy, to make him free of the water company for life," said mr. weller, in conclusion, "i'm one dutchman, and you're another, and that's all about it." mr. weller smoked for some minutes in silence, and then resumed: "the worst o' these here shepherds is, my boy, that they reg'larly turns the heads of all the young ladies, about here. lord bless their little hearts, they thinks it's all right, and don't know no better: but they're the wictims o' gammon, samivel, they're the wictims o' gammon." "i s'pose they are," said sam. "nothin' else," said mr. weller, shaking his head gravely; "and wot aggrawates me, samivel, is to see 'em a wastin' all their time and labour in making clothes for copper-coloured people as don't want 'em, and taking no notice of flesh-coloured christians as do. if i'd my vay, samivel, i'd just stick some o' these here lazy shepherds behind a heavy wheelbarrow, and run 'em up and down a fourteen-inch-wide plank all day. that 'ud shake the nonsense out of 'em, if anything vould." mr. weller having delivered this gentle recipe with strong emphasis, eked out by a variety of nods and contortions of the eye, emptied his glass at a draught, and knocked the ashes out of his pipe, with native dignity. he was engaged in this operation, when a shrill voice was heard in the passage. "here's your dear relation, sammy," said mr. weller; and mrs. w. hurried into the room. "oh, you've come back, have you!" said mrs. weller. "yes, my dear," replied mr. weller, filling a fresh pipe. "has mr. stiggins been back?" said mrs. weller. "no, my dear, he hasn't," replied mr. weller, lighting the pipe by the ingenious process of holding to the bowl thereof, between the tongs, a red-hot coal from the adjacent fire; "and what's more, my dear, i shall manage to survive it, if he don't come back at all." "ugh, you wretch!" said mrs. weller. "thank'ee, my love," said mr. weller. "come, come, father," said sam, "none o' these little lovins afore strangers. here's the reverend gen'lm'n a comin' in now." at this announcement, mrs. weller hastily wiped off the tears which she had just begun to force on; and mr. w. drew his chair sullenly into the chimney corner. mr. stiggins was easily prevailed on to take another glass of the hot pine-apple rum and water, and a second, and a third, and then to refresh himself with a slight supper, previous to beginning again. he sat on the same side as mr. weller senior; and every time he could contrive to do so, unseen by his wife, that gentleman indicated to his son the hidden emotions of his bosom, by shaking his fist over the deputy shepherd's head: a process which afforded his son the most unmingled delight and satisfaction, and more especially as mr. stiggins went on quietly drinking the hot pine-apple rum and water, wholly unconscious of what was going on. the major part of the conversation was confined to mrs. weller and the reverend mr. stiggins; and the topics principally descanted on, were the virtues of the shepherd, the worthiness of his flock, and the high crimes and misdemeanours of everybody beside; dissertations which the elder mr. weller occasionally interrupted by half-suppressed references to a gentleman of the name of walker, and other running commentaries of the same kind. at length, mr. stiggins, with several most indubitable symptoms of having quite as much pine-apple rum and water about him, as he could comfortably accommodate, took his hat and his leave: and sam was, immediately afterwards, shown to bed by his father. the respectable old gentleman wrung his hand fervently, and seemed disposed to address some observation to his son; but on mrs. weller advancing towards him, he appeared to relinquish that intention, and abruptly bade him good night. sam was up betimes next day, and having partaken of a hasty breakfast, prepared to return to london. he had scarcely set foot without the house, when his father stood before him. "goin', sammy?" inquired mr. weller. "off at once," replied sam. "i vish you could muffle that 'ere stiggins, and take him with you," said mr. weller. "i am ashamed on you!" said sam, reproachfully; "what do you let him show his red nose in the markis o' granby at all, for?" mr. weller the elder fixed on his son an earnest look, and replied, "'cause i'm a married man, samivel, 'cause i'm a married man. when you're a married man, samivel, you'll understand a good many things as you don't understand now; but vether it's worth while going through so much, to learn so little, as the charity boy said ven he got to the end of the alphabet, is a matter o' taste. _i_ rayther think it isn't." "well," said sam, "good-bye." "tar tar, sammy," replied his father. "i've only got to say this here," said sam, stopping short, "that if _i_ was the properiator o' the markis o' granby, and that 'ere stiggins came and made toast in _my_ bar, i'd----" "what?" interposed mr. weller, with great anxiety. "what?" "--pison his rum and water," said sam. "no!" said mr. weller, shaking his son eagerly by the hand; "would you raly, sammy? would you though?" "i would," said sam. "i wouldn't be too hard upon him at first. i'd drop him in the water-butt, and put the lid on; and if i found he was insensible to kindness, i'd try the other persvasion." the elder mr. weller bestowed a look of deep, unspeakable admiration on his son: and, having once more grasped his hand, walked slowly away, revolving in his mind the numerous reflections to which his advice had given rise. sam looked after him, until he turned a corner of the road: and then set forward on his walk to london. he meditated, at first, on the probable consequences of his own advice, and the likelihood and unlikelihood of his father's adopting it. he dismissed the subject from his mind, however, with the consolatory reflection that time alone would show; and this is the reflection we would impress upon the reader. chapter xxviii [illustration] _a good-humoured christmas chapter, containing an account of a wedding, and some other sports beside: which although in their way even as good customs as marriage itself, are not quite so religiously kept up, in these degenerate times_ as brisk as bees, if not altogether as light as fairies, did the four pickwickians assemble on the morning of the twenty-second day of december, in the year of grace in which these, their faithfully-recorded adventures, were undertaken and accomplished. christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness; the old year was preparing, like an ancient philosopher, to call his friends around him, and amidst the sound of feasting and revelry to pass gently and calmly away. gay and merry was as the time, and gay and merry were at least four of the numerous hearts that were gladdened by its coming. and numerous indeed are the hearts to which christmas brings a brief season of happiness and enjoyment. how many families, whose members have been dispersed and scattered far and wide, in the restless struggles of life, are then re-united, and meet once again in that happy state of companionship and mutual good-will, which is a source of such pure and unalloyed delight, and one so incompatible with the cares and sorrows of the world, that the religious belief of the most civilised nations, and the rude traditions of the roughest savages, alike number it among the first joys of a future condition of existence, provided for the blest and happy! how many old recollections, and how many dormant sympathies, does christmas time awaken! we write these words now, many miles distant from the spot at which, year after year, we met on that day, a merry and joyous circle. many of the hearts that throbbed so gaily then, have ceased to beat; many of the looks that shone so brightly then, have ceased to glow; the hands we grasped, have grown cold; the eyes we sought, have hid their lustre in the grave; and yet the old house, the room, the merry voices and smiling faces, the jest, the laugh, the most minute and trivial circumstances connected with those happy meetings, crowd upon our minds at each recurrence of the season, as if the last assemblage had been but yesterday! happy, happy christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fireside and his quiet home! but we are so taken up and occupied with the good qualities of this saint christmas, that we are keeping mr. pickwick and his friends waiting in the cold on the outside of the muggleton coach, which they have just attained, well wrapped up in great-coats, shawls, and comforters. the portmanteaus and carpet-bags have been stowed away, and mr. weller and the guard are endeavouring to insinuate into a fore-boot a huge cod-fish several sizes too large for it--which is snugly packed up, in a long brown basket, with a layer of straw over the top, and which has been left to the last, in order that he may repose safely on the half-dozen barrels of real native oysters, all the property of mr. pickwick, which have been arranged in regular order at the bottom of the receptacle. the interest displayed in mr. pickwick's countenance is most intense, as mr. weller and the guard try to squeeze the cod-fish into the boot, first head first, and then tail first, and then top upward, and then bottom upward, and then side-ways, and then long-ways, all of which artifices the implacable cod-fish sturdily resists, until the guard accidentally hits him in the very middle of the basket, whereupon he suddenly disappears into the boot, and with him, the head and shoulders of the guard himself, who, not calculating upon so sudden a cessation of the passive resistance of the cod-fish, experiences a very unexpected shock, to the unsmotherable delight of all the porters and bystanders. upon this, mr. pickwick smiles with great good-humour, and drawing a shilling from his waistcoat pocket, begs the guard, as he picks himself out of the boot, to drink his health in a glass of hot brandy and water; at which the guard smiles too, and messrs. snodgrass, winkle, and tupman, all smile in company. the guard and mr. weller disappear for five minutes: most probably to get the hot brandy and water, for they smell very strongly of it, when they return; the coachman mounts the box, mr. weller jumps up behind, the pickwickians pull their coats round their legs and their shawls over their noses, the helpers pull the horse-cloths off, the coachman shouts out a cheery "all right!" and away they go. they have rumbled through the streets, and jolted over the stones, and at length reach the wide and open country. the wheels skim over the hard and frosty ground; and the horses, bursting into a canter at a smart crack of the whip, step along the road as if the load behind them--coach, passengers, cod-fish, oyster barrels, and all--were but a feather at their heels. they have descended a gentle slope, and enter upon a level, as compact and dry as a solid block of marble, two miles long. another crack of the whip, and on they speed, at a smart gallop: the horses tossing their heads and rattling the harness, as if in exhilaration at the rapidity of the motion: while the coachman, holding whip and reins in one hand, takes off his hat with the other, and resting it on his knees, pulls out his handkerchief, and wipes his forehead: partly because he has the habit of doing it, and partly because it's as well to show the passengers how cool he is, and what an easy thing it is to drive four-in-hand, when you have had as much practice as he has. having done this very leisurely (otherwise the effect would be materially impaired), he replaces his handkerchief, pulls on his hat, adjusts his gloves, squares his elbows, cracks the whip again, and on they speed, more merrily than before. a few small houses, scattered on either side of the road, betoken the entrance to some town or village. the lively notes of the guard's key-bugle vibrate in the clear cold air, and wake up the old gentleman inside, who, carefully letting down the window-sash half-way, and standing sentry over the air, takes a short peep out, and then carefully pulling it up again, informs the other inside that they're going to change directly; on which the other inside wakes himself up, and determines to postpone his next nap until after the stoppage. again the bugle sounds lustily forth, and rouses the cottager's wife and children, who peep out at the house-door, and watch the coach till it turns the corner, when they once more crouch round the blazing fire, and throw on another log of wood against father comes home; while father himself, a full mile off, has just exchanged a friendly nod with the coachman, and turned round to take a good long stare at the vehicle as it whirls away. and now the bugle plays a lively air as the coach rattles through the ill-paved streets of a country town; and the coachman, undoing the buckle which keeps his ribands together, prepares to throw them off the moment he stops. mr. pickwick emerges from his coat collar, and looks about him with great curiosity; perceiving which, the coachman informs mr. pickwick of the name of the town, and tells him it was market-day yesterday, both of which pieces of information mr. pickwick retails to his fellow-passengers; whereupon they emerge from their coat collars too, and look about them also. mr. winkle, who sits at the extreme edge, with one leg dangling in the air, is nearly precipitated into the street, as the coach twists round the sharp corner by the cheesemonger's shop, and turns into the market-place; and before mr. snodgrass, who sits next to him, has recovered from his alarm, they pull up at the inn-yard, where the fresh horses, with cloths on, are already waiting. the coachman throws down the reins and gets down himself, and the other outside passengers drop down also: except those who have no great confidence in their ability to get up again; and they remain where they are, and stamp their feet against the coach to warm them--looking, with longing eyes and red noses, at the bright fire in the inn bar, and the sprigs of holly with red berries which ornament the window. but the guard has delivered at the corn-dealer's shop the brown paper packet he took out of the little pouch which hangs over his shoulder by a leathern strap; and has seen the horses carefully put to; and has thrown on the pavement the saddle which was brought from london on the coach-roof; and has assisted in the conference between the coachman and the hostler about the grey mare that hurt her off-fore-leg last tuesday; and he and mr. weller are all right behind, and the coachman is all right in front, and the old gentleman inside, who has kept the window down full two inches all this time, has pulled it up again, and the cloths are off, and they are all ready for starting, except the "two stout gentlemen," whom the coachman inquires after with some impatience. hereupon the coachman, and the guard, and sam weller, and mr. winkle, and mr. snodgrass, and all the hostlers, and every one of the idlers, who are more in number than all the others put together, shout for the missing gentlemen as loud as they can bawl. a distant response is heard from the yard, and mr. pickwick and mr. tupman come running down it, quite out of breath, for they have been having a glass of ale apiece, and mr. pickwick's fingers are so cold that he has been full five minutes before he could find the sixpence to pay for it. the coachman shouts an admonitory "now, then, gen'lm'n!" the guard re-echoes it; the old gentleman inside thinks it a very extraordinary thing that people _will_ get down when they know there isn't time for it; mr. pickwick struggles up on one side, mr. tupman on the other; mr. winkle cries "all right!" and off they start. shawls are pulled up, coat-collars are re-adjusted, the pavement ceases, the houses disappear, and they are once again dashing along the open road, with the fresh clear air blowing in their faces, and gladdening their very hearts within them. [illustration: _a distant response is heard from the yard, and mr. pickwick and mr. tupman come running down it._] such was the progress of mr. pickwick and his friends by the muggleton telegraph, on their way to dingley dell; and at three o'clock that afternoon they all stood, high and dry, safe and sound, hale and hearty, upon the steps of the blue lion, having taken on the road quite enough of ale and brandy to enable them to bid defiance to the frost that was binding up the earth in its iron fetters, and weaving its beautiful net-work upon the trees and hedges. mr. pickwick was busily engaged in counting the barrels of oysters, and superintending the disinterment of the cod-fish, when he felt himself gently pulled by the skirts of the coat. looking round, he discovered that the individual who resorted to this mode of catching his attention was no other than mr. wardle's favourite page, better known to the readers of this unvarnished history, by the distinguished appellation of the fat boy. "aha!" said mr. pickwick. "aha!" said the fat boy. as he said it, he glanced from the cod-fish to the oyster-barrels, and chuckled joyously. he was fatter than ever. "well, you look rosy enough, my young friend," said mr. pickwick. "i've been asleep, right in front of the tap-room fire," replied the fat boy, who had heated himself to the colour of a new chimney-pot, in the course of an hour's nap. "master sent me over with the shay-cart to carry your luggage up to the house. he'd ha' sent some saddle-horses, but he thought you'd rather walk, being a cold day." "yes, yes," said mr. pickwick, hastily, for he remembered how they had travelled over nearly the same ground on a previous occasion. "yes, we would rather walk. here, sam!" "sir?" said mr. weller. "help mr. wardle's servant to put the packages into the cart, and then ride on with him. we will walk forward at once." having given this direction, and settled with the coachman, mr. pickwick and his three friends struck into the footpath across the fields, and walked briskly away, leaving mr. weller and the fat boy confronted together for the first time. sam looked at the fat boy with great astonishment, but without saying a word; and began to stow the luggage rapidly away in the cart, while the fat boy stood quietly by, and seemed to think it a very interesting sort of thing to see mr. weller working by himself. [illustration: "_aha!" said the fat boy_] "there," said sam, throwing in the last carpet-bag. "there they are!" "yes," said the fat boy, in a very satisfied tone, "there they are!" "vell, young twenty stun," said sam, "you're a nice specimen of a prize boy, you are!" "thankee," said the fat boy. "you ain't got nothin' on your mind as makes you fret yourself, have you?" inquired sam. "not as i knows on," replied the fat boy. "i should rayther ha' thought, to look at you, that you was a labourin' under an unrequited attachment to some young 'ooman," said sam. the fat boy shook his head. "vell," said sam, "i'm glad to hear it. do you ever drink anythin'?" "i likes eating better," replied the boy. "ah," said sam, "i should ha' s'posed that; but what i mean is, should you like a drop of anythin' as 'd warm you? but i s'pose you never was cold, with all them elastic fixtures, was you?" "sometimes," replied the boy; "and i likes a drop of something, when it's good." "oh, you do, do you?" said sam, "come this way, then!" the blue lion tap was soon gained, and the fat boy swallowed a glass of liquor without so much as winking; a feat which considerably advanced him in mr. weller's good opinion. mr. weller having transacted a similar piece of business on his own account, they got into the cart. "can you drive?" said the fat boy. "i should rayther think so," replied sam. "there, then," said the fat boy, putting the reins in his hand, and pointing up a lane, "it's as straight as you can go; you can't miss it." with these words, the fat boy laid himself affectionately down by the side of the cod-fish: and placing an oyster-barrel under his head for a pillow, fell asleep instantaneously. "well," said sam, "of all the cool boys ever i set my eyes on, this here young gen'lm'n is the coolest. come, wake up, young dropsy!" but as young dropsy evinced no symptoms of returning animation, sam weller sat himself down in front of the cart, and starting the old horse with a jerk of the rein, jogged steadily on, towards manor farm. meanwhile, mr. pickwick and his friends having walked their blood into active circulation, proceeded cheerfully on. the paths were hard; the grass was crisp and frosty; the air had a fine, dry, bracing coldness; and the rapid approach of the grey twilight (slate-coloured is a better term in frosty weather) made them look forward with pleasant anticipation to the comforts which awaited them at their hospitable entertainer's. it was the sort of afternoon that might induce a couple of elderly gentlemen, in a lonely field, to take off their great-coats and play at leap-frog in pure lightness of heart and gaiety; and we firmly believe that had mr. tupman at that moment proffered "a back," mr. pickwick would have accepted his offer with the utmost avidity. however, mr. tupman did not volunteer any such accommodation, and the friends walked on, conversing merrily. as they turned into a lane they had to cross, the sound of many voices burst upon their ears; and before they had even had time to form a guess to whom they belonged, they walked into the very centre of the party who were expecting their arrival--a fact which was first notified to the pickwickians, by the loud "hurrah!" which burst from old wardle's lips, when they appeared in sight. first, here was wardle himself, looking, if possible, more jolly than ever; then there were bella and her faithful trundle; and, lastly, there were emily and some eight or ten young ladies, who had all come down to the wedding, which was to take place next day, and who were in as happy and important a state as young ladies usually are, on such momentous occasions; and they were, one and all, startling the fields and lanes, far and wide, with their frolic and laughter. the ceremony of introduction, under such circumstances, was very soon performed, or we should rather say that the introduction was soon over, without any ceremony at all. in two minutes thereafter, mr. pickwick was joking with the young ladies who wouldn't come over the stile while he looked--or who, having pretty feet and unexceptionable ankles, preferred standing on the top-rail for five minutes or so, declaring that they were too frightened to move--with as much ease and absence of reserve or constraint, as if he had known them for life. it is worthy of remark, too, that mr. snodgrass offered emily far more assistance than the absolute terrors of the stile (although it was full three feet high, and had only a couple of stepping-stones) would seem to require; while one black-eyed young lady in a very nice little pair of boots, with fur round the top, was observed to scream very loudly, when mr. winkle offered to help her over. all this was very snug and pleasant. and when the difficulties of the stile were at last surmounted, and they once more entered on the open field, old wardle informed mr. pickwick how they had all been down in a body to inspect the furniture and fittings-up of the house, which the young couple were to tenant, after the christmas holidays; at which communication bella and trundle both coloured up, as red as the fat boy after the tap-room fire; and the young lady with the black eyes and the fur round the boots, whispered something in emily's ear, and then glanced archly at mr. snodgrass; to which emily responded that she was a foolish girl, but turned very red, notwithstanding; and mr. snodgrass, who was as modest as all great geniuses usually are, felt the crimson rising to the crown of his head, and devoutly wished in the inmost recesses of his own heart that the young lady aforesaid, with her black eyes, and her archness, and her boots with the fur round the top, were all comfortably deposited in the adjacent county. but if they were social and happy outside the house, what was the warmth and cordiality of their reception when they reached the farm! the very servants grinned with pleasure at sight of mr. pickwick; and emma bestowed a half-demure, half-impudent, and all pretty, look of recognition on mr. tupman, which was enough to make the statue of bonaparte in the passage unfold his arms, and clasp her within them. the old lady was seated in customary state in the front parlour, but she was rather cross, and, by consequence, most particularly deaf. she never went out herself, and like a great many other old ladies of the same stamp, she was apt to consider it an act of domestic treason if anybody else took the liberty of doing what she couldn't. so, bless her old soul, she sat as upright as she could, in her great armchair, and looked as fierce as might be--and that was benevolent after all. "mother," said wardle, "mr. pickwick. you recollect him?" "never mind," replied the old lady with great dignity. "don't trouble mr. pickwick about an old creetur like me. nobody cares about me now, and it's very nat'ral they shouldn't." here the old lady tossed her head, and smoothed down her lavender-coloured silk dress, with trembling hands. "come, come, ma'am," said mr. pickwick, "i can't let you cut an old friend in this way. i have come down expressly to have a long talk, and another rubber with you; and we'll show these boys and girls how to dance a minuet, before they're eight-and-forty hours older." the old lady was rapidly giving way, but she did not like to do it all at once; so she only said, "ah! i can't hear him!" "nonsense, mother," said wardle. "come, come, don't be cross, there's a good soul. recollect bella; come, you must keep her spirits up, poor girl." the good lady heard this, for her lip quivered as her son said it. but age has its little infirmities of temper, and she was not quite brought round yet. so, she smoothed down the lavender-coloured dress again, and turning to mr. pickwick said, "ah, mr. pickwick, young people was very different, when i was a girl." "no doubt of that, ma'am," said mr. pickwick, "and that's the reason why i would make much of the few that have any traces of the old stock,"--and saying this, mr. pickwick gently pulled bella towards him, and bestowing a kiss upon her forehead, bade her sit down on the little stool at her grandmother's feet. whether the expression of her countenance, as it was raised towards the old lady's face, called up a thought of old times, or whether the old lady was touched by mr. pickwick's affectionate good nature, or whatever was the cause, she was fairly melted; so she threw herself on her grand-daughter's neck, and all the little ill-humour evaporated in a gush of silent tears. a happy party they were, that night. sedate and solemn were the score of rubbers in which mr. pickwick and the old lady played together; uproarious was the mirth of the round table. long after the ladies had retired, did the hot elder-wine, well qualified with brandy and spice, go round, and round, and round again; and sound was the sleep and pleasant were the dreams that followed. it is a remarkable fact that those of mr. snodgrass bore constant reference to emily wardle; and that the principal figure in mr. winkle's visions was a young lady with black eyes, an arch smile, and a pair of remarkably nice boots with fur round the tops. mr. pickwick was awakened, early in the morning, by a hum of voices and a pattering of feet, sufficient to rouse even the fat boy from his heavy slumbers. he sat up in bed and listened. the female servants and female visitors were running constantly to and fro; and there were such multitudinous demands for hot water, such repeated outcries for needles and thread, and so many half-suppressed entreaties of "oh, do come and tie me, there's a dear!" that mr. pickwick in his innocence began to imagine that something dreadful must have occurred: when he grew more awake, and remembered the wedding. the occasion being an important one he dressed himself with peculiar care, and descended to the breakfast room. there were all the female servants in a brand new uniform of pink muslin gowns with white bows in their caps, running about the house in a state of excitement and agitation which it would be impossible to describe. the old lady was dressed out in a brocaded gown which had not seen the light for twenty years, saving and excepting such truant rays as had stolen through the chinks in the box in which it had been laid by, during the whole time. mr. trundle was in high feather and spirits, but a little nervous withal. the hearty old landlord was trying to look very cheerful and unconcerned, but failing signally in the attempt. all the girls were in tears and white muslin, except a select two or three who were being honoured with a private view of the bride and bridesmaids, upstairs. all the pickwickians were in a most blooming array; and there was a terrific roaring on the grass in front of the house, occasioned by all the men, boys, and hobbledehoys attached to the farm, each of whom had got a white bow in his button-hole, and all of whom were cheering with might and main: being incited thereunto, and stimulated therein, by the precept and example of mr. samuel weller, who had managed to become mighty popular already, and was as much at home as if he had been born on the land. a wedding is a licensed subject to joke upon, but there really is no great joke in the matter after all;--we speak merely of the ceremony, and beg it to be distinctly understood that we indulge in no hidden sarcasm upon a married life. mixed up with the pleasure and joy of the occasion, are the many regrets at quitting home, the tears of parting between parent and child, the consciousness of leaving the dearest and kindest friends of the happiest portion of human life, to encounter its cares and troubles with others still untried and little known: natural feelings which we would not render this chapter mournful by describing, and which we should be still more unwilling to be supposed to ridicule. let us briefly say, then, that the ceremony was performed by the old clergyman, in the parish church of dingley dell, and that mr. pickwick's name is attached to the register, still preserved in the vestry thereof; that the young lady with the black eyes signed her name in a very unsteady and tremulous manner; that emily's signature, as the other bridesmaid, is nearly illegible; that it all went off in very admirable style; that the young ladies generally thought it far less shocking than they had expected; and that although the owner of the black eyes and the arch smile informed mr. winkle that she was sure she could never submit to anything so dreadful, we have the very best reasons for thinking she was mistaken. to all this, we may add, that mr. pickwick was the first who saluted the bride, and that in so doing, he threw over her neck a rich gold watch and chain, which no mortal eyes but the jeweller's had ever beheld before. then, the old church bell rang as gaily as it could, and they all returned to breakfast. "vere does the mince pies go, young opium-eater?" said mr. weller to the fat boy, as he assisted in laying out such articles of consumption as had not been duly arranged on the previous night. the fat boy pointed to the destination of the pies. "wery good," said sam, "stick a bit o' christmas in 'em. t'other dish opposite. there; now we look compact and comfortable, as the father said ven he cut his little boy's head off, to cure him of squintin'." as mr. weller made the comparison, he fell back a step or two, to give full effect to it, and surveyed the preparations with the utmost satisfaction. "wardle," said mr. pickwick, almost as soon as they were all seated, "a glass of wine in honour of this happy occasion!" "i shall be delighted, my boy," said wardle. "joe--damn that boy, he's gone to sleep." "no, i ain't, sir," replied the fat boy, starting up from a remote corner, where, like the patron saint of fat boys--the immortal horner--he had been devouring a christmas pie: though not with the coolness and deliberation which characterised that young gentleman's proceedings. "fill mr. pickwick's glass." "yes, sir." the fat boy filled mr. pickwick's glass, and then retired behind his master's chair, from whence he watched the play of the knives and forks, and the progress of the choice morsels from the dishes to the mouths of the company, with a kind of dark and gloomy joy that was most impressive. "god bless you, old fellow!" said mr. pickwick. "same to you, my boy," replied wardle, and they pledged each other heartily. "mrs. wardle," said mr. pickwick, "we old folks must have a glass of wine together, in honour of this joyful event." the old lady was in a state of great grandeur just then, for she was sitting at the top of the table in the brocaded gown, with her newly-married granddaughter on one side and mr. pickwick on the other, to do the carving. mr. pickwick had not spoken in a very loud tone, but she understood him at once, and drank off a full glass of wine to his long life and happiness; after which the worthy old soul launched forth into a minute and particular account of her own wedding, with a dissertation on the fashion of wearing high-heeled shoes, and some particulars concerning the life and adventures of the beautiful lady tollimglower, deceased: at all of which the old lady herself laughed very heartily indeed, and so did the young ladies too, for they were wondering among themselves what on earth grandma was talking about. when they laughed, the old lady laughed ten times more heartily, and said that these always had been considered capital stories: which caused them all to laugh again, and put the old lady into the very best of humours. then, the cake was cut, and passed through the ring; the young ladies saved pieces to put under their pillows to dream of their future husbands on; and a great deal of blushing and merriment was thereby occasioned. "mr. miller," said mr. pickwick to his old acquaintance the hard-headed gentleman, "a glass of wine?" "with great satisfaction, mr. pickwick," replied the hard-headed gentleman, solemnly. "you'll take me in?" said the benevolent old clergyman. "and me," interposed his wife. "and me, and me," said a couple of poor relations at the bottom of the table, who had eaten and drank very heartily, and laughed at everything. mr. pickwick expressed his heartfelt delight at every additional suggestion: and his eyes beamed with hilarity and cheerfulness. "ladies and gentlemen," said mr. pickwick, suddenly rising. "hear, hear! hear, hear! hear, hear!" cried mr. weller, in the excitement of his feelings. "call in all the servants," cried old wardle, interposing to prevent the public rebuke which mr. weller would otherwise most indubitably have received from his master. "give them a glass of wine each, to drink the toast in. now, pickwick." amidst the silence of the company, the whispering of the women servants, and the awkward embarrassment of the men, mr. pickwick proceeded. "ladies and gentlemen--no, i won't say ladies and gentlemen, i'll call you my friends, my dear friends, if the ladies will allow me to take so great a liberty"---- here mr. pickwick was interrupted by immense applause from the ladies, echoed by the gentlemen, during which the owner of the eyes was distinctly heard to state that she could kiss that dear mr. pickwick. whereupon mr. winkle gallantly inquired if it couldn't be done by deputy: to which the young lady with the black eyes replied, "go away"--and accompanied the request with a look which said as plainly as a look could do--"if you can." "my dear friends," resumed mr. pickwick, "i am going to propose the health of the bride and bridegroom--god bless 'em (cheers and tears). my young friend, trundle, i believe to be a very excellent and manly fellow; and his wife i know to be a very amiable and lovely girl, well qualified to transfer to another sphere of action the happiness which for twenty years she has diffused around her, in her father's house. (here, the fat boy burst forth into stentorian blubberings, and was led forth by the coat collar, by mr. weller.) i wish," added mr. pickwick, "i wish i was young enough to be her sister's husband (cheers), but, failing that, i am happy to be old enough to be her father; for, being so, i shall not be suspected of any latent designs when i say, that i admire, esteem, and love them both (cheers and sobs). the bride's father, our good friend there, is a noble person, and i am proud to know him (great uproar). he is a kind, excellent, independent-spirited, fine-hearted, hospitable, liberal man (enthusiastic shouts from the poor relations, at all the adjectives; and especially at the two last). that his daughter may enjoy all the happiness, even he can desire; and that he may derive from the contemplation of her felicity all the gratification of heart and peace of mind which he so well deserves, is, i am persuaded, our united wish. so, let us drink their healths, and wish them prolonged life, and every blessing!" mr. pickwick concluded amidst a whirlwind of applause; and once more were the lungs of the supernumeraries, under mr. weller's command, brought into active and efficient operation. mr. wardle proposed mr. pickwick; mr. pickwick proposed the old lady. mr. snodgrass proposed mr. wardle; mr. wardle proposed mr. snodgrass. one of the poor relations proposed mr. tupman, and the other poor relation proposed mr. winkle; all was happiness and festivity, until the mysterious disappearance of both the poor relations beneath the table warned the party that it was time to adjourn. at dinner they met again, after a five-and-twenty mile walk, undertaken by the males at wardle's recommendation, to get rid of the effects of the wine at breakfast. the poor relations had kept in bed all day, with the view of attaining the same happy consummation, but, as they had been unsuccessful, they stopped there. mr. weller kept the domestics in a state of perpetual hilarity; and the fat boy divided his time into small alternate allotments of eating and sleeping. the dinner was as hearty an affair as the breakfast, and was quite as noisy, without the tears. then came the dessert and some more toasts. then came the tea and coffee; and then the ball. the best sitting-room at manor farm was a good, long, dark-panelled room, with a high chimney-piece, and a capacious chimney, up which you could have driven one of the new patent cabs, wheels and all. at the upper end of the room, seated in a shady bower of holly and evergreens, were the two best fiddlers, and the only harp, in all muggleton. in all sorts of recesses, and on all kinds of brackets, stood massive old silver candlesticks with four branches each. the carpet was up, the candles burnt bright, the fire blazed and crackled on the hearth, and merry voices and light-hearted laughter rang through the room. if any of the old english yeomen had turned into fairies when they died, it was just the place in which they would have held their revels. if anything could have added to the interest of this agreeable scene, it would have been the remarkable fact of mr. pickwick's appearing without his gaiters, for the first time within the memory of his oldest friends. "you mean to dance?" said wardle. "of course i do," replied mr. pickwick. "don't you see i am dressed for the purpose?" mr. pickwick called attention to his speckled stockings, and smartly tied pumps. "_you_ in silk stockings!" exclaimed mr. tupman, jocosely. "and why not, sir--why not?" said mr. pickwick, turning warmly upon him. "oh, of course there is no reason why you shouldn't wear them," responded mr. tupman. "i imagine not, sir, i imagine not," said mr. pickwick in a very peremptory tone. mr. tupman had contemplated a laugh, but he found it was a serious matter; so he looked grave, and said they were a pretty pattern. "i hope they are," said mr. pickwick, fixing his eyes upon his friend. "you see nothing extraordinary in the stockings, _as_ stockings, i trust, sir?" "certainly not. oh certainly not," replied mr. tupman. he walked away; and mr. pickwick's countenance resumed its customary benign expression. "we are all ready, i believe," said mr. pickwick, who was stationed with the old lady at the top of the dance, and had already made four false starts, in his excessive anxiety to commence. "then begin at once," said wardle. "now!" up struck the two fiddles and the one harp, and off went mr. pickwick into hands across, when there was a general clapping of hands and a cry of "stop, stop!" "what's the matter?" said mr. pickwick, who was only brought to by the fiddles and harp desisting, and could have been stopped by no other earthly power, if the house had been on fire. "where's arabella allen?" cried a dozen voices. "and winkle?" added mr. tupman. "here we are!" exclaimed that gentleman, emerging with his pretty companion from the corner; as he did so, it would have been hard to tell which was the redder in the face, he or the young lady with the black eyes. "what an extraordinary thing it is, winkle," said mr. pickwick, rather pettishly, "that you couldn't have taken your place before." "not at all extraordinary," said mr. winkle. "well," said mr. pickwick, with a very expressive smile, as his eyes rested on arabella, "well, i don't know that it _was_ extraordinary either, after all." however, there was no time to think more about the matter, for the fiddles and harp began in real earnest. away went mr. pickwick--hands across--down the middle to the very end of the room, and half-way up the chimney, back again to the door--poussette everywhere--loud stamp on the ground--ready for the next couple--off again--all the figure over once more--another stamp to beat out the time--next couple, and the next, and the next again--never was such going! at last, after they had reached the bottom of the dance, and full fourteen couple after the old lady had retired in an exhausted state, and the clergyman's wife had been substituted in her stead, did that gentleman, when there was no demand whatever on his exertions, keep perpetually dancing in his place, to keep time to the music; smiling on his partner all the while with a blandness of demeanour which baffles all description. long before mr. pickwick was weary of dancing, the newly-married couple had retired from the scene. there was a glorious supper downstairs, notwithstanding, and a good long sitting after it; and when mr. pickwick awoke, late the next morning, he had a confused recollection of having, severally and confidentially, invited somewhere about five-and-forty people to dine with him at the george and vulture, the very first time they came to london; which mr. pickwick rightly considered a pretty certain indication of his having taken something besides exercise, on the previous night. "and so your family has games in the kitchen to-night, my dear, has they?" inquired sam of emma. "yes, mr. weller," replied emma; "we always have on christmas eve. master wouldn't neglect to keep it up on any account." "your master's a wery pretty notion of keepin' anythin' up, my dear," said mr. weller; "i never see such a sensible sort of man as he is, or such a reg'lar gen'l'm'n." "oh, that he is!" said the fat boy, joining in the conversation; "don't he breed nice pork!" the fat youth gave a semi-cannibalic leer at mr. weller, as he thought of the roast legs and gravy. "oh, you've woke up, at last, have you?" said sam. the fat boy nodded. "i'll tell you what it is, young boa-constructer," said mr. weller, impressively; "if you don't sleep a little less, and exercise a little more, ven you come to be a man you'll lay yourself open to the same sort of personal inconwenience as was inflicted on the old gen'l'm'n as wore the pigtail." "what did they do to him?" inquired the fat boy, in a faltering voice. "i'm a goin' to tell you," replied mr. weller; "he was one o' the largest patterns as was ever turned out--reg'lar fat man, as hadn't caught a glimpse of his own shoes for five-and-forty year." "lor!" exclaimed emma. "no, that he hadn't, my dear," said mr. weller; "and if you'd put an exact model of his own legs on the dinin' table afore him, he wouldn't ha' known 'em. well, he always walks to his office with a wery handsome gold watch-chain hanging out, about a foot and a quarter, and a gold watch in his fob pocket as was worth--i'm afraid to say how much, but as much as a watch can be--a large, heavy, round manafacter, as stout for a watch, as he was for a man, and with a big face in proportion. 'you'd better not carry that 'ere watch,' says the old gen'l'm'n's friends, 'you'll be robbed on it,' says they. 'shall i?' says he. 'yes, you will,' says they. 'vell,' says he, 'i should like to see the thief as could get this here watch out, for i'm blest if _i_ ever can, it's such a tight fit,' says he; 'and venever i wants to know what's o'clock, i'm obliged to stare into the bakers' shops,' he says. well, then he laughs as hearty as if he was a-goin' to pieces, and out he walks agin, with his powdered head and pigtail, and rolls down the strand vith the chain hangin' out furder than ever, and the great round watch almost bustin' through his grey kersey smalls. there warn't a pickpocket in all london as didn't take a pull at that chain, but the chain 'ud never break, and the watch 'ud never come out, so they soon got tired o' dragging such a heavy old gen'l'm'n along the pavement, and he'd go home and laugh till the pigtail wibrated like the perderlum of a dutch clock. at last one day the old gen'l'm'n was a-rolling along and he sees a pickpocket as he know'd by sight, a-comin' up, arm in arm vith a little boy with a very large head. 'here's a game,' says the old gen'l'm'n to himself, 'they're a-goin' to have another try, but it won't do!' so he begins a-chucklin' wery hearty, ven all of a sudden, the little boy leaves hold of the pickpocket's arm, and rushes head foremost straight into the old gen'l'm'n's stomach, and for a moment doubles him right up vith the pain. 'murder!' says the old gen'l'm'n. 'all right, sir,' says the pickpocket, a-whisperin' in his ear. and when he come straight agin, the watch and chain was gone, and what's worse than that, the old gen'l'm'n's digestion was all wrong ever arterwards, to the wery last day of his life; so just you look about you, young feller, and take care you don't get too fat." as mr. weller concluded this moral tale, with which the fat boy appeared much affected, they all three repaired to the large kitchen, in which the family were by this time assembled, according to annual custom on christmas eve, observed by old wardle's fore-fathers from time immemorial. from the centre of the ceiling of this kitchen, old wardle had just suspended, with his own hands, a huge branch of mistletoe, and this same branch of mistletoe instantaneously gave rise to a scene of general and most delightful struggling and confusion; in the midst of which, mr. pickwick, with a gallantry that would have done honour to a descendant of lady tollimglower herself, took the old lady by the hand, led her beneath the mystic branch, and saluted her in all courtesy and decorum. the old lady submitted to this piece of practical politeness with all the dignity which befitted so important and serious a solemnity, but the younger ladies, not being so thoroughly imbued with a superstitious veneration for the custom: or imagining that the value of a salute is very much enhanced if it cost a little trouble to obtain it: screamed and struggled, and ran into corners, and threatened and remonstrated, and did everything but leave the room, until some of the less adventurous gentlemen were on the point of desisting, when they all at once found it useless to resist any longer, and submitted to be kissed with a good grace. mr. winkle kissed the young lady with the black eyes, and mr. snodgrass kissed emily, and mr. weller, not being particular about the form of being under the mistletoe, kissed emma and the other female servants, just as he caught them. as to the poor relations, they kissed everybody, not even excepting the plainer portions of the young-lady visitors, who, in their excessive confusion, ran right under the mistletoe, as soon as it was hung up, without knowing it! wardle stood with his back to the fire, surveying the whole scene, with the utmost satisfaction; and the fat boy took the opportunity of appropriating to his own use, and summarily devouring, a particularly fine mince-pie, that had been carefully put by for somebody else. now the screaming had subsided, and faces were in a glow, and curls in a tangle, and mr. pickwick, after kissing the old lady as before mentioned, was standing under the mistletoe, looking with a very pleased countenance on all that was passing around him, when the young lady with the black eyes, after a little whispering with the other young ladies, made a sudden dart forward, and, putting her arm round mr. pickwick's neck, saluted him affectionately on the left cheek; and before mr. pickwick distinctly knew what was the matter, he was surrounded by the whole body and kissed by every one of them. it was a pleasant thing to see mr. pickwick the centre of the group, now pulled this way, and then that, and first kissed on the chin, and then on the nose, and then on the spectacles: and to hear the peals of laughter which were raised on every side; but it was a still more pleasant thing to see mr. pickwick, blinded shortly afterwards with a silk handkerchief, falling up against the wall, and scrambling into corners, and going through all the mysteries of blindman's buff, with the utmost relish for the game, until at last he caught one of the poor relations, and then had to evade the blindman himself, which he did with a nimbleness and agility that elicited the admiration and applause of all beholders. the poor relations caught the people who they thought would like it, and, when the game flagged, got caught themselves. when they were all tired of blindman's buff, there was a great game at snap-dragon, and when fingers enough were burned with that, and all the raisins were gone, they sat down by the huge fire of blazing logs to a substantial supper, and a mighty bowl of wassail, something smaller than an ordinary wash-house copper, in which the hot apples were hissing and bubbling with a rich look, and a jolly sound, that were perfectly irresistible. "this," said mr. pickwick, looking round him, "this is, indeed, comfort." "our invariable custom," replied mr. wardle. "everybody sits down with us on christmas eve, as you see them now--servants and all; and here we wait, until the clock strikes twelve, to usher christmas in, and beguile the time with forfeits and old stories. trundle, my boy, rake up the fire." up flew the bright sparks in myriads as the logs were stirred. the deep red blaze sent forth a rich glow, that penetrated into the furthest corner of the room, and cast its cheerful tint on every face. "come," said wardle, "a song--a christmas song! i'll give you one, in default of a better." "bravo!" said mr. pickwick. "fill up!" cried wardle. "it will be two hours, good, before you see the bottom of the bowl through the deep rich colour of the wassail; fill up all round, and now for a song." thus saying, the merry old gentleman, in a good, round, sturdy voice, commenced without more ado: a christmas carol i care not for spring; on his fickle wing let the blossoms and buds be borne: he woos them amain with his treacherous rain, and he scatters them ere the morn. an inconstant elf, he knows not himself, nor his own changing mind an hour, he'll smile in your face, and, with wry grimace, he'll wither your youngest flower. let the summer sun to his bright home run, he shall never be sought by me; when he's dimmed by a cloud i can laugh aloud, and care not how sulky he be! for his darling child is the madness wild that sports in fierce fever's train; and when love is too strong it don't last long, as many have found to their pain. a mild harvest night, by the tranquil light of the modest and gentle moon, has a far sweeter sheen, for me, i ween, than the broad and unblushing noon. but every leaf awakens my grief, as it lieth beneath the tree; so let autumn air be never so fair, it by no means agrees with me. but my song i troll out, for +christmas+ stout, the hearty, the true and the bold; a bumper i drain, and with might and main give three cheers for this christmas old! we'll usher him in with a merry din that shall gladden his joyous heart, and we'll keep him up, while there's bite or sup, and in fellowship good, we'll part. in his fine honest pride, he scorns to hide one jot of his hard-weather scars; they're no disgrace, for there's much the same trace on the cheeks of our bravest tars. then again i'll sing 'till the roof doth ring, and it echoes from wall to wall-- to the stout old wight, fair welcome to-night, as the king of the seasons all! this song was tumultuously applauded--for friends and dependents make a capital audience--and the poor relations, especially, were in perfect ecstasies of rapture. again was the fire replenished, and again went the wassail round. "how it snows!" said one of the men, in a low tone. "snows, does it?" said wardle. "rough, cold night, sir," replied the man; "and there's a wind got up, that drifts it across the fields, in a thick white cloud." "what does jem say?" inquired the old lady. "there ain't anything the matter, is there?" "no, no, mother," replied wardle; "he says there's a snow-drift, and a wind that's piercing cold. i should know that, by the way it rumbles in the chimney." "ah!" said the old lady, "there was just such a wind, and just such a fall of snow, a good many years back, i recollect--just five years before your poor father died. it was a christmas eve, too; and i remember that on that very night he told us the story about the goblins that carried away old gabriel grub." "the story about what?" said mr. pickwick. "oh, nothing, nothing," replied wardle. "about an old sexton, that the good people down here suppose to have been carried away by goblins." "suppose!" ejaculated the old lady. "is there anybody hardy enough to disbelieve it? suppose! haven't you heard ever since you were a child, that he _was_ carried away by the goblins, and don't you know he was?" "very well, mother, he was, if you like," said wardle, laughing. "he _was_ carried away by goblins, pickwick; and there's an end to the matter." "no, no," said mr. pickwick, "not an end of it, i assure you; for i must hear how, and why, and all about it." wardle smiled as every head was bent forward to hear; and filling out the wassail with no stinted hand, nodded a health to mr. pickwick, and began as follows: but bless our editorial heart, what a long chapter we have been betrayed into! we had quite forgotten all such petty restrictions as chapters, we solemnly declare. so here goes, to give the goblin a fair start in a new one! a clear stage and no favour for the goblins, ladies and gentlemen, if you please. end of vol. i printed by +ballantyne, hanson, & co.+ edinburgh & london transcriber's note text in italics was surrounded with _underscores_, an antique font with *asterisks* and small capitals with +signs+. small errors in punctuation were corrected without note, also the following changes were made, on page "snodrgass" changed to "snodgrass" (said mr. snodgrass.) "horizon" changed to "heroism" (but his heroism was invincible.) "it" removed (replied mr. winkle.) "nothwithstanding" changed to "notwithstanding" (notwithstanding all kinds of coaxing and wheedling) "haraccters" changed to "characters" (and speculate upon the characters and pursuits) "smkoe" changed to "smoke" (who continued to smoke with great vehemence.) "su er" changed to "suffer" (caption: "i won't suffer this barrow to) "tail" changed to "tall" (the very spot where the tall man's brain would have been) "asid" changed to "said" ( said mr. pickwick, laughing.) "aimable" changed to "amiable" (it's a amiable weakness) "junps" changed to "jumps" (mr. weller jumps up behind) "drive" changed to "derive" (that he may derive from the contemplation of her felicity) "that" changed to "than" (and what's worse than that). otherwise the original of this edition was preserved, including inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation etc. insert provided from the collection of culver-stockton college, canton, mo.) the posthumous papers of the pickwick club [illustration: "_gentlemen, what does this mean? 'chops and tomato sauce. yours, pickwick.'_"] the posthumous papers of the pickwick club by charles dickens illustrated by cecil aldin volume the second [illustration] new york e. p. dutton & company west twenty-third street contents chapter i page +the story of the goblins who stole a sexton+ chapter ii +how the pickwickians made and cultivated the acquaintance of a couple of nice young men belonging to one of the liberal professions; how they disported themselves on the ice; and how their first visit came to a conclusion+ chapter iii +which is all about the law, and sundry great authorities learned therein+ chapter iv +describes, far more fully than the court newsman ever did, a bachelor's party, given by mr. bob sawyer at his lodgings in the borough+ chapter v +mr. weller the elder delivers some critical sentiments respecting literary composition; and, assisted by his son samuel, pays a small instalment of retaliation to the account of the reverend gentleman with the red nose+ chapter vi +is wholly devoted to a full and faithful report of the memorable trial of bardell against pickwick+ chapter vii +in which mr. pickwick thinks he had better go to bath; and goes accordingly+ chapter viii +the chief features of which, will be found to be an authentic version of the legend of prince bladud, and a most extraordinary calamity that befell mr. winkle+ chapter ix +honourably accounts for mr. weller's absence, by describing a soiree to which he was invited and went; also relates how he was entrusted by mr. pickwick with a private mission of delicacy and importance+ chapter x +how mr. winkle, when he stepped out of the frying-pan, walked gently and comfortably into the fire+ chapter xi +mr. samuel weller, being entrusted with a mission of love, proceeds to execute it; with what success will hereinafter appear+ chapter xii +introduces mr. pickwick to a new and not uninteresting scene in the great drama of life+ chapter xiii +what befell mr. pickwick when he got into the fleet; what prisoners he saw there; and how he passed the night+ chapter xiv +illustrative, like the preceding one, of the old proverb, that adversity brings a man acquainted with strange bed-fellows. likewise containing mr. pickwick's extraordinary and startling announcement to mr. samuel weller+ chapter xv +showing how mr. samuel weller got into difficulties+ chapter xvi +treats of divers little matters which occurred in the fleet, and of mr. winkle's mysterious behaviour; and shows how the poor chancery prisoner obtained his release at last+ chapter xvii +descriptive of an affecting interview between mr. samuel weller and a family party. mr. pickwick makes a tour of the diminutive world he inhabits, and resolves to mix with it, in future, as little as possible+ chapter xviii +records a touching act of delicate feeling, not unmixed with pleasantry, achieved and performed by messrs. dodson and fogg+ chapter xix +is chiefly devoted to matters of business, and the temporal advantage of dodson and fogg. mr. winkle reappears under extraordinary circumstances. mr. pickwick's benevolence proves stronger than his obstinacy+ chapter xx +relates how mr. pickwick, with the assistance of samuel weller, essayed to soften the heart of mr. benjamin allen, and to mollify the wrath of mr. robert sawyer+ chapter xxi +containing the story of the bagman's uncle+ chapter xxii +how mr. pickwick sped upon his mission, and how he was reinforced in the outset by a most unexpected auxiliary+ chapter xxiii +in which mr. pickwick encounters an old acquaintance, to which fortunate circumstance the reader is mainly indebted for matter of thrilling interest herein set down, concerning two great public men of might and power+ chapter xxiv +involving a serious change in the weller family, and the untimely downfall of the red-nosed mr. stiggins+ chapter xxv +comprising the final exit of mr. jingle and job trotter; with a great morning of business in gray's inn square. concluding with a double knock at mr. perker's door+ chapter xxvi +containing some particulars relative to the double knock, and other matters: among which certain interesting disclosures relative to mr. snodgrass and a young lady are by no means irrelevant to this history+ chapter xxvii +mr. solomon pell, assisted by a select committee of coachmen, arranges the affairs of the elder mr. weller+ chapter xxviii +an important conference takes place between mr. pickwick and samuel weller, at which his parent assists. an old gentleman in a snuff-coloured suit arrives unexpectedly+ chapter xxix +in which the pickwick club is finally dissolved, and everything concluded to the satisfaction of everybody+ illustrations in colour _"gentlemen, what does this mean? 'chops and tomato sauce. yours, pickwick'"_ _frontispiece_ _a face, head, and shoulders, emerged from beneath the water, and disclosed the features and spectacles of mr. pickwick_ _facing page_ _"a what!" asked mr. weller, apparently horror-stricken by the word. "a walentine," replied sam_ " _mr. winkle took to his heels and tore round the crescent_ " _and here, to the great horror of mr. john smauker, sam weller began to whistle_ " _"lor', do adun, mr. weller!"_ " _the cavalcade gave three tremendous cheers_ " _"i drove the old piebald"_ " _he felled mr. benjamin allen to the ground_ " _it was a beautiful and exhilarating sight to see the red-nosed man writhing in mr. weller's grasp_ " _the admiration of numerous elderly ladies of single condition_ " in text page _heading to chapter i_ _heading to chapter ii_ _"now then, sir," said sam, "off vith you, and show 'em how to do it"_ _went slowly and gravely down the slide_ _heading to chapter iii_ _heading to chapter iv_ _"if you'll have the kindness to settle that little bill of mine i'll thank you"_ _heading to chapter v_ _"is there anybody here, named sam?"_ _heading to chapter vi_ _heading to chapter vii_ _"do you do anything in this way, sir?" inquired the tall footman_ _heading to chapter viii_ _heading to chapter ix_ _heading to chapter x_ _"you've been stopping to over all the posts in bristol"_ _heading to chapter xi_ _heading to chapter xii_ _"take your hat off"_ _heading to chapter xiii_ _"come on--both of you"_ _heading to chapter xiv_ _heading to chapter xv_ _after a violent struggle, released his head and face_ _heading to chapter xvi_ _heading to chapter xvii_ _heading to chapter xviii_ _a shabby man in black leggings_ _heading to chapter xix_ _heading to chapter xx_ _heading to chapter xxi_ _"my uncle gave a loud stamp on the boot in the energy of the moment"_ _heading to chapter xxii_ _mr. winkle senior_ _heading to chapter xxiii_ _heading to chapter xxiv_ _heading to chapter xxv_ _heading to chapter xxvi_ _his jolly red face shining with smiles and health_ _pointed with his thumb over his shoulder_ _heading to chapter xxvii_ _a cold collation of an abernethy biscuit and a saveloy_ _heading to chapter xxviii_ _a little old gentleman in a suit of snuff-coloured clothes_ _dismissed him with a harmless but ceremonious kick_ _heading to chapter xxix_ _"the happiness of young people," said mr. pickwick, a little moved, "has ever been the chief pleasure of my life"_ _exchanged his old costume for the ordinary dress of englishmen_ _tailpiece to chapter xxix_ chapter i _the story of the goblins who stole a sexton_ [illustration] "in an old abbey town, down in this part of the country, a long, long while ago--so long, that the story must be a true one, because our great-grandfathers implicitly believed it--there officiated as sexton and grave-digger in the churchyard, one gabriel grub. it by no means follows that because a man is a sexton, and constantly surrounded by the emblems of mortality, therefore he should be a morose and melancholy man; your undertakers are the merriest fellows in the world; and i once had the honour of being on intimate terms with a mute, who in private life, and off duty, was as comical and jocose a little fellow as ever chirped out a devil-may-care song, without a hitch in his memory, or drained off the contents of a good stiff glass without stopping for breath. but, notwithstanding these precedents to the contrary, gabriel grub was an ill-conditioned, cross-grained, surly fellow--a morose and lonely man, who consorted with nobody but himself, and an old wicker bottle which fitted into his large deep waistcoat pocket--and who eyed each merry face, as it passed him by, with such a deep scowl of malice and ill-humour, as it was difficult to meet, without feeling something the worse for. "a little before twilight, one christmas eve, gabriel shouldered his spade, lighted his lantern, and betook himself towards the old churchyard; for he had got a grave to finish by next morning, and, feeling very low, he thought it might raise his spirits, perhaps, if he went on with his work at once. as he went his way, up the ancient street, he saw the cheerful light of blazing fires gleam through the old casements, and heard the loud laugh and the cheerful shouts of those who were assembled around them; he marked the bustling preparations for next day's cheer, and smelt the numerous savoury odours consequent thereupon, as they steamed up from the kitchen windows in clouds. all this was gall and wormwood to the heart of gabriel grub: and when groups of children bounded out of the houses, tripped across the road, and were met, before they could knock at the opposite door, by half a dozen curly-headed little rascals who crowded round them as they flocked up-stairs to spend the evening in their christmas games, gabriel smiled grimly, and clutched the handle of his spade with a firmer grasp, as he thought of measles, scarlet-fever, thrush, hooping-cough, and a good many other sources of consolation besides. "in this happy frame of mind, gabriel strode along: returning a short, sullen growl to the good-humoured greetings of such of his neighbours as now and then passed him: until he turned into the dark lane which led to the churchyard. now, gabriel had been looking forward to reaching the dark lane, because it was, generally speaking, a nice, gloomy, mournful place, into which the townspeople did not much care to go, except in broad daylight, and when the sun was shining; consequently, he was not a little indignant to hear a young urchin roaring out some jolly song about a merry christmas, in this very sanctuary, which had been called coffin lane ever since the days of the old abbey, and the time of the shaven-headed monks. as gabriel walked on, and the voice drew nearer, he found it proceeded from a small boy, who was hurrying along, to join one of the little parties in the old street, and who, partly to keep himself company, and partly to prepare himself for the occasion, was shouting out the song at the highest pitch of his lungs. so gabriel waited until the boy came up, and then dodged him into a corner, and rapped him over the head with his lantern five or six times, to teach him to modulate his voice. and as the boy hurried away with his hand to his head, singing quite a different sort of tune, gabriel grub chuckled very heartily to himself, and entered the churchyard: locking the gate behind him. "he took off his coat, put down his lantern, and getting into the unfinished grave, worked at it for an hour or so, with right good will. but the earth was hardened with the frost, and it was no very easy matter to break it up, and shovel it out; and although there was a moon, it was a very young one, and shed little light upon the grave, which was in the shadow of the church. at any other time, these obstacles would have made gabriel grub very moody and miserable, but he was so well pleased with having stopped the small boy's singing, that he took little heed of the scanty progress he had made, and looked down into the grave, when he had finished work for the night, with grim satisfaction: murmuring as he gathered up his things: 'brave lodgings for one, brave lodgings for one, a few feet of cold earth, when life is done; a stone at the head, a stone at the feet, a rich, juicy meal for the worms to eat; rank grass over head, and damp clay around, brave lodgings for one, these, in holy ground!' "'ho! ho!' laughed gabriel grub, as he sat himself down on a flat tombstone which was a favourite resting-place of his; and drew forth his wicker bottle. 'a coffin at christmas! a christmas box. ho! ho! ho!' "'ho! ho! ho!' repeated a voice which sounded close behind him. "gabriel paused, in some alarm, in the act of raising the wicker bottle to his lips: and looked round. the bottom of the oldest grave about him was not more still and quiet than the churchyard in the pale moonlight. the cold hoar-frost glistened on the tombstones, and sparkled like rows of gems, among the stone carvings of the old church. the snow lay hard and crisp upon the ground; and spread over the thickly-strewn mounds of earth, so white and smooth a cover, that it seemed as if corpses lay there, hidden only by their winding-sheets. not the faintest rustle broke the profound tranquillity of the solemn scene. sound itself appeared to be frozen up, all was so cold and still. "'it was the echoes,' said gabriel grub, raising the bottle to his lips again. "'it was _not_,' said a deep voice. "gabriel started up, and stood rooted to the spot with astonishment and terror; for his eyes rested on a form that made his blood run cold. "seated on an upright tombstone, close to him, was a strange unearthly figure, whom gabriel felt at once, was no being of this world. his long fantastic legs, which might have reached the ground, were cocked up, and crossed after a quaint, fantastic fashion; his sinewy arms were bare; and his hands rested on his knees. on his short round body, he wore a close covering, ornamented with small slashes; a short cloak dangled at his back; the collar was cut into curious peaks, which served the goblin in lieu of ruff or neckerchief; and his shoes curled up at his toes into long points. on his head he wore a broad-brimmed sugar-loaf hat, garnished with a single feather. the hat was covered with the white frost; and the goblin looked as if he had sat on the same tombstone, very comfortably, for two or three hundred years. he was sitting perfectly still; his tongue was put out, as if in derision; and he was grinning at gabriel grub with such a grin as only a goblin could call up. "'it was _not_ the echoes,' said the goblin. "gabriel grub was paralysed, and could make no reply. "'what do you do here on christmas eve?' said the goblin, sternly. "'i came to dig a grave, sir,' stammered gabriel grub. "'what man wanders among graves and churchyards on such a night as this?' cried the goblin. "'gabriel grub! gabriel grub!' screamed a wild chorus of voices that seemed to fill the churchyard. gabriel looked fearfully round--nothing was to be seen. "'what have you got in that bottle?' said the goblin. "'hollands, sir,' replied the sexton, trembling more than ever; for he had bought it of the smugglers, and he thought that perhaps his questioner might be in the excise department of the goblins. "'who drinks hollands alone, and in the churchyard, on such a night as this?' said the goblin. "'gabriel grub! gabriel grub!' exclaimed the wild voices again. "the goblin leered maliciously at the terrified sexton, and then raising his voice exclaimed: "'and who, then, is our fair and lawful prize?' "to this inquiry the invisible chorus replied, in a strain that sounded like the voices of many choristers singing to the mighty swell of the old church organ--a strain that seemed borne to the sexton's ears upon a wild wind, and to die away as it passed onward; but the burden of the reply was still the same, 'gabriel grub! gabriel grub!' "the goblin grinned a broader grin than before, as he said, 'well, gabriel, what do you say to this?' "the sexton gasped for breath. "'what do you think of this, gabriel?' said the goblin, kicking up his feet in the air on either side of the tombstone, and looking at the turned-up points with as much complacency as if he had been contemplating the most fashionable pair of wellingtons in all bond street. "'it's--it's--very curious, sir,' replied the sexton, half dead with fright; 'very curious, and very pretty, but i think i'll go back and finish my work, sir, if you please.' "'work!' said the goblin, 'what work?' "'the grave, sir; making the grave,' stammered the sexton. "'oh, the grave, eh?' said the goblin; 'who makes graves at a time when all other men are merry, and takes a pleasure in it?' "again the mysterious voices replied, 'gabriel grub! gabriel grub!' "'i'm afraid my friends want you, gabriel,' said the goblin, thrusting his tongue further into his cheek than ever--and a most astonishing tongue it was--'i'm afraid my friends want you, gabriel,' said the goblin. "'under favour, sir,' replied the horror-stricken sexton, 'i don't think they can, sir; they don't know me, sir; i don't think the gentlemen have ever seen me, sir.' "'oh yes, they have,' replied the goblin; 'we know the man with the sulky face and grim scowl, that came down the street to-night, throwing his evil looks at the children, and grasping his burying-spade the tighter. we know the man who struck the boy in the envious malice of his heart, because the boy could be merry, and he could not. we know him, we know him.' "here the goblin gave a loud shrill laugh, which the echoes returned twenty-fold: and throwing his legs up in the air, stood upon his head, or rather upon the very point of his sugar-loaf hat, on the narrow edge of the tombstone: whence he threw a somerset with extraordinary agility, right to the sexton's feet, at which he planted himself in the attitude in which tailors generally sit upon the shop-board. "'i--i--am afraid i must leave you, sir,' said the sexton, making an effort to move. "'leave us!' said the goblin, 'gabriel grub going to leave us. ho! ho! ho!' "as the goblin laughed, the sexton observed, for one instant, a brilliant illumination within the windows of the church, as if the whole building were lighted up; it disappeared, the organ pealed forth a lively air, and whole troops of goblins, the very counterpart of the first one, poured into the churchyard, and began playing at leap-frog with the tombstones: never stopping for an instant to take breath, but 'overing' the highest among them, one after the other, with the utmost marvellous dexterity. the first goblin was a most astonishing leaper, and none of the others could come near him; even in the extremity of his terror the sexton could not help observing, that while his friends were content to leap over the common-sized gravestones, the first one took the family vaults, iron railings and all, with as much ease as if they had been so many street posts. "at last the game reached to a most exciting pitch; the organ played quicker and quicker; and the goblins leaped faster and faster: coiling themselves up, rolling head over heels upon the ground, and bounding over the tombstones like footballs. the sexton's brain whirled round with the rapidity of the motion he beheld, and his legs reeled beneath him, as the spirits flew before his eyes: when the goblin king, suddenly darting towards him, laid his hand upon his collar, and sank with him through the earth. "when gabriel grub had had time to fetch his breath, which the rapidity of his descent had for the moment taken away, he found himself in what appeared to be a huge cavern, surrounded on all sides by crowds of goblins, ugly and grim; in the centre of the room, on an elevated seat, was stationed his friend of the churchyard; and close beside him stood gabriel grub himself, without power of motion. "'cold to-night,' said the king of the goblins, 'very cold. a glass of something warm, here!' "at this command, half a dozen officious goblins, with a perpetual smile upon their faces, whom gabriel grub imagined to be courtiers, on that account, hastily disappeared, and presently returned with a goblet of liquid fire, which they presented to the king. "'ah!' cried the goblin, whose cheeks and throat were transparent, as he tossed down the flame, 'this warms one, indeed! bring a bumper of the same for mr. grub.' "it was in vain for the unfortunate sexton to protest that he was not in the habit of taking anything warm at night; one of the goblins held him while another poured the blazing liquid down his throat; the whole assembly screeched with laughter as he coughed and choked, and wiped away the tears which gushed plentifully from his eyes, after swallowing the burning draught. "'and now,' said the king, fantastically poking the taper corner of his sugar-loaf hat into the sexton's eye, and thereby occasioning him the most exquisite pain: 'and now, show the man of misery and gloom, a few of the pictures from our own great storehouse!' "as the goblin said this, a thick cloud which obscured the remoter end of the cavern rolled gradually away, and disclosed, apparently at a great distance, a small and scantily furnished, but neat and clean apartment. a crowd of little children were gathered round a bright fire, clinging to their mother's gown, and gambolling around her chair. the mother occasionally rose, and drew aside the window-curtain, as if to look for some expected object; a frugal meal was ready spread upon the table; and an elbow chair was placed near the fire. a knock was heard at the door: the mother opened it, and the children crowded round her, and clapped their hands for joy, as their father entered. he was wet and weary, and shook the snow from his garments, as the children crowded round him, and seizing his cloak, hat, stick, and gloves, with busy zeal, ran with them from the room. then, as he sat down to his meal before the fire, the children climbed about his knee, and the mother sat by his side, and all seemed happiness and comfort. "but a change came upon the view, almost imperceptibly. the scene was altered to a small bed-room, where the fairest and youngest child lay dying; the roses had fled from his cheek, and the light from his eye; and even as the sexton looked upon him with an interest he had never felt or known before, he died. his young brothers and sisters crowded round his little bed, and seized his tiny hand, so cold and heavy; but they shrunk back from its touch, and looked with awe on his infant face; for calm and tranquil as it was, and sleeping in rest and peace as the beautiful child seemed to be, they saw that he was dead, and they knew that he was an angel looking down upon, and blessing them, from a bright and happy heaven. "again the light cloud passed across the picture, and again the subject changed. the father and mother were old and helpless now, and the number of those about them was diminished more than half; but content and cheerfulness sat on every face, and beamed in every eye, as they crowded round the fireside, and told and listened to old stories of earlier and bygone days. slowly and peacefully the father sank into the grave, and, soon after, the sharer of all his cares and troubles followed him to a place of rest. the few, who yet survived them, knelt by their tomb, and watered the green turf which covered it, with their tears; then rose, and turned away: sadly and mournfully, but not with bitter cries, or despairing lamentations, for they knew that they should one day meet again; and once more they mixed with the busy world, and their content and cheerfulness were restored. the cloud settled upon the picture, and concealed it from the sexton's view. "'what do you think of _that_?' said the goblin, turning his large face towards gabriel grub. "gabriel murmured out something about its being very pretty, and looked somewhat ashamed, as the goblin bent his fiery eyes upon him. "'_you_ a miserable man!' said the goblin, in a tone of excessive contempt. 'you!' he appeared disposed to add more, but indignation choked his utterance, so he lifted up one of his very pliable legs, and flourishing it above his head a little, to insure his aim, administered a good sound kick to gabriel grub; immediately after which, all the goblins in waiting crowded round the wretched sexton, and kicked him without mercy: according to the established and invariable custom of courtiers upon earth, who kick whom royalty kicks, and hug whom royalty hugs. "'show him some more!' said the king of the goblins. "at these words, the cloud was dispelled, and a rich and beautiful landscape was disclosed to view--there is just such another to this day, within half a mile of the old abbey town. the sun shone from out the clear blue sky, the water sparkled beneath his rays, and the trees looked greener, and the flowers more gay, beneath his cheering influence. the water rippled on, with a pleasant sound; the trees rustled in the light wind that murmured among their leaves; the birds sang upon the boughs; and the lark carolled on high, her welcome to the morning. yes, it was morning: the bright, balmy morning of summer; the minutest leaf, the smallest blade of grass, was instinct with life. the ant crept forth to her daily toil, the butterfly fluttered and basked in the warm rays of the sun; myriads of insects spread their transparent wings, and revelled in their brief but happy existence. man walked forth, elated with the scene; and all was brightness and splendour. "'_you_ a miserable man!' said the king of the goblins, in a more contemptuous tone than before. and again the king of the goblins gave his leg a flourish; again it descended on the shoulders of the sexton; and again the attendant goblins imitated the example of their chief. "many a time the cloud went and came, and many a lesson it taught to gabriel grub, who, although his shoulders smarted with pain from the frequent applications of the goblins' feet, looked on with an interest that nothing could diminish. he saw that men who worked hard, and earned their scanty bread with lives of labour, were cheerful and happy; and that to the most ignorant, the sweet face of nature was a never-failing source of cheerfulness and joy. he saw those who had been delicately nurtured, and tenderly brought up, cheerful under privations, and superior to suffering, that would have crushed many of a rougher grain, because they bore within their own bosoms the materials of happiness, contentment, and peace. he saw that women, the tenderest and most fragile of all god's creatures, were the oftenest superior to sorrow, adversity, and distress; and he saw that it was because they bore in their own hearts, an inexhaustible well-spring of affection and devotion. above all, he saw that men like himself, who snarled at the mirth and cheerfulness of others, were the foulest weeds on the fair face of the earth; and setting all the good of the world against the evil, he came to the conclusion that it was a very decent and respectable sort of world after all. no sooner had he formed it, than the cloud which closed over the last picture, seemed to settle on his senses, and lull him to repose. one by one the goblins faded from his sight; and as the last one disappeared, he sunk to sleep. "the day had broken when gabriel grub awoke, and found himself lying, at full length, on the flat grave-stone in the churchyard with the wicker bottle lying empty by his side, and his coat, spade, and lantern, all well whitened by the last night's frost, scattered on the ground. the stone on which he had first seen the goblin seated, stood bolt upright before him, and the grave at which he had worked, the night before, was not far off. at first, he began to doubt the reality of his adventures, but the acute pain in his shoulders when he attempted to rise, assured him that the kicking of the goblins was certainly not ideal. he was staggered again, by observing no traces of footsteps in the snow, on which the goblins had played at leap-frog with the grave-stones, but he speedily accounted for this circumstance when he remembered that, being spirits, they would leave no visible impression behind them. so, gabriel grub got on his feet as well as he could, for the pain in his back; and brushing the frost off his coat, put it on, and turned his face towards the town. "but he was an altered man, and he could not bear the thought of returning to a place where his repentance would be scoffed at, and his reformation disbelieved. he hesitated for a few moments; and then turned away to wander where he might, and seek his bread elsewhere. "the lantern, the spade, and the wicker bottle, were found, that day, in the churchyard. there were a great many speculations about the sexton's fate, at first, but it was speedily determined that he had been carried away by the goblins; and there were not wanting some very credible witnesses who had distinctly seen him whisked through the air on the back of a chestnut horse blind of one eye, with the hind-quarters of a lion, and the tail of a bear. at length all this was devoutly believed; and the new sexton used to exhibit to the curious, for a trifling emolument, a good-sized piece of the church weathercock which had been accidentally kicked off by the aforesaid horse in his aërial flight, and picked up by himself in the churchyard, a year or two afterwards. "unfortunately, these stories were somewhat disturbed by the unlooked-for reappearance of gabriel grub himself, some ten years afterwards, a ragged, contented, rheumatic old man. he told his story to the clergyman, and also to the mayor; and in course of time it began to be received as a matter of history, in which form it has continued down to this very day. the believers in the weathercock tale, having misplaced their confidence once, were not easily prevailed upon to part with it again, so they looked as wise as they could, shrugged their shoulders, touched their foreheads, and murmured something about gabriel grub having drunk all the hollands, and then fallen asleep on the flat tombstone; and they affected to explain what he supposed he had witnessed in the goblins' cavern, by saying that he had seen the world, and grown wiser. but this opinion, which was by no means a popular one at any time, gradually died off; and be the matter how it may, as gabriel grub was afflicted with rheumatism to the end of his days, this story has at least one moral, if it teach no better one--and that is, that if a man turn sulky and drink by himself at christmas time, he may make up his mind to be not a bit the better for it: let the spirits be never so good, or let them be even as many degrees beyond proof, as those which gabriel grub saw in the goblins' cavern." chapter ii [illustration] _how the pickwickians made and cultivated the acquaintance of a couple of nice young men belonging to one of the liberal professions; how they disported themselves on the ice; and how their first visit came to a conclusion_ "well, sam," said mr. pickwick as that favoured servitor entered his bed-chamber with his warm water, on the morning of christmas day, "still frosty?" "water in the wash-hand basin's a mask o' ice, sir," responded sam. "severe weather, sam," observed mr. pickwick. "fine time for them as is well wropped up, as the polar bear said to himself, ven he was practising his skating," replied mr. weller. "i shall be down in a quarter of an hour, sam," said mr. pickwick, untying his nightcap. "wery good, sir," replied sam. "there's a couple o' sawbones downstairs." "a couple of what!" exclaimed mr. pickwick, sitting up in bed. "a couple o' sawbones," said sam. "what's a sawbones?" inquired mr. pickwick, not quite certain whether it was a live animal, or something to eat. "what! don't you know what a sawbones is, sir?" inquired mr. weller. "i thought everybody know'd as a sawbones was a surgeon." "oh, a surgeon, eh?" said mr. pickwick, with a smile. "just that, sir," replied sam. "these here ones as is below, though, ain't reg'lar thorough-bred sawbones; they're only in trainin'." "in other words they're medical students, i suppose?" said mr. pickwick. sam weller nodded assent. "i am glad of it," said mr. pickwick, casting his nightcap energetically on the counterpane. "they are fine fellows; very fine fellows; with judgments matured by observation and reflection; tastes refined by reading and study. i am very glad of it." "they're a smokin' cigars by the kitchen fire," said sam. "ah!" observed mr. pickwick, rubbing his hands, "overflowing with kindly feelings and animal spirits. just what i like to see." "and one on 'em," said sam, not noticing his master's interruption, "one on 'em's got his legs on the table, and is a drinkin' brandy neat, vile the tother one--him in the barnacles--has got a barrel o' oysters atween his knees, wich he's a openin' like steam, and as fast as he eats 'em, he takes a aim vith the shells at young dropsy, who's a sittin' down fast asleep, in the chimbley corner." "eccentricities of genius, sam," said mr. pickwick. "you may retire." sam did retire accordingly; mr. pickwick, at the expiration of the quarter of an hour, went down to breakfast. "here he is at last!" said old mr. wardle. "pickwick, this is miss allen's brother, mr. benjamin allen. ben we call him, and so may you if you like. this gentleman is his very particular friend, mr. ----" "mr. bob sawyer," interposed mr. benjamin allen; whereupon mr. bob sawyer and mr. benjamin allen laughed in concert. mr. pickwick bowed to bob sawyer, and bob sawyer bowed to mr. pickwick; bob and his very particular friend then applied themselves most assiduously to the eatables before them, and mr. pickwick had an opportunity of glancing at them both. mr. benjamin allen was a coarse, stout, thickset young man, with black hair cut rather short, and a white face cut rather long. he was embellished with spectacles, and wore a white neckerchief. below his single-breasted black surtout, which was buttoned up to his chin, appeared the usual number of pepper-and-salt coloured legs, terminating in a pair of imperfectly polished boots. although his coat was short in the sleeves, it disclosed no vestige of a linen wristband; and although there was quite enough of his face to admit of the encroachment of a shirt collar, it was not graced by the smallest approach to that appendage. he presented, altogether, rather a mildewy appearance, and emitted a fragrant odour of full-flavoured cubas. mr. bob sawyer, who was habited in a coarse blue coat, which, without being either a great-coat or a surtout, partook of the nature and qualities of both, had about him that sort of slovenly smartness, and swaggering gait, which is peculiar to young gentlemen who smoke in the streets by day, shout and scream in the same by night, call waiters by their christian names, and do various other acts and deeds of an equally facetious description. he wore a pair of plaid trousers, and a large rough double-breasted waistcoat; out of doors, he carried a thick stick with a big top. he eschewed gloves, and looked, upon the whole, something like a dissipated robinson crusoe. such were the two worthies to whom mr. pickwick was introduced, as he took his seat at the breakfast table on christmas morning. "splendid morning, gentlemen," said mr. pickwick. mr. bob sawyer slightly nodded his assent to the proposition, and asked mr. benjamin allen for the mustard. "have you come far this morning, gentlemen?" inquired mr. pickwick. "blue lion at muggleton," briefly responded mr. allen. "you should have joined us last night," said mr. pickwick. "so we should," replied bob sawyer, "but the brandy was too good to leave in a hurry: wasn't it, ben?" "certainly," said mr. benjamin allen; "and the cigars were not bad, or the pork chops either: were they, bob?" "decidedly not," said bob. the particular friends resumed their attack upon the breakfast, more freely than before, as if the recollection of last night's supper had imparted a new relish to the meal. "peg away, bob," said mr. allen to his companion, encouragingly. "so i do," replied bob sawyer. and so, to do him justice, he did. "nothing like dissecting, to give one an appetite," said mr. bob sawyer, looking round the table. mr. pickwick slightly shuddered. "by-the-bye, bob," said mr. allen, "have you finished that leg yet?" "nearly," replied sawyer, helping himself to half a fowl as he spoke. "it's a very muscular one for a child's." "is it?" inquired mr. allen, carelessly. "very," said bob sawyer, with his mouth full. "i've put my name down for an arm, at our place," said mr. allen. "we're clubbing for a subject, and the list is nearly full, only we can't get hold of any fellow that wants a head. i wish you'd take it." "no," replied bob sawyer; "can't afford expensive luxuries." "nonsense!" said allen. "can't indeed," rejoined bob sawyer. "i wouldn't mind a brain, but i couldn't stand a whole head." "hush, hush, gentlemen, pray," said mr. pickwick. "i hear the ladies." as mr. pickwick spoke, the ladies, gallantly escorted by messrs. snodgrass, winkle, and tupman, returned from an early walk. "why, ben!" said arabella, in a tone which expressed more surprise than pleasure at the sight of her brother. "come to take you home to-morrow," replied benjamin. mr. winkle turned pale. "don't you see bob sawyer, arabella?" inquired mr. benjamin allen, somewhat reproachfully. arabella gracefully held out her hand, in acknowledgment of bob sawyer's presence. a thrill of hatred struck to mr. winkle's heart, as bob sawyer inflicted on the proffered hand a perceptible squeeze. "ben, dear!" said arabella, blushing; "have--have--you been introduced to mr. winkle?" "i have not been, but i shall be very happy to be, arabella," replied her brother, gravely. here mr. allen bowed grimly to mr. winkle, while mr. winkle and mr. bob sawyer glanced mutual distrust out of the corners of their eyes. the arrival of the two new visitors, and the consequent check upon mr. winkle and the young lady with the fur round her boots, would in all probability have proved a very unpleasant interruption to the hilarity of the party, had not the cheerfulness of mr. pickwick, and the good humour of the host, been exerted to the very utmost for the common weal. mr. winkle gradually insinuated himself into the good graces of mr. benjamin allen, and even joined in a friendly conversation with mr. bob sawyer; who, enlivened with the brandy, and the breakfast, and the talking, gradually ripened into a state of extreme facetiousness, and related with much glee an agreeable anecdote, about the removal of a tumour on some gentleman's head: which he illustrated by means of an oyster-knife and a half-quartern loaf, to the great edification of the assembled company. then, the whole train went to church, where mr. benjamin allen fell fast asleep; while mr. bob sawyer abstracted his thoughts from worldly matters, by the ingenious process of carving his name on the seat of the pew, in corpulent letters of four inches long. "now," said wardle, after a substantial lunch, with the agreeable items of strong beer and cherry-brandy, had been done ample justice to; "what say you to an hour on the ice? we shall have plenty of time." "capital!" said mr. benjamin allen. "prime!" ejaculated mr. bob sawyer. "you skate, of course, winkle?" said wardle. "ye-yes, oh yes," replied mr. winkle. "i--i--am _rather_ out of practice." "oh, _do_ skate, mr. winkle," said arabella. "i like to see it so much." "oh, it is _so_ graceful," said another young lady. a third young lady said it was elegant, and a fourth expressed her opinion that it was "swan-like." "i should be very happy, i'm sure," said mr. winkle, reddening; "but i have no skates." this objection was at once overruled. trundle had a couple of pair, and the fat boy announced that there were half a dozen more down-stairs: whereat mr. winkle expressed exquisite delight, and looked exquisitely uncomfortable. old wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet of ice; and the fat boy and mr. weller having shovelled and swept away the snow which had fallen on it during the night, mr. bob sawyer adjusted his skates with a dexterity which to mr. winkle was perfectly marvellous, and described circles with his left leg, and cut figures of eight, and inscribed upon the ice, without once stopping for breath, a great many other pleasant and astonishing devices, to the excessive satisfaction of mr. pickwick, mr. tupman, and the ladies: which reached a pitch of positive enthusiasm, when old wardle and benjamin allen, assisted by the aforesaid bob sawyer, performed some mystic evolutions, which they called a reel. all this time, mr. winkle, with his face and hands blue with the cold, had been forcing a gimlet into the soles of his feet, and putting his skates on, with the points behind, and getting the straps into a very complicated and entangled state, with the assistance of mr. snodgrass, who knew rather less about skates than a hindoo. at length, however, with the assistance of mr. weller, the unfortunate skates were firmly screwed and buckled on, and mr. winkle was raised to his feet. "now then, sir," said sam, in an encouraging tone; "off vith you, and show 'em how to do it." "stop, sam, stop!" said mr. winkle, trembling violently, and clutching hold of sam's arms with the grasp of a drowning man. "how slippery it is, sam!" "not an uncommon thing upon ice, sir," replied mr. weller. "hold up, sir!" this last observation of mr. weller's bore reference to a demonstration mr. winkle made at the instant, of a frantic desire to throw his feet in the air, and dash the back of his head on the ice. "these--these--are very awkward skates; ain't they, sam?" inquired mr. winkle, staggering. [illustration: _"now then, sir," said sam, "off vith you, and show 'em how to do it"_] "i'm afeerd there's a orkard gen'l'm'n in 'em, sir," replied sam. "now, winkle," cried mr. pickwick, quite unconscious that there was anything the matter. "come; the ladies are all anxiety." "yes, yes," replied mr. winkle, with a ghastly smile. "i'm coming." "just a goin' to begin," said sam, endeavouring to disengage himself. "now, sir, start off!" "stop an instant, sam," gasped mr. winkle, clinging most affectionately to mr. weller. "i find i've got a couple of coats at home i don't want, sam. you may have them, sam." "thank'ee, sir," replied mr. weller. "never mind touching your hat, sam," said mr. winkle, hastily. "you needn't take your hand away to do that. i meant to have given you five shillings this morning for a christmas-box, sam. i'll give it you this afternoon, sam." "you're wery good, sir," replied mr. weller. "just hold me at first, sam; will you?" said mr. winkle. "there--that's right. i shall soon get in the way of it, sam. not too fast, sam; not too fast." mr. winkle stooping forward, with his body half doubled up, was being assisted over the ice by mr. weller, in a most singular and un-swan-like manner, when mr. pickwick most innocently shouted from the opposite bank: "sam!" "sir?" "here. i want you." "let go, sir," said sam. "don't you hear the governor a callin'? let go, sir." with a violent effort, mr. weller disengaged himself from the grasp of the agonised pickwickian, and, in so doing, administered a considerable impetus to the unhappy mr. winkle. with an accuracy which no degree of dexterity or practice could have insured, that unfortunate gentleman bore swiftly down into the centre of the reel, at the very moment when mr. bob sawyer was performing a flourish of unparalleled beauty. mr. winkle struck wildly against him, and with a loud crash they both fell heavily down. mr. pickwick ran to the spot. bob sawyer had risen to his feet, but mr. winkle was far too wise to do anything of the kind, in skates. he was seated on the ice, making spasmodic efforts to smile; but anguish was depicted on every lineament of his countenance. "are you hurt?" inquired mr. benjamin allen, with great anxiety. "not much," said mr. winkle, rubbing his back very hard. "i wish you'd let me bleed you," said mr. benjamin with great eagerness. "no, thank you," replied mr. winkle, hurriedly. "i really think you had better," said allen. "thank you," replied mr. winkle; "i'd rather not." "what do _you_ think, mr. pickwick?" inquired bob sawyer. mr. pickwick was excited and indignant. he beckoned to mr. weller, and said in a stern voice, "take his skates off." "no; but really i had scarcely begun," remonstrated mr. winkle. "take his skates off," repeated mr. pickwick, firmly. the command was not to be resisted. mr. winkle allowed sam to obey it in silence. "lift him up," said mr. pickwick. sam assisted him to rise. mr. pickwick retired a few paces apart from the bystanders; and, beckoning his friend to approach, fixed a searching look upon him, and uttered in a low, but distinct and emphatic tone, these remarkable words: "you're a humbug, sir." "a what?" said mr. winkle, starting. "a humbug, sir. i will speak plainer, if you wish it. an impostor, sir." with these words, mr. pickwick turned slowly on his heel, and rejoined his friends. while mr. pickwick was delivering himself of the sentiment just recorded, mr. weller and the fat boy, having by their joint endeavours cut out a slide, were exercising themselves thereupon, in a very masterly and brilliant manner. sam weller, in particular, was displaying that beautiful feat of fancy sliding which is currently denominated "knocking at the cobbler's door," and which is achieved by skimming over the ice on one foot, and occasionally giving a postman's knock upon it with the other. it was a good long slide, and there was something in the motion which mr. pickwick, who was very cold with standing still, could not help envying. "it looks a nice warm exercise that, doesn't it?" he inquired of wardle, when that gentleman was thoroughly out of breath, by reason of the indefatigable manner in which he had converted his legs into a pair of compasses, and drawn complicated problems on the ice. "ah, it does indeed," replied wardle. "do you slide?" "i used to do so, on the gutters, when i was a boy," replied mr. pickwick. [illustration: _went slowly and gravely down the slide_] "try it now," said wardle. "oh do, please, mr. pickwick!" cried all the ladies. "i should be very happy to afford you any amusement," replied mr. pickwick, "but i haven't done such a thing these thirty years." "pooh! pooh! nonsense!" said wardle, dragging off his skates with the impetuosity which characterised all his proceedings. "here; i'll keep you company; come along!" and away went the good-tempered old fellow down the slide, with a rapidity which came very close upon mr. weller, and beat the fat boy all to nothing. mr. pickwick paused, considered, pulled off his gloves and put them in his hat: took two or three short runs, baulked himself as often, and at last took another run, and went slowly and gravely down the slide, with his feet about a yard and a quarter apart, amidst the gratified shouts of all the spectators. "keep the pot a bilin', sir!" said sam; and down went wardle again, and then mr. pickwick, and then sam, and then mr. winkle, and then mr. bob sawyer, and then the fat boy, and then mr. snodgrass, following closely upon each other's heels, and running after each other with as much eagerness as if all their future prospects in life depended on their expedition. it was the most intensely interesting thing, to observe the manner in which mr. pickwick performed his share in the ceremony; to watch the torture of anxiety with which he viewed the person behind, gaining upon him at the imminent hazard of tripping him up; to see him gradually expend the painful force he had put on at first, and turn slowly round on the slide, with his face towards the point from which he had started; to contemplate the playful smile which mantled on his face when he had accomplished the distance, and the eagerness with which he turned round when he had done so, and ran after his predecessor: his black gaiters tripping pleasantly through the snow, and his eyes beaming cheerfulness and gladness through his spectacles. and when he was knocked down (which happened upon the average every third round), it was the most invigorating sight that can possibly be imagined, to behold him gather up his hat, gloves, and handkerchief, with a glowing countenance, and resume his station in the rank, with an ardour and enthusiasm that nothing could abate. the sport was at its height, the sliding was at the quickest, the laughter was at the loudest, when a sharp smart crack was heard. there was a quick rush towards the bank, a wild scream from the ladies, and a shout from mr. tupman. a large mass of ice disappeared; the water bubbled up over it; mr. pickwick's hat, gloves, and handkerchief were floating on the surface; and this was all of mr. pickwick that anybody could see. dismay and anguish were depicted on every countenance, the males turned pale, and the females fainted, mr. snodgrass and mr. winkle grasped each other by the hand, and gazed at the spot where their leader had gone down, with frenzied eagerness; while mr. tupman, by way of rendering the promptest assistance, and at the same time conveying to any persons who might be within hearing, the clearest possible notion of the catastrophe, ran off across the country at his utmost speed, screaming "fire!" with all his might. it was at this moment, when old wardle and sam weller were approaching the hole with cautious steps, and mr. benjamin allen was holding a hurried consultation with bob sawyer, on the advisability of bleeding the company generally, as an improving little bit of professional practice--it was at this very moment, that a face, head, and shoulders, emerged from beneath the water, and disclosed the features and spectacles of mr. pickwick. [illustration: _a face, head, and shoulders, emerged from beneath the water, and disclosed the features and spectacles of mr. pickwick._] "keep yourself up for an instant--for only one instant;" bawled mr. snodgrass. "yes, do; let me implore you--for my sake!" roared mr. winkle, deeply affected. the adjuration was rather unnecessary: the probability being, that if mr. pickwick; had declined to keep himself up for anybody else's sake, it would have occurred to him that he might as well do so for his own. "do you feel the bottom there, old fellow?" said wardle. "yes, certainly," replied mr. pickwick, wringing the water from his head and face, and gasping for breath. "i fell upon my back. i couldn't get on my feet at first." the clay upon so much of mr. pickwick's coat as was yet visible, bore testimony to the accuracy of this statement; and as the fears of the spectators were still further relieved by the fat boy's suddenly recollecting that the water was nowhere more than five feet deep, prodigies of valour were performed to get him out. after a vast quantity of splashing, and cracking, and struggling, mr. pickwick was at length fairly extricated from his unpleasant position, and once more stood on dry land. "oh, he'll catch his death of cold," said emily. "dear old thing!" said arabella. "let me wrap this shawl round you, mr. pickwick." "ah, that's the best thing you can do," said wardle; "and when you've got it on, run home as fast as your legs can carry you, and jump into bed directly." a dozen shawls were offered on the instant. three or four of the thickest having been selected, mr. pickwick was wrapped up, and started off, under the guidance of mr. weller: presenting the singular phenomenon of an elderly gentleman, dripping wet, and without a hat, with his arms bound down to his sides, skimming over the ground, without any clearly defined purpose, at the rate of six good english miles an hour. but mr. pickwick cared not for appearances in such an extreme case, and urged on by sam weller, he kept at the very top of his speed until he reached the door of manor farm, where mr. tupman had arrived some five minutes before, and had frightened the old lady into palpitations of the heart by impressing her with the unalterable conviction that the kitchen chimney was on fire--a calamity which always presented itself in glowing colours to the old lady's mind, when anybody about her evinced the smallest agitation. mr. pickwick paused not an instant until he was snug in bed. sam weller lighted a blazing fire in the room and took up his dinner; a bowl of punch was carried up afterwards, and a grand carouse held in honour of his safety. old wardle would not hear of his rising, so they made the bed the chair, and mr. pickwick presided. a second and a third bowl were ordered in; and when mr. pickwick awoke next morning, there was not a symptom of rheumatism about him: which proves, as mr. bob sawyer very justly observed, that there is nothing like hot punch in such cases: and that if ever hot punch did fail to act as a preventive, it was merely because the patient fell into the vulgar error of not taking enough of it. the jovial party broke up next morning. breakings up are capital things in our school days, but in after life they are painful enough. death, self-interest, and fortune's changes, are every day breaking up many a happy group, and scattering them far and wide; and the boys and girls never come back again. we do not mean to say that it was exactly the case in this particular instance; all we wish to inform the reader is, that the different members of the party dispersed to their several homes; that mr. pickwick and his friends once more took their seats on the top of the muggleton coach; and that arabella allen repaired to her place of destination, wherever it might have been--we dare say mr. winkle knew, but we confess we don't--under the care and guardianship of her brother benjamin, and his most intimate friend, mr. bob sawyer. before they separated, however, that gentleman and mr. benjamin allen drew mr. pickwick aside with an air of some mystery: and mr. bob sawyer, thrusting his forefinger between two of mr. pickwick's ribs, and thereby displaying his native drollery, and his knowledge of the anatomy of the human frame, at one and the same time, inquired: "i say, old boy, where do you hang out?" mr. pickwick replied that he was at present suspended at the george and vulture. "i wish you'd come and see me," said bob sawyer. "nothing would give me greater pleasure," replied mr. pickwick. "there's my lodgings," said mr. bob sawyer, producing a card. "lant street, borough; it's near guy's, and handy for me, you know. little distance after you've passed st. george's church--turns out of the high street on the right-hand side the way." "i shall find it," said mr. pickwick. "come on thursday fortnight, and bring the other chaps with you," said mr. bob sawyer. "i'm going to have a few medical fellows that night." mr. pickwick expressed the pleasure it would afford him to meet the medical fellows; and after mr. bob sawyer had informed him that he meant to be very cosy, and that his friend ben was to be one of the party, they shook hands and separated. we feel that in this place we lay ourselves open to inquiry whether mr. winkle was whispering, during this brief conversation, to arabella allen; and if so, what he said; and furthermore, whether mr. snodgrass was conversing apart with emily wardle; and if so, what _he_ said. to this, we reply, that whatever they might have said to the ladies, they said nothing at all to mr. pickwick or mr. tupman for eight-and-twenty miles, and that they sighed very often, refused ale and brandy, and looked gloomy. if our observant lady readers can deduce any satisfactory inferences from these facts, we beg them by all means to do so. chapter iii [illustration] _which is all about the law, and sundry great authorities learned therein_ scattered about, in various holes and corners of the temple, are certain dark and dirty chambers, in and out of which, all the morning in vacation, and half the evening too in term times, there may be seen constantly hurrying with bundles of papers under their arms, and protruding from their pockets, an almost uninterrupted succession of lawyers' clerks. there are several grades of lawyers' clerks. there is the articled clerk, who has paid a premium, and is an attorney in perspective, who runs a tailor's bill, receives invitations to parties, knows a family in gower street, and another in tavistock square; who goes out of town every long vacation to see his father, who keeps live horses innumerable; and who is, in short, the very aristocrat of clerks. there is the salaried clerk--out of door or in door, as the case may be--who devotes the major part of his thirty shillings a week to his personal pleasure and adornment, repairs half-price to the adelphi theatre at least three times a week, dissipates majestically at the cider cellars afterwards, and is a dirty caricature of the fashion which expired six months ago. there is the middle-aged copying clerk, with a large family, who is always shabby, and often drunk. and there are the office lads in their first surtouts, who feel a befitting contempt for boys at day-schools; club, as they go home at night, for saveloys and porter; and think there's nothing like "life." there are varieties of the genus, too numerous to recapitulate, but however numerous they may be, they are all to be seen, at certain regulated business hours, hurrying to and from the places we have just mentioned. these sequestered nooks are the public offices of the legal profession, where writs are issued, judgments signed, declarations filed, and numerous other ingenious machines put in motion for the torture and torment of his majesty's liege subjects, and the comfort and emolument of the practitioners of the law. they are, for the most part, low-roofed, mouldy rooms, where innumerable rolls of parchment, which have been perspiring in secret for the last century, send forth an agreeable odour, which is mingled by day with the scent of the dry rot, and by night with the various exhalations which arise from damp cloaks, festering umbrellas, and the coarsest tallow candles. about half-past seven o'clock in the evening, some ten days or a fortnight after mr. pickwick and his friends returned to london, there hurried into one of these offices, an individual in a brown coat and brass buttons, whose long hair was scrupulously twisted round the rim of his napless hat, and whose soiled drab trousers were so tightly strapped over his blucher boots, that his knees threatened every moment to start from their concealment. he produced from his coat pocket a long and narrow strip of parchment, on which the presiding functionary impressed an illegible black stamp. he then drew forth four scraps of paper, of similar dimensions, each containing a printed copy of the strip of parchment with blanks for a name; and having filled up the blanks, put all the five documents in his pocket, and hurried away. the man in the brown coat, with the cabalistic documents in his pocket, was no other than our old acquaintance mr. jackson, of the house of dodson and fogg, freeman's court, cornhill. instead of returning to the office from whence he came, however, he bent his steps direct to sun court, and walking straight into the george and vulture, demanded to know whether one mr. pickwick was within. "call mr. pickwick's servant, tom," said the barmaid of the george and vulture. "don't trouble yourself," said mr. jackson, "i've come on business. if you'll show me mr. pickwick's room i'll step up myself." "what name, sir?" said the waiter. "jackson," replied the clerk. the waiter stepped up-stairs to announce mr. jackson; but mr. jackson saved him the trouble by following close at his heels, and walking into the apartment before he could articulate a syllable. mr. pickwick had, that day, invited his three friends to dinner; they were all seated round the fire, drinking their wine, when mr. jackson presented himself, as above described. "how de do, sir?" said mr. jackson, nodding to mr. pickwick. that gentleman bowed, and looked somewhat surprised, for the physiognomy of mr. jackson dwelt not on his recollection. "i have called from dodson and fogg's," said mr. jackson, in an explanatory tone. mr. pickwick roused at the name. "i refer you to my attorney, sir: mr. perker, of gray's inn," said he. "waiter, show this gentleman out." "beg your pardon, mr. pickwick," said jackson, deliberately depositing his hat on the floor, and drawing from his pocket the strip of parchment. "but personal service, by clerk or agent, in these cases, you know, mr. pickwick--nothing like caution, sir, in all legal forms." here mr. jackson cast his eye on the parchment; and resting his hands on the table, and looking round with a winning and persuasive smile, said: "now, come; don't let's have no words about such a little matter as this. which of you gentlemen's name's snodgrass?" at this inquiry mr. snodgrass gave such a very undisguised and palpable start, that no further reply was needed. "ah! i thought so," said mr. jackson, more affably than before. "i've got a little something to trouble you with, sir." "me!" exclaimed mr. snodgrass. "it's only a _subpoena_ in bardell and pickwick on behalf of the plaintiff," replied mr. jackson, singling out one of the slips of paper, and producing a shilling from his waistcoat pocket. "it'll come on, in the settens after term; fourteenth of febooary, we expect; we've marked it a special jury cause, and it's only ten down the paper. that's yours, mr. snodgrass." as jackson said this he presented the parchment before the eyes of mr. snodgrass, and slipped the paper and the shilling into his hand. mr. tupman had witnessed this process in silent astonishment, when jackson, turning sharply upon him, said: "i think i ain't mistaken when i say your name's tupman, am i?" mr. tupman looked at mr. pickwick; but, perceiving no encouragement in that gentleman's widely opened eyes to deny his name, said: "yes, my name _is_ tupman, sir." "and that other gentleman's mr. winkle, i think?" said jackson. mr. winkle faltered out a reply in the affirmative; and both gentlemen were forthwith invested with a slip of paper, and a shilling each, by the dexterous mr. jackson. "now," said jackson, "i'm afraid you'll think me rather troublesome, but i want somebody else, if it ain't inconvenient. i _have_ samuel weller's name here, mr. pickwick." "send my servant here, waiter," said mr. pickwick. the waiter retired, considerably astonished, and mr. pickwick motioned jackson to a seat. there was a painful pause, which was at length broken by the innocent defendant. "i suppose, sir," said mr. pickwick, his indignation rising while he spoke; "i suppose, sir, that it is the intention of your employers to seek to criminate me upon the testimony of my own friends?" mr. jackson struck his forefinger several times against the left side of his nose, to intimate that he was not there to disclose the secrets of the prison-house, and playfully rejoined: "not knowin', can't say." "for what other reason, sir," pursued mr. pickwick, "are these subpoenas served upon them, if not for this?" "very good plant, mr. pickwick," replied jackson, slowly shaking his head. "but it won't do. no harm in trying, but there's little to be got out of me." here mr. jackson smiled once more upon the company, and, applying his left thumb to the tip of his nose, worked a visionary coffee-mill with his right hand: thereby performing a very graceful piece of pantomime (then much in vogue, but now, unhappily, almost obsolete) which was familiarly denominated "taking a grinder." "no, no, mr. pickwick," said jackson, in conclusion; "perker's people must guess what we've served these subpoenas for. if they can't, they must wait till the action comes on, and then they'll find out." mr. pickwick bestowed a look of excessive disgust on his unwelcome visitor, and would probably have hurled some tremendous anathema at the heads of messrs. dodson and fogg, had not sam's entrance at the instant interrupted him. "samuel weller?" said mr. jackson, inquiringly. "vun o' the truest things as you've said for many a long year," replied sam, in a most composed manner. "here's a subpoena for you, mr. weller," said jackson. "what's that in english?" inquired sam. "here's the original," said jackson, declining the required explanation. "which?" said sam. "this," replied jackson, shaking the parchment. "oh, that's the 'rig'nal, is it?" said sam. "well, i'm wery glad i've seen the 'rig'nal, 'cos it's a gratifyin' sort o' thing, and eases vun's mind so much." "and here's the shilling," said jackson. "it's from dodson and fogg's." "and it's uncommon handsome o' dodson and fogg, as knows so little of me, to come down vith a present," said sam. "i feel it as a wery high compliment, sir; it's a wery hon'rable thing to them, as they knows how to reward merit werever they meets it. besides wich, it's affectin' to one's feelin's." as mr. weller said this, he inflicted a little friction on his right eyelid, with the sleeve of his coat, after the most approved manner of actors when they are in domestic pathetics. mr. jackson seemed rather puzzled by sam's proceedings; but, as he had served the subpoenas, and had nothing more to say, he made a feint of putting on the one glove which he usually carried in his hand for the sake of appearances; and returned to the office to report progress. mr. pickwick slept little that night; his memory had received a very disagreeable refresher on the subject of mrs. bardell's action. he breakfasted betimes next morning, and, desiring sam to accompany him, set forth towards gray's inn square. "sam!" said mr. pickwick, looking round, when they got to the end of cheapside. "sir?" said sam, stepping up to his master. "which way?" "up newgate street." mr. pickwick did not turn round immediately, but looked vacantly in sam's face for a few seconds, and heaved a deep sigh. "what's the matter, sir?" inquired sam. "this action, sam," said mr. pickwick, "is expected to come on on the fourteenth of next month." "remarkable coin_ci_dence that 'ere, sir," replied sam. "why remarkable, sam?" inquired mr. pickwick. "walentine's day, sir," responded sam; "reg'lar good day for a breach o' promise trial." mr. weller's smile awakened no gleam of mirth in his master's countenance. mr. pickwick turned abruptly round, and led the way in silence. they had walked some distance: mr. pickwick trotting on before, plunged in profound meditation, and sam following behind, with a countenance expressive of the most enviable and easy defiance of everything and everybody: when the latter, who was always especially anxious to impart to his master any exclusive information he possessed, quickened his pace until he was close at mr. pickwick's heels; and, pointing up at a house they were passing, said: "wery nice pork-shop that 'ere, sir." "yes, it seems so," said mr. pickwick. "celebrated sassage factory," said sam. "is it?" said mr. pickwick. "is it!" reiterated sam, with some indignation: "i should rayther think it was. why, sir, bless your innocent eyebrows, that's where the mysterious disappearance of a 'spectable tradesman took place four year ago." "you don't mean to say he was burked, sam?" said mr. pickwick, looking hastily round. "no, i don't indeed, sir," replied mr. weller, "i wish i did; far worse than that. he was the master o' that 'ere shop, sir, and the inwenter o' the patent never-leavin'-off sassage steam ingine, as 'ud swaller up a pavin' stone if you put it too near, and grind it into sassages as easy as if it was a tender young baby. wery proud o' that machine he was, as it was nat'ral he should be, and he'd stand down in the cellar a lookin' at it wen it was in full play, till he got quite melancholy with joy. a wery happy man he'd ha' been, sir, in the procession o' that 'ere ingine and two more lovely hinfants besides, if it hadn't been for his wife, who was a most ow-dacious wixin. she was always a follerin' him about and dinnin' in his ears, till at last he couldn't stand it no longer. 'i'll tell you what it is, my dear,' he says one day; 'if you persewere in this here sort of amusement,' he says, 'i'm blessed if i don't go away to 'merriker; and that's all about it.' 'you're a idle willin,' says she, 'and i wish the 'merrikins joy of their bargain.' arter wich she keeps on abusin' of him for half an hour, and then runs into the little parlour behind the shop, sets to a screamin', says he'll be the death on her, and falls in a fit, which lasts for three good hours--one o' them fits wich is all screamin' and kickin'. well, next mornin', the husband was missin'. he hadn't taken nothin' from the till--hadn't even put on his great-coat--so it was quite clear he warn't gone to 'merriker. didn't come back next day; didn't come back next week; missis had bills printed, sayin' that, if he'd come back, he should be forgiven everythin' (which was very liberal, seein' that he hadn't done nothin' at all); the canals was dragged, and for two months artervards, wenever a body turned up, it was carried, as a reg'lar thing, straight off to the sassage shop. hows'ever, none on 'em answered; so they gave out that he'd run avay, and she kep' on the bis'ness. one saturday night, a little thin old gen'l'm'n comes into the shop in a great passion and says, 'are you the missis o' this here shop?' 'yes, i am,' says she. 'well, ma'am,' says he, 'then i've just looked in to say that me and my family ain't a goin' to be choked for nothin'; and more than that, ma'am,' he says, 'you'll allow me to observe, that as you don't use the primest parts of the meat in the manafacter o' sassages, i think you'd find beef come nearly as cheap as buttons.' 'as buttons, sir!' says she. 'buttons, ma'am,' says the little old gen'l'm'n, unfolding a bit of paper, and showing twenty or thirty halves o' buttons. 'nice seasonin' for sassages, is trousers buttons, ma'am.' 'they're my husband's buttons!' says the widder, beginnin' to faint. 'what!' screams the little old gen'l'm'n, turnin' wery pale. 'i see it all,' says the widder; 'in a fit of temporary insanity he rashly converted his-self into sassages!' and so he had, sir," said mr. weller, looking steadily into mr. pickwick's horror-stricken countenance, "or else he'd been draw'd into the ingine; but however that might ha' been, the little old gen'l'm'n, who had been remarkably partial to sassages all his life, rushed out o' the shop in a wild state, and was never heard on artervards!" the relation of this affecting incident of private life brought master and man to mr. perker's chambers. lowten, holding the door half open, was in conversation with a rustily-clad, miserable-looking man, in boots without toes and gloves without fingers. there were traces of privation and suffering--almost of despair--in his lank and careworn countenance; he felt his poverty, for he shrunk to the dark side of the staircase as mr. pickwick approached. "it's very unfortunate," said the stranger, with a sigh. "very," said lowten, scribbling his name on the door-post with his pen, and rubbing it out again with the feather. "will you leave a message for him?" "when do you think he'll be back?" inquired the stranger. "quite uncertain," replied lowten, winking at mr. pickwick, as the stranger cast his eyes towards the ground. "you don't think it would be of any use my waiting for him?" said the stranger, looking wistfully into the office. "oh no, i'm sure it wouldn't," replied the clerk, moving a little more into the centre of the doorway. "he's certain not to be back this week, and it's a chance whether he will be next; for when perker once gets out of town, he's never in a hurry to come back again." "out of town!" said mr. pickwick; "dear me, how unfortunate!" "don't go away, mr. pickwick," said lowten, "i've got a letter for you." the stranger seeming to hesitate, once more looked towards the ground, and the clerk winked slily at mr. pickwick, as if to intimate that some exquisite piece of humour was going forward, though what it was mr. pickwick could not for the life of him divine. "step in, mr. pickwick," said lowten. "well, will you leave a message, mr. watty, or will you call again?" "ask him to be so kind as to leave out word what has been done in my business," said the man; "for god's sake don't neglect it, mr. lowten." "no, no; i won't forget it," replied the clerk. "walk in, mr. pickwick. good morning, mr. watty; it's a fine day for walking, isn't it?" seeing that the stranger still lingered, he beckoned sam weller to follow his master in, and shut the door in his face. "there never was such a pestering bankrupt as that since the world began, i do believe!" said lowten, throwing down his pen with the air of an injured man. "his affairs haven't been in chancery quite four years yet, and i'm d--d if he don't come worrying here twice a week. step this way, mr. pickwick. perker _is_ in, and he'll see you, i know. devilish cold," he added, pettishly, "standing at that door, wasting one's time with such seedy vagabonds!" having very vehemently stirred a particularly large fire with a particularly small poker, the clerk led the way to his principal's private room, and announced mr. pickwick. "ah, my dear sir," said little mr. perker, bustling up from his chair. "well, my dear sir, and what's the news about your matter, eh? anything more about our friends in freeman's court? they've not been sleeping, _i_ know that. ah, they're smart fellows; very smart indeed." as the little man concluded, he took an emphatic pinch of snuff, as a tribute to the smartness of messrs. dodson and fogg. "they are great scoundrels," said mr. pickwick. "aye, aye," said the little man; "that's a matter of opinion, you know, and we won't dispute about terms; because of course you can't be expected to view these subjects with a professional eye. well, we've done everything that's necessary. i have retained serjeant snubbin." "is he a good man?" inquired mr. pickwick. "good man!" replied perker; "bless your heart and soul, my dear sir, serjeant snubbin is at the very top of his profession. gets treble the business of any man in court--engaged in every case. you needn't mention it abroad; but we say--we of the profession--that serjeant snubbin leads the court by the nose." the little man took another pinch of snuff as he made this communication, and nodded mysteriously to mr. pickwick. "they have subpoena'd my three friends," said mr. pickwick. "ah! of course they would," replied perker. "important witnesses; saw you in a delicate situation." "but she fainted of her own accord," said mr. pickwick. "she threw herself into my arms." "very likely, my dear sir," replied perker; "very likely and very natural. nothing more so, my dear sir, nothing. but who's to prove it?" "they have subpoena'd my servant too," said mr. pickwick, quitting the other point; for there mr. perker's question had somewhat staggered him. "sam?" said perker. mr. pickwick replied in the affirmative. "of course, my dear sir; of course. i knew they would. i could have told you that a month ago. you know, my dear sir, if you _will_ take the management of your affairs into your own hands after intrusting them to your solicitor, you must also take the consequences." here mr. perker drew himself up with conscious dignity, and brushed some stray grains of snuff from his shirt frill. "and what do they want him to prove?" asked mr. pickwick, after two or three minutes' silence. "that you sent him up to the plaintiff's to make some offer of a compromise, i suppose," replied perker. "it don't matter much, though; i don't think many counsel could get a great deal out of _him_." "i don't think they could," said mr. pickwick; smiling, despite his vexation, at the idea of sam's appearance as a witness. "what course do we pursue?" "we have only one to adopt, my dear sir," replied perker; "cross-examine the witnesses; trust to snubbin's eloquence; throw dust in the eyes of the judge; throw ourselves on the jury." "and suppose the verdict is against me?" said mr. pickwick. mr. perker smiled, took a very long pinch of snuff, stirred the fire, shrugged his shoulders, and remained expressively silent. "you mean that in that case i must pay the damages?" said mr. pickwick, who had watched this telegraphic answer with considerable sternness. perker gave the fire another very unnecessary poke, and said, "i am afraid so." "then i beg to announce to you, my unalterable determination to pay no damages whatever," said mr. pickwick, most emphatically. "none, perker. not a pound, not a penny, of my money, shall find its way into the pockets of dodson and fogg. that is my deliberate and irrevocable determination." mr. pickwick gave a heavy blow on the table before him, in confirmation of the irrevocability of his intention. "very well, my dear sir, very well," said perker. "you know best, of course." "of course," replied mr. pickwick, hastily. "where does serjeant snubbin live?" "in lincoln's inn old square," replied perker. "i should like to see him," said mr. pickwick. "see serjeant snubbin, my dear sir!" rejoined perker, in utter amazement. "pooh, pooh, my dear sir, impossible. see serjeant snubbin! bless you, my dear sir, such a thing was never heard of, without a consultation fee being previously paid, and a consultation fixed. it couldn't be done, my dear sir; it couldn't be done." mr. pickwick, however, had made up his mind not only that it could be done, but that it should be done; and the consequence was, that within ten minutes after he had received the assurance that the thing was impossible, he was conducted by his solicitor into the outer office of the great serjeant snubbin himself. it was an uncarpeted room of tolerable dimensions, with a large writing-table drawn up near the fire: the baize top of which had long since lost all claim to its original hue of green, and had gradually grown grey with dust and age, except where all traces of its natural colour were obliterated by ink-stains. upon the table were numerous little bundles of papers tied with red tape; and behind it sat an elderly clerk, whose sleek appearance, and heavy gold watch-chain, presented imposing indications of the extensive and lucrative practice of mr. serjeant snubbin. "is the serjeant in his room, mr. mallard?" inquired perker, offering his box with all imaginable courtesy. "yes, he is," was the reply, "but he's very busy. look here; not an opinion given yet, on any one of these cases; and an expedition fee paid with all of 'em." the clerk smiled as he said this, and inhaled a pinch of snuff with a zest which seemed to be compounded of a fondness for snuff and a relish for fees. "something like practice that," said perker. "yes," said the barrister's clerk, producing his own box, and offering it with the greatest cordiality; "and the best of it is, that as nobody alive except myself can read the serjeant's writing, they are obliged to wait for the opinions, when he has given them, till i have copied 'em, ha--ha--ha!" "which makes good for we know who, besides the serjeant, and draws a little more out of the clients, eh?" said perker; "ha, ha, ha!" at this the serjeant's clerk laughed again; not a noisy boisterous laugh, but a silent, internal chuckle, which mr. pickwick disliked to hear. when a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people. "you haven't made me out that little list of the fees that i'm in your debt, have you?" said perker. "no, i have not," replied the clerk. "i wish you would," said perker. "let me have them, and i'll send you a cheque. but i suppose you're too busy pocketing the ready money, to think of the debtors, eh? ha, ha, ha!" this sally seemed to tickle the clerk amazingly, and he once more enjoyed a little quiet laugh to himself. "but, mr. mallard, my dear friend," said perker, suddenly recovering his gravity, and drawing the great man's great man into a corner, by the lappel of his coat; "you must persuade the serjeant to see me and my client here." "come, come," said the clerk, "that's not bad either. see the serjeant! come, that's too absurd." notwithstanding the absurdity of the proposal, however, the clerk allowed himself to be gently drawn beyond the hearing of mr. pickwick; and after a short conversation conducted in whispers, walked softly down a little dark passage and disappeared into the legal luminary's sanctum: whence he shortly returned on tiptoe, and informed mr. perker and mr. pickwick that the serjeant had been prevailed upon, in violation of all established rules and customs, to admit them at once. mr. serjeant snubbin was a lantern-faced, sallow-complexioned man, of about five-and-forty, or--as the novels say--he might be fifty. he had that dull-looking boiled eye which is often to be seen in the heads of people who have applied themselves during many years to a weary and laborious course of study; and which would have been sufficient, without the additional eye-glass which dangled from a broad black riband round his neck, to warn a stranger that he was very near-sighted. his hair was thin and weak, which was partly attributable to his having never devoted much time to its arrangement, and partly to his having worn for five-and-twenty years the forensic wig which hung on a block beside him. the marks of hair-powder on his coat-collar, and the ill-washed and worse-tied white neckerchief round his throat, showed that he had not found leisure since he left the court to make any alteration in his dress: while the slovenly style of the remainder of his costume warranted the inference that his personal appearance would not have been very much improved if he had. books of practice, heaps of papers, and opened letters, were scattered over the table, without any attempt at order or arrangement; the furniture of the room was old and rickety; the doors of the bookcase were rotting in their hinges; the dust flew out from the carpet in little clouds at every step; the blinds were yellow with age and dirt; the state of everything in the room showed, with a clearness not to be mistaken, that mr. serjeant snubbin was far too much occupied with his professional pursuits to take any great heed or regard of his personal comforts. the serjeant was writing when his clients entered; he bowed abstractedly when mr. pickwick was introduced by his solicitor; and then, motioning them to a seat, put his pen carefully in the inkstand, nursed his left leg, and waited to be spoken to. "mr. pickwick is the defendant in bardell and pickwick, serjeant snubbin," said perker. "i am retained in that, am i?" said the serjeant. "you are, sir," replied perker. the serjeant nodded his head, and waited for something else. "mr. pickwick was anxious to call upon you, serjeant snubbin," said perker, "to state to you, before you entered upon the case, that he denies there being any ground or pretence whatever for the action against him; and that unless he came into court with clean hands, and without the most conscientious conviction that he was right in resisting the plaintiff's demand, he would not be there at all. i believe i state your views correctly; do not, my dear sir?" said the little man, turning to mr. pickwick. "quite so," replied that gentleman. mr. serjeant snubbin unfolded his glasses, raised them to his eyes; and, after looking at mr. pickwick for a few seconds with great curiosity, turned to mr. perker, and said, smiling slightly as he spoke: "has mr. pickwick a strong case?" the attorney shrugged his shoulders. "do you propose calling witnesses?" "no." the smile on the serjeant's countenance became more defined; he rocked his leg with increased violence; and, throwing himself back in his easy-chair, coughed dubiously. these tokens of the serjeant's presentiments on the subject, slight as they were, were not lost on mr. pickwick. he settled the spectacles, through which he had attentively regarded such demonstrations of the barrister's feelings as he had permitted himself to exhibit, more firmly on his nose; and said with great energy, and in utter disregard of all mr. perker's admonitory winkings and frownings: "my wishing to wait upon you, for such a purpose as this, sir, appears, i have no doubt, to a gentleman who sees so much of these matters as you must necessarily do, a very extraordinary circumstance." the serjeant tried to look gravely at the fire, but the smile came back again. "gentlemen of your profession, sir," continued mr. pickwick, "see the worst side of human nature. all its disputes, all its ill-will and bad blood, rise up before you. you know from your experience of juries (i mean no disparagement to you, or them) how much depends upon _effect_: and you are apt to attribute to others, a desire to use, for purposes of deception and self-interest, the very instruments which you, in pure honesty and honour of purpose, and with a laudable desire to do your utmost for your client, know the temper and worth of so well, from constantly employing them yourselves. i really believe that to this circumstance may be attributed the vulgar but very general notion of your being, as a body, suspicious, distrustful, and over-cautious. conscious as i am, sir, of the disadvantage of making such a declaration to you, under such circumstances, i have come here, because i wish you distinctly to understand, as my friend mr. perker has said, that i am innocent of the falsehood laid to my charge; and although i am very well aware of the inestimable value of your assistance, sir, i must beg to add, that unless you sincerely believe this, i would rather be deprived of the aid of your talents than have the advantage of them." long before the close of this address, which we are bound to say was of a very prosy character for mr. pickwick, the serjeant had relapsed into a state of abstraction. after some minutes, however, during which he had reassumed his pen, he appeared to be again aware of the presence of his clients; raising his head from the paper, he said, rather snappishly, "who is with me in this case?" "mr. phunky, serjeant snubbin," replied the attorney. "phunky, phunky," said the serjeant, "i never heard the name before. he must be a very young man." "yes, he is a very young man," replied the attorney. "he was only called the other day. let me see--he has not been at the bar eight years yet." "ah, i thought not," said the serjeant, in that sort of pitying tone in which ordinary folks would speak of a very helpless little child. "mr. mallard, send round to mr.--mr.----" "phunky's--holborn court, gray's inn," interposed perker. (holborn court, by-the-bye, is south square now). "mr. phunky, and say i should be glad if he'd step here, a moment." mr. mallard departed to execute his commission; and serjeant snubbin relapsed into abstraction until mr. phunky himself was introduced. although an infant barrister, he was a full-grown man. he had a very nervous manner, and a painful hesitation in his speech; it did not appear to be a natural defect, but seemed rather the result of timidity, arising from the consciousness of being "kept down" by want of means, or interests, or connection, or impudence, as the case might be. he was overawed by the serjeant, and profoundly courteous to the attorney. "i have not had the pleasure of seeing you before, mr. phunky," said serjeant snubbin, with a haughty condescension. mr. phunky bowed. he _had_ had the pleasure of seeing the serjeant, and of envying him too, with all a poor man's envy, for eight years and a quarter. "you are with me in this case, i understand?" said the serjeant. if mr. phunky had been a rich man, he would have instantly sent for his clerk to remind him; if he had been a wise one, he would have applied his forefinger to his forehead, and endeavoured to recollect, whether, in the multiplicity of his engagements, he had undertaken this one, or not; but as he was neither rich nor wise (in this sense at all events) he turned red, and bowed. "have you read the papers, mr. phunky?" inquired the serjeant. here again, mr. phunky should have professed to have forgotten all about the merits of the case; but as he had read such papers as had been laid before him in the course of the action, and had thought of nothing else, waking, or sleeping, throughout the two months during which he had been retained as mr. serjeant snubbin's junior, he turned a deeper red, and bowed again. "this is mr. pickwick," said the serjeant, waving his pen in the direction in which that gentleman was standing. mr. phunky bowed to mr. pickwick with a reverence which a first client must ever awaken; and again inclined his head towards his leader. "perhaps you will take mr. pickwick away," said the serjeant, "and--and--and--hear anything mr. pickwick may wish to communicate. we shall have a consultation, of course." with this hint that he had been interrupted quite long enough, mr. serjeant snubbin, who had been gradually growing more and more abstracted, applied his glass to his eyes for an instant, bowed slightly round, and was once more deeply immersed in the case before him: which arose out of an interminable lawsuit, originating in the act of an individual, deceased a century or so ago, who had stopped up a pathway leading from some place which nobody ever came from, to some other place which nobody ever went to. mr. phunky would not hear of passing through any door until mr. pickwick and his solicitor had passed through before him, so it was some time before they got into the square; and when they did reach it, they walked up and down, and held a long conference, the result of which was, that it was a very difficult matter to say how the verdict would go; that nobody could presume to calculate on the issue of an action; that it was very lucky they had prevented the other party from getting serjeant snubbin; and other topics of doubt and consolation, common in such a position of affairs. mr. weller was then roused by his master from a sweet sleep of an hour's duration; and, bidding adieu to lowten, they returned to the city. chapter iv [illustration] _describes, far more fully than the court newsman ever did, a bachelor's party, given by mr. bob sawyer at his lodgings in the borough_ there is a repose about lant street, in the borough, which sheds a gentle melancholy upon the soul. there are always a good many houses to let in the street: it is a by-street too, and its dulness is soothing. a house in lant street would not come within the denomination of a first-rate residence, in the strict acceptation of the term; but it is a most desirable spot nevertheless. if a man wished to abstract himself from the world--to remove himself from within the reach of temptation--to place himself beyond the possibility of any inducement to look out of the window--he should by all means go to lant street. in this happy retreat are colonised a few clear-starchers, a sprinkling of journeymen bookbinders, one or two prison agents for the insolvent court, several small housekeepers who are employed in the docks, a handful of mantua-makers, and a seasoning of jobbing tailors. the majority of the inhabitants either direct their energies to the letting of furnished apartments, or devote themselves to the healthful and invigorating pursuit of mangling. the chief features in the still life of the street are green shutters, lodging-bills, brass door-plates, and bell-handles; the principal specimens of animated nature, the pot-boy, the muffin youth, and the baked-potato man. the population is migratory, usually disappearing on the verge of quarter-day, and generally by night. his majesty's revenues are seldom collected in this happy valley; the rents are dubious; and the water communication is very frequently cut off. mr. bob sawyer embellished one side of the fire, in his first-floor front, early in the evening for which he had invited mr. pickwick; and mr. ben allen the other. the preparations for the reception of visitors appeared to be completed. the umbrellas in the passage had been heaped into the little corner outside the back-parlour door; the bonnet and shawl of the landlady's servant had been removed from the banisters; there were not more than two pairs of pattens on the street-door mat, and the kitchen candle, with a very long snuff, burnt cheerfully on the ledge of the staircase window. mr. bob sawyer had himself purchased the spirits at a wine vaults in high street, and had returned home preceding the bearer thereof, to preclude the possibility of their delivery at the wrong house. the punch was ready-made in a red pan in the bedroom; a little table, covered with a green baize cloth, had been borrowed from the parlour, to play cards on; and the glasses of the establishment, together with those which had been borrowed for the occasion from the public-house, were all drawn up in a tray, which was deposited on the landing outside the door. notwithstanding the highly satisfactory nature of all these arrangements, there was a cloud on the countenance of mr. bob sawyer, as he sat by the fireside. there was a sympathising expression, too, in the features of mr. ben allen, as he gazed intently on the coals; and a tone of melancholy in his voice, as he said, after a long silence: "well, it _is_ unlucky she should have taken it in her head to turn sour, just on this occasion. she might at least have waited till to-morrow." "that's her malevolence, that's her malevolence," returned mr. bob sawyer, vehemently. "she says that if i can afford to give a party i ought to be able to pay her confounded 'little bill.'" "how long has it been running?" inquired mr. ben allen. a bill, by-the-bye, is the most extraordinary locomotive engine that the genius of man ever produced. it would keep on running during the longest lifetime, without ever once stopping of its own accord. "only a quarter, and a month or so," replied mr. bob sawyer. ben allen coughed hopelessly, and directed a searching look between the two top bars of the stove. "it'll be a deuced unpleasant thing if she takes it into her head to let out, when those fellows are here, won't it?" said mr. ben allen at length. "horrible," replied bob sawyer, "horrible." a low tap was heard at the room door. mr. bob sawyer looked expressively at his friend, and bade the tapper come in; whereupon a dirty slipshod girl in black cotton stockings, who might have passed for the neglected daughter of a superannuated dustman in very reduced circumstances, thrust in her head, and said, "please, mister sawyer, missis raddle wants to speak to _you_." before mr. bob sawyer could return any answer, the girl suddenly disappeared with a jerk, as if somebody had given her a violent pull behind; this mysterious exit was no sooner accomplished, than there was another tap at the door--a smart pointed tap, which seemed to say, "here i am, and in i'm coming." mr. bob sawyer glanced at his friend with a look of abject apprehension, and once more cried "come in." the permission was not at all necessary, for, before mr. bob sawyer had uttered the words, a little fierce woman bounced into the room, all in a tremble with passion, and pale with rage. "now, mr. sawyer," said the little fierce woman, trying to appear very calm, "if you'll have the kindness to settle that little bill of mine i'll thank you, because i've got my rent to pay this afternoon, and my landlord's a waiting below now." here the little woman rubbed her hands, and looked steadily over mr. bob sawyer's head, at the wall behind him. "i am very sorry to put you to any inconvenience, mrs. raddle," said bob sawyer, deferentially, "but----" "oh, it isn't any inconvenience," replied the little woman, with a shrill titter. "i didn't want it particular before to-day; leastways, as it has to go to my landlord directly, it was as well for you to keep it as me. you promised me this afternoon, mr. sawyer, and every gentleman as has ever lived here, has kept his word, sir, as of course anybody as calls himself a gentleman, does." mrs. raddle tossed her head, bit her lips, rubbed her hands harder, and looked at the wall more steadily than ever. it was plain to see, as mr. bob sawyer remarked in a style of eastern allegory on a subsequent occasion, that she was "getting the steam up." [illustration: _"if you'll have the kindness to settle that little bill of mine i'll thank you"_] "i am very sorry, mrs. raddle," said bob sawyer with all imaginable humility, "but the fact is that i have been disappointed in the city to-day."--extraordinary place, that city. an astonishing number of men always _are_ getting disappointed there. "well, mr. sawyer," said mrs. raddle, planting herself firmly on a purple cauliflower in the kidderminster carpet, "and what's that to me, sir?" "i--i have no doubt, mrs. raddle," said bob sawyer, blinking this last question, "that before the middle of next week we shall be able to set ourselves quite square, and go on, on a better system afterwards." this was all mrs. raddle wanted. she had bustled up to the apartment of the unlucky bob sawyer, so bent upon going into a passion, that in all probability payment would have rather disappointed her than otherwise. she was in excellent order for a little relaxation of the kind: having just exchanged a few introductory compliments with mr. r. in the front kitchen. "do you suppose, mr. sawyer," said mrs. raddle, elevating her voice for the information of the neighbours, "do you suppose that i'm a-going day after day to let a fellar occupy my lodgings as never thinks of paying his rent, nor even the very money laid out for the fresh butter and lump sugar that's bought for his breakfast, and the very milk that's took in, at the street door? do you suppose a hard-working and industrious woman as has lived in this street for twenty year (ten year over the way, and nine year and three-quarter in this very house) has nothing else to do but to work herself to death after a parcel of lazy idle fellars, that are always smoking and drinking, and lounging, when they ought to be glad to turn their hands to anything that would help them to pay their bills? do you----" "my good soul," interposed mr. benjamin allen, soothingly. "have the goodness to keep your observashuns to yourself, sir, i beg," said mrs. raddle, suddenly arresting the rapid torrent of her speech, and addressing the third party with impressive slowness and solemnity. "i am not aweer, sir, that you have any right to address your conversation to me. i don't think i let these apartments to you, sir." "no, you certainly did not," said mr. benjamin allen. "very good, sir," responded mrs. raddle, with lofty politeness. "then p'raps, sir, you'll confine yourself to breaking the arms and legs of the poor people in the hospitals, and keep yourself _to_ yourself, sir, or there may be some persons here as will make you, sir." "but you are such an unreasonable woman," remonstrated mr. benjamin allen. "i beg your parding, young man," said mrs. raddle, in a cold perspiration of anger. "but will you have the goodness just to call me that again, sir?" "i didn't make use of the word in any invidious sense, ma'am," replied mr. benjamin allen, growing somewhat uneasy on his own account. "i beg your parding, young man," demanded mrs. raddle in a louder and more imperative tone. "but who do you call a woman? did you make that remark to me, sir?" "why, bless my heart!" said mr. benjamin allen. "did you apply that name to me, i ask of you, sir?" interrupted mrs. raddle, with intense fierceness, throwing the door wide open. "why, of course i did," replied mr. benjamin allen. "yes, of course you did," said mrs. raddle, backing gradually to the door, and raising her voice to its loudest pitch, for the special behoof of mr. raddle in the kitchen. "yes, of course you did! and everybody knows that they may safely insult me in my own 'ouse while my husband sits sleeping down-stairs, and taking no more notice than if i was a dog in the streets. he ought to be ashamed of himself (here mrs. raddle sobbed) to allow his wife to be treated in this way by a parcel of young cutters and carvers of live people's bodies, that disgraces the lodgings (another sob), and leaving her exposed to all manner of abuse; a base, faint-hearted, timorous wretch, that's afraid to come up-stairs, and face the ruffinly creatures--that's afraid--that's afraid to come!" mrs. raddle paused to listen whether the repetition of the taunt had roused her better half; and, finding that it had not been successful, proceeded to descend the stairs with sobs innumerable: when there came a loud double knock at the street door: whereupon she burst into an hysterical fit of weeping, accompanied with dismal moans, which was prolonged until the knock had been repeated six times, when, in an uncontrollable burst of mental agony, she threw down all the umbrellas, and disappeared into the back parlour, closing the door after her with an awful crash. "does mr. sawyer live here?" said mr. pickwick, when the door was opened. "yes," said the girl, "first floor. it's the door straight afore you when you gets to the top of the stairs." having given this instruction, the handmaid, who had been brought up among the aboriginal inhabitants of southwark, disappeared, with the candle in her hand, down the kitchen stairs: perfectly satisfied that she had done everything that could possibly be required of her under the circumstances. mr. snodgrass, who entered last, secured the street door, after several ineffectual efforts, by putting up the chain; and the friends stumbled up-stairs, where they were received by mr. bob sawyer, who had been afraid to go down, lest he should be waylaid by mrs. raddle. "how are you?" said the discomfited student. "glad to see you,--take care of the glasses." this caution was addressed to mr. pickwick, who had put his hat in the tray. "dear me," said mr. pickwick, "i beg your pardon." "don't mention it, don't mention it," said bob sawyer. "i'm rather confined for room here, but you must put up with all that, when you come to see a young bachelor. walk in. you've seen this gentleman before, i think?" mr. pickwick shook hands with mr. benjamin allen, and his friends followed his example. they had scarcely taken their seats when there was another double knock. "i hope that's jack hopkins!" said mr. bob sawyer. "hush! yes, it is. come up, jack; come up." a heavy footstep was heard upon the stairs, and jack hopkins presented himself. he wore a black velvet waistcoat, with thunder-and-lightning buttons; and a blue striped shirt, with a white false collar. "you're late, jack," said mr. benjamin allen. "been detained at bartholomew's," replied hopkins. "anything new?" "no, nothing particular. rather a good accident brought into the casualty ward." "what was that, sir?" inquired mr. pickwick. "only a man fallen out of a four pair of stairs' window;--but it's a very fair case--very fair case indeed." "do you mean that the patient is in a fair way to recover?" inquired mr. pickwick. "no," replied hopkins, carelessly. "no, i should rather say he wouldn't. there must be a splendid operation though, to-morrow--magnificent sight if slasher does it." "you consider mr. slasher a good operator?" said mr. pickwick. "best alive," replied hopkins. "took a boy's leg out of the socket last week--boy ate five apples and a gingerbread cake--exactly two minutes after it was all over, boy said he wouldn't lie there to be made game of, and he'd tell his mother if they didn't begin." "dear me!" said mr. pickwick, astonished. "pooh! that's nothing, that ain't," said jack hopkins. "is it, bob?" "nothing at all," replied mr. bob sawyer. "by-the-bye, bob," said hopkins, with a scarcely perceptible glance at mr. pickwick's attentive face, "we had a curious accident last night. a child was brought in, who had swallowed a necklace." "swallowed what, sir?" interrupted mr. pickwick. "a necklace," replied jack hopkins. "not all at once, you know, that would be too much--_you_ couldn't swallow that, if the child did--eh, mr. pickwick, ha! ha!" mr. hopkins appeared highly gratified with his own pleasantry; and continued. "no, the way was this. child's parents were poor people who lived in a court. child's eldest sister bought a necklace; common necklace, made of large black wooden beads. child, being fond of toys, cribbed the necklace, hid it, played with it, cut the string, and swallowed a bead. child thought it capital fun, went back next day, and swallowed another bead." "bless my heart," said mr. pickwick, "what a dreadful thing! i beg your pardon, sir. go on." "next day child swallowed two beads; the day after that, he treated himself to three, and so on, till in a week's time he had got through the necklace--five-and-twenty beads in all. the sister, who was an industrious girl, and seldom treated herself to a bit of finery, cried her eyes out, at the loss of the necklace; looked high and low for it; but, i needn't say, didn't find it. a few days afterwards the family were at dinner--baked shoulder of mutton, and potatoes under it--the child, who wasn't hungry, was playing about the room, when suddenly there was heard a devil of a noise, like a small hailstorm. 'don't do that, my boy,' said the father. 'i ain't a doin' nothing,' said the child. 'well, don't do it again,' said the father. there was a short silence, and then the noise again began, worse than ever. 'if you don't mind what i say, my boy,' said the father, 'you'll find yourself in bed, in something less than a pig's whisper.' he gave the child a shake to make him obedient, and such a rattling ensued as nobody ever heard before. 'why, damme, it's _in_ the child!' said the father, 'he's got the croup in the wrong place!' 'no i haven't, father,' said the child, beginning to cry, 'it's the necklace; i swallowed it, father.' the father caught the child up, and ran with him to the hospital: the beads in the boy's stomach rattling all the way with the jolting; and the people looking up in the air, and down in the cellars to see where the unusual sound came from. he's in the hospital now," said jack hopkins, "and he makes such a devil of a noise when he walks about, that they're obliged to muffle him in a watchman's coat, for fear he should wake the patients!" "that's the most extraordinary case i ever heard of," said mr. pickwick, with an emphatic blow on the table. "oh, that's nothing," said jack hopkins; "is it, bob?" "certainly not," replied mr. bob sawyer. "very singular things occur in our profession, i can assure you, sir," said hopkins. "so i should be disposed to imagine," replied mr. pickwick. another knock at the door, announced a large-headed young man in a black wig, who brought with him a scorbutic youth in a long stock. the next comer was a gentleman in a shirt emblazoned with pink anchors, who was closely followed by a pale youth with a plated watchguard. the arrival of a prim personage in clean linen and cloth boots rendered the party complete. the little table with the green baize cover was wheeled out; the first instalment of punch was brought in, in a white jug; and the succeeding three hours were devoted to _vingt-et-un_ at sixpence a dozen, which was only once interrupted by a slight dispute between the scorbutic youth and the gentleman with the pink anchors; in the course of which, the scorbutic youth intimated a burning desire to pull the nose of the gentleman with the emblems of hope; in reply to which, that individual expressed his decided unwillingness to accept of any "sauce" on gratuitous terms, either from the irascible young gentleman with the scorbutic countenance, or any other person who was ornamented with a head. when the last "natural" had been declared, and the profit and loss account of fish and sixpences adjusted, to the satisfaction of all parties, mr. bob sawyer rang for supper, and the visitors squeezed themselves into corners while it was getting ready. it was not so easily got ready as some people may imagine. first of all, it was necessary to awaken the girl, who had fallen asleep with her face on the kitchen table; this took a little time, and, even when she did answer the bell, another quarter of an hour was consumed in fruitless endeavours to impart to her a faint and distant glimmering of reason. the man to whom the order for the oysters had been sent, had not been told to open them; it is a very difficult thing to open an oyster with a limp knife or a two-pronged fork; and very little was done in this way. very little of the beef was done either; and the ham (which was also from the german-sausage shop round the corner) was in a similar predicament. however, there was plenty of porter in a tin can; and the cheese went a great way, for it was very strong. so upon the whole, perhaps, the supper was quite as good as such matters usually are. after supper, another jug of punch was put upon the table, together with a paper of cigars, and a couple of bottles of spirits. then there was an awful pause; and this awful pause was occasioned by a very common occurrence in this sort of place, but a very embarrassing one notwithstanding. the fact is, the girl was washing the glasses. the establishment boasted four; we do not record the circumstance as at all derogatory to mrs. raddle, for there never was a lodging-house yet, that was not short of glasses. the landlady's glasses were little thin blown glass tumblers, and those which had been borrowed from the public-house were great, dropsical, bloated articles, each supported on a huge gouty leg. this would have been in itself sufficient to have possessed the company with the real state of affairs; but the young woman of all work had prevented the possibility of any misconception arising in the mind of any gentleman upon the subject, by forcibly dragging every man's glass away, long before he had finished his beer, and audibly stating, despite the winks and interruptions of mr. bob sawyer, that it was to be conveyed down-stairs, and washed forthwith. it is a very ill wind that blows nobody any good. the prim man in the cloth boots, who had been unsuccessfully attempting to make a joke during the whole time the round game lasted, saw his opportunity, and availed himself of it. the instant the glasses disappeared, he commenced a long story about a great public character, whose name he had forgotten, making a particularly happy reply to another eminent and illustrious individual whom he had never been able to identify. he enlarged at some length and with great minuteness upon divers collateral circumstances, distantly connected with the anecdote in hand, but for the life of him he couldn't recollect at that precise moment what the anecdote was, although he had been in the habit of telling the story with great applause for the last ten years. "dear me," said the prim man in the cloth boots, "it is a very extraordinary circumstance." "i am sorry you have forgotten it," said mr. bob sawyer, glancing eagerly at the door, as he thought he heard the noise of glasses jingling; "very sorry." "so am i," responded the prim man, "because i know it would have afforded so much amusement. never mind; i dare say i shall manage to recollect it, in the course of half an hour or so." the prim man arrived at this point, just as the glasses came back, when mr. bob sawyer, who had been absorbed in attention during the whole time, said he should very much like to hear the end of it, for, so far as it went, it was, without exception, the very best story he had ever heard. the sight of the tumblers restored bob sawyer to a degree of equanimity which he had not possessed since his interview with his landlady. his face brightened up, and he began to feel quite convivial. "now, betsy," said mr. bob sawyer, with great suavity, and dispersing, at the same time, the tumultuous little mob of glasses the girl had collected in the centre of the table: "now, betsy, the warm water: be brisk, there's a good girl." "you can't have no warm water," replied betsy. "no warm water!" exclaimed mr. bob sawyer. "no," said the girl, with a shake of the head which expressed a more decided negative than the most copious language could have conveyed. "missis raddle said you warn't to have none." the surprise depicted on the countenances of his guests imparted new courage to the host. "bring up the warm water instantly--instantly!" said mr. bob sawyer, with desperate sternness. "no. i can't," replied the girl; "missis raddle raked out the kitchen fire afore she went to bed, and locked up the kittle." "oh, never mind; never mind. pray don't disturb yourself about such a trifle," said mr. pickwick, observing the conflict of bob sawyer's passions, as depicted in his countenance, "cold water will do very well." "oh, admirably," said mr. benjamin allen. "my landlady is subject to some slight attacks of mental derangement," remarked bob sawyer with a ghastly smile; "and i fear i must give her warning." "no, don't," said ben allen. "i fear i must," said bob, with heroic firmness. "i'll pay her what i owe her, and give her warning to-morrow morning." poor fellow! how devoutly he wished he could! mr. bob sawyer's heart-sickening attempts to rally under this last blow, communicated a dispiriting influence on the company, the greater part of whom, with the view of raising their spirits, attached themselves with extra cordiality to the cold brandy and water, the first perceptible effects of which were displayed in a renewal of hostilities between the scorbutic youth and the gentleman in the shirt. the belligerents vented their feelings of mutual contempt, for some time, in a variety of frownings and snortings, until at last the scorbutic youth felt it necessary to come to a more explicit understanding on the matter, when the following clear understanding took place. "sawyer," said the scorbutic youth, in a loud voice. "well, noddy," replied mr. bob sawyer. "i should be very sorry, sawyer," said mr. noddy, "to create any unpleasantness at any friend's table, and much less at yours, sawyer--very; but i must take this opportunity of informing mr. gunter that he is no gentleman." "and _i_ should be very sorry, sawyer, to create any disturbance in the street in which you reside," said mr. gunter, "but i'm afraid i shall be under the necessity of alarming the neighbours by throwing the person who has just spoken, out o' window." "what do you mean by that, sir?" inquired mr. noddy. "what i say, sir," replied mr. gunter. "i should like to see you do it, sir," said mr. noddy. "you shall feel me do it in half a minute, sir," replied mr. gunter. "i request that you'll favour me with your card, sir," said mr. noddy. "i'll do nothing of the kind, sir," replied mr. gunter. "why not, sir?" inquired mr. noddy. "because you'll stick it up over your chimney-piece, and delude your visitors into the false belief that a gentleman has been to see you, sir," replied mr. gunter. "sir, a friend of mine shall wait on you in the morning," said mr. noddy. "sir, i'm very much obliged to you for the caution, and i'll leave particular directions with the servant to lock up the spoons," replied mr. gunter. at this point the remainder of the guests interposed, and remonstrated with both parties on the impropriety of their conduct; on which mr. noddy begged to state that his father was quite as respectable as mr. gunter's father; to which mr. gunter replied that his father was to the full as respectable as mr. noddy's father, and that his father's son was as good a man as mr. noddy, any day in the week. as this announcement seemed the prelude to a recommencement of the dispute, there was another interference on the part of the company; and a vast quantity of talking and clamouring ensued, in the course of which mr. noddy gradually allowed his feelings to overpower him, and professed that he had ever entertained a devoted personal attachment towards mr. gunter. to this mr. gunter replied that, upon the whole, he rather preferred mr. noddy to his own brother; on hearing which admission, mr. noddy magnanimously rose from his seat, and proffered his hand to mr. gunter. mr. gunter grasped it with affecting fervour; and everybody said that the whole dispute had been conducted in a manner which was highly honourable to both parties concerned. "now," said jack hopkins, "just to set us going again, bob, i don't mind singing a song." and hopkins, incited thereto by tumultuous applause, plunged himself at once into "the king, god bless him," which he sang as loud as he could, to a novel air, compounded of the "bay of biscay," and "a frog he would." the chorus was the essence of the song; and, as each gentleman sang it to the tune he knew best, the effect was very striking indeed. it was at the end of the chorus to the first verse, that mr. pickwick held up his hand in a listening attitude, and said, as soon as silence was restored: "hush! i beg your pardon. i thought i heard somebody calling from up-stairs." a profound silence immediately ensued; and mr. bob sawyer was observed to turn pale. "i think i hear it now," said mr. pickwick. "have the goodness to open the door." the door was no sooner opened than all doubt on the subject was removed. "mr. sawyer! mr. sawyer!" screamed a voice from the two-pair landing. "it's my landlady," said bob sawyer, looking round him with great dismay. "yes, mrs. raddle." "what do you mean by this, mr. sawyer?" replied the voice, with great shrillness and rapidity of utterance. "ain't it enough to be swindled out of one's rent, and money lent out of pocket besides, and abused and insulted by your friends that dares to call themselves men: without having the house turned out of window, and noise enough made to bring the fire-engines here, at two o'clock in the morning? turn them wretches away." "you ought to be ashamed of yourselves," said the voice of mr. raddle, which appeared to proceed from beneath some distant bed-clothes. "ashamed of themselves!" said mrs. raddle. "why don't you go down and knock 'em every one down-stairs? you would if you was a man." "i should if i was a dozen men, my dear," replied mr. raddle, pacifically, "but they've the advantage of me in numbers, my dear." "ugh, you coward!" replied mrs. raddle, with supreme contempt. "_do_ you mean to turn them wretches out, or not, mr. sawyer?" "they're going, mrs. raddle, they're going," said the miserable bob. "i am afraid you'd better go," said mr. bob sawyer to his friends. "i _thought_ you were making too much noise." "it's a very unfortunate thing," said the prim man. "just as we were getting so comfortable too!" the prim man was just beginning to have a dawning recollection of the story he had forgotten. "it's hardly to be borne," said the prim man, looking round. "hardly to be borne, is it?" "not to be endured," replied jack hopkins; "let's have the other verse, bob. come, here goes!" "no, no, jack, don't," interrupted bob sawyer; "it's a capital song, but i am afraid we had better not have the other verse. they are very violent people, the people of the house." "shall i step up-stairs and pitch into the landlord?" inquired hopkins, "or keep on ringing the bell, or go and groan on the staircase? you may command me, bob." "i am very much indebted to you for your friendship and good nature, hopkins," said the wretched mr. bob sawyer, "but i think, the best plan to avoid any further dispute is for us to break up at once." "now mr. sawyer!" screamed the shrill voice of mrs. raddle, "_are_ them brutes going?" "they're only looking for their hats, mrs. raddle," said bob; "they are going directly." "going!" said mrs. raddle, thrusting her night-cap over the banisters just as mr. pickwick, followed by mr. tupman, emerged from the sitting-room. "going! what did they ever come for?" "my dear ma'am," remonstrated mr. pickwick, looking up. "get along with you, you old wretch!" replied mrs. raddle, hastily withdrawing the night-cap. "old enough to be his grandfather, you willin! you're worse than any of 'em." mr. pickwick found it in vain to protest his innocence, so hurried down-stairs into the street, whither he was closely followed by mr. tupman, mr. winkle, and mr. snodgrass. mr. ben allen, who was dismally depressed with spirits and agitation, accompanied them as far as london bridge, and in the course of the walk confided to mr. winkle, as an especially eligible person to entrust the secret to, that he was resolved to cut the throat of any gentleman except mr. bob sawyer, who should aspire to the affections of his sister arabella. having expressed his determination to perform this painful duty of a brother with proper firmness, he burst into tears, knocked his hat over his eyes, and, making the best of his way back, knocked double knocks at the door of the borough market office, and took short naps on the steps alternately, until daybreak, under the firm impression that he lived there, and had forgotten the key. the visitors having all departed, in compliance with the rather pressing request of mrs. raddle, the luckless mr. bob sawyer was left alone to meditate on the probable events of to-morrow, and the pleasures of the evening. chapter v [illustration] _mr. weller the elder delivers some critical sentiments respecting literary composition; and, assisted by his son samuel, pays a small instalment of retaliation to the account of the reverend gentleman with the red nose_ the morning of the thirteenth of february, which the readers of this authentic narrative know, as well as we do, to have been the day immediately preceding that which was appointed for the trial of mrs. bardell's action, was a busy time for mr. samuel weller, who was perpetually engaged in travelling from the george and vulture to mr. perker's chambers and back again, from and between the hours of nine o'clock in the morning and two in the afternoon, both inclusive. not that there was anything whatever to be done, for the consultation had taken place, and the course of proceeding to be adopted, had been finally determined on; but mr. pickwick being in a most extreme state of excitement, persevered in constantly sending small notes to his attorney, merely containing the inquiry, "dear perker. is all going on well?" to which mr. perker invariably forwarded the reply, "dear pickwick. as well as possible;" the fact being, as we have already hinted, that there was nothing whatever to go on, either well or ill, until the sitting of the court on the following morning. but people who go voluntarily to law, or are taken forcibly there, for the first time, may be allowed to labour under some temporary irritation and anxiety: and sam, with a due allowance for the frailties of human nature, obeyed all his master's behests with that imperturbable good humour and unruffable composure which formed one of his most striking and amiable characteristics. sam had solaced himself with a most agreeable little dinner, and was waiting at the bar for the glass of warm mixture in which mr. pickwick had requested him to drown the fatigues of his morning's walks, when a young boy of about three feet high, or thereabouts, in a hairy cap and fustian over-alls, whose garb bespoke a laudable ambition to attain in time the elevation of an hostler, entered the passage of the george and vulture, and looked first up the stairs, and then along the passage, and then into the bar, as if in search of somebody to whom he bore a commission; whereupon the barmaid, conceiving it not improbable that the said commission might be directed to the tea or table spoons of the establishment, accosted the boy with: "now, young man, what do _you_ want?" "is there anybody here, named sam?" inquired the youth, in a loud voice of treble quality. [illustration: "_is there anybody here, named sam?_"] "what's the t'other name?" said sam weller, looking round. "how should i know?" briskly replied the young gentleman below the hairy cap. "you're a sharp boy, you are," said mr. weller; "only i wouldn't show that wery fine edge too much, if i was you, in case anybody took it off. what do you mean by comin' to a hot-el and asking arter sam, vith as much politeness as a vild indian?" "'cos an old gen'l'm'n told me to," replied the boy. "what old gen'l'm'n?" inquired sam, with deep disdain. "him as drives a ipswich coach, and uses our parlour," rejoined the boy. "he told me yesterday mornin' to come to the george and wultur this arternoon, and ask for sam." "it's my father, my dear," said mr. weller, turning with an explanatory air to the young lady in the bar; "blessed if i think he hardly knows wot my other name is. vell, young brockiley sprout, wot then?" "why, then," said the boy, "you was to come to him at six o'clock to our 'ouse, 'cos he wants to see you--blue boar, leaden'all markit. shall i say you're comin'?" "you _may_ wenture on that 'ere statement, sir," replied sam. and thus empowered, the young gentleman walked away, awakening all the echoes in george yard, as he did so, with several chaste and extremely correct imitations of a drover's whistle, delivered in a tone of peculiar richness and volume. mr. weller having obtained leave of absence from mr. pickwick, who, in his then state of excitement and worry was by no means displeased at being left alone, set forth, long before the appointed hour, and having plenty of time at his disposal, sauntered down as far as the mansion house, where he paused and contemplated, with a face of great calmness and philosophy, the numerous cads and drivers of short stages who assemble near that famous place of resort, to the great terror and confusion of the old-lady population of these realms. having loitered here, for half an hour or so, mr. weller turned, and began wending his way towards leadenhall market, through a variety of by-streets and courts. as he was sauntering away his spare time, and stopped to look at almost every object that met his gaze, it is by no means surprising that mr. weller should have paused before a small stationer's and print-seller's window; but without further explanation it does appear surprising that his eyes should have no sooner rested on certain pictures which were exposed for sale therein, than he gave a sudden start, smote his right leg with great vehemence, and exclaimed with energy, "if it hadn't been for this, i should ha' forgot all about it, till it was too late!" the particular picture on which sam weller's eyes were fixed, as he said this, was a highly coloured representation of a couple of human hearts, skewered together with an arrow, cooking before a cheerful fire, while a male and female cannibal in modern attire: the gentleman being clad in a blue coat and white trousers, and the lady in a deep red pelisse with a parasol of the same: were approaching the meal with hungry eyes, up a serpentine gravel path leading thereunto. a decidedly indelicate young gentleman, in a pair of wings and nothing else, was depicted as superintending the cooking; a representation of the spire of the church in langham place, london, appeared in the distance; and the whole formed a "valentine," of which, as a written inscription in the window testified, there was a large assortment within, which the shopkeeper pledged himself to dispose of, to his countrymen generally, at the reduced rate of one and sixpence each. "i should ha' forgot it; i should certainly ha' forgot it!" said sam; so saying, he at once stepped into the stationer's shop, and requested to be served with a sheet of the best gilt-edged letter-paper, and a hard-nibbed pen which could be warranted not to splutter. these articles having been promptly supplied, he walked on direct towards leadenhall market at a good round pace, very different from his recent lingering one. looking round him, he there beheld a sign-board on which the painter's art had delineated something remotely resembling a cerulean elephant with an aquiline nose in lieu of trunk. rightly conjecturing that this was the blue boar himself, he stepped into the house, and inquired concerning his parent. "he won't be here this three-quarters of an hour or more," said the young lady who superintended the domestic arrangements of the blue boar. "wery good, my dear," replied sam. "let me have nine penn'orth o' brandy and water luke, and the inkstand, will you, miss?" the brandy and water luke, and the inkstand, having been carried into the little parlour, and the young lady having carefully flattened down the coals to prevent their blazing, and carried away the poker to preclude the possibility of the fire being stirred, without the full privity and concurrence of the blue boar being first had and obtained, sam weller sat himself down in a box near the stove, and pulled out the sheet of gilt-edged letter-paper, and the hard-nibbed pen. then looking carefully at the pen to see that there were no hairs in it, and dusting down the table, so that there might be no crumbs of bread under the paper, sam tucked up the cuffs of his coat, squared his elbows, and composed himself to write. to ladies and gentlemen who are not in the habit of devoting themselves practically to the science of penmanship, writing a letter is no very easy task; it being always considered necessary in such cases for the writer to recline his head on his left arm, so as to place his eyes as nearly as possible on a level with the paper, while glancing sideways at the letters he is constructing, and to form with his tongue imaginary characters to correspond. these motions, although unquestionably of the greatest assistance to original composition, retard in some degree the progress of the writer; and sam had unconsciously been a full hour and a half writing words in small text, smearing out wrong letters with his little finger, and putting in new ones which required going over often to render them visible through the old blots, when he was roused by the opening of the door and the entrance of his parent. "vell, sammy," said the father. "vell, my prooshan blue," responded the son, laying down his pen. "what's the last bulletin about mother-in-law?" "'mrs. weller passed a very good night, but is uncommon perwerse and unpleasant this mornin'. signed upon oath, s. veller, esquire, senior.' that's the last vun as was issued, sammy," replied mr. weller, untying his shawl. "no better yet?" inquired sam. "all the symptoms aggerawated," replied mr. weller, shaking his head. "but wot's that, you're a doin' of? pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, sammy?" "i've done now," said sam, with slight embarrassment; "i've been a writin'." "so i see," replied mr. weller. "not to any young 'ooman, i hope, sammy?" "why it's no use a sayin' it ain't," replied sam. "it's a walentine." "a what!" exclaimed mr. weller, apparently horror-stricken by the word. [illustration: _"a what!" asked mr. weller, apparently horror-stricken by the word. "a walentine," replied sam._] "a walentine," replied sam. "samivel, samivel," said mr. weller, in reproachful accents, "i didn't think you'd ha' done it. arter the warnin' you've had o' your father's wicious propensities; arter all i've said to you upon this here wery subject; arter actiwally seein' and bein' in the company o' your own mother-in-law, vich i should ha' thought wos a moral lesson as no man could never ha' forgotten to his dyin' day! i didn't think you'd ha' done it, sammy, i didn't think you'd ha' done it!" these reflections were too much for the good old man. he raised sam's tumbler to his lips and drank off its contents. "wot's the matter now?" said sam. "nev'r mind, sammy," replied mr. weller, "it'll be a wery agonizin' trial to me at my time of life, but i'm pretty tough, that's vun consolation, as the wery old turkey remarked ven the farmer said he wos afeerd he should be obliged to kill him for the london market." "wot'll be a trial?" inquired sam. "to see you married, sammy--to see you a dilluded wictim, and thinkin' in your innocence that it's all wery capital," replied mr. weller. "it's a dreadful trial to a father's feelin's, that 'ere, sammy." "nonsense," said sam. "i ain't a goin' to get married, don't you fret yourself about that; i know you're a judge of these things. order in your pipe, and i'll read you the letter. there!" we cannot distinctly say whether it was the prospect of the pipe, or the consolatory reflection that a fatal disposition to get married ran in the family and couldn't be helped, which calmed mr. weller's feelings, and caused his grief to subside. we should be rather disposed to say that the result was attained by combining the two sources of consolation, for he repeated the second in a low tone, very frequently; ringing the bell meanwhile, to order in the first. he then divested himself of his upper coat; and lighting the pipe and placing himself in front of the fire with his back towards it, so that he could feel its full heat, and recline against the mantelpiece at the same time, turned towards sam, and, with a countenance greatly mollified by the softening influence of tobacco, requested him to "fire away." sam dipped his pen into the ink to be ready for any corrections, and began with a very theatrical air: "'lovely----'" "stop," said mr. weller, ringing the bell. "a double glass o' the inwariable, my dear." "very well, sir," replied the girl; who with great quickness appeared, vanished, returned, and disappeared. "they seem to know your ways here," observed sam. "yes," replied his father, "i've been here before, in my time. go on, sammy." "'lovely creetur,'" repeated sam. "'tain't in poetry, is it?" interposed his father. "no, no," replied sam. "wery glad to hear it," said mr. weller. "poetry's unnat'ral; no man ever talked poetry 'cept a beadle on boxin' day, or warren's blackin', or rowland's oil, or some o' them low fellows; never you let yourself down to talk poetry, my boy. begin agin, sammy." mr. weller resumed his pipe with critical solemnity, and sam once more commenced, and read as follows: "'lovely creetur i feel myself a damned----'" "that ain't proper," said mr. weller, taking his pipe from his mouth. "no; it ain't 'damned,'" observed sam, holding the letter up to the light, "it's 'shamed,' there's a blot there--'i feel myself ashamed.'" "wery good," said mr. weller. "go on." "'feel myself ashamed, and completely cir--' i forget what this here word is," said sam, scratching his head with the pen, in vain attempts to remember. "why don't you look at it, then?" inquired mr. weller. "so i _am_ a lookin' at it," replied sam, "but there's another blot. here's a 'c,' and a 'i,' and a 'd.'" "circumwented, p'raps," suggested mr. weller. "no, it ain't that," said sam, "circumscribed; that's it." "that ain't as good a word as circumwented, sammy," said mr. weller, gravely. "think not?" said sam. "nothin' like it," replied his father. "but don't you think it means more?" inquired sam. "vell, p'raps it is a more tenderer word," said mr. weller, after a moment's reflection. "go on, sammy." "'feel myself ashamed and completely circumscribed in a dressin' of you, for you _are_ a nice gal and nothin' but it.'" "that's a wery pretty sentiment," said the elder mr. weller, removing his pipe to make way for the remark. "yes, i think it is rayther good," observed sam, highly flattered. "wot i like in that 'ere style of writin'," said the elder mr. weller, "is that there ain't no callin' names in it--no wenuses, nor nothin' o' that kind. wot's the good o' callin' a young 'ooman a wenus or a angel, sammy?" "ah! what, indeed?" replied sam. "you might jist as well call her a griffin, or a unicorn, or a king's arms at once, which is wery well known to be a col-lection o' fabulous animals," added mr. weller. "just as well," replied sam. "drive on, sammy," said mr. weller. sam complied with the request, and proceeded as follows: his father continuing to smoke, with a mixed expression of wisdom and complacency, which was particularly edifying, "'afore i see you, i thought all women was alike.'" "so they are," observed the elder mr. weller, parenthetically. "'but now,' continued sam, 'now i find what a reg'lar soft-headed, inkred'lous turnip i must ha' been; for there ain't nobody like you, though _i_ like you better than nothin' at all.' i thought it best to make that rayther strong," said sam, looking up. mr. weller nodded approvingly, and sam resumed. "'so i take the privilidge of the day, mary my dear--as the gen'l'm'n in difficulties did, ven he walked out of a sunday--to tell you that the first and only time i see you, your likeness was took on my hart in much quicker time and brighter colours than ever a likeness was took by the profeel macheen (vich p'raps you may have heerd on mary my dear) altho it _does_ finish a portrait and put the frame and glass on complete, with a hook at the end to hang it up by, and all in two minutes and a quarter.'" "i am afeerd that werges on the poetical, sammy," said mr. weller, dubiously. "no it don't," replied sam, reading on very quickly, to avoid contesting the point. "'except of me mary my dear as your walentine and think over what i've said.--my dear mary i will now conclude.' that's all," said sam. "that's rather a sudden pull up, ain't it, sammy?" inquired mr. weller. "not a bit on it," said sam; "she'll vish there wos more, and that's the great art o' letter writin'." "well," said mr. weller, "there's somethin' in that; and i wish your mother-in-law 'ud only conduct her conwersation on the same gen-teel principle. ain't you a goin' to sign it?" "that's the difficulty," said sam; "i don't know what _to_ sign it." "sign it, veller," said the oldest surviving proprietor of that name. "won't do," said sam. "never sign a walentine with your own name." "sign it 'pickvick,' then," said mr. weller; "it's a wery good name and an easy one to spell." "the wery thing," said sam. "i _could_ end with a werse; what do you think?" "i don't like it, sam," rejoined mr. weller. "i never know'd a respectable coachman as wrote poetry, 'cept one, as made an affectin' copy o' werses the night afore he wos hung for a highway robbery; and _he_ wos only a cambervell man, so even that's no rule." but sam was not to be dissuaded from the poetical idea that had occurred to him, so he signed the letter, "your love-sick pickwick." and having folded it in a very intricate manner, squeezed a down-hill direction in one corner: "to mary, housemaid, at mr. nupkins's mayor's, ipswich, suffolk;" and put it into his pocket, wafered, and ready for the general post. this important business having been transacted, mr. weller the elder proceeded to open that on which he had summoned his son. "the first matter relates to your governor, sammy," said mr. weller. "he's a goin' to be tried to-morrow, ain't he?" "the trial's a comin' on," replied sam. "vell," said mr. weller, "now i s'pose he'll want to call some witnesses to speak to his character, or p'raps to prove a alleybi. i've been a turnin' the business over in my mind, and he may make his-self easy, sammy. i've got some friends as'll do either for him, but my adwice 'ud be this here--never mind the character, and stick to the alleybi. nothing like a alleybi, sammy, nothing." mr. weller looked very profound as he delivered this legal opinion; and burying his nose in his tumbler, winked over the top thereof, at his astonished son. "why, what do you mean?" said sam; "you don't think he's a goin' to be tried at the old bailey, do you?" "that ain't no part of the present con-sideration, sammy," replied mr. weller. "verever he's a goin' to be tried, my boy, a alleybi's the thing to get him off. ve got tom vildspark off that 'ere manslaughter, with a alleybi, ven all the big vigs to a man said as nothin' couldn't save him. and my 'pinion is, sammy, that if your governor don't prove a alleybi, he'll be what the italians call reg'larly flummoxed, and that's all about it." as the elder mr. weller entertained a firm and unalterable conviction that the old bailey was the supreme court of judicature in this country, and that its rules and forms of proceeding regulated and controlled the practice of all other courts of justice whatsoever, he totally disregarded the assurances and arguments of his son, tending to show that the alibi was inadmissible; and vehemently protested that mr. pickwick was being "wictimised." finding that it was of no use to discuss the matter further, sam changed the subject, and inquired what the second topic was, on which his revered parent wished to consult him. "that's a pint o' domestic policy, sammy," said mr. weller. "this here stiggins----" "red-nosed man?" inquired sam. "the wery same," replied mr. weller. "this here red-nosed man, sammy, wisits your mother-in-law vith a kindness and constancy as i never see equalled. he's sitch a friend o' the family, sammy, that ven he's avay from us, he can't be comfortable unless he has somethin' to remember us by." "and i'd give him somethin' as 'ud turpentine and bees'-vax his memory for the next ten year or so, if i wos you," interposed sam. "stop a minute," said mr. weller; "i wos a going to say, he always brings now, a flat bottle as holds about a pint and a half and fills it vith the pine-apple rum afore he goes avay." "and empties it afore he comes back, i s'pose?" said sam. "clean!" replied mr. weller; "never leaves nothin' in it but the cork and the smell; trust him for that, sammy. now, these here fellows, my boy, are a goin' to-night to get up the monthly meetin' o' the brick lane branch o' the united grand junction ebenezer temperance association. your mother-in-law _wos_ a goin', sammy, but she's got the rheumatics, and can't; and i, sammy--i've got the two tickets as wos sent her." mr. weller communicated his secret with great glee, and winked so indefatigably after doing so, that sam began to think he must have got the _tic doloureux_ in his right eye-lid. "well?" said that young gentleman. "well," continued his progenitor, looking round him very cautiously, "you and i'll go, punctival to the time. the deputy shepherd won't, sammy; the deputy shepherd won't." here mr. weller was seized with a paroxysm of chuckles, which gradually terminated in as near an approach to a choke as an elderly gentleman can, with safety, sustain. "well, i never see sitch an old ghost in all my born days," exclaimed sam, rubbing the old gentleman's back, hard enough to set him on fire with friction. "what are you a laughin' at, corpilence?" "hush! sammy," said mr. weller, looking round him with increased caution, and speaking in a whisper: "two friends o' mine, as works the oxford road, and is up to all kinds o' games, has got the deputy shepherd safe in tow, sammy; and ven he does come to the ebenezer junction (vich he's sure to do: for they'll see him to the door, and shove him in if necessary), he'll be as far gone in rum and water, as ever he wos at the markis o' granby, dorkin', and that's not sayin' a little neither." and with this, mr. weller once more laughed immoderately, and once more relapsed into a state of partial suffocation, in consequence. nothing could have been more in accordance with sam weller's feelings, than the projected exposure of the real propensities and qualities of the red-nosed man; and it being very near the appointed hour of meeting, the father and son took their way at once to brick lane: sam not forgetting to drop his letter into a general post-office as they walked along. the monthly meetings of the brick lane branch of the united grand junction ebenezer temperance association were held in a large room, pleasantly and airily situated at the top of a safe and commodious ladder. the president was the straight-walking mr. anthony humm, a converted fireman, now a schoolmaster, and occasionally an itinerant preacher; and the secretary was mr. jonas mudge, chandler's-shop keeper, an enthusiastic and disinterested vessel, who sold tea to the members. previous to the commencement of business, the ladies sat upon forms, and drank tea, till such time as they considered it expedient to leave off; and a large wooden money-box was conspicuously placed upon the green baize cloth of the business table, behind which the secretary stood, and acknowledged, with a gracious smile, every addition to the rich vein of copper which lay concealed within. on this particular occasion the women drank tea to a most alarming extent; greatly to the horror of mr. weller senior, who, utterly regardless of all sam's admonitory nudgings, stared about him in every direction with the most undisguised astonishment. "sammy," whispered mr. weller, "if some o' these here people don't want tappin' to-morrow mornin', i ain't your father, and that's wot it is. why, this here old lady next me is a drowndin' herself in tea." "be quiet, can't you?" murmured sam. "sam," whispered mr. weller, a moment afterwards, in a tone of deep agitation, "mark my words, my boy. if that 'ere secretary fellow keeps on for only five minutes more, he'll blow hisself up with toast and water." "well, let him, if he likes," replied sam; "it ain't no bis'ness o' yourn." "if this here lasts much longer, sammy," said mr. weller, in the same low voice, "i shall feel it my duty, as a human bein', to rise and address the cheer. there's a young 'ooman on the next form but two, as has drunk nine breakfast cups and a half; and she's a swellin' wisibly before my wery eyes." there is little doubt that mr. weller would have carried his benevolent intention into immediate execution, if a great noise, occasioned by putting up the cups and saucers, had not very fortunately announced that the tea-drinking was over. the crockery having been removed, the table with the green baize cover was carried out into the centre of the room, and the business of the evening was commenced by a little emphatic man, with a bald head, and drab shorts, who suddenly rushed up the ladder, at the imminent peril of snapping the two little legs encased in the drab shorts, and said: "ladies and gentlemen, i move our excellent brother, mr. anthony humm, into the chair." the ladies waved a choice collection of pocket-handkerchiefs at this proposition; and the impetuous little man literally moved mr. humm into the chair, by taking him by the shoulders and thrusting him into a mahogany frame which had once represented that article of furniture. the waving of handkerchiefs was renewed; and mr. humm, who was a sleek, white-faced man, in a perpetual perspiration, bowed meekly, to the great admiration of the females, and formally took his seat. silence was then proclaimed by the little man in the drab shorts, and mr. humm rose and said--that, with the permission of his brick lane branch brothers and sisters, then and there present, the secretary would read the report of the brick lane branch committee; a proposition which was again received with a demonstration of pocket-handkerchiefs. the secretary having sneezed in a very impressive manner, and the cough which always seizes an assembly, when anything particular is going to be done, having been duly performed, the following document was read: "+report of the committee of the brick lane branch of the united grand junction ebenezer temperance association+ "your committee have pursued their grateful labours during the past month, and have the unspeakable pleasure of reporting the following additional cases of converts to temperance. "h. walker, tailor, wife, and two children. when in better circumstances, owns to having been in the constant habit of drinking ale and beer; says he is not certain whether he did not twice a week for twenty years taste 'dog's nose,' which your committee find upon inquiry to be compounded of warm porter, moist sugar, gin, and nutmeg (a groan, and 'so it is!' from an elderly female). is now out of work and penniless; thinks it must be the porter (cheers) or the loss of the use of his right hand; is not certain which, but thinks it very likely that, if he had drunk nothing but water all his life, his fellow-workman would never have stuck a rusty needle in him, and thereby occasioned his accident (tremendous cheering). has nothing but cold water to drink, and never feels thirsty (great applause). "betsy martin, widow, one child and one eye. goes out charing and washing, by the day; never had more than one eye, but knows her mother drank bottled stout, and shouldn't wonder if that caused it (immense cheering). thinks it not impossible that if she had always abstained from spirits, she might have had two eyes by this time (tremendous applause). used, at every place she went to, to have eighteenpence a day, a pint of porter, and a glass of spirits; but since she became a member of the brick lane branch, has always demanded three and sixpence instead (the announcement of this most interesting fact was received with deafening enthusiasm). "henry beller was for many years toast-master at various corporation dinners, during which time he drank a great deal of foreign wine; may sometimes have carried a bottle or two home with him; is not quite certain of that, but is sure if he did, that he drank the contents. feels very low and melancholy, is very feverish, and has a constant thirst upon him; thinks it must be the wine he used to drink (cheers). is out of employ now: and never touches a drop of foreign wine by any chance (tremendous plaudits). "thomas burton is a purveyor of cats' meat to the lord mayor and sheriffs, and several members of the common council (the announcement of this gentleman's name was received with breathless interest). has a wooden leg; finds a wooden leg expensive, going over the stones; used to wear second-hand wooden legs, and drink a glass of hot gin and water regularly every night--sometimes two (deep sighs). found the second-hand wooden legs split and rot very quickly; is firmly persuaded that their constitution was undermined by the gin and water (prolonged cheering). buys new wooden legs now, and drinks nothing but water and weak tea. the new legs last twice as long as the others used to do, and he attributes this solely to his temperate habits" (triumphant cheers). anthony humm now moved that the assembly do regale itself with a song. with a view to their rational and moral enjoyment, brother mordlin had adapted the beautiful words of "who hasn't heard of a jolly young waterman?" to the tune of the old hundredth which he would request them to join him in singing (great applause). he might take that opportunity of expressing his firm persuasion that the late mr. dibdin, seeing the errors of his former life, had written that song to show the advantages of abstinence. it was a temperance song (whirlwinds of cheers). the neatness of the young man's attire, the dexterity of his feathering, the enviable state of mind which enabled him in the beautiful words of the poet, to "row along, thinking of nothing at all," all combined to prove that he must have been a water-drinker (cheers). oh, what a state of virtuous jollity! (rapturous cheering). and what was the young man's reward? let all young men present mark this: "the maidens all flock'd to his boat so readily." (loud cheers, in which the ladies joined.) what a bright example! the sisterhood, the maidens, flocking round the young waterman, and urging him along the stream of duty and of temperance. but, was it the maidens of humble life only, who soothed, consoled, and supported him? no! "he was always first oars with the fine city ladies." (immense cheering.) the soft sex to a man--he begged pardon, to a female--rallied round the young waterman, and turned with disgust from the drinker of spirits (cheers). the brick lane branch brothers were watermen (cheers and laughter). that room was their boat; that audience were the maidens; and he (mr. anthony humm), however unworthily, was "first oars" (unbounded applause). "wot does he mean by the soft sex, sammy?" inquired mr. weller, in a whisper. "the womin," said sam, in the same tone. "he ain't far out there, sammy," replied mr. weller; "they _must_ be a soft sex,--a wery soft sex, indeed--if they let themselves be gammoned by such fellers as him." any further observations from the indignant old gentleman were cut short by the announcement of the song, which mr. anthony humm gave out, two lines at a time, for the information of such of his hearers as were unacquainted with the legend. while it was being sung, the little man with the drab shorts disappeared; he returned immediately on its conclusion, and whispered mr. anthony humm, with a face of the deepest importance. "my friends," said mr. humm, holding up his hand in a deprecatory manner, to bespeak the silence of such of the stout old ladies as were yet a line or two behind; "my friends, a delegate from the dorking branch of our society, brother stiggins, attends below." out came the pocket-handkerchiefs again, in greater force than ever; for mr. stiggins was excessively popular among the female constituency of brick lane. "he may approach, i think," said mr. humm, looking round him, with a fat smile. "brother tadger, let him come forth and greet us." the little man in drab shorts who answered to the name of brother tadger, bustled down the ladder with great speed, and was immediately afterwards heard tumbling up with the reverend mr. stiggins. "he's a comin', sammy," whispered mr. weller, purple in the countenance with suppressed laughter. "don't say nothin' to me," replied sam, "for i can't bear it. he's close to the door. i hear him a-knockin' his head again the lath and plaster now." as sam weller spoke, the little door flew open, and brother tadger appeared, closely followed by the reverend mr. stiggins, who no sooner entered, than there was a great clapping of hands, and stamping of feet, and flourishing of handkerchiefs; to all of which manifestations of delight, brother stiggins returned no other acknowledgment than staring with a wild eye, and a fixed smile, at the extreme top of the wick of the candle on the table: swaying his body to and fro, meanwhile, in a very unsteady and uncertain manner. "are you unwell, brother stiggins?" whispered mr. anthony humm. "i am all right, sir," replied mr. stiggins, in a tone in which ferocity was blended with an extreme thickness of utterance; "i am all right, sir." "oh, very well," rejoined mr. anthony humm, retreating a few paces. "i believe no man here has ventured to say that i am _not_ all right, sir?" said mr. stiggins. "oh, certainly not," said mr. humm. "i should advise him not to, sir; i should advise him not," said mr. stiggins. by this time the audience were perfectly silent, and waited with some anxiety for the resumption of business. "will you address the meeting, brother?" said mr. humm, with a smile of invitation. "no, sir," rejoined mr. stiggins; "no, sir. i will not, sir." the meeting looked at each other with raised eyelids; and a murmur of astonishment ran through the room. "it's my opinion, sir," said mr. stiggins, unbuttoning his coat, and speaking very loudly; "it's my opinion, sir, that this meeting is drunk, sir. brother tadger, sir!" said mr. stiggins, suddenly increasing in ferocity, and turning sharp round on the little man in the drab shorts, "_you_ are drunk, sir!" with this, mr. stiggins, entertaining a praiseworthy desire to promote the sobriety of the meeting, and to exclude therefrom all improper characters, hit brother tadger on the summit of the nose with such unerring aim, that the drab shorts disappeared like a flash of lightning. brother tadger had been knocked, head first, down the ladder. upon this, the women set up a loud and dismal screaming; and rushing in small parties before their favourite brothers, flung their arms around them to preserve them from danger. an instance of affection which had nearly proved fatal to humm, who, being extremely popular, was all but suffocated, by the crowd of female devotees that hung about his neck, and heaped caresses upon him. the greater part of the lights were quickly put out, and nothing but noise and confusion resounded on all sides. "now, sammy," said mr. weller, taking off his great-coat with much deliberation, "just you step out, and fetch in a watchman." "and wot are you a goin' to do, the while?" inquired sam. "never you mind me, sammy," replied the old gentleman; "i shall ockipy myself in havin' a small settlement with that 'ere stiggins." before sam could interfere to prevent it, his heroic parent had penetrated into a remote corner of the room, and attacked the reverend mr. stiggins with manual dexterity. "come off!" said sam. "come on!" cried mr. weller; and without further invitation he gave the reverend mr. stiggins a preliminary tap on the head, and began dancing round him in a buoyant and cork-like manner, which in a gentleman at his time of life was a perfect marvel to behold. finding all remonstrance unavailing, sam pulled his hat firmly on, threw his father's coat over his arm, and taking the old man round the waist, forcibly dragged him down the ladder, and into the street; never releasing his hold, or permitting him to stop, until they reached the corner. as they gained it, they could hear the shouts of the populace, who were witnessing the removal of the reverend mr. stiggins to strong lodgings for the night: and could hear the noise occasioned by the dispersion in various directions of the members of the brick lane branch of the united grand junction ebenezer temperance association. chapter vi [illustration] _is wholly devoted to a full and faithful report of the memorable trial of bardell against pickwick_ "i wonder what the foreman of the jury, whoever he'll be, has got for breakfast," said mr. snodgrass, by way of keeping up a conversation on the eventful morning of the fourteenth of february. "ah!" said perker, "i hope he's got a good one." "why so?" inquired mr. pickwick. "highly important; very important, my dear sir," replied perker. "a good, contented, well-breakfasted juryman, is a capital thing to get hold of. discontented or hungry jurymen, my dear sir, always find for the plaintiff." "bless my heart," said mr. pickwick, looking very blank; "what do they do that for?" "why, i don't know," replied the little man, coolly; "saves time, i suppose. if it's near the dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says, 'dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, i declare! i dine at five, gentlemen.' so do i,' says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three, and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. the foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--'well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen? i rather think, so far as i am concerned, gentlemen,--i say, i rather think,--but don't let that influence you--i _rather_ think the plaintiff's the man.' upon this, two or three other men are sure to say that they think so too--as of course they do; and then they get on very unanimously and comfortably. ten minutes past nine!" said the little man, looking at his watch. "time we were off, my dear sir; breach of promise trial--court is generally full in such cases. you had better ring for a coach, my dear sir, or we shall be rather late." mr. pickwick immediately rang the bell; and a coach having been procured, the four pickwickians and mr. perker ensconced themselves therein, and drove to guildhall; sam weller, mr. lowten, and the blue bag, following in a cab. "lowten," said perker, when they reached the outer hall of the court, "put mr. pickwick's friends in the students' box; mr. pickwick himself had better sit by me. this way, my dear sir, this way." taking mr. pickwick by the coat-sleeve, the little man led him to the low seat just beneath the desks of the king's counsel, which is constructed for the convenience of attorneys, who from that spot can whisper into the ear of the leading counsel in the case, any instructions that may be necessary during the progress of the trial. the occupants of this seat are invisible to the great body of spectators, inasmuch as they sit on a much lower level than either the barristers or the audience, whose seats are raised above the floor. of course they have their backs to both, and their faces towards the judge. "that's the witness-box, i suppose?" said mr. pickwick, pointing to a kind of pulpit, with a brass rail, on his left hand. "that's the witness-box, my dear sir," replied perker, disinterring a quantity of papers from the blue bag, which lowten had just deposited at his feet. "and that," said mr. pickwick, pointing to a couple of enclosed seats on his right, "that's where the jurymen sit, is it not?" "the identical place, my dear sir," replied perker, tapping the lid of his snuff-box. mr. pickwick stood up in a state of great agitation, and took a glance at the court. there were already a pretty large sprinkling of spectators in the gallery, and a numerous muster of gentlemen in wigs, in the barristers' seats: who presented, as a body, all that pleasing and extensive variety of nose and whisker for which the bar of england is so justly celebrated. such of the gentlemen as had a brief to carry, carried it in as conspicuous a manner as possible, and occasionally scratched their noses therewith, to impress the fact more strongly on the observation of the spectators. other gentlemen, who had no briefs to show, carried under their arms goodly octavos with a red label behind, and that under-done-pie-crust-coloured cover, which is technically known as "law calf." others, who had neither briefs nor books, thrust their hands into their pockets, and looked as wise as they conveniently could; others, again, moved here and there with great restlessness and earnestness of manner, content to awaken thereby the admiration and astonishment of the uninitiated strangers. the whole, to the great wonderment of mr. pickwick, were divided into little groups, who were chatting and discussing the news of the day in the most unfeeling manner possible,--just as if no trial at all were coming on. a bow from mr. phunky, as he entered, and took his seat behind the row appropriated to the king's counsel, attracted mr. pickwick's attention; and he had scarcely returned it, when mr. serjeant snubbin appeared, followed by mr. mallard, who half hid the serjeant behind a large crimson bag, which he placed on the table, and after shaking hands with perker, withdrew. then there entered two or three more serjeants; and among them, one with a fat body and a red face, who nodded in a friendly manner to mr. serjeant snubbin, and said it was a fine morning. "who's that red-faced man, who said it was a fine morning, and nodded to our counsel?" whispered mr. pickwick. "mr. serjeant buzfuz," replied perker. "he's opposed to us; he leads on the other side. that gentleman behind him is mr. skimpin, his junior." mr. pickwick was on the point of inquiring, with great abhorrence of the man's cold-blooded villainy, how mr. serjeant buzfuz, who was counsel for the opposite party, dared to presume to tell mr. serjeant snubbin, who was counsel for him, that it was a fine morning, when he was interrupted by a general rising of the barristers, and a loud cry of "silence!" from the officers of the court. looking round, he found that this was caused by the entrance of the judge. mr. justice stareleigh (who sat in the absence of the chief justice, occasioned by indisposition), was a most particularly short man, and so fat, that he seemed all face and waistcoat. he rolled in, upon two little turned legs, and having bobbed gravely to the bar, who bobbed gravely to him, put his little legs underneath his table, and his little three-cornered hat upon it; and when mr. justice stareleigh had done this, all you could see of him was two queer little eyes, one broad pink face, and somewhere about half of a big and very comical-looking wig. the judge had no sooner taken his seat, than the officer on the floor of the court called out "silence!" in a commanding tone, upon which another officer in the gallery cried "silence!" in an angry manner, whereupon three or four more ushers shouted "silence!" in a voice of indignant remonstrance. this being done, a gentleman in black, who sat below the judge, proceeded to call over the names of the jury; and after a great deal of bawling, it was discovered that only ten special jurymen were present. upon this, mr. serjeant buzfuz prayed a _tales_; the gentleman in black then proceeded to press into the special jury, two of the common jurymen; and a greengrocer and a chemist were caught directly. "answer to your names, gentlemen, that you may be sworn," said the gentleman in black. "richard upwitch." "here," said the greengrocer. "thomas groffin." "here," said the chemist. "take the book, gentlemen. you shall well and truly try----" "i beg this court's pardon," said the chemist, who was a tall, thin, yellow-visaged man, "but i hope this court will excuse my attendance." "on what grounds, sir?" said mr. justice stareleigh. "i have no assistant, my lord," said the chemist. "i can't help that, sir," replied mr. justice stareleigh. "you should hire one." "i can't afford it, my lord," rejoined the chemist. "then you ought to be able to afford it, sir," said the judge, reddening; for mr. justice stareleigh's temper bordered on the irritable, and brooked no contradiction. "i know i _ought_ to do, if i got on as well as i deserved, but i don't, my lord," answered the chemist. "swear the gentleman," said the judge, peremptorily. the officer had got no further than the "you shall well and truly try," when he was again interrupted by the chemist. "i am to be sworn, my lord, am i?" said the chemist. "certainly, sir," said the testy little judge. "very well, my lord," replied the chemist, in a resigned manner. "then there'll be murder before this trial's over; that's all. swear me, if you please, sir;" and sworn the chemist was, before the judge could find words to utter. "i merely wanted to observe, my lord," said the chemist, taking his seat with great deliberation, "that i've left nobody but an errand-boy in my shop. he is a very nice boy, my lord, but he is not acquainted with drugs; and i know that the prevailing impression on his mind, is that epsom salts means oxalic acid; and syrup of senna, laudanum. that's all, my lord." with this, the tall chemist composed himself into a comfortable attitude, and, assuming a pleasant expression of countenance, appeared to have prepared himself for the worst. mr. pickwick was regarding the chemist with feelings of the deepest horror, when a slight sensation was perceptible in the body of the court; and immediately afterwards mrs. bardell, supported by mrs. cluppins, was led in, and placed, in a drooping state, at the other end of the seat on which mr. pickwick sat. an extra-sized umbrella was then handed in by mr. dodson, and a pair of pattens by mr. fogg, each of whom had prepared a most sympathising and melancholy face for the occasion. mrs. sanders then appeared, leading in master bardell. at sight of her child, mrs. bardell started; suddenly recollecting herself, she kissed him in a frantic manner; then relapsing into a state of hysterical imbecility, the good lady requested to be informed where she was. in reply to this, mrs. cluppins and mrs. sanders turned their heads away and wept, while messrs. dodson and fogg entreated the plaintiff to compose herself. serjeant buzfuz rubbed his eyes very hard with a large white handkerchief, and gave an appealing look towards the jury, while the judge was visibly affected, and several of the beholders tried to cough down their emotions. "very good notion that, indeed," whispered perker to mr. pickwick. "capital fellows those dodson and fogg; excellent ideas of effect, my dear sir, excellent." as perker spoke, mrs. bardell began to recover by slow degrees, while mrs. cluppins, after a careful survey of master bardell's buttons and the button-holes to which they severally belonged, placed him on the floor of the court in front of his mother,--a commanding position in which he could not fail to awaken the full commiseration and sympathy of both judge and jury. this was not done without considerable opposition, and many tears, on the part of the young gentleman himself, who had certain inward misgivings that the placing him within the full glare of the judge's eye was only a formal prelude to his being immediately ordered away for instant execution, or for transportation beyond the seas, during the whole term of his natural life, at the very least. "bardell and pickwick," cried the gentleman in black, calling on the case, which stood first on the list. "i am for the plaintiff, my lord," said mr. serjeant buzfuz. "who is with you, brother buzfuz?" said the judge. mr. skimpin bowed, to intimate that he was. "i appear for the defendant, my lord," said mr. serjeant snubbin. "anybody with you, brother snubbin?" inquired the court. "mr. phunky, my lord," replied serjeant snubbin. "serjeant buzfuz and mr. skimpin for the plaintiff," said the judge, writing down the names in his note-book, and reading as he wrote; "for the defendant, serjeant snubbin and mr. monkey." "beg your lordship's pardon, phunky." "oh, very good," said the judge; "i never had the pleasure of hearing the gentleman's name before." here mr. phunky bowed and smiled and the judge bowed and smiled too, and then mr. phunky, blushing into the very whites of his eyes, tried to look as if he didn't know that everybody was gazing at him: a thing which no man ever succeeded in doing yet, or, in all reasonable probability, ever will. "go on," said the judge. the ushers again called silence, and mr. skimpin proceeded to "open the case;" and the case appeared to have very little inside it when he had opened it, for he kept such particulars as he knew, completely to himself, and sat down, after a lapse of three minutes, leaving the jury in precisely the same advanced stage of wisdom as they were in before. serjeant buzfuz then rose with all the majesty and dignity which the grave nature of the proceedings demanded, and having whispered to dodson, and conferred briefly with fogg, pulled his gown over his shoulders, settled his wig, and addressed the jury. serjeant buzfuz began by saying, that never, in the whole course of his professional experience--never, from the very first moment of his applying himself to the study and practice of the law--had he approached a case with feelings of such deep emotion, or with such a heavy sense of the responsibility imposed upon him--a responsibility, he would say, which he could never have supported, were he not buoyed up and sustained by a conviction so strong, that it amounted to positive certainty that the cause of truth and justice, or, in other words, the cause of his much-injured and most oppressed client, must prevail with the high-minded and intelligent dozen of men whom he now saw in that box before him. counsel usually begin in this way, because it puts the jury on the very best terms with themselves, and makes them think what sharp fellows they must be. a visible effect was produced immediately; several jurymen beginning to take voluminous notes with the utmost eagerness. "you have heard from my learned friend, gentlemen," continued serjeant buzfuz, well knowing that, from the learned friend alluded to, the gentlemen of the jury had heard just nothing at all--"you have heard from my learned friend, gentlemen, that this is an action for a breach of promise of marriage, in which the damages are laid at £ . but you have not heard from my learned friend, inasmuch as it did not come within my learned friend's province to tell you, what are the facts and circumstances of the case. those facts and circumstances, gentlemen, you shall hear detailed by me and proved by the unimpeachable female whom i will place in that box before you." here mr. serjeant buzfuz, with a tremendous emphasis on the word "box," smote his table with a mighty sound, and glanced at dodson and fogg, who nodded admiration of the serjeant, and indignant defiance of the defendant. "the plaintiff, gentlemen," continued serjeant buzfuz, in a soft and melancholy voice, "the plaintiff is a widow; yes, gentlemen, a widow. the late mr. bardell, after enjoying, for many years, the esteem and confidence of his sovereign, as one of the guardians of his royal revenues, glided almost imperceptibly from the world, to seek elsewhere for that repose and peace which a custom-house can never afford." at this pathetic description of the decease of mr. bardell, who had been knocked on the head with a quart-pot in a public-house cellar, the learned serjeant's voice faltered, and he proceeded with emotion: "some time before his death, he had stamped his likeness upon a little boy. with this little boy, the only pledge of her departed exciseman, mrs. bardell shrunk from the world, and courted the retirement and tranquillity of goswell street; and here she placed in her front parlour window a written placard, bearing this inscription--'apartments furnished for a single gentleman. inquire within.'" here serjeant buzfuz paused, while several gentlemen of the jury took a note of the document. "there is no date to that, is there, sir?" inquired a juror. "there is no date, gentlemen," replied serjeant buzfuz: "but i am instructed to say that it was put in the plaintiff's parlour-window just this time three years. i entreat the attention of the jury to the wording of this document. 'apartments furnished for a single gentleman'! mrs. bardell's opinions of the opposite sex, gentlemen, were derived from a long contemplation of the inestimable qualities of her lost husband. she had no fear, she had no distrust, she had no suspicion, all was confidence and reliance. 'mr. bardell,' said the widow; 'mr. bardell was a man of honour, mr. bardell was a man of his word, mr. bardell was no deceiver, mr. bardell was once a single gentleman himself; _to_ single gentlemen i look for protection, for assistance, for comfort, and for consolation; _in_ single gentlemen i shall perpetually see something to remind me of what mr. bardell was, when he first won my young and untried affections; to a single gentleman, then, shall my lodgings be let.' actuated by this beautiful and touching impulse (among the best impulses of our imperfect nature, gentlemen), the lonely and desolate widow dried her tears, furnished the first floor, caught the innocent boy to her maternal bosom, and put the bill up in her parlour-window. did it remain there long? no. the serpent was on the watch, the train was laid, the mine was preparing, the sapper and miner was at work. before the bill had been in the parlour-window three days--three days--gentlemen--a being erect upon two legs, and bearing all the outward semblance of a man, and not of a monster, knocked at the door of mrs. bardell's house. he inquired within; he took the lodgings; and on the very next day he entered into possession of them. this man was pickwick--pickwick, the defendant." serjeant buzfuz, who had proceeded with such volubility that his face was perfectly crimson, here paused for breath. the silence awoke mr. justice stareleigh, who immediately wrote down something with a pen, without any ink in it, and looked unusually profound, to impress the jury with the belief that he always thought most deeply with his eyes shut. serjeant buzfuz proceeded: "of this man pickwick i will say little; the subject presents but few attractions; and i, gentlemen, am not the man, nor are you, gentlemen, the men, to delight in the contemplation of revolting heartlessness, and of systematic villainy." here mr. pickwick, who had been writhing in silence for some time, gave a violent start, as if some vague idea of assaulting serjeant buzfuz, in the august presence of justice and law, suggested itself to his mind. an admonitory gesture from perker restrained him, and he listened to the learned gentleman's continuation with a look of indignation, which contrasted forcibly with the admiring faces of mrs. cluppins and mrs. sanders. "i say systematic villainy, gentlemen," said serjeant buzfuz, looking through mr. pickwick and talking _at_ him; "and when i say systematic villainy, let me tell the defendant pickwick, if he be in court, as i am informed he is, that it would have been more decent in him, more becoming, in better judgment, and in better taste, if he had stopped away. let me tell him, gentlemen, that any gestures of dissent or disapprobation in which he may indulge in this court will not go down with you; that you will know how to value and how to appreciate them; and let me tell him further, as my lord will tell you, gentlemen, that a counsel, in the discharge of his duty to his client, is neither to be intimidated nor bullied, nor put down; and that any attempt to do either the one or the other, or the first or the last, will recoil on the head of the attempter, be he plaintiff or be he defendant, be his name pickwick, or noakes, or stoakes, or stiles, or brown, or thompson." this little divergence from the subject in hand had, of course, the intended effect of turning all eyes to mr. pickwick. serjeant buzfuz, having partially recovered from the state of moral elevation into which he had lashed himself, resumed: "i shall show you, gentlemen, that for two years pickwick continued to reside constantly, and without interruption or intermission, at mrs. bardell's house. i shall show you that mrs. bardell, during the whole of that time, waited on him, attended to his comforts, cooked his meals, looked out his linen for the washerwoman when it went abroad, darned, aired, and prepared it for wear, when it came home, and, in short, enjoyed his fullest trust and confidence. i shall show you that, on many occasions, he gave halfpence, and on some occasions even sixpences, to her little boy; and i shall prove to you, by a witness whose testimony it will be impossible for my learned friend to weaken or controvert, that on one occasion he patted the boy on the head, and, after inquiring whether he had won _alley tors_ or _commoneys_ lately (both of which i understand to be a particular species of marbles much prized by the youth of this town), made use of this remarkable expression: 'how should you like to have another father?' i shall prove to you, gentlemen, that about a year ago, pickwick suddenly began to absent himself from home, during long intervals, as if with the intention of gradually breaking off from my client; but i shall show you also, that his resolution was not at that time sufficiently strong, or that his better feelings conquered, if better feelings he has, or that the charms and accomplishments of my client prevailed against his unmanly intentions; by proving to you, that on one occasion, when he returned from the country, he distinctly and in terms, offered her marriage: previously, however, taking special care that there should be no witness to their solemn contract; and i am in a situation to prove to you, on the testimony of three of his own friends--most unwilling witnesses, gentlemen--most unwilling witnesses--that on that morning he was discovered by them holding the plaintiff in his arms, and soothing her agitation by his caresses and endearments." a visible impression was produced upon the auditors by this part of the learned serjeant's address. drawing forth two very small scraps of paper, he proceeded: "and now, gentlemen, but one word more. two letters have passed between these parties, letters which are admitted to be in the handwriting of the defendant, and which speak volumes indeed. these letters, too, bespeak the character of the man. they are not open, fervent, eloquent epistles, breathing nothing but the language of affectionate attachment. they are covert, sly, underhanded communications, but, fortunately, far more conclusive than if couched in the most glowing language and the most poetic imagery--letters that must be viewed with a cautious and suspicious eye--letters that were evidently intended at the time, by pickwick, to mislead and delude any third parties into whose hands they might fall. let me read the first:--'garraway's, twelve o'clock. dear mrs. b.--chops and tomato sauce. yours, +pickwick+.' gentlemen, what does this mean? 'chops and tomato sauce. yours, pickwick!' chops! gracious heavens! and tomato sauce! gentlemen, is the happiness of a sensitive and confiding female to be trifled away by such shallow artifices as these? the next has no date whatever, which is in itself suspicious. 'dear mrs. b., i shall not be at home till to-morrow. slow coach.' and then follows this very remarkable expression. 'don't trouble yourself about the warming-pan.' the warming-pan! why, gentlemen, who _does_ trouble himself about a warming-pan? when was the peace of mind of man or woman broken or disturbed by a warming-pan, which is in itself a harmless, a useful, and i will add, gentlemen, a comforting article of domestic furniture? why is mrs. bardell so earnestly entreated not to agitate herself about this warming-pan, unless (as is no doubt the case) it is a mere cover for hidden fire--a mere substitute for some endearing word of promise, agreeably to a preconcerted system of correspondence, artfully contrived by pickwick with a view to his contemplated desertion, and which i am not in a condition to explain? and what does this allusion to the slow coach mean? for aught i know, it may be a reference to pickwick himself, who has most unquestionably been a criminally slow coach during the whole of this transaction, but whose speed will now be very unexpectedly accelerated, and whose wheels, gentlemen, as he will find to his cost, will very soon be greased by you!" mr. serjeant buzfuz paused in this place, to see whether the jury smiled at his joke; but as nobody took it but the greengrocer, whose sensitiveness on the subject was very probably occasioned by his having subjected a chaise-cart to the process in question on that identical morning, the learned serjeant considered it advisable to undergo a slight relapse into the dismals before he concluded. "but enough of this, gentlemen," said mr. serjeant buzfuz; "it is difficult to smile with an aching heart; it is ill jesting when our deepest sympathies are awakened. my client's hopes and prospects are ruined, and it is no figure of speech to say that her occupation is gone indeed. the bill is down--but there is no tenant. eligible single gentlemen pass and repass--but there is no invitation for them to inquire within or without. all is gloom and silence in the house; even the voice of the child is hushed; his infant sports are disregarded when his mother weeps; his 'alley tors' and his 'commoneys' are alike neglected; he forgets the long familiar cry of 'knuckle-down,' and at tip-cheese, or odd and even, his hand is out. but pickwick, gentlemen, pickwick, the ruthless destroyer of this domestic oasis in the desert of goswell street--pickwick, who has choked up the well, and thrown ashes on the sward--pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his heartless tomato sauce and warming-pans--pickwick still rears his head with unblushing effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has made. damages, gentlemen--heavy damages--is the only punishment with which you can visit him; the only recompense you can award to my client. and for those damages she now appeals to an enlightened, a high-minded, a right-feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a sympathising, a contemplative jury of her civilised countrymen." with this beautiful peroration, mr. serjeant buzfuz sat down, and mr. justice stareleigh woke up. "call elizabeth cluppins," said serjeant buzfuz, rising a minute afterwards, with renewed vigour. the nearest usher called for elizabeth tuppins; another one, at a little distance off, demanded elizabeth jupkins; and a third rushed in a breathless state into king street, and screamed for elizabeth muffins till he was hoarse. meanwhile mrs. cluppins, with the combined assistance of mrs. bardell, mrs. sanders, mr. dodson, and mr. fogg, was hoisted into the witness-box; and when she was safely perched on the top step, mrs. bardell stood on the bottom one, with the pocket-handkerchief and pattens in one hand, and a glass bottle that might hold about a quarter of a pint of smelling salts in the other, ready for any emergency. mrs. sanders, whose eyes were intently fixed on the judge's face, planted herself close by, with the large umbrella: keeping her right thumb pressed on the spring with an earnest countenance, as if she were fully prepared to put it up at a moment's notice. "mrs. cluppins," said serjeant buzfuz, "pray compose yourself, ma'am." of course, directly mrs. cluppins was desired to compose herself she sobbed with increased vehemence, and gave divers alarming manifestations of an approaching fainting fit, or, as she afterwards said, of her feelings being too many for her. "do you recollect, mrs. cluppins," said serjeant buzfuz, after a few unimportant questions, "do you recollect being in mrs. bardell's back one pair of stairs, on one particular morning in july last, when she was dusting pickwick's apartment?" "yes, my lord and jury, i do," replied mrs. cluppins. "mr. pickwick's sitting-room was the first-floor front, i believe?" "yes, it were, sir," replied mrs. cluppins. "what were you doing in the back room, ma'am?" inquired the little judge. "my lord and jury," said mrs. cluppins, with interesting agitation, "i will not deceive you." "you had better not, ma'am," said the little judge. "i was there," resumed mrs. cluppins, "unbeknown to mrs. bardell; i had been out with a little basket, gentlemen, to buy three pound of red kidney purtaties, which was three pound tuppense ha'penny, when i see mrs. bardell's street door on the jar." "on the what?" exclaimed the little judge. "partly open, my lord," said serjeant snubbin. "she _said_ on the jar," said the little judge, with a cunning look. "it's all the same, my lord," said serjeant snubbin. the little judge looked doubtful and said he'd make a note of it. mrs. cluppins then resumed: "i walked in, gentlemen, just to say good mornin', and went, in a permiscuous manner, up-stairs, and into the back room. gentlemen, there was the sound of voices in the front room, and----" "and you listened, i believe, mrs. cluppins?" said serjeant buzfuz. "beggin' your pardon, sir," replied mrs. cluppins, in a majestic manner, "i would scorn the haction. the voices was very loud, sir, and forced themselves upon my ear." "well, mrs. cluppins, you were not listening, but you heard the voices. was one of these voices pickwick's?" "yes, it were, sir." and mrs. cluppins, after distinctly stating that mr. pickwick addressed himself to mrs. bardell, repeated by slow degrees, and by dint of many questions, the conversation with which our readers are already acquainted. the jury looked suspicious, and mr. serjeant buzfuz smiled and sat down. they looked positively awful when serjeant snubbin intimated that he should not cross-examine the witness, for mr. pickwick wished it to be distinctly stated that it was due to her to say, that her account was in substance correct. mrs. cluppins having once broken the ice, thought it a favourable opportunity for entering into a short dissertation on her own domestic affairs; so, she straightway proceeded to inform the court that she was the mother of eight children at that present speaking, and that she entertained confident expectations of presenting mr. cluppins with a ninth, somewhere about that day six months. at this interesting point, the little judge interposed most irascibly; and the effect of the interposition was, that both the worthy lady and mrs. sanders were politely taken out of court, under the escort of mr. jackson, without further parley. "nathaniel winkle!" said mr. skimpin. "here!" replied a feeble voice. mr. winkle entered the witness-box, and having been duly sworn, bowed to the judge with considerable deference. "don't look at me, sir," said the judge, sharply, in acknowledgment of the salute; "look at the jury." mr. winkle obeyed the mandate, and looked at the place where he thought it most probable the jury might be; for seeing anything in his then state of intellectual complication was wholly out of the question. mr. winkle was then examined by mr. skimpin, who, being a promising young man of two or three and forty, was of course anxious to confuse a witness who was notoriously predisposed in favour of the other side, as much as he could. "now, sir," said mr. skimpin, "have the goodness to let his lordship and the jury know what your name is, will you?" and mr. skimpin inclined his head on one side to listen with great sharpness to the answer, and glanced at the jury meanwhile, as if to imply that he rather expected mr. winkle's natural taste for perjury would induce him to give some name which did not belong to him. "winkle," replied the witness. "what's your christian name, sir?" angrily inquired the little judge. "nathaniel, sir." "daniel,--any other name?" "nathaniel, sir--my lord, i mean." "nathaniel daniel, or daniel nathaniel?" "no, my lord, only nathaniel; not daniel at all." "what did you tell me it was daniel for, then, sir?" inquired the judge. "i didn't, my lord," replied mr. winkle. "you did, sir," replied the judge, with a severe frown. "how could i have got daniel on my notes, unless you told me so, sir?" this argument was, of course, unanswerable. "mr. winkle has rather a short memory, my lord," interposed mr. skimpin, with another glance at the jury. "we shall find means to refresh it before we have quite done with him, i dare say." "you had better be careful, sir," said the little judge, with a sinister look at the witness. poor mr. winkle bowed, and endeavoured to feign an easiness of manner which, in his then state of confusion, gave him rather the air of a disconcerted pickpocket. "now, mr. winkle," said mr. skimpin, "attend to me, if you please, sir; and let me recommend you, for your own sake, to bear in mind his lordship's injunction to be careful. i believe you are a particular friend of pickwick, the defendant, are you not?" "i have known mr. pickwick now, as well as i recollect at this moment, nearly----" "pray, mr. winkle, do not evade the question. are you, or are you not, a particular friend of the defendant's?" "i was just about to say that----" "will you, or will you not, answer my question, sir?" "if you don't answer the question you'll be committed, sir," interposed the little judge, looking over his note-book. "come, sir," said mr. skimpin, "yes or no, if you please." "yes, i am," replied mr. winkle. "yes, you are. and why couldn't you say that at once, sir? perhaps you know the plaintiff, too? eh, mr. winkle?" "i don't know her; i've seen her." "oh, you don't know her, but you've seen her? now, have the goodness to tell the gentlemen of the jury what you mean by _that_, mr. winkle." "i mean that i am not intimate with her, but i have seen her when i went to call on mr. pickwick in goswell street." "how often have you seen her, sir?" "how often?" "yes, mr. winkle, how often? i'll repeat the question for you a dozen times if you require it, sir." and the learned gentleman, with a firm and steady frown, placed his hands on his hips, and smiled suspiciously at the jury. on this question there arose the edifying brow-beating, customary on such points. first of all, mr. winkle said it was quite impossible for him to say how many times he had seen mrs. bardell. then he was asked if he had seen her twenty times, to which he replied, "certainly,--more than that." then he was asked whether he hadn't seen her a hundred times--whether he couldn't swear that he had seen her more than fifty times--whether he didn't know that he had seen her at least seventy-five times--and so forth; the satisfactory conclusion which was arrived at, at last, being, that he had better take care of himself, and mind what he was about. the witness having been by these means reduced to the requisite ebb of nervous perplexity, the examination was continued as follows: "pray mr. winkle, do you remember calling on the defendant pickwick at these apartments in the plaintiff's house in goswell street, on one particular morning, in the month of july last?" "yes, i do." "were you accompanied on that occasion by a friend of the name of tupman, and another of the name of snodgrass?" "yes, i was." "are they here?" "yes, they are," replied mr. winkle, looking very earnestly towards the spot where his friends were stationed. "pray attend to me, mr. winkle, and never mind your friends," said mr. skimpin, with another expressive look at the jury. "they must tell their stories without any previous consultation with you, if none has yet taken place (another look at the jury). now, sir, tell the gentlemen of the jury what you saw on entering the defendant's room, on this particular morning. come; out with it, sir: we must have it, sooner or later." "the defendant, mr. pickwick, was holding the plaintiff in his arms, with his hands clasping her waist," replied mr. winkle, with natural hesitation, "and the plaintiff appeared to have fainted away." "did you hear the defendant say anything?" "i heard him call mrs. bardell a good creature, and i heard him ask her to compose herself, for what a situation it was, if anybody should come, or words to that effect." "now, mr. winkle, i have only one more question to ask you, and i beg you to bear in mind his lordship's caution. will you undertake to swear that pickwick, the defendant, did not say on the occasion in question, 'my dear mrs. bardell, you're a good creature; compose yourself to this situation, for to this situation you must come,' or words to _that_ effect?" "i didn't understand him so, certainly," said mr. winkle, astounded at this ingenious dove-tailing of the few words he had heard. "i was on the staircase, and couldn't hear distinctly; the impression on my mind is----" "the gentlemen of the jury want none of the impressions on your mind, mr. winkle, which i fear would be of little service to honest, straightforward men," interposed mr. skimpin. "you were on the staircase, and didn't distinctly hear; but you will not swear that mr. pickwick did not make use of the expressions i have quoted? do i understand that?" "no, i will not," replied mr. winkle; and down sat mr. skimpin with a triumphant countenance. mr. pickwick's case had not gone off in so particularly happy a manner, up to this point, that it could very well afford to have any additional suspicion cast upon it. but as it could afford to be placed in a rather better light, if possible, mr. phunky rose for the purpose of getting something important out of mr. winkle in cross-examination. whether he did get anything important out of him will immediately appear. "i believe, mr. winkle," said mr. phunky, "that mr. pickwick is not a young man?" "oh no," replied mr. winkle; "old enough to be my father." "you have told my learned friend that you have known mr. pickwick a long time. had you ever any reason to suppose or believe that he was about to be married?" "oh no; certainly not;" replied mr. winkle with so much eagerness, that mr. phunky ought to have got him out of the box with all possible despatch. lawyers hold that there are two kinds of particularly bad witnesses: a reluctant witness, and a too-willing witness; it was mr. winkle's fate to figure in both characters. "i will even go further than this, mr. winkle," continued mr. phunky in a most smooth and complacent manner. "did you ever see anything in mr. pickwick's manner and conduct towards the opposite sex, to induce you to believe that he ever contemplated matrimony of late years, in any case?" "oh no; certainly not," replied mr. winkle. "has his behaviour, when females have been in the case, always been that of a man who, having attained a pretty advanced period of life, content with his own occupations and amusements, treats them only as a father might his daughters?" "not the least doubt of it," replied mr. winkle, in the fulness of his heart. "that is--yes--oh yes--certainly." "you have never known anything in his behaviour towards mrs. bardell, or any other female, in the least degree suspicious?" said mr. phunky, preparing to sit down; for serjeant snubbin was winking at him. "n--n--no," replied mr. winkle, "except on one trifling occasion which, i have no doubt, might be easily explained." now, if the unfortunate mr. phunky had sat down when serjeant snubbin winked at him, or if serjeant buzfuz had stopped this irregular cross-examination at the outset (which he knew better than to do; observing mr. winkle's anxiety, and well knowing it would, in all probability, lead to something serviceable to him), this unfortunate admission would not have been elicited. the moment the words fell from mr. winkle's lips, mr. phunky sat down, and serjeant snubbin rather hastily told him he might leave the box, which mr. winkle prepared to do with great readiness, when serjeant buzfuz stopped him. "stay, mr. winkle, stay!" said serjeant buzfuz. "will your lordship have the goodness to ask him, what this one instance of suspicious behaviour towards females, on the part of this gentleman, who is old enough to be his father, was?" "you hear what the learned counsel says, sir," observed the judge, turning to the miserable and agonised mr. winkle. "describe the occasion to which you refer." "my lord," said mr. winkle, trembling with anxiety, "i--i'd rather not." "perhaps so," said the little judge; "but you must." amid the profound silence of the whole court, mr. winkle faltered out that the trifling circumstance of suspicion was mr. pickwick's being found in a lady's sleeping apartment at midnight; which had terminated, he believed, in the breaking off of the projected marriage of the lady in question, and had led, he knew, to the whole party being forcibly carried before george nupkins, esq., magistrate and justice of the peace for the borough of ipswich! "you may leave the box, sir," said serjeant snubbin. mr. winkle _did_ leave the box, and rushed with delirious haste to the george and vulture, where he was discovered some hours afterwards by the waiter, groaning in a hollow and dismal manner, with his head buried beneath the sofa cushions. tracy tupman, and augustus snodgrass, were severally called into the box; both corroborated the testimony of their unhappy friend; and each was driven to the verge of desperation by excessive badgering. susannah sanders was then called, and examined by serjeant buzfuz, and cross-examined by serjeant snubbin. had always said and believed that pickwick would marry mrs. bardell; knew that mrs. bardell's being engaged to pickwick was the current topic of conversation in the neighbourhood, after the fainting in july; had been told it herself by mrs. mudberry which kept a mangle, and mrs. bunkin which clear-starched, but did not see either mrs. mudberry or mrs. bunkin in court. had heard pickwick ask the little boy how he should like to have another father. did not know that mrs. bardell was at that time keeping company with the baker, but did know that the baker was then a single man and is now married. couldn't swear that mrs. bardell was not very fond of the baker, but should think that the baker was not very fond of mrs. bardell, or he wouldn't have married somebody else. thought mrs. bardell fainted away on the morning in july, because pickwick asked her to name the day: knew that she (witness) fainted away stone dead when mr. sanders asked _her_ to name the day, and believed that everybody as called herself a lady would do the same, under similar circumstances. heard pickwick ask the boy the question about the marbles, but upon her oath did not know the difference between an alley tor and a commoney. by the +court+--during the period of her keeping company with mr. sanders had received love-letters, like other ladies. in the course of their correspondence mr. sanders had often called her a "duck," but never "chops," nor yet "tomato sauce." he was particularly fond of ducks. perhaps if he had been as fond of chops and tomato sauce, he might have called her that, as a term of affection. serjeant buzfuz now rose with more importance than he had yet exhibited, if that were possible, and vociferated: "call samuel weller." it was quite unnecessary to call samuel weller; for samuel weller stepped briskly into the box the instant his name was pronounced; and placing his hat on the floor, and his arms on the rail, took a bird's-eye view of the bar, and a comprehensive survey of the bench, with a remarkably cheerful and lively aspect. "what's your name, sir?" inquired the judge. "sam weller, my lord," replied that gentleman. "do you spell it with a 'v' or a 'w'?" inquired the judge. "that depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my lord," replied sam; "i never had occasion to spell it more than once or twice in my life, but i spells it with a 'v'." here a voice in the gallery exclaimed aloud, "quite right, too, samivel, quite right. put it down a 'we,' my lord, put it down a 'we'." "who is that who dares to address the court?" said the little judge, looking up. "usher!" "yes, my lord." "bring that person here instantly." "yes, my lord." but as the usher didn't find the person, he didn't bring him; and, after a great commotion, all the people who had got up to look for the culprit sat down again. the little judge turned to the witness as soon as his indignation would allow him to speak, and said, "do you know who that was, sir?" "i rayther suspect it was my father, my lord," replied sam. "do you see him here, now?" said the judge. "no, i don't, my lord," replied sam, staring right up into the lantern in the roof of the court. "if you could have pointed him out, i would have committed him instantly," said the judge. sam bowed his acknowledgments and turned, with unimpaired cheerfulness of countenance, towards serjeant buzfuz. "now, mr. weller," said serjeant buzfuz. "now, sir," replied sam. "i believe you are in the service of mr. pickwick, the defendant in this case. speak up, if you please, mr. weller." "i mean to speak up, sir," replied sam; "i am in the service of that 'ere gen'l'm'n, and a wery good service it is." "little to do, and plenty to get, i suppose?" said serjeant buzfuz, with jocularity. "oh, quite enough to get, sir, as the soldier said ven they ordered him three hundred and fifty lashes," replied sam. "you must not tell us what the soldier, or any other man, said, sir," interposed the judge, "it's not evidence." "wery good, my lord," replied sam. "do you recollect anything particular happening on the morning when you were first engaged by the defendant; eh, mr. weller?" said serjeant buzfuz. "yes i do, sir," replied sam. "have the goodness to tell the jury what it was." "i had a reg'lar new fit out o' clothes that mornin', gen'l'm'n of the jury," said sam, "and that was a wery partickler and uncommon circumstance vith me in those days." hereupon there was a general laugh; and the little judge, looking with an angry countenance over his desk, said, "you had better be careful, sir." "so mr. pickwick said at the time, my lord," replied sam; "and i wos wery careful o' that 'ere suit o' clothes; wery careful indeed, my lord." the judge looked sternly at sam for full two minutes, but sam's features were so perfectly calm and serene that the judge said nothing, and motioned serjeant buzfuz to proceed. "do you mean to tell me, mr. weller," said serjeant buzfuz, folding his arms emphatically, and turning half-round to the jury, as if in mute assurance that he would bother the witness yet: "do you mean to tell me, mr. weller, that you saw nothing of this fainting on the part of the plaintiff in the arms of the defendant, which you have heard described by the witnesses?" "certainly not," replied sam, "i was in the passage till they called me up, and then the old lady was not there." "now, attend, mr. weller," said serjeant buzfuz, dipping a large pen into the inkstand before him, for the purpose of frightening sam with a show of taking down his answer. "you were in the passage, and yet saw nothing of what was going forward. have you a pair of eyes, mr. weller?" "yes, i have a pair of eyes," replied sam, "and that's just it. if they wos a pair o' patent double million magnifyin' gas microscopes of hextra power, p'raps i might be able to see through a flight o' stairs, and a deal door; but bein' only eyes, you see, my wision's limited." at this answer, which was delivered without the slightest appearance of irritation, and with the most complete simplicity and equanimity of manner, the spectators tittered, the little judge smiled, and serjeant buzfuz looked particularly foolish. after a short consultation with dodson and fogg, the learned serjeant again turned towards sam, and said, with a painful effort to conceal his vexation, "now, mr. weller, i'll ask you a question on another point, if you please." "if you please, sir," rejoined sam, with the utmost good-humour. "do you remember going up to mrs. bardell's house, one night in november last?" "oh yes, wery well." "oh, you _do_ remember that, mr. weller," said serjeant buzfuz, recovering his spirits; "i thought we should get something at last." "i rayther thought that, too, sir," replied sam; and at this the spectators tittered again. "well; i suppose you went up to have a little talk about this trial--eh, mr. weller?" said serjeant buzfuz, looking knowingly at the jury. "i went up to pay the rent; but we _did_ get a talkin' about the trial," replied sam. "oh, you did get a talking about the trial," said serjeant buzfuz, brightening up with the anticipation of some important discovery. "now what passed about the trial; will you have the goodness to tell us, mr. weller?" "vith all the pleasure in life, sir," replied sam. "arter a few unimportant obserwations from the two virtuous females as has been examined here to-day, the ladies gets into a wery great state o' admiration at the honourable conduct of mr. dodson and fogg--them two gen'l'm'n as is settin' near you now." this, of course, drew general attention to dodson and fogg, who looked as virtuous as possible. "the attorneys for the plaintiff," said mr. serjeant buzfuz. "well! they spoke in high praise of the honourable conduct of messrs, dodson and fogg, the attorneys for the plaintiff, did they?" "yes," said sam, "they said what a wery gen'rous thing it was o' them to have taken up the case on spec, and to charge nothing at all for costs, unless they got 'em out of mr. pickwick." at this very unexpected reply, the spectators tittered again, and dodson and fogg, turning very red, leant over to serjeant buzfuz, and in a hurried manner whispered something in his ear. "you are quite right," said serjeant buzfuz aloud, with affected composure. "it's perfectly useless, my lord, attempting to get at any evidence through the impenetrable stupidity of this witness. i will not trouble the court by asking him any more questions. stand down, sir." "would any other gen'l'm'n like to ask me anythin'?" inquired sam, taking up his hat, and looking round most deliberately. "not i, mr. weller, thank you," said serjeant snubbin, laughing. "you may go down, sir," said serjeant buzfuz, waving his hand impatiently. sam went down accordingly, after doing messrs. dodson and fogg's case as much harm as he conveniently could, and saying just as little respecting mr. pickwick as might be, which was precisely the object he had had in view all along. "i have no objection to admit, my lord," said serjeant snubbin, "if it will save the examination of another witness, that mr. pickwick has retired from business, and is a gentleman of considerable independent property." "very well," said serjeant buzfuz, putting in the two letters to be read. "then that's my case, my lord." serjeant snubbin then addressed the jury on behalf of the defendant; and a very long and a very emphatic address he delivered, in which he bestowed the highest possible eulogiums on the conduct and character of mr. pickwick; but inasmuch as our readers are far better able to form a correct estimate of that gentleman's merits and deserts, than serjeant snubbin could possibly be, we do not feel called upon to enter at any length into the learned gentleman's observations. he attempted to show that the letters which had been exhibited, merely related to mr. pickwick's dinner, or to the preparations for receiving him in his apartments on his return from some country excursion. it is sufficient to add in general terms, that he did the best he could for mr. pickwick; and the best, as everybody knows, on the infallible authority of the old adage, could do no more. mr. justice stareleigh summed up, in the old-established and most approved form. he read as much of his notes to the jury as he could decipher on so short a notice, and made running comments on the evidence as he went along. if mrs. bardell were right, it was perfectly clear that mr. pickwick was wrong, and if they thought the evidence of mrs. cluppins worthy of credence they would believe it, and, if they didn't, why they wouldn't. if they were satisfied that a breach of promise of marriage had been committed, they would find for the plaintiff with such damages as they thought proper; and if, on the other hand, it appeared to them that no promise of marriage had ever been given, they would find for the defendant with no damages at all. the jury then retired to their private room to talk the matter over, and the judge retired to _his_ private room, to refresh himself with a mutton chop and a glass of sherry. an anxious quarter of an hour elapsed; the jury came back; the judge was fetched in. mr. pickwick put on his spectacles, and gazed at the foreman with an agitated countenance and a quickly beating heart. "gentlemen," said the individual in black, "are you all agreed upon your verdict?" "we are," replied the foreman. "do you find for the plaintiff, gentlemen, or for the defendant?" "for the plaintiff." "with what damages, gentlemen?" "seven hundred and fifty pounds." mr. pickwick took off his spectacles, carefully wiped the glasses, folded them into their case, and put them in his pocket; then having drawn on his gloves with great nicety, and stared at the foreman all the while, he mechanically followed mr. perker and the blue bag out of court. they stopped in a side room while perker paid the court fees; and here, mr. pickwick was joined by his friends. here, too, he encountered messrs. dodson and fogg, rubbing their hands with every token of outward satisfaction. "well, gentlemen?" said mr. pickwick. "well, sir?" said dodson: for self and partner. "you imagine you'll get your costs, don't you, gentlemen?" said mr. pickwick. fogg said they thought it rather probable. dodson smiled, and said they'd try. "you may try, and try, and try again, messrs. dodson and fogg," said mr. pickwick vehemently, "but not one farthing of costs or damages do you ever get from me, if i spend the rest of my existence in a debtor's prison." "ha, ha!" laughed dodson. "you'll think better of that, before next term, mr. pickwick." "he, he, he! we'll soon see about that, mr. pickwick," grinned fogg. speechless with indignation, mr. pickwick allowed himself to be led by his solicitor and friends to the door, and there assisted into a hackney-coach, which had been fetched for the purpose, by the ever-watchful sam weller. sam had put up the steps, and was preparing to jump upon the box, when he felt himself gently touched on the shoulder; and looking round, his father stood before him. the old gentleman's countenance wore a mournful expression, as he shook his head gravely, and said, in warning accents: "i know'd what 'ud come o' this here mode o' doin' bisness. oh sammy, sammy, vy worn't there a alleybi!" chapter vii [illustration] _in which mr. pickwick thinks he had better go to bath and goes accordingly_ "but surely, my dear sir," said little perker, as he stood in mr. pickwick's apartment on the morning after the trial: "surely you don't really mean--really and seriously now, and irritation apart--that you won't pay these costs and damages?" "not one halfpenny," said mr. pickwick, firmly; "not one halfpenny." "hooroar for the principle, as the money-lender said ven he vouldn't renew the bill," observed mr. weller, who was clearing away the breakfast things. "sam," said mr. pickwick, "have the goodness to step down-stairs." "cert'nly, sir," replied mr. weller; and acting on mr. pickwick's gentle hint, sam retired. "no, perker," said mr. pickwick, with great seriousness of manner, "my friends here have endeavoured to dissuade me from this determination, but without avail. i shall employ myself as usual, until the opposite party have the power of issuing a legal process of execution against me; and if they are vile enough to avail themselves of it, and to arrest my person, i shall yield myself up with perfect cheerfulness and content of heart. when can they do this?" "they can issue execution, my dear sir, for the amount of the damages and taxed costs, next term," replied perker; "just two months hence, my dear sir." "very good," said mr. pickwick. "until that time, my dear fellow, let me hear no more of the matter. and now," continued mr. pickwick, looking round on his friends with a good-humoured smile, and a sparkle in the eye which no spectacles could dim or conceal, "the only question is, where shall we go next?" mr. tupman and mr. snodgrass were too much affected by their friend's heroism to offer any reply. mr. winkle had not yet sufficiently recovered the recollection of his evidence at the trial, to make any observations on any subject, so mr. pickwick paused in vain. "well," said that gentleman, "if you leave me to suggest our destination, i say bath. i think none of us have ever been there." nobody had; and as the proposition was warmly seconded by perker, who considered it extremely probable that if mr. pickwick saw a little change and gaiety he would be inclined to think better of his determination, and worse of a debtor's prison, it was carried unanimously: and sam was at once despatched to the white horse cellar, to take five places by the half-past seven o'clock coach, next morning. there were just two places to be had inside, and just three to be had out; so sam weller booked for them all, and having exchanged a few compliments with the booking-office clerk on the subject of a pewter half-crown which was tendered him as a portion of his "change," walked back to the george and vulture, where he was pretty busily employed until bed-time in reducing clothes and linen into the smallest possible compass, and exerting his mechanical genius in constructing a variety of ingenious devices for keeping the lids on boxes which had neither locks nor hinges. the next was a very unpropitious morning for a journey--muggy, damp, and drizzly. the horses in the stages that were going out, and had come through the city, were smoking so that the outside passengers were invisible. the newspaper-sellers looked moist, and smelt mouldy; the wet ran off the hats of the orange-vendors as they thrust their heads into the coach-windows, and diluted the insides in a refreshing manner. the jews with the fifty-bladed penknives shut them up in despair; the men with the pocket-books made pocket-books of them. watch-guards and toasting-forks were alike at a discount, and pencil-cases and sponges were a drug in the market. leaving sam weller to rescue the luggage from the seven or eight porters who flung themselves savagely upon it, the moment the coach stopped: and finding that they were about twenty minutes too early; mr. pickwick and his friends went for shelter into the travellers' room--the last resource of human dejection. the travellers' room at the white horse cellar is of course uncomfortable; it would be no travellers' room if it were not. it is the right-hand parlour, into which an aspiring kitchen fire-place appears to have walked, accompanied by a rebellious poker, tongs, and shovel. it is divided into boxes, for the solitary confinement of travellers, and is furnished with a clock, a looking-glass, and a live waiter; which latter article is kept in a small kennel for washing glasses, in the corner of the apartment. one of these boxes was occupied, on this particular occasion, by a stern-eyed man of about five-and-forty, who had a bald and glossy forehead, with a good deal of black hair at the sides and back of his head, and large black whiskers. he was buttoned up to the chin in a brown coat; and had a large sealskin travelling cap, and a great-coat and cloak, lying on the seat beside him. he looked up from his breakfast as mr. pickwick entered, with a fierce and peremptory air, which was very dignified; and having scrutinised that gentleman and his companions to his entire satisfaction, hummed a tune, in a manner which seemed to say that he rather suspected somebody wanted to take advantage of him, but it wouldn't do. "waiter," said the gentleman with the whiskers. "sir?" replied a man with a dirty complexion, and a towel of the same, emerging from the kennel before mentioned. "some more toast." "yes, sir." "buttered toast, mind," said the gentleman, fiercely. "d'rectly, sir," replied the waiter. the gentleman with the whiskers hummed a tune in the same manner as before, and pending the arrival of the toast advanced to the front of the fire, and taking his coat-tails under his arms, looked at his boots, and ruminated. "i wonder whereabouts in bath this coach puts up?" said mr. pickwick, mildly addressing mr. winkle. "hum--eh--what's that?" said the strange man. "i made an observation to my friend, sir," replied mr. pickwick, always ready to enter into conversation. "i wondered at what house the bath coach put up. perhaps you can inform me?" "are you going to bath?" said the strange man. "i am, sir," replied mr. pickwick. "and those other gentlemen?" "they are going also," said mr. pickwick. "not inside--i'll be damned if you're going inside," said the strange man. "not all of us," said mr. pickwick. "no, not all of you," said the strange man emphatically. "i've taken two places. if they try to squeeze six people into an infernal box that only holds four, i'll take a post-chaise and bring an action. i've paid my fare. it won't do; i told the clerk when i took my places that it wouldn't do. i know these things have been done. i know they are done every day; but _i_ never was done, and i never will be. those who know me best, best know it; crush me!" here the fierce gentleman rang the bell with great violence, and told the waiter he'd better bring the toast in five seconds, or he'd know the reason why. "my good sir," said mr. pickwick, "you will allow me to observe that this is a very unnecessary display of excitement. i have only taken places inside for two." "i am glad to hear it," said the fierce man. "i withdraw my expressions. i tender an apology. there's my card. give me your acquaintance." "with great pleasure, sir," replied mr. pickwick. "we are to be fellow-travellers, and i hope shall find each other's society mutually agreeable." "i hope we shall," said the fierce gentleman. "i know we shall. i like your looks; they please me. gentlemen, your hands and names. know me." of course, an interchange of friendly salutations followed this gracious speech, and the fierce gentleman immediately proceeded to inform the friends, in the same short, abrupt, jerking sentences, that his name was dowler; that he was going to bath on pleasure; that he was formerly in the army; that he had now set up in business as a gentleman; that he lived upon the profits; and that the individual for whom the second place was taken, was a personage no less illustrious than mrs. dowler, his lady wife. "she's a fine woman," said mr. dowler. "i am proud of her. i have reason." "i hope i shall have the pleasure of judging," said mr. pickwick, with a smile. "you shall," replied dowler. "she shall know you. she shall esteem you. i courted her under singular circumstances. i won her through a rash vow. thus. i saw her; i loved her: i proposed; she refused me.--'you love another?'--'spare my blushes.'--'i know him.'--'you do.'--'very good; if he remains here, i'll skin him.'" "lord bless me!" exclaimed mr. pickwick, involuntarily. "did you skin the gentleman, sir?" inquired mr. winkle, with a very pale face. "i wrote him a note. i said it was a painful thing. and so it was." "certainly," interposed mr. winkle. "i said i had pledged my word as a gentleman to skin him. my character was at stake. i had no alternative. as an officer in his majesty's service, i was bound to skin him. i regretted the necessity, but it must be done. he was open to conviction. he saw that the rules of the service were imperative. he fled. i married her. here's the coach. that's her head." as mr. dowler concluded, he pointed to a stage which had just driven up, from the open window of which a rather pretty face in a bright blue bonnet was looking among the crowd on the pavement: most probably for the rash man himself. mr. dowler paid his bill and hurried out with his travelling-cap, coat, and cloak; and mr. pickwick and his friends followed to secure their places. mr. tupman and mr. snodgrass had seated themselves at the back part of the coach; mr. winkle had got inside; and mr. pickwick was preparing to follow him, when sam weller came up to his master, and whispering in his ear, begged to speak to him, with an air of the deepest mystery. "well, sam," said mr. pickwick, "what's the matter now?" "here's rayther a rum go, sir," replied sam. "what?" inquired mr. pickwick. "this here, sir," rejoined sam. "i'm wery much afeerd, sir, that the properiator o' this here coach is a playin' some imperence vith us." "how is that, sam?" said mr. pickwick; "aren't the names down on the way-bill?" "the names is not only down on the vay-bill, sir," replied sam, "but they've painted vun on 'em up, on the door o' the coach." as sam spoke, he pointed to that part of the coach door on which the proprietor's name usually appears; and there, sure enough, in gilt letters of a goodly size, was the magic name of +pickwick+! "dear me," exclaimed mr. pickwick, quite staggered by the coincidence; "what a very extraordinary thing!" "yes, but that ain't all," said sam, again directing his master's attention to the coach door; "not content vith writin' up pickwick, they puts 'moses' afore it, vich i call addin' insult to injury, as the parrot said ven they not only took him from his native land, but made him talk the english langwidge arterwards." "it's odd enough certainly, sam," said mr. pickwick; "but if we stand talking here, we shall lose our places." "wot, ain't nothin' to be done in consequence, sir?" exclaimed sam, perfectly aghast at the coolness with which mr. pickwick prepared to ensconce himself inside. "done!" said mr. pickwick. "what should be done?" "ain't nobody to be whopped for takin' this here liberty, sir?" said mr. weller, who had expected that at least he would have been commissioned to challenge the guard and coachman to a pugilistic encounter on the spot. "certainly not," replied mr. pickwick, eagerly; "not on any account. jump up to your seat directly." "i'm wery much afeerd," muttered sam to himself, as he turned away, "that somethin' queer's come over the governor, or he'd never ha' stood this so quiet. i hope that 'ere trial hasn't broke his spirit, but it looks bad, wery bad." mr. weller shook his head gravely; and it is worthy of remark, as an illustration of the manner in which he took this circumstance to heart, that he did not speak another word until the coach reached the kensington turnpike, which was so long a time for him to remain taciturn, that the fact may be considered wholly unprecedented. nothing worthy of special mention occurred during the journey. mr. dowler related a variety of anecdotes, all illustrative of his own personal prowess and desperation, and appealed to mrs. dowler in corroboration thereof: when mrs. dowler invariably brought in, in the form of an appendix, some remarkable fact or circumstance which mr. dowler had forgotten, or had perhaps through modesty omitted: for the addenda in every instance went to show that mr. dowler was even more wonderful a fellow than he made himself out to be. mr. pickwick and mr. winkle listened with great admiration, and at intervals conversed with mrs. dowler, who was a very agreeable and fascinating person. so what between mr. dowler's stories, and mrs. dowler's charms, and mr. pickwick's good humour, and mr. winkle's good listening, the insides contrived to be very companionable all the way. the outsides did as outsides always do. they were very cheerful and talkative at the beginning of every stage, and very dismal and sleepy in the middle, and very bright and wakeful again towards the end. there was one young gentleman in an india-rubber cloak, who smoked cigars all day; and there was another young gentleman in a parody upon a great-coat, who lighted a good many, and feeling obviously unsettled after the second whiff, threw them away when he thought nobody was looking at him. there was a third young man on the box who wished to be learned in cattle, and an old one behind who was familiar with farming. there was a constant succession of christian names in smock frocks and white coats, who were invited to have a "lift" by the guard, and who knew every horse and hostler on the road and off it: and there was a dinner which would have been cheap at half-a-crown a mouth, if any moderate number of mouths could have eaten it in the time. and at seven o'clock +p.m.+, mr. pickwick and his friends, and mr. dowler and his wife, respectively retired to their private sitting-rooms at the white hart hotel, opposite the great pump room, bath, where the waiters, from their costume, might be mistaken for westminster boys, only they destroy the illusion by behaving themselves much better. breakfast had scarcely been cleared away on the succeeding morning, when a waiter brought in mr. dowler's card, with a request to be allowed permission to introduce a friend. mr. dowler at once followed up the delivery of the card, by bringing himself and the friend also. the friend was a charming young man of not much more than fifty, dressed in a very bright blue coat with resplendent buttons, black trousers, and the thinnest possible pair of highly-polished boots. a gold eye-glass was suspended from his neck by a short broad black ribbon; a gold snuff-box was lightly clasped in his left hand; gold rings innumerable glittered on his fingers; and a large diamond pin set in gold glistened in his shirt frill. he had a gold watch, and a gold curb chain with large gold seals; and he carried a pliant ebony cane with a heavy gold top. his linen was of the very whitest, finest, and stiffest; his wig of the glossiest, blackest, and curliest. his snuff was prince's mixture; his scent _bouquet du roi_. his features were contracted into a perpetual smile; and his teeth were in such perfect order that it was difficult at a small distance to tell the real from the false. "mr. pickwick," said mr. dowler; "my friend, angelo cyrus bantam, esquire, m.c. bantam; mr. pickwick. know each other." "welcome to ba--ath, sir. this is indeed an acquisition. most welcome to ba--ath, sir. it is long--very long, mr. pickwick, since you drank the waters. it appears an age, mr. pickwick. re--markable!" such were the expressions with which angelo cyrus bantam, esquire, m.c., took mr. pickwick's hand; retaining it in his, meantime, and shrugging up his shoulders with a constant succession of bows, as if he really could not make up his mind to the trial of letting it go again. "it is a very long time since i drank the waters, certainly," replied mr. pickwick; "for to the best of my knowledge, i was never here before." "never in ba--ath, mr. pickwick!" exclaimed the grand master, letting the hand fall in astonishment. "never in ba--ath! he! he! mr. pickwick, you are a wag. not bad, not bad. good, good. he! he! he! re--markable!" "to my shame, i must say that i am perfectly serious," rejoined mr. pickwick. "i really never was here before." "oh, i see," exclaimed the grand master, looking extremely pleased; "yes, yes--good, good--better and better. you are the gentleman of whom we have heard. yes; we know you, mr. pickwick; we know you." "the reports of the trial in those confounded papers," thought mr. pickwick. "they have heard all about me." "you are the gentleman residing on clapham green," resumed bantam, "who lost the use of his limbs from imprudently taking cold after port wine; who could not be moved in consequence of acute suffering, and who had the water from the king's bath bottled at one hundred and three degrees, and sent by waggon to his bed-room in town, where he bathed, sneezed, and same day recovered. very re--markable!" mr. pickwick acknowledged the compliment which the supposition implied, but had the self-denial to repudiate it, notwithstanding; and taking advantage of a moment's silence on the part of the m.c., begged to introduce his friends, mr. tupman, mr. winkle, and mr. snodgrass. an introduction which overwhelmed the m.c. with delight and honour. "bantam," said mr. dowler, "mr. pickwick and his friends are strangers. they must put their names down. where's the book?" "the register of the distinguished visitors in ba--ath will be at the pump room this morning at two o'clock," replied the m.c. "will you guide our friends to that splendid building, and enable me to procure their autographs?" "i will," rejoined dowler. "this is a long call. it's time to go. i shall be here again in an hour. come." "this is a ball-night," said the m.c., again taking mr. pickwick's hand as he rose to go. "the ball-nights in ba--ath are moments snatched from paradise; rendered bewitching by music, beauty, elegance, fashion, etiquette, and--and--above all, by the absence of tradespeople, who are quite inconsistent with paradise; and who have an amalgamation of themselves at the guildhall every fortnight, which is, to say the least, remarkable. good-bye, good-bye!" and protesting all the way down-stairs that he was most satisfied, and most delighted, and most overpowered, and most flattered, angelo cyrus bantam, esquire, m.c., stepped into a very elegant chariot that waited at the door, and rattled off. at the appointed hour, mr. pickwick and his friends, escorted by dowler, repaired to the assembly rooms, and wrote their names down in a book. an instance of condescension at which angelo bantam was even more overpowered than before. tickets of admission to that evening's assembly were to have been prepared for the whole party, but as they were not ready, mr. pickwick undertook, despite all the protestations to the contrary of angelo bantam, to send sam for them at four o'clock in the afternoon, to the m.c.'s house in queen square. having taken a short walk through the city, and arrived at the unanimous conclusion that park street was very much like the perpendicular streets a man sees in a dream, which he cannot get up for the life of him, they returned to the white hart, and despatched sam on the errand to which his master had pledged him. sam weller put on his hat in a very easy and graceful manner, and thrusting his hands in his waistcoat pockets, walked with great deliberation to queen square, whistling, as he went along, several of the most popular airs of the day, as arranged with entirely new movements for that noble instrument the organ, either mouth or barrel. arriving at the number in queen square to which he had been directed, he left off whistling, and gave a cheerful knock, which was instantaneously answered by a powdered-headed footman in gorgeous livery, and of symmetrical stature. "is this here mr. bantam's, old feller?" inquired sam weller, nothing abashed by the blaze of splendour which burst upon his sight, in the person of the powdered-headed footman with the gorgeous livery. "why, young man?" was the haughty inquiry of the powdered-headed footman. "'cos if it is, jist you step into him with that 'ere card, and say mr. veller's a waitin', will you?" said sam. and saying it, he very coolly walked into the hall, and sat down. the powdered-headed footman slammed the door very hard, and scowled very grandly; but both the slam and the scowl were lost upon sam, who was regarding a mahogany umbrella-stand with every outward token of critical approval. apparently, his master's reception of the card had impressed the powdered-headed footman in sam's favour, for when he came back from delivering it, he smiled in a friendly manner, and said that the answer would be ready directly. "wery good," said sam. "tell the old gen'l'm'n not to put himself in a perspiration. no hurry, six-foot. i've had my dinner." "you dine early, sir," said the powdered-headed footman. "i find i gets on better at supper when i does," replied sam. "have you been long in bath, sir?" inquired the powdered-headed footman. "i have not had the pleasure of hearing of you before." "i haven't created any wery surprisin' sensation here, as yet," rejoined sam, "for me and the other fashionables only come last night." "nice place, sir," said the powdered-headed footman. "seems so," observed sam. "pleasant society, sir," remarked the powdered-headed footman. "very agreeable servants, sir." "i should think they wos," replied sam. "affable, unaffected, say-nothing-to-nobody sort o' fellers." "oh, very much so indeed, sir," said the powdered-headed footman, taking sam's remark as a high compliment. "very much so indeed. do you do anything in this way, sir?" inquired the tall footman, producing a small snuff-box with a fox's head on the top of it. "not without sneezing," replied sam. "why, it _is_ difficult, sir, i confess," said the tall footman. "it may be done by degrees, sir. coffee is the best practice. i carried coffee, sir, for a long time. it looks very like rappee, sir." here, a sharp peal at the bell, reduced the powdered-headed footman to the ignominious necessity of putting the fox's head in his pocket, and hastening with a humble countenance to mr. bantam's "study." by-the-bye, who ever knew a man who never read, or wrote either, who hadn't got some small back parlour which he _would_ call a study? "there is the answer, sir," said the powdered-headed footman. "i am afraid you'll find it inconveniently large." "don't mention it," said sam, taking a letter with a small enclosure. "it's just possible as exhausted nature may manage to surwive it." "i hope we shall meet again, sir," said the powdered-headed footman, rubbing his hands, and following sam out to the door-step. "you are wery obligin', sir," replied sam. "now, don't allow yourself to be fatigued beyond your powers; there's a amiable bein'. consider what you owe to society, and don't let yourself be injured by too much work. for the sake o' your feller creeturs, keep yourself as quiet as you can; only think what a loss you would be!" with these pathetic words, sam weller departed. "a very singular young man that," said the powdered-headed footman, looking after mr. weller, with a countenance which clearly showed he could make nothing of him. sam said nothing at all. he winked, shook his head, smiled, winked again; and with an expression of countenance which seemed to denote that he was greatly amused with something or other, walked merrily away. [illustration: _"do you do anything in this way, sir?" inquired the tall footman_] at precisely twenty minutes before eight o'clock that night, angelo cyrus bantam, esq., the master of the ceremonies, emerged from his chariot at the door of the assembly rooms in the same wig, the same teeth, the same eye-glass, the same watch and seals, the same rings, the same shirt-pin, and the same cane. the only observable alterations in his appearance were, that he wore a brighter blue coat, with a white silk lining: black tights, black silk stockings, and pumps, and a white waistcoat, and was, if possible, just a thought more scented. thus attired, the master of the ceremonies, in strict discharge of the important duties of his all-important office, planted himself in the rooms to receive the company. bath being full, the company and the sixpences for tea poured in, in shoals. in the ball-room, the long card-room, the octagonal card-room, the staircases, and the passages, the hum of many voices and the sound of many feet were perfectly bewildering. dresses rustled, feathers waved, lights shone, and jewels sparkled. there was the music--not of the quadrille band, for it had not yet commenced; but the music of soft tiny footsteps, with now and then a clear merry laugh--low and gentle, but very pleasant to hear in a female voice, whether in bath or elsewhere. brilliant eyes, lighted up with pleasurable expectation, gleamed from every side; and look where you would, some exquisite form glided gracefully through the throng, and was no sooner lost, than it was replaced by another as dainty and bewitching. in the tea-room, and hovering round the card-tables, were a vast number of queer old ladies and decrepit old gentlemen, discussing all the small talk and scandal of the day, with a relish and gusto which sufficiently bespoke the intensity of the pleasure they derived from the occupation. mingled with these groups, were three or four matchmaking mammas, appearing to be wholly absorbed by the conversation in which they were taking part, but failing not from time to time to cast an anxious sidelong glance upon their daughters, who, remembering the maternal injunction to make the best use of their youth, had already commenced incipient flirtations in the mislaying of scarves, putting on gloves, setting down cups, and so forth; slight matters apparently, but which may be turned to surprisingly good account by expert practitioners. lounging near the doors, and in remote corners, were various knots of silly young men, displaying various varieties of puppyism and stupidity; amusing all sensible people near them with their folly and conceit; and happily thinking themselves the objects of general admiration. a wise and merciful dispensation which no good man will quarrel with. and lastly, seated on some of the back benches, where they had already taken up their positions for the evening, were divers unmarried ladies past their grand climacteric, who, not dancing because there were no partners for them, and not playing cards lest they should be set down as irretrievably single, were in the favourable situation of being able to abuse everybody without reflecting on themselves. in short, they could abuse everybody, because everybody was there. it was a scene of gaiety, glitter, and show; of richly-dressed people, handsome mirrors, chalked floors, girandoles, and wax candles; and in all parts of the scene, gliding from spot to spot in silent softness, bowing obsequiously to this party, nodding familiarly to that, and smiling complacently on all, was the sprucely attired person of angelo cyrus bantam, esquire, master of the ceremonies. "stop in the tea-room. take your sixpenn'orth. they lay on hot water, and call it tea. drink it," said mr. dowler, in a loud voice, directing mr. pickwick, who advanced at the head of the little party, with mrs. dowler on his arm. into the tea-room mr. pickwick turned; and catching sight of him, mr. bantam cork-screwed his way through the crowd, and welcomed him with ecstasy. "my dear sir, i am highly honoured. ba--ath is favoured. mrs. dowler, you embellish the rooms. i congratulate you on your feathers. re--markable!" "anybody here?" inquired dowler, suspiciously. "anybody! the _élite_ of ba--ath. mr. pickwick, do you see the lady in the gauze turban?" "the fat old lady?" inquired mr. pickwick, innocently. "hush, my dear sir--nobody's fat or old in ba--ath. that's the dowager lady snuphanuph." "is it indeed?" said mr. pickwick. "no less a person, i assure you," said the master of the ceremonies. "hush. draw a little nearer, mr. pickwick. you see the splendidly dressed young man coming this way?" "the one with the long hair, and the particularly small forehead?" inquired mr. pickwick. "the same. the richest young man in ba--ath at this moment. young lord mutanhed." "you don't say so?" said mr. pickwick. "yes. you'll hear his voice in a moment, mr. pickwick. he'll speak to me. the other gentleman with him, in the red under-waistcoat and dark moustache, is the honourable mr. crushton, his bosom friend. how do you do, my lord?" "veway hot, bantam," said his lordship. "it _is_ very warm, my lord," replied the m.c. "confounded," assented the honourable mr. crushton. "have you seen his lordship's mail cart, bantam?" inquired the honourable mr. crushton, after a short pause, during which young lord mutanhed had been endeavouring to stare mr. pickwick out of countenance, and mr. crushton had been reflecting what subject his lordship could talk about best. "dear me, no," replied the m.c. "a mail cart! what an excellent idea. re--markable!" "gwacious heavens!" said his lordship, "i thought evewebody had seen the new mail cart; it's the neatest, pwettiest, gwacefullest thing that ever wan upon wheels. painted wed, with a cweam piebald." "with a real box for the letters, and all complete," said the honourable mr. crushton. "and a little seat in fwont, with an iwon wail, for the dwiver," added his lordship. "i dwove it over to bristol the other morning, in a cwimson coat, with two servants widing a quarter of a mile behind; and confound me if the people didn't wush out of their cottages, and awest my pwogwess, to know if i wasn't the post. glorwious, glorwious!" at this anecdote his lordship laughed very heartily, as did the listeners, of course. then, drawing his arm through that of the obsequious mr. crushton, lord mutanhed walked away. "delightful young man, his lordship," said the master of the ceremonies. "so i should think," rejoined mr. pickwick, drily. the dancing having commenced, the necessary introductions having been made, and all preliminaries arranged, angelo bantam rejoined mr. pickwick, and led him into the card-room. just at the very moment of their entrance, the dowager lady snuphanuph and two other ladies of an ancient and whist-like appearance, were hovering over an unoccupied card-table; and they no sooner set eyes upon mr. pickwick under the convoy of angelo bantam, than they exchanged glances with each other, seeing that he was precisely the very person they wanted, to make up the rubber. "my dear bantam," said the dowager lady snuphanuph, coaxingly, "find us some nice creature to make up this table; there's a good soul." mr. pickwick happened to be looking another way at the moment, so her ladyship nodded her head towards him, and frowned expressively. "my friend, mr. pickwick, my lady, will be most happy, i am sure, re--markably so," said the m.c., taking the hint. "mr. pickwick, lady snuphanuph--mrs. colonel wugsby--miss bolo." mr. pickwick bowed to each of the ladies, and, finding escape impossible, cut. mr. pickwick and miss bolo against lady snuphanuph and mrs. colonel wugsby. as the trump card was turned up at the commencement of the second deal, two young ladies hurried into the room, and took their stations on either side of mrs. colonel wugsby's chair, where they waited patiently until the hand was over. "now, jane," said mrs. colonel wugsby, turning to one of the girls, "what is it?" "i came to ask, ma, whether i might dance with the youngest mr. crawley," whispered the prettier and younger of the two. "good god, jane, how can you think of such things?" replied the mamma, indignantly. "haven't you repeatedly heard that his father has eight hundred a-year, which dies with him? i am ashamed of you. not on any account." "ma," whispered the other, who was much older than her sister and very insipid and artificial, "lord mutanhed has been introduced to me. i said i _thought_ i wasn't engaged, ma." "you're a sweet pet, my love," replied mrs. colonel wugsby, tapping her daughter's cheek with her fan, "and are always to be trusted. he's immensely rich, my dear. bless you!" with these words mrs. colonel wugsby kissed her eldest daughter most affectionately, and frowning, in a warning manner, upon the other, sorted her cards. poor mr. pickwick! he had never played with three thorough-paced female card-players before. they were so desperately sharp, that they quite frightened him. if he played a wrong card, miss bolo looked a small armoury of daggers; if he stopped to consider which was the right one, lady snuphanuph would throw herself back in her chair, and smile with a mingled glance of impatience and pity to mrs. colonel wugsby; at which mrs. colonel wugsby would shrug up her shoulders and cough, as much as to say she wondered whether he ever would begin. then, at the end of every hand, miss bolo would inquire with a dismal countenance and reproachful sigh, why mr. pickwick had not returned that diamond, or led the club, or roughed the spade, or finessed the heart, or led through the honour, or brought out the ace, or played up to the king, or some such thing; and in reply to all these grave charges, mr. pickwick would be wholly unable to plead any justification whatever, having by this time forgotten all about the game. people came and looked on, too, which made mr. pickwick nervous. besides all this, there was a great deal of distracting conversation near the table, between angelo bantam and the two miss matinters, who, being single and singular, paid great court to the master of the ceremonies, in the hope of getting a stray partner now and then. all these things, combined with the noises and interruptions of constant comings in and goings out, made mr. pickwick play rather badly; the cards were against him also; and when they left off at ten minutes past eleven, miss bolo rose from the table considerably agitated, and went straight home, in a flood of tears, and a sedan chair. being joined by his friends, who one and all protested that they had scarcely ever spent a more pleasant evening, mr. pickwick accompanied them to the white hart, and having soothed his feelings with something hot, went to bed, and to sleep, almost simultaneously. chapter viii [illustration] _the chief features of which, will be found to be an authentic version of the legend of prince bladud, and a most extraordinary calamity that befell mr. winkle_ as mr. pickwick contemplated a stay of at least two months in bath, he deemed it advisable to take private lodgings for himself and friends for that period; and as a favourable opportunity offered for their securing, on moderate terms, the upper portion of a house in the royal crescent, which was larger than they required, mr. and mrs. dowler offered to relieve them of a bedroom and sitting-room. this proposition was at once accepted, and in three days' time they were all located in their new abode, when mr. pickwick began to drink the waters with the utmost assiduity. mr. pickwick took them systematically. he drank a quarter of a pint before breakfast, and then walked up a hill; and another quarter of a pint after breakfast, and then walked down a hill; and after every fresh quarter of a pint, mr. pickwick declared, in the most solemn and emphatic terms, that he felt a great deal better: whereat his friends were very much delighted, though they had not been previously aware that there was anything the matter with him. the great pump-room is a spacious saloon, ornamented with corinthian pillars, and a music gallery, and a tompion clock, and a statue of nash, and a golden inscription, to which all the water-drinkers should attend, for it appeals to them in the cause of a deserving charity. there is a large bar with a marble vase, out of which the pumper gets the water; and there are a number of yellow-looking tumblers, out of which the company get it; and it is a most edifying and satisfactory sight to behold the perseverance and gravity with which they swallow it. there are baths near at hand, in which a part of the company wash themselves; and a band plays afterwards, to congratulate the remainder on their having done so. there is another pump-room, into which infirm ladies and gentlemen are wheeled, in such an astonishing variety of chairs and chaises, that any adventurous individual who goes in with the regular number of toes, is in imminent danger of coming out without them; and there is a third, into which the quiet people go, for it is less noisy than either. there is an immensity of promenading, on crutches and off, with sticks and without, and a great deal of conversation, and liveliness, and pleasantry. every morning the regular water-drinkers, mr. pickwick among the number, met each other in the pump-room, took their quarter of a pint, and walked constitutionally. at the afternoon's promenade, lord mutanhed, and the honourable mr. crushton, the dowager lady snuphanuph, mrs. colonel wugsby, and all the great people, and all the morning water-drinkers, met in grand assemblage. after this, they walked out, or drove out, or were pushed out in bath-chairs, and met one another again. after this, the gentlemen went to the reading-rooms and met divisions of the mass. after this, they went home. if it were theatre night, perhaps they met at the theatre; if it were assembly night, they met at the rooms; and if it were neither, they met the next day. a very pleasant routine, with perhaps a slight tinge of sameness. mr. pickwick was sitting up by himself, after a day spent in this manner, making entries in his journal: his friends having retired to bed: when he was roused by a gentle tap at the room door. "beg your pardon, sir," said mrs. craddock, the landlady, peeping in; "but did you want anything more, sir?" "nothing more, ma'am," replied mr. pickwick. "my young girl is gone to bed, sir," said mrs. craddock; "and mr. dowler is good enough to say that he'll sit up for mrs. dowler, as the party isn't expected to be over till late; so i was thinking if you wanted nothing more, mr. pickwick, i would go to bed." "by all means, ma'am," replied mr. pickwick. "wish you good night, sir," said mrs. craddock. "good night, ma'am," rejoined mr. pickwick. mrs. craddock closed the door, and mr. pickwick resumed his writing. in half an hour's time the entries were concluded. mr. pickwick carefully rubbed the last page on the blotting paper, shut up the book, wiped his pen on the bottom of the inside of his coat-tail, and opened the drawer of the inkstand to put it carefully away. there were a couple of sheets of writing paper, pretty closely written over, in the inkstand drawer, and they were folded so that the title, which was in a good round hand, was fully disclosed to him. seeing from this, that it was no private document: and as it seemed to relate to bath, and was very short: mr. pickwick unfolded it, lighted his bed-room candle that it might burn up well by the time he finished; and drawing his chair nearer the fire, read as follows: the true legend of prince bladud "less than two hundred years agone, on one of the public baths in this city, there appeared an inscription in honour of its mighty founder, the renowned prince bladud. that inscription is now erased. "for many hundred years before that time, there had been handed down, from age to age, an old legend, that the illustrious prince being afflicted with leprosy, on his return from reaping a rich harvest of knowledge in athens, shunned the court of his royal father, and consorted moodily with husbandmen and pigs. among the herd (so said the legend) was a pig of grave and solemn countenance, with whom the prince had a fellow feeling--for he too was wise--a pig of thoughtful and reserved demeanour; an animal superior to his fellows, whose grunt was terrible, and whose bite was sharp. the young prince sighed deeply as he looked upon the countenance of the majestic swine; he thought of his royal father, and his eyes were bedewed with tears. "this sagacious pig was fond of bathing in rich, moist mud. not in summer, as common pigs do now, to cool themselves, and did even in those distant ages (which is a proof that the light of civilisation had already begun to dawn, though feebly), but in the cold sharp days of winter. his coat was ever so sleek, and his complexion so clear, that the prince resolved to essay the purifying qualities of the same water that his friend resorted to. he made the trial. beneath that black mud, bubbled the hot springs of bath. he washed, and was cured. hastening to his father's court, he paid his best respects, and returning quickly hither, founded this city, and its famous baths. "he sought the pig with all the ardour of their early friendship--but, alas! the waters had been his death. he had imprudently taken a bath at too high a temperature, and the natural philosopher was no more! he was succeeded by pliny, who also fell a victim to his thirst for knowledge. "this _was_ the legend. listen to the true one. "a great many centuries since, there flourished in great state, the famous and renowned lud hudibras, king of britain. he was a mighty monarch. the earth shook when he walked: he was so very stout. his people basked in the light of his countenance: it was so red and glowing. he was, indeed, every inch a king. and there were a good many inches of him too, for although he was not very tall, he was a remarkable size round, and the inches that he wanted in height he made up in circumference. if any degenerate monarch of modern times could be in any way compared with him, i should say the venerable king cole would be that illustrious potentate. "this good king had a queen, who eighteen years before, had had a son, who was called bladud. he was sent to a preparatory seminary in his father's dominions until he was ten years old, and was then despatched in charge of a trusty messenger, to a finishing school at athens; and as there was no extra charge for remaining during the holidays, and no notice required previous to the removal of a pupil, there he remained for eight long years, at the expiration of which time, the king his father sent the lord chamberlain over, to settle the bill, and to bring him home: which, the lord chamberlain doing, was received with shouts, and pensioned immediately. "when king lud saw the prince his son, and found he had grown up such a fine young man, he perceived at once what a grand thing it would be to have him married without delay, so that his children might be the means of perpetuating the glorious race of lud, down to the very latest ages of the world. with this view, he sent a special embassy, composed of great noblemen who had nothing particular to do, and wanted lucrative employment, to a neighbouring king, and demanded his fair daughter in marriage for his son: stating at the same time that he was anxious to be on the most affectionate terms with his brother and friend, but that if they couldn't agree in arranging this marriage, he should be under the unpleasant necessity of invading his kingdom, and putting his eyes out. to this, the other king (who was the weaker of the two) replied, that he was very much obliged to his friend and brother for all his goodness and magnanimity, and that his daughter was quite ready to be married, whenever prince bladud liked to come and fetch her. "this answer no sooner reached britain, than the whole nation were transported with joy. nothing was heard, on all sides, but the sounds of feasting and revelry,--except the chinking of money as it was paid in by the people to the collector of the royal treasures, to defray the expenses of the happy ceremony. it was upon this occasion that king lud, seated on the top of his throne in full council, rose, in the exuberance of his feelings, and commanded the lord chief justice to order in the richest wines and the court minstrels: an act of graciousness which has been, through the ignorance of traditionary historians, attributed to king cole, in those celebrated lines in which his majesty is represented as-- 'calling for his pipe, and calling for his pot, and calling for his fiddlers three.' which is an obvious injustice to the memory of king lud, and a dishonest exaltation of the virtues of king cole. "but in the midst of all this festivity and rejoicing, there was one individual present who tasted not when the sparkling wines were poured forth, and who danced not when the minstrels played. this was no other than prince bladud himself, in honour of whose happiness a whole people were at that very moment straining alike their throats and purse-strings. the truth was, that the prince, forgetting the undoubted right of the minister for foreign affairs to fall in love on his behalf, had, contrary to every precedent of policy and diplomacy, already fallen in love on his own account, and privately contracted himself unto the fair daughter of a noble athenian. "here we have a striking example of one of the manifold advantages of civilisation and refinement. if the prince had lived in later days, he might at once have married the object of his father's choice, and then set himself seriously to work, to relieve himself of the burden which rested heavily upon him. he might have endeavoured to break her heart by a systematic course of insult and neglect; or, if the spirit of her sex, and a proud consciousness of her many wrongs, had upheld her under this ill treatment, he might have sought to take her life, and so get rid of her effectually. but neither mode of relief suggested itself to prince bladud; so he solicited a private audience, and told his father. "it is an old prerogative of kings to govern everything but their passions. king lud flew into a frightful rage, tossed his crown up to the ceiling, and caught it again--for in those days kings kept their crowns on their heads, and not in the tower--stamped the ground, rapped his forehead, wondered why his own flesh and blood rebelled against him, and, finally, calling in his guards, ordered the prince away to instant confinement in a lofty turret; a course of treatment which the kings of old very generally pursued towards their sons, when their matrimonial inclinations did not happen to point to the same quarter as their own. "when prince bladud had been shut up in the lofty turret for the greater part of a year, with no better prospect before his bodily eyes than a stone wall, or before his mental vision than prolonged imprisonment, he naturally began to ruminate on a plan of escape, which, after months of preparation, he managed to accomplish; considerately leaving his dinner knife in the heart of his gaoler, lest the poor fellow (who had a family) should be considered privy to his flight, and punished accordingly by the infuriated king. "the monarch was frantic at the loss of his son. he knew not on whom to vent his grief and wrath, until fortunately bethinking himself of the lord chamberlain who had brought him home, he struck off his pension and his head together. "meanwhile the young prince, effectually disguised, wandered on foot through his father's dominions, cheered and supported in all his hardships by sweet thoughts of the athenian maid, who was the innocent cause of his weary trials. one day he stopped to rest in a country village; and seeing that there were gay dances going forward on the green, and gay faces passing to and fro, ventured to inquire of a reveller who stood near him, the reason for this rejoicing. "'know you not, o stranger,' was the reply, 'of the recent proclamation of our gracious king?' "'proclamation! no. what proclamation?' rejoined the prince--for he had travelled along the bye and little-frequented ways and knew nothing of what had passed upon the public roads, such as they were. "'why,' replied the peasant, 'the foreign lady that our prince wished to wed, is married to a foreign noble of her own country; and the king proclaims the fact, and a great public festival besides; for now, of course, prince bladud will come back and marry the lady his father chose, who they say is as beautiful as the noonday sun. your health, sir. god save the king!' "the prince remained to hear no more. he fled from the spot, and plunged into the thickest recesses of a neighbouring wood. on, on, he wandered night and day: beneath the blazing sun, and the cold pale moon: through the dry heat of noon, and the damp cold of night: in the grey light of morn, and the red glare of eve. so heedless was he of time or object, that being bound for athens, he wandered as far out of his way as bath. "there was no city where bath stands, then. there was no vestige of human habitation, or sign of man's resort, to bear the name; but there was the same noble country, the same broad expanse of hill and dale, the same beautiful channel stealing on, far away: the same lofty mountains which, like the troubles of life, viewed at a distance, and partially obscured by the bright mist of its morning, lose their ruggedness and asperity, and seem all ease and softness. moved by the gentle beauty of the scene, the prince sank upon the green turf, and bathed his swollen feet in his tears. "'oh!' said the unhappy bladud, clasping his hands, and mournfully raising his eyes towards the sky, 'would that my wanderings might end here! would that these grateful tears, with which i now mourn hope misplaced, and love despised, might flow in peace for ever!' "the wish was heard. it was in the time of the heathen deities, who used occasionally to take people at their words, with a promptness, in some cases, extremely awkward. the ground opened beneath the prince's feet; he sunk into the chasm; and instantaneously it closed upon his head for ever, save where his hot tears welled up through the earth, and where they have continued to gush forth ever since. "it is observable that, to this day, large numbers of elderly ladies and gentlemen who have been disappointed in procuring partners, and almost as many young ones who are anxious to obtain them, repair, annually, to bath to drink the waters, from which they derive much strength and comfort. this is most complimentary to the virtue of prince bladud's tears, and strongly corroborative of the veracity of this legend." * * * * * mr. pickwick yawned several times, when he had arrived at the end of this little manuscript: carefully refolded, and replaced it in the inkstand drawer: and then, with a countenance expressive of the utmost weariness, lighted his chamber candle, and went upstairs to bed. he stopped at mr. dowler's door, according to custom, and knocked to say good night. "ah!" said dowler, "going to bed? i wish i was. dismal night. windy; isn't it?" "very," said mr. pickwick. "good night." "good night." mr. pickwick went to his bed-chamber, and mr. dowler resumed his seat before the fire, in fulfilment of his rash promise to sit up till his wife came home. there are few things more worrying than sitting up for somebody, especially if that somebody be at a party. you cannot help thinking how quickly the time passes with them, which drags so heavily with you; and the more you think of this, the more your hopes of their speedy arrival decline. clocks tick so loud, too, when you are sitting up alone, and you seem as if you had an under garment of cobwebs on. first, something tickles your right knee, and then the same sensation irritates your left. you have no sooner changed your position than it comes again in the arms; when you have fidgeted your limbs into all sorts of odd shapes, you have a sudden relapse in the nose, which you rub as if to rub it off--as there is no doubt you would, if you could. eyes, too, are mere personal inconveniences; and the wick of one candle gets an inch and a half long, while you are snuffing the other. these, and various other little nervous annoyances, render sitting up for a length of time after everybody else has gone to bed, anything but a cheerful amusement. this was just mr. dowler's opinion as he sat before the fire, and felt honestly indignant with all the inhuman people at the party who were keeping him up. he was not put into better humour either by the reflection that he had taken it into his head, early in the evening, to think that he had got an ache there, and so stopped at home. at length, after several droppings asleep, and fallings forward towards the bars, and catchings backward soon enough to prevent being branded in the face, mr. dowler made up his mind that he would throw himself on the bed in the back room and _think_--not sleep, of course. "i'm a heavy sleeper," said mr. dowler, as he flung himself on the bed. "i must keep awake. i suppose i shall hear a knock here. yes. i thought so. i can hear the watchman. there he goes. fainter now, though. a little fainter. he's turning the corner. ah!" when mr. dowler arrived at this point, _he_ turned the corner at which he had been long hesitating, and fell fast asleep. just as the clock struck three, there was blown into the crescent a sedan-chair with mrs. dowler inside, borne by one short fat chairman, and one long thin one, who had much ado to keep their bodies perpendicular: to say nothing of the chair. but on that high ground, and in the crescent, which the wind swept round and round, as if it were going to tear the paving stones up, its fury was tremendous. they were very glad to set the chair down, and give a good round loud double-knock at the street door. they waited some time, but nobody came. "servants is in the arms o' porpus, i think," said the short chairman, warming his hands at the attendant link-boy's torch. "i wish he'd give 'em a squeeze and wake 'em," observed the long one. "knock again, will you, if you please," cried mrs. dowler from the chair. "knock two or three times, if you please." the short man was quite willing to get the job over, as soon as possible; so he stood on the step, and gave four or five most startling double knocks, of eight or ten knocks a piece: while the long man went into the road, and looked up at the windows for a light. nobody came. it was all as silent and dark as ever. "dear me!" said mrs. dowler. "you must knock again, if you please." "theer ain't a bell, is there, ma'am?" said the short chairman. "yes, there is," interposed the link-boy, "i've been a ringing at it ever so long." "it's only a handle," said mrs. dowler, "the wire's broken." "i wish the servants' heads wos," growled the long man. "i must trouble you to knock again, if you please," said mrs. dowler with the utmost politeness. the short man did knock again several times, without producing the smallest effect. the tall man, growing very impatient, then relieved him, and kept on perpetually knocking double knocks of two loud knocks each, like an insane postman. at length mr. winkle began to dream that he was at a club, and that the members being very refractory, the chairman was obliged to hammer the table a good deal to preserve order; then he had a confused notion of an auction room where there were no bidders, and the auctioneer was buying everything in; and ultimately he began to think it just within the bounds of possibility that somebody might be knocking at the street door. to make quite certain, however, he remained quiet in bed for ten minutes or so, and listened; and when he had counted two or three and thirty knocks, he felt quite satisfied, and gave himself a great deal of credit for being so wakeful. "rap rap--rap rap--rap rap--ra, ra, ra, ra, ra, rap!" went the knocker. mr. winkle jumped out of bed, wondering very much what could possibly be the matter, and hastily putting on his stockings and slippers, folded his dressing-gown round him, lighted a flat candle from the rushlight that was burning in the fireplace, and hurried downstairs. "here's somebody comin' at last, ma'am," said the short chairman. "i wish i wos behind him vith a bradawl," muttered the long one. "who's there?" cried mr. winkle, undoing the chain. "don't stop to ask questions, cast-iron head," replied the long man, with great disgust, taking it for granted that the inquirer was a footman; "but open the door." "come, look sharp, timber eyelids," added the other encouragingly. mr. winkle, being half asleep, obeyed the command mechanically, opened the door a little, and peeped out. the first thing he saw, was the red glare of the link-boy's torch. startled by the sudden fear that the house might be on fire, he hastily threw the door wide open, and holding the candle above his head, stared eagerly before him, not quite certain whether what he saw was a sedan-chair or a fire-engine. at this instant there came a violent gust of wind; the light was blown out; mr. winkle felt himself irresistibly impelled on to the steps; and the door blew to, with a loud crash. "well, young man, now you _have_ done it!" said the short chairman. mr. winkle, catching sight of a lady's face at the window of the sedan, turned hastily round, plied the knocker with all his might and main, and called frantically upon the chairman to take the chair away again. "take it away, take it away!" cried mr. winkle. "here's somebody coming out of another house; put me into the chair. hide me! do something with me!" all this time he was shivering with cold; and every time he raised his hand to the knocker, the wind took the dressing-gown in a most unpleasant manner. "the people are coming down the crescent now. there are ladies with 'em; cover me up with something. stand before me!" roared mr. winkle. but the chairmen were too much exhausted with laughing to afford him the slightest assistance, and the ladies were every moment approaching nearer and nearer. mr. winkle gave a last hopeless knock; the ladies were only a few doors off. he threw away the extinguished candle, which, all this time, he had held above his head, and fairly bolted into the sedan-chair where mrs. dowler was. now, mrs. craddock had heard the knocking and the voices at last; and only waiting to put something smarter on her head than her night-cap, ran down into the front drawing-room to make sure that it was the right party. throwing up the window sash as mr. winkle was rushing into the chair, she no sooner caught sight of what was going forward below, than she raised a vehement and dismal shriek, and implored mr. dowler to get up directly, for his wife was running away with another gentleman. upon this, mr. dowler bounced off the bed as abruptly as an india-rubber ball, and rushing into the front room, arrived at one window just as mr. pickwick threw up the other; when the first object that met the gaze of both, was mr. winkle bolting into the sedan-chair. "watchman," shouted dowler furiously; "stop him--hold him--keep him tight--shut him in, till i come down. i'll cut his throat--give me a knife--from ear to ear, mrs. craddock--i will!" and breaking from the shrieking landlady, and from mr. pickwick, the indignant husband seized a small supper-knife, and tore into the street. but mr. winkle didn't wait for him. he no sooner heard the horrible threat of the valorous dowler, than he bounced out of the sedan, quite as quickly as he had bounced in, and throwing off his slippers into the road, took to his heels and tore round the crescent, hotly pursued by dowler and the watchman. he kept ahead; the door was open as he came round the second time; he rushed in, slammed it in dowler's face, mounted to his bed-room, locked the door, piled a washhand-stand, chest of drawers, and table against it, and packed up a few necessaries ready for flight with the first ray of morning. [illustration: _mr. winkle took to his heels and tore round the crescent._] dowler came up to the outside of the door; avowed, through the keyhole, his steadfast determination of cutting mr. winkle's throat next day; and, after a great confusion of voices in the drawing-room, amidst which that of mr. pickwick was distinctly heard endeavouring to make peace, the inmates dispersed to their several bed-chambers, and all was quite once more. it is not unlikely that the inquiry may be made, where mr. weller was, all this time? we will state where he was, in the next chapter. chapter ix [illustration] _honourably accounts for mr. weller's absence, by describing a soiree to which he was invited and went; also relates how he was entrusted by mr. pickwick with a private mission of delicacy and importance_ "mr. weller," said mrs. craddock, upon the morning of this very eventful day, "here's a letter for you." "wery odd that," said sam, "i'm afeerd there must be somethin' the matter, for i don't recollect any gen'l'm'n in my circle of acquaintance as is capable o' writin' one." "perhaps something uncommon has taken place," observed mrs. craddock. "it must be somethin' wery uncommon indeed, as could produce a letter out o' any friend o' mine," replied sam, shaking his head dubiously; "nothin' less than a nat'ral conwulsion, as the young gen'l'm'n observed ven he was took with fits. it can't be from the gov'ner," said sam, looking at the direction. "he always prints, i know, 'cos he learnt writin' from the large bills in the bookin' offices. it's a wery strange thing now, where this here letter can ha' come from." as sam said this, he did what a great many people do when they are uncertain about the writer of a note,--looked at the seal, and then at the front, and then at the back, and then at the sides, and then at the superscription; and, as a last resource, thought perhaps he might as well look at the inside, and try to find out from that. "it's wrote on gilt-edged paper," said sam, as he unfolded it, "and sealed in bronze vax with the top of a door-key. now for it." and, with a very grave face, mr. weller slowly read as follows: "a select company of the bath footmen presents their compliments to mr. weller, and requests the pleasure of his company this evening, to a friendly swarry, consisting of a boiled leg of mutton with the usual trimmings. the swarry to be on table at half-past nine o'clock punctually." this was enclosed in another note, which ran thus-- "mr. john smauker, the gentleman who had the pleasure of meeting mr. weller at the house of their mutual acquaintance, mr. bantam, a few days since, begs to inclose mr. weller the herewith invitation. if mr. weller will call on mr. john smauker at nine o'clock, mr. john smauker will have the pleasure of introducing mr. weller. (signed) +john smauker+." the envelope was directed to blank weller, esq., at mr. pickwick's; and in a parenthesis, in the left-hand corner, were the words "airy bell," as an instruction to the bearer. "vell," said sam, "this is comin' it rayther powerful, this is. i never heerd a biled leg of mutton called a swarry afore. i wonder wot they'd call a roast one?" however, without waiting to debate the point, sam at once betook himself into the presence of mr. pickwick, and requested leave of absence for that evening, which was readily granted. with this permission, and the street-door key, sam weller issued forth a little before the appointed time, and strolled leisurely towards queen square, which he no sooner gained than he had the satisfaction of beholding mr. john smauker leaning his powdered head against a lamp-post at a short distance off, smoking a cigar through an amber tube. "how do you do, mr. weller?" said mr. john smauker, raising his hat gracefully with one hand, while he gently waved the other in a condescending manner. "how do you do, sir?" "why, reasonably conwalessent," replied sam. "how do _you_ find yourself, my dear feller?" "only so so," said mr. john smauker. "ah, you've been a workin' too hard," observed sam. "i was fearful you would; it won't do, you know; you must not give way to that 'ere uncompromisin' spirit o' your'n." "it's not so much that, mr. weller," replied mr. john smauker, "as bad wine; i'm afraid i've been dissipating." "oh! that's it, is it?" said sam; "that's a wery bad complaint, that." "and yet the temptation, you see, mr. weller," observed mr. john smauker. "ah, to be sure," said sam. "plunged into the very vortex of society, you know, mr. weller," said mr. john smauker with a sigh. "dreadful indeed!" rejoined sam. "but it's always the way," said mr. john smauker; "if your destiny leads you into public life, and public station, you must expect to be subjected to temptations which other people is free from, mr. weller." "precisely what my uncle said, ven _he_ vent into the public line," remarked sam, "and wery right the old gen'l'm'n wos, for he drank hisself to death in somethin' less than a quarter." mr. john smauker looked deeply indignant at any parallel being drawn between himself and the deceased gentleman in question; but as sam's face was in the most immovable state of calmness, he thought better of it, and looked affable again. "perhaps we had better be walking," said mr. smauker, consulting a copper timepiece which dwelt at the bottom of a deep watch-pocket, and was raised to the surface by means of a black string, with a copper key at the other end. "perhaps we had," replied sam, "or they'll overdo the swarry, and that'll spile it." "have you drank the waters, mr. weller?" inquired his companion, as they walked towards high street. "once," replied sam. "what did you think of 'em, sir?" "i thought they wos particklery unpleasant," replied sam. "ah," said mr. john smauker, "you disliked the killibeate taste, perhaps?" "i don't know much about that 'ere," said sam. "i thought they'd a wery strong flavour o' warm flat-irons." "that _is_ the killibeate, mr. weller," observed mr. john smauker, contemptuously. "well, if it is, it's a wery inexpressive word, that's all," said sam. "it may be, but i ain't much in the chimical line myself, so i can't say." and here, to the great horror of mr. john smauker, sam weller began to whistle. [illustration: _and here, to the great horror of mr. john smauker, sam weller began to whistle._] "i beg your pardon, mr. weller," said mr. john smauker, agonised at the exceedingly ungenteel sound, "will you take my arm?" "thankee, you're wery good, but i won't deprive you of it," replied sam. "i've rayther a way o' puttin' my hands in my pockets, if it's all the same to you." as sam said this, he suited the action to the word, and whistled far louder than before. "this way," said his new friend, apparently much relieved as they turned down a by-street; "we shall soon be there." "shall we?" said sam, quite unmoved by the announcement of his close vicinity to the select footmen of bath. "yes," said mr. john smauker. "don't be alarmed, mr. weller." "oh no," said sam. "you'll see very handsome uniforms, mr. weller," continued mr. john smauker; "and perhaps you'll find some of the gentlemen rather high at first, you know, but they'll soon come round." "that's wery kind on 'em," replied sam. "and you know," resumed mr. john smauker, with an air of sublime protection; "you know, as you're a stranger, perhaps they'll be rather hard upon you at first." "they won't be wery cruel, though, will they?" inquired sam. "no, no," replied mr. john smauker, pulling forth the fox's head and taking a gentlemanly pinch. "there are some funny dogs among us, and they will have their joke, you know: but you mustn't mind 'em, you mustn't mind 'em." "i'll try and bear up agin such a reg'lar knock-down o' talent," replied sam. "that's right," said mr. john smauker, putting up the fox's head and elevating his own; "i'll stand by you." by this time they had reached a small greengrocer's shop, which mr. john smauker entered, followed by sam: who, the moment he got behind him, relapsed into a series of the very broadest and most unmitigated grins, and manifested other demonstrations of being in a highly enviable state of inward merriment. crossing the greengrocer's shop, and putting their hats on the stairs in the little passage behind it, they walked into a small parlour; and here the full splendour of the scene burst upon mr. weller's view. a couple of tables were put together in the middle of the parlour, covered with three or four cloths of different ages and dates of washing, arranged to look as much like one as the circumstances of the case would allow. upon these were laid knives and forks for six or eight people. some of the knife handles were green, others red, and a few yellow; and as all the forks were black, the combination of colours was exceedingly striking. plates for a corresponding number of guests were warming behind the fender; and the guests themselves were warming before it: the chief and most important of whom appeared to be a stoutish gentleman in a bright crimson coat with long tails, vividly red breeches, and a cocked hat, who was standing with his back to the fire and had apparently just entered, for besides retaining his cocked hat on his head, he carried in his hand a high stick, such as gentlemen of his profession usually elevate in a sloping position over the roofs of carriages. "smauker, my lad, your fin," said the gentleman with the cocked hat. mr. smauker dovetailed the top joint of his right-hand little finger into that of the gentleman with the cocked hat and said he was charmed to see him looking so well. "well, they tell me i am looking pretty blooming," said the man with the cocked hat, "and it's a wonder, too. i've been following our old woman about, two hours a day, for the last fortnight; and if a constant contemplation of the manner in which she hooks-and-eyes that infernal old lavender-coloured gown of hers behind, isn't enough to throw anybody into a low state of despondency for life, stop my quarter's salary." at this, the assembled selections laughed very heartily; and one gentleman in a yellow waistcoat, with a coach-trimming border, whispered a neighbour in green-foil smalls, that tuckle was in spirits to-night. "by-the-bye," said mr. tuckle, "smauker, my boy, you--" the remainder of the sentence was forwarded into mr. john smauker's ear, by whisper. "oh, dear me, i quite forgot," said mr. john smauker. "gentlemen, my friend mr. weller." "sorry to keep the fire off you, weller," said mr. tuckle, with a familiar nod. "hope you're not cold, weller?" "not by no means, blazes," replied sam. "it 'ud be a wery chilly subject as felt cold ven you stood opposit. you'd save coals if they put you behind the fender in the waitin' room at a public office, you would." as this retort appeared to convey rather a personal allusion to mr. tuckle's crimson livery, that gentleman looked majestic for a few seconds, but gradually edging away from the fire, broke into a forced smile, and said it wasn't bad. "wery much obliged for your good opinion, sir," replied sam. "we shall get on by degrees, i des-say. we'll try a better one, by-and-by." at this point the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a gentleman in orange-coloured plush, accompanied by another selection in purple cloth, with a great extent of stocking. the new comers having been welcomed by the old ones, mr. tuckle put the question that supper be ordered in, which was carried unanimously. the greengrocer and his wife then arranged upon the table a boiled leg of mutton, hot, with caper sauce, turnips, and potatoes. mr. tuckle took the chair, and was supported at the other end of the board by the gentleman in orange plush. the greengrocer put on a pair of wash-leather gloves to hand the plates with, and stationed himself behind mr. tuckle's chair. "harris," said mr. tuckle in a commanding tone. "sir?" said the greengrocer. "have you got your gloves on?" "yes, sir." "then take the kiver off." "yes, sir." the greengrocer did as he was told, with a show of great humility, and obsequiously handed mr. tuckle the carving knife; in doing which, he accidentally gaped. "what do you mean by that, sir?" said mr. tuckle, with great asperity. "i beg your pardon, sir," replied the crestfallen greengrocer, "i din't mean to do it, sir; i was up very late last night, sir." "i tell you what my opinion of you is, harris," said mr. tuckle with a most impressive air, "you're a wulgar beast." "i hope, gentlemen," said harris, "that you won't be severe with me, gentlemen. i'm very much obliged to you indeed, gentlemen, for your patronage, and also for your recommendations, gentlemen, whenever additional assistance in waiting is required. i hope, gentlemen, i give satisfaction." "no, you don't, sir," said mr. tuckle. "very far from it, sir." "we consider you an inattentive reskel," said the gentleman in the orange plush. "and a low thief," added the gentleman in the green-foil smalls. "and an unreclaimable blaygaird," added the gentleman in purple. the poor greengrocer bowed very humbly while these little epithets were bestowed upon him, in the true spirit of the very smallest tyranny; and when everybody had said something to show his superiority, mr. tuckle proceeded to carve the leg of mutton, and to help the company. this important business of the evening had hardly commenced, when the door was thrown briskly open, and another gentleman in a light blue suit, and leaden buttons, made his appearance. "against the rules," said mr. tuckle. "too late, too late." "no, no; positively i couldn't help it," said the gentleman in blue. "i appeal to the company. an affair of gallantry now, an appointment at the theayter." "oh, that indeed," said the gentleman in the orange plush. "yes; raly now, honour bright," said the man in blue. "i made a promese to fetch our youngest daughter at half-past ten, and she is such an uncauminly fine gal, that i raly hadn't the art to disappoint her. no offence to the present company, sir, but a petticut, sir, a petticut, sir, is irrevokeable!" "i begin to suspect there's something in that quarter," said tuckle, as the new-comer took his seat next sam. "i've remarked once or twice, that she leans very heavy on your shoulder, when she gets in and out of the carriage." "oh raly, raly, tuckle, you shouldn't," said the man in blue. "it's not fair. i may have said to one or two friends that she was a very divine creechure, and had refused one or two offers without any hobvus cause, but--no, no, no, indeed, tuckle--before strangers too--it's not right--you shouldn't. delicacy, my dear friend, delicacy!" and the man in blue, pulling up his neckerchief, and adjusting his coat cuffs, nodded and frowned as if there were more behind, which he could say if he liked, but was bound in honour to suppress. the man in blue being a light-haired, stiff-necked, free and easy sort of footman, with a swaggering air and pert face, had attracted mr. weller's especial attention at first, but when he began to come out in this way, sam felt more than ever disposed to cultivate his acquaintance; so he launched himself into the conversation at once, with characteristic independence. "your health, sir," said sam. "i like you conwersation much. i think it's wery pretty." at this the man in blue smiled, as if it were a compliment he was well used to; but looked approvingly on sam at the same time, and said he hoped he should be better acquainted with him, for without any flattery at all, he seemed to have the makings of a very nice fellow about him, and to be just the man after his own heart. "you're wery good, sir," said sam. "what a lucky feller you are!" "how do you mean?" inquired the gentleman in blue. "that 'ere young lady," replied sam. "she knows wot's wot, she does. ah! i see." mr. weller closed one eye, and shook his head from side to side, in a manner which was highly gratifying to the personal vanity of the gentleman in blue. "i'm afraid you're a cunning fellow, mr. weller," said that individual. "no, no," said sam. "i leave all that 'ere to you. it's a great deal more in your way than mine, as the gen'l'm'n on the right side o' the garden vall said to the man on the wrong 'un, ven the mad bull wos a comin' up the lane." "well, well, mr. weller," said the gentleman in blue, "i think she has remarked my air and manner, mr. weller." "i should think she couldn't wery vell be off o' that," said sam. "have you any little thing of that kind in hand, sir?" inquired the favoured gentleman in blue, drawing a toothpick from his waistcoat pocket. "not exactly," said sam. "there's no daughters at my place, else o' course i should ha' made up to vun on 'em. as it is, i don't think i can do anything under a female markis. i might take up vith a young 'ooman o' large property, as hadn't a title, if she made wery fierce love to me. not else." "of course not, mr. weller," said the gentleman in blue, "one can't be troubled, you know; and _we_ know, mr. weller--we, who are men of the world--that a good uniform must work its way with the women, sooner or later. in fact, that's the only thing, between you and me, that makes the service worth entering into." "just so," said sam. "that's it, o' course." when this confidential dialogue had gone thus far, glasses were placed round, and every gentleman ordered what he liked best, before the public-house shut up. the gentleman in blue, and the man in orange, who were the chief exquisites of the party, ordered "cold scrub and water," but with the others, gin and water, sweet, appeared to be the favourite beverage. sam called the greengrocer a "desp'rate willin," and ordered a large bowl of punch: two circumstances which seemed to raise him very much in the opinion of the selections. "gentlemen," said the man in blue, with an air of the most consummate dandyism, "i'll give you 'the ladies'; come." "hear, hear!" said sam, "the young mississes." here there was a loud cry of "order," and mr. john smauker, as the gentleman who had introduced mr. weller into that company, begged to inform him that the word he had just made use of was unparliamentary. "which word was that 'ere, sir?" inquired sam. "missesses, sir," replied mr. john smauker, with an alarming frown. "we don't recognise such distinctions here." "oh, wery good," said sam; "then i'll amend the observation, and call 'em the dear creeturs, if blazes vill allow me." some doubt appeared to exist in the mind of the gentleman in the green-foil smalls, whether the chairman could be legally appealed to, as "blazes," but as the company seemed more disposed to stand upon their own rights than his, the question was not raised. the man with the cocked hat breathed short, and looked long at sam, but apparently thought it as well to say nothing, in case he should get the worst of it. after a short silence, a gentleman in an embroidered coat reaching down to his heels, and a waistcoat of the same which kept one half of his legs warm, stirred his gin and water with great energy, and putting himself upon his feet, all at once, by a violent effort, said he was desirous of offering a few remarks to the company: whereupon the person in the cocked hat had no doubt that the company would be very happy to hear any remarks that the man in the long coat might wish to offer. "i feel a great delicacy, gentlemen, in coming for'ard," said the man in the long coat, "having the misforchune to be a coachman, and being admitted as a honorary member of these agreeable swarrys, but i do feel myself bound, gentlemen--drove into a corner, if i may use the expression--to make known an afflicting circumstance which has come to my knowledge; which has happened i may say within the soap of my everyday contemplation. gentlemen, our friend mr. whiffers (everybody looked at the individual in orange), our friend mr. whiffers has resigned." universal astonishment fell upon the hearers. each gentleman looked in his neighbour's face, and then transferred his glance to the upstanding coachman. "you may well be sapparised, gentlemen," said the coachman. "i will not wenchure to state the reasons of this irrepairabel loss to the service, but i will beg mr. whiffers to state them himself, for the improvement and imitation of his admiring friends." the suggestion being loudly approved of, mr. whiffers explained. he said he certainly could have wished to have continued to hold the appointment he had just resigned. the uniform was extremely rich and expensive, the females of the family was most agreeable, and the duties of the situation was not, he was bound to say, too heavy: the principal service that was required of him, being, that he should look out of the hall window as much as possible, in company with another gentleman, who had also resigned. he could have wished to have spared that company the painful and disgusting detail on which he was about to enter, but as the explanation had been demanded of him, he had no alternative but to state, boldly and distinctly, that he had been required to eat cold meat. it is impossible to conceive the disgust which this avowal awakened in the bosoms of the hearers. loud cries of "shame!" mingled with groans and hisses, prevailed for a quarter of an hour. mr. whiffers then added that he feared a portion of this outrage might be traced to his own forbearing and accommodating disposition. he had a distinct recollection of having once consented to eat salt butter, and he had, moreover, on an occasion of sudden sickness in the house, so far forgotten himself as to carry a coal-scuttle up to the second floor. he trusted he had not lowered himself in the good opinion of his friends by this frank confession of his faults; and he hoped the promptness with which he had resented the last unmanly outrage on his feelings, to which he had referred, would reinstate him in their good opinion, if he had. mr. whiffers' address was responded to with a shout of admiration, and the health of the interesting martyr was drunk in a most enthusiastic manner; for this, the martyr returned thanks, and proposed their visitor, mr. weller; a gentleman whom he had not the pleasure of an intimate acquaintance with, but who was the friend of mr. john smauker, which was a sufficient letter of recommendation to any society of gentlemen whatever, or wherever. on this account, he should have been disposed to have given mr. weller's health with all the honours, if his friends had been drinking wine; but as they were taking spirits by way of a change, and as it might be inconvenient to empty a tumbler at every toast, he should propose that the honours be understood. at the conclusion of this speech, everybody took a sip in honour of sam; and sam having ladled out, and drunk, two full glasses of punch in honour of himself, returned thanks in a neat speech. "wery much obliged to you, old fellers," said sam, ladling away at the punch in the most unembarrassed manner possible, "for this here compliment; wich, comin' from sich a quarter, is wery overvelmin'. i've heerd a good deal on you as a body, but i will say, that i never thought you was sich uncommon nice men as i find you air. i only hope you'll take care o' yourselves, and not compromise nothin' o' your dignity, which is a wery charmin' thing to see, when one's out a walkin', and has always made me wery happy to look at, ever since i was a boy about half as high as the brass-headed stick o' my wery respectable friend, blazes, there. as to the wictim of oppression in the suit o' brimstone, all i can say of him, is, that i hope he'll get jist as good a berth as he deserves: in vich case it's wery little cold swarry as ever he'll be troubled with agin." here sam sat down with a pleasant smile, and his speech having been vociferously applauded, the company broke up. "vy, you don't mean to say you're a goin', old feller?" said sam weller to his friend mr. john smauker. "i must indeed," said mr. smauker; "i promised bantam." "oh, wery well," said sam; "that's another thing. p'raps _he'd_ resign if you disappointed him. you ain't a goin', blazes?" "yes, i am," said the man with the cocked hat. "wot, and leave three quarters of a bowl of punch behind you!" said sam; "nonsense, set down agin." mr. tuckle was not proof against this invitation. he laid aside the cocked hat and stick which he had just taken up, and said he would have one glass, for good fellowship's sake. as the gentleman in blue went home the same way as mr. tuckle, he was prevailed upon to stop too. when the punch was about half gone, sam ordered in some oysters from the greengrocer's shop; and the effect of both was so extremely exhilarating, that mr. tuckle, dressed out with the cocked hat and stick, danced the frog hornpipe among the shells on the table; while the gentleman in blue played an accompaniment upon an ingenious musical instrument formed of a hair-comb and a curl-paper. at last, when the punch was all gone, and the night nearly so, they sallied forth to see each other home. mr. tuckle no sooner got into the open air, than he was seized with a sudden desire to lie on the curb-stone; sam thought it would be a pity to contradict him, and so let him have his own way. as the cocked hat would have been spoilt if left there, sam very considerately flattened it down on the head of the gentleman in blue, and putting the big stick in his hand, propped him up against his own street door, rang the bell, and walked quietly home. at a much earlier hour next morning than his usual time of rising, mr. pickwick walked down-stairs completely dressed and rang the bell. "sam," said mr. pickwick, when mr. weller appeared in reply to the summons, "shut the door." mr. weller did so. "there was an unfortunate occurrence here last night, sam," said mr. pickwick, "which gave mr. winkle some cause to apprehend violence from mr. dowler." "so i've heerd from the old lady down-stairs, sir," replied sam. "and i'm sorry to say, sam," continued mr. pickwick, with a most perplexed countenance, "that in dread of this violence, mr. winkle has gone away." "gone avay!" said sam. "left the house early this morning, without the slightest previous communication with me," replied mr. pickwick, "and is gone, i know not where." "he should ha' stopped and fought it out, sir," replied sam, contemptuously. "it wouldn't take much to settle that 'ere dowler, sir." "well, sam," said mr. pickwick, "i may have my doubts of his great bravery and determination, also. but, however that may be, mr. winkle is gone. he must be found, sam. found and brought back to me." "and s'pose he won't come back, sir?" said sam. "he must be made, sam," said mr. pickwick. "who's to do it, sir?" inquired sam, with a smile. "you," replied mr. pickwick. "wery good, sir." with these words mr. weller left the room, and immediately afterwards was heard to shut the street door. in two hours' time he returned with as much coolness as if he had been despatched on the most ordinary message possible, and brought the information that an individual, in every respect answering mr. winkle's description, had gone over to bristol that morning, by the branch coach from the royal hotel. "sam," said mr. pickwick, grasping his hand, "you're a capital fellow; an invaluable fellow. you must follow him, sam." "cert'nly, sir," replied mr. weller. "the instant you discover him, write to me immediately, sam," said mr. pickwick. "if he attempts to run away from you, knock him down, or lock him up. you have my full authority, sam." "i'll be wery careful, sir," rejoined sam. "you'll tell him," said mr. pickwick, "that i am highly excited, highly displeased, and naturally indignant, at the very extraordinary course he has thought proper to pursue." "i will, sir," replied sam. "you'll tell him," said mr. pickwick, "that if he does not come back to this very house, with you, he will come back with me, for i will come and fetch him." "i'll mention that 'ere, sir," rejoined sam. "you think you can find him, sam?" said mr. pickwick, looking earnestly in his face. "oh, i'll find him, if he's anyvere," rejoined sam, with great confidence. "very well," said mr. pickwick. "then the sooner you go the better." with these instructions mr. pickwick placed a sum of money in the hands of his faithful servitor, and ordered him to start for bristol immediately, in pursuit of the fugitive. sam put a few necessaries in a carpet bag, and was ready for starting. he stopped when he had got to the end of the passage, and walking quietly back, thrust his head in at the parlour door. "sir," whispered sam. "well, sam?" said mr. pickwick. "i fully understands my instructions, do i, sir?" inquired sam. "i hope so," said mr. pickwick. "it's reg'larly understood about the knockin' down, is it, sir?" inquired sam. "perfectly," replied mr. pickwick. "thoroughly. do what you think necessary. you have my orders." sam gave a nod of intelligence, and withdrawing his head from the door, set forth on his pilgrimage with a light heart. chapter x [illustration] _how mr. winkle, when he stepped out of the frying-pan, walked gently and comfortably into the fire_ the ill-starred gentleman who had been the unfortunate cause of the unusual noise and disturbance which alarmed the inhabitants of the royal crescent in manner and form already described, after passing a night of great confusion and anxiety, left the roof beneath which his friends still slumbered, bound he knew not whither. the excellent and considerate feelings which prompted mr. winkle to take this step can never be too highly appreciated or too warmly extolled. "if," reasoned mr. winkle with himself, "if this dowler attempts (as i have no doubt he will) to carry into execution his threat of personal violence against myself, it will be incumbent on me to call him out. he has a wife; that wife is attached to and dependent on him. heavens! if i should kill him in the blindness of my wrath, what would be my feelings ever afterwards!" this painful consideration operated so powerfully on the feelings of the humane young man, as to cause his knees to knock together, and his countenance to exhibit alarming manifestations of inward emotion. impelled by such reflections, he grasped his carpet bag, and creeping stealthily down-stairs, shut the detestable street door with as little noise as possible, and walked off. bending his steps towards the royal hotel, he found a coach on the point of starting for bristol, and, thinking bristol as good a place for his purpose as any other he could go to, he mounted the box, and reached the place of destination in such time as the pair of horses, who went the whole stage and back again twice a day or more, could be reasonably supposed to arrive there. he took up his quarters at the bush, and, designing to postpone any communication by letter with mr. pickwick until it was probable that mr. dowler's wrath might have in some degree evaporated, walked forth to view the city, which struck him as being a shade more dirty than any place he had ever seen. having inspected the docks and shipping, and viewed the cathedral, he inquired his way to clifton, and being directed thither, took the route which was pointed out to him. but, as the pavements of bristol are not the widest or cleanest upon earth, so its streets are not altogether the straightest or least intricate; mr. winkle being greatly puzzled by their manifold windings and twistings, looked about him for a decent shop, in which he could apply afresh for counsel and instruction. his eyes fell upon a newly-painted tenement which had been recently converted into something between a shop and a private house, and which a red lamp, projecting over the fanlight of the street-door, would have sufficiently announced as the residence of a medical practitioner, even if the word "surgery" had not been inscribed in golden characters on a wainscot ground, above the window of what, in times bygone, had been the front parlour. thinking this an eligible place wherein to make his inquiries, mr. winkle stepped into the little shop where the gilt-labelled drawers and bottles were; and finding nobody there, knocked with a half-crown on the counter, to attract the attention of anybody who might happen to be in the back parlour, which he judged to be the innermost and peculiar sanctum of the establishment, from the repetition of the word "surgery" on the door--painted in white letters this time, by way of taking off the monotony. at the first knock, a sound, as of persons fencing with fire-irons, which had until now been very audible, suddenly ceased; at the second, a studious-looking young gentleman in green spectacles, with a very large book in his hand, glided quietly into the shop, and stepping behind the counter, requested to know the visitor's pleasure. "i am sorry to trouble you, sir," said mr. winkle, "but will you have the goodness to direct me to----" "ha! ha! ha!" roared the studious young gentleman, throwing the large book up into the air, and catching it with great dexterity at the very moment when it threatened to smash to atoms all the bottles on the counter. "here's a start!" there was, without a doubt; for mr. winkle was so very much astonished at the extraordinary behaviour of the medical gentleman, that he involuntarily retreated towards the door, and looked very much disturbed at this strange reception. "what, don't you know me?" said the medical gentleman. mr. winkle murmured, in reply, that he had not that pleasure. "why, then," said the medical gentleman, "there are hopes for me yet; i may attend half the old women in bristol if i've decent luck. get out, you mouldy old villain, get out!" with this adjuration, which was addressed to the large book, the medical gentleman kicked the volume with remarkable agility to the further end of the shop, and, pulling off his green spectacles, grinned the identical grin of robert sawyer, esquire, formerly of guy's hospital in the borough, with a private residence in lant street. "you don't mean to say you weren't down upon me!" said mr. bob sawyer, shaking mr. winkle's hand with friendly warmth. "upon my word i was not," replied mr. winkle, returning the pressure. "i wonder you didn't see the name," said bob sawyer, calling his friend's attention to the outer door, on which, in the same white paint, were traced the words, "sawyer, late nockemorf." "it never caught my eye," returned mr. winkle. "lord, if i had known who you were, i should have rushed out, and caught you in my arms," said bob sawyer; "but upon my life, i thought you were the king's-taxes." "no!" said mr. winkle. "i did, indeed," responded bob sawyer, "and i was just going to say that i wasn't at home, but if you'd leave a message i'd be sure to give it to myself; for he don't know me; no more does the lighting and paving. i think the church-rates guesses who i am, and i know the water-works does, because i drew a tooth of his when i first came down here. but come in, come in!" chattering in this way, mr. bob sawyer pushed mr. winkle into the back room, where, amusing himself by boring little circular caverns in the chimney-piece with a red-hot poker, sat no less a person than mr. benjamin allen. "well!" said mr. winkle. "this is indeed a pleasure i did not expect. what a very nice place you have here!" "pretty well, pretty well," replied bob sawyer. "i _passed_ soon after the precious party, and my friends came down with the needful for this business; so i put on a black suit of clothes, and a pair of spectacles, and came here to look as solemn as i could." "and a very snug little business you have, no doubt?" said mr. winkle, knowingly. "very," replied bob sawyer. "so snug, that at the end of a few years you might put all the profits in a wine-glass, and cover 'em over with a gooseberry leaf." "you cannot surely mean that?" said mr. winkle. "the stock itself----" "dummies, my dear boy," said bob sawyer; "half the drawers have nothing in 'em, and the other half don't open." "nonsense!" said mr. winkle. "fact--honour!" returned bob sawyer, stepping out into the shop, and demonstrating the veracity of the assertion by divers hard pulls at the little gilt knobs on the counterfeit drawers. "hardly anything real in the shop but the leeches, and _they_ are second-hand." "i shouldn't have thought it!" exclaimed mr. winkle, much surprised. "i hope not," replied bob sawyer, "else where's the use of appearances, eh? but what will you take? do as we do? that's right. ben, my fine fellow, put your hand into the cupboard, and bring out the patent digester." mr. benjamin allen smiled his readiness, and produced from the closet at his elbow a black bottle half full of brandy. "you don't take water, of course?" said bob sawyer. "thank you," replied mr. winkle. "it's rather early. i should like to qualify it, if you have no objection." "none in the least, if you can reconcile it to your conscience," replied bob sawyer; tossing off, as he spoke, a glass of the liquor with great relish. "ben, the pipkin!" mr. benjamin allen drew forth, from the same hiding-place, a small brass pipkin, which bob sawyer observed he prided himself upon particularly, because it looked so business-like. the water in the professional pipkin having been made to boil, in course of time, by various little shovelsful of coal, which mr. bob sawyer took out of a practicable window-seat, labelled "soda water," mr. winkle adulterated his brandy; and the conversation was becoming general, when it was interrupted by the entrance into the shop of a boy, in a sober grey livery and a gold-laced hat, with a small covered basket under his arm: whom mr. bob sawyer immediately hailed with, "tom, you vagabond, come here." the boy presented himself accordingly. "you've been stopping to over all the posts in bristol, you idle young scamp!" said mr. bob sawyer. "no, sir, i haven't," replied the boy. "you had better not!" said mr. bob sawyer, with a threatening aspect. "who do you suppose will ever employ a professional man, when they see his boy playing at marbles in the gutter, or flying the garter in the horse-road? have you no feeling for your profession, you groveller? did you leave all the medicine?" "yes, sir." "the powders for the child, at the large house with the new family, and the pills to be taken four times a day at the ill-tempered old gentleman's with the gouty leg?" "yes, sir." "then shut the door, and mind the shop." "come," said mr. winkle, as the boy retired, "things are not quite so bad as you would have me believe, either. there is _some_ medicine to be sent out." mr. bob sawyer peeped out the shop to see that no stranger was within hearing, and leaning forward to mr. winkle, said, in a low tone: "he leaves it all at the wrong houses." mr. winkle looked perplexed, and bob sawyer and his friend laughed. [illustration: "_you've been stopping to over all the posts in bristol_"] "don't you see?" said bob. "he goes up to a house, rings the area bell, pokes a packet of medicine without a direction into the servant's hand, and walks off. servant takes it into the dining-parlour; master open it, and reads the label: 'draught to be taken at bed-time--pills as before--lotion as usual--_the_ powder. from sawyer's, late nockemorf's. physicians' prescriptions carefully prepared,' and all the rest of it. shows it to his wife--_she_ reads the label; it goes down to the servants--_they_ read the label. next day, boy calls: 'very sorry--his mistake--immense business--great many parcels to deliver--mr. sawyer's compliments--late nockemorf.' the name gets known, and that's the thing, my boy, in the medical way. bless your heart, old fellow, it's better than all the advertising in the world. we have got one four-ounce bottle that's been to half the houses in bristol, and hasn't done yet." "dear me, i see," observed mr. winkle; "what an excellent plan!" "oh, ben and i have hit upon a dozen such," replied bob sawyer with great glee. "the lamplighter has eighteenpence a week to pull the night-bell for ten minutes every time he comes round; and my boy always rushes into church, just before the psalms, when the people have got nothing to do but look about 'em, and calls me out, with horror and dismay depicted on his countenance. 'bless my soul,' everybody says, 'somebody taken suddenly ill! sawyer, late nockemorf, sent for. what a business that young man has!'" at the termination of this disclosure of some of the mysteries of medicine, mr. bob sawyer and his friend, ben allen, threw themselves back in their respective chairs, and laughed boisterously. when they had enjoyed the joke to their hearts' content, the discourse changed to topics in which mr. winkle was more immediately interested. we think we have hinted elsewhere, that mr. benjamin allen had a way of becoming sentimental after brandy. the case is not a peculiar one, as we ourselves can testify: having, on a few occasions, had to deal with patients who have been afflicted in a similar manner. at this precise period of his existence, mr. benjamin allen had perhaps a greater predisposition to maudlinism than he had ever known before; the cause of which malady was briefly this. he had been staying nearly three weeks with mr. bob sawyer; mr. bob sawyer was not remarkable for temperance, nor was mr. benjamin allen for the ownership of a very strong head; the consequence was, that, during the whole space of time just mentioned, mr. benjamin allen had been wavering between intoxication partial, and intoxication complete. "my dear friend," said mr. ben allen, taking advantage of mr. bob sawyer's temporary absence behind the counter, whither he had retired to dispense some of the second-hand leeches, previously referred to: "my dear friend, i am very miserable." mr. winkle professed his heartfelt regret to hear it, and begged to know whether he could do anything to alleviate the sorrows of the suffering student. "nothing, my dear boy, nothing," said ben. "you recollect arabella, winkle? my sister arabella--a little girl, winkle, with black eyes--when we were down at wardle's? i don't know whether you happened to notice her, a nice little girl, winkle. perhaps my features may recall her countenance to your recollection?" mr. winkle required nothing to recall the charming arabella to his mind; and it was rather fortunate he did not, for the features of her brother benjamin would unquestionably have proved but an indifferent refresher to his memory. he answered, with as much calmness as he could assume, that he perfectly remembered the young lady referred to, and sincerely trusted she was in good health. "our friend bob is a delightful fellow, winkle," was the only reply of mr. ben allen. "very," said mr. winkle; not much relishing the close connection of the two names. "i designed 'em for each other; they were made for each other, sent into the world for each other, born for each other, winkle," said mr. ben allen, setting down his glass with emphasis. "there's a special destiny in the matter, my dear sir; there's only five years' difference between 'em, and both their birthdays are in august." mr. winkle was too anxious to hear what was to follow, to express much wonderment at this extraordinary coincidence, marvellous as it was; so mr. ben allen, after a tear or two, went on to say, that, notwithstanding all his esteem and respect and veneration for his friend, arabella had unaccountably and undutifully evinced the most determined antipathy to his person. "and i think," said mr. ben allen, in conclusion, "_i_ think there's a prior attachment." "have you any idea who the object of it might be?" asked mr. winkle, with great trepidation. mr. ben allen seized the poker, flourished it in a warlike manner above his head, inflicted a savage blow on an imaginary skull, and wound up by saying, in a very expressive manner, that he only wished he could guess; that was all. "i'd show him what i thought of him," said mr. ben allen. and round went the poker again, more fiercely than before. all this was, of course, very soothing to the feelings of mr. winkle, who remained silent for a few minutes; but at length mustered up resolution to inquire whether miss allen was in kent. "no, no," said mr. allen, laying aside the poker, and looking very cunning; "i didn't think wardle's exactly the place for a headstrong girl; so, as i am her natural protector and guardian, our parents being dead, i have brought her down into this part of the country, to spend a few months at an old aunt's, in a nice dull close place. i think that will cure her, my boy. if it doesn't, i'll take her abroad for a little while, and see what that'll do." "oh, the aunt's is in bristol, is it?" faltered mr. winkle. "no, no, not in bristol," replied mr. ben allen, jerking his thumb over his right shoulder; "over that way; down there. but hush! here's bob. not a word, my dear friend, not a word." short as this conversation was, it roused in mr. winkle the highest degree of excitement and anxiety. the suspected prior attachment rankled in his heart. could he be the object of it? could it be for him that the fair arabella had looked scornfully on the sprightly bob sawyer, or had he a successful rival? he determined to see her, cost what it might; but here an insurmountable objection presented itself, for whether the explanatory "over that way," and "down there," of mr. ben allen, meant three miles off, or thirty, or three hundred, he could in no wise guess. but he had no opportunity of pondering over his love just then, for bob sawyer's return was the immediate precursor of the arrival of a meat pie from the baker's, of which that gentleman insisted on his staying to partake. the cloth was laid by an occasional charwoman, who officiated in the capacity of mr. bob sawyer's housekeeper; and a third knife and fork having been borrowed from the mother of the boy in the grey livery (for mr. sawyer's domestic arrangements were as yet conducted on a limited scale), they sat down to dinner; the beer being served up, as mr. sawyer remarked, "in its native pewter." after dinner mr. bob sawyer ordered in the largest mortar in the shop, and proceeded to brew a reeking jorum of rum-punch therein: stirring up and amalgamating the materials with a pestle in a very creditable and apothecary-like manner. mr. sawyer, being a bachelor, had only one tumbler in the house, which was assigned to mr. winkle as a compliment to the visitor: mr. ben allen being accommodated with a funnel with a cork in the narrow end: and bob sawyer contented himself with one of those wide-lipped crystal vessels inscribed with a variety of cabalistic characters, in which chemists are wont to measure out their liquid drugs in compounding prescriptions. these preliminaries adjusted, the punch was tasted, and pronounced excellent; and it having been arranged that bob sawyer and ben allen should be considered at liberty to fill twice to mr. winkle's once, they started fair, with great satisfaction and good-fellowship. there was no singing, because mr. bob sawyer said it wouldn't look professional; but to make amends for this deprivation there was so much talking and laughing that it might have been heard, and very likely was, at the end of the street. which conversation materially lightened the hours and improved the mind of mr. bob sawyer's boy, who instead of devoting the evening to his ordinary occupation of writing his name on the counter, and rubbing it out again, peeped through the glass door, and thus listened and looked on at the same time. the mirth of mr. bob sawyer was rapidly ripening into the furious; mr. ben allen was fast relapsing into the sentimental, and the punch had well-nigh disappeared altogether, when the boy hastily running in, announced that a young woman had just come over, to say that sawyer late nockemorf was wanted directly, a couple of streets off. this broke up the party. mr. bob sawyer understanding the message after some twenty repetitions, tied a wet cloth round his head to sober himself, and, having partially succeeded, put on his green spectacles and issued forth. resisting all entreaties to stay till he came back, and finding it quite impossible to engage mr. ben allen in any intelligible conversation on the subject nearest his heart, or indeed on any other, mr. winkle took his departure, and returned to the bush. the anxiety of his mind, and the numerous meditations which arabella had awakened, prevented his share of the mortar of punch producing that effect upon him which it would have had, under other circumstances. so, after taking a glass of soda-water and brandy at the bar, he turned into the coffee-room, dispirited rather than elevated by the occurrences of the evening. sitting in the front of the fire, with his back towards him, was a tallish gentleman in a great-coat: the only other occupant of the room. it was rather a cool evening for the season of the year, and the gentleman drew his chair aside to afford the new comer a sight of the fire. what were mr. winkle's feelings when, in doing so, he disclosed to view the face and figure of the vindictive and sanguinary dowler! mr. winkle's first impulse was to give a violent pull at the nearest bell-handle, but that unfortunately happened to be immediately behind mr. dowler's head. he had made one step towards it, before he checked himself. as he did so, mr. dowler very hastily drew back. "mr. winkle, sir. be calm. don't strike me. i won't bear it. a blow! never!" said mr. dowler, looking meeker than mr. winkle had expected in a gentleman of his ferocity. "a blow, sir?" stammered mr. winkle. "a blow, sir," replied dowler. "compose your feelings. sit down. hear me." "sir," said mr. winkle, trembling from head to foot, "before i consent to sit down beside, or opposite you, without the presence of a waiter, i must be secured by some further understanding. you used a threat against me last night, sir, a dreadful threat, sir." here mr. winkle turned very pale indeed, and stopped short. "i did," said dowler, with a countenance almost as white as mr. winkle's. "circumstances were suspicious. they have been explained. i respect your bravery. your feeling is upright. conscious innocence. there's my hand. grasp it." "really, sir," said mr. winkle, hesitating whether to give his hand or not, and almost fearing that it was demanded in order that he might be taken at an advantage, "really sir, i----" "i know what you mean," interposed dowler. "you feel aggrieved. very natural. so should i. i was strong. i beg your pardon. be friendly. forgive me." with this, dowler fairly forced his hand upon mr. winkle, and shaking it with the utmost vehemence, declared he was a fellow of extreme spirit, and he had a higher opinion of him than ever. "now," said dowler, "sit down. relate it all. how did you find me? when did you follow? be frank. tell me." "it's quite accidental," replied mr. winkle, greatly perplexed by the curious and unexpected nature of the interview, "quite." "glad of it," said dowler. "i woke this morning. i had forgotten my threat. i laughed at the accident. i felt friendly. i said so." "to whom?" inquired mr. winkle. "to mrs. dowler. 'you made a vow,' said she. 'i did,' said i. 'it was a rash one,' said she. 'it was,' said i. 'i'll apologise. where is he?'" "who?" inquired mr. winkle. "you," replied dowler. "i went down-stairs. you were not to be found. pickwick looked gloomy. shook his head. hoped no violence would be committed. i saw it all. you felt yourself insulted. you had gone, for a friend perhaps. possibly for pistols. 'high spirit,' said i. 'i admire him.'" mr. winkle coughed, and beginning to see how the land lay, assumed a look of importance. "i left a note for you," resumed dowler. "i said i was sorry. so i was. pressing business called me here. you were not satisfied. you followed. you required a verbal explanation. you were right. it's all over now. my business is finished. i go back to-morrow. join me." as dowler progressed in his explanation, mr. winkle's countenance grew more and more dignified. the mysterious nature of the commencement of their conversation was explained; mr. dowler had as great an objection to duelling as himself; in short, this blustering and awful personage was one of the most egregious cowards in existence, and interpreting mr. winkle's absence through the medium of his own fears, had taken the same step as himself, and prudently retired until all excitement of feeling should have subsided. as the real state of the case dawned upon mr. winkle's mind, he looked very terrible, and said he was perfectly satisfied; but, at the same time, said so with an air that left mr. dowler no alternative but to infer that if he had not been, something most horrible and destructive must inevitably have occurred. mr. dowler appeared to be impressed with a becoming sense of mr. winkle's magnanimity and condescension; and the two belligerents parted for the night, with many protestations of eternal friendship. about half-past twelve o'clock, when mr. winkle had been revelling some twenty minutes in the full luxury of his first sleep, he was suddenly awakened by a loud knocking at his chamber door, which being repeated with increased vehemence, caused him to start up in bed, and inquire who was there, and what the matter was. "please, sir, here's a young man which says he must see you directly," responded the voice of the chambermaid. "a young man!" exclaimed mr. winkle. "no mistake about that 'ere, sir," replied another voice through the keyhole; "and if that wery same interestin' young creetur ain't let in vithout delay, it's wery possible as his legs vill enter afore his countenance." the young man gave a gentle kick at one of the lower panels of the door, after he had given utterance to this hint, as if to add force and point to the remark. "is that you, sam?" inquired mr. winkle, springing out of bed. "quite unpossible to identify any gen'l'm'n vith any degree o' mental satisfaction, vithout lookin' at him, sir," replied the voice, dogmatically. mr. winkle, not much doubting who the young man was, unlocked the door; which he had no sooner done, than mr. samuel weller entered with great precipitation, and carefully re-locking it on the inside, deliberately put the key in his waistcoat pocket: and, after surveying mr. winkle from head to foot, said: "you're a wery humorous young gen'l'm'n, you air, sir!" "what do you mean by this conduct, sam?" inquired mr. winkle, indignantly. "get out, sir, this instant. what do you mean, sir?" "what do _i_ mean," retorted sam; "come, sir, this is rayther too rich, as the young lady said, ven she remonstrated with the pastry-cook, arter he'd sold her a pork-pie as had got nothin' but fat inside. what do _i_ mean! well, that ain't a bad un, that ain't." "unlock that door, and leave this room immediately, sir," said mr. winkle. "i shall leave this here room, sir, just precisely at the wery same moment as you leaves it," responded sam, speaking in a forcible manner, and seating himself with perfect gravity. "if i find it necessary to carry you away, pick-a-back, o' course i shall leave it the least bit o' time possible afore you; but allow me to express a hope as you won't reduce me to extremities; in saying vich, i merely quote wot the nobleman said to the fractious pennywinkle, ven he vouldn't come out of his shell by means of a pin, and he conseqvently began to be afeared that he should be obliged to crack him in the parlour door." at the end of this address, which was unusually lengthy for him, mr. weller planted his hands on his knees, and looked full in mr. winkle's face, with an expression of countenance that showed that he had not the remotest intention of being trifled with. "you're a amiably disposed young man, sir, i don't think," resumed mr. weller, in a tone of moral reproof, "to go inwolving our precious governor in all sorts o' fanteegs, ven he's made up his mind to go through everythink for principle. you're far worse nor dodson, sir; and as for fogg, i consider him a born angel to you!" mr. weller having accompanied this last sentiment with an emphatic slap on each knee, folded his arms with a look of great disgust, and threw himself back in his chair, as if awaiting the criminal's defence. "my good fellow," said mr. winkle, extending his hand; his teeth chattering all the time he spoke, for he had been standing, during the whole of mr. weller's lecture, in his night-gear; "my good fellow, i respect your attachment to my excellent friend, and i am very sorry indeed, to have added to his causes for disquiet. there, sam, there!" "well," said sam, rather sulkily, but giving the proffered hand a respectful shake at the same time: "well, so you ought to be, and i am very glad to find you air; for, if i can help it, i won't have him put upon by nobody, and that's all about it." "certainly not, sam," said mr. winkle. "there! now go to bed, sam, and we'll talk further about this in the morning." "i'm wery sorry," said sam, "but i can't go to bed." "not go to bed!" repeated mr. winkle. "no," said sam, shaking his head. "can't be done." "you don't mean to say you're going back to-night, sam?" urged mr. winkle, greatly surprised. "not unless you particklerly wish it," replied sam; "but mustn't leave this here room. the governor's orders was peremptory." "nonsense, sam," said mr. winkle, "i must stop here two or three days; and more than that, sam, you must stop here too, to assist me in gaining an interview with a young lady--miss allen, sam; you remember her--whom i must and will see before i leave bristol." but in reply to each of these positions, sam shook his head with great firmness, and energetically replied, "it can't be done." after a great deal of argument and representation on the part of mr. winkle, however, and a full disclosure of what had passed in the interview with dowler, sam began to waver; and at length a compromise was effected, of which the following were the main and principal conditions: that sam should retire, and leave mr. winkle in the undisturbed possession of his apartment, on the condition that he had permission to lock the door on the outside, and carry off the key; provided always, that in the event of an alarm of fire, or other dangerous contingency, the door should be instantly unlocked. that a letter should be written to mr. pickwick early next morning, and forwarded per dowler, requesting his consent to sam and mr. winkle's remaining at bristol, for the purpose, and with the object, already assigned, and begging an answer by the next coach; if favourable, the aforesaid parties to remain accordingly, and if not, to return to bath immediately on the receipt thereof. and, lastly, that mr. winkle should be understood as distinctly pledging himself not to resort to the window, fireplace, or other surreptitious mode of escape in the meanwhile. these stipulations having been concluded, sam locked the door and departed. he had nearly got down-stairs, when he stopped, and drew the key from his pocket. "i quite forgot about the knockin' down," said sam, half turning back. "the governor distinctly said it was to be done. amazin' stupid o' me, that 'ere! never mind," said sam, brightening up, "it's easily done to-morrow, anyvays." apparently much consoled by this reflection, mr. weller once more deposited the key in his pocket, and descending the remainder of the stairs without any fresh visitations of conscience, was soon, in common with the other inmates of the house, buried in profound repose. chapter xi [illustration] _mr. samuel weller, being entrusted with a mission of love, proceeds to execute it; with what success will hereinafter appear_ during the whole of the next day, sam kept mr. winkle steadily in sight, fully determined not to take his eyes off him for one instant, until he should receive express instructions from the fountain-head. however disagreeable sam's very close watch and great vigilance were to mr. winkle, he thought it better to bear with them, than, by any act of violent opposition, to hazard being carried away by force, which mr. weller more than once strongly hinted was the line of conduct that a strict sense of duty prompted him to pursue. there is little reason to doubt that sam would very speedily have quieted his scruples by bearing mr. winkle back to bath, bound hand and foot, had not mr. pickwick's prompt attention to the note, which dowler had undertaken to deliver, forestalled any such proceeding. in short, at eight o'clock in the evening, mr. pickwick himself walked into the coffee-room of the bush tavern, and told sam with a smile, to his very great relief, that he had done quite right, and it was unnecessary for him to mount guard any longer. "i thought it better to come myself," said mr. pickwick, addressing mr. winkle, as sam disencumbered him of his great-coat and travelling shawl, "to ascertain, before i gave my consent to sam's employment in this matter, that you are quite in earnest and serious, with respect to this young lady." "serious from my heart--from my soul!" returned mr. winkle, with great energy. "remember," said mr. pickwick, with beaming eyes, "we met her at our excellent and hospitable friend's, winkle. it would be an ill return to tamper lightly, and without due consideration, with this young lady's affections. i'll not allow this, sir. i'll not allow it." "i have no such intention, indeed," exclaimed mr. winkle, warmly. "i have considered the matter well, for a long time, and i feel that my happiness is bound up in her." "that's wot we call tying it up in a small parcel, sir," interposed mr. weller, with an agreeable smile. mr. winkle looked somewhat stern at this interruption, and mr. pickwick angrily requested his attendant not to jest with one of the best feelings of our nature; to which sam replied, "that he wouldn't, if he was aware on it; but there were so many on 'em, that he hardly know'd which was the best ones ven he heer'd 'em mentioned." mr. winkle then recounted what had passed between himself and mr. ben allen, relative to arabella; stated that his object was to gain an interview with the young lady, and make a formal disclosure of his passion; and declared his conviction, founded on certain dark hints and mutterings of the aforesaid ben, that, wherever she was at present immured, it was somewhere near the downs. and this was his whole stock of knowledge or suspicion on the subject. with this very slight clue to guide him, it was determined that mr. weller should start next morning on an expedition of discovery; it was also arranged that mr. pickwick and mr. winkle, who were less confident of their powers, should parade the town meanwhile, and accidentally drop in upon mr. bob sawyer in the course of the day, in the hope of seeing or hearing something of the young lady's whereabout. accordingly, next morning, sam weller issued forth upon his quest, in no way daunted by the very discouraging prospect before him; and away he walked, up one street and down another--we were going to say, up one hill and down another, only it's all uphill at clifton--without meeting with anything or anybody that tended to throw the faintest light on the matter in hand. many were the colloquies into which sam entered with grooms who were airing horses on roads, and nursemaids who were airing children in lanes; but nothing could sam elicit from either the first-mentioned or the last, which bore the slightest reference to the object of his artfully-prosecuted inquiries. there were a great many young ladies in a great many houses, the greater part whereof were ere shrewdly suspected by the male and female domestics to be deeply attached to somebody, or perfectly ready to become so, if opportunity offered. but as none among these young ladies was miss arabella allen, the information left sam at exactly the old point of wisdom at which he had stood before. sam struggled across the downs against a good high wind, wondering whether it was always necessary to hold your hat on with both hands in that part of the country, and came to a shady by-place about which were sprinkled several little villas of quiet and secluded appearance. outside a stable-door at the bottom of a long back lane without a thoroughfare, a groom in undress was idling about, apparently persuading himself that he was doing something with a spade and a wheelbarrow. we may remark, in this place, that we have scarcely ever seen a groom near a stable, in his lazy moments, who has not been, to a greater or less extent, the victim of this singular delusion. sam thought he might as well talk to this groom as to any one else, especially as he was very tired with walking, and there was a good large stone just opposite the wheelbarrow; so he strolled down the lane, and, seating himself on the stone, opened a conversation with the ease and freedom for which he was remarkable. "mornin', old friend," said sam. "arternoon, you mean," replied the groom, casting a surly look at sam. "you're wery right, old friend," said sam; "i _do_ mean arternoon. how are you?" "why, i don't find myself much the better for seeing you," replied the ill-tempered groom. "that's wery odd--that is," said sam, "for you look so uncommon cheerful, and seem altogether so lively, that it does vun's heart good to see you." the surly groom looked surlier still at this, but not sufficiently so to produce any effect upon sam, who immediately inquired, with a countenance of great anxiety, whether his master's name was not walker. "no, it ain't," said the groom. "nor brown, i s'pose?" said sam. "no, it ain't." "nor vilson?" "no; nor that neither," said the groom. "vell," replied sam, "then i'm mistaken, and he hasn't got the honour o' my acquaintance, which i thought he had. don't wait here out o' compliment to me," said sam, as the groom wheeled in the barrow, and prepared to shut the gate. "ease afore ceremony, old boy; i'll excuse you." "i'd knock your head off for half-a-crown," said the surly groom, bolting one half of the gate. "couldn't afford to have it done on those terms," rejoined sam. "it 'ud be worth a life's board vages at least, to you, and 'ud be cheap at that. make my compliments indoors. tell 'em not to vait dinner for me, and say they needn't mind puttin' any by, for it'll be cold afore i come in." in reply to this the groom, waxing very wroth, muttered a desire to damage somebody's person; but disappeared without carrying it into execution, slamming the door angrily after him, and wholly unheeding sam's affectionate request that he would leave him a lock of his hair before he went. sam continued to sit on the large stone, meditating upon what was best to be done, and revolving in his mind a plan for knocking at all the doors within five miles of bristol, taking them at a hundred and fifty or two hundred a day, and endeavouring to find miss arabella by that expedient, when accident all of a sudden threw in his way what he might have sat there for a twelvemonth and yet not found without it. into the lane where he sat, there opened three or four garden-gates, belonging to as many houses, which though detached from each other, were only separated by their gardens. as these were large and long, and well planted with trees, the houses were not only at some distance off, but the greater part of them were nearly concealed from view. sam was sitting with his eyes fixed upon the dust-heap outside the next gate to that by which the groom had disappeared, profoundly turning over in his mind the difficulties of his present undertaking, when the gate opened, and a female servant came out into the lane to shake some bed-side carpets. sam was so very busy with his own thoughts, that it is probable he would have taken no more notice of the young woman than just raising his head and remarking that she had a very neat and pretty figure, if his feelings of gallantry had not been most strongly roused by observing that she had no one to help her, and that the carpets seemed too heavy for her single strength. mr. weller was a gentleman of great gallantry in his own way, and he no sooner remarked this circumstance then he hastily rose from the large stone, and advanced towards her. "my dear," said sam, sliding up with an air of great respect, "you'll spile that wery pretty figure out o' all perportion if you shake them carpets by yourself. let me help you." the young lady, who had been coyly affecting not to know that a gentleman was so near, turned round as sam spoke--no doubt (indeed she said so afterwards) to decline this offer from a perfect stranger--when instead of speaking, she started back, and uttered a half-suppressed scream. sam was scarcely less staggered, for in the countenance of the well-shaped female servant, he beheld the very features of his valentine, the pretty housemaid from mr. nupkins's. "vy, mary, my dear!" said sam. "lauk, mr. weller," said mary, "how you do frighten one!" sam made no verbal answer to this complaint, nor can we precisely say what reply he _did_ make. we merely know that after a short pause mary said, "lor, do adun, mr. weller!" and that his hat had fallen off a few moments before--from both of which tokens we should be disposed to infer that one kiss or more had passed between the parties. [illustration: "_lor', do adun, mr. weller!_"] "why, how did you come here?" said mary, when the conversation to which this interruption had been offered was resumed. "o' course i came to look arter you, my darlin'," replied mr. weller; for once permitting his passion to get the better of his veracity. "and how did you know i was here?" inquired mary. "who could have told you that i took another service at ipswich, and that they afterwards moved all the way here? who _could_ have told you that, mr. weller?" "ah to be sure," said sam, with a cunning look, "that's the pint. who could ha' told me?" "it wasn't mr. muzzle, was it?" inquired mary. "oh no," replied sam, with a solemn shake of the head, "it warn't him." "it must have been the cook," said mary. "o' course it must," said sam. "well, i never heard the like of that!" exclaimed mary. "no more did i," said sam. "but mary, my dear:" here sam's manner grew extremely affectionate: "mary, my dear, i've got another affair in hand as is wery pressin'. there's one o' my governor's friends--mr. winkle, you remember him?" "him in the green coat?" said mary. "oh yes, i remember him." "well," said sam, "he's in a horrid state o' love; reg'larly comfoozled, and done over with it." "lor!" interposed mary. "yes," said sam: "but that's nothing if we could find out the young 'ooman;" and here sam, with many digressions upon the personal beauty of mary, and the unspeakable tortures he had experienced since he last saw her, gave a faithful account of mr. winkle's present predicament. "well," said mary, "i never did!" "o' course not," said sam, "nobody never did, nor never vill neither; and here am i a walkin' about like the wandering jew--a sportin' character you have perhaps heerd on, mary, my dear, as wos alvays doin' a match agin' time, and never vent to sleep--looking arter this here miss arabella allen." "miss who?" said mary, in great astonishment. "miss arabella allen," said sam. "goodness gracious!" said mary, pointing the garden door which the sulky groom had locked after him. "why, it's that very house; she's been living there these six weeks. their upper housemaid, which is lady's maid too, told me all about it over the wash-house palin's before the family was out of bed one mornin'." "wot, the wery next door to you?" said sam. "the very next," replied mary. mr. weller was so deeply overcome on receiving this intelligence that he found it absolutely necessary to cling to his fair informant for support; and divers little love passages had passed between them, before he was sufficiently collected to return to the subject. "vell," said sam at length, "if this don't beat cock-fightin', nothin' never vill, as the lord mayor said, ven the chief secretary o' state proposed his missis's health arter dinner. that wery next house! wy, i've got a message to her as i've been a tryin' all day to deliver." "ah," said mary, "but you can't deliver it now, because she only walks in the garden in the evening, and then only for a very little time; she never goes out, without the old lady." sam ruminated for a few moments, and finally hit upon the following plan of operations; that he should return just at dusk--the time at which arabella invariably took her walk--and, being admitted by mary into the garden of the house to which she belonged, would contrive to scramble up the wall, beneath the overhanging boughs of a large pear-tree, which would effectually screen him from observation; would there deliver his message, and arrange, if possible, an interview on behalf of mr. winkle for the ensuing evening at the same hour. having made this arrangement with great despatch, he assisted mary in the long-deferred occupation of shaking the carpets. it is not half as innocent a thing as it looks, that shaking little pieces of carpet--at least, there may be no great harm in the shaking, but the folding is a very insidious process. so long as the shaking lasts, and the two parties are kept the carpet's length apart, it is as innocent an amusement as can well be devised; but when the folding begins, and the distance between them get gradually lessened from one half its former length to a quarter, and then to an eighth, and then to a sixteenth, and then to a thirty-second, if the carpet be long enough: it becomes dangerous. we do not know, to a nicety, how many pieces of carpet were folded in this instance, but we can venture to state that as many pieces as there were, so many times did sam kiss the pretty housemaid. mr. weller regaled himself with moderation at the nearest tavern until it was nearly dusk, and then returned to the lane without the thoroughfare. having been admitted into the garden by mary, and having received from that lady sundry admonitions concerning the safety of his limbs and neck, sam mounted into the pear-tree, to wait until arabella should come in sight. he waited so long without this anxiously expected event occurring, that he began to think it was not going to take place at all, when he heard light footsteps upon the gravel, and immediately afterwards beheld arabella walking pensively down the garden. as soon as she came nearly below the tree, sam began, by way of gently indicating his presence, to make sundry diabolical noises similar to those which would probably be natural to a person of middle age who had been afflicted with a combination of inflammatory sore throat, croup, and hooping-cough, from his earliest infancy. upon this, the young lady cast a hurried glance towards the spot from whence the dreadful sounds proceeded; and her previous alarm being not at all diminished when she saw a man among the branches, she would most certainly have decamped, and alarmed the house, had not fear fortunately deprived her of the power of moving, and caused her to sink down on a garden-seat; which happened by good luck to be near at hand. "she's a goin' off," soliloquised sam in great perplexity. "wot a thing it is, as these here young creeturs _will_ go a faintin' avay just ven they oughtn't to. here, young 'ooman, miss sawbones, mrs. vinkle, don't!" whether it was the magic of mr. winkle's name, or the coolness of the open air, or some recollection of mr. weller's voice, that revived arabella, matters not. she raised her head and languidly inquired, "who's that, and what do you want?" "hush!" said sam, swinging himself on to the wall, and crouching there in as small a compass as he could reduce himself to; "only me, miss, only me." "mr. pickwick's servant?" said arabella, earnestly. "the wery same, miss," replied sam. "here's mr. vinkle reg'larly sewed up vith desperation, miss." "ah!" said arabella, drawing nearer the wall. "ah, indeed," said sam. "ve thought ve should ha' been obliged to straight-veskit him last night; he's been a ravin' all day; and he says if he can't see you afore to-morrow night's over, he vishes he may be somethin'-unpleasanted if he don't drownd hisself." "oh no, no, mr. weller!" said arabella, clasping her hands. "that's wot he says, miss," replied sam. "he's a man of his word, and it's my opinion he'll do it, miss. he's heerd all about you from the sawbones in barnacles." "from my brother!" said arabella, having some faint recognition of sam's description. "i don't rightly know which is your brother, miss," replied sam. "is it the dirtiest vun o' the two?" "yes, yes, mr. weller," returned arabella, "go on. make haste, pray." "well miss," said sam, "he's heerd all about it from him; and it's the gov'nor's opinion that if you don't see him wery quick, the sawbones as we've been a speaking on, 'ull get as much extra lead in his head as'll damage the dewelopment o' the orgins if they ever put it in spirits artervards." "oh, what can i do to prevent these dreadful quarrels!" exclaimed arabella. "it's the suspicion of a priory 'tachment as is the cause of it all," replied sam. "you'd better see him, miss." "but how?--where?" cried arabella. "i dare not leave the house alone. my brother is so unkind, so unreasonable! i know how strange my talking thus to you must appear, mr. weller, but i am very, very unhappy--" and here poor arabella wept so bitterly, that sam grew chivalrous. "it may seem wery strange talkin' to me about these here affairs, miss," said sam with great vehemence: "but all i can say is, that i'm not only ready but villin' to do anythin' as'll make matters agreeable; and if chuckin' either o' them sawboneses out o' winder 'ull do it, i'm the man." as sam weller said his, he tucked up his wristbands, at the imminent hazard of falling off the wall in so doing, to intimate his readiness to set to work immediately. flattering as these professions of good feeling were, arabella resolutely declined (most unaccountably, as sam thought) to avail herself of them. for some time she strenuously refused to grant mr. winkle the interview sam had so pathetically requested; but at length, when the conversation threatened to be interrupted by the unwelcome arrival of a third party, she hurriedly gave him to understand, with many professions of gratitude, that it was barely possible she might be in the garden an hour later, next evening. sam understood this perfectly well; and arabella, bestowing upon him one of her sweetest smiles, tripped gracefully away, leaving mr. weller in a state of very great admiration of her charms, both personal and mental. having descended in safety from the wall, and not forgotten to devote a few moments to his own particular business in the same department, mr. weller then made the best of his way back to the bush, where his prolonged absence had occasioned much speculation and some alarm. "we must be careful," said mr. pickwick, after listening attentively to sam's tale, "not for our own sakes, but for that of the young lady. we must be very cautious." "_we!_" said mr. winkle, with marked emphasis. mr. pickwick's momentary look of indignation at the tone of this remark subsided into his characteristic expression of benevolence, as he replied: "_we_, sir! i shall accompany you." "you!" said mr. winkle. "i," replied mr. pickwick, mildly. "in affording you this interview, the young lady has taken a natural, perhaps, but still a very imprudent step. if i am present at the meeting, a mutual friend, who is old enough to be the father of both parties, the voice of calumny can never be raised against her hereafter." mr. pickwick's eyes lightened with honest exultation at his own foresight, as he spoke thus. mr. winkle was touched by this little trait of his delicate respect for the young _protégée_ of his friend, and took his hand with a feeling of regard, akin to veneration. "you _shall_ go," said mr. winkle. "i will," said mr. pickwick. "sam, have my great-coat and shawl ready, and order a conveyance to be at the door to-morrow evening, rather earlier than is absolutely necessary, in order that we may be in good time." mr. weller touched his hat, as an earnest of his obedience, and withdrew to make all needful preparations for the expedition. the coach was punctual to the time appointed; and mr. weller, after duly installing mr. pickwick and mr. winkle inside, took his seat on the box by the driver. they alighted, as had been agreed on, about a quarter of a mile from the place of rendezvous, and desiring the coachman to await their return, proceeded the remaining distance on foot. it was at this stage of the undertaking that mr. pickwick, with many smiles and various other indications of great self-satisfaction, produced from one of his coat pockets a dark lantern, with which he had specially provided himself for the occasion, and the great mechanical beauty of which he proceeded to explain to mr. winkle as they walked along, to the no small surprise of the few stragglers they met. "i should have been the better for something of this kind in my last garden expedition, at night; eh, sam?" said mr. pickwick, looking good-humouredly round at his follower, who was trudging behind. "wery nice things if they're managed properly, sir," replied mr. weller; "but when you don't want to be seen, i think they're more useful arter the candle's gone out, than ven it's alight." mr. pickwick appeared struck with sam's remarks, for he put the lantern into his pocket again, and they walked on in silence. "down here, sir," said sam. "let me lead the way. this is the lane, sir." down the lane they went, and dark enough it was. mr. pickwick brought out the lantern, once or twice, as they groped their way along, and threw a very brilliant little tunnel of light before them, about a foot in diameter. it was very pretty to look at, but seemed to have the effect of rendering surrounding objects rather darker than before. at length they arrived at the large stone. here sam recommended his master and mr. winkle to seat themselves, while he reconnoitred, and ascertained whether mary was yet in waiting. after an absence of five or ten minutes, sam returned, to say that the gate was opened, and all quiet. following him with stealthy tread, mr. pickwick and mr. winkle soon found themselves in the garden. here everybody said "hush!" a good many times; and that being done, no one seemed to have any very distinct apprehension of what was to be done next. "is miss allen in the garden yet, mary?" inquired mr. winkle, much agitated. "i don't know, sir," replied the pretty housemaid. "the best thing to be done, sir, will be for mr. weller to give you a hoist up into the tree, and perhaps mr. pickwick will have the goodness to see that nobody comes up the lane, while i watch at the other end of the garden. goodness gracious, what's that!" "that 'ere blessed lantern 'ull be the death on us all," exclaimed sam, peevishly. "take care wot you're a doin' on, sir; you're a sendin' a blaze o' light, right into the back parlour winder." "dear me!" said mr. pickwick, turning hastily aside, "i didn't mean to do that." "now, it's in the next house, sir," remonstrated sam. "bless my heart!" exclaimed mr. pickwick, turning round again. "now, it's in the stable, and they'll think the place is afire," said sam. "shut it up, sir, can't you?" "it's the most extraordinary lantern i ever met with, in all my life!" exclaimed mr. pickwick, greatly bewildered by the effects he had so unintentionally produced. "i never saw such a powerful reflector." "it'll be vun too powerful for us, if you keep blazin' avay in that manner, sir," replied sam, as mr. pickwick, after various unsuccessful efforts, managed to close the slide. "there's the young lady's footsteps. now, mr. vinkle, sir, up vith you." "stop, stop!" said mr. pickwick, "i must speak to her first. help me up, sam." "gently, sir," said sam, planting his head against the wall, and making a platform of his back. "step a top o' that 'ere flower-pot, sir. now then, up vith you." "i'm afraid i shall hurt you, sam," said mr. pickwick. "never mind me, sir," replied sam. "lend him a hand, mr. vinkle, sir. steady, sir, steady. that's the time o' day!" as sam spoke, mr. pickwick, by exertions almost supernatural in a gentleman of his years and weight, contrived to get upon sam's back; and sam gently raising himself up, and mr. pickwick holding on fast by the top of the wall, while mr. winkle clasped him tight by the legs, they contrived by these means to bring his spectacles just above the level of the coping. "my dear," said mr. pickwick, looking over the wall, and catching sight of arabella, on the other side. "don't be frightened, my dear, it's only me." "oh pray go away, mr. pickwick," said arabella. "tell them all to go away. i am so dreadfully frightened. dear, dear mr. pickwick, don't stop there. you'll fall down and kill yourself, i know you will." "now, pray don't alarm yourself, my dear," said mr. pickwick soothingly. "there is not the least cause for fear, i assure you. stand firm, sam," said mr. pickwick, looking down. "all right, sir," replied mr. weller. "don't be longer than you can conweniently help, sir. you're rayther heavy." "only another moment, sam," replied mr. pickwick. "i merely wished you to know, my dear, that i should not have allowed my young friend to see you in this clandestine way, if the situation in which you are placed had left him any alternative; and lest the impropriety of this step should cause you any uneasiness, my love, it may be a satisfaction to you, to know that i am present. that's all, my dear." "indeed, mr. pickwick, i am very much obliged to you for your kindness and consideration," replied arabella, drying her tears with her handkerchief. she would probably have said much more, had not mr. pickwick's head disappeared with great swiftness, in consequence of a false step on sam's shoulder, which brought him suddenly to the ground. he was up again in an instant, however, and bidding mr. winkle make haste and get the interview over, ran out into the lane to keep watch, with all the courage and ardour of youth. mr. winkle himself, inspired by the occasion, was on the wall in a moment, merely pausing to request sam to be careful of his master. "i'll take care on him, sir," replied sam. "leave him to me." "where is he? what's he doing, sam?" inquired mr. winkle. "bless his old gaiters!" rejoined sam, looking out at the garden door, "he's a keepin' guard in the lane vith that 'ere dark lantern, like a amiable guy fawkes! i never see such a fine creetur in my days. blessed if i don't think his heart must ha' been born five-and-twenty year arter his body, at least!" mr. winkle stayed not to hear the encomium upon his friend. he had dropped from the wall; thrown himself at arabella's feet; and by this time was pleading the sincerity of his passion with an eloquence worthy even of mr. pickwick himself. while these things were going on in the open air, an elderly gentleman of scientific attainments was seated in his library, two or three houses off, writing a philosophical treatise, and ever and anon moistening his clay and his labours with a glass of claret from a venerable-looking bottle which stood by his side. in the agonies of composition, the elderly gentleman looked sometimes at the carpet, sometimes at the ceiling, and sometimes at the wall; and when neither carpet, ceiling, nor wall, afforded the requisite degree of inspiration, he looked out of the window. in one of these pauses of invention, the scientific gentleman was gazing abstractedly on the thick darkness outside, when he was very much surprised by observing a most brilliant light glide through the air at a short distance above the ground, and almost instantaneously vanish. after a short time the phenomenon was repeated, not once or twice, but several times: at last the scientific gentleman, laying down his pen, began to consider to what natural causes these appearances were to be assigned. they were not meteors; they were too low. they were not glow-worms; they were too high. they were not will-o'-the-wisps; they were not fire-flies; they were not fire-works. what could they be? some extraordinary and wonderful phenomenon of nature, which no philosopher had ever seen before; something which it had been reserved for him alone to discover, and which he should immortalise his name by chronicling for the benefit of posterity. full of this idea, the scientific gentleman seized his pen again, and committed to paper sundry notes of these unparalleled appearances, with the date, day, hour, minute, and precise second at which they were visible: all of which were to form the data of a voluminous treatise of great research and deep learning, which should astonish all the atmospherical sages that ever drew breath in any part of the civilised globe. he threw himself back in his easy chair, wrapped in contemplations of his future greatness. the mysterious light appeared more brilliantly than before: dancing, to all appearances, up and down the lane, crossing from side to side, and moving in an orbit as eccentric as comets themselves. the scientific gentleman was a bachelor. he had no wife to call in and astonish, so he rang the bell for his servant. "pruffle," said the scientific gentleman, "there is something very extraordinary in the air to-night. did you see that?" said the scientific gentleman, pointing out of the window, as the light again became visible. "yes, i did, sir." "what do you think of it, pruffle?" "think of it, sir?" "yes. you have been bred up in this country. what should you say was the cause of those lights, now?" the scientific gentleman smilingly anticipated pruffle's reply that he could assign no cause for them at all. pruffle meditated. "i should say it was thieves, sir," said pruffle at length. "you're a fool, and may go down-stairs," said the scientific gentleman. "thank you, sir," said pruffle. and down he went. but the scientific gentleman could not rest under the idea of the ingenious treatise he had projected being lost to the world, which must inevitably be the case if the speculation of the ingenious mr. pruffle were not stifled in its birth. he put on his hat and walked quickly down the garden, determined to investigate the matter to the very bottom. now, shortly before the scientific gentleman walked out into the garden, mr. pickwick had run down the lane as fast as he could, to convey a false alarm that somebody was coming that way; occasionally drawing back the slide of the dark lantern to keep himself from the ditch. the alarm was no sooner given, than mr. winkle scrambled back over the wall, and arabella ran into the house; the garden-gate was shut, and the three adventurers were making the best of their way down the lane, when they were startled by the scientific old gentleman unlocking his garden-gate. "hold hard," whispered sam, who was, of course, the first of the party. "show a light for just vun second, sir." mr. pickwick did as he was desired, and sam, seeing a man's head peeping out very cautiously within half a yard of his own, gave it a gentle tap with his clenched fist, which knocked it, with a hollow sound, against the gate. having performed this feat with great suddenness and dexterity, mr. weller caught mr. pickwick up on his back, and followed mr. winkle down the lane at a pace which, considering the burden he carried, was perfectly astonishing. "have you got your vind back agin, sir," inquired sam, when they had reached the end. "quite. quite, now," replied mr. pickwick. "then come along, sir," said sam, setting his master on his feet again. "come between us, sir. not half a mile to run. think you're vinnin' a cup, sir. now for it." thus encouraged, mr. pickwick made the very best use of his legs. it may be confidently stated that a pair of black gaiters never got over the ground in better style than did those of mr. pickwick on this memorable occasion. the coach was waiting, the horses were fresh, the roads were good, and the driver was willing. the whole party arrived in safety at the bush before mr. pickwick had recovered his breath. "in with you at once, sir," said sam, as he helped his master out. "don't stop a second in the street, arter that 'ere exercise. beg your pardon, sir," continued sam, touching his hat as mr. winkle descended. "hope there warn't a priory 'tachment, sir?" mr. winkle grasped his humble friend by the hand, and whispered in his ear, "it's all right, sam; quite right." upon which mr. weller struck three distinct blows upon his nose in token of intelligence, smiled, winked, and proceeded to put the steps up, with a countenance expressive of lively satisfaction. as to the scientific gentleman, he demonstrated, in a masterly treatise, that these wonderful lights were the effect of electricity; and clearly proved the same by detailing how a flash of fire danced before his eyes when he put his head out of the gate, and how he received a shock which stunned him for a quarter of an hour afterwards; which demonstration delighted all the scientific associations beyond measure, and caused him to be considered a light of science ever afterwards. chapter xii [illustration] _introduces mr. pickwick to a new and not uninteresting scene in the great drama of life_ the remainder of the period which mr. pickwick had assigned as the duration of the stay at bath, passed over without the occurrence of anything material. trinity term commenced. on the expiration of its first week, mr. pickwick and his friends returned to london; and the former gentleman, attended of course by sam, straightway repaired to his old quarters at the george and vulture. on the third morning after their arrival, just as all the clocks in the city were striking nine individually, and somewhere about nine hundred and ninety-nine collectively, sam was taking the air in george yard, when a queer sort of fresh-painted vehicle drove up, out of which there jumped with great agility, throwing the reins to a stout man who sat beside him, a queer sort of gentleman, who seemed made for the vehicle, and the vehicle for him. the vehicle was not exactly a gig, neither was it a stanhope. it was not what is currently denominated a dog-cart, neither was it a taxed-cart, not a chaise-cart, nor a guillotined cabriolet; and yet it had something of the character of each and every of these machines. it was painted a bright yellow, with the shafts and wheels picked out in black; and the driver sat, in the orthodox sporting style, on cushions piled about two feet above the rail. the horse was a bay, a well-looking animal enough; but with something of a flash and dog-fighting air about him, nevertheless, which accorded both with the vehicle and his master. the master himself was a man of about forty, with black hair, and carefully combed whiskers. he was dressed in a particularly gorgeous manner, with plenty of articles of jewellery about him--all about three sizes larger than those which are usually worn by gentlemen--and a rough great-coat to crown the whole. into one pocket of his great-coat he thrust his left hand the moment he dismounted, while from the other he drew forth, with his right, a very bright and glaring silk handkerchief, with which he whisked a speck or two of dust from his boots, and then, crumpling it in his hand, swaggered up the court. it had not escaped sam's attention that, when this person dismounted, a shabby-looking man in a brown great-coat shorn of divers buttons, who had been previously slinking about, on the opposite side of the way, crossed over, and remained stationary close by. having something more than a suspicion of the object of the gentleman's visit, sam preceded him to the george and vulture, and turning sharp round, planted himself in the centre of the doorway. "now, my fine fellow!" said the man in the rough coat, in an imperious tone, attempting at the same time to push his way past. "now, sir, wot's the matter!" replied sam, returning the push with compound interest. "come, none of this, my man; this won't do with me," said the owner of the rough coat, raising his voice, and turning white. "here, smouch!" "well, wot's amiss here?" growled the man in the brown coat, who had been gradually sneaking up the court during this short dialogue. "only some insolence of this young man's," said the principal, giving sam another push. "come, none o' this gammon," growled smouch, giving him another, and a harder one. this last push had the effect which it was intended by the experienced mr. smouch to produce; for while sam, anxious to return the compliment, was grinding that gentleman's body against the doorpost, the principal crept past, and made his way to the bar: whither sam, after bandying a few epithetical remarks with mr. smouch, followed at once. "good morning, my dear," said the principal, addressing the young lady at the bar, with botany bay ease, and new south wales gentility; "which is mr. pickwick's room, my dear?" "show him up," said the barmaid to a waiter, without deigning another look at the exquisite, in reply to his inquiry. the waiter led the way up-stairs as he was desired, and the man in the rough coat followed, with sam behind him: who, in his progress up the staircase, indulged in sundry gestures indicative of supreme contempt and defiance: to the unspeakable gratification of the servants and other lookers-on. mr. smouch, who was troubled with a hoarse cough, remained below, and expectorated in the passage. mr. pickwick was fast asleep in bed, when his early visitor, followed by sam, entered the room. the noise they made, in so doing, awoke him. "shaving water, sam," said mr. pickwick, from within the curtains. "shave you directly, mr. pickwick," said the visitor, drawing one of them back from the bed's head. "i've got an execution against you, at the suit of bardell.--here's the warrant.--common pleas.--here's my card. i suppose you'll come over to my house." giving mr. pickwick a friendly tap on the shoulder, the sheriff's officer (for such he was) threw his card on the counterpane, and pulled a gold toothpick from his waistcoat pocket. "namby's the name," said the sheriff's deputy, as mr. pickwick took his spectacles from under the pillow, and put them on, to read the card. "namby, bell alley, coleman street." at this point sam weller, who had had his eyes fixed hitherto on mr. namby's shining beaver, interfered: "are you a quaker?" said sam. "i'll let you know who i am, before i've done with you," replied the indignant officer. "i'll teach you manners, my fine fellow, one of these fine mornings." "thankee," said sam. "i'll do the same to you. take your hat off." with this, mr. weller, in the most dexterous manner, knocked mr. namby's hat to the other side of the room: with such violence, that he had very nearly caused him to swallow the gold toothpick into the bargain. [illustration: "_take your hat off_"] "observe this, mr. pickwick," said the disconcerted officer, gasping for breath. "i've been assaulted in the execution of my dooty by your servant in your chamber. i'm in bodily fear. i call you to witness this." "don't witness nothin', sir," interposed sam. "shut your eyes up tight, sir. i'd pitch him out o' winder, only he couldn't fall far enough, 'cause o' the leads outside." "sam," said mr. pickwick in an angry voice, as the attendant made various demonstrations of hostilities, "if you say another word, or offer the slightest interference with this person, i discharge you that instant." "but, sir!" said sam. "hold your tongue," interposed mr. pickwick. "take that hat up again." but this sam flatly and positively refused to do; and, after he had been severely reprimanded by his master, the officer, being in a hurry, condescended to pick it up himself: venting a great variety of threats against sam meanwhile, which that gentleman received with perfect composure: merely observing that if mr. namby would have the goodness to put his hat on again, he would knock it into the latter end of next week. mr. namby, perhaps thinking that such a process might be productive of inconvenience to himself, declined to offer the temptation, and, soon after, called up smouch. having informed him that the capture was made, and that he was to wait for the prisoner until he should have finished dressing, namby then swaggered out, and drove away. smouch, requesting mr. pickwick in a surly manner "to be as alive as he could, for it was a busy time," drew up a chair by the door, and sat there, until he had finished dressing. sam was then despatched for a hackney-coach, and in it the triumvirate proceeded to coleman street. it was fortunate the distance was short; for mr. smouch, besides possessing no very enchanting conversational powers, was rendered a decidedly unpleasant companion in a limited space, by the physical weakness to which we have elsewhere adverted. the coach having turned into a very narrow and dark street, stopped before a house with iron bars to all the windows; the door-posts of which were graced by the name and title of "namby, officer to the sheriffs of london:" the inner gate having been opened by a gentleman who might have passed for a neglected twin brother of mr. smouch, and who was endowed with a large key for the purpose, mr. pickwick was shown into the "coffee-room." this coffee-room was a front parlour: the principal features of which were fresh sand and stale tobacco smoke. mr. pickwick bowed to the three persons who were seated in it when he entered and having despatched sam for perker, withdrew into an obscure corner, and from thence looked with some curiosity upon his new companions. one of these was a mere boy of nineteen or twenty, who, though it was yet barely ten o'clock, was drinking gin and water, and smoking a cigar: amusements to which, judging from his inflamed countenance, he had devoted himself pretty constantly for the last year or two of his life. opposite him, engaged in stirring the fire with the toe of his right boot, was a coarse vulgar young man of about thirty, with a sallow face and harsh voice: evidently possessed of that knowledge of the world, and captivating freedom of manner, which is to be acquired in public-house parlours, and at low billiard-tables. the third tenant of the apartment was a middle-aged man in a very old suit of black, who looked pale and haggard, and paced up and down the room incessantly: stopping, now and then, to look with great anxiety out of the window as if he expected somebody, and then resuming his walk. "you'd better have the loan of my razor this morning, mr. ayresleigh," said the man who was stirring the fire, tipping the wink to his friend the boy. "thank you, no, i shan't want it; i expect i shall be out in the course of an hour or so," replied the other in a hurried manner. then, walking again up to the window, and once more returning disappointed, he sighed deeply, and left the room; upon which the other two burst into a loud laugh. "well, i never saw such a game as that," said the gentleman who had offered the razor, whose name appeared to be price. "never!" mr. price confirmed the assertion with an oath, and then laughed again, when of course the boy (who thought his companion one of the most dashing fellows alive) laughed also. "you'd hardly think, would you now," said price, turning towards mr. pickwick, "that that chap's been here a week yesterday, and never once shaved himself yet, because he feels so certain he's going out in half an hour's time, that he thinks he may as well put it off till he gets home?" "poor man!" said mr. pickwick. "are his chances of getting out of his difficulties really so great?" "chances be d--d," replied price; "he hasn't half the ghost of one. i wouldn't give _that_ for his chance of walking about the streets this time ten years." with this mr. price snapped his fingers contemptuously, and rang the bell. "give me a sheet of paper, crookey," said mr. price to the attendant, who in dress and general appearance looked something between a bankrupt grazier, and a drover in a state of insolvency; "and a glass of brandy and water, crookey, d'ye hear? i'm going to write to my father, and i must have a stimulant, or i shan't be able to pitch it strong enough into the old boy." at this facetious speech, the young boy, it is almost needless to say, was fairly convulsed. "that's right," said mr. price. "never say die. all fun, ain't it?" "prime!" said the young gentleman. "you've some spirit about you, you have," said price. "you've seen something of life." "i rather think i have!" replied the boy. he had looked at it through the dirty panes of glass in a bar door. mr. pickwick feeling not a little disgusted with this dialogue, as well as with the air and manner of the two beings by whom it had been carried on, was about to inquire whether he could not be accommodated with a private sitting-room, when two or three strangers of genteel appearance entered, at sight of whom the boy threw his cigar into the fire, and whispering to mr. price that they had come to "make it all right" for him, joined them at a table in the further end of the room. it would appear, however, that matters were not going to be made all right quite so speedily as the young gentleman anticipated; for a very long conversation ensued, of which mr. pickwick could not avoid hearing certain fragments regarding dissolute conduct, and repeated forgiveness. at last there were very distinct allusions made by the oldest gentleman of the party to one whitecross street, at which the young gentleman, notwithstanding his primeness and his spirit, and his knowledge of life into the bargain, reclined his head upon the table, and howled dismally. very much satisfied with this sudden bringing down of the youth's valour, and this effectual lowering of his tone, mr. pickwick rang the bell, and was shown, at his own request, into a private room furnished with a carpet, table, chairs, sideboard, and sofa, and ornamented with a looking-glass, and various old prints. here he had the advantage of hearing mrs. namby's performance on a square piano overhead, while the breakfast was getting ready; when it came, mr. perker came too. "aha, my dear sir," said the little man, "nailed at last, eh? come, come, i'm not sorry for it either, because now you'll see the absurdity of this conduct. i've noted down the amount of the taxed costs and damages for which the _ca-sa_ was issued, and we had better settle at once and lose no time. namby is come home by this time, i dare say. what say you, my dear sir? shall i draw a cheque, or will you?" the little man rubbed his hands with affected cheerfulness as he said this, but glancing at mr. pickwick's countenance, could not forbear at the same time casting a desponding look towards sam weller. "perker," said mr. pickwick, "let me hear no more of this, i beg. i see no advantage in staying here, so i shall go to prison to-night." "you can't go to whitecross street, my dear sir," said perker. "impossible! there are sixty beds in a ward; and the bolt's on sixteen hours out of the four-and-twenty." "i would rather go to some other place of confinement if i can," said mr. pickwick. "if not, i must make the best i can of that." "you can go to the fleet, my dear sir, if you're determined to go somewhere," said perker. "that'll do," said mr. pickwick. "i'll go there directly i have finished my breakfast." "stop, stop, my dear sir; not the least occasion for being in such a violent hurry to get into a place that most other men are as eager to get out of," said the good-natured little attorney. "we must have a _habeas corpus_. there'll be no judge at chambers till four o'clock this afternoon. you must wait till then." "very good," said mr. pickwick, with unmoved patience. "then we will have a chop, here, at two. see about it, sam, and tell them to be punctual." mr. pickwick remaining firm, despite all the remonstrances and arguments of perker, the chops appeared and disappeared in due course; he was then put into another hackney-coach, and carried off to chancery lane, after waiting half an hour or so for mr. namby, who had a select dinner-party and could on no account be disturbed before. there were two judges in attendance at serjeant's inn--one king's bench, and one common pleas--and a great deal of business appeared to be transacting before them, if the number of lawyers' clerks who were hurrying in and out with bundles of papers, afforded any test. when they reached the low archway which forms the entrance to the inn, perker was detained a few moments parleying with the coachman about the fare and the change; and mr. pickwick, stepping to one side to be out of the way of the stream of people that were pouring in and out, looked about him with some curiosity. the people that attracted his attention most, were three or four men of shabby-genteel appearance, who touched their hats to many of the attorneys who passed, and seemed to have some business there, the nature of which mr. pickwick could not divine. they were curious-looking fellows. one was a slim and rather lame man in rusty black, and a white neckerchief; another was a stout burly person, dressed in the same apparel, with a great reddish-black cloth round his neck; a third was a little weazen drunken-looking body, with a pimply face. they were loitering about, with their hands behind them, and now and then with an anxious countenance whispered something in the ear of some of the gentlemen with papers, as they hurried by. mr. pickwick remembered to have very often observed them lounging under the archway when he had been walking past; and his curiosity was quite excited to know to what branch of the profession these dingy-looking loungers could possibly belong. he was about to propound the question to namby, who kept close beside him, sucking a large gold ring on his little finger, when perker bustled up, and observing that there was no time to lose, led the way into the inn. as mr. pickwick followed, the lame man stepped up to him, and civilly touching his hat, held out a written card, which mr. pickwick, not wishing to hurt the man's feelings by refusing, courteously accepted and deposited in his waistcoat pocket. "now," said perker, turning round before he entered one of the offices, to see that his companions were close behind him. "in here, my dear sir. hallo, what do _you_ want?" this last question was addressed to the lame man, who, unobserved by mr. pickwick, made one of the party. in reply to it, the lame man touched his hat again, with all imaginable politeness, and motioned towards mr. pickwick. "no, no," said perker, with a smile. "we don't want you, my dear friend, we don't want you." "i beg your pardon, sir," said the lame man. "the gentleman took my card. i hope you will employ me, sir. the gentleman nodded to me. i'll be judged by the gentleman himself. you nodded to me, sir?" "pooh, pooh, nonsense. you didn't nod to anybody, pickwick? a mistake, a mistake," said perker. "the gentleman handed me his card," replied mr. pickwick, producing it from his waistcoat pocket. "i accepted it, as the gentleman seemed to wish it--in fact i had some curiosity to look at it when i should be at leisure. i----" the little attorney burst into a loud laugh, and returning the card to the lame man, informing him it was all a mistake, whispered to mr. pickwick as the man turned away in dudgeon, that he was only a bail. "a what!" exclaimed mr. pickwick. "a bail," replied perker. "a bail!" "yes, my dear sir--half a dozen of 'em here. bail you to any amount, and only charge half-a-crown. curious trade, isn't it?" said perker, regaling himself with a pinch of snuff. "what! am i to understand that these men earn a livelihood by waiting about here, to perjure themselves before the judges of the land, at the rate of half-a-crown a crime!" exclaimed mr. pickwick, quite aghast at the disclosure. "why, i don't exactly know about perjury, my dear sir," replied the little gentleman. "harsh word, my dear sir, very harsh word indeed. it's a legal fiction, my dear sir, nothing more." saying which the attorney shrugged his shoulders, smiled, took a second pinch of snuff, and led the way into the office of the judge's clerk. this was a room of specially dirty appearance, with a very low ceiling and old panelled walls; and so badly lighted, that although it was broad day outside, great tallow candles were burning on the desks. at one end was a door leading to the judge's private apartment, round which were congregated a crowd of attorneys and managing clerks, who were called in, in the order in which their respective appointments stood upon the file. every time this door was opened to let a party out, the next party made a violent rush to get in; and, as in addition to the numerous dialogues which passed between the gentlemen who were waiting to see the judge, a variety of personal squabbles ensued between the greater part of those who had seen him, there was as much noise as could well be raised in an apartment of such confined dimensions. nor were the conversations of these gentlemen the only sounds that broke upon the ear. standing on a box behind a wooden bar at another end of the room, was a clerk in spectacles, who was "taking the affidavits:" large batches of which were, from time to time, carried into the private room by another clerk for the judge's signature. there were a large number of attorneys' clerks to be sworn, and it being a moral impossibility to swear them all at once, the struggles of these gentlemen to reach the clerk in spectacles, were like those of a crowd to get in at the pit door of a theatre when gracious majesty honours it with its presence. another functionary, from time to time, exercised his lungs in calling over the names of those who had been sworn, for the purpose of restoring to them their affidavits after they had been signed by the judge: which gave rise to a few more scuffles; and all these things going on at the same time, occasioned as much bustle as the most active and excitable person could desire to behold. there were yet another class of persons--those who were waiting to attend summonses their employers had taken out, which it was optional to the attorney on the opposite side to attend or not--and whose business it was, from time to time, to cry out the opposite attorney's name; to make certain that he was not in attendance without their knowledge. for example. leaning against the wall, close beside the seat mr. pickwick had taken, was an office-lad of fourteen, with a tenor voice; near him, a common-law clerk with a bass one. a clerk hurried in with a bundle of papers, and stared about him. "sniggle and blink," cried the tenor. "porkin and snob," growled the bass. "stumpy and deacon," said the new comer. nobody answered; the next man who came in, was hailed by the whole three; and he in his turn shouted for another firm; and then somebody else roared in a loud voice for another; and so forth. all this time, the man in the spectacles was hard at work, swearing the clerks: the oath being invariably administered without any effort at the punctuation, and usually in the following terms: "take the book in your right hand this is your name and hand-writing you swear that the contents of this your affidavit are true so help you god a shilling you must get change i haven't got it." "well, sam," said mr. pickwick, "i suppose they are getting the _habeas corpus_ ready." "yes," said sam, "and i vish they'd bring out the have-his-carcase. it's wery unpleasant keepin' us vaitin' here. i'd ha' got half a dozen have-his-carcases ready, pack'd up and all, by this time." what sort of cumbrous and unmanageable machine sam weller imagined a _habeas corpus_ to be, does not appear; for perker, at that moment, walked up, and took mr. pickwick away. the usual forms having been gone through, the body of samuel pickwick was soon afterwards confided to the custody of the tipstaff, to be by him taken to the warden of the fleet prison, and there detained until the amount of the damages and costs in the action of bardell against pickwick was fully paid and satisfied. "and that," said mr. pickwick, laughing, "will be a very long time. sam, call another hackney-coach. perker, my dear friend, good-bye." "i shall go with you, and see you safe there," said perker. "indeed," replied mr. pickwick, "i would rather go without any other attendant than sam. as soon as i get settled, i will write and let you know, and i shall expect you immediately. until then, good-bye." as mr. pickwick said this, he got into the coach which had by this time arrived: followed by the tipstaff. sam having stationed himself on the box, it rolled away. "a most extraordinary man that!" said perker, as he stopped to pull on his gloves. "what a bankrupt he'd make, sir," observed mr. lowten, who was standing near. "how he would bother the commissioners! he'd set 'em at defiance if they talked of committing him, sir." the attorney did not appear very much delighted with his clerk's professional estimate of mr. pickwick's character, for he walked away without deigning any reply. the hackney-coach jolted along fleet street, as hackney-coaches usually do. the horses "went better," the driver said, when they had anything before them (they must have gone at a most extraordinary pace when there was nothing), and so the vehicle kept behind a cart; when the cart stopped, it stopped; and when the cart went on again, it did the same. mr. pickwick sat opposite the tipstaff; and the tipstaff sat with his hat between his knees, whistling a tune, and looking out of the coach window. time performs wonders. by the powerful old gentleman's aid, even a hackney-coach gets over half a mile of ground. they stopped at length, and mr. pickwick alighted at the gate of the fleet. the tipstaff, looking over his shoulder to see that his charge was following close at his heels, preceded mr. pickwick into the prison; turning to the left, after they had entered, they passed through an open door into a lobby, from which a heavy gate, opposite to that by which they had entered and which was guarded by a stout turnkey with a key in his hand, led at once into the interior of the prison. here they stopped, while the tipstaff delivered his papers; and here mr. pickwick was apprised that he would remain, until he had undergone the ceremony, known to the initiated as "sitting for your portrait." "sitting for my portrait!" said mr. pickwick. "having your likeness taken, sir," replied the stout turnkey. "we're capital hands at likenesses here. take 'em in no time, and always exact. walk in, sir, and make yourself at home." mr. pickwick complied with the invitation, and sat himself down: and mr. weller, who stationed himself at the back of the chair, whispered that the sitting was merely another term for undergoing an inspection by the different turnkeys, in order that they might know prisoners from visitors. "well, sam," said mr. pickwick, "then i wish the artists would come. this is rather a public place." "they von't be long, sir, i des-say," replied sam. "there's a dutch clock, sir." "so i see," observed mr. pickwick. "and a bird-cage, sir," said sam. "veels vithin veels, a prison in a prison. ain't it, sir?" as mr. weller made this philosophical remark, mr. pickwick was aware that the sitting had commenced. the stout turnkey having been relieved from the lock, sat down, and looked at him carelessly from time to time, while a long thin man who had relieved him, thrust his hands beneath his coat-tails, and planting himself opposite, took a good long view of him. a third rather surly-looking gentleman: who had apparently been disturbed at his tea, for he was disposing of the last remnant of a crust and butter when he came in: stationed himself close to mr. pickwick; and, resting his hands on his hips, inspected him narrowly; while two others mixed with the group, and studied his features with most intent and thoughtful faces. mr. pickwick winced a good deal under the operation, and appeared to sit very uneasily in his chair; but he made no remark to anybody while it was being performed, not even to sam, who reclined upon the back of the chair, reflecting, partly on the situation of his master, and partly on the great satisfaction it would have afforded him to make a fierce assault upon all the turnkeys there assembled, one after the other, if it were lawful and peaceable to do so. at length the likeness was completed, and mr. pickwick was informed, that he might now proceed into the prison. "where am i to sleep to-night?" inquired mr. pickwick. "why i don't rightly know about to-night," replied the stout turnkey. "you'll be chummed on somebody to-morrow, and then you'll be all snug and comfortable. the first night's generally rather unsettled, but you'll be set all squares to-morrow." after some discussion, it was discovered that one of the turnkeys had a bed to let, which mr. pickwick could have for that night. he gladly agreed to hire it. "if you'll come with me, i'll show it you at once," said the man. "it ain't a large 'un; but it's an out-and-outer to sleep in. this way, sir." they passed through the inner gate, and descended a short flight of steps. the key was turned after them; and mr. pickwick found himself, for the first time in his life, within the walls of a debtor's prison. chapter xiii [illustration] _what befell mr. pickwick when he got into the fleet: what prisoners he saw there; and how he passed the night_ mr. tom roker, the gentleman who had accompanied mr. pickwick into the prison, turned sharp round to the right when he got to the bottom of the little flight of steps, and led the way, through an iron gate which stood open, and up another short flight of steps, into a long narrow gallery, dirty and low, paved with stone, and very dimly lighted by a window at each remote end. "this," said the gentleman, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and looking carelessly over his shoulder to mr. pickwick, "this here is the hall flight." "oh," replied mr. pickwick, looking down a dark and filthy staircase, which appeared to lead to a range of damp and gloomy stone vaults, beneath the ground, "and those, i suppose, are the little cellars where the prisoners keep their small quantities of coals. unpleasant places to have to go down to; but very convenient, i dare say." "yes, i shouldn't wonder if they was convenient," replied the gentleman, "seeing that a few people live there, pretty snug. that's the fair, that is." "my friend," said mr. pickwick, "you don't really mean to say that human beings live down in those wretched dungeons?" "don't i?" replied mr. roker, with indignant astonishment; "why shouldn't i?" "live! live down there!" exclaimed mr. pickwick. "live down there! yes, and die down there, too, wery often!" replied mr. roker; "and what of that? who's got to say anything agin it? live down there! yes, and a wery good place it is to live in, ain't it?" as roker turned somewhat fiercely upon mr. pickwick in saying this, and, moreover, muttered in an excited fashion certain unpleasant invocations concerning his own eyes, limbs, and circulating fluids, the latter gentleman deemed it advisable to pursue the discourse no further. mr. roker then proceeded to mount another staircase, as dirty as that which led to the place which had just been the subject of discussion, in which ascent he was closely followed by mr. pickwick and sam. "there," said mr. roker, pausing for breath when they reached another gallery of the same dimensions as the one below, "this is the coffee-room flight; the one above's the third, and the one above that's the top; and the room where you're a-going to sleep to-night is the warden's room, and it's this way--come on." having said all this in a breath, mr. roker mounted another flight of stairs, with mr. pickwick and sam weller following at his heels. these staircases received light from sundry windows placed at some little distance above the floor, and looking into a gravelled area bounded by a high brick wall, with iron _chevaux-de-frise_ at the top. this area, it appeared from mr. roker's statement, was the racket-ground; and it further appeared, on the testimony of the same gentleman, that there was a smaller area in that portion of the prison which was nearest farringdon street, denominated and called the "painted ground," from the fact of its walls having once displayed the semblances of various men-of-war in full sail, and other artistical effects achieved in bygone times by some imprisoned draughtsman in his leisure hours. having communicated this piece of information, apparently more for the purpose of discharging his bosom of an important fact, than with any specific view of enlightening mr. pickwick, the guide, having at length reached another gallery, led the way into a small passage at the extreme end: opened a door: and disclosed an apartment of an appearance by no means inviting, containing eight or nine iron bedsteads. "there," said mr. roker, holding the door open, and looking triumphantly round at mr. pickwick, "there's a room!" mr. pickwick's face, however, betokened such a very trifling portion of satisfaction at the appearance of his lodging, that mr. roker looked for a reciprocity of feeling into the countenance of samuel weller, who, until now, had observed a dignified silence. "there's a room, young man," observed mr. roker. "i see it," replied sam, with a placid nod of the head. "you wouldn't think to find such a room as this in the farringdon hotel, would you?" said mr. roker, with a complacent smile. to this mr. weller replied with an easy and unstudied closing of one eye; which might be considered to mean, either that he would have thought it, or that he would not have thought it, or that he had never thought anything at all about it: as the observer's imagination suggested. having executed this feat, and re-opened his eye, mr. weller proceeded to inquire which was the individual bedstead that mr. roker had so flatteringly described as an out-and-outer to sleep in. "that's it," replied mr. roker, pointing to a very rusty one in a corner. "it would make any one go to sleep, that bedstead would, whether they wanted to or not." "i should think," said sam, eyeing the piece of furniture in question with a look of excessive disgust, "i should think poppies was nothing to it." "nothing at all," said mr. roker. "and i s'pose," said sam, with a sidelong glance at his master, as if to see whether there were any symptoms of his determination being shaken by what passed, "i s'pose the other gen'l'm'n as sleeps here, _are_ gen'l'm'n." "nothing but it," said mr. roker. "one of 'em takes his twelve pints of ale a-day, and never leaves off smoking even at his meals." "he must be a first-rater," said sam. "a ," replied mr. roker. nothing daunted, even by this intelligence, mr. pickwick smilingly announced his determination to test the powers of the narcotic bedstead for that night; and mr. roker, after informing him that he could retire to rest at whatever hour he thought proper, without any further notice or formality, walked off, leaving him standing with sam in the gallery. it was getting dark; that is to say, a few gas jets were kindled in this place which was never light, by way of compliment to the evening, which had set in outside. as it was rather warm, some of the tenants of the numerous little rooms which opened into the gallery on either hand, had set their doors ajar. mr. pickwick peeped into them as he passed along, with great curiosity and interest. here four or five great hulking fellows, just visible through a cloud of tobacco-smoke, were engaged in noisy and riotous conversation over half-emptied pots of beer, or playing at all-fours with a very greasy pack of cards. in the adjoining room, some solitary tenant might be seen, poring, by the light of a feeble tallow candle, over a bundle of soiled and tattered papers, yellow with dust and dropping to pieces from age: writing, for the hundredth time, some lengthened statement of his grievances, for the perusal of some great man whose eyes it would never reach, or whose heart it would never touch. in a third, a man, with his wife and a whole crowd of children, might be seen making up a scanty bed on the ground, or upon a few chairs, for the younger ones to pass the night in. and in a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth, and a seventh, the noise and the beer, and the tobacco-smoke, and the cards, all came over again in greater force than before. in the galleries themselves, and more especially on the staircases, there lingered a great number of people, who came there, some because their rooms were empty and lonesome, others because their rooms were full and hot: the greater part because they were restless and uncomfortable, and not possessed of the secret of exactly knowing what to do with themselves. there were many classes of people here, from the labouring man in his fustian jacket, to the broken-down spendthrift in his shawl dressing-gown, most appropriately out at elbows; but there was the same air about them all--a listless, jail-bird, careless swagger, a vagabondish who's-afraid sort of bearing, which is wholly indescribable in words, but which any man can understand in one moment if he wish, by setting foot in the nearest debtor's prison, and looking at the very first group of people he sees there, with the same interest as mr. pickwick did. "it strikes me, sam," said mr. pickwick, leaning over the iron rail at the stair-head--"it strikes me, sam, that imprisonment for debt is scarcely any punishment at all." "think not, sir?" inquired mr. weller. "you see how these fellows drink, and smoke, and roar," replied mr. pickwick. "it's quite impossible that they can mind it much." "ah, that's just the wery thing, sir," rejoined sam, "_they_ don't mind it; it's a regular holiday to them--all porter and skittles. it's the t'other vuns as gets done over, vith this sort o' thing: them down-hearted fellers as can't svig avay at the beer, nor play at skittles neither; them as vould pay if they could, and gets low by being boxed up. i'll tell you wot it is, sir; them as is alvays a idlin' in public-houses it don't damage at all, and them as is alvays a workin' ven they can, it damages too much. 'it's unekal,' as my father used to say ven his grog worn't made half-and-half. it's unekal, and that's the fault on it." "i think you're right, sam," said mr. pickwick, after a few moments' reflection, "quite right." "p'raps, now and then, there's some honest people as likes it," observed mr. weller, in a ruminative tone, "but i never heerd o' one as i can call to mind, 'cept the little dirty-faced man in the brown coat; and that wos force of habit." "and who was he?" inquired mr. pickwick. "vy, that's just the wery point as nobody never know'd," replied sam. "but what did he do?" "vy, he did wot many men as has been much better know'd has done in their time, sir," replied sam, "he run a match agin the constable, and vun it." "in other words, i suppose," said mr. pickwick, "he got into debt?" "just that, sir," replied sam, "and in course o' time he come here in consekens. it warn't much--execution for nine pound nothin', multiplied by five for costs; but hows'ever here he stopped for seventeen year. if he got any wrinkles in his face, they wos stopped up vith the dirt, for both the dirty face and the brown coat wos just the same at the end o' that time as they wos at the beginnin'. he wos a wery peaceful inoffendin' little creetur, and wos alvays a bustlin' about for somebody, or playin' rackets and never vinnin'; till at last the turnkeys they got quite fond on him, and he wos in the lodge ev'ry night, a chattering vith 'em, and tellin' stories, and all that 'ere. vun night he wos in there as usual, along vith a wery old friend of his, as wos on the lock, ven he says all of a sudden, 'i ain't seen the market outside, bill,' he says (fleet market wos there at that time)--'i ain't seen the market outside, bill,' he says, 'for seventeen year.' 'i know you ain't,' says the turnkey, smoking his pipe. 'i should like to see it for a minit, bill,' he says. 'wery probable,' says the turnkey, smoking his pipe wery fierce, and making believe he warn't up to what the little man wanted. 'bill,' says the little man, more abrupt than afore, 'i've got the fancy in my head. let me see the public streets once more afore i die; and if i ain't struck with apoplexy, i'll be back in five minits by the clock.' 'and wot 'ud become o' me if you _wos_ struck with apoplexy?' said the turnkey. 'vy,' says the little creetur, 'whoever found me, 'ud bring me home, for i've got my card in my pocket, bill,' he says, 'no. , coffee-room flight:' and that wos true, sure enough, for ven he wanted to make the acquaintance of any new comer, he used to pull out a little limp card vith them words on it and nothin' else; in consideration of vich, he wos alvays called number tventy. the turnkey takes a fixed look at him, and at last he says in a solemn manner, 'tventy,' he says, 'i'll trust you; you won't get your old friend into trouble?' 'no, my boy; i hope i've somethin' better behind here,' says the little man; and as he said it he hit his little veskit wery hard, and then a tear started out o' each eye, which wos wery extraordinary, for it was supposed as water never touched his face. he shook the turnkey by the hand; out he vent----" "and never came back again?" said mr. pickwick. "wrong for vunce, sir," replied mr. weller, "for back he come, two minits afore the time, a bilin' with rage: sayin' how he'd been nearly run over by a hackney-coach: that he warn't used to it: and he wos blowed if he wouldn't write to the lord mayor. they got him pacified at last; and for five years arter that, he never even so much as peeped out o' the lodge gate." "at the expiration of that time he died, i suppose?" said mr. pickwick. "no, he didn't, sir," replied sam. "he got a curiosity to go and taste the beer at a new public-house over the way, and it wos such a wery nice parlour, that he took it into his head to go there every night, vich he did for a long time, always comin' back reg'lar about a quarter of an hour afore the gate shut, vich wos all wery snug and comfortable. at last he began to get so precious jolly, that he used to forget how the time vent, or care nothin' at all about it, and he vent on gettin' later and later, till vun night his old friend wos just a shuttin' the gate--had turned the key in fact--ven he come up. 'hold hard, bill,' he says. 'wot, ain't you come home yet, tventy?' says the turnkey; 'i thought you wos in, long ago.' 'no, i wasn't,' says the little man, vith a smile. 'well then, i'll tell you wot it is, my friend,' says the turnkey, openin' the gate wery slow and sulky, 'it's my 'pinion as you've got into bad company o' late, which i'm wery sorry to see. now, i don't wish to do nothing harsh,' he says, 'but if you can't confine yourself to steady circles, and find your vay back at reg'lar hours, as sure as you're a standin' there, i'll shut you out altogether!' the little man was seized vith a wiolent fit o' tremblin', and never vent outside the prison walls artervards!" as sam concluded, mr. pickwick slowly retraced his steps down-stairs. after a few thoughtful turns in the painted ground, which, as it was now dark, was nearly deserted, he intimated to mr. weller that he thought it high time for him to withdraw for the night; requesting him to seek a bed in some adjacent public-house, and return early in the morning, to make arrangements for the removal of his master's wardrobe from the george and vulture. this request mr. samuel weller prepared to obey, with as good a grace as he could assume, but with a very considerable show of reluctance nevertheless. he even went so far as to essay sundry ineffectual hints regarding the expediency of stretching himself on the gravel for that night; but finding mr. pickwick obstinately deaf to any such suggestions, finally withdrew. there is no disguising the fact that mr. pickwick felt very low-spirited and uncomfortable; not for lack of society, for the prison was very full, and a bottle of wine would at once have purchased the utmost good-fellowship of a few choice spirits, without any more formal ceremony of introduction; but he was alone in the coarse, vulgar crowd, and felt the depression of spirit and sinking of heart, naturally consequent on the reflection that he was cooped and caged up, without a prospect of liberation. as to the idea of releasing himself by ministering to the sharpness of dodson and fogg, it never for an instant entered his thoughts. in this frame of mind he turned again into the coffee-room gallery, and walked slowly to and fro. the place was intolerably dirty, and the smell of tobacco-smoke perfectly suffocating. there was a perpetual slamming and banging of doors as the people went in and out; and the noise of their voices and footsteps echoed and re-echoed through the passages constantly. a young woman, with a child in her arms, who seemed scarcely able to crawl, from emaciation and misery, was walking up and down the passage in conversation with her husband, who had no other place to see her in. as they passed mr. pickwick, he could hear the female sob; and once she burst into such a passion of grief, that she was compelled to lean against the wall for support, while the man took the child in his arms, and tried to soothe her. mr. pickwick's heart was really too full to bear it, and he went up-stairs to bed. now, although the warden's room was a very uncomfortable one (being, in every point of decoration and convenience, several hundred degrees inferior to the common infirmary of a county gaol), it had at present the merit of being wholly deserted save by mr. pickwick himself. so, he sat down at the foot of his little iron bedstead, and began to wonder how much a year the warden made out of the dirty room. having satisfied himself, by mathematical calculation, that the apartment was about equal in annual value to the freehold of a small street in the suburbs of london, he took to wondering what possible temptation could have induced a dingy-looking fly that was crawling over his pantaloons, to come into a close prison, when he had the choice of so many airy situations--a course of meditation which led him to the irresistible conclusion that the insect was mad. after settling this point, he began to be conscious that he was getting sleepy; whereupon he took his nightcap out of the pocket in which he had had the precaution to stow it in the morning, and, leisurely undressing himself, got into bed, and fell asleep. "bravo! heel over toe--cut and shuffle--pay away at it, zephyr! i'm smothered if the opera house isn't your proper hemisphere. keep it up! hooray!" these expressions, delivered in a most boisterous tone, and accompanied with loud peals of laughter, roused mr. pickwick from one of those sound slumbers which, lasting in reality some half-hour, seem to the sleeper to have been protracted for three weeks or a month. the voice had no sooner ceased than the room was shaken with such violence that the windows rattled in their frames, and the bedsteads trembled again. mr. pickwick started up, and remained for some minutes fixed in mute astonishment at the scene before him. on the floor of the room, a man in a broad-skirted green coat, with corduroy knee smalls and grey cotton stockings, was performing the most popular steps of a hornpipe, with a slang and burlesque caricature of grace and lightness, which, combined with the very appropriate character of his costume, was inexpressibly absurd. another man, evidently very drunk, who had probably been tumbled into bed by his companions, was sitting up between the sheets, warbling as much as he could recollect of a comic song, with the most intensely sentimental feeling and expression; while a third, seated on one of the bedsteads, was applauding both performers with the air of a profound connoisseur, and encouraging them by such ebullitions of feeling as had already roused mr. pickwick from his sleep. this last man was an admirable specimen of a class of gentry which never can be seen in full perfection but in such places;--they may be met with, in an imperfect state, occasionally about stable-yards and public-houses; but they never attain their full bloom except in these hot-beds, which would almost seem to be considerately provided by the legislature for the sole purpose of rearing them. he was a tall fellow, with an olive complexion, long dark hair, and very thick bushy whiskers meeting under his chin. he wore no neckerchief, as he had been playing rackets all day, and his open shirt-collar displayed their full luxuriance. on his head he wore one of the common eighteenpenny french skull-caps, with a gaudy tassel dangling therefrom, very happily in keeping with a common fustian coat. his legs: which, being long, were afflicted with weakness: graced a pair of oxford-mixture trousers, made to show the full symmetry of those limbs. being somewhat negligently braced, however, and, moreover, but imperfectly buttoned, they fell in a series of not the most graceful folds over a pair of shoes sufficiently down at the heel to display a pair of very soiled white stockings. there was a rakish, vagabond smartness, and a kind of boastful rascality, about the whole man, that was worth a mine of gold. this figure was the first to perceive that mr. pickwick was looking on; upon which he winked to the zephyr, and entreated him, with mock gravity, not to wake the gentleman. "why, bless the gentleman's honest heart and soul!" said the zephyr, turning round and affecting the extremity of surprise; "the gentleman _is_ awake. hem, shakespeare! how do you do, sir? how is mary and sarah, sir? and the dear old lady at home, sir? will you have the kindness to put my compliments into the first little parcel you're sending that way, sir, and say that i would have sent 'em before, only i was afraid they might be broken in the waggon, sir?" "don't overwhelm the gentleman with ordinary civilities when you see he's anxious to have something to drink," said the gentleman with the whiskers, with a jocose air. "why don't you ask the gentleman what he'll take?" "dear me, i quite forgot," replied the other. "what _will_ you take, sir? will you take port wine, sir, or sherry wine, sir? i can recommend the ale, sir; or perhaps you'd like to taste the porter, sir? allow me to have the felicity of hanging up your nightcap, sir." with this, the speaker snatched that article of dress from mr. pickwick's head, and fixed it in a twinkling on that of the drunken man, who, firmly impressed with the belief that he was delighting a numerous assembly, continued to hammer away at the comic song in the most melancholy strains imaginable. taking a man's nightcap from his brow by violent means, and adjusting it on the head of an unknown gentleman of dirty exterior, however ingenious a witticism in itself, is unquestionably one of those which come under the denomination of practical jokes. viewing the matter precisely in this light, mr. pickwick, without the slightest intimation of his purpose, sprang vigorously out of bed, struck the zephyr so smart a blow in the chest as to deprive him of a considerable portion of the commodity which sometimes bears his name, and then, recapturing his nightcap, boldly placed himself in an attitude of defence. "now," said mr. pickwick, gasping no less from excitement than from the expenditure of so much energy, "come on--both of you--both of you!" with this liberal invitation the worthy gentleman communicated a revolving motion to his clenched fists, by way of appalling his antagonists with a display of science. [illustration: "_come on--both of you_"] it might have been mr. pickwick's very unexpected gallantry, or it might have been the complicated manner in which he had got himself out of bed, and fallen all in a mass upon the hornpipe man, that touched his adversaries. touched they were; for, instead of then and there making an attempt to commit manslaughter, as mr. pickwick implicitly believed they would have done, they paused, stared at each other a short time, and finally laughed outright. "well; you're a trump, and i like you all the better for it," said the zephyr. "now jump into bed again, or you'll catch the rheumatics. no malice, i hope?" said the man, extending a hand the size of the yellow clump of fingers which sometimes swings over a glover's door. "certainly not," said mr. pickwick, with great alacrity; for now that the excitement was over, he began to feel rather cool about the legs. "allow me the _h_onour," said the gentleman with the whiskers, presenting his dexter hand, and aspirating the h. "with much pleasure, sir," said mr. pickwick; and having executed a very long and solemn shake, he got into bed again. "my name is smangle, sir," said the man with the whiskers. "oh," said mr. pickwick. "mine is mivins," said the man in the stockings. "i am delighted to hear it, sir," said mr. pickwick. "hem," coughed mr. smangle. "did you speak, sir?" said mr. pickwick. "no, i did not, sir," said mr. smangle. "i thought you did, sir," said mr. pickwick. all this was very genteel and pleasant; and to make matters still more comfortable, mr. smangle assured mr. pickwick a great many times that he entertained a very high respect for the feelings of a gentleman; which sentiment, indeed, did him infinite credit, as he could be in no wise supposed to understand them. "are you going through the court, sir?" inquired mr. smangle. "through the what?" said mr. pickwick. "through the court--portugal street--the court for the relief of--you know." "oh no," replied mr. pickwick. "no, i am not." "going out, perhaps?" suggested mivins. "i fear not," replied mr. pickwick. "i refuse to pay some damages, and am here in consequence." "ah," said mr. smangle, "paper has been my ruin." "a stationer, i presume, sir?" said mr. pickwick, innocently. "stationer! no, no; confound and curse me! not so low as that. no trade. when i say paper, i mean bills." "oh, you use the word in that sense. i see," said mr. pickwick. "damme! a gentleman must expect reverses," said smangle. "what of that? here am i in the fleet prison. well; good. what then? i'm none the worse for that, am i?" "not a bit," replied mr. mivins. and he was quite right; for, so far from mr. smangle being any the worse for it, he was something the better, inasmuch as to qualify himself for the place, he had obtained gratuitous possession of certain articles of jewellery, which, long before that, had found their way to the pawnbroker's. "well; but come," said mr. smangle; "this is dry work. let's rinse our mouths with a drop of burnt sherry; the last comer shall stand it, mivins shall fetch it, and i'll help to drink it. that's a fair and gentlemanlike division of labour, anyhow. curse me!" unwilling to hazard another quarrel, mr. pickwick gladly assented to the proposition, and consigned the money to mr. mivins, who, as it was nearly eleven o'clock, lost no time in repairing to the coffee-room on his errand. "i say," whispered smangle, the moment his friend had left the room; "what did you give him?" "half a sovereign," said mr. pickwick. "he's a devilish pleasant gentlemanly dog," said mr. smangle;--"infernal pleasant. i don't know anybody more so, but--" here mr. smangle stopped short, and shook his head dubiously. "you don't think there is any probability of his appropriating the money to his own use?" said mr. pickwick. "oh no! mind, i don't say that; i expressly say that he's a devilish gentlemanly fellow," said mr. smangle. "but i think, perhaps, if somebody went down, just to see that he didn't dip his beak into the jug by accident, or make some confounded mistake in losing the money as he came up-stairs, it would be as well. here, you sir, just run down-stairs, and look after that gentleman, will you?" this request was addressed to a little timid-looking, nervous man, whose appearance bespoke great poverty, and who had been crouching on his bedstead all this while, apparently stupefied by the novelty of his situation. "you know where the coffee-room is," said smangle; "just run down, and tell that gentleman you've come to help him up with the jug. or--stop--i'll tell you what--i'll tell you how we'll do him," said smangle, with a cunning look. "how?" said mr. pickwick. "send down word that he's to spend the change in cigars. capital thought. run and tell him that; d'ye hear? they shan't be wasted," continued smangle, turning to mr. pickwick. "_i'll_ smoke 'em." this manoeuvring was so exceedingly ingenious, and, withal, performed with such immovable composure and coolness, that mr. pickwick would have had no wish to disturb it, even if he had had the power. in a short time mr. mivins returned, bearing the sherry, which mr. smangle dispensed in two little cracked mugs; considerately remarking, with reference to himself, that a gentleman must not be particular under such circumstances, and that, for his part, he was not too proud to drink out of the jug. in which, to show his sincerity, he forthwith pledged the company in a draught which half emptied it. an excellent understanding having been by these means promoted, mr. smangle proceeded to entertain his hearers with a relation of divers romantic adventures in which he had been from time to time engaged, involving various interesting anecdotes of a thorough-bred horse, and a magnificent jewess, both of surpassing beauty, and much coveted by the nobility and gentry of these kingdoms. long before these elegant extracts from the biography of a gentleman were concluded, mr. mivins had betaken himself to bed, and had set in snoring for the night: leaving the timid stranger and mr. pickwick to the full benefit of mr. smangle's experiences. nor were the two last-named gentlemen as much edified as they might have been, by the moving passages narrated. mr. pickwick had been in a state of slumber for some time, when he had a faint perception of the drunken man bursting out afresh with the comic song, and receiving from mr. smangle a gentle intimation, through the medium of the water jug, that his audience were not musically disposed. mr. pickwick then once again dropped off to sleep, with a confused consciousness that mr. smangle was still engaged in relating a long story, the chief point of which appeared to be, that on some occasion particularly stated and set forth, he had "done" a bill and a gentleman at the same time. chapter xiv [illustration] _illustrative, like the preceding one, of the old proverb, that adversity brings a man acquainted with strange bed-fellows. likewise containing mr. pickwick's extraordinary and startling announcement to mr. samuel weller_ when mr. pickwick opened his eyes next morning, the first object upon which they rested, was samuel weller, seated upon a small black portmanteau, intently regarding, apparently in a condition of profound abstraction, the stately figure of the dashing mr. smangle; while mr. smangle himself, who was already partially dressed, was seated on his bedstead, occupied in the desperately hopeless attempt of staring mr. weller out of countenance. we say desperately hopeless, because sam, with a comprehensive gaze which took in mr. smangle's cap, feet, head, face, legs, and whiskers, all at the same time, continued to look steadily on, with every demonstration of lively satisfaction, but with no more regard to mr. smangle's personal sentiments on the subject than he would have displayed had he been inspecting a wooden statue, or a straw-embowelled guy fawkes. "well; will you know me again?" said mr. smangle, with a frown. "i'd svear to you anyveres, sir," replied sam, cheerfully. "don't be impertinent to a gentleman, sir," said mr. smangle. "not on no account," replied sam. "if you'll tell me ven he vakes, i'll be upon the wery best extra-super behaviour!" this observation, having a remote tendency to imply that mr. smangle was no gentleman, kindled his ire. "mivins!" said mr. smangle, with a passionate air. "what's the office?" replied that gentleman from his couch. "who the devil is this fellow?" "'gad," said mr. mivins, looking lazily out from under the bed-clothes, "i ought to ask _you_ that. hasn't he any business here?" "no," replied mr. smangle. "then knock him down-stairs, and tell him not to presume to get up till i come and kick him," rejoined mr. mivins: with this prompt advice that excellent gentleman again betook himself to slumber. the conversation exhibiting these unequivocal symptoms of verging on the personal, mr. pickwick deemed it a fit point at which to interpose. "sam," said mr. pickwick. "sir?" rejoined that gentleman. "has anything new occurred since last night?" "nothin' partickler, sir," replied sam, glancing at mr. smangle's whiskers; "the late prewailance of a close and confined atmosphere has been rayther favourable to the growth of veeds, of an alarmin' and sangvinary natur'; but vith that 'ere exception things is quiet enough." "i shall get up," said mr. pickwick; "give me some clean things." whatever hostile intentions mr. smangle might have entertained, his thoughts were speedily diverted by the unpacking of the portmanteau; the contents of which appeared to impress him at once with a most favourable opinion, not only of mr. pickwick, but of sam also, who, he took an early opportunity of declaring in a tone of voice loud enough for that eccentric personage to overhear, was a regular thorough-bred original, and consequently the very man after his own heart. as to mr. pickwick, the affection he conceived for him knew no limits. "now is there anything i can do for you, my dear sir?" said smangle. "nothing that i am aware of, i am obliged to you," replied mr. pickwick. "no linen that you want sent to the washerwoman's? i know a delightful washerwoman outside, that comes for my things twice a week; and, by jove!--how devilish lucky!--this is the day she calls. shall i put any of those little things up with mine? don't say anything about the trouble. confound and curse it! if one gentleman under a cloud, is not to put himself a little out of the way to assist another gentleman in the same condition, what's human nature?" thus spake mr. smangle, edging himself meanwhile as near as possible to the portmanteau, and beaming forth looks of the most fervent and disinterested friendship. "there's nothing you want to give out for the man to brush, my dear creature, is there?" resumed smangle. "nothin' whatever, my fine feller," rejoined sam, taking the reply into his own mouth. "p'raps if vun of us wos to brush, without troubling the man, it 'ud be more agreeable for all parties, as the schoolmaster said wen the young gentleman objected to being flogged by the butler." "and there's nothing that i can send in my little box to the washerwoman's, is there?" said smangle, turning from sam to mr. pickwick, with an air of some discomfiture. "nothin' whatever, sir," retorted sam; "i'm afeerd the little box must be chock-full o' your own as it is." this speech was accompanied with such a very expressive look at that particular portion of mr. smangle's attire, by the appearance of which the skill of laundresses in getting up gentlemen's linen is generally tested, that he was fain to turn upon his heel, and, for the present at any rate, to give up all design on mr. pickwick's purse and wardrobe. he accordingly retired in dudgeon to the racket-ground, where he made a light and wholesome breakfast on a couple of the cigars which had been purchased on the previous night. mr. mivins, who was no smoker, and whose account for small articles of chandlery had also reached down to the bottom of the slate, and been "carried over" to the other side, remained in bed, and, in his own words, "took it out in sleep." after breakfasting in a small closet attached to the coffee-room, which bore the imposing title of the snuggery; the temporary inmate of which, in consideration of a small additional charge, had the unspeakable advantage of overhearing all the conversation in the coffee-room aforesaid; and after despatching mr. weller on some necessary errands, mr. pickwick repaired to the lodge, to consult mr. roker concerning his future accommodation. "accommodation, eh?" said that gentleman, consulting a large book. "plenty of that, mr. pickvick. your chummage ticket will be on twenty-seven, in the third." "oh," said mr. pickwick, "my what, did you say?" "your chummage ticket," replied mr. roker; "you're up to that?" "not quite," replied mr. pickwick, with a smile. "why," said mr. roker, "it's as plain as salisbury. you'll have a chummage ticket upon twenty-seven in the third, and them as is in the room will be your chums." "are there many of them?" inquired mr. pickwick, dubiously. "three," replied mr. roker. mr. pickwick coughed. "one of 'em's a parson," said mr. roker, filling up a little piece of paper as he spoke; "another's a butcher." "eh?" exclaimed mr. pickwick. "a butcher," repeated mr. roker, giving the nib of his pen a tap on the desk to cure it of a disinclination to mark. "what a thorough-paced goer he used to be sure-ly! you remember tom martin, neddy?" said roker, appealing to another man in the lodge, who was paring the mud off his shoes with a five-and-twenty bladed pocket-knife. "_i_ should think so," replied the party addressed, with a strong emphasis on the personal pronoun. "bless my dear eyes!" said mr. roker, shaking his head slowly from side to side, and gazing abstractedly out of the grated windows before him, as if he were fondly recalling some peaceful scene of his early youth; "it seems but yesterday that he whopped the coal-heaver down fox-under-the-hill by the wharf there. i think i can see him now, a coming up the strand between the two street-keepers, a little sobered by the bruising, with a patch o' winegar and brown paper over his right eyelid, and that 'ere lovely bulldog, as pinned the little boy arterwards, a following at his heels. what a rum thing time is, ain't it, neddy?" the gentleman to whom these observations were addressed, who appeared of a taciturn and thoughtful cast, merely echoed the inquiry; mr. roker, shaking off the poetical and gloomy train of thought into which he had been betrayed, descended to the common business of life, and resumed his pen. "do you know what the third gentleman is?" inquired mr. pickwick, not very much gratified by this description of his future associates. "what is that simpson, neddy?" said mr. roker, turning to his companion. "what simpson?" said neddy. "why, him in twenty-seven in the third, that this gentleman's going to be chummed on." "oh, him!" replied neddy: "he's nothing exactly. he was a horse chaunter: he's a leg now." "ah, so i thought," rejoined mr. roker, closing the book, and placing the small piece of paper in mr. pickwick's hands. "that's the ticket, sir." very much perplexed by this summary disposition of his person, mr. pickwick walked back into the prison, revolving in his mind what he had better do. convinced, however, that before he took any other steps it would be advisable to see, and hold personal converse with, the three gentlemen with whom it was proposed to quarter him, he made the best of his way to the third flight. after groping about in the gallery for some time, attempting in the dim light to decipher the numbers on the different doors, he at length appealed to a potboy, who happened to be pursuing his morning occupation of gleaning for pewter. "which is twenty-seven, my good fellow?" said mr. pickwick. "five doors further on," replied the potboy. "there's the likeness of a man being hung, and smoking a pipe the while, chalked outside the door." guided by this direction, mr. pickwick proceeded slowly along the gallery until he encountered the "portrait of a gentleman," above described, upon whose countenance he tapped, with the knuckle of his fore-finger--gently at first, and then audibly. after repeating this process several times without effect, he ventured to open the door and peep in. there was only one man in the room, and he was leaning out of window as far as he could without overbalancing himself, endeavouring, with great perseverance, to spit upon the crown of the hat of a personal friend on the parade below. as neither speaking, coughing, sneezing, knocking, nor any other ordinary mode of attracting attention, made this person aware of the presence of a visitor, mr. pickwick, after some delay, stepped up to the window, and pulled him gently by the coat-tail. the individual brought in his head and shoulders, with great swiftness, and surveying mr. pickwick from head to foot, demanded in a surly tone what the--something beginning with a capital h--he wanted. "i believe," said mr. pickwick, consulting his ticket, "i believe this is twenty-seven in the third?" "well?" replied the gentleman. "i have come here in consequence of receiving this bit paper," rejoined mr. pickwick. "hand it over," said the gentleman. mr. pickwick complied. "i think roker might have chummed you somewhere else," said mr. simpson (for it was the leg), after a very discontented sort of a pause. mr. pickwick thought so also; but, under all the circumstances, he considered it a matter of sound policy to be silent. mr. simpson mused for a few moments after this, and then, thrusting his head out of the window, gave a shrill whistle, and pronounced some word aloud, several times. what the word was mr. pickwick could not distinguish; but he rather inferred that it must be some nickname which distinguished mr. martin: from the fact of a great number of gentlemen on the ground below, immediately proceeding to cry "butcher!" in imitation of the tone in which that useful class of society are wont, diurnally, to make their presence known at area railings. subsequent occurrences confirmed the accuracy of mr. pickwick's impression; for, in a few seconds, a gentleman, prematurely broad for his years: clothed in a professional blue jean frock, and top-boots with circular toes: entered the room nearly out of breath, closely followed by another gentleman in very shabby black, and a sealskin cap. the latter gentleman, who fastened his coat all the way up to his chin by means of a pin and a button alternately, had a very coarse red face, and looked like a drunken chaplain; which, indeed, he was. these two gentlemen having by turns perused mr. pickwick's billet, the one expressed his opinion that it was "a rig," and the other his conviction that it was "a go." having recorded their feelings in these very intelligible terms, they looked at mr. pickwick and each other in awkward silence. "it's an aggravating thing, just as we got the beds so snug," said the chaplain, looking at three dirty mattresses, each rolled up in a blanket: which occupied one corner of the room during the day, and formed a kind of slab, on which were placed an old cracked basin, ewer, and soap-dish, of common yellow earthenware, with a blue flower. "very aggravating." mr. martin expressed the same opinion in rather stronger terms: mr. simpson, after having let a variety of expletive adjectives loose upon society without any substantive to accompany them, tucked up his sleeves, and began to wash the greens for dinner. while this was going on, mr. pickwick had been eyeing the room, which was filthily dirty, and smelt intolerably close. there was no vestige of either carpet, curtain, or blind. there was not even a closet in it. unquestionably there were but few things to put away, if there had been one; but, however few in number, or small in individual amount, still, remnants of loaves and pieces of cheese, and damp towels, and scrags of meat, and articles of wearing apparel, and mutilated crockery, and bellows without nozzles, and toasting-forks without prongs, _do_ present somewhat of an uncomfortable appearance when they are scattered about the floor of a small apartment, which is the common sitting and sleeping room of three idle men. "i suppose this can be managed somehow," said the butcher, after a pretty long silence. "what will you take to go out?" "i beg your pardon," replied mr. pickwick. "what did you say? i hardly understand you." "what will you take to be paid out?" said the butcher. "the regular chummage is two-and-six. will you take three bob?" "--and a bender?" suggested the clerical gentleman. "well, i don't mind that; it's only twopence a-piece more," said mr. martin. "what do you say, now? we'll pay you out for three-and-sixpence a week. come!" "and stand a gallon of beer down," chimed in mr. simpson. "there!" "and drink it on the spot," said the chaplain. "now!" "i really am so wholly ignorant of the rules of this place," returned mr. pickwick, "that i do not yet comprehend you. _can_ i live anywhere else? i thought i could not." at this inquiry mr. martin looked, with a countenance of excessive surprise, at his two friends, and then each gentleman pointed with his right thumb over his left shoulder. this action, imperfectly described in words by the very feeble term of "over the left," when performed by any number of ladies or gentlemen who are accustomed to act in unison, has a very graceful and airy effect; its expression is one of light and playful sarcasm. "_can_ you!" repeated mr. martin, with a smile of pity. "well, if i knew as little of life as that, i'd eat my hat and swallow the buckle whole," said the clerical gentleman. "so would i," added the sporting one, solemnly. after this introductory preface, the three chums informed mr. pickwick, in a breath, that money was in the fleet, just what money was out of it; that it would instantly procure him almost anything he desired; and that, supposing he had it, and had no objection to spend it, if he only signified his wish to have a room to himself he might take possession of one, furnished and fitted to boot, in half an hour's time. with this, the parties separated, very much to their common satisfaction: mr. pickwick once more retracing his steps to the lodge: and the three companions adjourned to the coffee-room, there to spend the five shillings which the clerical gentleman had, with admirable prudence and foresight, borrowed of him for the purpose. "i knowed it!" said mr. roker, with a chuckle, when mr. pickwick stated the object with which he had returned. "didn't i say so, neddy?" the philosophical owner of the universal penknife growled an affirmative. "i knowed you'd want a room for yourself, bless you!" said mr. roker. "let me see. you'll want some furniture. you'll hire that of me, i suppose? that's the reg'lar thing." "with great pleasure," replied mr. pickwick. "there's a capital room up in the coffee-room flight, that belongs to a chancery prisoner," said mr. roker. "it'll stand you in a pound a week. i suppose you don't mind that?" "not at all," said mr. pickwick. "just step there with me," said roker, taking up his hat with great alacrity; "the matter's settled in five minutes. lord! why didn't you say at first that you was willing to come down handsome?" the matter was soon arranged, as the turnkey had foretold. the chancery prisoner had been there long enough to have lost friends, fortune, home, and happiness, and to have acquired the right of having a room to himself. as he laboured, however, under the inconvenience of often wanting a morsel of bread, he eagerly listened to mr. pickwick's proposal to rent the apartment, and readily covenanted and agreed to yield him up the sole and undisturbed possession thereof, in consideration of the weekly payment of twenty shillings; from which fund he furthermore contracted to pay out any person or persons that might be chummed upon it. as they struck the bargain, mr. pickwick surveyed him with a painful interest. he was a tall, gaunt, cadaverous man, in an old great-coat and slippers: with sunken cheeks, and a restless, eager eye. his lips were bloodless, and his bones sharp and thin. god help him! the iron teeth of confinement and privation had been slowly filing him down for twenty years. "and where will you live meanwhile, sir?" said mr. pickwick, as he laid the amount of the first week's rent, in advance, on the tottering table. the man gathered up the money with a trembling hand, and replied that he didn't know yet; he must go and see where he could move his bed to. "i am afraid, sir," said mr. pickwick, laying his hand gently and compassionately on his arm; "i am afraid you will have to live in some noisy crowded place. now, pray, consider this room your own when you want quiet, or when any of your friends come to see you." "friends!" interposed the man, in a voice which rattled in his throat. "if i lay dead at the bottom of the deepest mine in the world; tight screwed down and soldered in my coffin; rotting in the dark and filthy ditch that drags its slime along, beneath the foundations of this prison; i could not be more forgotten or unheeded than i am here. i am a dead man; dead to society, without the pity they bestow on those whose souls have passed to judgment. friends to see _me_! my god! i have sunk, from the prime of life into old age, in this place, and there is not one to raise his hand above my bed when i lie dead upon it, and say, 'it is a blessing he is gone!'" the excitement, which had cast an unwonted light over the man's face while he spoke, subsided as he concluded; and, pressing his withered hands together in a hasty and disordered manner, he shuffled from the room. "rides rather rusty," said mr. roker, with a smile. "ah! they're like the elephants. they feel it now and then, and it makes 'em wild!" having made this deeply sympathising remark, mr. roker entered upon his arrangements with such expedition, that in a short time the room was furnished with a carpet, six chairs, a table, a sofa bedstead, a tea-kettle, and various small articles, on hire, at the very reasonable rate of seven-and-twenty shillings and sixpence per week. "now, is there anything more we can do for you?" inquired mr. roker, looking round with great satisfaction, and gaily chinking the first week's hire in his closed fist. "why, yes," said mr. pickwick, who had been musing deeply for some time. "are there any people here, who run on errands, and so forth?" "outside, do you mean?" inquired mr. roker. "yes. i mean who are able to go outside. not prisoners." "yes, there is," said roker. "there's an unfortunate devil, who has got a friend on the poor side, that's glad to do anything of that sort. he's been running odd jobs, and that, for the last two months. shall i send him?" "if you please," rejoined mr. pickwick. "stay; no. the poor side, you say? i should like to see it. i'll go to him myself." the poor side of a debtor's prison is, as its name imports, that in which the most miserable and abject class of debtors are confined. a prisoner having declared upon the poor side, pays neither rent nor chummage. his fees, upon entering and leaving the gaol, are reduced in amount, and he becomes entitled to a share of some small quantities of food: to provide which, a few charitable persons have, from time to time, left trifling legacies in their wills. most of our readers will remember that, until within a very few years past, there was a kind of iron cage in the wall of the fleet prison, within which was posted some man of hungry looks, who, from time to time, rattled a money-box, and exclaimed in a mournful voice, "pray, remember the poor debtors; pray, remember the poor debtors." the receipts of this box, when there were any, were divided among the poor prisoners; and the men on the poor side relieved each other in this degrading office. although this custom has been abolished, and the cage is now boarded up, the miserable and destitute condition of these unhappy persons remains the same. we no longer suffer them to appeal at the prison gates to the charity and compassion of the passers-by; but we still leave unblotted in the leaves of our statute book, for the reverence and admiration of succeeding ages, that just and wholesome law which declares that the sturdy felon shall be fed and clothed, and that the penniless debtor shall be left to die of starvation and nakedness. this is no fiction. not a week passes over our heads, but, in every one of our prisons for debt, some of these men must inevitably expire in the slow agonies of want, if they were not relieved by their fellow-prisoners. turning these things in his mind, as he mounted the narrow staircase at the foot of which roker had left him, mr. pickwick gradually worked himself to the boiling-over point; and so excited was he with his reflections on this subject, that he had burst into the room to which he had been directed, before he had any distinct recollection, either of the place in which he was, or of the object of his visit. the general aspect of the room recalled him to himself at once; but he had no sooner cast his eyes on the figure of a man who was brooding over the dusty fire, than, letting his hat fall on the floor, he stood perfectly fixed, and immovable, with astonishment. yes; in tattered garments, and without a coat; his common calico shirt yellow and in rags; his hair hanging over his face; his features changed with suffering, and pinched with famine; there sat mr. alfred jingle: his head resting on his hand, his eyes fixed upon the fire, and his whole appearance denoting misery and dejection! near him, leaning listlessly against the wall, stood a strong-built countryman, flicking with a worn-out hunting-whip the top-boot that adorned his right foot: his left being (for he dressed by easy stages) thrust into an old slipper. horses, dogs, and drink, had brought him there pell-mell. there was a rusty spur on the solitary boot, which he occasionally jerked into the empty air, at the same time giving the boot a smart blow, and muttering some of the sounds by which a sportsman encourages his horse. he was riding, in imagination, some desperate steeplechase at that moment. poor wretch! he never rode a match on the swiftest animal in his costly stud, with half the speed at which he had torn along the course that ended in the fleet. on the opposite side of the room an old man was seated on a small wooden box, with his eyes riveted on the floor, and his face settled into an expression of the deepest and most hopeless despair. a young girl--his little granddaughter--was hanging about him: endeavouring, with a thousand childish devices, to engage his attention; but the old man neither saw nor heard her. the voice that had been music to him, and the eyes that had been light, fell coldly on his senses. his limbs were shaking with disease, and the palsy had fastened on his mind. there were two or three other men in the room, congregated in a little knot, and noisily talking among themselves. there was a lean and haggard woman, too--a prisoner's wife--who was watering, with great solicitude, the wretched stump of a dried-up, withered plant, which, it was plain to see, could never send forth a green leaf again: too true an emblem, perhaps, of the office she had come there to discharge. such were the objects which presented themselves to mr. pickwick's view, as he looked round him in amazement. the noise of some one stumbling hastily into the room, roused him. turning his eyes towards the door, they encountered the new comer; and in him, through his rags and dirt, he recognised the familiar features of mr. job trotter. "mr. pickwick!" exclaimed job aloud. "eh?" said jingle, starting from his seat. "mr.----! so it is--queer place--strange thing--serves me right--very." mr. jingle thrust his hands into the place where his trousers pockets used to be, and, dropping his chin upon his breast, sank back into his chair. mr. pickwick was affected; the two men looked so very miserable. the sharp involuntary glance jingle had cast at a small piece of raw loin of mutton, which job had brought in with him, said more of their reduced state than two hours' explanation could have done. mr. pickwick looked mildly at jingle, and said: "i should like to speak to you in private. will you step out for an instant?" "certainly," said jingle, rising hastily. "can't step far--no danger of over-walking yourself here--spike park--grounds pretty--romantic, but not extensive--open for public inspection--family always in town--housekeeper desperately careful--very." "you have forgotten your coat," said mr. pickwick, as they walked out to the staircase, and closed the door after them. "eh?" said jingle. "spout--dear relation--uncle tom--couldn't help it--must eat, you know. wants of nature--and all that." "what do you mean?" "gone, my dear sir--last coat--can't help it. lived on a pair of boots--whole fortnight. silk umbrella--ivory handle--week--fact--honour--ask job--knows it." "lived for three weeks upon a pair of boots, and a silk umbrella with an ivory handle!" exclaimed mr. pickwick, who had only heard of such things in shipwrecks, or read of them in _constable's miscellany_. "true," said jingle, nodding his head. "pawnbroker's shop--duplicates here--small sums--mere nothing--all rascals." "oh," said mr. pickwick, much relieved by this explanation; "i understand you. you have pawned your wardrobe." "everything--job's too--all shirts gone--never mind--saves washing. nothing soon--lie in bed--starve--die--inquest--little bone-house--poor prisoner--common necessaries--hush it up--gentlemen of the jury--warden's tradesmen--keep it snug--natural death--coroner's order--workhouse funeral--serve him right--all over--drop the curtain." jingle delivered this singular summary of his prospects in life, with his accustomed volubility, and with various twitches of the countenance to counterfeit smiles. mr. pickwick easily perceived that his recklessness was assumed, and looking him full, but not unkindly in the face, saw that his eyes were moist with tears. "good fellow," said jingle, pressing his hand, and turning his head away. "ungrateful dog--boyish to cry--can't help it--bad fever--weak--ill--hungry. deserved it all--but suffered much--very." wholly unable to keep up appearances any longer, and perhaps rendered worse by the effort he had made, the dejected stroller sat down on the stairs, and, covering his face with his hands, sobbed like a child. "come, come," said mr. pickwick, with considerable emotion, "we'll see what can be done, when i know all about the matter. here, job; where is that fellow?" "here, sir," replied job, presenting himself on the staircase. we have described him, by-the-bye, as having deeply sunken eyes, in the best of times. in his present state of want and distress, he looked as if those features had gone out of town altogether. "here, sir," cried job. "come here, sir," said mr. pickwick, trying to look stern, with four large tears running down his waistcoat. "take that, sir." take what? in the ordinary acceptation of such language, it should have been a blow. as the world runs, it ought to have been a sound, hearty cuff; for mr. pickwick had been duped, deceived, and wronged by the destitute outcast who was now wholly in his power. must we tell the truth? it was something from mr. pickwick's waistcoat-pocket, which chinked as it was given into job's hand, and the giving of which, somehow or other, imparted a sparkle to the eye, and a swelling to the heart, of our excellent old friend, as he hurried away. sam had returned when mr. pickwick reached his own room, and was inspecting the arrangements that had been made for his comfort, with a kind of grim satisfaction which was very pleasant to look upon. having a decided objection to his master's being there at all, mr. weller appeared to consider it a high moral duty not to appear too much pleased with anything that was done, said, suggested, or proposed. "well, sam?" said mr. pickwick. "well, sir?" replied mr. weller. "pretty comfortable now, eh, sam?" "pretty vell, sir," responded sam, looking round him in a disparaging manner. "have you seen mr. tupman and our other friends?" "yes, i _have_ seen 'em, sir, and they're a comin' to-morrow, and wos wery much surprised to hear they warn't to come to-day," replied sam. "you have brought the things i wanted?" mr. weller in reply pointed to various packages which he had arranged, as neatly as he could, in a corner of the room. "very well, sam," said mr. pickwick, after a little hesitation; "listen to what i am going to say, sam." "cert'nly, sir," rejoined mr. weller, "fire away, sir." "i have felt from the first, sam," said mr. pickwick, with much solemnity, "that this is not the place to bring a young man to." "nor an old 'un, neither, sir," observed mr. weller. "you're quite right, sam," said mr. pickwick; "but old men may come here, through their own heedlessness and unsuspicion; and young men may be brought here by the selfishness of those they serve. it is better for those young men, in every point of view, that they should not remain here. do you understand me, sam?" "vy no, sir, i do +not+," replied mr. weller, doggedly. "try, sam," said mr. pickwick. "vell, sir," rejoined sam, after a short pause, "i think i see your drift; and if i do see your drift, it's my 'pinion that you're a comin' it a great deal too strong, as the mail coachman said to the snow-storm, ven it overtook him." "i see you comprehend me, sam," said mr. pickwick. "independently of my wish that you should not be idling about a place like this for years to come, i feel that for a debtor in the fleet to be attended by his man-servant is a monstrous absurdity. sam," said mr. pickwick, "for a time, you must leave me." "oh, for a time, eh, sir?" rejoined mr. weller, rather sarcastically. "yes, for the time that i remain here," said mr. pickwick. "your wages i shall continue to pay. any one of my three friends will be happy to take you, were it only out of respect to me. and if i ever do leave this place, sam," added mr. pickwick, with assumed cheerfulness: "if i do, i pledge you my word that you shall return to me instantly." "now i'll tell you wot it is, sir," said mr. weller, in a grave and solemn voice, "this here sort o' thing won't do at all, so don't let's hear no more about it." "i am serious and resolved, sam," said mr. pickwick. "you air, air you, sir?" inquired mr. weller, firmly. "wery good, sir. then so am i." thus speaking, mr. weller fixed his hat on his head with great precision, and abruptly left the room. "sam!" cried mr. pickwick, calling after him, "sam! here!" but the long gallery ceased to re-echo the sound of footsteps. sam weller was gone. chapter xv [illustration] _showing how mr. samuel weller got into difficulties_ in a lofty room, ill-lighted and worse ventilated, situated in portugal street, lincoln's inn fields, there sit nearly the whole year round, one, two, three, or four gentlemen in wigs, as the case may be, with little writing-desks before them, constructed after the fashion of those used by the judges of the land, barring the french polish. there is a box of barristers on their right hand; there is an enclosure of insolvent debtors on their left; and there is an inclined plane of most especially dirty faces in their front. these gentlemen are the commissioners of the insolvent court, and the place in which they sit is the insolvent court itself. it is, and has been, time out of mind, the remarkable fate of this court to be, somehow or other, held and understood by the general consent of all the destitute shabby-genteel people in london, as their common resort and place of refuge daily. it is always full. the steams of beer and spirits perpetually ascend to the ceiling, and, being condensed by the heat, roll down the walls like rain; there are more old suits of clothes in it at one time than will be offered for sale in all houndsditch in a twelvemonth; more unwashed skins and grizzly beards than all the pumps and shaving-shops between tyburn and whitechapel could render decent, between sunrise and sunset. it must not be supposed that any of these people have the least shadow of business in, or the remotest connection with, the place they so indefatigably attend. if they had, it would be no matter of surprise, and the singularity of the thing would cease. some of them sleep during the greater part of the sitting; others carry small portable dinners wrapped in pocket-handkerchiefs, or sticking out of their worn-out pockets, and munch and listen with equal relish; but no one among them was ever known to have the slightest personal interest in any case that was ever brought forward. whatever they do, there they sit from the first moment to the last. when it is heavy rainy weather, they all come in, wet through; and at such times the vapours of the court are like those of a fungus-pit. a casual visitor might suppose this place to be a temple dedicated to the genius of seediness. there is not a messenger or process-server attached to it, who wears a coat that was made for him; not a tolerably fresh or wholesome-looking man in the whole establishment, except a little white-headed, apple-faced tipstaff, and even he, like an ill-conditioned cherry preserved in brandy, seems to have artificially dried and withered up into a state of preservation to which he can lay no natural claim. the very barristers' wigs are ill-powdered, and their curls lack crispness. but the attorneys, who sit at a large bare table below the commissioners, are, after all, the greatest curiosities. the professional establishment of the more opulent of these gentlemen, consists of a blue bag and a boy; generally a youth of the jewish persuasion. they have no fixed offices, their legal business being transacted in the parlours of public-houses, or the yards of prisons: whither they repair in crowds, and canvass for customers after the manner of omnibus cads. they are of a greasy and mildewed appearance; and if they can be said to have any vices at all, perhaps drinking and cheating are the most conspicuous among them. their residences are usually on the outskirts of "the rules," chiefly lying within a circle of one mile from the obelisk in st. george's fields. their looks are not prepossessing, and their manners are peculiar. mr. solomon pell, one of this learned body, was a fat, flabby, pale man, in a surtout which looked green one minute and brown the next: with a velvet collar of the same chameleon tints. his forehead was narrow, his face wide, his head large, and his nose all on one side, as if nature, indignant with the propensities she observed in him at his birth, had given it an angry tweak which it had never recovered. being short-necked and asthmatic, however, he respired principally through this feature; so, perhaps, what it wanted in ornament, it made up in usefulness. "i'm sure to bring him through it," said mr. pell. "are you though?" replied the person to whom the assurance was pledged. "certain sure," replied pell; "but if he'd gone to any irregular practitioner, mind you, i wouldn't have answered for the consequences." "ah!" said the other, with open mouth. "no, that i wouldn't," said mr. pell; and he pursed up his lips, frowned, and shook his head mysteriously. now, the place where this discourse occurred, was the public-house just opposite to the insolvent court: and the person with whom it was held, was no other than the elder mr. weller, who had come there to comfort and console a friend, whose petition to be discharged under the act was to be that day heard, and whose attorney he was at that moment consulting. "and vere is george?" inquired the old gentleman. mr. pell jerked his head in the direction of a back parlour: whither mr. weller at once repairing, was immediately greeted in the warmest and most flattering manner by some half-dozen of his professional brethren, in token of their gratification at his arrival. the insolvent gentleman, who had contracted a speculative but imprudent passion for horsing long stages, which had led to his present embarrassments, looked extremely well, and was soothing the excitement of his feelings with shrimps and porter. the salutation between mr. weller and his friends was strictly confined to the freemasonry of the craft; consisting of a jerking round of the right wrist, and a tossing of the little finger into the air at the same time. we once knew two famous coachmen (they are dead now, poor fellows) who were twins, and between whom an unaffected and devoted attachment existed. they passed each other on the dover road, every day, for twenty-four years, never exchanging any other greeting than this; and yet, when one died, the other pined away, and soon afterwards followed him! "vell, george," said mr. weller senior, taking off his upper coat, and seating himself with his accustomed gravity, "how is it? all right behind, and full inside?" "all right, old feller," replied the embarrassed gentleman. "is the grey mare made over to anybody?" inquired mr. weller, anxiously. george nodded in the affirmative. "vell, that's all right," said mr. weller. "coach taken care on also?" "con-signed in a safe quarter," replied george, wringing the heads off half a dozen shrimps, and swallowing them without any more ado. "wery good, wery good," said mr. weller. "alvays see to the drag ven you go down hill. is the vay-bill all clear and straight for'erd?" "the schedule, sir," said pell, guessing at mr. weller's meaning, "the schedule is as plain and satisfactory as pen and ink can make it." mr. weller nodded in a manner which bespoke his inward approval of these arrangements; and then, turning to mr. pell, said, pointing to his friend george: "ven do you take his cloths off?" "why," replied mr. pell, "he stands third on the opposed list, and i should think it would be his turn in about half an hour. i told my clerk to come over and tell us when there was a chance." mr. weller surveyed the attorney from head to foot with great admiration, and said emphatically: "and what'll you take, sir?" "why, really," replied mr. pell, "you're very--. upon my word and honour, i'm not in the habit of--. it's so very early in the morning, that, actually, i am almost--. well, you may bring me three penn'orth of rum, my dear." the officiating damsel, who had anticipated the order before it was given, set the glass of spirits before pell, and retired. "gentlemen," said mr. pell, looking round upon the company, "success to your friend! i don't like to boast, gentlemen; it's not my way; but i can't help saying, that, if your friend hadn't been fortunate enough to fall into the hands that--but i won't say what i was going to say. gentlemen, my service to you." having emptied the glass in a twinkling, mr. pell smacked his lips, and looked complacently round on the assembled coachmen, who evidently regarded him as a species of divinity. "let me see," said the legal authority. "what was i a saying, gentlemen?" "i think you was remarkin' as you wouldn't have no objection to another o' the same, sir," said mr. weller, with grave facetiousness. "ha ha!" laughed mr. pell. "not bad, not bad. a professional man, too! at this time of the morning, it would be rather too good a--. well, i don't know, my dear--you _may_ do that again, if you please. hem!" this last sound was a solemn and dignified cough, in which mr. pell, observing an indecent tendency to mirth in some of his auditors, considered it due to himself to indulge. "the late lord chancellor, gentlemen, was very fond of me," said mr. pell. "and wery creditable in him, too," interposed mr. weller. "hear, hear," assented mr. pell's client. "why shouldn't he be?" "ah! why, indeed!" said a very red-faced man, who had said nothing yet, and who looked extremely unlikely to say anything more. "why shouldn't he?" a murmur of assent ran through the company. "i remember, gentlemen," said pell, "dining with him on one occasion;--there was only us two, but everything as splendid as if twenty people had been expected--the great seal on a dumb-waiter at his right hand, and a man in a bag-wig and suit of armour guarding the mace with a drawn sword and silk stockings--which is perpetually done, gentlemen, night and day, when he said, 'pell,' he said, 'no false delicacy, pell. you're a man of talent; you can get anybody through the insolvent court, pell; and your country should be proud of you.' those were his very words. 'my lord,' i said, 'you flatter me.' 'pell,' he said, 'if i do, i'm damned.'" "did he say that?" inquired mr. weller. "he did," replied pell. "vell, then," said mr. weller, "i say parliament ought to ha' took it up; and if he'd been a poor man, they _would_ ha' done it." "but, my dear friend," argued mr. pell, "it was in confidence." "in what?" said mr. weller. "in confidence," "oh! wery good," replied mr. weller, after a little reflection. "if he damned his-self in confidence, o' course that was another thing." "of course it was," said mr. pell. "the distinction's obvious, you will perceive." "alters the case entirely," said mr. weller. "go on, sir." "no, i will not go on, sir," said mr. pell, in a low and serious tone. "you have reminded me, sir, that this conversation was private--private and confidential, gentlemen. gentlemen, i am a professional man. it may be that i am a good deal looked up to in my profession--it may be that i am not. most people know. i say nothing. observations have already been made, in this room, injurious to the reputation of my noble friend. you will excuse me, gentlemen; i was imprudent. i feel that i have no right to mention this matter without his concurrence. thank you, sir, thank you." thus delivering himself, mr. pell thrust his hands into his pockets, and, frowning grimly around, rattled three halfpence with terrible determination. this virtuous resolution had scarcely been formed, when the boy and the blue bag, who were inseparable companions, rushed violently into the room, and said (at least the boy did, for the blue bag took no part in the announcement) that the case was coming on directly. the intelligence was no sooner received than the whole party hurried across the street, and began to fight their way into court--a preparatory ceremony, which has been calculated to occupy, in ordinary cases, from twenty-five minutes to thirty. mr. weller, being stout, cast himself at once into the crowd, with the desperate hope of ultimately turning up in some place which would suit him. his success was not quite equal to his expectations; for having neglected to take his hat off, it was knocked over his eyes by some unseen person, upon whose toes he had alighted with considerable force. apparently, this individual regretted his impetuosity immediately afterwards; for, muttering an indistinct exclamation of surprise, he dragged the old man out into the hall, and, after a violent struggle, released his head and face. [illustration: _after a violent struggle, released his head and face_] "samivel!" exclaimed mr. weller, when he was thus enabled to behold his rescuer. sam nodded. "you're a dutiful and affectionate little boy, you are, ain't you?" said mr. weller, "to come a bonnetin' your father in his old age?" "how should i know who you wos?" responded the son. "do you s'pose i wos to tell you by the weight o' your foot?" "vell, that's wery true, sammy," replied mr. weller, mollified at once; "but wot are you a doin' on here? your gov'ner can't do no good here, sammy. they won't pass that werdick, they won't pass it, sammy." and mr. weller shook his head, with legal solemnity. "wot a perwerse old file it is!" exclaimed sam, "alvays a goin' on about werdicks and alleybis, and that. who said anything about the werdick?" mr. weller made no reply, but once more shook his head most learnedly. "leave off rattlin' that 'ere nob o' yourn, if you don't want it to come off the springs altogether," said sam, impatiently, "and behave reasonable. i vent all the vay down to the markis o' granby, arter you, last night." "did you see the marchioness o' granby, sammy?" inquired mr. weller, with a sigh. "yes, i did," replied sam. "how wos the dear creetur a lookin'?" "wery queer," said sam. "i think she's a injurin' herself gradivally vith too much o' that 'ere pine-apple rum, and other strong medicines o' the same natur." "you don't mean that, sammy?" said the senior, earnestly. "i do, indeed," replied the junior. mr. weller seized his son's hand, clasped it, and let it fall. there was an expression on his countenance in doing so--not of dismay or apprehension, but partaking more of the sweet and gentle character of hope. a gleam of resignation, and even of cheerfulness, passed over his face too, as he slowly said, "i ain't quite certain, sammy; i wouldn't like to say i wos altogether positive, in case of any subsekent disappintment, but i rayther think, my boy, i rayther think, that the shepherd's got the liver complaint!" "does he look bad?" inquired sam. "he's uncommon pale," replied his father, "'cept about the nose, which is redder than ever. his appetite is wery so-so, but he imbibes wunderful." some thoughts of the rum appeared to obtrude themselves on mr. weller's mind, as he said this; for he looked gloomy and thoughtful; but he very shortly recovered, as was testified by a perfect alphabet of winks, in which he was only wont to indulge when particularly pleased. "vell now," said sam, "about my affair. just open them ears o' yourn, and don't say nothin' till i've done." with this brief preface, sam related, as succinctly as he could, the last memorable conversation he had had with mr. pickwick. "stop there by himself, poor creetur!" exclaimed the elder mr. weller, "without nobody to take his part! it can't be done, samivel, it can't be done." "o' course it can't," asserted sam; "i know'd that, afore i came." "wy, they'll eat him up alive, sammy," exclaimed mr. weller. sam nodded his concurrence in the opinion. "he goes in rayther raw, sammy," said mr. weller, metaphorically, "and he'll come out, done so ex-ceedin' brown, that his most familiar friends won't know him. roast pigeon's nothin' to it, sammy." again sam weller nodded. "it oughtn't to be, samivel," said mr. weller, gravely. "it mustn't be," said sam. "cert'nly not," said mr. weller. "vell now," said sam, "you've been a prophesyin' away, wery fine, like a red-faced nixon as the sixpenny books gives picters on." "who wos he, sammy?" inquired mr. weller. "never mind who he was," retorted sam; "he warn't a coachman; that's enough for you." "i know'd a ostler o' that name," said mr. weller, musing. "it warn't him," said sam. "this here gen'l'm'n was a prophet." "wot's a prophet?" inquired mr. weller, looking sternly on his son. "wy, a man as tells what's a goin' to happen," replied sam. "i wish i'd know'd him, sammy," said mr. weller. "p'raps he might ha' throw'd a small light on that 'ere liver complaint as we wos a speakin' on, just now. hows'ever, if he's dead, and ain't left the bisness to nobody, there's an end on it. go on, sammy," said mr. weller, with a sigh. "well," said sam, "you've been a prophesyin' avay, about wot'll happen to the gov'nor if he's left alone. don't you see any vay o' takin' care on him?" "no, i don't, sammy," said mr. weller, with a reflective visage. "no vay at all?" inquired sam. "no vay," said mr. weller, "unless"--and a gleam of intelligence lighted up his countenance as he sunk his voice to a whisper, and applied his mouth to the ear of his offspring--"unless it is getting him out in a turn-up bedstead, unbeknown to the turnkeys, sammy, or dressin' him up like a old 'ooman vith a green wail." sam weller received both of these suggestions with unexpected contempt, and again propounded his question. "no," said the old gentleman; "if he von't let you stop there i see no vay at all. it's no thoroughfare, sammy, no thoroughfare." "well, then, i'll tell you wot it is," said sam, "i'll trouble you for the loan of five-and-twenty pound." "what good 'ull that do?" inquired mr. weller. "never mind," replied sam. "p'raps you may ask for it, five minits artervards; p'raps i may say i von't pay, and cut up rough. you von't think o' arrestin' your own son for the money, and sendin' him off to the fleet, will you, you unnat'ral wagabone?" at this reply of sam's the father and son exchanged a complete code of telegraphic nods and gestures, after which, the elder mr. weller sat himself down on a stone step, and laughed till he was purple. "wot a old image it is!" exclaimed sam, indignant at this loss of time. "what are you a settin' down there for, conwertin' your face into a street-door knocker, ven there's so much to be done? where's the money?" "in the boot, sammy, in the boot," replied mr. weller, composing his features. "hold my hat, sammy." having divested himself of this incumbrance, mr. weller gave his body a sudden wrench to one side, and, by a dexterous twist, contrived to get his right hand into a most capacious pocket, from whence, after a great deal of panting and exertion, he extricated a pocket-book of the large octavo size, fastened by a huge leathern strap. from this ledger he drew forth a couple of whip-lashes, three or four buckles, a little sample-bag of corn, and finally a small roll of very dirty bank-notes: from which he selected the required amount, which he handed over to sam. "and now, sammy," said the old gentleman, when the whip-lashes and the buckles, and the samples, had been all put back, and the book once more deposited at the bottom of the same pocket, "now, sammy, i know a gen'l'm'n here, as'll do the rest o' the bisness for us, in no time--a limb o' the law, sammy, as has got brains like the frogs, dispersed all over his body, and reachin' to the wery tips of his fingers; a friend of the lord chancellorship's, sammy, who'd only have to tell him what he wanted, and he'd lock you up for life, if that wos all." "i say," said sam, "none o' that." "none o' wot?" inquired mr. weller. "wy, none o' them unconstitootional ways o' doing it," retorted sam. "the have-his-carcase, next to the perpetual motion, is vun of the blessedest things as wos ever made. i've read that 'ere in the newspapers, wery of'en." "well, wot's that got to do vith it?" inquired mr. weller. "just this here," said sam, "that i'll patronise the inwention, and go in, that vay. no visperin's to the chancellorship, i don't like the notion. it mayn't be altogether safe, vith reference to gettin' out agin." deferring to his son's feeling upon this point, mr. weller at once sought the erudite solomon pell, and acquainted him with his desire to issue a writ, instantly, for the sum of twenty-five pounds, and costs of process; to be executed without delay upon the body of one samuel weller; the charges thereby incurred to be paid in advance to solomon pell. the attorney was in high glee, for the embarrassed coach-horser was ordered to be discharged forthwith. he highly approved of sam's attachment to his master; declared that it strongly reminded him of his own feelings of devotion to his friend the chancellor; and at once led the elder mr. weller down to the temple, to swear the affidavit of debt, which the boy, with the assistance of the blue bag, had drawn up on the spot. meanwhile, sam, having been formally introduced to the white-washed gentleman and his friends, as the offspring of mr. weller, of the belle savage, was treated with marked distinction, and invited to regale himself with them in honour of the occasion; an invitation which he was by no means backward in accepting. the mirth of gentlemen of this class is of a grave and quiet character, usually; but the present instance was one of peculiar festivity, and they relaxed in proportion. after some rather tumultuous toasting of the chief commissioner and mr. solomon pell, who had that day displayed such transcendent abilities, a mottled-faced gentleman in a blue shawl proposed that somebody should sing a song. the obvious suggestion was, that the mottled-faced gentleman, being anxious for a song, should sing it himself; but this the mottled-faced gentleman sturdily, and somewhat offensively, declined to do. upon which, as is not unusual in such cases, a rather angry colloquy ensued. "gentlemen," said the coach-horser, "rather than disturb the harmony of this delightful occasion, perhaps mr. samuel weller will oblige the company." "raly, gentlemen," said sam, "i'm not wery much in the habit o' singin' without the instrument: but anythin' for a quiet life, as the man said when he took the sitivation at the light-house." with this prelude, mr. samuel weller burst at once into the following wild and beautiful legend, which, under the impression that it is not generally known, we take the liberty of quoting. we would beg to call particular attention to the monosyllable at the end of the second and fourth lines, which not only enables the singer to take breath at those points, but greatly assists the metre. romance i bold turpin vunce, on hounslow heath, his bold mare bess bestrode--er; ven there he see'd the bishop's coach a-coming along the road--er; so he gallops close to the 'orses' legs, and he claps his head vithin; and the bishop says, "sure as eggs is eggs, this here's the bold turpin!" +chorus+ and the bishop says, "sure as eggs is eggs, this here's the bold turpin!" ii says turpin, "you shall eat your words, with a sarse of leaden bul-let;" so he puts a pistol to his mouth, and he fires it down his gullet. the coachman he not likin' the job, set off at a full gal-lop, but dick put a couple of balls in his nob, and perwailed on him to stop. +chorus+ (_sarcastically_) but dick put a couple of balls in his nob, and perwailed on him to stop. "i maintain that that 'ere song's personal to the cloth," said the mottled-faced gentleman, interrupting it at this point. "i demand the name o' that coachman." "nobody know'd," replied sam. "he hadn't got his card in his pocket." "i object to the introduction o' politics," said the mottled-faced gentleman. "i submit that, in the present company, that 'ere song's political; and, wot's much the same, that it ain't true. i say that that coachman did _not_ run away; but that he died game--game as pheasants; and i won't hear nothin' said to the contrairey." as the mottled-faced gentleman spoke with great energy and determination: and as the opinions of the company seemed divided on the subject: it threatened to give rise to fresh altercation, when mr. weller and mr. pell most opportunely arrived. "all right, sammy," said mr. weller. "the officer will be here at four o'clock," said mr. pell. "i suppose you won't run away meanwhile, eh? ha! ha!" "p'raps my cruel pa 'ull relent afore then," replied sam, with a broad grin. "not i," said the elder mr. weller. "do," said sam. "not on no account," replied the inexorable creditor. "i'll give bills for the amount, at sixpence a month," said sam. "i won't take 'em," said mr. weller. "ha, ha, ha! very good, very good," said mr. solomon pell, who was making out his little bill of costs; "a very amusing incident indeed! benjamin, copy that." and mr. pell smiled again, as he called mr. weller's attention to the amount. "thank you, thank you," said the professional gentleman, taking up another of the greasy notes as mr. weller took it from the pocket-book. "three ten and one ten is five. much obliged to you, mr. weller. your son is a most deserving young man, very much so indeed, sir. it's a very pleasant trait in a young man's character, very much so," added mr. pell, smiling smoothly round, as he buttoned up the money. "wot a game it is!" said the elder mr. weller, with a chuckle. "a reg'lar prodigy son!" "prodigal, prodigal son, sir," suggested mr. pell, mildly. "never mind, sir," said mr. weller, with dignity. "i know wot's o'clock, sir. ven i don't, i'll ask you, sir." by the time the officer arrived, sam had made himself so extremely popular, that the congregated gentlemen determined to see him to prison in a body. so, off they set; the plaintiff and defendant walking arm-in-arm; the officer in front; and eight stout coachmen bringing up the rear. at serjeant's inn coffee-house the whole party halted to refresh, and, the legal arrangements being completed, the procession moved on again. some little commotion was occasioned in fleet street, by the pleasantry of the eight gentlemen in the flank, who persevered in walking four abreast; it was also found necessary to leave the mottled-faced gentleman behind, to fight a ticket-porter, it being arranged that his friends should call for him as they came back. nothing but these little incidents occurred on the way. when they reached the gate of the fleet, the cavalcade, taking the time from the plaintiff, gave three tremendous cheers for the defendant, and, after having shaken hands all round, left him. [illustration: _the cavalcade gave three tremendous cheers._] sam, having been formally delivered into the warden's custody, to the intense astonishment of roker, and to the evident emotion of even the phlegmatic neddy, passed at once into the prison, walked straight to his master's room, and knocked at the door. "come in," said mr. pickwick. sam appeared, pulled off his hat, and smiled. "ah, sam, my good lad!" said mr. pickwick, evidently delighted to see his humble friend again; "i had no intention of hurting your feelings yesterday, my faithful fellow, by what i said. put down your hat, sam, and let me explain my meaning, a little more at length." "won't presently do, sir?" inquired sam. "certainly," said mr. pickwick; "but why not now?" "i'd rayther not now, sir," rejoined sam. "why?" inquired mr. pickwick. "'cause--" said sam, hesitating. "because of what?" inquired mr. pickwick, alarmed at his follower's manner. "speak out, sam." "'cause," rejoined sam; "'cause i've got a little bisness as i want to do." "what business?" inquired mr. pickwick, surprised at sam's confused manner. "nothin' partickler, sir," replied sam. "oh, if it's nothing particular," said mr. pickwick, with a smile, "you can speak with me first." "i think i'd better see arter it at once," said sam, still hesitating. mr. pickwick looked amazed, but said nothing. "the fact is," said sam, stopping short. "well!" said mr. pickwick. "speak out, sam." "why, the fact is," said sam, with a desperate effort, "p'raps i'd better see arter my bed afore i do anythin' else." "_your bed!_" exclaimed mr. pickwick, in astonishment. "yes, my bed, sir," replied sam. "i'm a pris'ner. i was arrested, this here wery arternoon, for debt." "you arrested for debt!" exclaimed mr. pickwick, sinking into a chair. "yes, for debt, sir," replied sam. "and the man as puts me in, 'ull never let me out, till you go yourself." "bless my heart and soul!" ejaculated mr. pickwick. "what do you mean?" "wot i say, sir," rejoined sam. "if it's forty year to come, i shall be a prisoner, and i'm very glad on it, and if it had been newgate, it would ha' been just the same. now the murder's out, and damme, there's an end on it!" with these words, which he repeated with great emphasis and violence, sam weller dashed his hat upon the ground, in a most unusual state of excitement; and then, folding his arms, looked firmly and fixedly in his master's face. chapter xvi [illustration] _treats of divers little matters which occurred in the fleet, and of mr. winkle's mysterious behaviour; and shows how the poor chancery prisoner obtained his release at last_ mr. pickwick felt a great deal too much touched by the warmth of sam's attachment, to be able to exhibit any manifestation of anger or displeasure at the precipitate course he had adopted, in voluntarily consigning himself to a debtor's prison, for an indefinite period. the only point on which he persevered in demanding any explanation, was, the name of sam's detaining creditor; but this mr. weller as perseveringly withheld. "it ain't o' no use, sir," said sam, again and again. "he's a ma-licious, bad-disposed, vorldly-minded, spiteful, windictive creetur, with a hard heart as there ain't no soft'nin'. as the wirtuous clergyman remarked of the old gen'l'm'n with the dropsy, ven he said that upon the whole he thought he'd rayther leave his property to his vife than build a chapel vith it." "but consider, sam," mr. pickwick remonstrated, "the sum is so small that it can very easily be paid; and having made up my mind that you shall stop with me, you should recollect how much more useful you would be, if you could go outside the walls." "wery much obliged to you, sir," replied mr. weller gravely; "but i'd rayther not." "rather not do what, sam?" "wy, i'd rayther not let myself down to ask a favour o' this here unremorseful enemy." "but it is no favour asking him to take his money, sam," reasoned mr. pickwick. "beg your pardon, sir," rejoined sam; "but it 'ud be a wery great favour to pay it, and he don't deserve none; that's where it is, sir." here mr. pickwick, rubbing his nose with an air of some vexation, mr. weller thought it prudent to change the theme of the discourse. "i takes my determination on principle, sir," remarked sam, "and you takes yours on the same ground; vich puts me in mind o' the man as killed his-self on principle, vich o' course you've heerd on, sir." mr. weller paused when he arrived at this point, and cast a comical look at his master out of the corners of his eyes. "there is no 'of course' in the case, sam," said mr. pickwick, gradually breaking into a smile in spite of the uneasiness which sam's obstinacy had given him. "the fame of the gentleman in question never reached my ears." "no, sir!" exclaimed mr. weller. "you astonish me, sir; he wos a clerk in a gov'ment office, sir." "was he?" said mr. pickwick. "yes, he wos, sir," rejoined mr. weller; "and a wery pleasant gen'l'm'n too--one o' the precise and tidy sort, as puts their feet in little india-rubber fire-buckets ven it's vet weather, and never has no other bosom friends but hare-skins; he saved up his money on principle, wore a clean shirt ev'ry day on principle; never spoke to none of his relations on principle, 'fear they shou'd want to borrow money of him; and wos altogether, in fact, an uncommon agreeable character. he had his hair cut on principle vunce a fortnight, and contracted for his clothes on the economic principle--three suits a year, and send back the old uns. being a wery reg'lar gen'l'm'n, he din'd ev'ry day at the same place, were it wos one and nine to cut off the joint, and a wery good one and nine's worth he used to cut, as the landlord often said, with the tears a tricklin' down his face: let alone the way he used to poke the fire in the vinter time, which wos a dead loss o' fourpence ha'penny a day: to say nothin' at all o' the aggrawation o' seein' him do it. so uncommon grand with it too! '_post_ arter the next gen'l'm'n,' he sings out ev'ry day ven he comes in. 'see arter the _times_, thomas; let me look at the _mornin' herald_, wen it's out o' hand; don't forget to bespeak the _chronicle_; and just bring the _'tizer_, vill you?' and then he'd set vith his eyes fixed on the clock, and rush out, just a quarter of a minit afore the time, to waylay the boy as wos a comin' in with the evenin' paper, vich he'd read with such intense interest and persewerance as worked the other customers up to the wery confines o' desperation and insanity, 'specially one i-rascible old gen'l'm'n as the vaiter wos always obliged to keep a sharp eye on, at sich times, 'fear he should be tempted to commit some rash act with the carving-knife. vell, sir, here he'd stop, occupyin' the best place for three hours, and never takin' nothin' arter his dinner, but sleep, and then he'd go away to a coffee-house a few streets off, and have a small pot of coffee and four crumpets, arter wich he'd walk home to kensington and go to bed. one night he wos took very ill; sends for a doctor; doctor comes in a green fly, with a kind o' robinson crusoe set o' steps, as he could let down ven he got out, and pull up arter him ven he got in, to perwent the necessity o' the coachman's gettin' down, and thereby undeceivin' the public by lettin' em see that it wos only a livery coat as he'd got on, and not the trousers to match. 'wot's the matter?' said the doctor. 'wery ill,' says the patient. 'wot have you been a eatin' on?' says the doctor. 'roast weal,' says the patient. 'wot's the last thing you dewoured?' says the doctor. 'crumpets,' says the patient. 'that's it!' says the doctor. 'i'll send you a box of pills directly, and don't you never take no more of 'em,' he says. 'no more o' wot?' says the patient--'pills?' 'no; crumpets,' says the doctor. 'wy?' says the patient, starting up in bed; 'i've eat four crumpets ev'ry night for fifteen year, on principle.' 'well then, you'd better leave 'em off, on principle,' says the doctor. 'crumpets is wholesome, sir,' says the patient. 'crumpets is _not_ wholesome, sir,' says the doctor, wery fierce. 'but they're so cheap,' says the patient, comin' down a little, 'and so wery fillin' at the price.' 'they'd be dear to you, at any price; dear if you wos paid to eat 'em,' says the doctor. 'four crumpets a night,' he says, 'vill do your business in six months!' the patient looks him full in the face, and turns it over in his mind for a long time, and at last he says, 'are you sure o' that 'ere, sir?' 'i'll stake my professional reputation on it,' says the doctor. 'how many crumpets, at a sittin', do you think, 'ud kill me off at once?' says the patient. 'i don't know,' says the doctor. 'do you think half-a-crown's vurth 'ud do it?' says the patient. 'i think it might,' says the doctor. 'three shillin's vurth 'ud be sure to do it, i s'pose?' says the patient. 'certainly,' says the doctor. 'wery good,' says the patient; 'good night.' next mornin' he gets up, has a fire lit, orders in three shillin's vurth o' crumpets, toasts 'em all, eats' em all, and blows his brains out." "what did he do that for?" inquired mr. pickwick, abruptly, for he was considerably startled by this tragical termination of the narrative. "wot did he do it for, sir?" reiterated sam. "vy, in support of his great principle that crumpets wos wholesome, and to show that he wouldn't be put out of his way for nobody!" with such like shiftings and changings of the discourse, did mr. weller meet his master's questioning on the night of his taking up his residence in the fleet. finding all gentle remonstrance useless, mr. pickwick at length yielded a reluctant consent to his taking lodgings by the week of a bald-headed cobbler, who rented a small slip-room in one of the upper galleries. to this humble apartment mr. weller moved a mattress and bedding which he hired of mr. roker; and by the time he lay down upon it at night, was as much at home as if he had been bred in the prison, and his whole family had vegetated therein for three generations. "do you always smoke arter you goes to bed, old cock?" inquired mr. weller of his landlord, when they had both retired for the night. "yes, i does, young bantam," replied the cobbler. "will you allow me to in-quire vy you make up your bed under that 'ere deal table?" said sam. "'cause i was always used to a four-poster afore i came here, and i find the legs of the table answer just as well," replied the cobbler. "you're a character, sir," said sam. "i haven't got anything of the kind belonging to me," rejoined the cobbler, shaking his head; "and if you want to meet with a good one, i'm afraid you'll find some difficulty in suiting yourself at this register office." the above short dialogue took place as mr. weller lay extended on his mattress at one end of the room, and the cobbler on his, at the other; the apartment being illumined by the light of a rush candle, and the cobbler's pipe, which was glowing below the table, like a red-hot coal. the conversation, brief as it was, predisposed mr. weller strongly in his landlord's favour; and raising himself on his elbow he took a more lengthened survey of his appearance than he had yet had either time or inclination to make. he was a sallow man--all cobblers are; and had a strong bristly beard--all cobblers have. his face was a queer, good-tempered, crooked-featured piece of workmanship, ornamented with a couple of eyes that must have worn a very joyous expression at one time, for they sparkled yet. the man was sixty, by years, and heaven knows how old by imprisonment, so that his having any look approaching to mirth or contentment, was singular enough. he was a little man, and being half doubled up as he lay in bed, looked about as long as he ought to have been without his legs. he had a great red pipe in his mouth, and was smoking, and staring at the rushlight, in a state of enviable placidity. "have you been here long?" inquired sam, breaking the silence which had lasted for some time. "twelve year," replied the cobbler, biting the end of his pipe as he spoke. "contempt?" inquired sam. the cobbler nodded. "well then," said sam, with some sternness, "wot do you persewere in bein' obstinit for, vastin' your precious life away, in this here magnified pound? vy don't you give in, and tell the chancellorship that you're wery sorry for makin' his court contemptible, and you won't do so no more?" the cobbler put his pipe in the corner of his mouth, while he smiled, and then brought it back to its old place again; but said nothing. "vy don't you?" said sam, urging his question strenuously. "ah," said the cobbler, "you don't quite understand these matters. what do you suppose ruined me, now?" "vy," said sam, trimming the rushlight, "i s'pose the beginnin' wos, that you got into debt, eh?" "never owed a farden," said the cobbler; "try again." "well, perhaps," said sam, "you bought houses, vich is delicate english for goin' mad: or took to buildin', which is a medical term for bein' incurable." the cobbler shook his had and said, "try again." "you didn't go to law, i hope?" said sam, suspiciously. "never in my life," replied the cobbler. "the fact is, i was ruined by having money left me." "come, come," said sam, "that von't do. i wish some rich enemy 'ud try to vork _my_ destruction in that 'ere vay. i'd let him." "oh, i dare say you don't believe it," said the cobbler, quietly smoking his pipe. "i wouldn't if i was you; but it's true for all that." "how wos it?" inquired sam, half induced to believe the fact already, by the look the cobbler gave him. "just this," replied the cobbler; "an old gentleman that i worked for, down in the country, and a humble relation of whose i married--she's dead, god bless her, and thank him for it!--was seized with a fit and went off." "where?" inquired sam, who was growing sleepy after the numerous events of the day. "how should i know where he went?" said the cobbler, speaking through his nose in an intense enjoyment of his pipe. "he went off dead." "oh, that indeed," said sam. "well?" "well," said the cobbler, "he left five thousand pound behind him." "and wery gen-teel in him so to do," said sam. "one of which," continued the cobbler, "he left to me, 'cause i'd married his relation, you see." "wery good," murmured sam. "and being surrounded by a great number of nieces and nevys, as was always a quarrelling and fighting among themselves for the property, he makes me his executor, and leaves the rest to me: in trust, to divide it among 'em as the will prowided." "wot do you mean by leavin' it on trust?" inquired sam, waking up a little. "if it ain't ready money, where's the use on it?" "it's a law term, that's all," said the cobbler. "i don't think that," said sam, shaking his head. "there's wery little trust at that shop. hows'ever, go on." "well," said the cobbler: "when i was going to take out a probate of the will, the nieces and nevys, who was desperately disappointed at not getting all the money, enters a caveat against it." "what's that?" inquired sam. "a legal instrument, which is as much as to say, it's no go," replied the cobbler. "i see," said sam, "a sort of brother-in-law o' the have-his-carcase. well?" "but," continued the cobbler, "finding that they couldn't agree among themselves, and consequently couldn't get up a case against the will, they withdrew the caveat, and i paid all the legacies. i'd hardly done it, when one nevy brings an action to set the will aside. the case comes on some months afterwards afore a deaf old gentleman, in a back room somewhere down by st. paul's churchyard; and arter four counsels had taken a day apiece to bother him regularly, he takes a week or two to consider, and read the evidence in six vollums, and then gives his judgment that how the testator was not quite right in his head, and i must pay all the money back again, and all the costs. i appealed; the case came on before three or four very sleepy gentlemen, who had heard it all before in the other court, where they're lawyers without work; the only difference being, that there they're called doctors, and in the other places delegates, if you understand that; and they very dutifully confirmed the decision of the old gentleman below. after that, we went into chancery, where we are still, and where i shall always be. my lawyers have had all my thousand pound long ago; and what between the estate, as they call it, and the costs, i'm here for ten thousand, and shall stop here, till i die, mending shoes. some gentlemen have talked of bringing it before parliament, and i dare say would have done it, only they hadn't time to come to me, and i hadn't power to go to them, and they got tired of my long letters, and dropped the business. and this is god's truth, without one word of suppression or exaggeration, as fifty people, both in this place and out of it, very well know." the cobbler paused to ascertain what effect his story had produced on sam; but finding that he had dropped asleep, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, sighed, put it down, drew the bedclothes over his head, and went to sleep too. mr. pickwick was sitting at breakfast, alone, next morning (sam being busily engaged in the cobbler's room, polishing his master's shoes and brushing the black gaiters) when there came a knock at the door, which, before mr. pickwick could cry "come in!" was followed by the appearance of a head of hair and a cotton-velvet cap, both of which articles of dress he had no difficulty in recognising as the personal property of mr. smangle. "how are you?" said that worthy, accompanying the inquiry with a score or two of nods; "i say--do you expect anybody this morning? three men--devilish gentlemanly fellows--have been asking after you down-stairs, and knocking at every door on the hall flight; for which they've been most infernally blown up by the collegians that had the trouble of opening 'em." "dear me! how very foolish of them," said mr. pickwick, rising. "yes; i have no doubt they are some friends whom i rather expected to see yesterday." "friends of yours!" exclaimed smangle, seizing mr. pickwick by the hand. "say no more. curse me, they're friends of mine from this minute, and friends of mivins's too. infernal pleasant, gentlemanly dog, mivins, isn't he?" said smangle, with great feeling. "i know so little of the gentleman," said mr. pickwick, hesitating, "that i----" "i know you do," interposed smangle, clasping mr. pickwick by the shoulder. "you shall know him better. you'll be delighted with him. that man, sir," said smangle, with a solemn countenance, "has comic powers that would do honour to drury lane theatre." "has he indeed?" said mr. pickwick. "ah, by jove he has!" replied smangle. "hear him come the four cats in the wheelbarrow--four distinct cats, sir, i pledge you my honour. now you know that's infernal clever! damme, you can't help liking a man, when you see these traits about him. he's only one fault--that little failing i mentioned to you, you know." as mr. smangle shook his head in a confidential and sympathising manner at this juncture, mr. pickwick felt that he was expected to say something, so he said "ah!" and looked restlessly at the door. "ah!" echoed mr. smangle, with a long-drawn sigh. "he's delightful company, that man is, sir. i don't know better company anywhere; but he has that one drawback. if the ghost of his grandfather, sir, was to rise before him this minute, he'd ask him for the loan of his acceptance on an eighteenpenny stamp." "dear me!" exclaimed mr. pickwick. "yes," added mr. smangle; "and if he'd the power of raising him again, he would, in two months and three days from this time, to renew the bill!" "those are very remarkable traits," said mr. pickwick; "but i'm afraid that while we are talking here, my friends may be in a state of great perplexity at not finding me." "i'll show 'em the way," said smangle, making for the door. "good day. i won't disturb you while they're here, you know. by-the-bye----" as mr. smangle pronounced the last three words, he stopped suddenly, re-closed the door which he had opened, and, walking softly back to mr. pickwick, stepped close up to him on tip-toe, and said in a very soft whisper: "you couldn't make it convenient to lend me half-a-crown till the latter end of next week, could you?" mr. pickwick could scarcely forbear smiling, but managing to preserve his gravity, he drew forth the coin, and placed it in mr. smangle's palm; upon which that gentleman, with many nods and winks, implying profound mystery, disappeared in quest of the three strangers, with whom he presently returned; and having coughed thrice, and nodded as many times, as an assurance to mr. pickwick that he would not forget to pay, he shook hands all round, in an engaging manner, and at length took himself off. "my dear friends," said mr. pickwick, shaking hands alternately with mr. tupman, mr. winkle, and mr. snodgrass, who were the three visitors in question, "i am delighted to see you." the triumvirate were much affected. mr. tupman shook his head deploringly; mr. snodgrass drew forth his handkerchief with undisguised emotion; and mr. winkle retired to the window, and sniffed aloud. "mornin', gen'l'm'n," said sam, entering at the moment with the shoes and gaiters. "avay with melincholly, as the little boy said ven his school-missis died. velcome to the college, gen'l'm'n." "this foolish fellow," said mr. pickwick, tapping sam on the head as he knelt down to button up his master's gaiters: "this foolish fellow has got himself arrested in order to be near me." "what!" exclaimed the three friends. "yes, gen'l'm'n," said sam, "i'm a--stand steady, sir, if you please--i'm a pris'ner, gen'l'm'n. con-fined, as the lady said." "a prisoner!" exclaimed mr. winkle, with unaccountable vehemence. "hallo, sir!" responded sam, looking up. "wot's the matter, sir?" "i had hoped, sam, that--nothing, nothing," said mr. winkle precipitately. there was something so very abrupt and unsettled in mr. winkle's manner, that mr. pickwick involuntarily looked at his two friends for an explanation. "we don't know," said mr. tupman, answering this mute appeal aloud. "he has been much excited for two days past and his whole demeanour very unlike what it usually is. we feared there must be something the matter, but he resolutely denies it." "no, no," said mr. winkle, colouring beneath mr. pickwick's gaze; "there is really nothing. i assure you there is nothing, my dear sir. it will be necessary for me to leave town, for a short time, on private business, and i had hoped to have prevailed upon you to allow sam to accompany me." mr. pickwick looked more astonished than before. "i think," faltered mr. winkle, "that sam would have had no objection to do so; but, of course, his being a prisoner here, renders it impossible. so i must go alone." as mr. winkle said these words, mr. pickwick felt, with some astonishment, that sam's fingers were trembling at the gaiters as if he were rather surprised or startled. sam looked up at mr. winkle, too, when he had finished speaking; and though the glance they exchanged was instantaneous, they seemed to understand each other. "do you know anything of this, sam?" said mr. pickwick sharply. "no, i don't, sir," replied mr. weller, beginning to button with extraordinary assiduity. "are you sure, sam?" said mr. pickwick. "vy, sir," responded mr. weller; "i'm sure so far, that i've never heerd anythin' on the subject afore this moment. if i makes any guess about it," added sam, looking at mr. winkle, "i haven't got any right to say what it is, 'fear it should be a wrong 'un." "i have no right to make any further inquiry into the private affairs of a friend, however intimate a friend," said mr. pickwick, after a short silence; "at present let me merely say that i do not understand this at all. there. we have had quite enough of the subject." thus expressing himself, mr. pickwick led the conversation to different topics, and mr. winkle gradually appeared more at ease, though still very far from being completely so. they had all so much to converse about, that the morning very quickly passed away; and when, at three o'clock, mr. weller produced upon the little dining-table a roast leg of mutton and an enormous meat pie, with sundry dishes of vegetables, and pots of porter, which stood upon the chairs or the sofa-bedstead, or where they could, everybody felt disposed to do justice to the meal, notwithstanding that the meat had been purchased, and dressed, and the pie made, and baked, at the prison cookery hard by. to these succeeded a bottle or two of very good wine, for which a messenger was despatched by mr. pickwick to the horn coffee-house in doctors' commons. the bottle or two, indeed, might be more properly described as a bottle or six, for by the time it was drunk and tea over, the bell began to ring for strangers to withdraw. but if mr. winkle's behaviour had been unaccountable in the morning, it became perfectly unearthly and solemn when, under the influence of his feelings and his share of the bottle or six, he prepared to take leave of his friend. he lingered behind, until mr. tupman and mr. snodgrass had disappeared, and then fervently clenched mr. pickwick's hand, with an expression of face in which deep and mighty resolve was fearfully blended with the very concentrated essence of gloom. "good night, my dear sir!" said mr. winkle between his set teeth. "bless you, my dear fellow!" replied the warm-hearted mr. pickwick, as he returned the pressure of his young friend's hand. "now then!" cried mr. tupman from the gallery. "yes, yes, directly," replied mr. winkle. "good night!" "good night," said mr. pickwick. there was another good night, and another, and half-a-dozen more after that, and still mr. winkle had fast hold of his friend's hand, and was looking into his face with the same strange expression. "_is_ anything the matter?" said mr. pickwick at last, when his arm was quite sore with shaking. "nothing," said mr. winkle. "well then, good night," said mr. pickwick, attempting to disengage his hand. "my friend, my benefactor, my honoured companion," murmured mr. winkle, catching at his wrist. "do not judge me harshly; do not, when you hear that, driven to extremity by hopeless obstacles, i----" "now then," said mr. tupman, reappearing at the door. "are you coming, or are we to be locked in?" "yes, yes, i am ready," replied mr. winkle. and with a violent effort he tore himself away. as mr. pickwick was gazing down the passage after them in silent astonishment, sam weller appeared at the stair-head, and whispered for one moment in mr. winkle's ear. "oh, certainly, depend upon me," said that gentleman aloud. "thankee, sir. you won't forget, sir?" said sam. "of course not," replied mr. winkle. "wish you luck, sir," said sam, touching his hat. "i should very much liked to ha' joined you, sir; but the gov'nor o' course is pairamount." "it is very much to your credit that you remain here," said mr. winkle. with these words they disappeared down-stairs. "very extraordinary," said mr. pickwick, going back into his room, and seating himself at the table in a musing attitude. "what _can_ that young man be going to do?" he had sat ruminating about the matter for some time, when the voice of roker, the turnkey, demanded whether he might come in. "by all means," said mr. pickwick. "i've brought you a softer pillow, sir," said roker, "instead of the temporary one you had last night." "thank you," said mr. pickwick. "will you take a glass of wine?" "you're wery good, sir," replied mr. roker, accepting the proffered glass. "yours, sir." "thank you," said mr. pickwick. "i'm sorry to say that your landlord's every bad to-night, sir," said roker, setting down the glass, and inspecting the lining of his hat preparatory to putting it on again. "what! the chancery prisoner!" exclaimed mr. pickwick. "he won't be a chancery prisoner wery long, sir," replied roker, turning his hat round, so as to get the maker's name right side upwards, as he looked into it. "you make my blood run cold," said mr. pickwick. "what do you mean?" "he's been consumptive for a long time past," said mr. roker, "and he's taken wery bad in the breath to-night. the doctor said, six months ago, that nothing but change of air could save him." "great heaven!" exclaimed mr. pickwick; "has this man been slowly murdered by the law for six months!" "i don't know about that," replied roker, weighing the hat by the brims in both hands. "i suppose he'd have been took the same, wherever he was. he went into the infirmary this morning; the doctor says his strength is to be kept up as much as possible; and the warden's sent him wine and broth and that, from his own house. it's not the warden's fault, you know, sir." "of course not," replied mr. pickwick, hastily. "i'm afraid, however," said roker, shaking his head, "that it's all up with him. i offered neddy two sixpenn'orths to one upon it just now, but he wouldn't take it, and quite right. thankee, sir. good night, sir." "stay," said mr. pickwick, earnestly. "where is this infirmary?" "just over where you slept, sir," replied roker. "i'll show you, if you like to come." mr. pickwick snatched up his hat without speaking, and followed at once. the turnkey led the way in silence; and gently raising the latch of the room door, motioned mr. pickwick to enter. it was a large, bare, desolate room, with a number of stump bedsteads made of iron; on one of which lay stretched the shadow of a man; wan, pale, and ghastly. his breathing was hard and thick, and he moaned painfully as it came and went. at the bedside sat a short old man in a cobbler's apron, who, by the aid of a pair of horn spectacles, was reading from the bible aloud. it was the fortunate legatee. the sick man laid his hand upon his attendant's arm, and motioned him to stop. he closed the book and laid it on the bed. "open the window," said the sick man. he did so. the noise of carriages and carts, the rattle of wheels, the cries of men and boys, all the busy sounds of a mighty multitude instinct with life and occupation, blended into one deep murmur, floated into the room. above the hoarse loud hum arose, from time to time, a boisterous laugh; or a scrap of some jingling song, shouted forth by one of the giddy crowd, would strike upon the ear for an instant, and then be lost amidst the roar of voices and the tramp of footsteps; the breaking of the billows of the restless sea of life that rolled heavily on without. melancholy sounds to a quiet listener at any time; how melancholy to the watcher by the bed of death! "there is no air here," said the sick man faintly. "the place pollutes it. it was fresh round about, when i walked there, years ago; but it grows hot and heavy in passing these walls. i cannot breathe it." "we have breathed it together for a long time," said the old man. "come, come." there was a short silence, during which the two spectators approached the bed. the sick man drew a hand of his old fellow-prisoner towards him, and pressing it affectionately between both his own, retained it in his grasp. "i hope," he gasped after a while, so faintly that they bent their ears close over the bed to catch the half-formed sounds his pale lips gave vent to: "i hope my merciful judge will bear in mind my heavy punishment on earth. twenty years, my friend, twenty years in this hideous grave! my heart broke when my child died, and i could not even kiss him in his little coffin. my loneliness since then, in all this noise and riot, has been very dreadful. may god forgive me! he has seen my solitary, lingering death." he folded his hands, and murmuring something more they could not hear, fell into a sleep--only a sleep at first, for they saw him smile. they whispered together for a little time, and the turnkey, stooping over the pillow, drew hastily back. "he has got his discharge, by g--!" said the man. he had. but he had grown so like death in life, that they knew not when he died. chapter xvii [illustration] _descriptive of an affecting interview between mr. samuel weller and a family party. mr. pickwick makes a tour of the diminutive world he inhabits, and resolves to mix with it, in future, as little as possible._ a few mornings after his incarceration, mr. samuel weller, having arranged his master's room with all possible care, and seen him comfortably seated over his books and papers, withdrew to employ himself for an hour or two to come, as he best could. it was a fine morning, and it occurred to sam that a pint of porter in the open air would lighten his next quarter of an hour or so, as well as any little amusement in which he could indulge. having arrived at this conclusion, he betook himself to the tap. having purchased the beer, and obtained, moreover, the day-but-one-before-yesterday's paper, he repaired to the skittle-ground, and seating himself on a bench, proceeded to enjoy himself in a very sedate and methodical manner. first of all, he took a refreshing draught of the beer, and then he looked up at the window, and bestowed a platonic wink on a young lady who was peeling potatoes thereat. then he opened the paper, and folded it so as to get the police reports outwards; and this being a vexatious and difficult thing to do, when there is any wind stirring, he took another draught of the beer when he had accomplished it. then he read two lines of the paper, and stopped short to look at a couple of men who were finishing a game of rackets, which being concluded, he cried out "wery good" in an approving manner, and looked round upon the spectators, to ascertain whether their sentiments coincided with his own. this involved the necessity of looking up at the windows also; and as the young lady was still there, it was an act of common politeness to wink again, and to drink to her good health in dumb show, in another draught of the beer, which sam did; and having frowned hideously upon a small boy who had noted this latter proceeding with open eyes, he threw one leg over the other, and holding the newspaper in both hands, began to read in real earnest. he had hardly composed himself into the needful state of abstraction, when he thought he heard his own name proclaimed in some distant passage. nor was he mistaken, for it quickly passed from mouth to mouth, and in a few seconds the air teemed with shouts of "weller!" "here!" roared sam, in a stentorian voice. "wot's the matter? who wants him? has an express come to say that his country-house is afire?" "somebody wants you in the hall," said a man who was standing by. "just mind that 'ere paper and the pot, old feller, will you?" said sam. "i'm a comin'. blessed, if they was a callin' me to the bar they couldn't make more noise about it!" accompanying these words with a gentle rap on the head of the young gentleman before noticed, who, unconscious of his close vicinity to the person in request, was screaming "weller!" with all his might, sam hastened across the ground, and ran up the steps into the hall. here, the first object that met his eyes was his beloved father sitting on a bottom stair, with his hat in his hand, shouting out "weller!" in his very loudest tone, at half-minute intervals. "wot are you a roarin' at?" said sam impetuously, when the old gentleman had discharged himself of another shout; "makin' yourself so precious hot that you looks like a aggrawated glass-blower. wot's the matter?" "aha!" replied the old gentleman, "i began to be afeerd that you'd gone for a walk round the regency park, sammy." "come," said sam, "none o' them taunts agin the wictim o' avarice, and come off that 'ere step. wot are you a settin' down there for? i don't live there." "i've got such a game for you, sammy," said the elder mr. weller, rising. "stop a minit," said sam, "you're all vite behind." "that's right, sammy, rub it off," said mr. weller, as his son dusted him. "it might look personal here, if a man walked about with whitevash on his clothes, eh, sammy?" as mr. weller exhibited in this place unequivocal symptoms of an approaching fit of chuckling, sam interposed to stop it. "keep quiet, do," said sam, "there never vos such a old picter-card born. what are you bustin' vith, now?" "sammy," said mr. weller, wiping his forehead, "i'm afeerd that vun o' these days i shall laugh myself into a appleplexy, my boy." "vell then, wot do you do it for?" said sam. "now; wot have you got to say?" "who do you think's come here with me, samivel?" said mr. weller, drawing back a pace or two, pursing up his mouth, and extending his eyebrows. "pell?" said sam. mr. weller shook his head, and his red cheek expanded with the laughter that was endeavouring to find a vent. "mottled-faced man, p'r'aps?" suggested sam. again mr. weller shook his head. "who then?" asked sam. "your mother-in-law," said mr. weller; and it was lucky he did say it, or his cheeks must inevitably have cracked from their most unnatural distension. "your mother-in-law, sammy," said mr. weller, "and the red-nosed man, my boy; and the red-nosed man. ho! ho! ho!" with this, mr. weller launched into convulsions of laughter, while sam regarded him with a broad grin gradually overspreading his whole countenance. "they've come to have a little serious talk with you, samivel," said mr. weller, wiping his eyes. "don't let out nothin' about the unnat'ral creditor, sammy." "wot! don't they know who it is?" inquired sam. "not a bit on it," replied his father. "vere are they?" said sam, reciprocating all the old gentleman's grins. "in the snuggery," rejoined mr. weller. "catch the red-nosed man a goin' anyvere but vere the liquors is; not he, samivel, not he. ve'd a wery pleasant ride along the road from the markis this mornin', sammy," said mr. weller, when he felt himself equal to the task of speaking in an articulate manner. "i drove the old piebald in that 'ere little shay-cart as belonged to your mother-in-law's first wenter, into vich a harm-cheer wos lifted for the shepherd; and i'm blest," said mr. weller, with a look of deep scorn: "i'm blest if they didn't bring a portable flight o' steps out into the road a front o' our door, for him to get up by." [illustration: "_i drove the old piebald._"] "you don't mean that?" said sam. "i _do_ mean that, sammy," replied his father, "and i vish you could ha' seen how tight he held on by the sides wen he did get up, as if he wos afeerd o' being precipitayted down full six foot, and dashed into a million o' hatoms. he tumbled in at last, however, and avay ve vent; and i rayther think, i say i rayther think, samivel, that he found his-self a little jolted ven ve turned the corners." "wot! i s'pose you happened to drive up agin a post or two?" said sam. "i'm afeerd," replied mr. weller, in a rapture of winks, "i'm afeerd i took vun or two on 'em, sammy; he wos a flyin' out o' the harm-cheer all the way." here the old gentleman shook his head from side to side, and was seized with a hoarse internal rumbling, accompanied with a violent swelling of the countenance, and a sudden increase in the breadth of all his features; symptoms which alarmed his son not a little. "don't be frightened, sammy, don't be frightened," said the old gentleman, when by dint of much struggling, and various convulsive stamps upon the ground, he had recovered his voice. "it's only a kind o' quiet laugh as i'm a tryin' to come, sammy." "well, if that's wot it is," said sam, "you'd better not try to come it agin. you'll find it rayther a dangerous inwention." "don't you like it, sammy?" inquired the old gentleman. "not at all," replied sam. "well," said mr. weller, with the tears still running down his cheeks, "it 'ud ha' been a wery great accommodation to me if i could ha' done it, and 'ud ha' saved a good many vords atween your mother-in-law and me, sometimes; but i am afeerd you're right, sammy: it's too much in the appleplexy line--a deal too much, samivel." this conversation brought them to the door of the snuggery, into which sam--pausing for an instant to look over his shoulder, and cast a sly leer at his respected progenitor, who was still giggling behind--at once led the way. "mother-in-law," said sam, politely saluting the lady, "wery much obliged to you for this here wisit. shepherd, how air you?" "oh, samuel!" said mrs. weller. "this is dreadful." "not a bit of it, mum," replied sam. "is it, shepherd?" mr. stiggins raised his hands, and turned up his eyes, till the whites--or rather the yellows--were alone visible; but made no reply in words. "is this here gen'l'm'n troubled vith any painful complaint?" said sam, looking to his mother-in-law for explanation. "the good man is grieved to see you here, samuel," replied mrs. weller. "oh, that's it, is it?" said sam. "i was afeerd, from his manner, that he might a' forgotten to take pepper with that 'ere last cowcumber he eat. set down, sir, ve make no extra charge for the settin' down, as the king remarked ven he blowed up his ministers." "young man," said mr. stiggins ostentatiously, "i fear you are not softened by imprisonment." "beg your pardon, sir," replied sam; "wot wos you graciously pleased to hobserve?" "i apprehend, young man, that your nature is no softer for this chastening," said mr. stiggins, in a loud voice. "sir," replied sam, "you're wery kind to say so. i hope my natur is _not_ a soft vun, sir. wery much obliged to you for your good opinion, sir." at this point of the conversation, a sound, indecorously approaching to a laugh, was heard to proceed from the chair in which the elder mr. weller was seated; upon which mrs. weller, on a hasty consideration of all the circumstances of the case, considered it her bounden duty to become gradually hysterical. "weller," said mrs. w. (the old gentleman was seated in a corner); "weller! come forth." "wery much obleeged to you, my dear," replied mr. weller; "but i'm quite comfortable vere i am." upon this mrs. weller burst into tears. "wot's gone wrong, mum?" said sam. "oh, samuel!" replied mrs. weller, "your father makes me wretched. will nothing do him good?" "do you hear this here?" said sam. "lady wants to know vether nothin' 'ull do you good." "wery much indebted to mrs. weller for her po-lite inquiries, sammy," replied the old gentleman. "i think a pipe vould benefit me a good deal. could i be accommodated, sammy?" here mrs. weller let fall some more tears, and mr. stiggins groaned. "hallo! here's this unfort'nate gen'l'm'n took ill agin," said sam, looking round. "vere do you feel it now, sir?" "in the same place, young man," rejoined mr. stiggins: "in the same place." "vere may that be, sir?" inquired sam, with great outward simplicity. "in the buzzim, young man," replied mr. stiggins, placing his umbrella on his waistcoat. at this affecting reply, mrs. weller, being wholly unable to suppress her feelings, sobbed aloud, and stated her conviction that the red-nosed man was a saint; whereupon mr. weller senior ventured to suggest, in an undertone, that he must be the representative of the united parishes of st. simon without and st. walker within. "i'm afeerd, mum," said sam, "that this here gen'l'm'n, with the twist in his countenance, feels rayther thirsty, with the melancholy spectacle afore him. is it the case, mum?" the worthy lady looked at mr. stiggins for a reply; that gentleman, with many rollings of the eye, clenched his throat with his right hand, and mimicked the act of swallowing, to intimate that he was athirst. "i am afraid, samuel, that his feelings have made him so, indeed," said mrs. weller, mournfully. "wot's your usual tap, sir?" replied sam. "oh, my dear young friend," replied mr. stiggins, "all taps is vanities!" "too true, too true, indeed," said mrs. weller, murmuring a groan, and shaking her head assentingly. "well," said sam, "i des-say they may be, sir; but which is your partickler wanity? vich wanity do you like the flavour on best, sir?" "oh, my dear young friend," replied mr. stiggins, "i despise them all. if," said mr. stiggins, "if there is any one of them less odious than another, it is the liquor called rum. warm, my dear young friend, with three lumps of sugar to the tumbler." "wery sorry to say, sir," said sam, "that they don't allow that partickler wanity to be sold in this here establishment." "oh, the hardness of heart of these inveterate men!" ejaculated mr. stiggins. "oh, the accursed cruelty of these inhuman persecutors!" with these words mr. stiggins again cast up his eyes, and rapped his breast with his umbrella; and it is but justice to the reverend gentleman to say, that his indignation appeared very real and unfeigned indeed. after mrs. weller and the red-nosed gentleman had commented on this inhuman usage in a very forcible manner, and had vented a variety of pious and holy execrations against its authors, the latter recommended a bottle of port wine, warmed with a little water, spice, and sugar, as being grateful to the stomach, and savouring less of vanity than many other compounds. it was accordingly ordered to be prepared. pending its preparation the red-nosed man and mrs. weller looked at the elder w. and groaned. "well, sammy," said that gentleman, "i hope you'll find your spirits rose by this here lively wisit. wery cheerful and improvin' conwersation, ain't it, sammy?" "you're a reprobate," replied sam; "and i desire you won't address no more o' them ungraceful remarks to me." so far from being edified by this very proper reply, the elder mr. weller at once relapsed into a broad grin; and this inexorable conduct causing the lady and mr. stiggins to close their eyes, and rock themselves to and fro on their chairs in a troubled manner, he furthermore indulged in several acts of pantomime, indicative of a desire to pummel and wring the nose of the aforesaid stiggins; the performance of which appeared to afford him great mental relief. the old gentleman very narrowly escaped detection in one instance: mr. stiggins happening to give a start on the arrival of the negus, brought his head in smart contact with the clenched fist with which mr. weller had been describing imaginary fireworks in the air, within two inches of his ear, for some minutes. "wot are you a reachin' out your hand for the tumbler in that 'ere sawage way for?" said sam, with great promptitude. "don't you see you've hit the gen'l'm'n?" "i didn't go to do it, sammy," said mr. weller, in some degree abashed by the very unexpected occurrence of the incident. "try an in'ard application, sir," said sam, as the red-nosed gentleman rubbed his head with a rueful visage. "wot do you think o' that, for a go o' wanity warm, sir?" mr. stiggins made no verbal answer, but his manner was expressive. he tasted the contents of the glass which sam had placed in his hand; put his umbrella on the floor, and tasted it again: passing his hand placidly across his stomach twice or thrice; he then drank the whole at a breath, and smacking his lips, held out the tumbler for more. nor was mrs. weller behind-hand in doing justice to the composition. the good lady began by protesting that she couldn't touch a drop--then took a small drop--then a large drop--then a great many drops; and her feelings being of the nature of those substances which are powerfully affected by the application of strong waters, she dropped a tear with every drop of negus, and so got on, melting the feelings down, until at length she had arrived at a very pathetic and decent pitch of misery. the elder mr. weller observed these signs and tokens with many manifestations of disgust, and when, after a second jug of the same, mr. stiggins began to sigh in a dismal manner, he plainly evinced his disapprobation of the whole proceedings, by sundry incoherent ramblings of speech, among which frequent angry repetitions of the word "gammon" were alone distinguishable to the ear. "i'll tell you wot it is, samivel, my boy," whispered the old gentleman into his son's ear, after a long and steadfast contemplation of his lady and mr. stiggins; "i think there must be somethin' wrong in your mother-in-law's inside, as vell as in that o' the red-nosed man." "wot do you mean?" said sam. "i mean this here, sammy," replied the old gentleman, "that wot they drink don't seem no nourishment to 'em; it all turns to warm water, and comes a pourin' out o' their eyes. 'pend upon it, sammy, it's a constitootional infirmity." mr. weller delivered this scientific opinion with many confirmatory frowns and nods; which mrs. weller remarking, and concluding that they bore some disparaging reference either to herself or to mr. stiggins, or to both, was on the point of becoming infinitely worse, when mr. stiggins, getting on his legs as well as he could, proceeded to deliver an edifying discourse for the benefit of the company, but more especially of mr. samuel, whom he adjured in moving terms to be upon his guard in that sink of iniquity into which he was cast; to abstain from all hypocrisy and pride of heart; and to take in all things exact pattern and copy by him (stiggins), in which case he might calculate on arriving, sooner or later, at the comfortable conclusion that, like him, he was a most estimable and blameless character, and that all his acquaintance and friends were hopelessly abandoned and profligate wretches. which consideration, he said, could not but afford him the liveliest satisfaction. he furthermore conjured him to avoid, above all things, the vice of intoxication, which he likened unto the filthy habits of swine, and to those poisonous and baleful drugs which, being chewed in the mouth, are said to filch away the memory. at this point of his discourse, the reverend and red-nosed gentleman became singularly incoherent, and staggering to and fro in the excitement of his eloquence, was fain to catch at the back of a chair to preserve his perpendicular. mr. stiggins did not desire his hearers to be upon their guard against those false prophets and wretched mockers of religion, who, without sense to expound its first doctrines, or hearts to feel its first principles, are more dangerous members of society than the common criminal; imposing, as they necessarily do, upon the weakest and worst informed, casting scorn and contempt on what should be held most sacred, and bringing into partial disrepute large bodies of virtuous and well-conducted persons of many excellent sects and persuasions. but as he leant over the back of the chair for a considerable time, and closing one eye, winked a good deal with the other, it is presumed that he thought all this, but kept it to himself. during the delivery of the oration, mrs. weller sobbed and wept at the end of the paragraphs; while sam, sitting cross-legged on a chair and resting his arms on the top-rail, regarded the speaker with great suavity and blandness of demeanour; occasionally bestowing a look of recognition on the old gentleman, who was delighted at the beginning, and went to sleep about half-way. "brayvo; wery pretty!" said sam, when the red-nosed man, having finished, pulled his worn gloves on: thereby thrusting his fingers through the broken tops till the knuckles were disclosed to view. "wery pretty." "i hope it may do you good, samuel," said mrs. weller, solemnly. "i think it vill, mum," replied sam. "i wish i could hope that it would do your father good," said mrs. weller. "thankee, my dear," said mr. weller senior. "how do _you_ find yourself arter it, my love?" "scoffer!" exclaimed mrs. weller. "benighted man!" said the reverend mr. stiggins. "if i don't get no better light than that 'ere moonshine o' yourn, my worthy creetur," said the elder mr. weller, "it's wery likely as i shall continey to be a night coach till i'm took off the road altogether. now, mrs. we, if the piebald stands at livery much longer, he'll stand at nothing as we go back, and p'r'aps that 'ere harm-cheer 'ull be tipped over into some hedge or another, with the shepherd in it." at this supposition, the reverend mr. stiggins, in evident consternation, gathered up his hat and umbrella, and proposed an immediate departure, to which mrs. weller assented. sam walked with them to the lodge-gate, and took a dutiful leave. "a-do, samivel," said the old gentleman. "wot's a-do?" inquired sammy. "well, good-bye, then," said the old gentleman. "oh, that's wot you're a aimin' at, is it?" said sam. "good-bye!" "sammy," whispered mr. weller, looking cautiously round; "my duty to your gov'ner, and tell him if he thinks better o' this here bis'ness, to commoonicate vith me. me and a cab'net-maker has devised a plan for gettin' him out. a pianner, samivel, a pianner!" said mr. weller, striking his son on the chest with the back of his hand, and falling back a step or two. "wot do you mean?" said sam. "a pianner forty, samivel," rejoined mr. weller, in a still more mysterious manner, "as we can have on hire; vun as von't play, sammy." "and wot 'ud be the good o' that?" said sam. "let him send to my friend, the cab'net-maker, to fetch it back, sammy," replied mr. weller. "are you avake now?" "no," rejoined sam. "there ain't no vurks in it," whispered his father. "it 'ull hold him easy, vith his hat and shoes on, and breathe through the legs, vich his holler. have a passage ready taken for 'merriker. the 'merrikin gov'ment will never give him up, ven they find as he's got money to spend, sammy. let the gov'ner stop there, till mrs. bardell's dead, or mr. dodson and fogg's hung (which last ewent i think is the most likely to happen first, sammy), and then let him come back and write a book about the 'merrikins, as'll pay all his expenses and more, if he blows 'em up enough." mr. weller delivered this hurried abstract of his plot with great vehemence of whisper; then, as if fearful of weakening the effect of the tremendous communication, by any further dialogue, he gave the coachman's salute, and vanished. sam had scarcely recovered his usual composure of countenance, which had been greatly disturbed by the secret communication of his respected relative, when mr. pickwick accosted him. "sam," said that gentleman. "sir?" replied mr. weller. "i am going for a walk round the prison, and i wish you to attend me. i see a prisoner we know coming this way, sam," said mr. pickwick, smiling. "wich, sir?" inquired mr. weller; "the gen'l'm'n vith the head o' hair, or the interestin' captive in the stockin's?" "neither," rejoined mr. pickwick. "he is an older friend of yours, sam." "o' mine, sir?" exclaimed mr. weller. "you recollect the gentleman very well, i dare say, sam," replied mr. pickwick, "or else you are more unmindful of your old acquaintances than i think you are. hush! not a word, sam; not a syllable. here he is." as mr. pickwick spoke, jingle walked up. he looked less miserable than before, being clad in a half-worn suit of clothes, which, with mr. pickwick's assistance, had been released from the pawnbroker's. he wore clean linen too, and had had his hair cut. he was very pale and thin, however; and as he crept slowly up, leaning on a stick, it was easy to see that he had suffered severely from illness and want, and was still very weak. he took off his hat as mr. pickwick saluted him, and seemed much humbled and abashed at sight of sam weller. following close at his heels, came mr. job trotter, in the catalogue of whose vices, want of faith and attachment to his companion could at all events find no place. he was still ragged and squalid, but his face was not quite so hollow as on his first meeting with mr. pickwick a few days before. as he took off his hat to our benevolent old friend, he murmured some broken expressions of gratitude, and muttered something about having been saved from starving. "well, well," said mr. pickwick, impatiently interrupting him, "you can follow with sam. i want to speak to you, mr. jingle. can you walk without his arm?" "certainly, sir--all ready--not too fast--legs--shaky--head queer round and round--earthquaky sort of feeling--very." "here, give me your arm," said mr. pickwick. "no, no," replied jingle; "won't indeed--rather not." "nonsense," said mr. pickwick; "lean upon me, i desire, sir." seeing that he was confused and agitated, and uncertain what to do, mr. pickwick cut the matter short by drawing the invalided stroller's arm through his, and leading him away, without saying another word about it. during the whole of this time, the countenance of mr. samuel weller had exhibited an expression of the most overwhelming and absorbing astonishment that the imagination can portray. after looking from job to jingle, and from jingle to job, in profound silence, he softly ejaculated the words, "well, i _am_ damn'd!" which he repeated at least a score of times: after which exertion, he appeared wholly bereft of speech, and again cast his eyes, first upon the one and then upon the other, in mute perplexity and bewilderment. "now, sam!" said mr. pickwick, looking back. "i'm a comin', sir," replied mr. weller, mechanically following his master; and still he lifted not his eyes from mr. job trotter, who walked at his side, in silence. job kept his eyes fixed on the ground for some time. sam, with his glued to job's countenance, ran up against the people who were walking about, and fell over little children, and stumbled against steps and railings, without appearing at all sensible of it, until job, looking stealthily up, said: "how do you do, mr. weller?" "it _is_ him!" exclaimed sam: and having established job's identity beyond all doubt, he smote his leg, and vented his feelings in a long shrill whistle. "things has altered with me, sir," said job. "i should think they had," exclaimed mr. weller, surveying his companion's rags with undisguised wonder. "this is rayther a change for the worse, mr. trotter, as the gen'l'm'n said wen he got two doubtful shillin's and sixpenn'orth o' pocket pieces for a good half-crown." "it is indeed," replied job, shaking his head. "there is no deception now, mr. weller. tears," said job, with a look of momentary slyness, "tears are not the only proofs of distress, nor the best ones." "no, they ain't," replied sam, expressively. "they may be put on, mr. weller," said job. "i know they may," said sam; "some people, indeed, has 'em always ready laid on, and can pull out the plug wenever they likes." "yes," replied job; "but _these_ sort of things are not so easily counterfeited, mr. weller, and it is a more painful process to get them up." as he spoke, he pointed to his sallow, sunken cheeks, and, drawing up his coat sleeves, disclosed an arm which looked as if the bone could be broken at a touch: so sharp and brittle did it appear beneath its thin covering of flesh. "wot have you been a doin' to yourself?" said sam, recoiling. "nothing," replied job. "nothin'!" echoed sam. "i have been doin' nothing for many weeks past," said job; "and eating and drinking almost as little." sam took one comprehensive glance at mr. trotter's thin face and wretched apparel; and then, seizing him by the arm, commenced dragging him away with great violence. "where are you going, mr. weller?" said job, vainly struggling in the powerful grasp of his old enemy. "come on," said sam; "come on!" he deigned no further explanation until they reached the tap; and then called for a pot of porter which was speedily produced. "now," said sam, "drink that up, ev'ry drop on it, and then turn the pot upside down, to let me see as you've took the med'cine." "but, my dear mr. weller," remonstrated job. "down vith it!" said sam peremptorily. thus admonished, mr. trotter raised the pot to his lips, and, by gentle and almost imperceptible degrees, tilted it into the air. he paused once, and only once, to draw a long breath, but without raising his face from the vessel, which, in a few moments thereafter, he held out at arm's length, bottom upward. nothing fell upon the ground but a few particles of froth, which slowly detached themselves from the rim, and trickled lazily down. "well done!" said sam. "how do you find yourself arter it?" "better, sir. i think i am better," responded job. "o' course you air," said sam, argumentatively. "it's like puttin' gas in a balloon. i can see with the naked eye that you gets stouter under the operation. wot do you say to another o' the same di-mensions?" "i would rather not, i am much obliged to you, sir," replied job, "much rather not." "vell then, wot do you say to some wittles?" inquired sam. "thanks to your worthy governor, sir," said mr. trotter, "we have half a leg of mutton, baked, at a quarter before three, with the potatoes under it to save boiling." "wot! has _he_ been a purwidin' for you?" asked sam emphatically. "he has, sir," replied job. "more than that, mr. weller; my master being very ill, he got us a room--we were in a kennel before--and paid for it, sir; and come to look at us, at night, when nobody should know. mr. weller," said job, with real tears in his eyes for once, "i could serve that gentleman till i fell down dead at his feet." "i say!" said sam, "i'll trouble you, my friend! none o' that!" job trotter looked amazed. "none o' that, i say, young feller," repeated sam firmly. "no man serves him but me. and now we're upon it, i'll let you into another secret besides that," said sam, as he paid for the beer. "i never heerd, mind you, nor read of it in story-books, nor see in picters, any angel in tights and gaiters--not even in spectacles, as i remember, though that may ha' been done for anythin' i know to the contrairey--but mark my vords, job trotter, he's a reg'lar thorough-bred angel for all that; and let me see the man as wenturs to tell me he knows a better vun." with this defiance, mr. weller buttoned up his change in a side pocket, and, with many confirmatory nods and gestures by the way, proceeded in search of the subject of discourse. they found mr. pickwick, in company with jingle, talking very earnestly, and not bestowing a look on the groups who were congregated on the racket-ground; they were very motley groups too, and worth the looking at if it were only in idle curiosity. "well," said mr. pickwick, as sam and his companion drew nigh, "you will see how your health becomes, and think about it meanwhile. make the statement out for me when you feel yourself equal to the task, and i will discuss the subject with you when i have considered it. now, go to your room. you are tired, and not strong enough to be out long." mr. alfred jingle, without one spark of his old animation--with nothing even of the dismal gaiety which he had assumed when mr. pickwick first stumbled on him in his misery--bowed low without speaking, and, motioning to job not to follow him just yet, crept slowly away. "curious scene this, is it not, sam?" said mr. pickwick, looking good-humouredly round. "wery much so, sir," replied sam. "wonders 'ull never cease," added sam, speaking to himself. "i'm wery much mistaken if that 'ere jingle worn't a doin' somethin' in the water-cart way!" the area formed by the wall in that part of the fleet in which mr. pickwick stood was just wide enough to make a good racket-court; one side being formed, of course, by the wall itself, and the other by that portion of the prison which looked (or rather would have looked, but for the wall) towards st. paul's cathedral. sauntering or sitting about, in every possible attitude of listless idleness, were a great number of debtors, the major part of whom were waiting in prison until their day of "going up" before the insolvent court should arrive; while others had been remanded for various terms, which they were idling away as they best could. some were shabby, some were smart, many dirty, a few clean; but there they all lounged, and loitered, and slunk about, with as little spirit or purpose as the beasts in a menagerie. lolling from the windows which commanded a view of this promenade, were a number of persons, some in noisy conversation with their acquaintance below, others playing at ball with some adventurous throwers outside, others looking on at the racket-players, or watching the boys as they cried the game. dirty, slipshod women passed and re-passed on their way to the cooking-house in one corner of the yard; children screamed, and fought, and played together, in another; the tumbling of the skittles, and the shouts of the players, mingled perpetually with these and a hundred other sounds; and all was noise and tumult--save in a little miserable shed a few yards off, where lay, all quiet and ghastly, the body of the chancery prisoner who had died the night before, awaiting the mockery of an inquest. the body! it is the lawyer's term for the restless whirling mass of cares and anxieties, affections, hopes, and griefs, that make up the living man. the law _had_ his body; and there it lay, clothed in grave-clothes, an awful witness to its tender mercy. "would you like to see a whistling-shop, sir?" inquired job trotter. "what do you mean?" was mr. pickwick's counter inquiry. "a vistlin' shop, sir," interposed mr. weller. "what is that, sam? a bird-fancier's?" inquired mr. pickwick. "bless your heart, no, sir," replied job; "a whistling-shop, sir, is where they sell spirits." mr. job trotter briefly explained here that all persons being prohibited under heavy penalties from conveying spirits into debtors' prisons, and such commodities being highly prized by the ladies and gentlemen confined therein, it had occurred to some speculative turnkey to connive, for certain lucrative considerations, at two or three prisoners retailing the favourite article of gin, for their own profit and advantage. "this plan you see, sir, has been gradually introduced into all the prisons for debt," said mr. trotter. "and it has this wery great advantage," said sam, "that the turnkeys takes wery good care to seize hold o' ev'rybody but them as pays 'em, that attempts the willainy, and ven it gets in the papers they're applauded for their wigilance; so it cuts two ways--frightens other people from the trade, and elewates their own characters." "exactly so, mr. weller," observed job. "well, but are these rooms never searched to ascertain whether any spirits are concealed in them?" said mr. pickwick. "cert'nly they are, sir," replied sam; "but the turnkeys knows beforehand, and gives the word to the wistlers, and you _may_ whistle for it ven you go to look." by this time, job had tapped at a door, which was opened by a gentleman with an uncombed head, who bolted it after them when they had walked in, and grinned; upon which job grinned, and sam also; whereupon mr. pickwick, thinking it might be expected of him, kept on smiling to the end of the interview. the gentleman with the uncombed head appeared quite satisfied with this mute announcement of their business, and, producing a flat stone bottle, which might hold about a couple of quarts, from beneath his bedstead, filled out three glasses of gin, which job trotter and sam disposed of in a most workmanlike manner. "any more?" said the whistling gentleman. "no more," replied job trotter. mr. pickwick paid, the door was unbolted, and out they came; the uncombed gentleman bestowing a friendly nod upon mr. roker, who happened to be passing at the moment. from this spot, mr. pickwick wandered along all the galleries, up and down all the staircases, and once again round the whole area of the yard. the great body of the prison population appeared to be mivins, and smangle, and the parson, and the butcher, and the leg, over and over, and over again. there were the same squalor, the same turmoil and noise, the same general characteristics, in every corner; in the best and the worst alike. the whole place seemed restless and troubled; and the people were crowding and flitting to and fro, like the shadows in an uneasy dream. "i have seen enough," said mr. pickwick, as he threw himself into a chair in his little compartment. "my head aches with these scenes, and my heart too. henceforth i will be a prisoner in my own room." and mr. pickwick steadfastly adhered to this determination. for three long months he remained shut up, all day; only stealing out at night, to breathe the air, when the greater part of his fellow-prisoners were in bed or carousing in their rooms. his health was beginning to suffer from the closeness of the confinement, but neither the often-repeated entreaties of perker and his friends, nor the still more frequently-repeated warnings and admonitions of mr. samuel weller, could induce him to alter one jot of his inflexible resolution. chapter xviii [illustration] _records a touching act of delicate feeling, not unmixed with pleasantry, achieved and performed by messrs. dodson and fogg_ it was within a week of the close of the month of july, that a hackney cabriolet, number unrecorded, was seen to proceed at a rapid pace up goswell street; three people were squeezed into it besides the driver, who sat in his own particular little dickey at the side; over the apron were hung two shawls, belonging to two small vixenish-looking ladies under the apron; between whom, compressed into a very small compass, was stowed away a gentleman of heavy and subdued demeanour, who, whenever he ventured to make an observation, was snapped up short by one of the vixenish ladies before-mentioned. lastly, the two vixenish ladies and the heavy gentleman were giving the driver contradictory directions, all tending to the one point that he should stop at mrs. bardell's door; which the heavy gentleman, in direct opposition to, and defiance of, the vixenish ladies, contended was a green door and not a yellow one. "stop at the house with the green door, driver," said the heavy gentleman. "oh! you perwerse creetur!" exclaimed one of the vixenish ladies. "drive to the 'ouse with the yellow door, cabmin." upon this, the cabman, who in a sudden effort to pull up at the house with the green door had pulled the horse up so high that he nearly pulled him backward into the cabriolet, let the animal's fore-legs down to the ground again, and paused. "now vere am i to pull up?" inquired the driver. "settle it among yourselves. all i ask is, vere?" here the contest was renewed with increased violence; and the horse being troubled with a fly on his nose, the cabman humanely employed his leisure in lashing him about on the head, on the counter-irritation principle. "most wotes carries the day!" said one of the vixenish ladies at length. "the 'ouse with the yellow door, cabmin." but after the cabriolet had dashed up, in splendid style, to the house with the yellow door: "making," as one of the vixenish ladies triumphantly said, "acterrally more noise than if one had come in one's own carriage"--and after the driver had dismounted to assist the ladies in getting out--the small round head of master thomas bardell was thrust out of the one pair window of a house with a red door, a few numbers off. "aggrawatin' thing!" said the vixenish lady last mentioned, darting a withering glance at the heavy gentleman. "my dear, it's not my fault," said the gentleman. "don't talk to me, you creetur, don't," retorted the lady. "the house with the red door, cabmin. oh! if ever a woman was troubled with a ruffinly creetur, that takes a pride and pleasure in disgracing his wife on every possible occasion afore strangers, i am that woman!" "you ought to be ashamed of yourself, raddle," said the other little woman, who was no other than mrs. cluppins. "what have i been a doing of?" asked mr. raddle. "don't talk to me, don't, you brute, for fear i should be perwoked to forgit my sect and strike you!" said mrs. raddle. while this dialogue was going on, the driver was most ignominiously leading the horse, by the bridle, up to the house with the red door, which master bardell had already opened. here was a mean and low way of arriving at a friend's house! no dashing up, with all the fire and fury of the animal; no jumping down of the driver; no loud knocking at the door; no opening of the apron with a crash at the very last moment, for fear of the ladies sitting in a draught; and then the man handing the shawls out, afterwards, as if he were a private coachman! the whole edge of the thing had been taken off; it was flatter than walking. "well, tommy," said mrs. cluppins, "how's your poor dear mother?" "oh, she's very well," replied master bardell. "she's in the front parlour, all ready. i'm ready too, i am." here master bardell put his hands in his pockets, and jumped off and on the bottom step of the door. "is anybody else a goin', tommy?" said mrs. cluppins, arranging her pelerine. "mrs. sanders is going, she is," replied tommy. "i'm going too, i am." "drat the boy!" said little mrs. cluppins. "he thinks of nobody but himself. here, tommy, dear." "well?" said master bardell. "who else is a goin', lovey?" said mrs. cluppins in an insinuating manner. "oh! mrs. rogers is a goin'," replied master bardell, opening his eyes very wide as he delivered the intelligence. "what! the lady as has taken the lodgings?" ejaculated mrs. cluppins. master bardell put his hands deeper down into his pockets, and nodded exactly thirty-five times, to imply that it was the lady lodger, and no other. "bless us!" said mrs. cluppins. "it's quite a party!" "ah, if you knew what was in the cupboard, you'd say so," replied master bardell. "what is there, tommy?" said mrs. cluppins, coaxingly. "you'll tell _me_, tommy, i know." "no, i won't," replied master bardell, shaking his head, and applying himself to the bottom step again. "drat the child!" muttered mrs. cluppins. "what a prowokin' little wretch it is! come, tommy, tell your dear cluppy." "mother said i wasn't to," rejoined master bardell. "i'm a goin' to have some, i am." cheered by this prospect, the precocious boy applied himself to his infantile treadmill with increased vigour. the above examination of a child of tender years took place while mr. and mrs. raddle and the cab-driver were having an altercation concerning the fare: which, terminating at this point in favour of the cabman, mrs. raddle came up tottering. "lauk, mary ann! what's the matter?" said mrs. cluppins. "it's put me all over in such a tremble, betsy," replied mrs. raddle. "raddle ain't like a man; he leaves everythink to me." this was scarcely fair upon the unfortunate mr. raddle, who had been thrust aside by his good lady in the commencement of the dispute, and peremptorily commanded to hold his tongue. he had no opportunity of defending himself, however, for mrs. raddle gave unequivocal signs of fainting; which being perceived from the parlour window, mrs. bardell, mrs. sanders, the lodger, and the lodger's servant, darted precipitately out, and conveyed her into the house: all talking at the same time, and giving utterance to various expressions of pity and condolence, as if she were one of the most suffering mortals on earth. being conveyed into the front parlour, she was there deposited on a sofa; and the lady from the first floor running up _to_ the first floor, returned with a bottle of sal volatile, which, holding mrs. raddle tight round the neck, she applied in all womanly kindness and pity to her nose, until that lady with many plunges and struggles was fain to declare herself decidedly better. "ah, poor thing!" said mrs. rogers, "i know what her feelin's is, too well." "ah, poor thing! so do i," said mrs. sanders: and then all the ladies moaned in unison, and said they knew what it was, and they pitied her from their hearts, they did. even the lodger's little servant, who was thirteen years old, and three feet high, murmured her sympathy. "but what's been the matter?" said mrs. bardell. "ah, what has decomposed you, ma'am?" inquired mrs. rogers. "i have been a good deal flurried," replied mrs. raddle, in a reproachful manner. thereupon the ladies cast indignant looks at mr. raddle. "why, the fact is," said that unhappy gentleman, stepping forward, "when we alighted at this door, a dispute arose with the driver of the cabrioily----" a loud scream from his wife, at the mention of this word, rendered all further explanation inaudible. "you'd better leave us to bring her round, raddle," said mrs. cluppins. "she'll never get better as long as you're here." all the ladies concurred in this opinion; so mr. raddle was pushed out of the room, and requested to give himself an airing in the back yard. which he did for about a quarter of an hour, when mrs. bardell announced to him with a solemn face that he might come in now, but that he must be very careful how he behaved towards his wife. she knew he didn't mean to be unkind; but mary ann was very far from strong, and, if he didn't take care, he might lose her when he least expected it, which would be a very dreadful reflection for him afterwards; and so on. all this mr. raddle heard with great submission, and presently returned to the parlour in a most lamb-like manner. "why, mrs. roger, ma'am," said mrs. bardell, "you've never been introduced, i declare! mr. raddle, ma'am; mrs. cluppins, ma'am; mrs. raddle, ma'am." "which is mrs. cluppins's sister," suggested mrs. sanders. "oh, indeed!" said mrs. rogers, graciously; for she was the lodger, and her servant was in waiting, so she was more gracious than intimate, in right of her position. "oh, indeed!" mrs. raddle smiled sweetly, mr. raddle bowed, and mrs. cluppins said "she was sure she was very happy to have a opportunity of being known to a lady which she had heerd so much in favour of, as mrs. rogers." a compliment which the last-named lady acknowledged with graceful condescension. "well, mr. raddle," said mrs. bardell; "i'm sure you ought to feel very much honoured at you and tommy being the only gentlemen to escort so many ladies all the way to the spaniards, at hampstead. don't you think he ought, mrs. rogers, ma'am?" "oh, certainly, ma'am," said mrs. rogers; after whom all the other ladies responded "oh, certainly." "of course i feel it, ma'am," said mr. raddle, rubbing his hands, and evincing a slight tendency to brighten up a little. "indeed, to tell you the truth, i said, as we was a coming along in the cabrioily----" at the recapitulation of the word which awakened so many painful recollections, mrs. raddle applied her handkerchief to her eyes again, and uttered a half-suppressed scream; so mrs. bardell frowned upon mr. raddle, to intimate that he had better not say anything more, and desired mrs. rogers's servant, with an air, to "put on the wine." this was the signal for displaying the hidden treasures of the closet, which comprised sundry plates of oranges and biscuits, and a bottle of old crusted port--that at one and nine--with another of the celebrated east india sherry at fourteen-pence, which were all produced in honour of the lodger, and afforded unlimited satisfaction to everybody. after great consternation had been excited in the mind of mrs. cluppins, by an attempt on the part of tommy to recount how he had been cross-examined regarding the cupboard then in action (which was fortunately nipped in the bud by his imbibing half a glass of the old crusted "the wrong way," and thereby endangering his life for some seconds), the party walked forth in quest of a hampstead stage. this was soon found, and in a couple of hours they all arrived safely in the spaniards' tea-gardens, where the luckless mr. raddle's very first act nearly occasioned his good lady a relapse; it being neither more nor less than to order tea for seven, whereas (as the ladies one and all remarked), what could have been easier than for tommy to have drank out of anybody's cup--or everybody's, if that was all--when the waiter wasn't looking: which would have saved one head of tea, and the tea just as good! however, there was no help for it, and the tea-tray came, with seven cups and saucers, and bread and butter on the same scale. mrs. bardell was unanimously voted into the chair, and mrs rogers being stationed on her right hand, and mrs. raddle on her left, the meal proceeded with great merriment and success. "how sweet the country is, to be sure!" sighed mrs. rogers; "i almost wish i lived in it always." "oh, you wouldn't like that, ma'am," replied mrs. bardell, rather hastily; for it was not at all advisable, with reference to the lodgings, to encourage such notions; "you wouldn't like it, ma'am." "oh! i should think you was a deal too lively and sought-after to be content with the country, ma'am," said little mrs. cluppins. "perhaps i am, ma'am. perhaps i am," sighed the first-floor lodger. "for lone people as have got nobody to care for them, or take care of them, or as have been hurt in their mind, or that kind of thing," observed mr. raddle, plucking up a little cheerfulness, and looking round, "the country is all very well. the country for a wounded spirit, they say." now, of all the things in the world that the unfortunate man could have said, any would have been preferable to this. of course mrs. bardell burst into tears, and requested to be led from the table instantly; upon which the affectionate child began to cry too, most dismally. "would anybody believe, ma'am," exclaimed mrs. raddle, turning fiercely to the first-floor lodger, "that a woman could be married to such a unmanly creetur, which can tamper with a woman's feelings as he does, every hour in the day, ma'am?" "my dear," remonstrated mr. raddle, "i didn't mean anything, my dear." "you didn't mean!" repeated mrs. raddle, with great scorn and contempt. "go away. i can't bear the sight on you, you brute." "you must not flurry yourself, mary ann," interposed mrs. cluppins. "you really must consider yourself, my dear, which you never do. now go away, raddle, there's a good soul, or you'll only aggravate her." "you had better take your tea by yourself, sir, indeed," said mrs. rogers, again applying the smelling-bottle. mrs. sanders, who according to custom was very busy with the bread and butter, expressed the same opinion, and mr. raddle quietly retired. after this, there was a great hoisting up of master bardell, who was rather a large size for hugging, into his mother's arms: in which operation he got his boots in the tea-board, and occasioned some confusion among the cups and saucers. but that description of fainting fits, which is contagious among ladies, seldom lasts long; so when he had been well kissed and a little cried over, mrs. bardell recovered, set him down again, wondered how she could have been so foolish, and poured out some more tea. it was at this moment that the sound of approaching wheels was heard, and that the ladies, looking up, saw a hackney-coach stop at the garden-gate. "more company!" said mrs. sanders. "it's a gentleman," said mrs. raddle. "well, if it ain't mr. jackson, the young man from dodson and fogg's!" cried mrs. bardell. "why, gracious! surely mr. pickwick can't have paid the damages." "or hoffered marriage!" said mrs. cluppins. "dear me, how slow the gentleman is," exclaimed mrs. rogers: "why doesn't he make haste!" [illustration: _a shabby man in black leggings_] as the lady spoke these words, mr. jackson turned from the coach where he had been addressing some observations to a shabby man in black leggings, who had just emerged from the vehicle with a thick ash-stick in his hand, and made his way to the place where the ladies were seated; winding his hair round the brim of his hat as he came along. "is anything the matter? has anything taken place, mr. jackson?" said mrs. bardell, eagerly. "nothing whatever, ma'am," replied mr. jackson. "how de do, ladies? i have to ask pardon, ladies, for intruding--but the law, ladies, the law." with this apology mr. jackson smiled, made a comprehensive bow, and gave his hair another wind. mrs. rogers whispered mrs. raddle that he was really an elegant young man. "i called in goswell street," resumed jackson, "and hearing that you were here, from the slavey, took a coach and came on. our people want you down in the city directly, mrs. bardell." "lor!" ejaculated that lady, starting at the sudden nature of the communication. "yes," said jackson, biting his lips. "it's very important and pressing business which can't be postponed on any account. indeed, dodson expressly said so to me, and so did fogg. i've kept the coach on purpose for you to go back in." "how very strange!" exclaimed mrs. bardell. the ladies agreed that it _was_ very strange, but were unanimously of opinion that it must be very important, or dodson and fogg would never have sent; and further, that the business being urgent, she ought to repair to dodson and fogg's without any delay. there was a certain degree of pride and importance about being wanted by one's lawyers in such a monstrous hurry, that was by no means displeasing to mrs. bardell, especially as it might be reasonably supposed to enhance her consequence in the eyes of the first-floor lodger. she simpered a little, affected extreme vexation and hesitation, and at last arrived at the conclusion that she supposed she must go. "but won't you refresh yourself after your walk, mr. jackson?" said mrs. bardell, persuasively. "why, really there ain't much time to lose," replied jackson; "and i've got a friend here," he continued, looking towards the man with the ash stick. "oh, ask your friend to come here, sir," said mrs. bardell. "pray ask your friend here, sir." "why, thankee, i'd rather not," said mr. jackson, with some embarrassment of manner. "he's not much used to ladies' society, and it makes him bashful. if you'll order the waiter to deliver him anything short, he won't drink it off at once, won't he--only try him!" mr. jackson's fingers wandered playfully round his nose, at this portion of his discourse, to warn his hearers that he was speaking ironically. the waiter was at once despatched to the bashful gentleman, and the bashful gentleman took something; mr. jackson also took something, and the ladies took something, for hospitality's sake. mr. jackson then said he was afraid it was time to go; upon which, mrs. sanders, mrs. cluppins, and tommy (who it was arranged should accompany mrs. bardell: leaving the others to mr. raddle's protection), got into the coach. "isaac," said jackson, as mrs. bardell prepared to get in: looking up at the man with the ash stick, who was seated on the box, smoking a cigar. "well?" "_this_ is mrs. bardell." "oh, i knowed that long ago," said the man. mrs. bardell got in, mr. jackson got in after her, and away they drove. mrs. bardell could not help ruminating on what mr. jackson's friend had said. shrewd creatures, those lawyers. lord bless us, how they find people out! "sad thing about these costs of our people's, ain't it," said jackson, when mrs. cluppins and mrs. sanders had fallen asleep; "your bill of costs, i mean?" "i'm very sorry they can't get them," replied mrs. bardell. "but if you law-gentlemen do these things on speculation, why you must get a loss now and then, you know." "you gave them a _cognovit_ for the amount of your costs, after the trial, i'm told?" said jackson. "yes. just as a matter of form," replied mrs. bardell. "certainly," replied jackson, drily. "quite a matter of form. quite." on they drove, and mrs. bardell fell asleep. she was awakened, after some time, by the stopping of the coach. "bless us!" said the lady. "are we at freeman's court?" "we're not going quite so far," replied jackson. "have the goodness to step out." mrs. bardell, not yet thoroughly awake, complied. it was a curious place: a large wall, with a gate in the middle, and a gaslight burning inside. "now, ladies," cried the man with the ash stick, looking into the coach, and shaking mrs. sanders to wake her, "come!" rousing her friend, mrs. sanders alighted. mrs. bardell, leaning on jackson's arm, and leading tommy by the hand, had already entered the porch. they followed. the room they turned into was even more odd-looking than the porch. such a number of men standing about! and they stared so! "what place is this?" inquired mrs. bardell, pausing. "only one of our public offices," replied jackson, hurrying her through a door, and looking round to see that the other women were following. "look sharp, isaac!" "safe and sound," replied the man with the ash stick. the door swung heavily after them, and they descended a small flight of steps. "here we are at last. all right and tight, mrs. bardell!" said jackson, looking exultingly around. "what do you mean?" said mrs. bardell, with a palpitating heart. "just this," replied jackson, drawing her a little on one side; "don't be frightened, mrs. bardell. there never was a more delicate man than dodson, ma'am, or a more humane man than fogg. it was their duty, in the way of business, to take you in execution for them costs; but they were anxious to spare your feelings as much as they could. what a comfort it must be to you, to think how it's been done! this is the fleet, ma'am. wish you good night, mrs. bardell. good night, tommy!" as jackson hurried away, in company with the man with the ash stick, another man with a key in his hand, who had been looking on, led the bewildered female to a second short flight of steps leading to the doorway. mrs. bardell screamed violently; tommy roared; mrs. cluppins shrunk within herself; and mrs. sanders made off, without more ado. for, there stood the injured mr. pickwick, taking his nightly allowance of air; and beside him leant samuel weller, who, seeing mrs. bardell, took his hat off with mock reverence, while his master turned indignantly on his heel. "don't bother the woman," said the turnkey to weller: "she's just come in." "a pris'ner" said sam, quickly replacing his hat. "who's the plaintives? what for? speak up, old feller." "dodson and fogg," replied the man; "execution on cognovit for costs." "here job, job!" shouted sam, dashing into the passage. "run to mr. perker's, job. _i_ want him directly. i see some good in this. here's a game. hooray! vere's the gov'nor." but there was no reply to these inquiries, for job had started furiously off, the instant he received his commission, and mrs. bardell had fainted in real downright earnest. chapter xix [illustration] _is chiefly devoted to matters of business, and the temporal advantage of dodson and fogg. mr. winkle reappears under extraordinary circumstances. mr. pickwick's benevolence proves stranger than his obstinacy_ job trotter, abating nothing of his speed, ran up holborn: sometimes in the middle of the road, sometimes on the pavement, sometimes in the gutter, as the chances of getting along varied with the press of men, women, children, and coaches, in each division of the thoroughfare; regardless of all obstacles, he stopped not for an instant until he reached the gate of gray's inn. notwithstanding all the expedition he had used, however, the gate had been closed a good half-hour when he reached it, and by the time he had discovered mr. perker's laundress, who lived with a married daughter, who had bestowed her hand upon a non-resident waiter, who occupied the one-pair of some number in some street closely adjoining to some brewery somewhere behind gray's inn lane, it was within fifteen minutes of closing the prison for the night. mr. lowten had still to be ferreted out from the back parlour of the magpie and stump; and job had scarcely accomplished this object, and communicated sam weller's message, when the clock struck ten. "there," said lowten, "it's too late now. you can't get in to-night; you've got the key of the street, my friend." "never mind me," replied job. "i can sleep anywhere. but won't it be better to see mr. perker to-night, so that we may be there the first thing in the morning?" "why," responded lowten, after a little consideration, "if it was in anybody else's case, perker wouldn't be best pleased at my going up to his house; but as it's mr. pickwick's, i think i may venture to take a cab and charge it to the office." deciding on this line of conduct, mr. lowten took up his hat, and, begging the assembled company to appoint a deputy chairman during his temporary absence, led the way to the nearest coachstand. summoning the cab of most promising appearance, he directed the driver to repair to montague place, russell square. mr. perker had had a dinner party that day, as was testified by the appearance of lights in the drawing-room windows, the sound of an improved grand piano, and an improvable cabinet voice issuing therefrom, and a rather overpowering smell of meat which pervaded the steps and entry. in fact a couple of very good country agencies happening to come up to town, at the same time, an agreeable little party had been got together to meet them comprising mr. snicks the life office secretary, mr. prosee the eminent counsel, three solicitors, one commissioner of bankrupts, a special pleader from the temple, a small-eyed peremptory young gentleman his pupil, who had written a lively book about the law of demises, with a vast quantity of marginal notes and references; and several other eminent and distinguished personages. from this society, little mr. perker detached himself, on his clerk being announced in a whisper; and repairing to the dining-room, there found mr. lowten and job trotter looking very dim and shadowy by the light of a kitchen candle, which the gentleman who condescended to appear in plush shorts and cottons for a quarterly stipend, had, with a becoming contempt for the clerk and all things appertaining to "the office," placed upon the table. "now, lowten," said little mr. perker, shutting the door, "what's the matter? no important letter come in a parcel, is there?" "no, sir," replied lowten. "this is a messenger from mr. pickwick, sir." "from pickwick, eh?" said the little man, turning quickly to job. "well, what is it?" "dodson and fogg have taken mrs. bardell in execution for her costs, sir," said job. "no!" exclaimed perker, putting his hands in his pockets, and reclining against the sideboard. "yes," said job. "it seems they got a cognovit out of her, for the amount of 'em, directly after the trial." "by jove!" said perker, taking both hands out of his pockets, and striking the knuckles of his right against the palm of his left, emphatically, "those are the cleverest scamps i ever had anything to do with!" "the sharpest practitioners _i_ ever knew, sir," observed lowten. "sharp!" echoed perker. "there's no knowing where to have them." "very true, sir, there is not," replied lowten; and then, both master and man pondered for a few seconds, with animated countenances, as if they were reflecting upon one of the most beautiful and ingenious discoveries that the intellect of man had ever made. when they had in some measure recovered from their trance of admiration, job trotter discharged himself of the rest of his commission. perker nodded his head thoughtfully, and pulled out his watch. "at ten precisely, i will be there," said the little man. "sam is quite right. tell him so. will you take a glass of wine, lowten?" "no, thank you, sir." "you mean yes, i think," said the little man, turning to the sideboard for a decanter and glasses. as lowten _did_ mean yes, he said no more on the subject, but inquired of job, in an audible whisper, whether the portrait of perker which hung opposite the fireplace, wasn't a wonderful likeness, to which job of course replied that it was. the wine being by this time poured out, lowten drank to mrs. perker and the children, and job to perker. the gentleman in the plush shorts and cottons considering it no part of his duty to show the people from the office out, consistently declined to answer the bell, and they showed themselves out. the attorney betook himself to his drawing-room, the clerk to the magpie and stump, and job to covent garden market to spend the night in a vegetable basket. punctually at the appointed hour next morning, the good-humoured little attorney tapped at mr. pickwick's door, which was opened with great alacrity by sam weller. "mr. perker, sir," said sam, announcing the visitor to mr. pickwick, who was sitting at the window in a thoughtful attitude. "wery glad you've looked in accidentally, sir. i rather think the gov'ner wants to have a word and a half with you, sir." perker bestowed a look of intelligence on sam, intimating that he understood he was not to say he had been sent for: and beckoning him to approach, whispered briefly in his ear. "you don't mean that 'ere, sir?" said sam, starting back in excessive surprise. perker nodded and smiled. mr. samuel weller looked at the little lawyer, then at mr. pickwick, then at the ceiling, then at perker again; grinned, laughed outright, and, finally, catching up his hat from the carpet, without further explanation, disappeared. "what does this mean?" inquired mr. pickwick, looking at perker with astonishment. "what has put sam into this most extraordinary state?" "oh, nothing, nothing," replied perker. "come, my dear sir, draw up your chair to the table. i have a good deal to say to you." "what papers are those?" inquired mr. pickwick, as the little man deposited on the table a small bundle of documents tied with red tape. "the papers in bardell and pickwick," replied perker, undoing the knot with his teeth. mr. pickwick grated the legs of his chair against the ground; and throwing himself into it, folded his hands and looked sternly--if mr. pickwick ever could look sternly--at his legal friend. "you don't like to hear the name of the cause?" said the little man, still busying himself with the knot. "no, i do not indeed," replied mr. pickwick. "sorry for that," resumed perker, "because it will form the subject of our conversation." "i would rather that the subject should be never mentioned between us, perker," interposed mr. pickwick, hastily. "pooh, pooh, my dear sir," said the little man, untying the bundle, and glancing eagerly at mr. pickwick out of the corners of his eyes. "it must be mentioned. i have come on purpose. now, are you ready to hear what i have to say, my dear sir? no hurry; if you are not, i can wait. i have this morning's paper here. your time shall be mine. there!" hereupon, the little man threw one leg over the other, and made a show of beginning to read with great composure and application. "well, well," said mr. pickwick with a sigh, but softening into a smile at the same time. "say what you have to say; it's the old story, i suppose?" "with a difference, my dear sir; with a difference," rejoined perker, deliberately folding up the paper and putting it into his pocket again. "mrs. bardell, the plaintiff in the action, is within these walls, sir." "i know it," was mr. pickwick's reply. "very good," retorted perker. "and you know how she comes here, i suppose; i mean on what grounds, and at whose suit?" "yes; at least i have heard sam's account of the matter," said mr. pickwick, with affected carelessness. "sam's account of the matter," replied mr. perker, "is, i will venture to say, a perfectly correct one. well now, my dear sir, the first question i have to ask, is, whether this woman is to remain here?" "to remain here!" echoed mr. pickwick. "to remain here, my dear sir," rejoined perker, leaning back in his chair and looking steadily at his client. "how can you ask me?" said that gentleman. "it rests with dodson and fogg; you know that very well." "i know nothing of the kind," retorted perker, firmly. "it does _not_ rest with dodson and fogg; you know the men, my dear sir, as well as i do. it rest solely, wholly, and entirely with you." "with me!" ejaculated mr. pickwick, rising nervously from his chair, and reseating himself directly afterwards. the little man gave a double knock on the lid of his snuff-box, opened it, took a great pinch, shut it up again, and repeated the words, "with you." "i say, my dear sir," resumed the little man, who seemed to gather confidence from the snuff; "i say that her speedy liberation or perpetual imprisonment rests with you, and with you alone. hear me out, my dear sir, if you please, and do not be so very energetic, for it will only put you into a perspiration and do no good whatever. i say," continued perker, checking off each position on a different finger, as he laid it down; "i say that nobody but you can rescue her from this den of wretchedness; and that you can only do that, by paying the costs of this suit--both of plaintiff and defendant--into the hands of these freeman's court sharks. now pray be quiet, my dear sir." mr. pickwick, whose face had been undergoing most surprising changes during this speech, and who was evidently on the verge of a strong burst of indignation, calmed his wrath as well as he could. perker, strengthening his argumentative powers with another pinch of snuff, proceeded. "i have seen the woman, this morning. by paying the costs, you can obtain a full release and discharge from the damages; and further--this i know is a far greater object of consideration with you, my dear sir--a voluntary statement, under her hand, in the form of a letter to me, that this business was, from the very first, fomented, and encouraged, and brought about, by these men, dodson and fogg: that she deeply regrets ever having been the instrument of annoyance or injury to you; and that she entreats me to intercede with you, and implore your pardon." "if i pay her costs for her," said mr. pickwick, indignantly. "a valuable document, indeed!" "no '_if_' in the case, my dear sir," said perker, triumphantly. "there is the very letter i speak of. brought to my office by another woman at nine o'clock this morning, before i had set foot in this place, or held any communication with mrs. bardell, upon my honour." selecting the letter from the bundle, the little lawyer laid it at mr. pickwick's elbow, and took snuff for two consecutive minutes, without winking. "is this all you have to say to me?" inquired mr. pickwick, mildly. "not quite," replied perker. "i cannot undertake to say, at this moment, whether the wording of the cognovit, the nature of the ostensible consideration, and the proof we can get together about the whole conduct of the suit, will be sufficient to justify an indictment for conspiracy. i fear not, my dear sir; they are too clever for that, i doubt. i do mean to say, however, that the whole facts, taken together, will be sufficient to justify you, in the minds of all reasonable men. and now, my dear sir, i put it to you. this one hundred and fifty pounds, or whatever it may be--take it in round numbers--is nothing to you. a jury has decided against you; well, their verdict is wrong, but still they decided as they thought right, and it _is_ against you. you have now an opportunity, on easy terms, of placing yourself in a much higher position than you ever could, by remaining here; which would only be imputed, by people who didn't know you, to sheer dogged, wrongheaded, brutal obstinacy: nothing else, my dear sir, believe me. can you hesitate to avail yourself of it, when it restores you to your friends, your old pursuits, your health and amusements; when it liberates your faithful and attached servant, whom you otherwise doom to imprisonment for the whole of your life; and above all, when it enables you to take the very magnanimous revenge--which i know, my dear sir, is one after your own heart--of releasing this woman from a scene of misery and debauchery to which no man should ever be consigned, if i had my will, but the infliction of which on any woman, is even more frightful and barbarous. now i ask you, my dear sir, not only as your legal adviser, but as your very true friend, will you let slip the occasion of attaining all these objects, and doing all this good, for the paltry consideration of a few pounds finding their way into the pockets of a couple of rascals, to whom it makes no manner of difference, except that the more they gain, the more they'll seek, and so the sooner be led into some piece of knavery that must end in a crash? i have put these considerations to you, my dear sir, very feebly and imperfectly, but i ask you to think of them. turn them over in your mind as long as you please. i wait here most patiently for your answer." before mr. pickwick could reply; before mr. perker had taken one twentieth part of the snuff with which so unusually long an address imperatively required to be followed up; there was a low murmuring of voices outside, and then a hesitating knock at the door. "dear, dear," exclaimed mr. pickwick, who had been evidently roused by his friend's appeal; "what an annoyance that door is! who is that?" "me, sir," replied sam weller, putting in his head. "i can't speak to you just now, sam," said mr. pickwick. "i am engaged at this moment, sam." "beg your pardon, sir," rejoined mr. weller. "but here's a lady here, sir, as says she's somethin' wery partickler to disclose." "i can't see any lady," replied mr. pickwick, whose mind was filled with visions of mrs. bardell. "i vouldn't make too sure o' that, sir," urged mr. weller, shaking his head. "if you know'd who was near, sir, i rayther think you'd change your note. as the hawk remarked to himself with a cheerful laugh, ven he heard the robin redbreast a singin' round the corner." "who is it?" inquired mr. pickwick. "will you see her, sir?" asked mr. weller, holding the door in his hand as if he had some curious live animal on the other side. "i suppose i must," said mr. pickwick, looking at perker. "well then, all in to begin!" cried sam. "sound the gong, draw up the curtain, and enter the two con-spiraytors." as sam weller spoke, he threw the door open, and there rushed tumultuously into the room, mr. nathaniel winkle: leading after him by the hand, the identical young lady who at dingley dell had worn the boots with the fur round the tops, and who, now a very pleasing compound of blushes and confusion and lilac silk and a smart bonnet and a rich lace veil, looked prettier than ever. "miss arabella allen!" exclaimed mr. pickwick, rising from his chair. "no," replied mr. winkle, dropping on his knees, "mrs. winkle. pardon, my dear friend, pardon!" mr. pickwick could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses, and perhaps would not have done so, but for the corroborative testimony afforded by the smiling countenance of perker, and the bodily presence, in the background, of sam and the pretty housemaid, who appeared to contemplate the proceedings with the liveliest satisfaction. "oh, mr. pickwick!" said arabella, in a low voice, as if alarmed at the silence. "can you forgive my imprudence?" mr. pickwick returned no verbal response to this appeal; but he took off his spectacles in great haste, and seizing both the young lady's hands in his, kissed her a great number of times--perhaps a greater number than was absolutely necessary--and then, still retaining one of her hands, told mr. winkle he was an audacious young dog, and bade him get up. this, mr. winkle, who had been for some seconds scratching his nose with the brim of his hat, in a penitent manner, did; whereupon mr. pickwick slapped him on the back several times, and then shook hands heartily with perker, who, not to be behind-hand in the compliments of the occasion, saluted both the bride and the pretty housemaid with right good will, and, having wrung mr. winkle's hand most cordially, wound up his demonstrations of joy by taking snuff enough to set any half-dozen men, with ordinarily constructed noses, a sneezing for life. "why, my dear girl," said mr. pickwick, "how has all this come about? come! sit down and let me hear all. how well she looks, doesn't she, perker?" added mr. pickwick, surveying arabella's face with a look of as much pride and exultation, as if she had been his daughter. "delightful, my dear sir," replied the little man. "if i were not a married man myself, i should be disposed to envy you, you dog." thus expressing himself, the little lawyer gave mr. winkle a poke in the chest, which that gentleman reciprocated; after which they both laughed very loudly, but not so loudly as mr. samuel weller, who had just relieved his feelings by kissing the pretty housemaid, under cover of the cupboard-door. "i can never be grateful enough to you, sam, i am sure," said arabella, with the sweetest smile imaginable. "i shall not forget your exertions in the garden at clifton." "don't say nothin' wotever about it, ma'am," replied sam. "i only assisted natur', ma'am; as the doctor said to the boy's mother, arter he'd bled him to death." "mary, my dear, sit down," said mr. pickwick, cutting short these compliments. "now then; how long have you been married, eh?" arabella looked bashfully at her lord and master, who replied, "only three days." "only three days, eh?" said mr. pickwick. "why, what have you been doing these three months?" "ah, to be sure!" interposed perker; "come! account for this idleness. you see pickwick's only astonishment is, that it wasn't all over months ago." "why the fact is," replied mr. winkle, looking at his blushing young wife, "that i could not persuade bella to run away, for a long time. and when i had persuaded her, it was a long time more, before we could find an opportunity. mary had to give a month's warning too, before she could leave her place next door, and we couldn't possibly have done it without her assistance." "upon my word," exclaimed mr. pickwick, who by this time had resumed his spectacles, and was looking from arabella to winkle, and from winkle to arabella, with as much delight depicted in his countenance as warm-heartedness and kindly feeling can communicate to the human face: "upon my word! you seem to have been very systematic in your proceedings. and is your brother acquainted with all this, my dear?" "oh no, no," replied arabella, changing colour. "dear mr. pickwick, he must only know it from you--from your lips alone. he is so violent, so prejudiced, and has been so--so anxious in behalf of his friend, mr. sawyer," added arabella, looking down, "that i fear the consequences dreadfully." "ah, to be sure," said perker, gravely. "you must take the matter in hand for them, my dear sir. these young men will respect you, when they would listen to nobody else. you must prevent mischief, my dear sir. hot blood, hot blood." and the little man took a warning pinch, and shook his head doubtfully. "you forget, my love," said mr. pickwick, gently, "you forget that i am a prisoner." "no, indeed i do not, my dear sir," replied arabella. "i never have forgotten it. i have never ceased to think how great your sufferings must have been in this shocking place. but i hoped that what no consideration for yourself would induce you to do, a regard to our happiness might. if my brother hears of this, first, from you, i feel certain we shall be reconciled. he is my only relation in the world, mr. pickwick, and unless you plead for me i fear i have lost even him. i have done wrong, very, very wrong, i know." here poor arabella hid her face in her handkerchief, and wept bitterly. mr. pickwick's nature was a good deal worked upon by these same tears; but when mrs. winkle, drying her eyes, took to coaxing and entreating in the sweetest tones of a very sweet voice, he became particularly restless, and evidently undecided how to act. as was evinced by sundry nervous rubbings of his spectacle-glasses, nose, tights, head, and gaiters. taking advantage of these symptoms of indecision, mr. perker (to whom, it appeared, the young couple had driven straight that morning) urged with legal point and shrewdness that mr. winkle senior was still unacquainted with the important rise in life's flight of steps which his son had taken; that the future expectations of the said son depended entirely upon the said winkle senior continuing to regard him with undiminished feelings of affection and attachment, which it was very unlikely he would, if this great event were long kept a secret from him; that mr. pickwick, repairing to bristol to seek mr. allen, might, with equal reason, repair to birmingham to seek mr. winkle senior; lastly, that mr. winkle senior had good right and title to consider mr. pickwick as in some degree the guardian and adviser of his son, and that it consequently behoved that gentleman, and was indeed due to his personal character, to acquaint the aforesaid winkle senior personally, and by word of mouth, with the whole circumstances of the case, and with the share he had taken in the transaction. mr. tupman and mr. snodgrass arrived, most opportunely, in this stage of the pleadings, and as it was necessary to explain to them all that had occurred, together with the various reasons pro and con, the whole of the arguments were gone over again, after which everybody urged every argument in his own way, and at his own length. and at last mr. pickwick, fairly argued and remonstrated out of all his resolutions, and being in imminent danger of being argued and remonstrated out of his wits, caught arabella in his arms, and declaring that she was a very amiable creature, and that he didn't know how it was, but he had always been very fond of her from the first, said he could never find it in his heart to stand in the way of young people's happiness, and they might do with him as they pleased. mr. weller's first act, on hearing this concession, was to despatch job trotter to the illustrious mr. pell, with an authority to deliver to the bearer the formal discharge which his prudent parent had had the foresight to leave in the hands of that learned gentleman, in case it should be, at any time, required on an emergency; his next proceeding was, to invest his whole stock of ready money in the purchase of five-and-twenty gallons of mild porter: which he himself dispensed on the racket-ground to everybody who would partake of it; this done, he hurra'd in divers parts of the building until he lost his voice, and then quietly relapsed into his usual collected and philosophical condition. at three o'clock that afternoon, mr. pickwick took a last look at his little room, and made his way, as well as he could, through the throng of debtors who pressed eagerly forward to shake him by the hand, until he reached the lodge steps. he turned here, to look about him, and his eyes lightened as he did so. in all the crowd of wan, emaciated faces, he saw not one which was not the happier for his sympathy and charity. "perker," said mr. pickwick, beckoning one young man towards him, "this is mr. jingle, whom i spoke to you about." "very good, my dear sir," replied perker, looking hard at jingle. "you will see me again, young man, to-morrow. i hope you may live to remember and feel deeply what i shall have to communicate, sir." jingle bowed respectfully, trembled very much as he took mr. pickwick's proffered hand, and withdrew. "job you know, i think?" said mr. pickwick, presenting that gentleman. "i know the rascal," replied perker, good-humouredly. "see after your friend, and be in the way to-morrow at one. do you hear? now, is there anything more?" "nothing," rejoined mr. pickwick. "you have delivered the little parcel i gave you for your old landlord, sam?" "i have, sir," replied sam. "he bust out a cryin', sir, and said you wos wery gen'rous and thoughtful, and he only wished you could have him innokilated for a gallopin' consumption, for his old friend, as had lived here so long, wos dead, and he'd noweres to look for another." "poor fellow, poor fellow!" said mr. pickwick. "god bless you, my friends!" as mr. pickwick uttered this adieu, the crowd raised a loud shout. many among them were pressing forward to shake him by the hand again, when he drew his arm through perker's, and hurried from the prison: far more sad and melancholy, for the moment, than when he had first entered it. alas! how many sad and unhappy beings had he left behind! a happy evening was that, for, at least, one party in the george and vulture; and light and cheerful were two of the hearts that emerged from its hospitable door next morning. the owners thereof were mr. pickwick and sam weller, the former of whom was speedily deposited inside a comfortable post coach, with a little dickey behind, in which the latter mounted with great agility. "sir," called out mr. weller to his master. "well, sam?" replied mr. pickwick, thrusting his head out of the window. "i wish them horses had been three months and better in the fleet, sir." "why, sam?" inquired mr. pickwick. "vy, sir," exclaimed mr. weller, rubbing his hands, "how they would go if they had been!" chapter xx [illustration] _relates how mr. pickwick, with the assistance of samuel weller, essayed to soften the heart of mr. benjamin allen, and to mollify the wrath of mr. robert sawyer_ mr. ben allen and mr. bob sawyer sat together in the little surgery behind the shop, discussing minced veal and future prospects, when the discourse, not unnaturally, turned upon the practice acquired by bob the aforesaid, and his present chances of deriving a competent independence from the honourable profession to which he had devoted himself. "--which, i think," observed mr. bob sawyer, pursuing the thread of the subject, "which i think, ben, are rather dubious." "what's rather dubious?" inquired mr. ben allen, at the same time sharpening his intellects with a draught of beer. "what's dubious?" "why, the chances," responded mr. bob sawyer. "i forgot," said mr. ben allen. "the beer has reminded me that i forgot, bob--yes; they _are_ dubious." "it's wonderful how the poor people patronise me," said mr. bob sawyer, reflectively. "they knock me up at all hours of the night; they take medicine to an extent which i should have conceived impossible; they put on blisters and leeches with a perseverance worthy of a better cause; they make additions to their families, in a manner which is quite awful. six of those last-named little promissory notes, all due on the same day, ben, and all entrusted to me!" "it's very gratifying, isn't it?" said mr. ben allen, holding his plate for some more minced veal. "oh, very," replied bob; "only not quite so much so, as the confidence of patients with a shilling or two to spare would be. this business was capitally described in the advertisement, ben. it is a practice, a very extensive practice--and that's all." "bob," said mr. ben allen, laying down his knife and fork, and fixing his eyes on the visage of his friend: "bob, i'll tell you what it is." "what is it?" inquired mr. bob sawyer. "you must make yourself, with as little delay as possible, master of arabella's one thousand pounds." "three per cent. consolidated bank annuities, now standing in her name in the book or books of the governor and company of the bank of england," added bob sawyer, in legal phraseology. "exactly so," said ben. "she has it when she comes of age, or marries. she wants a year of coming of age, and if you plucked up a spirit she needn't want a month of being married." "she's a very charming and delightful creature," quoth mr. robert sawyer, in reply; "and has only one fault that i know of, ben. it happens, unfortunately, that that single blemish is a want of taste. she don't like me." "it's my opinion that she don't know what she does like," said mr. ben allen, contemptuously. "perhaps not," remarked mr. bob sawyer. "but it's my opinion that she does know what she doesn't like, and that's of more importance." "i wish," said mr. ben allen, setting his teeth together, and speaking more like a savage warrior who fed on raw wolf's flesh which he carved with his fingers, than a peaceable young gentleman who ate minced veal with a knife and fork, "i wish i knew whether any rascal really has been tampering with her, and attempting to engage her affections. i think i should assassinate him, bob." "i'd put a bullet in him, if i found him out," said mr. sawyer, stopping in the course of a long draught of beer, and looking malignantly out of the porter pot. "if that didn't do his business, i'd extract it afterwards, and kill him that way." mr. benjamin allen gazed abstractedly on his friend for some minutes in silence, and then said: "you have never proposed to her, point-blank, bob?" "no. because i saw it would be of no use," replied mr. robert sawyer. "you shall do it, before you are twenty-four hours older," retorted ben, with desperate calmness. "she _shall_ have you, or i'll know the reason why. i'll exert my authority." "well," said mr. bob sawyer, "we shall see." "we _shall_ see, my friend," replied mr. ben allen fiercely. he paused for a few seconds, and added in a voice broken by emotion, "you have loved her from a child, my friend. you loved her when we were boys at school together, and, even then, she was wayward, and slighted your young feelings. do you recollect, with all the eagerness of a child's love, one day pressing upon her acceptance two small caraway-seed biscuits and one sweet apple, neatly folded into a circular parcel with the leaf of a copybook?" "i do," replied bob sawyer. "she slighted that, i think?" said ben allen. "she did," rejoined bob. "she said i had kept the parcel so long in the pockets of my corduroys that the apple was unpleasantly warm." "i remember," said mr. allen, gloomily. "upon which we ate it ourselves, in alternate bites." bob sawyer intimated his recollection of the circumstance last alluded to, by a melancholy frown; and the two friends remained for some time absorbed, each in his own meditations. while these observations were being exchanged between mr. bob sawyer and mr. benjamin allen; and while the boy in the grey livery, marvelling at the unwonted prolongation of the dinner, cast an anxious look, from time to time, towards the glass door, distracted by inward misgivings regarding the amount of minced veal which would be ultimately reserved for his individual cravings; there rolled soberly on through the streets of bristol, a private fly, painted of a sad green colour, drawn by a chubby sort of brown horse, and driven by a surly-looking man with his legs dressed like the legs of a groom, and his body attired in the coat of a coachman. such appearances are common to many vehicles belonging to, and maintained by, old ladies of economic habits; and in this vehicle sat an old lady who was its mistress and proprietor. "martin!" said the old lady, calling to the surly man, out of the front window. "well?" said the surly man, touching his hat to the old lady. "mr. sawyer's," said the old lady. "i was going there," said the surly man. the old lady nodded the satisfaction which this proof of the surly man's foresight imparted to her feelings; and the surly man giving a smart lash to the chubby horse, they all repaired to mr. bob sawyer's together. "martin!" said the old lady, when the fly stopped at the door of mr. robert sawyer late nockemorf. "well?" said martin. "ask the lad to step out and mind the horse." "i'm going to mind the horse myself," said martin, laying his whip on the roof of the fly. "i can't permit it on any account," said the old lady; "your testimony will be very important, and i must take you into the house with me. you must not stir from my side during the whole interview. do you hear?" "i hear," replied martin. "well; what are you stopping for?" "nothing," replied martin. so saying, the surly man leisurely descended from the wheel, on which he had been poising himself on the tips of the toes of his right foot, and having summoned the boy in the grey livery, opened the coach-door, flung down the steps, and thrusting in a hand enveloped in a dark wash-leather glove, pulled out the old lady with as much concern in his manner as if she were a bandbox. "dear me!" exclaimed the old lady. "i am so flurried, now i have got here, martin, that i'm all in a tremble." mr. martin coughed behind the dark wash-leather glove, but expressed no sympathy; so the old lady, composing herself, trotted up mr. bob sawyer's steps, and mr. martin followed. immediately on the old lady's entering the shop, mr. benjamin allen and mr. bob sawyer, who had been putting the spirits and water out of sight, and upsetting nauseous drugs to take off the smell of the tobacco-smoke, issued hastily forth in a transport of pleasure and affection. "my dear aunt," exclaimed mr. ben allen, "how kind of you to look in upon us! mr. sawyer, aunt; my friend mr. bob sawyer whom i have spoken to you about, regarding--you know, aunt." and here mr. ben allen, who was not at the moment extraordinarily sober, added the word "arabella," in what was meant to be a whisper, but which was an especially audible and distinct tone of speech, which nobody could avoid hearing, if anybody were so disposed. "my dear benjamin," said the old lady, struggling with a great shortness of breath, and trembling from head to foot: "don't be alarmed, my dear, but i think i had better speak to mr. sawyer alone for a moment. only for one moment." "bob," said mr. allen, "will you take my aunt into the surgery?" "certainly," responded bob, in a most professional voice. "step this way, my dear ma'am. don't be frightened, ma'am. we shall be able to set you to rights in a very short time, i have no doubt, ma'am. here, my dear ma'am. now then!" with this, mr. bob sawyer, having handed the old lady to a chair, shut the door, drew another chair close to her, and waited to hear detailed the symptoms of some disorder from which he saw in perspective a long train of profits and advantages. the first thing the old lady did, was to shake her head a great many times and begin to cry. "nervous," said bob sawyer, complacently. "camphor-julep and water three times a day, and composing draught at night." "i don't know how to begin, mr. sawyer," said the old lady. "it is so very painful and distressing." "you need not begin, ma'am," rejoined mr. bob sawyer. "i can anticipate all you would say. the head is in fault." "i should be very sorry to think it was the heart," said the old lady, with a slight groan. "not the slightest danger of that, ma'am," replied bob sawyer. "the stomach is the primary cause." "mr. sawyer!" exclaimed the old lady, starting. "not the least doubt of it, ma'am," rejoined bob, looking wondrous wise. "medicine, in time, my dear ma'am, would have prevented it all." "mr. sawyer," said the old lady, more flurried than before, "this conduct is either great impertinence to one in my situation sir, or it arises from your not understanding the object of my visit. if it had been in the power of medicine, or any foresight i could have used, to prevent what has occurred, i should certainly have done so. i had better see my nephew at once," said the old lady, twirling her reticule indignantly, and rising as she spoke. "stop a moment, ma'am," said bob sawyer; "i'm afraid i have not understood you. what _is_ the matter, ma'am?" "my niece, mr. sawyer," said the old lady: "your friend's sister." "yes, ma'am," said bob, all impatience; for the old lady, although much agitated, spoke with the most tantalising deliberation, as old ladies often do. "yes, ma'am." "left my home, mr. sawyer, three days ago, on a pretended visit to my sister, another aunt of hers, who keeps the large boarding-school just beyond the third mile-stone where there is a very large laburnum tree and an oak gate," said the old lady, stopping in this place to dry her eyes. "oh, devil take the laburnum tree! ma'am," said bob, quite forgetting his professional dignity in his anxiety. "get on a little faster; put a little more steam on, ma'am, pray." "this morning," said the old lady, slowly, "this morning she----" "she came back, ma'am, i suppose," said bob, with great animation. "did she come back?" "no, she did not; she wrote," replied the old lady. "what did she say?" inquired bob, eagerly. "she said, mr. sawyer," replied the old lady,--"and it is this i want you to prepare benjamin's mind for, gently and by degrees; she said that she was--i have got the letter in my pocket, mr. sawyer, but my glasses are in the carriage, and i should only waste your time if i attempted to point out the passage to you, without them; she said, in short, mr. sawyer, that she was married." "what!" said, or rather shouted, mr. bob sawyer. "married," repeated the old lady. mr. bob sawyer stopped to hear no more; but darting from the surgery into the outer shop, cried in a stentorian voice, "ben, my boy, she's bolted!" mr. ben allen, who had been slumbering behind the counter, with his head half a foot or so below his knees, no sooner heard this appalling communication, than he made a precipitate rush at mr. martin, and, twisting his hand in the neckcloth of that taciturn servitor, expressed an intention of choking him where he stood. this intention, with a promptitude often the effect of desperation, he at once commenced carrying into execution, with much vigour and surgical skill. mr. martin, who was a man of few words and possessed but little power of eloquence or persuasion, submitted to this operation with a very calm and agreeable expression of countenance, for some seconds; finding, however, that it threatened speedily to lead to a result, which would place it beyond his power to claim any wages, board or otherwise, in all time to come, he muttered an inarticulate remonstrance and felled mr. benjamin allen to the ground. as that gentleman had his hands entangled in his cravat, he had no alternative but to follow him to the floor. there they both lay struggling, when the shop door opened, and the party was increased by the arrival of two most unexpected visitors; to wit, mr. pickwick and mr. samuel weller. [illustration: _he felled mr. benjamin allen to the ground_] the impression at once produced on mr. weller's mind by what he saw, was, that mr. martin was hired by the establishment of sawyer late nockemorf, to take strong medicine, or to go into fits and be experimentalised upon, or to swallow poison now and then with the view of testing the efficacy of some new antidotes, or to do something or other to promote the great science of medicine, and gratify the ardent spirit of inquiry burning in the bosoms of its two young professors. so without presuming to interfere, sam stood perfectly still, and looked on, as if he were mightily interested in the result of the then pending experiment. not so mr. pickwick. he at once threw himself on the astonished combatants, with his accustomed energy, and loudly called upon the bystanders to interpose. this roused mr. bob sawyer, who had been hitherto quite paralysed by the frenzy of his companion. with that gentleman's assistance, mr. pickwick raised ben allen to his feet. mr. martin, finding himself alone on the floor, got up, and looked about him. "mr. allen," said mr. pickwick, "what is the matter, sir?" "never mind, sir!" replied mr. allen, with haughty defiance. "what is it?" inquired mr. pickwick, looking at bob sawyer. "is he unwell?" before bob could reply, mr. ben allen seized mr. pickwick by the hand, and murmured in sorrowful accents, "my sister, my dear sir; my sister." "oh, is that all?" said mr. pickwick. "we shall easily arrange that matter, i hope. your sister is safe and well, and i am here, my dear sir, to----" "sorry to do anythin' as may cause an interruption to such wery pleasant proceedin's, as the king said ven he dissolved the parliament," interposed mr. weller, who had been peeping through the glass door; "but there's another experiment here, sir. here's a wenerable old lady a lyin' on the carpet waiting for dissection, or galwinism, or some other rewivin' and scientific inwention." "i forgot," exclaimed mr. ben allen. "it is my aunt." "dear me!" said mr. pickwick. "poor lady! gently, sam, gently." "strange sitivation for one o' the family," observed sam weller, hoisting the aunt into a chair. "now, depitty sawbones, bring out the wollatilly!" the latter observation was addressed to the boy in grey, who, having handed over the fly to the care of the street-keeper, had come back to see what all the noise was about. between the boy in grey, and mr. bob sawyer, and mr. benjamin allen (who having frightened his aunt into a fainting fit, was affectionately solicitous for her recovery), the old lady was, at length, restored to consciousness; then mr. ben allen, turning with a puzzled countenance to mr. pickwick, asked him what he was about to say, when he had been so alarmingly interrupted. "we are all friends here, i presume?" said mr. pickwick, clearing his voice, and looking towards the man of few words with the surly countenance who drove the fly with the chubby horse. this reminded mr. bob sawyer that the boy in grey was looking on, with eyes wide open, and greedy ears. the incipient chemist having been lifted up by his coat collar, and dropped outside the door, bob sawyer assured mr. pickwick that he might speak without reserve. "your sister, my dear sir," said mr. pickwick, turning to benjamin allen, "is in london; well and happy." "her happiness is no object to me, sir," said mr. benjamin allen, with a flourish of the hand. "her husband _is_ an object to _me_, sir," said bob sawyer. "he shall be an object to me sir, at twelve paces, and a very pretty object i'll make of him, sir--a mean-spirited scoundrel!" this, as it stood, was a very pretty denunciation, and magnanimous withal; but mr. bob sawyer rather weakened its effect, by winding up with some general observations concerning the punching of heads and knocking out of eyes, which were commonplace by comparison. "stay, sir," said mr. pickwick; "before you apply those epithets to the gentleman in question, consider, dispassionately, the extent of his fault, and above all remember that he is a friend of mine." "what!" said mr. bob sawyer. "his name!" cried ben allen. "his name!" "mr. nathaniel winkle," said mr. pickwick. mr. benjamin allen deliberately crushed his spectacles beneath the heel of his boot, and having picked up the pieces, and put them into three separate pockets, folded his arms, bit his lips, and looked in a threatening manner at the bland features of mr. pickwick. "then it's you, is it, sir, who have encouraged and brought about this match?" inquired mr. benjamin allen at length. "and it's this gentleman's servant, i suppose," interrupted the old lady, "who has been skulking about my house, and endeavouring to entrap my servants to conspire against their mistress. martin!" "well?" said the surly man, coming forward. "is that the young man you saw in the lane, whom you told me about, this morning?" mr. martin, who, as it has already appeared, was a man of few words, looked at sam weller, nodded his head, and growled forth, "that's the man!" mr. weller, who was never proud, gave a smile of friendly recognition as his eyes encountered those of the surly groom, and admitted, in courteous terms, that he had "knowed him afore." "and this is the faithful creature," exclaimed mr. ben allen, "whom i had nearly suffocated! mr. pickwick, how dare you allow your fellow to be employed in the abduction of my sister? i demand that you explain this matter, sir." "explain it, sir!" cried mr. bob sawyer, fiercely. "it's a conspiracy," said ben allen. "a regular plant," added mr. bob sawyer. "a disgraceful imposition," observed the old lady. "nothing but a do," remarked martin. "pray hear me," urged mr. pickwick, as mr. ben allen fell into a chair that patients were bled in, and gave way to his pocket-handkerchief. "i have rendered no assistance in this matter, beyond that of being present at one interview between the young people, which i could not prevent, and from which i conceived my presence would remove any slight colouring of impropriety that it might otherwise have had; this is the whole share i have taken in the transaction, and i had no suspicion that an immediate marriage was even contemplated. though mind," added mr. pickwick, hastily checking himself, "mind i do not say i should have prevented it, if i _had_ known that it was intended." "you hear that, all of you; you hear that?" said mr. benjamin allen. "i hope they do," mildly observed mr. pickwick, looking round, "and," added that gentleman: his colour mounting as he spoke: "i hope they hear this, sir, also. that from what has been stated to me, sir, i assert that you were by no means justified in attempting to force your sister's inclinations as you did, and that you should rather have endeavoured by your kindness and forbearance to have supplied the place of other nearer relations whom she has never known, from a child. as regards my young friend, i must beg to add, that in every point of worldly advantage, he is, at least, on an equal footing with yourself, if not on a much better one, and that unless i hear this question discussed with becoming temper and moderation, i decline hearing any more said upon the subject." "i wish to make a wery few remarks in addition to wot has been put forard by the honourable gen'l'm'n as has jist give over," said mr. weller, stepping forth, "which is this here: a indiwidual in company has called me a feller." "that has nothing whatever to do with the matter, sam," interposed mr. pickwick. "pray hold your tongue." "i ain't a goin' to say nothin' on that ere pint, sir," replied sam, "but merely this here. p'raps that gen'l'm'n may think as there wos a priory 'tachment; but there worn't nothin' o' the sort, for the young lady said, in the wery beginnin' o' keepin' company, that she couldn't abide him. nobody's cut him out, and it 'ud ha' been jist the wery same for him if the young lady had never seen mr. vinkle. that's wot i wished to say, sir, and i hope i've now made that 'ere gen'l'm'n's mind easy." a short pause followed these consolatory remarks of mr. weller. then mr. ben allen, rising from his chair, protested that he would never see arabella's face again: while mr. bob sawyer, despite sam's flattering assurance, vowed dreadful vengeance on the happy bridegroom. but, just when matters were at their height, and threatening to remain so, mr. pickwick found a powerful assistant in the old lady, who, evidently much struck by the mode in which he had advocated her niece's cause, ventured to approach mr. benjamin allen with a few comforting reflections, of which the chief were, that after all, perhaps, it was well it was no worse; the least said the soonest mended, and upon her word she did not know that it was so very bad after all; what was over couldn't be begun, and what couldn't be cured must be endured: with various other assurances of the like novel and strengthening description. to all of these, mr. benjamin allen replied that he meant no disrespect to his aunt, or anybody there, but if it were all the same to them, and they would allow him to have his own way, he would rather have the pleasure of hating his sister till death, and after it. at length, when this determination had been announced half a hundred times, the old lady, suddenly bridling up and looking very majestic, wished to know what she had done that no respect was to be paid to her years or station, and that she should be obliged to beg and pray, in that way, of her own nephew, whom she remembered about five-and-twenty years before he was born, and whom she had known personally, when he hadn't a tooth in his head? to say nothing of her presence on the first occasion of his having his hair cut, and assistance at numerous other times and ceremonies during his babyhood, of sufficient importance to found a claim upon his affection, obedience, and sympathies, for ever. while the good lady was bestowing this objurgation on mr. ben allen, bob sawyer and mr. pickwick had retired in close conversation to the inner room, where mr. sawyer was observed to apply himself several times to the mouth of a black bottle, under the influence of which, his features gradually assumed a cheerful, and even jovial expression. and at last he emerged from the room, bottle in hand, and, remarking that he was very sorry to say he had been making a fool of himself, begged to propose the health and happiness of mr. and mrs. winkle, whose felicity, so far from envying, he would be the first to congratulate them upon. hearing this, mr. ben allen suddenly arose from his chair, and, seizing the black bottle, drank the toast so heartily, that, the liquor being strong, he nearly became as black in the face as the bottle. finally, the black bottle went round till it was empty, and there was so much shaking of hands and interchanging of compliments, that even the metal-visaged mr. martin condescended to smile. "and now," said bob sawyer, rubbing his hands, "we'll have a jolly night." "i am sorry," said mr. pickwick, "that i must return to my inn. i have not been accustomed to fatigue lately, and my journey has tired me exceedingly." "you'll take some tea, mr. pickwick?" said the old lady, with irresistible sweetness. "thank you, i would rather not," replied that gentleman. the truth is, that the old lady's evidently increasing admiration was mr. pickwick's principal inducement for going away. he thought of mrs. bardell; and every glance of the old lady's eyes threw him into a cold perspiration. as mr. pickwick could by no means be prevailed upon to stay, it was arranged at once, on his own proposition, that mr. benjamin allen should accompany him on his journey to the elder mr. winkle's, and that the coach should be at the door at nine o'clock next morning. he then took his leave, and, followed by samuel weller, repaired to the bush. it is worthy of remark, that mr. martin's face was horribly convulsed as he shook hands with sam at parting, and that he gave vent to a smile and an oath simultaneously: from which tokens it has been inferred by those who were best acquainted with that gentleman's peculiarities, that he expressed himself much pleased with mr. weller's society, and requested the honour of his further acquaintance. "shall i order a private room, sir?" inquired sam, when they reached the bush. "why, no, sam," replied mr. pickwick; "as i dined in the coffee-room, and shall go to bed soon, it is hardly worth while. see who there is in the travellers' room, sam." mr. weller departed on his errand, and presently returned to say, there was only a gentleman with one eye; and that he and the landlord were drinking a bowl of bishop together. "i will join them," said mr. pickwick. "he's a queer customer, the vun-eyed vun, sir," observed mr. weller, as he led the way. "he's a gammonin' that 'ere landlord, he is, sir, till he don't rightly know vether he's a standing on the soles of his boots or the crown of his hat." the individual to whom this observation referred, was sitting at the upper end of the room when mr. pickwick entered, and was smoking a large dutch pipe, with his eye intently fixed on the round face of the landlord: a jolly-looking old personage, to whom he had recently been relating some tale of wonder, as was testified by sundry disjointed exclamations of, "well, i wouldn't have believed it! the strangest thing i ever heard! couldn't have supposed it possible!" and other expressions of astonishment which burst spontaneously from his lips, as he returned the fixed gaze of the one-eyed man. "servant, sir," said the one-eyed man to mr. pickwick. "fine night, sir." "very much so indeed," replied mr. pickwick, as the waiter placed a small decanter of brandy and some hot water before him. while mr. pickwick was mixing his brandy and water, the one-eyed man looked round at him earnestly, from time to time, and at length said: "i think i've seen you before." "i don't recollect you," rejoined mr. pickwick. "i daresay not," said the one-eyed man. "you didn't know me, but i knew two friends of yours that were stopping at the peacock at eatanswill, at the time of the election." "oh, indeed!" exclaimed mr. pickwick. "yes," rejoined the one-eyed man. "i mentioned a little circumstance to them about a friend of mine of the name of tom smart. perhaps you have heard them speaking of it." "often," rejoined mr. pickwick, smiling. "he was your uncle, i think?" "no, no; only a friend of my uncle's," replied the one-eyed man. "he was a wonderful man, that uncle of yours, though," remarked the landlord, shaking his head. "well, i think he was, i think i may say he was," answered the one-eyed man. "i could tell you a story about that same uncle, gentlemen, that would rather surprise you." "could you?" said mr. pickwick. "let us hear it, by all means." the one-eyed bagman ladled out a glass of negus from the bowl, and drank it; smoked a long whiff out of the dutch pipe; and then, calling to sam weller, who was lingering near the door, that he needn't go away, unless he wanted to, because the story was no secret, fixed his eye upon the landlord's and proceeded, in the words of the next chapter. chapter xxi [illustration] _containing the story of the bagman's uncle_ "my uncle, gentlemen," said the bagman, "was one of the merriest, pleasantest, cleverest fellows that ever lived. i wish you had known him, gentlemen. on second thoughts, gentlemen, i _don't_ wish you had known him, for if you had, you would have been all, by this time, in the ordinary course of nature, if not dead, at all events so near it, as to have taken to stopping at home and giving up company: which would have deprived me of the inestimable pleasure of addressing you at this moment. gentlemen, i wish your fathers and mothers had known my uncle. they would have been amazingly fond of him, especially your respectable mothers; i know they would. if any two of his numerous virtues predominated over the many that adorned his character, i should say they were his mixed punch and his after-supper song. excuse my dwelling on these melancholy reflections of departed worth; you won't see a man like my uncle every day in the week. "i have always considered it a great point in my uncle's character, gentlemen, that he was the intimate friend and companion of tom smart, of the great house of bilson and slum, cateaton street, city. my uncle collected for tiggin and welps, but for a long time he went pretty near the same journey as tom; and the very first night they met, my uncle took a fancy for tom, and tom took a fancy for my uncle. they made a bet of a new hat before they had known each other half an hour, who should brew the best quart of punch and drink it the quickest. my uncle was judged to have won the making, but tom smart beat him in the drinking by about half a salt-spoonful. they took another quart a-piece to drink each other's health in, and were staunch friends ever afterwards. there's a destiny in these things, gentlemen: we can't help it. "in personal appearance, my uncle was a trifle shorter than the middle size; he was a thought stouter, too, than the ordinary run of people, and perhaps his face might be a shade redder. he had the jolliest face you ever saw, gentlemen: something like punch, with a handsomer nose and chin; his eyes were always twinkling and sparkling with good humour; and a smile--not one of your unmeaning wooden grins, but a real, merry, hearty, good-tempered smile--was perpetually on his countenance. he was pitched out of his gig once, and knocked, head first, against a mile-stone. there he lay, stunned, and so cut about the face with some gravel which had been heaped up alongside it, that, to use my uncle's own strong expression, if his mother could have revisited the earth, she wouldn't have known him. indeed, when i come to think of the matter, gentlemen, i feel pretty sure she wouldn't, for she died when my uncle was two years and seven months old, and i think it's very likely that, even without the gravel, his top-boots would have puzzled the good lady not a little: to say nothing of his jolly red face. however, there he lay, and i have heard my uncle say many a time, that the man said who picked him up that he was smiling as merrily as if he had tumbled out for a treat, and that after they had bled him, the first glimmerings of returning animation were, his jumping up in bed, bursting out into a loud laugh, kissing the young woman who held the basin, and demanding a mutton chop and a pickled walnut. he was very fond of pickled walnuts, gentlemen. he said he always found that, taken without vinegar, they relished the beer. "my uncle's great journey was in the fall of the leaf, at which time he collected debts, and took orders, in the north: going from london to edinburgh, from edinburgh to glasgow, from glasgow back to edinburgh, and thence to london by the smack. you are to understand that his second visit to edinburgh was for his own pleasure. he used to go back for a week, just to look up his old friends; and what with breakfasting with this one, lunching with that, dining with a third, and supping with another, a pretty tight week he used to make of it. i don't know whether any of you, gentlemen, ever partook of a real, substantial, hospitable scotch breakfast, and then went to a slight lunch of a bushel of oysters, a dozen or so of bottled ale, and a noggin or two of whisky to close up with. if you ever did, you will agree with me that it requires a pretty strong head to go out to dinner and supper afterwards. "but, bless your hearts and eyebrows, all this sort of thing was nothing to my uncle! he was so well seasoned that it was mere child's play. i have heard him say that he could see the dundee people out, any day, and walk home afterwards without staggering; and yet the dundee people have as strong heads and as strong punch, gentleman, as you are likely to meet with, between the poles. i have heard of a glasgow man and a dundee man drinking against each other for fifteen hours at a sitting. they were both suffocated, as nearly as could be ascertained, at the same moment, but with this trifling exception, gentlemen, they were not a bit the worse for it. "one night, within four-and-twenty hours of the time when he had settled to take shipping for london, my uncle supped at the house of a very old friend of his, a bailie mac something and four syllables after it, who lived in the old town of edinburgh. there were the bailie's wife, and the bailie's three daughters, and the bailie's grown-up son, and three or four stout, bushy eye-browed, canny old scotch fellows, that the bailie had got together to do honour to my uncle, and help to make merry. it was a glorious supper. there were kippered salmon, and finnan haddocks, and a lamb's head, and a haggis--a celebrated scotch dish, gentlemen, which my uncle used to say always looked to him, when it came to the table, very much like a cupid's stomach--and a great many other things besides, that i forget the names of, but very good things notwithstanding. the lassies were pretty and agreeable; the bailie's wife was one of the best creatures that ever lived; and my uncle was in thoroughly good cue. the consequence of which was, that the young ladies tittered and giggled, and the old lady laughed out loud, and the bailie and the other old fellows roared till they were red in the face, the whole mortal time. i don't quite recollect how many tumblers of whisky toddy each man drank after supper; but this i know, that about one o'clock in the morning, the bailie's grown-up son became insensible while attempting the first verse of 'willie brewed a peak o' maut;' and he having been, for half an hour before, the only other man visible above the mahogany, it occurred to my uncle that it was almost time to think about going: especially as drinking had set in at seven o'clock: in order that he might get home at a decent hour. but, thinking it might not be quite polite to go just then, my uncle voted himself into the chair, mixed another glass, rose to propose his own health, addressed himself in a neat and complimentary speech, and drank the toast with great enthusiasm. still nobody woke; so my uncle took a little drop more--neat this time, to prevent the toddy from disagreeing with him--and, laying violent hands on his hat, sallied forth into the street. "it was a wild, gusty night when my uncle closed the bailie's door, and settling his hat firmly on his head to prevent the wind from taking it, thrust his hands into his pockets, and looking upward, took a short survey of the state of the weather. the clouds were drifting over the moon at their giddiest speed: at one time wholly obscuring her: at another, suffering her to burst forth in full splendour and shed her light on all the subjects around: anon, driving over her again, with increased velocity, and shrouding everything in darkness. 'really, this won't do,' said my uncle, addressing himself to the weather, as if he felt himself personally offended. 'this is not at all the kind of thing for my voyage. it will not do, at any price,' said my uncle very impressively. having repeated this, several times, he recovered his balance with some difficulty--for he was rather giddy with looking up into the sky so long--and walked merrily on. "the bailie's house was in the canongate, and my uncle was going to the other end of leith walk, rather better than a mile's journey. on either side of him, there shot up against the dark sky, tall, gaunt, straggling houses, with time-stained fronts, and windows that seemed to have shared the lot of eyes in mortals, and to have grown dim and sunken with age. six, seven, eight storeys high, were the houses; storey piled above storey, as the children build with cards--throwing their dark shadows over the roughly paved road, and making the dark night darker. a few oil lamps were scattered at long distances, but they only served to mark the dirty entrance to some narrow close, or to show where a common stair communicated, by steep and intricate windings, with the various flats above. glancing at all these things with the air of a man who had seen them too often before, to think them worthy of much notice now, my uncle walked up the middle of the street, with a thumb in each waistcoat pocket, indulging from time to time in various snatches of song, chanted forth with such good will and spirit, that the quiet honest folk started from their first sleep and lay trembling in bed till the sound died away in the distance; when, satisfying themselves that it was only some drunken ne'er-do-weel finding his way home, they covered themselves up warm and fell asleep again. "i am particular in describing how my uncle walked up the middle of the street, with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, gentlemen, because, as he often used to say (and with great reason too), there is nothing at all extraordinary in this story, unless you distinctly understand at the beginning that he was not by any means of a marvellous or romantic turn. "gentlemen, my uncle walked on with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, taking the middle of the street to himself, and singing, now a verse of a love-song, and then a verse of a drinking one, and when he was tired of both, whistling melodiously, until he reached the north bridge, which, at this point, connects the old and new towns of edinburgh. here he stopped for a minute, to look at the strange irregular clusters of lights piled one above the other, and twinkling afar off so high, that they looked like stars, gleaming from the castle walls on the one side and the calton hill on the other, as if they illuminated veritable castles in the air; while the old picturesque town slept heavily on, in gloom and darkness, below: its palace and chapel of holyrood, guarded day and night, as a friend of my uncle's used to say, by old arthur's seat, towering, surly and dark, like some gruff genius, over the ancient city he has watched so long. i say, gentlemen, my uncle stopped here, for a minute, to look about him; and then, paying a compliment to the weather, which had a little cleared up, though the moon was sinking, walked on again, as royally as before; keeping the middle of the road with great dignity, and looking as if he would very much like to meet somebody who would dispute possession of it with him. there was nobody at all disposed to contest the point, as it happened; and so, on he went, with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, like a lamb. "when my uncle reached the end of leith walk, he had to cross a pretty large piece of waste ground which separated him from a short street which he had to turn down, to go direct to his lodging. now, in this piece of waste ground, there was, at that time, an enclosure belonging to some wheelwright who contracted with the post-office for the purchase of old worn-out mail coaches; and my uncle, being very fond of coaches, old, young, or middle-aged, all at once took it into his head to step out of his road for no other purpose than to peep between the palings at these mails--about a dozen of which he remembered to have seen, crowded together in a very forlorn and dismantled state, inside. my uncle was a very enthusiastic, emphatic sort of person, gentlemen; so, finding that he could not obtain a good peep between the palings, he got over them, and sitting himself quietly down on an old axletree, began to contemplate the mail coaches with a great deal of gravity. "there might be a dozen of them, or there might be more--my uncle was never quite certain on this point, and being a man of very scrupulous veracity about numbers, didn't like to say--but there they stood, all huddled together in the most desolate condition imaginable. the doors had been torn from their hinges and removed; the linings had been stripped off: only a shred hanging here and there by a rusty nail; the lamps were gone, the poles had long since vanished, the iron-work was rusty, the paint was worn away; the wind whistled through the chinks in the bare wood-work; and the rain, which had collected on the roofs, fell, drop by drop, into the insides with a hollow and melancholy sound. they were the decaying skeletons of departed mails, and in that lonely place, at that time of night, they looked chill and dismal. "my uncle rested his head upon his hands, and thought of the busy bustling people who had rattled about, years before, in the old coaches, and were now as silent and changed; he thought of the numbers of people to whom one of those crazy, mouldering vehicles had borne, night after night, for many years, and through all weathers, the anxiously expected intelligence, the eagerly looked-for remittance, the promised assurance of health and safety, the sudden announcement of sickness and death. the merchant, the lover, the wife, the widow, the mother, the schoolboy, the very child who tottered to the door at the postman's knock--how had they all looked forward to the arrival of the old coach. and where were they all now! "gentlemen, my uncle used to _say_ that he thought all this at the time, but i rather suspect he learnt it out of some book afterwards, for he distinctly stated that he fell into a kind of doze, as he sat on the old axletree looking at the decayed mail coaches, and that he was suddenly awakened by some deep church-bell striking two. now, my uncle was never a fast thinker, and if he had thought all these things, i am quite certain it would have taken him till full half-past two o'clock, at the very least. i am, therefore, decidedly of opinion, gentlemen, that my uncle fell into a kind of doze, without having thought about anything at all. "be this as it may, a church bell struck two. my uncle woke, rubbed his eyes, and jumped up in astonishment. "in one instant after the clock struck two, the whole of this deserted and quiet spot had become a scene of most extraordinary life and animation. the mail coach doors were on their hinges, the lining was replaced, the iron-work was as good as new, the paint was restored, the lamps were alight, cushions and great-coats were on every box, porters were thrusting parcels into every boot, guards were stowing away letter-bags, hostlers were dashing pails of water against the renovated wheels; numbers of men were rushing about, fixing poles into every coach; passengers arrived, portmanteaus were handed up, horses were put to; in short, it was perfectly clear that every mail there was to be off directly. gentlemen, my uncle opened his eyes so wide at all this, that, to the very last moment of his life, he used to wonder how it fell out that he had ever been able to shut 'em again. "'now then!' said a voice, as my uncle felt a hand on his shoulder, 'you're booked for inside. you'd better get in.' "'_i_ booked!' said my uncle, turning round. "'yes, certainly.' "my uncle, gentlemen, could say nothing; he was so very much astonished. the queerest thing of all was, that although there was such a crowd of persons, and although fresh faces were pouring in every moment, there was no telling where they came from. they seemed to start up, in some strange manner, from the ground, or the air, and disappear in the same way. when a porter had put his luggage in the coach, and received his fare, he turned round and was gone; and before my uncle had well begun to wonder what had become of him, half a dozen fresh ones started up, and staggered along under the weight of parcels which seemed big enough to crush them. the passengers were all dressed so oddly too! large, broad-skirted, laced coats with great cuffs and no collars; and wigs, gentlemen--great formal wigs with a tie behind. my uncle could make nothing of it. "'now, _are_ you going to get in?' said the person who had addressed my uncle before. he was dressed as a mail guard, with a wig on his head and most enormous cuffs to his coat, and had a lantern in one hand, and a huge blunderbuss in the other, which he was going to stow away in his little arm-chest. '_are_ you going to get in, jack martin?' said the guard, holding the lantern to my uncle's face. "'hallo!' said my uncle, falling back a step or two. 'that's familiar!' "'it's so on the way-bill,' replied the guard. "'isn't there a "mister" before it?' said my uncle. for he felt, gentlemen, that for a guard he didn't know to call him jack martin, was a liberty which the post-office wouldn't have sanctioned if they had known it. "'no, there is not,' rejoined the guard, coolly. "'is the fare paid?' inquired my uncle. "'of course it is,' rejoined the guard. "'it is, is it?' said my uncle. 'then here goes! which coach?' "'this,' said the guard, pointing to an old-fashioned edinburgh and london mail, which had the steps down, and the door open. 'stop! here are the other passengers. let them get in first.' "as the guard spoke, there all at once appeared, right in front of my uncle, a young gentleman in a powdered wig, and a sky-blue coat trimmed with silver, made very full and broad in the skirts, which were lined with buckram. tiggin and welps were in the printed calico and waistcoatpiece line, gentlemen, so my uncle knew all the materials at once. he wore knee breeches, and a kind of leggings rolled up over his silk stockings, and shoes with buckles; he had ruffles at his wrists, a three-cornered hat on his head, and a long taper sword by his side. the flaps of his waistcoat came half-way down his thighs, and the ends of his cravat reached to his waist. he stalked gravely to the coach door, pulled off his hat, and held it above his head at arm's length: cocking his little finger in the air at the same time, as some affected people do, when they take a cup of tea. then he drew his feet together, and made a low grave bow, and then put out his left hand. my uncle was just going to step forward, and shake it heartily, when he perceived that these attentions were directed, not towards him, but to a young lady who had just then appeared at the foot of the steps, attired in an old-fashioned green velvet dress with a long waist and stomacher. she had no bonnet on her head, gentlemen, which was muffled in a black silk hood, but she looked round for an instant as she prepared to get into the coach, and such a beautiful face as she disclosed, my uncle had never seen--not even in a picture. she got into the coach, holding up her dress with one hand; and, as my uncle always said, with a round oath, when he told the story, he wouldn't have believed it possible that legs and feet could have been brought to such a state of perfection unless he had seen them with his own eyes. "but, in this one glimpse of the beautiful face, my uncle saw that the young lady cast an imploring look upon him, and that she appeared terrified and distressed. he noticed, too, that the young fellow in the powdered wig, notwithstanding his show of gallantry, which was all very fine and grand, clasped her tight by the wrist when she got in, and followed himself immediately afterwards. an uncommonly ill-looking fellow, in a close brown wig and a plum-coloured suit, wearing a very large sword, and boots up to his hips, belonged to the party; and when he sat himself down next to the young lady, who shrunk into a corner at his approach, my uncle was confirmed in his original impression that something dark and mysterious was going forward, or, as he always said himself, that 'there was a screw loose somewhere.' it's quite surprising how quickly he made up his mind to help the lady at any peril, if she needed help. "'death and lightning!' exclaimed the young gentleman, laying his hand upon his sword as my uncle entered the coach. "'blood and thunder!' roared the other gentleman. with this, he whipped his sword out, and made a lunge at my uncle without further ceremony. my uncle had no weapon about him, but with great dexterity he snatched the ill-looking gentleman's three-cornered hat from his head, and, receiving the point of his sword right through the crown, squeezed the sides together, and held it tight. "'pink him behind!' cried the ill-looking gentleman to his companion, as he struggled to regain his sword. "'he had better not,' cried my uncle, displaying the heel of one of his shoes, in a threatening manner, 'i'll kick his brains out if he has any, or fracture his skull if he hasn't.' exerting all his strength at this moment, my uncle wrenched the ill-looking man's sword from his grasp, and flung it clean out of the coach-window: upon which the younger gentleman vociferated 'death and lightning!' again, and laid his hand upon the hilt of his sword, in a very fierce manner, but didn't draw it. perhaps, gentlemen, as my uncle used to say with a smile, perhaps he was afraid of alarming the lady. "'now, gentlemen,' said my uncle, taking his seat deliberately, 'i don't want to have any death, with or without lightning, in a lady's presence, and we have had quite blood and thundering enough for one journey; so, if you please, we'll sit in our places like quiet insides. here, guard, pick up that gentleman's carving-knife.' "as quickly as my uncle said the words, the guard appeared at the coach-window, with the gentleman's sword in his hand. he held up his lantern, and looked earnestly in my uncle's face, as he handed it in: when, by its light, my uncle saw, to his great surprise, that an immense crowd of mail-coach guards swarmed round the window, every one of whom had his eyes earnestly fixed upon him too. he had never seen such a sea of white faces, red bodies, and earnest eyes, in all his born days. "'this is the strangest sort of thing i ever had anything to do with,' thought my uncle; 'allow me to return you your hat, sir.' "the ill-looking gentleman received his three-cornered hat in silence, looked at the hole in the middle with an inquiring air, and finally stuck it on the top of his wig with a solemnity the effect of which was a trifle impaired by his sneezing violently at the moment, and jerking it off again. "'all right!' cried the guard with the lantern, mounting into his little seat behind. away they went. my uncle peeped out of the coach-window as they emerged from the yard, and observed that the other mails, with coachmen, guards, horses, and passengers complete, were driving round and round in circles, at a slow trot of about five miles an hour. my uncle burnt with indignation, gentlemen. as a commercial man, he felt that the mail-bags were not to be trifled with, and he resolved to memorialise the post-office on the subject, the very instant he reached london. "at present, however, his thoughts were occupied with the young lady who sat in the farthest corner of the coach, with her face muffled closely in her hood; the gentleman with the sky-blue coat sitting opposite to her; the other man in the plum-coloured suit, by her side; and both watching her intently. if she so much as rustled the folds of her hood, he could hear the ill-looking man clap his hand upon his sword, and could tell by the other's breathing (it was so dark he couldn't see his face) that he was looking as big as if he were going to devour her at a mouthful. this roused my uncle more and more, and he resolved, come what come might, to see the end of it. he had great admiration for bright eyes, and sweet faces, and pretty legs and feet; in short, he was fond of the whole sex. it runs in our family, gentlemen--so am i. "many were the devices which my uncle practised, to attract the lady's attention, or at all events, to engage the mysterious gentlemen in conversation. they were all in vain; the gentlemen wouldn't talk, and the lady didn't dare. he thrust his head out of the coach-window at intervals, and bawled out to know why they didn't go faster? but he called till he was hoarse; nobody paid the least attention to him. he leant back in the coach, and thought of the beautiful face, and the feet and legs. this answered better; it wiled away the time, and kept him from wondering where he was going, and how it was that he found himself in such an odd situation. not that this would have worried him much, any way--he was a mighty free and easy, roving, devil-may-care sort of person, was my uncle, gentlemen. "all of a sudden the coach stopped. 'hallo!' said my uncle, 'what's in the wind now?' "'alight here,' said the guard, letting down the steps. "'here!' cried my uncle. "'here,' rejoined the guard. "'i'll do nothing of the sort,' said my uncle. "'very well, then stop where you are,' said the guard. "'i will,' said my uncle. "'do,' said the guard. the other passengers had regarded this colloquy with great attention, and finding that my uncle was determined not to alight, the younger man squeezed past him to hand the lady out. at this moment the ill-looking man was inspecting the hole in the crown of his three-cornered hat. as the young lady brushed past, she dropped one of her gloves into my uncle's hand, and softly whispered, with her lips so close to his face that he felt her warm breath on his nose, the single word 'help!' gentlemen, my uncle leaped out of the coach at once with such violence that it rocked on the springs again. "'oh! you've thought better of it, have you?' said the guard when he saw my uncle standing on the ground. "my uncle looked at the guard for a few seconds, in some doubt whether it wouldn't be better to wrench his blunderbuss from him, fire it in the face of the man with the big sword, knock the rest of the company over the head with the stock, snatch up the young lady, and go off in the smoke. on second thoughts, however, he abandoned this plan, as being a shade too melodramatic in the execution, and followed the two mysterious men, who, keeping the lady between them, were now entering an old house in front of which the coach had stopped. they turned into the passage, and my uncle followed. "of all the ruinous and desolate places my uncle had ever beheld, this was the most so. it looked as if it had once been a large house of entertainment; but the roof had fallen in, in many places, and the stairs were steep, rugged, and broken. there was a huge fireplace in the room into which they walked, and the chimney was blackened with smoke; but no warm blaze lighted it up now. the white feathery dust of burnt wood was still strewed over the hearth, but the stove was cold, and all was dark and gloomy. "'well,' said my uncle, as he looked about him, 'a mail travelling at the rate of six miles and a half an hour, and stopping for an indefinite period at such a hole as this, is rather an irregular sort of proceeding, i fancy. this shall be made known. i'll write to the papers.' "my uncle said this in a pretty loud voice, and in an open, unreserved sort of manner, with the view of engaging the two strangers in conversation if he could. but, neither of them took any more notice of him than whispering to each other, and scowling at him as they did so. the lady was at the farther end of the room, and once she ventured to wave her hand, as if beseeching my uncle's assistance. "at length the two strangers advanced a little, and the conversation began in earnest. "'you don't know this is a private room, i suppose, fellow?" said the gentleman in sky-blue. "'no, i do not, fellow,' rejoined my uncle. 'only if this is a private room specially ordered for the occasion, i should think the public room must be a _very_ comfortable one;' with this my uncle sat himself down in a high-backed chair, and took such an accurate measure of the gentleman with his eyes, that tiggin and welps could have supplied him with printed calico for a suit, and not an inch too much or too little, from that estimate alone. "'quit this room,' said both the men together, grasping their swords. "'eh?' said my uncle, not at all appearing to comprehend their meaning. "'quit the room, or you are a dead man,' said the ill-looking fellow with the large sword, drawing it at the same time and flourishing it in the air. "'down with him!' cried the gentleman in sky-blue, drawing his sword also, and falling back two or three yards. 'down with him!' the lady gave a loud scream. "now, my uncle was always remarkable for great boldness, and great presence of mind. all the time that he had appeared so indifferent to what was going on, he had been looking slyly about, for some missile or weapon of defence, and at the very instant when the swords were drawn, he espied, standing in the chimney corner, an old basket-hilted rapier in a rusty scabbard. at one bound, my uncle caught it in his hand, drew it, flourished it gallantly above his head, called aloud to the lady to keep out of the way, hurled the chair at the man in sky-blue, and the scabbard at the man in plum-colour, and taking advantage of the confusion, fell upon them both, pell-mell. "gentlemen, there is an old story--none the worse for being true--regarding a fine young irish gentleman, who being asked if he could play the fiddle, replied he had no doubt he could, but he couldn't exactly say, for certain, because he had never tried. this is not inapplicable to my uncle and his fencing. he had never had a sword in his hand before, except once when he played richard the third at a private theatre: upon which occasion it was arranged with richmond that he was to be run through, from behind, without showing fight at all. but here he was, cutting and slashing with two experienced swordsmen: thrusting and guarding and poking and slicing, and acquitting himself in the most manful and dexterous manner possible, although up to that time he had never been aware that he had the least notion of the science. it only shows how true the old saying is, that a man never knows what he can do, till he tries, gentlemen. "the noise of the combat was terrific; each of the three combatants swearing like troopers, and their swords clashing with as much noise as if all the knives and steels in newport market were rattling together, at the same time. when it was at its very height, the lady (to encourage my uncle most probably) withdrew her hood entirely from her face, and disclosed a countenance of such dazzling beauty, that he would have fought against fifty men, to win one smile from it, and die. he had done wonders before, but now he began to powder away like a raving mad giant. "at this very moment, the gentleman in sky-blue turning round, and seeing the young lady with her face uncovered, vented an exclamation of rage and jealousy, and, turning his weapon against her beautiful bosom, pointed a thrust at her heart, which caused my uncle to utter a cry of apprehension that made the building ring. the lady stepped lightly aside, and snatching the young man's sword from his hand, before he had recovered his balance, drove him to the wall, and running it through him, and the panelling, up to the very hilt, pinned him there, hard and fast. it was a splendid example. my uncle, with a loud shout of triumph, and a strength that was irresistible, made his adversary retreat in the same direction, and plunging the old rapier into the very centre of a large red flower in the pattern of his waistcoat, nailed him beside his friend; there they both stood, gentlemen, jerking their arms and legs about, in agony, like the toy-shop figures that are moved by a piece of packthread. my uncle always said, afterwards, that this was one of the surest means he knew of, for disposing of an enemy; but it was liable to one objection on the ground of expense, inasmuch as it involved the loss of a sword for every man disabled. "'the mail, the mail!' cried the lady, running up to my uncle and throwing her beautiful arms round his neck; 'we may yet escape.' "'_may!_' cried my uncle; 'why, my dear, there's nobody else to kill, is there?' my uncle was rather disappointed, gentlemen, for he thought a little quiet bit of love-making would be agreeable after the slaughtering, if it were only to change the subject. "'we have not an instant to lose here,' said the young lady. 'he (pointing to the young gentleman in sky-blue) is the only son of the powerful marquess of filletoville.' "'well then, my dear, i'm afraid he'll never come to the title,' said my uncle, looking coolly at the young gentleman as he stood fixed up against the wall, in the cockchafer fashion i have described. 'you have cut off the entail, my love.' "'i have been torn from my home and friends by these villains,' said the young lady, her features glowing with indignation. 'that wretch would have married me by violence in another hour.' "'confound his impudence!' said my uncle, bestowing a very contemptuous look on the dying heir of filletoville. "'as you may guess from what you have seen,' said the young lady, 'the party were prepared to murder me if i appealed to any one for assistance. if their accomplices find us here, we are lost. two minutes hence may be too late. the mail!' with these words, overpowered by her feelings, and the exertion of sticking the young marquess of filletoville, she sunk into my uncle's arms. my uncle caught her up, and bore her to the house-door. there stood the mail, with four long-tailed, flowing-maned, black horses, ready harnessed; but no coachman, no guard, no hostler, even, at the horses' heads. "gentlemen, i hope i do no injustice to my uncle's memory when i express my opinion, that although he was a bachelor, he _had_ held some ladies in his arms, before this time; i believe, indeed, that he had rather a habit of kissing barmaids; and i know, that in one or two instances, he had been seen, by credible witnesses, to hug a landlady in a very perceptible manner. i mention the circumstance to show what a very uncommon sort of person this beautiful young lady must have been, to have affected my uncle in the way she did; he used to say, that as her long dark hair trailed over his arm, and her beautiful dark eyes fixed themselves upon his face when she recovered, he felt so strange and nervous that his legs trembled beneath him. but, who can look in a sweet soft pair of dark eyes, without feeling queer? _i_ can't, gentlemen. i am afraid to look at some eyes i know, and that's the truth of it. "'you will never leave me?' murmured the young lady. "'never,' said my uncle. and he meant it, too. "'my dear preserver!' exclaimed the young lady. 'my dear, kind, brave preserver!' "'don't,' said my uncle, interrupting her. "'why?' inquired the young lady. "'because your mouth looks so beautiful when you speak,' rejoined my uncle, 'that i'm afraid i shall be rude enough to kiss it.' "the young lady put up her hand as if to caution my uncle not to do so, and said--no, she didn't say anything--she smiled. when you are looking at a pair of the most delicious lips in the world and see them gently break into a roguish smile--if you are very near them, and nobody else by--you cannot better testify your admiration of their beautiful form and colour than by kissing them at once. my uncle did so, and i honour him for it. "'hark!' cried the young lady, starting. 'the noise of wheels and horses!' "'so it is,' said my uncle, listening. he had a good ear for wheels, and the trampling of hoofs; but there appeared to be so many horses and carriages rattling towards them, from a distance, that it was impossible to form a guess at their number. the sound was like that of fifty breaks, with six blood cattle in each. "'we are pursued!' cried the young lady, clasping her hands. 'we are pursued. i have no hope but in you!' "there was such an expression of terror in her beautiful face that my uncle made up his mind at once. he lifted her into the coach, told her not to be frightened, pressed his lips to hers once more, and then advising her to draw up the window to keep the cold air out, mounted the box. "'stay, love,' cried the young lady. "'what's the matter?' said my uncle from the coach-box. "'i want to speak to you,' said the young lady; 'only a word. only one word, dearest.' "'must i get down?' inquired my uncle. the lady made no answer, but she smiled again. such a smile, gentlemen! it beat the other one, all to nothing. my uncle descended from his perch in a twinkling. "'what is it, my dear?' said my uncle, looking in at the coach window. the lady happened to bend forward at the same time, and my uncle thought she looked more beautiful than she had done yet. he was very close to her just then, gentlemen, so he really ought to know. "'what is it, my dear?' said my uncle. "'will you never love any one but me; never marry any one beside?' said the young lady. "my uncle swore a great oath that he would never marry anybody else, and the young lady drew in her head, and pulled up the window. he jumped upon the box, squared his elbows, adjusted the ribbons, seized the whip which lay on the roof, gave one flick to the off leader, and away went the four long-tailed, flowing-maned black horses, at fifteen good english miles an hour, with the old mail coach behind them. whew! how they tore along. "the noise behind grew louder. the faster the old mail went, the faster came the pursuers--man, horses, dogs, were leagued in the pursuit. the noise was frightful, but above all rose the voice of the young lady, urging my uncle on, and shrieking, 'faster! faster!' "they whirled past the dark trees, as feathers would be swept before a hurricane. houses, gates, churches, haystacks, objects of every kind they shot by, with a velocity and noise like roaring waters suddenly let loose. still the noise of pursuit grew louder, and still my uncle could hear the young lady wildly screaming, 'faster! faster!' "my uncle plied whip and rein, and the horses flew onward till they were white with foam; and yet the noise behind increased; and yet the young lady cried, 'faster! faster!' my uncle gave a loud stamp on the boot in the energy of the moment, and--found that it was grey morning, and he was sitting in the wheelwright's yard, on the box of an old edinburgh mail, shivering with the cold and wet, and stamping his feet to warm them! he got down, and looked eagerly inside for the beautiful young lady. alas! there was neither door nor seat to the coach. it was a mere shell. [illustration: "_my uncle gave a loud stamp on the boot in the energy of the moment_"] "of course my uncle knew very well that there was some mystery in the matter, and that everything had passed exactly as he used to relate it. he remained staunch to the great oath he had sworn to the beautiful young lady: refusing several eligible landladies on her account, and dying a bachelor at last. he always said, what a curious thing it was that he should have found out, by such a mere accident as his clambering over the palings, that the ghosts of mail-coaches and horses, guards, coachmen, and passengers, were in the habit of making journeys regularly every night. he used to add, that he believed he was the only living person who had ever been taken as a passenger on one of these excursions. and i think he was right, gentlemen--at least i never heard of any other." * * * * * "i wonder what these ghosts of mail-coaches carry in their bags?" said the landlord, who had listened to the whole story with profound attention. "the dead letters, of course," said the bagman. "oh, ah! to be sure," rejoined the landlord. "i never thought of that." chapter xxii [illustration] _how mr. pickwick sped upon his mission, and how he was reinforced in the outset by a most unexpected auxiliary_ the horses were put to punctually at a quarter before nine next morning, and mr. pickwick and sam weller having each taken his seat, the one inside and the other out, the postilion was duly directed to repair in the first instance to mr. bob sawyer's house for the purpose of taking up mr. benjamin allen. it was with feelings of no small astonishment, when the carriage drew up before the door with the red lamp, and the very legible inscription of "sawyer, late nockemorf," that mr. pickwick saw, on popping his head out of the coach window, the boy in the grey livery very busily engaged in putting up the shutters: the which, being an unusual and un-business-like proceeding at that hour in the morning, at once suggested to his mind two inferences; the one, that some good friend and patient of mr. bob sawyer's was dead; the other, that mr. bob sawyer himself was bankrupt. "what is the matter?" said mr. pickwick to the boy. "nothing's the matter, sir," replied the boy, expanding his mouth to the whole breadth of his countenance. "all right, all right!" cried bob sawyer, suddenly appearing at the door with a small leathern knapsack, limp and dirty, in one hand, and a rough coat and shawl thrown over the other arm. "i'm going, old fellow." "you!" exclaimed mr. pickwick. "yes," replied bob sawyer, "and a regular expedition we'll make of it. here, sam! look out!" thus briefly bespeaking mr. weller's attention, mr. bob sawyer jerked the leathern knapsack into the dickey, where it was immediately stowed away, under the seat, by sam, who regarded the proceeding with great admiration. this done, mr. bob sawyer, with the assistance of the boy, forcibly worked himself into a rough coat, which was a few sizes too small for him, and then advancing to the coach window thrust in his head, and laughed boisterously. "what a start it is, isn't it?" cried bob, wiping the tears out of his eyes, with one of the cuffs of the rough coat. "my dear sir," said mr. pickwick, with some embarrassment, "i had no idea of your accompanying us." "no, that's just the very thing," replied bob, seizing mr. pickwick by the lappel of the coat. "that's the joke." "oh, that's the joke?" said mr. pickwick. "of course," replied bob. "it's the whole point of the thing, you know--that, and leaving the business to take care of itself, as it seems to have made up its mind not to take care of me." with this explanation of the phenomenon of the shutters, mr. bob sawyer pointed to the shop, and relapsed into an ecstasy of mirth. "bless me, you are surely not mad enough to think of leaving your patients without anybody to attend them!" remonstrated mr. pickwick in a very serious tone. "why not?" asked bob, in reply. "i shall save by it, you know. none of them ever pay. besides," said bob, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper, "they will be all the better for it; for, being nearly out of drugs, and not able to increase my account just now, i should have been obliged to give them calomel all round, and it would have been certain to have disagreed with some of them. so it's all for the best." there was a philosophy, and a strength of reasoning, about this reply, which mr. pickwick was not prepared for. he paused a few moments, and added, less firmly than before: "but this chaise, my young friend, will only hold two; and i am pledged to mr. allen." "don't think of me for a minute," replied bob. "i've arranged it all; sam and i will share the dickey between us. look here. this little bill is to be wafered on the shop door: 'sawyer, late nockemorf. inquire of mrs. cripps, over the way.' mrs. cripps is my boy's mother. 'mr. sawyer's very sorry,' says mrs. cripps, 'couldn't help it--fetched away early this morning to a consultation of the very first surgeons in the country--couldn't do without him--would have him at any price--tremendous operation.' the fact is," said bob in conclusion, "it'll do me more good than otherwise, i expect. if it gets into one of the local papers, it will be the making of me. here's ben; now then, jump in!" with these hurried words mr. bob sawyer pushed the postboy on one side, jerked his friend into the vehicle, slammed the door, put up the steps, wafered the bill on the street door, locked it, put the key in his pocket, jumped into the dickey, gave the word for starting, and did the whole with such extraordinary precipitation, that before mr. pickwick had well begun to consider whether mr. bob sawyer ought to go or not, they were rolling away, with mr. bob sawyer thoroughly established as part and parcel of the equipage. so long as their progress was confined to the streets of bristol, the facetious bob kept his professional green spectacles on, and conducted himself with becoming steadiness and gravity of demeanour; merely giving utterance to divers verbal witticisms for the exclusive behoof and entertainment of mr. samuel weller. but when they emerged on the open road, he threw off his green spectacles and his gravity together, and performed a great variety of practical jokes, which were calculated to attract the attention of the passers-by, and to render the carriage and those it contained objects of more than ordinary curiosity; the least conspicuous among these feats being, a most vociferous imitation of a key-bugle, and the ostentatious display of a crimson silk pocket-handkerchief attached to a walking-stick, which was occasionally waved in the air with various gestures indicative of supremacy and defiance. "i wonder," said mr. pickwick, stopping in the midst of a most sedate conversation with ben allen, bearing reference to the numerous good qualities of mr. winkle and his sister: "i wonder what all the people we pass can see in us to make them stare so?" "it's a neat turn-out," replied ben allen, with something of pride in his tone. "they're not used to see this sort of thing every day, i daresay." "possibly," replied mr. pickwick. "it may be so. perhaps it is." mr. pickwick might very probably have reasoned himself into the belief that it really was: had he not, just then happening to look out of the coach window, observed that the looks of the passengers betokened anything but respectful astonishment, and that various telegraphic communications appeared to be passing between them and some persons outside the vehicle: whereupon it occurred to him that these demonstrations might be, in some remote degree, referable to the humorous deportment of mr. robert sawyer. "i hope," said mr. pickwick, "that our volatile friend is committing no absurdities in that dickey behind?" "oh dear no," replied ben allen. "except when he's elevated, bob's the quietest creature breathing." here a prolonged imitation of a key-bugle broke upon the ear, succeeded by cheers and screams, all of which evidently proceeded from the throat and lungs of the quietest creature breathing, or in plainer designation, of mr. bob sawyer himself. mr. pickwick and mr. ben allen looked expressively at each other, and the former gentleman taking off his hat, and leaning out of the coach window until nearly the whole of his waistcoat was outside it, was at length enabled to catch a glimpse of his facetious friend. mr. bob sawyer was seated: not in the dickey, but on the roof of the chaise, with his legs as far asunder as they would conveniently go, wearing mr. samuel weller's hat on one side of his head, and bearing, in one hand, a most enormous sandwich, while, in the other, he supported a goodly-sized case-bottle, to both of which he applied himself with intense relish: varying the monotony of the occupation by an occasional howl, or the interchange of some lively badinage with any passing stranger. the crimson flag was carefully tied in an erect position to the rail of the dickey; and mr. samuel weller, decorated with bob sawyer's hat, was seated in the centre thereof, discussing a twin sandwich, with an animated countenance, the expression of which betokened his entire and perfect approval of the whole arrangement. this was enough to irritate a gentleman of mr. pickwick's sense of propriety, but it was not the whole extent of the aggravation, for a stage-coach, full inside and out, was meeting them at the moment, and the astonishment of the passengers was very palpably evinced. the congratulations of an irish family, too, who were keeping up with the chaise, and begging all the time, were of a rather boisterous description; especially those of its male head, who appeared to consider the display as part and parcel of some political or other procession of triumph. "mr. sawyer!" cried mr. pickwick, in a state of great excitement. "mr. sawyer, sir!" "hallo!" responded that gentleman, looking over the side of the chaise with all the coolness in life. "are you mad, sir?" demanded mr. pickwick. "not a bit of it," replied bob; "only cheerful." "cheerful, sir!" ejaculated mr. pickwick. "take down that scandalous red handkerchief, i beg. i insist, sir. sam, take it down." before sam could interpose, mr. bob sawyer gracefully struck his colours, and having put them in his pocket, nodded in a courteous manner to mr. pickwick, wiped the mouth of the case-bottle, and applied it to his own; thereby informing him, without any unnecessary waste of words, that he devoted that draught to wishing him all manner of happiness and prosperity. having done this, bob replaced the cork with great care, and looking benignantly down on mr. pickwick, took a large bite out of the sandwich, and smiled. "come," said mr. pickwick, whose momentary anger was not quite proof against bob's immovable self-possession, "pray let us have no more of this absurdity." "no, no," replied bob, once more exchanging hats with mr. weller; "i didn't mean to do it, only i got so enlivened with the ride that i couldn't help it." "think of the look of the thing," expostulated mr. pickwick; "have some regard to appearances." "oh, certainly," said bob, "it's not the sort of thing at all. all over, governor." satisfied with this assurance, mr. pickwick once more drew his head into the chaise and pulled up the glass; but he had scarcely resumed the conversation which mr. bob sawyer had interrupted, when he was somewhat startled by the apparition of a small dark body, of an oblong form, on the outside of the window, which gave sundry taps against it, as if impatient of admission. "what's this?" exclaimed mr. pickwick. "it looks like a case-bottle;" remarked ben allen, eyeing the object in question through his spectacles with some interest; "i rather think it belongs to bob." the impression was perfectly accurate; for mr. bob sawyer, having attached the case-bottle to the end of the walking-stick, was battering the window with it in token of his wish that his friends inside would partake of its contents, in all good fellowship and harmony. "what's to be done?" said mr. pickwick, looking at the bottle. "this proceeding is more absurd than the other." "i think it would be best to take it in," replied mr. ben allen; "it would serve him right to take it and keep it, wouldn't it?" "it would," said mr. pickwick: "shall i?" "i think it the most proper course we could possibly adopt," replied ben. this advice quite coinciding with his own opinion, mr. pickwick gently let down the window and disengaged the bottle from the stick: upon which the latter was drawn up, and mr. bob sawyer was heard to laugh heartily. "what a merry dog it is!" said mr. pickwick, looking round at his companion with the bottle in his hand. "he is," said mr. allen. "you cannot possibly be angry with him," remarked mr. pickwick. "quite out of the question," observed benjamin allen. during this short interchange of sentiments, mr. pickwick had, in an abstracted mood, uncorked the bottle. "what is it?" inquired ben allen, carelessly. "i don't know," replied mr. pickwick, with equal carelessness. "it smells, i think, like milk-punch." "oh, indeed?" said ben. "i _think_ so," rejoined mr. pickwick, very properly guarding himself against the possibility of stating an untruth: "mind, i could not undertake to say certainly, without tasting it." "you had better do so," said ben, "we may as well know what it is." "do you think so?" replied mr. pickwick. "well; if you are curious to know, of course i have no objection." ever willing to sacrifice his own feelings to the wishes of his friend, mr. pickwick at once took a pretty long taste. "what is it?" inquired ben allen, interrupting him with some impatience. "curious," said mr. pickwick, smacking his lips, "i hardly know now. oh yes!" said mr. pickwick, after a second taste. "it _is_ punch." mr. ben allen looked at mr. pickwick; mr. pickwick looked at mr. ben allen; mr. ben allen smiled; mr. pickwick did not. "it would serve him right," said the last-named gentleman, with some severity, "it would serve him right to drink it every drop." "the very thing that occurred to me," said ben allen. "is it indeed?" rejoined mr. pickwick. "then here's his health!" with these words, that excellent person took a most energetic pull at the bottle, and handed it to ben allen, who was not slow to imitate his example. the smiles became mutual, and the milk-punch was gradually and cheerfully disposed of. "after all," said mr. pickwick, as he drained the last drop, "his pranks are really very amusing: very entertaining indeed." "you may say that," rejoined mr. ben allen. in proof of bob sawyer's being one of the funniest fellows alive, he proceeded to entertain mr. pickwick with a long and circumstantial account how that gentleman once drank himself into a fever and got his head shaved; the relation of which pleasant and agreeable history was only stopped by the stoppage of the chaise at the bell at berkeley heath, to change horses. "i say! we're going to dine here, aren't we?" said bob, looking in at the window. "dine!" said mr. pickwick. "why, we have only come nineteen miles, and have eighty-seven and a half to go." "just the reason why we should take something to enable us to bear up against the fatigue," remonstrated mr. bob sawyer. "oh, it's quite impossible to dine at half-past eleven o'clock in the day," replied mr. pickwick, looking at his watch. "so it is," rejoined bob, "lunch is the very thing. hallo, you sir! lunch for three, directly, and keep the horses back for a quarter of an hour. tell them to put everything they have cold on the table and some bottled ale, and let us taste your very best madeira." issuing these orders with monstrous importance and bustle, mr. bob sawyer at once hurried into the house to superintend the arrangements; in less than five minutes he returned and declared them to be excellent. the quality of the lunch fully justified the eulogium which bob had pronounced, and very great justice was done to it, not only by that gentleman, but mr. ben allen and mr. pickwick also. under the auspices of the three, the bottled ale and the madeira were promptly disposed of; and when (the horses being once more put to) they resumed their seats, with the case-bottle full of the best substitute for milk-punch that could be procured on so short a notice, the key-bugle sounded, and the red flag waved, without the slightest opposition on mr. pickwick's part. at the hop pole at tewkesbury, they stopped to dine; upon which occasion there was more bottled ale, with some more madeira, and some port besides; and here the case-bottle was replenished for the third time. under the influence of these combined stimulants, mr. pickwick and mr. ben allen fell fast asleep for thirty miles, while bob and mr. weller sang duets in the dickey. it was quite dark when mr. pickwick roused himself sufficiently to look out of the window. the straggling cottages by the roadside, the dingy hue of every object visible, the murky atmosphere, the paths of cinders and brick-dust, the deep-red glow of furnace fires in the distance, the volumes of dense smoke issuing heavily forth from the high toppling chimneys, blackening and obscuring everything around; the glare of distant lights, the ponderous waggons which toiled along the road, laden with clashing rods of iron, or piled with heavy goods--all betokened their rapid approach to the great working town of birmingham. as they rattled through the narrow thoroughfares leading to the heart of the turmoil, the sights and sounds of earnest occupation struck more forcibly on the senses. the streets were thronged with working-people. the hum of labour resounded from every house, lights gleamed from the long casement windows in the attic stories, and the whirl of wheels and noise of machinery shook the trembling walls. the fires, whose lurid, sullen light had been visible for miles, blazed fiercely up, in the great works and factories of the town. the din of hammers, the rushing of steam, and the dead heavy clanking of engines, was the harsh music which arose from every quarter. the postboy was driving briskly through the open streets, and past the handsome and well-lighted shops which intervene between the outskirts of the town and the old royal hotel, before mr. pickwick had begun to consider the very difficult and delicate nature of the commission which had carried him thither. the delicate nature of this commission, and the difficulty of executing it in a satisfactory manner, were by no means lessened by the voluntary companionship of mr. bob sawyer. truth to tell, mr. pickwick felt that his presence on the occasion, however considerate and gratifying, was by no means an honour he would willingly have sought; in fact, he would cheerfully have given a reasonable sum of money to have had mr. bob sawyer removed to any place at not less than fifty miles distance, without delay. mr. pickwick had never held any personal communication with mr. winkle senior, although he had once or twice corresponded with him by letter, and returned satisfactory answers to his inquiries concerning the moral character and behaviour of his son; he felt nervously sensible that to wait upon him, for the first time, attended by bob sawyer and ben allen, both slightly fuddled, was not the most ingenious and likely means that could have been hit upon to prepossess him in his favour. "however," said mr. pickwick, endeavouring to reassure himself, "i must do the best i can. i must see him to-night, for i faithfully promised to do so. if they persist in accompanying me, i must make the interview as brief as possible, and be content to hope that, for their own sakes, they will not expose themselves." as he comforted himself with these reflections, the chaise stopped at the door of the old royal. ben allen having been partially awakened from a stupendous sleep, and dragged out by the collar by mr. samuel weller, mr. pickwick was enabled to alight. they were shown to a comfortable apartment, and mr. pickwick at once propounded a question to the waiter concerning the whereabout of mr. winkle's residence. "close by, sir," said the waiter, "not above five hundred yards, sir. mr. winkle is a wharfinger, sir, at the canal, sir. private residence is not--oh dear no, sir, _not_ five hundred yards, sir." here the waiter blew a candle out, and made a feint of lighting it again, in order to afford mr. pickwick an opportunity of asking any further questions, if he felt so disposed. "take anything now, sir?" said the waiter, lighting the candle in desperation at mr. pickwick's silence. "tea or coffee, sir? dinner, sir?" "nothing now." "very good, sir. like to order supper, sir?" "not just now." "_very_ good, sir." here, he walked softly to the door, and then stopping short, turned round and said, with great suavity: "shall i send the chambermaid, gentlemen?" "you may, if you please," replied mr. pickwick. "if _you_ please, sir." "and bring some soda water," said bob sawyer. "soda water, sir? yes, sir." with his mind apparently relieved from an overwhelming weight, by having at last got an order for something, the waiter imperceptibly melted away. waiters never walk or run. they have a peculiar and mysterious power of skimming out of rooms, which other mortals possess not. some slight symptoms of vitality having been awakened in mr. ben allen by the soda water, he suffered himself to be prevailed upon to wash his face and hands, and to submit to be brushed by sam. mr. pickwick and bob sawyer having also repaired the disorder which the journey had made in their apparel, the three started forth, arm in arm, to mr. winkle's; bob sawyer impregnating the atmosphere with tobacco smoke as he walked along. about a quarter of a mile off, in a quiet, substantial-looking street, stood an old red-brick house with three steps before the door, and a brass plate upon it, bearing, in fat roman capitals, the words, "mr. winkle." the steps were very white, and the bricks were very red, and the house was very clean; and here stood mr. pickwick, mr. benjamin allen, and mr. bob sawyer, as the clock struck ten. a smart servant girl answered the door, and started on beholding the three strangers. "is mr. winkle at home, my dear?" inquired mr. pickwick. "he is just going to supper, sir," replied the girl. "give him that card, if you please," rejoined mr. pickwick. "say i am sorry to trouble him at so late an hour; but i am anxious to see him to-night, and have only just arrived." the girl looked timidly at mr. bob sawyer, who was expressing his admiration of her personal charms by a variety of wonderful grimaces; and casting an eye at the hats and great-coats which hung in the passage, called another girl to mind the door while she went upstairs. the sentinel was speedily relieved; for the girl returned immediately, and begging pardon of the gentlemen for leaving them in the street, ushered them into a floor-clothed back parlour, half office and half dressing-room, in which the principal useful and ornamental articles of furniture were a desk, a wash-hand stand and shaving glass, a boot-rack and boot-jack, a high stool, four chairs, a table, and an old eight-day clock. over the mantelpiece were the sunken doors of an iron safe, while a couple of hanging shelves for books, an almanack, and several files of dusty papers, decorated the walls. "very sorry to leave you standing at the door, sir," said the girl, lighting a lamp, and addressing mr. pickwick with a winning smile, "but you was quite strangers to me; and we have such a many trampers that only come to see what they can lay their hands on, that really----" "there is not the least occasion for any apology, my dear," said mr. pickwick, good-humouredly. "not the slightest, my love," said bob sawyer, playfully stretching forth his arms, and skipping from side to side, as if to prevent the young lady's leaving the room. the young lady was not at all softened by these allurements, for she at once expressed her opinion that mr. bob sawyer was an "odous creetur;" and, on his becoming rather more pressing in his attentions, imprinted her fair fingers upon his face, and bounced out of the room with many expressions of aversion and contempt. deprived of the young lady's society, mr. bob sawyer proceeded to divert himself by peeping into the desk, looking into all the table-drawers, feigning to pick the lock of the iron safe, turning the almanack with its face to the wall, trying on the boots of mr. winkle senior over his own, and making several other humorous experiments upon the furniture, all of which afforded mr. pickwick unspeakable horror and agony, and yielded mr. bob sawyer proportionate delight. at length the door opened, and a little old gentleman in a snuff-coloured suit, with a head and face the precise counterpart of those belonging to mr. winkle junior, excepting that he was rather bald, trotted into the room with mr. pickwick's card in one hand, and a silver candlestick in the other. "mr. pickwick, sir, how do you do?" said winkle the elder, putting down the candlestick and proffering his hand. "hope i see you well, sir? glad to see you. be seated, mr. pickwick, i beg, sir. this gentleman is----" "my friend, mr. sawyer," interposed mr. pickwick, "your son's friend." "oh," said mr. winkle the elder, looking rather grimly at bob. "i hope _you_ are well, sir?" "right as a trivet, sir," replied bob sawyer. [illustration: _mr. winkle senior_] "this other gentleman," cried mr. pickwick, "is, as you will see, when you have read the letter with which i am entrusted, a very near relative or, i should rather say, a very particular friend of your son's. his name is allen." "_that_ gentleman?" inquired mr. winkle, pointing with the card towards ben allen, who had fallen asleep in an attitude which left nothing of him visible but his spine and his coat collar. mr. pickwick was on the point of replying to the question, and reciting mr. benjamin allen's name and honourable distinctions at full length, when the sprightly mr. bob sawyer, with a view of rousing his friend to a sense of his situation, inflicted a startling pinch upon the fleshy part of his arm, which caused him to jump up with a shriek. suddenly aware that he was in the presence of a stranger, mr. ben allen advanced and, shaking mr. winkle most affectionately by both hands for about five minutes, murmured, in some half-intelligible fragments of sentences, the great delight he felt in seeing him, and a hospitable inquiry whether he felt disposed to take anything after his walk, or would prefer waiting "till dinner time;" which done, he sat down and gazed about him with a petrified stare, as if he had not the remotest idea where he was, which indeed he had not. all this was most embarrassing to mr. pickwick, the more especially as mr. winkle senior evinced palpable astonishment at the eccentric--not to say extraordinary--behaviour of his two companions. to bring the matter to an issue at once, he drew a letter from his pocket, and presenting it to mr. winkle senior, said: "this letter, sir, is from your son. you will see, by its contents, that on your favourable and fatherly consideration of it, depend his future happiness and welfare. will you oblige me by giving it the calmest and coolest perusal, and by discussing the subject afterwards with me, in the tone and spirit in which alone it ought to be discussed? you may judge of the importance of your decision to your son, and his intense anxiety upon the subject, by my waiting upon you without any previous warning, at so late an hour; and," added mr. pickwick, glancing slightly at his two companions, "and under such unfavourable circumstances." with this prelude, mr. pickwick placed four closely written sides of extra superfine wire-woven penitence in the hands of the astounded mr. winkle senior. then reseating himself in his chair, he watched his looks and manner: anxiously, it is true, but with the open front of a gentleman who feels he has taken no part which he need excuse or palliate. the old wharfinger turned the letter over; looked at the front, back, and sides; made a microscopic examination of the fat little boy on the seal; raised his eyes to mr. pickwick's face; and then, seating himself on the high stool, and drawing the lamp closer to him, broke the wax, unfolded the epistle, and lifting it to the light, he prepared to read. just at this moment, mr. bob sawyer, whose wit had lain dormant for some minutes, placed his hands upon his knees, and made a face after the portrait of the late mr. grimaldi, as clown. it so happened that mr. winkle senior, instead of being deeply engaged in reading the letter, as mr. bob sawyer thought, chanced to be looking over the top of it at no less a person than mr. bob sawyer himself; rightly conjecturing that the face aforesaid was made in ridicule and derision of his own person, he fixed his eyes on bob with such expressive sternness, that the late mr. grimaldi's lineaments gradually resolved themselves into a very fine expression of humility and confusion. "did you speak, sir?" inquired mr. winkle senior, after an awful silence. "no, sir," replied bob, with no remains of the clown about him, save and except the extreme redness of his cheeks. "you are sure you did not, sir?" said mr. winkle senior. "oh dear yes, sir, quite," replied bob. "i thought you did, sir," rejoined the old gentleman, with indignant emphasis. "perhaps you _looked_ at me, sir?" "oh no, sir! not at all," replied bob, with extreme civility. "i am very glad to hear it, sir," said mr. winkle senior. having frowned upon the abashed bob with great magnificence, the old gentleman again brought the letter to the light, and began to read it seriously. mr. pickwick eyed him intently as he turned from the bottom line of the first page to the top line of the second, and from the bottom of the second to the top of the third, and from the bottom of the third to the top of the fourth; but not the slightest alteration of countenance afforded a clue to the feelings with which he received the announcement of his son's marriage, which mr. pickwick knew was in the very first half-dozen lines. he read the letter to the last word; folded it again with all the carefulness and precision of a man of business; and, just when mr. pickwick expected some great outbreak of feeling, dipped a pen in the inkstand, and said as quietly as if he were speaking on the most ordinary counting-house topic: "what is nathaniel's address, mr. pickwick?" "the george and vulture, at present," replied that gentleman. "george and vulture. where is that?" "george yard, lombard street." "in the city?" "yes." the old gentleman methodically indorsed the address on the back of the letter; and then, placing it in the desk, which he locked, said as he got off the stool and placed the bunch of keys in his pocket: "i suppose there is nothing else which need detain us, mr. pickwick?" "nothing else, my dear sir!" observed that warm-hearted person in indignant amazement. "nothing else! have you no opinion to express on this momentous event in our young friend's life? no assurance to convey to him, through me, of the continuance of your affection and protection? nothing to say which will cheer and sustain him, and the anxious girl who looks to him for comfort and support? my dear sir, consider." "i will consider," replied the old gentleman. "i have nothing to say just now. i am a man of business, mr. pickwick. i never commit myself hastily in any affair, and from what i see of this, i by no means like the appearance of it. a thousand pounds is not much, mr. pickwick." "you're very right, sir," interposed ben allen, just awake enough to know that he had spent _his_ thousand pounds without the smallest difficulty. "you're an intelligent man. bob, he's a very knowing fellow this." "i am very happy to find that _you_ do me the justice to make the admission, sir," said mr. winkle senior, looking contemptuously at ben allen, who was shaking his head profoundly. "the fact is, mr. pickwick, that when i gave my son a roving license for a year or so, to see something of men and manners (which he has done under your auspices), so that he might not enter into life a mere boarding-school milk-sop to be gulled by everybody, i never bargained for this. he knows that, very well, so if i withdraw my countenance from him on this account, he has no call to be surprised. he shall hear from me, mr. pickwick. good night, sir. margaret, open the door." all this time, bob sawyer had been nudging mr. ben allen to say something on the right side; ben accordingly now burst, without the slightest preliminary notice, into a brief but impassioned piece of eloquence. "sir," said mr. ben allen, staring at the old gentleman, out of a pair of very dim and languid eyes, and working his right arm vehemently up and down, "you--you ought to be ashamed of yourself." "as the lady's brother, of course you are an excellent judge of the question," retorted mr. winkle senior. "there; that's enough. pray say no more, mr. pickwick. good night, gentlemen!" with these words the old gentleman took up the candlestick, and opening the room door, politely motioned towards the passage. "you will regret this, sir," said mr. pickwick, setting his teeth close together to keep down his choler; for he felt how important the effect might prove to his young friend. "i am at present of a different opinion," calmly replied mr. winkle senior. "once again, gentlemen, i wish you a good night." mr. pickwick walked, with angry strides, into the street. mr. bob sawyer, completely quelled by the decision of the old gentleman's manner, took the same course. mr. ben allen's hat rolled down the steps immediately afterwards, and mr. ben allen's body followed it directly. the whole party went silent and supperless to bed; and mr. pickwick thought, just before he fell asleep, that if he had known mr. winkle senior had been quite so much of a man of business, it was extremely probable he might never have waited upon him, on such an errand. chapter xxiii [illustration] _in which mr. pickwick encounters an old acquaintance. to which fortunate circumstance the reader is mainly indebted for matter of thrilling interest herein set down, concerning two great public men of might and power_ the morning which broke upon mr. pickwick's sight, at eight o'clock, was not at all calculated to elevate his spirits, or to lessen the depression which the unlooked-for result of his embassy inspired. the sky was dark and gloomy, the air was damp and raw, the streets were wet and sloppy. the smoke hung sluggishly above the chimney-tops as if it lacked the courage to rise, and the rain came slowly and doggedly down, as if it had not even the spirit to pour. a game-cock in the stable-yard, deprived of every spark of his accustomed animation, balanced himself dismally on one leg in a corner; a donkey, moping with drooping head under the narrow roof of an outhouse, appeared from his meditative and miserable countenance to be contemplating suicide. in the street, umbrellas were the only things to be seen, and the clicking of pattens and splashing of rain-drops, were the only sounds to be heard. the breakfast was interrupted by very little conversation; even mr. bob sawyer felt the influence of the weather, and the previous day's excitement. in his own expressive language he was "floored." so was mr. ben allen. so was mr. pickwick. in protracted expectation of the weather clearing up, the last evening paper from london was read and re-read with an intensity of interest only known in cases of extreme destitution; every inch of the carpet was walked over, with similar perseverance; the windows were looked out of, often enough to justify the imposition of an additional duty upon them; all kinds of topics of conversation were started and failed; and at length mr. pickwick, when noon had arrived, without a change for the better, rang the bell resolutely and ordered out the chaise. although the roads were miry, and the drizzling rain came down harder than it had done yet, and although the mud and wet splashed in at the open windows of the carriage to such an extent that the discomfort was almost as great to the pair of insides as to the pair of outsides, still there was something in the motion, and the sense of being up and doing, which was so infinitely superior to being pent in a dull room, looking at the dull rain dripping into a dull street, that they all agreed, on starting, that the change was a great improvement, and wondered how they could possibly have delayed making it, as long as they had done. when they stopped to change at coventry, the steam ascended from the horses in such clouds as wholly to obscure the hostler, whose voice was however heard to declare from the mist, that he expected the first gold medal from the humane society on their next distribution of rewards, for taking the postboy's hat off; the water descending from the brim of which the invisible gentleman declared must inevitably have drowned him (the postboy), but for his great presence of mind in tearing it promptly from his head, and drying the gasping man's countenance with a wisp of straw. "this is pleasant," said bob sawyer, turning up his coat collar, and pulling the shawl over his mouth to concentrate the fumes of a glass of brandy just swallowed. "wery," replied sam, composedly. "you don't seem to mind it?" observed bob. "vy, i don't exactly see no good my mindin' on it 'ud do, sir," replied sam. "that's an unanswerable reason, anyhow," said bob. "yes, sir," rejoined mr. weller. "wotever is, is right, as the young nobleman sveetly remarked ven they put him down in the pension list 'cos his mother's uncle's vife's grandfather vunce lit the king's pipe vith a portable tinder-box." "not a bad notion that, sam," said mr. bob sawyer, approvingly. "just wot the young nobleman said ev'ry quarter-day arterward for the rest of his life," replied mr. weller. "wos you ever called in," inquired sam, glancing at the driver, after a short silence, and lowering his voice to a mysterious whisper, "wos you ever called in, ven you wos 'prentice to a sawbones, to wisit a postboy?" "i don't remember that i ever was," replied bob sawyer. "you never see a postboy in that 'ere hospital as you _walked_ (as they says o' the ghosts), did you?" demanded sam. "no," replied bob sawyer. "i don't think i ever did." "never know'd a churchyard vere there wos a postboy's tombstone, or see a dead postboy, did you?" inquired sam, pursuing his catechism. "no," rejoined bob, "i never did." "no!" rejoined sam, triumphantly. "nor never vill; and there's another thing that no man never see, and that's a dead donkey. no man never see a dead donkey, 'cept the gen'l'm'n in the black silk smalls as know'd a young 'ooman as kep' a goat; and that wos a french donkey, so wery likely he warn't vun o' the reg'lar breed." "well, what has that got to do with the postboys?" asked bob sawyer. "this here," replied sam. "without goin' so far as to as-sert, as some wery sensible people do, that postboys and donkeys is both immortal, wot i say is this; that venever they feels theirselves gettin' stiff and past their work, they just rides off together, vun postboy to a pair in the usual way; wot becomes on 'em nobody knows, but it's wery probable as they starts avay to take their pleasure in some other world, for there ain't a man alive as ever see, either a donkey or a postboy, a takin' his pleasure in this!" expatiating upon this learned and remarkable theory, and citing many curious statistical and other facts in its support, sam weller beguiled the time until they reached dunchurch, where a dry postboy and fresh horses were procured; the next stage was daventry, and the next towcester; and at the end of each stage it rained harder than it had done at the beginning. "i say," remonstrated bob sawyer, looking in at the coach window, as they rolled up before the door of the saracen's head, towcester, "this won't do, you know." "bless me!" said mr. pickwick, just awakening from a nap, "i'm afraid you're wet." "oh you are, are you?" returned bob. "yes, i am, a little that way. uncomfortably damp, perhaps." bob did look dampish, inasmuch as the rain was streaming from his neck, elbows, cuffs, skirts, and knees; and his whole apparel shone so with the wet, that it might have been mistaken for a full suit of prepared oilskin. "i _am_ rather wet," said bob, giving himself a shake, and casting a little hydraulic shower around, like a newfoundland dog just emerged from the water. "i think it's quite impossible to go on to-night," interposed ben. "out of the question, sir," remarked sam weller, coming to assist in the conference; "it's cruelty to animals, sir, to ask 'em to do it. there's beds here, sir," said sam, addressing his master, "everything clean and comfortable. wery good little dinner, sir, they can get ready in half-an-hour--pair of fowls, sir, and a weal cutlet; french beans, 'taturs, tart, and tidiness. you'd better stop vere you are sir, if i might recommend. take advice, sir, as the doctor said." the host of the saracen's head opportunely appeared at this moment, to confirm mr. weller's statement relative to the accommodations of the establishment, and to back his entreaties with a variety of dismal conjectures regarding the state of the roads, the doubt of fresh horses being to be had at the next stage, the dead certainty of its raining all night, the equally mortal certainty of its clearing up in the morning, and other topics of inducement familiar to innkeepers. "well," said mr. pickwick; "but i must send a letter to london by some conveyance, so that it may be delivered the very first thing in the morning, or i must go forward at all hazards." the landlord smiled his delight. nothing could be easier than for the gentleman to inclose a letter in a sheet of brown paper, and send it on, either by the mail or the night coach from birmingham. if the gentleman were particularly anxious to have it left as soon as possible, he might write outside, "to be delivered immediately," which was sure to be attended to; or "pay the bearer half-a-crown extra for instant delivery," which was surer still. "very well," said mr. pickwick, "then we will stop here." "lights in the sun, john; make up the fire; the gentlemen are wet!" cried the landlord. "this way, gentlemen; don't trouble yourselves about the postboy now, sir. i'll send him to you when you ring for him, sir. now, john, the candles." the candles were brought, the fire was stirred up, and a fresh log of wood thrown on. in ten minutes' time, a waiter was laying the cloth for dinner, the curtains were drawn, the fire was blazing brightly, and everything looked (as everything always does, in all decent english inns) as if the travellers had been expected, and their comforts prepared, for days beforehand. mr. pickwick sat down at a side table, and hastily indited a note to mr. winkle, merely informing him that he was detained by stress of weather, but would certainly be in london next day; until when he deferred any account of his proceedings. this note was hastily made into a parcel, and dispatched to the bar per mr. samuel weller. sam left it with the landlady, and was returning to pull his master's boots off, after drying himself by the kitchen fire, when, glancing casually through a half-opened door, he was arrested by the sight of a gentleman with a sandy head who had a large bundle of newspapers lying on the table before him, and was perusing the leading article of one with a settled sneer which curled up his nose and all his other features into a majestic expression of haughty contempt. "hallo!" said sam, "i ought to know that 'ere head and them features; the eye-glass, too, and the broad-brimmed tile! eatansvill to vit, or i'm a roman." sam was taken with a troublesome cough, at once, for the purpose of attracting the gentleman's attention; the gentleman starting at the sound, raised his head and his eye-glass, and disclosed to view the profound and thoughtful features of mr. pott, of the _eatanswill gazette_. "beggin' your pardon, sir," said sam, advancing with a bow, "my master's here, mr. pott." "hush, hush!" cried pott, drawing sam into the room, and closing the door, with a countenance of mysterious dread and apprehension. "wot's the matter, sir?" inquired sam, looking vacantly about him. "not a whisper of my name," replied pott; "this is a buff neighbourhood. if the excited and irritable populace knew i was here, i should be torn to pieces." "no! vould you, sir?" inquired sam. "i should be the victim of their fury," replied pott. "now, young man, what of your master?" "he's a stopping here to-night on his vay to town, vith a couple of friends," replied sam. "is mr. winkle one of them?" inquired pott, with a slight frown. "no, sir. mr. vinkle stops at home now," rejoined sam. "he's married." "married!" exclaimed pott, with frightful vehemence. he stopped, smiled darkly, and added, in a low, vindictive tone: "it serves him right!" having given vent to this cruel ebullition of deadly malice and cold-blooded triumph over a fallen enemy, mr. pott inquired whether mr. pickwick's friends were "blue"? receiving a most satisfactory answer in the affirmative from sam, who knew as much about the matter as pott himself, he consented to accompany him to mr. pickwick's room, where a hearty welcome awaited him. an agreement to club dinners together was at once made and ratified. "and how are matters going on in eatanswill?" inquired mr. pickwick, when pott had taken a seat near the fire, and the whole party had got their wet boots off, and dry slippers on. "is the _independent_ still in being?" "the _independent_, sir," replied pott, "is still dragging on a wretched and lingering career. abhorred and despised by even the few who are cognizant of its miserable and disgraceful existence; stifled by the very filth it so profusely scatters; rendered deaf and blind by the exhalations of its own slime; the obscene journal, happily unconscious of its degraded state, is rapidly sinking beneath that treacherous mud which, while it seems to give it a firm standing with the low and debased classes of society, is, nevertheless, rising above its detested head, and will speedily engulf it for ever." having delivered this manifesto (which formed portion of his last week's leader) with a vehement articulation, the editor paused to take breath and looked majestically at bob sawyer. "you are a young man, sir," said pott. mr. bob sawyer nodded. "so are you, sir," said pott, addressing mr. ben allen. ben admitted the soft impeachment. "and are both deeply imbued with those blue principles, which, as long as i live, i have pledged myself to the people of these kingdoms to support and to maintain?" suggested pott. "why, i don't exactly know about that," replied bob sawyer. "i am----" "not buff, mr. pickwick," interrupted pott, drawing back his chair, "your friend is not buff, sir?" "no, no," rejoined bob, "i'm a kind of plaid at present; a compound of all sorts of colours." "a waverer," said pott, solemnly, "a waverer. i should like to show you a series of eight articles, sir, that have appeared in the _eatanswill gazette_. i think i may venture to say that you would not be long in establishing your opinions on a firm and solid blue basis, sir." "i dare say i should turn very blue, long before i got to the end of them," responded bob. mr. pott looked dubiously at bob sawyer for some seconds, and, turning to mr. pickwick, said: "you have seen the literary articles which have appeared at intervals in the _eatanswill gazette_ in the course of the last three months, and which have excited such general--i may say such universal--attention and admiration?" "why," replied mr. pickwick, slightly embarrassed by the question, "the fact is, i have been so much engaged in other ways, that i really have not had an opportunity of perusing them." "you should do so, sir," said pott, with a severe countenance. "i will," said mr. pickwick. "they appeared in the form of a copious review of a work on chinese metaphysics, sir," said pott. "oh," observed mr. pickwick; "from your pen, i hope?" "from the pen of my critic, sir," rejoined pott, with dignity. "an abstruse subject, i should conceive," said mr. pickwick. "very, sir," responded pott, looking intensely sage. "he _crammed_ for it, to use a technical but expressive term; he read up for the subject, at my desire, in the _encyclopædia britannica_." "indeed!" said mr. pickwick. "i was not aware that that valuable work contained any information respecting chinese metaphysics." "he read, sir," rejoined pott, laying his hand on mr. pickwick's knee, and looking round with a smile of intellectual superiority, "he read for metaphysics under the letter m, and for china under the letter c, and combined his information, sir." mr. pott's features assumed so much additional grandeur at the recollection of the power and research displayed in the learned effusions in question, that some minutes elapsed before mr. pickwick felt emboldened to renew the conversation; at length, as the editor's countenance gradually relaxed into its customary expression of moral supremacy, he ventured to resume the discourse by asking: "is it fair to inquire what great object has brought you so far from home?" "that object which actuates and animates me in all my gigantic labours, sir," replied pott, with a calm smile; "my country's good." "i supposed it was some public mission," observed mr. pickwick. "yes, sir," resumed pott, "it is." here, bending towards mr. pickwick, he whispered in a deep, hollow voice, "a buff ball, sir, will take place in birmingham to-morrow evening." "god bless me!" exclaimed mr. pickwick. "yes, sir, and supper," added pott. "you don't say so!" ejaculated mr. pickwick. pott nodded portentously. now, although mr. pickwick feigned to stand aghast at this disclosure, he was so little versed in local politics that he was unable to form an adequate comprehension of the importance of the dire conspiracy it referred to; observing which, mr. pott, drawing forth the last number of the _eatanswill gazette_, and referring to the same, delivered himself of the following paragraph: "+hole-and-corner buffery.+ "a reptile contemporary has recently sweltered forth his black venom in the vain and hopeless attempt of sullying the fair name of our distinguished and excellent representative, the honourable mr. slumkey--that slumkey whom we, long before he gained his present noble and exalted position, predicted would one day be, as he now is, at once his country's brightest honour, and her proudest boast: alike her bold defender and her honest pride--our reptile contemporary, we say, has made himself merry, at the expense of a superbly embossed plated coal-scuttle, which has been presented to that glorious man by his enraptured constituents, and towards the purchase of which, the nameless wretch insinuates, the honourable mr. slumkey himself contributed, through a confidential friend of his butler's, more than three-fourths of the whole sum subscribed. why, does not the crawling creature see, that even if this be the fact, the honourable mr. slumkey only appears in a still more amiable and radiant light than before, if that be possible? does not even _his_ obtuseness perceive that this amiable and touching desire to carry out the wishes of the constituent body, must for ever endear him to the hearts and souls of such of his fellow-townsmen as are not worse than swine; or, in other words, who are not as debased as our contemporary himself? but such is the wretched trickery of hole-and-corner buffery! these are not its only artifices. treason is abroad. we boldly state, now that we are goaded to the disclosure, and we throw ourselves on the country and its constables for protection--we boldly state that secret preparations are at this moment in progress for a buff ball; which is to be held in a buff town, in the very heart and centre of a buff population; which is to be conducted by a buff master of the ceremonies; which is to be attended by four ultra buff members of parliament, and the admission to which is to be by buff tickets! does our fiendish contemporary wince? let him writhe, in impotent malice, as we pen the words, +we will be there.+" * * * * * "there, sir," said pott, folding up the paper quite exhausted, "that is the state of the case!" the landlord and waiter entering at the moment with dinner, caused mr. pott to put his finger on his lips, in token that he considered his life in mr. pickwick's hands, and depended on his secrecy. messrs. bob sawyer and benjamin allen, who had irreverently fallen asleep during the reading of the quotation from the _eatanswill gazette_, and the discussion which followed it, were roused by the mere whispering of the talismanic word "dinner" in their ears: and to dinner they went with good digestion waiting on appetite, and health on both, and a waiter on all three. in the course of the dinner and the sitting which succeeded it, mr. pott descending, for a few moments, to domestic topics, informed mr. pickwick that the air of eatanswill not agreeing with his lady, she was then engaged in making a tour of different fashionable watering-places with a view to the recovery of her wonted health and spirits; this was a delicate veiling of the fact that mrs. pott, acting upon her often-repeated threat of separation, had, in virtue of an arrangement negotiated by her brother, the lieutenant, and concluded by mr. pott, permanently retired with the faithful body-guard upon one moiety or half-part of the annual income and profits arising from the editorship and sale of the _eatanswill gazette_. while the great mr. pott was dwelling upon this and other matters, enlivening the conversation from time to time with various extracts from his own lucubrations, a stern stranger, calling from the window of a stage-coach, outward bound, which halted at the inn to deliver packages, requested to know whether, if he stopped short on his journey and remained there for the night, he could be furnished with the necessary accommodation of a bed and bedstead. "certainly, sir," replied the landlord. "i can, can i?" inquired the stranger, who seemed habitually suspicious in look and manner. "no doubt of it, sir," replied the landlord. "good," said the stranger. "coachman, i get down here. guard, my carpet-bag!" bidding the other passengers good night, in a rather snappish manner, the stranger alighted. he was a shortish gentleman, with very stiff black hair cut in the porcupine or blacking-brush style, and standing stiff and straight all over his head; his aspect was pompous and threatening; his manner was peremptory; his eyes were sharp and restless; and his whole bearing bespoke a feeling of great confidence in himself, and a consciousness of immeasurable superiority over all other people. this gentleman was shown into the room originally assigned to the patriotic mr. pott; and the waiter remarked, in dumb astonishment at the singular coincidence, that he had no sooner lighted the candles than the gentleman, diving into his hat, drew forth a newspaper, and began to read it with the very same expression of indignant scorn, which, upon the majestic features of pott, had paralysed his energies an hour before. the man observed too, that whereas mr. pott's scorn had been roused by a newspaper headed the _eatanswill independent_, this gentleman's withering contempt was awakened by a newspaper entitled the _eatanswill gazette_. "send the landlord," said the stranger. "yes, sir," rejoined the waiter. the landlord was sent, and came. "are you the landlord?" inquired the gentleman. "i am, sir," replied the landlord. "do you know me?" demanded the gentleman. "i have not that pleasure, sir," rejoined the landlord. "my name is slurk," said the gentleman. the landlord slightly inclined his head. "slurk, sir," repeated the gentleman, haughtily. "do you know me now, man?" the landlord scratched his head, looked at the ceiling, and at the stranger, and smiled feebly. "do you know me, man?" inquired the stranger, angrily. the landlord made a strong effort, and at length replied: "well, sir, i do _not_ know you." "great heaven!" said the stranger, dashing his clenched fist upon the table. "and this is popularity!" the landlord took a step or two towards the door; the stranger fixing his eyes upon him, resumed: "this," said the stranger, "this is gratitude for years of labour and study in behalf of the masses. i alight wet and weary; no enthusiastic crowds press forward to greet their champion; the church-bells are silent; the very name elicits no responsive feeling in their torpid bosoms. it is enough," said the agitated mr. slurk, pacing to and fro, "to curdle the ink in one's pen, and induce one to abandon their cause for ever." "did you say brandy and water, sir?" said the landlord, venturing a hint. "rum," said mr. slurk, turning fiercely upon him. "have you got a fire anywhere?" "we can light one directly, sir," said the landlord. "which will throw out no heat until it is bed-time," interrupted mr. slurk. "is there anybody in the kitchen?" not a soul. there was a beautiful fire. everybody had gone, and the house door was closed for the night. "i will drink my rum and water," said mr. slurk, "by the kitchen fire." so, gathering up his hat and newspaper, he stalked solemnly behind the landlord to that humble apartment, and throwing himself on a settle by the fireside, resumed his countenance of scorn, and began to read and drink in silent dignity. now, some demon of discord, flying over the saracen's head at that moment, on casting down his eyes in mere idle curiosity, happened to behold slurk established comfortably by the kitchen fire, and pott slightly elevated with wine in another room; upon which the malicious demon, darting down into the last-mentioned apartment with inconceivable rapidity, passed at once into the head of mr. bob sawyer, and prompted him for his (the demon's) own evil purposes to speak as follows: "i say, we've let the fire out. it's uncommonly cold after the rain, isn't it?" "it really is," replied mr. pickwick, shivering. "it wouldn't be a bad notion to have a cigar by the kitchen fire, would it?" said bob sawyer, still prompted by the demon aforesaid. "it would be particularly comfortable, _i_ think," replied mr. pickwick. "mr. pott, what do you say?" mr. pott yielded a ready assent; and all four travellers, each with his glass in his hand, at once betook themselves to the kitchen, with sam weller heading the procession to show them the way. the stranger was still reading; he looked up and started. mr. pott started. "what's the matter?" whispered mr. pickwick. "that reptile!" replied pott. "what reptile?" said mr. pickwick, looking about him for fear he should tread on some overgrown black beetle or dropsical spider. "that reptile," whispered pott, catching mr. pickwick by the arm, and pointing towards the stranger. "that reptile slurk, of the _independent_!" "perhaps we had better retire," whispered mr. pickwick. "never, sir," rejoined pott, pot-valiant in a double sense, "never." with these words, mr. pott took up his position on an opposite settle, and selecting one from a little bundle of newspapers began to read against his enemy. mr. pott, of course, read the _independent_, and mr. slurk, of course, read the _gazette_; and each gentleman audibly expressed his contempt of the other's compositions by bitter laughs and sarcastic sniffs; whence they proceeded to more open expressions of opinion, such as "absurd," "wretched," "atrocity," "humbug," "knavery," "dirt," "filth," "slime," "ditch-water," and other critical remarks of the like nature. both mr. bob sawyer and mr. ben allen had beheld these symptoms of rivalry and hatred, with a degree of delight which imparted great additional relish to the cigars at which they were puffing most vigorously. the moment they began to flag, the mischievous mr. bob sawyer, addressing slurk with great politeness, said: "will you allow me to look at your paper, sir, when you have quite done with it?" "you will find very little to repay you for your trouble in this contemptible _thing_, sir," replied slurk, bestowing a satanic frown on pott. "you shall have this presently," said pott, looking up pale with rage and quivering in his speech from the same cause. "ha! ha! you will be amused with this _fellow's_ audacity." terrific emphasis was laid on this "thing" and "fellow;" and the faces of both editors began to glow with defiance. "the ribaldry of this miserable man is despicably disgusting," said pott, pretending to address bob sawyer, and scowling upon slurk. here, mr. slurk laughed very heartily, and folding up the paper so as to get at a fresh column conveniently, said that the blockhead really amused him. "what an impudent blunderer this fellow is," said pott, turning from pink to crimson. "did you ever read any of this man's foolery, sir?" inquired slurk, of bob sawyer. "never," replied bob; "is it very bad?" "oh, shocking! shocking!" rejoined slurk. "really! dear me, this is too atrocious!" exclaimed pott, at this juncture; still feigning to be absorbed in his reading. "if you can wade through a few sentences of malice, meanness, falsehood, perjury, treachery, and cant," said slurk, handing the paper to bob, "you will, perhaps, be somewhat repaid by a laugh at the style of this ungrammatical twaddler." "what's that you said, sir?" inquired mr. pott, looking up, trembling all over with passion. "what's that to you, sir?" replied slurk. "ungrammatical twaddler, was it, sir?" said pott. "yes, sir, it was," replied slurk; "and _blue bore_, sir, if you like that better; ha! ha!" mr. pott retorted not a word to this jocose insult, but deliberately folded up his copy of the _independent_, flattened it carefully down, crushed it beneath his boot, spat upon it with great ceremony, and flung it into the fire. "there, sir," said pott, retreating from the stove, "and that's the way i would serve the viper who produces it, if i were not, fortunately for him, restrained by the laws of my country." "serve him so, sir!" cried slurk, starting up. "those laws shall never be appealed to by him, sir, in such a case. serve him so, sir!" "hear! hear!" said bob sawyer. "nothing can be fairer," observed mr. ben allen. "serve him so, sir!" reiterated slurk, in a loud voice. mr. pott darted a look of contempt, which might have withered an anchor. "serve him so, sir!" reiterated slurk, in a louder voice than before. "i will not, sir," rejoined pott. "oh, you won't, won't you, sir?" said mr. slurk, in a taunting manner; "you hear this, gentlemen! he won't; not that he's afraid; oh no! he _won't_. ha! ha!" "i consider you, sir," said mr. pott, moved by this sarcasm, "i consider you a viper. i look upon you, sir, as a man who has placed himself beyond the pale of society, by his most audacious, disgraceful, and abominable public conduct. i view you, sir, personally and politically, in no other light than as a most unparalleled and unmitigated viper." the indignant _independent_ did not wait to hear the end of this personal denunciation; for, catching up his carpet-bag, which was well stuffed with movables, he swung it in the air as pott turned away, and, letting it fall with a circular sweep on his head, just at that particular angle of the bag where a good thick hair-brush happened to be packed, caused a sharp crash to be heard throughout the kitchen and brought him at once to the ground. "gentlemen," cried mr. pickwick, as pott started up and seized the fire-shovel, "gentlemen! consider, for heaven's sake--help--sam--here--pray, gentlemen--interfere, somebody." uttering these incoherent exclamations, mr. pickwick rushed between the infuriated combatants just in time to receive the carpet-bag on one side of his body, and the fire-shovel on the other. whether the representatives of the public feeling of eatanswill were blinded by animosity, or (being both acute reasoners) saw the advantage of having a third party between them to bear all the blows, certain it is that they paid not the slightest attention to mr. pickwick, but defying each other with great spirit, plied the carpet-bag and the fire-shovel most fearlessly. mr. pickwick would unquestionably have suffered severely for his humane interference, if mr. weller, attracted by his master's cries, had not rushed in at the moment, and, snatching up a meal-sack, effectually stopped the conflict by drawing it over the head and shoulders of the mighty pott, and clasping him tight round the shoulders. "take avay that 'ere bag from t'other madman," said sam to ben allen and bob sawyer, who had done nothing but dodge round the group, each with a tortoise-shell lancet in his hand, ready to bleed the first man stunned. "give it up, you wretched little creetur, or i'll smother you in it." awed by these threats, and quite out of breath, the _independent_ suffered himself to be disarmed; and mr. weller, removing the extinguisher from pott, set him free with a caution. "you take yourself off to bed quietly," said sam, "or i'll put you both in it, and let you fight it out vith the mouth tied, as i vould a dozen sich, if they played these games. and you have the goodness to come this here vay, sir, if you please." thus addressing his master, sam took him by the arm, and led him off, while the rival editors were severally removed to their beds by the landlord, under the inspection of mr. bob sawyer and mr. benjamin allen; breathing, as they went away, many sanguinary threats, and making vague appointments for mortal combat next day. when they came to think it over, however, it occurred to them that they could do it much better in print, so they recommenced deadly hostilities without delay; and all eatanswill rung with their boldness on paper. they had taken themselves off in separate coaches, early next morning, before the other travellers were stirring; and the weather having now cleared up, the chaise companions once more turned their faces to london. chapter xxiv [illustration] _involving a serious change in the weller family, and the untimely downfall of the red-nosed mr. stiggins_ considering it a matter of delicacy to abstain from introducing either bob sawyer or ben allen to the young couple, until they were fully prepared to expect them, and wishing to spare arabella's feelings as much as possible, mr. pickwick proposed that he and sam should alight in the neighbourhood of the george and vulture, and that the two young men should for the present take up their quarters elsewhere. to this, they very readily agreed, and the proposition was accordingly acted upon; mr. ben allen and mr. bob sawyer betaking themselves to a sequestered pot-shop on the remotest confines of the borough, behind the bar-door of which their names had in other days very often appeared, at the head of long and complex calculations worked in white chalk. "dear me, mr. weller," said the pretty housemaid, meeting sam at the door. "dear _me_, i vish it vos, my dear," replied sam, dropping behind to let his master get out of hearing. "wot a sweet-looking creetur you are, mary!" "lor, mr. weller, what nonsense you do talk!" said mary. "oh! _don't_, mr. weller." "don't what, my dear?" said sam. "why, that," replied the pretty housemaid. "lor, do get along with you." thus admonishing him, the pretty housemaid pushed sam against the wall, declaring that he had tumbled her cap, and put her hair quite out of curl. "and prevented what i was going to say, besides," added mary. "there's a letter been waiting for you four days; you hadn't been gone half an hour when it came; and more than that, it's got 'immediate' on the outside." "vere is it, my love?" inquired sam. "i took care of it for you, or i dare say it would have been lost long before this," replied mary. "there, take it; it's more than you deserve." with these words, after many pretty little coquettish doubts and fears, and wishes that she might not have lost it, mary produced the letter from behind the nicest little muslin tucker possible, and handed it over to sam, who thereupon kissed it with much gallantry and devotion. "my goodness me!" said mary, adjusting the tucker and feigning unconsciousness, "you seem to have grown very fond of it all at once." to this mr. weller only replied by a wink, the intense meaning of which no description could convey the faintest idea of; and, sitting himself down beside mary on a window seat, opened the letter and glanced at the contents. "hallo!" exclaimed sam, "wot's all this?" "nothing the matter, i hope?" said mary, peeping over his shoulder. "bless them eyes o' yourn!" said sam, looking up. "never mind my eyes; you had much better read your letter," said the pretty housemaid; and as she said so, she made the eyes twinkle with such slyness and beauty that they were perfectly irresistible. sam refreshed himself with a kiss, and read as follows: "_markis gran by dorken wensdy_ "my dear sammle, "i am wery sorry to have the pleasure of bein a bear of ill news your mother in law cort cold consekens of imprudently settin too long on the damp grass in the rain a hearin of a shepherd who warnt able to leave off till late at night owen to his havin vound his-self up vith brandy and vater and not bein able to stop his-self till he got a little sober which took a many hours to do the doctor says that if she'd svallo'd varm brandy and vater artervards insted of afore she mightn't have been no vus her veels wos immedetly greased and everythink done to set her agoin as could be inwented your farther had hopes as she vould have vorked round as usual but just as she wos a turnen the corner my boy she took the wrong road and vent down hill vith a welocity you never see and notvithstandin that the drag wos put on drectly by the medikel man it wornt of no use at all for she paid the last pike at twenty minutes afore six o'clock yesterday evenin havin done the jouney wery much under the reglar time vich praps was partly owen to her haven taken in wery little luggage by the vay your father says that if you vill come and see me sammy he vill take it as a wery great favor for i am wery lonely samivel n b he _vill_ have it spelt that vay vich i say ant right as there is sich a many things to settle he is sure your guvner wont object of course he vill not sammy for i knows him better so he sends his dooty in which i join and am samivel infernally yours +tony veller+." "wot a incomprehensible letter," said sam; "who's to know wot it means, vith all this he-ing and i-ing! it ain't my father's writin' cept this here signater in print letters; that's his." "perhaps he got somebody to write it for him, and signed it himself afterwards," said the pretty housemaid. "stop a minit," replied sam, running over the letter again, and pausing here and there, to reflect, as he did so. "you've hit it. the gen'l'm'n as wrote it wos a tellin' all about the misfortun' in a proper vay, and then my father comes a lookin' over him, and complicates the whole concern by puttin' his oar in. that's just the wery sort o' thing he'd do. you're right, mary, my dear." having satisfied himself on this point, sam read the letter all over once more, and, appearing to form a clear notion of its contents for the first time, ejaculated thoughtfully, as he folded it up: "and so the poor creetur's dead! i'm sorry for it. she warn't a bad disposed 'ooman, if them shepherds had let her alone. i'm wery sorry for it." mr. weller uttered these words in so serious a manner, that the pretty housemaid cast down her eyes and looked very grave. "hows'ever," said sam, putting the letter in his pocket with a gentle sigh, "it wos to be--and wos, as the old lady said arter she'd married the footman. can't be helped now, can it, mary?" mary shook her head, and sighed too. "i must apply to the hemperor for leave of absence," said sam. mary sighed again. the letter was so very affecting. "good-bye!" said sam. "good-bye," rejoined the pretty housemaid, turning her head away. "well, shake hands, won't you?" said sam. the pretty housemaid put out a hand which, although it was a housemaid's, was a very small one, and rose to go. "i shan't be wery long avay," said sam. "you're always away," said mary, giving her head the slightest possible toss in the air. "you no sooner come, mr. weller, than you go again." mr. weller drew the household beauty closer to him, and entered upon a whispering conversation, which had not proceeded far, when she turned her face round and condescended to look at him again. when they parted, it was somehow or other indispensably necessary for her to go to her room, and arrange the cap and curls before she could think of presenting herself to her mistress; which preparatory ceremony she went off to perform, bestowing many nods and smiles on sam over the banisters as she tripped upstairs. "i shan't be avay more than a day, or two, sir, at the farthest," said sam, when he had communicated to mr. pickwick the intelligence of his father's loss. "as long as may be necessary, sam," replied mr. pickwick, "you have my full permission to remain." sam bowed. "you will tell your father, sam, that if i can be of any assistance to him in his present situation, i shall be most willing and ready to lend him any aid in my power," said mr. pickwick. "thankee, sir," rejoined sam. "i'll mention it, sir." and with some expressions of mutual good-will and interest, master and man separated. it was just seven o'clock when samuel weller, alighting from the box of a stage-coach which passed through dorking, stood within a few hundred yards of the marquis of granby. it was a cold, dull, evening; the little street looked dreary and dismal; and the mahogany countenance of the noble and gallant marquis seemed to wear a more sad and melancholy expression than it was wont to do, as it swung to and fro, creaking mournfully in the wind. the blinds were pulled down, and the shutters partly closed; of the knot of loungers that usually collected about the door, not one was to be seen; the place was silent and desolate. seeing nobody of whom he could ask any preliminary questions, sam walked softly in. glancing round, he quickly recognised his parent in the distance. the widower was seated at a small round table in the little room behind the bar, smoking a pipe, with his eyes intently fixed upon the fire. the funeral had evidently taken place that day; for attached to his hat, which he still retained on his head, was a hatband measuring about a yard and a half in length, which hung over the top-rail of the chair and streamed negligently down. mr. weller was in a very abstracted and contemplative mood. notwithstanding that sam called him by name several times, he still continued to smoke with the same fixed and quiet countenance, and was only roused ultimately by his son's placing the palm of his hand on his shoulder. "sammy," said mr. weller, "you're velcome." "i've been a callin' to you half a dozen times," said sam, hanging his hat on a peg, "but you didn't hear me." "no, sammy," replied mr. weller, again looking thoughtfully at the fire. "i wos in a referee, sammy." "wot about?" inquired sam, drawing his chair up to the fire. "in a referee, sammy," replied the elder mr. weller, "regarding _her_, samivel." here mr. weller jerked his head in the direction of dorking churchyard, in mute explanation that his words referred to the late mrs. weller. "i wos a thinkin', sammy," said mr. weller, eyeing his son, with great earnestness, over his pipe; as if to assure him that, however extraordinary and incredible the declaration might appear, it was nevertheless calmly and deliberately uttered. "i wos a thinkin', sammy, that upon the whole i wos wery sorry she wos gone." "vell, and so you ought to be," replied sam. mr. weller nodded his acquiescence in the sentiment, and again fastening his eyes on the fire, shrouded himself in a cloud, and mused deeply. "those wos wery sensible observations as she made, sammy," said mr. weller, driving the smoke away with his hand, after a long silence. "wot observations?" inquired sam. "them as she made, arter she was took ill," replied the old gentleman. "wot wos they?" "somethin' to this here effect. 'veller,' she says, 'i'm afeard i've not done by you quite wot i ought to have done; you're a wery kind-hearted man, and i might ha' made your home more comfortabler. i begin to see now,' she says, 'ven it's too late, that if a married 'ooman vishes to be religious, she should begin vith dischargin' her dooties at home, and makin' them as is about her cheerful and happy, and that vile she goes to church or chapel, or wot not, at all proper times, she should be wery careful not to conwert this sort o' thing into a excuse for idleness or self-indulgence. i _have_ done this,' she says, 'and i've wasted time and substance on them as has done it more than me; but i hope ven i'm gone, veller, that you'll think on me as i wos afore i know'd them people, and as i raly wos by natur'.' 'susan,' says i--i wos took up wery short by this, samivel; i von't deny it, my boy--'susan,' i says, 'you've been a wery good vife to me, altogether; don't say nothin' at all about it: keep a good heart, my dear; and you'll live to see me punch that 'ere stiggins's head yet.' she smiled at this, samivel," said the old gentleman, stifling a sigh with his pipe, "but she died arter all!" "vell," said sam, venturing to offer a little homely consolation, after the lapse of three or four minutes, consumed by the old gentleman in slowly shaking his head from side to side and solemnly smoking; "vell, gov'ner, ve must all come to it, one day or another." "so we must, sammy," said mr. weller the elder. "there's a providence in it all," said sam. "o' course there is," replied his father, with a nod of grave approval. "wot 'ud become of the undertakers without it, sammy?" lost in the immense field of conjecture opened by this reflection, the elder mr. weller laid his pipe on the table, and stirred the fire with a meditative visage. while the old gentleman was thus engaged, a very buxom-looking cook, dressed in mourning, who had been bustling about in the bar, glided into the room, and bestowing many smirks of recognition upon sam, silently stationed herself at the back of his father's chair, and announced her presence by a slight cough; the which, being disregarded, was followed by a louder one. "hallo!" said the elder mr. weller, dropping the poker as he looked round, and hastily drew his chair away. "wot's the matter now?" "have a cup of tea, there's a good soul," replied the buxom female, coaxingly. "i von't," replied mr. weller, in a somewhat boisterous manner, "i'll see you"--mr. weller hastily checked himself, and added in a low tone, "furder fust." "oh, dear, dear! how adversity does change people!" said the lady, looking upwards. "it's the only think 'twixt this and the doctor as shall change _my_ condition," muttered mr. weller. "i really never saw a man so cross," said the buxom female. "never mind. it's all for my own good; vich is the reflection vith wich the penitent schoolboy comforted his feelin's ven they flogged him," rejoined the old gentleman. the buxom female shook her head with a compassionate and sympathising air; and, appealing to sam, inquired whether his father really ought not to make an effort to keep up, and not give way to that lowness of spirits. "you see, mr. samuel," said the buxom female, "as i was telling him yesterday, he _will_ feel lonely, he can't expect but what he should, sir, but he should keep up a good heart, because, dear me, i'm sure we all pity his loss, and are ready to do anything for him; and there's no situation in life so bad, mr. samuel, that it can't be mended. which is what a very worthy person said to me when my husband died." here the speaker, putting her hand before her mouth, coughed again, and looked affectionately at the elder mr. weller. "as i don't rekvire any o' your conversation just now, mum, vill you have the goodness to re-tire?" inquired mr. weller in grave and steady voice. "well, mr. weller," said the buxom female, "i'm sure i only spoke to you out of kindness." "wery likely, mum," replied mr. weller. "samivel, show the lady out, and shut the door arter her." this hint was not lost upon the buxom female; for she at once left the room, and slammed the door behind her, upon which mr. weller senior, falling back in his chair in a violent perspiration, said: "sammy, if i was to stop here alone vun veek--only vun veek, my boy--that 'ere 'ooman 'ud marry me by force and wiolence afore it was over." "wot! is she so wery fond on you?" inquired sam. "fond!" replied his father, "i can't keep her avay from me. if i was locked up in a fire-proof chest vith a patent brahmin, she'd find means to get at me, sammy." "wot a thing it is to be so sought arter!" observed sam, smiling. "i don't take no pride out on it, sammy," replied mr. weller, poking the fire vehemently, "it's a horrid sitiwation. i'm actiwally drove out o' house and home by it. the breath was scarcely out o' your poor mother-in-law's body, ven vun old 'ooman sends me a pot o' jam, and another a pot o' jelly, and another brews a blessed large jug o' camomile-tea, vich she brings in vith her own hands." mr. weller paused with an aspect of intense disgust, and, looking round, added in a whisper: "they wos all widders, sammy, all on 'em, 'cept the camomile-tea vun, as wos a single young lady o' fifty-three." sam gave a comical look in reply, and the old gentleman having broken an obstinate lump of coal, with a countenance expressive of as much earnestness and malice as if it had been the head of one of the widows last mentioned, said: "in short, sammy, i feel that i ain't safe anyveres but on the box." "how are you safer there than anyveres else?" interrupted sam. "'cos a coachman's a privileged indiwidual," replied mr. weller, looking fixedly at his son. "'cos a coachman may do vithout suspicion wot other men may not; 'cos a coachman may be on the wery amicablest terms with eighty mile o' females, and yet nobody think that he ever means to marry any vun among 'em. and wot other man can say the same, sammy?" "vell, there's somethin' in that," said sam. "if your gov'ner had been a coachman," reasoned mr. weller, "do you suppose as that 'ere jury 'ud ever ha' conwicted him, s'posin' it possible as the matter could ha' gone to that extremity? they dustn't ha' done it." "vy not?" said sam, rather disparagingly. "vy not!" rejoined mr. weller; "'cos it 'ud ha' gone agin their consciences. a reg'lar coachman's a sort o' con-nectin' link betwixt singleness and matrimony, and every practicable man knows it." "wot! you mean, they're gen'ral fav'rites, and nobody takes adwantage on 'em, p'raps?" said sam. his father nodded. "how it ever come to that 'ere pass," resumed the parent weller, "i can't say. vy it is that long-stage coachmen possess such insiniwations, and is alvays looked up to--a-dored i may say--by ev'ry young 'ooman in ev'ry town he vurks through, i don't know. i only know that it is so. it's a reg'lation of natur--a dispensary, as your poor mother-in-law used to say." "a dispensation," said sam, correcting the old gentleman. "wery good, samivel, a dispensation if you like it better," returned mr. weller; "_i_ call it a dispensary, and it's alvays writ up so, at the places vere they gives you physic for nothin' in your own bottles; that's all." with these words mr. weller re-filled and re-lighted his pipe, and once more summing up a meditative expression of countenance, continued as follows: "therefore, my boy, as i do not see the adwisability o' stoppin' here to be married vether i vant to or not, and as at the same time i do not wish to separate myself from them interestin' members o' society altogether, i have come to the determination o' drivin the safety, and puttin' up vunce more at the bell savage, vich is my nat'ral-born element, sammy." "and wot's to become o' the bis'ness?" inquired sam. "the bis'ness, samivel," replied the old gentleman, "good-vill, stock, and fixters, vill be sold by private contract; and out o' the money, two hundred pound, agreeable to rekvest o' your mother-in-law's to me a little afore she died, vill be inwested in your name in--wot do you call them things agin?" "wot things?" inquired sam. "them things as is alvays a goin' up and down, in the city." "omnibuses?" suggested sam. "nonsense," replied mr. weller. "them things as is alvays a fluctooatin', and gettin' theirselves inwolved somehow or another vith the national debt, and the checquers bills, and all that." "oh! the funds," said sam. "ah!" rejoined mr. weller, "the funs; two hundred pounds o' the money is to be inwested for you, samivel, in the funs; four and a half per cent. reduced counsels, sammy." "wery kind o' the old lady to think o' me," said sam, "and i'm wery much obliged to her." "the rest vill be inwested in my name," continued the elder mr. weller; "and ven i'm took off the road, it'll come to you, so take care you don't spend it all at vunst, my boy, and mind that no widder gets a inklin' o' your fortun', or you're done." having delivered this warning, mr. weller resumed his pipe with a more serene countenance; the disclosure of these matters appearing to have eased his mind considerably. "somebody's a tappin' at the door," said sam. "let 'em tap," replied his father, with dignity. sam acted upon the direction. there was another tap, and another, and then a long row of taps; upon which sam inquired why the tapper was not admitted. "hush," whispered mr. weller, with apprehensive looks, "don't take no notice on 'em, sammy, it's vun o' the widders, p'raps." no notice being taken of the taps, the unseen visitor, after a short lapse, ventured to open the door and peep in. it was no female head that was thrust in at the partially opened door, but the long black locks and red face of mr. stiggins. mr. weller's pipe fell from his hands. the reverend gentleman gradually opened the door by almost imperceptible degrees, until the aperture was just wide enough to admit of the passage of his lank body, when he glided into the room and closed it after him with great care and gentleness. turning towards sam, and raising his hands and eyes in token of the unspeakable sorrow with which he regarded the calamity that had befallen the family, he carried the high-backed chair to his old corner by the fire, and, seating himself on the very edge, drew forth a brown pocket-handkerchief, and applied the same to his optics. while this was going forward, the elder mr. weller sat back in his chair, with his eyes wide open, his hands planted on his knees, and his whole countenance expressive of absorbing and overwhelming astonishment. sam sat opposite him in perfect silence, waiting, with eager curiosity, for the termination of the scene. mr. stiggins kept the brown pocket-handkerchief before his eyes for some minutes, moaning decently meanwhile, and then, mastering his feelings by a strong effort, put it in his pocket and buttoned it up. after this he stirred the fire; after that, he rubbed his hands and looked at sam. "oh, my young friend," said mr. stiggins, breaking the silence in a very low voice, "here's a sorrowful affliction!" sam nodded very slightly. "for the man of wrath, too!" added mr. stiggins; "it makes a vessel's heart bleed!" mr. weller was overheard by his son to murmur something relative to making a vessel's nose bleed; but mr. stiggins heard him not. "do you know, young man," whispered mr. stiggins, drawing his chair closer to sam, "whether she has left emanuel anything?" "who's he?" inquired sam. "the chapel," replied mr. stiggins; "our chapel; our fold, mr. samuel." "she hasn't left the fold nothin', nor the shepherd nothin', nor the animals nothin'," said sam, decisively; "nor the dogs neither." mr. stiggins looked slyly at sam; glanced at the old gentleman, who was sitting with his eyes closed, as if asleep; and drawing his chair still nearer, said: "nothing for _me_, mr. samuel?" sam shook his head. "i think there's something," said stiggins, turning as pale as he could turn. "consider, mr. samuel; no little token?" "not so much as the vorth o' that 'ere old umberella o' yourn," replied sam. "perhaps," said mr. stiggins, hesitatingly, after a few moments' deep thought, "perhaps she recommended me to the care of the man of wrath, mr. samuel?" "i think that's wery likely, from what he said," rejoined sam; "he wos speakin' about you, jist now." "was he, though?" exclaimed stiggins, brightening up. "ah! he's changed, i dare say. we might live very comfortably together now, mr. samuel, eh? i could take care of his property when you are away--good care, you see." heaving a long-drawn sigh, mr. stiggins paused for a response. sam nodded, and mr. weller the elder gave vent to an extraordinary sound, which being neither a groan, nor a grunt, nor a gasp, nor a growl, seemed to partake in some degree of the character of all four. mr. stiggins, encouraged by this sound, which he understood to betoken remorse or repentance, looked about him, rubbed his hands, wept, smiled, wept again, and then, walking softly across the room to a well-remembered shelf in one corner, took down a tumbler, and with great deliberation put four lumps of sugar in it. having got thus far, he looked about him again, and sighed grievously; with that, he walked softly into the bar, and presently returning with the tumbler half full of pine-apple rum, advanced to the kettle which was singing gaily on the hob, mixed his grog, stirred it, sipped it, sat down, and taking a long and hearty pull at the rum and water, stopped for breath. the elder mr. weller, who still continued to make various strange and uncouth attempts to appear asleep, offered not a single word during these proceedings; but when stiggins stopped for breath, he darted upon him, and snatching the tumbler from his hand, threw the remainder of the rum and water in his face, and the glass itself into the grate. then, seizing the reverend gentleman firmly by the collar, he suddenly fell to kicking him most furiously: accompanying every application of his top-boots to mr. stiggins's person, with sundry violent and incoherent anathemas upon his limbs, eyes, and body. "sammy," said mr. weller, "put my hat on tight for me." sam dutifully adjusted the hat with the long hatband more firmly on his father's head, and the old gentleman, resuming his kicking with greater agility than before, tumbled with mr. stiggins through the bar, and through the passage, out at the front door, and so into the street; the kicking continuing the whole way, and increasing in vehemence, rather than diminishing, every time the top-boot was lifted. it was a beautiful and exhilarating sight to see the red-nosed man writhing in mr. weller's grasp, and his whole frame quivering with anguish as kick followed kick in rapid succession; it was a still more exciting spectacle to behold mr. weller, after a powerful struggle, immersing mr. stiggins's head in a horse-trough full of water, and holding it there, until he was half suffocated. "there!" said mr. weller, throwing all his energy into one most complicated kick, as he at length permitted mr. stiggins to withdraw his head from the trough, "send any vun o' them lazy shepherds here, and i'll pound him to a jelly first, and drownd him artervards! sammy, help me in, and fill me a small glass of brandy. i'm out o' breath, my boy." [illustration: _it was a beautiful and exhilarating sight to see the red-nosed man writhing in mr. weller's grasp._] chapter xxv [illustration] _comprising the final exit of mr. jingle and job trotter; with a great morning of business in gray's inn square. concluding with a double knock at mr. perker's door_ when arabella, after some gentle preparation, and many assurances that there was not the least occasion for being low-spirited, was at length made acquainted by mr. pickwick with the unsatisfactory result of his visit to birmingham, she burst into tears, and sobbing aloud, lamented in moving terms that she should have been the unhappy cause of any estrangement between a father and his son. "my dear girl," said mr. pickwick, kindly, "it is no fault of yours. it was impossible to foresee that the old gentleman would be so strongly prepossessed against his son's marriage, you know. i am sure," added mr. pickwick, glancing at her pretty face, "he can have very little idea of the pleasure he denies himself." "oh, my dear mr. pickwick," said arabella, "what shall we do, if he continues to be angry with us?" "why, wait patiently, my dear, until he thinks better of it," replied mr. pickwick, cheerfully. "but, dear mr. pickwick, what is to become of nathaniel if his father withdraws his assistance?" urged arabella. "in that case, my love," rejoined mr. pickwick, "i will venture to prophesy that he will find some other friend who will not be backward in helping him to start in the world." the significance of this reply was not so well disguised by mr. pickwick but that arabella understood it. so, throwing her arms round his neck, and kissing him affectionately, she sobbed louder than before. "come, come," said mr. pickwick, taking her hand, "we will wait here a few days longer, and see whether he writes or takes any other notice of your husband's communication. if not, i have thought of half a dozen plans, any one of which would make you happy at once. there, my dear, there!" with these words, mr. pickwick gently pressed arabella's hand and bade her dry her eyes, and not distress her husband. upon which, arabella, who was one of the best little creatures alive, put her handkerchief in her reticule, and by the time mr. winkle joined them, exhibited in full lustre the same beaming smiles and sparkling eyes that had originally captivated him. "this is a distressing predicament for these young people," thought mr. pickwick, as he dressed himself next morning. "i'll walk up to perker's and consult him about the matter." as mr. pickwick was further prompted to betake himself to gray's inn square by an anxious desire to come to a pecuniary settlement with the kind-hearted little attorney without further delay, he made a hurried breakfast, and executed his intention so speedily, that ten o'clock had not struck when he reached gray's inn. it still wanted ten minutes to the hour when he had ascended the staircase on which perker's chambers were. the clerks had not arrived yet, and he beguiled the time by looking out of the staircase window. the healthy light of a fine october morning made even the dingy old houses brighten up a little: some of the dusty windows actually looking almost cheerful as the sun's rays gleamed upon them. clerk after clerk hastened into the square by one or other of the entrances, and looking up at the hall clock, accelerated or decreased his rate of walking according to the time at which his office hours nominally commenced; the half-past nine o'clock people suddenly becoming very brisk, and the ten o'clock gentlemen falling into a pace of most aristocratic slowness. the clock struck ten, and clerks poured in faster than ever, each one in a greater perspiration than his predecessor. the noise of unlocking and opening doors echoed and re-echoed on every side; heads appeared as if by magic in every window; the porters took up their stations for the day; the slipshod laundresses hurried off; the postman ran from house to house; and the whole legal hive was in a bustle. "you're early, mr. pickwick," said a voice behind him. "ah, mr. lowten," replied that gentleman, looking round, and recognising his old acquaintance. "precious warm walking, isn't it?" said lowten, drawing a bramah key from his pocket, with a small plug therein, to keep the dust out. "you appear to feel it so," rejoined mr. pickwick, smiling at the clerk, who was literally red-hot. "i've come along rather, i can tell you," replied lowten. "it went the half-hour as i came through the polygon. i'm here before _him_, though, so i don't mind." comforting himself with this reflection, mr. lowten extracted the plug from the door-key, and having opened the door, re-plugged and re-pocketed his bramah, and picked up the letters which the postman had dropped through the box. he then ushered mr. pickwick into the office. here, in the twinkling of an eye, he divested himself of his coat, put on a threadbare garment which he took out of a desk, hung up his hat, pulled forth a few sheets of cartridge and blotting paper in alternate layers, and sticking a pen behind his ear, rubbed his hands with an air of great satisfaction. "there you see, mr. pickwick," he said, "now i'm complete. i've got my office coat on, and my pad out, and let him come as soon as he likes. you haven't got a pinch of snuff about you, have you?" "no, i have not," replied mr. pickwick. "i'm sorry for it," said lowten. "never mind. i'll run out presently, and get a bottle of soda. don't i look rather queer about the eyes, mr. pickwick?" the individual appealed to, surveyed mr. lowten's eyes from a distance, and expressed his opinion that no unusual queerness was perceptible in those features. "i'm glad of it," said lowten. "we were keeping it up pretty tolerably at the stump last night, and i'm rather out of sorts this morning. perker's been about that business of yours, by-the-bye." "what business?" inquired mr. pickwick. "mrs. bardell's costs?" "no, i don't mean that," replied mr. lowten. "about getting that customer that we paid the ten shillings in the pound to the bill discounter for, on your account--to get him out of the fleet, you know--about getting him to demerara." "oh! mr. jingle?" said mr. pickwick, hastily. "yes. well?" "well, it's all arranged," said lowten, mending his pen. "the agent at liverpool said he had been obliged to you many times when you were in business, and he would be glad to take him on your recommendation." "that's well," said mr. pickwick. "i am delighted to hear it." "but i say," resumed lowten, scraping the back of the pen preparatory to making a fresh split, "_what_ a soft chap that other is!" "which other?" "why, that servant, or friend, or whatever he is; _you_ know; trotter." "ah?" said mr. pickwick, with a smile. "i always thought him the reverse." "well, and so did i, from what little i saw of him," replied lowten, "it only shows how one may be deceived. what do you think of _his_ going to demerara, too?" "what! and giving up what was offered him here!" exclaimed mr. pickwick. "treating perker's offer of eighteen bob a-week, and a rise if he behaved himself, like dirt," replied lowten. "he said he must go along with the other one, and so they persuaded perker to write again, and they've got him something on the same estate; not near so good, perker says, as a convict would get in new south wales, if he appeared at his trial in a new suit of clothes." "foolish fellow," said mr. pickwick, with glistening eyes. "foolish fellow." "oh, it's worse than foolish; it's downright sneaking, you know," replied lowten, nibbing the pen with a contemptuous face. "he says that he's the only friend he ever had, and he's attached to him, and all that. friendship's a very good thing in its way: we are all very friendly and comfortable at the stump, for instance, over our grog, where every man pays for himself; but damn hurting yourself for anybody else, you know! no man should have more than two attachments--the first, to number one, and the second to the ladies; that's what i say--ha! ha!" mr. lowten concluded with a loud laugh, half in jocularity, and half in derision, which was prematurely cut short by the sound of perker's footsteps on the stairs: at the first approach of which he vaulted on his stool with an agility most remarkable, and wrote intensely. the greeting between mr. pickwick and his professional adviser was warm and cordial; the client was scarcely ensconced in the attorney's arm-chair, however, when a knock was heard at the door, and a voice inquired whether mr. perker was within. "hark!" said perker, "that's one of our vagabond friends--jingle himself, my dear sir. will you see him?" "what do you think?" inquired mr. pickwick, hesitating. "yes, i think you had better. here, you sir, what's your name, walk in, will you?" in compliance with this unceremonious invitation, jingle and job walked into the room, but, seeing mr. pickwick, stopped short in some confusion. "well," said perker, "don't you know that gentleman?" "good reason to," replied mr. jingle, stepping forward. "mr. pickwick--deepest obligations--life preserver--made a man of me--you shall never repent it, sir." "i am happy to hear you say so," said mr. pickwick. "you look much better." "thanks to you, sir--great change--majesty's fleet--unwholesome place--very," said jingle, shaking his head. he was decently and cleanly dressed, and so was job, who stood bolt upright behind him, staring at mr. pickwick with a visage of iron. "when do they go to liverpool?" inquired mr. pickwick, half aside to perker. "this evening, sir, at seven o'clock," said job, taking one step forward. "by the heavy coach from the city, sir." "are your places taken?" "they are, sir," replied job. "you have fully made up your mind to go?" "i have, sir," answered job. "with regard to such an outfit as was indispensable for jingle," said perker, addressing mr. pickwick aloud, "i have taken upon myself to make an arrangement for the deduction of a small sum from his quarterly salary, which, being made only for one year, and regularly remitted, will provide for that expense. i entirely disapprove of your doing anything for him, my dear sir, which is not dependent on his own exertions and good conduct." "certainly," interposed jingle, with great firmness. "clear head--man of the world--quite right--perfectly." "by compounding with his creditor, releasing his clothes from the pawnbroker's, relieving him in prison, and paying for his passage," continued perker, without noticing jingle's observation, "you have already lost upwards of fifty pounds." "not lost," said jingle, hastily. "pay it all--stick to business--cash up--every farthing. yellow fever perhaps--can't help that--if not--" here mr. jingle paused, and striking the crown of his hat with great violence, passed his hand over his eyes, and sat down. "he means to say," said job, advancing a few paces, "that if he is not carried off by the fever, he will pay the money back again. if he lives, he will, mr. pickwick. i will see it done. i know he will, sir," said job, with energy. "i could undertake to swear it." "well, well," said mr. pickwick, who had been bestowing a score or two of frowns upon perker, to stop his summary of benefits conferred, which the little attorney obstinately disregarded, "you must be careful not to play any more desperate cricket matches, mr. jingle, or to renew your acquaintance with sir thomas blazo, and i have little doubt of your preserving your health." mr. jingle smiled at this sally, but looked rather foolish notwithstanding; so mr. pickwick changed the subject by saying: "you don't happen to know, do you, what has become of another friend of yours--a more humble one, whom i saw at rochester?" "dismal jemmy?" inquired jingle. "yes." jingle shook his head. "clever rascal--queer fellow, hoaxing genius--job's brother." "job's brother!" exclaimed mr. pickwick. "well, now i look at him closely, there _is_ a likeness." "we were always considered like each other, sir," said job, with a cunning look just lurking in the corners of his eyes, "only i was really of a serious nature, and he never was. he emigrated to america, sir, in consequence of being too much sought after to be comfortable; and has never been heard of since." "that accounts for my not having received the 'page from the romance of real life' which he promised me one morning when he appeared to be contemplating suicide on rochester bridge, i suppose," said mr. pickwick, smiling. "i need not inquire whether his dismal behaviour was natural or assumed." "he could assume anything, sir," said job. "you may consider yourself very fortunate in having escaped him so easily. on intimate terms he would have been even more dangerous acquaintance than--" job looked at jingle, hesitated, and finally added, "than--than--myself even." "a hopeful family yours, mr. trotter," said perker, sealing a letter which he had just finished writing. "yes, sir," replied job. "very much so." "well," said the little man, laughing; "i hope you are going to disgrace it. deliver this letter to the agent when you reach liverpool, and let me advise you, gentlemen, not to be too knowing in the west indies. if you throw away this chance, you will both richly deserve to be hanged, as i sincerely trust you will be. and now you had better leave mr. pickwick and me alone, for we have other matters to talk over, and time is precious." as perker said this, he looked towards the door, with an evident desire to render the leave-taking as brief as possible. it was brief enough on mr. jingle's part. he thanked the little attorney in a few hurried words for the kindness and promptitude with which he had rendered his assistance, and, turning to his benefactor, stood for a few seconds as if irresolute what to say or how to act. job trotter relieved his perplexity; for, with a humble and grateful bow to mr. pickwick, he took his friend gently by the arm, and led him away. "a worthy couple!" said perker, as the door closed behind them. "i hope they may become so," said mr. pickwick. "what do you think? is there any chance of their permanent reformation?" perker shrugged his shoulders doubtfully, but observing mr. pickwick's anxious and disappointed look, rejoined: "of course there is a chance. i hope it may prove a good one. they are unquestionably penitent now; but then, you know, they have the recollection of very recent suffering fresh upon them. what they may become, when that fades away, is a problem that neither you nor i can solve. however, my dear sir," added perker, laying his hand on mr. pickwick's shoulder, "your object is equally honourable, whatever the result is. whether that species of benevolence which is so very cautious and long-sighted that it is seldom exercised at all, lest its owner should be imposed upon, and so wounded in his self-love, be real charity or a worldly counterfeit, i leave to wiser heads than mine to determine. but if those two fellows were to commit a burglary to-morrow, my opinion of this action would be equally high." with these remarks, which were delivered in a much more animated and earnest manner than is usual in legal gentlemen, perker drew his chair to his desk, and listened to mr. pickwick's recital of old mr. winkle's obstinacy. "give him a week," said perker, nodding his head prophetically. "do you think he will come round?" inquired mr. pickwick. "i think he will," rejoined perker. "if not, we must try the young lady's persuasion; and that is what anybody but you would have done first." mr. perker was taking a pinch of snuff with various grotesque contractions of countenance, eulogistic of the persuasive powers appertaining unto young ladies, when the murmur of inquiry and answer was heard in the outer office, and lowten tapped at the door. "come in!" cried the little man. the clerk came in, and shut the door after him, with great mystery. "what's the matter?" inquired perker. "you're wanted, sir." "who wants me?" lowten looked at mr. pickwick, and coughed. "who wants me? can't you speak, mr. lowten?" "why, sir," replied lowten, "it's dodson; and fogg is with him." "bless my life!" said the little man, looking at his watch. "i appointed them to be here, at half-past eleven, to settle that matter of yours, pickwick. i gave them an undertaking on which they sent down your discharge; it's very awkward, my dear sir; what will you do? would you like to step into the next room?" the next room being the identical room in which messrs. dodson and fogg were, mr. pickwick replied that he would remain where he was: the more especially as messrs. dodson and fogg ought to be ashamed to look him in the face, instead of his being ashamed to see them. which latter circumstance he begged mr. perker to note, with a glowing countenance and many marks of indignation. "very well, my dear sir, very well," replied perker. "i can only say that if you expect either dodson or fogg to exhibit any symptom of shame or confusion at having to look you, or anybody else, in the face, you are the most sanguine man in your expectations that i ever met with. show them in, mr. lowten." mr. lowten disappeared with a grin, and immediately returned ushering in the firm, in due form of precedence: dodson first, and fogg afterwards. "you have seen mr. pickwick, i believe?" said perker to dodson, inclining his pen in the direction where that gentleman was seated. "how do you do, mr. pickwick?" said dodson in a loud voice. "dear me," cried fogg, "how do you do, mr. pickwick? i hope you are well, sir. i thought i knew the face," said fogg, drawing up a chair and looking round him with a smile. mr. pickwick bent his head very slightly, in answer to these salutations, and, seeing fogg pull a bundle of papers from his coat-pocket, rose and walked to the window. "there's no occasion for mr. pickwick to move, mr. perker," said fogg, untying the red tape which encircled the little bundle, and smiling again more sweetly than before. "mr. pickwick is pretty well acquainted with these proceedings. there are no secrets between us, i think. he! he! he!" "not many, i think," said dodson. "ha! ha! ha!" then both the partners laughed together--pleasantly and cheerfully, as men who are going to receive money, often do. "we shall make mr. pickwick pay for peeping," said fogg, with considerable native humour, as he unfolded his papers. "the amount of the taxed costs is one hundred and thirty-three, six, four, mr. perker." there was a great comparing of papers, and turning over of leaves, by fogg and perker, after this statement of profit and loss. meanwhile, dodson said in an affable manner to mr. pickwick: "i don't think you are looking quite so stout as when i had the pleasure of seeing you last, mr. pickwick." "possibly not, sir," replied mr. pickwick, who had been flashing forth looks of fierce indignation, without producing the smallest effect on either of the sharp practitioners; "i believe i am not, sir. i have been persecuted and annoyed by scoundrels of late, sir." perker coughed violently, and asked mr. pickwick whether he wouldn't like to look at the morning paper? to which inquiry mr. pickwick returned a most decided negative. "true," said dodson, "i dare say you _have_ been annoyed in the fleet; there are some odd gentry there. whereabouts were your apartments, mr. pickwick?" "my one room," replied that much injured gentleman, "was on the coffee room flight." "oh, indeed!" said dodson. "i believe that is a very pleasant part of the establishment." "very," replied mr. pickwick, dryly. there was a coolness about all this, which, to a gentleman of an excitable temperament, had, under the circumstances, rather an exasperating tendency. mr. pickwick restrained his wrath by gigantic efforts; but when perker wrote a cheque for the whole amount, and fogg deposited it in a small pocket-book with a triumphant smile playing over his pimply features which communicated itself likewise to the stern countenance of dodson, he felt the blood in his cheeks tingling with indignation. "now, mr. dodson," said fogg, putting up the pocket-book and drawing on his gloves, "i am at your service." "very good," said dodson, rising, "i am quite ready." "i am very happy," said fogg, softened by the cheque, "to have had the pleasure of making mr. pickwick's acquaintance. i hope you don't think quite so ill of us, mr. pickwick, as when we first had the pleasure of seeing you." "i hope not," said dodson, with the high tone of calumniated virtue. "mr. pickwick now knows us better, i trust: whatever your opinion of gentlemen of our profession may be, i beg to assure you, sir, that i bear no ill-will or vindictive feeling towards you for the sentiments you thought proper to express in our office in freeman's court, cornhill, on the occasion to which my partner has referred." "oh no, no; nor i," said fogg, in a most forgiving manner. "our conduct, sir," said dodson, "will speak for itself, and justify itself, i hope, upon every occasion. we have been in the profession some years, mr. pickwick, and have been honoured with the confidence of many excellent clients. i wish you good morning, sir." "_good_ morning, mr. pickwick," said fogg. so saying, he put his umbrella under his arm, drew off his right glove, and extended the hand of reconciliation to that most indignant gentleman: who, thereupon, thrust his hands beneath his coat tails, and eyed the attorney with looks of scornful amazement. "lowten!" cried perker at this moment. "open the door." "wait one instant," said mr. pickwick, "perker, i _will_ speak." "my dear sir, pray let the matter rest where it is," said the little attorney, who had been in a state of nervous apprehension during the whole interview; "mr. pickwick, i beg!" "i will not be put down, sir," replied mr. pickwick, hastily. "mr. dodson, you have addressed some remarks to me." dodson turned round, bent his head meekly, and smiled. "some remarks to me," repeated mr. pickwick, almost breathless; "and your partner has tendered me his hand, and you have both assumed a tone of forgiveness and high-mindedness, which is an extent of impudence that i was not prepared for, even in you." "what, sir!" exclaimed dodson. "what, sir!" reiterated fogg. "do you know that i have been the victim of your plots and conspiracies?" continued mr. pickwick. "do you know that i am the man whom you have been imprisoning and robbing? do you know that you were the attorneys for the plaintiff, in bardell and pickwick?" "yes, sir, we do know it," replied dodson. "of course we know it, sir," rejoined fogg, slapping his pocket--perhaps by accident. "i see that you recollect it with satisfaction," said mr. pickwick, attempting to call up a sneer for the first time in his life, and failing most signally in so doing. "although i have long been anxious to tell you, in plain terms, what my opinion of you is, i should have let even this opportunity pass, in deference to my friend perker's wishes, but for the unwarrantable tone you have assumed, and your insolent familiarity. i say insolent familiarity, sir," said mr. pickwick, turning upon fogg with a fierceness of gesture which caused that person to retreat towards the door with great expedition. "take care, sir," said dodson, who, though he was the biggest man of the party, had prudently intrenched himself behind fogg, and was speaking over his head with a very pale face. "let him assault you, mr. fogg; don't return it on any account." "no, no, i won't return it," said fogg, falling back a little more as he spoke; to the evident relief of his partner, who by these means was gradually getting into the outer office. "you are," continued mr. pickwick, resuming the thread of his discourse, "you are a well-matched pair of mean, rascally, pettifogging robbers." "well," interposed perker, "is that all?" "it is all summed up in that," rejoined mr. pickwick; "they are mean, rascally, pettifogging robbers." "there!" said perker in a most conciliatory tone. "my dear sirs, he has said all he has to say. now pray go. lowten, _is_ that door open?" mr. lowten, with a distant giggle, replied in the affirmative. "there, there--good morning--good morning--now pray, my dear sirs,--mr. lowten, the door!" cried the little man, pushing dodson and fogg, nothing loath, out of the office; "this way, my dear sirs,--now pray don't prolong this--dear me--mr. lowten--the door, sir--why don't you attend?" "if there's law in england, sir," said dodson, looking towards mr. pickwick, as he put on his hat, "you shall smart for this." "you are a couple of mean----" "remember, sir, you pay dearly for this," said fogg. "--rascally, pettifogging robbers!" continued mr. pickwick, taking not the least notice of the threats that were addressed to him. "robbers!" cried mr. pickwick, running to the stair-head, as the two attorneys descended. "robbers!" shouted mr. pickwick, breaking from lowten and perker and thrusting his head out of the staircase window. when mr. pickwick drew in his head again, his countenance was smiling and placid; and, walking quietly back into the office, he declared that he had now removed a great weight from his mind, and that he felt perfectly comfortable and happy. perker said nothing at all until he had emptied his snuff-box, and sent lowten out to fill it, when he was seized with a fit of laughing, which lasted five minutes; at the expiration of which time he said that he supposed he ought to be very angry, but he couldn't think of the business seriously yet--when he could, he would be. "well, now," said mr. pickwick, "let me have a settlement with you." "of the same kind as the last?" inquired perker, with another laugh. "not exactly," rejoined mr. pickwick, drawing out his pocket-book, and shaking the little man heartily by the hand, "i only mean a pecuniary settlement. you have done me many acts of kindness that i can never repay, and have no wish to repay, for i prefer continuing the obligation." with this preface, the two friends dived into some very complicated accounts and vouchers, which, having been duly displayed and gone through by perker, were at once discharged by mr. pickwick with many professions of esteem and friendship. they had no sooner arrived at this point, than a most violent and startling knocking was heard at the door; it was not an ordinary double knock, but a constant and uninterrupted succession of the loudest single raps, as if the knocker were endowed with the perpetual motion, or the person outside had forgotten to leave off. "dear me, what's that?" exclaimed perker, starting. "i think it is a knock at the door," said mr. pickwick, as if there could be the smallest doubt of the fact! the knocker made a more energetic reply than words could have yielded, for it continued to hammer with surprising force and noise, without a moment's cessation. "dear me!" said perker, ringing the bell, "we shall alarm the inn. mr. lowten, don't you hear a knock?" "i'll answer the door in one moment, sir," replied the clerk. the knocker appeared to hear the response, and to assert that it was quite impossible he could wait so long. it made a stupendous uproar. "it's quite dreadful," said mr. pickwick, stopping his ears. "make haste, mr. lowten," perker called out, "we shall have the panels beaten in." mr. lowten, who was washing his hands in a dark closet, hurried to the door, and turning the handle, beheld the appearance which is described in the next chapter. chapter xxvi [illustration] _containing some particulars relative to the double knock, and other matters: among which certain interesting disclosures relative to mr. snodgrass and a young lady are by no means irrelevant to this history_ the object that presented itself to the eyes of the astonished clerk was a boy--a wonderfully fat boy--habited as a serving lad, standing upright on the mat, with his eyes closed as if in sleep. he had never seen such a fat boy, in or out of a travelling caravan; and this, coupled with the calmness and repose of his appearance, so very different from what was reasonably to have been expected of the inflictor of the knocks, smote him with wonder. "what's the matter?" inquired the clerk. the extraordinary boy replied not a word; but he nodded once, and seemed, to the clerk's imagination, to snore feebly. "where do you come from?" inquired the clerk. the boy made no sign. he breathed heavily, but in all other respects was motionless. the clerk repeated the question thrice, and receiving no answer, prepared to shut the door, when the boy suddenly opened his eyes, winked several times, sneezed once, and raised his hand as if to repeat the knocking. finding the door open, he stared about him with astonishment, and at length fixed his eyes on mr. lowten's face. "what the devil do you knock in that way for?" inquired the clerk, angrily. "which way?" said the boy, in a slow and sleepy voice. "why, like forty hackney-coachmen," replied the clerk. "because master said i wasn't to leave off knocking till they opened the door, for fear i should go to sleep," said the boy. "well," said the clerk, "what message have you brought?" "he's down-stairs," rejoined the boy. "who?" "master. he wants to know whether you're at home." mr. lowten bethought himself, at this juncture, of looking out of the window. seeing an open carriage with a hearty old gentleman in it, looking up very anxiously, he ventured to beckon him; on which, the old gentleman jumped out directly. "that's your master in the carriage, i suppose?" said lowten. the boy nodded. all further inquiries were superseded by the appearance of old wardle, who, running up-stairs and just recognising lowten, passed at once into mr. perker's room. "pickwick!" said the old gentleman. "your hand, my boy! why have i never heard until the day before yesterday of your suffering yourself to be cooped up in jail? and why did you let him do it, perker?" "i couldn't help it, my dear sir," replied perker, with a smile and a pinch of snuff: "you know how obstinate he is." "of course i do, of course i do," replied the old gentleman. "i am heartily glad to see him, notwithstanding. i will not lose sight of him again, in a hurry." with these words, wardle shook mr. pickwick's hand once more, and having done the same by perker, threw himself into an arm-chair, his jolly red face shining again with smiles and health. "well!" said wardle. "here are pretty goings on--a pinch of your snuff, perker, my boy--never were such times, eh?" "what do you mean?" inquired mr. pickwick. "mean!" replied wardle. "why, i think the girls are all running mad; that's no news, you'll say? perhaps it's not; but it's true, for all that." "you have not come up to london, of all places in the world, to tell us _that_, my dear sir, have you?" inquired perker. "no, not altogether," replied wardle; "though it was the main cause of my coming. how's arabella?" "very well," replied mr. pickwick, "and will be delighted to see you, i am sure." "black-eyed little jilt!" replied wardle, "i had a great idea of marrying her myself, one of these odd days. but i am glad of it too, very glad." [illustration: _his jolly red face shining with smiles and health_] "how did the intelligence reach you?" asked mr. pickwick. "oh, it came to my girls, of course," replied wardle. "arabella wrote, the day before yesterday, to say she had made a stolen match without her husband's father's consent, and so you had gone down to get it when his refusing it couldn't prevent the match, and all the rest of it. i thought it a very good time to say something serious to _my_ girls; so i said what a dreadful thing it was that children should marry without their parents' consent, and so forth; but, bless your hearts, i couldn't make the least impression upon them. they thought it such a much more dreadful thing that there should have been a wedding without bridesmaids, that i might as well have preached to joe himself." here the old gentleman stopped to laugh; and having done so, to his heart's content, presently resumed. "but this is not the best of it, it seems. this is only half the love-making and plotting that have been going forward. we have been walking on mines for the last six months, and they're sprung at last." "what do you mean?" exclaimed mr. pickwick, turning pale; "no other secret marriage, i hope?" "no, no," replied old wardle; "not so bad as that; no." "what then?" inquired mr. pickwick; "am i interested in it?" "shall i answer that question, perker?" said wardle. "if you don't commit yourself by doing so, my dear sir." "well then, you are," said wardle. "how?" asked mr. pickwick, anxiously. "in what way?" "really," replied wardle, "you're such a fiery sort of young fellow that i am almost afraid to tell you; but, however, if perker will sit between us to prevent mischief, i'll venture." having closed the room-door, and fortified himself with another application to perker's snuff-box, the old gentleman proceeded with his great disclosure in these words. "the fact is, that my daughter bella--bella, who married young trundle, you know." "yes, yes, we know," said mr. pickwick, impatiently. "don't alarm me at the very beginning. my daughter bella, emily having gone to bed with a headache after she had read arabella's letter to me, sat herself down by my side, the other evening, and began to talk over this marriage affair. 'well, pa,' she says, 'what do you think of it?' 'why, my dear,' i said, 'i suppose it's all very well; i hope it's for the best.' i answered in this way because i was sitting before the fire at the time drinking my grog rather thoughtfully, and i knew my throwing in an undecided word now and then, would induce her to continue talking. both my girls are pictures of their dear mother, and as i grow old i like to sit with only them by me; for their voices and looks carry me back to the happiest period of my life, and make me, for the moment, as young as i used to be then, though not quite so light-hearted. 'it's quite a marriage of affection, pa,' said bella, after a short silence. 'yes, my dear,' said i, 'but such marriages do not always turn out the happiest.'" "i question that, mind!" interposed mr. pickwick, warmly. "very good," responded wardle, "question anything you like when it's your turn to speak, but don't interrupt me." "i beg your pardon," said mr. pickwick. "granted," replied wardle. "'i am sorry to hear you express your opinion against marriages of affection, pa,' said bella, colouring a little. 'i was wrong; i ought not to have said so, my dear, either,' said i, patting her cheek as kindly as a rough old fellow like me could pat it, 'for your mother's was one, and so was yours.' 'it's not that i meant, pa,' said bella. 'the fact is, pa, i wanted to speak to you about emily.'" mr. pickwick started. "what's the matter now?" inquired wardle, stopping in his narrative. "nothing," replied mr. pickwick. "pray go on." "i never could spin out a story," said wardle, abruptly. "it must come out sooner or later, and it'll save us all a great deal of time if it comes at once. the long and the short of it is, then, that bella at last mustered up courage to tell me that emily was very unhappy; that she and your young friend snodgrass had been in constant correspondence and communication ever since last christmas; that she had very dutifully made up her mind to run away with him in laudable imitation of her old friend and schoolfellow; but that having some compunctions of conscience on the subject, inasmuch as i had always been rather kindly disposed to both of them, they had thought it better in the first instance to pay me the compliment of asking whether i would have any objection to their being married in the usual matter-of-fact manner. there now, mr. pickwick, if you can make it convenient to reduce your eyes to their usual size again, and to let me hear what you think we ought to do, i shall feel rather obliged to you!" the testy manner in which the hearty old gentleman uttered this last sentence was not wholly unwarranted; for mr. pickwick's face had settled down into an expression of blank amazement and perplexity, quite curious to behold. "snodgrass! since last christmas!" were the first broken words that issued from the lips of the confounded gentleman. "since last christmas," replied wardle; "that's plain enough, and very bad spectacles we must have worn, not to have discovered it before." "i don't understand it," said mr. pickwick, ruminating; "i really cannot understand it." "it's easy enough to understand," replied the choleric old gentleman. "if you had been a younger man, you would have been in the secret long ago; and besides," added wardle after a moment's hesitation, "the truth is, that, knowing nothing of this matter, i have rather pressed emily for four or five months past, to receive favourably (if she could; i would never attempt to force a girl's inclinations) the addresses of a young gentleman down in our neighbourhood. i have no doubt that, girl-like, to enhance her own value and increase the ardour of mr. snodgrass, she has represented this matter in very glowing colours, and that they have both arrived at the conclusion that they are a terribly persecuted pair of unfortunates, and have no resource but clandestine matrimony or charcoal. now the question is, what's to be done?" "what have _you_ done?" inquired mr. pickwick. "i?" "i mean, what did you do when your married daughter told you this?" "oh, i made a fool of myself of course," rejoined wardle. "just so," interposed perker, who had accompanied this dialogue with sundry twitchings of his watch-chain, vindictive rubbings of his nose, and other symptoms of impatience. "that's very natural; but how?" "i went into a great passion and frightened my mother into a fit," said wardle. "that was judicious," remarked perker; "and what else?" "i fretted and fumed all next day, and raised a great disturbance," rejoined the old gentleman. "at last i got tired of rendering myself unpleasant and making everybody miserable; so i hired a carriage at muggleton, and putting my own horses in it, came up to town, under pretence of bringing emily to see arabella." "miss wardle is with you, then?" said mr. pickwick. "to be sure she is," replied wardle. "she is at osborne's hotel in the adelphi at this moment, unless your enterprising friend has run away with her since i came out this morning." "you are reconciled, then?" said perker. "not a bit of it," answered wardle; "she has been crying and moping ever since, except last night, between tea and supper, when she made a great parade of writing a letter that i pretended to take no notice of." "you want my advice in this matter, i suppose?" said perker, looking from the musing face of mr. pickwick to the eager countenance of wardle, and taking several consecutive pinches of his favourite stimulant. "i suppose so," said wardle, looking at mr. pickwick. "certainly," replied that gentleman. "well then," said perker, rising and pushing his chair back, "my advice is, that you both walk away together, or ride away, or get away by some means or other, for i'm tired of you, and just talk this matter over between you. if you have not settled it by the next time i see you, i'll tell you what to do." "this is satisfactory," said wardle, hardly knowing whether to smile or be offended. "pooh, pooh, my dear sir," returned perker. "i know you both a great deal better than you know yourselves. you have settled it already, to all intents and purposes." thus expressing himself, the little gentleman poked his snuff-box, first into the chest of mr. pickwick, and then into the waistcoat of mr. wardle, upon which they all three laughed, but especially the two last-named gentlemen, who at once shook hands again, without any obvious or particular reason. "you dine with me to-day," said wardle to perker, as he showed them out. "can't promise, my dear sir, can't promise," replied perker. "i'll look in, in the evening, at all events." "i shall expect you at five," said wardle. "now, joe!" and joe having been at length awakened, the two friends departed in mr. wardle's carriage, which in common humanity had a dickey behind for the fat boy, who, if there had been a foot-board instead, would have rolled off and killed himself in his very first nap. driving to the george and vulture, they found that arabella and her maid had sent for a hackney-coach immediately on the receipt of a short note from emily announcing her arrival in town, and had proceeded straight to the adelphi. as wardle had business to transact in the city, they sent the carriage and the fat boy to his hotel, with the information that he and mr. pickwick would return together for dinner at five o'clock. charged with this message, the fat boy returned, slumbering as peaceably in his dickey over the stones, as if it had been a down bed on watch-springs. by some extraordinary miracle he awoke of his own accord when the coach stopped, and giving himself a good shake to stir up his faculties, went up-stairs to execute his commission. now whether the shake had jumbled the fat boy's faculties together, instead of arranging them in proper order, or had roused such a quantity of new ideas within him as to render him oblivious of ordinary forms and ceremonies, or (which is also possible) had proved unsuccessful in preventing his falling asleep as he ascended the stairs, it is an undoubted fact that he walked into the sitting-room without previously knocking at the door; and so beheld a gentleman with his arms clasping his young mistress's waist, sitting very lovingly by her side on a sofa, while arabella and her pretty handmaid feigned to be absorbed in looking out of a window at the other end of the room. at sight of this phenomenon, the fat boy uttered an interjection, the ladies a scream, and the gentleman an oath, almost simultaneously. "wretched creature, what do you want here?" said the gentleman, who it is needless to say was mr. snodgrass. to this the fat boy, considerably terrified, briefly responded, "missis." "what do you want me for?" inquired emily, turning her head aside, "you stupid creature!" "master and mr. pickwick is a going to dine here at five," replied the fat boy. "leave the room!" said mr. snodgrass, glaring upon the bewildered youth. "no, no, no," added emily hastily. "bella, dear, advise me." upon this emily and mr. snodgrass, and arabella and mary, crowded into a corner, and conversed earnestly in whispers for some minutes, during which the fat boy dozed. "joe," said arabella, at length, looking round with a most bewitching smile, "how do you do, joe?" "joe," said emily, "you're a very good boy; i won't forget you, joe." "joe," said mr. snodgrass, advancing to the astonished youth, and seizing his hand, "i didn't know you before. there's five shillings for you, joe!" "i'll owe you five," said arabella, "for old acquaintance' sake, you know;" and another most captivating smile was bestowed upon the corpulent intruder. the fat boy's perception being slow, he looked rather puzzled at first to account for this sudden prepossession in his favour, and stared about him in a very alarming manner. at length his broad face began to show symptoms of a grin of proportionately broad dimensions; and then, thrusting half-a-crown into each of his pockets, and a hand and wrist after it, he burst into a hoarse laugh: being for the first and only time in his existence. "he understands us, i see," said arabella. "he had better have something to eat, immediately," remarked emily. the fat boy almost laughed again when he heard this suggestion. mary, after a little more whispering, tripped forth from the group, and said: "i am going to dine with you to-day, sir, if you have no objection." "this way," said the fat boy, eagerly. "there is such a jolly meat-pie!" with these words, the fat boy led the way down-stairs; his pretty companion captivating all the waiters and angering all the chambermaids as she followed him to the eating-room. there was the meat-pie of which the youth had spoken so feelingly, and there were, moreover, a steak, and a dish of potatoes, and a pot of porter. "sit down," said the fat boy. "oh my eye, how prime! i am _so_ hungry." having apostrophised his eye, in a species of rapture, five or six times, the youth took the head of the little table, and mary seated herself at the bottom. "will you have some of this?" said the fat boy, plunging into the pie up to the very ferrules of the knife and fork. "a little, if you please," replied mary. the fat boy assisted mary to a little, and himself to a great deal, and was just going to begin eating when he suddenly laid down his knife and fork, leant forward in his chair, and letting his hands, with the knife and fork in them, fall on his knees, said, very slowly: "i say! how nice you look!" this was said in an admiring manner, and was, so far, gratifying; but still there was enough of the cannibal in the young gentleman's eyes to render the compliment a double one. "dear me, joseph," said mary, affecting to blush, "what do you mean?" the fat boy gradually recovering his former position, replied with a heavy sigh, and remaining thoughtful for a few moments, drank a long draught of porter. having achieved this feat he sighed again, and applied himself assiduously to the pie. "what a nice young lady miss emily is!" said mary, after a long silence. the fat boy had by this time finished the pie. he fixed his eyes on mary, and replied: "i knows a nicerer." "indeed!" said mary. "yes, indeed!" replied the fat boy, with unwonted vivacity. "what's her name?" inquired mary. "what's yours?" "mary." "so's hers," said the fat boy. "you're her." the boy grinned to add point to the compliment, and put his eyes into something between a squint and a cast, which there is reason to believe he intended for an ogle. "you mustn't talk to me in that way," said mary; "you don't mean it." "don't i, though?" replied the fat boy; "i say!" "well?" "are you going to come here regular?" "no," rejoined mary, shaking her head, "i'm going away to-night. why?" "oh!" said the fat boy in a tone of strong feeling; "how we should have enjoyed ourselves at meals, if you had been!" "i might come here sometimes perhaps, to see you," said mary, plaiting the table-cloth in assumed coyness, "if you would do me a favour." the fat boy looked from the pie-dish to the steak, as if he thought a favour must be in a manner connected with something to eat; and then took out one of the half-crowns and glanced at it nervously. "don't you understand me?" said mary, looking slyly in his fat face. again he looked at the half-crown, and said faintly, "no." "the ladies want you not to say anything to the old gentleman about the young gentleman having been up-stairs; and i want you too." "is that all?" said the fat boy, evidently very much relieved as he pocketed the half-crown again. "of course i ain't a going to." "you see," said mary, "mr. snodgrass is very fond of miss emily, and miss emily's very fond of him, and if you were to tell about it, the old gentleman would carry you all away miles into the country, where you'd see nobody." "no, no, i won't tell," said the fat boy, stoutly. "that's a dear," said mary. "now it's time i went up-stairs and got my lady ready for dinner." "don't go yet," urged the fat boy. "i must," replied mary. "good-bye, for the present." the fat boy, with elephantine playfulness, stretched out his arms to ravish a kiss; but as it required no great agility to elude him, his fair enslaver had vanished before he closed them again; upon which the apathetic youth ate a pound or so of steak with a sentimental countenance, and fell fast asleep. there was so much to say up-stairs, and there were so many plans to concert for elopement and matrimony in the event of old wardle continuing to be cruel, that it wanted only half an hour of dinner when mr. snodgrass took his final adieu. the ladies ran to emily's bedroom to dress, and the lover, taking up his hat, walked out of the room. he had scarcely got outside the door, when he heard wardle's voice talking loudly, and looking over the banisters, beheld him, followed by some other gentlemen, coming straight up-stairs. knowing nothing of the house, mr. snodgrass in his confusion stepped hastily back into the room he had just quitted, and passing from thence into an inner apartment (mr. wardle's bed-chamber), closed the door softly, just as the persons he had caught a glimpse of entered the sitting-room. these were mr. wardle, mr. pickwick, mr. nathaniel winkle, and mr. benjamin allen, whom he had no difficulty in recognising by their voices. "very lucky i had the presence of mind to avoid them," thought mr. snodgrass with a smile, and walking on tiptoe to another door near the bedside; "this opens into the same passage, and i can walk quietly and comfortably away." there was only one obstacle to his walking quietly and comfortably away, which was that the door was locked and the key gone. "let us have some of your best wine to-day, waiter," said old wardle, rubbing his hands. "you shall have some of the very best, sir," replied the waiter. "let the ladies know we have come in." "yes, sir." devoutly and ardently did mr. snodgrass wish that the ladies could know _he_ had come in. he ventured once to whisper "waiter!" through the keyhole, but as the probability of the wrong waiter coming to his relief flashed upon his mind, together with a sense of the strong resemblance between his own situation and that in which another gentleman had been recently found in a neighbouring hotel (an account of whose misfortunes had appeared under the head of "police" in that morning's paper), he sat himself on a portmanteau, and trembled violently. "we won't wait a minute for perker," said wardle, looking at his watch; "he is always exact. he will be here in time, if he means to come; and if he does not, it's of no use waiting. ha! arabella!" "my sister!" exclaimed mr. benjamin allen, folding her in a most romantic embrace. "oh, ben dear, how you do smell of tobacco," said arabella, rather overcome by this mark of affection. "do i?" said mr. benjamin allen. "do i, bella? well, perhaps i do." perhaps he did; having just left a pleasant little smoking party of twelve medical students, in a small back parlour with a large fire. "but i am delighted to see you," said mr. ben allen. "bless you, bella!" "there," said arabella, bending forward to kiss her brother; "don't take hold of me again, ben dear, because you tumble me so." at this point of the reconciliation, mr. ben allen allowed his feelings and the cigars and porter to overcome him, and looked round upon the beholders with damp spectacles. "is nothing to be said to me?" cried wardle with open arms. "a great deal," whispered arabella, as she received the old gentleman's hearty caress and congratulation. "you are a hard-hearted, unfeeling, cruel monster!" "you are a little rebel," replied wardle in the same tone, "and i am afraid i shall be obliged to forbid you the house. people like you, who get married in spite of everybody, ought not to be let loose on society. but come!" added the old gentleman, aloud, "here's the dinner, you shall sit by me. joe; why, damn the boy, he's awake!" to the great distress of his master, the fat boy was indeed in a state of remarkable vigilance; his eyes being wide open, and looking as if they intended to remain so. there was an alacrity in his manner, too, which was equally unaccountable; every time his eyes met those of emily or arabella, he smirked and grinned: once wardle could have sworn he saw him wink. this alteration in the fat boy's demeanour originated in his increased sense of his own importance, and the dignity he acquired from having been taken into the confidence of the young ladies; and the smirks, and grins, and winks, were so many condescending assurances that they might depend upon his fidelity. as these tokens were rather calculated to awaken suspicion than to allay it, and were somewhat embarrassing besides, they were occasionally answered by a frown or shake of the head from arabella, which the fat boy considering as hints to be on his guard, expressed his perfect understanding of, by smirking, grinning, and winking, with redoubled assiduity. "joe," said mr. wardle, after an unsuccessful search in all his pockets, "is my snuff-box on the sofa?" "no, sir," replied the fat boy. "oh, i recollect; i left it on my dressing-table this morning," said wardle. "run into the next room and fetch it." the fat boy went into the next room; and having been absent about a minute, returned with the snuff-box, and the palest face that ever a fat boy wore. "what's the matter with the boy!" exclaimed wardle. "nothen's the matter with me," replied joe, nervously. "have you been seeing any spirits?" inquired the old gentleman. "or taking any?" added ben allen. "i think you're right," whispered wardle, across the table. "he is intoxicated, i'm sure." ben allen replied that he thought he was; and as that gentleman had seen a vast deal of the disease in question, wardle was confirmed in an impression which had been hovering about his mind for half an hour, and at once arrived at the conclusion that the fat boy was drunk. "just keep your eye upon him for a few minutes," murmured wardle. "we shall soon find out whether he is or not." the unfortunate youth had only interchanged a dozen words with mr. snodgrass: that gentleman having implored him to make a private appeal to some friend to release him, and then pushed him out with the snuff-box, lest his prolonged absence should lead to a discovery. he ruminated a little with a most disturbed expression of face, and left the room in search of mary. but mary had gone home after dressing her mistress, and the fat boy came back again more disturbed than before. wardle and mr. ben allen exchanged glances. "joe!" said wardle. "yes, sir." "what did you go away for?" the fat boy looked hopelessly in the face of everybody at table and stammered out that he didn't know. "oh," said wardle, "you don't know, eh? take this cheese to mr. pickwick." now, mr. pickwick being in the very best health and spirits, had been making himself perfectly delightful all dinner-time, and was at this moment engaged in an energetic conversation with emily and mr. winkle: bowing his head, courteously, in the emphasis of his discourse, gently waving his left hand to lend force to his observations, and all glowing with placid smiles. he took a piece of cheese from the plate, and was on the point of turning round to renew the conversation, when the fat boy, stooping so as to bring his head on a level with that of mr. pickwick, pointed with his thumb over his shoulder, and made the most horrible and hideous face that was ever seen out of a christmas pantomime. [illustration: _pointed with his thumb over his shoulder_] "dear me!" said mr. pickwick, starting, "what a very--eh?" he stopped, for the fat boy had drawn himself up, and was, or pretended to be, fast asleep. "what's the matter?" inquired wardle. "this is such an extremely singular lad!" replied mr. pickwick, looking uneasily at the boy. "it seems an odd thing to say, but upon my word i am afraid that, at times, he is a little deranged." "oh! mr. pickwick, pray don't say so," cried emily and arabella, both at once. "i am not certain, of course," said mr. pickwick, amidst profound silence, and looks of general dismay; "but his manner to me this moment was really very alarming. oh!" ejaculated mr. pickwick, suddenly jumping up with a short scream. "i beg your pardon, ladies, but at that moment he ran some sharp instrument into my leg. really he is not safe." "he's drunk," roared old wardle, passionately. "ring the bell! call the waiters! he's drunk." "i ain't," said the fat boy, falling on his knees as his master seized him by the collar. "i ain't drunk." "then you're mad; that's worse. call the waiters," said the old gentleman. "i ain't mad; i'm sensible," rejoined the fat boy, beginning to cry. "then, what the devil do you run sharp instruments into mr. pickwick's legs for?" inquired wardle, angrily. "he wouldn't look at me," replied the boy. "i wanted to speak to him." "what did you want to say?" asked half a dozen voices at once. the fat boy gasped, looked at the bedroom door, gasped again, and wiped two tears away with the knuckle of each of his forefingers. "what did you want to say?" demanded wardle, shaking him. "stop!" said mr. pickwick; "allow me. what did you wish to communicate to me, my poor boy?" "i want to whisper to you," replied the fat boy. "you want to bite his ear off, i suppose," said wardle. "don't come near him; he's vicious; ring the bell and let him be taken down-stairs." just as mr. winkle caught the bell rope in his hand, it was arrested by a general expression of astonishment; the captive lover, his face burning with confusion, suddenly walked in from the bedroom, and made a comprehensive bow to the company. "hallo!" cried wardle, releasing the fat boy's collar, and staggering back. "what's this!" "i have been concealed in the next room, sir, since you returned," explained mr. snodgrass. "emily, my girl," said wardle, reproachfully, "i detest meanness and deceit; this is unjustifiable and indelicate in the highest degree. i don't deserve this at your hands, emily, indeed!" "dear papa," said emily, "arabella knows--everybody here knows--joe knows--that i was no party to this concealment. augustus, for heaven's sake, explain it!" mr. snodgrass, who had only waited for a hearing, at once recounted how he had been placed in his then distressing predicament; how the fear of giving rise to domestic dissensions had alone prompted him to avoid mr. wardle on his entrance; how he merely meant to depart by another door, but, finding it locked, had been compelled to stay against his will. it was a painful situation to be placed in; but he now regretted it the less, inasmuch as it afforded him an opportunity of acknowledging, before their mutual friends, that he loved mr. wardle's daughter, deeply and sincerely; that he was proud to avow that the feeling was mutual; and that if thousands of miles were placed between them, or oceans rolled their waters, he could never for an instant forget those happy days, when first--and so on. having delivered himself to this effect, mr. snodgrass bowed again, looked into the crown of his hat, and stepped towards the door. "stop!" shouted wardle. "why in the name of all that's----" "inflammable," mildly suggested mr. pickwick, who thought something worse was coming. "well--that's inflammable," said wardle, adopting the substitute, "couldn't you say all this to me in the first instance?" "or confide in me?" added mr. pickwick. "dear, dear," said arabella, taking up the defence, "what is the use of asking all that now, especially when you know you had set your covetous old heart on a richer son-in-law, and are so wild and fierce besides, that everybody is afraid of you, except me. shake hands with him, and order him some dinner, for goodness gracious sake, for he looks half-starved; and pray have your wine up at once, for you'll not be tolerable until you have taken two bottles at least." the worthy old gentleman pulled arabella's ear, kissed her without the smallest scruple, kissed his daughter also with great affection, and shook mr. snodgrass warmly by the hand. "she is right on one point at all events," said the old gentleman, cheerfully. "ring for the wine!" the wine came, and perker came up-stairs at the same moment. mr. snodgrass had dinner at a side table, and, when he had despatched it, drew his chair next emily, without the smallest opposition on the old gentleman's part. the evening was excellent. little mr. perker came out wonderfully, told various comic stories, and sang a serious song which was almost as funny as the anecdotes. arabella was very charming, mr. wardle very jovial, mr. pickwick very harmonious, mr. ben allen very uproarious, the lovers very silent, mr. winkle very talkative, and all of them very happy. chapter xxvii [illustration] _solomon pell, assisted by a select committee of coachmen, arranges the affairs of the elder mr. weller_ "samivel," said mr. weller, accosting his son on the morning after the funeral, "i've found it, sammy. i thought it wos there." "thought vot wos were?" inquired sam. "your mother-in-law's vill, sammy," replied mr. weller. "in wirtue o' wich, them arrangements is to be made as i told you on, last night, respectin' the funs." "wot, didn't she tell you vere it wos?" inquired sam. "not a bit on it, sammy," replied mr. weller. "we wos a adjestin' our little differences, and i wos a cheerin' her spirits and bearin' her up, so that i forgot to ask anythin' about it. i don't know as i should ha' done it indeed, if i had remembered it," added mr. weller, "for it's a rum sort o' thing, sammy, to go a hankerin' arter anybody's property, ven you're assistin' 'em in illness. it's like helping an outside passenger up, ven he's been pitched off a coach, and puttin' your hand in his pocket, vile you ask him vith a sigh how he finds hisself, sammy." with this figurative illustration of his meaning, mr. weller unclasped his pocket-book, and drew forth a dirty sheet of letter paper, on which were inscribed various characters crowded together in remarkable confusion. "this here is the dockyment, sammy," said mr. weller. "i found it in the little black teapot, on the top shelf o' the bar closet. she used to keep bank notes there, 'afore she vos married, samivel. i've seen her take the lid off, to pay a bill, many and many a time. poor creetur, she might ha' filled all the teapots in the house vith vills, and not have inconwenienced herself neither, for she took wery little of anythin' in that vay lately, 'cept on the temperance nights, ven they fust laid a foundation o' tea to put the spirits a-top on!" "what does it say?" inquired sam. "jist vot i told you, my boy," rejoined his parent. "two hundred pound vurth o' reduced counsels to my son-in-law, samivel, and all the rest o' my property, of ev'ry kind and description votsoever to my husband, mr. tony veller, who i appint as my sole eggzekiter." "that's all, is it?" said sam. "that's all," replied mr. weller. "and i s'pose as it's all right and satisfactory to you and me as is the only parties interested, ve may as vell put this bit o' paper into the fire." "wot are you a-doin' on, you lunatic?" said sam, snatching the paper away, as his parent, in all innocence, stirred the fire preparatory to suiting the action to the word. "you're a nice eggzeketir, you are." "vy not?" inquired mr. weller, looking sternly round, with the poker in his hand. "vy not!" exclaimed sam. "'cos it must be proved, and probated, and swore to, and all manner o' formalities." "you don't mean that?" said mr. weller, laying down the poker. sam buttoned the will carefully in a side pocket; intimating by a look meanwhile, that he did mean it, and very seriously too. "then i'll tell you wot it is," said mr. weller, after a short meditation, "this is a case for that 'ere confidential pal o' the chancellorship's. pell must look into this, sammy. he's the man for a difficult question at law. ve'll have this here brought afore the solvent court directly, samivel." "i never did see such a addle-headed old creetur!" exclaimed sam, irritably, "old baileys, and solvent courts, and alleybis, and ev'ry species o' gammon alvays a-runnin' through his brain! you'd better get your out o' door clothes on, and come to town about this bisness, than stand a-preachin' there about wot you don't understand nothin' on." "wery good, sammy," replied mr. weller, "i'm quite agreeable to anythin' as vill hexpedite business, sammy. but mind this here, my boy, nobody but pell--nobody but pell as a legal adwiser." "i don't want anybody else," replied sam. "now are you a-comin'?" "vait a minute, sammy," replied mr. weller, who, having tied his shawl with the aid of a small glass that hung in the window, was now, by dint of the most wonderful exertions, struggling into his upper garments. "vait a minit, sammy; ven you grow as old as your father, you von't get into your veskit quite as easy as you do now, my boy." "if i couldn't get into it easier than that, i'm blessed if i'd vear vun at all," rejoined his son. "you think so now," said mr. weller, with the gravity of age, "but you'll find that as you get vider, you'll get viser. vidth and visdom, sammy, alvays grows together." as mr. weller delivered this infallible maxim--the result of many years' personal experience and observation--he contrived, by a dexterous twist of his body, to get the bottom button of his coat to perform its office. having paused a few seconds to recover breath, he brushed his hat with his elbow, and declared himself ready. "as four heads is better than two, sammy," said mr. weller, as they drove along the london road in the chaise cart, "and as all this here property is a wery great temptation to a legal gen'l'm'n, ve'll take a couple o' friends o' mine vith us, as'll be wery soon down upon him if he comes anythin' irreg'lar; two o' them as saw you to the fleet that day. they're the wery best judges," added mr. weller in a half whisper, "the wery best judges of a horse, you ever know'd." "and of a lawyer too?" inquired sam. "the man as can form a ackerate judgment of a animal, can form a ackerate judgment of anythin'," replied his father; so dogmatically, that sam did not attempt to controvert the position. in pursuance of this notable resolution the services of the mottled-faced gentleman and of two other very fat coachmen--selected by mr. weller, probably with a view to their width and consequent wisdom--were put into requisition; and this assistance having been secured, the party proceeded to the public-home in portugal street, whence a messenger was despatched to the insolvent court over the way, requiring mr. solomon pell's immediate attendance. [illustration: _a cold collation of an abernethy biscuit and a saveloy_] the messenger fortunately found mr. solomon pell in court, regaling himself, business being rather slack, with a cold collation of an abernethy biscuit and a saveloy. the message was no sooner whispered in his ear than he thrust them in his pocket among various professional documents, and hurried over the way with such alacrity that he reached the parlour before the messenger had even emancipated himself from the court. "gentlemen," said mr. pell, touching his hat, "my service to you all. i don't say it to flatter you, gentlemen, but there are not five other men in the world, that i'd have come out of that court for, to-day." "so busy, eh?" said sam. "busy!" replied pell; "i'm completely sewn up, as my friend the late lord chancellor many a time used to say to me, gentlemen, when he came out from hearing appeals in the house of lords. poor fellow! he was very susceptible of fatigue; he used to feel those appeals uncommonly. i actually thought more than once that he'd have sunk under 'em; i did indeed." here mr. pell shook his head and paused; on which, the elder mr. weller, nudging his neighbour, as begging him to mark the attorney's high connections, asked whether the duties in question produced any permanent ill effects on the constitution of his noble friend. "i don't think he ever quite recovered them," replied pell; "in fact i'm sure he never did. 'pell,' he used to say to me many a time, 'how the blazes you can stand the head-work you do, is a mystery to me.'--'well,' i used to answer, '_i_ hardly know how i do it, upon my life.'--'pell,' he'd add, sighing, and looking at me with a little envy--friendly envy, you know, gentlemen, mere friendly envy; i never minded it--'pell, you're a wonder; a wonder.' ah! you'd have liked him very much if you had known him, gentlemen. bring me three penn'orth of rum, my dear." addressing this latter remark to the waitress in a tone of subdued grief, mr. pell sighed, looked at his shoes, and the ceiling; and, the rum having by that time arrived, drunk it up. "however," said pell, drawing a chair to the table, "a professional man has no right to think of his private friendships when his legal assistance is wanted. by-the-bye, gentlemen, since i saw you here before, we have had to weep over a very melancholy occurrence." mr. pell drew out a pocket-handkerchief, when he came to the word weep, but he made no further use of it than to wipe away a slight tinge of rum which hung upon his upper lip. "i saw it in the _advertiser_, mr. weller," continued pell. "bless my soul, not more than fifty-two! dear me--only think." these indications of a musing spirit were addressed to the mottled-faced man, whose eyes mr. pell had accidentally caught; on which, the mottled-faced man, whose apprehension of matters in general was of a foggy nature, moved uneasily in his seat, and opined that indeed, so far as that went, there was no saying how things _was_ brought about; which observation, involving one of those subtle propositions which it is so difficult to encounter in argument, was controverted by nobody. "i have heard it remarked that she was a very fine woman, mr. weller," said pell in a sympathising manner. "yes, sir, she wos," replied the elder mr. weller, not much relishing this mode of discussing the subject, and yet thinking that the attorney, from his long intimacy with the late lord chancellor, must know best on all matters of polite breeding. "she wos a wery fine 'ooman, sir, ven i first know'd her. she wos a widder sir, at that time." "now, it's curious," said pell, looking round with a sorrowful smile; "mrs. pell was a widow." "that's very extraordinary," said the mottled-faced man. "well, it is a curious coincidence," said pell. "not at all," gruffly remarked the elder mr. weller. "more widders is married than single wimin." "very good, very good," said pell, "you're quite right, mr. weller. mrs. pell was a very elegant and accomplished woman; her manners were the theme of universal admiration in our neighbourhood. i was proud to see that woman dance; there was something so firm and dignified, and yet natural in her motion. her cutting, gentlemen, was simplicity itself. ah! well, well! excuse my asking the question, mr. samuel," continued the attorney in a lower voice, "was your mother-in-law tall?" "not wery," replied sam. "mrs. pell was a tall figure," said pell, "a splendid woman, with a noble shape, and a nose, gentlemen, formed to command and be majestic. she was very much attached to me--very much--highly connected, too. her mother's brother, gentlemen, failed for eight hundred pounds, as a law stationer." "vell," said mr. weller, who had grown rather restless during this discussion, "vith regard to bis'ness." the word was music to pell's ears. he had been revolving in his mind whether any business was to be transacted, or whether he had been merely invited to partake of a glass of brandy and water, or a bowl of punch, or any similar professional compliment, and now the doubt was set at rest without his appearing at all eager for its solution. his eyes glistened as he laid his hat on the table, and said: "what is the business upon which--um? either of these gentlemen wish to go through the court? we require an arrest; a friendly arrest will do, you know; we are all friends here, i suppose?" "give me the dockyment, sammy," said mr. weller, taking the will from his son, who appeared to enjoy the interview amazingly. "wot we rekvire, sir, is a probe o' this here." "probate, my dear sir, probate," said pell. "well, sir," replied mr. weller sharply, "probe and probe it, is wery much the same; if you don't understand wot i mean, sir, i dessay i can find them as does." "no offence, i hope, mr. weller," said pell, meekly. "you are the executor, i see," he added, casting his eyes over the paper. "i am, sir," replied mr. weller. "these other gentlemen, i presume, are legatees, are they?" inquired pell with a congratulatory smile. "sammy is a leg-at-ease," replied mr. weller; "these other gen'l'm'n is friends o' mine, just come to see fair; a kind of umpires." "oh!" said pell, "very good. i have no objections, i'm sure. i shall want a matter of five pound of you before i begin, ha! ha! ha!" it being decided by the committee that the five pound might be advanced, mr. weller produced that sum; after which, a long consultation about nothing particular took place, in the course whereof mr. pell demonstrated to the perfect satisfaction of the gentlemen who saw fair, that unless the management of the business had been entrusted to him, it must all have gone wrong, for reasons not clearly made out, but no doubt sufficient. this important point being dispatched, mr. pell refreshed himself with three chops, and liquids both malt and spirituous, at the expense of the estate, and then they all went away to doctors' commons. the next day, there was another visit to doctors' commons, and a great to-do with an attesting hostler, who, being inebriated, declined swearing anything but profane oaths, to the great scandal of a proctor and surrogate. next week, there were more visits to doctors' commons, and there was a visit to the legacy duty office besides, and there were treaties entered into, for the disposal of the lease and business, and ratifications of the same, and inventories to be made out, and lunches to be taken, and dinners to be eaten, and so many profitable things to be done, and such a mass of papers accumulated, that mr. solomon pell, and the boy, and the blue bag to boot, all got so stout that scarcely anybody would have known them for the same man, boy, and bag, that had loitered about portugal street, a few days before. at length all these weighty matters being arranged, a day was fixed for selling out and transferring the stock, and of waiting with that view upon wilkins flasher, esq., stock-broker, of somewhere near the bank, who had been recommended by mr. solomon pell for the purpose. it was a kind of festive occasion, and the parties were attired accordingly. mr. weller's tops were newly cleaned and his dress was arranged with peculiar care; the mottled-faced gentleman wore at his button-hole a full-sized dahlia with several leaves; and the coats of his two friends were adorned with nosegays of laurel and other evergreens. all three were habited in strict holiday costume; that is to say, they were wrapped up to the chins, and wore as many clothes as possible, which is, and has been, a stage-coachman's idea of full dress ever since stage-coaches were invented. mr. pell was waiting at the usual place of meeting at the appointed time; even mr. pell wore a pair of gloves and a clean shirt much frayed at the collar and wristbands by frequent washings. "a quarter to two," said pell, looking at the parlour clock. "if we are with mr. flasher at a quarter past, we shall just hit the best time." "what should you say to a drop o' beer, gen'l'm'n?" suggested the mottled-faced man. "and a little bit of cold beef," said the second coachman. "or a oyster," added the third, who was a hoarse gentleman supported by very round legs. "hear, hear!" said pell; "to congratulate mr. weller, on his coming into possession of his property: eh? ha! ha!" "i'm quite agreeable, gen'l'm'n," answered mr. weller. "sammy, pull the bell." sam complied; and the porter, cold beef, and oysters being promptly produced, the lunch was done ample justice to. where everybody took so active a part, it is almost invidious to make a distinction; but if one individual evinced greater powers than another, it was the coachman with the hoarse voice, who took an imperial pint of vinegar with his oysters, without betraying the least emotion. "mr. pell, sir," said the elder mr. weller, stirring a glass of brandy and water, of which one was placed before every gentleman when the oyster shells were removed, "mr. pell, sir, it wos my intention to have proposed the funs on this occasion, but samivel has vispered to me----" here mr. samuel weller, who had silently eaten his oysters with tranquil smiles, cried "hear!" in a very loud voice. "--has vispered to me," resumed his father, "that it vould be better to dewote the liquor to vishin' you success and prosperity, and thankin' you for the manner in which you've brought this here business through. here's your health, sir." "hold hard there," interposed the mottled-faced gentleman, with sudden energy, "your eyes on me, gen'l'm'n!" saying this, the mottled-faced gentleman rose, as did the other gentlemen. the mottled-faced gentleman reviewed the company, and slowly lifted his hand, upon which every man (including him of the mottled countenance) drew a long breath, and lifted his tumbler to his lips. in one instant the mottled-faced gentleman depressed his hand again, and every glass was set down empty. it is impossible to describe the thrilling effect produced by this striking ceremony. at once dignified, solemn, and impressive, it combined every element of grandeur. "well, gentlemen," said mr. pell, "all i can say is, that such marks of confidence must be very gratifying to a professional man. i don't wish to say anything that might appear egotistical, gentlemen, but i'm very glad, for your own sakes, that you came to me; that's all. if you had gone to any low member of the profession, it's my firm conviction, and i assure you of it as a fact, that you would have found yourselves in queer street before this. i could have wished my noble friend had been alive to have seen my management of this case. i don't say it out of pride, but i think--however, gentlemen, i won't trouble you with that. i am generally to be found here, gentlemen, but if i'm not here, or over the way, that's my address. you'll find my terms very cheap and reasonable, and no man attends more to his clients than i do, and i hope i know a little of my profession besides. if you have any opportunity of recommending me to any of your friends, gentlemen, i shall be very much obliged to you, and so will they too, when they come to know me. _your_ healths, gentlemen." with this expression of his feelings, mr. solomon pell laid three small written cards before mr. weller's friends, and, looking at the clock again, feared it was time to be walking. upon this hint mr. weller settled the bill, and, issuing forth, the executor, legatee, attorney, and umpires, directed their steps towards the city. the office of wilkins flasher, esquire, of the stock exchange, was in a first floor up a court behind the bank of england; the house of wilkins flasher, esquire, was at brixton, surrey; the horse and stanhope of wilkins flasher, esquire, were at an adjacent livery stable; the groom of wilkins flasher, esquire, was on his way to the west end to deliver some game; the clerk of wilkins flasher, esquire, had gone to his dinner, and wilkins flasher, esquire, himself, cried, "come in," when mr. pell and his companions knocked at the counting-house door. "good morning, sir," said pell, bowing obsequiously. "we want to make a little transfer, if you please." "oh, come in, will you?" said mr. flasher. "sit down a minute; i'll attend to you directly." "thank you, sir," said pell, "there's no hurry. take a chair, mr. weller." mr. weller took a chair, and sam took a box, and the umpires took what they could get, and looked at the almanack and one or two papers which were wafered against the wall, with as much open-eyed reverence as if they had been the finest efforts of the old masters. "well, i'll bet you half a dozen of claret on it; come!" said wilkins flasher, esquire, resuming the conversation to which mr. pell's entrance had caused a momentary interruption. this was addressed to a very smart young gentleman who wore his hat on his right whisker, and was lounging over the desk, killing flies with a ruler. wilkins flasher, esquire, was balancing himself on two legs of an office stool, spearing a wafer-box with a pen-knife, which he dropped every now and then with great dexterity into the very centre of a small red wafer that was stuck outside. both gentlemen had very open waistcoats and very rolling collars, and very small boots, and very big rings, and very little watches, and very large guard chains, and symmetrical inexpressibles, and scented pocket-handkerchiefs. "i never bet half a dozen," said the other gentleman. "i'll take a dozen." "done, simmery, done!" said wilkins flasher, esquire. "p. p., mind," observed the other. "of course," replied wilkins flasher, esquire. wilkins flasher, esquire, entered it in a little book, with a gold pencil-case, and the other gentleman entered it also, in another little book with another gold pencil-case. "i see there's a notice up this morning about boffer," observed mr. simmery. "poor devil, he's expelled the house!" "i'll bet you ten guineas to five he cuts his throat," said wilkins flasher, esquire. "stop! i bar," said wilkins flasher, esquire, thoughtfully. "perhaps he may hang himself." "very good," rejoined mr. simmery, pulling out the gold pencil-case again." i've no objection to take you that way. say, makes away with himself." "kills himself, in fact," said wilkins flasher, esquire. "just so," replied mr. simmery, putting down. "'flasher--ten guineas to five, boffer kills himself.' within what time shall we say?" "a fortnight?" suggested wilkins flasher, esquire. "confound it, no;" rejoined mr. simmery, stopping for an instant to smash a fly with the ruler. "say a week." "split the difference," said wilkins flasher, esquire. "make it ten days." "well; ten days," rejoined mr. simmery. so, it was entered down in the little books that boffer was to kill himself within ten days, or wilkins flasher, esquire, was to hand over to frank simmery, esquire, the sum of ten guineas; and that if boffer did kill himself within that time, frank simmery, esquire, would pay to wilkins flasher, esquire, five guineas, instead. "i'm very sorry he has failed," said wilkins flasher, esquire. "capital dinners he gave." "fine port he had too," remarked mr. simmery. "we are going to send our butler to the sale to-morrow, to pick up some of that sixty-four." "the devil you are," said wilkins flasher, esquire. "my man's going too. five guineas my man outbids your man." "done." another entry was made in the little books, with the gold pencil-cases; and mr. simmery having, by this time, killed all the flies and taken all the bets, strolled away to the stock exchange to see what was going forward. wilkins flasher, esquire, now condescended to receive mr. solomon's pell's instructions, and having filled up some printed forms, requested the party to follow him to the bank: which they did: mr. weller and his three friends staring at all they beheld in unbounded astonishment, and sam encountering everything with a coolness which nothing could disturb. crossing a court-yard which was all noise and bustle; and passing a couple of porters who seemed dressed to match the red fire-engine which was wheeled away into a corner; they passed into an office where their business was to be transacted, and where pell and mr. flasher left them standing for a few moments, while they went upstairs into the will office. "wot place is this here?" whispered the mottled-faced gentleman to the elder mr. weller. "counsel's office," replied the executor in a whisper. "wot are them gen'l'men a settin' behind the counters?" asked the hoarse coachman. "reduced counsels, i s'pose," replied mr. weller. "ain't they the reduced counsels, samivel?" "vy, you don't suppose the reduced counsels is alive, do you?" inquired sam, with some disdain. "how should i know?" retorted mr. weller; "i thought they looked wery like it. wot are they, then?" "clerks," replied sam. "wot are they all a eatin' ham sangwidges for?" inquired his father. "'cos it's their dooty, i suppose," replied sam, "it's a part o' the system; they're always a doin' it here, all day long!" mr. weller and his friends had scarcely had a moment to reflect upon this singular regulation as connected with the monetary system of the country, when they were rejoined by pell and wilkins flasher, esquire, who led them to a part of the counter above which was a round black board with a large "w." on it. "wot's that for, sir?" inquired mr. weller, directing pell's attention to the target in question. "the first letter of the name of the deceased," replied pell. "i say," said mr. weller, turning round to the umpires. "there's somethin' wrong here. we's our letter--this won't do." the referees at once gave it as their decided opinion that the business could not be legally proceeded with, under the letter w, and in all probability it would have stood over for one day at least, had it not been for the prompt, though, at first sight, undutiful behaviour of sam, who, seizing his father by the skirt of the coat, dragged him to the counter, and pinned him there, until he had affixed his signature to a couple of instruments; which from mr. weller's habit of printing, was a work of so much labour and time, that the officiating clerk peeled and ate three ribston pippins while it was performing. as the elder mr. weller insisted on selling out his portion forthwith, they proceeded from the bank to the gate of the stock exchange, to which wilkins flasher, esquire, after a short absence, returned with a cheque on smith, payne, and smith, for five hundred and thirty pounds; that being the sum of money to which mr. weller, at the market price of the day, was entitled, in consideration of the balance of the second mrs. weller's funded savings. sam's two hundred pounds stood transferred to his name, and wilkins flasher, esquire, having been paid his commission, dropped the money carelessly into his coat pocket and lounged back to his office. mr. weller was at first obstinately determined on cashing the cheque in nothing but sovereigns: but it being represented by the umpires that by so doing he must incur the expense of a small sack to carry them home in, he consented to receive the amount in five-pound notes. "my son," said mr. weller as they came out of the banking-house, "my son and me has a wery particular engagement this arternoon, and i should like to have this here bis'ness settled out of hand, so let's jest go straight avay someveres, vere ve can hordit the accounts." a quiet room was soon found, and the accounts were produced and audited. mr. pell's bill was taxed by sam, and some charges were disallowed by the umpires; but, notwithstanding mr. pell's declaration, accompanied with many solemn asseverations, that they were really too hard upon him, it was by very many degrees the best professional job he had ever had, and one on which he boarded, lodged, and washed, for six months afterwards. the umpires, having partaken of a dram, shook hands and departed, as they had to drive out of town that night. mr. solomon pell, finding that nothing more was going forward, either in the eating or drinking way, took a friendly leave, and sam and his father were left alone. "there!" said mr. weller, thrusting his pocket-book in his side pocket. "vith the bills for the lease, and that, there's eleven hundred and eighty pound here. now, samivel, my boy, turn the horses' heads to the george and wulter!" chapter xxviii [illustration] _an important conference takes place between mr. pickwick and samuel weller, at which his parent assists. an old gentleman in a snuff-coloured suit arrives unexpectedly_ mr. pickwick was sitting alone, musing over many things, and thinking among other considerations how he could best provide for the young couple whose present unsettled condition was matter of constant regret and anxiety to him, when mary stepped lightly into the room, and, advancing to the table, said, rather hastily: "oh, if you please, sir, samuel is down-stairs, and he says may his father see you?" "surely," replied mr. pickwick. "thank you, sir," said mary, tripping towards the door again. "sam has not been here long, has he?" inquired mr. pickwick. "oh no, sir," replied mary, eagerly. "he has only just come home. he is not going to ask you for any more leave, sir, he says." mary might have been conscious that she had communicated this last intelligence with more warmth than seemed actually necessary, or she might have observed the good-humoured smile with which mr. pickwick regarded her, when she had finished speaking. she certainly held down her head, and examined the corner of a very smart little apron, with more closeness than there appeared any absolute occasion for. "tell them they can come up at once, by all means," said mr. pickwick. mary, apparently much relieved, hurried away with her message. mr. pickwick took two or three turns up and down the room; and rubbing his chin with his left hand as he did so, appeared lost in thought. "well, well," said mr. pickwick at length, in a kind but somewhat melancholy tone, "it is the best way in which i could reward him for his attachment and fidelity; let it be so, in heaven's name. it is the fate of a lonely old man, that those about him should form new and different attachments and leave him. i have no right to expect that it should be otherwise with me. no, no," added mr. pickwick more cheerfully, "it would be selfish and ungrateful. i ought to be happy to have an opportunity of providing for him so well. i am. of course i am." mr. pickwick had been so absorbed in these reflections, that a knock at the door was three or four times repeated before he heard it. hastily seating himself, and calling up his accustomed pleasant looks, he gave the required permission, and sam weller entered, followed by his father. "glad to see you back again, sam," said mr. pickwick. "how do you do, mr. weller?" "wery hearty, thankee, sir," replied the widower; "hope i see _you_ well, sir." "quite, i thank you," replied mr. pickwick. "i wanted to have a little bit o' conwersation with you, sir," said mr. weller, "if you could spare me five minits or so, sir." "certainly," replied mr. pickwick. "sam, give your father a chair." "thankee, samivel, i've got a cheer here," said mr. weller, bringing one forward as he spoke; "uncommon fine day it's been sir," added the old gentleman, laying his hat on the floor as he sat himself down. "remarkably so indeed," replied mr. pickwick. "very seasonable." "seasonablest veather i ever see, sir," rejoined mr. weller. here, the old gentleman was seized with a violent fit of coughing, which, being terminated, he nodded his head and winked and made several supplicatory and threatening gestures to his son, all of which sam weller steadily abstained from seeing. mr. pickwick, perceiving that there was some embarrassment on the old gentleman's part, affected to be engaged in cutting the leaves of a book that lay beside him, and waited patiently until mr. weller should arrive at the object of his visit. "i never see sich a aggerawatin' boy as you are, samivel," said mr. weller, looking indignantly at his son; "never in all my born days." "what is he doing, mr. weller?" inquired mr. pickwick. "he von't begin, sir," rejoined mr. weller; "he knows i ain't ekal to ex-pressin' myself ven there's anythin' partickler to be done, and yet he'll stand and see me a settin' here takin' up your walable time, and makin' a reg'lar spectacle o' myself, rayther than help me out vith a syllable. it ain't filial conduct, samivel," said mr. weller, wiping his forehead; "wery far from it." "you said you'd speak," replied sam; "how should i know you wos done up at the wery beginnin'?" "you might ha' seen i warn't able to start," rejoined his father; "i'm on the wrong side of the road, and backin' into the palin's, and all manner of unpleasantness, and yet you von't put out a hand to help me. i'm ashamed on you, samivel." "the fact is, sir," said sam, with a slight bow, "the gov'ner's been a drawin' his money." "wery good, samivel, wery good," said mr. weller, nodding his head with a satisfied air, "i didn't mean to speak harsh to you, sammy. wery good. that's the vay to begin. come to the pint at once. wery good indeed, samivel." mr. weller nodded his head an extraordinary number of times, in the excess of his gratification, and waited in a listening attitude for sam to resume his statement. "you may sit down, sam," said mr. pickwick, apprehending that the interview was likely to prove rather longer than he had expected. sam bowed again and sat down; his father looking round, he continued: "the gov'ner, sir, has drawn out five hundred and thirty pound." "reduced counsels," interposed mr. weller senior, in an undertone. "it don't much matter vether it's reduced counsels, or wot not," said sam; "five hundred and thirty pound is the sum, ain't it?" "all right, samivel," replied mr. weller. "to vich sum, he has added for the house and bis'ness----" "lease, good-vill, stock, and fixters," interposed mr. weller. --"as much as makes it," continued sam, "altogether, eleven hundred and eighty pound." "indeed!" said mr. pickwick. "i am delighted to hear it. i congratulate you, mr. weller, on having done so well." "vait a minit, sir," said mr. weller, raising his hand in a deprecatory manner. "get on, samivel." "this here money," said sam, with a little hesitation, "he's anxious to put someveres, vere he knows it'll be safe, and i'm wery anxious too, for if he keeps it, he'll go a lendin' it to somebody, or inwestin' property in horses, or droppin' his pocket-book down a airy, or makin' a egyptian mummy of his-self in some vay or another." "wery good, samivel," observed mr. weller, in as complacent a manner as if sam had been passing the highest eulogiums on his prudence and foresight. "wery good." "for vich reasons," continued sam, plucking nervously at the brim of his hat; "for vich reasons, he's drawed it out to-day, and come here vith me to say, leastvays to offer, or in other vords to----" "--to say this here," said the elder mr. weller, impatiently, "that it ain't no use to me. i'm a goin' to vork a coach reg'lar, and han't got noveres to keep it in, unless i vos to pay the guard for takin' care on it, or to put it in vun o' the coach pockets, vich 'ud be a temptation to the insides. if you'll take care on it for me, sir, i shall be wery much obliged to you. p'raps," said mr. weller, walking up to mr. pickwick and whispering in his ear, "p'raps it'll go a little vay towards the expenses o' that 'ere conwiction. all i say is, just you keep it till i ask you for it again." with these words, mr. weller placed the pocket-book in mr. pickwick's hands, caught up his hat, and ran out of the room with a celerity scarcely to be expected from so corpulent a subject. "stop him, sam!" exclaimed mr. pickwick, earnestly. "overtake him; bring him back instantly! mr. weller--here--come back!" sam saw that his master's injunctions were not to be disobeyed; and catching his father by the arm as he was descending the stairs, dragged him back by main force. "my good friend," said mr. pickwick, taking the old man by the hand, "your honest confidence overpowers me." "i don't see no occasion for nothin' o' the kind, sir," replied mr. weller, obstinately. "i assure you, my good friend, i have more money than i can ever need; far more than a man at my age can ever live to spend," said mr. pickwick. "no man knows how much he can spend, till he tries," observed mr. weller. "perhaps not," replied mr. pickwick; "but as i have no intention of trying any such experiments, i am not likely to come to want. i must beg you to take this back, mr. weller." "wery well," said mr. weller with a discontented look. "mark my vords, sammy. i'll do something desperate vith this here property; somethin' desperate!" "you'd better not," replied sam. mr. weller reflected for a short time, and then, buttoning up his coat with great determination, said: "i'll keep a pike." "wot!" exclaimed sam. "a pike," rejoined mr. weller, through his set teeth: "i'll keep a pike. say good-bye to your father, samivel. i devote the remainder o' my days to' a pike." this threat was such an awful one, and mr. weller, besides appearing fully resolved to carry it into execution, seemed so deeply mortified by mr. pickwick's refusal, that that gentleman after a short reflection, said: "well, well, mr. weller, i will keep the money. i can do more good with it, perhaps, than you can." "just the wery thing, to be sure," said mr. weller, brightening up; "o' course you can, sir." "say no more about it," said mr. pickwick, locking the pocket-book in his desk; "i am heartily obliged to you, my good friend. now sit down again. i want to ask your advice." the internal laughter occasioned by the triumphant success of his visit, which had convulsed not only mr. weller's face, but his arms, legs, and body also, during the locking up of the pocket-book, suddenly gave place to the most dignified gravity as he heard these words. "wait outside a few minutes, sam, will you?" said mr. pickwick. sam immediately withdrew. mr. weller looked uncommonly wise and very much amazed, when mr. pickwick opened the discourse by saying: "you are not an advocate for matrimony, i think, mr. weller?" mr. weller shook his head. he was wholly unable to speak; vague thoughts of some wicked widow having been successful in her designs on mr. pickwick, choked his utterance. "did you happen to see a young girl down-stairs when you came in just now with your son?" inquired mr. pickwick. "yes. i see a young gal," replied mr. weller, shortly. "what did you think of her, now? candidly, mr. weller, what did you think of her?" "i thought she wos wery plump, and vell made," said mr. weller, with a critical air. "so she is," said mr. pickwick, "so she is. what did you think of her manners, from what you saw of her?" "wery pleasant," rejoined mr. weller. "wery pleasant and conformable." the precise meaning which mr. weller attached to this last-mentioned adjective did not appear; but, as it was evident from the tone in which he used it that it was a favourable expression, mr. pickwick was as well satisfied as if he had been thoroughly enlightened on the subject. "i take a great interest in her, mr. weller," said mr. pickwick. mr. weller coughed. "i mean an interest in her doing well," resumed mr. pickwick; "a desire that she may be comfortable and prosperous. you understand?" "wery clearly," replied mr. weller, who understood nothing yet. "that young person," said mr. pickwick, "is attached to your son." "to samivel veller!" exclaimed the parent. "yes," said mr. pickwick. "it's nat'ral," said mr. weller, after some consideration, "nat'ral, but rather alarmin'. sammy must be careful." "how do you mean?" inquired mr. pickwick. "wery careful that he don't say nothin' to her," responded mr. weller. "wery careful that he ain't led avay, in a innocent moment, to say anythink as may lead to a conwiction for breach. you're never safe vith 'em, mr. pickwick, ven they vunce has designs on you; there's no knowin' vere to have 'em; and vile you're a considering of it, they have you. i wos married fust that vay myself, sir, and sammy was the consekens o' the manoover." "you give me no great encouragement to conclude what i have to say," observed mr. pickwick, "but i had better do so at once. this young person is not only attached to your son, mr. weller, but your son is attached to her." "vell," said mr. weller, "this here's a pretty sort o' thing to come to a father's ears, this is!" "i have observed them on several occasions," said mr. pickwick, making no comment on mr. weller's last remark; "and entertain no doubt at all about it. supposing i were desirous of establishing them comfortably as man and wife in some little business or situation, where they might hope to obtain a decent living, what should you think of it, mr. weller?" at first mr. weller received with wry faces a proposition involving the marriage of anybody in whom he took an interest; but, as mr. pickwick argued the point with him, and laid great stress on the fact that mary was not a widow, he gradually became more tractable. mr. pickwick had great influence over him, and he had been much struck with mary's appearance; having, in fact, bestowed several very unfatherly winks upon her, already. at length he said that it was not for him to oppose mr. pickwick's inclination, and that he would be very happy to yield to his advice; upon which mr. pickwick joyfully took him at his word, and called sam back into the room. "sam," said mr. pickwick, clearing his throat, "your father and i have been having some conversation about you." "about you, samivel," said mr. weller, in a patronising and impressive voice. "i am not so blind, sam, as not to have seen, a long time since, that you entertain something more than a friendly feeling towards mrs. winkle's maid," said mr. pickwick. "you hear this, samivel?" said mr. weller in the same judicial form of speech as before. "i hope, sir," said sam, addressing his master: "i hope there's no harm in a young man takin' notice of a young 'ooman as is undeniably good-looking and well-conducted." "certainly not," said mr. pickwick. "not by no means," acquiesced mr. weller, affably but magisterially. "so far from thinking there is anything wrong, in conduct so natural," resumed mr. pickwick, "it is my wish to assist and promote your wishes in this respect. with this view, i have had a little conversation with your father; and finding that he is of my opinion----" "the lady not bein' a widder," interposed mr. weller in explanation. "the lady not being a widow," said mr. pickwick, smiling. "i wish to free you from the restraint which your present position imposes upon you, and to mark my sense of your fidelity and many excellent qualities, by enabling you to marry this girl at once, and to earn an independent livelihood for yourself and family. i shall be proud, sam," said mr. pickwick, whose voice had faltered a little hitherto, but now resumed its customary tone, "proud and happy to make your future prospects in life, my grateful and peculiar care." there was a profound silence for a short time, and then sam said in a low husky sort of voice, but firmly withal: "i'm very much obliged to you for your goodness, sir, as is only like yourself; but it can't be done." "can't be done!" ejaculated mr. pickwick in astonishment. "samivel!" said mr. weller, with dignity. "i say it can't be done," repeated sam in a louder key. "wot's to become of you, sir?" "my good fellow," replied mr. pickwick, "the recent changes among my friends will alter my mode of life in future, entirely; besides, i am growing older, and want repose and quiet. my rambles, sam, are over." "how do i know that 'ere, sir?" argued sam. "you think so now! s'pose you wos to change your mind, vich is not unlikely, for you've the spirit o' five-and tventy in you still, what 'ud become on you vithout me? it can't be done, sir, it can't be done." "wery good, samivel, there's a good deal in that," said mr. weller, encouragingly. "i speak after long deliberation, sam, and with the certainty that i shall keep my word," said mr. pickwick, shaking his head. "new scenes have closed upon me; my rambles are at an end." "wery good," rejoined sam. "then, that's the wery best reason vy you should alvays have somebody by you as understands you, to keep you up and make you comfortable. if you vant a more polished sort o' feller, vell and good, have him; but vages or no vages, notice or no notice, board or no board, lodgin' or no lodgin', sam veller, as you took from the old inn in the borough, sticks by you, come what come may; and let ev'rythin' and ev'rybody do their wery fiercest, nothin' shall ever perwent it!" at the close of this declaration, which sam made with great emotion, the elder mr. weller rose from his chair, and, forgetting all considerations of time, place, or propriety, waved his hat above his head, and gave three vehement cheers. "my good fellow," said mr. pickwick, when mr. weller had sat down again, rather abashed at his own enthusiasm, "you are bound to consider the young woman also." "i do consider the young 'ooman, sir," said sam. "i have considered the young 'ooman. i've spoke to her. i've told her how i'm sitivated; she's ready to wait till i'm ready, and i believe she vill. if she don't, she's not the young 'ooman i take her for, and i give her up vith readiness. you've know'd me afore, sir. my mind's made up, and nothin' can ever alter it." who could combat this resolution? not mr. pickwick. he derived, at that moment, more pride and luxury of feeling from the disinterested attachment of his humble friends, than ten thousand protestations from the greatest men living could have awakened in his heart. while this conversation was passing in mr. pickwick's room, a little old gentleman in a suit of snuff-coloured clothes, followed by a porter carrying a small portmanteau, presented himself below; and after securing a bed for the night, inquired of the waiter whether one mrs. winkle was staying there, to which question the waiter, of course, responded in the affirmative. "is she alone?" inquired the little old gentleman. "i believe she is, sir," replied the waiter; "i can call her own maid, sir, if you----" "no, i don't want her," said the old gentleman, quickly. "show me to her room without announcing me." "eh, sir?" said the waiter. "are you deaf?" inquired the little old gentleman. "no, sir." "then listen, if you please. can you hear me now?" "yes, sir." "that's well. show me to mrs. winkle's room, without announcing me." as the little old gentleman uttered this command, he slipped five shillings into the waiter's hand, and looked steadily at him. "really, sir," said the waiter, "i don't know, sir, whether----" "ah! you'll do it, i see," said the little old gentleman. "you had better do it at once. it will save time." there was something so very cool and collected in the gentleman's manner, that the waiter put the five shillings in his pocket, and led him up-stairs without a word. "this is the room, is it?" said the gentleman. "you may go." [illustration: _a little old gentleman in a suit of snuff-coloured clothes_] the waiter complied, wondering much who the gentleman could be and what he wanted; the little old gentleman, waiting till he was out of sight, tapped at the door. "come in," said arabella. "um! a pretty voice at any rate," murmured the little old gentleman; "but that's nothing." as he said this he opened the door and walked in. arabella, who was sitting at work, rose on beholding a stranger--a little confused--but by no means ungracefully so. "pray don't rise, ma'am," said the unknown, walking in, and closing the door after him. "mrs. winkle, i believe?" arabella inclined her head. "mrs. nathaniel winkle, who married the son of the old man at birmingham?" said the stranger, eyeing arabella with visible curiosity. again arabella inclined her head, and looked uneasily round as if uncertain whether to call for assistance. "i surprise you, i see, ma'am," said the old gentleman. "rather, i confess," replied arabella, wondering more and more. "i'll take a chair, if you'll allow me, ma'am," said the stranger. he took one, and drawing a spectacle-case from his pocket, leisurely pulled out a pair of spectacles, which he adjusted on his nose. "you don't know me, ma'am?" he said, looking so intently at arabella that she began to feel alarmed. "no, sir," she replied timidly. "no," said the gentleman, nursing his left leg; "i don't know how you should. you know my name though, ma'am." "do i?" said arabella, trembling, though she scarcely knew why. "may i ask you what it is?" "presently, ma'am, presently," said the stranger, not having yet removed his eyes from her countenance. "you have been recently married, ma'am?" "i have," replied arabella, in a scarcely audible tone, laying aside her work, and becoming greatly agitated as a thought, that had occurred to her before, struck more forcibly upon her mind. "without having represented to your husband the propriety of first consulting his father, on whom he is dependent, i think?" said the stranger. arabella applied her handkerchief to her eyes. "without an endeavour, even, to ascertain, by some indirect appeal, what were the old man's sentiments on a point in which he would naturally feel much interested?" said the stranger. "i cannot deny it, sir," said arabella. "and without having sufficient property of your own to afford your husband any permanent assistance in exchange for the worldly advantages which you knew he would have gained if he had married agreeably to his father's wishes?" said the old gentleman. "this is what boys and girls call disinterested affection, till they have boys and girls of their own, and then they see it in a rougher and very different light!" arabella's tears flowed fast, as she pleaded in extenuation that she was young and inexperienced; that her attachment had alone induced her to take the step to which she had resorted; and that she had been deprived of the counsel and guidance of her parents almost from infancy. "it was wrong," said the old gentleman in a milder tone, "very wrong. it was foolish, romantic, unbusiness-like." "it was my fault; all my fault, sir," replied poor arabella, weeping. "nonsense," said the old gentleman; "it was not your fault that he fell in love with you, i suppose? yes it was, though," said the old gentleman, looking rather slyly at arabella. "it was your fault. he couldn't help it." this little compliment, or the little gentleman's odd way of paying it, or his altered manner--so much kinder than it was at first--or all three together, forced a smile from arabella in the midst of her tears. "where's your husband?" inquired the old gentleman abruptly; stopping a smile which was just coming over his own face. "i expect him every instant, sir," said arabella. "i persuaded him to take a walk this morning. he is very low and wretched at not having heard from his father." "low, is he?" said the old gentleman. "serve him right!" "he feels it on my account, i am afraid," said arabella; "and indeed, sir, i feel it deeply on his. i have been the sole means of bringing him to his present condition." "don't mind on his account, my dear," said the old gentleman. "it serves him right. i am glad of it--actually glad of it, as far as he is concerned." the words were scarcely out of the old gentleman's lips, when footsteps were heard ascending the stairs, which he and arabella seemed both to recognise at the same moment. the little gentleman turned pale, and making a strong effort to appear composed, stood up, as mr. winkle entered the room. "father!" cried mr. winkle, recoiling in amazement. "yes, sir," replied the little old gentleman. "well, sir, what have you got to say to me?" mr. winkle remained silent. "you are ashamed of yourself, i hope, sir?" said the old gentleman. still mr. winkle said nothing. "are you ashamed of yourself, sir, or are you not?" inquired the old gentleman. "no, sir," replied mr. winkle, drawing arabella's arm through his. "i am not ashamed of myself, or of my wife either." "upon my word!" cried the old gentleman, ironically. "i am very sorry to have done anything which has lessened your affection for me, sir," said mr. winkle; "but i will say, at the same time, that i have no reason to be ashamed of having this lady for my wife, nor you of having her for a daughter." "give me your hand, nat," said the old gentleman in an altered voice. "kiss me, my love. you _are_ a very charming little daughter-in-law after all!" in a few minutes' time mr. winkle went in search of mr. pickwick, and returning with that gentleman, presented him to his father, whereupon they shook hands for five minutes incessantly. "mr. pickwick, i thank you most heartily for all your kindness to my son," said old mr. winkle, in a bluff straightforward way. "i am a hasty fellow, and when i saw you last, i was vexed and taken by surprise. i have judged for myself now, and am more than satisfied. shall i make any more apologies, mr. pickwick?" "not one," replied that gentleman. "you have done the only thing wanting to complete my happiness." hereupon, there was another shaking of hands for five minutes longer, accompanied by a great number of complimentary speeches, which, besides being complimentary, had the additional and very novel recommendation of being sincere. sam had dutifully seen his father to the belle sauvage, when, on returning, he encountered the fat boy in the court, who had been charged with the delivery of a note from emily wardle. "i say," said joe, who was unusually loquacious, "what a pretty girl mary is, isn't she? i am _so_ fond of her, i am!" mr. weller made no verbal remark in reply; but eyeing the fat boy for a moment, quite transfixed at his presumption, led him by the collar to the corner, and dismissed him with a harmless but ceremonious kick. after which, he walked home, whistling. [illustration: _dismissed him with a harmless but ceremonious kick_] chapter xxix [illustration] _in which the pickwick club is finally dissolved and everything concluded to the satisfaction of everybody_ for a whole week after the happy arrival of mr. winkle from birmingham, mr. pickwick and sam weller were from home all day long, only returning just in time for dinner, and then wearing an air of mystery and importance quite foreign to their natures. it was evident that very grave and eventful proceedings were on foot; but various surmises were afloat, respecting their precise character. some (among whom was mr. tupman) were disposed to think that mr. pickwick contemplated a matrimonial alliance; but this idea the ladies most strenuously repudiated. others rather inclined to the belief that he had projected some distant tour, and was at present occupied in effecting the preliminary arrangements; but this again was stoutly denied by sam himself, who had unequivocally stated when cross-examined by mary that no new journeys were to be undertaken. at length, when the brains of the whole party had been racked for six long days, by unavailing speculation, it was unanimously resolved that mr. pickwick should be called upon to explain his conduct, and to state distinctly why he had thus absented himself from the society of his admiring friends. with this view, mr. wardle invited the full circle to dinner at the adelphi; and, the decanters having been twice sent round, opened the business. "we are all anxious to know," said the old gentleman, "what we have done to offend you, and to induce you to desert us and devote yourself to these solitary walks." "are you?" said mr. pickwick. "it is singular enough that i had intended to volunteer a full explanation this very day; so, if you will give me another glass of wine, i will satisfy your curiosity." the decanters passed from hand to hand with unwonted briskness, and mr. pickwick, looking round on the faces of his friends with a cheerful smile, proceeded: "all the changes that have taken place among us," said mr. pickwick, "i mean the marriage that _has_ taken place, and the marriage that _will_ take place, with the changes they involve, rendered it necessary for me to think, soberly and at once, upon my future plans. i determined on retiring to some quiet, pretty neighbourhood in the vicinity of london; i saw a house which exactly suited my fancy; i have taken it and furnished it. it is fully prepared for my reception, and i intend entering upon it at once, trusting that i may yet live to spend many quiet years in peaceful retirement, cheered through life by the society of my friends, and followed in death by their affectionate remembrance." here mr. pickwick paused, and a low murmur ran round the table. "the house i have taken," said mr. pickwick, "is at dulwich. it has a large garden, and is situated in one of the most pleasant spots near london. it has been fitted up with every attention to substantial comfort; perhaps to a little elegance besides; but of that you shall judge for yourselves. sam accompanies me there. i have engaged, on perker's representation, a housekeeper--a very old one--and such other servants as she thinks i shall require. i propose to consecrate this little retreat by having a ceremony, in which i take a great interest, performed there. i wish, if my friend wardle entertains no objection, that his daughter should be married from my new house, on the day i take possession of it. the happiness of young people," said mr. pickwick, a little moved, "has ever been the chief pleasure of my life. it will warm my heart to witness the happiness of those friends who are dearest to me, beneath my own roof." mr. pickwick paused again: emily and arabella sobbed audibly. "i have communicated, both personally and by letter, with the club," resumed mr. pickwick, "acquainting them with my intention. during our long absence, it had suffered much from internal dissensions; and the withdrawal of my name, coupled with this and other circumstances, has occasioned its dissolution. the pickwick club exists no longer." [illustration: "_the happiness of young people," said mr. pickwick, a little moved, "has ever been the chief pleasure of my life_"] "i shall never regret," said mr. pickwick in a low voice, "i shall never regret having devoted the greater part of two years to mixing with different varieties and shades of human character: frivolous as my pursuit of novelty may have appeared to many. nearly the whole of my previous life having been devoted to business and the pursuit of wealth, numerous scenes of which i had no previous conception have dawned upon me--i hope to the enlargement of my mind, and the improvement of my understanding. if i have done but little good, i trust i have done less harm, and that none of my adventures will be other than a source of amusing and pleasant recollection to me in the decline of life. god bless you all!" with these words, mr. pickwick filled and drained a bumper with a trembling hand, and his eyes moistened as his friends rose with one accord and pledged him from their hearts. there were very few preparatory arrangements to be made for the marriage of mr. snodgrass. as he had neither father nor mother, and had been in his minority a ward of mr. pickwick's, that gentleman was perfectly well acquainted with his possessions and prospects. his account of both was quite satisfactory to wardle--as almost any other account would have been, for the good old gentleman was overflowing with hilarity and kindness--and a handsome portion having been bestowed upon emily, the marriage was fixed to take place on the fourth day from that time; the suddenness of which preparations reduced three dressmakers and a tailor to the extreme verge of insanity. getting post-horses to the carriage, old wardle started off next day, to bring his mother up to town. communicating his intelligence to the old lady with characteristic impetuosity, she instantly fainted away; but being promptly revived, ordered the brocaded silk gown to be packed up forthwith, and proceeded to relate some circumstances of a similar nature attending the marriage of the eldest daughter of lady tollimglower, deceased, which occupied three hours in the recital, and were not half finished at last. mrs. trundle had to be informed of all the mighty preparations that were making in london, and being in a delicate state of health was informed thereof through mr. trundle, lest the news should be too much for her; but it was not too much for her, inasmuch as she at once wrote off to muggleton, to order a new cap and a black satin gown, and moreover avowed her determination of being present at the ceremony. hereupon mr. trundle called in the doctor, and the doctor said mrs. trundle ought to know best how she felt herself, to which mrs. trundle replied that she felt herself quite equal to it, and that she had made up her mind to go; upon which the doctor, who was a wise and discreet doctor, and knew what was good for himself as well as for other people, said that perhaps if mrs. trundle stopped at home she might hurt herself more by fretting, than by going, so perhaps she had better go. and she did go; the doctor with great attention sending in half a dozen of medicine, to be drunk upon the road. in addition to these points of distraction, wardle was entrusted with two small letters to two small young ladies who were to act as bridesmaids; upon the receipt of which, the two young ladies were driven to despair by having no "things" ready for so important an occasion, and no time to make them in--a circumstance which appeared to afford the two worthy papas of the two small young ladies rather a feeling of satisfaction than otherwise. however, old frocks were trimmed, and new bonnets made, and the young ladies looked as well as could possibly have been expected of them. and as they cried at the subsequent ceremony in the proper places, and trembled at the right times, they acquitted themselves to the admiration of all beholders. how the two poor relations ever reached london--whether they walked, or got behind coaches, or procured lifts in waggons, or carried each other by turns--is uncertain; but there they were, before wardle; and the very first people that knocked at the door of mr. pickwick's house, on the bridal morning, were the two poor relations, all smiles and shirt collar. they were welcomed heartily though, for riches or poverty had no influence on mr. pickwick; the new servants were all alacrity and readiness; sam was in a most unrivalled state of high spirits and excitement; mary was glowing with beauty and smart ribands. the bridegroom, who had been staying at the house for two or three days previous, sallied forth gallantly to dulwich church to meet the bride, attended by mr. pickwick, ben allen, bob sawyer, and mr. tupman; with sam weller outside, having at his button-hole a white favour, the gift of his lady-love, and clad in a new and gorgeous suit of livery invented for the occasion. they were met by the wardles, and the winkles, and the bride and bridesmaids, and the trundles; and the ceremony having been performed, the coaches rattled back to mr. pickwick's to breakfast, where little mr. perker already awaited them. here, all the light clouds of the more solemn part of the proceedings passed away; every face shone forth joyously; nothing was to be heard but congratulations and commendations. everything was so beautiful! the lawn in front, the garden behind, the miniature conservatory, the dining-room, the drawing-room, the bedrooms, the smoking-room, and above all the study, with its pictures and easy chairs, and odd cabinets, and queer tables, and books out of number, with a large cheerful window opening upon a pleasant lawn and commanding a pretty landscape, dotted here and there with little houses almost hidden by the trees; and then the curtains, and the carpets, and the chairs, and the sofas! everything was so beautiful, so compact, so neat, and in such exquisite taste, said everybody, that there really was no deciding what to admire most. and in the midst of all this, stood mr. pickwick, his countenance lighted up with smiles, which the heart of no man, woman, or child, could resist: himself the happiest of the group: shaking hands over and over again with the same people, and when his own hands were not so employed, rubbing them with pleasure; turning round in a different direction at every fresh expression of gratification or curiosity, and inspiring everybody with his looks of gladness and delight. breakfast is announced. mr. pickwick leads the old lady (who has been very eloquent on the subject of lady tollimglower) to the top of a long table; wardle takes the bottom; the friends arrange themselves on either side; sam takes his station behind his master's chair; the laughter and talking cease; mr. pickwick, having said grace, pauses for an instant, and looks round him. as he does so, the tears roll down his cheeks, in the fulness of his joy. let us leave our old friend in one of those moments of unmixed happiness, of which, if we seek them, there are ever some, to cheer our transitory existence here. there are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast. some men, like bats or owls, have better eyes for the darkness than for the light. we, who have no such optical powers, are better pleased to take our last parting look at the visionary companions of many solitary hours, when the brief sunshine of the world is blazing full upon them. * * * * * [illustration: _the admiration of numerous elderly ladies of single condition._] it is the fate of most men who mingle with the world, and attain even the prime of life, to make many real friends, and lose them in the course of nature. it is the fate of all authors or chroniclers to create imaginary friends, and lose them in the course of art. nor is this the full extent of their misfortunes; for they are required to furnish an account of them besides. in compliance with this custom--unquestionably a bad one--we subjoin a few biographical words, in relation to the party at mr. pickwick's assembled. mr. and mrs. winkle, being fully received into favour by the old gentleman, were shortly afterwards installed in a newly-built house, not half a mile from mr. pickwick's. mr. winkle, being engaged in the city as agent or town correspondent of his father, exchanged his old costume for the ordinary dress of englishmen, and presented all the external appearance of a civilised christian ever afterwards. [illustration: _exchanged his old costume for the ordinary dress of englishmen_] mr. and mrs. snodgrass settled at dingley dell, where they purchased and cultivated a small farm, more for occupation than profit. mr. snodgrass, being occasionally abstracted and melancholy, is to this day reputed a great poet among his friends and acquaintance, although we do not find that he has ever written anything to encourage the belief. there are many celebrated characters, literary, philosophical, and otherwise, who hold a high reputation on a similar tenure. mr. tupman, when his friends married, and mr. pickwick settled, took lodgings at richmond, where he has ever since resided. he walks constantly on the terrace during the summer months, with a youthful and jaunty air which has rendered him the admiration of the numerous elderly ladies of single condition, who reside in the vicinity. he has never proposed again. mr. bob sawyer, having previously passed through the _gazette_, passed over to bengal, accompanied by mr. benjamin allen; both gentlemen having received surgical appointments from the east india company. they each had the yellow fever fourteen times, and then resolved to try a little abstinence; since which period, they have been doing well. mrs. bardell let lodgings to many conversable single gentleman, with great profit, but never brought any more actions for breach of promise of marriage. her attorneys, messrs. dodson and fogg, continue in business, from which they realise a large income, and in which they are universally considered among the sharpest of the sharp. sam weller kept his word, and remained unmarried, for two years. the old housekeeper dying at the end of that time, mr. pickwick promoted mary to the situation, on condition of her marrying mr. weller at once, which she did without a murmur. from the circumstance of two sturdy little boys having been repeatedly seen at the gate of the back garden, there is reason to suppose that sam has some family. the elder mr. weller drove a coach for twelve months, but, being afflicted with the gout, was compelled to retire. the contents of the pocket-book had been so well invested for him, however, by mr. pickwick, that he had a handsome independence to retire on, upon which he still lives at an excellent public-house near shooter's hill, where he is quite reverenced as an oracle: boasting very much of his intimacy with mr. pickwick, and retaining a most unconquerable aversion to widows. mr. pickwick himself continued to reside in his new house, employing his leisure hours in arranging the memoranda which he afterwards presented to the secretary of the once famous club, or in hearing sam weller read aloud, with such remarks as suggested themselves to his mind, which never failed to afford mr. pickwick great amusement. he was much troubled at first, by the numerous applications made to him by mr. snodgrass, mr. winkle, and mr. trundle, to act as godfather to their offspring; but he has become used to it now, and officiates as a matter of course. he never had occasion to regret his bounty to mr. jingle; for both that person and job trotter became, in time, worthy members of society, although they have always steadily objected to return to the scenes of their old haunts and temptations. mr. pickwick is somewhat infirm now; but he retains all his former juvenility of spirit, and may still be frequently seen contemplating the pictures in the dulwich gallery, or enjoying a walk about the pleasant neighbourhood on a fine day. he is known by all the poor people about, who never fail to take their hats off, as he passes, with great respect. the children idolise him, and so indeed does the whole neighbourhood. every year he repairs to a large family merry-making at mr. wardle's; on this, as on all other occasions, he is invariably attended by the faithful sam, between whom and his master there exists a steady and reciprocal attachment which nothing but death will terminate. [illustration] printed by +ballantyne, hanson & co.+ edinburgh & london transcriber's note text in italics was surrounded with _underscores_ and small capitals with +signs+. small errors in punctuation were corrected without note, also the following changes were made, on page "hd" changed to "had" (who had distinctly seen him) "ther" changed to "their" (touched their foreheads) "returing" changed to "returning" (instead of returning to the office) "though" changed to "thought" ("ah, i thought not," said the serjeant) "phunkey" changed to "phunky" (the pleasure of seeing you before, mr. phunky,) "sob" changed to "bob" (replied bob sawyer) "mr. mr." changed to "mr." (the straight-walking mr. anthony humm) "expeience" changed to "experience" (his professional experience) "responsibilty" changed to "responsibility" (a responsibility, he would say) "drawng" changed to "drawing" (drawing forth two very small scraps) "straghtforward" changed to "straightforward" (service to honest, straightforward men) "mesrs" changed to "mssrs" (after doing messrs. dodson and fogg's case) "tha" changed to "the" (eulogiums on the conduct) "cherfulness" changed to "cheerfulness" (with perfect cheerfulness and content of heart) "perpared" changed to "prepared" (mr. pickwick prepared to ensconce himself inside) "êlite" changed to "élite" (the _élite_ of ba--ath.) "tosssing" changed to "tossing" (tossing off, as he spoke) "cabaliscit" changed to "cabalistic" (inscribed with a variety of cabalistic characters) "litttle" changed to "little" (and divers little love passages had passed) "impossibilty" changed to "impossibility" (it being a moral impossibility to swear) "loking" changed to "looking" (looking lazily out from under) "expreessd" changed to "expressed" (the one expressed his opinion) "furnitur" changed to "furniture" (you'll want some furniture.) "situate" changed to "situated" (situated in portugal street) "mustta ke" changed to "must take" (you must take the matter in hand for them) "be" changed to "he" (he became particularly restless) "interupted" changed to "interrupted" (interrupted pott, drawing back) "inpuired" changed to "inquired" (inquired sam, drawing his chair) "wih" changed to "with" (have been honoured with the confidence) "pantomine" changed to "pantomime" (ever seen out of a christmas pantomime.) "contuinued" changed to "continued" (makes it," continued sam) "cherful" changed to "cheerful" (with a cheerful smile). otherwise the original of this edition was preserved, including inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation etc. the poems and verses of charles dickens [illustration: charles dickens, his wife, & her sister drawn by maclise in . maclise. r.a. c. h. jeens] the poems and verses of charles dickens collected and edited, with bibliographical notes, by f. g. kitton london chapman and hall, limited edinburgh: printed by t. and a. constable to miss georgina hogarth this little volume is respectfully dedicated contents page the village coquettes ( ), _round._ hail to the merry autumn days, _lucy's song._ love is not a feeling to pass away, _squire norton's song._ that very wise head, old Æsop, said, _george edmunds' song._ autumn leaves, autumn leaves, _rose's song._ some folks who have grown old and sour, _duet (flam and rose)._ 'tis true i'm caressed by the witty, _squire norton's song._ the child and the old man sat alone, _duet (the squire and lucy)._ in rich and lofty station shine, _sestet and chorus._ turn him from the farm, _quartet._ hear me, when i swear that the farm is your own, _squire norton's song._ there's a charm in spring, _young benson's song._ my fair home is no longer mine, _duet (the squire and edmunds)._ listen, though i do not fear you, _lucy's song._ how beautiful at even-tide, _chorus._ join the dance, with step as light, _quintet._ no light bound of stag or timid hare, the lamplighter ( ), _duet (tom and betsy)._ there comes a new moon twelve times a year, the pickwick papers ( ), , , , _the ivy green._ oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green, _a christmas carol._ i care not for spring, _gabriel grub's song._ brave lodgings for one, _romance (sam weller's song)._ bold turpin vunce, on hounslow heath, the examiner ( ), _the fine old english gentleman._ i'll sing you a new ballad, _the quack doctor's proclamation._ an astonishing doctor has just come to town, _subjects for painters._ to you, sir martin, the patrician's daughter ( ), _prologue._ no tale of streaming plumes and harness bright, the keepsake ( ), _a word in season._ they have a superstition in the east, the daily news ( ), _the british lion._ oh, p'r'aps you may have heard, _the hymn of the wiltshire labourers._ oh god, who by thy prophet's hand, lines addressed to mark lemon ( ), _new song._ lemon is a little hipped, the lighthouse ( ), _prologue._ a story of those rocks where doom'd ships come, _the song of the wreck._ the wind blew high, the waters raved, the frozen deep ( ), _prologue._ one savage footprint on the lonely shore, the wreck of the golden mary ( ), _a child's hymn._ hear my prayer, o! heavenly father, songs, choruses, and concerted pieces from 'the village coquettes' a comic opera the village coquettes about the year , when the earliest of the _sketches by boz_ were appearing in print, a young composer named john hullah set to music a portion of an opera called _the gondolier_, which he thought might prove successful on the stage. twelve months later hullah became acquainted with charles dickens, whose name was then unknown to those outside his own immediate circle, and it occurred to him that he and 'boz' might combine their forces by converting _the gondolier_ into a popular play. dickens, who always entertained a passion for the theatre, entered into the project at once, and informed hullah that he had a little unpublished story by him which he thought would dramatise well--even better than _the gondolier_ notion; confessing that he would rather deal with familiar english scenes than with the unfamiliar venetian environment of the play favoured by hullah. the title of _the gondolier_ was consequently abandoned, and a novel subject found and put forward as _the village coquettes_, a comic opera of which songs, duets, and concerted pieces were to form constituent parts. dickens, of course, became responsible for the _libretto_ and hullah for the music; and when completed the little play was offered to, and accepted by, braham, the lessee of the st. james's theatre, who expressed an earnest desire to be the first to introduce 'boz' to the public as a dramatic writer. a favourite comedian of that day, john pritt harley, after reading the words of the opera prior to its representation, declared it was 'a sure card,' and felt so confident of its success that he offered to wager ten pounds that it would run fifty nights!--an assurance which at once decided braham to produce it. _the village coquettes_, described on the title-page of the printed copies as 'a comic opera, in two acts,' was played for the first time on december , , with braham and harley in the cast. in his preface to the play (published contemporaneously by richard bentley, and dedicated to harley) dickens explained that 'the _libretto_ of an opera must be, to a certain extent, a mere vehicle for the music,' and that 'it is scarcely fair or reasonable to judge it by those strict rules of criticism which would be justly applicable to a five-act tragedy or a finished comedy.' there is no doubt that the merits of the play were based upon the songs set to hullah's music rather than upon the play itself, and it is said that harley's reputation as a vocalist was established by his able rendering of them. _the village coquettes_ enjoyed a run of nineteen nights in london during the season, and was then transferred to edinburgh, where it was performed under the management of mr. ramsay, a friend of sir walter scott. sala, as a boy of ten, witnessed its first representation in london, and ever retained a vivid impression of the event; while especial interest appertains to the fact that a copy of the play became the means of first bringing dickens into personal communication with john forster, his life-long friend and biographer. it is more than probable that 'boz' felt a little elated by the reception accorded by the public to the 'dramatic bantling,' but as time progressed he realised that the somewhat unfavourable comments of the critics were not entirely devoid of truth. indeed, when in it was proposed to revive the play, he expressed a hope that it might be allowed 'to sink into its native obscurity.' 'i did it,' he explained, 'in a fit of damnable good-nature long ago, for hullah, who wrote some very pretty music to it. i just put down for everybody what everybody at the st. james's theatre wanted to say and do, and what they could say and do best, and i have been most sincerely repentant ever since.' the novelist confessed that both the operetta and a little farce called _the strange gentleman_ (the latter written as 'a practical joke' for the st. james's theatre about the same time) were done 'without the least consideration or regard to reputation'; he also declared that he 'wouldn't repeat them for a thousand pounds apiece,' and devoutly wished these early dramatic efforts to be forgotten. _À propos_ of this, the late frederick locker-lampson has recorded that when he asked dickens (about a year before the great writer's death) whether he possessed a copy of _the village coquettes_, his reply was, 'no; and if i knew it was in my house, and if i could not get rid of it in any other way, i would burn the wing of the house where it was!' although, perhaps, not of a high order of merit, _the village coquettes_ is not without bibliographical interest, and may be regarded as a musical and literary curiosity. copies of the first edition of the little play are now seldom met with, and whenever a perfect impression comes into the market it commands a good price, even as much as £ or £ ,--indeed, a particularly fine copy was sold at sotheby's in for twenty-five pounds. in the words of the opera were reprinted in facsimile by richard bentley, for which a frontispiece was etched by f. w. pailthorpe a year later. the village coquettes round hail to the merry autumn days, when yellow corn-fields shine, far brighter than the costly cup that holds the monarch's wine! hail to the merry harvest time, the gayest of the year, the time of rich and bounteous crops, rejoicing, and good cheer! 'tis pleasant on a fine spring morn to see the buds expand, 'tis pleasant in the summer time to view the teeming land; 'tis pleasant on a winter's night to crouch around the blaze,-- but what are joys like these, my boys, to autumn's merry days! then hail to merry autumn days, when yellow corn-fields shine, far brighter than the costly cup that holds the monarch's wine! and hail to merry harvest time, the gayest of the year, the time of rich and bounteous crops, rejoicing, and good cheer! lucy's song love is not a feeling to pass away, like the balmy breath of a summer day; it is not--it cannot be--laid aside; it is not a thing to forget or hide. it clings to the heart, ah, woe is me! as the ivy clings to the old oak tree. love is not a passion of earthly mould, as a thirst for honour, or fame, or gold: for when all these wishes have died away, the deep strong love of a brighter day, though nourished in secret, consumes the more, as the slow rust eats to the iron's core. squire norton's song that very wise head, old Æsop, said, the bow should be sometimes loose; keep it tight for ever, the string you sever:-- let's turn his old moral to use. the world forget, and let us yet, the glass our spirits buoying, revel to-night in those moments bright which make life worth enjoying. the cares of the day, old moralists say, are quite enough to perplex one; then drive to-day's sorrow away till to-morrow, and then put it off till the next one. _chorus_--the cares of the day, etc. some plodding old crones, the heartless drones! appeal to my cool reflection, and ask me whether such nights can ever charm sober recollection. yes, yes! i cry, i'll grieve and die, when those i love forsake me; but while friends so dear surround me here, let care, if he can, o'ertake me. _chorus_--the cares of the day, etc. george edmunds' song autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here; autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear! how like the hopes of childhood's day, thick clust'ring on the bough! how like those hopes in their decay-- how faded are they now! autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here; autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear! wither'd leaves, wither'd leaves, that fly before the gale: withered leaves, withered leaves, ye tell a mournful tale, of love once true, and friends once kind, and happy moments fled: dispersed by every breath of wind, forgotten, changed, or dead! autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here! autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear! rose's song some folks who have grown old and sour, say love does nothing but annoy. the fact is, they have had their hour, so envy what they can't enjoy. i like the glance--i like the sigh-- that does of ardent passion tell! if some folks were as young as i, i'm sure they'd like it quite as well. old maiden aunts so hate the men, so well know how wives are harried, it makes them sad--not jealous--when they see their poor dear nieces married. all men are fair and false, they know, and with deep sighs they assail 'em, it's so long since they tried men, though, i rather think their mem'ries fail 'em. duet (_flam and rose_) _flam._ 'tis true i'm caressed by the witty, the envy of all the fine beaux, the pet of the court and the city, but still, i'm the lover of rose. _rose._ country sweethearts, oh, how i despise! and oh! how delighted i am to think that i shine in the eyes of the elegant--sweet--mr. flam. _flam._ allow me [_offers to kiss her_]. _rose._ pray don't be so bold, sir [_kisses her_]. _flam._ what sweets on that honey'd lip hang! _rose._ your presumption, i know, i should scold, sir, but i really _can't_ scold mr. flam. _both._ then let us be happy together, content with the world as it goes, an unchangeable couple for ever, mr. flam and his beautiful rose. squire norton's song the child and the old man sat alone in the quiet, peaceful shade of the old green boughs, that had richly grown in the deep, thick forest glade. it was a soft and pleasant sound, that rustling of the oak; and the gentle breeze played lightly round, as thus the fair boy spoke:-- 'dear father, what can honour be, of which i hear men rave? field, cell and cloister, land and sea, the tempest and the grave:-- it lives in all, 'tis sought in each, 'tis never heard or seen: now tell me, father, i beseech, what can this honour mean?' 'it is a name--a name, my child,-- it lived in other days, when men were rude, their passions wild, their sport, thick battle-frays. when, in armour bright, the warrior bold knelt to his lady's eyes: beneath the abbey pavement old that warrior's dust now lies. 'the iron hearts of that old day have mouldered in the grave; and chivalry has passed away, with knights so true and brave; the honour, which to them was life, throbs in no bosom now; it only gilds the gambler's strife, or decks the worthless vow.' duet (_the squire and lucy_) _squire._ in rich and lofty station shine, before his jealous eyes; in golden splendour, lady mine, this peasant youth despise. _lucy_ [_apart; the squire regarding her attentively_]. oh! it would be revenge indeed, with scorn his glance to meet. i, i, his humble pleading heed! i'd spurn him from my feet. _squire._ with love and rage her bosom's torn, and rash the choice will be; _lucy._ with love and rage my bosom's torn, and rash the choice will be. _squire._ from hence she quickly must be borne, her home, her home, she'll flee. _lucy._ oh! long shall i have cause to mourn my home, my home, for thee! sestet and chorus _young benson._ turn him from the farm! from his home will you cast the old man who has tilled it for years! ev'ry tree, ev'ry flower, is linked with the past, and a friend of his childhood appears. turn _him_ from the farm! o'er its grassy hillside, a gay boy he once loved to range; his boyhood has fled, and its dear friends are dead, but these meadows have never known change. _edmunds._ oppressor, hear me! _lucy._ on my knees i implore. _squire._ i command it, and you will obey. _rose._ rise, dear lucy, rise; you shall not kneel before the tyrant who drives us away. _squire._ your sorrows are useless, your prayers are in vain: i command it, and you will begone. i'll hear no more. _edmunds._ no, they shall not beg again of a man whom i view with deep scorn. _flam._ do not yield. _young benson._} _squire._ } _lucy._ } leave the farm! _rose._ } _edmunds._ your pow'r i despise. _squire._ and your threats, boy, i disregard too. _flam._ do not yield. _young benson._} _squire._ } _lucy._ } leave the farm! _rose._ } _rose._ if he leaves it, he dies. _edmunds._ this base act, proud man, you shall rue. _young benson._ turn him from the farm! from his home will you cast, the old man who has tilled it for years? ev'ry tree, ev'ry flower, is linked with the past, and a friend of his childhood appears! _squire._ yes, yes, leave the farm! from his home i will cast the old man who has tilled it for years; though each tree and flower is linked with the past, and a friend of his childhood appears. _chorus._ he has turned from his farm! from his home he has cast the old man who has tilled it for years; though each tree and flower is linked with the past, and a friend of his childhood appears. quartet _squire._ hear me, when i swear that the farm is your own through all changes fortune may make; the base charge of falsehood i never have known; this promise i never will break. _rose and_ } hear him, when he swears that the farm is our own _lucy._ } through all changes fortune may make. _rose and_ } the base charge of falsehood he never has known; _lucy._ } this promise he never will break. [_enter young benson._] _young benson._ my sister here! lucy! begone, i command. _squire._ to your home i restore you again. _young benson._ no boon i'll accept from that treacherous hand as the price of my fair sister's fame. _squire._ to your home! _young benson_ [_to lucy_]. hence away! _lucy._ brother dear, i obey. _squire._ i restore. _young benson._ hence away! _young benson,_ } let us leave. _rose, and lucy._ } _lucy._ he swears it, dear brother. _squire._ i swear it. _young benson._ away! _squire._ i swear it. _young benson._ you swear to deceive. _squire._ hear me, when i swear that the farm is your own through all changes fortune may make. _lucy and_ { hear him, when he swears that the farm is our own _rose._ { through all changes fortune may make. _young benson._ hear him swear, hear him swear, that the farm is our own through all changes fortune may make. _squire._ the base charge of falsehood i never have known, this promise i never will break. _lucy and_ { the base charge of falsehood he never has known, _rose._ { this promise he never will break. _young benson._ the base charge of falsehood he often has known, this promise he surely will break. squire norton's song there's a charm in spring, when ev'rything is bursting from the ground; when pleasant show'rs bring forth the flow'rs and all is life around. in summer day, the fragrant hay most sweetly scents the breeze; and all is still, save murm'ring rill, or sound of humming bees. old autumn comes;--with trusty gun in quest of birds we roam: unerring aim, we mark the game, and proudly bear it home. a winter's night has its delight, well warmed to bed we go: a winter's day, we're blithe and gay, snipe-shooting in the snow. a country life, without the strife and noisy din of town, is all i need, i take no heed of splendour or renown. and when i die, oh, let me lie where trees above me wave; let wild plants bloom around my tomb, my quiet country grave! young benson's song my fair home is no longer mine; from its roof-tree i'm driven away. alas! who will tend the old vine, which i planted in infancy's day! the garden, the beautiful flowers, the oak with its branches on high, dear friends of my happiest hours, among thee i long hoped to die. the briar, the moss, and the bramble, along the green paths will run wild: the paths where i once used to ramble, an innocent, light-hearted child. duet (_the squire and edmunds_) _squire._ listen, though i do not fear you, listen to me, ere we part. _edmunds._ list to _you_! yes, i will hear you. _squire._ yours alone is lucy's heart, i swear it, by that heav'n above me. _edmunds._ what! can i believe my ears! could i hope that she still loves me? _squire._ banish all these doubts and fears, if a love were e'er worth gaining, if love were ever fond and true, no disguise or passion feigning, such is her young love for you. _squire._ listen, though i do not fear you, listen to me, ere we part. _edmunds._ list to you! yes, i will hear you, mine alone is her young heart. lucy's song how beautiful at eventide to see the twilight shadows pale, steal o'er the landscape, far and wide, o'er stream and meadow, mound and dale. how soft is nature's calm repose when ev'ning skies their cool dews weep: the gentlest wind more gently blows, as if to soothe her in her sleep! the gay morn breaks, mists roll away, all nature awakes to glorious day. in my breast alone dark shadows remain; the peace it has known it can never regain. chorus join the dance, with step as light as ev'ry heart should be to-night; music, shake the lofty dome, in honour of our harvest home. join the dance, and banish care, all are young, and gay, and fair; even age has youthful grown, in honour of our harvest home. join the dance, bright faces beam, sweet lips smile, and dark eyes gleam; all these charms have hither come, in honour of our harvest home. join the dance, with step as light, as ev'ry heart should be to-night; music shake the lofty dome in honour of our harvest home. quintet no light bound of stag or timid hare, o'er the ground where startled herds repair, do we prize so high, or hold so dear, as the eyes that light our pleasures here. no cool breeze that gently plays by night, o'er calm seas, whose waters glisten bright; no soft moan that sighs across the lea, harvest home, is half so sweet as thee! lyric from 'the lamplighter' a farce the lamplighter in dickens agreed to prepare a little play for macready, the famous actor, then the manager of drury lane theatre. it was called _the lamplighter_, and when completed the author read aloud the 'unfortunate little farce' (as he subsequently termed it) in the greenroom of the theatre. although the play went through rehearsal, it was never presented before an audience, for the actors would not agree about it, and, at macready's suggestion, dickens consented to withdraw it, declaring that he had 'no other feeling of disappointment connected with this matter' but that which arose from the failure in attempting to serve his friend. the manuscript of the play, not in dickens's handwriting, reposes in the forster library at the victoria and albert museum, and in it was printed for the first time, in the form of a pamphlet, of which only two hundred and fifty copies were issued. when rejected by macready as unsuitable for stage presentation, _the lamplighter_ was adapted by dickens to another purpose--that is to say, he converted it into a tale called _the lamplighter's story_, for publication in _the pic-nic papers_, issued in for the benefit of the widow of macrone, dickens's first publisher, who died in great poverty. between the farce and the story there are but slight differences. the duet of two verses, sung by tom and betsy to the air of 'the young may-moon,' cannot of course be regarded as a remarkable composition, but it served its purpose sufficiently well, and for that reason deserves recognition. duet from 'the lamplighter' air--'the young may-moon' _tom._ there comes a new moon twelve times a year. _betsy._ and when there is none, all is dark and drear. _tom._ in which i espy-- _betsy._ and so, too, do i-- _both._ a resemblance to womankind very clear-- _both._ there comes a new moon twelve times a year; and when there is none, all is dark and drear. _tom._ in which i espy-- _betsy._ and so do i-- _both._ a resemblance to womankind very clear. _second verse._ _tom._ she changes, she's fickle, she drives men mad. _betsy._ she comes to bring light, and leaves them sad. _tom._ so restless wild-- _betsy._ but so sweetly wild-- _both._ that no better companion could be had. _both._ there comes a new moon twelve times a year; and when there is none, all is dark and drear. _tom._ in which i espy-- _betsy._ and so do i-- _both._ a resemblance to womankind very clear. songs from 'the pickwick papers' i.--the ivy green the ivy green this famous ballad of three verses, from the sixth chapter of _pickwick_, is perhaps the most acceptable of all dickens's poetical efforts. it was originally set to music, at dickens's request, by his brother-in-law, henry burnett, a professional vocalist, who, by the way, was the admitted prototype of nicholas nickleby. mr. burnett sang the ballad scores of times in the presence of literary men and artists, and it proved an especial favourite with landor. 'the ivy green' was not written for _pickwick_, mr. burnett assured me; but on its being so much admired the author said it should go into a monthly number, and it did. the most popular setting is undoubtedly that of henry russell, who has recorded that he received, as his fee, the magnificent sum of ten shillings! the ballad, in this form, went into many editions, and the sales must have amounted to tens of thousands. the ivy green oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green, that creepeth o'er ruins old! of right choice food are his meals, i ween, in his cell so lone and cold. the wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed, to pleasure his dainty whim: and the mouldering dust that years have made is a merry meal for him. creeping where no life is seen, a rare old plant is the ivy green. fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings, and a staunch old heart has he. how closely he twineth, how tight he clings, to his friend the huge oak tree! and slily he traileth along the ground, and his leaves he gently waves, as he joyously hugs and crawleth round the rich mould of dead men's graves. creeping where grim death hath been, a rare old plant is the ivy green. whole ages have fled and their works decayed, and nations have scattered been; but the stout old ivy shall never fade, from its hale and hearty green. the brave old plant, in its lonely days, shall fatten upon the past: for the stateliest building man can raise is the ivy's food at last. creeping on, where time has been, a rare old plant is the ivy green. ii.--a christmas carol a christmas carol the five stanzas bearing the above title will be found in the twenty-eighth chapter of _pickwick_, where they are introduced as the song which that hospitable old soul, mr. wardle, sung appropriately, 'in a good, round, sturdy voice,' before the pickwickians and others assembled on christmas eve at manor farm. the 'carol,' shortly after its appearance in _pickwick_, was set to music to the air of 'old king cole,' and published in _the book of british song_ (new edition), with an illustration drawn by 'alfred crowquill'--_i.e._, a. h. forrester. a christmas carol i care not for spring; on his fickle wing let the blossoms and buds be borne: he woos them amain with his treacherous rain, and he scatters them ere the morn. an inconstant elf, he knows not himself nor his own changing mind an hour, he'll smile in your face, and, with wry grimace, he'll wither your youngest flower. let the summer sun to his bright home run, he shall never be sought by me; when he's dimmed by a cloud i can laugh aloud, and care not how sulky he be! for his darling child is the madness wild that sports in fierce fever's train; and when love is too strong, it don't last long, as many have found to their pain. a mild harvest night, by the tranquil light of the modest and gentle moon, has a far sweeter sheen, for me, i ween, than the broad and unblushing noon. but every leaf awakens my grief, as it lieth beneath the tree; so let autumn air be never so fair, it by no means agrees with me. but my song i troll out, for christmas stout, the hearty, the true, and the bold; a bumper i drain, and with might and main give three cheers for this christmas old! we'll usher him in with a merry din that shall gladden his joyous heart, and we'll keep him up, while there's bite or sup, and in fellowship good, we'll part. in his fine honest pride, he scorns to hide one jot of his hard-weather scars; they're no disgrace, for there's much the same trace on the cheeks of our bravest tars. then again i sing 'till the roof doth ring, and it echoes from wall to wall-- to the stout old wight, fair welcome to-night, as the king of the seasons all! iii.--gabriel grub's song gabriel grub's song the sexton's melancholy dirge, in the twenty-ninth chapter of _pickwick_, seems a little incongruous in a humorous work. the sentiment, however, thoroughly accords with the philosophic gravedigger's gruesome occupation. 'the story of the goblins who stole a sexton' is one of several short tales (chiefly of a dismal character) introduced into _pickwick_; they were doubtless written prior to the conception of _pickwick_, each being probably intended for independent publication, and in a manner similar to the 'boz' sketches. for some reason these stories were not so published, and dickens evidently saw a favourable opportunity of utilising his unused manuscripts by inserting them in _the pickwick papers_. gabriel grub's song brave lodgings for one, brave lodgings for one, a few feet of cold earth, when life is done; a stone at the head, a stone at the feet, a rich, juicy meal for the worms to eat; rank grass over head, and damp clay around, brave lodgings for one, these, in holy ground! iv.--romance romance it will be remembered that while sam weller and his coaching-friends refreshed themselves at the little public-house opposite the insolvent court in portugal street, lincoln's inn fields, prior to sam joining mr. pickwick in the fleet, that faithful body-servant was persuaded to 'oblige the company' with a song. 'raly, gentlemen,' said sam, 'i'm not wery much in the habit o' singin' vithout the instrument; but anythin' for a quiet life, as the man said ven he took the sitivation at the light-house.' 'with this prelude, mr. samuel weller burst at once into the following wild and beautiful legend, which, under the impression that it is not generally known, we take the liberty of quoting. we would beg to call particular attention to the monosyllable at the end of the second and fourth lines, which not only enables the singer to take breath at those points, but greatly assists the metre.'-_the pickwick papers_, chapter xliii. at the conclusion of the performance the mottled-faced gentleman contended that the song was 'personal to the cloth,' and demanded the name of the bishop's coachman, whose cowardice he regarded as a reflection upon coachmen in general. sam replied that his name was not known, as 'he hadn't got his card in his pocket'; whereupon the mottled-faced gentleman declared the statement to be untrue, stoutly maintaining that the said coachman did _not_ run away, but 'died game--game as pheasants,' and he would 'hear nothin' said to the contrairey.' even in the vernacular (observes mr. percy fitzgerald), 'this master of words [charles dickens] could be artistic; and it may fairly be asserted that mr. weller's song to the coachmen is superior to anything of the kind that has appeared since.' the two stanzas have been set to music, as a humorous part-song, by sir frederick bridge, mus. doc., m.v.o., the organist of westminster abbey, who informs me that it was written some years since, to celebrate a festive gathering in honour of dr. turpin (!), secretary of the college of organists. 'it has had a very great success,' says sir frederick, 'and is sung much in the north of england at competitions of choirs. it is for men's voices. the humour of the words never fails to make a great hit, and i hope the music does no harm. "the bishop's coach" is set to a bit of old plain-chant, and i introduce a fugue at the words "sure as eggs is eggs."' romance i bold turpin vunce, on hounslow heath, his bold mare bess bestrode--er; ven there he see'd the bishop's coach a-comin' along the road--er. so he gallops close to the 'orse's legs, and he claps his head vithin; and the bishop says, 'sure as eggs is eggs, this here's the bold turpin!' _chorus_--and the bishop says, 'sure as eggs is eggs, this here's the bold turpin!' ii says turpin, 'you shall eat your words, with a sarse of leaden bul-let'; so he puts a pistol to his mouth, and he fires it down his gul-let. the coachman, he not likin' the job, set off at a full gal-lop, but dick put a couple of balls in his nob, and perwailed on him to stop. _chorus_ (_sarcastically_)--but dick put a couple of balls in his nob, and perwailed on him to stop. political squibs from 'the examiner' i.--the fine old english gentleman political squibs from 'the examiner,' in august dickens contributed anonymously to _the examiner_ (then edited by forster) three political squibs, which were signed w., and were intended to help the liberals in fighting their opponents. these squibs were entitled respectively 'the fine old english gentleman (to be said or sung at all conservative dinners)'; 'the quack doctor's proclamation'; and 'subjects for painters (after peter pindar).' concerning those productions, forster says: 'i doubt if he ever enjoyed anything more than the power of thus taking part occasionally, unknown to outsiders, in the sharp conflict the press was waging at the time.' in all probability he contributed other political rhymes to the pages of _the examiner_ as events prompted: if so, they are buried beyond easy reach of identification. writing to forster at this time, dickens said: 'by jove, how radical i am getting! i wax stronger and stronger in the true principles every day.'... he would (observes forster) sometimes even talk, in moments of sudden indignation at the political outlook, 'of carrying off himself and his household gods, like coriolanus, to a world elsewhere.' this was the period of the tory interregnum, with sir robert peel at the head of affairs. the fine old english gentleman new version (_to be said or sung at all conservative dinners_) i'll sing you a new ballad, and i'll warrant it first-rate, of the days of that old gentleman who had that old estate; when they spent the public money at a bountiful old rate on ev'ry mistress, pimp, and scamp, at ev'ry noble gate, in the fine old english tory times; soon may they come again! the good old laws were garnished well with gibbets, whips, and chains, with fine old english penalties, and fine old english pains, with rebel heads, and seas of blood once hot in rebel veins; for all these things were requisite to guard the rich old gains of the fine old english tory times; soon may they come again! this brave old code, like argus, had a hundred watchful eyes, and ev'ry english peasant had his good old english spies, to tempt his starving discontent with fine old english lies, then call the good old yeomanry to stop his peevish cries, in the fine old english tory times; soon may they come again! the good old times for cutting throats that cried out in their need, the good old times for hunting men who held their fathers' creed, the good old times when william pitt, as all good men agreed, came down direct from paradise at more than railroad speed.... oh the fine old english tory times; when will they come again! in those rare days, the press was seldom known to snarl or bark, but sweetly sang of men in pow'r, like any tuneful lark; grave judges, too, to all their evil deeds were in the dark; and not a man in twenty score knew how to make his mark. oh the fine old english tory times; soon may they come again! those were the days for taxes, and for war's infernal din; for scarcity of bread, that fine old dowagers might win; for shutting men of letters up, through iron bars to grin, because they didn't think the prince was altogether thin, in the fine old english tory times; soon may they come again! but tolerance, though slow in flight, is strong-wing'd in the main; that night must come on these fine days, in course of time was plain; the pure old spirit struggled, but its struggles were in vain; a nation's grip was on it, and it died in choking pain, with the fine old english tory days, all of the olden time. the bright old day now dawns again; the cry runs through the land, in england there shall be dear bread--in ireland, sword and brand; and poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand, so, rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand, of the fine old english tory days; hail to the coming time! w. ii.--the quack doctor's proclamation the quack doctor's proclamation tune--'a cobbler there was' an astonishing doctor has just come to town, who will do all the faculty perfectly brown: he knows all diseases, their causes, and ends; and he begs to appeal to his medical friends. tol de rol: diddle doll: tol de rol, de dol, diddle doll tol de rol doll. he's a magnetic doctor, and knows how to keep the whole of a government snoring asleep to popular clamours; till popular pins are stuck in their midriffs--and then he begins tol de rol. he's a _clairvoyant_ subject, and readily reads his countrymen's wishes, condition, and needs, with many more fine things i can't tell in rhyme, --and he keeps both his eyes shut the whole of the time. tol de rol. you mustn't expect him to talk; but you'll take most particular notice the doctor's awake, though for aught from his words or his looks that you reap, he might just as well be most confoundedly sleepy. tol de rol. homoeopathy, too, he has practised for ages (you'll find his prescriptions in luke hansard's pages), just giving his patient when maddened by pain,-- of reform the ten thousandth part of a grain. tol de rol. he's a med'cine for ireland, in portable papers; the infallible cure for political vapours; a neat label round it his 'prentices tie-- 'put your trust in the lord, and keep this powder dry!' tol de rol. he's a corn doctor also, of wonderful skill, --no cutting, no rooting-up, purging, or pill-- you're merely to take, 'stead of walking or riding, the sweet schoolboy exercise--innocent sliding. tol de rol. there's no advice gratis. if high ladies send his legitimate fee, he's their soft-spoken friend. at the great public counter with one hand behind him, and one in his waistcoat, they're certain to find him. tol de rol. he has only to add he's the real doctor flam, all others being purely fictitious and sham; the house is a large one, tall, slated, and white, with a lobby; and lights in the passage at night. tol de rol: diddle doll: tol de rol, de dol, diddle doll tol de rol doll. w. iii.--subjects for painters subjects for painters (after peter pindar) to you, sir martin,[ ] and your co. r.a.'s, i dedicate in meek, suggestive lays, some subjects for your academic palettes; hoping, by dint of these my scanty jobs, to fill with novel thoughts your teeming nobs, as though i beat them in with wooden mallets. to you, maclise, who eve's fair daughters paint with nature's hand, and want the maudlin taint of the sweet chalon school of silk and ermine: to you, e. landseer, who from year to year delight in beasts and birds, and dogs and deer, and seldom give us any human vermin: --to all who practise art, or make believe, i offer subjects they may take or leave. great sibthorp and his butler, in debate (_arcades ambo_) on affairs of state, not altogether 'gone,' but rather funny; cursing the whigs for leaving in the lurch our d----d good, pleasant, gentlemanly church, would make a picture--cheap at any money. or sibthorp as the tory sec.--at-war, encouraging his mates with loud 'yhor! yhor! from treas'ry benches' most conspicuous end; or sib.'s mustachios curling with a smile, as an expectant premier without guile calls him his honourable and gallant friend. or sibthorp travelling in foreign parts, through that rich portion of our eastern charts where lies the land of popular tradition; and fairly worshipp'd by the true devout in all his comings-in and goings-out, because of the old turkish superstition. fame with her trumpet, blowing very hard, and making earth rich with celestial lard, in puffing deeds done through lord chamberlain howe; while some few thousand persons of small gains, who give their charities without such pains, look up, much wondering what may be the row. behind them joseph hume, who turns his pate to where great marlbro' house in princely state shelters a host of lacqueys, lords and pages, and says he knows of dowagers a crowd, who, without trumpeting so very loud, would do so much, and more, for half the wages. limn, sirs, the highest lady in the land, when joseph surface, fawning cap in hand, delivers in his list of patriot mortals; those gentlemen of honour, faith, and truth, who, foul-mouthed, spat upon her maiden youth, and dog-like did defile her palace portals. paint me the tories, full of grief and woe, weeping (to voters) over frost and co., their suff'ring, erring, much-enduring brothers. and in the background don't forget to pack, each grinning ghastly from its bloody sack, the heads of thistlewood, despard, and others. paint, squandering the club's election gold, fierce lovers of our constitution old, lords who're that sacred lady's greatest debtors; and let the law, forbidding any voice or act of peer to influence the choice of english people, flourish in bright letters. paint that same dear old lady, ill at ease, weak in her second childhood, hard to please, unknowing what she ails or what she wishes; with all her carlton nephews at the door, deaf'ning both aunt and nurses with their roar, --fighting already, for the loaves and fishes. leaving these hints for you to dwell upon, i shall presume to offer more anon. w. prologue to westland marston's play 'the patrician's daughter' prologue to 'the patrician's daughter' _the patrician's daughter_ was the title bestowed upon a play, in the tragic vein, by a then unknown writer, j. westland marston, it being his maiden effort in dramatic authorship. dickens took great interest in the young man and indicated a desire to promote the welfare of his production by composing some introductory lines. to macready he wrote: 'the more i think of marston's play, the more sure i feel that a prologue to the purpose would help it materially, and almost decide the fate of any ticklish point on the first night. now i have an idea (not easily explainable in writing, but told in five words) that would take the prologue out of the conventional dress of prologues, quite. get the curtain up with a dash, and begin the play with a sledge-hammer blow. if, on consideration, you should agree with me, i will write the prologue, heartily.' happily for the author, his little tragedy was the first new play of the season, and it thus attracted greater attention. its initial representation took place at drury lane theatre on december , , and the fact that dickens's dignified and vigorous lines were recited by macready, the leading actor of his day, undoubtedly gave _prestige_ to this performance; but the play, although it made a sensation for the moment, did not enjoy a long run, its motive being for some reason misunderstood. as explained by the editors of _the letters of charles dickens_, it was (to a certain extent) an experiment in testing the effect of a tragedy of modern times and in modern dress, the novelist's prologue being intended to show that there need be no incongruity between plain clothes of the nineteenth century and high tragedy. _the patrician's daughter: a tragedy in five acts_, appeared in pamphlet form during the year prior to its being placed upon the boards. the prologue was printed for the first time in the _sunday times_, december , , and then in _the theatrical journal and stranger's guide_, december , . by the kind permission of miss hogarth, the lines are here reproduced from the revised and only correct version in _the letters of charles dickens_. in the preface to the second edition of the play ( ), the author thus acknowledges his indebtedness to dickens for the prologue, which, however, does not appear in the book: 'how shall i thank mr. dickens for the spontaneous kindness which has furnished me with so excellent a letter of introduction to the audience? the simplest acknowledgment is perhaps the best, since the least i might say would exceed _his_ estimate of the obligation; while the most i could say would fail to express _mine_.' prologue to 'the patrician's daughter' (spoken by mr. macready) no tale of streaming plumes and harness bright dwells on the poet's maiden harp to-night; no trumpet's clamour and no battle's fire breathes in the trembling accents of his lyre; enough for him, if in his lowly strain he wakes one household echo not in vain; enough for him, if in his boldest word the beating heart of man be dimly heard. its solemn music which, like strains that sigh through charmèd gardens, all who hearing die; its solemn music he does not pursue to distant ages out of human view; nor listen to its wild and mournful chime in the dead caverns on the shore of time; but musing with a calm and steady gaze before the crackling flames of living days, he hears it whisper through the busy roar of what shall be and what has been before. awake the present! shall no scene display the tragic passion of the passing day? is it with man, as with some meaner things, that out of death his single purpose springs? can his eventful life no moral teach until he be, for aye, beyond its reach? obscurely shall he suffer, act, and fade, dubb'd noble only by the sexton's spade? awake the present! though the steel-clad age find life alone within its storied page, iron is worn, at heart, by many still-- the tyrant custom binds the serf-like will; if the sharp rack, and screw, and chain be gone, these later days have tortures of their own; the guiltless writhe, while guilt is stretch'd in sleep, and virtue lies, too often, dungeon deep. awake the present! what the past has sown be in its harvest garner'd, reap'd, and grown! how pride breeds pride, and wrong engenders wrong, read in the volume truth has held so long, assured that where life's flowers freshest blow, the sharpest thorns and keenest briars grow, how social usage has the pow'r to change good thoughts to evil; in its highest range to cramp the noble soul, and turn to ruth the kindling impulse of our glorious youth, crushing the spirit in its house of clay, learn from the lessons of the present day. not light its import and not poor its mien; yourselves the actors, and your homes the scene. a word in season from the 'keepsake' a word in season _the keepsake_, one of the many fashionable annuals published during the early years of queen victoria's reign, had for its editor in the 'gorgeous' countess of blessington, the reigning beauty who held court at gore house, kensington, where many political, artistic, and literary celebrities forgathered--bulwer lytton, disraeli, dickens, ainsworth, d'orsay, and the rest. her ladyship, through her personal charm and natural gifts, succeeded in securing the services of eminent authors for the aristocratic publication; even dickens could not resist her appeal, and in a letter to forster (dated july ) he wrote: 'i have heard, as you have, from lady blessington, for whose behalf i have this morning penned the lines i send you herewith. but i have only done so to excuse myself, for i have not the least idea of their suiting her; and i hope she will send them back to you for _the examiner_.' lady blessington, however, decided to retain the thoughtful little poem, which was referred to in the _london review_ (twenty-three years later) as 'a graceful and sweet apologue, reminding one of the manner of hood.' the theme of the poem, which forster describes as 'a clever and pointed parable in verse,' was afterwards satirised in chadband (_bleak house_), and in the idea of religious conversion through the agency of 'moral pocket-handkerchiefs.' a word in season they have a superstition in the east, that allah, written on a piece of paper, is better unction than can come of priest, of rolling incense, and of lighted taper: holding, that any scrap which bears that name, in any characters, its front imprest on, shall help the finder through the purging flame, and give his toasted feet a place to rest on. accordingly, they make a mighty fuss with ev'ry wretched tract and fierce oration, and hoard the leaves--for they are not, like us, a highly civilized and thinking nation: and, always stooping in the miry ways, to look for matter of this earthy leaven, they seldom, in their dust-exploring days, have any leisure to look up to heaven. so have i known a country on the earth, where darkness sat upon the living waters, and brutal ignorance, and toil, and dearth were the hard portion of its sons and daughters: and yet, where they who should have ope'd the door of charity and light, for all men's finding, squabbled for words upon the altar-floor, and rent the book, in struggles for the binding. the gentlest man among these pious turks, god's living image ruthlessly defaces; their best high-churchman, with no faith in works, bowstrings the virtues in the market-places: the christian pariah, whom both sects curse (they curse all other men, and curse each other), walks thro' the world, not very much the worse-- does all the good he can, and loves his brother. verses from the 'daily news' i.--the british lion verses from the 'daily news,' the _daily news_, it will be remembered, was founded in january by charles dickens, who officiated as its first editor. he soon sickened of the mechanical drudgery appertaining to the position, and resigned his editorial functions the following month. from january st to march nd he contributed to its columns a series of 'travelling sketches,' afterwards reprinted in volume form as _pictures from italy_. he also availed himself of the opportunity afforded him, by his association with that newspaper, of once more taking up the cudgels against the tories, and, as in the case of the _examiner_, his attack was conveyed through the medium of some doggerel verses. these were entitled 'the british lion--a new song, but an old story,' to be sung to the tune of 'the great sea-snake.' they bore the signature of 'catnach,' the famous ballad-singer, and were printed in the _daily news_ of january , . three weeks later some verses of a totally different character appeared in the columns of the _daily news_, signed in full 'charles dickens.' one lucy simpkins, of bremhill (or bremble), a parish in wiltshire, had just previously addressed a night meeting of the wives of agricultural labourers in that county, in support of a petition for free trade, and her vigorous speech on that occasion inspired dickens to write 'the hymn of the wiltshire labourers,' thus offering an earnest protest against oppression. concerning the 'hymn,' a writer in a recent issue of _christmas bells_ observes: 'it breathes in every line the teaching of the sermon on the mount, the love of the all-father, the redemption by his son, and that love to god and man on which hang all the law and the prophets.' the british lion a new song, but an old story tune--'the great sea-snake' oh, p'r'aps you may have heard, and if not, i'll sing of the british lion free, that was constantly a-going for to make a spring upon his en-e-me; but who, being rather groggy at the knees, broke down, always, before; and generally gave a feeble wheeze instead of a loud roar. right toor rol, loor rol, fee faw fum, the british lion bold! that was always a-going for to do great things, and was always being 'sold!' he was carried about, in a carawan, and was show'd in country parts, and they said, 'walk up! be in time! he can eat corn-law leagues like tarts!' and his showmen, shouting there and then, to puff him didn't fail, and they said, as they peep'd into his den, 'oh, don't he wag his tail!' now, the principal keeper of this poor old beast, wan humbug was his name, would once ev'ry day stir him up--at least-- and wasn't that a game! for he hadn't a tooth, and he hadn't a claw, in that 'struggle' so 'sublime'; and, however sharp they touch'd him on the raw, he couldn't come up to time. and this, you will observe, was the reason why wan humbug, on weak grounds, was forced to make believe that he heard his cry in all unlikely sounds. so, there wasn't a bleat from an essex calf, or a duke, or a lordling slim; but he said, with a wery triumphant laugh, 'i'm blest if that ain't him.' at length, wery bald in his mane and tail, the british lion growed: he pined, and declined, and he satisfied the last debt which he owed. and when they came to examine the skin, it was a wonder sore, to find that the an-i-mal within was nothing but a boar! right toor rol, loor rol, fee faw fum, the british lion bold! that was always a-going for to do great things, and was always being 'sold!' catnach. ii. the hymn of the wiltshire labourers the hymn of the wiltshire labourers 'don't you all think that we have a great need to cry to our god to put it in the hearts of our greassous queen and her members of parlerment to grant us free bread!' lucy simpkins, _at bremhill_. oh god, who by thy prophet's hand didst smite the rocky brake, whence water came, at thy command, thy people's thirst to slake; strike, now, upon this granite wall, stern, obdurate, and high; and let some drops of pity fall for us who starve and die! the god, who took a little child, and set him in the midst, and promised him his mercy mild, as, by thy son, thou didst: look down upon our children dear, so gaunt, so cold, so spare, and let their images appear where lords and gentry are! oh god, teach them to feel how we, when our poor infants droop, are weakened in our trust in thee, and how our spirits stoop; for, in thy rest, so bright and fair, all tears and sorrows sleep: and their young looks, so full of care, would make thine angels weep! the god, who with his finger drew the judgment coming on, write, for these men, what must ensue, ere many years be gone! oh god, whose bow is in the sky, let them not brave and dare, until they look (too late) on high, and see an arrow there! oh god, remind them! in the bread they break upon the knee, these sacred words may yet be read, 'in memory of me!' oh god, remind them of his sweet compassion for the poor, and how he gave them bread to eat, and went from door to door! charles dickens. new song lines addressed to mark lemon new song dickens, like silas wegg, would sometimes 'drop into poetry' when writing to intimate friends, as, for example, in a letter to maclise, the artist, which began with a parody of byron's lines to thomas moore-- 'my foot is in the house, my bath is on the sea, and, before i take a souse, here's a single note to thee.' a more remarkable instance of his propensity to indulge in parody of this kind is to be found in a letter addressed to mark lemon in the spring of . the novelist was then enjoying a holiday with his wife and daughters at brighton, whence he wrote to lemon (who had been ill), pressing him to pay them a visit. after commanding him to 'get a clean pocket-handkerchief ready for the close of "copperfield" no. --"simple and quiet, but very natural and touching"--_evening bore_,' dickens invites his friend in lines headed 'new song,' and signed 't. sparkler,' the effusion also bearing the signatures of other members of the family party--catherine dickens, annie leech, georgina hogarth, mary dickens, katie dickens, and john leech. new song tune--'lesbia hath a beaming eye' i lemon is a little hipped, and this is lemon's true position-- he is not pale, he's not white-lipped, yet wants a little fresh condition. sweeter 'tis to gaze upon old ocean's rising, falling billers, than on the houses every one that form the street called saint anne's willers! oh my lemon, round and fat, oh my bright, my right, my tight 'un, think a little what you're at-- don't stay at home, but come to brighton! ii lemon has a coat of frieze, but all so seldom lemon wears it, that it is a prey to fleas, and ev'ry moth that's hungry, tears it. oh, that coat's the coat for me, that braves the railway sparks and breezes, leaving ev'ry engine free to smoke it, till its owner sneezes! then my lemon, round and fat, l., my bright, my right, my tight 'un, think a little what you're at-- on tuesday first, come down to brighton! t. sparkler. wilkie collins's play 'the lighthouse' i.--the prologue 'the lighthouse' wilkie collins composed two powerful dramas for representation at dickens's residence, tavistock house, a portion of which had been already adapted for private theatricals, the rooms so converted being described in the bills as 'the smallest theatre in the world.' the first of these plays was called _the lighthouse_, and the initial performance took place on june , . dickens not only wrote the prologue and 'the song of the wreck,' but signally distinguished himself by enacting the part of aaron gurnock, a lighthouse-keeper, his clever impersonation recalling frédérick lemaître, the only actor he ever tried to take as a model. with regard to 'the song of the wreck,' dickens evidently intended to bestow upon it a different title, for, in a letter addressed to wilkie collins during the preparation of the play, he said: 'i have written a little ballad for mary--"the story of the ship's carpenter and the little boy, in the shipwreck."' the song was rendered by his eldest daughter, mary (who assumed the rôle of phoebe in the play); it was set to the music composed by george linley for miss charlotte young's pretty ballad, 'little nell,' of which dickens became very fond, and which his daughter had been in the habit of singing to him constantly since her childhood. dr. a. w. ward, master of peter-house, cambridge university, refers to 'the song of the wreck' as 'a most successful effort in cowper's manner.' the prologue (_slow music all the time; unseen speaker; curtain down._) a story of those rocks where doom'd ships come to cast them wreck'd upon the steps of home, where solitary men, the long year through-- the wind their music and the brine their view-- warn mariners to shun the beacon-light; a story of those rocks is here to-night. eddystone lighthouse! (_exterior view discovered._) in its ancient form, ere he who built it wish'd for the great storm that shiver'd it to nothing,[ ] once again behold outgleaming on the angry main! within it are three men; to these repair in our frail bark of fancy, swift as air! they are but shadows, as the rower grim took none but shadows in his boat with him. so be _ye_ shades, and, for a little space, the real world a dream without a trace. return is easy. it will have ye back too soon to the old beaten dusty track; for but one hour forget it. billows, rise; blow winds, fall rain, be black, ye midnight skies; and you who watch the light, arise! arise! (_exterior view rises and discovers the scene._) ii.--the song of the wreck the song of the wreck i the wind blew high, the waters raved, a ship drove on the land, a hundred human creatures saved kneel'd down upon the sand. three-score were drown'd, three-score were thrown upon the black rocks wild, and thus among them, left alone, they found one helpless child. ii a seaman rough, to shipwreck bred, stood out from all the rest, and gently laid the lonely head upon his honest breast. and travelling o'er the desert wide it was a solemn joy, to see them, ever side by side, the sailor and the boy. iii in famine, sickness, hunger, thirst, the two were still but one, until the strong man droop'd the first and felt his labours done. then to a trusty friend he spake, 'across the desert wide, o take this poor boy for my sake!' and kiss'd the child and died. iv toiling along in weary plight through heavy jungle, mire, these two came later every night to warm them at the fire. until the captain said one day, 'o seaman good and kind, to save thyself now come away, and leave the boy behind!' v the child was slumbering near the blaze: 'o captain, let him rest until it sinks, when god's own ways shall teach us what is best!' they watch'd the whiten'd ashy heap, they touch'd the child in vain; they did not leave him there asleep, he never woke again. prologue to wilkie collins's play 'the frozen deep' 'the frozen deep' the second drama written by wilkie collins for the tavistock house theatre was first acted there in january , and subsequently at the gallery of illustration in the presence of queen victoria and the royal family. as in the case of _the lighthouse_, the play had the advantage of a prologue in rhyme by charles dickens, who again electrified his audiences by marvellous acting, the character of richard wardour (a young naval officer) being selected by him for representation. the prologue was recited at tavistock house by john forster, and at the public performances of the play by dickens himself. it is not generally known that a by no means inconsiderable portion of the drama was composed by dickens, as testified by the original manuscripts of the play and of the prompt-book, which contain numerous additions and corrections in his handwriting. these manuscripts, by the way, realised £ at sotheby's in . the main idea of _a tale of two cities_ was conceived by dickens when performing in _the frozen deep_. 'a strong desire was upon me then,' he writes in the preface to the story, 'to embody it in my own person; and i traced out in my fancy the state of mind of which it would necessitate the presentation to an observant spectator, with particular care and interest. as the idea became familiar to me, it gradually shaped itself into its present form. throughout its execution, it has had complete possession of me: i have so far verified what is done and suffered in these pages, as that i have certainly done and suffered it all myself.' prologue to 'the frozen deep' (_curtain rises; mists and darkness; soft music throughout._) one savage footprint on the lonely shore where one man listen'd to the surge's roar, not all the winds that stir the mighty sea can ever ruffle in the memory. if such its interest and thrall, o then pause on the footprints of heroic men, making a garden of the desert wide where parry conquer'd death and franklin died. to that white region where the lost lie low, wrapt in their mantles of eternal snow,-- unvisited by change, nothing to mock those statues sculptured in the icy rock, we pray your company; that hearts as true (though nothings of the air) may live for you; nor only yet that on our little glass a faint reflection of those wilds may pass, but that the secrets of the vast profound within us, an exploring hand may sound, testing the region of the ice-bound soul, seeking the passage at its northern pole, softening the horrors of its wintry sleep, melting the surface of that 'frozen deep.' vanish, ye mists! but ere this gloom departs, and to the union of three sister arts we give a winter evening, good to know that in the charms of such another show, that in the fiction of a friendly play, the arctic sailors, too, put gloom away, forgot their long night, saw no starry dome, hail'd the warm sun, and were again at home. vanish, ye mists! not yet do we repair to the still country of the piercing air; but seek, before we cross the troubled seas, an english hearth and devon's waving trees. a child's hymn from 'the wreck of the golden mary' a child's hymn the christmas number of _household words_ for is especially noteworthy as containing the hymn of five verses which dickens contributed to the second chapter. this made a highly favourable impression, and a certain clergyman, the rev. r. h. davies, was induced to express to the editor of _household words_ his gratitude to the author of these lines for having thus conveyed to innumerable readers such true religious sentiments. in acknowledging the receipt of the letter, dickens observed that such a mark of approval was none the less gratifying to him because he was himself the author of the hymn. 'there cannot be many men, i believe,' he added, 'who have a more humble veneration for the new testament, or a more profound conviction of its all-sufficiency, than i have. if i am ever (as you tell me i am) mistaken on this subject, it is because i discountenance all obtrusive professions of and tradings in religion, as one of the main causes why real christianity has been retarded in this world; and because my observation of life induces me to hold in unspeakable dread and horror those unseemly squabbles about the letter which drive the spirit out of hundreds of thousands.'--_vide_ forster's _life of charles dickens_, book xi. iii. a child's hymn hear my prayer, o! heavenly father, ere i lay me down to sleep; bid thy angels, pure and holy, round my bed their vigil keep. my sins are heavy, but thy mercy far outweighs them every one; down before thy cross i cast them, trusting in thy help alone. keep me through this night of peril underneath its boundless shade; take me to thy rest, i pray thee, when my pilgrimage is made. none shall measure out thy patience by the span of human thought; none shall bound the tender mercies which thy holy son has bought. pardon all my past transgressions, give me strength for days to come; guide and guard me with thy blessing till thy angels bid me home. edinburgh: printed by t. and a. constable footnotes: [ ] sir martin archer shee, p.r.a. [ ] when winstanley had brought his work to completion, he is said to have expressed himself so satisfied as to its strength, that he only wished he might be there in the fiercest storm that ever blew. his wish was gratified, and, contrary to his expectations, both he and the building were swept completely away by a furious tempest which burst along the coast in november .